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About The daily Nebraskan. ([Lincoln, Neb.) 1901-current | View Entire Issue (Jan. 20, 1998)
1 i iS ■\\A — • \*'" U.S. students ambushed Five women raped on Guatemalan trip SANTA LUCIA COTZUMAL GUAPA, Guatemala (AP) - Guatemalan security forces have arrested four suspects and were hunt ing for three others Monday after five American college students were raped in a daylight ambush of their bus. The rapes of the students from St. Mary’s College in Maryland, on an anthropology tour of Guatemala, pro voked qrutrage in the United States and calls here to end surging lawless ness. The student group’s pink-and white bus was forced off the highway Friday afternoon into a sugar cane field by gunmen riding in two pickup trucks, police said at the scene, 45 miles southwest of Guatemala City. Vowing to obtain justice, Interior Minister Rodolfo Mendoza said two ; suspects were arrested soon after ‘ Friday’s attack and had provided the names of their accomplices - report edly seven in all. The security forces are trying to capture the (suspects) ... so that they can face the full force of the law,” said Mendoza, who declined to discuss specifics of the case in which five young women were raped. A police detective told The Associated Press two more men had been detained Monday in Guatemala City and taken to a prison in the capi I tal ci)%i;L>k b-iu> noii ‘This group specialized in rot? : bing long-distance tour buses. Tliey have been operating for some time,” said the detective, who spoke on con dition of anonymity. The detective said the two men captured Monday were not soldiers but had been found with a duffel bag full of uniforms and camouflage rain slickers. He said it was not known why the men had such gear. The students, 12 women and one man, were returning to Guatemala City after a tout of historic and cul i-* u Lately there have been a lot of attacks. It’s dangerous now. It’s scary.” Virginia Lorenzo Guatemalan citizen tural sites. They were accompanied by two male faculty members and a female administrator from St. Mary’s College, a public, four-year liberal arts school 70 miles southeast of Washington, D.C. In Washington, President Clinton decried Friday’s ambush and said he was confident Guatemalan authori ties would handle the case appropri ately. “I have a lot of concern, obvious ly, for the victims and their families,” Clinton told reporters. “Itfc a terrible thing.... We are persuaded the gov ernment is taking appropriate action.” The U.S. State Department does not warn American citizens against traveling to Guatemala. However, its consular information sheet does note crime has been increasing in the country. The department said entire groups of American tourists have been victims of rape, kidnappings, violent assaults and shootings. Far from home, the students were traveling in a country flush with “ ##^6ristfSahftitry "fiSs surged here sinde;l996, Vrtwn teftistrdbelS and the government ended their 36-year civil war. The bus driver, Victor Anibal Lopez Arias, told The Associated Press the bandits forced him over and fired shots in the air at the outset of the robbery. “We were there some two hours being threatened. They told us if we moved, they would kill us,” Lopez Arias, 33, said in a brief interview. He said they forced everyone off the bus and seized luggage, money and other items. “They raped one senorita in the bus and the other four met a similar fate when they were taken into the canefield,” he said. Local police chief Jose Fatzan said he and his officers arrived after ward and chased down one suspect, a 37-year-old man. • “He was fat He couldn't run. He was with the group but he couldn't keep up,” said Patzan, who is in charge of this city in the heart of sugar cane country, 45 miles south west of Guatemala City. Patzan said police and soldiers found the women crying, in apparent shock. After die attack, die women were taken to a nearby hospital, where doc tors offered to examine them. The students signed a declaration refusing treatment fcmma Perez, an administrator at the Seguro Social Hospital in Santa Lucia, said the students demanded to ^ seen by a U.S. Embassy doctor, “The young ladies seemed very affected, tearful,” she said The police chief, Patzan, has seven officers and eight soldiers who help him out in Santa Lucia. He has only one truck, which can’t go over 20 mph. Asked if he had highway rob beries under control, he said: “Sincerely, we do what we can, but as tilings are, it would be a lie to say that we can serve everyone.” King parade marred by gunfire ■ The shooting in Baton Rouge kills one man and injures three children. BATON ROUGE, La. (AP) - A simmering fight erupted into gun fire at a Martin Luther King Jr. Day parade on Monday, killing a man whose brother was in the march and wounding three children watching the festivities. The dispute involved four or five people, some participants in the march, Police Chief Greg Phares said atun evening news conference. He said they had been feuding, and a fight broke out just before the shooting. “There was no racial, political or hate-crime motive,” Phares said. He gave no other details of the dispute, but said there was no ambush - those involved had been together. Police were searching for at least one shooter. Phares would not give the shoater’s name or say whether he was marching. All the victims appeared to be bystanders. >• Martin Luther King III was in Minneapolis, giving a speech about the importance of each person’s responsibility for making a differ ence. When told of the shooting, King said, “I think it drives home some of the points I tried to make today. We have got to work to elim inate violence. It is totally out of hand.” Cpl. Don Kelly, a police spokesman, described the after math of the shooting as “mass pan demonium.” In the debris left by fleeing marchers was a picture of King, splattered with blood. There were not many spectators in the commercial area near down town. “We watched them go hy, and everyone seemed as happy as could be - until the shooting happened,” said Elaine Tbcker, office manager for a locksmith shop. “It went pop, pop, pop, pop - four shots right off,” she said, “Then people began running every where.” Killed was James Carter, 20, who lived nearby with his mother. Relatives said he was watching the parade, walking along beside the band in which his 17-year-old brother was playing bass drum. A 7-year-old girl was in critical condition with a gunshot wound in the back. An 11-year-old girl shot in the leg and hand was in stable condition, and a 9-year-old boy, shot in the leg, was in guarded con dition. Their names were not released. An FBI investigation deter mined the shooting was not a hate crime, said Baton Rouge’s district attorney, Doug Moreau. Several hundred people, most of them students, were marching, some as band members. People ran in all directions. In the middle of the scramble was a group of kindergarten-aged matchers in slacks and ties. Police motorcycle escorts wheeled around and sped back to the shooting, but did not arrive id time to catch any one. Shirley Monget’s 16-year-old son was among the marchers.. “I asked him not to march today,” she said. “They formed that band from several schools and they worked real good together all week. But, on Friday, some boys who were not in the band showed up and beat up a drummer. I just knew Police spokesman Cpl. Charles Armstrong said he did not know if Carter’s brother was the drummer reportedly involved in Friday’s fight. Cubans prepare for pope’s five-day visit HAVANA (AP) - Under an eight-story-high mural of Christ, choirs on Revolution Square filled the tropical air with praise Monday for a papal visit that stands to bring both financial and political capital to this communist island. Just two days before John Paul ll’s arrival, light blue posters of the pontiff were posted on die doors of homes, telephone poles - even bicycle taxis and vendors’ carts. “This is so moving,” said the Rev. Manuel Cruz, a priest from Newark, N.J., who attended the rehearsal of choir members from Havana churches. “This is a mar vel of grace and a blessing.” Communist leaders are also excited by the five-day visit, which begins Wednesday. President Fidel Castro has called on Cubans to fill the plaza for the papal Mass on Sunday and to attend earlier Masses in the cities of Santa Clara, Camaguey and Santiago. The aim is not just to welcome the pope, but to prove to the world Cuba, which is.hugely secular, though 40 percent of the people are baptized Roman Catholics, respects religious freedom. Castro’s government has devot ed much of its manpower and resources to the success of this landmark papal visit, which stands to bring in millions of dollars from the thousands of visiting pilgrims and reporters. But Economy Minister Jose Luis Rodriguez rejected sugges tions Monday thatthe government is treating the pontiff’s stay as a profit-making proposition. “The government does not see the visit as a business,” he said. : Rodriguez refused to estimate how much revenue the trip would bring this foreign currency starved country of 11 million peo ple. Independent estimates say it could bring the government as much as $20 million. U.N. ignores Iraqi deadline ■ Weapons inspectors again claim that Hussein is hiding arms material. BAGHDAD, Iraq (AP)-Arriving Monday to face the latest crisis with Iraq, chief U.N. weapons inspector Richard Butler dismissed an Iraqi deadline for arms inspectors to finish their work and once again accused Baghdad of concealing banned weapons material. Butler also said no sites in Iraq - even President Saddam Hussein’s dozens of palaces - should be off limits to his arms monitors. The visit comes one day after Iraqi officials, fearful their con frontation with U.N. inspectors could lead to a military strike, urged Iraqis to volunteer fbr weapons training. * On Monday, 5,000 Ira<ps demon strated, in front of the inspectors’ Baghdad headquarters, burning American flags and chanting “Butler is an American agent” and “With our blood and souls we will defend you, Saddam.” The protests were orga nized by government^sponsored trade unions. In central Baghdad, Iraqi authori ties organized a funeral procession for 73 children they said died Monday because of a lack of medical supplies. Although U.N. economic sanctions do not bar the import of food or medicine, Iraq says the embargo has left it without the money to import vital medicines. It was the third government-spon sored funeral procession since October. The United States repeatedly has demanded Iraq fully cooperate with U.N. inspectors trying to dismantle Iraqi programs to build long-range missiles and chemical and biological weapons. Washington has called for a diplomatic solution to the crisis, but has not ruled out the use of military force, despite the reluctance of other countries to go aTong. f% > In the latest ill a series of threats by Saddam Hussein, the Iraqi presi dent vowed Saturday to suspend cooperation with U.N. weapons inspectors if they did not finish their work by May 20. -• • - Editor: Paula La vigne rtawiitoiritoiM Chad Lorenz AwMtotoNtotoEdlhR Erin Schulte AswdoteNcwsFdhar; ltd Taylor Assignment Editor: Erin Gibson Opinion Editor: Joshua Gillin Sports Editor: David Wilson A AE Editor: Jeff Rondel Copy Desk Chieft: Bryce Glenn Photo Dbnetor: Ryan Soderlin Derign Co-Chiefs: Tony Toth Art Director. Matt Haney Onltor Editor: Gregg Stearns SIS? . -tfe appropriate auction acMor at (402) 472-2508 dnCanMo.unl.athL 1 Amy Pemberton -m Dan Shattil Melissa Myles, | (402) 476-2446 Don Walton, "g:' xi (402)478-7301 W\ NkkPartsch, (402)472-2589 Daniel Lam y ^ ^ _ fMamiSpeci^'%gJ
