New est_
ips from Lebanon
JERUSALEM (AP) - Israel’s
Cabinet voted unanimously Sunday
to withdraw troops from southern
Lebanon by July, a pullback that
would end an 18-year occupation.
A Cabinet statement said the gov
ernment would “act to ensure” that
the pullout come within the frame
work of a peace deal with Syria, the
main power in Lebanon.
Prime Minister Ehud Barak, who
has been trying to revive stalled
peace talks with Syria, has said he
prefers a withdrawal based on an
agreement. But he has been suggest
ing for some time that Israel might
withdraw unilaterally.
The Cabinet statement did not
explicitly state that in the absence of a
peace deal, there would be a unilater
al withdrawal.
However, it seemed to imply as
much by saying that “in case the con
ditions for a deployment by agree
ment are not met, the Cabinet will
discuss at the appropriate time how to
implement the decision” to withdraw.
Barak’s spokesman, Gadi
Baltiansky, said that whatever the
scenario, “the troops will be with
drawn by July.”
Baltiansky told The Associated
Press that the best option would be a
peace agreement with Syria. But, he
said, if in a few months Israel sees
there is no chance of a deal, it will
look at other options for withdraw
ing.
“There are other options than an
agreement with Syria or a unilateral
withdrawal,” he said. Officials have
suggested Israel might attempt to pull
out under a set of international guar
antees over such issues as a final bor
der and the safety of Israeli-allied
militiamen.
The breakdown in peace talks
with Syria in mid-January was fol
lowed within days by an escalation in
guerrilla attacks on Israeli troops.
Seven Israeli soldiers died within
three weeks, stepping up public pres
sure on Barak to bring the troops
home.
In the most recent Israeli casualty,
a soldier was wounded by mortar fire
on Saturday. He was in intensive care
in a hospital in the northern city of
Haifa.
Earlier Sunday, Israeli warplanes
blasted suspected guerrilla hideouts
in southern Lebanon in retaliation for
the attack, and there were uncon
firmed reports that two Hezbollah
guerrillas were killed in clashes with
Israeli-allied militiamen.
“The Israel Defense Forces will
deploy on the border with Lebanon
by July 2000 and from there will
secure the safety of the northern
towns and villages,” Sunday’s
Cabinet statement said.
“The government will act to
ensure that this deployment will be
carried out in the framework of an
agreement,” it said.
Barak won elections last year on a
campaign of reviving long-moribund
peace talks with the Syrians and
withdrawing from Lebanon within a
year.
The talks resumed last December
after a nearly four-year break but a
month later were postponed indefi
nitely. Syria wanted assurances that
Israel would withdraw from the entire
Golan Heights, but Israel first wanted
to know the extent of peace and secu
rity arrangements Syria was prepared
to offer.
a There are other
options than an
agreement with
Syria or a
unilateral
withdrawal.”
Gadi Baltiansky
spokesman for Prime Minister Ehud
Barak
A unilateral withdrawal would
leave Israel’s northern border vulner
able to attacks by Iranian-backed
Hezbollah guerrillas.
But it would also deprive the
Syrians of leverage in their efforts to
recapture all of the Golan Heights, a
strategic plateau captured by Israel in
the 1967 Mideast war.
Syrian Foreign Minister Farouk
-al-Sharaa warned last week that
Israel would “bear the consequences”
of a unilateral withdrawal.
Flood victims warned not to return
■ With the threat of more
rain, Mozambicans are
encouraged to stay away
from low-lying areas.
MAPUTO, Mozambique (AP) -
With fears of heavy rain again loom
ing, authorities warned thousands of
- displaced Mozambicans on Sunday
against returning to low-lying areas to
search for what remains of their homes
and belongings.
As the swollen Limpopo and Save
rivers receded, rescue workers and aid
officials said die risk of drowning had
• diminished. What now faced flood sur
vivors was the scramble for food and
clean water.
“The rescue phase is coming to a
close,” saidRoss Mountain, a U.N. spe
cial envoy who spent two days flying
over still submerged areas of the south
east African nation. <
Relief efforts focused instead on
distributing aid to desperate survivors,
many of whom were still only accessi
ble by air, said Brenda Barton, a
spokeswoman for the U.N. World Food
Program.
Fights broke out in camps as sur
vivors, ravenous and thirsty after being
stranded in trees and on rooftops for up
to a week, clambered for food.
A total of 37 helicopters and 15
planes delivered aid on Sunday, mostly
in the Limpopo River valley, 125 miles
northeast of the capital, Maputo,
Barton said.
Another two helicopters were fer
rying stranded people to locations
where relief groups were attempting to
distribute the emergency supplies, she
said
In neighboring South Africa, 32
airmen from McGuire Air Force Base
in New Jersey and Dover Air Force
Base in Delaware arrived at Hoedspruit
air base on Sunday to set up aid opera
tions for up to 600 American troops.
Mountain said many survivors
were ignoring the pleas of aid workers
and government officials and returning
to flood-battered areas, raising the pos
sibility they may need to be rescued
again if heavy rains and flooding
resume.
a It does take time to get helicopters
from Europe. We need to be realistic.”
Ross Mountain
U.N. special envoy
The remnants of Cyclone Gloria,
which together with a steady, two-week
downpour caused the deluge, has been
downgraded to a tropical storm. The
storm hovered over the Indian Ocean
off the coast of Mozambique on
Sunday and was expected to bring
more rain, Mozambican weather fore
casters said.
Although the relief effort was gain
ing pace, President Joachim Chissano
said the international community had
been slow to respond to the catastro
phe, an allegation the U.N. envoy
denied.
“It does take time to get helicopters
from Europe. We need to be realistic,”
Mbuntain said.
More than $40 million had already
been pledged for emergency relief and
reconstruction, he said.
Chissano said people affected by
the floods would need to be fed for at
least 10 months, until they could grow
new crops. He also said a minimum of
S250 million would be needed for
reconstruction and pleaded with
Mozambique’s creditors to forgive the
country’s foreign debt.
Aid workers said they expected the
death toll from the disaster to soar into
the thousands as water levels dropped
and revealed the mud-covered remains
of the dead.
Still, hunger was the most pressing
concern on Sunday. An estimated
250,000 people were crowded into 64
ill-equipped camps, mostly in southern
'and central Mozambique. Aid workers
reported they were running out of clean
water, increasing the risk of cholera
outbreaks. Instances of malaria were
said to have tripled.
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high 68, low 50 high 74, low 45
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Pinochet’s release
gets mixed reaction
SANTIAGO, Chile (AP) - Gen.
Augusto Pinochet’s return home last
week spurred Chile into an uproar:
Pollsters quizzed residents about
whether they thought he will face trial
here, pundits speculated on the lawsuits
awaiting him and locals argued inces
santly over his legal troubles.
But for Elisa Sepulveda Lazo, the
burning question isn’t the fate of the
84-year-old former dictator. She just
wants to find out what happened to
Luis, her husband, who vanished at the
hands of the Pinochet secret police one
afternoon in December 1976.
“The only thing I want to know is,
where did they kill Luis?” asks Lazo,
67.
Pinochet’s return after more than
15 months of detention in London has
divided Chile along ideological fault as
severe as the geographical rifts of this
quake-prone South American country.
But for many kin of some 3,200
people the government listed as
detained and disappeared during the
1973-1990 right-wing dictatorship, the
issue is more than onepf politics. Their
overriding question is embodied in a
Spanish phrase plastered on pho
tographs of the victims that have been
carried for years at anti-Pinochet ral
lies: “Donde estan?”
Translation: “Where are they?”
One of the missing is Luis Lazo, a
labor leader who was dismissed from
Chile’s electric company after the coup
that brought Pinochet to power.
“To this day we don’t know what
happened. He just disappeared,” said
his wife, who carries his picture in a
worn plastic sleeve.
Isabel Allende lost her father, elect
ed Marxist president Salvador Allende,
in the chaos of the September 1973
military coup.
“The wounds haven’t healed, and
they won’t heal, because we still have
not obtained justice or truth,” Allende
said.
“Our lives will never be the same,”
declared Isabel Gallardo, who lost sev
eral family members during Pinochet’s
rule.
Monday, March 6,2000
Page 2
Editor: Lindsay Young
(402)472-1763
■ Belgium
NATO troops arrest Bosnian
Serb for alleged war crimes
BRUSSELS, Belgium (AP) -
NATO peacekeeping troops arrested
a Bosnian Serb on Sunday wanted for
war crimes committed in 1992 in the
notorious Omarska prison camp, the
alliance said.
The arrest of Dragoljub Prcac
was “another step in NATO’s drive”
to arrest the remaining war crimes
suspects, NATO Secretary-General
Lord Robertson said in a statement.
NATO gave no immediate details
of when or where the arrest took
place, saying only that Prcac, 63, had
been detained and was being
“processed for transfer” to the tri
bunal in The Hague.
■Colorado
Columbine parents, officials
urge investigators to release
final report
LITTLETON, Colo. (AP) -
Parents of the victims of the
Columbine High School massacre
and officials with a state review panel
are urging sheriff’s investigators to
release their final report before the
first anniversary of the rampage.
The report on the April 20, 1999,
attack, in which 12 students, a
teacher and the two teen-age gunmen
died, initially was to be released last
November.
■Michigan
Study shows high conviction
rate for students involved in
NCAA tournament riot
EAST LANSING, Mich. (AP) -
People arrested during riots at
Michigan State University last year
after the school’s loss in the NCAA
basketball tournament were jailed at
a rate higher than that of convicted
rapists and robbers nationally, The
Detroit News reported Sunday.
More than 130 people, the major
ity of them college students with no
criminal records, were arrested after
the March 27-28 riots. They ranged
from troubled teen-agers with alco
hol problems to bookish straight
arrow students.
The 113 people convicted paid
more than $300,000 in restitution
and served a total of eight years
behind bars, the newspaper said.
Out of those convicted,* 94 went
to jail. That 83 percent incarceration
rate is higher than the 70 percent of
first-time offender rapists and 55 per
cenfof first-time offender robbers
put behind bars nationally, according
to statistics from the Justice
Department’s Bureau of Justice.
■ India
Activists riot after socialist ?
party is removed from power
PATNA, India (AP) - Mobs
angry about losing political power
rioted and clashed with police
Sunday in India’s most lawless state,
leaving two people dead and thou
sands in jail.
Angry that the National
Democratic Alliance, or NDA, had
dislodged their party from power in
Bihar State, political activists also
nearly caused two train accidents.
Socialist leader Laloo Prasad
Yadav was among the thousands of
members of his Rashtriya Janata Dal
party, or RJD, detained for rioting
and defying a government order pro
hibiting public gatherings on Sunday
in Bihar, officials said.
An RJD member and a postman
died when police fired during a mob
rampage. . ?