Searchers examine crash debris
” I have a friend
in this plane. But
I’m not thinking
any more of
whether I will
find her. I’m just
picking up
whatever I can
find.”
Mike Salaguinto
Air Force airman
SAMAL, Philippines (AP) - With
plastic garbage bags wrapped around
his hands as makeshift gloves, Mike
Salaguinto searched smoldering debris
and coconut palms for charred remains
of the 131 victims of Wednesday’s Air
Philippines crash.
“I have a friend in this plane. But
I’m not thinking any more of whether I
will find her. I’m just picking up what
ever I can find,” the air force airman
said. “I can’t count how many bodies
I’ve found.”
Another black garbage bag covered
Salaguinto’s head to ward off the driz
zle falling on Samal Island, where the
Boeing 737-200 crashed early
Wednesday oh approach to the nearby
city of Da^ao in the southern
Philippines. It is the Philippines’ worst
air disaster ever. Many of those killed -
124 passengers and seven crew mem
bers - had be^n traveling home for
Easter aboard Flight 541 from Manila.
The crash’s cause was uncertain,
but officials said there were foggy con
ditions in the area. Searchers found the
plane’s voice recorder, but the flight
data recorder remained buried.
Some searchers used branches to
pick through the wreckage. A priest
sprinkled water over the remains of vic
tims as he delivered last rites.
By late afternoon, 81 bags of bat
tered body parts had been recovered
from the blaqkened, muddy hilltop,
officials said. The remains were flown
to a military base where grieving rela
tives tried to identify them.
The scattered debris at the crash site
included an assortment of personal
belongings that testified to the lives of
the passengers. It included letters, pho
tos, infant formula and an unmarred
black stiletto-heeled shoe.
A doctor from the Davao Medical
Center found a charred pair of bodies -
a woman hugging a much smaller fig
ure.
“Up to the last minute, the mother
was embracing her child,” said Dr.
Heidi Mancao.
The debris was strewn throughout a
coconut grove on Samal, a sparsely
populated island that boasts one of the
Philippines’ best-known beach resorts.
Airport officials said there was fog
in the area when the jet went down. The
Davao airport does not have the equip
ment needed for instrument landings in
low-visibility conditions, and landings
had been suspended for several minutes
before the planed initial approach.
When it made its approach, the 22
year-old plane was unable to land
because another plane was on the run
way. It crashed as it prepared to make a
second approach from the opposite
direction.
Memorial welcomed
on date of bombing
■ Names of all victims
read during Oklahoma
City ceremony.
OKLAHOMA CITY (AP) -
Church bells chimed on streets that
once rang with a bomb’s blast. Children
saw their reflections in a calm pool
where there was once an ugly crater.
And families found serenity
Wednesday in a place that has pained
them for five years.
On the anniversary of the April 19,
1995, bombing of the Alfred P. Murrah
Federal Building, 168 sculpted chairs
stood in silent tribute to the 168 victims
of the most deadly terrorist attack on
American soil.
“To me it’s like my funeral for him,
my time to say goodbye,” said 20-year
old Sarah Broxterman of Las Vegas,
who lingered over the stone-and
bronze chair inscribed with the name of
her late father, bombing victim Paul
Broxterman.
The chairs soon overflowed with
flowers as thousands came for the first
of two ceremonies to dedicate the
Oklahoma City National Memorial at
the site of the federal building.
Bells tolled at 9:02 a.m., the exact
moment when the fuel-and-fertilizer
truck bomb exploded and stripped the
face from the building, turning its nine
floors into a tomb of concrete and steel.
After the names of the victims were
read, family members, survivors and
rescuers stepped through one of two
golden gates marking the entrance to
the memorial. There were 149 large
chairs for the adult victims and 19 little
ones for the children who died.
“I felt their presence there. I feel
their presence every day in the office,”
said Renee Kiel, who clutched roses as
she walked among the 35 chairs repre
senting Housing and Urban
Development co-workers.
Children with sticks of chalk
scrawled messages on tiles beneath art
work in the children’s area of the
memorial. Some dipped their fingers
into a dark reflecting pool that stretches
along what once was the bomb crater.
P. J. Allen, who was severely injured but
was one of the few children in the build
ing’s daycare center to survive, stood
waving an American flag.
His hand still bears scars and a tube
helps him breathe.
“I thought it was lovely,” said his
grandmother, Delores Watson.
An honor guard representing the
rescuers, who rushed into the building
first and stayed for weeks to recover the
dead, hoisted a U.S. flag over the site.
Lifted by a stiff breeze, the flag snapped
to us mu lengm.
President Clinton and Attorney
General Janet Reno were to appear at
another ceremony Wednesday evening.
During the morning event, a pastor
urged families, survivors and rescuers
to “hold on to the memories” but move
on with their lives.
“This whole memorial will serve as
a reminder that hate may blow up a
building, but we as a people will never
forget,” said the Rev. Robert Allen, a
United Methodist minister who coordi
nated civilian chaplains during the res
cue effort. “We as a people will never
forget.”
Just blocks away, Terry Nichols sat
isolated in an Oklahoma County Jail
cell awaiting an August preliminary
hearing on 160 state counts of first
degree murder in the attack. Nichols
and Timothy McVeigh were convicted
in federal court.
McVeigh, who was sentenced to
death, is in a federal prison in Indiana.
Nichols had no way of watching or
hearing the memorial services, said
Sheriff John Whetsel.
“It will be just another day in the
life of a typical inmate,” he said.
Court order extends
Gonzalez’s stay in US.
ATLANTA (AP) - In a strongly
worded ruling today, a federal
appeals panel extended a court
order keeping Elian Gonzalez in
the United States and said the U.S.
government should have taken the
6-year-old’s wishes into account.
In Miami’s Little Havana, a
crowd of more than 300 people
erupted in cheers and chants of
“God Bless America!” after the
ruling from a three-judge panel of
the 11th U.S. Circuit Court of
Appeals.
This is the second miracle of
Elian,” said Ramon Saul Sanchez,
leader of Democracy Movement.
“We are taking the right way.”
The 16-page ruling bars anyone
from attempting to remove Elian
from the United States. But it did
not specifically forbid the INS
from taking custody, and it did not
address government efforts to
reunite Elian with his father, who
has been waiting in Washington
since April 6. He wants to return to
Cuba.
But the appeals judges
expressed support for efforts by
Elian’s great-uncle Lazaro
Gonzalez to win an asylum hearing
and questioned the Immigration
and Naturalization Service’s han
dling of the case.
“According to the record, plain
tiff- although a young child - has
expressed a wish that he not be
returned to Cuba,” the judges
wrote.
“It appears that never have INS
officials attempted to interview
plaintiff about his own wishes,” the
ruling said.
“It is not clear that the INS, in
finding plaintiff’s father to be the
only proper representative, consid
ered all of the relevant factors -
particularly the child’s separate and
independent interests in seeking
^ This is the
second miracle
of Elian. We are
taking the right
way.”
Ramon Saul Sanchez
Democracy Movement leader
asylum.”
There was no immediate reac
tion from the Justice Department,
and the INS said it was preparing a
statement.
One issue under debate as
Justice Department officials met
this afternoon was whether their
previous promise to that court not
to remove Elian from great-uncle
Lazaro Gonzalez’s home still
applied.
The ruling, which could be
appealed to the full circuit court, is
considered a critical step in the
international custody dispute that
has lasted for nearly five months. It
addressed an emergency order
issued last week that delayed gov
ernment efforts to bring Elian to
Washington.
In Little Havana, Cuban
Americans had feared that only the
court order was keeping federal
agents from attempting to remove
Elian from the home of Lazaro
Gonzalez.
Earlier Wednesday, Attorney
General Janet Reno said taking the
boy by force was an option, but she
was trying to avoid any violence.
“There may come a time when
there is no other alternative. But
we’ve got to do it in a careful,
thoughtful way,” Reno said.
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■ Vermont
State Senate passes bill
supporting ‘civil unions’
MONTPELIER, Vt. (AP) -
Bobbi Whitacre and Sandi Cote
already are making plans for a small
ceremony sanctifying their 33-year
relationship. The women are just dis
appointed they won’t be considered
“married.”
A bill that passed the Vermont
Senate on Wednesday gets as close
to gay marriage as any place in
America, but it still reserves “mar
riage” for opposite-sex couples.
On a 19-11 vote, the Senate
passed a bill creating “civil unions,”
a legal structure parallel to marriage
for gay and lesbian couples.
The landmark proposal would
grant to same-sex couples some 300
state benefits of marriage, including
medical decision-making, tax
breaks and inheritance.
■ Montreal
15-year-old charged
for disabling Internet site
MONTREAL (AP) - A 15
year-old boy working under the
computer name Mafiaboy has been
charged with two counts of mischief
for disabling the CNN Internet site
for four hours, police said
Wednesday.
The Feb. 8 attack was one of sev
eral on major international Web sites
that exposed the security risks of the
high-tech age.
The young suspect - arrested
Saturday in a joint investigation with
the FBI - boasted in Internet chat
rooms frequented by hackers that he
was responsible for a number of the
attacks, a Canadian Inspector said.
■ Jerusalem
Court sets standard that
frees 13 Lebanese detainees
JERUSALEM (AP) - Israel
used to argue that as a country under
siege, it could not always play by the
rules. But the Supreme Court set a
new standard Wednesday, freeing 13
Lebanese detainees who were held
without trial.
The decision came despite the
pleas of the mother of an Israeli MIA
who hoped the detainees might be
traded for her son. After a decision
last fall to outlaw torture, the order
was another milestone in the court’s
search for a new balance between
security concerns and the rule of law.
Chief Justice Aharon Barak
himself is perhaps the best example
of the change. In 1997, Barak ruled
that Israel has the right to keep hold
ing the Lebanese, seized by Israeli
commandos over the past 14 years,
as bargaining chips in future negoti
ations on the release of missing
Israeli navigator Ron Arad.
But after agreeing to have a panel
of nine judges rehear the case, Barak
changed his mind, reportedly after
much agonizing.
■ New York
Judge encourages tobacco
lawyers to settle disputes
NEW YORK (AP) - A settle
ment to tobacco cases nationwide
would be sensible because they are
related and complex, a judge con
cluded as he ordered lawyers in sev
eral cases to prepare for settlement.
“The time for bringing a close to
tobacco litigation is nigh,” U.S.
District Judge Jack B. Weinstein
wrote in a three-page order urging
lawyers in five major tobacco cases
in various stages to begin talks.
Weinstein, a Brooklyn federal
jurist since 1967, said the court has a
“duty to take affirmative action” to
encourage lawyers to seek creative
ways to resolve the disputes.