Banner Graphic, Volume 21, Number 184, Greencastle, Putnam County, 9 April 1991 — Page 2

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THE BANNERGRAPHIC April 9,1991

Kurds welcome the ECC’s plan to create safe haven

IN NORTHERN IRAQ (AP) A Kurdish rebel leader today welcomed a proposal for a U.N.protected refugee zone in northern Iraq, but Iraq’s prime minister rejected the idea. Masoud Barzani, head of the Kurdistan Democratic Party, said rebellious Kurds would accept a cease-fire once such a haven was established. “IT IS THE government that continues to fight. If they stop, we will stop,” he told reporters at his temporary mountain headquarters. Iraqi Prime Minister Saadoun Hammadi, however, said the plan was ‘‘a suspect proposal and Iraq ... will oppose it by all means,” the Iraqi New Agency reported in a dispatch monitored in Cyprus. Leaders of the European Community met in Luxembourg on Monday and endorsed the proposal by Prime Minister John Major of Britain to create an enclave in northern Iraq where Kurdish refugees would be safe from Iraqi troops. “WE HAVE TO try to put a stop to the bloodletting of Saddam Hussein,” Major told the EC summit. He said the refuge might include some large towns in the Kurds’ traditional homeland in northern Iraq, and said soldiers presumably an international force might be needed to guard its borders. As many as 3 million Kurds have fled into the mountains in the aftermath of a failed rebellion that sought to capitalize on Iraq’s defeat in the Gulf War. Most refugees have headed for Turkey and Iran, which are overwhelmed. Several thousand refugees reportedly have died of hunger, exposure and from wounds inflicted by Saddam’s forces. THE IRAQI AGENCY quoted

After 44 years

Red Army begins to leave Poland with generals quarreling

BORNE-SULINOWO, Poland (AP) The Red Army today began its long-awaited pullout from Poland after nearly 47 years of occupation, with 60 soldiers climbing aboard a 20-wagon train carrying missile launchers and trucks. The pullout began in pouring rain at 11 a.m. at a formerly topsecret Soviet military base and followed a ceremony that included speeches by Soviet and Polish generals and a garrison band playing the Soviet national anthem. THE TRAIN, carrying members of a missile brigade that is being disbanded, was the first phase of a permanent pullout whose timetable was still a source of contention today between native and long-time occupier. Soviet troops have been a continuous presence in Poland since 1944, when they pushed back the

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PRIME MINISTER MAJOR Stop the bloodletting

Hammadi as saying outsiders were “fabricating” and “exaggerating” the refugee problem. He said Iraq has proposed an amnesty for rebels and offered transportation to refugees. “It is another circle of plots against Iraq and its sovereignty,” he said. In Luxembourg, Major suggested creating “an enclave under U.N. protection that would provide shelter and housing to Kurds until it is safe for them to return to their own homes.” The proposal, which appeared to have U.S. support, was to be discussed at the United Nations today among the five permanent members of the Security Council, the British Foreign Office said. EUROPEAN Community officials stressed the plan was not designed to mark out a separate territory on Iraqi soil. “It is not meant to dismember Iraq,” said Luxembourg Foreign Minister Jacques Poos. But Major said the sanctuary

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YURI DUBYNIN Confirms Polish nukes Germany army, then stayed on to prop up a series of pro-Moscow regimes. The first 1,200 were to leave today. Soviet regional commander Gen.

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should exist “so long as it was necessary to ensure the Kurds and other refugees their safety.” He said the United Nations should not be deterred by Iraqi objections. U.N. Secretary-General Javier Perez de Cuellar said U.N.-protec-ted camps in Iraq “would raise the problem of sovereignty and I don’t know if we can impose on Iraq a special area. That would be complicated.” BUT THERE WAS strong support for the British proposal in the European Community, which also approved SI 83 million in humanitarian aid for Iraqi refugees in the form of food, medical supplies, tents, blankets and clothing. The community includes Belgium, Britain, Denmark, France, Germany, Greece, Ireland, Italy, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Portugal and Spain. Major told reporters that aides were canvassing the United States, Soviet Union and China the permament members of the U.N. Security Council along with Britain and France concerning the proposal. FRENCH PRESIDENT Francois Mitterrand strongly endorsed the “safe haven” idea, which was also backed by the U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, Thomas Pickering. The British proposal followed up on an idea raised Sunday by Turkish President Turgut Ozal, whose country initially tried to prevent Kurds from entering but now is setting up border camps for more than 250,000 refugees. The U.N.-approved truce that would formally end the war takes effect today unless a Security Council member raises an objection.

Viktor Dubynin told assembled troops from the brigade that their presence had been to guarantee “the independence of Poland.” “OUR MISSION has been completed successfully,” he added. At a joint news conference on Monday, Dubynin and a Polish general quarreled over whether both sides had agreed on a withdrawal timetable. “The decision is unilateral,” the Pole, Gen. Zdzislaw Ostrowski, said of the Soviet army’s program for pulling out. “And we have not been informed about the details of the withdrawals planned for this year.” Minutes before, Dubynin had claimed the withdrawal plan w z as “developed jointly” by Poland and the Soviet Union. DURING MONTHS of tense negotiations, Poland had been demanding that all the approximately 50,000 Soviet troops pull out by the end of this year, as is planned for Hungary and Czechoslovakia. The Soviets say they will not vacate Poland before the end of 1993. Dubynin said that the final deadline for the Soviet departure would be agreed by the “political leadership” of their countries. President Lech Walesa, a key player in the long struggle to throw off the Soviet yoke and restore democracy, is expected to travel to Moscow in May to try to settle the issue in talks with Mikhail S. Gorbachev. DUBYNIN ACCUSED politicians of stirring up an antiSoviet atmosphere in Poland. Some “try not to remember those times” when the Soviet Union “liberated” Poland after World War 11, he said. But he concluded: “We are going home now. There is no alternative.” Bome-Sulinowo, not to be found

Georgia declares independence from Soviet Union

MOSCOW (AP) The Georgian Parliament today declared the republic’s independence from the Soviet Union, the official Tass news agency said. The move followed a referendum last month in which nearly 100 percent of Georgians demanded independence. THE IMMEDIATE effect of the declaration was largely symbolic, because it was unlikely to be recognized as legal by Soviet President Mikhail S. Gorbachev and the national legislature.

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Kurds claim Iraqis massacre village and strafe refugees

IN NORTHERN IRAQ (AP) Rebels say Saddam Hussein’s forces have massacred an entire village and are strafing refugees from helicopter gunships in a terror campaign aimed at driving Iraq’s rebellious Kurds from the country. Hundreds of thousands of Kurds fleeing the advance of Iraqi troops have clogged mountain passes leading to the Turkish and Iranian borders. KURDISH REBEL leader Masoud Barzani charged Monday that Iraqi troops murdered all of the 2,000 to 3,000 people who had populated Kara Henjir, a village near the key northern oil center city of Kirkuk. “We still don’t know the exact number,” said Barzani, leader of the Kurdistan Democratic Party. “This was a deliberate move to terrorize the rest of the people into fleeing the country.” He said there were reports of other, similar atrocities by Iraqi

on any maps, is about 250 miles northwest of Warsaw near Koszalin. It is a full blown town of 20,000 Soviet troops and their families sheltered in a thick forest off the nearest road. About 100 reporters turned up Monday in response to an invitation from the Soviet army to witness the pullout. BY YEAR END, Dubynin pledged, 13,000 troops amounting to some 30 units will have left Poland to return to the Soviet Union. Poland will acquire seven vacated garrisons, he said. About 1,500 railway cars hauling soldiers and equipment will leave within a month, he said. “At Polish request, the heavy weapons are to go first.” But Dubynin complained that the Soviet Union lacks housing to shelter the withdrawing troops. “Now 200,000 families are without apartments. By the end of this year there will be 60,000 more,” he said. IN A SURPRISE to reporters present, Dubynin confirmed that the Soviet army had nuclear weapons in Poland until last year. “They were removed in the middle of 1990,” he said. The news conference, which was attended by Soviet Ambassador Yuri Kashalev, was characterized by a running argument between Dubynin and Ostrowski about the transit through Poland of Soviet troops leaving former East Germany. Dubynin accused Poland of blocking the withdrawal and trying to profit from the operation. OSTROWSKI listening and shaking his head denied that Poland is blocking the pullout and said it is only charging normal road and railroad fees.

However, the declaration could lead to more concrete steps toward autonomy, such as creation of a separate currency and economic system. Georgian President Zviad Gamsakhurdia already has begun building a Georgian army, and he has called for a faster transition to a free economic market than the central government has been making. ON MARCH 31, 98 percent of Georgian voters cast ballots endorsing independence from the Soviet

troops but that rebel leaders could not confirm them. TEHRAN RADIO quoted an Iraqi refugee as saying in one case Iraqi helicopters fired at refugees along Iran’s border as an American aircraft flew nearby. “They (the U.S. crew) showed no reaction whatsoever,” Mohammed Saleh Marouf, an engineer from Erbil, was quoted as saying. The Kurdistan Democratic Party, in a communique from London, said Iraqi troops were constantly firing on fleeing Kurds. It said dozens had been killed on the road into Iran, just east of Rawandiz, Iraq. As Barzani spoke to reporters in the mountains 30 miles northeast of Erbil, thousands in the region were abandoning their homes to trek toward Iran. Hundreds of thousands already have fled into Turkey and Iran and hundreds of thousands more are still winding their way through the

Endara boots Christian Democrats from cabinet

PANAMA CITY (AP) President Guillermo Endara has kicked the powerful Christian Democrats out of his government, confident that he can go it alone even though his party is virtually unrepresented in the national legislature. His announcement Monday that he had ousted all five Christian Democrats from his 12member Cabinet capped more than a year of bickering that was paralyzing efforts to rebuild the war-shattered country. ENDARA’S COALITION now reduced to three parties is expected to govern with the slim support of the center-left Revolutionary Democratic Party of Gen. Manuel Antonio Noriega, who was ousted in the December 1989 U.S. invasion. Although Panama has a presidential system, with two elected vice presidents, Endara needs a majority in the National Assembly to pass legislation. Political feuding peaked recently when Endara accused the Christian Democrats of tapping his private office telephone, and Endara’s wife charged that they were trying to subvert the government. THE CHRISTIAN Democrats controlled the police and other security agencies through Ricardo Arias Calderon, who was fired Monday as minister of justice and the interior. However, he retains the elected office of first vice president, which is protected by the constitution. Both Arias and the second vice president, Guillermo Ford, are known to have presidential aspirations. Elections are scheduled for 1994.

Union. Gorbachev called the poll invalid, but he did not try to stop it. Today’s declaration was based on Georgia’s independence resolution of May 26, 1918, which granted Georgians living in the former Russian Empire the right of selfdetermination, the official Soviet news agency reported. “By this move, Georgia followed the example of the Baltic republics, which are seeking secession from the Soviet Union,” Tass said. GEORGIA, A multi-ethnic

frigid mountains in hope of finding safety across the border. Foreign governments and aid groups are running a huge relief operation to save the refugees, many of whom are sick, hungry and cold. FRENCH AND British planes joined U.S. aircraft Monday in dropping supplies along the borders, and Iraq protested the violation of its territorial sovereignty. The official Iraqi News Agency said the government sent a letter to the United Nations that said the aid could have been distributed through Iraqi channels. It quoted the letter as saying that after destroying Iraq’s infrastructure with bombs in the Persian Gulf War, U.S.-led forces were now “dropping crumbs of food and blankets in a pretentious operation that has no humanitarian aspects whatsoever.”

Shortly after Endara’s televised announcement, a visibly angry Arias accused the government of acting like a “dictatorship.” “MAY ENDARA know that the voice of the poor will speak loudly and clearly through the Christian Democrats,” he warned. He did not say if he would stay on as vice president. But Endara appeared to be unmoved, saying the Christian Democrats can “go into the opposition if that is what they want, in the way in which they have chosen and which they have openly and defiantly demonstrated.” Of the seven ministers Endara retained, four are from Ford’s party and three from Endara’s Amulfista party. The fourth coalition party, the Authentic Liberals, had no Cabinet post. THE CHRISTIAN Democrats hold 28 seats in the 57-mcmbcr legislature, and Ford’s movement only 18, including a few Amulfistas who couldn’t run in the 1989 elections that Endara won and which Noriega then annulled. But Noriega’s Revolutionary Democrats, who also dislike the Amulfistas, have 11 seats and they they have supported Endara in the past on specific issues. They are expected to back him now with a single-vote margin. Another 10 assembly seats remain vacant because of election fraud. Also, the Amulfista party might have allies in other parties who chose to avoid trouble from Noriega by running for election under another party’s banner. THE ARNULFISTAS are named after the late Arnoldo Arias Madrid.

republic of 5.3 million people wedged between the Caucasus Mountains and the Black Sea, proclaimed independence from the Russian Empire near the end of World War I, but was forcibly absorbed into the Soviet Union nearly three years later and incorporated under a 1924 Union Treaty. The declaration comes amid sporadic fighting between ethnic Georgians and South Ossetians that has claimed more than 50 lives in recent months.