Section A · Page 6
The University Daily Kansan
Wednesday, April 7, 1999
Nation/World
NATO rejects Milosevic's cease-fire
Milosevic to honor Orthodox Easter
The Associated Press
BELGRADE. Yugoslavia
Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic declared a unilateral ceasefire yesterday in his campaign to crush rebels in Kosovo, saying he wanted to honor the Orthodox Easter holiday this weekend. Western leaders called the move a sham and pledged to press ahead with air strikes.
Moments after the cease-fire took effect at 1 p.m., air-raid sirens wailed in Belgrade, heralding new NATO attacks.
At least six explosions could be heard late yesterday in the direction of the Batajnica military airport just north of Belgrade, and tracer rounds from anti-aircraft were seen in the night sky.
Yugoslav television stations reported further attacks last night around the Kosovo capital of Pristina; at Uzice, 75 miles south-west of Belgrade; near Kraljevo, 75 miles south of Belgrade; and at Pancevo and Cacak, two industrial towns. U.S. officials say a munitions plant is located at Cacak.
Another missile struck a residential district in Podgorica, capital of the tiny Yugoslav republic Montenegro. There were no injuries, but several buildings were damaged, according to Associated Press reporters on the scene.
The Yugoslav cease-fire declaration was clearly aimed at staving off further NATO attacks and at presenting Milosevic's government as a champion of peace.
President Clinton and NATO insisted that half-measures would not end the NATO air campaign that began March 24, and British Prime Minister Tony Blair's office said Milosevic's announced truce hadn't gone very far.
A rebel spokesman also rejected the cease-fire, which was announced on Belgrade television stations and said the only way the
group would agree to a truce would be if NATO troops enforced it.
The statement also pledged that the government would work for the return of ethnic Albanian refugees. However, it wasn't clear if that meant an
immediate halt to military actions forcing them to flee.
Milosevic: Called for NATO to stop the air strikes
Russia alone welcomed the ceasefire. "Any peace initiative must be useful," spokesman Dmitry Yakushkin quoted President Boris Yeltsin as saying.
On the refugee front, NATO nations and others rushed in tons of aid yesterday for the 400,000 ethnic Albanians who have been driven out of Kosovo and into poor neighboring states.
Armies of aid workers and soldiers set up row upon row of military tents and latrines for the refugees, while aid flights clogged nearby airports, including the one at Tirana, the capital of Albania. Some doctors were on hand, but the squalid conditions and lack of sanitation left many refugees sick with diarrhea.
meanwhile, the Clinton administration announced that its naval base at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, would be a temporary "safe haven" for up to 20,000 Kosovar refugees in the coming days.
in its statement, the Yugoslav leadership said the cessation of hostilities against the ethnic Albanian Kosovo Liberation Army in advance of Sunday's Orthodox Easter was a "gesture of good will."
Pan Am bombing suspects arraigned
Two Libyan men face life sentences in a Scottish prison
The Associated Press
CAMP ZEIST, Netherlands — One by one, the names of all 270 victims of the 1988 Pan Am jet explosion were read aloud yesterday to two Libyan suspects charged with planting the suitcase bomb that ripped the plane apart.
Upped in the market Suspected former intelligence agents Abdel Basset Ali al-Megrahi and Lamen Khalifa Flimah were fingerprinted, photographed and gave DNA samples yesterday, one day after Libya surrendered them for trial in the Netherlands under Scottish law.
The two men were then separately arraigned in Arabic and English on charges contained in a 1991 U.S.-British indictment accusing them of bombing Flight 104
over Lockerbie, Scotland, on Dec.
21, 1988.
21. 1980 The suspects said nothing more than "yes" in Arabic when asked to confirm their names. They will have a chance to enter a plea when the trial begins.
Names of each of the victims — including 189 Americans — were read aloud to the men at Camp Zeist, a deserted U.S. airbase 30 miles southeast of Amsterdam, where the trial will be held, said Susan Stewart, chief spokeswoman for Scotland's government.
Al-Megrah, 46, and Fhimah, 42 are charged with murder, conspiracy to commit murder and violations of international aviation security laws. Scottish authorities now have until April 15 to formally commit them to trial before three Scottish High Court judges.
Scotland Under Scottish law, their trial should start 110 days later. However, lawyers for the two men were expected to request an extension to give them more time to prepare
their defense, which could delay the trial's start by six months to a year, Stewart said.
Once the trial gets under way, it is expected to take a year or longer. If convicted, the suspects — both of whom say they are innocent — will serve their sentences in Glasgow's Barlinnie jail, Scotland's highest-security prison.
They face up to life imprisonment. Scotland has no death penalty.
pentury In an attempt to reproduce the conditions they would face in Scotland, the two men were held overnight in temporary cells constructed to resemble the ones inside a Scottish police station.
They were expected to be moved later to the holding cells where they will stay for the duration of the trial. The two will have access to an exercise room and a prayer room complete with a compass to help them face east, toward Mecca in Saudi Arabia, the holy city Muslims to turn when they pray
errorist trial
The trials of two Libyan men suspected in the 1988 Pan Am Flight 103 bombing over Scotland will be held at Camp Zeist, located 30 miles southeast of Amsterdam
each day.
The Scots even hung a sign renaming the airbase "Her Majesty's Prison, Zeist."
After their surrender Monday, the United Nations suspended sanctions that had punished Libya since 1992 for failing to surrender the suspects. The U.N. Security Council said it would consider lifting the sanctions altogether if Libya publicly renounced terrorism and com-
Gun-ban removal rejected by Missouri
Measure defeated by 4 percentage points
JEFFERSON CITY, Mo. — Missourians rejected an attempt Tuesday to lift a ban on concealed guns that dated to the era of Jesse James.
With 95 percent of the vote counted, Proposition B, which would have lifted the ban, was opposed by 52 percent or 643,117 of voters and supported by 48 percent or 589,821 voters.
The vote marked the first time a state put the question of concealed weapons to the voters. Thirty-one other states allow citizens to carry concealed guns, but those measures were enacted by legislators.
Proposition B resulted from failed yearly attempts by progn lawmakers to pass a concealed-weapons law against a threatened veto by Democratic Gov. Mel Carnahan.
The National Rifle Association almost single-handedly bankrolled the campaign for Proposition B — providing more than $3.7 million, well over 95 percent of the money behind the measure — in what was viewed as an important test of gun sentiment in the heartland.
"Since this is the first time it's ever been put to a vote, both sides on this issue are going to learn a tremendous amount," said Fred Myers, a leader of the Proposition B campaign. "This will be a race that political scientists and pundits will mull for years because it's breaking such new ground."
Supporters said allowing law-abiding people to pack guns would keep the criminals guessing.
"The honest people of this state need to be able to defend themselves while going from their homes to their businesses," Greg Jeffrey, a spokesman for the Proposition B campaign.
The other side received just one-fourth the funding but had help from Hillary Rodham Clinton — who recorded a telemarketing message targeted at women. The first lady said Proposition B was too dangerous for Missouri families.
St. Louis County Prosecutor Robert McCulloch was among the law enforcement officers who feared the measure would court trouble
"We don't want to be going back to the old Wild West days with everyone wearing a gun," he said.
James, the Wild West's most notorious outlaw, was a native of Kearney, Mo. Missouri banned concealed weapons in a crackdown on gunslings in 1875, seven years before James was shot to death in St. Joseph, Mo., by a member of his gang.
According to Proposition B, state residents will need a second permit to carry a concealed weapon.
Applicants will have to undergo criminal and mental health background checks, take at least 12 hours of state-approved training and have no violent offenses on their records for at least five years.
Chinese premier to visit U.S. despite strained relationship
Rongji hopes to seal China's membership in trade organization
The Associated Press.
WASHINGTON — Chinese Premier Zhu Rongji's visit to the United States comes at a time of particularly tense relations between Beijing and Washington, including a stark dispute about the bombing of Yugoslavia.
China has called for an immediate halt to the NATO airstrikes. Chinese leaders even considered postponing Zhu's six-city, nine-day visit that was beginning today in Los Angeles.
Even so, Zhu still hopes to close a deal with the Clinton administration to allow Beijing to join the World Trade Organization, which regulates international trade, after 13 years of trying.
In advance of his coming to Washington tomorrow, U.S. and Chinese trade negotiators worked furiously to try to strike a deal that could be announced during the visit.
Zhu also will visit Denver, Chicago, New York and Boston, courting the political and business elite at each stop. He may observe financial markets, possibly the New York Stock Exchange and the Chicago Board of Trade.
China hopes to attract the foreign investment needed to help its slowing economy.
While in Washington, Zhu was to dine with Clinton tomorrow evening, hold meetings with officials of the World Bank and International Monetary Fund and meet on Friday with a handful of lawmakers back early from the two-week congressional recess.
The recent Communist Party-ordered crackdown on dissidents who formed an opposition party helped solidify anti-China sentiment in Congress.
In an interview published in yesterday's editions of the Wall Street Journal, Zhu asserted that the administration recently had backed away from closing a deal
In school, it will not be an "Of course," it will not be an easy task." Zhu told reporters. "But will go anyway."
on trade "due to pressure from Congress."
Congress is still in its spring recess — probably sparing Zhu the harshest of criticism of China's human-rights record while he is here.
we want to work with the premier, we want to advance our national interests to work with China where we can on areas of interest," said James P. Rubin, the State Department spokesman. He cited recent developments in North Korea, India and Pakistan's nuclear programs and international terrorism.
As to China's membership in the WTO, Rubin said, "If the Chinese meet the objective criteria, we would like to see a situation where our exporters can get access to the Chinese market."
not only are the meetings being elipsed by the bombing campaign in Yugoslavia, but the NATO airstrikes have sourced the atmosphere for the visit.
China has been trying to join the WTO and its predecessor, the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade, since 1986.
Clinton wants added hate law protection
President orders colleges to report campus hate crimes
The Associated Press
WASHINGTON — Decrying "the persistence of old, even primitive hatreds," President Clinton today asked Congress to expand federal hate crime laws to include offenses based on sexual orientation.
The president also directed the departments of Education and Justice to collect and periodically publish data on hate crimes at colleges, including crime statistics as well as surveys on students' racial attitudes.
Clinton linked his announcement to the crisis in Kosovo, where hundreds of thousands of people are being killed or forced out by Serb authorities because they are ethnic Albanians. He said all Americans should resist such destructive, biased attitudes because they imperil the country's future.
imperfect the country.
"We have to be, in the United States, absolutely resolute about this," Clinton said. "Our diversity is a godsend for us. The number one security threat to that is the persistence of old, even primitive hatreds."
Clinton endorsed a public-private partnership designed to educate middle school students against intolerance. The partnership will involve AT&T, Court TV, Cable in the Classroom, the National Middle Schools Association and the Anti-Defamation League working with the Justice and Education departments to develop curricula to combat intolerance.
Clinton announced the initiatives yesterday in a Roosevelt Room ceremony with religious, education and law enforcement leaders who said the United States cannot get so caught up in fighting the crisis in Kosovo that it neglects prejudice in this country.
Clinton issued an appeal for greater acceptance of gay people, saying it is wrong to refuse them a normal life based on attitudes "where you always get to think a little better of yourself because you've got someone you can dehumanize."
"That's really what this whole issue with gays is today in America," Clinton said. "We're talking about whether people have a right, if they show up and work hard and obey the law and are good citizens, to pursue their lives in dignity, free of fear."
In addition, Clinton directed the Justice and Education depart
ments to require that college campuses provide specific information about hate crimes in the campus crime statistics they provide to law enforcement each year.
Clinton's hate crimes legislation died in committee last year in the House and Senate. The initiative was reintroduced last month by a bipartisan group of lawmakers that included Sen. Edward M. Kennedy, D-Mass, and Sen. Arlen Specter, R.Pa., and Rep. John Conyers, D.Mich., and Rep. Cobnie Morella, R.Md.
According to the bill, current law would be expanded so the Justice Department could prosecute crimes based on a person's sex, sexual orientation or disability. Now, the statute only covers crimes based on race, color, religion or national origin.
The bill also would make federal prosecution of hate crimes easier. Current law limits prosecution to situations where the victim is targeted for engaging in certain federally protected activities such as serving on a jury, voting or attending public school.
More than 40 states have hate crimes laws but only 21 cover sexual orientation, 22 cover gender and 21 cover disability.
Paula Poundstone
8 p.m.
Sunday, April 11, 1999
Lied Center
$10 tickets with KUID
$12 tickets for general public
For more information, call the SUA
Box Office, 785.864.3477, or visit
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