8
NATION/WORLD
Monday, August 30, 1993
UNIVERSITY DAILY KANSAN
Warlord may be target of U.S. raid
The Associated Press
MOGADISHU, Somalia — Elite U.S. army troops raided a building in southern Mogadishu before dawn today, snaking down ropes from hovering helicopters.
It was not clear whether the objective of the raid was Gen. Mohamed Farrah Aidid, the renegade warlord wanted by the United Nations in the Middle East, Pakistani peacekeepers and 11 other U.N. troops.
But one of the missions of 400 elite U.S. Rangers sent to Mogadishu last week was expected to be ridding the city of Aidid and putting an end to almost daily attacks by his militants on U.N. forces.
The raid, which involved more than a dozen heli- conters, followed an earlier mortar and small-arms
attack by multiamen on Mogadishu's old international airport, now a U.N. military encampment.
There was no word of casualties in either incident, and U.S. and U.N. military officials in Mogadishu could not be reached for comment.
A senior White House official said "there was a routine search and seizure operation" involving 10 to 15 U.S. helicopters operating under U.N. auspices.
The official, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said that between eight and 10 people were apprehended, but the official offered no further details. The official spoke aboard Air Force One while returning with President Clinton to Washington from his vacation.
Reporters and TV cameramen using night-vision lenses saw at least half a dozen Rangers drop by rope from helicopters over a building near Digter Hospital in an area known as an Aidid strongpoint.
The raid began soon after 3 a.m. today (7 p.m. CDT yesterday) with the thunderous buzz of helicopters
whirling over Mogadishu's southern sector
Two nuffled explosions were heard.
About an hour later, reporters on the roof of a hotel about a mile away saw what appeared to be a U.S. Army Blackhawk helicopter land at the scene and probably to take out the Rangers. No gunfire was heard.
In the earlier attack on the old airport, at least eight explosions were seen or heard before midnight.
Clinton ordered the Rangers to Somalia after a U.S. military vehicle was ripped apart by a remotely detonated mine on Aug. 8. killing four soldiers.
Elders cling to civil-rights leadership
The Associated Press
Two notices were served on the civil rights movement at the 30th anniversary march on Washington: the young army officer, a lieutenant, but the old army's trot to retire.
"We believe this march is not a bred-
diction but a rebirth," said Joseph
Lowery, 70, president of the Southern
Christian Leadership Conference for
the past 17 years.
There was some talk that maybe the movement's elders would "pass the torch" of responsibility for social change at this celebration of the dream of equality Martin Luther King Jr. embassed on the nation's psyche.
But on Saturday, fond remembrance prevailed, and the old guard made it clear that fond remembrance will endure.
"We're going to celebrate the march on Washington until there's nothing left to celebrate," declared Benjamin Hooks, 68, who retired from the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People and resurfaced at the helm of the Leadership Conference on Civil Rights.
The young, however, made a few things clear, too.
"We let everybody know we will challenge, seriously, their leadership," said Carl Upchurch, 35, head of the National Urban Peace and Justice
Movement and the most vocal critic of Saturday's festivities. "They're on notice now."
Upchurch, along with three other leaders from his group of reformed-street-gang members, appeared at Saturday's march, even though they had said they were not coming.
They stood with NAACP executive director Benjamin Chavis, 45, who pledged his group's support of efforts to curb violence in the inner city.
"We have worked with these gang members for over a year," Chavis said. "They are my friends. I intend to work with them in every community in this nation."
come in our circles. He is making a valiant effort to link the traditional civil-rights efforts with our current struggle."
Upchurch said, "Ben Chavis is wel-
Other older Black activists, he added, have been affirmative.
added, have not been so forthcoming. But the young were. Upchurch's National Urban Peace and Justice Movement plans to link with the Student Coalition of Conscience, the teen-agers and young adults who worked with Saturday's march.
They want to "weave young America with urban America," Upchurch said, and take this mixture into every major civil-rights forum, to tackle the problems affecting the young: unemployment, poverty, murder.
Racial equality improving but not enough, poll says
The Associated Press
NEW YORK — Six in 10 Americans believe the nation has made substantial progress toward the dream of racial equality that the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. invoked 30 years ago, according to an Associated Press poll.
But a majority also agrees with organizers of Saturday's 30th anniversary March on Washington that getting involved is still a major problem for minorities.
The march was intended to push demands for "Jobs, Justice and Peace." Organizers hoped it also would serve to refresh what the poll
found to be hazy memories of one of the greatest moments of the civil rights movement.
Nine percent of Americans are not at all familiar and an additional 27 percent are not too familiar with the Aug. 28, 1963, civil rights gathering of more than 200,000 people.
"Sounds strange to me," King's daughter, the Rev. Bernice King said. "That was the event that made the movement national. Everybody that I talk to, if nothing else, they know the I Have a Dream" speech because every January it is focused on on."
clear memories of the march, the poll indicates. But older Americans are almost as likely to draw a blank as young adults, whose schooling generally includes black history.
King's daughter noted the changes that have occurred since 1963.
"We have moved from absolutely two separate societies to a society on track to trying to create what my father called the 'beloved community', where everyone is respected for what they bring to the table," she said in an interview in Washington on Fox Morning News.
The poll taken a week ago by ICR Survey Research Group of Media, Pa.
part of AUS Consultants, found 59 percent said there been "a great deal" or "quite a lot" of progress toward King's dream. The third who see little or no progress include 31 percent of whites and 47 percent of blacks in the poll.
In the poll, 33 percent of Americans think the economic situation of minorities is getting better, and 23 percent think it is getting worse. But those who say there has not been much progress over the years also think by a 3-2 margin that the economic situation of minorities is getting worse today.
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East Coast prepares for Hurricane Emily
The Associated Press
CHARLESTON, S.C. — Waves along the shore weren't big enough to interest surfers yesterday, but Hurricane Emily was on a blustery path toward land, and coastal residents rushed to stock up on food and supplies.
Some people, with memories of Hurricane Hugo still fresh, made plans to leave.
"I wouldn't want to go through the fear again. It's easier to get out than to stay." said William Holden, who left his North Myrtle Beach condominium to return to his home in New Jersey.
"If it's going north, I'm going south. If it's going south, I'm going north," said shrimper Larry Cobb, whose shrimp boat Bridget floated on the placid water of Shem Creek in Mount Pleasant.
Cobb remembers all too well well raiding out Hugo on his boat. The storm smashed into Charleston in September 1989. It caused at least $5.9 billion in damage and killed 85 people.
At 11 a.m. yesterday, Emily was located southeast of Cape Hatteras, N.C.
Emily was moving west-northwest at 9 mph. Its top sustained wind speed was about 80 mph with some strengthening expected. A National Hurricane Center advisory projected the storm could make landfall tomorrow, possibly in North Carolina or even much farther north.
"It continues to pose a threat to the East Coast," said Bob Sheets, the director of the National Hurricane Center.
He said hurricane watches could be posted for sections of the coast late yesterday. A watch means hurricane conditions pose a threat. A warning means hurricane conditions with sustained wind of more than 74 mph are expected within 24 hours.
On North Carolina's Outer Banks island chain, residents were on the alert.
"Right now, you wouldn't even know if anything is going on," said Andy McCann, owner of the Nags Head Pier. "The ocean is flat. There aren't any surfers out there."
In Manteo, N.C., Dare County Emergency Management officials met to review plans, assistant director Cheryl Booth said.
"There are no shelters, no safe place to go, when a hurricane strikes," she said. "They will order an evacuation once they decide how long it's going to be before the hurricane strikes."
The population of Dare County is at its peak right now, more than 100,000.
The Federal Emergency Management Agency sent several trucks with emergency supplies from Miami to Thomville, Ga., which will be dispatched when it's clear which areas are most affected by the storm, said an agency representative Morrie Goodman.
In Charleston, South Carolina Electric & Gas Co. made sure its generators and supplies were in place. The Navy said 16 ships and seven submarines from the Charleston Navy Base were ready to head to sea, if necessary, to avoid the storm.
The Coast Guard reminded boaters not to try to ride out the storm in small craft. A dozen people died during Hugo trying to do that, the agency said.
The Yugoslavian freighter Kapetan Martinovic was also ordered to weigh anchor and leave the harbor to ride out the storm. The 500-foot freighter has been in the harbor since last fall when it was detained by the federal government, which froze $450 million in former Yugoslavian assets.
Mary Connelly of R&B Creations, a t-shirt printing company, had given scant thought to a Hurricane Emily T-shirt.
"Right now I'm more concerned with what I need to do to get prepared," she said.
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