NATION/WORLD
UNIVERSITY DAILY KANSAN
Tuesday, January 12, 1993
5A
Marines search for weapons
In 'sternest challenge,' U.S. soldiers confiscate arms in warring Somalia
The Associated Press
MOGADISHU, Somalia—In the largest U.S. military operation so far in Mogadishu, 900 U.S. Marines swept through the country's biggest arms bazaar yesterday and seized weapons ranging from anti-aircraft guns to assault rifles.
The raid indicated the mission of U.S. forces was changing from guarding food shipments from bandits to seizing weapons as U.N. Secretary-General Boutros Boutros-Ghali had requested.
The Marines, backed by four tanks, armored vehicles and three helicopters, moved unopposed into the core of the fetid Bakara bazaar with their weapons ready to fire.
Some Marines crouched on the ground or aimed their guns at potential targets from atop vehicles.
The Marine commander in Somalia, Maj. Gun, Charles Wilhelm, described the disarming of Mogadishu as the U.S. forces' "sternest challenge."
In another attempt to improve security in the lawless capital, Marines hope to double their daily patrols from the current 15 in the next few days, said Col. Michael W. Hague, a representative for the U.S. forces.
Mogadishu was mostly peaceful yester day, the day a cease-fire agreed to by Somalia's 14 warring factions was to take effect.
"A月age they were in full-scale civil war. There's been a considerable improvement," said U.S. envoy Robert Oakley.
reached in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia. Communications in Somalia are virtually nonexistent except for satellite telephones.
But it could not be determined if the factions were observing the cease-fire or even if they had been informed of the pact
In the day-long raid, dubbed "Operation Nutcracker," the Marines sealed off escape routes from the Bakara market and seized recoilless rifles, anti-aircraft guns and a mix of light weapons, Hagee said.
Some of the arms, including rockets and belts of machine-gun bullets, were dumped into an open-bed truck guarded by a Marine with his rifle at the ready.
The biggest haul came from a furniture warehouse where an assortment of weapons was found amid beds, toilet seats and mattresses. Another cache was uncovered in a storeroom next to a denist's office.
Hage said arms merchants might have moved some of their wares out of the market because of more aggressive Marine weapons seizures in recent days.
The Marines captured a "quite significant amount" of munitions ranging from hand grenades to artillery shells at one site Sunday. Marines discovered a large
cache on the northeastern outskirts of the city that included 10 anti-aircraft guns and 16 howitzer Saturday.
Such weapons have been used in two years of civil war that killed an estimated 350,000 people in 1992 alone, spawned a terrible famine and devastated virtually every urban center in the land.
Some Somaliis protested yesterday's arms raid. One, a bearded man wearing a flowing headband, harangued a Marine who watched him impassively, the butt of his M-16 resting on his hip.
A Somali handed a note to a U.S. soldier saying, "If you're American you have no right to take the guns ... thanks for nothing."
Some Somali citizens said they would become easy prey for the gangs who roamed the city if weapons they used for self-protection were taken away.
But many in Mogadishu said only total disarmament would restore peace.
"People are coming up to us to give us information," Hagee said. "They give us the thumbs up sign, they're clapping when we come in."
U.N. accuses Iraq of more violations of cease-fire
The Associated Press
KUWAIT — Scores of Iraqis crossed into Kuwait again yesterday and carted off equipment from a disputed naval base, the second border foray in 24 hours to under-score Saddam Hussein's defiance of President Bush and his allies.
The U.N. Security Council met in a closed session late in the day to discuss the incursions. U.N. Secretary-General Boutros Boutros-Ghali said he hoped the council would make a tough response, but diplomats said it was unlikely to do more than condemn Iraq.
Iraq's U.N. ambassador argued that U.N. officials gave permission for yesterday's action as well as one Sunday in which 200 armed Iraqis removed weapons, including four anti-ship missiles, abandoned by defeated Iraqi troops in the Persian Gulf War.
A U.N. spokesman, Abdel Latif Kabbaj, denied that required permits were issued and said Iraq violated an agreement allowing the removal only of non-military equipment by Friday. He said U.N. observers warned the Iraqis they were breaking the Gulf War cease-fire accord.
Asked whether he expected another foray at the base, Kabbaj said: "I don't think so, because there is nothing else to take from the area." Yesterday, about 120 Iraqis removed warehouses, water tanks, electrical wire and other equipment.
On Sunday, an Iraqi held a pistol to the head of an unarmed Canadian peacekeeper who tried to block the road with his car, Canada's ambassador to Kuwait said.
To hold his immediate response was to remove the vehicle," said Ambassador Christopher Poole. He did not identify the peacekeeper.
But Poole characterized the incident as more a dispute over assets than an invasion across the border.
"It hasn't resulted in a great mood of pessimism, fortunately, in Kuwait — neither among the Kuwati community, or here the expatriate community," he said.
The forays followed Saddam's apparent capitulation to a demand to remove anti-aircraft missiles from southern Iraq, where U.S. and allied planes have patrolled since August to prevent Iraqi air attacks on Shiite Muslim rebels.
"It clear from this raid into Kuwait that Saddam Hussein is continuing his pattern of trying to cheat wherever possible, continuing to challenge the U.N. resolutions," said Marlin Fitzwater, chief White House spokesman.
But even while it was backing down on the missiles, Iraq made the border crossings and banned U.N. flights to and above Iraq, a restriction that hampers U.N. efforts to dismantle U.S.'s weapons of mass destruction.
He repeated that the United States was ready to act "without warning" to force Baghdad back into compliance.
Saddam might be trying to provoke a crisis with the West to divert domestic attention from Iraq's problems. U.N. trade sanctions imposed on Iraq after its August 1980 invasion of Kuwait have caused severe food shortages and rampant inflation.
Renewed hostilities also could divide the U.S.-led coalition that drove the Iraqis from Kuwait. Arab participants in that force appear unwilling to take part in a military action that might further weaken Iraq, which is seen as a bulwark against a rearing Iran.
Tension has been high since a U.S. warplane shot down an Iraqi fighter jet that crossed into the "no-fly zone" over southern Iraq on Dec. 27, apparently leading Iraq to move air-aircraft missiles into the area.
The United States, France, Britain and Russia gave Iraq until early Saturday to remove the missiles. Washington said the Iraqi craved into the ultimatum, but Iraq said Sunday it moved the missiles on its own initiative.
Fitzwater said the incursions were "clearly an infringement of the cease-fire regulations." The representative for President-elect Clinton, George Stephanopoulos, said Clinton "stands four-square with President Bush."
Boutros-Ghali, who was in Germany, said he hoped the Security Council "will have a very stiff answer," saying the United Nations could not allow such threats to member states like Kuwait.
BRIEFS
Baboon liver functioning in human within hours of transplant surgery
The Associated Press
PTITSBURGH — A baboon liver transplanted into the body of a man dying of hepatitis was working within
ours, a surgeon said yesterday. It was the first baboon liver transplant ever done.
Doctors said the man was in
critical condition after the 13-hour operation and was groggy but able to open his eyes. The patient was identified only as a 62 year U.S. citizen.
"The patient tolerated the procedure well," said Andreas Tzakis, a member of the transplant team at the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center. "Overall, the liver seems to be behaving as if it were a liver from a human donor."
Physicians said the man could not receive a human liver because his hepatitis B would have destroyed it the same way it ravaged his own liver. Doctors believe baboon livers are immune to the disease.
The man would have died within 30 days without the transplant, said John Fung, the lead transplant surgeon.
The procedure was tried first in June, on a 35-year-old man also dying of hepatitis B. That man, who also was not identified, died 10 weeks later. An overdose of an anti-rejection drug hastened an infection that killed him, doctors disclosed last week.
Tyson's lawyer says woman made book, movie deals before rape trial
The Associated Press
INDIANAPOLIS — Barring three witnesses from testifying at Mike Tyson's rape trial and reports that his victim had made plans for book and movie deals should be grounds for a new trial, attorney Alan Dershowitz said yesterday.
Dershowitz, who is representing Tyson on appeal, and three jurors who last year convicted the former heavy-weight boxing champion appeared on the "Maury Povich Show."
The defense lawyer repeated claims he made last month, when the attorney for Desiree Washington said talk-show calls for a new trial were "a public relations effort to besmirch" the former beauty contestant.
Washington accused Tyson of raping her when she was a contestant in the Miss Black America pageant in Indianapolis in July 1991. Tyson is serving a six-year prison term. Dershowitz said the previously undisclosed plans for book and movie deals gave Washington a motive to lie on the witness stand.
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