UNIVERSITY DAILY KANSAN
Monday, August 18, 1997
Palestinians to boycott Israeli products
Ban a result of Israeli sanctions after bombing
The Associated Press
JERUSALEM — Yassar Arafat's government vowed to gradually implement a boycott of Israeli products to counter the travel bans and economic sanctions Israel imposed on Palestinians after a deadly suicide bombing.
Israeli officials accused Arafat of trying to divert attention from Israel's security concerns and failing to crack down on Islamic militants blamed for the July 30 bombing that killed 14 Israelis in Jerusalem.
After the attack, Israel closed its borders with the West Bank and the Gaza Strip, blocking 100,000 Palestinian workers from their jobs in Israel. It also cut off tax
revenues used to pay Palestinian police and other government workers.
Khaled Salam, Arafat's economic adviser, said the boycott of Israeli products was approved in principle by a Cabinet committee, but that it was unclear how soon the boycott would begin.
"We will start a gradual embargo of Israeli products because we want the Israeli producers to feel the effect of the closure, too." Salam told The Associated Press.
When Israel sealed the borders, it was a major blow to the accords. A politically motivated boycott by Palestinians would be close to a total breakdown in the peace process.
Pakistanian officials at the Gaza border crossing said they had not received orders to prevent entry of Israeli goods. A Trade Ministry official said the embargo would initially apply to cigarettes, soft drinks, chocolate, cookies and
other items which could be replaced by Palestinian products.
Salam told reporters the Palestinian Authority would contact Israeli business leaders.
Yaaasar Arafat
including the local makers of Pepsi and Coca-Cola. He said they would face a boycott if they did not help put pressure on Israel.
The Palestinian Authority said about $9 million worth of Israeli goods are imported into the West Bank and Gaza Strip every day.
Despite U.S. diplomatic efforts to get the sides talking again, tension and name-calling were on the increase. Both sides warned the peace process was near collapse, and David Bar-Ilan, a senior aide to Prime Minister Benjamin
Netanyah, said if Arafat failed to act on security in the next days, it would pose a very difficult problem for Israel.
"I can't say what would happen," said Bar-Ilan.
Israel wants Arafat's government to put more effort into arresting Palestinians believed responsible for planning attacks on Israel, such as the July 30 attack by two suicide bombers.
The British government does not comment on intelligence matters
"The Sunday Telegraph" of London reported that Israel's intelligence chief, Ami Ayalon, had flown to London to work with British intelligence officers on investigating reports that the bombers entered Israel with British passports and had financial support from militants based in London.
Hanan Ashrawi, education minister in Arafat's Cabinet, said Israeli accusations about Palestinian inaction in arresting suspected militants displayed an attitude of blatant patronage and even racism.
"We are not passing an Israeli test. We are not subject to Israeli evaluation," Ashrawi said in an interview. "We are not agents of Israeli security. We will not arrest people in accordance to Israeli demands."
She warned that too much pressure from the United States or any other country could lead to another explosion of violence.
"I am afraid that such pressures will backfire," she said.
She also urged the United States not to pressure the Palestinian Authority to support a scheduled Mideast economic conference to be held in Qatar in November.
Bar-Ilan expressed concern about Arafat's plans to convene a meeting Wednesday of all Palestinian groups — including the militant factions of Hamas and Islamic Jihad, which Israel says are involved in terrorism.
NATO moves to calm feuding among Serbs
Police for two factions of Bosnian Serbs clash
The Associated Press
BELGRADE, Yugoslavia — NATO-led forces stepped in yesterday to prevent a standoff between police backing Bosnian Serb President Biljana Plavic and those of her opponents from breaking into violence.
The peacekeeping force was sent to Bosnia in 1995 to separate Muslims, Serbs and Croats after a 3 1/2-year war. However, bitter disputes have emerged among Serb factions that threaten to split their half of Bosnia in two.
Journalists in Banja Luka, Plavsić's headquarters in northwest Bosnia, said police loyal to her had marched into the town's main police station early yesterday and had seized transcripts of what had been reported to be her telephone calls, apparently bugged by opponents.
Plavisc is engaged in a protracted dispute with officials in Pale, the Serb headquarters just outside Sarajevo, which she accuses of corruption and continued loyalty to Bosnian Serb strongman Radovan Karadzic, the top war crimes suspect.
Police loyal to Plavski were surrounded by about 150 policemen armed with pistols, and the NATO-led peace force surrounded
"In no case will violence be tolerated."
Maj. John Blakeley
NATO representative
both of those groups with a force that included armored vehicles, the journalists said.
"The interest of international organizations is in ensuring that the matter is resolved peacefully," said NATO spokesman Maj. John Blakeley in Sarajevo. "In no case will violence be tolerated."
He said the peace force was reestablishing control in the area.
NATO officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said they had turned down a request from Karadzic ally Momcilo Krajisnik in Pale to send another unit of well-equipped special police to Bania Luka.
In any case, the dispute illustrated the worsening divisions among Serbs.
The Bosnian Serb Constitutional Court on Friday said Plavsic did not have the authority to dissolve parliament and to call new elections. But a top Plavsic aide said yesterday that the president would ignore the ruling and would go ahead with new elections.
Thais march for constitutional change
The Associated Press
BANGKOK, Thailand — Thousands of pro-democracy activists launched a campaign for constitutional change to enhance civil liberties and combat corruption with a march yesterday in the heart of Bangkok.
The draft constitution will go next month before a Parliament controlled largely by conservative politicians likely to oppose its passage.
Wearing light green caps symbolizing birth and progress, several thousand supporters waved
Thai flags and handed out booklets that included the 336-article document, passed 99-7 by the Constitution Drafting Assembly on Friday.
Debate about the constitution comes at a time of economic crisis and widespread dissatisfaction with the government of Prime Minister Chavalit Yongchaiyudh.
The country needed a $16 billion bailout engineered by the International Monetary Fund, and Chavalit was compelled to revamp his Cabinet on Friday in the wake of allegations that some
of his top ministers were corrupt. Chavalit's coalition, which holds a majority in Parliament, has spoken out against many aspects of the draft constitution and could quash it. But some analysts say the embattled leader may drop his opposition for fear of sparking public unrest.
Should the majority in the House of Representatives and Senate fail to pass the draft in its entirety, the constitution will be presented in the first referendum in Thai history. The parliamentary vote has been scheduled for Sept. 26.
Starving children in Korea face bleak future
Harvest predicted to be extremely small because of drought
The Associated Press
BELIING — North Korea's children are so malnourished they might never recover fully and harvests this fall could be as little as one-eighth of normal because of a severe drought, a Red Cross official said yesterday.
"They've already written off the corn crop," said Jon Valfells of the International Federation of Red Cross Societies, who returned Saturday from a 10-day tour of
relief centers in the hunger-stricken country.
In addition, Valfells said, farmers have been told to dig drainage channels to protect the tiny rice crop because such dry seasons often are followed by torrential rains.
This will be the third straight bad harvest for North Korea, a hard-line communist nation already suffering from agricultural mismanagement and floods that ravaged crops in 1955 and 1996.
Food shortages have forced North Korea to set aside its tradition of defiant self-reliance and accept thousands of tons of food from China, Japan, rival South Korea and the United States.
U. N. experts say 60 to 70 percent of the corn crop was wiped out by the drought. North Korean officials have said the drought will affect the rice harvest, but haven't give an estimate of the damage.
North Korean officials told relief agencies last month that 37 percent of children are malnourished.
Valfells said doctors told him that children have gone hungry so long that many will suffer stunted growth and mental problems even if they start eating well again.
"The most striking thing was that there were these 3-year-old children who have never had enough to eat in their whole lives," he said. "That's a whole generation being affected."
Five Kenyans die during raid; explosion kills four at party
The Associated Press
MOMBASA, Kenya — Machete-
wielding youths killed at least five
people, burned houses and sent
hundreds of terrified residents packing
along Kenya's coast yesterday.
Officials said police shot and killed one suspected raider. His body reportedly was burned by angry residents.
Police spokesman Francis Gichuki said at least 26 people have died and scores have been injured since Wednesday, when armed raiders killed seven police and set ablaze their station at Likoni. Likoni is south of the Indian Ocean port of Mombasa. The death toll has been estimated at 30. Gichuki said 69 arrests had been made.
Also yesterday, four people were killed in an explosion in Muranga, 30 miles north of the capital, Nairobi. A journalist for the state-run Kenya Broadcasting Corp. said an explosive device went off during a wedding party for a police officer. It wasn't known if the bride or groom were among the dead.
Gichuki dismissed claims that the violence around Mombasa could be politically motivated, but offered little evidence to the contrary.
"We are treating it as a pure thugery," he said.
Political and ethnic tensions are on the rise ahead of this year's elections. On Saturday, two opposition leaders accused President Daniel arap Moi's government of orchestrating the violence in Mombasa to create an excuse for a crackdown on the opposition. The 1992 elections were marred by similar state-sponsored ethnic clashes.
Those clashes erupted soon after Moi caved in to local and international pressure to legalize multi-party politics. In opposing pluralism, Moi had argued that it would cause conflict among the approximately 40 tribes in Kenya.
Moi is again under pressure to enact constitutional reforms and scrap colonial-era laws that his opponents say give the 73-year-old president and his ruling party an unfair edge.
More than a dozen people were killed when pro-reform demonstrations turned violent in July and August.
Kenyans from others parts of the country come to Mombasa, the gateway to resorts on the Indian Ocean, in search of jobs in the lucrative tourism industry or on the docks.
A heavy police presence did not prevent an attack on the Mombasa area's biggest shantytown, Shauri Yaki. Youths with knives, machetes and spears set more than 30 houses ablaze, destroyed street kiosks and stabbed five people to death.
Raiders appeared to be targeting Kenyans from others parts of the country.
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