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THE UNIVERSITY DAILY KANSAN 9A
THURSDAY, AUGUST 19,2004
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The Associated Press
Iraqi civilians cross a deserted street under the watchful eye of American soldiers patrolling the besieged southern Iraqi city of Najaf yesterday.
Cleric, Iraqi government broker truce in Najaf
THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
NAJAF, Iraq — Radical Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr accepted a peace plan yesterday that would disarm his militia and remove them from their hideout in a revered shrine, raising hopes of resolving a crisis that has angered many of Iraq's majority Shiites and threatened to undermine the fledgling interim government.
But al-Sadr has made contradictory statements in the past, and aides to the cleric said he still wanted to negotiate details of the deal to end two weeks of fighting between his forces and U.S.-led troops. The agreement was announced at the National Conference in Baghdad, which had sent a delegation to negotiate with al-Sadr.
The conference, a gathering of more than 1,000 prominent Iraqis that was seen as an important milestone on the country's path to
democracy, spilled into an unscheduled fourth day yesterday so it could choose members of an interim National Council. The council is to act as a watchdog over the interim government until elections in January.
Disputes persisted at the conference throughout the day over how to choose 81 elected members of the council, with small parties complaining they were being strong-armed by the large factions into accepting their slate of candidates.
Al-Sadr's loyalists and a combined U.S.-Iraqi force have been fighting for nearly two weeks throughout Najaf, battling in the vast graveyard and in the streets of its Old City.
A planned vote to affirm a slate of 81 candidates was called off at the last minute, and the conference organizers simply affirmed the group — to the dismay of many of those who were not included in the council. The final 19 members of the 100-member council will be members of the former U.S.-appointed Iraqi Governing Council who were left out of the interim government.
A wall surrounding the Imam Ali Shrine, where the militants have holed up, was reportedly chipped in the fighting, and any damage to the gold-domed mosque itself would infuriate the world's 120 million Shiite Muslims.
The drawn-out fighting, which had spread to other Shiite areas, has already burnished al-Sadr's reputation among poor, grassroots Shiites at the expense of more senior — and more moderate — clerics and hampered the government's efforts to quell a separate Sunni insurgency.
Tuesday afternoon, Iraqi Defense Minister Hazem Shaalani said the government could send Iraqi forces to raid the shrine.
Western documentarian kidnapped in Southern Iraq
THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
According to witnesses in the market, the journalist, identified as Micah Garen, and the translator, Amir Doushi, were walking when two men in civilian clothes and armed with Kalashnikov assault rifles seized them, Aboud said.
BAGHDAD, Iraq — A Western journalist and his Iraqi translator were kidnapped by two armed men in a busy market in the southern Iraqi city o Nasiriyah, police said Monday.
Adnan al-Shoraify, deputy governor of Dhi Qar province, said the incident occurred Friday. Al-Shoraify said Garen was a
Nashville police began investigating the incident after the translator's family reported him missing, said police Capt. Haidar Aboud.
journalist with U.S.-French citizenship who worked for the U.S.-based Four Corners Media and was working on a project involving antiquities near Nasiriyah, about 200 miles southeast of Baghdad.
According to its Web site, Four Corners is a "documentary organization working in still photography, video and print media" that is working in Iraq.
The Web site says Garen is one of the organization's managers, and shows a portfolio of his photos in Iraq.
In New Haven, Conn., Garen's father Alan said the 33-year-old had been working in Iraq for about two months as a freelance journalist. He couldn't confirm his son was missing, saying only that "I haven't heard anything for several days."
A spokesman for Italian forces deployed in Nasiriyah, Capt. Ettore Sarli, said Garen had been staying at the Italian airbase there, but left Aug. 12 and told the troops he was headed to Baghdad.
Garen turned in his press card before leaving, he said.
Sarli said Garen had been interested in archaeology, was working in a local archaeological museum and also with the coalition force's archaeological unit.
A spokesman for the U.S. Embassy in Baghdad, Bob Callahan, said he had heard through the media of the reports, but could not confirm them. "We too are aware of it and are investigating." he said.
In Paris, the French Foreign Ministry also said it had no information but was investigating.
Massacre ignites old tensions
THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
NAIROBI, Kenya — Wielding guns and machetes, the attackers charged into a refugee camp for Congolese Tutsi, shouting threats to kill any member of that tribe they found. Scores were slain in the raid on the U.N. camp in Burundi, and the fallout from the attack could re-ignite a longstanding conflict in central Africa.
at the United Nations.
It is not entirely clear who carried out the attack, or why. But the stakes are very high in Burundi, Rwanda, and Congo, neighboring countries that all are home to members of the Hutu and Tutsi tribes, as well as other groups enmeshed in a web of mutual hostility. Ethnic conflict between them has claimed millions of lives in the past three decades.
The latest atrocity triggered a flurry of threats and accusations, and has sparked grave concerns
Both Burundi and Rwanda are threatening military action against Hutu bases in Congo — their far larger neighbor to the west — to make sure such attacks blamed on Hutu marauders don't happen again.
Conflicts between Hutus, who comprise a majority in Burundi and Rwanda, and Tutsis, a minority in those two countries and in eastern Congo, have wracked this corner of Africa for more than a decade, spawning a civil war in Burundi, the 1994 Rwandan genocide and two rebellions in Congo since 1996.
Burundi's army chief, Brig. Gen. Germain Niyoyankana, on Tuesday accused Congolese tribal fighters allied to that country's government of taking part in the massacre, saying the attackers included Burundian rebels who "acted as guides, former Rwandan (Hutu) soldiers, together with part of the Congolese army."
Despite denials from the Congolese that they were involved in the attack, Niyoyankana said the Burundian army is prepared to pursue the assailants, who used Congo's territory to launch Friday's raid on the camp sheltering Congolese Tutsi refugees.
Rwandan Foreign Minister Charles Mulgande also warned that his country was prepared to act against Rwandan rebels and allied groups based in Congo. Several extremist groups have joined forces with the aim of eliminating ethnic Tutsi from the three countries, he said in Kigali, the Rwandan capital.
A Burundian Hutu rebel group, the National Liberation Forces, said its fighters staged the attack, claiming that Burundi soldiers and Congolese Tusli militiamen were hiding at the camp. Burundian officials and witnesses said the Burundian rebels were accompanied by other extremists based in Congo.
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