UNIVERSITY DAILY KANSAN
Thursdav. September 28,1995
7A
Israel approves agreement
The Associated Press
JERUSALEM — Israel's Cabinet approved an agreement with the PLO yesterday that will hand over most Arab-populated areas to Palestinian control after an Israeli troop withdrawal.
The pact, initialized Sunday after weeks of grueling talks between PLO chief Yasser Arafat and Foreign Minister Shimon Peres of Israel, is to be signed in Washington on Thursday.
Arafat's Cabinet for the autonomous Gaza Strip and West Bank town of Jericho endorsed the accord on Tuesday, as did the PLO Executive Committee in Tunis.
With the White House signing only one day away, Israel and the Palestine Liberation Organization were still at odds over three key issues — the starting date for the phased troop withdrawal, a timetable for releasing Palestinian prisoners and a PLO demand to enlarge the Jericho enclave.
Shimon Peres
The disputes might lead to a last-minute crisis with the Palestinians, and some arm-wtwisting from President Clinton might be needed to get the accord signed, an Israeli official
It is up to Arafat and Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin to resolve these problems before the ceremony. The two men will hold talks in Washington before the signing, said Palestinian negotiator Saeib Erakat.
said on condition of anonymity,
The pact, which grants Palestinian self-rule in 30 percent of the West Bank, constitutes the second phase of the Israel-PLO treaty of September 1993. Gaza and Jericho became autonomous in the first phase 16 months ago. Talks on the final status of Gaza and the West Bank, in which
the PLO is expected to demand full statehood, are to begin in May.
"I believe the vision of a Greater Israel ended today," said Housing Minister Binvamin Ben-
Yasser Arafat
Two of Israel's 20 Cabinet members — Energy Minister Gonen Segev and Religious Affairs Minister Shimon Shettreet — abstained in today's vote, which took place after five hours of debate.
Eliezer, referring to the ideology that champions Israeli control over the West Bank and Gaza, occupied in the 1967 Mideast war. "Now a new chapter is opening in the life of the state of Israel."
Under the accord, a troop withdrawal from seven West Bank towns is to be completed by the end of
March and is to be followed by general elections for an 82-member Palestinian Council that will administer the autonomy.
Arafat said he and Peres agreed that the troop pullout from the West Bank will start 10 days after the accord is signed.
The troops are to redeploy last in the tense town of Hebron, where 450 Jewish settlers live among 120,000 Palestinians.
"Until we have the roads that will go around the Palestinian centers, we cannot withdraw from the Palestinian centers," Segev told The Associated Press.
The pace of withdrawal from the last three towns — Bethlehem, Ramallah and Hebron — will depend on the completion of bypass roads for Israelis, Segev, the energy minister, said before the start of today's Cabinet session.
At their meeting today, the Cabinet ministers held a separate vote to approve the criteria for releasing some Palestinian prisoners.
Libya expels 171 to punish PLO
Pact with Israel upsets Moammar Gadhafi
The Associated Press
ALLENBY BRIDGE, West Bank — Three busloads of Palestinians, many carrying television sets and laundry bags stuffed with clothes, headed for the PLO-ruled Gaza Strip yesterday after being expelled from Libya.
The 171 Palestinians, including dozens of children, came across the Allenby Bridge from Jordan after being stranded on the Libyan-Egyptian border for three weeks. They were among about 1,500 Palestinians deported by Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi to embarrass the PLO for making peace with Israel.
Gadhafi began the deportations last month, apparently to punish the PLO for making no provision in its agreements with Israel for Palestinians who fled the Jewish state after it was created in 1948.
Sami Rass, who worked as a mechanic in Libya for 17 years, said he, his wife and four children left Libya on Sept. 9 and lived in the
"Gadhafi has destroyed our lives. We just have to start our lives again"
Sami Rass
Sami Rase Palestinian deported from Libya
desert between Libya and Egypt for more than three weeks. They were finally given permission on Saturday to cross into Gaza via the West Bank.
Rass said he left Libya after police came to his job, confiscated his work permit and ordered him out of the country.
"Gadhafi has destroyed our lives. We just have to start our lives again," Rass said, looking weary and unshaven.
The Palestinians who arrived yesterday all had valid permits to live in Gaza, Israeli authorities said. Israel has not allowed 44 other Palestinians expelled from Libya to cross into the Gaza Strip because they don't have papers.
"We were expecting ... that the Libyan government will support us by all means and support our rights to enable us to continue our struggle to build our homeland," Abu Dagga said in a statement yesterday.
The 44 have been stuck at the Rafah border crossing with Egypt for more than two weeks. Ibrahim Abu Dagga, a human rights adviser to PLO leader Yasser Arafat, condemned the deportations as strange and unhumanitarian.
The statement, which also condemned international sanctions against Libya and Israel's closure of the occupied territories, urged humanitarian organizations, world leaders and all friends to help stop the deportations.
Orabi Ismaeel, a 24-year-old university student who came across the Allenby Bridge yesterday, said he left Libya without completing his degree in business administration.
"I went to Libya thinking I will find a better situation and a better future, but all my dreams fell through." he said.
Ismael said he was cheered by the prospect of returning to a Gaza Strip that came under Palestinian self-rule a year ago.
"When I left Gaza three years ago it was full of Israeli soldiers, but now I will come back with Gaza full of Palestinian police," he said.
Debtors hurt UN Europeans say
The Associated Press
UNITED NATIONS — European countries appealed to the United States and other debtors to pay their U.N. dues, saying the cash squeeze is threatening the world body's mission to end war and help the poor.
"It is a paradox that those criticizing the United Nations for a lack of efficiency are often those who do not honor their financial obligations," said Danish Foreign Minister Niels Helveg Petersen Tuesday during the annual General Assembly debate.
Spanish Foreign Minister Javier Solana, speaking for the 15-nation European Community, urged assembly members to work out measures to improve U.N. finances.
"They are holding the organization hostage," he told the 185-nation gathering.
None of the speakers named the United States, but the references were clear. The United States, which is leading the push for money-saving U.N. reforms, is the biggest debtor. It owes about $1.6 billion.
Canada credited the United Nations with successful peacekeep-
missions in Cambodia, Mozambique and Haiti, protecting millions of children from polio and helping more than 23 million refugees.
But Foreign Minister Andre Ouellet warned the sprawling organization to marshal its resources more effectively and practice financial discipline.
"International organizations must respect the same pressures as domestic governments," he said.
Russia's foreign minister broadly criticized the U.N. peacekeeping mission in former Yugoslavia, where Moscow traditionally has sympathized with the Serbs.
"Justice without force is powerless, while force without justice is tyrannical," Andrei V. Kozyrev said on the second day of the assembly debate.
U. N. Secretary-General Boutros-Boutros-Ghali said the main problem was the risk that trouble spots might be ignored because of the organization's cash crisis.
"It is making the United Nations renounce, purely for accounting reasons, actions that would be politically desirable," the U.N. chief told Security Council foreign ministers gathered to mark the world body's 50th anniversary.
Corporate boards have more women, study says
The Associated Press
NEW YORK — More than four out of five of the nation's largest companies now have at least one woman on their corporate boards, according to a survey released yesterday.
ber. That is an 18 percent increase from 141 last year.
Data from Catalyst, a nonprofit consulting and research group, said the portion of Fortune 500 companies with a woman director stood at 81 percent, up from 75 percent a year ago and 69 percent in 1993.
Also according to the 1995 research, one-third, or 166 of the nation's top 50 companies, have more than one female board mem-
At the same time, only 9.5 percent of the 6,274 occupied board seats are occupied by women. That was, however, up from 8.7 percent last year and 8.3 percent in 1993.
The 1983 survey was the first since 1777, when only 46 women held seats on the boards of the top American companies.
"America's leading companies know it's time to move beyond a quota of one woman," said John Bryan, chairman and chief executive of Sara Lee Corp. and chairman of Catalyst's board of directors.
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