NATION/WORLD UNIVERSITY DAILY KANSAN
Tuesday, September 26, 1995
5A
Bosnian leaders agree to continue talks
The Associated Press
SARAJEVO, Bosnia-Herzegovina — U.S. negotiators managed yesterday to salvage high-level Bosnian peace negotiations, wresting a last-minute promise from Bosnian government leaders that they would attend talks in New York.
The government had threatened to boycott the meeting today unless rebel Serbs in Bosnia pledged not to try to join with Serbia proper. But Prime Minister Haris Silajdzic said after emerging from a meeting with two U.S. envoyes that his side would attend after all.
U. S. envoy Roberts P. Owen and Christopher Hill had arrived from Belgrade, Yugoslavia, where they had met with Serbian leaders about the planned peace talks at the United Nations.
Hill called the meetings with Slajdzic and President Alija Izetbegovic very important, and he said that progress had been made.
A U.N. representative had warned yesterday that collapse of the talks could lead to heavy fighting, particularly in the Serb corridor in northeastern Bosnia linking rebel holdings to Serbia proper.
The Croatian army to the north and allied Bosnian Croat and Bosnian government forces to the south shelled the corridor on Sunday and could be preparing to cut the heavily defended corridor, said Lt. Col. Chris Vernon.
"They would have a very big fight on their
hands, but we believe that they will certainly wait out to see how the political process develops . . in New York," said Vernon.
Plans to boycott the talks, a follow-up to a meeting in Geneva on Sept. 8 among the foreign ministers of Bosnia, Croatia and Serbled Yugoslavia, were announced Sunday by Izetbegovic.
In Geneva, the warring parties agreed to divide Bosnia almost equally between the Muslim-Croat federation and a Bosnian Serb republic, while retaining Bosnian statehood within the republic's internationally recognized borders.
However, the document, while allowing the two entities to have special relations with their neighboring states — Croatia and
Serbia — rules out secession from Bosnia-
Herzegovina.
The Muslim-led Sarajevo government previously had demanded that the Serb military leadership in Banja Luka be removed and dialogue opened with moderate Serbs in the northern Bosnian Serb stronghold.
The government also demanded that Sarajevo's siege be lifted, including free movement for all civilians and full restoration of utilities. It further demanded a secure corridor linking the Bosnian capital with Gorazde, the government's only remaining eastern enclave.
Violence against civilians has been one of the hallmarks of the war, but it has grown more intense in recent months as sharp bat-
gruent shifts have sent Muslims, Croats and Serbs alike fleeing for safety.
Fighting continued Sunday in parts of Bosnia, but limited access by reporters and restrictions on U.N. peacekeepers made it difficult to assess front-line developments.
Bosnian state television reported that government forces advanced in the Ozren mountains, a 28-mile-long range east of Doboj, an important northern road and rail junction.
but reporters taken by the Bosnian military on a tour of part of the Ozren front line said they heard no more than a dozen artillery rounds in a five-hour period, and there was no indication the government was capturing territory.
Middle East pact meets resistance
The Associated Press
GAZA CITY, Gaza Strip — Under attack yesterday from hard-liners, Yasser Arafat defended a new peace agreement with Israel that would give him control of one-third of the West Bank as well as some of the trappings of statehood.
ANALYSIS
Dissent from Arafat's Cabinet members is unlikely, but Arafat faces a tough task selling the complex accord to his people, many of whom appeared indifferent or skeptical after months of delays.
Even some Arafat loyalists were openly critical yesterday. Mustafa Natche, mayor of the West Bank town of Hebron, was disappointed that the agreement permitted 450 Jewish settlers to stay in Hebron, home to 120,000 Palestinians.
SOURCE: News reports
KNIGHT-RIDDER TRIBUNF
Militant Jewish settlers, including those in Hebron, have vowed to try to scuttle the agreement, but settler reaction is not expected before sundown today, the end of the Jewish New Year holiday.
The Muslim militant group Hamas, a leading opponent of the peace talks, accused Arafat of selling out.
The agreement also was denounced by Libya and Iran. Syria said the agreement would be in Israel's favor and would damage peace efforts in the region. Syria's peace negotiations with Israel are deadlocked.
The accord is to be signed at the White House on Thursday, with Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak and Jordan's King Hussein attending.
The pact allows for Palestinian self-rule in 30 percent of the West Bank — containing most of its Arab population — after a step-by-step Israeli troop pullout from lands it has occupied since the 1967 Middle East war.
The troop withdrawal will clear
the way for Palestinians to elect an 82-member self-rule council with legislative and executive branches.
Asked yesterday whether the accord would lead to statehood, Arafat was evasive.
One of the immediate results of the agreement would be the release of hundreds of Palestinian detainees from Israeli jails this week.
The chief Palestinian prosecutor, Khaled Kidreh, said yesterday that at least 650 prisoners would be
freed Thursday, the day of the signing. Among them would be the 28 Palestinian women held by Israel.
A second group would be freed on the eve of Palestinian elections that are to be held sometime in the next six months.
However, the fate of 3,000 other Palestinian detainees has not been decided. The Palestinians want all prisoners released, but Israel said it would not grant early release to those convicted of killing Israelis.
Two Olathe teens die in high school feud
The Associated Press
OLATHE — Two teen-agers were killed and four others injured in a shooting rampage that apparently grew out of bad feelings after a high school football game.
Police yesterday were seeking the gunman in Sunday night's spree in a parking lot at Olathe North High School. Four teen-agers initially held as suspects were being treated as potential witnesses yesterday.
Dead were Wilson Montenegro, 15, an Olathe North sophomore, and Jerrell Frazier, 19, who was a resident of Olathe but not a student, police Lt. Joe Prueft said.
Ryan Sportnitz, 18, an Olathe North student, was in serious condition yesterday at Overland Park Regional Medical Center with a gunshot wound to the back. Johnny Bruce, 23, of Olathe, was in critical condition at the University of Kansas Medical Center after surgery Sunday night for a gunshot wound to the stomach.
Both were expected to live, Pruett said.
Both were expected to live, Pruen said. Two other male Olathe North students were treated for minor gunshot wounds and released.
Friends of the Olathe North victims said they had exchanged insults and fought with the Shawnee Mission North students after the game. They said they thought the Shawnee Mission students went to Olathe North on Sunday to continue the fight.
The shooting may have been the result of tension that started at Friday night's football game at Olathe North with Shawnee Mission North, Pruett said. He said police defused an ongoing disturbance between Olathe North and Shawnee Mission North groups by arresting two young men for being drunk and disorderly and carrying a concealed knife.
They were talking crap after the game, and they jumped some of us," said Nick Brummel, an Olathe North senior. "We got in a big fight, but I guess they didn't get enough then. They came back."
Olathe North had added several counselors to talk to students yesterday and began the day by making sure students had received correct information about what had happened, said Linda Booth, a representative for Olathe District Schools.
Forty to 50 people were involved in Sunday night's incident, Pruett said. One man fired a weapon, he said.
"Ninety-nine percent of those kids showed up there to verbally go back and forth, and maybe a few blows are made," Booth said. "I'd say the vast majority of those students had no thought or indication any of those students had a gun or would use a gun indiscriminately. Most of those kids were just there for a look."
She said the students involved in the fight didn't know what they were getting into.
Pruett said the case was being given to the Metro Squad, a group that combines detectives of several agencies in the Kansas City area.
Olathe North won the game, 31-6.
Stations scramble for Simpson trial
Despite the networks rush to air verdict decisions are on hold
The Associated Press
NEW YORK — Closing arguments in O.J. Simpson's murder trial pose no problem for cable networks already providing virtual gavel-to-gavel coverage. Broadcast networks, however, are girding for some of their trickiest coverage.
ABC, CBS and NBC plan to air live coverage at the start of legal summations, with the prosecution slated to begin its wrap-up about noon EDT tomorrow.
Cable's E! Entertainment, CNBC,
CNN and Court TV plan continuous
coverage of the extended court day, which opens at noon EDT and closes at 11 p.m. Once the jury withdraws to deliberate, they'll revert to regular scheduling until the verdict is in.
The three networks seem to oppose disrupting new primetime schedules. ABC can cover court action through "Night-
"We're going to go on the air Tuesday at the top with full coverage, then assess it the way we do any news story," O'Neil said. "If it sustains, we'll stay with it. If it doesn't, we'll go back to regular programming, with the possibility of interrupts and updates to keep people informed"
betting against the O.J. Simpson trial being interested," he said.
Looming behind closing arguments, of course, is the unpredictable news nature of the jury's deliberations. No one expects more than an hour's notice when jurors reach a verdict.
ABCs executive producer for special events, Terry O'Neil, and NBC's executive producer of news specials, David Bohrman, reached the same conclusions in their planning.
Lane Venardos CBS vice president for hard news and special events
"Still, you'd make a big mistake
line," "PrimeTime Live" and a Thursday night Peter Jennings special; NBC has multiple editions of "Datele NBC," and CBS has "48 Hours."
Still, genuine conflict exists between riveting live coverage and the ratings of new fall shows.
What drives the networks' decisions is straightforward, he said. "How compelling is this going to be? This could be the most interesting part of the trial. Or not," he said.
"Because our affiliates are rightly asking, we've told them how it begins, how it will work, and how they can integrate local stuff into ours, but we haven't told them how it ends, because we don't know," he said.
"It's going to be a real-time, seat-of-your-pants decision," said Lane Venardos, CBS vice president for hard news and special events.
That pretty much ensures that the network anchors, ABC's Peter Jennings, CBS' Dan Rather and NBC's Tom Brokaw, will report the story from New York City. The networks will be on permanent stand-by, with "hot" control rooms, satellite links, rented fiber-optic lines, engineers
and reporters ready to go on the air at a moment's notice.
"There are a limited number of satellites in the sky and fiber paths that exist," said Bohrman, who counted more than 100 video pathways out of Los Angeles for the news organizations covering the trial.
"All the networks have had to go ahead and order those up and turn those on," he said. "There would never be enough time to start from scratch."
It's an expensive wait, but no network would estimate the cost of deliberations.
"Andy Lack (NBC News president) clearly said it's going to be an important news coverage event for demonstrating how the TV news divisions work," Bohrman said. "We intend to be aggressive and better than anyone else."
Alfredo Arreguin, Sacrificio na Amazonia, 1988
Viva la Vida: Paintings by Alfredo Arreguin Monday, September 25 - Saturday, October 14, 1995
Kansas Union Gallery, Level 4 Kansas Union 10:00 am - 4:00 pm Monday thru Saturday 12:00pm-4:00 pm Sunday
Touring management for this exhibition is provided by Exhibit Touring Services (ETS), a program in the College of Fine Arts at Eastern Washington University. Partial funding for ETS is provided by Washington Commission for the Humanities and the Washington State Art Commission.
we buy, sell and trade clothing every day
734 Massachusetts-Downtown Lawrence-913-749-2377 open late thurs-fri-sat