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Wednesday, July 22, 1987
Around the World Guerrillas attack Mozambique; total death count climbs to 380
MAPUTO, Mozambique — Official media reports said yesterday that guerrillas fighting the Marxist government massacred as many as 380 people in a town 300 miles north of Maputo, the capital.
Radio Mozambique's station in Inhambane province quoted the district administrator, Eduardo Gimo, as saying the massacre occurred Saturday in the town of Homoeo and at least 155 bodies were removed by Sunday.
AIM's brief report gave few specifics but indicated that the townpeople were marched along and killed as they were walking.
Forty-nine people were reported wounded and hospitalized in nearby Inhambane City.
But AIM, the national news agency, said that on Tuesday the Inhambane province raised the death toll to 380, which included many elderly, women, children and patients at the Homoeine district hospital.
No immediate way to independently confirm the report was possible.
AIM said the slaughter was carried out by "South African-backed Mozambique National Resistance bandits." The Mozambique National Resistance is a guerrilla group fighting to overthrow Mozambique's Marxist government.
The radio quoted Gimo as saying the attack began at 5:45 a.m. Saturday.
The intruders were supplied inside Mozambique by South African aircrafts, AIM said. It said one shipment of supplies came to Chityeu, in Inhambane Province, on May 8.
AIM said there had been "massive infiltration of MNR armed bandits in southern Mozambique in the last two months." It said many came directly from South Africa, which borders Mozambique on the southwest.
South Africa says it stopped backing the guerrilla group in 1984 when it signed a non-aggression pact with Mozambique, but Mozambique insists South Africa still covers the rebels.
Around the Nation
Poindexter finishes Iran-contra testimony
WASHINGTON — With stinging congressional criticism of his actions still in the air, Adm. John M. Poindexter, former national security adviser, wound up his five days before the Iran-contra committees yesterday said he had told the truth. "I leave this hearing with my head held high.
"I have done my very best to promote the long-term national security interests of the United States."
The chairman of the Senate
committee, Daniel K. Inouye, D-Hawaii, said Poindexter had given the inquiry selected recollections.
"You decided not to tell the president because it would result in a political explosion," said the senator, listing others whom Point-dexter said he had not told: the director of the Central Intelligence Agency, members of the Cabinet, the secretaries of state and defense, and the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, the nation's highest military officer.
Poindexter will testify once more, this time in private, on classified matters.
Escorting of Kuwaiti tankers raises fears
The committees have today off, and the hearings resume tomorrow.
WASHINGTON — The Reagan administration, unable to enlist congressional support for escorting reflagged Kuwait tankers through the Persian Gulf, has taken steps to protect its military and diplomatic flanks against an Iranian attack.
Critics say U.S. aims in the Persian Gulf are as ill-defined and ambiguous as was the ill-fated mission of U.S. Marines in Lebanon in 1983 when 241 servicemen were killed from a terrorist bombing.
The fear cited by Capitol Hill critics, such as Rep. Les Aspin, D-Wis., chairman of the House Armed Services Committee, is that Iran will devise a devilish new way to embarrass "the Great Satan," possibly forcing the United States to curtail the naval presence it has established in the Gulf since the late 1940s.
Underlying the administration position is fear that Iranian pressure on Kuwait and other gulf Arab states could force them to curtail their aid to Iraq, which could cause Iraq to lose the war and establish Ayatollah Ruhullah Khomeini's revolutionary Muslim regime as dominant throughout the region.
At the United Nations, the administration won approval Monday from the other 14 members of the Security Council for a resolution demanding an end to the war, which Iraq began nearly eight years ago. After an estimated one million casualties, Iranian forces have advanced a few miles into Iraq.
Iranian President Sayyed Ali Khameen denounced the U.N. resolution as "not worth a penny," and Teheran Radio reported that Iranian Revolutionary Guards seized three Kuwaiti "spy boats" in the northern gulf and detained their crews.
Reagan asks Republicans to reiect trade bill
WASHINGTON — President Reagan launched a last-minute appeal to Republicans to reject the Senate's sweeping trade bill yesterday, declaring it would disrupt the global economy and boomerang against the United States.
The bill's floor manager, Sen. Lloyd Benton, D-Texas, reacted with sharp criticism of the administration. He said the partisan note injected into the trade debate before the vote disturbed him.
"So far, the signs point straight to a veto." Reagan said as the Senate prepared to vote on the 1,000-page package.
The administration's strategy appeared to aim at luring away Republican backing for the measure as a way of strengthening the administration's hand when the legislation goes to a House-Senate conference committee.
with Bentens and said the administration's appeal would be likely to drain away GOP support but not scuttle the bill.
Sen. John C. Danforth, R-Mo., one of the measure's supporters, appeared at a news conference
Reagan's remarks at a closed-door meeting were relayed by sookesman Marlin Fitzwater.
"Frankly, when all is said and done, it will be up to the Democratic leadership as to whether or not Congress sends me a bill that I must vet or puts together something I can accept," Reagan said.
ATLANTA — Air traffic control problems was at fault, not the pilots, two Delta Air Lines jets entered each other's airspace over Virginia, Federal Aviation Administration officials said yesterday.
Delta pilots absolved of close call by FAA
FAA spokesman Pete Nelson in New York said the airline was not to blame in the Virginia incident, in which two Delta jets came too close to each other Sunday evening while both were under FAA control.
In another close call in California over the weekend, Delta officials said the airline's pilots also acted properly.
In the California incident, Delta spokesman Bill Berry said, a single-engine Cessna came within a quarter-mile of a Delta Boeing 737 on its landing approach to Sacramento.
589, both bound for Dallas-Fort Worth, were instructed by a Washington controller to enter a holding pattern near Linden, Va., because of computer problems at the Atlanta air traffic control center. Nelson said.
Nation and World Postal Service, unions agree on wages
The FAA announced last week that it was reviewing Della's pilot training programs as a result of the recent incidents.
On Sunday, Delta Flights 4 and... From staff and wire reports
On Sunday, Delta Flights 47 and
WASHINGTON (AP) — The U.S. Postal Service and its two largest unions reached a tentative contract settlement yesterday, giving workers average wage increases of between $1,700 and $1,866 over the next 40 months.
The agreement followed a nightlong bargaining session. The union contract had expired at midnight Monday, but the 580,000 affected workers remained at their jobs as the talks continued.
joint news conference by Postmaster General Preston R. Tisch and Presidents Moe Biller of the American Postal Workers Union and Vincent R. Srombrotto of the National Association of Letter Carriers.
Postal strikes are banned by federal law, and a complex arbitration process could have followed had no agreement been forthcoming.
Biller said the agreement resulted in wage increases totaling about 7 percent over the 40 months, through an agreement with an immediate 2 percent increase.
The settlement was announced at a
In addition, the contract calls for annual increases of $250 in July 1988 and January 1989, $300 increases in July 1989 and January 1990, and a final $200 raise in July 1990. Currently, annual pay for postal clerks and letter carriers ranges from $20,094 to
Including about $5,000 in annual fringe benefits, the Postal Service estimates average compensation for workers in those groups at about $30,000.
$27,089, excluding benefits.
The Postal Service dropped its demand for an increase in the number of so-called casual workers, part-time employees that receive lower pay and benefits and are often used during periods of peak business.
The use of casuals had been a sticking point in the discussions, with the unions fighting to prevent any increase.
The Postal Service had offered the unions a menu of choices in which they could swap pay increases for allowing use of more casuals in an attempt to stay within its budget. The government proposal was based on anticipated income including a planned increase in stamp rates next year, raising first class postage from 22 cents to 25 cents.
Asked who won in the bargaining,
Sombrotto responded: "Everybody
won, especially the American public."
Tisch added, "We think it's a good contract for the United States Postal Service and the American people."
House leader criticizes highway proposal
TOPEKA (AP) — The Democratic leader of the Kansas House said yesterday that the Highway Task Force was preparing to recommend "a political work of shocking bloatedness, designed with seeming disregard for the public pocketbook."
State Rep. Marvin Barkis, House minority leader from Louisburg, said what began as a program to provide southeast Kansas with a modern highway had become "a barrel of pork."
"The combined costs of the current plan will cause the package to fail in the Legislature," Barkis said in a position paper his office said was mailed Monday to editors and news
directors.
Barkis said the plan should be scaled down to make it more affordable, and promised to continue promoting public debate until it was.
"Those who are committed to a highway package to address the economic needs of the state rather than the political needs of this administration should come up with a plan that is affordable — one that can be passed," he said.
units of government as well. What the task force is recommending does all three."
Press Secretary Kathy Peterson said, "What people have to remember in terms of the highway initiative is that new construction is only one of three components. You have to plan for maintenance and for aid to local
She said Barkis was "throwing up political opposition to every proposal on highways that has been suggested, including those discussed by the Legislature and this initiative from the task force."
The task force, which Hayden named in February, has decided what its recommendation would be for the agency to attend at the Capitol on Wednesday.
The proposal calls for $1.6 billion in new construction over eight years. Repayment of bonds, to be issued later, would add a $1 billion more
and raise the cost to taxpayers to over $3 billion if the plan is accepted by the Legislature.
Barkis isn't the only one criticizing the task force proposal.
Anthony Redwood of the University of Kansas, chief architect of an economic development plan prepared two years ago for the Legislature, told a legislative study committee Monday that he thought it was too ambitious and would siphon funding from other needs.
"We're talking about $1.6 billion with this highway construction plan, and the state has only put $3 million into other economic development programs.