UNIVERSITY DAILY KANSAN
Thursday. December 5.1996
7A
Guatemalans sign peace accord in Norway
Other treaties will be signed by month's end
The Associated Press
ESQUIPULAS, Guatemala After 36 years of fighting and 140,000 deaths, Guatemala's adversaries signed a truce yesterday in Central America's last and longest civil war.
Here in the birthplace of the peace process, residents lit candles, prayed and rejoiced at news of the signing in Oslo, Norway.
As dawn arrived at the whitewashed Basilica of the Black Christ, Benedictine monks in flowing brown robes chanted Vespers before a 3-foot cedar carving of Jesus on a cross.
"He who taketh away the sins of the world, grant us the peace," the monks intoned as worshipers on rough-hewn wooden benches cupped rosaries and glowing white candles.
"What a beautiful year we will have next year for those of us who were not born when the war started," she said. "But we must also remember those who dreamed of peace, but never got to see the day it came."
At a ceremony in Oslo City Hall, Guatemalan Indian Rigoberta Menchu said the dream she had when accepting her Nobel Peace Prize in the same building in 1992 was coming true.
Two more accords remain to be
beautiful year we will have next year for those of us who were not born when the war started. "
Rigoberta Menchu
1992 Nobel Peace Prize winner
signed — one today in Stockholm, Sweden, on constitutional and electoral reforms and another Dec. 9 in Madrid, Spain, on reintegrating soldiers — before the final treaty is signed in Guatemala City on Dec. 29. Key issues, such as amnesty for soldiers and rebels, still remain.
The sides picked Oslo for one of the signings because Norwegian church groups brought them together for a breakthrough meeting there in 1990.
The former enemies signed the cease-fire in pairs today, then embraced in front of 1,000 people.
"With this agreement we sign today, the weapons will be silenced forever," rebel commander Rolando Moran said. "Today is a joyous day for Guatemalans."
About 50 special guests from Guatemala attended the ceremony
in Oslo, including war widows, military officers and Indians, the group that suffered most in the war.
Under the eight-page agreement, both sides accepted a cease-fire that has been in force since March, as well as buffer zones around their troops.
The treaty calls for demobilization to begin in six weeks and completed in 12 days, with rebels surrendering their arms to the United Nations.
In Esquipulas, many gave credit for the peace to Pope John Paul II's February pilgrimage to this mountain town.
"The pope's presence here undoubtedly helped the people of Guatemala, those who wanted to talk peace," said Abbot Gregorio Robeau Carmouch, a caretaker of
the Basilica of the Black Christ "We are so happv."
Many of the war dead were impoverished Indians from highland communities terrorized by scorched-earth campaigns in the 1980s that saw hundreds of villages razed, their residents massacred.
"The 1980s were terrible," said Darwin Flores, a 30-year-old Guatemalan who fled the war to the United States seven years ago. "There wasn't any security, and the guerrillas came down from the mountains to attack."
Israel Lopez de Leon, a resident of Guatemala City, 75 miles to the west, said he hoped the peace would hold.
"But peace is something you have to have in your heart," he said. "Not just on paper."
Guard charged in death of Palestinian detainee
Prisoner shot with 13 bullets
The Associated Press
JERICHO, West Bank — A jail guard has been arrested and faces charges for allegedly shooting and killing a Palestinian detainee who had been held for almost two years without trial.
The victim, Rashid Fityani, was the 10th Palestinian detainee killed by Yasser Arafat's security forces since the start of self-rule in the West Bank and Gaza Strip in May 1994.
Fityani, 25, was killed late Tuesday, said the head of the Palestinian
ian Human Rights Monitoring Groun. Bassem Eid.
Fityan's mother, Suhaila, said police told her that her son had struck a guard after the guard had insulted him. Police told her the guard shot and killed her son.
Israel's Channel 2 reported yesterday that Fitzanai was hit by 13 bullets at close range. It did not cite its sources.
Jibril Rajoub, Arafat's West Bank security chief, said the guard had been arrested and would be charged. The name of the guard was not available.
Fityan's body remained at Jericho Hospital yesterday. Police barred Fityan's lawyer, Khader Shakirat, and journalists from entering the facility. Shakirat
demanded a full investigation and a cov of the autopsy.
The human rights group Amnesty International said this week that Arafat's government had engaged in systematic human rights violations, including the mistreatment of detainees.
Fityani was arrested Jan. 17, 1995, along with six other Palestinians on suspicion that they killed an activist of the Muslim militant group Hamas in July 1994 in Aqabat Jaber, a refugee camp near Jericho.
One of the suspects, Suleiman Jalaita, died in custody within hours of the arrest, and human rights activists accused Palestinian police of torturing the man to death.
Algerian militant network suspect in Paris bombing
The Associated Press
PARIS — Clue by clue, a shadowy network of Algerian militants emerged yesterday as the prime suspects in a deadly Paris subway bombing.
A gas canister. Black powder. Nails to cut flesh. All were hallmarks of a wave of bombings last year claimed by Algeria's Armed Islamic Group. All were present at the scene of Tuesday's attack, which killed two people and seriously wounded 35.
The black powder mix was the same. So was the timing and the target: evening rush hour on a train line shuttling thousands of suburbanites to and from Paris.
And, investigators note, despite dozens of arrests and 14 months of peace, an Algerian thought to be a ringleader of the 1995 bombing wave remains at large.
Premier Alain Juppe told lawnmakers that the bombing shared great similarities with those of the summer of 1995, when eight people were killed and 160 were wounded.
Killed in Tuesday's attack were Lucien Devambez, a 41-year-old Frenchman, and an unidentified Canadian woman, French radio reported.
Rabah Kebir of the Islamic Salvation Front — Algeria's banned opposition movement — condemned the bombing last night, saying it didn't serve the Algerian cause.
But judicial sources said the powder that filled a gas canister contained the same explosive mix that was used in the 1995 attacks.
The canister, hidden in a bag packed with nails, was tucked under a seat in the fourth car of the train. It exploded as the doors shut before departure.
The Port Royal station is just two
stops up the line from the site of the July 1995 bombing at St. Michel, the first and most deadly in the wave of attacks that put France on edge for months.
Hundreds of police and soldiers armed with assault rifles were deployed in airports, train stations, subways and high-risk areas from Paris to Marseille.
France closed some border crossings with Belgium, Germany and Luxembourg, and said it was temporarily suspending participation in the accords that opened borders across much of Europe.
Investigators, who kept the Port Royal station sealed yesterday, were examining all hypotheses, including Basque, Corsican and Moroccan connections. More than 30 Moroccans are to go on trial Monday for trying to destabilize the North African monarchy.
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