10A Monday, February 26, 1996 NATION/WORLD UNIVERSITY DAILY KANSAN Planes shot down by Cuba The Associated Press MIAMI — Cuban planes shot down two small aircraft Saturday belonging to an exile group flying off the coast of Havana, officials said. The U.S. Coast Guard and Navy have been searching international waters for four people who were on board the Brothers to the Rescue planes, said Coast Guard Lt. Cmdr. Mark Woodring. He said there were no signs of survivors. A third plane in the group returned safely to Miami. "Something very tragic, that we have dreaded for a long time, I believe happened today," said Jose Basulot, head of Brothers to the Rescue and the surviving pilot. President Clinton dispatched F-15 fighters to protect search-and-rescue operations. He demanded an immediate explanation from the Cuban government. Knight-Ridder Tribune Saturday, U.S. Customs Service questioned Basalt and three crew members at the group's headquarters at Ooa-Locka Airoort in Miami. It was not clear whether the three Cessna 337 Skymasters had flown over Cuban territory. Basulto said the three planes were in international waters. Basulto said he had given tapes of the pilots' conversations with Cuban authorities which showed they were 15 miles from the Havana coast. A Pentagon official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity, said indications suggested the planes may have been heading to Cuba to pick up people and fly them out of the country. White House representative Mary Ellen Glynn said the flight plans indicated no touchdown in Cuba. The planes would take off from Opa-Locka Airport, fly south and return. Pilots from Brothers to the Rescue dropped leaflets over Havana last July and again in January urging peaceful protest against the communist regime of President Fidel Castro. Basulo is under investigation by the Federal Aviation Administration for violating Cuban airspace previously. After the July 13 flyover, Castro warned that aircrafts violating Cuban airspace would be shot. The search area was in international seas, eight miles north of the 12 miles of water that Cuba claims as its own, said Coast Guard Petty Officer David French. The first Coast Guard jet on the scene reported seeing two oil slicks in the area. The Coast Guard was using a C-130 cargo plane, a helicopter and two cutters from Key West, about 90 miles north, in the search. On Satdays, Brothers to the Rescue flies to the Bahamas to drop supplies to refugees. The group of mostly older Cuban exiles also makes routine flights over the Straits of Florida, which separate Florida and Cuba, in search of rafters who have fled. Bahamian officials did not give permission for Saturday's mission because Cuban officials were visiting the refugee camps, Basuol said. Basulio identified the missing four people as Armando Alejandre, Mario de la Pena, Pablo Morales and Carlos Costas. A coalition of peaceful dissident organizations was scheduled to have a conference in Havana on Saturday, but it was postponed following the arrests of 50 members of human rights groups. Opposition leaders in Cuba said those detained were held up to 12 hours and then released. Jorge Mas Canosa, head of the Cuban American National Foundation, also condemned Saturday's attack. "For two war planes from the Castro government to shoot down two unarmed civilian planes with American flags on a humanitarian mission should be considered an act of war against the United States," he said. Until May 1995, the Brothers' mission was to find rafters and call the Coast Guard to rescue them. It now drops plastic-wrapped radios and warns the rafters of the new U.S. policy of returning them to Cuba. It also asks refugees if they want its pilots to call the Coast Guard. Clinton considers punishment for Cuba WASHINGTON — The Clinton administration said yesterday that Cuba's downing of two small planes flown by Cuban-Americans was "a violation of the norms of civilized behavior" and called on the United Nations to discuss punitive actions. Secretary of State Warren Christopher said the United States believed the planes were in international waters when they were shot down off the Cuban coast Saturday. He said President Clinton was considering a range of other options — which he did not identify — to show U.S. anger over the incident. The Associated Press "The actions they took yesterday were not justified under any circumstances," Christopher said at a White House news conference. The attack brought Cuban-American relations to the forefront just two weeks before Florida's crucial presidential primary, and GOP candidates and some in Congress sought to pressure the administration to impose tighter sanctions on the Fidel Castro government. "Instead of siding with Castro in opposing tougher sanctions, President Clinton should now voice his support for tightening the Cuban embargo," said presidential candidate Sen. Bob Dole, R-Kan. Dole's rival for the nomination, Pat Buchanan, said American Bill Clinton Congress last fall approved bills to moderately expand the 33-year-old trade embargo on Cuba. But the House and Senate remain divided on controversial new provisions included in the House bill but rejected by the Senate. fighter planes should patrol international waters off Cuba. The downing of the planes definitely changes the dynamics of what is going on, said Rep. Ieana Ros-Lehtinen, R-Fla. She predicted that the tougher House version would prevail. Israel mourns after bombings Two explosions leave streets covered in blood The Associated Press JERUSALEM — Shmuel Avital was just yards away when the No. 18 bus exploded yesterday. For the next seven minutes, the 22-year-old soldier helped carry bodies — living and dead — from the wreckage. Then he broke down. "Seven minutes. It is a lot of time. A lot of blood," he said as his two brothers comforted him at Jerusalem's Hadassah Hospital. When a second bomb exploded an hour later at a hitchhiking stop in the coastal town of Ashkelon, Yaron Levy, a 22-year-old locksmith, had just walked to a nearby telephone booth to call his girlfriend. "I saw a ball of fire and a huge explosion," Levy said. "I fell to the ground. I wasn't injured, but I was so scared I thought I was dead." The road was covered with blood, and one soldier was screaming, Levy said. The rest wereearly quiet. Police said 23 people were killed and 49 wounded in the Jerusalem explosion. At least two people were killed and 31 hurt in Ashkelon. On Sunday mornings, Israeli buses and hitchhiking posts are packed with soldiers returning to bases after spending the weekend at home. Israel's Channel Two television said the Ashkelon attack was carried out by a man disguised in an army uniform. The family of 20-year-old Oded Zedek, who rode the No. 18 bus Knight-Ridder Tribune to his army base in Jerusalem, grew worried when Oded didn't make his usual call home to say he had arrived. "Every day we are afraid something like this might happen," said his father, Shem Tov Zedek. "When he didn't call, and we heard about the attack, we knew." Oded's face, ears and lungs were injured in the blast. The explosion on the No. 18 bus blew off the roof, hurled passengers and body parts into the air and left the red bus a charred chassis of twisted metal. By last night, the shreds of metal and bloodstained clothing had been cleared away, and hundreds of memorial candles flickered in their place at the explosion site. Steve Lapides, who immigrated to Israel from Rochester, N.Y., nine years ago, was on a bus behind the No. 18 when there was an explosion "and the windshield caved in on us." "I didn't see anything, just suddenly — 'boom,' Lapides said from the emergency room at Hadassah Hospital, where he was treated for minor injuries. "I was lucky," he said. R.T. Enterprises Recycle your Daily Kansan SCHOLARSHIP REFERRELS MONEY FOR COLLEGE P.O. Box 527 Lawrence, Ka. 60644 voice mail 843-0043 #835 KU Recreation Center Referendum 1. KUID To VOTE, you must have your: 2. 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