6
Friday, September 24,1993
NATION/WORLD
UNIVERSITY DAILY KANSAN
Tolerance for Russian hard-liners weakens
The Associated Press
MOSCOW — President Boris Yeltsin called for early presidential elections next June as signs emerged yesterday of growing government impatience with hard-liners barricaded inside the parliament building.
Yeltsin ordered Interior Ministry police to "secure" public safety after accusing his political opponents of distributing dozens of automatic weapons to anti-Yeltsin demonstrators outside the Russian White House.
Late yesterday, unidentified gunmen tried to storm the Moscow headquarters of the commonwealth military command, killing one policeman and badly beating a second before being repulsed. A woman was killed by a stray bullet, Interfax news agency said.
Postfactum agency said the gunmen were hard-line army officers who support Russia's parliament. It was the first violent clash since
Yeltsin dissolved parliament on Tuesday.
Yeltsin's foes seemed increasingly desperate and isolated and were denied support by the people, the military and the international community after Yeltsin's decree Tuesday dissolving parliament. Lawmakers ordered the president to surrender to legitimate authorities or leave the country.
Deputies later convened parliament in defiance of Yeltsin and voted to confirm earlier decisions by the smaller standing legislature to impeach him and name Vice President Alexander Rutskiol acting president.
Yeltsin moved to seize sole control of the government after an 18-month struggle with lawmakers over how to reform the economy and over who should rule Russia: the president or parliament.
The political stalemate has paralyzed the government and crippled the economy. Fueled by fears of turmoil, the Russian ruler plunged 18 percent yesterday to a record low, trading for 1,299 rubles to the U.S. dollar.
More than 1,000 anti-Yeltsin demonstrators remained camped outside the parliament headquarters, known as the White House, for a third day. Small bands formed "self-defense units" and about a dozen carried assault rifles.
Russian TV described the atmosphere outside the White House late yesterday as "explosive."
Yeltsin warned lawmakers and their supporters that he would punish those ignoring his orders and those possessing weapons without permits.
"Dangerous weapons are falling into the hands of extremists, tramps, the mentally ill, criminals and mafia gangs, who have been gathering around the White House with the aim of getting uncontrolled weapons," presidential representative Anatoly Krasikov said in a statement issued on Yeltsin's behalf.
"This poses a serious danger to people's safety," he added. "The Interior Ministry has been given directions on the assumption of a need to secure the safety of citizens."
The Defense Ministry claimed the hard-liners were preparing to attack the ministry, but the improbable claim appeared to be a possible excuse to crack down on the anti-Yeltsin forces.
Yeltsin expressed hope Wednesday there would be no violence.
"We would not like and do not intend to use any force," he said. "We want everything to go peacefully, without blood."
But yesterday, Dmitry Ardamatsky, a member of Yeltsin's press service, said officials would not rule out the use of force to disarm Yeltsin's opponents.
Toreasure Russians that he is committed to democracy, Yeltsin yesterday called for presidential elections June 12, two years ahead of schedule.
U.N. officials fearful of renewed Serbian assault
The Associated Press
ZAGREB, Croatia — Croatias clinging to their last village in Serb-controlled land are in danger of being driven out or killed in retaliation for a brutal Croat attack, a U.N. official said yesterday.
U. N. civil affairs chief Cedric Thornberry made the report as tensions rose once more between Croats and Serbs — enemies in a 1991 war that left Croatia independent from former Yugoslavia but a third of its territory in Serb hands.
The Croatian government demanded Wednesday that 14,000 U.N. peacekeepers, whose mandate expires Sept. 30, pack up and leave in two months if they cannot guarantee Serb-held land will be returned.
In New York, U.N. Secretary-General Boutros Boutros-Ghali said yesterday that he had been tempted to recommend withdrawing U.N. troops from Croatia but said that would result in more conflict.
"I have been sorely tempted, in light of the criticism of (the U.N. forces) by both sides, and the dangers and abuse to which its personnel are exposed, to recommend the withdrawal of the force altogether. But I am conscious that such a step could only result in further conflict," Boutros-Ghali wrote.
The original six-month U.N. mandate has been extended three times, but a national consensus has formed among Croats that the U.N. presence has only helped the Serbs.
In a report released yesterday, Boutros-Ghali recommended that the U.N. peacekeepers remain in Croatia for another six months. He also said he would extend "air support" into Croatia to protect U.N. peacekeepers. He did not elaborate.
U. N. officials say the Croatian demand for a U.N. withdrawal appears to be a pressure tactic to wring concessions from the world body.
Fighting between Serbs and Croats largely ended in January 1992, and ethnic conflict moved to neighboring Bosnia last year. But warfare periodically erupts, and Thornberry said 117 ethnic Croats remaining in the village of Podlapaca were in danger of Serb retaliation for a Croatian attack Sept. 9.
"As we speak, Podlapaca is in danger of being ethnically cleansed," said Thornberry, civilian chief of
Republic told the villagers of Podlapaca they were no longer safe, he said.
Croatian forces withdrew from the region under international pressure, and U.N. peacekeepers moved in. They found the villages of Divoselo, Citlik and Poocitl wrecked and burned
U.S. peacekeeping force in the Kosovo war.
Officials of the self-proclaimed Serbian Krajina
The return of Serb corpses, many mutilated beyond recognition, was sending tensions spiraling. Thornberry said.
Thornberry visited Podlapaca, 24 miles northeast of Medak, Wednesday and said he found "panic has set in."
"They told me very clearly, 'We must go, it's the only thing that will give us peace of mind,'" he said. Most other Croats left the region during the war, leaving Podlapaca as the last sizable Croat settlement.
A beefed-up unit of Czech U.N. peacekeepers was patrolling Podlapaca round the clock, Thornberry said, but added that peacekeepers were faced with a dilemma that has become all too familiar.
"If you fail to support ethnic cleansing, you may sponsor murder and mayhem, you may cause the destruction you are actually trying to avoid," he said.
Runaway barge said to be cause of Amtrak disaster
The Associated Press
SARALAND, Ala. — An investigation into Amtrak's deadliest wreck focused yesterday on a tugboat operator who — 12 minutes before the crash — radioed to authorities that he was having a problem with a runaway barge.
The barge had struck a railroad trestle over the foggy backwaters of a bayon just before the train carrying more than 200 people plunged off it and exploded, killing at least 44. early Wednesday.
A giant crane stabilized the Sunset Limited coaches before divers resumed their search for bodies yesterday.
The body of a 5-year-old girl was found floating about 100 feet from the submerged car of the Los Angeles to Miami train, said one of the divers, Mark Lampkin of Orange Grove, Miss. At least two people were missing.
The tugboat pilot, Andrew Stabler, has been questioned by the FBI and his vessel impounded. The barges were moored a quarter mile from the crash site 10 miles north of Mobile.
Perkins said that Stabler radioed in at 3:06 a.m. Wednesday - 12 minutes before the train crash — that he had struck a bridge but mistakenly thought he had hit a span on the Mobile River. Instead, he was on Bayou Canot, one of several bayous, streams and creeks that feed into the river at its delta.
But U.S. Transportation Secretary Federico Pena told "CBS Morning News" that Perkins radioed only that a barge had come loose.
"Unfortunately, he did not indicate it had hit the support," Pena said.
The train's speed wasn't known, the speed limit on the bridge was 70 mph. It had just left the Mobile station.
Results of mandatory drug and alcohol tests given Stabler and three crewman were unavailable the Coast Guard said. $^{70}$
The barges — 193 feet long and 86 feet wide — were lashed two aside and filled with coal, cork and wood chips. Some apparently broke loose upon impact, and Stabler was trying to corral them in the fog.
"It is clear the barge did hit the bridge." Pena said.
Stabler, who lives 60 miles north of Mobile in Martinville, refused to answer questions without consulting his lawyer.
"I'd like to tell my side. People get things and turn them around," Stabler told The Associated Press.
At the crash site yesterday, a giant crane was used to keep the wreckage from slipping in the water, and a second was being positioned as divers groped through the clouds waters for bodies.
Lifting the wreckage out of the mud could take days, said Mobile County Sheriff Tom Purvis.
The lead locomotive, which carried the train's data recorder, was buried nose down in 15 feet of muck and 25 feet of water, investigators said.
One locomotive had exploded in a fireball, and a film of diesel fuel burned atop the water as bewildered passengers—many of whom had been sleeping in their reclining seats—scrambled to safety.
Most of the victims drowned and two died in the fire, state pathologist Gregory Wanger said.
"It was the most terrible sight I've ever seen," Gov. Jim Folsom Jr. said after touring the site.
Survivors were housed in a Mobile hotel until Amtrak could make emergency travel arrangements to send them on their journeys.
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