Thursday, October 21, 1999
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W O R L D | Thursday, October 21, 1999 |
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Wahid elected Indonesian President JAKARTA, Oct 20 — Ailing Muslim leader Abdurrahman Wahid today became Indonesia’s first elected President, beating the people’s favourite Megawati Sukarnoputri in a vote by the country’s supreme legislature.
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 JAKARTA : New Indonesian President Abdurrahman "Gus Dur" Wahid, centre, is surrounded by security and his staff as he emerges from the Indonesian Parliament in Jakarta after being elected in office on Wednesday. — AP/PTI Yeltsin meets top brass on Chechnya MOSCOW, Oct 20 — Russian President Boris Yeltsin, recovering from flu in his country residence, summoned top security officials today to discuss Moscow’s next move in the breakaway region of Chechnya, the Kremlin said. |
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Date for safe passage fixed Snap
presidential poll announced in Lanka Pressler
waiver to be used ‘prudently’ |
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Wahid elected Indonesian
President JAKARTA, Oct 20 — Ailing Muslim leader Abdurrahman Wahid today became Indonesia’s first elected President, beating the people’s favourite Megawati Sukarnoputri in a vote by the country’s supreme legislature. Mr Wahid, known as Gus Dur, said after his election that he and Ms Megawati, who had appeared early in the campaign to be a near certainty to win the presidency, would go out onto the streets to prevent unrest. Political analysts fear an eruption of violence countrywide if frustrated Megawati supporters vent their anger. A bomb blast earlier in the day wounded four Megawati supporters here. “I will travel with Megawati to cool the people,” Mr Wahid said immediately after winning the vote 373 votes to 313. Thousands of Megawati supporters, waving banners and wearing red party colours, had rallied in the Capital, anticipating she would win Indonesia’s first contested presidential election. Jakarta stocks plunged after Mr Wahid’s victory. Mr Wahid got victory when the former ruling Golkar Party, which came second to Ms Megawati’s party in parliamentary elections in June, switched its support to him. Golkar had hours earlier dumped President B.J. Habibie as its presidential candidate after he lost a confidence vote in the Assembly and withdrew from the race. A grim-faced Megawati said nothing as she stood next to Mr Wahid, a close friend, when he spoke. The Assembly is due to choose the country’s Vice-President tomorrow. There was no immediate indication whether Ms Megawati would seek that job or would be offered it. Mr Wahid, 59, is a near-blind cleric and political maverick who wields moral authority in the world’s largest Muslim nation. But his health is a major concern — he needed help to cast his vote in the people’s Consultative Assembly — and he takes the helm at a challenging time in Indonesian history. The country is racked by separatist conflict, economic crisis and corruption. Mr Wahid has enormous standing, his public appearances can draw vast crowds and he is respected by Muslims and non-Muslims alike. It was unclear how the 700-seat Assembly’s 11 factions allocated their votes, including an influential block of seats held by the military. One political analyst had said he expected the military, which controls 38 seats, to back Mr Wahid. Ms Megawati’s party won a parliamentary election in June but its 153 seats were not enough to ensure she won the presidency. Her apparent aloofness during the horse-trading that followed the June poll was said to have cost her support from other parties. The Assembly comprises the 500 members of Parliament and 200 appointed officials. Ms Megawati, daughter of Indonesia’s late founding President Sukarno, has huge grassroots support in Jakarta and among the urban poor countrywide. She was also favourite among investors. But some Muslim-leaning parties disliked the prospect of a woman as president. “If Mega’ isn’t president then we won’t leave here,” vowed one supporter, Komari, a labourer from one of Jakarta’s industrial satellite suburbs, said at a rally in central Jakarta. A bomb exploded amongst the crowd, injuring at least four Megawati supporters. “This is sabotage,” shouted one Megawati backer. “Someone has done this on purpose to make the situation unsafe.” Eleventh-hour candidate Yusril Isra Mahendra, another Muslim figure, pulled out of the presidential race at the last minute. — Reuters SINGAPORE: A senior U.S. government official said today the new Indonesian President Abdurrahman Wahid was clearly a man Washington could work with, although it needed to wait and see how the government shapes up. “This is a person clearly the USA can work with. We have to see how political process plays out in Indonesia itself...The next 24 hours are quite critical,” said Mr Stanley Roth, U.S. Assistant Secretary of State for East Asian and Pacific Affairs. Mr Roth said the new
President had been ‘’quite impressive in terms
of his breath of knowledge on the issues and intentions
towards the USA.” Roth said he had met the new
president, popularly known as Gus Dur, each time he
visited Indonesia. |
Yeltsin meets top brass on Chechnya MOSCOW, Oct 20 (Reuters) — Russian President Boris Yeltsin, recovering from flu in his country residence, summoned top security officials today to discuss Moscow’s next move in the breakaway region of Chechnya, the Kremlin said. The meeting took place as Prime Minister Vladimir Putin, riding a wave of popular support for the military campaign in Chechnya, flew to the troubled north caucasus region to discuss a refugee crisis and decorate war heroes, news agencies said. Russian troops have seized one-third of Chechnya and are waiting for a decision on whether they should merely consolidate their positions and prepare for winter or continue to advance deeper into the region. A Kremlin spokesman said Defence Minister Igor Sergeyev, Foreign Minister Igor Ivanov, Interior Minister Vladimir Rushailo, Foreign Intelligence and Domestic Security Service Chiefs attended the meeting. Bombs fell on suspected Islamic rebel positions in the settlement of Alkhan-Churt in the north of Grozny, Interfax said citing Russian military officials. Jets in the montainous south since yesterday destroyed a bridge and an anti-aricraft battery and mined roads. Russian troops also controlled all roads into Chenchnya from the republic of Georgia to the south, Russian RTR Television reported. Troops were holding positions as close as six kilometres from the city but Russian commanders have said there will be no storming of Grozny. Chechan forces were building defensive position round the city and evacuating organisations and institute, Russian defence officials said. Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin flew to the north Ossetian town of Mozdok on the border with Chechnya and inspected Russian combat units in the area. Russia has more or less painlessly seized northern Chechnya in the campaign formally aimed at defeating Islamic militants, who infiltrated a neighbouring southern Russian region last month and whom Moscow holds responsible for terrorist acts. The Chechens deny any involvement in recent bombings in Russia which killed nearly 300 persons, and they say Moscow’s military onslaught has been launched to end the region’s self-proclaimed independence. The Russian advance and daily bombing raids against Chechnya have triggered an exodus of nearly 1,60,000 refugees, which has put impoverished neighbours on the brink of a humanitarian catastrophe. The Russian military have said they will not stop until all separatist rebels are wiped out from the region, but they deny plans for a major ground operation in central and southern Chechnya, which can lead to big casualties. Mr Putin has vowed that he will not allow a repetition of the ill-fated 1994-96 war with Chechnya in which tens of thousands people were killed and Russia suffered a humiliating defeat. BEIJING: China today supported Russia’s attempt to crush fundamentalist forces in the breakaway Republic of Chechnya saying the region was an “integral” part of Russia. “Chechnya is an
integral part of the Russian federation. The moves by the
Russian government in its territory to fight against
terrorism, safeguard its national unity, sovereignty and
territorial integrity are absolutely Russia’s
internal affairs that no other country has the right to
interfere with,” Chinese Foreign Ministry
spokeswoman Zhang Qiyue said. |
Musharraf’s key men from ISI ISLAMABAD, Oct 20 —Pakistan’s Army ruler Gen Pervez Musharraf’s team to run the affairs of the country consists of cream of military intelligence officers, many of whom have an ISI background, it was reported today. One common characteristic of the group of key general officers currently at the helm of affairs is their vast experience of serving the military intelligence services, enabling them to function as military experts on civilian matters, English daily The News reported. It was the intelligence background of these top military officers which alerted General Musharraf, who has little experience on civilian affairs and had never served in any intelligence outfit, of the “covert moves” by ousted Premier Nawaz Sharif against him in league with former ISI chief Lt Gen K. Ziauddin, the daily said, quoting officials. It said that since General Musharraf had taken over as the Army Chief, Director-General of Military Intelligence (DGMI) Maj-Gen Ehsanullah had been playing a crucial role and it was the DGMI that gained knowledge of Lt. Gen Ziauddin’s moves. Lt-Gen Mahmood Ahmed, Commander of 10 Corps, who played the most crucial role in the army coup by directing his important 111 brigade to move into Islamabad and arrest Premier Sharif on October 12, is another close confidant of General Musharraf and a veteran from the DGMI. Lt-Gen Ahmed’s association with General Musharraf goes to almost 31 years and during his stint at the DGMI he had prepared an incisive report on corruption in Pakistan politics and the imminent economic collapse. Three other top military officers, who now form the nucleus of General Musharraf’s close advisers, have vast experience with the ISI and two of them are considered experts on Indian and Kashmir matters, the report said. Lt-Gen Mohammad Aziz, who holds the crucial post of Chief of General Staff (CGS) at the army headquarters and also played a crucial role by refusing to accept orders from Ziauddin when he was made Army Chief by Sharif, is a veteran of ISI operations. He had run the External Affairs Wing of the ISI for three years and is widely reputed as the Pakistan army’s “Kashmir expert”, the report said. Another ISI officer in
General Musharraf’s adviser’s team is Maj-Gen
Jamshed Gulzar, who is currently in temporary charge of
the ISI. He is the nominee of General Musharraf for this
crucial post till a full-time ISI chief is appointed.
— PTI |
Walking away from Pak won’t help: USA WASHINGTON, Oct 20 (PTI) — The USA will take “appropriate steps” to lead Pakistan’s new military ruler Gen Pervez Musharraf in the “right direction” and will hold discussions with India in this regard “in a way that will serve our purpose”, Assistant Secretary of State Karl F. Inderfurth has said. “We don’t want matters to get worse (in Pakistan).... we want to have some role in influencing the direction of General Musharraf in a way that will lead the things we want to see .... and we will be discussing it with Mr Brajesh Mishra, National Security Adviser, who will soon be in Washington, in a way that will serve our purpose,” Mr Inderfurth said yesterday. He said though the USA imposed more sanctions on Pakistan following the military coup in which Premier Nawaz Sharif’s democratically elected government was overthrown last week, “We will also be looking at other steps that will be appropriate in the situation”. “I think we have to recognise something that is very important to both the USA and India — the need to have a stable, democratic and prosperous Pakistan,” he said and “this is in Pakistan’s interest, the region’s interest, and the international community’s interest”. Referring to General Musharraf’s announcement of unilateral de-escalation of Pakistani forces on the international border, Mr Inderfurth said: “We encouraged him in our statement to go beyond that not only on the international border but also along the Line of Control.” “We will not be able to use our influence if we simply walk away from Pakistan. We don’t intend to walk away,” he said. Stating that the military takeover of Pakistan was a great concern to the USA, he hoped that the new army regime in Islamabad would soon set a timetable for the return of democracy. Addressing the fall meeting of the Indian American Forum for Political Education, co-sponsored by the US-India Business Council, the Indian CEO High Tech Council and the Confederation of Indian Industry, Mr Inderfurth said: “Pakistan is neither stable nor democratic nor prosperous. This should be a concern to us all.” Meanwhile, several leading Congressmen have introduced Bills in the House of Representatives seeking to prevent President Bill Clinton from using his newly acquired authority to resume US arms supply to Pakistan, particularly after its October 12 military coup. Republican Senator Sam Brownback, the author of the Bill which gave the President authority to waive sanctions, also joined in saying, that the sanctions against Pakistan should not be waived “under the current circumstances”. Ranking Democratic member on the House International Relations Committee Sam Gejdenson yesterday introduced a Bill opposing the military regime, and instructed the Administration not to resume normal relation with the country “until democracy is restored.” House International Relations Committee Chairman Benjamin Gilman accused the State Department of creating confusion among US friends and allies in Asia by promoting a “strategic partnership with China and by urging Congress to lift the arms sales embargo against Pakistan, a militaristic nation that spreads terrorism throughout South Asia.” Democratic Congressman Sherrod Brown joined his party colleague Frank Pallone in introducing a legislation to prevent the resumption of US military assistance to Pakistan. He also asked the
Clinton Administration not to dangle American F-16s
Fighter aircraft in front of Pakistani military ruler Gen
Pervez Musharraf in exchange for his half-hearted
commitment to step aside and restore democratic
government. |
Date for safe passage fixed RAMALLAH, Oct 20 (DPA) — The safe passage corridor linking the Gaza Strip with the southern West Bank will finally open next Monday, Sufian Abu Zaydeh, member of the Palestinian team which negotiated the issue, said today. The date of the opening was finalised after Israeli and Palestinian negotiators agreed late Tuesday night on the arrangements governing the movement of Palestinians through the 44-km passage. Mr Abu Zaydeh, Assistant Deputy Minister of Civil Affairs, said both sides agreed to implement the protocol for operating the safe passage, which was signed over three weeks ago, without any alterations. The opening of the corridor has already been delayed several times as the sides wrangled over last-minute details. The most recent date for the safe passage to begin operations was last Sunday, but Palestinians refused to open it and accused Israel of introducing new rules which they said violated the protocol. Hundreds of Palestinian
residents of Gaza have already received magnetic cards
which allow them to use the safe passage, after they
coordinate their time of trip with the Palestinian
Ministry of Civil Affairs. |
Snap presidential poll announced in Lanka COLOMBO, Oct 20 (PTI) — Seeking to overcome opposition challenge in Parliament, Sri Lankan President Chandrika Kumaratunga today announced mid-term presidential elections by mid-January, 10 months ahead of schedule. She would thus have parliamentary polls, scheduled for August 2000, held after the presidential elections which she hopes to win with a comfortable majority. Ms Chandrika, whose personality ratings were generally believed to be higher than that of her arch rival and Opposition United National Party (UNP) leader Ranil Wickramasinghe, issued a presidential proclamation warranting the Chief Election Commissioner to set the process in motion to hold the elections within eight weeks. Information Department Director Ariya Rubasinghe said the election chief would announce the election schedule for filing of nominations and the election date within three weeks. Political analysts said the victory in the presidential poll would enable Ms Kumaratunga to tide over the challenge likely to be posed by both the opposition UNP and ultra-Left Janta Vimukthi Perumuna (JVP) in the parliamentary elections. The UNP had so far frustrated all her attempts to implement a package of constitutional reforms granting autonomy to resolve the long-drawn ethnic conflict with the LTTE. Though Ms Kumaratunga blamed the UNP for the continuation of the ethnic war with the LTTE, the recent provincial council election to the seven Sinhalese-dominated regions in the south has proved that she lost substantial popularity among the minority Tamils and Muslims, who along with moderate sections among Sinhalese gave her a record victory of 62 per cent last time. Ms Kumaratunga’s
sweeping victory in November 1994 ended the 15-year rule
of the UNP. Promising peace, she rode on the crest of the
wave of resentment against the UNP for the human rights
excesses committed during late President R.
Premadasa’s regime and won an emphatic victory in
presidential and parliamentary elections. |
Deny refuge to terrorists: UN UNITED NATIONS, Oct 20 (PTI) — Expressing serious concern over international terrorism, the UN Security Council has asked the member states to deny safe haven to those who plan, finance or commit terrorist acts by arresting and prosecuting them or extraditing them. The council, in a resolution passed unanimously yesterday, also said that the member states before granting refugee status to asylum seekers should ensure that they had not indulged in any terrorist activities. It asked the member states to exchange information and cooperate with each other on administrative and judicial matters to prevent terrorist acts. They should also use all
lawful means to prevent and suppress in their territories
the planning and financing of any such acts. |
Pressler waiver to be used ‘prudently’ WASHINGTON, Oct 20 (PTI) — The Clinton administration has said the authority given to the President to waive the Pressler Amendment paving the way for reopening arms supply to Pakistan will be used “effectively and prudently and in consultation with the House and state”. Defending the administration’s decision, Assistant Secretary of State Karl F. Inderfurth yesterday said that legislation giving President Bill Clinton waiver authority over the Symington and Pressler sanctions “will give more flexibility in our pursuit of our agenda in South Asia, particularly with regard to non-proliferation.” He said the evolving
situation in Pakistan following the military coup was a
reminder about how quickly things could change in South
Asia. |
India, UAE to sign extradition treaty DUBAI, Oct 20 (PTI) — India and the United Arab Emirates (UAE) will sign the long-awaited extradition treaty this week, Indian Ambassador to the UAE K.C. Singh said here today. He said the agreement,
to be signed on October 26, would cover both new as well
as old legal and judicial cases related to the areas
covered by them. |
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| Reincarnation of Tibetan lama WELLINGTON: A seven-year-old New Zealand boy has been recognised as the reincarnation of a Tibetan high lama, a local Buddhist spokeswoman said today. The boy, born as Karma Kunsang, has been formally recognised by the head of the Karma Kagyu Tibetan Buddhist sect, said Ms Kate Hamblyn, spokeswoman for New Zealand’s Buddhist community. He had been renamed Karma Kunsang Thuten Dorje Lungtok Nyima Pal Sang Po Pong Re Rinpoche — and ranked below the Dalai Lama, Tibet’s supreme spiritual leader, she said. — Reuters Minister resigns Britannica on
Net French writer
dead Vatican’s
wartime role Japan’s
beaches Michael Douglas |
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