University of South Carolina Libraries
CAST TIMOR URISIS U.N. prepares evacuations in East Timor by John Martinkus Associated Press Diu, Indonesia —The United Nations prepared to evacuate all but a skeleton staff from East Timor amid allegations by the Roman Catholic Church today that anti-independence militiamen massacred nuns, priests and civilians. Keeping the U.N. compound in Dili open is vital to the world body’s plans to shepherd East Timor to full nationhood after its people voted overwhelmingly on Aug. 30 for independence from Indone sia. The Vatican’s missionary news ser vice FIDES cited local sources as saying three priests were slain in a grenade at tack in Suai on Sept. 6. One of the three priests, the Rev. Hilario Madeira, was well-known as an independence backer, FIDES said. FIDES also said witnesses reported that 15 priests were killed in Dili and Bau cau and some nuns were killed in Bau cau. The Roman Catholic charity group, Caritas, cited reports that the director of its East Timor operations, Father Fran cisco Barreto, had been killed by army backed militiamen in Dare. Other Cari tas workers were also feared dead. “Wfe will eventually know their fate,” Caritas Australia spokeswoman Ann Wig glesworth told Sky News television. East Timor is a predominately Roman Catholic province in mostly Muslim In donesia, where religious violence has killed hundreds. Taur Matan Ruak, the field com mander of pro-independence guerrillas, told Portuguese state radio RDP that mili tias killed at least 32 civilians, including two children, in a wave of attacks Wednes day. In the Indonesian capital, Jakarta, For eign Minister Ali Alatas met a high-lev el U.N. delegation, but again rejected de mands for U.N. peacekeeper. He admitted that rogue elements in the army were tak ing part in the violence, but said they would be brought under control. President B.J. Habibie was buffeted by reports that the military had encroached on his powers, sending the stock market and currency into a nose-dive. In Dili, an Australian air force C-130 transport plane flew in supplies this morn ing for the U.N. compound. Telephone services and water supplies were also re stored to the compound. U.N. officials said about 40 to 50 U.N. staff, including police and military liai son officers, will stay behind when an other 150 U.N. international workers and 167 local staff members are evacuated Friday by the Australian air force. In a statement, U.N. mission chief Ian Martin said the security situation had im proved but was still dangerous in Dili to day. “The state of the city is a disgrace with significant numbers of militia members still roaming the streets with impunity,” he said. “Dili is a ghost town with not very much left to loot.” Witnesses at the U.N. compound said shots echoed nearby at sunset. Army per sonnel had also lit fires near its perime ter and several stun grenades had been set off. The United Nations is scrambling to I find ways to protect several hundred pan ic-stricken refugees who had streamed into the compound over the last few days. Indonesian soldiers Wednesday night opened fire on about 300 refugees who' had fled from a school next door to the Indonesia see page 6 -1 An archipelago in dire straits Relations between Indonesia and Australia have hit a low as Indonesian protestors, angered by Australia’s policy in the bloodied East Timor territory, stormed its embassy compound in Jakarta Wednesday and burned the Australian flag. Area of I Brad Walters Graphics editor Sex offender attempts to surrender, turned away Associated Press Glenolden, Pa. — A man tried to sur render on a parole violation days before he strangled a woman and raped a 13 year-old girl, but was turned away be cause of an error, police said. Gerald Bennett, 30, walked into the police station in Glenolden on Aug. 26 and said he wanted to surrender, Police Chief Edward Cooke said. He was ar rested hours after the Sept. 1 killing of Roxanne Carol Leidy and rape of the teen-ager. Cooke said an officer called a national crime database and verified that a bench warrant had been issued but was unable to confirm the warrant with Delaware County prison officials and told Bennett to go home. A constable who was called to take Bennett to prison confirmed the warrant with prison officials a few minutes later, but when he arrived at the police station, Bennett was gone. “This is absolutely devastating,” said Leidy’s brother, Christopher Miller. “How could they just let him go?” Court records show a bench warrant was issued for Bennett on July 21 at the request of his probation officer. He had failed to show up for meetings with the officer and for sex-offender treatment classes that were conditions of his pro bation on a 1997 rape conviction. Cooke said Bennett did not offer any specific reason for turning himself in. “He was just very business-like,” Cooke said Thursday. “He just came in because the probation officer uiged him to sur render.” Patrick L. Meehan, Delaware Coun ty district attorney, attributed confu sion over the warrant to “miscommuni cation at the prison end.” Still, he wanted to know why Ben nett was let go at a time when an active warrant was out for his arrest. “This was a problem that should not have occurred,” he said. “Where was the breakdown? And how can the sys tem be changed so that this doesn’t happen again?” Prison Board Chairman Charles P. Sexton Jr. said the prison would inves tigate and report to Meehan. He declined further comment. Cooke defended his officers, saying they followed proper procedures and, under the circumstances, couldn’t have acted differently. “It’s very easy in hindsight to say, if he had been in custody, then the murder wouldn’t have happened,” Cooke said. Teen pleads guilty in slaying of teacher Associated Press Erie, Pa.—A 15-year-old accused of shooting a middle school teacher to death at a dance has agreed to plead guilty to third-degree murder, The Morning News of Erie reported today. The plea would spare Andrew Wurst the possibility of a mandatory life sentence in the death of science teacher John Gillette, according to the Morning News, which cited uniden tified courthouse sources. Erie County President Judge Michael Palmisano con firmed today that a possible plea would be discussed at a hear ing today. He would not give details. The hearing had been already set to review the status of the case. “It’s worked out but it’s delicate,” Palmisano said. “We want to make sure it works out.” Telephone calls to the district attorney’s office and Wurst’s defense attorney were not immediately returned. Gillette, 48, was killed in April 1998 at a James W. Park er Middle School graduation dance at a banquet hall in Ed inboro. Two students were wounded It was one of a series of school-related shootings that shocked the nation that spring. The teen’s lawyers have not disputed that he fired the shots, but they have said he is insane. The boy was 14 and in the eighth grade at the time of the shootings. The trial had been scheduled to begin next month. Besides agreeing to plead guilty to third-degree murder, an unpremeditated killing with malice, the teen-ager also has agreed to plead guilty to several other changes, including at tempted homicide and aggravated assault, the newspaper said A third-degree murder conviction carries a maximum sen tence of 20 to 40 years. Guilty pleas to other charges likely would add several decades to a potential sentence. Wurst has been held in the Erie County Jail since the shooting, except for a few weeks last fall when he was sent to a state hospital for a psychiatric evaluation. CIA wary of ballistic missile capabilites in developing nations by Robert Burns Associated Press Washington — Over the next 15 years, North Korea and Iran are likely to de velop missiles potentially capable of killing millions of Americans, the CIA said Thurs day. In an intelligence report with major implications for the Pentagon’s efforts to develop defenses against ballistic mis siles, the CIA said Iraq posed an addi tional — though somewhat more distant — threat. It said it was questionable whether Iraq could test a missile with enough range to reach the United States before 2015, although the likeli hood depends heavily on how much for eign assistance Iraq gets. The report characterized the prospect of North Korea acquiring a long-range . missile by 2015 as “riiost likely,” Iran’s prospect was judged to be “probable” and Iraq was labeled a “possible” threat. These emerging missile forces “poten tinllu onn l/ill fnnr of tlvAiirnn/lr or mion millions, of Americans,” depending on their accuracy and whether they are armed with nuclear, chemical or biological war heads, it said. The United States has no means of shooting down long-range ballistic mis siles, although the Pentagon is spending billions of dollars to develop anti-missile missiles to shield the United States against a limited attack. Russia already has about 1,000 long range missiles with about 4,500 nuclear warheads. China has about 20 missiles capable of reaching the United States. The CIA report said short-range ballis tic missiles, such as Iran’s Shahab-3 and North Korea’s No Dong, pose an “im mediate, serious and growing threat to U.S. forces, interests and allies” in the Middle East and Asia. Those missiles do not have the range to reach U.S. soil. The report also said the countries de veloping ballistic missiles also are prob ably working on “countermeasures,” or ways of enabling their missiles to over come U.S. defenses. Russia and China, which already have developed numer ous countermeasures, probably are will ing to sell these technologies, it said. The report is a summary of a classi fied National Intelligence Estimate, the first the CIA has done on ballistic mis sile threats since 1995. In an October 1998 update of its assessment, the CIA told Congress that the United States was facing a growing threat from the spread of ballistic missiles. The report released Thursday por trayed the threat from North Korea, Iran and Iraq as somewhat less immediate than did the bipartisan Rumsfeld Commission, which told Congress in a July 1998 re port that North Korea and Iran could field a missile capable of striking U.S. territo ry in as little as five years. The Rumsfeld Commission also con cluded that the CIA’s ability to provide timely and accurate estimates of ballis *.* _:__*. _ *i_t t •*_ j _ uv iiiioont uiiuuo iu Jiaito is eroding, and that warning times are be ing reduced. A senior U.S. intelligence official said ■Thursday the CIA has changed the way it assesses missile threats. Reflecting its Cold War-era practice, the CIA used to wait until a country deployed a missile for the first time before declaring it a threat. Now it will declare a threat as soon as a country successfully test-launch es a missile, the official said. He discussed the new report on condition he not be identified. He said intelligence analysts expect North Korea to flight-test its Taepo Dong 2 missile this year unless the North Ko reans decide to heed U.S. warnings against such a test. The issue is high on the agen da of talks between the North and the United States that opened Tuesday in Berlin. The CIA believes the Taepo Dong 2 is designed to carry a nuclear weapon, although it may be tested initially as an unarmed space launch vehicle. It is not known for certain whether North Korea has a nuclear weapon. German capital returns to Berlin Associated press Berlin — At the first session since its historic re turn to Berlin, parliament marked its 50th an niversary Tuesday with praise for Germany’s post war transformation — as well as warnings that the democratic values being celebrated have yet to take firm root in the formerly communist east. Dismay over neo-Nazi stirrings in the down trodden east, as reflected by a far-right party’s suc cess in recent state elections, tempered the tone of the ceremony in the century-old Reichstag build ing, newly restored and back in use after decades of Cold War neglect. Speakers reiterated that the government’s return to Berlin — seat of Nazi terror and Prussian mili tarism — would not change postwar Germany’s commitment to peace ;\nd democracy. Yet several also expressed alarm about the far right’s growing appeal, especially among the young and disillusioned. “No new republic is starting here in Berlin,” said Rezzo Schlauch, parliamentary leader for the Greens party. “However, there are great challenges still be fore our society.” While values such as solidarity mid respect for human rights have had 50 years to develop in the west, the east was subjected after World War II to a second totaliuirimi system that it shook off only 10 years ago, noted the parliament's president, Wolf gang Thierse, a former East German dissident. Since then, unification itself created social mid economic turmoil that is still being felt, he added. “The democratization of West Germany since 1949 went with growing prosperity mid gradual full employment,” Thierse said in his opening address. “In East Germany, great unemployment has reigned for the past 10 years. “So it would therefore be too much probably to expect the same excitement for democracy from the east Germans that has grown over 50 years in west Germany. Here, the parliament must first prove itself.” Tire extreme-right German People’s Union came from nowhere to take 12 percent of the vote last year in Saxony-Anhalt, blaming foreigners for most of the depressed eastern stale’s woes. On Sunday, the party also squeaked into the legislature for the first time in the eastern state of Brandenburg, the Prussian heartland which surrounds Berlin. Analysis say it could also win scats in the Thuringia parliament during stale elections next Sunday, us ing money from a wealthy Bavarian publisher to spread its xenophobic message. The party — denounced by mainstream politi cimis as antidemocratic — has nevertheless been able to capitalize on disenchantment in the east — especially among young males — with the changes since unification. The wrenching switch to capitalism resulted in mass layoffs and factory closings: Figures released Tuesday put the jobless rate in the east for August at 17.6 percent — more than twice the western rate of 8.5 percent. BeRUN see pace 6 'No new republic is starting here in Berlin. However, there are great chal lenges still before our society.’ Rezzo Schlauch Parlimentary leader, Greens Party World Briefs ■ Arsenic spill prompts swimming warning, mussel ban Perth, Australia (AP) — Residents were warned not to swim off some beach es in this western Australian city on Thuis day after nearly 2,000 pounds of arsenic was flushed into a waterway. Authorities also banned the sale and harvest of local mussels as a precaution after the presence of arsenic was discov ered. The deadly poison was emptied in to storm drains leading to the Cockbum Sound over the past six weeks during de commissioning work at an ammonia fac tory, the Department of Environmental Protection said. The factory’s owner informed au thorities of the spill on Wednesday. Tests were to be conducted on the water, crabs,' fish and other marine life. Officials said that although levels of contamination were likely to be low, even small traces or arsenic could cause nausea. Perth, West Australia’s state capital, is located about 1,550 miles west of Syd ney. ■ NASA changes space flight schedule Cape Canaveral, Fla. (AP) — NASA is flipping its next two space shuttle flights . by placing a trip to the Hubble Space Tele scope ahead of an Earth-mapping mis sion. Discovery will fly at the end of Oc tober followed by Endeavour in No vember, pending the outcome of ongo ing wiring inspections, NASA said Thursday. The shuttle fleet has been virtually grounded because of damaged wires. The problem popped up during the last launch in July, when an exposed wire caused a short-circuit that knocked out two of Co lumbia’s main engine computers. Endeavour was supposed to lift off in mid-September with a radar to map Birth's surface, followed by Discovery in mid October with crucial replacement pans for Hubble. Both missions were delayed, however, after inspections uncovered dozens of damaged wires in the two ships. Discovery’s liftoff is now taigeted for no earlier than Oct. 28. Endeavour, which requires more work, is tentatively sched uled to take off Nov. 19 at the earliest. ■ More airport workers arrested in drug sting j Miami (AP) — Fifteen airport workers were arrested Thursday on charges they 1 diverted cocaine-laden luggage around customs and into the hands of undercover agents posing as drug smugglers. The arrests, were the second major roundup of suspected drug smugglers at Miami International Airport. Seventy- J four people have been anested since Aug. 25. Undercover agents used fake cocaine in a yearlong sting operation. Ramp work ers, supervisors and others allegedly used their airport access to smuggle drugs in to the United States, U.S. Attorney Thomas E. Scott said Thursday. Surveillance photos and audio tapes showed workers removing luggage full of fake cocaine from planes, circumvented customs inspectors and handed off the luggage to the undercover agents. More than 115 pounds of fake co caine made it through Miami Interna tional Airport on eight different occasions between October 1997 and September ' 1999, Customs special agent Frank Figueroa said. Ihe lake cocaine was planted on flights from the Caribbean and South America. “The fact that real cocaine was not used does not matter,” Scott said. “These folks believed it was real cocaine and treated it as real cocaine.” He said the suspects chaiged the un dercover agents $2,000 per 2.2 pounds of cocaine. The 15 suspects were arrested at their homes early Thursday on chaiges including conspiracy to import cocaine into the United States, conspiracy to possess with intent to distribute cocaine and attempts to import and possess with the intent to distribute cocaine. Some of the suspects face up to 15 years, others face up to life in prison if convicted. Scott said the federal investigation was still underway and there could be more arrests. Fifty-nine people were indicted on federal drug and weapon smuggling con spiracy charges Aug. 25. Thirty were American Airlines baggage handlers ;md ground crew workers at Miami In ternational Airport. I 5*