Historical Newspapers of South Carolina

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Hit (Bamecoclt Serbian military reports incursions by Kosovo Albanians BY ALEKSANDAR Vasovic Associated Press BUJANOVAC, Yugoslavia — Atop Yugoslav army commander claimed Tues day that Kosovo Albanian militants launched more incursions into Serbia, but said the military wouldn’t intervene un less provoked. Yugoslavia’s new president, Vo jislav Kostunica, has demanded NATO live up to its commitment to stop ethnic Albanian attacks in southern Serbia that have killed at least five people. “There are conditions for this (cri sis) to be solved by peaceful means,” said Gen. Nebojsa Pavkovic, a Yugoslav army commander who visited his troops on the edge of a contested buffer zone between Kosovo and the rest of Serbia. Pavkovic alleged an additional 200 “terrorists” infiltrated into the buffer zone — where Serb police are allowed to pa trol with only light arms — from Koso vo in the last few days. “We won’t allow any provocations against the army, and the army has the right to respond to any attack or provo cation against it,” Pavkovic said. NATO-led peacekeepers moved in to Kosovo after the alliance bombed Yu goslavia to force former President Slo bodan Milosevic to stop a crackdown on ethnic Albanians. The peace deal that end ed the war created the three-mile-wide buffer zone between the Kosovo bound ary and Serbia proper. The area on the Serb side of the fron tier has a laige ethnic Albanian popula tion and militants demanding to join Koso vo, who Belgrade says works out of the province, have been attacking Serb forces. Last week, violence escalated as eth nic Albanian militants launched attacks into the buffer zone, capturing several strategic points in Serbia. The alliance said it had helped nego tiations between the militants and the Serb police. Flight Lt. Mark A. Whitty, a spokesman for NATO-led peacekeep ers in Kosovo said Tuesday that “both parties have agreed to an indefinite cease fire.” “We facilitated the discussion be tween the two groups,” he said. A key official in Yugoslavia’s new leadership, however, denied the govern ment negotiated a cease-fire with either NATO or the militants. “There have been no such talks,” said Nebojsa Covic, a deputy prime minister in Serbia’s gov ernment. “Such information is not true.” The reason for the discrepancy was not clear. Meanwhile, NATO took measures to prevent ethnic Albanians from crossing into the buffer zone, searching every per son and car traveling in the area. The incidents on Kosovo’s border Cast doubt on NATO’s ability to control Kosovo and also present a major crisis to Kostunica. He must defend the area with out provoking the same international con demnation that accompanied Milosevic’s crackdown. “It is not going to come to a war because we are fighting for peace,” Kos tunica said Monday as he toured the con tested region. “We respect all interna tional documents on Kosovo.” But he said it was imperative that NA TO block all ethnic Albanian extrem ists from penetrating the buffer zone. And the government continued bringing in re inforcements, including special anti terrorist units, in case diplomacy fails. More than 2,500 people, mostly eth nic Albanians, have trickled out of the troubled region since the crisis started. Elian Gonzalez’s father thanks Castro, Cubans for support by Anita Snow Associated Press HAVANA — A year after Elian Gon zalez was rescued in the Florida Straits, his Cuban father thanked Fidel Castro and the Cuban people for their help in getting the boy back this past summer and indicated the 6-year-old is doing well, “My family and I went through very difficult days because of the uncertainty of what was going to happen to our little Elian,” Gonzalez wrote in a letter pub lished Tuesday in the Communist Party daily Granma. Today, “I feel like an average Cuban who can watch his son laugh, play and learn freely,” Gonzalez wrote in the let ter dated Monday. Elian “as all other Cuban children, enjoys the security and immense well-being of living in this So cialist Revolution,” the letter said. Elian’s father wrote that when the battle for the child’s repatriation first be gan in December 1999, he and his fami ly “couldn’t even imagine then how much more we were going to suffer and how hard it was going to be to achieve his return. “After 12 months, seven of them a rough battle, we never felt alone,'our peo ple made the demand for Elian’s return theirs and that gave us the strength and human warmth we so needed,” Gonza lez continued. Gonzalez expressed his “eternal grat itude” to the Cuban people and Castro in particular for their support during the international custody battle for Elian that divided Cubans living on both sides of the straits. The fight began a year ago this week when the boat carrying Elian to the Unit ed States sank off the Florida coast, killing his mother and 10 others and casting him adrift on an innertube. One of only three survivors of the il legal crossing, Elian was rescued by two men on a fishing trip and taken to a Flori da hospital. American authorities granted tem porary custody to Elian’s distant relatives in Miami, who, backed by anti-Castro exiles, fought to keep him in the United States. Gonzalez, backed by Castro him self, fougnt to have the boy returned to Cuba. Gonzalez ultimately went to the Unit ed States to get his son back. Father and son were reunited after an armed feder al raid on the Miami relatives’ home fol lowing their refusal to deliver the boy to his dad The case went all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court before Gonzalez was able to return with his child to Cuba. Biotech company announces delays, restrictions for corn by Philip Brasher Associated Press WASHINGTON —A major biotech nology company says it will restrict sales next year of a type of gene-altered com and delay commercialization of an other variety until 2002 to avoid fur ther disruptions in U.S. grain exports. The moves announced Monday by the Monsanto Co. are meant to avoid re peating the problems encountered this fall when biotech com developed by one of its competitors, Aventis CropScience, appeared in the food supply without be ing approved for human consumption. U.S. com sales to Japan and other export markets have fallen sharply this fall since the discovery of the Aventis com, known as StarLink, in taco shells. “We can’t stop the development of this technology, but we are going to use restraint,” said Hendrik Verfaillie, Mon santo’s president and chief executive officer. The Environmental Protection Agency was holding a public meeting Tuesday on a request by Aventis to ap prove StarLink temporarily for food use to avoid further food recalls. StarLink is the only genetically en gineered crop not approved for hu man consumption. Federal regulators say there is little if any health risk from StarLink, although there are still unre solved questions about its potential to cause allergic reactions. A variety of corn developed by Monsanto to be resistant to the com pany’s popular Roundup weedkiller will be distributed for sale next year only to farmers in areas where grain is seldom sold for export, Verfaillie said. The com is approved for food use in both the Unit ed States and Japan but not in Europe. Traces of the com were found this fall in British-made tortilla chips. The second Monsanto com variety, which won’t be put on the market un til 2002, is toxic to an insect pest, the com rootworm. It is yet to be approved in either Japan or Europe. The actions announced Monday don’t affect Monsanto’s most popular gene-altered crops, which include Roundup-resistant soybeans and cotton and a variety of com that is toxic to an other pest, the European com borer. A representative of the National Com Growers Association, which is es pecially concerned about losing sales to Japan, praised Monsanto’s moves. “\\fe could not jeopardize our biggest com market by supporting the com mercialization” of a com variety that was not approved by that country, said Susan Keith, senior director of public policy for the growers’ group. Critics both inside and outside the biotech industry say StarLink, the only gene-altered crop not allowed in food, never should have been put on the mar ket without being approved for hu man consumption. StarLink was approved only for an imal feed or industrial use because of unresolved questions about its poten tial to cause allergic reactions. Aventis disclosed last week that a special protein in the StarLink com has also been found in a variety of com sold by Garst Seed Co. Aventis officials, who say they don’t know how the protein, known as Cry9C, got in the Garst com, met privately Monday with representatives from the Agriculture Department and other seed companies to discuss the problem. Monsanto’s surveys of farmers in dicate that sales of its biotech seeds could increase by 16 percent, even as other polling by the company indicates con sumer confidence in gene-altered crops is slipping, Verfaillie said. “The farmers want this technolo gy. If they had a free choice they would use it on the great majority of acres,” he said. $10 OFF ANY 3 DAY RENTAL 714-0089 739-2770 5317 Two Notch Rd 1017 Sunset Blvd Columbia West Columbia 7327775 • No credit card needed , B56;1,0/2 c. 7940 B'ca:R;Ver R1 • Locallv owned a onerated Lexinaton I ■ .. — - 1 a Celebration of S eroice... 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