The Baltimore Sun from Baltimore, Maryland • Page 101

The World The Sun Tuesday, June 3, 1997 Page 13a Guinea Foreign Digest Blair admits British blame for Irish potato famine Nigerian gunboats shell capital of Sierra Leone in bid to reverse coup i continued to allow food to be ex- ported from Ireland. I "The famine was a defining -event in the history of Ireland and of Britain. It has left deep scars," Blair said in his message, read Sat- urday at the festival by Irish actor Gabriel Byrne. "That 1 million people should have died in what was then part of the richest and most powerful na- tion in the world is something that still causes pain as we reflect on it today." The apology was front-page news in yesterday's Irish Times, the paper of record for the Irish Republic, which won its independence from Britain 75 years ago. Bruton's challenger in Friday's Irish national elections, Fianna Fail party leader Bertie Ahern, said Blair's gesture "would contribute to the reconciliation of the British and Irish peoples, and build confidence in what I hope will be a new era in Anglo-Irish re- lations." Ahern had campaigned for an apology from the British.

Famine memories resonate as much, if not more, with the descendants of Irish emigres of the 1850s who might never have left had food aid been available. The famine sent both of John F. Kennedy's grandfathers to the United States. The former president's sister, U.S. Ambassador to -Ireland Jean Kennedy Smith, was prominent in the weekend festivities and laid yesterday a memorial stone at a site outside the city of Cork where an estimated 30,000 famine victims are buried.

"Mr. Blair made a very important and welcome statement, rec-, ognizing the injustices caused by -the government of the time," the ambassador said. 20 people reported killed; troops try to hold off rebels at hotel FROM WIRI REPORTS FREETOWN, Sierra Leone Nigerian gunboats rained shells on Sierra Leone's capital yesterday and fighting raged between Nigerian troops intervening to reverse an 8-day-old coup and Sierra Leone's soldiers and rebels allied to coup leaders. The bombardment, which had started at daybreak, died down by nightfall Staff at Freetown's Con-naught Hospital said that 20 people were killed in the seafront Aberdeen district. Rebels concentrated their fire on a hotel there, guarded by Nigerian troops, where about 1,000 West Africans, Lebanese and Asians had taken refuge.

Journalists in the Mammy Yo-ko Hotel said that about 50 Nigerian soldiers were defending it against about 150 rebels. They said the Nigerians were short of ammunition and had difficulty communicating with commanders. A cease-fire to allow the evacuation of more than 600 civilians trapped in the hotel, agreed after lengthy negotiations between the Red Cross and the rebels, collapsed just as an evacuation was being put together. A second deal took another three hours. The attack appeared timed to follow the weekend evacuation of most Westerners and came after the coup leader, Maj.

Johnny Paul Koroma, made it clear that he had no intention of giving up. U.S. helicopters carried 1,200 foreigners from the hotel grounds over the weekend. On Sunday, Koroma named a 20-member ruling councD to govern the country, a sign that diplomatic attempts to restore President Ahmed Tejan Kabbah to power had failed. Talks between Nigerian and British diplomats and the coup leaders collapsed Sunday night.

The Nigerian offensive appeared to surprise other countries involved in efforts to negotiate the restoration of Kabbah, who fled to Guinea after the coup. "We have all along insisted on a negotiated settlement. This morning's attack came as a surprise," said Foreign Minister Kwamena Ahwoi of Ghana, which sent soldiers into Freetown over the weekend both to stabilize the situation and to evacuate about 1,000 Ghanaian civilians trapped there. In Washington, White House spokesman Mike McCurry said the United States was "interested in diminishing the violence. "We are supporting efforts to deal directly with the parties, both factions, rebel factions, to encourage the institution of a cease-fire," McCurry said.

Sierra Leone Liberia Africa Atlantic Ocean Minus M.Ht'Hifr ASSOCIATED PRESS In the center of Freetown, Revolutionary United Front (RUF) rebels and Sierra Leone's soldiers secured strategic positions in anticipation of an attack. Several thousand people wav-ingplacards and bunches of leaves as a sign of peace protested against the Nigerians, saying they opposed the coup but they opposed foreign intervention more. Support for the coup among Sierra Leone's military appears to be concentrated among low-ranking soldiers who have borne the brunt of spending cuts as part of plans to scale down the army under the peace accord and who resent the resources given to a civilian militia to fight the RUF. In Harare, Zimbabwe, where the annual summit of African heads of state opened yesterday, leaders condemned the coup but offered no support for the military action. At the summit.

United Nations Secretary-General Kofi Annan urged that the will of the people should become paramount in Africa and said he was revolted by the coup against the elected government of Sierra Leone. "Africa can no longer tolerate and accept as faits accomplis coups against elected governments and the illegal seizure of power by military cliques," he said. "Armies exist to protect national sovereignty and not to train their guns on their own people." tUWMv- 1 million died in disaster of 1843-1850; 2 million fled ASSOCIATED PRESS DUBLIN, Ireland Britain's new prime minister has accepted British blame for the Irish potato famine 150 years ago, the first such acknowledgment of the country's role in prolonging the famine. "Those who governed in London at the time failed their people through standing by while a crop failure turned into a massive human tragedy," Tony Blair said in a message sent to organizers of a weekend rock festival in Mill-street, Ireland, marking the famine and celebrating Irish around the world. The 1845-1850 disaster, sparked by a contagion that turned Ireland's staple crop for the peasantry to rotting black goo, caused an estimated 1 million deaths' among the country's 8 million people and sent 2 million hungry Irish to other countries, primarily the United States.

Irish Prime Minister John Bru-ton praised Blair's words in a Sunday night statement, saying that while his comment "confronts the past honestly, it does so in a way that heals for the future." Blair, the Labor Party leader who came to power in May 1 elections, is the first British prime minister to acknowledge British blame for the famine. The famine has left a bitter legacy between Ireland and Britain. Historians have argued for generations over the degree to which Britain, which then ruled Ireland, contributed to the disaster. During the famine, British authorities IT'S A FREE ANSWERING MACHINE. rn: i i ii i 1 rTiriMirtriiii-iT-iiifiinriiiir-n -tv ii 1 1 inrm in -nnniiniiinim-ii in.nn minium- in mm ir i i mi i iririi -11 1 1 ill i in hit -in-iinm "ii nm i iiiiirmi 1 1 hit mi ii.i.in.inn.ii ii urnr irn nun -'il i Protest against role of Rwandan troops in Congo fizzles KINSHASA, Zaire A march against the'presence of Rwandan Tutsi soldiers among President Laurent Kabila's forces drew only a few dozen people in Kinshasa yesterday.

"We cannot demonstrate every day. We have to make money to eat," said newspaper vendor Papy Baleko, who said he took part in earlier marches that called for a government role for opposition i leader EtienneTshisekedi. i Yesterday's march came as Ka-i bila was in Zimbabwe for an Or-' ganization of African Unity meet-; ing. While there, he kept South 1 1 African President Nelson Mandela waiting an hour for a meeting, Mandela finally left. I China warns Japan on scope of security ties with U.S.

i i TOKYO Visiting Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Shen Guofang warned Japan yesterday I not to enlarge the scope of its se-I curity alliance with the United States and said Bering wanted to start talks with Tokyo over a thorny dispute over the Senkaku Islands. "The objective of the U.S.-Ja-pan Security Treaty is to defend the security of Japan," Shen told a news conference. "If it moves out of this framework, it will raise concerns in Asia." Guidelines on U.S.-Japan defense cooperation laid down in 1978 only cover contingency measures In the event of a Soviet attack on Japan. A new set of guidelines is expected to be completed by November. Russian sergeant kills 1 10 servicemen, then himself TBILISI, Georgia A Russian sergeant killed 10 of his fellow servicemen in a peacekeeping unit in Georgia's breakaway region of Abkhazia and then killed himself, sources with the Russian military in Tbilisi said yesterday.

Incidents like this have become frequent in recent years in the former Soviet Union as low morale and cash shortages take their toll on Moscow's once-mighty military machine. On Friday, a 20-year-old soldier in the Russian Far East killed a lieutenant and five soldiers and then fled. He was captured the next day. UJf. chief seeks renewal of Iraq's 'oil-for-food' deal UNITED NATIONS U.N.

Secretary-General Kofi Annan recommended yesterday a six-month renewal of the "oil-for-food" deal for Iraq to help civilians survive under stringent trade sanctions, according to a draft report. The current plan, which went into effect Dec. 10 and will expire Saturday, calls for $2 billion worth of oil sales over six months so that Baghdad can buy food and medicine for its people. The U.N. Security Council must still approve a rollover.

The United States has not given its official position yet, although U.S. sources believe that Washington will agree to the renewal White House to urge approval of $1 billion payment to EN. UNITED NATIONS Faced with strong Republican opposition, the Clinton administration plans a big push to win congressional approval this month for the payment of more than $1 billion that the United States owes the United Nations. U.S. Ambassador Bill Richardson, a former New Mexico congressman, is expected to lead the fight to also hammer out "benchmarks" for U.N.

reform that the White House will try to sell to the other 184 member countries of the world body. UjS. and U.N. officials said the hope is to convince congressional leaders that lack of progress on the arrears threatens U.S. influ-i ence within the United Nations.

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