Standard-Speaker from Hazleton, Pennsylvania • Page 3

Hazleton Standard-Speaker, Saturday, July 16, 1994 3 Crowds flee Rwanda as rebels near victory U.S. cuts relations with genocidal government I 1 By PAUL ALEXANDER Associated Press Writer GOMA, Zaire (AP) There was no room but still they came Friday, a barely moving mass of humanity abandoned by the government army and terrified of the rebel forces advancing across western Rwanda. With crossing gates into Zaire thrown open, it was impossible to coun how many Hutu refugees had arrived in two days. But it likely was well over 500,000, making it one of the largest flights in history. Friday's arrivals found most space already taken.

Relief officials have already seen signs of disease in the camps, where food, water and shelter are rare commodities. "It's even worse than our worst-case scenario," said Panos Moumtzis, a spokesman for the U.N. High Commission on Refugees in Goma. "It's the largest exodus in a short period of time. The needs right now are extreme." The Red Cross set up two feeding centers north of Goma, and the line quickly grew miles long.

Officials said the sites were chosen to keep the refugees moving out of the city to avoid trouble with local residents. Leaders of the Hutu interim government fled Gisenyi, their stronghold across the border from Goma, as Tutsi-dominated rebels closed on the city, pursuing what remained of the government army in full retreat. Busloads of Rwandan soldiers scurried into Zaire. About 350 were housed at one military barracks. The United States cut diplomatic ties Friday with the Hutu government, blamed by President Clinton for supporting "genocidal massacre." The Embassy of Rwanda was ordered closed and its personnel were ordered to leave the United States within five working days.

In Rwanda, the columns of Hutus waiting to pass through the three border crossings into Zaire stretched for miles. The Hutus fear the rebels want to avenge widespread massacres of minority Tutsis by extremist supporters of Rwanda's Hutu-dominated government. The Hutu Rebel soldiers advance to the front lines while refugees walk away from Ruhangeri, Rwanda. The rebels neared victory on Friday, while perhaps a half million people fled the country. (AP) "When we arrived we found nothing to eat, nowhere to stay," one man said.

"Everything is crowded. Every square meter is occupied by refugees who arrived before." A woman in one of the camps said her group arrived with only the clothes on their backs, along with their goats and cattle. Gunfire began after dark Thursday from the direction of Gisenyi and continued sporadically into Friday night. Refugees told of marauding government troops who robbed and pillaged the city after government officials fled. The refugees claimed Rwandan troops fired in the air to frighten them into giving up their final possessions.

They also alleged Zairian troops were robbing them at the border. "You're asked if you have any money," said a student who fled Ruhengeri three days ago. "They take it if you do. If you don't have any money, they take radios and other electronics, sunglasses, good shoes and anything else of value." U.N. enters Iraq MANAMA, Bahrain (AP) -Ten U.N.

inspectors flew to Baghdad on Friday to scrutinize Iraq's missile research and development program. The multinational team led by Norbert Reinecke of Germany planned to spend 10 days in Baghdad. The trip is part of a U.N. effort to lay the groundwork for long-term monitoring to prevent Iraq from reviving weapons programs banned by U.N. Security Council resolutions and dismantled by U.N.

experts. The U.N. resolutions imposed after the 1991 Gulf War bar Iraq from developing or acquiring missiles with a range exceeding 93 miles as well as nuclear, chemical and biological weapons. A U.N. commission has dismantled all known weapons programs banned by the government or military officials.

A ministry spokeswoman in Paris, speaking Friday on condition of anonymity, said French troops were awaiting a U.N. decision on whether they should make arrests. The Security Council held closed consultations in New York without taking any action, and no further meetings were scheduled over the weekend. The rebels had vowed not to stop fighting until its new multiethnic government was formed under Twagirimungu and the people responsible for the massacres were apprehended. But U.N.

envoy Shaharyar Khan said the rebels indicated Friday they were ready to stop fighting. Speaking in Rwanda's capital, Kigali, Khan said the U.N. peacekeeper commander would meet with Hutu military leaders in Goma on Saturday to try to work out a cease-fire. Khan, who met Friday with the rebel military leader, Gen. Paul Kagame, stressed there was no agreement yet.

"Gen. Kagame hopes this cease-fire will reverse the refugee flow and avert the coming humanitarian aid crisis," Khan said. U.N. officials made a helicopter survey of the Goma area Friday and predicted the number of refugees could reach 850,000. Moumtzis, the UNHCR spokesman, said his agency will start an airlift operation Saturday, initially bringing in plastic sheeting and water cans.

Relief efforts are made more difficult because the area is volcanic, which means it is hard to find water, pitch tents and dig trench latrines. A truck was being used to haul water from Lake Kivu. Bolton of Doctors Without Borders warned that dysentary already has shown up in the camps, the area is endemic for cholera and bubonic plague is to the north. The trip proved to exhausting for a few people, whose corpses lay on the ground. rebels as prime minister of the new government, blamed the refugee crisis on hate propaganda from the Hutu government, broadcast over the radio.

"People are not fleeing from the RPF, they are fleeing from the monsters that the Gisenyi government has created," he said Friday in Kigali. He said French troops that arrived in Rwanda last month on a mercy mission have a responsibility to arrest leaders responsible for massacres "as international war criminals." A U.N. military spokesman in Goma, Jean-Claude Perruchot, confirmed the president and most government ministers had fled to Cyangugu, a city within the safe zone set up in southwestern Rwanda by French troops for an estimated 1 million displaced people. The French Foreign Ministry on Friday indicated French troops would not move against the officials unless they undertook "political or military activity" within the zone. The U.N.

mandate given to the French authorizes them only to protect civilians, not to detain Postponement of funeral puzzles observers of Korea SEOUL, South Korea (AP) North Korea early Saturday postponed the state funeral of Kim II Sung by two days, triggering concern and puzzlement among South Korean officials. The officials couldn't immedi- ately assess whether the decision might point to any political instability in the North, where power apparently has been passed to the late leader's son and designated heir, Kim Jong II. Kim II Sung's state funeral was to have been held Sunday, nine days after his death at 82 of a heart attack. Korean tradition calls for burial within three to five days. The North, in an announcement by its official media monitored by PIECE GOODS SHOP.

IX7ZI Israel, Jordan set STRETCH YOUR DOLLAR COUPONS militias have been blamed for most of the estimated 200,000 to 500,000 deaths in the past three months in the small, central African nation. No evidence of reprisals has surfaced. A spokeswoman for Doctors Without Borders in Goma, Samantha N. Bolton, said the arriving refugees were mostly uninjured. Faustin Twagiramungu, a moderate Hutu picked by the Police have been cracking down hard on South Korean student activists who have expressed sympathy for Northern ideology, in violation of the South's stria security laws.

About 1,000 students battled riot police Friday night in the city of Kwangju, about 156 miles south of Seoul. On Thursday, 200 students hurled firebombs at police stations to protest the arrests a day earlier of 55 students who were allegedly planning to try to send a condolence delegation to the North. The North made a point of inviting Southerners to come and pay their respects to Kim. summit By agreeing to the meeting, Hussein has signaled his intentions to forge ahead with negotiations without waiting for Syria, his powerful neighbor and the key holdout in reaching a comprehensive accord. Peres expressed hope Syrian President Hafez Assad would now also come around.

"I believe the king is convinced that in the end we will reach a comprehensive peace in the Middle East, and I think he is right. Maybe Syria will now draw the necessary conclusions." However, without Syria, even a Jordan-Israel peace treaty is doubtful. Assad has long played the roll of spoiler in Mideast politics. Senate term against an aggressive challenger, two-term Rep. Rick Santorum, R-Pa.

Wofford, who remains a strong supporter of universal health care, did not attend the Greensburg speech because of Senate votes in Washington. But he told Clinton by speaker phone that "together, we're going to win this fight Clinton's speech was warmly received by the downtown crowd of several thousand in this community about 25 miles southeast of Pittsburgh. The event was open to the public. FAMILY PET CEMETERY CREMATORY aw rciwrai iimrn tmwt j.itinw;nsi.w!i CRAFT SUPPLIES CklTlDC Tf CALICO PRINTS Oil I rti Da a. lE i i i REGULAR NOTIONS! EXPMES nun jfSXPIMS 72194 Hit 4j 1 SHt the South Korean government early Saturday, said the state funeral would be held Tuesday, instead of Sunday as scheduled.

It said the postponement was in order to allow more people to pay their respects prior to the burial. Kim's body has been lying in state at the presidential palace for several days, and North Koreans by the thousands have been streaming past his flower-bedecked casket. South Korean officials, speaking on condition of anonymity, said the North's move to prolong the official mourning period could be aimed at fueling unrest in the South, where Kim's death has triggered a growing ideological dispute. JERUSALEM (AP) In a historic breakthrough that gives impetus to an overall Arab-Israeli settlement, Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin and Jordan's King Hussein agreed Friday to meet at the White House and lay the foundation for a peace treaty. "This is a turning point in our relations with Jordan and all of the Middle East," said Israeli Foreign Minister Shimon Peres.

In announcing the July 25 summit, President Clinton called it "another step forward toward achievement of comprehensive and lasting peace in the Middle East." Jordan and Israel have been technically in a state of war since the creation of the Jewish state in 1948. class can lose it," Clinton said. "I don't think that makes much sense in the United States." He also was scheduled to speak later at a private, fund-raising dinner in Philadelphia to aid the re-election campaign of Sen. Harris Wofford, D-Pa. It was Wofford's 1991 upset Senate victory that turned health care reform into a national political debate.

But Wofford, who campaigned on a platform of health care for all, may be vulnerable as he fights for a full six-year SERVICE AVAILABLE T. 1 PICK-UP R1000 Located MEMBER MraiMiMill'. C-HfWtsW "Jf it a POUSHEOAPPtE PRINTS SCRIBBLES I'UOIHH UMUH IR2 a a vm 14 tOUAM Yitzhak Rabin Clinton pitches health care PILLOW FORMS StW NIlKlf li Wli U7I 1 "VI III 1 -ir-if THREAD a ipi -------------i ENTIRE STOCK kici at I CRAFT GLUE uu III ftis unit huouaff 771.U1 PAINT. TRANS-WEB 4f I misi I if f. una UtISiCKII Dressmaker spool 1 4B iftlPWtS irltivlniCICOODItHOPtlANO FLOSS 3'lhfu 12 ROUND EMBROIDERY HOOPS 1 5'? CUTTING MAT T-SQUARE '2 El I jRSSL ELASTIC P.

llttll "ULILT 7T II 1 ml-l 1 jTJ. el i r-9i ven WEARABLE ir ART SUPPLIES 2 1 mac I Mllin- inr Jf I 5 JLIIULU IIIIILMl 1 3 amrtrn if I i fifwts 7- bfflMC SEW IN IRON ON I INTERFACE hi cm Fiona I "SIM 77J.94 FRAARI 1-113 ERASABLE MARKING PEN I It 225CT 41 29 4 I UU I lUNb IIOCK I MS 12 III" I I ADJUSTABLE HEIGHT IRONING BOARDS REG. $19.99 lin.es SALE starts SUNDAY OPEN DAILY 9:30 to 9 Sl-S 3 I psa Si T3. rnirs ri PATT1RN v. RDACC BRASS YARDSTICKS SILK PINS 7 3 I r'iit DMC EMBROIDERY TWIN FIT DRESS FORMS SIZES -REG 1149 85 a urn ciit2? "fiEsa rJU I lursjia iii K.I u--.

i i i.rT SPACE MATE SEWING CRAFT REG. $124 00 GREENSBURG, Pa. (AP) -President Clinton began a new effort Friday to prod a fragmented Congress into passing a health care plan that guarantees insurance coverage for all. Speaking in the state where national health insurance burst onto the scene in 1991 as a potent political issue, Clinton said less-inclusive plans would only "bum the middle class." He did not identify by name a rival Republican plan by Senate Minority Leader Bob Dole of Kansas, but aides said Clinton's speech was intended as an assault on that measure and on others that do not mandate universal coverage. A plan approved by the Senate Finance Committee also does not require such coverage.

Dole, in an earlier speech to leaders of the American Medical Association in Washington, defended his proposal and accused the White House and its allies of conducting "a search for villains." Four congressional committees have produced separate health care bills. But there are not clear-cut majorities for any of the proposals, or even for what Clinton has said is a must to win his signature: universal coverage. Clinton focused Friday's remarks on what he said was the importance of such coverage. "The politicians have it (health care), the wealthy have it, the poor have it, if you go to jail you've got it; only the middle i linns South Church St. Hazleton, PA 18201 454-6655 at rear of ML Laurel Cemetery INTL ASSOC OP PET CEMETERIES TABLE 1 SINCERE AND LOVING PET OWNERS Your pef final arrangements can be planned before the sad day comes when he must leave you.

LACEY MEMORIAL offers a beautiful resting place for your companion. Make your appointment and arrange in advance. For those pets who will be cremated, Lacey Memorial is making available a price schedule. 1-19 lbs $75.00 60-79 lbs $100.00 20-39 lbs $85.00 80-99 lbs $1 20.00 40-59 lbs $95.00 1 00-1 25 lbs $1 50.00 Over 125 lbs $1.75 lb. PRIVATE BURIAL NEEDS Available for purchase is a full array of colorful pet caskets, memorial markers and a beautiful selection of decorative urns.

Call today and visit our showroom to make your selection. iinwf inn a thru SATURDAY SUNDAY 12 to 5 LAUREL MALL Rt. 93 and Airport Beltway.