The Salina Journal from Salina, Kansas • Page 5

The Salina Journal Sunday, December 30,1984 Page 5 Triumphant Gandhi pledges unity Gandhi waves after winning India's election. NEW DELHI, India (AP) Elated by the biggest election landslide in India's history, Prime Minister- Rajiv Gandhi pledged Saturday to work to end the sectarian violence that led to the assassination of his mother, Indira Gandhi. With results announced in 478 of the 507 constituencies at stake in the three-day general elections, Gandhi's Congress Party had won 384 seats, exceeding the two-thirds majority in the Lok Sabha, the lower house of parliament, it held under Mrs. Gandhi. The party also won close to 50 percent of the popular vote.

Final official results were not expected before Monday. In-the southern state of Andhra Pradesh, the locally based party of Telegu-speakers led by former movie idol N.T. Rama Rao bucked the nationwide trend to capture 28 of the 40 seats up for election. It took 27 of the seats from the Congress Party and became the largest opposition party in parliament. Mrs.

Gandhi tried to oust Rao as state prime minister earlier this year. Triumphant supporters cheered and showered Rajiv Gandhi with marigolds as he emerged from his residence soon after his unprece- dented victory became certain. Gandhi, 40, is India's youngest prime minister. In Old Delhi, flag-waving men and women sang and danced in the streets and chanted, slogans applauding Gandhi as "the man we need." Addressing jubilant crowds, speaking on television and meeting with Indian reporters, Gandhi smiled happily, without a trace of the uncertainty he showed after being named to succeed his mother within hours of her death on Oct. 31.

Wearing the style of jacket named after his grandfather, Jawa- harlal Nehru, India's first prime 'minister, Gandhi thanked a nationwide television audience for the mandate handed his party and promised to use it "to further the unity and integrity of the nation." At his news conference, Gandhi said his priority was to restore communal harmony in this nation of 730 million people, shaken by months of bloody religious conflicts, mob violence and sectarian terrorism. first-and foremost task should be to strengthen India's unity, maintain complete communal harmony and ensure a fair deal for the minorities, and the weaker sections of the community," he said. As a step in this direction, he promised to consult with India's Sikh minority on how to end the insurrection by Sikh separatists in Punjab, the only Indian state where Sikhism, a breakaway Hindu sect, is in the majority. Hindu is the predominant religion overall in India. "We want to solve the Punjab problem expeditiously," Gandhi said.

Punjab has been under army occupation since troops stormed the Golden Temple in Amritsar, the Sikhs' holiest city, in June to crush Sikh terrorists who had turned the temple into an armed camp. More than 1,000 people died in the attack, which was followed by Mrs. Gandhi's murder four months later by two Sikhs in her own security guard, the government said. Seeking revenge, Hindu mobs lynched more than 2,000 Sikhs, particularly in New Delhi. Thousands of Sikhs whose homes were burned down are living in refugee camps.

Earlier in the year, Hindu-Moslem riots in the Bombay area left hundreds dead and thousands homeless. Gandhi said he intended to take a close look at India's explosive intermingling of religion and politics, "to see how we can separate the two a little more." The leader of the previous main opposition Janata Party, Chandra Shekhar, who lost his seat in Uttar Pradesh, offered to cooperate with Gandhi in his efforts to ease communal tension. But a statement issued by the party's executive' committee said the Congress Party "perpetrated a vile campaign of falsehood against the opposition and sought communal and sectional prejudices." Gandhi pledged "full support" to his mother's policy of strict nonalignment, and said he would seek friendly relations with all of India's neighbors, including the traditional enemy, Pakistan, and the island nation of Sri Lanka, which is also disrupted by ethnic violence. In Amethi, Gandhi's own constituency in Uttar Pradesh state, he defeated with ease an acrimonious challenge from his estranged Sikh sister-in-law, Menaka. The widow of Gandhi's younger brother Sanjay, she had formed her own party to oppose Indira Gandhi's policies.

Amethi was Sanjay's constituency until his 1980 death in a plane crash. The Congress Party swept all but three of the 20 Indian states voting in the election. Two other states, Punjab and the restive state of Assam in the east, were not allowed to participate in the election. Reinforced Vietnamese impede guerrillas NONG SAMET, Thailand (AP) Cambodian anti-communist guerrillas suffered further setbacks in a fifth day of fighting at their Rithisen camp Saturday, but two allied groups helped to ease pressure against them with small unit strikes against Vietnamese lines, guerrilla and Thai military officers said. Chau Eng, a guerrilla commander, told reporters in the Thai village of Nong Samet near the battlefield that the Vietnamese had been reinforced with fresh reinforcements and two Soviet-made T-54 tanks.

He said the guerrillas had to give up ground they had won back inside the camp, which was overrun by Hanoi's forces after heavy artillery shelling Tuesday. Interviews with the wounded carried off the battlefield into Thailand confirmed Chau Eng's assessment. The International Red Cross said about 30 guerrillas were wounded in Rithisen Saturday, from seven to 10 of them seriously. The number of dead was not known. The figures brought to nearly 100 the number of Cambodians wounded in Rithisen who have been evacuated to a Red Cross hospital near the frontier.

Guerrilla sources have said hundreds of guerrillas and Vietnamese have been killed and wounded since the offensive began, but there has been no independent confirmation of the reports. Chau Eng said he was helping to battle the Vietnamese on the eastern approaches to Rith- isen, which was controlled by the Khmer People's National Liberation Front. Chau Eng belongs to a smaller anti-communist group loyal to one-time Cambodian head of state Prince Norodom Sihanouk. Thai military sources, who spoke on condition they not be identified, said about 200 com- munist Khmer Rouge soldiers were operating northeast of Rithisen. The Khmer Rouge and the two anti-communist groups are united in an anti-Vietnamese coalition headed by Siha- nouk.

Each group maintains separate military commands. There is deep suspicion between the Khmer Rouge and the two non-communist organizations but some informal battlefield cooperation has taken place. A spokesman for the normally secretive Khmer Rouge in Bangkok said he had no information about Khmer Rouge activity in the Rithisen area. Chau Eng said resistance forces had captured four Vietnamese soldiers and handed them over to the Thai military for questioning. Thailand says it is neutral in the conflict, but has helped the resistance in several ways.

Mine sealed against fire ORANGEVILLE, Utah (AP) The mine where the bodies of 27 coal miners are entombed was sealed off Saturday night as officials waited to see whether cutting off oxygen to the fatal fire would extinguish it. Federal law requires the 15 temporary seals to remain in place at least 72 hours while federal mine safety officials monitor gas and heat levels in the tunnels, said Bob Henrie, spokesman for Emery Mining operator of the Wilberg Mine. "All 15 seals are now in place. The crews did a fantastic job," Henrie said. "It was a day of great progress.

This is a critically important step to extinguishing the fire." Earlier, federal mine officials had ordered the area evacuated on sep- arate occasions because of flames shooting out of a portal and because of dangerously high methane gas readings inside the mine. Federal officials and other mine safety experts were brought in by Emery Mining to decide when it is safe to re-enter the mine to recover the bodies, Henrie said. Twenty-six men and one woman were trapped Dec. 19 when fire broke out near the mine's entrance. Attempts to remove 25 bodies found last week and to locate the other two miners who are presumed dead were frustrated when federal officials ordered rescue crews to leave the mine Sunday because of danger to their own lives.

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