| Global update |
Rebel attacks kill
63 in north India
After three days of fighting, India's federal home minister
says peace talks with militant groups will continue
BY WASBIR HUSSAIN
THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
GAUHATI, India — Sleeping vil
lagers heard men outside their huts,
calling them to come out. They stum
bled into the early morning darkness
Monday, and the intruders began fir
ing automatic weapons, killing six
people and wounding seven.
The assault brought the death toll to
63 from three days of suspected rebel
attacks in India’s northeast, where
dozens of ethnic guerrilla groups are
fighting for separate homelands and
battling each other for supremacy.
The killings in the village of Gela
pukhuri — 130 miles north of
Gauhati, the capital of Assam state —
followed the weekend bombings of a
train station, utilities, a tea plantation
and a crowded marketplace.
Federal Home Minister Shivraj Patil
said the attacks would not dissuade
the national government from sup
porting peace talks with militant
groups in Assam and neighboring Na
galand state.
“We have not closed the doors for
talks, but it is our duty to save human
lives,” Patil told reporters Monday af
ter visiting the violence-hit areas.
Nearly 40 separatist groups repre
senting multiple ethnicities have been
fighting for almost 60 years in India’s
mountainous northeast region of sev
en states, wedged between
Bangladesh, Bhutan and Myanmar.
In Nagaland, where 28 have been
killed since Saturday, the main sepa
ratist group condemned the attacks
and suggested rival outfits were trying
to disrupt a cease-fire and the peace
process.
The death toll in Assam — where
the state government offered to
begin peace talks with rebels
in mid-October — rose to 35
on Monday after the village attack,
which state police officer P. Baruah
blamed on the National Democratic
Front of Boroland. Sunday was
the 18th anniversary of the founding
of the NDFB, which is demanding a
homeland for Boroland, a region that
straddles Nagaland and Assam.
On Sunday, the commander of the
outlawed United Liberation Front of
Asom, or ULFA, Paresh Barua, report
edly claimed responsibility for four of
the attacks in Assam state, where the
group has been fighting for a separate
homeland since 1979 in an insurgency
that has left more than 10,000 dead in
the past decade.
“This is our answer to Assam Chief
Minister Tarun Gogoi’s cease-fire call,”
an English-language newspaper, The
Sentinel, quoted Barua as saying.
“The entire string of attacks was a
joint operation by the ULFA and the
NDFB,” said Assam’s top police offi
cial, Inspector-General Khagen Sarma.
He gave no details, and police said no
arrests had been made.
Shops and schools were closed and
most traffic halted in parts
of Assam on Monday during a dawn
to-dusk strike called by the All Bodo
Students’ Union to protest the killings.
The students’ group had helped bro
ker a peace accord between the feder
al government and an insurgent
group, the Bodo Liberation Tigers, in
western Assam in 2003.
At least 18 bombings and shootings
have taken place in Nagaland and As
sam since Saturday. The attacks —
particularly an explosion Saturday
that ripped through a railway station
full of commuters — angered some
separatist leaders and filled civilians
with terror.
People suffering severe burns or
shrapnel wounds were airlifted Mon
day to the Indian capital, New Delhi,
for specialized treatment.
A campus tradition—over 100 years of publication.
U.N. signs agreement
with war crimes tribunal
The International Criminal Court will prosecute war
crimes when countries cannot or will not do so
BY EDITH M. LEDERER
THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
UNITED NATIONS — U.N. Secre
tary-General Kofi Annan and the pres
ident of the International Criminal
Court signed an agreement Monday
on the working relationship between
the United Nations and the world’s
first permanent war crimes tribunal.
Although the court is an independ
ent judicial institution, it was born
out of the U.N. system. The agree
ment provides a legal basis for a per
manent relationship between the two
organizations as well as information
sharing and judicial assistance.
The International Criminal Court is
the culmination of a campaign for a
permanent war crimes tribunal that
began with the Nuremberg trials after
World War II. It can prosecute cases
of genocide, war crimes and crimes
against humanity committed after
July 1, 2002, but will step in only
when countries are unwilling or un
able to dispense justice themselves.
The United States vehemently
opposes the court, arguing that it
could be used for frivolous or political
ly motivated prosecution of American
troops. But the 97 countries that have
ratified the 1998 Rome TVeaty counter
that it contains enough safeguards to
prevent any frivolous prosecutions.
Annan, a staunch supporter of the
court, told the court's president, Judge
Philippe Kirsch, of Canada, that he
has made the “rule of law” a top prior
ity for the remainder of his tenure,
which ends Dec. 31,2006, and he will
tell all U.N. agencies and programs “to
give you full cooperation.”
“So I'm working for you now,”
Annan said.
The agreement includes an ex
change of representatives between
the United Nations and the court,
the ICC’s participation in the U.N.
General Assembly as an observer,
and U.N. cooperation if the court re
quests testimony of U.N. officials.
The U.N.-ICC agreement was draft
ed over four years and adopted first
by the ICC Assembly of State Parties
in The Hague, Netherlands, on Sept.
7 and then by the U.N. General As
sembly on Sept. 13, despite opposi
tion from the United States.
A U.S. official, speaking on condi
tion of anonymity, noted that under
the agreement the United Nations
will not pay any costs for the ICC,
which means the United States will
not foot any part of the bill for the
court’s operation.
This means that U.N. human
rights, refugee and genocide experts
may assist the ICC and, most impor
tantly, U.N. humanitarian and
peacekeeping missions can provide
vital information on atrocities in
conflict areas, said William Pace,
head of the Coalition for the Interna
tional Criminal Court, an advocacy
group that includes more than 1,000
civil society organizations.
Pace said despite opposition from
President Bush’s administration, the
agreement reveals that the majority
of the 191 U.N. member states
“think otherwise.”
“By allowing for crucial coopera
tion between two of the most pow
erful global justice institutions, this
agreement will play an important
role in the fight to end impunity for
the perpetrators of the world’s most
atrocious crimes,” Pace said.
New York doctor wrongly
linked to anthrax mailings
Kenneth Berry has not faced any charges, hut his
lawyer says the FBI investigation ruined his life
BY WAYNE PARRY
THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
TOMS RIVER, N.J. — Federal in
vestigators are destroying the life of
a New York doctor by wrongly link
ing him to fatal 2001 anthrax mail
ings, his lawyer said Monday.
Agents descended on the
Wellsville, N.Y., home of Dr. Ken
neth Berry on Aug. 5, as well as his
parents' New Jersey shore summer
home, for searches described by an
FBI spokesman as part of the
anthrax investigation. Berry has
not been charged.
That same day, the doctor, who
founded an organization in 1997
that trains medical professionals to
respond to chemical and biological
attacks, was arrested after a do
mestic dispute at a Point Pleasant
Beach motel.
“I believe the family cracked un
der the pressure,” Berry’s lawyer,
Clifford Lazzaro, said outside court
after a hearing was postponed in
that case.
Berry subsequently lost his job
as an emergency room doctor at
the University of Pittsburgh Med
ical Center.
“He has already lost his job. Must
he lose his marriage, too?” Lazzaro
asked. “When he is cleared, it will
only make this tragedy that much
worse that he not only lost his job
but also lost his family for a crime
he did not commit.”
The FBI has declined to comment.
Five people died and 17 fell ill
in the fall of 2001 in the anthrax
mailings that targeted government
and media officials. The attacks
unsettled a nation already
reeling from the Sept. 11 terror
attacks.
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