Newspaper Page Text
2
APRIL 24,1997 AUGUSTA FOCUS
World / National View
. ."%&; J y " ,‘- -
‘(- Y 5 ‘ iy h ik "" :
e =5 " L . 2
?fl’!"" sl D ~}'4 v / s
#=7 i 9 |
e
SUDAN '
Government, rebel
o
groups sign truce
KHARTOUM, Sudan
(AP) Sudan’s Islamic government and four
southern rebel groups signed a peace treaty Mon
day to end a 14-year-old civil war in the African
nation.
Underthe treaty, signed by Sudan’s Vice-Presi
dent Lt. Gen. Zubair Mohammed Saleh and rebel
leaders, a referendum will be held after a four
year interim period in which southerners will
decide whether their large and underdeveloped
region should secede or remain in Sudan.
The treaty also gives the mostly Christian and
animist south more power in running their daily
affairs, including using their local customs in
stead of the Islamic law that is applied in the
north.
“Let us join hands and start building our na
tion,” President Omar el-Bashir said after the
signing ceremony.
“This is a comprehensive treaty that will solve
all the problems and build the foundations of
peace,” he added. He called on other rebel groups
+0 join the reconciliation.
Mohammed el-Amin Khalifa, head of Sudan’s
Peace Council and who negotiated the accord,
said an amnesty will be granted to the rebels, who
will be allowed to keep their weapons during the
interim period.
Former U.S. president Jimmy Carter, who vis
ited Sudan on Sunday to discuss ways of stopping
the civil war, said Monday’s peace treaty could
pave the way for talks between the government
and the Sudan People’s Liberation Army, the
main rebel group in the south.
The four rebel groups that signed the treaty
broke away from SPLA in the early 19905.
Southern rebels have fought successive
Khartoum governments since 1983.
Annan deplores
workers in Zaire
B Refugees suffer as
combatants block
access to camps.
GEMEVA
(AP) U.N. Secretary-General
Kofi Annan urged all parties in
Zaire Monday to stop fighting and
allow the delivery of humanitar
ian assistance to civilians caught
in the conflict.
“I very much deplore the recent
attacks on refugee camps and hu
manitarian workers,” Annan said
in a statement after meeting with
U.N. High Commissioner for Refu
gees Sadako Ogata.
Aid workers suspended opera
tions in Rwandan refugee camps
Monday after an outbreak of loot
ing, murder and attacks on for
eign journalists and aid workers
by Zairian mobs. At least six people
were murdered and two others
injured.
Annan also backed Mrs. Ogata’s
appeal to Kisangani authoritiesin
eastern Zaire to permit the start of
an airlift of refugees back to
Rwanda “to save the lives of the
vulnerable women and children.”
Mrs. Ogataadded that each day’s
delay in starting the airlift will
lead to more deaths.
“Since Friday, a series of secu
rity incidents, including the loot
ing of food supplies, has blocked
our access to the camps. Today,
the military told us that we would
not be allowed in the camps,” said
a statement by Mrs. Ogata.
“That is not good enough. We
must have access and we must
begin the airlift.”
She said that going back to
Rwanda “is the only solution for
these people, the only way to guar
antee their safety. If we cannot
reach the refugees, neither can we
reach the local population, who
also badly need our assistance.”
The food supplies are essential
to 100,000 Rwanda refugees, dy
ing at a rate of about 60 a day from
starvation and disease as they wait
for rebels and aid agencies to agree
on plans to send them home.
Tensions have been high be
tween Zairians and the refugees,
with local people accusing the
Rwandans of stealing their crops.
MOONLIGHT ¢
VR ({ll
_ 8
T TV
9am=-10pPm
. Look for our T |
16-PAGE section in the
Augusta Chronicle on Friday.
ZAIRE
Losing at the front, Mobutu
prints money — lots of it
B Fearing that the nation’s
currency is worthless, many
shop owners have refused to
open for business. While the
government printing presses
continue to run, rebel forces
ponder the consequences.
By Dianna Cahn
ASSOCIATED PRESS Writer
LUBUMBASHI, Zaire
Rebels on a triumphant march through
Zaire havediscovered that President Mobutu
Sese Seko still controls a potent weapon: the
printing presses of the national mint.
In recent months, the faltering Mobutu
regime flooded the Lubumbashi region with
New Zaire bills in huge new denominations
to pay off government debts even though the
national treasury had no reserve to back
them.
When anti-Mobutu rebels seized Zaire’s
second-largest city on April 11, they found it
in throes of a massive currency crisis. The
collapse of the New Zaire’s value in
Lubumbashi forced local prices out of reach
for many.
For the rebels, seizing control of the cur
rency has proved tougher than seizing con
trol of the city.
Soon after taking Lubumbashi, the rebels
tried to restore order to the local currency
market by declaring Mobutu’s new 500,000
and 1 million New Zaire notes worthless.
Elsewhere in Zaire, no bills larger than
100,000 were accepted.
Residents left holding the worthless bills
took to the streets in protest, jeering “Dollar,
Dollar” at the rebel finance minister. Nearly
all stores in the city closed down.
For many, even a few of the big bills
represented most of their savings.
“It is like they killed me,” moaned sales
man Mbanga Gedone, waving 500 million in
large New Zaire bills, worth $3,500 at the
official rate and now— he feared — worthless.
“And there are many who have a lot more
than this. What are we going to do now?”
The panic forced the rebels to temporarily
reinstate the big bills as legal tender Friday,
although few people will now accept them.
“We took the decisions too fast. And we saw
that we could get into big trouble,” rebel
leader Laurent Kabila admitted at a weekend
rally. He urged stores to reopen, a plea few
shopkeepers have heeded.
Just the same, the rebels say the mega-bills
serve only to destabilize Lubumbashi’s
economy.
“That money is worthless. They have the
illusion that they have money but they don’t,”
said rebel finance minister Mawapanga
Miwana Nanga.
Mobutu ordered the Zairian national mint,
still under his control, to print the new bills to
compensate miners pressing for back pay from
the state-owned Gecamines mining company,
a key employer in Lubumbashi.
The flood of large bills cut the value of the
currencyin Lubumbashi to 450,000 New Zaire
to the dollar, three times the rate paid else
where. On Friday, authorities in Lubumbashi
set a fixed rate of 140,000 New Zaire to the
dollar.
Mawapangasaid tough measuresare needed
to cool off inflation and bring the economy
under control. But discontent appears to be
growing, as an already impoverished people
feel a new economic pinch.
Mobs showed up Thursday at the city’s
largest foreign exchange office, Speed Change,
but were turned away. Earlier last week,
Belgian owner Wim Dewulf had closed the
exchange for three days after one man forced
him at gunpoint to accept $1,700 worth of the
mega-bills.
Duringtherally Saturday, Kabilatold 12,000
supporters in Lubumbashi that prices had
gone down in the more than half of Zaire now
under rebel control.
The otherwise adoring crowd wasn’t buy
ing it.
“Not here! Not here!” they roared.
Tupac’s mom
sues Death Row
for sl7 million
B Afeni Shakur seeks
royalties on the slain
rapper’s album All Eyez
on Me.
LOS ANGELES
(AP) The mother of slain rapper
Tupac Shakur is suing Death Row
Records for sl7 million, claiming
the hip-hop label failed to pay roy
alties and cheated Shakur out of
millions of dollars.
The federal lawsuit filed Friday
follows a $7.1 million lawsuit Death
Row filed against Shakur’s estate
earlier this month, demanding re
imbursement for money allegedly
advanced to Shakur for cars,
houses, jewelry and other expen
ditures, including recording and
video costs.
' Besides seeking unpaid royal
ties and repayment of disputed
expense billings, the countersuit
from Shakur’s estate seeks to in
validate a handwritten 1995 con
tract Shakur signed with Death
Row while in prison.
It also asks that 152 unreleased
Shakur recordings, which his rep
resentatives cannot locate, be or
dered into court-appointed receiv
ership.
The suit is a response to “the
deafening silence from Death
Row,” family attorney Richard
Fischbein said Saturday.
The primary dispute between
the rapper’s mother, Afeni Shakur
of Stone Mountain, Ga., and Death
Row is over money made by All
Eyez on Me, a double album by
Shakur released shortly beforethe
rapper was gunned down last Sep
tember in Las Vegas. Some 5 mil
lion copies were sold.
Shakur died with little more than
$150,000 yet Death Row reaped
o (/)111‘ 4
QY NI
RY, / :
g N # L/"n E v ¥ k) :&" J
m— [ A
iy : :
e ]
-| . & l
Bxl4 Country . VTR )
32 MB Ram, 2.1 GB HD Their Own Pad or Deck
VI REOR L
2 WIN g2]
Diamond Solitaire | (eTelTe)l
Necklace D Seats 4 Adults & A Child
eT : _
» 35,000
4\ VL ADIZER '
Claybrook Sectional Sofa Jones Creek 52 Rounds df
& Miliken Area Rug Golf For Four
WatchiChannel
Weeknightslat!s,
‘ — /’ > _.._,. r— ~., s«A (’
L IWBoW,
; ';_'_“AUGUSTAE
|.m THE NEWS STATION |
more than SIOO million from his ¢[
music, Fischbein said. i 1
“He was paid less than a million
dollars as far as we can see,"~3l
Fischbein said. “They’ve never .:
opened the books so that we can/’ l
see.” 13
The company wrongly billed
Shakur’s account for other’s ex-!;
penses in a “pattern of fraud and 4
deception involving millions of 4
dollars,” Fischbein said. M
Named in the lawsuit were Death
Row and its imprisoned president;,;
Marion “Suge” Knight, whoisserv-s
ing a nine-year term for violating 2
probation from a 1992 assault.
Two lawyers for Death Row, Ed _|
Corey and David Kenner, did not
return phone calls Saturday, but- -
Kenner, who'’s also named in the "
lawsuit, on Friday denied any‘
wrongdoing or mismanagement. !
Citingthehandwritten contract,
Death Row claims Shakur’s+
unreleased recordings areits prop-+!
erty. The company also is seeking »
20 percent of Shakur’s earnings !
over the last 18 months as a man--:
agement fee. o
In a separate development,
Shakur’s mother got $5 million in
advances from Death Row distribu-.|
tor Interscope Records after shei
threatened to bar the release of'l
her son’s posthumous Makaveli:
The Don Killuminati album. Re
leased in October, it has sold more'>
than a million copies.
Death Row has other troubles.»
Creditors claim the company owes
them millions of dollars for goods: !
and services. A $75 million lawsuit !
seeks to have the rap label put into:!
receivership to protect its assets.
‘W
The company also is under fed-:
eral investigation for alleged links
to drug trafficking, money laun-i:
dering and extortion.