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The Battalion
WORLD & NATION
8
Tuesday, July 3,1990
Thousands of pilgrims die in tunnel
MECCA, Saudi Arabia (AP) —
About 1,400 Moslem pilgrims suffo
cated or were trampled to death
Monday in a stampede in a pedes
trian tunnel leading to the holy city
of Mecca, witnesses and diplomats
said.
They said the stampede began
when some pilgrims stopped in the
middle of the air-conditioned tunnel
with people outside pushing each
other through the entrance to es
cape the 112-degree heat. They also
said the ventilation appeared to have
stopped.
One diplomat who refused to be
identified put the total death toll at
1,400 and said most of the victims
were Malaysian and Indonesian pil
grims.
Other Middle Eastern and Asian
diplomats and witnesses gave the
same death toll. The Saudi Interior
Ministry said only that a number of
people died or fainted.
The stampede shattered what had
been a peaceful observance of the
annual Hajj, or pilgrimage, and was
Event mars observance
of annual Moslem ritual
the worst pilgrimage tragedy in re
cent years. In previous years, terror
ist attacks and riots marred the cele
bration.
Ambulances and security forces
rushed to the exits of the 500-yard-
long tunnel that joins Mecca and the
tent city of Mina, according to state-
run Riyadh radio, which quoted an
Interior Ministry spokeman in Mina.
Witnesses said people stampeded,
crushing hundreds of people and
suffocating hundreds others.
People were smothered “as thou
sands of the pilgrims thronged
through the tunnel of Mo’essem,
causing severe congestion within the
tunnel as the pressure was beyond its
capacity,” the radio said. “This led to
some deaths and some cases of faint
ing.
A witness, speaking on condition
of anonymity, said the flow of peo
ple through the tunnel suddenly
stopped. The air-conditioned tunnel
can hold up to 1,000 pedestrians,
but the crowd inside quickly swelled
to 5,000, he said.
“With the lack of oxygen, a good
number collapsed unconscious, and
some died,” the witness said. “There
was also a stampede.”
“There always should be
movement within the tunnel, but the
entire crowd suddenly stopped, and
no one yet knows why,” he said.
The witness said he helped carry
victims to the ambulances waiting by
the tunnel’s exits, but it was impossi
ble to determine how many people
were dead or simply unconscious.
The tunnel is part of a massive
$ 15 billion development plan fori
holy sites to move pilgrims in a mi
orderly fashion for the Hajj
world’s largest religious gatheri
The plan includes other tunnels
overhead bridges.
The tent city was set up in Mina
house visiting pilgrims.
There are an estimated 2 milli
Moslems, including 800,000 visiti
from around the world, at Isl;
holy sites in the Mecca area for
Hajj. The celebration climaxed Si
day with prayers on Mount Ai
about eight miles from Mecca.
At the time of the tunnel accii
the pilgrims were taking pan
post-Hajj rituals or preparing
leave.
These rituals of Eid Al-Adha,o
the Feast of Sacrifice, commemorr
the Prophet Abraham’s offering c
his son in sacrifice to God.
Moslems celebrate the feast!
slaughtering sheep to emulate i
sacrifice of Abraham.
Strikes, happy shoppers signal
merger of German economies
EAST BERLIN (AP) — East Germans entered a new
economic world Monday with West German money in
their pockets, strikes by thousands of worried workers,
and happy shoppers buying bananas, chocolate and
fresh meat.
It was the first day of business after the two Ger
manics plunged into an economic union following the
Cold War division and a 40-year experiment by East
Germany with a Communist system.
Gerhard Pannier, a worried coal dealer, said, “We’re
rolling into a dark tunnel without even knowing there’ll
be an engine to pull us out.”
With widespread layoffs expected in East Germany,
there was immediate labor unrest.
A spokesman for the powerful IG Metall union
claimed during a rally that up to 15,000 workers had
briefly put down their tools in warning strikes around
East Berlin.
Karl-Heinz Graffenberger, a union leader, said the
strikers included 3,000 people at a locomotive factory in
the town of Hennigsdorf, where the rally was held. He
said they wanted pay increases, better working condi
tions and guaranteed jobs.
Kerstin Arendt, 21, who works in a locomotive fac
tory, said she makes 640 marks (about $390) a month
after deductions. “With 600 marks, you don’t get very
far,” she said.
East Berlin coal dealers used their trucks to blockade
loading points at four locations to protest the end of
state subsidies on brown coal, the nation’s most impor
tant source of energy.
Economists have predicted up to one third of East
Germany’s 8,000 businesses may fail when the full force
of West German competition decends on their ineffi
cient production methods.
Experts have predicted up to 4 million people in this
nation of 16.6 million could end up out of work.
East Germans were able to change some of their
worthless East German marks for West German marks
at a 1-1 rate as the country swung over to a capitalist sys
tem Sunday.
Gorbachev confronts factions
Troubled Soviet leaderfaces callfor resignation
MOSCOW (AP) — Mikhail S.
Gorbachev parried a demand Mon
day that he resign and urged unity
among bickering factions of the
Communist Party in what he said
was a race to keep the country from
becoming a second-rate power.
Despite a lack of enthusiasm for
his 2-hour, 20-minute speech open
ing the Communist Party’s crucial
28th Congress, the Soviet leader ap
peared to have papered over differ
ences between reformers and tradi
tionalists with equal doses of
confrontation, conciliation and con
fession.
There was little strong emotion
displayed by delegates, despite dec
larations by the party leader that the
congress would decide the Commu
nist Party’s fate.
It was unclear whether Gorbachev
could continue to hold back the ex
plosive disputes among the 4,657
delegates threatening his leadership
and the unity the party has main
tained since the 1920s.
Gorbachev defended his reforms
and insisted radical reform is vital
because the Soviet Union “is rapidly
becoming a second-rate power.”
Only nine minutes into the con
gress; the Soviet party chief and
president faced a demand for his
resignation. Coal miner Vladimir
Bludov from the Far East said the
leadership had bungled a program
to improve food supplies and imple
ment other reforms.
Another reformer, Yuri Boldyrev
of Leningrad, called for the nation
alization of the party’s property.
Attacks on Gorbachev’s lead
ership are increasingly frequent as
reformers and traditionalists find
fault with a failing economy, repub
lics bent on secession and rampant
crime.
“I think we can return to this pro
posal,” the Soviet leader said evenly
in response to Bludov, and the con
gress overwhelmingly supported
him.
At the end of the day, Politburo
member Alexander N. Yakovlev,
considered by many to be the brains
behind Gorbachev’s reforms, won an
ovation for a fiery speech calling for
delegates to rally around Gorbachev.
Bush tries
to overhaul
NATO polio
“Tomorrow the party will not be
alone in this violent political sea,” he
said, referring to new parties the
Communists have permitted. “Crit
icism will be mounting. This is when
both unity and confidence will be es
pecially necessary, and we should
learn it today.”
When the 10-day congress is over,
it will have elected a party leader and
Central Committee, and will have
approved new party rules and plat
form.
WASHINGTON (AP)-Presi
dent Bush will urge the NATO
allies this week to overhaul their
strategy for repelling a Soviet in
vasion by making the use of nu
clear weapons a highly unlikely
last resort, U.S. officials said
Monday.
Bush also is ready to consider
scrapping the 1,470 U.S. nuclear-
tipped artillery shells now based
mostly in West Germany and re
ducing or eliminating an arsenal
of 1,560 U.S. nuclear bombs de
ployed in seven NATO countries
the officials told the Associated
Press.
The shift in nuclear policy is
prompted by a vastly reduced So
viet threat and the crumbling of
the Soviet-led Warsaw Pact. 0n<
official said Hungary, once
sturdy Soviet ally, is seeking an
affiliation with NATO and said
the Bush administration wel
comes the move.
The
NATO doctrine would not stnp
the Western alliance of all nuclear
weapons. In fact, the Bush ad
ministration has made a point in
its arms control talks with the So
viets to clear the way for produc
tion of a new short-range nuclear
weapon, the air-to-surface
TASM.
proposed changes
doctrine would not st
But the officials, speaking on
condition of anonymity in a series
of interviews, stressed that the
likelihood of an attack by the Red
Army and other Warsaw Pact
forces, or one that NATO could
only push back with nuclear
weapons, was becoming very re
mote.
As a result, NATO is reviewing
its strategy. Some of the results
are likely to appear in the com
munique that will be issued at the
end of the summit on Friday.
Others, officials said, will be
implemented in the field with the
pace partly determined by what
the East does about its forces.
Goldminer says
abductors needed
money for war
QUITO, Ecuador (AP) — A U.S.
goldminer freed by Colombian re
bels after 61 days in captivity left for
home Monday but vow r ed to return
some day to this country. He said his
kidnappers had treated him “like a
king.”
Scott Heimdal, 27, told reporters
at Quito airport that he was kidnap
ped and held in the Amazon jungle
purely for ransom.
“It was simply money — money to
finance the war effort against the
Colombian government,” he said.
Heimdal was kidnapped by the
guerrillas April 28 in northeastern
Ecuador. He was released Friday af
ter his family in Peoria, Ill., paid
$60,000 they had collected in a com
munity fund-raising drive.
Heimdal said his captors “treated
me like a king. They never bothered
me.”
E
Smiling at reporters as he arrived
at the airport with his parents,
Heimdal said the first thing he
lanned to do in Peoria was to get a
aircut.
“Lm looking forward to getting
back, he said. “I’m looking forward
to seeing everybody.”
However, answering questions
from reporters, he said, ‘Til be back-
m be back.”
United States keeps title
of world’s largest debtor
WASHINGTON (AP) — The United States tight
ened its grip on the title of world’s largest debtor na
tion in 1989 by ending the year with a net debt of
$663.7 billion, up a sharp 25 percent from the pre
vious year.
The latest figures, based on data collected by the
Commerce Department, are certain to heighten the
emotional debate over whether the United States is
losing control of its financial destiny to foreigners.
The Commerce Department report showed that
U.S. holdings of overseas assets rose by $146.9 bil
lion last year to $1,412 trillion, a gain of 11.6 per
cent.
But foreign holdings in the United States climbed
at an even faster pace of 15.6 percent, rising by
$279.6 billion to $2,076 trillion.
The $663.7 billion imbalance between what
Americans own overseas and what foreigners own in
the United States is the country’s net debtor position.
Many private economists believe it will top $ 1 trillion
within a few years.
As recently as 1983, the United States was still the
world’s largest creditor nation, a position now held
by Japan. The 1983 surplus of $89 billion fell to $3.3
billion in 1984 and disappeared in 1985, when the
country became a net debtor for the first time in 71
years.
The surplus was eroded by America’s huge mer
chandise trade deficits as Americans transferred bil
lions of dollars into foreign hands to pay for im
ported cars and television sets.
Those dollars have been reinvested in everything
from U.S. Treasury bills to prime real estate in many
American cities, raising cries that foreigners are buy
ing America.
The Commerce Department reported that 54 per
cent of the increase in foreign holdings in 1989 came
from direct investment, defined as at least 10 per
cent ownership of a company.
Britain retained its position as the country with
the largest amount of direct investment in the
United States at $119.14 billion, a 17 percent in
crease over the 1988 level. Japan was second with
$69.70 billion in direct investment, up 31 percent
from 1988. The largest Japanese transaction last
year was Sony Corp.’s $3.4 billion purchase of Co
lumbia Pictures.
While
Dorters defend the foreign buying
supp<
surge as proof of America’s attractive investment op
portunities, critics contend that the development
shows that the United States has become overly de
pendent on foreign capital to finance its huge bud
get and trade deficits.
“The United States is going ever more in debt,’
Allen Sinai, chief economist of the Boston Co., said.
“That keeps interest rates higher in this country be
cause of the need to attract foreign capital, and it
hurts our ability to compete internationally in a
number of ways.”
The Commerce Department’s Bureau of Eco
nomic Analysis took the unusual position of deleting
the debtor position from Monday’s report, although
it supplied enough detail that it was a simple matter
to arrive at the bottom-line figure.
BEA Director Allan Young denied that there had
been any pressure from the Bush administration to
obscure a politically embarrassing figure.