Page 2 • The Battalion &z Briefs Monday • June 19 Rebels release hostages after Russian concessions BUDYONNOVSK, Russia (AP) — Chechen rebels holding 2,000 hostages in a hospital began releasing capt ives Sunday after the Russian government agreed to halt combat operations in Chechnya and allow the gunmen safe passage. Some 200 hostages, mostly women and children, left the hospital after the agreement was reached. The hostages, looking dazed and exhausted, emerged in two groups and were taken in ambu lances to nearby clinics. Sunday's hostage release came after Prime Minister Viktor Chernomyrdin reached an agreement with rebel leader Shamil Basayev to halt combat operations in Chechnya. He also agreed to allow the rebels safe passage to nearby Chechnya by bus or plane. Thousands of civilians and soldiers have been killed so far in the war in Chechnya. The war is unpopular in Rus sia, and Yeltsin has faced harsh criticism around the world for prosecuting it. U.S. investigators find no prison, POWs in Vietnam HUONG NON VILLAGE, Vietnam (AP) -— U.S. investigators found no prison and no American prisoners of war in a daylong search Sunday prompted by an activist's claims that hundreds are still being held two decades after the Vietnam War ended. Three Americans and three Viet namese escorts searched an army truck depot and acres of rice paddies at the spot where POW activist Billy Hendon claimed an underground prison is located. Hendon, a former Republican con gressman from North Carolina, said the prison was hidden inside a mountain and gave the geographical coordinates of the alleged spot in Vinh Phu province, about 50 miles northwest of Hanoi. But the investigators tracked the co ordinates to a low-lying field where farmers had recently harvested a rice crop. No mountains were in view for miles — only one-story brick and thatch homes, towering haystacks, banana trees and startled villagers. Vietnamese officials said there were no prisons in Huong Non or adjacent Hung Hoa Village, and the Foreign Ministry said Thursday that Vietnam does not have underground prisons. Summit's lack of results show limits of power HALIFAX, Nova Scotia (AP) — If all it took was money or military might, there's not much the club of the world's top seven industrialized nations and Russia, its honorary member, couldn't do. But at their annual summit here. President Clinton, Russia's Boris Yeltsin and the leaders of Japan, Canada and the four richest nations of Western Eu rope found being the biggest show on earth a frustrating business. "There's nothing," Clinton admit ted of the search for a diplomatic set tlement in Bosnia. "They will not make peace, sir, until they get tired of fighting each other." The summit, too, steered clear of officially pronouncing on a trade dis pute between the United States and Japan about autos and auto parts, al though the European leaders delicately isolated Clinton over his threat to im pose trade sanctions with talk about preferring "multilateral solutions." Mexicans say peso crisis far from over MEXICO CITY (AP) — President Ernesto Zedillo predicts the country's economic slide will hit bottom by year's end, but millions of Mexicans are hurting deeply from "La Crisis" and it seems only to get worse. Inflation is roaring, paychecks are eroding and the peso is still wobbling after a steep devaluation that began Dec. 20 - a tailspin that now is insti gating a deeper crisis of confidence in government. Many Mexicans are increasingly skeptical that the government can turn the economy around unless it ends of ficial corruption and implements wide democratic reforms. Salinas had painted an image of Mexico as a country living in the best of times, opening its economy under the North American Free Trade Agreement with Canada and the United States. But three weeks after Zedillo suc ceeded him on Dec. 1, the crisis broke open to the shock of most of Mexico's 90 million people. Six months later people are hurting more than ever. The peso's value has dropped about 40 percent, while prices soared. Inflation was 29 percent in the first five months of 1995 and is still rising. Dozens of businesses are going bankrupt every week. Homes and cars are being seized from people unable to pay loan rates topping 90 percent annually. Serbs free last 26 hostage U.N. peacekeepers □ Four weapons col lection points in Serb- field territory were deemed too dangerous and are no longer un der U.N. supervision. SARAJEVO, Bosnia-Herze- govina (AP) — The last 26 of more than 370 U.N. peacekeep ers seized by Bosnian Serbs last month were freed Sunday after the United Nations effectively caved in to a key Serb demand tied to their release. A shell killed seven people and wounded 12 waiting for scarce water in a Sarajevo sub urb, even as U.N. peacekeep ers abandoned weapons collec tion points set up to deter such deadly attacks. The Serbs announced the release of the 26 peacekeepers after four Serbs were freed from U.N. detention in Sara jevo, as the rebels had de manded. The United Nations had repeatedly insisted that the peacekeepers’ release should be unconditional. The Serbs also had demand ed an end to NATO airstrikes in exchange for releasing the hostages, and they claimed to have received assurances there would be no more raids. “We got a commitment,” said Nikola Koljevic, a Bosnian Serb leader, on Sunday. U.N. officials said, howev er, that airstrikes remained an option. Serbs had detained the peacekeepers in late May in re taliation for NATO bombing raids. The peacekeepers have been released in groups since June 6, and the bus carrying the final ones crossed into Ser bia on Sunday evening. Canadian Capt. Patrick Rechner, who was shown on television and in photographs chained to a stanchion at a Serb ammunition dump, was the only freed captive who was brought to the bus door to talk to reporters. “It’s been a difficult time, and we’re glad that the crisis is over,” said Rechner, a U.N. monitor in the Serb stronghold of Pale before his detention. Asked if he was willing to serve again in Serb-held terri tory, Rechner said, “Yes, as well as on any other side in the conflict.” He declined to dis cuss how he was treated. Of those released, 12 were Canadians, three Dutch, two Czechs and one each from Brazil, Russia, Nigeria, Fin land, Belgium, Pakistan, Kenya, Ghana and Jordan. U.N. peacekeepers with drew from five observation posts and four weapons collec tion points in Serb-held territo ry around Sarajevo after the areas were deemed too danger ous, U.N. spokesman Lt. Col. Gary Coward said. The collection points con- "We're glad that the crisis is over." — Capt. Patrick Rechner U.N. monitor in Serb stronghold Pale tained heavy guns turned over by the Serbs in February 1994 under a NATO threat of airstrikes designed to end at tacks on the besieged city by banning heavy weapons from a 12.5-mile radius. Sunday’s withdrawal means neither Serb nor gov ernment weapons are under U.N. supervision. “The duties performed by the U.N. in Bosnia and in the capital Sarajevo have shrunk,” U.N. spokesman Alexander Ivanko acknowledged. He in sisted, however, that airstrikes Government-Bosnian Croat federation O U.N. safe zones ■ Croat-Serb and Bosnian-Serb M Bosnian Serbs freed the last 26 U.N. peacekeepers, including 11 Canadians. ii Seven people were killed and at least 10 wounded when a shell landed in the southwestern suburb of Dobrinja. Si Rebel Serbs reacted to the government offensive by declaring a “state of war,” immediately drafting all males over 18 and putting the army in charge of the government. Associated Pre remain an option. But it seemed unlikely that any attacks like the shell that smashed into a line for water in the government-held Dobri suburb on Sunday willds NATO airstrikes. “No cham senior U.N. official said. TEXAS A&M UNIVERSITY COLLEGE OF LIBERAL ARTS PRESENTS THE PUJ CO 1= Q_ T* CO