gaddam@remus.rutgers.edu (Surekha Reddy Gaddam) (05/23/91)
================================================ From: kumarv@paul.rutgers.edu (kumar vadaparty) Newsgroups: misc.news.southasia Date: 22 May 91 15:44:12 GMT Organization: Rutgers Univ., New Brunswick, N.J. ================================================ Editor's Note: An Associated Press reporter was covering the rally during which Rajiv Gandhi was assassinated, standing barely 15 yards from the hidden bomb that killed the former prime minister. This is his account: ^By BHAGWAN SINGH= ^Associated Press Writer= SRIPERAMBUDUR, India (AP) _ Rajiv Gandhi was an hour late, but that was nothing unusual and it didn't matter. It was a cool summer evening, there was a festive air, and the fireworks were crackling. Before the Congress Party leader reached the open field for the election rally, reporters saw him stop on the roadside near a memorial to his mother, Indira Gandhi, assassinated in 1984. He placed a garland on the statue and continued on his way. A half-hour before, a top police officer had mused about how southern India had escaped most of the political violence that has claimed hundreds of lives in the north. Gandhi alighted from his car and walked down a red carpet toward the podium where he was to address the crowd of 10,000. He smiled and waved as he walked past a basket of flowers on the ground. Suddenly, there was a brilliant light and a deafening blast, and splinters flew from wooden barricades. At first it seemed that some Congress Party supporters had set off an oversized firecracker. But the burning stench and the first wails of horror quickly brought home the truth. For a few seconds, there was a dazed stillness and lack of reaction, even among the security men. People in the back of the crowd didn't realize anything was wrong. They kept cheering. Half a dozen men were running, bleeding from deep wounds. A woman in a blue sari was lying on the ground, injured and crying. Around her, a pile of mangled bodies were twisted grotesquely. There, clumped with three other bodies, was the disfigured shape of the former prime minister. The left side of his face had been ripped off. A small portion of his fair skin was still visible on the right side. He had been the only fair person among the dark south Indians. Some in the crowd noticed his white canvas shoes were still intact. Fourteen or 15 other people lay on the ground in blood-soaked clothing, some moaning, some silent. A woman ran toward the podium shouting ``Thalaivar, thalaivar,'' which means ``the leader'' in the language of the Tamils of south India. ``He is gone,'' muttered a local Congress Party chief after seeing Gandhi's body. Someone screamed, ``There could be another one!'' People began racing for the exits. Youths began shouting and throwing stones. A reporter took the road to Madras, 25 miles away. Along a portion of the highway leading to the airport, it was evident that news of Gandhi's death had yet to spread. Theme music from popular films blared over loudspeakers. People lined the road, waiting to cheer Rajiv Gandhi on to his next stop. -- Subject: APNEWS Human rights violation UNITED NATIONS (AP) _ Governments that respect human rights are also the most aggressive in promoting the health, welfare, education and general quality of life, according to a U.N. report released today. Iraq received the worst human rights rating in the survey by the U.N. Development Program. Despite its pre-war wealth, its development ranked only 91st of 160 nations. ``Societies that have repressed their people have often repressed their creativity and productivity, and therefore have lowered their own growth potential,'' said Mahbub ul Haq, chief author of the report. Many other nations that denied their citizens a wide variety of human rights also were near the bottom of the agency's list. Among them were Burma, Ethiopia, Cambodia, Laos, and Vietnam. The authors said they found that capitalism alone cannot guarantee development. ``We find that the markets can't do it all, that often the market efficiency has to be combined with some social compassion, a responsibility by the governments to look after the poor, the needy, the vulnerable,'' ul Haq said. The authors measured a country's life expectancy, adult literacy rate and basic purchasing power to arrive at its ``Human Development Index'' ratings for 160 nations. By this standard, poorer countries sometimes rate higher than wealther nations in terms of human development. Japan, Canada, Iceland, Sweden and Switzerland were the most developed nations, according to the report. The United States ranked seventh, France 10th, Britain 11th and Germany 14th, while Brazil was 60th, India was 123rd, and Sierra Leone was at the bottom of the list. ``There are far too many examples of wasted resources and wasted opportunities...,'' U.N. Development Program administrator William H. Draper III said in the report. The agency issues such a report annually and this year, sensitive to criticism that its index did not take civil liberties and freedoms into account, it developed a companion ``Human Freedom Index.'' It ranked 88 nations, for which information was available, on whether they guaranteed 40 basic rights and liberties protected in the U.N. Universal Declaration of Human Rights and various international covenants on civil, political, economic, social and cultural rights. Among the rights are: free travel, peaceable association and assembly, freedom from forced or child labor, the legal right to a prompt and fair trial, freedom of interracial or interreligious marriage and freedom to have homosexual relationships. The Freedom Index rated Denmark and Sweden as the freest societies, providing 38 out of 40 basic rights and freedoms. Iraq guaranteed none of the 40 freedoms; Libya only one; China guaranteed two, and South Africa three. The United States ranked fairly high with 33 liberties. Japan had 32. Western European countries all ranked high on both lists, as did Australia, New Zealand, Canada, Costa Rica and Hong Kong. --