To: bpr-list@philologos.org (BPR Mailing List)
Subject: [BPR] - War weary await 'Messiah' Clinton
From: bpr-list@philologos.org
Date: Sun, 19 Mar 2000 10:45:47 -0500

Saturday, March 18, 2000
SOUTH ASIA

War weary await 'Messiah' Clinton

LAURINDA KEYS of Associated Press in Srinagar, India

Rolling out thin, spicy, biscuit dough
on to a charcoal-heated hot plate, baker Nazir Ahmad Runga
is worried. Sitting in his wooden shack on a street of
shuttered shops in Kashmir, he wonders: "Where will the
next shooting or explosion be?"

But he believes everything should be all right after US
President Bill Clinton visits South Asia on a tour
beginning on Monday in India and including a brief stop in
Pakistan.

"He will decide our fate so we will leave this hell," the
40-year-old baker said. "He is the only one who can."

It seems a bleak hope.

Mr Clinton has offered to mediate in the dispute between
India and Pakistan over Kashmiri sovereignty, but only if
both countries ask - which India has said it will not.

The dispute has been the spark for two of the three wars
between the two countries since 1947. Now both sides have
nuclear weapons and tensions in Kashmir are high again.

On Thursday night they fought sustained artillery duels in
the Uri sector of northern Kashmir.

Kashmir's leading separatist alliance, the All Parties
Hurriyat (Freedom) Conference, yesterday said its
delegation had met Mr Clinton and urged him to visit
Kashmir during his trip next week.

India says Kashmir is a bilateral problem that could be
resolved if Pakistan stopped supporting guerillas who cross
the border. Pakistan says it gives moral and political
support, but no money, weapons or training, to the
militants.

Pakistani leaders want the international community to get
involved and implement a 1948 UN resolution calling for an
eventual plebiscite in Kashmir.

The years of fighting have taken their toll.

Indian forces are fighting guerillas who can hide an
automatic rifle under the traditional long woollen cloak
most Kashmiri men wear.

They can place a landmine in a vegetable market or slip up
to an off-duty soldier in a crowded lane and kill him at
point-blank range. Frustrated and frightened troops and
police are sandbagged in bunkers every few hundred metres.
Kashmiris complain that they avenge militant attacks by
burning shops and houses and raping, beating and
humiliating entire villages.

"We want independence," says Azi Begum Fatima, beating her
breast in a courtyard of a mosque in Srinagar, Kashmir's
summer capital.

"We are living in a miserable way under the ruthless
Indian occupation."

Major-General John Mukherjee, the regional Indian army
commander, acknowledged some abuses but said many
complaints were unproved.

Although there is no formal curfew, Kashmiris try to get
home before sunset. If they cannot, they drive with the
lights on inside their cars so they can be seen by
increasingly trigger-happy soldiers or police.

Police and army leaders believe guerilla groups are
planning a spectacular event to draw attention to Kashmir
while Mr Clinton is in India.

Members of the largest legal separatist group say they
plan protests.

For Runga the baker, Mr Clinton is the best hope to make
India and Pakistan resolve their dispute. He speaks of the
power of the US leader in messianic terms - as do many
Kashmiris.

"Clinton should tell India to withdraw from Kashmir," says
Mohammad Jusuf Qurashi, giving a Koran lesson in the
Srinagar mosque courtyard.

"He is a superpower in the world. He can do anything."

http://www.scmp.com/News/Asia/Article/FullText_asp_ArticleID-200003180
30523297.asp

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========
To: bpr-list@philologos.org (BPR Mailing List)
Subject: [BPR] - US Reform Movement may approve same-sex unions
From: bpr-list@philologos.org
Date: Sun, 19 Mar 2000 10:48:19 -0500

US Reform Movement may approve same-sex unions
By Marilyn Henry

NEW YORK (March 19) - The Reform Movement's rabbinical
association is set to vote this week on a controversial
resolution that, while not explicitly sanctioning gay
marriage, will give its blessing to rabbis who choose - or
decline - to officiate at same-gender ceremonies between
two Jews.

The resolution, which does not refer to such unions as
marriages, "supports giving affirmation to gays and
lesbians and the relationships they form through
appropriate Jewish ritual," said Rabbi Paul Menitoff,
director of Reform's Central Conference of American Rabbis.

It would be "groundbreaking because it would be the first
time a major religious body will have indicated its support
for any of its clergy who decide to officiate at same-
gender ceremonies," Menitoff said Friday.

-- more --

http://jpost.com/Editions/2000/03/19/News/News.4186.html

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