New UN Troops in Bosnia, Injured Muslims Airlifted
FRESH United Nations peacekeeping forces were deployed early yesterday along confrontation lines around Gorazde, a UN spokesman said.
The new 247-strong UN Protection Force contingent joined up with the 200 UNPROFOR troops already on the ground. The fresh contingent, initially planned to number 400, includes 247 British, Russian, and Egyptian soldiers.
The spokesman said the reinforcements went into the Muslim town in eastern Gorazde without certain logistics units, which will follow in the next two or three days.
The task of the peacekeepers in Gorazde is to monitor the cease-fire, interpose themselves between the warring factions, provide security for humanitarian agencies, and verify the Bosnian Serb pullout.
Bosnian Serbs halted their three-week assault on the UN-designated safe area Saturday, after NATO threatened sweeping airstrikes, and began pulling their heavy guns out of a 12-mile exclusion zone. The United Nations has given the Serbs until 8:01 p.m. EDT tomorrow to get all heavy weapons out of the area.
As the Serbs pulled out, British and French helicopters carrying 85 wounded Muslims landed in Sarajevo in the first phase of a UN operation to evacuate 600 victims of a three-week Serb assault on Gorazde.
Figures from the UN High Commissioner for Refugees put the casualty toll at more than 700 dead and nearly 2,000 wounded.
UN aid trucks carrying 89 tons of food arrived in Gorazde on Sunday evening for the first time since the Muslim enclave came under Serb attack on March 28. A further 10 trucks left yesterday with 100 tons of food and supplies, UN High Commissioner for Refugees officials said. Rightist wins Salvadoran elections
ARMANDO CALDERON SOL of the ruling right-wing ARENA party won a resounding victory in El Salvador's first presidential elections after 12 years of civil war, official results showed Sunday.
With nine-tenths of votes counted, Mr. Calderon Sol scored 67.8 percent and his leftist rival, Ruben Zamora, trailed with 32.2 percent, the Supreme Electoral Tribunal said. Less than 50 percent of 2.7 million eligible voters cast their ballots.
Calderon Sol, a 45-year-old lawyer who helped found the right-wing Nationalist Republican alliance (ARENA) party in 1981, will take office June 1, becoming the first president since United Nations peace accords ended the civil war in 1992.
He insisted he will comply with the peace accords and look for the support of all sectors. ``We have to guide the country on a path of tolerance and harmony,'' he said.
Calderon Sol will deal with a legislative assembly that ARENA will narrowly control, thanks to the support of the small pro-Army National Conciliation Party.
But former rebel leaders, who came second in last month's elections and will have 21 deputies in the 84-seat parliament, say the new president should not try to govern by pushing laws through parliament without looking for cross-party support.
Calderon Sol campaigned on a platform of continuing the free market reforms of outgoing President Alfredo Cristiani, while promising to boost spending on health and education.
