Opposition Party

GIVE ME YOUR tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to cry `racism' at the drop of a hat." That's not the inscription inscribed on the Statue of Liberty. But it should be.So they came Monday morning. My people, the black people, to once again charge this newspaper with being "racist" in its coverage. The claim this time is that we are running negative articles about black mayoral candidates and only positive ones about the leading white mayoral candidate, 3rd District Democratic Councilman Martin O'Malley.

JOHANNESBURG, South Africa -- The African National Congress, under its new leader, Thabo Mbeki, won a bigger victory in elections this week than five years ago and was headed for a commanding two-thirds majority in Parliament."

BEIJING -- U.S. officials expressed concern to the Chinese government yesterday over reports that several dissidents had been detained and others harassed in preparation for President Clinton's state visit."

TOKYO -- Politics took a turn to the usual here yesterday as the governing Liberal Democratic Party opted for political expedience and agreed to form a coalition with its archenemy, Ichiro Ozawa, and his Liberal Party.The alliance will strengthen the governing party's sway in Parliament, mollify its restive hard-liners and give it sure support in coming budget debates."I am happy that we have agreed to work together on various policies with strong cooperation in the parliamentary session and on the 1999 budget discussion," said Prime Minister Keizo Obuchi, who signed the deal with Ozawa after 3 1/2 hours of talks yesterday.

PRESIDENT Liamine Zeroual's idea was that a parliamentary election in Algeria would confer credibility on his regime and repudiate the Islamic extremists whose civil war has taken 60,000 lives in five years. More than two-thirds of eligible Algerians turned out last Thursday in a demonstration for legitimacy and against terror.The party winning the most seats in the National Assembly was the National Democratic Rally, which President Zeroual created as an afterthought to sever his connection from the National Liberation Front (NLF)

NEZAHUALCOYOTL, Mexico -- When Valentin Gonzalez took office as mayor of this suburb of Mexico City in January, he found 120 reporters on the city payroll. Former mayors were renting buildings to the city at exorbitant rates. The water system hadn't been repaired in 25 years.His experience is typical of what the growing number of opposition party mayors have encountered as they try to reform cities that have been run for years on graft and back-room deals.In Tuxtla Gutierrez, in the southern state of Chiapas, Mayor Enoch Araujo of the center-right National Action Party (PAN)

JAKARTA, Indonesia -- The most serious rioting in decades erupted yesterday in downtown Jakarta, with anti-government protesters hurling rocks and setting fire to buses, cars and several office buildings, then fleeing wildly as police and soldiers charged at them with bamboo canes.The rapid spread of the rioting and the anger of the people in the streets seemed to take authorities by surprise and raised questions about the government's ability to control popular protest as the country enters a contentious pre-election period.

CAPE TOWN, South Africa -- The day after South Africa celebrated the passage of its new constitution, the National Party that presided over the end of apartheid pulled out of the country's Government of National Unity, opting instead for the role of an opposition party."

WASHINGTON -- The Republican tidal wave that swept over the midterm congressional elections yesterday presents President Clinton with an extremely dismal outlook for the second half of his White House term and beyond, if he seeks re-election in 1996.With the GOP capturing control of both houses of Congress for the first time in 42 years, Mr. Clinton's hopes of only two years ago of being an "agent of change" have been severely compromised by the prospect of an opposition party pressing an agenda of its own, harking back to the conservatism of the Ronald Reagan years.

Tashkent, Uzbekistan. -- The mindless pop music thumps away at the "Istanbul" cellar restaurant here; the prostitutes conscientiously ply their trade at the hard-currency hotel; the markets groan with melons, carrots, spices and pistachios -- all in all, it doesn't really look like a police state.But the government is cracking down on its scattered opposition here with a vengeance.Jailings, beatings and rigged trials are giving Uzbekistan -- the largest and most important of the new countries of Central Asia -- the worst human rights record of any former Soviet republic not now engulfed in a shooting war.Uzbekistan's internal crackdown has sharply intensified this month, driving even the moderate opposition nearly to desperation.

Johannesburg, South Africa -- Nyasha Putana could not help crying in pain as ruling party supporters used sticks to whack his buttocks and soles of his feet in front of hundreds of fellow villagers. At least five people died from beatings at Monday's "political meeting" at Dakudzwa village, about 60 miles north of Harare, in Mashonaland, according to witnesses, the opposition Movement for Democratic Change and a human rights worker who requested anonymity for fear of reprisals. "They were saying, `We are saving the country by pain,'" said Putana, 32, speaking softly from his hospital bed in Harare yesterday.

JOHANNESBURG, South Africa -- Zimbabwe's government quickly distanced itself from an editorial in the state-run newspaper yesterday that called for a transitional unity government headed by the country's longtime strongman, Robert G. Mugabe, until new elections could be organized. Zimbabwe has been plunged into political crisis since its disputed elections last month, with the government refusing to announce who won the race for president. Still, the ruling party has repeatedly argued that neither Mugabe nor his chief rival, Morgan Tsvangirai, won a majority of the votes, forcing the two into a runoff.

JOHANNESBURG, South Africa -- Ten days after Zimbabwe voted and by most accounts rejected its long-serving, autocratic president, the mood of the country grew more ominous yesterday. The opposition reported widespread attacks on its supporters, black youths drove white farmers off their land and elections officials were arrested on charges of vote tampering. As President Robert G. Mugabe sought to cling to power beyond his 28th year in office, Zimbabwe's High Court began to weigh the opposition Movement for Democratic Change's demand for the immediate release of the presidential election results.

HARARE, Zimbabwe -- The main opposition party pressed its claim yesterday that it had won a landslide election victory to unseat Zimbabwe President Robert G. Mugabe, but the government said nothing about the presidential vote 48 hours after ballots had been cast. The only official announcement was that both sides were tied in early parliamentary results. At a news conference yesterday, officials from the opposition party, the Movement for Democratic Change, claimed to have seen the results from more than half of the constituencies and that, according to their calculations, the opposition presidential candidate, Morgan Tsvangirai, had won 60 percent of the presidential vote to beat the 84-year-old Mugabe.

ELDORET, Kenya -- Angry mobs clashed with police yesterday in several Kenyan cities as news spread about the killing of a second opposition lawmaker in this Rift Valley city. The newly elected member of parliament, David Kimutai Too, was shot to death in a car with a female companion in what police described as a "crime of passion" arising from a "love triangle." The suspected killer, who worked as a policeman in Eldoret, was said by authorities to be having an affair with the same woman, who also was shot and killed.

Native Americans live right next door My family celebrates Thanksgiving the same way we celebrate Columbus Day: We participate in sweat lodge and pipe ceremonies to mourn the loss our ancestors suffered in the colonization of what became America and to honor the sacrifices made by our ancestors to enable us to be here. It's a small act of defiance but an important way of asserting that the indigenous people of this land are indeed still here. I was pleased, then, to see that The Sun published Andrew L. Yarrow's commentary in its Thanksgiving Day issue ("Reach out to American Indians the other 364 days of the year," Opinion Commentary, Nov. 22)

HARARE, Zimbabwe -- Keith Charumbira had just stepped off a minivan taxi in southwest Harare three weeks ago, fresh from a Friday evening gathering of civic advocates in Zimbabwe's capital city, when he saw the knot of policemen walking toward him. It was too late to flee. "They started asking questions," Charumbira said: "`Why are you active in an opposition party that is against the needs of the government? Don't you know you are part of a leadership that is leading to violence?' " The officers rifled through his pockets, Charumbira said, and took his cash, amounting to about $60. Then, for the next 20 minutes, they beat him. "They used batons," he said.

KABUL, Afghanistan -- The new chairman of Afghanistan's parliament, Yunus Qanooni, said yesterday he would resign as leader of the opposition and support the government of Afghanistan in the interests of the people. His comments, at a news conference in the parliament building, were seen as a peace offering to President Hamid Karzai, whom he has opposed since leaving the government in 2004 to run against him in the presidential race. "I cannot at the same time be chairman of the House of People and opposition of the government," he said as representatives were voting for the two deputy chairmen of the parliament.

FOR THE FIRST time in 60 years, leaders of the Chinese Communist Party and Taiwan's main opposition party, the Nationalists, will meet today in Beijing. It is a historic moment with the potential to bring about tremendous good or damage to tense relations between mainland China and the breakaway island. However, it is discolored by the most base sort of politics -- the enemy of my enemy is my ally -- and so must be viewed very cautiously. The last time these political parties met was in 1945, right after the end of World War II, when they failed to negotiate a peace settlement.

JOHANNESBURG, South Africa - Zimbabwe's leading opposition party declared yesterday that it would suspend its participation in parliamentary and local elections because the ruling ZANU-PF party, led by President Robert G. Mugabe, has effectively eliminated any chance of a fair vote. Leaders of the opposition party, the Movement for Democratic Change, said they would take part in the voting only if Mugabe's government adopted political reforms, including establishing an independent authority to oversee the voting.