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Show - Tbanday. April 25, 19W THE , 1 A A J; y,ffii I II .J 3 c!l9 DAILY HEBALD, fr l'tfc Paf D9 f , ' &l&8sl If 1 S3 $3 gnuiSinn)lo)oD8 novelty. He claimed he'd seen "mice because of the w ay they cars years older rumbling down dart around, and their presence amid the vintage cars helps shake On the the road. DAMASCUS. Syria croon over all the feeling that you're on the set don't potholed roads of Damascus, old oldSyrians a period movie. Their habits cars. of driving cars never die, they just putter President been have by shaped Someday soon the minivans down to the auto parts scavengers Hafez Assad's will outnumber the classic cars. of street. w hich has made it One man who won't be There, auto parts dealer economy, a new. impressed is Anwar Nabelsi. to expensive get Mohammed Khadi has retired his N'abelsi has one of the finest imported vehicle. "We keep the old cars going .0ld cars in Damascus, a 1956. 1958 Desoto with canary yellow Mercedes spare parts from all kinds of from three decades of 'Diplomat said Khadi, 29. vertible that has its orisnnal cars." taxi service, but he drives his who runs one of the manv clut- engine and a spotless, wood- beloved car to and from paneled interior. work every day. the When weather's Across the road. Louay old "We w arm, he takes dow n the top Babbih tinkers with his from and cruises the streets in n 1952 going with hulking, style. In the winter, he drives Chevy Belair before he all kinds of different an emerald his backup car heads home. Mohammed 1978 Khadi, Toyota Corona. green, the corner. Around arc so common Old cars of 1958 Nouras Bashur explains the have no value as that most challenges of finding spare Diplomat items. collector's his 1947 Buick They're parts for seen as lumbering comwhich he Skylark muter cars whose spare bought as the family car have to be scavenged last parts year. just tered. auto parts shops on from or handcrafted This Middle Eastern nation is junkyards thorstreet an a motoring museum for classic oughfare dedicated to keeping by the inventive mechanics on street. Though many American and European cars w heezing old cars alive. in are excellent condition, most from the 1940s, '50s and '60s. Syria doesn't make cars, and It's a place where tail fins and private buvers still face crippling sell for only a few thousand dolrunning boards have never gone duties of 200 percent to 300 per- lars. Ellas Nonee, 52. said that for out of style, and there's nothing cent on imported vehicles. A car 25 about driv a man a car for West years he was angling to make in SI that sells ing the 5.000 strange d that's older than he is. can cost as much as $45,000 in a tidy sum by selling his 1939 Plymouth to an A random stroll through the Syria, a relatively poor country narrow, winding lanes of this where you can't get a car loan. appreciative buyer. Western tourists fueled his fan-- . ancient city turned up several The motoring scene has n d a carts, improved some since Assad's tasy by frequently stopping to Cadillac Fleetwood circa government began economic take pictures and gushing over his . 1950. a shiny green Jaguar of reforms in 1991. Now businesses car. He believed them. But to fellow Sy rians, it w as just plain old. the same vintage, and even a can import vehicles Last year he finally sold it for 1939 Willys Jeep that's in daily although the tax remains for indiless than $7,000. Then he bought use. viduals. The owner of the Willys. Thousands of new. white a "new " car he expects to last the Basil Barakdat, scoffed when a Japanese minivans now ply the rest of his days a 1963 Peu- visitor suggested his car was a streets as taxis. Thev're know n as By GREG MYRE Associated Press Wmer state-dominat- ed an ly road-hoggin- g, g, -- blue-and-whi- te con-differe- nt cars spare parts cars." keep the forest-gree- owner Desoto in cream-and-gol- fcrj1' horse-draw- cream-colore- e, duty-fre- AP Ptxxo Ureter portraits of the Syrian President Kafiz Assad, Anwar NabsJsi chocks his Morcsdss in Damascus. Nabolsi has on of the finest old cars in the country, a 1956 Mercedes t blue-and-wh- ite convertible that has rts original engine and a spot- interior. Syria is a motoring loss, musoum for classic American and European cars from the 1940s through 1960s. wood-panel- ed kistrian author causes furor with book on 'Justice for Serbia' By NESHA STAR CEVIC Associated Press Writer I FRANKFURT, Germany ast the title was enough to set off for Serbia A ltfffirrMrice i'jnter Journey uber-Sat- a. T to the Rivers Moftva and Dri-- 3 - ft. When Peter Handke. one of the e Jaost influential Vriters. published the long essay in January, it created an immediate Wrm in literary and intellectual circles across Europe. Handke 53, a native Austrian pww living in Paris, has a wide audience for his introspective novels and plays. His essay sparked debate going to the heart of IJurope's agony over what it should or should not have done to sjop the Continent's worst bloodletting since World War II. A major theme of his essay rfow turned into a hook published is tty Suhrkamp of Frankfurt that the reporting of Western news media has drilled into readers' minds an image of Serbs as aggres- - The war correspondents "are not onlv arrogant chroniclers, thev are also false." he added. "To bring the war closer to the clients, many international magazines, from Time to N'ouvel Observatcur. proclaimed Sexbs in general evil and Muslims in general good." In Germany and Austria, barely a day goes a comment on the essav from a journalist, author or analy st most of them attacking Huikike. The critics say he ignores the atrocities perpetrated by Bosnian .Serbs, who between April and November 1992 seized 70 percent and of expelled more than I million mostly Muslims, from their homes. The Guardian, an influential national Bnfjsh newspaper, devoted a full page to a story on "The man who loves the Serbs." ut German-languag- I Bosnia-Herzegovi- ram-Serb- s, Pttar Handka sors in the Yugoslav conflict. "In this war as in others, the roles of assailants and the attacked, (he pure victims and the naked were too quickly assigned for the benefit of the world public." he wrote. evil-doer- s, so-call-ed Germans and Austrians have in particular beeii stung by Handke's criticism of their countries' swift readiness to recognize Slovenia and Croatia as independent rations Qoldiors say corruption Oofoatod Cambodian army tit tTPHNOM PENH. Cambodia and corniDtion. Factionalism rather than the military might of tine murderous Khmer Rouge, defeated the Cambodian army in ill attempt to capture a key rebel stronghold, government soldiers tpld The Associated Press. 2. Three months ago. Cambodian army commanders were predicting mat in a matter of davs thev would tale Pailin. a gem and timber trad- ... isi . a - r j cenier mai wg prime uuiv.v- wi sh for i hi oiicrnlbs. The armv Captured Pailin once before in March 1994. but lost it a month hrter after the Khmer Rouce coun terattacked. . .. Inis time tne government muj had 20 (TOO trooos supported by Oaks and aircraft surrounding Piiilin defended bv no more than fcOOO Khmer Rouge fighters. It itemed the days were numbered (or the radical Marxists who a million MnnahiM nw thiin ........ of "&II1VUU Ili'iV n" in power while eir countrymen -- Bom 1973-7- 8. 2 Rut nn Fri.tnv the M1TTIV With and soldiers and politicians Kio spoke with The Associated fttss said there were never 20.000 tovernment troops near Pailin, 5ftly somewhere between 4,ww and 7.000. Corrupt officers inflated the figures for personal gain, Shew, feey said. 1 TV Phnnm Penh irovemment denies the charges. But those Interviewed paintca a armies run by commanders with allegiances to .different political parties. Cooperation was minimal. The result w as a tragic waste of life. Hundreds were killed or lost limbs to land mines on the drive toward Pailin. 220 miles northwest foot of Phnom Penh. Front-lin- e soldiers w alked aw ay because they hadn't been paid. Reinforcements fled rather than fight. The Khmer Rouge, too diminished in strength to take adv antage of the situation, nonetheless lived to fight another day and the prospect of ending the country 's civ ji war has receded j , again. The taking of Pailin would have been a major blow to the Khmer r trade Rouge, whose w ith Thailand keeps the guerrillas alive. i A field commander w ho spoke to The Associated Press on condition of anonymity, said Cambodian troop strength was greatly exag- gerated so corrupt officers could sell the extra rations and munitions slated for them. Some suspect the officers kept the Ml-die- reported. It succeeded. Handke then published the essay as a book; reversing the title to put "Justice for Serbia" at the end. It has shot to No. I in the Austrian lists. Next, he went on the road, giving public readings in Germany. Austria and Slov enia. Austrian state television broadcast a discussion following a Vienna reading that set the whole nation talking. A spectator who said he had been in Sarajevo 22 times during the war asked Handke why he had not visited Bosnia. The author raged at the man: "Why do people always ask why I rs' pay. "They used 'ghost soldiers' as verv simple way to get extra money for their o n pockets," he said. Khicu Kanharith of the Ministry of Information denied that the number of troop was inflated or that commanders were using ghost soldiers to enrich themselves. best-sell- er didn't go to Bosnia? ... Are you the ow ners of suffering?" Some of Handke's most bitter in his text and at his remarks are reserved packed readings for the Frankfurter Allgemtirte Zeitung. a conservative German b newspaper that took a strong line even before the war and is unabashedly Handke also criticized Peter Schneider, an author who wrote articles on the Bosnian war for Der Spiegel magazine, for supporting NATO air strikes on Bosnian Slovenia's secession. In ' i November 1995, he traveled bo-Qeia- a" ' t. Serbs. f areKfaMWirtt bita ;tairurat;: ar. titles and came back describing the Serbs as isolated and proud. "On my travels, at least I did 4 not see Serbia as a land of para- noiacs much more as the huge room of an orphaned, yes, an abandoned child." orphaned, Handke wrote. " But w ho knows? What can a stranger know ?" Aleksandar Tisma, a writer w ho left Serbia for France in protest of " Serbia's nationalistic policies at Ihe outset of the war, contends Handke's w ott has been misunder- of-w- Schneider replied in Spiegel, challenging Handke's contention that the Serbs were provoked into war by the secession of Croaria that left hundreds of thousand's of stood. Serbs as second-rat- e citizens in a j "It is the book of a man who is.. ' land they did not want to live fa. mourning after a country," Tisma histoin all told the Frankfurter Rundschau. aggressors "Nearly "Nowhere does Handke claim that t ry, not least Adolf Hitler, claimed Serbs committed no crimes. ... He they were reacting to provocation." Schneider wrote. experienced Yugoslav ia as a beauHandke first wrote a hook tiful, big. multiethnic country. It lamenting the breakup of the mulpains him now that this country tiethnic Yueoslavia in I99after has gone under, broken up." BW IMUD fv Over 42,000 patterns to chooso from! 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It said the essay was designed to stir debate and question assumptions about the war and how it was f t7& COtd. VMpapar Strfpar tlC3 CHtl Cbuic 9T Cina fort 3M Hydi Pnd Nxspr iol O $1X3 Wtmar Aiurrunurn HoutahoU ExSartuon Loddari Starting w taw oi rC 1 ' |