A prep course for the month-long World Cup soccer tournament, a worldwide pheno

tial bailout '' of an agency that currently gets virtually no tax subsidies if m

ail volume falls substantially , Gleiman said . In his questions Tuesday , Clay 

seemed to suggest that his final witnesses the presidentially appointed board of

 postal governors who oversee the agency will be questioned in detail about thei

r oversight of Runyon . `` I think they 're being hoodwinked. .. . I have some d

oubt they 're being given all the information they need , '' the chairman said .

 So far most of Clay 's hearings have been receptive to Runyon . Last week , how

ever , postal unions sharply criticized his reorganization . They described Runy

on 's decision to split all local mail operations into two separate divisions cu

stomer service or mail processing whose local heads are often at odds . These di

sputes have to be appealed to Washington to be resolved , a time-consuming proce

ss .

 JACMEL , Haiti Despite a reinforced U.N. embargo that went into effect Sunday ,

 a flotilla of ships carrying contraband has sailed into this port city , carryi

ng merchandise including gasoline , cars and color television sets . Local resid

ents said at least nine ships have docked since the strengthened embargo started

 , in theory barring everything except pre-approved shipments of food , medicine

 and propane gas . Five remained Monday , and army officers directed trucks onto

 the docks to unload the merchandise . The embargo was imposed in October and re

inforced by the U.N. . Security Council on Sunday in an effort to force the mili

tary to allow the return of ousted president Jean-Bertrand Aristide . He was ove

rthrown in a military coup in September 1991 , six months after becoming Haiti '

s first democratically elected leader . The ships , which flew British , Jamaica

n , Colombian , Dominican , Bahamian and Haitian flags , demonstrated how diffic

ult it could be to enforce the measure , especially since the ships largely ply 

the waters between Haiti and the Dominican Republic . The two nations share the 

Caribbean island of Hispaniola . While the United States and other nations maint

ain warships and Coast Guard cutters offshore , they cannot legally enter the th

ree-mile territorial limit , and so the ships often can just skirt the shoreline

 and enter without interference . `` So far , the ships have been triple-parked 

out there , '' said one longtime resident , watching as they bobbed , waiting to

 be unloaded . `` It has been years since the port was that busy . '' Diplomats 

involved in monitoring the embargo said it could take weeks to figure out how to

 plug its leaks , and admitted that the officers who control the contraband coul

d build up substantial stockpiles in the meantime . This means the measure would

 not really begin to have an impact on the rich and on the officer corps for sev

eral weeks , they said . But it is a question whether the wealthy or the officer

 corps will suffer . While reporters watched , uniformed army officers supervise

d the unloading of a truckload of color televisions and other electronic goods .

 At the port entrance , a small market has sprung up , and residents said there 

had been an influx of prostitutes to keep pace with the growing number of ships 

. Residents said that at times over the weekend there were nine tanker trucks on

 the dock getting fuel from tanks on visiting ships . Other ships unloaded vehic

les and luxury goods . The Bahamian-flagged Sea Search , a seagoing tug that on 

Saturday was engaged by a U.S. picket ship enforcing the embargo , was in port h

ere Monday , its barrels of fuel being unloaded under the supervision of militar

y officers . Eyewitnesses said an armed fight nearly broke out in the stately La

 Jacmelienne Hotel here Saturday night when a subordinate of powerful police com

mander Lt. Col. Michel Francois , identified as Maj. Oiseau , arrived with sever

al other officers to supervise the unloading of fuel . According to several acco

unts , the owner of the hotel refused Oiseau a room for the night because he and

 the other officers were not paying for food or drinks . Oiseau reportedly began

 waving a gun around and threatening to kill hotel employees , while the hotel o

wner also brought out a gun . Only the intervention of Col. Lyonel Sylvain , the

 regional commander , avoided a major shootout , the sources said . The witnesse

s , who asked not to be identified for their personal safety , said another ship

 , the Oakleigh , flying the Union Jack and registered in Aberdeen , Scotland , 

made several trips a week over the last several months to the Dominican Republic

 , bringing back about 15,000 gallons of fuel at a time . Residents here and kno

wledgeable sources in Port-au-Prince , the capital , said much of the Jacmel fue

l flow is controlled by an important fuel wholesaler named Gerald Caroli . Knowl

edgeable sources said Caroli is a major fuel supplier of the U.S. . Embassy and 

other diplomatic missions . While ships were unloaded , a Dominican vessel sat a

bout a mile from the dock , abandoned because its captain , known only as `` Dir

ty Harry , '' fled for his life when the buyers of his fuel found some of the di

esel was full of sludge and unusable .

 RWAMAGANA , Rwanda Some of them are only boys , 14 or 15 years old , wearing sh

eepish grins and raggedy uniforms that make them appear no more threatening than

 toy soldiers . They smile easily , but the smile does not reach their eyes . Al

ready these boys are wartime veterans , warriors who have no rank , collect no p

ay and travel on foot , lugging an odd assortment of French , Belgian and Soviet

 weapons . They sleep on the ground , stuff bullets in their pockets and have no

t yet learned to salute or field-strip a rifle . `` It 's not a bad life , '' sa

id one of the boys manning a checkpoint here on the road to Kigali , the capital

 . `` One day I go back to my father 's farm . Today I fight . '' The boys are p

art of the Rwandan Patriotic Front , a guerrilla group whose roots go back to 19

59 but who remained virtually unknown to the world-at-large until its members la

unched a major offensive April 6 that has now chased government soldiers out of 

half of this beleaguered , impoverished nation . In the process , the front has 

become part of Africa 's post-independence legacy . Page by page , over 40 years

 , guerrilla groups from Angola to Kenya have rewritten the history of the conti

nent . The results have not always been beneficial for the people in whose name 

the rebellions were launched . The first guerrilla wars , like Jomo Kenyatta 's 

Mau Mau rebellion in Kenya in the early 1960s , were undertaken to drive out the

 European colonialists . Each succeeded , and from bloodied Angola and Guinea-Bi

ssau in the west to Mozambique in the east and Rhodesia ( now Zimbabwe and Zambi

a ) in the south , power was transferred to the Africans . With the election of 

Nelson Mandela to South Africa 's presidency last month , all 47 sub-Saharan Afr

ican countries are now governed by the black majority . Today , the purpose of g

uerrilla groups like the Rwanda Patriotic Front and others that have fought in M

ozambique , Angola , Somalia , Ethiopia and Djibouti is to dislodge a ruling Afr

ican elite in the name of reform . Under whatever banner they may fight , the re

bels ' ultimate purpose is always the same power : economic , political and some

times tribal . `` I know this African history , and I swear to you we are differ

ent , '' said an RPF officer who requested anonymity . `` We are fighting to ins

tall a government of national unity . We want democracy and reform . The first t

hing we will do is get rid of the cards identifying your ethnic group that the g

overnment makes everyone carry . '' Although such lofty ideals are heard often i

n Africa , the RPF , composed mostly of members of the minority Tutsi tribe , ha

s proved itself a more disciplined , organized military force than the Rwandan a

rmy and its fearful Hutu-dominated militias that have run pell-mell through the 

countryside , massacring untold thousands of civilians . ( Begin optional trim )

 Villagers cheered the arrival of RPF troops along the road to the Tanzanian bor

der last month , but many Rwandans , especially Hutus , remain deeply skeptical 

about the rebels ' ultimate goals and feel that they may begin a new round of bl

oodletting to avenge the massacres they have endured . `` I will never return to

 Rwanda if the RPF is in power , '' said Eliachim Mulindandabi , a 20-year-old H

utu refugee in Tanzania 's Benaco camp . `` It would not be safe . For me or any

 Hutu . They are killers , and they would hunt us down . '' ( End optional trim 

) The RPF fighters are mostly Rwandan Tutsi refugees whose families escaped to U

ganda after a 1959 revolution that ended 400 years of Tutsi domination over the 

Hutus , who represent 90 percent of Rwanda 's 8 million people . Historically , 

the Tutsis formed the intellectual and professional core of Rwandan society . Un

til the revolution , they held the Hutu farmers in a form of feudal serfdom surp

assed only in Ethiopia . In Uganda , many of the Rwandan refugees were recruited

 as mercenaries in the National Resistance Army that , with the help of Tanzania

n soldiers and Ugandan dissidents , overthrew Ugandan dictator Idi Amin in the 1

970s . The rebel leader , Yoweri Museveni , became president of Uganda in 1986 a

nd has not forgotten his debt : Uganda provides the RPF with its lifeline of wea

pons , ammunition and supplies . Many RPF rebels speak English learned in Uganda

 , while the Zaire-supported Rwandan army speaks French or Kinyarwanda , the lan

guage shared by both Hutus and Tutsis . Some of the rebels have returned to join

 the battle from jobs abroad as accountants , teachers and a variety of middle-c

lass positions . `` I deal with the RPF every day , and I found them very respon

sible , '' said a French doctor who works in rebel-controlled territory . `` But

 they 're having a lot of trouble doing all the things you have to do when you a

dminister civilian authority . That I don't think they 're prepared to handle . 

'' ( Optional add end ) Ever since the Hutus began demanding political reform in

 1957 , there have been outbreaks of fierce violence between the Hutus and Tutsi

s in Rwanda and neighboring Burundi . Thousands of Tutsis in Rwanda were massacr

ed in Hutu-organized slaughters in 1959 and 1963 . The most recent unrest began 

Oct. 5 , 1990 , when fighting broke out in Kigali between the rebels and the arm

y , and it has since become a civil war .

 MOSCOW Russia is entering a new phase in its economic reforms and will now conc

entrate on fighting its disastrous industrial slump and bringing order to its ta

x system , officials said Tuesday . `` You could call this the beginning of the 

stabilization period , '' Economics Minister Alexander N . Shokhin said , `` alt

hough the statistics don't bear that out yet . '' The statistics show that in Ru

ssia 's stumbling transition from centrally planned socialism to a market-driven

 economy , it is managing to damp inflation the main task of recent months . But

 its industry is on the verge of collapse , with production plummeting 25 percen

t in the first quarter compared to last year ; its tax system is a mess , and it

 is desperately short of investment money . The Economics Ministry has warned th

at , if unemployment mounts , this could lead to a `` social explosion . '' Afte

r months of pleas for change from factory directors and pressure from his indust

ry-oriented prime minister , President Boris N . Yeltsin has made the troubled e

conomy his focus in recent days . The results appeared Monday . Six presidential

 decrees rolled off the presses , all of them aimed at bringing some order to th

e Russian economy , at introducing enough control so that , as presidential advi

ser Alexander Livshits put it , `` there will be a little less robbery . '' The 

decrees introduce harsh penalties for tax evaders and require factories to regis

ter all their bank accounts if they want to receive government subsidies . They 

also provide a panoply of ways of controlling factories ' finances better while 

lifting some of the crushing tax burden from them . `` A number of measures take

n by the government have allowed the economy to be stabilized to some extent , '

' Deputy Economics Minister Sergei Vasilyev optimistically told a conference her

e . One decree also sharply reduces export tariffs on oil and other goods and do

es away with the system of special export licenses that had provided the basis f

or massive red tape and bureaucratic corruption . `` The most important decree o

f the package is the decree on doing away with export quotas and licenses , '' s

aid Mikhail Berger , economics columnist for the newspaper Izvestia , `` because

 it will destroy the entire structure of massive bribe-taking , a structure that

 includes armies of corrupt officials . With the disappearance of the quotas and

 licenses , the very reason for taking and giving bribes will cease to exist . '

' ( Optional Add End ) Shokhin said obstacles to the export of oil and other fue

l had to be lifted because the industry is on the verge of a shutdown ; domestic

 prices have risen so much that demand for oil has dropped sharply . Export , me

anwhile , was limited by licensing , so producers had nowhere to sell their oil 

and were beginning to stop drilling . Still to come are promised presidential de

crees on procedures for going bankrupt Yeltsin is finally beginning to accept th

at monstrous loss-makers must be allowed to go under and on limiting salaries . 

Although the decrees are not quite bombshells , Shokhin said that taken together

 they reach `` critical mass to provide added impulse '' to the reforms .

 NEW ORLEANS With the cable TV industry reeling from 17 percent in forced rate r

eductions , Federal Communications Commission Chairman Reed Hundt told industry 

executives meeting here Tuesday that he foresees no further cuts . `` I know of 

no evidence to support a further reduction .. . and we are not looking for such 

evidence , '' said Hundt , seeking to ease concerns of cable executives . The FC

C chairman said that he had `` sympathy and concern '' for the plight of cable o

perators who complained that the rollbacks handicapped them in the race to build

 the `` information superhighway . '' At the same time , Hundt defended the roll

backs , arguing that the cable TV industry is extremely healthy and that the new

 regulations would help promote competition . `` I 'm not here to eulogize at yo

ur wake , '' he said . In addition , Hundt indicated that the FCC would not enac

t a so-called `` productivity offset '' that could have forced many cable compan

y operators to scale back rates a further 2 percent , largely wiping out increas

es they can pass along to subscribers because of inflation . `` This sort of off

set is generally found in the regulations of a utility , but cable is not a util

ity , '' explained Hundt . The cable TV industry has been vociferous in its comp

laints about the new rollbacks , claiming the cuts will cost the industry some $

 3 billion a year in cash flow . The reduction in cash flow will in turn prevent

 operators from borrowing money to invest the capital for the building of the br

oad-band , 500-channel cable TV system of the future that is supposed to provide

 customers a panoply of new home shopping services , movies-on-demand , and vide

o games . The reaction among cable TV operators to Hundt 's remarks was optimist

ic but cautious . `` This is good , but God is in the details , '' said Tim Bogg

s , a vice president with Time Warner Inc. , the country 's second largest cable

 TV operator . ( Optional add end ) Indeed , Hundt offered few specifics about t

he kind of `` refinement '' the FCC had in mind to its implementation of the rat

e rollbacks mandated by Congress in 1992 . He acknowledged , however , that the 

FCC was looking for `` programming incentives '' that would encourage operators 

to put on new channels while keeping some flexibility in pricing . Cable TV stoc

ks appeared to react favorably to Hundt 's remarks , with many registering stron

g gains for the day . Raymond L. Katz , senior vice president at Lehman Bros. , 

expressed a sigh of relief . `` I have clients who have obsessed about that 2 pe

rcent off-set . They wouldn't buy cable stocks as a result of that . Up until no

w the FCC has focused on the political aspects . Now they appear willing to focu

s on the economics. , '' he said .

 WASHINGTON The Clinton administration has concluded an agreement with the gover

nment of Vietnam that will open the way for U.S. diplomats to represent and prot

ect Vietnamese-Americans on Vietnamese soil , U.S. officials said Tuesday . The 

agreement means that any Vietnamese-Americans who are arrested or imprisoned in 

Vietnam will be entitled to have American diplomats visit them and try to ensure

 they are treated humanely and fairly . It also means that U.S. diplomats in Vie

tnam can try to locate Vietnamese-Americans who are missing , can help Vietnames

e-Americans replace lost U.S. passports , and can try to arrange money transfers

 for Vietnamese-Americans who are robbed . The understanding is one part of a br

oader accord in which Vietnam and the United States agreed to open up liaison of

fices in each other 's capital cities . These offices , to be staffed by at leas

t 10 diplomats apiece , will carry out some of the functions of embassies until 

diplomatic relations are established between the two governments . The move to s

et up liaison offices is one of several recent indications that the Clinton admi

nistration is taking new steps to upgrade U.S. relations with Vietnam . Last wee

k , Vietnam 's Deputy Premier Tran Duc Luong visited Washington for talks with S

ecretary of State Warren Christopher . `` The point is that we have taken anothe

r step forward , '' a senior administration official said Tuesday . President Cl

inton proposed the creation of liaison offices when he lifted the trade embargo 

against Vietnam last February . But the final arrangements were not worked out u

ntil last Friday , after Luong 's visit , when Assistant Secretary of State Wins

ton Lord signed the documents spelling out the details . `` We have now agreed o

n consular protection ( for Vietnamese-Americans ) , and we can begin to look fo

r property and open up the offices , '' said one senior administration official 

. In the past , Vietnam took the position that Vietnamese-Americans are not enti

tled to the protection of American diplomats , because they are Vietnamese natio

nals . But the Clinton administration stuck to the traditional U.S. view that su

ch people are American citizens , and are entitled to the same consular protecti

on as other Americans . `` They ( the Vietnamese government ) finally came aroun

d on this issue , '' said a State Department official . In the 1990 census , 615

,000 Americans identified themselves as being of Vietnamese descent . In recent 

years , many Vietnamese-Americans have been returning home to do business or to 

visit relatives . ( Optional add end ) The new U.S. liaison office in Hanoi coul

d be opened within the next two months . `` It 's a matter of finding the proper

ty , '' a State Department official said . American and Vietnamese officials als

o have agreed on a return of the properties that each government owned on the ot

her 's soil . The U.S. government will get back 32 properties that it owned in V

ietnam , most of them in Ho Chi Minh City , the former Saigon . The Hanoi govern

ment will get back a single property , the building that served before the end o

f the war as South Vietnam 's embassy in Washington . The U.S. properties will p

robably include one of the most famous and photographed buildings in the world :

 the former U.S. embassy in Saigon , from which crowds of Americans and Vietname

se were evacuated by helicopter at the end of the war in April 1975 . Administra

tion officials have said the United States will not establish formal diplomatic 

relations with Vietnam until after Hanoi cooperates further in the task of accou

nting for Americans missing in action during the war .

 TOKYO Smiling and clearly relieved after three months of angry silence , Foreig

n Minister Koji Kakizawa said late Tuesday night the world 's two biggest econom

ic powers had gone through a tortured series of negotiations but finally been ab

le to `` give birth to an understanding . '' The understanding to restart trade 

talks was no easy birth and largely symbolic , but after a bitter and acrimoniou

s dispute it was greeted in Japan as a clear sign that U.S.-Japanese relations a

re heading along the right path and toward agreement on substantive points . `` 

There is no way we will ( now ) fail , '' said government spokesman Hiroshi Kuma

gai , who used to run the Ministry of Trade and Industry , which headed the trad

e talks . Other Japanese leaders also suggested that the deal meant that crucial

 barriers to a more comprehensive trade agreement with the United States had bee

n broken . `` I am absolutely confident we will find a way , '' Prime Minister T

sutomu Hata said . Formal trade negotiations broke down in February when former 

Prime Minister Morihiro Hosokawa flatly rejected U.S. demands , saying the Japan

ese had come of age politically and could stand down the United States . His def

iance was initially hailed here as historic and courageous . But as Japan 's tra

de surpluses soared , its currency strengthened and economy languished , Hosokaw

a 's emphatic rejection provoked widespread consternation that Japan 's most imp

ortant political and economic relationship was fraying badly . The breakdown als

o reflected badly on the United States , which was viewed as trying to bully Asi

ans into accepting U.S. standards on trade , justice and human rights . For exam

ple , the United States recently criticized Singapore for caning a youth convict