1. In a dusty bauxite mining town near the now–deserted village of Moiwana, where a military unit shot to death men, women and children and torched their thatched–hut homes during a civil war with jungle–based rebels, President Ronald Venetiaan offered an apology Saturday to the victims‘ tribal leader. The government declares respectfully and publicly that it offers its apologies ... to the surviving relatives of the barbaric attack carried out by the state against the peaceful community of Moiwana,‘‘ he said to Matodja Gazon, who leads the N‘djuka group of Maroons – the descendants of runaway African slaves that fled 17th century colonial plantations.