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Vol. 82 No. 63 USPS 075360 16 pages
College Station, Texas
Wednesday, November 27,1985
ubarak defends Egypt’s commando raid
MasterCard,
ican Express
lege Station
Associated Press
JCAIRO, Egypt — President Hosni
Rib.uak's government launched a
vigorous campaign Tuesday to de-
■id its commando raid on a hi-
jMked Egyptair jet in which 58 peo-
|)|v died, desj)ite little public
criticism here.
■Mubarak accused Libya of spon-
■'mg the gunmen who seized the
plane and told reporters lie sent the
soldiers to Malta to storm the jetliner
only after the pilot reported:
ghey’re going to kill us all."
Bonner gets
Iready for
trip abroad
Associated Press
■MOSCOW — Yelena Bonner,
wife of dissident Andrei Sakharov,
returned to Moscow Tuesday to pre-
||jre to go abroad for medical treat-
iment after 19 months of internal
jexjle with her husband in the closed
[Citf of Gorky.
ftm iet" friends' of the couple wete
■ milted to visit Bonner’s apart
ment. But they declined to discuss
the details of their meeting with the
|2[year-old physician, saying she
plild speak for herself if she wanted
Hneet with the Western press,
■funner suffers from eye and
heart problems. After Sakharov
went on at least, three hunger strikes,
Soliet authorities said they would
permit her to seek medical treat-
(nentiti Italy and the United States.
■Vord that she would lie allowed
to tpend three months abroad came
Wore the summit in Geneva last
jveck between Soviet leader Mikhail
■rbachev and President Reagan. It
was seen as a gesture on human
fights, which has become an impor
tant point of contention between the
superpowers.
t: In two rarely permitted telephone
tails, one last month and the other
last week, Bonner told relatives in
lihl United States she planned to be
Jin Italy for treatment of her eyes on
LUei 2, then would go to the United
HStstes for heart surgery.
She said she had agreed not to
:aik to foreign journalists as a condi-
ioh for permission to leave.
HTwo Soviet friends who visited the
hi apartment said Bonner traveled
leje by train Tuesday on her first
rip to the capital since April 1984.
■This is believed to be the first time
S(j\ iet authorities have permitted
someone under internal exile to
leave the country with the intention
bljieturning.
■fonner’s daughter Tatiana and
lation and Tatiana’s husband, Efrem Yankele-
id. This offer is |vi|h, live in Newton, Mass. Yankele-
itiJli said Tuesday: “Of course, I’m
a|y pleased to know she is in Mos
cow. It means the Soviets are going
olseep their promise. (It) means she.
arrived on schedule’.’
Mubarak blamed the deaths on
the hijackers, who he said were the
first ever to detonate phosphorus
grenades during a hijacking. “Not a
single Egyptian bullet killed any
body” among the passengers and
crew, the president said.
The fire grenades set the interior
of the Boeing 737 ablaze.
In Malta, government spokesman
Paul Mifsud said the death toll in the
hijacking and commando raid was
59. He said one passenger was shot
to death by the hijackers and the
other 58 people died during the
commando operation.
Hijackers took over Flight MS648
Saturday evening on a flight from
Athens, Greece, to Cairo and forced
it to land on the Mediterranean is
land of Malta. They let 11 women go
and shot three American passengers
and two Israelis, killing one of the
Americans, and threw them from
the plane.
Maltese authorities said that 27
survivors of the commando raid
were hospitalized, including the man
alleged to have led the hijack team.
The pilot, Hani Galal, returned to
Cairo.
They had said earlier that the to
tal death toll was 60. But Mifsud said
Tuesday it had been lowered to 59
because a Canadian baby was
counted twice in the earlier total.
The only public criticism of the
raid in Egypt came from two opposi
tion politicians, who demanded par
liamentary inquiries into how the
deaths occurred.
A senior army officer, speaking
on condition of anonymity, said that
he and colleagues with whom he had
spoken were “shocked at the num
ber of people killed.”
But such comment was atypical.
An Egyptian diplomat said the com
mando raid had made Mubarak
“more stable politically than he was
last week” because it improved his
standing with the militarv, which he
said is the key to political stability in
Egypt.
The official Middle East News
Agency said telegrams of congratu
lation were sent to Mubarak by lead
ers of all provinces,, members of his
ruling National Democratic Party,
Egyptian ambassadors abroad and
political and labor leaders of all per
suasions.
State-owned newspapers called
the attack “necessary,” “courageous”
and a lesson in “how to deter terror
ism and terrorists.”
Mubarak said the hijackers had
closed off negotiations, not even al
lowing nine children off the plane,
when the pilot radioed the control
tower to “please do something.
They’re going to kill us all ... You
have to storm the plane or we will all
die.”
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Photo by JON P. KARP
Seniors Dan Smith (right), an electrical engineering major from Rich
ardson, and Ronald Lee, a senior industrial engineering major from
Houston, cleanse their mud-caked bodies in Rudder Fountain after a
drag in the mud during Elephant Walk Tuesday afternoon. Smith is
Class of ’86 social secretary while Lee is distribution chairman. For
more pachyderm pictures, see page 9.
Waite, Bush meet to discuss
Lebanese hostage situation
Associated Press
WASHINGTON — Anglican
church envoy Terry Waite, who has
been negotiating for the release of
kidnapped Americans in Lebanon,
met with Vice President George
Bush Tuesday and said he came to
“keep in touch” with the U.S. gov
ernment.
Waite, who came to the White
House at Bush’s invitation, said he
was making “no special request” of
the administration as part of his ef
fort to gain the release of the hos
tages and said the United States has
taken the “correct” position in the
affair.
Waite also said he believed that
there “is a way through the prob
lem.”
Bush praised the envoy for his
courage in the endeavor and
thanked him for his work. “We’re
very grateful for his humanitarian
concern,” Bush said.
The envoy’s visit came after he
traveled to New York to speak with
relatives of the hostages.
Asked what the United States
should be doing to help gain the cap
tives’ release, Waite said, “I think the
United States has taken ... a correct
position at the moment, they have
remained calm, they have remained
patient and they have made it possi
ble for an independent negotiator
such as myself to pursue an opportu
nity to see some way through this
problem.”
Asked whether he had any sug-
f estions or proposals for the United
tales, he said he had come “to keep
in touch ... to get further clarifica
tion on various questions, and then I
shall be returning to Beirut.”
Waite said he would meet with
“one or two” other people in Wash
ington before leaving. Earlier, in
New York, Waite said he wants to
speak with Kuwaiti officials regard
ing prisoners whose release the kid
nappers demand.
Waite has made two trips to Leb
anon in an effort to free the Ameri
cans. Four of the hostages wrote a
letter to the Rev. Robert Runcie, the
archbishop of Canterbury, seeking
Waite’s intervention on their behalf.
Waite, a lay assistant to Runcie,
has successfully negotiated the re
lease of Britons held in Iran and Li
bya.
The hostages who signed the let
ter to Runcie were the Rev. Law
rence Jenco, 50, of Joliet, Ill., a Ro
man Cathoic priest; Terry
Anderson, 38, of Lorain, Ohio, chief
Middle East correspondent for The
Associated Press; David Jacobsen,
54, of Huntington Beach, Calif.
Aggie bonfire
50,000 expected for tonighfs annual blaze
By TAMARA BELL
Staff Writer
To most Aggies the word “bonfi
re” means more than just burning
logs. It means a desire to beat the
University of Texas Longhorns.
But this year, bonfire also symbol
izes a burning desire to go to the
Cotton Bowl for the first time since
1968.
An estimated 50,000 people will
be on Duncan field as the yell lead
ers, drum majors and redpots set
fire to the stack at around 8 p.m.,
says Hudson White, the senior in
charge of bonfire.
“The Corps has been working on
bonfire since Oct. 5,” he says. “Once
push started Nov. 17, each outfit was
assigned a six-hour block. Now it’s
near completion and it’s been a blast
building it. Nothing can hold a can
dle to it.”
Although the cadets and other
A&M students actually cut and stack
the logs, White says once the flame
sparks, bonfire is controlled by a
mysterious power.
“There’s a spell that falls over the
bonfire and the people crowded
around it,” he says. “It involves the
work of many gods. Through the
mist and fog that hover above the
stack, mysterious powers are con
trolling the fate of the A&M-t.u.
football game.”
While mysterious powers are con
trolling bonfire, four Corps outfits
will be controlling the spectators.
White says people can’t use Dun
can field as a parking lot. Shuttle
buses will run continuously from Ol
sen Field to the bonfire site from 6
p.m. to 9:30 p.m.
A perimeter 100 feet from the
stack will be roped off and guarded,
White says. He says this is necessary
not only because of safety regula
tions but also because people try to
light their cigarettes or cigars from
the bonfire flame. This measure also
protects overzealous Aggies from
falling logs, he says.
Because Duncan field is Univer
sity property, no alcohol will be al
lowed at the site, he says. And once
the gasoline is thrown on the stack,
smoking won’t be allowed either.
Bonfire wasn’t always as orga
nized and restricted as it is today,
White says. The first bonfire in 1909
was built after A&M beat UT.
“I guess the Aggies back then had
this wild hair after the game to build
a fire — surely no alcohol was in
volved — and they proceeded to tear
down picket fences and anything
else burnable to create a bonfire,”
Hudson says. “This is only a theory,
but it makes for a good story.”
Alan Cannon, assistant sports in
formation director, says Head Coach
Jackie Sherrill will speak at about
8:30 p.m. Yell practice will follow
Sherrill’s speech, he says.
lebanese Aggies maintaincultural unity
T THE HARGROVE
It: 779-1933, 776-43M|t«*
HIS COUPON COUPON
D WITH ANY OTHER OlS
FREE EXAMINATION Of
GULAR PATIENTS OF TNf
By FRANK SMITH
Staff Writer
Despite the continuing troubles in
heir war-torn homeland, Lebanese
tudents at Texas A&M have main-
iijped a strong sense of unity.
■Most of all, the common bond is
hat we are Lebanese,” says Nadim
ares, public rekitions officer for
V&M’s Lebanese Student Associa-
““"r.TT-’'''on “We were born in the same
jolntry.
|We speak the same language,
are the same culture, know and
ave been to the same places and
oftie have attended the same
chnols,” he says.
F ires, a junior computer science
tjor from Beirut, has been in the
’ni;ed States since 1981. He last vis
ed Lebanon in the summer of
981.
“Really, (the country’s condition
was) basically the same as it is right
now,” he says. “There has been some
improvement, but things always
seem to go back to the same point.
“Believe it or not, there has been
some light of progress. The groups
are finally talking to each other. Bei
rut is getting to be a safer place to be.
But there are always black sheep.
And they seem to be the stumbling
block right now.”
Walid Khalil, president of the
LSA, says tensions overseas have not
adversely affected relationships
among Lebanese students here.
“I think being far from the fight
ing and in a relaxed, friendly atmo
sphere like here at Texas A&M Uni
versity makes people forget their
differences,” Khalil says. “Besides,
there are no reasons for us to be
fighting even if we have differing
ideologies.”
In fact, on Nov. 17 in the Memo
rial Student Center ballroom, the
LSA conducted what has become an
annual dinner celebrating Lebanese
Independence Day. Last Friday
marked the 42nd anniversary of
Lebanon becoming an independent
state.
“This dinner is a very important
event for us because it is one of the
things that gathers us all together to
work as a team,” Khalil says.
Khalil says the students invited
their professors and friends at A&M
and around the state, other Leb
anese living in Texas and Memorial
Student Center officials for the din
ner.
“This year the purpose of our din
ner was not only to celebrate our in
dependence day but also to express
our gratitude to the professors who
have taught us at this University,” he
says.
He says more than 200 people at
tended this year’s dinner. The asso
ciation currently has about 25 mem
bers.
Khalil, a senior industrial engi
neering major from Beirut, says he
doesn’t think Lebanon’s civil war
really stems from any major differ
ences among the Lebanese people.
“There just are so many people
from outside Lebanon in the coun
try right now,” he says. “I think the
Lebanese can settle their own prob
lems if left to themselves.”
LSA member Sana Hamade
shares a similar outlook.
“No Lebanese really had any se
rious conflicts with each other,” she
says. “I think the cause of our prob
lem was external.
“Then they (outside factions) ex
ploited our differences in religions
and cultures and made it an internal
problem,” she adds.
Hamade, a graduate student in
environmental engineering who
earned a civil engineering degree
from A&M last December, has lived
in the United States for Five years.
She says her parents have lived here
for the last two years. Her last visit to
Lebanon was a one-month stay in
the summer of 1983.
“When I was there it was pretty
calm, although fighting had been
going on before I got there,” she
says. “Then, a few days before I left,
the war in the mountains started be
tween the Druze and the Christians.”
She says the fighting forced the
closing of the airport and delayed
See Aggies, page 11
15 wounded
by bomb
in Greece
Associated Press
ATHENS, (ireece — A car
bomb detonated by remote con
trol exploded Tuesday as a police
bus was passing, ripping away
one side of the bus and wounding
15 of the 22 officers inside, offi
cials reported.
Two police officers in a car
about 600 feet behind the bus saw
the explosion and one said, “It
was a miracle no one was killed.”
“We ran to the bus and pulled
out our injured colleagues. Some
of them were badly hurt,” he said.
Officials said later that only
three of the officers were se
riously wounded.
The explosion occurred at 9:45
p.m. — about two hours after
some 1,000 anarchists gathered
in front of Parliament demand
ing the release of 16 people ar
rested during riots in Athens last
week. They also were protesting
the death of a teen-ager shot by a
policeman during the rioting.