Texas A&M
Battalion
Serving the University communily
75 No. 182 USPS 045360 12 Pages
College Station, Texas
Wednesday, August 4, 1982
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M v.
photo by Toni Broadway
Scenic route
>ebi Haney, a freshman computer science ladder platform. The ladder and othei
hajor from Waco, and Paula Tallant, who is fireman’s school equipment were on display
bm Abilene and works at the scheduling in front of Rudder Tower for students
office in Rudder Tower, ride in an 85-foot registering for the fireman’s school.
enate to vote on balanced
budget amendment today
United Press International
WASHINGTON — Defying its
aders, the Republican-led Senate
opted a rider to the balanced
dget constitutional amendment
at its supporters fear could turn
nate approval of the amendment
to a hollow victory.
A final Senate vote was set for
n today, and chief sponsor Orrin
atch, R-Utah, predicted victory de-
pite the attachment of the potentially
ippling rider.
The Senate must first deal with at
least one more proposed change, a
substitute constitutional amendment
jySen. Alan Cranston, D-Calif., that
would allow Congress to engage in
deficit spending to ensure benefits
for Social Security recipients and
terans.
! To become part of the Constitu-
lition, the amendment must be
Approved by two-thirds of the mem
bers of the Senate (67) and House
and ratified by at least three-
fourths of the states (38) within seven
'ears.
The House has not yet acted on the
mendment, because opponents have
ept it bottled up in the House Judici
ary Committee. A move to bring it to
e full House has been unsuccessful
so far.
The Senate worked late Tuesday to
reject about a dozen proposed riders
to the balanced budget constitutional
amendment, which had 62 co
sponsors to its original version.
Backers of the amendment were
successful in scuttling all but one of
the riders. After it was attached,
Cranston said four of the co-sponsors
were having second thoughts.
Hatch and other supporters feared
the rider would make it more difficult
to achieve House passage by mid-
October, the end of the 97th Con
gress, because the House version of
the amendment is now quite different
from the new, changed Senate ver
sion.
Even if the amendment passed the
Senate, rejection or no action by the
House would kill it and the whole pro
cess would have to be initiated again
next year by the new Congress.
The Senate voted, 51-45, Tuesday
to accept a rider by Sen. William Arm
strong, R-Colo., requiring a three-
fifths vote of both houses of Congress
to increase the public debt limit.
“This may well defeat the amend
ment this year,” Hatch said, explain
ing he still expected the amendment
to pass the Senate but feared it would
Israel breaks ninth
cease-fire in assault
United Press International
Israeli tanks, preceded by a relent
less artillery barrages, rolled today
into west Beirut for the first time, cap
turing three major roads in fierce
fighting in the heartland of the Pales
tine Liberation Organization.
The four-pronged Israeli assault
further tightened the noose around
the trapped PLO guerrillas and shat
tered the two-month old Lebanon
war’s ninth cease-fire.
By mid-morning, Israeli armored
columns had blown their way through
Palestinian defenses and advanced
more than a mile inside the city.
An Israeli spokesman denied the
action was the long-feared, full-scale
invasion of the western sector, where
an estimated 6,000 PLO guerrillas are
encircled along with 500,000 civilians.
Palestinians said they were fighting
Israeli ground advances from the
north, northeast, south and southeast
— sometimes in hand-to-hand battles.
Security sources and witnesses con
firmed all four Israeli ground adv-
Hundreds of shells per minute
crashed into west Beirut neighbor
hoods. The United Press Internation
al office on the main business street of
Hamra was directly hit.
The Commodore Hotel, where
many U.S. reporters were staying,
also was shelled and reported on fire.
The Hamra neighborhood, which
houses the American University Hos
pital, had been considered the safest
place in west Beirut, and thousands of
homeless civilians had taken shelter in
buildings there.
More than 100 Israeli tanks, mine
sweepers and armed personnel car
riers plowed over the Museum Cros
sing, moving for the first time across
the “Green Line” separating west
Beirut from the Israeli-controlled
eastern sector.
The tanks, accompanied by bull
dozers to clear away PLO barricades,
advanced inland after encountering
stiff resistance from the tattered re
mnants of the PLO.
The advance gave the Israelis at
least partial control of the three major
roads in west Beirut, including the
Corniche Mazraa, the main artery
into the heartland of PLO resistance
in the northern part of the Moslem
sector.
An Israeli source said one of the
aims of the advance was seizing the
Corniche Mazraa, and cutting off
guerrilla strongholds in the Arab
University area and PLO headquar
ters on Fakhani St. from the rest of
the city.
The Israelis also gained control of
the Ouzei coastal road that runs para
llel to the Mediterranean Sea into the
city and solidified their control of the
highway from Beirut International
Airport.
Security sources said an advance
party of dozens of Israeli tanks were
within sniper fire range of the Palesti
nian refugee camps in the south and
southeast of the city.
The Israelis also advanced at the
northern port area of the Lebanese
capital, heavily shelling a key PLO
observation point.
Plane hijacked in India;
all 135 passengers safe
United Press International
NEW DELHI, India — A young
bearded Sikh hijacked an Indian jet
liner over northern India today, but
was overpowered by crew members
and passengers in Amritsar, the spir
itual capital of the Sikh warrior sect.
All 135 people aboard were safe.
Indian authorities arrested the hi
jacker, ending a 4-hour ordeal that
began shortly after the Indian Airline
Boeing 737 took off from Amritsar
on a domestic flight to Srinigar in
northern India.
Armed only with a coconut-shaped
object, the Sikh burst into the cockpit
and ordered the pilot to fly to Lahore,
Pakistan, demanding to speak to two
Sikh religious leaders, the Press Trust
of India said.
As the plane circled Lahore’s air
port, Pakistan’s civil air authorities re
fused permission to land and the pilot
convinced the hijacker the airliner
was running out of fuel and would
crash if it did not return to Amritsar,
46 miles east of Lahore.
The Sikh, who was described as
young and bearded, was overpo
wered by his hostages just moments
after he freed all women and children
aboard the plane, airport officials
said.
Authorities who searched the hi
jacker immediately after his capture
said he carried no arms or explosives.
They identified him only as “Mr. Mu-
jithia.”
The Sikhs, the third-largest reli
gion in India, are dominant in India’s
Punjab province, where the plane
landed. Amritsar, located on a plain,
is the holy city of the Sikhs and home
of their “Golden Temple.”
Extremist and moderate Sikhs
have long sought independence from
India in Punjab, or more automony
from the government in their home
land.
A spokesman for the airline said
the pilot, Capt. V.K. Mehta, appeared
to have used his “presence of mind” in
handling the hijacker’s demand. The
flight orginated in New Delhi and was
bound for Srinigar with a stopover in
Amritsar.
The hijacker asked to speak to Sant
Harchand Singh Longowal, presi
dent of Akali DAL, a moderate Sikh
religious group in India, and Sant
Jarnail Singh Bhindranwale, leader
of the militant Sikh group, Nihangs.
Pakistani authorities have refused
routine Indian Airline flights from
New 7 Delhi to Lahore. The two coun
tries have fought three wars since
both gained independence from Bri
tain in 1947.
It was the fifth hijacking of an In
dian Airlines plane. Four previously
were forced to Pakistan, but one was
hijacked from Lucknow to Varansi in
northern India.
A Sikh last month became India’s
ceremonial president, hand-picked
by Prime Minister Indira Ghandi in
what leaders hoped would quell un
rest among members of the sect. Mrs.
Ghandi visited Honolulu today on a
visit to the United States.
not make it through the House this
year. “It’s a major setback.”
The winning margin was provided
by a strange coalition of conservative
Republicans and liberal Democrats,
who joined together for opposite
reasons — the conservatives to streng
then the amendment and the liberals
to cripple it.
Senate Republican Leader Howard
Baker immediately asked the Senate
to reconsider the vote, and warned his
colleagues adoption of the change
would “substantially impair” congres
sional passage of the amendment this
year.
Senate Democratic Leader Robert
Byrd asked Democrats to reconsider.
But the Senate rejected their pleas
,and voted, 56-40, not to reconsider.
Sen. Dennis DeConcini, D-Ariz.,
called the Armstrong proposal a “sub
terfuge to kill or attempt to kill” the
constitutional amendment.
Armstrong said it was “intended to
enhance passage” of the balanced
budget amendment. “I’m not trying
to scuttle this constitutional propos
al,” he argued.
Earlier, the Senate easily rejected a
host of moves, mostly by Democrats,
to kill or weaken the balanced budget
amendment.
Soviets accused of massacre
More killed in Afghanistan
United Press International
NEW DELHI, India — Soviet and
Afghan government troops “razed
whole areas” of a province in Afgha
nistan and killed numerous civilians
in a recent offensive against Moslem
guerrillas, Western diplomats said.
Other diplomats, in Islamabad,
Pakistan, said they had received re
ports that Soviet-installed Afghan
President Babrak Karmal may resign
shortly because of ill health and other
high-level changes in his regime
could be imminent.
The official radio in the Afghan
capital of Kabul said Karmal, 53,
underwent a medical check-up in
Moscow in June on his w 7 ay back from
a visit to East Germany. There were
no further details on the reported ill
ness.
The official Soviet news agency
Tass made no reference to a medical
checkup in reporting the visit and
said Karmal had been on been on
vacation.
Diplomats interviewed in New De
lhi Tuesday supported a statement
made last week by a Swedish diplomat
who said on returning from Afgha
nistan 2,000 Afghan villagers were
slaughtered in Logar Province in late
J u, y-
Swedish Foreign Ministry official
Carl Schonmeyr had said Soviet and
Afghan government troops swept
through six villages in Logar pro
vince, south of the Afghan capital of
Kabul, and killed all inhabitants —
about 2,000 people.
The Western diplomats in New De
lhi could not confirm the figure but
backed the substance of the report.
“Government Soviet forces razed
whole areas,” one diplomat said, de
scribing the violence in Logar.
Heavy fighting also was reported in
the Farah province of western Afgha
nistan and in the guerrilla stronghold
of Paghman, 9 miles northwest of
Kabul.
The diplomats also lent credence to
a report by pro-guerrilla Afghan
newspapers this week that rebels had
freed 150 prisoners and killed at least
12 guards in an attack on the Kanda
har jail in southern Afghanistan.
“The situation in Kandahar is de
teriorating,” one diplomat said. “A
source says there is no longer a func
tioning administration in the city.”
In Islamabad, diplomats said some
officials were purged following last
week’s ninth plenum meeting of
Afganistan’s Central Committee of
the Ruling Peoples Democratic Party.
Insurance claims raise System rates
by Rebeca Zimmermann
Battalion Staff
Increases in Texas A&M Univer
sity System group insurance rates, to
: take effect Sept. 1, were explained
to Texas A&M Academic Council
[members Tuesday. H. Ray Smith
'told the council the rate increases
are necessary because of large in-
! creases in the number of insurance
| claims made.
The amount of money paid out
in insurance claims in the last two
years has surpassed the amount
taken in from premium payments.
: Smith said Texas A&M formerly
had reserves in its insurance plan.
But, several years ago rates were not
I increased and the reserves were
. used.
The cost of processing each in
surance claim, spiraling medical
costs and state and federal laws ab
out what services, such as chiroprac
tic care, must be included in the in
surance coverage have contributed
to the dramatic increase in rates,
Smith said. .
In 1976 it cost $122.70 to process*
an insurance claim; now, it costs
$535.15 to process a claim.
The new insurance plan will in
clude three different coverage
plans: deluxe, basic and economy
coverage. The current insurance
plan has a standard and an economy
rate.
Monthly rates depend on the
number of dependents an employee
of the Texas A&M System claims on
the insurance policy. An employee
with two or more dependents on the
standard plan now pays $ 110.81 per
month; the economy plan costs
$83.55 per month.
On the new deluxe insurance
plan an employee with two depen
dents will pay $242.26 per month;
the basic plan costs $198.44 and the
economy plan costs $149.58 per
month.
The state of Texas will pay $58
per month on every state employees’
insurance plan.
These monthly payments are fi
gured for twelve months; em
ployees on nine-month contracts
will have different monthly rates.
The System received bids for
group insurance plans from six
companies; the contract was
awarded to Southwestern Life In
surance Co.
If employees are now on the stan
dard insurance plan, they will auto
matically be enrolled in the new de
luxe plan unless the personnel de
partment is notified, Smith said.
In other action at the meeting the
Academic Council approved:
•the division of the Department
of Sociology and Anthropology into
a Department of Sociology and a
separate Department of Anthropo
logy;
•candidates for degrees of Doc
tor of Veterinary Medicine degrees
to be conferred on Aug. 13 and gra
duate and undergraduate degrees
to be granted on Aug. 14;
•two new graduate courses in
business and a new undergraduate
genetics course;
•changes in the curriculum for
radiological protection en
gineering;
•awarding a posthumous degree
to Willard Francis Brown. Brown,
who was a senior marketing major,
was killed in a motorcycle crash in
College Station on May 29. Brown
needed only nine semester hours to
graduate.
Texas A&M President Frank
Vandiver, who presided at the coun
cil meeting, said he has received the
faculty senate steering committee’s
final constitution.
Vandiver also discussed new mea
sures to ease the parking situation
on campus. He said parking lot
attendants or security guards will be
employed to prevent cars from illeg
ally parking in reserved lots.
If this measure, which will be
used in nine lots, decreases the shor
tage of faculty parking spaces, he
said, the policy might be expanded
to other parking lots.
inside
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forecast
Partly cloudy with highs near 100;
low in the upper-70s.