4
I
opinion
Battalion/Pagji
February 24,1|
Slouch
By Jim Earle
“When they divide that oil lease money up among us, I
hope it is proportional to our time in school and not the
number of grade points that we have.“
Make a good offer
on barrels of oil
by Art Buchwald
You can’t believe what disarray the
oil-producing nations are in until you
visit an open market oil bazaar and see
for yourself. I went to one last week to
buy a barrel for Valentine’s Day.
A sheik from Kuwait was singing, “Oil
for sale, oil for sale. Sweet crude oil for
sale.”
“How much is it?” I asked.
“Thirty-four dollars a barrel. But
since it’s Valentine’s Day I'll let you have
it for 32.”
I was about to taste it, when a man
grabbed my arm, and pulled me into his
tent. “ That man is a thief. Here, try this
delicious Libyan oil.” 1 le handed me a tin
cup.
“Very tasty,” 1 said. “How much for a
barrel?”
He smiled. “Thirty dollars. We’re hav
ing a Kaddafi Day Founders’ Sale.”
“I’ll be back,” I promised him.
I walked along the dusty streets of the
bazaar as Nigerians, Saudi Arabians and
oil merchants from Qatar all implored
me to buy their products.
A man wearing a sombrero said,
“Senor, please, would you like to buy this
1983 vintage which just came out of an
offshore well off Venezuela?”
“Is 1983 a good year for oil?” I asked
him.
“It’s nouveau oil. The weather was just
right for pumping it out of the sea. You
can refine it today.”
“How much is it?” I asked.
“If you promise not to tell anyone I will
sell you a barrel for $29,” he said.
“That’s $5 below the OPEC price.”
“I spit on OPEC. They are all double-
crossers, and they are undercutting me
all over the bazaar. I have a f amily to feed
and that is why I am sacrificing my oil at
cost.”
“I'd like to think about it,” I said.
As I walked farther down, a man in a
sombrero standing in an alley called to
me. “Psst, amigo, are you looking for
some fast action?”
“It all depends on what you have to
offer.”
He showed me a photograph of a bar
rel of Mexican oil.
“I give you her for $27 and will throw
in the transportation for tree.”
“She’s very beautiful,” I said. “But how
do I know site’s the real stuff?”
“He will guarantee that you won’t be
disappointed.” The Mexican pointed to a
nervous man wearing a pin-st riped suit, a
white shirt and a Harvard School of Busi
ness tie.
“Tell him, Thomas, how great my oil
is.”
“She’s everything he says she is,” pin
stripe assured me.
“Who are you?” I asked.
“I am from the Chase Manhattan
Bank, and he’s into me for $(t billion. Buy
his damned oil and give me a break.”
“I really didn’t want to spend that
much,” I said.
“I say, old chap,” a fellow in a morning
coat who looked like a floorwalker at
Harrad’s said, “I’d be very careful of
those Latin cutthroats. Could I interest
you in some very fine British petroleum
from the North Sea? It’s certified by the
Royal Family.”
“How much?”
The British never haggle over price
when it comes to oil. “Twenty-five dollars
— take it or leave it.”
“Twenty-three dollars,” I said.
“I’ll make it $24 and arrange to have
your picture taken with Princess Diana’s
baby.”
“I guess I can’t do better than that.”
“Yes, you can,” an Iranian oil mer
chant said, pulling me into his hut.
“What’s your price?”
“Are you an American?”
“Of course,” I said.
“Then I will give you this barrel for
$20.”
“Why so cheap?” I asked.
He put his arm around my shoulder
and whispered, “We Iranians and Amer
icans have to stick together.”
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77843.
Rebels making battlefield gains
El Salvador coalition crackin
by John E. Newhagen
United Press International
SAN SALVADOR, El Salvador — A
power struggle between the partners has
paralyzed El Salvador’s fragile coalition
government and threatens to undermine
the war against increasingly aggressive
leftist rebels.
Fhe 60-seat Constituent Assembly
came to power last March 28 with it man
date to write a new constitution and gov
ern until this constitution was put into
effect. Many called this the first free elec
tion in El Salvador in 50 veins.
Fhe U.S.-backed Christian Democrats
won 42 percent of the vote tor the largest
single block in the Assembly, but the
ultra-right National Republican Alliance,
known as Arena, wound up controlling
the body bv winning the support ol two
other conservative parties.
Arena leader Roberto d’Aubuisson’s
sudden rise to power from the under
ground, where he lied idler being
charged with plotting a coup, stunned
Salvadorans.
But d’Aubuisson, elected as Assembly
president, has antagonized his coalition
partners and key members of the military
by relentlessly pushing his rightist views,
which include suspending land reform
and purging officials suspected of liberal
tendencies.
Fhe Christian Democ rats, considered
moderates by U.S. policymakers, began
organizing a “Democratic Center” coali
tion last fall. By luring two deputies from
the* Democratic Action Party and four
from the National Conciliation Party into
their camp, they gained a paper majority
of 31 Assembly votes.
Serious cracks began to apppear in
d’Aubuisson’s coalition before Christ
mas. He threatened to resign on several
occasions and no longer is in control. I he
decision-making process of govei nment
is in stalemate.
“D’Aubuisson forgot the small par
ties,” said Christian Democratic floor
leader Julio Rey Plenties.
Fhe Arena party has thrown roadb
locks into the path of a new constitution,
lighting any hint that power in the f uture
may be shared with leftists.
Many Salvadorans wonder if the first
draft of the constitution can be finished
as scheduled by the end of March.
Defense Minister Jose Guillermo Gar
cia has been shaking up the military com
mand for three months, purging officers
believed to be Arena supporters.
That nearly backfired in January
when he ordered Lt. Colonel Sigifredo
Ochoa, a close friend of d’Aubuisson.
transferred to a diplomatic post in Uru
guay.
Instead, Ochoa and his Cobra batta
lion rebelled and demanded Garcia’s res
ignation for mishandling the war.
A compromise was reached and Ochoa
left the country for assignment in the
United States, but the army lias remained
split.
With politicians and army of fleers bog
ged down in acrimonious debate, rebels
have shown more strength than im
agined, overrunning a major city, Berlin,
in early February, and cutting off
another one, Suchitoto, later in the
month.
ti
rai
der
in
Thi
ver
rd
L
uril
Tt
S<
jar
I his drive convinced Western
sources that t he army willlacea
er and morale crisis if majo
changes are not made.
But the civilian governmen
strung in the rightist-moderate^
has not been able to assertitscot t 1 , 11 "’
Defense Minister Garcia,
strongest force in thecouninij
military coup of 1979.
Garcia has so far opposed
change in his conservative wai
that emphasizes fixed troop
and cumbersome 2,000 to3j
sweeps that guerrillas easily d ^
opposed to aggressive small
f avored by American militani
Fhe United States, whichb|
in nearly $1 billion in aidant
past three years, is growing
impatient with the stalemate on
tlefield.
Secretary of State George
Feb. 16 ruled out talks with il»|
just days after a "working
approved by Assistant Secrelan
Fhomas Finders was leakedio
calling for a "two-track” polio
porting the Salvadoran war
pursuing negotiations with the
Congressional critics have ►prop
their opposition to U.S. assist oijof
Sen. Christopher Dodd, D-tiini[frh
ing aid to El Salvador to
mone\ down a rat hole.”
Negotiations in any form mi
acceptable to d’Aubuisson am
surek provoke his withdraw!Ii
government coalition, trigyi
downfall and demoralizing
even more.
he
Four cartons and seven packs ago
by Dick West
United Press International
WASHING FON — Contrary to the
laments of one protest group, the anti
smoking campaign in this country has
not reached the point where puffing is
permitted “only in the shower with the
water running.”
At least not yet.
There’s no gainsaying, however, that
smoking proscriptions have become
stringent enough to incite protests by
tobacco libertarians who claim their right
to light up is being trampled.
Thus far, these stirrings of discontent
are hardly more noticeable than the faint
odor of Uncle Harry’s cheap cheroots
emanating from Aunt Maude’s living
room draperies when they first come
back from the cleaners.
The voice of rebellion may b£ only a
“festo” (half of a manifesto) issued by a
militant organization calling itself The
Outcasts of Smoker Flat.
Or it may take the puny form of a
guidebook listing restaurants where
cigar smokers are welcomed, and pre
sumably treated as first class citizens.
Nor is there any convincing evidence
that the protest movement will escalate
into a full-scale revolt. Most smokers,
apparently, still feel selfconseious about
offending the nostrils of abstaining seat
mates and others in the vicinity. Hence,
they accept public banishment meekly,
sneaking a few puffs as allowed.
Indications that smokers are begin
ning to resent segregation are, nonethe
less, unmistakable. And it behooves any
honest observer of incipient social trends
to take notice of the malcontents before
they begin striking back.
The author of the aformentioned
“festo,” one Nick Bourne of Moores-
town, N.J., assured me he had no connec
tion with the tobacco industry.
He said his decision to organize The
Outcasts of Smoker Flat was a result of
irritation caused by “No Smoking signs
poking me in the eye.”
“Prohibition is the word of the day,”
Bourne complains. “The smoker is be
coming an outcast. Some even propose
that all smokers be exiled to Cleveland.
Others are for dividing the country into
two parts: Non-smokers only allowed
east of the Mississippi and smokers re
stricted West to compete with
of the smog-smothered cities
Well, it is one thing to fed
being victimized by a ruthless'
and quite another thing tomaltj
action effective.
Perhaps smokers shouldjoij
paign to require that cigarettes
more quickly than current bn
Development of self-e#
cigarettes is being pushed
reasons. But that need not be j
impetus.
Non-smokers say the
fumes are those emerging fro®]
when butts have not beeiu
snubbed out. If cigarettes had [
fed on to keep them lit, itiwdj
some of the pressure to
smokers.
Failing that, the only recoil
Outcasts might be a “Smokers'
Washington.” I can see themJ
the Lincoln Memorial to
against the bars of isolation j
Wasn’t it Lincoln whoi
nation can permanently e#
smoked?