Thursday, October 3, 1985/The Battalion/Page 11
World and Nation
South African blacks boycott
classes to protest apartheid
Associated Press
JOHANNESBURG, South Africa
Thousands of black students boy
cotted classes on the first day of the
new school term Wednesday, in a
protest against apartheid.
Police reported scattered, iso
lated, rioting but no deaths.
In Soweto, the nation’s largest
black area, southwest of Johannes
burg, students roamed the dusty
streets as soldiers aboard armored
personnel carriers took up positions
in schoolyards.
No students attended classes at
174 of the 7,000 black schools in
South Africa and attendance ap
peared to vary from 5 percent to 95
percent at others, said Job Schoe-
man, spokesman for the national
Department of Education and
Training.
He said it was impossible Wednes
day afternoon to know how many of
the 1.73 million black students in
South Africa joined the boycott,
which also protested the deployment
of police and army units in black
areas torn by 13 months of riots
against white rule.
Student strikes became a popular
form of protest in early 1984. Anger
over apartheid, the South African
government’s institutionalized racial
segregation policy, escalated into ri
oting that has claimed the lives of
more than 750 blacks since that sum
mer.
Schoeman said boycotts appeared
to have the greatest effect at schools
near Pretoria, which is 25 miles
north of Johannesburg, and near
East London and Port Elizabeth, in
eastern Cape Province some 500
miles south of Johannesburg.
“There has been a considerable
improvement,” Schoeman said, com
paring Wednesday’s boycotts with
those called before the imposition of
emergency rule in 36 regions July
21. He said about 200 black schools
had no attendance at one point be
fore the government’s emergency
declaration.
Thousands of students have been
detained without charges under the
emergency decree, and some com
plain they were tortured while being
denied access to lawyers or family.
Schools were open in Cape Town,
scene of day-and-night rioting in late
August and during the first two
weeks of September. The day be
fore, many of the area’s 360,000
mixed-race students, who are called
“colored” by the South African gov
ernment, boycotted classes.
The action Wednesday indicates
students are able to organize boy
cotts despite the Aug. 28 ban of the
Congress of South African Students,
the main black student alliance that
has been blamed for previous boy
cotts.
House passes bill
Surgeon General given power to combat AIDS
AGGIELAND pickup
will be temporarily sus
pended Monday morning
until 10 a.m. to allow for
Book delivery.
Regular distribution will
be daily 8 a.m. to 5 p.m.
from the English Annex.
Associated Press
WASHINGTON — With a con
gressman evoking Rock Hudson’s
memory, the House on Wednesday
overwhelmingly approved giving the
U.S. surgeon general the power to
shut down public bath houses and
massage parlors in the war against
AIDS.
“I personally met Rock Hudson
on a movie set,” said Rep. Robert
Dornan, R-Calf., who introduced
the bath house measure, which
passed on a 417-8 vote. Hudson, the
Hollywood movie idol who recently
revealed he had AIDS, died
Wednesday.
“The potential for hurting our so
ciety is reaching almost catastrophic
proportions,” Dornan said, claiming
that Congess and medical authorities
have not moved more swiftly against
AIDS because of lobbying by homo
sexuals.
The bath house bill is an “opening
shot” in what Dornan promised
would be a Series of GOP-led mea
sures aimed at protecting the gen
eral population from AIDS.
Rep. William Dannemeyer, R-
Calif., who has said publicly that
“God’s plan for man was Adam and
Eve, not Adam and Steve,” is seeking
support for a series of proposals, in
cluding banning children with AIDS
from schools.
Rep. Henry Waxman, D-Calif.,
chairman of a Ho.se health subcom
mittee, claimed the bath house
amendment was unnecessary be
cause Surgeon General C. Everett
Koop already had the power to shut
down the facilities.
The measure was aimed at “bash
ing gays,” he said, adding some Re
publicans are trying to “demagogue
the issue” of AIDS.
Rep. Ted Weiss, D-N.Y., said the
provision was intended to somehow
single out homosexuals as “in some
way cavalier and disregarding” of
AIDS. Closing bath houses should
be the prerogative of city officials, he
said.
Shirley Barth, a spokesman for
the Public Health Service, said law
yers are trying to determine what
the surgeon general’s authority is.
But she said bath houses have always
been considered a local issue.
Bath houses have been targeted
because they are considered by some
to be nests of promiscuous homosex
ual sex, a major method of AIDS
transmission.
The bath house measure was at
tached to a $104.9 billion appropria
tion bill which will provide money
for the departments of Labor,
Health and Human Services and Ed
ucation in fiscal year 1986. That
passed 322-107.
Included in the bill is $189.7 mil
lion for research and other activities
involving acquired immune defi
ciency syndrome. That represents
$70 million more than the amount
requested by the Reagan administra
tion, and an increase of $90 million
over 1985.
Students must have I.D.;
fee slip not needed.
Battalion Classified 845-2611
Freshmen &
Sophomores!
LAST
CHANCE
The schedule for Freshmen and Sophomore photos for
the 1986 Aggieland has been extended to October Ml.
Photos will be taken at Yearbook Associate’s studio
located above Campus Photo Center at Northgate.
Office hours are 8:30-12 and 1-4:30.