New former students' leader
optimistic about coming year
— Page 3
A&M gets help from friends
to share SWC championship
— Page 7
Vol. 83 fto. 109 CJSPS 075360 10 pages
College Station, Texas
Monday, March 3, 1986
Texas’ birthday celebrated
A group reenacts a volley of musket fire as led by
Gen. Sam Houston (C. Lewis) at a Texas Sesqui-
centennial
Brazos State Park
Photo by MICHAEL SANCHEZ
celebration in Washington-on-the-
Over 20,000
gather along
the Brazos
Associated Press
WASHINGTON-ON-THE-B-
RAZOS — More than 20,000
people jammed into a tiny 150-
acre park along the banks of the
Brazos River where 150 years ago
Sunday 59 men assembled and
adopted the Texas Declaration of
Independence.
Gov. Mark White said, “Here
in 1836, the signers of the Texas
declaration were of the same
moral stature and bold frame of
mind as signers of the American
Declaration of Independence.
“When they encountered tyr
anny in a new territory, revolu
tion was their natural response,”
White said. “Texas was shaped by
heroism and sacrifice of people
who refused to be conquered.”
i The crowd was the biggest ever
for the Washington-on-the-Bra-
zos State Historic Park, about 85
miles northwest of Houston, offi
cials said.
The signing in 1830 came four
days before the fall of the Alamo,
btliTexas forces inflicted a major
setback only weeks later at San Ja
cinto, where practically the entire
I Mexican force was killed,
wounded or taken prisoner. A
treaty was signed shortly thereaf
ter and Texas became a republic.
Normally, on Texas Indepen-
; dence Day, 3,000 to 4,000 people
show up. On this Sesquicenten-
nial Sunday, the Star of the Re
public Museum was so crowded
! that people were lined up outside
I and had to enter in shifts.
“It’s a real zoo out here,” said
Ellen Murry, curator of educa
tion at the museum.
President Reagan sent a tele
gram that was read by Assistant
U.S. Postmaster General William
T. Johnstone.
“From the very beginning,
Texas has held a unique and vital
place in the American experi
ence,” Reagan said.
“The Lone Star State has fig
ured prominently in the events
and developments that were key
to our modern nationhood,” he
said. “Us rich ethnic heritage
makes it the land of opportunity,
individual achievement and artis
tic expression, reflecting every as
pect of the American way of life
in one great state.”
White said the Texas battle for
independence closely paralleled
the American experience some
60 years earlier.
He compared Bunker Hill, Sa
ratoga and Valley Forge of the
See Texans, page 10
Assassin shoots,
kills Palestinian
mayor in Israel
Associated Press
NABLUS, Occupied West Bank
— A moderate Palestinian recently
appointed by Israel as mayor of
Nablus, the West Bank’s largest city,
was fatally shot Sunday 30 yards
from City Hall as he walked to work,
authorities said.
The assassin was said to have es
caped into a crowded market.
The killing of Mayor Zafer al-
Masri was condemned by both mod
erate Arabs and Israelis as a setback
to Middle East peace efforts.
Two Syrian-backed Palestinian
factions that reject a negotiated set
tlement with Israel — the Popular
Front for the Liberation of Palestine,
under George Habash, and the Fa-
tah-Revolutionary Council, under
Abu Nidal — claimed responsibility
for al-Masri’s death.
Al-Masri, 44, known for his pro-
Jordanian views, was the only Arab
so far to accept Israeli appointment
as a mayor in the West Bank, which
Israel captured from Jordan during
the 1967 Arab-Israeli War.
He took over from an Israeli mili
tary officer as head of Nablus, a city
of 100,000 people, on Dec. 19 with
the tacit support of Jordan’s King
Hussein and of Yasser Arafat, chair
man of the Palestine Liberation Or
ganization.
Al-Masri was shot at 8 a.m. as he
approached the front door of City
Hall. He died a short time later in a
hospital.
An Israeli army officer, who in
sisted on anonymity, said al-Masri
was shot twice in the chest and once
in the thigh with a 7.65 mm pistol.
The army first said he was shot in
the back.
Soldiers set up roadblocks at en
trances to Nablus and rounded up
Arab youths for questioning. One
roup of 20 Arabs was seen being
eld at gunpoint before reporters
were ordered from the area.
Authorities did not report any ar
rests.
Deputy Mayor Hafez Tukan will
be named interim mayor, city coun
cil member Ezzat Alul said.
Israeli Prime Minister Shimon
Peres was quoted in a Cabinet com
munique as saying, “The murder
will not deter the Israeli government
from proposing to the residents of
the territories (that they) administer
their own affairs.”
The U.S. consul-general in east
Jerusalem, Morris Draper, called the
killing “mindless brutality.”
Elias Freij, the Palestinian mayor
of Bethlehem, told The Associated
Press the shooting was “a serious
criminal act which can only have an
adverse effect on the peace process.”
Freij is the only elected Palestinian
mayor on the West Bank who has
not been dismissed by Israel, which
last held elections in the occupied
territory in 1976.
Israeli military officers replaced
the dismissed mayors. Freij said the
killing “will eliminate altogether”
Peres’ plan to name Arab mayors in
three other cities in hopes of satisfy
ing Palestinian demands for control
over local affairs.
Al-Masri also was president of the
Nablus Chamber of Commerce. He
said he viewed his mayoral job as a
temporary one until Israeli authori
ties allowed elections.”
He once said of peace negotia
tions, “I don’t want to be mixed up
in any of that. I just want to serve my
people.”
Samuel Goren, a Defense Ministry
official in charge of West Bank af
fairs, said on Israeli television that
al-Masri was warned of possible at
tacks but refused protection.
Analyst says Gramm-Rudman will increase costs of GSLs
By FRANK SMITH
Staff Writer
The Gramm-Rudman law will increase
le cost of guaranteed student loans for
udents needing them while slightly lower-
ig the yields for banks that make them,
ate financial aid officials say.
The law will affect only those GSLs made
om March 1 to Sept. 30. of this year. But
the federal deficit exceeds $144 billion in
seal 1987, and if the Supreme Court
pholds the constitutionality of future
ramm-Rudman cutbacks, the law’s stu-
entloan provisions will be extended until
October 1987, said Tom Melecki, a re-
larch analyst for the Texas Guaranteed
indent Loan Corp.
Gramm-Rudman contains two provisions
dating specifically to the GSL program.
The first mandates that the federal sub
sidy paid to GSL lenders be reduced by 0.4
percent during the first year after the loans
are made. The other provision raises the
loan origination fee charged to student bor
rowers from 5 percent to 5.5 percent of
each loan’s principal amount.
A1 Bormann, assistant director of finan
cial aid at Texas A&M, said the federal sub
sidy reduction doesn’t appear to be driving
major lending institutions in the state away
from the GSL program.
An open lender, Bormann said, is a fi
nancial institution that will accept a loan ap
plication regardless of whether a student
and/or his parent has a previous account
with the institution.
Joe L. McCormick, executive director of
the TGSLC, predicted the subsidy reduc
tion would have little or no impact on the
willingness of the 700 Texas banks, credit
unions and savings and loans now partici
pating in the program to keep making loans
to students.
Melecki said the federal subsidy in ques
tion, also called the special interest allow
ance, is calculated by taking the difference
between the interest rate on a loan and the
sum of the average interest rate of 91-day
treasury bills and 3.5 percent.
For instance, Melecki said, if the interest
rate on a loan was 8 percent, and if treasury
bills were selling for 7.5 percent, the special
allowance would equal 3 percent (7.5 plus
3.5 minus 8).
“The lender is going to realize a yield on
that return of 11 percent peryear,” Melecki
said. “Eight percent of it’s going to be in in
terest and 3 percent of it’s going to be in
special allowance.”
However, he said, Gramm-Rudman’s 0.4
percent reduction in special allowance will
mean the special allowance will be the dif
ference between the loan’s interest rate and
the sum of the average interest on treasury
bills and 3.1 percent.
So, using the same example, a lender get
ting an 1 1 percent return on a $2,500 loan
is making $275. On the other hand, a 0.4
percent reduction in special allowance re
duces the lender’s return during the first
year to 10.6 percent of the loan’s principal
— which in this case equals $265. So in this
example the federal government saves $10
in special allowance on the loan.
Bormann said that for fiscal year 1985,
which ended last Sept. 30, a total of 8,397
A&M students were on guaranteed student
loans totaling $13,333,096 — meaning the
average amount of a GSL for an A&M stu
dent was about $ 1,588 during that period.
Melecki said more than $12 million of
the GSL money borrowed by A&M students
during fiscal 1985 was guaranteed by~
TGSLC.
The second Gramm-Rudman provision
pertaining to GSLs increases the loan origi
nation fee charge to student borrowers -
from 5 percent to 5.5 percent.
Using fiscal 1985 figures for A&M, a 0.5
percent increase in the loan origination fee
would translate into an average increase in
the cost of the loan of approximately $8
($1,588 x .055 minus $1,588 x .05).
Source: Moving bases
from Philippines costly
Associated Press
WASHINGTON — The Pen-
t tagon estimates relocation of the
two huge U.S. military bases in
i the Philippines would cost up
wards of $8 billion and put Amer
ican military forces a long dis
tance from potential hot spots,
sources say.
A dassified report containing
the estimate is to he sent to Con
gress Monday, less than a week
after the fall of Ferdinand Mar
cos and the installation of Cora-
zon Aquino as president of the
longtime U.S. ally.
The Philippines is home to
Subic Bay Naval Station and
Clark Air Base, the largest Amer
ican bases outside the United
States. The leases on t hose bases
run out in 1991 and Aquino has
refused to say whether she will let
them stay.
The Pentagon report says if
those two bases are lost, the most
stable potential spots to relocate
would be Guam and Tinian is
lands, according to the sources,
who spoke only on the condition
they not be identified.
Both islands are under the con
trol of the United States and are
already home to U.S. military in
stallations.
“There are other places you
could move the U.S. bases to, like
Japan or Australia, but you have
the same potential problem there
as in the Philippines — you don’t
know if we’ll be welcome down
the road,” explained one source.
484 Philippine prisoners released
Aquino restores basic
Associated Press
MANILA, Philippines — Presi
dent Corazon Aquino abolished the
government’s power to detain peo
ple without charge Sunday, a prac
tice her ousted predecessor used in
an attempt to quell a growing com
munist insurgency.
She told more than 1 million
cheering Filipinos at an outdoor
rally that the practice was “not war
ranted” and had helped rather than
hindered the guerrillas.
Aquino also said Sunday that all
but four of 484 political prisoners in
carcerated under Marcos “have been
released or are in the process of be
ing released,” and the remaining
ones will have their cases reviewed
this week.
The four include the suspected
former leader of the outlawed Com
munist Party of the Philippines and
three others accused of roles in the
insurgency.
Aquino has ruled out any attempt
to extradite Ferdinand E. Marcos,
forced into exile last Wednesday in a
nearly bloodless “people power” rev
olution, for any illegal acts com
mitted during his 20 years as presi
dent.
But she said on Sunday that did
not mean that those who committed
serious crimes , during his regime
would escape punishment.
“We are gathering evidence and
will set up the government structure
that will try those who have com
mitted grave crimes against the peo
ple, like human rights abuses and
stealing,” Aquino said.
Aquino ran against Marcos in a
Feb. 7 presidential election. The Na
tional Assembly, dominated by Mar
cos’ New Society Movement party,
declared him winner Feb. 15, al
though foreign observers cited mas
sive ballot fraud.
The public gathering Sunday in
bayside Rizal park was the largest
since the 1983 funeral of Aquino’s
slain husband, Benigno Aquino.
Aquino was considered Marcos’
strongest opponent for the presi
dency when he was shot and killed
Aug. 21, 1983, at Manila airport.
Aquino has repeatedly called Marcos
her “No. 1 suspect” in the shooting.
Sunday’s rally began with a
‘thanksgiving” Mass celebrated by
Cardinal Jaime Sin, Roman Catholic
archbishop of Manila, who joined
Aquino in warning that Marcos’
flight to Hawaii did not end the
threat to democracy.
rights
“There are those who want to
slide back into the old and corrupt
ways, those who plan to regroup the
forces of the dictatorship,” Sin told
the crowd, estimated by police at
over 1 million.
Aquino said the situation, “while
stable, is not totally under control
yet. There are still holdout pockets
of military and civilian loyalists.
There are still the loyalists who have
not surrendered.”
The first proclamation of Aqui
no’s government restored the writ of
habeas corpus, which Marcos sus
pended in 1981 when he ended
eight years of martial law and re
stored some rights.
The suspension of habeas corpus
enabled Marcos to hold people with
out charges indefinitely.