)1
The Battalion
'110;;“
£ No. 193 USPS 045360 6 pages
College Station, Texas
Wednesday, August 13, 1986
Lankans
aid to get
^ ito Canada
by «;J
lent
TS of
i seek status
Irefugees
ation.
niSp
m pnai
xtt)."
gatonl
eanir -iT. (OHN’S, Newfoundland (AP)
The 152 Sri Lankans rescued
^■wo crowded lifeboats drifting
'8 s (he Newfoundland coast paid up
|5,LH) apiece to be smuggled into
ail iri(B ai officials said Tuesday.
lediLB Sri Lankans, whose lips were
orDidBn and burned from exposure,
•Is iBiicked up in fog-shrouded wa-
'•Ja-ssia miles southeast of the coast
etta 5m|ay afternoon by three fishing
dieted i$els. They are asking to be classi-
gctx:.j|as refugees.
jcaint lty were brought to St. John’s
HBay morning aboard the fisher-
i Html vessel Leonard J. Crowley
Itoldofficials their story with the
BHf an interpreter.
/la news conference at the local
H|lian coast guard headquarters,
ril Canadian Mounted Police in-
I Irjack Lavers said the refugees
/ Ifamils who claimed to be fiee-
Sllrsecution on their troubled is-
i Geouttff t h e southern tip of India.
IjBnils account for 18 percent of
m‘lanka’s 16 million people and
ereiwJ corn p| a i nec j 0 f discrimination
isw: fu Buddhist Sinhalese majority.
IttwtMniil militants are waging a guer-
lampaign for an independent
meland.
'F'lre than 160,000 Sri Lankan
■ ™jlls, who are mostly Hindus,
8 01 Ve fled in the past three years.
' Bout 130,000 have gone to In
ti ..B^ile the others are scattered
1 f 11 ross Europe, North America and
Biddle East.
Bvers said the 144 men, three
'men and five children found
nmed into the two unmarked life-
ats apparently boarded a freighter
' wn . the coast of India on July 7 after
ntig an Indian agency between
} na P‘B)0 and $5,000 each for the pas-
T,but««, r
He did not know how they got
■ Sri Lanka to India.
He said police believe the ship
|A °PP ec * ^e Sri Lankans at the first
[ht of Canadian land and then re-
! ted into international waters so
not to be caught,
d alsoitpe said efforts to find the ship
ondi(l4 u ld begin when the fog lifted and
) noipiffimd, the captain and crew could
..retirediB ar ged with conspiracy to violate
rementiBda’s immigration act.
he b® 6 refugees said they did not
Ijgjble ttltv the name of the freighter, but
ir at Iti® they boarded at night, were
■ below decks, and their meals
B brought to them by an Orien-
1-looking crew, Lavers said.
'Jley said they were put to sea in
to poorly provisioned lifeboats six
iysfago.
pe Sri Lankan said they were
Ithey were about 11 and a half
iles from land.
SUE However, Lavers said police were
^ Pet B C()nv * n ced that the refugees
0 lit that much time adrift.
.60? •‘•There is some consistency in
^ |i| story, but some inconsistencies
The facts,” Lavers told a news con-
Ml ,
.413 ;renc: e.
Brly reports said the refugees
ne found cold, wet and hungry,
}r 4tLavers said they were dry, warm
52? iidjclad in good, heavy clothing. He
491 Bhunks of dry bread were found
fj the lifeboats.
“We find it remarkable that they
Id spend five days in the fog and
land still be that dry,” he said.
imes A Canadian immigration spokes-
said all of the refugees have
to stay in Canada and some
Ithey have relatives in Montreal.
4
innings
Bullock calls for plan
to overhaul sales tax
Photo by Kimberly M. Pettibon
Beating The Heat
Terre Atweol, a senior nutrition major from San Antonio, tries to
block the ball as Anthony Godinich, a senior marketing major from
Galveston, backs him up. The two residents of Country Place Apart
ments were taking part in the complex’s daily water volleyball game.
AUSTIN (AP) — Comptroller
Bob Bullock called Tuesday for a
comprehensive tax overhaul that
would lower the sales tax rate, but
force Texans to pay sales tax on
more goods and services.
Under the plan, virtually all goods
and services would be subject to the
sales tax except food for home con
sumption, prescription medicine,
doctor bills, agricultural items, child
care and educational and religious
items.
The sales tax now does not cover
services, such as professional fees,
auto repairs and haircuts.
“To put it bluntly, Texas is going
broke with a tax system that relies
too heavily on the oil and gas indus
try and too heavily on a sales tax that
doesn’t cover vast sectors of the
economy,” Bullock said in a report
entitled “Time of Change — Time
of Choice.”
The comptroller’s plan is the
fourth one offered to lawmakers as a
way to battle the budget crisis.
Bullock has no power to imple
ment the plan. But his report tells
lawmakers that “drafts of legislation
to implement this plan are available
on request.”
Gov. Mark White is pushing a
plan that includes budget cuts and
temporarily raising the sales tax rate
from the current 4.125 percent to
5.25 percent until Sept. 1, 1987.
Ann Arnold, White’s press aide,
said the governor believes the 1987
Legislature should look at restruc
turing the tax system, but that it
should not be considered during the
current special session.
Lt. Gov. Bill Hobby’s plan in
cludes cuts and a permanent in
crease in the sales tax to 5 percent.
Speaker Gib Lewis has vowed to
block any tax hike.
He prefers budget cuts to solve
the casn flow problem until lawmak
ers convene for the 1987 regular ses
sion in January.
Bullock said canceling exemptions
to the sales tax and making other
fundamental changes in the tax sys
tem would raise enough money to al
low a lowering of the tax rate.
For example, the state could bring
in an additional $670.7 million in fis
cal 1987 by making the changes and
lowering the sales tax rate to 3 per
cent, Bullock said.
Those changes would add up to a
total of $1.88 billion for the state in
the 1988-89 budget period, he said.
The effort is based on shifting the
tax burden toward service indus
tries, a growing segment of the
state’s economy, and away from the
oil and gas business that supported
the state for years before petroleum
prices fell.
His plan also would lower the oil
and gas production taxes to 4.4 per
cent. The oil producion tax is now
4.6 percent. The gas production tax
is now 7.5 percent.
The separate motor vehicle sales
tax, now 5 percent, would be re
pealed and replaced with the gen
eral sales tax.
White: Using PUF
money no answer
to budget woes
AUSTIN (AP) — Gov. Mark
White sounded a stern warning to
legislators Tuesday, saying it
would be wrong for them to raid
the public school trust fund for
cash to balance the state budget.
“It would break our commit
ment to education if we now take
money from the Permanent
School Fund to solve the current
budget problem,” White told
about 800 teachers and school ad
ministrators.
“I will oppose any measure that
will damage that Permanent
School Fund,” he said.
Struggling to make up a pro
jected $3.5 billion deficit, the
House Appropriations Commit
tee has voted to take $1.1 billion
from two education funds long
viewed as untouchable — the
school fund and the Permanent
University Fund.
The two funds are the back
bone of the state’s higher educa
tion and public education sys
tems. The principal, which is
income from state lands, cannot
be spent. But interest income is
put into funds that are spent.
The university fund money,
now totaling about $2.4 billion, is
divided between the University of
Texas and Texas A&M systems.
In a speech to a statewide school
finance symposium, White said
creation of Permanent School
Fund was “a historic and far
sighted commitment of this state
to provide a solid and unshakea-
ble foundation for public
schools.”
Raiding that fund for a quick-
fix of cash “would badly hurt the
schoolchildren of Texas,” the
governor said.
Speaker Gib Lewis, D-Fort
Worth, continued to defend his
plan to pull cash from the funds.
However, he said it faces an
uphill fight against White and Lt.
Gov. Bill Hobby.
Asked Hobby’s reaction, Lewis
said, “He was opposed to that
also.
“The worst thing we can do is
walk away from the special ses
sion and not examine every el
ement and segment of state gov
ernment. There are no sacred
Reagan offers grain farmers ‘new aid’
CHICAGO, Ill. (AP) — President
Reagan, trying to boost Republican
election chances in the Midwest
grain belt, offered what the White
House portrayed as new aid to farm
ers Tuesday and said he already has
spent record amounts on agriculture
programs.
Citing a “long history of conflict
ing and haphazard policies” toward
farmers, Reagan said at a nationally
televised news conference that heavy
spending on agriculture this year is
designed to ease farmers back to
self-sufficiency.
Official estimates put farm pro
gram spending this year at $26 bil
lion, and private analysts say the fig
ure could hit $30 billion or more. In
the 1970s, spending levels hovered
around $4 billion annually.
Earlier, in an appearance at the Il
linois state fair at Springfield, Rea
gan announced that farmers will be
able to get price-support loans for
grain stored on the ground this year,
as well as for that in approved stor
age facilities such as silos or grain el
evators.
Presidential spokesman Larry
Speakes said that while “there is no
Reagan 'optimistic' about autumn summit
CHICAGO (AP) — President
Reagan, awaiting a report from
U.S. arms negotiators headed
home from Moscow, said Tues
day night he is optimistic about
chances for a successful autumn
summit, partly, he said, because
of difficulties facing the Kremlin
leadership.
Reagan would provide no de
tails about the new round of arms
discussions and said, “I don’t
have a reply yet” from the dele
gation that just concluded two
days of high-level, highly secret
talks with its Soviet counterparts.
In a rare out-of-town news
conference, Reagan said that
when he meets Soviet leader Mik
hail S. Gorbachev — the date has
yet to be set — he hopes to make
“more progress than has been
made in a number of years be
cause of some of the problems
that are conerning the general
secretary (Gorbachev) at this
time.”
Reagan said, “Yes, I’m opti
mistic.”
He did not elaborate, but Gor
bachev has been struggling with a
faltering economy and with the
recent nuclear reactor accident at
Chernobyl.
On another issue, Reagan said
virtually all black leaders in South
Africa are opposed to U.S. eco
nomic sanctions against the gov
ernment in Pretoria because they
believe they would be disruptive
to the region.
Reagan said he welcomed a
suggestion earlier in the day by
South African President P.W.
Botha that the leaders of Western
nations that oppose economic
sanctions meet with his govern
ment to discuss the current situa
tion.
way yet to estimate the cost, the Ag
riculture Department tells me that it
will not be all that expensive.
After Reagan left the fair, he trav
eled 200 miles to Chicago and before
returning to Washington, the presi
dent answered questions in a rare,
out-of-town news conference at an
airport hotel.
With low prices, sagging agricul
tural exports and overproduction,
Reagan acknowledged that farmers
are facing “some of the hardest of
the hard times” despite farm sup
port programs that will cost taxpay
ers $26 billion this year.
He called his decision to subsidize
wheat sales to the Soviets “our most
dramatic initiative to expand farm
exports.”
Without mentioning Secretary of
State George Shultz by name, Rea
gan said, “For some this is difficult to
understand; after all, the Soviets are
our adversaries. And I’ve never been
accused of being naive.
“The truth is, I didn’t make this
decision for them; I made it for the
American farmer and all Americans.
Because if that grain isn’t sold to the
Soviets, most of it will be stockpiled,
costing the taxpayers and depressing
grain prices here at home.”
He said the subsidized grain will
be sold “at the same price the Soviets
would pay to buy it from one of our
foreign competitors. Meeting world
competition this way is fair to Ameri
can taxpayers, fair to our trading
partners and, most of all, fair to
American farmers.”
The sale, involving 4 million met
ric tons, has been attacked by Aus
tralia, Canada and other grain-ex
porting countries.
In his speech, Reagan announced
formation of a federal drought assis
tance task force to help farmers in
the sun-baked Southeast, where
farm losses are estimated at more
than $2.3 billion.
^11 in-state tuition
aches $16 an hour
By Olivier Uyttebrouck
, .1 Staff Writer
; next at |g
Bn accordance with legislation
ill lacMBsed in 1985, tuition for Texas
es t of affiidents will rise to $16 per se-
1 Slam ll ® ster credit hour for the 1986-
era fmay aca demic year.
■The $4 increase from last
in trad' 'ear’s rate is part of the tuition
[way'sfB 6 passed by the Texas Legis-
n Norm®'re, which will raise in-state tu-
achedtkl 0n to $24 per semester credit
rted, ". four by 1996.
hotlead lwo student fees also will in-
Base this year: The student
the bad ® rv ' ce s fee is $5.20 per credit
'ell, we 10111 this year, up from $4.60 per
/ay' said ^edit hour last year, and the stu-
imeonelpru center complex fee is $20
in’t knOT' 5 year, up from $18 last year,
justse • bob Piwonka, manager of the
student financial fiscal office, says
that despite state budgetary prob
lems, he has heard no plans for
accelerating tuition increases
above the rate set by the 1985 leg
islative act.
Tuition for non-resident and
foreign students will remain at
$120 per credit hour for the
1986- 1987 academic year.
Non-resident tuition for the
1987- 88 academic year is ex
pected to remain at $120 per
credit hour, says Mack C. Adams,
an assistant .commissioner with
the Texas College and University
coordinating board. Beginning
next year, non-resident tuition
will increase so that it covers the
entire cost of educating the stu
dent.
Dole: Democrats in Senate
‘delaying’ Contra aid vote
WASHINGTON (AP) — Demo
crats argued Tuesday the United
States was lurching toward war in
Central America, but Senate Major
ity Leader Bob Dole charged that
opponents of a $100 million aid
package for Nicaragua’s Contra re
bels have “stonewalled, dilly-dallied
and delayed.”
Rejecting the war warnings, Dole,
R-Kan., said the $100 million in
mostly military aid sought by Presi
dent Reagan was “an essential part
of any strategy to achieve a fair, ne
gotiated settlement” with Nicara
gua’s leftist Sandinista government.
But Democrats argued that the
$70 million in arms and $30 million
in logistical aid would lead to a Viet-
nam-style involvement in Central
America.
Pending before the Senate was a
proposal by Sen. James Sasser, D-
Tenn., that would kill the aid. That
was considered a key test vote, but
even if Contra aid opponents lose,
some have vowed to wage a filibuster
to block final approval of the aid.
Dole scheduled a vote Wednesday
to force final action by cutting off
extended debate, a move that re
quires the support of 60 of the Sen
ate’s 100 members.
Sen. Alan Cranston, D-Calif., said,
“The Senate is being asked to give fi
nal approval for a war. Once again
we are stumbling down the slippery
slope toward direct American in
volvement in a foreign war without
the support of the American peo
ple.”
But Sen. Richard Lugar, R-Ind.,
Senate Foreign Relations Committee
chairman, called comparisons be
tween Nicaragua and Vietnam “non
sense. . . . That is a way to drag up
emotions,and history in a false way.
Our policy is not to go to war.”
Lugar added that “abandonment
of the Contras would result in a per
manent military and subversive
threat in Nicaragua that would make
democracy and economic devel
opment in Central America jeopar
dized and perhaps impossible.”
Reagan’s aid package cleared the
Democratic-controlled House on
June 25 by a 221-209 vote. Earlier
this year, the Senate approved a sim
ilar $100 million Contra aid plan,
53-47, but that bill died.
Angolans
claim attack
by S. Africa
LISBON, Portugal (AP) —The
Angolan Defense Ministry said its
troops killed 40 South African
soldiers and captured four others
while repulsing attacks on army
installations around the southern
town of Cuito Canavale.
The state-run news agency An-
gop, monitored Tuesday in Lis
bon, quoted a ministry statement
released in the Angolan capital of
Luanda as saying three South Af
rican battalions assaulted An
golan positions for three hours
Monday morning.
The South African troops tried
to take the town later in the day,
the report said.