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About The Battalion. (College Station, Tex.) 1893-current | View Entire Issue (Jan. 26, 1987)
The Battalion Vol.82 Mo.84 GSPS 045360 12 pages College Station, Texas Monday, January 26, 1987 6 ■■ii ?at. ils m. :s jce int ;e of wear, i ■I 15.50 pL Card Shark Tory Gattis puts the finishing touches on a card bridge during a contest held this weekend by the Photo by Lucy Bowen Society of Women Engineers to interest high school students in engineering. Iranian group claims it abducted teachers Military action urged in Beirut kidnapping BEIRUT, Lebanon (AP) — An anonymous caller Sunday claimed the weekend abduction of three American teachers and an Indian professor in the name of an under ground group linked to Iran and threatened to kill them if the United States helps Iraq. An earlier caller, also claiming to speak for the Organization of the Oppressed on Earth, said the educa tors were grabbed on Saturday to prevent the extradition from West Germany to the United States of Mo hammed Ali Hamadi, a Lebanese man sought in a 1985 TWA hijack ing. Twenty-three foreigners now are reported missing and believed kid napped in Lebanon, including eight seized since Anglican Church envoy Terry Waite arrived in Beirut on Jan. 12 on a mission to seek the re lease of hostages. The Christian Voice of Lebanon radio station said it received the two calls Sunday, but it was not clear if they were made by the same man. The calls could not be authenti cated. The extremist Shiite Moslem group usually delivers statements to local newspapers or Western news agencies when it wants to publicize a claim, and the Voice of Lebanon has been known to be inaccurate on Moslem-related affairs. The first caller said the group would kill a hostage if Hamadi, 22, were extradited to the United States, where he is wanted on charges of air piracy and murder in the June 1985 TWA hijacking to Beirut. In the second call, a man said a hostage would be killed if Hamadi were not released by midnight (5 p.m. EST). It was not clear if the caller referred to an American or to other hostages. The second call also said the hos tages would be killed if the United States provided support for Iraq, at war with Iran since September 1980. “We ask U.S. President Ronald Reagan not to intervene in the Gulf War and not to provide assistance to the Iraqi authorities,” the man said in Lebanese-accented Arabic. “The (American) hostages will be wasted if he fails to do so.” The three Americans kidnapped from Beirut University College on Saturday night by gunmen disguised as police were Alann Steen, 48, a WASHINGTON (AP) — The chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee said Sunday that President Reagan should consider military action in the lat est kidnapping of three Ameri cans in Beirut if the hostage-tak ers carry out a threat to kill the U.S. citizens. Sen. Claiborne Pell, D-R.L, said Reagan should take “pretty hard” action against Iran if there is “clear evidence” that Iran is be hind the latest kidnapping, which occurred Saturday. However, Pell added, “if it’s a group without any government connection, then . . . there really is no good solution.” Both Pell and Treasury Secre tary James Baker also said they think any Americans remaining in Beirut should leave. journalism professor who formerly taught at three northern California colleges; Jesse Turner, an Idaho na tive, assistant instructor of math ematics and computer sciences; and Robert Polhill, 53, assistant profes sor of business studies. The Indian was identified as Mi- thileshwar Singh, chairman of the business studies division and a legal resident alien of the United States. Waite, personal emissary of Arch bishop of Canterbury Robert Run- cie, remained out of sight Sunday for a sixth day. He was negotiating in secret with Islamic Jihad, captors of two Americans held in Lebanon since 1985 — Terry Anderson, 39, chief Middle East correspondent for the Associated Press, and Thomas Sutherland, acting dean of agricul ture at the American University of Beirut. The Church of England said in London on Sunday that Waite was in “good hands” and pursuing his ne gotiations. U.S. Ambassador John Kelly held crisis talks Sunday with senior aides in Christian east Beirut. He also had Pell, appearing on ABC-TV’s “This Week with David Brink- ley,” said there’s not much that Reagan can do to win the release of the three new hostages, who were abducted from the campus of Beirut University College. “I don’t envy the president, the situation he’s in now,” Pell said. Baker, a member of the Na tional Security Council, said on NBC-TV’s “Meet the Press,” there was no clear reason for the kidnapping. “We’re not sure who took them,” he said. “No one has yet claimed responsibility for it.” Sen. Patrick Leahy, D-Vt., in a telephone interview Sunday, agreed with Pell that “we’ve got a terrible anti-terrorist policy. It’s in a shambles.” met them late Saturday after the ab ductions. The kidnappers claimed to be po lice assigned to protect the foreign staff at Beirut University College. They assembled the foreigners in a ground-floor office, picked the four men and forced them at gunpoint into a jeep that sped away. The university, which has about 3,000 students, announced Sunday that classes would be suspended un til further notice. Anonymous callers claiming to speak for the Organization of the Oppressed on Earth claimed respon sibility for kidnapping two people from west Beirut on Friday, saying they were West Germans. But police said Sunday the two men abducted were Armenian Leb anese who may have been mistaken for foreigners because of their blond hair and fair skin. The foreigners missing in Leb anon are eight Americans, six Frenchmen, two Britons, two West Germans, one Irishman, one Italian, one South Korean, one Saudi Ara bian and one Indian. &M student dies in San Antonio hospital in ran . 19.9? Blect lings at By Sue Krenek Staff Writer A Texas A&M student who was seriously injured in a Jan. 17 car ac- Kident in Fredericksburg died Fri- ; May. hospital and Department of M’ublic Safety officials said Sunday. I Gregory Treibs, 22, a senior bi- HKimedical science major from Fred ericksburg, was pronounced dead at 3:48 p.m. Friday at St. Luke’s Hospi- v tal in San Antonio, DPS trooper Ray mond Krauss said. Two other A&M students and a former student were killed in the ac cident and one student was injured. Erwin James Montgomery, a sophomore business administration major who was injured in the acci dent, was released from Hill Coun try Memorial Hospital Thursday, a hospital spokesman said. A&M students Kevin Frank Boeck, a senior agricultural econom ics major, and Mark Werner Eberle, a sophomore business administra tion major, were killed in the acci dent. The car’s driver, Gregory Scott Sultemeier, also was pronounced dead at the scene of the accident. Sultemeier last attended A&M in Fall 1984. Two non-students also were in jured in the accident. Gail Jung remains in stable condi tion at Hill Country Memorial Hos pital in Fredericksburg, a hospital spokesman said, and Tina Hartman has been released. DPS reports show that the acci dent occurred on Jan. 17 when a GMC Jimmy driven by Sultemeier ran off State Highway 16 north of Fredericksburg and struck a tree. The report said the weather — heavy fog mixed with light rain — contributed to the accident. Krauss said funeral arrangements will be made through the Schaetter Funeral Home in Fredericksburg. iow at lids and . 119? stock of s. Sizes I 9-17.49 swool lids in '9-19.9? Fire school dropped from cleanup list A&M landfill gets monitoring wells By Olivier Uyttebrouck Senior Staff Writer The Texas A&M Brayton Fireman Training (Field has not made the final list of state Super fund sites and is no longer being considered for cleanup by the Texas Water Commission, state jfficials have said. In a related development, five monitoring wells were completed Wednesday in the vicinity of a toxic waste landfill on the fire school 'grounds, school officials said. The wells, ranging from 35 feet to 50 feet in depth, will allow water samples to be drawn from soil beneath the landfill, school training specialist . om Foster said. Texas Water Commission records note that the landfill consists of 13,000 cubic yards of con taminated soils dredged out of the school’s drain age pond system in 1980 after a variety of toxic substances, including such carcinogens as ben zene, toluene and PCBs, were found in pond wa ter and bottom sediments. Now that the wells are in place, however, it isn’t certain when, or if, samples will be drawn from the wells and tested. Neither the Texas Wa ter Commission nor the training school has any immediate plans to make use of the new wells. “There’s no sampling schedule — no require ment that we take weekly samples, monthly sam- Iples or anything like that,” said Milton Radke, as sociate director for programs of the Texas engineering Extension Service. “The wells were )ut in so that if the water commission wants to come down and take samples from them, it can. I “There’s been no commitment on the part of Neither party — the water commission or ours — to sample on a regular basis. We’ll probably pull a sample on an irregular basis.” To fulfill its permit requirements with the Texas Water Commission, the school has to test the water it discharges from its pond system into White Creek, a tributary of the Navasota River. For this purpose, A&M employs Aqua Tech, a Hearne company, to test the school’s discharge water. But Radke says he has no plans to have Aqua Tech test samples from the new monitoring wells. “We may ask them (Aqua Tech) to do it,” he said. Christy Smith, section chief of the Texas Wa ter Commission’s Superfund section said that on the basis of tests the state conducted at the school in October 1985, the school doesn’t rate as a haz ardous waste site as defined by her office. “Only heavy metals and ignitable substances are considered hazardous,” Smith said. “PCBs are not hazardous waste. “We did some detailed sampling at the site and did not confirm the presence of hazardous waste from the samples taken previously both by us and A&M. “If we can’t confirm there’s hazardous waste at the site, its not within our legal authority to con tinue looking at the site.” State records show that no testing was done for PCBs in the soil and water samples taken at the school in October 1985. The October tests were conducted by a Dallas firm contracted by the state. “If toluene or benzene are found in the groundwater, then the Texas Water Commission has the authority to look at that,” Smith said. Toluene and benzene are two of the other toxic substances the state found in the school’s pond water and bottom sediments in 1979. In July of that year, an equipment failure at the school caused 200 gallons of fuel oil to spill into White Creek, resulting in a large fish kill. In the investigation that followed, the now-de- funct Texas Department of Water Resources found low concentrations of PCBs, benzene and toluene in the waste oils the school was burning in its fire-fighting exercises. At that time, the school accepted waste oils do nated by various Gulf Coast refineries, news sto ries reported. The stories noted that officials conducting the investigation suggested that the companies may have used the donated oils as a conduit for the illicit disposal of hazardous waste. The school no longer accepts donated waste oils, Radke said. As a result of the investigation, 13,000 cubic yards of contaminated soil was dredged out of the school’s three drainage ponds and buried on school grounds, Texas Water Commission re cords show. The landfill was built according to the specifi cations of the Texas Department of Water Re sources. Also, 18,000 gallons of oil were siphoned off from one of the school’s three drainage ponds and stored in a tank on the school grounds, Texas Water Commission records note. The re cords show that although A&M hired a Houston firm, Detox, to treat the oil to remove the PCBs, other toxic substances persist in high concentra tions in the oil. See Wells, page 12 Chinese accuse student of giving data to journalist PEKING (AP) —- Authorities arrested a student accused of giv ing information to an American reporter in what appeared to be the first move against the press in China’s anti-Westernization cam paign, the official news media said Sunday. The official Xinhua News Agency said Lin Jie, a student of Tianjin University, was arrested for “his secret collusion with and providing intelligence to” Law rence MacDonald, reporter for the French news agency Agence France-Presse. The report said conclusive evi-., dence was obtained by the Tian jin office of the State Security Bu reau, a secretive organization responsible for China’s external security. The French news agency’s Pe king bureau issued a statement saying, “Agence France-Presse states that it knows nothing about all accusations against Mr. Mac Donald and only learned about this from a dispatch from the New China (Xinhua) News Agency.” A U.S. Embassy official also said he had heard nothing about- criminal case involving the re porter. Lin could get up to life in prison if convicted of passing state secrets to an enemy of the state. MacDonald, 32, from Califor nia, was in Hong Kong on Sun day. He has reported extensively on student activism that has led to the massive campaign against “bourgeois liberalization,” the trend of favoring Western cul ture and capitalism over socialism and the Communist Party. The report did not say if Lin was involved in recent demon strations, but the arrest appeared to be a clear-cut warning to West ern news organizations and their Chinese sources. The official press on several occasions has criticized Voice of America, the U.S. government- funded radio station, for its “in flammatory” reporting on stu dent unrest. The Western press also was charged with egging on Peking University students who this month burned copies of the Pe king Daily which contained com mentaries highly critical of their democracy movement. The last foreign reporter to be come involved in an investigation of the State Security Bureau was New York Times correspondent John Burns, who was held for six days on suspicion of intelligence gathering before being deported in July. He was never formally charged. The official press Sunday also published one of the most scath ing articles of the monthlong campaign against Western liberal ideas, saying the Communist Party has serious discipline prob lems and that some party mem bers had become involved in criminal activities. The article did not mention names, but appeared aimed at Hu Yaobang, who was ousted as party general secretary Jan. 17, reportedly because he failed to stem the growing trend of West ernization and student unrest. Hu’s downfall has not been ex plained officially, although reli able sources said he was specif ically criticized in a major party directive written by Bo Yibo, vice chairman of the Central Advisory Commission.