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About The Battalion. (College Station, Tex.) 1893-current | View Entire Issue (Feb. 10, 1987)
ink its j| iiati loval. I :obegir ; need fcl The Battalion |Vol.82 No.95 GSRS 045360 12 pages College Station, Texas Tuesday, February 10, 1987 page 1| ponsortfl :tv Foui the DP5l licensed f HotoroJ certified j Beirut terrorists extend eadline for hostages ould enti tv strictli icense, he apt ‘d, and rs ember oij problerij t being pi erate i 8, yoiiffil gestandia he said 1 y. Their, u tobeif ttter iimJ ■e should I ds smik'l driving 6 ' exampit| .’ehicleo) innot dml So Ifedj ularmote •r regular^ except dels of b motorot^ togetal ling. , s in favottil orcyie dr j tompeteri'j before li ley belieiil decrease I nd accidtr response to pleas from 5, their families, Leb- BEIRUT, Lebanon (AP) — Mos lem kidnappers said at their Monday idnight deadline for killing three merican hostages and an Indian that they had extended it “until fur- her notice.” A handwritten statement in Ar- bic signed by Islamic Jihad for the iberation of Palestine described the ecision as a he hostages, nese organizations and the Indian overnment. But the statement also said the roup would retaliate for the “in sult” by U.S. Secretary of State eorge P. Shultz, who said the peo- le of kidnapping-beset Beirut have a plague.” It did not indicate hat form the action might take, or hether it could involve the hos- fages. The statement was delivered to Jhe Beirut office of a Western news ligency with a picture of Robert Pol- hill, one of the hostages. Polhill, frail-appearing and bearded, wear ing a T-shirt and spectacles, was pic tured looking into the camera with a faint smile. Hostage Alann Steen had said in an earlier message Monday that the hostages would die unless Israel freed 400 Arab prisoners. He said the captors would not reconsider the death verdict or extend the dead line. “We will be executed at mid night,” Steen, 47, of Boston, said in the letter to his wife. It was accompa nied by notes to their wives from the two other kidnapped American col lege teachers. “Until then, if you do love us and your hearts beat for us, put pressure on Israel to show good will,” Steen wrote. “Let Israel promise the orga nization (of the kidnappers) to show good will. “Let Israel promise the organiza- McFarlane in hospital rom Valium overdose naidf I TRY WASHINGTON (AP) — Former national security adviser Robert C. McFarlane, who figured promi nently in President Reagan’s clan destine sale of weapons to Iran, was nospitalized Monday for a Valium Overdose that a broadcast report said vas a suicide attempt. McFarlane, 49, was admitted to lethesda Naval Medical Center about 9 a.m. CST. Hospital spokes- nan Lt. Rus Sanford said McFarlane vas in good condition. Peter Morgan, one of McFarlane’s jlawyers, said the former White louse official had taken an over- iose of the drug, a tranquilizer that frequently is prescribed to relieve anxiety disorders and tension result- ag from stress. CBS News, quoting unnamed, in formed sources, reported that hospi- al officials believed the overdose re sulted from a suicide attempt. CBS, Citing unnamed friends of McFar- pane, also reported that he had been iepressed and emotional recently. Morgan, reached by telephone af ter the report had aired, said he would have no comment. Presidential spokesman Marlin Fitzwater noted that McFarlane is a private citizen and said, “We don’t liave any information on his condi tion.” Symptoms of a Valium overdose can include sleepiness, confusion, di minished reflexes, depressed blood pressure or coma. Treatment in cludes close observation and the ad ministration of intravenous fluids, according to medical reference books. The authoritative Physicians’ Desk Reference said that because Valium use can result in physical or psychological dependence, patients should be monitored closely and prolonged use should be avoided. It was not known when McFarlane be gan using Valium, a trade name for the drug diazepam. McFarlane is a former Marine lieutenant colonel and combat vet eran, which permits him to use the Navy’s medical facilities near his home in suburban Maryland. tion plainly and officially that 400 Palestinian mujaheds (holy warriors) will be free. Otherwise, we won’t be alive after midnight.” The statement at midnight said the kidnappers found “certain posi tive points” in remarks by Foreign Minister Shimon Peres of Israel about their demand for the release of Arab prisoners. Peres said Monday in Jerusalem that Israel had not received a request from the United States to free the prisoners, and that “Israel won’t take any initiative on its own.” He declared on Sunday, however, that Israel was willing to discuss tra ding Arab prisoners for an Israeli airman shot down in Lebanon. The kidnappers’ midnight statement also said its retaliation for Shultz’ comment about Beirut would “deter everybody from daring to at tribute his own cancerous diseases to the others.” Shultz said in New York Sunday that the “people of Beirut. . . have a plague there. They’re isolating themselves from the world, and the world should isolate them.” Steen’s three-page letter was de livered eight and a half hours before the kidnappers’ deadline to the Bei rut office of a Western news agency with a photograph of Steen. It implied that an Israeli promise would do and that the 400 prisoners would not actually have to be re leased Monday. . In Washington, the Reagan ad ministration position, as expressed Monday by both White House spokesman Marlin Fitzwater and State Department spokesman Charles E. Redman, was once again to rule out concessions to terrorists. Steen’s wife, students and officials of Beirut University College, where Steen and fellow educators Robert Polhill, Jesse Turner and Mithilesh- war Singh were abducted two weeks ago, authenticated Steen’s hand writing. Steen is a communications in structor; Polhill, 53, of New York City, lectures on accounting; Turner, 39, of Boise, Idaho, is a vis iting professor of mathematics and computer science; and Indian-born Singh, 60, a legal resident alien of the United States, is a visiting profes sor of finance. 1111111 m. Mr a. I T V Down To Earth Senior business administration major Rob Bonner and senior education major Jill Hickok parachuted onto the polo field Monday. Both are members of Photo by Andrew Migliore the TAMU Sport Parachuting Club. Members of the club will be jumping again today at 10:45 a.m. and at 11:45 a.m. officials: Texas prisons to reopen again \nnual Jol amber of'f cident I State CtfS an outslanfl >sident olfe| i. ite starts itorsarei t should tfl a part of j tram's Wf rare g aont HUNTSVILLE (AP) — Texas prison officials Ssaid the system would reopen today to new in- Imates as paroles dropped the population below a jstate-mandated 95 percent capacity level. At the same time, authorities warned the large Inumber of inmates awaiting transfer from Icrowded county jails would force the state system quickly to close again. “I’m thinking we’ll probably be deluged by a [lot of people,” Texas Department of Corrections ispokesman Charles Brown said Monday. “Say we lopen today. We get a bunch in today. But we |won’t have figures until Wednesday and we’ll Istay open for business until 5 p.m. Wednesday. We’ll probably be closed Thursday.” The prison system closed last Wednesday for the second time in a month. Although some inmates have been released on parole, none have been accepted since then, forc ing some crowded county jails to put mattresses on floors for prisoners. Monday’s count of prisoners — taken at mid night Friday — showed the system at 94.80 per cent of capacity, or 81 beds under the limit, said Sarah Dunn, a prison spokeswoman. “We’re open in the morning, then we’ll see how many we receive,” she said. She said about 117 inmates were slated for re lease Monday, meaning the system would have a cushion of about 180 inmates heading into today. Prisons remained closed Monday on the basis of Thursday’s count, which showed the 26 units held 38,412 inmates, or 95.06 percent of capac- ity. About 136 prisoners were paroled Friday and about another 58 were expected to be released Monday, Brown said. The shutdown last week included Thursday, traditionally a busy day for prison admissions from the state’s most populous counties. Tuesday is normally a busy day also, Brown said. A state law adopted in 1983 requires the cor rections department to stop accepting transfers from county jails until enough inmates are re leased to bring the population below the cap set by a federal judge. Sandinistas, Contras violate human rights, new study charges WASHINGTON (AP) — U.S.- backed rebel forces in Nicaragua carry out “selective but systematic killing” of perceived Sandinista gov ernment sympathizers and routinely kidnap civilians, including signifi cant numbers of children, a human rights group said Monday. The Nicaraguan government, meanwhile, although it generally re- acticesit*! Dm, or more* Afghanistan’s development, lecline traced by speaker Student service fees, SCONA lead MSC Council meeting iy fields!' 1.10,7 pH] urs.,Fe^ 1 captains ( | Thurs,, nthe ffs begin Part )ountry^ food Feb,' By Melanie Perkins Staff Writer Though Afghanistan throughout history has been a war-torn culture, j Afghans had never fought a modern var until the invasion of the Soviets April 27, 1978, said Rosanne Uass, director of the Afghanistan Information Center and vice presi dent of the Afghanistan Relief Com mittee. Klass’ presentation, sponsored by the MSC Jordan Institute For Inter national Awareness, gave a detailed history of Afghanistan and its cultu- jal development and subsequent de fine to a group of approximately three dozen people Monday in Rud der Tower. “They (the Afghans) have never fought a modern war,” Klass said. jThey fought with troops who grew up on a battlefield — when men went out and fought each other.” She said the people of Afghani- tan weren’t prepared, because they missed World Wars I and II, many were uneducated and all of their aders were executed in the first months after the invasion. They had to learn how to fight and sometimes liey didn’t know what to do with kinds, booby traps disguised as toys, he 11 Photo by Dean Saito Rosanne Klass weapons, she said, so they didn’t use them well. “They never saw women and chil dren bombed,” Klass said, “They never saw torture chambers. They never saw any of this — napalm, poi son gas, chemical weapons of all doused with gasoline and set on fire or buried alive.” Klass said Afghan people, who are a combination of many ethnic and linguistic groups, were beginning to have a sense of nationhood when the Soviet invasion began, and since the invasion, they have become more welded together. She said Afghanistan used to be a main artery of corrimerce between Europe, the Mediterranean, China and India before Magellan sailed around the world, making the over land routes in Afghanistan virtually obsolete. “That began its decline and its stagnation into a backwater of the modern world,” Klass said. “It was only in the 2()th century or the mid- 20th century that the restoration be gan.” Then came the Soviet invasion, another halt to progress. “If Afghanistan is remote today to us, it was not always remote,” Klass said. “And it is not remote today ei ther because it remains what it has always been — the road from Cental Asia to the Indian Ocean.” By Carolyn Garcia Staff Writer Texas A&M students will find out Wednesday if the student service fees they pay will have to go up to support growing de mands by campus organizations. Brian Banner, vice president of the Student Senate, told the MSC Council members that the issue will be addressed at the next Student Senate meeting. “We’ll find out Wednesday if student service fees will have to go up,” Banner said. Students currently pay $61 per semester in student service fees. Also on Wednesday, this year’s Memorial Student Center Stu dent Conference on National Af fairs gets underway, but absent from the event will be any Rus sian speakers. Sandra Goerking, chairman of SCONA, told the council that in vitations to all potential speakers were sent out in September. SCONA received the Russian re last week, but all the positions ad been filled, Goerking said. “We’re really disappointed we had to turn away the Soviet Union,” she said. “It would have been fun to have them here, espe cially since we’re going to have some heated debates.” Goerking also said that the number of schools participating is down this year. “We are down 10 from last year,” she said. “It’s because of the budget problems.” Although SCONA had more than enough applicants for its speaker positions, another por tion of the MSC — the MSC Council itself — has 37 adminis tration positions left to fill, and today is the last chance to com plete an application, Council President Bobby Bisor said. Among the multitude of posi tions open are vice presidents for recreation, cultural programs and entertainment. “At the first orientation (to night) of this round, students can fill out applications,” Bisor said. “An applicant must be present at both orientations.” During Monday’s meeting, the Council went into closed session and filled six vice president posi tions. To alleviate the crowded con ditions of the student programs area, the Council is hoping to get See Council, page 12 spects the laws of war, mistreats pris oners, doesn’t guarantee due proc ess and has put unwarranted limits c>n freedom of the press, the group reported. The 166-page study was prepared by Americas Watch, a liberal New York-based human rights monitor ing group, on the basis of a series of fact-finding missions last year. It is the 10th report by the group on Nicaragua since 1982 and covers February 1986 to December 1986. Americas Watch, which often has drawn sharp criticism from U.S. of ficials, accused the Reagan adminis tration of unfairly portraying the Sandinista government in the most negative terms while turning a blind eye to abuses of the Contras. “No attempt whatsoever is made to moderate such portrayals in the light of actual performance,” the re port said. State Department spokesman Charles Redman had no comment on the report, saying department of ficials had not seen it. The adminis tration’s own annual human rights report is expected to-be released in a few days. Americas Watch Vice Chairman Aryeh Neier told a news conference the report did not specify whether the Sandinista government or the Contras were responsible for the most abuses. To take such a stand, he said, would tend to diminish the abuses of the side deemed less guilty. But the report leaves the impres sion that the most serious rights abuses were committed by the Con tras. Last week. Assistant Secretary of State Elliott Abrams said the Sandinista government is carrying out a “reign of terror” on Nicara guan citizens. The Americas Watch report calls for an end to U.S. funding of the re bels on grounds that such support “associates the U.S. government with a pattern of gross human rights See Contras, page 12