Page 8/The Battalion/Friday, March 13, 1987
World and Nation
Judge dismisses lawsuits
filed by North to stop probe
WASHINGTON (AP) — A fed
eral judge, declaring Thursday that
the nation needs “expeditious and
complete disclosure” of the Iran-
Contra affair, dismissed lawsuits by
Lt. Col. Oliver North that sought to
stop an independent counsel’s inves
tigation of his central role.
U.S. District judge Barrington D
Parker said North was premature in
seeking a ruling that the office of in
dependent counsel was unconstitu
tional.
finds that plaintiffs challenge to the
constitutionality of the independent
counsel machinery is not ripe for ad
judication and that his complaints
should be dismissed.”
Parker said the nation needs “an
expeditious and complete disclosure
of our government's involvement in
the Iran-Contra affair” and said that
independent counsel Lawrence E.
Walsh “is pursuing the investigation
energetically and responsibly.”
Parker noted on Thursday that
Meese has appointed Walsh as a spe
cial Justice Department prosecutor
“to ensure that the investigation con
tinues unimpeded” should Walsh’s
separate court-appointed position
eventually be found ur
tional.
“Courts have almost never found
that an ongoing criminal investiga
tion imposes a sufficient hardship-to
the person investigated to warrant
judicial review prior to his or her in
dictment,” Parker said in his order.
“The plaintiff has not suffered an
injury ol sufficient keenness to war
rant the court’s intercession,” Parker
said. “For that reason, the court
The presidentially appointed
Towei commission said in its recent
report that North was heavily in
volved in both the secret arms sales
to Iran and in supplies for the Nica
raguan rebels, who are known as
Contras. Attorney General Edwin
Meese III said last November that
some of the profits from the arms
sales had been diverted to the Con
tras.
North, who was fired last Novem
ber from his post as a National Secu
rity Council aide, had filed two law
suits. Parker dismissed both.
The first contended the indepen
dent counsel was operating uncon
stitutionally because he was ap
pointed by a three-judge federal
court instead of by the president or
other executive branch officials.
The second suit argued that
Walsh’s position was still unconstitu
tional e^'en witT ,l ” Justice Depart
ment appointment.
unconstitu-
Senate OK’s peace policy,
but split over Contra aid
WASHINGTON (AP) — The
Senate voted 97-1 on Thursday to
commend a new Central Ameri
can peace plan, then resumed its
long and bitterly divisive debate
on arming Nicaragua’s Contra re
bels.
One Contra aid opponent,
however, said that in the prelimi
nary stages of the debate at least,
he and his allies are really en
gaged in “shadow-boxing,” their
legislative weapons armed only
w ith “} ■• bber bullets.”
The real target, said Sen.
James Sasser, D-Tenn., is not aid
already in the pipeline but any fu
ture aid requests by President
Reagan.
One day after the House voted
230-196 to freeze $40 million in
aid to the Contras for six months
pending an accounting of how
previous aid was spent, Senate
Democratic leaders said Congress
likely would balk at future re
quests.
Senate Democratic Leader
Robert C. Byrd of West Virginia
said Reagan would have a hard
time winning approval of the ad
ditional $105 million in Contra
aid he has requested for the fiscal
year beginning Oct. 1.
Byrd and other leaders in the
fight to end U.S. aid to the Con
tras said they will not be able to
stop the release of the $40 million
— the last installment of a $100
million aid package approved last
year — because they cannot mus
ter the two-thirds majority
needed to override a presidential
veto.
Many presumed dead after Ecuador quakem
QUITO, Ecuador (AP) — As many as 2,000
people may have been killed in northern Ec
uador in a wave of earthquakes that caused flood
ing and deadly mud slides last week, a high pro
vincial official said Thursday.
Prefect Jorge Gonzalez, chief administrator of
Napo Province, said he based his estimate on ae
rial inspection of the area. He reported several
villages completely wiped out when torrents of
mud and water crashed through streets, splinter
ing homes and entombing people in mud as high
as rooftops.
The International Red Cross has said 300 peo
ple were killed and 4,000 are missing. But Gon
zalez maintained at a Thursday news conference
that about 5,000 people were unaccounted for.
The national government has not released an
official death toll. It says 75,000 people have
been driven from their homes.
The 10 earthquakes rumbled along the na
tion’s 2-mile-high Andean spine a week ago,
fecting an area from the Colombian border to
Riobamba, 95 miles south of Quito. The hardest-
hit area was a 640-square-mile zone surrounding
the volcano El Reventador, 40 miles northeast of
Quito. The region is home to about 100,000 peo
ple, Gonzalez told reporters.
The earthquakes spawned floods and av
alanches that swept away homes and cut trans
portation and communication links, delawng
word about the magnitude of the tragedy for se\
eral days.
Gonzalez said officials may never know the fi
nal death toll from the earthquakes, the worst ia-
tastrophe to strike this small Andean nation tins
century.
“The human drama is terrible.’’ he
said.“There are homes buried or submerged in
water, there are bodies in the mud and the rivers
are contaminated with oil,” said Gonzalez.
The mudslides destroyed a 30-mile stret
the nation’s main oil pipeline, forcing Ecuac
stop payments for this year on its $8.2 billio:
eign debt.
On Thursday, Venezuela said it had t
lively agreed to supply Ecuador’s customers
oil until the pipeline is repaired, an i stin
five months from now. Officials said deta
the plan were still being negotiated. Ecuador had
proposed that it continue receiving expoit pay
ments, and repay the don
ountry later»
Meanwhile, the shattered pipeline also03
environmental damage, spilling oil intot;
neat Baeza, 40 miles southeast of Quito.
"Now there are rivers contaminated witli
troieum. and dead iish and domesticatedani
aie lloatiug in the waters," Gonzales said.
ated
Is of
Some »)1 the worst quake damage, he said,
m Quijo and Gonzaio Pizarro, where alUOOi
dents disappeared af ter a muddy wall of*
slammed into the towns.
“In the village of Playas de Alto Coca.wt
300 people lived, only 50 people have been
cued” from a sea of mud. he said.
Gonzalez appealed to the internationalt
munity to maintain an air bridge betweenQi
and the devastated Napo areas to ferrvfood;
supplies.
1 he Spanish Red Cross said $20.000woni
supplies were on theii way to Ecuador on Ik
day, while World Vision, a Christian tt
agency, said it was donating $10,000 wortk
emergency supplies.
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