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About The Battalion. (College Station, Tex.) 1893-current | View Entire Issue (July 8, 1987)
The Battalion I Vol. 82 No. 174 GSPS 045360 6 pages College Station, Texas Wednesday, July 8, 1987 his year. 0 in profi: n 1985 am Hon,. nly trade; British Ai the ur- ning so:.! ney matt at the Bt:' t the Imf,; iject offet vestigatioa l, was a raj Wedtecl 1985 uctj i Februan leese tr© 55, ;y genet i to take, ees for i nsaction North: I did nothing without authorization (1 to tilt Mexico. Saturdif ed killed s, official!,. Raking ’Em In tiltC pollCW aid ^ ra ^ es U P sorne leaves on the A&M campus widraJ'i uesda y- Da y * s h rom Austin and has been a gar- jed.” hidden t scape at 1 rad coittl id. Torr f !| sententt 1 robber Photo by Sarah Cowan dener since July 1986. He works in the central campus area. WASHINGTON (AP) — Lt. Col. Oliver North testified Tuesday, “I never carried out a single act, not one,” without authorization from above and told a congressional hear ing that he assumed President Rea- ? an had approved the diversion of ranian arms sale profits to Nicara guan rebels. But, he said, “No memorandum ever came back to me with the ini tials from the president.” And he said that on the day Reagan fired him, the president called him on the telephone and told him, “I just didn’t know.” In his first day of long-awaited testimony. North was a take-no-guff witness trumpeting his devotion to the Nicaraguan rebel fighters. His jaw jutting forward, North began the day trying one last time to avoid answering questions in public. There was no official White House reaction after the hearings adjourned for the day. A senior offi cial said North “made three quick as sertions: I didn’t tell the president, the president never talked to me about it, and Poindexter told me the president didn’t know.” Adm. John Poindexter, who left the White House along with North last November, was Reagan’s na tional security adviser and one of those North pointed to in establish ing the chain of command in which he said he operated. North’s testimony was the most sought-after in the congressional Iran-Contra hearings to date and it lived up to its advance billing. His more than six hours in the witness chair was punctuated by sharp ex changes with committee counsel John Nields, and between North’s lawyer and the committee chairman. At times. North angrily de nounced what he thought were ques tions about his motives. To a question about diversion of the Iranian arms profits to the rebels fighting the Nicaraguan govern ment, North snapped: “The only thing we did was divert money out of Mr. Ghorbanifar’s pocket and put it to better use.” Manucher Gnorbanifar was a mid dleman in contacts with Iran. Members of Bryan Council find opposition to landfill surprising By Yvonne DeGraw Staff Writer After searching for a site for a new municipal landfill since 1984, the Bryan City Council thought they had found one most people would like. I, The 236-acre site on the southeast corner of Old San Antonio Road and Sandy Point Road is Reactions to proposed landfill Part one of a three-part series Gorbac". intent H vanned I- ,r blunder ated outside city , latedti 1 'frontage anc j tests f ounc l hard clay near the sur- ntaxin f ate ■However, as soon as the location of the site daily op was made public, there was more public outcry iversef t}j an t he city has heard in years. 'dant j°*J There was a standing-room-only crowd for uth 0‘ jhecity council meeting at which a purchase op tion on the property was approved. ; action^' Q ver 4,000 petitions protesting the proposed cident landfill have been signed thus far. J Mayor Marvin Tate of Bryan pointed out viet f 1 that the city has not made a commitment to ;rets,a |11 build a landfill there. ials foll"|- “Listen, all we’ve done is bought an option,” public he said. “We haven’t decided that is where the s were landfill is going to go. ngtode" “There are certain requirements that have to ig the I- be met before the final decision is made.” | The purchase option was approved by the council on June 22. Half of the $59,472 deposit required by the ontract will be returned if the city decides not to buy the property within six months. I ilA sliding scale will make the rest of the de- | posit non-refundable after 18 months. At that point the city must decide whether to ( buy the property for $580,560. A $1 million bond issue was passed by voters jjtt 1984, and the city has been looking for a new site since then. Tate said Bryan needs to have a new landfill ■place within five years. ■The city considered at least eight other sites, S i Jut all were either unavailable or unsuitable. | “We weren’t able to come up with another Property that fit the parameters we need,” Tate Id. ■ Now that the city has signed a purchase op- ion it can run more tests on the land, Coun- alman Hank McQuaide. |“You usually don’t walk onto someone’s land id run tests unless you have an agreement,” esaid. Graphic by M. Aohanar But he said he thinks testing will proceed quickly. “I don’t think it will really take a year to find out whether or not the site is suitable,” Mc Quaide said. Tate said that if the site cannot be licensed the city will be starting back at square one and finding a landfill site quickly will become more critical. But Bryan is no longer looking at other po tential sites. “At this point in time we’ve entered into an option on this piece of property,” Tate said. “I don’t think that we would want to go out and look for additional sites at this point,” he said. Opposition to the landfill focuses on the wa ter wells in the area. College Station has three wells about a mile to the northeast of the site. Texas A&M’s seven wells are found a similar distance to the southwest, and Bryan’s own wells are located within three to four miles of the site. This opposition came as a surprise to city of ficials who did not think the water wells would be an issue. However, Tate claimed was a false im- The site cation test : was given a preliminary soi by HDR Techserv of Dallas. soil and lo- pression. “We’re certainly not going to push something throught to meet a timetable if it’s not going to be safe and doesn’t meet the requirements,” he said. Brown said he wants the brouhaha to cause people to think about options to traditional hole-in-the-ground landfills. “My hope is that some good would come out of all this,” he said. “I would have offered the Irani ans a free trip to Disneyland if we could have gotten our hostages home for it,” North added. North led off his testimony by say ing “I came here to tell you the truth, the good, the bad and the ugly.” At one point, questioned by House committee counsel John Nields about a falsehood deliber ately placed in a National Security Council chronology, North said firmly: “I did a lot of things, and I want to stand up and say I’m proud of them. I don’t want you to think, counsel, that I went about this all on my own. I realize there’s a lot of people around that think there’s a loose cannon on the gundeck of state on the NSC. That wasn’t what I heard while I worked there. I’ve only heard it since I left.” Lawsuit charges UT System with breaching job contract This examination — which will cost the city at least $92,500 — did not consider the water wells. Bryan City Manager Ernie Clark said the consulting engineers said the site looked good, and the city decided to “go for it.” Opponents of the proposed landfill site claim that pollutants from the landfill will contami nate both underground and surface water in the area. LaDona Hudson, who owns 60 acres near the site, said she had assembled proof of the site’s unsuitability by the council meeting at which the purchase option was approved. “I looks like they have spent $160,000 of the taxpayers’ money without ever discovering that the entire thing was not feasible to begin with,” she said. Dr. Kirk Brown, a nationally recognized ex pert on landfills and a professor in Texas A&M’s soil and crops sciences department, says the city does not realize how muen it will cost to build a landfill. Local officials said they believe Bryan will do what is best for the area. College Station City Manager William Cole said he has talked with Bryan’s city manager about the site and is waiting to see the results of tests run on the land. “Everybody’s jumping around saying ‘We have a big problem,’ ” he said. “I think we need to wait and see the facts. “If the facts indicate we’ve got a big problem, then I guarantee you Bryan will be the first one to say, ‘Hey, we’ve got to go elsewhere.’ ” Joe Estill, director of A&M’s physical plant, said he had not been contacted by Bryan offi cials. “There’s no reason for them to contact us,” he said. “They have to make application to the state. They have to take core samples.” Texas A&M will examine the data before tak ing a position, Estill said. Hudson said she has the feeling that the Bryan City Council wants to push for this site. tnis ODESSA (AP) — A $9.5 million breach-of-contract lawsuit has been filed against the University of Texas of the Permian Basin, its president, academic vice president and the University of Texas System. Troyt York, former director for UTPB’s Center for Energy, Tech nology and Economic Diversifica tion, filed the suit Monday against Duane M. Leach and H. Warren Gardner, president and vice presi dent of academic affairs of UT Per mian Basin, UTPB and the UT Sys tem. York is seeking compensatory damages of $8.5 million and puni tive damages of $ 1 million. York, 52, who is unemt and mployed lives in Gaithersburg, Ma., contends in his suit that he was fraudulently induced by Leach and Gardner to retire from a secure U.S. govern ment position with the Department of Energy in September 1985. That month, the suit states, York, Leach and Gardner entered into a contract under which York was guaranteed academic rank as a re search professor of business man agement with tenure. York’s suit says he was fired Jan. 19, 1987, without good cause and that the dismissal breached his con tract because there was no notice. Peace group member says aid to Contras harming Nicaragua By Robert Morris Staff Writer American Contra aid is said to be staving off the communist charge through Central America; accord ing to Roger Battle, it is instead de stroying the lives of thousands of Nicaraguan citizens. Batlle, a research assistant in the Texas A&M oceanography depart ment, spent two weeks in Nicaragua with an inter-religious and politi cally non-affiliated group called Witness for Peace. The organization, formed in 1973, is a nationwide watch group that keeps a 35-member full-time delegation in Nicaragua to docu ment human rights violations by the Sandinista government and the Contra opposition. It also sponsors short-term (two- week) delegations of 25 people who tour war zones, where they speak with villagers and many different Nicaraguan organizations, includ ing civic, political and religious groups. In an interview Tuesday, Batlle cited many human rights abuses by the Contras and gave a detailed first-hand impression of why the people of Nicaragua don’t want American intervention. Of primary concern to the Nica raguan people is the perceived di sastrous effect the Contras are hav ing on the already hobbled economy, Batlle said. Before the revolution, Nicara guan export income was $700 mil lion. It is now $200 million, and the Sandinista government is working to salvage the economy at the same time it builds a new one, he said. When comparing the $200 mil lion in export income to the $100 million that the Contras are sup posed to be getting every year from the United States, it is easy to see how threatened they feel, he said. Batlle recognizes that there is a large-scale Soviet presence in the area; however, he doesn’t see it as an effort to impose communist rule. While the Soviets are definitely arming the Sandinista military, they are also building hospitals, grain el evators and providing other much- needed farm equipment and prod ucts, he said. “The flip side to that is practi cally every Western European country aids Sandinista Nicaragua too,” he said. “You see a very strong presence of foreign assistance there. There are about 5,000 American, Canadian and Western European volunteers, workers and technicians working in the country. “It’s a pity that the type of aid that the United States (govern ment) has to give is military. You go there and talk to people, and no matter where you go they will tell you they are suffering a lot from what the Contras are doing.” Roger Batlle The U.S. is only making an ex plosive situation worse, he said. “The United States needs to stop funding the Contras,” he said. “Any political fanaticism will be accen tuated by the continued aggression. The Sandinistas are there to stay, and they’ve won the hearts and imaginations of most of the people of the country. “And the people associate the Contras with that $100 million (funding from the U.S.) a year; and they associate the Contras with blown up bridges, destroyed coop eratives, clinics, and murdered tea chers and health workers.” Batlle contends the Sandinistas are doing everything they can to rectify an inherently bad economy and further U.S. involvement only hampers that initiative. “The agenda of the Sandinista government is to experiment with a new economic system, an alterna tive economic system,” he said. “Be cause as far as the experience they have had for the two centuries that the United States has had influence in the region, they have never been able to free themselves from pov erty and malnutrition. So what they are doing now is experimenting with something that they hope will bring them an alternative. “And there is no way that you go there and see that they are becom ing totally dependent on the Soviets or Cubans. The place is just crawl ing with Western European organi zations, and advisers from western countries.” Batlle answers critics of the Sand- inista’s human rights record with statistics from the Permanent Com mission for Human Rights, an or ganization he said is funded by the Red Cross. There are about 7,000 political prisoners in Nicaragua, however, political killings reportedly num bered less than 30 last year. Not an alarming number when compared to the 40,000 that have been killed in and El Salvador in the last five years, especially when considering that Nicaragua has been under a state of war since 1979, Batlle said.