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About The Battalion. (College Station, Tex.) 1893-current | View Entire Issue (Nov. 30, 1987)
X I II IE m Texas A&M m V • The Battalion il. 87 Mo. 63 GSPS 045360 10 Pages College Station, Texas Monday, November 30,1987 Haiti junta puts end to electoral council Jump! Members of the Texas A&M 12th Man Kick-off Team celebrate after Keith Woodside’s 90-yard touchdown run in the second quarter of Thurs day’s game against the University of Texas. A&M Photo by Jay Jaimer won the game by a score of 20-13, giving the Ag gies the Southwest Conference football championship and sending them to the Cotton Bowl for the third straight year. PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti (AP) -The military-dominated junta dis solved the Independent Electoral Council after the council canceled Sunday’s elections because of vio lence that left more than two dozen people dead. At least 15 voters were shot and hacked to death at one polling sta tion in the capital. Twelve other deaths were reported in scattered lo cations. Junta chief Lt. Gen. Henri Nam- phy, in a television announcement at 6:30 p.m., condemned the violence, said elections can still be held and he plans to step down as promised on Feb. 7, 1988, to make way for a freely elected president. As Namphy spoke, sporadic gun fire could be heard in the streets in renewed violence that started shortly after sunset. In a decree read over television at 3:30 p.m., Namphy’s three-member National Governing Council accused the electoral council of taking an ac tion that “endangers the unity of the nation and invites the intervention of foreign powers in the country’s internal affairs.” Foreign countries, including the United States and Canada, had pro vided millions of dollars in assistance for the balloting and sent obser vation teams. The United States pro vided $7.9 million for the election. Voters would have elected a presi dent and National Assembly to re place the governing junta that took over 22 months ago when President- for-Life Jean-Claude Duvalier ended a 29-year family dictatorship by fleeing to France. There were 22 candidates for the presidency and 328 candidates for 104 seats in the bicameral National Assembly. French Ambassador Michel de LaFourniere protested the junta’s measure in this former French col ony. Asked if the junta’s decree amounted to a coup, he responded, “The coup was this morning,” refer ring to the violence at the polling places. In Washington, the State Depart ment said America was immediately cutting off all non-humanitarian aid to Haiti. The electoral council canceled the elections less than three hours after the polls opened at 6 a.m. The free elections would have been the first in Haiti, which shares Hispaniola Island with the Domin ican Republic, in more than 30 years. From Saturday night into Sunday morning Port-au-Prince, the capital city of 1 million, resembled a war zone. Bodies lay scattered about the downtown area. Explosions rocked neighborhoods. Gunmen sprayed slums and shantytowns with bullets. U.S. plans to suspend non-humanitarian aid to Haiti after violence orean officials call crash likely tier jet carrying 115 disappears WASHINGTON (AP) — The United States is cutting off all non humanitarian aid to Haiti in the wake of violence that forced the cancellation of elections, State De partment officials said Sunday. “The United States has decided to remove all United States military as sistance personnel from Haiti and to suspend all military assistance to Haiti,” department spokesman Ben jamin Justesen said in a statement. “In addition, all non-humanita rian economic aid programs to Haiti are being suspended and only hu manitarian assistance will continue,” the statement said. The move, he said, comes “in view of the . . . actions of the national gov erning council of Haiti dissolving the provisional electoral commission and aborting all electoral legis lation.” The department spokesman said he did not have exact figures for the amount of aid being cut off. For fis cal 1987, Justesen said, the United States provided Haiti with $1.2 mil lion in military assistance and $100 million in economic assistance, in cluding both humanitarian and non humanitarian aid. Justesen said he did not have de tails about the number of military as sistance personnel present in Haiti or the nature of non-humanitarian aid being cut off. However, he said the United States would continue to give Haiti money to fight narcotics trafficking. “The United States government reaffirms its support for the Haitian people in their efforts to secure a democratic political system through free and fair elections,” State De partment officials said. SEOUL, South Korea (AP) — A Korean Air Ijetliner carrying 115 people on a flight from the iMiddle East vanished Sunday somewhere near IBurma and apparently crashed into the sea or |thickjungle, officials said. An air operations official at Seoul’s Kimpo In ternational Airport said KAL Flight 858 from Baghdad, the capital of Iraq, to Seoul was missing without a trace and officials were trying to find put what happened. “It just disappeared,” one official, who spoke on condition of not being identified, said. KAL officials said it appeared the three-en gine Boeing 707 crashed, although they would not rule out the possibility of hijacking. Airline officials also said a bomb may have destroyed the Ijet. “There is the possibility that a crash may have tat i00 iOO 100 (00 too !00 !00 r 00 '00 iOO jat >00 300 )00 300 300 )00 sat )00 100 500 e at 300 300 Senators’ plan will give A&M students access to evaluations of professors irs „ ■6$ ■8:0* .5:0° been caused by explosives,” a KAL airline statement said. The jet was carrying 95 passengers and a flight crew of 20, airline officials said. All but two peo ple, an Indian and a Lebanese living in Abu Dhabi, were South Korean, officials said. Burmese Civil Aviation Administration offi cials in Rangoon said the plane was over the An daman Sea, about 150 miles west of the Burmese coastal town of Tavoy, when contact was lost. Officials in Rangoon said the plane was mak ing routine contact with air traffic controllers at Rangoon Airport before proceeding into Bur mese air space when it disappeared. The officials said the plane’s last radio contact did not indicate any problems and the plane was due to make another routine contact with the tower 21 minutes later. It never did. Burmese officials informed the South Korean government that a search operation for the plane was launched, but initial sweeps found nothing, officials in Seoul said. Thai provincial police said the plane may have crashed near the Thai-Burmese border, but the time they gave for the incident did not agree with flight details released by Bangkok flight control. KAL officials said Thai authorities would con duct an air search for signs of the missing plane. A provincial police chief said villagers said they saw an aircraft plunge into a jungled area along the Thai-Burmese frontier and patrols were dispatched to determine whether it was the South Korean jet. Police Col. Punlop Roongsumphun said in a telephone interview that the villagers came from Huay Kaper, a border hamlet in Kanchanaburi Province 150 miles west of Bangkok. Released hostage: American prisoners suffering in captivity By Mary-Lynne Rice Staff Writer A common complaint recurs in registration lines at Texas A&M each semester — students often say they have no idea of which professor to choose, that they must trust tips from friends, word of mouth or just luck. No student comments or other evaluation information is made pub lic for students to see before regis tration. Students now have access only to professors’ grade distribu tion rates. The Student and Faculty Senates, however, expect to hear fewer la ments in the registration line if their second-try proposal to make each professor’s student-evaluation re sults available to anyone interested is approved by University administra tion. Results from a semi-standardized evaluation form to be used through out University departments would be organized and compiled for stu dents to learn more about profes sors’ grade distribution rates and to read other comments about them, said Tom Black, a student senator. The idea first was proposed two years ago, Black said, prompted par tially by a similar program at the University of Texas. “They were trying to figure out a way to standardize course instructor valuation forms each semester “The more information a student can find out about a faculty member, the better. ” —J.M. Rosenheim, assistant professor of history throughout all the colleges on camp us,” Black said. “The result would be that a student in biology, for exam ple, would have the same questions to answer as a student in engi neering. “The form was made flexible enough that there could be additions for specialty items, like classes with a TA or classes with labs associated with them or classes that give only essay tests.” Sophomore journalism major Marc Giller said he would like to have evaluation information avail able to him before he registers for classes. “That’s probably a pretty efficient way of doing things,” Giller said. “It’s a way of dipping your feet in the water before jumping in.” The Student Senate submitted the first proposed evaluation form to the Faculty Senate, which approved it with minor changes and then sent it to University administration, where it was stopped, Black said. “They asked for a clear purpose to the bill,” he said. “They said there was a problem with implementation, and they asked us to redefine the purpose of the evaluation.” Faculty Senator Manuel Daven- E ort, professor of philosophy and umanities, said the administration brought up questions of manage ment, including how many forms would be made, how different they would be and whether the cost would be assumed by each depart ment, each college or the University. Faculty and administration mem bers have registered some objec tions, Black said. “They (professors) ask, ‘Can you devise an evaluation form to suit my subject area?’ ” he said. “We’ve said, ‘You devise the form.’ We’ve tried to be as flexible as possible. “They also say that students are not qualified to judge the faculty. That’s a half-truth. They certainly can tell how effective a faculty mem ber communicates, but perhaps they can’t judge the quality. “We’re not arguing that a student evaluation tells you everything you need to know.” Some say students don’t recognize who the good teachers are until after they graduate, Black said. “But that’s a myth,” he said “People don’t change their minds af ter they leave. The judgment they give now is the judgment they’re going to retain.” Other professors fear the evalua tions could be biased, he said, that evaluation is not a student function and that it could hurt careers. “This is a way to compare profes sors across campus and across colle ges,” Black said. “There’s concern that they could be used against the professors. They could be used to determine a faculty member’s ten ure — but that’s just conjecture on my part.” Despite the objections, however. Black said the majority of the faculty has been willing to cooperate with the Student Senate in the project. J.M. Rosenheim, assistant profes sor of history, said he approved of the idea of compiling faculty evalua tion results, although he said he would be “a little skeptical” of a stan dardized form. “I would have no objections,” he said. “The more information a stu dent can find out about a faculty member, the better. I think it (the result of an evaluation) should be available to them.” A new joint committee soon will be formed, Davenport said, to re work the evaluation form. Black said he hopes the project can be implemented within a year. PARIS (AP) — A French hos tage just freed in Lebanon said Sunday that Terry Waite, the Archbishop of Canterbury’s spe cial envoy, was in the room next to him during his captivity and that American hostages were suf fering greatly. Roger Auque, 31, a free-lance journalist, was released Friday in Beirut by his Shiite Moslem kid nappers along with Jean-Louis Normandin, 36, a lighting engi neer for the Antenne 2 television network. In an interview on French tele vision, Auque said Waite also was being held by the Revolutionary Justice Organization. “I knew that Terry Waite was held by the same people as me, the same kidnappers, and was in the room next to mine in the apartment where I was held,” he said. Auque was optimistic about more releases soon. “I think the French govern ment has now found the key to hostage releases and that there will be more in the future,” he said. Normandin and Auque were the sixth and seventh French hos tages freed since Premier Jacques Chirac’s conservatives came to power in March 1986. Chirac heatedly denied a re port by the respected newspaper Le Monde that a ransom was paid. The French government has maintained an absolute si lence on all matters relating to the hostages and negotiations for their release. Waite dropped from sight in Beirut on Jan. 20 while on a mis sion from the Anglican Church to negotiate with Islamic Jihad for the release of foreign hostages in Lebanon. His whereabouts were unknown though it was widely as sumed he had been kidnapped. Auque said he learned two Americans held by the Shiite or ganization were suffering. Auque said he got information from a South Korean diplomat. Do Chae-Sung, kidnapped Jan. 31, 1986 and freed Oct. 29, with whom he shared a cell. UPD chief colls crowd orderly despite orrests of 8 of bonfire, gome By Clark Miller Staff Writer The crowds at bonfire and the Texas A&M-University of Texas football game last Wednesday and Thursday were well behaved, al though eight arrests were made, Bob Wiatt, director of the University Po lice Department, said. Wiatt said there were six arrests made during and after bonfire, and two more on the day of the game. There were also 75 citations is sued by the Texas Alcohol and Bev erage Commission agents and Uni versity Police officers for minors being in possession of alcohol, for making alcohol available to minors and for possessing altered driver’s li censes, he added. Overall, though, Wiatt said, both the bonfire and Football crowds were manageable. “Everything was very peaceful,” he said. “There was a well-behaved crowd at bonfire. It wasn’t nearly as raucous as the last two years.” There were an estimated 45,000 people at the bonfire site. Wiatt said that of the eight arrests, seven involved A&M students or graduates of the University, and the other arrest was of a UT student. Wiatt said that final reports of the arrests were not completed because of the holiday and the weekend. Most of the arrests involved public intoxication and disorderly conduct, although one A&M student was ar rested because of several outstand ing traffic warrants, he said. “I was yery much impressed by the behavior of the crowd,” Wiatt said. “I hope they continue to act as well next year.”