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About The Battalion. (College Station, Tex.) 1893-current | View Entire Issue (Aug. 29, 1988)
C ; U* Page 14/The Battalion/Monday, August 29, 1988 Mexico’s leftist parties face opposition in upcoming series of state elections MEXICO CITY (AP) — Mexico’s left-wing opposition, a scratch team that shocked the longtime ruling party with a strong showing in the July 6 national vote, faces a severe test of its survival as a political force in a series of state elections this fall. “It’s possible that there will be a united front of leftist parties, but the creation of a single party is far away,” said Raul Jardon, official spokesman for the Mexican Socialist Party, one of four that joined the Democratic Front. The Democratic Front and the rightist National Action Party are battling the ruling Institutional Rev olutionary Party (PRI) in the Cham ber of Deputies, which is sitting as an electoral college to certify the elec tion of its members by a Sept. 1 deadline. The opposition parties claim that the PRI won both the presidential election and many chamber seats by fraud, leading to a drawn-out wran gle that has included a walkout and round-the-clock sessions. The Democratic Front was a dis parate group that joined in opposi tion to the PRI for the July elections. Along with the Mexican Socialist Party, it includes the Authentic Mex ican Revolutionary Party, the Popu lar Socialist Party, and the Cardenist Front. The parties support a larger gov ernment role in the economy and a moratorium on payments on Mexi co’s $104 billion foreign debt, but beyond that their roots and interests are quite different. The Cardenas Front was created by Cuauhtemoc Cardenas, a former PRI state governor and senator, and includes many former members of the PRI, especially from the PRI’s so-called Democratic Current, which sought a party primary before the presidential election. The Authentic Revolutionary Party was founded in 1954 by mili tarist members of the PRI who were dissatisfied with their marginal posi tion in the party. The Popular Socialist Party was founded in 1929 and advocates pushing the government gradually towards socialism. The Mexican Socialist Party, last to join the front, includes what was once the Mexican Communist Party and has the most radical agenda. Its presidential candidate, Herberto Castillo, announced his candidacy but withdrew in favor of Cardenas, who ran as the candidate of the united left-wing opposition. The other candidates were Carlos Salinas de Gortari, who according to official returns won with barely over 50 percent of the vote - the first time a PRI candidate took less than 70 percent of the vote since the party was founded in 1929. Cardenas took 31 percent but claims fraud robbed him of victory; National Action Party candidate Manuel J. Clouthier got 17 percent. “The main challenge facing the Democratic Front is to form a real political party,” said a PRI official who spoke on condition of anonym ity. “They got together for the elec tions, but that was tactical.” PRI doesn’t believe the four par ties can continue to work together, party officials said. They also said that the opposition’s victory in Mex ico City had made party members realize they had to work harder. Before the end of the year, that determination will be tested as 11 of Mexico’s 31 states have gubernato rial elections. In five of those states — Jalisco, Guanajuato, San Luis Po- tosi, Nuevo Leon and Tabasco — the PRI’s winning margins on July 6 were thin. The PRI has not lost a gover norship since it was founded, but National Action spokesman Ricardo Garcia Cervantes said the party hoped to break that string in the first week of December in the western state of Jalisco, which the PRI won with a plurality of 42 percent on July “The Federal Election Commis sion only gave us eight of the 14 dis tricts (out of 20) that we actually won in the state. If they’d given us all 14, you would see how strong we really are there,” Garcia said. “We’re going after the governorship.” Jardon said the Democratic Front would run a single candidate for the governorship in the eastern state of Tabasco and would consult on the 17 mayoralties at stake. Goats can be unique, entertaining animals FLETCHER, Okla. (AP) — Pygmy goats are just a bunch of little kids at heart. That’s what Laudell Hill of ru ral Fletcher discovered when her husband, LaRue, bought her a pair three years ago. “My husband kept asking me what I wanted for a Christmas present, and I kept saying I didn’t know, and he said, ‘You’re going to be sorry,’ and got me these pygmy goats,” Hill said. Hill was very surprised, but she wasn’t sorry at all. “We enjoy watching animals. My husband should have been curator of a zoo. He’d collect ev erything if he could,” she said. Their six children and eight grandchildren, who come in to visit from New Mexico, Arizona, Illinois, Texas and Europe, also find the goats fascinating to watch. “You can be depressed and go out and sit down and watch them and forget all about what you were worried about when you went out there,” Hill said. Pygmy goats are mischievous as children. They love to untie shoes and play on their slides and teeter-totters. When Hill put out grain for them at the top of tit slide, one little goat madefiveot six dashes up the incline until It finally got up enough momentum to reach the food. Once there, he played “Kings! the Hill” and nudged away a would-be diner who tried tohorn in on his meal. The goats are not only fun hit profitable, too. Registered will the American Goat Association and the National Pygmy Associa lion, they sell for $75 each.Tit Hills sold four recently, still had 20 the next day and had a goat expecting a litter at any time.Tit pygmies may give birth to upto six offspring at a time, but ant over four must be bottle-fed. People buy them for pets. In addition, said Hill, “they some times use them in California, Florida and Illinois for 4-H prm jects because an 8-year-old child can handle them easier thani steer . . . They’re very lovable ani mals, so the kids can get dose to them, where they’d be afraidofa larger animal.” The pygmies can produces much milk per pound assomeda iry goats. Former spy remembers past with horror, optimism HALLANDALE, Fla. (AP) — Ernest G. Sloan remembers China with love and his Japanese torturers with rancor but, at 68, he’s had his vengeance and now lives only for the future. “I’m too young to live in the past,” ex plained the energetic Sloan, who for nine years has served here as honorary consul for Botswana, a small landlocked nation in South Africa. A widower, Sloan lives alone with few vis ible mementos of 17 years spent in China including World War II when he spied on Nazis in Shanghai, smuggled arms and ex plosives to the Chinese underground and provided intelligence for the Office of Strategic Services, forerunner of the CIA. Permanent reminders of his suffering under the Japanese are a slight limp and scars on his left leg —the one Japanese in terrogators used to attach a metal plate to induce electric shocks during questioning —and false teeth for those lost during his confinement. However, Sloan hopes to return to Shanghai one day. “I’d like to visit my fa ther’s grave and see if I can find any of the old friends.” Born in Trieste to European parents, Sloan spent his youth in Germany until 1934 when Singer Sewing Co. of Holland transferred his father to Shanghai. “We lived in the international settlement of Shanghai which was governed by 54 na tions represented there,” he said. Fluent in English and German, he learned to speak Japanese, Russian and two Chinese dialects. As a teen-ager, he became the protege of Peter Wong, son of a wealthy Chinese de partment store owner who headed an intel ligence network for OSS. In 1940, it was arranged for Sloan to work for the North German Leather Works, whose general manager was Dr. Al bert Voss, a Nazi and former consul general to Japan. As an employee, Sloan was able to pass on to Wong information gathered from vis iting German officials. On one occasion when Voss was sum moned urgently to the German Embassy, Sloan made a horrifying discovery from documents left in an unlocked safe. “German engineers had built large ovens in Pootung,” he said. “They were to be used to kill about 25,000 Jews who had escaped Hitler’s Germany and fled to China. “On Dec. 7, 1941, when the Japanese at tacked Pearl Harbor, it was Monday in Shanghai. The Japanese took over most of the city except for the French section.” With Wong’s help, Sloan obtained a Por tuguese passport which afforded him some immunity and allowed him to travel throughout China. Because of suspicion concerning Sloan’s ' activities, he left the German company and joined Gen. Claire Channault’s Flying Ti gers in Kunming as a civilian. Sloan’s duties, however, were to smuggle explosives and arms to the Chinese under ground. As cover for his clandestine operations. he masqueraded as an assistant to his fa ther. In 1943, Sloan lived in the French section of Shanghai where he was immune from Japanese authorities although he knew they were increasingly suspicious. “It was in July when — I’ll never forget his name — Col. Bunzo Yoshida knocked at my apartment and asked me to go to his of fice the following morning to answer some questions.” For the next 110 days, Sloan was sub jected to beatings and torture under the di rection of Yoshida. “One day Yoshida came into our cell and beat two British policemen to death with ri fle butts,” he said. Sloan never confessed his undercover ac tivities. Finally, he was released and thrown into the street. Chinese residents, he recalled, carried him to a barber shop and fed him soup. “When I got out I weighed 67 pounds he said. “I was 138 when they arrested® It took 1 7 months to recuperate.” Near the end of 1944, Sloan's father*! arrested and taken to Bridgehouse, tl most infamous Japanese prison in China. On Jan. 15, 1945, he found his fatki decaying IkkIv in a warehouse where Jap nese tossed dead prisoners. Af ter the war, Sloan and his motk moved to San Francisco. In 1948, the British asked him totestifi against Yoshida at war crimes trialsheldr Hong Kong. Because of his testimony, Yoshida w convicted of murdering the two Britishp licemen and was hanged three days later In the United States, Sloan worked: restaurants and clubs in New York, Nevad and Florida, where he’s lived since 1962, He’s written food and entertainment col umns for local newspapers for years am spends his spare time on autobiographic manuscripts. 1 t T d D diff year A&l con; V Bow ver> tion ent A enc< ber T Dan ftni: Pre: Aug East A 3. / thei B trav Okl day A fere aga The tear 1 Chi Agf thai Jacl the S tor, teat con saic you ESPRIT TEAM SPIRIT We’ve got spirit, yes we do. VSfe’ve got spirit, how ’bout you! The Tfeam Spirit collection for juniors shows it’s not whether you win or lose, it’s how you dress for the game. Here, pre game warmups. Our zip front, varsity look jacket in red/cream; jog pants with triangle trim cuff in black/cream; the Esprit Sportiv logo T-shirt in off white. Long sleeve with mock turtle neck. 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