Image provided by: Texas A&M University
About The Battalion. (College Station, Tex.) 1893-current | View Entire Issue (Feb. 16, 1989)
exas A&M he Battalion WEATHER /////.//// 7.4// ////4 ■■/■/■’/ /// y/v'/k FORECAST for FRIDAY: Continued cloudy and cool. There is a 50 percent chance of rain. HIGH:55 LOW:42 Vol. 88 No. 97 USPS 045360 16 pages College Station, Texas Thursday, February 16,1989 I, India (AP ; Corp - $470 t of India lettlement resiii 1984 gas leak illed more tht the world’swrs udget may limit summer liberal arts classes By Denise Thompson STAFF WRITER hopal denouncfi s a betrayal of ilj who still to the dea% rom a pesuoit) , 1984. The !8 . ught $3 billion R.S. Pathakintj. rnrnent prosee merit whenik ied after lunc ; U.S.-basedb jany to pav in ch 31. ■ the governma arbide prompt L-nt that there it agreement It Carbide and At i it! a court ondition ofa» :h tin ordenlin n excitement, k rmur even, tirely out of ih iher source, ondition of aait ‘‘the enormity ig,’’ said a set ecled to “protidf ulistantial relief. 000 people wen n meet lately wlie; of methyl isocn m a storage crated by b n subsidiary aik arby shantytom rred shortly afit ome victims die thers, blindedli )ing for breaA jut collapsed ),000 people si: josure to the tinue to die an ne a day, accott nment gas relit he death tollliz king for a flit Court panel, oi rbide to pay $11 dian governmei I settlement ofi nd liabilities rt ising out of th ter.” red all civil pit erred to the Si and cjuashed J s, including oti( imicide rmer Union Cat Warren Ander 10 details ofho< id be paid toll directed ^ rs and attorno ry, Conn.-base ibmit a detailft aesday. tir and just se 1 SubramaniuE f governmental porter. , Union CarbiA I Slack said ft > based on its re ings in India am hie law and fad ty of humajt stif uires substantia id. de’s stock pr6 :l-a-lralfto$3 / trading on :k Exchange « nalysts said the settlement. IGlNNEf sses to learn >sing program 3- 5 p.m 4- 6 p.m 2-4 p.m. If you’ve set aside summer school o complete all those liberal arts re- uirements you’ve been putting off, oumay have to put them off again. According to preliminary bud- ets, the number of liberal arts nurses available will not be suffi- ;ient to meet the needs of students, ’aul Parrish, associate dean of the College of Liberal Arts, said. How- tver, he said this is not a new prob- em for the college. “Quite honestly, the problem of ot being able to offer the number >fclasses that students could fill is a iroblem we have been facing all /ear,” he said. “There is reason to be oncerned, but it’s the kind of con cern we’ve had through the fall and spring as well.” Students attempting to graduate in August are of the most concern to the liberal arts college, Parrish said. Although the number of sections will be limited, Parrish said he doesn’t foresee graduates having to delay graduation because of sched uling problems. “We are aware of graduation re quirements,” he said. “If a student needed a course in order to grad uate, and he found out that course was not going to be available, we would make every effort to work with that student to find a substitute course.” Underclassmen and transfer stu dents probably will feel the result of course shortages more than anyone, Parrish said. “If we have a high amount of stu dents who are trying to graduate, of course they are going to take priori ty,” he said. “There could be the sit uation of a particularly popular hu manities course that many students want to take, but we have to give priority to the graduates. In this case, it may delay an underclassman, but hopefully not too badly.” While the college as a whole is working to alleviate the problems of class shortages, the responsibility of making initial cuts in classes lies with each department. According to most of the department heads, the effect of these problems is being felt in all areas of the college. Dr. Herman J. Saatkarnp, depart ment head in philosophy, said his department will have to decrease the number of classes offered during the summer by up to one-half of the number offered last summer. “Our greatest concern is to cut the number of classes as fairly as possi ble with both the faculty and stu dents in mind,” he said. “As far as Quite honestly, the problem of not being able to offer the number of classes that students could fill is a problem we have been facing all year,” — Paul Parrish associate dean, College of Liberal Arts August graduates are concerned, we’re making every effort to accom modate them so there won’t be prob lems with not meeting graduation requirements.” The Department of Speech Com munications will be affected, but De partment Head Dr. Kurt Ritter said he is not sure how severe the effect will be. “We definitely will be affected,” he said. “It could be that we have to reserve all seats for public speaking and technical speaking for August graduates because these are our most requested courses. I’m sure other classes in our department also will be cut, but we can’t say how dras tically.” Dr. Luis Costa, department head in modern languages, said his de partment will have to cut classes by at least half for the summer. He en couraged August graduates to come to the department office if they have language requirements for gradua tion. “It may be a good idea for those people to come in so we can build a listing of the number of students needing certain courses to gradua te,” he said. “At this point, we’re not sure what classes are needed most, so it would really help us.” Although graduating students are priority in the economics depart ment, Dr. Thomas Saving, depart ment head, said students other than graduates will feel the effect of class shortages. “We are going to ensure that graduating seniors get the classes Presidents agree to demobilize Contra army SAN SALVADOR. El Salvador (AP) — Presidents Daniel Ortega of Nicaragua, Jose Azcona Hoyo of Honduras, Oscar Arias of Costa Rica, Vinicio Cerezo of Guatemala and Jose Napoleon Duarte of El Sal- ador announced Tuesday they agreed to develop a plan within 90 days to demobilize and dismantle the IbOOO-strong Contra army. Ortega also promised to advance national and local elections from No vember 1990 to February of that year and open the electoral process to the opposition. Hq *aid he would permit United Nations observers, but the presidents were unable to agree on a verification procedure. Nicaraguan rebel leaders Wednesday reacted skeptically to the Central American summit’s agreement. The five Central American presi dents still lace the task of getting the rebels and their U.S. sponsors to go along with the accords and of verify ing Nicaraguan compliance on elec tions. Contra spokesmen insisted they must be part of negotiating their own fate. “A lot of people put themselves out on a limb by signing this,” Con tra leader Adolfo Calero said Wednesday. The two major components of the accord were presented as unilateral agreements. Nicaragua’s promise to hold elections does not formally de pend on what happens to the Con tras, although Sandinista spokesmen made it clear they expect the Con tras to be gone by the time electoral reform begins. Neither the Linked States nor the rebels are parties to the accord, al though neither rejected it outright. “We are neither rejecting nor en thusiastically promoting this action,” Calero said. An estimated 11,000 Contra fight ers and several thousand family members are in Honduras along the border with Nicaragua, many of them vowing to fight on. Squares and stairs The Joe C. Richardson, Jr. Petroleum Engi neering Building, currently under construction Photo by Phelan M. Ebenhack on Ross Street, stands silhouetted against the sky Wednesday afternoon. Terrorist groups in Sri Lanka kill at least 49 in election-day attacks they need,” he said. “The net result for transfer students, freshmen and teachers coming back to take courses is that whereas we may have been of fering several sections of a course before, that will be decreased to one section.” Dr. Vaughn Bryant, department head in the anthropology depart ment, said his department will have to cut at least three courses. “We know we’re going to have to cut three,” he said. “If all of the fac ulty who has shown an interest in teaching for summer school decide to teach, we’ll have to cut three or four more. We’re hoping some of those faculty members get research grants and won’t want to teach. “If this happens, we can keep those classes and hire teaching assis tants to teach the courses. Some times we can hire two graduate assis tants for the same amount we would’ve paid a professor to teach one class. We just won’t know until we get feedback from the profes sors.” Parrish said problems with the numbers of classes being offered primarily can be blamed on in creases in three areas: enrollment, COLOMBO, Sri Lanka (AP) — Terrorists killed at least 49 people and police killed seven on Wednesday during Sri Lanka’s first parlia mentary elections in 11 years, authorities said. One victim was a Cabinet minister’s son. An other was a cyclist seen lying dead in the road, shot from a passing car minutes after he voted. Extremist gangs attacked election of ficials and assaulted several polling places with bombs and gunfire, wounding at least 20 people, authorities reported. The government announced a nationwide overnight curfew beginning at 9 p.m. Election officials said about 65 percent of the 9.3 million eligible voters cast ballots despite the violence and threats of intimidation from Sinha lese and Tamil extremists. Only 55 percent voted in the presidential election in December. Nine political parties and 10 independent groups competed for the 225 seats in the new Parliament. Results are expected Thursday. N Police blamed terrorists of the Sinhalese ma jority for 47 killings, including that of Jayantha Mallimarachichi, whose jeep was ambushed in a Colombo suburb. His father Weerasinghe is fuel minister. Officials said police killed seven Sinhalese who attacked polling stations and two people were re ported killed by Tamil terrorists in northern Sri Lanka, stronghold of the ethnic minority. Sinhalese extremists began an anti-govern ment campaign in July 1987 and opposing the elections was part of it. They say the government has given too much to Tamil rebels, who seek an independent home land in the north and east, in an attempt to end the ethnic civil war that has taken at least 8,500 lives since 1983. Tamils, who are predominantly Hindu and make up 18 percent of Sri Lanka’s 16 million people, claim discrimination by the Sinhalese, most of whom are Buddhist. The Sinhalese, 75 percent of the population, control the govern ment and military. More than 1,500 have been killed in the back lash from extremists in the Sinhalese community, and elections had been postponed because of the ethnic warfare. Most of the violence Wednesday was in the southern and central regions, the Sinhalese heartland of this island off the tip of India, which was renowned for tranquil beaches, gemstones the number of liberal arts majors and liberal arts graduate programs. “If we were having increases in just one of those areas we could say, ‘Well, we don’t have an increase in the number of our majors so let’s put all of our resources into freshmen and sophomore courses,”’ he said. “And the same is true for all three areas — if we didn’t have an increase in but one of the three, we could leave the other two alone and just concentrate on that one area. But that isn’t how things are going. “We have growth in all three areas at a time when budgets are tight. Budgets are tight and student en rollment has increased dramatically in liberal arts, and something just has to give there.” Although the overall budget for the University is extremely limited, Parrish said the budget for the Col lege of Liberal Arts is still at a level less than the 1985 budget level. The result of a tightened budget can be a decrease in the number of classes available, but Parrish said the college is working to overcome this prob lem. See Summer/Page 5 Lawmakers propose amending procedure for selecting judges AUSTIN (AP) — A proposed constitutional amendment to dra matically change the way Texans choose many of their judges was in troduced into the Legislature on Wednesday by lawmakers who said federal courts may force changes if Texas doesn’t do something soon. “The judiciary in Texas is going to change,” Rep. Bruce Gibson, D- Godley, said. “The status quo will not be around a year from now. It’s going to be different.” Sponsors filed what they call the “Texas Plan” to end direct, partisan election of judges of statewide, ap pellate and urban county district courts. Instead, those judges would be nominated by the governor, then periodically evaluated by the public in “retention” elections. The lawmakers said such a plan, if adopted by the Legislature and rati fied by voters, should end questions raised by elections which see Su preme Court candidates spending $1.5 million, mostly raised from law yers who practice before them. They said it also should resolve problems which will arise if Texas loses two pending federal lawsuits that challenge the at-large elections of Texas judges. The state’s elections fall under the federal Voting Rights Act, and re cent federal court decisions have led some lawmakers to conclude that challenges to the Texas judicial elec tion system on racial discrimination grounds might be successful. “There’s two lawsuits pending here in Texas that will be decided very quickly that. . . will in all proba bility change the way we select our judges,” said Rep. Patricia Hill, R- Dallas, who chairs the House Judi cial Affairs Committee. “Some change is necessary,” Hill said. “We believe that this (plan) will satisfy the requirements of the Vot ing Rights Act and will also result in a better way of selecting judges for this state.” The proposed new system would apply to judges serving on the Texas Supreme Court, Texas Court of Criminal Appeals and the 14 district courts of appeals. It also would be used for state district court judges in the six largest counties — Bexar, Dallas, El Paso, Harris, Tarrant and Travis. Each level of courts would have screening commissions to review po tential candidates for those courts and recommend three prospects to the governor. The makeup of the commissions and the names they recommend should reflect the eth nic mix of the area the panels rep resent, the sponsors said. Lufkin man kills 3, fails suicide attempt and tea before the ethnic warfare began. Voting was brisk in Colombo, but most mer chants closed their shops in case of trouble. President Ranasinghe Premadasa, elected in December, predicted victory for his United Na tional Party, which held 139 of the 168 seats in the last Parliament. “We have given maximum protection to the voters,” he told reporters on a 500-yard walk to a voting station from his official residence in cen tral Colombo. He was followed by hundreds of cheering sup porters dressed in caps and vests of green, the party color. Voter turnout was fairly high in urban areas, election officials said, hut threats from Sinhalese extremists left polling places in many rural dis tricts nearly deserted. P. Sydney Fernando, a Sinhalese in Dibbeddi village, 20 miles south of Colombo, said “1 am scared to vote” because a bomb wounded at least six people earlier in the day. Few vehicles were on the winding roads of the southern hill coutry. Soldiers in camouflage uni forms stopped passers-by for random searches. LUFKIN (AP) — An East Texas man regained consciousness in a Lufkin hospital Wednesday, one day after he allegedly shot his sister, his brother-in-law and former girlf riend to death before turning his gun on himself, authorities said. Richard King, 42, who lived on the same property in rural Nacog doches County as the relatives he is accused of killing, began the Valen tine’s Day attacks before dawn, po lice said. But it was hours after officers were called to a grocery store distur bance, which left a woman dead and King wounded, that the two other slayings were discovered. “This is probably the first crime of its type that we’ve had in this part of the state,” Lufkin Police Chief Sher man Collins said. King walked into a Brookshire Brothers grocery store around 7:20 a.m. Tuesday and dragged his for mer girlfriend from the bakery where she worked into the parking lot where he apparently had con cealed a rifle, Collins said. “We had two officers arrive at the scene just in time to see him shoot her three times with a 30-caliber car bine,” Collins said. “Then he turned the gun around and shot himself in the stomach.” Denise Rae Panel, 24, was dead at the scene, he said. King, who origi nally was listed in critical condition at Lufkin Memorial Hospital, was upgraded to guarded condition Wednesday, authorities said. Worried relatives in nearby Na cogdoches County, aware of a longstanding dispute between King and his sister, went to her home af ter hearing a television news report of the Lufkin attack. Kay Buford Scott, 38, and her husband. Bill Scott, who turned 42 Tuesday, were both found dead in their home near the Woden commu nity, about eight miles southeast of Nacogdoches. She had been shot once in the head at point-blank range with a 30- caliber rifle and her husband appar ently was shot three times in the head at close range — twice with the rifle and once with a shotgun, said Lt. Bill Ball of the Nacogdoches County Sheriff s Department. “For the last year-and-a-half there’s been a family squabble be tween the sister and brother because of some property owned by the fam ily,” Ball said. “Thafs in civil liti gation right now from what I under stand.” King lived in another house on the same property as the Scotts, who owned several chicken farms and a metal building construction busi ness, Ball said. The Nacogdoches County slay ings occurred sometime after 4 a.m., just hours before King allegedly turned the weapon on his former girlfriend in the adjoining county. Collins believes King may also have intended one other victim.