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About The Battalion. (College Station, Tex.) 1893-current | View Entire Issue (April 25, 1989)
ids ,lle good part where, „'7' bands 'taii g 1 ye wanted to llto journalism). ty f |i uo special order): |[ 1 ,J han gf' further th Burned-Out v gent Orange arid ? “"'i Si* J -oud, Don Po t)e l! ky Pete and the N eo e Scroocs, The Bl ,! p. Subculture, Water e l exas ] wisters,T, [0 Demented, rh e m, e,r * ollls ) and all lhe uu have the drive, d e . to g« up and do t they believe in. Texas A&M The Battalion WEATHER FORECAST for WEDNESDAY: Partly cloudy, windy and hot. HIGH:88 LOW:68 Vol.88 No. 140 USPS 045360 10 pages College Station, Texas Tuesday, April 25,1989 Georgians ask government for antidote to gas TBILISI, U.S.S.R. (AP) — Georgians hospitalized with damage to their central nervous systems asked the government Monday for an antidote to whatever chemi cal soldiers used when dispersing a pro-in dependence demonstration. Foreign Ministry spokesmen in Moscow have denied accusations by Georgian activ ists that troopers used chemical weapons in the confrontation April 9, but the Georgian Communist Party chief confirmed Monday some of the 20 deaths were caused by gas. The leader, Givi Gumbaridze, spoke to some of the the First foreign correspon dents allowed into Georgia since the dem onstration in Tbilisi, capital of the southern republic. Several dozen of the approximately 120 people still hospitalized signed a letter con taining the appeal to President Mikhail S. Gorbachev for an antidote. Nodar Notadze, a literary scholar and one of 40 members of a commission investi gating the attack on the protesters, said Georgian representatives would take the plea to a meeting of the Communist Party Central Committee that begins Tuesday in Moscow. Nino Djavakhishvili, also on the commis sion, said at least 700 people were injured. Iza Ordzhonikidze, a third commission member, said 600 of them were poisoned. Ordzhonikidze, a poet and museum di rector, said half of those still hospitalized were children from a contaminated school next to the demonstration site who became ill days after the clash. Dr. Vakhtang Bochurishvili, who teaches at Tbilisi Medical School, said Monday, “It is a crime that the military still will not tell us what substances were used.” He was interviewed at Hospital No. 2 of Health Ministry Department No. 4, where most victims are being treated. The hospital usually is reserved for the Georgian elite. Bochurishvili said the army and Interior Ministry soldiers who broke up the protest “were like Nazi troops, the SS.” On Saturday, the Defense Ministry news paper Krasnaya Zvezda identified one chemical used on the protesters as an inca pacitating agent called “cheremukha” whose main ingredient is chloroacetophe- none. A Western military attache in Mos cow said the substance was similar to tear gas, but stronger. Malkahz Zaalishvili, a molecular biologist on the commission, said the gas becomes poisonous in high concentrations. He and several other doctors said an other gas used causes irregular paralysis of the central nervous system, memory loss, blackouts, headaches and nausea. Djavakhishvili, a morphologist, said mili tary officials refuse to acknowledge nerve gas was used. Ordzhonikidze said 14 of the 20 people who died did not appear to have been seriously beaten and were believed killed by the gas, but a decision would await autopsies. Shota Gamkrelidze, a pharmacologist, said he wants to help but his “hands are tied.” “I cannot prescribe any psychotropic drugs because I don’t know what the chemi cal was and what will happen with these drugs,” he said. Discharged patients return with the same problems because proper treatment cannot be administered, commission member No tadze said, and “the consensus is that there is no effective treatment of the gases.” No soldiers were hurt by the gas, and doctors believe they had taken an antidote they now refuse to give to the injured- Beijing students join in democracy protest BEIJING (AP) — Students at most Beijing colleges exuberantly n a class boycott Monday to press for sweeping democratic re forms, and they tried through speeches and posters to enlist work ers in the cause. Authorities took no open steps to interfere, but sources said more than 10,000 soldiers from outlying coun ties moved into Beijing over the weekend in preparation for an even tual crackdown. The sources, who spoke on condi tion of anonymity, said the troops had been used in the past to quash civil unrest. Some student leaders aid they feared imminent arrest. The exact number of participants fin the boycott was not known, but students at a dozen schools with total enrollment of more than 50,000 said virtually all their classmates were striking. The boycott was the largest in 40 years of communist rule, even though there were no reports of stu dents joining in other cities as the Student activists hoped. “Now is the time for all students in Beijing and nationwide to united to for democracy,” a student | speakei at Qinghua University yelled from a banner-strewn dormi tory balcony to about f.500 wildly cheering listeners. He proclaimed the balcony a “free speech platform” | and invited orators with all views. Students Irom several schools marched around campus and on nearby steels, gave speeches on street corners and plastered copies of the first edition of their own newspaper on lampposts and trees to publicize their demands for press freedom, an end to official privileges and corruption, and respect for hu man rights. The boycott marks a new phase in the campaign after a week in which the students, mourning the death of former reformist parly chief Hu Yaobang, tried to confront the lead ership dii ectly. They marched repeatedly to cen tral Beijing’s Tiananmen Square and tried to storm Communist Party headquarters. Top officials, who have begun market-style economic reforms but insist China is not ready for democ racy, refused to meet with them. Student leaders stressed Monday they wanted their protest to be peaceful and legal, and that they were not seeking to overthrow the government or party. However, many students; said they want Premier Li Peng to resign. The Western diplomat, who spoke privately, said Tuesday’s meeting might focus on political re form and plans for the 2,250-seat parliament, whose first meeting is scheduled for May 25. It is to elect a president as well as a full-time legis lature. ' '"'PflP* 1 * jLi, ^ PfiSf®* Study break Jody Spence, a senior nuclear engineering major from Temple, takes a break from studying and uses his physics book as a pil- Photo by Mike C. Mulvey low as he lays in the sun on the dock at Bryan Municipal Park Monday afternoon. nneuser-Busch.Inc. Roe vs. Wade defense attorney offers insight on abortion case By Fiona Soltes STAFF WRITER Most beginning attorneys sim ply dream of winning their first case. But when the attorney’s first contested case is Roe vs. Wade, the uphill battle is a little steeper. Sarah Weddington, Monday night’s MSC Political Forum fea tured speaker, succesfully argued for the right for abortion on de mand before the U.S. Supreme Court at the age of 26, two years out of law school. Weddington discussed, “Roe vs. Wade: Where it’s Been, Where it’s Going,” as background for Webster vs. Reproductive Health Services, to be heard by the U.S. Supreme Court Wednes day. The case has the potential to reverse or revise the 1973 Roe vs. Wade decision. “There has never been an issue that I can think of that has so di vided the American public,” Weddington said. “But the one thing that has not changed since 1973 is the majority of the people say it ought to be the woman’s de cision.” Weddington said disagreement on the issue arises from trying to decide if the abortion is justified in individual cases. Sarah Weddington Photo by Ronnie Montgomery “(But) the legal question is not when is abortion justified^ but rather who gets to make the final decision,” she said. “The courts said, in Roe vs. Wade, it is not the government. We will be waiting to see what the court says in Webster.” If Roe vs. Wade is overturned, the legality of abor tion will be decided by state legis latures. Weddington said her involve ment in Roe vs. Wade began in the early 70s in Austin when other female attorneys asked her if they could be prosecuted for telling a client where to go for an abortion. Abortion was illegal in Texas at the time. Weddington didn’t know the answer, but while looking for it, she found substantial medical evi dence concerning fetal and maternal fatality and injury rates due to illegal abortions. “The numbers were too high, and we knew we had to do some thing,” she said. “What we needed to do was find a lawsuit and try to get it to the Supreme Court.” Weddington said a series of cases concerning the right to pri vacy had been heard before the Supreme Court before Roe vs. Wade came up. “The writers of the Constitu tion were trying to say there are certain ways the government can not interfere,” she said. “They were trying to strike a balance be tween the right of government and the rights of the individual.” Weddington decided to defend the right of Jane Roe, an alleged rape victim from Texas, to have an abortion. Roe could not give concrete evidence that she had been raped, so Weddington fo cused instead on the Constitu tionality of the case. Roe later ad mitted that she had lied about the rape, Weddington said. “One of the largest misconcep tions about the case is that Wade See Abortion/Page 9 Japan prime minister plans to resign, reports announce TOKYO (AP) — Prime Minister Noboru Takeshita has decided to resign as soon as Parliament passes the budget for fiscal 1989, the mass circulation Mainichi Shimbun newspaper and the Japan Broadcasting Corp. reported Tuesday. The reports said Takeshita planned to make the an nouncement after a Cabinet meeting later Tuesday. Takeshita has chosen to resign because of low sup port ratings in opinion polls due to a widening political scandal and an unpopular new sales tax, the reports said. Passage of the budget for fiscal 1989, which began April 1, has been blocked by an opposition boycott of deliberations in Parliament but is expected to come late this month or soon after several national holidays end early in May. The reports said Takeshita, who became prime min ister in November 1987, has also decided to cancel a trip to five southeast Asian nations. He was scheduled to leave Saturday tor the nine-day tour. Masayoshi Ito, chairman of the party executive coun cil and an eight-time member of the lower house, has been cited as a possible successor to Takeshita. How ever, political analysts say poor health may keep Ito, 75, from accepting the post. Ito is diabetic. At least 17 politicians or their aides, including those of Takeshita, reportedly received large profits from 1986 discount sales of stocks in a subsidiary of Recruit Co., an information-publishing conglomerate. The transactions generated hefty profits when the share prices soared after the stocks were made available for over-the-counter trading. Takeshita has denied wrong doing. Recruit also paid millions of dollars to influential pol iticians or their aides as contributions, raising suspicions that it was seeking favors in return. In all, more than a dozen people have been arrested on bribery and other charges. After 1st 100 days, Bush says he is 6 pleased 5 with progress CHICAGO (AP) — President Bush on Monday pronounced him self “pleased with the progress we’ve made” in 100 days in office and said he will soon make key arms control and foreign policy decisions that will chart a course for the future. “In three short months we’ve made a good start coming to grips with issues demanding urgent atten tion and decisive action,” he told newspaper publishers attending the Associated Press annual luncheon. He ticked off his savings-and-loan legislation, ethics proposals, the be ginning of a war on drugs and agreements with Congress on the federal budget and Contra aid. At the same time, he said defense and foreign policy reviews, environ mental legislation and a program to deal with homelessness “are all on the near horizon.” Bush spoke at the luncheon a short while after Vice President Dan Quayle told the Associated Press an nual meeting that the biggest sur prise of his first 100 days in office is the enjoyment he receives from for eign travel. The publishers who at tended the AP functions were also in town for the annual meetings of the American Newspaper Publishers As sociation. Quayle, setting out on a trip to Australia and Asia, also said he had an opportunity to work closely with the president every day “to see how he formulates his policies.” The Bush-Quayle team took of fice on Jan. 20 and marks 100 days on Saturday. Before reciting his own report card, Bush pledged to “follow every intelligence lead in the effort to win freedom for Terry Anderson.” The AP’s chief Middle East correspon dent has been held hostage since dis appearing in Beirut more than four years ago. The president said he was not able to provide any good news on Anderson’s prospects for free dom, but said, “We will go the extra mile and do what we can.’ Chicago was a brief stop and a long day for both Quayle and the president. Bush started in Norfolk, Va., where he attended a ceremony marking the deaths of 47 sailors killed in a gun turret explosion aboard the USS Iowa last week. From Chicago he was flying to Bis marck, N.D., and then on to Califor- “We made a good start in these first three months and there’s more to come,” the president told the AP luncheon. On his list of accomplishments, he touted the agreement with Congress to provide non-lethal aid to the Con tra rebels as well as the broad-brush budget agreement that he said would reduce the deficit while leav ing his no-tax pledge intact. He urged the House to follow the Senate’s lead in enacting his legis lation to bail out the savings-and- loan industry.