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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.
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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.