The Battalion
WORLD & NATION 5
.Monday, May 1,1989
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Weekend abortion demonstrations
lead to numerous national arrests
ASSOCIATED PRESS
Hundreds of hymn-singing anti-abortion protes
ters were arrested Saturday as they and slogan-
chanting counterdemonstrators vied for atten
tion at entrances to clinics around the country.
Police reported arrests in Colorado, Louisiana,
Massachusetts, Michigan, New Jersey and Ohio,
and other large protests were reported in other
states including California.
Bob Nolte, a spokesman in New York for Op
eration Rescue, tne group coordinating the anti
abortion protests, said actions were planned in 65
to 70 cities, from Anchorage, Alaska, to Gulf
port, Miss. In the group’s widest previous pro
tests on Oct. 29, he said, 2,600 people were ar
rested for blocking entrances of clinics in 32
cities.
By midday Saturday, precise figures on the
number of arrests nationwide were not tallied,
but they numbered at least 300 in the cities where
police gave preliminary figures.
On Friday, Nolte said, 334 anti-abortion dem
onstrators had been arrested in six states, and the
protesters succeeded in closing at least three clin
ics for the day, one in Charlottesville, Va., and
two in Lansing, Mich.
In suburban Detroit, Molly Yard, president of
the National Organization for Women, appeared
Saturday at an abortion clinic to denounce activ
ists who were blocking doors.
Operation Rescue protesters said they hope to
persuade the U.S. Supreme Court to overturn
Roe vs. Wade, the 1973 decision legalizing abor
tion. The court heard arguments last week on a
Missouri case the Bush administration has said
should be used to overturn the landmark deci
sion, but the justices have not yet ruled.
Outside a clinic in the Boston suburb of
Brookline, one of hundreds of pro-choice advo
cates who outnumbered Operation Rescue mem
bers attributed her side’s good turnout to public
ity given to the Supreme Court hearing.
Fraud predicted in Panamanian elections;
suspicions heighten as elections draw near
WASHINGTON (AP) — Political
seers from President Bush on down
are predicting widespread fraud in
the upcoming presidential elections
in Panama.
At the same time, a bipartisan
consensus, often rare in foreign pol
icy issues, emerged saying the de
facto ruler, Gen. Manuel Antonio
Noriega, had to go.
Relations between the United
States and Panama have been on the
skids since February 1988, when No
riega was indicted by a federal grand
jury in Miami on drug trafficking
charges. Then-President Eric Ar
turo Delvalle a few weeks later at
tempted to force Noriega out, only
to be ousted himself by the general.
The United States recognizes Del
valle, who lives in Miami, as Pana
ma’s legitimate president, which has
led to a political vacuum that has
caused a nost of problems, ranging
from snags in Panama Canal treaty
negotiations to incidents against
American citizens.
Neither traditional diplomacy,
nor the cutoff of economic and mili
tary aid nor economic sanctions have
achieved the stated goal: Noriega’s
ouster.
The elections, scheduled for Sun
day, pit Noriega’s candidate, Carlos
Alberto Duque, against Guillermo
David Endara, running on an anti
government coalition ticket.
In the United States, Democrats
and Republicans alike claim the gen
eral will stack the ballots in favor of
Noriega. The Panamanians charge
the United States with interfering in
their internal politics.
“In recent weeks, the Noriega re
gime has taken steps to commit sys
tematic fraud,” President Bush said
last week. “The people and the gov
ernment of the United States will not
recognize fraudulent election results
engineered by Noriega.”
The Panamanians claim the
United States is pouring millions of
dollars into the opposition cam
paigns. The National Endowment
for Democracy, a non-profit, feder
ally funded Washington group, pro
vided $99,000 this year to an anti-
Noriega coalition, Adelina Reyes-
Gavilan, senior program director for
Latin America, said.
The Bush administration, citing
security, has refused to comment on
reports published in April saying the
president signed a secret directive to
grant the opposition group $10 mil
lion.
The State Department recently is
sued a two-page statement outlining
“the activities the Noriega regime is
undertaking to control the results of
. . . elections.” The paper cited false
voter lists, vote buying, fabricated
polls, visas aimed at barring foreign
observers, coercion, intimidation
and detentions.
io
Exxon, Alaska butt heads over oil spill cleanup
VALDEZ, Alaska (AP) — The
chairman of Exxon and Alaska’s
governor stepped up their feud over
the cleanup of oil from the Exxon
Valdez, and a mountain climber
i! scaled the company’s Anchorage of-
! fice to protest the spill:
Meanwhile, high ^eas and stiff
winds sidelined thousands of
cleanup workers tackling the na
tion’s largest oil spill on Friday, but
officials said nature was helping the
effort by washing oil off beaches and
back into Prince William Sound.
Gov. Steve Cowper accused Ex
xon Chairman Lawrence Rawl of
misleading the public and shirking
the blame for responding slowly to
the March 24 spill, which poured
more than 10 million gallons of Alas
kan crude into the sound.
Rawl has blamed the state and the
Coast Guard for delaying the use of
dispersants to control the oil slick.
“If an untrue statement continues
to be repeated time after time after
time after time, and you don’t make
an effort to refute that statement,
then people will believe it like it was
Cowper said in a letter to
,wl on Friday.
Public submits ideas for cleanup of oil spill
ANCHORAGE, Alaska (AP) —
One man wanted to sprinkle pow
dered cheese on the nation’s
worst oil spill in hopes it would
make the oil congeal and easier to
pick up.
Another would have dropped
feathers on the slick, either mak
ing the sludge easier to pick up or
tarring and feathering Alaska’s
coast.
Ideas on how to clean up the
10.1 million gallons of oil spilled
in Prince William Sound began
pouring in before the Exxon Val
dez tanker wreck was 24 hours
old.
A Japanese company sent a
box of equipment. The problem
was the directions also were in
Japanese.
It is a big challenge figuring
out who is trying to unload a
warehouse of some product and
who has an answer to Alaska’s
problems, said Jeff Mach, coordi
nator for the Alaska Department
of Environmental Conservation.
Exxon, too, has been deluged
with inventions.
“They range from the sublime
to the ridiculous,” said Exxon
spokesman Dennis Stanczuk.
“The one thing about all of them,
though, is it’s people trying to
help.”
Rawl shot back with his own letter,
which was shared with the Asso
ciated Press, accusing Cowper of
spreading a fantasy.
“Unfortunately for all concerned,
vour letter of April 28 does not set
the record straight,” Rawl wrote. “In
fact, it perpetuates a good many
wrong assertions.”
Cowper said the Coast Guard ap
proved tests of dispersants to control
the spill the day it occurred. The
state asked for restrictions only after
Exxon sprayed the dispersant care
lessly, hitting Coast Guard and oil
company workers, he said.
Rawl said that barring state re
strictions, there was enough dispers
ant on hand and en route to the
scene to control the entire spill. He
said the chemical was safe for the en
vironment and marine wildlife.
Because of the slow start, quick sea
currents carried the oil down Alas
ka’s southern coast, where it has
claimed the lives of thousands of sea
birds and hundreds of otters.
On Friday, thousands of workers
were sidelined in the sound and the
Gulf of Alaska for a third straight
day because of foul weather.
Low clouds over the gulf kept
sheen-spotting planes and the oil
skimmers they serve at bay, said
Coast Guard spokesman Kathleen
Donohoe.
In Anchorage, Michael A. Turney
climbed out onto the roof of Exxon’s
office and rappelled halfway down
the eight-story building before at
taching a sign that read: “Oil Spilled,
Exxon Kills, Remember The
Sound.”
Students chase South African consul off campus
ints
s to
iar-
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jes
ust
PHILADELPHIA (AP) — More than 300
chanting students at Temple University forced a
representative of the South African government
to flee the campus shortly after he was trapped in
an elevator facing an angry crowd.
As campus and city police led John A. Davies,
the South African consul in New York, off the
school’s campus Friday, protesters formed a
gantlet and yelled, “Don’t come back!” and “Rac
ist!”
Students drummed their fists on the city police
I car that took Davies away, breaking windows on
I the vehicle but causing no injuries, detectives
l said.
Davies was on campus to give a speech, but the
demonstration forced him to cancel his appear
ance.
Davies, escorted by guards, had walked into
the elevator before the talk, but was stalled there
with the elevator’s doors open for more than 20
minutes in front of hundreds of angry demon
strators. Security guards and police stood be-
| tween Davies and the protesters.
Davies appeared upset by the experience, said
Kostas Markou, a Temple senior and native of
Greece who was also in the elevator.
“He was shaking,” Markou said. “I said to him,
‘You must know, I am Greek and the whole
world does not like your government.’”
“Why should we allow him to
speak when our brothers and sisters
are not allowed to walk into another
town (in South Africa)?”
— Taneshia Nash,
a black protester
Police and school officials said it was not clear
whether the elevator was not working or whether
protesters had sabotaged it.
Students said they were pleased that Davies’
talk was canceled.
“Why should we allow him to speak when our
brothers and sisters are not allowed to walk into
another town (in South Africa)?” said Taneshia
Nash, a black protester.
Davies said later he had planned to discuss the
need for stability in South Africa so reform ef
forts could work. He said blacks would lose their
jobs and progress would be slowed if economic
sanctions were put into effect.
University administrators said they were sur
prised at the protest, occurring on the final day
of spring semester classes.
PL Patrick Swygert, vice president for adminis
tration, denounced the protest of Davies’ talk,
which was arranged by the chairman of the uni
versity’s department of political science.
“It is the right of the professor to invite anyone
who he thinks is representative of a point of
view,” Swygert said. “It would be a terrible prece
dent for this or any other university to censor
that access.”
>80
Researcher claims information in AIDS report inaccurate
ATLANTA (AP) — One federal
health report seemed to suggest
many AIDS patients survive for up
to eight years after their diagnosis,
but a researcher says most presumed
survivors have actually died and
their deaths have not been reported.
A monthly report from the Cen
ters for Disease Control listed 14
adults and two children who were di
agnosed with AIDS more than eight
years ago and still are not listed
among the dead.
If those statistics are an accurate
portrayal of AIDS in America, as
many as 20 percent of the known pa
tients from the disease’s earliest
known days — when the number of
patients was a fraction of what it is
today — are still alive, giving rise to a
hope that AIDS is survivable in a
number of cases.
But GDC scientists and other
AIDS experts acknowledge that
most of those early “survivors,”
along with many others from more
recent years, probably have died,
their deaths unreported to the fed
eral government. But at least some
people are living for five years or
more and have been confirmed to
have the disease.
“People who are not listed as dead
are not necessarily alive,” Dr. Ann
Hardy, who spearheaded a GDC
study into the report, said. “Are they
really alive? Did they really have
AIDS?” Hardy asked.
Hardy, who has since transferred
to the National Center for Health
Statistics, said her study managed to
track down at least some informa
tion on 780 people who, by statistical
count, seemed to have survived
AIDS since being diagnosed in 1983
or before.
In fact, the GDC study confirmed
that 475, or 61 percent, of those 780
presumed survivors had indeed
died, but local health officials had
not reported their deaths to the fed
eral government.
An additional 186, or 24 percent,
“are lost to follow-up,” she said.
“What we would probably guess is
that a good proportion are dead, but
they went out of the country, or to
another state, and the local health
departments lost track of them.”
The remaining 119 pre-1984
AIDS patients were still alive at the
time of the study, which was con
ducted in 1987-88. Researchers tried
to have those patients tested to con
firm that they actually had AIDS;
since AIDS tests did not come into
use until the mid-1980s, many early
AIDS diagnoses, based on symptoms
alone, may be wrong, they reasoned.
Out of 47 people diagnosed with
AIDS before 1984 who agreed to
blood tests, six showed no sign of
AIDS infection. The remaining 41
were confirmed as living patients of
acquired immune deficiency syn
drome.
The GDC study found nine peo
ple diagnosed with AIDS in 1981 or
earlier who were still alive — but
none would agree to blood tests to
confirm that they actually had AIDS,
Hardy said.
Scientists have reported in recent
years that the survival time for some
AIDS patients is lengthening. Diag
noses nave improved and doctors
now can use drugs to treat some of
the deadly diseases let in by the
weakened immune systems of AIDS
patients, such as a rare form of
pneumonia and even tuberculosis.
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