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Vol. 88 No. 154 USPS 045360 6 pages
College Station, Texas
Wednesday, June 7,1989
BEIJING (AP) — Thousands of the
roops responsible for the violent crack-
iown on the movement for freedom evac-
ragear* anted the city center Wednesday, spraying
d Lend gunfire as they passed Chinese and i
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Troops leave Chinese center as protest calms
diplo-
See related story Page 6
Most of the troops from the 27th Army,
riding in a convoy of hundreds of trucks
ind support vehicles, appeared to be shooi
ng into the air, although some were seen
aiming at an apartment complex where
hundreds of diplomats and other foreign
ers live.
Some of the troops were crouched low
and others were behind boards, apparently
seeking cover from possible return fire. Ri
val military factions are reported stationed
inside the city and on the outskirts.
The troops chanted, “Down with corrup
tion, we love the people, we love the capital,
we love youth, long live the Communist
Party,” as they left their positions in Tia
nanmen Square, the symbolic center of
China.
People along the sidewalks initially
cheered when they heard the chanting, but
one office worker said, “They can sing any
slogan they want but then they start shoot
ing.”
Other troops and tanks of the 27 th Army
remained in and around Tiananmen
Square. It was not known if the army was
conducting a complete evacuation.
It was the 27th that drove pro-democracy
demonstrators from the center of Beijing
on Saturday on orders from the hard-line
hierarchy, killing hundreds in the most vio
lent suppression of a popular movement in
Communist China’s 40-year history.
On Tuesday, the 27th Army traded gun-
lire with the 28th Army, believed loyal to
Zhao Ziyang, a moderate who challenged
the conservatives and was stripped of his
post as Communist Party leader. No casual
ties were reported.
Soldiers continued firing into crowds
around Beijing on Tuesday and early
Wednesday. Witnesses said a small boy was
killed and a girl wounded in the head Tues
day. Police in riot gear cruised the streets in
vans as night fell, beating up and shooting
passers-by.
Anti-government demonstrations spread
to Shanghai, Nanjing, Chengdu, Shenyang
and other cities.
White House press secretary Marlin Fitz-
water said the United States has been in
contact with midlevel Chinese officials but
failed to contact top-level officials. “The as
sumption has been that the top-level people
have moved out to other locations,” he said.
On Tuesday, in the first appearance of a
top official since the crackdown began, gov
ernment spokesman Yuan Mu said China is
“not afraid” of the universal condemnation
that greeted its action against the pro-de
mocracy campaign.
See Beijing/Page 6
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Photo by Frederick D.Joe
A Texas A&M grounds maintenance crew
works steadily through the hot afternoon
Tuesday to replant the flower bed in front of
the System Administration Building.
Bush administration urges
Americans to leave China
WASHINGTON (AP) As rival
troops squared off in Beijing, the
Bush administration said Tuesday
that China’s senior leaders appeared
to have left the capital and urged the
1,440 Americans in the city to get
out themselves.
“It’s like the place is closed down,”
White House spokesman Marlin
Fitzwater said. “There’s been no
communication from the leadership.
There’s no indication who the lead
ership is.”
At the State Department, spokes
man Margaret Tutwiler called the
situation in Beijing “tense and un
settled.”
She acknowledged there may be
dissension within the Chinese armed
forces and a U.S. intelligence source,
commenting on the grounds of ano
nymity said, “What we’re seeing,
first, is a political struggle, the out
lines of which are very vague. Plus
there is a serious division” within the
Chinese Army leadership.
Fitzwater said the U.S. Embassy
has been in contact only with mid
level Chinese officials but has had
“no contact with the top-level peo
ple, and we’ve tried.
“The assumption is that the top-
level people have moved out to other
locations. We tend to believe it.”
Tutwiler, meanwhile, referring to
the shooting of hundreds of stu
dents demonstrating for democracy,
told reporters:
“We have reason to believe that all
elements of the Army do not sup
port what is taking place. We have
no firm evidence of armed clashes.”
The Chinese capital was threat
ened with civil war as armies loyal to
rival political factions were reported
battling in the city.
The U.S. intelligence source said
his information was that Army units
from Beijing had refused to move
against the students even as Army el
ements from Nanjing carried out
Sunday’s bloody attack.
“We’re hearing all the reports of
shooting between Army units, but
we have not confirmed that our
selves,” the source added.
Secretary of State James A. Baker
III decided to encourage Americans
to leave Beijing after a long tele
phone conversation Monday night
with James Lilley, the U.S. ambassa
dor there.
rder restored in Fergana Valley after ethnic riots
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MOSCOW (AP) — Haggling
\sian bazaar over the price of strawberries
parked a spasm of ethnic violence, arson
cournff attacks and rampages by ax-wielding mobs
in which 50 people were killed, Uzbekis-
Party chief reported
nfere®
er spo tan’s Communist
Tuesdav.
Rafik Nishanov told lawmakers in Mos-
:ow that authorities had re-established “full
:ontrol” in the Fergana Valley 1,500 miles
southeast of Moscow following more than a
veek of bloody clashes between Uzbeks and
nembers of an ethnic Turkish minority,
(he Meskhi. But he indicated the situation
Was still explosive.
J An Interior Ministry spokesman said
|3,0QQ sccvvAty Cvcsops had been sent
to restore order in the Fergana Valley, a na
tional center of grape and Cotton growing.
Some of the 12,000 Meskhi in the area
were evacuated Sunday and Monday to a
military garrison to be housed in barracks
under guard, the Uzbek leader said in na
tionally televised remarks.
The violence between the two Moslem
groups was the latest outbreak of Soviet
ethnic unrest. Its roots could be traced to
the brutal policies of Josef Stalin, who
uprooted the entire population of 300,000
Meskhi from their homeland in Soviet
Georgia in November 1944 and deported
them to the east under pretext of evacua
tion as the Germans approached.
The Meskhi began to demand in 1956
that they be allowed to return to Meskhetia,
their homeland in the Caucasus, and Nisha
nov said they had been pressing their de
mands harder as the country’s new parlia
ment, the Congress of People’s Deputies,
meets in Moscow.
Interior Ministry spokesman. Col. Boris
Mikhailov, told the Tass news agency the
clashes between Uzbeks and the Meskhi
Turks began May 23, when a fight pro
voked by “extremists” in the city of Kuvasai
near the border of Soviet Kirghizia caused
the death of one man and injured 60 oth-
Last Saturday, Mikhailov said, “about
200 hooligans armed with metal rods, sticks
and bottles filled with gasoline set fire to
buildings in the town of Tashlak.”
The violence was spawned by “an insig
nificant, minor conflict” at a market when a
Meskhi Turk rudely spoke to a woman sell
ing fruit whose prices he thought were too
high, then knocked over her plate of straw
berries, Nishanov said.
“Citizens there perceived this as an in
sult, and a fight started,” Nishanov told the
Soviet of Nationalities, one of the houses of
the bicameral Soviet legislature, during its
inaugural session Tuesday.
Tempers enflamed by the marketplace
squabble cooled, but Meskhis later attacked
a group of Uzbeks and killed one of them,
Nishanov said.
Calm was restored, he said. But about a
week later, a large group of Uzbeks ranging
in age from 15 to 22 and “in high spirits as a
result of alcohol or drugs” unexpectedly set
off to attack the homes where the Meskhi
live, he said.
Soviet television reported Monday night
that the dispute in the Fergana Valley
turned into “vicious clashes between thou
sands of furious people.” It said the vio
lence began as an ethnic dispute, but was
fueled by chronic local unemployment.
Nishanov told lawmakers that according
to information available Tuesday, about 50
people had been killed, including 35 or
more Meskhi Turks, 10 Uzbeks, one ethnic
Tadzhik and an ethnic Russian who had
been among those who “restored order.”
Mikhailov told Tass that 200 people sus
pected of organizing and taking part in the
rioting had been detained. A curfew was
imposed in the area, Nishanov said.
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Leaders discuss Afghanistan’s plight
Bush, Bhutto work toward common goal to enhance country’s peace
WASHINGTON (AP) — President Bush on Tues
day told visiting Pakistani Prime Minister Benazir
Bhutto that the United States is willing “to explore any
serious avenue” to achieve a political -solution in Af
ghanistan.
Bhutto in turn said after private talks with the presi
dent that “we are in complete accord” on the situation
in Afghanistan, stalemated since the pullout of the last
Soviet troops in February.
Bush said the withdrawal of the Red Army proved
the effectiveness of U.S-Pakistani support for the Afg
han resistance Fighting the Marxist regime in Kabul.
Pakistan shares a common border with Afghanistan.
“Prime Minister Bhutto and I discussed ways to en
courage a political solution in Afghanistan that will
lead to a non-aligned, representative government will
ing to live in peace with its neighbors, to replace the il
legitimate regime in Kabul,” Bush said. “The United
witli
y thn
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idlir
States and Pakistan will continue to explore any se
rious avenue towards this end.”
U.S. officials had anticipated a rapid demise for the
government of Najibullah after the Soviet pullout, but
it has not happened.
Bhutto said she and Bush “have reviewed the situa
tion in the light of the prevailing circumstances and we
are in complete accord” on what needs to be done.
“Pakistan remains committed to a political solution
of the Afghan problem, whereby the brave people of
Afghanistan will have the right to freely choose their
own government without interference from outside,”
she said.
Bhutto, the daughter of former Prime Minister Ali
Bhutto, said that while the Soviet pullout “has brought
a welcome change in Afghanistan, the continued fight
ing and prolonged presence of more than 3.5 million
Afghan refugees pose serious threats to the peace and
stability of the region.”
Researchers find new AIDS drug safe
MONTREAL (AP) — A decoy
drug designed to hopelessly confuse
the AIDS virus by mimicking its nat
ural target is safe and may lower lev
els of the lethal virus inside the body,
researchers said Tuesday.
Scientists said they were encour
aged by the results, but they cau
tioned that testing is at an early
stage, and no one can be sure how
effective the medicine will be in stop
ping AIDS.
“Nevertheless, this represents an
exciting step forward,” Dr. Ian
Weller of Middlesex School of Medi
cine in England said.
The drug is known as soluble
CD4, and it is one of more than a
dozen currently being used experi
mentally against the AIDS virus.
So far, only one medicine, AZT,
has been approved by the U.S. Food
and Drug Administration for use
against HIV, the AIDS virus. While
it can prolong the lives of people
with AIDS, it does not cure the dis
ease, and it has a variety of toxic side
effects.
“It’s clear that we desperately
need alternative treatments to
AZT,” Dr. Thomas Merigan of Stan
ford University said.
Reports on CD4 and other poten
tial AIDS drugs were presented at
the 5th International Conference on
AIDS, the major annual meeting to
review progress against the epide-
Dr. James Mason, U.S. assistant
secretary for health, said progress in
drug development “is another suc
cess in our war against this terrible
infection.”
Mason also said it is increasingly
important to set up voluntary pro
grams to contact sexual partners of
HIV-infected people so they will
know of their risk of catching the vi-
homeini’s burial ends after mourners snatch, destroy shroud
75f
TEHRAN, Iran (AP) Ayatollah Ruhollah
[Khomeini was buried Tuesday after a day of
tumult in which frenzied mourners snatched
the shroud from their revered leader’s body
and tore it to shreds for holy relics.
Thousands of Revolutionary Guards and
civilians jostled around the grave at the Ba-
heshte Zahra cemetery, raising clouds of dust,
as Khomeini’s body was finally laid to rest at
4:45 p.m.
A television announcer, his voice hoarse
with emotion, chanted “Father, don’t leave
your children! Oh father don’t leave your be
loved!” as the crowd surged toward the grave.
| People wept and beat their heads and chests
with clenched fists in the Shiite Moslem ex-
| pression of bereavement.
Soldiers passed concrete slabs over the sea
of mourners and laid them across the grave, a
shallow pit in a 100-square-yard section of the
vast cemetery where men who died in the Is
lamic revolution and the 8-year war with Iraq
are buried.
A crane lowered a metal freight container
onto the grave to prevent people from grab
bing handfuls of dirt from it and possibly un
earthing the body.
Guns roared a last salute to the 86-year-old
patriarch who toppled a 2,500-year-old mon
archy in 1979 and transformed Iran into a
militant Islamic state. For the moment, at
least, no special marker was put on the grave.
Earlier in the day, mourners blocked the
path of a van carrying the body in an open
coffin from the square where it had lain in
state for 24 hours in an air-conditioned glass
cubicle.
Mourners scrambling for mementos
grabbed the tightly wrapped white shroud in
which Moslems are buried and tore it to
shreds. The body fell to the ground and was
taken to an ambulance.
State television later showed mourners
grabbing at the body and shroud, exposing
the feet, then the broadcast was cut off
abruptly.
“The people love the imam too much,” a
young man at the scene said. “They cannot
bear to see him buried.” He said they wanted
pieces of the shroud “as sacred relics.”
Iranians refer to Khomeini as the imam, or
spiritual leader.
The coffin was transferred to a military he
licopter, but the crowd rushed forward as it
tried to land. As the helicopter flew away with
the coffin protruding from its open door, the
crowd was told the burial had been post
poned.
Three hours later, however, a helicopter
landed the rewrapped body in a metal casket.
Hashemi Rafsanjani, the parliament speaker,
and Khomeini’s son Ahmad accompanied the
body and oversaw the burial.
Ahmad was knocked down in the earlier
melee around the coffin and lost his black
turban. He looked pale and dazed as he was
hoisted above the crowd and passed from
hand to hand to an ambulance.
Women clad in head-to-toe black chadors
rubbed shoulders with men despite the Is
lamic prohibition of physical contact between
a woman and any man other than her hus
band.
Firemen sprayed the crowd with jets of wa
ter from fire hoses.
Most of Tehran’s six million people ap
peared to be in the streets Tuesday, and offi
cial media said millions more came from
other regions to bid Khomeini farewell.
About two million mourners had kept a
night-long vigil around the bier in Mousalam
Mosque, 22 miles north of the cemetery.
Permits to park
available until
Friday, June 9
The last day to purchase and
ick up parking permits is Friday,
une 9.
Students can pay for the per
mits, which are 520, with cash or
credit cards, or have the fee
added to their fee statements.
Summer permits are good un
til the end of summer school in
August, and are available from
8:30 a.m. to 4 p.m. at the ticket
windows at G. Rollie White Col-