Anti-apartheid party gains seats
n S. African Parliament elections
JOHANNESBURG, South Africa (AP) — The
loverning party headed toward its worst election
etback in 41 years of power Wednesday, losing
nany seats to a surprisingly strong anti-apart
heid party and others to the far right.
Police with whips, tear gas and shotguns dis-
bersed blacks protesting their exclusion from the
lalloting. They broke up stone-throwing crowds
pi more than 20 black, Indian and mixed-race
townships.
I Anti-apartheid leaders, who called a general
§trike, said 3 million people stayed away from
sbs and classes, shutting many factories and
Ichools in “the biggest-ever mass action” against
Ihe government.
Police said more than 50 people were arrested,
bd there were unofficial reports of numerous
injuries.
Ailed Chinese
itudent continues
leform movement
NEWTON, Mass. (AP) — Wu’er
aixi was among China’s best, a
remising student at Beijing Normal
Jniversity when the June events at
lananinen Square thrust him into
Ihe forefront and then into a flight
for his life.
I Wu’er, 21, is now at Harvard Uni-
Jersity, where he will try to keep the
leform movement alive. He knows
he may have started a life of perma-
ent exile, but he told the Associated
ress on Wednesday that the horror
f watching his friends massacred
dll keep him going.
Any question about his future was
ashed away when he arrived at the
outh China Sea as his escape with
is girlfriend drew to an end in
| une -
“The first step I took was into the
ea, and I knew that I wouldn’t go
ack,” he said. “I didn’t feel any-
hing because it was just after the
nassacre and my feejjjngs were al-
eady frozen.”
The China Information Center
here has become his home. It is
hrough this hub’s telephones, fax
aachines and computers that he
mrks to effect change in his native
land.
I It’s a lot harder mission than
pringtime, when events in Beijing
iveted the world, and millions saw
Ai’er’s drawn face as he stood up to
femier Li Peng and demanded a
ialogue.
Then came the quiet morning af-
er troops stormed the square on
[une 3, killing hundreds, maybe
housands, of dissidents. Wu’er
bund himself in an ambulance,
bleeding internally as a result of his
hunger strike. He was flanked by
two dead friends and a wounded sol
dier.
“If you experience that kind of
massacre, it changes your life,”
Wu’er said. “Whenever I think of my
friends who w'ere murdered in Tia
nanmen Square, I feel the obliga
tion.”
So did others, as he discovered
during the next 10 days, when he
fled the hospital with the help of
friends and searched for a safe route
out of China.
In the city and in the country, the
people protected me,” he said. “E-
ven people who I didn’t know kept
quiet and showed support.”
With results in from 85 of 166 white districts,
the Conservative Party picked up 1 1 seats and
the anti-apartheid Democratic Party ten seats
from the governing National Party.
Television projections predicted the National
Party would lose 30 of its 123 seats, with the Con
servatives strengthening from 22 to 40 seats and
Democrats going from 22 to 33 seats.
If the projections hold, the National Party
would retain a majority in Parliament but suffer
its worst defeat since coming to power in 1948.
Independent commentators said it would be the
first time since then that the National Party
would fail to get a majority of the popular vote.
Foreign Minister Pik Botha and Defense Min
ister Magnus Malan were re-elected by margins
sharply lower than in the white election of 1987.
The Conservatives, who favor stricter racial seg
regation, won their first-ever seats in Pretoria,
the capital, and in Cape Province and the Orange
Free State.
The election was widely viewed as among the
most important in history for the whites who con
trol South Africa. It gave white voters the choice
of stating that they want to strengthen apartheid,
eliminate it or take a middle course.
The amount of support for the other parties
was expected to influence the National Party in
deciding whether to speed up or slow down its
program of limited political reform.
Voting stations around the country were heav
ily guarded.
Victim of robbery dies;
crime changed to murder
Dorothy McNew, the victim in
Tuesday’s armed robbery of
Texas Coin Exchange, was pro
nounced dead Wednesday at 10
a.m. in Humana Hospital.
McNew was in surgery for 3
hours on Tuesday, hospital offi
cials said, but doctors were unable
to remove the bullet from her
head. She was listed in “extremely
critical” condition throughout the
night and died from the wound
the next morning.
According to a news release
from the College Station Police
Department, McNew’s death up
grades the offense to capital mur
der.
Police conducted an extensive
search of the area surrounding
Texas Coin Exchange Tuesday
and continued Wednesday
searching for the two suspects. A
large number of phone calls were
received from people who
thought they recognized the men
from police composite sketches,
but as of Wednesday night the
suspects were still at large.
The two men entered Texas
Coin Exchange at 404 University
Drive Tuesday shortly after 10
a.m. One of them fired a single
shot with an automatic weapon
and hit the 42-year-old McNew, a
store employee, in the back of the
head. The men stole an undeter
mined amount of jewelry and
fled around the east corner of the
store on foot.
Playing dirty
Photo by Jay Janner
LULAC official
starts to dissolve
civic foundation
SAN ANTONIO (AP) — After ten former national
residents refused to quit the LULAC Foundation
oard, the current president of the Hispanic rights
group took steps toward dissolving the foundation.
The president of the League of United Latin Ameri
can Citizens, Jose Garcia de Lara, Tuesday told the In
ternal Revenue Service the foundation was no longer a
LULAC agency and not entitled to non-profit status.
LULAC Foundation board members said they will
not resign and urged members of LULAC to rescind de
Lara’s actions.
“We will not resign and we shall not retreat,” the
board’s statement said. “Our many years of devoted
service to LULAC are being besmirched by these outra
geous, reprehensible and unscrupulous actions by ca
pricious and malicious individuals who have taken over
the highest offices of LULAC.”
De Lara called for the resignations after an investiga
tion reportedly discovered foundation funds had been
misspent.
Made up of ten former LULAC national presidents,
the foundation board raises money from corporations
to fund health and educational programs in Hispanic
communities in the United States.
De Lara already has started establishing a new foun
dation to accept corporate contributions for education,
job and civil rights programs for the 140,000-member
group.
Chairman Eduardo Morga, chairman of the founda
tion board, said he would like to see a U.S. Department
of Justice mediator oversee the controversy.
“We would hope the people who have been libeled
and charged will be given an impartial setting to answer
the charges,” Morga said.
De Lara dismissed the suggestion.
“There is nothing to mediate,” de Lara said. “They
don’t have a case.”
The former LULAC presidents said in their
statement they will give de Lara ten days to:
• Apologize for tne charges he made.
• Set an emergency meeting of the LULAC National
Assembly to address the issue.
Emily Smith, a junior community health major from Marshall, prepares to hike the football Wednesday during a muddy
match between residents of Moses, Moore and Davis Gary Halls. Jeff Folkert and Nick Taylor guard the line.
Parking violators can’t hide from computer tickets
By Cindy McMillian
Of The Battalion Staff
New computerized ticket writing machines
are a big hit with Texas A&M’s Department
of Parking, Transit and Traffic Services, but
probably won’t be as well received by students
who fail to pay parking tickets.
Officers will issue tickets with the new ma
chines by entering permit and license infor
mation, the type of offense and the make and
color of the vehicle on a touch-sensitive
screen. The machine will print a ticket that
looks like a cash register receipt, and officers
will place the tickets in weather-proof enve
lopes and leave them on car windsnields.
Pamela Horner, Administrative Assistant
at Parking, Transit and Traffic, said the ma
chines will make ticket-writing more effective.
The bad news for delinquent ticket-holders,
however, is that the machines have immediate
access to a 37-page “tow list.”
Officers can find out if a car is on the de
partment’s “tow list” in a matter of seconds by
entering license or permit numbers on the
ticket-writer’s screen. The list includes all ve
hicles and permits with three or more over
due parking tickets.
All vehicles on this list may be towed from
campus at any time whether or not they are
parked illegally, Horner said. After officers
patrol an area and ticket illegally parked vehi
cles, she said, they may also check to see if le
gally parked vehicles are on the tow list.
track of vehicles parked in 30-minute zones.
Officers can enter vehicle information into a
list and check the list later to see which ones
have been parked more than 30 minutes.
Entry of ticket data into the department’s
computers will be much easier with the new
system, Horner said. Instead of having a
worker type in handwritten ticket data at the
The machines also allow officers to keep See Tickets/Page 10
New A&M athletic academic director
plans to make education top priority
By Andrea Warrenburg
Of The Battalion Staff
The Texas A&M Athletic Department has a new ath
letic academic director — and his methods are not
going to be as mild as athletes may remember from past
years.
Dr. Karl P. Mooney will oversee the academic needs
of all A&M student athletes and ensure that academics
are a top priority for athletes.
“We alt recognize that A&M has a good athletic pro
gram, but we need to be able to speak proudly of what
the athletes accomplish academically as well,” Mooney
said.
Mooney came to A&M from a six-year tenure at Ari
zona State University, where he was an academic coor
dinator. He holds a doctorate in reading education for
adults from Lehigh University in Bethlehem, Penn.
Mooney will monitor the academics of the approxi
mately 550 athletes, both male and female. In the past,
there were separate advisers for men and women ath
letes.
To help athletes achieve off the field as well as on,
Mooney is taking what he calls a pro-active stance. He
said he will work closely with their professors, parents
and coaching staffs to make sure tney know the pro
gress of their athletes.
“At past schools, the head coaches never called me,”
he said. “But Coach Slocum wants to know what’s going
on (with the football team) and he understands where
we need to be (academically).”
Mooney said he wants the athletes to be more in
volved in their academic decisions and to pursue a field
interesting to them. The freshmen athletes were re
quired to see an adviser this year before registering and
had to stand in lines with the rest of the freshmen,
something unheard of last year.
“We want them to pursue a degree and not just eligi
bility,” Mooney said.
Class attendance also will be closely monitored this
year. Mooney said that on his way to appointments he
periodically goes to classrooms to make sure athletes
are in class.
“And on my way back, I check again to make sure
they stayed there,” ne said.
Mooney said he also tries to convince athletes not to
believe the “all brawn, no brains” stereotype.
“Some of them use the stereotype to fall back on,” he
said. “But I’ve seen the playbooks — they’re baffling.
And I’ve seen them in situations where they had to
think and react quickly. If they can do that, they can
succeed in the classroom.”
Mooney said he wants athletes to recognize the long
term value of education.
“Consider the average life of a professional athlete —
it’s so short,” Mooney said. “There’s more to life than a
fleeting moment in the light as an athlete.”