The Battalion
WORLD & NATION
g
Monday, December 4,1989
Bush, Gorbachev end summit
Both look forward to signing arms agreements in ’90
MARSAXLOKK BAY, Malta (AP) — Presi
dent Bush and Soviet Leader Mikhail S. Gorba
chev wrapped up two days of superpower sum
mitry on Sunday, claiming strides toward a new
era of East-West peace but underscoring differ
ences that linger at the end of a 45-year Cold
War.
Both men said they would meet again next
year in the United States, and expressed the
hope — but not the certainty — they would be
able to sign historic agreements in 1990 to cut
long-range nuclear weapons and conventional
forces in Europe and make progress toward a
chemical weapons ban.
“We stated, both of us, that the world leaves
one epoch of Cold War and enters another
epoch,” Gorbachev said at an unprecedented
joint news conference that marked the end of
two days of storm-tossed talks held aboard a So
viet luxury liner. “We are just at the very begin
ning of our long road to a long-lasting peaceful
period.”
After his first summit as president, Bush said,
“I am optimistic that as the West works
together and increasingly cooperates with the So
viet Union, we can realize a lasting peace and
transform the East-West relationship into one of
enduring cooperation.”
Even so, neither man sought to gloss over dif
ferences on two topics, the Soviets’ call for cuts in
naval forces and American anger at the contin
ued flow of Soviet weapons to leftist rebels in El
Salvador.
Gorbachev departed Malta for Moscow, where
he was convening a meeting of virtually an en
tirely new lineup of Warsaw Pact leaders to dis
cuss the summit.
Bush went immediately to Belgium to meet
with NATO leaders on Monday. Arriving in
Brussels, he noted the “thunderous events” tak
ing place in the Eastern bloc, and said, “Tonight
we stand at the crossroads of history on a way to
Europe, whole and free . . . And that simple truth
brought Mikhail Gorbachev and me together in a
windswept harbor off Malta.”
Windsw'ept it was. Bush and Secretary of State
James Baker, who spent the night aboard ship in
the harbor, sported penny-size patches behind
their ears to guard against seasickness.
The joint news conference in Malta was held
aboard the Soviet luxury liner Maxim Gorky,
which was pressed into service as the site for the
two days of talks after bad weather forced
cancellation of plans to use U.S. and Soviet
warships anchored offshore. An afternoon ses
sion and a dinner on Saturday were cancelled be
cause of the rough weather.
The two superpower leaders met for eight
hours over two days at a time of extraordinary
change in Eastern Europe. The upheaval w’as
dramatized in the summit’s final hours by the
resignation of the East German leadership and
the formation of a new government in Czecho
slovakia that opposition leaders immediately de
nounced as too much like the old one.
Gorbachev said he was “encouraged and
inspired” by the changes in Eastern Europe.
Elections
in Mexico
peaceful
MEXICO CITY (AP) — Voters
in the states of Guerrero and
Michoacan went to the polls Sun
day to elect local officials in a
tense climate marked by charges
of fraud in previous elections.
Members of opposition parties
said their networks of poll-watch
ers would guard against irregula
rities in either state, but some of
ficials were worried about
violence erupting in Michoacan
as it did in July.
Voting began peacefully at 8
a.m. in both states under cool,
rainy skies. Six parties were on
the ballots in both states.
Coastal Guerrero, where the
resort of Acapulco is located,
elected 75 mayors and 36 state
legislators.
The western State of Michoa
can, which was disrupted by pro
tests after July’^srate legislature
balloting, elected 113 mayors. Af
ter accusing the government and
ruling Institutional Revolution
ary Party of cheating, leftists skir
mished with PRI loyalists and
took over some city halls in Mich
oacan.
In Michoacan, voters placed
their ballots into transparent
boxes Sunday. Such boxes were
being used because ballot-stuf
fing has been a frequent occur
rence in Mexican elections.
Election officials said turnout
appeared to be light Sunday. In
July’s disputed voting, 70 percent
of the state’s 1.6 million voters
abstained. In Guerrero, 1.3 mil
lion people were registered to
vote.
In the northwestern state of Si
naloa, there were still problems
after Nov. 5 local elections. Angry
protesters from the conservative
National Action Party are accused
of burning down the city hall in
the state capital of Culiacan after
accusing PRI of irregularities.
National Action is traditionally
strong in northern states.
The attorney general’s office in
Sinaloa has identified 14 National
Action activists, saying they par
ticipated in the city hall burning,
and four of them have been ar
rested, news reports said Sunday.
In the northeastern state of
Tamaulipas, the state election
commission on Sunday declared
candidates from the center-left
Authentic Party of the Mexican
Revolution the winners in may-
oral contests in the border cities
ofReynosaand Matamoros.
Aquino vows to crush rebels
after sixth coup attempt fails
MANILA, Philippines (AP) —
Government forces battled rebel
holdouts Sunday after driving off an
assault on military headquarters by
mutineers seeking to oust President
Corazon Aquino. More than 600 re
bels surrendered.
Defense Secretary Fidel Ramos
said the government had crushed
the attempted coup. Aquino ruled
out a cease-fire and vowed: “What
they started, we will finish.”
Junior and middle-grade officers
in several provincial commands de
clared their support for the rebel
lion, which began Friday. About 400
rebels maintained control of Mactan
Air Base in Cebu, 350 miles south of
Manila.
Aquino, facing her sixth coup at
tempt since coming to power four
years ago, rejected suggestions by
Cabinet members that sne declare a
“state of siege,” according to assis
tant Press Secretary Lourdes Sy-
tangco. That would be tantamount
to martial law.
At least 56 people have been
killed and more than 500 wounded
since Friday, according to hospital
and Red Cross figures.
More than 10,000 people fled
their homes to escape the fighting
“W,
hat they started, we
will finish.”
— Corazon Aquino,
Philippine president
and were housed in schools,
churches and other refugee centers.
Many shops were closed, and gar
bage piled high in the streets.
Schools were closed indefinitely,
but officials planned to reopen the
international airport Monday.
Pro-government forces contained
hundreds of rebels in an 11-building
area in the financial district of Ma
kati, where numerous foreign em-
Czech leaders announce new Cabinet
includes first non-Communists in years
PRAGUE, Czechoslovakia (AP) — Communist lead
ers named a new government Sunday that includes
non-Communists for the first time in 21 years, but it
was immediately denounced because of the large num
ber of holdovers from the last Cabinet.
Opposition leaders called for a renewal of mass street
protests, and hundreds of people gathered on Prague’s
Wenceslas Square in the night and urged people to
show up for a rally Monday, chanting “Everybody here
tomorrow!”
The new government includes five non-Communists,
but the other 16 members are Communists, and 13
served on the previous Cabinet. It failed to meet oppo
sition demands for a non-Communist interior minister,
who is in charge of police, and a civilian defense min
ister.
President Gustav Husak swore in the Cabinet and in
dicated he may be ready to step down, as the opposition
has demanded. Husak was one of the leaders installed
after the crushing of reforms in 1968, and he is the last
still in power.
One of the government’s first acts was to propose
talks with Moscow on the future of the 80,000 Soviet
troops in Czechoslovakia since the Warsaw Pact inva
sion that crushed the reforms 21 years ago.
Soviet President Mikhail S. Gorbachev, the architect
of the reforms sweeping Eastern Europe, recently crit
icized the invasion.
The Cabinet holdovers include Foreign Minister Ja-
romir Hohanes, criticized for defending past harsh
stands on human rights, and Antonin Krumnikl, whose
energy policies have been blamed for serious pollution
Report says nuclear lab lacks security
WASHINGTON (AP) — A secret
inspection of a federal nuclear weap
ons laboratory in California found
serious security lapses last spring, in
cluding poor protection of large
amounts of plutonium, according to
a congressional report released Sun
day.
The report also said the Energy
Department from 1982 through
1988 misled the president, in its an
nual reports to the White House,
about the adequacy of measures
taken to protect weapons-grade nu
clear materials from potential theft
or sabotage.
The report included a declassified
transcript of a closed hearing in July
in which several senior Energy De
partment officials testified on secu
rity and safeguards weaknesses in
the nuclear weapons production and
design complex.
The hearing was held by the
House Energy and Commerce sub
committee on oversight and investi
gations.
Portions of the subcommittee’s
hearing transcript and department
documents were deleted by the de
partment.
The subcommittee is continuing
to investigate the department’s nu
clear weapons facilities, which in re
cent months have been wracked by
allegations of health, safety and en
vironmental violations. Some key
plants have been closed temporarily.
Businesses drop employee pension plans
after federal rules raise costs of benefits
WASHINGTON (AP) — Hundreds of small
businesses across the country are ditching their
employee pension plans, saying federal rules
make the benefit programs too costly and com
plex to maintain.
Employers claim congressional tinkering with
a 1974 pension law has dramatically increased
the paperwork, accountants and administrative
personnel needed to comply with the law.
“It’s impossible,” said Ronald Turner, a third
generation lumber company owner in Clarks
burg, W.Va. “We’re going to drop the plan.”
Alvin D. Lurie, a former assistant commis
sioner for the Internal Revenue Service, says
Turner is typical of small business owners who
tried but failed to keep current with the ever-
changing provisions of the 1974 Employee Re
tirement Income Security Act.
“It has become much, much too complicated,”
said Lurie, now chairman of the New' York Bar
Association’s Special Committee on Pension Sim
plification. “It’s frightful. People can’t afford it,
don’t understand it.”
A San Antonio attorney who handles the pen
sion plans for several hundred small businesses
said he is advising his clients to drop them. A
Santa Ana, Calif., plan administrator said about
30 percent of the small businesses she w'orks with
are terminating their programs.
But some say the business owners are simply
using regulations as an excuse.
“I don’t think it’s that clear cut that the (con
gressional) revisions have led small businesses to
drop their plans,” a Senate Labor Committee
aide said, asking that she not be further identi
fied. “I’m skeptical because they can go into sim
plified plans.”
Many of the employers bailing out of the fed
erally insured pension plans are setting up
profit-sharing or other programs seen as less
beneficial to employees because they usually re
quire the workers to put up some of the money.
The pension law, known as ERISA, was en
acted by Congress to protect the 76 million
American workers with pension plans and their
$2 trillion in pension assets. Always complex, the
law saw a series of amendments over the years
that proved, in some cases, expensive or frustrat
ing for employers.
The Labor Department’s inspector general’s
office, cautioning that the pension system is open
to fraud and embezzlement, wants Congress to
enact additional laws to prevent possible abuses.
“I think the people writing the laws are trying
to be fair and equitable, but they don’t under
stand what the costs mean,” said Paula Calam-
afde, a tax lawyer and head of the Small Business
Council of America.
Turner, who plans to give his employees the
cash due to them from the pension fund, said he
always tried to keep up with the laws.
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bassies are and where many foreign
diplomats and businessmen live, mil
itary Chief of Staff Gen. Renato de
Villa, said.
Government troops blocked off
avenues leading to Makati. Rebels
fired volleys of machine-gun fire
from skyscrapers and snipers shot at
vehicles. Among the builaings rebels
occupied was the Intercontinental
Hotel.
Loyal troops responded with re
coilless rifles and heavy machine
guns, causing widespread damage.
Radio station DZRH broadcast an
appeal for ambulances, saying many
civilians lay wounded along Makati’s
Pasay Road.
A spokesman for the U.S.-run
Clark Air Base said there were no
American warplanes in the skies
over Manila on Sunday. U.S. jets be
gan flying cover for government
troops Friday, at Aquino’s request.
But American officials said the
planes ended those flights at 6 a.m.
Saturday.
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