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About The Battalion. (College Station, Tex.) 1893-current | View Entire Issue (Feb. 19, 1990)
Texas A&M Battalion Wf ■K/'/yf/, HIGH: 56 WEATHER TOMORROW’S FORECAST: Partly cloudy with a high chance LOW: 44 II 1.89 No.97 USPS 045360 14 Pages College Station, Texas Monday, February 19,1990 ' ivoVr ffvrri PTEfyoM construction begins spite forecasted rains fCHRIS VAUGHN The Battalion Staff The long-awaited $36 million ex- [ision of the Texas A&M Univer ity Center is scheduled to begin to- y, but Mother Nature may hinder jistruction efforts. jjBFW Construction of Temple cted fences last week in prepara- on for the major construction work Jit is scheduled to begin today. But Rh heavy rain Sunday and more |i in the forecast for today, work is aected to be soggy. The fountain area of the Univer- ity Center, Parking Area 60 and the Jt entrances to the MSC will be |sed for the entire construction ect. he bike racks near the main east ranee of the MSC will be relo- ed to the entrances by the MSC |st office and the art gallery. he Automatic Teller Machines Itside the MSC’s main entrance are eduled to be moved inside of the C near the main desk later this ek. IDennis Busch, assistant director I I the University Center, said areas of the MSC will oe closed down dur- imt certain parts of the construction project. The bowling alley, video ar- de and snack bar on the basement Expansion plans for Rudder shelved for financial reasons Several alternate expansion plans in the Rudder Theater Complex were shelved because they were too costly, Steve Hodge, manager of the Univer sity Center, said. A lecture hall, a high-tech meeting room and forum sup port space were planned for the north end of the Rudder Com plex, but, Hodge said, the $4 mil lion price tag would put the en tire project over budget. The Rudder Theater expan sion would have resulted in an addition of 30,700 square feet. Because of the changed expan sion plans, two large oak trees near the Rudder Theater Com plex are out of danger, Hodge said. Many students voiced opposi tion to the expansion, which would have caused several oak trees to be moved or destroyed. Robert Smith, vice president for finance and administration, said the planned parking garage will be completed by July 1991, and the remainder of the expan sion project by November 1991. The project will add more than 200,000 square feet to the Uni versity Center at a cost of $36.7 million. icsday, re- and jaso: ).2 innif Allen k. idav. Al: houtafo icner. Pa with Wr« le Bronc st Noii £ hot dot an/Colle? -0 on m in I pitch tk was stelk >ut 12 ad floor of the MSC are already off-lim its to students. Busch said he isn’t sure how dis turbing the noise will be for students in the MSC, Rudder or nearby build- ings. “We’ll just have to cope with it when it happens,” he said. “It re mains to be seen how much noise there will be.” High five Texas A&M’s Dan Robinson, right fielder, is con gratulated by team members after hitting a grand Photo by Phelan M. Ebenhack slam during the first game of a double header Saturday. See baseball story/Page 9 n onservatives keep lead MSC gets absentee voting site apan’s Liberal Democrats control lower house By BILL HETHCOCK Of The Battalion Staff TOKYO (AP) — Japan’s conservative governing arty surpassed the minimum number of seats required or a majority in Parliament’s powerful lower house, of- cial returns showed Monday. The Liberal Democratic party, in power since 1955, joked as if it may have lost about 30 seats in Sunday’s tram. ia donal election due to scandals and an unpopular tax. ' "flut its seat count reached the bare majority of 257 after ote counting resumed Monday morning, according to eturns on Japan Broadcasting Corp. and Kyodo News service. Financial markets showed little reaction to the victory )f the pro-business Liberal Democrats, which had been iredicted in media polls. The key index on the Tokyo tock Exchange opened a moderate 134.11 points tigher Monday at 37,594.43, and the dollar opened lightly lower at 144.28 yen. A jubilant Prime Minister Toshiki Kaifu declared the esults had “purified” the Liberal Democrats of scandal. But opposition parties said political reforms still were required, and the legislative outlook was difficult since [he opposition controls the less powerful upper house of Parliament. Vote-counting had stopped Sunday night with the Liberal Democrats in a clear lead and heading for a ma- win af^ority. Then on Monday'counting for 81 seats in the To kyo area started, and the governing party quickly sur- r guard aroundt Ham ly in bl( licking ias said t! nytime :an diet i run ‘V. UL :Res , TX 216 ■eali passed the bare majority. At 9:30 a.m., with 460 of the 512 seats declared, the Liberal Democrats had 253; the Socialists, 127; the Ko- meito — or Clean Government Party — 32; the Com munist Party, 14; the Democratic Socialist Party, 12; the United Social Democratic Party, three; and the Progres- fiiQ Oimply being elected does not mean one is absolved. The need for political reform is bigger than ever.” — Tsuruo Yamaguchi, Socialist Secretary General sive Party, one. Independents held 18 seats, and about a dozen of them were conservatives expected to join the Liberal Democrats in the lower house. Within an hour the Liberal Democrats’ total climbed above 257. “Simply being elected does not mean one is ab solved,” Socialist Secretary General Tsuruo Yamaguchi said. “The need for political reform is bigger than ever.” Texas A&M students, faculty and staff and other Brazos County resi dents will have two new locations to vote absentee in the March 13 Dem ocratic and Republican primaries. One of these locations will be on campus at the MSC. Rodger Lewis, chairman of the Brazos County Republican Party, said the absentee polling site at the MSC will be especially important be cause the March 13 primary voting date falls during spring break. “A&M has 17,000 faculty and staff that will benefit from this extra polling place, as well as the stu dents,” Lewis said. “The Bryan and College Station schools also have their spring breaks at the same time as A&M, so that should encourage many more people than ever before to vote absentee in the primary elec tions.” Ron Gay, chairman of the Brazos County Democratic Party from 1983 until January 1990, said he saw po tential problems with having an ab sentee polling site on campus. : qf^-canopiis absentee voting sites Absentee voting begins Station ikhool Tfistrkt admihis- Wedaesteand will last until, fyadonoffk#<m We&l* Avenue in -■ ■ I^'College Station. > On-c&mpus absentee voting in Any registered voter in Brazos on-campus absentee voting will they are registered to vote in an- be in !$S MSC. 1V • other precinet. • • -I .- Theother three county abseri- All four precincts will have a? tee polling sites are the Brazos complete list of registered voters. County ; Courthouse on 26th . sb voters who have moved or:lost Street in Bryan, Ben Milam El- their voter registration cards and “There is a huge parking problem on campus,” Gay said. “People from College Station don’t really feel like the campus voting box is accessible to them. “The party has never been op- e osed to students voting on campus, ut what we’re looking for is bal ance. If you put the box on campus, then you need to balance it out in other areas of the community. There are people in the community and in the rural areas of the county See Vote/Page 13 Mandela’s release sparks student rally By CHRIS VAUGHN Of The Battalion Staff in achReS ax .0 Idee htsr f|§ ilft ill' The release of South African nationalist Nelson Mandela from prison just over one week ago sparked celebrations all over the world, including one at Texas A&M Friday. The Mandela rally, sponsored by Students Against Apartheid and the African Student Associa tion, drew about 70 people to Rudder Fountain to celebrate Mandela’s release from prison in South Africa after 27 years. Zachee Ngoko, a student from Cameroon and president of the African Student Association, told the crowd that apartheid is crum bling. “The people of South Africa and all the other oppressed'peo ple of the world have strong ho pes,” Ngoko said. “With the power of God, things will change.” Ngoko said he sees a time when people are not identified by the color of their skin. “The time will come when you don’t see me as a black,” he said. “You will see me as a brother.” Another African student, Eus tacius Betubiza, read an open let ter he wrote to Mandela. Betubiza, a native of Uganda, congratulated Mandela and told him that A&M wishes him godspeed in his attempt to estab- Ush a democratic government in South Africa. “We want you to know that we are working hard here to erad icate apartheid in South Africa,” Betubiza wrote Mandela. But the words of the African students were optimistic com pared to the speeches by two members of Students Against Apartheid. Photo by Fredrick D. Joe Students gather by Rudder Fountain for a rally celebrating Nelson Mandela’s release. “Why is it, in a land so rich, there are so many poor?” Irwin Tang, a former president of SAA, asked. “Why?” Tang, a sophomore political science major, asked why U.S. corporations invest in South Af rica, why the United States does not put more pressure on South Africa to end apartheid and why a form of protest like the anti apartheid shack is destroyed. “Apartheid. It is hatred,” Tang said. “It’s not a black and white thing. It’s a people thing. It’s not a past or present issue. It’s a now issue. It’s a life and death issue.” Paul Kennedy, an SAA mem ber and a graduate student in so ciology, said that although Nelson Mandela is not behind bars any more, he is not a free man. “Nelson Mandela is not free to vote,” Kennedy said. “He is not free to run for political office. He is not free to choose where he lives. He is not free to send his children to the school of his choice. Nelson Mandela is not a free man.” Kennedy said apartheid is not only South Africa’s problem; it also exists in Israel, Sri Lanka and the United States. He said American Indians, mi grant workers and Americans who live in the nation’s ghettos are all victims of apartheid. “Apartheid is not over,” Ken nedy said. “Only through unity and strength can we change it.” Portions of Mandela’s speech to the crowd in Cape Town last Sunday were read by SAA mem ber Todd Honeycutt. The speeches were preceded by three gospel songs sung by the Voices of Praise. Paper says grant cut affects airport quality HOUSTON (AP) — About a third of the 262 city-owned airports in Texas have deteriorated since the state canceled a modest airport grant program three years ago, a newspa per reported. The dormant grant program was revived this year when the state Leg islature appropriated $1 million, but the amount was so small and the pent-up needs so pressing that the Texas Department of Aviation board spent the entire year’s grant budget at its January meeting, the Houston Chronicle reported. Some state officials say there is a simple solution for the struggling airports of Texas — an aviation fuel tax. The tax would generate enough funding to maintain the smaller air ports properly, expand them where needed and also provide additional revenue for public education. But they say the user tax has little chance against a powerful airline lobby led oy Dallas-based Southwest Airlines. “We’re about to lose a bunch of our small airports, which are a great economic development asset for Texas,” State Sen. Carl Parker, D- Port Arthur said. “We’re the only state in the union that doesn’t tax aviation fuel.” Parker said some of the publicly owned airports can no longer oper ate at night because of deficient lighting and are losing business be cause of runways in disrepair. Parker and other legislators and state officials say the airlines —which pay aviation fuel taxes in other states — have successfully buried the tax proposal in the last two legislative sessions. “You’ve got a very charismatic fel low running Southwest Airlines, and he’s hired some nice fellows to lobby who’ve done a good job,” Parker said, referring to Southwest Chair man Herb Kelleher. “That’s a prime example of how special interests dominate the Legislature. “As a result, an elderly couple driving across Texas and poor peo- As a result, an elderly ' couple driving across Texas and poor people riding the bus are paying a fuel tax, but rich folks drinking whiskey and riding first-class in an airplane are not paying a penny’s worth.” — Carl Parker, state senator pie riding the bus are paying a fuel tax, but rich folks drinking whiskey and riding first-class in an airplane are not paying a penny’s worth,” he said. Kelleher has been touting a re cently released economic study he commissioned as chairman of the Partnership for Improved Air Travel, a national organization formed to influence aviation poli cies. The study, completed last year, estimates that commercial and gen eral aviation and aircraft manufac turing activities generate $39 billion annually in economic activities in Texas.