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The Battalion
Vol.89 No.103 USPS 045360 10 Pages College Station, Texas
WEATHER
TOMORROW’S FORECAST:
Mostly cloudy with a chance of
showers
HIGH: 65 LOW: 45
Tuesday, February 27,1990
Red Army leaves Czechoslovakia
FRENSTAT, Czechoslovakia (AP) — A brass
band struck up the “Internationale” on Monday
as the Red Army began leaving Czechoslovakia
22 years after it arrived to crush a reform
movement.
Karel Micek of the Civic Forum said the pres
ence of Soviet troops had meant “empty shelves
in stores, polluted water, an occasional fight in
the pub and a reminder that we are not a free
country.
“Their main problem was that they were
here,” said Micek, whose group played a central
role in the peaceful revolution that ousted the
Communist Party from exclusive power in No
vember.
Over 20 Soviet T-62 tanks loaded on flatcars
left the northern town of Frenstat, beginning a
negotiated, three-stage pullout of the 73,500 So
viet military personnel, scheduled for completion
next year.
A second train, laden with 33 armored vehi
cles, left a few hours later from the Domasov nad
Bystrici station near a Red Army base at Libava
in eastern Czechoslovakia.
It is the first time the Kremlin has removed its
soldiers from the territory of a Warsaw Pact ally.
Hungary is near agreement with the Soviets on
a similar accord, but no deals have been struck
with Poland and East Germany, the other Soviet
allies in Europe that are hosts to Red Army
troops.
Soviet soldiers remained in Czechoslovakia af
ter a Warsaw Pact invasion crushed the reformist
“Prague Spring” of 1968. They entered Hungary
in 1956 to put down an anti-Stalinist uprising.
Before the withdrawal began, the Soviet
Union had 1,220 tanks, 2,505 armored vehicles,
77 combat aircraft and 146 helicopters in
Czechoslovakia, in addition to the 73,500 sol
diers.
Soon after the first train rolled toward the bor
der, the official news agency CTK reported that
Soviet-Czechoslovak military maneuvers would
be held next month.
Sbisa luncheon provides
chance to voice concerns
Texas A&M students will have
an opportunity to voice their con
cerns about A&M undergraduate
education during lunchtime
Wednesday.
Members of the A&M Commit
tee on Academic Campuses Advi
sory Panel on Undergraduate Ed
ucation will be at Sbisa Dining
Hall from noon to 1 p.m. to an
swer student questions and iden
tify issues and concerns about un
dergraduate programs at A&M.
Vicki Running, secretary of the
Board of Regents, said eight ta
bles consisting of three people
from the Board of Regents or the
advisory council will be set up in
Sbisa for talks with students hav
ing lunch.
The committee is madp up of
student leaders, faculty members,
members of the Board of Re
gents, former students and the
president of the Federation of
A&M Mothers’ Clubs.
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6
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Nicaraguan
leader admits
loss of power
Ortega concedes
to voters’ verdict
MANAGUA, Nicaragua (AP) —
President Daniel Ortega assured the
world Monday the Sandinistas will
accept the voters’ verdict and sur
render power after more than a de
cade to an opposition alliance
formed only six months ago.
“We leave victorious because the
Sandinistas have sacrificed, spilled
blood and sweat, not to cling to gov
ernment posts, but to bring Nicara
gua something denied since 1821,”
he said in a dramatic dawn speech
broadcast nationwide.
Ortega spoke hours after it was
clear the electoral tide was against
him and Violeta Barrios de Cha
morro, publisher of the opposition
newspaper La Prensa, would be the
next president of this battle-scarred
nation, which has in the past decade
become one of the poorest in the
Western Hemisphere.
“People wanted a change,” she
said as she headed for a victory cele
bration at her campaign headquar
ters.
With 82 percent of the precincts
counted, Chamorro had 633,357
votes, or 55.2 percent, to 468,040, or
40.8 percent for Ortega, the Su
preme Electoral Council said. The
coalition also won a majority in the
National Assembly.
Chamorro is to take office April
25 and the transition could be diffi
cult, given the bad blood between
winners and losers.
“It’s going to be a bit harder than
the normal transition,” said Alfredo
Cesar, one of Chamorro’s closest ad
visers and a former leader of the
Contra rebels. “That means the two
sides ... will sit down and make sure
the transition is accomplished in a
peaceful manner.”
There was elation at the White
House. “In this year of political
change, democracy won another vic
tory,” President Bush said in a
statement, and officials said lifting
the U.S. economic embargo was un
der discussion.
Under the Sandinistas, Nicaragua
became a self-proclaimed revolu
tionary state and adopted portions
of Marxist and Leninist ideology to
remake its economic and social
structures. It won strong support
from the Soviet Union and Cuba,
and was accused by the United States
of trying to instigate a Communist
revolution in neighboring El Salva
dor.
The Sandinista loss to the United
National Opposition,which favors
Western-style representative gov
ernment, followed by months the
movement toward democracy in sev
eral Soviet-aligned nations of East
Europe and democratization in the
Soviet U nion itself.
Both Ortega and Chamorro pre
sented themselves as candidates of
national reconciliation and economic
recovery, Ortega because he be
lieved the United States would rec
ognize his victory and Chamorro be
cause she had Washington’s support.
She promised economic recovery
to a nation that suffered from a de
cade of war, a U.S. economic em
bargo and poor management.
Ortega and the Sandinistas
mounted a carefully orchestrated
campaign that ended with a rally at
tended by an estimated 300,000 peo
ple. The man who marched into Ma
nagua as a victorious young
revolutionary in July 1979 had not
expected to lose, and the first hours
of the stunning upset were tense.
Former President Jimmy Carter
was among thousands of interna
tional election observers who mon
itored the voting.
Defense Minister Humberto Or
tega, the president’s brother, and In
terior Minister Tomas Borge, who
controls the police, had suggested
they might not give an opposition
government control of those forces.
Daniel Ortega said he spoke for
his party and government, however,
in promising to honor the results of
Sunday’s election.
Fenced out
Texas A&M tennis fans peek through the fence to watch a match Smith Tennis Center. The Aggie men’s team beat the Indians 5-4.
in Monday’s tournament against Northeast Louisiana at Omar See tennis story/Page 7
Ross Volunteers march in Mardi Gras parade
By DAPHNE MILLER
Of The Battalion Staff
Texas A&M tradition and excellence are part
of New Orleans’ Mardi Gras today as the Ross
Volunteers march in the King Rex Krewe Pa
rade.
Dressed in crisp white uniforms with shining
swords and boots, the Ross Volunteers began the
seven-mile march at 10 a.m.
Capt. Mark Johnson, adviser of the group,
said the Ross Volunteers will serve as King Rex’s
honor guard on this Fat Tuesday.
“Attending Mardi Gras is the second unofficial
duty of the Ross Volunteers,” Johnson said. “The
first is to escort the governor of Texas.”
This is the 39th time in the past 40 years the
RVs have participated in the parade. Icy weather
prevented the group from participating last year.
More than 100 Ross Volunteers and their ad
visers departed from A&M by bus at 5:30 a.m.
Sunday. The group is staying on the USS Guam,
anchored on the Mississippi River.
The RVs experienced the Mardi Gras festivi
ties Sunday night during free time, and the New
Orleans A&M Club hosted the group for a Cajun
and seafood dinner' Monday night. After Tues
day’s parade the group will drive back to College
Station.
Johnson said the trip is paid for by A&M funds
and an honorarium from King Rex Krewe, orga
nizer of the parade.
The Ross Volunteers have been practicing for
the parade since the beginning of the school
year, starting with the Bryan-College Station
Christmas Parade and the “Go Texan” Parade in
Conroe earlier this month, Johnson said.
Photo by Phelan M. Ebenhack
Speaker says
anyone can
affect history
By JILL BUTLER
Of The Battalion Staff
The international events of the
past year should inspire all peo
ple that anyone can have enor
mous effects on history, said the
executive director of the White
House Initiative on Black Col
leges and Universities.
Robert K. Goodwin, former
deputy chancellor for external af
fairs at Texas A&M, was the guest
speaker at the Conference on
Student Government Associa
tions luncheon Monday.
“The gravest danger to our
democratic way of life and our
economic system is the thought
that each of us can’t make a dif
ference," Goodwin said.
“We are at a critical juncture in
our civilization’s history,” he said.
“On the one hand, unimaginable
opportunity and on the other,
unspeakable hazards. They inter
sect in such a way that you and I
can make a difference.”
He said history is full of exam
ples of ordinary men and women,
who through extraordinary ac
tions, changed the world.
Goodwin cited as examples Dr.
Martin Luther King jr., the
Chinese students in T ienanmen
Square and Germans who broke
down the Berlin Wall.
“Leadership is a case of follow
ing tried and true principles, fol
lowing a path cleared by others,”
Goodwin said.
He said to improve leadership
skills, people should look to ex
amples set by others.
“By objectively reviewing those
human attributes you relate to
and gravitate toward and want to
emulate, you can paint a faint pic
ture of an option for your life —
something you can aspire to and
shoot for,” Goodwin said.
Robert K. Goodwin
Setting goals is imperative to
reaching a level of excellence,
Goodwin said. He said deciding
where you want to go by setting
goals is half the journey of getting
there.
"Leadership is first and fore
most about choices,” Goodwin
said.
He said people must choose va
lues, goals and priorities.
“We can scale the mountains of
selfless giving, or we can trudge
in the valley of self-centeredness
and narrowness,” he said.
Goodwin reflected on the dif
ferences between successful and
unsuccessful people.
“f believe the difference be
tween life’s winners and losers is
the daring to believe something
inside us ts greater than circum
stance,” he said.
“Life is not something that
happens to us,” he said. “Life is
something we can control.”
Leaders discuss
student apathy
By JULIE MYERS
Of The Battalion Staff
In one of 20 roundtable dis
cussions, student government
leaders helped a peer from The '
University of Texas at Pan Amer
ican evaluate the apathetic stu
dent body and overcome what he
described as a dictatorial adminis
tration.
Students from 84 universities
around the world participated in
the discussions in the Memorial
Student Center Monday that are
aimed at increasing the effective-
part of the 10th Annual Confer
ence on Student Government As- '
sociations, gave student leaders a
chance to share ideas, experi
ences and areas of strength.
Andrew Robinson, a UTPA
student government member,
said the school has an apathy .
problem.
Eight students out of 12,000
voted in student body president
elections last year, Robinson said.
The apathetic attitude is com
pounded by an uncooperative ad
ministration. Robinson said uni
versity officials are cooperative
only if it is agreeable to them.
“We are the student’s voice to
the administration,” Robinson
said. “But it’s frustrating because
students tell you their problems
and you can’t do a thing about it.”
Robinson said the UTPA presi
dent can change anything at will
and that student government
could not override any veto, even
if every student at UTPA wanted
a change.
Brad Motni, a student govern
ment leader from Kean College
in New Jersey, said the key to ef
fective student government is to
know the administation one-on-
one.
“If they don’t know the student
organizations,” Momi said, “they
won’t care. ”
Commission
rejects control
of liquor sale
‘Happy hours’ ban
protects businesses
AUSTIN (AP) — The Texas Al
coholic Beverage Commission unan
imously rejected strict rules on the li
quor industry Monday that were
aimed at reducing alcohol abuse, es
pecially among minors.
Alcoholic Beverage Commission
member R. Allan Shivers Jr. of Aus
tin said he sympathized with the
thrust of the 15 proposed rules, in
cluding a ban on “happy hours,” but
said they would infringe on the
rights of businesses.
Shivers said banning happy hours
— periods when establishments of
fer drinks at reduced prices —would
be similar to banning “white sales at
department stores in the Christmas
season.”
The measures were pushed by
Texans for Responsible Alcohol
Consumption, a coalition of groups
v^ur goal is to
safeguard the public from
dangerous or abusive
practices without causing
harm to the honest
businessman.”
— W.S. McBeath,
TABC administrator
including Mothers Against Drunk
Driving, Texans’ War on Drugs and
the Texas Parent Teacher Associa
tion.
The coalition said it would con
tinue to fight for stricter regulations.
In addition to the happy hour
ban, the coalition wanted bar em
ployees to count patrons’ drinks and
prohibit unescorted minors from en
tering bars.
Shivers said the Legislature would
have to change state laws in order to
implement the coalition’s recom
mendations.
“The Legislature has said that mi
nors can be in places that serve alco
hol,” he said. “The Legislature has
clearly said that people who are 18
years old may work in places that sell
alcohol. The Alcoholic Beverage
Commission cannot thwart the will
of the Legislature.”
Shivers and commission member
Morris Atlas of McAllen also dis
counted criticism that the alcoholic
beverage agency was doing the bid
ding of the powerful liquor industry.
“I don’t think anybody on this
commission is going to be intim
idated by anyone,” Atlas said.
Jim Crouch, executive director of
the Texas PTA, said, “The TABC
has been so long involved with the
industry without much outside input
that this has been a new environ
ment for them.
“We have given them a third el
ement to this relationship,” he said.
W.S. McBeath, agency adminis
trator, said the commission staff
would continue investigating happy
hour practices, increase enforce
ment and review penalty guidelines
on the sale of alcoholic beverages to
minors.
“Our goal is to safeguard the pub
lic from dangerous or abusive prac
tices without causing harm to the
honest businessman,” he said.
Atlas said the commission will
probably look at happy hour prac
tices again. “That is a problem,” he
said. “It has been a problem for
some time.”
-
Students wishing to copy the
anti-virus computer programs
that invaded the Macintosh com
puters earlier this month should
copy the virus on their own data
disks, not on the system disk.
The WDEF virus may have |
scrambled or erased programs.