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About The Battalion. (College Station, Tex.) 1893-current | View Entire Issue (April 4, 1990)
r WEATHER TOMORROW’S FORECAST: Partly cloudy and mild. HIGH: 76 LOW: 57 Vol.89 No.122 USPS 045360 16 Pages College Station, Texas Wednesday, April 4,1990 Clevenger wins run-off election Ty Clevenger and his supporters celebrate after learning that he won the run-off election for stu- Photo by Jay Janner dent body president. Clevenger claimed 55.3 per cent of the 1,752 votes cast Tuesday. By NADJA SABAWALA Of The Battalion Staff By a close margin, Ty Clevenger edged out Beth Ammons for the po sition of student body president in the Texas A&M student run-off elections Tuesday. At 11:40 p.m., election commis sioner Perry Liston announced that, by a narrow 182 votes, Clevenger de feated Ammons with 55.3 percent of the 1,752 votes marked. “It was a really close race and I’m glad it’s finally over,” Clevenger said. “I’m in a daze right now and it’ll probably hit me sometime to morrow that I won.” In another close race, Angie Ar- rona received 51.14 percent of the votes to defeat Dan Hargrove with 48.86 percent for the legislative chair of academic affairs. Student senate chair for student services candidate David Shasteen, with 56.94 percent, beat Tiffiny Blaschke, with 43.06 percent. Class of 1992 president went to Jennifer A. Collins, who had 54.39 percent, over Rod Garrett with 45.61 percent. In the race for the class of 1992 vice president, Heather Casteel (53.3 percent) defeated Shawn R. Roberts (46.7 percent). In a turnaround from the March 29 election when Bill Benker had a 34 percent to 27 percent lead over Pat Seiber for class of 1993 presi dent, Seiber edged out Benker 52.25 percent to 47.75 percent. Clevenger said he is excited about his new reign and plans to act soon. “I’m looking forward to getting to work immediately,” said Clevenger, a junior genetics major. “I’m just going to start working where we said we would, and what we said we’re going to do, we’re going to do.” Liston said he was pleased with the voter turnout at the runoffs and attributes it to the beautiful weather. “In the first elections, it was rain ing hard and I think that had a lot to do with our poor turnout then,” Lis ton said. The March 29 election counted only 4,216 votes, a 375-vote drop from last year. “I think that because the runoff included student body presidential candidates that it drew more voters,” Liston said. “We almost tripled the turnout of last year’s runoff.” In the previous runoff, Liston said there were only 637 voters compared to this year’s 1,752. “I’m excited about the turnout but I wish more voters would have come out because it’s not even five percent of the student body,” he said. Breaking down the votes into clas sifications, more sophomores voted than any other class with 477 votes. The freshman class placed second with 441. The College of Liberal Arts had the greatest voter turnout with 433 votes and the College of Engi neering was next with 343 votes. Liston said the election and the runoffs went smoothly thanks to the help of MSC Hospitality, junior honor society Tau Kappa and Alpha Phi Omega service fraternity. Trading sex for crack fuels syphilis increase DALLAS (AP) — Addicts trad ing their bodies for crack cocaine fueled a dramatic increase in syphilis cases reported last year, state and local health officials said. And health officials said many of the patients they’re treating for syphilis today likely will contract AIDS. Dallas County officials re ported a 60 percent increase in cases of infectious-stage syphilis in 1989 compared with the year before. The statewide increase was 37 percent. Unofficial figures from the health department put the num ber of syphilis cases in Dallas at 1,283 in 1989, up from 800 the year before, and 4,266 cases from 3,126 statewide. The jump appears to be almost solely due to swapping sex for drugs, officials said. The open genital lesions caused by syphilis can make it ex ceptionally easily to contract the HIV virus, which often leads to Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome. “Once they have the lesions, the risk factor increases tremen dously,” Joe Pair, in charge of sexually transmitted disease con trol for the Texas Department of Health, said. “A lot of women have to go into prostitution to support a very, very expensive drug habit. Once you get the disease in that group of people, you see it spread very, very rapidly.” Don Hutcheson, manager of disease intervention for the county health department, said, “What we’re seeing is people who do have syphilis but who do not consider themselves at risk” for AIDS because they are not homo sexuals or intravenous drug us ers, the groups most commonly affected by the deadly disease. Debating A&M students resolve against U.S. troop strength cuts By KEVIN M. HAMM Of The Battalion Staff Texas A&M students who attended a parliamentary debate Tuesday overwhelmingly agreed that the United States should not cut its troop strength in order to decrease the budget. The debate, sponsored by the Texas A&M Debate Society, presented two speakers who voiced differing opinions about the resolution: “This house stands re solved that United States troop strength should be cut in order to balance the budget.” After both speakers present their arguments, mem bers of the audience voice their opinions and then vote on the issue. The speakers then end the debate with their rebuttals. James Loving, who argued for troop cuts to help bal ance the budget, said because of the lessening Soviet threat, the United States shouldn’t be “the police force of the world,” as it was in the past. “The shroud of communism has fallen,” he said. “Romania, Czechoslovakia, Poland, the Berlin Wall — they’ve all come tumbling down.” Loving argued the United States could save money by keeping some troops home to help with domestic problems, such as President George Bush’s war on drugs. “By sending the troops all over the world it’s costing us more money,” he said. “We could bring those gen tlemen and ladies back home to America to help us out where we need them.” The United States should remember its priorities be fore spending money to protect the rest of the world from the perceived threat of communism, he said. “We’ve become so wrapped up in this quote, unquote Cold War, we’ve lost sight of the American way,” Lov ing said. “We’re so worried about being number one to every body else that we forget about being Americans,” he said. But, Loving does not believe reducing U.S. troop strength will solve the deficit problems. “I’m not saying by cutting the number of troops we’re going to get out of our deficit that we got our selves into,” he said. “I’m saying that it’s a start. It’s a start that we have to make. And if we don’t make it, it’s going to get worse.” Loving’s opponent in the debate, Mike Fortner, ar gued that the world’s political situation is not yet stable enough for the United States to withdraw its troops. “There is some danger left and we need to recognize See Debate/Page 4 Lithuanians meet with Gorbachev MOSCOW (AP) — A dele gation from the rebellious Baltic republic of Lithuania met Tues day with a major adviser to Presi dent Mikhail S. Gorbachev, and a Lithuanian legislator later calle d it a sign of hope in the confronta tion. “We are very, very encour aged,” legislator Egidius Bickaus- kas, Lithuania’s representative in Moscow, told the Associated Press. “If there are people who at least want to listen to us, it’s very good.” He earlier told reporters a three-member delegation, includ ing Deputy Premier Romualdas Ozolos of Lithuania, was meeting with Alexander N. Yakovlev, a Politburo member recently ap pointed to Gorbachev’s new Pres idential Council. Also Tuesday: • The Supreme Soviet parlia ment approved a bill setting pro cedures for secession from the Soviet Union. The law, which goes into effect once it is pub lished in the Soviet press, requires approval by a two-thirds vote in a referendum and a waiting period of up to five years. Lithuania, forcibly incorpo rated into the Soviet Union in 1940, declared its independence on March 11. The Moscow go\- ernment refused to recognize this and a crisis ensued. • The Kremlin restricted traf fic at Lithuania’s border with Po land, the republic’s only border that does not adjoin Soviet terri tory. Soviet officials told Polish border officials the crossing from Ogrodniki, Poland, to Lazdijai, Lithuania, was “temporarily” closed, the Polish news agency PAP said. • Lithuania’s chief diplomat in Washington, Stasys Lozaraitis Jr., told reporters there he believes the Soviet army may have taken the lead role from Gorbachev in dealing with the crisis. He said the Soviet military show of force in Lithuania made him more pes simistic than before about his homeland’s fate. Clarification An organization identified in an article about pro-choice activ ists in Tuesday’s edition of The Battalion is not affiliated with a Texas A&M group with the same name. A&M’s United States Student Association represents the Unin i States in the International Sc dent Association and does i > take political stances. South African consul presents government’s views Photo by Eric H. Roalson Gerhardus Pretorius '71— Joe Trimble, a member of MSC Political Forum, erases a message left by members of Students Against Apartheid on the blackboard behind the Photo by Mike C. Mulvey podium where Gerhardus Pretorius spoke Tues day night. The message read: “No Apartheid: Blood spilled in South Africa.” By SEAN FRERKING Of The Battalion Staff Different people see the changes in South Africa different ways. Gerhardus Pretorius, South Afi- ca’s Consul General in Houston, pre sented the government’s perspective on the future of South Africa last night at a presentation sponsored by MSC Political Forum. The speech was the first of a two- part program on the reforms in South Africa. Before the discussion began, seve ral individuals from Students Against Apartheid held a protest in front of Zachry and said they thought the changes in the system of apartheid were only superficial. Catherine Yuill, president of SAA, said the protesters were trying to educate Texas A&M students about the reality of South Africa. Yuill said the white South African government has distorted the truth about the progress of the reforms of apartheid. Arthur Keen, a graduate student in Industrial Engineering from Stel lenbosch, South Africa, said he sees the present changes in South Africa as encouraging, but said he was wor ried that the reforms were coming too slowly for the black population. Keen said the internal conflicts in South Africa were very dangerous. “I think it’s a powder keg, but I hope it won’t come out to violence,” Keen said. Pretorius also said the situation in South Africa was very difficult and should be handled by the South Af rican Government. Pretorius said it was too easy to be misinformed about the situation in South Africa. “It is only to people far removed from the South African reality that solutions seem easy,” Pretorius said. The Consulate General said apartheid officially began in 1948 when a small separatist minority gained control of the national parlia ment. In the 1970s, the South Afri can government realized the system that had grown to be called apart heid was outdated. The government then started on the process of re form, Pretorius said. The most recent changes, Preto rius said, are only the most difficult and dramatic reforms in South Af rica to date. He said the De Klerk administra tion is pushing very hard for a new South Africa. “In his maiden speech, president F.W. De Klerk said ‘Our goal is a new South Africa. A totally changed South Africa. A South Africa that has rid itself of the antagonism of the past. ‘“A South Africa free of domina tion or repression in whatever form. A South Africa where democratic forces align themselves around mu tually acceptable goals,’ ” Pretorius said. These goals will take time, Preto rius said. First, he said, all of the groups must organize themselves be fore negotiations can begin. Preto rius said the white government has taken some steps to pave the way for democratic talks. “The South African government has come almost all the way in meet ing the demands for negotiation of the opposition,” he said. “By abolish ing most of the apartheid laws and partially lifting the State of Emer gency, the government has walked 3/4 of the mile necessary to have peaceful negotiations. Is it too much to ask for the others to walk the 1/4 of that mile?” The next step to a new South Af rica is the process of negotiation, Pretorius said. He said all people in the country of South Africa will be represented at the negotiator’s table. One of the most important topics in the talks, Pretorius said will be the nature of the national constitution. He said the main goal of the negotia tions is the principle of one man, one vote. He said he believes the present changes in South Africa will permit such a radical break from the past. “Within the next five to ten years, I see changes taking place in the gov ernment of South Africa,” Pretorius said. “It is very possible and very likely that the next election will bring a black majority to the South African government.” He said change will not be easy in the future. He also said the process of eliminating discrimination in South Africa will take years and even decades. , “The process of negotiations is going on right now,” Pretorius said. “The realization of Mr. De Klerk’s goals will take some time, but we have begun an irreversible process that will bring a new and better South Africa.”