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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.”