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The Battalion
Vol. 91 No. 187 (6 pages)
‘Serving Texas ASM Since 1893’
Tuesday, August 4, 1992
Inside
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JOHANNESBURG, South Africa (AP)
Millions of blacks joined a nationwide
|trike Monday in one of the largest
rotests ever against white rule. At least
2 deaths were linked directly to the
alkout.
The violence erupted despite African
ational Congress and government calls
r peace.
Most workers in black townships ring-
|ng South Africa's cities stayed home,
leaving city centers largely deserted,
fransportation officials said trains and
(uses in some areas were carrying as little
s 2 percent of normal traffic.
Activists erected barricades in some ar
ias to enforce the ANC-called strike,
mads and trains were blocked with burn
ing car tires in parts of Cape Town and
Durban.
"We don't like losing two days of pay.
But we must do this to support the
ANC," said Ernest Mnjeza, a 38-year-old
security guard in Sebokeng, a violence-
torn township south of Johannesburg.
Other blacks defied the strike, either
out of opposition to the ANC campaign
or because they feared they would lose
their wages or their jobs.
The ANC's main black rival, the con
servative Inkatha Freedom Party, op
posed the strike, as did extreme black left-
wing groups.
At least 23 blacks were killed in scat
tered violence Sunday night and Monday.
In the eastern province of Natal, site of
ongoing black factional violence, 19 peo
ple were killed Sunday and Monday.
Three black men were fatally shot
when police fired on some 50 people ap
parently enforcing the strike in Soweto,
outside Johannesburg. Four police officers
were wounded in the shooting.
Police shot and killed a man when
strikers hurled rocks at vehicles near
Cape Town.
Two journalists were shot Monday in
Evaton outside Johannesburg by un
known black assailants. The two, Paul
Taylor of The Washington Post and
Phillip van Niekerk of The Toronto Globe
and Mail, were in stable condition,
friends said.
Ten U.N. monitors had arrived Sunday
to try to help prevent violence.
No overall figures on the number of
strikers were available. Reports from
trade unions, transport and business offi
cials indicated 3.5 million to 4 million of
the country's 7 million black workers
stayed home. Despite the success of the
walkout, the two-day strike that ends
Tuesday has no realistic chance of bring
ing down the white leadership.
"The people of our country have been
compelled to embark on this campaign
for democracy because of the intransi
gence of the de Klerk regime/' Cyril
Ramaphosa, the ANC's secretary general,
said at a news conference.
The ANC broke off black-white negoti
ations in June to protest escalating politi
cal violence that has cost some 8,000 black
lives in the past three years. It called for
de Klerk's removal and formation of a
multiracial interim government in this
country of 5 million whites and 30 million
blacks by the end of the year.
ANC militants had called for street ac
tion to force de Klerk from office. The
group was forced to scale down its plans
as many of the earlier protests drew small
turnouts. Talks on an interim government
and a new constitution are expected to re
sume after the protests. Moderate ANC
leaders favor a quick return to the talks.
ANC leader Nelson Mandela said in a
television interview Sunday night that he
was optimistic his group's disputes with
the government would be resolved.
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trains in the Colony Apartments' pool for a tubing competition.
NICK PENA/ The Battalion
The first annual Down the River/Up the Creek competition will be
held on August 11 in New Braunfels.
HOUSTON (AP) — Top Republican Party
tfficials Monday got their first look at con
duction inside the Houston Astrodome as
rews installed the speaker's podium and be-
yan hanging the first of a nearly quarter-mil
lion balloons for the GOP National Convention
two weeks away.
think it's going to be a great forum for us
o be holding the Republican Convention," Bill
iarris, the convention manager, said. "We're
'ery pleased with the progress. It looks like
're still a little bit ahead of schedule. We're
^ery pleased where we are."
Harris and Craig Fuller, the Bush-Quayle
ampaign convention chairman, rode around
the Astrodome in a motorized cart and
limbed to the top of the podium to check out
instruction and sight lines.
It's much better than artists' sketches and
mputerized renditions," Fuller said. "The
president is very excited about the convention.
It's very much on his mind and he is very
much raring to go on this campaign."
The convention is set for Aug. 17-20. Plat
form hearings begin next week. Construction
crews used cranes Monday to lift pieces of fake
sandstone that provide a background arch
above the speaker's platform. Other cranes lift
ed net sacks filled with balloons that will be
dropped on the delegates. Lighting grids 64
feet over the Astrodome floor were being test
ed Monday and interior work was beginning
on TV anchor booths, which already are
adorned and lit with network logos.
"We're going to see a lot more progress in
the next two to three days," Bob Keene, design
director for the convention and the man in
charge of podium construction, said.
Keene, based in Los Angeles, has construct
ed studio sets for the Grammy and Tony
awards programs. This is his first political con
vention. He said his experience with televi
sion spectators didn't necessarily mean he was
trying to turn the Astrodome into a giant TV
studio.
"I don't really think of it that way, although
obviously in this day and age you have to take
(that) into consideration," he said.
"What I'm trying to do is present an orga
nized, unified look to reflect American politics
and Americana, red, white and blue, lots of
American flags. The podium as I've designed
it does reflect a lot of things about the party. It
is on the conservative side. It is, I hope elegant,
I hope classic, in its feelings."
Keene described himself as a Republican al
though party officials denied that was a pre
requisite for the job.
"We tried to find the best in the business,"
Harris said.
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Russia, Ukraine to jointly control
Black Sea Fleet for next 3 years
MUKHALATKA, Ukraine (AP)
~ Russia and Ukraine agreed
Monday to put the disputed Black
Fleet under joint command for
three years while they work out
ts division and destroy its nuclear
weapons.
Presidents Boris Yeltsin of Rus-
ia and Leonid Kravchuk of
Traine emerged arm-in-arm
rom a day-long meeting in this
ormer Communist retreat on the
Hack Sea.
The dispute between the
argest former Soviet republics
lad strained the Commonwealth
>f Independent States. Kravchuk
'ad initially claimed the entire
leet, which is based in the
-ikrainian port of Sevastopol and
one of the most powerful ar-
fiadas in the world.
A decision on final control of
he roughly 300 ships and naval
acilities on the Black Sea will be
esolved dWing the three years.
!fter 1995, Russia and Ukraine
are to divide the fleet among their
separate navies.
Asked about nuclear weapons
in the fleet, Kravchuk said the
joint command will destroy the
arms under existing arms control
treaties and eventually will re
move them all.
Russia and Ukraine "will build
up their separate fleets and strate
gies from the assumption that the
Black Sea is a peaceful zone,"
Kravchuk said. "That assumes a
non-nuclear status."
Yeltsin also said Russia would
do its share in any military action
sanctioned by the United Nations,
particularly in the Persian Gulf or
Yugoslavia. Russia still controls
all the other former Soviet fleets
and the largest chunk of the old
Red Army and air forces.
Yeltsin and Kravchuk agreed to
jointly appoint new fleet comman
ders who would control the ships
and naval bases until the end of
1995.
"It will calm the people of
Ukraine and Russia, and calm the
servicemen and officers posted
with the Black Sea Fleet,"
Kravchuk said at a joint news con
ference in front of the granite
mansion once used by former
Ukrainian Politburo member
Vladimir Shcherbitsky.
Yeltsin said the agreement
meets the interests of both coun
tries and will give them time to
work out several remaining obsta
cles, particularly which side will
eventually get which ships.
"Over the next three years, this
will help reduce our society's
pain, even in connection with the
move to a market economy,"
Yeltsin said, his voice rising. "We
have more optimism for our re
forms also. We are going to work
together only with mutual cooper
ation.”
Although Russia and Ukraine
agreed in principle last spring to
divide the fleet, talks went
nowhere. Kravchuk wanted most
of the ships, while Yeltsin wanted
them all under Russian or com
monwealth command. Russian
Foreign Minister Andrei Kozyrev
and his Ukrainian counterpart,
Anatoly Zlenko, also signed
agreements on economic coopera
tion and unrestricted travel be
tween the two countries.
The sides still must tackle a
worsening conflict over control of
the Crimea, the lush Russian-
dominated peninsula that was
turned over to Ukraine in 1954.
Many Crimean residents want
independence or reunion with
Russia, but Ukraine insists on
keeping control.
Yeltsin and Kravchuk dis
played a relaxed joviality that in
dicated their bilateral talks are a
better forum for resolving their
problems than the unwieldy com
monwealth has been. Yeltsin said
the men have regular conversa
tions over a special hotline.
Marine training
exercises begin
on Kuwaiti soil
KUWAIT (AP) - Nearly 2,000
Marines prepared to come ashore
Tuesday, some of them surprised
to find themselves in the desert
again hearing increasingly belli
cose statements from Iraqi Presi
dent Saddam Hussein.
The Marines were the first of
thousands expected to land this
week for joint maneuvers meant
to show the United States is ready
to defend the oil-rich emirate
against Iraqi attack.
"If you told me two years ago
that I would be back I would have
said no way. But training is train
ing," said Lt. Kevin McMerney,
27, of Orlando, Fla.
The lieutenant led an advance
team setting up camouflage nets
at the container port of Shuwaik,
where some 1,900 Marines were
to land in three waves of amphibi
ous assault vehicles and hover
craft starting just after dawn
Tuesday.
In all, more than 5,000 U.S.
troops from all branches of the
military are to take part in at least
two weeks of exercises with the
Kuwaitis.
American troops were dis
patched to the Gulf as Saddam es
calated his rhetorical claims to
Kuwait. Baghdad trumpeted
these claims to justify invading
the emirate on Aug. 2, 1990 and
has unnerved Kuwait by reassert
ing them two years later.
McMerney said the troops
weren't concerned by Saddam's
pugnaciousness: "We just came
for training. No worries."
Some Kuwaitis say they are
heartened by the sight of the mili
tary muscle. They drive repeated
ly past the Marine ships and eight
Patriot missile launchers de
ployed last month to knock Iraqi
Scud missiles out of the sky.
"When you have a bully in the
neighborhood and you are weak.
you like having a tough guy
standing next to you. It's reassur
ing," said Fuad al-Ghanim, a
Kuwaiti businessman whose win
dows overlook the Gulf.
Defense Minister Sheik Ali al-
Sabah has made training on high-
tech weaponry, and defense pacts
with the United States, Britain
and soon France, the twin pillars
of rebuilding Kuwait's army. The
military is never expected to be
more than a temporarily blocking
force.
The United States decided to
double the number of soldiers
participating in the scheduled ex
ercise after Saddam resisted U.N.
weapons inspections. Inspections
were part of the truce agreement
Baghdad signed at the end of the
1991 Gulf War that drove Iraq
from Kuwait, but Saddam held
inspectors at bay about three
weeks before relenting.
In Iraq, the official news
agency quoted Information Minis
ter Hammed Youssef Hammadi
as saying the "mother of all bat
tles," as the Gulf war was called,
would continue as long as U.N.
sanctions were in force against
Iraq.
Foreign diplomats and Kuwaiti
military officers, speaking on con
dition of anonymity, said Saddam
had two armored divisions in
Basra, 30 miles north of the
Kuwaiti border.
Without the U.S. troops, the di
visions probably could roll
through the emirate as others did
in 1990, but Saddam seems too
preoccupied fighting Shiite rebels
in southern Iraq, the sources said.
Most of Kuwait's military
equipment was stolen during the
war and its facilities were
wrecked.
The emirate's pre-invasion
ground forces consisted of about
17,000 stateless Arabs.
Budget cuts, tuition
increases hit colleges
WASHINGTON (AP) - Mon
than half of the nation's colleges
felt a financial squeeze last year
that led to mid-year budget cuts
and prompted most to raise tu
ition, according to a survey re
leased Sunday.
The survey, by the American
Council on Education, found 57
percent of colleges and universi
ties had to cut their budgets mid
way through the 1991-92 operat
ing year, compared with 45 per
cent the previous year.
Public colleges were most af
fected, with 73 percent of two-
year institutions and 61 percent
of four-year schools reporting
mid-year cuts, the study said.
Thirty-five percent of private col
leges reported having to trim
their budgets last year.
"Private colleges have gone
over this budget cutting for 10
years. They've already cut back,"
said Richard F. Rosser, president
of the National Association of In
dependent Colleges and Univer
sities.
The survey was based on re
sponses from senior administra
tors at 411 colleges, from a sam
ple of 510 institutions.
At least 47 percent of public,
four-year institutions and 43 per
cent of two-year public schools
also had 1991-92 operating bud
gets that were the same or lower
than the previous year, the sur
vey said.
Only 14 percent of private col
leges reported unchanged or de
creased operating budgets. Thir
ty-three percent said they saw a 7
to 10 percent increase in operat
ing funds. Part of the problem,
said researcher Elaine El-
Khawas, is that state universities
"are substantially unprotected"
financially, lacking a cushion of
money to avert a crisis.
"If the state budget is cut, the
state budget is cut," she said.
"They don't have . . . a savings
account to tap into."
The study also said 81 percent
of four-year colleges and 67 per
cent of two-year institutions
raised student fees as a short
term financial solution. Fifty-five
percent of private colleges raised
tuition because of a budget
crunch, the study found.
Colleges also said they de
layed or cut back building im
provements, equipment purchas
es or faculty raises, froze hiring
and postponed new academic
programs because of budget
woes.