The Battalion
Vol.92 No. 168 (6 pages) 1893 - A Century of Service to Texas A&M — 1993 Tuesday, July 6,1993
W eekend
rap-up
Muslim cleric
surrenders Friday
NEW YORK - Amid fears of
violence by his radical Muslim
followers, authorities issued an
alert to Americans traveling
abroad as U.S. immigration offi-
dals took Sheik Omar Abel-Rah-
man into custody.
The blind Egyptian cleric,
some of whose followers are ac
cused in the World Trade Center
bombing and a foiled plot to
bomb buildings and tunnels in
Manhattan, surrendered Friday
after a 20-hour standoff.
In Egypt, Abel-Rahman's fol
lowers had threatened to initiate a
bombing campaign if the spiritual
leader was taken into custody.
In Washington, the State De
partment issued a warning of
possible adverse reaction in the
Islamic world to the sheik's de
tention, said spokesman Mike
McCurry.
Man kills 8, self in
high-rise massacre
SAN FRANCISCO - Gian
Luigi Ferri went to the law of
fices of Pettit & Martin with a list
of 50 potential victims, three
guns and a grudge. By the time
he turned one of the guns on
himself, eight people were dead
and six were injured in a high-
rise bloodbath.
Ferri, 55, the president of a
Southern California real estate
firm, reportedly was there to
avenge a business deal gone sour,
according to published reports.
Armed with two semiauto
matic TEC-9 9mm assault
weapons and a .45 caliber pistol,
Ferri rode an elevator to the 34th
floor of the gleaming 48-story
glass-and-granite skyscraper at
101 California St.
He began his attack as
lawyers, secretaries and visitors
ducked for cover. His rampage
continued for roughly 15 min
utes on five floors.
Rap trial defendant
confesses to lying
AUSTIN — Convicted cop
killer Ronald Ray Howard ac
knowledged on the witness stand
Thursday that he has lied several
times under oath to try to protect
himself.
Jurors are considering the pun
ishment for Howard, 19, after
finding him guilty in June of
shooting a state trooper in April
1992 near Victoria.
Defense attorneys are trying to
keep Howard from receiving the
death penalty by attempting to
show the hard-driving, anti-cop
"gangsta rap" music Howard
was listening to moments before
the crime contributed to his ac
tions.
Howard told the grand jury the
stolen car he was riding in was tak
en by a man named Trigger. But he
Blimp crashes into
New York building
NEW YORK - A blimp
crashed on the roof of a seven-sto
ry apartment house Sunday, leav
ing it deflated and draped over
the side of the building.
Preliminary reports indicated
two crew members in the gondola
suffered minor injuries. Three
other people were treated on the
building's roof, said Emergency
Medical Service spokeswoman
Sandra Mackey. Their conditions
were unknown, she said.
Federal Aviation Administra
tion spokesman Duncan Pardue
said the crash was caused by
structural problems in the air
ship's tail section.
A report from a firefighter that
the pilot bailed out was apparent
ly unfounded. The pilot was tak
en from the roof with minor in
juries, authorities said.
-The Associated Press
U.N. abandons Iraqi surveillance effort
Baghdad concerned about another U.S. attack
THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
BAGHDAD, Iraq — A U.N. team left
Monday after trying for more than a
month to overcome Iraq's refusal to allow
surveillance cameras at weapons sites, in
creasing anxiety in Baghdad about anoth
er punitive attack.
The departure hardened Iraq's latest
standoff with the United Nations just
eight days after U.S. missiles blasted the
Iraqi intelligence headquarters in retalia
tion for what Washington charged was
Iraqi complicity in a plot to murder for
mer President Bush.
Nikita Smidovich, a Russian, left with
his inspection team after a last, fruitless
round of talks with the Iraqis.
"Iraq has to assess the decision of the
Security Council which qualifies this posi
tion of Iraq as a material breach" of U.N.
conditions imposed under the Gulf War
cease-fire, Smidovich said before flying to
the Mediterranean island of Cyprus.
The U.N. Security Council adopted a
resolution last month saying there would
be "serious consequences" for Iraq if Sad
dam Hussein's government continued to
reject the cameras.
The U.N. commission overseeing the
destruction of Iraq's chemical, biological
and nuclear weapons programs and long-
range missiles wants to install cameras to
monitor two former missile test sites. One
is at Rafih 45 miles southwest of Baghdad
and the other at Yam al-Azim 45 miles to
the south.
Saddam's government did not com
ment on the situation, but the newspaper
Babil, edited by his son, called the team's
departure "a dirty trick."
"The United States is using the United
Nations as an umbrella to carry out its
conspiratory schemes and vicious ambi
tions aiming at the Iraqis," the newspaper
said in its front page article.
Baghdad appeared calm, but there was
growing fears of an attack by the Gulf
War allies.
In a confrontation earlier this year over
Iraq's refusal to allow U.N. inspection
flights, U.S. forces fired about 40 Toma
hawk cruise missiles at a factory linked to
Iraq's nuclear weapons program Jan. 17.
People in the capital listened closely to
radios throughout the day for news of the
standoff. Bullion traders stopped gold
and silver trades, and more than 3,000
people protested in front of U.N. offices.
Illustrating the anxiety from the U.S.
attack on the intelligence headquarters
June 27, residents rushed to stock up on
meat and vegetables.
"The last American attack came as a
surprise, this time we want to be pre
pared," said one shopper, Mohammed
Mohsin.
Up, up and away...
BILLY MORAN/The Battalion
Jennifer Johnson of Colleqe Station flies her 10 years. They both agreed that Monday's
Trolby stunt kite Monday afternoon at partly cloudy skies and gusty winds made for
Research Park. Johnson and her husband, perfect kite-flying weather.
Drew, have been flying kites for fun for the last
U.S. troops arrive in
former Yugoslavia
THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
SKOPJE, Macedonia — The first American GIs sent to keep peace in
former Yugoslavia arrived Monday with orders to keep Bosnia's war
from spreading into a land that has often been a flashpoint for Balkan
bloodletting.
Two C-141s landed in Macedonia's capital with 20 soldiers from the
U.S. Army's Berlin Brigade, wearing the powder-blue berets of the
United Nations. The planes also carried vehicles and supplies.
Another 20 members of the advance team were to arrive Tuesday,
followed by the main body of about 260 soldiers, possibly by the end of
the week.
The soldiers comprise the first U.S. ground unit deployed to a for
mer Yugoslav state by President Clinton, although individual Ameri
cans are working in various U.N. capacities in Croatia and Bosnia-
Herzegovina.
The American troops will join a force of 700 mostly Scandinavian
soldiers under the command of Gen. Finn Saermark Thomsen of Den
mark. The peacekeepers are deployed along Macedonia's 260-mile bor
der with Serbia, the dominant state in what is left of Yugoslavia, to the
north and Albania to the west.
Macedonia, with a population of about 2 million, is the only state to
have seceded from the Yugoslav federation without violence. There is
no immediate threat to its borders, but there are fears ethnic fighting in
former federation partners could spill into Macedonia and possibly
draw in other Balkan nations.
As an impoverished, landlocked region with much larger neighbors
— Bulgaria, Greece and Serbia — Macedonia was a crucible for the 1912-
13 Balkan Wars, as well as a focal point of the struggle for control of
southeastern Europe in World Wars I and II.
Rain, rain go away
Flooding continues in midwest states
THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
PERUQUE, Mo. — People fled
farm homes Monday as the relent
less force of the Mississippi River
punched a hole through another
levee, this one about four miles in
land of the river's usual bank.
More rain upstream threatened
to prolong the inundation. Addi
tional storms were forecast at
least through the end of the week.
A part of the levee at Peruque
was breached about 4:30 a.m. and
11 rural homes had to be evacuat
ed. At midday Monday, small
rapids still showed at several
spots as the river poured over the
structure's remains, rushing far
ther out of its bed.
A little downriver, where the
also-swollen Missouri River flows
into the Mississippi, volunteers
slapped sandbags atop levees
protecting West Alton, which lies
between the two rivers.
Upstream, the Mississippi ap
peared to have crested at 22 feet
in Davenport, Iowa, site of some
of the worst damage to date along
the river. That level was un
changed from Sunday and half a
foot short of the record set in a
1965 flood.
More evacuations were under
way in Illinois.
The levee in Peruque north of
St. Louis, is about four miles
across pancake-flat land from
where the river usually runs, and
residents a mile beyond that were
taking precautions. Some packed
sandbags around the foundations
of their houses and others tried to
seal their homes with cardboard
and plastic.
Clinton visits Japan for summit
World leaders to discuss economics, politics, trade
THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
WASHINGTON — President Clinton heads
for his first economic summit in a strange posi
tion: He'll be the strongest of any of the seven
leaders in Tokyo yet he's under a cloud of
doubts about his global leadership and resolve.
European leaders complain about U.S. indeci
sion over former Yugoslavia. Asian nations are
nervous about America's willingness to main
tain a stabilizing military presence in the Pacific.
Allies criticize Washington for sending out
confusing signals on trade policies.
Yet in some areas, Clinton and the allies have
common ground. They all have sickly economies
and they're all politically shaky.
"What we will have in Tokyo is a meeting of
the world's strongest countries and perhaps the
world's weakest leaders," said Michael Mandel-
baum, a foreign policy specialist at the nonprofit
Council on Foreign Relations.
Despite Clinton's problems at home, "In
many ways he is in the strongest position do
mestically of any of the leaders whom he will be
meeting at the summit," Mandelbaum said.
The murky background for Clinton's debut in
economic summitry with the leaders of Britain,
France, Germany, Canada, Japan and Italy
leaves little room for major accomplishments.
The uncertainty is complicated by the collapse of
Japan's government.
Clinton's advisers see the summit largely as an
opportunity for him to press his goals for world
trade, set his agenda for Asia and make a commit
ment that America will remain a Pacific power.
To articulate his policies, Clinton will make
three major speeches: A summit curtain-raiser
Monday in San Francisco, an address on trade in
Tokyo on Tuesday and a speech on security is
sues Saturday in South Korea.
"This summit — if it's about anything at all,
it's about American leadership," said Robert
Hormats, vice chairman of Goldman Sachs In
ternational.
Repairs close parking garage elevator
The northeast elevator lob
by of the University Center
Parking Garage at Texas A&M
University will undergo re
pairs beginning Wednesday.
Repairs to the floor are ex
pected to take three weeks.
During this time, the elevators
in this area will be out of ser
vice. The Department of Park
ing, Transit and Traffic Ser
vices is asking people to use
the stairs or the central eleva
tors and exit the garage
through the lobby of the Stu
dent Services Building.
The garage's northeast en
trance (off Throckmorton St.)
will remain open except for
brief periods of concrete re
moval and delivery. The
Houston St. entrance/exit will
be open at all times.
TxDOT presents business opportunities
The Texas Department of Transportation (TxDOT) will be in the
Bryan-College Station area this week to recruit women and minorities
interested in working with or selling to the TxDOT.
The Disadvantaged Business Enterprise Program is a free program
for small business owners.
The program allows women and minorities to participate in the Tx
DOT's purchases of goods and services, professional services contracts
and construction programs.
An informational meeting will be held July 13 from 4 to 7 p.m. at the
TxDOT office in Bryan. This office is located at 1300 North Texas Ave.
Representatives from the TxDOT will discuss business opportunities
and help people with certification at this meeting.
Inside
Sports
►Roller Hockey: Inline Skate
Club brings sport to A&M
►Weekend Wrapup and Rec
Sports update
Page 3
Opinion
•Column: Vasquez reflects on
campus diversity
•Guest Column: an open letter
to tenure candidates
Page 5
Weather
•Tuesday: partly cloudy,
isolated late afternoon
showers, highs in the 90s
•Forecast for Wednesday:
partly cloudy, highs in tne
90s, lows in the 70s
Texas Lotto
•Saturda/s lotto numbers:
19, 13,20, 14, 23,5
•Estimated lotto Texas
jackpot: $30 million