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'.el Arrington uate student The Battalion ".’Uuy (pOOl Vol. 93 No. 32 (8 pages) 1893 — A Century of Service to Texas A&M — 1993 Tuesday, October 12,1993 Haitian militants halt U.N. efforts to restore democracy The Associated Press PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti - Army- backed toughs wrecked plans for Ameri can troops to land Monday as part of an international peace mission, and drove away U.S. diplomats waiting to greet them. The band of 25 to 50 men then beat up merchants in the nearby market and fired guns while roving through the capital. No casualties were reported. U.S. and U.N. officials said the distur bances would not halt the overall peace mission. It was another direct challenge by the military to the U-N. efforts to re store democracy to Haiti. Monday's landing was to begin in earnest the peace mission to restore democracy and rebuild the economy. About 100 other U.N. personnel are al ready in the country to do advance work. The White House delayed the deploy ment of nearly 200 American military medics, engineers and civil affairs special ists aboard the USS Harlan County, an amphibious landing ship anchored 800 yards offshore. There was no word on when the troops might dock. Port officials supported by the Haitian military blocked the Harlan County's docking by moving another ship to the pier where arrangements were made days ago for the U.S. ship to berth at 10 a.m. Monday. Guards at the dock refused to let Vicki Huddleston, deputy chief of mission at the U.S. Embassy, enter the gate, and po lice stood by or blocked traffic while a group of shouting Haitians filed off a bus. Described later by a trembling Hud dleston as "a group of gangsters, a group of thugs/' the men shoved diplomats and reporters gathered for the scheduled docking, then punched and kicked their cars as they fled. "We don't want foreigners coming here and trying to tell us what to do!" one man screamed. Another shouted: "We're going to do to them what they did in So malia!" Haiti's military is betting the interna tional community does not have the will See Haiti/Page 4 Officials at forum question benefits of NAFTA Free trade agreement could create loss in jobs for American citizens By James Bernsen The Battalion Experts in politics and business ques tioned the benefits of North American Free Trade Agreement and said the treaty could cost Americans jobs Monday at Texas A&M University. C. Parr Rosson, assistant coordinator of the Texas Agricultural Market Re search Center at Texas A&M, said NAF TA would add to the increased openness of the Mexican economy that in the last ten years has resulted in more trade. "Their imports of U.S. agricultural products have more than doubled since the early 1980's," he said. James Scott, a policy analyst for Public [Citizen, a consumer watchdog group, said he views NAFTA as a missed opportunity. "NAFTA is, essentially, a chance for the United States to help Mexico to devel op resources in much the same way that the European Community did to Portu gal, Spain and Greece," he said. "But we don't see the structure there to help Mexi- jco, like in the European Community." Scott said free trade zones, called I Maquiladoras, have existed on the Mexi- Icanside of the border since the late i 1960's. He said the same promises are be- lingmade for NAFTA that were made for I the zones. "What we've seen is wholesale degrada tion of the environment," he said. "These areas are a magnet for bringing people North, and we're having a serious crisis with population and health problems." U.S. companies relocating to these zones have failed to provide services and growth for the people in them, he said. But, Rossen said, NAFTA would pro vide a framework for negotiating side agreements to see to these issues and an appeals process to enforce environmental regulations. Tom Salinas, a representative of the Teamsters union, said the low wages of the Mexican workers will cause a large loss of jobs in the U.S. "It would cost the loss of American jobs and not improve the position of Mex ican workers," Salinas said. The side agreements negotiated by Clinton are also detrimental to the Ameri can worker. "NAFTA sells out American families," Salinas said. "The multinational corpora tions only have a greed for more profits and pay slave wages to the Mexican workers." Rossen said although the U.S. will ini tially lose jobs with NAFTA, it will even tually net Americans 175,000 jobs, accord ing to studies conducted by his center. "We know there is going to be losses," he said. "But the question is, how do we compensate these people." One of the main advantages of NAF TA, Rossen said, is the help it will pro vide to the Mexican economy. "Until countries get to a certain level of affluence, they don't have the resources to get into environmental cleanup," he said. 93 845-0731 845-2624 845-2625 845-9655 tttl | Worst is yet to come, expert says James Scott (left), a policy analysts from Austin, rebuts a point made by C. Parr Rosson, assistant coordinator with A&M's Kyle Bumett/THE Battalion Agricultural Market Research Center, at a NAFTA forum held at the College Station Conference Center Monday night. Crisis in Russia ince befot® * lessons on Beginner/ cs offered. By Cheryl Heller The Battalion An expert in foreign policy decision making warned stu dents that the worst is yet to come for Russia at a meeting of the Texas A&M University Polit ical Science Society Monday night. Assistant Political Science Professor Dr. Alex Pacek spoke to students and faculty members about the aftermath of the Oct. 4 conflict that began When Russian President Boris Yeltsin invited members of the Russian Parlia ment to disband in September. Yeltsin has had problems dealing with the Russian Parlia ment since he was elected for the first time, Pacek said. "It was obvious Yeltsin had a hard time working with the De mocratic Congress even then," he said. Yeltsin's clash with Parlia ment continued with his plan to separate the presidency from the political center in Moscow, Pacek said. Tensions rose when Parlia ment attempted to remove Yeltsin's adviser in 1992, and es calated when Yeltsin continued to build a state council to replace Parliament. Pacek said, "Yeltsin thought Parliament members were not representative of the Russian people, and that they shouldn't be there. "The state council would be created by Yeltsin to have a strong presidency outside the boundaries in the old constitu tion. It would consist of two loy al deputies from each of the 88 regions, not elected or approved, who made major decisions." With the help of a new, streamlined Parliament elected in December, Yeltsin will move ahead with his economic re forms, Pacek said. He said the disbanding of the Russian Parlia ment and the attempted revolt occurred because neither Yeltsin or the Parliament would budge. "Yeltsin has triumphed so far," Pacek said. "Even though his popularity was just above 40 percent when Parliament was disbanded, and even though Parliament believed the upper hand would shift, Yeltsin won because of weakness, isolation and alienation." But Yeltsin may face even more problems in the future, Pacek said. In the next presidential elec tion, Yeltsin will face two of his former close allies who are rising in popularity. "Both contenders have stabili ty and trustworthiness, traits that Yeltsin hasn't proven him self to have," Pacek said. Because there is little indica tion that the Russian economy is on the rebound, there could be massive unemployment and tru ly serious food shortages, Pacek said. "If Yeltsin moves forward with his radical shock therapy economic reform, he will proba bly face these problems," he said. There could also be major problems with economic reform in Russia's 88 regions, Pacek said. "Yeltsin's radical economic re form will not be implemented at the same rate in every region," he said. "The gaps will widen, and Yeltsin will have a major cri sis on his hands." Gage encourages administration, faculty to work together for future By Lisa Elliott The Battalion Interim President E. Dean Gage emphasized Mon day the need for cooperation between administrators and faculty members to push Texas A&M University into the future. In a speech to the Faculty Senate, Gage said the University will be a much different place in the year 2000 than it is today. And it must start preparing for the future today. "We must not make future decisions," he said, "but we must consider the fu ture of today's de cisions." The University will play an im portant role in the future by leading the way in ad dressing societal, economic, work force, international and demographic changes al ready in progress and by producing intelligent stu dents to handle these changes, he said. An important part of preparing for the future is to continue to support the University financially. Gage said. He reported the University to be in a "less than ideal, but a stable financial condition" and asked the Faculty Senate to continue to urge contributions from colleagues and friends. "Continued strategic planning, priority setting, enrollment management, external fund raising and legislative support will require our full attention to "Our goal must be to develop sufficient fac ulty, staff, reward systems, facilities, equip ment and funding to allocate appropriate resources to each of these missions." keep us stable and moving toward the 21st century," he said. Gage pointed out some of the achievements of this semester including record total enrollment, record minority enrollment, and record number of National Merit Scholars. He said these trends need to contin ue into the future with the help of the faculty and students. He expressed a need for continued devotion to the Continuous Improvement Program and announced it has passed the $325 million mark on schedule. Gage said the money allocated from the Program should be put to- ward improve ments in Universi ty facilities and programs. "Our goal must be to develop suf ficient faculty, staff, reward sys tems, facilities, equipment and funding to allocate appropriate resources to each of these missions," he said. Gage said later this month the University will submit its next biennial Legislative Budget Request to the Texas Legislature and asked for help from the faculty in determining the request. "These processes must be open and participatory with faculty involvement at the departmental and college levels," he said. See Senate/Page 8 - E. Dean Gage, interim president A&M offers procedure for dealing with sexual harassment By Jennifer Smith The Battalion Men and women at Texas A&M University who are dealing with sexual harassment can seek assistance from many different avenues within the University. "The University takes this problem very seriously," Jan Winniford, assistant vice president for student services, said. Winniford said this problem probably happens at A&M more often than people think it does. "For some reason there's a feeling that causes people not to want to bring it up," she said. "They might think they are somehow to blame or that there might be repercussions." Janis Stout, associate dean of the College of Liberal Arts, said she has no reason to believe the problem of sexual harassment is bigger at A&M than it is anywhere else. "But it's hard to know if it's a problem because people are hesitant to come forward," she said. Stout said trying to determine actual statistics on sexual harass ment at A&M entails guesswork. The informal procedure for dealing with sexual harassment in cludes discussing the incident with the offender, consulting with Uni versity provided counselors, reporting the incident to the offender's supervisor and bringing the incident to the attention of one of the three official contacts. If a person desires to deal with the incident through formal proce dures, however, they can make an official complaint that will then be investigated. If this investigation warrants further investigation, an ad hoc com mittee will be created to investigate the incident. This committee can recommend sanctions which could include formal reprimand, proba tion, or dismissal from the University. Stout said the University's policy on sexual harassment was devel oped after studying the policies of other universities. "I think A&M is up to date in the way we handle sexual harass ment," Stout said. A study released in June by the American Association of Universi ty Women found that sexual harassment is prevalent in high school and can affect a person's attitudes when they come to college. See Harassment/Page 4 Inside Sports • Wide receiver Harrison closing in on yardage record Page 5 Opinion •Vasquez: No matter how bad it seems, there's someone who cares •Editorial: Texas Avenue expansion plan should be re-evaluated Page 7 Weather •Tuesday: partly cloudy, highs in 80s, lows in 60s •Wednesday: partly cloudy, highs in 80s •Extended forecast: partly cloudy, chance of showers, highs near 90 becoming cooler and windy Saturday