News Dieest Edited by Victoria Ayotte
Leaders invite Bush to planned drug summit
ICA, Peru - The presidents of Peru, Colom
bia and Bolivia, where the illegal cocaine trade
has its roots, invited President George Bush on
Tuesday to attend a drug summit within 90
days. He accepted immediately.
In a brief communique at the end of a five
hour meeting on a common anti-drug strategy,
the leaders said European leaders also should
take part in the summit, to be held in Latin
America. They pledged to continue “all-out
war” on drug trafficking.
White House press secretary Marlin Fitzwa
ter said: “The president will go.” He said 90
days was * ‘within the time frame wc have been
considering. It’s reasonable.”
In their communique, Presidents Alan Gar
cia of Peru, Virgilio Barco of Colombia and
Jaime Paz Zamora of Bolivia said both the
production and consumption of cocaine must
be addressed.
The statement appeared to reflect Latin
American concern over Bush’s emphasis on
police and military actions against the trade.
Garcia, Barco and Paz suggested details of
the summit be worked out at a meeting Nov. 20
in Santa Cruz, Bolivia, of lower-level officials.
Fitzwater said the United States had no
objection to participation by Europeans and
security concerns would not stand in the way of
a summit. Of a planning meeting Nov. 20, he
said: “I’m sure that’s fine with us.”
Garcia has been promoting inclusion of
European nations as active participants in a
war against the cocaine U“affic. If the United
States is successful in slowing the flow of
cocaine over its borders, he says, smugglers
will shift their focus to Europe.
The Peruvian president read the communi
3ue to hundreds of reporters gathered in lea for
te closed-door summit, but did not answer
questions.
An army battalion of 300 guarded the hotel,
which is surrounded by extensive gardens.
Three thousand plainclothes policemen circu
lated in the city.
Heavy security was ordered in case of at
tacks by the Shining Path, a Maoist guerrilla
group that has fought Peruvian governments
since 1980.
A bomb exploded before dawn T uesday in
Trujillo, a northern city where live Latin
American foreign ministers were meeung to
prepare the agenda for a summit ot the Group
of Eight countries that begins today in lea.
It went off at the offices of a public housing
agency, damaging the building but causing no
injuries. Police said no group claimed respon
sibility.
Ica suffered two brief blackouts Tuesday
morning, but officials said technical problems
caused them, not sabotage.
Garcia, the Peruvian president, said the drug
summit “will represent our point of view on
how to confront the escalation of violence that
drug traffickers have unleashed in our coun
tries, and also our perspective on the United
States president’s proposals.' ’
The three countries have criticized Presi
dent George Bush’s emphasis on military-style
repression of the drug trade. 1 ney say it snouia
be accompanied by more economic aid to
provide alternative crops or sources of income
for the hundreds of thousands of peasants who
grow coca.
Barco began a crackdown on Colombiin
cocaine barons Aug. 19 and has received $65
million worth of U.S. military aid to help in the
effort.
Garcia has been especially vocal on what he
considers the limitations of the Bush plan,
which includes $261 million for the three coun
tries, mainly in the form of weapons.
Peru and Bolivia produce more than 90
percent of the world’s coca. Colombian drug
cartels turn semi-refined coca paste from the
two countries into pure cocaine and smuggle it
to the United States and Europe.
Hundreds of thousands of peasants in Peru
and Bolivia live by growing coca. Officials of
both countries say there is little hope of eradi
cating the crop unless the growers have another
way of making a living.
« •
Andy Manhart/Daily Nebraskan
Night fliers drive couple ‘batty1
GREENE, N.YA- Ever since
she was a child and a bat flew into
her bedroom one night, Brett
Whitney has feared the little mon
sters. Now she’s scared to death.
It all began when she and her
husband, Bill, bought a century
old farmhouse in upstate New
York, not knowing the attic was a
roost for 1,600 of the night-flying
creatures.
At dusk, the sky blackens and
fills with screeches as hundreds of
bats pour out of the house, spread
ing their wings and dropping like
miniature parachuters before cir
cling back over their roost and
heading for the nearby Chenango
River to feed.
“I don’t want to go up there,’’
Mrs. Whitney says, motioning
toward the attic where' the bats
hang upside down from the raf
ters during the day like clusters of
grapes.
But while many people like the
Whitneys are trying to rid their
homes of bats, conservationists are
working to save them.
Bat experts say the winged
mammals are vitally important for
insect control, eating up to 50 per
cent of their body weight during
each nocturnal feeding.
“Bats are some of the most
misunderstood animals in the
world,” says Pat Morton, director
of the Texas-based Bat Conserva
tion International. “They’ve been
shrouded for centuries in myth and
misinformation because they fly at
night and are needlessly feared.*’
Her organization educates
people about the importance of
bats. And with the return of Bat
man to movie screens across the
country this summer, that job was
made a little easier. Morton says
requests for information about bats
has doubled.
Even Brett Whitney has been
leaning on the Caped Crusader to
help her deal with the thousands of
bats in her home.
“You have to have a sense of
humor about it. I’m buying all this
Batman paraphernalia,’’ she says,
pointing to the bat sticker on die
window of her black Renault “1
tell my friends I’m driving my Bat
Mobile to the Bat House.
Bats have been soaring around
the planet for some 60 million
years, at speeds up to 40 mph.
They’re not blind but use sound
waves for navigation and to hunt
for food.
Despite sensational accounts of
people being bitten by rabid bats,
such attacks are rare. Less than
one-half of 1 percent of bats con
tract rabies, and those that do sel
dom become aggressive, accord
ing to DT. Stephen C. Frantz of the
New York State Department of
Health.
In fact, bats do more for humans
than we think.
Many flowers, fruits and plants
grown in the tropics, including
nation.
The bai’s instinctive radar sys
tem may lead to development of
devices to help the blind.
Even so, having hundreds of
bats living in your attic is enough
to, well, drive you batty.
“We’ve been fighting them for
five years,’’ says Robert Harring
ton, who has 2,000 or so living in
the attic of his North Bay home on
the shore of Oneida Lake.
Harrington has spent almost
$1,500 trying to keep the flying
creatures out of his attic. But it
hasn’t done any good. They can get
through a hole the size of a dime
he says.
“I’ve sprayed ammonia,
bought cases and cases of moth
balls, and all it’s done is slunk up
the house,’’ he says.
His two daughters refuse to
sleep in the house. They sleep out
side in the family’s truck.
There are no exact figures on
how many houses in the country
are infested with bats. In New
York state, Frantz knows of about
half a dozen homes where more
than 500 bats have moved in and
taken over.
African National Congress leaders to be freed
JOHANNESBURG, South Africa
- President F.W. de Klerk said Tues
day that six African National Con
gress leaders will soon be freed but
that Nelson Mandela is not among
them.
De Klerk said the formalities may
take some time, but all the men had
served many years and were quite
old.
The guerrilla leaders were among
eight prisoners ihe government said
soon would be released. They were
sentenced to life in prison along with
Mandela in 1964.
The announcement, read on gov
ernment-run television, said that
Mandela’s own release “is not now
on the agenda,”
The most prominent of the prison
ers to be released is Walter Sisulu, 77,
who ran day-to-day operations of the
African National Congress as its sec
retary-general from 1949-54, when
the government ordered him to re
sign.
Sisulu was imprisoned for life in
June 1964 along with the other lead
ers of the guerrilla group’s internal
military wing.
Mandela, South Africa’s most
prominentanti-apartheid activist, has
been in prison since -1962.
Florida considers restrictions
on abortion; citizens demonstrate
TALLAHASSEE, Fla. - State
lawmakers Tuesday convened a spe
cial session on abortion that drew
thousands of chanting demonstrators
and national attention though the
Legislature’s Democratic leaders
predicted no new restrictions.
Republican Gov. Bob Martinez
called the 3 1/2-day session soon after
the U.S. Supreme Court in July up
held a Missouri lav/ giving the state
more authority to regulate abortions.
Martinez’s proposals include ban
ning public financing and use of
public resources for abortions, ex
panding regulations for abortion clin
ics, requiring viability tests on the
fetuses of women who are at least 20
weeks pregnant and requiring physi
cians to tell women seeking abortions
about the development of their fe
tuses.
Both the House and Senate met for
about a half-hour Tuesday and re
ferred numerous bills, many of them
abortion-related, to committees,
which began work.
The Senate Health and Rehabilita
tive Services Committee took up four
bills Tuesday afternoon, including
proposals for a seven-day waiting
period before an abortion, a ban on
use of public funds, employees or
facilities for abortions and testing for
the viability of a fetus.
The House HRS committee,
meanwhile, heard testimony but
planned no action until later in the
week.
Despite widespread criticism by
Democrats that the session will ac
complish nothing and may result in
unconstitutional law, Martinez re
peated his view that the entire pack
age should be considered.
“Having a hearing on each of
these bills is important to the people
of Florida,” Martinez said. “All of
these, I think, deserve a good de
bate.”
As uniformed police closely
guarded the doors to the Senate and
House chambers, pro-choice and
anti-abortion demonstrators marched
aroundihe Capitol and chanted, put
ting forth their messages on their
chests, in their songs and in the air.
The pro-choice side sang “Amer
ica the Beautiful” and had a banner
trailing airplane saying “Keep Abor
tion Legal.”
Anti-abortion protesters wore a T
shirt saying, “Spoken As a Former
Fetus ... Im Glad I’m Here.”
Tallahassee police spokesman
Dewey Riou estimated that 8,00()
people attended the demonstrations.
b. Uerman leaders possibly shirting
BERLIN — Communist officials
met opposition leaders in Dresden
and talks were expected soon in
Leipzig in the first sign of a shift in
the East German government’s hard
line stance, news reports said Tues
day.
Prominent Lutheran official Hans
Otto Furian, meanwhile, said in East
Berlin that the Communist Party
“must give up its grip on total
power.’’
There were increasing signs of
willingness Tuesday by some Com
munist Party officials to talk with
pro-democracy activists. But East
German leader Erich Honecker reit
erated his hard-line stance.
West German station ZDF said
talks between local Communist lead
ers in Leipzig and pro-democracy
activists also are set to begin. It gave
no timetable.
Talks between Communist offi
cials and opposition activists already
have been held in Dresden.
West German radio reported Dres
den’s mayor, Wolfgang Berghofer,
told activists that all demonstrators
who are still jailed “who were not
accused of violence would be freed. ’ ’
Several hundred people, and pos
sibly thousands, were arrested in
weekend demonstrations.
Communist officials in Dresden
first met with opposition leaders on
Monday. Berghofer said another
meeting was scheduled for next
week.
Netfraskan
Editor Amy Edwards Photo Chief Erie Gregory
472-1766 Night News Editors Eric Planner
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Ryan Sleeves Art Director Andy Manhart
Editorial Page Editor Las Rood Publications Board
Wire Editor Victoria Ayotta Chairman Pam Main
Copy Desk Editor Deanna Nelson 472-2588
Sports Editor Jeff Apel Professional Adviser Don Walton
, 473-7301
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