_r_ t
1L&7 C 1 ^ "fl fj" C "J" Associated Press Neliraskan
l ^ V VV a *-> Edited by Victoria Ayotte Monday) December 1!, 1989
Non-Communists take power; Czechs celebrate
rKAvjut, Czechoslovakia -- A govern
ment controlled by non-Communisls took
power Sunday for the first time in 41 years, and
tens of thousands of people jammed the na
tion’s streets to celebrate the historic victories
of their peaceful revolution.
President Gustav Husak, the nation’s last
old-guard Communist leader, resigned after
swearing in the new government, which in
cludes two men who were persecuted as dissi
dents until just two weeks ago.
In a key compromise, the Justice Ministry,
which runs the nation’s hated secret and uni
formed police, will be run by a leading dissi
dent, the new Communist premier and a Com
munist Party member proposed by the opposi
tion.
The new 21 member government contains
10 Communists, two of whom enjoy opposi
tion support, seven non-party members and
two members each from the small Socialist and
People’s parties, which recently broke tics with
the Communists.
More than 100,000 people crammed Pra
gue’s Wcnccslas Square to hear opposition
leader vaciav Havel, 53, and other dissidents
who battled jail and harassment for 13 years
catalogue the successes of their fight for de
mocracy.
The embattled Communists have granted
stunning concessions, including the opening of
borders, the promise of free elccuons and the
elimination of their monopoly on power.
Elsewhere in Eastern Europe Sunday:
• More than 50,000 people chanting
“Democracy!” rallied in Sofia, Bulgaria, in
the biggest demonstration for reform since the
Communists consolidated power there 43
years ago.
• Tens of thousands of East Germans rail ied
in several cities in support of further demo
cratic reforms. The new East German Commu
nist Party chief said he wants a clear separation
of party and government functions.
• Soviet President Mikhail S. Gorbachev
warned Communist Party leaders in Moscow
that their colleagues’ fall from power in East
ern Europe proves they must quickly solve
Soviet domestic problems or face similar
excesses.
Czechoslovakia’s Parliament meets Tues
day to pick Husak’s successor, and both Havel
and Alexander Dubcek, 68, the popular leader
of the crushed 1968 reform movement, have
said they would accept the post if nominated.
“We haven’t won yet,” Havel told the
cheering crowd in a nationally televised
speech. “But it is a great success, giving us
great hope. This is a success for all of us, both
our nations. Without this spontaneous awaken
ing, this success would not have been
achieved.”
“This peaceful revolution was ... against
violence, dirt, mafias, privileges, persecu
tions,” Havel said. “Let us preserve its purity,
peacefulness, love and merry, friendly flair.”
‘ ‘The ycars-long, deadly silence of a humili
ated people has been drowned out by a multi
voiced popular choir,” he said.
Referring to the police crackdown on stu
dents Nov. 17 that energized the nation’s pro
democracy movement, he said: “After an arti
ficial halt, history began moving with breath
uuuug ispccu wiiiui >uipi iscu an ui u.s. uuc(lay,
historians will study this and tell us what hap
pened.”
The crowd burst into applause and cheers as
Havel listed the achievements of the Civic
Forum opposition movement, and its Slovak
counterpart, Public Against Violence, which
were formed only on Nov. 19.
One hour earlier, Husak, the man respon
sible for the 21 years of repression and stagna
tion that followed the Warsaw Pact invasion
that crushed the 1968 “Prague Spring” re
forms, swore in the new “government of na
tional understanding” the opposition had
demanded.
The 76-year-old, hard-line leader - who
ended up conducting the ceremony on Interna
tional Human Rights Day - then resigned as he
had promised to do.
The government he installed includes men
he jailed or stripped of all but the most menial
jobs when he was Communist Party chief from
1969 to 1987.
Parliament, which meets Tuesday, has two
weeks to choose a new president.
Anti-apartheid
leaders announce
militant strategy
JOHANNESBURG, South Africa
- Anti-apartheid leaders Sunday
announced a militant strategy of civil
disobedience and political pressure
and urged South African whites to
join them for the “final onslaught on
apartheid.”
The plans w ere adopted late Satur
day at a closed session ol the largest
ann-apartheid conference ever held
in South Africa. It was attended by
4,662 black, white, Indian and
mixed-race delegates from 2,128
organizations.
Several major black organizations
to the left and right of mainstream
anti-apartheid groups cither boy
cotted the conference or were not
invited.
But Murphy Morobc, one the or
ganizers, said the Conference for a
Democratic Future was a “roaring
success.”
“Business was concluded in a
spirit of unity unprecedented in any
gathering in the past with such a dis
parate array of organizations," he
said at a news conference.
One resolution urged whites “to
break decisively with all apartheid
forces and side with the majority." It
urged them to conduct solidarity
marches into black townships and
proposed a campaign to create new
municipalities by merging white cit
ies and their adjoining black ghettos.
Another resolution urged an esca
lation of confrontational activity by
black trade unions. It said workers
should be prepared to occupy the
Johannesburg Slock Exchange if
necessary to prevent possible privati
zation of major state enterprises such
as the postal and transport services.
“ We cal I upon our people to reject
capitalism and free market system,”
a resolution on economics said.
Perhaps the most important reso
lution, Morobc said, was a demand
for non-racial elections for an assem
bly that would draft a constitution
establishing a one-person, one-vote
system for South Africa.
Nebraskan
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Chairman Pam Mein
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ALL MATERIAL COPYRIGHT
1989 DAILY NEBRASKAN
1 \ m
aL,
Andy Manhart/Daily Nebraskan
America caught in wave
of high-tech snooping
WASHINGTON --Therecould
be a secret microphone on your
telephone line, in your table lamp,
in that briefcase silling next to your
desk — or even under your bed.
Your neighbors could be listen
ing in on those intimate calls
you’ve been making on your cord
less or cellular telephone.
Or your boss could be eaves
dropping on your office at work.
America is caught in a wave of
high-tech snooping, according to
privacy advocates who blame
cheap, easily obtainable gadgets
that can be bought through the
mail, in electronics stores or in
“spy shops.”
Some examples:
• Oftc-way wireless intercoms.
These liny devices, which can be
secreted inside any household
electrical device such as a lamp or
electric clock, will transmit con
versations to a receiver placed on
the same electrical circuit, such as
from a conference room to a base
ment. They’re available at elec
tronics stores for $24.95.
• Spy briefcases. With a flick of
their handles, these normal-look
ing attache cases will record, loud
and clear, any sounds in a room for
hours. They cost between $6(X) and
S9(X).
• Infinity transmitters. Attach
one to a phone and call it from
another phone. The bugged phone
does not ring. Instead it becomes a
microphone that will pick up eve
rything within 30 feet. Yours for
just $99.95.
• Baby tenders. These innocu
ous intercom systems allow par
ents to monitor an infant’s room
from another part of the house.
Trouble is, these radio devices also
put out signals that can be heard by
neighbors, or by snoops.
• Voice-activated tape record
ers. Put one under a bed to catch
an unfaithful spouse, or in your
pocket to secretly record a con
versation. Cost: $75 and up.
• Listening aids. Designed to
look like small portable radios or
tape players, they can, as the ads
say, let you hear what people are
saying about you across the room.
$49.95.
Devices like these -- plus
counter-bugging gadgets -- will
be on display this week in Wash
ington at Surveillance Expo ’89,
which organizer Jim Ross says is
the first non government show to
focus on surveillance and
countcrsurveillancc.
One exhibitor will show a belt
pager that actually is a tiny TV
camera.
“He has a transmitter on his
back and a beeper on a belt.
Wherever he points the beeper
he’s broadcasting a picture to a
receiver. ’ ’ The device has a range
of a “few hundred feet, but could
be boosted,” Ross said in an
interview last week.
“He also has one built into a
tic clip and another that looks like
a sprinkler head. Thai’s a big
seller, he tells me,” Ross said.
Another exhibitor will show
how to use a touchtone telephone
to modify computer programs
that control sophisticated office
phone systems. The exhibitor
used it “so he could monitor his
boss’ phone calls,” Ross said.
In many workplaces, interof
fice phone systems have replaced
traditional clappers and bell ring
ers with musical tone pulses. The
systems require that the phone
receivers stay turned on all the
time, which turns them into
microphones, Ross said.
0
E. Germans demonstrate
for democratic reforms
t-rtj i DtKLirs — icnsoi mou
sands of demonstrators demanded
more democratic reforms in East
Germany on Sunday, and a state-run
labor union urged workers to defy a
40-year-old policy that forbids them
to strike.
Gregor Gysi, East Germany’s new
Communist Party chief, said he wants
a clear separation of party and gov
ernment functions, a radical concept
in a country where the party has been
all-powerful for 40 years.
In another development, the four
World War II Allies — France, Brit
ain, the United States and the Soviet
Union — announced they would meet
today to discuss the role of Berlin
in East-West affairs.
Tens of thousands of East Ger
mans took to the streets in protests in
Rostock, Erfurt and other cities, the
official news agency ADN said. Most
were demanding human rights and
democratic changes, the report said.
In the southern city of Plaucn,
15,000 demonstrators turned out for a
pro-democracy rally called by the
New Forum opposition group.
Several hundred people in East
Berlin demonstrated in favor of
human rights and against what they
sec as a growing intolerance of for
eigners. About 15,000 people dem
onstrated in favor of human rights in
the city of Ilmcnau, ADN said.
Leaders of the 160,(XX)-member
scientists’ union, meeting on Satur
day in Leipzig, issued the call for
recognition of the right to strike,
ADN said.
The scientists’ union is one of 16
unions belonging to the suite-run
labor federation Freicr Deutsche
Gc wersk sc hallsbund.
The scientists’ call amounts to a
demand for the federation leadership
to recognize the right to strike em
bodied in the East German
Constitution.
The federation has been rocked by
a growing financial scandal, and a
new leadership took over Saturday to
make it more independent.
The prospect of strikes clearly
alarmed Gysi, 41, who look over as
parly chic! only on Saturday. In an
interview broadcast late Saturday 1
night on West Germany’s ADR tele- I
vision network, he said that given the \
country’s current political instability,
strikes would be “irresponsible.” *
Gysi s|xmh Sunday preparing for
-next weekend’s continuation of the 1
emergency parly congress that is I
expected to give ihe party a new j
name.
Late Sunday, the official news
agency ADN said Soviet President I
Mikhail S. Gorbachev had sent Gysi a 1
message of congratulations that also
emphasized the “sovereign” nature
of East Germany. Gorbachev, whose
Soviet reform movement prompted
the pro-democracy revolution in the I
East bloc, recently joined with East
German leaders in rejecting German
reunification, a possibility that has I
been debated since the reform move- I
mcnl began transforming East Ger- '
many.
East Germany faces its first free
elections in May, and parly leaders
have said they would be happy to
receive 20 percent of the vole.
In the interview, Gysi said he was
urging a “strict division of party and
government.” But he added, “This
can’t be done in one day. It is a long
term job that is being taken very seri
ously.”
The Communists also say they sec
themselves as one party among sev
eral political forces in East Germany,
following two months of upheaval
that started with the downfall of hard
line ruler Erich Honcckcr.
Last week, reformist Mayor
Wolfgang Bergholerof Dresden said
the nation’s factories have been hit by
politically motivated warning
strikes, aimed against Communist
Party interference. Bcrghofcr said the
unrest could gel out of hand and esca
late into violence.
On Sunday, he warned that trouble
could come from both the extreme
right and the extreme left in East
Germany. “Violence has not been
dispelled,” he told reporters. “An
cscalaclion is possible at any mo
ment.”
Panel: Feds subverted evidence I
™ /Aonnxvj iuin — a congres
sional panel charged Sunday that the
federal governmeni has failed lo re
port evidence of the relative safely of
abortions for women.
A report released by a House
committee also claimed the federal
Centers for Disease Control has cen
sored research on abortion, and urged
the Department of Health and Human
Services to assure public health re
search is not affected by political
ments.
also recommended increased
federal support for contraceptive re
search to help decrease the 1.5 mil
lion abortions obtained by American
women every year.
“This report provides important
evidence of the relative safety of
abortion for women, since more than
90 percent of abortions performed in
the U.S. arc much safer than preg
nancy and childbirth, and even the
most dangerous types of legal abor
tions are equal in risk to carrying a
pregnancy to term,” said Rep. Ted
Weiss, D-N.Y.
His statement was included with
the report by the House Government
Operations Committee, ba$ed on an
investigation by its subcommittee on
human resources and intergovern
mental relations, which Weiss chairs.
