The daily Nebraskan. ([Lincoln, Neb.) 1901-current, September 12, 1990, Page 2, Image 2

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    NT /\T A T O I "J Associated Press
1 ^ <L W JLJ l Edited by Jana Pedersen
U.S. military may be deployed indefinitely
WASHINGTON - President Bush, report
ing to Congress and the nation on the Persian
Gulf crisis, vowed Tuesday night that “Sad
dam Hussein will fail” in his conquest of
Kuwait. He said the Iraqi dictator could not
persevere in the face of “a new partnership of
nations.”
Bush also acknowledged the U.S. military
could be deployed in the Saudi Arabian desert
indefinitely.
“I cannot predict just how long it will take to
convince Iraq to withdraw from Kuwait,” Bush
said in a nationally broadcast address before a
joint session of Congress.
He said U.N.-approved sanctions would take
time to squeeze Iraq and that the United States
would continue reviewing options with allies.
“But let it be clear: we will not let this aggres
sion stand,” Bush said.
Fresh from his summit with Soviet Presi
dent Mikhail S. Gorbachev, Bush said “a new
partnership of nations’ ’ stands aligned against
Iraq’s aggression and that the superpowers are
working together on this crisis.
“Clearly, no longer can a dictator count on
East-West confrontation to stymie concerted
U.N. action against aggression,’’ the president
said.
“The crisis in the Persian Gulf, as grave as
it is, also offers a rare opportunity to move
toward an historic period of cooperation,’’
Bush said.
B ush said “ a new world order’ ’ may emerge
from the crisis in which the world is “freer
from the threat of terror, stronger in the pursuit
of justice and more secure in the quest for
peace -- an era in which the nations of the
world, East and West, North and South, can
prosper and live in harmony.’’
Bush offered no new initiatives to resolve
the gulf crisis, and repeated many of his past
declarations condemning Saddam.
But the point of the speech was to bring
Americans up to date on the crisis, and call for
them to stand united as the stalemate lingers
on.
“If ever there was a time to put country
before self and patriotism before party, that
time is now,” Bush said.
And Bush called on Congress to pass legis
lation yet this month to spur domestic energy
production and foster conservation.
In particular, Bush cited tax incentives for
domestic oil and gas exploration, fuel-switch
ing and acceleration of oil drilling in Alaska
“without damage to the wildlife.”
Bush said that if the United States had not
reacted swiftly to Iraq’s invasion, it would
have been “a signal to actual and potential
despots around the world . . .. America must
stand up to aggression, and we will,” he said.
“And one thing more - in pursuit of these
goals, America will not be intimidated,’ ’ Bush
said. “Vital issues of principle are at stake.
Saddam Hussein is literally trying to wipe a
country off the the face ol the Earth. We do not
exaggerate.
“Nor do we exaggerate when we say, Sad
dam Hussein will fail.”
Bush used the speech to explain anew the
high stakes for the United States in the oil-rich
Middle East.
He said Iraq, by itself, controlled 10 percent
of the world’s petroleum reserves and doubled
its holdings by invading Kuwait.
“We cannot permit a resource so vital to be
dominated by one so ruthless. And we won’t,”
the president said.
He said there was an unprecedented level of
world cooperation against Iraq, with armed
forces from many countries united to deter any
attack on Saudi Arabia.
“Muslims and non-Muslims, Arabs and non
Arabs, soldiers from many nations, stand shoul
der-to-shoulder, resolute against Saddam
Hussein’s ambitions,” Bush said.
Gorbachev favors radical plan
MOSCOW - Russia’s parliament
voted overwhelmingly Tuesday for a
radical economic reform program, and
Soviet President Mikhail S. Gorbachev
said he favored it over a moderate
plan proposed by his prime minister.
Gorbachev’s surprise statement
undercut the authority of Prime Min
ister Nikolai I. Ryzhkov and added
momentum to calls for Ryzhkov’s
resignation.
It also increased the chances that
the radical plan, drafted largely by
economist Stanislav Shatalin, will go
into effect throughout the Soviet Union.
Shatalin’s plan calls for transfer
ring most economic authority from
the national government to the coun
try’s 15 constituent republics. The
republics could then move rapidly to
free prices, privatize government
industries, legalize private ownership
of land and take other steps toward a
market-based economy.
The national Supreme Soviet leg
islature and the parliament of Russia,
the largest of the 15 republics, met
separately Tuesday to consider the
competing proposals.
Ryzhkov addressed the national
legislature in a cavernous marble hall
at the Kremlin, the centuries-old walled
fortress that is the seat of communist
power.
He charged that the Shatalin plan
would lower living standards by 30
percent, force one out of every four
collective farms into bankruptcy, and
cause rapid inflation by decontrolling
prices on about 75 percent of basic
consumer products.
Ryzhkov called for retaining cen
tral control over the economy and
making a much slower transiuon to a
market-based system. He recom
mended keeping price controls on
most food and household products
while raising the cost of some major
items, such as televisions, radios and
refrigerators.
He also said imports of consumer
goods and medicines would have to
be cut by one-third because of a short
age of hard currency, and he warned
that the government budget would
have to be cut to prevent the S96
billion deficit from ballooning.
Ryzhkov’sspcechcausedcommo
tion in the hall as some delegates, led
by Anatoly Sobchak, the reformist
mayor of Leningrad, demanded cop
ies of the Shatalin plan and the oppor
tunity to adopt it.
“If you ask me, I like the Shatalin
plan better,” Gorbachev told the
delegates in an animated, 15-minutc
speech about the need to stabilize the
Soviet economy, which is plagued by
shortages of bread, meat, paper, gaso
line, tobacco and other ordinary goods.
“If there is a real plan to stabilize
finances, money circulation, the ruble
and the market, then we should adopt
the Shatalin idea,” Gorbachev said.
Pounding the back of his hand on
the lectern, the 59-year-old Soviet
leader defended the concept of a free
market, which is little understood and
much feared by ordinary Soviet citi
zens.
When price controls are gradually
lifted, he said, “we’ll have real prices
that will estimate who is worth what.
Then powerful stimuli will be re
leased for structural changes.
“Of course these will be painful
changes. But so be it,” he said.
Commission recommends
against art restrictions
WASHINGTON - A bipartisan
study commission Tuesday urged
Congress not to impose new anti
obscenity restrictions on the Na
tional Endowment for the Arts,
declaring that Americans must “put
up with much we do not like’’ to
preserve freedom of artistic ex
pression.
The 12-membcr panel also urged
NEA chairman John E. Frohnmaycr
to scrap a controversial require
ment that grant recipients sign a
pledge that they will not use fed
eral money to produce works that
might be deemed obscene.
Frohnmaycr has repeatedly re
sisted demands that he eliminate
the pledge, which has created a
furor in the arts community, until
federal courts rule on lawsuits
challenging its constitutionality. He
refused comment on the commis
sion’s report.
At the same time, the commis
sion proposed a major overhaul of
the endowment’s grant-making
nrrv'r'Hiirpc lr\ oncnm that tKn VIC A
his proposal to shift as much as 60
percent of federal grant money to
the control of state arts agencies.
Coleman also served notice that
the House probably will ignore the
commission’s plea and approve
some sort of ban on federal subsi
dies for pornographic or blasphe
mous art, even if it only embraces
the Supreme Court’s guidelines on
obscenity.
The commission, appointed by
President Bush and the House and
Senate leadership, said it unani
mously opposed legislative curbs
on (he content of works financed 1
by the arts endowment.
* ‘Content restrictions may raise
serious constitutional issues, would
be inherently ambiguous and would
almost certainly involve the en
dowment and the Department of
Justice in costly and unproductive
lawsuits,” the panel said.
Instead, it suggested that Con
gress approve a “preamble” to the
NEA reauthorization bill declar
ing simply that the endowment
“serves all of the people” and
“reflects the high place the nation
accords lo the fostering of mutual
serves the interests of the Ameri
can public and not a narrow con
stituency of artists.
The panel concluded that "the
endowment is not, in setting policy
and making grants, adequately
meeting its public responsibilities
at the present time" as steward of
taxpayer funds.
It proposed that the NF.A chair
man be given sole, explicit author
ity to make final grant decisions
and that the growing power of * peer
review panels" that select grant
applications for approval be di
minished to an advisory role.
The 94-page report of the com
mission, established by Congress
last fall, drew mixed reviews from
lawmakers trying to negotiate a
compromise bill that would extend
the endowment’s life beyond Sept.
30, when its statutory authority
expires.
Rep. Tom Coleman, R-Mo.,
applauded the report as a possible
framework for a compromise, but
criticized the panel for rejecting
respect for the disparate beliefs
and values among us.”
The commission added: ‘‘Main
taining the principle of an open
society requires all of us. at times,
to pul up with much we do not like,
but the bargain has proved in the
long run a good one.”
The independent panel was
created in October to examine NEA
operations. At the same time, at the
urging of Sen. Jesse Helms, R
N.C., Congress amended the en
dowment’s SI 71 million budget to
prohibit using federal funds for
works that ‘‘may be considered
obscene.”
Conservative lawmakers and re
ligious fundamentalists were an
gered by NEA grants for exhibi
tions of works by photographer
Robert Mapplethorpe, which con
tained sexually graphic images, and
by artist Andres Serrano, which
they denounced as sacrilegious.
—
Boyd protester plans hunger strike
SPENCER - Gov. Kay Orr is con
cerned about an opponent of a five
state, low-level radioactive waste
warehouse proposed for Boyd County
who plans a hunger strike, an aide to
the governor said Tuesday.
In a letter to the governor, Lowell
Fisher of Spencer said he would stop
eating until Orr acts on a pledge not to
allow construction in an area that
lacks community consent.
“At 1 p.m. on Sept. 17, I will
discontinue eating food with the in
tention of consuming zero calories
until you determine the time hascomc
to right a terrible wrong,” Lowell
Fisher of Spencer wrote to Orr on
Monday.
Fisher is the former head of Save
Boyd County, an organization that
opposes the waste site.
“The governor has great respect
for Lowell Fisher. He has handled
himself very professionally and
admirably through this whole proc
ess. She’s concerned about Lowell,
but she recognizes his right to choose
his form of protest,” said Bud Cuca,
Orr’s legal counsel.
US Ecology, the developer chosen
by a five-state waste compact com
mission to develop the waste site, has
applied for state permission to build
the waste warehouse near Butte in
Boyd County. The site near the South
Dakota border would hold waste from
Nebraska, Arkansas, Louisiana, Okla
homa and Kansas.
“Governor, my petition is a simple
one. 1 ask for the sake of Boyd County
and Nebraska: Make your word good,”
Fisher wrote.
“It is never easy for a citizen to do
something that requires interruption
of our comfortable American life
style or take a stand that will bring
about ridicule,” he wrote. “This situ
ation calls for someone to drive a
slake and say: enough.”
Jim Neal, a US Ecology spokes
man, said he didn’t know what would
be accomplished by refusing to eat.
‘‘I recognize he (Fisher) has been
put in the position of having to show
some responsibility and is trying to
set himself apart from some of the
tactics used to oppose the project in
the past,” Neal said. “I don’t know
what will be accomplished by this
particular method.”
Fisher referred to 1988 votes against
the construction by the McCulley
Township board and the Boyd County
board of commissioners as indica
tions of a lack of community consent.
He said community consent should
be determined by a vote of school
districts within 10 miles of the site.
The vole should be called by Orr and
be scheduled for the Nov. 6 general
election, he wrote.
Doe loyalists bomb executive mansion
MONROVIA, Liberia - Troops
loyal lo slain President Samuel Doe
bombarded rebels from atop the ex
ecutive mansion Tuesday, and a West
African leader said Doc’s death would
make it more difficult to end the war.
T wo days af ter rebels led by Prince
Johnson attacked Doe and his entou
rage at the headquarters of the West
African task force, the late president’s
men used heavy cannons to beat back
insurgents.
In the rest of Monrovia, shells
exploded and gunfire crackled as Prince
Johnson’s fighters scoured the city
for Doe loyalists.
Survivors from Doe’s elite presi
dential guard turned heavy artillery,
placed on the roof of the seaside
executive mansion, onto the rebels
and the war-ravaged city. The guns
normally face out toward the Atlantic
Ocean.
Gambian President Sir Dawda
Jawara said Doc’s men had asked the
fivc-natjon West African force to help
them evacuate the capital. Jawara said
aid would be offered on humanitarian
grounds.
The Community ordered a 3,000
member task force into Liberia last
month to help quell the 8 1/2-month
old civil war, often marked by tribal
fighting. The soldiers arc from Nige
ria, Ghana, Guinea, Sierra Leone and
Gambia.
Jawara, who was visiting Zim
babwe, said that rather than speeding
the war’s end, Doe’s death Monday
likely would increase bloodshed.
Witnesses said Doc’s mutilated
body was on display at Johnson’s
headquarters outside the city. Johnson
had said Doe would be court-martia
led, but within a day of his capture
Sunday he was reported dead, appar
ently of gunshot wounds.
Doe’s fate was the same as
Johnson’s former mentor, Brig. Gen.
Thomas Quiwonkpa, whose mutilated
body was put on display on a car that
loured the city of Monrovia after a
failed coup attempt against Doe in
October 1985.
Nebraskan
Editor Eric Planner Photo Chief Al Schaben
c-,. i,.'1!*® Night News Editors Matt Herek
Managing Editor Victoria Ayotte Chuck Green
Assoc News Editors Darcle Wlegerl Art Director Brian Shelllto
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Copy Desk Ip'tor tStfSKEwii ProteMio"* ** “' j£7'£i“n
Arts & Darr,n Fow,#r Publications Board
A ts& Entertainment Chairman Bill Vobe|da
Editor Michael Deeds 436-9993
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