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Peace conference
Baker bids for support
KUWAIT CITY - Secretary of State
James Baker headed for Damascus
Monday in hopes of enlisting Syria’s
participation in a Mideast peace con
ference. Earlier, he bid for Soviet co
sponsorship of the initiative and gained
the sideline endorsement of Saudi
Arabia.
Baker’s scheduled sessions with
President Hafez Assad and Foreign
Minister Farouk Sharaa loomed as his
most difficult challenge on the Arab
side, as he attempts to fashion a for
mat and agenda for the prospective
peace talks. He was expected to re
turn to Israel on Tuesday in hopes of
resolving its concerns about the scope
of the proposal.
On the way from Jiddah, Saudi
Arabia, to Damascus, the secretary of
state took a brief detour to Kuwait to
reaffirm U.S. support of the emirate.
Before leaving Jiddah, Baker had
a 35-minute telephone conversation
with Soviet Foreign Minister Alexan
der Bessmertnykh. Baker wants
Moscow to co-sponsor the peace talks,
provided the Soviets resume full dip
lomatic relations with Israel after a
24-ycarlapse.
Bessmertnykh is expected to make
a trip to Israel soon. Baker gave a
detailed briefing to the Soviet offi
cial. The fact that Baker was keeping
his schedule open raised a possibility
that he might fly to Moscow to firm
up a jointly sponsored conference.
The trip would depend on the resolu
tion of the Arab-Israeli differences
over the agenda and the extent of
third-party participation.
The Saudis confirmed during
Baker’s meetings in Jiddah with King
Fahd and Prince Saud, the foreign
minister, that they would not partici
pate directly in peace negotiations
though they may take part in dealing
with such side issues as the environ
ment.
But Prince Saud, seeing Baker off
to Kuwait, said “It was conveyed to
the secretary that Saudi Arabia be
lieves it is time to put an end to the
Arab-Israeli conflict and to achieve a
comprehensive and just solution to
the Palestinian question.”
The foreign minister said, Saudi
Arabia “supports the efforts of the
United States for the convening of an
early peace conference to achieve
this objective.”
US. builds camp; Iraqis watch
SILOPI, Turkey - U.S. military
forces who worked Monday to
construct a model camp to house
Kurdish refugees in northern Iraq
are being watched but left alone by
Iraqi police in the region, officials
said.
The U.S. soldiers have received
high marks from relief groups and
refugees in Kurdish camps along
the Turkish border.
“We were a bit worried they
would take over at one point,” said
Constantin Sokoloff, a field officer
for the United Nations High Com
missioner for Refugees. “But they
are very cooperative, very willing,
and they have a lot of logistical
support.”
Dozens of U.S. troops have ar
rived the past few days at the worst
off refugee camps, at Cukurca and
Uzumlu in Turkey. They will be
bringing in medicine and water by
helicopter, distributing food and
helping pipe spring water to the
hundreds of thousands of refugees
at the squalid camps.
Two U.S. soldiers were injured
in a land mine explosion at the
Uzumlu camp Monday. The bor
der had been mined by Turkey and
Iraq before the gulf war, and sev
eral refugees have been killed or
maimed when they stepped on
mines. ., , . ,
Relief workers sard the arrival
of the Americans had reduced ten
sions among the refugees.
“They see it as a bit of a tang ible
sign that the Americans are inter
ested Mid are going to do some
thing,” said Leah Thatcher, a pub
lic health specialist with the New
York-based International Rescue
Committee.
At Cukurca, a camp crowded
with about 185,000 refugees, refu
gees seemed particulMly pleased
to see U.S. Army Special Forces on
Monday. A day earlier, Turkish
soldiers had fired at a crowd riot
ing over food distribution, killing
Five and seriously injuring three,
according to medical workers.
Turkish officials said Sunday
that one refugee was killed and
Five injured.
The United States and allied
countries have promised several
safe havens in northern Iraq to house
refugees now massed on the bor
ders of Turkey and Iran.
Said Hayri Kozakcioglu, gov
ernor of Turkey’s southeastern
border region where several hundred
thousand Iraqi Kurds have massed:
“Now we are waiting for the
Americans to finish setting up the
camp. When it is finished we shall
know whether we have to set up
another one.”
Turkey’s Anatolia news agency
reported the governor met earlier
Monday with U.S. Lt. Gen. John
Shalikashvili, commander of the
military relief effort.
Reporters who visited the camp
being set up near the northern Iraqi
border town of Zakho said about
200 tents had been erected since
Sunday and that another 400 w ere
being put up. They noted hundreds
of Iraqi policemen carrying auto
matic weapons and loitering around
the camp area and the town.
Soviet premier warns of ‘social explosion’
MOSCOW - Prime Minister
Valentin Pavlov warned Monday that
a “social explosion” could occur and
millions of people lose their jobs unless
the country agrees on an emergency
program to halt economic decline.
Pavlov said industrial production
will plummet if debilitating strikes
continue, state contracts are not met
and the government fails to adopt an
economic plan.
Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev
told reporters on Red Square that he
expected “serious proposals” and
criticism of the program at a pivotal
Communist Party Central Committee
meeting Wednesday.
“Comrades have made comments
like, ‘Isn’t it too much of a turn to
ward liberalization of the economy,
toward capitalization? And what will
the consequences be?”’ he said after
laying a wreath at Vladimir Lenin’s
mausoleum on the 121st anniversary
of the Soviet founder’s birth.
More than 3,000 Siberian gold
i
miners held a one-day warning strike
Monday in Magadan and Chukotka,
according to the Tass and Postfactum
news services.
The gold miners expressed soli
darity with hundreds of thousands of
striking coal miners, who stopped work
March 1 and are demanding Gor
bachev’s resignation and wage in
dexation to compensate for inflation.
Gorbachev has refused to step down.
He urged strikers to put aside per
sonal grudges and work together for
“the fatherland, state, country and
condition of the people.”
Pavlov described the dire slate of
the economy in presenting the latest
attempts to cure it. “The situation in
the country can only be characterized
as a general crisis.”
He told the Supreme Soviet legis
lature “the number of unemployed
may reach 18 million and a social
explosion could erupt before the year
is out” and that industrial output will
drop 20 percent if the program is not
adopted.
First-quarter figures already showed
the Soviet equivalent of the gross
national product fell 8 percent and
labor productivity 9 percent, com
pared with the same period a year
ago.
If the country decides to switch
quickly from a centrally planned to a
free-market economy, production and
incomes will fall more than 30 per
cent and 30 million people will lose
their jobs, Pavlov said.
The most controversial point in
the plan is the sale of some state
owned businesses to private groups
or individuals. Two-thirds of small
businesses in the service and con
sumer sectors would be denational
ized by the end of 1992.
He advised a third, gradual course,
which would include denationaliza
tion, promotion of commercial cred
its, improvement of the tax structure
and encouragement of foreign invest
ment to avert collapse.
Time short for Gorbachev,
U.S. analysts conclude
WASHINGTON - U.S. officials
are reluctantly concluding that
Soviet President Mikhail Gor
bachev’s government is paralyzed
and the initiator of world-shaking
reforms at home and abroad may
not hold power much longer.
Kremlin watchers in Washing
ton arc studying the most likely
successors and considering what a
post-Gorbachev Soviet Union may
look like.
Gorbachev has enjoyed hearty
support from President Bush, who
made no secret of his hope that the
Soviet leader would succeed. But
Bush advisers and Slate Depart
ment analysts now say privately
that Gorbachev appears unable to
regain control of his fractious coun
try and that his time may be run
ning out. ^
“He’s getting pretty close to the
edge,” said one influential Soviet
affairs analyst at State. “The situ
ation looks very precarious,” said
another.
One official with long experi
ence observing Soviet affairs said
the administration has received
recent signals from various sources
indicating that Gorbachev is in
serious trouble and is “maneuver
ing furiously to protect his flanks
and undercut the opposition.
“He’s very much aware of the
threat,” the official said.
Democrats trying to restart
civil rights bill negotiations
WASHINGTON - Democratic
congressional leaders, hoping to
revive efforts toward a consensus
civil rights bill, want to meet with
corporate executives who called
off negotiations after pressure from
the Bush administration.
AT&T chief Robert Allen, who
halted big business’ talks on Fri
day, was said by a spokesman
Monday to be hopeful that a com
promise was still possible, though
he had not agreed to resume nego
tiations.
Supporters of a Democratic
sponsored civil rights bill accused
the Bush administration of putting
enormous pressure on the business
leaders, prompting them to halt
talks just as it appeared they were
nearing agreement with civil rights
groups.
“What they did was reprehen
sible,” Ralph Neas, executive di
rector of the Leadership Confer
ence on Civil Rights, said of White
House officials. “They pulled out
all the stops in an effort to scuttle
the good faith negotiations.”
Democrats and civil rights lead
ers accused President Bush of trying
to sabotage efforts to reach agree
ment out of a desire to keep the
issue of racial quotas alive as a
political issue for Republican can
didates in 1992. Bush contends the
Democratic bill would lead em
ployers to use racial quotas for
hiring.
“There’s no question, especially
in light of recent events, that the
White House does not want a strong
civil rights bill enacted into law.
What the White House wants is a
political issue around which to
demagogue,” Neas said.
Presidential spokesman Marlin
Fitzwalcr reiterated administration
support for its own bill and labeled
the Democratic version a “quota
bill.” Asked if he were glad the
corporate executives had pulled out
of the talks, Fitzwater said, “Any
one is free to talk with anyone.”
The Democratic sponsored bill
is intended to reverse a series of
Supreme Court decisions that made
it more difficult for minorities to
sue employers for job discrimina
tion.
Bush has proposed his own less
sweeping alternative version. The
Democratic bill has passed two
committees and is awaiting floor
action in the House, tentatively
scheduled for the last week in April.
Allen, chief executive officer of
AT&T, disclosed Friday that he
was breaking off the talks with
civil rights groups, citing “the
absence of a bipartisan consensus”
in Washington.
btmg operations
High court takes pom case
WASHINGTON - The Supreme
Court Monday set the stage for what
could be an important ruling on gov
ernment sting operations, agreeing to
review the case of a Nebraska farmer
convicted of receiving “kid pom”
through the mail.
The court said it will decide whether
Keith Jacobson unlawfully was en
trapped by Postal Service investiga
tors.
Lawyers for Jacobson, 57, said his
rights were violated because he was
targeted by the undercdVer investiga
tion even though government agents
had no reason to believe he had
committed, or was likely to commit,
a crime.
Jacobson, who lives near Newman
Grove, was convicted of receiving in
1987 a copy of a magazine called
“Boys Who Love Boys, described in
a catalog as “11-year-old and 14
year-old boys get it on in every way
possible.”
The catalog and magazine were
mailed to him by postal inspectors
who posed as pornography distribu
tors. •
Jacobson was sentenced to two
years’ probation and 250 hours of
community service.
Police found Jacobson’s name on
a San Diego, Calif., pornography
bookstore’s mailing list in 1984. He
had lawfully ordered two nudist
- it
The postal Inspectors
did not apply extraordi
nary pressure on
Jacobson... Unlike
face -to-face contacts,
Jacobson easily could
have Ignored the con
tents of the mailings If
he was not interested
in them.
8th U.S. Circuit Court of
Appeals
— -1* -
magazines and a brochure from the
store.
Over the next 29 months, under
cover postal inspectors repeatedly
solicited Jacobson through die mail
to buy illegal pornography.
A three-judge panel of the 8th U .S.
Circuit Court of Appeals threw out,
by a 2-1 vote, Jacobson’s conviction
in January 1990. But the entire 8th
Circuit court, voting 8-2, reinstated it
nine months later.
“The Constitution does not require
reasonable suspicion of wrongdoing
before the government can begin an
undercover investigation,” the appeals
court said.
It rejected Jacobson’s contention
that the government conduct toward
him had been “outrageous.”
“The postal inspectors did not apply
extraordinary pressure on Jacobson .
.. Unlike face-to-face contacts, Jacob
son easily could have ignored the
contents of the mailings if he was not
interested in them,” the appeals court
said.
Jacobson’s contention that he had
been entrapped also was rejected.
In a dissenting opinion, Chief Judge
Donald Lay called the government’s
conduct “reprehensible.”
“The government invested con
siderable time and money to prose
cute a man who never would have
committed a crime but for the gov
ernment’s encouragement," he said.
Judge Gerald Heaney, in a sepa
rate dissent, said, “Had the govern
ment left Jacobson alone, he would
have, on the basis of his past life,
continued to be a law-abiding man,
caring for his parents, farming his
land and minding his own business.
Now he stands disgraced in his home
and his community with no visible
gain to the Postal Service in the im
portant fight against the sexual ex
ploitation of children.”
The case is Jacobson vs. U.S., 90
1124.