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About The daily Nebraskan. ([Lincoln, Neb.) 1901-current | View Entire Issue (Sept. 30, 1991)
News Dicest JL ^ V* f * IJ ^ ^ ^ Edited by Eric Pfanner 150,000 farmers march through Paris PARIS — Fed up with hard times blamed partly on Eastern European food imports, at least 150,000 French farmers marched Sunday through Paris in a^show of political defiance. '1 heir demands tor protection for lower prices have put world trade talks on hold, stymied agricultural reform in Europe and cut off a prom ising outlet for financially strapped Eastern Europe to earn hard cash. About 10,000 riot police, traffic officers and plainclothes police kept a sharp eye on the marchers to pre vent violence, but none was reported on the three-mile route. Police manned a water cannon at the Place de la Bastille, birthplace of the French Revolution, as passing farmers tossed firecrackers and chanted, “No country without the peasants.” French farmers have suffered years of drought, rising production costs, foreclosures and lower prices due to cheaper imports, most recently from Eastern Europe, undercutting their Droduce. “The government had started to tijfe us for granted,” said Jacques Labarrc, 30, a cattleman from Nor mandy. “They thought we didn’t matter. We’re here to show them that we do.” The march through eastern Paris was the largest demonstration in the French capital this year, representing about 1 in 10 of France’s 1.4 million farmers. Police estimated that 150,000 people took part. Organizers put the number near 200,000, counting 20,000 believed trapped in traffic jams out side the city. Leaders of all major political par ties — except the ruling Socialists, the target of the farmers’ wrath — trooped along to try to win votes and embarrass President Francois Mitter rand. In recent weeks, farmers have burned truckloads of British and Irish lamb, pelted National Assembly Presi dent Laurent Fabius with rotten eggs and forced Mitterrand to cancel a speech by blocking his path to a meeting site and hurling manure at police. I I Troops guard evacuation ZAIRE Zaire opposition] disrupts talks on government KINSHASA, Zaire — Zaire edged toward political chaos Sun day as 20 irate opponents of Presi dent Mobutu Sese Seko forced their way into his marble palace to dis rupt talks aimed at forming a new government. The group told reporters it would kill opposition leaders who agreed to form a coalition government that would allow Mobutu to remain even as a figurehead. The scene demonstrated Mobutu’s loss of control since unpaid soldiers mutinied a week ago, pillaging Kinshasa and other cities in this sprawling Central African country of 30 million people. France and Belgium sent 1,750 troops to evacuate foreigners, and the soldiers’ presence helped to quell the rioting in the former Bel gian colony. But both Paris and Brussels have demanded that Mobutu end 26 years of dictatorial rule and allow democracy. The unrest in Zaire comes amid a wave of strikes, riots and protests that have swept Africa in the past 18 months. So far, 16 one-party states have been forced to legalize political opposition and three Marxist governments have been unseated at the ballot box. Mobutu’s presidential guard re acted with confusion as the band of minor opposition Figures pushed their way onto Mobutu’s palace grounds on Sunday. A week ago, they would have been shot. They threatened to kill opposi tion leaders, including Etienne Tsh isckedi, the 58-ycar-old leader o! the Union for Democracy and Social Progress. British Labor Party plans bid to challenge Conservatives BRIGHTON, England — The Labor Party opened its annual conference Sunday in a posi tion for the first pme in a decade to threaten the Conservatives’ hold on power. “We can demonstrate this week that we are fit to serve and ready to govern,” declared Labor leader Neil Kinnock, 49, who has dis carded many of the party’s leftist tenets that turned voters to the Tories in the last three elections. The wceklong gathering in this resort in southern England is the last before the next general election, which must be held by July. If Labor loses, Kinnock is unlikely to survive as party leader, many analysis believe. But Kinnock, who has dragged the party toward the center since taking over seven years ago, is a veteran at coping with political adver sity: a party 12 years out of office and poor personal ratings; attacks from Britain’s mostly right-wing tabloid national newspapers; de nunciations from Labor’s angry leftists. The last Labor government was defeated in 1979 and the Tories easily won the next two elections. But now opinion polls show the two big parties running neck and neck, and the campaign for the parliamentary elections has begun in all but name. Between 1983 and 1987, Kinnock reversed the party’s position on several big vote-losers: pledges to withdraw Britain from the European Community, nationalize banks, ban private schools and levy “soak the rich” taxes. Now Kinnock has also dropped the party’s demand for unilateral nuclear disarmament, long a cherished personal belief. With the ideological differences narrowed, the focus is on the personalities: Kinnock vs. the Conservatives’ 48-year-old John Major, who became Britain ’ s youngest prime m in isler this century when he succeeded Margaret Thatcher in November. Pro-Conservative newspapers, which de ride Kinnock as a “Welsh windbag,” arc wag ing an increasingly personal campaign against him. A Tory party T-shirt bears an unflattering picture of Kinnock and the caption, “There’s still a loony left.” Kinnock is widely credited with making the party electable after it lurched left following the 1979 defeat. Two more defeats followed in 1983 and, under Kinnock as leader, in 1987. Labor’s strategy now is to portray Kinnock as a man who has sensibly adapted unswerving values to a changing world, while being essen tially Welsh, warm, caring and true to the socialist heroes of his youth. ■■■■ . ■ ' 1 '—1 Blacks still overrepresented on Death Row WASHINGTON — Amid a congres sional debate on how to impose the death penalty, the Justice Department reported Sunday that blacks still make up a much larger share of Death Row inmates than their proportion of the nation’s population. The department’s Bureau of Justice Statistics said that as of Dec. 31, 1990, blacks made up 40 percent of prisoners awaiting death penalties. The 1990 census found that the U.S. population is 12.1 per cent black. The study did not calculate what per centage of the overall U.S. federal and slate prison system population is black. In 1987, the Supreme Court ruled that statistical evidence of discrimination is insufficient to render death penalty stat utes unconstitutional. That ruling came in the case of Warren McCleskey, a black man who was exe cuted last week in the Georgia electric chair for the killing of a white Atlanta policeman during a 1978 furniture store robbery. Last week, the House Judiciary Com mittee approved and sent to the House floor a bill allowing legal challenges to death sentences based on statistical show ings of race discrimination. The Senate rejected a similar provision last summer. Under prodding f rom the Bush admini stration, both House and Senate crime bills would greatly expand the federal death penalty — to cover some 50 new crimes. The Justice Department study iound 2,356 prisoners awaiting death penalties at year-end, up 5 percent from the previous year. Thirty-two of them were women, and the median age was 34. 12.000 tirsi-ever —-- cut long weapons — 10.000 - - 8,000_ Total U.S. 6.000 warheads k Total 4.000 I Soviet -■-war I heads . May 1972 June 1979 June 1982 June 1991 1999 SALT! SALT II START talks Before signing START signed signed begin of START reductions complete . •:•••• J flap -Ii.Aa.. ■ Where We Stand '" •-.-*- • ,11 .jraoKjgamr ---. X'f-.TT'Vlfririr The unratified START treaty has been surpassed by President Bush's new proposal to cut these arsenals even further. The agreement was to cut the U.S. nuclear forces by 28% and Soviet forces by 35%. U.S. under START: Soviet* under START: ■ 50 MX missiles with ■ 154 Soviet SS-18s (cut from 308 10 warheads each 10 warheads each ■ 944 warheads on Minuteman III ■ 60 silo based SS-24s and MkJgetman missiles 10 warheads each ■ 18 Trident submarines with ■ 528SS-258 3,456 warheads overall 1 warhead each ■ 1,100 mobile ICBMs ■ 9 Delta IV submarines with ■ 20 ALCM's per bomber 1,872 warheads overall ■ 6 Typhoon submarines „ . _ _ __, ■ 12 Delta III submarines SourcM. Anm» Control Association, _ . . _ _ imue Congressional Research Service, ® 1,100 mobile ICBMs National Resources Defense Council B 12 Cruise missiles per bomber , ,1. - V '*!. ^ ■-* 1 ''?■ r.V Cheney says savings on defense not instant WASHINGTON — Administra tion officials said Sunday that there will be no short-run savings in defense costs from President Bush’s dramatic nuclear weapons stand down. “Over the next few months, or in fiscal year ’92, there arc added costs with terminating contracts, moving systems around, destroy ing warheads, etc., that had not previously been expected,” Secre tary of Defense Dick Cheney said on ABC’s “This Week With David Brinkley.” i^neney said me nauon s mili tary must be ready to fight a re gional conflict anywhere in the world and that the Strategic De fense Initiative is needed in a world of nuclear proliferation. He defended the B-2 bomber program as necessary to the coun try’s defense and said the armed forces already are in the midst of a massive builddown that will cut their manpower by 25 percent. The need to prevail in a regional conflict like Operation Desert Storm forms “the basic underlying as 1 sumptions by which we size our forces today,” said Cheney. National Security Adviser Brent Scowcroft said that “five years out, I think there will be a peace divi dend,” and “hopefully it will be” sizable. But “I honestly don’t know how much,” said Scowcroft, on NBC’s “Meet the Press.” Defense spending is heading down to 3.6 percent of gross na tional product, the lowest level since J 1939, said Undersecretary of Dc fcnsc Paul Wolfowitz. “The United States can afford the programs it needs and still af ford an adequate defense,” Wolfow itz said on CNN’s “Newsmaker Sunday.” The administration got an ex pression of support from one con gressional Democrat, Sen. Sam Nunn of Georgia, chairman of the Senate Armed Services Commit tee. “I do think those who believe we’re going to be able to declare a peace 'dividend and have a huge amount of money for domestic purposes are not looking at the fiscal picture of the country,” said Nunn. most ui uic ueicuav are going to have to go to try to meet the deficit, which is grow ing,’’added Nunn, on CBS’s “Face the Nation.” Bush administration officials defended the Soviet response to Bush’s initiative. President Mikhail Gorbachev welcomed the disarmament pro posals, but offered no immediate reciprocal cuts. “It’s just as if somebody had hit us with this cold within 24 hours, we would not prepare a substantive response and say, “OK, we’ll take down the following systems,’” said Cheney. “It’ll take some time lor them to work it. But I think they will.” Cheney also said that “I don t see any call” to reduce U.S. slral£: gic nuclear capability below the MJ percent level envisioned in the START treaty.
