Future of common wealth still unclear
After summit,
organization
remains foggy
MOSCOW (AP) — Nine weeks
alter the Commonwealth of Independ
ent Stales was born, the question
remains: What is it?
Last week’s summit meeting of
commonwealth leaders mainly helped
to clarify what it is NOT.
It is not a country, or a govern
ment. Nor is it a single military bloc.
It may become an economic union,
but even that is uncertain.
Russian President Boris Yeltsin
pushed for a united military but was
unable to sway his colleagues, even
with threats that if other republics
insisted on their own armies, Russia
might, too.
The heads of at least four former
Soviet republics—Ukraine, Belarus
Azerbaijan and Moldova—said they
would go ahead with plans to create
separate armies, ensuring the com
monwealth would not have a united
military.
True, leaders of the 11 member
states reaffirmed their commitment
to keep the Soviet Union’s immense
nuclear arsenal under strict, unified
control.
Ukraine and Belarus reaffirmed
that they intend to eliminate all nu
clear weapons on their territory. When
that process ends sometime in the
mid-1990s, they will be free of the
commonwealth militarily, their lead
ers said.
The meeting in Minsk, the com
monwealth’s nominal capital as well
as capital of Belarus, kept to the es
tablished pattern of papering over deep
divisions with a (lurry of agreements
short on substance and detail.
“I must tell you frankly, I cannot
call the documents adopted during
this meeting too comforting,”
Kazakhstan’s president, Nursultan
Nazarbayev, said on Sunday.
The three Slavic republics of Rus
sia, Belarus and Ukraine formed the
commonwealth on Dee. 8 with a vague
agreement that left uncertain what
the entity was to be.
Since then, three contentious
summits have whittled down the
possibilities.
The first, on Dee. 21, showed it
was not to be a “Slavic common
wealth.” Eight other republics joined,
turning it into a loose association of
Asian and European stales intent on
reviving disparate cultures and lan
guages.
■"I'Three former Soviet Republics that refused
join a united commonwealth armed force.
' l I Eight that agreed.
TURKMENISTAN |
AD
They promised not lo interfere in was overshadowed by bickering bc
cach other’s internal affairs and stressed tween Russia and Ukraine over the
the commonwealth was “neither a Black Sea fleet,
state nor a super-state.” It would not Many people in the former Soviet
have a government or a unified for- Union still hope that, in lime, the
cign policy. republics will come together again in
something resembling acountry, with
The second summit, on Dee. 30, a single economy.
Former Soviet states compete for U.S. approval
WAoHllNU J UIN (Ar) — Mircea
Sncgur is coming to see George Bush.
Can Ayaz Mutalibov be far behind?
Their names arc hardly on a par
with Boris N. Yeltsin or Mikhail S.
Gorbachev.
But Sncgur, of Moldova, and
Mutalibov, from Azerbaijan, arc presi
dents of nations emerging from the
old Soviet Union and a trip to Amer
ica—capped by a meeting with Bush
— is the prize offered for promises to
be good democrats respectful of human
rights, free enterprise and their neigh
bors’ borders.
It’s easier to get an invitation if
you have nuclear weapons.
1 hus, Presidents Leonid Kravchuk
of Ukraine, Nursultan Nazarbayev of
Kazakhstan and Stanislav Shushkcvich
of Belarus need only work out a
mutually convenient date. Their mis
siles assured them of an invitation.
In the eyes of the presidents of
former Soviet republics the Washing
ton visit “is what makes you legiti
mate,” said Mark Lowcnthal, a for
eign policy specialist at the Library of
Congress.
“You have to wonder what the
cutoff line is,” he said. “Not every
third-rate potentate in the world. This
is like the Roman Empire where all
the princes would come to Rome and
sec tne emperor.
Secretary of State James A. Baker
III paid his first visit this week to six
of the newly independent states.
During a stop in Kishinev, Mold
ova, on Tuesday, Baker met with
Snegur and said he received “com
plete and full” assurances of the presi
dent’s commitment to political and
economic reforms.
That received, Baker said Snegur
would probably visit Washington next
week for a meeting with Bush.
Then, it was on to Azerbaijan, a
touchier situation given the stale’s
record of human rights abuses and
armca conmci wun neignnoring
Armenia.
Bui Mulalibov promised lo respect
human rights and Baker said he had
“no reason to believe the assurances
will not be followed through.” Baker
said he would recommend the ad
ministration drop its reluctance lo
grant diplomatic recognition lo Azer
baijan.
There also is an element of inlcr
rcpublic rivalry in the competition
for notice from Washington.
Ukrainian officials arc particularly
concerned that Kravchuk gel the same
sort of treatment from Bash that Yeltsin
received when he visited Feb. 1.
Dealers
begin to
swap for
products
GRAND ISLAND (AP) —
The drugs-for-mcrchandisc trade
is on the rise in the Hall County
area, law enforcement officers
said.
Some drug dealers gladly
exchange drugs for merchan
dise, the officers said. To make
it easier for their customers, some
dealers provide shopping lists
complete with brand names,
model types and clothing sizes.
“I think it has been going on
for a while, we’re just hearing
about it now that we’re on the
streets more,” said Chris Rea,
Hall County Deputy Sheriff.
Rea became a full-time drug
investigator for the sheriff’s
department last September. He
coordinated a recent drug raid
in Hall County. On a daily ba
sis, Rea works closely with
investigators from the police
department and the Nebraska
Slate Patrol.
The most obvious impact of
the drugs-for-goods network is
that it keeps serious users in the
stores shoplifting or lurking in
neighborhoods burglarizing
homes or businesses, Rea said.
“They say doing drugs is a
victimless crime ... ‘If he docs
drugs, he’s just hurling him
self.’ But they don't stop to think
about how shoplifting increases
merchants’ costs and how bur
glaries affect victims,” Rea said.
An increasingly popular
method of obtaining merchan
dise to trade for drugs is writing
bad checks, he said.
■■ i
Dahmer jurors believe murderer
instead of mental health experts
MILWAUKEE (AP) — In the end, jurors
who decided Jeffrey Dahmer w as sane when he
killed and dismembered 15 young men and
boys cast aside the opinions of medical experts
and listened to one person: the serial killer
himself.
Dahmer told police he killed “for my own
warped, selfish desires for
self-gratification,” and the
jury concurred.
His confession, as recited
by two police detectives,
came through more clearly
during his three-week san
ity trial than descriptions
like “paraphiliac disorder not otherwise speci
fied,” some jurors said.
“The professional words were confusing,”
juror Karl Stahlc said after the verdicts were
read Saturday.
“(But) his whole conduct showed he was a
con artist_He had just one thing on his mind
— to satisfy his ego and to satisfy himself,”
Stahlc said.
The jury’s decision that Dahmer was not
insane means he faces mandatory life sen
tences. A hearing was set for Monday, when
relatives of his victims planned to speak in
court.
Dahmer didn’t take the stand during 12 days
of testimony. His lawyer, Gerald Boyle, made
good on a promise to have Dahmer speak
through his lengthy confession.
Dahmer told police he seduced victims,
drugged and strangled them, then had sex with
the corpses. He later mutilated bodies, saved
skulls and ate a heart, bicep and thigh.
Wisconsin law required the jury to deter
mine whether the former chocolate factory
worker had a menial disease or defect when he
killed. If he did, jurors had to decide whether he
knew right from wrong or couldn’t control
himself.
“We never got past the first question,” said
Russell Fenstermaker, one of two jurors who
dissented and said Dahmer was menially ill.
The unusual trial required that 10 of the jurors
agree.
“We all agreed there was a problem,” Fen
stermaker said.
“Whether we interpreted it as a disorder or
a disease is what separated us.”
Throughout the testimony, it seemed the
factor that would determine whether Dahmer
would be sent to prison or to a mental institu
tion was his measure of control, or, legally
speaking, his ability to “conform his conduct to
the requirements of the law.”
Boyle and District Attorney E. Michael
McCann assured jurors they would have to
wrestle with the issue of control.
The lawyers relied largely on testimony
from seven psychiatrists and psychologists,
five of whom agreed either willingly or under
cross-examination that Dahmer suffered a mental
disease.
Most commonly, the mental health profes
sionals classified the disease as necrophilia, a
sexual attraction to corpses.
Nebraskan
Editor Jans Pedersen, 472-1766 Night News Editors Adeana Lettln
Managing Editor Kara Wells , li?h,LA^lss°n
Assoc News Editors Chris Hoplensperger ”#ndJ Mon
Kris Karnopp Tom Kun*
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