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About The daily Nebraskan. ([Lincoln, Neb.) 1901-current | View Entire Issue (Oct. 25, 1993)
By The Associated Press Edited by Jeff Singer NEWS DIGEST Netjraskan Monday, October 20,1993 Haitian peace plan debated PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti — U.N. officials welcomed a peace proposal by opponents of Haiti’s exiled president, but said Sunday the army and lawmakers must move faster to restore democracy or face a broadened commercial embargo. A U.N. spokesman said the pro posal by a group of lawmakers opposed to exiled President Jean Bertrand Aristide represented a shift toward acceptance of the U.N. plan to free violence-plagued Haiti from military rule. Still, U.N. officials were trying to assess whether the plan unveiled Saturday night would ease the cur rent crisis, or was a delaying tactic. The United Nations reapplied a weapons and petroleum embargo last week to pressure the military to give up piower. One of the warships enforcing the sanctions cruised in Port-au-Prince harbor Sunday, then steamed near the headquarters of Haiti’s tiny navy. The U.N. plan requires army commander Lt. Gen. Raoul Cedras to step down and Aristide to return by Saturday. But Cedras has resist ed quitting, and the country has been plagued by violence, blamed mostly on opponents of Aristide. Overnight, six people were re ported shot in Petionville, a suburb of Port-au-Prince. Their conditions were not known. The new proposal attempts to win concessions from Aristide before allowing his return from 25 months of exile, including a general amnesty law, political opponents in Aristide ’s Cabinet and an end to the embargo. Aristide decreed an amnesty for political crimes, but Cedras has argued that this order could be re voked and an amnesty law is need ed. Aristide says he’s not opposed to including opponents in his gov ernment, but only after he returns. U.N. envoy Dante Caputo un veiled the proposal Saturday night, after meeting with U.S. Ambassa dor William Swing and Premier Robert Malval, head of the transi tion government. Malval is to ask Aristide about concessions in a meeting Wednesday in Washing ton. The U.S. Embassy welcomed the initiative and issued a state ment saying, “We encourage all parties to give the proposal the closest possible scrutiny at the ear liest possible time.” Cedras, who helped topple Aristide in a 1991 coup, has for mally asked the president for early retirement but he gave no planned date to leave in an Oct. 14 letter to Aristide. U.N. officials did not know if the request was only a formality. Throughout the city, gas sta tions were closed, but motorists sat at some pumps anyway, waiting until the stations would open. Esso, Shell and Texaco ordered spigots turned off at their storage depots, and the move prompted panic buy ing and a sharp reduction in the nation’s fuel on hand. Crime bill’s effectiveness debated WASHINGTON — Senate Judi ciary Committee Chairman Joseph Biden urged quick passage of a crime bill Sunday and said he would support tougher mandatory sentencing in ex change for Republican backing of gun control. “I’ll make a deal with you right now, Phil, before all of America,” the Delaware Democrat told Sen. Phil Gramm, R-Texas, on CBS’ “Face the Nation.” l Biden said he would support Gramm’s demands for strict sentenc ing requirements for crimes involv ing guns if Gramm would drop his opposition to the Brady bill. That legislation requires a five-day wait for purchase of a handgun, and a more comprehensive ban on assault weap ons. Bills introduced in Congress last month would provide S5.9 billion over five years to put 50,000 more police officers on the streets, specify new federal death penalty crimes, restrict death-row inmates’ rights to federal appeals and establish alternative pun ishments such as boot camps for -44 If someone Is going to break Into my mama’s house, they’ve got to worry not just about the sheriff and the police chief, they’ve got to worry that she has a gun and she might shoot them. — Sen. Gramm, R-Texas young, non-violent offenders. Congress will separately take up the Brady bill, named for former White House press secretary James Brady, who was shot in the 1981 assassina tion attempt on President Reagan. The crime legislation is similar to a measure that failed last year after Gramm and other Senate Republi cans threatened a filibuster. Gramm, responding to Biden’s challenge, said he was against gun control. “The way to deal with crime is not taking away guns.” He said the five-day waiting period stipulated in the Brady bill was “not a big deal,” but warned that Attorney General Janet Reno was moving toward a gun ban. “If someone is going to break into ray mama's house, they’ve got to worry not just about the sherifT and the police chief, they’ve got to worry that she has a gun and she might shoot them.” “We’re not going to take Phil’s mama’s gun,” Biden said. “If you want to do something about crime,” he said to Gramm, “step up to the ball, old buddy. Don’t filibuster this time.” Reno.speakinpearlieron the same program, said waiting periods, stifTer bans on assault weapons and a pro posal to prohibit the sale of handguns to minors were “very important first steps, but we’ve got to go further in making sure that people who have a gun and use it in the wrong way get punished.” State wire Official warns Nebraska gangs could multiply GERING — The director of an anti-drug, anti-gang organization in Denver said he will come to western Nebraska on Wednesday with a warn ing. Parents and the community can’t bury their heads in the sand when they hear about teen-age gang activity, Dean Askew said. “They tend to haw blinders on and hope it will go away,” Askew said. Denver had only 24 gang members in 1986 and people tried to down play the situation, said Askew, executive director of Street Beat. Now the Den ver metropolitan area has more than 10,000 youths in gangs, Askew said. ScottsblufT police officers have identified about 20 youths who are associating themselves with two rival ganps inScottsblufT. Pol ice Chief Jim Livingston said his department is con fronting the situation without exag gerating it. “We must guard against over-re action, but we can’t deny what we perceive tobeaproblem.” Ghosts Continued from Page 1 Stories of ghosts and poltergeists from the perspective of a trained ob server and eye witness—of haunted mansions that no one will live in, of unexplainable drafts, bumps in the attic and objects flying through the air. All this observation produces some unexpected results. “Poltergeists arc often found in homes where a teenager lives,” she said. “They seem to be connected with a kind of violent childish energy.” Other investigators concur, and suggest that in this odd correlation might lie a clue to haunting phenom ena. Martin Caidin, of Cocoa Beach, Fla., is a writer and show pilot. Of his 180 books, one. called “Cy borg,” was the basis of the popular 1970s television show, “The Six Mil lion Dollar Man.” He said he suspected ghosts may be “projections” of the mind. “Ghosts aren’t something you can study,” he said. “You study people’s reactions to ghosts.” “We know that poltergeists, or ’noisy ghosts’ occur in the presence of an angry child.” He said poltergeists might repre sent the psychic power of great anger in a child—“whose mind is basically unfettered” — directed unconscious ly against the objects in the child’s environment. “In some form, ghosts arc energy fields,” he said. Some researchers believe these fields could possibly be projected from the mind. “That’s one strong possibility,” Caidin said. Caidin’s recent experiments in tclekinctics may shed some light on the phenomenon of ghosts. The weekend of Oct. 16, Caidin was a featured speaker at the Parapsy chology Mini-Conference hosted in Lincoln by the local Fortean Research Center. “About ghosts," he said, “in some form these are energy Helds, they can be photographed and seen by others But they might be energy created by the brain or the mind.” Of course, not everyone is prepared to believe in ghosts, projected or oth erwise. “But then these are the same peo ple who go to church on Sunday and worship a God you can’t see,” Caidin said. “Some things just don’t fit into the envelope of known reality. “Everything is impossible until it happens, Caidin said. - Bombing by IRA kills 10, leaves unanswered questions BELFAST, Northern Ireland — Some faces were hardened with hate, others streaked with tears as they looked Sunday at the spot where an IRA bomb exploded without warn ing, killing 10 people and wounding 58. The Irish Republican Army took responsibility for the attack, which it said was aimed at a meeting of com manders of the Ulster Defense Asso ciation. Both group are outlawed. The IRA, which draws its support from Northern Ireland’s Catholic minority, wants to unify the province with the republic of Ireland, while the Protes tant-based UDA wants it to remain part of the United Kingdom. The UDA has killed 15 Catholics this year. The bomb exploded in a fish shop on the Shankill Road at midday Satur day when the street was crowded with shoppers. It was the deadliest terrorist incident in Northern Ireland in six years. Police said Sunday they had arrest ed an unspecified number of people and were interrogating them about the Prime Minister John Major, in Cyprus for a Commonwealth summit, said on Sunday the IRA could never achieve its goals by violence. “The sort of atrocity we saw yes terday will isolate and marginalize the IRA increasingly,” he said in a BBC interview. “People cannot bomb their way to a political objective, it simply cannot be done.” For the Protestants of the pro-Brit ish district, the bombing has under scored their belief that you can’t talk with the IRA, only hope to destroy them. “How many young tads are going to join up to the UDA now?” asked Alfie McCrory, 35. a local resident. The shop’s 63-year-old owner, John Frizzell, was killed, along w ith h is 29 year-old daughter, Sharon McBride. A 7-year-old girl and her mother and fatter were killed by the explosion. One of the bombers, 23-year-old Thomas Begley, also died in the blast. His comrade, identified in hospital records as Sean Kelly, was under po lice guard in critical condition. Belfast city councilor Joe Cogglc, who lives near Shankill Road, said local residents helped the injured IRA bomber because they did not know who he was. “We gave him our full sympathy. If we’d known, I hate to say it, but I don’t think he’d have gotten out ali ve,” saidCoggle, whose son is in prison tor IRA bombs former headquarters of Ulster Defense Association AP loyalist paramilitary activities. In a statement to Belfast media, the IRA said it “regretted” the bombing, and said it had intended to warn passers-by but the bomb exploded prematurely. Gerry Adams, president ofthe IRA supporting Sinn Fein party, told The Associated Press: “What happened yesterday was a terrible tragedy. No matter how well intentioned the IRA people might have been, they need to be mindful of the potential for such tragedy.” But he said the attack underscored the need fora “peace process” involv ing his party, which gets about a third of Catholic votes in the British-ruled province. Unionist politicians threatened late Sunday to withdraw from all contact with colleagues in the Social Demo cratic and Labor Party unless their leader, John Hume, quits talking with Sinn Fein. Hume and Adams have spent five months trying to agree on a formula for peace talks involving the British and Irish governments and Northern Ireland parties. But the Irish government, reacting to the bombing, canceled plans to meet Wednesday with British offi cials in Belfast as part of the two countries’ Anglo-Irish Agreement on Northern Ireland. “How can you take seriously state ments by Gerry Adams that he’s try ing to start a peace process when the IRA is going out and murdering shop pers?” said Dick Spring, Ireland’s deputy prime minister. SPORTS WIRE Williams makes dubious history with pitch TORONTO — Mitch Williams’ place in baseball history is secure, right there with Ralph Branca and Ralph Terry. Branca and Terry are the poor souls who will be forever remembered for giving up two of the most dramatic home runs in the history of postseason play in baseball. Williams joined the club Saturday night when Joe Carter hit a ninth inning, three-run homer in Game 6 of the World Series that gave the Toronto Blue Jays an 8-6 victory over the Philadelphia Phillies and tneir second straight title. The Phillies were just three outs away from forcing Game 7 after trail ing three games to one. On Saturday night, W illiams stood on the mound as the Blue Jays ran onto the field and celebrated. He put his head down and walked into the Phillies’ dugout with his 43-save sea son forgotten. “In this game, you can’t take it back,” Williams said. In 1951, Branca gave up Bobby Thomson’s throe-run homer in the bottom of the ninth to give the Giants a 5-4 playoff victory against Brook lyn and a spot in the Series. In 1960, it was Terry who served up Bill Mazcroski’s ninth-inning. Game 7 homer that won the Series for Pittsburgh over the Yankees. “I can’t change what happened no matter how much I want to.” Will iams said. “I’m disappointed for my teammates because they busted their butts all season. But I’m not going to commit suicide. I’ll be back next sea son and we’ll have a good team.” Nebraskan „ FAX NUMBER 472 1761 The Daily Nebraskan(USPS 144-060) is published by the UNI Publications Board. Ne braska Union 34.1400 R St., Lincoln. NE, Monday through Friday during the academic year; weekly during summer sessions Readers are encouraged to submit story ideas and comments to the Dally Nebraskan by phoning 472-1763 between 9 a.m. and 6 p.m. Monday through Friday. The public also 1ms access to the Publications Board. For information, contact Doug Fiedler, 436-6407 Subscnption price Is 650 for one year. ALL MATERIAL COPYRIGHT 1993 DAILY NEBRASKAN
