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By The Associated Press Edited by Deb McAdams News Digest Monday, September 26, 1994 l>a£c ~ U.S. officials foresee more violence in Haiti WASHINGTON — With the flash of a gun barrel ending a week of rela tive calm, senior officials warned Sunday that the firefight that took 10 Haitian lives may be a forerunner of more violence in that historically vio lent land. “This is the first bad incident we’ve had involving, directly, Ameri can troops, but it won’t be the last,” said Senate Armed Services Commit tee Chairman Sam Nunn, D-Ga., a member of the delegation that brokered the deal with the Haitian military on the entry of U.S. forces, U.S. Marines killed 10 armed men Saturday evening outside a police sta tion in the northern coastal city of Cap Haitien, in a battle that ensued after several of the men emerged from the station and opened fire on an American patrol. It was the first violent incident involving Americans after a surpris ingly peaceful first week of the U.S. occupation, and it drew quick com parisons to hostile attacks against U.S. troops in Somalia. While administration officials re sponded by assuring the American public, and warning the Haitians they were ready for more, congressional critics geared up for an attempt to legislate an early withdrawal from Haiti. President Clinton, in New York for a meeting with U.N. Secretary Gen eral Boutros Boutros-Ghali, issued a statement expressing regret for the loss of life and saying: “It must be prepared to respond to hostile action against them and will do so.” Speaking at a church in Harlem, Clinton said the Haiti operation “helps to end human rights violations that we find intolerable everywhere but unconscionable on our doorstep and offers them (Haitians) a chance at stability.” Clinton did not mention at the church the violence in Cap Haitien. But Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman Gen. John Shalikashvili said Haitian military leader Lt. Gen. Raoul Cedras had been flown to the port city Sun day and the U.S. side was making it “abundantly clear” what the conse quences would be if there were fur ther threats to U.S. troops. They now know, he said on CBS’ “Face the Nation,” “what the cost to the Haitians is for picking a fight with the Marines.” The officials appearing on the Sunday news programs also sought to remind the American public that no military operation of this sort can be risk-free. Defense Secretary William Perry, who visited Haiti on Saturday, said he told U.S. troops that “they have to stand tall for that mission and that they would have difficulties. We fully expected difficulties, and the incident we saw yesterday, I think, is just typi cal of what we expected to see,” he said on NBC’s “Meet the Press.” But House Minority Whip Newt Gingrich, R-Ga., said the incident underscored Haiti’s similarity to So malia, and said he will press for a resolution this week demanding U.S. withdrawal “at the most rapid pos sible speed." Gingrich, speaking on CBS, said that after the firefight the American public doesn't “want to wait around for ambushes and for booby traps and for all the things that can go wrong.” American troops left Somalia, an other peacekeeping mission that be gan well, after the loss of 44 Ameri can lives, 30 in combat. Nunn, also on “Meet the Press," said he opposed setting a specific date, but also warned against a broad mission of restoring democracy to a land that has had six coups in the last seven years. “They’ve not had the ability to have dissent without violence," he said. “They have had a very violent history and they have not had democ racy.” Nunn urged deposed Haitian President Jean-Bertrand Aristide to seek an immediate end to the U.N. embargo on Haiti so that the frustra tions of impoverished Haitians would not be turned on U.S. troops. Aristide later said he was asking the U.N. Security Council to remove some sanctions as a first step toward restoring democracy, and said he had ordered the Haitian parliament to meet Wednesday to consider the ques tion of amnesty for those who over threw him three years ago. Simpson jury selection begins LOS ANGELES — After three months of endless publicity in the O.J. Simpson murder case, 1,000 people must look inward and answer a question: Could I be a fair juror for this man? “People have a personal involve ment in this case. Some of them may have been out there on the freeway that Friday afternoon,” said Loyola University Law School professor Laurie Levenson. “Both sides have to be scared of jurors with an agenda; people who want to send a message,” she said. Those who raced out to roadsides to cheer Simpson in a Ford Bronco with a gun to his head and police in pursuit would be less than ideal ju rors. But as the first stage of jury selec tion gets under way today, lawyers on both sides are realistic enough to know that no hope exists of finding jurors unaware of the case. Nor would they want such a jury, Levenson said. “You want someone on this jury who's at least heard about the case, because you want a functioning mem ber of society,” she said. Yet jurors also need to be able to put all prior knowledge aside and decide the case on the evidence, Levenson said. At a minimum, prospective jurors will know that Simpson, a former football star whose fame extended into show business, is charged with the murders of his ex-wife, Nicole OJ. Simpson ON TRIAL Brown Simpson, and her friend Ronald Goldman. They will also know that Simpson has declared himself “absolutely, 100 percent not guilty” and that he has the best team of lawyers money can buy. Issues beyond bias for or against Simpson also must be considered. Jo-Ellan Dimitrius, the jury con sultant working for the defense, has pinpointed a new phenomenon in the Simpson case: jurors who want to get on the case because of its notoriety and the chance they will become rich and famous as a result. “I’ve never seen it before,” Dimitrius said. “Usually, people want to know how they can get out of serv ing on the jury. In this case, they’re coming up to me on the street ask ing, ‘How do I become a juror on the 0,1. case?’” Now, Levenson said, many pro spective jurors may be facing the re ality that they can't afford the time to serve. Of the 1,000 people sum moned by Superior Court Judge Lance Ito, more than 700 have al ready returned one-page question naires discussing their availability to serve in a trial which could stretch into 1995. About two-thirds have said it would be a hardship. If the judge decides he must se quester the jury to shield them from publicity, that would further limit the pool of available jurors. Many will not want to leave family and friends for the isolation of a hotel where their communications are monitored and visits are supervised by bailiffs. The pressures that can be added by that proces are illustrated by other famous cases which have had sequestered juries. In the Charles Manson case, where jurors were in a hotel for nearly a year, the judge was forced to release them for a time when families de manded their return after an earth quake. Within days, a reported threat to the jury panel required |hey be se questered again. More recently, jurors in the Reginald Denny riot-beating trial re ported disputes while they were se questered. One alarmed her col leagues when she ran down a hotel corridor screaming “I can’t take it anymore!” and demanding to see her boyfriend. Editor Managing Editor Assoc News Editors Opinion Page Editor Wire Editor Copy Desk Editor Sports Editor Arts & Entertainment Editor Photo Director Net?raskan Jed Zeteny 472-1766 Angie Brunkow Jeffrey Robb Rainbow Rowell Kara Morrison Deb McAdams Mike Lewis Tim Pearson Matt Woody Kiley Christian Night News Editors Art Director General Manager Production Manager Advertising Manager Asst Advertising Manager Publications Board Chairman Professional Adviser Chris Haln Doug Kouma Heather Lampe Dave Vincent James Mehsling Dan Shattil Katherine Pollcky Amy Strut hers Sheri Krajewski Tim Hedegaard, 436-9258 Don Walton, 473-7301 FAX NUMBER 472-1761 The Daily Nebraskan(USPS 144-080) is published bytheUNL Publications Board, Nebraska Union 34,1400 R St., Lincoln, NE 68588-0448, Monday through Friday dunng the academic year, weekly during summer sessions. Readers are encouraged to submit story ideas and comments to the Daily Nebraskan by phoning 472-1763 between 9 a.m. and 5 p m Monday through Friday. The public also has access to the Publications Board. For information, contact Tim Hedegaard. 436-9258 Subscription price is $50 for one year. Postmasier: Send address changes to the Daily Nebraskan, Nebraska Union 34,1400 R Si..Lincoln, NE 68588-0448. Second-class postage paid at Lincoln, NE. ALL MATERIAL COPYRIGHT 1994 DAILY NEBRASKAN News... in a Minute India in danger of epidemic SURAT, India — An outbreak of deadly pneumonic plague eased Sunday in Surat, but government officials worried the hundreds of thousands of people who fled the stricken city could spread the disease to other parts of India. Residents of the shantytowns that ring this city of 2 million, mean while, blamed local authorities for not moving fast enough to clear the animal carcasses and garbage left after recent floods. Pneumonic plague is a strain of the bubonic plague or “Black Death' that ravaged 14th-century Europe and Asia. It’s spread by fleas that have bitten infected rats, and from person to person by airborne bacte ria. The plague has killed at least 51 people in Surat, a city on India's Arabian Sea coast. Hundreds of people were hospitalized. An estimated 400,000 people fled Surat as authorities began spray ing insecticides around the city and handing out antibiotics. Cement shortage slows construction OMAHA — This summer’s ample sunshine has failed to brighten up the lives of many of the state’s contractors who continue to be vexed by a cement shortage. In Omaha, completion dates for a number of road and building projects may be pushed back a year due to the lack of cement, which is a primary ingredient of concrete. For example, timely completion of the Creighton Fine Arts Build ing will depend on the cement supply and the weather, said Bruce Tresslar, vice president of Kiewit Construction Co. A healthy Midwest economy and increased activity resulting from a number of construction projects being leftover from last year’s soggy summer has been blamed for this year’s increased demand for cement. Ready Mixed Concrete Co., one of the region’s largest suppliers of concrete, has been working an average of about four days a week or whenever there is enough cement to mix concrete. World economy poised for growth WASHINGTON — The world economy, after struggling through a painful recession and extremely sluggish recovery, is poised to enjoy the strongest growth since the late 1980s, the International Monetary Fund predicted Sunday. However, IMF officials warned that world leaders need to correct some of the mistakes of the last recovery period if they are to launch their economies onto a period of sustained growth. I hat was the assessment being given as the 179-nation IMF and its sister lending agency, the World Bank, prepared for their annual meet ings, getting under way this week in Madrid, Spain. I he two agencies are the biggest suppliers of economic assistance to the T hird World and have taken a leading role in helping Russia, Poland and other former communist countries join the capitalist sys tem. However, both institutions find themselves facing critics who charge that their harsh prescriptions for economic reform often fail to take into account their adverse impacts on the poor and the fact that the economic development funded by billions of dollars in loans often harms the environment.
