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By The Associated Press Edited by Jennifer Mlratsky News Digest Wednesday, January 18,1995 Page 2 Bosnian government demands U.N. leave SARAJEVO, Bosnia Herzegovina — The government demanded the withdrawal of 450 peacekeepers from a base in north east Bosnia, a top official said to day, signaling a sharp deterioration in ties with the United Nations. The government’s minister for relations with the United Nations, Hasan Muratovic, told The Associ ated Press he sent a letter Monday to U.N. officials demanding the pullout from the airport at Tuzla. The Muslim-led government is angered by the failure of the United Nations to open the airport and the U.N. decision to allow a Serb liai son officer there. Bosnian army troops have block aded 450 U.N. troops at the airport for the last week, along with some 600 other peacekeepers in the Tuzla area. Most of the airport troops are Norwegian. “This letter is an ultimatum. We will not change our position,” Muratovic said. He said airport con tingent should begin pulling out by Feb. 1 and complete the pullout by March 1. Tuzla is the largest city outside Sarajevo in Bosnian government hands. The U.N. commander there, Gen. Gunnar Ridderstad, said he regarded the letter as pressure to open the Tuzla airport. The Bosnian government has long sought to have the airport open to U.N. and aid flights, and turned it over to the United Nations last year for that purpose. Serbs de manded a liasion officer to ensure that the government did not use the airport for military purposes. “Despite even the presence of the Bosnian Serb army liasion of ficer at the base now, Bosnian Serb authorities continue to refuse our request to have this airport open, said U.N. spokesman Paul Risley ii Sarajevo. Serb artillery remain within striking range of the air field The order to withdraw fron Tuzla airport was unlikely to caus< more fighting directly, but it was < sign of ill will that will make imple mentation of a four-month cease fire more difficult. “The blockade isn’t aimed at us,’ Ridderstad said, “but we are suffer ing from it.” He said land telephone lines wen cut off and soldiers were conserving food and doing with less heat. Another 600 Scandinavian sol diers are blockaded in a base nortl of Tuzla, but neither they nor Paki stani peacekeepers farther south are apparently affected by the government’s order. Former Treasurer says bad advice led to Orange Countv bankruotcv SACRAMENTO, Calif.—Former Orange County Treasurer Robert L. Citron portrayed himself today as the victim of Merrill Lynch & Co., say ing its sales pitches and advice ulti mately plunged the county into bank ruptcy. Citron said he believed he was acting prudently and reasonably in following a strategy that wound up producing $2 billion in losses. Ex pressing “deep sorrow to the people of Orange County,” he said: “I relied on the advice of financial profession als. It was Citron’s first detailed pub lic defense since he resigned Dec. 2, two days before the bankruptcy filing of the affluent Southern California county. The committee, formed to produce laws to keep such losses from TTfc_1 occurring again, is part of a national examination of local government in vestment policies stemming from the crisis. Merrill maintains it merely sup plied Citron with investments he could have purchased elsewhere. It says that after warning him of the dangers if interest rates rose and offering to buy back the risky derivative securities it sold him, Merrill’s duty was done. “Merrill Lynch chose not to aban don this client because it, as a sophis ticated institutional investor, did not share our views on the investment outlook,” chairman Daniel P. Tully wrote last week. To state Sen. William Craven that explanation sounded like a bartender serving an inebriated patron on the theory he could go elsewhere to get a J drink if refused. “I think there’s a business ethics question here,” Craven said in an interview Monday. “When you know that something is not right, to go ahead and do it anyway seems not right to me.” Rather than sound an early alarm, Merrill “just moved in the direction of sales - sell! sell! sell!” said Craven, a Republican who is co-chairman of the Senate Special Committee on Local Government Investments. Orange County, which has lost at least $700 million of its money, has sued Merrill Lynch contending it not only sold the county unsuitable in vestments but knowingly allowed the county to violate debt limits set by state law. Sen. Byrd stops advancement ofbalanced budget amendment WASHINGTON — Sen. Robert C. Byrd, one of the fiercest Demo cratic opponents of a balanced budget amendment, today temporarily thwarted Republican efforts to ad vance the measure through commit tee. With the Senate Judiciary Com mittee debatingthe measure, the West Virginia Democrat, invoked a little used Senate rule to object to the pro ceedings. Under Senate rules, any senator may block any committeee from meeting more than two hours after the Senate has convened for the day. Republicans almost certainly will have the votes they need to push the amendment - the centerpiece of their “Contract With America” - through Congress and to the states for ratifica tion. But Byrd’s tactic indicated how strongly he and perhaps some other Democrats are prepared to resist. “It’s the acme of arrogance for us as members of the Senate and the House of Representatives to put for ward a constitutional amendment to balance the budget without laying on the table so the American people can see what the plan is by which we expect to reach that balanced budget by the year 2002;” Byrd said. “I don’t propose to be rushed,” he said. “I may be run over by the streamroller but I don’t propose to get out of its way or just jump upon it and ride along with it.” Sen. Orrin Hatch, the Utah Re publican who chairs the Judiciary Committee, said he would call the panel back into session early Wednes day to continue work on the amend ment. “1 hope he’ll restrain the use of this rule,” Hatch said of Byrd, widely acknowledged to be the master in using the Senate’s arcane rules to accomplish his political objectives. The balanced budget measure is the linchpin of the Republicans’ ef forts to shrink government since it would force lawmakers to cut spend ing in order to balance the budget. Committee meetings need the unanimous consent of senators to con tinue more than two hours after busi ness has begun on the Senate floor. This consent is almost universally granted. But at 1 lTh^a.m. EST today - an hour and 58 minutes after the Senate was called into session - Byrd said he objected to further action by the Judi ciary Committee. He said that Republicans, by not detailing what kind of spending cuts would be required to balance the bud get by the year 2002, were keeping Americans “in the dark as to where the pain will be.” NefcJraskan Editor Managing Editor Assoc. News Editors Jeff Zeleny 472-1766 Jeff Robb DeOre Janssen Doug Kouma Opinion Page Editor Wire Editor Copy Desk Editor Sports Editor Arts & Entertainment Editor Photo Director Matt Woody Jennifer Mi rats ky Kristin Armstrong Tim Pasrson Rainbow Rowell Jeff Haller Night News Editors Ronds Vlasin Jamie Karl Damon Lee Pat Hambrecht Art Director Kai Wllken General Manager DanShattil Production Manager Katherine Policky Advertising Manager Amy Struthers Asst. Advertising Mgr. Sheri Krafewskl Publications Board Chairman Tim Hedegaard 436-9258 Professional Adviser Don Walton 473-7301 FAX NUMBER 472-1761 The Daily Nebraskan/USPS 144-080) is published by the UNL Publications Board, Nebraska Union 34,1400 R St.. Lincoln, NE 68588-0448, Monday through Friday during 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. Postmaster: Send address changes to the Daily Nebraskan, Nebraska Union 34,1400 R St.,Lincoln, NE68588-0448. Second-class postage paid at Lincoln, NE. ALL MATERIAL COPYRIGHT 1995 DAILY NEBRASKAN Sixth-grade dropout executed in Texas for rape-slaying HUNTSVILLE, Texas—A grade school dropout with an IQ of 65 was executed by lethal injection today for the 1984 rape and strangling of his 14-year-old niece. In a final statement, Mario Marquez, 36, apologized and said he was sorry, then added that he wasn’t responsible for all of what happened. “I’m sorry for all the burdens I caused everybody,” Marquez said. ‘T understand why I am here tonight. Tonight I am going to pay with my life.” After a brief prayer, Marquez said was ready to “come home.” He was pronounced dead at 12:21 a.m., eight minutes after the lethal drugs began flowing into his arm. As witnesses left the prison, there was a smattering of applause from some of the 100 people gathered out side the prison. A sixth-grade dropout, Marquez was also accused of raping and stran gling his estranged wife in the attack but was never tried for the crime. Marquez’s lawyers argued that retarded people should not be put to death. “The public in the country over whelmingly does not want mentally retarded people to be executed,” Rob ert McGlasson said, v Prosecutor Edwin Springer argued that Marquez knew right from wrong. “He ’ s a very dangerous individual. I have no reservations. I have no doubts. He’s quite capable of doing it again.” The Supreme Court rejected the appeal without comment Monday. In 1989, the Supreme Court, in a 5-4 decision, said the Constitution’s ban on cruel and unusual punishment does not prohibit the execution of juveniles as young as 16 or adults with the reasoning capacity of chil dren. At least four other convicted kill ers who were considered retarded or claimed to be retarded have been put to death in recent years in Texas, which has executed 87 men since 1982. Marquez was the 259th person executed in the United States since the Supreme Court in 1976 allowed states to resume using the death pen alty. Defense attorneys argued that Marquez was beaten with sticks, boards and whips by a father who thought he was “slow.” Once aban doned to the streets at ‘age 12, he turned to sniffing paint and doing drugs. He was arrested in the slayings of his wife, Rebecca, 19, and her niece, Rachel Gutierrez. Testimony indicated Marquez killed his estranged wife because he believed she had been unfaithful. The bodies were found at the Gutierrez home in a San Antonio housing project, where Mrs. Marquez was liv ing with her mother. When Marquez’s mother-in-law returned home, he showed her the bodies, then sexually assaulted the woman before fleeing, prosecutors said. Springer recalled that Marquez tried to attack a TV cameraman while being taken to court, stabbed a fellow inmate with a ballpoint pen and threat ened to kill a prosecutor at the trial. “The judge thought he was so dan gerous he had him shackled in the courtroom,” Springer said. p News... in a Minute Haiti moves towards popular elections PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti—Premier Smarck Michel has delivered a long-awaited electoral bill to Parliament, a key step toward the first popular vote since U.S. troops helped restore President Jean-Bertrand Aristide to power. The elections, which Aristide partisans are expected to sweep, will shape the political landscape in Haiti for the next four to six years. Michel gave Parliament the bill on Monday. Once the bill becomes law, it will take at least three months to organize local and legislative elections, U.N. and Haitian officials say. The mandate of the entire 83-seat lower house and two-thirds of the 27-seat upper house ends Feb. 4. Aristide will have to govern by executive order until a new Parliament is sworn in. A new president is to be elected in December and inaugurated Feb. 7,1996. Aristide is constitutionally banned from succeeding himself, but may run again in 2000. Aristide was elected president in 1990. The Haitian armed forces sent him into exile in 1991. He returned Oct. 15 after a U.S.-led multinational force disarmed and dismantled the Haitian troops. Dads spend little solo time with kids WASHINGTON — Preschoolers worldwide spend on average less than one waking hour a day alone with their fathers, according to an 11 nation study that suggests the feminist ideal of men sharing equally in child-rearing is still mostly “a lot of talk.” The mother remains the primary adult in a preschooler’s life even when she works outside the home and the child is in day care, said the report by the International Association for the Evaluation of Educa tional Achievement, a private research organization. In their survey of the routines of 4-year-old children in the United States and 10 other countries, researchers found young children are rarely in the sole care of their fathers regardless of the culture. In Hong Kong, for example, the average waking time spent alone with the father is six minutes a day; in Belgium, 30 minutes; and the United States, 42 minutes. American mothers - about half of whom hold outside jobs - spend nearly 11 waking hours as sole supervisors of their preschoolers each day, the report said.