Edited by Jennifer Mlratsky News Digest
Tuesday, February 21,1995 Page 2
^ ^
J News...
in a Minute
Ito visits UCLA classes
LOS ANGELES — Superior Court Judge Lance A. Ito doffed his
judicial robe and headed out to address court interpreters during a
weekend extension class where he never uttered the “S” word.
The encounter with the judge, who presides over what has been
called the trial of the century, was compared to meeting the king of rock
‘n’ roll.
“He’s like Elvis for us. We’re all crazy about him,” said Monica
Hylande of West Los Angeles.
“There aren’t too many things that can get me up this early. I can use
the rest and relaxation at home,” Ito said at the outset of Sunday’s 9:30
a.m. class at UCLA.
His audience of about 200 listened intently as he spoke about the
standards and goals of their profession.
Leading rabbi buried
JERUSALEM — More than 300,000 black-robed mourners flooded
Jerusalem’s streets Monday in a funeral procession for one of the
nation’s most influential ultra-Orthodox Jewish rabbis.
Rabbi Shlomo Zalman Auerbach, whose ultra-Orthodox followers
relied on him to interpret Jewish law, died Sunday in Jerusalem at age
84 as followers around the country prayed for his recovery.
Auerbach was hospitalized Thursday with pneumonia. He suffered
a heart attack on Friday and died Sunday evening.
Mourners stood on rooftops and clung to utility poles Monday along
the processional route, which wound two miles from Auerbach’s home
near the city’s center to the burial site. The crowds brought downtown
traffic to a halt for hours during the afternoon and forced detours on
roads leading into the city.
Auerbach had a profound influence on followers who turned to him
for guidance on how to live their daily lives according to Jewish law.
He advised them on issues as intimate as marital relations and fertility.
Rebel Serbs together
plotting war strategies
BELGRADE, Yugoslavia —
Rebel Serbs from Croatia and
Bosnia plotted military strategy
together Monday for the first time,
a sign that conflicts in the neigh
boring states could escalate into a
single war.
SRNA, the Bosnian Serb news
agency, reported a military coun
cil of Bosnian and Croatian Serbs
discussed cooperation if Croatian
Serbs are attacked by Croatian
government forces.
The meeting, in the Serb strong
hold of Banja Luka in northern
Bosnia, included Bosnian Serb
leader Radovan Karadzic and
Croatian Serb leader Milan Martic.
A j oint mi litary command also was
on the agenda, sources said.
Rebel Serbs seized a third of
Croatia in 1991, and Bosnian Serbs
control 70 percent of that republic
after nearly three years of fighting.
Both were encouraged and sup
plied by Serbian President
Slobodan Milosevic, who says he
has cut off the Bosnian Serbs to
persuade them to accept peace.
But both insist they still wish to
join Serbia and say Milosevic will
assist them if they are in military
danger.
They already have cooperated:
Croatian Serbs are fighting across
the border in northwest Bosnia
against Bosnian government
forces.
Croatia’s government has told
12.000 U.N. troops stationed along
Serb-Croat front lines for three
years to begin withdrawing by
March 31. Without the U.N. pres
ence, the war that took at least
10.000 lives in 1991 could begin
again.
Much of the Croatian Serbs’
land is contiguous with Serb held
territory in Bosnia. Cooperation
between the two sides could mean
more troops and better logistics
and weaponry for the Croatian
Serbs.
But Bosnian Serbs got a warn
ing Monday from a leading Bosnian
Croat that more fighting may lie
ahead in Bosnia, too.
Dario Kordic said that if the
fate of Bosnian areas with tradi
tionally large ethnic Croat popula
tions is not resolved, “we will not
renounce the use of force” to re
gain them.
Nebraskan
Editor Jeff Zeleny Night News Editors Ronda Vlasin
472-1766 Jamie Karl
Managing Editor Jeff Robb Damon Lee
Assoc. News Editors DeDra Janssen Pat Hambreeht
Onininn p PH, DouflK°««tw Art Director KaiWilken
Opinion Page Editor Matt Woody General Manager DanShattil
„ Wire Editor Jennifer Miratsky Production Manager Katherine Policky
Copy Desk Editor Knstin Armstrong Advertising Manager Amy Strothers
« . Sports Editor Tim Pearson Asst. Advertising Manager Sheri Krajewski
Arts & Entertainment Publications BoardChairman Tim Hedegaard
Editor Rainbow Rowell 436-9258
Photo Director Jeff Haller Professional Adviser Don Walton
473-7301
FAX NUMBER 472-1761 '
The Daily NebraskanfUSPS 144-080) is published by the UNL Publications Board Ne
braska 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, NE 68588-0448. Second-class postage paid at Lincoln, NE.
ALL MATERIAL COP VRIG HT1995DAILY NEBRASKAN
i Bishop’s supporters,
opponents demonstrate
SAN CRISTOBAL DE LAS
CASAS, Mexico — As opponents
demand his removal, Bishop Samuel
Ruiz struggles to hold together an
increasingly polarized Chiapas state
and mediate a yearlong Indian upris
ing.
The job is getting tougher by the
day. The 70-year-old diabetic monsi
gnor faces protests by dissenters who
want him to resign and pressure from
Mexico City to quit his role as media
tor.
The toll shows on his ashen face
and the unusual silences at ever-rarer
public appearances.
At the brightly painted 16th-cen
tury Roman Catholic cathedral, pa
rishioners stacked blankets and fire
wood in front of the diocese doors on
Monday, after a riot Sunday left four
people injured.
About 500 ranchers and business
men from the San Cristobal Civic
Front, accusing the bishop of sup
porting the Zapatista rebels, hurled
eggs, rocks and sticks at the cathe
dral. Some demonstrators carried
signs depicting Ruiz as a devil. In Las
Margaritas, about 100 miles south,
graffiti called for his death.
The demonstrators were gone
Monday, but parishioners still main
tained their vigil outside the diocese.
“The bishop is a great person who
has always defended us,” Santana
Jerasto Martinez Gonzalez said of
Ruiz, who has been the Roman Catho
lic bishop of San Cristobal for more
than three decades.
“We are here to support Don
Samuel and protect him from the
ranchers,” said the 39-year-old In
dian peasant, among some 100 people
who spent the night outside the ca
XBishop Ruiz) wakes up
the poor people. ”
■
ABELARDO SANCHEZ
BERMUDEZ
Demonstrator
thedral, huddled under blankets
around a bonfire.
“The people with money are
against the bishop because they are
afraid of the effect on their economic
interests,” said Abelardo Sanchez
Bermudez, 21, as he helped to form a
human chain around the church. “He
wakes up the poor people.”
But many here feel otherwise.
“He’s not behind the Zapatistas.
He is the leader,” charged Father
Luis Beltran Mijangos, a priest who
publicly disagrees with Ruiz’s teach
ing of liberation theology.
“The clergy, managed by Samuel
Ruiz ... totally changed the sense of
the gospel. They hammered into the
head of the indigenous the hatred of
the Ladinos,” said Mario Flores
Quiroz, a leader of the Civic Front.
Ladinos, of European-Indian descent,
control most of the money and power
in the country.
Ranchers blame Ruiz’s liberation
theology for the Jan. 1, 1994, upris
ing by the Zapatista National Libera
tion Army, which demanded politi
cal and social reform for impover
ished Indians. At least 145 people
died in 12 days of fighting and rebels
and peasants have taken over 2,000
private properties.
Liberation theology interprets the
Holy Scriptures in light of the poor. It
has spurred rebel movements through
out Latin America in the last 20 years,
although the Vatican now opposes it.
“Liberation theology is foment
ing hatred and a struggle between
classes,” Beltran said. “It justifies
armed struggle to recuperate prop
erty ... This is not right. What guilt do
I have for what my grandparents did?”
But Ruiz has stayed firm. “I’ve
never heard of a theology of slavery,”
he once said. Ruiz has received let
ters and at least one call from the
Vatican, asking him to tone down his
involvement.
The Mexican Conference of Bish
ops last week came out in support of
Ruiz’s pastoral work but many bish
ops are uncomfortable with his social
activism.
“The matter of the bishop has been
very polemical. Evidently it affects
the church and it compromises the
image of the Church,” Abelardo
Alvarado Alcantara, president of the
Bishops’ Commission for Social
Communication, said at a recent bish
ops conference.
Meanwhile, President Ernesto
Zedillo is attempting to hand over
Ruiz’s National Mediation Commis
sion to a multiparty government com
mission.
The commission was recognized
in December by both the government
and the Zapatistas. But now, rebel
leaders who trusted Ruiz are on the
run, as the army advances into their
territory with an arrest warrant for
rebel spokesman, Subcomandante
Marcos.
Lincoln neo-Nazi propagandist
problem for German authorities
DUESSELDORF, Germany —
Neo-Nazis whose violence and other
spiteful acts have shamed Germany
are finally being reined in, but the
American who supplies most of their
propaganda remains out of reach.
Due to better law enforcement,
about 30 percent fewer neo-Nazi at
tacks were recorded in 1994 from the
2,232 in 1993, the deputy chief of
German counterintelligence said
Monday.
Bans on neo-Nazi groups and in
filtration by German agents have
thrown fascists into disarray, said
Peter Frisch, vice president of the
Federal Office for the Protection of
the Constitution. Hundreds of neo
Nazis are in prison.
But there’s little German authori
ties can do about American Gary
Lauck — identified by Frisch as the
■ biggest supplier of propaganda to
German neo-Nazis.
As the leader of a group that idol
izes Hitler, Lauck prints an anti
Semitic newspaper and propaganda
in Lincoln.
“We’ve had intensive talks with
the FBI about him,” Frisch said at an
exhibit on extremism. “They (the FBI)
point out that freedom of speech is an
absolute right in the United States
and there is no chance to take legal
action against him.
“Our only chance is intercepting
it. But he (Lauck) doesn’t put a return
address on the envelopes so it’s hard
to spot. We are able to confiscate
some, but huge amounts get through,”
Frisch said.
Printing or possessing neo-Nazi
material is a crime in Germany under
laws Americans helped formulate at
the end of World War II.
A display case at the exhibit at an
educational fair in Duesseldorf con
tains a sample of Lauck’s work: a
bumper sticker bearing a swastika
and the words “We are back.”
Also on display are a starter pistol,
brass knuckles, mock firebomb and a
martial arts weapon made of two hard
handles connected by a chain. All but
the mock firebomb were used in neo
Nazi attacks.
A giant flag with a swastika, pro
duced in Taiwan, is set beside the
weapons inside the plexiglass case,
as are German-language CDs re
corded in Britain and France with
heavy metal music and anti-foreigner
and anti-Semitic lyrics.
At least 30 people — mainly for
eigners — have been killed in neo
Nazi violence that has plagued Ger
many since its reunification in 1990.
Susan Smith was molested by stepfather
UNION, S.C.—Susan Smith, who
is accused of drowning her two young
sons, was molested by her stepfather
when she was 16, the man admitted in
court papers that were unsealed Mon
day.
The admission, signed in 1988,
tells only a small part of her story, her
lawyers cautioned.
“No single piece of information
about Susan Vaughan Smith’s life
explains her,” lawyers David Bruck
and Judy Clarke said Monday.
Bruck has not said whether he will
use the allegations as part of Mrs.
Smith’s defense.
The 23-year-old woman faces two
murder charges and potential execu
tion in the Oct. 25 drowning deaths of
her sons. 3-year-old Michael and 14
month-old Alex.
She claimed in October that the
boys were taken by a caijacker, but
later signed a confession saying the
youngsters were strapped in their
safety seats when she rolled her car
into a lake.
The court papers released Mon
day said Beverly Russell abused his
stepdaughter by “participating in open
mouth kissing, fondling her breasts
and by the stepfather placing the
minor’s hand on him in and about the
genital area.”
Russell was never charged with
any crime but signed a March 25,
1988, court order agreeing that the
allegations were true. The order does
not say when the incident happened.
Family Court Judge Lee Alford
agreed last month to release the
records after two newspapers, The
(Columbia) State and The Greenville
News, sued to see them.
Russell, 47, a stockbroker and tax
consultant and member of the state
Republican Party’s executive com
mittee, decided Friday not to appeal
the decision. His attorney said last
week he would have no comment on
the file’s contents.
Russell did not return a telephone
message Monday.