News Digest
Tuesday, October 31, 1995 Page 2
Quebec votes to keep Canada together
Bouchard urges
secessionists to
‘keep the faith’
MONTREAL — By a perilously
narrow margin, Quebeckers heeded
pleas for national unity and voted
against secession Monday, sparing
Canada a traumatic fracture but leav
ing the French-speaking province spl it
down the middle.
Losing by only 1 percent of the
vote, the separatists quickly and defi
antly vowed to try again for indepen
dence.
“To see it escape our grasp is hard
to bear,” said the separatists’ charis
matic leader, Lucien Bouchard. “Let’s
keep the faith, because the next time
will be the right time. And the next
time could come quicker than you
think.”
In nearly complete returns from
22,400 polling stations, the federal
ists led by 50.5 percent to 49.5 percent
—2,3 50,65 7 votes to 2,301,917 votes.
About 82 percent of Quebeckers
are French-speaking, and roughly 60
percent of them voted for separation.
As expected, roughly 90 percent of
English-speaking and immigrant Que
beckers voted No.
Federalists celebrated raucously at
their headquarters, waving Canada’s
maple leaf flag amid a flurry of bal
loons. Not all was civil: Hundreds of
Yes and No supporters taunted one
another in downtown Montreal, and a
dozen came to blows after the results
were announced.
Other separatist campaigners —
who came closer than many had
dreamed a few months ago—wept on
each other’s shoulders. But they came
to life, cheering proudly, when
Bouchard congratulated them for im
proving so dramatically from a 60-40
percent defeat in a 1980 independence
referendum.
“We roll up our sleeves and we try
again,” said Bouchard’s partner, Que
bec Premier Jacques Parizeau. “We
won’t wait 15 years this time.... We
want our country, and we will get it.”
Even if another referendum is not
Quebec’s close vote
A Yes vote was for secession from
Canada. Nearly all polling stations
had reported.
□ Yes 49.5%
Ef^No 50.5%
Source: AP DN Graphic
imminent, there will be immediate calls
for constitutional reform.
“Canada on paper may still be a
country — but there’s something
wrong with this country,” said Louise
Beaudoin, culture minister in Quebec’s
separatist government. “We had 9
percent more than we had in 1980 —
something has to be done.”
Some leading backers of the feder
alist side also said the narrow result
should fuel the nationwide call for
reforms that would end decades of
constitutional wrangling.
“We have to put an end to to this
business, the referendum,” said
Saskatchewan Premier Roy
Romanow. “We have to make accom
modation with respect to the province
of Quebec. My part of the world wants
change.”
Comments like that will place heavy
pressure on Prime Minister Jean
Chretien, a Quebecker committed to
national unity, to develop some strat
egy to meet the demands for change.
Chretien was to convene his Cabinet
on Tuesday to assess the impact of the
vote.
The vote will leave scars in Que
bec. But it will hearten the throngs of
Canadians from other provinces who
joined marches, rallies and vigils last
week beseeching Quebec to stay.
A separatist victory would have
spelled economic turmoil for Canada
— and perhaps the greatest political
crisis of its history. It would have lost
one-fourth of its people and one-sixth
of its land—a fracture without prece
dent among prosperous Western de
mocracies.
The turnout, after a passionate cam
paign, was exceptionally large: 92
percent of the roughly 5 million regis
tered voters.
In Verdun, a working-class suburb
of Montreal, unemployed Bertrand
Fontaine, 48, explained his Yes vote.
“I worked 18 years for a company,
and now I’ve been unemployed for
two years,” he said. “That’s enough.
Maybe with new companies here, I’d
have new chances. I have nothing to
lose.”
Annette Dupuis, 83, said she was
proud to cast a No vote in the Montreal
suburb of Anjou.
“My country is Canada,” she said.
“This is very important to me. If the
Yes vote wins... I will shed tears. It
will be the death of Canada.”
Bouchard said all Quebeckers
should take pride in the campaign —
one of the few times in world history
where citizens were offered a vote on
whether to secede.
“We demonstrated in Quebec that
we are a democracy, that we can talk
to each other,” Bouchard said.
House to peacemakers:
Don’t presume US. troops will go to Bosnia
WASHINGTON—Brushing aside
administration objections, the House
passed a non-binding resolution Mon
day telling Bosnia peace negotiators
they should not presume U.S. troops
will be available to enforce an agree
ment. The House acted two days be
fore talks were to begin in Dayton,
Ohio.
Before the vote, U.S. mediator Ri
chard Holbrooke said supporters of
the House resolution were “doing
grave damage to the national inter
ests.” He said the negotiations would
open “without any assurance of suc
cess.”
The resolution said it was the sense
of the House “there should not be a
presumption” that enforcement of a
peace agreement “will involve deploy
ment of United States armed forces on
the ground in the territory of the Re
public of Bosnia.”
The resolution also said no troops
should be sent to Bosnia “until the
Congress has approved such a de
ployment.”
The resolution was adopted on a
vote of 315-103.
The House resolution needs no fur
ther action and there was no compa
rable bill in the Senate.
At a news conference before he left
Washington, the assistant secretary of
state said his chances of persuading
the presidents of Serbia, Bosnia and
Croatia to reach an agreement heavily
depended on showing “some Ameri
can and allied leadership.”
“This kind of resolution is ex
tremely unhelpful,” he said.“It would
weaken the United States.”
But Rep. Stephen Buyer, R-Ind., a
Gulf War veteran who was one of the
principal sponsors of the resolution,
said “U.S. troops will become tar
gets” if they are sent to Bosnia.
Opposing the resolution, Minority
Whip David Bonior, D-Mich., referred
to reports ofatrocities against Bosnian
Muslims and asked, “Will the blood
shed continue? We have turned our
backs long enough.”
President Clinton has said he would
commit up to 25,000 U.S. troops to a
NATO peacekeeping force if all war
ring parties in Bosnia agree to a peace
agreement. Clinton has said he would
seek agreement for any deployment
from Congress, but said he did not
believe he was required to do so.
House Speaker Newt Gingrich, R
Ga., told reporters: “It would be nice
if the president told us what he in
tended to do and asked our advice
before he did it.”
And Senate Republican leader Bob
Dole of Kansas said, “The president
ought to persuade you, the American
people.”
Rep. Lee Hamilton of Indiana, the
senior Democrat on the House Inter
national Relations Committee, said
that over the weekend Secretary of
State Warren Christopher and White
House National Security adviser An
thony Lake tried to reach Gingrich.
“I am not aware their calls were
returned,” said Hamilton.
Holbrooke said there could be no
peace in Bosnia without U.S. troops
under NATO command and prepared
to retaliate instantly if attacked. He
rejected any comparisons to Vietnam,
where he worked as a young foreign
service officer.
“We are not going to send people
into war,” he said. “We are going to
send Americans into peace.”
One-third or protected species
still losing numbers, report says
WASHINGTON — About one
third of the plants and animals pro
tected by the Endangered Species Act
are believed to be still declining in
numbers, the Interior Department said
Monday.
Most of the species continuing to
decline are among those more recently
listed for special protection and where
recovery programs have not yet been
fully implemented.
The law, however, has kept hun
dreds of species from becoming ex
tinct. Only seven species listed be
tween 1968 and 1993 are officially
considered as extinct, said a report
released by Interior’s U.S. Fish and
Wildlife Service.
“The fact that more than 99 percent
of all endangered species continue to
exist is one of the successes of the
endangered species program,” said
Mollie Beattie, the agency’s director.
The report said 58 percent of 106
species listed from 1968 to 1973 are
considered “stable and increasing,”
“The fact that more than 99 percent of all
endangered species continue to exist is one of the
successes of the endangered species program. ”
MOLLIE BEATTIE
U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service
o'* f
compared with only 22 percent of the
294 species listed from 1989 and 1993.
In many cases recovery programs
have not yet had time to work among
species listed in recent years, the re
port said.
The report “shows we can save
endangered species, but it takes time,”
George Frampton, assistant interior
secretary for fish and wildlife and
parks, told reporters.
He criticized Congress for cutting
money for species-recovery programs
and for pre-listing of species that may
be in the early stages of decline, call
ing thi s “wrongheaded” because i t wi 11
prevent officials from heading off fu- '
ture problems.
Asked for an overall assessment of
endangered-species protection,
Frampton said it’s “a mixed picture”
because of the proposed budget cuts
being sought by the Republican-run
Congress and legislative proposals to
overhaul the Endangered Species Act.
Frampton said legislation intro
duced in both the House and Senate
would “basically wipe out” recovery
efforts and place the endangered spe
cies protection program “under a seri
ous cloud.”
News ^
— in a
Minute'*
Court to review rulings in crack cases
• WASHINGTON — The Supreme Court-tackled a sensitive racial
issue Monday, agreeing to decide whether federal prosecutors must
respond to accusations that they discriminate against blacks in crack
cocaine cases.
The justices said they will review rulings that threw out federal
indictments against five men who had been charged with trafficking in
crack in the Los Angeles area.
The men said they were chosen for federal prosecution because they
are black, and federal prosecutors initially refused to rebut the allega
tions.
The issue for the nation’s highest court is not whether racially biased
prosecution took place, but whether lower courts wrongly required the
federal government to combat the selective-prosecution allegations.
A decision is expected by July.
Yeltsin’s political involvement unclear
MOSCOW — Boris Yeltsin’s prime minister gave mixed signals
about the hospitalized president’s health Monday, insisting he was fine
but disclosing that top Cabinet officials were no longer reporting to him.
Adding to the uncertainty of Russia’s political scene, major parties
were threatening to boycott Dec. 17 parliament elections to protest a
ruling this weekend that disqualified a top reform party.
Yeltsin is hospitalized with heart trouble for the second time in four
months, and it isn’t clear how involved he is in government affairs.
“We coordinate on important issues,” said Prime Minister Viktor
Chernomyrdin during a tour of a Moscow oil refinery. Yeltsin’s wife,
Naina, attended the opening of a cosmetic boutique and said, “He’s
better.”
Doctors have allowed Yeltsin to see only family members and his
politically powerful bodyguard. But his deputy chief of staff, Sergei
Krasavchenko, insisted there was no “information barrier” between
Yeltsin and his aides.
Volunteers try to douse Devil’s Night
DETROIT — Hundreds of vacant buildings were razed so they
couldn’t be set on fire, and about 35,000 people patrolled the streets
Monday in this year’s drive against the destructive Devil’s Night
tradition.
“The primary thing is to keep the fires away, to protect lives and
property,” said Cliff Russell, a spokesman for Mayor Dennis Archer.
Devil’s Night fires peaked at 297 in 1985, but declined after then
Mayor Coleman Young enlisted thousands of Detroiters to safeguard
their city.
This year, at least 25,000 volunteers signed up to patrol streets and
about 35,000 turned out.
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