By The
Associated Press
Edited fay Michelle Gamer
News Digest
Colombian president may face impeachment
BOGOTA, Colombia—In the big
gest blow yet to President Ernesto
Samper, the public prosecutor pre
sented charges Wednesday that could
lead to his impeachment for allegedly
accepting drug-tainted cash in his
1994 campaign.
Prosecutor Alfonso Valdivieso is
sued a formal denunciation of the
president, asking that Samper be
charged with illicit enrichment, elec
toral fraud, falsifying documents and
complicity.
It was the first time criminal
charges have been formally recom
mended against Samper, who has been
dogged since his August 1994 elec
tion by accusations he took $6 mil
lion in campaign contributions from
the world’s most powerful drug syn
dicate, the Cali cocaine cartel.
The prosecutor’s office also pre
sented the Supreme Court with evi
dence that could lead to an investiga
tion of Samper’s interior minister,
Horacio Serpa, for his role in the case,
judicial sources said.
Serpa was a key figure in the
Samper campaign.
Flanked by a large security detail,
Valdivieso handed 40 file folders
worth of documents and two video
tapes to the secretary general of the
congressional commission charged
with investigating the president.
Valdivieso left the congressional
office building without speaking to
reporters.
Probably the most respected pub
lic figure among Colombians,
Valdivieso also enjoys the confidence
of U.S. officials, who believe him to
be free of the corruption plaguing his
country.
Both the prosecutor’s office and the
commission confirmed Valdivieso’s
denunciation of the president. Neither
would detail the charges he sought, but
they were believed to stem from alle
gations that Samper knowingly re
ceived drug money, tampered with
campaign ledgers and overspent the
legal campaign limit of $5 million.
Though a milestone in efforts to
force Samper’s ouster, the denuncia
tion sets in motion a process that could
take weeks or months.
The Commission of Accusations
now must decide whether to open a
formal investigation against the 45
year-old president, who insists he is *~
innocent and will be cleared.
Samper has refused to heed mount
ing demands for his resignation, call
ing the evidence and testimony com
piled against him “a chain of lies con
verted into truths.”
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^anaiaates aim attacks at JtSucnanan
MILFORD, N.H. — Pat
Buchanan’s “America first” trade and
foreign policy views came under
pointed criticism from three Republi
can presidential rivals Wednesday, at
tacks the commentator took as proof
he was the man to beat in New
Hampshire’s pivotal primary.
Responding with confident defi
ance, Buchanan paid a Valentine’s Day
visit to a rose grower and said the busi
ness was being overwhelmed by for
eign competition because of trade
deals that please Wall Street but pun
ish American workers.
Buchanan also was labeled “too
extreme” in a new television ad aired
by Senate Majority Leader Bob Dole’s
campaign. “He can’t beat Bill
Clinton,” says the ad.
Buchanan attributed the Dole at
tack ad to “a campaign in despera
tion.” Firing a salvo of his own,
Buchanan called Dole a “big tax man
who hasn t balanced a budget in his
last 25 years in Congress.”
That Buchanan was at the center
of the day’s give-and-take was testa
ment to his rising influence on the Re
publican race after strong showings in
early battles in Louisiana and Iowa.
Rival camps suggested Buchanan’s
positions would be a major focus in a
televised candidates debate Thursday
night.
“I have won the battle of Mr. Con
servative in the Republican Party,”
Buchanan said on the very day Texas
Sen. Phil Gramm withdrew from the
race.
Gramm’s withdrawal set off a
scramble for his support. Most of the
senators backing Gramm were likely
to go Dole’s way, though none did
immediately. “I think Senator Dole
probably has the best shot of defeat
ing President Clinton,” said Arizona
Sen. John McCain, who was Gramm’s
national campaign chairman.
Ignoring the politicians, Buchanan
and former Tennessee Gov. Lamar
Alexander made direct appeals to
Gramm voters.
In parting, Gramm said he wasn’t
ready to endorse a candidate. But he
also wasn’t ready to stop criticizing
Buchanan and trade views that
Gramm labeled protectionist and
anathema to the free-trading Republi
can Party.
“When the voters speak, I listen,”
Gramm said in bowing out after back
to-back losses.
Another candidate said he, too, was
listening, but hardly ready to call it
quits. On his first visit to New Hamp
shire after placing a distant fourth in
Iowa, publishing heir Steve Forbes
said he would stop attacking his op
ponents in television ads and return
to a positive message anchored on his
plan for a flat tax.
Billboards
Continued from Page 1
role in hurting kids.”
The Nebraska Dental Association also
testified in support of the bill.
Executive Director Tom Bassett told
the committee that people were forced to
look at the advertisements whether they
wanted to or not.
“You can’t turn off a billboard, you
can’t close the cover, or flip to the next
page,” he said. “It’s a form of advertising
that stands out as a unique infringement
on our sight, our skyline, our streets, high
ways and our thoughts.”
Bassett cited Baltimore as one of the
larger U.S. cities to outlaw the billboard
advertising.
Opponents say the bill violates the U.S.
Constitution.
Bill Peters, a lobbyist for the Tobacco
Institute, said it was not only unconstitu
tional, but the bill violated the federal
cigarette and advertising act as well.
“But if they get over that hurdle, which
I don’t think they will,” he said, “it vio
lates the First Amendment.”
Peters said he also didn’t necessarily
agree that the abundant billboard adver
tisements directly contributed to young
_ people beginning to smoke.
“I see all the gambling signs and hear
all the lottery commercials,” he said, “and
that doesn’t lead me to gamble.”
Martha Lee Church, vice president and
general manager of Imperial Outdoor
Advertising, said the bill “went too far.”
Church told the committee that her
industry already policed itself.
“We have always obeyed the 500-foot
rule,” she said.
The industry’s 500-foot nile states that
tobacco advertisements may not be placed
within 500 feet of churches, schools, play
grounds, day care centers and cemeter
ies.
She said her company, which has of
fices in Lincoln, Omaha and Springfield,
111., did business based on whether the
product was legal.
“We still have the right to refuse ser
vice to anyone,” she said.
“This bill is wrong because it puts a
ban on advertising a legal product,”
Church said after the hearing.
Sniper bullets hit
bus in Bosnia; hopes
for peace dwindle
SARAJEVO, Bosnia-Herzegovina — In the
morning, the bus seemed headed for a peaceful
future — running between Serb- and govern
ment-held neighborhoods for the first time since
1992. But it ran into the hatreds that still boil
and ended the day riddled with sniper bullets
and stained with blood.
An elderly passenger and the bus conductor *
were wounded in the Wednesday attack, which
U.N. aid agency spokesman Kris Janowski
called “an outrageous and cowardly attack
against civilians carried out by people who op
pose the reunification of the city.”
The attack was a slap at already-stumbling
efforts to reconcile Bosnia’s former enemies. ♦
Relief workers had hoped the resumption ofbus
service would lead to die easing of other restric
tions on freedom of movement, one of die main
requirements of the U.S.-brokered peace accord.
The United States and its allies plan to meet
Friday in Rome with three Balkan presidents in
an effort to tighten compliance with the accord,
a senior American official said in Washington.
U.N. aid agency officials said originally that
peace forces had promised to guard the buses,
but later acknowledged that the request had been
turned down. American soldiers with automatic
rifles, flak jackets and helmets rode on the first
few buses, but were not present on the bus that
was hit.
Nefcwraskan
Editor j. Christopher Haln,
472-1786
http://www.unl.edu/DailyNeb/
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