Labor Party drops opposition
to independent Palestinian state
TEL AVIV, Israel — Swiftly an
swering the PLO’s decision to end its
call for Israel’s destruction, the gov
erning Labor Party on Thursday aban
doned its long-standing opposition to
a Palestinian state.
With its landmark vote, Labor dis
carded what was once a bedrock tenet
and became the first major party in
Israel to at least tacitly accept the idea
of an independent Palestinian state,
once unthinkable for most Israelis.
The move came a day after the Pal
estine National Council annulled
clauses in the PLO charter that called
for Israel’s destruction.
The momentous exchange of ges
tures is expected to bolster the Israeli
Palestinian peace process, frozen since
a series of suicide bombings by Is
lamic militants in February and March
killed 59 victims in Israel.
Yet Israel still faces the threat of
attack from Muslim extremist groups
such as Hezbollah, Islamic Jihad and
Hamas.
Prime Minister Shimon Peres told
about 1,000 Labor Party delegates
who had assembled in Tel Aviv to vote
on the new platform that it would help
him “achieve a comprehensive peace
in the Middle East” if he is re-elected
in May 29 balloting.
Israel-Syria peace talks have been
snagged for years over the Golan
Heights issue.
Peres said the new platform “gives
the government a free hand to negoti
ate.”
While Peres did not explicitly say
he now accepted the Palestinians’ goal
of statehood, he stressed that the cur
rent autonomy arrangement in the
West Bank and Gaza “cannot remain.”
“With the Palestinians, we wish to
arrive not at yet another interim settle
ment but a permanent settlement, a
fundamental solution... total elimina
tion of the conflict between us and the
Palestinian people,” he said emphati
cally.
In Gaza, Yasser Arafat praised
Labor’s move. “It will help a lot in the
negotiations for the final status,” the
PLO chief said.
Talks on a final Israel-Palestinian
settlement, to begin May 4, are to ad
dress the most difficult issues divid
ing the sides: the PLO’s demand for
statehood, final borders, and the fu
ture of Israeli settlements and the dis
puted holy city of Jerusalem.
Labor’s platform, approved over
whelmingly in a show of hands, does
maintain some hard-line points on
those issues: It says that Jerusalem,
including the eastern sector claimed
by the Palestinians, will remain united
under Israeli rule; it calls for eventual
Israeli sovereignty over parts of the
West Bank such as the Jordan Valley;
and while promising no new settle
ments will be built, it pledges most
settlers will remain under Israeli rule.
In Israel, Labor’s vote was widely
seen as a turn towards accepting the
idea of Palestinian independence in
the West Bank and Gaza, which Israel
seized from Jordan and Egypt, respec
tively, in 1967.
Columnist Yosef Lapid wrote in the
Maariv daily that “Peres’ vision of a
New Middle East is taking shape ...
Peres and Yasser Arafat agree on the
establishment of a Palestinian state
that recognizes the right of Israel to
exist.”
On Wednesday, the council, which
has served as the Palestinians’ parlia
ment-in-exile for three decades, voted
504-54 with 14 abstentions to revoke
all clauses in the 1964 PLO founding
charter that called for the elimination
of Israel.
News
in a il
1 Minute^
Prisons to start woman chain gangs
MONTGOMERY, Ala. — The Alabama prison system is preparing
to snap shackles around the ankles of women prisoners, creating female
chain gangs in the state that revived male leg-iron crews last year.
Alabama Prison officials said the women chain gangs would help
resolve lawsuits from male inmates challenging the exclusively male
work units.
“There’s no real defense for not doing the females,” said State Cor
rections Commissioner Ron Jones.
Stephen Dees, the warden at Julia Tutwiler State Prison for Women
near Montgomery, is developing the chain-gang policy. Women could
be working in leg irons as early as June, Jones said.
“We have done a lot of historical research, and I have never come
across a female chain gang,” said Rhonda Brownstein, a lawyer with the
Southern Poverty Law Center. “They have previously said it’s not prac
tical or feasible to have chain gangs for women.”
The civil rights watchdog group is representing inmates in a lawsuit
contending that chain gangs represent unconstitutionally cruel and un
usual punishment.
Ford recalls 7.9 million cars
WASHINGTON — Ford Motor Co. is recalling about 7.9 million
cars, minivans and pickups in the United States with the same type of
ignition switch that has caught fire in hundreds of vehicles. It is the
second-largest recall in U.S. history.
The No. 2 automaker also is expanding its Canadian recall of ve
hicles with the switches from the 248,000 announced late last year to a
total of 859,000 to match the makes and models being fixed in the United
States.
That brings the total recall number to about 8.7 million vehicles —
the largest recall by a single automaker. The largest recall was last year
when 10 automakers had to fix seat belts on 8.8 million cars because of
concerns the buckles sometimes failed to latch or unlatch.
The total cost of the recall was expected to exceed $200 million,
Ford sources said, speaking on condition of anonymity.
Officer suspended In fake Jail fight
JACKSONVILLE, Fla. — A plan hatched by a jail guard to scare
two touring juveniles by staging a fight among three inmates backfired
when the show was canceled and nobody told the prisoners.
When the fake fight broke out, guards at the Duval County Jail sub
dued one of the inmates with pepper spray and put him in a restraining
chair.
The officer who came up with the idea, Sgt. Joseph J. Wollitz, was
ordered suspended for 20 days. Another guard was reprimanded, and a
third resigned.
“We can’t ask inmates to perform violent acts with each other to
impress anyone,” Corrections Director John Rutherford said Thursday.
Wollitiz wanted to airange a fight Jan. 23 to “scare some juveniles
straight,” Rutherford said. When Wollitz asked for permission, a supe
rior said no. The prisoners were never told that the show must not go on.
When the inmates began fighting and wouldn’t stop, Wollitz sprayed
prisoner Antonio Lovely and had him put in a restraining chair for sev
eral hours. ^
“I assume his motives were good,” White said. “I assume he did it to
try to teach a lesson to the kids, and that he was thinking it was a good
lesson. Obviously, it blew up in his face.”
Rutherford said investigators found that Wollitz had staged at least
one similar show before.
New Chechen rebel leader
vows revenge on troops
MOSCOW — The new leader of
Chechnya’s separatist rebels vowed
revenge for the death of his predeces
sor while the war ground on relent
lessly with a Russian attack Thursday
on another Chechen village.
Zelimkhan Yandarbiyev ruled out
peace talks with Moscow until
Dzhokhar Dudayev’s death was
avenged and the culprits found, Rus
sian television said. He said the rebels
were “ prepared to continue the war
until Chechnya gains its freedom.”
Russian warplanes continued their
assault on Shali, a village 16 miles
southeast of the Chechen capital
Grozny.
Russian forces claim to have sur
rounded Chechen guerrillas in Shali.
The Interfax news agency said at least
one woman was killed and 29 people
— including two children — were
wounded in the air raid.
Russian troops in the mountains
were fortifying their positions and se
curity was being beefed up in Grozny,
Russian television said.
Chechen fighters kept up their hit
and-run attacks against Russian troops
in Grozny, news agencies said, and
there were reports of scattered fight
ing elsewhere.
The death of Dudayev, the guiding
force of the separatist movement, has
created new uncertainty in the 16
month war.
The separatists said Dudayev was
killed in a Russian airstrike Sunday
and buried late Tuesday in a secret
location in the foothills of the North
Caucasus Mountains.
They claim his dying words were
“not to give up our cause — bring it
to an end.” But some officials and ana
lysts hope Dudayev’s death might give
new impetus to peace talks.
Pavel Felgenhauer, military analyst
with the Russian daily Segodnya, said
Dudayev’s death was a boon to Rus
sian President Boris Yeltsin ahead of
the June 16 presidential elections.
Confusion in the rebel camp could
“freeze” the fighting in Chechnya, he
said.
“This is good for Moscow, as the
Yeltsin government has made clear its
strategic objective: to keep the
Chechens out of their hair until after
the elections,” he said.
However, the rebels appeared to be
anything but conciliatory Thursday. In
a move sure to enrage the Kremlin,
the separatists’ representative in Mos
cow said the hard-line guerrilla com
mander, Shamil Basayev, would rep
resent the rebels if peace talks ever
materialize.
White House voices concern
over use of testimony tape
WASHINGTON — President
Clinton said Thursday he hoped his
videotaped testimony in a Whitewater
trial wouldn’t “be abused in any way”
and suggested that he agreed with
criticism of prosecutor Kenneth Starr.
The president spent part of the day
preparing for Sunday’s videotaped
questioning. Before he uttered even a
word on tape, his administration be
gan arguing against the release of the
videotape outside the courtroom.
A big concern: that snippets could
end up in Republican TV ads next fall.
“I think that the American people
and the press should have access to
my testimony, but that it shouldn’t be
abused in any way,” Clinton told re
porters.
His aides were more direct.
“We don’t want to see it in a cam
paign ad,” said press secretary Mike
McCurry. “It should not be misused
by those who would try to take politi
cal advantage of the president’s ap
pearance, because he’s coming for
ward in good faith to deliver the truth.”
The president’s testimony Sunday
could take up to eight hours. His vid
eotaped responses will be played back
in a Little Rock courtroom for the
fraud and conspiracy trial of Gov. Jim
Guy Tucker and James and Susan
McDougal, who are accused of mis
using nearly $3 million in govern
ment-backed loans in the mid-1980s.
Clinton has not been charged in the
case. The McDougals, who were once
Clinton’s partners in the Whitewater
real estate development, subpoenaed
him to testify. Defense lawyers will
question the president, followed by a
cross-examination by prosecutors.
But aides were most edgy about
custody of the tapes. They fear that a'
copy of the tape could wind up in the
hands of Republican opponents, to be
used in a campaign ad.
Compromise
spending bill
moves forward
WASHINGTON — The Environ
mental Protection Agency will get 10
percent less money, and job safety
spending will be down a bit. Schools
with many low-income children will
get about the same as a year ago.
In a gauge of how the federal bud
get climate has changed, Democrats
considered those winners in the huge
compromise spending bill for fiscal
1996 that Congress prepared for Presi
dent Clinton’s promised signature
Thursday. The House approved the
legislation 399-25, and Senate passage
was expected quickly.
The $159 billion measure, cover
ing nine Cabinet-level departments
and dozens of agencies for the remain
ing five months of the fiscal year, will
provide additional services for some
Americans and less for others. There
is $1.4 billion to help hire 100,000
local police officers, but $278 million
— aoout a third less than last year —
for the Legal Services Corp., which
provides lawyers for the poor.
The bill was the product of gruel
ing talks between the White House and
Congress. In the end, the administra
tion had won $5 billion more than the
House had approved months ago —
still leaving spending for all federal
agencies a whopping $20 billion be
low 1995 levels, according to the non
partisan Congressional Budget Office.
“The world has changed and we’re
headed in the right direction,” said
House Appropriations Committee
Chairman Bob Livingston, R-La., a
leader in the GOP drive to slice fed
eral spending and shrink government.
Democrats preferred to focus in
stead on the money they restored. That
included $350 million for Clinton’s
prized Goals 2000 education reform
program, down $22 million from last
year but originally targeted for elimi
nation by the House. And the Occu
pational Safety and Health Adminis
tration would get $305 million — a 2
percent cut from last year instead of
the 11 percent reduction the House
initially approved.
Republicans said the measure
would eliminate more than 200 pro
grams, though most of them were rela
tively tiny and obscure. Among them
was a favorite of Vice President A1
Gore, the Global Learning and Obser
vation to Benefit the Environment, a
year-old program aimed at teaching
students about the environment.
Nefciraskan
Editor J. Christopher Hein
472-1766
Managing Editor Doug Kouma
Assoc. News Editors Matt Waite
Sarah Sea let
Opinion Page Editor Doug Peters
Wire Editor Michelle Gamer
Copy Desk Editor Tim Pearson
Sports Editor Mitch Sherman
Arts & Entertainment
Editor Jeff Randall
Photo Directors Scott Bruhn
Travis Having
Night News Editors Rebecca Oltmans
Melanie Brandert
Anne Hjersman
Beth Narans
Art Director Aaron Steckelberg
General Manager Dan Shattil
Advertising Manager Amy Struthers
Asst. Advertising Mgr. Laura Wilson
Classified Ad Manager Tiffiny Clifton
Publications Board Tim Hedegaard •
Chairman 436-9253
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