Tuesday; June 8; 1976 THE MICHIGAN DAILY Page Three I Tuesday. June 8. 1976 THE MICHIGAN DAILY Poge Three Cease-fire issued as Syrian troops advance. on Beirut BEIRUT, Lebanon (P)-Syrian forces launched a drive on Beirut yesterday, hurling jets, tanks and artillery against Lebanese leftists and Palestinian guer- rillas who had blocked their path for six days. A Radio Damascus broadcast last night said a new cease-fire had been agreed upon. It said the cease-fire was an- nounced in Beirut by a spokesman for the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) and went into effect at 4:30 p.m. EDT. THERE WAS no immediate indication that the Syrian advance had halted. The Syrian troops, estimated at 6,000, had crossed into Lebanon last Tuesday seeking to force an end to the. struggle between right-wing Christians and the leftist alliance of Moslems and Pales- tinian guerrillas. The Moslems had been seeking a grater share of power in the government. The Syrians quickly f o u n d them- selves in a bloody showdown with Ara- fat's guerrillas, until recently Syria's allies in the confrontation with Israel. The Syrians also encountered opposition from the Moslem leftists that Syria had helped arm. SYRIA'S DRAMATIC move to end Lebanon's 14-month-old civil war further fragmented Arab efforts toward unifica- tion against Israel. How dry 1 am It'll be a dry Republican National convention for the delegates from Utah. The delegation, most of who belong to the Church of the Latter-day Saints (Mormon) who neither drink nor smoke, had their motel reservations switched from hard-drinking Missouri to Kansas where there are no public bars. Ac- cording to one story, the Missouri motel complained that it would lose money at the bar because of the non-drinkers. Richard Richards of the Utah delega- tion said, "It's true that he would not do well." Happenings... ... tonight at 8:00 the Ann Arbor Bi- centennial commission is sponsoring a play entitled "The North Beach Gang." It will run until June 13, and is being presented in the Residential College Atd. in E. Quad ... The Ann Arbor chapter of NOW will meet at 8:00 to- night in the first Unitarian Church. 0 Weather or not If you enjoyed yesterday's sun and heat, you'll be happy to hear that more of the same is expected for today. It will be sunny and clear with highs in the upper 80's, but the moderate hu- midity should keep things bearable. Lows will be mild, in the low 60's. By Wednesday you may decide you've had enough of the heat, because the mer- cury should reach the 90's by then and is expected to stay there through Thurs- day. Friday will bring no heat relief, but there is a chance of rain. In yesterday's drive, Syrian tanks ad- vancing along the mountainous Damas- cus-Beirut highway pounded the hill re- sort of Sofar while warplanes strafed and rocketed Palestinian positions in Beirut, 16 miles away. Lebanese leftist warriors. and PLO chieftain Yasir Arafat's Al Fatah guer- rillas lined the main road through Sofar to block the Syrians. "WE ARE waiting for the Syrians," said a young gunman. "We are a wel- come for them." Another Syrian armored column was reported heading toward the southern port city of Sidon. Reports said the Syrians clashed with Palestinian guer- rillas around the village of Hilaliya on the hills above the port 25 miles south of Beirut. The Al Fatah office in Algiers had an- nounced the cease-fire agreement before it was reported by Damscus radio. Al Fatah said the pact among Syria, the Palestinians and Lebanese leftist forces calls for the creation of a Syrian-Alger- ian-Lebanese commission to resolve the crisis with the truce to be supervised by Lebanese and Algerians. AND IN Cairo, Arab League Secretary- General Malsmound Riad invited foreign ministers of 20 member states to an emergency sesison tomorrow to consider the Lebanese crisis, the official Middle East News Agency reported. The meet- ing was requested by the Palestinian Liberation Organization, the over - all guerrilla organization headed by Arafat. Sami Attari, a member of Syria's rul- ing Socialist Baath party, charged that America, Egypt and Israel were seeking to gain a partition of Lebanon to estab- lish a Palestinian state on Lebanese soil. He said Syria would not attend a con- ference of Arab foreign ministers re- quested by Arafat because Arafat's lead- ership of the PLO "is illegal since its term expired more than a year ago." Arafat has charged that Syria wants to destroy his Lebanon-based organization and replace it with the Syrian-controlled Saiqa Palestinian group. Easy riders Party split plagues Council By MIKE NORTON When the Ann Arbor City Council met in special session two weeks ago, the long-feuding party factions came togeth- er amiably to pass a city budget for 1976. Smiles abounded at that meeting, backs were patted -- cooperation and harmony prevailed. But that honeymoon, such as it was, is over. LAST NIGHT, the first Council ses- sion since the budget meeting, showed lines firmly drawn once again between Republicans and Democrats as debate flared over an amendment to the city's street use ordinance proposed by Coun- cil member Carol Jones (D-2nd Ward). Jones' amendment would have chang- ed wording in the ordinance which re- quires written permission from property owners before a street permit can be issued to an artist or merchandiser to set up a stand in front of the property. The present wording, Jones argued, gave adjacent property owners a de facto "veto power" over the use of side- walks in front of their property. Her amendment would have required that owners be notified of a request for a permit and given time to make a pro- test, but would not have required written permission as an absolute condition. THE FIRST Republican protest came from Council member Wendell Allen (R- 1st Ward), who reminded his colleagues that area merchants pay taxes to the city while "wandering peddlers" who might set up sidewalk booths did not. See PARTIES, Page 14 TU lawyers file suit against judges By MICHAEL YELLIN Lawyers representing the Ann Arbor Tenants Union (TU) have filed a suit against 15th District Court Judges Pieter Thomassen, Sandorf Elden and George Alexander charging them with actions "prejudicial to the plaintiffs (striking tenants) and interfering with their ability to receive fair trials." Included in the suit is visiting judge Richard Robinson who has been called in from Howell, Michigan to preside over the non-jury trials between landlord Edith Epstein and striking tenants. WITH THE suit TU members seek "to restore the Plaintiff's (tenants') jury trials, reasonable right to amend plead- ings, and a reasonable trial schedule." Council for the defendants, Asst. City Attorney John Van Loon, responded to the suit saying, "The kind of things they've alleged cannot be properly brought out in court. My position is that the complaint is completely improper and not in proper form." Judges Thomas- sen and Alexander declined comment. In their suit Legal Aid lawyers Jeremy Rose and Jonathan Rose, acting in behalf of striking tenants, claim that the three local judges met secretly to discuss 19 lawsuits filed against striking TU mem- bers in mid-March by Reliable Realty owner Edith Epstein. After the meetings the judges removed the 19 suits from the "usual procedure in landlord tenant proceedings" and "modified the pro- cedure to the great detriment of the ten- ants," the lawyers charge. TENANT LAWYERS claim they were not given adequate time to prepare coun- terclaims and were refused the right to amend their pleadings, thereby pre- venting them from "properly presentitg their proofs at trial." In the suit they further claim tenants were unjustly de- prived of their right to trial by jury in four cases due to untimely payment of the jury fee, and in four additional cases their right to a jury trial was deprived even though the fees were paid prior to the time they were due, but were not accepted by the clerk. Throughout the trials between Epstein and the TU, court cases have been set at several trials per week and on some days more than one case has been tried. It is the tenants contention that the acceleration of the proceedings has strongly affected their cases as evidenced by the fact that tenants were awarded $2,200 rent reduction and $1900 compen- satory damages in the first trial, when their lawyers were given adequate time to prepare. Tenants also argue that the assignment of non-jury trials to visiting judge Rich- ard Robinson is "improper." Stating, "There are no judges in the 15th Judicial District without a commer- cial interest or former commercial in- terest in landlording, either personally or as landlords council or both .. .," tenants seek through the suit to impress upon the judges the importance of being "even handed" in their handling of the tenant-landlord cases.