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October 02, 1986 - Image 4

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Text
Publication:
The Michigan Daily, 1986-10-02

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OPINION
Page 4 Thursday, October 2, 1986 The Michigan Daily

Edited and managed by students at The University of Michigan
Vol. XCVII, No. 21 420 Maynard St.
Ann Arbor, MI 48109
Unsigned editorials represent a majority of the Daily's Editorial Board
All other cartoons, signed articles, and letters do not necessarily represent the opinion of the Daily.
Two neglected fronts in the war on drugs:
Freedom-fighters

'80s

counter

PRESIDENT AND NANCY
REAGAN' are leading an
apparent crusade against
drugs, which has both parties
in the House of Representatives
racing to out-moralize the other.
It is hard to take the current
drug crusade seriously if only
because U.S. supported
"freedom-fighters" are among
the major drug-traffickers. The
moral pbsition of the current
lynch-mob crusaders is very
weak.
Afghani rebels
The New York Times
conducted an on-the-ground
investigation of rebel opium
cultivation in Afghanistan
(6/18/86). "'We must grow and
sell opium to fight our holy war
against the Russian nonbe -
lievers,"' said the brother of the
most powerful rebel com -
mander in one province.
The rebels explained that with
opium selling for $40 or $50 per
pound, they make 100 times
more than by growing another
crop. Afghanistan and the
bordering areas in Pakistan are
the world's largest suppliers of
Allies' (
A HANDFUL OF people in the
U.S.-backed governments con-
tinue to do most of the business
in.the $100 billion drug industry,
while the new anti-drug
crusade of Reagan and the
House, calls for a clampdowxn at
the user end of the problem.
Panama
Panamanian leader General
Antonio Noriega came to power
upon the death of the previous
strongman leader in Panama.
Rigging elections in 1984,
Noriega nonetheless gained
tacit support from the United
States government.
Now it turns out that Noriega
is the "head of the biggest drug
trafficking operation in the
Western Hemisphere" accor-
ding to Senator Jesse Helms
(New York Times, 6/25/86).
Panama's banking laws also
provide a haven for drug-
dealers, who deposit their
money in Panama.
Yet, the United States tolerates
this embarassment because
according to C.I.A. and
Pentagon sources, the United
States does not know of any
potential successor who would
be as tolerant of the United
States' military and intelligence
presence. (New York Times,
6/12/86)
Bahamas
Bahamian Prime Minister
Lynden Pindling has large
deposits and gifts totalling over
$3 million that need explaining
according to a Bahamian
commission investigation of

drug dealing in the Bahamas.
More significantly, a U.. S.
Drug Enforcement Admini -
stration (DEA) agent accuses a
Pindling associate of serving as
a front for the purchase of
nirnlanes for the largest cocaine

illicit opium. In 1983,
Afghanistan produced the
opium equivalent to six times
the heroin imports of drug
traffickers in the United States
according to the Washington
Post (12/7/83).
Contras
Some U.S.-backed counter-
revolutionaries working to
overthrow the Sandinista
government in Nicaragua
traffick in cocaine. The Ann
Arbor News reported (8/27/86)
that the Reagan administration
has admitted that some Contras
had trafficked in drugs but none
associated with the United
Nicaraguan Opposition (UNO),
which formed this year.
Convicted cocaine smugglers,
however, contradict even this
claim. Taking advantage of
Contra airstrips and military
protection in Costa Rica,
members of the mainline
Contra group smuggle cocaine
into the United States.
It is indeed ironic that when
the U.S. government tries to
claim the moral high road on
only two issues-anti-
communism and drugs-the
roads go in opposite directions.
drug habit
ducers are said to "own" many
judges, police and officials.
Mexico
In Mexico, corruption of local
officials can be serious.
Newsweek (2/25/85) cited a raid
that nabbed 10,000 tons of
marijuana plants, which is half
of the total seized in 11 previous
years. It is unlikely that an
operation that large could have
existed without some element of
bribery of the government at the
local level.
Bolivia
Bolivia is one of the largest
exporters of cocaine. . The
Bolivian government, under
former President Luis Garcia
Meza, was involved in the
cocaine trade during the early
1980s according to U.S. officials
(Newsweek, 2/25/86). Currently,
the Bolivian government
estimates cocaine exports are
greater than the rest of exports
combined.
As a result of lost income from
the declining cocaine trade,
Bolivia is asking for a special
$100 million loan. These
requests may become larger as
joint U.S.-Bolivia military
operations against cocaine
refiners in Bolivia succeed.
Meanwhile coca leaf
production remains legal in
Bolivia, which is the world's
second largest producer of the
leaf and the second largest
refiner according to the New
York Times (7/31/86).
U.S. credibility
It would be tempting to
discuss the State Department's

attempts to link Nicaragua and
Cuba to drug trafficking. After
all, if drug trafficking links
discredit the Soviet bloc, they
must also discredit the U.S.
bloc. It is not the Soviet bloc,
mni Xhnis a+ nnni . iv

By Leslie Eringaard
and Henry Park
This is the first of a three
part series
Today there is a thriving subculture
of alternative magazines, more often
known as 'zines. Theyrange from
established punk rock review 'zines
like Maximum Rock'n'Roll and
Flipside to philosophical 'zines like
Not Bored and cultural anarchist 'zines
like Popular Reality. Typically, the
'zines are most notable for counter-
reality graphics. Upon discovering
that Popular Reality is based in Ann
Arbor and published by an Ann Arbor
resident named Dave Nestle, the Daily
set out to probe what is known
sometimes as "marginal" culture or
the counter culture of the '80s.
In the late '60s and early '70s there
were over one million students who
considered themselves revo -
lutionaries. Students for Democratic
Society (SDS) boasted a membership in
the hundreds of thousands. SDS
factions like the one that became the
Weather Underground and
Progressive Labor had more in
common with Mao Zedong, Che
Guevera, the Black Panther Party
and anarchism than with the relatively
tame but popular liberalism of George
McGovern. .
The United States in the '60s and
'70s failed to present the opportunity for
revolution long awaited. Indeed, the
Black -Panther Party disintegrated in
the face of police repression and SDS
splintered into oblivion, especially
with the ending of the Vietnam War,
which was the issue to propel student
radicalism. Yet, some people from that
time period who escaped direct
Eringaard is a graduate student in
the School of Social Work and Park is
the Daily's Associate Opinion page
editor.

...graphics from Popular Reality
confrontation with the state have
worked their way back into the new
counterculture.
Kris Andonian
Indicative of a troubled generation
is the case of Kris Andonian. David
Nestle, a friend of Kris Andonian,
called Andonian a "genius." Another
friend, now named Jim Shiley, who
publishes what is called the Shimo
Underground's Notes for a, New
Underground, remembered Andonian
as "one of the most brilliant people in
the group (anti-War movement)."
Andonian was busted for throwing
a rock at then Vice-President Spiro
Agnew. She ended up in what was then
called the Kalamazoo State Hospital.
Today it is known as the Kalamazoo
Regional Psychiatric Hospital.
In the psychiatric hospital,
Andonian was so drugged that by the
time she left the hospital she was a
"complete vegetable" "unable to put a
sentence together" according to Nestle
and Shiley.
Crowbar and Shiley have no doubt
that the psychiatric hospital effectively
killed Kris Andonian, who died an
untimely death within two years of
leaving the hospital; although, they

culture
admit they were not able to get much
information from her mother, the
hospital or the press, which to their
knowledge never published an article
on the case.
The Daily called Kris Andonian'
mother, who refused comment.
Dr. William Decker, who is
director of the Kalamazoo Regional
Psychiatric Hospital where Andonian
was a patient, said he has "many
comments," but is unable to maike
them because of laws regarding the
privacy of patients' medical records,
By this and similar methods,
society has shut up many of it
potential critics and revolutionaries.
Bobby Seale escaped to Arizona to write
a cookbook after witnessing the murder
of his comrades in the Black Panther
Party high command. Black Panther
leader Huey Newton was in and out of
the hospital for alcohol abuse and tihe
well-known Eldridge Cleaver exiled
himself to foreign countries until
federal authorities took him back as a
reborn Christian. Upon his retur
Cleaver went on tour with the Rev.
Moon to preach the errors'of
radicalism, call for the expulsion of
all foreigners from the United States
(including Moon) and denounce Soviet
tyranny.
Former revolutionary turned b rn-
again Christian
Ann Arbor resident Crowbar
(David Nestle) joined a "hardeore"
fundamentalist church at the tail en4
of the rebellion of the '60s and early
'70s. Why? "My friends were dying. .
. I thought I must be doing something
wrong... I was only in my teens."
He married a ,woman who also
joined the Church at that time. During
his seven years as a member of the
evangelical church, Crowbar became a
minister and a faith healer. Although
totally against religion now, h
admits that he saw many strange
things during his experience with the
fundamentalist church that he has not
quite explained yet.

APAGE FROMA RONtALD RE&NN'S
LITTLE-KNoWN M TOMTNT WIN U.S ..lO
FO~ LT WOULD
SHOULD IO URT T BE
ESONLERY G&To BL
LE TTERS:

r
I
I

Eesor
To the Daily:
Drew Stirton does not
speak for me. I found both his
and Bradley J. Foster's
letters, "Shanty disgraces
Diag," and "Sick and tired of
the shanty," (Daily 9/26/86)
to be offensive.
Stirton wrote of the shanty
that, when it was first erected,
its point was well-made, but
that "its prolonged existence
is not evoking emotions
contrary to the initial aim of
the shanty. Instead of
drawing upon sympathy and
compassion, it is stirring up
em Ainn s ofangera nd

is 0salicovne

1/" vii "1 5 91/%..19/5" v 5/ v H v v v/ y r" 7v

tion, to whom Foster requests
that we write letters,
imploring the removal of the
shanty, is the Reagan
administration....
Now I would agree with
some of Stirton's remarks:
"I am fully convinced that
the majority of the student
body are tired of the shanty
and would like to see it
removed from the Diag."
(...are South African blacks
tired of apartheid? Is
apartheid an "eyesore?")
"Shouldn't the majority of
the students decide on the
future existence of the

down. That was exactly the
response the shanty-builders
were counting on. The lack
of resolve shown by the
administration allowed them
to maneuver themselves into
their present position, taking
the presence of the shanty on
the Diag as a given, and its
maintenance as their right."
(...could he be referring to the
nations which, for com-
mercial reasons, are anxious
to avoid a confrontation with
the Botha regime, thus
allowing that regime to take
the presence of apartheid for
granted and its maintenance

misdirected. To get rid of.the
shanty would be wrong
precisely because it ii a
"constant source of
annoyance." We should be
annoyed-by the fact jhat
apartheid exists. Everyday4
Why should we be allowed a**
visually pleasing trip
through the Diag? More tothe
point, why should we be
allowed to be blind. to
apartheid's existence?
In a negative tone, Foster
writes that "any connection
between the shanty and South
Africa exists entirely in.the
minds of the people who builf

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