I OPINION Page 4 Monday, November 24, 1986 The Michigan Daily i f 1 SMbr3irh4tigan Iaitlj Edited and managed by students at The University of Michigan Balanced point of view Vol. XCVII, No. 58 420 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. ecretary C S ECRETARY OF EDUCATION William Bennett has once again hdicated his lack of compassion for needy students. His latest proposal, which he says will fight The rising costs of college, would result in an even tighter grip on students already facing financial difficulties. Bennett claims that rising tuition, which has increased up to 150 percent from 1975, is a direct result of increased federal financial aid. According to him, colleges are confident that the federal government's aid will ensure students' ability to meet escalating costs. The Secretary's proposal requires the elimination of federal subsidies for student loans. Colleges and other outside sources would be soley responsible for supplying -student aid. The proposal also calls for longer repayment terms on non-subsidized loans at a lower interest rate. Instead of extending the repayment period to post graduation, when students have higher paying jobs, Bennett's proposal would start students paying interest when they receive their loans. Students meeting immediate financial robligations while attending school, would have to simultaneously pay f elimination back part of the money that they borrowed to get through school. Bennett's consistent support of student aid cuts, demonstrates unacceptable behavior for someone in his position. In 1985, he actively endorsed President Reagan's budget proposal calling for deep funding cuts in higher education. He called for limiting each student to a $4000 cap on aid available from all government sponsored programs, including guaranteed student loans and grants. Considering the cost of college, this proposal indicates that the Secretary of Education is not worried about extending education to the poor. Extreme gaps in educational opportunities for the poor persist, and have increased under the current administration. Reforms may be needed in the federal student assistance program, but cutting the already meager funding is not a constructive solution. One of the primary tenets of democracy-is the need for an educated public. Bennett's elitist attitudes are, unfortunately, representative of an administration that has shirked its responsibility by keeping people, through economic coercion, from access to the options and benefits that come with education. By Alan Wald Considerable controversy has surrounded the recent Nov 1 to 10 Nicaraguan trip of 17 Ann Arbor citizens, including myself, to commence implementation of "Proposition A." This ballot proposal was passed by the city last April mandating the establishment of Sister City relations with Central American countries and calling for an end to U.S. support of the Nicaraguan Contras who are out to overthrow the elected government led by the Sandinista National Liberation Front (FSLN). Hardly had Ann Arbor's Sister City Delegation left the United States on its journey to our Sister City in Juigalpa, Nicaragua, when a smear campaign against the delegation's activities and objectives was launched. A Nov. 4 Detroit News editorial claimed that the delegation was a "junket" comprised of "moon-eyed Utopians" en route to "sip cocktails" with Nicaraguan president Daniel Ortega. Upon the delegation's return, University Political Science Professor Raymond Tanter charged in the Nov. 16 Ann Arbor News that the group had failed to make inquiries about alleged human rights violations in Nicaragua. And several letters to the Ann Arbor News, such as the one by Chris Coatney in the same Nov. 16 issue, asserted that the killing of civilians near Juigalpa on Nov. 7 might have been staged by the FSLN to impress the naive delegation unfamiliar with "the communist state of mind." None of those making such wild and unfounded accusations ever bothered to contact the delegation first-hand, in order to learn our authentic views and the nature of our activities in Nicaragua. This is because the purpose of the smear campaign is not to engage in a dialogue on the issues, but to put into circulation a series of slanders that will prejudice the public's mind even before the delegation members have a chance to present our point of view. The "line" of this smear campaign comes directly from the U.S. State Department, which has been exposed numerous times for spreading disinformation about the situation in Nicaragua. The two "big lies" coming from the Reagan administration are that the FSLN has instituted a "totalitarian" regime, and that that the Contra gang of criminals, mercenaries, terrified peasants, upper-class landowners and former Somoza National Guardsmen are to be regarded as "the moral equivalent of the Founding Fathers." In order to keep the U.S. president from being laughed out of the White House for such preposterous assertions, it is crucial that those undertaking a first-nand investigation of the situation be discredited in advance. In the present , the claims of the Detroit News an. Pr fessor Tanter are replete with factual .;iatrtions. The trip, of course, was not a "junket;" we all made the personal sacrifice of financing the trip ourselves, to insure the Wald is a professor of English at the University and Coordinator of Faculty for Human Rights in Central Americaa. He was a member of the November 1-10 Sister City Delegation to Juigalpa, Nicaragua. independence of our thinking and not' drain resources that might go to the people of Juigalpa. Moreover, we did not "sip cocktails" with Ortega -- although we did stand in a crowd of many thousands in the hot sun in 90 degree weather listening for several hours to a fairly boring speech of his. Instead, we stayed in extremely modest accommodations, drank mostly the common run of beer, and personally interacted with several hundred Nicaraguans from all walks of life and many different political points of view. During the course of our visit the delegation heard lectures by U.S. citizens doing first-hand research on the political, economic and human rights situation. In Managua we interviewed high-ranking government officials in the ministries of health, education, foreign affairs, and in the National Assembly. In Juigalpa we met with officials of the city, the departments of health and education, the Sandinista Defense Committee, and the government of Region 5. In both places we also talked with doctors, teachers, businessmen, priests, Catholic activists, soldiers, workers, journalists, peasants, and many others. We also took special measures to maximize the chances of our receiving a balanced view. We held special sessions with representatives of La Prensa (the temporarily banned newspaper), the Conservative Democratic Party (the largest single opposition group in the National Assembly), the U. S. Embassy (which presented the same "line" we hear in the present smear campaign), and El Nuevo Diario ( an independent daily newspaper). At times we changed our schedule and showed up unannounced at various locations, such as a Sunday mass at the church of Obando y Bravo (a critic of the FSLN). We also would suddenly disperse into small groups and go out of our way to seek people critical of the government. When talking with U.S. citizens, including a good number of Ann Arborites, some of whom have spent years in Nicaragua, we grilled them thoroughly about what they had seen and heard in regard to human rights and political freedom. Our group had half a dozen translators, in addition to the official ones (a Presbyterian activist couple from the U.S.) whom we hired, so we could check any mistranslations on the spot. Finally, in our dealings with FSLN representatives, we challenged them at every point and even had some sharp debates about their relations with the Soviet Union. All of this has been recorded on video, on tape recordings, in photographs, journals and newspaper reportage. The official report signed by the 17 Ann Arbor delegates - a diverse group including Democrats, Christians, atheists, businessmen, school officials, a Republican, an anarchist, a socialist, a priest, etc. - is a carefully worded statement that presents a thoughtful and balanced assessment of the present situation in Nicaragua. I believe the members of the delegation can defend that common statement, if given a fair hearing, although we all have our individual views on various other matters. Certainly there is not a member of the delegation who does not have important criticisms of the Nicaraguan government. The argument that the Contra attack on civilians near Juigalapa was "staged" by the FSLN, and that we blindly nodded our heads in agreement with whatever we were told about such matters, is an example of Reaganite disinformation being spread on the local level. We delegates knew that the U.S. State Department had made such claims before our departure. At the U.S. embassy in Managua we demanded documentary, information to the effect that even one single Contra attack had been investigated and proven to have been a FSLN frame- up; the embassy could not give us a single example. In Juigalpa we interrogated the Vice-President of Region 5 as well as young people who had had their arms and legs blown off by Contra weapons; they pointed out that witnesses to attacks had identified the Contras operating in the region - the names of the leaders were known and they were being pursued. 4 4 Moreover, even if one assumes that these maimed young people were lying out of fear or because of "the communist state of mind;" what would have been the value of the FSLN killing one of its own most respected leaders, Alfonso Nunez, on the day before the mass celebration of the 25?anniversary of the founding of the FSLN? The purpose of that celebration was for the Nicaraguan government to display its military might and bolster the confidence of the people in their struggle to halt the U.S.-backed Contra invasion. The fact is that the murder of Nunez (whose car also contained a driver and several passengers getting a lift into Juigalpa) at that moment was a demoralizing blow to the FSLN. The Contras had wanted to get someone big at that crucial time in order to prove that they are earning their hundreds of millions of dollars from the U.S. It seems to me that it would hardly have been worth this sacrifice in regard to the morale of the whole nation just to "impress" a group of U.S. citizens who had already read the documentation of hundreds of Contra atrocities in the literature of Human Rights organizations such as America's Watch. And why would the FSLN leaders, who are scrupulously being watched by critics all over the world for a slip that would discredit them, take the unnecessary risk of being caught at such a Machiavellian act and losing their moral authority? And what about the fact that a week later the New York Times reporter in Nicaragua reported the event as without question a Contra attack? Is he an FSLN dupe as well? Of course, it is "theoretically possible" that the whole incident was staged. It is also "theoretically possible" that the U.S. embassy official we met was actually a KGB agent out to, manipulate us. And it is even "theoretically possible" that our bus never actually took us toJuigalpa - but instead to an artificial city rapidly constructed for our benefit and filled with clever Cubans disguised as Nicaraguans. Anyone who fails to take into account at some level the human potential for deviousness certainly suffers from a deficiency of imAgination. But those who elevate the "theoretical possibility" of the highly unlikely, improbable, and irrational into a serious argument are only exposing their inability to make a convincing case for their point of view in the realm of the possibile. SS TUDENTS HA VE BE EN :demanding that the regents and the ,University administration increase 'financial aid for minority students Sfor good reason. This year, the University has heralded increased minority :enrollment with a record 699 minority freshpersons. Black ~enrollment has increased from 5.2 :to 5.3 percent, Hispanic enrollment vfrom 1.8 to 2.0 percent, and Asian 'enrollment has increased from 4.5 :to 5.0 percent this year. While on Sthe whole these figures indicate ~progress, they just are not adequate for a University with the resources available here. It is important to rec ognize that initial recruitment efforts appeal to minority students by offering a first year comprehenisve tuition package. After that first year, the aid packages diminish while the financial status of minority students does not increase. Considering. *cuts in aid, it is no wonder that the 'mi nority attrition rate at the University is so high. Only 29.4 percent of blacks who enter the University earn degrees in four years, while over 50 percent of whites and Asian Amnericans will graduate in that same time period. Historically, 85 percent of all *minority students have relied upon need based financial aid, as 1compared with approximately 62 percent of all majority students. Since 1977-78, yearly increases in the self-help component.(loans and or employment) of aid packages have led to increased borrowing and employment; self-help relative to total cost has not increased, iinority aid Growth in grant-in-aid funding has lagged, too, and high need students have suffered. The University has taken some steps to redress these problems. Two years ago, it realized that it would lose qualified minority students if it didn't expand merit awards. As a result, the Michigan Achievement Award (MAA) has increased dollar amounts; this is a positive step but insufficient in relation to how many minorities it actually affects. The University has hired two counselors who specialize in minority financial aid counseling and has recognized that relative absence of minority faculty members on campus depresses retention and recruitment rates. The University would do well to incorporate the ideas behind the Four Point Plan, proposed especially through the efforts of the Black Student Union and former Michigan Student Assembly Minority Affairs Researcher, Roderick Linzie. Under the plan, minority students would qualify for substantial aid packages after their first year if they meet certain academic standards. Since the Black Action Movement (BAM) strikes of 1970, when the University appeased protestors by promising 10 percent black enrollment by 1973 , the Unversity has still not met this goal. The University may once again try to appease protestors but such an approach would only sell the University short. If the University truly wants to increase minority Wasserman . *i & ,egf I k J .I '1 WII' w-NV ie9SO THE SWAP? THAW AN'T A SWA or __o 7 . " .._.- ._-- .+. 1 I I wI TAT. SUMMIT RI LU RE TA~T WASN'T pA SOI TOW WAS~ N ~T A FAILUE Tt A ISN'T A RANSOM PAYOnNT1 11 vm tis. r WOU LO YOU C [ A I