Ninety-eight years of editorial freedom
Vol. XCVIII, No. 135 Ann Arbor, Michigan -- Tuesday, April 19, 1988 Copyright 1988, The Michigan Daily
U.S.
attacks
Iranian
vessels
PALESTINIANS PROTEST ASSASSINATION:
Oil platforms, ships
downed in retailiation
MANAMA, Bahrain (AP) - American forces de-
stroyed two of Iran's Persian Gulf oil platforms Mon-
day, sank or damaged four attack boats and disabled two
frigates that fired missiles at American planes, U.S.
officials reported.
Iranian naval forces responded with attacks on Arab
oil facilities: U.S., British and Cypriot commercial
vessels, and on a press helicopter chartered by NBC.
No American casualties were reported, but Defense
Secretary Frank Carlucci said a Cobra attack helicopter
with two crew members was late in returning to a
Navy cruiser and a search had begun.
Yesterday's conflict between the U.S. and Iran was
the most intense since President Reagan ordered last
summer that Navy forces be strengthened in the gulf,
where Iran and Iraq have been in war since September
of 1980.
Washington called destruction of the platforms a
"measured response" to the explosion of a mine, al-
legedly planted by Iran, that blew a hole in an Ameri-
can frigate last week and wounded ten sailors.
Reagan said Monday's operations were a warning to
Iran that "we will protect our ships and, if they threaten
us, they'll pay a price. We undertook this action to
make sure the Iranians have no illusions about the cost
of irresponsible behavior."
Iran's official Islamic Republic News Agency said
there were deaths and injuries aboard the platform but it
did not say how many.
In the ground war between Iran and Iraq, the Baghdad
government claimed it regained most of the southern
Faw peninsula that Iranian forces captured more than
two years ago, including the town of Faw. Iran claimed
U.S. helicopter gunships fired at Iranian troops in the
area and Tehran radio said "American forces have en-
tered the war."
In Washington, Pentagon spokesperson Fred Hoff-
man denied the Iranian claims. No U.S. military forces
have been involved with Iraqi units, he said.
On Reagan's instructions, at about 9 a.m., two
groups of Navy warships struck the Iranian oil plat-
forms Sassan and Sirri-D, 100 miles apart in the
southern Persian Gulf.
They gave the Iranians advance warning to evacuate
the platforms, which have been used as speedboat bases
for attacks on neutral shipping. Reagan ordered the at-
tacks as retaliation for the mine that holed the frigate
USS Samuel B. Roberts on Thursday.
Both platforms were destroyed and left ablaze, one
by naval gunfire and the other by explosives placed on
it, according to statements in Washington.
The Iranian news agency said U.S. warships hit the
Sassan platform at'9 a.m. and, 23 minutes later, the
Nasr platform off of nearby Sirri island.
Sirri Island is one of the makeshift oil export
terminals in southern waters to which Iran ferries oil
from its main Kharg Island terminal in the northern
gulf. Kharg has been a frequent target of Iraqi air raids.
The Iranian agency said Foreign Minister Ali Akbar
Velavati wrote a letter of protest to U.S. Secretary-
General Javier Perez de Cuellar that said, in part: "Iran
will never submit to the policy of violence and intimi-
dation, and will definitely respond to the cowardly U.S.
attacks."
After the U.S. attacks, Iranian gunboats went on a
rampage in the -southern gulf. They attacked oil facili-
ties and commercial vessels at the Mubarak oil field off
the Sharjah emirate, and hours later assaulted a Cypriot
freighter leaving the United Arab Emirates with a load
of fertilizer.
Carlucci said a Navy helicopter was fired upon dur-
ing the raid on the platforms but not hit. Iranians shot
at a press helicopter carrying an NBC-TV crew and an
Associated Press photographer, but missed.
Reagan defends
strikes in Gulf
WASHINGTON (AP) - President Reagan said
yesterday he ordered military strikes against Iranian
targets because of "irresponsible behavior" toward U.S.
ships, and served notice that Tehran will "pay a price"
for such aggression in the Persian Gulf.
Defending attacks on Iranian military platforms in
the southern gulf, Reagan said: "We aim to deter
further Iranian aggression, not provoke it." he renewed
the U.S. call for Iran to accept a United Nations
resolution demanding a cease-fire in the Iran-Iraq war.
Reagan used an appearance before a business
audience to comment on U.S. reprisals for the mining
of the frigate USS Samuel B. Roberts. His use of force
won bipartisan support on Capitol Hill.
"I have something in the nature of a bulletin for
you," he told representatives of the Associated General
Contractors organization in the Old Executive Office
Building auditorium.
"Earlier today our Navy made a measured response
to Iran's latest use of military force against U.S. ships
in international waters as well as its continued military
Daily rnoto Dy DNIEL SIEEL
University students hold a "Peaceful Palestinian Protest" outside the Michigan Union yesterday. The studen-
ts are protesting the assassination of atop PLO leader Saturday, accusing the Israeli government of being in-
volved in the killing.
Tw killed int Israeli violenwe
JERUSALEM (AP) - Army
curfews and strikes to protest the
killing of a PLO leader paralyzed the
occupied lands yesterday, and hospi-
tal officials said soldiers shot two
who was taking her children home.
At least 167 Palestinians have
been reported killed since riots began
Dec. 8 in theWest Bank and Gaza
Strip which Israel has occupied since
capturing them from Jordan and
Egypt in the 1967 Middle East war.
An Israeli soldier and civilian also
have been slain.
Israel ordered the closure o f
Jerusalem's only English-language
magazine owned by Palestinians, al-
leging that it is financed and directed
by terrorist organizations. Its
managing editor denied the allega-
tions.
Buildings in the West Bank were
draped with black flaps of mourning
for assassinated PLO leader Khalil
al-Wazir. Hundreds of Palestinians
paid condolence calls in Nablus to
al-Wazir's cousin during three days
of mourning, said Adnan Zahran of
Nablus.
"Nablus is a city of ghosts," the
engineer told The Associated Press
by telephone about the West Bank's
largest city, which was in its second
day of curfew.
Al-Wazir, also called Abu Jihad
(Father of the Holy War), was killed
early Saturday by commandos who
burst into his home in a suburb of
Tunis, Tunisia.
News of the death inspired riots
in the West Bank and Gaza in which
17 Palestinians were killed and more
than 100 wounded. It was the blood-
iest day in the territories since the
rebellion began.
In a message to Arabs in the oc-
cupied lands, Palestinian Liberation
Organization leader Yasser Arafat
said al-Wazir, his chief aide and the
PLO's military commander, "fell,
weapon in his hand, to the bullets of
a Mossad gang." The Mossad is the
Israeli secret service.
Arafat said he had lost "a brother,
a friend, a revolutionary companion,
and one of the symbols of the
liberation fight of the Palestinian
people....The price of his death will
be high."
and terrorist attacks against a
nonbelligerents," Reagan said.
Reagan's action drew bipartisan
Michigan members of Congress.
number
of
support from
* CBN group to
approach 'U'
administration
By MARINA SWAIN
Members of the Campus Broadcasting Network
formed a committee to communicate with the Univer-
4 sity administration - which said it may consider cut-
ting the student-run radio station's funding - in an
emotionally charged meeting last night.
Board members argued about steps they shouli ake
to respond to Interim University President Robben
Fleming's statement that the Office of Student Services
may reevaluate CBN's importance when formulating
its budget this June.
"Right now I'm concerned with keeping the network
going," said LSA senior Paul LaZebnik, outgoing
CBN general manager.
"The station may not be here next year," he said.
"They (the administration) want to hear real solid rea-
sons why this place should stay a student-run radio
station."
Fleming has questioned the value of having both
CBN and the University-operated WUOM. He said the
Office of Student Services may decide to channel the
money into other areas, such as handicapped services.
The decision, however, will be left to Vice President
for Student Services Henry Johnson. Instead of having
a student as general manger of the station, Johnson told
LaZebnik he may consider appointing a professional
for the position.
"We would like to find out specifically what their
grievances are against us," said Emily Burns, an LSA
junior and incoming WCBN general manager.
"They say they don't feel a student general manager
can perform adequately but they don't provide specific
justification for their remarks," she said.
CBN also issued a statement yesterday which sup-
ported its April 13 decision to reinstate Ann Arbor res-
& ident Chris Daley as a WCBN disc jockey.
Black prof
eleted to
top
LSA
committee
Uy LISA POLLAK
University Prof. Donald Deskins'
election to the LSA Executive
Committee, this month makes him
the first Black member of the col-
lege's policy-making body, LSA
Dean Peter Steiner's secretary said
yesterday.
When Steiner came under attack
for allegedly racist remarks last Jan-
uary, his detractors criticized the ab-
sence of Blacks and other minorities
from the college's most influential
committee.
"I think it's very significant that
(Deskins) was chosen," Vice Provost
for Minority Affairs Charles Moody
said.
See ISA, Page 2
un~~~ti!s
Daily Photo by DAVID LUBLINER
I N~'IE Ill
This too shall pass
LSA senior Bill Haeck writes his second-to-last paper before he graduates at the end of the month. He had to wait two hours
at the Church St. computing center before getting a spot, and then spent four more hours writing his ten-page-long paper.
s 3-m1-onth extension on taxes
t ' e spot on <> u :c
The t, I g id.
By MICHAEL LUSTIG
Graduate student teaching assistants
but waivers had not been taxed before.
D'Arms told the faculty's Senate As-
, mh , 9-es~m .arhnvhih s art
fall.
.IThe University is considering giving
all T antAc-l arrnlcc _et nte nn2tat