Ninety- nine years of editorialfreedom
Vol. IC, No. 101 Ann Arbor, Michigan - Tuesday, February 21, 1989 Copyright 1989, The Michigan Daily
IRA
bombs
British
army
barracks
LONDON (AP) - The Irish
Republican Army bombed a British
army barracks in western England
early Monday, but most of the men
had been evacuated before the three
explosions, and only one soldier was
injured.
A half-hour before the blasts, a
sentry spotted two intruders and fired
warning shots, then woke the
sleeping soldiers and told them to
get out.
Police set up roadblocks in the
area of the Ternhill barracks
following the pre-dawn explosions
and said two suspects observed by
the sentry were thought to be at
large in a stolen car.
The police said they were
searching for a car taken by a masked
man from a nearby home at about
the time of the bombing near
Shrewsbury, 150 miles north of
London.
The explosions shook nearby
houses, started fires, blew out the
wall of one accommodation block,
and destroyed the roof of another at
the home of the second battalion of
the Parachute Regiment, said Col.
Peter Hicks, an army spokesperson.
It was the second I.R.A. bombing
in six months at a British Army
barracks in Britain. In the last attack
in August, one soldier was killed and
nine others were injured at the Inglis
barracks in north London.
Security was tightened at bases
around the country after that attack.
See Blast, Page 2
I vote
Fifth
wins
Ward
primary
BY NOAH FINKEL
Verna Spayth defeated Ed Surovell4
by one vote in yesterday's Demo-
cratic Fifth Ward Ann Arbor CityI
Council primary, while incumbent
Gerald Jernigan easily turned back
perennial candidate Paul Jensen in theI
Republican mayoral primary.
Jernigan will face Democratic1
mayoral candidate Ray Clevenger in'
the city's April 3 mayoral election.'
Spayth will oppose Republican Joe
Borda, who received 360 votes in the
uncontested Republican primary, for
the Fifth Ward council seat.
In the uncontested Democratic
mayoral primary, Clevenger garnered'
538 votes.
Unofficially, Spayth defeated
Surovell 435-434. Jernigan beat
Jensen 2,180-210. The results will
be official once the City Board of
Canvassers certifies the results.
In the 1987 Republican mayoral
primary, Jernigan defeated Jensen by
almost 1,400 votes.
As expected, a little over three
percent of Ann Arbor's voters turned
out.
But Surovell said he will ask for a
recount.
"I think with a one-vote difference
there should be a recount," Surovell
said. "It's my responsibility to the
people who voted for me and worked
for me"
City Clerk Winifred Northcross
said Surovell can ask for a recount
after the election tallies are certified
by the City Board of Canvassers.
Ted Beals, chair of the Board of
Canvassers, said the election will be
certified by noon today.
Northcross said there was a ques-
tion of poll workers possibly having
switched Spayth's and Surovell's
votes in the fourth precinct. In that
precinct, Spayth won 39-35.
If the votes are found to be trans-
posed by the County's Board of
Canvassers after the recount, Surov-
ell instead would a have a 39-35 ad-
vantage in the fourth precinct and a
three vote primary victory.
But Surovell said he is "not
alleging anything" and added he is
demanding the recount only because
of the closeness of the race.
Despite the uncertainty, Spayth
was delighted last night.
"A landslide would have been
nicer... but this is an amazing vic-
tory," she said.
Ann Arbor
Primary '89
Meanwhile, Jernigan's 10-1 vic-
tory margin over Jensen came as no
surprise.
"We expected it," Jernigan said.
But Jernigan said that his 4-1
margin over Clevenger in the pri-
mary doesn't give any indication of
how the city general election will go
for him.
"You can't generalize those results
from this kind of primary," he said.
Jensen was unreachable for com-
ment last night.
Open communication ELLEN LEVY/Dall
LSA junior Kevin Hood takes an opportunity to speak with Charles Moody, vice provost for
minority affairs.
BSU forum gathers Black
faculty, staff and. students
BY VERA SONGWE
More interaction between Black
faculty and students is needed, said
the majority of 12 Black faculty and
staff and 30 students who met
yesterday at a reception sponsored at
the Michigan Union.
The forum was the first of its
kind sponsored by the Black Student
I-ii stcry
1iNIcith
students to the Black faculty because
there are so few Black faculty and a
lot of people do not know who they
are, this is a chance to meet them,"
said Christopher Jones, president of
the BSU.
Though the turnout was not as
high as was expected, Vice Provost
See Forum, Page 2
Union in celebration
tory month.
"The aim is to
of Black His-
introduce the
.Students discuss
West Bank events
Asylum seekers
BY VERA SONGWE
The Ella Baker-Nelson Mandela
center held a talk Friday discussing
the Palestinian uprisings and what
could be done to bring an end to the
disputes in the Middle East.
An integral part of the discussion
was the treatment of the Palestinians
by the Israeli government.
"The Israeli government believes
in an ideology which is the wrong
response to [past] oppression" of the
Jews, said Barbara Ransby, a mem-
ber of the United Coalition Against
Racism.
"Occupation cannot survive
without oppression [of the
Palestinians] and the natural re-
sponse of the occupied is to fight,"
said Nuha Khoury, Rackham gradu-
ate student.
The students added that the policy
of killing protesters has always ex-
isted in the West Bank. Khoury
characterized killing as a natural re-
sult of oppression. "They have to
oppress us to exist."
"The state thrives on the oppres-
sion of the Palestinians," said Hilary
Shadroui, a Rackham graduate stu-
dent. "The Israelis fear peace more
than brutality, they see that if the
Palestinians wage attacks they have
no chance of winning," said
Shadroui.
Some of the students who at-
tended the talk shared their experi-
ences as Palestinians students in the
West Bank, saying they had to go
back to the West Bank once every
three years, under penalty of losing
their citizenship.
"If the Israelis wanted the Pales-
tinians to live by them they would
try to foster education," Khoury said.
"The University of Bethlehem has
been closed since October of 1987
and the rest of the universities have
been closed since December."
In the West Bank and Gaza set-
tlements, the Israelis have tried to
impede Palestinian industries such as
the citrus industry, Khoury said. "If
they really want us to be there they
would not put all the clauses that
exist now they. This year the gov-
ernment forbade the Palestinians
from picking olives if they did not
pay their taxes." The olive Industry
is an integral part of the Palestinian
agrarian economy. The Palestinians
refused to pay their taxes as a non-
violent response to the oppression,
Khoury said.
Citing United Nations resolution
3379 which they said calls the state
of Israel "racist", they questioned the
plan proposed by the Jews in the
partition of the territory in 1948
whereby 26 percent of the Jews
would get 53 percent of the land.
Making allusion to the example
of American Indians, the students
continued by saying Jewish home-
land was necessary, but that no
group of people has accepted the
partition of their land without a
struggle making allusion to the
American Indian example.
"We are united in the desire for
peace and security but after that we
debate on the methods of attaining
the peace," said Steve Derringer,
LSA sophomore, who characterized
may face
BROWNSVILLE, Texas (AP) -
Central Americans applying for asy-
lum will get an answer in as little as
one day and will be subject to im-
mediate imprisonment if turned
down, officials said yesterday.
The Immigration and Naturaliza-
tion Service staff in southern Texas
will be increased by 500 to patrol
the border and speed up the weeding
out of "frivolous" asylum claims,
INS Commissioner Alan Nelson
announced.
More jails will be built to hold
people who are turned down pending
their appeal or deportation, he said.
"We intend to send a strong sig-
nal to those people who have the
mistaken idea that by merely filing
a frivolous asylum claim, they may
stay in the United States," Nelson
said. "This willful manipulation of
America's generosity must stop."
A group called the Brownsville
Ad Hoc Refugee Committee criti-
cized the new INS policy as a
"mean-spirited attempt to deter
political refugees from applying for
political asylum." Brownsville is the
main entry point for asylum-seekers
from war-torn and poverty-stricken
Central America.
The policy will be phased in over
the next several weeks. Nelson said
the INS hopes eventually to process
asylum applications within two
days. Currently, asylum decisions
can take months.
The changes came the same day
the INS was allowed to reinstate a
prison
policy restricting people seeking
asylum from leaving southern Texas
while they await decisions.
Tens of thousands of Central
Americans are expected to cross the
Rio Grande into southern Texas this
year, according to the INS, which
says political asylum requests from
Central Americans have risen almost
sevenfold over the past four years.
More than 50,000 sought asylum in
fiscal year 1988, compared with
7,063 in 1985.
According to INS records, 3,136
people applied for asylum between
Wednesday and Sunday at the
agency's Port Isabel Processing
Center, a rural detention center 15
miles northeast of Brownsville.
But INS officials maintain that
most of the Central Americans are
here for economic reasons and do not
qualify for asylum from persecution.
Roughly half of the Central
Americans seeking asylum are from
Nicaragua, Nelson said.
Under the new policy, those de-
nied asylum can either return imme-
diately to their home countries or be
given a hearing before an immigra-
tion judge, with whom they may re-
new their applications for asylum.
Nelson said he did not know how
long it might take for a person to
get that hearing before a judge.
While they await detention, sin-
gle adults will be detained at prison-
like INS detention centers; families
may be allowed to stay in less-
restrictive facilities that will be set
up, Nelson said.
Right on track ELLEN LEVY/Dally
First year engineering students Demress Stockman and
Jonathan Sobocinski use an air track to perform their "conser-
vation of energy and momentum" experiment for Physics 141
lab.
U-council1
BY FRAN OBEID
The newly formed University Council final-
ized its procedural rules for council operations at
its weekly meeting at the Michigan League yes-
(
reates procedur
numbers of members to be present for a May unles
committee ruling - the council decided that one together su
member from each constituency should be pre- Even thi
sent with a total of at least five votes. proved byi
e rules
s they can prove they are able to work
ccessfully.
hough the CLB protest policy was ap-
the regents last July, the council may
I