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