The Michigan Daily-Tuesday, December 12,1989 - Page 3

Czechs cheer
new reforms

Critics slam
Gorbachev

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PRAGUE, Czechoslovakia (AP)
- A joyous cacophony of bells and
whistles yesterday heralded a popular
victory over the Communists.
Czechoslovakians settled down to
choosing a president from among
heroes the old order once called vil-
lains.
The choice may be thrown open
to a popular vote as a presidential
contest appeared to be developing.
"This is the end of commu-
nism!" exulted Jana Navara, an ac-
tress in pink mukluks, adding the
sound of a brass chime to the bells
of Prague's Tyn Church on Old
Town Square. Her 3-year-old daugh-
ter made a triumphant 'V' with two
tiny fingers.
The brief blast of noise replaced a
threatened general strike. The strike
was cancelled after a flurry of events
brought to power the first govern-
ment in forty-one years dominated
by non-Communist leaders forcing
President Gustav Husak from office.
Soldiers began removing barbed
wire from the border. Neutral Austria
and Prague radio reported plans to
disband 'Pacem im Terris' a state-
controlled organization of Roman

Catholic clergy. Often, priests out-
side this group were persecuted as
the state tried to impose its will.
Parliament, which meets Tues-
day, has two weeks to elect a presi-
dent.
But the Club of Communist
Deputies, equivalent to a majority
party caucus, said yesterday it will
support a popular referendum on the
president, the state news agency
CTK reported.
It was not clear whether all
Communist deputies would support
the club's position.
Earlier, Politburo member Ondrej
Saling said Communist and opposi-
tion forces had agreed the president
should be a Czech with no party af-
filiation.
"In my view, the president must
be someone who enjoys broad sup-
port and guarantees stability," he
added
His statement seemed to suggest
Vaclay Havel. Havel, the playwright
who was jailed for opposing com-
munism, is now the driving force
behind Civic Forum, the main op-
position.
Posters reading "Havel na Hrad"
- "Havel to the Castle," the presi-

MOSCOW (AP) - An infuri-
ated Mikhail S. Gorbachev clashed
with Communist Party conserva-
tives at a tense, 10-hour Central
Committee meeting that included an
especially harsh personal attack, ac-
cording to accounts surfacing yester-
day.
When the doors opened Saturday,
however, the 58-year-old Kremlin
leader emerged "in excellent shape,"
a participant said, with his stature re-
inforced with yet another party post,
and even the conservatives conceded
that there were no alternatives to his
reforms.
There was high drama at the ple-
nary session of the party's 250-
member Central Committee, with
party officials reportedly objecting to
everything from the excesses of
glasnost to Gorbachev's kowtowing
to the West. At one point, Gor-
bachev even threatened to resign.
"Nobody argued against pere-
stroika as the only policy capable of
leading the country and society out
of the difficult situation where they
are now," said one Central Commit-

tee member, who on condition of
not being identified by name gave a
richly detailed account of the strife at
the Kremlin.
Despite glasnost, the openntsn
policy instituted under Gorbachev,
proceedings in the Central Commit-
tee are cloaked in secrecy. But some
members did talk about the session,
which even by party ideologue
Vadim A. Medvedev's account was
peppered with "dogmatic and conser-
vative" criticism.
The critics' argument was .that
"foreign countries are praising us for
perestroika, consequently, our way is
wrong," Estonian Premier Indrik
Toome, a reformer, told his Baltic
republic's youth daily Noorte Haal.
The policy-making body con-
vened at a time of unprecedented
pressure on the party, with Lithuania
two days earlier revoking its consti-
tutional monopoly on power. Gor-
bachev warned Communists their
comrades' ouster in Eastern Europe
shows they must act quickly to
solve Soviet woes.

AP Photo

A member of the Czechoslovakia border patrol cuts the
fence yesterday at the Berg crossing near Bratislava.

barbed wire

dential residence - sprouted all over
Prague.
The candidacy of Alexander
Dubcek, the Communist reformer
whose Prague Spring of 1968 was
crushed by Soviet tanks, threw the
final scene of a perfectly staged revo-
lution into doubt, however, and

other names were being mentioned.
Civic Forum leaders said pri-
vately that Communist negotiators
promised to back Havel. The Com-
munists will have a major role until
free election and new institutions can
be organized next year.

L II Bush denies mistreatment of

Salvadoran by U.S.

officials

h

WASHINGTON (AP) - Presi-
dent Bush yesterday denied allega-
tions that U.S. officials had
mistreated a Salvadoran witness who
had implicated the Salvadoran Army
in the slayings of six Jesuit priests
last month.
Bush also said he had told Presi-
dent Alfredo Cristiani of El Salvador
that a fair trial must be held for Jen-
nifer Casolo, the Connecticut church
worker arrested after ammunition and
explosives were found buried in her
yard in San Salvador.
Salvadoran Archbishop Arturo
Rivera y Damas had said on Sunday
that U.S. officials had resorted to
"psychological torment" and brain-
washing in an effort to induce the
woman, Luisa Cerna, to retract her
story.
A lawyer for an association of
American Jesuits, R. Scott Great-
head, said Ms. Cerna withdrew her
statement implicating the Army un-

der pressure from her American and
Salvadoran interrogators.
Ms. Cerna, a housekeeper for the
Jesuits, first said she saw armed men
dressed in military uniform enter the
rectory of the Central American
University on Nov. 16, when the Je-
suits were killed. She was flown to
Miami on Nov. 23 at her request and
Sthat of the Spanish and French am-
bassadors in El Salvador.
During a question-and-answer
session with newspaper editors,
Bush said he checked into news ac-
counts of the case and was assured
Ms. Cerna had not been mistreated.
"And I don't think that people
would tell me something that's not
true there because there would be a
price to pay for that," he said.
"I have confidence that our Attor-
ney General would not permit the
kind of inquisition process that was
alluded to in the papers today."
Bush added that he expects the de-

tails of the case will be released'so
long as they do not jeopardize the
legal proceedings now under way.}
On the Casolo case, Bush said,
"So far I have not received any indi-
cation that she will not receive a fair
trial."
Some presidential spokespersons
have suggested that the Salvadoran
government had a case against thd
woman in view of the large quantity
of munitions dug up around -her
house on Nov. 26. Some congr0s-
sional Democrats have criticized
those comments.
Bush did not mention those gxr
changes. He said he had spoken to
both Cristiani and the U.S. ambas-
sador, William Walker, "to repreeht
to the Salvadorans that it's essential
that a fair trial be granted," and be
seen to be fair.
Ms. Casolo's associates and fain-
ily insist she has been framed.

AP Photo
Five Central American presidents shake hands together following a mass at the Coronado Church yesterday.
The leaders met for the final day of a two day summit. From left are Joze Azcona of Honduras, Alfredo
Christiani of El Salvador, Oscar Arias of Costa Rica, Vinicio Cerezo of Guatemala and Daniel Ortega of
Nicaragua.


Woman receives doctorate 50 years late


FRANKFURT, West Germany
(AP) - More than a half-century
after fleeing from the Nazis, 81-year-
old Nina Rubenstein received her
doctorate in sociology at a Frankfurt
'university yesterday.
"It's the last thing I expected in
my life," said Miss Rubenstein, of
New York. "I'm elated, I'm proud,
I'm surprised."

The dean of Frankfurt's Johann
Wolfgang Goethe University's soci-
ology department, Lothar Brock, said
Miss Rubenstein gets the degree
magna cum laude.
It was a big surprise for the re-
tired United Nations interpreter, who
was 25 when she fled the Nazis in
1933, leaving behind her completed
247-page thesis for her doctorate.

She first fled to France and then
to the United States, when Hitler's
troops marched on France.
"I'm not particularly proud of
myself in general, but I thought the
dissertation was rather good," Miss
Rubenstein said. It was delivered in
German.
"But frankly I did not expect a
magna cum laude. That was a very
enormous surprise," she said, chuck-
ling.
Professor David Kettler, of Trent
University in Peterborough, Ontario,
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said it took him a year, along with
Miss Rubenstein's half sister, Hanna
Papznek, to make arrangements for
awarding the doctorate.
"This is the university facing up
to its responsibility to its students
and faculty. She did the work and de-
serves to be recognized for it," Ket-
tier said.
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