8 - The Michigan Daily -- Tuesday, September 9, 1997
NATION/WORLD
China's communist
party prepares for
meeting this week
IAs Angeles Times
BFIJINi- In the days leading to
this week's important national meeting
ofthe world's largest and most powerful
Communist Party, rumors and political
intrigue were so rampant here that edi-
tors of the People's Daily newspaper
felt compelled to scold the Chinese for
speculating about personnel changes in
their country's leadership.
"Instead of doing their job," the offi-
cial party newspaper preached, "some
comrades spend their working hours
discussing issues such as who will be
made the next party secretary or the
next mayor."
As usual in prelude to the once-
every-five-years national party meet-
ing, most public speculation centers on
subtle and not-so-subtle reshuffling -
promotions and purges - in the
Politburo and key government posts.
The main unanswered question, for
example, of the 15th Communist Party
Congress, set to begin Friday in the
Great Ilall of the People, is what to do
with Li Peng, China's hard-line premier
whose term of office expires next
spring.
One duty of the congress is to
endorse candidates for key government
posts when the National People's
Congress, China's lawmaking body,
convenes in the spring. Party nomina-
tion, of course, is tantamount to elec-
tidn.
Following this summer's annual lead-
ership retreat in the seaside beach resort
at Beidaihe, many diplomats and politi-
cal observers here are convinced that
Li, remembered internationally as the
man who declared martial law and
called in the troops during the 1989 stu-
dcnt- demonstrations in Tiananmen
Square, will be replaced as head of
government by Politburo member Zhu
Rongji.
Zhu, 69, is China's widely respected
economic czar and one of the principal
architects of the country's amazing
growth rate.
But according to Communist Party
historians and several of the 2,048
official delegates to the weeklong
meeting interviewed, the most
important item on the agenda of this
congress - the first since the death
of-paramount leader Deng Xiaoping
in February - will be a change in
tihe interpretation of the Chinese
C'onstitution to allow private owner-
ship of some state-owned industry.
"This party congress," prominent
economist Fan Gang said in an inter-
view, "will give a green light to owner-
ship - you in the West call it privatiza-
tion - of state industries. That means
that some state assets will be sold to
non-state companies or private owners.
This is a breakthrough that will make
this party congress more meaningful,
more important, than many of those in
the past. ... This is the start of the evo-
lution of the private economy."
In fact, party permission for pri-
vate ownership would be an official
acquiescence to what has already
occurred in many parts of China.
Prosperous southern Guangdong
province, for example, already has
sold an estimated 90 percent of its
state enterprises.
Regions in northern Shandong
province and central Sichuan
province also have undergone wide-
spread privatization.
But such business arrangements are
considered shaky until they get official
party approval. "Up to this point," said
economist Fan, director of a progres-
sive economic think tank, the National
Economic Research Institute, "the gov-
ernment has not prohibited this type of
ownership. But until this party congress
it hadn't approved it either."
The tricky part for delegates, culled
from among 500,000 nominees who
were elected in cell meetings last
spring, will be how to work around a
tenet of the Chinese system that
requires "socialist public ownership
of the means of production."
The key language is contained in
Article 6 of the 1982 Constitution
that states in classic Marxist terms:
"The basis of the socialist economic
system of the People's Republic of
China is socialist public ownership of
the means of production, namely,
ownership by the whole people and
collective ownership by the working
people."
But as often happens here when
Communist Party leaders attempt to
apply Marxist rhetoric to capitalist real-
ity, the main challenge at the party
meeting will be to come up with a way
to explain privatization in socialist
terms.
"The biggest issue," said one dele-
gate, "will be how we define public
ownership and common welfare."
AP PHOTO
A sister of the Missionaries of Charity touches the glass that encases the body of Mother Theresa yesterday as mourn-
ers file past in St. Thomas Church in Calcutta, where she is being viewed. She will be buried Saturday.
Preparations made for
funeral of Mother Theresa
CALCUTTA, India (A P)- Mother Teresa, whose mes- often deflected praise with dry wit.
sage of peace and compassion went beyond the boundaries "Mother certainly would be scolding us for all of our
of creed and nationality, will go to her burial place on a behavior in these preparations," Canny said. "But the sis-
gun carriage, draped in the Indian flag. ters believed Mother had a sense of humor, and that she is
The military trappings of Saturday's state funeral might probably also laughing at us a bit as we go through this out
clash with the image of the Nobel Peace laureate - but of... our need to show honor, respect and to show our love
church leaders said yesterday it was just the government's for Mother."
way of giving Mother Teresa its most prestigious farewell. As she lay in state yesterday at Calcutta's St. Thomas'
The Rev. Anthony Rodricks, an aide to Calcutta's Church, the love this frail woman inspired was evident.
Roman Catholic archbishop, Henry D'Souza, Mourners gave ushers roses to be brushed against the glass
acknowledged there had been objections to the gun case enclosing her body, then took them home as keep-
carriage. sakes. Other flowers left at her feet later made into a huge
"People might think of war when they see a gun car- heart-shaped arrangement on the lawn outside the church.
riage, but this is not the way it should be taken. A state Sister Nirmala, who took over earlier this year as head
funeral is the highest honor the state government can give of the Missionaries of Charity, emerged to respond to the
Mother, and that is the spirit in which the ceremony should outpouring of emotion.
be taken," he said yesterday. "We thank people for coming here to see Mother," she said.
Mother Teresa transformed a few shelters and "I'm sure Mother is looking over us and she will bless us."
schools for Calcutta's poor into a worldwide charity One fan was selling posters of Mother Teresa for about
before her death last Friday of a heart attack at age 87. 30 cents outside the church.
Many of those whose lives she touched will join high- "She cared for poor people like me and was never worried
ranking church and state officials as the casket is about letting us touch her or go near her," Upajan Das said.
moved to the funeral site. But not everyone praised Mother Teresa. One columnist
"The procession will include those people that Mother in The Telegraph newspaper commented that her mission
has dedicated her life's work, the sick, handicapped, lep- failed to make an impact on Calcutta's punishing poverty.
rosy afflicted," Bill Canny, a spokesperson for her order, "Calcutta has little reason to be grateful," wrote
said yesterday. Sunanda Datta-Ray. "It was she who owed a tremendous
Her Missionaries of Charity order and the Indian gov- debt to Calcutta. No other city in the world would tamely
ernment are collaborating on the funeral for a woman who offer up its poor and its dying to be stepping stones in a
wore a cheap cotton sari to her Nobel ceremony and who relentless ascent to sainthood"
Bosnian
crowds
become .
rowdy
Los Angeles Times
BANJA LUKA, Bosnia-
Herzegovina - Deep divisions among'
the Bosnian Serbs were on display here
yesterday when supporters of suspecte
war criminal Radovan Karadzi
attempted to hold a "unity" rally but
were practically run out of town..*
Rowdy crowds taunted each other
and hurled rocks and insults, but more
serious violence was avoided. Both
NATO peacekeeping troops and the
Bosnian Serb army were deployed. Oe
crowd waved posters of Karadzic, the
banned former president of the
Bosnian Serbs, while the other crow
burned them.,
Karadzic proxy Momcilo Krajisnik,
the Bosnian Serb member of Bosnia's
three-man presidency, waded into
unfriendly territory by staging the
rally here in the headquarters of arch
enemy Biljana Plavsic, the current
Bosnian Serb president who is chaf
lenging the Karadzic hard-liners. But,
judging from the reactions of his pan-
icky bodyguards, the hostility that
Krajisnik encountered was more thaf
even he expected.
The tension reflects a deepening cri-
sis within the Bosnian Serb half of this
country, one that Washington hopes to
exploit to gain more cooperation from
Serbs in implementing the U.S.-bro-
kered peace accords that ended the
Bosnian war 21 months ago.
And the potential violence also
threatens much-delayed municipal
elections scheduled for this weekenp
Hatred and conflict are standard-
issue in the former Yugoslavia, but to
see Bosnian Serbs turn on their fel-
low Bosnian Serbs with such anger
was stunning to many veteran
observers.
Karadzic's clan of hard-liners,
based in the southern city of Pale,
last week began calling on all Serbs
to attend the unity rally in Banja
Luka. Plavsic, however, banned th
meeting, setting the stage f
Monday's showdown.
Karadzic supporters were being
bused to Banja Luka from all over
Bosnian Serb territory, or Republika
Srpska. Pro-Plavsic police, backed by
heavily armed British and Czech troops,
set up barricades on roads leadingto
Banja Luka to block the buses.
Some demonstrators managed t
evade the roadblocks and rallied
downtown Banja Luka, waving
Karadzic posters and red, white and
blue Bosnian Serb flags. There were
only a couple hundred people, however.
And worse for Krajisnik, he and other
speakers were drowned out by the
whistles, catcalls and chants of Plavsic
supporters.
ALBRIGHT
Continued from Page 1
sweeping crackdown.
"It will be very hard to find a for
mula to get out of this crisis," said
Gerald Steinberg, a political science
professor at Tel Aviv's Bar-lan
University. "We're no longer talking
about the Oslo (peace) process per se
or moving to final status negotiations
but moving toward institutionalized
conflict management."
Underlining the difficulties, Israeli
officials used the eve of Albright1s .
visit to press for the extradition o
Palestinian Police Chief Ghazi Jabali'
a close aide to Arafat whom they
accuse of overseeing a group 6f
Palestinian officers charged wit)
shooting at Jewish settlers in the West
Bank in July.
And Netanyahu spokesman David
Bar-Illan dismissed the detention cif
suspected Hamas and Islamic Jihad
militants as "Mickey Mouse arrests.'"
He said none of the Palestinians taken
into custody was on the list of more
than 200 people whose detention a
Israel is demanding.
"The point is whether they arrest
the real big sharks," Bar-Illan said,
adding that they had not.
Israel has arrested about 100 sus-
pected members of the violent
groups. On Monday, a Jerusalem dis-
trict court banned publication of
details of the investigation into the,
July 30 bombing on Jerusalem's B0
Yehuda pedestrian mall.
The Israeli-Palestinian peae-,
process has been unraveling since . -
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