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 . - Get $50 cash back when you purchase select 56K* desktop modems with x2- technology July 1-October 4, 1997. Get $20 cash back when you purchase select Megahertzr 33.6 Kbps PC Card Modems and Ethernet.Modems from 3Com- at your campus bookstore or computer center July 1-October 31, 1997. Keep track of these valuable offers and get extremely organized with a PalmPilot' Connected Organizer, and rage to the head of the class! i