10
Thursday, February 24, 1994
UNIVERSITY DAILY KANSAN
THE NEWS in brief
New Russian parliament votes to grant amnesty to 1991 coup leaders
MOSCOW
In its first major action, Russia's new parliament took a swipe at President Boris Yeltsin yesterday by granting amnesty to leaders of the 1991 Soviet coup and the hardliners who fought him last fall.
Yeltsin, who disbanded the last parliament just five months ago, issued an angry statement denouncing the vote as a "dangerous path which contradicts the national interests."
"Regrettably, having barely started its work, the State Duma has shown that it hasn't drawn any lessons from the bitter experience of the Supreme Soviet," said Vyacheslav Kostikov, Yeltsin's press secretary.
The vote came one day before Yeitsin was to deliver his first, long-delayed speech to parliament's powerful lower chamber, the State Duma.
Reformers warned that the amnesty could revive the political unrest that turned the streets of the capital into a battleground in October.
"This is the beginning of a civil war in Russia," said Sergei Yushchenkov, the parliament's defense committee chair.
The Communists and nationalists who pushed the measure through parliament argued that it would heal Russia's political wounds, not reopen them.
Later, at an anti-Yeltsin rally near the Kremlin, there was no talk of reconciliation. "Yeltsin is a murderer!" about 2,000 people chanted as a light snow fell at sunset. "All power to the Soviets!
Many waved red Soviet flags and carried small portraits of some of the jailed leaders of the October violence, including former Vice President Alexander Rutskii, as well as pictures of Josef Stalin and Vladim Lenin.
ATLANTA Stadium removes state flag
ATLANTA
The board that governs Atlanta-Fulton County Stadium voted unanimously yesterday to stop flying the Georgia flag there because its design includes the Confederate battle emblem.
The decision by the Atlanta-Fulton County Recreation Authority means that the state flag will not fly during Atlanta Braves home games this season. It also would not fly during the 1996 Summer Olympics, when the stadium will be used for baseball.
Opponents of the flag contend it is racist because it includes the Confederate battle flag emblem — cross blue bars with stars on a red field. Gov. Zell Miller tries to get the flag changed during last year's Legislature, but he dropped the effort because there was not enough support.
The stadium board had considered flying the pre-1956 state flag, which did not include the Confederate battle emblem. But board members decided removing the flag would send a more powerful message.
"This is an issue facing the citizens that has yet to be resolved, and the absence of a flag draws attention to that issue," said board member Mary Rose Taylor.
© 1994 Rafter Insurance and Annuity Association College Retirement Equities Fund
The Rev. Tim McDonald, leader of a group that is pushing for a flag change, said its next target would be the Georgia
Dome, home of the NFL's Atlanta Falcons. The group was unsuccessful, however, in getting the flag removed from the state-operated building for last month's Super Bowl.
"It's not just a black issue," McDonald said. "There are whites and blacks all across the state who find this flag reprehensible."
TULSA, Okla.
Shootings of six haunt man
The man charged with wounding six people during a shooting spree in a fast-food restaurant said yesterday that he's beginning to have nightmares of the victims' families wanting revenge.
"I have horrible dreams of people surrounding me and attacking me, I guess the families," Marcus Muriel Thompson said in a telephone interview from the Tulsa jail.
"They just started a couple of days ago," Thompson said. "My heart beats a little faster when I wake up."
Three employees and three high-school students were wounded. All the students have been released from hospitals; the employees remain hospitalized in fair to good condition.
Thompson, 26, is charged with six counts of shooting with intent to kill and one count of assault with a dangerous weapon in the Feb. 15射击 at a Wendy's Old-Fashioned Hamburger restaurant during the lunch hour.
"I just want to tell them I'm sorry, but they'll probably never forgive me." Thompson said. "I know I've got forgiveness from God. I've been reading my Bible, and it says I really shouldn't worry about anything else. Man can destroy my body, but only God can destroy my body and soul."
Thompson said that he hadn't spoken to the public defender that a Tulsa judge appointed last week and that he did not care if he does.
He said he slept most of the day and rarely thought about his life, the shootings or what he faces.
"I'm automatically going to get a conviction," he said.
Chicago
Victoria Moryn had two toes amputated and will need physical therapy, said Armella Bernacki, a representative for St. Mary of Nazareth Hospital.
Victim of cold snap released
"She's in good condition. She's healthy," Bernacki said yesterday. She said that Morryn had been released Tuesday and that she would be staying with friends.
A 91-year-old woman found frozen to the floor of her unheated home a month ago was released from the hospital.
Moryn, a widow who lived alone, was discovered Jan. 17 in her unheated home, unconscious and kneeling barefoot in an inch-thick layer of ice from leaking pipes.
Police who found her thought that she was dead until one touched her and she moaned "Oh, God" in Polish, her native language.
She suffered frostbite and hypothermia, and doctors initially did not expect her to survive.
It was not determined how long my son had been stuck, but concerned friends notified police after seeing no sign of her for several days. The temperature in Chicago was about 10 degrees on Jan. 17 and had been below zero most of the previous two days.
Compiled from The Associated Press.
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