University Daily Kansan / Monday, October 30, 1989
Nation/World
7
Czechs rally for democracy
The Associated Press
PRAGUE, Czechoslovakia — Thousands of people defied the government Saturday to rally for democracy on the 71st anniversary of Czechoslovakia's independence.
Scores of protesters were 'beaten and dragged away by riot police who poured into central Prague.
"We want no violence!" protesters chanted as they were penned in by riot police on Wenceslas Square. "We've got bare hands!" they shouted, raising their arms to show that they were unarmed.
The government said police used mild means to end the illegal rally.
At least 250 people were detained and dozens were beaten as hundreds of baton-wielding riot police fanned out across the half-mile long square, "Gestapol!" the crowd shouted at them.
The scene was reminiscent of last year's independence anniversary when thousands of Czechoslovak also ignored a government warning and rallied for democracy at Wenceslas. They also were dispersed by police.
City streets and most bridges across the Vltava River, which runs
through Prague, were sealed off as sporadic demonstrations continued. Sirens wailed through the city and dozens of police vans raced through the streets.
Police seized the film of several Western photographers.
Hours before the rally began, the Communist government held an official military parade on Wenceslas Square to commemorate Oct. 28, 1918, the beginning of the Czechoslovak state.
The Communists took power in 1948, and Czechoslovakia remains one of the East bloc's most rigidly controlled states.
About 1,500 soldiers stood ramrod straight as Defense Minister Gen. Milan Vaclavik instructed them to swear allegiance to defend their homeland.
Josef Kempny, head of the Communist-dominated Czech National Council, stressed in a 15-minute speech the importance of preserving Communist power and reiterated that the government would not seek dialogue with independent, pro-democracy groups.
"There is no sense in debating with those who like to talk but who oppose February 1948 and are against social-
iam, who care only for the return of capitalism and who try to distract our honest workers from their work and create chaos," Kempny said.
Three hours later, a crowd stood on the same spot, demanding freedom and a new government.
State-run television estimated the core of the crowd at 3,000 and reported 250 arrests.
His speech drew scant applause from an estimated 3,000 Czechoslovaks who were given special passes to be allowed through police cordons and metal barriers for the ceremony.
Witnesses estimated the crowd at up to 20,000. That would make this the biggest show of public defence in Czechoslovakia since 1969, when people rallied in Wenceslas Square to celebrate an ice hockey victory over the Soviets. The Soviets led an invasion the previous year and crushed a reform movement.
The crowd chanted the name of Thomas Garrigue Masaryk, the philosopher who founded independent Czechoslovakia, and cheered at banners reading "The Truth Will Prevail," and "We Will Not Let The Republic Be Disrupted," a popular Communist slogan turned on its head by the demonstrators.
Boeing, union continue negotiating
The Associated Press
SEATTLE — Although there is little indication that either side has softened its stance in the nearly month-old strike, a federal mediator has called Boeing Co. and Machinists union negotiators back to the table.
*Money is still the key issue. The union wants more, but Boeing says it
Federal mediator Doug Hammond was to meet separately with each side yesterday afternoon, followed by the negotiating of the negotiation teams today.
Hammond said he wants to keep the two sides at the table until an agreement is reached. But public statements by both sides haven't changed since Hammond's last attempt at restarting talks failed Oct. 18.
"We're standing by our position that we're willing to make adjustments within the framework of the (Boeing) offer," Boeing spokesman Russ Young said Saturday.
"We're willing to listen to suggestions on how we could change the package" without changing its overall value, he said. "I think everyone is hopeful that we'll be able to resolve this matter."
The union says its members won't go back on work without a better offer.
"We have not changed our position. We still want improvement," Jack Daniels, spokesman for Machinists District Lodge 751, said Friday.
The strike by 57,800 workers began Oct. 4, the day after machinists overwhelmingly rejected Boeing's three-year contract offer that included annual pay raises of 4 percent, 3 percent and 3 percent and bonuses of 8 percent in the first year and 3 percent in the second.
The offer also had cost-of-living increases to virtually cover inflation, a reduction in mandatory overtime from 200 to 160 hours per quarter and higher benefits.
Machinists represent 43,300 Boeing workers in the Seattle area, 12,000 in Wichita, Kan., 1,700 in Portland, Ore., and a few hundred others in California, Hawaii, Utah, Montana, Wyoming and other states.
Boeing, which employs 164,000 workers worldwide and about 106,000 in the Seattle area, has kept its plants open and delivered 15 commercial iets since the strike began.
Machinists last week collected the first of their $100-a-week strike payments.
World Briefs
DRUG LORD EXTRADITED: The alleged master-smuggler of the Medellin cocaine cartel was turned over to U.S. narcotics agents before dawn yesterday at a Bogota airport and flown to the United States, Colombian authorities said.
The suspect, Jose Abello, was the fifth and most important drug trafficking suspect extradited from Colombia to the United States since the Colombian government began a drug crackdown 10 weeks ago.
Abelso was the fifth Colombian extradited to the United States since the government of President Virgilio Barco declared war on drug traffickers Aug. 19.
He was being flown to Tulsa, Oklahoma, where he was wanted on charges of conspiracy and distribution
ARKANSAS BRIDGE COLLAPSES: A suspension pedestrian bridge crowded with young people who liked to make it swing back and forth collapsed "so no one had a chance to cry for help," a witness said.
Thirty to 40 people, twice as many as normal, were standing on the 72-year-old bridge in Heber Springs, Ark., Saturday afternoon when the cables snapped and sent them tumbling into the Little Red River, witnesses said. Three children and two adults were killed, all members of a church group that had been meeting in a nearby town. Eighteen people were injured.
"We used to swing the bridge ourselves when we were kids, but we never swung it near as high as they were doing," said Jennifer Johnson, who lives near the bridge and witnessed the collapse.
Yesterday, authorities began to try to learn what caused the collapse of the nistoric 550 block, single-liane 48-story building on the corner of Benton and Pearl streets.
Area residents said it was common for pedestrians to swing the bridge. No signs warning against it or giving a load limit were posted.
FIRE CHARS CALIFORNIA: A wind-whipped blaze roared yesterday through brush and canyon country near Malibu, Calif., overlooking the Pacific Ocean.
charring 3,500 acres and torching two homes in this celebrity enclave, officials said.
Farther inland, near Simi Valley, a second blaze raged out of control in the Blue Canyon-Box Canopy area, burning 375 acres and forcing the evacuation of the Kilda K Vent, Tuva County Fire Department spokeman
Deputies stood by to evacuate residents from other homes, she said. No structures were burned, and there was no fire.
About 250 firefighters from Los Angeles and Ventura counties battled the blaze as four air tankers and six helicopters bombed a two-mile front of flames with retardant and water.
Whittle Communications, a Knoxville, Tenn.-based company, said that subscriptions during the first eight weeks of active recruitment of schools put the project on hold. The group also asked the equipment to receive the show at its launch next March.
SCHOOLS REQUEST TW: About 500 schools with nearly 345,000 students have signed up for the launch of the advertiser-supported Channel One daily news show for the classroom set toodebut this spring, the project sponsor said yesterday.
It now expects to have 1,000 schools signed up by the end of this year.
The Channel One project has come under fierce attack by national educational groups, state officials in California and New York, and others who object to giving advertisers a platform for pitching products to students in the classroom.
Channel One plans to send a 12-minute news show geared toward students in participating schools every weekday. Each show will contain two minutes of paid advertising. In exchange for running the school, schools get television monitors, videocassette recorders and satellite dishes worth about $50,000.
Christopher Whittle, chairman of Whittle Communications, said his sales people had approached about 1,290 school districts representing 3,855 schools in 24 states so far.
Walesa tries to rebuild struggling economy
The Associated Press
GDANSK, Poland — Solidarity leader Lech Walesa told about 1,500 supporters yesterday to stop complaining about the country's new free market and its painful price increases and to start rebuilding through work and enterprise.
"Everything depends on you more than at any time in the last 45 years," said Walesa, the leader of the independent trade union movement.
He was referring to the Solidarity-led government's steps to loosen the government's grim on the economy.
Tadeusz Mazowiecki has been trying to quickly introduce a free enterprise system after it assumed power in August from the Communist party.
"You wanted to live in Europe and you wanted to have what Europe and the rest of the world have. We have started building it now," Walesa said, answering questions from supporters as he often does on Sundays after Mass at St. Brygida's Church in his home city of Gdansk.
But he said a lot of people still were waiting for someone else to do it for them
"If someone comes here, it will be in order to make a profit on us, and this is why I would like you to open enterprises and banks and earn as much as possible yourselves," he said.
country's wealth would be sold out to foreigners.
Wales also touched on criticism coming from some quarters that the
But he added that foreign investment could provide technology that the Poles lacked.
The government of Prime Minister
"There is a big harvest, but the harvesters are lacking," he said. "Who is supposed to do it? The Communists lost the elections and stepped down."
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