16
University Daily Kansan
Nation/World
Thursday, Sept 12, 1985
Peace falls on British city torn by riots
United Press International
BIRMINGHAM, England — Police ordered a partial withdrawal yesterday from the riot-torn black neighborhood of Birmingham after community leaders pledged to prevent a recurrence of Britain's worst urban violence in four years.
Authorities and the community leaders in the Handsworth section reached agreement on the pullout at a stormy meeting yesterday afternoon after police released a man whose arrest triggered the violence Monday.
At the meeting, Chief Superintendent Don Wilson, the local police chief, agreed to pull his units out of one area in the riot zone, the Villa Cross intersection, known in the past as the site of narcotics trafficking.
Wilson said if peace were maintained, he would pull the rest of his 1,400 officers off the streets as quickly as possible. In return, black community leaders pledged that if
police kept a low profile, "we will be there on the streets keeping the peace."
Order was restored to Handsworth before dawn yesterday after police battled gangs of youths who went on a rampage of looting and firebombing for a second night.
Police arrested 92 people in Tuesday night's disturbances. At least 16 people, including 10 policemen and three firefighters, were injured, none seriously, authorities said.
Two Asian men died in the two days of rioting. An autopsy revealed that Amir Molemala, 44, and his brother, Kassamalla, 38, died of smoke inhalation when their shop firebired by rioters Monday night.
Police began what they called a "massive murder investigation" involving 100 detectives to find the killers of the two men.
"The sooner the community hands (the killers) over to us - and there are people in the community who
know who they are — the better it will be for Handsworth," Deputy Chief Constable Les Sharp said.
The urban violence was the worst in Britain since rioting broke out in a dozen cities in 1981. Rioters caused damage estimated in the millions of pounds. Some of the 125 people arrested appeared in court yesterday, and judges in most of the cases refused to set bail.
Government officials denied charges by local residents that unemployment — one in three people in Handsworth is out of work — was a root cause of the violence.
A spokesman for the ruling Conservative party said the cause of the violence in the predominantly black area of Britain's second largest city was a police crackdown on drug trafficking.
"The truth is that it was drug trafficking and police had to move in on it," said Jeffrey Archer, the best-selling novelist who is the
Blacks in Handsworth said the riots were sparked by police harassment during the drug crackdown.
party's new spokesman, on NBC's "Today" show.
"It's blacks against police and police against blacks," said an older black man. "They are dealing with
West Indians like they did years ago. They cannot realize our children are now English."
Many of those arrested were Rastafarians, who smoke marijuana as part of their cult.
Nigel Heath, 31, a Rastafarian, said his arrest Monday for an alleged traffic violation sparked the rioting "because I was wrongfully arrested."
He said he was "grabbed from behind by four policemen and they charged me with assault and put me in jail."
Group starts battle for balanced budget
United Press International
WASHINGTON — About 70 Democratic House members yesterday called on Congress to pass a new budget this year that would balance the government's books by 1989.
The group, led by Rep. Anthony Beilenson, D-Calif., said the new budget effort, which does not outline a specific deficit-cutting plan, is necessary to get the Democrats out in front on the balanced budget battle.
But others, including House Speaker Thomas O'Neill and Budget Committee Chairman William Gray, predicted the move would not succeed because of a lack of time and difficulty in getting President Reagan to agree to the cuts in taxes and the defense budget that would be necessary to balance the budget in the next four years.
He said he did not want to wait until next year to attack the problem and lose whatever momentum was gained from passing the initial budget earlier this summer. The budget cut about $55 billion from the
federal deficit, but left more than $170 billion in red ink in fiscal 1986, which begins Oct. 1.
"It's an uphill thing, but it might work," Bielsen said.
The Democratic caucus yesterday discussed Beilenson's resolution calling on the House Budget Committee to pass a new budget, but did not vote on it and agreed to discuss the matter again next week.
Gray, D-Pa., said Beilenson was "right when he says that America and we as a party ought to be concerned about reaching a balanced budget, and quickly."
Household items dangerous
Carcinogens found in homes
United Press International
CHICAGO — People breathe in three times as many carcinogens inside their homes as on the streets, even if they live in industrial areas, a Harvard researcher said yesterday.
The effect is worse even for the children of smokers, who run twice the risk of developing leukemia if one of their parents smokes and four times the risk if both parents smoke, said Lance Wallace, the researcher from the Harvard School of Public Health.
"Your home might be more of a toxic waste dump than the companies and factories down the street," he said.
Wallace, presenting a paper before the American Chemical Society, said the researchers originally had set out to investigate whether living near petrochemical plants and other industries exposed a person to greater amounts of dangerous chemicals.
In 1981, the researchers equipped more than 350 residents of Elizabeth and Bayonne, N.J. with monitors to test the air they were breathing for a number of different chemicals.
"The results were very, very surprising to us," Wallace said. "The personal exposure of these people is greater than the public exposure."
"There was no difference between
the people living close to the plants than farther away," he said. "We had to conclude that the sources of exposure were indoors."
Wallace said the levels of cancer-causing agents were two to five times higher indoors than outdoors, and in some cases, there was 100 times more of a particular compound inside the house than in the backyard.
He said that all the levels found were well below Occupational Safety and Health Administration standards, but he also said that the OSHA levels were concerned more with dangers from immediate exposures rather than prolonged exposures.
Thais uneasy after coup attempt
United Press International
BANGKOK, Thailand — Thai army tanks converged on the Royal Plaza yesterday to insure tight security in the uneasy aftermath of a foiled military coup, and the U.S. Embassy confirmed the alleged leader of the coup had applied for an American visa.
The unexpected appearance of 13 American-built Sherman tanks in front of Supreme Command Headquarters, the scene of a brief but bloody battle during a coup bid last Monday, sent a wave of jitters through Bankok.
A U.S. Embassy official said the alleged mastermind of Monday's
coup attempt, former army Col. Manoon Roopkachorn, had applied for a visa to the United States at the American Embassy in Singapore.
Military sources said the movement of the armored company from the First Army Region headquarters in northern Bangkok was part of a general security alert ordered after Monday's violence.
Five people were killed and 59 wounded in the attempted power grab by disgruntled former army officers and political leaders unhappy with the rule of Prime Minister Prem Tsunulanda.
A state of emergency remained in force, and troops and police
manned checkpoints throughout the city.
"The state of emergency cannot be lifted soon if the atmosphere does not improve," Interior Minister Sithi Jirateo told reporters.
Analysts said dissatisfaction with Prem's 5-year-old coalition government was still strong within the military, despite the fact that key commanders rallied to his side during the crisis.
They said the continuation of a tight security cord around Bangkok, especially the stationing of tanks around the Royal Plaza, indicated authorities still feared military action by die-hard army dissidents.
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