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Tuesday. November 18. 1986 / University Daily Kansan
News Briefs
Reagan could send more arms to Iran, but says he will not
WASHINGTON — President Reagan said yesterday he had no plans to send more arms to Iran, although his spokesman said the president's authorization for the weapons shipments technically remained in effect.
At the start of a meeting with Argentine President Raul Alfonsin, Reagan was asked whether there would be more U.S. arms ships to Iran like those he confirmed last week after published reports of secret U.S.-Iranian dealings.
"We have absolutely no plans to do any such thing." Reagan said. Nor, he said, would he fire Secretary of State George Shulz or any other top foreign policy advisers because of public controversy over the covert operation.
Presidential spokesman Larry Speakes, meanwhile, said Reagan had told him there would be no further arms shipments but that the "intelligence finding," a Jan. 17 document authorizing the weapons and spare parts sales, was technically still in effect because it carried no time limit and had not been rescinded.
Nicaraguan official warns U.S.
ATLANTA — Nicaraguan Vice President Sergio Ramirez called for negotiations yesterday with the Reagan administration and warned that if fighting by U.S.-backed rebels escalated there would be war with the United States.
Ramirez made his remarks through an interpreter at a conference on "Reinforcing Democracy in the Americas" at former President Carter's presidential center.
he accused the United States of trying to impose a military dictatorship in Nicaragua that Nicaraguans would find abhorent and said U.S. "aggression against Nicaragua cannot escalate."
To avoid a military confrontation between the two nations, "I would like to make an appeal to the government of the United States to end the war; a war not only financed by the United States, but directed by the United States," he said.
said. "My own son spent two years on the battlefield. My son, like thousands of Nicaraguan youths, was fighting for the defense of his homeland."
Carter said Nicaragua's proposals for negotiations with the United States would be futile.
Renault president assassinated
PARIS — The president of the French car manufacturing company Renault was shot to death last night by a young couple who shot him after his chauffeur dropped him off at his Paris apartment, police said.
Police suspected that the leftist French terrorist group Direct Action was responsible for the assassination of Georges Besse, 58, who was credited with the financial turnaround of the state-owned automaker since he took over in January 1985.
A chauffeur, who had driven Besse home from Renault headquarters in a Paris suburb, had just dropped off the industrialist about 50 yards from his hotel about 8 p.m. (1 p.m. CST) when a young man and a young woman rode up on a motorcycle, witnesses told police.
pence.
The assassins jumped from the cycle and fired several shots at Besse, hitting him in the head and chest, then ran off, the witnesses said.
One witness spoke of a possible third person involved, but police said details of the assassination remained unclear early today.
The assassination presented a new challenge to the conservative government of Prime Minister Jacques Chirac, which came to power in March with a promise to "terrorize the terrorists."
Few join Filipino general strike
MANILA. Philippines — A general strike called to protest the trade of murder union leader Rolando Olalia fizzled yesterday, easing fears of any drastic political upheaval in the Philippine capital.
movement for a "national day of indignation" was largely ignored, although workers in a score of factories staged walkouts and schools in the city called off classes.
At nightfall, Joey Lina, the metropolitan Manila governor, said that the capital was quiet and that four trucks were ferrying home stranded commuters in scattered areas in the city of 8 million.
Small groups of workers conducted marches and rallies, including one outside President Corazon Aquino's palace, but no incidents were reported.
Only one of about a dozen bus companies joined the strike. Soldiers escorted passenger buses that remained in service.
Olalia, 50, chairman of the People's Party, the nation's largest leftist political group, was found dead Thursday, a day after he was kidnapped. His driver also was killed.
CIA recruitment protested at CU
BOULDER, Colo. — Police arrested three people on the University of Colorado campus yesterday as officers scuffled with some of the 200 demonstrators trying to stop student recruitment by the Central Intelligence Agency.
At one point during the daylong demonstration, about 100 protesters tried to stop a van carrying interviewees by lying in front of and under the vehicle. One protester also slashed a tire on the van.
The camera of a news photographer was broken during the scuffling as police tried to stop the demonstrators from surrounding the van.
The demonstration took place outside the CU Events Center, where the varsity basketball games are played, away from the main part of the campus. The CIA recruiting interviews were moved to the center from the regular placement center because protests in past years have disrupted normal campus activities, said CU spokesman Leslie Aholm.
About 100 students had signed up for interviews with the CIA. They were taken by police van from the placement center near the center of the campus to the Events Center for the interviews. The protesters tried to stop the vans from reaching the center.
Tribal leader criticizes violence
BOSTON — Violence and radical support for sanctions against Pretoria's apartheid policies undermine the goal of democracy. South African tribal leader Mangosuthu Buthelezi said yesterday.
Buddette, minister of South Africa's 6 million Zulus and president of Inkatha, one of the country's largest political groups, made his remarks amid protests after he was an honorary doctor of laws degree at Boston University.
Several hundred students and faculty members staged a campus demonstration denouncing Buthelezi's anti-sanction policies. The protesting students awarded an honorary degree-in-absentia to jailed South African opposition leader Nelson Mandela.
The South African tribal chief was awarded the degree by BU President John Silber, whose critics say the university's gesture was a means to further Silber's political goals.
Butheleite, considered a moderate by some and a puppet for the South African government by others, told a law school audience that economic and political sanctions only hurt the country's 24 million blacks.
Demonstrators barricade doors
WASHINGTON — Scores of demonstrators, some from the Great Peace March, barricaded doors to the Energy Department yesterday to protest U.S. nuclear testing policies. Police reported 137 arrests.
the protest coincided with an action at the Nevada Test Site in which 70 people, including actor Martin Sheen, were arrested.
Organizer Chris Pelly said the Washington protesters exhausted all their options in attracting attention from Energy Department officials, so they resorted to trying to shut the agency down themselves. But it appeared that most employees reported to the bureau of the hurried doors.
From Kansan wires.
The 137 people were arrested on misdeemanor disorderly conduct charges that carry a minimum fine of $10 up to $250 plus 90 days in jail, police spokeswoman Shannon Cockett said.