Section B·Page 8
The University Daily Kansan
Tuesday, December 8, 1998
Nation/World
White House readies for rebuttal
Defense expected to call impeachment too harsh
The Associated Press
WASHINGTON — The chairman of the House Judiciary Committee said yesterday that his panel has made a compelling case for impeachment of President Clinton. The White House laid out plans to call 14 witnesses to argue that removing Clinton from office is too severe.
Chairman Henry Hyde, RIII., predicted that the president's attorneys would present a defense more like a legal seminar or a rebuttal of the core allegations against Clinton.
"I havent 'heard anybody say Montica Lewinsky is a liar," said Hyde, referring to the former White House.
Hyde: Says censured has not been ruled out.
intern whose tale of sexual trysts with the president triggered the impachment probe.
Hyde also said a committee vote on censure, as an alternative to impeachment, has not been ruled out.
"It's not ruled out, but it's not a dead-bang certainty either," he said during a news conference. He added that he personally did not
believe censure was a proper sanction.
The White House said it would call two lawyers and legal experts before the committee to argue that impeachment was too harsh.
Standing in front of stacks of boxes in which Independent Counsel Kenneth Starr delivered 60,000 pages of evidence to the House, Hyde rejected complaints that Republicans did not call witnesses on the facts of the case. He said his committee had reviewed the evidence carefully.
Hyde said the three general areas under consideration for articles of impeachment were perjury, obstruction of justice and abuse of power.
The White House laid out its planned defense in a letter to the Judiciary Committee. It said White House attorney Greg Craig would open the presentation today and describe the president's legal and factual defense followed by three panels of witnesses.
White House counsel Charles F.C. Ruff will make closing arguments tomorrow afternoon.
The White House also disclosed that one of its witness, Yale law professor Bruce Ackerman, would argue that any impeachment article approved this year would not be valid when the new Congress convened Jan. 6. White House press secretary Joe Lockhart, asked about Ackerman's view on this matter, said the president's lawyers were not taking a stand on the time question.
"We have two days to make a case here, and we will spend a good bit of time talking about the constitutional issues." Lockhart said.
With the committee virtually certain to
approve at least one article of impeachment, House leaders are beginning to plan for a vote on the floor. A GOP source said outgoing Speaker Newt Gingrich would call the House back into session for any impeachment vote but probably would allow someone else to preside over the proceeding.
The incoming speaker, Bob Livingston, said he would wait until the Judiciary Committee completes its report, after which he would work with Gingrich to weigh options on procedure.
One of Clinton's most vocal defenders, private attorney David Kendall, will not be involved in the presentation to the committee. He has been among the sharpest critics of Independent Counsel Kenneth Starr. Lockhart said Kendall would be available if his help was required.
Among the witnesses are three former members of the House Judiciary Committee that voted to impeach President Nixon a quarter-century ago: the Rev. Robert Drinan, a Roman Catholic priest and former Massachusetts Democrat; Elizabeth Holtzman, D-N.Y.; and Wayne Owens, D-Dutah.
Violence hits West Bank; Clinton visit nears
The Associated Press
JERUSALEM — Palestinian police fired on protesters in the West Bank yesterday, wounding at least 12 people — the first sign that the Palestinians were moving to contain violence ahead of President Clinton's visit.
Gunfire also broke out during confrontations between Jewish settlers and Palestinians in two places in the West Bank. Two Palestinians and a settler were wounded.
The worst violence was in the northern city of Nablus, one of many West Bank cities and towns where Palestinians staged protests to call on Israel to free Palestinian prisoners.
That prompted loyalists of Fatah
Early in the day, mothers of prisoners demonstrated in Nablus. Palestinian police responded by sending in club-wielding officers to drive away the women.
That prompted loyalists to Fatha — a movement started by Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat — to surround the police station and throw
stones and firebombs inside. They set fire to police vehicles and tried to storm the prison gates.
Palestinian police then fired on the protesters, injuring at least seven. hospital officials said.
Later, police took to the rooftops in Nabus and fired onto a crowd of 3,000 Palestinians, mostly people who gathered to watch the protests and rioting. Witnesses said at least five people were wounded.
Also yesterday, a Jewish settler was shot and wounded while driving near the northern West Bank city of Jenin, the Israeli army said. The settler drove to an Israeli army outpost several miles away and was taken to a hospital.
And a settler opened fire on rioters on a major road to Jerusalem, injuring two Palestinian youths — one critically. His driver said the settler fired after Arabs with stones surrounded their car.
Violent attacks and clashes have steadily increased as the Clinton visit nears.
Arafat, who will play host to Clinton on Dec. 14, is anxious to show that the Palestinians are meeting the conditions of the U.S.-brokered accord reached in Maryland in October.
Clinton will visit Gaza — the first sitting U.S. president to do so — and open a meeting of the Palestinian National Council. Palestinians and Israelis see the visit as tacit endorsement of Palestinian hopes of statehood.
The Palestinians exhibited confiscated weapons to CIA officials on Monday in an effort to prove that they are meeting the Wye River accord's security commitments.
But Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who has accused the Palestinian Authority of stage-managing the riots, was not enthusiastic about the Clinton visit.
"I hope Mr. Clinton uses his visit to demand Palestinian compliance," he told Israeli television.
"We have to find out whether (the Palestinians) are living up to their commitments," said Netanyahu adviser David Bar-Illan. "So far the
conclusion is that it will be very difficult to implement the next withdrawal on time."
Kristi Elliott / KANSAN
The Palestinian Authority, which denies that it is backing the rioters, has accused Netanyahu of reneging on a commitment to free prisoners.
Israel released 250 prisoners last month, but most were common criminals rather than security prisoners — those detained without trial under measures aimed at preventing terrorism.
Netanyahu escapes early-election bill by delaying vote
The Associated Press
JERUSALEM — Facing possible defeat from a bill calling for early elections, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu maneuvered his way out of a showdown yesterday that might have ended his term at Israel's helm.
With a majority of legislators poised to vote in favor of the bill during the first of three readings scheduled yesterday, Netanyahu engineered a motion of no-confidence in his own government, a move that delays the vote for at least a week.
The bill is considered an indicator of parliamentary dissatisfaction with Netanyahu, and it highlighted the premier's struggles to hold together his crumbling coalition through the latest Mideast land-for-peace agreement Israel signed with the Palestinians against the wishes of the majority of his coalition members.
The sharpest attack delivered on the premier came from David Levy, the former foreign minister who bolted the government in January and briefly considered returning recently to help stabilize Netanyahu's coalition.
Taking his own turn at the lectern after the house agreed to turn the vote into a motion of noconfidence, Netanyahu battled catcalls and interruptions from the opposition while explaining the compromise and defending his policies.
To buy time while he held marathon negotiations with hard-line coalition members earlier, Netanyahu sent Deputy Minister Michael Eitan to the Knesset floor to start a filibuster. Eitan once set an Israeli record for filibusters, remaining on the podium for 11 hours.
Levy accused Netanyahu of breaking agreements and publicly embarrassing him.
A preliminary reading in August passed, and the bill would need to pass three additional readings before the parliament was dissolved and new
elections were called.
Netanyahu has been embroiled in political crisis since he signed the accord in October to cede more West Bank land to the Palestinians against the wishes of a majority of his coalition members.
The latest turmoil comes less than a week before President Clinton is to arrive, to preside
over the next phase of the accord. However, Netanyahu has frozen further troop withdrawals saying the Palestinians have violated the accord.
Netanyahu: Proposed bill calls for early elections.
By suspending progress.
Netanyahu lost the safety net of the dovish Labor party in parliament, which had guaranteed to foil right-wing attempts to topple his government as long as he was implementing the accord.
Labor party leader Ehud Barak said a vote to bring down the Netanyah government would not halt the peace process.
Justice Minister Tsaih
Hanegbi argued that if Netanyahu was not given a majority to implement the withdrawals that the peace process would have to wait until the new elections.
The Israeli parliament also was due to consider changing the country's electoral system back to the previous method. Netanyahu is Israel's first directly elected prime minister. Israelis cast two ballots in 1996, one for prime minister and one for a party to be represented in the parliament, instead of a single ballot for a party as in the past.
Authors of the bill withdrew it at the last moment, fearing that it would not get the support of an absolute majority of members as required for passage.
Yeltsin returns to work, fires top aides
Leader also assumes control of two government agencies
The Associated Press
MOSCOW — Returning to work for a mere three hours, Boris Yeltsin fired most of his top aides yesterday and said he was assuming control of two key government agencies. The shakeup removed several aides who publicly had questioned the Russian president's health
Afterward, Yeltsin went back to the government hospital where he has been staying for the past two weeks.
"You can see how vigorous I am," Yeltsin was quoted by presidential representative Dmitry Yakushkin as telling the aides.
The 67-year-old president will remain in the hospital as long as necessary to fully recuperate from pneumonia, Yakushkin said.
Yeltsin: Still recuperating from pneumonia.
The president has said almost
nothing about Russia's deepening economic prob lems, but he remains extremely sensitive to any suggestions that he is not fit to govern.
Yeltsin's decision to begin overseeing the Justice Ministry and tax police mostly was symbolic; the actual heads of those organizations will stay in place. The move aims to step up the fight against endemic corruption and other crime. Yakushkin said.
Yeltsin dismissed Chief of Staff Valentin Yuma
shev and his deputies Yuri Yarov, Mikhail Komisar and Yevgeny Savostyanov.
"I expressed gratitude to Yumashev while releasing him of his duties," Yeltsin said in brief footage on Russian television. "Tough discipline, order and reform is what we need."
Gen. Nikolai Bordyuzha, 49, the secretary of the presidential security council, was appointed the new chief of staff, and the other posts remain vacant. Bordyuzha, who will retain his presidential security council post, formerly was chief of the Border Guards.
Yakushkin said Yeltsin dismissed the aides because of their failure to stem crime or respond to several incidents of political extremism, including anti-Semitic remarks by a Communist deputy in the Russian parliament.
"That undermines confidence in the president and in the government as a whole, and that is inadmissible in the current difficult economic situation." Yakushkin said.
Yumashev and other Kremlin aides had said Yeltsin was too weak to handle day-to-day affairs or to make foreign trips and suggested he leave control of the economy to Prime Minister Yevgeny Primakov.
Yeltsin has a habit of unexpected dismissals. The latest round also was thought to reflect his unhappiness about the aides' candidness about his health.
The Russian media have suggested that the aides — who had considerable influence because they handled the workings of the Kremlin and the president's routine — were eroding Yeltsin's power.
"The president wanted to show who is the boss," said Alexander Shokhin, the head of the pro-government Our Home Is Russia faction.
Venezuela's new leader vows reform amid obstacles
CARACAS, Venezuela — After a landslide victory, president-elect Hugo Chavez is vowing to crack down on tax evaders, cut the number of ministries by two-thirds, restructure Venezuela's foreign debt, eliminate corruption and call a referendum to rewrite the constitution.
But with Venezuela's oil-based economy running on empty—and a political establishment that sees Chavez as a villain—the former coup leader faces gargantuan obstacles.
"There seems to be a wide gap between what he thinks he can do and the reality," said economist Roberto Bottome.
Millions of Venezuelans flooded the streets to celebrate what they saw as a victory of the poor against a corrupt political establishment. Chavez, who staged a failed 1992 coup attempt, won Sunday's vote by the largest margin in Venezuela's 40 years of democracy — 56 percent compared to 39 percent for his challenger, Yale-educated businessman Henrique Salas Romer.
The win was a stunning blow to Venezuela's political and economic establishment and a red warning flag for Latin America — where the gap between rich and poor is the widest in the world.
Wealthy Venezuelans, fearing that Chavez would impose a leftist dictatorship, had begun sending assets out of the country even
Chavez, 44, who takes office on Feb. 2, said, "The fatherland is for everyone. ... We must not cut Venezuela into pieces."
He also said he would "improve and deepen economic, commercial, scientific, technological and academic relations with the United States" — which last year denied him a tourist visa because of his coup attempt. Washington has not said whether Chavez will get a visa now but that appeared likely.
"The White House applauds the Venezuelan people for their display of democracy at work." White House representative Joe Lockhart said. "We congratulate Mr. Chavez on his impressive victory."
On Sunday, Chavez promised to raise the army's profile and use it to help build infrastructure. He paid tribute to the rebellious soldiers killed during his Feb. 4, 1992, coup attempt but did not mention the dozen or so soldiers who died defending the government.
Nonetheless, most of his comments aimed to calm fears. Venezuela, a member of the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries, is the top oil exporter to the United States. Chavez promised to honor price-boosting agree-
"I think Chavez was deeply conciliatory," said Andres Mata, editor of Caracas's El Universal daily.
The Associated Press
Kristi Elliott / KANSAN
before the vote. But reactions to Chavez's initial statements seemed hopeful.
Support for Chavez is strong, but the expectations about his presidency may be too high for his own good.
ments with OPEC to limit output.
Venezuela has more oil reserves than any country outside the Middle East, but most of its citizens live in dire poverty and blame the ruling classes for squandering the nation's wealth.
Carlos Andres Perez, the former president whom Chavez tried to overthrow, also came to power on a landslide victory. But his popularity plummeted a month after taking office in 1989 when bloody street riots broke out about higher bus fares.
Chavez, who has a five-year term in office, says Venezuelans understand he is not a "messiah."
"It is going to cost us a lot to get out of this tomb we are in," he said Sunday.
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