Nation/World
University Daily Kansan / Wednesday, July 25, 1990
7
More political unrest in Germany
Liberals leave governing coalition, Social Democrats threaten to do same
The Associated Press
EAST BERLIN — A political party quit East Germany's coalition government yesterday and another group threatened to follow suit in a political crisis over how united German elections should be held.
The Liberal Party, which controls 21 seats in the 400-member Parlia-
ment, was leaving the seventh parli-
ment. The Prime Minister Lothar de Maizeir.
Rainer Ortleb, chairman of the Liberal faction in Parliament, said his party's decision was based partly on de Maiziere's "scandalous" alliance with the deposed former Communists on the election question.
The dispute concerns whether December elections for a single German Parliament should be held Separately or together, two countries should be treated as a
single electorate.
Separate elections would give West German Chancellor Helmut Kohl an edge over his main rival, Social Democrat Oskar Lafortine, in the elections of a unified German nation.
The left-leaning Social Democrats, the second-biggest party in East Germany, also have threatened to remove from de Matiere's government.
After a meeting of party leaders, the Social Democrats said they would leave the coalition Friday unless de Maisterine's Christian Democrats met their demands, according to a state-run news agency, the East German news agency, ADN.
Such a collapse would cause de Maizie to lose control of the Parliament, where a two-thirds majority is needed to enact unification.
However, all major parties are committed to unification. The strife.
if not settled, would more likely slow the process than derail it.
The fight that began last week has been derided by the press and by Germans appalled that the historic massacre has been reduced to political infiltration.
De Maziere said the Liberals' decision was purely political and against the interests of East Germans.
"The Liberal faction preferred to tell me of their decision to leave the coalition through a news agency, despite my offer of a bridge that was supposed to lead to a solution of the conflict today," he told ADN.
The Liberal's sister party in West Germany, the Free Democrats, are the junior partner of Kohl's governing coalition. The rift in East German democracy has spread to Germany, where political parties greatly influence the decisions of their surrogates in the East.
Free Democrat chief Otto Lambsdorf blamed de Maiziere for the break in the coalition.
He said de Maiziere's decision to ally his party with the former Communists was unforgivable.
De Maizeiro and several smaller parties, including the former Communists, want the two nations to withdraw their troops from Germany. German elections are held on Dec. 2.
West German Interior Minister Wolfgang Schaeuble, a Christian Democrat, said the Liberals and the Free Democrats were acting irresponsibly and would pay for it at the voting booth.
Simultaneous elections would be held in each nation. The votes would be counted separately and political representation would be based on how each party did in its own country.
Exxon captain faces Coast Guard
LONG BEACH, Calif. — Joseph Hazelwood, who was acquitted four months ago of most criminal charges in the nation's worst oil spill, faces a Constitutional court that could strip him of his license as a ship's master.
The Associated Press
In a hearing scheduled to start today, an administrative law judge will decide whether the former Exxon Valdez skiper was guilty of negligence and should forfeit his license.
The judge, Harry J. Gardner, has a number of options in deciding the case, according to the Coast Guard's Hazelwood's lawyers. He could choose to dismiss or have Hazelwood's license, or place him on probation.
rule by drinking within four hours of assuming command of his ship and leaving the ship's bridge while the tanker was traveling through ice waters. The crew, leaving a crewman who lacked a reserved lumber,
Hazelwood's attorney, Michael Chalos, said the defense would argue that Hazelwood was not responsible for the ship's running into a reef.
The Exxon Valdez was en route from the Alaskan port of Valdez to Long Beach on March 24, 1989, when it struck a charred jetel. Gashed by jagged rocks, the 987-foot tanker spilled 11 million gallons of Alaska crude oil into Prince William Sound.
"Capt. Hazelwood looks forward to putting on his case and being vindicated much as he has been in Alaska," Chalos said. "He's been spending most of
his time helping us prepare for this hearing."
The defense will argue that any drinking within four hours of sailing was unintentional because the ship left port an hour earlier than it was supposed to.
The defense also plans to argue that the Coast Guard itself had waived its requirement that the person in control of the bridge have a pilot's license for Prince William Sound and that the Coast Guard failed to adequately monitor the Exxon Valdez via radar.
Hazelwood was acquitted at his two-month trial of being drunk and reckless, but was convicted of one misdemeasure charge of negligent discharge of oil. He was ordered to pay $50,000 restitution and spend 1,000 hours cleaning beaches at Prince William Sound. He is appealing the verdict.
U.S. ships on alert as Iraq-Kuwait rift grows more intense
The Associated Press
WASHINGTON — U.S. officials expressed concern yesterday over a Persian Gulf oil dispute between Iraq and Kuwait, and the Pentagon said ships had begun a short-notice exercise of forces of the United Arab Emirates.
Navy Secretary H. Lawrence Garrett III told a congressional panel that S. ships were put on alert in the gulf Monday, but he offered no details.
Pentagon spokesman Pete Williams declined to discuss the status of U.S. ships in the gulf, but he told reporters that two U.S. vessels had left early from their port in Bahrain, midway in the Gulf, to join the exercise with United Arab Emirates forces.
Williams said the joint exercise started Monday. He declined to offer any other details and would not say what was happening with the response to the Iraq-Kuwait tensions,
The UAE has been an implicit target of Iraq's recent complaints that some of its Arab neighbors have been undercutting oil prices by buying it from the Organization as established by the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries.
Concern for Kuwait's security has grown since Iraqi President Saddam Hussein accused its tiny neighbor last Friday of stealing $2.4 billion worth of oil from Iraqi wells and of trying to wreck the Iraqi economy by conspiring to push down world oil prices.
Baghdad renewed its verbal assault on Kuwait yesterday. The Iraqi government newspaper Al-Jouhourhya accused Kuwait of coordinating its moves with the United States to "clear the way for foreign powers to intervene in the area."
At the State Department, spokesman Margaret D. Tutwiler said both Iraq and Kuwait had built up their U.S. officials were very concerned.
"Iraq and others know there is no place for coercion in a civilized world," she said.
Meanwhile, White House spokesman Marlin Fitzwater said of the situation, "We're concerned about the troop buildup by Iraq and we ask that all parties strive to avoid violence."
"We remain strongly committed to supporting the individual and collective self-defense of our friends in the gulf with whom we have deep and longstanding ties." Williams said. "We also remain determined to ensure the free flow of oil through the Strait of Hormuz and to defend the principles of freedom of navigation and commerce.
"We would take very seriously any threats . . . to U.S. friends in the region." he said.
When asked whether the United States would come to Kuwait's defense if it was attacked by Iraq, Williams said he could not comment beyond restating U.S. policy on the gulf.
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