THE UNIVERSITY DAILY KANSAN
VOL.100,NO.59 (USPS 650-640)
ADVERTISING: 864-4358
THE STUDENT NEWSPAPER OF THE UNIVERSITY OF KANSAS
THURSDAY NOV.16, 1989
NEWS:864-4810
Latin American war hits home Salvadorans in U.S. surprised by ferocity of rebel offensive
By Bryan Swan Kansan staff writer
For anyone who thought the civil war in El Salvador could be ended by democracy and negotiations, reality hit like a well-aimed bullet this weekend.
Left-wing rebels launched their biggest offensive of the 10-year civil war Saturday, an offensive which has so far claimed more than 500 lives and left at least 1,000 wounded.
Iani Moreno, a Spanish department teaching assistant from the capital city San Salvador, said she had contacted her godmother Monday
"I was trying to call, and it took me forever," she said. "I finally got through. I was so relieved when she said everyone was OK."
Moreno said her grandparents had taken refuge in her parents' house, which is about one mile from the presidential residence. The presidential residence was one of the first places the rebels attacked Saturday. She said her family had told her godmother that they could hear gunshot and bombs exploding and that there was not enough food.
The suddenness and ferocity of the rebels' offensive surprised even a native of El Salvador.
"I was home this past summer, and it was not that bad," Moreno said. "I was really surprised and
really scared."
Students and University staff members expressed concern over the bloodshed and the possibility of U.S. military intervention.
"We were all surprised by the force of the offensive, but this isn't the first time the FMLN has surprised people," said Justin Palmer, a member of Latin American Solidarity.
He said he was worried that the $85 million foreign aid bill passed in the U.S. House Tuesday only would perpetuate the conflict.
"What's been rough is that the war has reached a stalemate," Palmer said. "The tragic thing is that the peasants can't, regardless of what they think or believe, give allegiance to one side because then they'd get wiped out when the other side came back in."
he said Latin American Solidarity would meet tomorrow night to formulate the organization's point of view.
Rhonda Neugebauer, founder of Latin American Solidarity, said the United States was already deeply involved in the civil war.
"The news said there is the possibility of U.S. involvement, but we already have U.S. military advisers there," she said. "The U.S. is helping to run that war. The U.S. is already intervening."
Mary Elizabeth Debicki, director of study abroad, said no study abroad personnel were currently in El Salva
dor, but she did not know if any KU students were in the country.
Jill Jenkins, director of Lawrence Latin American Refugee Committee, said that she did not expect an immediate influx of refugees to arrive in Lawrence but that authorities in Texas probably would begin seeing increased activity along the border soon.
borders soon.
She said she was currently housing three legal refugees in her home, one each from Guatemala, Honduras and El Salvador, along with her seven children and grandmother.
One of those refugees is Reynaldo Cuellar, a 17-year-old from El Salvador, whose entire family was murdered by the leftist rebels before he illegally crossed into Texas last January.
Cuellar went before a judge who ruled that his life would be in danger if he were sent back to El Salvador but stopped short of granting him political asylum.
Jenkins said that Cuellar, who can neither read nor write and who is still learning English, was found wandering in the middle of a road in Texas by a man who turned him in to the authorities.
"I've been keeping him up to date on the fighting in El Salvador." Jenkins said. "When I told him about it he said, 'I'm so glad those people (the rebels) are getting killed because they killed my family.'"
San Salvador has been the location of four days of guerrilla fighting.
She said the method of determining political asylum in the United States was different than in Canada, which had similar laws but accepted refugees in much the same way West Germans had accepted their counterparts from East Germany.
"Canada gives these people one year to get on their feet," she said.
> The Associated Press contributed information to this story.
Rebels lose ground in Salvadoran war
The Associated Press
SAN SALVADOR, El Salvador — The battle of San Salvador tilted in the government's favor yesterday as troops drove guerrillas from working-class neighborhoods while civilians fled or cowered in their homes.
The rebels held positions in several neighborhoods in and around the capital, but the four-day-old offensive was stalled by the armed forces' air power and numerical superiority combined with lack of popular support for the guerrillas.
"If they stay here, we (the civilians) are the ones who end up badly," said Julio Cesar Martinez, a 15-year-old student in the eastern suburb of Soyapango. He said that his family had been without food for two days.
Arturo Rivera Damas, archbishop of San Salvador, seconded a Red Cross call for a truce between the rightist government of President Alfredo Cristiani and the leftist Farabundo Marti National Liberation Front to allow the evacuation of wounded.
At a news conference, he also demanded both sides silence their weapons and return to fledgling peace talks broken off earlier this month.
In the provinces, conflicting claims by government and guerrillas were
impossible to confirm, but radio station correspondents, prohibited from broadcasting news by a government-declared state of siege, told The Associated Press by telephone that fighting continued in and around the provincial capitals of San Miguel, Santa Ana and Zacatecoluca.
In the capital, thousands of civilians fled their homes, terrified by bombing, strafing and gunfights in the streets and alleys. Others held fast, saying they would guard their belongings.
In the northern neighborhood of Zacamil, one of the most entrenched guerrilla positions on Tuesday, the rebels were forced from advance posts and had fortified themselves in several six-story low-income apartment complexes.
In Soyapango, on the capital's eastern edge, insurgent forces were virtually surrounded by maroon-bereted paratroops from the nearby Ilopango air base.
The only capital neighborhood where the guerrillas appeared to be holding strongly, with some support from civilians, was Mejicanos, east of Zacamil.
The lack of insurrectional spirit among the workers appeared to belie guerrilla claims of widespread popular support for their offensive.
Placen Dore/KANSAN
Because of the ceiling design, light pours out over the pews.
Catholic Center given award for architecture
By Stacy Smith Kansan staff writer
The St. Lawrence Catholic Campus Center, 1631 Crescent Road, won an Excellence in Architecture Award last week for its interior and exterior design.
The award was among 15 presented by the Central States Region of the American Institute of Architects, which judged more than 100 projects from Kansas, Missouri, Oklahoma, Nebraska and Iowa.
In 1987, the center also was given awards from Missouri organizations for its overall structure
The $3.4 million center was designed by Shaughnessy Fickel and Scott Architects Inc., of Kansas City, Mo., in 1986.
The judges commented that the center was designed to fit with the character of the surrounding neighborhood and was well located near the University of Kansas
"I just think it's a very warm and inviting building," said Father Vince Krische, director of the center. "There's a sense of wanting to belong."
design and its lighting design in the chapel.
See CENTER. p. 6
City sees first snow
Stained glass windows let light into the main chapel at the St. Lawrence Catholic Campus Center.
Most areas received snow for less than an hour, he said, and that was about all they would receive.
Area residents received their first taste of winter last night as the season's first snow flurries briefly dusted northwestern Kansas.
Snow began falling over Lawrence about 10 p.m. Robert Wavrin, forecaster for the National Weather Service in Topeka, said a band of snow clouds about 50 miles wide stretched from northeast Kansas to Minnesota
By a Kansan reporter
"I think this is the end of the snow for a while," Wavrin said. "The extended forecast is dry."
Congress welcomes Walesa with cheers
WASHINGTON — Solidarity leader LEENCH Walesa, saluted on his historic visit to Congress with cheers, whistles and four standing ovations, told lawnmakers yesterday that U.S. aid to Poland "will not be wasted and will never be forgotten."
He asked for more investment to help pull a bankrupt Polish economy from "the verge of utter catastrophe" and said such assistance in peacetime is "better than tanks, warships and warplanes."
In an emotional speech recounting the nine-year struggle of his union to
The Associated Press
"These are appreciated, but being a worker and a man of concrete work, I must tell you that the supply of words on the world market is plentiful, but the demand is falling. Let deeds follow words now," said the mustachioed 46-year-old former shipyard electrician.
form the first non-communist government in the Soviet bloc, Wales gave thanks to Congress and the American people for years of support and words of admiration.
Walesa's triumphant visit to the nation's capital continued yesterday afternoon, when President Bush appeared with him at an AFL-CIO
convention, hailed him as "America's special guest" and promised more aid for Poland.
"Clearly there are times when the need for progress demands that we put differences aside, and, where Poland is concerned, now is such a time," Bush said.
"today, I appeal to the unions and on the American labor movement, the business community, and government to look for ways to support a partnership for progress in Poland for the sake of a nation and a people that need and deserve our help," he said.
Walesa arrived in Washington on
Monday for a four-day visit marked by numerous awards and a torrent of praise as Poland and other East European nations rapidly institute democratic and market reforms.
In more concrete action, the Senate voted Tuesday to authorize $657 million in economic aid to Poland over three years and $81 million for nearby Hungary, also dismantling its centrally controlled economy.
The House went further, approving an initial one-year installment of $333 million for the two Soviet bloc nations.
"We wish them luck and rejoice at each success they achieve," he said.
By Lisa Moss
The city prosecutor will file complaints within two weeks against seven KU fraternities and one sorority for violation of fire code ordinances.
Fire code complaints to be filed
Kansan staff writer
"We're just going to file complaints in cases where they haven't complied," he said.
The fraternities cited by Tor Morn, city prosecutor, are Acacia, 1100 Indiana St.; Alpha Epsilon Pi, 1161 Indiana St.; Alpha Tau Omega, 1537 Tennessee St.; Phi Kappa Theta, 1941 Stewart Ave.; Phi Kappa Psi, 1602 W. 15th St.; Tau Kappa Epsilon, 1911 Stewart Ave., and Theta Chi, 1011 Missouri St. The sorority is Sigma Kappa, 1325 W. Campus Road.
Porter said the complaints would be filed in municipal court.
If convicted, the houses will be subject to fines of up to $500 for each violation, he said.
A court date will be scheduled for the house corporation boards, he said.
Porter's action is based on the results of inspections last week by the city fire marshal.
Barr said that Porter had sent letters in October to all the houses that had not complied, giving them 30 days to comply with the recommendations.
In September, a report listed eight fraternities and one sorority that were past deadline in meeting fire code recommendations.
Kevin Kombrink, president of the Alpha Tau Omega building corporation, said the work that needed to be done to be in compliance with the fire codes had been ordered and half paid for.
Rich Barr, Lawrence fire marshal, said that he had been in touch with all the fraternities' corporation board representatives and the sorority's corporation board representative.
Phi Gamma Delta, 1540 Louisiana St., was one of the eight fraternities cited in September, but the house was not on the list given to the city prosecutor.
The house needed to have automatic closure doors installed, he said.
Frank Baxter, president of Acacia's corporation board, said he was notified last month that the problem could be taken to court.
"We are in the process of taking care of the problem," he said.
Twenty-two houses complied with the requirements of a 1987 safety evaluation.
Two sororites and three fraternities have to meet a Dec. 31 deadline. The sororites are Alpha Delta Pi, 1600 Oxford Road, and Delta Gamma, 1015 Emery Road. The fraternities are Delta Chi, 1245 W Campus Road; Lambda Chi Alpha, 1918 Stewart Ave., and Sigma Nu, 1501 Sigma Nu Place.