page 8 - The Behrend College Collegian. Thursday, October 30, 1997
Chinese government policies criticized
By Steven Mufson=(c) 1997, The
Washington Post
BEIJING- Among the most
prominent political prisoners in China
are Wang Dan, a student leader during
the 1989 Tiananmen Square
demonstrations who is serving his
second jail sentence, and Liu Xiaobo,
a literary critic and Beijing intellectual
who was arrested in 1995 after he sent
an open letter to President Jiang
Zemin.
Despite China's revised criminal
code, which eliminated
counterrevolutionary crimes and
limited the time people can be
detained without trial, Liu fell through
one of the loopholes in the law. Under
a clause granting wide power to
police, security forces were able to
send Liu to a "reform through
education" camp for a three-year term
without bringing him to trial.
Dissident Wang Xizhe, the coauthor
of Liu's letter, wrote this week in a
letter to President Clinton, "Today
they ask the West to recognize the
heterogeneous nature of the
international community and not to
Clinton's glob
plan gets chi
By James Gerstenzang(c) 1997,
Los Angeles Times
BONN, Germany- On the eritkad
matter of global warming, the
United States- birthplace of, the
environmental movement three
decades ago- b suddenly more out
of sync than ever with the rest of
the world on a crucial ecological
issue.
The U.S. position announced by States and those in Europe.. and
"resident Clinton in Washington ,coutttries wit# 4 obarply dive 1.. ‘ t
‘W i ednesday has:ditawit 'teilctienis !luttiteArne tiny Mantua .1 ,,
nging from disappointment to of the Swath Pacific, for , exiinpl "e,
disdain among the representatives are concerned about simple
of more than ISO nations who have survival if global warming, causes
gathered in Bonn to negotiate a sea levels to rise over theirshares.
-trAutYPlNgiogsoficrskilloi to Australia . ..shawl 10--
control global warming. massive
Even more significant, the being
United States is increasingly on its
finding itself playing the nayinyer
while a diverse collection of rectories
nations says it is ready to take When
tougher action across the board to they
fight pollution and protect the Owl
environment.
The other issues on which the
United States has put the brakes
on- including efforts to protect the
ozone layer and plant and animal
species and to control the export
of toxic waste- have attracted none
of the international attention
devoted to global warming. But
U.S. recalcitrance has made the
country something of a pariah
among international
environmental diplomats.
Now, with Clinton's global
warming program on the
negotiating table, the degree to
which other countries have passed
the United States In
demonstrating a willingness to
tackle one of the most intractable
and potentially most costly
environmental dilemmas couldn't
be more clear.
Clinton on Wednesday proposed
that Industrialized nations reduce
their emissions of carbon dioxide,
methane and nitrous oxide to 1990
levels during the period between
2008 and 2012. He called for
further, unspecified reductions in
the following five-year period.
Current emissions are 7.5 percent
above 1990 levels.
The European Union has
proposed a 15 percent cut from
1990 levels of emissions by 2010,
while Japan has proposed a
complicated formula that would
force cuts of 2.5 percent on Japan
and an average 5 percent on all the
industrialized nations.
In the corridors of the .
Beethovenhalle here- where the
conferees are meeting this week
and next to prepare a treaty for
completion in Kyoto, Japan, in
December- delegates expressed
impose the political and systemic
principles of the West on China."
"What the Chinese Communist Party
is asking the West to respect is not the
Chinese people and their right to
choose their own destiny," said Wang,
who later fled to the United States,
"but the prerogative for the Chinese
Communist Party to continue its brutal
one-party dictatorship."
The Chinese government's position
on religion also will be subject to
scrutiny during Jiang's visit to the
United States.
China's State Council Information
Office correctly points out that
compared with the Cultural
Revolution period between 1966 and
1976, China is in the midst of a
religious "golden age." It estimates
that 100 million people practice
religious faiths- including Buddhism,
Taoism, Islam, Catholicism and
Protestantism- at more than 85,000
religious sites.
In a recent report, the government
information office noted that
approximately 600 Protestant
churches have been reopened or
rebuilt every year. By the end of 1996,
societies- China, India, the United
Yet t
eleir,
exam
economic
to redo'
dioxide,
hydrofb
more
trick?
The United States appears the
man out in preferring the Moroy
cautious track. Only Japan hp'
anywhere close to supporting "f!
Washington's position.
complicating the ink!! the imeildPn
of some scientists- considered 404(
of the mainstrea- who say tbni v if
global warming is taking placi„,it
may be simply a natural
phenomenon that nature will
correct, rather than the result of the
unchecked use of carbon-based
fossil fuels that has accompanied
economic development. .
The United States has long agreed
4.
that global warming is a concern,
but some bargaining partners here
see a gap between Clinton's strong
rhetoric on the issue- in a speech at
the United Nations in June he said
the world had to do more to combat
global warming- and the speaticti
of the U.S. proposal.
"I would have expected a more
substantive step forward," said a
German delegate, speaking on the
condition of anonymity.
On Thursday, participants in the
U.N.-sponsored negotiations took
diplomatically couched shots at
ainton's proposal.
"The offer is a very modest one,"
said Raoul Estrada-Oyuela of
Argentina, the conference's
chairman.
World and Nation
more than 18 million copies of the
Bible had been printed. Over the past
dozen years, it said, more than 900
Catholic priests have been trained.
But in religion, as in politics, the
ruling Communist Party asks loyalty
and obedience in return for a degree
of freedom. It requires religious
groups to register with the State
Council's Religious Affairs Bureau
and recognize the Communist Party
as the supreme authority. That is a
problem for many religious
observers, especially Tibetan
Buddhists loyal to the Dalai Lama
and Chinese Catholics loyal to the
pope.
In recent months, the government
has waged a campaign to disrupt the
underground, or unofficial, Catholic
Church in what Catholic leaders see
as an effort to force them into
accommodation with the
government-sponsored church.
Several unofficial seminaries have
been broken up, according to church
sources. In August, security forces
arrested a priest who was running a
small seminary in Ruili near the
border of Burma and China's Yunnan
Province. Four students fled. In
Drug convict suspected of
giving AIDS virus to at least 11
By Blaine Harden=(c) 1997, The
Washington Post
MAYVILLE, N.Y. - Until Monday
morning, residents of this village in
the wine and dairy country had the
luxury of worrying only about the
predictable woes of life in rural
upstate New York.
So they were stunned and
disbelieving when Chautauqua
County health authorities announced
Monday that a 20-year-old sexual
predator from outside the community
had in the past two years infected at
least 11 local young women with the
virus that causes AIDS.
"Are you sure it is not Mayville,
Wisconsin?" said Mayor Dave
Crandall, when asked Monday
morning whether he knew that
someone had been spreading the
AIDS virus in this village of 1,900
people.
It WB5 here amid the cornfields
and blazing fall foliage of the rural
"We have got to
street-proof our
kids. Give them
all the data."
-Robert Berke
Mayville County Commisioner
Northeast that law enforcement
officials said that Nushawn Williams
also known as Shoe Williams,
Headteck Williams and Face Johnson
who is now in jail in New York City
on drug charges, had sexual contact
with at least 28 young people, the
youngest of whom was a 13-year-old
girl. Authorities said they are
investigating whether Williams traded
drugs in exchange for sex.
Williams allegedly met his sexual
partners by hanging around parks and
playgrounds, according to law
enforcement authorities. He
continued to have unprotected sex
with young people after a diagnosis
in September 1996 that he had the
virus that causes AIDS, according to
county health commissioner Robert
Berke.
"What makes this cluster so unique
is the fact that although all of the new
cases of HIV infection stem from
heterosexual contact with this one
individual, at least half have occurred
after, and I emphasize after, the date
that he was tested and counseled as
to both his HIV status and modes of
disease transmission," Berke said.
"Furthermore, it appears that he did
not warn his contacts about his
seropositive status."
Now York confidentiality laws
prevent people who are HIV positive
September, there was a raid on a
Fujian seminary. More recently the
government arrested Wang Shangguo,
a priest who headed a seminary.
Catholic sources here say that police
detained 22 seminary students in an
unofficial seminary near Baoding in
late September.
Their teacher, Baoding Bishop Su
Zhimin, was arrested Oct. 8. Su - one
of the half-dozen most senior people
in the unofficial Roman Catholic
Church- had been in hiding in Beijing
for 17 months after short periods in
detention. But he had moved to link
up with other senior leaders in the
unofficial church who narrowly
escaped capture themselves.
"No country in the world can tolerate
criminal activities under the guise of
religion, and China will not," Ye
Xiaowen, of the Religious Affairs
Bureau, was quoted Oct. 13 as saying
by the official New China News
Agency.
This week the official Vatican news
agency struck back, calling the
Chinese government policy document
on freedom of religion a "publicity
pamphlet" timed to smooth criticism
of China ahead of Jiang's U.S. visit.
from being identified. But Williams's
identity was released Monday, along
with a photograph, after prosecutors
persuaded a judge in Mayville
Monday that his threat to the
community was more important than
the protection of his privacy rights.
Chautauqua County District
Attorney Jim Subjack said that his
office is bringing statutory rape
charges against Williams for allegedly
having sex with a 13-year-old girl
from nearby Jamestown. Subjack said
the girl had consensual sex with
Williams four months after Williams
was told he was infected with the
AIDS virus. The girl filed a complaint
on Oct. 16.
The prosecutor said that authorities
had begun investigating last this
summer after after six local young
people went to the health department
for AIDS tests and all of them
identified Williams as a sexual
partner. All six of the young people,
the oldest of whom is 28, tested
positive for the AIDS virus.
The county health commissioner
said his staff has tested 28 direct
sexual partners of Williams, along
with 53 other people who had contact
with his sexual partners. It is still
working on tests of 17 others. Eleven
people have tested positive so far,
Berke said.
An announcement that someone had
been spreading the AIDS virus among
students and an appeal for students
who may have had contact with him
to talk confidentially to health
officials were made Monday at
assemblies at the local middle and
high school. In addition, a county
wide appeal was made Monday
asking residents to call the county
health department if they have had
unprotected sex with an unfamiliar
partner within the past year.
One middle school student, 14-year
old Adam Zabrowski, said his social
studies teacher gathered all 7th and
Bth graders in the gym.
He just said that there was a guy that
had HIV that was in the Chautauqua
district or county and he had HIV and
there have been reports of kids who
caught (it). He went to the New York
jail."
"(The teacher said) there is no
worry of it spreading. If you have had
any sexual intercourses you should
talk to an elder. The nurse said there
is nothing to be scared of, it was more
drugs for sex. Not that many kids that
I know of have done that kind of thing
really. Everyone was wondering who
it was and joking around about it."
The health commissioner said in an
interview here Monday evening that
while Chautauqua County was a rural
area, there have been indications here
for some time of considerable sexual
activity among young people. He said
that in 1992, the county's rate of teen-
Muslim's war crimes
case becomes a test of
Bosnia justice
By Tracy Wilkinson=(c) 1997, Los
Angeles Times
SARAJEVO, Bosnia-Herzegovina
- Ibrahim Djedovic reported for
work as a newly elected legislator
last spring and quickly found
himself whisked away by police.
Frantic efforts by international
diplomats to save him failed, and
Djedovic was summarily stripped of
his parliamentary immunity and
imprisoned on war crimes charges.
Today his case has become a
symbol of unhealed wounds from
Europe's deadliest conflict since
World War II and a stark illustration
of this damaged society's inability
to mete out justice.
"This is a critical test for this
country's court system, and so far
the courts have failed that test," said
Peggy Hicks, an American lawyer
who heads the human rights office
of the principal agency
implementing U.S.-brokered
Bosnian peace accords.
Djedovic was denied access to
legal counsel for months. The
indictment against him was leaked
1 don't think we
have the political
circumstances that
would allow a fair
trial,"
-Senka Nozica
Bosnian attorney
to a pro-government newspaper
before he or his attorneys knew its
contents. Charges are vaguely
general and the official
investigation, human rights
monitors say, was fatally flawed.
Sarajevo's mostly Muslim
authorities have targeted Djedovic
because of his role in a particularly
odd and painful chapter of the war.
He is not an enemy Serb or Croat,
but a fellow Muslim- all the more a
traitor, they say.
In the war, Djedovic sided with
renegade Muslim businessman
Fikret Abdic, who declared an
"autonomous" region in
northwestern Bosnia that fought
against the Sarajevo-based
government and sometimes
collaborated with Serbs and Croats.
To this day, Abdic and his followers
are regarded by many Sarajevo
Muslims as the most unforgivable
of war criminals.
Djedovic, 35, was Abdic's deputy
head of defense and interior with
key positions of responsibility over
security, and, prosecutors allege,
over prison camps where more than
6,000 Muslim opponents were
detained, tortured or beaten.
The 15-page indictment, issued on
age pregnancy ranked third in New
York State.
Berke said that sex education
courses in public schools had brought
the teen-age pregnancy rate down to
about the state average, but that "in
spite of all that progress, now we have
this. We have been getting
complacent, too comfortable with our
programs. We have got to street-proof
our kids. Give them all the data."
Berke said that Williams "liked
to lurk around the edges of schools or
parks, maybe where kids would be
playing basketball, and pick out
young ladies who may, for one reason
or another, be in a risk-taking mode."
The New York State Health
Department is sending a team of
epidemiologists, HIV counselors,
public health physicians and health
educators to help Chautauqua County
handle the case., officials said. In
addition, the Centers for Disease
Control sent two staff members to
Oct. 6, names at least 12 people who
were killed in the camps. The trial
is scheduled to begin in December.
Bosnia's December 1995 peace
pact was intended to end animosities
throughout the country. But
Sarajevo-sponsored persecution of
Abdic followers in northwestern
Bosnia, especially around the town
of Velika Kladusa, persisted. Those
who tried to return to their homes
or take up political activity met
violence.
In municipal elections last month,
members of Abdic's party won most
seats in Velika Kladusa but are
afraid to try to occupy them,
according to international monitors.
The national Muslim party of
Bosnian President Alija Izetbegovic
has threatened to kill any Abdic
supporters who attempt to take
office, the monitors said.
Djedovic considered his arrest part
of the Sarajevo government's
attempt to send a chill through
dissident political circles. "I was
arrested because I am a key leader
of the (Abdic) party," he told the
newspaper Dnevni Avez. "They
want to scare and frighten people."
Regardless of his guilt or
innocence, Djedovic's detention at
the Bosnia-Herzegovina Parliament
last May was illegal because he
enjoyed immunity at the time.
Authorities of the Muslim-Croat
federation based their action on a
notice from the international war
crimes tribunal at The Hague that
ruled, in response to the Bosnian
government's petition, that there
was sufficient evidence to detain
and investigate Djedovic.
"I don't think we have the political
circumstances that would allow a
fair trial," said Senka Nozica, an
attorney for Djedovic and vice
president of Bosnia's chapter of the
Helsinki Committee for Human
Rights. "This is logical because the
wounds are still too fresh. It is
impossible to expect that just one
or two years after the war, (the
judiciary) can be completely
professional. The Abdic followers
are considered the absolute enemies
of Bosnia-Herzegovina."
Nozica has taken the Djedovic case
at great personal risk because of the
enormous unpopularity of the Abdic
faction. Justice served for someone
like Djedovic would introduce new,
higher standards in the Bosnian
legal system, Nozica said.
Hicks and other international
officials say it is precisely the
unusual focus on the Djedovic case,
its complexity and political
sensitivity, that should pressure
authorities to follow proper
procedures. Instead, international
officials say, handling of the case is
"a sham."
Williams was arrested on Sept. 22
in the Bronx and charged with selling
$2O worth of crack cocaine to an
undercover detective, according to
Steven Reed, a spokesman for the
Bronx district attorney's office. He
said Williams is being held in the New
York City correctional facility on
Rikers Island and that he pleaded
guilty last week to attempted criminal
sale of a controlled substance.
Subjack said that if the young
people cooperate, he intends to
prosecute Williams for first-degree
assault in the cases of those who
contracted the AIDS virus. He said he
will charge Williams with reckless
endangerment in the cases of those
who had sex but did not become
infected with the virus. The prison
term for first-degree assault is 25
years and it is seven years for reckless
endangerment. .