Military gov't in Haiti
foils attempted coup
By MICHAEL NORTON
Associated Press Writer
PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti The
military government said yesterday
it had foiled an attempted coup
against President Lt.Gen.Prosper
Avril by two military officers.
Radio Soleil said "several soldiers
were wounded, - and 30 soldiers were
arrested in the coup attempt early
Sunday. It gave no further details.
Government spokesman Frantz Lu
bin said the coup was led by Sgt. P
atrick Frantz Bochard, who headed a
government lottery, and former Col.-
Samuel Jeremie, who escaped from
prison following the Sept.l7 coup that
brought Avril to power.
'Certain other officers have been
State College
lowest-stress
By DAVID CARPENTER
Collegian Staff Writer
To the average Penn State student trying to survive
mid-terms, the following information may be a little hard
to swallow:
A study published in the November issue of Psychology
Today rates the stressfulness of 286 metropolitan areas
based on the factors of crime, suicide, alcoholism and
divorce. And guess where the lowest-stress area in the
United States is.
You got it, sports fans. State College.
"I don't think so," said Matthew Lev (sophomore
history).
Cindy Bieser (senior-foreign service) commented, "I
think you've got your statistics wrong."
The mayor of the city that was rated the most stressful
place in the country also had some reservations about the
study.
"I have some very serious questions about the validity
of this study," Pete Sferrazza, mayor of Reno, Nev., said.
State College Mayor Arnold Addison said the study's
results were unexpected, but not at all shocking.
"This is a community with less inner hostility," he said.
"I don't think we in the community thought much about
stress in the community.
"It may sound silly," he continued, "but this is an area
where people complain about a five-minute traffic hold
up. In a big city you can sit in traffic for hours."
State College Borough Councilman John A.Dombroski,
a resident since 1957, agreed with Addison, but questioned
the basic premise of the study.
Pentagon demonstrators thwart traffic
By NORMAN BLACK
AP Military Writer
WASHINGTON About 1,000
demonstrators created a commuter
nightmare yesterday but failed to
achieve their goal of blockading the
Pentagon during a boisterous pro
test of American policies toward El
Salvador.
Authorities said 214 men and
women were arrested, most on
charges of obstructing passage.
There were scattered episodes of
Students
By MARC HARKNESS
Collegian Staff Writer
Seven University students hoping to voice their
concern about the United States' Central Ameri
can policy packed into a van and rode to Wash
ington, D.C., to take part in a large protest
yesterday outside the Pentagon.
According to U.S.Defense Department esti
mates, about 1,000 people took part in the protest,
specifically aimed at the United States' support
of the government of El Salvador, which is
considered to be one of the staunchest U.S.allies
in Central America.
Some demonstrators succeeded in shutting
down the Pentagon's southern parking lot, and
others linked arms to prevent employees from
entering the building.
After returning to State College yesterday, five
of the students described what they had seen, and
told why they had taken part in the protest.
Mike Gallagher (sophomore-division of under
graduate studies) said the coalition of more than
15 peace groups that blocked access to the
Pentagon was trying not to halt actual govern
ment operations, but to make a symbolic
statement about U.S.military involvement in El
Salvador.
discharged," Lubin said. "They had
maneuvered to stage a coup against
the military government of Lt. Gen
. Avril."
On Sept.l7, rank-and-file soldiers
ousted Haitian ruler Lt.Gen.Henri
Namphy and installed Avril as presi
dent.
Lubin said he had no further infor
mation on the circumstances sur
rounding the coup attempt.
Yesterday, Avril presided over cer
emonies celebrating Haiti's indepen
dence from France in 1804
A half-mile away, about 6,000 peo
ple took part in the fourth day of
demonstrations protesting a Roman
Catholic church order for an activist
priest, the Rev. Jean Bertrand Aris
tide, to leave Haiti.
"I'm not sure that one area has higher stress than
others," he said. "Each area is made up of communities,
with higher stress in some."
Dombroski added that of all the places he has lived, "I
wouldn't say that this is the lowest stress area. But I
would say that this is the nicest place when you consider
everything."
Sferrazza said the study was inaccurate, and attributed
stress partly to non-residents, since Reno is a tourist
oriented city with a static population of 127,000, as well as
30,000 visitors every day.
This transient population boosts the stress rates in the
Reno area, Sferraza said, especially divorce and suicide.
"Twenty-five percent of the suicides we have here are
non-residents," he said.
He also said Reno's reputation as "the divorce capital
of the U. 5.," originated because it is the easiest place in
the country to get a divorce.
"To get a divorce here, all you have to do is live in Reno
for six weeks," he explained.
Robert Levine, a psychology professor at the California
State University at Fresno who conducted the study,
countered Sferrazza's argument.
"Even if you take out the divorce ratings, Reno and Las
Vegas are still numbers one and two," he said. "The Reno
area just has the highest concentration of stressed-out
conditions."
"The measurements I used are direct psychological
measures of the well-being or lack of well-being in a
metropolitan area," Levine said. According to govern
ment data he used as the basis for his research, the State
College area's combination of stress factors is the lowest.
fisticuffs between police and dem
onstrators, and three people were
charged with assault.
The demonstration, sponsored by
a coalition of a half-dozen peace
groups, began at 5 a.m.EDT and
extended into early afternoon. The
protesters succeeded in forcing De
fense Department workers to aban
don the huge parking lot south of the
Pentagon which normally acco
mixiates 3,700 cars and to run a
human gauntlet through selected
entrances to get to their offices.
protest outside
"The purpose was not to shut them down, but to
increase awareness," he said.
Andrew Mclnerney, former president of the
Friends of Latin America, said the protest was
focused on three areas: the southern parking lot,
the Pentagon building and a helicopter landing
field where demonstrators planted white crosses
bearing the names of people killed in Er
Salvador's internal conflicts to resemble a
graveyard.
Mclnerney said the groups that protested,
including representatives from 75 universities
and many communities, were diverse in their
methods of protesting. Some protested in a legal
rally, while others received criminal citations for
blocking automotive and pedestrian traffic from
the parking lot and building.
"We didn't want to interfere with (through)
traffic," Gallagher said, "just the Pentagon,
specifically.
"The object was to shut down the parking lot,
which was achieved later on," he added. The
blocking of Pentagon doors was unplanned, he
said.
Tim Fasnacht (junior-labor studies) said some
demonstrators erected roadblocks and burned
tires.
"It was just spontaneous," he said.
Although there were several instances in which
The popular priest was to leave the
country yesterday, but it could not be
determined whether he had complied
with the order.
The Sept.l7 coup was triggered in
part by a massacre at Aristide's
church the previous week, in which
thugs armed with guns, machetes,
clubs and spikes killed at least 12
people, wounded 70 others and burned
down the church.
The motive for Sunday's attempted
coup was unclear. There was no indi
cation the attempt was linked to
protests over Aristide's proposed
ouster.
Other than the demonstrations,
Port-au-Prince, the capital, was calm
yesterday afternoon.
designated
area in U.S.
Police, including one officer who
was attacked by protesters, ar
rested several people early when
they sat in a road to block a military
bus from entering the parking lot.
One demonstrator sprayed red
paint across the front of a bus.
Protesters then pushed one Defense
Protective Service officer to the
ground when he tried to arrest the
demonstrator and beat the officer
before other officers rescued him.
Other protesters went to a grassy
area used as a helicopter field out-
Branching out
Does art mimic life or does life mimic art? These questions came about yesterday morning in front of the Visual Arts
Building where students in a beginning watercolor class painted the birch trees.
side the Pentagon, where they plan
ted crosses bearing the names of
people who have died in El Salva
dor.
Jim Turner, a Pentagon spokes
man, said police estimated the
crowd at its height "at approxi
mately 1,000 people."
Defense Protective Service po
licemen arrested 118 protesters
during the day, Turner said. Metro
Transit police reported 92 arrests,
while Arlington County police said
they had taken four into custody.
Pentagon
protesters scuffled with police, security guards
and defense department employees, Mclnerney
said, the crowd was mainly peaceful, even
though some resisted arrest.
"In every case I saw, the Pentagon employees
started the fight," he said.
The University students said the most common
pattern they saw in the arrests was that defense
department employees usually military offi
cers would try to break through the human
chains and often would strike protesters. Police
would immediately arrest the demonstrators, in
some cases beating them with nightsticks, Mcl
nerney said.
Rick Kohn (graduate-dairy science) said the
inconvenience caused to Pentagon employees
trying to get to work is miniscule in comparison
to tragedies inflicted upon Salvadorans every
day.
"The reason we were there wasn't just to
inconvenience people, but to bring up an issue
that does more than just inconvenience the
people of El Salvador," Kohn said.
Kohn, who spent nine months working with
dairy farmers in Nicaragua, said the difference
between the anti-government insurgencies in
Nicaragua and El Salvador is the U.S.-backed
Nicaraguan contra rebels have no popular sup
port.
Student-athletes may get
access to graduation rates
By CYNDI BURK
Collegian Staff Writer
High school student-athletes could
get extra assistance in choosing col
leges if a bill proposed last month by
U.S.Sen.William Bradley, D-N.J.,
makes it to the House floor.
If the bill passes next year, institu
tions participating in the National
Collegiate Athletic Association would
be required to compile and submit
data about student-athlete gradua
tion rates to the NCAA starting with
students entering college in 1990, said
Greg McCarthy, Bradley's assistant
press secretary.
The bill, currently being reviewed
by the Committee on Labor and Hu
man Relations, will be re-introduced
early next year, McCarthy said.
This graduation rate information
would be assembled into a book and
made available for review by high
school coaches and guidance counsel
ors, he said. The book would not be
available until 1994.
"Senator Bradley has long been
working to make the student-athlete
aware that only one in 10,000 college
athletes actually go pro and for these
few, careers end early," McCarthy
said. "They need to be prepared for
this, and the only way to do it is
through education."
WEATHER
Today, cloudy with rain and a possible thunderstorm, turning windy and
cooler, high 63. Tonight and tomorrow, partly cloudy, windy and cool, low
42, high tomorrow, 52 Ross Dickman
By publishing graduation rates of
different institutions, Bradley hopes
to enable students to select schools
that challenge them both as athletes
and scholars, he added.
Don Sheffield, director of the Aca
demic Support Center for Student-
Athletes at the University, agreed
that high school athletes should have
access to graduation statistics.
"It's important for institutions that
have excellent athletic programs to
show they are equally as concerned
about fulfilling their job to graduate
(these) students," Sheffield said,
adding that all students considering
college should be able to see gradua
tion rate information.
"It's a shame student-athletes
must be focused on, but maybe it will
take the athletes to wake us up to the
needs of the other students," Shef
field said.
University Registrar Warren
Haffner said compiling information
as dictated by the bill wanld not place
much of a burden on the registrar's
office.
"We are already preparing a report
in cooperation with the athletic de
partment for the NCAA," Haffner
said. "(The new bill) could be more
cumbersome than present graduation
reports, but it shouldn't be much of a
problem at this point."
TUESDAY
Collegian PhotolTimothy Archibald