4 The Daily Collegian
NATO troops
By NERMINA DURMIC-KAHROVIC
Associated Press Writer
TUZLA, Bosnia-Herzegovina
NATO-led troops took up positions
in at least two towns early yester
day to prevent violence between
Serb factions, but drew an angry
response from stone-throwing
civilians, witnesses and officials
said.
The peace force, in a statement,
said it moved to "deter the out
break of violence" after receiving
indications that forces loyal to
Bosnian Serb President Biljana
Playsic would try to take control of
police stations and the media in
Serb-held areas of northern Bosnia.
Playsic is locked in a power
struggle with officials loyal to war
crimes suspect Radovan Karadzic.
While NATO troops already have
taken action against police loyal to
Playsic in her northern power base
of Banja Luka, international offi
cials strongly support her drive to
isolate Karadzic.
The NATO statement said that
both regular police and the better
equipped special police were
reported to be carrying unautho
rized long-barrel weapons.
NATO said its troops which
included Americans were posi
tioning themselves to prevent vio
lence, were conducting reconnais
sance, and were supporting U.N.
police whose job it is to monitor
local police units.
However, they met an angry
reception.
California's ban
action passes amid protesting
By JEAN H. LEE
Associated Press Writer
SAN FRANCISCO After nearly a year of
legal challenges, California's affirmative action
ban became law yesterday the 34th anniver
sary of Martin Luther King Jr.'s "I Have a
Dream" speech.
Thousands of the law's opponents streamed
across the Golden Gate Bridge in protest of Cal
ifornia becoming the first state in the nation to
eliminate race and gender considerations in
everything from hiring to education.
"This is history," said 60-year-old demonstra
tor Jestine Singleton, who drove overnight with
a church group from Riverside in Southern Cal
ifornia.
California voters passed the measure, Propo
sition 209, last November by a 54 percent mar
gin, but the ban has been tied up in the courts
since. The American Civil Liberties Union and
LSU student dies after binge drinking,
team of investigators look
By LESLIE ZGANJAR
Associated Press Writer
BATON ROUGE, La. A state
assembled team will investigate
the binge-drinking death of a
Louisiana State University student
celebrating fraternity pledge week
who was too young to buy alcohol
legally.
"This young man made a mis
take," said John Kennedy, secre
tor • :,, Depactm ent of Revenue
mi k
oversees the
' - -. 'i . - c r everage Control
board.
"If someone assisted him in mak
ing that mistake and broke the law,
they're going to answer for it."
Kennedy's announcement
Ljuba Maratovic, director of the
pro-Karadzic radio station in
Brcko, said soldiers of the NATO
led peace force equipped with
armored vehicles, most of them
Americans, arrived at the main
Brcko police station during the
night.
He said in a telephone interview
that local officials and citizens pre
vented them from entering, and
that the soldiers had to withdraw.
However, they remained in the
town.
Eyewitnesses said stones were
thrown at NATO vehicles, and that
they heard shots fired but it was
unclear by whom or whether any
one was injured.
The local radio station appealed
for citizens to come and defend the
city. Sirens wailed in the streets.
Brcko residents said that the
local police chief, Andrija Milose
vic, recently had switched sides in
the power struggle and now was
supporting Playsic.
Other witnesses reported a
heavy presence of the peace force
near Bijeljina, in the northeast cor
ner of Bosnia near the border with
Serb-led Yugoslavia. ,
U.N. spokesman Andrea Angeli
in Tuzla, a government-held city in
the region, said U.N. police had
remained in their own headquar
ters in Bijeljina.
He said the local radio station
had called for a demonstration
against the international forces.
No other details were available
immediately.
other opponents tried to have it struck down,
but the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals
refused Tuesday to block implementation while
it is appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court. '
King's speech in Washington in 1963 was on
the marchers' minds as they trooped across the
bridge, four and five abreast on a pedestrian
sidewalk, chanting and singing "We Shall Over
come."
The Rev. Jesse Jackson, who organized the
march, urged Prop 209 opponents to continue
fighting.
"In this country there are those who are
dreamers and those who are dream-busters.
The dreamers need to outlast the dream
busters. We must pursue the dream of an inclu
sive society," Jackson said.
Schoolchildren, college students and the
elderly of all races walked side-by-side, many
wearing "Save the dream" buttons as drivers
honked and waved.
"We want to know
who is responsible,
who was at the
parties, how the
alcohol was acquired."
William Jenkins
LSU chancellor
Wednesday came on the same day
a private funeral Mass was said in
suburban New Orleans for Ben
jamin Wynne, who died of alcohol
poisoning the day before.
Preliminary autopsy reports
showed the Sigma Alpha Epsiloiy
move into Serb-held town
U.S troops secure their positions as Serbs protest in eastern Bosnia.
The Serbs attacked NATO troops trying to control tensions between
on affirmative
into death
pledge had a blood-alcohol level of
.588 percent, an amount authorities
said would have required consum
ing more than two dozen drinks.
The control board investigation
was one of five launched in the
wake of the 20-year-old student's
death. The legal drinking age is 21.
The university, campus police,
Baton Rouge police and the nation
al chapter of Sigma Alpha Epsilon
are also investigating.
"We want to know who is respon
sible, who was at the parties, how
the alcohol was acquired," said
LSU Chancellor William Jenkins,
who attended Wynne's Mass.
He added that police have no evi
dence the student was forced to
drink as part of any hazing ritual.
"I don't think we've undone the negative
effects of slavery," said Jean Mont-Eton, 68, of
San Francisco. "I still think we need affirmative
action."
San Francisco Mayor Willie Brown, who is
black, likened the ban to Jim Crow laws
decades ago.
"This same kind of march was held years ago,
when Southern bigots were doing the same
thing," he said.
Meanwhile, it wasn't clear whether imple
mentation of the law would have any immediate
impact.
In San Francisco, City Attorney Louise Renne
said a local affirmative action program would
stand despite Proposition 209.
"In San Francisco, at least, there will be no
precipitous action to undo the hard work we
have already undertaken to remedy past dis
crimination," Renne said.
AP poll says Americans have
no faith in new tobacco laws
Americans have said in
an Associated Press poll
they do not think new
tobacco laws will reduce
teenage smoking.
By LAURAN NEEAARD
Associated Press Writer
WASHINGTON, D.C. Ameri
cans are highly suspicious of the
proposed tobacco deal, saying it
won't even achieve a prime objec
tive of lowering teen-age smoking
unless cigarette prices rise much
more than expected, according to
an Associated Press poll.
More than half of those surveyed
say the deal is not worth giving up
the key concession that cigarette
makers demand banning class
action lawsuits. And two-thirds
expect tobacco companies to sell as
many cigarettes as ever.
Seventy percent say the price of
a pack of cigarettes would have to
rise by more than $1 much
more than expected under the deal
to have much effect on teen
smokers.
Congress and President Clinton
begin grappling with the proposed
deal next month, and such poll
findings are bound to figure in the
debate.
"This reflects a huge amount of
cynicism and skepticism about
tobacco," said Massachusetts
Attorney General Scott Harshbarg
er, who insists the public is missing
the deal's good points.
"If it is left to the current, polar
izing debate :.. this is going to be a
major problem. We will miss an
opportunity that may not come
again, and tobacco wins."
The findings present a dilemma
for deal supporters, who would like
to toughen some Twouisiata but
without going so far that tobacco
supporters of war crimes suspect Radovan Karadzic and Bosnian Serb
President Biljana Playsic yesterday.
San Francisco Mayor Willie Brown urges people back at a march
across the Golden Gate Bridge, yesterday. He led thousands of
marchers against the new anti-affirmative action laws that went into
effect yesterday.
companies back out. Yet, public
distrust plays into deal opponents'
hands.
Indeed, critics immediately
seized on the findings.
"The American people have it
right: They're not against a settle
ment, they're against a bad settle
ment," Sen. Frank Lautenberg, D-
N.J., said in a statement. "It's
exactly this kind of public opposi
tion to the deal that's going to force
Congress to make significant
changes."
The proposed deal would settle
state lawsuits against tobacco com
panies by setting new national poli
cy. Companies would pay $368.5
billion over 25 years, curb adver
tising and marketing and pay fines
if teen smoking doesn't fall signifi
cantly. In return, they won the
class-action ban and other legal
protections, plus restrictions on
pending government control over
nicotine.
Clinton has said he will stiffen
the deal, including a demand for
full government nicotine regula
tion. The AP's telephone poll of
1,003 adults, conducted Aug. 20-24,
found 58 percent of Americans
support such regulation, including
54 percent of smokers.
An additional 54 percent said a
deal isn't worth the class-action
lawsuit ban. But the smokers who
would file such suits were split
evenly: 39.5 percent said a deal was
worth that concession vs. 41 per
cent who said it wasn't.
The poll was done by ICR Survey
Research Group of Media, Pa. The
margin of error is plus or minus 3
percentage points.
The deal is expected to force
cigarette companies to raise prices
by 62 cents a pack. Currently, the
cost of a pack averages $1.74,
including tax. A key question is
Friday, Aug. 29, 1997
whether that increase would cut
teen smoking.
Eight in 10 Americans said a
jump of even 75 cents is insuffi
cient to do that. Seventy percent
said prices would have to rise more
than $1 a pack to curb teen smok
ers significantly including 61
percent of the smokers whose wal
lets would be hit.
"The poll appears to be in accor
dance with the best evidence,"
said Massachusetts Institute of
Technology economist Jeffrey
Harris.
His calculations indicate prices
would have to rise between $1.15
and $1.50 a pack to reduce teen
smoking by the amounts the deal
requires roughly 30 percent
over five years.
But Harris cautioned that pub
lic perceptions are a little too cyn
ical cigarette sales would drop
some under the deal. Every 10
percent increase in price would
lower the number of cigarettes
sold by 4 percent, his calculations
indicate. Half of that drop comes
from people who kick the habit,
the rest from people who just
smoke less.
In other words, raising prices the
expected 62 cents would lower U.S.
cigarette consumption from 24 bil
lion packs a year to about 20.8 bil
lion packs and cut the overall
number of smokers by 3.5 million
to 4 million, Harris said.
The American Medical Associa
tion, a chief lobbying force behind
the deal, has called for a $1 a pack
increase. The AP's poll found 10.4
percent of Americans, and 14 per
cent of smokers, think that would
be enough.
But getting even $1 would be a
struggle, cautioned the AMA's Dr.
Randolph Smoak. "Our Congress is /
not tax-inclined," he said:- 04 rhat
may be a sticky issue." •