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Nicole Hawes.died violently in the streets she roamed.
At 14, she was streetwiséyptroubled and pregnant.
By Frederick Benjamin Sr.
AUGUSTA FOCUS Staff Writer
AUGUSTA
Elizabeth Jenkins kneeled over her neighbor
Nicole Hawes who lay on a small patch of grass
in the East Augusta public housing complex.
“Jesus loves you,” she told the 14-year-old
middle school student. Nicole nodded as if she
understood. Twenty minutes later she was
pronounced dead. That was Sunday (N0v.19).
A subsequent autopsy revealed that Nicole was
three months pregnant.
Today, she is remembered by the graffiti
scrawled in the roadway a few feet from where
she was mortally wounded. It reads:
NICOLE YOU ARE
NOT ALONE
and
UNDERWOOD SENDS
i MUCH LOVE
: II HER ‘
-~ Around the corner, at the Hawes household,
less than 48 hours after Nicole’s death, there is
a lot of quiet activity. Church members come
and go bringing food. Relatives huddle quietly
and children are everywhere. They too, are not
making very much noise. A neighbor is concen
trating on plaiting the hair of the younger girls,
Nicole’s sisters. A hush dominates.
Janice Hawes, Nicole’s mother is subdued.
There is no smile in her today. The redness in
her eyes tells one that tears may erupt at any
moment. She talks haltingly about Nicole.
Words do not flow easily.
“She loved school so much, I could hardly
keep her home,” Ms. Hawes said.
Nicole was a tall girl who liked to play basket
ball. Trcuble had a way of tracking her down,
however. She traveled each day from her home
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in the Underwood Apartments to the alterna
tive school on Turpin Hill Avenue. She was
sensitive about that.
“She didn’t like to get on that bus. So some
times she would take the city bus,” Ms. Hawes
said.
Nicole’s school history was a study of a trou
bled youth, Exop Tl takag Augus v, 1
finally to the alternative school, Nicole dis
played a restlessness and a demeanor that
promised trouble down the road. :
Outside of school, Nicole, despite her youth,
lived the life of a much older person.The lure of
the street was strong.
According to Ms. Hawes, Nicole was the vic
tim of a grudge. Two of Nicole’s friends, a pair
Nigeriawasted the 20th Century
B Writer Chinua
Achebe decries his
country’s execution
of fellow writer
Saro-Wiwa.
BY VERENA DOBNIK
ASSOCIATED PRESS WRITER
NEW YORK
The writer who’s not in trou
ble with the king is in trouble
with his work, Nigerian novel
ist Chinua Achebe once said.
The brutal proof came when
the Nigerian government
hanged playwright Ken Saro-
Wiwa, who protested the de
struction of his oil-rich region
in plays, novels, essays — and
by facing rifle butts.
He penned biting satires
about Nigeria’s military rulers
for letting the Shell oil compa
ny pump the destitute Ogoni
tribal lands. As drills pierced
the fertile soil, it released
“enough water to drown the
entire Ogoni people,” while vil
lagers drank water from “guin
eaworm-infested streams” amid
pollution, Saro-Wiwa wrote.
His words fueled years of fi
ery protests by fellow Ogonis, a
half- million people living on
the southern swampland.
And the writer became a sore
bull’s-eye to Nigerian dictator
Sani Abacha.
_Your local newspaper sponsored by your local grocer.
November 23-29, 1995 VOL. XV NO. 726
. % »"”f/ ,
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of twins — both older girls, had gone to a club
on Sand Bar Ferry the night before Nicole died.
There, they got into an altercation with anoth
er woman. The other woman was badly beaten,
Ms. Hawes said.
Although Nicole did go out that night, Ms.
Hawes s:iid, she was at » party and was not
involveddin the fight. ; i i
The trouble got serious the next day when the
offended party and friends showed up in the
neighborhood.
“Nicole was standing there with the twins,”
Ms. Hawes said. “When the shooting began the
twins ran.” Nicole ran too, but could not escape.
Nicole’s funeral is scheduled for 1 p.m. on
Friday, the day after Thanksgiving.
“In the West, it’s
assumed that you
can be a writer and
neutral. This is not
possible in Nigeria.”
—Chinua Achebe
Saro-Wiwa and eight others
were hanged Nov. 10 after a
secret military tribunal convict
ed them in the 1994 shooting
deaths of four pro-military lead
ers.
“In the West, it’'s assumed
that you can be a writer and
neutral. This is not possible in
Nigeria,” says Achebe, 65, his
nation’s foremost novelist and
alongtime friend of Saro-Wiwa.
“It’s a matter of poet versus
emperor.”
Achebe spoke Thursday in an
interview from his home in
Annandale-on-Hudson, a town
90 miles north of New York
City where he lives with his
wife while teaching at Bard
College.
The novelist said that in the
1980 s, when he founded the
Association of Nigerian Authors
that included Saro-Wiwa, he
warned members “that they will
not be safe. ... Art is not an
escape.”
It’s not the first time Nigeria
has executed a writer. An army
general who was also a poet
organized the writers’ group’s
1987 meeting in the capital of
Abuja; he was later charged
with plotting to overthrow the
government and hanged,
Achebe says.
“I have lived with that dan
ger all my life,” says the novel
ist, who plans to return to Nige
riawhen he finishes treatments
for injuries suffered in an auto
mobile accident several years
ago.
Saro-Wiwa, who succeeded
his friend as the group’s presi
dent in 1990, persisted in at
tacking the Nigerian govern
ment, which owns 60 percent of
the Shell Nigeria company.
Meanwhile, Achebe charges,
incompetent officials allowed
the country’s infrastructure to
collapse while enjoying oil mon
ey hidden in private foreign
accounts.
Last week, the incompetence
reached all the way to the gal
lows.
It took the executioners five
attempts tokill Saro-Wiwa. The
noose was tightened around the
neck of the blindfolded, shack
led playwright four times, but
he kept gasping for air. Sec
onds beforethe fifth tryatdawn,
the 54-year-old Saro-Wiwa
mouthed his last words: “Lord
take my soul, but the struggle
continues.”
The playwright was wronged,
Achebe says.
“The authorities had some
thing to hide, because they did
it all in the night,” he says.
MR. 808 HENNEBEHGER T
GEORGIA NEWSPAPER s RATE
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HENS : NO. 302
: . GA 30602 17/31/99 J IGUSTA, GA
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\ Page 13
City books
being cooked,
Todd says
M Accounting
firms are altering
real financial
picture of city.
Crisis is not over
despite the rosy
projections.
By Rhonda Y. Maree
AUGUSTA FOCUS Staff Writer
.. AUGUSTA
“‘Don’t believe the hype,
warns Richmond County
Commissioner Moses Todd
in reference to Augusta of
ficials’ presentation of a fi
nancially stable city.
Despite Mayor Charles
A. DeVaney’s declaration
that all is well in the city,
Mr. Todd is convinced oth
erwise.
“Isitover with?” Mr. Todd
asked about the most re
cent activity in Augusta’s
money troubles.
“It’s been somewhat
squashed, butthe books are
still being cooked, only the
taxpayers aren’t in the
stew,” he said, implying
that the only positive move
has been sparing taxpay
ers by deferring debts to
the waterworks fund.
The financial saga was
revived recently when Rich
mond County Comptroller
Butch McKie released a
IN VIRGINIA:
Republicans charge
district lines racially
gerrymandered
RICHMOND
(AP) Two Republican
Party activists who say
Virginia’s congressional
districts are racially ger
rymandered havefiled suit
in federal court to over
turn them.
The lawsuit cites a U.S.
Supreme Court decision
involving Georgia, which
said carving districts into
racial blocs is unconstitu
tional.
Don Moon of Hampton,
the 3rd District Republi
can chairman, and Robert
Smith, a black activist in
Norfolk who has run for
Norfolk treasurer and for
the 2nd District congres
sional seat, filed the suit
Friday in U.S. District
Court. ;
Traditionally, a three
judge panel considers such
cases.
The suit seeks aninjunc
tion banning further con
gressional elections in Vir
ginia under the existing
plan. The 11 members of
the House of Representa
tives are up for election
next year.
If the lawsuit prevails,
the General Assembly
would have to draw new
districts.
Moon and Smith zeroed
inon the 3rd Congression
damaging report saying the
city would end the yearnear
ly $8 million in the red.
Accordingto Mr. Todd, the
accounting firms managing
the city’s cash flow are try
ing to cover up a possible
deficit.
Accepting blame for leak
ing the damaging report to
the media, Mr. Todd said he
was the one who initially
directed Mr. McKie to study
the city’s books long before
consolidation was approved,
but city officials were unco
operative.
“We requested informa
tion. Most of it, they didn’t
give to us. Other informa
tion, we received long later.
They were tighter than SRS
on securing that informa
tion,” he said.
Mr. Todd suggested that
city officials, along with con
sulting accountants, were
conspiring to “make money
off of a lame-duck govern
ment and stick it to the new
government.”
The accountants’motives?
A big payoff in the form of
getting the job to head the
Consolidation Task Force
financial operationsand get
ting a percentage of a $32
million floating revenue
bond, according to Mr.
Todd’s theory.
Since Mr. McKie’s report,
City Council voted to cancel
See CITY BOOKS, page 3
al District represented by
Democratic Rep. Robert C.
Scott, whois the state’sfirst
black congressman since
Reconstruction.
The district meanders
some 225 miles through
urban and rural areasfrom
eastern Richmond along
the James River to Nor
folk. It has a 64 percent
black majority. It takes in
all or part of eight cities
and eight counties.
“Race was the predomi
nant factor in the creation
of the district,” the suit
says. “It was the stated in
tention of the legislature
in creatingthis districtthat
it would give African-
Americans an opportunity
to elect a candidate of their
choice and that candidate
would be an African Amer
ican.”
The suit was filed against
Gov. George Allen, Speak
er of the House Thomas W.
Moss dJr., Lt. Gov. Donald
S. Beyer Jr. and M. Bruce
Meadows, secretary of the
State Board of Elections.
“It’s not my district,”
Scott said Friday. “It's the
people’s district. I believe
all 11 congressional dis
tricts were legally drawn,
but obviously the federal
court will be ruling on this
now.”