Augusta focus. ([Augusta, Ga.) 198?-current, November 23, 1995, Image 1

Augusta focus., November 23, 1995, Image 1

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Newspaper Page Textthey’re back... 1?-; a, ;; . | g . ®r v T el V 3 o . R é HMJ' _ | Stor; oh pé! , 3 . - ‘ 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 INSIDE Ay N i e G Lo e ?ﬁ‘ T ¥ A ﬁ s 4&?4,?‘ 4 N T s T £9 S R e W M A e R i N X e For AZ, it’s Doe or Di or AZ IU'S boe or vie See Artßeat, page 6 el se e B Peopliiis. fLii eit i innoniidpintoin & Wlocal Rk ... 0 i 23 BRahißß e ibiy 18 B Editolel. . s Anl B B ACIOREEEOOK ...l iisrimsrgiin D SBuslE b B Church News .............ccc.oiuivenneiis. 16, 17 RUCalenlill.o. .i ol ri ok B Classifieds .............cconecinriiensaneanees 22, 23 @D BEOE A R e o . AARA A A NI 4000 M B oswenge L e, TR AR P R RS S s N SR i «i’;; g g ; b TRIBUTE TO NICOLE HAWES: S FEngh g R i The graffiti on the street reads: T A SR w : R - : : Underwood sends much love to her.” T £ ; TR SRR g 5 S T Mot v T : : i b e : TR \\g BTR Pal e TR e ‘“ﬁ\W&S} HUE e A e S L :”‘ S TR TR T el . WTy Wt R b Poo : gPR e g v“% % S . i o s T % e P e gy i e T g e ,’?We s e L R TEERTUUT e SR e B S SR, T AE T . ; R R, R BAR RO SRR % I . T ’i&\w BT e Tel S . Lo MR . Fa R eTG S R Ba e e 3 WK R R SRR SRR e T ?*&< E e R % % eooa U S NCEEE Rl B B R S R R R N SR B SRR S % TR TR K, B o oN e NSR O e RO SRR g 2 oo %ﬂ% S e i gt SO T viT e B % G e WA SR SN S RS RR TS ) e ‘E W™ < ctte LU A . S ¢ L e e s o SUETERIE S GO ey S T B T o R R e T VTS « e TN o P R E’&ﬁ““ SAE G SO 4 sl G aeiEe R STP AR > - AL \‘ S SRR R faas P s &g SRR S %\ RS @& ik G e VWM S *St % S =oR%T B < TR RS o e g S T o g BT TRy s e R o g 3 G e S o AR Mol VO VIMER. ccoßStoapey Y A S B o SRI R s SRS N e o Y o ?f Tl %“ ’?‘:"we"é"\’ b e i . I o gl o e e e T T N e Oo OV PIV STAoMoo sAR 3 zﬁmﬁm’“ .9*.».-. i e T R;ﬁ g 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/ , ’% Augu st a o 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 ::uvsnsmf OF Ga \ ™ HENS : NO. 302 : . GA 30602 17/31/99 J IGUSTA, GA —B, : oo B ‘‘ Y Gwmg A LT L i, . i - “Fashion \ 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.”