Newspaper Page Text
DECEMBER 25,1997 _ AUGUSTA FOCUS
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AFRICA
REPORT .
Report: Libya wants
arrests of Reagan
administration officials
HAMBURG, Gevmany
(AP) Libya has issued arrest warrants for offi
cials in former President Reagan’s government,
apparently because of the ongoing La Belle disco
bombing trial in Berlin, Der Spiegel magazine
Three emplo es of the Libyan embassy in
former East Be in are among those on trial for
the April 5, 1986, explosion, which killed two U.S.
servicemen and injured 230 people.
Then-President Reagan accused Libyan leader
Moammar Gadhafi of ordering the bombing and
retaliated with deadly air strikes on Tripoli and
Benghazi in Libya on April 15, 1986.
Libya later said that 41 people died in the
strikes, including Gadhafi’s 16-month-old adepted
daughter, and that 226 others were hospitalized.
According to the Hamburg-based Spiegel, Libya
wants Lt. Col. Oliver North and other Reagan
administration officials arrested on charges of
murder for the air strikes. Also reportedly tar
geted in the arrest warrants is former CIA Direc
tor William Casey, who died on May 6, 1987.
Libya put out word through the international
police network Interpol that it wants the arrests
carried out, the brief Spiegel excerpts said.
A full release of the report is to be published in
the weekly’s Saturday editions.
Also on trial in Berlin in connection with the
disco bombing are two German sisters.
Happy
Holiday!
NAACP removes board member
From page one
instead of continually standing
still,” Evers-Williams said. Though
Dukes was a close aide of Evers-
Williams and helped engineer her
1996 victory in the hotly-contested
race for board leadership, Evers-
Williams said the issue wasn’t per
sonal for her.
“I did what I had to do as chair
man,” she said. Evers-Williams
abstained in the voting of the 47
board members 10 attended the
meeting. No vote tally was avail
able, but the ouster required more
than two-thirds of members
present. Dukes could not be
reached for comment.
Other members expressed relief
that the matter was now behind
them.
“This was a hard decision to
make but it was the right deci
sion,” said Leonard F. Springs, a
board member from North Caro
Abernathy faces impeachment
From page one
Leadership Conference after the
Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. was
slain in 1968.
The top House Republican ques
tioned whether impeachment was
the solution.
“The Legislature needs to send
a strong message that drug of
fenses will not be tolerated among
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Mandela hands over reins
of ANC to Thabo Mbeki
®Transfer of powermarks
new era for the revolution
ary organization that led the
By Paul Hors
ASSOCIATED PRESS Writer '
MAFIENG, South Aricn
Nelson Mandela passed on a staff em
blematic of power to the next generation of
African National Congress leaders Satur
day, ending a well-choreographed confer
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" Thabo Mbeki, 55, succeeded Mandela, 79,
as president of the former liberation move
ment at the ANC’s 50th national confer
ence.
While the ANC staged a handing over of
leadership, with Mandela giving Mbeki a
carved wooden stick that symbolizes power
in many African cultures, Mbeki already
had shown he was firmly in charge and that
the party would follow the same policies as
those under Mandela.
“You are the ANC, and your only purpose
therefore is to serve the people of South
Africa,” he said to close the conference with
his first speech as Mandela’s successor.
Mandela embraced him as delegates sang
Cholera epidemic sweeps through East Africa
By Karin Davies
ASSOCIATED PRESS Writer
HKAIROE!, Xeayo
An outbreak of cholera has reached epi
demic proportions in East Africa, claiming
more than 2,600 lives there this year, the
World Health Organization said Friday.
The U.N. health agency announced emer
gency measures to combat the infectious
disease, whose spread has been aggravated
by heavy rain, poor sanitation and an inad
equate medical response.
“We are in the middle of a serious situa
tion,” said Dr. Maria Neira, chief ofa WHO
task force on cholera.
The WHO reported 61,534 cases of chol
era with 2,687 deaths in East Africa since
January, most of which have occurred dur
ing recent months.
While outbreaks are common this time of
the year, when seasonal rains wash human
lina. “Maybe now we can get back
tocivil rights.” He called Dukes “a
champion of the civil rights move
ment.”
Leroy Warren Jr., a Maryland
board member said, “The board
has risen to the occasion.”
In October, Dukes admitted in
court that she took more than
$13,000 from a leukemia-stricken
woman who had trusted Dukes to
cash her paychecks and help pay
her bills. She was not sentenced to
any jail time or probation, but was
ordered to repay the money as
part ofthe “conditional discharge”
of her case. The charge is to be
dismissed after a year if Dukes is
not arrested for anything else.
The NAACP is also investigat
ing the finances of the New York
State NAACP chapter, which
Dukes heads.
Last month, Dukes, 65, resigned
from the State University of New
York board of trustees after New
York State Attorney General Den
members. Whether (impeach
ment) is the best way to do that, I
don’tknow,” said Minority Leader
Bob Irvin, R-Atlanta.
Also, a proposal to change Sen
ate rules to include punishment
for senators found with illegal
drugs was to come before the Sen
ate Ethics Committee today.
An impeachment effort must
begin in the House and then go to
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Augusta Focus, metro Augusta’s
fastest growing weekly newspaper.
nis Vacco ruled she violated her
oath of office in pleading guilty to
the crime.
Not all were pleased by the vote.
Rev. Morris L. Shearin, a board
member from Washington D.C.,
said Dukes’ long history of civil
rights advocacy and her apology to
members in the meeting for any
embarrassment she may have
caused them should have been
enough to keep her.
“Asa Christian when somebody
says ‘Forgive me’, you forgive
them,” Shearin said.
But most board members seemed
more interested in saving the in
tegrity the organization, which
they felt was at stake if Dukes
stayed.
“It would have put NAACP ad
vocates in a precarious position”
to keep her, said Rev. Raymond
Scott of Texas.
Leon Russell, a Florida board
membersaid, “The board did what
it had to do.”
atrial in the Senate, judged by the
state’s chief justice.
No one has been impeached in
Georgia since at least Reconstruc
tion, though former Gov. Joe
Frank Harris threatened to im
peach former Labor Commissioner
Sam Caldwell in 1984.
Caldwell, who had been indicted
on fraud conspiracy charges, re
signed instead.
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South African
president Nelson
Mandela praised
his successor.
chosen at the conference as worthy successors
to a long history of ANC leaders. He also
thanked the ANC for making him a symbol of
South Africa’s transformation from apart
heid to multiparty democracy.
“Iknow that the loveand respect that have
enjoyed is love and respect for the ANC and its
ideals,” said Mandela, who emerged from 27
years in prison to lead the ANC to victory in
the nation’s first all-race election in 1994. “I
know that the worldwide appreciation of South
Africa’s miracle and the dignity of its people is
appreciation, first and foremost, of the work
of the ANC.”
waste into drinking water, the heaviest rains
in three decades have worsened this year’s
outbreak.
At the end of a two-day meeting in Nairobi,
officials from national health ministries, the
WHO and other U.N. organizations agreed
on the need to expedite cholera supplies prior
to outbreaks and respond more quickly to
confirmed cases.
“In the short term, at least, we can prevent
mortality even if we cannot yet eliminate the
disease,” Neira said.
She also said more must be done to educate
people about cholera.
The bacteria enters the body through the
mouth, usually in contaminated water or
foods. It causes severe diarrhea, then vomit
ing.
Patients who get plenty of fluids usually
can be cured but many East Africans don’t
know that and even if they did, they often
don’t have access to clean water, Neira said.
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and danced to cel
ebrate a new era of
the 86-year-old ANC.
Mbeki stuck to fa
miliarthemes of ANC
politics —helping vic
tims of apartheid,
fighting injustice and
racial inequality —
and promised the
ANC would remain
loyal to its principles
of democratic rule.
Mandela, in his
farewell speech a few
minutes earlier,
praised Mbeki and a
new party leadership
Former president refuses
to obey subpoena from
truth commission _
®Archbishop Tutu files
charges against the
former president of the
white-ruled Afrikaner
regime.
By Micholas Shaxson
ASSOCIATEDPRESS Writer
CAPE TOWN, South Africa
(AP) South Africa’s former Presi
dent P.W. Botha defied a subpoena
from the Truth and Reconciliation
Commission and faces possible
criminal prosecution for failing to
testify Friday about who ordered
Archbishop Desmond Tutu, the
Nobel laureate who heads the com
mission, filed charges against the
former president office after he re
fused to obey a subpoena to testify.
The anger of the commissioners
grewas Botha’sseat at the hearings
remained empty.
“We will let the law take its
course,” Tutu said.
Western Cape Attorney General
Frank Kahn ordered a criminal in
vestigation and said he would give
BothauntilJan. 2toexplain why he ~
didn’t appear, then decide whether
to prosecute the former leader of
white-led South Africa. Botha’s law
yer helped spare the former presi
dent from being immediately ar
rested when he assured authorities
his client would appear before judi
cial authorities if summoned.
“To arrest Botha now would be
empty posturing,” Kahn said. “If a
man of 81 tells me he will come to
court and respond to a summons,
why should I arrest him and bring
him to court?”
If convicted, Botha faces a pos
sible maximum prison term of six
years on three separate offenses,
each of which carries a two-year
maximum prison term, plus a fine,
Kahn said.
The commission faces a credibil
ity problem with blacks if Botha
continues to defy its orders.
Truth Commission
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sion received a fax from Botha’s
that our motivation is not to get out
information but rather to humili
ate him and abuse him in public.”™
“We would not descend to that
* Botha has epestadlysed hewil
not testify, calling the Truth Com
mission a “circus” and a witch hunt
Botha did not appear before re
porters gathered outside his home
in Wilderness, 190 miles east of
Cape Town. '.
“He is not going to issue any
statements,” said Botha attorney
Ernst Penzhorn. “Leave him aloné
to enjoy Christmas. He has had a
tough year.” 4
Botha twice before has failed to
appear before the commission,
which is investigating alleged hu
man rights abuses by all sides dur
ing the struggle to overturn white
minority rule in South Africa.
Repeating a warning made by
President Nelson Mandela last
week, Justice Minister Dullah Omar
said: “We want to make it very clear
that no person ... is above the law.”
Tutu’s panel wants to hear
Botha’s account of the activities of
the now-defunct State Security
Council, the white-led government’s
Tutu told a news conference he
was angered by Botha’s character
ization of the panel as a circus.
“I am trying to remember that
this is the season of goodwill,” said
Tutu. “It does him very little credit
to speak in that kind of way. I don’t
easily get angry, but in fact I am.”
Kahn said Botha faces possible
prosecution for failure to attend
the truth commission hearing, hin
dering the commission and con
tempt of the commission.
Whenissueda first subpoenaear
lier this year, Botha complained he
had just undergone hip surgery and
agreed instead to respond to writ
ten questions.