6A
NEWS/The Charlotte Post
Thursday, May 15,1997..
King rifle to get more testing
THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
MEMPHIS, Tenn. - Plans
for new tests on the rifle
believed used to kill Martin
Luther King Jr. remained on
schedule Monday.
Ballistics experts selected by
confessed killer James Earl
Ray’s lawyers will fire the rifle
and compare test bullets with
the death slug at the Rhode
Island state crime lab in
South Kingstown, R.I.,
through Friday.
The bullets then will be com
pared at a private lab,
CamScan USA Inc. in
Cranberry Township, Pa., on
May 21-23. That lab is
equipped with an scanning
electron microscope, thou
sands of time more powerful
than conventional micro
scopes.
Judge Joe Brown of
King
Tennessee Criminal Court
ordered the
testing to try
to determine
once and for
all if Ray’s
rife was the
one that
killed King.
Tests by
the FBI at
the time of
the killing
and later by the U.S. House
Select Committee on
Assassinations failed to prove
beyond a doubt that the rifle
was the murder weapon,
though King was shot with
the same kind of gun.
Evidence gathered by the
House committee, which con
cluded Ray was the killer, is
under seal until the year
2029.
Prosecutor John Campbell
said at a brief hearing before
Brown that the state is con
sidering a request for permis
sion to reexamine the test bul
lets fired for the committee.
“If you can get them, feel
free to run an analysis,”
Brown said as he wrapped up
details for the testing.
Campbell said the state will
likely forego its own testing,
however, unless Ray's lawyers
say they can positively
exclude the rifle as the mur
der weapon.
Ray, 69, requested testing as
part of his decades-old efforts
to take back his guilty plea
and go to trial. He contends
the rifle was dropped near the
murder scene to frame him.
King’s family has come out
in favor of such a trial for Ray,
saying it might answer linger
ing suspicions that King was
the victim of a conspiracy.
Mobuto stashed billions in ‘80s
THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
LONDON - Zairian
President Mobutu Sese Seko,
embattled leader in one of the
world’s poorest nations, accu
mulated a fortune that
reached $4 billion in the mid-
1980s, The Financial Times
newspaper reported Monday.
Despite a warning from a
senior International Monetary
Fund official that Zaire was
“endemically corrupt,” the
IMF supported loans to Zaire
totaling $3.9 billion between
1982 and 1991, the newspaper
said.
It quoted IMF reports which
detailed the widespread plun
der of Zaire's natural
resources by Mobutu, which
included ordering Zaire's cop
per and cobalt mining compa
ny, Gecamines, to deposit its
1978 export earnings into a
presidential account.
An IMF spokesman had no
comment on the story.
“As far as IMF lending to
Zaire is concerned, it was pro
vided on the same lines as to
all member countries to
finance balance of payments
deficits,” the spokesman said,
speaking on condition of
anonymity.
Mobutu's finances, as well as
his hold on power were weak
ened by the collapse in 1978 of
the price of copper - a key
Zairian export and having to
pay members of his patronage
circle in U.S. dollars rather
than the Zairian currency.
Recently, he was forced to
pay Bosnian mercenaries sev
eral million dollars to fight
against rebel forces.
But his the minimum worth
of his known properties is still
around dlrs 37 million, the
Financial Times said.
Mobutu’s current property
empire centers around signifi
cant investments in Europe,
including nine properties in
and around Brussels,
Belgium, as well as properties
in France, Portugal, Spain
and Switzerland, the newspa
per said. He also holds proper
ty in Africa and South
America.
The newspaper said the dic
tator, 66, who is suffering
from cancer, also has large
stock holdings in German and
Swiss companies and reserves
of “liquid cash.” Some of his
wealth is held in the names of
relatives, it said.
After 32 years, Mobutu's
regime is on the brink of col
lapse. In seven months, rebels
led by Laurent Kabila have
overrun three-quarters of the
central African nation, which
is rich in copper, cobalt, dia
mond and timber, and claim
to be within 30 miles of Zaire’s
capital, Kinshasa.
'The Financial Times said
that in the 1960s, Western
governments were keen to co
opt Mobutu as an ally against
Soviet expansion in central
Africa, turning a blind eye to
the growing corruption in his
regime.
“In the first few years
Mobutu received millions of
dollars from the CIA,” the
newspaper quoted John
Stockwell, a former CIA chief
in Zaire, as saying, adding
that “$20-25 million of CIA
and U.S. government aid
money could well have gone
through Mobutu’s hands.”
Mobutu continued to receive
large amounts of foreign aid
in part, the newspaper said,
because of the civil war and
subsequent build-up of Cuban
troops in neighboring Angola.
Mobutu also pocketed money
from the CIA intended for pro
western UNITA guerrillas
fighting Cuban forces in
Angola.
“When Angola was coming
under Cuban influence, Zaire
was considered a fortress that
could be trusted. The policy of
the West, led by the U.S., was
to help Mobutu as much as
possible,” the newspaper quot
ed Leo Tindemans, former
Belgium prime minister, as
saying.
Bishop blasts Gadhafi visit
THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
LAGOS, Nigeria - Libyan
leader Moammar Gadhafi's
visit to Nigeria last week pro
moted religious persecution, a
Roman Catholic archbishop
contends.
Olubunmi Okogie, the arch
bishop of Lagos, accused
Gadhafi of encouraging
“jihad,” or holy war, against
Christians by telling
Nigerians that “Muslims all
over the world should reject
all things that were not
Islamic.”
Such statements “could
threaten the peaceful coexis
tence of all religions in
Nigeria,” Okogie said.
The west African nation’s
population of 100 million
includes Christian and
Muslim minorities.
In a jab at Nigeria’s auto
cratic Muslim leader, Gen,
Sani Abacha, Okogie said that
permitting Gadhafi to arrive
in Nigeria with 700 body
guards was a provocation.
“I want to ask our leaders
that if other African leaders
come to Nigeria, will they be
allowed such an unusual priv
ilege?” Okogie said.
Nigeria has formed new
alliances since Western
nations imposed sanctions for
its execution of human rights
activists in 1995.
Gadhafi’s flight to the
Nigerian city of Abuja on
Friday violated a United
Nations ban on flights out of
See GADHAFI on page 7A
Ebonics jab touches a nerve
THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
ITHACA, New York - Angry
students accused the Cornell
University newspaper staff of
racism after it published an
“ebonies” course description
that said whites are “tryin to
keep da brotherman down.”
Editors of the biweekly
Cornell Review said the
unsigned article that
appeared on the humor page
in the April 17 issue was a
parody.
The article offered what it
called an ebonies, or black
English, translation of
Cornell's course descriptions
for “The Africana Major.” For
“Racism in American Society,”
it offered this: “Da white man
be evil an he tryin to keep da
brotherman down.”
Following publication, out
raged students at the Ivy
League school in central New
York burned 200 copies of the
paper at a rally.
The editors were surprised.
“It didn’t stick out, even to
me,” said Michael Capel,
chairman of the Review and a
graduate student in public
affairs.
“In retrospect, I can see that
it might have been offensive to
some people. But I don’t think
it’s particularly out of the
ordinary.”
University President Hunter
Rawlings, however, said the
article was in poor taste and
denounced the newspaper.
“Race-baiting, stereotyping
and intentionally degrading
attacks on Cornell's African-
American community have no
place in our campus dis
course,” Rawlings said
Tuesday.
Some students asked the
school to end the paper’s fund
ing and shut it down, but
Capel said the university
instead may consider a
speech code and a mandatory
racism sensitivity course for
incoming freshmen.
TTiat was denied Wednesday
by a Cornell spokeswoman.
Linda Grace-Kobas said the
university has no plans for a
speech code and the racism
sensitivity course was a pro
posal put forth by students.
Ebonics, formed from the
words “ebony” and “phonics,”
hit the headlines last
December when an Oakland,
California, school board sug
gested that black English was
a “genetically based” separate
language.
The board has dropped the
suggestion. While school offi
cials insisted they were just
trying to help black students
learn English, critics
denounced the resolution as
legitimizing slang and under
estimating black students.
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