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3% laity sar 3ippt Cuban Diplomat Discusses Merits of Socialism BYADAMBIANCHI SENIOR WRITER Qiapel Hill community members gath ered Monday night to hear Cuba’s top diplomatic representative to the United States speak about the last hot spot of the Cold War. “To understand the current problems, we must look at the history of Cuba,” said Jose Ponce, general secretary of the Cuban interest office in Washington, D.C. Ponce spoke to an audience of about 75 in Hanes Art Center auditorium. He said the revolution led by Fidel Castro had been fueled by the social inequalities that ex isted in Cuba in the 19505. “The Cuban Revolution of 1959 took power from the ruling class and gave it to the workers and fanners,” he said. “That’s why it is called a socialist revolution. “The primary task of the revolution was to meet basic human needs,” he said. Ponce said he believed that the socialist government had fulfilled that primary task because health care in Cuba is universal, almost all rural areas have electricity and education is free from primary school through the university level. “We have also successfully fought against racial discrimination and sexual discrimination,” he said. “Women have all the opportunities that men have equal pay for equal work.” Ponce said he believed that the United States’ economic embargo had done great damage to the Cuban economy. “S4O billion of trade has been lost up to this point, including food and medicine. That’s why we call it a blockade and not an embargo,” he said. “Just last month, the blockade was tightened and Cubans living in America are now prevented from send ing remittance to their families in Cuba." Clinton Savors Day of Foreign Success THE ASSOCIATED PRESS WASHINGTON, D.C. ln an ad ministration known for its blunders on the foreign policy front, Monday was a day to savor. Raoul Cedras stepped aside and said he would leave Haiti according to plan. And maybe, just maybe, Clinton’s show offeree made SaddamHusseinblink. In massing his troops on the Kuwaiti border, the Iraqi leader might have bar gained that Clinton who has appeared indecisive in other crises would lack both the resolve to stand up to him or the ability to reassemble the U.N. coalition that drove Iraq from Kuwait in 1991. It may have been a major miscalcula tion. Clinton moved quickly to send tens of thousands of U.S. troops to the area. He canceled a political tripto New-Jersey and began calling worldfcaders—starting with Russian President Boris Yeltsin. And De fense Secretary William Perry even point edly declined to rule outpre-emptive strikes against Iraq as he made the rounds of the morning TV talk shows. By midday Monday, Iraq’s U.N. am bassador announced it was pulling back its troops although the administration ex pressed some we’ll-believe-it-when-we-see it skepticism. Still, White House press secretary Dee Dee Myers said, “We have to give them (Iraq) a little bit of time here. You can’t turn 80,000 troops around in five min utes.” Life-Saving BfM*---- Plasma as anew donor and receive $E A this WEEK! ( based on two visits) SERA-TEC BIOLOGICALS 10914 E.FRAWKUN ST. Spires wmm 942-0251 come to a free — ; LSAT seminar ! Date: Wed., Oct 12 Time: 6 P.M. Location: 3518 Westgate Dr. T +7.2 points* Call 493-5000 get a higher score KAPLAN *As documented In the May 1994 Kaplan LSAT Performance Study conducted by Price Waterhouse “I have no doubt that things will change again in the future andpeople will look to socialism as the only system to fulfill their needs. ” JOSE PONCE Secretary of Cuban interest office In a lecture earlier Monday, Ponce said the embargo, which has been in place since the early 19605, also had forced Cuba to ally itself with the Soviet Union on eco nomic and foreign policy decisions. “If you are in a room with many doors, but only one door is not locked, then you must go through that door,” he said. Monday night, Ponce said the Cuban government realized in 1986 that the tradi tional economy based on the Soviet Union’s system had been flawed and needed to be adjusted to reflect the conditions in Cuba. After 1986, Cuba became more receptive to foreign investment and allowed limited private initiative in some aspects of the economy, mainly in agriculture, he said. “But the collapse of the Soviet Union forced us to give up our plans for food production self-sufficiency and slowed other economic measures,” he said. He said almost 150 joint ventures had been set up by foreign companies in Cuba as part of the quest for foreign capital. Anew “fanner’s market” opened Oct. 1 that will allow independent farmers and state cooperatives to sell their surplus goods in a freer market, Ponce said. The govern ment hopes this new venue will encourage fanners to produce more goods. But Cuba is unlikely to adopt the “China Even before the Iraqi announcement, Clinton’s quick move in sending troops to the Persian Gulf had already won wide applause even from former President Bush. Clinton planned to deliver a prime-time Oval Office address Monday night on the developments in the two nations. In Haiti, the restoration of democracy took another dramatic step forward. Cedras’ public resignation seemed a graphic vindication of Clinton’s no-invasion strat egy- Not only did Cedras step aside all thatwasrequired in theagreement brokered by former President Carter —but he also agreed to leave Haiti, as Clinton had ini tially demanded. “This is clearly a very important step, and it is attributable largely to the presence of 19,000 troops,” said a senior White House official who spoke on the condition of anonymity. Cedrasgone. Next up, Saddam Hussein. After the murky objectives and uncer tain villains of Somalia, Bosnia and even Haiti, Clinton has in Saddam a ruler widely vie wed as a true despot—even in the Arab world. And there also loomed one tantalizing possibility that Clinton and his advisers had to mull as they plotted strategy: finish ing the job that Bush left uncompleted. U.S. officials made it clear from the start that they would not repeat a mistake the Bush administration made in 1990: failing STATE & NATIONAL model” of free-market economics, he said. “If we threw open the doors to the big companies and said ‘This is yours,’ then only a small elite in Cuba could survive,” he said. “Many people would be hurt by privatization.” Ponce said he believed Cuba was also unlikely to change to an American-style democracy at any tinje in the future. “That is like science fiction to me. I can’t imagine it happening, ” he said. “We are dedicated to our social program and to our form of government.” Responding to a question about the le gitimacy of socialism in the wake of the Soviet Union’s collapse, Ponce said he believed the basic premises of Marxist- Leninist doctrine had not failed in the former Communist bloc. “The socialist system did not fail in the Soviet Union. The socialist leaders failed there,” he said. “They lost contact with the people and made unwise decisions. “We have not made this mistake in Cuba, and we will not make this mistake in the future,” he said. “The wishes of the people are always heard by the govern ment.” Ponce said Cuba had a viable and prom ising future despite American beliefs that the socialist government would fall in the near future. “Cuba’s example is a shining alterna tive for the millions in the Third World who are still starving,” he said. “I have no doubt that things will change again in the future and people will look to socialism as the only system to fulfill their needs. Although diplomatic efforts ended the Cuban refugee crisis in August, Ponce said conditions in Cuba remained critical and the U.S. would have to live up to its agree ment to grant 20,000 immigration visas annually. to send Baghdad a strong enough advance signal on how the United States would react to an invasion of Kuwait. Saddam might have thought flexing his muscles could give him enhanced negoti ating authority in seeking to get the United Nations to ease up on sanctions. But Saddam has a history ofboth bold gestures and costly miscalculations. Clinton learned early on that there was no political gain in appearing to appease Saddam. One of his first foreign policy disasters was to say in an interview with The New York Times soon after his election that, as a good Baptist, he believed in conversion —and that perhaps Saddam would change. Heavy criticism followed. And Clinton scrambled to change his tune. The widespread notion that the job in Iraq was not finished gives Clinton more room to maneuver in dealing firmly with Iraq. “This latest provocation is another re minder that the region will not be stable so long as Saddam is in power. If the presi dent can come up with a strategy that leads to Saddam’s removal, it would be widely supported, ” said Bill Kristol, a former Bush administration official and usually a fre quent critic of Clinton. Even Bush sounded a little melancholy on Monday as he praised Clinton's moves while defending anew his decision to stop the 100-day war without going after Saddam. TAR HEEL SPORTS SHORTS - TONIGHT Men’s Soccer vs UNC - Asheville 7:00 Fetzer Field UNC Students with ID _J_ _ * Admitted Free JL 1 l2llflG?KaD I’M NOT A STRAIGHT PERSON, BUT I PLAY ONE ON TV. And that's just where acting belongs —on televison or in the movies. Not in real life. That's why I stopped acting and came out. I told people I'm a lesbian. More and more gay men and lesbians are finding out how great it feels to tell someone they care about. National Coming Out Day Let's stop acting. Take the f j uw step that's right for you. i<9 more P receive The Guide to < fl Coming Out: living mmksams&Wtit. i 1 ■•oo-866-ncod I ® JLJ| SHOCKING CRAY HUVUwfIB VXI iPii IpSffßli' DTH/KATIE CANNON JOSE PONCE, Cuba's leading diplomat, spoke in Hanes Art Center. “It is difficult right now. We are work ing to do everything we can to make the pain less,” he said. “We need time to make the switch to a self-sufficient economy. “But there are some people who are used to a high standard of living who wish to immigrate for economic reasons,” he said. “Thatis why the U.S. visas are impor tant.” Ponce said he hoped Cuba and the United States could work together to help the Cuban refugees who were not accepted into the United States. He said, “Cuban refugees being held in Guantanamo Bay and in Panama who wish to come back voluntarily are accepted, and we will reintegrate them as much as we can.” Political Parties Focus On Local Elections in Off Year THE ASSOCIATED PRESS RALEIGH Legislative elections are usually local events, turning around local issues and personalities. But this year, with no overshadowing statewide campaigns, Democrats and Re publicans are paying more attention to their congressional and state legislative races. Republicans see those races as critical because they have their best chance in years to pick up a block of seats both in Congress and the General Assembly. Mid term elections generally tend to favor the party that does not control the White House. The increased effort was easy to see in North Carolina last week as Republicans and Democrats staged a little political the ater for their legislative candidates. Republicans, following on the heels of their congressional colleagues, signed a “contract” with state voters to introduce an eight-point reform agenda when the legislature returns to Raleigh in January. Democrats, meanwhile, criticized their GOP opponents as ne’er-do-wells who voted against progress and little children. Republicans, for their part, were long on jazzy sounding reforms and short on details of what those reforms would in clude. And some of those reforms are just recycled ideas that have gone nowhere in Report Criticizes Navy For Trash Disposal at Sea THE ASSOCIATED PRESS WASHINGTON, D.C. - After SBO million and more than a decade of re search, the Navy is still years away from solving a nagging problem: how to take out the trash at sea. A draft report by the General Account ing Office recounts what it says is a spotty Navy record in complying with a 1973 treaty that requires ships to stop dumping plastic trash overboard. A copy of the re port was obtained by The Associated Press on Monday. Navy officials, speaking on condition of anonymity, vigorously disputed the report, saying the Navy is a leader in developing technologies needed to cope with trash at sea. “The report makes it look like the Navy delayed or wasted SBO million on this program, ” a senior Navy official said. “Nothing could be further from the truth. ” According to the GAO, an investigative arm of Congress, the Navy attacked the problem by assuming it could learn little from commercial shippers since the Navy mission is so different, involving lengthy deployments between portsof call. In addi tion, the Navy concluded early that it would need until nearly the turn of the century to develop adequate technology. “These factors have contributed to the current situation, whereby most of the Navy’s equipment development projects, costing about SBO million through the fis cal year 1994, have been canceled or re duced, ” the GAO reported. The Navy failed to propose interim milestones for solving the trash problem, according to the GAO. No one disputes that the Navy has a serious trash problem. A typical aircraft carrier, for example, generates 9 1/2 tons the past and have little chance of going anywhere in the near future. Others call for “reforms” that either already exist or are in the works. Prison reform, for instance, that calls for removing the cap on the state’s prison population is a Republican rejection of an idea first adopted under, and at the request of, a Republican administration. And prison officials, both Republican and Democrat, say lifting the cap is just an invitation to a federal takeover ofthe state’s prison system. Education reform that gives more power to local schools and cuts the size of the state Department of Public Instruction is al ready moving. Legislators for years have been shifting more decisions to local school officials, and DPI is as lean now as it has been in a decade. Another “reform” calls for legislative rules that let a majority of N.C. House and N.C. Senate members recall a bill from a committee for a vote on the floor. The House already allows that with a majority vote and three days notice. The Senate does, too, with three days notice and a two-thirds vote of the senators present. The most interesting thing about the Republican manifesto was what got dropped between a late draft and its final presentation on the steps of the Capitol. DID YOU KNOW that five ofthe 10 leading causes of death in the U.S. are nutrition related? Attention Pre - Medical & Pre - Dental Students When deciding on a major, consider the professionally focused courses of study offered by the Department of Nutrition. The curriculum offers: • A wide range of courses on the nutritional and epidemiological aspects of human disease. • A broad perspective on human biology that takes cultural as well as organic factors into account. • A strong clinical orientation. For more information, please call Registrar Jo Ann Roth, 966-7212 Southwick Golf Course Autumn Special!!! Pair Up & Save Bring a friend and this ad to the course ANYTIME on WEEKDAYS and your friend plays & rides 1 8 holes for HALF PRICE! 1 8 Hole Green & Cart Fee Special Rates: Weekdays: Tee Off ANYTIME for ONLY $12.00 SATURDAYS . Tee Q ff Ater 2:00 PM SUNDAYS for ONLY $15.00 jj>OtttlltotCb Jones Ferry Road to Old / | Greensboro Road. 12.5 Miles VJOIT to NC 87 (North) for 9 Miles to Course Blinking Light. Turn Right for 1 j* Mile on Boy Wood Road to sign. NlMSfc 942-0783 Tuesday, October 11, 1994 of trash per day. These carriers can sit for months at a time on station in some strate gic location such as the Persian Gulf. Several attempted solutions have yielded mixed results. In the 19705, the Navy worked on a trash compactor designed to mash trash into a sinkable slug. The only problem was that sometimes the slug didn’t sink, leaving behind a dense, bobbing mass of Navy trash as a hazard to navigation. Research into a plastic melting device and trash shredders yielded better results. Navy officials working on the program have a table in their Pentagon office made out of a hardened disk of melted plastic trash. All these efforts were set in motion by a 1973 treaty reached by the United States and other maritime nations on preventing pollution from ships. The original treaty exempted Navy ships, but Congress in 1987 ordered the Navy to comply. The Navy now has until the end 0f1998 to meet trash handling standards for surface ships and a decade beyond that for submarines. The law prohibits dumpingplastic-based trash anywhere at sea and imposes even tighter restrictions in selected sensitive ar eas such as the Antarctic. Several environmental groups have been working with the Navy in solving the trash problem. Kathy O’Hara of the Washing ton-based Center for Marine Conservation praised the Navy’s efforts and said the unique mission of the Navy made solving the problem more difficult. “We think the Navy needs to, in addi tion to doing heavy-duty research on tech nology, they need to continue to consider more basic approaches such as minimizing the amount of garbage they take onboard. ” EHRINGHAUS FROM PAGE 1 was out, Roberson said. Krishnee Gaddy, a sophomore who h ves on the sixth floor in a suite near the lounge, said she always left the building during fire alarms. “A few people came out, and later more trickled out,” she said. “ Some people were not in their dorms because of Home coming weekend.” Roberson said it’s a recurring problem that students do not take the fire alarms seriously. “Wehaveacry-wolfsyndrome,” he said. “Sensors are very sensitive for the advantage of early escape, but not every one thinks a real fire can happen.” About four or five alarms have been reported in Ehringhaus in the last week and a half, Roberson said. He added that he didn’t know why the alarms were going off. “They all seem to come at once. We have to treat all alarms like the real thing. ” A false alarm went off Sunday at about 11:30 p.m. ,-for which officials have noryet determined a cause. Rank said the situa tion had been taken care of quickly and could have been caused by many things, including steam. Roberson said a cigarette caused a trash can fire Sunday around 5:30 a.m. Little damage was done, and the fire was kept under control. The Chapel Hill Fire Department en courages residents to take steps to prevent fires and to be especially aware during Fire Prevention Week, which ends Saturday. Some precautions include: checking heat ing units, making sure windows and doors open easily, not overloading extension cords and practicing safe smoking habits. 5
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