The gamecock. (Columbia, S.C.) 1908-2006, February 09, 2000, Page A6, Image 6
_Nation & World__
Judge dismisses families'
attempt to sue in U. S.
by Estes Thompson
Associated Press
Greenville, N.C. — The relatives'of
five Belgians killed when a Marine jet
sliced ski gondola cables in Italy cannot
seek recompense in the United States, a
federal judge ruled Tuesday.
U.S. District Court Judge Malcolm
Howard did say, however, that the fam
ilies had presented evidence of negligence
by the United States.
While sympathizing with the fami
lies, Howard said their only recourse is
through a NATO agreement — called
Status of Forces Agreement — that gov
erns civil and criminal legal activities of
NATO troops in foreign countries.
“To fail to apply the NATO SOFA to
the claims asserted by plaintiffs would be
to misapply the treaty, possibly causing
unintended results, which could affect
thousands of American service people,”
Howard said in the 19-page decision.
To allow the families to sue in the
United States “could conceivably un
dercut the treaty and create a cause of
action for any overseas military accident.
... Such a result would severely impair
the viability of the claims procedure pro
vided for in the NATO SOFA.”
Twenty people were killed when the
accident occurred Feb. 3,1998, in Cav
alese, Italy.
The relatives’ attorney, Torrence Arm
strong of Alexandria, Va., said he would
appeal Howard’s decision to the 4th U.S.
Circuit Court of Appeals.
“I think the real tragedy is that the
United States is not accepting responsi
bility for this and is hiding behind the
NATO agreement,” Armstrong said.
The U.S. government has brought all
the evidence, including the crumpled ski
gondola, back to this country and will
not return it to Italy for hearings, he said.
In addition, it’s an eight- to 10-year process
to seek compensation in Italy, he said.
Armstrong mentioned that 11 months
ago, President Clinton said the United
States must shoulder reponsibility for the
accidenL “The government has done just
the opposite...,” he said.
Armstrong had said he would seek $6
million to $6.5 million for each of the
five victims if the case went to trial.
At a hearing Thursday before Howard,
Armstrong argued that while the acci
dent occurred overseas, several problems
occurred in the flight that had roots in
the United States: A faulty radar altime
ter wasn’t discovered and repaired on the
EA-6B Prowler jet at its North Carolina
air base; maps weren’t updated by a gov
ernment agency to show the cable car
strung about 370 feet above the moun
tain valley; and the flight crew wasn’t
properly trained for low-altitude moun
tain flying.
Howard rejected that argument, but
said, “The court is convinced that plain
tiffs have alleged facts, that if true, would
establish negligence by the United States
occurring in the United States before de
ployment and were, therefore, not part
of a force as defined by SOFA.”
In December, the Italian Senate ap
proved up to $2 million for each fami
ly, with the U.S. government paying $ 1.5
million of each settlement. But Arm
strong said last week the claims process
hadn’t yet begun. "
A military jury at Camp Lejeune ac
quitted the jet’s pilot, Capt. Richard Ash
by, of manslaughter, but he served sev
eral months in prison and was dismissed
from the Marine Corps for helping de
stroy a videotape of the flight. The jet’s
navigator, Capt. Joseph Schweitzer, also
was dismissed from the Marines over the
videotape. Chaiges were dropped against
two back-seat crewmen.
A Marine Corps investigation blamed
the crash on the flight crew, based at
Aviano, Italy, for flights over Bosnia. The
crew’s home base was Cherry Point Ma
rine Corps Air Station.
Howard said in a previous written or
der after the hearing last week that he
hesitated to hold a trial when Congress
could decide to make direct payments to
the families. A proposal that would have
paid $2 million to each family died in a
congressional conference committee last
year.
British lawmakers pass bill
to suspend Belfast's powers
by Kristin Gazlay
'Associated Press
London—Lawmakers overwhelmingly
passed a bill Tuesday that would allow
the British government to strip North
ern Ireland’s fledgling administration of
its powers this week — an emergency
measure meant to prevent its total col
lapse.
The 352-11 House of Commons vote
came after Britain’s Northern Ireland Sec
retary Peter Mandelson warned that leg
islators had no choice following the Irish
Republican Army’s refusal to disarm in
support of the province’s 1998 peace ac
cord.
There remained only one step before
the bill passed to the upper House of
Lords — a ceremonial final “reading”
required under British law that doesn’t
necessarily entail a recorded vote. The
measure is expected to become law Thuis
day once it goes through the House of
Lords.
The major Protestant party within the
power-sharing Cabinet, the Ulster Union
ists, agreed to form the four-party
coalition — which includes the IRA
linked Sinn Fein — only on condition
that the IRA would begin to disarm.
A disarmament commission’s report
last week said the IRA had made no con
crete commitments, triggering the cur
rent crisis.
Mandelson, who transferred consid
erable responsibilities to the Belfast ad
ministration only two months ago, said
in these circumstances it was “clearly
foreseeable” that the body “will simply
fall apart” if powers weren’t immediately
taken back.
Earlier Tuesday, Sinn Fein leader Ger
ry Adams directly appealed to Prime Min
ister Tony Blair not to suspend the ad
ministration’s powers, warning it would
render any start to IRA disarmament im
possible.
As Martin McGuinness, a former IRA
commander who is now Sinn Fein’s min
ister for education in the Cabinet, looked
on from the visitors’ gallery, Mandel
son said those aiguing for the power-shar
ing Cabinet to continue were offering “a
false choice.”
The reality, he said, was “between
pause and bust.”
“A pause in the operation of the in
stitutions, far from seeing them lying in
collapse, will preserve the institutions
and allow them to be revived at a later
date,” he said.
Mandelson said he intended to use
the bill’s powers to resume “direct rule”
from London — the quasi-colonial form
of government originally imposed in
Northern Ireland in 1972 — on Friday.
Adams also used a Commons room
for a news conference. He, like McGuin
ness, is an elected member of British Par
liament, but can’t take part in debates be
cause he refuses to take the oath of office,
which would require him to pledge sup
port to Queen Elizabeth n.
“The Good Friday agreement is un
der the greatest threat so far since it came
into existence,” Adams said, accusing the
British government of backing “a uni
lateral deadline” sought by the Ulster
Unionists.
Later, in a radio interview with the
British Broadcasting Corp. in Belfast,
Adams sounded exasperated, claiming to
have done all he could to win an IRA
commitment to disarm. He wondered
“what role I have to play as a messenger
who continuously gets shot.”
But others blamed Sinn Fein for not
delivering on its end of a bargain struck
in November under the mediation of
American diplomat George Mitchell.
In exchange for the Ulster Unionists’
accepting Sinn Fein as Cabinet colleagues,
Sinn Fein declared for the first time that
disarmament was “essential,” and the
IRA opened negotiations with the
province’s 3-year-old disarmament com
mission.
The Good Friday accord proposed
that the IRA should completely disarm
by May, but specified no starting point.
The IRA has never accepted that goal.
The Ulster Unionists plan to ballot
grassroots members Saturday on whether
to remain in the Cabinet. If they call
for withdrawal, forming a new Cabinet
would prove extremely difficult because
it would require a new election in North
ern Ireland.
Given the rising Protestant hostility
to cooperating with Sinn Fein, the Ul
ster Unionists—previously able to com
rnand support from only half the
province’s Protestants — would proba
bly suffer further losses.
But the Cabinet’s senior Catholic
minister, Seamus Mallon, warned that
the looming suspension could prove per
manent.
He cited his personal experience in
Northern Ireland’s only previous attempt
to share power between Protestants
and Catholics, a Cabinet that collapsed
in 1974.
Politicians back then had hoped
that the Cabinet would soon resume op
erations, he recalled. “It was resumed,”
he said. “It took one quarter of a centu
ry to resume it.”
__ t
Flag
from page A4
house grounds.”
Sen. Darrell Jackson, a black Demo
crat who received a death-threat letter
for his stance against the flag, said he
couldn’t support the “avenue of flags”
idea, either.
“I’ve been talked to about it and I am
not supporting it right now,” Jackson said.
Also not going along is Sen. John
Courson, R-Columbia, another flag sup
porter involved in the negotiations.
Courson in 1994 helped craft a failed
bill called the Heritage Act that would
have placed the flag at the Confederate
soldier’s monument.
A year later, lawmakers passed a law
giving themselves sole power to remove
the flag.
“I think this issue can be resolved,”
Courson said, waving a 2000 version of
the Heritage Act from the Senate floor.
“I think we can do it this year.”
The speeches were prompted by a
new bill filed by Sen. Dave Thomas, R
Greenville, and other Upstate senators
would create a park on Statehouse grounds
honoring the Confederacy.
McConnell and Courson said the on
ly viable plan is the Confederate soldier’s
monument, but Hodges, the NAACP and
other flag opponents said that location
would be too visible.
‘I think the (flag) issue
can be resolved. I think
we can do it this year.’
Sen. John Courson
R-Columbia
The NAACP is urging tourists to boy- ^
cott South Carolina to force down the
flag, which it considers a racist symbol.
Flag supporters say it honors Southern
heritage.
Senate President Pro Tern John
Drummond, D-Ninety Six, said he was
concerned about the climate the flag de
bate was creating in South Carolina
He had in his pocket the threaten
ing letter to Jackson, a black Democrat
from Hopkins, who has been vocal about
wanting the flag removed.
Other threats also have been made,
he said.
“That’s the climate we’re creating,”
Drummond said.
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