Historical Newspapers of South Carolina

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Hodges proposes compromise on flag by Jim Davenport Associated Press After months of behind-the-scenes discussion, the debate to remove the Con federate flag from the Statehouse dome is heading to the Senate. Gov. Jim Hodges introduced his plan Monday for moving the Confederate flag. “It is clear that an overwhelming ma jority of South Carolinians want to bring closure to this issue,” Hodges said as he pitched his plan for a square battle flag at a Confederate monument already on the Capitol’s grounds. Both flag supporters and some op ponents say they don’t want what Hodges is pushing. The first-term Democratic governor assembled more than 80 legislators, may ors, educators and business leaders to an nounce his plan, including 10 of 46 state senators. Even before Hodges could jnake the announcement, the S.C. Council of Conservative Citizens called Hodges a liar, saying he promised during the gu bernatorial campaign that he would stay neutral on the issue. And the senator who will sponsor Hodges’ proposal ac knowledged he did not have the votes to cut off a potential Senate filibuster by op ponents. Noticeably missing from the ranks of Hodges supporters were leaders of the National Association for the Advance ment of Colored People, which has start ed a tourism boycott of the state until the flag comes down. Hodges said his plan abides by the group’s requirement that the flag be removed from the Statehouse dome. Hodges would put the flag of the Army of Northern Virginia - a square version of the Confederate Naval Jack that now flies above the dome - on a pole beside a statue of a horse-riding Confederate Gen. Wade Hampton. The location is between the State house and a state office building also named after Hampton, who became a post-Re construction governor of the state. “It is a simple, appropriate way to resolve this debate,” Hodges said. Some key flag supporters, such as Sen. Glen McConnell, however, have said they want it displayed at the more promi nent Confederate soldiers’ monument in front of the Statehouse. NAACP lead ers say they want the flag completely re moved from the Statehouse grounds to the Confederate Relic Room or put in a glass case inside the Capitol. Dr. Lonnie Randolph, leading the NAACP’s boycott strategy and president of the group’s Columbia branch, said Hodges’ plan was floated several weeks ago. “It was unacceptable then when it was mentioned and it’s unacceptable today,” he said. Hodges proposal “isn’t one that will cause the sanctions to be lifted,” Ran dolph said. McConnell, a Mount Pleasant Re publican who heads the Senate Rules Committee, has threatened to filibuster, if necessary, to block any legislation. He “is a very formidable opponent. ... We hope we can get him on our side before this is over,” said Sen. John Land, D-Manning, who will sponsor Hodges’ bill. Land said he did not have the 29 votes Hodges see rage as Teamsters unofficially give Bradley support by Laurence Arnold Associated Press Atlantic City, NJ.. — It was a sudden show of support, a standing ovation followed by an impromptu endorsement from the floor packed with Teamsters representing locals from South Carolina to Maine. The backing was unofficial for Bill Bradley, who has walked picket lines in his campaign for union support. The national Teamsters organization remains neutral in the Democratic presidential race, and front-runner A1 Gore car ries most Big Labor support, including an AFL-CIO en dorsement. But searching for a crack in Gore’s wall of labor back ing, Bradley basked in the moment. He had just spoken to about 400 union leaders attend ing the 13-state Eastern regional meeting of the Teamsters at a casino hotel here, “I know that the AFL-CIO has endorsed A1 Gore,” Bradley told the delegates. “But that doesn’t decrease my commitment to working people in this country. “My position on labor law refonn, my position on health care, my position on the minimum wage, my position on all of these issues is not related to whether I got an en dorsement or not from the leadersiiip of the AFL-CIO. It’s related to my commitment to what a just society should be «uu w uic wuijuiig ui we urnmiy. As Bradley shook hands and prepared to leave. Team sters vice president Thomas O’Donnell entertained a mo tion to endorse tiie former New Jersey senator. It passed by acclamation, although many in the audience were talking or crowding around Bradley. “Mife did not know it was coming, mid I think it’s pret ty significant,” said Bradley spokesman Eric Hauser. But Chip Roth, a spokesman for tlie Teamsters attend ing the conference, said the “spontaneous expression of support” carried no official weight. “It’s pretty obvious that this entire body would like to endorse Bill Bradley.” O’Donnell said, promising to com municate the group’s support to his fellow national leaders. Roth agreed that the group’s sentiments would be ex pressed to national headquarters, but he added that the union was still studying Gore and Republicans George W. Bush and John McCain. Reform Party candidate Patrick Buchanan, an outspo ken critic of free-trade deals that Gore and Bradley both support, is another option. “He’s the best of the candidates on trade,” Roth said Exit polls indicate that Gore’s strong support from or ganized labor lias played a role in his success in the primaries to date. In New Hampshire, Gore and Bradley split the votes of non-union families, while Gore got almost two-thirds from those with a union member. In Iowa and Delaware, Gore got two-tliirds of the vote from voters in union households. In an effort to win labor support, Bradley has rallied with strikers, pledged to ease rules on picketing and pro moted his own days as a shop steward for the professional basketball players’ union. He is hoping to keep the Teamsters and the United Auto Workers—which together represent 2 million of the 13 million AFL-CIO members — from signing on to the Gore endorsement issued by the overall union in October. The AFL-CIO is actively helping Gore, but its leaders admit the unions would be better off with a united front. "Really, in some ways, we’re hamstrung by not having every union on board,” AFL-CIO political director Steve Rosenthal said this week. Bradley told the conference of growing up in Crystal City, Mo., around neighbors who had good wages and good benefits because the local glass factory was unionized. His uncle, by contrast, worked in a lead factory without a union and, after decades of work, ended up with a pension of o mnnfli For nine ofins 10 years in professional basketball, Bradley was shop steward on the New York Knicks. He recalled that tlte union made a deal with a basketball card manufacturer but owners responded by saying the team names could not appear on the cards. “I said OK, everybody oh the team, turn your shirt around,” Bradley said. After Bradley finished his speech, a member of the au dience showed him a souvenir he had brought — a 1971 basketball card of Bradley, his shirt on backwards. “I’m the only presidential candidate, the only presi dential candidate, who has a union pension,” Bradley said. He held his hand at a 45-degree angle while saying the playing field is slanted against union organizing. He pro posed increasing the damages to be paid by companies found to have fired an employee illegally for organizing a union. And he said firms that break labor laws should not get contracts from the federal government. Bradley has rallied with striking Teamsters in Iowa and in New Jersey. Gore has also visited picketers, bringing coffee to one group of strikers. Large weapons cache found near tense Kosovo city by Elena Becatoros ■ Associated Press Kosokova Mitrovica, Yugoslavia — U.N. police searched Tuesday for the driver and passenger who fled an ambu lance loaded with powerful weapons after it overturned en route to this tense, divided city. Among the stash were 14 anti-tank rocket launchers, more than 180 high explosive grenades and more than 3,000 cartridges for guns, NATO said. U.N. police were searching for the unidentified occupants, who they said fled the vehicle immediately after it land ed in a ditch. The ambulance, which apparently went into the ditch late Monday after at tempting a U-tum just before a French checkpoint outside Kosovska Mitrovica, was marked “Cooperazione e SviluDDo.” an Italian humanitarian agency. In a statement, the agency identified the vehicle as one it donated in Sep tember to the public health authority in Glogovac, a predominantly ethnic Al banian Kosovo town. In Washington, Gen. Henry H. Shelton, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said the incident underscored the difficulty faced by the NATO-led Kosovo peacekeeping force in stopping arms from entering Kosovo illegally. “Getting weapons in (illegally) is no hard task,” Shelton said. “You’ve got a fairly porous border. You’ve got everything from backpacks to mules that can bring in weapons, but you ’ ve got Lord knows how many thou sands of weapons that may have been cached in the local area as (the Serbs) pulled out of there.” Thousands of ethnic Albanians were killed by Serb forces during Yu goslav President Slobodan Milosevic’s 18-month crackdown against sepa ratists in Kosovo. After NATO bombing forced the Serb troops to withdraw last spring and the NATO-led peacekeeping force moved in, ethnic Albanians began attacking Serbs in revenge. Kosovska Mitrovica, divided into eth nic Albanian and Serb sections, has been a flashpoint for violence for months. Un rest began to escalate on Feb. 2, when a grenade attack on a U.N. bus killed tw# elderly Serbs. More than 50 people have been ar rested by NATO-led peacekeepers in Kosovska Mitrovica since two French peacekeepers were injured by ethnic Al banian snipers on Sunday, NATO said. In addition, the nightly curfew here has been ovtonrlorl frrsm roimn Imiirc fa 1 0 People are now prohibited from circulating on either side of Kosovska Mitrovica’s streets from 6 p.m. until 6 a.m. The alliance reported no security in cidents overnight, and the city was calm. But a local ethnic Albanian human rights group said three more Albanian families were forced to flee their homes on the northern Serb-controlled side of the city. The peacekeepers were conducting extensive searches of houses and build ings for weapons or other evidence of criminal intent. Also, an additional company of Greek peacekeepers, 21 communications spe cialists from the U.S. contingent and 35 Canadians had been sent to Kosovska Mitrovica as reinforcements, NATO said News Briefs ■ Colombian cocaine production increases Washington (AP) — A CIA estimate released Tuesday showed a sharp increase in Colombian cocaine productionrbut the Clinton administration’s efforts to deal with the problem drew fire from both Republicans and Democrats at a con gressional hearing. Cocaine production reached 520 metric tons last year, up from 435 tons in 1998 and 230 tons in 1995, according to CIA figures released by White House drug control chief Barry McCaf frey. He testified at a hearing of the House Government Reform subcommittee on drug policy. ■ Elian’s father asks Reno for son’s return Havana (AP) — Increasingly frustrat ed by his son’s extended stay in the Unit ed States, Elian Gonzalez’s father has sent Attorney General Janet Reno a letter de manditig the boy be returned to him right away. Juan Miguel Gonzalez’s second let ter to Reno in as many weeks was pub lished in Cuba on Tuesday. In the letter, Gonzalez says he does not recognize the jurisdiction of the U.S. court system, which is weighing an attempt by 6 year-old Elian’s Miami relatives to block his return to Cuba. ■ Insurance claims being accepted from Holocaust survivors Washington (AP) —An internation al commission began a long-awaited pro gram Tuesday to settle insurance claims never paid to Holocaust victims or their heirs. The International Commission on Holocaust Era Insurance Claims said peo ple who believe they have claims would have two years to apply. It was planning a newspaper ad campaign and setting up telephone centers in 41 coun tries to help those who believe they have such claims, said the panel’s chairman, former Secretary of State Lawrence S. Eaglebuiger. ■ Outgoing U.N. official criticizes Iraq resolution Baghdad, Iraq (AP) — Iraqi civilians will continue to suffer under the latest U.N. Security Council resolution, the top U.N. official in Iraq said Wednesday in explaining why he quit. Hans Von Sponeck said the new Iraq policy was flawed and did not make a clear distinction between civilian needs and disarmament obligations. “I do not think this resolution has a chance to come to fruition very quickly ... even if that happens I do not think that this is enough,” Von Sponeck told The Associated Press in an interview. His res ignation became official Monday. Following Von Sponeck’s example, Jutta Buighardt,' the head of the U.N. World Food Program in Iraq, resigned Tuesday. European diplomats in Baghdad said she was also protesting the U.N. sanc tions imposed on Iraq for its 1990 inva sion of Kuwait. Sunshine Thrift Store ffifei Serving Children's Hospital of Richland Memorial Used Furniture, Appliances, & Clothing^^* 754-2075 783-3284 #300 Two Notch Rd._ 7351 Garner’s Ferrv Rd. T COhKEEHOUSE I Come see the Slackstreet Boys, Out-ot-Sync, The Jackson 5, BSU's Drama 6roup, and many more! Brinq friends! FREE ADMISSION! FREE COFFEE! FREE FOOD! Thursday, Feb. 17 @7:00 PM • 700 Pickens St. •Sponsored by the Baptist Student Union 700 Pickens St 799-3854 e-mail: BSUUSC@Compuserve com II **LOTTERY FEBRUARY 22, 2000** **LOTTERY FEBRUARY 22, 2000** Priority Reservations Lottery 2nd Floor Lobby Russell House February 22, 2000 9:00 A.M. - 1st Ballroom Date 10:00 A.M. - 2nd Ballroom Date For more information, contact the Reservations Office at 777-7127 or stop by Russell House 218. i - (:• ;i' V . . s Russell House University Union Priority Reservations August - December 2000 Priority I: University Wide Events..February 15, 2000 (See definition on page 97 in the Carolina Community) Priority II: Carolina Productions.February 18, 2000 (See definition on page 97 in the Carolina Community Priority III: Registered Student Organizations.February 22,2000 (See information below about the Lottery on Feb. 22, 2000) Priority IV: Other.February 28, 2000 (Academic Departments or administrative units or other student organizations as designated in the Carolina Community, page 95) NOTE: Academic Space will not be reserved until September 7. 2000 (See definition on page 95 in the Carolina Community) Because of the high demand for space in the Russell House a “lottery” system is used to ensure equitable distribution of space to registered student organizations. The highest level of demand is for Ballroom reservations, however, the lottery system will apply to all reservable spaces in the Russell House. _/ ATTENTION UNDERGRADUATE AND GRADUATE STUDENTS WORLDWIDE ENTER.COM PURSUE JOB AND INTERNSHIP OPPORTUNITIES THAT SPAN THE GLOBE Campus k Center.com The world's largest campus job fair