The gamecock. (Columbia, S.C.) 1908-2006, March 01, 2000, Page A6, Image 6
__Nation & World
Haider's resignation fails
to end Austria's isolation
from European Union
by Robert H. Reid
Associated Press
Vienna, Austria — A day after re
signing as leader of the far-right Freedom
Party, Joeig Haider lashed out at the Eu
ropean Union on Tuesday for its drive to
ostracize Austria over his party’s role in
government.
Haider kept up the stream of invec
tive against his opponents — long the
hallmark of a political style that many of
Europeans find offensive.
In an interview with Austrian state
television, Haider called the EU actions
against Austria’s government “childish.”
“Europe made a mistake,” he said.
“You don’t treat a democratic and ex
emplary country this way.”
From his headquarters in Klagenfurt,
where he serves as governor of Carinthia
state, Haider on Tuesday dismissed Eu
ropean economic sanctions as ineffective
and warned the French that they must
learn to deal with the Austrians when
Paris takes over the rotating EU presi
dency in July.
Haider said traditional European politi
cians fear his populist style, including his
critic German Foreign Minister Joschka
Fischer, whom he called “a former RAF
sympathizer,” referring to the under
ground Red Army Faction that terrorized
vjeiiiuuiy in urc ly/us.
Haider’s resignation was dismissed
by critics as a ploy to boost his chances
of leading a future Austrian government.
One after another, major European
countries like Britain, France and Ger
many affirmed that with or without Haider
as party leader, Austria’s isolation would
continue so long as his party remains in
government.
“The problem is not Joeig Haider,
but what his party represents,” Portu
gal’s prime minister, Antonio Guterres,
said Tuesday in Lisbon. Portugal now
holds the EU rotating presidency.
Israeli Foreign Minister David Levy
said Haider’s resignation “does not change
anything for us” because the Freedom
Party remains in the government.
Levy also said Israel wouldn’t return
its ambassador, who was withdrawn Feb.
4 when the new ruling coalition took of
fice.
Haider, who won notoriety for state
ments supporting Waffen SS veterans and
Adolf Hitler’s “orderly” employment
‘The problem is not
Joerg Haider, but what
his party represents.’
Antonio Guterres
prime minister of Portugal
policies, announced his resignation Mon
day in an apparent bid to ease interna
tional criticism of the coalition with
the center-right Austrian People’s Par
ty of Chancellor Wolfgang Schuessel.
Schuessel said Tuesday that Haider,
who held no national government post,
was taking “a personal part in easing the
tensions in the European Union.”
The 14 other EU members down
graded relations with Austria because
of the presence of Haider’s party in the
government. At EU ministerial meetings
Monday, Austrian delegates were pub
licly shunned.
Referring to France’s term as EU pres
ident, Haider said Tuesday that “if the
French want to bring about results,
they should treat Austria decently” be
cause they can’t pass any measures if Aus
tria, which remains an EU member, ex
prrkpc itQ vptn
Vice Chancellor Susanne Riess-Pass
er, who succeeded Haider as Freedom
Party chief, said she would try to con
vince the world that “the prejudices
against the Freedom Party are not justi
fied.”
Also Tuesday, Dieter Boehmdorfer,
a longtime friend of Haider, was sworn
in as new justice minister.
He succeeds a Freedom Party
member, Michael Krueger, who resigned
because of stress. Krueger was hospital
ized over the weekend, the Austria Press
Agency said, without going into specifics.
The president of the European Par
liament, Nicole Fontaine, said time would
tell whether the resignation “is a skillful
political move” or a response to “moral
pressure” from Haider critics at home
and abroad.
Such skepticism was also widespread
within the Austrian political establish
ment, where Haider has played a con
troversial role since assuming leadership
of the Freedom Party in 1986.
Politicians
walk final
mile with
'Granny D'
by Sandra Martinez
Associated Press
Washington — A 90-year-old great
grandmother ended a yearlong, 3,000
mile trek Tuesday at the steps of the Capi
tol, accompanied by three congressional
backers of the campaign finance reform
movement that inspired her journey.
“As long as money is the primary
factor in our election process, the wealthy
and their well-heeled friends will dom
inate the system,” said Doris “Granny
D” Haddock, as she led a demonstration
at the end of the walk she began Jan. 1,
1999, in Los Angeles.
Police arrested 17 people later as
they demonstrated for campaign finance
reform inside the massive Rotunda be
neath the Capitol dome, said Dan Nichols,
spokesman for the Capitol Police.
The protesters chanted and unfurled
banners demanding that elections be fi
nanced from the federal Treasury.
They were charged for demonstrating
inside the Capitol building, a charge pun
ishable by a fine of $500 and six months
in jail.
With the help of three members of
Congress, Haddock climbed the east steps
of the Capitol, from where she chastised
the trio’s colleagues for turning govern
ment “of the people, by the people,
for the people” into a government “by
and for the wealthy elite.”
The trio — Sen. Russ Feingold, D
Wis., and Reps. Christopher Shays, R
Conn., and Marty Meehan, D-Mass.
— said they supported Haddock on the
final leg of her trip because of her ex
traordinary effort to back an issue they’ve
championed for years.
Feingold and Republican presiden
tial candidate Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz.,
are co-sponsors of a campaign finance
bill that has languished after being fili
bustered in the last session.
“This is absolutely amazing,” Fein
gold said. “Every once in a while, some
body or something comes to change an
issue by symbolizing it, and the idea that
this woman would walk across the states
just to pass the McCain-Feingold bill is
a dream come true.”
The House passed a companion bill
last year.
U.S. labels Hussein a 'mad dictator'
by George Gedda
Associated Press
Washington — Calling him a “mad
dictator, ” the State Department said Tues
day that Iraqi President Saddam Hus
sein has been building palaces worth
billions of dollars for himself and his sup
porters while protesting that his country
is being impoverished by U.N. econom
ic sanctions.
In addition, spokesman James Ru
bin said that despite the sanctions, the
Iraqi establishment leaders have been on
a drinking binge, as shown by the ar
rival aboard container sliips of laige quan
tities of whiskey and smaller amounts of
beer and wine.
“The regime in Baghdad is consum
ing more than 10,000 bottles of whiskey,
350,000 cans of beer and 700 bottles of
wine per week,” Rubin said. He based
the estimates on declassified aerial pho
tographs, some of which he displayed at
a briefing.
Alcoholic beverages generally are
sold openly in Iraq at special stores for
private consumption, although apparently
for domestic political reasons, Saddam
banned them a few years ago in hotels
and restaurants.
As for the palaces, Rubin said the
largest and most elaborate compound is
four square miles, in Saddam’s hometown
ofTikrit. In the Baghdad area, there are
five palaces, he said.
‘The important point here is that the regime is
getting drunk while it claims that its people don’t
have enough to eat.’
James Rubin
State Department spokesman
Rubin said Iraq has been financing
such extravagances through the illicit
smuggling of gas and oil outside the oil
for-food program allowed under the sanc
tions by the United Nations.
The smuggling operations, Rubin said,
have “reached the unprecedented level
of 100,000 barrels per day, which puts
more than $25 million into the hands of
Saddam’s regime.”
Rubin used the presentation to counter
critics who maintain that the U.N. sanc
tions are causing widespread suffering by
ordinary Iraqis.
Among critics is Han von Sponeck,
a German who resigned two weeks ago
as chief of the U.N. humanitarian pro
gram in Iraq.
Von Sponeck has criticized the sanc
tions and the oil-for-food program, which
he said doesn’t meet even the most ba
sic needs of Iraq’s 22 million people.
He was responsible for administering
the $10.5 billion program, which al
lows Iraq to sell oil and use the revenues
for humanitarian goods to ease civilian
suffering that has resulted from the sanc
tions.
Rubin expressed weariness about
“hearing that sanctions are responsible
for the problems of the people of Iraq.
It’s the government of Iraq that spends
its scarce resources on these palaces...
and then complains about the rest of
the world causing problems for the peo
ple of Iraq.”
At another point, he said, “The im
portant point here is that the regime is
getting cffunk while it claims that its peo
ple don’t have enough to eat.”
The United Nations has a monitoring
system to enforce the embargo and has
detained 700 suspect vessels over the
years, Rubin said But with smuggling lev
els increasing, he said efforts are being
made to strengthen the system.
He added that Iran has been assist
ing Iraqi violations by allowing vessels
that originate in Iraq to pass through Iran
ian territorial waters. He said the United
States has raised the issue in the U.N.
sanctions committee and will do so again.
Primaries
from page A4
television networks. Bush beat him else
where.
• In Virginia, with all of the districts
reporting, Bush had 350,185 votes, or 53
percent, McCain had 290,779, or 44 per
cent, and Alan Keyes had 20,294 votes,
or 3 percent.
• In North Dakota, with 100 percent
of districts reporting, Bush had 6,865
votes, or 76 percent, McCain had
1,717 votes, or 19 percent, and Keyes
had 481 votes, or 5 percent.
victory in Virginia, and 14 delegates in
North Dakota, giving him a total of 163
compared to McCain’s 100 so far, in
cluding four from North Dakota. Keyes
won one delegate in North Dakota, for a
total of five.
Bush’s victory fit a pattern set in
the early primary fights: McCain wins if
non-Republicans swarm to GOP primaries;
Bush wins if Republicans dominate their
primaries and caucuses.
In New Hampshire and Michigan, the
sites of McCain’s two victories over Bush,
Democrats and independents account
ed for about half the total vote. In
South Carolina and Vnginia, two South
ern conservative states woh by Bush, two
thirds of the vote came from self-iden
Virginia’s results might portend trou
ble for McCain as the campaign heads in
to states like California and New York
that bar or place restrictions on non
Republican voting. In upcoming prima
ry states, Democrats will conduct com
peting elections that could siphon votes
from McCain.
The Arizona senator had hoped to fol
low his victory last week in Michigan
with an upset in Virginia to fuel his mo
mentum headed to March 7 contests, a
“Super Tuesday” of voting that could
shape the contentious campaign. At stake
are 613 GOP delegates, more than half
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