OCR Text |
Show 17, 1993 Wednesday, February Hidden eosts likely to - With WASHINGTON (AP) Until the S&L crisis forced acclear no but tion benefits four years ago, credit and inprice ample surance loans, guarangovernment tags, programs had little visible tees and insurance programs have impact on the budget. That made more than doubled in face value in them politically enticing, since the a decade. The total stands at about government could bestow benefits without adding to the deficit. $6.8 trillion. The loans and insurance proOnly a fraction of that will be paid out. Most of the guaranteed grams are for home buyers, stuloans will be repaid, little of the dents, farmers, retirees, veterans, insurance will be invoked. But small businesses. The aims are with numbers that high, even a worthy, the constituencies broad, and the programs politically unasfraction is a lot of money. Tne estimate of future losses and sailable. Granting that, the Repubpayments on lending is $99 billion lican administration argued that there should be more budget disto $138 billion; on federal insurbilbillion to $127 ance costs, $80 cipline in dealing with what it called hidden liabilities, to anticilion. Potential expenses like those are pate costs and handle them without among the deficit traps the new crises. That's been done on credit costs administration faces as President Clinton seeks to reduce the habitu- by requiring that they be budgeted, but potential insurance liabilities al imbalance in the budget. er Newspapers The war in Bosnia has focused international horror on the phenomenon of wartime rape as a consequence of war, a calculated tactic of war, an act of ethnic cleansing. News reports tell of women and girls as young as 10 or 12 raped in front of their fathers and mothers, some taken from their homes to camps where they are used repeatedly and then slain, some impregnated and imprisoned to await the births of unwanted children. The victims number in the thousands. How can this be happening on such a scale, in this century, in this particular land? Has humankind not moved beyond e? ' No, not really. Since ancient times, the female body has been used as a weapon with which one group of men attacks another, Susan Brownmiller wrote in "Against Our Will" in 1975. When I rape your woman, the logic goes, I destroy your property. I insult you. I humiliate you. If I rape ALL your women, I defile an entire generation. And if I force your women to bear my children, I pollute your race. Mass rapes were recorded in the battles of ancient Greece and during the Crusades. Rape was an issue during the American Civil War and in Vietnam. When Bangladesh declared its independence from West Pakistan in 1971 , the ensuing carnage included the rape of 200,-00- 0 Bengali women. Historian Cornelius Ryan writes that at the close of World War II a Yugoslavian official complained to Joseph Stalin of rapes by Red Army soldiers. The dictator replied: "Can't you understand it if a soldier who has crossed thousands of kilometers through blood and fire has fun with a woman or takes a trifle?" So what's happening in Bosnia is far from unprecedented. But in a way, it has not been heard of before. That is because never before has wartime rape been so aggressively and immediately reported, say members of the International League for Human Rights, which recently investigated war crimes in the former Yugoslavia for a United Nations commission. In the past, rape in times of war went largely unnoticed, unrecorded and unprosecuted in light of the larger battlefield horror that is death, said Philadelphia lawyer Jerome J. Shestack, chairman of the league. But this time, modern technology has speeded and ensured communication. Human-righinvestigators fax reports; interviews with victims are beamed to the West by satellite; newspapers detail the grisly stories. And these stories, Shestack said, are infuriating women's advocates throughout the developed world. Charlotte Bunch, director of the Center for Women's Global Leadership at Rutgers University in New Brunswick, N.J., said: "We're more conscious of it today because of the women's movement. 'We're more willing to notice that it (rape) is a fundamental ts human-right- s - list: An additional $25 billion for the savings and loan cleanup. Long-tercosts of at least $160 billion to deal with aging and in some cases hazardous nuclear weapons sites; and an additional $24.5 billion to clean up waste pollution at military installations. Escalating expenditures to renew contracts that provide rent subsidies to low income families, estimated to more than double, to $17.1 billion, by late 1997. aren't reflected until there are m claims to be paid out. At House hearings this month, a General Accounting Office expert said $12 billion in underfunding of private pensions poses a threat to the government corporation that guarantees them. So Congress may eventually have to step in to rescue what is supposed to be a program financed by indus ng HEffcAfAl, AtfKWSfc,-m&JS- T fcWpU CM-ROT- issue." Now, Bunch said, women's groups are joining forces with groups to demand that, this time, rape is documented and prosecuted as a war crime. Their new organization, the Ad Hoc Women's Coalition Against War Crimes in the Former Yugoslavia, specifically chose its name to emphasize that rape is forbidden by the Geneva Convention. as a "Rape has always been used and humiliation degradaof form tion as part of the war strategy," Bunch said. "It is not just a consen in a quence of lawlessness region. "But rape has been written out hum- an-rights war-tor- she said. "We must not let that happen again. ' ' During World War II, Japanese soldiers imprisoned thousands of Korean women for the purpose of sexual servitude. Korean historians say there were 70,000 to 200,-00- 0 comfort of these women. "Farm girls were hunted down and kidnapped in the fields, rounded up and taken away in chains," n said Hsien Lee Pan, a historian who has interviewed survivors. "In the cities, the women were lured with promises of manufacturing jobs. All were taken to the front lines to serve the army." An imperial order regulated the use of comfort women, Pan said: Soldiers got 30 minutes each, they had to wear condoms, and women who resisted were to be beaten. Each woman was required to serve 40 men a day "but some survivors reported serving 100 men a Modernization of the air traffic control system is expected to cost $32 billion; the projects involved are far over budget and B5 T -;- IT To WilLfiENO MAK ATTORNEY UPCLO& To B6 QUESTIONS Longer term health care reform would cut costs, but probably not-- in the next four years. The Republican administration " based its budget and deficit projections on defense spending cuts the, GAO said may have been overstat" years behind schedule. That won't be done in a year, or even four. But all of it puts more strain on Clinton's effort to cut the ed. ! deficits that have been increasing Clinton is pledged to reduce desteadily. He had said he would cut fense spending by $60 billion from it by half in one term, but that's out the levels projected by the old adr ; of reach; his goal now is to reduce ministration for the next five! the deficit by about $145 billion by years. his fourth year. But the GAO study said it may; That doesn't leave much room take nearly $100 billion in addi for new programs. The GAO findtional program reductions over the next five years just to stay even ings point to other costs that further narrow the options. with the Bush administration's, Extending health care coverage projections. In addition, the GAQ! to about 35 million Americans who said the earlier defense estimates don't have insurance, a step Clin- didn't include likely cost overruns ; ton favors, would cost an estimatthat could run up an additional $35 ed $12 billion to $30 billion a year. billion by 1997. . A THW WILL TME of history By DIANNA MARDER Knight-Ridd- try premiums. That and other prospective costs have led the GAO to warn the new administration that the deficit is even bigger than it seems at the record $310 billion or more projected for the current budget year. Among the items on the GAO AP Columnist AIL THE - Page bdvs! Clinton's def kit effort ' Thousands of rapes are finally being recognized THE HERALD, Provo, Utah, po we "DO ABOUT FffNOAAV ANDDKU&S7WW AROUND A 7 44 so-call- ed Chinese-America- iNfcraser smpud nanhi&' i m my MLe06OJESTiONS? Social secuKirY? CAMHlliWY MANDie HEALTH CAf?E? "Does wauf t. H&eOK day." '"Comfort women was a term used to make it sound nice," Pan said. far, call for service corps is mute And the term was somehow "accepted" by the world, Bunch said. . "We called their encampments 'brothels,'" she said, "and we ac- By ROBERT L. TURNER Boston Globe Columnist cepted the Japanese explanation that the women in question had willingly become prostitutes. We know now that was not the case." In Bosnia, Bunch said, women also are being rounded up specifically to be used for sex. But women's groups have replaced the word "brothel" with a more accurate term: "rape camp." "'Rape camp' is a good and dramatic term," Bunch said, "but the concept is not new." Early reports of sexual attacks in Bosnia described only Serbs raping Muslims; now, investigators are more careful to note that Serbs, Croats and Muslims may all be guilty. And they point out that early estimates of 20,000 rapes may well have been exaggerated. Stupid or no, the economy comes tonight, when President Clinton describes how he proposes to stimulate the economy and curb the federal deficit simultaneously. And if his wife is better than he at meeting deadlines, a health-car- e proposal will be on the table about program or the service end of the deal. And who knows how many would eventually repay and how many would choose service? A second problem is that huge numbers of appropriate service jobs cannot be created overnight. "You can't overburden the system," Marshall said. In addition, there is considerable sentiment for catching young people earlier, around the time of high school graduation, enlisting them in a year or so of service first (more like the GI Bill) and then rewarding them afterward with money, job training or a voucher for college. . Boston's City Year, which has developed a huge national reputation including Clinton wearing a is one model. City Year irt Questions have been raised about its cost (about $10,000 per youth plus administration) and its capacity to be replicated. Mayl. In between, expect Clinton to an issue push national service that may not be everyone's top priority but that Clinton consistently has put in the same league with the economy and health care. Will Marshall, president of the Progressive Policy Institute, a think-tan- k attached to the Democratic Leadership Council, said in Washington recently that Clinton "is inflamed by this idea." The DLC has pounded the drum "It doesn't matter if the number on this issue for several years, is 20,000 or 17,000 Shestack partly at the urging of Clinton, its said. "There are rapes going on on former chairman. a massive scale, and it is clear that "They're moving fast," Mar. rape is being used as a policy of shall said of Clinton's national ethnic cleansing." service staff, headed by Eli Segal. To argue about who is most "They're getting to the point about to put legislawhere culpable, he said, is to miss the tion they're together." intervenpoint and invite military Already, however, the national tion. "There is a danger that the service network is buzzing with issue of rape will be used as a talk that the Clinton proposal will propaganda tool by the Croatians be substantially different from the tto draw the U.S. into this war," he one he described repeatedly in the said. campaign. It is likely to be far more modThe viciousness of the Balkan 0 war stems from centuries of ethnic est, with a possible target of said. Shestack in that the "The and first not slots, rivalry, past is not behind them. It is constantly year. And it is likely to focus more with them." As the combatants try on service after high school than to disentangle their intertwined after college. This is a big difference from the history, he said, they do not merely want to conquer territory and model described by candidate dominate the people who live Clinton. there; they also want to drive the "Opportunity for all," he said rival ethnic groups out of the land in his announcement speech on and make sure they never come Oct. 3, 1991, "means ... passing a back. In that kind of battle, Shes- domestic GI Bill that would give tack said, rape is an especially every young American the chance to borrov the money necessary to powerful weapon. and ask them to pay it go to "When you are raped in a par- back college either as a small percentage ticular part of the city, you remain of their income over time or fearful of that place," he said. national service as teachthrough "You don't want to go back ers or policemen or nurses or there." child-car- e workers." This basic scheme remained virBrownmiller found a few historical references to orders outlawing tually unchanged throughout the campaign and was repeated at rape in times of war. stop. In A.D. 546, for example, Toti-l- a nearly every There are two essential probthe Ostrogoth, who captured lems with it. One is that no one Rome, forbade his troops to rape knows what it would cost, and the Roman women. In 1385, Richard highest estimates are high indeed. II of England decreed in the ArtiAmeriIf, in truth, "every cles of War that rape was punisha- can" were allowed young to participate, ble by hanging. In 863, during the and half the present college enrollAmerican Civil War, the Union ment of about 5 million signed up, Army introduced the Leiber Code, and if each were given an average which prohibited rape and made it of $5,000 a year toward tuition, punishable by death. that would represent an annual cost Dianna Marder is a staff writer of $12.5 billion, not including administration of the college loan for The Philadelphia Inquirer. . 100,-00- 1 d Seven Peaks Resort Hotel, 101 V.ect ICO .7:30 p.ra. Tuesday, February 1 ih. Prove; Come and enjoy an evening with Princess Cruises and local travel agents. You'll be given information on cruising along the Alaskan shoreline and glaciers this summer. There will be film, fun and door prizes. Sponsored by The Daily Herald FREE ADMISSION, Seating Limited - in rf.. tort S mm m mm m V i- |