Workers across the country are demanding payment of back wages. Power workers, who have not been paid since April, walked out in mid-September, shutting off electricity in cities on the Pacific coast to less than 12 hours per day. Russian army in disarray
Government officials in Moscow announced October 4 that ailing Russian president Boris Yeltsin fired six generals to cut costs of the cash-strapped military and remove commanders who oppose reductions. Declaring a crisis in Russia's 1.5- million-strong military force, Gen. Igor Rodionov said at an October 1 news conference, "The army will stop performing its direct duties" if months of back wages are not paid. "The defense ministry cannot guarantee that no undesirable and uncontrollable processes will develop in the armed forces."

According to an article in the October 2 New York Times, talks of strikes and protests in the Russian army are widespread. "Humiliated by a guerrilla army in Chechnya, the armed forces have become a breeding ground for deep disillusionment," the article said. 5,000 U.S. GIs going to Bosnia
U.S. defense department spokesperson Kenneth Bacon announced October 1 that Washington is sending a new contingent of 5,000 troops to Bosnia within a few days. Defense Secretary William Perry and the Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. John Shalikashvili told a Senate panel on October 4 that the contingent is being deployed for a six-month tour, supposedly to assist in the withdrawal of the 15,000 U.S. troops already there. At the same time, Perry acknowledged that at least 7,500 GIs will remain in Bosnia until mid-March, months beyond the withdrawal scheduled for the end of this year. Perry dismissed charges from Republican leaders that the Clinton administration was delaying a decision to deploy more U.S. soldiers until after the November presidential election. State Department consultant Richard Holbrooke, Washington's former chief Bosnia negotiator, justified maintaining the U.S.-led occupation force. "No responsible person can contemplate going from 60,000 troops down to zero," he said. "Some form of residual security presence is necessary." Turkey's Erbakan visits Libya
Necmettin Erbakan, Turkey's prime minister, traveled to Libya October 4, ostensibly to collect some $320 million Tripoli owes Turkish contractors. U.S. officials expressed disapproval of Erbakan's visit. At Washington's urging, the United Nations Security Council has imposed an air travel ban and other sanctions on Libya since 1992. "Libya is a pariah state and ought to be treated like a pariah state," declared U.S. state department spokesperson Nicholas Burns. "When other countries, especially friends of the United States like Turkey, consider normalizing [ties with] Libya, of course we have some concerns." Erbakan flew to Tunisia to avoid breaking the UN ban, and drove from there. "We've always opposed such unjust embargoes imposed against our brotherly country, Libya," Erbakan said as he arrived in Tripoli. Thousands protest in Bolivia
The Bolivian Labor Confederation organized a strike October 3 that shut down factories, public schools, and some public hospitals. The same day, cops attacked a protest of thousands of workers and Indian farmers who marched in the country's capital La Paz, demanding land reform and opposing the government's economic policies. Several people were injured in the assault. The police arrested several protesters.

The demonstration supported the demands of more than 20,000 peasants who have marched into La Paz to demand land reform. Workers and peasants have been protesting in La Paz since September 26 against the government's pension law and the sale of the state-owned oil company. Racist cop pleads no contest
On October 2, Mark Fuhrman, the former Los Angeles police detective, pleaded no contest in court to one count of perjury for lying at the O.J. Simpson trial about his use of a racial slur. The plea was part of an agreement with the state attorney general's office in which Fuhrman received three years of probation and a $200 fine.

Fuhrman had lied in the trial when he denied referring to Blacks as "niggers" in the previous 10 years. One witness in the trial, Cynthia McKinney, said she spent hours taping interviews with the cop as research for a script, which revealed that Fuhrman used the racist epithet at least 41 times while bragging of brutalizing and apparently killing Black suspects. Fuhrman said on one tape that he enjoyed lining up "niggers against the wall and shooting them." Clinton signs child payment law
U.S. president William Clinton signed an executive order September 28 mandating government agencies to deny loans to parents who owe child support payments, regardless of their ability to pay. The president boasted his administration has withheld $1 billion from tax refunds from people delinquent in the payments. The order also stipulates that federal agencies must deny loans for education, agriculture, housing, and small businesses to those who owe child support. Child suspended for sex abuse
DéAndre Dearinge, a seven-year-old Black student in Queens, New York, missed three days of school after being suspended for sexual harassment. The school's principal Gerri Perriott sent the boy home September 27 on a five-day suspension after Dearinge kissed and tore a button from the skirt of a classmate. "Sexual harassment is too harsh a charge for an elementary school child," said Erica White, the boy's mother, who successfully fought to have the decision reversed and removed from his record. S. African commission to subpoena ex-apartheid minister
Alex Boraine, deputy chairman of South Africa's 17-member Truth Commission, announced October 3 that the panel would issue a subpoena for Adriaan Vlok to testify about the torture and killing of anti-apartheid activists. Vlok was law-and-order minister in the racist regime from 1986 to 1991, until the exposure of secret government payments to the Inkatha Freedom Party.

Former South African president F.W. de Klerk, head of state from 1989 until 1994, when the apartheid government was removed from office, stated opposition to the commission's plans to subpoena Vlok. Eugene de Kock, commander of a police death squad unit, testified September 18 that de Klerk ordered an attack on the Transkei "homeland" in 1993. Five youth were murdered in that assault. During his trial, De Kock revealed how police units routinely killed and tortured opponents of the apartheid regime with the knowledge and complicity of top government officials.

- MAURICE WILLIAMS  
 
 
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