The Indianapolis Star from Indianapolis, Indiana • Page 4

A-4 TUESDAY, DECEMBER 24, 1991 -THE INDIANAPOLIS STAR- mm ljj jiw.willl.il,, I mm Wi An ambassador without a country Soviet Union's death jumbles Strauss' job 0 As early as a week ago, Robert Strauss was called the U.S. ambassador to the Soviet Union, but that has all changed. 4 AW. AC? rupted: "There is no Soviet Union." "Well, you can play this game all day long, and that will sort itself out," Fitzwater said. "But the fact is he's in Moscow.

He's there to be our liaison in whatever problems need to be handled to the center, to the republics, to any leaders that we need to have direct discussions with, and he's doing that very effectively." The reporter gave one final try: "You're saying that the legal uncertainty or problem isn't impeding his operations at all?" "No," sighed Fitzwater, "it's not." Strauss "is there to conduct whatever business we need to conduct," he said. "It's as simple as that. "He's working with the government officials there. He talks to Yeltsin, Gorbachev, other leaders. He's maintaining ASSOCIATED PRESS Washington Quick now: Robert Strauss is the U.S.

ambassador to whom? To what? To where? There's some confusion even in the White House. A week ago, there would have been no doubt. Strauss then was called the U.S. ambassador to the Soviet Union. But on Saturday, the Soviet Union became history and was replaced by the Commonwealth of Independent States.

So a reporter asked White House press secretary Marlin Fitzwater, "Who is Strauss ambassador to today?" There was a little nervous coughing. "Well, at the moment, he's ambassador to everybody," Fitzwater said. "All the republic presidents as well as the 3 But, the reporter noted, the United States has not given formal recognition to the Soviet republics. "Nevertheless," Fitzwater said, "he's our ambassador to the Soviet Union, and he's there to The reporter quickly inter Georgia Gamsakhurdia cooperated with the KGB, or former secret police, and recanted on television. Gamsakhurdia first caused an uproar as president when he annulled the autonomy of the region of North Ossetia, where fighting has taken 250 lives in the past year.

He won 86 percent of the vote in the May election but steadily has lost support as he has shut down opposition newspapers, has charged his opponents with conspiring with the CIA and the KGB and has refused to release political prisoners. Andrei the foreign minister of Russia, told reporters that while it was clear there were "growing questions" about the Gamsakhurdia government's human-rights record, the Russians would not interfere. But he did hint that the Russians favored the rebels. "We of course sympathize with those forces guaranteeing the rights of national minorities," Kozyrev said. Representatives for the rebel leaders former Prime Minister Tenglz Sigua and rebel national guard leader Tengiz Kitovani held brief and unsuccessful negotiations with government officials Sunday night during a short halt in the fighting.

But Sigua told the Tass news agency that the government was "in no hurry to end the bloodshed" and that "our demands have not changed. We demand the resignation of President Zviad Gamsakhurdia." Mirab Kvitashivili, Georgia's deputy health minister, said 18 people had been killed and 140 were wounded in the fighting, but Tass said the death count might be as high as 50. The airport is closed. from Page 1 left hundreds injured. Georgia, the only non-Baltic republic not to join the new Commonwealth of Independent States, was one of the Soviet Union's most volatile republics.

For months, Rustavell Avenue in downtown Tbilisi has been a theater of constant demonstrations staged by government supporters, democrats, monarchists and other groups. Gamsakhurdia won local fame in the 1970s as a dissident nationalist, but even then some of the best-known Soviet dissidents, including Andrei Sakha-rov and Lev Kopelev, said they did not trust him. To save himself from a jail term at the time, STAR STAFF PHOTO When the Blackburn children get their gifts for Christmas, the one they don't have to unwrap may be the most meaningful: the gift of U.S. citizenship. Family family plans after today's ceremony, and the fact they might get to watch television a privilege in the Blackburn household.

"It's hard to get across to them what they're getting as citizens," Dan Blackburn says. "Because they've always been JK tm a. twin tewATH. ASSOCIATED PRESS Residents of St Petersburg raise their hands after they were asked Sunday if they favored the resignation of Mayor Anatoly Sobchak. They also were against the demise of the Soviet Union.

Gorbachev Life with 30 kids Several former classrooms house groups of bunk beds. One room is the entertainment center, where the children occasionally watch Christian television programs or tapes of old shows like love Lucy or The Andy Griffith Show. Four or five kids usually can be found roller-skating or skateboarding down the halls. There also are classrooms, where Kathy Blackburn and volunteers teach the 20 youngest kids each day while the eight oldest attend a Christian school In Ellzabethtown. The former principal's office is Dan and Kathy's sitting room, where two children each night spend private time with Mom and The schoolyard is home to several dogs, cats, chickens and sheep.

The old school's basketball court gets constant use in warm weather. On April 4 of this year, Dan and Kathy legally adopted Rosie, Mary, Yvonne, Rebecca, Jemima, Rachel, JoAnna, Cheryl, Lizzie, Marva, Abigail, Jim, Sam, Thomas, Bobbie, Steve, Jeremiah, Aaron, Ben, Matthew, Noah, Thaddeus, Gideon, Jake, Caleb, Mike, Mark and Andy. And this afternoon, completing a saga that sounds more like a movie plot than real life, the children will take the oath of United States citizenship. Lawyers, U.S. waive fees Kathy Blackburn said the family is grateful to federal immigration authorities and private immigration attorneys, who waived $10,000 in fees for the children's citizenship process.

John Klemme, who is in charge of the Indianapolis immigration office, said the Blackburns are the largest family of new citizens ever accepted in Indiana. He said immigration waived its fees because "if (the Blackburns) saw it within their hearts Continued from Page 1 Kathy, son Chuck and the other children fled in the middle of the night to the Dominican Republic. It was Aug. 14, 1987. It would take more than two years before the Blackburns re1 ceived permission to come to the United States.

They spent those years as refugees in the Dominican Republic, at one point seeking shelter with U.S. nuns when armed Haitians came across the border to try to take the children back. Kathy said those years were the family's roughest. Family survives turmoil The Blackburns had left everything behind in Haiti. The only place that would hold the whole family was a former whorehouse filled with bats and just one bathroom.

The Dominicans spoke Spanish, not Haitian Creole, further isolating the family. For a time, Haiti tried to have Dan and Kathy arrested on international kidnapping charges. Looking back, the Blackburns say their faith kept the family together. "The honest truth is that it was God," Dan Blackburn says. "People don't always listen when we say that.

They think it's a cliche, and that's frustrating to us. But that's our message." In 1989, after scores of people cut through mounds of red tape, 'the whole Blackburn family was allowed to come to the United States. Friends in Bartholomew County, where Dan and Kathy grew up, arranged for the family to stay at a Decatur County church camp for three months, In early 1990, the Blackburns moved to North Vernon to the former Sand Creek Elementary School, which had been abandoned after redistrlcting. Kathy Blackburn says the old school is too institutional for her, with its turquoise and yellow cinder block walls and bare concrete hallways. But the rent is only $100 a month and, for now, the family has made it home.

with us, they've always been Americans." The Blackburn family's story has naturally attracted the attention of media from across the country. Kathy Blackburn estimates she's done more than 30 interviews In the past two years. Phil Donahue wants them for his talk show. At today's ceremony, reporters and photographers from The New York Times and Cable News Network will jockey with their peers from around the Midwest for a piece of the story. Dan and Kathy, meanwhile, say they'll worry more about keeping their 28 happy, healthy, rambunctious kids quiet long enough to hear the speeches and take the oaths.

Back to "normal" Then, when the ceremony is over and reporters and friends are gone, the Blackburns will return to their home and their life of educating, feeding and loving their children. And tomorrow, on Christmas Day, the kids will receive presents of clothing and toys. Those gifts, like everything else the family has, were donated by North Vernon-area churches and businesses. The Blackburns have survived a lot, but the future still holds many The family must move when its lease expires in March, and Dan and Kathy don't yet know where they'll go. Church groups and friends have kept the Black-bums well-supplied with food and clothing, but the need always increases.

The family could use a van large enough to transport more people. While others might worry about such things, Kathy Blackburn is serenely confident that God will provide; he always has before. "We think we're rich, even though others think we're poor," she says. "It's really a relative question." gist and the intellectual driving force behind Gorbachev's peres-troika reform movement. The independent Interfax news agency quoted Gorbachev as telling Major he would announce his decision "in the next two days," while Russian Deputy Premier Gennady Burbulis, a close adviser to Yeltsin, said he expected a formal resignation in "days, If not hours." The tone of Gorbachev's conversation with Major, as relayed by his spokesmen to Soviet reporters, indicated he hoped to put the best face possible on his own ouster from power after six years of astonishing change for the Soviet Union and the world.

The Soviet leader initially denounced the Yeltsin-inspired commonwealth as unconstitutional, but gradually changed his attitude as it became clear the new political formulation had the overwhelming backing of former Soviet republics. mally announced later this week, the official said. Soviet television kept open a communications channel all day to the Kremlin in expectation of a resignation statement from Gorbachev after his meeting with Yeltsin. Closed-circuit video monitors showed an empty chair in a Kremlin office with the caption "Statement by the President of the Soviet Union," but the screens eventually went blank when it became clear the formal transfer of power would not take place Monday. A Soviet television official said he understood that Gorbachev would read a prepared statement after which he would answer a few questions from the director of Soviet television and a CNN correspondent.

The 60-year-old Soviet leader was reported to have worked on the statement with longtime adviser Alexander Yakovlev, the former Communist Party ideolo- Continued from Page 1 night the United States will extend diplomatic recognition to Russia as an independent country this week and support it for' the Soviet Union's seat on the United Nations Security Council. The United States will also recognize the independence of the other former Soviet republics that have broken away from the Soviet Union and formed a new Commonwealth of Independent States, the official said. But it will establish full diplomatic relations with only about half of them at this juncture, the official said. The United States began notifying its allies in Europe and elsewhere Monday of the diplomatic moves, which will be for Topless A third dancer agreed Monday to pay for her surgery. In the last five years, Roger Summers, manager of Brad's Gold Club, said the owner has paid for breast surgeries for about 40 dancers but decided to stop offering that several months ago.

"It was a good idea, but It's more headaches and hassle than it's worth now," he said. to adopt 28 children, we wanted to do what we could to help them." Dan Blackburn said he and Kathy have tried to explain the significance of citizenship to the children. But frankly, he said, some of the younger ones are more excited about the party the 1 nate their contracts with the owner within a year, the contracts state they have to pay for the surgery. But attorneys for the women successfully argued in court Monday that Hirst hasn't suffered irreparable harm or injuries due to the women's employment, so the restrictions over their work aren't enforceable. David L.

Martenet, attorney representing Bowman, told the Judge that Hirst's attorney had not shown the Gold Club Is losing money because the women aren't dancing there or that the women are luring customers away. If the women are obligated to pay for the surgery, then Hirst's remedy is to get court judgments against them, Martenet said. The Hamilton County Court, where Hirst filed a lawsuit, already has ruled that Fry must pay for her surgery. On Feb. 20, Commissioner 20-70 I I 31 lu nnsssaj in vawpa llMil Sale Starts Tues.

Dec. 24th 9-6, Wed. cioiod 1 Sat. 9-9, Sun. 12-5 I Continued from Page 1 cause scar tissue has built up in one breast.

Fry said she is having similar problems with both her breasts. "Every day, the pain gets worse and worse, and it (breast) gets harder and harder. It's like a rock," said Bowman. The dancers underwent breast augmentation surgery while employed by the Westside club, under contracts with Hirst, owner and president of 3551 Lafayette Road also known as the BDH Entertainment Corp. Hirst agreed to pay $3,285 each for the surgeries performed last summer on Bowman and Fry.

He owns Brad's Gold Club, 3551 Lafayette Road, and Brad's Brass Flamingo, 4011 Southeastern Avenue. Both feature topless dancers. In return, the contracts stated the women could not dance at show clubs in Marlon County or seven surrounding counties for two (ears. If they jeave or termi I while 10 last Sony Boom Box Mega Bass AMFM Tuner Auto Reverse Cassette Deck Remote Control Multi-Function CD Player Cook will consider a permanent restraining order against their dancing elsewhere and whether the two dancers must pay damages to Hirst. Parking Available Satiifaction GuarantMd or your monoy back Sean.

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