Arizona Daily Star from Tucson, Arizona • Page 1

14 column jH fe; Information for snowbirds 1J Accent, Page ID fP7 Female Warrior QrykJ Girl joins Pueblo wrestlers li Sports, Page 1C mrSfaf 1 992 The Arizona Daily Star Rnal Edition, Tucson, Tuesday, December 15, 1992 Vol. 151 No. 350 35 U.S.50 In Mexico 50 Pages Watson knew It was against regulations to replace spent ammunition from his rifle with loose rounds he had saved from target practice. In a separate incident, agents did not report an alleged gunshot wound suffered by an illegal alien who said he had been shot by agents. Agent Gilbert Lopez testified that he recorded the wound as "scratches from a barbed-wire fence." During his testimony, Lopez said he could not remember the incident.

"My worst fears have been confirmed In broad daylight," said Arnoldo Garcia, of the National Network for Immigrant and Refugee Rights. The National Network and other advo cate groups for Immigrant rights are monitoring the trial. Border Patrol spokesman Steve McDonald refused to comment on the testimony or any other aspect of the trial, saying he be- lieves a Judge's warning to attorneys not to talk to the press also applies to his agency. Garcia said his organization regularly reviews Border Patrol rules and makes recommendations when the U.S. attorney general asks for public comment before putting them into practice.

However, all of that means very little if those rules are not followed, he said. "People all over the country have gone to the trouble of commenting on these rules," See PATROL, Page3A outnumber agents and have better firepower, he said. But another agent, Frank D. Gunter, said firing warning shots Is dangerous because it can put agents who can only hear the shots "in the wrong frame of mind" if they don't know where the shots are coming from. According to Border Patrol rules, Watson should have reported the shots before he went off duty, and other agents who testified to hearing them should also have reported them.

In other testimony, Jurors learned: Agents knew it was against regulations for Elmer to use a personal semiautomatic rifle he borrowed from Watson on the Job, but no one reported It the incident 15 hours later. Watson, the prosecution's key witness, told prosecutors last week that he fired warning shots when be and Elmer confronted three suspected drug scouts the night Dario Miranda Valenzuela, Elmer's alleged victim, was killed. Watson said agents regularly use warning shots when they encounter "mules" aliens smuggling drugs In backpacks. "It's the easiest and safest way to get them to drop their load," he said. "Usually, it's just you and your partner.

You don't Just go up to them and say, 'Can I take your load from Such a method avoids a dangerous confrontation with drug smugglers who usually By Tessle Borden The Arizona Dally Star The U.S. Border Patrol's image of by-the-book professionalism is cracking under the weight of testimony in the first-degree murder trial of U.S. Border Patrol Agent Michael Andrew Elmer. Border Patrol agents testifying as witnesses for the prosecution and the defense admit on the stand that they have ignored their own rules that forbid warning shots and require them to report when weapons are fired. Elmer is accused of shooting an unarmed Mexican alien in the back the evening of June 12 during a drug stakeout west of No-gales.

His partner, Tom Watson, reported i A erf i PC a it A SK Camarena case doctor is acquitted Was kidnapped by U.S. for trial in agent's death By Seth Mydans (O 1992 The New York Times LOS ANGELES A federal judge yesterday acquitted a Mexican doctor who was kidnapped from his country in 1990 to stand trial here In the torture and murder of a U.S. drug agent. Judge Edward Rafeedle of U.S. District Court said the evidence against Dr.

Humberto Alvarez Machain, presented during two weeks of testimony, was based on "hunches" and the "wildest speculation" and failed to support the charges that he had participated in the torture of the drug agent, Enrique Camarena Salazar. Alvarez hoped to fly home to Guadalajara immediately, ending an episode that has aroused fury in Mexico over what many In that country see as bullying by the United States. But he remained in prison last night while the government appealed the acquittal and sought to keep him from leaving the country. The case has strained U.S.-MexIcan relations at a time of negotiations over a new trade agreement and caused anger in other nations over the United States' self-proclaimed right to seize their citizens at will. The Camarena case also offered a glimpse of the high reach of the drug trade In Mexican society.

One of those indicted was the brother-in-law of a former president; another, a former head of the federal investigations police. And prosecution witnesses testified that other ranking Mexican officials were present when Camarena was tortured. Alvarez, a gynecologist, was accused of helping to revive Camarena during his torture in February 1985 so his interrogation could proceed. But the government failed to produce witnesses who actually saw the doctor inject Camarena with the pain reliever Lidocaine, as prosecutors contended. Last June, the U.S.

Supreme Court upheld the right of the government to arrest foreigners abroad without following procedures set out In extradition treaties. That ruling caused outrage not only In Mexico but also in other nations. In Mexico, Alvarez's abduction, and the high court's ruling, came to symbolize what many people see as an arrogant and unbridled exercise of American power. "What right does one country have to kidnap a Mexican?" Sergio Aguayo, a political scientist In Mexico City, asked yesterday. Mexican officials said they would continue with the new administration in Washington to try Hard-liners win in fight with Yeltsin Congress elects centrist to post of prime minister By Fen Montaigne Knlght-Rldder Newspapers MOSCOW Finally succumbing to two weeks of relentless pressure from conservative Russian lawmakers, President Boris N.

Yeltsin yesterday dropped radical reformer Yegor T. Gaidar and named a centrist, former Communist Party apparatchik as prime minister. The appointment of Viktor S. Chernomyrdin, overwhelmingly approved by the Congress of People's Deputies, signals the end of Russia's halting, yearlong experiment with economic shock therapy. Russia will undoubtedly take a more gradual route to a market economy now, but Just how much the ouster of Gaidar as acting prime minister will slow Russia's reforms remains unclear.

Many of Yeltsin's most ardent, reformist supporters at the Congress said Yeltsin had "betrayed" their cause and fatally weakened himself by dropping Gaidar. They announced that they would formally go into opposition to Yeltsin, further isolating the already beleaguered Russian leader. Centrists and some hard-liners applauded Yeltsin's move, saying the 54-year-old Chernomyrdin who had been serving as deputy prime minister for energy would follow a more cautious, reasoned reform path that would slow Russia's precipitous decline in living standards and Industrial production. Yeltsin finally bowed to a growing conservative attack against his reforms, and has undoubtedly lost ground in his power struggle with the Congress and its chairman, Rus-lan I. Khasbulatov.

But the Russian president has succeeded in bringing one of the Congress' favorite sons into the government, thereby making the legislature. partly responsible for the painful economic reforms. Gaidar announced that he would not serve in Chernomyrdin's government even though he had "great re-See RUSSIA, Page 2A The Associated Press Bullets for peace Guerrillas from El Salvador's Farabundo Marti National 75,000 lives, Is to end officially today, nearly a year after Liberation Front fire their weapons Into the air to use up both sides signed a U.N.-brokered peace agreement It calls ammunition before turning In their weapons. The 12-year for a reduction of the military, and an overhaul of the Justice war between the rebels and the government, which claimed and electoral systems. Somali looters sack inland town as more die fore fleeing the compound, he said.

The mounting friction between the U.S. military and aid workers who want the relief operation to move faster and do more came as President Bush told his top commanders at a meeting yesterday that their mission has not changed. The mission: Secure the east African nation's major ports and airfields for the delivery of food and other aid, then escort It under guard to the starving. U.N. Secretary-General Boutros Boutros-Ghali and most aid workers in Somalia would like the U.S.-led coalition to disarm Somali factions and help rebuild roads, wells and waterworks.

Boutros-Ghall said yesterday in New See SOMALIA, Page 2A patient," said Mullock, of Cape May, NJ. "There Is no reason they could not be here. With 200 men, you could walk over this town." By midweek, a U.S. convoy is expected to roll into Baidoa, a town that Is home to 80,000 people tens of thousands of them refugees 125 miles northwest of Mogadishu, the Somali capital. At the Islamic Orphanage, where 610 children in his care study the Koran while regaining their strength, Abdl Nur All yanked at a visitor's shirt as he raged against ragtag bands on golng-out-of-busl-ness looting sprees.

"They're too late, the Marines," he said. "Too late." Looters murdered a guard on Sunday be- By Mort Rosenblum The Associated Press BAIDOA, Somalia Hope slid Into hostility yesterday In this frontier town of Somalia's famine, as looters made their last grabs and more starving children died while Bai-doa waited for the Marines to land. Baidoa's dally death toll, which had dipped below 50 last week from Its high point of about 300, has climbed to about 100 a day since the Marines landed in Somalia last week, relief workers said. Robert Mullock, an American volunteer, said the growing violence has forced workers to evacuate relief centers, leaving desperately sick children without daily care. He spoke bitterly of the U.S.

military. "It's as though they pulled the plug on a See CAMARENA, Page3A WEATHER Speakers at seminar warn Clinton that U.S. economy may get worse Sunny, but chilly. This morning is expected to be sunny, with increasing cloudiness this afternoon. Look for a high near 55 and an overnight low in the mid-30s.

There is a 10 percent chance of showers tonight Yesterday's high was 54, and the low was 30. Details are on Page 13A. INDEX By David E. Rosenbaum 1992 The New York Times LITTLE ROCK, Ark. President-elect Bill Clinton led an elaborate daylong seminar yesterday in which some of the nation's most prominent economists and business executives presented the case that the VS.

economy Is badly crippled and in danger of becoming much worse. Before more than 300 invited guests and a national television audience, Clinton showed himself once again to have mastered some of the most arcane aspects of government policy and to be conversant with the kinds of complicated economic Issues often confined to graduate school classrooms. Hour after hour, he sat in a swivel chair at the head of a large oval arrangement of tables at the downtown convention center In Little Rock, taking notes, asking questions and offer-lag his views about topics ranging from the declining military industry to rising health costs, from public works projects at home to International trade policy. When the discussion began to drift, the president-elect brought It back to the point he Accent 14D Homeepe 4D Bridge 4D Monej UIC Classified HID Obtturie ID Comlci ID Public ID Comment 14-1SA Sports 1-5C Crosswerd 1ID DearAbby JD TV-ndle 7D The conference Is a dream come true for Clinton the policy fanatic. Page 6C.

seemed most determined to drive home: recent encouraging statistics indicating that the economy Is beginning to rebound should not blind the country to the need for fundamental changes so that the country can prosper over the long hauL "As we address short-term business cycle issues, we must never forget that the most profound problems of our economy are longer-term and Clinton said. "Many of the problems did not develop overnight We cannot expect to solve them overnight" No new substantive ground was broken either in terms of the problems or of Clinton's positions. The grim statistics the economists provided about the slow rate of economic growth, the staggering deficit, rising health costs and other problems are familiar to economists and politicians and were staples of this See SEMINAR, Page 2A Ed Compean, The Arizona Dally Star felt athletic shoes, also delivered yesterday, were confiscated by U.S. Customs agents at the Nogales, and Laredo border crossings. They will be given to charities after trademarks are removed by Klwanls Club members.

Air National Guard Staff Sgt. BUI Kellman unloads one of 27 boxes of counterfeit Levi's from a C-26 plane flown to Tucson International Airport from Laredo, Texas. The pairs of jeans and about 7,000 pairs of counter- 50136''00001.