The Los Angeles Times from Los Angeles, California • Page 123

LOS ANGELES TIMES WEDNESDAY, FEBRUARY 28, 2001 AS National Perspective Clinton's Korea Deal a Test for Bush Jim Mann In St. Louis, Dead Are Causing Lively Debate With Their Votes INTERNATIONAL OUTLOOK ASHINGTON The Bush administration is about to face the first real test of its Asia policy namely, what to AO Agence France-Presse Despite the thaw between South Korean President Kim Dae Jung, left, and North Korean President Kim Jong II, problems could be brewing for Bush team. blatant," said James Buford, president of the Urban League of Metro St Louis. "I don't see any of them taking that kind of risk or being that stupid." Which leads to the third possibility: la-" ziness. Democrats have been conducting a registration drive unaffiliated with any candidate.

Some workers may have found" it easier to fabricate cards using old phone" books than to walk door-to-door seeking -real voters. A grand jury is investigating the fake-card fiasco and considering criminal charges. Meanwhile, election officials have been working seven days a week to' figure out who is eligible to vote Tuesday. The chaos only amplifies an already tense atmosphere that has lingered since'. November's presidential election.

Democrats maintain that the election board disenfranchised countless voters, mainly African Americans, by unfairly striking them from the active-voter list. (The board says it only removed people who had failed to notify them of a new; address.) They further contend that polling places in many black neighborhoods were so crowded that many voters left rather than wait hours. To Republicans, the trouble was not that too few people could vote, but that too many could. Judges permitted at least 135 unregis- tered voters to cast ballots based on' written affidavits declaring such reasons as: "I want a Dem. president," or "Found out about Gore from my mother." And as many as 100 voters cast ballots after the polls were supposed to close.

The lawsuit that won extended voting hours was filed on behalf of a Robert D. Odom. It indicated that he "has not been able to vote and fears he will not be able to vote" because of crowding at his polling place. It later emerged that Odom had died a year earlier. The lawyer who filed the suit explained the mix-up by saying he had intended the plaintiff to I be Robert M.

"Mark" Odom, an aide to a Democratic candidate for Congress. Yet that Odom had voted, without a wait, by the time the suit was filed. Citing such screw-ups, Republicans re- cently filed a 250-page report with the U.S. attorney, accusing Democrats of "an organized effort to commit vote fraud." Local prosecutors plan to send 22 ob-, servers to the polls Tuesday. The secre-; tary of state and his staff will be here -too.

With their help, Buford said, "I think we can have a clean election." By STEPHANIE SIMON TIMES STAFF WRITER ST. LOUIS The dearly departed seem to have quite a constituency around here. At least three dead aldermen registered to vote in Tuesday's mayoral primary. So did one alderman's deceased mother. And a dead man was listed as the chief plaintiff in a lawsuit filed on election day in November.

He was having trouble voting, the suit said, due to long lines at his polling station. So he petitioned a judge successfully to keep city ballot boxes open late. Over at the dingy county election board headquarters, harried staffers now are reviewing thousands of registration cards and finding ever more curiosities: addresses that turn out to be vacant lots, civic leaders double-registered at bogus addresses, convicted felons illegally seeking ballots and, always, more deceased voters. "We find more every day," said election director Kevin Coan. Not surprisingly, accusations of fraud are flying.

And so are calls for top-to-bottom reform. "Our election system in St. Louis is like Ft. Knox without locks on it," said Alderman James Shrewsbury, whose mother was posthumously registered. "There needs to be a housecleaning." The most urgent mop-up job concerns 3,800 registration cards dropped off just before the deadline to vote in the primary.

Election workers became suspicious when they found the name of Albert "Red" Villa, an alderman who died in 1990, on one card. At least a third of the registrations turned out to be fraudulent, Coan said. The question, of course, is who submitted them and why. The skulduggery scenario runs like this: One of the mayoral campaigns cooked up the phony registrations to steal the election. (Campaign workers could do this by requesting absentee ballots for the fake voters and marking them for their man.) An even more sinister suggestion: The cards could be a dirty trick, planted by one candidate to make it look as though a rival were gearing up to rig the vote.

Some of the candidates have dropped hints that such a conspiracy would not be beyond their foes. But political observers find it hard to believe any contender would stoop to such clumsy fraud. "It's so do about North Korea. The question, in a nutshell, is whether President Bush's new team will simply sign on promptly to what the Clinton administration has worked out with North Korea, or whether it will seek to put its own stamp on policy and take a tougher, more deliberate approach. South Korean President Kim Dae Jung is coming to Washington next week to meet with Bush.

His task will be to try to lock Bush in quickly and tightly to President Clinton's policies. Specifically, Kim will push Bush to reaffirm Clinton's trouble-plagued 1994 deal to build nuclear reactors in North Korea in exchange for a freeze in its nuclear weapon program. And he wants the Bush team to complete a proposed deal Clinton nearly worked out late last year that would halt North Korea's missile program. Kim is the revered winner of last year's Nobel Peace Prize and the architect of South Korea's "sunshine" policies toward North Korea. However, some less-exalted motivations also underlie his Washington trip.

One is political. At the moment, Kim is not nearly as popular at home as he is abroad. The South Korean economy is floundering, and the opposition party is gaining strength. Another factor is commercial. Under the 1994 deal, South Korean firms have landed most of the contracts to supply North Korea with nuclear reactors.

Kim and his government fervently oppose any suggestion that this part of the agreement should be changed, even in ways that might make sense for North Korea. For its part, North Korea is even more eager than the South for the Bush administration to sign onto Clinton's policies. Last week, North Korea denounced the Bush team's "hard-line stance" and warned that it might have to resume test-firing long-range missiles. Amid all this maneuvering, the Bush team seems unperturbed. Administration officials scoffed at the renewed North Korean missile threat.

So-far, the administration has given 'few signs of its intentions. But in private conversations, the outlines of its Korea policy are emerging. On the one hand, the Bush team seems eager to slow the pace of the Clinton rapprochement with North Korea. Last year, some Bush officials believe, Clinton was in too great a rush for a missile deal with North Korea. The new administration is willing to finish the missile negotiations, but only when it can nail down the verification procedures guaranteeing that North Korea's missile program has ended.

On the other hand, the Bush team isn't talking about dramatic reversals of Clinton's Korea policy either. So far, at least, the differences on Korea between Bush and Clinton seem to be ones of timing and style, not substance. Secretary of State Colin L. Powell already has told two top South Korean visitors, Foreign Minister Lee Joung Binn and intelligence chief Lim Dong Won, that the administration does not intend to disrupt Kim's sunshine policy. The biggest uncertainty is what the Bush administration will do about Clinton's nuclear deal.

In 1994, the United States agreed to arrange for two civilian nuclear reactors for North Korea, with money coming from Japan and South Korea. In addition, the U.S. agreed to pay for heavy fuel oil for other North Korean energy needs. A series of snafus has plagued the agreement in recent months. General Electric, which was supposed to supply the turbines, withdrew because it was unable to solve the problem of legal liability for accidents.

Rising prices have made the American contributions of heavy fuel oil increasingly expensive. Moreover, it's not clear the 1994 deal can ever be completed. The agreement says the reactors can't be shipped until North Korea submits to inspections of its nuclear facilities, and there is no sign it is willing to go along with these inspections. Late last year, the Clinton administration briefly and quietly explored the idea of revising the 1994 agreement so that North Korea would be given conventional power equipment rather than nuclear reactors. But South Korea rebuffed the overtures.

Now, the Bush administration also acknowledges in private that a change in the 1994 deal might make sense: North Korea would get more energy supplies if it opted for conventional rather than nuclear power. Yet administration officials also make plain that they consider Clinton's 1994 agreement a done deal, and they won't try to alter it unless North Korea is willing. It appears that the new foreign-policy team doesn't want to spend the time, energy and diplomatic capital that would be required to bring about a radically new North Korea policy. The Bush team has other problems and other priorities: missile defense, Iraq, peace in the Middle East and, of course, domestic initiatives such as tax cuts. On policy toward North Korea, the new administration seems to live according to that old adage: If it ain't broke, don't fix it.

It may eventually find, however, that Clinton's deal is beyond repair. Jim Mann's column appears in this space every Wednesday. Bush Declines Colombia's Request That U.S. Join Talks HOW NOWtuc nb BEAUTY EVENT NOW THROUGH MARCH 4 I 1 I I'- I 'i I ii I -j Hill iiiril'iiiiin imniriiiliiimti i mt 'I a courageous leader who's dealing with very difficult problems." Aides to both presidents said Pastrana updated Bush on the implementation of "Plan Colombia," a package of military and social aid approved by Congress last year to help the Colombian government combat drug traffickers. Bush also pledged to work to lessen U.S.

demand for narcotics. Experts believe that 90 of all cocaine that Americans consume comes from Colombia. Bush told reporters: "I explained to the president that we're fully aware of the narcotics that are manufactured in his country. But I also told him that many of them wouldn't be manufactured if our nation didn't use them. And we've got to work together to not only help Colombia but help our own country." Pastrana made a strong and evidently persuasive case to Bush that Colombia should receive the same tariff reductions given to Caribbean and Central American nations under an accord reached last year.

Colombia, which has a 20 unemployment rate, the highest in Latin America, wasn't part of that trade pact. Instead, Colombia is a beneficiary of the 1991 Andean Trade Preferences Act, which does not cover textiles and apparel two vital Colombian exports. Referring to Pastrana's argument for expanding the Andean trade pact, which was agreed to during the first Bush administration, the president said: "The president made a very strong case for broadening the trade agreement. I will bring up the matter with U.S. Trade Representative Robert B.

Zoellick." Pastrana is the second Latin South America: Meeting with Pastrana, president holds to policy of not dealing with rebels. But he does pledge to try to expand trade with war-torn nation. By EDWIN CHEN TIMES STAFF WRITER WASHINGTON-President Bush on Tuesday rejected a plea from Colombian President Andres Pastrana for the United States to join the peace talks that his government is holding with Marxist guerrillas. But in their 45-minute meeting, Bush also vowed to work with Congress to expand trade with Colombia as a way to stimulate lawful commerce in that beleaguered nation. A spokesman for Pastrana said afterward that the Colombian president was thrilled by Bush's offer to increase trade.

As for the peace talks, Bush told reporters that he turned Pastrana down on U.S. involvement in the negotiations because he considers the country's conflict a domestic issue. "This is an issue that the Colombian people and the Colombian president can deal with," Bush said during an Oval Office photo session with Pastrana. "We'll be glad to help Colombia in any way to make the peace," he added. "We'll be glad to help the Colombian economy through trade.

But I won't be present for the discussions." Bush's words were consistent with a long-standing U.S. policy of not dealing with insurgents, but his unequivocal refusal was a blow to the Colombian president, i Pastrana had suggested a U.S. role not as negotiator but as observermost recently during a meeting with American reporters here Monday. Pastrana en. led a four-day visit to the U.S.

after his meeting with Bush. Pastrana like Bush the son of a former president and rebel leaders agreed this montn to resume stalled peace talks aimed at ending four decades of guerrilla warfare in the South American nation. Although he rejected Pastrana's request, Bush praised the Colombian, saying: "President Pastrana is HOW BEAUTIFUL All the makeup in the world won't do you a bit of good unless you know what to do with it which brings us to the Beauty Event. There you'll find the coolest cosmetics, antiaging treatments, fragrances, and indulgences for your bath and body. Plus, the best consultants in the business are ready to show you just how gorgeous you can be.

HOW TO Just purchase 75.00 or more of cosmetics or fragrances, and you'll receive a signature tote bag American leader whom Bush has i met in 11 days, part of a busy stretch of personal diplomacy for I Bush even as he prepared to submit his first budget to Congress and be- I gin campaigning for his tax cut. In the next six weeks, Bush will host Salvadoran President Francisco Flores, NATO Secretary-General George Robertson, German Chancellor Gerhard Schroe-der, Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak and King Abdullah II of Jordan. with samples of our six hot picks for spring: Bobbi Brown full-size Shimmer Wash Eye Shadow, Sisley Paris Emulsion Ecologique .5 ounce, Rouge Hermes Fragrance 2 ml, Natura Bisse Diamond Cream .5 ounce, Darphin Denblan Toothpaste 7 ml, and Fresh Soy Face Cleanser Makeup Remover 2 ounce. Visit each participating counter for additional offers. How wow! One per customer, please, while supplies last, in Cosmetics.

BEVERLY HILLS 310.550.5900 NEWPORT BEACH 949.759.1900 SAN DIEGO 619.692.9100 NEIMANMARCUS.COM A.