The Orlando Sentinel from Orlando, Florida • Page 8

A-8 The Orlando Sentinel, Sunday, February 5, 1989 Lmi South Africa's anti-apartheid parties unite Crackdown I iarea I 'i'v'j" iVailey a I "I 5l 5 .1 5 Lil Houston police officer Jim Woods, surveying trashed residence in Link Valley, says, 'It NEW YORK TIMES CAPE TOWN, South Africa Three of South Africa's white anti-apartheid parties agreed Saturday to end their fragmentation and form a unified multiracial political party to challenge the governing National Party. The decision was made after months of negotiations and amid speculation that a general election could be held by September. The new group, to be known as the Democratic Party, will bring together the liberal-to-moderate Progressive Federal Party, the more liberal National Democratic Movement and the Independent Party, a group that is more establishment-oriented. The three parties now hold a total of 20 seats in the 178-seat white house of Parliament: There are no blacks among the new group's leaders. The initial goal of the party is to win enough seats at the polls to displace the far-right Conservative Party as the official opposition in Parliament and to deprive the National Party of its parliamentary majority.

The party, which will be formally founded on April 8, at first will be run by a committee consisting of the leaders of the three parties involved. They are Zach J. de Beer, a former executive of the Anglo American Corp. and head of the Progressive Federal Party; Wynand C. Ma-lan, a former National Party legislator who broke away two years ago to form the National Democratic Movement; and Dennis J.

Worrall, former South African Ambassador to Britain, who heads the Independent Party. In 1985, the National Party created a three-house Parliament, allocating separate chambers to the mixed-race and Asian minorities. But population ratios ensure that whites remain numerically dominant. The black majority, 70 percent of the people, is excluded from Parliament. (A Ui f.

JEFF KUNERTHSENTINEL was scary coming out "What happened in Link Valley is an indictment of this city," said Houston Councilman Vince Ryan, who represents some of the neighborhoods surrounding Link Valley. "It's a failure of the city government to address these problems. We've been sitting with our fingers crossed, waiting for the-value of real estate to take care of the problem." If the retaking of Link Valley succeeds in driving out the city's drug trade and replacing it with new development, it will become a model for other drug-plagued areas of Houston, Ryan said. If it doesn't, he added, Houston will try something else. Meanwhile, the drug dealers have moved to other street corners, other parking lots, other vacant buildings.

Houston is waiting to see if, after a month, the pushers fulfill the vow written in spray paint on the wall of one Death Valley apartment house: "Be Back 1 Month." jl? iff i'i West lawlessness. The utility company stopped replacing street lights because the bulbs were constantly being shot out. Police responding to reports of gunshots, drug deals and dead bodies entered Death Valley with guns drawn. "It was scary coming out here," patrolman Woods said. "It wasn't uncommon for there to be a shooting a week." Today the main drive is empty.

The apartment buildings are abandoned, with broken windows and trash-strewn yards. Swimming pools have been filled with dirt. Inside, aluminum window frames, copper plumbing and wiring have been ripped from the walls and sold for scrap. Broken glass litters rain-soaked carpets. In one apartment, a partially dismantled bicycle rests upside down in a bare room.

In another, dozens of pills are scattered over the floor. Barricades Police checkpoints SENTINEL GRAPHIC HOUSTON Prom A-1 squalor, even if it means razing the entire neighborhood. In South Florida recently, residents in several subdivisions erected road barriers to slow down quick-working muggers and burglars. And last year Tampa used seized drug money to finance the bulldozing of more than 60 crack houses throughout the city. Such efforts are dwarfed by that's happening in link Valley, however.

No one's ever tried this before. The unusual crackdown was Sparked by the killing in September of an elderly woman in a nearby neighorhood. Police investigating the killing found the woman's van backed up to one of Link Valley's vacant apartment buildings. Two men were busy unloading her possessions from the vehicle. They were arrested and charged with murder.

As a result of that case, nine civic clubs from surrounding neighborhoods formed the Stella Link Revitalization Coalition. (Stella Link is one of the area's main thoroughfares.) The coalition's goal: level Link Valley and replace it with an office complex, hotel or shopping mall. "Link Valley was a blight in an Otherwise good neighborhood," said George Harris, a coalition leader. "Once one complex went downhill and unlawful activity Started going on, it was just a domino effect through that entire heighborhood." i With the crime had come a Wild Mother Donna (second from FUNERAL From A-1 1 V' Vrvt The coalition, representing 6,000 nearby homeowners, is working with the city to track down the buildings' owners and pressure them either to board up their properties or tear them down. "We want to see the bulldozers running and knocking down those buildings," said Harris, a 33-year-old tax accountant.

"Then we hope to find a developer to come in and buy the whole thing and redevelop the whole area." Nearby residents don't think the apartments can be saved. They prefer razing the structures because the neighborhood, just 10 minutes from downtown Houston, is now prime commercial land likely to attract a developer. One bank has already agreed to demolish an apartment complex it acquired through foreclosure. The city is exploring legal action against other property owners for health- and building-code violations. Building owners who don't fence or board up their buildings ANGELA PETERSONSENTINEL by the end of February could become the target of property liens or lawsuits, city officials say.

In the 1960s, Link Valley was part of suburban Houston. Apartments later left to rats and squatters were once home to medical students, young professionals and athletes. The neighborhood, two miles west of the Astrodome, was ideally located on the then-new interstate beltway that encircles the city. But as Houston sprawled outward, Link Valley's apartment buildings were usurped by newer, nicer complexes. Occupancy rates slipped, and so did rents.

When the oil glut of the mid-1980s knocked the bottom out of Houston's real estate market, foreclosures, bankruptcies and general abandonment finished off Link Valley. The area was surrendered to the drug pushers and vagrants while the city waited for an economic recovery that was slow in coming. fiV I) jj Xncludes shampoo, cut and styling. Regularly $50, with your certificate only $25. You may purchase your certificates on Monday February 6 only.

All will be valid until October 31, 1989. Come in tomorrow and purchase your perm certificates. Offer good with selected stylists at Winter Park only For more information, call Ivey's Hair Salon at 644-8511, ext. 228. Purchase a perm certificate for $25 and receive a Deluxe Perm At 50 Savings At Ivey's Winter Park yFT7 left), grandmother Patricia Armstrong, father Bob grieve.

There were two flower arrangements and a few single roses at Saturday's ceremony. Instead of flowers, Bob Armstrong had asked that donations be made to the Adam Walsh Child Resource Center, 1215 Louisiana Winter Park. The center, named for a child kidnapped from a Hollywood shopping center and later found slain, helps families find missing children and sponsors safety programs. Donations to the center in Bob Armstrong's name will buy a headstone for Regina's grave, said Walsh spokeswoman Lynda Chaires, who had not collected any money as of Saturday. The funeral and burial plot were donated by Wood-lawn Funeral Home, manager Cliff Wilson said.

Orlando police will not close the case until they find Regina's killer, said Lt Randy Scoggins, who heads the investigation. "There's no statute of limitations on first-degree murder," Scoggins said. "We've got people working every day, keeping up to date, reviewing evidence, seeing if we missed anything. We would do anything to find that person." Scoggins said people still call in with leads but not as often as they did when the 6-year-old disappeared. The telephone lines were flooded with thousands of callers at the time.

"With each passing day memories get worse and worse," Scoggins said. "We're going to have to have the help of a witness who was afraid to go forward or somebody that talked to whoever did this." In an attempt to stir up information, police contacted producers of the NBC television show Unsolved Mysteries but have not received a response. Armstrong said Friday that he would like to see the case televised. He plans to call producers Monday morning. Armstrong also awaits an answer to the lawsuit he filed against Oviedo and Seminole County for the handling of his daughter's disputed remains.

Officials have until March to respond. Donna Armstrong said Saturday that she wanted to thank Central Floridians for grieving with her and her family since Regina disappeared. Bob Armstrong agreed. "It got to the point where it wasn't just our daughter. You'd see somebody in the store, and they'd say, 'Is there any word on our It wasn't 'your baby discovery.

In late July 1988, Donna Armstrong identified the faded blue-and-green flowered dress as her daughter's. I Orlando investigators sent the skull to several laboratories to determine if it was Regina's, but analysts said that sun, rain and the length of time it lay in the Oviedo field made identification impossible. The skull was sent back to Orlando, and Regina's death certificate was signed Monday. "That poor skull has been shipped halfway across the state," Bob Armstrong said. "I finally get to put what's left of Regina to rest.

I know Regina's finally jn heaven." There were hugs and kisses but little talking at Saturday's ceremony. Loved ones had said their goodbyes to Regina at a memorial service in August, after investigators told them of the dress and skull. 1 Many expressed hope that this final goodbye could help Bob and Donna Armstrong concentrate on the future. i "Donna, she can go on with her life now," said her mother, Melva Worsham. "She's been through a lot in these last four years." Wendy Mack, a friend of Bob Armstrong's, said, I'm just glad it's over.

After today, he can put it to rest inside himself." The Armstrongs divorced in 1987, with Bob blaming their separation in part on the stress of Regina's disappearance and death. Uncles, aunts, cousins and grandparents paid their tespeets under a green canopy Saturday. One family member who wasn't there was Armstrong's father, iRobert who died in June 1987 of liver disease jcomplicated by diabetes. "He more or less gave up because of Regina," 'Armstrong said. "The day he slipped into a coma, he said, 'Well, son, at least I'll get to see my In the weeks after his father's death, Armstrong" said, he talked to the stars.

"Please bring Regina to 'us," he would ask. Police found the dress and skull soon thereafter, he said. I it was outs..