Hartford Courant du lieu suivant : Hartford, Connecticut • Page 89

cammed 1 Editorial pages Local sports More Connecticut news Obituaries Weather 1 C8, C9 Section C6, C7 C6 CIO East Hartford C4 Hartford CI, C3 New Britain C3, C4 Newington C3 Rocky Hill C3 West Hartford C4 Wethersfield C3 Coming events C2 Legal notices D12 i. Newington Police have a suspect in each of this year's five convenience-store robberies, including the latest this weekend. Page C3 Rocky Hill Some Cromwell Avenue businesses fear relaxing zoning restrictions would put them out on the street. Page C3 Statewide A Yale University student is named Miss Black Connecticut 1992. Page C5 West Hartford The town manager says his budget; Droposal won't increase spending -f Wethersfield 5 The town will look for a better deal" on medical insurance after learning a big increase.

Page C3 Local editorial Rabies is spreading in and the public and enforcers of animat laws should take heed. Page C8 East Hartford A cellular telephone tower rises up after the town sues to stop it, but doesn't seek a stay. Page C4 Hartford A report says the city's parks are a mess and recommends opening them up to more passive uses. Page C3 New Britain The man behind "Tony Brown's Journal" will talk about minority political activism tonight Page C3 Every Monday MEETING SCHEDULES In this section iState pits' LatmEiiigs Street violence, recruiting broke investigators' silence 4 By LYNNE TUOHY Courant Staff Writer For several years, investigators nationwide have gathered and closely guarded intelligence information on the gang known as the Almighty Latin King Nation, or the Latin Kings. About a year ago, a federal investigator lectured about 100 Connecticut correction officers at a convention in Farmington about the Latin Kings, but cautioned them not to spread the information.

The two Connecticut convicts who run the gang from a California penitentiary Nelson Millet of Bridgeport and Pedro Millan of Hartford were referred to, but were not identified. But the veil of secrecy disintegrated last week in Connecticut when state police detailed the gang in the course of detailing the charges against a Cheshire prison guard accused of being a regional commander of the Latin Kings and of ordering an assault by one inmate on another. Law enforcement officials used the arrest of Francisco Javier Cruz of Waterbury to reveal the gang's hierarchy, its charter and its sane- tions. The fatal torching of a Somers prison inmate in April 1991 and a major heroin bust in New Haven in January were tied directly to the Latin Kings in the 10-page affidavit. The court document made a case not only against Cruz, but against the notorious gang whose members, and violence, have spilled from Con- necticut's prisons into its streets.

Shana Sureck The Hartford Courant Edmund S. Valtman, editorial cartoonist for The Hartford Times, is the subject of a published retrospective titled "Valtman: The Editorial Cartoons of Edmund Valtman, 1961-1991." The 77-year-old artist is shown in his house in Bloomfield. Book looks back at long career of Pulitzer Prize-winning artist 6th ed. section MONDAY MARCH 9, Willimantic may once agaiif lose Amtrak Bill Keveney GETTING The train horn that breaks the night silence in Willimantic has a mournful feel these days. The greeting from big cities north and south may become a goodbye even as residents are still trying to say hello.

The Montrealer, which chug's north- and southbound through town' when all but the graveyard-shifters are fast asleep, may disappear by early April, if Amtrak decides to rearrange its Washington-Montreal service. If that happens, the Willi? mantic stop, whose rebirth as a tick et to somewhere was hailed by 1,000 midnight revelers only four months ago, would be gone. As train stops go, this one isn't exactly bustling. With just a handful of passengers getting on or off the 12:15 a.m. northbound and the 2:45 a.m.

southbound, no one would mis take it for Grand Central Station. It's not even a station, per se. It's a gravel lot, with a 12-foot, bus-stop-style glass enclosure. This one has a heater. A permanent station may forever remain in planning.

But, there it is, a station stop in Willimantic, listed on the same train schedule with the world-class cities of New York, Washington and Montreal. A place on the map. It is at once absurd and delightful. At 11:40 p.m. last Wednesday, the station lot was empty, save for a red pickup truck left by a couple who had left earlier in the week for, Montreal.

Although it's only a few hundred feet from the well-traveled Main Street, which it parallels, the stop feels isolated because it's at the base of an incline and is surrounded by businesses long since closed for the day. Perhaps for that reason, the lot is bathed in fluorescent light. In just four short months, there already is a ritual, however. Shortly before midnight, two blue-uniformed flagmen arrived at the Dunkin' Donuts on Main Street, just a half -block from the train stop, for the start of their evening's work. The train was running a little late.

Every night, they block off the nearby Bridge Street rail crossing; which the train crosses near the station. The crossing has red flashing lights, but no gates. By the time they went out to the crossing, about 20 minutes before the train's arrival, the lot had come to life. Four more vehicles were in the lot, and Ray Axelrod, a member of the regional transit alliance, was talking to a driver who was waiting to pick up a train passenger. The horn and a bright headlight heralded the 11-car train's arrival.

A train stop is always an event, even if it happens at 12:35 a.m. and drops off only two people. Erik Sandberg-Diment of Hamilton, who was arriving after a three-day trip to New York, said he preferred the train to the bus, and that ft would be a shame to lose the Willimantic stop. Others must agree. Although the train has been averaging only seven or eight Willimantic riders a night, that's more than twice what was expected.

But, it's much more than the rider ship and the $100,000 or so that the town spent to resurrect the Willimantic train stop, which hosted more than 50 trains daily in its heyday, said Windham First Selectman Walter Pawelkiewicz. Willimantic is a section of Windham. "It's important because it made Willimantic a destination point," he said. "It's something that made Willimantic feel alive again." Although the fate of the Willimantic stop appears gloomy, Pawelkiewicz, transit alliance members and other enthusiastic rail supporters are fighting to keep it. They don't want the night horn silenced.

"People love the sound," Pawelkiewicz said. "Everybody loves trains." Bill Keveney can be reached by mail at The Courant, 285 Broad Hatt-ford 06115, or by phone at 241-6528 or 1800-524-4242, Ext. 6528. i DiBella visits Las Vegas without touring casinos The decision to release the information was not an easy one, nor was it without controversy. Behind closed doors, investigators argued the pros and cons of making such a public statement Sources privy to those conversations, who did not want to be named because of the, confidential nature of the discussions, said public safety concerns were weighed against the glory and knowledge gang members would obtain from the publicity.

One factor taken into consideration was that at least one newspaper and one television station already were working on stories on the Latin Kings. Another was the children. Youth chapters of the Latin Kings are emerging in a number of urban middle schools in Connecticut Police say many of these teenagers believe the organization is a Hispanic cultural club or fraternity. Their parents know nothing to. the contrary.

The youths wear the "club's" colors of black and gold, or black and yellow. They know the names of its two leaders, Millet and Millan, and often refer to Millan as "Uncle Pedro," police sources said. Continued silence by law enforcement officials, who had secretly formed a task force in Connecticut Jan. 27, was having no deterrent effect The assaults behind bars were continuing. The violence in the streets, including shootings in Bridgeport and Waterbury, was con-Please see Violence, Page C7 DiBella said he continued on to San Diego in a friend's private plane, at DiBella's expense.

While in California, DiBella said, he toured the Horton Plaza, a revitalization project designed by an architect often employed by Wynn. After canceling the trip by legislators Friday, DiBella said he considered going to Florida for the weekend, but decided instead to go West so his son could look at colleges in Nevada. DiBella said he plans to return to Hartford Tuesday. Alan Feldman, a spokesman for the Mirage, said Friday afternoon that DiBella was expected at the hotel. But later that day, DiBella Please see DiBella, Page C7 Gets? Hamburger 10 Plain cheese 35 Pepperonl 30 Wast Hartford Tha Hartford Courant By RICK GREEN Courant Staff Writer Edmund S.

Valtman has large hands and big blue eyes, attributes well-suited to a man who spent his life observing and drawing. He draws cartoons for only a handful of local newspapers around the state these days. For years, though, Valtman, winner of the only Pulitzer Prize awarded to a Hartford newspaperman, was the well-known editorial cartoonist for The Hartford Times. At 77, he's content to spend his retirement at his woodsy Bloomfield home and reflect upon a recently published retrospective of his life's work titled "Valtman: The Editorial Cartoons of Edmund Valtman, 1961-1991." The book features Valtman's well-known caricatures of state, national and world leaders and the best of his satiric cartoons. It includes the one that won him the Pulitzer in 1962: a cigar-puffing Fidel Castro holding a man representing Cuba in chains and look- ing toward a tentative man signifying Brazil and stating "What you need, man, is a revolution like mine." In four decades of cartooning, Valtman's targets have ranged from local politicians to presidents to international leaders.

Unlike many journalists, he started with international issues and moved to tackling local targets only later, when his editors asked him to. Please see Valtman's, Page C7 PuliiMrPrif llJI Edmund S. Valtman won a Pulitzer Prize for the Hartford Times in 1962, when he used a cartoon of a cigar-puffing Fidel Castro to take a position on the issue of communism in Latin America. A new U.S.-Israel relationship Symposium explores effects of world political change By KATHERINE FARRISH CourantStaff Writer After canceling a visit by state lawmakers to Las Vegas Friday, state Sen. William A.

DiBella, D-Hartford, went there himself, but stayed for less than a half-hour and went golfing in San Diego. DiBella said Sunday that he stopped briefly at the Mirage Hotel in Las Vegas, which is owned by Steve Wynn, a businessman who wants to build a hotel, convention center and casino in Hartford, to drop his 16-year-old son off for the weekend. During the stop, he said, he did not meet with Wynn and did not tour any gambling facility. a gieosb Slico of life Forget the pineapple and anchovies. At the Papa Gino's restaurant in West Hartford, most customers are like Macauley Culkin in the movie "Home Alone," they want a plain cheese pizza.

The toppings of choices: Mushroom 10 Sausage 15 j. SOURCE: Papa Glno't at Bithop'i Comer Wellesley College; and Ibrahim Abu-Rabi, professor of Islamic Studies at Hartford Seminary. Saivetz said the United States is grappling with the new role it must play in the Middle East "We'll have to get used to a different kind of environment because the rules are going to change," she said, adding that "the United States would never sell Israel down the river." Abu-Rabi, a Palestinian who holds both American and Israeli citizenship, said the Jewish state disintegrated Palestinian peasant society. The Palestinians' lost past leads to a profound anxiety. "The present of Palestinians is similar to the Jewish Please see Symposium, Page C7 And American isolationism makes it unpopular for the U.S.

government to give the Israelis $10 billion in loan guarantees for refugee housing, he said. "Combine what's happening in the world and what's happening politically, and you get an anti-Israel sentiment," Greenberger said. "It's the way the United States sees the world now." The sentiment running through the symposium, held at the University of Hartford, was that the honeymoon between Israel and the United States is over. It surfaced in a panel that included Carol Saivetz, a professor who runs the Russian Research Center at Harvard University, Jer-old Auerbach, history professor at By LINDA B. HIRSH Courant Staff Writer WEST HARTFORD Communism once soldered the allegiance between Israel and the United States.

Its collapse has signaled a loosening of ties. Robert Greenberger, diplomatic correspondent for the Wall Street Journal, told a crowd of 250 people Sunday that with the fall of communism, Israel is no longer needed as a strategic ally, and that has distanced the two countries. Greenberger, speaking at the Eighth Annual Israel Symposium, said there are other reasons, too, for change in the relationship. The Gulf war converted Israel from strategic ally to strategic liability, he said..