European Stars and Stripes (Newspaper) - August 13, 1989, Darmstadt, Hesse Page 10 the stars and stripes columns . Rosenthal Senneff s proposal could save the next Mario in Brooklyn Maria Hernandez got up very Early on tuesday morning about 4 o clock. She had a Long Way to travel to work All the Way to new Jersey. At 4 38 . At least five bullets were fired from a passing car through the win Dow or the first floor apartment on Stan Street where she lived with her husband and three children. Six hours later she died of her wounds. The police say her husband Carlos Hernandez was known As an enemy of the drug pushers who Rule Starr Street lie gave information about them to the police. Sometimes he left his House with a baseball Bat to do Battle. Police say hatred and violence be tween Hernandez and the pushers might be Why the shots were fired but they can t be positive yet. But the people on Starr Street arc sure that was the reason. Lots of new yorkers know Maria Hernandez s name now from to and the papers. In Washington William j. Bennett of course was not aware of the existence of Maria Hernandez when he recently finished his first report As National drug Czar. His Job was to turn in a coherent National plan for fighting drugs. It is on the president s desk and will go next month to Congress. But Reading the report recently 1 Felt Maria Hernandez and Starr Street were what it was about. The drug Trade and its guns guns of have taken Over a thousand Starr tracts throughout the country. They make neighbourhoods in Al most every big american City places of constant danger. Millions of americans millions live every Day with the fear of leaving their own Homes. Yes there was crime in America before the drug plague. But this is different. The drug Trade mocks and destroys the mos Basic safety rights a society owes citizens. It makes us the Lebanon the very Beirut of crime. Don t we see this Bennett sees it. His report is not just about drugs and crime. Its strength and potential Are that it refuses to go along Tom Wicker with the trend to say drugs is such a big problem that of my god we can never beat it so let s concentrate on one part of the fight Law enforcement smuggling treatment education whatever. The Bennett report says that approach has already failed. It says a National commitment to fight every aspect is the Only Hope that one Day the drug epidemic will Start emphasizes accountability of government education Medicine and of the individual. Six million american drug users create the drug Market and infect the lives of the rest of us. If there is a single Point of emphasis in the report it is that the individual user must be persuaded to Stop through Edu cation and treatment or through the certainty of unpleasant punishment. Here too Bennett takes a position not currently fashionable. Keep going after the Small pushers infesting the streets As Well As the Kingpin. Harass them arrest them jail them. Street level enforcement remains the Best tool we have for restoring a sense of order and civility to neighbourhoods where drugs. Have wrought pushers driven out of one neigh boyhood usually wind up in another. Now that if they arc pushed out of hundreds of neighbourhoods by police and Sec the certainty of hard jail time it will not be so easy to walk out the door and pick up will no longer see pushers As an accepted part of the scenery but As the rodents the neighbourhood is trying to drive out the rest of Fth drug fight will continue but Street cleaning will make it asks for More anti drug Money too Little More. President Bush owes leadership to redeem his inauguration Day pledge on drugs this Scourge will Stop. The report is a sophisticated and Lucid piece of work with some holes but inter Woven financially and intellectually. It sets goals and offers Hope. One Hope it holds out is that some Day not too Distant americans May again Beable to walk All the streets of the land and stand before a first floor window. New York times the War on Rufis Bush gop should scrutinize Contra policy after the 20-year presidential tenure of Franklin Roosevelt and Harry Truman republicans produced an effective political slogan had enough that is an appropriate question to put today to republicans themselves particularly George Bush As they con template the ruins of their Contra policy in Nicaragua. If they Haven t had enough they re refusing to read both the headlines and history. Rep. Mickey Edwards r-okla., for instance has tried to rally one More round of Contra support with a silly and sentimental Appeal if we just Back off and say to the contras Nice try but it s Over now then an awful lot of Young men Down there died for Edwards knows however because he supported it that it was the . That organized and funded the contras from the Start hence sponsored their War against a government recognized even by the same . That was the original mistake which puts it mildly without which those Young men would not have died certainly not so Many of them and perpetuating the existence of the contras May Well mean that More will die., if so it still will be for nothing because the . Backed War really is Over now for All practical purposes. To pretend otherwise will do no Good for the con tras or for sandinista forces and non belligerent nicaraguans both of whom also have done much dying As a result of . Policy. The fact is that after five Central american presi dents defied the Bush administration and unanimously agreed on a timetable for disbanding the contras Only one question remains will the . Abide by the United Central american decision and let the contras go out of existence in december or will the . Go it alone and insist that its puppet army be kept intact at least until nicaraguan elections arc held in february the Bush administration has not Given a definitive answer but Edwards and other die hards insist on february. They argue that having the contras looking Over the sandinista shoulders and threatening further military action is the Only Way to ensure that the elections will be free and fair. Baloney. In the first place the sandinista Only recently entered into a sweeping agreement with legitimate opposition parties that die latter concede will guarantee an equitable election process. In the second place the sandinista government signed the five nation Accord on disbanding of the contras that agreement presupposes fair nicaraguan elections in february and thus the other four Centra american governments have a stake in seeing to it that the sandinista keep their pledges. In the third place former president Carter who proved his courage and capacity As a Monitor of the fraudulent panamanian elections in May has agreed to head a respected International group to Monitor the Nicara Guan polling. All that should ensure reasonably honest elections. If it does to who can believe that any necessary additional insurance can be provided by the contras in their state of defeat and debilitation this is a group after All that no doubt includes some patriots genuinely devoted to greater Nicaragua democracy but which is fatally tainted by its connections to the Cia and to the former nicaraguan nation Al guard of the Somoza regime. As a result the contras never have gained solid foothold military or political within Nicaragua itself. They remain tenuously encamped in Honduras which fears their armed presence one Good reason that president Jose Azcona Hoyo joined in the five Power agreement to disband them by december. The contras never have come close to toppling the sandinista or even making them say Uncle in Ron Ald Reagan s Are not guerrillas who swim like Mao s fish to the sea of the people on the contrary they never have been Able to survive and cannot now without funds appropriated by Congress or otherwise provided bythe Reagan administration. -. It May be argued that the Contra War forced the Sandi nistas into elections that Promise to be fair although the same result might better have been obtained blood Lessly by economic and political pressures that could have been supported in most of the policy assumes some doubtful . Right to control nicaraguan politics but that s to Rake Over the past if president Bush now perceives the Contra policy to be at a dead end he need Only cooperate with five other american presidents. ". If not the democrats controlling Congress Are Likely to decide for him that the country has had
