emerald
Vol. 82, No. 136
Eugene, Oregon 97403
Monday, April 20, 1981
-1
Wilkins ready to direct ASUO
Photo by Erich Boekelheide
Rich Wilkins
By PAUL TELLES
Of the Emerald
ASUO Pres.-elect Rich Wilkins wants
student-funded programs to start pulling their
own weight.
“The ASUO programs need to start making
money," says Wilkins, the La Grande native
University students elected last week — in a
landslide victory — to head the ASUO executive
office.
“There’s going to be a big push to
strengthen the ASUO programs,” he says.
When Wilkins’ administration takes over
May 25, he says it will concentrate on making the
programs self-sufficient. But he suggests
University rules will have to change before
programs can initiate effective fund-raising
efforts.
Campus groups now are required to hire an
EMU auditor to count money from fund-raising
events. And the groups usually pay the EMU to
set up for the events.
"Instead of paying somebody to set up
chairs, maybe they could do a little work them
selves,” Wilkins says.
The ASUO will try to organize program
management workshops to teach program dir
ectors to run their events more efficiently. He
says he will assist the programs with their prob
lems but won’t make the ASUO Executive an
advocacy or recruiting service for the programs.
“There needs to be some kind of working
relationship (between the executive and the
programs), but also some kind of indepen
dence,” he says.
The new ASUO administration also will try to
involve more students in efforts to improve the
University's quality. Wilkins says he will try to
start a Campus Development Commission — a
group of interested students who would explore
lew ways of funding University projects.
For instance, Wilkins says the commission
could train student program leaders to write
grants so they could seek other ways to fund
their activities. The commission also could
investigate methods for funding areas like the
athletic department, the library and the EMU.
The commission could try to involve
students in University issues: such as collective
bargaining, Wilkins adds.
The EMU budget will come under especially
close scrutiny during Wilkins’ administration
"I’d like to see the EMU start making a little
money instead of being subsidized," he says.
Next year’s ASUO Executive Office will look
carefully at luxuries such as the EMU Main
Desk’s telephone and utility bill collection ser
vice, Wilkins says.
“Those things are nice. But with the cost of
everything going up, it's not necessary that we
raise the only part of the fee we have control of.”
Changes in EMU budgeting will be contin
gent on the success of the EMU Board’s recent
budget-cutting efforts, Wilkins says.
Still the ASUO plans to sponsor a major
program like last year’s "Surviving the 1980s
conference, Wilkins says.
Wilkins received 72.5 percent of the vote in
last week's ASUO primary election. Wilkins, a
junior majoring in political science, is a former
president of the Political Science Student Union
and of the General Assembly of the Model
United Nations.
Wilkins currently is ASUO vice president for
state and University affairs and legislative coor
dinator for the Survival Center.
Thousands protest aid to El Salvador
oy junn mills
Of the Emerald
A chain of people more than four blocks long
marched six abreast through downtown Eugene Satur
day to protest U S. involvement in El Salvador.
Between 1,500 and 2,000 demonstrators began
their march from the University at noon carrying
homemade signs and chanting slogans such as "No
draft, no war, U.S. out of El Salvador,” and "Rock
efeller, hey, you can’t hide, we charge you with gen
ocide.”
The march ended in the downtown mall.
The key speaker at the two-hour rally that followed
was Ricardo Melaro, one of six delegates of the Sal
vadoran Democratic Revolutionary Front (FDR) touring
the United States to gain support for their fight against
the current government. That government has been
receiving U.S. economic and military aid.
Melaro said in a "just war of defense," 1,300
Salvadoran people were killed in one year in the
"struggle against the junta, the army and the Reagan
administration."
"The Reagan administration is the only thing that is
keeping the junta standing,” he told demonstrators
Melaro said reports that the conflict is a testing
ground for the United States and the Soviet Union are
"very dangerous and simplistic because they negate
the struggle of the Salvadoran people.”
"We have not received, to this day, one bullet from
the socialist countries,” he said, "because we know
accepting this bullet would be justification for interven
tion.”
Rebels make their own weapons, buy them on the
international market, or use U.S. arms taken away from
the junta, Melaro said.
Melaro said the more than 150 organizations in the
FDR, including students, writers, and peasants, are the
[aoBSEn
Photo by Erich Boekelheide
1,500 to 2,000 demonstrators wound their way through Eugene in a protest march Saturday.
"legitimate representatives of the El Salvadoran peo
ple.”
Melaro said the FDR’s program includes nation
alization of the banking system, agrarian and urban
reform, and credit reform to allow international com
merce.
Gene Bailey, Secretary Tresurer for Local 12 of the
International Longshoreman Workers Union, told the
crowd her union is opposed to any intervention in
Central or Sodth America. The union voted to boycott
shipments to El Salvador from West Coast docks and
"stop all the cargo that we can,” Bailey said.
Eugene city councilor Cindy Wooten, an aide to
Rep. Jim Weaver, D-Ore., added that Weaver is
co-sponsoring a bill to “stop putting weapons in the
hands of strutting dictators.”
Reagan is "blinded by the red flags of commun
ism,” and Congress is receiving letters 10-to-1 against
the administration’s policy in El Salvador, Wooten said.
Bill Deforrest of the Eugene Police Department,
who was in charge of the 14 police officers at the march,
said the event was well-organized and peaceful —
distinguishing it from the marches of the 1960s
The march and rally was organized by the April 18th
Coalition, which represents more than 90 co-sponsors
and endorsers, including such University groups as
MECHA, University Veterans, Iranian Students As
sociation, the Black Student Union, the Coalition
Opposing Registration and the Draft, and SEARCH