Study on river navigation
could affect fishing locales
The State Land Board will look at the Rogue River
to see if fishermen, landowners can walk its hanks
THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
SALEM — The State Land Board
voted unanimously Tliesday to do a
formal study on whether the middle
and upper reaches of the Rogue River
qualify as a navigable river.
At stake is whether the public —
generally sport fishermen — have
the right to walk along the river
bank where it runs through private
property.
“If ever there was a time to resolve
this, it is now,” said Gov. Ted Kulon
goski, who voted for the study along
with Secretary of State Bill Bradbury
and State Treasurer Randall Edwards.
“That means bringing people to
gether to discuss the legal issues and
the property owner issues at stake so
we can develop a workable solution
that meets the needs of landowners
and upholds the laws of our state,”
Kulongoski said.
Originally requested in 1997 by the
Josephine County district attorney to
resolve trespassing claims along the
Rogue, the study would look at 90
miles of the river from Lost Creek
Dam down to Grave Creek.
About 2,000 people own property
along the Rogue River as it runs
through Shady Cove, Gold Hill, Rogue
River, Grants Pass, Merlin and Galice.
The 1859 law making Oregon a
state declared the bed and banks of
rivers up to the high water mark
are owned by the state if used for
commercial purposes, such as
moving logs or freight. In modern
times, the issue tends to swirl
around whether anglers have ac
cess to the riverbanks.
A 2002 declaration that the lower
37 miles of the Sandy River near Port
land were navigable created an up
roar among property owners, and the
Legislature has failed to work out a
different way of resolving the ques
tions over public access.
The State Land Board is comprised
of the governor, secretary of state and
state treasurer.
Gunbattles, beheadings claim
17 lives this week in Haiti
Violence flared during a Sept. 30 demonstration;
the U.S. accuses supporters of a former president
BY AMY BRACKEN
THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti — Vio
lence in Haiti's capital has claimed
at least 46 lives, with hospital
records showing Tliesday that 17
victims were killed this week. The
United States accused supporters of
an ousted president of trying to
destabilize the interim government.
Port-au-Prince has been beset by
gunbattles and beheadings since a
Sept. 30 demonstration marking
the 1991 coup that first overthrew
President Jean-Bertrand Aristide. In
February, the former priest fled the
country again after a three-week re
volt led by a street gang and former
soldiers.
Tensions still are simmering with
Aristide supporters demanding his
return and an end to the “invasion”
by foreign troops. U.S. Marines ar
rived in Haiti the day Aristide left
and were replaced by U.N. peace
keepers sent in June to stabilize the
country.
Rebels who want the interim
government to formally reinstate
the army that Aristide disbanded
have accused the peacekeepers of
doing little to halt the violence and
say that they are ready to end it.
On Monday, as mourners gath
ered for the funeral of five assassi
nated police officers, gunfire crack
led around the capital and
businesses shut their doors again.
Records at Port-au-Prince hospi
tal seen by The Associated Press
showed 17 people with gunshot
wounds died Sunday and Monday,
eight of them in the Cite Soleil sea
side slum that is filled with Aristide
supporters and street gangs, and
three in Martissant, a western
neighborhood that has been a
flashpoint in the recent unrest.
That raised the toll to at least 46
killed since Sept. 30.
One man was reportedly shot
and killed near the presidential
palace.
“There was shooting every
where,” said Lovely Pierre-Louis,
19. “I saw a man walking across
that street with a boy, then the
shooting came again, and he was
on the ground with his head bleed
ing, and the boy was running.”
Messile Sylviani, a 30-year-old
beautician, said her salon closed an
hour after opening Monday, and
she returned home, a block from
where the man had been shot.
“Now I'm so scared,” she said.
“We're all stressed out because we
know shooting could start again
any time.”
On Sept. 30, police reportedly
shot and killed two people at a
demonstration. The headless bod
ies of three police officers turned
up the same day, and government
officials blamed Aristide militants
and a new campaign called “Opera
tion Baghdad.”
The United States on Tuesday
accused Aristide supporters of “a
systematic campaign to destabilize
the interim government and dis
rupt the efforts of the international
community. ”
“Over the past two weeks, pro
Aristide thugs have murdered po
licemen, looted businesses and
public installations, and terrorized
civilians,” said State Department
spokesman Richard Boucher.
His statement urged leaders of
Aristide's Lavalas Family to “break
with the party's legacy of violence
and criminality.” It said the interim
government represented the best
hope for Haiti and expressed confi
dence that U.N. peacekeepers’ ca
pacity to protect Haitians would in
crease within days and weeks.
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Oregon Daily Emerald.
A campus tradition-over 100 years of publication.
Investigations show
dismantlement of
Iraqi nuclear sites
U.N. nuclear chief Mohamed ElBaradei says no
high-precision items from Iraq were found overseas
BY EDITH M. LEDERER
THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
UNITED NATIONS — The United
States said Tliesday it will conduct “a
full investigation” along with the Iraqi
government of the reported disappear
ance from Iraq's nuclear facilities of
high-precision equipment that could
be used to make nuclear weapons.
In a letter to the Security Council
on Monday, U.N. nuclear chief Mo
hamed ElBaradei said satellite photos
and follow-up investigations show
“widespread and apparently system
atic dismantlement” at sites related to
Iraq's nuclear program which had
been subject to monitoring by the In
ternational Atomic Energy Agency.
While some industrial material
that Iraq sent overseas has been lo
cated in other countries, he said no
high-precision items including
milling machines and electron beam
welders that can be used commer
cially and in nuclear weapons pro
duction have been found.
Since the missing equipment and
material “may be of proliferation sig
nificance,” he asked any country
with information about the items to
inform the International Atomic En
ergy Agency.
U.S. deputy ambassador Anne Pat
terson said the U.S. Mission to the
United Nations had not yet received
ElBaradei's letter.
“We’re anxious to see what he has
to say, and we'll do a full investiga
tion,” she said, then quickly added:
“I mean we'll work with the govern
ment of Iraq on a full investigation.”
IAEA spokeswoman Melissa Flem
ing said the agency's assumption is
that “this was organized looting” by
people trying “to make a buck” and
sell equipment and material to the
highest bidder. Looting was rampant
in the first days after the U.S.-led in
vasion of Iraq toppled the Saddam
Hussein regime in April, 2003.
A diplomat familiar with the IAEA,
who spoke on Condition of anonymity,
discounted suggestions that the Amer
icans might have carted off the equip
ment — most of it under IAEA seals —
without informing the agency.
In Washington, State Department
spokesman Richard Boucher said, “I
think we share the general concern
that some material might have got
ten out into the market immediately
after the war.”
“But to the extent that all of us
have been able to bring it under con
trol, we have done that,” he said.
The U.N. Monitoring, Verification
and Inspection Commission known as
UNMOVIC — which was responsible
for overseeing the elimination of any
banned Iraqi missile, chemical and bi
ological weapons programs — said
Iraqi authorities for over a year have
been shipping thousands of tons of
scrap metal out of the country.
The UNMOVIC report said those
exports were handled by the Iraqi
Ministry of Ttade, which was under
the direct supervision of U.S. occupa
tion authorities until June 28, when
the Americans handed power to
Iraq's interim government. It said the
shipments included at least 42 en
gines from banned missiles and other
equipment that could be used to pro
duce banned weapons.
UNMOVIC and IAEA inspectors
left Iraq just before the U.S.-led inva
sion began in March 2003. The Bush
administration then barred U.N.
weapons inspectors from returning,
deploying U.S. teams in an unsuc
cessful search for Iraqi weapons of
mass destruction.
Nonetheless, IAEA teams were al
lowed into Iraq in June 2003 to investi
gate reports of widespread looting of
storage rooms at the main nuclear
complex at TUwaitha, and in August to
take inventory of “several tons” of nat
ural uranium in storage near Tbwaitha.
ElBaradei said Iraq's interim Minis
ter of Science and Technology Rashad
Omar visited IAEA headquarters in Vi
enna in July, just after the handover of
power from the U.S.-led coalition, to
discuss the implementation of various
Security Council resolutions.
A ministry delegation that visited
in September asked the IAEA for as
sistance in selling the remaining nu
clear material at Tliwaitha “with the
exception of a small quantity to be re
tained for research purposes,” in dis
mantling and decontaminating for
mer nuclear facilities, and in
resuming IAEA technical cooperation
in a number of areas, he said.
Associated Press Writers George
Jahn contributed to this report
from Vienna and George Gedda
from Washington.