The MacNeil/Lehrer NewsHour

MR. MacNeil: Good evening. I'm Robert MacNeil in New York.

MR. LEHRER: And I'm Jim Lehrer in Washington. After our summary of the news this Thursday, we get a Serbian, a Bosnian, and an American view of the bloody fighting in Bosnia-Herzegovina. Elizabeth Brackett reports on the clean-up from the recent man-made flood in Chicago, and Fred De Sam Lazaro examines a new approach to health care in Minnesota. NEWS SUMMARY

MR. MacNeil: Rescue workers in Guadalajara, Mexico, continued to dig through rubble, searching for victims of yesterday's massive sewer explosion. Government officials put the death toll at 202. Six hundred others were injured and as many as fifteen thousand people were left homeless. The blast tore apart up to 25 city blocks. The cause was still being investigated today. Area residents said they smelled gas fumes coming from the sewers for days. Mexico's President, Carlos Salinas, visited the scene today and ordered a probe into possible criminal negligence by public officials. In this country, an earthquake shook Southern California last night. It registered 6.1 on the Richter Scale. It caused some damage and minor injuries in desert towns East of Los Angeles. Seismologists said there was a likelihood of more tremors in the next few days. Jim.

MR. LEHRER: A group of scientists said today they had some new information about the so-called "Big Bang." That was the explosion billions of years ago that led to the creation of the cosmos. The new word is from a NASA satellite. It found and charted huge ripples or concentrations of matter near the edge of the universe. The pink areas of the picture show those ripples as they existed 300,000 years after the Big Bang. The scientists described their findings at a Washington news conference.

GEORGE SMOOT, University of California, Berkeley: We observed what we think are the largest and the most ancient structures in the universe. And these -- what these things are are 15 billion years old fossils we think were created in the birth of the universe.

EDWARD WRIGHT, University of California, Los Angeles: The Big Bang model is alive and well, very well. The pattern predicted by the inflationary model of the Big Bang has been seen. This was a place where a scientific theory was presented, data was collected. The theory could have been wrong, but it was not.

MR. LEHRER: Another scientist called the findings "a very big deal," and another said, "If the research is confirmed, it's one of the major discoveries of science."

MR. MacNeil: There was some positive economic news out today. The Labor Department said claims for unemployment benefits fell by 12,000 in mid April to 404,000. That's the lowest level since last October. And factory orders for big ticket goods, such as refrigerators, cars, and airplanes, rose 1.6 percent inMarch.

MR. LEHRER: The Pentagon overestimated the number of Iraqi troops in the Gulf War, according to a House Armed Services Committee report. It said only 183,000 Iraqis were on the battlefield when the ground assault began instead of the 500,000 claimed by the U.S. military. Committee Chairman Les Aspin, Democrat of Wisconsin, told a Washington news conference today there was also another intelligence failure.

REP. LES ASPIN, [D] Wisconsin: The intelligence failure was that we thought that the damage to the Iraqi forces, in particular the Republican Guard forces, was more extensive than it, in fact, was on the day the war ended. So George Bush and Colin Powell and Dick Cheney and everybody agreed to stop the war based upon a certain assessment of what damage had been done to the Iraqi forces and to the Republican Guard. It subsequently turned out that there was less damage than was -- than we thought.

MR. LEHRER: Aspin said if the U.S. had continued the fighting for a few more days Saddam Hussein probably would not have been able to put down the Kurdish and the Shiite uprisings that followed.

MR. MacNeil: In the former Yugoslav republic of Bosnia, the leaders of three rival ethnic groups agreed today to stop fighting and resume peace talks. The move came as European Community mediator Lord Carrington arrived in the capital, Sarajevo, to meet with the warring parties. We'll have more on the story right after the News Summary.

MR. LEHRER: Robert Kelley, Jr. was sentenced today to 12 consecutive life prison terms. He was convicted yesterday of sexually abusing 12 children, ages 4 to 7, who attended his "Little Rascals" day care center in Edenton, North Carolina. At the sentencing today, Kelley maintained his innocence. His attorney said he would appeal. Six hundred and eighty-three thousand American women were raped in 1990, according to a study released today. That is five times higher than reported by the Justice Department's National Crime Survey. Today's report said 12.1 million have been raped at least once in their lives, 62 percent when they were minors. The study was conducted by the National Victims Center and was funded by the National Institute on Drug Abuse.

MR. MacNeil: The United Nations said today that Canada provides the best overall quality of life for its citizens of any industrialized nation. The UN issued the finding in its annual human development report. It found that Canada ranked first in providing educational opportunities, good health care and purchasing power. Japan was second in the 160 nation study, the United States sixth. The U.S. ranked first in schooling, but trailed fifteen other nations in life expectancy.

MR. LEHRER: And that's it for the News Summary tonight. Now it's on to the Bosnian civil war, the Chicago flood, and health care in Minnesota. FOCUS - BLOODLETTING

MR. MacNeil: Our lead focus tonight is the civil war in Yugoslavia that has claimed more than 10,000 lives. We'll analyze the conflict and response of the United States and other foreign countries to it. The most recent fighting has been in the republic of Bosnia-Herzegovina, which seceded from the Yugoslav federation last month. But before that secession, two other republics had already broken away. Slovenia left last summer with little bloodshed, but Croatia's bid for independence led to heavy fighting with Serbian forces and thousands of casualties and refugees. A cease-fire organized by the United Nations is now in effect there. Also seeking independence is the republic of Macedonia. If that happens, all thatwould be left of the old Yugoslavia, created after World War I, would be the republics of Serbia and Montenegro. Our coverage begins where the current fighting is taking place in Bosnia. We have a report from Liz Donnelly of Independent Television News.

MS. DONNELLY: The heavy fighting in Sarajevo stopped almost as suddenly as it had begun to allow Lord Carrington and Joao De Deus Pinheiro, the Portuguese foreign minister to land. For security reasons, their meeting with the political leaders of all Bosnia's warring factions took place at the airport, each side told it would be held responsible for ensuring its forces kept the cease-fire. As the talks took place, the halt in the fighting made it possible to examine the aftermath of yesterday's battle. Throughout Sarajevo, there was an uneasy quiet. One major battle was concentrated here at the Sarajevo medical faculty. Its patients and staff had to be evacuated through the gunfire. Today the hospital's in ruins. The firing may have stopped for the moment, but on the streets all sides are still at their battle stations. People here, most of whom spent yet another day at home, are skeptical about the chances of the peace lasting for long. They're well aware that it took more than a dozen cease-fire agreements for a truce to take effect in Croatia. At the airport when Mr. Pinheiro and Lord Carrington emerged, after several hours of negotiations with Serb, Muslim and Croat leaders and the federal army, they cautiously announced that a deal had been made.

JOAO DE DEUS PINHEIRO, President, EC Council of Ministers: All the leaders of the parties told us that they are prepared to sign this afternoon a declaration consisting of two basic points. The first one is that they will accept the cease-fire that was agreed on the 12th of April, and that they will do their utmost to make it a reality immediately; secondly, that they are prepared to resume the talks on a future constitution for Bosnia and Herzegovina.

MS. DONNELLY: But the central question is whether the politicians control the gunmen.

LORD CARRINGTON, EC Mediator: Broadly speaking, I think so, yes. There maybe some that don't, but I think that broadly speaking is true. And if they don't, they'll have to explain it to us.

MS. DONNELLY: All sides are being regarded as sharing responsibility for the past two weeks of fighting, but the EC has made it clear it believes Serbia takes the lion's share of the blame. If the EC talks don't succeed in establishing a cease-fire, then the process of isolating Serbia's likely to begin. The first step could come next week when members of the Conference on Security and Cooperation in Europe meet in Helsinki. They'll be asked to consider whether to withdraw Serbia's membership. As both sides buried their dead today, many prayed that an agreement could be reached, aware that the alternative which the EC spelled out to their politicians is a dissent into further bloodshed and chaos.

MR. MacNeil: Shortly after that report was fired, heavy fighting broke out in Sarajevo, according to Reuters News Agency. Jim.

MR. LEHRER: Now we get the views of a Serb and a Bosnian. The Serb is Zoran Hodjera. He is the U.S. representative for the Democratic Party of Serbia. The Bosnian is Nedzib Sacirbev, the personal representative in the United States of the president of Bosnia-Herzegovina. The report today -- there was a cease-fire and now the report is that the cease-fire did not hold. Does that surprise you? Do you have any information to add or subtract with that?

MR. HODJERA: Well, it doesn't surpriseme very much because of the fact that after the recognition of the independence and the sort of explosion which occurred most of the leaders have lost control of their -- of their troops, whether they're paramilitary or regular army or --

MR. LEHRER: It doesn't matter what the politicians are --

MR. HODJERA: It doesn't mean it doesn't matter. It is something similar to what happened in Croatia. We would have to -- first, the leaders have to establish their will that they want a cease- fire. And my impression is that this will is -- exists. Now the issue is how to influence all the various local military leaders who are pretty much on their own.

MR. LEHRER: Are you saying that the Serbian leadership wants a cease-fire?

MR. HODJERA: The Serbian leadership -- Mr. Karadish, the president of the Serbian Democratic Party in Bosnia has required that he wants cease-fire at any price --

MR. LEHRER: The fighting must stop.

MR. HODJERA: First, the fighting must stop and then negotiations should continue.

MR. LEHRER: Do you have anything, sir, from the Bosnian point of view about the cease-fire?

MR. SACIRBEV: Yes, I do. Following cease-fire, our president, Mr. Izabevovitch, gave the statement for the press and the two cities in Bosnia-Herzegovina praising cease-fire as new hope for Bosnia and Herzegovina. When I talked with him 2 o'clock of our time, what means 8 o'clock of daytime, he was very much hopeful and relaxed. He did believe that time of fighting was over and time of negotiation was coming, because Lord Carrington stated to them when he met on Sarajevo Airport that following cease-fire on 27th of this month, it means in four days, they will have meeting with them in Lisbon, Portugal, to discuss the future of Bosnia and Herzegovina. To discuss future of Bosnia is better than to fight and to decide through fighting. Fighting does not bring anything to anyone. Every Serbian home is Muslim's home to. When Serbia is losing, Muslims are losing too. And I hope the Serbs will learn this too.

MR. LEHRER: From a Bosnian point of view, do you believe that your leadership can stop the fighting -- in other words, stop your people from shooting?

MR. SACIRBEV: Definitely. We didn't start the shooting. The shooting didn't start with recognition by United States and European Community. The shooting started three weeks ago in Vilnius when irregulars of one criminal, Arkand Rosnotovich, enter Bosnia and massacre people in city of Vilnius. It was on Thursday, April 2nd, and the coalition came in Luxembourg on the meeting of European Community on Monday, April 6th -- it means four days earlier massacre of Bosnian people started.

MR. LEHRER: Obviously, the Bosnians say this -- the United States has heightened it.

MR. HODJERA: If I may just make a small correction.

MR. LEHRER: Yes.

MR. HODJERA: Bosnia is the name for all people living in Bosnia.

MR. LEHRER: Okay.

MR. HODJERA: Therefore, Serbs living in Bosnia are also --

MR. LEHRER: I mean the government -- all right. I meant the --

MR. HODJERA: The Muslims or Bosnian government, Muslim government -- I don't know -- but Serbs are also, Bosnians and Croats are living there also.

MR. LEHRER: Okay. I stand corrected. I meant the government. But most of the blame for the killing is being put on your people, on the Serbs. Do you accept that?

MR. HODJERA: I do not. Let me first put one -- I want to make two statements first. I want to point out my personal sorrow that this tragedy has befallen on Bosnia-Herzegovina. I think this is the tragedy of all people in Bosnia and allpeople in Yugoslavia and in Serbia. What Mr. Sacher Begovich has said is very simplistic and in my view incorrect. The essential point is that there is conflict which exists in Bosnia and Herzegovina for sometime, the question of independence, the question of degree of autonomy which exists among constituent national groups. I believe in March in Lisbon that an agreement was reached and that agreement permitted very wide, autonomous arrangement where each of these constituent groups, whenever the majority would have light autonomy. This was signed by all three representatives of three national groups. Unfortunately, a couple of days later, it was revoked by the Moslem representative, political representative.

MR. LEHRER: And you think that -- is it your position -- I'm trying to get to the point of what's causing the people to kill each other over there. From the Serbian point of view, what is causing that?

MR. HODJERA: From the Serbian point of view, the reaction was to the basically forcing them without a possibility to get a final, some kind of consensus, to take a step. That step is of independence without any settlement of the situation between the two constituent groups. And that independence first referendum was, if you call, in February, which the Serbs boycotted. And this referendum was served as a basis for the recognition of independence. The issue is not that -- the Serbs are 1/3 of the population of Bosnia. You cannot, in my personal view, run down the plot of 1/3 of the population agreement to reach they cannot agree. We have to find the consensus and once we find the consensus, the possibilities are there.

MR. LEHRER: Do you believe that that can stop the -- there is a consensus that can be found and that peace can be made with the Serbs?

MR. SACIRBEV: We definitely need peace. Serbs need peace. We have to live with the Serbs and we believe that we must and they must find peace. But the facts are a little bit different. Mr. Razar Bebovitch, president of Bosnia, was in Lisbon on February 21, when representative of Portugal suggested division of Bosnia on the basis of -- no complete division, but some kinds, as they call it, units, in order to guarantee some autonomy to each group. That autonomy in some way is possible in general, but division of the people, they -- same apartment, same village and same city, is something impossible. Finally, idea about three constituting people in Bosnia was owed to us. What will be the duress of the citizens? We believe in rights of every citizen, not just Muslim, Serb, and Croats, because besides Serbs, Croats, and Muslims, we have others in Bosnia and we believe that they have right too and the right should be and must be protected.

MR. LEHRER: All right. Well, let's get another view here. Let's bring in the American view and we'll come back to you in a moment, sir. And the American view comes from the Deputy Secretary of State, Lawrence Eagleburger, who is the No. 2 man in the State Department. He served as U.S. Ambassador to Yugoslavia from 1977 to '81. Mr. Secretary, do you have anything to add, first of all, on the cease-fire? The reports are that it's not holding. Is that confirmed with you?

SEC. EAGLEBURGER: That's what we hear as well, right.

MR. LEHRER: All right. You've heard what these two gentlemen have said. What's your analysis of why these people are killing each other right now?

SEC. EAGLEBURGER: A thousand years of history, some leadership on the part of many, the Serbs, the Croats -- I can go on -- a leadership in many cases that is not prepared to try to find a peaceful solution, and has certain nationality aims. There are a whole host of reasons for the fighting. The tragedy of this all is that there are very few people apparently on any side who desire to see these problems solved peacefully. And we have seen now for the better part of the year -- whether it was the Serb-Croat struggle or now in Bosnia -- that too many people, too often, and too fast, are prepared to resort to the use of the gun and the bayonet to try to solve a problem which clearly can only be solved through peaceful negotiation.

MR. LEHRER: Well, from your observer status on this, what do you think the Serbs have to gain by continuing a war?

SEC. EAGLEBURGER: Well, I think there are a whole host of reasons from the Serbian point of view, some of which you can argue are legitimate, some of which I think are totally illegitimate. I think you need to understand, first of all, that demographically -- particularly in Bosnia and Herzegovina -- it's like a bad case of measles. There are Serbs here, Croats here, Moslems here. There's no cohesion to the population. And the Serbian view, to try to state it as fairly as I can, is that the Serbs and outside of Serbia have a right to maintain their own culture, and some would argue, have a right to be associated one way or another with Serbia. The same is clear in terms of the case of the Croatians as well. And in the Bosnian case, the odd man out and the people who are suffering most from this at the moment is the Moslem nationality, who has, you know, no other place to go. So, you know, the problem here I think is a terribly complicated one and it cannot be solved through simple solutions.

MR. LEHRER: All right. Then how can it be? What is it -- it could be a complicated one.

SEC. EAGLEBURGER: The fact of the matter is that at this stage I can't give you a solution. We've tried for the better part of two years to find one. I think what is terribly important to understand here is that if the people directly involved are not prepared to find peaceful ways to manage these problems, the outside world can't do it for them.

MR. LEHRER: Did you read the editorial in the New York Times?

SEC. EAGLEBURGER: I sure did.

MR. LEHRER: Well, they take a different view. They think that the United States does have the power to get this thing resolved and they suggest it would be very different if there was oil in Bosnia.

SEC. EAGLEBURGER: Well, in the first place, you know, I think the oil argument is just plain nonsense, but the New York Times editorial this morning is the difference between somebody who can sit in his office in New York and write up all sorts of solutions and some of the rest of us who have to try to make them work. And there isn't one of the three things that the New York Times suggested that, in our judgment, first of all can be managed unilaterally by the United States and have any success.

MR. LEHRER: Deny recognition to Serbia was one.

SEC. EAGLEBURGER: Yeah. The first place, there's a serious argument whether denying recognition to Serbia at this stage or not doesn't make the situation worse. But let's assume the United States were to deny recognition. Unless we can get the rest of the Europeans, at a minimum, to agree with us -- and at this stage we cannot -- it doesn't make any difference. The same is true with regard to the blockade which they suggest.

MR. LEHRER: Economic boycott.

SEC. EAGLEBURGER: They make the point that it is a land-locked country which makes it frankly easier to move oil in and out of that country than if you're trying to move it by sea, beyond which it's not a land-locked country, so the facts are wrong. But any one of these three supposed steps --

MR. LEHRER: Excuse me. The other one was to send in more U.N. peacekeeping forces.

SEC. EAGLEBURGER: You know, that's assuming that the United States can tell the U.N. what to do. What is very clear is that the Security Council is not going to send so-called "peacekeeping," U.N. peacekeeping forces into a situation in which there is fighting. It is -- this is not a peacemaking force. It's peacekeeping. The U.N. never sends these people in unless there's a cease-fire and some hope that they could, therefore, separate the parties. So, again, with all respect to the New York Times, they ought to get somebody who knows something about Yugoslavia before they write editorials on the subject.

MR. LEHRER: What is the U.S., the official U.S. position right now as to who's responsible for this bloody war?

SEC. EAGLEBURGER: In our judgment, there are no heroes, there is every evidence that there have been supplies of arms and ammunition and some volunteers from Croatia, but there is no question in our mind at this stage -- and we've made it very clear publicly -- as far as the U.S. government is concerned, the principle culprit, the major guilt for the situation in Bosnia and Herzegovina at this point is the Serbian government and the Yugoslav national army, who are acting I think outrageously.

MR. LEHRER: And we, meaning the big "we," the United States, the West, in other words, Europe and the United Nations Security Council has no power to do anything about that?

SEC. EAGLEBURGER: No, the question isn't has no power. But I come back to my point, if the others want to try to find a way to solve the problem peacefully, the U.N., the EC, and we can make a difference. And the EC has been actively engaged, and we saw Peter Carrington on the television just now. Cy Vance for the U.N. has been into that country doing yeoman-like work trying to get the parties together. The United States has been working closely with and supporting the EC, trying to find some peaceful solution to this thing. But I would make the point to you that unless the parties want to find the solution and unless the outside forces are prepared to put troops in, themselves, to try to enforce a peace, we are going to have to go through this process of continuing to try to find a peaceful solution, and it's going to be painful and it's going to take time. I suppose that if the civilized world were to decide tomorrow morning they were prepared to put 100,000 troops into Yugoslavia to keep each, the people from killing each other, it might work. But we're not prepared to do it; neither or the Europeans, nor should we be prepared to do that. It's going to be a long and difficult process. That's clear. We went through it in the Serb-Croat case. We're going through it again in the Serbian- Bosnia -- in the Bosnian case. And I think we all ought to worry about the fact whether it spreads to the Cosova and to Macedonia if this doesn't stop soon.

MR. LEHRER: Well, if my memory serves me correctly on the Serb- Croat, that ended finally when the Serbs and the Croats got tired of killing one another.

SEC. EAGLEBURGER: That's correct. And you have put, frankly at this stage, in terms of the past several years, you have come to the only issue that finally made a difference. They got tired of killing each other, they were exhausted, and the U.N., and the EC were there -- once the situation reached the stage where the two were prepared to stop killing each other, where, in fact, the U.N. and the EC could find ways to separate the parties and bring some sort of at least temporary peace to the situation. We're not there yet in Bosnia. I hate to say that, but that's the way it looks to me.

MR. LEHRER: I remember, we talked -- you were on this program where we talked specifically about the Serb-Croat thing. I remember asking you whether or not you felt the United States of America had delivered eyeball to eyeball the strong position it has in these various things to the parties. Has it happened in this case?

SEC. EAGLEBURGER: Oh, yeah, very much so. And you've seen some of the published statements. Mr. Baker made a statement after the Bosnia foreign minister visited Washington last week that was very tough, you know, but we also recognize tough statements in a situation in which very little reason seems to prevail and the hatreds and the desire to gain temporary advantage are so strong, strong statements, they may help, but at the moment, nothing seems to be prepared, seems ready to work in this case. I think in the long run one of the things that Serbia is going to have to face is that they are well on the way to destroying a very close historic relationship, certainly with the United States. We've fought together in two wars. We've been allies. One of our oldest diplomatic relationships has been the Serbians. But public opinion in this country clearly sees the Serbs as responsible for the difficulties now. They're not the only culprit, by any means, but certainly we consider them to be the major one right now. And you know, there is a future to the relationship between Serbia and the United States and the rest of these republics, and with Western Europe as well, and what these people as they kill each other fail to understand is the future is going to be far more difficult for them if they continue this process.

MR. LEHRER: Do Serbians understand that, that the future relationship is on the table now and is at stake?

MR. HODJERA: Well, the Serbian -- I would like just to make one point clear, that I am representing the democratical position in Serbia.

MR. LEHRER: Sure.

MR. HODJERA: I'm not representing the official position of the government. But on this aspect, I would like to point out one thing, that I as a Serb living in the United States believe that if one -- one must put pressure right now on the West, on all parties in this conflict to get some kind of cease-fire. But this pressure must be even-handed. To all respect to Sec. Eagleburger, I believe that this was not the position which was taken by the State Department, was not even-handed. One should not forget that in terms of the paramilitary units which came from -- if I may just -- which came from Serbia, the size of the regular army from Croatia and the paramilitary units which are operating in the Northern part of Bosnia and in Herzegovina is much larger. There are in Herzegovina six brigades of regular and paramilitary troops from Croatia. There is a unit right now fighting in the regular. There is a regiment of artillery now being sent from Zagreb to Herzegovina. So what I'm saying, one must put a pressure, but the Serbs feel that they are singled out unjustly.

MR. LEHRER: What about that, Mr. Secretary?

SEC. EAGLEBURGER: Again, I mean no disrespect here, but no matter who you talk to, whether it's a Serb or Croat, a Bosnian, whomever, it's always somebody else's fault first. And that's one of the frustrating --

MR. HODJERA: I am not saying that.

SEC. EAGLEBURGER: But it's one of the frustrating things about this issue. Our evidence clearly is that there are more Serbian irregulars and Yugoslavia national army troops engaged than there are Croats. But that's almost irrelevant. The fact of the matter is that in terms of the major aggression at the moment, and you can see it on the television, itself, the Yugoslavia national army and the Serbian irregulars are very much more active than the others. But, again, the issue ought to be not who is doing the most to whom, but rather, how can we get the parties, themselves, to take a deep breath and recognize they've got to negotiate?

MR. LEHRER: Do you agree with the Secretary's basic position, which is that there is no way for the United States, the West, or anybody else on the outside to make peace between and among all of you all if you don't want it yourself?

MR. SACIRBEV: Dr. Hodjera and I, we are friends. He is Serb. I am Bosnian Muslim. I would like to see Serbs and Bosnian Muslims friend over there because it is condition for peace. I agree with the first part of Mr. Eagleburger's statement, but not with the second. The first part -- it is obvious that aggression is coming from outside. The Serbs -- better to say extremist Serbs -- are attacking our villages, our cities, and killing our people. We are dying. Our villages are destroyed, burned. Croats, they have their problems with the Serbs and they try to introduce problem in Bosnia, but there is little difference. Croats recognize us. Serbia did not.

MR. LEHRER: You mean your independence?

MR. SACIRBEV: Exactly.

MR. LEHRER: Right.

MR. SACIRBEV: And the second. The Croats are coming to help their people who are under attack in Bosnia. We don't like this, but they are trying to protect their own city. The Serbs are coming to attack Muslim cities, Muslim villages, and the cities and the area with Muslims majority, next to River Brina, is under attack, Muslims are killed, the cities are destroyed, and the number of the people killed on one side definitely speak by itself who are attackers, who are aggressors. Definitely we prefer to be killed than to be killer but we don't want to stop that all of us will be killed. We have to defend ourself.

MR. LEHRER: I hear you and we're not going to resolve that, but to the Secretary's basic point that the United States -- you all read this editorial in the New York Times. There are other people criticizing Sec. Eagleburger, Sec. Baker, the President of the United States, for not doing more to stop you all from killing each other. My question to you, sir, is: Is there anything the United States, the United Nations, and Western Europe could do to end this killing?

MR. HODJERA: Well, as I said, in my view, one should put pressure both on Serbia --

MR. LEHRER: And you think it would work?

MR. HODJERA: Well, that is one -- but one should have patience - - put pressure on Croatia. I have not heard any statement from State Department of imposing the same ultimatum which was imposed on Serbia.

MR. LEHRER: Do you think that would make a difference?

MR. HODJERA: That would help. One should put pressure on the Muslim government, because, as I pointed out, that agreement which was reached in Lisbon was an agreement of --

MR. LEHRER: So you think there's more, in other words -- because we're almost out of time here -- you believe there is more that the West and the United States could do to stop --

MR. HODJERA: There is more, but also I believe -- I believe that most of the people in Serbia and in Bosnia are horrified to what's going on. And I believe, I personally believe that this first step by Carrington is going to lead towards, slowly towards -- one must have patience, but one must be even-handed. That is important.

MR. LEHRER: All right. On that one hopeful note --

MR. SACIRBEV: May I just state one thing. Bosnian government is not Bosnia's government. It is government of people of Bosnia, Muslims, Serbs, and Croats.

MR. LEHRER: I hear you. We have to go. Thank you all three very much.

MR. MacNeil: Still ahead on the NewsHour, the Chicago flood and Minnesota's new health plan. FOCUS - WATER, WATER EVERYWHERE

MR. MacNeil: We turn now to the great Chicago flood story. Two weeks ago, basements throughout the city's business district were inundated with water from the Chicago River when an underground tunnel sprang a leak. While things have been slowing getting back to normal, ten buildings are still without electrical power, the subways are still not operating, and Mayor Richard Daley is still firing city officials he believes contributed to the mess. Correspondent Elizabeth Brackett has this report on the clean-up effort.

WOMAN: [in building] This one, this may be the worst hallway we have. Watch out.

MS. BRACKETT: With most of Chicago's river pumped back into its banks, Chicagoans began the dirty, smelly task of surveying the damage.

MAN: [in building] We've estimated the loss down here to be about $500,000 so far, just in material. That's the equipment that we know about. The overtime that we're running -- you know -- we got another 110,000 in overtime.

MS. BRACKETT: But it was more than equipment that had county government officials worried. Deep in the sub-basement of the county building stored records, tax receipts, plat books and deeds were found in messy piles. The river water had completely flooded the building's three sub-basements, crushing shelves and boxes that held the old records. County workers had begun the enormous task of trying to salvage the documents.

WORKER: Some of them we were finding earlier were from 1918. So unfortunately, these -- they appear to be ruined, but they're really not. We're going to save these.

MS. BRACKETT: A few blocks away, Carson Pirie Scott Department Store still hadn't opened its doors 10 days after the flood. Foilers, electrical transformers, and generators were all completely submerged, making a massive rewiring job necessary before the store's hoped-for opening next Monday. And that wasn't all that was down the basement, according to Store Manager John Kline.

JOHN KLINE, Store Manager: This is our alteration department which was up about four and a half, five feet in water here, and these are some of the garments that got caught in the flood.

MS. BRACKETT: Now, this looks like bridesmaid dresses, is that right?

JOHN KLINE: Yes. We had three bridal parties who I'm sure we had some anxious brides when we had to call them and tell them that they were underwater.

MS. BRACKETT: Carson's found the brides new dresses, a small part of the millions of dollars the store's insurance company will pay for the damage caused by the flood. Down the street, Carson's competitor, Marshall Fields, had already reopened, adding a little humor to the event by placing mops with their mannequins. Ten other buildings remained closed this morning. In almost all downtown buildings, engineers headed for basements, looking for evidence of structural damage caused by soil shifting around building foundations. Environmental problems were also concerned. Inspectors looked for molds, fungus or bacteria carried in by dirty river water. As floodwaters began to go down, damage assessments began to go up. The Chamber of Commerce estimates that losses in the business community alone will add up to $1 1/2 billion. That's $500 million in lost productivity and another $1 billion in damage to physical plants and equipment. As the clean-up of the city's basements continued, Chicago Mayor Richard Daley moved quickly to contain the political fallout. He began his own clean-up at city hall yesterday.

MAYOR RICHARD DALEY, Chicago: [April 22] We're taking action against a number of individual employees who did not do their jobs as well as we should expect. They failed the people of Chicago. We have endured tremendous inconveniences and have suffered losses of wages and business. Perhaps, worst of all, the people of Chicago have experienced an understandable loss of confidence in their government and that's something we can't fix with cement trucks or with federal disaster funds, with all the experts in the world.

MS. BRACKETT: The mayor disciplined seven employees who he said could have taken action to prevent the disastrous flood, a flood which began when the Chicago River burst into old, underground freight tunnels. The massive tunnel system was built in the early 1900s and was used to deliver freight, coal, and mail to the basements of downtown buildings. Sixty miles of tunnels snaked their way 20 feet below the ground, under the heart of the city's business district. The tunnels were largely abandoned in the late 1950s. But a little over 10 years ago, a cable company began using the tunnel for fiber optic lines. And it was the cable company who first discovered a leak in a tunnel that ran directly underneath the Chicago River. A camera crew hired by the cable company shot this startling video in January.

SPOKESMAN: This is a cave-in from -- you can see what's cracked off in here and the silt, the clay that has seeped in. It appears to be a piling of some sort.

MS. BRACKETT: The video shows and the city's investigation confirmed that pilings driven into the river last fall had punctured the old freight tunnel below. Five months later, the river broke through, sending 250 million gallons of water down the tunnels and into the basements of downtown office buildings. But the company that installed the pilings said the city never told them of the old freight tunnel beneath the river.

WITT BARLOW, Great Lakes Dredge & Dock Co.: We had no knowledge of any tunnel in any near proximity of the Kinsey Avenue Bridge.

MS. BRACKETT: The company also said a city inspector had been on the job every day and had signed off on the work after a final inspection. But the mayor said the inspection at the site where the leak occurred had never been made.

MAYOR RICHARD M. DALEY: [April 22] He approved the work at all five bridges based on an inspection of only one of the sites, the Sermac Bridge site. When asked why he did not inspect the other four bridge sites, he told us it was because there was nowhere to park at those other sites.

MS. BRACKETT: Mayor Daley had already fired the acting transportation commissioner who had received this memo warning of possible flooding a week and a half before the disaster. The estimated cost to fix the leak then, $10,000. An angry mayor said the commissioner had failed to act quickly enough.

MAYOR RICHARD M. DALEY: This was a serious problem that required immediate repairs. And it should have been expedited.

MS. BRACKETT: Unattended, the leak grew until the subterranean flood erupted in full force just before 6 AM on April 6th. The rising waters were invisible to most Chicagoans, but Mayor Daley ordered the evacuation of 250,000 downtown office workers as power was shut off in most buildings.

MAN ON STREET: Everything is down. The phones are down. They're shutting down the computers. Everything is off. I can't believe it.

MS. BRACKETT: It was first thought that the leak could be plugged by dumping tons of gravel, concrete and sand bags directly into the river. But as building owners' frantic efforts to pump out basements made little progress, it became clear that river water was still flowing into the tunnel. On Tuesday, the construction company hired to stop the leak decided to block off the flow of water by plugging the tunnel on either side of the leak. That meant drilling shafts directly into the old freight tunnel which would then be filled with gravel and concrete. John Kenny, vice president of Kenny Construction, explains.

JOHN KENNY, Kenny Construction Co.: We have finally have completed all the shafts and I group 'em and we group this as Group 1, Group 2, and Group 3.

MS. BRACKETT: Here's the river coming down like this.

JOHN KENNY: Correct. The pile clusters are here. The breach is about right here, in-between the pile clusters.

MS. BRACKETT: Right.

JOHN KENNY: This is the bridge house --

MS. BRACKETT: Way over there.

JOHN KENNY: Right. Correct. It's right here. And so what we did, we actually came in and we sunk some shafts at these locations and started on this side first, because we felt that the flow into the city would be best helped this way first.

MS. BRACKETT: This tunnel goes right on into the city?

JOHN KENNY: Correct.

MS. BRACKETT: But before the concrete could be poured into the shafts, a scuba diver had to go down the shaft to determine the condition of the tunnel. This dangerous assignment fell to foreman navy scuba diver Jim Samoska.

JIM SAMOSKA, Scuba Diver: I went down into the shaft. When I reached the top of the tunnel, I would put the plastic pipe into the tunnel. I didn't feel any flow so I cautiously dropped myself to the bottom of the tunnel, where at that time, we discovered that there was no flow or what little flow there was not going to be a problem for the divers.

MS. BRACKETT: And could you see anything down there?

JIM SAMOSKA: No, no. It's all strictly by feel.

MS. BRACKETT: So it's pitch black and how are you -- are you crawling?

JIM SAMOSKA: Basically, you're on your hands and knees, crawling around just like a baby on the floor, trying to learn and discover new things.

MS. BRACKETT: In the pitch dark?

JIM SAMOSKA: In the pitch dark.

MS. BRACKETT: And was there much water around you at that point?

JIM SAMOSKA: The water depth at that point was approximately 36 feet.

MS. BRACKETT: That does not sound like fun.

MS. BRACKETT: It took until Friday to get the first plug in place, finally stopping the flow of the river into the city's basements. Massive private pumping continued until that suddenly caused a problem with the plug Friday night.

JOHN KENNY: After we had finished making the final plug on the Canal Street shaft and -- I was standing there talking to somebody right next to the plug -- I don't know why I was there, but I was - - and I heard some noise and I turned and I thought, oh, my God, there it goes.

MS. BRACKETT: The city ordered the private pumping shut down. The plug held and the first phase of controlling the flood was over. As the city slowly returned to normal, Mayor Daley warned that the disaster that had paralyzed Chicago could happen anywhere in the country.

MAYOR DALEY: [April 15] Everybody's in it -- from bridges to roads to tunnels to sewers and water -- this is America basically collapsing because their infrastructure is very, very old.

MS. BRACKETT: Chicagoans have become keenly aware of their city's infrastructure. The question now is: With the river back in its banks, how long will the attention to that infrastructure last? FOCUS - TAKING THE CURE

MR. LEHRER: Finally tonight, another idea about how to beat the high cost of health care. The idea comes from Minnesota, where Gov. Arnie Carlson today signed a law that guarantees health insurance for every resident of that state. Correspondent Fred De Sam Lazaro of public station KTCA-Minneapolis-St. Paul reports.

SPOKESMAN: Gov. Carlson, will you join me here.

MR. LAZARO: To veterans at Minnesota's state capitol, this will go down as a memorable year. Even before the legislative session began, top leaders of both parties gathered to announce an agreement on one of the thorniest issues.

PAUL OGREN, Minnesota State Representative: Every Minnesotan as the right of citizenship will have access to quality, affordable health care.

MR. LAZARO: The new Healthright Plan assures that all Minnesota residents are eligible to buy health insurance. It provides subsidies for the so-called "working poor," who can't afford coverage, adds a 2 percent tax to all medical and hospital bills to pay for the subsidy, and to keep those bills from spiraling upward, it significantly changes some practices by health care providers and insurers. Despite strong bipartisan support from the Governor and legislative leaders, the bill barely squeaked through.

EILEEN TOMPKINS, Minnesota State Representative: Make no mistake about it. This is one of the first steps we're taking to socialized medicine in this state.

MR. LAZARO: The idea of government controlling health care costs was a non-starter for some lawmakers; taxing haves to pay for have- nots was unpalatable to others.

SPOKESMAN: The philosophy of this particular bill continues to reflect the philosophy of Robin Hood so I have to urge the members to vote "no."

SPOKESMAN: This is not a welfare program. Every single individual who is eligible for Healthright in the state of Minnesota will be asked to participate and pay some money in.

MR. LAZARO: Only 7 percent of Minnesota's citizens lack health insurance. The state has some of the finest facilities and lowest costs in the nation for health care. So Minnesota would seem an unlikely hotbed of reform. Health care analyst Dr. Arthur Caplan says it's precisely because Minnesota's system isn't that broken that the state can afford to fix it.

DR. ARTHUR CAPLAN, Medical Ethicist: It's not like looking out over the chasm that exists in some states and saying, wow, we're going to have to really move from maybe 85 percent of the citizens being insured to 100. Here it's at 93 percent. The infrastructure is laid in for some pretty good programs; if they can just be extended incrementally, it looks possible to do it.

MR. LAZARO: Further, Caplan says health care has ripened as a political issue.

OTHER SPOKESMAN: I'm here to talk to you about the need for equal access for all people, no matter what the --

MR. LAZARO: Advocates for universal health care, like Kurt Homan, have helped drive the point home to lawmakers that the health care crisis looms larger each day in middle America. Kurt and Peggy Homan have no jobs to go to. Unlike most unemployed people, they can't look very seriously either. They say they're forced to stay on welfare just to qualify for Medicaid insurance, a situation that began four years ago.

KURT HOMAN: I was in automotive sales and sales management for 16 years. I'd started with a new dealership and I'd been there since the first of the month and had signed up for their health insurance benefit program.

MR. LAZARO: Euphoria over the new job faded almost immediately in tragic coincidence. Lee Homan complained of what his parents thought was a bladder infection. The test came back positive for leukemia. As a result, that application for insurance was rejected.

KURT HOMAN: Oh, it was about a week after the diagnosis we got a letter from the insurance company denying and refusing any coverage due to the fact that it was a pre-existing condition.

MR. LAZARO: Under Minnesota's new health care plan, the Homans would never have gotten into their predicament. The law makes health insurance portable from one job to the next. It also prohibits much of the current discrimination based on health status, according to State Rep. Paul Ogren.

PAUL OGREN, Minnesota State Representative: Women are discriminated against, people with any pre-existing conditions, people as they get older, more and more we have an insurance industry that says we're willing to embrace responsibility for young, white males that never demand any health care, but that everybody else is either going to be denied care or priced out of the system.

MR. LAZARO: Outlawing discrimination spreads the risk among all citizens of the state. It might lower insurance rates for people in poorer health and raise them for healthy individuals, but in the long-term, Dr. Caplan says, it will do much to hold down health care costs.

DR. ARTHUR CAPLAN: Because we're not going to get kind of a segregated population of the very sick who wind up costing more and more because they can't get insurance and, therefore, they don't go to the doctor early. I am startled to see the insurance industry is in complete support as long as they get to play on an even playing field, but no resistance to that idea.

MR. LAZARO: Although the Healthright Plan gained an ally from the insurance industry, it met with stiff resistance on several fronts from another powerful interest group, providers. Dr. Stuart Hanson is with the Minnesota Medical Association.

DR. STUART HANSON, Minnesota Medical Association: The funding mechanism they've chosen is one to provide a sales tax on providers, hospitals, and professional -- licensed professionals in the state of Minnesota. This ultimately can be construed as a sick tax.

MR. LAZARO: In a massive letter writing campaign, the doctors group pushed for an income tax to fund the Healthright Program. They claimed it would be more equitable than the medical services tax. But they got stiff resistance from Republican Governor Arnie Carlson.

GOV. ARNIE CARLSON, Minnesota: The funding was ironed out in such a way as to keep the cost inside the system, itself, that had some logic, that had some fairness.

MR. LAZARO: Carlson argues that funding the Healthright Program from within the health care system provides an incentive for doctors and hospitals to control costs. And it's just part of a larger prescription the Healthright Plan has for cost control. It begins by establishing a citizens commission on health care, 26 people from all walks of life, including 2 physicians. The group will set year-to-year targets or ceilings on health care spending in the state. Lawmakers must then approve methods to enforce these limits. The commission will review large capital expenditures made by providers with an eye to controlling duplication of expensive facilities. There will be closer scrutiny for potential conflict of interest, doctors, for example, who refer patients to specialized treatment centers that doctors themselves profit from or own. Like the government programs, Medicare and Medicaid, Healthright sets limits on what it pays for various procedures. Providers can no longer bill patients separately for any difference, a common practice until now. Dr. Hanson says Minnesota's already serious deficit in rural physicians will be aggravated by Healthright.

DR. STUART HANSON: We have now physicians who are saying they won't come to this state because of the prospects of Healthright. Rates for reimbursement for the new Healthright will be at Medicaid rates. In other words, inadequate rates now will be expanded. We're doing charity care for Medicare and now we're going to have Healthright, which will be another charity care.

MR. LAZARO: But proponents of Healthright say physicians will now see fewer uninsured patients, therefore, fewer unpaid bills. That presumes, however, that everyone who's eligible for Healthright subsidies can afford to enroll. That's unlikely.

KURT HOMAN: At the upper end of the lower economic scale the premiums are pretty steep.

MR. LAZARO: Under the sliding scale subsidy, a family of three earning $15,000 a year will pay about $50 a month for health care. A family making $30,000 a year, a category Kurt Homan says he's more likely to fall into, is expected to pay almost $300 a month, a big bite in the family budget.

KURT HOMAN: Spendable income winds up to where we're at the same or less than we are right now, with worse coverage.

MR. LAZARO: Authors of the Healthright Program stress it calls for sacrifice by consumers as much as providers.

DAVE GRUENES, Minnesota State Representative: We aren't going to open things up and the government's going to do everything for the people in Minnesota. Contrary, government's going to help people help themselves.

MR. LAZARO: State Rep. David Gruenes concedes only a third to a half of Minnesota's uninsured will actually buy into the Healthright Program. Even with subsidies, many of the unemployed or moderate income families could find coverage too expensive and choose to live without it. But experts praise this measured approach. Reform that's too ambitious, Caplan says, is doomed to fail.

DR. CAPLAN: What's being asked for is incrementalism, not a drastic overhaul, not tearing the system apart, not inventing Canada, not somehow going to a nationalized health service. It simply says, take the programs that we've got, extend them a bit further. Ask everybody to give a little bit. That seems to be something that is a consensus builder in terms of how you can make something happen.

MR. LAZARO: In two years, when Healthright is fully up and running, about 97 percent of Minnesota's citizens will have health insurance. By today's standards, that's easily the highest percentage in the nation. RECAP

MR. MacNeil: Again, the main stories of this Thursday, the death toll from yesterday's sewer explosions in Guadalajara, Mexico, rose to at least 202. In this country, new claims for unemployment benefits fell by 12,000 in mid April, while factory orders for big ticket items rose in March. A cease-fire was broken in Bosnia- Herzegovina, as European Community mediator Lord Carrington arrived to meet with the warring parties. Good night, Jim.

MR. LEHRER: Good night, Robin. We'll see you tomorrow night with Gergen & Shields, among other things. I'm Jim Lehrer. Thank you and good night.