The MacNeil/Lehrer NewsHour

MR. MacNeil: Good evening. Leading the news this Tuesday, Mikhail Gorbachev promised a new democratic Soviet government system, Democratic Senators elected George Mitchell of Maine as the new majority leader, six firefighters were killed by explosions at a Kansas City construction site. We'll have details in our News Summary in a moment. Charlayne Hunter-Gault is in Washington tonight. Charlayne.

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: After the News Summary, we go first to a bitter debate in Israel and the United States over who is a Jew. We have two rabbis and an Israeli reporter. then we have a documentary update on the crisis in Ethiopia, and a look at what can be done about it, and finally, a report on the Ku Klux Klan's fight to get on cable TV.NEWS SUMMARY

MR. MacNeil: Mikhail Gorbachev pushing constitutional reforms today promised a new democratic Soviet Union. Gorbachev opened a three day session of the Supreme Soviet or Parliament called to approve changes in constitutional law he describes as the first step towards a system based on law, not central dictate. To those concerned that he was amassing too much power, himself, Gorbachev said Parliament would have veto power over his decisions. To open criticism from the rest of Baltic republics, the Soviet leader said he would try to accommodate their demands for more autonomy and set up a commission to study the question. Tensions remained high today in the other principal area of regional unrest, the dispute between Armenia and Azerbaijan. Reuters said tens of thousands of refugees are fleeing from ethnic violence spawned by the rift over which enclave of Nagorno-Karabakh in Azerbaijan. The Armenian Press Agency accused Azerbaijan of adopting a policy of forcing Armenians out. Charlayne.

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: Back in this country on Capitol Hill, the three man race for Senate majority leader is over and the winner is Sen. George Mitchell. The Senator from Maine was elected by unanimous voice vote after narrowly missing a majority on the first ballot. Following a closed meeting of Senate Democrats in the old Senate chamber, the new leader said he was ready to work with President- elect George Bush's White House on the federal deficit and other issues.

SEN. GEORGE MITCHELL, Majority Leader: We will organize a Democratic agenda for the coming Congress and we await with interest and enthusiasm the proposals of the President-elect and the new administration and we look forward to working with them and dealing with the serious problems and important challenges that we face.

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: Meanwhile, on the Republican side, Sen. Bob Dole and his leadership team were re-elected in an unopposed contest and with the hatchet now buried between former rivals Bush and Dole, the Senate Republican leader invited the President-elect for a morning strategy session with key GOP Senators. The deficit was also on their agenda.

MR. MacNeil: Also in Washington today, the Judge in the Iran- Contra case refused to dismiss two of the main charges against former White House aide Oliver North, but agreed to drop a third one. Judge Gerhard Gesal said North could be tried for conspiracy to defraud the government and theft of government property, but he dismissed a charge of wire fraud, saying it was a cumulative charge which would confuse jurors. Judge Gesal has thus far ruled on 34 of North's 37 pretrial motions. The judge has indicated that the trial may begin in late January.

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: The United Nations General Assembly today agreed to delay its annual debate on the Palestinian problem at the request of Arab nations. The move is a first step toward a special U.N. session, possibly in Geneva, to hear PLO Leader Yasser Arafat. On Saturday, the United States refused Arafat an entry visa to this country on the grounds that the PLO is a terrorist organization. The move provoked widespread opposition from allies and others. But Secretary of State George Shultz said today that while he was sorry about the reaction, he would not reconsider the decision. The Secretary's stand provoked Arab demonstrations outside the State Department and the head of the Council of Presidents of National Arab American Organizations said it was not too late to correct the decision.

MR. MacNeil: In Israel's occupied areas, soldiers wounded 20 Palestinians in clashes. Arab hospital officials said the wounded included two teenage boys. On the West Bank, there were verbal clashes today between two factions of Palestinians over calls for a strike. A group called "Hamas", meaning zeal, called for a strike to protest the PLO's declaration of a Palestinian state. Followers of the PLO kicked on doors and called on merchants to open their shops.

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: In Kansas City, Missouri, today, two explosions killed six firemen who are battling suspicious fires at a highway construction site. A seventh injured firefighter was taken to the hospital. A fire department official said the blasts, about 20 minutes apart, occurred shortly before dawn this morning. They involved a total of some 45,000 pounds of amonium nitrate and left two craters thirty to forty feet wide and six or seven feet deep. The force of the explosion shattered windows in homes and businesses over at least a 10 mile area. Several residents said the explosions lifted them out of their beds.

MR. MacNeil: The U.S. economy grew somewhat faster than expected in the third quarter, but still at the slowest pace in nearly two years. The Commerce Department reported the Gross National Product was up by 2.6 percent in the July to September months. The U.S. and Japan announced they will jointly develop a new jet fighter. In the projected $8 billion deal, Japan will bear the costs of planning and producing the plane called the FSX. The fighter will be built by U.S. and Japanese companies and is based on General Dynamics' F-16.

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: That's our News Summary. Stil ahead on the Newshour, the debate over who is a Jew, the crisis in Ethiopia, and cable TV and the Ku Klux Klan. FOCUS - WHO IS A JEW?

MR. MacNeil: We focus first tonight on who is a Jew, the issue that has caused an uproar among American Jews and bedeviled attempts to form a government in Israel. It started as a simple negotiation between Prime Minister Yitzhak Shamir's Likud bloc and several religious parties, but the religious parties demanded more control over Jewish life. American Jewish groups in particular have expressed concern over a proposal to change the law of return that grants automatic Israeli citizenship to all Jews. The change would redefine who is a Jew to exclude Jews converted by reform or conservative rabbis, groups that dominate American Judaism. The uproar has contributed to a decision by Likud to reopen coalition talks with the labor party. A so-called "national unity government" would allow the prime minister to resist the demands of the religious parties. We'll discuss this with two American Jewish leaders, but first an update on the latest twists and turns in the story from Ofrah Yeshua-Lyth, the Washington Correspondent for Maariv, Israel's largest independent newspaper.

MR. MacNeil: Ms. Lyth, is a coalition decree between Likud and the religious parties still a possibility?

OFRA YESHUA-LYTH, Maariv Newspaper: It is a possibility as far as the numbers go. It becomes a less and less desired object for the Likud Party taking into consideration the uproar and the unpopular image of such a coalition. And it seems that this is one of the major reasons why today or yesterday, Labor's actually got more generous offers from the Likud as compared to what was offered to them before.

MR. MacNeil: Describe the concerns in Israel that started Shamir negotiating with the Labor Party instead of the religious parties.

MS. LYTH: Well, the elections on November 1st produced really an unexpected result. A much larger number of the seats in the Knesset is now controlled by religious parties, and I think first and foremost was the real shock wave through the non-religious Israeli community which are still 85 percent of the population, and it suddenly became very clear to lots of voters of both Likud and Labor that whatever their intentions in voting for on the political agenda were, suddenly the religious agenda was the main subject on the table, on the negotiating table, because the religious parties, mainly the orthodox religious parties, have only one subject and they are a one subject political group with one aim, to make Israel a more traditional, a more religious country, and with the power of holding the balance of powers in any narrow government, they could actually, they had the option to go with Labor and to form a coalition in numbers, given the possibility to have Shimon Peres as prime minister plus all the religious parties and alternatively to have Shamir as the head. So the price they could put on their cooperation was almost a limit.

MR. MacNeil: Well, what concerned non-religious Jews in the Israel, what in the demands of the religious parties concerned the ordinary voter?

MS. LYTH: Well, it's really a question everyday life, the Jewish religion being really very demanding on the individual, on its very orthodox fundamentalist, we call it, interpretation, that actually if you want to be an orthodox Jew, it affects everything you do. It affects the way you dress, especially if you're a woman, it affects the days, what you would do in the days of the week. For example, on Friday afternoon, Friday evening, and Saturday, you're not allowed to take part in lots of activities, from sports activities, entertainment, drive your own car. We already don't have public transport, for example, on the Shabat. Many Israelies are even forced to have their own private vehicles because you can't take a bus or a train on a Shabat, and the possibility that one day you won't even be able to drive your own car into Shabat is obviously of concern to lots of people -- what you can get in restaurants, what sort of food you can get, whether you can -- how your marriage life was already controlled, divorce and all the family law is already controlled by the religious courts, but they would like to have even, to exercise even more power there.

MR. MacNeil: Well, apart from those social concerns, how big an issue in Israel is the who is a Jew question that has so aroused American Jews?

MS. LYTH: This is also a very old part of the political debate. For Israelis, this is hardly a new subject. We had governments falling on the who is a Jew question back in the fifties, and there is always the debate between the religious parties who would like the definition of who is a Jew, which is very important in Israel, because we have the law of return, as you know, which says every Jew anywhere in the world can come to Israel and can get automatic Israeli citizenships if they're Jewish. Now the question is, what makes you a Jew, and this is a question of citizenship, it's a question who can join in, and who is an Israeli in the end of the day, so it's really not a new problem as far as Israelis are concerned.

MR. MacNeil: Well, thank you very much for that insight. Now we have two differing perspectives from the American Jewish community. Rabbi Elimeleth Naiman is President of the Ger Institutions of America, an organization serving several thousand orthodox Hesitic families in the United States. Rabbi Alexander Shindler is President of the Union of American Hebrew Congregations, which represents over a million and a half members of the Reformed Jewish Movement. Rabbi Naiman, you support the effort of the religious parties to change the law of return. Would you explain why.

RABBI ELIMELETH NAIMAN, The Ger Institution: Yes. Robin, I think one of the problems are that the real story's not coming through to the people not in Israerl and not in America. The reform conservative rabbis are mistranslating ger talaha, who's a convert into who is a Jew. It is not who is a Jew. It is who is a convert. And I feel that this mistranslation is very important to bring out that people should know. No. 2, the fact is that the reform and conservative rabbis are saying it is the orthodox that are starting these new things, these new issues. As you heard from Washington before, it's an old issue. It was -- Prime Minister Golda Mier, I think it was in March of 1970 that she brought this law of return to the Israeli Parliament. It was then approved. The only question was then that the word of Halakah was left out. So it's not a new issue. It's not a Jewish issue; it's not an orthodox issue. It's an issue that Gold Maier brought up and set the precedent years ago which we're debating right now.

MR. MacNeil: Why would it be a good thing to change the law so that a convert converted to Judaism by a reform or conservative rabbi was not regarded as a Jew? Why would that be a good thing?

RABBI NAIMAN: Explain again the question.

MR. MacNeil: Well, my question is, if I understand it correctly, the idea is to change it so that someone converted to Judaism whose conversion is carried out by a rabbi in a conservative or reform congregation would not be accepted as a Jew.

RABBI NAIMAN: I have to explain it. It's not because he's a reform or conservative. There's a certain Halakah that has to be done for conversions after you buy your piece of paper to get the conversion, there's a certain Halakah.

MR. MacNeil: Which means what?

RABBI NAIMAN: Which there's a procedure that has to be done regarding conversion. If an orthodox rabbi would do the same thing which some reform rabbis were doing, it would not be acceptable to the Jewish people, to the orthodox people, either. It's not the reformed conservative issue. It's what is being done for the Halakah regarding the conversion.

MR. MacNeil: In your view, is a reform or conservative rabbi capable of carrying out the correct procedure?

RABBI NAIMAN: If he would go along with the Halakah, the right Halakah, and they would go with what is required, it could be done.

MR. MacNeil: What practical result would it have in a secular Israeli state to make this change, a majority of whose citizens are not religious, what practical result would it have?

RABBI NAIMAN: Well, the problem is we're not talking about who is a Jew over there. The fact is somebody borned from a Jewish mother who converted Halakah regarding reform, conservative or orthodox is a Jew. No one is not saying they're Jews. We're all brothers with Jews.

MR. MacNeil: It's a question of converts, as you said.

RABBI NAIMAN: It has to be done to Halakah, according to the Jewish law which is the bible, it's in the Talmut.

MR. MacNeil: Let's get another view of this. Rabbi Schindler, you strongly oppose this change I gather. Would you explain why.

RABBI ALEXANDER SCHINDLER, Union Of American Hebrew Congregations: Well, because I think essentially it's an insult, an offense to most American Jews. Most American Jews have intermarriages in their families. Intermarriage is a fact of American Jewish life. Approximately one out of three of every, of all of our children, choose an un-Jew to be a life mate, so that there isn't an American family that is not affected by the problem of intermarriage, either a spouse or a child or a grandchild. And all of a sudden, and most of them of course are converted by orthodox -- by conservative an reform rabbis. And all of a sudden, the quality of their Jewishness is brought into question, and this is an offense. It is seen as an insult.

MR. MacNeil: It affects, the actual conversions affect relatively few people, is that correct? There are relatively few people who want to go to Israel?

RABBI SCHINDLER: That is true, but there is an emotional impact. You must understand that these people who convert to Judaism go through a soul wrenching experience. They give up the faith to which they were devoted. They study Judaism. They have committed themselves to Jewish life. They rear their children Jewishly. They have determined to share the destiny of the Jewish people, which is not always an easy destiny, and now suddenly, they are told, well, some Jews are more equal than other Jews. They feel that. They feel that offense. They feel that outrage. The practical consequences may not be that great, although even there I might argue that considerably they could be great. The law of return was not instituted for a time such as this, nor is it limited only to American Jews. There are many Jews in other parts of the world, in countries where Jews are repressed, in South America, in Russia where there are intermarriages, and therefore, this law could conceivably affect them too.

MR. MacNeil: What would it do to American Jewish support for Israel if a coalition of Likud and these religious parties forced through this change?

RABBI SCHINDLER: Well, I think there would be a substantial disaffection, a substantial alienation. A lot of the wind would be taken out of the sail of our support for Israel. The American Jewish leadership will urge continuing support. As a matter of fact, we are opposing this law because it potentially leads to this kind of disaffection. But undoubtedly, while the wounds may begin to heal, it will leave scars which will never ever vanish, and will affect the spirit of the American Jewish communities as - -

MR. MacNeil: What do yousay to that, Rabbi Naiman, that it is an insult to American Jews?

RABBI NAIMAN: Well, I don't think it's an insult, and I'll explain what the problem there is. There are certain reform rabbis who are just giving out conversion papers without doing anything and I understand there are conservatives, not only the orthodox but the conservative rabbis don't go along with these conversions that are done by some reform rabbis. So the question is it's not an issue between orthodox and conservative reform, it's an issue that has to be done Halakah, according to the Jewish law.

RABBI SCHINDLER: I'd like to react to that. Rabbi Naiman said that it's not a question of who is doing the converting, but of what the procedures are. That is not quite true. You'll forgive me for saying so. The fact of the matter is that virtually all conservative rabbis and many reform rabbis follow the dictates of Halakah, of tradition, in conversion. I, myself, require not only a period of lengthy study; I require circumcision, mela, intervela, the immersion of the woman convert, but that is not enough for the orthodox because they simply say to me it requires a witness, a qualified witness, and since you are not observant in the orthodox way, you are not a witness and, therefore, your conversion is a fraudulent --

MR. MacNeil: I don't think in our time we can argue the religious niceities. Let's go back to the political side of this. Is it worth of jeopardizing American Jewish support for Israel so vital to Israel's economy and military support, diplomatic support, over this question?

RABBI NAIMAN: Well, I think that there is nothing that has to be put on the table and everybody should know it is not the orthodox Jews who are bringing this out into the American media. It is the reform or conservative rabbis who for selfish reasons are trying to make it an issue again stating as to make it who is a Jew and not who is a convert.

MR. MacNeil: So it wouldn't be a problem if they were't publicizing this?

RABBI NAIMAN: Yes. What they're doing right now is they are organizing. They are the ones who brought it to the American media, to the front pages of all the newsletters, and the headlines of all the newspapers and televisions. It was them, the conservative reform rabbis, who took an Israeli domestic issue, brought it to America, get involved U.S. Congressmen coming to talk against Israel, which I think that's very wrong.

RABBI SCHINDLER: Well, I mean, if you prick us, we bleed. If you hurt us, we cry, and it certainly isn't an internal Israeli issue. This is entirely directed to the outside world.

MR. MacNeil: Is it appropriate for American Jews, who are after all American citizens, American voters, some of them had dual citizenship, but is it appropriate for them to be interfering with or, in effect, dictating who will form an Israeli cabinet?

RABBI SCHINDLER: We are not, we certainly don't want to dictate who is an Israeli Government, who forms an Israeli Government. That's up to the Israelis who vote. They voted. We do not have the right to vote. But we have a right to insist that such issues which affect our destiny as Jews and our status as Jews should not be a bargaining chip in the quest for political power.

MR. MacNeil: How do you answer that?

RABBI NAIMAN: Well, I don't think it's an issue that they should be hurt about it, because if we could work out, they should work under the Halakah 100 percent. That should satisfy every aspect of the Jewish people, the orthodox, conservative and reform. There wouldn't be a problem on it.

MR. MacNeil: Well, but apparently, there is a problem, and I asked Rabbi Schindler whether it was appropriate that they, in effect, interfere in the Israeli political process. You, yourself, have been to Israel recently and advising some of the religious parties on how to approach this issue, I gather. Did you think it is appropriate for Americans to be --

RABBI NAIMAN: No. I was there as -- I wouldn't say as an adviser -- but meet with the people over there to hear what they have to say and to come back and to tell the American people what the story is, and the people over there feel very hurt, why the conservative reform rabbis are making such issue over here in the papers and everything.

MR. MacNeil: Let's go back to Ms. Lyth in Washington who's been listening to this. How do you think it is going to be resolved, from your information?

MS. LYTH: Well, I think what we're going to see probably is the status quo would be kept if we are going to see a national unity government. And in the past, there were discussions about who is a Jew and there were -- even this law was brought more than once to the Knesset, the change which Rabbi Naiman alluded to, and somehow many members of the Knesset that were supposed to vote for it just didn't show up. So it's a way of deciding not to decide. That's one of the options that Mr. Shamir has, and this is actually the reason why they wouldn't take his word for it this time that he would actually -- if I may mention just referring to your American Jewish angle on the law, every child in Israel would tell you that the heaviest impact and the heaviest pressure on the Israeli Government, on the Israeli religious parties to change the law, actually comes from America, actually from Brooklyn, and the rabbi, there's a very well known rabbi of Lubavich, who's got this huge influence over one of the religious parties, is actually holding the flag to the change of the law of conversion so I don't think it would be fair to say it was the reform and conservative movement that started this American involvement.

MR. MacNeil: How do you respond to that?

RABBI NAIMAN: I know it's already -- this issue was brought up right after the law was passed in 1970, and at that time they started the requirement they should just add the word Halakah --

MR. MacNeil: What about her claim that this is being promoted by orthodox and Hesitic Jews?

RABBI NAIMAN: It's not promoted. He also agrees with all the religious and orthodox leaders in Israel that this should be done.

RABBI SCHINDLER: I've spoken to countless leaders of orthodox parties in Israel and all of them told me that relentless pressure comes from the rabbi of Lubavich and it is his persistent coming from Brooklyn, a man who never set foot in Israel, that is responsible for all of this. So to say that we are interfering and the orthodox are not interfering is simply not --

RABBI NAIMAN: Excuse me. I'm not talking about interfering. It's bringing this issue to the media here in America and getting involved American, U.S. Congressmen, I feel it's not right to get them involved in a domestic issue in Israel.

MR. MacNeil: Our time is up. We leave it there, and we'll see how it is worked out in the negotiations in Israel. Ms. Lyth, thank you very much for joining us from Washington. Rabbi Naiman, Rabbi Schindler in New York, thank you.

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: Still to come, the crisis in Ethiopia, and the Ku Klux Klan and cable TV. FOCUS - WAR AND FAMINE [ETHIOPIA]

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: Next tonight we return to a story of continuing war and famine. In the lastfour years, the East African nation of Ethiopia has experienced two major droughts which have triggered severe shortages of food and mass starvation. This year the rains did come, but hunger remains a serious problem, exacerbated by civil wars in Ethiopia's two northern provinces of Eritrea and Tigre. In a moment, we will get the U.S. perspective on the situation, but first, we have a CBC report on the effects of the war on civilians. It was filmed in rebel held territory of Aritrea. The Correspondent is Bob McCuen.

BOB MC CUEN: The people of Northern Ethiopia have faced perhaps the cruelest double whammy of the century. Survivors of the famine that killed 1 million people in the mid 1980's, they now must flee the world's longest running war. Eight year old Nuri and his father have spent the better part of a week getting to the Town of Irota and the only hospital for miles around. People come here to be treated by Dr. Assefaw Tekeste, a 40 year old surgeon who returned home to help the Eritrean war effort 10 years ago after studying in Europe. Nuri recently lost both eyes and his lower leg when he stepped on an Ethiopian land mine while tending his father's goats. In the past six months, here at the hospital in Irota, his story is just one of many.

DR. ASSEFAW TEKESTE, Eritrean Surgeon: At present in the central hospital only we have almost 300 wounded citizens. These citizens were wounded by mines, air bombardment, napom.

MR. MC CUEN: Dr. Tekeste only operates at night, because of Ethiopian bombing during the day. This evening Nuri is one of several patients for whom he'll perform surgery. Almost all of them are victims of the war. But they're the lucky ones. It's estimated the conflict kills 200 civilians a month. Though nothing can be done to bring back Nuri's sight, Tekeste is going to clean up the leg he lost to avoid gangrene, and so he can eventually be fitted with a prosthesis and one day walk by himself again.

DR. ASSEFAW TEKESTE: On one hand we have millions of people starving and yet they can afford to buy bombs --

MR. MC CUEN: This may be the poorest country in the world, but it spends half its national budget on soldiers and weapons. Under Col. Mingista Halimaria, Ethiopia has the largest army in black Africa, 300,000 strong, equipped and trained by the Soviet Union. At stake is the province of Eritrea and the coastline without which Ethiopia would be landlocked. Since 1961, the Eritrean People's Liberation Front has fought for independence from Ethiopia, 20,000 rebels outnumbered 15 to 1 by the Ethiopian Army and supported meagerly by contributions from Eritreans abroad. Yet, they have battled the Ethiopians to a standstill for more than a quarter century. Then this past March, the war took a dramatic turn. At a town called Afaba, Eritreans routed the Ethiopian Army. Months later, the hulks of Ethiopian tanks and vehicles still litter the battlefield. And where 15,000 people once lived, Afabet has become a ghost town. But the rebels now control almost all of Eritrea, except a few main towns and roads, however, it now appears that the real losers may not have been the Ethiopians but the people of Eritrea. In April, on the heels of the battle at Afabet, the Ethiopians declared a state of emergency in Eritrea. For security reasons, the government said, all foreign aid workers in the North, including the International Red Cross, would be ordered out. They have not been allowed to return since. Ironically, the foreign aid workers have been expelled at a time when the part of Northern Ethiopia controlled by the government and the part controlled by the rebels both need assistance more than ever. Since April, 200,000 more displaced people have joined the million previous refugees, those who managed to escape the ravages of the civil war and those who didn't. This young woman is 26 years of age. Her daughter is just over a year. They were at home in the village of Sheeb, 40 miles inland from the Red Sea, when the Ethiopian Army arrived.

SURVIVOR OF SHEEB: [Speaking Through Translator] Ethiopian soldiers arrived in the village in trucks, in tanks and on foot. They told us to assemble in the square. There must have been about 400 of us. Then they began firing. We tried to escape but we were surrounded. The tanks started to advance, crushing the people in their way. My whole family was killed except for my baby. For three days I lay in the midst of the bodies pretending to be dead. At one point my baby started to cry. A soldier aimed his gun. I heard his companion said, don't waste a bullet, the baby will die of hunger anyway. The soldiers pillaged the dead. They took anything valuable, especially the woman's gold nose rings and bracelets. After three days they left. I walked and found refuge here.

MR. MC CUEN: Dr. Tekeste says that he is not only seeing more civilian casualties, but more casualties of chemical weapons such as napom.

DR. ASSEFAW TEKESTE: This is a victim of napom burn. It happened two months ago in Agra, that's about 15 killometers north of Nakva, and she's a nomad, where she was in this tent, this makeshift nomad tent. A plane came and it attacked the village and the tent burned. She survived with her child. She has what we call third degree burn in this area where the muscles are involved. We have made some skin grafts in these two places, here and on her thigh. It has been one of the common weapons of the Ethiopians. They use napom, but in the last two months after Afabet, it has been intensified. There has been continuous bombardment, attacking villages, and so on, and we have more victims at this time than before.

MR. MC CUEN: David Gallagher is the African Coordinator for Oxfam Canada.

DAVID GALLAGHER, Oxfam Canada: The first thing they wanted to do in a situation like that is get rid of all the foreigners.

MR. MC CUEN: Why?

DAVID GALLAGHER: Because first of all they don't like to have that publicity that they're defeated and they're straggling back into towns and secondly, they have to hit back in some way. So they've got to stop bombing and napoming and doing all of those things on civilian populations which we know we have records that they are doing that. They just don't want foreigners around. They don't want people seeing that, because they rely tremendously on external assistance and they just don't need that kind of publicity. The people of this village, 20 killometers from the front line, observe a few moments of silence for their neighbors and friends who have been killed in the war. The feeling here seems to be that there's not much they can do about it, but they wonder what's happened to the Western countries that came to Ethiopia's aid during the famine of 1984, but who they believe now turn a blind eye to something just as bad.

SURIVOR OF SHEEB: [Through Translator] We know that you can crush grain but not crush human beings with tanks like the Ethiopians did in Sheeb. If they can do such brutal acts, it's because other nations kept silent. Because of this complicity, our land is burning, our trees and grass, even rocks are melting because of fire.

MR. MC CUEN: The inhospitable Eritrean terrain doesn't provide much comfort to the 200,000 people who have been forced away from their homes by the war in the past four months. Ironically, many of those in the camps of the displaced like this one had to leave productive land behind. At the time of year when they should be planting crops, they're scratching shelter out of the bare earth instead. The Eritreans believe that another famine will surely result, because hunger and dislocation have become Ethiopian weapons. But the government also uses mig fighters. So for these refugees camouflage is the most pressing problem. Paulos Giorgis is with the Eritrean Relief Association.

PAUOS GIORGIS, Eritrean Relief Association: A new program must be initiated to house them, bring them tents and mats, to give them blankets so that they are saved from the cold to provide them with utensils, to start life all over again.

MR. MC CUEN: This baby will never get that chance. Just two months old, he's dying from malnutrition. His mother suffers from anemia and has no milk to feed her son. The family told us that they had lived near one of Eritrea's cities controlled by the Ethiopian Government. They left because of the fighting, but also they say because since the foreign aid workers left, there was no food there, even in a major center of population. In Northern Ethiopia, it's a disastrous combination, the expulsion of aid agencies, the drought, the war. The Eritrean Relief Association does receive some food, mostly from European countries and from non-government agencies like Oxfam, NGO's as they're called. And the supplies which do get into Eritrea have to come across the border from Sudan in convoys of trucks and camels under cover of darkness to avoid the Ethiopian bombs. And though this dangerous cross border route is Eritrea's only life line, because it is considered to be enemy territory by the Government of Ethiopia, it is not officially recognized by countries like Canada, the gap between the food that's available and the people who need it growing all the time. One final irony of the situation in Eritrea. Though this conflict has continued for 27 years and has no end in sight, the Government of Ethiopia still refuses to call it a war and refuses to recognize the 20,000 Ethiopian soldiers who have been captured, some no older than 14, some taken prisoner decades ago. So no one sends rations or money to support the POW's, and Eritrea has another 20,000 hungry mouths to feed.

DR. ASSEFAW TEKESTE: I think this nation has been suffering for such a long time. There have been centuries of colonization. These people have never had peace for the last hundreds of years. Someday we deserve peace at least, where we can think in terms of prosperity, in terms of improving the present standard of life in Eritrea, in terms of peace.

MR. MC CUEN: On the road near the front, the refugees keep coming, but Nuri and his father are heading home, back to their goats, back to the war. Like most of the people of Eritrea, they have nowhere else to go.

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: For a look at what lies behind this conflict and what can be done about it, we have an expert who served as Chief of the U.S. Mission to Ethiopia from July 1985 to July of this year. He is James Cheek, currently Diplomat in Residence at Howard University in Washington, D.C. Mr. Cheek, first of all, why would the government be so relentlessly attacking civilians and with napom?

JAMES CHEEK, Former Chief Of U.S. Mission To Ethiopia: Well, we don't really have evidence -- they're certainly engaging in extensive aerial bombing -- we didn't really find any evidence of napom use I think largely because the Soviets may be exercising some restraint on what's done with made in Moscow war material.

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: Wasn't that napom damage we saw on the --

MR. CHEEK: I couldn't tell you. We had not seen evidence after bombing. They do do extensive bombing, but it's a savage war and there's savagry on both sides, particularly on the government side, because it has been so heavily armed by the Soviet Union, and they have these horrible weapons of war and migs and rockets and missiles and they just use them indiscriminately.

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: At the end of the CBC report you just heard Dr. Tekeste say that we deserve peace. What are the main obstacles to peace?

MR. CHEEK: Well, we see a need on both sides to give up a military, trying to solve this militarily since neither side in 27 years, if they've proven anything, it's that they can't win the war, either side, and, therefore, we would like to see them really seriously realistically pursue a political solution to the conflict that would bring peace to Eritrea.

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: The lady on the tape talked about the complicity of silence among the Western nations. How much of that -- is that the case in your view, and how much of that has resulted in this continuation of the conflict?

MR. CHEEK: I certainly during my three years in Ethiopia was not known for my silence. I think I appeared on all of our networks and constantly in the newspapers and wide open to expose this, the human suffering that was going on there, and the responsibility that both sides bore for that, and particularly the Government of Ethiopia. We didn't make ourselves very popular. In fact, it was the United States, the United States Government, that called attention to all this, the suspicion that the government was about to in throwing out the relief workers to launch a, to use food as a weapon in the war, which we feel helped to restrain them from doing it. They have not done that.

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: What about now? Where does the U.S. stand in all of this and what is it doing?

MR. CHEEK: Of course, we're committed on the humanitarian side to continuing to do our share to help feed these people who are the helpless victims of war and of course the periodic droughts, and also the policies of their government, which discourage production. On the political side, we have very little leverage over either side. We have practically no contact with the guerrillas you saw. Our relations with the Government of Ethiopia, the Magista Regime, are very very bad and all we can do is appeal to both and we appeal also to the Soviet Union which does have leverage.

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: Over hte weekend, President Magista in an interview with the New York Times said that he was hoping for improved relationships, relations with the new U.S. administration. What does that really mean? And does that hold out any hope that the U.S. can be a positive influence?

MR. CHEEK: I don't know what it means either. Throughout my tenure, three years in Ethiopia, he was expressing hope for improving relations and expectations of it, but whenever we attempted to engage him in dialogue to follow through with him on these expressions that he would make to the media but not to us, we were unable to get him to even enter into discussions with to approve relations.

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: But the different factor in the equation, well, could the different factor in the equation now be the Soviet Union which has been pressing in recent times the Magista regime to come up with thepolitical solution?

MR. CHEEK: Well, we like to think so. In fact, we engage -- you know, Ethiopia was on the agenda for the last summit with President Reagan and Premier Gorbachev and we would like to as part of our overall thrust to engage the Soviet Union constructively in solving regional conflicts. We would like to see the user influence on behalf of peace to get something out of that $500 million a year they put into the war in the North.

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: But how much weight would that carry, the Soviets saying -- the chances are the Soviets are thinking they can't afford it anymore, I would imagine -- but how much weight would that carry for the Soviets to say, we're just not going to support you anymore with weapons of war, you've got to reach a - - would they then do it or is Magista so -- .

MR. CHEEK: Well, Magista is not alone among Ethiopians; they're very proud people. You know, they've never been conquered and they have every reason to be proud and they can be very stubborn and I'm not, we're not saying that the Soviets can just wave a wand or snap their fingers and he would jump; he wouldn't. But we feel they do have some influence and that they could use this leverage. Of course, as we found out with our friends and allies, this leverage of providing military support, the alternative of abandoning it is to see the government go under, so it's not as simple as it might seem.

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: What kind of political solution is possible do you think?

MR. CHEEK: Well, we've of course tried federation after the trusteeship terminated in 1952 and it lasted until about 10 years. It didn't work largely because I think neither side really understood, that's one possibility, to try some sort of a middle ground between the demands of the rebels --

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: Who want to be independent --

MR. CHEEK: Independence -- this is very different from your groups in Angola or Afghanistan. These people don't want to take over Ethiopia; they want to separate from it. And the demand of the government of total submission and incorporation within the government, with just some sort of meaningless autonomy, local autonomy offered to them -- one basic problem here, of course, is that there isn't really good credible leadership on either side, and President Magista has of course pursued a military solution and has not offered anything in the way of a political solution.

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: What is happening in the meantime? I mean, the foreign workers have been expelled, the foreign aide workers have been exposed. Now the rains have come which I suspect is relieving some of the drought. I mean, what is happening to the people now? How much food is getting through?

MR. CHEEK: Well, miraculously, in spite of all the obstacles, we seem to have gotten through this '88 famine based on the drought of '87, and we have good rainfall in '88. There will be a food shortage, because you have a war that creates a shortage of food production, you have policies of the government that create it, and this goes on, and there will be hunger and a need for food next year in Ethiopia.

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: In brief, what do you think the most realistic scenario is on the horizon? I mean, are we going to be sitting here next time having the same conversation?

MR. CHEEK: Well, that certainly would have been the case anytime in the last 26, 27 years. I would hope not. We would hope that both sides here would sort of come to their senses and end the suffering of their people because as that film showed, it's the people who are suffering.

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: How's that going to happen? I mean, you haven't said anything yet that convinces me.

MR. CHEEK: Well, we think if they would give up on a military solution that's the first step and accept that they can't solve it that way and then start thinking realistically about a political situation and how could they compromise and how could they satisfy Eritrea's need for some sort of unique and separate identity and Ethiopia's need to keep the country together. We support Ethiopia's territorial integrity. We're not out to see it dismembered here.

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: All right. We'll just have to see what happens. Thank you very much for being with us. FOCUS - CABLE AND THE KLAN

MR. MacNeil: Does the Ku Klux Klan have a constitutional right to promote its views on cable television? That's the question being debated in Kansas City these days, where the City Council says the answer is no and the American Civil Liberties Union says the answer is yes. Correspondent Tom Bearden has the report.

TOM BEARDEN: For many years the Ku Klux Klan has been only a shadowy organization, surfacing only occasionally for a media event. But recently, the Klan has been seeking a much wider audience. This is a television program called "Race And Reason". It's produced in California by a Klan group called the White Arian Resistance. It's seen with some regularity on cable television systems in more than 50 cities. "RACE AND REASON" CLIP

MR. BEARDEN: There have been a few protests over its showing but no major problems until the Klan wanted air time in Kansas City. City Council Member Rev. Emanuel Cleaver, who was terrorized by the Klan eight years ago, led the opposition.

COUNCILMAN EMANUEL CLEAVER: [Kansas City Council Videotape] I wish the people in this place could have come to my home at 3 AM in the morning in 1980, when my wife and my children were huddled by the stairwell, waiting on the police to come, and when they arrived, the cross was burning in my lawn, a Molotov cocktail has been thrown against my window, I wish the people who are drawing me in caricatures, I wish the people who are calling me a McCarthyite, could have been there watching my little children crying in the middle of the night.

MR. BEARDEN: But despite heated opposition to the Klan, the Council at first refused to ban the program.

JOANNE COLLINS, Kansas City Council: [Kansas City Council Videotape] Mr. Cleaver, I've been there, but we can't take up public access and say keep the people ignorant so they won't know who their enemy is. The enemy may be us, Mr. Cleaver. And this is not the way to deal with it.

MR. BEARDEN: The argument centered on the cable company's public access channel. This is the kind of programming most public access channels show, programs produced by amateur volunteers, using cable company facilities. Federal law gives cities the right to require cable operators to provide public access facilities in return for the exclusive right to wire a city. Most franchises, including Kansas City's, specify that anyone should be granted access, but when the Klan applied, American Cablevision declined, saying the franchise limited the Kansas City channel to locally produced material. Klansmen then built a makeshift studio in the basement of the home of one of their members and asked for assistance to produce their own show, assistance that had been routinely provided to others. The Klan's announced intention to appear on cable television mobilized Kansas City's minority community. A coalition of groups put heavy pressure on the City Council whicheventually voted to abolish the public access channel entirely.

FRANK PEREZ: We exercised all our political clouts collectively to ensure that we wouldn't have 'em on television.

MR. BEARDEN: Frank Perez is the President of the local Hispanic Chamber of Commerce and organizer of the minority coalition.

FRANK PEREZ, Hispanic Chamber Of Commerce: Our coalition would have been there at the Cablevision station and stopped 'em. We would have had a problem, we would have physically, oh, yes, physically, we would have done whatever we had to to stop 'em.

MR. BEARDEN: But it never came to that kind of confrontation. Perez worked with Rev. Cleaver to get the Council to pass a resolution replacing the public access channel with what they now call a community programming channel. The only difference is that American Cablevision now has editorial control over what appears on the channel.

REV. EMMANUEL CLEAVER, Kansas Cijty Council: They will have an opportunity to make sure that if some kind of controversial position is aired, then it will be balanced, and I think that that is infinitely better than allowing anybody to go on and say anything, particularly in a volatile kind of an atmosphere where race relations are not what they ought to be. And then you have some, some people going on the air, promoting violence, and creating hysteria.

FRANK PEREZ: All we did was give Cablevision discretionary editorial privileges.

MR. BEARDEN: But you sent a real strong message to the cable company at the same time, didn't you, saying we don't want this on television?

FRANK PEREZ: Yeah, they know that, they know that.

MR. BEARDEN: So aren't you acting as a censor?

FRANK PEREZ: No, because the Klan's already applied again and trying to get back on television.

MR. BEARDEN: But you're not going to let 'em. You said you'd demonstrate, you'd physically stop 'em.

FRANK PEREZ: Oh, yeah, we're not going to let 'em, not here in Kansas City.

MR. BEARDEN: How is that not being a censor?

FRANK PEREZ: I don't know whether it's not bein' a censor or not. I know we just don't want 'em here in Kansas City.

MR. BEARDEN: But Klan Grand Giant J. Allen Moran calls it discrimination.

J. ALLEN MORAN, Ku Klux Klan: That we have been discriminated against because of our religion, because of our social and political points of views. The City Council and American Cablevision were very vocal as the reason why they were doing this. So, yes, it is a severe case of discrimination.

MR. BEARDEN: The Executive Director of the local chapter of the American Civil Liberties Union agrees.

RICHARD KIRTENBACH, American Civil Liberties Union: The public access channel was a public forum, no different than a public park, and to allow people on to that public forum based on the content of their speech is we think a clear violation of the First Amendment.

MR. BEARDEN: But city fathers are worried about the potential impact of the Klan's message. Perez is concerned that the Klan's philosophy might find fertile ground.

FRANK PEREZ: The Klan goes after weak people, people who don't have a job, they don't like their country, they hate even gettin' up in the morning and they see those type of people on television and right away they think that's the stamp of approval because they're on television. So then they want to join 'em you know, and they go after a lot of the sickos.

RICHARD KIRTENBACH: I'm sure that the Klan, if they get on the air, will have some appeal to some elements in this community, but I think the response to that is not less speech. The response tothat is more and better speach.

COUNCILMAN EMMANUEL CLEAVER: I think that's ludicrous and if you think that that sells, then ask survivors of the Holocaust whether Hitler's continued two hour speeches rendered him impotent or not. It rendered him more powerful.

MR. BEARDEN: Rev. Cleaver is concerned about a violent reaction if the Klan is allowed on cable.

COUNCILMAN EMMANUAL CLEAVER: You're talking about creating a situation where we could have a race riot in Kansas City. You allow the Klan to continue to march into those communities with their garb on and black children who are already frightened because of the potential of Klans members coming into their community, and parents trying to be protective, and we could have a really dreadful situation in Kansas City.

RICHARD KIRTENBACH: That argument was used against Martin Luther King and civil rights activists in the South in the 50's and the 60's. County sheriffs and local city councils said time and again we can't let the civil rights groups march because if we do, there will be violence.

COUNCILMAN EMMANUEL CLEAVER: This is different. The Klan is preaching hatred and murder. They are not a brotherhood organization and they never have been and even though today they wear suits, they are still what they were.

MR. BEARDEN: But Moran says allowing them to appear would actually prevent violence.

MR. MORAN: Being on television is perhaps the safest way for all concerned, those who espouse the Klan's point of view, and those who detest the Klan's point of view, because you can't get to us and we can't get to you either to protect ourselves. Basically you turn the TV on, there we are. You have an option. You can turn the TV off. There's no touching involved, but if I was to stand on the street corner with maybe eighty, ninety, or two hundred other Klansmen marching down the street, yeah, there's probably going to be violence.

DENNIS MAHON, King Legal, KKK: If they do not allow us to express ourselves in a non-violent way, eventually the only recourse is violence, it will be frustration and you know, take other alternatives.

MR. BEARDEN: The ACLU plans to file suit, charging that the Council's action violates the Klan's First Amendment rights. Even that is controversial. The Kansas City chapter was unable to find a local lawyer to argue the case. They had to bring in somebody from out of town. RECAP

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: Once again, the main points in today's news, Mikhail Gorbachev pushing constitutional reforms promised a new democratic Soviet Union. In a speech before the Supreme Soviet or Parliament, Mr. Gorbachev also said he would try to accommodate demands from the Baltic Republics for more autonomy. Democratic Senators selected George Mitchell of Maine as their majority leader, and six firefighters were killed by explosions at a Kansas City, Missouri, construction site. Good night, Robin.

MR. MacNeil: Good night, Charlayne. That's the Newshour tonight and we'll be back tomorrow night. I'm Robert MacNeil. Good night.