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 Monday, we preview tomorrow's UN showdown with Libya over Pan Am Flight 103; there's a documentary report on the devastation of Somalia's civil war; Jeffrey Kaye reports on one way to cure America's teacher shortage; and essayist Amei Wallach talks about what AIDS has done to the arts. NEWS SUMMARY

MR. MacNeil: A nine-day-old baby girl born without a brain died this afternoon. The infant, known as Baby Theresa, was removed from life support last night at a Ft. Lauderdale hospital. She had only a brain stem, which allowed her such basic functions as breathing and heartbeat. Her parents had hoped she could be declared brain dead and her organs donated to save other babies, but they failed to convince a lower court judge and the Florida Supreme Court refused to hear the case on an emergency basis. Jim.

MR. LEHRER: Bill Clinton challenged Jerry Brown to a series of debates before next week's New York primary. He issued the challenge in Wisconsin today before heading to New York. Yesterday Clinton said he smoked marijuana once or twice while a student at Oxford University in England. Brown ignored that issue today. He appeared on Wall Street and accused Clinton of hypocrisy, saying he took money from millionaires while pretending to represent the little man. Ross Perot took another step toward running for President today. He named Retired Admiral James Stockdale as his temporary Vice Presidential running mate. Stockdale was a Navy pilot in Vietnam who was shot down and spent nearly eight years as a prisoner of war. Twenty-eight states require an independent Presidential candidate to name a running mate. Perot said Stockdale has agreed to let his name be used until a permanent Vice Presidential candidate is chosen.

MR. MacNeil: The first of several hundred thousand Cambodian refugees went home today after years in exile. They were repatriated from Thailand under a United Nations-sponsored peace plan. We have a report narrated by Vera Frankel of Worldwide Television News.

MS. FRANKEL: Despite their long exile, there seemed no urgency among the 500 men, women, and children to begin their journey home. Their departure from the Sikh Tu Border Camp in Thailand was nonetheless not by celebration, veiling the uncertainties of the days ahead. Just 25 miles separates them from their homeland. The road was only recently declared mine free by Thai soldiers. Even so, U.N. officers, whose presence is so critical to maintaining peace, were taking no chances. They provided an escort to the Sitiphon Reception Center. It's one of six camps set up to help sort the families and in time return them to their original villages. This is the first time some of these refugees have set foot in their country. That they can do so at all is due only to the signing of a peace accord last October to end 13 years of war between the rival Cambodian factions and the Vietnamese-backed Cambodian government. Prince Noradon Sihanouk was among the hundreds of Cambodian villagers to sheer their return. If all goes well, all 375,000 refugees will be home within 10 months. But Prince Sihanouk is aware of the risks. Fighting has erupted between the Khmer Rouge and government forces in the North of Cambodia, the very thing which first drove the refugees from their homes.

MR. MacNeil: Rulers in the former Soviet republic of Georgia today ordered supporters of the ousted President to lay down their arms by midnight. The order came after four towns in Western Georgia were seized by forces loyal to the former President, Zviad Gamsakhurdia. Government troops began moving into the region to enforce the ultimatum. The ruling state council warned there would be no negotiations with the Gamsakhurdia supporters.

MR. LEHRER: The United States has invited Arab and Israeli negotiators to a fifth round of peace talks. The invitation is for Washington on April 27th. It requires both sides to pick a location outside the United States for the sixth round of talks, or Sec. of State Baker will choose it for them. Israeli negotiators have said they wanted talks moved to the Middle East. The U.N. Security Council today postponed a vote on whether to impose sanctions on Libya for not handing over two suspects in the 1988 bombing of Pan Am 103. Today's delay was due to a Moslem holy day. The vote is expected tomorrow. We will have more on this story right after the News Summary.

MR. MacNeil: Astronauts aboard the space shuttle Atlantis today used an ultraviolet telescope to observe stars and galaxies, but shortly after they began, the instrument lost power. The six-man, one-woman crew is studying the Earth's atmosphere. Yesterday NASA decided to extend the mission by a day. The shuttle is now scheduled to return to Earth on Thursday.

MR. LEHRER: The Commerce Department reported today new home sales fell 2.7 percent in February, following an 11.1 percent increase in January. Even so, February sales were still 25 percent higher than a year ago. An accounting and law firm reached out-of-court settlements with plaintiffs in a savings & loan fraud case today. The two firms were accused of helping Charles Keating deceive federal regulators about the condition of his savings & loan operations. The accounting firm Ernst & Young agreed to pay $63 million and the Cleveland-based law firm Jones, Day, Reavis & Progue settled for 24 million.

MR. MacNeil: That's our News Summary. Now it's on to the U.N. and sanctions on Libya, Somalia's civil war, a peace corps for teachers in America, and an essay on art and AIDS. FOCUS - TURNING THE SCREWS

MR. LEHRER: Another facedown with Libya is our lead story tonight. The United Nations Security Council is expected to vote tomorrow to impose sanctions on the government of Col. Gadhafi. The United States, Britain, and France want Gadhafi to hand over two men suspected of bombing Pan Am 103. So far he has refused. Our coverage begins with a backgrounder by Judy Woodruff.

MS. WOODRUFF: On December 22, 1988, Pan Am Flight 103 en route from London to New York exploded over Lockerbie, Scotland. Some 270 people, most of them Americans, were killed. Once it was confirmed that a bomb brought down the aircraft, suspicions first pointed to Iran, possibly working with Syria as the culprit. Their motive was believed to be revenge for the downing of a civilian Iranian Airbus by the U.S. Navy in July 1988. The U.S. and foreign governments launched a massive investigation that took three years of piecing together physical evidence and intelligence about terrorist organizations. Last November, the U.S. Justice Department and its British counterpart, said their evidence led them to indict two Libyans for the crime.

WILLIAM BARR, Acting Attorney General: [November 14, 1991] We charge that two Libyan officials, acting as operatives of the Libyan Intelligence Service, along with other co-conspirators, planted and detonated the bomb that destroyed Pan Am Flight 103.

MS. WOODRUFF: The two Lockerbie suspects, Abed Albasat-Megrahi, and Laman Kalifa-Fhimah, officially are Libyan airline agents. But the U.S. government said that they are high level Libyan intelligence operatives involved in international terrorism and demanded that they be turned over directly to the U.S. or to UK authorities. Libya's leader, Col. Moammar Gadhafi, immediately denied the U.S. charge and refused to extradite the two suspects. The Lockerbie indictments were the latest point of contention between the United States and Libya. In 1986, President Reagan ordered a military strike on the Libyan capital of Tripoli in retaliation for the bombing of a Berlin discotheque popular with American soldiers, an attack for which the United States blamed Libya. Libya said dozens were killed in the U.S. attack, including a daughter of Gadhafi. In the years after, Gadhafi had been relatively quiet, even during the U.S.-led war against Iraq. But he has grown more vocal since November. He charged the United States was planning another military attack on his country. In January, the U.N. Security Council ordered Libya to extradite the two Lockerbie suspects to the U.S. or to Britain for trial. In a last ditch effort to prevent or delay sanctions, Libya last week said it would turn over the two suspects, but to the Arab League. The Bush administration dismissed the offer.

MARGARET TUTWILER, State Department Spokeswoman: [March 24, 1992] History would suggest that we should be skeptical that this is, indeed, a good faith offer. We suspect that Libya is once again trying to find another way to buy time and avoid complying with its obligations to the international community.

MS. WOODRUFF: When Arab League delegates visited Tripoli late last week, they left empty-handed. At the U.N., the U.S., Britain, and France are pushing for a unanimous Security Council vote. The resolution calls for all nations to stop flights into Libya and to stop shipments there of aircraft and small parts. It also calls for an arms embargo and says all countries should significantly reduce their diplomatic staffs in Libya and curtail Libyan diplomats in their countries. The vote had been expected today, but was postponed probably until tomorrow for procedural reason.

MR. MacNeil: Now three views on tomorrow's vote to impose sanctions on Libya. Josh Friedman is a Pulitzer Prize winning reporter who covers the U.N. for New York Newsday. Lisa Anderson is a professor of comparative politics and director of the Middle East Institute at Columbia University. Henry Schuler is a Libya expert at the Center for Strategic & International Studies in Washington. Josh Friedman, is the vote going to happen tomorrow, as far as you know?

MR. FRIEDMAN: About 99 percent sure.

MR. MacNeil: And is there any doubt that it will pass?

MR. FRIEDMAN: None at all.

MR. MacNeil: And how -- will it be unanimous?

MR. FRIEDMAN: There will probably be four to five abstentions. Cap Verde is vacillating, but I think China, India, Morocco and Zimbabwe will abstain.

MR. MacNeil: How real was the threat that China, as one of the other permanent members of the Security Council, might veto this? I read stories to the effect that the U.S. was putting some private pressure on China to -- you know, that it might withdraw the most favored nation trade status that was recently voted by the Congress.

MR. FRIEDMAN: I asked the Chinese ambassador about that today and he denied [a] that he had been pressured, and [b] he pointed out -- and I've noticed this over the years -- they're very loathe to veto anything. He said they oppose sanctions, but it's very rare that they veto anything.

MR. MacNeil: I see. Lisa Anderson, will those sanctions that we just heard Judy describe force Gadhafi to extradite the two men?

MS. ANDERSON: No, I don't think so. I mean, he has no intention of caving, in his own estimation, to pressure like that. I think he'd be willing to negotiate their delivery, but he's not going to be pressured into it.

MR. MacNeil: Henry Schuler, do you agree with that, it won't force him to give up the two men?

MR. SCHULER: I think there is not and never has been any prospect of his extraditing the two charged Libyans for trial in a real court.

MR. MacNeil: We'll come back to that aspect of it in a moment. I just want to discuss the sanctions for a moment. What effect with those sanctions, Lisa Anderson, have on Libya?

MS. ANDERSON: Well, probably fairly minor. I mean, it's worth keeping in mind that the most important thing, which is oil, is not a part of the sanctions.

MR. MacNeil: Because that's Libya's biggest export.

MS. ANDERSON: Export, exactly. And that's intentional, because nobody would have gone along with that as an aspect of it. And oil doesn't go by air and so the air embargo and so forth is not going to affect the sort of life blood of the country. Arms embargoes are notoriously poorly enforced. And so I don't think we really have to worry about that. Gadhafi gets most of his important arms and so forth in the black market anyway at this point, with the collapse in the Soviet Union. So I don't think it's going to have that much effect. It does tighten the screws, but, you know, the country's learned to live with that a long time ago.

MR. MacNeil: What effect, Henry Schuler, on Libya, these sanctions?

MR. SCHULER: Have virtually impact at all. They are totally misdirected because they will hit the Libyan people. The poor fellow who wants to go to Rome for medical treatment won't be able to fly there. It won't impact upon Gadhafi, who can fly in his G- 2, or he can drive to Tunis and fly from there. So it'll have no impact on the regime, which is where the pressure should be focused. And that's why the only meaningful sanction would be a boycott and, if necessary, a Naval blockade of Libyan oil exports.

MR. MacNeil: Josh Friedman, if the U.S. and Britain, in particular, but also with France, are so determined to pursue this in the Security Council, why not tougher sanctions, why not full blockade, or an oil embargo?

MR. FRIEDMAN: Well, first of all, I think the real intent is symbolic and not practical. They have certain political considerations in the Middle East. There's a feeling, as expressed by the Arab diplomats, that the Arab man in the street is very angry that Arabs are being picked on, first Iraq, now Libya. I would like to differ with the characterization of it not having any effect though. I think it has a big but unnoticed effect, because it sets a precedent, starting with what happened in Iraq, to send inspection teams and U.N. verification people into Libya to see if it's complying with a concrete demonstration that they will stop supporting terrorism. Before the Persian Gulf War, this would have been unheard of, the idea of sending U.N. people inside a country. And it's going to be a long time before Libya can get rid of this embargo.

MR. MacNeil: What do you mean by that, a long time before they can get rid of it?

MR. FRIEDMAN: Well, you know, it's hard to prove a negative. They have to prove that they are not supporting terrorism, which means the U.S., for instance, believes that they have some camps, five camps or seven camps, where they trained Carlos and so on. How do you prove that the camp doesn't exist? People will go to the camp, say this was the camp, you've moved it to a suburb of Tripoli. This can go on for years. It will allow teams with a U.S. component to come through Libya, which opens them up to scrutiny that they didn't have before.

MR. MacNeil: Do you agree with that, that precedent is very important that the U.N. Security Council is about to take?

MS. ANDERSON: Oh, I think it is. And one of the things from the perspective of the Arab world that I think the Arab man in the street and the Arab regimes are very concerned about is that as with the Gulf War, this constitutes a violation of sovereignty, in the estimation of the countries of the Arab World, and it is very hard to meet these --

MR. MacNeil: Which is the case that Libya has taken to the international court in the Hague, which I gather from reports today isn't likely to rule for weeks or months on it.

MS. ANDERSON: Quite a long time, exactly. But as with Iraq, all of these inspection teams and so forth do constitute at least potentially infringements on sovereignty of these countries. And that's one of the reasons why there is sympathy for the Libyan cause.

MR. MacNeil: But isn't this, Henry Schuler, one of the things that Americans, as one of the founders of the U.N., would applaud, that the U.N. is finally moving to enforce its edict, which the old League of Nations failed, because it never did, isn't this a positive development in the broader sense?

MR. SCHULER: Well, let me say that everything that has been said about why there should be a reluctance to take on Gadhafi was you could have said in spades with respect to Saddam Hussein. But, nonetheless, the administration provided the League, expressed the moral outrage, that permitted a boycott of 4 1/2 million barrels a day of Iraqi and Kuwait oil at a time when oil prices were rising. Why they do not provide the same leadership and the same steely tone to boycott less than a third of that amount of oil from Libya is very difficult to understand. Is there greater sympathy, greater interest in protecting the Emir of Kuwait's throne than protecting American citizens and the right to travel safely? I can't believe that's the signal.

MR. MacNeil: How do you explain that to yourself? What is your answer to that question?

MR. SCHULER: Well, I'm afraid that probably oil interests play a role in that. I think there is also a great hope on the part of the administration that this whole issue will simply disappear. After all, we were told from April 1986 on that Gadhafi had been intimidated and successfully stopped terrorism. On the day that the indictments were passed on the Pan Am bombers, the State Department issued a White Paper that demonstrated that starting the day after the raid, there was, in fact, a great deal of Libyan terrorism.

MR. MacNeil: The day after the raid that President Reagan organized -- ordered against Libya.

MR. SCHULER: Yes, Robin, in April of 1986, that there was continuing terrorism. Well, why was there this massive cover-up of that terrorism? And if that cover-up had not existed, would perhaps the Maltese had been more cautious with respect to taking unaccompanied bags on board, would Pan Am have had greater security measures? I think these are legitimate questions and I don't think that the administration -- because then Vice President Bush chaired the President's task force on counter-terrorism -- and I don't think he wants to face that issue as the election approaches. So he hopes it'll go away.

MR. MacNeil: Do you have any comment on that point of view?

MR. FRIEDMAN: I'm very suspicious of this indictment. I don't want to seem to be a disbeliever in the veracity of the Justice Department, but covering the United Nations the last few years, it's been sort of like 1984. Last year's enemy is this year's ally. Next year's ally will be --

MR. MacNeil: Orwell's 1984.

MR. FRIEDMAN: Yeah. It's what happened to Syria, what happened to Ahmad Jabrille, it's all -- you know, it's like smoke and mirrors. So I'm a little confused.

MR. MacNeil: Well, there were suspicions raised at the time of the indictments that this was for some political motivation in the wake of the Gulf War. Are those suspicions alive in your mind, that somehow Syria and Iran, which had been suspected of complicity in the Pan Am bombing, have been exonerated for political reasons?

MS. ANDERSON: Those suspicions can't help but continue to be alive. I mean, it's quite clear that two people could not have done this and that, therefore, either there is greater depth in this operation in Libya or more likely throughout the sort of underworld of terrorist operations.

MR. MacNeil: How good -- how strong does the community of you experts on the Middle East believe the case is against those two men?

MS. ANDERSON: I think we think it's fairly weak and, in fact, some people believe that one of the reasons why Gadhafi was even prepared to entertain the possibility of some kind of trial is that he thinks the case is pretty weak. At least, it's likely to implicate Syrians and Iranians, which would be all right with him.

MR. MacNeil: Henry Schuler, how strong do you think the case is?

MR. SCHULER: Well, I can only accept what our government says in this respect. And I have learned over the years not to accept what they say about Libya one way or the other, however, I think that the physical evidence points to the fact that these two Libyans executed the bombing of Pan Am 103. Now, I don't think they did it without the full support of Gadhafi, himself. Things like that don't happen without that. I also don't know whether Iran and Syria and Ahmed Jabrille were involved in it. They may very well have been. But in any police case, you go after the people that you have the physical evidence on and then if you can get a wider conspiracy theory, you proceed to that. But I think we've got to start by going where the physical evidence points. And I have little doubt that that points to Libya.

MR. MacNeil: In the United Nations circles which you cover, is there a feeling that the U.S. and Britain have got a good case against those two men?

MR. FRIEDMAN: I think they feel that, yeah, there's a good case against those two, but there's a lot of skepticism that that's the whole case. I think the feeling is that the U.S. would like to execute a sort of plea bargain situation with them, as you see with political corruption cases here, and that the reason Gadhafi is afraid to allow them to be extradited is that the case would then be built against him. And one high ranking diplomat told me today that he felt that he's -- Gadhafi's under pressure from other countries like Syria not to let these two men be extradited.

MR. MacNeil: What do you see as -- Gadhafi at first was adamant and denounced the indictments and said they were being made a scapegoat and all sorts of things. But recently, he's been maneuvering a little bit, hasn't he? How do you read his recent movements?

MS. ANDERSON: Well, I think --

MR. MacNeil: Their going to the Arab League, for instance.

MS. ANDERSON: I think he's testing the waters in a negotiation. He doesn't know how far the United States is actually providing ultimatum or this is a negotiating position on our part and, therefore, he's prepared to see what kind of room for maneuver there is. He would -- and he said so repeatedly -- like to improve relations with Britain and the United States. Perhaps there's an opportunity in here to do that. And so I think part of this maneuvering is, in fact, exactly that. And he is I think becoming convinced that he's being put in essentially the same position that Saddam Hussein was put in, that is, an abject surrender or nothing.

MR. MacNeil: Henry Schuler, how do you read what he's doing?

MR. SCHULER: I think he's stalling for time, as he has successfully stalled for time for 23 years. And he doesn't know exactly what'll come along to let him off the hook but something always has. And I think the proof of that is that these indictments were ready to come down, or the Justice Department was ready to go to a grand jury in the summer of 1990. Because of Saddam's invasion of Kuwait, they deliberately delayed going for an indictment because it would simply rile up the Arab world at a time they were trying to put together an Arab coalition. So I think that he has already wiggled off the hook for an additional year that he couldn't expect and he doesn't know how it's going to happen. But he knows that every time he's been able to stall, he has once again wiggled off the hook. And ultimately, he must be held responsible for the bombing of Pan Am 103. And the only way justice can be done in this case is not by extraditing a couple of individuals, but by, in fact, sending an unequivocal signal to the Libyan people that there will be no basis for sound commercial and diplomatic relationships with the United States until they deal with Gadhafi.

MR. MacNeil: Okay. I take your point. Sorry to interrupt you. Henry Schuler, Josh Friedman, Lisa Anderson, thank you.

MR. LEHRER: Still to come on the NewsHour tonight, death in Somalia, a peace corps for teachers, and the impact of AIDS on the arts. FOCUS - AGONY'S HOME

MR. LEHRER: We go now to another part of Africa where the United Nations is having a much harder time working its will. In the East African country of Somalia, a land of 6 million people, there's been a civil war going on for more than a year. The U.N. tried to arrange a cease-fire recently but it collapsed. Special Correspondent Edward Girardet reports on the war and the suffering it has brought.

MR. GIRARDET: Somalia, an impoverished arid country largely populated by nomads and farmers. Once colonized by the Italians and British, Somalia later became a strategic pawn in the super power struggle for the horn of Africa. For the past four months, renewed civil war has reigned in and around Somalia's devastated capital, Mogadishu, a city split in the North and South by the fighting. Sometimes heavy, sometimes sporadic, it is a meaningless, horrific conflict. Most of the fighters are an undisciplined lot and no more than bandits. Many are stoned on cot, the local narcotic. This uncontrolled fighting has become a grotesque and murderous game, a game relentlessly manipulated by Somalia's feuding warlords, klans and profiteers. I asked Patrick Vercamen, with the French Medecins San Frontier, whether Somalia is much different than other war situations.

PATRICK VERCAMEN, Doctors Without Borders: For myself, it's quite different, yes, indeed. I think it's the worst thing I have ever seen in all the different missions I've been. And most of the people say it also. It's really something -- when you arrive, you're really shocked by what you see, because I think what's really shocking is to see the children and the women arriving totally destroyed by shells or mortars and also you can see the devastating effect of those traumatic war weapons. And that really shocks because I think it's one of the only places where a war like this is happening in the town and where the background is, in fact, the Somalia population.

MR. GIRARDET: We traveled through the ruins of once beautiful Mogadishu's old town, an area that reported new wealth from before the war. We're now driving through the Northern section of Mogadishu, down toward the port area, which has been very badly hit during the fighting and still being hit by shelling. The other side, the forces perhaps are three, four hundred yards away to the right. We're going to this area, which includes a lot of the former embassies, various cultural centers, various offices. Both to my left and on the right, there are numerous buildings that have been very badly damaged by the shelling, these main squares, where we can also find occasionally bodies lying, skeletons lying on the ground. More than half a million Somalis used to live in Mogadishu, but with the strife, tens of thousands fled to surrounding areas to escape the killing and looting. At the same time, thousands of people from the countryside, many of them nomads, have flocked into the capital. They now live where they can on the outskirts or in the streets. Since the beginning of the year, United Nations Special Representative James Jonah has sought to bring an end to this bitter conflict. For the Somalis demonstrating against the war, the chaos has brought destruction than the fighting that preceded the overthrow of former dictator, Siad Baret. Very much part of the futile struggle for power and money, the two rival warlords, including interim President Ali Madi recently signed separate cease-fires. Ali Madi favors U.N. intervention to end the country's lawlessness. But for opponent Gen. Mohammad Idide whose supporters control the Southern portion of the capital, there is little to gain from a diplomatic solution. Seeking military victory, he's unwilling to accept more than a small and largely symbolic U.N. monitoring force. Since fighting broke out last November, the two sides have continuously shelled civilian populations. But both Idide and Ali Madi denied that their forces fire indiscriminately on non-military targets such as these victims. This is one of the twenty-two clinics in the Northern part of Mogadishu receiving very little aid from the outside because of the war situation. This afternoon a number of shells fell in the marketplace, killing 10 people immediately and wounding about fifty to sixty people. Twenty or twenty-five were brought here to this clinic and the doctors are now treating them in the hospital behind me without anesthetic. Very little medical aid is brought in and this is the sort of situation theyare now facing here in the Northern part of Mogadishu. The Somali volunteer medical teams are often overwhelmed by sheer numbers and the lack of medicine. Orthopedic specialist Steve Heneby of America's International Medical Corps.

STEVE HENEBY, International Medical Corps: We are highly limited in the number of things we can do. We treat most of the patients on the floor. We treat many patients just very briefly because there's many things we just can't do because of no supplies, no equipment, or no people. Almost all the head injuries we have no facilities or people to treat them. So they're given some basic medication and either live or die. There's nothing we can do for head injuries. Massive chest injuries, there's virtually nothing we can do, except a chest tube. The orthopedic injuries, major life saving surgery isn't really available. We're going not only back to the basics of surgery; we're going back to probably civil war, United States Civil War surgery, where it's, with the exception, we have antibiotics, but otherwise a lot of our surgery is just put it as close back together and you hope for the best.

MR. GIRARDET: Operating under extremely dangerous conditions, a few independent agencies, such as INC, Medecins San Frontier, Save the Children and the Red Cross, have been desperately trying to help these civilians. I asked Red Cross nutritionist Ariane Curdy how people are surviving.

ARIANE CURDY, International Red Cross: That's a good question. It's very difficult to answer. Looking at the market prices, you cannot imagine actually how the people are doing it. Also, led to reduced imports of food to agricultural situation, inducing a very poor situation in Somalia, meaning that you can find food in the markets but there are very, very high prices. And most of the people in Somalia are not able really to buy their daily food anymore.

MR. GIRARDET: Without jobs for money, many Somalis simply cannot afford to eat. The lack of water is also a severe problem. To ease the shortage, the Red Cross distributes fuel to help run water pumps. Relief organizations, such as UNICEF, warn that unless large scale shipments of food, medicines and other supplies are brought in, an estimated 4.5 million people may soon be affected by severe shortages. Acute malnutrition is already taking its toll on children. Somali volunteer physician Dr. Howa feels that without an end to the fighting, the country could face an Ethiopian-scale famine.

DR. HOWA: These poor people, they are starving. They don't need work; they need peace; they need food; they need medicine and shelter. They don't need this war and also we don't like it.

MR. GIRARDET: The United Nations has come under heavy criticism for its poor record in Somalia. Last September, it pulled out following several violent incidents, while the independent relief agencies stayed behind. UNICEF eventually returned against the wishes of other U.N. organizations. War or war, it was felt, the U.N. should be present. For the moment, United Nations and other agencies must rely on a limited and expensive airlift. Sufficient supplies, however, can only be brought in by sea, but because of continued fighting the port of Mogadishu remains inaccessible. UNICEF's Peter McDermott.

PETER McDERMOTT, UNICEF: There'll be seven planes, one a day for the next seven days, trying to bring in over 250 tons of essential medical supplies to Mogadishu South. And at the same time there's another plane unloading on Mogadishu North. The emergency requires a huge international relief effort, and they've been doing marvelous work over the last few months, but the need now is so huge the United Nations is beginning to gear up logistic capacity to increase the amount of supplies in Mogadishu. We really feel that the situation in Mogadishu now is at such a crisis point that irrespective of the negotiations, we have to try and attempt to bring in as many supplies as we can, given the very serious security constraints that exist.

MR. GIRARDET: But such humanitarian operations are still conducted at risk. Even if the U.N. is able to dispatch a peacekeeping force to monitor the cease-fire, but will not necessarily be able to stop the fighting and guarantee security. Even with an effective cease-fire, a major problem remains -- what to do about all the guns, a massive arsenal provided over the years by the United States, the Soviet Union, and other outside powers. According to the International Committee of the Red Cross, an estimated 30,000 men, women and children have been killed or injured in recent months, many of them victims of indiscriminate, wanton violence. Relief agencies are now exploring the possibilities of a large scale food for guns program in order to reduce the number of firearms in the country. For all too many Somalis, killing for survival or simply for power has become a way of life. FOCUS - FIRST LESSON

MR. MacNeil: Back in this country now, we look at a two-year- old program called "Teach for America," a sort of peace corps for teachers. Correspondent Jeffrey Kaye of public station KCET-Los Angeles, started tracking two volunteers last August. And here's his report.

INSTRUCTOR: Teaching is only the part of the job that they're paying you for. You are also the mother; you're the psychologist; you're the sister, big sister, you know.

MR. KAYE: At the University of Southern California last summer, college graduates from around the country got a six-week crash course in teaching.

PERSON IN SESSION: What do you do for discipline?

TEACHER: What do I do for discipline specifically? Call the parent, go into the houses. If I go see the parent, my problem's solved. If I got shot along the way inside, my problem's solved. So either way you look at it, the problem's solved. [laughter in room]

MR. KAYE: Gritty urban humor, mixed with practical tips for 500 Teach for America recruits embarking on two-year teaching stints. "Teach for America" is the brainchild of Wendy Kopp, who founded the privately-financed program three years ago while a senior at Princeton.

WENDY KOPP, Teach for America: The idea here was to build this aura of selectivity and status and service around teaching, recruit people aggressively who didn't major in education, and try to channel a lot of that energy into the educational arena, which is where we, you know, one place where we absolutely need the attention of our most talented minds. [TEACHER TEACHING CLASS]

WENDY KOPP: What we're doing here and what makes this so challenging is that we're putting people who have never experienced failure in classrooms with students who have never experienced success.

MR. KAYE: In two years, a total of 1100 Teach for America recruits have become classroom instructors. Eleven school districts in seven states pay them starting salaries. The training qualifies them for emergency teaching credentials.

GREGORY MORALES, Teacher: At least in a lot of other societies, you know, the teacher is seen as a much more professional person. And in our society it's not seen that way.

MR. KAYE: Gregory Morales is a recent graduate of Yale University. He postponed medical school to teach.

MR. MORALES: I have a lot to learn and I know when I get in my class on the first day, it'll be kind of -- at least the first two years it's going to be every day a new learning experience, you know, realizing that lesson didn't work, throw that out the window, let's try -- and I go home and sit on the beach or something like that and try to figure out what else am I going to do.

MR. KAYE: Amanda Frye graduated from Harvard. She majored in Russian and Soviet Studies. Frye had few illusions about inner-city students.

AMANDA FRYE, Teacher: I can reasonably expect to have, you know, to or three kids in my class who are being abused. I can reasonably expect to have kids that were born in withdrawal, people whose parents were using drugs before they were born. I don't anticipate a lot of troubles just because I'm so looking forward to it. I'm looking forward to it more than I think -- I mean, it's like Christmas and birthdays of the last 21 years all rolled up into one.

MR. KAYE: Frye received an unusual and unexpected assignment, a special education class of sixth and seventh graders.

MS. FRYE: [teaching class] What are these four letters?

MR. KAYE: Frye soon discovered that her students at Vanguard Middle School in Compton had a wide range of abilities and problems. One boy, Yancy, presented a particular challenge.

MS. FRYE: Do you remember what empowered means?

YANCY: Yes.

MS. FRYE: What does empowered mean?

YANCY: Empowered means you have power in yourself.

MS. FRYE: You have power within yourself, absolutely. Okay?

YANCY: Where's my round of applause?

MR. KAYE: Yancy was obviously bright, but extremely active and disruptive.

YANCY: Thank you, thank you.

MS. FRYE: There are times when he just needs to get up and run around. There are times when I don't say, you know, go back and sit in your seat because he needs to blow off steam because he's got a lot of energy.

MR. KAYE: Another student, Mark Heath, was years behind in reading and writing. [

MS. FRYE WORKING WITH HEATH]

MS. FRYE: I want everybody to be able to read when they come out of here. That's first and foremost most important. I want everybody to be able to do basic math.

MR. KAYE: But first was the matter of basic discipline.

MS. FRYE: [talking to student] You are going to cooperate and you are going to share. I need your assurance. Yancy, I'm not done yet. Yancy -- I need your assurance. Yancy, Yancy, do we have a deal? No, no. There have been too many problems. We'll work on it. It's only the second day.

MR. KAYE: Gregory Morales wound up teaching chemistry at Linwood High School in South Los Angeles. [GREGORY MORALES TEACHING CHEMISTRY]

MR. KAYE: Morales tried to connect his lessons to his students' interests.

MR. MORALES: [teaching class] Who saw the Terminator II? Okay. In that movie, tell me, what's in chemistry in that movie?

MR. KAYE: Morales's classes were sparsely attended. They'd been in session for two months without a regular teacher.

MR. MORALES: [talking to students] How many different teachers have you had?

STUDENT: Seven.

MR. MORALES: Seven different teachers?

MR. KAYE: Morales had an uphill battle. Not only had his students been without a permanent teacher, some had no books. Equipment in the class didn't work. Even the clock was three hours off, but Morales was optimistic.

MR. KAYE: What's your impression so far of the kids?

MR. MORALES: The kids, I really like them. I mean, there are really some intelligent kids here. I don't expect any people like to just like blossom the first day. I think it's going to take time. Plus, I think for long they've been used to just coming to the period and doing nothing. [

MS. FRYE TEACHING]

MR. KAYE: Five months after we first met her, Amanda Frye's energy and enthusiasm seemed undiminished. [

MS. FRYE TEACHING]

MR. KAYE: When we were here before, you said that it's like Christmas and birthdays of the last 21 years all rolled into one. That's what you said. Do you still feel that way?

MS. FRYE: Oh -- there are up days and down days. I mean, I'd be lying if I didn't say that there were some days that I was do I have to go to school again, but for the most part I don't know. I feel really good about being here. [

MS. FRYE TEACHING]

MR. KAYE: What about Mark Heath, who the last time we were here, was unable -- was barely able to read?

MS. FRYE: He's doing fine. I was able to get reading books and he's just about completely polished off the first one. And I'm about to move him to the second one and he's racing through at breakneck speed and he's really making an awful lot of improvement.

YANCY: [in class] What I like about myself, I have a lot of talent and I am very smart. And I also love myself.

MR. KAYE: Another success story is Yancy. Frye was able to move the hyperactive youngster from her special education class to a regular one. Her goal is to mainstream more students.

YANCY: I'm trying -- to be in a nice classroom and I dress proper.

MR. KAYE: While Amanda Frye has her share of successes, there are also frustrations. Some of her students are victims of abuse or neglect and need more than classroom teaching. She hopes to overcome some of their problems with healthy doses of lessons in self-esteem.

MS. FRYE: [teaching students] This is great. This is excellent. You guys should feel real good about yourselves. I feel pretty good about you.

MR. KAYE: It was the last week of Gregory Morales's first semester as a teacher. Morales created a fictional scenario for a lesson on sound. [CLASS SESSION]

MR. KAYE: Students cast as community residents reacted to a noisy rock concert.

STUDENT: During the concert -- I had this expensive jar, I mean, this vase on my shelf and it fell off the shelf because the concert. The concert vibrates the wall so that the shelves will start shaking and the vase fell on the ground.

STUDENT: Maybe we could put an investigation on your house to see if maybe your house, some frame of your house may be not built right.

MR. KAYE: Morales still had faulty equipment; the clock still didn't work properly; but students seemed engaged.

MR. KAYE: What do you think of this class?

STUDENT: I think this class is very interesting.

MR. KAYE: Is it different from your other classes?

STUDENT: So much different.

MR. KAYE: Different?

STUDENT: Yes. We have a young teacher.

ANOTHER STUDENT: I think young teachers are better because they are not, especially the one that's not too far from us, because they know what we're going through because they just went through that not too long ago, instead of the older teachers.

MR. KAYE: But not all Teacher America members get such high marks. Five to ten percent drop out the first year. Michael Grossi is a Northwestern University graduate teaching math at Linwood High. He calls teaching a constant struggle.

MR. KAYE: Do you feel you're in control?

MICHAEL GROSSI, Teacher: No. It's to the point where I'll have control for a second. Hey, Octavio [talking to student] -- as you can see right now, I'll have control for a second, but any minute it's on the verge of going away. That's why I have to be on top of things every single second, or else if I let go for just a minute, it's just like it's gone. So I wouldn't say I'm really in control.

MR. KAYE: Besides discipline problems, Grossi and other Teach for America members face budget difficulties common to most inner-city schools. Linwood High can't afford to issue textbooks to each student or to hire enough teachers. At schools in Compton, where Amanda Frye works, the teacher shortage was critical last year. One hundred Teach for America members went into the classrooms and solved the problem, according to Principal Dr. Edna Montgomery.

EDNA MONTGOMERY, School Principal: If we had not had those teachers last year, we would not have been able to fill those positions. Quite frankly, I wondered what was that school year going to be like, how many classes would I have to take, how many classes would the other support services personnel have to take if we did not get teachers.

MR. KAYE: At Linwood High, Teach for America also helped ease staffing problems, but didn't solve them. Because of the continuing teacher shortage, Gregory Morales's students were transferred in and out of different science classes, despite his earlier promise that they wouldn't be.

MR. KAYE: Have these kids gotten a quarter's worth of education?

GREGORY MORALES: What I did on their final, their final test -- they took that yesterday, the written part -- and I gave them stuff from the stuff beforehand and I gave them some material from the chapters they took before they got me. And it seems like they didn't retain much.

MR. KAYE: Amanda Frye also felt the impact of the budget crunch. She had to spend her own money on classroom materia.

AMANDA FRYE: We say, you know, equal opportunity for education. I mean, they have the opportunity to go to school like us, but what's here to greet them isn't the same as what's out there to greet other kids. And it's a real shame.

WENDY KOPP: One of the issues which we confront daily is the inequity in our education system.

MR. KAYE: Teach for America's Wendy Kopp hopes the program's members will have a powerful influence on the system.

WENDY KOPP: A huge part of the impact of Teach for America will come not only from the corps members who are doing wonderful things in their schools and in their communities, but from the alumni of the program who can communicate their experiences to the public, to the nation's leaders, and who are just going to be especially with the added value of experience incredible advocates for positive change in the education system.

MR. KAYE: Morales plans to continue teaching, then go to medical school after he attends his students' graduation in two years. Amanda Frye wants to get her master's degree and stay in teaching. She has high hopes for her students.

MS. FRYE: They all have abilities. The saddest thing in the world is they don't know about them yet, you know. I wouldn't be surprised to see, you know, a rocket scientist or a lawyer or a doctor, or a President come out of this classroom. You know, they're really, really good kids and they have a lot to offer. There's so much that they can do if they at least -- if somebody gives them the tools to actually unlock what is in there.

MR. KAYE: Even though they welcome enthusiastic teachers like Amanda Frye and Gregory Morales, educators familiar with Teach for America say it's too early to evaluate the program's results. There's no telling how many Teach for America members will actually stay with education. Teachers union officials caution that at best Teach for America offers only a short-term fix for a wide range of problems. ESSAY - AIDS & THE ARTS

MR. LEHRER: Finally tonight essayist Amei Wallach, art critic for New York Newsday, has some thoughts about the impact of AIDS on art in America. [MAN SINGING]

AMEI WALLACH, New York Newsday: Not long after his body began its slow deterioration from AIDS, the baritone William Parker invited 15 American composers to write settings for 15 poems that 15 poets had written about the plague. AIDS Quilt Songbook 1992 just had its first public performance in Berlin. The songbook, like the AIDS quilt, and scores of paintings and plays on the subject that inspired it, has added something tangible, something beyond the death toll, to our understanding and to our culture. Long before "Magic" Johnson gave a face to AIDS, the arts of every kind had been trying. Maybe a painting, a symphony, a play, can't save a life. But art can lament loss, defuse rage, ridicule pain, make comedy out of tragedy and a call to arms out of despair. And most of all, it can transform the horrifying loss, 125,000 lives in this country already, into something lasting and life affirming. If "Magic" Johnson dies of AIDS, he took will resemble Nicholas Nixon's excruciating photographs of the worst that AIDS can do in his book "People with AIDS." Starting in the mid '80s, photographers like Nixon have been systematically reporting portraits of the plague in an effort to make it real, bring it home. Tom Moran is the name of the man who Nixon focused on for six months between August 1987 and his death in February 1988. This is a man, the photographs says, not a statistic. A dying Robert Mapelthorpe photographed his own body, defiantly immortalizing his own lifestyle, and ignited a political firestorm. Perhaps it was inevitable that a disease that puts issues of race and sexuality center stage would be controversial. And particularly in those early stages, the communities most affected wanted their art to grab people in the gut, shake them up, make them pay attention. David Wonarovich, the most prolific and daring of the artists who draw their subject matter from AIDS, is often at the center of the debate. He uses any means he can get his hands on -- video, photographs, slogans, sculpture -- to spew out his rage at everything he finds rotten in an America where people who die of AIDS are marginalized and dismissed. Other artists, like Smith, have begun to use AIDS more as a metaphor for the terrible vulnerability of the human body and of a society which thinks it can cure itself by cutting out the sick part. Kiki Smith's sister died of AIDS and so have many of her friends. In her art, she tears off the fragile skin of health to expose the raw reality beneath. The dancer, Edward Steerly, took his HIV positive diagnosis in 1987 as what he called a "wake up" call to make meaning out of it all. He was 22 when he died four years later, but he left behind two searing, majestic, elegiac dances that transcend grief. In the theater, early AIDS plays like "The Normal Heart," Larry Cramer's 1985 howl of fury, frustration and panic, have given way to plays that want to seduce a mainstream audience into empathy. New plays talk directly to the mainstream. In Jopentaro's "Wrath of Medusa," Michael, a bereaved lover -- [scene from play] but growing audiences are listening. John Coliano, Sympathy No. 1, popularly known as the AIDS Symphony, has been performed across the nation, most recently at the New York Philharmonic. It's gained a passionate following. And Chicago's Symphony's recording has spent weeks on Billboard's Top 10 list. [MAN SINGING]

MS. WALLACH: Clearly, art has something to say to those who are dying of AIDS and to those who don't even know anybody who has it. Those on the frontlines say, maybe art can't save lives, but it can help the rest of us live. [MAN SINGING]

MS. WALLACH: I'm Amei Wallach. RECAP

MR. MacNeil: Again, the main story of this Monday, the nine-day- old infant known as "Baby Theresa" died. She was born without a brain and her parents had hoped to have her organs transplanted to other children. But Florida courts refused to allow it. Good night, Jim.

MR. LEHRER: Good night, Robin. We'll see you tomorrow night with a look at consumer confidence in America. I'm Jim Lehrer. Thank you and good night.