The NewsHour with Jim Lehrer

JIM LEHRER: Good evening. I'm Jim Lehrer.

On the NewsHour tonight, two congressional stories: Tom Bearden has day three of the Senate debate on patient rights legislation; Kwame Holman reports on back home fallout from a gun control vote in the House. Then Elizabeth Farnsworth looks at the problems faced by Montenegro, Serbia's other Yugoslav partner. And CharlesKrause conducts a conversation about torture. It all follows our summary of the news this Wednesday.

NEWS SUMMARY

JIM LEHRER: The Senate voted on more patient rights amendments today. A Republican provision giving women greater access to breast cancer treatment was passed, but only after an emotional floor fight. We'll have more on the story right after the News Summary. In Iran today, the other side took to the streets in Tehran. Thousands participated in a peaceful march organized by Muslim hard-line clerics. It was staged after six days of protests against those clerics by students. We have a report from Philippa Meagher of Associated Press Television News.

PHILIPPA MEAGHER: Iranian TV claims about one million people, including thousands of women, took part in the rally. The hard-line activists chanted nationalist slogans and held up posters of the country's present and former supreme religious leaders. Meanwhile, moderate President Mohammad Khatami addressed the nation on TV. He said he was sure Wednesday's demonstrations were misguided. He said they took place to provoke violence. He added that the government would peacefully confront the demonstrators. The rally culminated at Tehran University, only days before the scene of protests in which two died, one after police stormed the university in a move apparently backed by hard-line clerics. Anti-reformist leaders addressed the crowds on campus. One clergyman has already threatened retaliation against the pro-reformists. Meanwhile, demonstrators have vowed to continue their fight for reform.

JIM LEHRER: There were preliminary talks today between Serbia and Montenegro on the future of Yugoslavia. Montenegro is the smaller of the two republics. It has pressed for more autonomy, but Serbia has resisted. Montenegro has threatened to put the issue of independence to a vote if the talks fail. We'll have more on this story later in the program tonight. Iraq allowed a seven-member independent disarmament team into Baghdad today. The weapons experts will assess and destroy mustard gas and other biological agents in the former laboratory of UN arms inspectors. The chemicals were left behind when the inspectors pulled out in December. Back in this country today, Ohio Congressman John Kasich dropped out of the Republican presidential nomination race. The nine-term House member and Budget Committee chairman also said he won't run for reelection to the House. Kasich endorsed Texas Governor George W. Bush for the presidential nomination. He spoke to supporters in Washington.

REP. JOHN KASICH: The message was pretty clear from people. John, we like you; we like your style. We like your ideas. We like your enthusiasm. And we particularly like what you've done to our kids in the sense of giving them hope again that the system can work. But also at the same time, I had to be honest, and I had to assess. And the assessment that I made and the words that I heard were: "Don't go away. Don't give it up. This just isn't your time."

JIM LEHRER: In economic news today, wholesale-level inflation was down in June. The Labor Department said producer prices dipped an unexpected 0.1 percent. The decline was the first in four months. It was led by lower energy prices. Donald Engen is dead. He was the director of the Smithsonian Institution's Air and Space Museum, and former head of the Federal Aviation Administration. He was killed in a glider crash in Nevada yesterday. Engen was a highly decorated Navy pilot. He was 75 years old. The House Commerce Committee delayed funding for public broadcasting today. It happened after Boston's public TV station WGBH admitted it exchanged donor lists with the National Democratic Party. The committee had been scheduled to debate legislation authorizing $500 million for public stations. Officials at WGBH said the lists deal was made by a new employee unaware of station policy that forbids sharing donor lists with political or religious groups. And that's it for the News Summary tonight. Now it's on to the patient rights debate; gun vote fallout; the Montenegro story; and a conversation about torture.

UPDATE - PATIENTS' RIGHTS

JIM LEHRER: Tom Bearden has our day three coverage of the Senate patient rights debate.

TOM BEARDEN: This morning Maine Republican Olympia Snowe introduced an amendment with provisions most members of the United States Senate probably would agree with.

SEN. OLYMPIA SNOWE: Mr. President, I rise today to introduce an amendment to the patients bill of rights that will ensure that appropriate medical care, and not a bureaucrat's bottom line will dictate how long a woman stays in the hospital after undergoing a mastectomy.

TOM BEARDEN: The amendment would give women enrolled in managed care plans confidence that breast cancer treatment decisions would be made by medical professionals, and not by managed care accountants.

SEN. OLYMPIA SNOWE: The last question a woman should have to worry about at a time like this is whether or not their health insurance plan will pay for appropriate care after a mastectomy. A woman diagnosed with breast cancer in many ways already feels as though she has lost control of her life. She should not feel as though she has also lost control of her own treatment. Yet in many instances, because of the decisions made by accountants and insurance actuaries, none of whom have ever witnessed such an operation, let alone go to medical school, that same woman cannot afford to follow her doctor's advice.

TOM BEARDEN: Washington State Democrat Patty Murray stood to say the amendment was well intended and, in fact, was very similar to an amendment proposed by Virginia Democrat Charles Robb that Republicans defeated just last night.

SEN. PATTY MURRAY: We would have been delighted to work with our colleagues if they wanted to talk to us about a word or two that they were concerned about. We were not given that opportunity. The amendment was simply defeated.

TOM BEARDEN: What frustrated Democrats even further was the fact that Senator Snowe's amendment, if approved, would knock out an amendment by Connecticut Democrat Chris Dodd. That would require managed care plans provide coverage for patients involved in clinical trials.

SEN. CHRISTOPHER DODD: It sounds to me like what the Senator of Maine has offered is something that I could certainly agree with. I would add it to my amendment. There's no reason why we ought to ask people to make a choice between a proposal dealing with breast cancer and a proposal that deals with clinical trials and prescription drugs. And so I would make a request that this be added to the clinical trials amendment so we can achieve the goals of both dealing with the clinical trial issue and the issue the Senator from Maine has raised.

SEN. HARRY REID: But I understand you're saying, why don't we take that, which is in keeping with the Senator from Maine's amendment today, and agree that we should do that. Is that what you're saying?

SEN. CHRISTOPHER DODD: I'd take the Senator from Maine's amendment. I'd take her amendment.

SEN. HARRY REID: But they're both basically the same.

SEN. CHRISTOPHER DODD: Basicallythe same. We all agree on the clinical trials. Put them together, and in two minutes we move on to the next issue around here.

TOM BEARDEN: But Vermont Republican Jim Jeffords objected.

SEN. JIM JEFFORDS: I want to explain where we are right now. This monstrosity or whatever you want to call it, the procedure which was set up by the leaders in negotiating back and forth leads us into these kind of situations. We're trying to end up with the best bill on the Republican side, and we are intending to do that. What we are doing now is taking care of the issue raised with respect to women's health and mastectomies. We have a good provision; it's recognized by the other side as a fine position. Everybody ought to adopt it. Well, we hope you do. And I would hope that we get 100 votes on this amendment. We are going to take up, and the other side will have an opportunity to reinstitute clinical trials at some point, but that's just the process as it's been set up.

TOM BEARDEN: The partisan split over the patients' bill of rights was reflected in a series of votes the Senate took yesterday evening and last night. A Democratic proposal in which health plans would be required to pay for treatment doctors say is medically necessary was defeated. A Democrat proposal giving patients access to the nearest emergency room, whether or not it was in their health plan's network, was defeated. The two sides said they agreed on the basic idea, but disagreed over what kind of care should be covered once a patient has been stabilized in the ER.

SEN. BOB GRAHAM: Medicare and Medicaid beneficiaries get the benefit of post-stabilization care. Our amendment would make that benefit available to all 190 million non-Medicare and Medicaid Americans. The Republican bill would not. It does not say that you're entitled to medically necessary services to continue you in a stabilized condition after you had contacted your HMO and received authorization to do so.

SEN. TIM HUTCHINSON: The Graham amendment is flawed, and it is seriously flawed, because it uses language that is confusing for patients, confusing for plans and providers; it's vague and ambiguous, and it does not ensure that post- stabilization services are related to the emergency condition.

TOM BEARDEN: And a Democrat proposal to extend the provisions of the patients bill of rights to cover all 161 million managed care plan enrollees was defeated. None of the Democratic amendments ever attracted more than three Republican votes. Meanwhile, Republicans were able to pass an amendment limiting the reach of the patient bill of rights to the 48 million people in self-insured plans; pass an amendment that would cancel the provisions of the patients' rights bill if it raised annual health care costs by 1 percent or more; and pass tax deductions for the self-employed who buy their own health insurance.

SEN. RICHARD DURBIN: Yesterday was banner day for the insurance industry on the floor of the United States Senate. Three different amendments were considered, amendments which the insurance industry of America opposed. They may be dancing in the boardrooms and the canyons of K Street, but I can tell you that the people of America understand this debate, and they know that they lost on the floor of the United States Senate yesterday.

SEN. LARRY CRAIG: While Republicans are talking about giving all Americans access to health care insurance, and letting them control their medical health care, our Democrat friends are talking about driving up costs, canceling health care coverage for millions of Americans,and putting American health care under the control of more federal government.

TOM BEARDEN: And the partisan split was evident again today during the debate over breast cancer treatment and clinical trials.

SEN. BARBARA BOXER: So here we have the Snowe amendment, which takes a giant step forward in the treatment of women with mastectomies, but at the same time, strikes the opportunity for women to get into clinical trials to get the drugs that they need that are necessary to give them their health. This is a sad day. And what's the response from the Senator from Maine? Gee, I'm sorry about this. It's parliamentary. I am very sad. I have never seen the Senate be as partisan as it is on this issue. This is a sad, sad day.

SEN. PHIL GRAMM: With all of these cries of partisanship, not one Democrat voted for any amendment offered by any Republican yesterday or Monday. Now, I don't understand bipartisanship as existing when Republicans vote to let the government take over the health care system and to bring lawyers into the system rather than doctors, but it is not bipartisan, it is somehow not bipartisan when Democrats refuse to vote for our proposals. I mean, you can't have it both ways.

TOM BEARDEN: The amendment by Senator Snowe to improve access to breast cancer treatment eventually was put to a vote, and like the earlier votes, the amendment passed with all Republicans voting in favor, and all Democrats voting against. The Dodd amendment on clinical trials was thereby eliminated.

FOCUS - UNDER FIRE

JIM LEHRER: Our second congressional story is on fallout from last June's House vote to restrict sales at gun shows. Kwame Holman reports.

KWAME HOLMAN: Like many members of Congress, Michigan Democrat Bart Stupak spent part of the Independence Day recess holding town meetings in his home district.

Regular get-togethers with constituents are routine business for most elected officials. But for Stupak, they take extra effort.

REP. BART STUPAK, [D] Michigan: This is, I think it's my 13th or 14th town hall meeting this year already.

KWAME HOLMAN: Some 580,000 people live in Michigan's 1st Congressional District, but they're not easily reached. Stupak's constituents are flung sparsely over the 23,000 square miles that comprise all of Michigan's upper peninsula and part of the lower. Marquette -- with a population of 21,000 -- is the district's largest city. And in the farthest reaches of the district along Lake Superior the towns of Ontonagon and Wakefield are home to only a few thousand. But that's the area Congressman Stupak chose to hold his holiday town meetings. His mission was to set the record straight about gun shows and background checks.

REP. BART STUPAK: We're talking about gun shows. We're talking about should the background check whether you buy it a K-Mart or a gun show be the same, most people say yes. When you start talking guns in this district, it's a very emotional issue and if you don't adequately explain your position, people just going think you're going to take your guns.

KWAME HOLMAN: Northern Michigan is a sporting paradise. It's thick with forests - lakes - and wildlife. Here hunters shoot for sport as often as they shoot for food. Guns

are a vital part of the local economy and culture. But just a few weeks ago back in Washington, Stupak took a position many viewed as anti-gun during an emotional House debate on guns and violence. He voted in favor of a new, three-day waiting period for the purchase of guns at gun shows. Stupak's vote drew the attention of the New York Times and USA Today. TheNational Rifle Association had lobbied him repeatedly to support a shorter waiting period. Stupak - a hunter and NRA member himself -- knew his position might not be popular with some constituents.

REP. BART STUPAK: With so many gun owners and hunters in my district the last vote and this vote are very tough votes for me politically. But you know this is the right vote.

KWAME HOLMAN: However, Stupak's wasn't the winning position. Supporters of the three-day waiting period fell just a few votes short. And Stupak was left to explain himself back home.

DOROTHY PHILLIPS: I really hate to see talk about, you know, more gun control, and licensing and everything. To penalize the honest person that enjoys guns for sport and recreation -- I just don't think that's right.

KWAME HOLMAN: Dorothy Phillips owns the River Pines RV Park in Ontonagon. She's lived here for 35 years and is a hunter herself.

DOROTHY PHILLIPS: I haven't gone deer hunting for about 15 years. But I do love to hunt rough grouse and geese. There's nothing like the call of the wild geese - and try to sneak up on one of them.

KWAME HOLMAN: Phillips says she doesn't think Congressman Stupak was trying to take guns away from hunters. But she found the debate on the floor of the House so confusing it was hard to tell.

DOROTHY PHILLIPS: And this is one of the problems with many of our politicians --when they come up with these bills, they make them so complicated that if you don't

hear every debate or read the papers every day, it's really hard to understand what it is they're trying to get across or keep from getting across.

KWAME HOLMAN: So Dorothy Phillips and 25 or so of her neighbors went to the town hall meeting in Ontonagon to hear from Stupak himself. The Congressman spoke deliberately and tried to explain the issue simply.

REP. BART STUPAK: Right now, the instant check system you have up to seventy-two hours or three business days to allow a background check. And the argument was: Should be that seventy-two hours or three days be extended to gun shows, which it was not extended to gun shows, and I thought it should be. The competing interest said no -- gun shows if you do an instant background check and there's a question, you have only 24 hours - 24 hours to do your background check. The problem with the 24 hours is most guns shows are on weekends, and if it's a Saturday and if there's a question that comes up about an individual's background, you have to wait till the courthouse opens up, which is usually Monday. That's why it was always 72 hours to begin with. So if you go 24 hours, you'd never get it within that period of time.

KWAME HOLMAN: For some in the room, however, it still came down to an issue of gun control.

GERALD LIGHT: I strongly believe in the right of gun ownership. In fact, I believe in the right to carry a concealed weapon. Somehow you got an indication that people in the country or across the country want more gun control. Now, I'd be interested in a show of hands in this group right here as to how many people do not want more gun control.

REP. BART STUPAK: In this district, if you say gun control, everyone is against if. If you say should we have background checks before you purchase a gun, in this district, most people would favor that. A show of hands, how many people think we should have background checks at gun shows? How many think we shouldn't? Very few. And that's about what I'm seeing.

RANDY SCHOBER: This is a very nice gun here. This is a Rugar 30 --

KWAME HOLMAN: Randy Schober owns the Wilderness Supply Store in Ontonagon. He has available all of the sporting equipment necessary to enjoy outdoor life on the upper peninsula, including guns.

RANDY SCHOBER: This is another Rugar.

KWAME HOLMAN: Schober says he sympathizes the concern expressed by many of his hunting customers.

RANDY SCHOBER: The majority of them view that as you don't want to part with anything that you already have. They get a little worried too - you know -- that they may lose a right of theirs that was given to us a couple hundred ago.

KWAME HOLMAN: But Schober agrees with Congressman Stupak that the three-day waiting period should be applied to all gun purchases. The state of Michigan adopted it for handguns long before the Brady bill made it a national requirement.

RANDY SCHOBER: There were two situations that I ran into in the last fifteen years where the husband came into the store and I knew their marriage was on the rocks. I

had a strong belief that their marriage was on the rocks and he was inquiring about purchasing a handgun, and he wanted to know what needed to be done and when I told him that he had to go to the sheriff's department to get a permit to purchase a handgun, the deal was cancelled.

KWAME HOLMAN: For his next town hall meeting Bart Stupak had to drive another 50 miles West through the rain and, in a sense, back through time. Wakefield, Michigan, is a town that relies heavily on attracting tourists to its ski resorts in winter, lakeside resorts in summer, and hunting grounds year round. But residents who came out for the town meeting at the VFW Hall seemed more interested in the long-awaited awards ceremony than in Congressman Stupak's gun votes. Wakefield Veteran Rudy Brownell received several medals for distinguished service during the Korean War, but never one for injuries he suffered when a landmine exploded.

REP. BART STUPAK: But of all the medals you can see that Corporal Brownell has, he never got his Purple Heart.

KWAME HOLMAN: Stupak's office heard about the oversight and rectified it - 46 years later.

REP. BART STUPAK: It really is an honor to do this. Corporal, congratulations. And -- if I may -- there you go. It's now complete for all your years of service. Thank you again.

KWAME HOLMAN: What followed were questions to the Congressman about Medicare, veterans' benefits, military base closings, even cable TV rates, but only one about Stupak's votes to restrict gun sales at gun shows.

COSMO BONELLO: Recently, you voted on that bill regarding guns, and I thought I knew a little bit about it - kept pretty well track of it -- but there was an editorial

on Channel 6 and it said something about 80,000 hunters you sold down the river so to speak. What the hell was in that bill that was about hunting? I didn't understand that at all.

REP. BART STUPAK: If the law would have said we're going to take away your

gun, as they have in the past, I voted against it. If I thought they were going to put

some kind of control on your rights, I would have voted against it. But I didn't see it. And I'll admit the NRA was not happy with that vote.

KWAME HOLMAN: Many of Stupak's constituents got mailings from the NRA alerting them to the votes on gun show legislation and how it might affect them, and even though the NRA's position carried, Wakefield's Mike Rydeski, an NRA member himself, said he's concerned gun control proponents in Congress are gaining momentum.

MIKE RYDESKI: It might be a domino effect to the point where gun control is really going to be gun control, and I don't know how much of that we can stand.

REP. BART STUPAK: They don't trust government when it comes to guns and I understand that. And I hope that by now they have enough faith in me that they know I'm not going to take their guns.

KWAME HOLMAN: Rydeski and Stupak talked about gun control for several minutes after most had left the town hall meeting. Rydeski said he's now undecided whether he'll vote for Stupak in the next election. Stupak understands his votes on the gun show issue could hurt him.

REP. BART STUPAK: No doubt. I am concerned about it. The NRA is a very powerful organization. It has a very good grassroots lobbying effort, and when you go up against the NRA, you usually end up paying for it politically.

KWAME HOLMAN: For now, the NRA says it hasn't decided whether it will target or support Stupak when he goes hunting for votes next year.

JIM LEHRER: Still to come on the NewsHour tonight, the Montenegro threat and a conversation about torture.

FOCUS - BREAKING POINT?

JIM LEHRER: Now a look at another Balkan flashpoint, the tiny Yugoslav republic of Montenegro. We start with a report from Ian Williams of Independent Television News on Montenegro's efforts to protect itself from Slobodan Milosevic.

IAN WILLIAMS: It's a message designed for Slobodan Milosevic; these men form part of the new 10,000-strong special police force hastily assembled by Montenegro's pro-western leaders. Much of their training and equipment has come from the West, and may soon be tested as Montenegro steps up its defiance of Serbia. Relations between the last two remaining parts of Yugoslavia are close to breaking point. Montenegro is about to take a dangerous gamble over the future of the tiny republic, and it will be the task of these men to defend against any violent reaction from Slobodan Milosevic. With President Milosevic weakened by the Kosovo war, Montenegro has told Belgrade that unless it gets far-reaching autonomy within Yugoslavia, it will go its own way.

MAN: [speaking through interpreter] Absolutely. If Belgrade continues to treat us like second class citizens and if all they're interested in is keeping Milosevic in power, then we'll decide on our own destiny and proclaim independence.

IAN WILLIAMS: Checkpoints have been set up by federal soldiers loyal to Milosevic. There's an estimated 15,000 troops, with reports of more arriving. Local television secretly filmed these tanks controlling a key border highway. There have been a series of tense standoffs. This one at the height of the Kosovo war a month ago was filmed from the police side, and was triggered when the military, in the distance, tried to disarm the police. They failed. And with the end of the war, suspicion of the federal army has continued to grow.

VESKO TORNOVIC: The Yugoslav army is not professionals. The Yugoslav army is under the command of one man, of one party. It's the party of -- Socialist party of Serbia and Mr. Slobodan Milosevic. And he tried to provoke, every time, some kind of incident.

IAN WILLIAMS: Mr. Timovic's radio station, the most popular in the capital, was almost closed down during the war. Military police accused it of treason. The Montenegro police gave it armed protection. Now it trumpets its pro-independence line louder than ever. Pro-Milosevic voices are largely silent. The moves towards independence here are more practical than nationalistic. Just about the only goods that move on Montenegro's mountainous highways are smuggled. Legitimate commerce is just about dead, killed by the Yugoslav embrace. In the center of the capital, an army of black market traders hawk the increasingly worthless Yugoslav dinar. Nearby graffiti proclaims, "From cradle to grave, Slobo will get you there the fastest way."

VESELIN VUKOTIC: We want to be open colony and open society. We want frontier, we want to limit barrier to Montenegro and laborers and tourists and investors and capitalists. We want to be part of Europe.

IAN WILLIAMS: The government thinks it's correctly reading the mood of the people, particularly the young. At the weekend, a Serb band entertained the young, though largely subdued crowd. Lead singer Goritza's father fought with the Yugoslav army in Kosovo. He returned to Belgrade a fortnight ago a disturbed and changed man, refusing to talk about what he'd seen or done. And for her, like so many others here, ten years of conflict is enough.

GORITZA, Singer: Now they just want one thing: Just to live normal, that's all.

IAN WILLIAMS: Montenegro has concluded that the time and mood are ripe for change, and it's gambling that the West, having backed them during the war, will continue to do so. Ian Williams, Channel Four News, in Montenegro.

JIM LEHRER: And to Elizabeth Farnsworth.

ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: On Monday, the Yugoslav army denied it was sending more troops into Montenegro, calling the report "American propaganda." Serbian and Montenegrin officials began two days of meetings today about Montenegro's future. And for more on that we turn to Daniel Serwer, a Balkan analyst at the U.S. Institute for Peace and a former special U.S. Envoy to the Bosnian Federation; Janusz Bugajski, director of East European Studies at the Center for Strategic and International Studies; and Laura Silber, a senior write for the "Financial Times," who reported extensively from Yugoslavia for ten years. She wrote "Yugoslavia: Death of a Nation."

Laura Silber, what's at stake in these talks between Montenegro and Serbian authorities in Belgrade today and tomorrow?

LAURA SILBER, Author/Journalist: I think basically both sides are actually trying to buy time. They're trying to stake out their positions, and they're looking for a way out, each obviously a very different way out. But I don't expect anything really to come out of these talks. I think it's a way of beginning a dialogue, and it's a dialogue the Montenegrins are hoping there will be a change in the government in Belgrade. And that's what they want.

ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: But, Mr. Bugajski, Montenegro has real demands. It has something it's asking at these talks, right?

JANUSZ BUGAJSKI: Yes. I mean, Montenegro, I think, has come to the end of its patience in a way with this Milosevic regime. It's not really a question simply of political independence. It's a question of survival. They feel that Serbia's going to sink into the economic abyss this winter. They don't want to be dragged into it. Secondly, they want to benefit from the stability pact that's been proposed for the region. And they can't if they're part of the Yugoslav economy. Hence, they want primarily economic independence and the self-determination that comes with it.

ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: So they're making specific economic demands. They want a separate currency, right, or a separate arrangement for their currency?

JANUSZ BUGAJSKI: They want a convertible dinar or a separate currency as seen by an international currency board much like the Bulgarians have which allows for a certain degree of economic progress, plus to open up the country for foreign investment, privatization, and so on.

ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: But even if this is not perhaps -- even if nobody expects this to solve anything, it could still cause bigproblems, right? I mean, there is something at stake here.

DANIEL SERWER: Very definitely. There's the potential for conflict between Montenegro and Serbia. And there is no way -- it seems to me -- that that conflict would be won one in which the West would intervene. If, in fact, this comes to conflict, the Montenegrins are probably on their own.

ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: Why? Why do you say that? I thought NATO had made it pretty clear that they would move if Milosevic moved against Montenegro.

DANIEL SERWER: There's no security guarantee. There are lots of, what shall I say, efforts to get Serbia not to move against Montenegro. But I think the Montenegrins are fundamentally on their own. They're going to have to -- if they need to be defended, they're going to have to do it themselves.

ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: Why? Why does Milosevic need Montenegro so much? Explain that.

LAURA SILBER: Well, he needs it for a few reasons. One is Montenegro itself is not united behind Djukanovic.

ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: Explain who Djukanovic is.

LAURA SILBER: Djukanovic is the president of Montenegro. He's been in office for over a year. He is actually giving exactly the message that the West wants to see now. He's pro-democracy. He's pro-western. He also has minorities, Albanians and Muslims in his government, and it's setting an example that, in fact, there can be democracy in Yugoslavia. Milosevic wants him out. Milosevic does not recognize him and vice versa. So - and also he really resents that Djukanovic has a window to the outside world, what Milosevic now an indicted war criminal doesn't have.

ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: And we should explain that Djukanovic opposed what Milosevic did in Kosovo, never was part of that war, and NATO pretty much spared Montenegro, although there were a couple of NATO bombings during the war, too. Okay. Mr. Bugajski, we're not talking about ethnic differences between Montenegro and Serbia. What are the differences? Just briefly, what's the background?

JANUSZ BUGAJSKI: Without going into the history of it, let's put it this way, during the Ottoman occupation, the Montenegrins were one of the few, if you like, entities in the Balkans that maintained a certain degree of independence. Hence, a lot of Montenegrins particularly in the South feel they have a better claim to statehood than many of the other former Yugoslav republics. There is a regional difference, in other words, I would say a sub ethnic division where Montenegrins feel they are part of a separate identity, linked of course with Serbs in terms of language and religion, nevertheless, a strong regional identity, and one that has incorporated I would say both Albanians and Muslims, as Laura just said, into the government. I would just like to add there's two other reasons why Milosevic doesn't want to let Montenegro go. If Montenegro goes, there's no more Yugoslavia. If there's no more Yugoslavia, there's no more Yugoslav president, there's no more Milosevic. Secondly, if Montenegro goes, Serbia is a landlocked country. And Montenegro is much more important for Serbia than Kosovo.

ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: All right, now Mr. Serwer, put this in the context of the opposition demonstrations against Milosevic. How does the Montenegrin situation fit in that?

DANIEL SERWER: I think it's quite clear that the Montenegrin leadership has taken a definitive turn in a democratic direction. It's trying to establish an open society with an open economy. There's no question about that. It seems to me. And that's a big threat to Milosevic. It's the same threat he faces to some degree from the Serb opposition.

ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: Would you consider the president of Montenegro, Mr. Djukanovic, a leader of the opposition, not of the Serb opposition, but an opposition leader?

DANIEL SERWER: I think he has only limited political appeal inside Serbia today. But Montenegro is an important symbol for the Serb opposition. And frankly, if Montenegro is able to take this definitive turn in a democratic direction, it will expose the failure of the autocracy in Serbia even more. And that's what he's Milosevic is really afraid of. Djukanovic has the problem that he can't achieve what he wants to achieve with Belgrade under the leadership that it's under at the moment.

ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: In other words, he can't have the kind of free market system and democracy and those elements that he's looking for as long as Milosevic is in power?

DANIEL SERWER: I think that's right. And we're all concerned with Montenegro today. I think there are legitimate reasons to be concerned. But the main game is really inside Serbia today. And Montenegro will be much better off if the regime changes in Serbia.

ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: Do you want to add anything about how it fits in with the opposition?

LAURA SILBER: Well, one thing, for example, Zorangini - one of the leaders of the Alliance for Change, the opposition coalition leading demonstrations against Milosevic is he had sanctuary in Montenegro during the bombing. He has a very close relationship with Djukanovic, and Djukanovic has been very, very supportive of the opposition and willing to travel abroad with opposition members, so willing to forge a united front against Milosevic. But I agree with you completely, he is not going to be the leader of Serbia. And we can make no mistake about that.

ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: And is there -- does Milosevic still have the force to come down on him? I mean, I want to get back to this question that you raised about whether Montenegro's alone and whether NATO would step in and help, but does Milosevic still have the force to put down anything that might happen in Montenegro? With these police we saw, for example.

JANUSZ BUGAJSKI: Well, sure. There are several elements he controls; he controls the Yugoslav army. The exact numbers we don't know. It's somewhere in the region of 20,000 to 30,000 that are in Montenegro. Secondly he controls or at least supports paramilitary units, some of whom -- some of which have been relocated from Kosovo to Montenegro, in other words, the possibility that these paramilitaries could whip up ethnic tensions within Montenegro where there's a large refugee population, as well, and thirdly, various intelligence agents who have penetrated all the Montenegrin institutions and have been there really for ten, twelve years since he staged a coup against the original Montenegrin government 12 years ago. I would just like to add there's a basic contradiction here. You cannot have a democratic Montenegro in a non-democratic Yugoslavia. One or the other has to go.

ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: Okay. Let's say that there is a move further towards democracy in Montenegro. You don't think that there there's anything that NATO can or will do?

DANIEL SERWER: I have my doubts that the United States is ready to lead NATO into another war over Montenegro. I don't see signs of that at this point. What I do see is a lot of political support from Montenegro, a lot of economic support. But if the Montenegrins take a turn that leads to physical confrontation with Serbia, I think they're largely on their own.

ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: Do you agree with that?

LAURA SILBER: I do. And I think it's also a calculation of whether President Milosevic thinks he wants to open a front in Montenegro. In the past he's thrived on conflict. And I think if he thinks it will prolong his hold over Serbia by starting a civil war in Montenegro, which obviously could also involve Serbia, there could be a civil war that would spread, I think that the United States would be very reluctant to get involved in a civil war in Montenegro, in Serbia. I think they would feel it would be too dangerous, too uncertain. And that is what worries me.

DANIEL SERWER: To me the lesson here is that time is running out. And time is running out on what's needed inside Serbia and what's needed is a definitive turn in the democratic direction there. We need to be supporting democratic forces much more aggressively than we're able to do today. And we need to bring about the transition that's required in Belgrade.

JANUSZ BUGAJSKI: But there's an alternative scenario. In other words, if the democratic opposition is not successful in dislodging Milosevic through peaceful means, the spark for democratization naturally would be through bloodshed, which is provoked in Montenegro, which as Laura said could spread to Serbia - in other words, a potential Serbian civil war would start in Montenegro. There's one other thing I'd like to add about western involvement. Quite possibly, what's needed is Dayton or a Rambouillet, some sort of international conference between Povorica and Belgrade, something to bring this into the international forum.

ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: Some kind of a conference which has international sponsorship.

JANUSZ BUGAJSKI: International sponsorship, support, evident support for Montenegrin democracy, openness, integration.

LAURA SILBER: But we can't do a conference with Milosevic at the helm. It has to be later on, because I think that having Milosevic decide what rights Montenegro gets is ridiculous.

JANUSZ BUGAJSKI: Well, he didn't decide at Rambouillet, and I don't think he decided the kind of conference I suggested.

ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH: Okay. Well, thank you all very much for being with us.

CONVERSATION

JIM LEHRER: Now a conversation with a woman who has devoted her life to combating torture around the world. Charles Krause has that.

CHARLES KRAUSE: It was in London in 1985 that Helen Bamber founded the Medical Foundation for the Care of Victims of Torture. Since then, she and her colleagues have provided both physical and psychological therapy to more than 17,000 people, victims of torture from more than 80 countries. Praised for her selfless and pioneering work, Bamber is the subject of a new book by Neil Belton, "The Good Listener: Helen Bamber, A Life Against Cruelty." It chronicles Bamber's life, beginning with her first experience with victims of torture in 1945, when as a 20-year-old, she worked with survivors of the Bergen Belsen Concentration Camp in Germany. After the war, she returned to London, where she worked with children who had survived the camps. Eventually, she joined Amnesty International, working to expose torture in countries like Chile and Argentina. In 1993, Bamber also testified on behalf of a Palestinian prisoner she believed had been tortured by the Israelis. She has said it was a particularly difficult decision because she is Jewish. We talked to Helen Bamber recently in New York City. Thank you, Mrs. Bamber, very much, for joining us. Tell me about your foundation. How many victims of torture do you treat each year, and what do you try to do for them?

HELEN BAMBER: The medical foundation was established at the end of 1985, and the purpose of the organization was to offer a comprehensive, holistic service to people who live in the UK and who suffered torture. We have seen over 16 -- I think it's now about 17,500 people since we started. We saw, last year, just under 3,000 new people. Torture's a very complex issue. It affects not only somebody's body that's been assaulted, and maybe even mutilated or injured, it's about the effect on the family and on the children. And so we began to develop services that were what we felt to be appropriate for people whose cultures were different, whose belief systems were different, whose views of healing were different than perhaps our own, so that listening to them, understanding what mattered to them, became very important indeed, so that we entered a learning situation as much as, what, a caring or giving situation.

CHARLES KRAUSE: What happens, or what has happened, to the people who come to your foundation? What are some of the kinds of things that these people have been through?

HELEN BAMBER: The torture?

CHARLES KRAUSE: Yes.

HELEN BAMBER: It's so difficult to describe torture. People are often suspended in very uncomfortable positions. The arm is held over the back, and the other arm drawn together so that the two hands meet. The two hands meet, and people will be strung up in that position. Electricity then may be applied to sensitive parts of the body so that the body convulses in that very uncomfortable situation that they're held in. They may be burnt. They may be beaten very severely. The soles of the feet is a very common form of beating. Our work in the early days was about identifying torture, very sophisticated forms of torture, where methods were used to maximize pain but to leave few signs, as we saw in Latin America and in South Africa in the 70's, for example; in the former Soviet Union, where the misuse of psychiatry is a form of torture, actually, where people were forcibly drugged with pain-inducing drugs, and so on.

CHARLES KRAUSE: In your view, as someone who has worked with the victims of torture, and who is dedicated to trying to stop torture in the world, is it important that the leaders of governments like General Pinochet and Mr. Milosevic are brought to trial and held accountable for torture? Will that make any difference?

HELEN BAMBER: I think that Milosevic is somebody who is impervious to reason and impervious to how many deaths he creates in the pursuit of his aims. That's the problem. How can you recover, really recover, when your torturers are walking around, and where the people responsible for them are walking free and going about their business? That's hard. You can't have a healthy society in those circumstances.

CHARLES KRAUSE: You yourself were a young woman when you first came in contact with victims -- in fact, victims of the Holocaust. I wonder if you would tell us a little bit about how you became involved in that, and how that affected your outlook and your determination to do something about it.

HELEN BAMBER: I went to Germany with a Jewish relief unit under the auspices of AMRA.

CHARLES KRAUSE: In 1945?

HELEN BAMBER: In 1945.

CHARLES KRAUSE: Right after it was liberated by the British army.

HELEN BAMBER: Not immediately after it was liberated, some few months after it was liberated. So Camp One, the infamous Camp One, which stays in people's mind from the films that we see of Belsen, had been burnt down because of the typhus. The disease was rampant. Bythe time I got there, people were recovering, and some were still very ill, and many died. But recovery brought with it memory. I think that people who'd been starved for so long and had been subjected to such immense cruelty were really in a state of almost what one might call in jargon "psychic numbing." I think they were unable to remember everything. There was also, amongst those that I worked with, a need to hold you tight and to tell you their stories. And I've often described that as something quite extraordinary. It was less like listening to people talking than witnessing somebody almost vomiting out the must appalling stories. And I was, in my naivete, unable at first to cope with my own inability to do something about this, and it only came with time that I understood that I couldn't change the past; that all I could do was to listen.

CHARLES KRAUSE: Why is it, do you think, that countries which are considered civilized countries-- countries like Chile, countries like Argentina, countries like Israel, where you have, in fact, been and testified about the use of torture-- why do they continue to use torture as a method against their own people?

HELEN BAMBER: It's a very good question, and it's a very difficult one to answer. It's, I suppose for some, an effective way of maintaining political power. I think it's fearful governments, governments who want to eliminate an enemy and control the population. And by torturing some of the main opponents, it's an example to others of what might happen to them. I don't think it ever really works. You never get the names that you want. You never get total political control. There will always be a movement for change. There will always be people who will surmount it. But it's a devastating practice, and it is unbelievable that it continues in over 90 countries today. I wish I had the answer.

CHARLES KRAUSE: In this book, one of the questions that Neil Belton asks again and again is why someone dedicates their life to good, to doing good, to trying to help the victims of torture, as you have done. Why have you spent your life at this work, doing this sort of thing?

HELEN BAMBER: I don't feel I'm necessarily doing good. I think that I'm using skills, and my colleagues are using skills, to help people overcome some very terrible things that have happened to them, to find a way to live again. I don't think of myself as doing good, really, but what can I say? I was influenced as a child to abhor violence and cruelty. I lived with the fear of it for many years as a child growing up in London, where fascists were strong, or seemed to me to be very strong, where they were marching through the streets of London, where fascism was growing in Europe. And I suppose in a way, I've always been dealing with my own fears. We could put it like that, that I've been trying to overcome my fear and my wish to see change. I believe that we can make change, but it's so difficult, but that's what I'm working for. I want more understanding of why we carry violence within us that, given certain opportunities, spurts out into cruelty. And we're not good at that. We've conquered so much in the 20th century in terms of medicine and science, but we've learned relatively little about ourselves and we are very cruel beasts. But we have -- we have other things as well.

CHARLES KRAUSE: Thank you very much.

ESSAY - THINKING POSITIVELY

JIM LEHRER: We close tonight with some good news about teenage girls as viewed by essayist Anne Taylor Fleming.

ANNE TAYLOR FLEMING: It seems only yesterday that newsmagazines and news programs were full of stories about babies having babies. We looked at the faces of young American females, 15, 16, sometimes even younger -- White, Hispanic, African American, and at their swollen bellies and shook our heads. Some looked and sound shell-shocked, some defiant. We could only imagine the years ahead. Full of diapers, not diplomas. Probably welfare. What could any of us say that would divert them from the path of premature motherhood? Predictably, there was much finger pointing. Conservatives blamed the pregnancies on too few family values and too many feminist-abetted freedoms. Too much talk of sex. Nonsense, the liberals shouted back: There isn't too much talk of sex, there's too little. We needed more talk of AIDS and sexually transmitted diseases and contraception. Guess what? Something worked, and here are the headlines to prove it. What a stunner to wake up to the recent stories and statistics like these. The birth rate among girls ages 15 to 19 dropped 16 percent from 1991 to 1997. In one year alone, 1996-1997, the rate dropped 4 percent. And the birth rate for unmarried, African-American women is at a 40-year low, with the sharpest drop among 15- 17-year-olds, whose birth ate has gone down 20 percent since 1990. So what has worked? In truth, no one really knows, and predictably enough, adults on both sides of the debate have lined up to take some credit. Probably those on both sides do deserve some. More talk about the need for families and fathers on the one hand, and more talk about the need for sex education and contraception on the other, have no doubt both helped. But since teenage pregnancy rates have been dropping throughout the decade, the new federal welfare reform law can't probably take too much credit, since it didn't go into effect until 1996. Regardless, what's under here is a sea change in young people themselves. Number one, they're having less sex and number two, when and if they do have it, they're using protection. Depo-Provera, the injectable contraception that hit the market in the early 1990's, is a piece of the story. So is condom use, up all through the '90's. AIDS certainly did cast its shadow. But there's something else, something more positive going on, something more exuberant and joyous, at least from where I sit as a mid-life woman who dreams of full lives for all of these gangly-poised, shy-bold, earnest and irreverent young girls I see around me in the boutiques and movie theaters and malls. Apparently, they themselves are feeling hopeful, full of a sense of possibility and of responsibility -- to look out for themselves, not to get sick or trapped, their dreams thwarted by an early pregnancy. Even inner city girls, buoyed, no doubt, by the good economy, are full of ambitions, according to those who counsel them, and there's a lot of positive peer pressure at work now, pressure that says getting knocked up isn't cool. So, even as we mourn for some of our teenagers and try to figure out what's wrong with others, in these warming days it might be nice to celebrate for a moment the optimistic and responsible young females who are making their way in the world. I'm Anne Taylor Fleming.

RECAP

JIM LEHRER: Again, the major stories of this Wednesday: The Senate voted on more patient rights amendments; thousands of Iranians took to the streets in Tehran to support the Muslim hard line clerics; and Ohio Congressman John Kasich dropped his bid for the Republican presidential nomination. We'll see you online, and again here tomorrow evening. I'm Jim Lehrer. Thank you, and goodnight.