The MacNeil/Lehrer NewsHour

MR. LEHRER: Good evening. I'm Jim Lehrer in Washington.

MS. WARNER: And I'm Margaret Warner in New York. After the News Summary, we go first to U.S. policy towards Haiti. Should we have a military role? Then a look at the Pacific Northwest timber industry after Clinton's timber summit. And we end with a Charlayne Hunter-Gault report on Palestinian life in Gaza. NEWS SUMMARY

MR. LEHRER: Armed protesters prevented 200 U.S. troops from landing in Haiti today. The USS Harlen County was scheduled to dock in Port Au Prince with the troops this morning. Dozens of armed men pounded on cars carrying U.S. diplomats and beat up foreign journalists waiting for the shift. The troops were part of a 1600 member U.N. force intended to smooth the restoration of democracy in Haiti. Deposed President Jean Bertrande-Aristide is scheduled to return to power October 30th. Sec. of State Christopher warned Haiti's police and military this evening economic sanctions might be restored unless the U.N.-brokered political accord is honored. We'll have more on this story right after the News Summary. Margaret.

MS. WARNER: A cease-fire declared by Somali warlord Mohamed Farrah Aidid continued to hold in Mogadishu today. It was the third day without attacks on U.N. positions. U.S. warplanes flew low over the city today in a show of force. They were such flights since January. Meanwhile, a three ship U.S. amphibious battle group sailed through the Suez Canal on its way to Somalia. The ships are carrying 1700 Marine enforcements. U.N. officials said an arrest warrant remained in effect for Aidid despite Washington's change in approach to the crisis. U.S. envoy Robert Oakley met in Mogadishu yesterday with members of Aidid's clan. American officials say he has no plans for direct talks with the warlord. The Clinton aides said last week they wouldn't oppose Aidid's participation in U.N.-sponsored talks on a political settlement there.

MR. LEHRER: An American and a Briton will share this year's Nobel Prize in medicine. Philip Sharp and Richard Roberts independently made the same discovery in 1977 of the so-called "split gene." The Nobel Prize Committee said in its announcement today the discovery was fundamental to basic research in biology and to research on the development of cancer and other diseases. Sharp is a cancer researcher at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Roberts is research director at New England Bio Labs in Beverly, Massachusetts.

MS. WARNER: Divers continued the search today for victims of South Korea's worst ferry disaster in two decades. The boat was on a pleasure trip Sunday when it capsized and sank in rough seas about 150 miles south of Seoul. Fifty-eight bodies have been recovered so far, and there are 67 known survivors. Ferry officials don't know exactly how many passengers were on board but estimates range as high as 300. In Galveston, Texas, today, crews are trying to determine how to remove 365,000 gallons of fuel oil from a tanker that exploded over the weekend. Three crew members were killed. Protective booms have been set up around the tanker in the Houston ship channel, and officials say no oil has escaped into the nearby wetlands. The cause of the blast is still unknown.

MR. LEHRER: Andreas Papendreo's is returning as prime minister of Greece. The 74 year old socialist defeated the conservative incumbent in Sunday's national election. We have a report narrated by David Symonds of Worldwide Television News.

DAVID SYMONDS, WTN: Whatever their motivation, Greek voters chose to forgive and forget. Perhaps they were simply fed up with four years of the conservative government and wanted to have the socialists back. By giving a clear majority in parliament to Andreas Papendreo, they have resurrected the political career of the ex-University of California lecturer. Thus far in 1989, amid a welter of corruption allegations, ultimately never proved, and his economic collapse, his health has been frail since major heart surgery five years ago. Defeated Premier Constantin Mitsatakik said he'd soon resign as leader of the New Democracy Party which made its worst showing in 12 years. Outside Greece, Papendreo's return was less welcome. During his eight-year rule in the 1980s, Papendreo was vehemently anti-American. He wanted to throw U.S. fores out of Greece. His past relations with NATO and the European Community were stormy. In January, Greece assumes the six-month presidency of the European Community and might set an unpopular agenda for EC business.

MR. LEHRER: Palestine Liberation Organization leaders met in Tunis today to ratify the peace agreement with Israel. Two radical factions boycotted the meeting. PLO Chairman Yasser Arafat's political adviser said he expected the 107 member PLO Central Council to approve the accord. It is also expected to name the delegations for implementing talks with Israel.

MS. WARNER: A strong earthquake rocked Tokyo in most of northern Japan today. There were no immediate reports of damage or injury. The tremor struck just hours after Russian President Boris Yeltsin arrived in the Japanese capital. It's Yeltsin's first trip outside Moscow since government troops crushed a hard-line rebellion last week. Japanese officials don't expect any major concessions from Yeltsin right now on Japan's demand for the return of four islands seized by Soviet troops at the end of World War II.

MR. LEHRER: And that's it for the News Summary tonight. Now it's on to American troops in Haiti, logging in the Pacific Northwest, and Charlayne in Gaza. FOCUS - ANOTHER SOMALIA?

MR. LEHRER: The Haiti story is first tonight. Two hundred American troops remained on their ship tonight after officials in Port Au Prince refused to let them dock while a group of gunmen threatening to make a second Somalia in Haiti roughed up diplomats and reporters. We begin with a Kwame Holman backgrounder.

MR. HOLMAN: Haiti is one foreign policy problem the United States didn't have to go looking for. The problem began streaming toward U.S. shores late in 1991. Thousands of Haitians were fleeing their island nation's military regime which had violently ousted Haiti's first democratically elected president, Jean Bertrande-Aristide. But the Bush administration ordered the Coast Guard to turn the Haitians away. Candidate Bill Clinton criticized that policy, saying each Haitian refugee should be allowed an asylum hearing. But in a radio address to Haiti days before his inauguration, Clinton said he would continue the Bush policy of returning Haitians to their home without hearing. Clinton said he feared many more Haitians would die attempting the 600 mile open sea exodus to Florida.

BILL CLINTON: [radio address] This is President-elect Bill Clinton. I speak to you today before I take office to express my strong support for the return of democratic government to Haiti. As we work to restore democracy in Haiti, I urge Haitians to remain in Haiti and not to leave by boat.

MR. HOLMAN: Instead, the Clinton administration decided it was better to solve Haiti's problems in Haiti and in June backed the United Nations' economic embargo of this already deeply impoverished country of six million. The embargo worsened conditions for Haiti's masses, who reportedly were dying by the thousands. But in some respects, the embargo did work. The lack of oil especially apparently forced the military Junta in July to negotiate with the deposed president.

DANTE CAPUTO, U.N. Special Envoy: After these four days of negotiations, I think the moment has arrived to present both a concrete plan in order to reach a solution for the political crisis in Haiti.

MR. HOLMAN: U.N.-sponsored negotiations took place on Governors Island off of Manhattan and resulted in an agreement in which the Junta would step aside and allow Aristide to return to power. But since July, there has been a steady increase in civil violence in Haiti, and last month as Aristide's new prime minister, Robert Malval, arrived to pave the way for Aristide's return, his motorcade was attacked. Supporters and opponents of Aristide fought in the streets. And there was more violence reported today as the U.S. troop ship was prevented from docking at Port Au Prince. But Canadian forces under the U.N. flag arrived safely last week in their mission to help organize Haitian armed forces to restore order. Defense Sec. Les Aspin says the mission of U.S. forces will be much the same.

LES ASPIN, Secretary of Defense: [September 28] A limited number of forces will go in there for two missions, both of them kind of civil affairs missions. One is CB units to go in and help construct roads and hospitals and other things, and the second is a trainer unit to go in and train the Haitian military to help them in professional training of their capabilities. That was decided in the agreement that was worked out between the two sides, and it's a limited role. It is not a peacekeeping role.

MR. HOLMAN: But yesterday, Senate Minority Leader Bob Dole said in the wake of recent events in Somalia, the Clinton administration needs to rethink its policy toward Haiti.

SEN. ROBERT DOLE, Minority Leader: [NBC: "Meet the Press"] And we ought to bring what few people we have in Haiti back home and not say anymore.

MR. HOLMAN: The Clinton administration may already be rethinking its policy. Having issued a complaint to the United Nations Security Council late today, reportedly urging that economic sanctions against Haiti be reinstated if the U.N. determines the peace agreement has been violated.

MR. LEHRER: Now, four views of this Haiti situation. From Congress, Lee Hamilton, Democrat of Indiana, chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, and Porter Goss, Republican of Florida, one of thirty-eight Republican Congressmen who wrote President Clinton last week questioning the U.S. role in Haiti. They are joined by Amy Wilentz, a former Time Magazine writer, author of The Rainy Season, Haiti Since DeValier, and Ted Galen Carpenter, director of Foreign Policy Studies at the Cato Institute, a Washington study group. Congressman Hamilton, does the Somalia analogy work on Haiti?

REP. HAMILTON: No. I think they're very different missions. The national interests of the United States is much greater in Haiti than in Somalia. The combat, the command and control arrangement is very different. We have a very great national interest in Haiti, less in Somalia.

MR. LEHRER: What is the national interest?

REP. HAMILTON: Well, if that country collapses, you get a wave of refugees coming to this country. We have a great interest in democracy in the Western Hemisphere. The Governors Island Agreement is terribly important. It moves that country towards Haiti. It's been a big drug center, tremendous poverty, so we have a lot of interest there. If the country collapses or goes into chaos, it's going to have a direct impact on, on our shores.

MR. LEHRER: Congressman Goss, how do you see it? Do you see a U.S. interest in Haiti?

REP. GOSS: I respectfully disagree with Chairman Hamilton's assessment about the mission there. I believe the mission is very, very unclear. I think we've heard Sec. Aspin just talk about kind of a civil affairs thing I think were his words. We're going to do a little road building, and we're going to do some training. What that training of the army really boils down to is trying to ask the guys with the guns to turn them over to the people that they don't like and don't want to have the guns. And that's not going to work. Now, the consequences of something going wrong in Haiti need not be so dire for the United States I would suggest, as Chairman Hamilton has said. I believe we have contained the wave of immigration from Haiti very well, and I applaud President Clinton for his policy to do that. And I think it's worked extremely well. I think the solution for Haiti lies in Haiti by Haitians, and I don't believe the United States needs to go down there when the welcome mat has been yanked away, and the go home Yankee flag is flying loud and clear.

MR. LEHRER: Congressman Hamilton, what about that situation there today? Here's the 200 U.S. troops were not allowed to land because of, of armed resistance -- not armed resistance -- protest resistance from people who did have guns, and apparently there was no civil order there to stop them.

REP. HAMILTON: Well, the military didn't come through for us. There's been an agreement. That agreement has all been worked out ahead of time, that the military would protect, the Haitian military would protect us, and they just didn't do it. And now we have to keep as a priority the safety of U.S. troops. We ought not to disembark those troops until there's a secure and peaceful environment there. Maybe we need to do additional things for their protection but I think --

MR. LEHRER: More troops, more military?

REP. HAMILTON: If necessary. I really cannot assess what's needed to protect them. Look, we've had no violence against the observers from the United Nations that have been there. There's been no hint of violence against foreigners, but it's a dicey situation, and we have to be careful about it, no question about it.

MR. LEHRER: Congressman Goss, what is the harm of U.S. troops or U.S. involvement in Haiti? What could potentially go wrong that would be harmful to the United States?

REP. GOSS: Well, what goes wrong primarily is that our men and women in uniform who are down there. We are asking them, presumably if we add more, to go in with a very ill-defined message, generally under U.N. command, which has not been working very well in Somalia, and we're not sure it's working well in Haiti. We are not quite sure what the rules of engagement are, and this is sort of the quagmire process that's got us into Vietnam. Now I don't expect that Haiti is as significant as Vietnam in terms of commitment of troops, but it's the same type of process we should have learned better. We don't want to be in the position of using American men and women in uniform to provide a body guard for the authoritarian rule or to keep somebody in power in Haiti against that authoritarian rule. If that becomes our mission, and that is our new policy, how many countries in the world are we going to be providing body guards for to keep stability and keep people, even popularly elected people, in power? What we need to do is let the Haitians work it out amongst themselves, and I would point out for the past 200 years it's been unstable, and going down there and asking these thugs who are basically running the country with guns right now to surrender peacefully is to me the essence of naivete.

MR. LEHRER: Amy Wilentz, do you agree that the Haitians can solve this without the U.S. involvement and heavy military involvement if it takes that?

MS. WILENTZ: Well, I'd like to point out first of all that we did sign an agreement, and this contingent of forces was not President Aristide's idea or the Haitian people's idea. This was the American government's idea, so, you know, what does the American government's word mean if they're going to sign accords and then just go back on them immediately? It's a little different than the situation in Somalia. The thugs who are running the country right now I agree, it's a little naive to expect them to surrender peacefully. But they are thugs and bullies, and they love to attack unarmed civilians. They like to attack unarmed diplomats, and journalists with cameras. But when they see another gun, they're not very brave, and I think we've seen that over the past say five years since the Devaliers fell. The military government attacks civilians, but they've never been confronted with a force that looked serious, and I truly believe that if they were, they would not resist. My --

MR. LEHRER: Excuse me. What constitutes a serious military force, 200 troops on the ship?

MS. WILENTZ: Well, that could constitute a serious military force if it were backed in any serious way by the Clinton administration. However, the whiffle waffling that we're seeing now is bound to encourage aggression against those troops. I'm very concerned that the Secretary of Defense has waffled on this issue and that the Americans seem to be backing off in the face of say two dozen goons at a port somewhere.

MR. LEHRER: You mean you think that if the U.S. really wanted to go in there and, and restore order, it could do so relatively simply?

MS. WILENTZ: I think it could. I agree the situation is volatile and that there is some risk, but I think that volatility has been provoked by a perceived vacillation on the part of the administration. The Haitians have really been playing up to the Somalia analogy in Haiti, itself. The military government which has control of several of the media has really been pointing out this connection because it understands that if they can just worry President Clinton enough on this score, perhaps that he will hesitate so much he won't send in these troops.

MR. LEHRER: Mr. Carpenter, is that what's going on here, that we have another Somalia situation on our hands, that a few thugs with guns can, can cause the most powerful nation in the world to back off?

MR. CARPENTER: Well, I certainly disagree with Congressman Hamilton's contention that this situation is fundamentally different from what we're facing in Somalia. In fact, what we have in the making here is a mini-Somalia. There are at least three similarities that ought to make the American people extremely worried. First of all, we are sending American military personnel into a situation that cannot be even charitably described as a secure environment. Second, we seem to assume that if our intentions are pure, that will somehow shield our personnel from the violent acts of those who interpret our intervention as meddling in the internal politics of the country. And thirdly, we have the view that military action is an effective tool for the most nebulous nation building objectives. The United States spent 19 years in Haiti, between 1915 and 1934, trying to rebuild that chronically dysfunctional society. We failed utterly. In fact, we helped create the conditions that led later to the Devalier dictatorships. I'm not convinced at all that this intervention, either unilaterally by the United States or under the auspices of the United Nations, will turn out materially better.

MR. LEHRER: Do you agree with Ms. Wilentz's analysis that a little resolve and a little military -- in other words, show the guns to the people with the guns and they'll run?

MR. CARPENTER: Well, we heard exactly the same thing at the time of the initial U.S. intervention in Somalia in December, just a few warlords and their hirelings, just a few hundred people who were causing trouble in Mogadishu. Even today we hear that all of the trouble is in South Mogadishu and everything is going splendidly in the rest of the country, something that is clearly not the case. The disorders in Haiti create a very dangerous environment for the United States. And this intervention is emblematic of what columnist George Will has aptly described as colonialism of compassion, and it's a very foolish strategy for the United States.

MR. LEHRER: Colonialism of compassion, Congressman Hamilton, is that what -- is that what's going on here?

REP. HAMILTON: Oh, it's a good phrase. You know, I think you have to focus on what happens if you don't go in. The prime minister in Haiti said, said it correctly. He said the country collapses, you have chaos. You have a wave of refugees coming to the United States. Now, look, the United Nations has put together a plan on Governors Island. It's a very promising plan for minimal commitment of resources. We have a chance to turn that country around. It is a very promising moment in the history of Haiti. If we back out, then the U.N. effort collapses. If the U.N. effort collapses, the country collapses. And you go back to conditions of chaos. The refugees come streaming over. It becomes a drug haven, and all the rest. I think here we must not be bullied by a handful of people, and we must remain steadfast to the agreement that we committed ourselves to, which the Haitians have committed themselves to, and carry through, protecting at all times, of course, the American troops.

MR. LEHRER: Mr. Carpenter, basically what's wrong with trying this agreement? You heard what the Congressman said. The deal has been made. Why not at least give it a go?

MR. CARPENTER: Well, this is the let's put one foot into the quicksand argument. And I'm sure that the United Nations' strategy in Haiti is at least as brilliantly conceived as its strategy in Somalia which, of course, has worked so very well. The United States is facing a process of incrementalism in Haiti, a little bit now, but what happens when the first American casualties occur? Will we see the Clinton administration react in the same way that it has in Somalia, now we have to send in more troops to protect the personnel that are already there, and that can lead to even further steps. as far as the refugee bugaboo which is always trotted out here, we ought to regard the Haitian refugees that might come to this country as a potential asset. I would not only give them temporary haven. I would give them permanent residency if that's what they wish. We managed to absorb more than 100,000 refugees from Cuba in the Marielle Boatlift in a space of 10 months, and that did not destroy America's economy. It did not even destroy the economy of South Florida. It, in fact, enhanced that economy, and as Prof. Julian Simon at the University of Maryland other experts have pointed out, immigrants enriched a society both socially and economically.

MR. LEHRER: Ms. Wilentz, what do you make of Congressman Hamilton's point that if the United States pulls out of this deal, as you mentioned earlier, that, that it will mean the collapse of Haiti and all of the negatives? Mr. Carpenter disagrees with that. What is your view?

MS. WILENTZ: Well, as far as I can see, Haiti's already collapsed. It's been in a state of progressive collapsing since President Aristide was ousted two years ago. I think the situation will get worse if it's understood that there is not going to be any further interest in Haiti on the part of the International Community. And I think that would be a terrible thing and not for reasons solely of compassion. I agree with Mr. Carpenter that Haitian refugees are a great asset in America, but do we want to depopulate an entire country for lack of the bravery defending 200 men and women? I don't think we want to do that. I think it's far more important that we show that we're going to be able to stick to our guns in the post Cold War era. If the one superpower in the world can't enforce a peace even if that's not how the mission is exactly described, then I'm not sure what we can do.

MR. LEHRER: Congressman Goss, what about that point? If the United States of America is not willing to put 200 troops on the line to enforce the potential for peace in its own hemisphere what does the new world order mean?

REP. GOSS: Well, we are not the policemen of the world, and we all know that. I've heard a lot of talk about just 200 troops down there. The fact is, this is more than a handful of people. This is almost 200 years of history. About 72 percent of the people elected Mr. Aristide president. It was a genuine popular election. I was there. And he is the rightful president. But the other people are determined that he is not going to rule, and they are very serious about it, and they have got the gun. So the question of involvement is going to be very serious, and I would ask Ms. Wilentz just how far do we go using those guns? Do we, in fact, engage the Haitian army, the Haitian police? Do we go out there and chorale them in their own country and say we are here to contain everybody with a gun in Haiti, everybody in the military, and how much will that take? Is that, in fact, getting us to another shooting war in Haiti in our backyard?

MR. LEHRER: Ms. Wilentz?

MS. WILENTZ: Well, I would hope that it wouldn't mean anything like a full scale invasion, the kind of thing we did in Panama. I think that was, proved to be something of a disaster. However, we did manage to disarm the Panamanian defense forces. They are no longer. There is a replacement police force. It's working quite well. The civilian government is allowed to continue in their own inept way, and I would like to see the Haitian army similarly disarmed. I realize that that is not the final goal of this mission but at least the retraining would be a good idea. I'm not sure that that can happen. Americans have trained, for example, Michele Francois, the guy who's running this operation, to stop the Americans from coming in. They trained Henri Nafi, the first military dictator after the Devaliers left, so our training hasn't proven very fruitful in the past but one can only hope that it will work better and that this sort of massive training effort will, will prove more successful.

MR. LEHRER: Congressman Hamilton, is there sentiment in Congress for more than what has already been authorized? I mean, if this thing should get out of hand, and if we take Congressman Goss's worst case scenario, is, is the United States prepared to do that?

REP. GOSS: Well, I think members of Congress are very wary about committing foreign troops abroad. The mission in this instance is very limited. It is not a combatmission. It is not a peacekeeping mission. It's not a peacemaking mission. It's a mission to build and to monitor and to help train. And if we can't carry that out in a secure environment, then we ought not to pursue it. There is no question about that. But I must say, I just wonder where all of this leads to with regard to America, pull out of Somalia, don't participate in Bosnia, pull out of Haiti? What kind of a signal does that send across the world about American leadership and resolve and commitment and steadfastness? In the Haiti case we signed an agreement. We made a commitment. Nobody was complaining about it at the time. Now, they don't want us to carry out an agreement that we have supported.

MR. LEHRER: Mr. Carpenter, briefly, what is the message of that?

MR. CARPENTER: Well, I hope that the message would be that the United States for a change would have an intelligent national security strategy, that we would reserve the use of our military personnel for the defense of the vital security interests of the United States and not try to embark on ambitious, international, social engineering schemes that have no hope of success.

MR. LEHRER: All right. And that's the debate of the present and the future. Ms. Wilentz, gentlemen, thank you, all four, very much.

MS. WARNER: Still ahead on the NewsHour, the Pacific Northwest timber industry and Charlayne Hunter-Gault in Gaza. FOCUS - COSTLY CUTS

MS. WARNER: Next tonight, jobs versus an endangered species. For several years, environmentalists in the timber industry have squared off over the fate of the spotted owl and the future of another endangered species, the logger. President Clinton tried to find a solution to make both sides happy, but as Greg Hirakawa of public station KCTS-Seattle reports, it falls far short of what the timber industry would like.

MR. HIRAKAWA: To workers at the Barbee Mill Company in Seattle, Washington, President Clinton's solution to the Northwest timber problem is no solution at all.

LONNIE MILLER, Millworker: Not good. Looking for everybody to be out of work.

MR. HIRAKAWA: Earlier this year, the small family-owned mill employed 160 people. Today mill vice president Robert Cugini says they are down to 65 and dropping.

ROBERT CUGINI, Barbee Mill Co.: Lack of logs, no, no material to -- no economical material to go into the mill at this time.

MR. HIRAKAWA: For decades the national forests of the Pacific Northwest, in addition to providing recreational hunting and camping grounds, have supplied lumber mills like Barbee with low cost timber. But for the past two years, a court injunction has sealed off much of this timber in order to protect the threatened northern spotted owl.

SPOKESMAN: Ladies and gentlemen, the President and Vice President of the United States.

MR. HIRAKAWA: In April, President Clinton convened what he called his Forest Conference. The day long meeting brought together environmentalists and timber groups. Administration officials hoped to create a plan that would not only protect the owl and other threatened Northwest wildlife but also provide a reasonable timber supply to the region's huge logging industry. The proposed timber plan would reduce logging on federal land in the region by 70 percent. It would prohibit logging around environmentally sensitive streams and watersheds to preserve several species of threatened Northwest salmon, and it requests $1.2 billion from Congress to retrain timber workers and to help the region's economy. Timber groups say the proposed reduction in logging will further squeeze an already tight Northwest timber supply. Industry officials also believe it will be months before the proposals are even in place. Mill owners like Cugini think it could be years before federal timber begins flowing again in the Northwest.

ROBERT CUGINI: I haven't seen any indication that would to me, would indicate that it's going to be any different than in the past. There still seems to be a fair amount of bickering between the parties involved. As long as one person can stop a timber sale with -- you know, by filing a lawsuit, I think that we're going to see a typical scenario as to what we have seen in the past.

MR. HIRAKAWA: So Cugini is trying to stretch what timber the mill has left. He has slowed production by laying off an entire ship. Once this mill turned out lumber almost around the clock. Now it runs a short 40 hours a week. Sales Manager Bob Hawkinson says the shortage of timber has meant turning away business.

BOB HAWKINSON, Barbee Mill Co.: There was a tremendous surge in prices, and I was receiving phone calls in Japanese from Japan from buyers that wanted more products and were concerned about getting it. And I find it ironic at the same time our plant was laying off one shift we were going just in the opposite direction.

MR. HIRAKAWA: Lack of a steady timber force is also making company planning difficult.

WILLIAM SHERMAN, Home Builder: If a plant is a $10 million plant, if you can't guarantee a supply to that plant, nobody's going to invest in new equipment.

MR. HIRAKAWA: The limited availability of Northwest timber has already spilled over to the housing industry. Lumber prices have risen this year, sometimes dramatically. Some home builders, like Seattle's William Sherman, got caught by one increase.

WILLIAM SHERMAN: Some of our homes that we're working on a gross margin of around 6 to 8 percent we had an increased cost of $5,000 in lumber, I was basically building those houses at cost.

MR. HIRAKAWA: Fluctuating lumber prices have changed the way Sherman does business. A new home is now priced only after he has purchased or reserved all the lumber. While critics attribute the price hikes more to greed than to a lumber shortage, Sherman believes the timber plan will make new homes more expensive.

WILLIAM SHERMAN: This affordability question keeps coming into play. And what happens, the buyer may only qualify, may have income, okay, and other commitments only allow him to pay $100,500 for that house, and all of a sudden it's $115,000; they don't qualify.

MR. HIRAKAWA: But timber industry analyst George Haloulakos says spotted owl regulations are only partly responsible for the reduced Northwest timber supply. He says while the proposed Clinton timber plan will severely restrict logging in the region, much of the Northwest forest land has already been cut.

GEORGE HALOULAKOS, Timber Industry Analyst: During the 1980s there was an accelerated cut program that was put into place, and there was inadequate reforestation, i.e., the supply that was cut was not reforested, so as a result of that accelerated cutting practices that occurred in the 1980s we essentially have reduced the level of inventory under contract in Oregon and Washington by more than 75 percent in the last 10 years. And that has nothing to do with any environmental restrictions that were put into place.

SPOKESPERSON: [on phone] Good afternoon. Wilderness Society.

MR. HIRAKAWA: Such has long been the argument of environmentalists like Steve Whitney.

STEVE WHITNEY, The Wilderness Society: The problem is we have overdrawn the forest account, and we have very little to work with in the way of options.

MR. HIRAKAWA: Whitney concedes new timber restrictions may make lumber more expensive. But he adds there is no other choice.

STEVE WHITNEY: You may see some effect on price but the bottom line is there is no alternative. I mean, people that would advocate continuing abuse of the national forests, continuing unsustainable cutting, are advocating that for a finite period of time. It cannot be sustained.

MR. HIRAKAWA: Government officials, meanwhile, insist they will get timber flowing again into Northwest mills. Although the administration plan reduces the size of future timber harvests, it calls for the creation of 10 experimental forests scattered throughout the region. Forest Service Biologist Jack Ward Thomas says scientists hope to find ways to better manage public forest land for both timber production and environmental protection.

JACK WARD THOMAS, U.S. Forest Service: As we move into these sorts of things of ecosystem management there's a lot of things out there to be learned. This is a totally new concept and a way of dealing with things.

MR. HIRAKAWA: Washington State Congresswoman Jolene Unsoeld agrees the proposed reduced timber harvests will be hard on her constituents. She hopes results from these experimental forests will convince mill owners the region can have both owl and a stable wood supply.

REP. JOLENE UNSOELD, [D] Washington: It's a start, and if we can get onto a sustainable basis for habitat and for harvest, that's going to provide certainty to communities, certainties to mills, so they know how to plan.

MR. HIRAKAWA: But at the Barbee Mill Company, such optimism is hard to find.

ROBERT CUGINI: When my dad initially started in the business, you know, with his father, there were 15 sawmills on Lake Washington, and now we're the only one.

MR. HIRAKAWA: Robert Cugini has already lost business this year to Canada and other timber producing countries. Despite harvest restrictions, he is certain there will be a timber industry in the Pacific Northwest. He is only hoping he and his family remain a part of it. FOCUS - VOICES OF GAZA

MS. WARNER: Finally tonight, the first of two Charlayne Hunter- Gault reports from the Gaza Strip. Under the terms of the Israeli- PLO Accord, Gaza will be the first of the Israeli-occupied territories to be administered by Palestinians. To see firsthand what life is like there, Charlayne toured Gaza with a Palestinian journalist.

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: These are the faces of Gaza, the tiny strip of land on the Mediterranean Sea that is to become, along with Jericho, the first official home of the Palestinian people since 1948. It is to places like this that fearful Palestinians fled in 1948 during the seven and a half month war that followed the establishment of the state of Israel. Here Israelis occupy and control almost all facets of life. It is a place where passions are never far from the surface and often explode. Some 800,000 Palestinians are crammed into this place called the Gaza Strip. This is the face of Asya Abdul-Hadi, and she is one of them. In her language, she is a sahafi, a journalist who lives among her Palestinian people and also observes them at a distance. We asked her to join us to help us see as she sees the Gaza that she has known since she was born here almost 30 years ago. Asya is Moslem, her conservative dress not unusual in a place that is almost 100 percent Moslem. Gaza, in fact, is said to be one of the most compact Moslem areas in all of the Middle East. In fact, compact is a word that often comes to mind in Gaza. It certainly applies here. This is the Frock Flea Market, home to some 200 Palestinian merchants in the center of the Gaza Strip. Asya told us we'd get a good sampling of Palestinian sentiment towards the Israeli- Palestinian Accord, and that was immediately obvious.

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: When did you start selling these flags?

MERCHANT: [speaking through interpreter] After the agreement.

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: After the agreement. Is it a good business?

MERCHANT: [speaking through interpreter] It's a volunteer for the people. Some people pay. Others do not pay.

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: Oh, so if they can pay, you sell it, if they can't, you give it to them. What would happen if you sold this flag before the agreement?

MERCHANT: [speaking through interpreter] I would have been imprisoned.

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: Asya then guided us to other areas of the market to speak with other merchants whose attitudes were not as visible.

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: Hello. I'd like to know what you think of the agreement that's been reached between the PLO and Israel?

SECOND MERCHANT: [speaking through interpreter] I hope it will be better.

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: Hope it will be better. Thank you very much. Are you satisfied with the agreement?

THIRD MERCHANT: [speaking through interpreter] Good and not good.

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: On the surface, it has the look of a typical Middle Eastern market, as prosperous as any we've seen in many other countries. But Asya told us that what has interfered most with business for these Palestinians and other workers are the Israelis.

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: How's your business today?

MERCHANT ON STREET: [speaking through interpreter] Not good. There is no profit from cucumbers.

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: No profit. This vegetable merchant repeated a story we heard often in this market. Prices for his cucumbers, like the prices for everything sold here, have continued to decline in the past three years due to Israeli retaliation for terrorist acts and the violent uprising against the Israeli occupation known as the intifada, the most recent being the indefinite suspension of trade with Israel due to the killing of two Israeli policemen in the area in August. Although the closure has eased somewhat, it has severely affected these merchants, along with hundreds of thousands of day laborers from here who work in Israel.

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: Since the closure, since the Israelis stopped allow the people to come in, it's affecting the vegetables, it's affecting --

ASYA ABDUL-HADI, Journalist: -- to be exported to Israel, also to the West Bank, to Israel, and other places by the green line, but now after the closure, they must be sold here.

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: So they can't export them?

ASYA ABDUL-HADI: Yeah.

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: Why is that? I mean, they just can't --

ASYA ABDUL-HADI: There are restrictions concerning going to Israel and the West Bank, to leave the Gaza Strip, to leave their check point.

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: So they have to sell them here, and people here don't have any way --

ASYA ABDUL-HADI: Don't have money.

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: Because they can't leave either?

ASYA ABDUL-HADI: They can't leave to work, yeah.

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: So it's like a vicious circle that spirals down?

ASYA ABDUL-HADI: Yeah, exactly.

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: And it has likewise affected those who still farm the land Asya tells us as she takes us to a farm alongside the seacoast. While wage labor has gradually transformed what was once an agricultural society here, large parts of the Gaza Strip retain a rural character. There are still many citrus groves and acres of red hot peppers for the spicy foods so favored by Gazans in particular. Farming is the only life some Gazans have ever known, like 43 year old Mohamed Shamalot. Unlike the 200,000 or so refugees who poured into Gaza after the war of '47/'48, he was born in Gaza and inherited this land, now some six acres, from his father. Asya tells us that Mohamed Shamalot's attachment to the land is held by many Gazans, and it is deep and unyielding, tied, in fact, to their very identity.

MOHAMED SHAMALOT: [speaking through interpreter] Concerning the agreement, it's good for us and for all the people who want peace. We can't abandon Jerusalem, our capital.

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: Later, Asya tells us that Mohamed Shamalot's desire to reclaim Jerusalem is shared by many Gazans, but unlike him, many have lost the lands they farmed through the Israeli occupations since Israel captured Gaza in 1967. Asya cites a study by the Norwegian Institute for Social Science that reported the confiscation of close to 90,000 acres in a five-year period ending in 1992. The Israelis claim it's a lot less. There was no compensation for the land which is now populated by Israeli settlers from the middle of Gaza to the Egyptian border. Palestinians say it is roughly 1/3 of the land of the 30-mile long strip. Israelis say it's less. Later, I asked Asya how she thought Gazans might feel about the settlers in their midst after autonomy.

ASYA ABDUL-HADI: As soon as they started living in the lands as settlers, this resentment existed.

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: But will that ever change? Will anything ever change that?

ASYA ABDUL-HADI: I don't think so.

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: Asya explained that the issue is not individual settlers or even Israeli individuals but policies and practices of the Israeli government that caused feelings among Palestinians to run so deep. Among the worst perhaps, the periodic destruction of homes and neighborhoods during crackdowns on violent activists. DeFalco's study claims that close to 3,000 housing units were destroyed between 1987 and 1992, some 35 percent for security reasons. Israelis say the figure is far less. Asya told us this is one of the neighborhoods shelled by the Israelis before the accord.

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: Is it pretty clear that these places may have held activists? I mean, were --

ASYA ABDUL-HADI: Sometimes, but in most cases they didn't find any. In this case, when they killed, they killed while he was in one of the groups, not inside the house, then they threw a missile at him, killing him. After they killed him, they bombed him also.

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: What about the rest of these houses? Did they get bombed at the same time?

ASYA ABDUL-HADI: At the same time, yeah, on the same day.

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: All these.

ASYA ABDUL-HADI: All these houses.

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: What about Hamas now, since the signing of the agreement, what have their activities been like, and how much support do they have?

ASYA ABDUL-HADI: They have support. After the agreement, I think that the majority of people want the agreement and are for the agreement unlike before. There are various oppositions but it will also still, it will remain in opposition.

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: Hamas will remain as opposition.

ASYA ABDUL-HADI: Yes, Hamas will remain, and Islamic Jihad. All those things who are represented, and the ten factions, but when they attack the Israelis in the future, they -- this depends, I mean, the continuation of the operations they attack willdepend upon the reaction of the Israeli people, the Israeli government.

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: On the way to show us her village in the Gaza Strip, Asya tells us that one of her five brothers was arrested for his connection with Hamas and spent a month in jail not long ago, but she said he is now out and through with politics. At her house, she shows us his picture, along with her father, a cultured man, she tells me, who worked in agriculture in Israel. He and Asya's mother immigrated to Gaza from what they called the 48 land, the first taken over by the Israelis. He died nine years ago. There is also the art of the brother she calls the Hamas activist. Family members from the neighborhood, including a sister and brother, join us on a tour through the house. It is with a great deal of pride that Asya shows off the house which is still under construction.

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: You haven't finished?

ASYA ABDUL-HADI: Yeah.

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: And what's going to happen up here?

ASYA ABDUL-HADI: We build more stories.

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: Asya explains that they plan to add another story so that brothers who now live as far as Saudi Arabia and Iraq will have a place when they eventually return. Each left she said to find jobs that would help them earn enough money to buy their family's way out of the squalid refugee camps where they were all born, including Asya.

ASYA ABDUL-HADI: All this, all this area includes refugee families who moved from the camp, all this line you can see.

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: Really? These are people who were able --

ASYA ABDUL-HADI: Yeah, who used to live in camp, were in the camp, and then they bought a piece of land and build houses like us.

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: And when you first were able to put down the money to buy this house that would get you out of the camp, how did you feel?

ASYA ABDUL-HADI: I was very pleased and happy to get out of from the camps and from the kind of say a jail there.

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: It's just like jail.

ASYA ABDUL-HADI: Just like jail.

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: And what is like this?

ASYA ABDUL-HADI: Like paradise.

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: All right. Let's go see the camp.

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: A few minutes away, we enter a place that has the feeling of a jail, of confinement. It is immediate. It is the Dier El Bala Camp, not the tent city we had imagined, but a camp of concrete. Two-thirds of Gaza's population are refugees and of them, half still live in camps like these.

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: It's a lot different, a lot closer.

ASYA ABDUL-HADI: Yeah. This is why we moved out of the camp.

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: This is the -- garbage, everything just goes right --

ASYA ABDUL-HADI: Yeah. Water also.

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: Dirty water.

ASYA ABDUL-HADI: Dirty water.

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: Where is it coming from?

ASYA ABDUL-HADI: From the houses, from inside the houses.

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: Our first step was the house where Asya was born. Here we meet the family who moved in after Asya's family left. They are happy to see here. When Asya explains who we are and why we are there, the woman tells her that she wants to talk about her son. As she begins, she beckons a friend to bring his picture.

ASYA ABDUL-HADI: He was from Fatah, the Fatah Hawks movement.

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: The Fatah Hawks, the military wing of the Fatah movement.

ASYA ABDUL-HADI: Yes. He died in jail as a result of his torture from the authorities of the prison.

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: When you think of your son, what do you think?

ASYA ABDUL-HADI: She considers him a martyr.

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: Nearby, as throughout the camp, a child wears a t-shirt emblazoned with the image of the woman's son. He is a hero in their eyes, and some tell me that they too want to be Fatah Hawk. Walking through Dier El Bala, Asya tells us about the kinds of conditions that breed in young people such attitudes. Some 46 percent of Gaza's population is under 15 years old. We stopped at a house where one of Asya's friends tell us that there are 26 people living there in four small rooms.

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: What does the new peace accord between the PLO and the Israelis mean to you?

WOMAN: [speaking through interpreter] To get out of the situation.

ASYA ABDUL-HADI: That's what it means to you, that you will get out of this situation?

WOMAN: [speaking through interpreter] It may be, yeah.

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: Do you think that you could live with the Israelis? How do you feel about living among the Israelis?

WOMAN: [speaking through interpreter] Normal people.

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: Later, after I had taken in the sights and smells and feelings of Dier El Bala, Asya and I took a walk to a place where she says she used to go when she lived here, when she needed some psychological respite from the camp.

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: When you walk along the beach and think about the future now that there is a settlement, what thoughts do you have, what thought comes to your mind?

ASYA ABDUL-HADI: That it will be a tourist area. There will be hotels here. There will be ports for exporting so many things. The settlements will be clean. I hope so.

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: Life will be different.

ASYA ABDUL-HADI: Yeah, life will be different, of course.

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: Do you believe that?

ASYA ABDUL-HADI: I hope. I can't say believe. I can't predict, but I hope, and I expect, yeah, that, expect, I am near to expect, but I am not sure.

MS. HUNTER-GAULT: At day's end, it is to her familiar respite by the sea that Asya goes to try and resolve the conflicting emotions of anxiety and hope, emotions that are not hers alone but are shared by many Gazans as they try and figure out what the Israeli- PLO Accord will really mean to their long-held dreams of a Palestinian homeland.

MS. WARNER: Tomorrow night, Charlayne reports on Jewish settlers living in the Gaza Strip. RECAP

MR. LEHRER: Again, the major stories of this Monday, armed protesters prevented 200 U.S. troops from landing in Haiti. The troops are part of the U.N. force being sent to Haiti to help restore democracy. And in Somalia, a cease-fire declared by warlord Mohamed Farrah Aidid continued to hold for a third straight day while U.S. planes flew low over the capital Mogadishu in a show of force. Good night, Margaret.

MS. WARNER: Good night, Jim. That's the NewsHour for tonight. We'll see you tomorrow with a look at the Clinton health plan's impact on the insurance industry. I'm Margaret Warner. Thank you, and good night.