September 14, 1995 Vol.73
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Take a look a. Students ••»»•» Mtdison University Lion, behind the have access Harriionburg. VA 22807 scenes of the to a variety of campus's exercise many floral options on arrangements. campus. Style/14 DISON UNIVERSITY Focus/19 THURSDAY SEPTEMBER 14, 1995 VOL.73. NO.6 U.S. Congress might cut Speaker describes Stafford loan subsidies life in Cambodia's by Maggie Welter staff writer Killing Fields' Students dependent on Stafford loans to help cover their educational by David Hurt costs may be just as vulnerable to the staff writer ' congressional budget ax as Medicare A near-capacity crowd in Grafton-Stovall Theatre Tuesday evening recipients. received a first-hand account of the horrors wrought by the violent Khmer The Senate Appropriations Rouge during the Cambodian holocaust. Committee is considering a spending Dith Pran, a survivor of labor camps in his native Cambodia and now a plan, passed this spring by the House photojournalist for The New York Times, lectured about his experiences in of Representatives, that includes war-tom Southeast Asia. significant cuts to the federally Fran's personal experiences were portrayed in the movie "The Killing subsidized Stafford loan program. Fields." If Congress passes the plan, Mary Kimsey, assistant professor of geography, invited Pran as a part of students who participate in the loan the Visiting Scholars Program. Kimsey met Pran at a conference in program could see the total costs of Nebraska in October 1994. their education rise by 20-50 percent, "He wants his message to be heard and for people to be aware what the depending on the amount borrowed Khmer Rouge did and that the Khmer Rouge still exists," she said. The and the length of time they stay in Khmer Rouge is a Cambodian communist extremist regime. school, according to figures from the EDDIE ANKERSIamiributing artist As Pran projected a map of Southeast Asia for the audience, he began United States Students Association in explaining the history of the region, about the French occupation and the Washington, D.C. exemption. Under the current students will bear the brunt of the ensuing Vietnam War which eventually led to the Khmer Rouge's rise to The proposal was created as- part program, the federal government cuts. A graduate student borrowing power. of the Republican Budget Resolution assumes responsibility^!, the interest the maximum amount of $65,000 Pran detailed the significance of the Vietnam War to the region and to balance trt} budget in seven years, incurred while students are in school could have $3-3,028 added to Cambodia's role in the war. under which the House Education for subsidized Stafford loans. education'costs, an increaseof almost , "Cambodia, after we got independence from France, stayed neutral.".Vie and Economic Opportunity For undergraduate students who $400 a month, according to USSA. said. "We did not take sides ... until March 1970." Committee was ordered to make borrow the maximum amount of Other, cost-cutting measures In the late 1960s a^d early 1970s, the Vietnam War became bigger and $10.4 billion in cuts from student $17,125 over a four-year period, this envisioned by the plan include: bigger, spilling jnto neighboring countries Laos and Cambodia, he said. loan programs. and the other changes will tack an • Increasing loan origination fees by "President Nixon believed in order to win and to end the Vietnam War. Iiv order to meet that goal, key additional $3,407 onto their total I percent. .. he had to bomb Cambodia," Pran said. lawmakers have proposed several education bill, or an additional $41 • Elimination of the grace period North Vietnam used Cambodia to get troops and supplies into South changes to the loan program. One of per month, according to USSA. that gives students six months after Vietnam along the Ho Chi Minh Trail, Pran said. the most devastating to students is While undergraduates will feel the Cambodia was immersed in the Vietnam War until April 1975 when the the elimination of the interest effects of the proposal, graduate see PAYMENTS page 2 United States removed its troops from the conflict. After the American withdrawal, the Khmer Rouge, a communist regime, took over and "changed the Cambodian culture," he said. "When they came to power, we the Cambodian people were shocked," JM's appeals suspension he said. Pran told the audience the horrible effects the regime had on Cambodia and his own personal experiences in the brutal labor camps established by Campus police report new the Khmer Rouge. alleged incident to ABC "They were extreme nationalists and extreme communists," he said of the regime. by Rick Thompson "The Khmer Rouge . believed they had to send everybody to forced staff writer labor camps. Everybody had to work in the rice fields," he said. JM's Bar and Grill is appealing the Virginia Pran himself was forced from the capital city of Phnom Penh to a labor Department of Alcoholic Beverage Control's decision to camp in rural Cambodia. revoke the bar's liquor license for 25 days, according to a "Only in the books ... does communist ideology look very good. But in co-owner of JM's. reality, it wasn't," he said. Steve Muller, co-owner of the bar, would not specify "People need freedom," he said. "People need two days off [for] every the grounds for the appeal. five days' work. The Khmer Rouge did not believe this. They Idieved in According to Robert Chapman, ABC public relations dictatorship." coordinator, the appeal was filed with the ABC Board on The regime had a terrible effect on Cambodian society, Pran said. Sept. 8. ADAM JOHNSON/iontributing photographer "They killed and they destroyed and they turned Cambodia upside The Aug. 31 decision in which thjpABC department The owners of JM's on Main Street are appealing down," Pran said, adding that intellectuals and the upper classes were targets of the regime members. decided to revoke JM's liquor licensefor up to 25 days a suspension of the bar's liquor license. was due to a conviction of negligence regarding the April He recalled how the Khmer Rouge suppressed all religion. Cambodia, a predominately Buddhist country, used to have many monks and car accident that claimed the life of JMU senior John the ABC Department by campus police for further Kraus. monasteries. Under the Khmer Rouge, there were none. investigation, according to campus police reports. The Khmer Rouge also attacked education. JM's has two options to avoid the possible license An off-duty cadet reportedly noticed an individual suspension. The ABC Board can hear the appeal, or JM's 0 "They said, 'Your class is in the rice fields. Why do you need to read lying on the ground next to JM's. The cadet was standing and write?'" he said. can work out an "offering compromise," in which it on the front porch of the JMU Episcopal Campus Ministry would "pay a fine in lieu of a license revocation," "During the reign of terror, [they] killed approximately 2 to 3 million," house at the corner of Main and Warsaw streets about he said. Chapman said. 9:30 p.m. Friday with several friends, according to the The owners of JM's can establish the terms of the report. Pran explained some of the aspects of life under the Khmer Rouge. Cambodian workers had to wear black pajamas all the time, go barefoot, compromise, which the ABC Board will then "review and "He then observed two people he believed to be JM's decide whether to accept," he said. work 14 to 18 hours a day nourished only by two, or sometimes one, bowl bouncers drag the subject from JM's property, across the of rice soup. In addition to the prior ruling, JM's may also face an street [Warsaw Street], and deposit the . person under "You had to find a way to survive," he said. Pran supplemented his diet ABC Department investigation for an alleged incident the Steele House porch on the front steps," the report Friday night. stated. by eating lizards, insects, rats and other vermin. The alleged incident involving two bouncers and-< "You never knew when they could come along and say 'I don't trust , "severely intoxicated" individual at JM/s was referred (Q .<.• •-■. .'.• fj ?S..( see JM's page 2 see SPEAKER page 2 _i 2 Thursday, Sept. 14,1995 THE BMSE2E Payments. continued from page 1 proposal; however, his veto may not be enough to loan and goes on to college has tremendous earning capacity. So they are more capable of paying it graduation before they must begin paying the save the loan program. back." BreezeJAKIS MADISON U M I V I ft S I T Y interest fees for subsidized loans. If an appropriations bill is not signed by Oct. 1, However, David Merkowitz, spokesman for the • Elimination of the federal direct lending the beginning of the federal government's 1996 American Council on Education, said the notion "To the press alone, chequered program, under which the government lends the fiscal year, Congress will have to approve a money directly to the borrower rather than through resolution to continue spending at Fiscal Year '95 that everyone who goes to college becomes "a as it is with abuses, the world is wealthy doctor or lawyer is incorrect." indebted for all the triumphs a bank or other private lender. levels for a short period of time. Many JMU students will feel the effects of this With Oct. I only two weeks away, Laura "Some [college graduates] are going into which have been gained by spending proposal if it ———-——— _________ McClintock, legislative teaching, nursing or the ministry.