SEPTEMBER 4, 2000 VOL. 156 NO. 9

Milestones
BY PENNY CAMPBELL

CHARGED. DAVID SHAYLER, 34, former British intelligence officer, with breaking state secrecy laws over statements he made alleging incompetence in the British secret service; in London. Shayler was arrested after returning to England from three years of self-imposed exile in France. He denies the charges and claims he made his disclosures in the public interest.

DIED. JOAN MARSH, 86, child star of silent films who grew up to become one of Hollywood's blond bombshells; in Ojai, California. As a youngster she performed alongside Mary Pickford in movies such as Pollyanna. Appearing in talking pictures as an adult in the 1930s, she starred in romantic comedies including Charlie Chan on Broadway.

DIED. RANGARAJAN KUMARAMANGALAM, 48, popular Indian cabinet minister, of leukemia; in New Delhi. Formerly a lawyer, Kumaramangalam became Power Minister in 1998, after he switched from the Congress Party to the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party. He was credited with accelerating reforms in the power sector that had been stalled since their introduction in 1991.

DIED. SAMI AL-MUNAYYES, 68, veteran Kuwaiti politician and a leading critic of the government; in Cairo. A member of parliament for 37 years, al-Munayyes was elected general-secretary of the liberal opposition Kuwait Democratic Forum following the 1991 Gulf War. A champion of women's rights, he introduced a bill in parliament at the end of July calling for full political rights for Kuwaiti women.

DIED. JUAN TOMAS DE SALAS, 62, influential Spanish journalist and critic of the late dictator General Francisco Franco; in Madrid. Forced to live in exile for seven years, de Salas returned to Spain in 1969 and two years later founded Cambio 16, a magazine that came to symbolize opposition to Franco and the fight for democracy during the years following the general's death in 1975.

DIED. ABULFAZ ELCHIBEY, 62, former dissident and the first elected President of Azerbaijan after the 1991 breakup of the Soviet Union; in Ankara, Turkey. Head of the nationalist Popular Front, he was elected President in 1992 but was ousted by the military a year later, following humiliating losses in the conflict with Armenia over the disputed enclave of Nagorno-Karabakh.

CONVICTED. WALTER SCHULZE, 52, former East German border guard, of manslaughter for ordering the fatal shootings of four men, including the last person to be killed trying to escape over the Berlin Wall; in Berlin. Schulze, who was in charge of 1,000 border guards, admitted that he had enforced the communist state's shoot-to-kill policy. He was sentenced to more than two years in jail.

Eulogy

The preamble to our founding constitution speaks of honoring those who suffered for justice and freedom in our country and respecting those who have worked to build and develop our country. Chief among the latter must stand HARRY OPPENHEIMER and his family; that they also fought in a particular manner for the former sets them apart in the gallery of South African patriots. I shall remember Harry as a man of exquisite grace and charm, a person with a simplicity and directness that was disarming in its spontaneity, and one who was accessible way beyond what was assumed of a person in his position. His support for democratic and philanthropic causes was in my experience always without hesitation and reserve. His contribution to building a partnership between Big Business and the new democratic government in that first period of democratic rule can never be appreciated too much. We join with those millions of our compatriots who mourn with the family and hail a person who was monumentally instrumental in helping our country become the economic leader it is today. We mourn with his family, remember his heritage and look forward to the day that all of South Africa shall share equally in the prosperity he helped create for our country.
--By Nelson R. Mandela