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A year to remember Health department celebrates 40 years of service/Page 6 Former employer Lawyer wins appeal against North Elba/Page 9 Press •can The Hometown Newspaper of Clinton, Essex, Franklin Counties Vol. 103 - No. 105 6, Pnw-Republican Pittsburgh, NY 12901, Tuesday, December 5, 1995 Suggested Price: 50 c 24 Pages Spirit of giving •V . Photo Editor/Dave Paczak Postal carriers Diane Beaudoin and Drew Hamel sort food items at the Plattsburgh Post Office. The carriers' annual food drive js being held this week with donations going to area food shelves. Story, Page 3. Windows open Feds investigate whether software conflicts with competing programs First NATO troops jtrrive in Balkans By SRECKO LATAL Associated Press Writer SARAJEVO , Bosnia- Herzegovina (AP) — In a near- freezing drizzle that hinted at the winter ahead, the first NATO troops landed in the Balkans Monday to begin setting up a peace mission that will bring 20,000 American soldiers into the Bosnian conflict. Three camouflaged British C- 130 Hercules transport planes touched down in Sarajevo carry- ing 28 NATO soldiers: French, British, Belgians and the first two Americans. \We'll be setting up the head- quarters for the bigger force to come down,\ said Sgt. Matthew Chipman, of Beardstown, 111., who arrived with Sgt. Todd Eichmann, of'Kansas City, Mo. In Croatia, 56 British com- munications experts arrived in the port city of Split from Brueg- gen, Germany. Some will stay at Split, a key transit point for Bosnia. Others will head for Sarajevo and Tuzla. Defense Secretary William Perry ordered 3,800 American reservists Monday to prepace-for duty in Bosnia and U.S. troops already in Germany got ready to move into Hungary and set up staging bases. The 2,600-soldier multina- tional \enabling troops\ moving into Bosnia and Croatia will set • up communications, plan trans- portation and arrange supplies in No room in Bbsnia for one sick old man By MARK FRITZ AP National Writer SARAJEVO, Bosnia-Herzegovina (AP.) - In World War II, Bakir Drljacic was a muscular young soldier who was wounded by Nazis, taken prisoner and thrown into a concentration camp. Now Drljacic is a shriveled, incontinent old man who thinks he lost his ability to walk roughly a month ago. Bed-ridden and clutching two tiny plastic bags containing his identity card and ciga- rettes, he hardly seems a threat to anybody. But Drljacic (durl-JAH'-chich) is a Muslim, and. on Sunday he fled from his lifelong home in the Bosnian Serb stronghold of Banja Luka after Serbs, coveting his tiny flat, evicted him. He was brought to Sarajevo by a U.N. doctor amazed that a Muslim was still living openly in the ethnically purged city. Probably, as an old man, he had escaped attention until now. \They stuck a pistol in my mouth and broke my teeth,\ the 72-year-old raged as nurses fluttered around him in the Sarajevo City Hospital. \I ate better in the Nazi concentration camp!\ The accord to end the Bosnian war, reached Nov. 21 in Dayton, Ohio, makes a clear stipulation: Ref- ugees will have the right to return home. AP Photo Bakir Drljacic . is greeted by his sisters at a Sarajevo hospital. • But Drljacic is just one pathetic example of what • U.N. relief officials now freely concede: For the foreseeable future, repatriation is a pirie dream in a nation that has been purged and partitioned to the point that one town cannot tolerate z sick, el- derly man with sunken eyes who we\s^his bed and lives alone. Damaso Feci, the U.N. High Commissioner for Continued Page 12 the 10 days before the signing of the agreement to end 3V2 years of war in the former Yugoslavia. After Balkan leaders sign their accord Dec. 14 in Paris, NATO will start dispatching its 60,000 peace-enforcing troops, one-third of which will be Americans. Some lawmakers have con- cerns about U.S. participation. Members of Congress who visited Sarajevo over the weekend said both the Bosnian government and Serbian leadership had promised them U.S. soldiers will be safe, but that Bosnian Serb By ROB WELLS AP Business Writer WASHINGTON (AP) - Justice Department investigators want to know if Microsoft Corp. wrote its Windows 95 software expressly to block rival programs that give users access to the global computer network known as the Internet. Microsoft Tips offered for com- puter buy- ing. Page 3. said Monday that some problems arose during testing earlier this y e a r . but that the kinks have been worked out with the newer versions of most competitors' software. The investigation shows the government continues to monitor closely Microsoft's dominance of the software industry. The Justice Department's an- titrust division issued civil sub- poenas last month to Netscape Communications Corp. and CompuServe Inc. on-line ser- vices, said Don Baker, a Washington lawyer representing CompuServe. A CompuServe spokesman also confirmed the investigation. The subpoenas indicate Justice investigators are focusing on whether Microsoft's Windows 95 and its related Internet software either disable or raise the costs of rival programs that let users ac- cess the worldwide computer network known as the Internet. The extent of bhe problem re- mains unclear. A CompuServe spokesman said its so-called browser software for the World Wide Web now works with Win- dows 95, but only after additional •cost. \We have had to take active steps with actual costs to make sure the system runs properly,\ said CompuServe spokesman Jeff Shafer. A continuing theme of the Microsoft antitrustS-nvestigation has been whether Microsoft designed Windows 95 and its on-line service, Microsoft Net- work, in such a way as to gain a pricing advantage over rivals. Baker, the CompuServe at- torney, went further, suggesting Windows 95 was designed to hobble rival programs. \For a dominant firm to delib- erately disable competitors in a dependent market raises serious antitrust concerns,\ Baker said. Microsoft spokesman Greg Shaw said charges that the com- pany would deliberately disable a competitor's program were \ab- solutely nonsense.\ He said a conflict with com- petitors' software arose in the testing of Windows 95, which isn't unusual. But he said the issue largely had been resolved. Microsoft wants Windows 95 to •run well with rival Internet soft- ware because any problems would make the operating system less popular in the in- dustry he added. Some industry analysts said they believed Microsoft didn't deliberately set out to disable competitors' programs. Three former top officers of guards' union expelled By HOLLY CORYELL Associated Press Writer objections still worried them. \Everybody is hoping as soon as possible,\ the sergeant said. He also said he and Eichmann left their base in Augsburg, Germany, so quickly he didn't have a chance to say goodbye to his parents. ALBANY, N^)(AP) - Three former top officers of the union that represents state prison guards have been expelled for spending thousands of dollars on chartered airline flights, trips to. Las Vegas and expensive elec- tronic equipment. A judicial panel from the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees dismissed the union's former executive director, Joseph Puma of Saugerties; former President Thomas Kennedy of Schenectady; and former Associate- Director -Lawrence. Germano'of Ronkonkoma for misusing union funds. All three were also ordered to pay back the state guards' union, Council 82. ' ; \They failed to acknowledge any accountability to the membership for their actions and treated the members' hard-earn- ed dollars as their personal piggy bank,\ said John Seferian, chairman of the judicial panel. The three failed to document what they spent and used union funds for personal expenses, the panel concluded. Neither Puma, Kennedy nor Germano could be reached for comment; their phone numbers are unpublished. A fourth officer, former Execu- tive Vice President John Englehardt, was found innocert of the charges. Englehardt con- tinues to work for Council 82, handling grievances and other routine field and- administrative work, said Eliot Seide, the union's administrator. _ . . Union officials are still deter- mining the total amount of misused funds and the extent to which the officials' financial dealings harmed the union, Seide said. The union plans to contract Continued Page 12 WEATHER Morning sunshine. Becoming windy in the afternoon. High 30 to 35. INDEX Business 18 Classified 20-24 Comics, Landers 19 Editorial 4 Entertainment 10 PiJblic .Record 8-9 Sports: 14-17 Weather 11 N.Y. Lottery: 5-3-4. 'WinFour': 5-4-6-0. PiCk 10: 2-4-5-21-22-27-31-37-42-44-51-54-57-63-66-69-73-76-77-80. New England: 'Pick 3': 9-0-1 . 'Pick 4': 3-5-7-5. /SECRET SANTAS [ REP0RTIN6 ] \FOR DUTY. Dec. 5 20 shopping days to Comptroller says minorities falling behind in state workforce By MARC HUMBERT Associated Press Writer ALBANY, N.Y. (AP) - When it comes to women, blacks and other minorities, state gov- ernment was less representative of New York's \workforce as a whole last year than it was in 1983, state Comptroller H. Carl McCall reported Monday. In 1994, women and other minorities represented 22.4 per- cent of the state government workforce and 28.6 percent of available workers statewide, a gap of 6.2 percent, McCall said. In 1983, the \protected-class workers\ represented 21.5 per- cent of the state government workforce and 23.4 percent of the . state's overall available workforce, a 1.9 percent gap. McCall said the promise oflan executive order promoting affir- mative action issued in 1983 by -former Gov. Mario Cuomo has MINORITY WORKERS LIST • state government's ef- eKdivefsify its workforce: |Nf:\ T983 - Available in general workforce, 47.9 percent; ||4 In ^ate agencies, 46.6 percent. 1994 — Available, 50.2 ' ]^efncieSr45r7 percent. jg| ; ',._.: bailable, 15 percent; in agencies, 17 percent. !il'd^fegf|fe9 percent; in agencies, 15.7 percent. G|lf^|^;'-iAkvailable, 6.4 percent; in agencies, 3.0 percent. ?|,tla|)jKS; r 1 percent; in agencies, 3.9 percent. :if|'|>83^- Available, 7.2 percent; in agencies, 3.6 percent. &V&M&.I?*' S-2 percent; in agencies, 3.0 percent. ^fflHANSt 1983 — Available, 5.2 percent; in agencies, int. t9S>4!,Available, 4.7 percent; in agencies, 6.0 percent. j^UWjiis N«w York OfHc« of th« State Comptroller; U.S. Cans us Buwqu. not been fulfilled. Cuomo, a Democrat, required state agen- cies to operate under specific goals designed to bring the num- ber of minorities in state gov- ernment in line with the general workforce. \Affirmative action means lowering barriers, not lowering standards,\ said McCall, a Dem- ocrat and the first black elected to statewide office in New York. \By comparing th'e state workforce in 1994 to the workforce of 1983, I found that these barriers remain in force.\ McCalPs auditors also found that a disproportionate number of \protected-class employees\ oc- cupy lower-paying jobs in their agencies. A spokesman for Gov. George Pataki said the McCall report proves that state affirmative ac- tion programs under Cuomo were a failure. Pataki spokesman Robert Bollafiore noted that Cuomo's Executive Order No. 6, along with all the state's affirmative action programs, are under review by Pataki. \The governor is committed to seeing that affirmative action helps the people it was designed to help,\ Bellafiore said. Nonetheless, some advocates for minorities' have expressed concern that things may get worse under Pataki. Since taking office, Pataki has Continued Page 12