THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1996, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Thursday, June 20, 1996 TAG: 9606200401
SECTION: FRONT PAGE: A2 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY DALE EISMAN, STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: WASHINGTON LENGTH: 104 lines
President Clinton met Wednesday with seven southern governors, including Virginia's George F. Allen, to outline the federal government's intensified counterattack on the epidemic of arson at black churches across the region.
The two-hour White House session produced no new initiatives by Clinton or the governors, but it gave them an opportunity to express their outrage at the attacks and their determination to catch and punish those responsible.
The church burnings, including one in Richmond, ``harken back to the worst days'' of racial intolerance in the South, Allen said. But in welcome contrast to that era, he said, the current attacks are being strongly and universally condemned by whites and blacks alike.
``I don't know a single elected official - a single person - condoning any of this,'' the governor said.
During the meeting, Clinton detailed his administration's plans to increase the budget of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms by $12 million to increase federal efforts against the fires.
White House press secretary Mike McCurry said the administration also is working to redirect about $9.5 million in the Justice Department's 1996 budget, ``principally to investigate each of the arson incidents.''
Allen and the other governors praised those efforts and said the meeting focused on ensuring that federal, state and local law enforcement agencies work together to find and prosecute anyone involved in hate crimes.
Attorney General Janet Reno and several state attorneys general, among them James Gilmore of Virginia, also attended the meeting.
Allen and Gilmore noted that in Virginia, arson on an occupied dwelling can carry up to a life term in prison, and burnings of unoccupied churches can be punished by up to 20 years behind bars.
Often a fierce partisan, Republican Allen brushed aside a questioner's suggestion that the Democratic president might have political motives in highlighting his counterattack on the church arsons.
``When you see violence, when you see intolerance, it is our duty as leaders to speak up,'' Allen said.
The governor said that lesson was underscored for him during a two-hour tour of the Holocaust Memorial Museum earlier in the day. There are ``some common strands'' between the massacre of Jews by Nazi Germany and the current attacks on black churches and other churches in the United States, he suggested.
As a museum official led him through exhibits showing roundups of thousands of Jews by Nazi authorities in the 1930s, Allen repeatedly seemed incredulous that such atrocities could have occurred.
``What was the supposed charge?'' he asked, stopping in front of a photograph showing a mass arrest of Jews. Told there was none, Allen shook his head. ``You mean they didn't even have to make up a charge?''
Allen paid particular attention to an exhibit showing how, in the early days of the Nazi era, Jews were able to gain some freedom from repression by taking sanctuary within their synagogues. The buildings became places for cultural activities, such as concerts and art exhibits, that the Nazis would not tolerate elsewhere.
During the days of segregation and racial violence in the U.S., the governor noted, black churches became similar places of sanctuary for African Americans. Churches remain a focal point of African-American communities today.
At least 39 predominantly black churches, and a number of white churches, have been damaged by fires since the beginning of last year. In many cases arson is suspected.
Fire heavily damaged a black church on Maryland's Eastern Shore early Wednesday. But a relieved Gov. Parris Glendening, who also attended Wednesday's White House meeting, told reporters that investigators are certain the fire at the St. John's United Methodist Church in Berlin, Md., was sparked accidentally by an electrical problem.
Clinton repeated his view that most of the fires have been ``racially motivated'' but that there is no evidence of a national conspiracy to burn churches.
``I believe this is a place where 100 percent of Americans are in accord,'' the president said. Church arsons are an area ``where people consistently and passionately come together.''
``We cannot tolerate any of it,'' Clinton said.
The House of Representatives on Tuesday voted 422-0 to give federal officials more authority to investigate and prosecute crimes against religious property.
The bill would eliminate a $10,000 minimum property damage threshold for beginning a federal investigation and would broaden federal rights to intervene on the basis of criminal acts involving interstate commerce.
In the Senate, conservative Sen. Lauch Faircloth, R-N.C., and liberal Sen. Edward Kennedy, D-Mass., jointly introduced even stronger legislation Wednesday.
The Faircloth-Kennedy measure would double to 20 years the maximum federal sentence for church arson and extend the time limit for prosecutions from five to seven years to match current law for other federal arson crimes.
Like the House bill, it would make a federal crime the damaging of religious property because of its racial or ethnic character, not merely its religious character as now. It also would eliminate the $10,000 property-damage threshold for federal intervention. MEMO: The Associated Press contributed to this report. ILLUSTRATION: ASSOCIATED PRESS
An federal agent heads toward the charred remains of a Mississippi
church Wednesday for a second day of investigation into the fire.
Gov. George F. Allen, after meeting with other governors and
President Clinton , said, "When you see violence, when you see
intolerance, it is our duty as leaders to speak up."
KEYWORDS: GOVERNORS FIRE ARSON BLACK CHURCHES by CNB