negative timezone issue

system uses drupal 4.3.2

the first user created hast TZ set to eastern standart time (GMT -5)
the second user created has TZ also set to EST

there are only 2 users in the system (who also post events)

whenever the users are logged in all is fine...however whenever an
anonymous user checks events time is 5 hours ahead

the server is in the EST timezone (i administer it) and the time shows
correctly 'date' shows the correct time

the system is running redhat and the timezone is set to EST via
'dateconfig'

also the hardware clock is running fine
'hwclock --localtime' shows correct time

i have ntpclient sync daily to
bonehead.lcs.mit.edu

it is mind bogling why than drupal would show an incorrect time for the
anonymous users since various manuals state that anonymous timezone is set
according the server's TZ

i read a post somewhere that there's a problem with negative timezones, which EST is a part of, but i haven't found any solution to this

i've googled, asked around ppl with the same problem but they all have blamed the problem to the 'server being in a different time zone' thingie which in my case is NOT.

any info would really help

thanks
-erald troja