World

RIGHT-WING VIOLENCEIN PUNJAB...
An armed bodyguard must accompany
G.S. Randhawa (opposite page photo,
second from right), secretary-general of
the Communist Party Marxist. Like other
Communists in India’s Punjab state, he
is the target of fundamentalist separa-
tists. At top right, thousands of funeral
mourners pay tribute to former agricul-
tural workers union leader Desraj Sihota.
Below, Harbans Kaur Canadian (in
white) with her family. She is the widow
of former Communist member of the
state parliament, and former Interna-
tional Woodworkers organizer when he
lived in B.C., Darshan Singh Canadian,
also the victim of separatist terrorists.

Harbans Kaur Canadian is tired of the
politics that robbed her husband of his

] years.
pee my daughter that I want to come

to Canada now,” she said during an
interview last month beside the cow barn
she maintains daily near her Punjabi

village of Langeri. — m
“J don’t want to live here anymore.

Darshan Singh Canadian, a prominent
member of the CPI who was a member of
the state legislature here for eight years,
was gunned down by four terrorists in

Dee
During the day here, life

appears appears normal. But
as soon as the sun begins to
fade, the tension mounts.
People who once sat around
evenings enjoying each
others’ company or shopping
in the market places of the
12,000 villages, slip away to
their homes and lock the door.

as
September, 1986, as he rode his bicycle
down the narrow dirt lane to his village.

Canadian got his new surname when he
returned to Punjab after 10 years in
Canada in the Thirties and forties during .
which he organized the Sikh millworkers
into the International Woodworkers.

Back in his native country, he struggled
for the peasants and, since the terrorism
of the last five years, spoke out strongly

against the violence promoted by a few in
the name of religion.

“Darshan Singh said: ‘India is a free
country. There should be no violence and
no terrorism. Terrorist violence is not
good for this country.’ ”

Harbans Kaur is also an active member
of the Communist Party who is constantly
being warned by friends not to leave her
home after dark or to travel alone.

But she is angry that a few fanatics
have destroyed the once peaceful existence
that most enjoyed in Punjab.

“T am living in a farmhouse and alone
here. I want to work. Working is our
politics. I don’t want to be forced to sit
around. That is a waste of time.”

With Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi due
to call an election before the year is out,
Punjab’s leaders are hoping that he will
develop the political will to end the
bloodletting in the lush green countryside.

arkishan Singh
Surjeet, a politburo
member of the
Communist Party,
Marxist, said he’s
been meeting with
key leaders from all
political parties in
Punjab to try to
hammer out an agreement they can then
present to Gandhi.

“We've got agreement in quite a few
areas. Everyone wants a solution in
Punjab. The hardest part will be to get the
prime minister to negotiate with us,”
Surjeet said.

But he said a new political will may
come with Gandhi’s declining popularity
in India.

In the meantime, though, all
Communist Party members will continue
to face death on a daily basis in their
struggle against the terrorists.

“The reality is that gangs of 10 to 12
armed terrorists are running around in the
villages killing and looting. So there is
very much insecurity among the people,”
said Randhawa.

And for now, Punjabis have lost hope
of a quick solution to the violence that
cost 2,600 lives last year.

Said Randhawa: “You can’t say when
you leave your house if you will ever
make it back again.”

oak aes 3

Kim Bolan is a member of the
Vancouver-New Westminster Newspaper
Guild. She is currently at work on a book
on the Sikhs in Canada.

UN Namibia
plans underway

UNITED NATIONS — UN peace-
keeping forces are expected to begin
being deployed in Namibia on April | to
oversee elections and maintain order, as
last minute hurdles, mostly financial
were being overcome . The UN force,
expected to number 4,650 troops and 500
police, will be augmented by about 1,000
civilians to help organize and. monitor
the voting for a constituent assembly
which will draw up a constitution in time
for the country’s independence.

Total cost for the UN operation will hit
$416 million, pared down from the origin-
al $700 million estimated cost. Savings
were made due to a reduction of the peace-
keeping force from 7,500 to 4,650 — a
move which many countries argued will
not provide sufficient guarantees against
South African encroachment.

Runaway costs
spark rioting

CARACAS — Driven by IMF and
World Bank pressures to adopt an ever-
increasing austerity program, the govern-
ment of Carlos Andres Perez, elected last
month on a promise protect people’s liv-
ing standards, backed down and imposed
severe measures, a move which has
sparked widespread rioting throughout
Venezuela.

The regime has moved to phase out
price controls, causing dramatic increases
in consumer goods. A 30 per cent hike in
transit fares was the immediate spark for
rioting in which over 80 people were
killed by police and thousands arrested.

Venezuela’s foreign debt stands at $33
billion, requiring an annual $10 billion in
servicing costs.

‘Bigger prison’
result of tactic

PRETORIA — ”The government is
turning the community itself into a
bigger -prison,” charged anti-apartheid
leaders last week in response to the
regime’s efforts to defuse a hunger strike
by hundreds of detainees held without
charges.

The regime’s tactic is to release some
detainees, but under restrictions which
amount to virtual house arrest. This, say
anti-apartheid leaders, amounts to little
else than detention by another name.
Some 129 of an estimated 800 people
held without trial were released under
these terms.

It is estimated about 30,000 have been
detained during the 32 months of emer-
gency measures in which persons may be
held indefinitely without charges. Some
people have been held throughout the
entire period.

UN condemns
Lebanon killing

LEBANON — The United Nations
has condemned the unprovoked killing
of an Irish UN soldier last month by
puppet troops of Israel in south Leba-
nanon. Francois Guiliani, press repre-
sentative for UN Secretary General

. Javier Perez de Cuellar, said that troops

of the Isareli puppet South Lebanon
Army opened heavy machine-gun fire on
the Irish UN post at Haddata, killing
Pvt. Michael McNeela, 21.

Guiliani said the attack was “‘deliber-
ate and unprovoked. We do not accept
the view that the SLA acted independ-
ently.”” McNeela was the 26th Irish UN

‘soldier killed in Lebanon.

Pacific Tribune, March 13, 1989 e 7