BCR issue - cleared HERALD STAFF The ijesue on Terrace’s role in the rail movement of northern coal to Prince Rupert came a at district council’s Monday meeting from A.L. Peel, deputy minister of economic development, was read. — Council was not satisfied with the reply to a letter set last month, one of several which urged provincial government departments to . make good’ on promises made earlier in the year by Permier Bill Bennett. Peel said the Problem “canbest be described as stemming from misin- terpretaion of the premier’s remarks’ concerning the pre osed CNR service cility in Terrace. The CNR has made a commitment to establish facilities in Terrace to service unit trai The timing for and size of this facility will be directly related to northeast coal development, ne the volumn es ert pped to Prince increases the amount of work for the Terrace facility will undoubtedly increase, the deeply minister said, and as Prince . Rupert develops ag a national port, other commodities will probably by moved by unit ota et cope @ pro; acility whoich vould initlally employ only three of four le, did not live up to _ earlier promises. The matter was referred to the industrial develop ment committee for further acation. ; ee eee aor ete eh el rd 4. . re - LOQHISLATIVE £-1BQQQVY fAalAamncart GLADE S Herald staff “T'd hang a licking on a guy if he ever screws up,” gays Jim, 20, a convict tence in the. Terrace Community Correctional Centre, a refurbished two- atory building on Highway 16 near Kenney Street, He’s one of six prisoners at the centre, but the corrections officers would rather call him a resident. That attitude underlies the constructive feeling evident at the centre, where the five corrections: officers get along on a first-name basis with their charges, mostly in their ing iene gon ¥ gen- tences though dim is being eased gently back into society as he finishes the last months of his term By all accounts Jim is a success story for the centre. He was sentenced after being convicted on two counts of possession of stolen property, fwo counts of wilful damage and three counts of breaking and entering. Corrections officer Mike Hoxsey, left, showed Mayor Daye Maroney and other councillors around the ‘corrections centre. Residents sleep two to a room. a two-year sen. vo ote e “When I es came heresI was shaky,” he says 0 transition from life behind bars at B.C. Penitentiary and Prince George Regional Correction centre. “I was a little scared, walking into town the first time.” Now, he works for the regional district cutting trails for this winter, and when he gets out next month, he'll have a job operating the chair lift. Other residents at the centre are serving shorter terms averaging from ten to % days for offences like writing - bad cheques, breaking and entering and motor vehicle offences. The attitude among them, as district councillors found Tuesday when they met the staff. and residents, is similarly positive. Says corrections officer Mike Hoxsey: ‘“‘the attitude to rel g a.convict is dif- ferent now. We don't give them the old clean suit of clothes, crisp, ten-dollar bill and the door:” ; The de arfment of public works bought the fire- The full capacity o EY f the prison is 22, All residents are from the local area, mostly serving legs than 90 days at the centre. damaged building, formerly the Blue Gables Hotel, about two anda half years ago, but the space was needed for government offices and prisoners were not moved into the building until mid- July after the staff had completed a training course. Now the building, with the ounds refurbished by the partment of public works. the centre staff an residents, looks more like a comfortable, old hotel than ever. The residents, three working in the building at the corrections’ top rate pt only $2 per Gay, Keep premises tidy. The other three residents are cutting ski trails on a Canada works Brant, working with other ocal residents and getting the same pay. The service docks their cheques — if restitutions have been or- dered for their crimes, banks the rest and gives them an allowance. Residents often leave the premises on passes issu -No bars in this prison by the. officers for a specified number of hours. 0 get passes, a resident must submit a plan of what he is going to do in town. Residents can ask for anything, but they’re not allowed to drink alcoho! on or off the grounds. One resident begins courses at Northwest Community College on Monday. Other residents are allowed at the diseretion of officers, to leave the grounds for visits to their families, to go swimming or skating or even see shows. The attitude of the RCMP towards letting convicted criminals out on the streets has been negative in the past, said one officer, but ere’s heen good co- operation with RCMP in Prince Rupert and Terrace. Doing ume in this centre, one of 11 like it in B.C., can be harder than staying in a traditional prison. Each resident lias to make more decisions on his own and turn down the ever-constant temptation to just leave the ed centre for good. Aged fe |e asm r Ver itia Bk VEVIKY he herald Serving Terrace, Kitimat, the Hazeltons, Stewart and the Nass ' t VOLUME 71 NO, 103 Price: 20 cents WEDNESDAY, SEPTEMBER 28, Ww? Ski shop dispute in district’s favor BY DONNA VALLIERES HERALD STAFF WRITER An application before the Supreme Court in Van- couver filed by Micke Jonhson RecreationLtd. against the district of Terrace was ruled in favor of the district on Monday. The application was to have the court reverse a council decision not to held a public hearing on zoning regulations for the 4700 block Lazelle, The two sides are currently involved in legal disputes dating back to last . ear over the zoning of that ock in relation to a ski shop owned by Mickey Johnson. Gail Johnson, wife of Mickey Johnson said that . they were “not too worried’ about the court decision not to interfere witht this council] activity. "this clarifies the avenue we have to go,”’ she said. Mrs. Johnson explained the application was just one 8 e lengthy leg battle and that the main case is wheter the company is in voilation of zoning regulations. The district originally took Mickey Johnson Recreations Ltd. to county court last year over the zoning dispute, but the action was dropped and their business license was taken away instead. The company took the issue back to supreme court in January and the district ao. Jailed after 24 years-of service = doctor would still go back to Angola filed a counter action in Mayor Dave Maroney did county court in february, notcomment on the decision Mrs. Johnson said. when questioned yesterday, The next step, she said, will tobe find out which court the case will be heard. { BC Legislature ° finally adjourns VICTORIA (CP)- The British Columbia legislature adjourned indefinitely Tuesday, a record 133 sitting days after thecurrent session began on Jan. 13, The lengthy and acrimonious session ended with the Social Credit government claiming it. stating he wished to talk to municipal solicitors before doing so. had been the most productive ever, with the opposition saying the opposite. Continued on Page 8) Pointing guns brings arrest HERALD STAFF by Kitimat RCMP Three men were arrested Sunday evening after complaints that occupants of a moving vechile were pointing revolvers at pedestrians and a city bus in the lower city centre men were arrested without incident. The men, all in their early 20s, were held in custody for several hours but no charges have yet been laid. The matter is still under investigation and no court appearance date ahs been set, lat. Police say one Fatrol car with two officers wassent to the parking lot where three Police say two revolvers in working condition were selzed, one of them loaded. edhe oon “STU DUCKLOW She arrived in Chissamba in 1953 | Managing Editor to ‘workin the -ospltal with Dr, Even though she was held in jail Ioeal surgeon Donald Stangway who for three months before belng was bore and brought Up in Angola. - deported from Angola, Betty Bridgman, a United Churc phys cian still wants to go back to @ country and the prople she served for 24 years. -A fier life in a small village of Chissamba, the central Angolan village where she built up a legen- dary reputation running a 200- hospital, she finds Canadain life unreal. People in this country are too materialistic, they eat too much, they re always in a or ha hurry ey’re not nearly as y¥ as olans she finds PP - But then again, Betty Bridgeman is not your average Canadian. Born “Some Portugese doctors +-in government Hospitals- didn't treat e native people well,” she said. “We used tender loving care.” Patients came from all over Angola tothe hospital. After Dr. Strangway reitred in 1967, she was the only doctor in the hospital. But most of ‘the African nurses whom she trained were doing jobs thatwould require a doctor here. The staff treated a variety of diseases «including malaria, dysentery, parasitir diseases and malnutrition. The hospital also ran a public helath program teaching resident how to _ We could hear the shooting but we thought they had been taken to jail. Their relatives found the bodies later. ‘in’ the Chinese province of Chungking, daughter of a , ‘Missionary who lives in Beamsville, * Ont., she has lived in Canada only ‘long ‘eno to finish her last few ' years of school and get a .. medical degree from the University “af Toronto. . ‘She’s now travelling the country ‘speaking to United Cherch . congregations as do all workers sent aboard by the church, to let the | eople back homeknow their Ponations are going. She'd go back ‘to Angola if the political situation permitted it, but now she doesn’t ‘even dare write to her friends there for fear of reprisals. to In between tours she’s ta - courses to update her medi knowledge. If she works as a doctor again, it will be in a nation that neods her help,she says. “Canadas © beautiful, beautiful country but the. people have so much that they don't y rush out to buy things just - because the stores are always itinto their faces all the tim. t's unreal.” By her account, life in Angloa run as a Portugese colony until August 1975, is slowere in pace and people _ are helpful and prison guards. courteous even ' pay, you know,we brou > treat water and food to reduce disease risk. Simmering unrest in Angola finally broke out into full-sel) gu war in the north in 1961. ridgman, who descirbes herself as a non-political person, heard of wholesale slaughters in the northern coutryside both through patients at the hospital who had relatives there and through the BBC radio broad- casts-in London. , “Some of the while settlers would t this on ourselvea-we've taken their land,’ she said, drawing a parallel between the natives of Angola and the IN- dians on this content. The Portugese who used tanks and helicopters against the in surrectionists, always ensured they had fully-trained troops fightin against them. Many guerillas ha been drafted by the Portugese army and used thelr training to fight on the opposite side once they were discharged. -World pressure forced Portugal to . give its colonies the status of overseas provinces after fighting had broken out and the oppression of the natives in the southwest African country became a matter of record. Angolans were officially conferred the rights of Portugese, citizens, meaning they got equal pay for equal work and the ight to be . educated in government schools rather thar mission institutions. The Portugese never treated native Angloans with open racial hostility, she remembers and several African nurses who worked wither left for government-run hospitals when they could get higher pay. _ But guerilla warfare 01 in- creased during these years, ough there was never fighting in | immediate areas served by the hospital. In 1974, she said, “the government finally got tired of ghting’’ and the armed forces staged a coup in Lisbon. Angola _became a free nation and 80 per cent of the Portugese settlers left in a giant airlift opertion. But the transitional government dormed by the three main liberation gr ups, e Popular Movement for ’ the Liberation of Angola (MPLA), the National Union for the Total Indepedndance of ola (UNITA) and the National nt for the Liberation of Angola (FNLA) ruled only until September 1975, when full- scale was broke out between them before elections could be called. “The people were used to living in a police state, so that’s what it’s become again, she said, of her former husband now ruled by the Cuban-baked MPLA. “The Cubans _ didn’t help liberate the country, but. they won itfor the MPLA” after the clvil war broke out. Angola has collapsed into chaos, she said, “‘and they make lawa as they go along.’” Durig this period the hospital trea everyone who needed help regardless of their allegiance to any of the three main groups, or to a norther-based group formed for the liberation of the oil-rich province of Cabinda. Cuban troops were constantly visible and often kidna ‘local residents hospital staff, taking them under armed guard to the jail in nearby Silvo Porto for questioning, she said, In one incident, troops com- manded by Cubans took about 35 ple from the village plus some ospital workers to the Silvo Porto jail under guard. A short march down the road, they stopped and shot 16 of them, she'said.. “We could hear the shooting, but we thought it was mre fighting”. People had assumed the captives were being taken to jail and would be returned in a few days after questioning. “But when we found out some of them were not in jail, some relatives walked down the road and found the bodies.”’ They included those of a nurse, a village carpenter; several hospital em- ployees, relatives of patients and one 8-year-old man. ed why she didn’t get out the country when she could, she said the Angolans needed her more than ever during the fighting. Most trained doctors had left the country, and many mission hospitals had been closed. There were very few Angolan doctors, though Cubar . medical personnel were well trained. She said the numbers of patients inthe always-full, 200-bed hospital dwindled to only 70 on June 1, when the MPLA occupied the area without shooting. Even a baby, critically ill with me: the hospital by the parents against her advice. “They were more afriad of main-inflicted injury than diseases,” she said, The hospital always well stocked by the church with supplies sup- ememnete by the International Cross, continued to oerate as normally as possible until Oct 19, 1976 when she and nurse Edith Radley of Winnipeg, were taken from the hospital under guard, itis, was remeoved from . ' prisoners, couldn't leave because of the two soldiers that were wounded. The man in command said the nurses can take care of the patients until you return,” she remembers. Theygave her ans nurse Radley half an hour to pack. That was the last time they saw the hospital. She and her co-worker were allowed to drive the hospitals Volk- dwagon mini-bus stuffed with armed soldiers and int the back to Silov Porto, they stayed at the home of the commissar, head of the local government and were treated courteous all | the while. She was terrgoted while staying a house, she sald, Her captors asked litical questions like “what's the ference between communism and socialism?. She gave answers as honelty as possible and asked no questions about her own plight, belleveing the safest course was to keep quiet. A few days Iter, the two were ken under armed guard to the airport and flown, with three FNLA ne to Luanda, capital of ola, ey spent the next three months in a fortesslike former military prison built in 1793. When they arrived, they were told this was the Some of the prisoners had been there 17 months. ~ None had been charged and only two knew why they were there Earlythat morning, two MPLA soldiers had heen brought tc . thehospital after shooting them- selves throughtheir own carelessness, she said. They had been piggy-bakced in from the bush and ‘she began treatment im- mediately. But at noon, a large contingent of Cuban and MPLA soldiers arrived in six army trucks at the hospital. “They never treated us ro iy. They were very courteous, “They asked her permission be before they began searching the hospital, then sent for her. when they began searching her house. They cause no damage. Whe the search was finished,”t told me to go with them. I said I best bprison in Luanda, and they needn't fear being mistreated, The admitting officer recognized her as “Doctor Betty’ and asked her how they came to be arrested. Had . the troops found subcersive books, guns, her asked, The answer was no. She had not been told they were under arrest, At the Luand police station, where she had been taken before going to the prison, no charges had been laid and no told her what her situation was. Once inside the prison walls, the rwo were taken to a cell, about the size of a noraml living room, oc- cupied by 12 other women. Thete were eight beds provided plus ectra mattresses, She and nurse Radley slep together on a one 32-inch wide mattress for their entire stay. They were large, high windows, in the walls giving lots of fresh air, she said, but she couldn't see anything out of them. The ceil door opened on to a roofless cornder lined by other cells all holding male prisoners. The prisoners in her cel] were not mistreated, she said. Gurads used to come in frequently to caht with the women, but the door locked from the inside andthey kept it shut at night. The gurads and adminstrators, who also visited the cell, paid no attention the two Canadians, she said , and it alomst looked as though they’d been forgotten. Some of the male prisoners had been in their cells for as long as 17 months, she said, longher than the m mpla had been in power. None of them had been charged with any Baw a& person being mistreated, she said, but she heard people being flogged a few times. Some prisoners had been taken out of jail to do forced labour under Cuban guards. All the guards in the praion were Angltoans. Newspapers, book and magazines were passed around in a variey of es, delivered by relatives and friends. They read everyhting. For excercise, she spent hours walking the cooridor. Meals, cooked by prisoners, were irregular, but were always delivered. Breakfast came between 8 a.m. and noon, luch between noon aut otene righ er between 6p.m, and 10p.m. wnet out at p.m. Whe their families became worried after the flow of letters the Canadian government, which has no embassy in Angola, contacted the Itlalan ambassaodr, He located the two women on Jan. 14, and after his visit, other prisoners predicted she would be let go. Five days later, the two were marched out under guardto the Luanda rt where they were flown to Labon, then Montreal, arriving Jan. 20. Her friends and associates in Chisgamba have only tothe sketchy details of a government news report to indicate what happened to her and her co-worker. Two days after she was taken from the hospital a report was released saying the insti aD, run ‘oreign religious groups w had abandoned te a Hionalized and is still operating. had been an- -