Ad - The Terrace Standard, Wednesday, November 23, 1994

TERRACE

STANDARD

ESTABLISHED APRIL 27, 1988

ADDRESS: 4647 Lazelle Avc., Terrace, B.C. * V8G 188
TELEPHONE: (604) 638-7283 * FAX: (604) 638-8432
MODEM: 638-7247

UN needed

SHOULD THE day come when the United Na-
tions figures out the world’s problems, its experi-
ence and knowledge just might be welcome up
here, For what’s happening with land claims is
as complex, frustrating and delicate as anything
involving Bosnia, Iraq or Rwanda. The scale
might be bigger on the international stage but the
principles remain the same — whose got the
power and who controls what.

Consider the Gitksan Eagle clan from the
Gitwangak area. Its members this fall towed
away boats belonging to mushroom pickers and
then blocked Skeena Cellulose from building a
logging road. In both cases, the Eagles didn’t
want activity on land it claims without first
giving permission or approval.

With the first case, the RCMP played the role
of the UN’s blue-helmeted peacekeepers by step-
ping in and stopping a potentially ugly situation.
With the second case, the forest service acted as
a sort of intermediary by pointing out to the
Fagle clan that it wanted to blockade land the
band doesn’t even claim.

That’s about the same way things happen inter-
nationally. Every effort is made to resolve prob-
lems without having to take stronger measures.
Much credence is placed on the ability of human
beings to first talk things out.

There are even more similarities in that the
world is adjusting painfully and slowly to a new
kind of order. That’s also happening here with
the move to sign treaties with natives and to
define their rights and responsibilities.

But where the parallels end is that events here
are taking place within an existing sovereign
ruling structure. It has rules, regulations and pat-
terns of behaviour all citizens and groups are ex-
pected to follow. The blatant removal of private
property and the ability to throw up a blockade
without any apparent answer from the state
strains the those expectations.

All of this is not to equate the Eagle clan with
Saddam Hussein or with the Bosnian Serbs. But
it is to suggest that the semi-sovereignty being
granted to native groups during this transition
period leading up to land claims treaties is
troublesome. Some day somebody is going to
call somebody’s bluff. What happens then isn’t
going to be pretty.

Booze baffle

IT’S KIND of interesting to note that the provin-
cial liquor store did its part in the run up to al-
cohol and drug awareness week by erecting a
beer can altar to the Grey Cup. Nobody can real-
ly fault the liquor store. It’s just another sign of
the horribly mixed message governments send
when it comes to booze.

On the one hand the government pumps out
pamphlets, literature and stats condemning what
happens when people imbibe too much. Yet on
the other it turns its alcohol dealing outlets into
veritable supermarkets for intoxicants.

By now even the dimmest of politicians and
policy makers must know that what the govern-
ment collects in alcohol revenues doesn’t come
close to what it and society pays out through dis-

ease, automobile wrecks, domestic violence and
the like,

cna!)
td PUBLISHER/EDITOR: Rod Link
ADVERTISING MANAGER: Mike L. Hamm
PRODUCTION MANAGER: Edouard Credgeur
NEWS COMMUNITY: Jeff Nagel * NEWS SPORTS: Malcolm Baxter
OFFICE MANAGER: Rose Fisher

DARKROOM: Susan Credgeur
ADVERTISING CONSULTANTS:
. Sam Collier, Janet Viveiros,
CIRCULATION SUPERVISOR: Charicne Matthews ,

Serving the Terrace araa. Published on Wednesday of each week by Cariboo Press (1969) Ltd, st 464;
Lazelle Ave., Tertace, British Columbia,

Stories, photographs, itustretions, designs and typeslyles in tha Terraca Standard are {he property of the
copyright haklars, including Cariboo Press {1969} Lid, is Illustration repro services and: advertising
agencls.

Rieproductionin whale of in part, wihout written parmisston, is specifically prohibited.

Authorized as sacond-dass rail pending the Pas| Offica Department, for payment of postage In cash,

Special thanks to all our contributors and correspondents
for thelr time and talents

CONtAe tye,

“MARTIN PROMISED,
BY 1996 WE'LL BE
UP TO OUR NECK IN IT..

Keep the Holocaust alive

VICTORIA — About a hun-
dred people have gathered at
the Victoria Jewish Com-
munity Centre on a rainy and
cold afternoon to com-
memorate the 50th anniversary
of the Holocaust,

It was 50 years ago that
Allied troops liberated the first
of the Nazi death camps in
Eastern Europe, among them
‘Bergen Belsen,

Many of those present lost
relatives and friends during
those years of darkness, when
evil shook the very founda-
tions of civilization.

There is a sprinkling of non-
Jews, including Dr. William
Nicholls, Professor Emeritus
and past deparlment head of
Religious Studies at the Uni-
versity of British . Columbia,
Dr. Phyllis Senese, ‘history
professor at the University of
Victoria, and myself.

How do you describe an
afternoon at which ihe most
forgiving, loving and life-
embracing people turn out to
be those who suffered so much
at the hands of those whoa un-
leashed the Holocaust?

Uplifting? Yes, it is that. It
would be difficult to find a
more gentle and idealistic man
than Dr. Peter Gary, one of the
Bergen Belsen survivors.

When someone in the

-FROM THE CAPITAL.
HUBERT BEYER

audience wonders aloud
whether anyone, particularly
the Germans, have learned
from the horrors of hislory,
Gary points out that earlier this
year, hundreds of thousands of
Germans marched silently with
lit candies through the streets
of numerous cities in protest
against nco-Nazism.

But uplifting is the wrong
word to describe the emotions
at seeing an unedited docu-
mentary of the liberation of
Bergen Belsen, If all horrifying

_ scenes had been cut from the

half-hour documentary, not
two minutes would have
remained,

The documentary, filmed by
British cameramen who enter-
ed the camp with the army, but

released by the Royal British

- Archives: only five years ago,

is a tour de force of the un-
speakable, the unimaginable.

Picture 20,000 corpses, sys-
tematically starved to death,
strewn in the open, all over the
camp, with a few of the living,
barely more than skeletons
themselves, walking around in
a daze,

Picture captured SS guards
carrying the corpses to hastily-
dug mass graves, where they
pile them up like rag dolls,
limbs twisted, to form a
mountain of torsos, and arms,
and legs and heads.

Picture the _ inscriptions:
“Grave 1 - 5,000; Grave 2 --
5,000: Grave 3 -- 5,000,”’ and
on, and on, Graves 8 and 9,
contained only 3,000 dead:
each.

Michell Mielnicki, the other
Bergen Belsen survivor, starts
watching, but breaks down in
tears and leaves. He remem-
bers without watching. Later
he tells me he has the same
reaction when he watches
news of the ethnic slaughter in
the former Yugoslavia. *

‘*Why can’t pecple love each
other?*? he asks. Why, indeed?
Meanwhile, I’m still trying to
comprehend the images of tens
of thousands of bodies, which
is precisely the difficulty the

Holocaust confronts us with.
Intellectually, only the morons
and the fhate-mongers will
deny the Holocaust, but how
can we possibly comprehend
its dimensions?

More important, how can we
comprehend the fact that other-
wise ordinary people were able
to this to their brothers and
sisters? The starving, the
torturing, the killing was done
by banal and ordinary people
who might never have com-
milled an illegal act in their
lives, had it not been for the
opportunity their political
masters gave them.

‘Which forces me to conclude
that the Holocaust can happen
again, anywhere, anylime.
There will always be enough
henchmen to willingly do their
masters’ bidding. In our own
society they’re called killers
and murderers. The only dif-

ference? Our society doesn’t”

tolerate them and puts them
away.

And that’s why it is crucial
that we keep alive the memory
of the Holocanst. Those who
do not learn from history are
condemned to repeat it. Some-
day, perhaps, people of gocd-
will will no longer bave to ask:
“Why can’t People love each
oiher?”’

What’s next — Court TV?

ONE TELEVISION channel |
should be set aside for law en-
forcement, We already have
channels for knowledge, enter-
tainment, French, billboards,
and home-shopping. OV.
Simpson must have convinced
networks actual trials are far
more gripping than fiction.

Recently, so many high pro-
file trials are occurring, giving
us the latest twist on each onc
uses a large portion of cach
newscast, Peter Mansbridge
has to speed read to update
Somalia, Bosnia and Fraser
River fisheries.

There’s the Yellowknife trial
of Roger Warren charged with
killing nine Giant gold miners
with explosives during a strike,

There was the Robert
Latimer trial in North
Battleford that ended last Wed-
nesday with a conviction of
murder in the second degree
for taking the life of his 38
pound, 12-ycar-old daughter
who was severely alflicted by
cerebral palsy.

THROUGH BIFOCALS

CLAUDETTE SANDECKI

In Oliver, a 15-year-old is
being tried for clubbing a man
with an axe, paralyzing his left
arm and damaging his beating,

During lulls in irials, police
could run mug shots of fugi-
tives. Expericnce proves aver-
age citizens acting as cycs and
ears help police solve many
crimes.

For instance, when John
Sciadini --- a former U.S.
Sheriff wanted since 1992 for

grand theft, trafficking in
stolen properly, and possession
of a machine-gun —- walked
into a Burnaby electronics
store to sec his mug on 30 tele-
vision sets as America’s Most
Wanted aired, he rushed home,
weighed the odds he might be
killed during arrest, and
promptly tured himself in.

No shots were fired putting
anyone at risk; hours of sur-
veillance were spared.

Sciadini isn’t the first fugi-
tive to give himself up or to be
turned in to police within hours
of a TV appearance,

Following the Stanley Cup
riot in Vancouver June 15,
when police broadcast slow
motion tapes of the riot,
dozens of riotcrs, loolers, and
vandals were identified to po-
lice by citizens fed up with
lawbreaking.

For viewers who crave morc
excitement) with their TV
suspense, contests could be ar-
ranged. Viewers could phone
their verdicts to a 1-800 num-

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ber and have their names put
into a Guilty ar Not Guilty bin
for a winning draw at the end
of the trial.

To add that fillip of sexual
excitement which might be ab-
sent in mayhem trials, the
channel could squceze in one
minute flashes of police hunks
striking body-building poses.
Getting to know individuals by
name helps police to gain the
cooperation of the public, Ed-
monton has found.

According to one Vancouver |

police spokesperson, police
depend on tips from citizens to
solve most crimes. RCMP Sgt.
Peter Montague says, ‘The
public are sharcholders in
policing.’” And Justice Wally
Oppal, who travelled B.C. for:
two years - secking citizens’
views on policing, concluded
citizens want to assist police,

A special television channel
would give citizens another
way to assist.

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