Editorial - Namibia’s future The long and difficult road to Namibian independence has not gotten easier since April 1 when the UN-supervised election period began. Evidence has now piled up showing a well-planned South African campaign to turn the entire process in its favour; to increase, not decrease its presence in Namibia and, relying on a weakened and disorganized UN presence, actually use the United Nations as a cover to retrench and subvert genuine Namibian independence. What has actually taken place so far? Looking ahead to the April 1 date, South Africa bolstered its puppet military units of the South West Africa Territorial Force, adding into its ranks the murder squads called Koevoet. Its Administrator-General, Louis’ Pienaar, rigged the election rules, disenfranchising countless SWAPO supporters under 18 years of age. Pretoria pumped funds in to bolster political former puppet groups and parties and even brought Angolan UNITA criminals into Namibia disguised as nationals. The scene for chaos was further set when the United Nations changed the provisions of Security Council Resolution 435, agreeing with a United States proposal to cut UN personnel and funding, despite warnings of a AFFORDABLE HOUSING South African destabilization plan. On April 1, as United Nations Transition Assistance Group (UNTAG) Out of r each Forever? forces began trickling in, lacking equipment, transportation or communications gear, South African puppet forces opened full-scale attacks against SWAPO with impunity. The scene worsened as South Africa began dictating terms, coercing Mito OF 2 AAS the UN representative into agreeing to a return of the South African army © and demanding the right to interrogate SWAPO fighters. So-called UN assembly points are actually South African traps, UN troops ride on South African army vehicles and use their communications systems. & y y FIRIBUNE * In the eyes of the Namibians, UNTAG became unrecognizable from the South African occupiers — a far cry from the letter and spirit of UN Resolution 435. EDITOR Published weekly at As SWAPO is saying, there is still time to turn the situation around. Sean Griffin ce nesinon ee But it will take an effort by the world community to stop the South See Phone: (604) 251-1186 African rampage, to insist it live up to the conditions of the UN resolution Dan Keeton bene en epee 435 and to provide the muscle to back up these decisions. BUSINESS & CIRCULATION MANAGER ete arb ope year @ $35 No serious person can believe the racist apartheid state will facilitate Mike Proniuk two years @ Foreign $32 one year independence in Namibia unless forced to by world pressure. Canada, as GRAPHICS Second class mail both a member of UNTAG and the UN Security Council, has a great Angela Kenyon pelea iat responsibility here. Looking back at the events of 1956 in Hungary I have been following the current events in Hungary and because of the continuing controversy surrounding the Hungarian Revolution, I want to offer my comments. I came to Canada from Hungary after the uprising in 1956. Many people, includ- ing Communist Party members I knew after I joined the party in the early 1980s, wanted to know why someone living under social- ism would pick up arms to overthrow it. Before “new thinking” changed socialist politics, it was simply not possible to ration- ally discuss something as complicated as the Hungarian Revolution and tell, what I believed was the truth without going against the official version widely believed by party members at the time, without backlash in forms of hostility. Besides, nobody would have believed me anyway. Now that the horror of the Stalin era is - unfolding and we know some of the blood and gore that is part of that history, the systematic elimination of innocent people as Stalin paved his way to power, the time 14 e Pacific Tribune, May 1, 1989 has come to take another look. For a number of years after the revolu- tion which saw a generation of Hungarians either die or leave the country, the Hungar- ian Socialist Workers Party (HSWP) was reluctant to come to terms with and success- fully explain the uprising. In order to avoid the unpleasant, years of silence followed, in the hope that through time, all would be forgotten. But recent developments indicate that Hungarians do remember and want the truth to be known. No long ago the subject became an emo- tional debate which prompted the leader- ship of the HSWP to research the national tragedy, basing conclusions on documented evidence. Their findings will only be accu- rate, in my opinion, if the study takes into account all circumstances leading up to the uprising without distorting facts, no matter how hard it is to admit the truth. I believe the revolution was a popular uprising, the product of a major crisis in the system. Those elements which played a counter-revolutionary role in it, and who were ready and eager to bring back the old system, were only a minority. The revolu- tion belonged to the rest of the people whose concern was only for a better life. Although the Communist Party’s popu- larity was at an all-time low in 1956, it would be wrong to attribute the crimes against the communists during the revolu- tion to all the people. Rather, they were due to the actions of certain elements, some ordinary criminals, and ex-political prison- ers who had themselves been brutalized by ~ the system. Nor were their actions worse than the indiscriminate excessive force used by the Soviet troops and tanks against all of the population. Socialism in Hungary never had a chance to evolve from one social system to another. It was not a gradual change but rather an abrupt one. Stalin was imposed on the peo- ple right after the war. The Hungarians . were told that was socialism. Under that system they learned their experiences and hated every minute of it. With all of its upheaval, the Hungarian uprising produced positive results in ending the Stalin era in Hungary, so that they could begin anew. Hungary has gone through major changes since I left the country, qualitative change that is transforming the country from the authoritarian state I remember it into a democracy free of distortions and wrongs. Socialism will be built by the people through public input, discussion and debate replacing the rule of the fist, Stalin-style, where dissent meant detention, prison or loss of life to anyone, socialist or communist alike. It taught a hard lesson, that the idea of socialism is not a vision of utopia but a science. Its discovery requires the participa- tion of everyone. Imre (Jim) Biro, Kamloops