British Columbia

Students demand S. Korean’s release

Vancouver

rally hails

Mandela’s
freedom

There was genuine joy and a party
atmosphere Feb. 11 when close to 300
jubilant anti-apartheid activists and
supporters of the African National
Congress in Vancouver turned out
within hours of Nelson Mandela’s
release from Capetown prison to join
the world in celebrating the event.

The celebration was hastily organ-
ized by the Anti-Apartheid Network
and hosted by AAN chair Larry
Kuehn at the auditorium of the B.C.
Teachers’ Federation. A group of
local musicians organized by Julius
Fisher also responded to the call and
led a spirited version of the song “Free
Nelson Mandela” — “the song we
don’t have to sing anymore.”

Vancouver ANC _ spokesperson
George Lai could hardly contain his
emotions with passionate salutes to
ANC leaders, the ANC’s military
wing Umkonto We Sizwe (Spear of
the Nation), and to the ANC’s Cana-
dian supporters.

But like all the speakers, Lai cauti-
oned that only the first steps towards
the dismantling of apartheid had been

| taken and_ that continued “interna-
~ tonal pressure was requited to’main-

tain the process.

Vancouver alderman Libby Davies
also addressed the gathering and
summed up the feelings of many when
she reflected that it was a day to have
our children remember, to underscore
how the sacrifice and struggle of peo-
ple can lead to freedom. “We all share
in the fréedom won by Nelson Man-

-dela,” said Davies, pledging the con-

~ tinued solidarity of Canadians in‘the

fight against apartheid.

Long. time anti-apartheid activist
Zayed Gamiet, SACTU Solidarity
Committee representative Jef Keigh-
ley, ANC member. Dawn Anthony
and a representative of SWAPO also
brought messages to the celebration.

Keighley outlined plans to establish
a Canada-wide ‘solidarity - organiza-
tion in co-operation with the ANC to
unite all anti-apartheid groups in the
country for a final push towards the
end of apartheid. -

Although some television and daily
newspaper accounts of the celebra-
tion focused on some individuals who
were critical of Mandela’s speech at
Capetown City Hall and the outpour-
ing of support for the’ ANC, they
represented only themselves among
the hundreds at the celebration.

GEORGE LAI ..
go.

"apartheid ver to:

Students staged a noon-hour demonstra-
tion at Vancouver’s Robson Square Feb.
10, hoping to arouse Canadian outrage at
the conviction of a South Korean student
who attended last year’s 13th World Festi-
val of Youth and Students in Pyongyang,
North Korea.

With a large banner draped over the
stone wall adjoining the Vancouver Art
Gallery’s south side steps, some 20 young
Greater Vancouver residents handed, out
leaflets containing a letter to External
Affairs Minister Joe Clark.

The Association of Canadians in Solidar-
ity with the Korea want Canada to recon-
sider its strong economic and political ties
with the U.S.-backed South Korean
government following the sentencing to 10
years in prison of student activist Im Su
Kyung on Feb. 5.

Im angered the South Korean govern-
ment when she and a Catholic priest delib-
erately crossed the demilitarized zone at the
border village of Panmunjom last August
upon returning from the festival, which
drew 15,000 participants, from 170 coun-
tries, including demonstration organizer
Irwin Oostindie.

Im was “well received at the festival,” and
her attendance already marked her for
prosecution since the government forbids
travel to North Korea without permission,
Oostindie said.

The 20-year-old South Korean student
represented Chondaeyhop, a one-million
member student organization that calls for
steps leading to the reunification of the two
Koreas, created when the country was
divided in 1945.

She attended the July, 1989 festival after
travelling a circuitous route that took her
from Tokyo through East Berlin, but delib-
erately chose to return to her home at the.

demilitarized.zone dividing the-north and _

south. She’ was arrested there, along with”
Moon Kyu-hyun, a priest who travelled to
the zone to lend support, for violating South
Korea’s draconian National Security Law.
Father Moon was sentenced to an eight-
year term.

Despite the arrests, more marches across
the DMZ are planned: “Hopefully, one this
summer,” Oostindie said.

Esteban Ahn, an Argentina-born Van-
couver resident of Korean descent, said he
attended the demonstration because
“Koreans in the Vancouver community

Demonstrators at Robson Square hit South Korea’s human rights record.

aren’t concerned about what’s happening at
home.”

The: video game programer said he
planned to inform his relatives about the
events.

Pam Frache, chair of the Canadian Fed-
eration of Students-Pacific Region which
participated in the demonstration, said
solidarity with Chondaeyhop i is part of the
federation’s ongoing campaign for students
rights in other countries.

The CFS made its demands that the ban
on the Korean student group be lifted and
free exchanges between north and South
Koreans be allowed to officials at the South
Korean consulate in Ottawa last November,
she said.

In Great, Britain, the National, Union of
Students is waging a big campaign. for Im’ =
release, Frache related. :

Recent reports from Amnesty Interna-
tional conclude that human rights abuses in
the past year have reversed the liberalizing
trend of the previous two years, which fol-
lowed several mass demonstrations of
workers, students and other South Koreans
and resulted in the eventual overthrow of
the former dictatorship.

The government used the National
Security Law, which forbids contact with
North Koreans and even possessing books
on the subject, to arrest hundreds in 1989,

Amnesty International reported last month. |
The international human rights group
said a crackdown in 1989 saw the arrest of

some 800 political activists and trade unio-
nists, and thousands more in demonstra-
tions. It has demanded the immediate
release of 100 political prisoners.

The Canadian Youth Festival Society
(CYFS), founded by young Canadians who

met Im at the World Youth Festival (WYF) |
in North Korea, is disappointed but not —

surprised by the sentences.

The CFYS hopes mounting pressure will _

lead to the early release of Im and Moon,
CFYS is encouraged by its efforts to rouse
public awareness and opinion in Canada.

Less than two weeks after its first. protest —

picket in: Toronto, about_75 high. school
students and supporters rallied | in -Edmon EF

ton Jan. 20.

Chondaeyhop, which was the omer of a

full-scale police investigation last year for its
preparations for the 13th Youth and Stu-
dents Festival, proposes the withdrawal of.

all foreign troops and nuclear weapons |

from the Korean peninsula, reductions in

both armies, the establishment of several
inter-Korean student exchange programs,
and negotiations leading to a “Confederate

Republic of Korea.”

Staff, with files from Chris Frazer in
Toronto.

Thousands of unsafe motor vehicles are
operating on our streets and highways.
This applies not only to cars but also to
trucks and other commercial vehicles.
They are the cause of a significant percen-
tage of accidents which result in death,
injury, property damage, steadily increas-
ing insurance rates and rising hospital and
health care costs.

Much of the responsibility for this rests
with the provincial government and its
decision several years ago to abandon its
motor vehicle inspection program. It was
a good system, with minimal cost to the
vehicle owner. It kept unsafe vehicles off
the road. The removal of vehicle inspec-
tion was part of. the government’s ill-
advised privatization program. The plan
was, and still is, to privatize motor vehicle
inspections, to force vehicle owners to go
to privately owned garages to have their
cars and trucks inspected. Instead of the
two or three dollars charged by the
government, the private owners would be
allowed to charge $100 or more if they
wished, This type of private inspection
lends itself to so much political patronage
and abuse and has met with such wides-
pread public opposition that the govern-
ment hasn’t dared yet to put it into effect.

Record shows we ne¢

The patronage would result when cer-
tain garages would be selected ' as certified
motor vehicle inspection stations. It may
be taken for granted that Social Credit
supporters would be given preference.
Also that the rates would be set high
enough to enable these selected garages to
donate generously when the Social Credit

bagman calls for donations to the Social
Credit election fund. That’s the way our
political system works. The abuse would
come when some garages would claim
your car needs repairs it really doesn’t
need, just so the garage Owners can get the
business and rip you off some more.

( ivetilcietectisc |

Today we have no real vehicle inspec-
tion of any kind. Policé are required to
keep on the lookout for unsafe vehicles
and they do pull up drivers when they spot
vehicles that seem unsafe and order them
to be inspected and repaired. Few are
caught this way. To make our police
responsible for locating unsafe vehicles is
wrong in the first place. Their job is to deal
with crime. Vehicle inspection can and
should be taken care of in other ways.

Our truck inspection system is also
entirely inadequate, as, shown by investi-
gations into accidents involving trucks.

Truck drivers are being pressed harder —

and harder to make long runs in vehicles
that haven’t been properly inspected or
repaired.

The evidence also is that Sr aaition
of road maintenance has resulted in some
cases of unsafe road conditions. The main
concern of private contractors naturally is
to keep down costs so as to keep profits up
andasa result road maintenance is kept at
a minimum.

The only viable solution to this whole
situation is to restore a government owned
and operated compulsory vehicle inspec-
tion system. The same applies to road
maintenance.

2 « Pacific Tribune, February 19, 1990

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