Editorial

Afghanistan’s peace bid |

Six months after the last Soviet troop left Afghanistan, the United States and
Pakistan have “‘virtually trampled underfoot” the April, 1988 Geneva Accords
for a regional settlement, says Afghani president Najibullah.

War is always ugly, but it reaches its depths when the tactic centres on
demoralizing the civilian population through terror. Weapons of terror have
become the main tools of the contra bands.

Recent acquisitions from Washington include a new type of ground-to-
ground missiles. These clusterrockets, a favourite of U.S.-backed forces fighting
against Nicaragua and used by Israel during the invasion of Lebanon, are
strictly anti-personnel devices. They explode in mid-air and scatter pellets and
mines. They are useless against bridges, rail lines or building, but can rip the
human body apart.

They have rained down on the city of Jalalabad on the Afghan-Pakistan

border and two weeks ago were fired into a densely populated neighbourhood |

of Kabul, wounding 22 and killing nine.

U.S. supplies could never reach the contras without the active co-operation of
Pakistan. President Benazir Bhutto, under pressure from both Washington and
London, has ignored internal pleas to live up to the Accords. In a statement,
virtually unheard of in international relations, she called on Najibullah to
resign — serving notice that the price of co-operation would be the capitulation
of the Afghan government.

But not all goes well for those who would like to continue tensions in the
region. Local contra commanders are balking at the indiscriminate killing of
civilians. Reports from inside Afghanistan say 60,000 former contras have taken

advantage of the government amnesty and laid down their weapons.
_ Najibullah has called for an United Nations-sponsored conference with
Pakistan, Iran, India, China, the USSR and U.S. to work out Afghanistan’s
Status as a neutral, non-aligned country.

The proposal also includes a six-month cease-fire, a new constitution and
parliamentary elections.

Although it shares many similarities with Nicaragua’s quest for sovereignty
and a new social order, Afghanistan has never been a recipient of progressive
Canadian sympathy. The long presence of Soviet troops on Afghan soil was
considered the dividing line between a “good” and a “‘bad” liberation struggle.

The Soviets are now out of the picture, but the vision of a free Afghanistan
remains. The government’s program to eradicate illiteracy, establish an public
health and education system, to follow through with promised land reform and
break down brutal feudal hold-overs which kept women and so many landless
peasants in bondage deserves a chance. :

That chance may never come without our support.

REAL WAGES UP

o % FoR WORKERS
since 19 80

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l-o % FoR MANAGEMENT

CLIMBING
FHE LADDER

VAS- 8. 84-MS

RS S55

EDITOR

Sean Griffin
ASSOCIATE EDITOR

Dan Keeton
BUSINESS & CIRCULATION MANAGER
Mike Proniuk
GRAPHICS

Angela Kenyon

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It’s probably just a coincidence that the
Parliamentary committee studying the
Tories’ proposed changes to unemploy-
ment insurance scheduled its hearings on

Sean Griffin

the 200th anniversary of the French Revo-
lution. But it was hard not to make the
comparison at the Meridien Hotel in Van-
couver where the hearings opened Mon-

day.

The Meridien is not just one of the
many downtown city hotels that regularly
provide the venue for conventions or pub-
lic hearings. This is a hotel where the wine
list reads like a tour through Bordeaux’s
chateau country and the daily room rate
would probably cover your last month’s
rent. Its lobby is hushed elegance, the
doors and windows filled with leaded glass
and the staircases framed with ornately-
carved banisters. The rooms are identified
with embossed brass plates, including one
particularly pretentious one for the Ver-
sailles Ballroom where the hearings are
held.

There’s a concierge around every
corner — one of them seems always to be
scurrying around carrying freshly-minted
copies of the Globe and Mail — and at
least two doormen appear breathlessly
from among the limousines whenever
someone arrives at the stately entrance.

If the Tory-dominated committee
wanted to demonstrate its imperious lack
of concern for the plight of the unem-
ployed, it certainly did it by booking the
Meridien. The only thing worse would be

if the hotel bill were paid out of unem-
ployment insurance funds. But then, who
knows?

Inside the hearing room, Jim Matkin,
president of the Business Council of Brit-
ish Columbia, pours himself a glass of
juice from a decanter nestled in a silver ice
bucket and sits down. As a photographer
stands up to take pictures, J. Robert Nor-
mand, the officious clerk of the commit-
tee, rises from the head table and hisses
sternly that no cameras are allowed since
House of Commons regulations apply.
The rules of decorum having been set, the
process gets underway.

It soon becomes clear that the only
backer for the government’s UI cuts is the
B.C. Business Council. But that obvious
lack of support doesn’t deter the Tory
members. Lined up in dark suits, Tory
blue shirts and contrasting ties (except for
the lone Tory woman), they present a view
of the world that is as much a product of
Holt Renfrew as their haberdashery.

Chilcotin-Cariboo MP David Worthy,
after first introducing himself (“I’m David
Worthy from Chilcotin-Cariboo”’) to each

COMMENTARY

new witness — possibly he felt a need to
remind himself of his own identity in the
generic Tory line-up — sums it up: “It
may seem clear to you now,” he tells Sar-
wan Boal, president of the Canadian
Farmworkers Union, who has just stated
that his members stand to lose all benefits
if the bill goes through, “but in the long
term it will be members of your commun-
ity who will benefit the most from these
changes.” i

But the real visual jolt in the row of
corporate pinstripe is Bill Kempling, the
perennial MP from Burlington, Ont. and
the chair of the committee. His substantial
girth wrapped in an expansive olive green
Panama suit — my Ukrainian mother-in-
law would say it was “‘size finish” — he
spends much of the day ambling around
the hearing room. Here and there he chats
with other Tory members of the commit-
tee and caucuses with the party staff
assistants who wait in the background,
cellular phones at the ready.

But should anyone think that Tory
members are not responsive to the issues
raised by the unemployed or that govern-

ment MPs cannot empathize with their

The boundless compassion of the Tory MP

problems, Kempling is prepared to take a
hand in the proceedings.

The first opportunity comes Monday as
Gary Colley from the Coalition of the
Disabled presents his brief to the commit-
tee. First off the mark in questioning,
Kempling announces that he knows well
the problem of the disabled since he him-
self was stricken with polio at the age of
seven. And they didn’t have wheelchairs
like they have now, he adds, so he had to
use a wagon instead. (We were waiting for
him to tell us how he had run for federal
office from an iron lung but that part
didn’t come.)

In his most constructive vein, Kempling
suggests that the Disabled Coalition could
make up cards, outlining the disabilities as
well as the talents and skills of disabled
persons, that could be presented to pros-
pective employers.

A few presentations later, he is up again,
this time in response to the brief submitted
by the Canadian Farmworkers Union.
Before that, however, he has demanded
that the delegation of farmworkers who
marched into the hearing room with pla-
cards be removed, although he has been
overruled by Monday’s chair, MP Gus
Mitges. So it’s back to the old tack again:
“I know what you’re going through,” he
tells CFU president Boal,” I used to work
on farms myself ....”

It’s a comfort to know that our social
programs are in such compassionate
hands.

4 Pacific Tribune, September 18, 1989