EDITORIAL

Scathing indictments

It pays to come from a “good family.”

Simple being born a Native is already dangerous to one’s health.

These truths of Canadian society were brought home with a vengeance in two
appalling incidents this months.

In one, a Sault Ste. Marie district court judge, I.A. Vannini, handed down a
90-day sentence, to be served on weekends, against a man who assaulted and
raped a 27-year-old mother of two in a hotel parking lot. According to the
judge, a more severe sentence was unnecessary because the man “has probably
learned his lesson . . . his potential for rehabilitation is good . . . he has developed
an ulcer since the incident ....” .

And finally, the man “comes from a good family” and will “probably bring
no further honour or disgrace” to it.

The assaulted woman was beaten, receiving cuts to her face and back. She
took two weeks to recover from the rape which, according to the judge, was
“very traumatic” but of “short duration.”

The woman “did not suffer any lasting emotional or psychological harm”,
said the judge. Nor, apparently, did she “come from a good family” — at least
no one said so.

She did have two children, was divorced and celebrated her birthday in a
room where “both alcohol and drugs were consumed.” For that, apparently,
she could be raped with virtual impunity.

The prosecution is going to appeal the sentence and the Ontario attorney-
general’s officer is investigating the entire incident. That notwithstanding, Judge
Vannini should resign immediately.

Equally deserving of punishment as the woman, it seems, was a two-month-
old child whose crime was having Native people as parents.

Her punishment was not handed down by the courts. It was administered by
a security guard at the Winnipeg airport who refused to heed her parents’ pleas
and sent the infant, wrapped up in a traditional backpack, through a baggage
X-ray machine.

Another passenger also pleaded with the security guard. “Wait, it’s. a baby,”
he said. “I don’t care,” replied the guard. “Everything has to go through.”

Children of Native people, in some people’s eyes, do not qualify as human
beings; they are things. And one has to question why the guard’s suspicions were
raised in the first place. Did he believe that the parents, being Native people,
were hiding something in the backpack? Would he have insisted that a white
mother, carrying an infant in a Snugli baby carrier, put her child through the
machine?

In little Anna Sakakeep’s case, however, there will be no appeal. Transport
Canada (which contracts out security to private companies) is not even bother-
ing to investigate the incident. It came to light only because the parents insisted
on going to the media.

Her punishment may not be felt today or even tomorrow. Still, who knows
what damage the radiation dosage might cause 20 years hence? But why should
Transport Canada worry? After all, “everything has to go through.”

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FRPRIBUNE

. EDITOR
Sean Griffin
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Dan Keeton

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Port: travelling to conferences and
conventions in the U.S. who have suf-
fered the indignity of having armed guards
posted at their hotel room and a formal
escort back across the Canadian border
— whose numbers have included such

prominent citizens as Farley Mowat
— might have been pleasantly surprised
when they saw the news item late last year
stating that the U.S. government was
finally doing away with immigration regu-
lations that were once part of the cold war
McCarran Walter Act, itself a remnant of
the McCarthyite period.

But even more promising for interna-
tional exchange was the Reagan-Gorba-
chev summit in which the US. side
pledged to open the way to more Soviet
visitors coming to take part in meetings
and conferences with their American
counterparts.

At least that was the picture until the
Soviet summit delegation got on the plane
to return to Moscow after the historic
meeting in Washington in December.

Literally the day after the conclusion of
the U.S.-USSR summit, according to the
Soviet All-Union Central Council of Trade
Unions (AUCCTU), the U.S. State
Department denied visas to four Soviet
trade unionists scheduled to go to a trade
--union conference in Chicago.

The four unionists, steelworker Vla-
dimir Kurbakov, electrician Tatyana
Nebaikina, autoworker Nikolai Somo-
lenko and their interpreter Sergei Shma-
kov, were scheduled to take part in a
meeting organized by Labour Today, the

journal of the National Centre for Trade
Union Action and Democracy. But the
State Department denied them entry, once
again invoking the McCarran-Walter Act
and the “Communist danger” as the rea-
son.

AUCCTU spokesman Vladimir Nik-
itin described the action as another
demarche — a diplomatic step — made
in the spirit of the cold war. It certainly
was directly contrary to the spirit of the
summit which Americans, as well as mil-
lions of others around the world, were
looking to for an indication of genuine
change.

Meeks
| t was only a few months ago that Sylvia

Lowe bid a last farewell to her husband
of 50 years, Stan, at a memorial meeting in
Vancouver. But then on Jan. 6, a stroke
felled Sylvia herself, ending a life that had
been committed to the progressive labour
movement since her days as a boarding
house worker in Aberdeen, Washington.

Born in Virginia, Minnesota in 1909,
the daughter of a hard-rock miner, she
first came with her family to Fort Frances,
Ontario before moving to Aberdeen in the
hope of completing her education. But the
depression years prevented that and in the
early 1930s, she moved instead to Van-

People and Issues

ce

couver where she quickly became involved
in the progressive movement, joining the
Finnish Organization of Canada and later
the Communist Party. She remained a
member of both organizations until her
death.

Through the 1940s and 1950s, she was a
worker at the Hastings Bakery, for many
years an institution in Vancouver’s Fin-
nish community. _

When the B.C. Peace Council was
founded in 1947, she was among its first
members and continued her activity in the
organization, including holding down its
Vancouver Office, until last year.

Known everywhere for her friendly
enthusiasm and tireless activism, she
brought those same qualities into the
senior citizens’ movement in later years,
helping to found the Sampola Senior Citi-
zens in 1974 and continuing as its presi-
dent until a year ago. Based in the Finnish
Community, it was affiliated to the Senior
Citizens Organizations of B.C.

She was also a long time supporter of
the Tribune and both she and Stan had
worked for several years as volunteer
mailers for the paper.

A memorial meeting has been set for
Saturday, Jan. 30 at 1 p.m. at the Centre
for Socialist Education, 1726 East Hast-
ings, Vancouver.

e also had a note from Surrey reader
Dave Jansen with the sad news that
Thelma Downs, a generous contributor the
Tribune for a number of years, passed
away in Calgary at the age of 76.
Although born in Cochrane, Alberta,
she spent some 20 years in Vancouver,
working as a nurse at Vancouver General
Hospital where she first took up activity in
the progressive movement, including
volunteer work for the unemployed
occupying the post office and art gallery in
1938

Even after her return to Alberta in later
years, she continued her support for the
paper during the annual financial drive.

inscks sk

Fo those who have grown weary of

biased news and endless and pointless
sitcoms, the public television station south
of the border — KCTS Channel 9 in
Seattle — always offers something of
human or social interest. This month and
next, an upcoming celebration of Black
History Month promises to take the edge
off that feeling of being a couch potato.

Key features of the series of programs
are Eyes on the Prizé, an account of the
United States’ “second revolution,” the
civil rights movement. The series begins on
Monday, Jan. 25 and continues, every
Monday throughout February, for one
hour at 9 p.m.

Also promising is Ethnic Notions: Por-
traits of Prejudice which examines a cen-
tury of racial stereotyping leading up to
the civil rights battles in the 1960s. It airs
Monday, Feb. 1, at 10 p.m.

4 e PACIFIC TRIBUNE, JANUARY 20, 1988