Winnipeg Free Press

Winnipeg Free Press (Newspaper) - April 14, 1981, Winnipeg, Manitoba 6estco pm a Winnipeg free press tuesday april 14, 1981 7 informers doom peasants by Frank Del Olmo los Angeles times such Toto Al Salvador this Small farming Village not quite 30 Miles Northeast of san Salvador is in territory that was Only recently wrested from guerrilla control by Salva Doran Security forces. Perhaps that explains the pervasive feeling of fear that can be found among the peasant refugees Here. But perhaps there is another reason for the fear and mistrust fear that reaches even farther 30 Miles North into neighbouring Honduras where thousands of other salvadoran Campe sinus peasants and their families have fled to escape the fighting. Whether in Honduras or in Al Salva Dor there is a troubling similarity in the Way the salvadoran peasants de scribe the violence that drove them away from their farms and in who they blame for that violence the Salva Doran Security forces and their Para military adjuncts. Guerrillas unmentioned the Farmers rarely say anything about the leftist guerrillas who Are trying to overthrow the government except to deny that they know who they Are or from where they operate. So if visits to the refugee Camps Are any indication the military civilian Junta that now controls Al Salvador is going to have a difficult task Ever winning the support less the Trust of those displaced people. Such Toto s refugees live in almost unspeakable squalor at an old ranch called Hacienda Las Bermudes. The official government census taken last week found that people More than two thirds of them children live in stables under Trees and in cardboard and tin hovels. The residents of Las Bermudes say that they All came from the surround ing Countryside. Some men still foray out of the Camp occasionally to Harvest what they can mostly Corn to feed their families. Some also have cattle and pigs that they brought with them. They May not be doing that any longer however because the soldiers who now control such Toto have or dered them to stay in their Camps and not even go to a nearby Stream for the women Here cannot even go to the River to Wash clothes without an escort by the Cruz Green one wiry old Farmer said. We Are All afraid Here. We Trust Only the Cruz the Green Cross is a private organization of paramedics who Range far and wide across Al Salvador providing medical Aid and Relief to those wounded and displaced by the civil War. The handful of Green Cross volunteers at Las Bermudes say that they Are fight ing a losing Battle against Chicken pox dysentery and malnutrition among the refugees. You journalists must help said the old Farmer who refused to give his name. Tell the government not to take the Cruz verde away. We Are afraid of the soldiers. They May kill the Day before i visited the Camp an officer from the military Garrison at such Toto had come to the Camp to Tell the refugees that henceforth the government would provide for them and that the military would protect them. But earlier on the same Day 18 men from the Camp had been arrested and taken away by members of the Salva Dofsen not Lonsul Guird 3 airs 1 Dolnics Force Tot also has a Garrison in Suchi Green loss volunteers giving food and drugs in such Toto Al Salvador Are Only people peasant refugees Trust. Toto. They were arrested As suspected subversives the term the salvadoran government prefers to nothing has been heard of those prison ers since. In a country where people die from political violence each Day every one in Las Bermudes fears the worst. The Young wife of a Man who had been arrested said he had just come Back from gathering Corn. If they had found him in the Fields carrying a gun i could understand it. But they came Here to take him when i told her that the military commander in Suchi Teto said that his troops were detaining Only those who Are suspected of being strangers to the area the wiry old Man angrily disputed me. We knew All those men they were our sons our Brothers Hus then Why been arrested he told me they had been fingered As suspects by two civilians that the Secu Rity forces brought to the Camp with them. The two men both wore masks to disguise their identity. They were Campesino just like the old Man said. But they belong to Orden is a paramilitary Organiza Tion formed in the late 1960s by the salvadoran government to help provide Security in the country s Rural areas. The current military civilian Junta said that Orden was disbanded several months ago. But it is very much alive and threatening in the minds of the peasants in encampments like Las Bermudes. It was also talked about fearfully in an other refugee Centre that i visited near the honduran Border City of Colomon Capua. At least 34 salvadoran refugees live in Honduras according to the United nations High commission on refugees. Files Public property by John Best special to the free press Ottawa the Issue at stake in the continued suppression of the Guzenko Royal commission papers is Clear should the so called privacy of individuals take precedence Over the pub Lic s right to know in its 1946 report on the revelations of Igor Guzenko the cipher clerk who had defected from the soviet embassy Here the Taschereau Royal commission found that soviet spying in Canada had reached alarming proportions. It had become a malignant growth alive and expanding working in secret below ground directed against the safety and interests of Canada by a foreign on the basis of this report several Canadian citizens including a member of parliament were sent to prison. Soviet diplomats skipped the country in droves. Canadian soviet relations plunged into a ten year deep freeze. But Guzenko the commission much More than what was contained in the report put out by the late supreme court Justice Robert Taschereau 35 years ago. The printed proceedings of the in camera inquiry commission run to thousands of pages. They have never been made Public. Five years ago in line with the 30-year Rule that is sup posed to govern release of confidential government documents the transcript was reviewed by officials of the privy Council office. On the decision of privy Council clerk Michael Pitfield they were returned to a secret vault in the Public archives for at least another ten years. Now facing new pressures for publication the government has named re tired Diplomat Ralph Branscombe who once worked in the external affairs department s intelligence Divi Sion to examine the papers to try to determine whether they should be re leased. His report which itself May or May not be made Public is expected around May 1. When pressed to justify keeping the papers locked away a third of a Century after the fact the government has always resorted to a Standard explant privacy of individuals involved. What this Means apparently is that people were named by Guzenko and in the voluminous documents he carried with him when he defected who did nothing illegal but who might become victims of guilt by association if identified. In Many cases it was a matter of their having attended communist party cell meetings something that a lot of canadians got tricked into doing in Days when the wartime love feast with the soviet Union was still in Bloom. But that was and is no Crimi Nal offence. The government is finding it increasingly hard to support the argument that respect for these people and concern for their feelings should override the Normal routine for putting classified documents into the Public Domain. The More one thinks about the Busi Ness the More one is driven to the suspicion that the liberals in Ottawa Are not solely imbued with a Noble regard for the reputations and sensitivities of individuals living or dead. Tory my Tom Cossitt says the tas Chereau commission examined a Book containing the names of 150 persons who attended communist party meet Ings in the 1930s and 1940s. They Alleg edly included politicians Heads of Crown corporations and commissions others close to the Liberal establish ment. One suspicion is that the govern ment is keeping the Taschereau papers under wraps in order not to ruffle relations with the soviet Union. Whatever dubious merits there May be in keeping this dossier hidden must be weighed against the Canadian peo ple s right to know More about the Guzenko episode and its ramifications. Was prime minister Mackenzie King at first All for handing Guzenko Back to the soviets and certain extermination As has been alleged was the police investigation botched in any Way because of political interference Donald Munro conservative my for Esquimalt Stanich and a former Cana Dian Diplomat raised an extremely important Point the other Day in the commons. He noted that Guzenko revealed the existence of several soviet spy rings. This we know from the tas Chereau report. However Guzenko s evidence was sufficient to smash Only one ring. The chilling question has remained unanswered for 35 years what happened to the other rings Are they or variants or descendants of them still operating Munro asked whether there has been inquiries into the other spy and solicitor general Robert Kaplan promised to look into the matter. The minister also promised to exam Ine allegations As cited by the tory my that there was a stoppage of inquiries into some of these rings effected by the Public other questions persist. If there was indeed a Lack of police follow up to the Guzenko revelations did it have any thing at All to do with sir Roger Hollis the deceased head of Britain s domes tic intelligence service who inter viewed Guzenko shortly after the Sian s defection May himself have been according to a Book recently published in Britain soviet spy. Prime minister Margaret Thatcher has denied this charge furthermore Why should some parts of the Guzenko file As Well As a volume of Mackenzie King s diary and Cabinet records relating to that period of 1945-1945, be missing from the Stor age shelves John Best is a freelance journalist based in Ottawa. Most live in a half dozen Camps that have been set up along the Border by several honduran Relief agencies aided by the commission. The honduran government does not interfere with the operation of those Camps but it does Little to assist them either. The Camps along the honduran Bor Der Are not particularly pleasant. They Are crowded and full of fretting Chil Dren. But they seem like resorts by comparison to Las Bermudes. The Refu gees there live in tents and receive regular medical care from visiting Doc tors and nurses plus a regular food Supply including Small rations of Beans and Corn. The refugees in Honduras bitterly Tell the same stories of their flight from terror in the Countryside where they had made their living. At one Camp called Callejon Celso Antonio Urquilla said that his family had been on the run for 14 months before crossing the Border into Honduras. Fleeing from what from the National guard the army and an authority known As Orden they Are Campesino Urquilla said. But they Are different. They kill Campesino they even kill children like my Urquilla said his 11-year old son was Bay netted in the stomach several months ago. It took the boy four hours to die from the wound. He crawled a few Yards after being Cut so badly trying to get Back to us after they got Urquilla said quietly. Tell me sir How can they claim this child was a horror stories there is no proof of course that whoever killed Urquilla s son was a member of Orden or even associated in any Way with the salvadoran Security forces. But he believes that it was they who killed his son and so do his neighbors in the Callejon Camp. Many of them came Forward voluntarily to Tell additional horror stories not Only stories of friends neighbors and rela Tives assassinated by Orden but also of women and children being killed by bombs dropped from salvadoran air Force planes and machine gunned by salvadoran helicopters. Horror stories like that Are unnervingly commonplace along the Honduras Al Salvador Border not Only in the refugee Camps but among the Relief workers who service the peasants there. Many refugees told of a Mas Sacre that allegedly occurred on March 18, near the Border town of la Kacien Dita North of the Lempa River. In news reports carried by honduran newspapers survivors told of helicopter gun ships killing 26 persons including 12 children As they tried to Cross the River into Honduras. A honduran army commander would confirm Only that several corpses were seen floating in the River near that Point after some sort of incident near the a in Relief official in the honduran capital of Tegucigalpa said Only that several people had been killed apparently by gunfire from salvadoran government the Story might have been bigger in Honduras but for the fact that such reports have become so common place. All of them Pale in comparison to the stories about the massacre that occurred on May 14 last year along the sum Pul River near the honduran City of Las Aradas. Early that morning salvadoran Security forces were reported to have cleaned out a refugee Camp of persons killing 600 of them in the process. Both the honduran and Salva Doran governments deny that anything happened on the sum Pul River that Day. The . Department of state in its 1980 report on human rights practices in Al Salvador states flatly that tie allegation of a massacre at the sum Pul River has been refuted by impartial nowhere in that report does the department of state explain who those impartial observers Are. On the other hand the in High commissioner on refugees has Gath ered both eyewitness testimony and photographic evidence of the incident and of other salvadoran Security forces assaults on refugees. Regardless of who the department of state or anyone else wants to believe the fact remains that the peasants in refugee Camps like Callejon believe that the salvadoran Security forces Are guilty of such atrocities. And one comes away from those Camps believing that nothing those poor Farmers Are told will Ever change their minds. Of the Hydro probe create concern members of the legislative Assembly met to consider the annual report from Manitoba Hydro but the opposition Leader was More interested in hearing the opinion of an outsider. The government members insisted that there was no precedent for such a move and rejected it despite the opposition s insistence that this person could clarify matters. That was not possible lectured the minister responsible for Hydro but the opposition Leader was not convinced. They should give Way to the demo cratic process and allow people to be he said but the Premier rejected the concept. The reference to democracy or Lack of it was really nonsensical in this aspect. We must function according to after several More fruitless meet Ings the opposition Leader introduced a motion for an emergency debate. The government majority ruled and the matter ended. Or did it those events occurred 10 years ago. Opposition Leader Sidney Spivak assisted by people such As Don Craik wanted to hear from d. L. Campbell who had resigned from the Hydro Board. Rejecting those requests were de Schreyer who was responsible for Hydro and the government House Leader Sidney Green. F eventually the matter was 1 solved under the dome Arlene Billinkoff when a Compromise was reached about hearing Campbell. The committee adjourned and listened to his views without officially breaking tradition. In the past few weeks there has been a re run except that the opponents had traded positions and Little Compromise was evident. The problem began when the nip attempted to obtain information about the Tritschler inquiry which they regarded As a blatant tory at tempt to smear the former nip government. Although they believed that the re port was improper there was no real ammunition until Arnold Brown a tory who sits on the Hydro Board dropped a Little bomb in 1979, w. Steward mar tin a former lawyer of the corporation indicated that the commission was going beyond its terms of reference and suggested that the Board Challenge the inquiry in the courts. Craik rejected Howard Pawley s de Mand to summon the lawyer because the committee normally did not Call witnesses. Besides Tartin had not advised him in any direct Way of his concerns certainly not in any for Mal Way. However several former members of the Board were aware of that concern and one of them said the minister had threatened to fire All Board directors if they followed the Legal advice. With that information Pawley challenged the credibility of Craik s answers and repeated his request. The minister re fused once More. He did acknowledge that the Legal counsel had been concerned but the Legal opinion was not sought or As for the threat to fire the Board it was nothing Short of Pawley s concerns did not Abate and he urged the minister to release Martin from lawyer client confidentiality and summon him As a witness let s get some if the lawyer was willing Craik said the Board would consider the matter. But he would not allow the committee to act and when Jim Walding moved that the committee order the pres ence of Martin and former Board members within two weeks the motion was Defeated. Pawley interpreted that action As a cover up and obviously the tories knew that if the lawyer appeared their shallowness and hypocrisy would be revealed. Therefore he moved that the meeting be discontinued until the matter was considered by the House. No ruled the tories and the nip marched out. Leaving however did not mean Des Erting the Issue and Pawley soon moved for a committee investigation into charges that Craik had misled the House and threatened others in order to prevent a court Challenge to the Tritschler inquiry. It was a Hydro Craik disagreed. It was Windy and the nip was merely trying to disguise the real issues of the Tritschler report. They were a Desper ate group added Sterling Lyon and had handled Hydro with deceit Distor Tion and manipulation. The entire Effort was a charade because they could not Swallow the truth. The government would oppose any investigation and Pawley s motion was Defeated but the Battle did not end. Rising quietly the next Day Walding read a letter into the record. While there was no signature the contents indicated an unhappy lawyer presumably Martin expressing his displeasure to the commissioner of the inquiry. The words told of an exercise at tempting to assassinate the qualifications integrity and credentials of professional the writer saw a massive denial of natural jus Tice an attempt to harass demean and vilify Hydro employees in my opinion the conduct of this commission at Best has been reprehensible and at worst an example of the Star court with an accusation that the commis Sion was not following the terms of reference the letter said i respect fully request that you terminate these the opposition was elated certain that the smoking gun had been found in the Hydro Gate affair and that the truth was going to emerge. It was All reminiscent of 10 years ago. Doonesbury . See if he s Here. . Damthi i lost the rim ;