Winnipeg Free Press

Winnipeg Free Press (Newspaper) - September 18, 1981, Winnipeg, Manitoba Winnipeg free press september in focus Waldheim probably will get that in top Job again after 10 years he still wants worlds most impossible task by Jeff Endrst special to the free press United nations Singapore ambassador Tommy an undeclared candidate for the Post of United nations tells the Story of an audience the incumbent Kurt Waldheim of Austria received from Pope John Paul Waldheim complained that his was the1 most impossible Job in the world since he is responsible to 154 quarrel Ling member the Pope listened sympathetically but noted that tending to his worldwide flock is not always the easiest the pontiff told i Grant you that i have two distinct advantages Over i am and i need to be elected Only Tommy Rons joke stopped but evil tongues at the in tacked on a you Are right on the second Point response from Waldheim May not be infallible but he certainly seems near perfect in tip toeing through diplomatic his instinctive sense of balance be tween the desirable and the or Ideal As opposed to has earned him a reputation of a world Diplomat whose foresight and reticence and make him the least objectionable go Between in the dizzying merry ground of International after 10 years in the Waldheim last week announced his availability Salem Ahmed Salim is hot Likely to beat for an unprecedented third five year if he is i would consider it a duty and an Honor to accept the responsibility of what he Calls at the same time the most impossible and the most fascinating Job in the he the betting is that China May want to go through the motions of nominally favouring a third world candidate to better reflect the priorities and collective morality of the disadvantaged tanzanian foreign minister Salim Ahmed Salim is a Possi As is Tommy Koh of but Salim is too unpredictable to Washington and perhaps even while Koh is too anticommunist for Moscow and probably also in the everybody Waldheim will get the nod for another the 62year old chief in administrator and executive officer prefers quiet activism behind the scenes to open Battles Over controversial he is not a loud advocate of but concepts of principles and International this does not sit Well with some of the International civil servants working in 160 they still venerate the late Dag Hammarskjold of Sweden for his activist Secretary generalship which put him on the Warpath with the soviet Union and sometimes also with the United during staff Day observances last staff Union president Lowell Flanders warned that Only through organized efforts can the staff Stop a blatant transformation of the International civil service into a miscellaneous collection of governmental cronies dedicated to their own limited National Low staff morale with Waldheim standing next to Flanders struck a militant note on festering management staff relations which have in recent years suffered from a variety of min scandals and have led to an admittedly Low staff if the workers of by risking their very can transform an insensitive and ponderous bureaucracy by their concerted and unified then we likewise through our Solidarity and without such great risks to life and limb can overcome this pressure to destroy the Independent and International character of our Flanders he was alluding to increasingly successful efforts by Many governments to use the United nations secretariat for what the London economist once called a dumping ground for Diplo Matic the tendency has been to Settle for More Short term two to three years contracts instead of life Long in the former Flanders governments Send to the in National officials representing their respective countries and Idolo he called it a formula for discs he prefers what he admits to have been Hammarskjold s Brittle adherence to the principle of an Independent staff As the in charter is obliged to Promise under oath to serve the in i respect of the effect this might have on an employees native double pressure Waldheim referred to this problem in his annual report on the state of the organization As a matter of legitimate he had no doubt that the staff is sometimes but he spokes of realities which put him Between pressures from governments and charter he also spoke of a generation crisis among the implying that the spirit of the incoming generation May be different from the postwar spirit of Devotion and service brought into the organization by mostly westerners who Are now reaching retirement often accused of being sensitive to is Quick to Point out that his office represents a moral Force fashioned by majority in Deci but he himself has no executive Powers to Force any decisions on the or to make governments live up to obligations assumed under the Char that makes the Job he Why then another five years to grapple with the Many crises and unresolved problems confronting the world he his close associates put it they say Waldheim absolutely thrives on the challenges and the limelight they produce for he is said to have complained that when he walks to his office from his unprovided fashionable new yorkers generally do not recognize chronic traveller that could not be said about govern during the past 10 Wald Heim has paid official visits to 112 someone said that when Waldheim runs for office All the world is his his Gross salary and hospitality allowance come to Waldheim was born in Sank Andrae near his diplomatic career started in he served on the russian front with the German army during the second world when he was he returned Home to finish his Law shortly before his 1970 appointment As he waged an unsuccessful election Campaign As the conservative Candi Date for the austrian Waldheim and his elegant and tall wife Elisabeth he Calls her Cissy have a son and two one of whom works for the in in their social life revolves mostly around the he told an interviewer that he likes to listen to Mozart or and when he is not too he prefers an Agatha Christie mystery As a change of Pace from the never ending Cycle of in speech and position in Waldheim appears More fascinated than frustrated by his Kurt Waldheim is supposed to solve problems that in member states cannot solve spiritual basis for going to work by Charles Austin new York times new York encyclical letter that Pope John Paul ii issued this week on the subject of work and human dignity is the Popes third major state ment relating roman Catholic doctrine to modern like the earlier two encyclicals one on the moral disorder of the arms race and another on the dangers of materialism Laborim exe cens on human work is a nuanced Docu ment that reveals both the Popes scholarly background and his pastoral concern for the Way the modern world affects the life of the the polish born Popes diplomatic tact is also evident in the balanced critique of both capitalism and Marx by stressing the theological aspect of work As humanity specific dig he gives a spiritual dimension to labor at a time when economic and technological developments tend to downgrade the making him merely a unit of production or operator of in the introduction to the John Paul refers to the first social encyclical of the modern issued by Pope Leo Xiii in and an Early chapter in the new encyclical analyses in detail the biblical and Theo logical foundations for by the time the encyclical has closed with a chapter elements for a spirituality of the Pope has surrounded his social critique with a theology explaining that work contributes not Only to earthly Progress and welfare but to the development of the kingdom of religious thinkers have sometimes concluded that work is a penalty Laid upon the human race As punishment for disobeying but the encyclical stresses the More common Christian View that god ordered the Man and woman he had created to be fruitful and and fill the Earth and subdue even though these words do not refer directly and explicitly to beyond any doubt they indirectly Indi Cate it As an activity for Man to carry out in the the encyclical not tools several times the Pope warns against regarding humanity As tools for industrialization or sometimes heavy toil is required of says the who worked in a factory As a Young but he warned that in economic systems where productivity and profit gain in the worker should not lose human because work is a biblical the use of the worlds resources placed at the disposal of humanity is a theolog ical the encyclical about 40 per cent of the encyclical is devoted to questions of work and ownership of the Means of rights of workers to earn just pensions and their right to form unions and the responsibility of govern ments to maintain just labor roman Catholic the papal letter champions the rights of the worker above All and it will take Issue with any aspect of a social system capitalist or marxist that de personalizes human but the Pope deplores the adversary relation ship Between labor and no new ground when it Speaks of these the encyclical Breaks no new ground for roman Catholic social policy but Reaf firms earlier statements and reemphasize concerns John Paul has expressed in the there is no direct reference to where a labor Union Campaign has rocked the country in the last the encyclical acknowledges that the struggle for work ers rights will touch the political but it says that unions do not have the character of political parties struggling for on this the Popes description of the role of labor unions parallels his concerns about political activism in the he warns that when unions Are too closely linked with political parties they easily lose Contact with their specific which is to secure the just rights of workers within the framework of the common in a Section on social the Pope says wages should be High enough so a Man can support a family and so a Mother will not have to work to help the family it will redound to the credit of society to make it possible for a Mother without inhibiting her Freedom without penalizing her As compared with other women to devote herself to taking care of her the encyclical having to abandon these tasks in order to take up paid work outside the Home is wrong from the Point of View of the Good of so while that Small Section is Likely to anger some Catholic feminists because it regards the primary role of woman As that of wife and the Pope says in another sometimes without proper recognition on the part of society and even of their own Bear the daily Burden and responsibility for their Homes and the upbringing of their the True advancement of women requires that labor should be Struc tured in such a Way that women do not have to pay for their advancement by abandoning what is specific to them and at the expense of the the encyclical More focus on Page 8 nip is determined to smash progressives Manitoba next provincial election should once and for whether the voters in this province fear Sid Green As much As the new demo cratic party thinks they it will not be an entirely fair in his current attempt to gain recognition for himself and his new Manitoba progressive will get quite a bit of help from a paralysed Liberal organization which cannot seem to keep its nose above water because it has the Trudeau Millstone attached firmly to its the animosity displayed toward Green by the Manitoba new democratic party is growing so Strong that Sterling Lyon May be Able to Call the election and sit Back while the nip and the progressives Battle it out for seats that de Schreyer never had any trouble calling his when the ballots Are no one should be surprised if greens new party has enough seats four in the legislature to draw a leaders salary from the Public Treasury and possibly enough to negotiate a few deals with the there Are a few who now Are willing to put Money Down that Sid Green will come within a whisker of being the Leader of the official oppose if he it will be because the new in their anxiety to crush Fred Cleverley May waste so much ammunition on him that they will damage their Overall Battle it is something that could happen Only within the no other party in Manitoba has so Many members who equate their politics with their As in most the unconverted Are but the those who once had the Faith and who have left Are both the conservatives and the new democrats have been saying they have nothing to worry about As far As the progressives Are there without members in both parties who firmly believe this Howe the theory holds More water in the conservative Camp than it can in new democratic new if they Are honest with know this theory has All the water holding qualities of a widescreen Green has Many qualities that Appeal to new otherwise he would not have been Able to exercise such influence on that or to gain positions of such greens reason for leaving the his opposition to the increasing labor domination of the is something that will find much sympathy among those people who cast ballots for de schreyers new democrats in 1969 and in some new democrats will support Green because they Are fed up with the powder puff performance of Howard Pawley As and his procrastination on decisions that should have been made to strengthen the party before an election some Are convinced that Howard Pawley will be the first nip Leader in history to begin an election with a rather than an empty party Treasury and manage to fudge his Way into a the new democrats who Are simply disappointed at Hawleys lacklustre leadership Are outnumbered by those who Are appalled by their perception that the effective Leader of the new democratic particularly since Sid Green departed the is now Manitoba federation of labor president Dick Martin May not sit in the opposition leaders office in the but the puppet strings from that office Lead to if Sterling Lyon has his Peter phone to get his Alberta instructions on Energy then Pawley has his Martin phone that tells him when to refill the paper clip Box on his the loyalists in the new democratic fold will Brush aside these and if All else will fall Back on the re scare excuse the party has since before to deny Green the it was not the official reason Green was bypassed in when Russ Paulley told delegates he wanted to keep the leaders seat warm for edit was not mentioned in when Schreyer showed up to claim that it was hinted at when the party was casting around to replace the Man who had brought it to in it has been the real reason that Sid Green has never been Able to Lead a political party until he formed his on Many matters of and fiscal Sid greens position is far closer to that of Sterling Lyon than it is to that of Howard or Dick his stand on that neither unions nor business or should get government legislation that guarantees Victory in any is one that would find wide general acceptance throughout the new democrats never hesitated to use greens expertise and they just did not want to be associated too closely with him at election because they interpreted his often devastating logic As something to be but Only if it could be controlled by others whose minds never questioned the party the nip used to try to hide Sid but Hope at the same time that he would win Inkster so that he could become their strength in it is because they and have been Able to use this strength that they Are work ing so hard against what they Are afraid of is that Sid Green will gather around him the same Bunch of people whose Over the eventually resulted in the nip has be come too much of an establishment party to tolerate doonesbury 919 Dick if i further coww5 Truk to speak Orr what a suf tense in w mrs Ive to Coxa i 4 ;