Winnipeg Free Press

Winnipeg Free Press (Newspaper) - November 19, 1981, Winnipeg, Manitoba Winnipeg free november 1981 7 oct truth negotiable in soviet Kabul Karmal regime says All those loud Bangs heard from Kabul Are just dynamite blasts from quarrying Stone for construction by Jonathan Steele the guardian of Kabul celebrated United nations Day in Kabul this year with a Garden party behind the House where Many United nations consultants chairs were lined up facing a where a cuban couple gave an exhibition two Indian ladies per formed a sinuous number and half cheerful looking poles wearing feathered hats and Bells and flowered skirts twirled up and polite clapping for these energetic amateurs was occasionally drowned by the sounds of More professional performance soviet mig24 Heli copter gunships in camouflage their bulbous machine gun nests clearly visible at the buzzed Over the the thud of rockets and heavy artillery intruded from a up at the dam by Wargha near the foreigners Golf which has become the outer permissible limit of the City on the Western viewers could see what the noise was scarcely 10 Miles from the City soviet tanks and helicopters were shooting at rebel outposts in the Vil Lages Between Kabul and an old resort at the foot of the beyond the tanks an expanse of Gold Englintin Birch Trees concealed the exact nature of the the puffs of smoke and dust As the rockets thudded in gave no clue As to whether significant damage was being Lon term residents of Kabul report that the fighting is closer to the capital than this time a year the govern ment has won control of Raghman but the bombing on that saturday after noon did not secure the surrounding a few Days later the gunships were rocketing there for the team of almost 100 most of them involved in Rural the War has meant a High degree of since the War intensified with the soviet inter government imposed Security restrictions have prevented the people from travelling outside Kabul to set up or supervise the projects they Are supposed to be govern ment officials admit that land Reform is operating in Only on Quarter of the country districts and that half the schools Are How tories could win next time with Angus Maclean relinquishing the premiership of Prince Edward we Are reminded of the tem poral nature of politics not even will be with us for the truth is that the real political heavies amongst us Leves and Trudeau May not be around much of them Hatfield is the old the Premier of new Brunswick has been longer on the Job than anyone save but his next elec Likely next will be a re prise a curtain Call and if he wins arrangements will be made for an orderly Transfer of As with Angus Davis and Lougheed came to Power within months of each Davis a successor in the tory Hegemony in Lougheed As a Brand new Broom in sacred the recent Winner of a fresh majority Man Date in is a 1001 cinch not to be present for the next Lough who made Western Canada a tory will almost certainly go to the polls one More time and then turn the keys of office Over to a As for he has All but succeeded in doing what television could not which is to make Claude 1 t his Liberal seem a credible Ryan is bad Tele but Levesque has become bad Trudeau and levelled him again the constitutional gathering at my own View is that the Premier of along with the separatist will become a waning influence in Canadian it will take some time until the Canadian people including the journalists realize How devastating tru Deaus federalist Triumph was Over his Good news travels in the prime minister has Given who is not among his Foremost a second Chance to Lead Quebec out of the swamp of separa and a Hundred years of Deu nations sophistry and into a effective participation in Canadian the prime minister has now his Niche in a place perhaps not so Large As John but equal or larger than Laurier or he has achieved with a Little help from his Davis and Hatfield remarkable he would be a fool to hang about much and Trudeau is not a when Trudeau More than half of the cerebral candlepower in Parlia ment will be lost if you worried about the age of the How about an Era of dim bulbs All this invites a question in a country for whatever has not been Overly endowed with How much further will it be weakened without the strengths of tru Davis and Lougheed one possible answer is in the new mix of issues and Davis and Lougheed would stay each of it must be has now a rare insight into the How it and How it can be made to work in the in View of All we have been what a waste it would be to see them packed off into political there is growing opinion in new Brunswick that Hatfield should move on into Federal and you would need to be deaf not to hear the same thing in and we All know the Call for Lougheed to go Federal was placed As Long ago As the decline of the Federal political parties has been in part caused by the Lack of Strong leadership from the there being none in the Feder Al the provinces filled the in the lengthy dynasty of Mackenzie All the regions were nearly Al ways represented by recognized Lead ers and such As Illsley and Gardiner and Howe and a party enriched by and Lougheed Brian Mulroney Bear a startling resemblance to a truly National something not seen in this country in Over 40 there of the question of the but that is really not the problem what is needed is a depth of leadership Quality representative of the whole As to which one leads the they could flip a what the backers of Hatfield and Mulroney should be saying to their while urging them to the is that whatever the each should stay on to remake the tory party into a National it might As a win the next Canada wide feature service despite these unpleasant senior spokesmen for the regime take a bullish explosions said for eign minister Shah Mohammed raising a Well Practised Eyebrow when i mentioned hearing heavy the he said Relief As he began to realize what had misled they have it almost every sometimes twice a for producing stones for construction you they announce it on the radio and the situation is he weve routed the main hideouts of these bandits and now they cant act in a group its Only a few individuals who indulge in terrorist activities and which is common All Over the we Hope to eliminate that president Babrak Karmal has told a meeting of local government officials i confidently assure you that total Security will prevail All Over the coun try in the near but that speech was made last and there is no sign that Karmels near future has the russians in Kabul Are Kremlin Gau Leiter Vasily a Voronchuk is the senior so Viet adviser in the afghan foreign and is frequently described in the West As the soviet proconsul in a title that he smilingly he gives his opinions with great although expressing a generally optimistic he terroristic activity is they Are better he claims that there Are Only a few tens of thousands of counterrevolution making them sound thin in to assess the real situation is almost Kabul abounds with rumours of actual fighting is usually except for an occasion like the Battle for people hear More than you see the muffled Echo of artillery thumping off the Grey Brown Hills that surround the or secondhand reports of an ambush Here and a skirmish in the last few months foreign journalists have Only been taken from Kabul to two Jala Labad and travel is always by no communist Diplo Mats never leave except for the Indian and Pakistan consuls in Jalapa bad and who can Monitor events afghan authorities refuse to answer detailed questions at out the from time to time the official news publishes Brief Battle their theme is predictable Victory for the afghan army with the support of local one typical on went like this several groups of counter revolutionary bandits have been wiped out in different provinces of afghanis Tan by the armed forces and Security forces with the help of local people in the past few two notorious for committing Highway arson and destruction of a teachers training Institute in Zaibak and a number of shops in Hazrati sul were eliminated in Namangan province in Logar province these purity forces routed a big group of counter revolutionaries after a successful raid on their arresting 14 of them and capturing american explosives and antitank bul most of the bandits were in Mazar Sharif the local Security chiefs account was extremely in october there was Only one terrorist when a group of about 30 bandits burned a the bandits fled when government troops this happened More than 100 Miles from in this time not far from the bandits robbed houses and prevented from going to the Security forces captured some of and found pakistani and american a few escaped and later blew up a dynamite killing six people they were caught and executed by a revolutionary Tribu Kabul itself is an Oasis of relative the Economy is functioning there is no sign of siege the hundreds of Little food stalls in the Street have As much Lamb from the Countryside As they apparently with the acquiescence of the watermelons and grapes spill out of the the Bazaar is a cosmopolitan Aladdin Cave of imported products with a Rich Ness of Choice to stun any Eastern european or russian toiletries and razor Blades from cigarettes from the United tins of Beer from West toothpaste from China and transistors from there is no Black Market for the National the which is exchanged privately at the same rate As in the based on opium smuggling through drugs Are an International hard one cynical european the russians have at least four bar Racks in and around the but soviet troops rarely appear on the truckloads of soldiers in floppy Khaki hats occasionally drive through the troops and police on patrol Are usually Well armed afghans Man the guar posts and gun batteries on top of the several Tawny Hills that split Kabul separate districts when it comes to foot guard duty or close the soviets pre Fer to take an auxiliary one episode reported from Kanda har Early last month May be rebels were openly operating in the making shopkeepers close their businesses and firing on govern ment building and any stray for six Days the soviets let Situa Tion then the afghans went in with soviet tank and helicopter sup the rebels but houses and a minaret were badly total control of the air is the main soviet although there Are reports that the rebels have begun to acquire some handheld sam7 antiaircraft on most mornings the air above Kabul is Abuzz with the whirr of flailing Roto Blades As the mi24 gun ships and the mi8s with their bomb disappear to the South and West of the one of their jobs is to Monitor the main highways for rebel roadblocks or spot any concentration of men on the soviet minesweepers precede All convoys but their electronic detectors May miss the plastic mines the rebels sometimes except for the few big soviet Offen such As the recent abortive Effort to win Back the pan Shir Valley North of soviet tanks Are used less As a tactical weapon than As Long rang lobbing shells at suspected positions in villages close to the main property damage is casualties among the rebels and civilians Are probably in spite of the bombing the rebels have never been nearer Kabul than they Are no one is sure what the military significance of that can it be sustained throughout the Winter the Snow line is already creeping Down the mountains around when the heavy Snow comes later this what will the rebels do Many will probably slip into to the Many Safe houses they More focus on Page 8 conclusions multiply about defeat reason Why did the new democrats win so convincingly was it the prom ise Aday Campaign conducted by Howard Pawley were people weary of protracted followed by a series of Yetton fulfilled Mega promises was it the desire for a More socially conscious party or was it pure dislike of the tory approach to governing John the journalist who decided to see what it was like on the other May have summed it up correctly when he i think we died of self inflicted there was a the tories were the first government in provincial his tory to have been voted out of office after Only one or were they hurled out in this the new democrats won 34 three More than the Schreyer government during its most popular and one More than the tories in when they received the largest popular vote in provincial history since the first world that figure was almost 49 per but it included huge majorities in southwestern Ridings and rather slim margins in this time the nip received per cent of the which was More evenly and gained support in traditional tory the tories still received 44 per which was enough to elect governments in the but could Only under the dome Arlene Billinkoff be translated into 23 unfortunately the swing which had received the majority of attention from both could not be and Thompson returned to the nip after a fou year absence along with James and Riel which had been in the tory fold for much meanwhile Wolseley and the new Ridings of Kildonan and River All of which had been consid ered As possible tory also joined the accompanied by the Liberal Haven of fort those Ridings were part of the 23 which had been considered to be when the votes were count it became evident that the margin Between the government and opposition had widened considerably As four Cabinet three tory three progressives and the sole Liberal went Down to the new democrats were jubilant at the Union while a More restrained group wan dered through the ballroom at the Holiday very quickly they realized it was not their reactions several business men watching the returns sniffed As they will spend More a lot of companies were sitting on the some were looking to get out of but they wont come to Winnipeg obviously the people do not really understand the Basic philosophical Dif noted another they think anyone who makes a profit is a rent control was the major some it was the entire or continued opposition to those first years of others it had Takena Long time to build a solid but it will not take too much time to Knock it added a who asked Graeme a former tory presi Dent he did not believe the answer was we just didst expect such a re sounding admitted Gary file or did asked Robertson he had not Felt any momentum at a tory but noted that Hindsight was we should have seen some warning but we never he did not regret his expert ence As a talking to thou Sands of people was the ultimate journalistic he admired it was fashionable to hit but he he did his work every Day and i give him full he won dered if there were some heavy hearts amid those new democrats who had hoped to reach for the leadership ring if Pawley after several who had been on the wrong Side of the leadership Battle Between Ster Ling Lyon and Sidney Spivak in were not As disappointed As others with the the most were bitter and As they attempted to figure out the reasons for the we had a dumb concluded one Stop me now turned people doonesbury it was easy to be philosophical when you Are noted one but it is far More difficult when you nevertheless Lyon attempted to be philosophical about the which he accepted As the will of the he intended to work for a civil and orderly Transfer of in that we can take some his tories would try to assist the new government to grasp opportune a Good opposition makes a better government and Manitoba is guaranteed of a better but will the opposition be led by Lyon he was reluctant to party president Harold Piercy also did not want to talk about a leadership but noted there would probably be a party convention in Early when there would Likely be a discussion of All one of those issues was certainly going to be if the immediate reaction was any Indica no doubt there will be Many Dis about the reasons for the there will be economic sex philosophical accusations about the Lack of Organiza Tion and inadequate social programs and talk about the nip promises hypnotizing the or As one person they really didst like he May be i pro reagans popu 6arw Poti test Pok 1119 meaning Mph an of but if books Nice fut Hal philosophy forthe Nice is the by to i accused of copying t ;