Winnipeg Free Press

Winnipeg Free Press (Newspaper) - March 13, 1989, Winnipeg, Manitoba Winnipeg free press March Page 7 by ton Meh rain special to the free press new Delhi although marxists Rule in two of India 24 they have remained a fringe political Force in National there Are Indica that things May be the ruling Congress 1 party is clearly in and the National a coalition of centralist Par ties headed by Singh once prime minister Rajiv Gandhi finance minister presenting a viable alternative in the sunup to this years general with these developments in India two communist the communist party of India Chi and the up marxist Are trying to put their differences fur they seem interested in an Alliance with the National front As a Way of entering the Arena of National pundits Here see these new at tempts at reconciliation Between the two parties As Long they also regard the move towards an Alliance with the National front As a bold but very difficult communist parties in India have been a Peculiar Breed compared to their counterparts in other third world while accepting to work within the democratic sys they both if not in at least in to very orthodox marxist India main communist the Chi was founded before inde the Crim is a splinter group which emerged after the indochinese Border conflict of class Rule in the cps program the Indian state is seen As an Organ of class Rule used by the National Burgeois with Strong links to the Feudal the Crim views the state the same Way but stresses the Burg noises collaboration with for eign these ideological arguments have been mostly academic the major differences have been on issues of a More practical a these include attitudes to wards the Congress i a dynasty that has passed from the late Gandhi to her son both parties have differed on whether communalism should be the major target of their and on foreign while one favored the other backed Crim general Secretary an 80yearold vet eran of the communist movement in announced at the 13th con Gress of the party on 1 this that the two parties Are grow ing closer together on these this flexibility May have come about with the realization that orthodoxy has not paid both communist parties remained silent last year about the profound changes in the citadels of their the soviet Union and but in the january con the Crim came out in total support of the soviet Leader ship under Mikhail leftist parties by a National Campaign committee made up of six leftist including the two communist was committee members were at pains to emphasize that they were not forming another opposition front parallel to the National front opposition group Lead by the janata dal party and its Leader they their at tempt was to launch a nation focus Singh coalition will present viable alternative in India general defeat of Gandhi is major goal of left wide Campaign against communal imperialism and press for the adoption of a left and democratic observers Here ail agree that the committees move is strongly motivated by the lefts desire to ally with the National front to topple Gandhi in the next they say that the communist parties in particular see the move As a Way to broaden their electoral constituent so far to the two states they Crim politburo member Harki Shan Singh Surjeet has already admitted that without the National the janata Rajiv Gandhi can not be Singh response till now has been confused and non commit although some months ago he the left is a natural but the major obstacle to the Alliance for both groups is the righting Bharatia janata party a hindu fundamentalist organization that forms an element of Singh National front co there is a lot of inhouse fighting within the National front some observers even argue that India so called first National opposition since Independence is so fragmented that despite Gandhi demise it May not carry the Day in the forthcoming int optimistic although the bps inclusion in the National front was not rejected by Singh last he has not defined his relationship with it very optimistically it is extremely Howe that National front would snub the Bop in favor of the no matter How much the Crim soft ens its stand on communally oriented by de Claring defeat of Rajiv Gandhi As the major goal of the the Crim has already implied it will downplay its longstanding conflict with the the National fronts ultimate aim however is capturing the majority vote in India hindi winning in this Northern of India is the key to nation Al Gandhi Congress i party has managed to win the area and Rule India almost uninterrupted for 40 years without Ever having a major Ity of the popular leftist ideology Here is an alien Politi Cal culture and an unlikely vote most of the National front candidates and prominent leadership Are Feudal they will indeed make strange Fellows with the fearful Romanias future is full of peril by William Pfaff special to the free press today is ruled by not marxism socialism has been made a vehicle of a triumphalist nationalism by Romanias Leader of the last two Nicolae eau Bucharest military currently the most generously financed of Romanias instructs in the inevitability of the modern romanian describing a triumphant progression from the free Dacian of prehistory to the nation led today by two providential Nicolae Ceausescu and his this Romania is not the latin nation cast among the slavs that Romania in the past was held to if Romania were a latin and roman nation the old roman province of its language and ethnic character formed As the Columbia encyclopedia says by its roman then it could be seen As a foreign intrusion on the Black sea an inherently limited on the other a nation descended from tribes of free Dacian is one whose ancestors ranged far beyond the modern Borders of to maps in this military museum do not clearly indicate political frontiers a visitor could think that the proper territory of the free a cans reaches far beyond today certainly into what now is soviet an official bulletin observes the millenarian history of the romanian people attests that there has practically never been an essential moment when in one or another Way the Unity of the carpet danubian and Pontic Peoples was not demonstrated even though separated by artificial political the three Feudal romanian states created at the beginning of the second millennium Wallachia and Transylvania have always been bound by a vast network of political and cultural re cruelly oppressed of was a hungarian dependency for most of its romanian population cruelly Romania was awarded it after the first world since then it has been the turn of Transylvania hungarian minority to be modern Romania is a recent Union of moldavian and peo Ples converted to christianity in roman subsequently overrun by magyars in the 13th Cen by the they later were dependencies of the ottoman they reemerged politically As ottoman Power declined in the late 18th and 19th rebelled against the finally managed to achieve political autonomy in Union and International rec Transylvania remained the nation has since experienced very mixed fortunes just Short of 70 years of not very successful Mon Archy under German princes and an English a sacrificial part in both world a qua Sifas Cist episode during the late 1930s and Early and since 1947 a communist Marx and Lenin Are not much mentioned in Romania we Are led to believe that the great epoch of modern romanian history began with the ascent to Power of Nicolae a great builder for Bucharest today is torn apart by construction projects As Ambi for Bucharest As those which Albert Speer drafted in 1939 for postwar Speer never realized his plans in Bucharest construction is nearly monumental Public vast Urban a a huge House of the nation originally the House of the facing an immense Boulevard Avenue of the Victory of socialism Lead ing through the cites Centre into the lined with apartment buildings and free of fountains in its ornamental promenades All this is nearing heavy Cost the architectural style is less Speer or Stalin than postmodern and Eclectic a romanian critic privately Calls it it is not Jinhu although construction has Eli cited a heavy human Cost in displacement and the whole thing is being done at break neck work goes on night and Day some 40 construction cranes visible from my hotel what Ever Nicolae Ceausescu is going to leave his physical Mark on to accomplish this the of have been starved of Power and of of food and living conditions Are the worst in Eastern every thing that can be exported for hard currency is but Bucharest is being the country Side is being modernized by destroying peasant villages and in stalling people in Concrete Block apartment to live like their City and also be More conveniently Romania is not a secure its Unity is not its Borders Are not its territorial claims Are not its neighbors Are hos the act of National affirmation being made today even hysterically made thus is not without emotional resonance but it is a false there is fear in everyone who lives in Romania knows that it is and that Romanias future is full of Ceausescu leaving a what is upsetting people these Days is that aut Opac keeps charging them premiums As if their cars stayed while paying claims on the More realistic basis that the older a car the less it is one of my visitors recently complained that i was on Auto acs Side because i told him that this has been aut Opac policy Ever since Howard As the minister responsible Back in issued the first it is a policy that did not seem to bother people much in the Early Days of the govern ment insurance probably because the insurance was so cheap it is obviously a policy that is beginning to bother people now that they Are paying the Manitoba government As much As they would have to pay a private aut Opac assigns new cars to its top sometimes creating a new with higher to reflect in creasing As a the car stays in this category for at least ten the premiums year by by what Ever general increase aut Opac at the same the value of the car is As is Auto acs responsibility for the total amount it will pay to repair the if repairs Are estimated to exceed the depreciated value of the aut Opac will write it at whatever it decides to be the current Market even though the Motorist is paying a Premium based on what he paid for the car Ken Emmond wrote aut Opac to complain about and sent a copy of his letter to Mike he said just seven Days after spending to make sure his family station Wagon was in shape to stay on the he suffered an Accident after which aut Opac offered him a write off value of instead of repairing his car at an estimated fear i Fred Cleverley Cost of As Emmond told that was not it was he said he chose the word using the dictionary definition meaning to obtain from a person by oppression or the abuse of Emmond went on to argue that the insurance offered by aut Opac was insurance Only As Long As a car was he argued that motorists who owned cars which would Cost More to repair than aut Opac thought they were Worth should be permitted to skip the Purchase of collision which is now part of the compulsory insurance package that must be bought in order to get a licence to run an automobile on the Emmond is it is perfectly reason Able to require any Motorist to protect the person or property of others he May injure or but it is quite unreasonable to require a Motorist to insure his own proper it is unreasonable to collect a Premium on the basis of the Cost of a car when new and then pay claims Only on the basis of the depreciated i checked with Wawanesa to see How they treated customers in provinces where they Are permitted to compete for automobile i was told that the category ratings of cars were under constant and that anyone who bought a new car would see the depreciated value reflected in lower premiums for that car within three years of the i was told also that Wawanesa offers its automobile insurance customers an for a under which the customer would receive Dollar for Dollar what he paid for a new car if it were damaged beyond its depreciated value in the first three years of such replace ment insurance was recommended by judge Robert Kopstein in his report on if we did not reduce premiums As the cars got Wawanesa told we would find that our customers were buying their insurance that Choice is not available to Manitoba who must buy their Basic insurance from and must abide by its Emmond again that All Manitoba motorists whose vehicles Are five years or More old face an insurance fee that amounts to extortion before they can put their cars on the he suggested this was part of Auto acs customer last another visitor last week echoed Emmonds he showed me the in crease in premiums he had paid since he first insured his 1979 when i attempted to explain to him while i May not agree with this was aut Opac he accused me of being on Auto acs which will probably Surprise More than a few people Over at aut Opac another letter writer got himself caught in the web of he could not under stand since he had five Merit Points on his Drivers he should lose his Merit discount this in Auto acs complicated he had not lost the Merit discount on his Drivers Only on his he lost that because he had been involved in what he described As a minor As far As aut Opac is there is no such thing As a minor Accident involving Merit even backing into a Tele phone provided the Driver decides to file a claim for the disqualifies the vehicle from a which is far More substantial a discount than the saving allowed on a Drivers aut Opac regulations state that the owner must not Only have evidence of his Safe driving record on his Drivers he must not have been involved in any Accident in which he is determined to be 50 per cent or More at fault during the past one solution would be to open up Basic coverage to private if aut Opac is As popular As it claims to it has nothing to if motorists had a they would be less Likely to doonesbury 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