Winnipeg Free Press

Winnipeg Free Press (Newspaper) - January 9, 1990, Winnipeg, Manitoba In u Winnipeg press january Page 7 focus legalization could Deal big blow to drug mafia by Jonathan Power special to the free press Ion Don at Christmas and new year we get a Sharp reminder that Alco hol is the cause of motor vehicle deaths a year in the United it is a causal Factor in half of americas homicides each yet the drinks Trade itself is in which seem to have no pronounced seasonal highs and Are Only a contributing Factor in around 20 per cent of yet the drugs Trade has spawned a monster crime network to grow the raw process move them and deliver the finished product to the general Manuel Antonio Noriega was Only the tip of a very Large the colombian drug Syndi Cate alone is reckoned to be Worth billion a entitling it to a listing with the largest companies alongside the big so Rich Are they they have if the colombian government agrees to get off their to pay off the country entire foreign thwarted by the determination and courage of the present colom Bian administration they Are trying to bring it to its killing newspaper editors and Jour a highly respected presidential candidate most recent blowing up a passenger plane in through their political Surro Gates they Are sponsoring a referendum on january 21 that they Hope a increasingly electorate will sup if passed it will forbid their extradition to the the one place where judges and juries May dare to convict them and Send them to prison for in Bolivia in 1980 the drug lords tried to Hijack the government and failed but new attempts Are under in Panama they successfully ensnared the country Node posed general in although the drug Barons themselves Are less the coca growing peasantry has formed an unholy Alliance with sen Dero Luminoso shining the most ruthless and murderous Ultra communist guerrilla movement Ever encountered in latin in president Carlos Salinas de Gortari fights a War against both the cocaine traffickers from the South and Mexico own poppy and marijuana quantum leap in the organized crime Nur tured by prohibition in the revived by illegal gambling and abortion in the postwar and now going from strength to strength on the Back of the narcotics pushes out the tentacles of its com plex distribution network from the big cities into even the Small Rural on the streets Small time competing for their push up americas murder rate by a quantum the one thing that can be said about All the efforts to defeat this monster crime network is that the More involved a government Agency is in combating illegal drug trafficking the More Likely it is to be these Are the observant conclusions of professor Michael Dziedzic of the air Force he makes the further important Point that the drug threat in spite of its severe National Security implications is not inherently a Mili tary threat the straightforward application of military firepower to this problem is not Likely to be yet both with the Reagan and Bush administrations the tendency has been this culminating in the invasion of a couple of years ago the and bolivians mounted a joint military raid on cocaine processing Labora tories in the Al Beni rain it captured the headlines but no tray even though the labs were production was restored once the four month operation was the Only lasting Effort was to reinforce ant american sentiment in i George Bush has continued where Ronald Reagan left albeit with More funds and a greater sense of Overall wrong ingredients his August emergency package of million to Colombia is made up of too Many of the wrong Ingre a specific request from the colombians for million for civil Ian purposes was answered with a derisory at the same time William Ben director of the office of National drug policy has talked of deploying american troops in but democratic Colombia is not Onema ruled All this has done is to inflame Colombia already Strong National ism and has pushed president Vir Gilio Barco bravely Clamp ing Down on the Medellin to face unnecessary political Battles at it has made the vote for extradition in the january referendum All the More harder to Colombia needs two things from concerned support for those threatened civilian institutions and policies that make the country credible to its people the the the Congress and the March of the legitimate to Aid the latter Means finance for land Reform and the removal of prohibitive tariffs by the and even More by Western Europe and Japan on Colombia chief agricultural exports its ban orchids and Chrysan the must also Lead the fight to reinstate the recently lapsed International Coffee agreement which has led to a Sharp fall in Coffee Only when peasant cultivators and agricultural Export ers have assured alternative sources of income Are they Likely to turn against their drug the must do what it did in 1933 with alcohol end prohibition and thus pull the Rug firmly from under the drug when theres no profit in the Black Market the drug Trade will be there Are lessons to be Learnt from the Way industrializing Brit Ain dealt with the cheap Gin epidemic in the 18th captured with All its violence and degradation in the drawings of cheap homemade Gin almost Des troyed the working Quality monitored productivity fell and families were so parliament decided to supervise the but the emphasis of the Reform was not on prohibition but on controlling and redirecting the impulse to in a supervisory body was established to Monitor the Quality of spirits with the express purpose of cutting out poisonous tax Reform made less harmful cheaper than stupefying gradually some sort of discipline was brought into the booze Busi the same must be done with they must be openly sold and impure forms like crack must be and a ceaseless Battle must be As has reasonably successfully happened this past decade with cigarettes and fatty to warn people away from their for those who succumb there should be easy a Cess to medical and remedial fact financed out of the tax on Legal drug Consumers themselves Are not yet destroying whole countries of drug racketeers and profiteers drug relative to alcohol rarely kill either other people or traffickers the overriding priority today must be to take the Blac Market profit out of the drug that is the Only Way to win the War against the destruction of civilized pacifying Medicine needed to find cure for ailing palestinians by Zachariah Kay special to the free press Jerusalem there is Noth ing out of the Ordinary when a doctor and pharmacist discuss diagnoses and prescriptions which Are Normal parts of their profession Al such routine practices can hardly be expected to catch the Public Eye in its Day today opera but when the doctor and pharmacist have acquired reputations in Fields virtually unrelated to their academic then their nonmedical diagnoses and prescriptions Are not without in this the doctor is a physician by brigadier Gen eral and former head of the civil administration in Judaea and Samaria and labor party Ephraim Sneh and the pharma Cist happens to be the Well known palestinian activist and editor of the East Jerusalem newspaper Al Hanna now into the third year of the the doctors diagnosis and the pharmacists prescription do not necessarily imbue general optimism for curing what ails the palestinian since the Start of the Intifada there have been some changes in the overheated the Plo has publicly claimed that it has adopted the in partition plan for Sepa rate Arab and jewish Given qualified recognition to in Resolution 242 and disclaimed acts of King Hussein has re moved his hash emite kingdom of Jordan from the Issue insofar As he has declared support for and recognition of the Plo proclaimed israels like led National Unity government has adopted the Rabin Shamir plan whose Best known Fea Ture is elections for the palestinians of Samaria and thus for the first local palestinians have been recognized As the official partners in the negotiating excluding the Sneh Points out that there Are two Basic attitudes in israeli society one favouring an interim arrange ment for several years to cultivate some measure of Confidence and a More permanent arrangement based on territories for leading to some form of sovereignty for palestinians and Security for almost 100 per cent of israelis regard the Unity of Jeru Salem As within that context there Are two schools of thought one seeking a modes i Vendi the other Only dialogue with those palestinians who accept terms which exclude Sovereign self while pointing out that the inti Fada has not affected the two schools of the doctor notes that it has impacted upon israeli society to the Point of israels attitude will be influenced by actions and not statements because Security is the Keystone his prognosis is hardly enveloped in optimism since the Intifada has brutalized palestinians and israelis As it has crossed the Green line of the pre 1967 Borders in order to inflict in juries on israeli on the other regards the Intifada As the Only game in town and believes it to be genuine resistance designed to move the status quo from its Adamant the pharmacist editor prescribes a third year for the inti Fada in order to affect israeli Public for him there is no alternative to the Plo which must Nomi Nate the delegation for the electoral process taking into account the Mubarak and Baker following the Plo Siniora declares that the process must have International supervisor which could also be fulfilled by soviet involve he opts for the beit Sahur Type of resistance to tax collection As even though the taxation is Legal in accordance with International Siniora would also like to work together with particularly those regarded As being within the peace individual operation in addition to the heinous perpetration of the red the Black panthers and Hamas hardly lends credibility to the Intifada As the Only game in while the doctor and the pharma Cist editor might appear close to Gether in their approaches to the ailing reality Breeds More cynicism than hebrew University Raphael is regards the Intifada As Noth ing less than he opines that if one throws rocks one cannot expect roses in giving no credence to Plo Decla he stresses that if Palestin Ian Arab National Hopes want sup then jewish National aspirations have to be endorsed by the Plo and arabs As a if both sides acknowledge each others National causes then israeli recommends a wholesale renegotiation of the original Palestine mandate which would include All of Israel and the hash emite while Hanna Siniora and Raphael israelis attitude Are almost at opposite ends of the Sneh seems to personify the More conciliatory left of the the physic Ian does not want discussions to deteriorate into what he Calls comparative he wants the Mubarak and Baker Points to be accepted As his party has done and get the dialogue under Sneh regards the Mubarak and Baker Points not As procedural but that might be the proper method but cant be realized when it confronts liked obstinacy and palestinian indeed one wonders when the antagonists Are going to Swallow some pacifying will it occur before the end of the Intifada third year cold War attitudes will melt under open skies scheme by John Best special to the free press Ottawa picture Moscow sends the Canadian government a Little love note which in substance dear Canadian friends tomorrow we would like to go spying on kindly make the Neces sary and Canada duly it has no you will it cant but it will be real if present plans Bear it will happen under the umbrella of a scheme called opened the ultimate in East West Trust and Confidence building open skies provides for Short notice Aerial inspections of the territories of nato and Warsaw pact members to assure against Clandestine military a 23nation meeting of foreign ministers of the two alliances will be held in Ottawa starting 12 to work out the it will be the first time the foreign ministers have got together since the recent electrifying developments in Eastern eur exemplified by the crumbling of the Berlin therefore the Agenda jul Likely be More extensive than originally broader issues of arms reduce and perhaps other the Nitt Gritty of the Oklay will still be about open the negotiations begin in Earnest when the Politi Cia ministers depart after two and their with retinue of they will be aiming at an agreement that opens the skies of North Western Europe and the communist bloc to virtually unlimited Aerial surveillance something could scarcely have been envisaged a year or so organizers of the Ottawa conference Are so excited that they Are predicting a final Accord in the at a followup meeting to be held in that would be even before the East West agreement on reducing conventional forces in under negotiation in Vienna since this March and tentatively expected to be concluded next and it would be neatness since open skies inspection is expected to play a key part in verifying the implementation of the conventional forces open assuming it takes will represent an extraordinary Advance in the search for Means to ensure against cheating on arms control and disarmament agree most experts agree that such verification instruments Are As important As the agreements of other Means already exist for checking on disarmament no table spy but an air plane is much More flexible than a satellite flying a fixed or stationary orbit it can suddenly change or turn around and take a second look at something that looks satellites Are largely a preserve of the great As envisioned by the plan would work something like this the russians would give for in stance it would likelier be the United states or West but never mind 24 hours notice that they wished to carry out an after the notice period has an unarmed soviet air plane flies to a designated Canadian there it is and checked by Canadian experts to make sure it is indeed unarmed and is not carrying any unauthorized the Layover period no More than 24 after that barely More than two Days from the original advisory the soviet plane commences its reconnaissance Mission across Canadian air it might carry out a number of flights Over a designated say 48 flying anywhere it wishes to subject Only to reasonable flight safety Canada would be entitled to the same privileges in soviet air the same would apply to any two countries on either Side of the East West Divide or for that on the same the blueprint is closely modelled on a plan put Forward by president Dwight Eisenhower 34 years and summarily rejected by the Kremlin As a Bald espionage plot against the but times have changed since the mid and at a nato Summit meeting this Spring in president George Bush got Allied leaders to endorse a renewed pitch to catching the Ball thrown by the and Ever the Good offered to Host a conference to get the initiative the soviet Union and its Warsaw pact allies eagerly accepted Canadas invitation Elo quent testimony to the overcoming of cold War attitudes in our this is Vintage Canadian diplomacy building Confidence at the margins a vital and one that our diplomats happen to be quite Good the Prospect of soviet air planes snooping around Canadian air space almost at and ours in soviet air takes some getting used doonesbury by Garry Trudeau this Panama 15 a Hotow Uto maj Roppol Saigon Pont a ;