Winnipeg Free Press

Winnipeg Free Press (Newspaper) - January 23, 1990, Winnipeg, Manitoba U Winnipeg free press january Page u focus a whole team of soviet editors disappeared after stains name was misspelled in a Moscow newspaper press Freedom is fragile but journalists no longer face jail for mistakes Washington in the Early Days of his 40year career with the Moscow daily newspaper melor Sturua like any Canadian cub that it is very important to spell names he did not need a bellowing City editor to drive the Point All he had to do was to watch what happened when one name was mis spelled and published in his news there was no readers no annoyed Telephone no com plaint to the Moscow press coun the entire editorial team that had been on duty that night vanished from the newsroom the name that had been mis spelled when his fired and punished colleagues had the misfortune to be on duty was that of the current inhabitant of the Josef for a dictator who had spent the 1930s slaughtering millions of kulaks and murdering the senior leadership of the communist party and the red smashing a few journalistic careers in 1950 for a mistake that can happen for a Hundred reasons in a Busy newspaper was Sturua became a very careful he Learned How to survive in a dangerous world in As dictator succeeded fellow journalists would inexplicably fail to turn up for he would hear that some had been sent to slave labor Camps others had been his own background had pre pared him Well for this kafkaesque his a founder of David Macdonald Washington editor the social democratic spent nine years in czarist jails for advocating political As governor of the soviet Republic of he fell foul of Stalin and was whatever the fathers trans the son clearly was cent of in stains consanguinity automatically implied shared a concept once in Vogue among chinese War closed the door Sturua then was studying inter National affairs and languages at the Moscow Institute of International relations in preparation for a diplomatic his fathers fall closed the door to further participation in higher education and to a diplomatic Sturua decided to become a Jour a specialist in foreign of but was turned Down by Izvestia because of his fathers fall from As still happens today in the upper Levels of soviet bureaucratic the influence of a highly placed family Friend solved that problem and Sturua never looked is spending a year at the Carnegie endowment for International peace in Wash the City from which he was deported in 1982 because a Magazine correspondent had been kicked out of he bears no observable grudge for that sudden end to a six year stint covering his experience As a correspondent in new York and in London fitted him Well to speak this week in a discussion about journalism in the fast changing communist organized by the Freedom of the press com Mittee of the National press soviet he has done a Back flip from its Days As a purveyor of party propaganda for a series of he you can criticize Len even by soviet he the world had not been uniformly Black for journalists before Gorbachev arrival in Power in after Sta Lins Nikita Khrushchev had appointed his Soninlaw to run in leading to a better Atmo sphere at the in which re porters could get closer to writing the after Khrushchev Howe night fell again at Izvestia during what Sturua in a phrase used by Gorbachev and All his the Era of Stagna Tion under Leonid Sturua said the soviet press and Gorbachev had United immediately he came to Power because he needed our support to Send the message of glasnost and perestroika to the soviet masses and we needed the greater Freedom that Only he could our Aims were in journalists were ready for for the Opportunity to write some of the to carry out some objective although a state office of censor ship still editors chief can overrule which is a great step part of the atmosphere of greater press Freedom was the publication of formerly banned books by Alexander Solzhenitsyn and George allowing re views and discussions in which we can develop new political and economic in he we Are now publishing the works of almost All soviet writers who were either shot or Nouy Mir new world had recently published an article by a prominent thinker denouncing marxism leninism As Izvestia is published by the praesidium of the supreme As pravda is published by the Central committee of the communist party of the soviet Union and trud is published by the allusion Central Council of Trade limited leverage Sturua said that the terms of an unsatisfactory draft Law would define these newspapers As organs of these subject to their soviet he were opposing the proposed Law but had limited leverage because the government owns the the the printing equipment and computer with out those we Are like a Bird without the main he is that there is no solid foundation of press Freedom in my country it All depends on the current Leader revolution misses smugglers Haven in Southern Iran by Robert Stone special to the free press Bandar Abbas nothing happened in Bandar Abbas during the initial weeks of the people did hear rumours about the drama gripping Iran Northern cities but in Bandar Abbas there were no demonstrations and no life was completely nor about three weeks after the Shah left the several buses loaded with revolutionary guards from the ecclesiastical City of qom rolled into the guards immediately went about burning Down the Banks and the cinemas and stayed Long enough to stir up some trouble by harassing the locals about their commitment to when sum Mer weather set in with its constant and unbearable 40 degree heat and 100 per cent they packed up and Bandar Means port in the town is named for Shah Abbas who built the original port Early in the 17th Century and used it to Welcome some of the first european Diplo Mats to visit but any of the glory it once had is Long benign neglect the City has lived in benign neglect for first it was ignored from the administrative Centre at the Royal court in Isfahan and then it was ignored from it was 1976 when this Dusty strip of desert on the Strait of Hormuz finally received a piped water until then residents had to scoop with buckets from a communal Cis Tern that spread malaria and Hook the As the people who inhabit the coastal regions All around the Gulf Are have a couple of Good reasons for their Well known alienation from the revolutionary process that has trans formed the rest of the unlike the mainstream of iranian society which belongs to the shia sect of they overwhelmingly follow the sunni version of the the busloads of guards who Burnt the Banks and cinemas of Bandar Abbas failed to convince or coerce a single Bandari woman into wearing a Over their baggy Cotton trousers with dazzling embroidery at the Bandari women have for centuries draped a patterned cloth from their Heads and then Down around their the style is a Little reminiscent of an Indian in the name of moslem the costume is completed by the Addi Tion of a mask Over the face which covers leaving Only slits for the the Bandarik have always despised the desert dwellers who ruled looking instead to the sea for their they have plied their wooden dhows on the Gulf Waters for countless in the old Days they brought dates and figs from the coastal emirates to Exchange for frankincense in Saffron from northeastern Iran crossed to Arabia and there was always a human cargo of pilgrims bound for the holy Sites of Mecca and the myths Tell of valiant acts of of piracy and especially of sinbad the Sailor arose from this in their Golden age the dhows sailed up and Down the coast of Africa As far As to sri Lanka and the dhows still gently find ing their Way though the line of supertanker navigating the worlds economic jugular some of them net shrimp and the fish that thrive among the gulfs luxuriant Coral others Are smuggling crates of Pepsi from the free ports of Dubai and Abu All Are now equipped with inboard diesel in the Wake of the revolution and the devastating War with ban Dar Abbas has taken on a new strategic As Iran Only functioning Industrial port it has become the lifeline for a nation that finds itself Short of almost every single lines of Container ships and bulk carriers wait off Shore for their turn to unload soybeans an machine the Shoreline and the rugged Hills above the port bristle with antiaircraft a huge radar installation sweeps the Harbor and the narrow Strait beyond from a fortified position on a tired trucks Roll endlessly out of the guarded their Blear eyed Drivers grind gears As they set out on the thousand meter climb to the lip of the iranian Pla teau on their Way to the Industrial cities of the country heartland two Days drive to the but the real action in Bandar Abbas takes place just below the sea Wall when Low tide exposes a strip of Muddy then a crowd gathers and the place takes on a bit of a carnival Barefoot photographers with their Pant legs rolled up Lead ponies that children can sit on to pose for a acrobats draw a Circle of curious onlookers and pass the hat when the show is speedboats everyone has come to meet the hundreds of open speedboats that come bouncing across the surf on the thrust of their massive Yamaha outboard motors the kinds of boats that might seem More familiar towing the ban Dari smuggling tradition is an entire generation of Young Middle class iranians has been brought up on Western clothes and enter these habits cannot be easily such a ready Market cannot be the boats Are loaded to the gunwales with Cartons of american cases of instant Bales of Blue jeans and Box after Box of electronic trinkets from an old lady flops Over the Side of one of the up to her Knees in the she begins to make her Way through the noisy throng toward struggling to balance a huge cardboard she climbs the Bro Ken stairs to the top of the sea there she elbows a Little space for herself on the opens the Box and is ready for Busi smuggled Winston cigarettes for Sale her Enterprise a metaphor for the iranian Economy hand to tories Are frustrated by oppositions tactics with the session threatening to set a new record in several dozen pieces of legislation still in second Reading and consideration of departmental spending estimates yet to be tories have reached such a level of frustration that Many Are talking seriously of going to the that feeling has intensified As liberals and new democrats used their combined numerical strength to Force debate action on issues which the government did not necessarily want to but was unable to prevent because of its minority the frustration was particularly apparent after the speaker accepted the Validity of a Liberal matter of which alleged contempt by several tories when they walked out of a committee meeting and prevented others from completing their with that the House was to determine whether the matter should be referred to the privileges and elections com Mittee for examination and possible penal that debate gave the critics an Opportunity to chastise the tories for their lecture about the autocratic operation of the House and speak in pious tones about the need to maintain the democratic for tory House Leader Jim Howe it was an Opportunity to let off steam about the Way in which liberals and new democrats were preventing the system from the pathetic attempt to grab headlines has thrown this Assembly into the abyss of procedural he and for Liber als to talk about protecting the parliamentary system was ironic because they had show nothing but disdain for the rules since the first rather than supporting the under the dome Arlene Billinkoff governments progressive they were thumbing their noses regularly at tra attempting to Hijack the system and using it strictly for partisan he in his it was a sad Day for the people of it was sad because of the governments disrespect for the said Liberal House Leader Reg who believed Mccrae simplistic argument was consistent with the Way the tories were managing or mismanaging the affairs of the time after time we have been pushed against unreasonable deadlines by a group that cannot get its act he instead of there were this is not a government that accepts the fact that is in a minority they will cautioned former nip House Leader Jay nothing frustrates the business of this House More than a government that refuses to be held account Able through the traditional practice of arranging business in a Way which allows for significant input from All he lec in spite of tory attempts to run roughshod Over historic the opposition intended to play its proper what that role should be depends on individual Points of after losing two Days of Normal work because of the contempt the government hoped to make Progress last instead the opposition decided to Force a debate on a matter which is not within provincial jurisdiction and delay consideration of other Sharon Carstairs introduced a motion for an emergency debate about the Impact of via rail cutbacks on the speaker ruled it out of the opposition Over turned the ruling and the debate almost everyone agreed the Federal action was but the tories were equally opposed to the critics on at least 20 Days during this consideration of estimates has been delayed because of this Type of said Don so much for the parliamentary democracy which the critics had touted in the earlier they Are using the tyranny of a majority to break the rules of this he what we have today is crass added Jim How Many More times did the opposition intend to frustrate House business for their own political benefits he because it costs thousands of dollars a Day to operate this this is also a waste of taxpayers chided Harry who recalled the newly elected Liberal Leader urging tories and new democrats to refrain from Petty How quickly her attitude has he what we Are seeing today is simply what about the business of Manitoba asked Len because of this action the legislature had lost its it Isa mockery of the parliamentary added Clayton who accused the critics of being More the government was increasingly desperate and Why were the other parties tying up important business of the House asked despite the charge of tory the government House Leader believed he had tried to work through Compromise and but the opposition had placed politics ahead of everything we Are already into a ses Sion that has gone on far too he and the situation was becoming but is it intolerable enough for the govern ment to risk pulling the plug in Hope of gaining a majority the Premier has said he is not interested in an As Long As were Able to accomplish things we believe Are important for but that does not seem to be be it an escalation of tory frustration or a decision by new democrats to support a Liberal motion of Manitoban Are Likely to be at the polls this doonesbury by Garry Trudeau mice is that you aka you Hauy Book Inget Montouto that Ive got to up with Pappy had a big i think if youll just 1u join ;