Winnipeg Free Press

Winnipeg Free Press (Newspaper) - May 15, 1995, Winnipeg, Manitoba Editor John 6977044 focus Winnipeg free press a 7 May the facts about teens and chastity 1am writing to you on behalf of planned parenthood Manitoba ppm regarding the recent Arti Cle on teenagers and chastity published in the free press on april the article states that a number of pro abstinence groups Are springing up across the this new chastity trend must be examined in Light of the data on teenage sexual from Over 25 years of experience in the area of reproductive ppm knows that each Day in Over 100 teenage girls under the age of 20 become with the majority destined to raise their Chil Dren in poverty that Manitoba has the highest teen pregnancy rate per capita in the with an aver age of 45 girls Between the Ages of 15 and 19 becoming pregnant every week that teens Are increasingly testing positive for As Well As numerous sexually transmitted infections and that Given comprehensive and Access to Quality Young people will make responsible decisions concerning sexual protect themselves and their partners from and prevent unwanted preg our ability to provide sexual Ity education to Young people continues to be impeded by decision makers who believe that not talking about sex is the Best Way to keep Young people from having re cent studies demonstrate that sexuality education that teaches Only abstinence int in nearly two thirds of teenagers think teaching just say no is an ineffective deterrent to sexual sexuality educators have always included information about abstinence in sexuality education Cours effective programs include a Strong abstinence As Well As information about contraception and safer sexuality education is a lifelong process which involves acquiring in formation and developing attitudes and sexuality Edu cation provides individuals with in formation about taking care of their sexual and helps them acquire the skills to make in order for sexuality education for adolescents to be they need to address both sexual abstinence and safer sexual programs would be offered from kindergarten through High school in comprehensive health current National statistics Indi Cate that 26 per cent of Grade 9 Stu and nearly 50 per cent of Grade 11 students engage in sexual with Only 42 per cent of those individuals using birth con these numbers will continue to As governments and oth ers Cut Back funding for health and education we need to acknowledge adolescent sexual Active recognize the sexual health needs of Young people and practise responsible sexual Miriam Baron executive director planned parenthood Manitoba ignoring racism is dangerous it is with fear that i observe Rac ism growing in As a Young person i believe it is important to be aware of what is happening around it might look innocent As differ ent racist groups spread their Mes but we have to remember that there Are organized racist groups in our there will always be conflicts in a multicultural different Reli languages and cultures make it difficult to that is Why we should try to accept each others different perspectives in human beings fear something that is new and different and often blame things that go wrong on the in instead of being scared of the unknown we should be curious about what we can i believe most people want their children to grow up in a secure we Are the ones who can make a Dif As Young Are going to Lead this country in the and it is necessary to learn to respect peo ple and beliefs our society can not change unless we Start with our own Annama Khidir Crystal City armed forces deserve gratitude this is in reply to the letter aghast at soldiers by Alec Herbert free april i am getting a bit annoyed every time i pick up the paper that there is someone running Down our armed As this is to the editor the free press welcomes letters from letters must be signed and should include a clearly printed address and Telephone names will be published but not All letters May be edited for style and Short letters Are less Likely to be please address letters to letters to the Winnipeg free 1355 Mountain Winnipeg letters can be sent to our fax number letters maybe submitted through the internet at letters sent via the internet obviously cannot be but must include Home address and Telephone the 50th anniversary of vend Vij i wonder where he was when our veterans fought for his maybe he want or old he should thank the armed forces members who fought and gave their lives for the Many Privi Leges that he have had if Hitler had As for our United nations i have fam ily who have served Over and let me Tell you it is no bed of How quickly people god bless our armed forces wherever they Kay Kihn Winnipeg immigration plan bad for Manitoba at a press conference representatives of various Faith and minority groups of Manitoba addressed the Issue of the Landing fee of and the processing fee for immigrants and and expressed concern Over discouraging aspects of our new immigration the imposition of the High entry fee and now the sponsorship Bond requirement has effectively slammed the door on discussion of a viable immigration All we hear is rhetoric that amounts to Little More than basking in past the Liberal commitment to take in immigrants totalling one per cent of the population annually has gone out the we assume that the general Public is against higher immigration theres a fear of immigrants being a Drain on society and rivals in the Job the As sumption is we do not have to curb immigration but to expand the Job it is perfectly in order to offer citizenship rights to wealthy entrepreneurs so Long As they Are not Here merely to exploit our natural and human if investors Are Wel so should be their families and new immigrants with expertise and they Are the instruments of growth and a True source of new wealth and we Are prepared to punish ourselves by keeping out worthy immigrants with unlimited in we need to take the initiative on immigration and Refu gee we have seen immigration dwindling in recent we should resist the sponsor ship Bond proposal and offer to take in family class immigrants and other Independent immigrants willing to Settle Here on their As instant Consumers and contributors to the service they would become an asset to the prov we hear of a memorandum of understanding having been reached Between the Federal and Manitoba the full scope of that is not known we should work to elevate it to the status of an agree ment Between the two Levels of government to be Able to formulate immigration and refugee intake policy suited to our social and development Praag Naik Manitoba interfaith immigration and citizenship Council Manitoba hindu seniors Las vegas casinos Arent smoke free be the question in the free press answers column on april 22 Are there any smoke free casinos in Las vegas the that most casinos now have smoke free sections is there Are nonsmoking sections but they certainly Are not Winnipeg healers do brisk business san Cristobal de Las Ca Mexico the Stone floor of the dark Church is carpeted with Pine at the East end stands an effigy of John the along the North Wall Are life size effigies of other most of them in Glass worshippers Kneel in Small each group has cleared the Pine Needles from a space of floor in front of clusters of candles stand on the Stone lighting the faces of the worship pers and the religious official who accompanies each bottles of coca cola or Pepsi cola Are passed from one worship per to they also sip a Clear liquid made locally and known As pox pronounced a Brand like distilled liquor made from sugar prayers Are chanted in a sing song off to one lies a worshipper evidently Over come by half reclining stiffly on the carpet of Pine unwilling to lie unable to stand tourists this is daily morning prayer at the Church of san Juan a traditional mayan Community in the Chiapas a 20minute bus ride from san Cristobal de Las tourists Are allowed to enter the Church at two pesos and visitors Parade through in a steady but photography in the Church or at Public rituals is strictly forbidden on pain of imprisonment and the townspeople give visitors every by hostile stares and a cold manner unusual in that they Are not the town has a government clinic with a but the sick of Chamula turn More often to the a Grade of the Chamulak Priesthood who perform Healing most of them refuse to Deal with but Salvador Lunes has a sign in front of his door inviting Cash Lunes assistant told visiting canadians in Early May that the healer had already cured George Bush of cancer while he was president of the United an unconvincing photomontage on his living room exiles rebuild their lives san Cristobal de Las Ca Mexico Domingo Lopez Angel has a two Way radio in his cinder lock House in la a Rocky Hillside overlooking this colonial City in the Chiapas he needs and other leaders of the Chamula sex Pulyado Community need to keep in close touch to defend them selves when the raiding parties from Chamula they came once two years while representatives of the Cha Mula Community were meeting with sex Pulyado leaders at the Cha Mula City a mob from Cham Ula led by municipal officials invaded la Hormiga and the neigh Boring Barrio of throw ing shooting at residents and burning the wooden shacks that were then the houses for sex fifty three people were the sex Pulgados fled to scattered settlements elsewhere on the outskirts of the sex Pulgados Are better organized they have Cut roads and Laid water and sewer lines in the Rocky electric Power lines have been installed and some times the Power the government is listening to us a tiny bit More since the Zap Atista revolt said Lopez president of the representative Council of Chiapas High lands an sex Pulyado com drawing by Violeta Miramon Terence Moore worshippers Kneel in Small groups in Chamulak was different from the Black magic Practised by Cham Ula he had murdered three people last fall because they were found to be those who have been expelled from Chamula for abandoning the traditional religion Tell a different they say that 584 Chamu lans previously expelled from the Community for converting to protestant christianity lost Hope last fall of receiving permission to re turn and moved Back of their own a mob of Over 200 people attacked two of the families on killing two men and a what is the source of your Power a visitor asked he said his assistant said god was Wall showed Lunes sitting at one end of a a picture of a Smil ing George Bush sits at the other end of the the assistant offered this As proof that Lunes cured Bush we were was also due to Fly to Rome in May or perhaps july to cure Pope John Paul the same assistant told us that the Chamula healers practise White he the source of his another visitor asked How George Bush had known about his miraculous television and Magazine he another Visi Tor agreed to pay the 60peso can fee for a Healing Lunes sat her in front of his sipped a Little chanted and touched the visitors shirt with she later reported that she Felt no better and no but she had exceptionally Good Luck in get Ting Home to san Cristobal just be fore the torrential afternoon Down Chamulak unusual and carefully preserved religious rituals have attracted steady streams of both tourists and an the rituals and their meanings have been documented by Many careful observers Over the last an american anthropologist writing in 1974 noted that Cham ulans relied on pox to produce the heat needed for communication with the alcoholism a mexican anthropologist in 1977 reported that healers were especially prone to chronic Alco holism because they had to drink to bring divine help to their a during a typhus a healer could be continuously drunk for Many Days and some died Young from damage to their digestive the heavy use of alcohol is a big reason Why some Cham ulans quit the traditional rites and convert to protestant or Catholic Christiani in Many cases reported by an a Chamulak refuses to serve As pasion or Patron of a festival which involves buying soft food and other merchandise to entertain the entire Community for a week or More and then is expelled for failing to perform a religious the mexican National human rights after investigating scores of complaints from Chamula sex Pulgados Over Many issued a report a year ago fingering Chamula mayor Dom Ingo Lopez Ruiz for violating the religious Freedom of Chamula Resi dents by organizing it urged the state government of Chi Apas to take Legal action against this has not been Terence sex Pulyado Homes in la overlooking san Cristobal in the Chiapas Terence Moore Unity defence now the electricity is not Cut off quite so cinder lock houses Are gradually being built to replace the wooden shacks that the sex Pulgados built each family is allot Ted a 10by20metre plot on the Steep slope to put up As Good a House As they can Cut off from the land that was their livelihood in the sex Pulgados have had to make a fresh Start in san Lopez Angel works As a he also preaches in a local protestant he ran for the National Congress As a candidate of the socialist democratic revolutionary party in last Falls the government says the pro lost the but the pro Doest be Lieve other sex Pulgados earn their Liv ing making handicrafts to sell to the City government of san Cris Tobal de Las the state government of Chiapas and the fed eral government of Mexico have consistently failed the sex Pulgados by failing to protect failing to defend their Legal rights and failing to provide Public services to we have Confidence in the Zap Atista National liberation army because they do not betray their Lopez Angel the formal list of 34 demands published last year by the Zap Atista rebels includes this item we ask and require the cessation of expulsions of indigenous people from their communities by Cacique supported by the we require a guarantee of free and voluntary return of All expelled people to their places of origin and compensation for their the governments reply was an offer to write a new Section into the mexican criminal code Mak ing it a crime to expel indigenous people from their by Garry Trudeau it Zonker ju5tcaujn6in How pub is to poin6 surprisingly come of Trunp on he now 5ay5 he wants to teach it Flearl Alltha Hap time to teach him z ha5to re move an ;