Winnipeg Free Press

Winnipeg Free Press (Newspaper) - December 8, 2000, Winnipeg, Manitoba Focus a15 hic Mir 2000 we Justice prevail they seem strange Yugoslavia Slobodan Milosevic and Chiles general Augusto Pinochet appear to have Little in the chilean Exgene ral claims he overthrew a democratically elected government in 1973 to save his country from communist Yugoslavia for Mer a onetime committed communist maintains his controversial actions in the 1990s in Croatia and Kosovo were justified to prevent the virtual breakup of the yugoslav notwithstanding such rationalize both plunged their respective nations into violence and unleashing class and ethnic with hundreds of thousands fleeing for their lives and thousands methodically massacred or summarily further twist both Are now confronted with demands they be prosecuted for human rights abuses and crimes against humanity allegedly committed while in in a further twist of the two former strongmen owe their present predicament to the col lapse of communism a decade prior to that authoritarian Lead ers throughout the world were Able to repress their own people with relative superpowers and their allies were More concerned with defeating ideological enemies than with human rights in third it was a time when so called third world nations were courted assiduously by the competing communist and capitalist vying for support from dubious regimes whose Goodwill or cooperation especially at the United nations served ideological or strategic to protect its own the soviet Union crushed democratic move ments in Hungary in 1956 and Czechoslovakia in also ignoring blatant oppression in Washington itself was so determined to stamp put communism in the West Ern hemisphere it backed righting oligarchies and military regimes throughout the even training those responsible for Central Ameri Cas infamous death squads when Chiles marxist opposition Salvador squeaked in As president in Washington immediately ordered its embassy in Santiago to collaborate closely with the chilean military to oust which they did in resulting in Allendes chileans fleeing abroad and almost killed or the genocide inflicted upon the Tutsi people and moderate huts by extremist huts in Rwanda in the mid 1990s and the ethnic cleansing blood Bath in Croatia and Kosovo during the last decade forced the United nations to take action against states which previously oppressed their Citi Zens free from outside International tribunals set up to try purported War criminals for crimes against humanity in Rwanda and the Balkans represented a newly found intolerance for the perpetrators of such Britain decision to detain Pinochet in ignoring the traditional practice of granting leaders of states Sovereign immunity for crimes committed in their own has served As a warning to All authoritarian leaders that their crimes May not go unpunished in the Post cold War new approach now also vulnerable to this radically new approach to holding leaders responsible for their actions is Serbia formally indicted As a War just As Many chileans oppose prosecuting general Pinochet for the dark Days of 197390 when he was most serbs strongly oppose handing Milosevic Over to a tribunal comprised essentially of states which declared War on ser Bia when Kosovo was mired in ethnic this reality places Yugoslavia new Vojislav in an extremely awkward during his political struggle against Milosevic he repeatedly denounced the former dictators violation of democratic principles and abuses of human notwithstanding his own demand for respecting the Rule of presi Dent Kos Tunica is also a serb nation allowing an International tribunal to prosecute Milosevic could have extremely dangerous Conse but Many no serbs Are Adamant Milosevic must be held accountable in some Legal forum or other for the killing Fields in Bosnia and the ultimate Fate of both Milosevic and Pinochet has become a test Case for the Rule of Law in both Yugoslavia and for it will answer the vital question which is to prevail political expediency or Justice a better Way to vote William Neville the last three Federal elections have each produced results so anomalous As to raise serious questions As to How effectively our parliaments reflect the political choices of the electorate As a last months results May finally get some people focused on the electoral consequences and political Impact of the electoral system in a the electoral system is not the present based on single member constituencies in which successful candidates need not win a majority of votes but a simple plurality that at least one vote More than the candidate placing second has Long been open to a number of the distribution of parliamentary seats among the parties bears no certain or consistent correlation to the votes actually cast for those the november election provides numerous i Lustra the most obvious being that the with 41 per cent of the won 57 per cent of the seats in the in the previous with 38 per cent of the they won a Nar rower majority 51 per but a majority none the the present distortions and has its some see the systems tendency to exaggerate the strength of the leading party As an advantage because it increases the chances of creating a majority government presumed capable of taking Tough decisions and chances of minority government with its presumed instability and the present system is also thought to discourage a proliferation of minor or single Issue though if such parties Are regionally the system often rewards the present single Mem Ber constituencies create a direct link Between the electors and their own Leshan blood member of it is argued that this is the Way we have always done it and that the known is preferable to the unknown this argument will carry less weight with those who do not Revere the Wisdom of their but it is one with some Force in a country coping with stresses of real and imag ined regional the system grossly Over states and hence intensifies through perception those regional in three consecutive elec nearly 100 per cent of Ontario seats have been won by the liberals with roughly 50 per cent of Ontario last the Alliance achieved a comparable result in Alberta and the perception in both cases is that of monolithic and antagonistic regions the reality reflected in the actual vote is much More Subtle and com regional tensions Are but we do ourselves no favours when we sustain an electoral system which ignores the actual support of the major parties and reduces them All to regional parties worse parties based on pockets of isolated this distortion not Only overstates our equally it Likely exacerbates them through its toxic effects on the parties through their respective parliamentary in a phenomenon first noted More than 30 years ago by the distinguished political scientist Allan parties which Are consistently excluded from or underrepresented in a Region Are More prone to misunderstanding or misrepresenting the views of that Region because the they Are insulated and isolated from those regional in the present the relatively Small number of Western liberals in the government caucus Means that the purely representative functions of those Mem Bers Are made much More this goes far there Are several plausible alternatives to our existing electoral beyond matters like Access to the Public trough or the simple promotion of projects or interests dear to some groups of Western Canadian it much More involves an educative it will inevitably fall to that corporals guard of Western Liberal maps to try to explain the alliances Appeal in their Region without either dismissing it or becoming apologists for this is no easy task a More representative contingent of Western liberals Over make Western assumptions and attitudes More intelligible to the caucus without having to work at even As a larger contingent of no Western maps in the Alliance could simultaneously be having an Educa Tive and moderating effect on the Alliance the which has Only two members outside the More than any other would be National desperately requires prolonged and continuing exposure to the assumptions and attitudes of voters in every other Region of the coun there Are several plausible alternatives to our exist ing electoral including some that have Actu ally been employed in some Canadian cities and provinces and in that provide for run off or that marry proportional representation to a system of single member these and others deserve careful though a governing party is almost always ill Dis posed to tinker with a system that has brought it to the fact is that none of the parties with genuinely National aspirations is now served by the exist ing system nor is the Fol pro Lff the free press welcomes letters from they must include the authors address and Telephone Lull i iu1 letters May be letters to the 1355 Mountain r2x fax email jail deviants forever re Lindor Reynolds column child Pom workers gasp at Texas Laws what Canadian legislators and the judiciary have consistently Over looked is the simple fact that sexual deviants such As paedophiles will never these sexual deviants have made a conscious Effort to step outside the Bounds of civilized behave in my have also relinquished their expectation to be treated like a civilize i member of the solution is to incarcerate them for although it May Cost a considerable sum of Money to House the Cost to the victim cannot even begin to be measured in Gord Hicham Winnipeg reverse decision on Transcona Centre without any form of Public Consulta Tion or the provincial govern ment has announced its intention to shut Down Transcona health and move it out of the the Busy Centre has been offering services of Public health pre Natal and postnatal immunize vaccinations and Home care for the minister of Dave says it was the Winnipeg regional authority Warha that has made the the Warha reports to the health so he is fully responsible for this i Call on Dave Chomiak and Gary doer to immediately reverse this Russ Wyatt Winnipeg two left turns Are not right the City has introduced an additional left turning Lane at the intersection of Moray and Portage since the opening of the new Bridge there has been Only one left turning and now out of the an additional left Lane has been Intro there was no Alert to the Gen eral Public that this was going to take and obviously no thought put into the the intersection was never designed to have two left turning lanes and certainly Nei ther the lights at this intersection nor the Road markings have been altered to support this recent As a when the left turning Light indicator halts left turning you now have a situation where the newly introduced left turning Lane halts through traffic on at Peak traffic when motorists Are one step away from Road this situation is not helping i can understand the need for two left turning during heavy traffic but i think this change should have been better thought through before it was the present situation Only lends itself to a serious mishap occurring at this Gary Delaney Charleswood Bible on ballot Box appalling upon visiting our local school on elec Tion Day to i was appalled to find a Christian Bible atop the ballot Box has that practice not been banned How can such a display of Christian arrogance be tolerated in the most Public of the polling station we live in a pluralistic no particular religion should be shown to be especially during an election by a supposedly impartial party As elections Jeff Couch Winnipeg minimum wage just one step i want to congratulate Premier doer and labour minister Becky Barrett for implementing their election Promise to increase the minimum wage in Manitoba and to have it reviewed despite stereotypes and myths to the most poor children in Manitoba live in families with at least one member in the labour the social planning coun cil believes increasing the minimum wage is one of Many Steps required to reduce child but we have much More to the social planning Council believes that the minimum wage should be set at 60 per cent of aver age weekly earnings so that economic growth will pay off in decreasing the depth and rate of child Sid Frankel president social planning Council of Winnipeg Winnipeg doonesbury by Garry Trudeau 7hg school Mot ccmin6 Ike flying Fofi Lamorm m not so sep snacks ;