The Guardian of Liberty - Nemzetőr, 1986 (9. évfolyam, 1-6. szám)

1986-01-01 / 1. szám

"Peace" Schoolgirls Put in Mental Hospital T wo teenage schoolgirls who support the Moscow-based independent peace move­ment, the Group for the Establishment of Trust between the USSR and USA, were detained in a mental hospital for about a fortnight last year, according to information recently received from Russia. The girls, Natalya Akulyonok and Olga Kabanova, aged 17 and 18 respectively, were among about 20 people who were arrested in Moscow on May 16 while on their way to hold a peaceful demonstration which was to have been held by the Group outside the Kremlin. Most of the would-be demonstrators were released after being interrogated by KGB officers for many hours. However, the girls were placed in Moscow’s Number 15 Ordinary Psychiatric Hospital. Although Natalya was declared mentally healthy, she was not discharged from the hospital unil May 30. Olga was said to be mentally ill and was given medical treatment, but was released early in June. Both girls were arrested in a Group mem­ber’s flat on June 11. After being held for four hours in a police station, they were taken in a bus out of Moscow and were made to get off at different places along the road, a long way from their homes. On January 8, 1986 a spokesman for the Group said one of its members, Irina Pran­­ratova, a 17-year-old schoolgirl, was arrested by the KGB in central Moscow on the pre­vious day and taken to a psychiatric hospital. She was told that this acion was taken because she had participated in two unofficial demonstrations in December. These marked International Human Rights Day and the fifth anniversary of the death of John Lennon, the Beatle pop star. Irina was also told that she would be held in the hospital indefinitely. Other independent peace activists being persecuted by the KGB include those living long distances from Moscow. For example, Gennady Valgynov, a member of a new group in Ilista, capital of the Kalmykskaya Autono­mous Soviet Socialist Republic, was confined in a psychiatric hospital from September, 1984, to February, 1985. The Group for the Establishment of Trust between the USSR and the USA and other persecuted bodies such as the one in Ilista advocate multilateral nuclear disarmament. In contrast, the official Soviet Peace Com­mittee places all the blame for the „arms race“ on the Westi despite any race having at least two runners. Soviet spokesmen talk of the „arms race“ only When the West finds it necessary to defend itself; Moscow would greatly prefer an arms walk-over. It thus by implication calls for unilateral nuclear dis armament by NATO, leaving the USSR’s arsenal intact. The Soviet Peace Committee, whose cam-paigning is liberally financed, is chaired by Yuri Zhukov, a candidate member of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union. The ordeals endured by the schoolgirls and by Valgynov are the latest of many such cases showing that the individual in the USSR is allowed to demonstrate about disarmament issues only if he or she toes the Party line. However, individual statements on „peace“ by persons outside the Soviet bloc, particul­arly those by schoolgirls, are sometimes ex­ploited by the Kremlin. For example, Mikhail Gorbachev, the Soviet leader, recently sent a box of gifts to Aiko Fukuda, a 12-year-old Japanese girl who attends Higashishiga Elementary School in Nagoya. Gorbachev wrote to her: „A happy New Year. I wish you and'your family well.“ He added that the Soviet: people were still press­ing for world peace, „just as you requested me.“ Aiko had written to him in a letter: „I heard from my father that you met Mr. Rea­gan, and I think it is wonderful. I hope you will persevere with your efforts to make the world peaceful.“ The Soviet leader’s gifts to Aiko included a children’s version of a biography of Lenin, a set of records, a samovar and an album of photographs of Moscow and of Yuri Ga­garin, the first Russian cosmonaut. In 1983, Yuri Andropov, the then Soviet leader, received a letter like Aiko’s from an American schoolgirl, Samantha Smith. He invited her to Moscow where, amid much publicity, she was praised by the Soviet authorities for her promotion of world peace. AFGHAN SECRET POLICE UPGRADED (Continued from page 1) ganisation and organisational nuclei in all provinces and districts.“ He claimed, despite overwhelming evidence to the contrary, that the KHAD’s “brave fighters“ had “paralysed and even eliminated“ most of the “leftist and rightest extremist elements“ opposed to the Kabul regime. The recent upgrading of the KHAD occurred at about the same time as the regime announced the inclusion of a number of so-called “non-Party“ persons in the administration. However, most of these people have a long record of playing a puppet role. The remainder will have little or no chance of influencing affairs, particularly now that the KHAD and other re­pressive organs are being reinforced yet again and Soviet military activity remains widespread. The decision to bring in these stooges, the names of whom were announced on December 29 and January 16, seems to have been inspired by the Kremlin. For, on December 21, the Soviet Com­munist Party daily, Pravda, appealed in an editorial for a political dialogue in Afghanistan, the participants to include people who had “so far adhered to positions hostile to the revolutions”. 2 PROBLEM OF UNWED MOTHERS “The Soviet State regards unwed mothers and their children as a major social problem", an English-language commentator said in a recent Moscow Radio broadcast to Africa. According to this transmision, about 500,000 illegitimate children are born in the USSR annually and about one Soviet mother in ten is unmarried. MIG-2TShot Down in Latest Incursion Pakistani border troops shot down an Af­ghan MiG-21 fighter aircraft when it and three other planes entered Pakistan’s airspace on January 14. The fighter was hit by anti­aircraft fire at Parachinar in the Khurram Agency territory. The Pakistan Government has protested many times in recent years about military air­craft of the Soviet-controlled Kabul regime entering Pakistani airspace. In some of the incursions Pakistani villagers or Afghan refugees have been killed. For ex­ample, on August 19, 1985, four aircraft pe­netrated up to nearly 13 kilometres into Pa­kistani airspace in the Parachinar area and dropped eights bombs, killing 11 people and wounding 19. ZainNoorani, Minister of State for Foreign Affairs, told Pakistan’s National Assembly on August 20 that such “cowardly attacks“ on civilan population centres undertaken before or during the Geneva talks, were intended to increase tension. From time to time, artillery on the Afghan side of the border has fired into Pakistan. For instance, on October 27 three rounds fell in the Khurram Agency territory, killing nine Afghan refugees an wounding three. On August 26, this territory was shelled at re­gular intervals for more than three hours, killing two people. 600 QUITT PUPPET ARMY More than 600 troops in the army of Af­ghanistan's Soviet-controlled regime joined the Afghan guerrillas in December, according to recent refugee reports. Most of the men were^ from a regiment stationed near Ghazi. w\ Refugees also reported that 20 mutinous Soviet soldiers were executed in Kandahar early in December. According to some reports, they had feared the possible consequences of fighting alongside Afghan troops, whom they, righitly, regarded as allies in name only. JANUARY-FEBRUARY, 1986 FOOD AIRLIFTED TO KABUL Japan’s Press has reported diplomats in Kabul as having counted 22 flights by Soviet IL-26 transport aircraft bringing food and other essential goods into Afghanistan from the USSR between January 10 and 19. The newspapers said that this airlift was undertaken because frequent attacks by Afghan guerrillas had seriously disrupted véhiculé con­voys on the important Saiang-Kabul highway. The Press in Tokyo also reported that the price of flour in Kabul rose 27 per cent recent­ly, and that cooking oil, sugar and petrol con­tinued to be in short supply.

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