A6 - Wednesday, September 15, 1982 - North Shore News EEE editorial page e lon A MONTH or so from now Don Sutherland will hand over the files of his Pender Island patients, cross ta the The battle ‘shaping \ up between the left- leaning North Vancouver Voters. Association and the _ right-of-centre -::: Taxpayers mainland and board a Association for Good Government for plane for the start of an control of North Van District council at this 8,000-mile journey November's -elections raises two..thought- back to one of the provoking quéstions. world’s poorest Firstly, have party politics (for that is what countries. is involved) anyplace in-a seven-member - municipal council? - The longstanding tradition there has been:that.a mayor and six aldermen — all politically: independent: cand elected on personal merit —“ are best equipped to reflect the ‘widely “aiffering shades of community interest that can arise in connection with any specific issue. Dividing such a.small group into opposed partisan factions, each judging every subject according to rigid partisan. policies worked out in advance, must obviously tend to Why would ai former North Shore doctor who practised in North Van- couver from 1967 to 1975 be undertaking such a journey? Well, first you have to know a little about his destination. Somalia, slightly smaller than Texas, occupies the eastern horn of Africa on the Gulf of Aden, bounded on the west by Ethiopia and Kenya. Much of it is desert narrow the broad spectrum of community opinion which a council should ideally mirror. At the grassroots the “greys” are just as entitled to a voice as the “blacks” and the “whites”. Secondly, the NoVVA platform calls for a ward system of election. In metro jurisdictions with large councils, this may have certain merits. In smaller, homogenous municipalities like those of the North Shore the benefits are dubious. Neighborhood tends to be pitted against neighborhood, introducing a divisive element into the community. And ward aldermen, with an eye to re-election, ° inevitably concentrate on the prejudices of their own few blocks rather than the good of the community as a whole. Is “we-versus-them” a healthy path for smaller councils to tread? We doubt it. Sticky question The entire world — from Mexico with its $80 billion debt downward — is broke. That's the only sense we can make out of the gloomy Toronto meeting of the International Monetary Fund, which also talked con- fusingly about “rescue operations”. Two questions: How do you rescue anyone if there’s no money left? And if EVERYONE is deep in the glue, to whom are the bills owed? Ties VOSCE OF HORT AND WEST WANDOUYER sunday news north shore news Display Advertising Classified Advertising Newsroom Circulation 1139 Lonsdale Ave , North Vancouver 8 C V7M 2H4 980-0511 986-6222 985-2131 986-1337 and most of its estimated five million people live at sub- sistence level, three out of five of them nomads moving continuously with their camels, families and tents wherever food and water can DR. DON SUTHERLAND be wrested from the parched land. Even by standards Somalia is among Third World the most impoverished nations on the globe. The uluumate crunch came from 1977 onward. Ethiopia occupied Ogaden, a huge border area between the two countries historically populated by Somalis — hundreds of thousands of whom then flooded back into Somaha = proper as refugees Today, there are some 800,000 of them scrabbling for a bare cxistence in 28 refugee camps — “shot of food, shelter, water and fuel in a land scarcely able to provide for its “normal population, with resultant health problems mounting all the time. This was the grim picture that greeted Don Sutherland when he joined a British Oxfam team there for a six- month stint early last year. One of several world health and refugee organizations that had moved in to help the Somalis, the team con- centrated on coordinating health care and feeding facilities, together with water projects. Fortunately, Dr. Sutherland was by that time no stranger to the problems of underdeveloped nations. After leaving North Van- couver seven years agohe had worked in a number of other African countries, done research in India and, along the way, added to his M.D. an International Community Health degree. He and the Oxfam team toured the camps teaching the refugees basic health care. Most of the latter consist of women, children and old people. The able- bodied men are still engaged in guerilla warfare in the border region in an effort to win back their desert home from the Ethopians. Water, in many Cases, was as scarce in the camps as food — a problem com- Noel Wright | pounded by a drought that began in 1978, adding to the already desperate plight of the inmates. Sutherland is particularly proud of the com ion shown by his Pender Island neighbors who contributed $5,000 for a solar water pumping system to provide refugees with clean, chlorinated water — the first vital step in maintaining health and battling disease. Nor did the generosity of Pender people stop there They are also donating $4,000 to train Somalis as CANADIAN COMMENT by PETER WARD camp nurses. Don Sutherland’s personal contribution last year did not go unrecognized. He now has been invited by the Somali government to return next month to head. the entire refugee health program for the 800,000 people still in the camps. His salary will be paid by the Somalis and in part by the United Nations High Commission for Refugees. He's scheduled to depart at the end of October on an initial one-year contract. _ Sacrifices in his own family life will be part of the price he pays. His two teenage children will remain at school in Victoria, joining - Dad in Somalia for three months next summer. His wife will spend part of the time there with him and part back in B.C. It’s been a long road from the smoothly run doctor's office on East 15th in North Van to the suffering and squalor of Somahia’s refugee camps. Why — to revert to to our opening question — would a_ well-established North Shore family g.p. choose to tread such a road? Only Don Sutherland himself can give you the answer. But I suspect wt might go something like this “Because there's an urgent yob to be done there and | feel 1 have to do it.” Exceptional human beings invariably march to the beat of a different drummer Publisher Peter Speck Associate Publisher Rotert Graham Editor -tn-Chiet Noe! Wright The North flexes its muscles Advertising Director Tam & rane ts General Manage: | Administration & Personne! Mrs Bern Hila Circulation Director Baan AoE this Production Director Rich Stonehouse The federal government 1 edgy and = siightly un comfortable about the plan: of the North-east Terntorial legislation assembly to hold a plebiscite on possible to an Eskimo in Pond Inict, on Baffin Island, govern- ment tin Ycllowknife is as distant as Europe In the castern Arctic, the population mis ts more cven Island, and Sach's Harbor included in the western Arctic, if partition comes The Inuit of the west don't fancy this proposal Thcy would sooner have their own federal government wants to get land claims out of the way first A oorthern vote for partition of the Arctic would add weight to the native division of the NWT Depending on where an scparate unit. That's wh le’ ssure in favor of North Shore Newa founded my (60 ap an iIndopandent ¢Oonmu«nunity honed 8B a th. ee i y people 3 pressu aa h Rewnpape: and qualified under Schedule fl Part tll Paragraph Ml of the un ary as rawn., ic cy are ncegot bat ng handling the politics and the tose Tas Act os putlliphed each Wednesday and Sunday by North There's litthe doubt that native people of the separately their own land iand claims together Ottawa Shore free Press UIG and distibuled ta every door on the North when the vote comes, people Mackenaic Delta could find claims and their pobacal can't ignore the results of the Shore Second Class Mail Hogint ation Number 3665 Entire contents F mite ves b rihe: ome. bat can 1902 North Shore Free Preee Lid All rights reserved in the scastern Arc me more themsch cs quinumberes ms future NO ™m v . ; i] -. » the whites ats one of the cts assum that the aed ccrtetedy will, duag Subocnptonn North and Weel Varn ouven $70) por ihr Mailer, than per cent a therm c Hater available on caquent Imust will vote over reasons the Dene, as overall vote am thee NWT fece Ghroegh ennold dcizy re nawn - naw whelmingly iD favo: Mackenze Valicy and Delta favors a diviston of that vast tactics > Werth pcre ss ty mented foe caren set eegiicedoaret Lt os : . Tr MANU IIS ane pe hare wie batt Ge ae onnpaameerd Ory a sfam@pot of division Onvision. to the people call the mscives. northland The Fedcral RU eRe en vatip ie Inout, mcans Nunavut our would lake a 10 year government has satd it will Ottawa has actther the ds . s . birement - : no y t sttle VER HE TRI A THON 93 989% Wednesday 53 404 Sunday land in t skimo tongue The fe siden Yy reqt m nol be bound by the results ume or the me ncy oO ne Inuit are nervous about then imposed Seach s of an vote in the ternmtory, the thormy imsucs presented — sm G interests being submerged by the mayornty of the NW requirement would climinate but it cant help but be af by the emerging political 9O per cent of the whites in’ fected The native peoptc. awareness of northern native — Cou = which ts Indtan) Metis and — the north from voting both Dene and Inuit. want 3 pcople The federal ne white They want thei own The Dene want lout thes pobtcal future and government is going to have THIS PAPER | is RECYCLE ABLE termtory with a capital tn communitics of land < laims issucs acgotinted to live with the pressurcs aoe the castern Arctte because Tuktoyaktuh Hotiman. and settled side by side The which tt helped to create