The Prince George
Citizen
THURSDAY, AUGUST 22,1991
51 CENTS
(Plus GST)
Low tonight: 5 High tomorrow: 19
On the track of bigfoot
Rioters rout mayor 11
Lions snare victory 13
Smaller and leaner 17
Phone:562-2441 Classified: 562-6666 Circulation: 562-3301
FEELS CLOSER TIE TO YELTSIN
SEE ALSO PAGES 4, 10, 11
Gorbachev vows to unite party
by JIM SHEPPARD
MOSCOW (CP) — Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev returned to power today after the collapse of a 60-hour coup against him and immediately said he would “drive out reactionary forces.”
He told reporters, however, he intends to remain a Communist even though the coup against him was led by party hardliners, supported by the Soviet military.
“It’s my duty to see this through to the end, to the best of my ability,” Gorbachev said, “to drive out reacuonary forces from the party and to unite all of its progressive elements.”
Gorbachev said he had been bound closer to rival Boris Yeltsin because of the Russian president’s role in leading resistance to the coup.
He said he would work with Yeltsin to unite “all democratic forces in the country to support reform.”
Yeltsin, however, took several sweeping steps earlier in the day to seize bits and pieces of Gorbachev’s power.
Tens of thousands of prodemocracy advocates who consider Yeltsin their leader called repeatedly for Gorbachev’s resignation as they rallied in Red Square
Yeltsin announced the name of each of the hardliners arrested.
Tanks withdrew from Moscow and Soviet legislative leaders invalidated the coup leaders’ decrees, including press restrictions. The Communist party denounced the coup, and the Soviet prosecutor opened a criminal investigation into the actions of its leaders.
A plane carrying Gorbachev from the Crimea, where he had been detained at the end of his annual vacation, landed at Vnukovo Airport at 2:12 a.m today. The 60-year-old Gorbachev arrived with extraordinarily tight security.
A statement read on the television channel run by Gorbachev’s central government quoted the 1990 Nobel Peace Prize winner as saying he was “in full control of the situation.”
Yeltsin seemed to have different ideas.
He told NATO officials Wednesday that he, not Gorbachev, had assumed control of the national defence forces.
He issued an order later removing Gorbachev ally Leonid Kravchenko as chief of national television and radio even though he has no such power under Soviet law.
under red-white-and-blue pre-revolutionary Russian flags to celebrate the collapse of the coup.
Other protesters surrounded the headquarters of the KGB and the Communist party.
They painted Down With The KGB and Freedom! Freedom! on the headquarters of the KGB, the secret service that killed or imprisoned millions of their ancestors under past Communist dictators.
Others threw stones at the building housing the Central Committee of the Communist party of the Soviet Union.
Gorbachev moved quickly to reassert himself, appointing a new chairman of the KGB as well as new defence and interior ministers.
The KGB chairman and defence minister were under arrest after the collapse of the coup on Wednesday, and the interior minister was reported to have committed suicide.
Yeltsin led the singing, shouting, clapping crowd in a wild victory party that began outside his parliament, which had been the centre of resistance to the coup.
He clenched his fist in the air in a victory salute and told the cheering throng: “The attempt to
Gorbachev, left, steps from plane following arrival in Moscow early today, while Yeltsin flashes victory sign at rally.
plunge the country into an abyss of violence and tyranny has failed.”
“But we have seen once more that freedom is still fragile and that
democracy and glasnost are still vulnerable.”
Yeltsin announced earlier, to a special session of the Russian parliament that four of its plotters —
including KGB chairman Vladimir Kryuchkov and Defence Minister Dmitri Yazov — had been arrested.
The official Soviet news agency Tass reported moments later another coup leader, former interior minister Boris Pugo, committed suicide at his home as Russian police arrived to arrest him.
Gorbachev appointed Leonid Shebarshin to replace Kryuchkov, Gen. Mikhail Moiseyev, chief of staff, to replace Yazov, and Vasily Trushin to replace.Pugo.
It still was unclear who was the key leader or the coup.
The Soviet Communist party issued a statement today denying responsibility and accusing the communist hardliners who formed the coup’s leadership committee of acting on their own. Senior officers of the KGB issued a similar statement.
Yeltsin and other resistance leaders have been demanding the coup leaders be put on trial for treason.
“We can safely say that Russia saved the (Soviet) Union,” Yeltsin told his parliament. “Hurrah for Russia!”
Deputies cheered loudly as a massive crowd stood elbow-to-elbow, shouting and singing outside the parliament building as
Supreme Court strikes down protection law
by STEPHEN BINDMAN Southam News
OTTAWA — The Supreme Court of Canada today threw out the law that protects sexual assault victims from being cross-examined in court about their sexual history.
In a 7-2 ruling, the country’s top court said the “rape shield law” is unconstitutional because it could lead to innocent people being convicted.
The Criminal Code provision, introduced in 1983 after lobbying by women’s and children’s rights groups, violates the right of people charged with sexual assault to “fundamental justice” and a fair trial guaranteed by the Charter of Rights and Freedoms, the court decided.
The law prohibited defence lawyers, except in rare circumstances. from asking a victim about her past sexual activity with someone other than the person charged with the crime.
“In achieving its purpose, the abolition of the outmoded, sexist-based use of sexual conduct evidence, it overshoots the mark and renders inadmissible evidence which may be essential to the presentation of legitimate defences and hints to a fair trial,” Madam Justice Beverley McLachlin wrote in today’s ruling.
“The price is too great in relation to the benefits secured and cannot be tolerated in a society
that does not countenance in any form the conviction of the innocent”
McLachlin said striking down the law does not mean that any evidence of a victim’s sexual past can be admitted. Rather it is up to the trial judge to decide whether it has any “probative value” and will not create any unfair prejudice.
As well, the evidence cannot be used to show the woman was more likely to have consented to sex with the accused or is “less worthy of belief as a witness.” The jury must also be clearly warned against using the evidence improperly, McLachlin said.
“The judge must assess with a high degree of sensitivity whether the evidence proffered by the defence meets the test of demonstrating a degree of relevance which outweighs the damages and disadvantages presented by the admission of such evidence.
“The fishing expeditions which unfortunately did occur in the past should not be permitted.”
The law was challenged by two Ontario men charged in separate cases with sexual assault. Their case, which was argued in the Supreme Court in March, pitted two traditional legal allies — feminists and civil libertarians — against each other.
INDEX
Ann Landers .... 20
Bridge.................27
Business........22,23
City, B.C...............23
Classified .... 26-32
Comic...................33
Commentary...............5
Crossword...............29
Entertainment ... 33
Family..................20
Horoscope...............27
International .... 11
Lotteries...............16
Movies..................33
National..............9,10
Sports..........13-16
Television..............30
Wheels..................25
58 07 00100
HERMAN'
'My wife threw my dinner at the wall and I framed it."
Ministry probing ping pong injuries
A representative of the federal ministry of Consumer and Corporate Affairs said today it does not have the legal right to suspend sales of potentially unsafe products or order them off the market.
“Only products — like playpens — that are specified under the Hazardous Products Act can be seized or ordered off the market when they do not comply with regulations or standards,” said Sheila Welock, a product safety officer for Consumer and Corporate Affairs in Vancouver.
Brenda Plouffe, a Prince George area resident, sliced off the ends of two fingers when she folded a ping pong table for storage.
She ran a classified ad in the Prince George Citizen asking others who were injured when handling ping pong: tables to contact her. She received four calls claiming similar injuries from Playking ping pong tables made by Frikon Industries of Toronto. The tables are carried by chain stores across Canada, including Canadian Tire, Kresge’s, Woolco and Sears.
“We are currently interviewing people who say they have injured by the tables and wil! be talking with the Frikon manufacturers this week,” said Welock. The first thing we’ll do is determine if all folding ping pong tables arc dangerous or if complaints are stemming from one particular brand model.”
Welock said the results of the investigation will bc sent to product safety officers in Toronto after investigators determine if the alleged safety problem stems from an integral design flaw, misuse of the product or consumers misreading the instructions. “Sometimes a problem can be corrected by a simple modification and sometimes not,” she said.
Welock said today the 1969 Hazardous Products Act was passed to cover “post-sale problems” with products. “But only a number of items are covered by the act. Manufacturers have their own standards for products but I am not aware of any safety regulations governing ping pong tables.”
Welock added that having a product improved for safety reasons or taken off the market altogether involves “a multitude of paperwork.”
Citizen photo by Dave Milne
Vi Hedstrom is warning other Prince George gardeners to resist the urge to taste any of the tomato-like growths appearing on potato plants this year.
Potato growth poisonous
by MARILYN STORIE Citizen Staff
Central Interior residents curious about the unusual top growth on their fall crop of potatoes should restrain themselves from biting into one of the tomato-like fruits produced by the growth.
Two friends of a Hart Highway gardener did just that and ended up in hospital.
“I’ve been growing potatoes for 50 years and I’ve never seen a growth like this before,” said Vi Hedstrom.
According to Wil Van Hage of Art Knapp’s Plantland, potatoes
will occasionally flower during a cooler growing season.
“In a cooler year they will make seeds,” he said. “The top growth looks like a tomato plant and it produces what looks like little green tomatoes — but they’re poisonous.”
Along with the tomato, spuds are members of the Nightshade family. “I don’t know that eating seeds from potatoes would kill you, but it would ceratinly make you very sick.”
Van Hage said he has been getting phone calls from curious gardeners and recommends they take the growth right off their po-
tato plants for safety’s sake. “You also get better plants that way.”
About 5:30 p.m. Tuesday, Hedstrom said she cut one of the deadly fruits (actually seed pods) in half and was surprised to see it looked just like a green tomato.
“I almost put it in my mouth myself,” she said. Two of Hedstrom’s friends bit into the potato fruit and instantly spit it out. “They said it was unbelievably bitter — and then they both started to feel upset.”
Both had to have their stomach pumped in hospital, said Hedstrom.
058307001008