. dy. ca Castlegar News November 25, 1907 Soviet exile loves Canada Py VICPA VIC PARSONS OTTAWA — Wine vyins Vytautus ee ainodis heard last Feb- ruary he was to spend five years in internal exile in a Soviet camp near the Bering Sea, he thought he might try to walk to Alaska. After seven years in prison for his dissident in “Lithuanians understand freedoms in a much broader sense than they do in Moseow,” Skuodis said. “They don't desire emigration from Lithuania. They want those freedoms supposedly guaranteed under the Soviet constitu. tion, up to, and including, independence.” The thirst for independence is very much alive, he says. Soviet Lithuania's underground press, it must have seemed like the closest he would ever get to the land of his birth — the United States. But the Soviets had a change of heart. Last week, just over two months since he was permitted to leave the Soviet Union, Skuodis freely left his home town of Chicago for a visit to Canada. While here he attended celebrations in Toronto of the 6ooth anniversary of the conversion of Lithuania to Christianity. Skuodis, 59, has also been offering his perspective on the current buzzwords in Soviet affairs, glasnost (openness) and perestroika (restriiéturing), to Canadian politicians and officials. Curiously, the tall, balding geology professor already had a tie to Canada that has made his visit all the more meaningful. “My first introduction to Canada was during the inter- rogation after my arrest in 1980,” he says through an inter. * preter. “There was a travel book, written in German, about Canada. It helped keep me sane during the interrogation, and the reading of this book made me fall in love with Canada. “At that time, I thought I would never see Canada.” ACT OF BANDITRY Skuodis is somewhat of an oddity — an American who speaks virtually no English, though he is fluent in Russian, Lithuanian and German. He was born in Chicago in 1929 to Lithuanian parents who returned to their then-independent homeland a year and a half later. A return to the United States was impossible once the Soviets took over the Baltic republics in what he calls as “an act of banditry.” His birth makes him, in American eyes, a citizen of the United States and probably helped in his release from prison and permission to leave the Soviet Union. Having arrived only in September from Lithuania, Skuodis has had an opportunity to see how _Blasnost is g in his d. He is very The basic issue for Lithuanians, Latvians, Estonians, Ukrainians and others absorbed into the Soviet Union is not restructuring of the economy, but individual and national rights and freedoms, he says. “Religious freedom, freedom of expression, preserving and developing language and culture — these are basic freedoms. Lithuania doesn't have these at the present time.” He explains differences in perspective by relating the story of a former cellmate at the prison in Mordovia, 500 kilometres east of Moscow. His friend was a Russian, part Jewish, who had been imprisoned for agitating for the right to emigrate. “When I met him later in Moscow, I asked him if he wanted help to emigrate. He said no, he was interested in what is happening now. ‘Literature is freer, the press is freer. That contents me,’ he said.” may not come in this generation or the next, he declares. “I am never an absolute pessimist. If I was, I would never have survived my prison days.” Skuodis says it would be dishonest to deny “minor trends” are occurring in human rights. “Those tendencies exist, but there are no fundamental changes.” He mentions, for example, while he was in prison he read a speech by Mikhail Gorbachev in which the Soviet leader said there can be no relaxation of current policies toward religion. As in Poland, the Roman Catholic Church has been the focus of nationalism in Lithuania, with 80 per cent of the population of just over three million Catholic. For 40 years, Skuodis says, the Soviets tried to undermine the church by an intensive propaganda cam paign. When Lithuanians clung to their faith, he says, the authorities changed their policy. Now, he says, they limit the number of candidates who can enter the one existing seminary, and the list of names must be approved by the secret police. “Until my departure, there was no relaxation of the persecution of the church.” Our Action Ad Phone Number is 365-2212 Answer to Sunday Crossword Puzzle No. 288 PARA ERR ANA [ee ie as IPIYIDIA! but it will come,” mA A Ar ak PIE} IBAB YP E fr dale! af Wma — mi > SO > AOE <30 Di ae (WG; im} fir mm [Aim Zi Zimj ng 0!<29) eRe sir Bron CNS) Answer to ra Nov. 22 Ci “'M NOT ABLE TO TAKE ANY MORE. “ PHOTO- GRAPHS TODAY,” SAID OUR FRIEND. “THE SPIRIT IS WILLING, BUT THE FLASH IS WEAK. 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