The Kingston Whig-Standard from Kingston, Ontario, Canada • 1

f-t: BALLOON FESTIVAL IN BROCKVILLE THE HEALTH OF OUR AREA BEACHES i City Page 33 -sv-v t'CS fi --4 4 RETHINKING THE CANCER PUZZLE The Whig-Standard Magazine Page 47 WEEKEND EDITION Magazine Homes TV Times Color Comics TOMORROW: Sumy H0i 24 (75F) COMING SOON! l5i Free renovation estimates ACOIM 3896761 Downtown Princess 544-6864 SATURDAY JUNE 22 1991 $125 KINGSTON ONTARIO OLDEST DAILY NEWSPAPER 6FOUNDED IN 1834 DAILY SINCE 1849 AIDS BEHIND BARS Inmate claims his rights have been denied because he was diagnosed HIV positive prison guards insist using his disease as a weapon By PAULETTE PEIROL Whig-Standard Staff Writer strength and got both" Mr Ratte acknowledges the legitimate fear of others of contracting AIDS through the exchange of bodily fluids But fear is no protection he says It safer to treat us with respect when we come out of the closet Instead of worrying when we fight and blood all over?" If the Upion of Solicitor General Employees had its way all inmates carrying Infectious diseases would be clearly identified on prison documents accessible to staff Major health risk But with the government's new emphasis on protection of privacy gone are the days when nurses and other staff members would discretely mark the medical charts of prisoners to alert officers to any major health risk said Ken Veley the regional vice president 1 dealt with inmates with hepatitis and HIV and it bother me as long as he said "I carry no special equipment except rubber gloves Ninety-nine per cent of the time that's But there has been at least one local case of an officer being exposed to an -inmate's blood after a stabbing incident only to find out later from the office that the Inmate had tested HIV positive The guard did not become ill but it is this type of incident that makes some union members bristle at the thought of having to deal with inmates with infectious diseases Correctional officer Patrick Boudreau of Kingston Penitentiary said in a sworn statement that twice he was prepared to cite Part Two of the Labor Code to avoid confrontations with Mr Ratte He said he had previously witnessed the inmate threaten to and stab staff members because he has HIV and has nothing to A few days later Mr Ratte allegedly threatened staff with blood on a razor from a shaving cut he said But the Inmate has never in tact committed any acts of violence against staff at Kingston Penitentiary documents filed with the court show His psychologist lawyer and counsellor from the Kingston AIDS Project all say he was likely going through the denial An HIV-infected inmate is taking his keeper to court citing "cruel and unusual punishment" for being kept in an isolated prison cell for almost four months Kenneth Ratte an inmate at Kingston Penitentiary believes guards have launched an offensive against him for being outspoken about his condition Prison workers charge that the Inmate is using his illness as a weapon He once threatened to throw bodily fluids on guards who were harrassing him and since then many have refused to come into contact with him Twice correctional officers have planned to invoke Part Two of the Canada Labor Code which allows employees to stage a work refusal if they feel they are feeing a hazardous situation without adequate protection Guards have been granted paper gowns masks and rubber gloves to wear while handling Mr Ratte but even that does not appear to be sufficient No security officers are willing to let him out for daily exercise as required in the mission statement of the Correctional Service of Canada And as recently as June 6 staff refused to open Mr cell door without him being In restraint equipment Yet during an interview yesterday in the prison visiting area the inmate was neither handcuffed nor under security escort It was the first time he had been in another area of the Institution since he was transferred to an isolated hospital cell on March 1 (Although Mr Ratte has tested HIV positive he is otherwise in good health and does not require hospitalization) No cure for disease There is a good chance that the 24-year-old Toronto man serving 28 months for robbery and break and enter will develop AIDS in the future There is presently no cure for the disease But in the meantime he wants to live felly and with dignity sharing his experience with others and hopefully educating them "I have a future like anyone else no use quitting today because I might not live he said with characteristic optimism got to have hope and got to have PAULETTE PEJROLTtn WNg-StYJvd pay tribute to troops for their role in Gulf war By Paul Mooney OTTAWAttia Cmdai Pnw The mall near Parliament Hill was draped with yellow ribbons and rocked to the sounds of Dixieland jazz Friday as Ottawa paid tribute to the men and women who served in the Persian Gulf Commodore Ken Summers who commanded the Canadian Armed Forces in the operation received the key to the city from Mayor Marc Laviolette The lunchtime ceremony conducted in bright sunshine was attended by a lunch-time crowd of several hundred Mr Summers thanked Canadians for the outpouring of support expressed In some 60 tonnes of mail delivered to the soldiers sailors and airmen during their mission Much of it was from people who have relatives serving in the theatre but wanted to express their support and encouragement Many of the letters were from schoolchildren tell you strongly enough how much those words from fellow Canadians meant" Mr Summers told the crowd went a long way to keeping our morale high in the gulf "Knowing that your friends family and country were behind you made the re- sponsibiiity there so much easier to carry and I thank you one and He urged Canadians not to forget those still serving in the region the men and women of the destroyer HMCS Huron the Canadian Forces engineers helping make Kuwait safe again by clearing mines and the medical personnel assisting Kurdish refugees in Iraq MPs and civic officials mingled with the crowd as a Jazz band singers and danc-ers saluted the Armed Forces for their service The two-day festivities will be capped off today Armed Forces day at 10 am Gov Gen Ray Hnatyshyn will award the Gulf and Kuwait medal to a representative group of Forces members in a ceremony on Parliament HiiL The ceremony will include a fly past by four CF-18 fighters three Sea King helicopters a Boeing 707 refuelling tanker and a Hercules transport plane The medal established by order of the Queen will be awarded to approximately 3600 servicemen and women who served in the theatre of operations from August 2 1990 to the end of Canada's commitment The face of the medal bears a crowned' effigy of the Queen The bilingual inscription on the reverse side reads Gulf and Kuwait It hangs from a ribbon of sky-blue red navy and yellow stripes Former foes I recall horrors on Soviet front POTSDAM Germany TlwAMacWMlPiMS The Soviet foreign minister strode td the podium yesterday and told a hushed audience near Berlin: am the son of Alexander Ivanovich Bessmertnykh a So- viet soldier who was killed on the front oq March A day before the 50th anniversary of Nazi invasion of the Soviet Union the Kremlin's top envoy and Ger- man politicians recalled the terrifying consequences of the attack In a television address to the Soviet people last evening Chancellor Helmut Kohl said he and Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev are determined to "build relations between our people for a peaceful Joint Gorbachev also addressed the issue of Improved relations in a television address in Moscow saying the Soviet Union is taking the path of genuine with Germany "We believe that Soviet-German relations which have a great impact on the situation in Europe and the world will become an example of good neighborliness and Gorbachev said The ceremony In Potsdam was the first Joint Soviet-German observance of the Nazi Invasion on June 22 1941 It followed nearly half a century of bitterness that permeated daily life in the Soviet Union and elsewhere in the former East Bloc Addressing an audience of several hundred people that included Soviet and German soldiers as well as children from Please see SOVIET Page 2 i Inmate holds up pamphlets in prison ceil stage of the illness at the time he was belligerent towards prison staff "In my Judgement the risk Mr Ratte presents to harm others is more apparent than real" wrote Dr Fred Bellemare the only person who takes the inmate out for walks he has made verbal threats he is unlikely to follow through on them particularly if he is treated with some degree of compassion" Institution documents indicate "it is Please see INMATE Page 2 Playground hazard unknown to Kingston health officials By SEAN O'MALLEY Whig-Standard Staff Writer week were tossed onto the grass play areas in between the buildings by local drug addicts The situation got so bad that Kingston and Frontenac Housing Authority community relations worker Tony Ba-guley brought special plastic Jars to the complex to collect all the needles and take them to the health unit for disposal Ms Moore said she called the health unit last March to tell them about the problem and was told by someone there (she does not know who) that it was big concern" But assistant director of inspection Peter Moccio said the department had no record of any dealings with the tenants at 1130 Montreal St "There may have been a call to someone at the health unit but the director of picked up a few of the needles and brought them home Her best friend is a diabetic so her first thought was that another diabetic kid had moved to the neighbor- hood mother Orlene knew differently "I was shocked)" she said yesterday at her 1130 Montreal St home "It really upset me got lots of two- and three-year-old kids running around The committee circulated a newsletter warning residents about the needles Parents were urged to make sure their children never touch them The committee also went door to door asking people to please not dump their needles out Please see NEEDLES Page 2 inspection does not recall he said involved We Ignore something like that" Ms Moore did not contact the health unit again after the Initial call Since then the residents of 1130 Montreal SL have taken it upon themselves to scour the area fer needles find the needles first thing in the Ms Moore said "Some of them even had fresh blood in them" The problem was compounded by the feet that small children played in the area and came across the needles not realizing the'potentlal risks "I have a three-year-old daughter who picked one up and held it In her Ms Moore said Eleven-year-old Shauna Albertson Top Kingston health officials were unaware last summer and winter that dozens of dirty intravenous needles were being tossed in a Montreal Street playground on an almost dally basis The Kingston and Frontenac Housing Authority knew about it so did the police but officials at the Kingston Frontenac A Lennox and Addington Health Unit did not until informed by The Whig-Standard yesterday Rose Moore heads the committee for 1 130 Montreal St a municipally subsidized housing and apartment complex She said that during the peak period last summer upwards of 30 needles a DEX IRJ English department bolsters security Editorial Page 6 By JACQUES P0ITRAS Whig-Standard Staff Writer was reported to police June 4 No one at would explain why it took until this week for the university to act on the threat On Wednesday Queen's security administrator Howard Pearce said the Watson Hall guard had been on duty for "a couple of days" Yesterday no one was commenting about when the other two guards had been posted Mr Pearce hung up on the Whig-Standard during one phone call and Mr Bowman said all three guards had been on duty for several days But he wasn't sure if they were ail poked at the same time It was on Wednesday that Yahya Arab a former part-time student in the English department was banned from campus Mr Arab accused the university of trying to silence his allegations of racism Hall guard The presence of the Watson Hall guard was first reported on Wednesday but at that time no one from Queen's mentioned the other two Kingston Police Force Staff SgL Garnett McKenna said the investigation of the threat is continuing and a report is expected soon Queen's public relations director Dick Bowman said security arrangements are being reviewed "on a daily He said the university hopes to have the English department operating "In a completely normal manner very On Wednesday Phillip Rogers chair of undergraduate studies in English said a former graduate student had some remarks of a nature that have made us decide to keep persons out of the office fer a while" Staff SgL McKenna said the incident The multiple personalities of a place called Kingston by David Pulvw Births and deaths Page 42 Bridge Page 49 qty eeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeseeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee Page 33 Classified Page 42 Comics Page 49 Commerce eeeeeeoeeeeeooeeeeeeeeeee Page 38 Crossword eeeeeeaeeeeaeeeaaeeeeeeeeeeeeee Page 49 Ent9ftaiiMNntiiMMiMMiNNsmiMi MoqqiIm Forum eeeeeeeeseeeeeeeoeeeeeeeeet Page 7 Hemes esseeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee Page 23 Horoscope Page 49 Market Place Page 50 Region eeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeesi Page 37 Sports eeeeeeeeeedleeeeeeeeeeeeeeeet Page 19 Travel Page 8 The Provincial 8500000 number: 1171426 University revealed yesterday that additional security guards are on duty in response to an unidentified security threat that has closed down the English department fair to say connected" Dean of Graduate Studies Bill McLatchie said of the unarmed security guard posted outside his office Principal David Smith's office Is also being monitored The two guards as well as the one posted in the English department on the fourth floor of Watson Hall are only on duty during normal office hours unclear if the two guards were posted at the same time as the Watson r-.