Doukhobors trained young terrorists

Re: “Premier apologizes to Doukhobors for how they and their children were mistreated 70 years ago,” Feb 28.

In all the years I have read the

Times Colonist, this is the first article that I have found to be totally without redeeming merit. It’s not all the paper’s fault: Most of the blame belongs to Premier David Eby and his minions. But there is one sentence that is not a quotation, and I’ll start with that. “Hundreds of Doukhobor children were forcibly removed from their homes in the 1950s in part because their parents opposed government rules and refused to send them to public schools.”

Yes, indeed. And the other part was that their parents, members of the Sons of Freedom sect, were indoctrinating them to bomb, burn and kill in the name of religion. Here are the opening paragraphs from Terror in the Name of God, written by Vancouver Sun reporter Simma Holt in 1964. (I had a very small part in that book: I researched wire service articles for Simma.)

“Arson was a mother’s lesson in love to her child. Hate was truth. Violence was the religious expression of that truth.

“Thus the child Harry Kootnikoff grew up, in a hidden plateau in the interior of British Columbia, Canada, protected from the other truths of the world beyond the hills in which he lived. His childhood lessons, given to him as his religion, became his philosophy of life, the philosophy of the true Sons of Freedom Doukhobor.

“On February 16, 1962, Harry Kootnikoff, with friends trained as he was, with kindred dedication, prepared to act out their training. They set out to bomb a post office in a village on the shores of the Columbia River.

“At 11:05 that night their home-made bomb exploded, completely demolishing the car in which they were riding. Harry was instantly killed, the others injured. Harry was then only 17 years old, already the leader of a gang of youthful terrorists. He died as he was trained to live — in violence.”

Apologize? $10 million for “historical wrongs”? For people who blew up bridges, power lines and railroad tracks, and burned the homes of their neighbours who were not members of the sect? O tempora, O mores!

Ian Cameron Brentwood Bay