NANAIMO REGION
NATION & WORLD
Group calls for 25% cut to BC Ferries fees Islands Trust wants the provincial government to invest $14 million to bring ferry fees down. A3
Dino-sized d debut
Georgian floods leave at least a dozen dead
‘Jurassic World’ sets ts new world record with $511M earned at the box office
Severe flooding in the Georgian capital also triggered a big-game hunt for animals that escaped a zoo. A9
Entertainment, B7
The newspaper of record for Nanaimo and region since 1874 || Monday, June 15, 2015 CITY
Personal tale Nanaimo artist Alejandra Gomez Cano is working on a project to create visual representations of those who ‘disappeared’ in Argentina
Fate of hotel may be decided tonight SPENCER ANDERSON DAILY NEWS
Nanaimo artist Alejandra Gomez Cano, with one of her pieces at The Vault Cafe in Nanaimo. [AARON HINKS/DAILY NEWS]
Thousands of citizens abducted during dictatorship
N
orma Cano was just 17 years old when the Argentinian military came for her. A coworker had seen them coming and advised her to leave, but feeling she had done nothing wrong, Cano opted to face them. They surrounded the block around the bridal shop where she worked and kicked in the door. Handcuffed and with her eyes covered, she was forced into a car and driven away. It was the spring of 1975 and Operativo Indepencia had begun in Cano’s home province of Tucumán, in the northeast of Argentina. The operation, ordered by the Argentinian government, was intended to annihilate left-wing guerillas, “subversive elements” and anyone thought to be their sympathizers.
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Sunny High 23, Low 13 Details A2
Little did the teenage Norma or who didn’t make it. any those around her realize that She works in collaboration Tucumán was to be the testing with an archaeological colground for what would grow into lective currently excavating a nationwide, state-orthe remains of train dered campaign of workers, teachers, kidnapping, torture, discarpenters, student appearance and murder activists and dissidents of suspected dissidents discovered in a deep throughout Argentina. well some 20 kilometres By the end of the miloutside the capital cenitary dictatorship in tre of Tucumán. 1983, an estimated 11,000 Alejandra met and to 30,000 Argentinian citmarried a Canadian and izens had been abducted, now lives and works in Julie most of whom were Nanaimo. At the end of Chadwick never seen again. the summer, She will Reporting It was into this tumultravel back to Argentina tuous political environto display her commemment that her daughter orative paintings in the Alejandra Gomez Cano museum not far from was born. where their bodies were found. Thirty-six years later, Alejan“For me, when I work with the dra is now in the midst of a proportraits it’s really hard, because ject to create visual representait’s part of my story,” said tions of those who “disappeared” Alejandra. — both the survivors and those Her mother had been kid-
napped because of her activities with the high school student’s union and because her boyfriend had a high-ranking position within the Montoneros, an urban guerilla group. After she was abducted from the bridal shop, Norma was taken to a police station. She was tortured, and could hear the same thing happening to others through the walls, though it was hard to estimate how many of them were imprisoned there. Though not permitted to speak, they managed to whisper encouragements to one another and share their names in the hope their families could be notified if they never got out alive. After six days, Norma was contacted by a man who had once been helped out by her father. He felt obligated to return the favour. See ARTIST, Page A6
Participants run 12 hours in Relay for Life
Sinclair is confident Canada will score goals
Memorials to those lost to cancer illuminated the Rotary Bowl during the Canadian Cancer Society’s Relay for Life annual fundraiser for the fight against the disease. » Pictorial, A5
Women’s World Cup team has scored just one goal in first two opening round group-stage matches with stiffer competition on the way for the host team. » Sports, B3
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The fate of a 21-storey hotel development in downtown Nanaimo could hang in the balance at tonight’s city council meeting. Council is set to vote on whether to grant a request from Chinese developer SSS Manhao International Tourism Group to extend the timeframe for an option to purchase agreement by one year until next May. The agreement, one of several negotiated between the city and SSS Manhao, gives the city the right to buy back the 0.42-acre site of the proposed hotel site for the original $565,000 price the developer had paid the city when it acquired the land in late 2013. The agreement came into effect after SSS Manhao did not attain a foundation permit and construct the foundations for the hotel by May 30 of this year. With no building activity yet on the site, the city has until Nov. 30 to exercise its option to buy back the land. The project and the extension request has Mayor Bill McKay’s support, but he noted that a number of council members have voiced impatience with the project. A vote last month to delay a decision on the issue and seek further information passed narrowly by a 5-4 margin. “As it stands right now, I would sense that it’s going to go down,” McKay said of the extension request. “It’s a crapshoot,” he later added. SSS Manhao’s Vancouver lawyer Perry Ehrlich will speak on behalf of the company tonight, as will Brent Oland from Urban One Builders, the project’s general contractor. Ehrlich said his client wants to complete work on the project and has invested more than $4 million already into various engineering and other preparatory costs. Ehrlich said SSS Manhao is still able to complete construction of the hotel by July 2017 under an existing agreement with the city.
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