GUNS, DRUGS AND HONOUR: VANCOUVER'S DEADLY MIX

At Least 50 People Have Died In A Decade-Long Spiral Of Violence In The
Lower Mainland's Indo-canadian Community, And Police Are Hoping A Public
Forum This Week Will Be A Turning Point

The rapid hail of bullets was all it took to paint the joyous wedding
reception a bright red.

The groom crumpled. A trio of innocent guests collapsed at his side. Then a
fourth man was shot.

Chalk up another gangland hit.

This time it was gunmen trying to wipe out 22-year-old Kuljit Singh
"Kelley" Buttar, a drug gang member of Indo-Canadian descent and a guest at
the reception.

It was shortly before Christmas of last year.

The lucky groom and three other guests have since recovered. The target of
the attack, less fortunate, died after taking several direct hits to the chest.

Richmond RCMP are looking into a possible connection between Buttar's death
and a series of other slayings in the Lower Mainland, where there have been
a dozen drug and gangland murders in the past year.

Since the early 1990s, at least 50 people have been killed in such drug,
gang and revenge killings, says Vancouver police intelligence section Insp.
Axel Hovbrender.

What's behind them?

A whole host of things.

Some of the tit-for-tat killings are part of a drug war that can be traced
back to the mid-1990s and gangsters such as Bindy Johal and Ron and Jimmy
Dosanjh. They usually feature young men, often pumped up on cocaine,
steroids and their own testosterone.

Some of the killings have been motivated by romantic rivalries, but much of
the violence is simply the outgrowth of a culture in which slighted honour
must be avenged.

For their part, police decry the glamorous image that builds up around some
of the best-known thugs, and are doing what they can to change it.

"[These people] are a cancer in the community," says Det. Scott Driemel.
"They should be recognized for what they are -- the destroyers of hope, of
dreams and of lives. They sell their drugs, their poison, to the citizens,
our friends, perhaps even our own children."

Community insiders, even those who pray the violence will end, often feel
powerless to help. A frustrated Hovbrender cites the "wall of silence" in a
community fearful of the killers among them.

On the other hand, critics of the police say the lack of co-operation is
due in part to a dismal public record for successful prosecution.

A forum to address the violence will be held next Saturday at the Morris J.
Wosk Centre at 580 West Hastings St. All seats are already taken.

"Many look to the police to solve this problem," says Surrey RCMP spokesman
Const. Tim Shields. "But . . . it is a problem that can only be solved with
the help of the community."

B.C. Supreme Court Justice Wally Oppal, the first lawyer of Indo-Canadian
heritage to be appointed to a high court in Canada, has begun to speak
publicly about the fact his community lives in such fear that it is
commonplace to hire security guards for even the most joyous of events --
weddings, for example.

He spoke out in a recent interview with The Voice, a Toronto-based
Indo-Canadian weekly.

"When I first started practising criminal law -- I was a prosecutor and a
defence lawyer -- the most our people would get involved in were assaults
and alcohol-related offences," says Oppal, referring to the late 1960s and
early '70s. "And now what's happened is that our people have graduated into
heavy crime."

Police forces, which are only now beginning to develop an understanding of
the criminal players, recently signed a memo of understanding that they
will share files. For example, a confidential briefing paper on ways to
deal with gangsters brazen enough to open fire in a crowded nightclub is
circulating among Lower Mainland departments.

The extent of the criminal activity? Police suspect it involves no more
than 100 people.

"A lot of these factions are small gangs," says Vancouver's Driemel.

"Although they are sophisticated in their criminal activity -- be it drug
dealing or whatever -- they are nonetheless somewhat unorganized, and
allegiances seem to change.

"And, as we are learning, a murder can sometimes be based on something as
simple as a serious insult or righting a perceived wrong."

Gang experts like Simon Fraser University Prof. Rob Gordon say the violence
is a product of organized criminal groups battling for market share.

"The situation now has similar characteristics to what was going on durin1g
Prohibition. It's similar to what was going on in the 1920s and 1930s in
Chicago," he says.

"There is a high demand for an illegal product -- then it was alcohol and
now it is marijuana, cocaine and heroin -- and when that happens, it breeds
entrepreneurs to meet the demand who work outside the law."

Const. Shields notes that most of those involved in the violence are young
men in their late teens to early 30s and are second-generation Canadians,
often well off.

They see a huge profit in the drug trade, he says, and in trying to carve
out their turf they run into already established criminal groups.

But, Shields adds, battles in the Indo-Canadian underworld all too often
involve personal slights: "If there is an insult to the family honour,
often violence results."

Oppal has joined other leaders in calling on the community to talk to
police -- and to take responsibility for solving the problem.

"Somebody gets killed and everybody professes to be in shock, saying, 'Oh,
our son wasn't involved in things like that,'" sighs Oppal. "Everybody is
in a state of denial."