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Arts/Review

CSE forum
examines
‘88 summit

Moscow Summit ‘88: Success?
Failure? Another advance towards
meaningful disarmament? An oppor-
tunity missed?

These questions are the focus of a
public forum on Wednesday, July 15,
7:30 p.m. at the Centre for Socialist
Education, 1726 E. Hastings St. in
Vancouver.

The talk features panel members
Frank Kennedy, secretary of the Van-
couver and District Labour Council
and president of End the Arms Race:
Jack Phillips. director of the Centre
for Socialist Education and former
Moscow correspondent for the Trib-
une (1984-86): and Claire Perry of the
Voice of Women for Peace and End
the Arms Race.

Tim Firth, secretary of the B.C.
Peace Council, is the moderator.

Firth says many issues have been
raised by the Western news media in
their coverage of the summit between
U.S. President Ronald Reagan and
Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev.
“We're aiming to make the forum as
spontaneous and lively, with maxi-
mum audience participation, as this
historic subject deserves.”

Our Fooiprints
plays June 26

The play so moved a Halifax artist
that she placed her feelings on canvas
and mailed the painting to Prime Min-
ister Brian Mulroney. Such is the
power of No’ Xya — Our Footprints
— which recently completed a nat-
ional tour covering 4,000 miles and 30
communities.

Our Footprints played in Van-
couver and other parts of B.C. last
fall, winning acclaim for its strong
statement on behalf of Native rights
and land claims. Presented by Head-
lines Theatre, the play which has been
greeted by packed houses everywhere
returns to Vancouver beginning June
26.

Our Footprints has the support of
several organizations, including the
Gitksan-Wet’suwet’en Tribal-Coun-
cil, the Canadian Labour Congress

and the United Church of Canada. It —

runs June 26-29 at 8 p.m. — witha 2
p.m. matinee Saturday, June 25 — at
the Waterfront Theatre on Granville
Island. Tickets are at all VTC/CBO
outlets, phone 280-4444 or 685-6217.

Winnipeg strike

The Winnipeg General Strike of
1919 is the focus of the play Lulu
Street, presented by the theatre
department of the University of B.C.,
June 29-July 9 at the Frederic Wood
Theatre on campus. The drama, by
Ann Henry, centres on the residents
of a boarding house and how the
strike affects their lives. Tickets are $5,
phone 228-2678 for information.

—

Music, games mark —

‘« 712th yearly music fest

‘

The threatened rain failed to materialize Sunday as performers at the 12th
annual Tribune Labour Festival struck the first chords. The event, sponsored by
several Tribune press dlubs, drew more than 200 to the Websters Corners hall in
Maple Ridge. Performers included (clockwise, from top left) singer-songwmter
Linda Chobotuck, Jon Bartlett and Rika Ruebsaat, and the Solidarity Singers:

Music was complemented by child-
ren’s events including the ever-popular
face-painting (inset). Additional per
formers included Liz Thor-Larsen and
Peter Kerr, Lyonok, Steve Gidora and
Pat Gidora, and Dan Keeton.

) ‘TRIBUNE PHOTOS — DAN KEETON

TRIBUNE PHOTOS — SEAN GRIFFIN

10 « Pacific Tribune, June 8, 1988

soviet books reveal CIA ‘dirty tricks’

THE CIA IN ASIA. By Rustem Galiullin.
Progress Publishers, Moscow. 144 pages.
THE ‘‘APOLLO” HEADS FOR ALIEN
WATERS. By Oleg Ignatiev. Progress Pub-
lishers, Moscow. 212 pages. Available at
the People’s Co-op Bookstore.

In 1974 William Colby, director of the
Central Intelligence Agency, was quoted in
Time magazine as saying that the CIA “‘is
not engaged in a campaign to bring demo-
cracy ... We are expected to carry out U.S.
policy.”

That frank statement serves to unders-
core the main theme of two new books on
the CIA from Soviet authors.

The CIA in Asia, by Rustem Gailiullin,
offers extensive documentation to prove
that after India won its independence from
Britain in 1947, the United States, following
its new global strategy, paid special atten-
tion to that country. The CIA presence in
India was greatly enlarged and it paid spe-
cial attention to Kashmir, close to the Soviet
Union and bordering on Pakistan, China,
Tibet and Afghanistan.

The main task facing India after winning
independence was to eliminate the political
fragmentation inherited from British impe-
rialism. That situation was particularly
acute in the northern states.

When it became clear in the late 1950s

that there was no hope of persuading the -

Indian government to change its policy of
non-alignment, the U.S., through the CIA,
began to utilize its contacts among the var-
ious separatist movements to destabilize the
country.

According to Galiullin, the CIA has been
deeply involved in promoting separatist
movements and actions, particularly among
the religious Sikh community in the Punjab
province. The agency has also been
involved with right-wing Hindu organiza-
tions and political parties in different parts
of the country. The author shows a direct
link between the CIA and the communal
violence that has caused many deaths and
injuries in the Punjab.

~ The fact that India is the leader of the
powerful non-aligned movement and has
played a major role in the struggle for peace-

ful co-existence between the capitalist and
socialist worlds does not sit well with key
American policy makers. To them, this atti-
tude displays a pro-Soviet bias.

In dealing with Afghanistan, the book
gives a good picture of the revolutionary
process that came to a head in 1978-79, and
the difficulties and problems that ensued.

To understand why the Soviet Union
finally responded to repeated requests from
the government of that country and sent a
limited contingent of troops into Afghanis-
tan one must remember that a deep-going
social revolution had taken place. The
author notes that the revolution was under
heavy attack from internal and external
enemies seeking to take advantage of some
of the mistakes that were made. In that
situation, the Soviet Union gave fraternal
aid.

There are those who equate the with-
drawal of Soviet troops from Afghanistan
with the defeat of the United States in Viet-
nam in a deliberate attempt to whitewash
the American predatory war and blacken
the Soviet Union for its fraternal help to a
beleaguered, revolutionary government. It
should be remembered that the CIA, which
has played a key role in co-ordinating the
counter-revolution, showed an interest in
Afghanistan several years before the revolu-
tion took place. It was part of the grand
design of U.S. policy makers to hold back
and control the national liberation move-
ments in Asia.

As the U.S. State Department and the
Pentagon saw it, an Asia lost to imperialism
would mean the balance of forces in the
world would be much more favourable to
national liberation and socialism and tilted
against American corporate interests.

The “Apollo” Heads for Alien Waters,
by Oleg Ignatiev, deals in narrative form
with the anti-fascist revolution in Portugal
on April 25, 1974, starting there and ending
at the close of 1975. The book thoroughly
documents the role of the CIA in collusion
with local reactionaries and fascists in
attempting to stage a violent counter-
revolution,

The book reports that Frank Carlucci, an
experienced dirty tricks operator for the

CIA in many countries, was appointed U.S
ambassador to Portugal. A few days later,
Herbert Okum, a 20-year veteran of the
CIA, took over as counsellor at the
embassy. Instructions to the ambassador
came from the CIA, not from the State
Department. :
embassy in Lisbon and meetings with
counter-revolutionary groups and individ.
uals in Portugal, Spain and France — all
with the purpose of overthrowing the N€w
regime. Huge sums of money were funneled
into the country, from the CIA and from
the International Telephone and Telegraph
Co. (ITT), to subsidize subversive actions,
including armed provocations and assassi-
nations of Communist and other left wing
leaders.

Alliances were made with the most reac-
tionary representatives of the old order,
including land-owners, conservative mil-
itary figures, fascists, ex-secret police offic-
ers, industrialists and those who most
actively opposed the national liberation
movements in the Portuguese colonies of
Angola and Mozambique. They, too, con-
tributed large sums of money.

Eventually, Carlucci came to the conclu-
sion that an operation of the type that
toppled the Allende government of Chile in
1973 was not in the cards. There was too
much unity within the Armed Forces
Movement, which was the spearhead of the
revolution, and it was not possible to turn
the movement against the left-wing forces
among the civilians. :

Instead, it was decided that the regime
would be overthrown without resort to
arms. Enlisted was the help of “moderate”
political parties, including the Socialist
Party of Mario Soares. The outcome of that
strategy — the election of Soares as prime
minister and the serious weakening of the
revolution — came after the events des-
cribed by Ignatiev. .

Both books are very good for the revela-
tions they offer. It’s unfortunate that they
suffer some weaknesses from the English
translation. An English-language style edi-

tor should have been used in each case.

— Jack Phillips