PO we World News Draft resister wins moral victory BOSTON — A federal judge has refused to send Edward Hasbrouck to jail for draft evasion, despite a U.S.-attorney’s recommendation of a two-year sentence. The judge did sentence Hasbrouck to two years probation and 1,000 hours of community service. Judge David Nelson com- mented “‘] think I've at least come to know that, although you are clearly in defiance of the law, you are acting out of personal concern.”’ More than 500,000 men have failed to register with the U.S. Selective Service System since registration was re-introduced. So far the government has indicted 14 of them. Grenada nationalizes second Canadian bank ST. GEORGE’S — The government of Grenada has purchased the operations of the Royal Bank of Canada and renamed it the Grenada Bank of Commerce. This is the second Canadian bank to be nationalized, the first being the Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce. The Grenadian government will not lay off any of the local staff at the new Grenada Bank of Commerce. Skilled jobs available but not training for them LONDON — The Technical and Supervisory section of the British engineering workers’ union issued a pamphlet last month pointing out 25,000 apprentices should have been trained in 1982 to meet the demands in the engineering industry. The companies only took on 8,000 for training. Olof Palme trailed by CIA ber of years.”’ took part in the famous torch-1 interference in Vietnam. He m ment. STOCKHOLM — Olof Palme, Sweden’s Prime Minister, was under the close surveillance of the CIA for several years. The “Expressen”’ newspaper, reporting this, quotes Olof Palme us Saying: “‘I was permanently followed by a CIA agent for a num- The newspaper attributes this to the fact that a powerful pro- test movement against the criminal American war in Vietnam, Palme being an active Participant in the movement, enveloped the whole of Sweden in the late sixties. In 1968, Olof Palme, then Minister of Education and Cults, ight march in protest against U.S. ade an antiwar speech in the main Square of the city, which was approved by the country’s govern- ‘Ca INTERVIEW WITH JANET JAGAN Guyana: a land of extremes: Janet Jagan, a member of Guyana’s parliament and a founding member of the opposition People’s Progressive Party (PPP), visited the Tribune re- cently while on a brief visit to Canada. She has a long record of service to the Guyanese people, first elected in the 1950 Georgetown municipal elec- tions. Jagan was a minister in the former PPP govern- ment (1957-1964) and today, in addition to her parliamentary duties as PPP health critic, she heads the Women’s Progressive Organization and - edits the party’s newspaper, ‘‘Mirror’’. In conversations with the Tribune, Janet Jagan gave this picture of Guyanese life today following years of People’s National Congress (PNC) rule, perpetuated by three rigged elections: 2 HK ok “Guyana is deteriorating. It’s a land of extremes in poverty. Jobless figures aren’t available, but people are constantly being thrown out of work as the economy falls apart.” Jagan’s harsh criticism of the PNC regime of Prime Minister Forbes Burnham continued: ‘“The ‘poverty syndrome’ is growing. Today Guyana has the highest infant mortality rate, the highest child death rate and the highest military spending in the English-speaking Caribbean. “The country is racked with corruption as PNC-appointed people fill every post. Feather- bedding is rampant under the so-called ‘Party paramountcy’ (read PNC) concept by which the government controls all aspects of daily life.’’ Jagan described the fate of thousands of Guyanese who enjoy no social assistance what- ever. “The only segment of the population to re- ceive any social aid,’’ she said, ‘‘are senior citizens who get the paltry sum of $45G per month, (Guyana $1=43 cents Can.). ‘‘When you consider the average wage is between $220-400G a month; that bread is $5G a loaf and margarine $14G a pound, you have some idea of the hopelessness of their lives. Food costs, non-existent and inadequate ser- vices, mass unemployment, are the rule, Jagan charged. Sovare miserable health care (drugs, for example are the patient’s responsibility), a crumbl- ing education system and miserable housing. “The jobless and elderly are forced to live with their families, creating overcrowded housing and lower living standards. The Burnham regime, however, has an ‘escape valve’ — mass emigra- tion, especially to North America, Britain and neighboring Suriname,”’ she explained, adding that there is hardly one Guyanese family today without relatives abroad. TRIBUNE PHOTO — MIKE PHILLIPS _ “Staple diet items such as flour, cooking 2 chicken, bread, and milk are either not available? sell on the black market at prices beyond the ‘| of most people,’’ Jagan continued. ‘At $5G fol small loaf, I haven’t purchased bread for a lo time. “Other necessities such as hand soap, toil paper, etc., are rare and expensive. The wealthy, however, have no difficulty in getting everything: Jagan points out that, as in other poverty-ridd@ dictatorships, the extremes in wealth are incre ingly evident. Burnham, she said, travelled to the recent oc! Rios conference in Jamaica by chartered jet with® aides including a valet and doctor. ‘It’s terribly. Here’s a country without bread and he travels” such luxury,”’ she remarked. : Earlier, Jagan had described the activities of tit Guyana peace forces who are campaigning agalll the wasteful arms spending by Burnham. We) point out to people that Burnham’s large milita) force is not only a repressive machine, but evel) dollar spent on guns comes out of people’s por kets,” she said. al When asked if the slogan was “Guns or Butte ” Jagan laughed. ‘‘Not butter! We never see buttel ‘Bread or Guns’ is what we say.”’ Pi Jagan referred to the recent PPP Corigress which mapped out a comprehensive program for advane for Guyana, appealing to the broadest sections ® the public. Based on the picture of abject povett) and misery, the slogan in the Congress report “The government must change, or we’ll change the government’’, seems right on target. U.S. chemical war in Vietnam: Scientists weigh consequences HO CHI MINH — An inter- national symposium on the use of chemical weapons, held in this major city of southern Vietnam (formerly Saigon) drew more than 70 scientists from 20 countries of Europe, America and Asia. Specifically, the symposium studied the effects of the use of poisonous materials by the U.S. army during its war against Vietnam. In even more detail, the sym- posium, organized on the initia- tive of Vietnamese and U.S. Scientists, ‘‘studied the various aspects of the application of herbicides and defoliants by the U.S. army in Vietnam and their prolonged effect on man and na- ture. On the basis of available facts the scientists will try to finda way of limiting the effects of those harmful materials on man and the natural environment. The regional director of the UN Environmental Program for Asia, R. Lesak, told the symposium: ““... we consider it imperative to carry the struggle with all force to safeguard the existing environ- ment, to demilitarize the regions of most significant ecological im- portance, to place a barrier in the way of chemical weapons, to fight against the perfection and accumulation of biological and toxic weapons ...”’ The symposium studied papers revealling that U.S. chemical at- tacks between 1961 and 1975 caused *‘tremendous damage”’ to the forest wealth of Vietnam. The Japanese paper Nomuri wrote re- cently: ‘‘About 100,000 tons of toxic poisonous materials and 550 tons of the most terrible poison — dioxin — were used by the American army in Vietnam. Not only in Vietnam, but in the USA as well, ever more people appear with congenital deformities.”’ U.S. scientist Arthur Westing has written that 57,000 tons of agent orange used in Vietnam be- PACIFIC TRIBUNE— FEBRUARY 4, 1983— Page 10 tween 1965 and 1971 contained at least 170 kilograms of dioxin, a cancer-causing substance. “The symposium participants visited a permanent exhibition describing how the United States conducted its war in Vietnam, and children’s establishment of the city where hundreds of crip- pled children are a stern indict- ment against the criminals,”’ writes Pravda correspondent M. Domogatskikh, following the experience. “The reports of scientists are calm, with formulas and figure es- timates,"” Domogatskikh says. - “But when you begin talking with people after the sessions, they do not hide their feeling of anger and indignation.”’ The questions dis- cussed “‘cannot but lead one to think about the moral respon- sibility of those who in the past employed the most inhuman means of warfare against the Chemical warfare in Vietnam. A U.S. soldier spraying chemical into af people of Vietnam.’’ underground shelter.