_NEW SOVIET SUPERSONIC AIRLINER

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On November 1, the TU-144 new Soviet airliner which has 133
seats, began regular supersonic passenger air traffic, by flying
from Moscow to Alma-Ata in two hours. The aircraft uses conven-
tional service facilities and runways.

has or oe |Po

Teacher says he was falsely
enticed to emigrate to Canada

WINNIPEG Michael
Fishman, his wife and two

. daughters arrived in Canada in

July 1976. He is a Soviet Jew,
teacher of the Russian language
with a university degree and eight
years’ teaching experience.

In Fishman’s words, “‘Before I
came to this country I was told
there was a good chance I could
find work teaching Russian. I am
sorry to say this, but you wanted
me to come here and wash. your
windows and scrub your floors. I
will not...”

Following an English language
course, Fishman sent out applica-

.

tions to universities to engage in
his profession. Nothing happened
and in September he refused city
welfare because welfare wanted
him to look for other work.
Fishman. says he expects Canada
Manpower to find him work in his
profession, “‘if not today, then
tomorrow or the day after that or
later. They have to help me,’’ he
argued.

The agencies who have dealt
with Fishman agree he is ‘‘dif-
ficult’’. ‘Heat and light were dis-
connected in his flat then recon-
nected after a protest,

payment of rent is enforceable.

His wife has been refused English —
training support from Manpower

and for the past two months the
family has lived on children’s al-

lowance cheques.

a ES am your responsibility’,

say’ Fishman, ‘‘you brought me — ;
here, you have to support me. If

this is not true, why do your radio
broadcasts into the Soviet Union
say it is? I was not treated badly in
the USSR, Icame here because of ~

‘but a
court-ordered eviction for non-

what I heard on thé*radio.””

Linda Ilisitt of the Jewish ser-_
vice said, ‘‘ The family is having a
great deal of difficulty adapting to

our way of life...”

/ Since 1873

RCMP violations against Land S rights |

By G. van HOUTEN

Illegal wire tapping, in-
filtration of legal organizations,
burning down buildings,
burglarizing and theft are the
most recent examples of crimes
committed by the Royal Cana-
dian Mounted Police (RCMP).
Previous revelations have added
racism, strikebreaking and even
killings to the sordid arsenal of
RCMP activities against the
working class and democractic
movements.

But these activities are not
new to the RCMP.

In 1873 the RCMP (then
Known as the North West
Mounted Police) was created to
secure Canada’s western reg-
ions for the profit-hungry corpo-
rations centred in eastern Cana-
da.

In fact throughout the con-

struction of the Canadian Pacific °

Railway, the NWMP was used
by the government and the com-
pany to break the railway work-
ers’ strikes. The workers suf-
fered from extremely low wages
and deplorable living and work-
ing conditions, which often led
to their early deaths.

An even bigger problem for
the CPR in those days was the
resistance of the Métis and Na-
tive peoples to the company’s
and government’s encroach-
ments on their rights. The

government created the RCMP
to suppress the struggle of the
Métis and Native peoples for
their land and way of life. Cana-
dian capitalists did not want a
repetition of the events of 1870
when the Métis and Native

peoples, led by Louis Riel, were
able to obtain some concessions
from the federal government,

enshrined in the Manitoba Act
of 1870 which incorporated most
of the Métis’ ‘‘List of Rights.”

Winnipeg General Strike

However, capitalist profiteers
were able gradually to erode
these rights. In 1883, for exam-
ple, the government used the
NWMP to intimidate the Black-
feet into accepting a violation of
their treaty by the CPR. The
CPR demanded and received the
right to build their railroad
through the Blackfeet’s main re-
servation in direct violation of
Treaty No. 7. The RCMP was a
willing tool for the racist policies
of the federal government and
the railway monopoly which it
served. Louis Riel returned
from exile in the United States
to lead a rebellion of Métis, Na-
tive peoples and white settlers
against the government’s pro-
CPR policies. However, the
superior armed might of the
para-military NWMP pre-
determined the outcome. The
struggle against anti-democratic
and racist policies of the
government was brutally sup-

pressed and its leaders
executed.
The anti-working class

character of the RCMP became
even more obvious during the
course of the Winnipeg General
Strike of 1919. The RCMP took
over the functions of the Win-
nipeg municipal police (who had
joined the strikers) and then un-
leashed a virtual campaign of
terror against the workers.

During the strike in Winnipeg,
the RCMP even resorted to
shooting down the’ workers.
When returning war veterans
staged a peaceful demonstration
in support of the strikers, the
RCMP’s reaction was to charge
into the demonstration with
baseball bats swinging and hired
goons at their side. Two vete-
rans were killed. The murderers
were never arrested.

Strike Broken

Eight of the strike leaders
were arrested and charged with
“*seditious conspiracy’’. Others
were deported to their native
countries even though they were
Canadian citizens. The RCMP
was indeed an_ effective

government tool for the im-
plementation of Section 98
which banned progressive
‘movements and trade unions
throughout Canada.

With the arrest of the eight
strike leaders the Winnipeg
General Strike was effectively
broken. Their trial, moreover,
revealed what has:now become
standard police practice — in-
filtrating the ranks of the trade
union and progressive organiza-
tions in order to spy on them and
create provocations. Long be-
fore. the Winnipeg General
Strike began, the RCMP had
regularly infiltrated the trade
union movement, particularly
the One Big Union. Mounted
police Corporal F.W. Zaneth
was one of these. His testimony
was used to convict the Win-
nipeg strike leaders.

The year 1931 was a high-
point in RCMP repressions. In
Estevan, Saskatchewan, the
federal government used the
RCMP to suppress a coal min-
ers’ strike. Again brute force
was used. The police provoked
a fight with one of the miners at
the head of a peaceful demonst-
ration of 250 miners and their
wives and children. They then
used this excuse to fire on the
demonstrators. Three miners
were killed and 23 others, in-
cluding children, were
wounded.

Falsified Documents

John Weir, a veteran Com-
munist, retells the situation at
the time. Arriving at Bienfait
just after the shooting, he recal-
led seeing a boy who had been
shot grimly bearing the removal
of a bullet. The RCMP broke the
strike with these killings. At the.
same time they cordoned off the
area so that they could catch
anyone who attempted to help
the beseiged miners. It was their
intention to use them as evi-
dence that ‘‘outside agitators”
were responsible for the provo-
cations and_ bloodshed.

Evidence subsequently came
to light that the police falsified
documents in order to frame two
of the strike leaders, Annie Bul-
ler and Sam Scarlett — for the
bloody events in Estevan. They
received one-year jail terms for
the crimes committed by the
RCMP.

In the same year, the federal

_

“In 1883, the government used the North West Mounted Police
to intimidate the Blackfeet into accepting a violation of their treaty

by the CPR.”

government invoked Section 98
for the second time to suppress
the Communist Party of Cana-
da, and arrested eight Com-
munist leaders including its
General-Secretary Tim Buck.
The trial revealed that 4 certain
RCMP agent, Sergeant John
Leopold, had infiltrated the
Communist Party of Canada
under the name of Jack Essel-
wein.

Throughout the 1930s the
RCMP continued to break
strikes and smash demonstra-
tions. In 1935 the police pro-
voked a riot in Regina so that
they could stop the On-to-
Ottawa-Trek, a march of
thousands of unemployed who
intended to bring their demands
for jobs to the very door-steps of
parliament. ~

Trade union busting was also
a part of this dirty work during
the Cold War. The federal
government used the RCMP and
an American gangster, Hal

Banks, to smash the militant
Canadian Seamen’s Union.
Banks established a violent and
corrupt regime among the Great
Lakes sailors. Years later the
government was obliged to lay
charges against Banks.

During the Cold War, many
Communists and progressives
lost their jobs and were black-
listed due to police harassment.
Coincidently, from 1946 to 1952,
Superintendent John Leopold
worked in the Ottawa head-:
quarters of the RCMP’s: Intel-
ligence Branch. He was undoub-
tedly active in the witch-hunts of
the 40s and 50s.

Infiltration, spying and other
illegal activities are still common
practices of the RCMP as shown
by recent revelations. The
RCMP remains one of the
seediest expressions of
monopoly rule in Canada. It is
urgently necessary to democ-
ratize the RCMP and put it

under public control oh

scrutiny.

PACIFIC TRIBUNE—DECEMBER 9, 1977—Page 4 —