Friday, June 17, 1983

Newsstand ORE RABED 48
price res
40c Vol. 46, No. 24

.S. test request
spurring new action
against the cruise

A protest Saturday by some 80 local
Chilean exiles and supporters proved a fit-
ting prelude to a massive trade union
organized demonstration Tuesday in
which hundreds of thousands in Chile took
to the streets to protest 10 years of fascist
rule by president Augusto Pinochet.

The Vancouver demonstration, spon-

fice with the People of Chile, began on the
steps of city hall. Rain forced cancellation
of the march to the CBC building
downtown, but participants took the bus
or drove cars to the site for a one-hour
demonstration.

The action was the second held by the

September to support and draw attention
_ tothe growing resistance to Chile’s military
junta within the country.

magnitude of Tuesday’s action, during
which several hundred thousand Chileans
kept their children home from school,
boycotted stores and staged massive
demonstrations, were unthinkable in the
country a few short years ago. The
Pinochet regime, which murdered former
president Salvador Allende in a bloody
coup in 1973, slaughtered thousands dur-
ing and in the years following the coup.
Trade unionists and political activists have
been ruthlessly exterminated, and
thousands of names fill the lists of those
“‘disappeared’’ by the military junta.
Opposition to the junta has spread to in-
clude even members of Chile’s middle and

and the regime has not been able to supress

violence as before. But the abduction of the
‘president of the Copper Workers Con-
federation, Rodolfo Séguel, who helped
Organize Tuesday’s demonstration, the
killing of two people in Santiago by police,
and the arrest of hundreds of others has
shown that opposition to Pinochet’s
crumbling regime is still dangerous.
Frank Kennedy, president of the Van-
couver and District Labor Council and
Tegional secretary-treasurer of the Interna-
tional Longshoremen’s and
Warehousemen’s Union, told the Van-
couver demonstration that the ILWU hasa
Policy against handling any military related
800ds bound for Chile.

sored by the broadly-based Solidarity Of- §

Demonstrations of the nature and ©

coalition, and several more are planned for § ;
the 11th day of each month until ;

some sections of the former ruling class, 7

demonstrations with the same degree of ;

“We haven’t had achance to useit yet,”
said Kennedy, “‘but if the Canadian
government ever decide to sell guns or

other similar material to Chile, we'll use ~

it. ”

Solidarity with Chile spokesman
Suzanne Martinez attacked the Chilean
constitution, imposd by Pinochet in 1980,

as one that ‘‘allows the violation of human.

‘rights,”” by permitting the violent repres-
sion of anti-government demonstrations.
The constitution also destroyed Chile’s
education system, considered a ‘‘model’’

Young demonstrator was one of 80 protesting the Chilean junta’s crimes Saturday.

for Latin America, and wiped out
medicare and other social services for most
Chileans, she said.

Pinochet has told political leaders who
backed ‘the demonstration that ‘‘we are
soon going to send you back to your caves
so that this problem can end.

“The protest is a Communist method of
pressure because it keeps growing and
growing until it reaches a violent stage, and
this is what we are going to prevent,”’ said
the man whose regime: has murdered
thousands since he took power with the aid
of CIA.

Cominco strikers in anti-concessions fight

—page 12

The U.S. government’s formal request
Monday that the Canadian government
allow the testing of U.S. cruise missiles over
the Yukon, B.C. and Alberta has given new
impetus to demonstrations in Canada and
around the world.

Despite a decision Friday by the 16
member countries of NATO giving the go-
ahead for deployment of 572 U.S.-made
cruise and Pershing Il medium-range
missiles in Europe in December, it is clear

that those governments do so in the face of ;

mass opposition from the people they claim
to represent.

In Spain, a recent NATO member whose
social democratic government plans a
referendum on NATO membership,
100,000 people marched for peace through
the capital city of Madrid Sunday.

Canada was the scene of continuing peace
actions beginning last weekend when 25,000
gathered for a huge peace rally outside the
Manitoba legislature in Winnipeg. In Van-
couver, 600 members of the Unitarian
church staged a noon-hour demonstration at
Robson Square against Pershing II and
cruise missiles Monday.

Tuesday saw another demonstration in
Robson Square by individuals opposed to
the cruise testing, and also marked the first
monthly ‘‘pause for peace”’ in which citizens
of at least 25 B.C. communities reportedly
took part.

A mass “‘phone-in’’ to Ottawa and a
peace fast and vigil outside the legislature in
Victoria are some of the actions planned by
Vancouver Island peace activists next week.

In Vancouver, the 130-group member
End the Arms Race coalition has solidified
plans for part two of the Refuse the Cruise
campaign during the next five months.

Reacting agrily to the U.S. government’s
formal request for cruise testing, EAR presi-
dent Frank Kennedy Tuesday said the um-
brella organization’s volunteers would be
‘‘intensifying”’ the campaign in light of
prime minister Pierre Trudeau’s indications
that the federal government will give the
green light for the testing.

“Canadians have constantly expressed
their opposition to the cruise and to the
nuclear arms race. Yet, in spite of the huge
demonstrations, the thousands of letters, the
unequivocal results of polls and referenda,
the federal government insists that it will go
ahead and gives the appearance that the re-
quest will be accepted,”’ he said.

“End the Arms Race is aie for a flat
refusal. If that’s not possible, then there
must be a full parliamentary debate and a
free vote of the MPs,”’ he said.

‘*We’re urging all members of parliament

See DEMONSTRATION page 12

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