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i¢
af ag Vancouver Board of Trade
soon oa eeleased a report of a
South Will Mission” to Mexico and
Braziy .c ot ¢2 in which it holds up
Maho, |S 80 example for Canadian
pe mi 8overnment to follow.
Ib Dreg ote Some excerpts from the
busines “28° sent out by the big
al ene S group on May 12, 1975:
ib Gee a case in point. Rich in
ae 8, agriculture, vast
Dower al forest reserves, hydro
Of sap nthe very real possibility
Sufficiency in petroleum.

tO:
) tis ‘nation, by drive, energy

ination ;
ts

ite j and innovation, ; is
ap. Uflation, virtually ‘pulling
Most ae by its boot straps’ in a
tt Ree Zing and rapid fashion.
indus Source development and

dale alization are national
A Oura

i$

Centive programs to en-
Capital domestic and foreign
Parent « plentiful (this is an
j b ae Contrast to recent moves
7tar, t ments in Canada which

Ken COnsi isin:
-Ptives) der to be disin
si

Orkj

: Ness and government are
6 together to provide the

/SALMON B-BQ
| AT KITS BEACH -

| Sat., June 7

Films, Singing,
Bar Nearby

See Class. Ad this issue

J
/
pt
pf
f

Invites you to

economic machine which will
provide a first class basis for an

ever improving social in-
frastructure and rising living
standards.

“There is a sense of national
purpose evident in people of all
walks of life and the word
‘progress’ is seen and heard scores
of times every day.

“Things are happening. The real
growth rate is one of the highest in
the world. This nation which is so
rich in many things is only one of
many which are strong com-
petitors for foreign investment and
world trade. Desire and the ‘work
ethic’ can work wonders.”

Obviously impressed by what its
mission. saw in Brazil, the Van-
couver Board of Trade calls for “a
change in attitude (in Canada), a
new national purpose, and a
renewed belief in the “work ethic.”
It urges that measures to attract
investment capital (like Brazil’s)
be part of a Canadian national
program.

What are the conditions which so
impressed the Vancouver Board of
Trade group and led big B.C.
corporations like MacMillan
Bloedel to invest large amounts of
capital in Brazil? In February the
Tribune carried an article ex-
posing the state of affairs in that
South American country which is
under one of the most right wing
dictatorships in Latin America.

Here are some of the facts about
conditions in, Brazil which the
Board of Trade mission did not
report on, and which it would like
to see Canada emulate:

BARGAIN AT HALF THE PRICE]

“MAYOVA ZABAVA"
May 31 — 8 p.m. — Vancouver
Ukrainian Cultural Centre
805 E. Pender

5 FEATURING THE KOBZAR
ie DANCERS AND AUUC

FOLK ORCHESTRA

Chile CP leader writes
of his torture by junta

Rodrigo Rojas, member of the

- centreal committee of the Com-

munist Party of Chile, was editor-
in-chief of El Siglo, the party’s
newspaper. Arrested after the
fascist coup, he was first im-
prisoned on Dawson Island, and
transferred later to a prison near
Santiago. International protests
finally forced his release and he
now continues his work in exile.
His book, “Jamais a’ Genoux”’
[Never on Bended Knees] was
recently published in French by
Novosti Press. The following ex-
cerpts first appeared in France
Nouvelle, weekly magazine of the
French Communist Party, and are
taken here from Tom Foley’s
translation published in the U.S.
Daily World.

By RODRIGO ROJAS

Las Conchas — “‘The Shells” —
were cells on the premises of the
(Santiago) speedway transformed

City Trade Board would
follow Brazil’s example

e Brazil has maintained one of
the lowest wage scales of any
partially industrialized Third
World country. Labor costs in
Brazil account for as little as eight
per cent of total production costs.
The North American equivalent
figure is between 20 and 40 per
cent.

e In the last 10 years the real
wages of the Brazilian workers and
peasants have declined by almost
50 per cent.

e The military dictatorship
ruling Brazil has cut back spending
on social services from four per
cent of the budget to the current
rate of one per cent, despite an
infant mortality rate which has
risen steadily and is now in excess
of 88 per thousand live births.

e Life expectancy averages only
35 years, about one half of
Canada’s, and over half the
population over 20 years of age is
affected by tuberculosis.

e The Safety conditions on the
job are practically non-existent. In
Sao Paulo alone 7,600 workers have
been killed and 130,000 injured in
the past two years — and the real
figure is reported to be much
higher.

These are the conditions the
Board of Trade upholds as an
example of the ‘“‘work ethic’’ which
Canada should follow if it is to
maintain itself in the world
competition for markets.

It is precisely these conditions
which have attracted MacMillan
Bloedel and some of the world’s
largest multi-national corporations
to export vast amounts of capital to
Brazil because these conditions
ensure them maximum profits on
their investment.

Canadian workers say ‘‘no
thanks’’ to the Vancouver Board of
Trade. Rather than businessmen’s
groups like the Board extolling
Brazil’s conditions to the sky as an
example for the world to follow,
Canada should be condemning the
ruthless Brazilian dictatorship for
its inhuman policies which are
grinding down the Brazilian people
while giving away the countries’
vast resources to foreign cor-
porations and enriching a few
Brazilians in the process.

into ‘‘intensive treatment halls,” a
phrase used by the torturers.
There were applied the most
refined and also the most inhuman
tortures.

The torturers, predominantly
members of the Chilean Air Force
were brutes who no longer had
anything human about them.

These mercenary killers,
working for Chilean Air Force
head and top junta figure, General
Leigh, were monsters of _per-
version and sexual obsession,
possessed of the lowest kind of
bestial instincts.

“‘You’re here in Las Conchas,
you son of a bitch! Here you are
going to talk! Strip yourself, you
vermin, we are going to rape you!”’

The session of ‘‘intensive
treatment”’ lasted for seven hours.
They wanted to force from me a
confession that I was a ‘“‘a Soviet
spy like Luis Corvalan.” But they
got nothing out of me.

That day, I was incapable of
making it back to the stadium with
the other comrades. I spent the
night in a field hospital in one of the
tents set up between the speedway
and the stadium.

The torturers proved that they
knew their infamous trade per-
fectly. The electric shocks up the
rectum, on the genitals, the ears,
the tongue, the eyelids, the kicks
and blows on the buttocks, the
stomach, the head, the kidneys and
liver and being. hanged by the
wrists and ankles — all had grave
effects on me.

I urinated blood; I had internal
hemorrhages; I coughed up blood;
I bled from the nose and ears; my
buttocks were a swollen, bloody

mass. of flesh. I kept losing con-.

sciousness from moment to
moment. I could neither walk nor
hold myself up.

My comrades had already been
taken-out of the speedway when
two soldiers threw me on to a
stretcher, placing my clothes and
shoes underneath. It was this way
— bloody, nude — that I appeared
before the young doctor in the field
hospital. ;

For the first time since I had
been arrested by the soldiers of the
Buin Regiment, I confirmed that
there were men in uniform whom
fascism had not been able to turn

into wild animals. In a daze, I

heard the doctor upbraid the

soldiers:

“You murderers!’’ he said to
them. ‘Are you never going to stop
dirtying our uniform? ... We are
no longer going to accept anybody
in this condition . . . this man could
die here at any moment but we are
not going to take the responsibility
for it. And tell those butchers at the
speedway that. we are going to
bring them up on charges (to make
formal charges of violations of
military law—Ed.) if they start
this again.”’

I don’t know whether the doctor
was speaking truly or whether this
was one of those police role-playing
games. Whatever it was, I received
medical aid.

I spent three days in the hospital.
My condition disturbed the
medical personnel. I seemed to be
in the worst possible shape. The
tortures had caused grave lesions
to my genitals. Several vital
organs had suffered equally. The
hemorrhage was continuous and I
had to have blood transfusions.

On the fourth day, I was returned
to the stadium and put back in my
old cell. The faces of my comrades
in the stands expressed their joy
when they saw me and knew that I
had not died under torture as had
been rumored.

The comrades who had been with
me in Las Conchas told the other
prisoners that I had said nothing,
that I had neither denounced nor
betrayed anyone. They were proud
of me, feeling that I could have
acted in no other way. But I myself
was the most proud. I was proud
especially because I was a Com-
munist, a member of our thousand-
times glorious party which is the
Communist Party of Chile.

That evening, they informed me
that I was going to go through a
new interrogation the next mor-
ning--—:

PAYING PIPER

Although it will come as little
surprise to most people, Imperial
Oil Ltd. has acknowledged publicly
that it has made contributions to
both provincial and federal
political parties.

PACIFIC

TRIBUNE
40th ANNIVERSARY
BANQUET

©

RENFREW COMMUNITY CENTRE

2929 E. 22nd AVE., VANCOUVER

July 14, 1975

6:30 p.m. DANCE 9 p.m.
$5.00 — $3.00 OAP

PACIFIC TRIBUNE—MAY 23, 1975—Page 11