Edi

torial

_Astep for diplomacy

The lead story in the newspapers last week announced a united front against
Saddam Hussein. Superpower leaders meeting in Helsinki were joined in the belief
that Iraq’s aggression against Kuwait “must not be tolerated.” But in the communi-
que, in the joint press conference and in Gorbachev’s interviews with Soviet TV,
what became apparent was two fundamentally different approaches to settling
conflicts.

The summit may have nudged the U.S. back from the precipice of full scale
war. Before the international community, the Soviets rejected military intervention
as a solution in the Gulf crisis. Moscow will not take part in an armed attack, nor

will it condone one by the U.S., Gorbachev stressed.

Despite Bush’s unilateral incursion into the Mid-East, the summit brought the
United Nations back inte the picture as the forum to settle tensions. The statement
holds its signatories to undertaking measures only “consistent with the UN
charter.”

Both parties reaffirmed their support for UN Security Council resolutions
calling for economic and military sanctions against Iraq until it withdraws from
Kuwait.

And here the communique could be interpreted to read as a warning as much
to Bush as to Saddam: “No peaceful international order is possible if larger states
can devour their smaller neighbours.” Washington will be reminded it endorsed
this sentiment the next time it tums its claws towards Latin America.

That the Gulf crisis was even on the summit agenda is represents a breakthrough
in superpower relations. It is the first time the U.S. has acknowledged the Soviet
Union has a role to play in a Mid-East peace process.

It was at Gorbachev’s insistence that food, medicine and other humanitarian

assistance are now exempt from the embargo. In addition he compelled Bush to.

concede that the Arab states have a “key role” to play in finding a regional solution
not only between Iraq and Kuwait, but around other troubled issues including the
Palestinian question and Lebanon.

As part of the terms necessary for a regional solution the Soviet leader received
assurances that U.S. troops would not remain in the Gulf after the Iraq-Kuwait
situation is resolved. Gorbachev also committed the Soviet Union to using its own
bilateral relations with Iraq and other Arab countries to bring events to a peaceful
conclusion.

None of this means a solution has been found. It merely sets a framework for
finding one. It is a practical demonstration of commitment to make diplomacy and
dialogue the norm in international relations. Such an approach does lack the high
intrigue of tough rhetoric, the one-upmanship of matching man for man and tank
for tank. But then such excitement was often accompanied by the threat of nuclear
exchange, which rarely achieved as much as what was secured at last week’s

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@ “anada Post has often been accused
of taking a fast food approach to
postal services with its low-wage,
privatized postal franchises that the cor-
poration has opened in dozens of com-
munities across the country. But now the
Crown corporation is unabashedly si-
dling up to the golden arches with its
latest plan, launched as part of its promo-
tion of October as “Stamp Month” across
Canada.
A Canada Post news release Sept. 14
announced that the post office was joining
forces with McDonald’s Restaurants of

throughout Canadian schools, which intro-
duce children to stamp collecting and ex-
plain the history of four commemorative
stamps which will be issued by Canada
Post to launch Stamp Month.

In what can only be a public relations
slip of irony, the press release notes that the
information kits are “designed to promote
Canada’s cultural heritage ....” The stamps
will apparently feature “legendary crea-
tures from Canada’s folklore” — creatures
which just incidentally will also be fea-
tured in McDonald’s “Treat of the Week”
slated for distribution at its restaurants
from Oct. 8 — 22.

And of course, the information kits will
go out to all schools bedecked with the
McDonald’s logo. From a corporate view-

Canada to distribute information kits -

People and Issues

a

point, it’s a marketing manager’s dream —
to have a direct line to a prime target
audience. And what could be a better
audience for McDonald’s fast food than
school children?

For the free enterprise-oriented folks at
Canada Post, it’s a “new direction in
marketing,” as corporation vice-president
W.T. Kennedy put it. But for ordinary
Canadians, and especially those whose
jobs and postal services are being
threatened by post office privatization, it’s
the wrong direction.

File Z, the Agassiz-based group which
has been fighting privatization and the
‘closure of rural post offices, put out its own
leaflet in response to the Canada Post-
McDonald’s_ venture, charging that
children were the “victims of a govern-
ment-sponsored Big Mac attack.”

“Tn a classic example of the Mulroney
government’s "free enterprise run wild"
approach to social services, the govern-
ment has now invited the world’s largest
fast food chain in Canadian public
schools," the group stated.

A number of local parents also com-
plained, including Sarah Davis, a mother
of two school-age children in Agassiz. —

“The Department of Health and Wel-
fare puts out publications encouraging
good diet and nutrition to try to improve
the health of Canadians and then the
government turns around and opens the
doors of our public schools to a fast food
chain intent on getting our school kids
hooked on junk food,” she said. “It’s a
disgrace.”

In response, File Z is promoting its own
“stamp month,” encouraging people to use
two new stamps that will be released Oct.
1 protesting the closures of rural post of-'
fices in Westwold, B.C. and Dubuc, Sask.

-Copies of the free stamps are available
from Liga Bluff, Westwold, B.C., VOE
3B0 orJudy Talbot, Dubuc, Saskatchewan,
SOA ORO.

kK

aimi Davis wrote us from Toronto last

week to tell us of the passing of long-
time trade unionist Tom Forkin.

Aveteran of the On-to-Ottawa Trek and
the 1935 relief camp workers strike, he
later went on to join Arthur (Slim) Evans
in the 1937-38 Mine-Mill organizing drive
in Trail which led to the historic certifica-
tion of the union in 1943.

Tom, who was predeceased by his five
brothers, George, Pat, Joe, Stan and Jim,
died in Samarkand, Uzbekistan Sept. 11
while visiting the Soviet Union.

* ok

W: also pay tribute to Nelson Dean, -
a long-time Tribune reader and
trade unionist who died at Nanaimo
General Hospital at age 83 on July 28.

Known less formally as Nels, Dean was
born in Nanaimo and spent his early work-
ing life in the city’s coal mines until they
were closed in the early Fifties. He sub-
sequently became a steam engineer, work-
ing in that trade until retirement. ©

At various times he was a member of,
and active in, the United Mine Workers,
the Intemational Woodworkers and the
Operating Engineers, working in organiz-
ing along with Harold Pritchett. Among his
accomplishments was a role in organizing
the Woodfibre mill.

He was predeceased by a son, and is
survived by another son and daughter.

4 + Pacific Tribune, September 24, 1990

‘