tee FROM PAGE 16 Len Norris makes a succinct connection between the aims of the young men who bore arms for a cause 50 years ago and the activities of the surviving members — now all over 70 — today. “We support the peace movement, the struggles of the South African and the Chi- lean people — all countries or people struggling against fascist domination,” he asserts. “We carried our banner in the last peace march (April 27 Walk for Peace),” notes Waywood, who is the Mac-Paps’ represen- tative in Chile support work. Veterans recently donated money to the Palestine Red Crescent Society, the Red- Cross counterpart headed by Dr. Fahti Arafat who was in town ona C anada-wide fundraising tour. (In the United States, members of the Mac-Paps’ counterpart, the Abraham Lincoln Brigade, are busy supply- ing generators to Nicaragua). Edwards notes that the Mac-Paps’ efforts have sent an ambulance to Nicaragua. “Fascism was the enemy in those days,” Edwards observes. “Today the enemy is imperialism, and countering it is the peace policy of the socialist world and the tre- mendous world public opinion in favor of disarmament.” For years the Mac-Paps and their sup- porters have petitioned the federal govern- ment to right past wrongs and grant official recognition of the battalion and_ its members. Efforts during the Trudeau years succeeded, with the aid of Vancouver law- yer and former alderman Harry Rankin, in granting of a federal charter, which, Norris notes, gives the organization a measure of legality. While Mattersdorfer praises the New Kamloops Veterans of Sp Clubs: Creston Bill Bennett Delta Burnaby Effie Jones Campbell River Fishermen Comox Valley Fort Langley Correspondence Fraser Valley Democrats for “backing us all the way,” MPs from the two big business parties have rejected the battalion’s requests for full sta- tus, he notes. He and Norris says its mainly the “hostility” of reactionary MPs and the opposition from the Canadian Legion lead- ership that are the “main stumbling block” to recognition. “We are opposed by the Canadian legion whose leaders are basically reactionary,” Edwards agrees, while adding: “That’s not to say that all members do. Many branches support us.” A Mac-Pap delegation from the Eastern branch recently met with the Parliamentary Veterans Committee, said Norris, noting that “the hostility’s gone from govern- ment.” (At press time, no details of the meeting were available.) Many Canadians and others from around the world lost their lives in the Spanish civil war in which the Republican government, facing the combined might of Franco’s fascists and Hitler’s military machine — and the abandonment by west- ern governments who hid behind a phoney ‘“‘non-intervention” policy — eventually lost. But no one in the Mac-Paps regrets his involvement. ‘We had the people with us. If we’d been successful in Spain, it would have made a bloody big change in history. The reason we weren’t was that fascism was still develop- ing, and the capitalist class was busy build- ing it up,” Waywood asserts. “Had the Republicans won the war, there would have been no Second World War and 50 million people wouldn’t have died. But that was the cost of the betrayal of Spain,” says Edwards. “The idea of the capitalist class was to ain still fighting sell out Spain as soon as they could. The resistance derailed German plans to attack the Soviet Union. It would have been much earlier if it hadn’t been for the resistance,” states Norris. “We see that today with South Africa, where they pay lip service to the anti- apartheid effort but in fact help prop up the ~ racist government.” é Says Mattersdorfer, in connecting the past with the present: “T always donate ? something towards Nicarauga. It’s some-- thing I believe in, and I will never changemy ~ ideas on that.” i anaes ool Geason’s Sreetinos to all readers of the Pacific Tribune SOSOSSS Veterans of the Battalion } Mackenzie-Papineau ‘” v “Venin pOv™ Regional Committees: Greater Vancouver, Fraser Valley, Vancouver Island, Kamloops-Shuswap, Okanagan. Kingsway Penticton Surrey Maple Ridge Port Alberni Trail/Castlegar Nanaimo Prince George Vancouver East New Westminster Prince Rupert Vernon Nigel Morgan Richmond Victoria North Island Shuswap Westside North Shore Sunshine Coast White Rock 22 e PACIFIC TRIBUNE, DECEMBER 17, 1986 orld. This above all requires we in control of Vancouver, : Dong "ion 2 xi * “% of the Reykjavik summit a labor and the people watchword in 1987. — Maurice Rush, leader B.C. Provincial Committee Communist Party of Canada * S : : we rededicate ourselves to the struggles for peace on earth and in space, and ft wr and all peoples. > The biggest challenge we face in 1 987 is to make the hope 2 reality — to end the arms race and build a nuclear weapons freew __ join hands to demand “No to Star Wars, End Nuclear Tests.” With the Socreds back in Victoria and the NPA will face renewed struggle to defend their rights. Unity must be our