DONNA TYNDALL...

—Sean Griffin photo
Leonard Peltier facing new danger in U.S. trial.

Zoning change urged
for Grandview area

A proposal of the local area
planning committee to ‘‘down
zone” Grandview Woodlands in
Vancouver’s east end to ensure
that the community will be
preserved for families is to be
placed before a full public hearing
in Grandview on March 17.

The down. zoning proposal was
developed by the planning office in
conjunction with the Grandview
Woodlands Area Council and has
the solid support of community
organizations such as the Grand-
view Tenants Association and the
Grandview Community Resources
Board. The groups favor the down
zoning to preserve family housing
from being demolished to make
way for large scale apartment
rental ri ca and con-
dominiums.

Big developers in Se tenirees are
opposed to the down zoning as the
eastend community is a prime
concentration area for develop-
ment capital. The developers have
the support of the majority of the
members of city council who will
make the final decision.

City council was tested on the
issue February 15 when eight
major developments, held up by
the planning department pending
the outcome of the public hearings,
went before council for approval.
The developers, Daon Develop-
ments, Landmark Projects and
Concost, all sent delegations to
council with similar appeals for
protection of their investments.

NPA alderman Warnett Ken-

nedy responded with a motion to
close down the local planning of-
fice, and although that motion did
not get a seconder, the developers
did get their permits over the
objections of aldermen Rankin and
Marzari.

Rankin pointed out that Grand-
view Woodlands has the highest
density of families anywhere in
Vancouver but that family living is
threatened by council’s housing
policies. He said that the last
census showed a decrease in
Vancouver’s population of 30,000.

Defence seeks new date,

venue for Peltier’s trial

Native indian leader Leonard
Peltier is scheduled to face trial
March 14 in Fargo, North Dakota
unless defence lawyers are able to
win a postponement and relocation
of the trial outside of the Dakotas.

A representative of the Peltier

Defence Committee told the annual
‘convention of the United Fisher-

men and Allied Worker’s Union,
that the defence was hopeful that
the trial would take place in May or
June in some other part of the U.S.

Peltier’s adopted sister, Donna
Tyndall, explained to the UFAWU
delegates that surveys had shown
that 80 percent of the residents in
North Dakota believed that
members of the American Inaiun
Movement were guilty of say
crime of which they had been
accused. She said that it was im-
perative to move the trial out of the
Dakotas and to have a separate
jury survey. ‘But there is not yet
enough money for that,’’ she said,
noting the heavy expenditures that
the defence for other AIM leaders
have required. ‘‘There is no money
left to buy Leonard justice.”

Tyndall, whose mother, Ethel

DERA to lobby Victoria
on handicapped benefits

Whether they are invited or not, the B.C. Coalition of the Disabled,
the Downtown Eastside Residents Association and the First United
Church, among others, will lobby the Social Credit cabinet to try and
prevent legislation to amend the GAIN program that will sharply
reduce the incomes of many of B.C.’s 10,000 handicapped people.

The lobby is scheduled to coincide with the opening of the debate
on the human resources budget, expected to come up in about two

weeks.

DERA secretary Jean Swanson says that the Socreds have
‘predictably’ not replied to the written request for a meeting with the
cabinet. ““We are going to go anyway,” she assured the Tribune this
week, adding that a number of other organizations would join with
DERA, the Disabled Association and the First United Church.

In the estimates that will be presented by human resources
minister Van der Zalm, the regulations for handicapped benefits in the
GAIN program will be changed, making many ineligible for benefits
they previously enjoyed. The result will be a drop in income of 12 to 28
percent for many handicapped people.

Pearson, had adopted Peltier, had.
spoken to Peltier by telephone only
minutes before her address. to the
fishermen’s convention. Peltier
sent.a message of solidarity to the
union- and conveyed through
Tyndall his gratitude for the
support of the UFAWU in his battle
against extradition. He asked that
special greetings be given to
“Homer, George and Helen’’,
referring to union officers Homer
Stevens, George Hewison and
Helen O’Shaughnessy for their
individual contributions to his
defence.

Peltier is being held at Clay
County prison in Moorehead,
Minnesota, an adjacent city to
Fargo, North Dakota. He has been
refused bail reportedly because of
charges by Oakalla officials that
he had attempted to escape on

several occasions from the B.C. |

institutions.

“Those are just plain lies,”

Tyndall asserted, asking why 10 _
charges were laid against Peltier
when he was in Oakalla. She said
that the so-called escape plans
were part of a coordinated effort |
between prison officials and the
media to prevent bail being given.

Ina moving appeal to delegates,

Tyndall called for unity of working —

class Indians and whites., “Our
common enemy,”’ she said, “ig the
system that stole our land, plun—
dered and destroyed our earth.
There is no justice in this country
for poor people — Indian or white.’
She went on to warn that the -
native movement would not stand —
by and watch the Kitimat pipeline
be built across native lands. “It
will be. over the bodies of many
Indian people,’’ she declared.

OK labor to initiate
Vernon civic group —

The Okanagan and District Labor

. Council has taken the initiative in

forming a progressive municipal
elector’s organization in the city of
Vernon. ~

Labor council secretary Bert
Nilsson indicated that the new
organization will be formally
constituted with elected officers
and a program on February 24.

Although the labor council is
initiating the formation of the
municipal association and will
provide a sizeable sum of money to
get it started, Nilsson says that the
organization “will not be an ex-
tension of the labor council.’’ He
said that the new organization is
meant to be representative of all
sections of the community.

‘The labor-backed. association
will field candidates in the next
municipal election in Vernon with
candidates bound by the policies of
the organization that are adopted
in convention.

BERTNILSSON
Council secretary Nilsson was
himself an alderman in the Fraser
Valley municipality of Kent for
several years..

By ERIK BERT
DAILY WORLD

Last October the ‘‘official delegation’’ of the Veterans of
the Abraham Lincoln Brigade to the 40th Anniversary

Reunion of the International Brigades, in Florence, Italy, ©

received an invitation from Sergio Segre, member of the
central committee of the Italian Communist Party and
head of its international relations office, ‘‘to participate in
an interview in which he would explain the policies and
attitudes of his party.’’ Seven “‘official delegates of the
VALB” met with Segre, according to the official
statement of the interview.

He told the VALB delegation, ‘‘We have worked . . . to
construct and elaborate an Italian foreign policy that

would be an element of national unification of the political -

forces in Italy rather than an element of division.”

The decisive question is, of course, “‘unification’’ of
whom, even more critically, for what; and rejection of
whom and what?

Segre said that on the basis of ‘‘an overall analysis of
the international situation’’ and of “‘the supporting pillars
of the process of detente,’’ the Italian Communist Party
had changed its views on “the economic and political
integration of Europe,” specifically on “European Unity
and the Common Market,” and ‘“‘Italy’s membership in
NATO.

“We have modified our position on the question of
NATO; we no longer demand Italy’s withdrawal from
NATO,”’ he said. ;

Segre envisioned NATO becoming a vehicle of
“democratic progress,” for he advised the U.S. that it

would be in its ‘interest to have an Italy that could
overcome its crisis and become an element of democratic
progress and stabilization within the Atlantic Alliance.”

The views which Segre expressed to the VALB with

PACIFIC TRIBUNE—FEBRUARY 18, 1977—Page 2

respect to detente were contrary to the position adopted
by the 29 Communist and Workers’ Parties, including the
Italian Communist Party, in Berlin, last June.

Nowhere did the 29 Communist parties, including the
Italian party, conceive of the Atlantic Alliance becoming
a vehicle of ‘‘democratic progress,” as Segre did.

He said, ‘‘One of the conditions for the development of
detente has been the achievement of a certain military-
strategic equilibrium between the two blocs,’’ NATO and
the Warsaw Treaty organization.

Segre implied that the Soviet Union seeks ‘“‘modification.
in (the) strategic equilibrium to the disadvantage’”’ of U.S.

imperialism. The USSR has. not made such “strategic ©

disadvantage” a condition for, nor a goal of, its repeated
disarmament proposals.

It is contradicted by the Soviet struggle for peace and
disarmament during the whole postwar period.

It is repudiated, in effect, by the statement of the Berlin
conference, to which the Soviet Communist Party, the
Italian Communist Party, and 27 other European Com-
munist parties are committed.

The parties participating in the Berlin conference called
for “overcoming the division of the continent into blocs,”
through ‘‘concrete measures for disarmement and for
ensuring effective security in Europe.”

To this end they called for ‘‘the simultaneous dissolution
of NATO and the Warsaw Treaty organization and, as a
first step, of their military organizations.”

Segre’s perspective was the opposite — he envisioned
continued division of Europe into “two blocs,” two
military blocs: NATO, of which Italy would continue to be
a member, and the Warsaw Treaty organization.

The 29 Communist and Workers Parties, including the

Italian Communist Party held that NATO is inherently a |

threat to the sovereignty of states.

liberation movements, as in Angola,
detente.

The 29 Communist and Workers’ Parties rejected the —
standoff doctrine: they are determined to weaken im- |
perialism vis-a-vis the international working class, the

world anti-imperialist movement, and socialism.
They noted that ‘“‘the position of imperialism .
been weakened as a consequence of the changes in the

balance of forces.” They noted, also, the “further

aggravation of the general crisis of capitalism, ” that is,

the shifting in the equilibrium between capitalism and —

socialism, to the advantage of world socialism.

_ They declared “with all clarity that the policy of —
peaceful coexistence, active cooperation between states —
irrespective of their social systems, and international —
in no way mean the maintenance of the —
political and social status quo in the various countries for —
the development of the struggle of the working class and |

detente ...

all democratic forces.”’

~TRipUNE

Editor - MAURICE RUSH
Assistant Editor SEAN GRIFFIN
Business and Circulation Manager — FRED WILSON

Published weekly at Ford Bidg., Mezzanine No. 3,

193 E. Hastings St., Vancouver 4, B.C. Phone 685-8108
Subscription Rate: Canada, $8.00 one year; $4.50 for six months;
All other countries, $10.00 one year
Second class mail registration number 1560

NATO, detente and the Italian Communist Party

Segre implied that detente means a “‘tacit’’ standoff —
not only militarily, but across the board, between
socialism and imperialism. That is the position from ©
which the U.S. charges that Soviet support for the national —

is in violation of

7

. has —