CANADA

Meeting presses feds on S.A. sanctions

By KERRY McCUAIG

MONTREAL — Acountry-
wide anti-apartheid conference
delivered a stinging rebuke to
Ottawa’s “wait and see” atti-
tude towards Pretoria.

The delegates demanded the
Mulroney government fulfill its
pledge to invoke total sanctions
against the repressive regime
and to sever all relations with it.

In a statement to the press,
the conference issued a call for
Canada to apply “immediate
comprehensive sanctions against
the South African goverment.”
It also urged Ottawa to extend
official recognition to the Afn-
can National Congress and to
reduce its diplomatic contacts
with the apartheid state.

The conclusions were in
sharp contrast to the Conserva-
tive government’s policy of
gradually imposing sanctions,
usually on a voluntary basis,
while maintaining contact with
apartheid.

External affairs minister Joe ,

Clark was greeted with hisses
and catcalls when he told dele-
gates that most Canadians
would not support a full sanc-
tions package at this time.

In fact Clark walked into a
political minefield when he
raised the usual line-up of
excuses as to why Canada
should not act immediately and

~ effectively against “apartheid.
Only the evening before, Dr.
Alan Boesak, co-founder of the
broadly based United Demo-
cratic Front, had effectively
shredded every argument Clark
advanced.

“The time has come to make
choices ... our struggle is
decided on the battlefront. I
have seen too much to sympa-
thize with Western difficulties,”
said Boesak, calling for sanc-
tions.

In a not-so-veiled criticism of
Canadian . intransigence, the
Black leader accused the West
of keeping apartheid alive.
“Apartheid would not have
lasted so long, if the Western
world had not supported it for
so long. We could have handled
the 4.5 million whites ourselves

but we cannot fight Washing-
ton, London, Bonn, Paris and
Toyko at the same time,” he
told an enthusiastic audience.

Pre-empting Clark’s call for
reforms by the regime, Boesak
attacked the South African
government for surrendering
“its ability to distinguish right
from wrong. It has lost its
capacity to change. We do not
want the South African govern-
ment improved. We want the
South African government rem-
oved,” he said to thunderous
applause.

Preceding Clark’s urging of a

' dialogue between “Black and

Botha, Buthelezi and Tambo,
Mandela and Afrikaner,” Boesak
had asked — “What dialogue
are you talking about — with
the ANC in exile, Mandela in
jail and 80 per cent of the UDF
leadership behind bars?”

Boesak, who is also President
of “the World Alliance of
Reformed Churches, urged Can-
ada “not to be dissuaded by
these who say we cannot
(impose sanctions) because the
black people will suffer ... The
only sign the whites understand
is disinvestment.”

In an uncompromising call
for sanctions the 500 representa-
tives from broad cross section of
labor, women’s, solidarity,
churches and non-governmental
aid organizations, were answer-

ing a request from ANC execu-
tive member Dr. Thabo Mbeki.
Mbeki had told the jammed

(capa oe ee gaan ver ce ae gy at Ne RI EN I PTE EA NET VB EE EW IS SS EEL

President Oliver Tambo celebrates 75 years of the African National Congress. In Montreal, a

national anti-apartheid conference challenged External Affairs Minister Joe Clark for the federal
government's heel-dragging on imposing full sanctions on the racist regime. :

reminded his audience that
there is an “alternative power in
South Africa,” seen in the peo-
ple’s courts and governments
“yet Canada accredits a repre-

sentative ofa... fascist regime.”
The delegates also pressed the
Conservatives to increase aid to

Maclean, who has just returned
from a non-governmental fact-
finding mission to Mozam-
bique, read from a United
Nations appeal calling for im-
mediate aid to the western Afri-
can state to stave off a famine
facing four million.

«We do not want the South African
government improved. We want the South
_ African government removed.3

hall in Montreal’s Palais des
Congres, “‘a conference of this
size should not’ be looking for
incremental pressure. It should
ensure that Canada uses its
maximum strength to bring the
regime to an end.”

Referring to the ANC, Mbeki

the front line states. Angola and
Mozambique, in particular, have
suffered heavy casualties and
acute disruption of their eco-
nomic infrastructures due to
attacks by Pretoria-backed
counter-revolutionaries
Conservative MP Walter

Numerous speakers, includ-
ing Clark, referred to the prime
minister’s 1985 address to the
United Nations when he prom-
ised to break relations with

‘South Africa if the situation did

not improve. Since then a state
of emergency has been enforced,

25,000 have been arrested
— many ofthem children — and
a media blackout has been im- "
posed.

Given the broad spectrum of
opinion at the conference, even
its organizers, the Canada
Council for International Co-
operation, were surprised at the
unanimous, far-reaching call.

Mulroney finds himself in a
bind with the anti-apartheid
forces, both at home and inter-
nationally, with anti-apartheid
forces demanding action to
back up his rhetoric while an
increasingly. disgruntled caucus
présses him to focus-his atten-
tion on domestic rather than
foreign affairs.

Some conference participants
felt the meeting’s conclusions
had dealt Tory strategists a
blow. If Clark had been looking
for a sympathetic response or a
rubber stamp for his agenda, it
wasn’t forthcoming.

\

NFU CAMPAIGN TO RETRIEVE MONEY

Banks overcharged farmers $3-billion

—
<—-

By VAUGHN BOWLER

EDMONTON — ‘“‘How much do the
banks owe you?”’ is the $100,000 ques-
tion the National Farmers Union will be
asking Canadian farmers over the next
few months.

NFU rep John Oberg placed the ques-
tion at a Feb. 24 press conference here to
kick off a campaign the organization has
initiated to help Canadian farmers re-
trieve the money they lost because of
shady banking practices during the days
of skyrocketing interest rates in the late
70s and early 80s.

Oberg accused the bank of over-
charging farmers nearly $3-billion in ex-
cess interest rates during that period.

The NFU campaign, which includes a
petition and meetings with concerned
farmers, comes in the wake of the 1986
Wilford decision by the Supreme Court
of Ontario. The court found that the
Royal Bank, using a system of signed
blank notes, had overcharged farm ac-
tivist Allen Wilford. The court ordered
the bank’s claim against the family farm
reduced from $600,000 to $300,000.

At the news conference was borrow-
ers’. advocate Larry Whaley. Whaley

worked for the government of British

‘Columbia as a rentalsman and debt

councillor, until 1983, when he was dis-
missed for ‘‘publicly criticizing the
banks.”’ He is now offering his expertise
to farmers and small businesses.
According to Whaley, the banks got
the $3-billion windfall through their arbi-
trary use of floating interest rates when
they had no written agreement to do so.
If a farmer, for example, signed three
promisory notes in three consecutive
years at progressively higher rates, the
borrower invariably ended up paying the
latest and highest rate on the entire ac-

cumulated debt. Notes signed earlier at
lower rates were conveniently forgotten.

Whaley was adamant that the banks
‘“‘should clearly repay’. He warned,
however, that the Big Five lenders would
not give up their super-profits easily.

The banks will count on working
peoples’ fear of bank power and legal
wrangles, says Whaley. ‘‘It seems that
there is a strategy on their part, to only
repay those people who insist. If you
expect to sit back and collect your
money. I doubt very much you're goings

to get it.” “y

6 e PACIFIC TRIBUNE, MARCH 11, 1987