SSN

Said

Chile, S.Africa issues at Forum

Speakers from Southern Africa,
Chile and the Canadian Indian
Movement told the opening session
of the Habitat Forum at Jericho

last week that the real issues of .

Habitat involved people and not
buildings.

Barbara Rogers, author of
Divide and Rule, and_ special
Consultant to the United Nations

_ Commission on Namibia told over
600 people attending the Jericho
Seminar on human rights and
human settlements that the

People who live in buildings are
Much more important than the
buildings themselves.”

In South Africa, she said, the
antustan policy of the govern-
Ment was an extension of an “‘anti-
€mocratic and reactionary re-
&lme which has denied people the
°pportunity to make decisions re-
Sarding their homes.”’

Rogers. outlined the Bantustan
Policy of the government which she
quated to the North American

BARBARA RO
°F “Divide and Rule.”

Policy of reservations. The South
‘ican program allows the
Sovernment to uproot South
“3 Ican blacks from their original
mes and relocate them in
@ntustans, or so-called “Bantu

a the North American
3 €rvations the Bantustans are
a ally areas of poor quality,
5 Sually arid, eroded, and non-
Sricultural lands which offer no
tg unity for employment and
4 © prospect of even producing
ugh food to feed the people.”
ae unlike the North American
€rvations, the Bantustans are
aie to accommodate not a
r minority of the people, but
“any millions of people.
» _ Bantustans cover less than
f os cent of the entire land area
Sup uth Africa, yet they are
Peed to accommodate 70 per
.. Of the population,” Rogers

_ The
WUstificati
Bthat;

official government
on of its Bantustan policy
va ee encourages a high degree
explain determination, Rogers

ined, but in reality, it only

Ww a a situation of dependency
ISo]

ped and easily controlled by

White minority.
Afri oy Said that the South
Udon nN economy was dependent
ite 1 the cheap African labor, but
a cy was one of removing
rod, us Africans’? from
be Ctive areas. This resulted in
to ¢ © who “are of the least value
busine white minority, and big
Childne in terms of labor —
Women the aged, the sick and
Tete n, being- most directly af-

Bion 2) the policy of depor-

Ocq out Africa today is like an

tor ned Country with people being
the away from their homes, and
| tsp €stern world has a certain
3 “Rig cvbility in that,’’ she said.

Companies investing in South

are directly involved in the

frieg

the Black population ‘is’

deportation "as they mechanize or
invest in land, and they are paying
a large amount in taxes to the
South African government which
finances these removals and keeps
the whole repressive system
going.”

The repression in South Africa is
so great that it not only denies
human rights, but it also denies the
humanness of the majority of that
society a second speaker said.

Dr. Frene Ginwala of the African
National Congress of South Africa,
said that ‘‘the denial of human
rights is institutionalized in South
Africa and the system of apartheid
not only denies human rights but it
also denies the humanness of the
black majority.”

She explained that South African
governmental language included
the term “redundant person’’ and
said that a person can be redun-
dant only if ‘we deny their
humanness and in South Africa the
criteria for judging is whether or
not a person is redundant to the
labor needs of white society.”

She said that over 4.5- million
black South Africans have been
moved to the Bantustans and “‘not
one had any say as to who, when or
where they go.”’

The result has been that black
South Africans are denied the right
to live as a family in an urban area.
““Since 1964, no African woman can
enter an urban area simply
because she wishes to live with her
family; she must qualify as being
an essential labor component,”
Ginwala said.

“This is what we should talk
about when we talk of human
settlements in South Africa. We
cannot meet and talk about
whether a house which has slave
quarters has a garden outside or
enough windows. We cannot talk of
factory pollution when the con-
ditions which these workers live
under are a pollution of society,”
she said.

The denial of human rights is not
restricted to South Africa alone,
the former director of CORVI —
the Chilean state housing authority
under the Popular Unity govern-
ment said. Pedro Pascal Allende,
nephew of slain Chilean president
Salvadore Allende, told the
seminar that human rights of any
society are dependent on the
conditions of that society. “Today
in Chile the most elementary, most
common human rights such as the
right to work to attain the
minimum conditions for a family
to live is not possible because
Chile’s economic system is based
on super exploitation of the
worker. Wages are so low that
most people live in permanent
hunger.” ;

Allende said that Chile’s
situation is very similar to the
situation of many countries in
Latin America, Africa and Asia
and that Chile “represents a
possible reality for a great part of

the world.”
He explained that in the last year

ai

PEDRO PASCAL A
former national director of

CORVI in Chile.

-ARMANDO ARANCIBIA ...

LLENDE Sn Frene Ginwala .. . African
National Congress.

under Chile's UP government.

the Chilean unemployment rate
was over 20 per cent and that in-
flation reached 350 per cent in 1975.
At the same time, Chile requires
over 600,000 homes to house its
population, yet in 1974 only 3,273
homes were built by the public
sector. Under the Popular Unity
government 80,000 homes were
built yearly by the government
housing agency.

“Housing is a right of the people
of Chile, and the state must assume
that responsibility,’ Allende said.

Chile’s former deputy economics
minister, Armando Arancibia,
welcomed the staging of the
Habitat Forum, saying that the
United Nations has recognized that
not only governments should have
input into Habitat, but that “people
also must have a voice, and in
Chile the people have no voice.”

Arancibia said that ‘Habitat
must examine human rights; and
in this context it is most important
to examine the most important
rights: to live, to freedom, to eat
and feed your family. These rights
are denied to the majority of
people of our country.”

Since the fascist coup of Sep-
tember 1973, over 200,000 Chileans

have been expelled from that

country, and another ‘30,000 have
gone through jail and suffered the
most incredible humiliation.
“How can we conceive of whole
families taken to jail?” he asked.
Arancibia cited two UN com-
missions of investigation which
have confirmed that there are no
human rights in Chile. “The UN
has established more than 10
different ways in which torture is

‘

deputy minister of the economy

—Sean Griffin photos

applied, torture that ~ is
systematically applied to all those
who dare to think in a different
way.”

In a later. press conference
Arancibia said that people around
the world were becoming aware of
the Chilean situation, and that he
and Allende were hoping to reach
agreement with countries at the
official Habitat conference to issue
a statement of support for the
Chilean people. :

“Habitat problems are not only
technical problems, but problems
related to whole social systems,
and they are even more acute in
countries such as Chile where
people don’t have the right to

express their own opinions.

‘A general feeling of denouncing
the Chilean junta has to be ex-
pressed at all levels of Habitat. It is
essential that the international
community become aware of the
need to put an end to the excesses
of the junta.”

Arancibia: also questioned the
right of representatives of the
junta to attend the Habitat con-

ference. ‘“‘The presence of repre-
sentatives of the junta in Habitat
needs to be denounced, and we

- would like an answer to the

problems facing Chile. We can’t
accept them (the junta representa-
tives) talking of urbanization in

_ this conference while at the same

time declaring war on their own
people.”

The final question examined by
the seminar, was the problem of
the denial of human rights to
Canada’s native peoples, who have
been victims of a policy of cultural
genocide. Rick Hardy, president of
the Metis Association of the North-
west Territories, and co-chairman
of the Dene land claims com-
mittee, told the seminar that the
government’s “‘policy of cultural
genocide is designed to extinguish
our rights.”’

He said that the major question
confronting the Canadian govern-
ment with respect to native peoples
was the “big question of aboriginal
rights. Very simply put, it is our
right to exist as a national identity,
and not, as the minister of Indian
Affairs says, the right te pick
berries in this land.

“The Canadian government is
trying to deny our rights to land
ownership.”

Hardy said that even though
official Canadian history claims
that the western provinces were
settled without the Indian wars of
the U.S., there were in fact three
battles fought by the Metis people
against white encroachment of
their lands — in 1849, 1870 and 1885.

Following the battles of the 19th
century, many Metis moved to the
north where they have settled and
established communities Hardy
said. “We stayed in the north until
the Canadian government and the
multinational corporations decided
that it was time to open the north
like they did in the west 100 years
ago.”

The decision to expand into the
north was made simply because of
the vast profits which are to be
reaped through the exploitation of
vast oil and gas deposits in the
Northwest Territories, and little
thought has been given to the
people already living there.

“Unless the Canadian govern-
ment has learned from its
mistakes of 100 years ago and
changes its policies, I fear to God
we’re going to be faced with
another Metis war of liberation,”’
he warned.

USSR criticizes lag

in cultural

The reluctance of Western
countries to live up to the con-
ditions of the Helsinki Accords —
evidenced last month in this
country by the denial of visas to
two delegates from the Soviet
Komsomol — was criticized last
week by two Soviet ministers who
coupled their remarks with a call
for ‘all-round advances in ex-
changes and the scrupulous
realization of all coordinated
programs. :

“Regrettably, our partners do
not always do this;’’ said
Vyacheslov Yelyutin, minister of
higher education in the USSR. He
noted that 40 Soviet teachers of
English and 17 Soviet students
majoring in English could not

_attend courses in Britain because

the British had failed to carry out
its commitment.

In the case of West Germany,
Yelyutin said that the cultural
exchange program was not being

. carried out because the West

exchange

German government was
“passive’’ and was not showing
any interest in specifying concrete
exchange programs.

Vladimir Popov, Soviet deputy
minister of culture, underscored
that point, noting that the Western
countries are actually attempting
to restrict or manipulate cultural
exchange programs by assigning
quotas to exchanges of students,
teachers, scientists and artists.

‘‘Referencés are frequently
made to the lack of subsidies for
exchanges,’’ Popov stated, ‘‘and
this is the case when the point in
question is genuine art. But when
some of our exchange partners
want to impose on us the products
of bourgeois pseudoculture, there
are always subsidies for them... .

“The Soviet state believes that
world culture as a whole and every
national culture cannot suc-
cessfully develop without continual
mutual exchange of spiritual
values.” :

PACIFIC TRIBUNE—JUNE 4, 1976—Page 3