Following a letter from Jan
Drabek to the editor of the Van-
-couver Sun labelling her a “dupe of
Moscow’’— in response to her Sun
article encouraging cultural ex-
change with the USSR — B.C.
writer Dorothy Livesay sent a pro-
test to Writers Union president
Margaret Atwood. Angered by the
reply, she issued the following open
letter to Atwood.

I was dumbfounded by your let-
ter of Nov. 11. Surely you read my
article ‘‘An Excursion Into
Understanding”? as published in
the Vancouver Sun, Oct. 15? On
the basis of the Writers Union at-
tack on my views by your B.C:
_Tepresentative, Jan Drabek, I ex-
" pected at the very least an apology
from your national executive.

Amnesty International (Canada)
and of the League-of Canadian
Poets, and longtime supporter of
civil liberties in this country I re-
quest respect, and the publication
of my views without the harass-
ment which was revealed in the
Drabek letter to the Sun, calling me
“the dupe of Moscow’’. I suppose
the Israeli orchestra’s conductor
could be called ‘‘the dupe of

Hitler’, just because he wants

As a founding member of ©

Wagner’s music to be heard? Just
because he seeks world understan-
ding through the arts?

Canadian grain shipments have
been moving to the USSR
throughout 1981, our battle
dancers and horn players are ap-
plauded and honored in Moscow
and Kiev, but our writers are not
allowed to read there because, to
quote a Canadian embassy official
in. Moscow, ‘‘our government
cooperation in such fields has bee:
suspended’’.

So now, to explain the reasons
for such barriers between east and
west you send me a Writers Union
resolution dated May, 1977, over
four years ago, addressed to a
Canadian goverment delegation

’ then on its way to discuss the

Helsinki Agreements. This resolu-
tion urges ‘‘profound dissatisfac-
tion with the continued persecution
of writers’’. You claim that this
(out-of-date) message absolves the
Writers Union today from making
any cultural contacts with the East
Bloc. In my view in no way does it
reflect the views of hundreds of
other Canadians who are members
of the League of Canadian Poets
and the Canadian Authors
Association.

Silence is persecution too |

Your resolution ends with this
sentence: ‘‘Furthmore this Union
will oppose the persecution of any
writer in this country or any other
country for any political reason
whatsoever’’. Fine words! If they
were sincere, then it’s time the
Writers Union should begin here
and now to accord free speech to
Canadian dissidents who are con-
demned never to be heard in our
popular periodicals: Maclean’s,

: Saturday Night,Books in Canada

Today. How many of these have
taken serious note of the poetry of
struggle, of novels about the Thir-
ties such as Oscar Ryan’s Soon to
be Born, of Joe Wallace’s Col-
lected Poems, of Milton Acorn’s
More Poems for People, or even of
my auto-biographical memoir,
Right Hand Left Hand? Concern-
ing this side of Canadian writing
there exists only the persecution of
silence.

Margaret Atwood! At a time
when every country in the world is
infected with violence and hate,
with some thirty wars raging in
1981, it is essential to spend our
energies, as is now happening in
Europe, in a concerted effort
against nuclear proliferation. Our
writers should be right in there,
demonstrating! F

Jack Crowe, Nelson,
writes: I’ve been shaking with
laughter since I read Tom
Fawkes letter today (‘‘Fawkes
assails editorial’’, Letters,
Tribune Jan. 15, 1982).

Years ago when Mine-Mill
was organizing Trail I was per-
suaded to join the company
\ union by a straw boss who

~ FAWKES’ LETTER ECHO. )
OF TRAIL ORGANIZING

thought as Tom does. It was
“‘party doctrine’’ and ‘‘party
policy’’, as Tom calls it, that:
opened my eyes to a clear, un-
compromising: working class
position. =

Poor Tom, his anti-
communism in the labor
movement reminds me of Ar-
chie Bunker’s race purity. 4

BC Place debts grow

Stringer McDonald, Van-
couver writer: It seems strange
when a provincial government is
supposedly flat broke that one of
its crown corporations which
itself admits it is $70 million in
debt (‘‘B.C. Place debt totals $70
million, Sun, Jan. 16, 1982), can
recklessly spend propaganda
money on a useless insert like the
one that appeared in the daily
papers Jan. 16 and 17.

Here is a corporation that is
demolishing buildings against the

wishes of Vancouver city council -

— which means that city council
has no control over what is going
on in the city.

The people of British Colum-
bia are all going to pay for the
stupidity, not just the people of
Vancouver. B.C. Place should be
brought to a standstill until the
wishes of the people are made
known in the next provincial and
municipal elections.

Don Larson, Vancouver,
writes: B.C. Place stadium is
expanding. I thought that if a
stadium had to be built there at
all, then it should be a proper
size — perhaps 45,000-seat

_ capacity. But the present
stadium crammed between
two bridges is to have 60,000
seats . . . but wait, over the
last two weeks it has expanded
to 65,000 seats.

Perhaps they are using some
miracle cement that has made
the stadium grow by 5,000
seats. A blob of this crazy ce-

-ment has spilled over into the
block of Dunsmuir and
Hamilton where a spin-off
B.C. Place development will
wipe out five low-income
hotels. ;

Yes, B.C. Place is expan-
ding — a big neighbor but cer-
tainly not a good neighbor.

Nicaragua's women tell how (_CIASSIFIED ADVERTISING) —

ih 9 LE, Pe a owe

RE SO i SD ae ia ai MS

_ they fought for liberation

Soi. 2ewr er

Had prime minister Pierre
Trudeau read Margaret Randall’s
Sandino’s Daughters before he
visited Mexico last week he might
have been more inclined to accept
President Jose Lopez Portillo’s
view that ‘“‘free’’ elections in El

~ Salvador will bea farce unless some

form of power-sharing is
negotiated first between the
military junta and insurgent forces
Tepresented by the Democratic
Revolutionary Front.

Nicaragua, like El Salvador, is
one of the Central American coun-
tries whose economic exploitation
by and political subordination to
the U.S. brought the contemp-

SANDINO’S DAUGHTERS by
Margaret Randall. New Star
Books, 1981. $7.95 paper. Ob-
tainable at People’s Co-o
Bookstore. :

by the final offensive, ‘‘women
made up 30 percent of the Sandinist
army and held important leader-
ship positions, commanding
everything from small units to full
battalions.”

What emerges from these inter-
views is the process by which
women increasingly came to see the
struggle for their own liberation as
an inseparable part of the larger

struggle.

iy Books

tuous term ‘‘banana republic’ into
our language.
Assassination and murder as
Part of state policy were not a CIA
Innovation. General Augusto
- Sandino, Nicaragua’s na-
Seay from whom the San-
took their name, was
oe by the first Somoza in
34 in a plot approved by the U.S.
Ate 45 years, until the triumph
I the Sandinist National Libera-
tion Front in 1979, the Somozas
Naesed a terroristic rule in
Waragua equalled only by the
Peet regimes in El Salvador and
Matemala. In the process they
immense personal wealth

through their control of 40 percent.

Of the country’s economy.

Sandino’s Daughters is the com-
Pelling story of the part in the
Woltion played by Nicaraguan
chee told through interviews

tained by Randall over a

S-month period.
es she notes, Nicaraguan
.”Omen participated in the struggle

_ M extraordinary numbers, so that

The revolutionary forces were
largely composed of young people
whose mothers in the cities became
involved out of their experiences in
trying to protect and assist their
children and their own consequent
brutal treatment. -

Torture and rape were the means
used by Somoza’s National Guard,
and murder was often the end.
Under this assault, traditional at-

titudes by older women changed.
In the field, young women fighting
as equals insisted on equal rights.

One of many revealing incidents
is related by Monica Baltodano, »
the commander who accepted sur-
render of the Guard at Poltava:
“One of the Guards came out
draped in a flag and I went to talk
tohim. . . At first he refused to
speak to me because I was a
woman.’”

The struggle for the right to
shape their own destiny won by the
Nicaraguan people compels Cana-
dians to question to what extent the
Trudeau government’s stand on El
Salvador and Guatemala is dic-
tated by such interests as the
Noranda group, which developed
its huge Guatemala nickel opera-
tion with Canadian government
funds. °

Read against this background,
despite the limitations of oral
history, Sandino’s Daughters is a
contribution to understanding how
closely the struggles of Central
American peoples for political and
economic independence are linked
with our own.

— Hal Griffin

Annual

DINNER

‘Oddfellows Hall
Sat. Jan. 30

JOSE MARTI

Cocktails 6 p.m. Turkey dinner 7 p.m.
Speaker: Ben Swankey

Adults $7, Children $4

Auspices: Canadian-Cuban Friendship Association —

]

Pictures trom Grai
JOSE MARTI

COMING EVENTS

JAN. 30 — PEACE is everybody's
business. Petition blitz Sat. 11-3
p.m. Come to B.C. Peace Council
_office, Rm. 712-207 W. Hastings.

GRAMMA PUBLICATIONS.
Complete printing services.
Brochures, menus, leaflets, etc.

Special rates for the progressive ~

movement. A union shop. 1595 W.
3rd Ave., Van. 733-6822.

JAN. 30 — Annual Jose Marti din-
ner. Oddfellows Hall, 1720 Gravely

_ St., Van. Cocktails 6 p.m., dinner,

7 p.m. Adults $7, Children $4.
Auspices: Canadian-Cuban Friend-
ship Assoc.

FEB. 6 — Ash St. Cabaret's
Chilean night and dance at Peretz
School, 6184 Ash St. Featuring
Chilean trio Puelche. Doors: open
6:30, dinner at 7:30. Adm. $10,
OAP, unempl. $7. For reservations
ph. 987-1691 or 433-1145.

FEB. 6 — FRC Valentine’s banquet
and dance. Russian People’s
Home, 600 Campbell Ave. Banquet
6:30 p.m. Dance to Harry's or-
‘chestra 8:30 p.m. Everyone
welcome. :

MAR. 6 — PETE SEEGER at the
QE Theatre. Tickets avail. at Lower
Mainland Woodward's stores, CBO
(687-2801) and UBC.

MAR. 30 — Keep this date open

for Mac-Pap annual banquet and ~

dance. Russian People’s Home, 600
Campbell Ave.

APR. 4 — EARL ROBINSON at the
QE Playhouse.

MAY 16 & 17 — ODETTA at the
QE Playhouse. Single tickets for
each concert avail. at CBO, 501 W.
Georgia, Van., 687-2801.

COMMERCIAL

CONDOR’S PAINTING & build-
ing maintenance. Free estimate.
Phone 433-1145. A progressive firm
owned and operated by Chilean
Canadians. Reasonable rates.

‘ELECTRICAL, plumbing, appli-

ance repairs. Don Berg. 255-7287.

ROOF REPAIRS — New roofs.
Reasonable. or 277-3352.

LEGALS

APPLICATION FOR
CHANGE OF NAME
NOTICE is hereby given that an ap-
plication will be made to the Direc-
tor of Vital Statistics for a change
of name, pursuant to the provisions
of the Change of Name Act, by me
Joyce Anne Dyck of 4559 Hoy
Street, Vancouver, B.C., as
follows: To change my name from
Joyce Anne Dyck to Joyce Anne
Turpie. To change my minor un-
married child’s name from Nigel
Brooke Dyck to Nigel Brooke Tur-
pie. Dated this 12th day of January,

1982. Joyce Anne Dyck
LEGAL SERVICES
RANKIN, McMURRAY &

BOND, Barristers and Solicitors.
157 Alexander St., 2nd Floor, Van-
couver. 682-3621.

DIRECTORY

COMMUNIST PARTY OF CAN-
ADA offices located at 102-2747 E.
Hastings St. Ph. 254-9836. For in-
formation on political issues or as-
sistance in political activity.
HALLS FOR RENT

RUSSIAN PEOPLE’S HOME —
Available for rentals. For reserva-
tions phone 254-3430.

WEBSTERS CORNERS HALL — —
Available for banquets, meetings,

etc. For rates: Ozzie, 325-4171 or

685-5836. :

UKRAINIAN CANADIAN CUL-
TURAL CENTRE — 805 East
Pender St., Vancouver. Available
for banquets, weddings, meetings.
Ph. 254-3436.

PACIFIC TRIBUNE—JAN. 22, 1982—Page 7