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GDR swimming sensation Kornelia Ender (centre) set five individual
world records at last week’s GDR Olympic swimming trials. All told,
she and her teammates erased 14 world marks during the five day meet.

me left

wing

By MIKE GIDQRA

Sport - here and there

In the water, swimming records
were being broken in a wholesale
fashion on two fronts this past
week — at the Canadian Olympic
swimming trials in Etobicoke,
Ontario and in the similar trials
being held in Berlin to select. the
German Democratic Republic’s
team for the Montreal Olympic
Games.

The difference, and it’s a very
major difference, is that while
Canadian swimmers were erasing
17 Canadian and Commonwealth
records from the books in Ontario,
the 14 records broken in Berlin
were all world marks.

In a sport where records often
last for less than 10 minutes, it’s
important to note that swimmers
from the GDR hold every world
swimming record for women.
That’s an incredible feat for a
nation of less than 17 million

people, and a feat which could only ©

come about in a socialist state
which makes available all of the
necessary facilities, and coaching
to develop mass participation and
world class athletic programs side
by side.

Because of the fact that
Canada’s women swim team Ss
now ranked as one of the top three
or four in the world along with the
GDR and U.S. teams, there was a
great deal of attention given the

German trials by the Canadian

media.

However, in the midst of what —

was generally very good reporting,
and in one case at least, an ex-
cellent explanation of the general
workings of the GDR sports
programs and philosophies, there
was one particular column. in
Vancouver’s morning § daily
newspaper stood out. While the
rest of us. were watching with
appreciation and trying to learn a

Montreal Olympics, but the pity of
it all is that because we don’t have
the type of athletic program which
will allow them to develop to their
full potential the Canadian team
can’t realistically be expected to
seriously challenge the dominance
of the GDR swimmers.

As to an explanation of the GDR
successes, that’s. there for the
world to see in the GDR sports
program, which offers their
athletes the opportunities denied
ours in Canada.

As Erich Honecker, secretary of
the Socialist Unity Party of the
GDR, said in an interview with the
New York Times in 1972: ‘‘The 20th
Summer Olympic Games in
Munich showed that the GDR takes
third place after the USSR, and the
U.S. The GDR owes its rise to the
advantages of its socialist social
system.”

Why? Again, in Honecker’s
words, it is because ‘The citizens
of the GDR only know terms such
as economic crisis, unem-
ployment, job insecurity, and
inflation. from the reports of
capitalist countries. Free from
these pressures we can give more
attention to the physical
development of our people.”’.

Illegal Israeli occupation
condemned by PLO heac

In 1948, Shafiq Al-Hout was
expelled from his native city of
Jaffa, in Palestine, one of the first
victims of an Israeli policy that
would ultimately force thousands
of Palestinians into refuge and
exile, deprived of their homes and
their national rights.

Now, more than 25 years later,
Al-Hout heads the delegation to
Habitat from the Palestine
Liberation Organization and if his
and his delegation’s participation
in the conference has been a
contentious issue, it is perhaps
because the policy Israel carries

* . out in its occupies territories can

no longer be carried out in the UN.
The plight of the Palestinians —
and their indictment of Israéli
expansionism — has been thrust
into the world arena.

“The Palestinian people are
subjected to unhuman settlement
by Zionist aggression.” Al-Hout
told a packed press conference in
Vancouver Monday. ‘‘Eighteen
thousand Palestinian homes were
destroyed and lands were con-,
fiscated on the West Bank and the
Gaza Strip tomakeroom for illegal
Jewish settlement,

“Israel has created a powerful,
aggressive ghetto existing on Arab
land.”’

Earlier, Al-Hout, a member of
the central council of the Palestine
Liberation Organization and
director of: its Beirut, Lebanon
office, addressed a crowd of 300 at
the Fishermen’s Hall in Van-
couver, headlining a number of
events organized by Vancouver’s
Arab community to commemorate
Palestinian Day, June 5.

Questioned by reporters from all
over the world during Monday’s
press conference, the PLO leader
set out immediately to dispel the
media-created image of the PLO
as a “bomb-throwing, terrorist
organization” with no interest in
Middle East peace.

“It is strange when we, the.
wounded and the murdered, are
considered’ terrorists when
Phantom fighter jet pilots who
have eradicated whole villages are
decorated.” he declared.

SHAFIO AL-HOUT

Al-Hout affirmed that the PLO
“welcomes all efforts’? to bring
about a just a peaceful settlement
in the Middle East but emphasized,
“Israel resists all attempts to
bring about a peaceful settlement
and continues to endanger world
peace with its aggressive policy.

He added that although the
Israeli settlements on occupied

Arab land are illegal, even the -
United Nations General Assembly

and the security council have been
unable to stop construction of
Israeli settlement.

Israel has also defied the UN
resolution calling for withdrawal
from occupied lands, stepping up,
instead, its repression against
Palestinians.

Israeli intransigence and’ con-
tinuation of its expansionist policy
led the UN in 1971 to reaffirm the
right of the Palestinian people to
“freedom, equality and self-
determination, and the legitimacy

of their struggles to restore those

rights’”’ and led the world body to
cast a majority vote in 1975 don-
demning Zionism as “‘racist’”’ and
‘“‘ageressive.”’

“Our people want to enjoy
human and national rights,” Al-
Hout reiterated. ‘‘We are entitled
to the right of a job, food and a roof
over our heads.

strife and welcomed Syrian at:
‘tempts to resolve those di

“People should hold it against
if we do not fight obstinately fol
those rights.”

The PLO leader also touched off
the conflict in Lebanon which
after months of civil war, W
rekindled last week when Syrial
troops intervened, ostensibly
assist in bringing about a ceasé
fire.

He pointed out that the PLO hae
initially welcomed the mediating
role that Syria had played in the
conflict and added that efforts ha!
been made to turn the arm@
struggle into a political strugglé

“We were aware that whatev@
differences existed could be usé
by our enemies to provoke greatél

ferences,” he said. 4
‘However, foreign milita!y)
intervention poses a threat to
sovereignty of Lebaness
territories.” a°
That concern has been echoe
elsewhere in the Arab world #
well as in the Soviet-Arab Frien
ship which last week stressed tha
it was necessary ‘‘to take steps ©
end the bloodshed, to normalize UN)’
situation and to restore peace )
Lebanon. :
“The causes of these events, | T
the statement added, ‘‘are abovintr
all, the strivings of the imperialiSast
forces, in alliance with interN@ie}
Lebanese reaction, to distract Hor
Arabs from the struggle to libera®kst
their lands seized by Israel, to de#) 7
a blow at the’ Palestiniallo,
resistance movement and thfg
national-patriotic forces Bill
Lebanon and to delay settlement OW;
the Middle East crisis.” eg
Al-Hout suggested that th
military intervenion by Syria “wang
given the green light by the U.S:
Israel is probably involved als®l
he added, a charge that was giv e
some credence later this weliy
following reports of aerial J?Me
cursion of southern Lebanon PYMil
Israeli fighter jets. {
“But we will survive this crisi& |
he stated. And we will continue t
struggle. For our cause is just 2

we have the support of the people:

SS

little from the phenomenal success
of the GDR athletes, this one
columnist attempted to lead us
back down the garden path to the
cold war years claiming that these
young athletes from the GDR were
nothing more than “‘state chattels”’
whose private lives are ‘‘com-
pletely secondary to the demands
of the training regimen laid down’
by the state employed coaches.”’
He ended with the ominous
warning that if we, his readers, felt
that Olympic gold medals were
worth what he called ‘‘the price’,
then we live in the ‘‘wrong country,
under the wrong system.”’ :
This neanderthal approach,
which our very backward friend
claims.is not a ‘“‘cop out but an
explanation’’ of the GDR success,
is neither cop-out nor explanation.
There is no need for a cop-out; our ‘
swimmers are improving at an Members of James Sewid’s Native dance group, “‘Un-Noos-e” from dramatizes legends such as the one depicted here where the Racco it
ever increasing pace. They can be Alert Bay, captivated Habitat visitors and local residents alike when together with the other animals of the forest, dances in a ceremony th®
expected to make their best they staged their unique program in Vancouver’s Gastown Square last is being seen for the first time by a mortal human. a
showing ever internationally at the Sunday. Using Native masks and creating their own costumes, the group

PACIFIC TRIBUNE—JUNE 11, 1976—Page 10

—Sean Griffin phot)