EDITORIAL U.S. turns the screws For several years the Sandinista government has warned that the bottom line of U.S. foreign policy toward Nicaragua is direct U.S. military intervention — and with good reason: Reagan has made it crystal clear that his administration will not tolerate that revolution. : Every powerful American resource has been employed since those marvelous days in 1979 when the people first took their future into their own hands after decades of a brutal, U.S.-installed Somoza dynasty. Economic strangulation, diplomatic pressure and blockades have supplemented the CIA-directed contra war which has cost over 30,000 Nicaraguan lives and untold material damage. The U.S. has been condemned in the United Nations for its dirty war; it has been formally found guilty by the World Court, and even at home only a minority of Americans back Reagan’s rabid reaction toward social change in Central America. Washington has subverted Guatemala and El Salvador with huge military infusions, thus keeping a landowner-military clique in power. It has twisted arms in Costa Rica. It has turned Honduras ino the region’s prostitute, one which is crawling with contra thugs, riddled with U.S. military infrastructure and materiel, while at the same time it conveniently complains about “Sandinista aggression.” _— : Honduras’ military brass and politicians have been bought en masse and individu- ally. Its land, airspace and territorial waters are today a U.S. 81st Airborne Division launching-pad for war against neighboring Nicaragua behind the smokescreen of a so-called U.S.-Honduran “mutual defence” agreement. But all this pressure, all the bloodshed and material damage, all the threats and shortages caused by blockade, mining of harbors, blowing up of power stations; all murdering of Sandinista cadres, of civilians — have failed to stop the revolution. They have failed to break the spirit of the people and their elected government. And so, on May I, the U.S. military begins “Operation Solid Shield” in Honduras, deploying 50,000 troops. It openly told the press the exercise is timed to coincide with a so-called “spring offensive” by the contras. In fact, the U.S. military, better than anyone, will know the contra war is lost. “Solid Shield” in fact is a dress rehearsal for a U.S. invasion of Nicaragua, one the U.S. plans will be as bloody as needed to defeat the revolution. In U.S. memory, Vietnam, it seems, has been relegated to a black marble wall in Washington covered with 59,000 names. Reagan, the architect of this scenario, spoke to Canada’s House of Commons last week. He defended his criminal role in Central America. Over 200 Tories stood and cheered. Every Liberal and all but three NDPers sat silent. Only three principled members ... | CaN i, 4 t\ Editor — SEAN GRIFFIN Assistant Editor — DAN KEETON Business & Circulation Manager — MIKE PRONIUK Graphics — ANGELA KENYON Published weekly at 2681 East Hastings Street Vancouver, B.C. V5K 1Z5 Phone (604) 251-1186 ISSN 0030-896X ’ Subscription Rate: Canada — $16 one year; $10 six months Foreign — $25 one year; ... Asad commentary on this government and this Parliament. Second class mail registration number 1560 y If there is any justice in the U.S. judicial system — and indeed in the Canadian system — for Native people, it moves with excruciating slowness. And in no instance is that more evident than the case of American Indian Movement leader Leonard Peltier who is still in Leavenworth prison in the U.S. serving two consecutive life terms for murder despite uncontested evidence that the FBI used perjured wit- nesses and withheld evidence, first to secure his extradition from Canada and later to have him convicted. Readers will recall that during Peltier’s extradition hearing in Vancouver more than a decade ago, one witness, Myrtle Poor Bear, testified in an affidavit that she had been with Peltier at the time he was> alleged to have shot two FBI agents. She later recanted, admitting that she had not been present and noting at the same time that the FBI had instructed her to make her false testimony. But that second affi- davit was never presented to the hearing. In addition, material obtained by Pelti- er’s lawyers under a Freedom of Informa- tion suit revealed that FBI ballistics evidence — showing that rifle shell cas- ings found near the agents’ bodies could not have come from the rifle attributed to =e — had been withheld from the Much of that is again coming out as a result of Skeena NDP MP Jim Fulton’s private member’s bill which is currently being reviewed by Justice Minister Ray Hnatyshyn to determine whether or not it will be introduced into the House of Commons. Last week, Peltier’s lawyer, Lou Gurwitz, told reporters that if Cana- dian law had been followed, the AIM leader would never have been extradited had it not been for Poor Bear’s perjured testimony. Fulton’s bill, which was one of several private member's bills chosen last year for possible consideration by Parliament, calls on the federal government to request that People and Issues the U.S. return Peltier to Canada where a new extradition hearing can be conducted. But for Peltier himself, a more urgent issue has emerged that has prompted international action on his behalf. Accord- ‘ing to an urgent cable from the society representing Soviet ophthalmologists, Pelt- ier is losing his eyesight and the society wants to bring him to the Soviet Union for treatment. The Soviet Union has taken up the international campaign on Peltier’s behalf and recently received his wife who visited the country in 1985. But as Dr. Eduard Avetisov, Board Chairman of the All-Union Scientific Medical Society of Ophthalmol- ogists stated, “the Soviet medical profes- sion’s offer is not politically motivated; it is of a purely humanitarian character.” The society discussed the case at its last session March 20, noting that if untreated, Peltier’s condition might lead to blindness. It pointed out that his requests to be trans- ferred to a clinic for treatment had been rejected by the Federal Bureau of Prisons on the grounds that treatment would be useless. The statement adopted by the society declared: “We have learned that the eyesight of American Indian leader, Leonard Peltier, now ina U.S. jail, is rapidly failing. Regret- tably, he does not receive the appropriate treatment. For humanitarian reasons and on its members’ behalf, the board of the All-Union Scientific Medical Society of Ophthalmologists appeals to the U.S. authorities to give Soviet specialists an opportunity to provide Leonard Peltier with specialist consultations and treat- ment, if required. The society has invited Peltier to the Soviet Union. Soviet eye specialists have a solid international repu- tation and the members of our society hope that U.S. authorities will grant their request.” : ok It was, as he wanted it, a simple grave- side ceremony at the Schara Tzedeck cemetery with tributes from leaders of the United Jewish People’s Order and the Communist Party, that closed the final chapter on the life of Sidney Sarkin who passed away March 31. But if the memor- ial was simple, Sid’s life was rich in achievement, spanning more than a half century of active leadership in the trade union, Communist and progressive Jew- ish movements. And even in retirement, Sid gained national prominence as an artist for his wood carving — work that he had begun 30 years earlier in an intern- ment camp. Born in Lithuania in 1903, he came from a family that had been coppersmiths for generations. But it was in the garment industry that he began a lifetime of trade unionism. By the time he immigrated to Canada in 1920, he brought with him his first experiences in Lithuania’s trade union movement. Together with many other Jewish immigrants, he also brought socialist tra- _ ditions and when the Communist Party of Canada was established in 1921, Sid was among its founding members in Montreal. Over the next six decades, he would serve on leading committees in both Quebec and British Columbia. : Much of his leadership was in the par- ty’s trade union work, particularly during the 1930s when its leadership in the Workers’ Unity League was decisive to the campaigns to organize the unorganized and the unemployed. In the needle trades — he was a cutter by trade — he soon established a reputa- tion as an able organizer and >was re- elected several times as a business agent for the cutters’ local of the Amalgamated Clothing Workers Union, a U.S.-based international. At the same time, he worked as an organizer with the Industrial Needle Trades Workers Union, a WUL- affiliate which sought to organize garment workers along industrial lines. A measure of his stature was his election in 1937 to the executive council of the powerful Montreal Trades and Labor Council as a representative of the ACWU. In 1940, following the banning of the Communist Party under the Defence of Canada Regulations, he was interned, — along with hundreds of other Communist and union leaders, at the internment camp at Petawawa, one of several such camps set up by the King government across the country. Significantly, it was there, to occupy his time, that he first took up wood carving, using a crude chisel made from a’ file stolen from the camp’s machine shop. Twenty-five years later, he would return to carving, achieving national prominence for his art and an invitation — which he declined — to exhibit at the National Gallery in Ottawa. Moving to this province following the war, Sid continued his work in the trade union movement. For many years, he was ~ a major figure in the Communist Party’s labor committee and was a member of its provincial executive committee. He was prominent in the United Jewish People’s Order, sitting on the organiza- tion’s executive and working with its school and cultural centre, the Peretz School. - He had also two prepared two volumes of memoirs, the first of which was pub- lished in Yiddish in 1972. — 4 e PACIFIC TRIBUNE, APRIL 15, 1987