4

———

7

Soviets den
border attacks

By BERT WHYTE
, MOSCOW

In the past few days more
than 100,000 Muscovites have
marched in front of the Chinese
Embassy here, protesting against
the armed provocation staged by
the Chinese on the Soviet border,
in which 31 Soviet soldiers were
killed and 14 wounded. The pro-
test was also directed against the
siege of the Soviet Embassy in
Peking which has _ continued
since March 3rd, the day fol-
lowing the border incident.

Demonstrators here carried
handwritten posters, one of
which read: “Mao and his clique
have betrayed the world Com-
munist movement.”

The Chinese Embassy was cor-
doned off by militiamen and
none of the demonstrators tried
to enter the grounds. Earlier
some windows were reported to
have been smashed. Windows of
the Embassy were curtained but
occasionally a Chinese diplomat
could be observed peeking out
for a moment from the top floor.

The provocative incident took
place March 2nd at Damansky
Island on the Ussuri River. A
group of Chinese infantrymen in-
filtrated the area during the
night. When frontier guards ap-
peared on the uninhabited island
and asked the Chinese to leave,
the Chinese whipped out auto-
matic weapons and cut them
down. At the same time they
opened artillery and mortar fire
from the Chinese bank.

Soviet Border Guards opened
retaliatory fire and a two-hour
battle began. Armored Soviet
carriers rushed to the aid of their
comrades and the Chinese were
forced to withdraw, carrying
their dead and wounded with
them. After the fighting ended
Soviet forces found many empty
and half empty bottles of alco-
hol in the Chinese positions, in-
dicating that the Chinese sol-
diers had been drunk at the time
of their attack. Telephone wires
from Damansky Island to the
Chinese shore were also discov-
ered—proof that the attack had
been carefully prepared.

The Soviet paper Red Star said
that “the blood shed‘by the
courageous frontier guards on
the Ussuri River will not be for-

_gotten.” It continued:

“The land of the Soviets has
always been guided and is guid-

ed by sentiments of friendship
for the Chinese people. However,
at the same time, as pointed out
in the Soviet Government's note
to the Government of the Peo-
ples Republic of China, reckless
provocative actions of the Chi-
nese authorities will always be
met with a fitting rebuff and
will be resolutely cut short by
our side. The frontiers of our
homeland are sacred and inviol-
able. The entire responsibility
for possible consequences of the
adventuristic policy of the lead-
ership of China, designed to ag-
gravate the situation on the
frontier between China and the
Soviet Union and to worsen the
relations between our countries
rests with the Government of
the Peoples Republic of China.
Through anti-Soviet provoca-
tions, the paper says, “The Mao-
ists seek to activate the unprin-
cipled political flirting with the
imperialist states, above all with

;

ounce

the United States and the Fede-
ral Republic of Germany, The
Maoists, to earn the favor of
the West, evidently timed their
armed gangster raid on the
Ussuri River for Bonns provo-
cative undertaking with the pre-
sidential election in West Ber-
lin.”

In its international review
Pravda said: “The monstrosity of
the dirty anti-Soviet provocation

_ staged by Mao Tse-tung and his

hangers on is particularly evi-
dent in situation when United
States imperialism continues its
aggression in Vietnam and
when the courageous Vietnam-
ese people are upholding
their freedom and _ independ-
ence. In this struggle the Soviet
Union and other socialist coun-
tries render them large and con-
stant assistance and support at
a time when the South Viet-
namese patriots are waging of-
fensive battles against the Ame-
rican invaders and the puppet
troops, when the Pentagon
hawks raise the question of re-
suming bombing of the Demo-
cratic Republic of Vietnam, ad-
vocate another escalation of
aggression and when complex,
difficult talks are underway in
Paris, the Peking rulers stage a
provocation against the Soviet
Union, the Soviet people. It is
not without reason that frantic
anti-Communists in the west
are rubbing their hands with
pleasure.”

Chinese crowd besieges Soviet Embassy in Peking.

World body

The World Boxing Council, the
last major organization to recog-
nize Muhammad Ali as heavy-
weight champ, has joined the
fold. Justiniano N. Montan of the
Philippines, council president,
announced last week that the
group was vacating the title and
said the council would recognize
the winner of a bout between
Joe Frazier of Philadelphia and
a “suitable contender” as the
champion.

The announcement followed a
meeting in New York with Ed-
win B. Dooley, chairman of the
New York State Athletic Com-
mission, who said that Montan
had written to him several

months ago to say he was in
favor of vacating the title.

What kept them from acting
sooner, Doley said, was the re-
fusal of the British Boxing Board
of Control, a council member, to
go along with the action until
after the U.S. Supreme Court
decided on Ali’s appeal of his
conviction for refusing the draft.

The court has yet to act on the
case, but the British Board
“came through,” Dooley said,
making the council's action poss-
ible. “It’s now unanimous,” said
Dooley. “Clay is not recognized
anywhere in the world.”

Membership in the council in-
cludes the Oriental Boxing Fed-
eration, the Latin American Box-

PACIFIC TRIBUNE—MARCH 14, 1969—Page 10

strips Aliss title

ing Federation, and the European
Boxing Union, in addition to the
British Boxing Board.

“It’s a pathetic thing,” Dooley
said. “We all like the guy so
much. He’s the best fighter we’ve
had in years.

“A court decision would
change things completely. He
would be reinstated at once and
he could go back into training.

“But we'd do the same thing
with any man who refuses to
step forward when he’s called.
In fact, I’m sure he would have
enjoyed military life. Nobody
wanted to do it.”

This reluctance wasn’t evident
when the champ refused induc-
tion in April 1967, citing the fact

A news item of some two
weeks ago gave out with the
information, via Ottawa, that
the cost of the royal commis-
sion investigating ‘The Status
of Women” added up to some
$998,000 or more, very close
to a million bucks,

While it may be taken for
granted that the “status” of
women wasn’t enhanced very
much (if any?) by this pouring
of another million smackers
down the old royal commis-
sion sump hole, at least a
goodly number of commis-
sioners, plus numerous other
“experts” on the so called
“women question” certainly
benefitted very well, financial-
ly speaking that is, while this
tragi-comedy burlesque was
on its country-wide safari.

Entirely aside from this
particular royal commission
studying the social life and
times and tribulations of My
Lady of Snob Row and plain
Judy O’Grady, plus every
other strata of femininity in
between or below, the prime
function of all such royal
commissions is two-fold; to
provide a highly-remunerative
job, which can be extended at
will, to a select group of de-
serving partisan wheelhorses,
judicial, clerical, political or
what have you.

Secondly and equally im-
portant, to serve as a means
of taking government “off the
hook,” if, as and when public
clamor on a given issue be-
comes too vociferous.

When of course such an is-
sue is sluffed off on a royal
commission to “investigate,”
it immediately becomes “sub
judice” as the legal fraternity
say, and hence not to be talk-
ed about in public until said
royal commission has tabled
its weighty “findings.” By
that time, the Establishment
fervently hopes, the public
will have completely forgot-
ten what the hell all the hub-
bub was about, and so “re-
quiescat in pace.”

Meantime the voluminous
report compiled by a labor-
ious, time-consuming and
costly royal commission is
tenderly laid away in Estab-
lishment archives, there to
gather dust; a sort of “earth
to earth, ashes to ashes” pro-
cedure, with no mourners and
nothing to show it had ever
happened—except a big bite
out of the public treasury.
This, plus the certainty that
a decade later or less, the
same problem—buried but not
solved, will arise again, to
again go through another
royal commission-Establish-
ment burial; that is of course
unless a complete new set of
ground rules have been evolvy-
ed meantime to determine
“status” for sex, race, color
or creed—with royal commis-
sions reduced to the “status”

of museum pieces. In other

a_ Socialist
which gives equality priority | |

words society
over “status”—and the latter
contingent upon the former.

The full irony of this costly
“status of women” royal com-
mission farce requires a
strong stomach to hold down,
Since women’s “rights” have
now become the vogue a la
the Trudeau “Just Society,”
the Socred government of
B.C. has presently a “human
rights” Bill before the legisla-
ture. This proposed legislation
specifies among other things,
the “equality” of women with
the superior male on the job
payroll ... but an “equality”
which does not infringe upon
her centuries-old status as a
“chattel” even under a so-
called “enlightened” capital-
ism: that is, she can only
have “equality” in the pay en-
velope line as she “cuts the
mustard” on the production
line, but no kudos of “equal-
ity” are allowed her if she
does it better than the male.

Our late “free world’’ ally,
ex-King Ibn Saud of Arabia
had much the same ideas on
the “status” and “equality” of
womenhood in the manage-
ment of his bevy of “legal”
wives, to say nothing of his
large private harem of concu-
bines, maintained in most of
his 20 or more palaces for the
king's pleasure and entertain-
ment. Wives and concubines
presenting Saud with a son,
(of which he is reputed to
have some 25) gained a much
higher “status” than those
wives and concubines burden-
ing the royal household with
more daughters. In the ex-
King’s feudal mentality these
were just so many economic
zeros, only compensated for
by the vast oil royalties pour-
ing into the kingly lap from
Western oil monopoly barons;
a “backsheesh” extracted
from their robbery and exploi-
tation of the natural (oil) re-
sources of the Arab peoples.

The “status of women” in-
deed, at the basement-bargain
price of $988,000 or so.

Ask the bullet and napalm
scarred Vietnamese mother
about the “status of women”
as she clasps her babe with
bloody arms and watches her
poor home put to the torch
by a diabolical Western civili-
zation.

Perhaps, speaking for all
women, Canadians included,
she would tell royal commis
sions on “status” or mono-
poly-dominated drafters of
“human rights” and equalities,
“I am equal in all things, in-
cluding human ideals an
hopes, sacrifices, suffering an
death, even the death that
threatens as I give you birth.
To me these are the eternal
foundations upon which 4
non-commercial ‘status’ }§
built.”

that he was a Muslim minister
and could not conscientiously
serve in the army. The World
Boxing Association and the New
York State Athletic Commission

_ moved immediately to strip Ali

of his title.

Ali has continued acting like a
champian, and has refused to
compromise his principles. He

has spoken at peace rallies and
to black students across
country while the ACLU
fought his conviction on f
basis that black people were "™
represented on his draft b04
and that the board's files %
tained newspaper clippings ®
letters prejudiced against
champ.