PE alll Editorial Censors and anguish When Ya’acob Ben Efrat is brought from solitary confinement to be interrogated, a dark sack covers his head. When questioning Michal Schwartz, Israeli interrogators taunt her, They say her two children remain at home, unattended. Both are journalists in today’s Israel. Both have been detained indefinitely without charge. Both are being physically and psychologically abused to reveal names of Palestinian sources. Both are denied access to their lawyer. And on May 12 the round-up spread. Eleven more journalists were picked up, including two editors of Al Fajr who have been ordered jailed for six months. Occupation authorities, echoing rationales used by apartheid South Africa, have declared open war on the media. Reporting on the Palestinian uprising has become illegal and downright dangerous in “democratic” Israel. On the eve of the 40th anniversary of Israel’s founding, the coalition of extremist right-wing political parties, fanatical Jewish settlers and military hardliners have succeeded in virtually shutting down all avenues toa political settlement. Zionist zealots brandishing Uzis patrol settlements stolen from Palestini- ans. Israeli occupation has today become full-scale permanent colonization. Pass laws, restriction of movement, water rationing, open discrimination, deportation — every sophisticated and brutish method —are being applied against a civilian population armed only with its courage and dignity. The dreadful list of Israeli victims keeps growing: 7,000 Palestinians summarily arrested, 186 killed, thousands injured. Schools and universities are shut by the occupiers, and now every one of the 700,000 people in Gaza is required to apply for new identity cards and be “processed” by the army. eee SBb/ cvhIg $ TAKE IT EASY REN, THE STORY tS ABOUT NORIEGA,,. NoT YOU “They have to be clear, they are under Israeli law,” intoned the military head of Israel’s southern command. And that’s just the point. Israeli “law” for 1.5 million Palestinians is occupation law — humiliation, disenfranchisement, economic hardship and an absence of national status and rights. It’s Zionist apartheid. There will be much flag-waving and patriotic fervour marking the 40th anniversary of the Israeli state. But there will be no peace until the legitimate rights of the Palestinian people are met. Cries of anguish and anger will be heard above the trumpets of triumph. FIRIBON 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 125 Phone (604) 251-1186 Subscription rate: Canada: @ $20 one year @ $35 two years ® Foreign $32 one year Second class mail registration number 1560 B: now you've undoubtedly received the message, from anti-apartheid groups and from our own pages, to boy- cott Shell Oil. That’s because the parent firm, Royal Dutch Shell, owns companies in South Africa and is the sole supplier of that country’s energy needs. And because the African National Congress and others have been urging total economic sanctions to defeat the white-minority government. A recent item we read in The Dis- patcher, the paper of the International Longshoremen’s and Warehousemen’s Union, gives an added dimension to that struggle. It points out that in the United States, the United Mine Workers are work- ing closely with churches, civil rights groups and other unions in promoting the Shell boycott. The union has been active in trying to organize black miners in 35 mines owned by the Massey Company. Partly owned by Shell, the company brought in scabs and weapons-touting: counter-revolutionary mercenaries from Angola to break organ- izing efforts. Fourteen strikers were fired and later arrested. Royal Dutch Shell also partly owns the Reitspurit coal mine where workers labour at gun point and live in “broken down barracks with no heat, electricity or run- ning water,” the article states. And, it notes, a recent settlement between the National Union of Metalworkers of South Africa with a wholly-owned Shell subsi- diary produced substandard wages. UMW officer Tommy Buchanan notes that Shell hurts U.S. workers as well “by refusing to invest in American jobs and unfairly undercutting American goods in People and Issues the world market by exporting products produced by slave labour in South Africa.” Meanwhile, members of B.C.’s Tele- communications Workers Union are ad- vised, in the union’s paper the TWU Transmitter, to boycott Shell when filling up company vehicles. That way, the paper states, Shell pays for its pro-apartheid actions and the telephone workers can use PetroCan, which is Canadian-owned and a Crown corporation. * * % N orth American based multinationals often claim a disinterested status concerning the affairs of state.in countries in which they’ve located plants — no matter how odious those affairs, or what gangsters govern. But, as the above- mentioned Shell example shows, such corporations are up to their elbows in local politics. Take the example of the Ford Motor Co. The Argentina Supreme Court recently ruled the U.S. auto manufacturer must pay its former employee, Juan Carlos Conti, US $70,000 for wrongful dismissal. Conti was a union representative at Ford’s assembly plant outside Buenos Aires when the military usurped power and unleased its “dirty war” against the country’s people in 1976. On April 13 that year troops burst into the plant, arresting Conti. Ford did not protest the action and in fact fired the trade unionist for his absence. When the military rule ended five years ago, Conti re-applied at Ford but was refused. He subsequently filed a suit claim- ing the company conspired to have him imprisoned. The court ruling, under Argentina’s civ- ilian rule, found that Ford “did not stop, and if fact favoured, military action against its workers.” KEES % hen we interviewed him back in January, 1982, president William Winpisinger of the International Associa- tion of Machinists talked about the need for the top union leadership in the United States to abandon Cold War ideas and get behind the burgeoning peace movement. Winpisinger, who had been in Rich- mond attending the provincial Machinists convention, gave cautious praise to the AFL-CIO’s then-new committee on defence which was examining the labour central’s policies towards the arms race. Apparently, he’s still at it. An item we noticed in the U.S. People’s Daily World reported that in his address to the recent IAM international convention, the con- troversial labour leader — in the U.S. labour movement, to be opposed to the arms race has often been considered controversial — called for an end to the boycott of interchanges between U.S.,and Soviet and Chinese, trade unionists. Winpisinger noted that peace groups like the Nuclear Freeze movement, SANE and others had helped propel the AFL- CIO leadership into the peace arena, and that since forming the defence committee. the federation has also established a labour committee on Central America. He noted too that Machinists’ years of work- ing for peacetime conversion of military manufacturing had paid off with an invita- tion to address the House Economic Sta- bilization Subcommittee. The IAM president urged delegates to visit socialist countries and meet with their trade unionist counterparts. He himself ignored an AFL-CIO ban on such meet- ings several years ago, and said the knowl- edged he gained from his contacts, “makes me the only one so equipped (to fight red-baiting) when the cold warriors of the AFL-CIO gather.” Winpisinger announced he’s retiring before the next convention. We can only express the hope that his replacement is Just as pro-peace and that there will be more up-and-coming trade unionists in the U.S. with similar sentiments to rid the labour movement of its cold war biases. ae week, in an article on the sup- pression of dissenting press outlets in Israel (“Israeli security closing press Opponents’’), we incorrectly identified the editor of the publications Derekh Hani- totz and Tariq A-Sharaara as “Michael” Schwartz. In fact, the editor’s name is Michal Schwartz,.a name which is femi- nine. 4 e Pacific Tribune, May 18, 1988