The famous maxim of Anatole France appeared last THE LAW, FF; MAJESTIC EQUALITY © ¢ week on the panel surrounding the Carnegie Library at Main and Hastings Street in Vancouver. The artistry is the work of Downtown: Eastside Residents Association president Bruce Eriksen who has taken up part time work as an artist since Vancouver city council voted to cut his salary from DERA’s annual grant. Council ‘whitewashed’ CP charges of blackout Communist Party general secretary William Kashtan has branded an Ontario Press Council investigation into the blackout of Communist Party policy by the Toronto daily newspaper the Toronto Star ‘‘a whitewash”’. On behalf of the CP, Kashtan had earlier this year laid a formal protest with the Press Council, a body established by the Ontario Provincial government to ensure “free access to the press’’, that the party was being systematically blacked out of media coverage, in contravention to the principle of the freedom of the press. Kashtan called the Press Council decision a “slick trick of seman- ties.’” As quoted by the Toronto Star of Friday, June 16, the Press Council stated, ‘Examination of 30 press releases Mr. Kashtan had mentioned confirmed that the news judgment applied to them was correct. They simply did not contain news.” The Press Council went on to say that the “press releases contained communist positions on a variety of current topics such as the confederation crisis, economics, agriculture and foreign affairs.” “To the Press Council and the Toronto Star our statements are not news but positions,’’ Kashtan. responded; “‘It raises the question: What makes statements by Trudeau, Clark or Broadbent news and not positions, while the views of the Communist Party are positions, not news and therefore subject to blackout?” The truth of the matter, Kashtan said is that ‘‘prejudice, cold war bias and the desire to maintain the status quo determines the attitude of the media, not the free movement of ideas it claims to uphold.”’ Kashtan said that he hoped that the Press Council would “‘in a more sober moment’ re-evaluate its decision. If it doesn’t, he said, “‘It will show itself to be a mere front for maintaining the pretense of democracy while effectively throttling it. And this goes for the media generally.” City’s bank investments — back South African gov't By ALD. HARRY RANKIN Council debated a motion I in- troduced aimed at ending city dealings with any bank that loans money to the racist dictatorship in South Africa. The motion read: “Be it resolved that the city council of Vancouver investigate and commence taking steps. necessary to phase out its dealings with any bank which continues to participate in loans to the govern- ment and agencies of South Africa, and that the council make these intentions known to the bank; “And further that the council encourage aldermen who may have accounts with these major banks to question their banks national actions against bank loans to South Africa in whatever way possible.” That was shot down 8-2. Only alderman Mike Harcourt sup- ported my motion. City finance director Peter Leckie expressed the views of the mayor and the majority of aldermen when he called my proposal “‘financial folly of the first order.’”’ The idea of even questioning the actions of powerful banks, let alone take action against them, causes some knees to tremble. Some aldermen argued that a boycott would-harm the blacks of South Africa (suddenly they were concerned for the welfare of the blacks!) and that in any case black leaders didn’t want a boycott: The fact is, however, that every black movement in South Africa that opposes the facist dictatorship does support a boycott. The young black South African leader Steven Biko, before he was murdered in prison by South African security police, explained their views: “The argument is often made,”’ he said, “that loss of foreign in- vestment would hurt blacks the most. It would undoubtedly hurt blacks in the short run because many would stand to lose their jobs, but it should be understood in Europe and North America that foreign investment supports the ‘ PEOPLE AND ISSUES” cE present economic system and thus indirectly the present system of political injustice. We blacks are therefore not interested in foreign investment. We blacks are per- fectly willing to suffer the con- sequences. We are quite ac- customed to suffering.’’ Today all Canadian major banks are involved in the loans of millions of dollars to the South African government and investing millions of dollars with South African racist corporations. Canadian cor- porations doing business with South Africa include Alcan, Ford Motor, International Nichel, Massey Ferguson and Sun Life Assurance. These loans and investments are being used to prop up the racist dictatorship which is in severe crisis, to acquire nuclear weapons and build up its armaments 45 percent of the South African government’s domestic ex- penditures go to military spen- ding) and to build up its brutal Security Police Force. Prime Minister J. Vorster of South Africa knows how vital loans are to his racist government. Every new investment, he said, is * “another brick in the wall of our continued existence.’’ The proposal to end loans to and in- vestments in South Africa has the support of the United Nations. The UN General Assembly on November 9, 1976 adopted a resolution which stated: “Noting with grave concern that some governments, in pursuing strategic and economic and.other interests, continue to collaborate with the racist regime of South Africa and thereby encourage it to persist in its criminal activities. . . “Calls upon all governments to take effective action to prohibit all loans to or investments in South Africa by banks and corporations within their national jurisdiction .” Some banks and corporations in other countries have responded positively and ended their dealings with South Africa. But not so Canadian banks or corporations. Late, _ of nature which determines the Those opposed to _ ending economic aid to racist South Africa are also often heard to say, ‘“‘Why pick on South Africa? Why not some of the other dictatorships in the world?” ; The answer to that was given by the Young Women’s Christian Association in a study on Canadian economic links with South Africa called ‘‘Investment in Op: pression.” “South Africa has been singled out,” declared the YWCA, “‘by the world community, including Canada, for severe censure for its racist policies. . . Nowhere but in South Africa has the arbitrary act colour of a person’s skin been made the central criterion of an oppressive, legal, political and social system in which men, because of their.colour alone, are denied virtually all of the basic civil and political freedoms.” But none of these facts made any difference to our mayor and the majority of aldermen. They find no contradiction in stating that they are against racism in general and then support racism in South Africa. The reason of course, is money, and it’s money that comes first. Racism is good for business, good for profits. That’s all that counts with some people, including some elected representatives. Next issue Beginning with next week’s issue. the Tribune will go.over to its usual summer printing schedule, — trimming the size from 12 to eight pages. Later, unless important events intercede, we will also suspend publication for two weeks during the last week in July and the firstin August. The issues 6f July 28 and August 4 will not appear. In September, the Tribune will . . again assume the regular printing schedule, filling out to 12 pages. W: thought we had seen the last of former Food, Price Review “Board chairman and AIB official Beryl Plumpitre (“‘. . . there are no villians in high food prices’’) but it seems that she has come back to haunt the news, this time posturing as a consumer advocate while packing around five corporate directorships. “I haven’t been appointed as a consumer represen- tative,’ she pronounced solemnly as she explained her appointments to the Financial Post,‘‘but natually the boards I sit on know I have a consumer point of view and seek my guidance on consumer matters.” Naturally. What other ‘‘consumer”’ is going to tell the corporate elite that they bear no responsibility for high prices, that corporate concentration in supermarket chains is not a factor in rising prices? We're certain that most consumers would have a lot to say about supermarket pricing — particularly when they see something as close to home as red spring salmon steaks selling in B.C. supermarkets at $4.99 a pound when fish stores all over the city sell the same product for $1 to $1.50 a - pound less. But not Beryl. She dismissed as “‘nonesense”’ the idea that supermarket concentration was a factor in pushing up food prices — even when the report commissioned by her own Food Prices Review Board showed that such con- centration did, in fact, add to food prices. ‘We were furious that the report was released without our approval,’’ she added petulantly. And About the little matter of supermarket chains demanding kickbacks and special deals from their sup- pliers? We'll let Beryl speak for herself, noting first that she chastised the Consumers Association of Canada for demanding a full inquiry on the basis of “‘rumor and scanty evidence.”’ - “If the Ontario inquiry,” she declared,! ‘‘can provide strong evidence that the chains are taking undue advantage PACIFIC TRIBUNE—June 30, 1978—Page 2 of suppliers, and that this has a deleterious effect on them and consumers, then perhaps a larger inquiry is justified. But otherwise, what would it achieve? Sometimes we rush into these costly commissions just to shelve the matter.” We can’t help thinking that if she had taken the same approach to her Food Prices Review Board which shelved every issue which ever came before it, we would have saved a great deal of public money — and a lot more whitewash. * * & uring Mohammed Ali’s colorful career as world heavyweight boxing champion, sports commentators in both the U.S. and this country were given to fastening on every word the well-known boxer had to utter. They iden- tified him with his own statement, “I am the greatest.” But when he was stripped of his title for refusing to fight in the war in Vietnam and voiced his thoughts about that unjust and racist war, they found little space to quote him. And last week, when he returned from a goodwill tour to the Soviet Union, they found even less space, even though the former champion had much to say about the aspirations for peace of the Soviet people and their leaders. While in the Soviet Union, Ali said of the country: “I saw a beautiful country, populated with peace-loving people. We ought to meet more often, striving to live in peace and friendship. There are many people in the U.S. and I was one of them, who are afraid that the Soviet Union will attack them. Now I understand that this is an invention.” About Soviet leader Leonid Brezhnev, whom Ali met personally, he noted: “The head of the Soviet state, one cannot fail to sense it, sincerely wants peace for all people, not for his country alone.”’ The meeting that Ali had with Brezhnev was the first that the Soviet leader had ever had with a foreign sports figure and when the 35-minute get-together was over, Brezhnev urged Ali to “‘become the unofficial ambassador for peace ‘form and sent along a note to Revenue Canada. with the United States.” He also extended an invitation for him to come back to the Soviet Union. a, On his return, at Kennedy Airport in New York, he reaffirmed his earlier comments and declared that he wanted to help build peace between the two countries. And __ as he noted before a flock of reporters that there was no racism in the Soviet Union, his wife Veronica, who had accompanied him on the 10-day tour, added: “It was dif- ferent, another world. I would like to see the different raceS _ in the United States get along like those in the Soviet Union.” | Perhaps their words will find their way into the White House. = | * ko i i t’s long past the deadline for filing your 1977 income tax __ return but the action of Tribune reader Alec Muryn in filing his return might be useful for future reference. Muryn, who noticed the newspaper report showing that Westcoast Transmission was taxed only $45,000 even though ithad declared profits of $53, attached the clipping to his tax The note asked that he be taxed at the same low rate as Westcoast Transmission. : —“THisBUNE -Editor — SEAN GRIFFIN Business and Circulation Manager — PAT O'CONNOR Published weekly at Suite 101 — 1416 Commercial Drive, Vancouver,.B.C. V5L 3X9 Phone 251-1186 Subscription Rate: Canada, $8.00 one year; $4.50 for six months; All other countries, $10.00 one year Second class mail registration number 1560