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Editorial

A peaceful Arctic?

Two opposite and contradictory positions are developing over the future of Canada’s
north.

One, embraced by the Tories under U.S. guidance, calls for stepped up militarization,
nuclear submarines, cruise testing, Star Wars technology — steps to prepare the ‘Arctic
as the front line for the U.S. nuclear war-fighting strategy against the USSR.

The Tories’ white paper on defence offers expensive suicide.

Another option came in a call last week to all Arctic nations from the Soviet
parliament.

It calls for a dialogue between all northern nations to turn the Arctic into a zone of
peace and co-operation. The Soviet message proposes immediate talks, conferences,
workshops. It invites representatives to visit the USSR to discuss environmental con-
cerns. :

It urges immediate talks about the growing militarization of the Arctic and how to
end it. The Soviets offer Canadians joint ventures for Arctic development.

Canadians can choose militarization and war, or co-operation, joint endeavours,
friendship and peace between all Arctic nations.

An image of terror

A broken, bandaged hand becomes the symbol of Palestinian resistance as the
horror continues unabated in the occupied territories.

Returning home from four days touring hospitals in West Bank and Gaza, four U.S.
doctors told of Israeli army techniques “systematically designed to disable.” They
report hospitals are overloaded, dirty and lacking basic medical equipment.

The Americans spoke of “severe and extensive” injuries, understaffed wards and
emergency areas as facilities are swamped by an estimated 3,500 Palestinians, all of
them injured in beatings.

And just when we think the ultimate depravity has been reached by Israeli troops,
more is revealed. :

-A young Palestinian, beaten and shaky, reports he and three friends were buried
alive by troops using a bulldozer. His story sends shock waves around the world and
even get the attention of the Israelis themselves who promise to “investigate” the
episode.

Speaking to a Jewish audience in Toronto last week, Israel’s UN ambassador
defended the acts of his government and army. He “explained” that the Palestinians
actually want deaths and beatings, invite them, organize them, to popularize their cause
and gain media attention.

Even worse, he was actually applauded by an audience desperately in need of an
explanation to take away the guilt. This grotesque story has Palestinian mothers
pushing their children into Israeli clubs for the cameras. The soldiers, he says, have no
choice but to shoot, beat, arrest, torture and now, bury Palestinians alive.

What desperation is revealed in this tactic!

Facts are facts. Occupation is occupation. Repression is repression. Brutality, racism
and zionism can’t be expunged or papered over.

There are just too many broken, bandaged hands.

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FIRIBONE

EDITOR
Sean Griffin
ASSISTANT EDITOR
Dan Keeton

BUSINESS & CIRCULATION MANAGER
Mike Proniuk

GRAPHICS
Angela Kenyon

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registration number 1560

f some of our readers, it can be truly

said that they are essence of working
B.C. So it was with Dan Godfrey, who was
born in this province and who worked 41
years in the wood industry until retire-
ment. Sadly, Dan’s 73 years came to an
end Feb. 7 when the cancer he had con-

e were reading about the Central
American peace process when an

tracted claimed his life.

Born in New Westminster in 1914, Dan
entered the industry in 1938. He joined the
International Woodworkers in 1943, re-
maining a member until the left-wing
leadership was attacked by the right-wing
international and its local supporters. He
helped found the subsequently unsuccess-
ful Woodworkers Industrial Union of Can-
ada — an attempt to create a Canadian
woodworking union free of McCarthyist
red-baiting — becoming its secretary-trea-
surer in 1948.

Such was the vehemence of the interna-
tional office that Dan was blacklisted for
life and denied IWA_ membership,
although he worked for the rest of his
working life in MacMillan Bloedel’s White
Pine division in Burnaby, paid union dues
and retired with an IWA pension,

During his working life Dan became
attracted to socialist ideas and joined the
Communist Party, in the mid-1950s. An
avid Tribune supporter, he sold the paper
at the mill every week.

In 1940 he met and later married his
wife, Marie, who survives him. He is also
survived by a stepson and two sons.

item in the bulletin sent to us by KCTS,
Channel 9, the Seattle-based outlet of the
US. Public Broadcasting System, caught
our eye. It notes that although the media
has focussed lately on the peace pact
signed by five Central American nations,
rare mention has been given to one of the
signatories: Guatemala.

We thought that was perceptive,
because much the big media.in North
America has continually harped on the

supposed violations of the accord by Nica-

ragua, while ignoring countries like Hon-
duras and Guatemala, which have a
history — and a _ present — of truly
abysmal anti-human rights practices.
Nicaragua, as visiting ambassador to
Canada, Sergio Lacayo, pointed out dur-
ing a visit to Vancouver last month, has
taken pains to accommodate these
concerns — including establishing an
agreement to sit down with the US.-
supported contras — despite the great
risk it poses to that country’s security.
On the other hand, Guatemala, ruled
since the early 1950s by one bloody tyrant
after another following a CIA-engineered
overthrow of the country’s one demo-

People and Issues

cratically-elected government, has re-
mained out of the spotlight. That is
puzzling, since the country the civilian
administration recently selected by a
handful of Guatemala’s population should
be newsworthy. Among the questions its
existence poses: is the new government the
handmaiden of the U.S.-backed military,
as left-wingers say it is, or does it represent
a “return to democracy.”

We don’t know how far the KCTS
presentation, Under the Gun: Democracy
in Guatemala, will go in finding an answer
to this question. But the write-up accom-
panying the notice claims that the film
“raises questions about regional peace in
light of major continuing problems inside
Guatemala, which have been largely
unknown or ignored in the United States.”

It’s hard to believe that the bloody rule
of Guatemala’s military has been summar-
ily ended by an election in which several
political parties were barred from running.
Certainly peace in Guatemala, where
thousands of people have been murdered,
is key to the outcome of the peace accords,
and the KCTS showing may provide a
rare glimpse of the situation there. It airs
this Sunday, Feb. 28 at 2 p.m., on Cable 9
in most areas of B.C. ;

Fi trade is on the minds of many of
our readers these days — and who
can blame them, with the worst sellout of
Canadian resources and sovereignty less
than a year away from implementation?
Reader Al Warrington, a Trail resident,
retired miner and former member of
Mine-Mill often draws his comments
instead of writing them. He sent us several
cartoons outlining his thoughts, and we
were intrigued. Our favourite is presented
here.

0.CHAHUW EF

4 « Pacific Tribune, February 24, 1988