Editorial

Afghan peace pact

According to media reports, the first Soviet military vehicle to cross the Friend-
ship Bridge spanning the Oxus River dividing Afghanistan and Soviet Uzbekistan
was driven by 21 year-old Nikolai Novikov. His armoured personnel carrier was
followed by some 230 more as the first contingent of Soviet troops returned home
in conformity with the Geneva Accords which came into force May 15.

The agreement, brought about through United Nations mediation, stipulates the
full contingent will be withdrawn over the next nine months and, as a joint
Afghan-Soviet statement emphasizes, all outside interference into Afghanistan’s
affairs from neighboring Pakistan is to cease.

It stipulates, “The commitments to this effect contained in the accords are of an
absolutely specific and unambiguous character: an end shall be put to interference,
the very material basis now used for such interference shall be eliminated.”

This hopeful scenario, given that the multi-billion dollar U.S. destabilization
campaign is in fact brought to a halt, could mean the beginning of stability and a
process of national reconciliation in Afghanistan. While withdrawing its soldiers
under the accord, the USSR has at the same time made clear that economic
relations, trade and all forms of Soviet-Afghan ties will be broadened and streng-
thened.

The joint statement also points out that the policy of national reconciliation,
introduced by the government of President Najibullah last year, “has already
created the necessary prerequisites” for peace and that today “all sectors of Af, ghan
society, all nationalities have equal political, economic and social rights.”

It emphasizes that “equal opportunities are open to all to work for the benefit of
their country, to participate in her political life on a multi-party basis.” The
agreement “appeals to all states to contribute to the rehabilitation of the war-
ravaged Afghan economy, to the economic and social development of Afghanistan
both on a bilateral basis and within the framework of multinational programs of
assistance, including UN channels ....”

The long and painful search for an end to hostilities has reached an important
new stage. The Najibullah government’s call for all social forces to come together
and participate in determining the country’s future bodes well. for peace and
stability.

Only the most reactionary elements have spurned this appeal and time will tell
whether the United States and Pakistan will cut these forces adrift and permit the
peace process to develop.

Canadians have shown support for these important developments and the
measures taken by all participants who brought the Geneva accord into life. Our
country is participating in the UN control mechanism to facilitate the process,
which is a positive contribution.

At the same time, we should be vigilant to any and all efforts by reaction to break
the agreements and continue the hostilities.

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A first glance, we found nothing
unusual about this article.

Entitled, “The Sorry State of the
Unions,” a feature by Martin Mittelstaedt
in the Globe and Mail’s Report on Business
Magazine seemed fairly true to formula, or
so we thought.

“After a decade of concessions, auster-

People and Issues
a

ism claims to offer a valid solution to the
question of anti-Jewish racism through
the restructuring of Palestine. ...” Rather
than “restructuring,” reviewer Maureen
Eason wrote “colonization,” a term she
notes author Uri Davis uses throughout
his book, Israel: An Apartheid State.
Eason says that word better represents the

ity, and disorderly retreat, the U.S. labor
movement is in deep trouble. It has no one
to blame but itself,” began the article in the
monthly magazine written primarily for
Canada’s business people.

Sounds fairly typical, we thought. Busi-
ness socks it to the labour movement for
not being concessionary enough in the era
of wage cutbacks and “productivity”
clauses.

Until we read further and found that the
author thinks unions in the United States
are on the wane because they have been
too concessionary. And because they
apparently lack the gumption to recoup
lost wages now that the capitalist economy
is on the upswing (an upswing the article
notes is predicted to end next year).

“Tough employers striking down unions
in scores of workplaces...have caused
overall union membership to shrink. So
has the flight of manufacturing to low-
wage Third World countries. And the
burgeoning service industry, where most

new jobs are created, has defied easy union .

inroads despite its reputation for low
wages,” Mittelstaedt writes.

But what makes the article truly out-
standing, given the venue, is the author’s
conclusion that U.S. labour — meaning
basically the AFL-CIO — is paying for

the willing participation of right-wing
labour leaders in the McCarthy anti-
Communist witch hunt of the Fifties.

The author relates that just after the
war, one-third of the U.S. workforce car-
ried union cards. He notes the purges that
saw 900,000 members kicked out along
with their unions at the Congress of Indus-
trial Organizations 1949 convention. And
he tells of the membership decline of the
militant United Electrical Workers, once
one of the largest unions in the U.S.

From then on, Mittelstaedt writes, U.S.
labour drew away from social and civil
rights movements — their rightful allies
— and tailed after the government’s for-
eign policy, including debacles like the
Vietnam War. He gets rather glib in stat-
ing that during the postwar boom “the
economic pie grew for everyone, worker
and boss alike.” But the author does note
the class collaboration that marked indus-
trial relations in that period, and how it
laid the basis for the decline of U.S. labour
in the bust Seventies.

In Canada, Mittelstaedt states, unions
have fared better because they rejected the
McCarthyist path of American trade
unionists. He quotes a Canadian Auto
Workers official as saying, “The Canadian
labour movement came out of the Cold

War witha left base intact, and there wasa
social democratic party that said we had to
stay together as workers.”

Participants in the struggle to defend
the Canadian Seamen’s Union during
Canada’s version of the Cold War might
see things somewhat differently, as might
officials of such as the United Fishermen
and Allied Workers Union, and the UE in
Canada, who spent years in exile outside
Canada’s house of labour.

But there’s no arguing with the thesis
that the purge of the left in the U.S. trade
union movement is partially responsible
for the woes trade unions find themselves
in today. Mittelstaedt’s article was possi-
bly intended as a kind of primer for Cana-
dian big business who want to know more
about trade unions and examine ways to
limit their unity. But there are valuable
lessons for labour as well, and the piece
should be read by trade unionists on both
sides of the border.

* * *

note on last week’s review of two
books on Palestine (“Penetrating
Myths of Israeli Policy,” May 18). For
grammatical reasons we edited the copy to
read: “Davis writes that. . political Zion-

nature of Israeli annexation of the occu-
pied territories.

* * *

a ae unionist and college instructor
Tom Kozar had the rare fortune to be
born into a family of renowned progres-
sives and international solidarity activists.
And in the space of a few short weeks,
Tom will have paid tribute to two of them
on two continents.

As we write this, Tom, a member of the
B.C. Government Employees Union and
a teacher at the British Columbia Institute
of Technology, is in China. There, he is
scattering the ashes of his mother to com-
memorate her activities in China’s revolu-
tion. For Jean Ewen was the nurse who
accompanied Canada’s most revered citi-
zen in China, Dr. Norman Bethune during
his years of invaluable service to the revo-
lutionary army, service which ultimately
cost him his life.

And this Saturday, June 4, Tom will be
paying tribute to his grandfather: Tom
McEwen, a leading member of the Com-
munist Party since 1922 and former
Pacific Tribune editor who died recently at
the age of 97. The memorial is at the Rus-
sian Hall, 600 Campbell Ave. in Van-
couver at 2 p.m.

4 Pacific Tribune, May 25, 1988