Review *

The truth on Laos

VER on the alert to turn the
internal affairs of another
country into a pretext for fanning
the flames of coldwar, the United
Nations’ “fact-finding” commis-
' sion that went to Laos under U.S.
pressures to “investigate commu-
nist aggression” in that country,
has boomeranged on its coldwar
sponsors.

This commission found no evi-
dence of the much - advertised
North Vietnam “communist ag-
gression” against Laos, but it did
find internal civil strife; the
“Laotian people struggling to rid
themselves of a corrupt Western-
supported feudal regime.

Laotian government officials
and their feudal landlords, who
‘ruthlessly crush every attempt of
the Laotian people to win a greater
measure of economic security, free-
dom and independence; backward
officials who know little and care

-less about democratic processes,
- but who, like the gangsters Chiang
Kai-shek of Formosa and Syngh-
man Rhee of South Korea, have
learned that there’s nothing like a
noisy hulabaloo about “communist
aggression” to make the U.S. war

instigators come across with more -

“economic aid.” Such aid, these
old “Asia Hands” figure, can be
manipulated on their black mar-
kets with fat profits — to them-
Selves,

__. Younger Laotian officials, suffi-
ciently “liberal-minded,” can see
the corruption, gangsterism, opium
traffic racketeering (the prime in-

_dustry of Northern Laos) and
cruel persecution ef the people by
the Laotian government, long

_ for a permanent UN “supervision”

_in Laos. In this they are ready to

_help these old “Asia Hands” create
a phony “emergency” to suit their

_ respective ends. Hence the current
_coldwar hysteria in U.S. circles,

and its pressurized UN “fact-

finding” commission, which how,
failing to produce a war of “com-
munist aggression” in Laos, has
become highly embarrassing to its

Sponsors.

Whatever else this commission
may have to report on its trip to

Laos, the war it went looking for

e e s
Pacific Tribune
Phone MUiual 5-5288
Editor — TOM McEWEN
Managing Editor —- BERT WHYTE

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won’t be among its discoveries. For
that Canadians can be happy —
but with a happiness charged with
anger, since official Canada (as
usual) went along with this U.S.-
inspired provocation, with the re-
sult that the United Nations is
made to look ridiculous, while
Canada as a supporting member of
such adventures, stands exposed as
meddling in the internal affairs of
an Asian people, seeking to dis-
lodge a corrupt feudal regime from
its back.

If the people of Laos are driven
to meeting feudal-imperialist viol-
ence in kind, that is strictly their
affair. That much at least the re-
port of the UN’s “fact-finding”
commission, which had its origin
in imperialist provocation and
ended in farce, will establish. .

The hysteria, falsehood and
provocation which produces such
commissions used to be the sole
property of the Goebbels lie fac-
tories and the yellow press. Now,
under the aegis of the United
Nations, Yankee imperialism and
its coldwar satellites follow suit.

It is time Canada cut loose from
such disgraceful actions and left
the Laotian peoples and others in a
like struggle for freedom and self-
government to settle their own
affairs.

EDITORIAL PAGE

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Comment

Trade iaise ‘summa

INCE the visit of Soviet Premier
Khrushchev to the United
States, the world-gripping idea of
a Summit meeting of heads of
state to talk peace and terminate
the threat of nuclear devastation
has gained momentum.

As a vital part of this world-
wide struggle for peace and co-
existence, another type of summit
meeting is making its need felt; a
summit meeting which would em-
brace the leaders of great national
and international unions, repre-
sentative of “right’’ and “left” led
unions; of the World Federation of
Trade Unions (WFTU) and the
International Confederation of
Free Trade Unions (ICFTU), to-
gether with the All-Union Con-
gress of Russian Trade Unions and
the trade unions of other Socialist
countries.

While AFL-CIO leaders like
George Meany, Walter Reuther and
others of similar kidney in ICFTU
affiliates may aspife to outstrip
the most reactionary spokesmen of
monopoly big business when it
comes to anti-Soviet and anti-Com-
munist propaganda, the fact re-
mains that scores of unions in
Britain and other European and
Asian countries, and on the North

_ American continent, are visiting
the Soviet Union as guests of So- ©

viet trade unions, and in turn have
Russian trade unionists as
visiting guests. a

Moreover in many recent union
conventions, despite opposition
from the top union bureaucracy,

the demand for trade and closet

cultural and trade union relations
with the socialist countries Ma
gained momentum. Even at We

AFL-CIO dinner in San FranciscO
tendered to Premier Khrushchev,

thelt

has

where the Reuthers, Careys, et al 5 =

attempted to “bait” and insul
their Soviet guest, the finale

this dinner reflected a “friendly —
atmosphere” in which the common

interests of all workers, rather

than the prejudices, predominated.

The concept of a summit _meet-
ing at all levels of trade union OF

ganization between the unionists —

of capitalist and socialist states
would have the immediate effect

of breaking down superficial and

coldwar prejudices, promoting
greater and closer understanding,
and above all consolidating that
most essential of all ingredients to

peace — international trade union —

unity and solidarity, friendship
and common brotherhood.

In beginning to look towards
such a summit meeting, the trade
‘unions in Canada can begin a long-
delayed activity on behalf of peace:

Tom
McEwen |

CCORDING to a recent press
A report, the B.C. Federation
of Labor plans to do a spot of sing-
ing during the sessions of future
BCFL conventions. Brother Bob
Beddome, entertainment committee
chief has listed a few songs which
might be sung with inspiring ef-
fect at trade union gatherings;
songs of struggle such as Solidar-
ity Forever, Joe Hill, Workers of
the World, Unite. and so on.

In this we are heartily in agree-
ment with Brother Beddome, only
there is one very sour off-key note;
the reason given for the BCFL
breaking out into song. ‘Since

now linked up with the Interna-
tional Confederation of Free Trade
Unions, representing most of the
free world’s unionists .. .” such
.songs may be considered as “‘par-
ticularly appropriate.”

One of two things need to be
changed; either ICTFU coldwar
union-splitting policies — or the

most of B.C.’s trade unions are ©

lyrics. They just don’t harmonize
nohow.

Workingclass songs grow.out of
workingclass struggles for progress
and peace, for the international
brotherhood of man. That’s what
the American working class leader
and poet Joe Hill dreamed of, what
he wrote his immortal songs about
and for. That was the ideal he died
for when he fell before the guns
.of the Yankee copper bosses.

As in a mirror, songs must re-
flect the soil they grow in, thus
the ICFTU version of Joe Hill
should run something like this:

I dreamed I saw George Meany

last night,

He sure looked dead to me;

Says I “but George you stink

like hh...

“Another. Red” cried he; “An-

other Red,” cried he.

Among trade union songsters it
will be at once evident that addi-
tional stanzas to this ‘“‘appropriate”’
ICFTU version are endless.

Or again take the lyrics of that |
stirring union song SOlidarity For-
ever. It is painfully obvious that
present ICFTU policies, attuned to
that of coldwar anti-Soviet ‘‘brink-
manship” and the inspiring lyrics
of Solidarity Forever are as far
apart as a Metropolitan mezzo so-
‘prano and a bull frog. That being
the case. the lyrics must be re-

“modelled to

-baton of the ICFTU—at least not

suit the fifteen,
twenty, thirty and thirty-five thou-
sand dollar-a-year (plus expenses) |
ICFTU choir boys. To be properly
“appropriate”, ‘something like
this:

When the coldwar labor fakers

Are assembled in their might,

And the: raids and splits the
bosses’ love

Are rolling on just right.

When salary hikes and union
dues :

Are bringing in the dough,

That's the “Union” makes us
strong.

(Chorus)

Solidarity forever,

Solidarity forever,

Solidarity forever,

There’s a chance we won’t last
long.

If Joe Hill were living today he
would probably say, as he said of

the copper bosses and their courts |

in Utah, “I wouldn’t want to be
found dead in that outfit.” eee

By all means, the BCFL and all
trade unionists should sing Joe
Hills immortal and _ inspiring
songs; the stirring songs of the
British Chartists, the songs of’
workers of many lands which
breathe defiance and victory over
exploitation; but not under the

yet.

October 23, 1959—PACIFIC TRIBUNE—Page 4 __