Spanish strikes spreading

Attempt by Spain’s fascist
dictator, General Franco, to
cajole or coerce back to work
over 15,000 striking miners
in the Asturias have col.-,
lapseq and the strike has
spread to involve at least
20,000.

In fact the strike has
spread to the mines in Leon
province, where 2,000 miners
at Villablino have come out

in solidarity, while the min-—

ers of Ponferrada are also
preparing to down tools.

Demonstrations in support
of the strikers have taken
place in Bilbao and other
cities despite police intimi-

dation, wholesale arrests of
strikers anq deportations of
many to other parts of Spain.

The miners have put for-
ward a list of economic and
democratic demands, first
and foremost of which ig the
re-instatement of those min-
ers who were fired for their
role in the militant strikes of
1962.

The Franco authorities
converted the strike into a
lockout last week by closing
down about 13 pits in tne
Asturias, thus depriving
workers of pension rights
and long service payments.
But the strike has remained
solid.

Phoney'Moscowgold’charge

Secretary of the People’s
Progressive Party of British
Guiana, Mrs. Janet Jagan,
has condemned as forgeries
documents displayed recently
in the U.S. which purported
to show that her party had
in two months received over
$135,000 direct from Mos-
cow.

Documents alleging the
payment of money were re-
cently shown at a Washing-
ton press conference by Sen-
ator Ann Jardim of the op-
position United Force Party.
‘Photostatic copies have been
produceq by Mrs. Jagan to-
gether with a letter from the
manager of Barclays Bank

stating. “‘no such transactions
have passed our books.”

Mrs. Jagan pointed out
that opposition leaders Da-
guiar and Jardim have al-
leged for over a year that the
PPP has received large sums
of money from the Soviet
Union and Cuba to finance
party activities.

Previous challenges to pro-
duce documentary evidence
of these transactions went un-
heeded although accusations
continued. Now, on the eve
of British Guiana independ-
ence talks, fraudulent docu-
ments have been shown—not
in Guiana, where they could
le checked, but in the U‘S.

Malaysia compromise offer

Britain and the Philippines are
backing a compromise put forward
by U Thant to end the deadlock
over observers which is holding
up the UN Malaysia survey, it
has been announced in Manila.

Salvador Lopez, Foreign Sec-
retary, said Britain had put for-
ward a scheme worked out by
the UN Secretary-General and the
Philippines was urging Indonesia
and Malaya to accept it.

Britain has previously limited

Czech leaders

Czechoslovakia has rehabilitated
Rudolf Slansky, Czech Communist
Party leader, and eight others
shot in 1952 on treason, espionage
and other charges, the Czech
news agency reported last week.

The appeals court had acquited
Slansky, former Foreign Minister
Vladimir Clementis, Bedrich
Geminder, Ludvik Friejka, Otto
Sling, Andre Simone and four
others on ‘‘all points of the in-
dictment.”’

But Slansky, Sling and several
others had been refused post-
humeous readmittance to the Com-

the number of observers from the
three countries to four each, but
U Thant’s plan aliows four ‘‘as-
sistants’’ to accompany the ob-
server team from each country.

Indonoesia has demanded that
30 observers should acompany
the UN mission assessing the
feelings of the people of Sarawak
and North Borneo to the Malaysia
Federation, which would link
these two territories to Malaya

"and Singapore.

rehabilitated

munist Party because of “gross
violations of the organizatinoal
statutes and principles of Party
work.”

The report said many others
had been readmitted to the party,
and all revisions were carried
out in public hearings by the
Supreme Court on the basis of
“objectively collected evidence.”

Two former Deputy Interior
Ministers have been jailed for
‘fabricating untrue accusations”
and ‘“‘violating legality in the
course of investigations’ in
political trials during the period
of 1949 to 1954.

' Diem’s

TRY TO SAVE BANKRUPT REGIME

South Vietnam crisis
blow at U.S. policy

The U.S. State Department
is desperately attempting to
fing a new tactic to sustain
a bankrupt policy in South
Vietnam.

It is reported that the new

U.S. Ambassador to South
Vietnam, Cabot Lodge Jr.,
saw President Ngo Dinh

Diem twice on Monday. The
New York Times said Lodge
handed Diem a personal mes-
sage from President Kennedy
underscoring the “serious
view” which Washington tak-
es of the situation.

Rumours this week spread
in Saigon, the capital, that
brother, Ngo Kinh
Khu, would openly assume
the government _ leadership.
Portraits of Diem have been
removed from a number of
public buildings in the city.
Dispatches both from .Wash-
ington and Saigon make it

plain that Washington is not.

losing its main ally, the re-

gime of President Diem, but
has no mass support for its

main political policy: to re- ~

tain South Vietnam’ as an
anti-communist base~- in
Southeast Agia.

The Diem regime, which is
now waging war against al-
most the whole population,
is reported to have between
30,000 ang 150,000 political
prisoners. There has been
wholesale murder of men, wo-
men and children in an at-
tempt to stem the revolt. Re-
ports from foreign doctors
serving in the country say
that poison gas hag been us-
ed against Buddhists and
others.

Last

Wednesday’s large

seale attack on the Buddhists.

was carried through by
Diem’s ‘special forces’ who
had been trained by U:S. of-
ficers. Dispatches from Sai-
gon also charge that U.S. aid-
es knew of the projected mass

rest of Canada.

Greetings To B.C. Labor!

On this Labor Day, the working class of British
Columbia has an opportunity to defeat the reac-
tionary Bennett government and open up a new era:
in the struggle for peace and stopping the sellouiof
our ‘resources and future to U.S. imperialism.

United action by the trade union movement and

labor generally can elect a people’s government at.
this critical time; can point the way forward for the

B.C. Communist Party

New Soviet Ambassador to Canada, Ivan F. Shpedko and his

family, shown above, are in British Columbia this week. In a press
interview in Vancouver he urged improved trade relations and
criticized the nuclear arms treaty with the U.S. as being contrary
‘o the spirit of the test ban pact which Canada also signed.

attacks and warned high U.
S. officials of them, in vain.

Last Saturday’s New York
Times carried an article PY
its correspondent David Hal
berstam, which said that
S. officials knew of the plam
ned attack on the Buddhist
Pagodas.

“Americans,” he wrote
“were deeply involved in the
creation” of the Special
Forces units, headed PY
Col. Quang Tung, which
sacked the pagodas and mul
dered Buddhist priests a”
nuns, and youths.

Americans trained them
(the Special Forces) and some
maintained

Americans have

- excellent contact with thei

These Vietnamese let it De
known that they were invol¥
ed in the planning for evenl®
such as the crackdown in thé
capital.

An Associated Press report
quoted a US. officer as sav
ing: “Some Vietnamese Army
officers are telling us that it
is necessary to crack dow?
on the Buddhists because
they are influenced by thé
Communists, but from what
I have seen nearly all thé
people in Vietnam are Bu
dhists. If they are Commu”
ist,’ he said, “what are We
Americans doing here at all?

The U.S. Sunday Times ca!
rieq a report from Saigo?
which said that high officials
of the Diem government az©
charging that the Amer
can Central Intelligence A®
ency and top American
ficials had advance knoW
ledge’ of the planned attack
on the Buddhists, “and h@
given approval.”

In the last few days thou®
ands of students have take?

‘up the fight against the toh

tering U.S.-Diem regime.

DUTT

Cont’d trom Pg. 6
must be ‘‘step by step.’’

But then it throws the whole
kitchen sink on the table and de-
clares that that must be the min-
imum first step.

Why fight for a wage increase
when the aim should be to abolish
the wage system?

e

The way ahead requires nego-
tiations and limited agreement
with the imperialists. The im-
perialists have not changed; they
are not angels.

But peaceful co-existence
means negotiating for agreement
with them; the alternative leads
to war. That requires the most
resolute stand against the ex-
tension of nuclear weapons.

It is no good saying that the
extension of Socialist nuclear
weapons is a good thing without
Seeing that such a policy plays
into the hands of the imperialists,
who aim to give nuclear weapons
to West Germany, Japan, Chiang
Kai-shek and the whole caboodle.

Of course there are no guaran-

tees of success; no guarantees in |

the extension of nuclear weapons.

No guarantees whatever. But
the aim is worth trying for. We
nearly won the Peace Front,
which would have prevented Hit-
ler’s war. Now the world Peace
forces are much stronger.

But the task in front of us re-
quires all their unity.

The Chinese comrades should

cease firing at the wrong enemy
and take their honoured place in
the common fight..

Winnipeg labor honors
stout people’s fighter

On Saturday, August 24.
the Progressive movement in
Winnipeg unveiled a monu-
ment to | M. J. (Joe Forkin,
long-time Communist mem-
ber of city council, who pass-
ed away last year.

Alderman Joe Zuken paid
tribute to Joe Forkin at un-
veiling, saying: ‘‘An indica-
tion of how people in the hun-
dreds and thousands felt
about Joe Forkin was seen at
his funeral at which there was
a demonstration of such true
and widespread mourning and
tribute seldom equalled in
our city.

“They came — the people

M. J. FORKIN
: August 30, 1963—PACIFIC TRIBUNE—Pag

of all ethnic groups — in
such large numbers not me
ely to honor the man who
was their fiend and publi¢
representative but also to ex
press their great sorrow 2
their loss. The people bh?
lost one of their leaders ee
tA = Smith= once wrote
the following words: ‘I sow
ed the seed. All my life
have been a seed sower.
highest satisfaction is
know that I have invested
my life in human progress:
“How well these words al:
so describe the life of J
Forkin! Joe Forkin helped 19
sow the seeds of progress, w
human brotherhood, of pe?”
and socialism . . . i
“So today we unveil this
modest monument of ston®
And wreaths of flowers W}
be soon placed before it. Bul
more lasting will be the #
bute in the hearts and mi#@
of thousands of working pe
ple in our city and throug?
out the land whose lives nave
been made better and inspi”
ed by what Joe Forkin sto?

- and fought for.

“In the words carved %
the monument: ‘Martin BO
Forkin — 1899-Jan. 21, 196
Honored by the Canadia?
Working People whom
served so well’.” ia :

—