FEATURES

called a tragic mistake

If the historic significance of an issue can in any
way be correlated to the number of books pub-
lished about it, then the crisis in Central America is
one of the top problems of the hour.

Some fifteen major new titles have appeared in
the past year, and the list seems to grow larger
every week. The North American intellectual
establishment has, with good reason, seized upon
the revolutions now unfolding in Central America,
and pronounced them important. Unfortunately, in
this forest of commentary there is very little en-
lightenment.

' The three titles listed below représent the range
available. All are well-written, highly detailed ac-
counts; violent and chaotic events are vividly de-
scribed. One finishes reading most of them better
informed, but more confused than ever. This is not
only because the situation is undeniably complex:
it is because most of the authors have failed, or
refused to recognize that a consistent and unrelent-
ing U.S. imperialism lies at the heart of Central
America’s current crisis. In overlooking this essen-
tial point, they fail to convey comprehension.

e Central America: Anatomy of Conflict, pub-
lished in association with the Carnegie Endowment
for International Peace, is a collection of essays by
mainstream U.S. scholars, diplomats and journal-
ists. For all of its good intentions, it is a prime
example of a common academic fallacy: the belief
that in describing a thing, one has understood it.

Some of the contributions are better than others.
Historian Walter LaFeber, in his chapter ‘‘The

Burdens of the Past’’, gives an excellent analysis of
four historical cases of U.S. intervention in the
region. There is, on the other hand, a-piece by
Arturo Cruz Sequiera on ‘‘The Origins of San-
dinista Foreign Policy’’. Now, Arturo Cruz is cur-
rently the chief of the anti-Sandinista opposition
inside Nicaragua. It is difficult to see how his self-
interested polemics have a place in an objective,
scholarly survey.

On the whole, the political import of this anthol-
ogy is only slightly to the left of the Kissinger
Commission. |

e Endless War by James Chace is another pro-
duct of the ‘‘loyal opposition’’ to Reagan’s policies
in Central America. Chace has really only one
point to make, although it is a valuable one, and he
makes it rather well. It is that the U.S. has involved
itself in Central American affairs for the past
century-and-a-half on totally false premises.

Since the promulgation of the Monroe Doctrine
in 1823, successive U.S. presidents, in Chace’s
view, have intervened in Central America because
of their deluded fear of the machinations of Euro-
pean powers. In the 1820’s the imminent menace
that Central America had to be saved from was the
Holy Alliance. Later in the century it was British
imperialism. Today it is ‘‘Soviet-Cuban expansion-
ism’’.

Chace notes — and seems genuinely surprised
by the fact — that such foreign threats have, in the
past, always turned out to be myths.

e Much better is Vancouver political-scientist
Stan Persky’s America, The Last Domino. Unlike
the two books mentioned above, it cannot be con-
sidered to be, in any sense, an apologia for U.S.
imperialism in Central America. (One gets so tired
of hearing 150 years of plunder and domination
described as a ‘‘tragic mistake’).

Persky manages to combine selected historical
flashbacks with current events, and places them
within an analytical framework which lays bare
some of the strategic and economic factors that
have motivated the U.S. to exercise its hegemony
over the nations of Central America so brutally, for
so long.

Most of all, Persky possesses a sense of outrage,
distinctly lacking in many others who write about
this subject. And outrage at the agony ‘being in-
flicted upon the people of those countries is the first
precondition for understanding anything about it.

LEIKEN, Robert, ed: Central America: Anatomy of

Conflict
Pergamon Press, Toronto, 1984, hardcover, $31

CHACE, James: Endless War
Vintage Books, New York, 1984, paperback, $4.95

PERSKY, Stan: America, The Last Domino
New Star Books, Vancouver, 1984, paperback,
$4.95

__ Immigration reversal surrender to right

When the worm turns, it does it witha
vengeance. And so it was with Employ-
ment and Immigration minister Flora
MacDonald, who in a sudden policy re-
versal, Jan. 11, announced in an un-
abashed surrender to the right wing that
_ People *‘fleeing’’ the European socialist
countries into Canada from a third coun-
try would again be granted ‘‘automatic
tefugee status’’.

Up to the end of November, this was
Standard practice for Immigration
Canada under both the previous Liberal
and current Tory governments. But it
Seems that someone somewhere had a
_ twinge of conscience, realizing that most
of the people in this category were simply
looking for the easiest touch possible,
and found Canada fitted the bill.

When the new rules were announced ,
in December (denying automatic refugee ©
Status), Immigration spokesman Len
Westerberg, in probably the only sensi- °
ble statement offered so far by any Tory
ministry, said immigration would now be

“concentrating help on those who need it
the most’’, and the move ‘would elim-
‘inate the shoppers ... people who’ have
legally left their country to see where
_ they can go, who want financial gain and

_ hothing else’.
‘ Right-wing pressure
-__ Following Westerberg’s definition of
* the new rules, the entire caboodle of
"Nationalist, right wing and fascist emigré
organizations like the ‘‘Ukrainian Im-
_ Migrant Aid Society’, the Canadian
Polish Congress, etc. ., aided by
“crusader”? Barbara Amiel crawled out
_ Of their holes and raised a hue and cry of
Protest. In one of her typical Toronto
Sun articles, Amiel charged even the
_ Mulroney government with stamping
“approved”? on “‘totalitarianism’’ be-
Cause defectors from Eastern Europe
- Would now be looked ‘at like everyone
€lse, and not get automatic red carpet
: _ treatment.
: When announcing the decision to re-
Verse the new rules, MacDonald claimed
She was the victim of ‘‘bad advice’’, and
“unaware of the impact of the. regula-
_ tion” en she approved it.

Comment

Mark Sydney

Department spokesman Joe Laurans
blithely commented that he was ‘“‘una-
ware’’ of the reasons for the reversal. ‘‘I
would suggest that perhaps a few con-
cerned groups approached the minister
and gave her their concerns, and she’s
thought it over’, he said.

The reversal was so cowardly that the
immigration department has even as-
signed a spokesman to telephone the
right-wing ethnic press in Canada to in-
form them of the minister’s change of
heart.

Canadian immigration policy is clearly
designed to ensure an inflow of wealthy,
right-wing (and best of all, a combination
of the two) people into Canada, and Bar-
bara Amiel spells it right out when she
writes (Jan. 8) that ‘“‘East Europeans

- have shown themselves to be among the

best immigrants to this land: appre-
ciative, loyal, hard working people’’.

Appreciative — yes: most of them vot-
ing Liberal or Tory, supporting the
capitalist system.

Loyal — also true: to their anti-
Communism, pro-nationalist, zionist,
and sometimes even pro-fascist ideolo-
gy, to their petit bourgeois aspirations;
just the kind of people Canada’s mono-
polies and home-grown right wingers
want to populate our country.

Hard-working: substitute anti-union
and anti-labor, docile (when it comes-to
their bosses hére), willing dupes of
ultra-right and pro-nazi collaborators
and the sons of same like Melnyk, Band-
era and their ilk in Poland, Czecho-
slovakia and elsewhere. /

MacDonald was bound to cave in to
the right-wing clamor, and cave in ab-
jectly she did.

To sweeten the bad taste, some candy

changes
immigration authorities are making it

has been offered to those who are
genuinely -among the unfortunates.

. MacDonald also announced some spe-

cial new measures to assist Sri Lankan
nationals affected by the conflict situa-
tion at home.

She declared a moratorium on remov-
als to Sri Lanka (hopefully benefitting the
34 Sri Lankan Tamils waiting in limbo at
Gander airport in Newfoundland), re-
laxed criteria for reunification of family
members from Sri Lanka with relatives
already residing in Canada, and a six-
month extension of measures to grant
authorizations.

. Relaxed criteria for reunification
expressing ‘“Canada’s continuing
humanitarian concern toward those
people,’ as MacDonald put it, is some-
what of an about-face, coming on the
heels of last December’s rule change
according to which Canadians who want
to bring relatives to join them from other
countries will have to earn more to qual-
ify for immigration sponsorship in 1985.

Depending where they live and how
many people they want to bring in,
would-be sponsors are going to have to
earn between $700 and $1,500 more a
year.

Westerberg says that the new income
levels are an effort to ‘‘guarantee that
sponsors can afford the relatives who
join them’’, but they clearly discriminate
against naturalized Canadians and al-
ready landed immigrants from Latin
America, the Caribbean, Africa, etc.,
who earn well below the Canada-wide
average.

Westerberg himself admitted that the
“‘may draw criticism’’ that

harder for families to be reunited.

Another retrogressive policy state-
ment coming out of Immigration and
Employment Canada this month is that
refugees will now find it harder to obtain
work authorizations — totally in line
with Tory policy of encouraging well-.
heeled *‘business immigration’ or defec-
tors from the socialist countries who eas-
ily receive government assistance or
handouts from zionist or pro-nationalist
organizations — which will make it much
more difficult for genuine refugees (most
fleeing from fascist regimes in Latin
America, and Asia without the well-
heeled backers) to eke out an existence
once they finally get to Canada.

Welcome step

Immigration also recently announced
that passports issued by the South Afri-
can “‘homelands”’ or ‘‘bantustans’”’ will
no longer be considered valid. Although

‘these ‘‘homelands’”’ are not recognized

officially by Canada, the Liberal
government did allow people bearing
passports issued by them to enter Cana-
da. When questioned on this policy, Ex-
ternal Affairs trotted out this excuse that
Canada’s non-recognition notwith-
standing, there had never been any ruling
made to the effect that bantustan pass-
ports would not be accepted for entry.

Contacted by the Tribune, Yusuf
Saloojee, Chief Representative to
Canada of the African National Congress
said that ‘‘it is a known fact that passport
holders of the illegal and unrecognized
South African ‘homelands’ had been
previously allowed into Canada using
those passports’.

He said that the ANC ‘‘welcomed the
gesture by the Conservative govern-
ment’’, because in line with the United
Nations resolutions, the bantustans
‘should be given no facilities and no
recognition whatsoever’.

Although one should applaud what-
ever measure taken by the Canadian

_ government to conform to UN steps

against South Africa, the fact still re-
mains that Immigration Canada and im-
migration policies as a whole are still
very much subservient to right-wing
pressures and thinking.

PACIFIC TRIBUNE, JANUARY 23, 1985 e 5