Demonstrators outside the provincial courthouse in Vancouver marked the second
anniversary of the Soweto events Friday with demands for an end to trade with
apartheid South Africa and for a campaign to stop bank loans to the Vorster

Rally spurs campaign against investments —

Some 200 people outside the
courthouse in Vancouver ap-
plauded speakers’ demands for an
end to Canadian trade relations
with apartheid South Africa and a

Biko drama
set June 25

“The Inquest on Stephen Biko,’
the dramatization of the transcript
of the inquest held in South Africa
into the death of the murdered
Black student leader will be
presented by graduates and
students of Vancouver City
College’s Studio 58, Sunday June
25.

There will be two performances
only, at 6 p.m. and again at 9, at the
Langara campus, 100 West 49th in
Vancouver.

boycott of banks investing in that
country as rallies around the world
marked the second anniversary of
the massacre of students in the
Black township of Soweto, in South
Africa.

B.C. Federation of Labor
president George Johnston
criticized the federal government
for allowing burgeoning trade
between Canada and South Africa
and called on people in - this
province to step up the boycott of
South African goods, particularly
the South African wines and
liquors which the Social Credit
government placed back on liquor
store shelves following its election
in 1975.

Johnston reaffirmed the
statements by the 1977 Federation
convention on South Africa which
condemned the federal govern-

ment “for its complicity .. .,
piously proclaiming support for
majority rule while allowing trade
between Canada and South Africa
to expand.”

Vancouver alderman Harry
Rankin also condemned the federal
government for allowing massive
bank loans to South Africa and

noted that the five chartered banks
which have. dealings in South
Africa wouldn’t make the loans ‘‘if
they didn’t get guarantees from the
bank of Canada.”

Voicing his support for the
campaign to have organizations
and individuals withdraw their
funds from the chartered banks as
a protest against investment
policies, Rankin stressed that the
apartheid regime in South Africa is
only maintained by massive aid

BANK 5:

ey 4
‘

regime. Vancouver alderman Harry Rankin (left, on courthouse steps) and B.C.
Federation of Labor president George Johnston were among several speakers wh?
addressed the rally.

from the West, particularly the
U.S. and Canada.

The Southern Africa Action
‘ Coalition, which, together with the

Canadian Council for International

‘Cooperation, sponsored Friday’s

—S5ean Griffin phot

rally, initiated the bank campaié!’
earlier this year. i
B.C. Student Federatid!
representative Punam Khosla 4
addressed the rally on behalf of ti
student organization.

City pressed on banks

Continued from pg. 1

“The racist system of apartheid
rests upon a foundation of direct
financial loans and investments,”’
Rankin’s motion stated, “‘And five
Canadian chartered banks (the
Bank of Commerce, Royal Bank,
Bank of Nova Scotia, Toronto
Dominion Bank, Bank of Montreal)
continue to support this racist
regime through their participation
in international consortia to lend
money to the South African

government and its agencies.”
It is the responsibility of elect@
officials to ensure that public fund
are not invested in any way whi
directly or indirectly would su?
port apartheid, the moti0
claimed.

All of the city aldermen {él
compelled to join Rankin in co
demning apartheid, but when
vote came only alderman |
Harcourt voted with him and
motion lost eight to two. i

Ps

Charges voiced by . the
spokesman for the Overseas
Chinese Affairs Office of the
Peoples Republic of China that
Vietnam “‘is ostracizing, per-
secuting and expelling’? Hoa
people ‘‘are sheer fabrications’
and are “premeditated actions
aimed at creating difficulties to
the construction of socialism in
Vietnam,” a statement issued by
the Foreign Ministry of the
Socialist Republic of Vietnam
declared last month.

The Vietnamese statement was
distributed in this country by the
embassy for Vietnam and in this
province by second secretary
Luong Manh Truan, during a
recent visit. It was largely
ignored in the media, however.

The sudden emergence of the
issue of the Hoa people — ethnic
Chinese who have settled in
Vietnam — has been as the latest
in a_ series of _ incidents
threatening Vietnamese
sovereignty, all of which have
been closely linked to an in-
creasingly provocative Chinese
foreign policy.

China played a prominent role
in the Kampuchean border
aggression against Vietnam,
launched earlier this year and
still continuing on a limited scale.

In the latest incident, the
Chinese official news agency,
Hsinhua, charged that Viet-
namese troops had fired on Hoa
people trying to cross illegally
into China. The Chinese govern-
ment followed the charge with
the statement that — in violation
of Vietnamese sovereignty —
ships would be sent to Haiphong,
port city for Hanoi, and Ho Chi
Minh city, formerly Saigon, to
“evacuate’’ Hoa people from
Vietnam.

Days later, the alleged incident

Peking’s hostile stance
poses threat to Vietnam

secution of the Hoa people were
used as a pretext by the Chinese
for suspending all aid to the
Socialist Republic of Vietnam.

Deputy Chinese premier
defended his government’s action
stating that Peking had warned
Vietnam not to try to get the
_Chinese living in Vietnam to take
Vietnamese nationality.

Teng Hsaio-ping’s charges
were refuted, however, by his
own government’s policy for-
mulated nearly two decades ago.

“As regards Hoa people in
Vietnam, as early as 1955, the
central committee of the Viet-
namese Workers’ Party and the
Chinese Communist Party
agreed that Chinese residents in
Vietnam would be placed under
the leadership of the Vietnam
Workers’ Party and gradually
turned into Vietnamese citizens,”
the Vietnamese foreign ministry
declared in its statement.

“In January, 1961, the foreign
ministry of the Democratic
Republic of Vietnam accepted
the proposal of the Chinese
Embassy in Vietnam that the
embassy would not issue
passports to Hoa people. The
responsible Vietnamese services
would examine the applications
of those who asked to go to China
to visit their relatives and would
send the list of applicants to the
Chinese embassy which would
issue tourist certificates and
visas for them to enter China.”’

In the South, the statement
noted, ‘‘almost all Chinese
residents have adopted Viet-
namese nationality. they are no
longer Chinese residents but
Vietnamese of Chinese origin.
Since the complete liberation of
South Vietnam, Vietnamese of
Chinese origin have had the same
rights and obligations as Viet-
namese citizens.”’

It added: ‘‘The adoption of
Vietnamese nationality by
Chinese residents in the South
and their becoming Vietnamese
of Chinese origin over the last 20
years are realities left by
history.”

Numbering some 1,000,000, of
which 75 percent are in Ho Chi
Minh city, the Hoa people
emigrated from China in the
years following World War II,
settling in various parts of
Vietnam. :

In North Vietnam, the former
Democratic Republic of Viet-
nam, the vast majority of them,
according to the Vietnamese
foreign ministry, work in
‘cooperatives, factories, state
offices and various
organizations. They have the
same rights as all other Viet-
namese. :

Conversely, Vietnamese living
in China enjoy only limited
rights, a fact which Vietnam has
pointed out to Chinese govern-
ment officials several times over
the last 20 years.

In the former South Vietnam,
where most of the Hoa people
reside, the task of intregating
them into the life of the now-
liberated country has already
begun although the current
campaign to transform capitalist
industry and commerce has
encountered some hostility from
former owners, many of whom
are Hoa.

“Many of them have complied
with the policies of our party and
the state, but a few of them, have
tried by every means to elude the
transformation,” the Vietnamese
statement said, adding that the
socialist transformation of
private industry and commerce
“is a correct policy in keeping
with the laws of socialist
revolution which China and the
other socialist countries have
applied.” :

The recent agression — by
Kampuchea (Cambodia) against:
Vietnam precipitated an exodus
of Hoa people when reports were
circulated to the effect that
“China supports Kampuchea
against Vietnam, war will break
out between Vietnam and China,
and the Hoa people will suffer
losses.”’

To the inflammatory report was
added another rumor which
suggested that China had called
on ‘‘all overseas Chinese to come
back.”

While warning them of the

>|

deception and calling on them t0
remain in Vietnam, the governl-
ment of Vietnam has allowed the
Hoa people to apply to leave and
has even allowed them to convert
their property.

However, the Vietnamesé
foreign ministry declare
bluntly: ‘Facts have shown that
the deception and coercion of Hoa |
people in Vietnam and the
allegation that Vietnam ‘i§ |
ostracizing, presecuting at
expelling’ Hoa people aré
premeditated actions aimed a!
creating difficulties for thé
construction of socialism
Vietnam, dividing Vietnames?¢
and Hoa people and undermining
the friendship between thé
Vietnamese and _ Chines
peoples.”’ ;

“After so many years of
destructive war, the Vietnames®
people, more than any othel |
people, are longing for peace and
wish to have relations of friend
ship and cooperation with 4
other peoples in order 1
reconstruct their country,” the
statement emphasized.

“There is no reason why
Vietnam should provoke a bordel —
dispute with Kampuchea. Nor 15
there any reason for Vietnam t0
create complexities in he!
relations with neighboring
socialist China, as the tw?
countries have been united and
supported each other in theif
respective revolutionary
causes.”

The statement noted that
“certain differences’’ exist
between Vietnam and China but
stressed ‘‘the Vietnames®
Workers’ Party and the goverl:
ment always stands for 4

negotiated settlement” of issue’.
in dispute.

owe further charges of per-

PACIFIC TRIBUNE—June 23, 1978—Page 10