Canada/British Columbia

S.A. embassy hit
_ for mailing material
to Toronto schools

By KERRY McCUAIG

TORONTO — Educators and anti-apar-
theid activists are outraged by a tabloid-
style brochure and a book, authored by a
University of British Columbia professor,
which have been distributed to Canadian
schools.

Several copies of the eight-page news-
magazine, entitled “Indaba: A Profile of
South Africa,” were sent to school princi-
pals in May with a covering letter from the
South African embassy.

The letter, signed by the ambassador,
J.H. de Klerk, states the publication was
prepared in response to the “large number
of requests from Canadian students carry-
ing out school projects dealing with South
Africa.”

Kemp Rickett, principal of First Nations

and Dundas Public elementary school, said .

the material, which came _ generically
addressed to “The Principal,” arrived on his
desk two weeks ago.

Knowing what to do with the publica-
tions was made easier for Toronto school
heads because of the Board of Education’s
long-standing race relations policy. “I
determined (the publications) to be pro-
apartheid and disposed of them in the most
appropriate manner,” Kemp said.

He is, however, concerned about his col-
leagues across the province whose boards
do not have a similar policy.

His views are shared by Lisa King, a
grade 12 student at West End Alternative
School.in Toronto..““This sort of thing can
fall through the cracks. It can get into the
hands of students who will believe what’s in
it and be damaged by it,” she told a May 23
press conference organized by the Nelson
Mandela Reception Committee.

The principal, several teachers and stu-
dents from the school wrote to the embassy
asking it to stop sending them such mate-
rials.

John Piper, who chairs the reception
committee, called the embassy’s latest ven-
ture “part of a world-wide propaganda
campaign to win legitimacy for South
Africa so it can maintain white minority
rule. The word ‘apartheid’ is not mentioned
once, nor is 50 years of apartheid rule. This
is a fundamental act of racism calculated to
engineer public support.”

Oakwood Collegiate teacher Lynda
Lemberg-Pelly said the embassy has a long
tradition of using its diplomatic status in
Canada to manipulate public opinion. She

cited a full-page ad in the Globe and Mail
aimed at discrediting the African National
Congress and discouraging support for
sanctions. The embassy has also been
behind attempts to infiltrate anti-apartheid
organizations, :

“The educational sector has been one of
this regime’s prime targets,” she said in a
press statement. “Anxious to cast off its
pariah status, the regime is desperately seek-
ing legitimacy in the international commun-
ity... The Canadian public would certainly
be more convinced by the South African
government’s vow to change if it spent more
money on educating its Black children, than
in trying to deceive ours.”

While the brochure could be passed off as
a travelogue, more insidious is South
Africa: A World Challenged, by Angus M.
Gunn, Professor Emeritus at UBC. Piper
said Gunn makes University of Western
Ontario professor Philippe Rushton, whose
work on racial superiority won him disre-
pute, “look like a good guy.”

The book’s introduction attacks the
Western media for its “feverish” attacks on
the South Africa government which “have
been accompanied by acts of vandalism and
protest, often by people who know very
little about the country.”

Gunn calls apartheid a “common pattern
in multi-ethnic countries throughout the
world.” He charges that the “‘clamour for
one-man-one-vote” is “rare elsewhere in the
world.” South African Blacks, it reads, “are
more. interested in jobs and educational
advancement than political power.”

Piper, a public relations consultant, said
his committee wasn’t set up to take on the
embassy. It-was established to prepare for a
expected visit from ANC leader Nelson
Mandela some time this fall. It decided to
act when the publications were brought to
its attention.

It is calling on the Department of Exter-
nal Affairs to inform the South African
ambassador that the promotion of pro-
apartheid material through the school sys-
tem will not be tolerated.

The Ontario government is being asked
to mandate all Boards of Education in the
province to establish a clear policy for deal-
ing with materials promoting apartheid and
racism.

Schools boards are being asked to ensure
that the materials are not used in the curric-
ulum and to request that the Embassy stop
sending such publications.

Counting on you

Last week we made our plea for a
_ greater effort from supporters in this
year’s Financial Drive. We’re facing
the prospect of no victory this year
in attempting to reach the target of
$82,000 by June 23.

Things have improved marginally
since then. We now have about
$26,000 in. But that’s still well short
of the goal.

We’ve still got more than two-
thirds of the target to raise if we’re
going to have something to celebrate
at the Victory Banquet.

We’d like to thank those who’ve
made that extra effort, including Bob
and Agnes Jackson, who sent in
$1,000 in memory of Edna and Sid
Sheard.

And we encourage all who want
to see a paper of progressive
politics — so necessary in this era of
one-sided, big-business
journalism — continue to provide a
left analysis and perspective in the
years ahead.

It’s up to you.

legitimacy for South Africa.”

JOHN PIPER ... brochures ‘‘part of world-wide propaganda campaign to win

Anti-scab law pressed

Seis.

_after gov't drops case

i SS ie a Pe

Brad Holmes in hosp

By KIM GOLDBERG

NANAIMO — The provincial govern-
ment’s decision not to prosecute a truck
driver who ran down a picket captain last
November while breaking through a legal
picket line underscores the need for anti-
scab legislation, says B.C. Federation of
Labour president Ken Georgetti.

Last month, after a lengthy investiga-
tion, assistant deputy attorney-general Bill
Stewart announced no charges would be
laid in connection with a picket line inci-
dent at the Nanoose military base during
last November’s strike by members of the
Public Service Alliance of Canada.

Brad Holmes was knocked down and
dragged seven metres by a four-wheel-
drive truck driven by Roy Michaelis, a
senior U.S. official at the joint Canada-
U.S. underwater weapons-testing facility.

“The Brad Holmes incident highlights
the fact that the use of scabs or strike
breakers to cross a picket line only creates
confrontation and serious injury to the
people who are legally on the picket line
with the right to strike,” Georgetti said.

“The way the government could pre-
vent serious injury and death on the picket
line is to enact anti-scab legislation. That
would stop yahoos from trying to run their
trucks through the line,” he added.

“After all, if an employer locks us out,
we can’t go in and maintain our jobs and
run the operation. Similarly, the employer
should be prevented from doing the same
when we're in a legal strike position.”

The provincial government’s decision
not to prosecute Michaelis tells the public
it’s fair game to run over pickets, Geor-

_ getti said.

Holmes, who is still recovering at home

from the November incident, which left

ital after being struck by picket-line jumper last November.

him with four crushed vertebrae, agrees
and says the government has sent the mes-
sage “if you’re on a picket line, you’re an
easy target.”

Holmes would like to see legislation
enacted that prohibits vehicles from cross-
ing picket lines.

‘A law has to be put in place so more
people won’t get hurt or killed,” Holmes
said. “Vehicles shouldn’t. be allowed
through picket lines. That’s the bottom
line.”

The 34-year-old deckhand, who has
launched a civil suit against Michaelis,
says his doctors don’t know if he’ll ever be
able to return to his job because of the
physical demands of the work.

So far, PSAC has refused to comment
on the results of the provincial govern-
ment’s investigation even though the
investigation was re-opened at the union’s
request.

In February, after the initial investiga-
tion yielded no charges, PSAC regional
representative Gary Owen said his union
was “prepared to go to court, if that’s what
it takes, to make the government uphold
its legal obligation.”

n defending his decision, Stewart said
“the RCMP conducted a further complete
review, and the investigating officer did
not have reasonable and probable grounds
to lay an information under with the
Motor Vehicle Act or the Criminal Code.”

Stewart declined to comment on
Holmes’ proposal to enact legislation pro-
hibiting vehicles from crossing picket lines.

Michaelis has been back on the job at
Nanoose, overseeing all technicians at the
base’s command centre, since early
March.

Pacific Tribune, June 4, 1990 « 3