Demonstration condemns
extradition of Peltier

By JACKIE GREATBATCH
TORONTO — A meeting and
Subsequent demonstration in
Support of Leonard Peltier at-
tracted about 100 supporters of
the recently extradited American
Indian Movement (AIM) leader,
Who is now facing trial on charges
of murdering two FBI agents.
Though the meeting got off to a
Slow start due to the four hour
delay of the main speaker, it en-
ded with a spirited dance then a
demonstration at the American
Consulate on University Avenue.
Vernon Bellecourt, the national
field director of AIM was held up
at the Toronto International Air-
Port for several hours by immigra-
tion officials and never did appear
at the rally. Bellecourt charged he
Was detained to prevent him from
attending the meeting, as he has
been allowed into Canada many
times ‘before. with little trouble.
© AIM spokesman eventually
Was allowed to enter the country
On a ministerial permit.

VERN HARPER

Speakers at’ the meéeting were
Vern Harper,
Charles Roach and Norm Zolot-
kin.

Harper, of the Toronto War-
riors Society and AIM, called on
Indian people to see their struggle
in terms of a class struggle, not
Indian against white. He said ra-
cism is used to ‘‘divide and con-
quer’. He urged all Indian people
to get involved in the struggle,
saying: ‘Indian people have had
400 years of resistance, and if we
have to we’ll have another 400.
We'll never give up.”’

Civil Rights lawyer Charles
Roach spoke widely on the sub-
ject of immigration laws in Cana-
da.

He warned against the dangers

-of a new immigration bill soon to

come into effect which will dis-
pense with the right to a deporta-
tion appeal for any non-citizen the
government feels would be
“likely to’’ commit a crime, or be
a security risk. Roach said this
bill, making permanent a special

‘ act brought in during last year’s

Olympics, is a danger to anyone
such as Peltier who is a leader in
the fight against oppression, and
in the future, even the “‘sham”’
extradition Hearings will not be
available.

Norm Zolotnick, a lawyer
prominent in the fight against
Reed Paper Co., said Jay’s Trea-
ty, a pact signed by Britain and
the United States prior to Con-
federation, which allowed Native
people to cross the Canada-U.S.
border freely, has never been re-
spected by the Canadian govern-
ment.

Zolotkin said the Peltier case

and lawyers.

‘O— SEVEN EAGLES

=

PHO

Demonstrations were held daily
outside the courthouse during the
extradition hearings.

has not been a total defeat, as it
has brought out the oppression of
Native people in the U.S. and it
exposed the mistreatment of Na-
tives in Canadian jails.

A letter from Peltier was read
out at the meeting. It called on the
American government to respect
his rights as an American citizen
and a human being, and labelled
his arrest as a racist act. Peltier
demanded a trial on Pine Ridge
Reservation, the scene of the
supposed murders.

‘You have celebrated 200
years of white freedom the letter
read, and I would like someone to
tell me why I, as a human being,
am not accorded the justice you
talk about so much.”’

When U.S. Secretary of State
Cyrus Vance meets with Egyp-
tian leaders he will be dealing with
a government whose stability is in
question, as a result of last week’s
mass riots in five major Egyptian
cities in which 55 people were kil-

led over 600 injured and several -

hundred arrested.

The government’s official re-
sponse was to blame communists
for the outbreaks but there was
more to it than that. Sadat’s at-
tempt to remove food subsidies
would have jumped flour prices
63%, doubled the cost of wool
cloth, added 16% to the cost of
rice and 15% to bread prices. The
average yearly income in Egypt is
$200.

The sharply anti-government
nature of the protests was em-
phasized by the slogans: “‘We are
dying of hunger anyway, so let
your bullets kill us, Sadat’’ and
‘‘We don’t need a government
that steals our food’’.

Egypt’s current troubles began
with Sadat’s ‘‘open doors’’ policy
proclaimed in the autumn of 1973.
Sadat then decided to “‘put an end
to the period when there was im-
ported socialism in the country’’,
as he put it. The ‘“‘open doors”’
policy relied on the private sector
and foreign investment which was
expected to virtually flood the
Egyptian economy.

In foreign economic relations
Egypt tured its back on the
socialist states which had for de-
cades ensured its development
and the consolidation of the.coun-
try’s defence potential. The new
policy forced Egypt to turn to the
United States and right wing Arab

4 Soaring food costs,
# ‘open doors’
spark Egyptian protests

policies

Mass protests In five Egyptian
cities resulted In 55 deaths, 600
injuries and hundreds of arrests.

regimes. However, because of its
instability, Egypt found such in-
vestments difficult to obtain.

By August 1975 the Chief of
Administration of Foreign In-
vestments of the Arab Republic of
Egypt had approved over 300 pro-
jects. Today not more than 30 are
under construction or operating.
Hopes to obtain billions in credits
from Saudi Arabia, Qatar, the Un-
ited Arab Emirates and the USA
were not fulfilled. In the past three
years only 90 million Egyptian
pounds annually were derived
from these sources.

Egypt’s plans to be a partner in
a Middle East settlement suitable
to the West have also been
paralyzed due to the internal dis-
orders. Some observers have
speculated that Cairo’s willing-
ness to hand over the respon-
sibilities for a Middle East settle-
ment to the U.S. may stem from
its search for salvation from in-
ternal disorders which threaten it.

International monopolies*

On January 17 this column took a

Marxism-Leninism in Today’s World

ministries,

departments, banks

Short look at the banking monopolies
and their role in the formation and
growth of finance capital. This week we
take an equally brief look at the interna-
tional monopolies, termed multi-nation-
als in our country.

* Kk *

The multi-nationals are a direct out-

_ &towth of finance capital. However,

‘they are now more than that today.
They are a decisive factor in the inter-
Nationalization of finance capital and
€xpansion of material production on a
Capitalist world scale. The essence of

€ multi-nationals is monopoly as the
Main economic tool of finance capital in
Its imperialist stage.

Multi-nationals are giant monopolies
Striving to maximize profits by extend-
Ing their activities over several coun-
tries. These activities, directed from

"One management centre, may cover the

Most diverse spheres, or they may
Specialize in limited fields such as
Pharmaceuticals or motor vehicles. But

Whatever the nature of their activities

their main characteristic is the close
Mtegration of production, trade and
nancial activities. All principal deci-
Slons affecting these activities are taken
at the highest levels no matter how
Many state boundaries are violated.
* *
‘The multi-nationals have expanded
a Seven-league boots over the past
ade. They now occupy dominant
Positions in the economic sphere of the
Capitalist world.
y overall increase of direct in-
stments by multi-nationals indicates
196 Scale of their expansion. Between
7-71 the growth of this investment

was: eight to nine per cent for the
United States and Great Britain; 12.5%
for France, Canada, Switzerland, Hol-
land; Belgium and Italy. West Germany
and Japan, who came on the scene la-
ter, registered growth rates of 25 and
33% respectively.

The United States played a leading
role in the establishment of multi-na-
tional companies following the Second
World War. Two-thirds of the North
American multi-nationals appeared be-
tween 1946 and 1965. By contrast, the
multi-nationals based on West Euro-
pean countries and Japan began to ex-
pand only in the late 60s, with their
most rapid growth coming after 1972.

* * *

The mutual penetration of capital ac-
companying this expansion was bound
to make the multi-nationals a powerful
weapon of imperialism which, simply
put, is capitalism in its monopoly stage.

The growing participation of the -

multi-nationals has substantially
changed the pattem of world trade,
production of raw materials and man-
ufactured goods. They now handle
more than two-thirds of world trade,
with 25% of those two-thirds account-
ing for intra-company exchanges be-
tween enterprises in the home country
and their foreign subsidaries, as well as
directly between subsidiaries.

The bulk of world capitalist com-
merce is now controlled by a handful of
major multi-national corporations.
Their intra-company exchanges cover
up aweb of financial manipulations, the

end result of which is low prices for

imports from dependent countries and

high prices for exports to those

countries.
* *

The speculative dealings of multi-na-
tional companies have, in recent years,
caused acute monetary crisis, the de-
cline of stock and share prices, devalua-
tion of currencies, rising prices and
runaway inflation with the accompany-
ing decline in working people’s
standards.

In their drive for maximum profits
the multi-nationals make extensive
transfers of capital from one industry to
another, draining away the ‘‘life-
blood’’ of less profitable. industries. In
this way they cause acute dispro-
portions in the economies of individual
countries, the ruin of thousands of
small and middle businesses, and the
growth of mass unemployment through
the curtailment of production in sectors
of the economy and the closing down of
entire plants.

‘At the same time, and for. the same

purposes, a ‘‘geographic’’ transfer of -

capital is directed to countries rich in
raw materials and cheap manpower,
even when this means the shutdown of
enterprises in the home country.
* * *
To accomplish their objective of
maximization of profit the multi-na-

‘tionals rely on the state machinery and,

if necessary, the military might of their
home countries. They use the seryices
of national government institutions,

economic and marketing research
centres. Such “‘assistance’’ helps the
multi-nationals to plan, stimulate and
accelerate investments so as to be ina
position, not only to competer with
similar companies in other countries,
but to gain the upper hand in such com-
petition which, more often than not, is
fierce cut-throat competition.

The very weight of the multi-nation-
als’ investments in foreign countries,
their dominant positions in trade and
capitalist world production, their deci-
sive say in decision-making concerning
capitalism’s economic strategy —
which includes when and how to stimu-
late employment or unemployment, to
raise or to lower the cost of credit —
serves to underline that the major inter-
national monopolies actually constitute
a state within states.

* *

All of the foregoing makes it incum-
bent upon the labor movement, both at
home and internationally, to work out a
corresponding counter-strategy to meet
the global strategy of finance capital,
and to fight unitedly for its imple-
mentation. ree

Next week’s colum will present the

proposals of the Communist Party in

respect to asserting democratic control |
over multi-national corporation operat-
ing in Canada.

* Statistical material used in this col-
umn is taken from the article ‘‘The
‘supranational’ mask of monopoly
capitalism’’ by Enrique Pastorino
president, World Federation of
Trade Unions, December, 1976 issue
of World Marxist Review.

PACIFIC TRIBUNE—FEBRUARY 4, 1977—Page 9