International Focus 4 Tom Morris Shedding a tear for poor n Cashing in on the provoca- tive bombing of its plant in To- ronto, Oct. 14, Litton Systems published a large ad thanking everyone in sight for their aid in time of need. The fact that the emergency services came through is men- tioned. So are the employees who helped clean up the mess and the sub-contractors, cus- tomers, etc. All fine and good so far. ‘ j Then Litton thanks the media ‘“‘who understood cor- rectly that our company is not a missile manufacturer, but an electronics company’. Lastly, Litton beats the “free society’? drums, extols NATO and Canada’s role in the alliance. ‘“‘We do not apologize,’’ says the company, “for serving Canada’s military needs nor helping it fulfill its commitment to its NATO and NORAD partners ...”” ' Before anyone collapses in a heap of sanctimonious mush, let’s keep a few things in mind. Litton is certainly ‘“‘an elec- happens to be producing the guidance system for the hated Cruise missile which is as dan- gerous a missile in today’s world as can be found. And it’s doing this dirty job for our ‘‘allies’’ (read U.S. military) with Canadian tax- payers’ money. That's exactly what the peace forces object to. That’s why the firm’s premises have been picketted for the past two years. That’s why people came out again Nov. 11 and will keep protesting until Ottawa gets the message that Canadians don’t want to join the nuclear club. Litton’s ad plays with people’s feelings and decries “*terrorism’’ but, compared to the Cruise, the bomb that blew away the front of their plant was a firecracker. If Litton thinks terrorism is a crime it should get out of the terrorism business and put its ‘electronics company” into peaceful production. It’s directors would do well to recall the fate of Hitler’s production chief Albert Speer who also argued he didn’t drop the bombs, he just produced them. Two approaches, the same meaning The Litton bombing also brought the lunatic Right out of the woodwork. In the days between the exp- losion and the voting in 80 On- tario centres on the disarma- ment question, a collection of greaseballs led by former John Burke Society boss Paul Fromm _ began picketing churches in Toronto saying their anti-Cruise position was responsible for the blast. Called ‘‘Canadian Commit- tee of Peace Through VOTE NOA 70 UNILATERAL DISARMAMENT bok : : CHOOSE PACIFIST ALTERNATIVE . Call to mass suicide. Strength’, (get it?) they urged a‘‘no’’ vote on the peace ques- tion, appealing to anyone out there who felt like committing mass suicide. The campaign flopped and Toronto." voted 80%. ‘‘yes’’. Fromm, who used to parade around like Attila the Hun re- pleat with a huge bodyguard, babbled about ‘‘extremism’’, perhaps seeing a chance for a political renaissance. Language aside, there’s no difference in substance be- tween Litton’s argument of peace through strength and Fromm’s committee’s name. It’s just that one is a right wing nut, the other a ‘‘respectable”’ corporation. ‘I didn’t know’ says Menachem Begin If anyone believes Menachem Begin when he testified he learned of the mas- sacres at ,Sabra and Shatila from the BBC on Sept. 18, there’s some swampland in Florida they should consider ~ buying. The Israeli prime minister’s testimony reeked of lies and omissions; it was contra- dictory and evasive. It didn’t square with other testimony or with transcripts of cabinet meetings read into the record. Begin has a problem — how to save himself, Defence chief Sharon and the Israeli military command from responsibility for the butchery. But he can’t do it. No amount of smoke will hide the basic truths: that the Israeli army was in control of West Beirut; that they sent (not ‘‘permitted’’) the Falan- gist troops into the camps; that they ringed the camps while the murders went on for two days and night, Sept 16-17. Israeli soldiers heard the gunfire, they kept journalists away and they lit the sky with flares so the Falangist killers could see what they were doing by night. If the prime minister is to be believed, he should be im- peached for gross negligence. If he’s lying, he should be brought to trial along with his generals and cabinet colleagues. Imagine Begin, who parades as the conscience of humanity and rides to power on the corp- ses of Hitler’s victims, testify- ing at a war crimes hearing that he ‘‘didn’t know’’ what was taking place. It sounds familiar. tronics company”’ — but just —— Honduras a springboard for U.S. aggression Honduran Foreign Minister Edguardo Paz Barnica has arrived in Managua to hold top level talks with the Nicaraguan government over the serious situation on the Nicaraguan-Honduras border where former Somoza na- tional guard, armed and supported by the Honduran regime are operating against Nicaraguan territory. Some weeks ago the U.S. magazine Newsweek pub- lished a story charging the Reagan administration through its ambassador to Honduras was organizing an effort to topple the Nicaraguan government using Hon- duran territory as a staging area. The story also revealed the activities of U.S. military advisers in Honduras as well as reporting on comments made by several leading Americans that the Reagan policy in Central America is both bellicose and dangerous. - The U.S. Daily World ran the following report on the U.S. military build-up against Nicaragua and its im- plications. Honduras has now become the main instrument for U.S. intervention in Central America, as the regimes in El Salvador and Guatemala have failed to stop the wave of national liberation sweeping the region. The U.S. officially has more military advisers in that Central American country than it does in El Salvador. Honduras has announced that the U.S. army will begin construction of three airports in Honduras in appa- rent preparation for an armed, full-scale invasion of neighboring Nicaragua. : The airports, to be built with extra-long landing strips, will be strategically located in Comayagua, in the center of the country, northwest of Tegucigalpa, the capital. The other two airports will be located in the Gulf of Honduras area in San Pedro Sula and La Ceiba. Nicaraguan Ambassador to Mexico Mauricio Cuadra said that Honduras already has the most powerful air force in Central America. He said the Reagan Administ- ration continues to put a lot of pressure on Honduras to launch the ‘‘war adventure’’ against his country. Base for counter-revolutionaries Last month, Honduran President Roberto Suazo Cor- dova also announced that his government planned the construction of a military naval base in Puerto Lempira, in the Laguna de Caratesca, near the border with Nicaragua. This is the area where anti-Sandinista counterrevolutionaries have a major base of operations. Recently, a Honduran colonel on active duty who was head of the army intelligence division publicly revealed plans among the top military officers in the country to launch an attack against Nicaragua and crush the politi- cal opposition inside Honduras. Colonel Leonidas Torres, who is also a former chief of the national police, charged at a press conference in Mexico City that General Gustavo Alvarez Martinez, head of the armed forces, was trying to lead Honduras to self-destruction and to war with its neighbors. ‘Reckless Policy’ He blamed the general for starting a reckless policy which makes a mockery of the constitutional govern- ment of Suazo Cordoba, a former country doctor and rancher who won election last year. se Torres said that General Alvarez Martinez has plan ‘‘to physically exterminate every vestige of opposition and to commit the nation to an international war adven- ture of untold consequences.” _ official Honduras radio quoted a government official 4 Right after Colonel Torres spoke in Mexico City, th saying that Torres had been dismissed from his post fo ‘plotting against the government.’’ The governme? official also accused Torres of planning the assassinatio? of Alvarez Martinez, a plot he said was uncovered by U.S. intelligence officers operating in Honduras. ‘‘The U.S. decision to intervene directly in Central America, setting up as immediate target the Sandinist revolution, is gaining ground and becoming increasingly more dangerous,’’ wrote the Panamanian weekly Un idad. The weekly organ of the Panama’s People’s Part ‘points to the building of the airstrips on Honduras a the haven provided to ex-Somocistas guards stagi terrorist raids into Nicaragua as proof that such denunck ations are well-founded. A Windsor votes ‘yes’ Special to the Tribune WINDSOR — Despite contradictory tendencies in Windsor’s municipal election results, it is clear the work- ing people here want change. Voter turnout was the highest in recent years — 52% compared to 37% in 1980. As many as 50 polling stations ran out of ballots on voting day. In the high-profile campaign for mayor, the New Democratic Party’s Elizabeth Kishkon, won easily over Liberal Ron Wagenberg. Kishkon becomes the first woman mayor in Windsor history, although her tweedledum-tweedledee contest with Wagenberg stres- sed neither women’s issues nor any other substantial policy issues. Kishkon succeeds Bert Weeks, another NDPer. During the campaign, Kishkon often claimed concern for ‘‘the little people’’ of Windsor, but she has not yet come out publicly on the side of the United Auto Work- ers in their important strike against Chrysler. (Kishkon’s repeated use of ‘‘the little people’ has nothing to do with winning the elf-vote — the term is a new non-sexist form of a conveniently vague populist category “‘the little guy”’. In the lower-profile campaigns for the 10 aldermanic seats, the city council has shifted to the right under the guise of what right-wingers say is the cleaning out of the “‘*heavy spenders’’. Of the five new aldermen elected, Ted Bounsall, a former professor and one-time NDP Windsor-Sandwich MPP, and David Cassivi, a guidance ¥ ' character, the Windsor Star barely managed to print 79% for arms cuts teacher, are backed by the NDP. However, two conse! vative-oriented small businessmen and Tom Porter, # lawyer and defeated Tory provincial candidate, were also elected, thus tilting the political alignment of city council to the right. Besides Kishkon, four of the eight NDP alderm candidates endorsed by the Windsor and District La' Council were elected. The Labor Council did not deeply involved in the campaign or in getting comm: ments from the four. Soon after his re-election, one s labor-endorsed candidate, Howard McCurdy, a profes sor, was asked by a reporter if he would have any trou working with Porter, the Tory lawyer elected as other alderman in his ward. Said the Professor: ‘He’ bright guy ... If you’ve got intelligence on counc don’t think it makes a difference whether it’s right left, : The best news of the election was the overwhelmiml 79% support for the referendum question on gene’ disarmament. In keeping with its anti-progresst results of the referendum and tried to denigrate the sig ficance of the 34,656 “‘yes’’ votes by fixing on the 14 that 40% of the voters abstained from voting on referendum question. Among the Ward 1 aldermanic candidates, Longmoore, a Chrysler worker and communist, over 400 votes.