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Afghanistan

A U.S. author and broad-
caster in Vancouver last
week blasted his govern-
ment’s interference in
Afghanistan, part of
what he called a plan to
“establish a U.S. sphere
of influence in Central
Asia,” page 10.

And a Soviet journalist
sends a report from in-
side Afghanistan, page 6.

\ ss
Across the country. there are
thousands of people — probably
200,000 — who want to see Paul
Cosgrove, the minister responsi-
ble for Central Mortgage and
Housing Corporation, do
something more than offer vague
promises of relief for
homeowners faced with
renegotiating mortgages at
skyrocketing interest rates.

Last Wednesday. in Van-
couver, more than 150 of them
turned out to a meeting to de-
mand that the federal govern-
ment freeze interest rates on all
existing mortgages and make
federal funds available for home

A declaration issued by the
Communist Party of Colombia
stated that it did not agree with the
Feb. 27 takeover of the Embassy of
the Dominican Republic in Bogota
by M-19.

“The boldness of an insurgent
group can never substitute for the
mass struggle for popular rights,”’
the declaration said.

“These acts prove, above ail,
that armed violence (in Colombia
at this time) doesn’t solve any pro-

| Economist Bruce Yorke addresses the meeting at the She
begin a campaign to curb interest rates on mortgage rates.
o’Shaughnessy, and (r) Sue Dahlin, the recording secretary o
meeting. Called the Association to Control Mortgage Rates, i
April 13 at the BCIT auditorium, at7:30 p.m.

Mortgage meeting launches|
campaign on interest rates

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And they launched a new
organization, the Association to
Control Mortgage Rates (AC-
MR) to press that demand to Ot-
tawa.

Although the meeting had been
called only five days before and
had received scant publicity, the
attendance and the comments
from the floor were a measure of
the anger that the recent barrage
of interest rates increases have
sparked. ,

One man told the audience:
“The government could dictate
to working people what their
wages would be when we were
under controls in 1975 — why
can’t they dictate to the banks

blem and that, on the contrary, it
intensifies the problems and more
and more aggressively tends to
block democratic options for our

people.”

The party said that Camacho
Leyva, minister of defence and

head of the armed forces, and’

Gomez Hurtado, head of the Con-
servative Party, were ‘‘manoeuvr-
ing to try and impose a bloody en-
ding to the embassy episode in
order to impose general violence of

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Plaza Hotel Wednesday called to

The meeting was called by
economist Bruce Yorke» —
himself facing re-negotiation of
his mortgage in November —
who urged the participants to
Organize to put pressure on Ot-
tawa for action.

“Many here tonight have ex-
pressed it,”” he said. “It’s time for
the big guys to make sacrifices —
we’ve already made ours and we
can’t make any more.”’

He emphasized that the mor-
tgage situation could only change

“if the government intervenes in

Walkout at polluted mine

Fourteen pounds of mercury pollution per day,
sulphur dioxide so dense it impairs vision, and ar-
bitrary disciplinary actions have provoked a shut-
down of the Afton copper mine near Kamloops. The
Kamloops Labor Council wants an investigation of
industrial pollution in the area, page 3.

CWC strikers crack Ma Bell -

t
Solid support from labor across Canada made the
difference as Bell Telephone workeré in Toronto
have won a tentative agreement after a nine week

strike, page 5.

the market place.

“But the government will only {

- listen to the extent that we have |

numbers and organization,” he |
See ACMR page 3

a reactionary nature”’ on the coun-

“In recent times, the progress of
the unitary action in the work-
ing class movement and in the
political field toward the formation

of a Democratic Front” is the.

orientation the Communist Party
takes, the statement added.

An article which appeared in
Voz Proletaria (the paper of the
Communist Party of Colombia)
raised the question of a possible
CIA assault on the embassy.

British Columbia Telephone’s
application for new rate increases
was denounced this week as ‘‘total-
ly unwarranted’’ with several
organizations already vowing to
fight the rate hikes.

‘The telephone company, a sub-
sidiary through Anglo-Canadian
Telephone of the giant New York-
based multinational, General
Telephone, announced Monday
that it would seek a two-stage in-
crease in individual line service,
ultimately boosting rates on
residential private lines by $1.15 per
month. ;

The -first increase, sought for
June 1, 1980, would increase rates
by 5.3 percent and the second hike,
which the company wants to take
effect Dec. 1, would raise that to
12.5 percent. Individual line rates
for businesses are also to be in-
creased and B.C. Telephone also
seeks to restructure long distance
rates, raising many of them as well.

“Enough is enough,”’ Maurice
Rush, B.C. Communist Party
leader, said Tuesday in declaring
opposition to the application for
rate increases.

“B.C. Tel’s announcement
comes only three months after it
was found to be making excess pro-
fits and ordered to repay customers
seven million dollars.

“This latest hike in phone rates,
for service which is considered the
worst in Canada and for which the
public pays among the highest rates

against B.C. |
Tel increase

in Canada is totally unwarranted,”
he said.

NDP opposition leader Dave
Barrett said Tuesday that the in-
creases were unjustified ‘‘when you
look at their profits.’’

The Consumers Association of
Canada, which has been sharply
critical of B.C. Tel’s poor service,
also stated that it would oppose the
increase.

Rush emphasized that the com-
pany’s net profit for 1978 totalled
$51,307,000. “‘And the profits for
1979 are expected to be higher

~ still,’’ he said.

“There is absolutely no justifica-
tion for the rate increase.”’

Rush said that the Communist
Party would again fight the pro-
posed rate increases and urged
labor and consumer organizations
to oppose the application. He also
called on municipal ‘councils and
the provincial government to in-
tervene against B.C. Tel’s applica-
tion at September hearings of the
Canadian Radio-Television and
‘Telecommunications Commis-
sion. sd

“We also intend to demand that
the time has come to place this utili-
ty monopoly under public owner-
ship,’ he said. :

During CRTC hearings into
B.C. Tel’s 1977 application for rate
increases, the CP was one of more
than 1,200 individuals and
organizations who challenged the

The Voz noted that members of
military bodies specializing in
coups arrived in Colombia shortly
after the embassy takeover, and
that members of secret organiza-
tions from the U.S., Israel and
West Germany entered the country
in connection with sectors of the
Colombian government.

Another newspaper, El Colom-
biano, reported that in 30 minutes
following the embassy takeover the
U.S. Secretary of State established
the “Grupo de Bogota’’ (Bogota

See FIGHT page 12

9 hostage-taking

Group), which has ‘‘instant com-
munication with the White House,
the Pentagon and the CIA.”

. To show the importance of this
“Operative Force’’, Voznoted that
the U.S. had other such groups
elsewhere — the Kampuchea
Group, the Iran Group and the
Olympic Operative Force (design-
ed to sabotage the Olympics in
Moscow). E

Voz reported that through the
order of the Colombian Brigade of
See CIA page 12