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The Strange contrast between the military guard posted at the opening of the Legislature, and the hundreds
of demonstrators massed on the lawns behind, was the sight that confronted premier Bennett last Thursday
a the Citizens’ Lobby for Jobs brought its powerful demand for government action on jobs to the provincial

government.

—Sean Griffin photo

Vancouver, Victoria mark

actions for disarmament

Last weekend marked signifi-
Cant new actions for disarma-
Ment in this province as_ the
mayors of both Vancouver and
Victoria officially proclaimed dis-
armament days and urged citizens
to press for federal government
action at the upcoming United

ations special session in dis-
et scheduled for the end of

ay.

In both instances, the procla-

Mation was issued, in response to.

the campaign being waged by the
Ad Hoc Coalition for Disarmament
which has. already. distributed
40,000 brochures throughout the
province and last week called for
thousands more people to add their
voices to the disarmament cam-
paign.

At a brief rally in Vancouver
Friday, marking the official proc-
lamation of disarmament day,
Father Jim Roberts, chairman of
the Ad Hoc Coalition, told the

Native leader blasts
bicentenary for Cook

Provincial minister of tourism
Grace McCarthy was told by a
ancouver Island native leader
last week that the $1.6 million
Celebration of the 200th an-
hiversary of the landing of Captain
ames Cook was a “stupendous
Waste of taxpayers’ money” and a
Peet insult to the Indian people

Donna Tyndall, president of the
Courtenay-Comox local of the
Nited Native Nations, said in a

- letter to McCarthy that the much-

_ DONNA TYNDALL

publicized celebrations ‘‘would be
laughable were it not for the fact
that stupendous amounts of money
of B.C. taxpayers are being thrown
away on this phoney celebration.

‘In a province where social ser-
vices are being cut to the marrow
making life miserable and survival
almost impossible for needy and
struggling people, it is nothing less
than obscene that so much money
is being squandered on this ques-
tionable venture,”’ she said.

Tyndall told McCarthy that a
particularly insulting part of the
ministry’s publicity campaign “4s
expecting Indians to take part in
the celebrations.”

‘What do we have to celebrate?”’
she asked.

In a moving indictment of the
treatment of Indian people by suc-
cessive administrations, beginning
with the first colonial govern-

-ments, Tyndall declared in her

letter:

“Just over 40 years ago my peo-
ple, the Kwakiutl, had their sacred
potlatches outlawed along with the
dances and songs which were an

integral part of them. Our people, /

men and women, were imprisoned
in Oakalla while a gunboat manned
by the Northwest Mounted Police
visited our villages and ‘‘con-
fiscated” our precious masks and

See TYNDALL pg. 12

audience, ‘‘Many of you feel
paralyzed, unable to do something
about the escalation of the arms
race, That’s why we formed the Ad
Hoc Coalition for Disarmament —
we do not accept that we are
paralyzed.”’

Father Roberts urged thousands
of people to inundate the office of
the prime minister with the post-
card issued by the coalition calling
for disarmament initiatives.

Deputy mayor Darlene Marzari
read the city proclamation to the
rally and added, ‘‘My own special
wish is that across the country
other organizations are forming to
send these postcards to the prime
minister to let him know how we
feel about disarmament.”

In Victoria, where mayor
Michael Young had proclaimed the
weekend of March 31 to April 2 as
disarmament weekend, the Vic-
toria Ad Hoe Coalition for Dis-
armament sponsored several
events including a debate on dis-
armament in the city’s Market
Square followed by a “Wake for

See DISARMAMENT pg. 11

CLC parley
backs rights

for Quebec

By MIKE PHILLIPS

QUEBEC — Delegates to the
12th biennial convention of the
Canadian Labor Congress over-
whelmingly endorsed a policy
Monday recognizing the two-nation
character of Canada, affirming
both the right of Quebec to self-
determination and asserting
English-speaking Canada’s

. recognition and support the right of

the people of Quebec to exercise
that self-determination.

Drafted by a national unity
policy committee, the statement
was one of the first major policy
documents to come before the
more than 2,000 delegates who
began their week-long convention
Monday.

The long-awaited statement,
which was kept a closely-guarded
secret from the media and from
the delegates right up to the time it
was placed on the floor for debate,
was criticized,. however, for not
adequately respecting the sub-
stance of the 16 resolutions on the
subject which had been submitted
to the Congress for convention
debate.

Critics also noted that it failed to
reflect the various positions of the
different unions which had earlier
declared themselves in support of
self-determination and varying
degrees of constitutional reform.

What opposition to the statement
did develop.came from those who
argued that the concept of self-
determination contained in the
resolution was buried in vague
rhetoric. Marcel Perrault,
president of the Montreal Labor
Council and of the Montreal local of
the Canadian Union of Postal
Workers, called it a “two-headed
resolution’ which recongnized the
right to self-determination on one
side, but denied it on the other,
with its appeal for a future
relationship expressed in national
solidarity. That, he said, was yet

South African troops

mass on Angola border \. UNEMPLOYMENT: The

South Africa has massed 55,000
troops and mercenaries on the
Namibian border of the Peoples’
Republic of Angola, already under
attack from U.S.-backed Zaire on
the north.

The situation is so tense, the
Angolan Defence Ministry said in
Luanda last week, that President
Agostinho Neto did not attend the
recent “frontline” African states’
summit in Dar-es-Salaam, Tan-
zania.

Zaire troops, supported by war-
planes, on March 20 invaded An-
gola, but strong Angolan counter-
attacks threw the Zaire invaders
back. The combined Zaire-South

African forces are said to have

more than 700 tanks, 500 artillery

pieces and large numbers of planes
and helicopters,

The Angolan Defence Ministry
said the FNLA and UNITA
“counterrevolutionary forces’’ are
being trained in Zaire and Namibia
by western mercenaries and
military advisers from fascist
Chile and from China.

The huge South African build-up
on Angola’s border is also carrying
out a new wave of repression
against the Southwest African
Peoples’ Organization in Namibia,
where puppet leader Chief
Clemens Kapuuo was assassinated
last week. Kapuuo, a leader of the
56,000 Herrero people, would have
been appointed “‘president”’ of the
fake Namibian state that South
Africa intends to set up in
December.

another manifestation of the
federal status quo.

Other delegates supported the
Statement but pointed to the
existence of severe weaknesses.
United Electrical Workers director
of organization, Val Bjarnason,
noted that this was the first time
the CLC had given recognition to
Quebec’s and English-speaking
Canada’s right to _ self-
determination but he stressed that
real unity of the working class was
possible only if the right to self-
determination were linked to the
need for a new, made-in-Canada
constition, which would enshrine in
law the rights of both nations.

- Delegates applauded as Bijar-
nason noted, “We should have
confidence enough in our brother
and sisters in Quebec to support
them all the way in their right to
self-determination.”

Bjarnason said that the
weakness of the statement lay in

its refusal to take any position on ee

the constitutional and political
See CLC pg. 12

TSS Ree ET

| Neutronen |

a

LTRS Se wi

| e NEUTRON BOMB: The
campaign against the Pent-
agon’s horror weapon
escalates, both in this
country as the Canadian
Peace Congress steps up its
opposition, and in Europe
} asa Dutch minister resigns |
} in protest, page 6, 8. }

aitiiidibamauaunamanenaenaseneeee

time has come, alderman
Harry Rankin asserts, to
put curbs on corporate
export of capital — and of
jobs, page 2.

fe ETHIOPIA: Although
hostilities have ended in
the Ogaden region, Ethi-
opia continues to face
outside interference as
U.S. and NATO strategists
inflame Eritrean secession-
ism, page 9.

} e LIQUID GOLD: Fred Wil-
fF son review Tamahnous
Theatre Company’s newest
production which opened

this week in Vancouver, #

page 10.

rea