~ EDITORIAL Time for full support to the people of Chile Dictator Augusto Pinochet, the butcher of the Chi- lean people, has once again turned his country into a giant abattoir and a monstrous prison cell. He’s marking the 13th anniversary of his bloody U.S.-backed coup against democracy witha renewed extermination campaign, a pogrom of terror against his nation. His troops beat and kill with impunity, faces smeared in black grease lest they be recognized as human. Other killers, in suits and ties, seize citizens in the dead of night, leaving their crushed bodies to be found by traumatized friends and families days tater. To keep Chile safe for capital — Canadian included — Pincohet and his criminal generals have declared war on their own people. They mark the 13th anniversary proclaiming they will hold power until 1997 and will jail or kill anyone who opposes them. In this they have the backing of international finance, the U.S. embassy, its CIA and other hyenas who count their profits amid the groans and screams of the vic- tims. Fascist Chile now is a carbon copy of apartheid South Africa: naked force, no law, ruthlessly crushing every Opposing voice, every act, every thought. Both are rich in natural resources, Both boast cheap labor. Both are “friendly” to the “Free World.” Interna- tional capital sees coin, not blood; copper, not hunger. But the Chilean people with their proud history of struggle, their strong unbreakable traditions of demo- cracy, will win. The curse of Pinochet will pass. The nation will honor its martyrs and recall how the people once buried the victims deluged by a stream of tear gas, then returned to the struggle to ensure the Chile of Salvador Allende, Pablo Neruda and Victor Jara would replace the dreadful hell house of the Pinochets. Canadians should rededicate themselves to the cause of Chilean democracy. We should renew the boycott of Chilean goods and demand Canadian firms operating there stop dealing in blood money. We should urge Ottawa to kick out the representatives of Pinochet here. We should ask Canada’s ambassa- dor to the UN to turn his eye southward and condemn Chilean fascism. The Chilean people deserve and need the powerful voice of international support. In this dire hour of need for that courageous people, Canadians should not be found wanting. Rich getting richer _ The growing interest in “‘tax reform” arises from the view of the Mulroney government that “the game is votes.” But it also arises from the view that unless some form of tax reform is instituted, capital might be attracted to the U.S. There is growing recognition by broad sections of the public that the present tax system is unfair. A recent poll showed 77 per cent expressing that view. _ ~ While the tax burden for the average Canadian is getting progressively heavier, the Auditor-General’s office reports many of the corporations pay no taxes at all. As well, some 8,000 Canadians with incomes over $50,000 paid no taxes last year. Moreover, according to Maclean’s magazine, cor- porations took advanrage of tax breaks that cost the federal treasury $25-$35 billion in foregone revenue. In addition, the last federal budget gave Canadians (guess which ones) a lifetime capital gains exemption ‘of $500,000. Under the Mulroney government the rich get richer » and the poor poorer With the continuing and probably deepening budget deficit, Finance Minister Michael Wilson is striving to undertake a “‘now you see it, now you don’t” tax reform — the heart of which is a Business Transfer Tax (BTT). If implemented, the BTT would bring in additional billions by taxing production of goods and services at each level of the process. The end result will be increased prices and additional burdens on the people, particularly those with low incomes. The BTT would replace the manufacturers sales tax and on the surface, appears to be “more fair.” In reality, it is a hidden tax leading to higher prices for goods and services which the wealthy and the corpora- tion can afford, but which would hit working Canadi- ans. : This kind of “tax reform”? needs to be rejected by the trade unions and other democratic forces. Tax reform today should be geared to creation of new jobs and the expansion of the. home market by raising purchasing power, not lowering it. Tax reform should be progressive tax reform based on ability to pay. The Communist Party has called for the elimina- . tion of income taxes for those earning less than $25,000 a year. There is increased support for increased corporate tax based on the widespread recognition that these corporations and banks today do not carry a fair share of the tax burden. What Canada needs isa people’s budget directed to strengthen the independence of our country and the achievement of full employment — not a corporate budget to further enrich the wealthy and strengthen monopoly control over the Canadian economy. . Complexities of money-making have combined to boost ; gram Co. Ltd.’s profits for the six months ending July 31, 198610 chubby $216.2-million. This compares to the slender $129. 6-mi se profit for the same period last year. Add about 30 per cent beca Seagram’s counts its money in U.S. funds. The jump, they say; 5 due to an increase in ‘“‘unremitted profit” from the company’ per cent holding in the giant du Pont Co. FRIBONE SEAN GRIFFIN Assistant Editor — DAN KEETON é Business & Circulation Manager — MIKE PRONIUK. Graphics — ANGELA KENYON yas _ Published weekly at 2681 East Hastings Street Vancouver, B.C. V5K 1Z5 Phone (604) 251-1186 Subscription Rate: Canada — $16 one year; $10 six months Foreign — $25 one year; Second class mail registration number 1560 _ Editor — ossing coins into some body of water is an ages-old custom. Where it comes from, we can’t say, but there are few people who haven’t at least at one point in their lives thrown a few pieces of spare change into a fountain, well or artificial People and Issues Against the Tide, a history by Downton Eastside Residents Association org Jim Green. They'll be on sale at a $ pre-publication price of $9.95. You'll be putting your time and money to good use. For tickets, which are se pond. And unless the recipient pond is designated as the project of some charity, it’s an even bigger mystery as to where the money goes. A recent item in the local press put one mystery to rest, in the case of the various miniature bodies of water around the Expo 86 grounds. According to the piece, the pennies, nickels, dimes and quarters collected by a contracted janitorial firm head directly to the coffers of Glad Tidings Temple in Vancouver. Glad Tidings is the evangelical church which boasts the membership of one of B.C.’s wealthiest moguls, multi-millionaire Jim Pattison. And since Pattison is Expo’s boss, the janitorial firm’s largesse concern- ing the fundamentalist temple is scarcely surprising. When added up, the take from the pond isn’t such small change. According to the article, some $1,000 was taken from the Soviet pavilion alone. That buys a lot of choir books. This didn’t go unnoticed by labor press veteran and author Hal Griffin, who is selling his book, Soviet Frontiers of Tomorrow, down at the bookstand run by the People’s Co-op Bookstore in the USSR pavilion. Hal notes that about the - same time as the information became pub- lic, labor’s Camp Jubilee was cut off from the last of its government funding. But according to staff at the Soviet pavilion, there is little anyone can do about it, since the janitorial work is con- tracted by Expo. If the world’s fair brass consider bibles more deserving than kids, that’s the way it goes. And that’s something to. consider the next time one is thinking of discarding some change on the Expo grounds. * * * BX when many of the Tribune’s readers were still quite young, and before many were even born, they were fighting for preservation of a union that represented the highest ideal of Canadian trade unionism. But, as history records, the combined might of the federal government and the big shipowners was ultimately successful in extinguishing the democratic, independent, left-led Cana- dian Seamen’s Union. But a good idea can never be perman- ently defeated, and historical truths will eventually be known. Just as the story of the CSU was aired earlier this year with the release of the National Film Board’s Canada’s Sweetheart — detailing the con- spiracy involving the company-backed Seamen’s International Union and its American gangster leader, Hal Banks — the union’s heroic fight will be in the lime- light when former CSU members and supporters commemorate the union next month. The occasion is a banquet held at the Russian Hall, 600 Campbell Ave. in Van- couver on Oct. 25. Included in the roster of more than 100 veterans expected to attend will be former president Harry Davis. Available at the banquet will be copies of the new Progress Publishers’ release, $10 for seniors, call 251-7174 or 254-38 * * * A: we mentioned in a review in bs week’s issue, the Ridge Theatre Vancouver has been featuring two imp® ols tant films on South Africa. The produc, a tions, Winnie and Nelson Mandela 2% | | Witness to Apartheid are slated to endt Thursday. t Unfortunately, many of us simply can 4 take the time out to see movies, no ma (o 4 how good or relevant they are. But atl in the case of Witness, which gives a0 up” to-date look at the violence and triumP 15 J in the black liberation struggle, there. good news. It airs on Channel 9, the Public Broadcasting System’s Seattle st tion, on Tueday, Oct. 7 at 10 p.m. By the way, we should note, becaus¢ a 5 left it out last time, the sponsors of t Ridge showings. They are South Aff “Women Against Apartheid, IDE films, and Oxfam, and the films endorsed by the Anti-Apartheid Networ 4 PACIFIC TRIBUNE, SEPTEMBER 17, 1986