inn
2

t

Peltier Defence Committee spokesman Les Hosse addressing rally last

Friday.

York parley reportback —

Cont'd from pg. 2

without delay of an international
convention abolishing nuclear
weapons, all offensive weapons
and weapons of mass destruction.
And, first, the use of nuclear
weapons should at once be
prohibited as a crime against
- humanity.

“We demand further the holding
under the sponsorship of the United
Nations of a World Disarmament
Conference with adequate repre-

sentation of Non-Government .

Organizations.

‘“‘Now is the time for the peoples
of the world to make their voice
heard and insist that the right
choice is made.”

The York meeting included

among its sponsors 25 leading _

British trade unions, MPs,
academics, church leaders and
other progressives in Britain. Five
national trade unions’ sent
delegates to the parley.

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PACIFIC TRIBUNE—APRIL 30, 1976—Page 16

Hearing May 3

Peltier extradition protested

As Leonard Peltier sits in his cell:
at Oakalla awaiting his deportation
hearing scheduled for May 3 in
Vancouver, the fight to block his
extradition, which would mean
certain death for the 32-year-old
Oglala Sioux Indian, continues.

About 150 people attended a
meeting last week demanding that

Peltier be allowed to remain in.

Canada rather than be returned to
South Dakota to face trumped up
murder charges. : :

RANKIN

structed to only warn them. And of
course since nothing happens after
they are warned, the violations
continue.

The victims are being booked,
however. Last year in Vancouver
15,000 drunks were taken into city
police cells. They constitute 40 per
cent of all bookings. Some 75 per
cent of them were from the
downtown eastside area.

And it’s an expensive ‘‘service.”’
It is estimated that every booking
costs $25.00. That works out to over
$288,000 for the downtown eastside
area alone. Is that what we should
be using our tax money for? Is this
what we’re paying our police for?

Why aren’t the police arresting
and charging beer parlor operators

who flagrantly abuse the law? On >

whose instructions? The police
commission? The mayor? Tax-
payers have a right to know. Are
the profits of beer parlor operators
gained through illegal sales, more
important, than the social’ and
financial costs that result.

Three steps, all of them simple
and uncomplicated, would go a
long way toward solving this
problem.

1) Enforce the law in the beer
parlors; 2) Build a few more detoc
centres; 3) Give the people of the
downtown east side area a com-
munity centre where they can
spend their time in place of going
to beer parlors which at present
are the only warm and dry places
in which they can meet friends.

Then the police could get back to
their main job, that of fighting
crime, rather than nursing drunks.

Greetings
on
MAY DAY
to

working people
everywhere

KINGSWAY —
CLUB, CPC

MAY DAY
- GREETINGS

To all of
my friends in
the labor movement

DAVE
WERLIN.

Peltier was arrested in Van-
couver earlier this year on charges
of murdering two FBI agents in a
shootout on the Pine Ridge
Reservation, site of the Wounded
Knee blockade, last June.

Last Friday’s meeting heard
from representatives of both the
Indian and white community who
pointed out that Peltier is basically
a political prisoner, and a victim of
a campaign of terror being waged
by the FBI and the American
Bureau of Indian Affairs against
the native people of South Dakota.
Debbie Mearns, spokesman for the
Leonard Peltier Defense Com-
mittee told the meeting that since
the Wounded Knee siege in 1973,
there have been over 250 violent
deaths, most of them murders, on
the Pine Ridge Reservation.

She said that the campaign to
defend Peltier’s life would have to
be fought in the political arena as

“there is no way an Indian will get”

a fair trial in South Dakota.”
Another spokesman for the
Peltier committee, Les Hosse, said
that many whites are oppressed by
the same values which oppress
non-whites. ‘‘If we native people
don’t make it, then you are not
going to make it,” he said. ‘‘That’s
why I’m asking for your support in
saving Leonard’s life, because we
need it, and so do you.”
Vancouver alderman Harry
Rankin called for the broadest
possible unity to defend Peltier’s

o

life, amongst both Indians and nomy
Indians. ‘‘The same people who al¥)
oppressing and exploiting the
Indian people are the same people
who are oppressing and exploiting
working people.”’
Rankin charged that the
Canadian and American 1aW
agencies were acting in a COM)
spiracy to prevent the facts on tf)
Peltier case from coming out.
cited the refusal by Canadiall)
customs authorities to allow ®
Peltier committee spokesman in!
Canada to address the meeting ®|
evidence. Rankin said that Rocq
Duenas was denied entry
Canada because of false Mm
formation fed to Canadian custom }
officials by FBI agents. 4
Rankin claimed that this a4)
backs the contention that Wy
Peltier case is a political ti®
rather than a criminal charge.
said that any decision as ©
whether or not Peltier would ™}
extradited rested solely wild
justice minister Ron Basford, Wy
he said has allowed literally
hundreds. of proven mass muljp
derers from the days of Nazi 0%f
cupation of Poland, Romania 4! {
the Soviet Union to remain “jf
Canada rather than be sent to they
homelands to stand trial. at
The meeting passed a specill)
resolution demanding that Peltif)
be allowed to remain in Cana)
and collected over $700 to final
the campaign to save his life:

: |
OX OROVGROVOV OOD)

MAY DAY GREETINGS

VANCOUVER EAST
‘CLUB CPC ;

Working people unite to halt the attack
on our living standards.

CONTROL PROFITS; PRICES
— NOT WORKERS’ WAGES

International
Solidarity,
Detente,
and :
Democratic |
Advance

RITE TO

DEFEAT

BILL C-73:

NORTH FRASER REGIONAL |
CTEE. CPC |