British Columbia/ World

Continued from page 1

“There is repression of labour, repression
of church people. There is a nation-wide
Tesurgence of fascism,” Uy relates.

Claims of human rights abuses have not
Only been made by Philippines opposition
ftoups. Amnesty International, former
US. attorney general Ramsey Clark, and
the New York based Lawyers Committee
for Human Rights have all documented
atrocities in the post-Marcos years.

When Aquino, widow of assassinated
Marcos opponent Benigno Aquino, came
to power three years ago the anti-Marcos
forces maintained a policy of “critical col-
laboration,” Uy explains.

Since then, however, she has re-
established the political dynasties of old and
allowed the proliferation of private armies,
Uy says.

“There are 207 death squad groups, given
arms by the military. These have been
endorsed by Aquino as being an expression
of ‘people’s power.’ We say it is a bastardi-
zation of people’s power.”

Aquino’s stance has toughened under
Pressure from right-wing hard liners like
Gen. Fidel Ramos and Gen. Rafael Ileto.
But the president must bear the responsibil-
ity for their crimes, Uy asserts.

The government of Aquino, herself from
a large landowning family, maintains the
System whereby a few landowners and sev-
eral foreign corporations hold most the Phi-
lippines’ arable land. Under her govern-
ment, the low-wage industrial export zone
called Bataan continues, and the USS. still
runs the country asa virtual colony through
its military bases.

The Philippines staggers under a huge
foreign debt, and 40 per cent of its budget is
used to service that debt.

~Aquino runs the same program as Mar-
cos, but now it has added privatization (of
80vernment services). This is not the road to
economic recovery,” Uy asserts.

The government’s policies have their
social cost. In a nation where most workers
earn less than $4 U.S. per day, the ranks of
child prostitutes have swelled by more than

0,000 — someas youngas seven years, Uy
relates,

(She tells of a grotesque amusement
staged for U.S. servicemen, in which young

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DEMONSTRATION AT PRESIDENTIAL PALACE IN PHILIPPINES ... despite

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death squads, half a million marched in Manila recently demanding reforms.

prostitutes are recruited to stage fights — in
which blood must be drawn — on military
bases.)

The environment is also ravaged under
Aquino’s lax industrial regulations, through
which mountains have been denuded by
bad forestry practices, fish resources are
devastated by foreign trawlers, and some

islands are actually sinking from poor agri-
cultural practices and neglect.

“The only solution to all these problems
is true people’s political power,” Uy states.

In keeping with the notion of a broad-
based people’s government, Bayan’s politi-
cal and economic reforms are based on the
notion of a mixed economy.

It calls for the free distribution of land to
peasants, and rejects Aquino’s agrarian
reform program which charges the largely
landless peasants for the small plots the
program doles out.

Bayan would sever the grip of foreign
industries, and not renew the leases for U.S.
military bases, which expire in 1991.

The party holds that key industries — in
the Philippines, that includes pharmaceuti-
cals and garments — should be government-
run. But it also envisions the establishment
of consumers and farmers co-operatives,
and a protectionist policy to ensure a chance
for Filipino entrepreneurs.

The People’s Party would respect land
rights for the country’s indigenous peoples,
who comprise 15 per cent of the population
of 60 million, Uy states.

Despite the increasing repression, oppo-
sition groups flourish. The trade union cen-
tral Kilusang Mayo Uno continues to grow,
while Bayan, with three million members,
has chapters in almost all of the Philippines’
73 provinces, she reports.

Uy, who was chair of her anthropology
and sociology department at San Carlos
University in Cebu City for six years, joined
the struggle “in the streets” in the late Sev-
enties.

She was arrested for her activities during
the time of Marcos, “but only under
Aquino has my home been raided — three
times.” -

Uy has spoken briefly in the U.S. — ona
limited visa stamped, “‘non appealable” —
and plans to head to Montreal and, possi-
bly, Norway. While in Vancouver she was a
resource person for screenings of Van-
couver film maker Nettie Wild’s acclaimed
documentary of the Philippines situation, A
Rustling of Leaves.

Bayan wages an unarmed struggle for
liberation. It has no formal links with the
guerrilla force, the New People’s Army, but
supports the NPA’s efforts as part of the
revolutionary struggle, Uy says.

“As long as workers are hungry, and
underpaid, there can never be peace.”

Together with Bayan, and trade union,
peasant, church and nationalist organiza-
tions, they comprise “heartwarming aspects
of the national democratic revolution that is
getting stronger and stronger.”

f atrocities

Gov't ‘should have listened’ on Strathcona

The thousands of dollars in taxpayers’
money spent in prosecuting citizens and
reviewing claims by mining companies
would all have been unnecessary if the
Provincial government “had only listened
to the people,” Friends of Strathcona spo-
kesperson Des Kennedy said last week.

Kennedy was f
commenting on the
back-to-back deci-
sions by provincial
court Judge Ed-
ward O’Donnell in
acquitting 59 pro-
testers accused of
obstructing mining
exploration in Stra-
thcona Provincial
Park, and by the
Attorney-General’s
department in rejecting claims by Cream
Silver Mines Ltd. for compensation.

In his ruling, brought down May 17,
Judge O’Donnell cited a technicality in
acquitting the 59 people who had been
charged with mischief in obstructing
Cream Silver’s legal use of property. In
reviewing the case, he said, he found that
the Crown had produced no legal evidence
of the provincial order-in-council passed
in 1987 creating the so-called “recreation
areas” in which mining in provincial parks

KENNEDY

was to be allowed.

Without that evidence, Judge O’Don-
nell ruled, the charges could not stand up.

Two of the 59 were, however, convicted
of obstructing a public highway, although
they were given conditional discharges. In
explaining the meaning of the sentence,
Judge O’Donnell told Aden Crane and
Steve Lawson that if they were take part in
other environmental protests, such as in
the Stein or Carmanah valleys and people
were being arrested, ‘‘you should not be
among them.”

The decision closes the book on more
than a year of court proceedings involving
64 people who were arrested during three
months of civil disobedience actions last
spring against Cream Silver Mines Ltd.
drilling exploration in Strathcona Park
and the provincial government’s decision
to open areas of the park to resource activ-
ity.

Trials opened last May and although six
people were convicted — three last June,
one in January and two last week — all
were given discharges. Charges were
dropped against one elderly man.

‘A lot of money was spent and a lot of
court time was used up to come to much
the same conclusion that we proposed ear-
lier this year,” Kennedy told the Tribune.
“It’s another case of the government

simply not listening to people.”

After an advisory committee’s recom-
mended that resource further activity be
banned from the park, the government did
an about-turn in September, 1988 and
decided to prohibit any new mining or
logging in Strathcona Park. In the wake of
that decision, Friends of Strathcona had
pressed Attorney-General Bud Smith to
drop all remaining charges against the
park protesters. But Smith refused.

Significantly, the government’s refusal
to listen to the Friends on an earlier occa-
sion may result in Cream Silver having a
more substantial case for compensation,
Kennedy warned.

Following its decisions in March 1987
to change the boundaries of the park and
to create new “recreation areas” in which
mining and logging was to be permitted,
the provincial government granted a per-
mit to Cream Silver Mines Ltd. to explore
mining claims it had staked in the park.

The permit prompted widespread spec-
ulation about a deal with Cream Silver
because the company had abruptly with-
drawn a Supreme Court case four months
earlier, in December 1986, The case was to
have determined whether Cream Silver
had a claim to compensation on claims
staked in Strathcona Park.

The Socred government argued that it

was obliged to grant the permit since to
refuse it would leave the province liable for
millions in compensation.

But Friends argued that since the estab-
lishment of the park pre-dated the staking
of the mining claims, no compensation
would be required. That argument was
upheld in a subsequent legal opinion
obtained by Friends of Strathcona, but

’ even then Victoria “refused to listen,”

Kennedy said.

Ironically, the government is itself that
argument in rejecting Cream Silver’s
demand for compensation. But because
the government issued the permit for
exploration, it may have opened a door for
liability, Kennedy noted.

“Now. Cream Silver is using the argu-
ment that because the permit was issued,
they have a claim for compensation,” he
said. Z

“If the permit hadn’t been issued, there
would almost certainly be no basis for a
claim for compensation — but by issuing
the permit, the government may have jeo-
pardized its own case.

“Once again the government didn’t
listen to people — and did the wrong
thing, the stupid thing,” Kennedy said.

Pacific Tribune, May 29, 1989 « 3