cost. Page 3. Citizen’s advocate Bruce Yorke is urging homeowners to be prepared to take action against tax hikes that 1 —_are likely to result from the latest assessment increases. Environment Canada has called on MacMillan Bloedel to reduce discharge from its Alberni mill — but the company has raised the threat of closure because of the Page 3. October 1, 1990 50 cents Volume 53, No. 34 IWA hits gov’t, corporations ~ Now We ARE HERE TO CLAIM vl Represented by (I to r), Jackie Brown and Shawna Butterwick, women’s groups fro around the building housing the Vancouver Status of Women Sept. 25 ina dress rehearsal for a national protest scheduled for Ottawa Oct. 8. On that day, women’s groups across the country will converge on Ottawa during the Third Annual Commonwealth Meeting of Ministers Responsible for Women’s Affairs to tie their banners around the Parliament Buildings in the continuing protest against the federal and provincial governments’ lack of support for women’s groups. m across the province tie their banners Korea: caught in the Cold War By FRED WEIR Moscow Correspondent PANMUNJOM, DPRK — Don’t try telling anyone here that the cold war is over. This village, which marks the only opening in the ceasefire line between the two hostile Koreas, hasn’t changed a bit since I first saw it two years ago. Seven low huts straddle the line, guarded at each end by soldiers whose fingers continuous- ly twitch on the triggers of their small arms. Inside, for almost four decades, the United Nations Armistice Commission has supervised a seemingly endless process of wrangling between the two sides over relatively trivial aspects of policing the “temporary” agreement that ended the Korean War. Visiting Panmunjom is like returning to the depths of the 1950s. Inside one of the huts, together with a group of visiting American peace activists, we came Vvit- tually face to face with a member of the special U.S. Army squad of tall, blue-eyed John Wayne clones permanently assigned to duty here. From his hip dangled a re- volver, from his neck a telephoto camera. He used the latter incessantly, carefully photographing every one of his com- patriots who dared come down to this place from the North. Most standard cold war histories claim | that the Russians divided Korea. But there | are no Russians here, and haven’t been since 1948. On this side of the almost invisible line drawn on the ground stand | small, wiry North Korean soldiers who | trade cold, hard stares with the Americans | and their South Korean allies on the other | side: day in, day out, year after year. That line continues up the hillside and | into the distance, bisecting the entire | see KOREA page 7 Woodworkers are being made to pay for a government- and business-created depres- sion, IWA-Canada president Jack Munro told the union’s fourth annual convention in Vancouver Sept. 24. “There is something terribly cynical and immoral about what is going on here ... Already, about 5,000 of our members have lost their jobs,” Munro said. “You have to understand that this reces- sion, like the last one, was planned — an intended and deliberate goal of the policies of the federal government,” he charged. In a wide-ranging speech that blamed federal and provincial policies for the latest downturn in the forest industry, Munro also hit the Free Trade Agreement for causing layoffs in the Eastern furniture industry, called for forest worker involvement in set- tling Native aboriginal title claims, and denounced talks aimed at creating a Canada- U.S.-Mexico free trade deal. Munro listed the continuing export of raw logs, the use of high-grade timber for pulp production, and the closure of plants by corporations that are still allowed to retain their annual cuts under the Tree Farm Licence system, as ills which cost [WA- Canada members jobs. As far as fightback plans go, Munro cited the involvement of woodworkers at a town hall meeting in New Westminster two weeks ago, in which Premier Bill Vander Zalm and the provincial cabinet were confronted over their inaction to prevent the closure of plants such as had been done that week by Fletcher Challenge. The giant New Zealand-based corpora- tion was the target of the union’s wrath during the convention. The company, which has reneged on earlier promises not to reduce jobs, has been closing plants— most recently, the Delta Ply wood and Fraser Mills operations. The union officers’ report stated that more than 5,000 woodworkers in western Canada were laid off, more than one-third of them permanently. “Some of these curtail- ments are the result of a shortage of available timber, but more and more of them are the result of decisions by companies like Fletcher Challenge to get out of the solid wood products side of the industry and con- centrate on the production of pulp and paper,” the report stated. Several angry laid off woodworkers briefly occupied the lobby of the Fletcher Challenge building and demonstrated out- side that day. At the townhall meeting, Forests Mini- ster Claude Richmond told union members see MUNRO page 8 4 a q