__ I June of last year, Mpho _ Thoeaebale was arrested along , Withhundreds of others and thrown E to Drison where she was held g communicado for ‘six weeks, denied contact with the outside f world. 4 For six weeks, her fascist jailers ; Subjected her to savage tortures, } hanging her from. the rafters, 2 beating her and forcing her to j Stand for hours under ex- L Cruciatingly high temperatures _ While they tried to force from her a \ Detrayal of her companions, a _ Confession to any crime. | Yet, Mpho Thoeaebale is only 16. i But like the many others who were y Jailed with her, Mpho Thoeaebale _ Was a student at Soweto... 4 Soweto, the black township of I Johannesburg where in June, 1976, " the face of apartheid was revealed _ 0 the world in. all its brutality, ___ The name of Soweto was known p Overnight,” Thoeaebale told a ¢ Meeting in Vancouver last Friday # ght, “and suddenly the struggle y Of our students was known around g the world,” » With her at Friday’s meeting, °'anized by the Southern African ¢ Action Coalition and CUSO, was _ Kate Molale, a. secretariat ¢ Member of the women’s league of ¢ ‘he African National Congress. ‘ Jack Auffray, Sardis, writes: _ The Brett’s Chevrolet dealership of nee finally got eight acres ;teleased from the Agricultural Land. Reserve .by a provincial ,cabinet. decision. Should we be gp VOrried. about a.political, decision pinch will turn eight acres. of -prime farmland into a car lot and hangars for recreational air- Planes? I think we should. It seems the provincial government is Paying back its political debts at the expense of our environment and our resources. Brett’s Ltd. has €n very generous in providing the Chilliwack Social Credit | Constituency with office space for “Many years. Is Brett’s now getting Its “pound of flesh?” _ Our MLA, Mr. Schroeder, stated | 0n the. air that almost everyone in ‘Social Credit party. How many | 8cres does that add up to? How Much farmland do we stand to lose | n this constituency if the MLA and | ‘Ne provincial cabinet use it to pay | back ‘political debts? I think our MLA had better come up with | Some straight answers to these ) Westions. His denials have only Confirmed the feeling that the Aecision to favour the Brett’s application was not made with the ac of the whole community at Who’s going to pay for additional Chilliwack is.a member of the Urban Services in the area, in-- SG g MPHO THOEAEBALE : arrested, tortured after Soweto ’ demonstrations. Finally released on bail of 350 Rands — a huge sum for blacks in. South Africa to raise — Mpho Thoeaebale was forced to flee the country illegally. “But before I left,’’ she told the audience Friday, ‘‘I saw many of ‘my people die. Many parents did not know that their children were dead; many children did not know that their parents were dead.”’ cluding the necessary widening of Young Street South to ac- commodate the. Brett’s dealer- ship? The decision to release the land was made after the Land ,\Commission turned it down three times; the Regional.District Board, twice, and the cabinet, once, in December, 1976. The significance of the Brett’s exclusion is twofold. First, the politicians who made the decision apparently knew nothing of the land in question. They must have been totally ignorant of the fact that the eight-acre release would in fact result in an additional twenty- one acres being bottled up by development and rendered non- farmable. Secondly, it is the first exclusion granted by cabinet against Land Commission recommendations in this Town- ship. This strictly political decision will presumably result in many more. Assuming a steady drain on the ‘Agricultural Land Reserve as we have experienced in Chilliwack in the last three months, we will lose over 100 acres per year — 3000 acres over a 30-year period. This is discounting encirclement by urban sprawl which, as pointed out, changed the eight-acre exclusion to a 29-acre loss. This more than triples the rate of loss. I ask you: where do they draw the line? hig § Cont’d from pg. 2 ee Such thing as a ‘‘reasonable Pnet price”, There is only a vis had price, and the market price bes 29S all that the market can ae in other words, the ximum price, There is nothing “sonable about that. City Council allows this 88eous act of the CPR to go i hallenged, then we can kiss all se for “multi-cultural centres, : boa Citizen housing, or co-op es Ing”, goodbye. At the CPR’s | eae price” there isn’t any Ap ibility of getting land at a price €nough to build housing for low - ome people. That would very Ich the CPR agreed and that ably its objective. ; WLvely Scittle'the “social mix” CPR ‘calling the shots’ The CPR also agreed to build the street system within Area 2. But ‘now it is demanding that city- owned property within Area 2 should be turned over to the CPR free of charge in return for the CPR building the street system it had previously agreed to. And so and soon. Negotiations are continuing, but it is obvious to me that this council hasn’t the will or desire to stand up to the CPR. In fact, it seems to me the CPR is calling the shots. The CPR pulls the strings and the uppets dance. e ABE the only thing now that could force this council to stand up ‘andthe @PR*to back down would be some determined citizen protest. ” Thoeaebale outlined the events that had led to the demonstration in Soweto and the massacre that followed, pointing out that, in response to the struggle in South Africa, the Vorster regime “‘passes new laws overnight. “In that way, the regime moved to institute Bantu education to make Afrikaans the medium of instruction for black students.” But Afrikaans — the Dutch- derived language of the white minority — is the language of the oppressor in South Africa and the decision to use it in the schools sparked an immediate, widespread reaction. “The protest first took the form of a boycott of classes which brought no results,”’ she said. After that, the students held a meeting at which a resolution was passed calling for a demonstration on June 16. “On that day, thousands gathered in the streets to march to the school. They were chanting and singing many songs, including the anthem of the African National Congress. “Suddenly as we arrived at the school, the police opened fire. Many of my friends died that day.”’ Thoeaebale pointed out that the terrible repression unleashed by the Vorster regime against the defenceless students was promp- ted by the realization that “we were in solidarity with out parents.” In the demonstrations that followed, it was the hated pass offices and the clinics where black «women are forcibly sterilized which were the target. The solidarity of the students with their. parents continued, she Said,..as. the generations marched together in the wave of strikes and demonstrations. that have. swept across South Africa in the wake of the Soweto events. The regime responded with intensified repression and mass arrests. “Twas held in prison in- communicado for six weeks during which time I was subjected to a, CP mourns Bill Slemko Bill Slemko, veteran Communist and long-time coal miner in the Crow’s Nest Pass, died in Vernon on March 11. A leading member of the United Mine Workers of America, and before that the Worker’s Unity League, Slemko was highly regarded by his fellow workers and would have been 80 years of age in April. A coal miner all his life, he came from Russia in 1914, going to work at Medicine Hat, later moving to Lethbridge and Fernie. He played ‘an important part in the struggle against discrimination in the coal mines during the early thirties. He joined the Communist Party of Canada in which he was an active and dedicated member until his last days, and was for many years © a member of the Federation of Russian Canadians and the Workers Benevolent Association. After settling in Fernie in the thirties, Slemko worked in the Michel colliery in the Crow’s Nest until his retirement in 1960, and moved to Vernon in 1971. He is survived by his wife, Nancy; daughter Prisca. in Montreal; a daughter in White Rock; and a son in Calgary. Birt Nilsson and Steve Malen- chuck delivered the eulogy, and Steve Harmatny of Creston read “the UMWA -ritual: The Tribune joins with his many friends: in expressing condolences’ to members of the family. number of tortures including having my head pushed into a toilet while the water ran over me, being hung from therafters and deprived of sleep for days.” Other tortures inflicted on her have left her sterile. “The police threatened to throw me out of a window unless I con- fessed to thecharges that were laid against and informed on my companions. I was accused of being a member of the Soweto Student Representative Council and was told to betray the others. “But I refused,’”’ Thoeaebale declared. KATE MOLALE Canadian actions in support of South African liberation. . calls for The tortures outlined were not inflicted on her, she stressed, but also to others — “‘to anybody who takes action against the regime. “But our struggle does:«