Letters

Letters

Openness in journalism shouldnt
mean fudging on basic principles

In your issue of Aug. 28, 1989 you carried
a very good article on South Africa: “Only
the faces change as Botha resigns.”
Towards the end of this piece on the resig-
Nation of president Pieter Willem Botha is
this sentence: “Anti-apartheid groups have
noted that the repression has, if anything,
b €n stepped up since de Klerk was sworn

In

That article made me go back and read
Once again an article on South Africa in the
Moscow New Times magazine of July 25-
31, 1989. This was an interview with the
foreign minister of South Africa, Roeloff F.
Botha, in Capetown, South Africa, by the
Lusaka correspondent of New Times.

_ The following “gems” are from that
Interview:

© “For many years information about
South Africa has been so one-sided that it
Was Impossible to convince a foreigner who
had never been to the country before that in
Our society there are positive and construc-
tive things too.”

© “We have a stake in just trade relations
with all countries, the USSR included. That
will not mean that you approve of my policy
and, equally, it will not mean that I fully
approve of Gorbachev’s policy. It will
Simply mean that we are developing con-
nes and trade for the benefit of our peo-
ples.”

When questioned about the possible
legalization of the African National Con-
_ 8ress, Botha replied as follows: “The ANC
van legalize itself by putting an end*to’vio=
lence. Clearly the leaders of this organiza-
ion are continuing to live under the
Psychological umbrella invented by the
former Soviet leadership. I repeat, not the
Progressive leadership of today, but its
Predecessor.”

_ Atone point, in response to a direct ques-
tion, Botha said that he had read most of
Gorbachev’s book Perestroika: New Think-
ing For Our Country And The World. It isa
Pity that the interviewer did not refer the
foreign minister to this passage which
appears on page 176 of the hard cover,
English language edition sold in Canada:

The South African population opposes
both apartheid and the immoral, oppressive
Tegime whose international isolation is
8rowing. But many in the West see a com-
munist plot and Moscow influence behind
that conflict situation, too, although there
isn’t a taste of Soviet presence in South
Africa, which can’t be said of the U.S. and
Its allies.”

In the Vancouver Sun Aug. 15, 1989,
there is a United Press dispatch from
Johannesburg which is worth quoting:
“Black leaders said they suspect de Klerk

Alberta candidates
information sought

The Alberta Provincial Archives and
Other departments are preparing a manu-
Script on all Alberta electoral candidates
from 1882 to 1980 for use with a volume of
the province’s political history. The purpose
is to give a complete picture of all candi-
dates, successful or otherwise, of all political
groups. Anyone having run for public office
in Alberta for the Communist Party, or able
to provide information should contact:
Austin Mardon, Research Assistant, Alberta
Culture and Multiculturalism, Historical
Resources, Old St. Stephen’s College, 8820 -
112 St., Edmonton, Alberta, T6G 2P8, or
telephone: (403) 431-2358.

South African Foreign
Minister ROELOF F. BOTHA
'S interviewed by

lew Times corres on:
Nikolai Reshetnyak oa

ome years ago it would
; a have
S hard toimaginea Soviet oe

the world community.

Soviet journalists
South Africa, But fra
cited at

EXCLUSIVE BOR NEW TiMie > eect

“The time of apartheid is over”

Cuss your Country’s j ‘
Private. 'Y’S important problems in
danger that |

biased with
5 regard ti
Objectives of ape

about your ; lave heard much
baliet,, Choirs and your wonderful
It seems to me that |

Standing of your in}

form m) i .
and the Soviet Union, Yown idea of Russia
Since the ti Gri
reat, the

of one “frontline” creseSak@. the capital Passion and the fe ind, com-
" a .
served the sai ne ‘ had often ob. believe, often led You oatession have, |
Africa's relations With a arise in South yourself by aly oes want to defend
assport control office its neighbours, : Perhaps exaggerated q © Means from a
burg International eee soneanes pegged understand this Ido ner sll
flabbergast ere invariably — who ici your reactio) Ways agree with
passant Tay a stiches ‘ a Soviet Ria ice fog Alice Without knowing neighbours, but Ido. ings to your
real live Communis fed to touch a mon Fs 'S really like leave it w; toric situation j ‘erstand the his-
t” to by © Positive att witha in which you
Th not a dream. © sure that it ple. For many pre ite reason is sim- e “ at you did, you were forced to
e interest in the Soviet Union was also Soul Arfica has been so ots ma a ut and the your Mournful Russian folk tunes
1 3 lat it

Constructive things too
j ' believe the sam,
Journalists, |

hiaean ~- sides

le to convince

Y there are

le Can be said of Soviet
Se You too arrived here

Passion for ena}

Siti .
Positive ang Poetry. It’s very, very pees
Perhaps | a

m
Perhaps | sh
: 10
judaam.-- ld

Saying too mun
refrain «

NEW TIMES ARTICLE ... editorial policy unclear.

(the new. president), will pursue largely cos-
metic changes. Their suspicions were
strengthened by his refusal to accept a one-
man, one-vote system that would give
power to the black majority, and by the
National Party’s platform for the parlia-
mentary election Sept. 6. The platform sup-
ports the idea of group social and political
rights which has helped to preserve segre-
gated neighbourhoods.and schools.”

It should be obvious that there can be no
peaceful solution to the social conflict in
South Africa unless the dominant white rul-
ers are prepared to renounce apartheid. If
serious negotiations are to take place with
the ANC and other truly representative
organizations of the black majority, there
can be no pre-conditions from the govern-
ment. If the government is really sincere in
its statements about abolishing apartheid, it
should free Nelson Mandela.

It is one thing for the minister in the New
Times interview to voice support for the
treaty South Africa signed at the state level
with Angola and Cuba to settle the Angola-
Namibia conflict, a treaty negotiated with
the help of the Soviet Union and the United
States. It is another thing, and totally unac-
ceptable, I believe, for him to suggest that
the Soviet Union should put pressure to
bear on the ANC to accept the terms of the
National Party in respect to the internal
conflict in South Africa.

To my mind the interview should have
been followed by a critical footnote from
the editor-in-chief or, better than that, a
commentary by a representative of the
ANC. That way, there would have been a
proper political balance.

There seems to be quite a few problems in
developing socialist pluralism in the Soviet
Union, particularly in the field of journal-
ism. I am certain that the editorial board of
New Times does not favour a soft line
towards apartheid. That being the case, why
did they have to fudge the issue as they did
in the interview referred to above?

I am a firm believer in glasnost and new
thinking, provided the overall aim is not lost

sight of: to make socialism better in the

Soviet Union and to promote the kind of

new thinking that is necessary to solve the

major social problems in every part of the
world.

Jack Phillips,

Burnaby

Anti-choice
petitioning
challenged

We see now that the so-called “pro-
life’ demonstrators have harassed not
only the Everywoman’s Health Cen-
tre but also the neighboring residents
and business folk. I would like to
appeal to those neighbours who are
trying to petition the clinic out of the
area to change ,their stand and get
behind these dedicated few who are
making the theory of free choice a
tangible reality. Please withdraw the
petition; imagine the anguish of those
women compared with your unfortu-
nate inconvenience. In other words
don’t let these troublemakers triumph
by breaking the law.

On a slightly different issue, that of
Chantal Daigle who went ahead and
had her abortion in defiance of the
Quebec court ruling.. While we are
busy congratulating her, let us pause
to remember her anguish; it is always
an agonizing decision for a woman to
make. The pro-life types seem to think
that women go out and irresponsibly
have sex in the knowledge that they
can always “just get an abortion.” No
woman chooses abortion as the first
line of contraception. A woman who
goes to have an abortion has almost
always used a form of contraception
that failed, as statistically some must:
Chantal Daigle needs our empathy at
least as much as our congratulations.

Alex Taylor,
Vancouver

How can working people
win control of economy?

Since the November, 1988 free trade elec-
tion, Canadians are having to confront and
suffer the predicted negative effects of the
free trade deal.

There is nothing fair or democratic about
what has happened. The anti-free trade
organization Citizens Concerned About
Free Trade (CCAFT) has correctly des-
cribed the imposition of the free trade deal
on Canadians as nothing less than veiled
treason.

Even though some Conservative MPs
have condemned the deceitful and fraudu-
lent manner in which the free trade deal was
“sold” to Canadians, I have not heard one
of them question the right of their party to
implement the deal with only 43 per cent of
the popular vote.

Anti-free trade organizations such as
CCAFT and the Council of Canadians are
rightly worried. They have warned that
when the next federal election occurs, the
Conservatives will likely have sold out and
integrated the Canadian economy to such
an extent that it will be impossible for Can-
adians to “buy back” what we have lost.
They have further observed using Hawaii
and Puerto Rico as examples that when a
country relinquishes its economic inde-
pendence then its political independence is
sure to follow and it ceases to be a sovereign
entity.

Of course, socialists would point out that
Canada has never been truly sovereign in a

-real sense; that Canada has never had a
government of and by its majority of work-
ing people; that Canada has only had
governments which, at best, represented its
bourgeois class. For socialists, the struggle
of Democrats and Liberals to regain bour-
geois independence is to divert the energy of
the people of Canada away from what
should rightly be the main goal of the work-
ing class: to bring the economy, govern-
ment, judiciary, and military under direct
control of the workers.

But even toward a goal of regaining
bourgeois sovereignty the NDP limits itself
only to a useless charade within the confines .
of the House of Commons, while distancing
itself from any relevant struggles of workers
outside of the Commons.

Given the powerlessness of Canadian
working people, what now should we do?
What can we do? How do we go about it?

A political vacuum remains. History has
shown that if progressive forces do not
organize to fill such vacuums then people
are forced out of desperation to fall in
behind other forces which offer some prom-
ise.

Can socialist factions work together to
synthesize an approach to meet the present
challenge?

Is there a need and possibility for the
formation of a new socialist party?

Don Nordin,
Gabriola

Pacific Tribune, September 4, 1989 e 5