‘Give us light and vision’ Story of heroism in Zionist prisons A reader kindly sent along a translation of an article from the weekly journal of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Pales- tine, Al-Hadef. We reprint portions of it to acquaint readers with the fact that 3,000 Arab political prisoners languish in Israel's jails under the most terrible conditions. : * * It’s hard to talk about the atrocities and the brutal methods of torturing the political prisoners of our Palestinian people in the © prisons of the Zionist enemy. It is also as hard to find the words that befit the heroism and revolutionary discipline inside these prisons, their willpower and ways they spend their sentences, often exceeding 100 years. They never tire of struggle, even when sick, wounded, hungry and shackled... they attack the soldiers, officers and guards, they organize revolts and strikes. The lives of the Arab detainees are quite unlike those we know and hear about in normal prisons in the country and all over the world. The Arab detainees reject the term “‘prison’’ as aname for the place where they are kept, but use instead the term ‘“‘camp of the Palestine prisoners’’. Their ways of struggle are sophisticated and not very different from those practiced when they are out of For a third of a century the enemy has failed to tame the Palestinian revolutionary. One correspondent wrote after visiting Nefha prison: ‘I shuddered when I saw these men who refused to bow.”’ Another described the prisoners’ fight when being moved to solitary confinement, how tear gas was used. _ The name ‘‘Nefha”’ has become a horrible thing. It was built in the heart of the Negev desert and in it were kept 75 Palestinian militants regarded as “‘dangerous detainees”. : Eight to 10 men are kept in a room without ventilation and without light. They eat dirty food mixed with desert sand and sleep on bare floors. An Israeli doctor visited that ‘‘grave”’ and the prisoners told him, ‘‘For 13 years we have slept on the floor. Disease is chronic, we eat fourth class food. How can you allow this being respon- sible for health corMditions?”’ ““Orders from above, from‘above,”’ he replied. The prisoners then said, ‘‘Give us the housing conditions you_ give your cattle... light and vision. How can he answer? He knows that only seven doctors are assigned to the thousand of prisoners in the-many camps. He knows the only medicines available are aspirin tablets. _ The prisoners went on strike. They were taken to another camp, forced to walk between two lines of guards armed with clubs. Each was forced to run the line and was beaten. They were then put against a wall and the beatings continued. Under the clubs Ali Al-Jafari fell dead. Afterwards they were moved, four to a cell, and asked to stop the strike. Food was offered. Refusing to comply, the prisoners were then taken one at.a time into the office of the prison com- mander and the beatings resumed. Salt water was forced into their bodies. The martyr Rassem Halaweh towered like a giant over the butchers. He was hemor- rhaging internally from the strokes, his lungs were filled with water and salt. He died screaming his defiance. The strike lasted 33 days and the fire of confrontation spread to other camps — to Asqalan, Ghazza, Tolkarm.... * THE WORLD Visitor to Southeast Asia tells of efforts to rebuild Nancy Pocock, Clerk of the Canadian Friends Service Committee, is no stranger to Vietnam. She first. visited the north in early 1973 shortly after Nixon’s insane Christmas bombings. Faced with inevitable defeat, Nixon had un- leashed the largest, most destructive air raids against Vietnam of the entire war, in the hopes of bolstering the U.S. bargaining position. Pocock returned to anew united country again in ~ 1978 and during that trip also visited Laos. Her organization’s concerns with the plight of war vic- tims in southeast Asia are widely known and re- spected. CFSC joined the struggle to end the Viet- nam war at the very outset, sending aid to war victims. » Since the war’s end in 1975, the Quakers con- tinued their aid, helping to finance orphanages and schools as well as sending emergency help to Vietnam after last year’s devastating floods hit the country. Pocock told the Tribune that the floods and typ- hoons did terrible damage, especially in the delta’~ region. But, she said, rice planting is under way and the effects are being overcome. She travelled to the country in April as the only Canadian in a 1@-person group.made up of the U.S. Asian Centre. and the American Friends Service Committee. “‘Our group was the first to visit the village of Binh Tri in the south which was burned down by Gls. We were treated with warmth and friendship. ‘We don’t blame the American people,’ the villa- gers said, ‘it was the U.S. Government that hurt 7. 32 us organized medical services.” She reported that aid is arriving from many quar- ters, that famine is absent, that the harvest is com- ing in and fishing cooperatives have been reorgan- ized and set up. “It is wonderful to see Kampuchea recover,” she said. ‘‘We walked the streets of Phnom Penh and saw life returning to the once’ deserted city. ‘‘We visited an art school and the National Theatre — an unheard of thing under the’ former regime which destroyed art and culture,”” Pocock said. _ **We found the people regard the Vietnamese as liberators. They are afraid that Pol Pot and the Pocock said the Vietnamese Government is anx- - jous to normalize relations with the United States and pointed out that Washington’s commitment to help rebuild the country has yet to be honored. Her first visit to Kampuchea made an obvious impression. ‘“‘There are still severe problems there,’’ she said. ‘‘In Phnom Penh many services are still lacking, but there is a concerted effort to overcome the results of four years of Pol Pot terror. © ‘“‘We visited hospitals which now have beds supplied by the USSR. At the beginning aban- doned streets were scavanged for beds. Cuban and United Nations’ doctors are working in the re- 4 TRIBUNE PHOTO — TOM MORRIS POCOCK — lateral. Khmer Rouge might return. They are determined - this won’t happen.”’ : | Pocock was there during the first part of thé national elections and saw the efforts to involve people in voting. “‘Signs were everywhere and places set up to show people the method of exerciS-| ing their franchise. _: ‘‘We had a feeling they were being reborn. were struck with their vigorous will to live, to overcome the trauma and the tragedy.” In Thailand, Pocock met with self-help comm nity groups who are exposing the grim practice of young chédren being sold into factories: and fot prostitution. She described how money-lenders obtain a grip on the poor and use children as cok “‘These local community groups of young. \ people teach the poor how to pool their fun . They also expose the worst of the factories which live off child labor.’” Pocock said:the question o! slave child labor in Thailand (and also in Italy) wil) come up Officially at a conference of the Inter national Labor Organization in Europe this June. On her return she addressed a meeting in To ronto and expressed a willingness to speak t0 others in an effort to explain the facts about this, key part of the world. — ; “I had a feeling the people were being ~ reborn, they have a vigorous will to live ...” 5 We * International focus Se _. BYTOM MORRIS Canada-USSR grain deal makes sense” The new Canada-Soviet _ grain deal certainly shows what mutually-beneficial trade relations can be. Signed in Paris last week, the deal is re- ported to be for a ‘spectacular $5-billion stretched over the next five years. We'll be selling the USSR wheat, Canada will receive the top price of $226.97 a ton for No. 1 wheat. That’s dollars in the pockets of westem grain pro- ducers, guaranteed incomes in these economic hard times. PACIFIC TRIBUNE—JUNE 5, 1981—Page 8 barley and oats.. The Soviets will be able to count on regular supplies to supplement their grain needs and, as Canadian negotiators have repeated many times, are among the world’s most de- pendable customers when it comes to living up to trade agreements. So everyone benefits, everyone gains. * This is a far cry from the stupidity, the idiocy of the past when Canada joined with the USA in the ill-fated grain em- bargo against the USSR. The Soviets simply took their busi- ness elsewhere. Canadian far- mers were hurt, as were others dependent on the wide range of goods and services. compli- menting the farming industry. The grain deal shows what expanded trade with the social- ist world can mean for Canada ‘with our economy so closely tied to the U.S. There’s much more to be done in developing and extending trade not only in that quarter but with the developing nations as well. It just makes good sense. Nerve gas and cotton dust Remarkable Ronald Reagan keeps doing it. Last week we watched his representatives uphold the big infant formula concerns and vote against a World Health Organization code to control their dangerous marketing drive in developing nations. This week two items again draw the parallel of just where Reagan’s mind is at. ‘His adfninistration has just pushed through a $20-million bill to develop nerve gas and - other chemical weapons. There are several international treaties dating. back to the 1920s against development and use of such terrible weapons. But Reagan is unmoved. The same week he launches an all-out attack on the U-S. agency set up to enforce oc- cupational safety and health - laws, threatening to disband it as too costly. ‘ Steelworkers’ spokesman James Smith revealled that in the short few months since tak- ing office, Reagan’s hitmen have joined the textile barons in asking courts to overturn existing dust standards, have delayed setting noise protec- | tion standards and have with- drawn safety literature from factories as being ‘‘too pro- worker’’. This, Smith charges, is the first forray to get rid of the agency altogether.. It’s a sure thing that. nerve gas isn’t too pro-worker.