EDITORIAL

Reject Nicaragua boycott

What guarantees has the government of Can-
ada that the U.S. will not step into this country
and order what trade may be conducted with
Nicaragua?

There are no guarantees.

The External Affairs Minister Joe Clark says
adamantly that while the U.S. is “monitoring”
what companies do in Canada, there will be Can-
adian “monitoring” of what the U.S. does in this
country.

Reagan’s trade embargo in Nicaragua is in line
with a century-long imperialist brutality in the
interests of the U.S. transnationals.

Canada has gone through this insulting pro-
cess before. Last time it was over Cuba. The U.S.
ordered Canada not to sell locomotives to Cuba.
The federal government of the time, to its credit,
with the backing of an outraged Canadian public,
stood up to mighty U.S. imperialism and won.

No U‘S. ruler, least of all one who pays hom-
age to Nazis, can tell Canada what trade arran-
gements it may or may not make. If the govern-
ment of Brian Mulroney thinks differently it will
answer to the people of this country whose jobs
are at stake, but whose internationalism and
patriotism are also at stake.

The fact and the truth is that Reagan has every
intention of invading Nicaragua, and nothing, he
believes, will deter him from the outcome. But the

Canadian people and hundreds of other peoples
are prepared to stop him with every means possi-
ble, in the first place by compelling their own
governments.to break with Reagan’s aggressive
plans.

Reagan’s terrorists ought to recall Vietnam;
they ought to recall the Bay of Pigs when they
tried to destroy independent Cuba. If they want
to know who are the enemies of US.
imperialism — the answer is the whole world.

Reagan’s envoy to Canada, Paul Robinson,
has a habit of sticking his nose and his destabiliza-
tion methods into Canadian affairs. He tells Can-
adians: ‘We're not going to let another Cuba in
this hemisphere. That’s it, the end, finished.”

- For that imperialist extremist it may be the

end, but Canadians aren’t likely to jump to his,

commands. A campaign for his rapid removal
from Canada is long overdue. We don’t need
U.S. imperialism’s provacateurs here.

Since the Mulroney government, ever-tuned to
the commands of the White House and Pen-
tagon, has no time for the demands of the Cana-
dian people, the people must take matters into
their own hands. Canadian independence, Cana-
dian sovereignty, terms Mulroney has forgotten,
shall continue to be fought for, as they were in
World War II — by the working class and not
least, the young generation.

A secret Star Wars deal

If, as New Democratic Party leader Ed Broad-
bent says, on the authority of a scientist formerly
employed by the federal government, the
government of Canada has already decided to
join in research for the U.S. Star Wars program,

then the under-informed Canadian public should
demand an explanation.

“The National Research Council has already
been informed that Canada will participate in the
American program of research into Star Wars
and that the NRC will act as the point of contact
in Canada for co-operation between the two
countries,” the scientist revealed.

It is becoming a habit, it seems, for the prime
minister to deny what has taken place.

We have said in these pages that Reagan’s Star
Wars program not only offers nothing to Canada
other than being dragged into U.S. imperialism’s

global strategy, but vastly increases the danger of
a war to end all life.

This country is not at war. It’s no time for
secret military pacts, especially pacts that com-
promise Canada’s sovereignty, and its credibility
in the world. There is valid suspicion and valid
criticism that the North Warning System, the
renewed air defence agreement and under-the-

table Star Wars deals all go together to make -

Canada a U.S. powder monkey.

Earlier this month the London-based Institute
of Strategic Studies called Star Wars a route likely
to lead to an expensive and destabilizing arms
race in space. The people of Europe are massively
opposed to Star Wars. Even Reagan’s allies in
European governments are disturbed and wary
over this program. Shouldn’t Mulroney get a
message from all that even if he is deaf to what the
Canadian people say?

4.

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bros

“Sure, | know what! wanna‘be when | grow up. Man, | just wanna be

alive!”

Ree Te
Pel aurea e) |

Steinberg Inc., Montreal, had to sell a lot of Cheez Whiz to do it,
but they came up with an after-tax $52,568,000 profit for the 36
weeks ended April 6, compared with $7,336,000 in that period 4 —
year earlier. They also run Miracle Mart, Lantic Sugar, Steinberg

Realty, etc.

Profiteer of the week

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ver the years, the movement for_

economic action against repressive
regimes in South Africa and Chile has
grown impressively, with the initial
demand for a boycott of products expand-
ing , particularly in the case of South
Africa, to a demand for disinvestment in

People and Issues

South African-owned companies. As
readers will have noted in Harry Rankin’s
column last week, the city of Edinburgh in
Scotland has taken up the cause, calling
for the withdrawal of city funds from any
companies and banks on the UN blacklist
of South African companies. Seattle has
done likewise and the COPE aldermen
want to see similar action taken by Van-
couver city council as well.

Now we note that the city council of
Berkeley, California has voted to support
a boycott of Chilean produce and to
declare “Chilean agricultural products are
not welcome in Berkeley.”

The motion, adopted unanimously by
the eight members of council present as
well as Berkeley mayor Eugene “Gus”
Newport, called the Pinochet regime “‘one
of the most repressive tyrannies in the
world” and noted that foreign currency
earned from exports “does not reach the
vast majority of the people” and goes
instead to “prop up Chile’s sagging econ-
omy.”

It called on the people of Berkeley to
“refuse to purchase such products” and
urged merchants to “decline to offer Chi-
lean agricultural products for sale.”

More important, perhaps, the council
directed city staff to “contact the public
and sellers of Chilean produce in order to
inform them that this boycott is in effect
and to request their co-operation and par-
ticipation.”

There, of course, the Berkeley council
has to contend with the Reagan adminis-
tration which supports expanded trade
and financial dealings with both Chile and
South Africa — just as the Socred
government does in this province.

Inevitably they reject support for such
city-led boycotts on the phony pretext that
consumers “must have a free choice” to
decide whether or not they’ll buy such
products.

Of course there were no such free choi-
ces for consumers when they looked for
Chilean wine in the years between 1970

and 1972 (when the tenure of the Socred
government overlapped with that of the
Allende government in Chile) although
wines from Pinochet’s Chile now literally
flood the liquor store shelves.

As for the U.S., how much free choice
did consumers have in the trade embargo
imposed on Nicaragua?

And there’s the fundamental difference:
the boycott actions by Edinburgh, Berke-

ley, Seattle — and, we hope, Vancouver.

— are the expression of popular support
as evidenced by the votes. The action of
the Reagan administration in imposing
the embargo on Nicaragua was imposed
in defiance of public opinion — and
without any elected body having an
Opportunity to vote on it. Free choice,
when it involves profits from cheap labor,
is worth about as much to the Socreds and
Reagan as it is in Chile or South Africa.

* * &

A; we were preparing our May Day
issue last month we showed photo-

graphs of May Day, 1935 to several of our
readers who were around at the time in the
hope of identifying at least some of those
who appear. But it was understandably
difficult since the passage of half a century
dims memories and changes people a lot.
So we had to simply print the photos
without naming any of the faces.

No sooner had the issue appeared,
however, than Tribune mailer Stan Lowe
told us that he himself is the man in the top
photograph carrying the lead banner
which reads “United Front of Youth, May
Day 1935.” (Ironically, we had shown him
other photos which he didn’t recognize
but had somehow passed over that one.)
Unfortunately, he couldn’t recall the name
of the woman carrying the banner with
him.

We appeal to readers now — if you can
positively identify that woman or any 0

the other people who appeared in the his- —

torical photographs in that issue, pleas¢

drop us a note. If possible, send along the |

photo and circle those you can name along
with their names. If you wanted to save the
issue, let us know and we’ll send you a new
one.

Considering the proud tradition that
we’ve kept up for 50 years, we'd like to do
everything possible to see it’s preserved.

_ 4e PACIFIC TRIBUNE, MAY 15, 1985