TE ee te a NT gy OT ee nT I Te

117 charged
in protest

at Darlington
nuclear site

By FRED WEIR

BOWMANVILLE — One
hundred and seventeen protes-
tors and media people were ar-
rested (including this reporter)
and charged with trespassing dur-
ing a demonstration and occupa-
tion at the site of the future Dar-
lington Nuclear Power Station
last June 7. The protest had been
called by a variety of environ-
mental and ‘anti-nuke’ groups to
draw attention to the serious dan-
gers and unsolved problems as-
sociated with poorly-planned de-
velopment of nuclear energy. The
construction of the mammoth
Darlington facility — dubbed a i
“white elephant’’ by protest or-
ganizers — epitomizes this trend.

Over one thousand demon-
strators heard a variety of speak-
ers — representing groups as di- 3
verse as Greenpeace, Energy
Probe, the Canadian Coalition for
Nuclear Responsibility, and the

Demonstrators scale the fence surrounding the Darlington nuclear power station site June 7.

Canadian Peace Congress. Fol-
lowing the speeches, a large body
of protestors scaled the barbed-
wire fence surrounding the exca-

“po

vation, and attempted to carry out
a planned occupation of the site.
Durham Regional Police, at-
tended by Ontario Hydro ‘securi-
ty’ men and photographers, were
waiting and arrested the demon-
strators, along with thirteen re-
rters who had accompanied
them. All were taken to nearby
Bowmanville where they were
briefly. jailed and charged. with
trespassing on private property.
Darlington, which is scheduled

for completion in 1989, is planned

to be the world’s biggest nuclear ~

“¢y, Ontario Hydro is pro-
ee with the $7 billion project
despite the corporation’s current
$11 billion deficit and clear indica-
tions that Darlington’s power will
not be required in Ontario until
around the year 2010. Ontario
Hydro currently generates a 45%
override — a surplus that is ped-
dled at bargain rates in the U.S.

Students want accessible education

Special to the Tribune
HALIFAX — The National
Union of Students, the national
representative body of post sec-

. ondary students outside Quebec,

came out strongly in favor of
major improvements to existing
student aid programs and in-
creased accessibility to post sec-
ondary education at its eighth
annual meeting held at St.
Mary’s University here, May
21-25.

Delegates from the nine
English-speaking provinces ap-

proved a series of recommenda- —
tions to be submitted to the Fed-:

eral/Provincial Task Force on
Student Assistance.

Resolutions calling for the re-
moval of all financial barriers to
post secondary education and
the promotion of equal opportu-
nity for, and increased participa-

tion of, people from disadvan-
taged socio-economic back-
grounds and groups were
strongly supported.

Concern has been expressed
by provincial and national groups
to all levels of government re-
garding the quality of and access-
ibility to education. Government
policies have ignored the im-
portance of upgrading and train-
ing a skilled workforce and in-
Stead imposed drastic tuition fee
hikes and regressive student aid
programs. To counter this trend
and effective _ nationally
representative student body is
needed, the delegates said.

_ The meeting confirmed the
interest of student representa-
tives in a unified and all-encom-
passing student organization in-
cluding the provincial student
federations. NUS already repre-

sents approximately half of all
post secondary students in
Canada and is presently the one
body capable of such a mandate.
In other resolution delegates
condemned the recent Alberta
Appeals Court decision uphold-
ing the ability of the University of
Alberta Board of Governors to
impose. differential tuition fees
on international students. NUS’s
recognition of L’Association
Nationale des Etudiants du
Quebec and Regroupment des
Associations Etudiants Univer-
sitaire du Quebec was confirmed.
Quebec’s rights to determine its
future through its own demo-
cratic process without external
interference was strongly sup-
ported. Increased support of re-
search funding agencies in
Canada was called for.
Recognizing the need for fra-

ternal ties with students in other
countries NUS extended recog-
nition to student organizations in
the United Kingdom, USA and
Australia.

The Agrupacion Culturale
Universitaire in Chile (ACU) was
also formally recognized as a na-
tional organization of students.
ACU’s aim is to restore democ-
racy and preserve Chileam cul-
ture in the face of a dictatorship
so oppressive it has even banned
traditional musical instruments.
Plans were made to broaden and
strengthen relations with ACU
throughout the coming year.

The massive Nicaragua liter-
acy campaign received support
and the African National Con-
gress ‘*Buy a Brick’’ campaign to
fund a school for South African
refugees in Tanzania was also
endorsed.

Life under socialism

We have just returned from a visit to
the German Democratic Republic where
we attended an international scientific
conference, the subject of which was
“Socialism — the humanism of our
epoch’’. This subject provoked a lively
exchange of views as participants con-
trasted human and civil rights as they
exist in socialist and capitalist countries.
Our delegation, following the confer-
ence, decided to spend a few days study-
ing life under socialism at the grass roots
level. What does it mean for working
men and women and their families?

* * *

What struck us as most important 1s
the atmosphere of security and well-
being that exists among the working
people. Linked to this is the feeling of
community, mutual understanding and
trust that exists among the people. In
fact, one could characterize this general
atmosphere as an emergence of new
human relations. Missing was any
thought of dog-eat-dog and the devil take
the hindmost that is a hallmark of human
relations under capitalism which is gen-
erated by capitalist production relations.
In contrast, socialist production rela-
tions result in full employment and stead-

_ ily rising incomes, thorough vocational
training for all, a high level of education
with equal educational opportunities, @
comprehensive health system and for re-

Marxism-Leninism in Today’s World

tirees a life without material or cultural
want.
* * 1 :

For people in the GDR, socialism
means a society which is free from ex-
ploitation and ordered in a planned man-
ner. The citizens of the GDR and their
workers’ government are making a real-
ity of the idea formulated by Karl Marx
that social relations and living conditions

must be arranged humanely so that all

people can live and act humanely. They
have, in that socialist country, overcome
misery and hunger, injustice and ignor-
ance, crises and inflation.

This was made possible through an
efficient socialist economic system based
on public ownership of the means of pro-
duction. Shortly after the defeat of fas-
cism, armament profiteers and the giant
trusts in what is today the German
Democratic Republic were expropriated
as a result of a plebescite and new laws,
and their firms placed in the hands of the
people. This measure finally opened the
way for making the interests and wishes
of the millions of working people the de-
cisive element in government politics.
Overall national planning of all sectors
by the state was made possible, taking

into account social requirements and the

objective laws of development.
1 oe ee:

As a result the people could, for the

first time, grant themselves real mea-
sures of freedom — a freedom that can
really be practiced in everyday life, and
the economic and political foundations of
which are not only proclaimed in the
country’s constitution but have their
roots in the new social order. The first
freedom they achieved was the right to
work. People not only earn their living
through work. Work also brings out the
talents people possess, moulds their
characters and gives them a place in soc-
iety.

The GDR proceeds from the assump-
tion that the right to an adequate job is
the most elementary human right. It en-
ables human beings to live a decent life
and prevents them from being excluded
from social life and becoming super-
fluous and demoralized because of un-
employment. They consider it shows the
superiority of socialism that their plan-

ned egonomy has done away with social _

anarchy, and the apparent over-

production accompanying the under-
developed consumption capacity of the

population, which are the cause of crises.
i ae

During the period from 1949 when the
GDR came into being, there has never
been unemployment in that country.
And all its citizens are confident there
will be none in the future either. No one
in the GDR need ever fear being laid off
or arbitrarily dismissed. The level of
economic security reached is a pri
criterion for judging the quality of life and
the standard of living in any given social
system. The constitution of the GDR
states that every citizen of the GDR
‘*shall have the right to a job and its free
selection in accordance with social re-
quirements and personal qualifications.’

For GDR citizens, the meaning and
content of life is not determined just by
money and economic statistics. Material
considerations are not the only ones, al-

- though the ever better satisfaction of the

popultion’s growing needs forms the
basis for general contentments, joy of
living, happiness and creativeness. So

. they speak about living and cultural

standards, the raising of which they con-
sider to be the primary task of their over-
all economic and social welfare policies.
They are concerned with human beings
as whole people, whose aptitudes and
individual worth must be fully realized.
This is socialist humanism. Think it
over.
PACIFIC TRIBUNE—JUNE 20, 1980—Page 5

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