‘Remember Hiroshima’ vigil, commemorating the 28th anniversary of
the nuclear destruction of that city will begin this yearat five o’clockin
the Vancouver courthouse square, Friday, August 3. Photo above
shows the Hiroshima Day vigil in August, 1971.

o the forty or fifty thousands of young American draft

dodgers and deserters who refused to serve in

Vietnam or other areas of Indochina, and are now compelled

to continue living abroad in exile, now that peace has been

established between the U.S. and Vietnam, the question of a
general amnesty begins to loom large. . . and pressing.

The ‘‘Mad Bomber” inthe White House who at the moment,
in defiance of Congress is still continuing his saturation
bombing and mass killing in Cambodia, the while staging a
“‘sick’’ fiasco to win public sympathy and offset the
devastating effects of Watergate on his administration, has
repeatedly affirmed there will ‘‘beno amnesty and if these
draft card burners and deserters desire to return home, they
must first face the music’’. And Nixon’s ‘‘music’’ is court
trials, frameup, persecution and worse.

Some forty thousand of these young Americans are alleged to
have found asylum in Canada, some as landed immigrants,
many simply as refugees from army-brass tyranny. For the
U.S. POW’sand others who fought and killed in Vietnam, even
the My Lai butchers like Calley (whom Nixon took under his
protective wing), these are elevated to the status of “heroes”.
The others who had the courage to refuse, thereby defending
the real honor of America, are now relegated by Nixonand his
Pentagon killers to the status of ‘‘traitors’’, for whom there
will be no amnesty.

Since 1795, under some fourteen U-S. presidents there have
been 37 amnesties declared, either by incumbent presidents
or by Congress. So the issue is not without precedent in those
United States.

Amnesty is a moral issue (which perhaps explains in part the
‘‘Mad Bombers’’ opposition toit.) Itis not something that can
be determined inalaw court, and least of allin some of our
modernkangeroo versions of that institution. Itisinseparably
bound up with the concepts of peace, impossible to reject if a
genuine and sincere peace is desired.

WELFARE INTEGRATION HEARINGS

Dealing with symptoms
not causes, of poverty

By ALD. HARRY RANKIN

We have now gone through
four meetings, co-chaired by
Rosemary. Brown, MLA and
myself to consider the proposed
integration of family and youth
services and basically all social
services in Vancouver. The
meetings have drawn a full
house and many public and
private social service organiza-
tions have been presenting
briefs. Up to the present there
has been a dearth of individuals
and recipients expressing their
views. Earlier this week I
totalled up another 30 briefs still
to be heard, which will take us
well into September.

In my introductory remarks I
expressed the view that if inte-
gration means only some shuff-
ling around at the top, nothing
will be gained. I expressed the
hope that briefs presented
would tackle the issue from the
standpoint of how integration
will affect the lives and welfare
of the recipients of social ser-
vices and all other services that
are proposed. Unfortunately,
many of the briefs indicated
there wasmoreconcernfor the
maintenance of one or another
sphere of influence, rather than
getting at the main problem of
the lives and welfare of social
services recipients.

During the course of these
hearings it has become appar-
ent to me that the issue of inte-
gration can be a eompletely
meaningless word. For  in-

stance, one of the astonishing
statistics that emerged in an
oblique way in the course of this
hearing is that 43% of the chil-
dren placed by the Catholic Chil-
dren’s Aid are Indian children.

What immediately comes to
my mind is that in Canada, the
Indian population probably
represents not more than 5% of
the total, with even a lesser per-
centage inB.C. Howisitthat 43
per cent of their children are
placed in foster homes? I’m not
blaming the Catholic Children’s
Aid for this. Isimply ask myself
the questionhowisit that there
are no Indian people who can
take care of these children?
How is it that on our reser-
vations, Indian people who want
to look after their grandchildren
can get no money from social
service agencies, from govern-
ments, etc. and yet they can be
placed in white homes and be
paid an income, while not great,
at least sufficient to keep them?
Those are the kind of questions
that keep coming to my mind
endlessly.

Last night I heard a brief from
our own Social Services Depart-
ment which backed integration
fully. Again, a question came to
my mind at the end of this very
detailed brief, and that was, —
how many hours of social service
work are spent convincing
people they can get along on
starvation incomes? Having
nutritionists go out and see
families to decide whether or not

It is an act of ‘‘forgetting’’ with its roots in the Greek term,

‘‘amnesia’’. Like making ‘‘anewstart’’ and ‘‘forgetting”’ that
such things ever happened. When the rulers of America urged
that we ‘‘forget and forgive’’ the crimes of the Nazi death
campsand the murder of six-million Jewish people, they were
in effect proposing an ‘‘amnesty’’ for the Hitlerite blightupon
all humanity. Surely the rulers of present-day America cando
no less for their own heroic sons and daughters who refused to
killin Vietnam, and faced exile or the frenzied hysteriaofa

frenzied State apparatus on their home-town streets for their

courageous refusal.

Today, by and large, U.S. citizens inall walks of life, now
assert that the war and aggressionupon Vietnam, wasa brutal
and cruel war, without precedent in the long warring history
of powerful nations against their weaker neighbors; immoral,
shameful and callous to the nth degree; precisely the estima-
tion of tens of thousands of brave young Americans, who flatly
refused to participate. Howimmoralandcruel, history has
yet to record, but in the publication of the Pentagon Papers,
the grist that the Watergate Senate mills are pouring out, the
economic shambles that Vietnam has left America—all show

- that the ‘‘traitors’’ were basically right, andthe ‘‘heroes”’
(including the sans-credibility-with-‘honor’ Nixon) terribly
wrong.

Long ago a great U.S. president affirmed Man’s right ‘‘to
Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness’’. The right of
amnesty is the one and only path to the reaffirmation of these
fundamental rights. There is no crime or offence to forgive,
only a period (or anepisode, call it what you will) to ‘‘forget’’;
a period when thousands of young Americans defended their
country’s honor by refusing to killina highly dishonorable
war of brutal aggression. An amnesty to them is only a
corollary to the peace to which their action and struggle ulti-
mately led. An amnesty for them will enable them toreturn to
their owncountry, should they sodesire, toserveitwiththe
same devotion and courage as they showed when they said to
Nixon and his Pentagon press gang, ‘‘We won’t go’’.

Moreover while we have no desire to close our eyes to the
characteristic role played by the RCMP in their puny at-
tempts to emulate the FBI and stop the tide of U.S. ‘draft
evaders”’ into Canada, we are proud of the fact our country
and its people could play host to so many thousands who stood
and acted for peace, whenit was singularly dangeroustodo
so. Now we have the job of helping them win amnesty, not
through repressive kangeroo courts, but by upholding the right
of men to feel and be free as the one and only safeguard to
lasting peace. :

PACIFIC TRIBUNE—FRIDAY, AUGUST 3, 1973—-PAGE 2

they can make weiners and cab: 4

bage and Kraft dinners into nul! |
tious food. I dont’t care :
many services one gives 10 the
public, the first and foremos

issue that has to be decided ®
will we give these people, whe? ‘
er senior citizens, single paren

families on welfare, low income
workers, sufficient money i.
that they can keep up with th!

ever rising cost of living am

themselves properly!

Thesecond point that comest? |}

mind is what do we do wit

people who come to the social |
services. in complete has
because they have orders ee
move by a landlord and now af
must search around for anothe? |
home, breaking up the © |
dren’s school years on an em

and repetitive basis — W™, |

they need $200 asarentdepost d
on a new place, and their tola’ ©
income is maybe $320 a moni
And when you go to see the lance
lord and you tell him you fi |
some children and you Fé ne |
welfare, or he finds thatoul,
saysnodice, you’renotcom’ |

in here. What then canone $4¥ |
these people? :

Another brief which brit ||
some questions to min “fore
probation service came be tion |
us to indicate that the proba tele
service is in fact a n |
agency and that people sh cial |
fact not be dealt with by 8? tI
workers. And toa great

no Tt
had to agree with the que" in

those people who are 10
conflict with the law. TheP
tion officers pointed out
desirable that people ¢®
to face with the fact thal
are inconflict with the 14 tand
that they be made to unde All
that they must obey the Ja om

a4

very well, nobody would ¢ 5 r
plain about that stateme? ofa ;
generalization. What mune |
institutions do we have for ¥ i ty
law offenders? What Re it
one does not like the word ‘nave to
tution), of services 40° Aan )
for young people so that the) ie F
be given some cons rv wil tt
discipline in order tode#
their particular problems: ‘|e
ear?
The answer is that thet ju
almost no services WH4™ oct: |)
available in this rest ai i
Oakalla is a disgrace 1) pl | h
ity, acollege for crime, mot |e
Penitentiar isa es |
strosity out of the middle net ic

The other more enllé ihe |,

‘institutions’ —Matsqu) ttle
Haney institutions, ane wit!
better physcal plants nile tt
the same old mentalit )
them. a N

To sum up, it
me that the endless © siqg0! J)
tackling poverty by P g chu! {j
larger staffs, integraun®) ic?

ling and playing wel fa
A is a: the aed bY a.
Poverty has to be a re IS
adequate jobs, ade rel hi
comes, decent housing: joss! |
ing the symptoms 5 dist
isn’t going to cure ts onst

Yet somany organiza rerio
they can solve the pro ;
treating the results u
rather than the cause:

“it at. oii