-_.

Mrs. Helen Hendrickson (left) and Mrs. Jessie Baltimore attend-

ing a news conference in New York City protesting treatment of
Black Panthers held in city jails without bail as part of New York 21.

Each woman has a son in jail.

Protest persecution

of Black Panthers

In response to a world-wide
appeal issued by the Communist
Party of the U.S.A., the Com-
munist Party of Canada has is-
sued a public statement, expres-
sing solidarity with the just
struggles of black Americans,
and urging Canadians to speak
out and to act against the reign
of terror in the U.S.A.

“The Communist Party of
Canada, in company with all de-
mocratic Canadians, is deeply
shocked and angered by the bru-
tal campaign of physical exter-
mination against the leaders and
members of the Black Panther
Party unleashed by the Admini-
stration of President Nixon,”
says the statement.

“The murderous violence be-
ing perpetrated against this
black militant organization
which fights for the rights of the
black people in the United States
is of the same genocidal pattern
as the My Lai massacres cCar-
ried through by U.S. armed
forces in Vietnam.

“The Dec. 4, 1969 murders in
Chicago of Fred Hampton and
Mark Clark brought the total
police killings of leaders and
members of the Blac..‘ Panther
organization since January 1968
to 28. Jt is reported that in the
past six months alone 40 leaders
and 125 members of the Black
Panther Party have been arrest-
ed. Many have been charged,
simply on the word of police in»
formers, with major crimes in-
cluding murder. Bobby Seale,
national chairman, has been sent-
enced to four years in prison on
the relatively minor charge of
contempt of court.

“This outrageous wave of
murders and arrests has been
set in motion by the same reac-
tionary, racist, exploiting mono-
poly interests whose polices are
responsible for the U.S. aggres-
sion against the Vietnamese peo-
ple, that lurk behind the politi-
cal murders of President Ken-
nedy, Martin Luther King, Mal-
colm X, Medgar Evers, Robert
Kennedy and United Mine Work-
ers’ leader Joseph Yablonski, his
wife and daughter.

“The Communist Party con-
demns these illegal potice kill-
ings, brutal persecution and
wholesale arrests of Black Pan-
ther leaders and members as a
most outrageous expression of
genocidal policies spawned by
big monied interests in the Unit-
ed States against the black peo-
ple of that country.

-“We Canadian Communists
wish to express our solidarity
with the just struggles of the

 PACIFHG FRIBUNE-JANUARY 16,-1970-—Page 4>:5.+

black people of the United States
who, more than a century after
the liberation from chattel slav-
ery, are forced to struggle mili-
tantly in that land of boasted af-
fluence against inhuman condi-
tions arising out of widespread
uemployment, slum housing,
poverty, hunger and sickness.

“We urge all democratic Can-
adians, political parties, trade
unions, farm organizations, all
organizations of the people and
all public spirited individuals to
speak out now against these
police crimes against black Ame-
ricans by the U.S. Justice De-
partment, FBI and the police of
the big cities.

“We make this plea because
the struggle against reaction and
repression knows no state boun-
daries. What happens in the
United States could happen in
Canada tomorrow.

“Write or wire your protests
to President Nixon. He can stop-
these police killings, persecution
and arrests of Black Panther
leaders and members. Let us de-
mand that he do so. Demand
that the United Nations Human
Rights Commission investigate
and call for world action against
the criminal policy of genocide
pursued in the United States.
Demand that the Canadian gov-
ernment express the anger and
protest of the: Canadian people
to the Nixon Administration.”

The Communist Party of Can-
ada wired President Nixon ex-
pressing the shock of Canadians
at the brutal killings and whole-
sale arrests of Black Panthers.
The wire ended: “We = con-
demn the criminal policy of
genocide being pursued by your
administration against the black
people of the United States and
urge you to put an end to the-
police brutality and killings di-
rected against the black people.”

The CP of Canada, also wired
the United Nations Human
Rights Commission demanding
that it investigate the criminal
policy of genocide being pursued
in the United States against the
black people of that country.

It also called upon the Tru-

deau administration in the fol-.

lowing words: “The brutal cam-
paign of police repression, and
killings unleashed against lead-
ers and members of the Black
Panther Party requires Canadian
government protest to the Unit-
ed States on behalf of democratic
Canadians calling for an end to
this criminal police brutality di-
rected against these militant rep-
resentatives of. black’. Ameri-
cans.” ee

2 vo pean

Trudeau's ‘twist’

Fronts for Nixon on Viet,
doubledealing on Nigeria

The Prime Minister is back with us.
Wrapped cosily in a $1,500 otter coat,
fresh from the rich man’s pleasure spots
in British ‘Honduras and the French

Alps, he was waylaid by

demonstrators — Claire Culhane, Que-
bec Voice of Women president, and
Michael Rubbo, a producer for the

National Film Board. Both

beneath his office, and caught
him on his way to lunch. While
his Cadillac waited, he stopped,
we are told, for an eight-minute
debate. As clearly as at any pre-
vious time, Mr. Trudeau reveal-
ed his support for the Nixon
administration’s Vietnam policy
with his. snide, ‘In the United
States I feel the democratic
pressures on this President and
on the previous one are prob-
ably stronger in the direction of
peace than they are, for in-
stance, with the government in

Hanoi and the government in:

Peking.”

There you have it. Why not,
the Prime Minister said in es-
sence, go to Hanoi and Peking
and tell them to stop. Prime
Minister Trudeau is well aware
that Hanoi is not a foreign
power invading Vietnam, but is
the victim of U.S. aggression.
The Chinese People’s Republic

-~has no troops in Vietnam, but

the United States does.

To the suggestion from the
demonstrators that a Canadian
government stand against the
war might persuade the U.S. to
pull out, just as world opinion
had persuaded France to pull out
of its war in Indo-China and Al-
geria, Mr. Trudeau answered in
that studiously cultivated man-
ner of a parent chiding a child,
“France only got out of Indo-
China and Algeria when she had
to get out.”

In contradiction to himself,
and in an unconscious acknowl-
edgment of mass peace actions,
he went on to say that President
Johnson had been destroyed by
the war, and that Nixon might
face a similar fate, if he didn’t
come to some solution.

Mr. Trudeau’s_ eight-minute
talk with the peace demonstra-
tors was long enough to confirm
the commitment of his adminis-
tration to full support of Nixon’s
war against Vietnam. He denied
aiding the United States, but did
not explain or discuss the profi-
steering of Canadian arms manu-
facturers, and chemical people,
out of the war.

The interview came at a time
when the fall of Biafra and a
debate in the House of Com-
mons took over the front pages
of the capitalist press.

The New Democratic and the
Tory parties and, outside of
Parliament, the Joint Church
Aid and Canairelief, have been
campaigning for supplies to the
Biafrans, and supplies have been
flown there with Canadian gov-
ernment assistance. The. ques-
tion of Biafran relief became a
-major topic of public attention
in Canada during the 214 years
of the war there.

There is no doubt that war
brings countless horrors. Viet-
nam testifies to this even more
than Nigeria. There is no doubt
that starvation is dreadful. The

existence of both: starvation ‘and-

ee a FO eb tb be

v7

By W. C. BEECHING

two peace

have camp-

hunger as a mass phenomenon
in the world testifies to this,
and makes our wheat surplus an
indictment of Canada. The prac-
tical expressions of compassion
made by Canadian people are
commendable.

But there are even bigger
questions to be asked. Why, for
instance, do the NDP, the
Tories, the churches, and other
organizations, single out Biafra
in particular for aid? Why were
Canadians inundated with pic-
tures only of starving Biafran
children? Why’ were campaigns
mounted in our schools for
them, when little or nothing has
been done about similar situa-
tions elsewhere in the world,
and when nothing on that scale
has been done about the horror
visited on the Vietnamese by
the U.S. imperialists?

Asking the questions is to an-
swer them. A newly founded
Nigerian state was set up, and
the present government was and
is its legitimate government.
Obviously, at the outset there
are serious problems in estab-
lishing new states, as there were
in Nigeria.

But the problems would be
overcome fairly easily if it
weren’t for the colonial powers
that exploit contradictions and
difficulties to try to regain their
lost positions. The efforts of im-
perialists for their own profit, to
foment the secession of the Ibo
tribesmen in oil-rich Biafra
province caused the resultant
tragedy. The cost in lives and
suffering doesn’t appear on the
balance sheets of the big mono-
polies.

The collapse of the Biafra se-
cession is a big blow to world
imperialism.

The Canadian government has
played a double game from the
outset. On the one hand it has
officially acted through the pro-
per Nigerian sources. The Ot-
tawa government discussed with
General Gowon in Lagos the de-
tails of relief flights. It avoided,
at all times, taking actions that
could be construed as giving of-
ficial recognition to Biafra as an
independent state.

With rare humility, the Prime
Minister, speaking to the House
of Commons on Novy. 27th last,
said: “Canadians possess no se-
cret formula for concluding
wars; they are not gifted with
any divine guidance into the
rights and wrongs of the argu-
ments of strangers .. . To inter-
vene when not asked, however,
would not be an act of courage;
it would be an act of stupidity.
There are some 30 countries in
Africa south of the Sahara that
have achieved independence
since 1957. Every one of these
emerged into nationhood follow-
ing a lengthy and anguished
colonial history. No single act
would be regarded with more

hostility. by any. of them than.

ae VP aS 24 LU RS CS Lass

ed for 19 days beside a downtown Ot-"
tawa church in a protest against the
Canadian government’s failure to take
a stand opposing- U.S: imperialism’s
war against Vietnam. ;

They had written Mr. Trudeau for
an interview, but were told that he had
no time for them. So they staked out
the exit from the Parliament buildings

-and

’ creases and

the unilateral intervention of @
non-African state into their af-
fairs.” 4

The Trudeau administration
then actually adopted a wait-
and-see attitude, described in
the words of the Prime Minister ~
himself on that oCcasion, “it”
would be wrong for the Cana- ~
dian government to assist the -
Nigerian government militarily, -
but it would be equally wrong
for the Canadian government to
assist the rebel regime political
Hees eae

On that occasion the Prime ~
Minister chose to cast doubt on ©
the allegations of genocide and
starvation, at least in terms of ©
degree. :

Nigeria provides the oppor-
tunity for Canada to establish
relationships of full equality and—
mutual benefit, which would
meet the needs of all the people ©
in Nigeria—particularly for food”
technology—and at the”
same time would bring jobs and —
expanded opportunities to young”
Canadians. 4

CBC workers

union blasts
“austerity”

Negotiations which opened
last week in Ottawa for 2,000
Canadian Broadcasting Corpora”
tion production employees will
be a “fight against the austerity
policies of the Trudeau govern”
ment” said a spokesman for thé
Canadian Union of Public Em”
ployees. 7

“We do not believe that em”
ployees of a federal crown cor
poration should be made thé
scapegoats for the federal gov”
ernment’s inability to cope wit!)
the inflation problem. 4

“The Trudeau austerity meas”
ures will not stand in the way
of CBC production employees)
winning for themselves wage 1”
improvements if
fringe benefits that will kee?
them in line with workers if
private industry,” said CUPE
chief negotiator Gilles Pelland:
“We will fight against the aus].
terity policies of the Trudea¥)
government,” he added. am

Mr. Pelland said the union wil)
fight for contract provisions thak
will prevent cutbacks in. the
staff of the CBC. “The CBC, hae
played a social role which is vel)
important for the cultural ane
economic life of the country!
Harsh economic cuts will hut
all Canadians, not just CBC em
ployees.” j

The TV production employee
include tradesmen (painter
carpenters, etc.) stage-hand®
script-assistants, designers (gt@)
phic set, costume. etc.) fill
cameramen and all those that al
directly, involyed in, the produg
tion of television programn

=
sores