Editorial

Glark and the PLO

The fact that the United States is again practising economic blackmail
against the United Nations is bad enough. But to watch as External

Affairs Minister Joe Clark adds his “me too” to Washington’s threat
insults our common sense and logic. It shows to what lengths the Tories
will go to please their U.S. patrons.

This latest demeaning act was a letter sent by Clark to Palestine
Liberation Organization chairman Yasser Arafat urging he withdraw the
PLO’s application to join the UN’s World Health Organization. The
letter said the move will create a crisis because the U.S. has warned it
would withdraw financial support if the PLO is accepted.

Faced with U.S. gunboat diplomacy, what does Clark do? Does he fire
off a letter to Washington protesting this crass attempt to threaten the
world body? Does he tell Bush that the days are gone when the U.S.
dictates to the world and decides who belongs on this planet? Does Clark
remind his American pals that it is the Palestinians who are the victims,
the repressed, the occupied?

No. Instead he berates the PLO. He says it is they, not Uncle Sam, who
are creating the crisis. He urges the besieged Palestinians to back off, to
submit to this blackmail. He appeals to Arafat to “‘avoid’a confronta-
tion.” It’s simple, according to Clark: the PLO should surrender. Better
still, the Palestinians should vanish.

More. The Clark letter then reiterates the charge that the PLO Charter
calls for Israel’s destruction. Everyone, it seems, but Joe Clark, is aware of
Chairman Arafat’s clarification of this matter just last week in Paris.
There he pointed out that the resolutions adopted by the PLO National
Council last November supersede previous Charter articles. The speech
was headline news around the world.

Still more: Clark’s letter then urges the PLO to accept Shamir’s so-
called election formula. But again, Clark isn’t listening. The PLO has
called for UN-supervised elections in West Bank and Gaza — not an
Israeli-supervised vote which it has had bitter experience with in the past.
Doesn’t Clark’s “concern” for the UN extend to having faith it can
supervise a free and fair vote?’ The PLO supports an international,
UN-supervised conference. Why doesn’t Joe Clark?

The Clark letter is an insult to Canada. Either he is woefully ill-
informed about Middle East affairs or he is patently malicious. Isn’t it
time we shook of this disgraceful role of a U.S. puppet and seriously
looked at foreign policy independently? Then, in addition to: making a
contribution to the peace process, Ottawa just might be able to distinguish
the criminal from the victim.

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TRIBUNE

EDITOR

Sean Griffin

ASSOCIATE EDITOR

Dan Keeton
BUSINESS & CIRCULATION MANAGER
Mike Proniuk
GRAPHICS

Angela Kenyon

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ince the introduction of the Tories’
federal budget April 27 — and in
fact, for a considerable time before
that — Canadians have had their senses
assaulted by a repetitive buzzword:
“deficit.” :
The critics have pointed out that the “
deficit bugaboo is a spectre raised to

frighten us into accepting the govern-
ment’s intended exorcism of social services
expenditures. By imposing the first cuts to
family allowances and pensions for
middle-income Canadians, Ottawa is pav-
ing the way for an economy designed to
accommodate the free trade pact, they’ve
noted.

There have been some effective analyses
of the first free trade budget that have
helped clear the deficit smokescreen. Add
to these a recent contribution from Sid
Shniad, researcher for the Telecommunica-
tion Workers Union.

Shniad, writing in the May issue of the
union’s paper, the Transmitter, notes the
hypocrisy behind the deficit scare by citing
the findings of Duncan Cameron of the
Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives.
Cameron has observed that the “primary
balance” — government revenues less
government spending and. not including
interest — has been in the black for the
past three years. To wit, in 1985, it was
more than $7 billion in the red; in 1988,
government revenues exceeded expendi-
tures by $11 billion.

The TWU researcher also quotes the
Organization for Economic Co-operation
and Development which found that the
federal deficit for the year 1988 was $20.4
billion, while in 1985, more than $31 bil-
lion was accrued. Those figures include the
interest payments to service the debt.

That has been due in part to the Con-
servatives’ tight-fisted monetary policies.
None the less, the cumulative deficit at the
end of 1988 stood at $320 billion. The
reasons for this are twofold: billions of
revenue dollars foregone due to policies
which have seen the corporate share of
Canada’s tax bill steadily and dramatically
decline over the last 15 years; high interest

rates, introduced to stem Ontario-based

inflation.

Shniad notes that most of the cumula-
tive deficit is owed to financial institutions
and corporations, which of course only
gain by reaping windfall revenues from the
high interest charges that Ottawa owes.

‘ Small wonder that the corporate-
financed federal Tories aren’t in a rush to
implement a demand from coalitions of
trade unionists and community groups

People and Issues

across the country: tax the corporations,
the true source of the deficit we all pay for.

a ak rk

he People’s Republic of China is

certainly in the news these days, with
the intensely-watched demonstrations by
students and workers demanding eco-
nomic and social reforms. But people’s
understanding of those events — which
have intensified with the state visit to
China of Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev
— has been limited since the ‘“informa-
tion” comes from capitalist news sources.

It seems timely, then, to remind China-
watchers and progressives in general of the
upcoming forum, China Today — Exam-
ining the Big Economic and Social Reforms.
It’s at the Centre for Socialist Education in
Vancouver, 1726 East Hastings St., on
May 24 at 7:30 p.m.

Featured speakers are Ken Woodsworth,
executive member of the China-Canada
Friendship Society, and Tribune editor
Sean Griffin, who visited China as part of
a Canadian delegation last September.

he war in El Salvador wears on, thanks

to a series of U.S.-sponsored right-
wing governments and despite the peace
initiatives from the people’s group fighting
for liberation, the Farabundo Marti
National Liberation Front (FMLN). And
on June 1, the most reactionary of those
forces — the fascist alliance best known
by its acronym, ARENA — takes office,
heralding an escalated round of tortures,
kidnappings and murders to maintain
Washington’s control in Central America.
Local supporters of peace and a nego-
tiated settlement in El Salvador plan to
draw attention to the FMLN’s proposals
with a demonstration on the day ARENA
becomes the official government. That’s
scheduled for Thursday, June 1, outside
the U.S. Consulate, 1075 West Georgia ~
St., Vancouver.

ene Kae oa

e have a sad note that Grace

Anderson, a supporter of the Trib-
une and progressive causes for some five
decades, passed away April 19.

Grace was born in 1914 in Golden. She
spent most of her adult life as a home
maker in Squamish with her husband
Eric, a former member of the Labour Pro-
gressive Party and a miner at Britannia
Beach. He passed away several years ago.

She is remembered by her daughter as a
“quiet supporter” of peace organizations
and a patron of the People’s Co-op Book-
store.

4 e Pacific Tribune, May 22, 1989