Lawyers condemn junta

By VLADIMIR KUDRYAVTSEV,
Corresponding member of the
‘USSR Academy of Sciences,
Director of the Institute of State
and Law of the USSR
Academy of Sciences

€verything that has been going
On in the past two years in Chile
is a direct violation of elemen-

and arbitrarieness perpetrated
by the military junta are gross

Norms of international law and,
in particular, the principles of
International Conventions on
Human Rights which Chile rati-
fied under Salvador Allende’s
government.

Every one of the steps which
the junta took after it had
Seized power was anti-constitu-
tional and illegal — the disband-
ment of parliament, arrests of
deputies, proclamation of mar-
tial law and then a state of
Siege, mass-scale arrests without
Warrant, detention of political
Opponents and deportation with-

Code and the Code of Penal
Procedure of Chile which, after
€ overthrow of Allende’s law-
~ ful government, were ‘‘operated”
_ On paper only.

_ Many organizations and indi-
Viduals who visited Chile, de-
Scribe the situation there as un-
disguised lawlessness. It has

the International Commission of
Nquiry into the Crimes of the
ilitary Junta and. was assessed

@ccordingly in the final docu-
Ment of its 3rd Session held in

Talks
to control
nuclear sales

LONDON — Seven exporters

tial, including Canada, met in
mdon this month to discuss
tighter controls over sales in an
ttempt to limit the spread of
luclear weapons.

The meeting ‘was held in tight
_S€curity, as were three previous
Meetings. Other. participants
Were the Soviet Union, United
States, Japan, Britain, West Ger-
Many and France.

_ The talks are designed to de-
Velop stricter guidelines for
€s of nuclear equipment such
8 Canada’s CANDU reactors,
80 that countries cannot acquire
€m for use to develop weap-
Ns. All nuclear reactors pro-
Uce plutonium by-products used
Or atomic weapons.

But France has so far refused

tank of selling a CANDU reac-
T to South Korea, and it is the
Ste from this and two Ameri-
* Soy Teactors already acquired by
1th Korea that would be used
da oduce the plutonium. Can-
sup . also under contract to-
; Tae Y Argentina with a nuclear
“und Or, Both ‘sales: have come

cf heavy criticism.
an €st' Germany, also involved
€ talks is in the process of

ng nuclear generating equip-
; Nt to Brazil,

From a, lawyer’s viewpoint, .

tary legal rules. The lawlessness -

Violations of the Constitution — |
Of the Chilean Republic, of

Out trial.. All these acts contra- °
dict the articles of the Criminal

me a subject of study by |

nuclear equipment and mate-.

ew

Events in Chile are illegal .

Every one of the steps taken by Gen. Pinochet and his butchers
after they seized power was against the Chilean constitution, the
norms of international law and the principles of the United Nations’
International Human Rights Conventions.

_the spring of 1975 in Mexico

City.

‘The junta’s terroristic regime
was. condemned in Resolution
3219 (29) of the UN General
Assembly on November 6, 1974
and in the document of a num-
ber of authoritative inter-gov-
ernmental organizations (UNES-
CO, ILO, and others).

Under pressure of world opi-
nion the junta is trying to
manoeuvre, do its utmost to
create a semblance of “‘liberali-
zation” and “normalization”,
for example, the recent release
of several Popular Unity leaders.
However, the fate of thousands
of arrested people continues to
be unknown, many of them,

including Luis Corvalan, gene- .

ral secretary of the Communist
Party of Chile, have been in
prison for over two years where
they are subjected to torture and
humiliation. Courts martial con-
tinue to function, and there are
reports of extra-judicial repres-
sions and murders of Chilean
citizens. Lawyers who try to de-
fend innocent victims are perse-
cuted.

In 1975 the junta added an-
other cruel law to its legislation.

Decree 1009, dated May 5, 1975, .

known as the “State Security
Code” under which any “at-
tempt to change the constitutio-
nal order’ introduced by the

junta is considered as a crime

against public safety. —

The decree confirms the “state
of siege’ which the junta uses
as a legal basis for the activity
of the courts martial. Under
article 8 of the decree, all cases
considered as crimes “against
the state’s internal security” fall
under the power of the courts
martial. The decree. considers as
such crimes not only the activ-
ity of. banned parties, the dis-
covery of pamphlets or leaflets,
assisting the escape of suspects,

_ etc., but also the “secret return

to the country” of persons
evicted by the junta. In this con-
nection it should be noted that
eviction from the country con-
tradicts Article 5 of the Consti-
tution of Chile and the country’s
criminal laws.

Decree 1009 sanctions the
system of extra-judical repres-
sion and sets up the so-called
preventive imprisonment of per-
sons considered harmful to the
regime, without establishing the
term of imprisonment. This is a
gross contradiction of the coun-

try’s Constitution, as Well as
international covenants on
human rights.

The mockery of law, which
the junta’s decrees actually are,
is unable to strengthen the posi-
tion of the junta inside the
country or internationally. The
junta feels the instability of its
pesition and it was fear of ex-
posure that made it refuse entry
into the country of a special UN
working group for investigating
the existing situation in Chile
which was set up at the 31st
Session of the UN Human
Rights Commission in March
this year. :

However, all these actions are
unable to help the military junta
conceal its crimes. Soviet law-
‘yers, together with the demo-
cratic public of all countries,
condemn the inhuman regime
that is being imposed on Chile
and express their firm convic-
tion that the day will come when
the criminals in military uni-
forms, as well as their accom-
plices, will be publicly called to
account and ‘will be duly and
severely punished.

Legislation
protects Soviet
working mothers

While women in Canada are
fighting to be recognized under
law as equal citizens; women in
the Soviet Union are constantly
having their lives made easier.

One of the major areas of con-
cern in the USSR is preventative
health protection for women,
especially mothers, and provid-
ing for the special needs of
working mothers. :

Along with the major network

of health clinics, hospitals, sani-
toriums etc. specializing in
women’s health care, working
mothers receive fully paid ma-
ternity leave, transfer to easier
work for expectant mothers,
free childcare staffed with train-
ed workers and special allow-
ances,
_ The latest action in working
mothers’ protection is a recom-
mendation by Soviet Deputies to
the USSR Supreme Soviet for
establishing a special quota of
jobs with a shorter working day
for women having two or more
children.

™

INTERNATIONAL WOMEN'S YEAR ‘75

Wages for
housework

By BARBARA CAMERON

THE WORLD LEADERS of the Wages for Housework
Campaign were in Toronto, October 24, for a public meet-
ing. Present were Mariarosa Dalla Costa from Italy, Silvia
Federici from the United States and Selma James from
Great Britain. This seemed like the perfect opportunity for
me to find out more about the Wages for Housework group.

The Wages for Housework Committee in Toronto is not
an organization of housewives. I had heard that a number
of welfare women, fed up with the miserable assistance
they get from the government were involved but they
were nowhere in evidence. The 175 women who assembled
for the meeting, most of whom had come out of curiosity
as’ I had, appeared to be mainly young working women.
Some of the leadership of the Wages for Housework Com-
mittee I recognized as old New Leftists.

* * %

THE FIRST THING TO EEARN about the Wages for

Housework Committee is that their definition of “house-
work” is not the one you or I use im our dailyslives. House-
work to them is any unpaid activity performed by women
which is related, no matter how indirectly, to the paid
work people do. Thus, not only are things like cleaning
floors and doing dishes housework, but so are putting on
make-up for work, travelling to work and even giving your
husband emotional support so he can put up with his job
from day to day. All this they describe as the reproduction
of labor power!

The Wages fcr Housework concept of housework requires
reducing all relationships outside the workplace to unpaid
work, done by women, which directly or indirectly serves
the boss. Sexual relationships thus become a kind of work
wemen do that benefits the boss. One member of the
Wages for Housework Committee used the example of the
mother who spends 20 years raising a child only to have
him sent off by the state to get killed in Vietnam. To this,
cne member cf the audience replied that paying the mother
wouldn’t save her son, but struggling against imperialist
war would.

* * *

TO THOSE UNFAMILIAR with the elaborate ideological
rationale of its exponents, Wages for Housework might
appear to be a simple reform directed at recognizing the
housewife’s contribution in the home and to reducing her
economic dependence on her husband. But the Wages for
Housework Committee does not see it as a single demand,
rather as a “strategic perspective.” Very much in the
tradition of the New Left, they claim to have found the
one and only demand key to transforming not just women’s
positicn but all relationships in society.

Basic to the appeal of Wages for Housework to middle-
class women, many of whom find themselves involuntarily
forced by economic necessity into the labor force, is its
opposition to work. The anti-working-class bias of this
group is also revealed in its attacks on trade unions and

‘working-class political parties. Dalla Costa maintained that

“trade unions have kept housewives separated from work-
ing women‘and women working in large factories from
those working in small factories.” Selma James ridiculed
“that horrible phrase” equal pay for equal work.

This weird amalgamation of prejudices and ideas is strung
together by strong doses of feminist and pseudo-revolution-
ary slcganeering. The anti-working-class and anti-male bias

of the Wages for Housework Committee will prevent it .
from gaining much influence among Canadian women. Most

of the women at the Toronto meeting went away unim-
pressed. The demand of Wages for Housework may

some temporary support among sections of the middle-
class women’s movenient and will undoubtedly be promot-

‘ed by the bourgeois media as a way to divide women and

men, What must be fought for instead is a real program
for housewives, based on a guaranteed annual income for
all, equal property rights, pension benefits, a system of
free universal day care and access to retraining.

a me

McDonald speaks on wage controls

KITCHENER — Nan McDon-
ald, Communist Party organizer
for work among women, spoke
in Kitchener, Ontario, Oct, 29 on
the source of women’s exploita-
tion, :
‘She addressed herself to the
recently imposed federal wage
controls, saying the bill should

be condemned because it cannot
cope with the problems created
by. inflation.

McDonald said the wage freeze
Iccks women into their inferior
income position, while allowing
the corporations continued super
profits, part of which are made
due to the lower wages paid to
women.

PACIFIC TRIBUNE—NOVEMBER 21, 1975—Page 9