Arts/Review

NIGHTBREAKER. With Martin Sheen,
Lea Thompson and Emilio Estevez.
Directed by Peter Markle. Produced by
Symphony Pictures for Turner Home
Entertainment. At video stores.

Remember back to the 1950s if you
can, and the civil defence exercises that
were conducted in schools, when stu-
dents were taught to dive under their
desks in the event of a nuclear attack. I
can still recall the shrill terror of hearing
the air raid sirens that were pressed into
service again as part of those exercises.

It was also the time of atmospheric
nuclear weapons tests when U.S. soldiers
were sent to Ground Zero on the testing
grounds so that their officers could
observe how well they would function if
nuclear weapons were to be used on the
battlefield. And more than 30 years later,
in the 1980s, the terrible consequences of
those tests are being felt by thousands of
people.

Nightbreaker — the title is from the
code name given a stries of nuclear tests
in Nevada in 1956 — spans those two
time periods as Martin Sheen plays Dr.
Alex Brown, a successful neurologist
who. comes to Las Vegas in 1989 to
accept an award for his pioneering work
in alleviating pain.

Butasa reporter’s question — prompt-
ed by a wheelchair-bound veteran —
reveals, Dr. Brown has been to Nevada
before. And the film flashes back to 1956
when a younger Dr. Brown (played by
Sheen’s son, Emilio Estevez) is working
ona U.S. military contract to do psycho-
logical tests on soldiers who are deployed
in the field as nuclear tests are being
carried out.

At first an ardent supporter of the
military program, Dr. Brown begins to
question it as he discovers that soldiers
have been asked the same questions for
years. And then he finds that men are
being sent on to the field with phony
assurances of safety and little more than

Nightbreaker; soldiers
as nuclear guinea pigs

MARTIN SHEEN

their uniforms for protection.

His conscience is also pricked 30 years
later as Dan Cutler, the veteran in the
wheelchair, comes to his hotel room,
together with two friends. “He’s got

leukemia, his spine is dissolving ... and .

the army won’t even admit it,” one of the
men tells him.

They want Dr. Brown to swear out an
affidavit verifying that the nuclear tests
took place — and Brown must decide
whether he will break his military oath
and help Cutler.

The scenes from the 1956 nuclear tests
are some of the most haunting on film as
soldiers are marched out into the Nevada
desert to face the nuclear blast. And one
of Brown’s questions to the soldiers lin-
gers as the film credits roll: “Do you feel
the experts know enough about these
weapons to use and test them safely?”

If your video store doesn’t have this
title. ask for it. It’s worth the wait.

— Sean Griffin

Labour gets to celebrate itself — a
rarity ina society of corporate-controlled
media — with the third annual May-
works festival of arts, letters, films, con-
certs et al May 1-6 in Vancouver. Never

feet, the Mayworks organizers have gen-
erated several new features for this’year’s
event, to go with the tried-and-true.
Among these are:

@ Salsa dance and free dance instruc-
tion: Features an |1-piece band to play
the rhythms that make Central Ameri-
cans jump.

@ All-union labour choir: First organiz-
ing meeting is on March 29. Phone 324-
8821.

@ Songwriting contest: The judges
award prizes for the best original words
and music, and the best lyrics put to
traditional tunes. This year’s theme is the
GST — the “Grief and Suffering Tax.”

@ Picket line theatre: For amateurs
only; prizes for the best skit on the GST
suitable for picket line performance.

e@ Labour cartooning: Prizes for the
best anti-GST cartoon.

@ Workshops: On labour songwriting,
organizing socials and benefits, and “‘cul-
ture and organizing”, the theme for this
year’s Mayworks.

Also featured are La Nuit des Franco-
phones with professional Quebec enter-

the types to let grass grow under their ~

Mayworks events; Philippines

tainers, and the nightly Mayworks
Cabaret at the [WA hall (13th and
Commercial). Complete listings availa-
ble at most union offices. Phone
324-8821.

Pe

Central America Week features reports
from Panama and Honduras at La
Quena Coffeehouse, 1111 Commercial
Dr. in Vancouver on Sunday, April 1,
7:30 p.m. From Honduras, women’s
rights activist and former “disappeared”
person Gilda Rivera speaks, along with
Jesus Alemancia, who works with indi-
genous peoples in Panama. Admission
by donation. Sponsored by the Canada-
Honduras Information and Support
Association,

* * *

The B.C. Committee for Human
Rights in the Philippines presents a
video, Bakwet: Refugees in Their Own
Land, on the forced evacuation of Fil-
ipino peasants by the army, at the
Shaughnessy Heights United Church,
1550 West 33rd Ave. in Vancouver, on
Thursday, April 5, 7:30 p.m. Discussion
with Philippines refugees worker Eva de
la Merced and video director Malcolm
Guy of Montreal follows. Phone 874-3907
or 464-7899,

10 e Pacific Tnbune, March 26, 1990

New series of books

on Gentral America
an informative read

A COUNTRY GUIDE (a series of seven
books on Central American countries).
Various authors. Published by the Inter-
Hemispheric Education Resource Centre.
Albuquerque, New Mexico. Paper, $12.95
each. At the People’s Co-op Bookstore.

The volatile situation in Central America
is of such intense interest now that a new
series on the seven countries in the region is
timely. In print are Nicaragua: A Country
Guide, and accompanying titles Belize,
Costa Rica, and Guatemala. Anticipated
this spring are El Salvador, Honduras and
Panama (although they may have to re-
write the latter).

These countries are quite distinct cultu-
rally and historically. The common link that
emerges in reading the Country Guide ser-
ies is the extensive involvement of the U.S.
government and the CIA in their internal
affairs.

The recent history of Nicaragua is prob-
ably the best known. The book was written,
of course, before the recent election with its
disastrous results, but the author takes us
step by step through the Sandinistas’ efforts
to establish a just and democratic society in
the face of a U.S.-financed counter revolu-
tion.

“In the 10 years of revolution, more than
five million acres of farm land had been
turned over to 120,000 rural families. Many
of these organized into co-operatives,” the
book reports.

But some 51,000 of coffee-growing lands
had to be abandoned due to contra attacks,
and beef production dropped by 20 per
cent. The original plans for local participa-
tion in government had virtually ground to
a halt by 1987 while resources were re-
routed to national defence and production.

The education crusade was hard hit by
the war. Books and school supplies were
chronically short. By late 1987 411 teachers
had been killed by contras, 66 were kid-
napped and 46 schools were destroyed.

Health care had been severely damaged,
with at least 20 per cent of the clinics des-
troyed or closed down, and 100 health care
workers killed by contras by 1987.

It is no wonder that enough confused,
war-ravaged Nicaraguans thought they
were voting for peace when they voted for
the U.S.-backed UNO coalition, The
author, however, does not mention the mil-
lions of dollars in U.S: aid to UNO.

The book: on Guatemala reads like a
horror story. This country is completely
dominated by an agro-export oligarchy.
Author Tom Barry writes that, “no other
issue in Guatemala is as volatile as the use
and ownership of land.”

Fifteen families control half the cotton
production. The beef industry, meanwhile,
has leveled great expanses of tropical forest.
Barry notes: “It was just this type of expan-
sion that led to the Pinzo Massacre of some
100 Kekchu Indians in 1978, after the cattle
growers complained to the military that the
Indians were protesting this land grabbing.”

Basic foods, such as beans, corn and rice,
are not grown in sufficient numbers and
must be imported at high prices, he writes.

In addition: “The daily minimum wage
for an agricultural worker is $1.20 (US).”

And, “Union activists need no reminder °

that union activity is a life threatening activ-
ity.”

Guatemala has many labour coalitions,
but repressive conditions force the leaders
to live in exile. :

Meanwhile, some 65 per cent of the
forests have been destroyed by “reckless
development,” including ecologically rui-
nous hydro projects. “Financed by the
World Bank, the power plants have forced
thousands of farmers and peasants off the
land and has caused massive deforestation
and evaporative water loss.”

(Noteworthy is the role Israel plays in

counter-insurgency and arms shipments to
dictatorships throughout Central America.
Some 1,000 Guatemalans receive military
training in Israel.)
’ Costa Rica is by Latin American stand-
ards very modern with a high level of health,
education and business achievements. Yet,
as in Canada, the 1980s brought financial
and social repression in the form of budget
cuts, privatization, and the end of subsidies,
protective pricing and tariffs.

Although labour unions do not suffer the
repression known in some other Central
American countries, the union movement is
weak and on the decline, the author claims.
One reason is the emergency of Solida-
rismo, based on “a philosophy of worker-
owner co-operation and ... designed as an
alternative to class confrontation, unionism
and collective bargaining.” It has an
accumulated capital of $30 million US and

is funded by major transnational corpora- _

tions. |

Belize, a tiny former colony of Britain
with an ethnically mixed population of
190,000, is trying hard to maintain some
independence from U.S. foreign policy
goals. While eager to receive aid, the coun-
try is leery of being drawn too close to the
military build-up in the region. “In its push
for independence, Belize has counted on the
support of the non-aligned movement,” the
author reports.

Belize maintains an independent foreign
policy, recognizing groups such as the
Palestinian Liberation Organization and
the South West Africa People’s Organiza-
tion. The country has refused to support
U.S. policy on Panama.

The English-speaking Atlantic coast
nation must import 25 per cent of its food,
and although the government has a policy

_ of self-reliance, there is little technical or
financial assistance to small farmers.

Lately Belize has been.on the receiving
end of a massive migration of refugees from
Guatemala and El Salvador. The country
has worked closely with the United Nations
High Commission on Refugees to establish
settlements, but this “alien” population is
posing serious problems, |

The ‘environment is largely unspoiled,
and Belize can take pride in having more
jaguars (wild cats) than anywhere else in
Central America. Environmental initiatives
have protected about: 44 per cent of the
country’s old-growth forest where the push
for cattle ranges, not timber rights, is the
chief threat. ;

In 1985 a consortium of investors, includ-
ing Coca Cola’s food empire, purchased
700,000 acres for agribusiness. But a huge
world outcry forced cancellation of the
plans.

Nonetheless, the increasing domination
of transnational companies “is now begin-
ning to worry the Belizians, who fear a
complete economic takeover, as well as
monopolizing their expanding — tourist
‘trade,” the author writes.

The prediction is that, by the next decade,
Belize citizens. “indeed may be saying,
“Yankee go home.’ ” ‘

— Jonnie Rankin