CANADA OUTNOW COMMITTEE c/o QUEEN STREET UNITED CHURCH TORONTO, ONTARIO |OUTNOW SEPTEMBER 21, 1970 <3 With over 50,000 signatures already collected on the OUTNOW it) Petition, the Canada Outnow Committee has called for redoubled efforts f| | this fall leading up to a lobby in Ottawa on December 7th. This lobby *| | Will ask all MPs and political parties to endorse the demand that | | President Nixon withdraw all U.S. armed forces and weapons immediately | | ?Pom Indochina. : ; The Committee is planning for a similar lobby in Ontario when the Legislature is in session and expects like actions in other Provinces. I ‘| "We are sure of several hundreds of thousands of signatures by i. then," said Phyllis Clarke, Outnow Committee secretary, this week. "The g| Summer months were a testing period and now that everyone is back from an holidays I expect we'll be receiving filled petitions in ever-larger Numbers," she added. Hyd A number of additional sponsors of the petition were also made f bublic. They include Rev. John Morgan, First Unitarian Church, Toronto, Rev. Professor Donald Evans, University of Toronto, George Hutchens, Canadian Director, International Union of Electrical, Radio and Machine , Workers (CIO-CLC), Grace Hartman, Secretary-Treasurer, Canadian Union .| | °f Public Employees and Ron Tipler and Harry Greenwood, president and . S€cretary of Local 1005 United Steelworkers of America. 765 QUEEN STREET WEST TRADE UNIONISTS: The Edmonton Convention of the Canadion Lobour Congress adopted a policy statement which said: “North American intiation can be attributed lorgely to 2 important factors: (a) the massive buildup of American military commitments in the Vietnam war, ond: (b) government policies in Canoda and the U.S. in the lost holt of the 1960's.” Conadions are paying for American aggression in Vietnam with high prices, high taxes, and growing unmployment Act agoinst the war! Act for jobs and stable uJ the worldwide OUTNOW petition! Presi- dent Nixon — STOP THE WAR! GET OUT OF CHINA! CANADIAN NATIONAL @© CANADILAN PACIFIC TELECOMMUNICATIONS CANADIEN NATIONAL @ CANADIEN PACIFIQUE Send this message subject to the terms on back épache & expédier aux Conditions énoncées au verso _ yee eee || i) Ee atreet and number numéro, tue ectare. 38 cae at amt OUTNOW aux soins de ou app numéro ee aa NES eR ae a WASHINGTON, D.C eee e ger a Trade Union Outnow Committee, c/o Queen Street United Church, 765 Queen St. West, Toronto 3, Ontario The OUTNOW peace petition issued by the Trade Union Outnow Committee was placed before each of the 375 delegates to the 28th Regular Convention of the Canadian Brotherhood of Railway, Trans- port and General Workers held in Quebec City last week. This was done with the approval of the convention chairman, retiring CBRT President William Smith, and on the proposal of Vancouver Local Pi To Mr. Spiro Agnew, Vice-President of the United States of America, C/o the U.S. Embassy, Saigon Dear Mr. Vice-President: e We know that your visit to Vietnam is connect- t ed with the making of important decisions. We also know that you are a father, the head of a family. . As a father, you have deep love towards your chil- _lety ‘when your children are in danger. As a leader fey of your country, you have many concerns on the : this knowledge that we are taking the liberty to f Write to you this letter. Le We are the Mothers of the political prisoners detained in the various prisons of South Vietnam. None of our children is convicted of crime or rob- bery. All of them are being imprisoned because they have dared speak of Peace and Independence,. a Most profound desire of all the Vietnamese People after years and years of war. Our children were arrested and barbarously tortured. They have been denied food and drink, even medicine when they were sick. The limited amount of medicine provided to the prisoners by the American aid have been continuously smuggled or stolen by the prison authorities. We only learn about the terrible living Conditions of our children through statements by ; recently released prisoners‘and reports made by the U.S. Representatives Anderson and Hawkins after their investigation of Con Son Tiger Cages. ~ However, up to the present time, we still have hot been allowed to visit or keep in touch with our Children despite repeated requests. We have .no Means to send food to them at all. Only one ex- ception has been given to those mothers who were allowed to: visit their children once on August 25, 1970 at the Chi Hoa prison. We have witnessed Our children’s health situation. After continuous beatings, their bodies were swollen; when they Were allowed to see us, they could not even walk and had to be helped by two guards. Such is the actual result of our government system of repres- Sion. Most of our children were tried by the Military Field Court, a Court which was held unconstitu- tional by the Supreme Court. Yet, our children have ; not been released. Some of them have never been tried at all. As a father, as a leader, you are coming to Viet- ; -Nam to understand our people’s aspirations for A Peace and Justice. We, the Vietnamese Mothers, ‘|—~ Bat al peel tem thd at RET Neg Lee BEE heel dren and you have experienced moments of anx- South Vietnamese government actions. It is with want to speak out about the terrible sufferings of thousands of mothers whose children are being tor- tured and ill-treated in jail. We wish to directly inform you about the crimes committed under the prison system of South Vietnam. You would have to agree that the U.S. govern- ment somehow has to be held jointly responsible for the prison system in South Vietnam, since: e The police forces which arrest and repress our children are being paid by the Americans. e The equipment used by the Police to repress, torture and jail our children are part of the U.S. aid. The tear gas, the rockets used to repress them are “made in USA.” We actually witnessed the terrible repression being carried out right in front of the U.S. Embassy when we and our foreign | friends demonstrated against the prison system on July 11, 1970. e The Phoenix operation, the result of which a great number of “suspected’’ Vietnamese people have been arbitrarily arrested and imprisoned directly by American authorities in Saigon. e In the military operations, U.S. and Allied forces have arrested and tortured many innocent Vietnamese farmers at the Intelligence Agencies or turned them to the South Vietnamese government for further detention without any “due process of law.” e Our children witness the presence of American advisors at the prisons. They know that more aid is being given to build more and bigger prisons. Before such evidence it would be hard to deny and just say that the U.S. is not responsible for the prison system of South Vietnam. The role of the American advisors should be to improve the prisoners conditions, not to watch the torture of our children who suffer from hunger, thirst, disease, and survive in agony. We wish to meet you and let you know more specifically about our concern. May we ask you to convey to President Nixon, the American govern- ment and the U.S. Congress our requests that urgent improvement of the prison system must be made. Our requests are primarily the following: 1. No citizen shall be arrested without lawful grounds. 2. All prisoners should be provided with proper food and drink, and should be given approp- riate care when they are sick. _ 3. The relatives of the prisoners should be allowed to correspond, visit and send extra supplies to the prisoners. : 4. The prisoners should be allowed to write to their families. 5. Relatives should be immediately told when members of their family are arrested. | e ' 400 delegate Dave West. 0 The United Electrical, Radio and Machine Workers (UE) has start- ek ed a campaign to have every one of its members sign the petition. q Pe a ¢ || Mothers appeal—Let our children go 6: Abolish corruption in prison immediately so that our children’s food rations are not taken away. 7. The present policy of using non-political pri- soners (criminals, thieves . . .) to watch poli- tical prisoners should be immediately abolished. 8. Our children should be allowed to read in jail. 9. The prisoners whose jail terms have expired must be immediately released. 10. Those prisoners who have not been tried should be released or put on further trial by a con- stitutional, civil court. 11. Those prisoners who were tried by the Military Field Courts should be released or retried by a civil court. 12. The old, sick and under-age prisoners should be released. 13. There should be changes in the jail staff system. 14. Tiger cages, cattle cages, mysterious caves, separate cells, discipline cells and rooms used for inhuman tortures should be abolished, not only at Con Son but also in all the prisons throughout South Vietnam. 15. The “Coolies of the Battle-fields” system used for military prisoners and “released’’ political prisoners should be abolished. 16. When a prisoner dies, his body should be re- turned to his family for proper burial. We also. ask you to urge the American authori- ties to immediately end their acts of cruelty to- ward political prisoners and tell them about our above mentioned requests. : In short, we want our children to have enough food, drink and medicine; their physical as well as moral life to be decently dealt with. They are not criminals but young courageous people who dared to stand up and voice for Peace. PEACE IS THE DEEPEST ASPIRATION OF ALL THE VIETNAM- ESE PEOPLE. Therefore, our children who are struggling for the cause of Peace and have been ar- rested and barbarously tortured should be consi- dered as “PEACE HEROES.” Hoping that thanks to your responsible and ef- ficient intervention, our children will soon be re- moved from the present inhuman prison system of South Vietnam, may we convey to your family our best wishes for luck and happiness. es Respectfully yours, Representatives of the Mothers whose children are being detained in the various prisons through- out South Vietnam, in the Tiger Cages, in the Dis- ciplinary Cells . . . without trial or tried by uncon- stitutional Courts, or have served their jail-term or have been arrested during military operations U.S., V.N. Allied). ui +33 S19 i } v PACIFIC, TRIBUNE—FRIDAY SEPTEMBER 25, 1970—-PAGE 9