‘Eradicate apartheid’ says USSR Ottawa keeps waffling, SA repression mounts Backing away from previous Strong statements that Canada may take sanctions against the South African regime, Prime Minister Mulroney Sept. 2now appears to be supporting the nho-sanctions stand publicly “urged by External Affairs Minister Clark. In a Global TV interview, Mulroney, while ‘‘abhoring”’ apartheid, reverted to the hol- low claim that economic sanc- tions would harm South Africa’s Black population and praised Clark for his ‘‘modera- tion and maturity”’ in opposing Sanctions. This . hypocritical Stand is also that of the Reagan administration and its ‘‘con- structive engagement” line, a line the Tory government has quietly adopted both from Ot- tawa and through its UN am- bassador Stephen Lewis. Violence continues in South Africa this week as the racist regime strives to quell opposi- tion to apartheid which is reaching far beyond the coun- try’s Black population. In one incident, police whipped a group of children in Cape Town who were singing the American African relief song, . ‘““We Are The World’’. Thirty-two people were re- ported killed last week, bring- -ing to almost 200 the figure murdered by security forces since the state of emergency was imposed July 20. Reacting to the instability, the South African rand, worth $1.29 (U.S.) in 1980, has plunged to 35 cents. The Tribune’s Moscow cor- respondent Jack Phillips re- ports the USSR, Aug. 30, urged all nations to take effec- tive measures against the re- gime in Pretoria. The Soviet government accused South Africa of defying the United Nations, the Non-Aligned Movement, the Organization of African Unity and, indeed, the entire world community. Expressing the solidarity of the Soviet people, Moscow called for the complete eradication of apartheid, “not scanty ‘reforms’, but complete eradication’’. The USSR demanded an end to the massive reprisals being Fighting for freedom amid clouds of tear gas. carried out by the racist re- gime, urged the release of Afri- can National Congress leader Nelson Mandela and all poli- tical prisoners, and called for freedom of action for the people’s chosen organization, the ANC. KAL 007 — Who knew what, and when? — It has now been two years since the sad and bizarre fate of Korean Airlines Flight 007 touched off an explo- sion of Cold War passion. The tragedy, which continues to poison international relations was, at the time, skill- fully exploited by the Reagan administration to substan- tiate its ‘‘evil empire’ rhetoric against the USSR, to torpedo the arms control negotiations, to secure deployment of Euromissiles, and to rush through Con- gress a funding bill for the MX missile. For the most part, the western media rode the wave of Cold War hysteria, uncritically seconding President Reagan’s view of the KAL fiasco as ‘‘a horrifying act of violence’ and unmitigated Soviet ‘‘barbarism’’: Only a few voices drew attention to the host of troubling ques- tions that the incident raised, and they were quickly drowned out. However, thanks to the persistent spadework of a handful of investigative journalists, a clear picture of the events surrounding the final flight of KAL 007 has been gradually emerging. Startling new evidence has appear- ed which sharply contradicts the Reagan administra- tion’s claim that the airliner overflew sensitive Soviet military bases as a result of a ‘‘random navigational error’, and that U.S. intelligence agencies had no knowledge of the event, either beforehand, or while it Was Occurring. One year ago, on the first anniversary of the tragedy, the liberal U.S. newsmagainze, The Nation, published an exhaustive study of the KAL 007 episode which concluded that the plane was almost certainly flown deliberately on its deviating course, that U.S. intel- ligence agencies were involved and monitored the ill-fat- ed flight from beginning to end, and that U.S. authorities — including the President — must have had full knowl- edge of what was happening. The study’s author, Yale communications expert David Pearson, has observed that, “‘if the White House did not know what was going on, it was the most serious failure in the history of U.S. communications, com- mand, control and intelligence’. On the strength of its findings, The Nation called for a _ full Congressional investigation. “‘Ata minimum,’ wrote Pearson, “‘it appears that the president and his admin- istration misled the press and the world concerning what they knew about the KAL 007 incident and when they knew it. Beyond that, it appears probable that they risked 269 lives in the hope of gathering information about Soviet defence systems ... Congress owes it to the passengers of KAL 007, their families, the people of the United States and the world community to conduct a full and thorough investigation, to let the truth be known’’, The U.S. State Department has denounced Pearson's study as ‘‘drivel”’ and ‘‘a lot of baloney’, but has made No attempt whatsoever to refute it, or to respond to the Many critical questions that it raises. Another year has passed and not only has there been NO public investigation of the KAL 007 affair but, as The Nation reports in detail in a recent issue (August 17, 1985), journalists and others attempting to probe the News Analysis Fred Weir incident have been subjected to considerable official harassment. ‘Information regarding the tragedy has been with- held, suppressed and destroyed,’’ writes David Corn, a Nation reporter who has produced a painstaking survey of the Reagan administration’s obstructionism in the KAL 007 case. ‘‘Gag orders and government attempts at intimidation have limited the flow of information .. . the official obstacles that have prevented public understand- ing of the tragedy are formidable’. Despite these difficulties, new evidence has been emerging, and some of it is dramatic. In the same issue of The Nation, David Pearson presents a thorough look at these new developments. A brief summary of the major points: e Last May the Japanese Defence Agency finally re- leased vital radar tapes that it made showing speed and altitude changes effected by KAL 007 during the final 17 minutes of its flight. This new data shows conclusively that the Korean airliner changed its airspeed and altitude repeatedly during its last minutes. This explodes the Reagan administration’s version of events, which claims that the airliner was flying on automatic pilot for most of — this time, that the crew was unaware they were in Soviet airspace and in danger. The new data proves beyond a reasonable doubt that during the time two Soviet fighter planes pursued KAL 007, trying desperately to identify and communicate with ~ the intruder, the airliner’s pilot was energetically taking evasive action. Given the sensational nature of this information, it made instant headlines in Japan when it was released there last May. In the United States, however, it went JAPAN DEFENSE AGENCY ALTITUDE DATA COMPARED TO OFFICIAL VERSION OF KAL 007's ALTITUDE bherkal 1gI3 1814 1815 1816 IBI7 1818 1819 1820 182i 1822 1823 Ws 1825 1826 1827 1828 1829 eae ‘etnies litres ole f% a 4 5000 Department of State version ‘ feet 000 for KAL 00?'s Attitude ee +— 29000 RO t F é s 3 & 3 5 2s s > = < =3 x £ fis y $ & SOURCES: Japan Defense Agency, U.S. State Department almost totally unreported. Only the Washington Post carried a brief notice, buried deep inside the paper. The New York Times never mentioned it. In Canada, aside from a recent story in Maclean’s, it has been similarly ignored. e Serious doubt is now cast upon the December 1983 report of the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO) which concluded that KAL 007’s deviation over Soviet territory was a “navigational error’’. The Reagan administration has based its own case on this ICAO report, which it calls “‘authoritative’’. It is now clear that the Japanese radar tapes showing KAL 007’s strange behavior during its final minutes were never made available to the ICAO — quite probably on orders from the Reagan administration. Also, radar tapes from American military bases in Alaska which would have shown the Korean airliner turning into Soviet airspace were never viewed by ICAO inves- tigators because they were erased by the U.S. Airforce shortly after the tragedy. Nor did the ICAO hear recordings of Soviet ground controllers communicating with their fighter craft — and possibly trying to contact KAL 007 — because the Reagan administration still refuses to release this evi- dence, although they admit they have it. When the ICAO report was issued, it attracted a great deal of media attention. We were not told, however, that the ICAO’s Air Navigation Commission — a crucial panel of experts — refused to endorse its own organiza- _tion’s report, stating flatly that ‘‘the magnitude of (KAL 007’s) deviation cannot be explained”’. ’ e@ On August 23, 1984, attorney Melvin Belli, who represents the relatives of several victims of the disaster, appeared on West German television and reported a conversation he had in Seoul with the widows of the pilot and co-pilot of KAL 007. He said: ‘They told me that the captain and the co-pilot were paid to intention- ally take this shortcut over Russian territory. They made this statement voluntarily in the presence of three other American attorneys and thirty bereaved persons. The widows said that Korean Airlines paid its pilots special bonuses for fiying over Russian territory’’. The widow of the captain, Chun Byung-in, also said that her husband had told her that Flight 007 was to be ‘‘an especially — dangerous mission’’. e Analysis of the voice tapes of what were pur- portedly KAL 007’s final transmissions strongly indi- cates that they may not have come from KAL 007 at all. They reveal acalm ‘‘American-accented”’ voice, making false attitude and position reports, possibly from a dif- ferent location altogether. Alone among the mainstream media, The Nation has had the courage to pursue this story, and let the chips fall where they may. In a recent issue, the editors say that they have been urging other publications to investigate the incident, so far with very little success. Reprints of David Pearson’s definitive study of the KAL 007 affair, as well as copies of this year’s update are available for $3 (U.S.) each, from The Nation, 72 Fifth Avenue, New York, NY 10011, USA. It’s well worth it. PACIFIC TRIBUNE, SEPTEMBER 11, 1985 e 5