4 membership of 935,055. , sy By ED McDONALD 13th Congress of the Communist Party of Bul- Opened its sessions on April 2 in Sofia. When the “St€Ss Opened, there were 2,640 elected delegates, : ‘Bulgarian Agrarian Party also participated in the €ss as a fraternal delegation. There was a total of fraternal delegates present from communist and Parties, national liberation movements, social- atic parties and democratic organizations from tries. Helmut Schmidt led the German Social- ic Party delegation. Freda Brown led the lon from the Women’s International Democratic Nn, while Romesh Chandra, President, led the | from the World Peace Council delegation. let delegation was led by Nikolai Ryjkov. his pening remarks to the Congress, Todor Zhiv- neral-Secretary of the Party, dealt with a number , Starting out with the period of 1944 and the Ow of fascism. Of significant importance was the r peace and the utilization of the scientific and gical revolution. Along with the Congress lents, most if not all of the delegates stressed the: ce of world peace and security. Ongress expressed its unreserved support to the 4W Treaty proposals, the Soviet proposals, particu- he Tecent proposals calling for a moratorium on tests. At the same time, it renewed those pro- “NS and presented new ones for the purpose of the Balkans a zone free of nuclear and chemical S. It again called for a meeting of Balkan coun- N this theme and for a conference of parlia- mentarians of the area to turn the Balkans into a zone of peace and security. The Congress, through Todor Zhiv- kov, proposed that the Balkan countries unilaterally pledge not to stock nuclear arms on their territory and that in the case of Greece and Turkey, where these arms - already exist, they commit themselves not to stock any new ones and to reduce their present stocks. He further proposed a treaty for the protection of the environment in the Balkans. As it relates to the economic well being of the Bulga- rian people, the following figures, taken from the Central Committee Report, gives one a glimpse of some of the achievements of socialist Bulgaria: *‘Starting as a back- ward country economically speaking, engaging in essen- tially agricultural activities, we are now included with the developed industrial countries with a modern agri- culture. It has attained one of-the highest rates of economic and industrial growth. During the years from 1956 to 1985, national income increased eight times. Fixed assets in the national economy increased 10 times and social productivity of work, 8.4 times. ‘‘The country’s industrial potential has: increased tremendously. The industrial production of the year _ 1956 is now completed in less than a month...” ‘In 1985 the country’s foreign trade increased 29 times as compared with 1956 and exports went up 33 times. The relative importance of industrial exports of non-agricultural origin went up from 26.7 percent to 78.6 per cent of which 54.6 percent represents machinery and production equipment. During the same period, indus- trial production of agricultural origin went down from 14.7 per cent to 1.5 per cent.”’ These figures show how Bulgaria has been transformed into an industrial power including foreign trade during this last 30 years. Today’s Israeli Arabs live worse Astudy, published last month by the Institute of i Studies in Israel reveals that the standard of T ng of Arabs in Israel lags far behind Israeli Jews. - 100-page report says that while Arab house- ds reached 94 per cent of the income of Jewish Useholds in 1975, the figure today has: dropped to Percent. Israeli Arab families spend 43 per cent leir income on food, Jewish families, earning Te, spend only 24 per cent, the study says. Bulgaria is an important producer of electronic com- ponents and fourth generation computers 85 per cent of the electronic components, in a factory that I toured, were for export, even to Japan. The considerable development of the economy during the last 30 years has been accompanied by a notable rate of social and cultural development and by the deepening of socialist democracy. Without going into details, it can be safely said that based on personal contacts that we had with Bulgarians, the visits that we made and every- day life that. we observed, without mentioning the speeches that we heard at the Congress, that the Bulga- rian people are refined, hard-working and well-balanced. It seemed to us that Bulgarians show a great sense of taste in the way they dress, a calm serene outlook on life, that they constitute in a word, a modern, happy and confident people deeply committed to a world at peace. Fruitful, concrete and frank discussion, this no doubt is the best way to describe the tone of the delegates’ speeches at the Congress. The delegates represented workers, intellectuals, the world of sports, culture, — commerce, the service industries, Popular Councils, transportation, agriculture, the armed forces, etc. Certain speeches were particularly touching, such as the one by a miner, who, after having talked about the successes he and his workmates had achieved, declared that now he and his co-workers were facing a technical — difficulty which prevented them from increasing produc- tion. He said: “I call on scientists who work in research centers and who are here today to come to the bottom of our mine to help us solve this problem.” IS The Congress constituted a formidable expression of po unity. All the delegates approved the political line that was- submitted for discussion, as well as the policies — regarding peace and the technological renewal of the country. The 13th Congress of the Bulgarian Communist : Party showed the deep attachment of the Bulgarian Party and the people to the principles of proletarian inter- : nationalism. In conversation with other international delegates, : they like I, were greatly impressed by the open criticism during the Congress discussions and by the great con- trast between the way Bulgarians approached the prob- lems of the Scientific and Technological Revolution and the way this same problem is dealt with under capitalism. _ The more intensive development of socialist democ- racy, while we were there for only a short time, it was there to behold, both at the Congress and on the streets. This experience, which allowed Claude Demers, and I to discover Bulgaria, was also particularly fruitful politi- cally. It again reinforced our confidence in the solidity of socialism and its future and it also increased our degree of maturity and gave us a greater understanding of the complex phenomena of socialism. . = Ed McDonald and Claude Demers were fraternal delegates of the Communist Party of Canada to the 13th Congress of the Communist Party of Bulgaria. ong 22" suburban neighbor- Is sealed off by troops Police. Faces smeared teeg black paint to prevent gnition, they begin search- — Street by street, house _ Ouse — leaving nothing Mouched. “fe dragnet pinpoints males arrested — 11,000! They taken to football fields. hick they are ‘‘processed”’, Ch includes being marked lic indelible ink for future € reference. Torism? It happened in the last days Pril in Santiago, Chile. R, on May Ist, another 500 °€ brutally attacked a May “Y Vent. er ceaders of the ‘western bo Scracies’’ are looking ~4t for terrorists, Chile is Place to start with sanc- 8, boycotts, and calls for Setvance of human rights. Care? These aren’t €ticans being brutalized. Ween 14 and 60 and 11,000 — S this terrorism? Is it state» S0ns were arrested as a Ut then, what does Wash- ~ And Pinochet is an ally, a staunch anti-communist. Brian and Joe, high rollers ‘**You've had it, pal’’, U.S. Secretary of State Shultz told Libya’s Gadaffi, gloating over having strong-armed a rather docile bunch of “western lead- ers’’ at last week’s Tokyo summit into signing a state- agree with Shultz, Canada’s External Affairs Minister Joe Clark puffed himself up beyond his real size and called the agreement “‘important’’. The statement says ter- rorism shall be fought by a combination of ‘‘national mea- sures with international co- operation’. Shultz quickly explained ‘‘national mea- sures’? means a retroactive ing last month. He might have added’ that ‘‘international co- ‘operation’? means agreeing in- advance to any action Wash- ington may take. For Britain’s Thatcher and ~ Brian Mulroney. the statement simply ratifies their sub- servience. The others seem to have - been had by the old - charmer in the White House ment on terrorism. Rushing to’ ’ justification of Reagan’s bomb- - swinging his economic big stick. The other ‘‘victory’’, we’re told, is the inclusion/non-in- clusion of Canada and Italy into the exclusive G-5 group. It’s now G-7 ... well, not al- ways G-7, there’s still G-5 (the really big guys). But Canada and Italy, if they ask nicely, may be permitted by G-5 to play in the big league, which will then be called G-7. Under- | stand? Watching these Canadians being handled in Tokyo (and still claim they’re winning) makes you shudder to think - what the free trade talks with the Americans will be like. Real agents of deception Viewers expecting juicy tid- bits from CTV’s one-hour spe- cial May 4 were left cold. Ad- vance billing promised the ‘‘documentary’’ would expose Soviet manipulation of peace groups in Europe, the USA and Canada. It’s title: “*Agents of Decep- tion’”’ was itself a crude decep- tion. The producers, Storno- way Productions and CTV, should be sued for false ad- vertising. Rather than ‘‘documenta- tion” on “‘KGB manipulation and disinformation”? as prom- ised, what we got were five (count *em), five worn out Soviet defectors telling their worn out stories. We saw a 1950’s-style delivery in sombre tones about a ‘‘world-wide, super-secret, Soviet depart- ment with a $3-billion budget and 15,000 staff’. The defectors did what de- fectors do — they said what they’re paid to say. Other items: a British Lord Chalfont tells how dreadfully the USSR treats its ‘‘in- ‘dependent’’ peace movement; - the New York Times Athens correspondent uncovers a. KGB-run Greek daily paper; Readers Digest reveals a KGB-influenced conservative Japanese daily paper there’s hardly time to catch | your breath between revela- tions! More: a Danish journalist is described as a KGB dupe for sponsoring a newspaper ad advocating a nuclear weapons-free zone in North- ern Europe, and the Helsinki- based World Peace Council, says the program, is a Soviet disinformation front. By the end of the hour, _ everyone in sight is either an agent or a dupe — except for — the producers, defectors and CTV. It was time to eye your partner carefully and check under the bed. Viewers were conned. Ad- vertisers deserve their money back. The so-called ‘‘in- vestigative crew’ should seek another line of work. Someone should call the OPP fraud squad.