WORLD Honecker postpones West German visit “Hostile FRG attitude’ cited BERLIN — The German Democratic Republic has informed Bonn that the date for the visit of State Council | Chairman Erich Honecker to West Germany is no longer “realistic’’. The GDR made it clear that it had been led to that conclusion by hostile attitudes in some FRG government circles that grossly violated normal diplo- matic procedures. GDR Ambassador Ewaldt Moldt notified Chancellor | Helmut Kohl that an example of such attitudes was the _ openly provocative declaration of Alfred Dregger, Chairman of the CDU-CSU government parties, ‘that the future of the German Federal Republic does not ‘depend upon Honecker granting us the honor ofa visit’’. Dregger’s statement shocked many people in West Germany, as shown by the numerous critical commen- taries that it called forth in the West. Chancellor Kohl and some others tried to shrug off Dregger’s deliberate insult by saying that the FRG was ‘‘a democracy”’ and every one of its citizens could voice any opinion he desired. But that did not persuade critics, who pointed out that Dregger was not just anybody, but the leader in the Bonn Parliament of the two main government par- ties. It was also pointed out that Chancellor Kohl himself, _ while disqussions were still going on for the Honecker visit, demonstratively addressed a large meeting of the top revanchist organization in the FRG, Bund der Vertriebenen, which can be literally translated as the “League of those (Germans) Driven Out’’, supposedly, from a number of socialist countries after the war. The Bund demands the reversal of the borders created by the Second World War, the swallowing up of the GDR and of parts of Czechoslovakia, Poland, Romania and the USSR, and reconstitution of the German Reich within the borders of 1937. That obviously cannot be accomplished without the forcible seizure — which means war — of the territories involved in the five socialist states. Yet Chancellor Kohl once again told the Bund that he and his government supported and would work for the aggressive aims of the revanchists who openly proclaim their desire to win back those territories. This meant that Chancellor Kohl had invited GDR _ leader Honecker to visit the FRG in the interesets of :| } { | | } improving relations between the two German states — and between East and West — and at the same time proclaimed that his aim was to wipe the GDR off the map and grab territories of four other socialist states. On previous occasions, such negative developments .as the Honecker postponement of his visit to the FRG From Berlin Fils Delisle have led to noisy outbursts of hostility and incitement against the GDR in the West. This time there was a marked difference. In the FRG and other Western coun-_ tries it was painfully obvious that the provocations and rudeness shown in Bonn against the GDR could not easily be justified. Government leaders in Bonn and States Department leaders in Washington, of course, were quick to say that it ws not Bonn’s remarkably hostile and arrogant posture but ‘‘orders from Moscow”’ that caused the GDR to defer the Honecker visit. That was ironic, since in recent weeks it was precisely Bonn and Washington which pushed the new psychological war thesis that Honecker was “‘breaking with Moscow’’. For the first time there were a number of West German commentators who admitted that the GDR could not have been expected to react differently, and voiced strong denunciations of the Bonn government’s actions and policies in relations with the GDR. Social Democratic Party (SPD) Chairman Willi Brandt accused the Kohl government of ‘‘chatterbox dilettant- ism’’ and said it was responsible for the situation that has now developed between the two German states. SPD parliamentary Chairman Hans-Jochen Vogel said that Dregger’s offensive statement and Chancellor Kohl’s attitude to it, plus his approach to the negotiations of the Honecker visit, had contributed greatly to cancellation of the visit. é The Green Party said that Dregger’s statement had been made deliberately and amounted to a withdrawal of the invitation to Honecker. Christian Social Union leader Franz-Josef Stauss the long-time arch-reactionary of West German politics, said he had felt it necessary for weeks now to warn that the attitude to the Honecker visit shown in Bonn could lead to negative developments. Even government spokesmen who took refuge in the old cry that Moscow had ‘‘ordered’’ Honecker not to visit the FRG obviously felt insecure in their arguments and took the line that the GDR statement on the visit did not rule it out but only deferred it to a more propitious time. The GDR, on its side, reiterated its policy of being ready to keep improving relations with the FRG and all countries and forces on the basis of working for peace with less armaments and coexistence. China steps up attacks on Vietnam The Vietnamese government has charged China with stepping up military attacks along the Vietnam-China border, using regular troops and heavy artillery shelling. In the past four months, Vietnam charges, China has fired more than 230,000 shells on six Viet- namese border provinces. The shelling, particu- larly on the densely populated town of Ha Giang _has caused hundreds of civilian casualties and damaged houses, schools and hospitals. Together with the shelling, says Vietnam, China has sent commando teams deep into their territory. It has also sent division and army corps size units into Vietnam to occupy border areas in Ha Tuyen and Lang Son provinces. Vietnam says it has responded with force captur- ing many Chinese troops and destroying tons of equipment. Over the past four months the entire country has been involved in a campaign, ‘‘All for the Frontier’, which has mobilized citizens in every city and district. yo Wad TRIBUNE PHOTO — TOM MORRIS Rubble of destruction after Chinese shelling of the Vietnamese city of Lang Son in 1979. It, along with other border towns are again the victims of Chinese military attacks. International Focus Tom Morris - ‘One less to feed.”’ better off with one less mouth stadium, A battle cry the .torture and His assassins relentlessly mouth to feed’ Amidst the artichokes at a special luncheon honoring Nancy Reagan at Dallas during the Republican convention the vice president’s wife, Barbara Bush, told 1,800 admiring women: ‘The White House is sparkling these days, and the meals are quite superb.”’ Elizabeth Dole, Reagan’s Transport Secretary, added: “T continue to believe that the most important of careers and the most challenging is that of - homemaker and mother.”’ Said comedian Joan Rivers: ‘‘I don’t do housework. That’s the fun of being a Republican. You don’t have to do house- work.”’ They then watched a fashion show at which the ‘“‘hit’’ of the day was a three-foot tall mink elephant. Exactly one week later, 1,000 miles from Dallas, in Fort ‘Ord, California, a 13- year-old boy hanged himself after telling a community case worker ‘‘his mother would be Danny Holley was the oldest of four children. He had done everything to help his mother and the family. Danny con- cluded that ‘‘one less mouth to feed’’ was his ultimate contri- bution to his mother’s plight. Irony follows irony. The day after Nancy Reagan’s party, her husband Ronald was nom- inated. But before he stepped up to deliver his acceptance speech, an 18-minute, $425,000 film eulogizing him was shown. One of the showed the U.S. troops in Korea. He ate sequences with the boys and prayed with | them; he looked at ‘‘the enemy’? across the demili- tarized line through binoculars and spoke of America’s pur- pose. Danny Holley’s dad is a U.S. soldier in Korea. He was there when his son hanged himself. President with . from Chile The struggle for democracy took seven more lives last week in embattled Chile as the 11th anniversary of the fascist coup approaches. After the bloody attack on the Presidential palace Sept. 11, 1973, the murder of Allende, the subsequent death of Pablo Neruda, the heart- wrenching scenes in Santiago Santiago: defiance. murder of Victor Jara, the jail- ing and killing of thousands, the world watched as Chile slipped into the dark night of fascism. In the following years one million Chilean democrats were exiled. The roundups continued, prisons filled. People vanished at the hands of the secret police and dictator Pinochet announced he had ‘‘exterminated Marxism’’. PACIFIC TRIBUNE, SEPTEMBER 19, 1984 e 9 persued the regime’s critics ac- ross the globe. His etonomic assassins, with U.S. leader- ship, dismantled the 4people’s gains won during the Allende years. 3 In a word, Chile had re- turned to the Western fold. It was “‘safe’’ again. But slowly, in a thousand small and significant ways, the spark of freedom refused to die. Even in the darkest mo- ments people organized for . Survival, self defence and for a future that was bound to come. The whispers became a murmer, then a din, and today a battle cry that is shaking the rotten Pinochet regime to its foundations. Once again the streets, the neighborhoods, the universities and the workplace have transformed into battle- grounds. The call is for unity and again unity — an entire people against a corrupt, murderous regime. Take a minute out from your busy day on Tuesday, Sept. 11, to honor a courageous, fighting people.