CANADA

Native liberation activists and
Supporters linked arms spiritually
with their counterparts in the
South African and Central Ameri-
Can liberation struggles at a packed
Meeting in Vancouver May 14.

Speakers on the stage of the
Ukrainian Hall were applauded
When they pointed out the link
between the movements, particu-
larly the African National Con-
gress and the Native American
Movements, whose leaders — Nel-
son Mandela and Leonard Peltier,
Tespectively — are political pri-
Soners.

Nilak Butler of the Leonard
Peltier Defence Committee said
the supporters of the imprisoned
American Indian Movement (AIM)
activist are trying one last legal

Rallies highlight Peltier campaign

‘What went on in that courtroom when Leo-
nard Peltier was on trial had nothing to do with

justice.’

— Nilak Butler

option to overturn the verdict that
convicted Peltier of the 1975 kil-
lings of two FBI agents on the Pine
Ridge Indian reservation in South
Dakota.

“What went on in that court
room had nothing to do with jus-
tice,” Butler charged.

Efforts to free Peltier and win
for the AIM leader a new trial have
been underway since his conviction
in a Fargo, North Dakota court-

Labor briefs

Stevedores begin
voting

ST. JOHN, N.B. — Voting
began May 13, among 3,500
€ast coast longshore workers
to see if they will ask the Inter-
National Longshoremen’s As-
Sociation to charter a Canadian
ILA District, and the inter-
national’s quadrennial conven-
tion to be held in Florida in
July.

The referendum being -held
in ILA locals from Thunder
Bay to St. John’s Newfound-
land, has brought to the sur-
face the frustration of the
Canadian membership over

Mput in the running of their
Own affairs on this side of the
Canada-U.S. border.

Results will\be tallied and re-
leased, later this month and if the
Vote succeeds, Canadian dele-

' Sates to the July ILA conven-
tion will be seeking to amend
the international constitution
to create a Canadian district.

However, the move is being
Opposed by the union’s inter-
national representatives, here,
aS well as by the executive in
New York headed by 86-year
old Thomas W. Gleason.
Gleason, who is supposed to
retire at the forthcoming con-
vention is being criticized by
local ILA leaders in Canada for
Teneging on an earlier promise
to support the creation of a
Canadian district.

Gleason maintains his sup-
Port only extended to the idea
of bringing all of the port col-
lective agreements to a com-
Mon anniversary date, while
the Canadian leaders say this
Isn’t possible without setting
Up a structure to make it work.

Advocates of the Canadian
district point out that the ILA
doesn’t come close to observ-
Ing the CLC’s autonomy guide-
lines, and begin to approach the
fully autonomous relationship
With the international estab-
lished on the west coast by the
Canadian area of the Interna-

their total lack of meaningful .

room in 1977 — one year after he
was extradited from Canada.
The 1976 extradition hearings in
Vancouver were the scene of sev-
eral demonstrations amid charges
that the evidence presented by the
U.S. government to Canada —
required under the terms of the
extradition treaty — was false.
That was subsequently proved,
even before Peltier’s extradition,
but then-justice minister Ron Bas-

Labor protests closures

TORONTO — Some 300 workers rallied at the Ontario Legis-
lature, May 11 as part of a Metro Labor Council initiative to
highlight the loss of nearly 8,000 jobs in the region because
of plant closures over the past 18 months.

Steelworkers, electrical workers, laid-off Goodyear Rub-
ber workers and others hit by job losses, picketed the Legis-
lature demanding effective closure and pension protection
laws. Speakers called for passage of Bill 170, which would
provide for earlier retirement benefits.

It issues all Canadian char-
ters, and keeps most of the
dues revenue generated in
Canada. Canadians elect their
own officers including the
Canadian president who sits as
a full member on the [LWU
international executive board.

Forum on ‘postal
justice’ organized

The newly-established Bur-
naby Coalition for Postal Jus-
tice is organizing a public foram
on postal service for May 30 as
part of the campaign by com-
munity organizations and the
trade union movement to
improve and extend postal ser-
vice and head off federal
government plans to privatize
Canada Post.

The forum, which is expected
to hear from two MPs and a
Canada Post representative
among various speakers, 1s set
for 3 p.m. at Burnaby Central

Burnaby alderman Doug
Drummond, NDP MP Svend
Robinson and North Vancouver
resident Fred Massaro, an out-
spoken opponent of Canada
Post’s community letterbox
scheme, are among the speak-
ers. Tory MP Chuck Cook has
also been invited to attend but
had not yet confirmed at press.
time.

Organized last month, the
broadly-based coalition has
brought together pensioners,
students, the disabled and pos-
tal workers as part of a growing
country-wide campaign to keep
the post office in the public sec-
tor and to extend and improve
postal services.

The five unions in the post
office have also launched a post
card campaign protesting the
federal government’s moves to
sell off various postal services to
the private sector. The leaflet
being sent out across the coun-
try includes a tear-off card to
NDP leader Ed Broadbent ask-
ing that he raise the issue in Par-

ford refused to stay the hearings.

The U.S. government’s evidence
rested on testimony gathered by
the FBI from Myrtle Poor Bear, a
Pine Ridge resident with a history
of mental problems. Poor Bear,
who later contradicted her testim-
ony, had claimed to be Peltier’s
lover and a witness to his execution
of the two FBI agents.

The FBI agents, and a young
Native, were killed in a shoot-out
on the Pine Ridge reserve.

“When the FBI came in, they
came in shooting,” said Butler, the
former wife of AIM leader Dino
Butler and a witness to the inci-
dent.

Peltier supporters note that the
Pine Ridge reserve — site of the
Wounded Knee occupation to
reassert Native treaty rights in 1973

—had a history of violence,
inflicted mainly by self-dubbed
“goons” of tribal chair Dick Wil-
son. Wilson, at the time of the FBI
raid, had acceded to the USS.
government a portion of the reser-
vation which contained valuable
uranium deposits.

A 1984 hearing in Bismarck,
North Dakota, found that evi-

dence from an FBI munitions .

expert, which had circumstantially
linked a weapon owned by Peltier
to the bullets fired at the agents,
was also faulty. Despite an

acknowledgement of that finding

at an Eighth Circuit Court of
Appeals session last fall, the court
denied Peltier a new trial.

“So we’re not looking that it’s
going to be the court systems that
will bring freedom and justice for
Leonard,” Butler said.

“You've got to look at history.
One by one they’ve targeted the
people and tried to take them
down. They’ve done the same

thing with the American Indian
Movement.

“This is the same pattern that’s
going on throughout the world. It
doesn’t matter if we’re talking
about up here, or South and Cen-
tral America, or South Africa, or
what is now called New Zealand
and Australia. In every situation
the original peoples of the land are
under attack, and in every situation
the same corporate names and
banks are involved,” Butler charged.

Demands for a new trial for Pelt-
ier have come from more than 50
members of the U.S. Congress and
several international religious
leaders, including South African
Anglican Bishop Desmond Tutu
and the Archbishop of Canter-
bury. Some 60 MPs, including
NDP MP Jim Fulton, have
demanded Peltier be returned to
Canada.

More than 13 million Soviet citi-
zens have signed petitions demand-
ing Peltier’s release, as have some
80,000 western Europeans, Butler
said in an interview later.

In a petition to be filed by the
end of this month, Peltier’s lawyers
will be asking the U.S. Supreme
Court to review the lower court’s
decision and order a new trial.

Peltier’s defence committee is
touring Canada with a new cam-
paign aimed at churches and trade
unionists, Butler said.

Guatemalan speaker Rigoberta
Menchu told the audience that
government .attempts.. to. create
“model villages for civil defence”
in her Central American country
were similar to the creation of the
hated “‘bantustans” in South Africa.

She said “re-education” methods
are another method by which the
Guatemalan army keeps more
than one million mainly Native
Guatemalans under-military rule
to prevent them from joining the
resistance.

Local ANC representative
George Lai said the only way to
peace in South Africa “‘is to release
Nelson Mandela and the other pol-
itical prisoners.”

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