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cont'd. from pg. 1
were finally allowed to compete in
the games, to be identified on their
uniforms and in all official records
by the letters ‘‘GDR”’ while the
team from the Federal Republic of
Germany was identified with the

letters GhRe
Germany.

The other major dispute brewing
in Montreal as the opening ap-
proaches revolves around the
announced intention of South
Africa to establish a hospitality
centre during the games. South

standing for

Africa was barred from Olympic

Facing a long wait — with perhaps nothing-at the end of it — thousands of students lined up outside the
Pacific National Exhibition offices in Vancouver this week to apply for some 800 available jobs. Even for
those lucky enough to land a job, it will mean only a couple of weeks employment. Thousands more face the
Prospect of an entire summer without work. :

— Sean Griffin photo

European CPs convene

Agreement on __ intensified
collective efforts to advance peace,
security, cooperation and social
progress highlighted the Con-
ference of European Communist
and Workers Parties which wound
up its two-day meeting in Berlin
last week with unanimous adoption
of the conference declaration.

Representatives of 29 parties
attended the conference which was
marked by great unity around
common goals, thus. spiking
western hopes for a new rift in the
world communist movement.

The final document issued by the
European parties outlined the
changes in the international
political arena which had resulted
from ‘‘a shift in the balance of
forces in favor of peace,
democracy, national liberation and
independence”’ and set forth four
main areas for priority action.

The conference pledged to:

e Extirpate fascism, defend
democracy and national in-
dependence;

e Develop mutually beneficial
cooperation, for better un-
derstanding among peoples;

e Take steps to achieve peace,
security, cooperation, national
independence and __ social
progress throughout the world.
Outlining the steps necessary to

Strengthen detente, the document

emphasized the need to dismantle

foreign bases and effect the with-

_ drawal of foreign troops as well as
to bring about significant reduc-
tions in military budgets.

Conference representatives also
echoed Soviet Communist Party
leader Leonid Brezhnev’s call for
“the simultaneous dissolution of
both the Warsaw Pact and the
North Atlantic Treaty

RANKIN -

Cont'd from pg. 2

plained, are good quality projects,’

better than many of the privately
built apartments and privately
built condominiums in the area. So
this argument is also false.

What is true is that the city
should be building many more such
units and in every part of the city.
That is what I have been ad-
vocating consistently. But to
condemn these projects just
because we have not yet won the
battle to build them all over in the
city is to do harm to the whole
concept of building more public
housing.

We can’t progress if those who
already have housing oppose
building housing for those who
haven’t.

Organization (NATO).”

Brezhnev, addressing the
opening session of the conference
in the Stadt Berlin Hotel, told
Communist representatives: “We

are against the division of the
world into military blocs on
principle and are prepared to do
everything possible for the two
groupings to cease their activities
simultaneously.”’

- The call for the dissolution of
both NATO and the Warsaw Pact
— subsequently adopted in the
conference document un-
derscored the Soviet Union’s peace
initiatives, Brezhnev stated, but
added, ‘unfortunately we do not
see as yet any great desire to
translate them into life on the part
of the governments of the Western
powers.”

Despite increasing world
pressure to curb arms spending,
the military expenditures of the
West European member countries
of NATO increased more than
twofold in the years between 1970
and 1975.

The problems of democracy and
the necessity of ridding Europe of
all vestiges of fascism were also
emphasized by the European
Communists as_ representatives
called for solidarity with all those
under reactionary attack including
the Communist and progressive
forces in Portugal, Spain and
Greece.

.The conference document called
for a solution to the continuing
problem of the Middle East

“through negotiations and strict

fulfillment of agreements
reached,” based on the withdrawal
of Isreali troops from all Arab
territories occupied since 1967.

A rebuff to anti-Communist
forces was issued by the meeting
which declared that Communist
Parties ‘‘consider it their duty to
direct the attention of all popular
forces to the damage done by
aggressive anti-Communism to the
development of the movement for
peace and progress.

“Anti-Communism is and
remains an instrument which
imperialist and reactionary forces
use against democratic freedoms.
~“These forces,’ the document
stated, ‘‘are conducting campaigns
against Communist Parties,
against the socialist countries,
beginning with the Soviet Union,
and against the forces of socialism
and progress, campaigns which
aim to discredit the policy and
ideals of Communists among the
mass of the people and to prevent
unity among the working class
movement and cooperation among
the democratic and popular for-
ces.”’ ‘

PACIFIC TRIBUNE—JULY 9, 1976—Page 8

Despite the offensive by anti-
Communist forces, the declaration

stressed, ‘‘the participants of this °

conference . are firmly
resolved to continue waging a
consistent struggle in order to
achieve the objective of peace,

democracy and social
progress...”

President Josef Tito of the
League of Communists of
Yugoslavia, emphasized that

section of the document in his
address, stating that the socialist
countries and the Communist
Parties of Europe ‘‘bear the
responsibility for peace and
security on the continent, con-
sidering their” importance and
international influence.”

The presence of Tito as the
representative of the Yugoslav
League of Communists was seen as
a measure of the unity achieved by
the European conference. He has
not represented the League in in-
ternational Communist Party
meetings since 1948.

Michael O’Riordan, general
secretary of the Communist Party
of Ireland, also noted the spirit of
unity that had distinguished the
conference throughout its sessions.
“It was a convincing demon-
stration of Communist unity,” he
‘told reporters after the meeting.
“It is the duty of we Communists to
work together to make Europe, a
continent that endured two
devastating wars, a continent of
lasting peace.”

The unity among the 29 parties at
the conference was clearly a
disappointment to most western
commentators who had hoped that
it would reveal divisions between
the socialist countries, particularly
the Soviet Union, and some
European Communist parties.

When that division failed to
materialize, many newspapers
ignored the principal issues
discussed at the meeting and
focused instead on sections of the
final document which spoke of the
individual parties working out a
political line ‘in complete in-
dependence,’ citing such
statements as examples of ‘‘a
rebuff to Moscow.”

The conference did note that
parties would work out and adopt a
political line ‘‘in complete in-
dependence’:and in accordance
with the socio-economic and
political conditions and the specific
national features in the countries
concerned.”’ But this was merely a
re-statement of past policy,
similarly declared in previous
international Communist meetings
including the last world Com-
munist meeting in Moscow in 1969.

competition in 1963 because of its
apartheid policies and their ex-
tension into athletics.

South African officials hope to
operate the centre to argue that
racism in sports in that country is a
thing of the past. In fact, the
president of the South African
Olympic Games Association,
Rudolph Opperman will himself
head up the South African
delegation should it be allowed to
operate its centre. Opperman said
that the hospitality centre, which
would provide ‘‘gifts, momentos
and information about South
African sport” is ‘‘an attempt
against heavy odds to get back into
international sport.”’

His statement is seen as
recognition by the racist regime in
South Africa that the isolation
which that country is feeling is
having an effect on the South
African government.

Reaction to the South African
project has been swift, and’carries
with it the weight of the United
Nations. On April 14, Jeanne Cisse,
chairman of the United Nations
Special Committee against
apartheid wrote Canada’s _per-
manent representative to the UN
that the only reason that South
Africa wouldseek to operate such a
centre would be to “‘try to deceive
world public opinion about its
policy and to conduct propaganda
against the United Nations and the

Olympic principle of non-
discrimination.”
She asked the Canadian

representative approach the
Canadian government to take
“appropriate action in accordance
with its adherence to the Olympic
principle and the relevant United
Nations resolutions.”’ In November
of last year United Nations
resolution 3411 called for a poseOre

_racists and chauvinists on,

‘based on the equal,

.

of racially selected South African ~
sports bodies or teams. -The
resolution recognized the impact of -
the campaign against apartheid in
sports and the effect it has at ex-
pressing abhorrence of apartheid”
on the part of governments.

In Canada, the Conseil Quebecois
de la paix has called for public
opposition to the opening of such a-
centre. The peace group has ad-
dressed itself to the Canadian
government and the Olympic
organizing committee COJO to
publicly state their opposition to”
the establishment of the centre and
bring the necessary pressure
bear upon South Africa to stop the
opening of such a centre.

The CQP stated that the opening 2
of the “hospitality” centre, at a ¥
time when dozens of South African |
youths have been killed with
hundreds more wounded and
thousands arrested in Johan-
nesburg by the South African”
authorities makes it “more than)
ever inacceptable.”’

AIR PACT

cont'd. from pg. 1

One thing which the air strike
and subsequent agreement points
out again, the CP said, is that
“neither a Liberal, Conservative
nor NDP government can come to
grip with the crisis of Con=
federation. The Tories egged the
the
Liberals capilulated to them while’
the NDP is nowhere to be seen.*>@

The only real solution to the
problem, which threatens to divide”
Canada as never before, would be |
the drafting of a new constituti
for the country the Communis;
statement said, and appealed for!
Support for that position.

‘All democratic and truly
national-minded Canadians in both
English and French Canada, al]
those who want a truly united |
Canada must now unite their ef-
forts in the demand for a new |
made-in-Canada constitution
voluntary
partnership of the two nations, and
im support of economic and social |
policies directed to overcome |
economic and national inequality.

“This is the way to get at the
roots of the crisis and of
bilingualism which is but part of
the shea 2

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