woRL_D =

Reduce Korea
tensions: DPRK

PYONGYANG — The Supreme People’s As-
sembly of the Democratic People’s Republic of
Korea, in a letter to the National Assembly of the
Republic of Korea, has proposed that talks be held
between the two parliaments ‘‘as a step toward a
practical action for disspelling the danger. of war
and easing tensions.”

Citing the fact that Korea will mark the 40th
anniversary of its liberation from Japanese militar-
ism on Aug. 15, and that the past 40 years have
“been years of division, confrontation and
calamities’, the DPRK letter proposes the discus-
sions should begin with a joint non-aggression de-
claration by the two states. It also declared its
willingness ‘‘to discuss whatever proposals” the
south Korean side may wish to raise at the joint
talks.

“If members of both parliaments sat down in one
place and, with the same purpose and concerted
effort, sought a way toward a peaceful life for the
Korean nation, excellent conditions would be
created for arranging high-level political talks bet-
ween north and south,”’ the letter says.

The DPRK offer left open the forms such discus-
sions could take, but stressed they should aim for
the peaceful reunification and national unity of the
Korean people.

“Down with the military dictatorship”, demand
South Korean students in a three-day sit-in at the
U.S. Information Service offices in Seoul.

_ New party formed to win
- peace, justice, democracy

BRIDGETOWN, Barbados — The Barbadian people,
who have been ruled by one of two social democratic
parties since full adult suffrage just after the end of World
War II, now have a party which truly represents their
interests.

Among the aims of the Workers Party of Barbados
(WPB), launched here May 1, is to take the lead in
building a meaningful economy free of the dependency
of and control by transnational corporations, including
Canadian financial institutions like the Bank of Nova
Scotia. The party also pledges to root out corruption in
the civil service here while strengthening and democ-
ratizing the trade union movement. As well, its program
includes the expressing of solidarity with regional and
international people’s struggles for peace, justice and
democracy.

In a feature address delivered at the auditorium of the
National Union of Public Workers just outside the main
town of this most easterly of the Caribbean island states,
the new party’s general secretary, Dr. George Belle,
further stressed that the WPB would preserve and ex-
tend the democratic institutions of the island, whose
economy is based on small manufacturing, tourism and
sugar cane growing.

Dr. Belle, a professor with the Department of
Government at the Barbados campus of the University
of the West Indies, said: ‘“‘We always struggle to main-
tain the democratic rights that have been won and (to)
carry them forward.”

Dr. Belle argued that the formation of the new party in
this low-lying coral island of some 250,000 people had
clearly shaken up the status quo and ruling classes.

In referring to several critical articles by rightist col-
umnists in the island’s two dailies, Belle explained to the
relatively large turnout at the launching ceremony: “‘I
am, saying to you, it is because we so strongly defend
democratic rights and seek to carry them forward that
this is why they criticize us. It is because we talk on
behalf of poor people, (because) we bring forward the
message of the poorest of the land who have very little
vehicle to use to carry forward their message — that is
why they are quarreling with us’’.

“Tf you look at the papers, you would think that we are
already in power,” he quipped.

Calling his party ‘‘an instrument of importance’’ in

From the
Caribbean

Norman
Faria

this former British colony, which gained its political
independence in 1966, Dr. Belle pointed out that
membership in the new organization called for dis-
ciplined people. He said that this was the only way to
become a strong political force in the island.

“We are not prepared to be amateurs because we
know that the people on the other side are very pro-
fessional. You cannot fight them with amateurish
methods’’, he declared.

As to its relations with the socialist countries, the
WPPB is firmly in support of the Soviet Union, Cuba and
other socialist states. As well, it strongly defends the
rights of regional nations such as Nicaragua to build their
own type of democracy free of interference from U.S.
imperialism. Additionally, the WPB extends its full sup-
port to the just struggles of working people in Canada,
the U.S. and other Western industrialized countries.

The WPB has evolved out of the main extra-parlia-
mentary group here in Barbados — the Movement for
National Liberation, formed in 1976 as a nationalist-
oriented grouping but having some anti-imperialist
positions.

Among the regional parties which sent representatives
to the WPB launching was the February 18th Movement
of Trinidad and Tobago. In his feature address, the
Movement’s general secretary, Dr. James Millette, said
in part: ‘‘What we are witnessing here this evening is
most important and most historic because it is happening
in Barbados . . . one of the last places in the world where
one would expect a workers party to be launched.”’

Other parties which sent representatives were the
People’s Progressive Party of Guyana, the Communist
Party of Guadeloupe, the Communist Party of Mar-
tinique, the People’s Popular Movement of Trinidad and
Tobago, the United People’s Movement of St. Vincent
and the Grenadines, and the Workers Party of Jamaica.

International Focus

Tom Morris

"4

Second coming would provide erates
j against Antonov which wou

at Rome trial ‘‘prove’’ that Bulgaria, acting

Seldom has the law looked for the Soviet Union, was in-

So stupid. volved with Agca and others

Italian authorities finally
paraded out their star (and
only) witness May 27 to
“prove the Bulgarian con-
nection’”’ in the 1981 assassina-
tion attempt on the Pope. The
result was tragi-comedy, pure
farce.

You would think, having
worked on Mehmet Agca’s
head for almost four years to
get his frame-up story straight,
Italian police and the CIA
could come up with something
better than what an_ in-
credulous world heard.

“I am Jesus Christ. I am
omnipotent. I am here to an-
nounce the end of the world’’,
Agca told his judges with the
world press looking on. With
that insane outburst, Agca just
about announced the end of
Italy’s ‘“‘trial of the century”
and, with it, the careers of the
prosecuting team.

One year after his convic-
tion, Agca, a neo-fascist Turk-
ish extremist, concocted (with
help) a story that Bulgaria was
Involved in his botched bid to
kill the Pope. A Bulgarian citi-
zen, Sergei Antonov, was
Picked up and has been held
since.

The deal was that Agca

in the crime.

The Vatican will also be con-
fused by Agca’s claim to be
Jesus. If false, Agca is shown
for the demented person he is
— hardly a credible star wit-
ness to implicate Bulgaria.

If true, it will mean Italy has
Jesus Christ in jail serving a life
term —a problem too complex
even for the Vatican and the
Pope to contemplate. The

Pin it on the mas obe and Vil
make you Jesus .

headline in L’Osservatore
Romano would then read:
‘‘Jesus Christ Attempts to Kill
John Paul II’’, quite a de-
_parture from its usual dust-dry

fare.
All this in just the first days.

José Marti and
Man’s dignity

By the time he died in 1895
fighting for Cuba’s inde-
pendence, José Marti at 42 had
been exiled five times.

He had studied, lived, la-
bored, lectured and worked as
a writer in Cuba, Spain,
Mexico, Guatemala, Ven-
ezuela and the United States.
His writings during the 15
yearsvhe lived in the U.S. fill 17
volumes.

His life coincided with the
heyday of American imperial-
ist expansionism — its ‘‘Mani-
fest Destiny’’ when great areas
of the Pacific and the Carib-
bean were brought under the
Stars and Stripes.

Marti’s love for Cuba, for
the ‘“‘wretched of the earth’’,
and his bitter hatred for in-
justice and brutality guided his
every act. He wrote:

“You will know an infamous
man by his abuse of humble men.
The weak for us should be sacred

. he who takes pleasure in
humbling another human being
attests to his own_base character.

“There is an aristocracy of the
spirit; it is formed by those who
rejoice in the growth and affirma-
tion of Man.”

And for Marti, the ‘‘affirma-
tion of Man’’ meant struggle.
American historian Willis
Fletcher Johnson spoke of his
role as organizer of Cuba’s
War of Independence this way:

“The foremost director of that
war, its organizer and inspirer,
was José Marti; one of those rare
geniuses who have appeared oc-
casionally in the history of the
world to be the incarnation of
great ideals of justice and human
right. He was indeed many times
a genius: Organizer, economist,

historian, poet, statesman,
tribune of the people; apostle of
freedom, above all, Man. In him-
self he united the virtues, the en-
thusiasm and the energizing vital-
ity which his countrymen needed
to have aroused in themselves. To
his disorganized and disheartened
country he brought a magic per-
sonality which won all hearts and
inspired them with all his own ir-
repressible and _ indestructible
ideal, National Independence.”’
Imagine, if you will, the in-
dignity done to the Cuban
people, to their revolution, to
José Marti’s struggle, when
Ronald Reagan last week
named his hate radio station
after this outstanding patriot.

Marti (third from right) and other patriots proclaiming the Cuban

Revolutionary Party in 1892.

PACIFIC TRIBUNE, JUNE 5, 1985 e 9