CHILE GOVERNMENT CARRIES OUT PLEDGES

SANTIAGO DE CHILE—“The people’s government of Chile will
not budge a single step from its program, which is supported by
the majority of the Chilean people,” said Pascual Barraza, Public
Works and Transport Minister of Chile, in an interview with the
Soviet newspaper Pravda.

Barraza went over what the Popular Front government had ac-
complished in its first two months in office: “Not a single cabinet
in the history of Chile ever has done a hundredth part of what we
have done in our first 60 days,” he said. “During the election cam-
piien, we announced the first 40 measures we intended to carry
out immediately after coming to power.

“At present, not only are all these measures being carried out,
but we are going on even further to implement all the program of
the Popular Front. The nationalization of the copper industry and
private banking is a step of great significance for strengthening our
national economy.

“One of our basic tasks at present,” he said, “is the elimination
of unemployment. Chile has more than 300,000 unemployed. Our
ministry has already hired more than 8,000 additional workers, and
another 7,000 will be hired in January. In the first six months of
1971, we will give jobs to more than 30,000 people in the Ministry
of Public Works and Transport. The Ministry of Housing and Muni-
cipal Construction will employ an equal number of new workers.”

U.S. ARMY SPIES ON CIVILIANS

CHICAGO—The civilian chief of the U.S. Army’s 113th Military
Intelligence Group has testified that files on some 800 civilian tar-
gets of Army spying were burned last June at the Great Lakes
Training Center. These are the files which top Defense Department
and Pentagon officials said never existed and were never compiled.
Thomas Filkins, chief of special operations for the base, made the
admission in U.S. District Court, where the American Civil Liber-
ies Union is seeking an injunction to halt army spying on civilians.

Among the data not destroyed was a twofoot cardboard box of
information about the Students for a Democratic Society which
Filkins said he turned over to the Chicago police. Files on some
individuals were sent to Ft. Holabird, Md. Filkins also admitted
that files were kept on U.S. Sen. Adlai Stevenson III and Rep. Abner
Mikva (D-Ill), although Defense Secretary Melvin Laird denied that
they had been spied upon.

Filkins was formerly a director of intelligence operations for
U.S. and South Korean agents.

WILL SHOOT DOWN SPY PLANES’
HANOI—General Vo Nguyen Giap, Defense Minister of the
Democratic Republic of Vietnam, stressed, “We have the right to
observe and to shoot down American aircraft of any type if they
violate our air space. We are resolved to destroy any enemy who
invades our country.”

Giap spoke at celebrations marking the 26th anniversary of the
founding of the Vietnamese People’s Army. In 1944, the late Ho
Chi Minh asked Giap to begin the formation of armed units to de-
fend the Vietnamese against the Vichy French and the Japanese
imperialists. The first People’s Army unit had a total of 34 weapons,
some of them flintlocks. In the 1946-54 struggle against the French,
the People’s Army inflicted 466,000 casualties on the enemy. In the
1964-68 air defense of the DRV, it destroyed more than 4,000 U.S.
planes.

Giap said that “the Nixon administration nakedly fabricated the

myth of ‘tacit agreement’”’ with the DRV, and called U.S. reason- |

ing behind it “logic of gangsters.”

JAPAN LABOR PLANS “SPRING OFFENSIVE”

TOKYO—More than nine million Japanese workers will take part
in this year’s “Spring Offensive” of labor against Japan’s capitalist
bosses. The estimate came from the first planning meeting of the
Joint Spring Struggle Committee set up by the General Council of
Japanese Trade Unions (SOHYO) and the Liaison Council of Neu-
tral Trade Unions (Churitsu Roren). More than 162 unions were
represented at the meeting.

The “Spring Offensive” in the past few years has become a tradi-
tion for Japan’s trade unions, where closely-coordinated strikes
and demonstrations as well as other political actions are mounted
against employers in the interests of all workers. This year, the
Tokyo meeting resolved, the struggle will be against a wage freeze
and other attempts to promote economic growth at workers’ ex-
pense, and for a guaranteed minimum pay and shorter working day.
The fight will also be against speed-up in industry and soaring
prices.

Akahata, the newspaper of the Communist Party of Japan, writes
that the 1971 Spring Offensive will come at a time of business
slump, and therefore will sharpen as never before the contradic-
tions between labor and capital in all areas. The struggle will also
be directed against the Japan-U.S. Security Treaty, the paper says.

ELECTIONS IN INDIA THIS SPRING
NEW DELHI — Premier Indira Gandhi has dissolved the 525-
member Lok Sabha, the lower house of parliament, and announced
elections would be held early in March.

The election will be the first one after last year’s left-right split
which disrupted the Congress Party which has ruled India since
independence. Mrs. Gandhi won the adherence of most members
of the Congress Party and has gained the support of most left
forces in India for her anti-monopoly capitalist goals.

Rightist, pro-capitalist and pro-U.S. forces are organizing against
her. Three parties announced formation of a united rightist front
to contest the election: they are, the Organization Congress Party,
or Cong-O, the rightist remnants of the old Congres, the Jana Sangh
Party, a semi-fascist group of Hindu chavinists, and the Sam-
yukhta Socialist Party (SSP), which is composed of reactionaries.

PACIFIC TRIBUNE—FRIDAY, JANUARY 15; 1971—PAGE 10

Chile is doing it!

Let us take back our ow!

By HARVEY MURPHY

The recent takeover of Amer-
ican mining operations in Chile
and the announcement of the
government of Guyana that it is
seeking control over the Alcan-
Demerara Bauxite Company
should be studied by all Cana-
dians interested in our economic
development.

The bulk of Canada’s mining
industry is foreign controlled
and the development of these
huge resources has not served
Canada’s interests. In fact, it is
in areas of Canada where these
resources are in greatest supply
that conditions are the most
backward.

For example, in the Yukon we
have abundant supplies of lead,
zinc, silver, asbestos, coal and
iron, yet half of the income of
the territorial government is
spent on welfare payments. The
mines, which are mainly foreign
owned, ship the ore for refining
abroad, while the economic con-
ditions of the Yukon stay at a
primitive level. There is little
family housing available for the
miners, most are forced to live
in bunkhouses, and those who
manage to have family accom-
modations have to send their
children to schools in Edmonton
or Vancouver. They face short-
ages of -doctors, dentists and
hospital services.

I am speaking of established
mining operations which have
been sending wealth abroad for
many years and not the romantic
Klondike of Pierre Berton’s ima-
gination. 29

For example, asbestos is mined
in the Yukon and northern B.C.,
hauled by truck and train to the
coast, shipped through the Pan-
ama up to Manheim, Pa., for pro-
cessing, while the economy of
the Yukon stagnates.

Another case in mind is the

rich Pine Point operation where
all the concentrates are shipped
south to keep smelters in the
U.S. busy. a

Wealth Exported

The whole of Western Canada
is rich in copper, yet it is all ex-
ported in its primary state be-
cause there is no copper smelter
in the West. Recently the British
Columbia government brought in
legislation calling for 40% of all
copper to be processed in the
province — this didn’t work, so
the requirements were reduced
to 14%, yet neither the Amer-
ican nor Japanese interests who
own the copper have any inter-
est in building a smelter in B.C.,
so none is constructed.

We have just finished building
a special port in B.C. to export
coking coal from the Crow’s
Nest Pass and the B.C. interior,
yet in the same area there is
plenty of iron ore which is also
dug up and exported. Meanwhile,
a pipeline was recently laid
through this iron and coal rich
area, and the pipe was Japanese.

The story of the alienation of
our mineral wealth is long and
dismal, but one of the most
shocking aspects of this process
has been the incentives in the
form of tax relief our govern-
ment have given to aid the
plunder.

At a special hearing of the
Carter Commission in White-
horse, I presented a brief on be-
half of the miner’s union which
spoke out against the exploita-
tion of our resources for the
benefit of foreign owners. The
mining companies are given
three-year tax holidays and de-
pletion and, depreciation allow-
ances. It is the government that
builds the power plants and
brings the railway extentions to
the mine to facilitate the remov-
al of the ore. Moreover, company
officials live in tax-free homes

\ build smelters or any oti

}

:
!
;

while the miners live iff
houses without any tax
ances. 4

There are no tax incenl

cessing industries. Concé
move to the U.S. duty fit
if they are processed hel
are taxed. That is one of?
sons why the C.P.R.-owné
inco establishes its plant
U.S., Japan and Indiay
towns like Trail face tl
pect of becoming “ghost ?
For Ourselves ~
Canada must begin to?
resources in its own inl
This is why we must tai
control of our resource
tries and begin stopping ?
port of our wealth, whil@
ing our own economic in@
base. The reason there is@
industry in Ontario is ?
the” government banned #
port of pulp. By the same
there will never be a full)
opment of our manufal
industry in Sudbury, OP
Thompson, Man., as long}
export our raw nickel. §
The mining—“they rap®
ily and scream so ‘loud™
panies that are now sCI¥
at the Chilean governm*t
the same ones who shou
the Carter Commissio
merely proposed that w
n’t subsidize the exporti
natural wealth and jo
confident they won’t inl!
the Chileans.
Meanwhile, the
miners in Britannia, B.
of whom must travel 30 ®
work because there ®
enough family accomm?
and who face a very
future, could: well seM
congratulations to the 4
miners of Chile who havé™
a government which W
their interests ahead of ™
da’s profit.

li

~ More min

By TIM WHEELER
WASHINGTON — Dr. I. E.
Buff, a friend of the coal miners,
has charged that owners of
“slave mines”

are exterminat-

ing’ coal miners at “twice or
three times” the admitted rate
while profits soar.

Buff reacted angrily to the
death of 38 miners in Hyden,
Ky., Dec. 30, amid a gathering
storm of protests here against
flouting of the new Mine Safety
Law. S

Federal hearing in Hyden on
the disaster revealed a pattern
of gross contempt for the safety
law by the Finley Coal Co.

Statistics were released si-
multaneously. by the U.S. Bur-
eau of Mines indicating that
fatalities in U.S. mines skyrock-
eted 25% in the first year of
the safety law.

The report indicated that 254
miners died in 1970 compared
with 203 in 1969. Even without
the disaster at’ Hyden, the 1970
toll had surged past the 1969
toll, the Bureau admitted. It re-
vealed that 478 miners perished
since the November, 1968, dis-
aster at Farmington, W. Va.,
which claimed 78 lives.

Bureau statistics revealed that
coal production increased 26,-
000,000 tons last year to 573,-
000,000 tons, while the price per
ton doubled.

Buff told the Daily World by
telephone from Charleston, W.
Va., “The present Mine Health
and Safety Law, if enforced,
would stop the killing in the

mines and stop the bla¢

“Elbert Osborn (the %
appointed U.S. Direcl®
Mines) speaks more
owner than like a prot
the coal miners’ health
ty, which is supposed t0
job.”

Buff, chairman of the
cians’ Committee for |
Health and Safety and 4)
of the West Virginia Bla
Association, has  spea
the struggle to win jus™
the coalminers. q

“We are concerned 0)
cause even though this ™
(in the fatality report)
we believe all of the |
have not been reporte®)
said. “We believe this ™
may be twice or three Ul”
number reported.

q

Mine owners conceal *,
tual number of fatalities ©
counting men who die @)
or two after a mine dis@™
added. They also attribu
in reports to “asphyxial
to heart attack” insteat
ing it to the accident it
said.

“The coal owners are
wealthier and wealthier
miners are dying. If th
in the coal mines does ™
we want the governmen
tionalize our coal mines