Editorial

Elected by hunger

There was aching disappointment, and tears borne of anger and a sense of injustice for millions of people last week as the world movement in solidarity with Nicaragua learned of the results of the Feb. 25 national elections in that country. For all of those people, but especially for those of us in this hemisphere, Nicaragua embodied the hope that a decade’s struggle for social justice would be resoundingly reaffirmed in the vote despite the odds stacked against it — the U.S. trade embargo, the economic blockade, the crippling contra war.

This time, it was not to be, however.

Violeta Chamorro, whose UNO coalition had brought together an opportunistic collection of opposition forces, well-backed with funding from a dozen U.S. govern- ment fronts, captured a majority both in the election for presidency and for the new assembly. We say captured because she did not win votes for her policies — she had none — nor was she the champion of democracy that a U.S. propaganda machine made her out to be. :

In a country ravaged by years of contra war, whose economy has been crippled by inflation caused in part by the need to divert huge sums to defence, and whose people have been denied a respite from poverty because of a U.S. economic embargo, Chamorro seemed to offer the quickest route to prosperity via American investment and trade. She also appeared to offer the most likely possibility for an end to the contra war and the military draft, because President George Bush had made it known throughout the campaign that if Daniel Ortega was the victor, it would not necessarily bring a resumption of U.S. trade and the disbanding of the contras.

That more than 40 per cent of the people voted with their hearts for Ortega is a tribute to him and to all that the Sandinistas have achieved. But the majority vote that went with Chamorro was no “‘clear mandate for peace and democracy” that Bush called it. The observer teams throughout the country helped assure fair balloting on election day — but the long arm of U.S. policy manipulated the final result virtually from the beginning.

The outcome of the election was “a comment on the capacity of a powerful (U.S.) government to wear down the people,” Fr. Peter Marchetti, the dean of graduate studies in Nicaragua’s Jesuit University told the Globe and Mail following the vote.

And again the point is driven home: there can be no real democracy in this hemisphere as long as the U.S. is free to carry out economic blackmail, to provide the wherewithal for military intervention, to mine another country’s harbours and to interfere directly in another country’s elections — all of which was done in Nicaragua under the Reagan and Bush administrations.

It underscores, too, the vital link of international solidarity, for as Nicaragua has demonstrated, the fortunes of democracy and social justice in Latin America are very much connected to the achievement of real democracy in the U.S. — which will enable people in that country to control the actions of their governments and corporations.

That solidarity could be needed more than ever in the months to come. People around the world will have to stand by the Sandinistas to help them defend their historic achievements — their health care, their trade union organization, their schools and literacy campaigns — and to see that Chamorro lives up to her promises to rebuild the economy, not drag it back to neo-colonialism. And in light of U.S. Secretary of State James Baker’s ominous remarks — that with U.S.-backed adminis- trations now in power in Panama and Nicaragua, there is only one country, Cuba, left to go — Canadians will have to be vigilant to ensure that Cubans retain the sovereign right to determine their own future.

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FIRIBUNE

EDITOR Sean Griffin

Dan Keeton BUSINESS & CIRCULATION MANAGER Mike Proniuk GRAPHICS

Angela Kenyon

ASSOCIATE EDITOR °

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acism is on the rise in Canada, a recent poll tells us, while news stories relate the distribution of lapel buttons with xenophobic themes and the ‘“English- only” votes taken by several municipal

councils in, first, Ontario, and now other provinces like Saskatchewan.

It’s clear that the insecurity and anxiety bred by right-wing economic and social policies are having their effect on people’s psyches, and these passions are being inflamed by ultra-right forces for their own, insidious ends.

So there’s cold comfort in knowing that Canada isn’t alone in this, particularly as regards the language issue. It’s a reality south of the border, but in one case, the menace behind a racist law has been seriously eroded. ;

Fifteen U.S. states have English-only laws, meaning all public business must conducted in that language. But in Ariz- ona, a Spanish-American public employee successfully challenged that state’s law, which had been adopted by a one-per-cent margin in a statewide referendum two years ago. (The harshness of the original resolution was blunted somewhat through legal tinkering by the state attorney- general, but it was still odious to many.)

Happily, federal district court last month ruled in favour of a challenge to the law — technically an amendment to the state constitution — launched by Maria- Kelly Yniguez. An insurance claims adjus- ter for the state hospital system, Yniguez

said she needed to speak Spanish on the job but was unable to do so because it would contradict her oath of employment.

“This violated my First Amendment rights and I wanted it settled in court,” Yniguez told the U.S. People’s Daily World. Her lawyer, Robert Pohlman, said the ruling “will help clear the bad atmos- phere created by this racist and oppressive law.”” The bad atmosphere included fir- ings, job harassment and other forms of bigotry, according to Arizona civil rights activists.

Arizona governor Rose Mofford has said the state will not appeal the decision.

The ruling also promises a positive out- come for a case launched by student Ray Siquieros, chair of Arizona’s Young Communist League, concerning his being ordered to stop speaking Spanish by a campus security guard at Pima Commun- ity College last fall.

Words similar to those we might need

to fight the reactionary and bigoted trend of some municipal councils here were uttered by Democratic California repre- sentative Edward Roybal in hailing the rul- ing: “The Arizona decision provides a better climate for those of us fighting English-only across the country. But English-only has not died and we must

People and Issues

continue to do what we can to defend our rights.”

* * *

ith school referendums looming in the upcoming provincial budget (the Vancouver school board already faces one to keep its hot lunch program afloat) and other cuts coming to education, health and social services — thanks in

SUPER, NATURAL B.C. ... pastoral beauty, floppy diskettes, and serious shortfunding.

part to the federal Tories’ own budget — it’s gratifying to know that the cupboard isn’t entirely bare in the provincial larder.

. We learned this when we received the

Focus on Super, Natural British Columbia kit from the Tourism B.C. the other day.

The full-colour, glossy package con- tains three specific brochures, order forms for free colour photos of B.C. scenes, sev- eral backgrounder articles and even a computer diskette with more information. We, and presumably travel editors at all other papers in the province, were informed in an accompanying letter “this media kit is actually ‘not the half of it.’ There is so much compelling travel copy to be written here, all we could do within the limitations of the kit was give you a glimpse, an idea of what is here and where you can find it.” A toll-free number is provided.

We don’t mean to run down the media relations people at Tourism B.C. They did a good job, with an obviously ample budget.

It’s just that we’re wondering what the Socreds are planning to show travellers who heed the call to come to Super, Natu- ral B.C. — since the trees are being stead- ily logged off the hillsides, the shoreline polluted with oil spills, and the waters ren- dered unsafe with toxic dumping.

Possibly Tourism B.C. can conduct tours of some architectural heritage build- ings. Like an perfectly preserved, unused school, for instance.

4 Pacific Tribune, March 5, 1990