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World

By CHUCK IDELSON

The battle of Panama offers a preview of the scenario now likely being written for another Central American country, Nica- Tagua, when it holds it national elections next February.

On April 25, Radio Catolica in Managua reported a poll claiming that opposition parties led the governing Sandinista Front by 36 to 29 per cent. Nicaraguan President Daniel Ortega denounced the poll as a fraud, and there are ample reasons for sus- picion, beginning with its airing on Radio Catolica, which is funded by U.S. sources hostile to the Nicaraguan government.

On Jan.9, the Managua publication El Nuevo Diario unveiled schemes underway in the U.S. designed to alter the outcome of the 1990 vote by financing and giving other aid to opposition groups.

The article cites the Republican Institute

- for International Affairs, whose director

Janine Parfit, admits to a budget of $100,000 channeled through the Dolores Estrada Foundation and the Conservative Institute, the latter being linked to the oppo- Sition Conservative Party of Nicaragua.

One problem for the RIIA is a Nicara- guan law which prohibits opposition groups from operating with U.S. funds, so Parfit said some money may be directed through right-wing groups in the FRG or Austria.

*e~mnOther group grappling with that prob=

lem, says El Nuevo Diario, is the Institute for Latin American Affairs, which was, at that time, drafting plans for activities and searching for “new channels” to send funds into Nicaragua.

If the use of third countries and other fronts conjures up memories of the Iran- contra scandal, consider further that both RITA and ILAA are beneficiaries of the National Endowment for Democracy. NED is funded by Congress ostensibly to support “democratic” or, more accurately, anti-communist, unions and other institu- tions abroad, has a bipartisan board of directors that includes right-wing Republi- cans and cold war Democrats and labour leaders.

One place where NED money has gone is Panama. In the Reagan administration, another arm of NED was created, Project Democracy, and was used for covert activi- ties, including arming the contras in viola- tion of congressional bans.

But NED’s covert role did not end with

the Iran-contra revelations.

Just last summer it was linked to a plan to co-ordinate and assist Nicaraguan opposi- tion groups that resulted in a July 1988 mobilization in Nandaime, Nicaragua, to plan internal destabilization. That meeting was attended by the U.S. ambassador to Nicaragua, an act of interference in Nicara- gua’s internal affairs which led to his expul- sion and another flap in U.S.-Nicaraguan relations.

Activities by NED and the two institutes and a poll by Radio Catolica may seem unrelated, but they are likely pieces ofa U.S. policy whose aim is the overthrow of the sovereign government of Nicaragua.

A May 4 article in the Panama City paper Critica shows how the policy of destabiliza- tion was employed in Panama:

“The U.S. government,” Critica said, “has supplied funds to the opposition par-

ties, allowed U.S. diplomats in Panama to”

advise and instruct opposition parties in tactics ..., constantly threatening to use force, and unjustifiably withheld funds

The U.S. arnd-Panama’s elections — apreview for Nicaragua’s vote?

belonging to the Panamanian people ....

“Tt is waging a worldwide anti-Panaman- ian disinformation campaign, carrying out polls rigged by U.S. diplomatic officials or by Caracas firms to present a distorted pic- ture of the situation in Panama, establishing a radio and TV interception network wher- eby it could alter local broadcasts.”

Other destabilization efforts, the article said, include “having U.S. diplomatic offi- cials constantly visit towns in the interior, sing facsimile

Activities by machines to dis- seminate false the National "Por publshed Endowment fears tours throughout the

for Democracy continent by pro- U.S. Panaman- anda poll by ians to discredit 4 the government, Radio and economically a supporting and Catolica may = encouraging sub- versive activities seem by Panamanian politicians in unrelated but) Washington,

like! Miami etc.” they are likely Though Man- uel Noriega is a pieces of.a-- far cry from: the----

Sandinista leader- U.S. policy ship of Nicara- gua, it is now whose aim is = ©bvious the U.S. government _ set the overthrow 1°‘ destabilize the Panamanian elections, pro- of the claimed them a ernment fraud even before gov they were held = and is now seek- of Nicaragua. ing to use the = ess it helped to

create to topple a government it doesn’t like. With the groundwork already being laid a few miles north, the same plan is already becoming clear.

Chuck Idelson is a staff writer for the U.S. People’s Daily World.

The chair of Exxon Inc., Lawrence Rawl, attending an annual shareholders’ meeting in Parsippiny, New Jersey ear- lier this month brushed aside criticism that the firm is a corporate criminal for spilling nearly 11 million gallons of crude oil into Alaska’s Prince William Sound last March 24.

The four-hour meeting was domi- nated by a debate on the worst spill in U.S. history and the best Exxon’s chair- man could promise was a new random drug and alcohol testing program to be administered to “several thousand” employees “including me.”

Hundreds rallied outside the share-

-evholder’s’ meeting hotel and+zreeted the coupon-clippers with shouts of “Exxon is a human error” and “Exxon is organ- ized crime.” Some stood on stilts with signs while mock tombstones bearing the names of Alaskan bays and inlets fouled by oil lined the long driveway leading to the hotel.

Meanwhile, the debate on whether double-hulled oil tankers would have prevented the spill or reduced the dam- age continues.

A New York Times article May 14 quoted several experts arguing that dou- ble hulls may have helped. “For some- thing like this,’ said Dr. William Morgan, director of ship hydromechan- ics at the U.S. Navy’s Washington test laboratory, “there might not have been any spill.”

Protesters at the Exxon aininiel fidating in New Jersey May 18.

Double-hulling debate points blame at Exxon

“For any accident, you’ve got to be better off with a double hull,” agreed Everett Hunt, director of the Maritime . Research Department at the Web Insti- tute of Naval Architecture in Glen Cove, New York.

Paul Atkinson, president of Sun Ship- building and Drydock, was definite in his assertion that there would have been “no spill of oil” if a double-hulled tanker had been in service. Atkinson’s company has built three double-hulled vessels, called “ecology tankers,” for the Valdez trade.

In the Exxon Valdez case, the single

‘hull tanker failed to clear Bligh Reef by

less than two metres, a distance which would have been more than covered bya double hull. A 1970 U.S. government formula provides for the gap between hulls of one foot for each 15 feet of beam. The Exxon Valdez is about 166 feet wide which would have meant a space

. between the two hulls of 11 feet ae than three metres).

“However, Exxon continues to contend that double hulls are not necessarily safer and cost more to build. The U.S. National Transportation Safety Board seems to agree. Its hearings did not address the issue of double hulls, saying the inquiry would concentrate on human factors. Firing a skipper, apparently, is more cost-effective.

GDR single parents given support

By RITA HOPPE

It would seem the definition and cause of poverty can change with the eye of the beholder.

An interesting view being pushed nowadays in the U.S. holds that poverty is caused by a disintegration of family struc- ture, and cited as proof are the following statistics: 1) Last year 24 per cent of U.S. children lived with one parent; 2) Most single-parent families are headed by women and such households have a pov- erty rate of 55 per cent.

These figures have led to the conclusion that because a growing number of women are raising their children alone, a social

- regression is occurring which is being

blamed for a new disease-like condition — something called the “inter-genera- tional transmission of poverty”’.

U.S. government leaders and their advisers describe the circumstances as a social problem of unprecedented complex-

ity for which they see no solution and no model in other countries to emulate. But a _ brief outline of the GDR’s experience may help point ways to a cure.

Here in the GDR, the family-structure statistics are roughly comparable. Sixty per cent of women having their first child are unmarried, and one in 10 children lives with his/her mother in a single parent fam- ily. Yet the poverty rate is zero.

According to prominent GDR social scientist Dr. Jutta Gysi, single-parent fam- ilies are an accepted feature of modern life. “It’s not a question of either glorifying or deploring this development,” she says, “but rather treating it as an inevitable fact of life for which society must make the necessary adjustments.”

Because it is recognized that one-parent families are here to stay, and because they still require special assistance of both a material and moral nature, GDR society has accepted and begun to address its col-

lective responsibility.

Worth noting are the considerable efforts aimed at providing positive social reinforcement to single mothers, who often find themselves in a particularly vulnerable situation. Since career advance- ment has proven to be one of the best routes toward greater personal success, companies are largely expected to provide special help in order to compensate single mothers for certain disadvantages they often encounter when caring for very young children. These women are then able to upgrade their job status without undue interruption.

Two examples of special assistance: a single parent receives fully-paid sick leave when off work to care for an ill child. (This benefit is not extended to a married parent of one child). And because a shortage of child care space remains, (currently at about 85 per cent availability), single par- ents get priority placement opportunities.

Pacific Tribune, June 12, 1989 e 9