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Two-way democracy

There’s been a lot of free advice lately flowing from West to East concerning the construction of democratic and equitable social systems.

Western politicians, editorial writers, columnists, business people and others have all been offering their views to places such as the GDR, Poland, Hungary, Romania, the USSR (and now Nicaragua) on how it’s done. We’ve listened to them every night on television tell the world that socialism is dead, that “Western democracy” has won the

And, while the huge shifts in Eastern Europe, the “second revolution” in the USSR, and a massive rejection of decades of anti-democratic rule parading as “socialism” is changing the world landscape, it just may be a-bit premature for western fapitalism to

declare global victory just yet.

Certainly, the reasons for UNO’s victory in Nicaragua have more to do with the fact that the “democratic” United States has brutalized and battered the country and its people than its does with some economic analysis dreamed up in a Western newsroom.

And the reasons for sweeping changes in Eastern Europe are fundamentally internal, having to do with these countries’ economic, social and political aspirations which will demand resolution irrespective of which political label is adopted:

Warning signs are up everywhere that there is no quick fix, no multi-billion dollar bail-out coming from Uncle Sam, the World Bank, Japanese capitalism or the combined power of Western Europe. Certainly history should tell us this. World capitalism didn’t have to wait for changes in Europe to extend a benevolent helping hand. Asia, Africa and Latin America have been urgently requiring aid for decades

without much response.

The fact is, the drive toward people’s power, toward more democratic systems; the toppling of old, corrupt and anti-people regimes, the demand for a better life, should be of little comfort to capitalism. Television images of masses of people on the move taking charge of their lives and futures in Eastern Europe should evoke little cheering in

the boardrooms of the corporate elite or on the squash courts of their country clubs..

The Mulroney government, with its dismal 19 per cent public support, is hardly ina position to preach democracy to anybody. And, as the GST struggle grows, as the covers are torn off the free trade and Meech Lake sell outs, as the Tories and their

friends ¢ontinue to assault Canadians at every turn, the images of hundreds of

thousands toppling corrupt regimes (as Thatcher now sees) may not only emanate

from abroad.

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EDITOR

Sean Griffin

ASSOCIATE EDITOR

Dan Keeton

BUSINESS & CIRCULATION MANAGER Mike Proniuk GRAPHICS

Angela Kenyon

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any Tribune readers will have seen

Vancouver Sun columnist Nicole Parton’s five columns on the Carmanah Valley issué in which she weighed in against the efforts by the environmental movement to preserve the valley, accusing its supporters of “rapacious greed.” What they may not have heard is some of the reverberations that resulted from the arti- cles.

Just last week, the right-wing magazine British Columbia Report ran a story on several reporters at the Sun who had taken objection to Parton’s one-sided, pro- MacMillan Bloedel stance in the columns - and had sought an opportunity to get something published to present another view.

As B.C. Report put it, “out to get her were not distant bigots and rednecks but her own lily-left colleagues in the news- room.” The story, which was headed “The Get-Nicole Parton campaign,” added that the reporters were “among the patsies whose gullibility” had been described by one Peter McAllister, mentioned in Par- ton’s columns as a stockbroker-turned- environmentalist who conducts lectures , on media relations.

As it turns out, a story by Sun reporter Mark Hume did appear in the Sun March 7, which argued, point by point, that Par- ton’s opinions were an echo of the views of Ron Arnold, the U.S. anti-environ- mentalist consultant who advised the forest industry in setting up the “Share the Forest” organizations and who himself heads the Centre for the Defence of Free Enterprise in the U.S. But Hume’s piece was, of course, only one story amidst a five-column barrage by Parton.

To add yet another can of gas to the fire, the International Woodworker, published by the [WA-Canada, reprinted one of Par- ton’s columns on the editorial page of its March issue under the headline: “Green generation becoming the greed genera-

People and Issues

tion.”

Parton’s series of columns was unusual in that it went on a single issue for several days, something that editors usually dis- courage columnists from doing. But the timing was more significant, since the columns were designed to do some heavy hitting on public opinion just as the pro- vincial government prepares to make its decision on logging in the Carmanah Val- ley.

But then none of us would be so cynical as to think that any of this had anything to do with the fact that Adam Zimmerman, the chairman of MacMillan Bloedel, sits on the board of diectors of Southam Inc.,

owner of the Vancouver Sun. Would we? -

* * *

Pror' in the United States have waited a long time for the big “peace divi- dend” that should come as a result of the dramatic reduction in cold war tensions around the world and the accompanying reductions in military expenditures. So far, the Pentagon hasn’t sharpened too many pencils. — hoping instead to find a new pretext for new arms expenditures — but one of the minor budget cuts will bring some benefits to Canadians.

The federal Department of National Defence confirmed Monday that the low- level flight tests scheduled for the Cana- dian northwest had been cancelled because of the cuts.

Defence Minister Bill McKnight had announced the flights last. June, in response to a request from the U.S. Stra- tegic Air Command. Originally slated for September, 1989, using B-52 and B-1B

bombers as well as F-1 1 and CF-18 fighter jets, the tests were to be postponed until this year.

But even before that, on Oct. 9 and 10 last year, residents in the Chilcotins were startled as six fighter jets carried out war- game low-level flight tests that were not previously announced. The tests promp- ted some organizing work towards the formation of a coalition against low-level tests.

The peace movement has welcomed the DND announcement — but notes that the campaign will go on to stop the low-

level tests that continue over Innu territory in Labrador.

* *

hen he tried to travel to the United States some years ago, Tribune

reader Eric Waugh found himself on the infamous U.S. “subversive organization” blacklist (which, it was later revealed, Canadian security agencies had helped the Americans to compile and keep up to date). When he wrote to his MP, Tory Chuck Cook, to complain, the letter he got in return suggested Cook was even more confused than the issue he was trying to explain. And last month, when he wrote the Canadian Security and Intelligence Service, asking for release of any docu- ments the agency might have on him, the reply he got was a classic in bureaucratic doublespeak and obstructionism.

Readers may recall a story in this column last Oct. 9 in which Waugh was commenting on the action of U.S. immi- gration in barring him from travelling to the U.S. — even for the purpose of chang-

ing planes — on the basis of his political views. Following a series of articles on the blacklist by Southam reporter Peter Calamai which appeared about the same time, he decided to follow it up by writing to Cook and seeking release of personal files from CSIS.

Last week, Michel Richer, the access to information and privacy co-ordinator for CSIS, wrote back, informing Waugh that two data banks at the agency had been searched for information on him. -

In one file, he was told, “no personal information concerning you was located.” It was listed as SIS/P-PU-015. But on the other, known as SIS/P-PU-010, the drawer was immediately slammed shut.

‘‘Access to this file is refused,” the letter stated, “pursuant to sub-sections 16 (1) and (2) of the Privacy Act since any per- sonal information, if it existed in this bank, could reasonably be expected to be exemp- ted by virtue of one or more of sections 19 (1), 21, 22 (1) (a), 22 (1).(b) and 26 of the Act.”

The leaps in logic there bring to mind that oft-quoted line about an “intelligence

agency” being a ¢ontradiction in terms.

Note, for example, that CSIS is saying first that it searched two data banks, then ques- tions whether one has any information on Waugh but adds that if it did, he would not be allowed access to it. If only to figure out how CSIS minds work, it will be worthwhile pursuing that search through the Privacy Commissioner as provided under the Act.

But the case also demonstrates the secretive nature of CSIS and its continuing obsession with maintaining surveillance and files on ordinary people who are active in a variety of popular movements in this country. And what makes it all the more disturbing is that CSIS came through the last federal budget relatively unscathed, with $190 million set aside for 1990-91 to cover its spying activities.

4 Pacific Tribune, March 19, 1990