Latin America demands 200-mile limit By RAUL HERNANDEZ (Prensa Latina) Ply all the Latin American Ntries back the claim to a pale limit for territorial ee of coastal countries. But ae ‘are different shades of =H 10n, expressed by _ three es of countries. ~ Montevideo Group — Ar- Pena, Brazil, Chile, Uruguay, ou Ecuador, Panama, El Sal- Or and Nicaragua — claim e miles as the limit of their Tritorial waters. nae Peru and Ecuador, in Gan ‘orm the South Pacific sign P, whose representatives €d in 1952, the Declaration s antiago, which proclaims ane ppausive sovereignty and ae aa of these countries car e 200 miles of sea adja- to their coasts. €anwhile, 11 Caribbean countries met in the Dominican Republic, where in 1971 they signed the Santo Domingo Docu- ment, which establishes a 12- mile limit for territorial waters with a 200-mile limit for “patri- monial waters.” The document was signed by Mexico, the Do- minican Republic, Costa Rica, Guatemala, Nicaragua (which also belongs to the Montevideo Group), Honduras, Venezuela, Colombia, Haiti, Barbados and Trinidad-Tobago. Jamaica, Guya- na, and Montevideo Group mem- bers Panama and El Salvador, abstained. Outspoken Group Cuba, which was not invited to the Santo Domingo meeting, backs the South Pacific Group’s 200-mile claim. Since Bolivia and Paraguay are land-locked countries they have merely shown interest in ARGENTINE CP OPENS LEGAL HEADQUARTERS in B B UENOS AIRES—The Communist Party reopened its headquarters eee Aires after President Hector J. Campora repealed a law Beeewed it for seven years. The anti-communist law was one €ral imposed by military regimes that ran Argentina- from mid-1966 Theo until Campora took office. Tecent el Ip aaee 2 million votes cast. Ommunist Party supported an opponent of Campora in the ections; Oscar Allende, who polled 900,000 out of about Said at ommunist Party secretary for Buenos Aires, Ariel Mariani, Sino opening of the party headquarters, “We are willing to Ome plans of the government.” © Communist Party has a membership of over 100,000 in Argentina. 5 AIG PRG CRITICIZES CANADA ICCS TEAM Vietna ON — The Provisional Revolutionary Government of South he ats strongly criticized the record of the Canadian delegation to Show ational Commission for Control and Supervision (ICCS) Y after Canada announced it was withdrawing its ICCS team. tment by the U.S. and Saigon. The PRG categorically rejects Dlaj € distortions the Canadian delegates have thought up to ex- © reason for their withdrawal from the ICCS.” W ASHI JACKSON CALLS GAS ‘SHORTAGE’ A PLOT lt th NGTON — Sen. Henry M. Jackson (D-Wash.) said June of ig © gasoline shortage is ‘‘a deliberate, conscious contrivance” : il companies. He told a press interview that there is a Stow} chem n8 3 nd increasingly widespread conviction” that there is a ™m ‘ 4 “J Ehyj € to destroy independent refiners, drive up fuel prices and get TO: Ih hmental laws repealed. Co ro to Chairman Lewis A. Engman of the Federal Trade the eae Jackson asked for a report within 30 days on whether 8asolin On’s oil giants are attempting to seize total control of the th ory’; Market. He also wrote that the “so-called ‘conspiracy bility 3 S Supported by circumstantial evidence and .. . (has) credi- Ong knowledgeable observers of the industry.” A BERNATHY DEMANDS NEW PRESIDENTIAL ELECTIONS to ~ Separate calls for Nixon Nen Own came from promi- end. oo over the week- Sdeak;. Ralph ~ Abernathy, Bate ne In front of the Water- for e tel in Washington, called tions aS Custer and new elec- Selva, ti € ‘must address our- the i © the total removal of Untiy aa administration . . . Presig ave new elections of all the €nt who will represent Clareg. People,” Abernathy de- A sor, StMathy, whose _predeces- Wag 4" Martin Luther King, Witetan,, ctim of government Sutspoken was supported by Beniamin Sei advocate Dr. N ; Secretary York, former defense Shou has fatall REV. RALPH ABERNATHY y. Clarke Clifford suggested that both Nixon and Agnew “andidate. on to be replaced by a man chosen by Nixon from 8 offered by Congress. Clifford said that the administration ‘Merest. Y compromised its ability to function in the national obtaining adequate access to the sea for commercial purposes. So far more than 45 countries back the 200-mile limit. And the United States theory of a 12- mile limit is losing favor. The old theories of the 3- and 12-mile limit were conceived with a view to defence needs and not to the need to preserve the fishing and mineral resources of the sea. The South Pacific group has been the most outspoken sup- porter of the 200-mile limit in the face of United States refusal to recognize it. Peru, in parti- cular, has played an outstanding role in stating the legal case for the 200-mile limit. The relatively new concept of patrimonial waters adopted by the Santo Domingo groups is rated by some observers as an American move to undermine claims for sovereignity up to the 200-mile limit. Best Fishing The patrimonial waters for- mula is based on the theory that waters beyond the 12-mile limit are part of the “open sea,” which belongs to the internatio- nal community and where the neighboring coastal state cannot exercise full sovereignty. Thus the coastal nations would lack the essence of sover- eignty — the autonomous right of legislation — in the waters between 12 and 200 miles off- shore, the very area where fish- ing is best. But the 200-mile limit is not dn invention of the Latin Ame- rican nations which propound it today, as some of the world’s major fishing powers have mali- ciously insinuated. Before Latin American nations ever took up the 200-mile theory, the United States had taken a whole series of unilateral decisions from the Thirties onwards. Continental Shelf One theory promoted by Pre- sident Truman, was that coastal nations should have jurisdiction over the waters and sea-bottom to the limits of the continental sheif (defined as when the waters reach a depth of 200 metres). Washington well knew that the waters off Chile, Peru and Ecuador, where fishing is best, go deep very rapidly. Thus Tru- man hoped to keep these coun- tries’ territorial waters within a narrow three-mile strip. But Chile, Peru and Ecuador refused to accept the continental shelf trick as proposed by Tru- man and later the First United Nations. Maritime Rights Con- ference (Geneva 1958). All three claimed exclusive sovereignty and jurisdiction over the sea- bottom and waters up to a 200- - mile limit, not matter the depth of the water. Conditions Ideal Several geographic, economic, social and juridical reasons have made these countries the stan- dard bearers of the 200-mile limit. The cold Humbolt current which affects parts of Chile and Equador’s coasts, and the whole of Peru’s, coupled with the - southerly winds and the obstac- le posed by the Andes, leads to condensation without rainfall in these areas. Resulting cold currents bring to the surface the mineral and organic elements of the deep. And when this plankton reaches the surface it multiplies extra fast thanks to the sun, produc- ing ultra-rich feeding grounds for fish within the 200-mile place in Santiago, Chile in 1974. limit. Apart from the coastal spe- cies, the most sought after fish, such as tuna and anchoveta, come from far offshore to feed on the plankton off these coasts. And in the case of Peru there are an estimated 15 million sea- ‘birds whose droppings are the world’s richest known fertilizer. Without the extraordinary abyn- - dance of fish off the coast of Peru, these birds, and their droppings, would cease to exist. Free Navigation The three South Pacific Group nations have repeatedly stated that freedom of navigation and flight in the area between 12 and 200 miles offshore remains completely effective, so long as it is not used for warlike pur- poses or illegal fishing. Besides, these countries’ re- gulations allow foreign vessels to fish species whose capture does not affect local industries and consumption, so long as con- servation measures are observ- ed and permits obtained from the authorities in exchange for reasonable payments. And while the Santiago De- claration’s signers are intransig- The Third United Nations Conference on Maritime Rights will take ent in rejecting liberty of ex- ploitation which favors only the powerful: capitalist countries, and which poses a threat to the existence of species, they be- lieve there would be pluralism, particularly at regional level, to allow for differing situations caused by irregularities of coast- line and the seas. The Latin American countries’ defense of maritime and sub- marine resources has constitut- ed one of the major points of the continent’s diplomacy. Meet in Chile Next year the Third United Nations Conference on Mari- time Rights is to be held in Santiago de Chile. Most of Latin America will go to Chile united behind the theory that every na- tion ought to have control over its marine and submarine re- sources within a zone adjacent to its coast up to 200 miles, whether the.zone is considered territorial or patrimonial waters. But the true test of their unity will come when it comes to defending these rights against the merciless ‘pillaging of the big western fishing companies, particularly those of the U.S. Canada-Algeria trade OTTAWA — Increased trade between Canada and Algeria was on the agenda for the arri- val this week of Layachi Yaker, Algerian minister of commerce, and 15 Algerian officials and businessmen. “We look on this as a most important trade mission as Al- geria is currently expanding its economy at a rapid rate and is seeking goods and services of all kinds,” said Alastair Gillespie, Canada’s minister of trade, in- dustry and commerce. “Algeria is now in the fourth year of the first of two four-year development programs during which up to $17-billion will be spent on manufactured goods of all kinds,” he said. At \ present Canada exports some $30-million worth of goods and services to Algeria each year. The bulk of exports con- sists of wheat and timber. Cana- dian firms are also active in oil drilling, engineering and const- ruction in Algeria. Canada imports less than one million dollars worth of Alge- rian products each year, a figure the visitors will seek ways and means of increasing. Charter of workers’ rights A-new charter is to drawn up in Varna, Bulgaria in October 1973 by the 8th World Trade Union Congress. It is expected that the Congress will adopt new international instruments to defend trade union rights on a much broader basis than the in- struments now existing. The new instruments are planned to cover all workers without exception and should particularly lay down the following principles: The right to strike as a funda- - mental method for the workers ‘to defend their basic economic and social interests; the right to form unions, both on the occu- pational and inter-occupational levels as well as on the factory, _ local, national, regional and in- ternational levels; the right to trade union organizations, with- out exception, to represent workers with the aim of defend- ing their interests, negotiating and concluding collective agree- ments; and guarantee the free exercise of trade union rights for workers in factories and workplaces. The new charter is also ex- pected to be of major importance to the struggle of the workers of the world for their rights and basic aims. PACIFIC TRIBUNE—FRIDAY, JUNE 8, 1973—PAGE 7