Editorial PM the lawbreaker In an action reminiscent of a U.S. Marine “mop-up” operation, the Canadian army has violated the agreement reached with Native negotiators for a joint dismantling of the barricades at Oka, Kahnawake and Kanesatake. With the barricades down, it has since surrounded and advanced into the three reserves, setting up its own razor wire barricades and invading the First Nation’s seat of government and culture, the longhouse. In the wake of the troops, comes the dreaded Surete du Quebec which is rounding up residents. Those arrested allege they have been tortured and beaten. The state seems intent on inciting the Warriors into a bloody confronta- tion. A “misfired” gun from a “nervous” soldier; an army canister “catch- ing” on fire; the raid on the longhouse; patrols past school yards; withhold- ing food and medicine; the brutality against residents all add up to psychological warfare. Negotiations don’t take place at gunpoint. The guns are there because the state has no interest in resolving the issues in dispute. Its aim is to “subdue” Native militancy as a warning to all aboriginal peoples. This is a dangerous precedent. The army has not been called out against civilians since the War Measures Act was invoked in 1970. The then-ruling Liberals used the facade of constitutional government by reconvening Parliament before taking action. Prime Minister Brian Mulroney has in effect declared war on two fronts within the last few weeks without the public scrutiny Parliament would provide. : It is reasonable to ask where the PM is getting his advice. Mulroney announced Canada would be following the U.S. into the Persian Gulf hours after a meeting with the American president. The army was ordered into the reserves on the heels of a second visit with Bush. It would appear the U.S. is not only setting Canadian foreign policy, it is a direct player in our domestic affairs as well. In solidarity actions across the country Canadians are voicing their loathing with this U.S.-styled gun boat diplomacy. First Nations have embarked on a campaign of civil disobedience, a protest of last resort, to stay the state’s hand at Oka. There has been much fulminating about from the PM and his cohorts about the need for law and order. But the law breakers in this showdown are not the aboriginal peoples. It is the PM who is operating in violation of Canadian law by refusing to recall Parliament; it is he who is disregarding United Nations statutes recognizing the right of peoples to self-determina- tion; it is he who is flagrantly disregarding fundamental human rights. LAF O ~ EDITOR Sean Griffin ASSOCIATE EDITOR Dan Keeton BUSINESS & CIRCULATION MANAGER Mike Proniuk GRAPHICS Angela Kenyon Published weekly at 2681 East Hastings Street Vancouver, B.C. V5K 1Z5 Phone: (604)251-1186 Fax: (604) 251-4232 Subscription rate: Canada: $20 one year; $35 two years; foreign $32 one year Second Class mail registration number 1560 hed since he returned to his native city following the dramatic change of government in Czechoslovakia, Can- adian shoe tycoon Thomas Bata has become the darling of the media, the ul- timate symbol of the entrepreneur- turned-multinational who takes his free enterprise skills and wisdom to breathe new life into industry that has been suf- focating under socialist management. Indeed, Stoddard Publishing hopes to parlay that adulation into a successful book publishing venture with the publication of Bata: Shoemaker to the World, which is slated to hit the bookshelves later this year. And this month, Report on Business Magazine has reprinted a chapter from the book, ensuring that it will get wide atten- tion. What is ironic is that a book on the Bata Shoe Organization or Bata himself would hardly have been an overwhelming hit a decade ago — not so much because the events in Czechoslovakia didn’t provide the necessary backdrop, but because Bata’s reputation as a corporate citizen brought him contempt throughout most of the Third World. Bata operations in South Africa were notorious for their appalling conditions and the company was more than once the target of a worldwide boycott for its brutal strikebreaking in Latin America. Not surprisingly, Bata complains in his memoir about the “persecution that had been inflicted on many of the employees” who had worked for Bata in the original Czechoslovakian plant at Zlin before it was expropriated, but has nothing to say about the persecution that was inflicted on thousands of his employees in many of the 73 countries that he operates as the world’s largest shoe multinational. But will there be a change in corporate policy now that Bata is returning trium- phant to the place where his father founded the company? Well, if there is any change, the Bata workers in India haven’t noticed. Flashes, the biweekly newsbulletin of the World Federation of Trade Unions, re- ported in June that workers in the Bata plants in Batangar, India were appealing to Bata workers throughout the world for as- sistance and solidarity to counter the com- pany’s efforts to break the union and con- tract-out most of the work. Over the last few years, the work force in Batangar has been cut from some 12,000 to 8,600 and over the past several months the company has resorted to new tactics, including threatened closures, punitive layoffs and denial of wages to several thousand workers — all in violation of an agreement which was signed last year fol- lowing a three-month lockout. According to Rabin Majumdar, presi- dent of the Bata-Mazdoor Unions, some 5,000 workers received no pay for half of May and June as a result of a company tactic of sending workers home when they report for work on the pretext that supplies have not been delivered. In addition, he People and Issues said, new closures have been threatened, undermining the area’s employment base still further. All of which provides a telling clue as to how the post-war Bata empire was built —not by any entrepreneurial wizardry but by maintaining sweatshop conditions and operating factories that can be moved quickly to wherever the labour is cheapest. The trade unions in Zlin are not likely to be sharing the enthusiasm for Bata’s return. * OF W: note this month that Soviet News and Views, the monthly digest of news and commentary put out by the Soviet Embassy in Ottawa, is to become the latest victim of hozrachat —cost-ac- counting — and will cease publication. But before it goes, we offer a glimpse of this intriguing event, written up in the June issue. Apparently short of things to sponsor —or perhaps hoping to find a really devas- tating heckler for political rallies —a num- ber of Muscovites decided to organize a » shouting contest, with a 5,000-ruble prize as the main attraction. Among the sponsors were the approp- riately-named organization Veter (Wind), billed as an organizer of “non-traditional” events, as well as a branch of the Soviet Children’s Foundation. Unfortunately, they were only able to raise 2,000 of the 5,000-ruble prize money from registration fees and had to cough up — the inevitable result of all that shouting — with the rest of the money themselves. So who won after all that? According to News and Views, “despite the greaternum- ber of male participants, it was a woman who outshouted the rest.” aE ith the tense situation in Nicaragua today, and the many questions that arise, this is one not to miss. On Sept. 14, Nicaraguan trade unionist Sandra Ramos will provide an update on the life and death struggle of unions facing intensified pressures from privatization, revitalized death squads and other trap- pings of the U.S.-backed UNO govern- ment that took power from the Sandinistas last February. Ramos has been most recently involved in training women trade union activists. A national executive member and head of the women’s secretariat of the Sandinista Workers Central, she has also taught at the central’s labour school and has organ- ized several groups of workers on Nicaragua’s primarily English-speaking Atlantic coast. The place is the Maritime Labour Centre, 111 Victoria Dr., Vancouver, and the time is 8 p.m. The following day, Sept. 15, she will focus specifically on women in a session from 3 to 5 p.m., also at the Maritime Centre. 4 « Pacific Tribune, September 10, 1990