Editonal

Hands off Nicaragua!

At the moment his contra policy (and his contras) are collapsing, just
when Congress has stopped all funding, coinciding with the news that top
Reagan aides are being indicted in the Iran-Contragate scandal —the
news of a Nicaraguan “invasion” of neighbouring Honduras once again
bails out the president.

It happened before, in 1986, when a convenient Sandinista “invasion”
saved the Reagan contra package in Congress. Funding was continued,
resulting in an extension of the dirty U.S. war.

This time Reagan has actually done what he has long dreamed of: he
has introduced U.S. military units directly into the picture by sending four
battalions (3,200 troops) to Honduras. Units of the 82nd Airborne (the
Grenada invasion division) and 7th Infantry Division were flown into the
country March 17 in response to an “invitation” wrung out of a com-
pliant Honduran regime.

What appears to be unfolding is a desperate last-ditch effort by the
Reagan administration to salvage a discredited and bankrupt policy in
Central America. When he took office in 1980, Reagan made it crystal
clear he would attempt to topple the Sandinistas.

The seven year-long contra war was set up to do just that. It was
designed to use American dollars and Nicaraguan lives to pursue U.S.
policy in the region.

And while the cost to Nicaragua has been appalling, Reagan’s contra
policy has failed in its objective.

And as the final days of the Reagan White House count down, as
Congress tires of this dirty, unproductive war, Ronald Reagan tries one
last throw of the dice. He now plays his trump card by throwing United
States forces directly into the equation.

President Ortega has placed his people on alert. The government warns
of that the U.S. faces another Vietnam should it become mired down ina
land war in Central America.

These are dangerous moments when a decrepit old cowboy tries to turn
the clock of history back to the days of Teddy Roosevelt, the United Fruit
Company and gunboat diplomacy.

All people of goodwill should stand in defence of the brave and
besieged Nicaraguan people. The Canadian government should be
pressed to tell its friends in the U.S. to keep its hands off Nicaragua, to
respect its sovereignty and to permit the peace process to take hold.

parr ow
Ae a ih tor
5 art (f= ae en TINTS Seem .
= Pt tee ee

were

eV wee 5| 8

RXBETSE

FIRIBUONE

EDITOR

Sean Griffin
ASSISTANT EDITOR
Dan Keeton

BUSINESS & CIRCULATION MANAGER

Mike Proniuk |

Published weekly at

2681 East Hastings Street
Vancouver, B.C.

V5K 1Z5

Phone (604) 251-1186

Subscription Rate:
Canada @ $16 one year @ $10 six
months @ Foreign @ $25 one year

Second class mail

GRAPHICS
Angela Kenyon .

registration number 1560

le warned, a few issues ago, about

the possible dangers of eating fish
reared in any of British Columbia’s fish
farms. We noted in-a centrespread that
pen-reared fish are raised just above, or
possible even in, organic wastes composed
of feces and rotting food, and we warned

of the potential danger from antibodies
and other chemicals to which farm salmon
are exposed.

We also reported critics’ warnings
about environmental damage, and the real
possibility that the farms are being used to
replace the wild salmon fishery.

Now we report that it may be necessary
to look that store-bought salmon a little
deeper in the mouth.

The reason is a recent item we found in
The Globe and Mail, concerning the farm
rearing of Coho salmon in, of all places,
Chile. Started in the late Seventies by the
chief salmon farm company, Salmones
Antarctica, and backed by capital from the
United States’ giant ITT Corp., the indus-
try now sports some 90 floating farms
along Chile’s southern coast and in 1986-
87 reaped 1,600 tons.

The article also notes that Norwegian
firms, which are investing heavily in B.C.’s
farms, and Japan are engaged in experi-
mental farming in Chile with other salmon
species.

In B.C., residents, fishermen and envir-
onmentalists have banded together to pro-
test the unchecked proliferation of salmon

farms. But popular protests in Chile have

been dealt with harshly since the CIA-
engineered coup which overthrew the
Allende government.

In reading the Globe item one gets the
impression that much of the harvest is not
destined for Chileans — many of whom
are destitute, thanks to the policies of Chi-
lean dictator Augusto Pinochet. It states
that each week, 34 tons of Coho are taken
from the waters around the village of
Puerto Chacabuco and flown to the U.S.

In fact, the largest customers for Chile’s
frozen or smoked salmon are the U.S. and
Canada, the Globe article, from Asso-
ciated Press, reports.

We have no idea about the health
hazards posed by Pinochet’s version of
farm salmon. But we know that purchase
of his country’s products — including
grapes, wines and other Chilean exports
— helps prop up his regime, and is
hazardous to the health of democracy in
Chile.

* * *

Wis Roger Prentice of North Van-
couver died March 15 at the age of
86, a long family tradition of world travel
ended. His great-grandfather, William

People and Issues

Tanner, settled in Western Australia in
1830. His grandfather, Col. H.C.B.
Tanner, went to British India, where he
served nearly 30 years with the Indian
Survey and won recognition as an artist
for his oils and watercolours of the Hima-
layas.

Roger’s own family were early residents
ef Salt Spring Island and North Van-
couver after they immigrated from Britain
in 1911, and Roger himself went to sea asa
marine engineer on liners and freighters
for two years in the mid-Twenties.

In the Thirties he and his brother Guy,
who died in 1973, worked in logging
camps and sawmills, became active in
union organization and joined the Com-
munist Party, forming lifelong ties with
progressive causes. For Roger, this
included membership in the Machinists
Union from 1943 to 1962, when he worked
as an engine fitter in North Vancouver
shipyards.

The Cuban Revolution in 1959 rekindled
his urge to travel and from the first of his
many visits there in 1963 he became an
ardent supporter through the Canada-
Cuba Friendship Association. The out-
come was publication, with John Kirk, of

A Fist and The Letter: Revolutionary Poems
of Latin America, a translated anthology
of new Cuban poets, followed by Roger’s
own smaller collection, Three Cuban
Poets.

fee hee 3

here are a few points in last week’s

supplement on free trade — in the
article on culture — that require some
elaboration.

When it was noted that cultural institu-
tions are effectively put back into the free
trade pact — after it was promised these
would be exempt — the article stated that
retaliation by the United States for any
subsidies to Canadian culture must be of
“equivalent commercial effect.” What
that means is that the U.S. can retaliate
against such protectionist measures in any
field it desires — steel imports, for
example — as longas the retaliatory mea-
sure does not impose a stiffer economic
penalty on Canada than the Canadian
subsidy or protectionist measure allegedly
imposes on the U.S.

And mention of the ill-fated Cinema
Act did not note that the intent of the
proposed legislation was to allow Cana-
dian distributors access to films for which
U.S. firms did not have world rights —
European films, for instance — replacing
the system whereby Canadian theatres
must acquire these through a U.S. chain.
The profits from the measure would have
gone to financing Canadian made films.

4 Pacific Tribune, March 23, 1988