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About Portland observer. (Portland, Or.) 1970-current | View Entire Issue (April 7, 1977)
Portland Observer Thursday. April 7. 1977 Page 8 From behind the wall Capitol building. Mr. Henry reports that the mass gathering was for the purpose (SB 850) of asking the Legislators for the appoint ment of a Black nine-member commission to study the past and current legal, economic, education, social and political conditions of Oregon Blacks, and the commission would recommend to the Governor and legislature concerns that would improve the opportunities for Blacks in Oregon. All this is in Senate Bill 850? So this Reporter, once again went strolling throughout behind the walls asking two important questions to the first 30 Black inmates he met. 1. Did you hear about the mass gathering of Black organizations (fore- mentioned) being in Salem last month? Not one individual questionned was aware of that fact. by Larry Baker Salem, O.S.P. Cerrespondent And The Music Gees— Round & Round Do you mean to tell us, 300 Blacks incarcerated at Oregon State Peniten tary, Oregon Women’s Correctional Cen ter and the Oregon Correctional Institu tion, who are housed right here in Salem, that on Monday, March 21, 1977, such organizations as the Portland and Corval lis NAACP, Albina Ministerial Associa tion, United Minority Workers, Urban League of Portland, along with the Oregon Black Justice Committee, were in this city????? Thanks to Calvin O.L. Henry, who writes a column on Black current events throughout the Willamette Valley for the Salem Statesman, on March 27th for bringing this valuable information to our attention, because it is a fact, not one Black prisoner this Reporter questioned had knowledge ot such a large collection of our Black Oregon leaders assembling anywhere in Salem, let alone in our State 2. Do you know what S.B. 850 is? Not one individual knew - In fact the sicken ing part was some of the replies. One Black inmate thought it was a new aircraft, another stated “It sounds like a new zoning code” and still another, questioned it being a new drug. Is communication needed between the Black people in Oregon's prisons and Institutions and Oregon’s Bleak commun ities organizations? — You better bet your chittlin and turnip greens it is. Can't it be understood, that if organ ized properly, each one ofus incarcerated Black brothers and sisters only needs to contact five members of his or her family who could commit themselves to support any constructive or meaningful thing our Oregon Black leaders need - that's 1500 not counting what they could get their white fellow inmates to muster up out of their families - that’s saying something heavy. Something that any Governor or legislator clearly understands. We, who are caged may have been weakened by whatever force which placed our lives in this position - but we are not helpless. When you witness week after week, young Blacks herded through these barred gates with only peach-fuzz under their chins -17-18-19-20 years of age, carrying sentences of 20-30-50-120 years • Life. You begin to wonder, where does the sanity lie? While society blames the courts in Oregon for the recent crime wave, the Oregon courts are blaming the prisons and institutions for non-rehabilitation of its subjects and the Oregon prisons and institutions blame society for not slotting them enough money in which to do rehabilitation - So the music will continue to go round and round-An expanding vicious circle. This Reporter does not question the sincerity for the needed study of the Black 9-member commission, becuase we Blacks in Oregon who have lived here through the “W ar on Poverty" age and the “W ar on Crime” era have grown immune to being studied. What does annoy and irritate this Reporter is. What in the hell is going to be done about that study and recomenda- tion when the results scream that same old song and dance tune - “More jobs, decent housing, equal education, ade quate lesral assistance, and more Blacks in the political arena, etc., etc., etc.,?" We pray that our Oregon Black lead ers, our Black communities organization will never let it be written with such an extreme important purpose, without our knowledge -we, who have the to live here for the time being. I t also is a prayer that they will take advantage of us Black brothers and sisters hidden behind these walls for whatever purpose that would benefit our families and friends at home, because only collectively can we govern and determine our own destiny. Palestinians in the Arabs world IFourth of Four Parts) by T.D . Allman JE R U S A LE M , (PNS) - Since the bloody Palestinian defeat by Jordan's King Hussein in Black September, 1970, Israel has had one irrefutable response to criticisms of its treatment of the Palestin ians. It is that the Arabs have treated the Palestinians even worse. There are no mass graves of slaughtered Palestinians in the Gaza, as in Beirut's Tel Zaatar camp, demolished by Syrian and Leban ese Christian forces last year. The Palestinians on the Israeli bank of the Jordan River are freer than the Palestin ians on the Jordanian side. While Palestinians in Israel openly denounced a government report calling them inferior to Jews, the jails of Syria filled up with Palestinians who opposed President Assad's intervention in Leb anon. 1 Israeli troops killed 26 Palestinians during last year's protests. Perhaps 8,000 Palestinians, mostly civilians, were killed during the Lebanese civil war. As Israel Koenig, governor of Israel's northern region, conceded in his report critical of the Palestinians, “the lack of tolerance shown by the middle-class Jew toward the Arab citizen...can amount to real hatred." But that hatred is muted in contrast to the vicious anti-Palestinian statements one requently hears in Am man. Damascus and Christian Lebanon. “It is a simple truth,” observed Mo hammad Hasan Mulhim, the Palestinian n ^ K B ir n tm mayor of the West Bank town of Halhul, “that our only free elections have been held under the Israelis. Our ambition is not to have one occupation force replaced by another.” His Jericho colleague. Mayor Abed El Aziz El-Sweity, expressed a similar view. “We Palestinians know we have no real friends on either side, " he said. “That is why we want a state of our own." In Damascus, PLO Ex ecutive Committee Secretary-General Mohanned Nashashibi said, “There are two kinds of Palestinians, those ruled by Israel and those ruled by Arabs. Why do you think we (The PLO) get such support from both? Our people want something better than either alternative." Last year, when President Hafiz al- Assad sent troops of Saiqa (the Syrian- controlled Palestinian group) into Leb anon as a counterforce to the PLO, Saiqa soldiers deserted their Syrian officers en masse to join troops loyal to Yasser Arafat, and Saiqa commander Musbah Budayri was captured by PLO units. Everywhere one hears Palestinians say they want no part of a Saiqalike Palestin ian state, even if the Israelis should permit it the trappings of sovereignty. “Our struggle always has been a dual struggle," says Khalil Al-Wazi, a major PLO strategist and one of the founders of Fateh, the Palestine National Liberation Movement. “The struggle against the Israelis gets the most attention. But the struggle for Arab recognition of our rights has been much more costly." PLO officials in Beirut say twice as Residential-Commercial HOW ? . . . W H Y . . . His business has grown, as we have, with the finest staff of CARPENTERS, DESIGNERS and ESTIMATORS in the trade. NEIL KELLY •Offices • Stores • Kitchens • Baths • Spec. Cabinet work The NO PRESERVATIVES ADDED COMPANY 735 N. Alberta, Portland. Oregon 97217 Call Now 287-4176 b re a d MADE WITH PURE LIQLND VEGETABLE SHORTENING Baked just right for you! Arab opposition to independent Pales tinian action has had another important effect. "Israel destroyed our national rights,” one PLO official said. “But what we want from the Israelis is justice, not revenge. It is the savagery of Black September and Tel Zaatar that never will be forgotten. As for the Syrians, we feel deep regret at having to fight them, a deep sadness that things in Lebanon had to come to that.” Whether the Palestinians wanted to fight President Assad's troops or not, the Syrian intervention closed the circle of Palestinian disenchantment with the Arab states. Y et Lebanon does not appear to have been as devastating as Black September. “The Palestinians still have a force in being,” one high-ranking U.S. diplomat recently observed. 'Tody the PLO has more weapons and more troops than it did a year ago. President Assad probably could not get rid of A rafat if he tried.” The American official concluded: “The PLO remains the most powerful force in Lebanon, except for the Syrian army.” ACCORD T H R O U G H DISCORD Even though they would be unlikely to admit it, Israel's Gen. Maimon in Gaza, Syria's President Assad. Gov. Koenig in Galilee and King Hussein in Jordan today all are much more united by the Palestin ian problem they all face than they are divided by their differences. Without admitting it, perhaps without knowing it, certainly without liking it very much, both Israel and the Arabs long have found themselves drifting toward accord on the Palestinian problem and toward similar policies of repression against the Palestinians as well. . . x /a w w / Our Dad CAN SAVE YOU MONEY ON REMODELING . . . • Additions many Palestinians have been killed by Arabs as by Israelis since their struggle began. And Al-Wazi points out that the first casualty of the Palestinian national ist movement was a commando named Ahmed Mousa, who was killed on Jan uary 7, 1965, by the Jordanian army. That date ever since has been com memorated as M artyr's Day, and regard ed by Palestinians as the beginning of the struggle for their emancipation. J This was evident as early as 1968, when, during the Jordan valley battle of Karameh, it wai difficult to tell whether Gen. Dayan or King Hussein was more discomfited by the stiff Palestinian resist ance an Israeli punitive raid met. But it became most obvious in Lebanon last year, when the Syrians and the Israelis who still present themselves to the world as implacable enemies-found themselves clandestine allies in a joint pincer movement against the PLO. The real measure of the bankruptcy on both sides is that Israel and Syria now are trapped in the same policy: one of permanent military occupation of other people's lands. Israel today is surrounded by states each palpably obsessed with one object ive: to reach a settlement, to avoid another war on behalf of a Palestinian cause for which they have little remain ing sympathy and even less national interest. Yet Israel continues to predicate its security requirements on the assumption that it faces a unitary Arab menace, not separate Jordanian, Egyptian, Syrian efforts to escape the failed doctrines of the past. Unwilling to see that its best prospects for security lie in stable neigh bors -not perpetual Arab destablization - (Please turn to p.5 col.4) The only four stats cap ito li named after American presidents are Jackson, Mississippi; Jefferson C ity , Missouri; Madison, Wisconsin; end Lincoln, Nebraska. Super Shopping Centers Help Lower your Cost of Living . . . Your nearby Fred Meyer Super Shopping Center is filled with "People-Pleasing" services to make your shopping more pleasant. Wide, spacious aisles, friendly helpful clerks and undercover porcel loading are just some of the "People-Pleasing" services for you. Plus...everyday low prices on thousands of items you use and need everyday help lower your cast of living. Because we're open 9 a.m. to 10 p.m. daily, including Sunday, you can shop when you WANT to, not when you HAVE to. Come in anytime and "funshop" in a pleasant, relaxed atmosphere. . Walnut Park ne . Killingsworfh at Union . Interstate N. Lombard at Interstate . Peninsula 6850 N. Lombard Plenty o f Free and Easy P arking Open 9 am to 10 pm daily, including Sunday. <t !• ft’ PEOPLE WHO SAY THE DROUGHT IS OVER ARE ALL WET. The power situation in the Northwest remains serious. The rains that started the first of March should have started last September. As a result, power reservoirs are still way below normal. Snowpack Is less than half what It should be. Right now there la a 50- 50 chance mandatory cur tailment w ill be necessary this summer or fall. That projection is based on “normal” precipitation from here on out. Think about it this way. Loss of power w ill mean loss of jobs...and family hardship. It w ill mean mandatory steps to cut use. No ifs, ands or buts. The only way we have of avoiding this situation is to curtail use now. It may be difficult to understand why turning off lights, reducing thermo stats and hot water use Is 2 ? " T so important'now. But it’s going to be a lot tougher next fall if we push our luck ...and lose. Power curtailment check lists for home and business are available at any local Pacific Power office. The People at Pacific Power
