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About Portland observer. (Portland, Or.) 1970-current | View Entire Issue (May 18, 1978)
Ilfs Frances Schoen-Newspaper Roo» U n iv e rs ity o f Oregon L ib ra ry Eugene, Oregon 97403 PORTLAND OBSERVER Volum e 8 No. 11 Thursday, M ay 18, 1978 10c per copy Beaumont vote rejects middle school / ■ The Beaumont community turned out in force to vote on the proposed plan that would make Beaumont a ipiddle school serving the Beaumont Alameda Sabin attendance areas. The middle school has been approved by the school's Citizen Advisory Com mitte, but an opposition committee or ganized and was able to get a community vote. The committee, led by John Rumpakis, Karen Masterson, Donna Frey and others canvassed the community asking resi dents to come out and vote. An unpreci- dented 1.589 persons came to the school to cast their ballots. The vote tallied: 1,014 to remain a Kindergarten through eighth grade school; 575 to become a middle school for grades 6, 7 and 8. » M ath g ra d e r* ■ Joyce C U y and Leigha G iv e n . - presented P*ay “W hen th . w ith K a re a S a y as prom pter and Vickie T he g irls famad the play about H a rrie t Tubm an in a lib ra ry book, «ad then asked to present it to the scheeL “W h en the Rattlesnake in which H a rr ie t Tubarne assures a runaw ay slave th a t ft is v b e a th s re is re a l d anger. (Photo: D e b ra M iah ier) The proposal is expected to go before the Area Citizens Advisory Committee on June 13th. If the middle school proposal is adopted by that body it will go to the administration for referral to the School Board. The School Board's policy is to promote middle schools but to establish them only with community acceptance. No proced ures for determining community accept ance and no specific measure of “accept ance*' has been adopted. The Lincoln and Wilson attenance areas have rejected proposals to re organize into K-5 and middle schools. The Roosevelt reorganization plan will go before the Area I CAC on May 23 at Clarendon School and the Jefferson re organization plan will be heard by the CAC on May 30th at Beach School. Both meetings will be held at 7:30 p.m. Wendy Roberts seeks Labor Commission post Senator M a ry “W endy" Roberts is a candidate for the Dem ocratic nomination for Lab or Commissioner Mary Roberts first held elective office in 1973 when her East Multnomah County district elected her State Repre sentative. At that time she was the youngest woman ever elected to the Oregon Legislature. Two years later she ran for State Senator. District 11, and won. In that race she received both parties' nomination. She served in the Senate for four years, holding positions on the Labor. Consumer and Business Affairs Committee. Joint Ways and Means Committee. Transportation Com mittee, Local Government and Election Committee, and Human Resources Com mittee. She served four years on the State Emergency Board. Roberts was a member of the Legislative Task Force on Apprenticeship and the Affirmative Ac tion Task Force. Both of these commit tees dealt in areas which fall under the Bureau of Labor's jurisdiction. In her legislative career. Senator Ro berta has been concerned with human problems. For example, Roberts directed the establishment of the Secure Treat • ■- s i Philip M cLaurin, state < ______________ o U s presidential appointm ent to the National A dvisory C a n a d ia n ! NAIROBI. KENYA |PN8) - Ethiopia's intensifying, all-out war against secces sionists in the country's northern. Red Sea province of Eritrea is posing a grow ing dilemma for both Cuba, which is aiding the Ethiopian government, and Africa itself. For Cuban Premier Fidel Castro, the question is whether to send the estimated 20.000 Cuban troops now in Ethiopia into direct battle against the Eritrean Marxist guerilla army which Cuba helped train. And for the much respected Organizat ion of African Unit, the issue is one of determining which government, that of Eritrea or Ethiopia, has the moat legiti mate claim to Eritrean sovereignty. The stakes are high. They include respect for the long honored African principle of maintaining rolonial national boundaries; the reputation of Cuba aa a friend to Marxist independence move ments; and ultimately, control of the Ohm sized territory of Eritrea, with its strategic Red Sea porta and its developed agricultural and industrial base, The Eritrean rebels, who have been fighting for independence since 1982, gained control of an estimated 95 percent of the territory in a string of stunning military victories against the Ethiopian army last year. But with the end of the war against Somali secessionist.» in Ethiopia’s Ogaden desert earlier thia year, the bulk of the Ethiopian army has shifted its attention to Eritrea. Ethiopia recently stepped up its aerial bombing attacks on Eritrea and thou sands of soldiers are being airlifted north from the Ogaden. A major ground operation is expected sometime thia month aimed at finally ending the 17 year rebellion. Along with the estimated 50.000 Ethio pian soldiers in the beseiged Eritrean capital of Asmara, in the Red Sea port of Massawa and at three smaller provincial garrisons, are a reported 3,500 Cuban troops. About 17,000 Cubans are be lieved to remain in Ethiopia, about 5,000 more than at the end of the Ogaden war. No one has yet confirmed that the Cubans are fighting in Eritn s. But when Ethiopia's head of state, Lieutenant Colo nel Mengistu Haile Mariam, visited Cuba at the end of April he told a Havana rally that operations against the Eritreans would shortly be intensified and, “The Cuban masses will be tougher with the Ethiopians in thia effort." It is widely believed that Mengiatu asked Castro for Cuban troop support in the Eritrean campaign. Yet when Castro addressed the same Havana gathering he said nothing of Cuban troops helping in Eritrea. He said only that his soldiers would remain in Ethiopia as long as necessary to protect Ethiopia against “external aggression.“ Eritrea is a touchy subject for Castro. The largest and beat organized Eritrean nationalist movement, the Eritrean Peo ple'a Liberation Front (EPLFi, has solid Marxist credentials compared to the Ethiopian leadership’s rather vague ideo logy. In fact, while Mengistu and other Ethiopian leaders were taking military courses in the United States, Cuba was training militants from the EPLF and the Eritrean Liberation Front (ELF) in guer rilla warfare. , Thus it is by no means certain that the Cubans will fight the very Eritreans they trained. If they don't, the war is likely to be a protracted guerrilla struggle. Cuba has said that unlike the Ogaden, where it helped repel a foreign invasion by Somalia. Eritrea is an internal matter. Castro is believed to have asked Men gistu in Havana to explore negotiating a solution with the Eritrean leaders. But at thia point there seems little to discuss. The Eritreans want total inde pendence and literally have been fighting and dying for it for years. In 1976, Eritrea rejected ouright an Ethiopian offer ol regional autonomy. The Eritreans have a much stronger case for independence than Ethiopia’s Ogaden Somalis had for their failed secession attempt. The Organization of African Unit has resolved that African countries should not alter borders in herited from colonial administration». Ethiopia, in fact, is one of two African countries which was never colonized, except for a brief occupation by Musso lini. But Eritrea was an Italian colony from 1890 until 1936, when it became a «Ute in Italian Eaat Africa. After Italy lost iu colonies in World ittsl , A r th n r I. swearing-in President names McLaurin to National Council W. Philip McLaurin, Ombudsman for monitoring of the city's $24 million the State of Oregon, was appointed by Comprehensive Training and Employ President Carter to serve on the twenty- ment Act (CETA) program. He was also one member National Advisory Council Executive Assistant to the Mayor of on Economic Opportunity, which focuses Portland. A consultant to colleges on the on programs designed to alleviate pov organization and development of Afro- erty and encourage economic self suf American studies, McLaurin has been an ficiency. The Council reports to the Assistant Professor of Afro-American President and the Congress annually. Studies at Smith College and Director of the Black Student Center at Portland McLaurin is the Ombudsman for the State University. He is also an expert on State of Oregon. He formerly served as youth activities and community organiza. the Acting Director of the Portland tions and has served as director of the Training and Employment Division re Portland Metropolitan Youth Commis sponsible for the planning, operating and sion summer youth programs and Chest er. Pennsylvania Citizen’s In/ormat Center. McLaurin is a member of the Board Directors of the Oregon Deveiopmen Disabilities Advocacy Center; the Boa of Directors of the Martin Luther Kii Jr. Scholarship Fund of Oregon- t Executive Board of the Tri-Communi Council; the Albina Voter Registrati and Education Committee and t NAACP. He has held membership in ti American Association of University Pi fessors; the Oregon State Board Higher Education; and the Board Directors of the Parry Center. Public payment for private privilege During the next few months, the Black community must pay careful attention to a well-intentioned but dangerous piece of legislation that threatens the continued viability of public education in America. If adopted the so-called Tuition Tax Credit Act - commonly known as the Moynihan-Packwood bill - would signal the beginning of a potentially harmful redistribution of public funds away from public education. Analysis In providing new financial “blood” to non-public schools, the bill would leave the already battered public schools seri ously weakened, and dying from financial anemia. Why is this particular bill so objection- abe, especially to Black people? As presently written, the Senate version of the Moynihan-Packwood bill proposes that the government provide annual tax credits -- not simply tax deductions - to parents who decide to send their children to private schools. According to objective estimates, such credits will reduce feder al revenues by as much as $2.5 billion per year. * staggering amount by any one's book. If the bill is adopted by Congress, as seems likely at this time, taxpayers wifi be shouldered with the additional burden of paying half the tuition of every youngster attending private schools, in cluding elite and upper-class institutions. But the bill contains another feature which is even more objectionable: the tax credit plan will almost certainly be a financial bonanza for upper-income groups. Since many private schools have traditionally catered to the educational needs of America's more affluent citizens, the relatively well-off - who can already afford private private education - will enjoy a significantly reduced tax burden at the expense of poor and working people. Even with the proposed $500 tax credit, I honestly doubt that many work ing class Blacks could easily finance a private education for their children. To further illustrate the anti egali tarian bias of this proposal, it is worth noting the results of a recent study. If the bill passes, the study concludes, nearly 60 per cent of the tax credits will end up in the bank accounts of families earning Intensified Eritrean war poses dilemna for Castro by Roger Mann -^1 V - by Bayard Rustin ment Unit for Emotionally Disturbed Children and Adolescents at the Oregon State Hospital in Salem. This program has substantially improved the lot of such children in Oregon and saved the state money by avoiding inappropriate (and more coolly) placement of children in already crowded correctional facilities. Mary Roberts’ legislation includes the Department of Human Resources reor ganization bill SB 951 (1975), a version of which (SB 81 was passed in 1977. Under this bill, the various divisions of Human Resources are pulled together under firm administrative control, making possible a common accounting system and reducing program overlap and costly duplication. Other pieces of legislation include: the Dual Driving Records for Professional Drivers Bill (1973). the Natural Death Act (1977), Property Tax Relief and Homestead Property Tax Deferral at 62 (1975), repeal of the Relative Responsibi lity law, and passage of numerous bills on day care, discrimination in employment M A R Y RO BERTS and housing, and labor. Her legislative record earned her high marks from the She is a former Juvenile Court Coun Oregon AFL-CIO, environmental groups selor and caseworker assigned to the and civil rights organizations. Albina Human Resource Center. * War II, the United Nations fostered i federation between Eritrea and Ethiopia But in 1962 Eritrea, then ruled bj Emperor Haile Selassie, became an into gral part of Ethiopia. Eritreans wh< opposed the action formed the Eritreai Liberation Front to fight for indepen dence. The ELF eventually spawned two riva offshoots, with the EPLF being the mos important. The ELF follows a pro-Arab pan Islamic Line while the more radic« EPLF emphasizes its Marxist ideology From the beginning of the indepei dence movement the Eritreans drei support from Arab countries and socialit states, with Cuba being among thei sUunchest allies. But since Haile Selassie was replace by a Marxist miliUry dictatorship m ost« the Eritieans' traditional backers, indue ing Cuba, have switched sides. Castro is said to still cling to his idea c a socialist federation between Ethiopi and Eritrea, but the Eritreans are n more sympathetic to Ethiopia’s Marxis rulers than they were to Haile Selassie* conservative feudal regime. The Eritreans can field 40,000 we disciplined and highly politicized guerl las, provably one of the best guerrilL armies in the world. And Eritrea’s rough hills and den* bush is better suited to the type o guerrilla warfare the Eritreans hav< perfected over the years than to t massive mechanized assault such as the over $25,000 per year. With this in min it is quite dear that the Moynihan-Pac wood proposal is hardly a “poor mar bar. Considering the horrendous tnjustic of our tax system, it seems foolish - evi immoral - to propose additional ti breaks for those who already escape the fair share. But the bill even goes beyor that: it threatens to erode the alread precarious tax base which supports loc public schools. Thomas Shannon of the National A sociation of School Boards explained thi point in a recent discussion of the ta credit proposal. By offering lucrativ tuition tax credit. Shannon argues, growing number of middle-class student will transfer to private schools. As more students attend privati schools, taxpayer support for publi education will rapidly decline. With theii children attending classes in privati schools, middle-class voters will becomi even more reluctant to support loca school bond issues which entail property tax hikes. As a result. Blacks and othei low income groups will be forced to use under-financed and inferior schools while middle-income students flee to well fund ed private institutions. ARABIA KENYA Ethiopians and Cubans used to drive Somali forces from the Ogaden. Thus, even if the Ethiopians manage to break the seige of Asmara and Massawa, the battle for the Eritrean countryside could drag on for years. (Roger Mann reports on Africa for the “Washington Poet" and Pacific News Service. For the past two months ho has been talking to Eritrean lenders in Khartoum and to Ethiopian officials in Addis Ababa. |
