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About Portland observer. (Portland, Or.) 1970-current | View Entire Issue (Nov. 16, 1978)
Page 2 Portland Obaanrar Thursday November 16. 1978 CoRgress restricts export-import financing We see the world hy N. F u /if 04 Kumbula through Black eyes Michael Harrington recently said that before there can ba political justice there must be economic justice This election is a good example The political races seem to get dirtier with of how the lack of equal access to economic each passing election. Outright lies as well as wealth can subvert the political process. subtle bits of misinformation are peddled in the paid advertising Candidates and supporters or adversaries of the various ballot measures seem free to say just about anything they choose. The U .S . Justice Departm ent has filed a The Secretary of State pleads inability to act. “friend of the court" brief in the case of the There appears to be no recourse for the wronged Wilmington 10. The Justice Department found a parties or the pubic except a court suit, which document that indicates that the prosecutor's could be decided long after the election is lost. chief witness might have lied. The Justice De Oregon needs stronger and more precise elec partment has asked the court for writs of habeas tion laws and an office to enforce those laws. corpus, which would release Benjamin Chavis Perhaps the authority should be vested in a non- from prison and release the others from parole. partisan commission which could act quickly and The statem ent discovered by the Justice decisively to stop any abuses before the election Department, which had been obtained from the and to reveal those abuses to the voters. North Carolina State Bureau of Investigation was Another problem which is becoming acute is the statement of the chief witness, a teenager. It that of money. Great amounts of money are had been altered - in handwritten notes - 130 spent by some candidates and by special interest times, yet the document had not been submitted groups - in this case the private utilities and the to the court by the prosecution or made available dental associations — to influence the vote. to the defendants. Although ballot measures are put on the ballot by For many years the witness has claimed that he hundreds of workers and thousands of petition has lied in exchange for police favors and has signers, their supporters cannot hope to match tried to change his testimony. Yet the courts and the amounts of money stacked against them. the Governor of North Carolina ignored his pleas. They cannot buy the media space needed to give Chavis has been in prison since 1972. Six years their views and to overcome the highly financed is a long time to pay for an obviously politically campaigns against them. motivated false conviction. This clearly is a man Although the media has maintained that cam who is imprisoned because of his political and paign expenditures are a right to free speech and moral views. therefore cannot be controlled, the selfish in The state of North Carolina owes Reverend terest of advertising revenue can influence this Chavis and the others far more than release from opinion There should be some way that ordinary prison. people, who wish to serve, could be elected to Perhaps the government should review all the state and local positions without spending thou convictions stemming from the civil rights and sands and thousands of dollars. And there should anti-war movement. This case certainly shows be some way that those who do not have those that justice is sure in this country. dollars can be equally heard. Election laws needed Justice denied Over the past few years, just about anybody who has spoken against the apartheid regime o f South Africa has, at some point or other, called for economic sanctions as a way to break the backbone o f this the most brutal government in the world. Concomittant with this has been a call for the U.S. government to cut o ff all Export-Im port Bank finan cing either to South A fric a , to American companies trading there or to agencies o f the South A frican regime 1, too have championed this alternative as the most concrete way in which this government can dem onstrate its professed disap proval of apartheid. A brief explanation o f these Ex p o rt-Im p o rt Bank (E x -lm b a n k ) loans would be in order here. It is a complex system whereby the U .S. government guarantees any U .S . company doing business in South Africa against loss. It is a form o f in surance in that the government pledges to reimburse the company in the event o f a loss o f its investment. Essentially then, it means this: say The Kumbula Chemical Company pours $15m. into South Africa to open a subsidiary in Johannesburg and. in a Soweto style uprising, the children burn down Kum bula Chemicals, Dr. Kumbula can go to the U.S. government to claim his SlSm . long as he complied with Ex-lm bank requirements. As you can see. this takes the risk out o f in vesting in countries with unpopular regimes where a company would run the risk o f losing ail in the course o f a popular revolution. On June 2nd, the House had, by a vote o f 219-116, passed a com promise resolution that would have stopped all loans, guarantees and in surance in support o f the South African 'government' and its agen cies. Also to be included were those companies that were not following the Sullivan Principles pertaining to a ffirm a tiv e action. Senate con sidération o f this bill was put o ff time and time again. It had been racked on to the E x p o rt-Im p o rt Bank authorization bill. On Sunday, October 15th at 2:JO a m ., the House inserted the South A fric a n E x -lm b a n k restriction passed in June in to H R (H ouse Resolution) 14279, a bill on flexible regulation o f domestic bank rates. That bill came before the Senate that same day after the Senate had been meeting all night. That hour of the morning isn't really conducive to lengthy arguments, so the Senate adopted the House amendments w ithout any debate at a ll. The lateness o f the hour, coupled with the pressure o f innumerable other bills that had to he attended to before the Senate recess compelled the Senate conservatives from challenging the bill It should by now have been signed into law. The significance o f this is that, this is the first time that Congress has taken any action at all against the South African regime South Africa used to accuse the C a rte r ad ministration of meddling too much into her domestic affairs even though the American public was not in terested in day to day South African policies. Passage o f this bill exposes this 'rationale' to be the lie that it is. It shows that a lot of people do care and arc prepared to do something to show their opposition to racism, op pression, suppression and repres sion. Strangely enough, while Congress now seems to be moving in the right direction vis s vis South Africa, the A d m in is tra tio n seems to be wavering. On the same day that HR 14279 was passed. Secretary of State Cyrus Vance was leaving for Pretoria to deliver a personal message from President Carter inviting the new reactionary. Pieter Botha (the prime minister) to the U.S. if he took cer tain actions on N a m ib ia and Rhodesia. U.S. officials, according to Jim H oagland w riting in The Washington Post (1 0 /2 3 /7 6 ) have decided to "use more carrot and less stick in dealing with South A frica." Consequently, the administration had opposed the bill claiming it want ed to retain Executive flexibility. That the E x-lm bank restriction will have a suable impact on the apartheid regime could hardly be overstated. Due to existing limitations and South Africa's own slow economic recovery, the level of E x -lm b a n k financing to South Africa is not all that large at the moment. For fiscal 1978, it stood at $82.7m. As The F in a n c ia l M a il (South Africa's version o f The Wall Street Journal) pointed out, the reper cussions can be very far-reaching: “ I f those government guarantees (such as those from the Export-Im port Bank) were withdrawn, foreign banks would themselves have to bear the risk. In that event, they might choose not to grant the credits at all. The consequences would be a further drain on South Africa's resources, perhaps severe enough to raise questions about South A fric a 's ability to service its huge foreign debt obligations.“ Though this is the only victory we can claim in recent weeks, it is very significant and should go a long way to boosting the miracle o f the troops currently engaged in the battle to im pose a to ta l economic embargo against South Africa. The word is: 'Let's hang in there, folks. I think I can see daylight ahead.' MITHS Come Today! h o m e fu r n is h in g s M The Herndon file (Continued from Page 1 Column 4) tags, social security number, credit rating, passport number, date o f issue, picture, the whole works! Talk about an invasion of privacy' This was an out and out coup! Periodically, the FBI was passing some o f the information on to the Secret Service. One such com munication was titled: "Travel Dafa on Extremists and Other Subver sives.” As justification for all this, there was a memo from J. Edgar Hoover that stated: ’The information fur nished herewith concerns an in dividual who is believed to be covered by the agreement between the FBI and the Secret Service con cerning Presidential protection, and to fall within the category marked: because of backgr ound potentially dangerous, or has been identified as a member or participant in com munist movement, or has been under investigation as a member of other group or organization inimical to the U .S .’ A subsequent memo from Hoover's successor, Clarence Kelly, cited as reason: “ em otional in stability or activity in groups or ac tivities inimical to the U .S ..” There were three of these Kelly memos, the last was dated 1/23/75. One of the most chilling aspects of all this FBI spying is the use o f in nuendos. I f somebody who doesn't know Herndon were to read the above memos, he would get the im pression that he was a dangerous person. W ould any o f those who have known and worked with him testify that they have never seen him speak or act in a manner that could be called inimical to the U.S.? In the Reed College incident mentioned above, the Black Student Union of which be was a member, was demanding a Black Studies program as were all the other BSU’s across the country They had gone through all the norm al channels without success and. as last resort, they had occupied the administration buildings for a week. A fte r this action, the ad ministration agreed to institute the program Now, would demanding a Black Studies program be construed as ‘mimical to the U.S. or a sign of emotional instability?' No, o f course not. Neither would speaking against apartheid and colonialism as he is supposed to have done at an African Liberation Day rally in 1972. Excerpts o f his speech were included in the FBI File, as well as newspaper articles he had written for the Portland Ob server There were some almost desperate attempts to link him to the Black Panther Party and the only "evi dence” cited was that one of their spies had reported that he/she had seen Herndon's car parked in front of the BPP office once. There was also mention of the fact that when Stokely Carmichael came to Port land, it was Herndon who purchased the ticket, put him up for the night, accompanied him to Portland State University to deliver an address and then went with him to Evergreen College in Washington Reading through the entire file, one wonders how much of the tax payers money is or was wasted following a man who is merely trying to survive. One o f the saddest aspects of the whole thing though concerns the people who allow themselves to be used to spy on one of their own. Was it for the love of money? To curry favor with the white man? To get out o f an embarassing situation? Whatever the reason, is that price PORTLAND OBSERVER Published ever» Thursday by b u t Publishing Com pany. 2201 North Kiliingsworth. Portland. O re*o e 97217 M aihng address P .O Box J ir Porttaad. Oregon 9 72 M Telephone: 2 S F 24W le t Place Com m unity Service ONPA 1973 5th Place Beet Editorial NNPA7S73 Soburiptions. J7.J0 per year in the Tri-C ounty area. S i. 00 per year ALFRED L H EN D ER SO N E d ito r / P u b lis h e r outude Portland Honorable Mention Herrick Editorial Award NNA1V73 The Portland O b s m e r s official position u expressed only in lU Publisher's .otum n (W e See The World Through Black Eyes) Any 2nd Piece Beet Editorial 3rd Piece Com m unity Leadership ONPA 197Î other material throughout (he paper is the opinion o f the individual writer or submitter and does not necessarily reflect the opinion o f the Portland O ta a n a r N a tio n a l A d » a r t j at n g Repreeenta'tive yetnd Putofca N e w y o rh NÊWAte Ä 1 3rd Piece Com munity Leadership ONPA 1979 Oregon Newspaper Publishers Association enough to play Judas to your own kind? Sad too is the fact that the FBI, a supposedly reputable arm o f the government, charged with the task of enforcing the law would still con tinue to view as enemies any Black who advocates pride, dignity, self- worth, respect and survival of the Blacks. How many o f us today are walking around totally unaware that we may have been the target of years o f surveillance? The above story should indicate to one and all that you don't have to have horns or five foot tusks to qualify for FBI game. M l Size 30" Economy Range RED-HOT STOVE BUY Don’t miss this large capacity oven vakwl Designed «ritti you in mind and features: infinite hoot surface unit controls. tBt-foek Col- rod surface units, recessed cook top «ritti no-drip edge and large Rocky Bvtte (Continued from Page 1 Column 4) of what they are charged with.” In a related story, it appeared James Daniels, an inmate at Rocky Butte and a P.C. member is to be tried again for an "alleged” theft of $91. This misdemeanor charge has already resulted in Daniels being held in Rocky Butte for over five months on a charge having a penalty of one year, usually meaning five months and twenty-one days o f actual incar ceration. Daniels has been tried once (resulting in a hung jury) at a tax payer cost estimated at $10,000 or more with another tria l to cost another similar amount. Potentially over $20,000 of tax money will be spent on this case while officials report “ lack of funds” allows the inhumane conditions of Rocky Butte to continue. “F o r the great m ajo rity . . . bail a out o f the question The accused usually goes to ja il, hears the lock d ic k behind him, sits down, and waits. I t is one o f the proudest tenets o f Am erican law that any accused p erson is in n o cen t u n til p ro ven guilty. Yet each year thousands o f Americans who have been charged with a crime but not yet brought to tria l spend weeks a n d sometimes months in jails. K a rl Menninger, M .D . The Crim e o f Punishment Viking Press is to o s h o rt to be s m a ll." Beniamm Disraeli " L ife " A fool seal not the tame tree that a wise man seat " W illiam Blake e forooa d ra w e r belo w 198 usr TUK! w e g iv e y o u m o r e __ h o m e fu r n is h in g s 30th and S.E. Division 234-9351 Shop 9 to 9 Tuesday thru Friday Saturday 9 to 6 (Not Open Sunday or Monday) Let your mailman bring the Observer to your d o o r. . . Subscribe Today - 87.80 Tri County; 88.00 Other Name _____________ .State PORTLAND OBSERVER P.O. Box 3137 Portland. OR. 87208