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About Portland observer. (Portland, Or.) 1970-current | View Entire Issue (Nov. 19, 1981)
L U g e rt e , Oregon 97403 Children need Isaac Haye homes T u rkey is nutritious His record *1 9 Page 2 Page 8 PORTLAND OBSERMER Portland Observer Volume XII Number 6 25$ Per Copy November 19, 1981 USPS 959-680-855 Don Clark seeks office of governor D o nald E . C la rk , M u ltn o m a h C ounty C h ie f Executive, has a n nounced that he is a candidate for the D em ocratic Party nom ination for Governor. Clark said he has decided to run because O regon needs aggressive leadership. Oregon’s economy is the third worst in the nation. The high unemployment rate, combined with a lack o f leadership, "h a s caused our morale, our confidence and our state to suffer." C lark said O regon’ s economy is at a 30-year low and is getting worse. The unemployment rate is 10 per cent and climbing. C lark has served as M ultnom ah C om m issioner, C h a irm a n o f the County board, and Sheriff. He was a deputy sheriff from 1956 to 1963. During his four years as S heriff, d a r k reorganized the S h e r iff’ s Office, raised recruitment and train ing standards and emphasized com munity service. Clark became asso ciate director o f the Criminal Justice Program at Portland State U n iver sity’s Urban Studies Center. Vs C ounty C hairm an C lark was noted for his introduction o f long term fiscal planning and is credited with keeping the County in stable fi nancial condition. One o f his m a jo r accom plish ments was the establishment o f Pro ject Health, which "m ainstream s’ * health care for low income persons by providing health insurance. The program has become a n atio n al model. Grassroot News, N. fP.— Donald M cHenry, former U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations, touched base in Portland Monday night on his re cent tour. In his opening statement he asserted that U .S. foreign policy is based on a fear o f the U .S .S .R . " W e have a paranoia about com munism and that paranoia will in creasingly get this country into great difficulty. I recognize that there’s a potential conflict between the Soviet U n io n and the U n ited States. But the area o f great in s ta b ility is not here but in what is know n as the T h ird W o rld or developing countries." He believes that this in stability is an outgrowth o f the peo ple o f these less developed countries as they try to deal w ith illite ra c y , food shortages and the technologi cal gap. DON CLARK Among C la rk ’ s achievements as County Executive arc implementa tion o f the 9 1 1 emergency telephone system and construction o f the Jus tice Center. His continuing interests are m a in ta in in g the ban on b ill boards, establishing a N a tio n a l Scenic Area in the Columbia Gorge, and developm ent o f a Justice Re source Referral Center. Crisis Center aids storm victims Grassroot News N. W .— On the heely o f the windstorm o f Friday the 13th, scattered numbers o f A lbina residents found themselves without power. The N .E . C risis C enter stepped in to provide tem p o rary shelter to those in need. B arbara Saunders, executive d ire c to r, ex plained what occurred: " T h e first thing we did was to set up a commu nication center at North-Northeast Mental Health. With this we put to gether a system that networked to other agencies which helped us by providing temporary shelter. "Ten families were out o f power overnight and each shelter had McHenry hits Reagan paranoia about five people in them. We got in touch with P P & l. to let them know that we had shelters set up for those w ithout power in N ortheast. Also we got the word out to the commu nity that we had space available." W ith the c o o rd in a tio n that the Northeast Crisis Center led, the U r ban League, Safe N eighborhoods For A ll People, and St. A ndrews were networking their resources to ensure that help was provided. The Northeast Crisis Center was set up to operate in ice and snow but this w indstorm was its first test. The Northeast Cirsis Center’ s number is 283-5914. " T h e r e is a tendency in this C o un try to label these movements com m unist or le ftis t, rath er than look at the causes for the difficulty. This is just an example o f our over w helm ing concern w ith c o m m u nism. W e look at the situ atio n rather sup erficially." This shallow perception evolved out o f our ignor ance about other countries’ tra d i tions, cultures, and beliefs. " W e did not have the advantages that Europe had because they had colonics and were forced to learn som ething about other cultures and peoples. A n d at the same tim e we did not have the disadvantage o f needing other countries for our own devel opment.” McHenry concluded, " W e cannot expect to prosper w h ile others around us are poor and we are in creasingly dependent on their ability to interact with us. I f we continue to look upon every Nicaragua as Com munist inspired then we arc going to find ourselves engaged in conflicts all over the w orld. W e are putting ourselves in the position o f letting the Soviets and their allies decide where we are going to concentrate our attention at any given time. It is w ith in their power to e xp lo it the movements in the Th ird W orld. As long as we look at each o f these inci dents as a challenge to our manhood we are likely to find our po> ies and priorities determined not b; us, but others." The climax o f his lecture was not so much in M cH enry’s lecture but in the q uestion-and-answ er period sparked by the U n ive rs ity o f Portland student body. One ques tion from the audience dealt w ith the role o f M ultinatio nal C orpora tions in the Third W orld. McHenry answered, "M u ltin a tio n a l corpora tions will have to do more than take things out. They’re going to have to put something in like technology, training , and helping countries to build themselves. They should rec ognize that operating in the develop ing w orld today requires more cooperation than they have shown in the past. They are going to have to go in on joint ventures, less than m ajority ownership and reinvesting their profits. This, in my opinion, isn’t bad ." Q. Do you foresee a solution to the Irish problem? M cH enry: " N o , that problem is like the H atfields and the McCoys. It grows m ore b ru ta l every day. They are all going to have to learn that they are going to have to learn (Please turn to page 5 column 3) DONALD McHENRY (Photo by Richard J. Brown) U.S. Blacks w ork to isolate South Africa by Chauncey Bailey A national drive to end all U .S . relatio n s— p o litic a l, c u ltu ral and econom ic— w ith South A fric a is now moving in the wake o f a ro ll- up-vour-sleevcs "Solidarity Confer ence" that attrac ted some 1,000 Blacks from 35 states. " W e are beginning to tu rn our protests into plans o f actio n ," said Randall Robinson, executive direct or o f T ra n s A fric a , a W ashington D .C .-based lobbying organization w o rkin g to set up chapters in ten major urban centers. Robinson said volunteers from Howard University are studying a process whereby the trade routes and im p o rt/e x p o rt " p o in ts o f exchange” in volvin g trade between the U .S . and South Africa will be discovered and mon itored. He stressed this w ill be passed along to trad e unions w ith large Black memberships. Those unions w ill then be asked to boycott any cargo going to South A frica or any goods fro m South A fr ic a . " T o o many Black workers in this country are unwittingly helping to maintain the links between the U .S. and racist South A fric a ," Robinson said. “ We plan to tell these Blacks what they can do to cut those tie s .. . . ’ ’ Blacks area also planning to boy cott Black recording artists (such as M illie Jackson, Ray C harles, and the O ’ Jays) who snubbed requests not to p erfo rm in South A fric a . When The Jacksons were on their way to South A frica they received death threats and the group faced hostile demonstrations in London. The Jacksons decided to fly back to Los Angeles. Later, the white news papers in South Africa tried to com fort their readers by running adver tisements saying: "Th e Temptations are Coming to South A frica ! They are better than The Jacksons.. . . " P a rticip an ts at the S o lid a rity Conference, held in New York City, urged Blacks to strike back at Black artists who to u r South A fric a by p icketing th e ir concerts and not buying their albums. U.S.-S. A frica trade: $6 billion M ichigan Congressman George C ro c k e tt told the conference the current level o f U .S . trad e w ith South A frica equals $6 b illio n , in cluding $3 billion in yearly invest ments and another S3 b illio n in bank credits. He said South A frica is rich in 55 key minerals needed by industrialized nations. South A fr i ca. fo r exam ple, produces 60 per cent o f the world’s gold; 14 per cent o f all diamonds; 30 per cent o f all chrome; 16 per cent o f all uranium; 25 per cent o f all magnesium; and accounts for 45 per cent o f all the mining in A fric a . A lthough it has less than 7 per cent o f A frica’s pop- (Ptease turn to page J column I) While Americans celebrate Thanksgiving, millions starve On Novem ber 26, m illio n s o f Americans will sit down to tables laden with glorious fo o d — plum p roast turkey, savory stuffing, moun tains of mashed potato covered with rich brown gravy, fresh fall vege tables and sumptuous desserts. While they arc eating, in the course o f one hour, 1,680 people in the world w ill die because they d o n ’ t have enough Io eat. T h a t’ s 41,000 people per day. That's more hunger- iclaled deaths in a year than the en tire number o f casualties o f W orld War II. Some arc refugees; some arc victims o f political oppression or natural disaster; all arc desperately poor. Perhaps these grim statistics arc in evitable. But a grow ing number o f Americans believe they are not. On November 19, one week be fore Thanksgiving, some 450,000 A m ericans w ill share in another food-related celebration— a celebra tion o f hope. As participants in O x fam A m e ric a ’ s annual Fast fo r a World Harvest, they will slop eating for a day, donate their food money to fund self-help projects in poor countries and, in the process, learn something about the plight o f the impoverished. Begun in 1974, the Fas, for a World Harvest has become the most im portant annual educational and fundraising event for Oxfam Am er ica, the Boston-based international aid and development agency. Says Executive D ire cto r Joe S h o rt, "Fasting is a symbolic act— a state ment against the inequities that con tribute to the misery o f the millions o f people around the w orld who never have enough to cat." Oxfam America was organized in 1970 by a group o f concerned Amer icans who wanted to help the drought-stricken people o f Bangla desh. The agency now supports 50 projects in 20 countries— some o f the poorest in A sia, A fric a and Latin America. While Oxfam Amer ica is perhaps best known for its emergency relief in Bangladesh and Kam puchea (C a m b o d ia ), the m a jority o f its programs are small-scale grassroots projects designed to de velop food self-reliance. Nicaragua: Experts estimate that about o n e -th ird o f the food p ro duced by peasants in poor countries w o r ld w id e is destroyed by inadequate storage practices. Left standing in the field to dry or stored on the floors o f huts, (he harvest falls prey to rats and other pest and to spoilage. A new project in N ic ara g u a , funded in part by a $ 20 ,00 0 grant from O xfam Am erica, will drasti cally reduce the post-harves, crop loss (now estimated at 40 per cent) through construction o f 4 2,0 00 granary storage huts. B uilt from bamboo and thatch, available v ir tually everywhere in Nicaragua, the peaked-roof, pest-proof granaries will cost little to build; each granary can be built by two people in about three days. P I S alvad o r: In the past 18 months, 22,(MM) Salvadoreans have died as a result o f political violence in FI Salvador. Many o f them were unarmed peasants whose only crime was m em bership in a farm ers’ cooperative or agricultural union. Over 300 ,00 0 Salvadoreans have been displaced fro m their homes and villages and are fleeing to neigh boring Central American countries or m oving throughout th e ir own country in search o f safety, food, work and shelter. M ore than 4,400 refugees now live in refugee centers in churches, schools and colleges in San Salvador. A gran, o f $150,000 from O xfam America will provide emergency food supplies for some o f these refugees. Somalia: In Somalia, the addition o f more than one million refugees to the p o p u latio n o f 3 8 m illio n has strained already limited resources to the b reaking p o in t. M an y o f the refugees live in refugee camps, where the need for food, water and medical supplies is cricical. O xlam America, in collaboration w ith several other agencies, is funding a major water resource pro ject to provide drin kin g water for five camps in the northwest region A special segment o f the project fun cd by O x fa m A m erica is using 20 solar-powered pumps operated and maintained by refugee teams. Zimbabwe: Field direcors at O x fam Am erica are draftin g a m ajor new program in Zimbabwe to be im plemented over the next five years. The program was made possible by a recent gran, o f $2.35 million from the Burroughs C o rp o ra tio n . The program w ill featu re scores o f small-scale grants and loans to fund locally-initiated projects in rural de velopment. Consitent with O xfam A m e ric a ’ s self help developm ent strategy, Zimbabwean leaders at na tio n al and village levels w ill be encouraged to d efin e needs and carry out projects. One $8,500 gran, is helping a group o f teachers and students convert a farm to a unique secondary school where the students (Please turn to page 5 column I)
