L U g e rt e , Oregon 97403
Children need Isaac Haye
homes
T u rkey
is
nutritious
His record
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Page 2
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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)