Page 2 Portland Observer, December 3. 1981
a
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Leather Highlights]
Sale
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Michael Hepburn has his face painted by Kath
arine Donner while other youngsters watch and
wait their turns during a buffet given by "Give Us
This Day” and the Portland Extended Family
Group.
(Photo: Richard J. Brown)
States liable for segregation cost
The National Association for the
Advancement o f Colored People
(N A A C P ) won two long-awaited
decisions on school desegregation in
Ohio last week—in Columbus and
Cleveland. In both cases, noted
Thomas A tkins, General Counsel
fo r the Association, the issue and
fin d in g were id entical: The Sixth
C ircuit Court o f Appeals affirmed
u n co n dition a lly that the State o f
Ohio was liable for de jure desegre
gation.
Prior notification by a 1956 State
Attorney General’ s opinion places
responsibility fo r both determina
tion and correction o f racial segre-
gation squarely in the hands o f the
state. The Court o f Appeals found
that the State had not taken the ac
tions required under either state or
federal laws and held that the State
o f Ohio Board o f Education and the
Superintendent o f Public Instruc
tion were jointly liable with their lo
cal counterpans for the racial segre
gation which was, Atkins said, “ il
legally created, maintained and ex
panded in these two districts.”
“ These decisions are im portant
nationally,” declared Atkins, par
ticularly “ since no specific ‘ smoking
gun’ incidents were used by the
NAACP as the basis o f seeking re
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lie f.” Although the State did not ac
tively forge the racial segregation, it
had an affirmative duty to eliminate
it. Because, Atkins noted, the Ohio
situation is far more common,
these cases should set a precedent.
In addition, the General Counsel
stated that, “ by securing findings
against the state, we are able to
reach in to the state structure fo r
both financial relief and for state su
pervision o f local districts. This will
also assist in laying the basis fo r
lawsuits brought against the state,
seeking statewide relief, rather than
separate suits on each individual city
or town.”
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6359 Northeast Union
Portland
Nicaragua's 'totalitarianism '
by Frank Viviano
Pacific News Service
Recent statements by Secretary o f
State Alexander Haig leave no
doubt that the Reagan administra
tion has accorded a special role in its
foreign policy to Nicaragua.
In Haig’ s view, Nicaragua is a to
talitarian nation, a dangerous So
viet-controlled state committed to
the spread o f M a rxist-Leninism .
The administration, he says, will not
exclude the use o f direct military ac
tion to curtail that threat.
This view is at odds with reality
on at least two major counts: It mis
construes what actually is happen
ing in Central America today just as
thoroughly as it underestimates
what would be required to halt it.
Far from being a tightly controll
ed Soviet or Cuban puppet, Nicara
gua bears more resemblance to the
p lu ra listic experiment o f Lech
Walesa’ s Poland than it does to the
Soviet to ta lita ria n state against
which the Poles themselves have re
belled. In fact, Nicaragua may be
dangerous because it is Am erica’ s
Poland: It threatens longtim e as
sumptions o f passivity with a new
and fierce insistence on self-determi
nation. Nicaragua is the most dra
matic product o f fundam ental
changes sweeping across all o f Latin
America, changes that nothing short
o f true barbarism will stifle entirely.
In the first place, it makes little
sense to discuss the charge o f totali
tarianism in Sandinista Nicaragua
w ithout acknowledging the raw
realities which prevailed in that
country during the long nightmare
o f the Somoza era, and which still
prevail in El Salvador, Guatemala
and H onduras— A m erica’ s allies
and military clients.
“ We used to say that if you didn’ t
have malaria, you couldn’t really be
Nicaraguan,” observed Minister o f
Health Lea G uido. “ O ur in fan t
mortality rate was one o f the highest
on earth. In rural areas less than 10
percent o f our people even had
latrines. The problem o f m alnutri
tion was evident everywhere around
us in dying children and swollen
bellies. That was Nicaragua under
Somoza.”
“ Here in Central America it is not
communism that moves us; it is the
misery that reduces us to the level o f
a nim als,” said M arcial Euceda.
leader o f the national peasant’ s un
ion in neighboring Honduras. “ It is
not a m atter o f M arxism . It is a
life all over Latin America. But N iw
matter o f hunger, poverty and dis
caragua is its first great landmark??
ease.”
and that, more than anything else,
M oreover, as the daily body
may explain why Nicaragua is so
count in U.S. newspapers illu s
dangerous.
trates, it also is a matter o f incon
“ O f course we all took heart from
ceivably b ru ta l violence: In El
what happened there,” said Marcial
Salvador or Guatemala murder is
Euceda o f the reaction to Somoza’s
the expected price for stating one’ s
overthrow
among
Honduran
political opinion too freely.
peasants. “ A ll peasants have the
By contrast, U.S. charge d ’affairs
same problems, and in a way we all
Thomas O’ Donnell admitted to me
have the same enemies.”
at the American Embassy in Mana
“ From the very beginning, we
gua this June, “ Nicaragua is a coun
have said that the best support we
try at peace w ith its e lf— social
could give El Salvador or our other
peace—and in Central America that
neighbors was our own example,”
is an impressive achievement.”
remarked Sergio Ramirez, a mem
Peace, o f course, is a tenuous
ber o f the Nicaraguan Council o f
business in this region, and it would
State. “ I f we cannot consolidate the
be naive to assume that the openness
Nicaraguan revolution, if we cannot
and enthusiasm which greeted trav
keep our processes open and
elers to Nicaragua in June cannot
pluralistic, it w ill take another cen
have been shaken by threats o f des
tury for Latin America to move for
truction from the most powerful na
ward.”
tion on the globe. Confronted with
I f that revolution does fail, how
a de facto economic blockade in
ever, it may well be because the U ni
tended to starve it, with exile troops
ted States has accomplished a self-
training in Florida to invade it, and
fu lfillin g prophecy: Perhaps the
with constant charges o f in te rfe r
greatest menace to the Nicaraguan
ence in El Salvador—supported by
revolution and the American
no material evidence—Nicaragua is
position alike is that a campaign o f
an embattled nation at the moment.
ceaseless harassment and encircle
But it would be a serious mistake
ment w ill, indeed, transform Nica
to conclude that signs o f embattle-
ragua into a Cuba—an uneasy fo r
ment are a prelude to the unraveling
tress, perm anently ridden with
o f what has transpired in Nicara
insecurity.
gua. This has, in almost every sense,
In any co un try, including the
been a distinctive revolution, some United States, the w ill to preserve
thing very new to the world.
free dialogue and p o litic a l liberty
What must be undermined in
declines as concern for self-preser
Nicaragua is a process that has its
vation increases.
roots deep in the universe o f the
Yet Ramirez, too, may be under
peasants who comprise the great estimating the transformation that
bulk o f its people, and in the a lli has taken hold in L a tin America
ance between those peasants and over the past decade. Astonishing
Latin Am erica’ s most form idable
pockets o f self-awareness, o f re
in s titu tio n , the Roman C a tho lic silience to unnecessary b ru ta lity ,
Church.
have emerged almost everywhere in
The basic organizational unit o f the vast expanse o f the Western
this revolution was not the political
Hemisphere that lies between the
cell conjured up by H aig’ s Soviet-
Rio Grande and the Strait o f M a
dom ination scenario, not a seed gellan. Religion, growing literacy,
sown by foreign intruders or urban the mass communications explosion
intellectuals. It was the village and a dozen other factors have
church. “ Christianity is the main in combined, particularly among the
spiration o f our revolution,” point young who comprise the largest
ed out Minister o f Culture Ernesto sector o f the population, to bring
Cardenal, one o f the many priests hope and determination into Latin
who hold significant o ffice in the America’ s villages.
Nicaraguan government.
The passivity o f centuries has
Since the dawn o f liberation theo been broken, and although the pow
logy in the late ’60s, a dawn brought
er o f the Am erican m ilita ry may
on by the church’s own recognition
prove sufficient to destroy the Nica
that conditions for most peasants
raguan landmark, it cannot easily
were growing steadily worse, this in reverse the tides o f change.
spirational role has been a feature o f
© 1981 Pacific News Service
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