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About Portland observer. (Portland, Or.) 1970-current | View Entire Issue (Feb. 23, 1983)
y» li»<Ü’¿i ■ i r . F ra n c e s SCh o e n - .\e ,r 5 a p e r Koca L ' • '’ r s i t * o f C r-.-on L ib r a r y f» y.’ v j j lack History Special Non-violence no option? Page 5 Decline of C.O.R.E Chief Still on Hunter Page 4 Page 7 PORTLAND OBSERVER UJ USPS 959 680-855 C tx t* PuftluhingCo.. I9SJ February 23. 1983 Volume XII, Number 20 25C Per Copy Three Sections Brame publishes black records Herman L. Brame is preparing to publish the fourth edition o f his book. World Records o f Black Peo ple this fall. The book lists accom plishments o f black people— those o f A frican background— in many areas including science, technology, literature, sports, politics, govern ment. Brame began collecting data about black people as a hobby, and finding that no book of “ lists" ex isted. he " fin a lly got the nerve to put it on paper." The first edition was published in 1929— a mimeo graphed and stapled edition. Public interest spurred Brame on and he produced two more editions—each larger and o f high quality printing and binding. The book provides a void left by history books, Brame explained. It gives an overview and inspires the reader to delve more deeply into the history and heritage of black peo ple. The book contains facts about ancient and modern Africans, A m erican blacks, and a smattering of facts about the black residents of the Caribbean. Most o f Brame’s early research was done in the Portland State U ni versity and Multnomah County L i braries and many facts were p ro vided by friends. Some facts come from magazines and newspapers. This year Brame has gone about his research in earnest. He recently bean. Freetown also has a large pop ulation o f Europeans, Arabs, and Hindus, and is a commercial center. It has been a center of education, sending out doctors and mission aries to Ghana, Nigeria and Liber ia? HERMAN L. BRAME returned from a trip to Sierra Leone in West A frica where he visited Fourah Bay College This college is the oldest in West A fric a , and has been a center o f iearning fo r dec ades. Sierra Leone was a destination of American blacks who chose to re turn to Africa, former residents of the U .S ., Canada, and the C a rib Because o f its ties to the New W o rld , Freetown offers a unique environm ent for the study o f the history and culture o f A frica peo ple. W hile in Freetown, Brame con tacted person at the university who will help him gather facts. One bit of inform ation he received was on the doctors also found the d iffe r ence between m alaria and black water fever and the preventative measures that allowed settlement of the area. Brame is a native of Oregon. He attended Jefferson H igh School, earned a B.S. in Sociology at the University o f Oregon and an M B A at the U niversity o f Portland. He was employed by M odel Cities in 1969 and 1970 as a financial special ist; was co-director o f the U nion Avenue Redevelopment P ro ject, and was employed by M ultnom ah County. The current edition of World Rec ords o f Black People can be ob. . tained at the Talking Drum Book store and Daltons. O f course Brame is always happy to receive new facts and records. Thraa-yaar-old Jamila Harris Jaarna African dance with the Talking Drum Dancers (Photo: Richard Brown) U.S. policy threatens Sua Dickson, nationally recognized axpart in tha teaching of reading, talks with students and par- ants at Reading Trae workshop, (Photo: Richard Brown) The small black nation of Belize, located on the eastern coast o f C entral A m erica, is feeling the threat o f U.S. foreign policy in the region. Neighboring Guatemala claims possession of all of Belize, resulting from historic Spanish land claims that predate (he English occupation o f Belize. However, it now says it will settle for 7,000 square kilome ters that would give it access to the Atlantic and rights to considerable resources of oil and other natural re sources. The Reagan A dm in istratio n , together with Congress, has lifted restrictions on military aid to Guate mala saying that (he military regime o f General Rios M o n tt is doing "very w e ll" in the area o f human rights— only 10,000 citizens have been killed since Montt took over in a military coup last year. G uatem ala w ill receive $6.3 million worth of armaments. There is no guarantee that their weapons will not be used against Belize. W hile the U .S . is strengthening G uatem ala, it has been reported that Israel will provide Guatemala with an arms factory. Britain, which left troops behind when Belize achieved independence a year ago, would like to be relieved o f this f i nancial burden. Bccaue of the constant threat to its existence Belize has been forced to establish a defense force of regu lar and voluntary troops and ear mark a considerable share of its lim ited resources for defense. Third world nation debt threatens U.S. economic crisis The world's economists, bankers, and finance ministers have been warning for at least two years of a coming international crisis that could bring an end to the U .S .’ cur rent economic system The entire world— with the exception of Japan and some Southeast Asian countries — has been plunged into a depres sion comparable to that o f the 1930s Threatening the world banking system is the $550 billion foreign debt o f the T hird W orld nations. These debts have their roots in the rising in fla tio n o f the 1960s and 1970s and the increase in oil costs. Inflation slowed economic growth, increased balance o f payment defi cits and necessitated borrowing. The bulk of the external financing came from private commercial banks in the U.S. and western Europe. Rising U .S. interest rates drove up interest rales in the international money markets, and according to the World Bank each percentage point of increase in interest rates costs the developing countries $1.8 billion a year in additional interest payments. Added to the increase in interest cost and the high cost o f oil and imported manufactured goods due to inflation, is the drop in price of the raw materials on which the T hird W orld nations depend for their income. Since 1980 the world price o f cotton— on which Egypt and Sudan depend— has dropped from 92 cents a pound to 57 cents. The price o f copper, important to Zam bia and C hile, has dropped about half. Cocoa, the main export o f many A frican countries, has dropped in price from $1.18 to 75 cents a pound. Sugar, the m ajor crop of the Caribbean and the Phil ippines, had decreased from 43 cents a pound to 6 cents a pound. In addition to low prices the developed nations, also caught in the depres sion, are buying less o f the prod ucts. The high cost o f imports and the low payment for exports keeps these nations in a vicious cycle that cannot be broken. The developing countries cannot pay their debts so they postpone paying the principal, and get new loans, paying higher and higher in terest rates and slashing their bud gets to spend higher percentages of their income on interest payments. However, they still cannot pay even the interest on the loans. The T hird W o rld nations owe $550 billion to foreign banks and governments in debts that have nearly doubled in four years. their loans and deposits too rapidly, taking on risks out of proportion to their financial strength. During the past 20 years the banks' equity-to- total assets ratios have dropped se riously. Equity is the stockholder's stake in the bank. Losses are sub tracted from equity and if losses ex ceed equity the bank is insolvent. in normal times the banks would have about 10 percent equity-to- total-asset ratios and could easily absorb losses from the usual bad debts. Now many major banks are down to 3.5 percent and a loss of 1.5 percent would eliminate half its as sets and it could be in serious trouble and to increase capital would have to curtail loans. Tha U.S. banka If nations with a major debt, like Mexico of Brazil, were to be unable to refuse to pay their debt, this could force major U.S. banks like Chase Manhattan and Citibank into insol vency. For this reason, these banks The international debt situation brings two threats to the U.S. The U .S . banks are in the most serious period since the 1930s. The U .S . banks have been expanding continue to provide " b a il-o u t" loans to these countries. Less drastic than insolvency would be a curtailment of lending— for working capital and equipment loans to U.S. corporations at home and car loans to citizens. Not only U.S. banks would be affected, but Japanese and Western European banks as well. The effect would be reduction in production and em ployment and a deepening of the de pression. The other major effect a default would cause is a discontinuation of trade. The U.S. economy is depend ent on export o f goods, about 12 percent o f the gross national product. Currently 20 percent of the goods produced in the U.S. and 40 percent of the agricultural products are exported. I f debtor nations de faulted and loans to them were dis continued, they could not purchase U .S . exports. About $12 b illion would be lost, causing a loss of jobs For this reason, the U.S. govern ment and banking circles are discus sing possible solutions. The U .S .' answer to the problem is to somewhat increase the ability of the International Monetary Fund to make emergency short-term loans to nations unable to make their in terest payments. To obtain (he loans the nations must accept internal economic measures imposed by the IM F , which include drastic reduc tions in social, educational and health programs and (argetling a large percentage o f the nation's funds for debt reduction. The IM F is only only a temporary solution and its ultimate result is to increase the Third World debt. , Tha International Monetary Fund The IM F was created at the end of World War II to manage the inter national system. It collects funds (Please turn to page 4 column /) ) i ■V - » • » » « k V
