*Send me information on the Communist Party of Canada.

page 17
ARTS AND CULTURE
-by Malek Khouri
*Dorothy West, Harlem Renaissance writer
*Merger with Canadian "artistic" twist
*Honouring luminary Quebec artists

*NAFTA choking Canadian football
*Unemployed on a rainy day
page 18
*PV starts autumn subscription campaign
*1999 People's Voice Calendar "Revolutionary Women"
*Fernwood's new edition of Manifesto
*East Coast party school a success
*OK..who do I talk to about this service charge? (cartoon)
page 19
*What's Left
Reds on the Web:
www.communist-party.ca

Obituaries
*Gerald "Bud" Doucette
*In Memory of Jim Fedorchuk
*In loving memory of Sylvia Schwartz
page 20
Labour Day 1998:
*Unite and fight to defeat right-wing governments!
Build bridges with labour in Quebec!
*Unions say Quebec public sector far off

*  *  *  *  * *

The Paper That Fights Back

Every month in People's Voice,
you'll get the latest
on the fightback from coast to coast.
Whether it's the struggle for jobs, resistance to social cuts,
solidarity with Cuba, or the anti-fascist movement,
we've got the news the corporate media won't print.

And we do more than that
- we report and analyze events
from a revolutionary perspective,
helping to build the movements for justice and equality,
and eventually for a socialist Canada.

Read the paper that fights for working people
- on every page, in every issue!

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Under the terms of the final agreement to resolve their land claim, the Nisga'a will receive about $190 million in treaty- settlement funds, and almost 2,000 square kilometres of land, about one-tenth of their original territory, some of which overlapped with other claims. Many Nisga'a cultural artifacts now held by the Royal British Columbia Museum and the Canadian Museum of Civilization will be returned.

The Nisga'a government will be able to make laws on most matters, provided they are consistent with the Criminal Code of Canada and the Charter of Rights and Freedoms.

While the Nisga'a government will eventually take control of forestry on their lands, most of the best timber was taken long ago. The Nisga'a will have a guaranteed share of about 20 percent of the allowable catch of Nass River salmon, but must wait eight years before building their own fish plants. To make good on a decade-old promise, the provincial government will pave the road into the Nass Valley from Terrace.

Information on the Nisga'a Treaty, including the Final Agreement and other materials, is available free from the B.C. government, at 1-800-880-1022, or from the website http://www.aaf.gov.bc.ca/aaf/
The Nisga'a Nation's website is at http://www.ntc.bc.ca

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New elementary teachers union

Toronto - In the dog days of summer, a new elementary teachers' union was born: the Elementary Teachers' Federation of Ontario (ETFO). Representing the 70,000 former members of the Federation of Women Teachers' Associations of Ontario and the Onterio Public School Teachers' Federation, the merger of formerly segregated mens' and womens' organizations is a big step forward, according to the new President, Phyllis Benedict.

"(As a result of Bill 160) the schools right now are in absolute chaos in many parts of Ontario," she said, addressing ETFO delegates August 20.

The Convention adopted the first-ever political action campaign by elementary teachers in Ontario, aimed to defeat the Tories in the coming provincial election. It will start with a radio ad campaign through August-September.

"This is absolutely historic and precedent-setting," Benedict said of the action campaign. Both NDP Leader Howard Hampton and Liberal Dalton McGuinty addressed the Convention, and both promised to repeal Bill 160.

Elementary teachers have yet to take strike votes. Like the Ontario Secondary School Teachers Federation (OSSTF) and English Catholic Teachers' Association (OECTA), they are negotiating while present contracts expire rapidly.

Issues on the table are wages, benefit claw-backs, sick day reductions and retirement gratuities (banked sick-days). Union leaders say local school boards are working with the Harris government for take-backs in concessions agreements.

"Any school board that claims that Bill 160 gives it no flexibility on staffing or workload is lying," says an ETFO pamphlet, In Defence of Public Education, In defence of Collective Bargaining.

ETFO, which is affiliated to other teacher unions under the umbrella of the Ontario Teachers' Federation, has not yet indicated whether it will follow OSSTF and AECTA into the Ontario Federation of Labour.

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We as Communists are often involved in planning Labour Day marches or celebrations of various sorts, and we almost automatically connect Labour with Unions. That's fine as far as it goes. But for the majority of women in Canada, who are not members of any union, that doesn't go far enough.

What does Labour Day have to offer women who dream of someday having a union job, but for now are struggling with term contracts, unemployment, part-time employment, welfare, and parenting, hoping for some kind of work that pays us enough to keep the children healthy next year?

As Communists we think about the women in the Public Service Alliance of Canada who may finally get their back pay for years of inequality, and we are rooting for them all the way. We know that they have worked, some of them for 20 years or more, in jobs where their work was undervalued and their pay barely enough to pay the bills and maintain their households. Although Ottawa is dragging its heels about paying these women their due, there is now official recognition that their work was and is of equal value to jobs for which men were paid far more adequately. Their victory is a victory for all working class women. But how does that actually translate into a concrete victory for the woman on welfare, or the woman whose income depends on the idiosyncrasies of term contracts with no future in sight?

How do we as Communists connect with women whose lives have never come close to the Union scene, those never included in the Labour Day marches, and from whose perspective their union sisters are the privileged elite? The old leftist slogans spring to mind: Organize the unorganized. Fine, but few unions will fight to include term workers. Welfare moms can and have organized various groups to fight on single issues - neighbourhood safety, school lunches and the like - but have they received union support on the bread-and-margarine issues like welfare clawback of the Child Tax Credit?

When our union sisters take to the streets, singing, "For what force on earth is weaker than the feeble strength of one?", the rest of us realize that our life circumstances and our oppression as women have placed us in just that "feeble" position. This is not empowering women!

What does the Communist Party do to make a difference in Womens's lives? Mary Kardash made a huge impact for thousands of women in Winnipeg, as she fought on the school board for community resources and as she struggled alongside Aboriginal organizations to give their children a chance for a better future. We remember Comrade Mary Kardash, who died on Labour Day, with honour and love. Millie Lamb organized womens' reading circles and the Nellie McLung Theatre Group which brought countless women over to a commitment to socialism. Other women comrades and redfems today work hard in community organizations as well as in the women's movement across Canada.

Given that the millions of unorganized women are urgently needed in the struggle, how has the Communist Party priorized this work today? The CPC's recent 32nd Convention adopted an Action Plan for the recruitment of women, and some progress has been made on most of its points. But has our leadership at all levels strategized on ways to better support the struggle of unorganized women? Does our provincial and club work reflect this as a priority, or is it the assignment of a few members and of little interest to the others? From where I sit, the answer is "not yet."

Each club and Party member could take this Labour Day to consider what this means for your work. Have you invited representatives from women's organizations to give you a club educational on life on welfare or at minimum wage? Are you a resource to the community or do the residents only know you as a fund-raiser? What have you, individually of collectively, done to fight women's poverty lately? Leafletting at the factory gates is important, but it's not enough, comrades. That's not where many of us are. And we still ain't satisfied.

RedFem Report is a column by members of the Communist Party's
Central Women's Commission.

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People's Voice press clubs and supporters are entering a crucial period of circulation building this fall. As always, summer has been more laid-back in most parts of Canada, and our subscription base has slipped a bit recently. There are still many renewals to pick up, so we urge clubs to check readership lists carefully in September.

Some of our best circulation builders have been busy during the hot weather, however. . .

For some supporters, summer has also been a time to make People's Voice "seen and read." Our table at the annual Under the Volcano Festival of the Arts and Social Change, held Aug. 16 at Cates Park in North Vancouver, was visited by hundreds of festival-goers. Over 150 signed a petition calling on the B.C. government to take legal action against local neo-Nazis, and many bought papers and left their names to be contacted for coming events.

Speaking of PV events in September, here are two to remember. Toronto's annual People's Voice Picnic starts at 12 noon, Sunday, Sept. 13 at a new location this year: Christie Pits Park, beside the Christie subway station. Organizers promise great food, labour songs, kids' games and more.
Don't miss it!

In Vancouver, PV will hold an "Anti-Fascist Film Fest"
starting at noon, Saturday, Sept. 19.
Features will include two Costa- Gavros films, Z and Betrayed,
as well as The Lost Cause,
an excellent documentary on the Spanish Civil War,
with a focus on Canada's Mackenzie-Papineau Battalion.
This event is free,
but contributions will be accepted for PV
and local anti-fascist organizations.

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"Never Again" say anti-nuke protests

Hiroshima and Nagasaki Day events across Canada
and around the planet in early August
sent a sharp message to world leaders:
the time has come
to end the arms race and dismantle weapons of mass destruction.

In Canada,
rallies and vigils took place in most major cities,
including Vancouver, Toronto, Edmonton, Montreal and Winnipeg.

Toronto's Hiroshima Day Coalition organized an Aug. 9 rally
with a wide range of speakers at the City Hall Peace Garden
in Nathan Phillips Square, winding up with a lantern ceremony.
Speakers included
nuclear expert Dr. Rosalie Bertell,
and representatives from
the city of Toronto,
United Nations Association,
Durham Nuclear Awareness Project,
Women's International League for Peace and Freedom,
Veterans Against Nuclear Arms,
Desh Pradesh,
Sciences for Peace,
the Canadian Peace Alliance,
and the Hiroshima Day Coalition itself.

Tashiko Yokoshikawa,
a survivor of the U.S. atomic bomb attacks on Japan, also spoke,
and there were several cultural presentations.

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We don't know how much money Lockheed Martin makes every time one of its Titan 4 rockets comes off the assembly line, but even a dime would be too much. A US Air Force Titan blew up just 40 seconds after liftoff from Cape Canaveral on August 12, in one of the most expensive accidents in human history. The rocket and the launch together cost $344 million, and the payload was a $1 billion spy satellite for the National Reconnaissance Office.

Karl Marx and Frederick Engels once wrote that in economic terms, the production of war materials has the same impact as throwing expensive commodities directly into the ocean. America's rocket scientists and engineers showed how to do it in style, turning $1.344 billion US of equipment into flaming shrapnel. It would almost be funny, if it wasn't for the fact that billions of people live without clean drinking water or decent homes while corporate profiteers ring up obscene profits selling rockets to US taxpayers.

Our second profiteer of the month for September is a repeat winner, Wal-Mart Stores Inc. The world's largest retailer reports that second-quarter earnings were "better than expected" - up 30 percent to $1.03 billion US for the quarter ending July 31. Yes, that's for just three months. Profits from its stores outside the USA jumped almost fivefold over the same quarter of 1997, with international sales surging ahead by 40% this year in Canada and Latin America. Sooner or later, just like at McDonalds, enough workers at this gross corporate privateer will compare those profit figures with their paycheques to start organizing. . .

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Fernwood Publishing of Halifax has published an inexpensive new edition of the Manifesto of the Communist Party, written 150 years ago by Karl Marx and Frederick Engels. The Fernwood edition features the same cover as the first edition, which appeared in 1848, Europe's "year of revolutions."

With a cover price of just $4.50, the 29-page pamphlet is available from

Fernwood
Box 9409, Station A, Halifax,
Nova Scotia,
B3K 5S3.

The company also publishes a strong list of books on political and economic topics, from a left perspective.One such new title is Shrinking the State:Globalization and Public Administration "Reform",by John Shields and B. Mitchell Evans (1998, $17.95, 143 pages). Though somewhat academic in its approach, Shrinking the State is a useful critique of the neo-con fallacy that vital public services can be "improved" through privatization and other downsizing measures. The authors call for organizations of workers and other defenders of hard-won labour standards and social policies to develop international linkages, and for mechanisms to prevent capital from using its mobility as a weapon against citizens and progressive governments.

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By all accounts, the Communist Party's East Coast Summer School was a success. Hosted by the CPC's Red Lobster Club in July, the school attracted a dozen socialists from across Nova Scotia for a week of study and discussion. Toronto's Liz Rowley attended on behalf of the Central Committee and led two of the most insightful sessions.

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It's not possible to conceive of a future world without a deep consciousness of solidarity."

This saying, posted on the wall of the meeting hall at the Pedagogical Convention Centre east of Havana, best captures the feeling of the First Cuba-Canada Meeting of Friendship and Solidarity held here from August 16 to 23.

Co-sponsored by Canadian friendship associations, the Cuban Institute for Friendship and Solidarity with the Peoples (ICAP), and other organizations in both countries, the meeting was attended by just over 100 Canadians from different sectors of society, and by Cuban representatives from foreign affairs, women, youth, workers, and a range of institutions.

After a children's choral group opened the meeting with songs of welcome, Jose Estevez Hernandez, director of ICAP's North American Division and Cuban Emigration, spoke about international solidarity for Cuba, now involving 1,600 organizations in 123 countries. In Canada alone ICAP has relations with 56 groups. Estevez called Canada-Cuba relations a model of mutual respect between two countries with different economic and political systems.

But his main point was that in spite of the apparent "relaxing" of the blockade - the continuation of direct flights between Cuba and the US, allowing remittances, etc. - it remains intact. "To think otherwise," notes Estevez, "is to demobilize the struggle against the blockade."

Delegates heard from three other high-level speakers providing information and analysis.

Osvaldo Martinez, director of the Centre for Research on the World Economy (CIEM), spoke about Cuba's present economic situation and perspectives. Explaining the blow to Cuba caused by the collapse of the socialist bloc and the intensified US blockade, he said that "we have refused shock therapy and the neo-liberalism of letting the market resolve problems. . ."

Martinez identified 1993 as the turning point of Cuban economic policy and the start of a series of measures for economic reform. As part of Cuba's commitment to minimize suffering to the people, health, education and social security have not had their budgets reduced.

"Economic transformation is a permanent process," he continued, "and structures exist for the government to have an ongoing and systematic consultation with the people. There is no intent to reinstall capitalism, but to have a mixed economy."

Jorge Lescano, secretary of the Foreign Affairs Commission of Popular Power (Poder Popular) spoke about Cuban democracy and popular participation in the electoral process at all levels. Mary Flores, vice-minister of foreign affairs, talked about the blockade and US aggressions against Cuba.

Participants held in-depth meetings with representatives from different sectors: women, workers, youth, artists and writers and foreign affairs. Those attending the foreign affairs meeting were impressed with the works of Carlos Fernandez de Cossio, director of the North American Division. Noting that the friendship between Canada and Cuba is closer than reflected by the Canadian mainstream press, which frequently uses U.S. news services, he emphasized that Canadian solidarity work will be even more important in the future, as Cuba looks to Canada for assistance with tax structures, central banking, etc.

Among the key points in the Final Meeting Statement is the establishment of an ad hoc committee for organizing a cross- country coordinating structure for friendship and solidarity groups. Participants from both countries felt that such a network has tremendous potential.

Participants called for developing a Directory of Solidarity Groups in Canada, and for establishing e-mail, a website, and a newsletter on a cross-Canada basis. The role of ICAP in providing timely information was also discussed.

"It is important to have all solidarity groups coordinate among themselves," said Edith Montrain, vice-president of Carrefour Amité‚ Quebec-Cuba in Quebec City, and coordinator of the Quebec contingent of the 6th Canadian Volunteer Work Brigade Ernesto Che Guevara, "so that they can have the weight to encourage the Canadian government to always regard Cuba fairly and present the situation accurately."

The Final Statement supports the proposal of the July '98 Puerto Rico-Cuba Solidarity Conference in Havana for the year 2000, and says that Canadian friendship groups will call on Ottawa to increase its demands on Washington to end the blockade.

In discussing educational work within Canada, three key areas were identified for renewed efforts:

*that the blockade is unjust,

*that Cuba is a democratic country
with a government elected by the people and respect for human rights,

*and that Cuba offers economic opportunities
for Canadian partners who want to invest.

The importance of linking Cuban and Canadian struggles, especially against the Helms-Burton law, was another theme emphasized in the conference.

"Canadian and Cuban people have in common an overriding need to protect the sovereign rights of our respective peoples" said Lee Lorch, chair of the executive committee of the Canadian-Cuban Friendship Association (Toronto), "especially against the efforts of the US government to destroy these rights, and with them, the hopes of our peoples."

Talking about Cuba's health and educational systems, and the generosity with which Cuba continues to share these throughout the third world, Lorch expressed the feeling of many participants when he emphasized how the US government, particularly through the Torricelli and Helms-Burton Laws, is striving to end all this.

"But these bills and these policies have other targets than only Cuba," he continued. "They seek to dictate the trade policies and destroy the sovereignties of Canada and indeed the entire world, in spite of overwhelming votes taken by the UN General Assembly and the Organization of American States which have condemned the US blockade against Cuba and its attendant assault on the sovereignty of all other countries."

The theme - common struggle against a common problem - was also expressed by other conference participants.

"It's not only the Cuban people, but all people across the world, who are threatened by the aggressive thrust of the US to assert global dominance," said Trinidad-born Sandra Awang, member of Toronto's Paul Robeson Committee, visiting Cuba for the first time. "To contest this needs international solidarity. This conference is about coming together in unified front to assert our right."

"I can see why Cuba is relevant for the rest of the world," said Nancy Bleak, Vancouver-based photographer in Cuba for the first time as a member of the Brigade and a participant in the conference. "The vision of socialism here and the struggle to implement it is inspiring. It's a democratic socialism with a value on life and an ethic of being rather than having. Cuba's efforts to create something the world has never known has global implications."

"No one is better at turning dreams into reality than Cubans," said David Warner, former Speaker of the Ontario Legislature (1990-95) and participant in the meetings. He hopes to see a committed effort to persuade the Canadian media to allow themselves the opportunity to learn about the real Cuba, and a renewed commitment to solidarity work, especially in the areas of health and education. "Cuba is important to Canada for its example of how to care and share," noted Warner, "and of how to involve the ordinary citizen in the development of society. That's a great lesson for Canada. There are the ordinary things of trade - the excellent coffee, the world's best rum and cigars - but far more important are the lessons in humanity and civility which Cuba offers."

In closing the meeting, Sergio Corrieri, ICAP president, again returned to the theme of solidarity.

You practise solidarity because you feel it," says Corrieri. "It not only helps those who receive it. It also ennobles those who exercise it. Solidarity is invaluable just as tenderness and human kindness are invaluable."

This sentiment is also captured in the concluding words of the Final Meeting Statement: "Cuba is not alone and friendship between our peoples can never be blockaded."

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The global neo-liberal agenda is being imposed on Colombian workers through the union-busting overhauling of the country's labour code and the unrelenting terror of death squads.

This anti-union onslaught has taken its toll on Colombia's labour movement. Less than six percent of the workforce is still unionised. In the private sector the figure is just over four percent; in the public sector, teachers alone account for three quarters of the unionised workers.

Inside Colombia, the dire situation facing organised labour is justified by the government's intensive counter-insurgency war. Abroad, especially in the United States, it is explained away by invoking the mirage of the so-called "war on drugs".

This campaign seeks to link organised labour to Colombia's left- wing guerrilla movements. Unions are a major target of right-wing death squads that operate with the acquiescence - and, often, sponsorship - of the security forces and multinational corporations like British Petroleum, Nestle and Coca-Cola.

In this dirty war against labour, the Central Unitaria de Trabajadores (CUT), Colombia's largest and most progressive labour confederation, has seen over 2,300 of its leaders and activists assassinated since it was founded in 1986. Only one suspect was ever charged by the Colombian state for any of those assassinations.

Unionists have also been subjected to incessant prosecution by the Colombian state. The main weapon has been the criminalisation of social protest, manipulating the law to make the normal functions of unions and their memberships illegal.

In particular, in 1988 the government adopted Decree No. 180, which effectively brands unionists as "terrorists" in the eyes of the law.

The decree reads: 'Whoever provokes or maintains the population or a sector of the same in a state of unrest or terror, by means of acts that place at risk the life, the physical integrity or the liberty of persons or the edifices of the communication media, transport, processing or transportation of fluids and fuel plants, using means capable of creating hardship, will face up to 20 years in prison."

In effect, this decree criminalises job actions in the telecommunications, transportation or energy sectors, allowing the government to charge workers as "terrorists" for holding a strike!

As one can imagine, this state of affairs has served to break the knee-caps of the labour movement. During June, telecommunications workers staged a 10-day strike to protest plans to privatise Colombia's Telecom and to demand that the company respect the agreements on pensions that had been negotiated by the three unions (ATT, ASITEL and SITELECOM).

The government declared the strike "illegal", bringing considerable pressure on the unions to accept an agreement that would end the strike and defuse the very tense situation that had developed in light of the refusal of Telecom president Jose Blackburn Cortez to negotiate in good faith.

By declaring the strike "illegal", the Colombian government cleared the way to invoke Decree No. 180 under which union leaders and organisers can be arrested on charges of "terrorism". In 1992, the government did just that, arresting thirteen union leaders. They were arbitrarily held for one year before the trumped-up charges were dropped.

Colombian trade unionists are calling for progressive unionists in other countries to publicise their frightful plight, and to provide refugee support to unionists who have to flee the death squads.

They need us to pressure US-based multinationals to clean up their murderous records in Colombia. What they need most of all right now is our visible support and encouragement.

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CNN reporter stands by nerve gas story
- By Tim Wheeler, People's Weekly World

The corporate media, and even many "left-liberal" publications, have attacked last June's CNN story on the use of nerve gas by the U.S. during the Vietnem war as "poor journalism." But this article from the Communist Party USA reveals how CNN caved in to retrace the story.

April Oliver, the reporter fired by CNN for writing an expose of Pentagon use of nerve gas during the Vietnem war, tole the People's Weekly World she stands by her story. She supports the demand that the Pentagon open its files on "Operation Tailwind."

"Since they muzzled me for three weeks and did not allow me to defend my reporting, I'm doing everything I can to restore the integrity of my report," she told the World in a telephone interview. "I and my co-producer, Jack Smith, stand by this report and are proud of it." CNN's Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist, Peter Arnett, also signed the report.

Oliver assailed CNN top executives for retracting the report headlined "Valley of Death" about a Sept. 11, 1970 covert raid into Laos by a U.S. military hit squad assigned to execute U.S. military defectors.

The target was Chavan, a Laotian mountain village near the Vietnam border where the deserters were hiding our. The so-called SOG hit squad consisted of 16 U.S. special forces soldiers reinforced by about 140 Montagnard mercenaries. Nerve gas was used during the raid, killing both defectors and villagers, the report revealed.

The report was buttressed with interviews of the commander, second in command, and several other particiipants in the operation.

Adm. Thomas Moorer, U.S. Navy (ret.) who was then Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff told Oliver that Sarin nerve gas was used in as many as 20 "high risk" search and destroy missions during the Vietnem war.

The 18 minute expose was broadcast over CNN on June 7 and appeared in Time magazine. The report touched off a firestorm of attacks from powerful circles.

Oliver charged that former Secretary of State Henry Kissinger, former Chairman of the Joint Chiefs Gen. Colin Powell, and former CIA Director Richard Helms were among those who pressured CNN and Time to retract the story.

Asked about demands that Congress investigate, Oliver replied, "We would have welcomed that." She said she participated in a telephone conference call with top CNN executives in Atlanta after the furore erupted.

CNN/USA President Richard Kaplan told participants in the call, "I do not want to go to a Congressional hearing with 3,000 establishment figures like Gen. Colin Powell on one side of the room and our Special Forces guys on the other. This is not a journalistic problem. This is a public relations problem."

Said Oliver, "That showed a lack of will to stand by the story. The CNN executive suite was inundated by calls from heavy hitters like Henry Kissinger, Colin Powell and Richard Helms. CNN simply caved in."

CNN commissioned media attorney Floyd Abrams to assess the accuracy of the report. Predictable, Abrams concluded the story lacked sufficient evidence. "Abrams' report was a rush to judgment," Oliver said. "They were determined to kill the story."

Yet even Abrams' report admitted, "The broadcast was prepared after exhaustive research, was rooted in considerable supportive data . . . we do not believe it can reasonable be suggested that any of the information on which the broadcast was based was fabricated or nonexistent."

Abrams, who checked with those interviewed by Oliver, conceded that they were quoted accurately and all the documentation was compiled into a 156-page briefing book for senior editors of CNN. All of them signed off on the story even though they have made Oliver and Smith, who was also fired, the scapegoats.

They accumulated enough evidence to fill the hour-long report originally planned. "But then they made us take things out to shorten the story down. Now they are blaming us for not providing more proof," Oliver said. "We want to talk to anybody who will listen, to get the facts back on the table."

Kissinger may suffer from amnesia but the record of U.S. genocide in Vietnam gives credibility to the report. In the My Lai massacre, hundreds of Vietnamese women and children were machine- gunned by U.S. troops. There was "Operation Phoenix" in which the CIA assassinated an estimated 35,000 members of the National Liberation Front of Vietnam. The country was saturated with the herbicide agent orange.

Defenders of a free press point out that Gary Webb, too, was fired after his series "Dark Alliance" in the San Jose Mercury News blew the lid off the CIA's role in the crack cocaine plague.

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As of August 20, sixty-one communist and workers' parties and movements from around the world have signed a joint statement against the Multilateral Agreement on Investment. The declaration, "UNITE TO STOP THE MAI," was circulated last spring on the initiative of the Communist partiers of Australia, Canada, and the United States.

Many communist publications have printed the declaration, such as Rizospastis, which has a huge circulation in Greece. In addition, various unions and other progressive organizations have endorsed the statement in some countries, according to a news release from the Communist Party of Canada's central office.

The CPC warns that OECD governments like Canada and the U.S. are trying to overcome working class and democratic resistance to the MAI, before the October 1998 meeting of OECD trade ministers. "It is imperative that popular opposition to the MAI be mobilized throughout the world in conjunction with this meeting. The intensifying global economic and currency crises are increasingly exposing the bankruptcy of the corporate-driven 'globalization' agenda, of which the MAI is an important part. International mass political action can ensure that the MAI is defeated, and make it more difficult for global capitalist interests to foist similar arrangements (either through the IMF or the WTO) on the peoples of the world. . ."

The statement is available in English, French or Spanish, from the CPC at 290A Danforth Ave., Toronto, Ontario, M4K 1N6, or at:

*www.communist-party.ca

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While the well-paid corporate mouthpieces assure us that globalisation is the answer to all humanity's prayers, the reality is strikingly different.

Globalisation is not a strategy that spring fully-formed from the collective social conscience of the world's "leaders." Its roots are more basic than that.

Between 1913 and 1990, the wealth of the richest 20% of the global community increased from 70% to 85%. Meanwhile, the poorest 20% saw their "take" fall from 2.3% to 1.4%.

In addition, the last fifty years has seen world income increase sevenfold. Yet, per capita income has increased a mere threefold. It doesn't take a genius to work out where all that missing money has gone. Progress indeed.

Today, an estimated 1,300 million human beings live in absolute poverty: that is, one in four of the world population.

In excess if 80 million children have no access to formal education of even the most rudimentary variety. Some 900 million adults the world over cannot read and write. More fundamentally, over 300 million people have no access to clean drinking water.

The belief that globalisation somehow contributes to developing poorer economies by spreading available global capital more evenly than before, is nothing more than a myth. For every $1 invested, global corporations effectively steal back $15 of valuable natural resources, usually from the poorer countries.

Today, the debt of the Southern Hemisphere stands in excess of $2 trillion. These, the poorest of the world's countries, repay $250,000 to the rich North, every minute of the day.

And as for the myth of globalisation as an employment creation process. . . the top 200 transnational corporations control almost a quarter of all global economic activity. Yet they employ less than 1% of the world's economically active population

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