The Digger No.47 November 1975

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The poems men write in prison—fromPentridge &Yatala

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AWAUP08TERGUIDES TOTHE t h e n e w s MURDOCHPRESSSuiKdâf Mail OCTOPUSDaily Mirror Céntre Pages

THE AUSTRALIAN

Peter Dickie

NOVEMBER 4 - DECEMBER 2

THE DIGGER

Page 2

M elbourne

Published by High Times Pty. Ltd. 444 Station Street, North ..

Carlton, Victorina-3054.

Telephone: 384831 Postal Address: PO Box 77 CarltOn, Victoria, 3083.

Cover price is recommended ret* ail maximum.

DIGGER COLLECTIVE:

A LT E R N A T IV E

MELBOURNE: Terry Cleary; Bob Daly, Neils Butchisoh, Phillip Frazer, Reece Lamsbed, Grant Evans, Isabelle'Rosemberg, Jean Frankel. Sandra Zurbo ADVERTISING: Terry Cleary : SYDNEY: Hall Greenland DISTRIBUTORS: New South Wales: Allan Rodney | Wright (Circulation) Pty. Ltd/ 36*40 Bourke Street, Wooloomooloo' 2021. Ph: 357.2588.

Victoria: Magdiss Proprietry. Ltd. 250 Spencer Street, Melbourne| 3000. Ph: 600421.

South Australia: Midniahi J3istaib-| ution, 3 Abbotsbury Rd, • tvandale, 5069.

Queenstana: Mirror Newspapers Ltd, Brunswick & McLachlan , sts, Brisbane.

Western Australia: Nota Distrib­ ution, PO BOx 136, M tvLa ley, 6050.

The Digger accepts news, features, artwork or photographs from contributors.

Send material with a stamped | self addressed envelope if you* went; it back, to The Digger; PO Box 77. Carlton, Victoria j 3053.

The.. Digger is » member of ihe Alternate. Press Service (APS)

J

NEWS SERVICE

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3 Z Z (1220 MgH — between 3AW and 3 K Z ). 10-15pm Friday nights and re­ peated 10-10.15am on Saturday morn­ ings. If you have some news or informa­ tion phone it through to 663-3677 on Wednesday or Thursday prior to broad­ cast.

FEM IN IST CALENDAR. The Australian Woman's Calendar — 1976. Available from 1/12 Jolimont Terrace, Jolimont for $3.50 including postage. Contains historic dates of the Australian women's movement dating back to 1882 and beaut pictures. The calendar will also be available from bookshops from early November.

MELBOURNE F IL M COOP SCREEN­ INGS: November 4-16 at 10pm: Three films on homosexuality — 1. Point o f Departure ; 2 ,Turkish Baths and 3. Homo­ sexuality — A Film for Discussion.

Peter Fridrick's film , Made in Australia is screening at 8pm , November 4-30.

Prodess Process: A B illy Bun ter Cartoon (a collage experimental film) and four Jordan Belsson films (experimental films) — November 17-30 (no Mondays).

382 Lygon Street, Carlton. 347-3450.

port from all over Australia for a cam­ paign to eliminate flouride from public water supplies. The campaign will con­ centrate on preventing the flouridation of Melbourne's water supply, due to begin in March, 1976.

Sodium fiouride is a toxic waste product o f ,the aluminimum, bauxite industry. It has been promoted as beihg beneficial to kids' teeth while all evidence linking it to increasing cancers, heart and bone disease and mongoloid births has been suppressed.

Meeting at 'S H A K A H A R I', 329 Lygon Street, Carlton, November 10 at 8pm.

Naples. Showing at the AM W U, 174 Victoria Pde., East Melbourne on Nov' 7; at 8pm. Admission $1 or $2 forfamilies.

Planning meeting of all gay groups on November 5 at Gay Liberation Centre, 259 Brunswick Street, Fitzroy.

Gay Teachers' Group meeting at the Gay Liberation Centre on November 11 at 8pm . Discussion of proposed charter for teachers' group.

AM NESTY

INTERNATIO N AL film screening at the AMP Theatrette, 535 Bourke Street, City on November 18 at 8pm. Film: The Year o f the Torturers.

An evening with artist Noel Counihan to raise money for the H ALFW AY HOUSE is being held on November 15 at 57 Centre Dandenong Road, Dingley at 8pm. Donation: $2. Refreshments.

N ATIO N AL CONFERENCE ON EAST TIMOR to be held in Melbourne on November 22 & 23. Sponsored by Committee for Independent East Tim or (C IE T ). For more details phone Ian Bell on 48-3566 (A H ).

WOMEN'S THEATRE GROUP is cur­

Name Address

rently performing a season of plays by contemporary Australian women writers.

The season consists of a surrealistic piece on close interdependent relation­ ships by P.J. Bradhurst; Curtain Raiser, a mime piece by Di King and S hift, which explores the relationships a mother, her daughter and the mother's sister. Written by Finola Moorhead.

Season ends November 16. Phone book­ ings from 347-7641 at the Pram Factory.

LA N D RIGHTS CONFERENCE SUP­ PER SHOW A dance, rap and action

Postcode: I enclose $7.00 for 13 issues of the four-weekly Digger.

the Marconi Ballroom, 570 Victoria Street, North Melbourne. $5 admission covers food, but BYOG.

M IG R A N T WORKERS' CONFERENCE, to be held at the Trades Hall, Lygon Street, Carlton on November 7 & 8. The conference is for trade unionists, community workers and others interes­ ted in the problems of migrants in Australia. For for further information (including registration) phone Vera 347-3255 (work hours).

SUPPER SHOW by BLACK THEATRE at the Pram Factory, November 7 at 11.30pm. Tickets $4. Money going to Land Rights' Conference in Cairns.

ABO RIG INAL RESOURCES CENTRE are holding a film screening at 8pm on November 14. Films are Bruce Petty's Australian History and a film on the Aboriginal tent embassy called Nlngla A Na. Details of venue from 419-5152.

The following is a list of regular meetings at the WOMEN'S LIBER ATIO N

CENTRE: THE WATER SUPPORTERS invite sup­

AMW U F IL M NIGHT. Screening di Sica's Bicycle Thieves, set in post-war

To: Subscriptions, The Digger, P. 6. Box 77, Carlton, Vic., 3053.

Migrant Workers' Conference Pre-Confe­ rence Festival o f International U nity at

show at the Pram Factory, 325 Drummorfd Street, Carlton on November 7 at 11.30pm.

Monday: Halfway House group meets at 7.30pm Tuesday: Vashti's Voice newspaper collective meets at 7.30pm and so does the Women's Media Action Group.

Wednesday: Women's Abortion Action Campaign meetings at 7.30pm.

Friday: Open (to any women) Con­ sciousness Raising Group — an intro­ duction to feminism and the move­ ment. Time — 7.30pm.

Also, the Centre is open 10am-7.30pm every week day and also the nights that meetings are on for anyone who wants to drop in. We advise women to phone and check before coming to a meeting.

WOMEN & THE M EDIA WORKSHOP. November 15 from 10am-5pm at the Union Building, Melbourne University.

Speakers are Pat Edgar, Barbara Bishop and Gillian Appleton. Topics: 'Se-xist Advertising', 'Alternative Media' and more. Donation $2. Phone 347-1564 for more information.

FREE

ABO RTIO N

Make cheques payable to Hightimes Pty. Ltd, crossed not negotiable.

.01

DEMAND.

UR ANIUM - WHO NEEDS IT? Sym­ posium at Public Lecture Theatre, Melbourne University on November 9 between 1-5pm.

Speakers include: Amory Bloch Lovins, visiting US nuclear critic; Cheryl Buchanan, Black Resources Centre (Melb.); Jim Falk, Australian Conservation Foundation. Chairpeople: Geoff Mosely (ACF) and John Half­ penny (AM W U).

Registration: $3 sent to Campaign Against Nuclear Power, 53 McArthur Place, Carlton, 3053. Phone 347-6630.347A

WOMAN'S RIG HT TO CHOOSE.

Fundraising bar-b-que on November 22 at Studley Park, Kew at noon. $2 to go and meat is provided. Money for Wo­ men's A bortion A ction Coalition. Phone 347-7127 for more details.

CRECHE for

2'A year olds in the Carlton-Fitzroy area. People interested in setting up a group -r there's a meeting on November 9 at 9pm , 276 Cardigan.

Street, Carlton.

DROP THE CHARGES against Walker, Lacey (aka Fogarty) and Garcia and smash the Queensland Aborigines and Torres Strait Islanders Acts. DEMON­ STRATE outside Queensland Govt.

Tourist Bureau, 5pm, November 7.

Speakers to include Cheryl Buchanan and Bruce McGuinness.

\ RADIO 4ZZ-FM will go to air on De­

ON

Demonstrate on December 6 at the City Square then come in the march to the Fitzroy Gardens. More info. (Melbourne) phone 347-1564 (Sydney) 61-7325.

...........................

PLEASE. The cember 1 and will be Brisbane's first new Committee organising the Landrights radio station in 30 years. 4ZZ -FM will be Conference to be held at the end of non-commercial independent radio, November (see t;his page) is desperately broadcasting music — mainly rock with trying to raise the required $15,000 for specialist programmes in jazz, soul, folk, this very important meeting. So send blues and classical — an independent donations to the Black Resources Centre news service, humour, information and in your city or to this paper. Make limited access. Cont§£t.fc>y j/vritirjg T -O -, xheques/postal- orders, payable to the Box 509, .ToQ w ^/ic^r^i^Q ^^r ^phojje^ *l^fid€i9btp Qon/fe*eoce ,CorhrfHtte&* •

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DONATIONS

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THEU.S. CONNECTION

"M y aim is to create a show which in­ forms the Australian public of the gigantic fraud perpetrated by American multinationalsin this country.

"General Motors suggests itself because the Holden has acquired mythic propor­ tions in the Australian psyche and be­ cause it is one of the largest corpora­ tions in the world; its gross annual sales producing an income in excess of the GNP of 85 per cent of the UN member states.

"Its ruthlessness, its cunning, its shod­ diness, defy description. Its attitude to the Australian consumer and the Austra­ lian worker has been rapacious, and in

the very near future will become even more so. Unless we act wisely now (i.e. seize GM assets in Australia without compensation) untold thousands will be thrown out of work, and millions more dollars made by the sweat of Aust­ ralian brows will find their way into the pockets of non-productive American share-holders."

(Extracts from a letter to the Austra­ lian Performing Group collective by playwright, John Romeril.

This show is currently being rehearsed at the Pram Factory for a 3 week season beginning November 25 at 9pm. Phone 347-7493 or 347-7133 for,bookings.

S id n ey Shelter Special Needs Working Group is meeting at 39 Darghan Street, Glebe on November 20 at 7.30pm.

Phone 660-6136.

King's Cross journalist and anti-develo­ per activist, Juanita Neilson. Court case November 6 at Sydney Central Court of Petty Sessions at 10am. Demonstrate!

NSW Adventure Playground Association _ will be meeting at the Environment Centre, 263B Broadway, Glebe on November 11 at 8pm.

MEN'S MOVEMENT -

Inner City Education Centre In-Service Workshop for Teachers. 'Equality in

Every Wednesday. Ecology Action Work­ ing Bee at NSW Environment Centre,

Education'. Being held at 37 Cavendish Street, Stanmore on November 1 0 & 12.

Phone 516-3550 or 51-5648 for more information.

263B Broadway, Glebe. Phone 660-0960 for more information.

A coalition of workers and consumers dissatisfied with the mass media are meeting to bring out a national labour movement newspaper to correct im­ balances that occur. Women, migrants and media workers are involved. For further information phone John Baker, 43-7576 (Sy.). Next meeting November 10 at 7.30pm at the AJA.

WOMEN BEHIND BARS. A group for­ med to help people who have been in or are currently in institutions.

Attempting to cut through the sexism and bureaucracy in women's institu­ tions. For further info, contact Beryl Christian, Cl- Women's House, 25 Alberta Street, Sydney or phone 61-7325.

Journalist Tony Reeves is being framed ,oq ^digunkvPhpl disorderly,after,attempt-

CR GROUP.

Meets at Redfern House, 24 Pitt Street, Redfern. Contact 660-6575 for further information.

Inner Sydney Regional Social Development is

Council

for

meeting on November 25 at the Anti-TB Cnr. Crown & Forveaux Streets, Surry Hills. Phone 660-6620 for more about this organisation.

Friends o f the Green Ban Movement are holding a meeting at the NSW Environ­ ment Centre, 263B Broadway, Glebe on Ndvember 30 at 7pm.

Inner City Residents' A ction Group will be meeting on November 6 at South Community A id, 118 Regent Street, Redfern at 7.30pm. 69-7709 for further info.

Shelter Tenancy Working Group is hold­ ing a meeting on November 17 at 6pm at 190 Cumberland Street, Sydney. More info obtainable by phoning 27-4066.

RAPE CRISIS CENTRE (Sy.) is hold­ ing a Training Day' on November 9 for women interested in joining, the

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NOVEMBER 4 — DECEMBER 2

THE DIGGER

Page 3

The gentlemen o f 1901 thought they had fixed the political rules fo r good.

Fraser falls on his arse

by John Schmid and Grant Evans When the ‘constitutional crisis’ first broke about two weeks ago, it looked as though some heat might be coming back to Aust­ ralian political life. The Labor government seemed to regain some of its former cohe­ sion and supporters who had grown disil­ lusioned once again felt they had something to fight for. Fraser’s always been a mean bastard and is a perfect target for irate* Laborites.

People have turned out in the thousands to mass political rallies that have been held around the country to support Gough and harass Fraser wherever he spoke.

Most comentators said Australia was head­ ing for a realt crisis. If the money ran out there would be chaos and anarchy and people would start taking power into their own hands!

But the whole business has become very quickly bogged down in legal jargon about the constitution — if there is an election it will be lawyers’ field day . . .afield day for lawyer Gough.

The Liberals and the National Country Party caused the ‘crisis’ and seemed sure that they would come out of it on top. But it looks like it backfired for Fraser and his flunkies. After playing it so coolly since he took over from Snedden, it looks; as though Fraser might have blown his first major bid for power.

While a lot of the talk of crisis is hysteria, what has happened in the last couple of weeks does have very important implications for the future of politics in Australia. For those who believe that the Australian consti­ tution has really served the Australian people well, then it is a crisis — conserva­ tives like to have a constitution that’s a mystified object, somehow guaranteeing the functioning of the best of all possible poli­ tical systems for Australia.

Australia’s political history is not the most exciting one around but if we are going to understand what is happening at the mo­ ment we need to go back a bit and see how it all came into being.

The constitution was drawn up by repre­ sentatives from tall the states to establish Australian federation, and the central point of conflict was how much power they were prepared to concede to a central national government. While even historians agree that the constitution was drawn up by “men of wealth and property” with little involvement by organised labour, the' question beneath all the legal jargon was how much capitalists ~ who already had open access to local state power —were prepared to give to new power which, as yet, was an unknown quantity.

This basically was why the federal system had a Senate — the house of review. It was to be a conservative house which would preserve the power of the states (the states’ house), and check on radical reform coming up from the lower house — the House of Representatives. The gentlemen of 1901 could see how quickly a radical lower house could cut the ground from under their states’, governments if it was alone in Can­ berra’s Parliament House.

The Senate’s ability to reject supply is a direct consequence of this vision.

The Senate has performed its conservative role admirably over the years. The three most vigorously reformist Labor govern­ ments since federation —the governments of Fisher, Scullin and Whitlam — have all had to fight Senates — with a conservative majority.

Mostly the federal government has been conservative and this has allayed the states’ fears somewhat. And anyway, since federa­ tion, Australia’s power distribution has changed — nationwide industrialisation in conjunction with international capitalist concerns has made centralised state power useful — which in turn has bolstered the strength of that centralised power..

As these changes have unfolded, “con­ vent! on£’ have been enshrined. In lawyers’ jargon, conventions are the unwritten rules which allow the constitution (as a legal document) to work. This notion of conven­ tion is derived from the British (Westmin­ ster) system. But despite all the set-jawing, these conventions are not an abstracted ‘gentleman’s agreement’ but the outcome of a struggle between classes — at the level of parliament. Real policies have to.work in the world outride o f pariiameht, so to sell a

prices and incomes policy to the unions,' Hawke is given a sneak preview of the budget and this very same budget is tailored to head off opposition from the private sector. Parliament is the way that class con­ flict is defused within our political system . . | telegraphing the blows through miles of soft leather as it were. Any class action taken outside the parliamentary framework is then defined as disruptive and anarchic.

The conservatives, because they set up most of the conventions on which the Australian parliamentary system rests, have also been able to present themselves as the upholders of convention and therefore parliamentary democracy itself. And one of their long standing attacks against Labor has been that Labor is out to disrupt convention and therefore parliamentary democracy. The old “socialist attack on democracy” line.

And this is the crux of the backfire facing Fraser. The Liberals are now the destroyers of convention and Labor the upholders of it . . . it, was like the party machine finally got the tv crews to picture big Malcolm in the saddle only to have him fall on his arse on camera.

From here on things get tricky because Fraser, Anthony and their hangers-on have become victims of their own conservative mystifications of the constitution and con­ vention. Last year when they rejected supply Whitlam called an election, and in their eyes this established a new convention. (And we can see here how the conservatives attempt to make conventions to suit themselves.) So when they rejected supply again a couple of weeks ago, they were sure Whitlam would call an election.

They must still not realise — deep down — that they haven’t been in government for the past three years; they still expect those conventions they need to work for them when they don’t have power. It was incon­ ceivable for them that Gough would stick it out.

How did they come to miscalculate so badly?

Ever since Labor took over the federal government at the end of ’72, they have been under attack from various capitalist groupings for their reform policies. The earliest example was the barrage of criticism launched against the first Labor treasurer, Frank Crean. Crean believed (correctly) that financial management in Australia was im­ possible unless the non-banking private financial sector (insurance companies, per­ manent building societies, etc.) were brought under some kind of control. A ferocious |>rfes§ campaign against him, led by the

Financial Review (reflecting the interests of financial capital in Australia), moved Gough to remove Crean. But Rex Connor, the latest minister to fall, is the most obvious and im­ portant of the dominoes so far. Ever since he floated his plan for Australia’s ownership, control and development of its mineral re­ sources he has been under fire. The heat this time came from both local and international capital, and involved international power politics and energy resources. And inter­ national capital finally got him when he tried to raise money for national develop­ ment on the unofficial international money market. Here they linked up with the oppo­ sition Liberal and National Country Parties to orchestrate a campaign both within parli­ ament and the press to get rid of him. There was nothing illegal about trying to raise loans; this way — former Liberal Prime Minister John Gorton said so recently.

Labor dismantled many of its reform policies at its national conference earlier this year at Terrigal in NSW. The result was a general (press and Melbourne Club) con­ sensus that Labor had “come to its senses”, and this was followed by a very orthodox budget which succeeded in producing more of the same warm glow from the press.

But meanwhile Fraser took the attacks to mean a united front of capitalists against Labor — in fact when the particular capital­ ists immediately affected by Labor’s policies were satisfied that their demands had been met, they stopped snarling at the Whitlam government. Of course, some groupings of capitalists are always unhappy with Labour,

and most would prefer the Liberals, but generally capitalists as entrepreneurs look first at their own immediate financial in­ terests, not at the general political direction of the country.

So when Fraser called a showdown the other week the unified support he thought was there, was back at its desks.

The press would have liked to support Fraser — they all ran editorials trying for two bob each way. But Fraser broke the rules when it wasn’t his turn, and that could wreck stable government in Australia.

What Fraser has misunderstood is that the Australian constitution and its conventions have underpinned capitalism in Australia well enough, for long enough, for them to override the short term benefits to capitalists of having the Liberals for a government.

For these men, continued respect for the constitution is more important than Mal­ colm Fraser.

As a lead letter in the Melbourne Age put it: “In a few short weeks Mr. Fraser and his party, with their rural allies, will have achieved what the Communist Party has failed to achieve in 50 years in Australia.

They will have destroyed the faith in our parliamentary system of all that section of the community which does not vote for the Liberal or Country parties. Without that faith that section of the community will seek to work outside the system, and the system will not survive.” This is the stuff capitalist nightmares are made of, people with democratic power in their own hands.

Senate vote-power lies w ith N T k blacks

B ut will they be

by Terry O’Meachair It now appears certain that a half-Senate election will be used to break the constit­ utional crisis in Canberra and that the Northern Territory’s aboriginal population will play a big part in the final outcome.

Mr Whitlam hinted at a snap Senate election when he spoke at a rally in Alice Springs at the weekend. He accused the Liberal and National Country Party senators of having gone on strike and said: “The strike may be finally broken by having elections lo r senators in the Northern Ter­ ritory and the ACT.

able to use it?

“It may be the people of Darwin, Alice Springs and Canberra who break the strike by the senators,” he said. Two new senate seats in both the Northern Territory and the ACT would be filled in any half-senate election.

A half-senate election must take place in any case before July 1 next year and the Labor Government could take adavantage of public opposition to the blocking of supply to gain temporary control in the upper house.

-r Continued on page 10.

Page 4

THE DIGGER

NOVEMBER 4 - DECEMBER 2

Melbourne's Police Inquiry;

Cops bash out new rules ^w itnesses’ heads As a result of the notoriety Dr. Wainer achieved during the abortion inquiry, many people started coming to him with com­ plaints against Victorian police. He tried to deal with these complaints as they came in the door, but there were too many of them.

Meetings were organised with barristers and solicitors. The group decided that its major aim should be to make unsigned records of interview (confessions invented by cops, or “verbals”) inadmissable in court.

The group put the case to Victoria’s Chief Secretary Rossiter who said that the law could not be changed unless a public inquiry was held. Wainer was reluctant to do this as his experience of inquiries (like the abortion inquiry) resulted in his own public vilifica­ tion. Nevertheless, in March this year, a barrister established a prima facie case of police malpractice, and the current Board of Inquiry was instituted.

In a sensational opening month, the head of the consorting squad was accused of try­ ing to intimidate a witness outside the Old Licensing Court. A number of prison war­ ders were accused of "bashing a witness while transporting him through the corridor of that building and of further assaulting him with a baton in a cell at the police station across the road from the 01^1 Licensing Court where the inquiry was being held.

With cops, screws and crims scuffling in the aisles, the inquiry was adjourned a week, then moved to the County Court, where security is tighter.

Bertram Wainer has, like very few indepen­ dent activists, become a headline catehname for the Austalian press. Journalists love to dramatise his stories of police malpractice and even more like to create a storm if he makes a public blunder. But most journalists have missed the point of the current inquiry.

As Robert Richter, the barrister representing Wainer at the police inquiry said, “Those of us at the criminal bar who have bothered to think about;it,have known for years that the police sometimes assault our clients or fab­ ricate records of interview; yet it was a doc­ tor who finally initiated proceedings to remedy this situation” . Journalist Michael Ryan was sacked from The Age for his attempt to expose police intimidation of witnesses, and this has cowered the Austral­ ian press corps into giving sterile reports of the proceedings that the editors put on pages 6 and 7 of Melbourne daily news­ papers.

how often they’re accused of inventing evi­ dence. Cops experienced in court perfor­ mance realise that they can’t afford to act incensed by allegations made against them.

Just as the accused will try not to be baited by the prosecutor, so the honest cop must bear up to attacks on his honesty by the de­ fence counsel. Obviously, if unsigned con­ fessions were made inadmissable, not only would it be more difficult to frame a person, but it would also reduce the number of attacks on police honesty.

There are problems in establishing that a person has been verballed. People with cri­ minal records are rarely believed in court, whereas cleanskins — and this includes the police — are usually regarded as reliable wit­ nesses. It’s not easy for a criminal to demon­ strate that it is the police who are lying about an alleged confession. But it would be inter­ esting to obtain statistics on the number of police who have explained the gaps in taperecorded confessions as mechanical malfunc­ tions, who have inadvertantly destroyed their notes describing the circumstances of the offence or the apprehension of the ac­

tax is paid]. It is particularly in these elite squads where the opportunity to obtain graft presents itself.

A central pillar of the verbal is the infor­ mer. This person tells the police the name of the guilty man and provides material which is inserted in the verbal. It’s no surprise that the informer is hated by all self-respecting criminals, and often gets murdered by his former mates. It’s only built up notoriety that offers protection to an informer that’s outlived his usefulness to the police. Brian Latch was one such man. Mr. X — Police Informer, the book by and about Latch, shows how informers are indespensible to a modern police force and how they become a liability*once their cover has been blown.

Men like Latch have no option then but to make it public that they are caught in the squeeze.

Given that information is the key to the whole process, why don’t people merely deny it to the police? The threat of a bash­ ing does not turn an experienced criminal into an informer, but a police promise not to charge, or to charge a lesser offense, or to “go easy” at a trial may well do so. Finally, it is the promise of a jail term that usually convinces him to turn traitor. He can he charged with consorting (for hanging out with friends he has known all his life who are criminals) despite the fact that this asso­ ciation had no criminal intent.

Wainer, with the aid of only a few lawyers and journalists, has initiated an inquiry whose purpose is to recommend changes in the law regarding among other things, the inadmissability in court of un­ signed records of interview or “ verbals” . The Victorian government is paying for some 60 cases to be presented which will cost an es­ timated $400,000. If in 20 or 25 of the cases the claims are substantiated a fair argument will exist for changes in the laws and for more control over police investigation. After the Chairman, Beach Q.C. has made his find­ ings and recommended changes in-the law, Hamer’s state government has to decide what to do with the recommendations.

The term “ verbal” was popularised in a play by former Pentridge inmate, Ray Mooney. It means an unsigned record of interview. These fake admissions are often crucial in evidence in a prosecution case.

When fabricating such a verbal admission, police include facts they glean from infor­ mers, and from what they know of the ac­ cused person’s past. By including details like how the criminal has worked in the past, who his friends and relatives are, and where he hangs out — the cops make the “confes­ sion” look real.

Of course, defence lawyers argue that a record of interview is a police fabrica­ tion —claiming the client has been the sub­ ject of a criminal conspiracy on the part of the arresting officers. The number of these challenges to police veracity has increased and now ebps themselves complairi about' ■

cused, or had no explanation for inconsistancies in record of interview.

Even if the verdict is “ not guilty” there is no record held against the cops for such things as “tape recorder malfunction” , nor is this commented on by the judges. The police escape virtually unscathed and live to be credible witnesses another day.

Why do police jeopardise themselves by deliberately framing a person? Why do police and other professionals —lawyers, crimino­ logists, social workers, journalists — involve themselves in this type of work at all? One explanation is voyeurism or the excitement that’s involved in associating with criminals.

After all, the police are most often playing the same game as the criminal, only they chose to be on the safer side of the fence.

Even so, in the majority of instances where people are framed, police believe the person is guilty. The other cases involve diverse deals.

The underworld is rife with stories of how criminals pay cops to find someone else to take the rap. These rumours can’t be sub­ stantiated in court, but if we take into ac­ count that police are underpaid, over-worked and subject to great temptation, these stories don’t seem So farfetched. The armed robbery squad, for instance, has thousands of dollars passing through its hands; the breaking squad collects loads of stolen goods; the drug squad knows people who can re-cycle drugs and the vice squad know where they can get a free fuck or where to find owners of establish­ ments collecting large amounts pf black r, money [brideclared edrnings on which rioA

The rise of the informer has led to a break down in the old underworld code of never divulging information to the police and never squealing on a cop. But it’s bitterness created by a more ruthless police attitude that’s made the criminal come out and attack the police, like in the Melbourne Inquiry. Police now plant listening devices on telephone lines and in houses; they have everybody’s record at the end of a telephone activated by a computer which can also have a police car at the scene of a crime within minutes.

Banks and retailers have internal tv sets, radar and disguised security agents, Today a bust man or a safe breaker needs inside in­ formation so he can be forwarned of possible traps. He needs two fast cars and a police radio so he can evade capture. He must tear up carpets to reveal pressure mats that trig- . ger alarm systems and he must know how to blow a safe without getting dye on the money inside. He must have a larger number of associates than he would have needed 20 years ago, in order to co-ordinate his activi­ ties and to fence the haul. With more people in on a job, the risk of informers is increased.

Some people argue that the increased diffi­ culties involved in a break and entering job has driven more people (to go through the front doors with guns in broad daylight.

The criminal is losing his battle with the police and finding himself insecure in the older rules of the game. So he has resorted to new methods. The change has fostered a shgky alliance between the criminal,, his lawL yér and the me'dià. Trial fry jury Is being re­

Victoria ’s cops are once again facing an inquiry into their conduct — that's an average o f one official inquiry every 10 years since 1836. There have been three since 1965. The last two were instigated by Dr. Bertram Wainer, Melbourne doctor and active abortion law re­ former. This time the complaints before the inquiry include bashing, "verballing", framing innocent people, intimidation o f witnesses, destruction o f property and attempted murder — allegedly perpetrated by police — as well as various forms o f police graft.

placed by trial by the media, and the guilty are jumping on the bandwagon along with the innocent to put their cases to the public via a medium such as the police inquiry. The latest weapon in the criminal’s armory is the threat of initiating an investigation into the conduct of the police involved in his case.

This fragmentation of the underworld and its code has also led to a detente between what may be loosely termed “ the(counter , culture” and the underworld. The two groups can sit around and smoke or hit up dope together, criticise the bourgeoisie and their protestant work ethic and the sociolo­ gists who label both groups as “ deviant” . For the criminal, it’s also one way to avoid de­ tection while associating with the hippie fringe who are generally regarded as harm­ less. The fragmentation has also taken the criminal world into the world of literature.

People like Jim McNeil, Bob Adamson, Neil James, Billy Baldry and Ray Mooney have found that the easiest —if not the only — way to get themselves out of their situation is to become professional ex-criminals.

As the dust of the police inquiry settles, we may find criminals taking shelter behind many different sections of our community.

And what better hiding place than within the police force itself?

It has become fashionable, especially at Pentridge, to call the police inquiry a white wash. And this is understandable in light of the Jenkinson white wash which vindicated the Pentridge administratiôn in 1972/3/At that time, the.press did nothing to prevent the victimisation of those inmates who wan. ted tc establish that people were being bashed in H-division or being drugged en masse in the psychiatric division. Even now there has been no report of the fact that records are being kept at Pentridge of all cases at the re­ cent police inquiry, including those of people who have never been inside the jail.

The success of the inquiry depends a lot on the media. People who have testified rea­ lise only too well that when the thing has blown over, they will have very little protec­ tion against grudge-bearing police officers.

To protect these witnesses, there’ll need to be more press coverage. The press could also call for an interim report from Beach, or ask whether he intends to hear those pressure groups who have sought to appear at the in­ quiry, such as the Fitzroy Free Legal Service, the Aboriginal Legal, Service and a group of social and community service workers who have applied to be heard. The failure* to achieve legal aid for all the complaints and the failure to maintain the County Court as the venue for the inquiry is directly due to lack of publicity.

One unhelpful result of the inquiry so far is that the police have become sensitive about their public image. A number of officers have been appointed to a special branch called the B ll whose purpose is to investigate com­ plaints made against policemen. They can co­ opt other members of the force to help them and effectively cover up any complaints made against their buddies^ They get the first look at the evidence and are therefore in a position to forewarn the accused. I know of no police­ man who has been charged as a result of the activities of the B ll. Any other branch that had the conviction rate of the B ll would have been very quickly axed.

Police investigating police is a fruitless exercise. Very few cops believe that com­ plaints made against them should be made public. The secretary of the police associa­ tion complained that criminals at the police inquiry were granted anonymity when police were not.

As another indicator of police sensitivity to the public image, it is rumoured that gam­ blers and petty criminals are being given an easy time by police — at the moment — for fear of more complaints coming forward.

It remains to be seen whether the media will ensure that the Beach report is presented prior to the State election in mid-1976. If not, it is quite probable that it will go the same way as the 1965 Murray report which recommended changes in procedure regard­ ing the conduct of records of interview and became a dust-gatherer on the shelves of the parliamentary library.

Getting rid of verbals would be a small — but very important — advance to com e from - Melfrdûrnb’^ latest^ihtfrriry into ^orrupticbps.i

NOVEMBER 4 - DECEMBER 2

Page 5

THE DIGGER

‘To lose a breast seemed more terrible than dying’ Lin Layram describes her experience o f breast cancer When I finally made up my mind to leave my husband after a ten year relationship I was twpnty eight and childless. Within a few months I was beginning to adjust optimist­ ically to a new kind of life. I began a stable and interesting relationship.with the man I now live with and for the first time exper-^ ienced that a sexual relationship was a pos­ sible source of happiness. The hang-ups I had built up over years began to get resolved. For the first time I began to feel a pleasure and excitement from my own body that was not tied up with guilt. At this point in my life I discovered that I had cancer of the breast, and the breast had to be amputated (a simple mastectomy). The feelings I experienced are obviously a result of my personal situation, but may strike a chord for other women in the same situation, so I am recording what happened to me in as much detail as possible.

I hope that it may help other women to be relieved of some of the unnecessary hurt and humiliation which I felt at the time.

It was my boyfriend who first noticed the lump in my left breast. He persuaded me to visit a doctor which I did, albeit reluctantly.

I did not however really believe at. this stage that much serious could be wrong since L assumed (an assumption apparently shared by some of the medical profession) that breast cancer is a disease of middle age.* The local, male GP was reassuring. He examined my breasts, said that it was a swollen gland cortimon among women taking the pill (which I had been on for seven years) and told me not to worry. He did not refer me to a hospital for teste but did mention in passing that I should call in again if the lump didn’t disappear. Over the next weeks I was relieved to find that thé lump did seem to reduce in size. Looking back, I wonder how much of this was wishful thinking and imag­ ination — difficult to tell with a lump that size —contained within a breast duct above the nipple and probably no bigger than a pea.

'Shortly after this visit to the GP I moved house and didn’t have any official doctor for around four months. It didn’t seem necessary as although I was often tired and suffered badly from headaches I had no definite symptons of distress or illness.

After this period my boyfriend and I moved back to North London. I made a routine visit to the F.P.A. clinic to collect my contraceptive pills. At my visit I men­ tioned to the doctor that I had a small lump in my breast. She did not seem keen to exa­ mine me, but finally agreed to look at it as it was time for an annual check-up anyway.

After examining both breasts she said that she had found nothing. Feeling over-anxious and fussy I began to question her further.

She replied by reassuring me that if I had a “ cyst” she wouldn’t be giving me the pill.

The hormones have a very bad effect on accelerating cancer of the breast.

As I stood in the queue to collect supplies I decided to take out my treatment card and see what the doctor had written. To my bewilderment I read the words “ Nodule in left breast” . I still find this incident inexplic­ able. The clinic doctor should have informed me, told me to contact my doctor at once, and have ceased to supply the pill. She did none of these things. I cquldn’t face going back in to confront her so I collected the pills and went home feeling very shocked and puzzled. I picked up a leaflet as I went out which proclaimed “ Don’t gamble with breast cancer!” The leaflet informed me that early treatment was essential and that anyone find­ ing a lump should see a doctor immediately.

The doctor had perhaps not read this leaflet!

In my experience it was the doctors who “ gambled” , not me.

When I look back on these incidents I feel furious with myself for my spinelessness. Yet if the doctors would not take the lump in my breast seriously it was a great temptation for me to take their reassurances at face value.

What woman does not dread that a lump will turn out tp be, cancer and Djat she will lose

her breast and with it her sexual identity.

These deeply repressed fears prevented me from fighting the apathy I encountered as I should if I were fighting for a sister in the same situation. I think this may be an im­ portant point in helping other women get treatment fast — to recognise the reluctance to fight an issue like this.

Diagnosis of breast cancer in my exper­ ience cannot be made by your average or even better than average clinic doctor or GP. It can only be confirmed by a biopsy report and women should insist on this as soon as possible —or other women should insist on their sisters’ behalf.

It would seem to me that because of my age the doctors I saw discounted as statist­ ically improbable the diagnosis of cancer and therefore did not even bother to investigate further, even though a woman’s life was at stake.

A month or two after the clinic incident my breast began to actually hurt and throb (probably as an effect of the hormPnes in the pill which I was still innocently swallow­ ing down every day?). I had to hold my breast tightly in order to relieve the pain and in this state I felt compelled to again visit a doctor. My new GP actually took me serious­ ly as I apologetically repeated my litany and after an examination she referred me to a consultant at the local hospital.

As it was Christmas, an appointment couldn’t be made until January 1. At a party during that period I got drunk and broke down sobbing and hysterical with anxiety.

Only at that point did I realise how my underlying fears were being repressed and how depressed all the fore-going experiences were making me.

On January 1 the specialist examined me in Out Patients. I was also examined (without my permission being asked) by a male medi­ cal student. I was told I had a small cyst and that it would be wise to remove it. This could be done in three daysj n hospital. I was study­ ing at the time so arranged my admission for a fortnight later. I left feeling relieved. Every­ one in my house was happy for me that things would soon be sorted out. My boy­ friend was loving and supportive but I became depressed over the next week. I was feeling tired and ill and finally went down with gas­ tric flu. I still went into the hospital on the admission date as my GP was afraid that I would lose my place in the queue, if I didn’t.

I stayed in the hospital for three days but was not operated on after all because the anaesthetist said I was too weak from the flu to work on. They sent me home and re­ admitted me again the following week. I was diagnosed as having fibrokinosis (thickening of the fibrous tissue). During the few days that followed I was upset that the lump which was extremely tender and painful was continually handled by long queues of male medical students and housemen. Never was my permission sought and I experienced for the first time what it is like to lie and be an object while jokes are made over your head, and remarks exchanged between consultant and respectful housemen, which do not in­ clude the patient as a feeling human being.

(Incidentally, Our Bodies Ourselves argues that potentially cancerous growths should be handled as little as possible).

The operation was fairly untraumatic although I was at the end of the queue and the pre-med had worn off by the time I got into the operating theatre. The lump was excised and a biopsy done. The stitches were neatly sewn around the nipple so as to reduce the scar. During this period I met women in the ward who were cancer and mastectomy patients. I was struck by their courage, their ability to make jokes. I was also shocked by the sight of one woman waiting for her wound to be dressed after a radical mastectomy and looking to me like a hot cross bun. To me, to lose a breast seemed a thing more terrible than dying. Amputation of any kind has al­ ways filled me with pity and disgust. The last day I was in the ward the Australian house­ man shouted across the ward loudly as I chatted quietly by someone’s bed. His words caused a pit in my stpmach. Hejsajd, “It look­

ed pretty bad for you, but path. lab. (path­ ology department) says it’s OK —you can go home today” . At that moment I had a glimpse into the future and was flooded by unspoken fears. However I pushed down what he had said back into the deepest layers of my unconscious and “ forgot” it.

I was discharged that day and returned three days later to have the stitches taken out. The nurse was gentle and didn’t hurt me at all. She and I were both pleased at the neatness of the stitches which ensured that no scar would spoil my beauty! I went home and took up life as usual. I remember that I even scrubbed the kitchen floor that day. I didn’t feel too great. My arm was aching but I was so relieved to be home and to be in a warrh bed with my boyfriend again after the chilly isolation of hospital.

The next day we invited some friends round for a meal to celebrate my triumphant return. I cooked chicken and pineapple I re­ member and I was just about to take it in to serve it when a knock came on the door. To my indescribable shock I found my husband standing there. (I hadn’t seen him for almost a year). He told me that the hospital had rung him, and asked him to take me there the following morning. The biopsy report had bfeen wrong. (Needless to say when I went into the hospital I had filled in all my details in triplicate, was accompanied by my boyfriend, etc. —The administration had got hold of my old admission card and rung a number eighteen months out of date). I burst into tears, I got rid of him, shut the £> door, went back upstairs and somehow in a daze we served and ate the meal I’d prepared.

The night was endless. I lay in my boyfriend’s arms and cried. We tried to comfort each other but it was difficult. In the morning we got up and went together to the hospital.

When we arrived, the sister of the ward ; was expecting us and we were hurried into a private ward off the main ward where she ex­ plained that there was a “ mistake” and they now “wanted to take a bit more tissue away” Several kind and sympathetic nurses came in and out during the next thirty minutes or so as we waited for the consultant to make his round, bringing paper handkerchiefs to mop up my tears, coffee and tranquillisers. I was totally unable to talk or communicate with anybody. I felt only that I was in a night­ mare, perhaps under an anaesthetic still in the first operation, and soon someone would wake me up and it would all be unreal. (I still have this feeling occasionally and I have to touch myself to check that my breast isn’t there anymore). As we waited I stared out over a filthy courtyard with a fire escape thinking how it symbolised everything about our society. I felt trapped. I wanted to run from the hospital. I drew on the dirty pane of the window with my finger, “This is the way the world ends — not with a bang but a whimper” . The great man finally arrived. Its seemed hours that we had waited in silence though it was probably only a short time.

What followed was the most terrible, endless minutes of my life.

I’ll just report it as it felt. My boyfriend was sent out of the room (Why?) and I was left with the sister although my memory is that I was alone. Perhaps this is because I felt alone. The consultant had with him around eight white-coated male acolytes. The room seemed to be filled with them. J sat sobbing uncontrollably as he told me he would like to amputate the breast and give me a “ nor­ mal life” . I could have an “ appliance”.

He told me there was no other form of treatment. All that I was aware of during this speech was my complete humiliation as a woman under those seemingly dispassion­ ate many pairs of masculine eyes seeing me as “ woman, twenty eight, carcinogenic” , disassociating me from their reactions to wo­ men as people, or even women as desirable, warm and human. After the speech was over I stuttered out between sobs that I would not have the operation as I could not bear to be mutilated in that way. He did not argue much but told me that he hoped I would change my mind. Outside the door the Aust­ ralian houseman (who presumably was res­

ponsible for what had happened since he gave me the wrong biopsy report) said to the ward sister, “Why do you British women make such a fuss about a non-functional organ. Women don’t behave like that in Aust­ ralia”.

Needless to say I was persuaded by the nurses, the sister and the other women in the ward to think again, and I went into the operating theatre again as the first patient the following morning. I was offered a private ward but chose to go back into the public ward as I valued the support and companion­ ship of other women. The nursing staff help­ ed me a great deal by their sympathy and by letting me “ talk it out” over several days. The male doctors were brisk and impersonal.

There was no psychological follow-up on a formal level, either after the operation or on discharge. I find the period around the actual operation difficult to remember. I was very heavily drugged for days afterwards until I asked them to reduce the dose as I felt tired and muddled all the time. I was only in hos­ pital for ten days, during which time the stitches were removed and a bottle taken away which had drained off excess fluid. I didn’t suffer any loss of arm functions, just a little stiffness. I felt quite weak for a few weeks (not surprising having had two anaes­ thetics in such a short period). The psycho­ logical effects are much more difficult to cope with and still persist to a greater or lesser extent.

It is very hard to be a woman with a scar instead of a brieast in a society where every­ where you look there are pictures of idealised beautiful and well developed bodies. It is very hard not to feel put down and ugly and un­ desirable. I am very lucky in that I have a loving relationship, but even so I found it difficult to adjust and to feel relaxed again without clothes on even when alone. I still feel uneasily that somehow it is a punishment for my sexuality and pride in my body in that period before the operation — that short guilt-free interlude. The prosthesis (false breast) provided on the National Health Scheme is relatively good —air and fluid filled plastic. I received no follow-up advice on the National Health Scheme other than a physical check-up every three months and examination for secondary growths. Since I had the operation I have given birth to a daughter after a normal pregnancy. In spite of the fact that I couldn’t breast feed, and they knew why, health visitors, relaxation instructors were all pleased to point out the disadvantages of bottle feeding — including the prevalence of cot deaths. Etc. I would therefore end this article by com­ menting that the lack of concern for and sensitivity towards women in this situation is a result of the hierarchical and male domin­ ated structure of medicine. Not only the physical mutilation but the fear of death is something that has to be learnt to be lived with, and perhaps groups could be set up for women to support each other in this respect by talking these fears out. The psychological aspect needs a great deal of research, particu­ larly in regard to the seeming prevalence of the development of breast cancer after per­ iods of great mental stress. It may be co­ incidence that three women I know contract­ ed breast cancer after the break up bf a mar­ riage, and emotional crisis may play some as yet unknown part in acting as a trigger mech­ anism in the break-down of immunological defences.

Much is said about the importance of educating women to seek advice early. I would say from my experience that the med­ ical profession also needs education s this respect and should be discouraged from making dangerous assumptions on the grounds of generalised probabilities. Improving the standard of aftercare is a priority. Mastectomy patients unite — we have nothing to lose but our fears! * Most breast cancers appear after 40, but some­ thing like 18 per cent of cases are in women ubder 45.

This article first appeared in Spare Rib, No 37

NOVEMBER 4 - DECEMBER 2

THE DIGGER

Page 6

Understandably, we are fearful about can­ cer. In spite of much time and energy by cancer education bodies, even doctors are as likely as we are to delay before seeking help and advice about their own symptoms.

Powerful taboos prevent us from talking about our fears, sharing our experiences, and learning to cope with the realities of life — and death. Lin’s account is the beginning of the breaking down of such taboos.

We cannot break down taboos without knowledge. In this article I have attempted to come to grips with some of the facts surrounding breast cancer and its treatment.

Treatment So far, the possibilities in orthodox medi­ cine are as follows: *removal o f the lump alone (lumpectomy) * removal o f the breast alone (simple mastectomy) * removal o f the breast and some lymph nodes under the arm (modified radical mas­ tectomy) *removal o f the breast, chest wall muscles beneath it —which is much more deform­ ing than the above —and the lymph nodes (radical) Together with each of the above operations, drug therapy or radiotherapy may be given.

Five years ago, 90 per cent of women were given radicals, in spite of evidence published in the 1960s that they were not necessarily more effective and were, in some cases/ less so. I talked to several people about the situ­ ation in Britain. Dr. Charles Gilliss, director of the Cancer Intelligence Unit for the west of Scotland, thought that most surgeons were tending towards “conservative” sur­ gery (i.e. conserving as much as possible), and this is borne out by the experience of Betty.. Westgate of the Mastectomy Associa­ tion. Graham Bennette of the British Cancer Council could not think of anyone who would recommend a ‘Halsted’ radical nowa­ days; the more deforming and disabling radical operations as done in the USA were scarcely ever done here.'Radical operations were recently performed on Betty Ford and Happy Rockefeller: they emerged from their operations smiling, waving their arms above their heads and this in no small way ac­ counts for the fact that breast clinics in Britain as well as the USA became inundated with women coming forward for tests and treatment. The clinics are still snowed under.

While radical operations of some descrip­ tion are still performed, simple mastectomies are the most usual operations, according to one professor of oncology specialising in breast cancer. Work is going on with even smaller operations, but he feels there are very real pros and cons attached to lumpec­ tomies. In a small proportion of women, the breast can be saved; the stage, kind and place of tumour are all crucial (lumpecto­ mies are inore feasible if the tumour is not in the outer part of the breast, and of course only feasible if diagnosis is made early). One difficulty at present is deciding when lum­ pectomies are possible; it is much easier to tell when they are not possible.

Difficulties are compounded by the prob­ lems attached to accurate diagnosis. For in­ stance, there is some degree of difficulty attached to diagnosing whether or not the cancer has spread to the lymph nodes; such knowledge is crucial if “conservative” treatment is envisaged. One can also find that different parts of a tumour are in dif­ ferent stages of development. Furthermore, not all pathologists agree on whether certain cell conditions are cancer or not. It seems that in the USA they are more liberal with the term; in fact, one has to continually bear in mind that “cancer” in one country might not be the same disease as “cancer” in an­ other cpuntry. Obviously, a lumpectomy can only be considered if there is no doubt about diagnosis and all other relevant factors. -

Diagnosis You’ve probably guessed that diagnostic difficulties can lead to mistakes: pathologists could diagnose as cancer, border-line cases or cases where they were uncertain, in order to protect themselves from giving a false nega­ tive diagnosis. Unnecessary mastectomies do occur, particularly with difficult diagnoses, although it is obviously difficult to establish exactly how common such mistakes are. The risk of such mistakes occuring can of course be minimised. For example, in some places it is standard practice for a ‘frozen’ biopsy tP be done, taken to the laboratory and diag­ nosed while the woman is still under the 1 0 '

T he diagnosis, therapy and aftercare of breast cancer anaesthetic, and further surgery is then carried out if the decision is ‘positive’. In this situation, the pathologist is under pres­ sure to make a quick decision while the wo-v man remains unconscious. If there is no such pressure, the pathologist can make a less hasty decision with the possibility of doing more tests, and surgery can then be carried out a few days later, if need be. The wait of a few days makes absolutely no difference in terms of safety.

Readers might have heard of otnce Diopsies which do not require a general anaes­ thetic. Ellen Frankfort (author of Vaginal Politics) recently wrote in Viva magazine that she would choose to have one of these in preference to the possibility of error asso­ ciated with a frozen biopsy as described above. However, office or needle biopsies are only suitable in some cases otherwise they too can result in misdiagnosis —this time in the form of a false negative.

Hospitals Besides surgeons, there are other special­ ists involved in the treatment of cancer, such as chemotherapists or radiotherapists.

Ideally, decisions about the best way to treal a particular case should be made on the basis of joint discussion between all the relevant specialists, including the pathologist. How­ ever, this is by no means the general rule. In some hospitals, particularly the smaller ones, the surgeon may reign supreme, with the power to decide whether or not even to refer to a specialist from another discipline.

As Betty Westgate agrees, it is best to go to the bigger hospitals with all the facilities.

However, some of the bigger hospitals are better than others. Dr. Gilliss believes strongly that biologically active drugs should be used with early cases of breast cancer and not just with the more advanced cases. He feels that at the early stage of the disease the drugs are probably at their most effective. It is not the rule for these cytotoxic drugs to be used with early cases for two reasons.

Firstly, their efficacy in these cases has not , been proved conclusively and secondly, ex­ perienced people are required in order to minimise the side effects of the drugs. Only centres with the capacity and above all, the time, are able to do this. In Dr. Gilliss’ view, the evidence is becoming increasingly strong, both in terms of survival and its quality, that this* kind of chemotherapy should begin right at the start of treatment.

To sum up: There is of course much debate and re­ search going on about treatment for breast cancer. As far as surgery is concerned, al­ though figures now seem to show that less radical treatment is at least as effective in most cases, radical mastectomies do have their proponents, even in Britain, As far as accompanying treatment is concerned, this can range from hormone treatment (includ­ ing possible removal of the ovaries), drugs to stimulate the body’s defence mechanisms against the disease, drugs which kill off cells and, of course, radiotherapy. Unfortunately, lack of space prevents me from examining these additional forms of therapy. However, whatever is most suitable depends on a variety of factors; the kind of, stage of and place of the tumour, the age of the indivi­ dual woman (particularly whether she is of child-bearing age or past the menopause), and above all, the expertise of the tech­ nicians involved, their ability to treat each woman as an individual, and the resources available in the particular hospital. Some doctors, as an American surgeon has re­ marked, don’t treat women, they treat themselves. In other words, they want to be able to feel that they have done everything they could for the patient — ‘doing’ being the operative word. Hence, the kinds of block-buster, major treatment programmes used especially in the USA (e.g. maximum surgery, maximum chemotherapy, maximum radiotherapy). Therefore if women are faced with breast cancer and want to know what the possibilities are, it is imperative that we should be in a position to ask for the ob­ jective opinions of at least two doctors, with no particular axes to grind. It would be ideal to attend a hospital with all the possible faci­ litie s and where all the relevant specialists are on an equal footing

Aftercare

the Mastectomy Association. In Victoria, Ms. Jones can be contacted on 92-3009.

That' there are emotional and psychological The Association provides psychological coun­ problems attached to the removal of a breast selling and support and holds four meetings or breasts is obvious. Lin writes about these a year for members. In NSW the Associ­ at length from her own experience. Because ation can be contacted on 57-5245. Mem­ I have had no personal experience I can only bers of the NSW Association will visit attempt to show what help is possible or women in hospital or will talk to them over available in the hope that women can make the phone giving advice and information. sure it is available in their areas.

In SA contact Ms. Munday, Mastectomy As­ False breasts (prostheses): whilst most sociation of SA, care of the Anti-Cancer women will feel the need to wear false Foundation of the University of Adelaide. breasts, it is possible of course not to wear Hospitals are becoming more aware of the one, and some women do feel happier with­ problem of caring for a woman’s psychologi­ out. However, strains can develop, particu­ cal and emotional needs at the pre-diagnosis, larly in the back, if the remaining breast is pre-operative and post-operative stages. In not balanced with a similarly weighted ^Victoria, Melbourne and metropolitan public prosthesis. hospitals do have a trained nursing sister to There have been many cases where women help patients and give advice on choice of have been fobbed off with less than ade­ prosthesis. The Melbourne District Nursing quate help over choice of suitable prostheses.

Service centres all have lists of available For instance an example is reported of a prostheses and a sister trained to help. The woman who, because she was over 50, was Peter MacCallum Clinic will also give advice considered “too old” for a life-like prosthe­ and you can phone them on 602-1333. sis and was expected to make do with the The following Women’s Health Collec­ cheapest kind —a bag of plastic granules. tives will give women lessons in how to Another, much younger woman, reports examine their own breasts and detect if that she doesn’t wear a prosthesis because there are any lumps present. In Sydney, it sticks up at the top — “I just pad myself the Liverpool Women’s Health Collective with cotton wool”,. Her reasons for never ; can be phoned on 601-3555 and the going swimming any more seem to be Collective at Leichardt on 56-5059. Both attached to her unsatisfactory prosthesis. these health services will refer women to There are many kinds of prosthesis, but in good doctors.

Australia these canno t be claimed on Melbourne women can phone 419 4644 Medibank, for the Collingwood Women’s Health The consultant is required to prescribe Collective and in Adelaide, the Women’s them by name. It is difficult to believe how Community Health Collective is temporarily a consultant can prescribe without first at 35 Carter Street, Thorngate (44-6260). finding out which a woman would be happi­ " In December they will be moving to 6 Mary est with, so ideally we should be able to Street, Hindmarsh. In Adelaide women can examine all the possibilities first. The best also go to the Anti-Canqer Foundation at prosthesis is gel-filled with a smooth sili­ the Royal Adelaide Hospital or phone cone skin which clings to the chest wall and 223-4333 (ext.2027) and ask for Pauline assumes the body’s temperature, making it Schultz. feel like a natural part of the body. It can be washed as often as desired, is not liable to leaking, and lasts indefinitely. This one Some doctors do not necessarily believe costs in Australia about $85 However, it that cancer patients have the right to know does not tend to be prescribed unless the of their condition. In Britain, unlike the US, surgeon thinks it is the only correct type for it is not the general rule for people to be you. The next best one is the liquid-filled informed. For example, Dr. Gilliss feels that prosthesis which, although it is very life­ only a certain number of people can accept like, has to be replaced annually and is liable, being told. He adds weight to his opinion by to leakage. As the gel-filled prosthesis lasts reminding us that the emotional and psycho­ indefinitely, it is difficult to see how eco­ logical state of the patient can affect her sur­ nomics should prevent it from being vival —on the basis of “if she knows what’s generally available. wrongr she might give up hope”. In any case, A list of all the available prostheses in it is often difficult to predict the outcome of Australia with retail prices and retailers’ the disease, and some people surprise doc­ addresses is available from the various Antitors by their progress, e.g. ‘hopeless cases’ Cancer groups: living eight, ten or more years after initial * Anti-Cancer Council of Victoria, 90 Jolitreatment, apparently free from disease. mont Street, East Melbourne, 3002. Phone However, he believes strongly that it is for 654 2411. thei doctor to decide whether or not —and * Australian Cancer Society, PO Box 25, what —to tell the patient, even if the indi­ Kogarah, 2217. Phone 588 2777. vidual concerned has requested to be told * Anti-Cancer Council of the Queensland the truth about her situation. This is the Cancer Fund, PO Box 201, North Brisbane, logical result of the present status quo with 4000. Phone 31 1461. the balance of power between the doctor * Tasmanian Cancer Committee, PO Box and patient being heavily loaded in favour of 1234, Launceston, 7250. Phone 31 3600. the doctor. That doctors can argue that it is * Cancer Council of WA, 6th floor, S.G.10 Building, 184 St Georges Terrace, Perth, 6000. kinder not to disclose distasteful informa­ tion shows the inherent lack of respect for Bras: For most women the bra previously the dignity and basic human rights of the used will be suitable, with pockets and/or patient. Of course, some people feel that crossed ribbons sewn in to hold the pros­ they would rather not know what is.happenthesis in place. ing but that should not mean that others Breast Reconstruction: Although unable should be prevented from knowing. The to find out if this is done in Australia, it is ‘kindness’ argument is in any case counter­ in Britain. Half the women leaving the Bir­ productive, which soon becomes apparent to mingham General Hospital after mastectomy those who spend time amongst the reality of leave with a new breast implanted under the illness either as patients or workers on the skin, even with a new nipple. Although it is wards, friends or relatives. People discover only possible if the growth is caught early all too soon whgn the doctor is abusing the and there is no chance of recurrence. Im­ trust of the patient in the next bed or the plants can also be done years after the ori­ next ward. If trust can be abused with one ginal operation. So far, Birmingham reports patient, the corollary must be that no ho snags or troublesome side-effects (they patient can dare to trust the doctor. Hence, first started doing this fifteen years ago) but people can be in a state of dire anxiety and some doctors do not support breast recon­ fear simply because of a doctor’s misguided struction and there are not many places belief that patients are being protected. So that do it. One objection is that it has not much for protection! yet been properly evaluated, which means One day, hopefully, the balance of power that the time to observe women over a norbetween doctors and the rest of the commu­ nity will be equalised. Doctors will then be technicians, no more no less, harnessed to serve, and accountable —not to themselves If a woman — but to those whom they serve. should find her surgeon or special mastec­ tomy sister unsupportive (which may often This is a revised version o f an article writbe the case), then she could find help from , 'ten by '>Jill Rakom en in Spare Rib 37.

The Right to Know

Support &Counselling

Si'

NOVEMBER 4 - DECEMBER 2

Page 7

THE DIGGER

i Self-Examination What are you looking for?

You are looking for changes. It is important to do this examination regularly so that you get to know your breasts and therefore spot any changes, like the following: — Unusual lump, thickening or local lumpy areas. (Many lumps give the feeling of rubb­ ing the flat of your hand over a knuckle of the other one, but even soft lumps should be properly investigated.)

— Unusual change in the size or shape of a breast.

— One breast unusually lower than the other.

—Puckering or dimpling of the skin of the breast.

— Unusual drawing back or turning in of the ¡nipple.

— Discharge from the nipple.

—Skin trouble on or around the nipple, or change in skin texture.

—Swelling of the upper arm.

—Enlarged lymphatic nodes. These are situ­ ated inside your body along the outer part of the breast and extend up into the armpit and along the front of the shoulder to the neck.

—Pain or discomfort not felt before, and not confined to the time just before a period.

Press gently the lower outer quarter of your breast.

2. Raise your arm and rest it under your head, then feel the lower inner quarter of your breast.

How to do it.

The following should be done regularly and systematically every month. If you are of child bearing age it is best to do it immediate­ ly after your period, on the same day of your cycle each month. It is important to be warm and relaxed while you are doing it.

A. Sit or stand up straight in front of a mirror: Look for changes of size or shape in each breast. Most people have breasts of unequal size or shape. It is important to make sure that there has not been a change in the nor­ mal appearance of your breasts.

Check for puckering or dimpling of the skin.

You may have to lift the breasts to see under­ neath.

Check nipples for changes or discharge but do not squeeze them. Raise arms above head and check for changes, paying attention also to the area which goes up to the armpit. Turn to each side slightly so that you can see the sides of your breast too.

Lean forward, with arms still raised, and check again for any unusual changes.

B. Lie down: The breast tissue can be encouraged to spread out if the shoulder under the breast that you are examining is raised, by putting a cushion or a folded towel under it.

Examine each breast as follows, using the left hand for the right breast and the right hand for the left breast. Use the front part of the flat of your hahd, not the fingertips, keeping the fingers straight and together. Pressing gent- ly, so that the breast tissue underneath can be felt, proceed as demonstrated.

3. Leaving your arm up, press the top inside quarter of your breast. Work towards the nipple and feel round the nipple too

4. Do the same for the upper outer quarter of your breast.

5. Lower your arm and use both hands to feel the middle section , o | ypj^pbredstb f s iJt • , ...

6. With your arm lowered, feel the upper outer quarter of your ^ sbre^s^ a^ain and move yoqr hancl typ tor finish,byReeling under th i armpit.

At first it is difficult to judge how much pres­ sure to use, so it might help you to ask some­ one experienced (not necessarily a doctor) to show you. Do not squeeze or pinch the breast.

Remember that it is changes that you are looking for. When you examine your own breasts regularly and become familiar with them you will be in a better position than a doctor to notice any changes. You will be able to inform your doctor of any alteration and say that the symptom is new, and that it is not confined to your pre-menstrual body changes.

Remember also, that if you do find a change in one of your breasts, it is not necessarily caused by cancer. In roughly nine out of ten cases the symptoms are benign. However, you cannot find out the cause on your own so you should; seqk jpedical advicewithout delay.

Page 8

THE DIGGER

NOVEMBER 4 — DECEMBER 2

“We w ill now criticize the unjust w ith the weapon” ~George Jackson

The trial of the San Quentin Six On August 21,1971, George Jackson was murdered in San Quentin Prison. Three white guards and two white prisoners were killed in the process. From the 27 prisoners who were in the Adjustment Centre that day, six black and brown prisoners were selected and indicted by a federal grand jury. The six are: Fleeta Drumgo, Willie Tate, Hugo Pinell, David Johnson, Luis Talamantez and Johnny Larry Spain. These six men were all intro­ duced to America’s jails while in their teens.

None of them feel guilty of their “ offences” .

They all know why they are in jail.

There are many reasons why the state and the prison authorities wanted George Jackson dead. The. prison officials hated him because of his abilities to educate, politicise and unite prisoners, and because his book Soledad Brother had alerted people to the terrible conditions in US jails. As one prisoner wrote after reading Soledad Brother: “ Holy shit. Now I understand why they killed him. But I’ll tell you something. I know the system figures it should let these books out so people will think it’s a free country and ¿1 and never revolt. But this time I think they made a mistake. They’re gonna be real sorry they let George’s books get out to the people. They’re definitely gonna be sorry they let the books get to me.”

Jackson was ah inspiring writer, a leader, a teacher, an organiser, a revolutionary.

Black prisoners looked to him for strength, courage and support. “ George,Jackson was a natural teacher.

He taught us to read, he taught us to write and our basic arithmetic . . . he taught us to form collectives within the prisons.”

Jackson himself said, “ For ten years now I’ve been here for a little old chicken shit robbery at a gas station.” (He was originally convicted of a $70 robbery and given a oneyear-to-life indeterminate sentence). “They don’t want me out because they know that when I get out I’m going to write about this place.”

During the ’60s the black prisoners’ move­ ment in California was getting itself together.

George Jackson was one of its leaders. The prison authorities, afraid of the movement’s potential, wanted to crush it. How do you do that? You murder George Jackson. Or you get someone else, perhaps a white prisoner, to do it for you. Numerous prisoners have told how prison guards bribed them with parole, or threatened them, to get them to kill another prisoner, usually of another race.

Alan Mancino, a white prisoner, was in Soledad Prison at the same time as George Jackson. In an affidavit made in March of 1971, Mancino stated that in January 1970 he was asked by Soledad Prison guard Cap­ tain Mpody if he would kill George Jackson.

Mancino refused. On August 21,1971, when Jackson had been murdered, all the prisoners in the Adjustment Centre were chained naked in the yard for eight hours. They were sub­ jected to all kinds of physical brutality kicked, beaten, gassed and burned with ciga­ rettes. That afternoon Alan Mancino was shot in the leg while lying chained in the yard. He was denied medical treatment until he agreed to make a statment supporting the guards’ story of what happened that day. After Man­ cino was moved off the yard no-one was allowed to see him, and he was sent to Neva­ da State Prison arid held incommunicado.

The official story was that Mancino would testify for the prosecution and was therefore

From Sally Ford in San Francisco Illustrations by Jeff Stewart T his article has b een co m p iled fro m various p am p h lets p u t o u t b y th e San Q u en tin Six D efence C o m m ittee, Soledad Brother b y G eorge Jac k so n , an d .

Comrade George b y Eric M ann.

T h e d escrip tio n s o f th e tria l are firsth an d .

“ T he principal reservoir o f rev o lu tio n ary p o te n tia l in A m erik a lies in .wait inside th e Black C olony . . . T h irty p e r c e n t o f all in d u strial w o rk ers are black. Close to fo rty p e r c e n t o f all in d u strial s u p p o rt roles are filled b y blacks. B lacks are still d o in g th e w o rk o f th e g reatest slave sta te in h isto ry .

T he term s o f o u r serv itu d e are all th a t have b ee n altered . ” • —George Jackson being held in protective custody; in actual r fact he was being beaten into submission by the guards. However Mancino has now repu­ diated the statements he made under pressure on August 21,1971, and will testify as a de­ fence witness. But his life is in danger. He is at present in San Quentin, and was supposed to take the stand at the trial late in August.

He did not show up, and his lawyer, Sally Soleday, came and told us out of court that she had been tojsee him that morning. He had been beaten by the screws: his face was badly “swollen, and he had a black eye. That afternoon in court the DA told the judge, “Your Honour, Mancino spent a restless night and fell out of his bunk.” “I see,” replied the judge.

Soleday asked Judge Broderick that Man­ cino be moved from San Quentin into federal custody and that she be allowed to speak with her client without a prison guard being present. The judge denied both requests. Man­ cino is thus in a very nasty .position. If he testifies for the prosecution he will perjure himself. If he testifies for the defence the

screws will probably kill him. Of natural causes. * * * The official version of the events of Aug­ ust 21,1971, goes like this: That day George Jackson was visited by an attorney, Stephen Bingham. During the visit Bingham left the room to buy some cigarettes, leaving his briefcase and tape re­ corder in the visiting cell with Jackson.

After the visit Jackson was taken back to the Adjustment Centre by guard Frank Del­ ean. As he entered the Adjustment Centre to be skinsearched, Delean noticed something in Jackson’s hair, and thought it was a pencil.

Discovered, Jackson went into action. He pulled a gun from his hair (the gun, the screws claim, was smuggled into the prison in Bingham’s tape recorder) and a clip of bullets, loaded the gun and forced Delean to open the cells. The prisoners then rushed frorri their cells and fell upon the guards, slitting their throats with razors. Officers Delean and Kraessner were killed in this manner and

their bodies thrown in a cell. Two white prisopers were killed in the same way.

At about 2.50 pm another guard, Graham, came to the cellblock to assign Delean to another detail. He was grabbed by prisoners and shot by Jackson. A guard heard the shot and sounded the alarm. Jackson and another prisoner, Johnny Larry Spain, ran into the yard while the others, realising it was futile, stayed inside. Jackson was shot as he ap- . proached the guntower. The bullet pierced his head, went through his body, and exited ' through his back, causing his death. Spain ran for cover in some nearby bushes and was re­ captured, unhurt.

The prisoners in the Adjustment Centre were taken into the yard while the building was searched. The search uncovered several bullets, an Afro wig and an escape map. The guards were pushed to the limits of their pro- fessional self-discipline by the situation, but never lost control. The prisoners were treated with restraint and dignity.

This is the official story.

However, these are the facts which the of­ ficial version ignores: - San Quentin has a search procedure for visitors, including a metal-detector which makes it impossible to smuggle a gun into the prison; - Prisoners from the Adjustment Centre are strip-searched before and after visits. ■ Before being returned to the Adjustment Centre they are given a search which includes a guard running his fingers through the pri­ soner’s hair; ' - No hairstyle could support the weight of a 9 mm gun; - The courtyard into which George Jackson supposedly ran was completely enclosed by a 20 foot wall mounted by guards with sniper rifles; - The original autopsy report released by the prison confirmed their statement that JackSon was shot in the head while running into the courtyard, since it indicated that the bul­ let entered his head and exited through his back. The final autopsy report made after the pathologist was finally given Jackson’s cloth­ ing revealed that he had been shot in the back, and that the bullet exited through his head.

The pathologist concluded that he could only have been lying down or kneeling with his head lower than his knees for thè bullet to have followed that path.

In attempts to make the prison’s garbled version more plausible, Associate Warden Park altered the official version almost daily.

The story dèpicting Jackson taking the gun from his hair was later changed to an Afro wig and then a hat.

At one press conference Park was asked, “ Do you know why he was shot?”

“To kill him!” exploded Park.

“Well - er - 1 mean - ” “There was no other goddam reason ex­ cept to kill him.” * * * The San Quentin Six are chained while in court, and are totally isolated from the rest of the prison population at San Quentin. The screws beat them. The food they receive is infested with all kinds of stuff, including human shiL Johnny Larry Spain writes: “ Our condi­ tion is as bare and minimum as the officials can make i t . . . the food has been and is be­ ing tampered with: spit, cigarette butts,

NOVEMBER 4 - DECEMBER 2

—Continued from previous page. match stems and countless other objects and matter have been found on numerous occa­ sions, mixed with the cold food and served on unclean paper plates. This is presented as our ‘meal’, twice a day. But what is really being served us is another humiliation.”

The San Quentin Six are kept in the first-tier cells of the Adjustment Centre — the name given to the Hole v or the maximum security segregation section of the prison.

Cells are six foot by nine foot with a con­ crete floor and solid concrete walls. The cells are filthy and infested with cockroaches, bed­ bugs and mosquitoes. The prisoners sleep on a thin mattress on a steel slab. The Six are locked in these cells 23 to 24 hours a day, their only exercise being a walk along the tier for less than an hour if the screws feel like permitting it. * * * The Marin County Civic Centre is an enormous, swish building designed by Frank Lloyd Wright and built for a cool $ l l 1/2 mil­ lion. It sits imposingly upon the Marin hills, surrounded by artificial lakes and manicured lawns. Inside it is plush and airless.

Some days the scene in the spectators’ room is more like a fashion show than a pol­ itical trial. A lot of white women come, dressed to the nines, coiffured and hairsprayed in the latest styles, wearing stockings and platforms, plentifully made-up and clinking with heavy, expensive jewellery. It’s not only in the world of music that you see starfuckers' One morning one of them sat next to me as we waited to go into the courtroom. “ Do the defendants sit on the left or the right of the room?” she asked.

“They sit along the back wall,” I replied.

“I’m going to be mortified when I see their chains,” she babbled on, “but I’m go­ ing to do it anyway.”

Inside, she plonked herself down and started to look about with birdlike move­ ments of the head.

“Is that Angela Davis?” she hissed, dig­ ging me in the ribs and pointing to the wo­ man in front of me. “ No,” I answered. “It isn’t.”

So she began to flutter her false eye­ lashes at Willie Tate, one of the defendants. * * * Security is tight.

To enter the courtroom as a supporter or observer you must walk through one metal detector to gain entrance to the courts floor.

You must produce photo ID for the Deputy Sheriff, who asks for full physical description and then takes your photo. Then you are thoroughly pat-searched; hand down your jeans or up your skirt, by a woman cop. She fast-talks me about Australia, having seen my passport.

“I’d love to go there.” “ Oh yeah.” “ Spread your legs.” Pat pat.

(This particular cop was so zealous she even searched an eight-week-old baby’s nappy.)

Then you walk through a second metal detector and wait in the cordoned-off area outside the courtroom. There are up to six cops, of the type played by Rod Steiger in In the Heat o f the Night, standing round with nothing better to do than chew gum and tell you not to chew gum and to “ get your feet off that seat.”

A Sheriff finally swaggers over and reads from a typed sheet secured to the key of the courtroom:

THE DIGGER

“Penal code No. 4570 states it is an of­ fence punishable by law to communicate with the prisoners. “ No gestures or outbursts will be permit­ ted.

“Do not stand unless you are leaving. “ Do not sit on the seats when they are in an upright position. “ Do not take any food, drink or gum into the courtroom.”

He unlocks the door and we file in. The door is locked behind us and three cops sta­ tion themselves around the room. There, be­ hind a thick, bulletproof, plexiglass window is the courtroom and the six brothers in spe­ cially designed chairs. They are chained around the waist to the chairs, which are bolted to the floor. Their feet are chained, and they are handcuffed. They are led in with neck chains and leashes before judge, jury, supporters or press are allowed to enter.

They leave the courtroom when the jury has been dismissed. This means the jurors never see the chains. If one of the brothers drops a pen, he can’t reach down to pick it up. The defence attorneys have repeatedly requested that the chains be removed. Judge Broderick answered one such request this way: “Mr Garry, I have the facts before me. I am studying the facts behind your request.

There is no easy solution to this problem. I’m looking into it and I’ll let you know how it is progressing.”

The reality of racism and political pre­ judice in the US criminal justice system, as seen at work in this, trial, is devastating.

The Six have demanded that the court appoint lawyers of their choice. Instead Judge Broderick appointed white, middle

N o m a tte r w h a t level m y consciousness m ay be, asleep, aw ake, in betw een .

T h e th in g is th e re an d it keeps m e m oving, pins m y ey e to th e ball, u p tig h t, tw e n ty -fo u r h o u rs a d a y .”

- George Jackson

Blacks meet to reclaim land At the end of this month, blacks from all over Australia will meet in Queensland to work out a plan for recovering their land — the land taken from their grand­ parents by white invaders.

Below is Cheryl Buchanan and Lionel Lacey’s statement on the conference, addressed to black Australians.

A lot of people always ask “What rights have we got to the land?” We have got every right. We all know that the land is our Mother. The trees, the dirt, the birds, everything on the land is put there to pro­ tect us, to look after us. But what is hap­ pening now? All these things that were there to protect us — they were taken over

class Marin County attorneys. One of thé Six. Hugo Pinell, is defending himself, against staggeringly open hostility from Judge Bro­ derick. Not being au fait with legal jargon and court proceedings, Pinell at times takes a line of questioning which makes the judge see red. He continually interrupts Pinell with this sort of comment: , ’JUDGE: I don’t follow your line of question­ ing, Mr Pinell. This area of proba­ tive work leads nowhere. You’ve been at this for over half an hour.

PINELL: I’ve been waiting four years for this trial. . .

JUDGE: I don’t care, Mr Pinell. Now, you can ask the witness a question, but don’t play with him.

PINELL: Therë’s no-one playing cat and mouse.

JUDGE: Ask the question.

PINELL: (To Rubiaco, the San Quentin screw who has accused Pinell of slitting his throat). It’d be correct of me to say you hate me?

RUBIACO: You say I hate you? Of course.

JUDGE* Mr Pinell, ask a productive question or I’ll terminate your examination of Mr Rubiaco.

PINELL: Do you remember who was going to trial around that time? (August 21,1971) RUBIACO: I don’t remember who was go­ ing to court four years ago.

PINELL: How come you remember I was going to court?

RUBIACO: I just remember, that’s all.

PINELL: Do you remember George Jackson ... ?

JUDGE: (Cutting him off in mid-sentence)

by rich people who built their cities and concrete jungles to push us right down.

These cities have made killings, rape and murders. We always wanted to escape from these things. We tried to get out of the shit by agreeing to the government, agreeing with the rich people. What we mean by agreeing is that we promise to keep our

mouths shut if the government will give money for our community services (Abor­ iginal Medical, Legal, Housing, Hostels etc).

We promise not to talk about the shit con­ ditions, the pig sties we have to live in, our babies getting murdered because some racist doctors hate us blacks, our women getting raped, our men getting jailed for nothing.

Now brothers and sisters, think for a while - where is the land? It is inside you. It is around you to protect you - to keep the pigs off your back. It is inside all of us.

Don’t ever think it’s not. The managers on reserves and the pigs and all the other bas­ tards, who push us down, they want us to be scared, to feel like we are lower than animals, to feel down all the time. They want us to do this because this keeps them in power, in control of our minds, in control of our bodies, and most of all to control our land.

But you know brothers and sisters that a lot of us are fighting against this, are fighting against the rich people control­

Page 9

I’m going to fore-close your ques­ tioning, Mr Pinell. * * * As one sister put it, talking about her own trial: “Shit, girl, I been to court so many times 1 never could count ’em. Who knows what the fuck goes on in there? They got their own language all hooked up. It may as well be French to me.” * * * Not only do they have their language hooked up in this trial; the judge and the DA have got all the prosecution witnesses primed to give the right answers. But some­ times they blow it and say the wrong thing.

Lunch with the DA straightens them out, though. On the stand, Rubiaco (whom I saw outside the courthouse chatting with the DA) was asked what he talks about with the DA. “Just stuff,” he reckons. “In one ear and out the other.”

Carl Adams is a doddering, 65-year-old guard who since August 1971 has retired be­ cause of a heart attack which has obviously left him without his full faculties. He was the first person to come across George Jackson’s body as he lay shot dead in the yard. But in giving his testimony he is having trouble re­ membering what the DA said about how Jackson fell —which is crucial to the evi­ dence as to whether he was shot face-on or from behind.

DA: OK now, Mr Adams. After Jackson ran from the AC, what did you see?

ADAMS: Well, I heard a shot and Jackson started to buckle. And he fell forward.

DA: Where was Jackson when you heard the shot? ^ ADAMS: He was still running.

DA: Then what did you see?

ADAMS: After his leg buckled, he tumbled.

His right shoulder touched the ground first and he rolled onto his back.

(This is demonstrated to the court by the bailiff, directed by Adams. The judge is concerned that Adams might snuff it if he shows himself how Jackson fell.)

DA: What did you do?

ADAMS: Well, it was Lt. Zeemer who turned the body over so his stomach was up.

DA: Where was the stomach prior to being turned over?

ADAMS: He was face down.

PINELL: (Starts to object to this obvious contradiction in Adams’ testimony).

JUDGE: Mr Pinell, your right to defend your­ self is dependent on how you conduct yourself in court. Any more outbursts like that and I will deprive you of your privilege to defend yourself.

DA: Where was Jackson’s stomack when he fell?

(All defence objections are over-ruled. Morn­ ing recess is called. Jury leaves. Johnny Spain turns and calls through the bulletproof shield: “ They’ll clear that lie up during the recess.”

Sure enough. After the recess, the DA asks of Adams a few more indirect, peripheral questions, then comes back to his earlier question:) Was George Jackson lying on his sto­ mach when you and Lt. Zeemer ap­ proached his body?

ADAMS: He was flat on his back, sir.

The trials are still in progress, and will continue for many months yet. Digger will publish a further report.

ling us and fighting their violent society.

We are coming together. We are going to talk about the land, work out how to get our land, There’s going to be a big meeting about our land in north Queensland. A lot of blacks will be there from reserves like Aurukun, Palm Island, Cherbourg, Mapoon etc and blacks from other states too. We have to raise money for this meeting for air fares and buses and of course tucker.

So we need your help and support and we want you to come too. There are committ­ ees in all cities. So brothers and sisters it is important yoU think about land because it is the guts of everything we are fighting for.

Get in touch now with the committee in your area.

Contact: Land Rights Committee, for infor­ mation and to send donations. Brisbane: 19 Fortescue Street, Spring Hill. Sydney: Abor­ iginal Medical Service, 193 Regent Street, Redfern. Melbourne: Black Resources Centre, 330 Brunswick Street, Fitzroy.

Page 10

THE DIGGER

NOVEMBER 4 - DECEMBER 2

Black vote

Send letters to PO Box 77, Carlton, 3053

when there are so many dangers involved.

Leave Acupuncture to those trained to practice the art.

At the moment the future of Acupuncture in Australia is being investigated by the federal government — abuse of such a valu­ able healing modality can only be harmful to its reputation.

Russell Gerdes, R.P.N., R.G.N., Student o f acupuncture.

Drummoym, N.S. W.

P in pricked I wish to express my annoyance at your article on ‘Finger Acupressure’, Nov.3 issue of The Digger, because of the possible dan­ gers involved.

A friend who tried Chung-chi (wrongly named) — Actually Conception Vessel — REN 2 —suffered and still suffers, after four days’ pain, often severe, over that point.

This point is not for constipation, but for Uro-genital disorders, such as impotence, leukonrhea , etc.

I feel your actions, in placing the men­ tioned article, is grossly irresponsible and not in the best interest of your readers.

I hope this letter, will make you re-consider future articles you intend publishing. I hate to think of the point you intend sug­ gesting for asthma — some if used incor­ rectly can bring on a respiratory arrest [and] death.

Think it over — is it worth jumping on a trendy bandwagon, , just to make money,

The acupressure series (not acupuncture) is taken from a French book written by a Chinese doctor who is not a novice on a trendy bandwagon, and while this person may make money from the books, it is ludi­ crous to suggest Digger is running the series “just to make m oney”. Digger is a,voluntary, very broke, newspaper. We are running the acupressure series because w e’ve tried it and' it works, and because the “leave it to those trained to practise the art” principle has been a disaster for so many o f us —not only in matters of our health.

The Collective

Don Whitìngton

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—Continued from page 3.

Lies

If Whitlam got the numbers he would be able to go ahead with electoral redistribut­ ion legislation before June 30 when the 30 Re “The battle for women’s health in new senators take their seats. The four Ter­ Newcastle” (see Digger, No. 46). ritorial senators and the two replacements for “independents” in NSW and Queens­ Leaving aside the suggestion of nepotism land would take their seats immediately. contained in Wendy Bacon’s article on the On September 26 there were 37,529 Hunter Valley Working Women’s Health voters in the Northern Territory, with about Centre and its personal attack on Mary Call20.000 in the Darwin area. More than cott, I would like to ask what woman-given 16.000 Aboriginals live in and around Alice right has Wendy Bacon and, by implication, Springs but only 3,500 of them are present­ the staff of the other two NSW women’s ly on the electoral rolls. health centres, to publicly debate the inter­ The ALP senate candidate is Ted Robert­ nal difficulties of another women’s health son, a long time resident of Darwin and a centre,As I understood it, thè collective public servant with the Australian Depart­ consensus of the Sydney Women’s Health ment of Education. He has strong support and Resources Foundation is totally oppos­ from Whitlam but will need the Aboriginal ed to public debate which involves move­ vote if he is to defeat the strong possibility ment women and the women’s health of one National Country Party candidate centres, and one of the conditions of accept­ and one Independent getting up. > ance of 100 per cent government funding The Labor man only has to poll a third clearly states that no centre can interfere of the territory votes to gain one of the with the autonomy of another centre. senate seats but the Australian government is un-popular in Darwin where most of the Wendy uses the notion of collectives to voters are enrolled. argue the case against sacking —ideologi­ Robertson’s task is made even more dif­ cally she is correct when she argues that it ficult by the decision of Aboriginal public is a collective responsibility to decide whet­ servant, Charles Perkins, to stand as an her a staff member should be sacked, (pro­ independent candidate for the Northern viding of course that the collective includes Territory. both the salaried staff and the administrating Perkins has returned to live in his old ¡group). However, the experience of both the home town of Alice Springs with the help Leichardt and the Liverpool Women’s Health of an $11,000 literary grant but he remains Centres is that while no one has ever been an assistant secretary with the Australian “sacked” at least seven women have been Department of Aboriginal Affairs. forced to resign, not because o f collective The government leader in the senate, decision making, but by the same sort of senator Wriedt, has said that Whitlam will attack by other staff members, on their pro­ have to decide this week if he wants a two fessional integrity, as is now being levelled and a half week campaign for a half senate at Mary Calicott. poll on December 31.

“It would be on one issue — but what The use of the philosophical concept of 1an issue,” he said. collectives as a shield for the subversive use The ALP is confident of winning a short­ of power both in the women’s movement term victory with public opinion polls show­ generally and the women’s health centres in ing a backlash against the opposition as funds particular needs to be very carefully looked run out. The party’s election campaign funds at before the sort of accusations levelled at also look a lot more respectable since con­ the administrator of the Hunter Valley tributions started pouring in from mass ral­ Working Women’s Centre can be taken ser­ lies held all over the country. iously.

With the current deadlock in Canberra^, the Liberal-National Country Party opposit­ Betty Pybus, ion may have no alternative but to accept a NSW. half-senate election as a face-saving way out of the mess they’ve got into. This has the L-NCP seriously worried for Whitlam is certain to capitalise on the opposition’s failure to force a double dissolution by put­ ting the boot in and forcing a victory in any snap poll.

Whitlam believes that Queensland’s Joh Bjelke-Petersen, NSW’s Tom Lewis and Vic­ toria’s Dick Hamer would be forced by >, public opinion to issue writs for a senate The only other feedback we got on Wendy election on two grounds. First the request Bacon’s article on the Hunter Valley Working would come from the Governor General and second, a federal election to test the Women’s Centre was a letter from some law­ popular mood is what they have been ask­ yers acting on behalf o f “the Centre, the ing for all along. group, and Mary Cailcott”. They claimed the With six seats up for grabs in Queens­ article was libellous t. As we have been unable land and NSW, the ALP is assured of win­ to contact members o f the group to see what ning three seats in each state through the they think, we cede to the demand to apolo­ senate’s electoral system of proportional gise^... representation.

In the ACT, the Labor government is sure to win one of the two seats and get Independent supporter, John Gorton, in the The October 6 —November 3 issue of other.

Dagger contained an article headed “Health I That leaves the half black Northern Ter­ Service Women Ask —Whose Health and ritory. . .

Who’s Boss”.

The exact number of aboriginals in the Northern Territory is almost impossible to The report was false and distorted the true calculate (which isn’t surprising seeing that situation and Digger apologises to the group it has only been a few years since they were and Mary Cailcott for the inaccuracy of its considered human enough to be counted in reporting of the situation. the Australian census.

They are not very interested in politics, The Centre has been operating continuous­ and schoolteachers, station managers and 'missionaries have an enormous influence ly since April and will continue to provide over their vote. valuable services to the women of the Hunter Region.

This influence is so strong that there were reports last year that a National Country Party station manager told his aboriginal stockmen and their wives to mark their ballot papers with the figure three op­ posite the name of the Labor candidate, tel­ ling them that this would assure their man . . . will return next issue three votes.

Apologise or else

■§1 ’THE WITLESS MEN' Don Whitington Intoxicated by success and long-awaited power, Labor’s leaders have led the party into a morass which forbodes electoral disaster. What has caused the Labor victory of 1972 to turn sour? Why have intelligent politicians reacted to power and government in so many divergent and detrimental ways?

This is an examination of the men who make up Labor’s power bloc: Whitlam, Willesee and Wreidt; Cairns, Cameron and Crean; Hawke and Hartley, etc.

$ 2-95 prices recommended not obligatory

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Page 11

THE DIGGER

NOVEMBER 4 - DECEMBER 2

M urdoch, he can make or break PM ’s

by Turlough O’Meachair Last week’s Monday Conference on ‘Union Power’ (October 27): A miner’s wife from the industrial south coast of NSW joins the debate on the poli­ tical crisis. She says the reason why the newspapers are pushing Fraser to oust the Labor government is because they are all controlled by foreign multinational com­ panies. In her enthusiasm for the cause, she got the facts wrong . . . or did she?

Australian newspaper companies exercise enormous influence over political life in this country. The current Canberra crisis has been encouraged, if not engineered, by the massive publicity given to the LiberalNational Country Party cause in our daily press. The Labor Party has always com­ plained of the preference of newspaper owners for conservative governments. Most people „.can tell you that the Melbourne Herald group has had a few cracks at Gough and the boys and that Ttupert Murdoch’s News Ltd. group has had a complete about face since the heady days of December 1972 when it led the chorus for “It’s time”.

Unlike the other big industrial companies in Australia that’have bucked at the reforms introduced by the social democrats in the last three years, the four major press groups wield political influence more powerful than an army of public relations men walking the lobbies and corridors of power in Canberra.

This penchant for ‘kingmaking’ has a long and astonishing history stretching back to before federation. I thought it had reached new heights when, in 1972, Rupert Murdoch bought control of the reactionary Sydney Daily Telegraph from Sir Frank Packer and used its substantial weight in Sydney’s crucial western suburbs electorates to seal the fate of the faltering McMahon govern­ ment. Oh how we rejoiced till we realised that, where there were four companies con­ trolling the market, now there were only three and the pattern of right wing oligopo­ listic control of the Australian press was completely undisturbed.

Of course it doesn’t end there. The concen­ tration of ownership in the newspaper in­ dustry extends horizontally into the radio and television Helds and gives a small group evaluation and opinion-forming right throughout the media. All this has been excellently documented in a report pro­ duced last year by Michael Hanna for the Department of the Media on the “inter­ locking patterns of ownership and control in Australian media industries” .

What hasn’t been documented or pointed out with any force is the even more sinister — if that is possible — development of these organisations into activities with interests stretching far beyond the Australian coast­ line. The ’Wollongong miner’s wife who saw the press as a mouthpiece for foreign multi­ nationals failed to understand that the two leading press groups in this country are themselves successful multinationals. They make an excellent case study in how good old Aussie know-how can get you into the world’s big league. *** Keith Rupert Murdoch is the son of the most powerful press baron in Australian his­

tory. Sir Keith Murdoch was the man who built the Melbourne-based Herald and Weekly Times Ltd. group into the biggest newspaper empire on this continent. A man who boasted about his power to make or break prime ministers. A man whose chief legacy to Australian journalism was in secur­ ing control of eight metropolitan dailies behind the grey facade of the Herald's Flinders Street building. When the old man died, young Rupert did not inherit the earth . . . only part of it. To be precise, he inheri­ ted a small provincial evening newspaper called The News in Adelaide which his father owned outright. Due to the intricate com­ pany structure that Sir Keith evolved to con­ trol his empire,'power over the Herald group fell into the hands of accountants from the holding company. They still have it.

Young Rupert was bitter, arid set out to prove that even from modest beginnings he could become as great, if not greater, than his father. With the Herald group controlling the major newspapers in Western Australia, South Australia, Tasmania, Victoria and Queensland, there was, at first, only one place to start — Sydney. He bought into Mirror Newspapers Ltd. and there started a success story rivalled in publishing history only by Canada’s Lord Thompson of Fleet.

But Rupert’s aggressive business acumen was not satisfied at becoming the second largest publisher in the ^country. The dyna­ mics of his growth mentality chafed under the restricted national growth potential and he, began to look for fresher — more crowded —pastures overseas.

His first overseas venture was directed at our little Anzac brothers and sisters over the Tasman. He picked up a stake in The Dominion, Wellington. The N Z Sunday Times, N Z Sunday News and through a company not very subtly titled News Media Ownership Ltd. he published the NZ Truth.

Owing to the very backward state of pub­ lishing in New Zealand he could very well have gone on and cleaned up the market but he was frustrated by government legislation brought down to protect local publishers from foreign takeovers. News Ltd. of Aust­ ralia thus gained its first taste of being a multinational.

Next the company stretched its horizons to the very profitable market in South East Asia. Through the Asia Magazine Ltd. (Hong Kong), News Ltd. has associations with the Sunday Mail in Malaysia, Sunday Nation in Singapore, Bangkok Post in Thailand and Laos, South* China Morning Post in Hong Kong and Macao, the Borneo Bulletin in Brunei, the Korea Times in South Korea, Business Day in the Philippines, Indonesia Times in Indonesia and the Economic News in Taiwan.

The takeoff point had now been reached.

After a protracted battle with ‘socialist millionaire’ Robert Maxwell in London, Rupert gained control of the News of the World Organisation Ltd. and a toe hold in the Fleet Street big time. (It was during this encounter that London gave him the nick­ name “Dirty Digger” , which partially in­ spired this esteemed newspaper’s name.)

The N.O.W. sells more than six million copies a week making it the largest circulat­ ing English language newspaper in the world.

tr a v e l

He changed the company’s name to News International Ltd.(U.K.) and for a song bought the “goodwill” of the failing London Sun from International Publishing Corpor­ ation. In five years he boosted the circula­ tion of the Soaraway S u n” from under 500,000 to over three million copies a day..

He was indeed his father’s son. , Using the same marketing formulae that had worked so successfully in London, Rupert last year set up —wait for it —World News Corporation Inc.(U.S.) and launched the National Star from New York. Another of his American subsidiaries, News America Publishing Inc., runs the San Antonio E x­ press and the San Antonio News.

Just to show that the local boy has really made good he has now joined the more shadowy side of the multinational world with Publishing Associates Ltd. (Switzer­ land) and News Publishers Ltd. (Bermuda). ***

The Herald and Weekly Times Ltd. is more conservative and colonial in its foreign out­ look than the brash young News Ltd. Being a management company controlled by old proviricial capital it has sought a sphere of influence among the English-speaking small nations to our near north. It has substantial interests in NZ News Ltd., and 50 per cent of New Nation Publishing Pty. Ltd. which puts out the daily New Nation in Singapore.

Where the Herald group, really thrives is in monopoly situations and it has wholly owned subsidiaries totally controlling the print media in both Fiji and Papua Niugini.

Allied Press Pty. Ltd. (P.N.G.) runs the Papua New Guinea Post Courier in Port Moresby, the Rabaul Times, and the Niugini Tok Tok. Through Pacific Publications Ltd. it controls the daily Fiji Times, Nai Lalakai, and Shanti Dut.

RÇWN1E ELU m TORNEI

AUSTRALIAN GRAFFITI Rennie Ellis, Ian Turner Australia's graffitists refuse to cringe culturally before the well-documented efforts of their peers in London or New York, or even their Pompeiian antecedents. Our lurking legion has brought its own brand of philosophy and humour; its own lewdness and madness, poetry and filth.

Despite an Antipodean divergence from the mainstream of the art of the ink slingers, brush bashers and spray spiurters, their motivations remain universal and fascinat­ ing.

But be warned! This is an unvarnished presentation of Australian graffiti as the author’s camera found it — and graffiti is strong stuff.

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SUN BOOKS

Page 12

THE DIGG1

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the entire U.S. and xjiv:;: Canada, changed our production to introduce color printing, and gained invaluable exper- tfg # ience in th is' huge but difficult market.

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Page 14

THE DIGGER

NOVEMBER 4 - DECEMBER 2

Poems from Pentridge and \citala The poems and drawings on this page are from the Yatala gaol in Adelaide and Pentridge gaol in Melbourne. The three anonymous poems are from Pentridge and the others have been selected from a magazine produced by the Creek Expression workshop in Yatala. I f anyone should want to get a copy o f this magazine, write to.

The Creek Expression workshop, Box 53, GPO, Adelaide, 5001.

Me

Bonnie Guitar

the way i lump my life today will not last i hope and pray the blues will surely claim my mind if there’s nothing i can find on the other side of that great big wall people ain’t really having a ball oh well i’ve been there myself before! things may seem to be going fine only they too are just killing time

H-Division

They took away sweet liberty They took away my star But worse than all of that they took My wailin’ sweet guitar.

It’s not as though I play it sweet Like Clapton or the rest But like as not I’d play today 01’ Midnight Bus the best.

I’d sing about the freedom And the fight for liberty They hate to hear you say the truth They just don’t want to see.

Anon.

man, they’re just like me!

Bob Temple

Today we have not Carried out your Orders.

We had a good reason, Founder of Hell for H-Division.

In appearance Pretty repulsive Wounded hearts.

But that’s not the point: The rehabilitation you choose Is torture and humiliation.

Even in blessed sleep We used to be afraid To forget the banging of hammers.

But how can we Forget those cries, And bashings?

Who are you?

Torturers!

You Law abiding citizens!

Your crimes are unseen And your hearts are black.

Everything will be repayed.

Just one courageous word Will be enough to get justice.

Rem em ber Your Principles

Anonymous

when 8-ball pissed or shit his pants he got a belting not because he had pissed or shit his pants but because it was the principle of the thing

Destroying W hat You

when he smoked or got drunk at school he got the cuts not because he had smoked or got drunk at school but because it was the principle of the thing when he was convicted of murder he was sent to prison for life not because he had killed anyone but because it was the principle of the thing when he was caught fucking the arse off johnny he got an extra three months not because he was fucking the arse off johnny but because it was the principle of the thing so understand now, friend when 8-ball smashers Barton, the screw with a crowbar from the spray-shop riots with a hundred others, and burns each bloody cell-block to the ground it won’t be that he dislikes Ronnie Barton, or likes to see a building full of flame, but just because, and this applies to man and walls alike, he hates with all his heart the principle of the things.

Graeme Bockman

Refuse To Believe Come and see the magician!

They cried.

Come and see him, Who stands outside himself, Who watches himself slay A bitch on heat.

Recapture Empty rooms, empty spaces Empty looks, empty faces.

This is not new And really not very nice The second time around. Anon.

“th e creek” there’s a place on a hill where the population is constant there’s a place on a hill where no sunshine brightens a face there’s a place on a hill where people stare at society by night there’s a place on a hill where the creek runs still there’s a place on a hill where the lights go out at ten and your hand is your best friend.

—Bocky

Come and laugh at the magician!

They cried.

Come and laugh at him, Who stares at the walls, Who drinks his urine, Who squeezes his testicles Until his groin is afire.

Come and spit on the magician!

They cried.

Come and spit on him, Who breaks our laws, Who ignores our moral code, Who laughs at us, Who laughs at death.

Come and stone the magician!

They cried.

Come and stone him, Who can only cry When he is in pain From the fire In his groin.

Graeme Bockman

Page 15

THE DIGGER

NOVEMBER 4 - DECEMBER 2

Blacks, unions and eco-freaks against uranium.

Tom orrow ’s nightm ares sold today J n the middle of the fuss over Fraser’s power-bid, Whitlam’s government agreed to multinational companies’ plans to sell Aust­ ralian uranium ore overseas. Not only have . companies like Peko-EZ, Pancontinental, Noranda, Queensland Mines and Western Mining been-given the go-ahead on mining the ore in northern Australia, they will be financed by the government. The Australian Atomic Energy Commission (AAEC) will negotiate sales and provide over 70 percent of the finance for Peko-EZ’s first-up pro­ ject. All this; while the public inquiry into the environmental impact of uranium mining at the Ranger site is still going on.

The inquiry was called for by the ALP conference at Terrigal early this year and. began on September 12th in Sydney. It’s due to meet in all capital cities over the next six weeks.

Not only was the government’s agree­ ment jumping the gun on this environment­ al inquiry, it also ignores the claims of Black Australians to much of the land the uranium is buried in.

Whitlam’s decision came one week after deputy prime minister Frank Crean said they’d all been “a bit silly” for not selling the stuff before now. And that was just after Rex Connor had beerTsacked as min­ ister for minerals and energy. Rex didn’t object to mining, uranium —he just wanted to hold out till Australia could get an overseas buyer (like Japan) who’d help pay for an enrichment plant in the North­ ern Territory so we’d be selling more ex­ pensive enriched uranium not just the “yellowcake” uranium oxide out of the ground. And Connor didn’t object to nuclear power — he just didn’t want it here in case it was all true what they’d been say­ ing about the chances of a calamitous accident.

So Whitlam, Crean and the deposed Rex Connor all agree the uranium ore should be dug out of the ground and that it should be sold to those countries that are using nuclear power to supplement or replace fossil-fuel power. Buyers will be Japan, west Germany, Italy and other western European countries.

These decisions have far greater import­ ance than any made during the whole of the “ constitutional crisis” . *

*

*

Since uranium was first'discovered here

at Rum Jungle in 1949, it has emerged that Australia has at least 15 percent of the world’s uranium ore and the richest con­ centrations anywhere.

In the sixties there was no demand for more Australian ore because the USA and the UK had enough for their weapons al­ ready. Most of Australia’s uranium is now in nuclear warheads in NATO countries.

In 1967 the Liberal-Country Party gov­ ernment banned uranium exports because they thought we might need it ourselves in a decade or so. Then when Labor took office in 1972 they ratified the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty and put-a freeze on development of land which was likely to be claimed back by Aborigines. Those were the days. At the time there were outstanding contracts for supplying uranium worth $40 million, to Japan and Whitlam has moved from allowing the fulfilment of that existing contract to the current instruc-

“ In no circum stances w o u ld I act to establish an ato m ic re a c to r p lan t in A ustralia w hen th e state o f ato m ic tech n o lo g y has no answ er to th e radioactive w astes fro m sp en t re a c to r fueL ” R.F.X. Connof, as minister for minerals and energy, June 4, 1974. “ I w ould n o t accep t th e resp o n sib ility o f th e disposal o f th e rad io activ e wastes. T h e y can be sto re d b u t to d ate science has n o t p ro vided a safe m eans o f sto rag e .”

R.F.X. Connor, as minister for minerals and energy, April 27, 1975. ion to the AAEC to get sighed contracts now for all the ore at the Ranger site — worth $1000 million according to The.Age of October 30. * * * The ALP government has given way to mining companies and the powerful nations who want uranium because that’s whose . side it’_s on. There’s also a large amount of money to be made by this country in sell­ ing uranium (in partnerships with corp­ orations), and one of the arguments of the pro-uranium sales lobby is that nuclear power is happening anyway and will spread, so Australia will just look silly and throw away a fortune if it takes a principled stand.

But it’s not just principles that are at stake, it’s land and lives,-f ultimately the lives of everyone living and yet to be born if (or rather when) the accidents happen. Accidents like radioactive leaks,

If you want to k ill the President, send for the FBI

by Alan Roberts With the arrest of Sally Moore after her bungled attempt on President Ford’s life, yet another name was added to the list of F.B.I. informants prominent in the Assass­ ination Stakes.

The same weelk came the revelation that Lee Harvey Oswald, who did not bungle his alleged attempt on President Kennedy’s life, had dropped in at the F.B.I.’s Dallas office only a few days before he squeezed off those fatal shots from the Dallas Repository win­ dow. (Reported in Time, September 15, 1975.) (Though it must be noted that wheth­ er or not Oswald fired the fatal shot, or any shot, or was even there, is in strong doubt.)

Not only did the F.B.I. destroy the threat­ ening note that Oswald left, but they decided not to disturb the Warren Commission’s peace of mind by telling them of the visit.....

The involvement of the F.B.I. in these and other terrorist acts — directed against the very system they’re supposed to be de­ fending may seem a little extraordinary.

Can it be that the Weathermen have sub­ verted the Justice Department?

No, not exactly. Similar phenomena were noted many years ago, in the case of another reactionary administration and its secret police: Tsarist Russia before the 1917 Revo­ lution, and its dreaded “Ochrana” .

The Franco-Russian, anarchist-bolshevik, novelist-political writer Victor Serge had the opportunity of perusing the files of the Ochrana after the revolution. In his book, What every revolutionary should know about repression, he records that the police used at one time or another about 40.000 “ provoc­

or like someone getting away with plu­ tonium waste from which it’s not hard to make backyard atom bombs.

Whitlam reckons the International Atomic Energy Agency will inspect all plants using Australian uranium to make sure they’re for peaceful purposes . . . but even if the distinction were that easy, the IAEA has no power to supervise waste-storage or reactor safety.

While Gough and Frank and the miners move further away from these unpleasant facts, other Australians are gathering forces to take the decision out of their hands. A few young white members of conservation­ ist bodies like Friends of the Earth have joined local Blacks at ‘Camp Concern’ on the site of the South Alligator River bridge in Arnhem Land, to blockade any future truckloads of ore or equipment.

While they wait for the first trucks, the camp is a place for sharing ideas and stra­ tegies among the Oenpelli, other local

ateurs” in the revolutionary movement.

“In taking such a scope,” he writes, “pro­ vocation became in itself a danger for the regime which used it, and in particular for the men of this regime.” (this is my own crude translation from a French edition published by Maspero; I haven’t seen the book in English.)

The masters of the weapon of terror, in the period Serge discusses,, were the fighting squads of the Socialist-Revolutionary Party.

Serge points out: “At the head of the Socialist-Revolution­ ary Party and its fighting squads up to 1909 was the engineer Evno Azeff who, since 1890, had been tranquilly signing his own name to the reports he made to the police. (Many in­ formants used pseudonyms.) Azeff was one of the organisers of the execution of the Grand Duke Serge, of the Minister Plehve and of a host of others.....

1 “ ...One of the highest functionaries in the Ministry of the Interior, the police offic­ er Ratchkovsky, knew and approved of the plans for executing Plehve and the Grand Duke Serge. Stolypin, Prime Minister of Russia after 1905 was well acquainted with what was going on; had himself accompanied in his outings by the police chief Gerassimov, whose presence seemed to him a guarantee against assassination attempts committed at the instigation of provocateurs. Stolypin was nevertheless killed by the anarchist Bagrof who had belonged to the police...”

All this is not as inexplicable as it may seem. Serge is able to explain the activities of the Ochrana —and of the F.B.I,? t- in an illuminating way:

tribespeople and the eco-freaks from the south.

In the cities, the trade unions and state ALP organisations are coming together behind the anti-nuclear campaign.

At the biannual conference of the ACTU in Melbourne last month, this motion from the Newcastle trades, hall council was passed by a fat majority; “ In view of the danger of global radio­ active pollution, the threat of nuclear pro­ liferation, the problems of disposing of nuclear waste, the energy consumption imbalance between the industrialised countries and the underdeveloped third world, and the denial of the legitimate land rights of Black Australians, Congress de­ mands: “That Australia should immediately halt all uranium mining operations pending the completion of a thorough-going public access inquiry into the whole ramifications of nuclear fisión technology.

“ Is this (provocation) more dangerous for the revolution than for the police? I believe the opposite is true....The police and the provocateurs have an immediate interest in seeing to it that the revolutionary movement, which supplies their reason for existence, should always be threatening.

If necessary...they will themselves hatch up conspiracies; that is obvious. Here, the inter­ ests of the police are squarely in contradict­ ion to those of the regime it has a mission to defend.”

How applicable is all this to the United States today? Reviewing that impressive list of informers-turned-assassin, I’m inclined to

“ The Ranger Uranium Environmental Inquiry, currently in progress may satisfy this demand provided the Australian Gov­ ernment accepts that the scope of that inq­ uiry should not be limited only to the con­ siderations of physical and technological questions.

“That existing Australian uranium stock­ piles be used or exported only for bio-med­ ical research and, indirectly through the production of isotopes, for medical diag­ nosis and treatment.

“That uranium exports be refused to those those countries engaged in researching or manufacturing nuclear weapons or generat­ ing power by fission or breeder reactors.

“That those existing contracts for the supply of uranium not in accord with these principles be abrogated.”

Earlier this year the Victorian state ALP conference supported a recommendation for a special ALP conference to review all the party’s energy policies and stop the ex­ port of uranium, and called for a ban on uranium exports except for medical uses.

The Terrigal conference had earlier resolved that any departure from party policy should not be tolerated.

The South Australian ALP conference passed a motion that the government should hold everything until it produced evidence that mere would be no danger to the public. Connof reportedly agreed with the motion saying that export sales would be closely controlled and buyers would have to account for every ounce used — and that conservationist arguments against the mining and marketing of uranium were not relevant to what the government planned, that they would mine only for peaceful purposes.

In the New South Wales ALP a move to ban exports was defeated but an ammendment was carried that exports should be postponed -pending the outcome of an in­ quiry into all aspects of mining, processing and export of uranium.

In Queensland this August the Queensland trade union congress voted to ban the mining, processing and export of uranium from the Mary Kathleen mine, and Connor flew up to try to reverse the decision. The trades and labor council voted to defer the decision until after the Ranger inquiry.

The Whitlam government, on the other hand, has decided not to wait . . .

think that history is repeating itself. An ex­ agent of the F.B.I. asserted many years ago that, with its vast network of informers all paying their membership dues, the most im­ portant single source of finance for the American Communist Party was the F.B.I. How many bombings and robberies have been urged along by undercover informers, just in time to strengthen the Justice Depart­ ment’s case for increased funds?How many unstable nuts among the army of informers are being covertly encouraged right now, by F.B.I. contacts who are aware of their potent­ ial as assassins?

Let’s just read the papers and find out....

THE RECORD COLLECTOR We would like to take this opportunity to apologise for the last ad that appeared in Digger. As acopywriter Terry Cleary is a bit of an old woman.but who doesnt have staff problems nowdays.No matter how many spare M.G. parts we supply Mr.Cleary,he still cant grasp the theme we wish our ads to conve Oblique references of Cleary to his mother.rats, his ballet less« and his love for Edward Woodwood w edont mind. But a whe poem devoted to his ex drinking mates at the Albion is just n<

,.

musical enough.

Gifts of more car parts .yearly subscriptions to Luxemberg’s Yachting Weekly, & a newly fitted papal writing glove, with special coma dispensation, have finally persuaded Mr,Cleary to lock himself away in peaceful Mitcham & churn out musical copy.

Greg Young did not write this ad, MarkRubbo wishes he had, & Steve Smith may vyrite the next one.(Not bloody likely-T.C.) R E C O f tD C O L L E C T O R — TW O SH O PS: C N R . T O O R A K R O A D A N D D A V IS A V E N U E , S O U T H Y A R R A , 2 6 7 .1 8 8 5 , A N D 7 1 0 G L E N F E R R I E R O A D , H A W T H O R N , 8 1 9 .1 9 1 7 .

Page 16

THE DIGGER

NOVEMBER 4 — DECEMBER 2

Brisbane black attacks the white left:

You’re all deadshits says Lionel Lacey A meeting in Melbourne on October 28 was supposed to be addressed by Denis Walker from Queensland. Walker didn’t snow —he was arrested in Brisbane the night before at a party.

I ¡j I \

Walker, who has been fighting Queens­ land’s racism for years, is awaiting trial on a charge of attempting to obtain money with menaces. Last August, Walker met Queens­ land University students’ union president, Jim Varghese (who’s also black) to talk about raising money for a Black Community School on Palm Island. Varghese asked' Walker what he’d do if he didn’t get the money. Walker is supposed to have said he, might put a price of $200 on Varghese’s head. Varghese secretly taped the conver­ sation and sprung Walker to the cops.

All that was over a year ago.. Walker was charged and extradited from New South Wales. John Garcia, a white militant who has been working with the Blacks, and Lionel, Lacey (aka Fogarty) were charged with con­ spiring with Walker.

At the meeting last month at Melbourne’s Unitarian Church, black militant Bruce McGuinness said Walker had been bashed the night before as part of the Queensland police campaign to intimidate all blacks and militant blacks in particular. He added that Queensland’s racism was no worse than the rest of Australia’s — just more overt as they (the whites) have more to win. Keeping the black population under control keeps their land for the great white mining companies (like Comalco which took over the settle­

ment at Weipa by force, sending Weipa people to a place called New Weipa where facilities were supposed to be much better.

Not surprisingly, Weipa residents don’t agree).

What Walker, Garcia and Lacey are fighting particularly are the ‘Queensland Acts’ —the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders Acts.

These acts are Joh Bjelke-Petersen’s way of keeping the state’s Blacks in concentration camps if necessary — they form the legal basis for Queensland’s ignoring the 1974 referendum that the federal government be solely responsible for Aboriginal affairs.

The Queensland Acts allow state director of Aboriginal affairs, Patrick Killoran, to do almost anything to any Australian Black who lives in Queensland —or passes through.

Reserves are controlled under separate laws from the rest of the state, and residents can be fined for breaking rules like regularly having to disinfect rubbish bins. The Acte allow “district officers” — who can be local (white) cops — to control residents’ pro­ perty, to control their wages, to charge them with offences under the Acts, and then to “represent” them in court. Ultimately, the Acts can be used to move any Black on a reserve to anywhere else.

McGuinness says the three men charged are “being squashed because they’re effec­ tive in challenging the act which is there to maintain Joh Bjelke-Petersen’s control of the land and its resources for the US imperi­ alists”.

Barbara Meredith spoke, having just come south from the party where Walker was

arrested and allegedly bashed by cops. She described the systematic terror campaign by cops on Blacks living in streets like Trinity Lane, Brisbane. She told of one 13 year old girl who was punched and arrested by cops when she tried to ring legal aid as the party was being busted. The girl has now been put under state control as a ward of the state (she’ll probably be charged with heing in moral danger or one of those phoney raps).

Lionel Lacey, the youngest of the three charged, has already been tried and cleared in the children’s court. But now Queensland cops are pushing his charges through with the others regardless, because he’s turned 18. Lacey grew up on the Cherbourg mission in Queensland, then drifted to the city where he heard about Black Power. After at first “hating those black shit stirrers” , Lacey met Walker through the struggle to keep Palm Island for its people rather than having it sold by Townsville businessmen as a tour­ ist resort. Once the outlines of the white power structure became clear to him, Lacey took a militant stand against the apartheid Acts and helped Walker in the Palm Island battle. It was for these actions he is now charged with conspiracy.

Lacey spoke for a long time at the meeting.

He said he wanted to make his audience — predominantly white — get a taste of what it’s like to be harangued and to be some­ where they didn’t want to be. He taunted those who left the hall with images of the comfort they were choosing to go home to, comparing that with the early death black kids of Alice Springs were not able to

avoid.

Lacey did not exempt white radicals from his attack on whites-as-pigs. He said: “You’ll go to a protest about [the violence in] South Africa or Chile — but not your own violence — that’s there whenever a Black walks down the street and he’s called a ‘shiftless black bastard’.

“The Black people in Australia is picking up a gun . . v they’re gettin’ close to that trigger . . . What’re you white people gunna do? Are you gunna support it one day or are you gunna support it now?”

He said white people who call themselves revolutionaries were all talk, that they knew nothing about violence which is what power is really about, and that they need to orga­ nise themselves, not blacks.

In this context he attacked the organisers of the campaign to support himself and the other two defendants. (The “drop the charges, defend the Brisbane three” cam­ paign is being supported by the Socialist Youth Alliance [SYA] in Melbourne, and the Communist League in Brisbane.)

Lacey said: “You shouldn’t be defending the Brisbane three — you should be defend­ ing the Black community and dropping the charges on the Black community.

“I ’m calling you pigs because the white left has fucked us over — has fucked the black movement. You don’t like that, but what you gotta do is take that and work it out.”

Actions to confront the Acte and support Walker, Garcia and Lacey are listed in the Directory of Events on page 2 of this Digger. •

Finger acupressure (continued) Finger acupressure is an effective, simple and harmless method o f treatment which stimulates acupuncture points with finger massage.

In the last issue of The Digger we began a series on acupressing treatment for differènt problems. In this issue we are publishing treatment for sore throats.

If you use this method of treatment, there are certain directions to be followed regarding posture, pressure and so on. Make sure you read these directions first, on Page 15 o f issue No. 46 o f The Digger.

SORE THROAT Point Shao - shang

SORE THRjOAT Location About 0.1 inch away from the corner of the thumbnail Technique Subject may assume any posture.

Use thumbnail to pressnard.

!

I

I i

1 I

Point Ho -k u

Location Over the dorsum of the hand, in between the 1st and 2nd metacarpal bone.

Technique Subject may assume any posture.

Use thumb to press hard against the 2nd metacarpal bone.

NOVEMBER 4 - DECEMBER 2

THE DIGGER

Page 17

MOUSELIKE

by Rosemary Yates Where is that gentle face? Something has died or gone into hiding, something timid scurried away into its little hole in the wall.

I thought I saw a mouse earlier but then it was all a joke. The pillow-case is grubby, it’s never been so grey and_we’ve none clean. It didn’t look so bad when I first got into bed.

My hair will get dirty I know. I wish I had a nice clean, soft feathery one. Fit for an odal­ isque he beams. He says I look pretty, the mouth parts I show a smile, but there’s no smile inside. Yet it was there before.*What­ ever was there has died. I close my eyes, I lie back on a slab of frayed stretched sheets.

The bare light is directly above but lying on my back it should be quicker. He leaves a sliding; wet trail on my face. I’m cold, I don’t want to go on top of the bedclothes, nor take off my nightgown. Always an ex­ cuse he says with a sigh. But honestly, this time I am cold, I am tired. But what’s the use — all he’ll ever do is fret over my health and turn up the fire until I can’t breathe. He comes down on top of me. I feel my hair sweep all over the pillow, sweeping all the dirt underneath. He crushes me with his weight. My breathing gets jerky and gives the wrong impression. He begins to work hard on me all over, as if he’s forgotten I’m here. They all do, and now he does —where’s that kind look of his, the gentle line of the mouth? I can’t understand how it vanished, it must have scurried away too. I take his face in my hands and trace his mouth; I draw it back but I can’t find it. Is it the harsh light that alters his face? Or can’t I see for the smell of his spilt nicotiqe? I let his head go and he looks up surprised. I put my arms around him, hoping to be encouraging but I always forget to move them. He works hard on the body playing with it with his hands. When the light’s off I’m a beautiful curved instrument, he hears the music even if I don’t. But not for long: the black gro­ tesque shapes loom over me and come down without warning. I can’t see where he is next, I have to put the light on. A spring thrusts upwards into my back, I wriggle to miss its aim. I could do with some water.

Stop a minute. I lean up on one arm and drink from a glass on the table. I drink while he goes rummaging around between my legs. My strap falls off my shoulder and for a second I’m quite randy lying there. A tickle and the little mouse squeaks, pattering around its hole. But he wrecks it when he comes up from down below like a drunken frogman. He asks and I have to take off my nightgown. Now I’m fully exposed. I’m so cold — no, I am cold honestly. Stripped of an excuse he says. What do you mean ex­ cuse? I daren’t stop him too long I know what will happen if he thinks I’m not going along with him. We could be lying awake until three. I’m pulled down again and under­ neath. He tries to keep me warm with the sheets and his body but it won’t work. I’m suffocating. He gets up on top of the body and is everywhere at once. The body’s swamped with him, his awkward shyness is just awkwardness. He’s all over the place, I tense slightly. His head comes down on mine and his collarbone rubs against my chin. He’s so engrossed playing with the body’s limbs.

Where has he gone? This is what they all come down to. Against the silence he makes little groans. I wish the radio was on. I could listen to something. I reach over to the switch. He looks up suddenly —where has he been all the time? He looks so naively shocked, it’s laughable. I want to put on something —anything — no I’m not fed up.

Why should I be fed up? Hurriedly I put a kiss on his cheek, anxious he doesn’t sag and drop limp. His neck is like any other. Like mine, like anyone’s, white and smooth with the usual smell of soap. It works wonders and he’s back noisier than ever, perhaps be­ cause we haven’t done it for a while. He rubs the sides while the spring pushes up again. And the blaring light pulls apart my shut lids. His snorts and groans are exagger­ ated, he must have got them from a film. I listen to them when I should be steadying him, guiding him. I find it hard to do every­ thing at once. I can’t remember what to do.

Now he starts rubbing up the body making for the big grab. I hate this all over groping they all do it, working up like this. If only they would stick to the sides. I tense when they start this, I clench when they hear. I’ve always hated it. I dart back inside, there’s no haven anywhere. I look down at these breasts

I lie back on a slab oi frayed stretched sheets.

I can't remember what to do.

Jill Gibb

drooping over the edge — what can they find there? Two lumps of flesh like anybody’s, I can’t see what the fuss is. But they can see something and come hunting for it, working up insatiably prodding and groping. They claw at my breasts. With my elbow I cleverly guide him aside, I congratulate myself. Mid­ night. Surely he’s almost finished, he’s hold­ ing out a long time. I feel so tired, it should be oyer soon if I can keep him at it. We must paint that ceiling it’s so stained with his smoke! The light shows up all the smears.

What’s the matter, he says, looking at me as if something was very wrong. Nothing, noth­ ing at all. Each time he looks down it all adds to the time I have to lie here. I try and keep him at it, I tighten my grip round his back.

I must encourage him now we’ve come so far. But he always looks so lost when he looks at me as if I*d slipped Under the bed and left him. I shan’t be able to go much longer if he keeps stopping, my tactics are failing, but he becomes more vigorous. His knees run up and down my legs like nobs of marble, it makes me weary. He pokes his way inside and I sigh with relief. I watch his backside move up and down under the sheets. He pushes hard trying to split me open but the whole thing’s no thrill just ridiculous. It ought to be over by now, I move my hands across his back mechanically while he tunnels in and out, up and down, making me more and more drowsy. Every now and then he stops and sighs, he deceives me, I think it’s all over. Then all at once he’s at the body’s breasts again, his mouth stick­ ing like a limpet. I wake up and clench, I use my elbow to drivé him away but he’s not having any. He just doesn’t see, he doesn’t care —don’t! That’s all I said, I didn’t want you to stop. He halts abruptly and flops onto the bed and doesn’t speak. He lies there ages, now and then he makes these stunted move­ ments. I’m not sorry, or bothered.

Don’t be so melodramatic! But saying that has no effect, we’ll be awake hours. I

lie fairly comfortable now we’ve come to the end of it and follow a faint line on the wall opposite. Lost in its hole the little mouse sleeps. I’m whitewashed with fatigue, I plead: I didn’t mean you'to stop, idiot, I was cold.

Emptied I put my stare anywhere. He closes his eyes, placing his arm over them. Then he looks at me with all these faces saying all these things, I half hear their echoes later.

The trouble is you’ve had a stupid upbring­ ing, you’re frigid, you really are. I say noth­ ing; you really are goes on and on. Almost two-thirty and the light still on, and having to get up so early. I look over at him, quietly he’s taken his hands away. In his profile I catch traces of his other half. I can feel mis­ chief curdle inside at what would be so un­ expected. Quickly without a second thought, I tickle his cheek with my tongue, but noth­ ing. The mischief comes up bubbling, the only thing alive in the room. I kiss him, but nothing, not a flicker. His impassivity is encpuraging, I feel quite awake, expectant, it’s up to me. I tease him but he won’t open his

eyes. I take his head in my arms, it’s both heavy and Immovable but strangely fragile. I begin to recognise it, I recognise the fall of the eyebrows and begin to kiss them. I climb on top of him as slowly, as seductively as I can but it’s hard when the sheets are so tight, and he’s playing this hard to get stunt. I as­ tonish us both by flinging the bedclothes back disdainfully. Fully exposed to the bare room he still lies unmoved. I’m in where it’s too deep —now what am I to do? The mis­ chief fades so quickly. I’m left exasperated — he won’t do anything. Am I to do everything?

I sink my head on his shoulder and plead with my cheek. But no, he doesn’t stir, he’s an impassable mountain he’s weighing me down even below me. He’s not teasing or sulking, he seems to be waiting. With a dread I move my mouth over his face and neck; I expect to be flung aside. I don’t know whether to leave little kisses or one long lick. I begin nibbling his chest but it’s only a m outlron a chest —anyone’s any where, no matter how hard I try. I don’t mind him like this but I half wait for some kind of explosion, he isn’t still inside. Am I trespassing? I try everything to rouse him, almost defeated I stroke him and he stirs. He comes awake in my arms, his vulnerable slenderness fills my arms, he’s a wounded bird. My hands follow his shape, I’m there centred in each of them moving over his slim shape. His nakedness against mine excites me, a burning liquid begins to run. I seem to be flowering. My breasts hold full and firm on his chest. I curve round him, I fondle, caress, recognise him-1 discover his hair. I close my eyes and know him in the dark. He is so real, so near, I can hardly tell where we cease to join. The fire running in­ side me seeks out an opening. He puts his arms around me and holds me, gingerly I ex­ cite him. But he becomes more and more lively, he anticipates me, he wants to be the first. The more vigorous he is the more I harden. From below he overwhelms, invol­ untarily I back out slowly. He rises over me in unquestionable movements, he’s above me, it’s irreversible. I lie down on my side again, under the bare light. His hand goes about handling. My face is fixed, I’m rooted, he’s taking over. I push him hack and climb on top, I want to see that face again. He’s too earnest he prods and leaves me out. He’s changed it’s all gone. I have to think hard what to do, how to bring it all back. I go over my movements I study his face, I move the mouth, the brows, but it’s gone. He eats me away, rubs me away. I scurry away into my hole, I leave nothing outside. What’s the matter — nothing. I take hold of his head to show there’s nothing wrong. But I leave it, I let it fall on the pillow. You’re fed up. No _ I’m not. I don’t feel anything, he doesn’t be­ lieve me anyway. He sinks down on to the bed hopelessly falling limp. He seems ex­ hausted, deadened. There’s no movement, he lies there motionless. I climb up again. I take him, I lie on him almost crushing. He can hardly breathe. He’s so lethargic it’s easy to tickle him without caring about anything happening. With a thrill I see him lie there like helpless prey, a conquest. I tantalize and he doesn’t respond. I wander down his face drawing in different lines about the mouth; this is my lover, this beautiful slender body.

I ¿tretch up to see him better. But he looks away at the ceiling his eyes half-closed. All I see is myself cringing above a vacant dummy, I fall back on the be,d stranded. He looks over at me without sympathy.

This story first appeared in Spare Rib (no 3&f

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Page 18

THE DIGGER

NOVEMBER 4 — DECEMBER 2

Britons get their training

K illing atheist rebels in O m an and the mountain population are being for­ ced to concentrate in these or newly built centres around the capital, Salala. Barbedwire fences have been built around these areas, and checkpoints prevent any of the inhabitants from taking food out of the China, the Afghans, the Zulus, the Irish, government-controlled centres. The policy as well as more recent counter-insurgency here is both to starve the guerrillas out and operations such as the wars in Malaya (1948 to force the population to come under -60), Kenya (1953-59), Cyprus (1955-59), government control - “draining the water and Aden (1963-67). Today, when the from theTish” as it is usually called.

French, the Portuguese and (at least temp­ But this resettlement programme is orarily) the Americans have been chased off backed by a more destructive policy, that the colonial battlefield, the British are still of systematic bombardment of the guerrillainvolved in two major counter-insurgency held areas by the Sultan’s air force, navy operations - in Ireland and Oman. and artillery detachments. All animals and Dhofar offers an ideal setting for counter­ crops outside government areas are attacked, insurgency operations: not only are there as are wells and mountain paths used by the no troublesome observers there to report inhabitants. The population are therefore British actions (no journalists and no white faced with a choice - either they starve or missionaries either), but the combat area is get shelled to death, or they take refuge in relatively small (10,000 square miles), the the government centres. Several thousand population limited to under 200,000 and have also fl^d in recent months to neigh­ the guerrilla supply lines with South Yemen bouring South Yemen. run through mountains that are less than Despite the drawbacks experienced in 20 miles wide. Compared to Algeria,Vietnam Vietnam, airpower is a key weapon in the or Malaya it is a simpler military operation.

Dhofar counter-insurgency campaign. In Many of the tactics being used in Oman addition to its use in terrorising and attack­ are derived from the experience of the pre­ ing the liberated areas, it has two other vious campaigns. For example, in Kenya the functions. First, it is the main means of in­ British used a tactic known as “counter-gangs” , telligence gathering on guerrilla units and groups of deserters from the nationalist guer­ supplies. Secondly, it is used to increase the rillas and of tribal elements who were organ­ mobility of government forces: in February ised into squads of irregulars. Under British of this year the Sultan’s forces, with British Army guidance, they were used for intellig­ and Iranian backing, launched an offensive ence-gathering and then for combat operat­ against the Mamarr region north-west of ions. The man who pioneered this tactic was Salala in which helicopter-borne troops were a young army officer named Frank Kitson, used extensively for the first time. Certainly who later achieved notoriety while comm­ the ex-RAF pilots who answer the Sultan’s anding forces in Belfast and authored Low advertisements will have plenty to do Intensity Operations (1971), a book discuss­ Nor should one forget one of the perma­ ing the political uses of the army in revolut­ nent features of all counter-insurgency cam­ ionary situations. paigns, namely psychological warfare. In es­ In Oman the counter-gang policy has been sence this falls into two general categories — developed by the SAS training team since the street and the sour, or “hearts and minds” 1970 and over 1,000 Dhofaris have been and “ deterrence” . Among the sweet policies organised in firqat, squads run on tribal lines one can include the development of health with names like Saladin Firqa and GantalAbd, and education facilities in government-held al-Nasir Firqa. They have been used in coun­ areas, and the offering of financial rewards ter-guerrilla actions and have established them­ to those guerrillas who desert with informa­ selves in the eastern part of Dhofar, where tion and weapons. Prices have been put on according to British reports a situation of the heads of the leading People’s Front anarchy now prevails as the tribal armed cadres. On the sour side, the Sultan makes groups monopolise power and operate prot­ use of his increased firepower to threaten all ection rackets around the wells there. who resist with starvation and death. Leaf­ Whereas the People’s Front has campaigned lets dropped over the guerrilla-held areas to eliminate tribal differences, the British sometimes have a picture of a grave with the are actively reviving them. inscription “Atheist rebel, this will soon be Another classic counter-insurgency yours” . policy being used in Oman is what British Ironically there have been disputes be­ writers politely refer to as “food control” , tween the British and Iranian officers in which is related to another euphemistic Oman about what kind of counter-insurgency category “population control” . They are tactics to use. The Iranians claim that the more accurately called starvation and forced British do not want to bring the war to an resettlement. These tactics go back at least end, because of the excellent training offered as far as the Boer War (when 20,000 Boers by the Dhofar war. The British accuse the died of starvation in concentration camps), Iranians of relying too much on “ American” , and were used in the Malayan war, when Vietnam-styie tactics, of using firepower too over half a million peasants were driven into much and of being reluctant to chase after “New Villages” , the prototypes of the Stra­ guerrilla forces on the ground. The British tegic Hamlets built by the Americans in like to telbof the two Iranian artillery posi­ Vietnam. tions which started shelling each other in the In Dhofar a British building firm, Sir middle of the night, and of the “ guerrillas” William Halcrow, have constructed 9 resett­ shot dead by them, which turned out in the lement centres as part of an eight million morning to be cows. pound sterling counter-insurgency project, With the war now in its eleventh year

vby Fred Halliday

Since the US was driven out of Indo-china, and the Portuguese decided to quit Africa, Oman remains the only revolutionary war of significant military dimensions being fought anywhere in the world. Sultan Qabus and his British mentors are fighting to destroy the People’s Front.

In the last few months announcements have appeared in the British press saying that the Sultan of Oman wants ex- British Armed Forces pilots for three year periods of service with his air force. Starting pay is 8,200 pounds per annum, with generous side benefits. Similar ads have appeared in the Australian press.

It is curious that the Sultan should be attracting combat pilots for three years (with possible renewals after that) since he has been predicting that the war against the *People’s Front guerrillas in the province of Dhofar will be over by the end of 1975. And there are already several thousand Iranian counter-insurgency forces, including heli. copter gunships, operating in the war zone.

His offer of 8,200 pounds per year tax free is surprising given that he has seriously over­ spent Oman’s limited oil revenues and was forced to borrow $100 million from Saudi Arabia this summer. By contrast the average pay for those Omanis lucky enough to find work as unskilled labourers on construction projects is under 2 pounds sterling a day.

Despite four years of determined anti­ guerrilla campaigns following the Sultan’s coming to power with British help in 1970, the Omani government has so far failed to eliminate the guerrillas, who are now con­ centrated in the western part of Dhofar near the South Yemen border. As the ann­ ual June-September monsoon ends, reports are now coming in of an increase in fighting in this western region, and in the second half of September guerrilla spokespersons said they had shot down five planes, includ­ ing three Iranian helicopters. According to Iranian Army sources, the guerrillas now have hand-carried SAM ground-to-air missiles for the first time, and both People’s Front and government sources predict major clashes in the next few weeks.

The British connection is the key to the Sultan’s survival. Officially the British admit to only 600 military personnel in Oman, but there are now over 2,000 - some working as combat officers and pilots, some as training operatives, and some as servicing and comm­ unications experts at the two RAF bases of Salala (in Dhofar) and Masira. A key branch of the British apparatus is made up of the estimated 200 members of the Special Air Services (SAS), a counter-insurgency unit used on behind-the-lines missions and on training local forces.

Dhofar is, in the words of one British officer, “the last place in the world where an Englishman is still called sahib ” . The British military presence provides the com­ mand and technical backbone for the whole Sultan’s army apparatus, and as with the American operation in Laos, its importance is understated by the figures alone. For this reason the war bears an unmistakeable British stamp, recalling and drawing on the lessons of previous campaigns. One need only recall the now mythologised colonial wars of the nineteenth century - against the Mahdi in the Sudan, the Boxers in

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there is no sign that the British, the Iranians or any of the other countries involved is will­ ing to cease intervening in Omani affairs.

Since Sultan Qabus met Ford and Kissinger in Washington last January the USA has also indicated its interest iii establishing military facilities in the country, a desire that can only have been increased by the pending loss of the communications base at Asmara in Ethiopia and the naval base at al-Jufair in Bahrain. The Sultan, with his pilots on threeyear contracts, no doubt feels he is going to continue needing his foreign support for several years to come.

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Page 19

THE DIGGER

News, views, reviews and what's doing in Melbourne this week

THE

Hamer made it happen, residents get it together

ÌUM.

FREEWAY (F2)

THE FREEWAYS ARE COMING! ‘Irrespective o f Government objectives, F2 freeway m ust be built" — Moody, , ‘ -1

[ .w L o f CRB Lr '"H. a J^iir ".r;;4 Chief *r +Engineer mBr~— 'L-uatfA

HELP REPEL THE INVADERS

¿as^rnI Wednesday, O ct 29

It’s just over a year since the DMR’s north-western expressway came to a dead end in the streets o f Ultimo ( Digger N o.3 7 ) . -Now residents of Melbourne’s inner suburbs are facing up to a creature called the Eastern Freeway (F19).

To understand any more of this story you will have to get used to various bureaucratic initials like CRB, CBD, MCC, TCPB and VHC. They are the Country Roads Board (CRB), a freeway planning authority; the Central Business District (CBD); the Mel­ bourne City Council (MCC); the Town and Country Planning Board (TCPB)-and the Victorian Housing Commission (VHC).

Now, the CRB had this secret plan for a network of new freeways to bring people in cars from the outer suburbs to the CBD. Trevor Huggard, a consulting enginéer, found out about it and with the help of a special committee of inner suburban residents, has started a furour to have it stopped dead in its tracks á la Ultimo.

The people who will be most affected by this new freeway scheme — the residents of the older working class neighbourhoods that ring the CBD, are being rallied to fight the proposal.

When they heard, through their local com­ munity newspaper, The Melbourne Times, that “The Freeways Are Coming” , they im­ mediately organised a public meeting for October 29. At that meeting more than 2,000 residents demanded a complete ban on the further construction of freeways that will wreck their homes and on the F19 free­ way in particular.

They are seeking support from both the federal government and the trade unions and have asked the state government for a Royal Commission into the activities and secret planning methods of the CRB. The CRB (a permanent, unelected bureau­ cracy) believes the freeways must be built “irrespective of Government objectives”.

They have spent $7 . million so far, buying houses on one route alone. They plan to cut through Coburg, Brunswick, Fitzroy, Collingwood and Clifton Hill, destroying work­ ing class homes and large portions of the re­ maining green belts in the process, f * * * Arnold Zable continues: The most impressive aspect of the public meeting was the anger of all present. Inner suburban residents in the older working class neighbourhoods joined with migrants and new professional middle classes and white collar workers to try and halt the further destruction, pollution and congestion of their residential neighbourhoods.

In the course of the evening fundamental questions .were debated revolving around the need for a planning process which took into account the needs of local residents, parti­ cularly in areas where they have remained relatively powerless because of the “Hamer made it happen” state Liberal parliament, the dominance of CBD interests, and the power of independent statutory authorities such as the CRB. The construction of freeways is one of a number of ways in which many portions of Melbourne’s inner suburbs have been radi­ cally re-altered over the past decade. The Housing Commission (VHC) contributed to this process in their “slum reclamation” projects, which cleared large blocks of work­ ing class housing and replaced them with

high rise estates. The CBD has expanded both upwards in the form of multi-storey glass cages, and outwards into surrounding residential areas such as St. Kilda, East Melbourne and Carlton.

The overall pattern in this development is towards a car-based commuter system with the CBD as its focus. Nicholas Low, Lecturer in Town and Regional Planning summed up this pattern in the Age, October 30: “The Hamer Government will have no option but to agree to each new section of the freeway proposed because the short term profitabi­ lity of the CBD and the continued rise in land values there depends on the freeway programme to improve the accessibility of the city centre and bring Bourke Street customers right into the city from the outer suburbs.”

The major inner city business interests have long been well organised to promote such a pattern of growth. The City Deve­ lopment Association (which included major retailing, insurance, entertainment, real es­ tate, automobile, oil and building interests) was formed in 1953 to promote the better functioning and growth of the CBD, to re­ develop the near city of the CBD and its “slums” , to popularise the CBD, and to pro­ mote metropolitan planning.

As a result of their lobbying, building heights’ regulations were altered so as to allow the construction of high rise office blocks. The ICI building on the edge of the city, with a height of 230 feet, was the first major benificiary and a forerunner of things to come. The City Development Association lobbied authorities on the construction of a ring road and freeway system, the building of multi-storey off-street car parking and the construction of an underground railway in the CBD area.

The report of their Redevelopment Com­ mittee in 1954 summed up their aims and values. For example, it stated that “Mel­ bourne’s slums áre not only a social blot, but they constitute an economic threat to the City of Melbourne . . . Redevelopment of these areas would bring thousands of cus­ tomers back to the state’s best market place —the city centre”.

The report examines how such “slums” would lead to a fall in rent and land values.

It envisioned the creation of separate, low income housing enclaves in an overall master plan.

The degree to which this “master plan” had been realised by the mid-1960s was re­ markable but not hard to understand when the power of the City Development Associ­ ation, its political contacts, its lobbying ac­ tivities and efficient organisation is exa­ mined. Other powerful inner city organisa­ tions with similar outlooks have included the Building Owners’ and Managers’ Association which has recently attacked the controls on high rise office development advocated by the Melbourne City Council Strategy Plan.

These controls have been criticised as “an injustice on land owners in St. Kilda Road”.

Also at issue here have been the values and powers of statutory authorities such as the CRB. Dominated by “professional” planners the CRB has consistently defied even the logic of their own analyses to push ahead with freeway plans. Inner suburban residents such as Trevor Huggard have compiled an extensive collection of CRB plans, inter­ departmental memos and the overall CRB master plan for the inner city . These docu­ ments have revealed the secrecy of CRB planning and their contempt for the wishes of inner-city residents and anti-freeway

Fitzroy Town Had

Photok^^

Alexander Parade, Clifton Hill; Path of the F19 Eastern Freeway . . . translated into reality, the bold sweeping lines drawn by the CRB planners cut an appalling swathe through the inner suburbs . . Clifton Hill overpass will receive the honour of becoming Australia’s first, three tier interchange . . . on the spot you are looking at now. groups.

In the long run there is a need for a cheap, efficient public transport system which could effectively challenge the car based commuter system, which has turned Mel­ bourne’s inner urban areas into “corridor” suburbs, catering to the traffic flows from the outer suburbs: one bus can eliminate 35 automobiles, one tram can supplant 50 passenger cars, and one train can displace 1,000 cars or a fleet o f 150 cargo-laden trucks.

By down-grading priorities for many years, both state and federal governments have contributed to the decay of public transport.

The major development in state public trans-

port this year has been a substantial rise in fares. Meanwhile the CRB is willing to advo­ cate the construction of a one and a half mile section of the F2 Hume Freeway b et­ ween St. Georges Road and Queens Parade, for which the conservative estimate in cost is $80 million.

Hopefully, the commitment and unity shown at the Fitzroy Town Hall public meeting will not be lost and will lead to a continued questioning of the values and the process which has led to urban nightmares of concrete wastelands. Cities are for people — not for the profits of car manufacturers or road building contractors.

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Page 20

NOVEMBER 4 - DECEMBER 2

THE DIGGER

W orkers in uniform While pacifists and antimili­ tarists have traditionally con­ centrated on undermining the strength of the armed forces by refusing to join, helping others to avoid being drafted or help­ ing people leave once they’ve been caught inside, it’s only in the last few years that there has been a growing awareness of the possibilities of soldiers (and other service people) organising inside.

The Amerikan GI movement Which came out of the resis­ tance within the US army to the war in Vietnam, is an ob­ vious example (the soldiers’ committees within the Armed Forces Movement in Portugal are perhaps an exceptional in-? stance); the growth of soldiers’ organizations since the late sixties in western Europe make this form of resistance an in­ creasingly important part of the anti-militarist struggle.

HOLLAND Coming out of conscript com­ mittees in the early 1960s, the W D M (union of Conscripted Soldiers) was the first soldiers’ union in history. It now has nearly 30,000 members — 70 per cent of all conscripts in the Dutch army —and, initially con­ fining itself to low-key reform negotiations, it was until 1970 fairly well integrated within the army structure. Since that time,

owing to interaction with the BVD, a revolutionary caucus of soldiers with supporting civilians, the W D M has gradually moved into more militant forms of struggle, including mess demonstrations, and, in 1974, strikes. Organising issues have in­ cluded the right to long hair and compensation for extra duty.

The fear of the Defence Mini­ stry, reinforced by the strong organisational links between sol­ diers and civilians in the BVD, is that the distinction between sol­ diers and civilians is becoming more and more blurred.

FRANCE The soldiers’ movement in France is seen as posing an even clearer political threat to the state: in a recent confidential re­ port, the Army Chief of Staff expressed a fear that in the event of a confrontation similar to that of 1968, the army itself might be affected (the effective mobilisation of the army was one of the decisive factors in the collapse of the May 1968 insurrection). Soldiers’ organisat­ ions in the French army arose in­ itially from the widespread civi­ lian resistance to repressive changes in the draft laws in 1973, and the first mass action arose in 1974 out of the Call o f the Hundred, which was signed by 4,000 servicemen and led by the end of the year to the form-

H are sexist, hare sexist

whom are women and 50 per cent of whom are immigrants, decided to occupy the day that management, stating that the factory had been losing money, laid off all 600 workers. Grandin, a subsidiary of the Thompson multinational, produces TV, audio-visual and hi-fi equipment.

The founder and worldwide leader of the Hare Krishna move­ ment says that women hold in­ ferior roles to men in that re­ ligion because their brains are too small. His Divine Grace A.C. Bkaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada told a Chicago press confer­ ence that women do not fit into the Hare Krishna class system except as daughters and wives.

The 77 year old swami ex­ plained: “Woman is not equal in intelligence to man. Man’s brain weighs 64 ounces. Woman’s weighs 36 ounces. It is just a fact.”

— Georgia Straight

G rand in occupation 200 workers of the Grandin factory at Montreuil, France, have been occupying their plant since February, demanding its reopening. The workers, most of

The technical station for assembling radios was transform­ ed into a ‘watch tower5. The City Council lent cots^ tables, gas stoves and cans of butane and also provided free meals.

“This is fortunate” , said one woman worker, “ because the unemployment benefits are just not sufficient. I’m getting 800 francs (about $160) a month, and I have two children.”

The strikers have carried out many demonstrations and have protested at the office of the French Owners’ National Con­ federation. They occupied the office of Francoise Giroud, Min­ ister of Women’s Affairs, and also occupied Europe 1, a pri­ vate radio station, and FranceInter, a government-controlled radio station. Their most recent action was the occupation on August 21 of the city hall in Deauville, where the mayor is also the Minister of Industry and Research in the national govern­ ment. j —Peoples News Service

ation of 100 soldiers’ commit­ tees.

Demands for better conditions and freedom of political expres­ sion led to the demonstration of 200 soldiers in Draguignan, hun­ ger strikes at Luneville, a demon­ stration of 100 sailors on the carrier Clemenceau and demon­ strations at the beginning of this year in Karlsruhe, Germany and Nancy. At the same time there are increasing finks between the soldiers’ organisations and civi­ lian trade unions which could make it harder for the govern­ ment to use the army in a strike­ breaking role.

ITALY The finks between soldiers and workers in Italy are very strong.

The soldiers’ movement began with isolated protests in the early 70s, but, strongly affected by the coup in Chile in 1973, a national movement — the Proletariat in Uniform — spread through the armÿ. With the possibility of a revolution stronger in Italy than anywhere else in western Europe at the moment the increase of soldierworker solidarity is clearly very important; during recent strikes, the Proletariat in Uniform has sent delegations to support the workers, and in September there were contingents of sol­ diers in strike demonstrations held in Rome, Turin, Milan and other cities. In return unions have helped with the organisa­ tion of the Proletariat in Uni­ form, which is at present attempting to organise a dele­ gate structure within every bar­ racks.

SWITZERLAND Though both are nominally neutral, both countries are high­ ly militarised (in Switzerland there is universal military train­ ing). After a period of isolated and spontaneous protest move­ ments in the late 1960s, organi­ sations and newspapers have sur­ faced in " both countries. In Sweden, demonstrations and sick-call strikes about condi­ tions and democratic rights have resulted in a number of Defence Ministry reforms.

WEST GERMANY The emphasis in West Germany has until recently been very much on conscientious objection but after 1968 the German Com-

M arxist devices State prison authorities have seized all typewriters from in­ mates at the US Mcalister, Okla­ homa prison on the grounds that they “encourage subversive influence.”

Warden Richard Crisp claims the typewriters have been turned into “ dangerous mechanical de­ vices”, saying they were being used to write letters to “ pro­ communist groups” .

Crisp would not identify the groups but said they were as far away as New York, Chicago and Los Angeles, and that they were “Marxist oriented” .

— Georgia Straight

Sadat’s secret The radical French monthly Afrique-Asie has discovered sec­ ret agreements that are part of the Israeli-Egypt peace treaty which is in the process of being

munist Party (KPD) began to campaign for political organisa­ tion in the army, and by 1973 the German Military Intelligence estimated that there were up to 90 “working groups of domes­ tic soldiers” organising within barracks, often publishing news­ papers. A public proclamation, issued by some of the working groups, Soldat 74 met with heavy repression.

BRITAIN The situation here is differ­ ent for two main reasons: the British army is a professional not a conscript army, and it is fighting a war. The army is. in some ways exemplary for NATO states, not only for its stability but also for the experience it is gaining in combatting a guerilla war in a “domestic” context (the way in Northern. Ireland can be viewed as a rather extended NATO exercise in terms of ex­ perience gained in riot control, new weapons, ete.)-. However, as we know, cracks are beginning to show in the shiny “profes­ sional” surface: not only are re­ cruitment and re-enlistment figures shakey and increasing numbers of soldiers are going

AWOL, but there are at least three examples of organised re­ sistance. In June last year 100 soldiers of the Royal Green Jackets took army jeeps and drove through Bremen, protest­ ing a posting to Ireland; in July, 80 squaddies of the 42nd Field Artillary Regiment held a pro­ test meeting in the base canteen; in August 150 soldiers of the Royal Fusiliers marched against another posting to Ireland and demanded to buy themselves out.

So far, despite the Soldiers’ Charter, issued in 1971 by the Soldiers Trade Union Rights Movement, there has been little done to form effective organisa­ tions. One of the difficulties about organising in the British army — as people working in th e1 peace movement here have good reason to know —is the extreme illegality of almost any contact between sol diers an d civilians.

signed. The treaty is in three categories of security clearance.

The first is the published agree­ ments, the second has been allowed by the Egyptians to be read to the US Congress and has subsequently appeared in US newspapers, and the third is supposed to be completely sec­ ret.

Here aré some extracts from this third category, all agreed in written form between Presi­ dents Ford and Sadat: * Egypt has agreed to progres­ sively replace its arsenal with western arms instead of the Soviet equipment it uses at present; -* Egypt will denounce the Egypt-USSR treaty “ as soon as circumstances allow” and in any case before the end of 1976 ex­ cept in the case of unforeseen events; * Egypt will put pressure on the Palestinian resistance to elimi­ nate “radical” elements; * Egypt will not oppose, any future Jordan-Israel agreement even if the Palestinians maintain their heavy line in refusing to participate in such agreements; * A favourable view of secret diplomatic contacts between Israel and Egypt will be taken by the latter; * Egypt will not oppose diplo­ matic relations being initiated by Israel with non-Arab countries; * Egypt will discreetly attempt

to prevent the Arab oil producers from raising their prices; * A campaign through the Arab media will be initiated to make propaganda against the USSR and communism in general.

— Peoples News Service.

Information from International Soldiers' Movement by David Cortright. Pub. by RECON, July 1975. PO Box 14602, Philadel­ phia, Pa 19134. (50 cents plus postage.)

M ickey on the Nile The Egyptian ministry of tourism has come up with a plan to build a $50 million Disneyland next to the famous pyramids of Giza. The Disney­ land scheme is only the latest in a series of government efforts to promote tourism in Egypt, according to a recent article in the London Observer.

Under its new “ open door” economic policy, the Cairo gov­ ernment is encouraging foreign investment in tourist facilities along the Nile River. And foreign businesses are scrambling to buy up riverfront property, often tearing down .historical buildings to make way for a Holiday Inn or a night club.

Another government project that has aroused the wrath of many Egyptians is a planned “tourist complex” to be built on the sight of a Cairo slum that currently houses some 90,000.

— Liberation News Service

NOVEMBER 4 - DECEMBER 2

THE DIGGER

Irish E arp wants shoot-out A new Catholic-based Irish paramilitary organisation may be responsible for recent renewed outbreaks of violence in Ireland and Britain. Called the Irish Republican Socialist Party (IRSP), it split from the official IRA late last year with demands for more militant tactics.

Combining the military com.mitment of the breakaway pro­ visional IRA with the socialist policies of the IRA’s official wing, the group may be the catalyst for an intensified armed conflict in Northern Ireland.

Seamus Costello, a thin, dark­ haired 36 year old former car salesman from County Wicklow in Southern Ireland, is the leader of the nine month old IRSP. Following a bitter and often bloody six month struggle for survival with the official IRA, the IRSP is now actively fighting for a British withdrawal from Northern Ireland — and repor­ tedly backing up its demands with bombing and shooting, at­ tacks in Belfast and London.

Reliable Irish sources believe that the IRSP and its -military wing, the People’s Liberation Army (PLA), are responsible for recent explosions at Belfast pubs frequented by right wing Protes­ tant extremists, and possibly for

the bomb attack at the London Hilton hotel in early Septem­ ber, in which two persons died and many were injured.

IRSP chairman Costello denies any formal links with the PLA, saying it is only a “group of people in sympathy with the IRSP who have access to arms” .

But Costello is reported to have privately acknowledged that he is the PLA’s commander in chief.

“We believe that the task of the revolution is to be actively involved in the struggle against British imperialism” , Costello said at a recent conference held at the University of Massachu­ setts. “We support any armed struggle against the British army.

Our main priority is to force the British out, since the main obstacle to a united Ireland is Britain.”

Costello’s ability to fight was established earlier this year in his bitter feud with the official IRA. After the IRSP broke away, the official IRA attempted to des­ troy it by beating, kidnapping and eventually shooting several of the new party’s organisers.

But Costello’s group fought and after a six month mini war in which six men were killed, the IRSP had assured its survival.

Argentinas internal w ar Argentina’s sporadic guerrilla conflicts have erupted into allout war — the first instance of full-scale warfare in Latin Amer­ ica since the Cuban revolution almost two decades ago.

Two heavily armed guerrilla armies — even equipped with helicopters — have declared a state of war against the govern­ ment. In the second week of October alone, bloody battles have killed over 75 guerrillas and soldiers in the provinces of Formosa, near Paraguay in the northeast, and Tucaman, a poor, mountainous region in the north­ west where fighting has been reported for over nine months.

In response, Argentina’s arm­ ed forces are reportedly prepar­ ing -an all-out offensive against the insurgents.

Pressure to escalate the gov­ ernment counter-attack has been building within the military for months. A recent shuffle in lead­ ership brought to the top Gener­ al Jorge Videla, a man who advocates severe but selective attacks combining police, mili­ tary and intelligence forces.

Much of the military also wants the government to declare a -state of “ internal war” that would put the military in control of subversive offenses.

This would mean guerrillas could be tried and legally executed by military tribunals. The guerrillas now claim the military is already executing prisoners and even nonbelligerents.

One of the guerrilla armies, the Marxist Revolutionary People’s Army (ERP), began hitand-run attacks against the mili­ tary a year ago and has con­ sistently maintained it is in a state of war. ERP has been joined more recently by the leftist Montenero Peronist guer­ rillas.

Since fighting broke out in Tucaman province at the end of last year, the armed forces have imposed near total press censor­ ship on the area, and accurate information has been difficult

to obtain. But reliable sources assert that several hundred per­ sons have been killed and that in some cases prisoners have been executed and presented as “combat casualties” .

Suspicion that something un­ usual was taking place in Tucaman’s remote regions — not far from the Bolivian border — came to light early this year when an army plane allegedly crashed, killing 13 officers.

Amid rumours that the plane had been shot down, the govern­ ment of Isabel Perón authorised the army to intervene. Some 5,000 troops, backed by planes and helicopters, rushed to the area, where they have clashed ever since with guerrillas in hitand-run battles.

Military authorities evacuated all journalists from the area and press reports have been based on military “ communicados” , or on specially organised visits of selected journalists to “ cleanedup” zones.

These reports have almost in­ variably painted an optimistic picture of the anti-guerrilla op­ erations. But the full-scale battles of mid-October tell another story.

— Pacific News Service

......

Vanishing Zimbabweans At least 1,000 Zimbabweans have fled to Mozambique and Botswana recently.

Students from secondary schools near the border have simply disappeared secretly, leaving behind all their possessions, in order to join the Zimbabwean freedom fighters.

In one case, an African police­ man joined, taking with him four prisoners awaiting trial for political offenses.

—Peoples News Service

The official IRA, on the other hand, has reportedly been redu­ ced to an impotent bystander in the Irish conflict following the IRSP breakaway and mini war.

Today, the IRSP (or “Earps”, after Wyatt Earp, as they are popularly known in Belfast), claims nearly 700 activists, in­ cluding the former member of parliament, Bernadette Devlin McAliskey. Three quarters of them are ex-official IRA mem­ bers who had grown increasingly dissatisfied with what they re­ garded as the do-nothing app­ roach of their old organisation (the official IRA declared a cease-fire with Britain in 1972).

The rest are ex-provisional IRA members who had grown impa­ tient with the provisionals’ cease-fire, which has been in effect since January. The provi­ sionals had split from the official IRA over tactics in 1969.

The IRSP supports the tacti­ cal approach of the provisional IRA, which conducted a five year bombing and shooting campaign against the British5 army until their cease-fire. But it does not adhere to the provi­ sionals’ strict allegiance to the Roman Catholic church, and ispolitically to the left of the provisionals. If the IRSP esca­ lates its militant tactics, it could place added pressure on the provisionals to break off their cease-fire with the British.

Page 21

M aosturbation The American Society of Ona­ nists (ASO, pronounced “ah so”) has issued the following statement: “With great sadness, we note the counter-revolutionary posi­ tion on masturbation taken by the Peking government, which —. according to Agence FrancePresse — has issued a manual for teenagers saying, among other things, that ‘masturbation by men and women results in overstimulation of the brain, dizzi­ ness, insomnia, general weakness and “the erosion of the revolu­ tionary will” ’. We find precisely the opposite to be the case: masturbation has always been one of the cornerstones of revo­ lution.* “Ways suggested for avoiding masturbation also strike us as unrealistic. These include ‘hard study of the works of Marx,

Lenin and Mao Tse-Tung , phy­ sical exercise and wearing loosefitting under-clothes.

“Now we ask you, what sort of revolutionary wears under­ clothes?”

-W in

P artylin e for C IA Former CIA staff member Thomas Braden claims the agen­ cy subsidized the American Com­ munist Party’s newspaper, The Daily Worker; for a number of years.

Braden stated during a British television interview, “ For many years the CIA bought enough subscriptions to make sure the thing wouldn’t go out of exist-, ence, which it threatened from year to year to do.” He explain­ ed that it “ was an organ which delivered the straight communist line” , and therefore was the agency’s best pipeline into the party’s current thinking.

— Georgia Straight

—Pacific News Service

Dummy deluge Thirty three thousand rubber bullets have been fired by the British Army in Northern Ire­ land to date, according to a re­ port in the British. Journal o f Surgery. The bullets have caused the death of two people, five have been left with severe loss of vision to one eye, seven have been found to be completely blind in one eye, two others totally blinded and eight with some permanent disability.

A rubber bullet is six inches long, Vh inches thick and weighs about four ounces. Its muzzle velocity is over 200 feet per second.

— Pacific News Service

M eany’s convention '' AFL-CIO President, George Meanv, left little doubt at the federation’s recent convention held in San Francisco about what worries him most — and it was not the economy.

Meany failed to mention un­ employment or the current re­ cession until half way through his keynote address. Instead, he devoted himself to bemoaning the “rise in the military power of the communist totalitarian world”.

“Their purpose is to conquer the world” , he said. “What is our purpose? Frankly, we don’t seem to have one any more . . § That’s not wholly true . . . we do have a policy — it’s called detente.”

The delegates — 850 men and only^ 2 Vbmeri — found book-

lets about “Solzhenitsyn: The tute for Free Labor Develop­ Voice of Freedom”, and were ment (AIFLD), founded and treated to a movie featuring the funded by the AFL-CIO. AIFLD anti-communist Russian author, his been identified by former the only movie shown during CIA agent, Philip Agee and the convention. others as a CIA labour front The report of the AFL-CIO group in Latin America, instru­ Executive Council to the con- ' mental in the overthrow of vention had this to say about the ! Allende in Chile. The Exe­ Vietnam war: “The war has cutive Council’s report praised ended except for the poor mil­ AIFLD, and in no way alluded lions who must now somehow to links between AIFLD and the survive the degradation of the CIA.. The report cites this in­ vanquished and the mental and stance in Uruguay: “AIFLD was physical enslavement of an ideo­ instrumental in 1974 in assisting logy which for more than 20 the democratic labor movement years they worked and died to in Uruguay to enroll its unions oppose.” in the National Register of Meany did finally get around Unions established by the new to the problem of unemploy­ Uruguayan labor law. Before this ment, which he blamed or. registration, the Marxist-domi­ nated National Convention of government policies of high Workers (CNT) controlled an interest rates and tight money. overwhelming number of Uru­ The solutions he suggested were guayan unions.” government jobs, extended un­ employment benefits and lower The convention dealt with interest rates. more than 200 resolutions rang­ The convention delegates app­ ing from nuclear energy to lauded a speech by Labor Sec­ metric conversion. A resolution retary, John Dunlop, author of supporting the Coalition of the Construction Industry Bar­ Labor Union Women (CLUW) gaining Act of 1975 and passed a failed to pass when it was resolution supporting the bill. brought up for a vote at noon Outside, the rank and file while the women delegates rep­ workers picketed against the bill resenting CLUW were all absent that would set up a national from the hall. The Resolutions board with the power to inter­ Committee had recommended vene in and settle construction against it because CLUW in­ trade strikes.» cluded unions not affiliated with Union members outside the jj the AFL-CIO. convention also leafleted *dele­ —Pacific News Service gates about the American Insti­

Page 22

THE DIGGER

HOBOCbTU 0 3 EM A E Resources m agnet

by Peter Wiley

I multinationals from production to processing and transportation — that “avoid the real question A new czar has emerged for US of ownership” yet preserve US 'economic policy abroad — interests.

Charles Robinson, the man who Marcona, for example, set up a just negotiated the US-Soviet steel company in Saudi Arabia, grain and oil agreements. known as Petromar, which Robinson’s policy is aimed at brought together six corpora­ those, third world countries that tions — three US, one Japanese, own the bulk of the world’s raw one Dutch-German, and a Saudi materials.' state owned mining company.

“Access to resources has be­ Of all the major west coast come the name of the game”, corporate figures who have ser­ Robinson recently told Con­ ved the Nixon and Ford admini­ gress. “Ten years from now, the strations, Robinson may well developing world will be calling have the greatest impact on US the shots.” policy. (Robinson’s predecessors Robinson — appointed by include Roy Ash, who went Henry Kissinger a year ago as from the multinational Litton Undersecretary of State for Industries to Director of the Economic Affairs — recom­ Office of Management and Bud­ mends offering concessions like get, and former Assistant Secre­ shared ownership between US tary of Defense David Packard corporations and third world of Hewlett-Packard, the aero­ governments — to sidestep radi­ space giant. Packard is now cal challenges such as expropri­ Ford’s chief fund raiser.) ation. The result is to stave off Robinson’s major role in the major losses and split the mode­ sensitive area of US-Soviet rate from the more radical third trade — a linchpin of the admi­ world nations. nistration’s detente policy —has Robinson used to be an Ameri­ underlined his status as Kissin­ can businessman. His company, ger’s top economic strategist. the San Francisco based MarRobinson’s influence is backed cona Corp., ran the last privately up by his former business part­ owned mine under the Allende ner, Ë.W. Littlefield, now head regime in Chile, mined iron ore of the Business Council, the profitably for six years in Peru once quasi-official business advi­ in an explosive political situ­ sory group that is now regarded ation and played a major role in as the voice of the country’s top setting up Saudi Arabia’s first 100 corporations.

Littlefield steel.plants. heads Utah International, a cor­ Both Kissinger and Robinson poration which owns 46 per share the view that the US eco­ cent of Robinson’s old firm, nomy — with overseas invest­ Marcona. ments equal in size to Japan’s But it is questionable economy, and domestic industry whether Robinson’s strategy can increasingly dependent on im­ protect US corporations over the ported raw materials — is highly long run. Marcona became a vic­ vulnerable to pressures from the tim of the same problems Robin­ third world. These pressures are son was recruited to solve when escalating as nationalism — and the Peruvian military govern­ the image of the US, as the chief ment seized its huge iron ore imperialist power —gain ground, mine this summer and threa­ particularly among poorer tened to end all of the com­ countries. pany’s shipping and managerial Apart from joint ownership, ties with Peru.

Robinson suggests retreat by —Pacific New Service.

B om b for Chile A bomb planted by the Weather Underground, marking the second anniversary of the fascist coup in Chile, caused an estimated $50,000 worth of damage to the headquarters of the Kennecott Copper Corpora­ tion in Salt Lake City, USA, on September 5. No one was injured.

“We attack Kennecott” , re^d a Weather Underground com­ munique, “ for all the years it has robbed the Chilean people of their copper and their wealth, for its role in the overthrow of The United Popular government

and the murder of Salvador Allende, and for its oppression and exploitation of working people in the US . . . Kennecott is now receiving $68 million from the military dictatorship in ‘compensation’ for the national­ isation of its mines. This on top of m ore. than $4 billion in copper profits which Kenne­ cott and Anaconda together mined out over a forty year period.” The communique also spoke of US miners’ struggles against the copper corporations. “ Currently, Kennecott has laid off 2,100 of its 12,500 workers and has closed many of its mines for the summer. In autumn, it plans to reopen at only 60 per cent capacity. This is Kennecott’s strategy both to keep prices and profits high by limiting supply and to intimidate labour mili­ tants by threatening workers’ jobs.” , : i V\- V W . . V — Peoples News Service

NOVEMBER 4 - DECEMBER 2

Fran co stages‘1984’ rally Faced with mounting world hostility against the. Franco re­ gime, the Spanish right is trying to whip the population into an anti-foreign frenzy in rallies simi­ lar to those staged for Big Brother in George Orwell’s 1984. < In late October, tens of thou­ sands of Madrid citizens, shout­ ing “Franco, Franco” , massed in the Oriente Plaza. They were giving the same salute Germans gave to Hitler in 1936.

Portuguese, English, Mexicans, French, Italians, Americans all are now targets of Franco’s hate campaign, a counter-offensive against the torrent of worlwide protest at the execution of five members of the underground.

The rally, which was replayed for hours on Spanish tv and headlined in the state controlled press, was not as successful as the right had hoped. Thousands of students and workers, ordered to go, refused — taking the risk of falling under a possible new reign of terror.

One purpose of the rallies has been to offset growing specula­ tion in Spain and abroad that Franco’s regime may be much shakier than at first believed.

Military units around Madrid and in the north, a centre of

resistance to Franco since the civil war of the 1930s, have been put on standing military alert. American military per­ sonnel throughout Spain have been restricted in their move­ ments off base for fear of gett­ ing involved in what may soon turn into guerrilla warfare. ! The big question here is which way the Spanish army will go if violence escalates. The hated secret police, trying to push Franco even further to the right, are becoming increasingly unpopular with the Spanish people, including even the regu­ lar police. At a funeral for three policemen shot by terrorists in retaliation for the executions, the secret police roughly pushed the uniformed police aside to carry the coffins and get their death threats against the under­ ground on television.

Any contact with the under­ ground is of course very diffi­ cult, for all foreign journalists are constantly watched by the secret police. But it is known that FRAP (the Patriotic AntiFascist Revolutionary Front) would like to win over the Spanish army in a showdown, just as the Portuguese left now seems to have won the support of thousands of Lisbon’s sol-

diers, sailors and airtnen.

Neither FRAP nor the ETA (the Basque liberation under­ ground) have ever attacked any army units. Madrid itself is nervous over the loyalty of the numerous Basque and Catalo­ nian draftees in the army.

The Franco regime is also ner­ vous about events in neighbour­ ing Portugal. There the army is starting to close off the border with Spain. And even in the traditionally rightist northern part of Portugal — Oporto — the Spanish embassy was gutted as army units, outraged at the executions, stood by or openly cheered.

As the cruel drama unfolds, Franco may kill ten more members .of the underground, perhaps by the garrote. The traditional form of execution in Franco’s Spain, the garrote has been known to take 25 minutes to kill a prisoner by torture.

Often the victim writhes in agony before his spinal cord is cut by the ancient vice-like instrument.

Franco’s secret police are openly pushing for a return to the garrote instead of the firing squad.

—Pacific News Service

W.H.O. plans for no babies

said to be involved in the pro-^ gram. *

Pacific pinball “We’ll wire the Pacific from side to ¡side like a pinball machine.”

That's what a US naval ex­ pert in San Diego told the Brit­ ish newspaper The Guardian. The “wiring” is part of a major anti-submarine campaign being conducted by US naval intelli­ gence. The campaign is directed against the Russian submarine fleet, which greatly outnumbers that of the Americans.

Over; 100, futuristic projects,many of them “top-secret”, are

% *

The Pacific Ocean isn’t the only area of the world that the US plans to “ wire like a pinball machine.”

One of the methods with which the Americans plan to “ keep peace” in the Sinai Penin­ sula under the recent EgyptianIsraeliagreementis“ Igloo White” , an electronic intelligence system which features “ people sniffers” , devices which can “ detect any­ thing that perspires, moves, carries metal, makes a noise or is hotter or colder than its sur­ roundings”.

The Vietnamese have already proved that “ Igloo White” is not foolproof. During the Indo China war, they used decoy bonfires and strategically placed buckets of urine to easily mislead the detection system. .

—Georgia Straight.

A t ' t h e request of the fascist Chilean military junta, a group of US doctors have instituted a vast project to sterilise Chilean women. Their goal is to prevent the birth of children to working class couples. This project, sup- \ ported by a strong ^family plann­ ing’ publicity campaign, will _be carried out in the National Health hospitals and in doctors’ offices in the suburbs of Santi­ ago and in the provinces.

Dr. Hugh Davis, professor at Johns Hopkins University, arri­ ved in Chile two months ago to set up the project. Davis is best known -for developing the Dai­ kon Shield, an intra-uterine de­ vice which has been responsible for the death of 14 women in the US. As a first step he spoke on the subject of sterilisation to the personnel of various health insti­ tutions, who have been instruc­ ted to maintain absolute secrecy on the objectives of the plan and how it will be implemented.

Several journalists in Chile attempted to obtain details from Davis on the sterilisation me­ thods he and other US doctors had discovered. Davis responded, “The minister of health has strongly recommended that I not give any details of my work regarding Chile, since they could be used for political ends.”

The family planning project comprises 4Q per cent of the health ministry’s special pro­ grammes budget. Financing the $15 million family planning pro­ ject is the World Health Organi­ sation, which recently granted Chile $30 million to pay for several projects “concerning health” .

—O ff Our Backs

*

Page 23

THE DIGGER

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