Q176 Transcript

Transcript prepared by Fielding M. McGehee III. If you use this material, please credit The Jonestown Institute. Thank you.

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Jones: Tomorrow’s Friday, isn’t it? All right. Thank you. Ready?

Male: Yeah.

Jones: Friday news. Shah Mohammed Reza Pahlavi ordered troops to shoot on fire on hundreds of thousands of demonstrators in the cities throughout Iran yesterday. On the day before in the wake of widespread rioting, the secret police rounded up dozens of prominent Iranian liberals, religious leaders, journalists and leading opposition figures. Dusk to dawn curfew and martial law were dumped on at least twelve cities, including the capital, Tehran. Government spokespeople claimed that 168 people were killed, but independent witnesses say that death toll more likely was in the hundreds, and possibly thousands. Despite the bloodbaths, sporadic fighting was still reported in Tehran in the evening today. The most prominent opponents of the regime, (stumbles over words) the latest arrests were the Shi-tie [Shiite] leader, (unintelligible names). At least 20 other Muslim leaders were in hiding to avoid arrest, according to The Washington Post. In the same police sweep, three reporters from Tehran’s largest daily paper were arrested, along with the leader of the Iranian Association for the Defense of Liberty and Human Rights. Iran is, of course, one of the right-wing Arab regimes that borders the Soviet Union, but it’s hesitant to take an anti-Soviet policy in its foreign affairs.

The sharp intensification of oppression came in the wake of rapidly stepped-up anti-regime protests that have rocked the country in recent weeks. Hundreds of thousands of peoples have taken to the streets in cities across the country, chanting “Death to the Shah,” and “Down with Pahlavi Dynasty.” In effort to stem the opposition, the regime outlawed all unauthorized demonstrations, within [but then] 300,000 people in Tehran defied the ban, risking life sentences, pouring into the streets the next day and giving flowers to the soldiers who stood nearby. The protesters asked brother soldiers, why do you kill your Muslim brothers? Early the next morning, the regime declared martial law, just as President [Jimmy] Carter one day will do on behalf of the Trilateral Commission, as the US continues to have difficulties, race riots in so many of its cities, and economic turbulence. And after declaring martial law, they began arresting opposition leaders.

Refusing to heed the regime’s threats, demonstrators again assembled in the streets of the capital. When the marchers reached Calais [phonetic] Square, the army tanks and machine guns were waiting for them. An eyewitness to the massacre said it was impossible to count the number mowed down by machine gun fire. Tanks moved in from the corners of the square, crushing the dead and wounded, rumbling after crowds trying to escape the murderous maneuver. Survivors fanned out across the city, attacking luxury stores, breaking windows, and burning banks and government offices. Demonstrators erected barricades to slow the movement and [of] government personnel carriers and tanks, area residents opened their houses to provide refuge, while medical teams tended the wounded in makeshift backroom clinics. Anyone seeking treatment at hospitals were subject to possible arrest, witnesses said. Hospital workers sent word to the sources outside the country than more 2700 bodies had been counted at two hospitals near the embattled square, murdered by the Shah’s dread secret police that were trained by the US CIA. The third hospital took in so many dead, they eventually stopped counting. National Public Radio reported that fire engines were used to wash the blood off the streets. Telephone interviews conducted some 12 hours after the fighting in Tehran confirmed continued two-way gunfire in the southern and eastern working class sections of the city. Fires were said to be raging out of control in many areas.

US State Department spokesperson, Holding [Hodding] Carter held a briefing and termed the Iranian situation very dangerous. US of course has heavy strategic and economic interest in the fascist country. USA also has some 40,000 military advisors, so-called, veterans of the Vietnam War, trained in torturous guerilla combat techniques stationed in Iran. As one State Department aide noted, the state– the stakes are enormous, evolving– involving oil supplies, the Soviet Union, the whole Middle East. Jimmy Carter made a special telephone call to Tehran from his summit headquarters to assure the Shah of continued US support. As the demonstration and gunfire continued sporadically, despite the presence of heavily-armed troops, speculation rose concerning the dependability of the Shah’s military, with– many of whom are conscripts, forced into the army against their will. European papers and sources inside Iran reported numerous cases of soldiers who killed their officers or committed suicide rather that obey orders to shoot the protestors. There were also reports of the officers who refused the orders their troop– uh, (stumbles over words) refused to order their troops to fire, and were shot in turn by the secret police of the Shah, and of whole units which mutinied. That’s the courage of those that stand up against US imperialism and its lackeys like Iran. The arrest of liberal dissidents represents the regime’s attempt to stifle– discredit dissent among even the bourgeoisie. The left had long since been curtailed and arrested. Demonstrations in support of the Iranian mass movement were held in Italy, Brazil, and United States. In Sweden, the Iranian Students Association occupied the headquarters of the ruling center party, demanding that the government condemn the Shah’s regime. It is interesting to take note that there was a massive resistance (clears throat) and thousands marching in the streets of Sao Paolo and Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, the big rich country just to the south of us in Guyana.

Communique to the f– Nicaraguan people of the world, the FSLN [Sandinista National Liberation Front], stated that the popular insurrection war it has been waging since last October will not stop until the bloody National Guard and Somo– [Anastasio] Somoza’s civilian clique have been destroyed. The guerillas said they would fight until a truly democratic and popular government has been constructed, supported by all anti-Somoza sectors, and until a national army has also been formed to substitute for the National Guard. Sandinistas, who are now Marxist-Leninists, said the new army would be open to those members [of] the National Guard from the point forward– from this point forward to abandon the Somozan s– apparatus and support the cause of the Nicaraguan people, its liberation and popular socialist democracy. Also with the formation of the new national army, the Sandinistas insist that the minimal program of any popular anti-Somoza government must also have hit– ave– have as its base a expropriation of Somoza family property. That fortune is estimated at some 400 to 500 billion, the product of 42 years of exploitation and monopoly of state power, that was placed in power by the US Marines, and has been kept in power by US aid, even to this very hour. Pentagon strategists have long feared the successful popular uprising in the Central American country would invariably spill over into the rest of the area, with the CONDECA [Central American Defense Council] framework excluding the US wishes to extend to the rest of Latin America, US imperialism equipped the Central American armies to better repress activist movements. In the past, US military advisors have directed and participated in CONDECA, C-O-N-D-E-C-A, maneuvers, targeted in rural strongholds of guerilla forces. All military movements across Central American borders are cleared with, if not organized by, the US and its military CIA attachés.

Somoza, dictator’s, evident incapacity to turn back the revolutionary tide, has now prompted US intervention directly, but with the intervention, the Sandinistas Marxist-Leninist causes now becomes that of all Central American masses. Signals of the impending intervention began to appear earlier this month. Central American governments, with the exception of Panama, grew concerned over the possibility of Sandinista victory in Nicaragua. Costa Rica, Nicaragua’s neighbor to the south, initiated urgent discussions with other Central American regimes, in order to seek a diplomatic formula that would force Somoza to resign to keep the repressive apparatus, especially the National Guard intact under the control of the moderate civilian elements. Interesting to note that Panama has long since, in the past few months, been a firm and avid supporter of the Sandinistas Marxist-Leninist front. The initiative was roundly denounced by progressive Costa Rican deputies, who called the maneuvers an attempt to intervene, not against Somoza, the fascist dictator put in power by USA, but against the democratic forces of Nicaragua. The French News Agency on the other hand said that Guatemalan officials fear that any transitional government would succumb before the FSLN and therefore Somoza would be sustained in power.

Evidently, this is also the reasoning of US officials, who until recently were undecided between the two revolutionary options, Somoza’s crackdown on the very moderate opposition forces that the US looked to for compromise brought the dictator strong criticism from Latin American governments, along with that of the United States. At this point, Washington threw its support behind, or perhaps instigated – more likely – the separate Costa Rican and Venezuelan proposals for international diplomatic mediation in Ni– internal Nicaraguan conflict. This strategy has as its unstated purpose the seeking of a peaceful ouster of Somoza. Among the proposals (unintelligible word) was a letter to Somoza signed by all Latin American heads of state asking him to step down. The Sandinista offensive now makes the process for a conservative diplomatic solution to the internal crisis extremely dim. The battle in now being played on the military fields. In the military confrontation, the USA and the Central American governments have little choice but to support Somoza against the Sandinis– Sandinistas Marxist-Leninist. That is– This is the– this it may do, even to the point of buttressing the regime inimical, opposed to the long-term interest of the imperialism and Central American stability, always upheld by the US oligarchical interest.

However, it appears the bourgeoisie opposition in Nicaragua is incapable of confronting the Sandinistas, nor can diplomatic intervention address itself directly to the revolutionary danger. City after city has been bombed practically into ashes. Esteli. Matagalpa. Ledda [phonetic]. Managua. Chinandega. Masaya. But still, the Sandinistas fight on. (Pause) It appears, that unless a full scale Dominican-type military intervention is uh, contemplated by the US Marines, or unless the US can maneuver to separate the National Guard from the dictator, US imperialism seems fated to continue with Somoza. But the Sandinistas are keenly aware, that the removal of the figure of Somoza alone, without the destruction of the civilian, military, and economic basis of his fascist regime that had been put in power by the USA, would be virtually meaningless. The Nicaraguan people are on the move, and that option is being bypassed by history. In spite of the fact that three-quarters of the Nicaraguan people already have been forced in asylum in Panama or in Mexico or are imprisoned or dead. That is the state of affairs in Nicaragua. That is the state of affairs on our conscience as we face what USA has done, everywhere it puts its dollars, its tax dollars. What a fine, fine example we have to look to at being American citizens.

Mother Jones guides struggle. Boston’s Little Flags Theater Company is giving New Yorkers a chance to see a play that was a hit with the mine strikers in Stearns, Kentucky. That may not be the usual route to Broadway, but in this case, the recommendation carries a lot of weight, since The Furies of Mother Jones is a dramatization of the historical and contemporary struggles of miners and their families. Mother Jones is a powerful evocation of the ongoing tradition of class conscious activism in the coal mines of the Appalachia. Switching back and forth between scenes of Mother Jones raising hell in minefields in the early 1900s, and scenes of contemporary insurgent miners in the heat of 1969 [Jock] Yablonski campaign to unseat the boss– capitalist boss, Tony Boyle, regime in United Mine Workers union, UMW. This play is as history to make the present that much more real. Pro-union, anti-sellout, Mother Mary Jones exploits as an organizer in Appalachia, Colorado, and anywhere she was needed, made good history, especially because they remain part of the s– living struggle of coal miners. The play presents her in almost mythical form. Not a standard biography, but rather the core of her legacy– her legacy as a fighter for her class. Union militants in the minefields are still referred as sons of Mother Jones, or one of the Jones boys.

The politics of the play, most clearly evident in the contemporary scenes, are solidly pro-union, and just as solidly anti-sellout. Organizing in support of Jock Yablonski’s challenge to the corrupt Boyle machine is accompanied by the recognition that this effort will have its limitations, even if it is necessary. While Mother Jones exalts the courage and defiance of the miners, the action does not present a string of romanticized victories, but rather a persistence in the face of repeated setbacks. Emotional testimony from miners’ wives before a congressional committee is futile. Resistance to eviction by strip mining interests is steadfast but eventually overpowered. The news of Yablonski, a real labor leader’s murder by Boyle forces undoubtedly connected with Mafia and perhaps even CIA, hits hard. Near the play’s end, a shattering mine explosion kills several hundred miners and seems to snuff out the spinal– final spark of hope. But the spirit of Mother Jones reappears and a refusal to accept any defeat, as final as echoed by the wives of the miners, who play an important role in the whole production. Rather than concluding with the workers smashing the companies and the entire capitalist system, the last scenes instead underscore the more telling point that the workers themselves will never be smashed.

The dramatic intensity of the show is heightened by a full, original musical score, and by effective staging on a minimal set. Director Maxine Klein makes good use of a relatively small multi-national company of actors and musicians, including a lead actress, Ellen Field, who bears an uncanny resemblance to Mother Jones herself. The play does not attempt to documentary-style realism. It is a dr– its presentation of Southern mountain speech and folkways. The most obvious example here in the show’s music. James Oesterreich’s score makes no use of the admittedly rich musical culture of the hills and mines, presenting instead original lyrics in an urban folk and almost (unintelligible word) style. The score is in any case quite effective for the purpose of the play. When Stearns organizes– organizer Fred Wright saw the production in Boston, he reacted by saying, if they brought the play to West Virginia, Kentucky, and Tennessee, they’d never go back home. We’d fill the hall every night with miners and retired miners, their wives and kids. The play did go to Kentucky and the hall was indeed filled, but fortunately, Little Flags did come back. The Furies of Mother Jones will be presented as a benefit for mine workers at the William O’Shea Intermediate School 44, 100 West 77th Street, between Amsterdam and Columbus Avenue, Manat– Manhattan this Saturday. (unintelligible word) coupons uh, that are available in the various left uh, productions will give you discounts in being able to attend if you’re in the area. Unfortunately, no matter how much is shown of these great spirits as Mother Jones, and all those in the spirit of Mother Jones, US continued for the most part to have an unfortunate apathy that is foreboding indeed. (Pause)

Southern Africa, Black America. Two recently-released pamphlets by Black Liberation Press provides in– in– important information for the growing Southern Africa support movements in this country. The first, Samora Machel Speaks, Mozambique Speaks contains two key speeches by Mozambican President Samora Machel. In these speeches, one given in Maputo at the First Peoples Assembly and the other at the United Nations General Assembly, Machel incisively describes the insignificance– or the significance, rather, of the dictatorship of the proletariat for the working class. He also analysis– analyzes the differences– the difference between proletarian worker and bourgoudee– bourgeoisie democracy in preparation for Mozambique’s historic first general elections. At the United Nations speech, Mozambique’s solidarity with the other front line states is reaffirmed, and Machel outlines his view of the struggle for a new international economic order of Third World independence and power. He maintains his stout position, in spite of the last month he has been beleaguered from Union of South Africa, provided by US planes and aircraft equipment and military hardware, and Rhodesia, pounding him on both ends. But Mozambique’s spirit has not bent, not one bit slightly.

The second pamphlet, Southern Africa, Black America,Same Struggle, Same Fight, is especially noteworthy in this period, because it contains a comprehensive analysis of the pivotal Angolan liberation struggle based on the analysis’ strong critique of the dogmatic international line on Southern Africa. That superpower contention is the principal contradiction in the region, and the main danger is US imperialism and her Western lackeys. In addition, it shows clearly from a Marxist-Leninist perspective why the class struggle in South Africa is a racial one in form, but still a working class struggle, laying the groundwork theoretically for a critique of narrow nationalism. Finally, the pamphlet includes all– an all-too brief section of why the struggles in Southern Africa and Black America are connected, and a comprehensive history and analysis of apartheid, which means just what it is, apartness, separateness– separation, concentration camps that’ve been provided by US capital. Union of South Africa co– could not have wi–withstood one day, the fact that she’s outnumbered 18 to one by black people, if it were not for the funding of our tax dollars from United States and monopoly capitalist money in the billions. Both pamphlets are available from Black Liberation Press in Harlem, New York. Samora Machel Speaks, Mozambique Speaks, and the one, Southern Africa, Black America,Same Struggle, Same Fight.

News from Hawaii. The state of Hawaii is a land of grass skirts and luaus, (unintelligible word) surface waiting for the perfect wave and dashing detectives from Hawaii– Hawaii Five-O, according to the myth, making sure it stays that way, right? Wrong. Hawaii is a result of turning US imperialist policy towards Asia and Oceania into a paradise for internal domestic exploitation. And most of the time, the rest of us here on the mainland haven’t got a clue about what’s going on. One way to solve that problem is to suscrive– subscribe to Modern Times, a bulletin of the Hawaii– the Hawaiian Union of Socialist. Modern Times carries very readable news and analysis of the islands, particularly strong on who’s getting rich from real estate and natural resources, as well as discussions of national and international issues. Five dollars for one year subscription to Modern Times, Post Office Box 11208, Monolani [phonetic] Station, Honolulu, Hawaii 96828.

CIA shenanigans. Who knows what the CIA is up to? One place to find out is a new magazine, Covert Action Information Bulletin. Carrying on the tradition of the old Counterspy Magazine, the bulletin is published by Philip Agee, who has been chased all over Europe and denied a place for uh, asylum for him and his family, because he’s a former CIA agent who decided to tell all of the criminal corruption and murderous practices of the C– US CIA. And a group of investigators who have spent– who will spend several years researching US intelligence operations. The first issue includes articles on myths about the CIA anti-Castro Cuban right-wingers and destabilization in Jamaica. Subscriptions for six issues are ten dollars for the United States, fifteen dollars for foreign countries. Write Covert Action, Post Office Box 50272, F Street Station, Washington, D.C., 20004.

South African poetry. Let’s have poems blood red in color, ringing like damn bells. Thus writes black South African [A.N.C.] Kumalo– K-U-M-A-L-O – in Poets to the People, a collection of freedom poems by various South African poets. Their verse reveals history, brutality, hatred, strength, their poems speak to the black worker, executions and freedom fighters. The one drawback of the book is its absence of women’s writings. Poets to the People can be ordered from the International Defense Aid Fund for Southern Africa, from Cambridge, Massachusetts, Box 17, Mass. 02138.

Also available are For Their Triumphs, For Their Tears, an excellent primer on the history of the women’s liberation struggle under apartheid, and bravely women who have withstood the South African fascist, who are funded by US imperialist. Included are pictures and short biographies of key resistant [resistance] leaders. Race Against Race is a brief but thorough account of national and international reports in Southern Africa. It explains the difference between multinational sports, the Vorster’s [Johannes Vorster] regime’s guise for maintaining apartheid– apartheid in athletics and true non-racial sports participation. Most important, Race Against Race shows a fundamental connection between South African sports policy and the white minority regime, and the interest of imperialist powers, especially the United States, Great Britain, and Japan.

Zimbabwe: The Facts about Rhodesia. Where the Zimbabwean Patriotic Front represents 97 percent of the people, but Rhodesia’s Ian Smithis upheld by US imperialist capitalist tax dollars, provides a good introduction to the history and economy of Rhodesia’s fascist regime, as well as an overview of the national struggle for liberation from the Ian Smith dread murderous tyrannical regime. The book describes the popular forces engaged in armed struggle, as well as the Rhodesian military and security forces in a country where one-third of the entire national budget is spent on fighting the guerilla activist.

Roman Catholic sources say that the new pope, selected because two rival Italian cardinals blocked each other’s elections.

The US-Soviet talks on arms limitations are due to get underway this weekend. Secretary of State Cyrus Vance, who is in South Africa, is heading for Moscow today with a stopover in Geneva. He is making preparations for a new and possibly conclusive round of strategic arms talks, as he’s beginning to fear that nuclear war is about to break out and could not be contained, as [Zbigniew] Brzezinski, head of security and perhaps head of the entire Trilateral Commission, pretends to uh, believe. He has scheduled private meetings with the American delegation to the Strategic Arms Limitation talks. We will all be flying to Moskva– Moscow Saturday. Vance has been in South Africa, where he and other western foreign ministers held talks on very serious and worthwhile, apparently, uh se– uh, having failed to entirely disrupt the Pretoria government from its hardline position.

In Washington, more Middle East palks– talks continue today. Both sides report progress, but say there are still a few stumbling blocks. Indeed, there are. The entire Arab League resist the sellout that Carter had at Camp David.

In Canada, striking postal clerks are ignoring a government law ordering them back to work by failing to show up for work. The new federal law was enacted just today. The postal clerks said they will return to work only af– uh, after they have signed negotiation contracts with the post office. Under the law, the strikers are fined one hundred dollars a day, while the union faces a 2500 dollar a day fine for each day they prolong the strike. Not only that, business sentences accompany the fine.  Prime Minister Pierre Tur– Trudeau, once a proclaimed socialist, meets with the cabinet today to decide whether or not to enforce the law immediately. The head of the Canadian postal workers union has recommended to the membership that they continue to strike and worry about the consequences later. The postal workers have been without a contract since June 1977.

The New York Yankees, the world baseball champions, returned home last night and were greeted by– at the airport by 8000 enthusiastic fans. The crowd swarmed onto the runway, causing officials to halt air traffic for about a half an hour. Today they will be honored by a ticker-tape parade. One of those diversions that capitalism provides. Religion. Sports. Television. And the vid– uh, the video. The movies. All programming the minds of people to apathetic indifference.

Paul Warnke, the chief US disarmament negotiator, says President Carter’s decision to go ahead with the production of elements of the neutron bomb, is uh, not a sign that the current strategic– strategic arms limitation talks are in trouble. He told a group of reporters in Washington that the US and the Soviet Union are very close to a SALT II agreement, though the Soviet Union stoutly denies that they will agree to any agreement that allows the US to build the neutron bomb that destroys people and leaves property safe for the capitalist to capture. Warnke said the neutron bomb issue is something entirely different, and that the so-called neutron warhead has nothing to do with strategic arms talks at all. He said it is a tactical belief– a tactical battlefield weapon, and is not even remotely in the subject matter of the talks. (slows speech) Well, (clears throat) many do not share his opinion on that subject, I’m afraid. Typical capitalist hogwash. (Pause) Now they can always find excuses for making mass weapons of war to destroy, to kill, and no pa– apologies for making weapons that no other society ever thinks of. It is shocking indeed.

People starve, rats grow fat. India’s burgeoning rat population is threatening the food supply of the country’s 615 million people. A study by the Washington DC-based International Food Policy Research Institute has estimated there are about ten times as many rats as people in India, and these billion rodents consume three million tons of grain, worth about 338 million dollars every year. The study also estimated that there were about as many rats on earth as people. Some four million [billion]. And other countries have their share of the rodent competition for food as well. In some parts of Thailand, the report noted, rats eat as much as 70 percent of the food crop. Between 10 and 20 percent of food produced in Indonesia is claimed by rats, while in the Philippine dictatorship, rodents consume millions of dollars’ worth of food. The US has at least 200 million rats in its inner cities, according to the report, while some Third World countries have rats outnumbering as much as ten times their population. The struggle against the rodents has become more difficult as the animals fun– animals find defenses against traps and posi– and poisons. Some Asian farmers reported that rats sense a high voltage wire laid out to electrocute them, and simply jump over it. Some also recognize poison bait, merely sniff it and move on. The menace of the rodents is imperialist-dominated Third World countries– in imperialist-dominated Third World countries has had a particularly devastating effect on the peasantry. Wealthy landlords and capitalist farmers, able to afford better storage facilities and hire laborers to combat rodents and pests, face less of a problem than the subsistence farmers. In progressive and socialist Third World countries such as China and the USSR, the disease-bearing pests are effectively and substantially combatted by systematic programs of extermination, provision of better storage facilities for grains, and educational programs to rid their reoccurrence. The rat– the rodent population is almost non-existent in the Peoples Republic of China and the Soviet Union.

Vietnam and Thailand. New ties. Vietnamese Prime Minister Pham Van Dong ended a five-day visit to Thailand with an agreement for cooperation between the two governments in the commercial, economic, fishing, telecommunications and postal fields. Good news.

Bolivia. The extreme right fascist Bolivian regime of General Juan Pereda Asbun has mounted a campaign of repression against peasants and rural supporters, backed by military aid from the USA, of Bolivia’s Popular Democratic Union, DP– UDP, the largest opposition vote getter in the general elections of last month. Pereda seized power in a military coup, July 21, before the election results could be ratified. Pressure is mounting from several political quarters, however, for new elections before Pereda’s promised 1980 polling. The general, who is allied with the former head of the state, fascist general Hugo Banzer, calls his regime a democratic transition. According to the London-based Latin American Political Report, LAPR, leaders of rural peasant organizations who appear sympathetic to the UDP have been arrested in recent weeks, without trial. Peasant homes have been raided, and arrested leaders are sent to La Paz, the capital, for (stumbles over words) for detention in the concentration camps. In the village (unintelligible name, sounds like “Decora Pata”), a military force of 1500 has besieged a 400-family community since early of this part of this month. The occupation began after a soldier was accidentally shot by another soldier. The London-based Latin American Political Report, LAPR, also reported that many peasant leaders have gone into hiding. Some rural organizations have however successfully gotten reports of the fascist repression into the local press. Much of the press has also joined the campaign for immediate elections. Demands also are being raised for repeal of anti-labor laws enacted by previous regimes upheld by US capital, but intensified under Pereda’s regime backed by US imperialism. Former President Banzer – or dictator Banzer – has also added his voice to the call for new elections, demanding that they be held by January or February 1979. Pereda – P-E-R-E-D-A – meanwhile reportedly will set up a new electoral commission to determine the schedule and procedures for new elections. Unconfirmed reports hint the regime is trying to appoint former presidents and leaders of various political parties to the commission, in order to provide a measure of legitimacy. But it is not yet clear whether they will accept Pereda– Pereda’s conditions. A group of retired Army officers are at the same time demanding that Pereda resurrect numerous repressive military regulations that had been discarded by Banzer. Pereda, the former Air Force chief, was on the fa– fascist extreme right of the reactionary Banzer regime. He now seems to be attempting to straddle a middle course with the intention of reconciling the extreme and moderate right elements in the military and the fascist ruling class.

Cook oust government. The court oust government. A corruption scandal has rocked the tiny archipelo– pelago [archipelago] of Cook Islands. The Cook Islands high court recently ruled that the current government must step down. The ruling followed trials on bribery and fraud charges resulting from general elections just recently held. After four months of trials, the court ended the 13-year rule of Prime Minister Albert Henry and his Cook Islands Party last month. Succeeding Albert is Dr. Tom Davis, a former space medicine expert at the United States National Aeronautics and Space Administration. According to a Christian Science Monitor account, Davis’ opposition Democratic Party charged the Cook Islands Party with bribing the voters. The voters had been flown in from New Zealand, 2000 miles away, for the elections. Under the current law, all vo– all voters, including the many thousands who emerged– or, emigrated to New Zealand, must return to Cook Islands, if they wish to cast ballots. The then-ruling Cook Islands Party was charged with spending 350,000 dollars in government funds to pay for six charter flights to transport the voters. The court decision to unseat the Cook Islands Party gave the opposition Democratic Party the necessary majority of 15 seats to form a new government and take it out from control of the US imperialist.

Lesotho. L-E-S-O-T-H-O. Closer relations with Mozambique. This is the closing of the news for the day. Prime Minister Leabua Jonathan of the kingdom of Lesotho visited Mozambique this month to establish closer relations of cooperation with the revolutionary government of Mobu– Maputo, capital of Mozambique, African news reports. The six-day visit was also aimed at strengthening economic relations between the two southern African countries. The prime minister was given a warm welcome in the Mozambican capital and a banquet in Jonathan’s honor. President Samora Machel said the kingdom of Lesotho is a particularly– is in a particularly difficult position in relation to the strongest bastion of imperialism in Africa. It is forced to constantly face imperialist action by US-backed Union of South Africa. Lesotho is an independent African state, territorially surrounded by apartheid South Africa, which is upheld by US capital. Lesotho’s– Lesotho’s geographical position and the legacy of colonial economic arrangements in the region have forced the country and independence on– into dependence on South Africa. The unequal relations affect the kingdom’s ability to act independently in international affairs, specifically regarding the southern African liberation struggles. The constant threat of southern African aggression and US-backed aggression, has been a factor in Lesotho’s prohibition on guerilla bases on its soil. Lesotho has however occasionally condemned Pretoria’s racism. Compared with the other two similarly-situated countries, Botswana and Swaziland, Lesotho has been most vital and vocal in condemning apartheid. Thus President Machel, in welcoming Prime Minister Jonathan, exprect– expressed Marxist-Leninist Mozambique’s respect for the position taken by Lesotho in condemning the South African Bantustan policy, the uh, concentration camps, fabricated by the Vorster regime, and is supporting the independence of Namibia and Zimbabwe.

More world reaction is reported – in the closing news of the day – about the attempted trans-Atlantic cooperation between NATO and uh, the imperialist powers of South America, particular Chile, being uh, the uppermost in the endeavor. As you know, the Chilean junta [Augusto] Pinochet was placed in power by the CIA. Seven million dollars alone brought about the murder of the great president Dr. [Salvador] Allende. Now these Chilean supporters (Pause) of fascism am– in– in (unintelligible name) have volunteered to send mercenaries, but even members of the NATO alliance are withstanding this move, and it appears that the United States is going to find some difficulty in her new transnational effort, because it is not falling on uh, (Pause) good ears in many of the NATO nations, particularly Holland – the Netherlands – Belgium, and Norway.

So, the news– about continuing for the day, closing up. Stock prices are in bad shape on Wall Street. The Dow Jones Industrial Average has declined more than 37 points this week. Economic strategists in New York says the declining dollar is one major problem. He said the dollar has declined over 30 percent this year. That is why we are in difficult straits, and we shall make it, because capitalism is crumbling. We shall overcome, no matter how many attacks we have from every corner. And they are many. But we have the will to fight for socialism, in life or in death.

Rhodesian troops have raided a black Zimbabwean Patriotic Front base, deep inside Zambia, near the capital of Lusaka, Zambia. The attack came by US planes provided to Rhodesia, and Rhodesian forces continue to raid the many bases of the Patriotic Front in Mozambique, a Marxist-Leninist nation that has been strong and developed free medicine and free education in only three years. The two activist groups belong to the Patriotic Front of black liberation forces, fighting against the fascist regime of Prime Minister, so-called, Ian Smith. It is estimated that thousands of innocent women and children were killed in the raids in Zambia and Mozambique today. But nothing shall cause the Patriotic Front from stopping the intensity of its op– opposition to the fascist-imposed regime of Ian Smith and the imperialism of the Union of South Africa, backed by US capital. One group is based in Zambia and another in Mozambique. This morning the Rhodesian troops went after the Zambian– Zambian guerillas in its deepest penetration into Zambia in six years.

Prime Minister Smith said in Houston, Texas last night that he’s still willing to talk with leaders of the Patriotic Front about the future of Rhodesia, but his words are empty and hypocritical in sound. Most of the world are condemning the United States for allowing the dictator Ian Smith of Rhodesia to travel freely in the United States. Wherever he goes, he’s received heartily. In Houston, he spoke to thousands who cheered him on in his racist policies, apartheid, separate, concentration camp policies in Rhodesia. USA shows what it is by the company it keeps. You always have heard the statement, you can tell folk by the company they keep. US is very clear. The company it keeps is very bad business indeed.

Thus ends the commentary, the news for today. We hope that you will try to digest it and be prepared for testing tonight. Likely this will be the day of testing and Peoples Rally, because we’re having doctors come for medical purposes tomorrow night, so be prepared for your news and prepare for work. We’re still studying, we find some– Jocelyn’s [Carter] crew seems to be uh, doing good production, uh, but we’re not yet quite up to this full uh, capacity to work the same amount in eight hours as we do ten hours. Keep pressing for that, because we need to liberate our people, we want to give you more work time off, we will announce your day off. It will come in the evening before the day– Unfortunately, I cannot announce it far in advance. And the nights off will be announced the same way.

I love you very, very dearly, enough to live for you. It would be easy to die for you.