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(Editor’s note: Throughout much of this tape, Jim Jones misidentifies the prime minister of Jamaica as Norman Manley. Norman Manley did, in fact, hold the top leadership position in Jamaica from 1955 to 1962, but it was his son, Michael Manley, who was the Prime Minister in 1978 when this tape was recorded.)
Jones: Good morning. Good day news on this beautiful windy day. How much I enjoy (unintelligible word under radio) News of the day. Mourn the death of the prime minister-to-be of the Soviet Union, who died of a heart attack. Kalikov [phonetic]. Prime Minister [Forbes] Burnham of Guyana sent condolences on behalf of the Guyanese people, made a news statement that was a great loss to the world.
Guyana, under the new socialist mandate from its referendum, is opening a nursery school for 1000 children.
Prime Minister [Michael] Manley is invited to China and is drawing closer and closer in his relationship to China. He is the Prime Minister of Jamaica.
Guyana praised for the offering of 39 youth leaders from former commonwealth countries to be trained in youth leadership in socio-economics to bring answers to unemployment in the Caribbean region. Thirty-nine free posts in the beautiful University of Guyana have been offered to students in Belize, the Bahamas, Jamaica, Antigua, Grenada – that beautiful island that we all love so much where [Eric Gairy] the Prime Minister was quite friendly to us there – Trinidad. They’ll be trained in all the concepts, social concepts to eliminate poverty and unemployment.
As I said, Prime Minister Burnham sent condolences to Brez– [Leonid] Brezhnev on the death of Kulikov. Politburo likely to succeed Brezhnev as the General Secretary. One less personality as the Soviet Union is attempting to move away from strong personality figures.
Nursery education, as I said, has established 1000 new places for children. The Guyana go– government has done so, with charged person over placement is Agnes Jones, who visited here and saw our project. The beginning age will be three months– three years. Three years of age on up.
One of the chief clerks of the Guyana Stock Feeds is charged with false entries, which he obligedly– allegedly collected under false pretenses from the Belayda workers, and he’s out on 500 dollar bail, and not yet been tried. Guyana tends to have very fair treatment of people arrested. Very few long jail sentences and very few that are not given opportunity to make restitution, when it’s a matter of thievery.
Third woman murdered in Berbice in a matter of days. Unusual amount of violence in Guyana. This woman was partially decapitated with a cutlass. There have been several murders in the Northwest District. One person traveling through from Switzerland was decapitated in the Northwest District. Theft was the reason. So always keep that in mind, that we do not travel alone, we travel in groups when we have purpose and work to do. This is not common, but it is growing, due to unemployment, that sort of thing, the economic dearth that US imperialism is causing all over the world, ‘cause capitalism is in a start of disarray, and these countries that are non-aligned suffer naturally while the economic market of capitalism is in such an upheaval, and it will remain so until its collapse.
One hundred students from the Amsterdam work study will be touring various projects. They got certificates for outstanding work and for demonstrating high socialist principles.
Norman [Michael] Manley, as I said, is drawing his country Jamaica closer to China, 25-member party now in Jamaica under the Deputy Prime Minister of China, will arrive in Guyana tomorrow to offer aid to this beleaguered country that is still maintaining a non-aligned course. Cabinet Minister Men– [Vibert] Mingo, one of the high government officials that meet with our people weekly, (unintelligible phrase) person, said the USSR was unable to come through significantly due to its prior commitment to [Cheddi] Jagan and the opposition Peoples Progressive Party, that the USA is an opportunist nation that will give nothing without trying to get a stranglehold on the country, so Guyana does not want to get under USA, but China has offered significant econem– economic aid and assistance with no strings attached. As I said, the Cabinet Minister Mingo said it may be that China feels her need for friends, as she lost Albania, and China yesterday moved out all of her technical advisers and all personnel that was assisting in Albania, because Albania has moved from a very strong pro-China course to now a very strong pro-Soviet course.
Trinidad. A massive fire through an industrial state has caused great damage. It is not known whether it is sabotage by left elements unpleased [displeased] with the capitalist government of Trinidad.
The Egyptian-Israeli-US talks in the medieval castle of Leeds, 30 miles from London in Kent, is in the second and final day of discussions. Mediation was attempted by USA, US hosted the cost and expense. There will be further talks continuing. The last six-hour session, the Egyptians have declared nothing has happened, and they say – the Egyptians – that there will be no indication on their part given because of this waste to indicate that there will be any further talks, so the Israel-Egyptian-Near East situation, the pot is still boiling.
Syrian armed forces are still on war footing in Lebanon.
At this time, Egypt got none of its requirements, USA had put demands on Israel, but Israel has the bomb, which is a dangerous element for world peace. Israel was supposed to give the West Bank back to Jordan, and the Gaza Strip to Egypt, and withdraw from Lebanon, and turn over its conquered territory to the Lebanon people through the United Nations peace-keeping forces under the black general [Emmanuel] Erskine from Ghana, on the west coast of Africa.
India. Flooding continues from the monsoons. Hundreds of thousands of people will die. Rescued victims. With all boats available through nations surrounding southeast Asia have been called to give assistance, the flooding may well affect one million people before it’s finished, and 100,000 to 200,000 can die. One million will definitely– over one million will be homeless. [It] Seems that this beleaguered nation of India is always plagued with flooding or famine or something. A nation– it’s the next largest in the world. China is over a billion, and India is approaching a billion. So, one-half of the world’s population is in China and India.
Japan. The Red Army radicals blocked their new airport again. Eight thousand injured, six killed, as riot police shoot and fire into the crowds. Airport had to be guarded by 7000 riot police in total wartime security, as Japan rocks and reels with the power– uh, force of the Red Army organizing farmers and other working class elements to bring down the government of Japan. Japan is a major capitalist power. If it were to fall, you could depend that capitalism would fall all over the entire world. So I’m sure that the USA in time will beef that force up. Japan has not made yet a call for assistance, because she is a capitalist nation that distrusts other capitalist nations, because she’s Asiatic and she has been following protectionist policies, which she says– says that she will abandon only if the USA will stop importing so much oil so that her dollar will be strengthened, and Japan will not have to bail US dollars out so much in the future.
Bolivian elections July 9. Meddling was done by the army and the president. The left president [Hernan Siles] that would have won, is on a hunger strike in a foreign embassy. He said he will maintain his hunger strike, so that the whole world can know that Bolivia is under the hands of imperialists. He was defeated in the elections, president ’56 and in ’60. But he was defeated in what was considered a likely opportunity for the Bolivian left to get a government, at least moderately representative of the people, but the military interfered. Know where Bolivia is, it’s on the South American continent.
Ecuador, a strange and miraculous breakthrough, allowed the socialist and communist candidate of the left [Jaime Roldos Aguilera] to be in the runoff. He got votes only next to the Republican conservative president [Alfredo Poveda], who had ruled Ecuador for many years, that party, under the military. But this is a radical, backed by the communist parties and socialist parties of Ecuador, and he’ll be in the runoff elections in a few weeks. Let’s see if the military will interfere again, and the CIA and US imperialism, like they have in Bolivia, Chile, and elsewhere.
Argentina. In spite of the brave Argentina workers threatened with treason, subversion, which they can be killed by the state, jailed for 20 years, the general strike continues, and slowdown in all other areas of work where there has not been a general strike. The military fascist government has cruelly tortured people for months, the people have disappeared by the cloak-and-dagger operations of that military government brought in power by the CIA. Nonetheless, the workers are resisting, and the South American continent is boiling for change.
Prime Minister [Pierre] Trudeau announced in the closing minutes of the summit– economic summit being held in West Germany at Bonn that he wants to remove his dependency on the USA, and develop relations with the various countries of Europe, because he feels it is unjust and unfair for Canada to be so dependent on the USA. We’re glad for that brave public statement of Prime Minister Trudeau, who was openly, years ago, socialist. He started the first trade with China, a grain trade, and opened up the first major negotiations with the Soviet Union for exchange of cultural, educational and trade programs.
International terrorism has been strongly indicted, as you know, by the countries cooperating, with seven major capitalist [nations]. Any country that assists terrorists, they put strong indications that South Yemen has, the Democratic Peoples Republic, East German socialist nations and others of the socialist bloc, and the Arab independent socialists, non-aligned socialists, but any country cooperating will be made to pay a significant price, was the announcement of the leading capitalist nations, trying to save their capitalistic system in a summit meeting in West Germany in Bonn. There will be no air flights allowed in or out of any nation cooperating with what they call terrorist, or those who are seeking, by armed struggle, to free their nations or their people. There will also be economic sanctions and boycotts placed against any nation that cooperates in any way with terrorists, because they feel that those who advocate armed struggle are now beginning to endanger capitalism’s balance and make a real inroad into its stability.
Over 2000 casualties have been reported by the Cuban Radio to have occurred in recent battles defending Argentina and Angola against the CIA and the imperialists from USA and her lackeys, who have tried to bring down the free governments. The Cuban radio – the only voice of socialist freedom in the Caribbean Sea – has said that there is no backlash from the people of Cuba. We are willing to put our lives on the line in defense of liberation everywhere.
State Department protests the conviction of reporters. New York Times reporter [Craig R. Whitney] and The Baltimore Sun, [Harold D. Piper] who were convicted of slander and libel against the Soviet television network, by accusing them and the government of the USSR of cooperating, using coercive– coercive methods to get a false confession out of [Zviad Gamsakhurdia] someone that admitted their guilt, that was from the Ukraine, admitted their guilt in doing acts of subversion against the Soviet state. The protest has taken more significant form and more dangerous form. President [Jimmy] Carter has ordered the closing of Tass news agency in San Francisco. Tass gentleman there had been kindly to our people. All news agencies will be closed in the San Francisco area. The Soviet Union is also promising to take action if such does occur, if it is finally carried out. As of this early morning hour, it is not clear whether they have been ordered out. Tass is the news services of the Soviet Union, but that was what was stated by Carter would be done.
It is a strong reaction that we’re seeing, strange reaction, over-reaction, overkill, that endangers world peace. As I said, the San Francisco offices of Soviet news agencies are ordered to be closed, and in retaliation, the USSR, the main correspondent for Tass said, it was unfair to send the Soviet news representatives home from San Francisco. Russians have only expelled two men for breaking specific Soviet laws, and the same consideration should be given to Soviet journalists, that they are safe and free to move about, to do their work of reporting of the news, unless they break USA’s laws. Tass said there is bound to be repercussions that will be felt around the world, if the president of the United States carries out this action. (Pause)
Continuing with the news. Senator [Edward] Brooke, trying to get uh, back in the good graces of the ruling class of USA, and right wing Senator Doyle [Bob Dole], said publicly to the Senate body and in a nationwide interview on television before the apathetic and gullible public of USA, that USA should stop all strategic arms limitation talks, all trade and commerce. Senator Brooke is a man who was recently found guilty of perjury, because he was black, it was made public, smear in magazines and newspapers throughout the USA, thus, according to all pollsters, affecting his opportunity of being re-elected– very strongly affecting his opportunity of being re-elected this fall. But now he’s appealing for the strong Jewish community, the right wing community in Massachusetts, by taking a very strong right wing posture and being cosponsor to a bill that is likely to pass, which is madness, to hinge world peace, control of nuclear weapons, disarmament, treaties to stop the spread of nuclear weapons– weapons, which we call nuclear proliferation. It is insanity of a highes– highest degree, to hitch all of these important things for the peace of USA, where US citizens, over half of them to three-fourths of them would be dead in 20 minutes in a nuclear war, it is madness of the first magnitude to hinge such important talks on the fate of two individuals in the Soviet Union who the Soviets say were spies, and USA say, they’re so concerned about their human rights, but we still don’t hear Senator Brooke, light-skinned black, say one damn word about the tens of thousands of blacks and Indians and poor whites whose human rights have been destroyed in prisons in USA, whose dignity has been violated, who live as prisoners in ghettoes of every city in USA.
Senator [Wendell] Anderson entertains resolution before the Senate this morning to ban the Olympics from Moscow. What a megalomania, that the Senate of the United States thinks that it can cause all the nations of the world to stop the international Olympics, which is participated by all nations, socialist and capitalist alike. These are dangerous signs of people in the last days of an overextension of power and expansionism and confidence which is not warranted in the freaky period, the dangerous period of a nuclear age.
Senator [Robert] Byrd, majority leader of the Senate, is still demanding in radio interview after radio vie– interview for the dismissal of Andrew Young, the only real black person in Cabinet, the young ambassador to the United Nations. Andrew Young, demanded to be resign. Floods of mail coming into the Congress and the president, de– asking for his dismissal or his impeachment.
Bishop Abel Muzorewa, one of the three black sell-outs, the only three that are in the white regime of fascist Ian Smith in Rhodesia, spent Tuesday on Capitol Hill, in a city that’s all-black – strange that he can get around without any interference – urging the Senators to lift economic sanctions, restore military trade. Blacks, he said, when they finally do get power, which Ian Smith is fraudulently claiming they’ll have representative power next year, Uncle Tom sell-out Bishop Abel Muzorewa, head of the Methodist Church, said that that government would inherit economic disabilities and liabilities that would make it impossible for it to continue. Bishop Mu– Muzorewa said that Carter is afraid of the office– Organization for African Unity. He made charges of Carter. He’s– The Anglo-American peace proposal that says that the Pa– Patriotic Liberation Front must be included, he said is unacceptable. But at the same time, Ian Smith, the racist leader of Rhodesia, or Zimbabwe, accused the big three Uncle Tom sell-outs, including Bishop Muzorewa, of not doing anything to bring about a ceasefire, and of destroying the likelihood of any peace coming for the transitial [transition] or the interim government in Rhodesia. Muzorewa, when asked about Andrew Young’s speech, said that uh, (Pause) where Young had mentioned that Ian Smith was responsible for the massacres of the children and the villagers there – Andrew Young had made that statement – Bishop Muzorewa said I hope you don’t believe that fellow, or take that fellow Young seriously. It came at a very poor time, when a black so-called respected religious leader attacked Andrew Young, when he’s already under fire from every quarter. I mean, every quarter. The Miami Herald has called for his impeachment, said anyone saying the presence of Cubans stabilize Africa is capable of supporting the worst enemies and terrorists who throw bombs even against the USA. Miami Herald has been considered a reasonable liberal paper.
Another paper– Well, it– it named so many papers, I couldn’t keep up with them. The Washington Post said Andrew Young said no one is in jail for criticizing– they said– The Washington Post said no one is in jail for criticizing the US government. But perhaps there are those there because of being poor. It accused Young of threatening world peace and affecting the national security. The end-product of a totalitarian state. Young should know better, that all anti-government sentiment is not allowed by totalitarians, and Young was knowingly – it was the mildest critic – Young is knowingly or unknowingly aiding our enemies. The New York Times and St. Louis Dispatch both condemn him. His condemnations were strong. The St. Louis Post-Dispatch said he is an enemy of the government and the people of the USA. Louisville Courier-Journal attacked him in the most vicious terms. There’s really a smear and press campaign whipping up, always the US use of capitalist press, newspapers and television, they’re armed to destroy people. They always sic them on first, like they did with Andrew Young, like they did uh, with uh, uh– they’re doing with Andrew Young now like they did with Huey Newton, like they did with Synanon, and of course, we know as Peoples Temple.
The Communist government of East Germany was con– were condemned by USA for interference in the airways with freedom of movement. It appears that the East German Communists are becoming nervous about infiltration, said USA government over Voice of America. But strong and stringent measures will be taken – for whatever provocation, I don’t know that East Germany now is supposed to have done – US is threatening in strong terms the East German nation. (Pause)
I suspect, the middle of all this hell, we’ll have an earthquake before too long, maybe even this month, in California. Maybe San Francisco will feel that.
Carter refuses already agreed-upon c– computers that’ve been bought by the Soviet Union for the sole purpose of peace and news reporting. They have been banned, in retaliation for Soviet so-called treatment of their dissidents. They’re trying to dirty the Soviet Union like they dirtied our image. We had been known as a help– helping hand for all liberation causes, so you remember how they had to make us look like we were wicked and denied rights, of human rights to our own people, that we had to beat people and torture people and so forth. They’ve got the same line for individuals or nations. So Peoples Temple should feel honored. We rate highly. They’ve put us on the same level of attack as a– the greatest socialist nation in the world, because now the USA is trying to dirty the image of the Soviet Union, because they know the Soviet Union has won an image in Africa as being on the right side of every liberation cause, the freedom of black people struggling [for] so many generations to have their own continent that belonged to them, that was their place of birth, and the Soviet Union was getting too good a name in the eyes of the world, and maybe even the eyes of black US youth, so they’re dirtying her name every minute on the radio.
Part one of Carter’s five-part energy program failed to get through the Senate. A bad sign, now that the USA’s going to have to restrict oil imports, and there’ll be no oil for all that pleasure driving, and even oil to keep people from freezing to death in the winter, there’re already people freeze from lack of heat, I wonder how the public’s– uh, the Senate’s going to react to these new proposals.
All who want to trade with Russia in oil, technical equipment, now, says the Carter Administration, will need export licenses and, according to the BBC and the Voice of America, they will not be granted. Should sale of the– any areas of scientific technology, computers, be attempted, it will be considered an act of subversion. So I guess USA’s going for an all-out trade war, an all-out trade war. I hope they know what the hell they’re doing. They don’t, of course, that’s– (short laugh) someday they’re going to go too far, and the shit is going to hit the fan, and there’ll be nuclear war that will melt the cities of USA to a fervent heat.
Congress now has voted down Carter’s proposals to guarantee people the right of hospital care. Congress voted down– instead passed a watered-down version, saying– asking hospitals to voluntarily – that’s like– asking like a fox to voluntarily give up a rabbit – that hospitals are being asked to voluntarily control the rates. Even the Health and Education Cabinet head in USA, [Joseph] Califano, sa– called it an sham and a fro– an affront to the American people. They will be still be unable– over half the American population will be unable to go to a hospital to get good care in their hour of need, said the Health and Education and Welfare Department of the US government.
State Department opposes Congress’ resolution, headed by Senator [Jesse] Helms, to put a ban against trade– to lift the ban, rather– against trade with Rhodesia, which the Uncle Tom Bishop Muzorewa is apparently about to achieve by visiting all the Senators on Capitol Hill in Washington, D.C. But the State Department said this will absolutely discredit the USA in the eyes of the off– Organization for African Unity, and all the African nations, whether they’re capitalist or socialist, will have no respect for USA, and not trust her again, if she goes along with Senator Helms’ proposal to lift the ban of military hardware going into the fascist regime of Ian Smith in Rhodesia.
Being that we talked about Jamaica and its pro-China turn, Prime Minister Manley, Norman [Michael] Manley, socialist, is going to be going to China for an extensive visit and establishment of trade agreements.Perhaps China and all nations look after their own interests, are taking the advantage that US is quite pre-occupied with Africa, to move in and make footholds in the Caribbean. She established firm trade agreements with Trinidad, as you’ve been hearing in the last few days of news.
Where is Jamaica? It’s an island in the central Caribbean, 500 miles south of Miami, Florida, 90 miles south of Cuba. It tried very hard to go pro-Cuban, and had many Cuban educators and doctors in Jamaica, but there’s been a great deal of resistance, because the one thing that Guyana has an advantage, under Prime Minister Burnham, they nationalized 90 percent of their means of production and distribution, all their major factories, but Jamaica never got that done.
How was it created? Part of an ancient mountain chain. Original settlers were the Arawak – A-r-a-w-a-k – Indians. Later completely massacred by the Spanish, the whites who came to the island, searching for gold, not long after it was discovered by Columbus, Christopher Columbus that we were always told to love by the whitewashing, brainwashing of USA’s schools, press, and all of the representatives of its filthy government. The Spanish were driven out by the British, a whole– ma– Imagine, a whole people were wiped out, completely slaughtered, all of the inhabitants, the original Arawak Indians, the original ha– inhabitants of Jamaica were completely massacred, slaughtered. Genocide has always been the role of the white man, the Christian, the oppressor. The Spanish were driven out by the British, the white British, in 1655, after a series of battles in the mid-seventeenth century. So– When you say seventeenth century, you mean the 1600s.
What is the size of Jamaica? Only 4,244 square miles. You can see how much larger Guyana is. Guyana is twenty times larger than Jamaica, with much less population.
What is the population, in that small area, 20 miles– 40 times, rather– 20 times smaller than Guyana? Is over two million, and in this beautiful country, that has all fertile soil, there’s less than one million. Only 800,000. Of the two million in Jamaica, 76.8 percent are African, 14.6 percent are mulatto – white and black, Afro-European mixture – only eight-tenths of one percent are white, mostly European, six-tenths of one percent are Chinese. Other races, 7.2 percent. Nineteen point eight percent belong to Anglican Church – the Episcopalian or the Church of England – 19 percent are Baptist, 11.9 percent are that ridiculous racist Pentecostal Church of God out of Cleveland, Tennesee, 7.2 percent are Roman Catholic, 6.7 percent are Methodist, 5.1 percent are Presbyterian, 17 percent – socialists – believe in no religion at all, or God. And there’s 13.3 percent that belong to an ancient religion, the name of which slips my mind, animism, that goes back to African roots and its whole move– its whole purpose is a back-to-Africa concept. It’s out of the great doctrines of Marcus Garvey. He was of course deposed [deported] to Jamaica and had to spend his last days there, because the ruling class circles of USA, white circles, came down on him with smears in their newspapers and finally arrested him, charged him with crimes, convicted him in kangaroo courts, and made him live out the remaining days of his life in Jamaica, separated from his family.
Who rules? The island operates under a British-type parliamentary system with a two-chamber legislature. There are 60 elected members in the House and 21 members in the Senate, 13 of whom are appointed by the Governor-General on the advice of the prime minister, while the remaining eight are appointed on the advice of the leaders of the opposition.
But, gently, who really rules in Jamaica, that makes the socialist government of Jamaica and Prime Minister Manley in great danger. The major aluminum producers really rule, who own and operate Jamaica’s rich bauxite mines. Here, the bauxite mines are owned by the government, the people. But these rich owners of the industries there, including Alcan – A-l-c-a-n – Kaiser Aluminum, Alcoa, Reynolds, Revere – R-e-v-e-r-e – and Anaconda – A-n-a-c-o-n-d-a. Also, the United Brands Company, white capitalist, which although it no longer directly owns Jamaica banana plantation, buys in quantity from the island’s growers, thus controlling prices and production. So even though it has a socialist government, its likelihood of succeeding is about that of Chile, because the land, the major means of production, the bauxite mines, the means of distribution, are owned by the multi-nationalist capitals– capitalists, the monopoly capitalists in Washington, D.C., coming out of USA and Britain, her lackey.
Jamaica’s economy is in great trouble. Tourism has decreased, because of a number of people in the back-to-Africa movement who take (short laugh) violent stands every now and then against white tourists, and prices for many food exports have stayed relatively low, while the prices for imported manufactured goods, oil, and foodstuffs, have soared way out of control. Again, Guyana has had a (unintelligible word) major protecting themselves that way, under the wisdom of the Prime Minister, Burnham. He has controlled imports. Certain things don’t come here. We have to produce them, so that the dollar flow of Guyanese money wealth does not flow out.
With more than 90 percent of the population of African or mixed, white-black descent, the social divisions tend to follow economic rather than color lines, although some status attaches to being lighter than average in skin color. Prime Minister Manley is a very light black, for instance. The dual standards that exist in wages, public services, work facilities, personal relationships, and criminal justice, are leveled mainly at the poorer sectors. The middle class is small, and the vast bulk of the population is poor. There is a minimum of 30 percent unemployment, due to the manipulations of the big multinational monopoly capitalists. There is vast urban poverty, and the cities are ringed with sum– with slums, scuffling– It’s called scuffing, local term. S-c-u-f-f-l-i-n-g. Scuffling, local term in Jamaica for scrounging, a living is an accepted way of life among the poor, who rely on their extreme– or extensive family connections to get by. There’s a strong sense of family in Jamaica. The rural power– poor frequently have a little plot of land, possibly shared with another family or relations, which may provide a bare subsistence living or a small income.
The Rastafarian sect – that’s the sect I was speaking about – is a uniquely Janamaican [Jamaican] group of black nationalists. They are over 13, nearly 14 percent of the population, who desire a return to Africa, and who refuse to involve themselves with Jamaican society. They will not beg, preferring to be self-employed or unemployed, rather than take charity from Jamaicans. They never cut their hair, but twist it into long banks [dreadlocks]. They have believed in the divinity of black leadership. For instance, they regarded Haile Selassie – strange twist as it is, because the Rastafarians are socialist in much of their concept – but they considered Hal– Haile Selassie, who was deposed in Ethiopia by the socialists, to be a form of divinity, from whom– to– whose title, Rastafari– Taa– T-a-f-r-a-i – comes their name. Many smoke ganga, mari– marijuana, for religious purposes. Marijuana is Jamaica’s third largest export (small laugh) after bauxite and bananas, even though it’s illegal. The capitalists deal in anything. Plots of it are cultivated in the mountains by whole villages, but it also grows wild all over the island. And a beautiful climate that island is, but its misery and slums. You’d know how beautiful Guyanese cities are, if you saw the slums of Jamaica. Cutbacks in Mexican exports have increased Jamaica’s production of marijuana.
Thus ends the reading and commentary of the news for today. Know Jamaica, it’s coming into the news. I thought I would give you something of Japan, but it is possible that you’ve had enough probably. It’s about uh, 35 minutes of news, so we’ll leave that for today. I like to bring things in to account when you can (sighs) relate to them in the news.
I think I will go ahead, for some of it might be interested in Japan, because there the Red Army, the militant form of socialists, have an upper hand today, as they block the international airports, and are willing to put their lives on the line. You know where Japan is located, of course. Another word for it is Nippon, N-i-p-p-o-n, or Nihon, N-i-h-o-n. Is an island chain of about 500 islands that forms an arc along the coast of east Asia. The southern end of Japan is 125 miles from the southern tip of Korea. Japan’s northern most island is less than 30 miles south of the island of Sakhalin – S-a-k-h-a-l-i-n – now a part of the Soviet Union.
How created. Official legends of imperial Japan claim that Jimmu – J-i-m-m-u – Tenno – T-e-n-n-o – a descendant of the sun goddess, established the Japanese nation in 660 years before Christ. Nevertheless, his supposed descendants, members of the house of Yamato – Y-a-m-a-t-o – unified the islands at about 200 years after the death of Jesus. The current emperor, Hirohito – H-i-r-o-h-i-t-o – descends directly from that dynasty, and they believe that Emperor Hirohito was the Sun God until World War II, and that was required that he be deposed as a person of worship, but all Japanese worshipped him. They’d been very prejudiced, by the way, against the Koreans in the past. They’re an Asiatic people that consider themselves better than other Asiastics. In 1192, a shotgun [shogun] military governor seized power from the Yamato dynasty. By the way I might say the Red Army though includes Koreans, Japanese and Chinese. They are not prejudiced. Well, as I said, 1192, a shotgun military governor seized power from the Yamato dynasty, establishing a feudal system which lasted for nearly 700 years. Japan was able to avoid conquest by Mongol – M-o-n-g-o-l – emperor Ku– Kublai Khan – K-u-b-l-a-i, capital K-h-a-n – as you know, who swept all Asia and Europe in the thirteenth century. When a typhoon destroyed his armada, Japan was able to avoid conquest, or Japan too would have fell under Khan, the great Chinese Mongol who swept his civilization all over Europe by force. In 1542, the first European traders, who were Portuguese, landed in Japan. To prevent European domination in 1637, the Tokugawa – T-o-k-u-g-a-w-a – shogunate – s-h-o-g-u-n-a-t-e – barred trade and contact with the outside world. That’s really the only thing that ever saved the Japanese, their pride and their good image of themselves from be– ever being ever a real tool of the white imperialists. But the long isolated regime of the Tokugawas could not withstand the European onslaught, and exposure to modern civilization stimulated a social revolution in Japan. In 1867 through 1867– uh, ’68, Mutsohito – M-u-t-s-o-h-i-t-o – a member of the house of Yamato, regained power as emperor, and assumed the name of Meigi – M-e-i-g-i – meaning, enlightened government. In 1871, he abolished Japan’s feudal system. In 1889, he and his supporters created a modern constitutional government. The early rule of the Meigi, known as the Meigi Restoration, marked the birth of the modern Japanese nation. In 1894 and 1895, Japan defeated China in the Sino-Japanese war, annexing Formosa, now Taiwan, the Pescadores – P-e-s-c-a-d-o-r-e-s – Islands and the Liaotung – L-i-a-o-t-u-n-g – Peninsula in southern Manchuria, which is now Korea. In 1904 and 1905, Japan defeated Russia, the great nation of Russia – that was of course before Russia became communist – but that small island chain defeated Russia in the Russo– Russo- Japanese war, stimulating a near revolution in tsarist Russia and winning Teddy Roosevelt the Nobel Peace Prize. Japan annexed half the island of Sakhalin – S-a-k-h-a-l-i-n – on its northern border which has now been taken back by the Soviet Union, and won control over Russian concessions in China. In 1910, Japan annexed Korea, and in 1931, it seized Manchuria from China, establishing the puppet state of Manchukuo – by the way, Manchuria and Korea are separate, Manchuria used to have part of Korea, but they are two separate areas. Manchuria is now absorbed into China – establishing, as I said, the puppet state of Manchukuo – M-a-n-c-h-u-k-u-o – in Manchuria. Throughout the 1930s, Japan waged an undeclared war against China, seizing much of the Chinese coast, but never winning control over the interior, due to Mao Tse-Tung, who was beginning his revolutionary communist forces. In 1940, Japan joined the Axis alliance of Adolf Hitler, Nazi Germany, and fascist Italy’s Benito Mussolini. While Germany occupied France, Japan moved into French Indochina– Indochina, Southeast Asia. At its peak, the Japanese empire included the Philippines, the Dutch East Indies, Indochina, Malaya, Burma, Thailand as a collaborator – (Pause) Thailand was a collaborator – and a number of Pacific islands. In 1944, the USA, allied with England, Australia, and indigenous Asian liberation movements, began to drive the Japanese back. As a result of losing World War II, Japan lost all of its recently-acquired possessions, and kept only the home islands. (Pause)
What is the size of all those islands? 143,818 square miles, barely one-and-a-half times larger than Guyana. How many people are crowded on them? A hundred and twelve, 113 times of that Guyana. There’s 112 million people on that small number of islands. Of that, Japanese are 99.4 percent, Korean are less than a half percent, Chinese Ainu – A-i-n-u – and others are only one percent. Over 80 percent of the people of Japan are Buddhist, B-u-d-d-h-i-s-t. Over 80 percent are also Shintoist, a kind of a mixture of the– of the two – S-h-i-n-t-o-i–s-t – and most are both. Less than one percent are Christian. In spite of all the Western attempts after World War II, Christianity did not take hold. (Pause) The most Christian city was b– blown up in the atomic war. Nagasaki. So Christianity was discredited after World War II, and lost even more of its candidates.
Who rules?
Yes, American atomic bombs, [Harry S] Truman bombed the Christian city. That’s how little they won– the white Christians care about their Asian Christian brothers and sisters.
Who really rules? Japan is a constitutional monarchy – we’re better than half done – headed by Emperor Hirohito since 1926. Hirohito renounced his divinity by mandate to the US conquerors following World War II. Under the supervision of American occupation forces, the Japanese adopted their current constitution in 1947. Japan has a bicameral parliamentary form of government. The House of Representatives, the 491-member lower house of the Diet – D-i-e-t – has the power to overrule the 252-member House of Councillors.
Who really rules? Since it was formed from smaller parties in the mid-50s, the Liberal Democratic Party, LDP, has governed Japan. Changes of government have been the result of disputes within the party. Despite its name, the LDP is basically conservative, horribly monopoly capitalistic, and is the political voice of Japanese big business. Big monopoly businessmen openly dominate the government through the party and through a network of advisory boards from the lowest bureaucratic level to the top of the cabinet. And those big monopoly capitalists of Japan, as [Karl] Marx has predicted, are in contradiction with the white capitalists in USA and Europe, and those contradictions of capitalist fighting capitalist as it was an– indicated – World War II was capitalist fighting capitalist. They set up Hitler to kill off the communists in the Soviet Union, and it took the Soviet Union to wipe out Hitler’s capitalism, his high capitalism that went into fascism. And now we’re having a subtler form of war, trade war, between the capitalists of Europe, Asia and USA. The business community itself is dominated by Zaikai – Z-a-a– Z-a-i-k-a-i – a finan– financial capitalist elite that dominates both business and politics. The Zaikai work through the elite Sanken – S-a-n-k-e-n – Industrial Problem Study Council, and the broader Keidanren – T– K-e-i-d-a-n-r-e-n – Federation of Economic Organizations. The prime minister of the Zaikai is Kazutaka – K-a-z-u-t-a-k-a – Kikawada – K-i-k-a-w-a-d-a – the chairman of Sanken, and the Japanese Committee for Economic Development and the president of Tokyo Electrical Power, the world’s largest power company.
The Japanese tradition of loyalty goes beyond nation, emperor and family. It also includes employers. Japanese corporations maintain a paternal system of industrial relations. They provide (Pause) company dormitories for unmarried employees, and sometimes they provide housing projects for families. Workers at many companies sing company hymns in unison. They have a sense of capitalistic pride. Capitalists are clever. Grow Matsushita – M-a-t-s-u-s-h-i-t-a – grow, grow, grow, before beginning work each day. They sing songs of praise to the large Japanese corporations.
Women in Japanese culture have been traditionally subservient to men. Before World War II, women had no property rights. Most married Japanese women still call their husbands Shujin– S-h-u-j-i– j-i-n – that is, master, and young girls still attend bridal schools to learn wifely skills. Though traditionally Japanese marriages have been arranged by families, love matches now make up 60 per– 63 percent of all marriages, as things are changing, as we obviously see from the Red B– Red Army in Japan, which has been felt– It’s offered some of its uh, troops to ai– aid the Palestine Liberation Front. They’re everywhere. The Japanese army is very strong, the radical Red uh, Army is very strong – Red Guard – in China. I mean, in Japan.
In 1945, the Soviet Union, having defeated Nazi Germany, prepared to enter the Pacific War. Before the Soviets could commit many troops to the Asian theater, the USA had dropped atomic bombs on the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, destroying those cities and hastening Japanese surrender. Admittedly, Washington had dropped the atomic bombs that killed a third of a million people, just to keep the Soviets from getting in with their forces and humanely liberating Japan. That’s another admission of the horror of US capitalism. The atomic bombs essentially kept the Soviets out of Japan and established American capitalistic postwar militor– military superiority over the Soviet Union in that area. American troops occupied Japan following the war, not returning sovereignty until 1952. The peace treaty which established Japanese sovereignty did not call for the removal of American troops, however. Instead, the two governments negotiated a mutual security pact, known as AMPO – A-M-P-O – providing for US bases in Japan. So, Japan militarily in some respects is an extension of USA. (Struggles for words in next sentence) But instead of just asking if Japan has certainly gone its own capitalist road. Despite anti-AMPO demonstrations, the two governments renewed the treaty in 1960, and since 1970, they have agreed to let the 1960 treaty remain in force, though it’s protested all the time by Red Army and other socialist and communist elements. Under the terms of AMPO, the USA has had as many as 186,000 troops stationed on Japanese soil in 1953, at the conclusion of the Korean War. Today the USA has only 18,000 troops in Japan, not including however a large concentration of US armed forces on Okinawa – O-k-i-n-a-w-a.
Rapid industrial development in Japan’s small area has brought severe environmental problems, including air and water pollution, urban congestion, and housing shortages. They at times in Tokyo– people have to wear gas masks. That’s how bad it is. Unlike other nations, Japan’s environmental movement has been led by the poor. When, in the late 1950s, several people died from eating mercury-polluted fish by capitalist fish industry, 1500 fisherman invaded the polluting factory. Four people have led fights to halt industrial expansion. Even though Japan is just out of the monarchal, feudalistic stage, they have more [of] the working class willingness to fight the capitalist than you see in USA, at– there’s just no comparison. Poor people have led many fights to halt industrial expansion, and popular movements have opposed the use of nuclear energy. The Japanese at least remember Hiroshim– Hiroshima and Nagasaki. They have not forgot those two cities that were bombed to hell and destroyed, destroyed utterly by the dreaded, dreaded US imperialists.
The last point of news. The Luckhoo, our lawyer, Sir Lionel Luckhoo, who’s never lost a murder case, he’s our (unintelligible word) representative, our legal counsel, our lawyer, on matters of custody when people try to come in and take people back from here, he’s heading an– an inquiry commission for the government into sabotage and waste and misuse of public companies, such as the electrical company. He found that the electric plant damage– It’s been written off as not due to sabotage, but due to carelessness of the operator, though there’s strong suspicion that sabotage from the PPP had caused the main damage in the electrical power plant, that uh– exposure that occurred months ago. It’s even thought that CIA– (unintelligible word) that CIA may have funded PPP elements to do it. But it has been now decided that it was carelessness of the operator. But there was a similar damage, done uh, just exactly the same way a few years before. 250,000 dollars’ worth of damage was due to negligence. Low level of oil allowed in the engine at the time. In 1972, the exact same situation occurred, it was considered sabotage then.
Albion magistrate, man charged with setting fires to a factory, has been given a– time off uh, and time to res– make restitution. Guyana has a very humane approach to most people before its courts. School teacher in the adult education division charged with 15 counts of fraud, five counts each of forgery, collected from Guyana Cooperative Bank. On one occasion alone, a fraudulent check, payment of 2500 dollars, only received a fine by the court of 3000 dollars. The judge said, consider yourself lucky, because it would be difficult to send you to jail, because the defendant is pregnant, said the judge. He did not want to cause misery to an unborn child. It’s a humanitarian consciousness in Guyana that I can’t help but admire. You don’t see that kind of consciousness in USA. They send mothers to jail, and let the child be stigmatized. They’ve sent mothers to the electric chair. That’s been done.
So that give you a little understanding of the Guyanese culture.
In the end of the news, sorry went so long, but some may be more interested in Japan because of the Red Army, some may have more interest in Jamaica, but get all of it down, so you’ll be the most knowledgeable people on earth, and that will impress Guyana and help us in fitting in to this economy, culture, and so forth.
Much love.