Page 4-Tuesday, December 4, 1979-The Michigan Daily
HOSTAGES IN IRAN
Ninety Years of Editorial Freedom
Vol. LXXXXn ,7News Phone: 764.0552
Edited and managed by students at the University of Michigan
Crisis is a hoax to justify imperialism
By the Revolutionary Communist Youth Brigade
Zimbabwe Rhodesia settlement:
The people, will now decide
T HE DECADE OLD three-way war
for the future of Zimbabwe
Rhodesian has finally moved from the
countryside to the campaign trail, with
the beginning of the first free majority
rule elections in that nation's turbulent
history.
The move from open warfare to
modern-style electioneering to win the
hearts and minds of the people is a
dramatic and sudden turnabout for a
nation that some said would transfer to
true majority rule only through a,
violent overthrow of the existing racist
white regime. That the Popular Front
has agreed to trade bullets for the
ballot box is a testiment to the skillful
negotiating of Lord Carrington, the
British Foreign Minister, in arranging
a fair deal to both the Front and to the
white puppet Prime Minister Abel
Muzorewa.
So the Zimbabwe conflict has
reached a stage where only final cease
fire arrangements must be worked out
before the London agreement can be
called finalized and a success. But in
evidence that this peace plan has in-
deed already succeeded, the can-
didates are now campaigning for
votes, and appealing for support to the
entire population of Zimbabwe for the
first time in history.
This Zimbabwe settlement marks a
monumental stage inwthe struggle to
liberate southern Africa from its white
racist regimes. What could not be ac-
complished in Angola, or even so far in
Nambia, has succeeded in Zimbab-
we-that is, a negotiated settlement
and the institution of free elections.
The Zimbabwe settlement comes after-
years of guerilla warfare and a
casualty toll equal to that of any
modern war. Perhaps eventually even
staunch South Africa can take a lesson,
and spare themselves the devastation
that Zimbabwe went through. The
Zimbabwe peace settlement reached
in London then becomes vindication
for those who pressed for a negotiated
settlement over violent overthrow.
The future of Zimbabwe now rests in
the hands of the people of Zimbabwe,
and whatever government is elected
will be the government of the majority
of the people. The Carter ad-
ministration has indicated it will lift
economic sanctions against Zimbabwe
only when they British governor takes
authority. This move is more cautious
than those which would rush headlong
to life sanctions immediately, before
the machinery of British-supervised
free elections is firmly and irrever-
sably in place.
But coupled with optimism for the
country's future there must also be a
stern warning to South Africa, which
has threatened to disrupt Zimbabwe's
peace plan if their own particular
favorites are defeated in the elections.
Under the guise of protecting South
African security and northern trade
routes, the apartheid regime of Prime
Minister Botha has been making
menacing noises with talk if military
intervention.
The free elections are the first real
chance for peace and prosperity in
Zimbabwe since Ian Smith's
Unilateral Declaration of Independen-
ce (UDI) in 1965. South Africa or any
other nation which would intervene
and interfere now, on either side,
would be disrailing a process that has
come about after thousands of lives
have been lost and the economy
devastated. Any intervention
now-just as the country is coming to
grips with the possibility of real peace
through free elections-will be com-
demned worldwide as overt military
aggression which will be resisted for-
cefully from every civilized nation that
wants to see Zimbabwe succeed.
Zimbabwe has come too far now to
be set back on its path to majority rule,
peace, and prosperity. The process
must continue so Zimbabwe can be
free.
When it comes to hypocricsy, our rulers win
hands down. Around the situation in Iran,
you've got the news media and all the other
capitalost mouthpieces working overtime
putting out the line that poor, little America is
getting pushed around by all these third-rate
countries. "How are we ever gonna stay No. 1
if we allow ourselved to be kicked in the teeth
by all these midgets?" Pushed around& Well,
look who's talking? Can this be the same
United States of America that sent troops to
Vietnam, the Dominican Republic, and
Lebanon, that fomented coups in Chile,
Guatemala, and Iran (the latter resulting in
the death of 28,000 people)?
"Well, we might have done some nasty shit
in Iran, but that can't justify their taking over
our embassy-after all, it's a violation of in-
ternational law." But, as with human rights,
international law is something our rulers talk
about when it's convenient for them to talk
about it. They didn't show themselves to be
any great respecters of international law
when they put the Shah on the throne against
the will of the Iranian people and propped him
up there for 25 years, or when they overthrew
the popularly elected government of
Salvadore Allende and slaughtered 30,000
Chileans. International law is like the line "it
isn't nice to be violent" that they trot out
every time oppressed people rise up. They use
it to keep the struggles of the oppressed
within "acceptable" (and non-threatening)
channels, but it's a maxim they have no inten-
tion of living by themselves. We have to look
at who created international law. It was
created by the colonial powers of the West at
a time when they were turning the whole non-
Western world into one big slave plantation
with themselves as the slavemasters. Carter
is quite correct when he says that violation of
international law by the peopleof oppressed
nations is a threat to world order, because it's
precisely a world order based on a handful of
imperialistic countries exploiting the
majority of the world's people than the
Iranian people are going up against.
THE HEART OF the matter is that,'
hostages or no hostages, the U.S. imperialists
need to find a way to re-assert their control
over Iran. And all this furor over hostages
and the violation of international law is sim-
ply their way of preparing public opinion in
this country for military intervention to
restore the status quo. That's what sparked
this whole hostages thing in the first place. As.
was documented in Jack Anderson's column
in 11/19 Washington Post, and later confirmed
by William Sullivan, former CIA head and
ambassador to Iran, the U.S. government
knew full well that bringing the Shah into this
country would probably lead to the seizure of
the embassy and the taking of hostages. They
even went to the trouble of making sure that
the ambassador to Iran was out of the country
when they brought the Shah in. They wanted
to spark a confrontation because this would
force the more "moderate", pro-U.S. forces
in the Khomeini government (in league no
doubt with the Shah's people who still riddle
the state apparatus) to jump out and over-
throw Khomeini. In fact, one of the reasons
the Iranian students seized the embassy is
because they believed a coup attempt was
imminent, and they' have since found
documents that tend to confirm their
suspicions.
Iran has always been an extremely impor-
tant piece of meat for our rulers.
Strategically located near the jugular vein of
oil in the Persian Gulf, and sharing a 1500-
mile border with the Soviet Union, keeping
Iran "in the family" has always been high on
their priority list. Their original overthrow of
the slightly-left-leaning Mossadegh gover-
nment in 1953, and their assigning of two ex-
CIA chiefs to be U.S. ambassadors there, at-
test to this. That's why the Iranian students
recently warned that they were taking
precautions against possible efforts by the
CIA to themselves harm the hostages, thus
giving the U.S. the green light to invade.
Some people thought this was ludicrous, and
merely an" attempt to whip up paranoia
among the Iranian people. But it's quite,
within the realm of possibility. The U.S. im-
perialists will stop at nothing to prop up their
fading empire. In 1975, they got several
Marines killed in storming the Cambodian
island where the Mayaquez was being
held-despite the fact that arrangements had
already ben made for the release of the vessel"
and its srew-all in order to make a statement
to the world that they were still No. 1 in the af-
termath of their resounding defeat in In-
dochina. A ruling class that sent 50,000
Americans to their grave in Vietnam (not to
mention the nearly one million Indochinese
that were killed) for a country far less impor-
tant to their empire than Iran, that presided
over the murder, torture, and imprisonment
of hundreds of thousands of Iranians (even
providing the SAVAK with the training and
the torture devices), is certainly not going to
trifle over the lives of a few hostages in Iran.
Our rulers are counting on being able to
obliterate the lessons of the Vietnam Was and
use us as sucker-bait once again. But growing
numbers are awakening and are taking a
stand similar to that of the four Vietnam
veterans and one student who took over the
Selfridge Air Force Base Commander's office
last week: As they wrote in their
proclamation: "YOU THINK WE'RE ALL
WHOOPING IT UP TO BE USED AS YOUR
CANNON FODDER, TO DEFEND YOUR
OIL, TO PRESERVE YOUR PLUNDER, TO
DIE FOR YOUR TOP-DOG POSITION,
YOUR AMERIKA. MR. IMPERIALIST,
YOU ARE DEAD WRONG! WE, THE
VETERANS YOU USED LIKE SO MANY
EXPENDABLE BODIES TO DO YOUR
DIRTY WORK IN VIETNAM AND WHO
LEARNED TO SEE THE TRUE UGLINESS
OF YOUR SYSTEM OF
'DEMOCRACY'-WE'VE GOT NO EM-
BASSY TO DEFEND. WE, THE STUDENTS
WHO BURNED YOUR ROTC BUILDINGS
AND, ALONG WITH MILLIONS OF
OTHERS MARCHED AND DEMON-
STRATED IN THE SIXTIES AND EARLY
SEVENTIES-WE HAVE NO COUNTRY TO
DEFEND. NO! WITH YOU AND YOUR
PUPPET HANDFUL WHO LIVE BY
SUCKING OUT OUR SWEAT AND BLOOD,
WE, THE WORKING PEOPLE, HAVE
NOTHING IN COMMON BUT A BAT-
TLEGROUND. AND WE DO HAVE
BROTHERS AND SISTERS WHO ARE
FIGHTING WORLD-WIDE-ESPECIALLY
RIGHT NOW IN IRAN-TO SUPPORT AND
DEFEND. DESPITE YOUR FUTILE RAN-
TING AND RAVING, WE WILL NEVER
FORGIVE OR FORGET THE LESSONS OF
VIETNAM. MR. JMPERIALIST, YOU HAD
BETTER TAKE NOTE-THE BLOOD WILL
RUN TWO WAYS IF YOU DARE TO LIFT
ONE MILITARY FINGER AGAINST THE
IRANIAN PEOPLE!"
U.S.-Get your Bloody Hands Off Iran! No
Military Intervention. Send the Shah Back to
Face the Wrath of the Iranian People!
oJbe ihigan j~aIlg
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WiSH INGTON
WINDOW
By Syeve Gerstel
Counseling Congress on Iran
WASHINGTON - Every afternoon of late,
the chaffeur-driven black Cadillac wheels
Secretary of State Cyrus Vance from the
State Department to Capitol Hill.
The mission is important: To brief Senate
and House leaders and the Capitol's foreign
affairs experts on the situation in Iran. After
nearly three years of almost total non-
cooperation between the White House and
Congress, these two branches of the gover-
nment have finally adopted a temporary
truce.
But it took a situation as desperate as hold-
ing 50 American hostages in Iran to bring it
about.
Even then, the scenario developed slowly.
DURING THE FIRST several days after
the hostages were seized, the White House did
THE FIRST STOP is the "hideaway" of-
fice of House Speaker Thomas O'Neill on the
second floor of the Capitol. The time usually
is around 4 p.m.
Gathered in O'Neill's office are House
Democratic Leader Jim Wright of Texas and
House Republican Leader John Rhodes of
Arizona, their top deputies and the chairman
and ranking Republican on the House Foreign
Affairs Committee.
Vance briefs the House leaders about
developments in the past 24 hours, takes
questions, even accepts suggestions.
From O'Neill's lair, Vance moves to the of-
fice of Senate Democratic Leader Robert
Byrd.
Senate Republican leader Howard Baker
has been absent most of the time-off cam-
paigning for the Republican presidential
An exception was the unanimous passage in
the Senate and the House of a resolution
calling for release of the hostages, the unity of
Americans in demanding the freeing of the 50
persons and a strong suggestion that the
Security Council of the United Nations do all
that is necessary to end this crisis.
The resolution was only a non-binding ex-
pression of congressional sentiment.
1
BUT, FOR THOSE in Iran willing to listen
the message was clear: Congress and the
president-for a change-are on the same:
wave length.
The meetings may also have contributed t,
the lack of sniping at the way that President
Carter is handling the Iran crisis.
Members of Congressfrom leaders to the
lowliest freshman-have a tendency to hit
N"