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 EDITORIAL STAFF Sue Warner............................ EDITOR-IN-CHIEF Richard Berke. Julie Rovner......... MANAGING EDITORS Michael Arkush, Keith Richburg..... EDITORIAL DIRECTORS Brian Blanchard....................... UNIVERSITY EDITOR Judy Rakowsky................................CITY EDITOR Shelley Wolson......................PERSONNEL DIRECTOR Amy Saltzman..........................FEATURES EDITOR Leonard Bernstein.......................SPECIAL PROJECTS R.J. Smith, Eric Zorn..........................ARTS EDITORS Owen Gleiberman, Elizabeth Slowik..... MAGAZINE EDITORS STAFF WRITERS-Sara Anspach, Julie Brown, Richard Blan- chard, Mitch Cantor, Sefany Cooperman, Amy Diamond, Mari- anne Egri, Julie Engebrecht, Mary Faranski, Joyce Frieden, Greg Gallopulos; John Goyer, Patricia Hagen, Marion Halberg, Alison Hirschel, Steve Hook, Elisa Issacson, Paula Lashinsky, Marty Levine, Adrienne Lyons, Tom Mirga, Mark Parrent, Beth Bersky, Beth Rosenberg, William Thompson, Charles Thomsonr, Howard Witt, Jeff Wolff, Tim Yagie. BUSINESS STAFF LISA CULBERSON.......................... Business Manager ARLENE SARYAN......................!......Sales Manager BETH WARREN............................... Dislay Manager ROSEMARY WICKOWSKI................Operations Manager BETH BASSLER...........................Classified Manager STAN BERKMAN...............National Advertising Manager PETE PETERSEN...................Advertising Co-ordinator STAFF: Jenny Arnold, Judy Baker, Beth Bardwell, Patty Barron, Joseph Broda, Jamie Carmell, Ellen Cash, Kathleen Culver, Donna Drebin, Ellen Finegold, Barbara Forslund, Alissa Goldfaden, Leslie Graham, Laurel Groger, Sue Guszyn- ski, Gregg Haddad, Leslie Harris, Bonnie Iczkovitz, Margaret Jakaci, Susan Kling, Don Knudsen, Kris Koenig, Beth Lieber- man, Eileen May, Barbara McClain, Debra Papo, Kristina Peterson, Thomas Short, Linda Solomon, Nancy Stempel, Robert Thompson, Dan Woods, Maria Young, Joe Erhardt, and Sharon Scarnell. 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"