4 OPINION Page 4 Tuesday, September 17, 1985 The Michigan Daily -- --- --- -- - te mant an tM g Edited and managed by students at The University of Michigan A message to South Africa 4 Vol. XCVI, No.9 420 Maynard St. Ann Arbor, MI 48109 Editorials represent a majority opinion of the Daily's Editorial Board Decade of achievement? T HE UNITED Nations Inter- national Decade for Women drew to a close this summer as women from all over the world converged in Nairobi, Kenya to at- tend a final conference. The women met their peers who had provided long distance support and inspiration in the international efforts to organize activities designed to educate and empower women. Certainly there must have been a sense of excitement and ac- complishment. But what did the decade achieve? In the least developed nations of the world, illiterate women still out-number illiterate men by a 3-2 ratio. And according to the United Naitons, women per- form two-thirds of the world's work, earn only one-tenth of the world's income, and own less than one-one hundredth of the property. These are only a sample of the sobering statistics which illustrate the health, educational and professional barriers which con- tinue to plague women in both less developed countries and developed countries. American feminist Bet- ty Freidan describes the advances for women in the past ten years as a frustrating dance: "Three steps forward, two steps back." For- tunately, the "one step forward" has had an invaluable impact. Of the 121 governments respon- ding to the UN's questionnaire distributed at the close of the decade, the following facts were compiled; .71 percent of all girls in the 121 nations attend primary school today, up from 64 percent in 1975. *45 percent of all births were at- tended by trained health care professionals and one fourth of the married women in the developing world now use modern methods of contraception. *Women and men have equal political rights in all but three of the countries. 90 percent of the responding governments have set up national bodies for the advan- cement of women. 65 percent of the countries have ratified the United Nations treaty calling for the elimination of discrimination against women. Indeed, women in the developed countries have gained the right to birth control, to abortion and to vote. Women are infiltrating the historically exclusively male cir- cles of power as never before. But these are primarily white, western "victories" - advances for the female elite, while their sisters in Africa, India and Eastern Europe continue to suffer inconscienable violations of human rights. Perhaps most important is what feminists hail as the international raising of consciousness regarding women's issues. Perhaps all of the goals set have not been met, but an awareness has been created. And not just in the far flung corners of the map. After the appearance of Dr. Helen Caldicott as the keynote speaker marking the close of the University's Decade for Women, over 100 members of the local community have become active in forming a local chapter of Caldicott's Women's Action for Nuclear Disarmament, a national coalition calling for disarmament and world peace. Certainly the collective and respective goals of all the world's women remain distant dreams, but it is encouraging to be "one step" closer. By Jonathan Corn and Walter White The nation of South Africa is a segregated country whose all-white government of- ficially practices racism. Demographically speaking, South Africa is extremely unbalan- ced. Its population is over 90 percent black, yet they go unrepresented in the white gover- nment. For Americans this should be somewhat unsettling because the U.S. gover- nment, until last week, went along with it. The United States, the land of the free, where all men were created equal, and the origin of many other sayings of equality ignored P.W. Botha's racist regime called Aparthied. The United States, which has gone to war to preserve the freedoms of many other peoples such as the South Vietnamese, the "freedom fighters of Nicaragua, and U.S. medical student on Grenada, is uniquely responsible to aid all peoples in their search for freedom. The black majority in South Africa has needed that aid for many years, but the U.S. has remained completely insensitive to them. It is not the fact that the U.S. government has opted to ignore the oppressed masses which is frustrating. It is the fact that they have cooperated fully with Botha's racist gover- nment. The Reagan Administration has refrained from taking action in the past under the guise of protecting American big business. Not only does this policy lack a moral basis, it also lacks logic. It has been argued that any sort of restric- tive measures taken against South Africa in the form of economic sanctions or a forced Corn and Winters are seniors in LSA. They are regular contributors to the Daily's opinion page. disinvestment will hurt only the big cor- porations such as Ford, GM, and IBM. Yet, it would only seem to make sense to say that these corporate monsters stand to gain the most if the tens of millions of blacks who currently lie imprisoned in poverty were allowed to climb the socioeconomic ladder. Presently, the companies compete for the business of the three-hundred thousand some odd whites while the majority of their poten- tial market is too poor to buy anything. However, U.S. policy just took one step in the right direction. After being dragged over the coals by Congress, Reagan finally agreed to impose several economic sanctions designed to punish the whites of South Africa. They include a ban on computer sales, nuclear technology, certain types of bank loans and a look into a ban on the Kruggerand, South Africa's official gold coin. Can these sanctions force a national reform? The answer is no. These particular santions will not force them to change an institution. They will not even hurt their economy. The sanctions are too easy to get around. If the U.S. won't sell computers then they will just shop elsewhere. Moreover, many argue that Kruggerands would still flow into the U.S. despite san- ctions. It has been said that "banning the sale of Kruggerands in this country is not going to do anything meaningful toward improving the lot of the South African blacks." In ad- dition, it is argued that sanctions can hurt those in South Africa who they are ultimately trying to help. In other words, by forcing the Ford Motor Company to pull out, the South African black worker is going to be out of a job. Unfortunately, these sanctions amount to nothing more than a big political statement; a nod of U.S. disapproval. Of course, this nod carries some weight, but it is certainly not enough. If you were, say, a bartender and you saw a small guy with an open shirt and a lot of gold chains harassing a young lady, you wouldn't simply shake your head from across the bar to make him stop. You would grab him by his gold and choke some sense into him. That is exactly what the U.S. should be doing to Pretoria. The important thing to remember about economic sanctions is that they can be used as an instrument to signify U.S. disapproval to the government of South Africa. In this con- text, the sanctions do serve their purpose. Putting economic pressure on Pretoria should continue if for no other reason than to show that the United States is against Apartheid. Sanctions are a sensitive issue to a sensitive problem. However, at this point it can be said that they are going to serve their purpose. That purpose being to send a clear message to Botha's government: halt this national policy or face severing ties with the U.S. The entire world is focusing a keen eye on South Africa and many are beginning to realize very quickly that Apartheid is an ab- surd and inhumane national policy. When South African Prime Minister P.W. Botha looks into the future he must realize that nothing lasts forever. The Union of South Africa is no exception. How this homogenously-white government has lasted so long is in itself an anamoly. In 1985 it almost seems impossible for a white gover- nment to rule a country which is over 90 per- cent black. In the past, it worked. Resistance was squelched through quiet, but iron-fisted suppression that went unnoticed by other countries. The present, however, is bloody with domestic violence. This violence, combined with continued U.S. pressure, could bring change to the country's institutionalized racist policies and with it freedom and equality to the majority of the country. Chassy cAan~, c~mff NEWS/5ITEM. EDkfZN MEESI 3S4THAliNKAWRAV WAS SECQE A"COINTRYCWS" gR TIRRORI5TS FROM AROUND THE \4091,I0 LETTERS Price of the press REGULAR READERS of the New York Times editorial pages may have noticed something missing the last month. Pulitzer prize winning columnist Sidney Schanberg no longer appears in the paper. Schanberg, who authored the twice-weekly metro column tly came to a higher degree of national prominence when his ex- periences as a journalist in Cam- bodia were documented in the movie The Killing Fields, which was nominated for an Academy Award. If Schanberg were being dismissed for incompetence or un- popularity it would be one matter, but his column was continually regarded as top-notch journalism and in the first week following his column's cancellation hundreds of readers complained to the Times. Although the Times has yet to formally announce its reasons for doing away with the column, most observers suspect that the decision came about because Schanberg criticized the Times for its limited coverage of the Westway highway construction project and cited in- justices in civic developments which purportedly involved friends of top Times editors. The column's cancellation is distressing not merely because it deprives the public of a fine jour- nalist, but because it graphically underscores the limits of the American "free press." The first amendment in the Bill of Rights guarantees each citizen that the government will not restrict his right to print whatever he feels. That freedom is meaningless to nearly everybody in the country, however, because only those who can afford to purchase or contract with expensive printing firms have the de facto right to publish their opinions. Free press is not free, on the con- trary, it has a very high price. The New York Times is surely one of the finest newspapers in the country, and if it has acted to quell public discussion, then it is frightening to think what papers less recognized for integrity might do to protect their interests. In the mean time, New York has lost a valuable voice in its city politics, and the rest of the country has a disturbing example of the tenuousness of its "freedom of the Press." Daily overlooked Salvadoran facts To the Editor: I was extremely disappointed by the editorial on El Salvador that appeared in Monday's paper. (Kidnapped!, Daily, Sept. 16) It displayed a tremendous degree of ignorance concerning the situation there. The central theme is the tired cliche about "(good President Duarte" caught betweenthe extremes of the left and right. This story has been sufficiently discredited by recent history that one would hope that even the Daily wouldn't repeat it. Quickly reviewing some of this history, we can begin with Duar- te's return to prominence in 1980. After being in exile for several years Duarte became the central figure in a civilian-military junta after all the other significant political figures had resigned. They had resigned because they claimed the junta was powerless to control the military. At this time the death squads were maintained a system of lan- dholding in which the vast majority of the land is held by a tiny segment of the population (a land reform program put for- ward in 1980 was stopped in its early stages, and has since been partially retracted). The largest segment of El Salvador's population continues to be a lan- dless and impoverished peasan- try. This is the root cause of the violence in El Salvador and Duarte has done nothing to redress it. While death squad killings did fall off, this was largely because the potential victims like labor organizers fled or ceased to act in the open. As the labor movement has become revitalized in the last several months, death squad ac- tivity has picked up as well. It is worth noting that throughout Duarte's period in power not a single death squad member has been prosecuted for the killing of a Salvadoran. Also overlooked in your editorial is the massive bombing campaign being carried on by Duarte's regime. These bom- bings, the largest in the history of the Western Hemisphere, have according to America's Watch, been deliberately directed at the civilian population in areas under rebel control. The bombings together with the death squads have produced over one million refugees, nearly a quarter of El Salvador's population. While no one would justify every action carried out by the guerrillas, their human rights abuses bear no comparison to the 50,000 death squad killings or the massive bombing of civilian targets by the government. An attack like the one that killed four U.S. marines earlier this summer may provoke anger here, but it is the sort of action that can be ex- pected, given the U.S. military's involvement with every aspect of the war. The U.S. military not only trains and supplies El Salvador's armed forces, but it has also directed battles, coor- dinated bombing strikes, and in such circumstances we can't ex- pect that our military personnel will be immune from attack. If there is to be a peaceful set- tlement in El Salvador it must be brought about through negotiations, which the guerrillas have consistently supported and Duarte has backed away from. Continued support for Duarte can only mean more death squad killings and more bombings as the government tries to enforce a solution that preserves the status quo. A status quo that the people of El Salvador are resolved to overturn. -Dean Baker September 16 S.... . . ... . *.'.?t?. .v+..:. . .:. . ... . *..::} .w: .i;?""? .:. w::; :: ..... . ....... .:..4$ . * .*. r. .*. .. .":; ...*.*. :'.*. . .v. .. ?:J:? . v*.~ . . . ".. . ... ..y. . v ::::,.,::: " :.::v ::.::.:::. .........".. ......":...r... .}:. . la? w%" A A ? T UUT