4 OPINION I Page 4 - Thursday, October 8, 1987 The Michigan Daily Edite aUtyfichigan Edited and managed by students at The University of Michigan PLO shut-down correct By I. Matthew Miller Vol. XCVIII, No. 21 420 Maynard St. Ann Arbor, MI 48109 Unsigned editorials represent a majority of the Daily's Editorial Board. All other cartoons, signed articles, and letters do not necessarily represent the opinion of the Daily. PLO 'S view suppressed THE U.S. STATE Departnent dealt a severe blow to the free speech rights of all Americans last month by closing down the Palestinian Liberation Organization's offices in Washington D.C. on the basis that the PLO is a "terrorist" group. The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) is justified in taking up the PLO's case. As if to outdo the executive branch, several senators are pro- posing legislation to curtail all PLO financed information in the United States and close down the PLO offices in New York's United Nations building. This effort to restrict the flow of information within the United States is a deplorable instance of the U.S. government's preventing opposing viewpoints from being heard. More importantly, however, the closing of the offices is denying U.S. citizens access to a source of information and news concerning Israel and its occupied territories from a perspective different from that of the U.S. government. The closing of the PLO offices is also a belligerent violation of First Amendment rights. The United States cannot regulate the right of U.S. citizens working for the PLO to express a political ideology. By attempting to do so, the U.S. government sets a dangerous prec- edent in regulating political rights of organizations with which the government disagrees. The U.S. government is not just concerned with ending the PLO's influence in the United States, but also in the United Nations. Mem- bers of Congress from all sides of the political spectrum are supporting legislation which seeks to prevent the PLO offices in New York's United Nations from functioning and prohibits PLO financed in- formation, i.e. radio ads, news- letters, from being disseminated in the United States. The justification for the PLO- phobic attitude is that the PLO is a "terrorist" group. The PLO has been involved in other parts of the world in many violent activities considered, but so have many other groups and countries - including Israel - whose advocacy groups are still at large in this country. While this does not excuse any "terrorist" actions, it does require that the PLO be given the same right to function here within the law. The clampdown on the PLO is a part of an ongoing purge against Arab-Americans. Earlier this year, several Palestinians were arrested in a rare use of the McCarran-Walter Act, a McCarthy era law which can deport non-citizens who propagate "the doctrines of world commu- nism." Arabs have lived in the West Bank under military law and with very limited forms of political expression. Now it seems their suppression is to follow them from the Israeli occupied territories to the United States. On September 15 of this year, the State Department announced that it had ordered the information office that speaks for the Palestinian Liberation Organization and other Palestinian groups in Washington to cease operations and liquidate its property within thirty days. According to the State Department, the office, officially known as the Palestine Information Office, can be legally closed under the authority of the President or the Secretary of State under the Foreign Missions Act since the office is funded directly by the P.L.O. State Department spokesman, Charles E. Redman, said it "demonstrates U.S. concern over terrorism committed and supported by organizations and individuals affiliated with the P.L.O." The actual reason for the State Department action stems from legislation sponsored by Representative Jack Kemp (R-New York) and Senator Charles E. Grassley (R-Iowa) that calls for the closing of both the Washington office and the P.L.O. observer mission at the United Nations. However, Mr. Redman said that the United States has no intention of closing the mission at the United Nations, at which the P.L.O. is not a member. A spokesman for Senator Grassley's office, Colin Davis, said that the bill is sponsored by fifty senators, including both Michigan senators, Carl Levin and Donald Riegle. The measure is presently in committee but may be introduced as an I. Matthew Miller is an Opinion page staff writer. amendment on a pending bill on the floor of the Senate. The United States is correct in finally taking a firm stand to try to eradicate terrorism. Though this action will not hinder the P.L.O. in any way, since it will most likely reorganize the office with American raised funds backing it, the United States is right to close an office distributing propaganda of a proven harm- ful organization. Some of the latest P.L.O. actioiRs that have warranted the State Department reaction include retaining on the P.L.O. 'As the only democratic stronghold in the most volatile region in the world, Israel's importance to the United States and her allies is immeasurable in terms of the security of the planet.' executive board Mohammed Abbas, who is accused of masterminding the 1985 hijacking of the Achille Lauro cruise ship where one American was killed; the participation of Syrian-backed groups said to have been involved in terrorism during the April meeting in Algiers of the Palestine National Council, which the P.L.O. considers as its national legi- slature; and reported contacts between the P.L.O. and the terrorist Abu Nidal. The United States must be commended for its unwavering support of Israel's sovereignty. Israel must be supported by all nations that consider themselves even remotely democratic. As the only demo- cratic stronghold in the most volatile region in the world, Israel's importance to the United States and her allies is immeasurable in terms of the security of this planet. It is a known fact that since the inde- pendence of Israel in 1948, independent Arab groups and the P.L.O. have tried repeatedly to use violent cowardly tactics, such as night raids on Israeli communes, car bombs on busy streets, and attacks on school buses, in an attempt to scare Israelis away from their country. The terrorism has extended outside the state of Israel. For instance: a car bomb placed in front of the Paris office of El Al airlines, a machine gun attack on the worshippers in an Istanbul synagogue, and the brutal massacre of the Israeli Olympic team at the 1972 Munich games. Are these the actions of civilized people using civilized diplomatic means to secure rights for their people? Do they deserve diplomatic recognition from the United States? Have they done anything positive for the good of the rest of the world? The answer to all of these questions is no. The closing of the Washington office, though superficially meaningless, is an affirmation of the rights of innocent people not to be killed just because they fly a certain airline or walk down a street. This world should not be a place where civilians fear for their lives on a daily basis, like they do in Israel. The P.L.O. has made a fine case for itself since its inception, proving that it does not deserve any respect from the world powers, nor does it deserve the land that is now Israel. Add to S. Africa sanctions Narrowing choices .The Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) has proposed new guide- lines prohibiting federally-funded clinics from informing pregnant women that they have the right to an abortion. This proposal seems like a last-ditch attempt by the President to please one of his most vocal constituencies, the Right-to-Life movement, before he leaves office. Under current regulations, the clinics present a woman with her three options: having the baby and keeping it, having the baby and giving it up for adoption, or terminating her pregnancy. None of these is recommended over the other options. Already the Hyde amendment prohibits funding abortions with federal monies. Federally funded clinics are required to keep any abortion activity distinctly* separate from its federally-funded pursuits. If one were to censor how a clinic's staff may advise a woman, this would clearly violate the staff members' First Amendment right to free speech. It is wrong to prevent the clinicians from advising a woman of her legal rights. Additionally, the new regulations in- fringe upon women's ability to exercise their right to obtain an abortion. Wheras middle-class and wealthy women usually have access to abortion information through their personal physicians, the women who use federally funded clinics the most - lower-income women and students - do not have other forms of information available to them. Many of them become pregnant in the first place because they do not have the proper information about contraception. These women will have their choices about their pregnancies, and their lives, narrowed through cutting off of this information. This move by the HHS is clearly designed to curry favor with the Ne w Right at the expense of free speech and the ability of lower income women to exercise their constitutionally guaranteed rights. By Pam Nadasen Thi4 is the first of a two-part series. I feel its necessary to respond to the opinion in the Daily, "South Africa Sanctions Fail," (Daily, 10/1/87) which is a very superficial analysis of the situation in Southern Africa. At a point in time in which the struggle is escalating and Black South Africans are sacrificing their jobs, their well-being, their families and more often their lives, an analysis such as Sean Jackson's is a barrier in the dismantling of the apartheid system. This system is one based on a need for a large, cheap supply of labor for farms, mines and industry. The Bantustans -- 13% of the least productive land desigiated for the Black South Africans who total 87% of the population -- is a chief source of this labor supply because it contains the unemployed as well as the sick, elderly, and other "superfluous appen- dages" (to use a phrase- of the Pretoria government). The Bantustans are a creation of the S. African government to disenfranchise Blacks, but at the same time to maintain the supply of labor. Clearly, from the miner's strike this past summer there is a large reserve of Black labor available to the white industrialists. The South African economy was built on Black labor and as Jackson correctly claims the economy is "the strongest on the continent." But the reason for this strength is the economic exploitation of the majority, which Jackson completely fails to address. Pam Nadasen is a member of the Free South Africa Coordinating Committee. Withan understanding of the economic basis of apartheid, sanctions are not just "an easy way out for an America that does not want to grapple with the frustrations and complexities of South Africa and would rather take a moral stand." The issue of apartheid is a moral issue as well as a political and economic issue. I would like to reinforce the need for us to take a moral stand, as the University did last spring in honoring Nelson Mandela. As a native South African I understand the importance of showing our solidarity with the struggle for freedom in Southern Africa. But we need to do more than that. We need to severe all political and economic ties with the white South African regime. Sanctions are important morally, but we must look beyond just the moral implications of sanctions. Understand- ably, the limited sanctions imposed by the U.S. government last year did not force the Botha regime to reform its inhumane policies. We cannot expect to have an effect on the Pretoria regime when we are selectiye in penalizing them. Compre- hensive, mandatory sanctions are necessary in order to effectively pressure the regime into making any fundamental change. The Congress of South African Trade Unions (COSATU) declared in July 1987, "That selective sanctions packages as currently applied will not be effective." "COSATU supports comprehensive and mandatory sanctions as the only sanctions which are likely to bring effective pressure which will assist in bringing about a non- violent, truly democratic and non-racial South Africa." Presently the sanctions package includes a ban on importing uranium, steel, iron and oil, prohibiting loans by -U.S. banks to the S. A. government, prohibition of landing rights for S. A. Airways, and a prohibition of cooperation with S. African armed forces. But we are still buying diamonds from S. A. Mobil and Shell refine crude oil and are selling it to the police and military. IBM, although officially "pulled out" still provides products and :technology to the secret police, who have detained and tortured hundreds of youth under the State of Emergency. Current economic ties aside, Jackson claims that the whole strategy behind sanctions was to spur the S. African regime to action now. Neither I, nor any other ardent supporter of sanctions I know, expected the regime to react immediately. A policy of systematic racism and oppression that began over three hundred years ago cannot be destroyed in one year with the limited sanctions that the U.S. has enacted. The apartheid policy is deeply rooted within the system--socially, culturally, politically, and economically. It will take more than such a half-hearted attempt to challenge the apartheid system. As for Jackson's proposal of using our leverage within the South African government to influence change, he obviously has no understanding of the history of U. S. influence in South Africa. The U.S. government and corporations have had the opportunity to "use their leverage" since as early as the 1790s. But the only result of U.S. involvement in South Africa has been increased brutality and an increase of the fascist policies of the ruling National Party. To be continued tomorrow. LETTERS: Daily coverage supported defendant Chassy TO CONOS LANG.AGE 1+1v sins) KLLL SUP~ iEMN To the Daily: I am writing to clear up some points that John Lowrie made in his letter to the editor ("Cover both sides of trial," Daily, 9/25/87). Lowrie con- tends that the Daily displayed biased reporting on the sexual assault trial since it only reported on the days that the prosecution made its case. Had Lowrie read the articles with any analysis, he would have seen that the Daily's coverage was indeed biased, but biased in testimony", as if she were blubbering through a bunch of facts. These are only two examples of the Daily's ir- responsible coverage. A more informative and fair approach (which the Daily should still do at this late date) would be to report on the historical context of rape trials. For example, instead of focusing on (and, hence endorsing) the strategies that the defense is using, like calling up the alleged victim's that the Daily is "an anti-Greek periodical." If the articles were biased toward the alleged victim, as he wrongly con- tends, why would they be anti- Greek? Isn't the alleged victim also Greek? If such a bias were anti-anything it would be anti- rape. There are serious impli- cations for this campus if being anti-rape is being anti- Greek. The fraternities should quit blindly defending their brothers and use this op- portunity to do some internal education around acquaintance rape. -David Fletcher September 28 ..... ::::.?"}::sss':.:v::. ..""...""...""..::".")"".t S .....".." """l1 :'\1"1 ".: .."}:}Y.:.V }::{:": ..:tiilti.....:::":':". .~'.. ". :. .. . : -: ... % .~..... .1.. . . ..' '':: f' .: ::::::: :."::"}: ".:. ." .111 .. STV. ... .S Y .1:":.; .: ;'i". A