OPINION Page 4 Wednesday, November 23, 1988 The Michigan Daily 6 Edited and managed by students at The University of Michigan Say 'N'to the Sandinstas Vol. IC, No.55 420 Maynard St. Ann Arbor, Ml 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. Moves toward pe aCe T HE PALESTINIAN National Council, the official governing body of the Palestine Liberation Organization, took a major step towards achieving a peaceful settlement with Israel last week. It declared the existence of an independent Palestinian state and ac- cepted U.N. resolutions 242 and 338 which implicitly recognize Israel. The PNC also renounced all forms of ter- rorism. - In passing these resolutions, the PNC made a major concession to the United States and Israel: these steps were the U.S. government's precondi- tions for entering into negotiations with the PLO. Thiswasnotan esy tepfor the PLO towtake.otTen ofasthousands of Palestinians have ben beaten, tortured, imprisoned, or kiled by th Idsraeli government using U.S. aid ndarms. Neither Israel nor the Unie States have ever given any indica eti ofa willingness to recognize th aetn- ans right to self-determination, with the United States explicitly opposing it. For many Palestinians, miaking such a conciliatory gesture at a time when there is so little hope of reciprocity seemed a pointless exercise in sub- servience - one that would only weaken the will of the Palestinian pei- ple. This was the view of George Habash, the leader of one of the major factions of the PLO. To Habash's credit, and that of others who shared his view, he agreed to concur with the PNC's resolutions after stating his rea- sons for opposition. This opened the door for Arafat and the PLO leadership to enter negotiations based on the PNC 's resolutions. The responses of Israel and the United States prove Habash and other skeptics correct. Israel's foreign minis- ter, Shimon Peres, mocked the declaration of an independent state, pointing out that Israel continued to control the West Bank and Gaza. Peres also refused to acknowledge that the formal acceptance of U.N. resolutions 242 and 338 was at all meaningful. The U.S. state department was equally quick to dismiss the PLO's gesture, adding the bizarre criticism that the PLO's declaration of a Palestinian state was a unilateral action and that the United States is opposed to unilateral actions, preferring instead negotiated agreements. This ignores the fact that it is Israel and the United States who refuse to negotiate. If little else comes of the PNC's res- olutions, they should at least demon- strate uabigoul that it is the United States and Israel that pose the major obstacles to a peaceful settlement to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. It has almost universally been recognized for many years that the PLO represents the overwhelming majority of the Pales- tinian people. Although the PLO has officially recognized Israel, renounced terrorism, and met the preconditions imposed by the United States for nego- tiations, the United States and Israel still refuse to negotiate with the PLO as the representadve of the Palestinian people. By Manuel Olave and Josh Shackman Not surprisingly The Daily goes to an- other extreme in its role as an apologist for the ruling Marxist-Leninst Sandinistas of Nicaragua. Their recent editorial "No Yankee Aid" (Daily 10/14/88) is yet an- other uninformed and extremely biased view of the current events in Nicaragua, typical of the naive idealists whom San- dinista secret-police chief Tomas Borge has called los tontos utiles, "the useful fools." First of all, The Daily defends the deci- sion of President Daniel Ortega not to al- low any U.S. aid to come into Nicaragua. Even though much of this aid goes to the Catholic Church of Nicaragua for humanitarian and medical purposes, The Daily opposes this on the grounds that the Catholic Church is "conservative and counter-revolutionary." If they knew their history of the Nicaraguan revolution, they would realize that soon after Obando y Bravo became Archbishop, the Catholic Church condemned the right-wing gov- ernment of Somoza in 1970. As for Bishop Pablo Antonio Vega, who is also criticized in the editorial, he helped to or- ganize the poor in the urban area and was called the "red bishop" by Somoza. Are these the actions of a "conservative and counter-revolutionary?" No, those terms are only used against those who oppose left-wing dictatorships, which the Catholic Church of Nicaragua is now doing. Next, The Daily says the Sandinistas are justified in not allowing U.S. money to reach the opposition parties involved in Nicaragua (most of which were also ac- tively involved in the overthrow of So- moza) on the grounds that "the United States has no business involving itself in the affairs of a sovereign nation." What The Daily really means is that the U.S. Manuel Olave and Josh Shackman are mnembers of the Coalition for Democracy in Latin America. shoulu remain uninvolved only in the in- ternal affairs of left-wing totalitarian gov- ernments. The Daily then goes to an even further extreme, saying that the U.S. should give unconditional aid to the Sandinistas on the grounds that it is a democracy and provides many social programs. They forget to mention that these social programs are given only to supporters of the FSLN, which is hardly democratic; and even Daniel Ortega has disputed The Daily's claim that his country is a democracy, ad- mitting that even if it lost an election, his party would still not give up the power (this in sharp contrast to El Salvador, where the ruling party recently lost a number of seats in the Legislative That same month Daniel Ortega gave a speech saying that he would only allow "political pluralism within the constitu- tional and institutional framework, not to defy the government, not to defy people's power, but to work with the government." Of course, by "government" Ortega means the FSLN. By "people" he means people who support the FSLN. Since neither a renewal of contra aid, or that matter a U.S. invasion, is a realistic possibility, the Sandinistas have nothing to fear. So instead of closing, they should be opening up the political space. But, of course, they have no intention of doing this, nor of course, would The Daily like them to. In fact, the Sandinistas have ar- rested many peasants suspected of 'Since neither a renewal of contra aid, or that matter a U.S. invasion, is a realistic possibility, the Sandinistas have nothing to fear.' Assembly and has indeed lost a great deal of power). In yet another showing of hypocrisy and ignorance, The Daily condemns the U.S. for giving military aid to the contras who have killed "hundreds of children and other civilians." Since military aid to the contras has been cut off for almost a year, the only "landmines and machine guns" coming into Nicaragua are being sent by the So- viet Union to the Sandinistas (14,300 tons or $900 million in the first nine months of this year). Nicaragua has not gotten any more democratic since aid was cut off to the contras. As matter of fact, repression of opposition parties, radio stations, and the only opposition paper has increased and Daniel Ortega recently increased and con- solidated his power. In July of this year, an opinion poll re- leased with quite embarrassment by the Sandinista-controlled University of Central America found that only 28.3 percent of the respondents supported the Sandinistas. collaborating with the contras and forced other peasants to relocate to militarized "cooperatives." * Participation in the Sandinista Defense Committees has dropped so much that most of the duties of these "neighborhood watch" groups (controlling food ration cards, delivering draft summonses, collecting intelligence for the government) have been shifted to the Interior Ministry (i.e. secret police) for more deadly effi- ciency. In a similar move, Ortega recently announced that the Ministry of Justice would be closed and its duties assumed by the Interior (Chief Justice Borge?), elimi- nating even the pretense of judicial inde- pendence. Thus, while the Coalition for Democ- racy in Latin America (CDLA) opposes giving 'direct aid to the Marxist-Leninist Sandinistas because it will only go to help the people who support the Sandinistas and used against those who don't, we do think it is of important human conse- quence to send aid. Especially, now be- cause of the recent hurricane, Nicaragua does need aid to be used for humanitarian and medical purposes. a 6 r Letters to the editor ~ Media bias on Mideast T HE U.S. MEDIA'S response to the Palestine National Council's recent resolutions provides a striking illustra- tion of U.S. media bias. While it may be clear to the whole world that the U.S. and Israel are the real rejectionists when it comes to a peaceful resolution of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, this fact is likely to be hidden from the public through the eager propagandiz- ing of the U.S. media. The New York Times provides one prominent example. The day after the PNC resolutions in Algers, it printed an editorial denouncing the step as be- ing of no real significance, and called *on the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) to make further statements recognizing Israel and renouncing terrorism. Even worse was its news coverage, where it explained in a front page news (not news analysis) article that the PLO leaders must have recognized that these resolutions would not meet the United States' pre-conditions for entering into negotiations. The whole thesis of the article was that the PLO had made no real conces- sions and that there was no way that the United States or Israel could enter into negotiations based on its resolu- tions. In short it was almost identical to the line the state department was taking or what the Israeli foreign min- ister was sending out under the guise of' "damage control." The media in this country have worked hard and effectively to con- vince the public that Palestinians and their representatives, the PLO, are ter- rorists, irretrievably committed to the destruction of the state of Israel. They have suppressed every indication that the PLO was willing to accept the exis- tence of Israel, including many explicit statements from Arafat, which they have faithfully ignored. Even the issue of terrorism has been conveniently twisted so that any act of resistance by Palestinians against Israeli occupation is labelled terrorist, while no amount of violence inflicted by Israel against by Israel against Palestinian civilians is ever deemed "terrorist." According to some accounts even the rocks thrown by Palestinian boys at heavily armed Israeli soldiers passing through their villages constitute terror- ism. While the deliberate targeting of civilians for violent assaults in order to intimidate a larger population can be labelled a reprehensible act of terrorism, striking out at a military target does not fit the bill. It would be a remarkable victory for the principle of a free press if '"terrorist" came to be used in accordance with its definition and not as an adjective obligingly associated with organizations and governments that act against U.S. Bus s To the Daily: On November 14, a self- proclaimed "pro-Israel activist" group built on the Diag a ply- wood structure, painted to look like a school bus. The phrases "Israeli Public Schools" and "STOP ARAB TERRORISM" were written on the side of the bus. Painted on the front are the names of four Israelis killed when a bus was attacked in the occupied territories. "S TOP AR AB TERROR- ISM" is a blatantly racist statement. If supporters of the South African government wrote "STOP BLACK TER- RORISM" the phrase would be quickly and angrily rejected, for two reasons. The first is that an entire ethnic or racial group has been slandered. The second is that the political and mili- tary reality is so obviously the reverse of the statement. If the bus is intended to be a monument to victims of terrorist attacks, then it should bear the names of the 430 Palestinian children, women,' and men who have been killed in their homes, cities, and vil- lages in past eleven months by the Israeli military. If the bus was not meant as a slander of 160 million Arabs, it should not have identified terrorism as an Arab action, but should have been specific in reference. I would like to point out three things. First, before an attack in which several boards were removed, the Palestinian shanty said "STOP ISRAELI OPPRESSION," a reference to official Israeli policies of beat- ings, killings, house demoli- tions, deportations, arbitrary arrests, and torture. The shanty did not read "STOP ISRAELI TERRORISM," as the Daily mistakenly reported. Second, the bus was erected at the same time that the P.L.O. recognized Israel and extended a hand for negotiations, only to be re- jected yet again by Israel and the United States. Third, Israel has bombed the neighboring Arab capitals of Amman, Baghdad, Beirut, Cairo, and Damascus and it regularly in- vades its neighbors' airspace, while Tel Aviv remains un- scathed. Did the Lebanese in- vade Israel in 1978 and 1982, and then refuse to pull out? Who attacks whom? The Arab states support the P.L.O.'s initiative for a negotiated settlement. The re- gion has lost enough blood, enough martyrs. We Americans must call upon our government to live up to its stated prefer- ence for negotiations. Addi- tionally, the University of Michigan community must re- ject racist attacks on Arabs and any other ethnic or racial group, and act against racism wherever it occurs. -Hilary Shadroui November 22 the recent terrorist bombing of a bus in Israel where a woman and three children died, Tagar erected a wooden school bus on the Diag last Monday, November 14. On the windshield, Tagar painted the manes and ages of the woman and three children killed and depicted a fire. The political slogan originally painted across the bottom of the bus said "Stop Arab Terrorism Come To The Peace Table." Several students found the above phrase offensive because they felt that it implied that "All Arabs Are Terrorists." Tagar in no way meant our political message to be construed as an ethnic slur. We are sorry that we offended any members of the University community. Through the wooden bus, Tagar' sought to communicate facts about the bombing in Israel and ,to urge an end to violence by peaceful negotiation. Our purpose as a student group on campus is to disseminate information and to promote awareness regarding issues affecting Israel. We do not aim to denigrate the ethnicity of our fellow students. Members of Tagar who are of the Jewish faith have a special appreciation for the true evils of racism; Tagar had no intention of appearing to further this evil. After learning that students found this mess age offensive w e immediately changed our message to "Stop All Terrorism Come To The Peace Table." Please accept our apologies. '-Keith Hope Laura Cibul November 21 Fight UMASC has every right to beq angered and insulted. I feel, however, your actions thus far, are not in our best interests as "minorities," in our fight to end racism. First, the remark was made by an individual unaffiliated with the Kappa Sigma frater- nity or even the University. It would be a different story had the racist remark come from a4 fraternity member, but this was not the case. I do not see how any other actions on their part could have mitigated the insult to the Asian students. The one at fault is not Kappa Sigma, but that one man who unfortunately cannot now be held accountable. Kappa Sigma, perhaps unintention- ally, has been made out to be racist. I do not see how the November 21st march to the Kappa Sigma house has any relation to obtaining redress for that one man's actions. Kappa Sigma undoubtedly made some mistakes in han- dling the situation and should have perhaps been more coop- erative, but the blame they rightfully deserve has been to- tally blown out of proportion. Racism is not going to end through promotion of hatred against supposed racists, as I feel has been done to Kappa Sigma. The solution is through mutual learning and understanding, and the promo- tion of good, not bad feelings toward one another. UMASC stated that at the present time, "no further op- tion is available for redress." Redress is indeed important, but is not understanding and working towards ending racism even more important? SIf Kappa Sigma is indeed sincere in itsassertions thit WE CMftmrT~Is It WPL$A - oKE~4iDW t4EGor0reD p~cri'