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$110,000 Teen Grant Cut By City Council: O.C.L.C. VOWS CONTINUED COMMUNITY SERVICE

(Oakland, Calif.) - Responding to the Oakland City Council cut off two weeks ago of a $110,000 grant for youth services at the Oakland Community Learning Center (OCLC), the EOC Service Corporation -- which has administered the popular teen program for over three years -- has pledged to continue the vitally needed programs, declaring that "they fill a void that cannot be filled by city agencies or governmental commissions."

In a press statement released on March 30, two days after the City Council's vote, the EOC Service Corporation noted that it was the first of five city agencies funded by the Alameda County Criminal Justice Planning Board (ACCJPB) to provide teen services to begin operations, on June 8, 1977, and, indeed, had been functioning since September, 1974, "with little other than community interest, need and enthusiasm."

All eight City Council members voted to terminate the grant, of which only $43,585 had been received as of last October when a city audit of the program suspended funding.

Mayor Lionel Wilson abstained from voting on the grounds of conflict of interest. He once served on the administrative board of Educational Opportunities Corporation, the non-profit group which operates the model elementary level Oakland Community School, which is also located in the OCLC at 6118 East 14th Street.

The teen program was originally initiated at the OCLC, which was founded in the fall of 1974 by the Black Panther Party, at the request of concerned parents. At that time, the East

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Oakland area had no recreational centers for the predominantly Black youth of the high crime area, and parents expressed the need for such a place.

Today, the OCLC still provides the only program for teens in East Oakland, serving over 300 weekly with a wide variety of educational, cultural and vocational activities.

The following is the text of the statement issued by EOC Service Corporation:

"EOC Service Corporation, one of two non-profit agencies operating from the Oakland Community Learning Center, initiated a teen program (and services) in September, 1974, with little other than community interest, need and enthusiasm. It was not until three years later that funding for this particular program was obtained, when a grant was approved through the Alameda Criminal Justice Planning Board (ACJPB) contracting with EOC Service Corporation to provide teen services.

YOUTH SERVICE

"We became a Youth Service Center under the Coordinated Youth Services Program, funding to be administered by the city of Oakland. Five agencies were to operate such programs throughout East Oakland. EOC Service Corporation, one of the five agencies, was the first to begin project operations, on June 8, 1977.

"EOC Service Corporation sponsors a variety of community service programs, not only for teens, but for senior citizens, children and young adults as well and has provided these services since its inception, free of charge. These services range from educational activities, counseling, cultural and recreational activities to free clothing, shoes, food and referrals as available and/or requested.

"The recent city audit conducted revealed many administrative errors, which we have acknowledged and begun to correct. There was no intent nor was there any malfeasance on our agency's part. Our problem, like many other non-profit organizations, has been lack of skilled personnel and the overwhelming amount of record-keeping for non-profit funding. The funding does not allow for more highly-skilled personnel.

"Our only intent was and is to serve our community as best and as broadly and widely as is possible. We think that tighter administrative controls are certainly needed, however, the work and services we perform cannot and should not be written off lightly.

"The Oakland Community Learning Center and its programs belong to the Oakland community. These programs grew out of concern, hard work and strong community support. They fill a tremendous void in Oakland's poor and minority community, a void that cannot be filled by city agencies or governmental commissions.

"The Oakland Community Learning Center programs will continue. It is important that our young people receive guidance, assistance and direction from those of us who are concerned with their survival and well being as well as the interests of our community as a whole.

"We have every intention of continuing to maintain these services; and so, we turn once again, to the community we serve for support and assistance. We ask our friends to bring or mail tax-deductible donations today to the Oakland Community Learning Center, 6118 East 14th Street, Oakland, California, 94621.

"We would also like to take this opportunity to thank those friends and supporters who have been unafraid to acknowledge our efforts and our consistent work, in spite of recent negative, unfair and at times confusing, publicity.

"Community spirit has been our foundation. This spirit cannot be measured in dollars and cents, but only in hard work towards a better society for us all."

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Property Tax Amendment Would Cut Services For Poor: STATEWIDE OPPOSITION MOUNTS AGAINST PROPOSITION 13

(Oakland, Calif.) - A broadbased coalition is growing throughout the state in opposition to Proposition 13, the controversial proposed property tax amendment, which, if passed in the upcoming June election, could cause public schools to close, massive unemployment and a severe cutback in social service programs for poor people.

Proposition 13, also known as the "Jarvis-Gann Amendment" for the bill's co-authors, Howard Jarvis and Paul Gann, would amend the California Constitution to limit property taxes on all real property to one per cent of full cash value, based on 1975-76 values.

Allegedly designed to benefit homeowners, Proposition 13, in fact, provides a windfall in profits to major landlords and causes a loss of seven million dollars in vital local and state revenues

In an interview last week with THE BLACK PANTHER, Tim Nesbitt, noted Oakland researcher and public information officer for Service Employees' International Union, AFL-CIO, Local 616, explained the disastrous effects that passage of the Jarvis-Gann Amendment could bring.

"Proposition 13 is designed to give a large tax break to all property owners, including landlords and businessmen who are primarily the owners of commercial and industrial property," Nesbitt said.

"But these are not the people who are feeling the weight of property taxes. It's the homeowners who have been hardest hit because of increased assessments which have forced them to pay a larger and larger share of property taxes over the years. Right now they pay almost 37 per cent of total property taxes in the state." Nesbitt continued.

A landlord who pays a substantial amount of property tax will have that tax cut drastically. But in the current tight rental market, no rent rollbacks are likely, so profits will increase immediately.

The increased income and lowered tax burden will also mean an immediate rise in the value of the property. But while property values and net income rise immediately, assessment increases in the tax initiative are permitted to increase by only two per cent per year.

Assessments are increased to market value only when the property is sold. So landlords

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receive not only a fantastic windfall but they receive a tax-free windfall.

But the giveaway does not end there. Proposition 13 also includes a provision which prohibits any transfer tax or capital gains tax on property sales. That type of tax is the one way such windfalls can be taxed. It is the only tax which is expressly prohibited in the initiative.

As a result, Nesbitt said, the burden of property taxes will be shifted from businesses and landlords to homeowners. The landlords -- who will receive 65 per cent of the tax relief or $4.5 billion -- will not be obligated to pass their savings on to tenants or homeowners but will, in fact, pocket most of the money.

Jarvis, 76, is president of the Apartment House Association of Los Angeles County and is the founder of the Organization of Taxpayers.

Focusing on the effect of the amendment -- which is strongly opposed by numerous state officials and legislators, including Governor Edmund G. Brown, Jr., and Assembly Speaker Leo McCarthy, -- on public schools, Nesbitt said:

"The property tax cut provisions of Proposition 13 will hit the schools the hardest because they rely more than counties and cities on property taxes as their source of local funding. Statewide, it is estimated that school budgets will be cut by 31 per cent.

"However, in some cities," he continued, "the impact will be greater and it will be greater in Oakland. It is estimated that the city's schools will lose anywhere from 45 to 53 million dollars in local revenues."

Nesbitt predicted that the Oakland Unified School District may run out of money by December of this year "unless the local government or the state can come up with replacement funding."

The most likely sources of money to replace taxes lost under Proposition 13 are the sales tax and the state income tax. It is projected that if the Jarvis-Gann Amendment passes, sales taxes will have to increase 13 or 14 per cent.

If the state income tax is used, it will have to be raised by a 150 per cent surcharge -- on top of existing income taxes, taxes paid mostly by working people.

In terms of unemployment, the Jarvis-Gann Amendment could throw anywhere from 100,000 to 225,000 people throughout the state out of work, Nesbitt said. "These are the people who will not be able to pay their home mortgages, who will have less money to spend on consumer items. As a result, they could force a kind of consumer recession in the state economy," he added.

It is for this latter reason that much of big business is opposed to Proposition 13.

In addition, cities and counties will lose much of the money they use to pay off numerous outstanding bonds. Bonds are sold to finance redevelopment projects such as the downtown Oakland City Center and the Yerba Buena project in San Francisco.

REDEVELOPMENT

"Redevelopment projects throughout the state will be severely jeopardized," Nesbitt warned, "because they rely on future increases in property taxes to keep them going. With the tax increment no longer there. I am sure the City Center project can't go far."

Beyond the blow to redevelopment projects in the inner cities, Proposition 13 will keep what Nesbitt called "a stringent lid" on property assessments. Under the amendment, property assessments can only increase two per cent a year but any property sold can be reappraised and reassessed before the full market value is decided upon.

"It will be a disincentive for anyone who wants to buy and sell property in the future," Nesbitt said, "not only for homeowners but for businesses as well. It will be a disincentive for businesses in California to build new plants or construct other new property. In a couple of years, we would see the inhibiting effects on the rebuilding of inner cities."

The Jarvis-Gann Amendment could be passed because of its deceptive nature. Nesbitt speculated that average homeowners will jump at the chance to vote themselves temporary tax savings without realizing that by so doing, they will later be hit with new taxes.

According to the East Bay Voice, "The brilliance of the Jarvis initiative is that it poses as a populist issue. It draws on popular dislike of government and bureaucracy… It gives citizens the chance to rebuff the government which they supposedly control and have grown increasingly to dislike…"

State Democratic Party chairman Bert Coffey has branded Proposition 13 "totally false and demagogic. It's sponsored by extremists who are trying to take advantage of the public mood and it will wreck the state if it passes.

"If the legislature doesn't come out with an adequate tax relief bill, we're all through. Everyone wants tax relief, but the legislature represents diverse interests and different groups have different ideas about what form relief should take," he said.

The alternative to Proposition 13 is Proposition 8, also known as the Behr Amendment for its author, state-Senator Peter Behr. Passed by the legislature in March and backed by Governor Brown, the Behr Amendment reduces property tax paid by homeowners by approximately 31 per cent but does not reduce them for businesses and industry.

In order for the Behr constitutional amendment to go into effect, Proposition 8 must be approved by voters in the June 6 election.

CENTRAL DISTRIBUTION
8501 E. 14TH STREET
OAKLAND, CALIF. 94621

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EDITORIAL: THE “TERRORISM” AT HOME

Brace yourselves for a return to the "Red Scare" witchhunt era promoted in the 1950's by late Wisconsin Senator Joseph Mc-Carthy. The Federal Bureau of Investigation, claiming that the current "epidemic of terrorism" in Europe may spread to the U.S., is preparing a massive "anti-terrorist" program. (See centerfold article.)

The kidnapping one month ago of former Italian Premier Aldo Moro by the Red Brigade and similar recent incidents in Europe and Latin America have brought on a strong feeling of uneasiness in government circles in this country. Jimmy Carter no doubt has frequent nightmares of being snatched off the streets one day by unfriendly abductors.

The prevailing fear in the U.S. ruling circle is that foreign "dissidents" seeking the armed overthrow of the U.S. will infiltrate the country. While it is certainly true that there are many revolutionary and progressive organizations abroad that seek the demise of American capitalism, there is a large and growing group of potential "terrorists" here at home.

There are the millions of Black men, women and children living in stark poverty because of this government's nearly four centuries of cruel, racist neglect.

There is the rapidly growing Spanish-speaking population whose unemployment problems, experts say, have become more of a crisis than those experienced by Blacks.

There is the dwindling Native American population, the first "Americans," who now face an onslaught of federal legislation designed to strip them of their human dignity and right to self-determination.

In the White community, there are the coal miners, farmers and other workers weary of receiving chump change for being the backbone of the American economy.

These disgruntled poor and oppressed Americans are the ones who bear watching in this country, not the Red Brigade or the Japanese Red Army. The forces that will inevitably seize power for the people of the United States live right around the corner from the White House.

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Fallen Comrade

"L'IL" BOBBY HUTTON
Assassinated: April 6, 1968

Born on April 25, 1950, "L' il" Bobby Hutton was one of the first members of the Black Panther Party, joining at the young age of 14. He was a very spirited, dedicated and hard-working young man, participating in numerous "Free Huey" rallies. Bobby was one of those arrested on May 2, 1967, at the famous California legislature protest in Sacramento where the Party made public its position on self defense for Black and oppressed people.

On April 6, 1968, two days after the assassination of Martin Luther King, Jr.,

"L' il" Bobby James Hutton was brutally murdered by dozens of Oakland police who surrounded him and shot him down in cold blood after he had surrendered. Long Live the Spirit of "L' il" Bobby Hutton!

ALL POWER TO THE PEOPLE

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Letters to the Editor

VOLUNTEER REPORTER FOR THE BLACK PANTHER

Dear Editor,

It is with great pride that I submit my subscription notice to the Central Distribution department of THE BLACK PANTHER. This will demonstrate my sincere interest and efforts in assisting the Party in its goals of alerting the Black masses concerning the injustices inflicted upon the Third World population in this country and abroad. The very articles that I have read that affect our people somehow go unreported or misreported in most newspapers but are highly publicized in the people's paper, THE BLACK PANTHER.

Again, I am concerned, and I want to know the correct procedures for submitting news articles to the paper. I am not a reporter in the sense of academics, but I am not blind to my surroundings and I do have the sufficient writing skills to describe what I see in the community as well as the university campus I attend.

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Brothers and sisters, my rationale for this request in its simplest form is this: THE BLACK PANTHER seems to be the only paper that reveals the truth about matters that effect me as a Black man participating in the struggle for Third World liberation. Sure there are other newspapers that say they are concerned about Black people but when their backgrounds have been researched, as I have done in many instances, their track record indicates interest in other areas that are not totally related to the liberation of our people that I will not go into in this letter.

Finally, I thank you for taking time out to address yourselves to this letter and my request. I will patiently await your instructions concerning the matter and rest assured that your intervention is appreciated and will be supported.

Your brother in the struggle,
Harrison D. Coleman III

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COMMENT: The Politics Of Health Insurance

The following comment, excerpted from the April issue of Black Enterprise magazine, discusses the problems involving the passage of much needed national health insurance legislation, which is scheduled to be introduced in Congress later this month.

If all goes according to plan, President Carter will launch the nation into a new debate on national health insurance this month when he announces his "outline of principles" for health legislation.

Understanding what his promised national health insurance legislation is -- or is not -- requires imagination.

Pretend the legislation is a dime on the floor. Around it is a group of tipsy revelers. Wach would like to pick up the dime and make it his own. No one has sufficient control to accomplish the feat.

Each has the power to prevent all the others from getting the coin, but this is the limit of the power anyone has.

In the case of Carter's national health plan intentions, the dime is legislative power. The "revelers" are interest groups claiming to favor the adoption of a national health insurance program.

Collectively, they represent the powerful status quo that would leave the health system as is: fat, wasteful and profitable.

The result is a costly catastrophe and, despite the continued promise of a national health insurance plan, it's clear that national health insurance is an old idea whose time has come and gone.

As in other industries, the real issue in health care is money. This year we will pay $180 billion for health care that last year cost $160 billion, making health care almost nine per cent of the Gross National Product.

Between 1969 and 1974, a period of wage and price controls and limited inflation in health costs, the price of health care still doubled. The net income of doctors went up 78 per cent from $39,727 after expenses (but before taxes) to 51,224.

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Hospital and physician fees have skyrocketed. In 1950, the nation spent $12 billion for health care. By 1976, that amount swelled to #139 billion -- more than $600 for every man, woman and child in the land.

The nation's health care system is a mess. Most proponents of national health insurance believe that enacting a comprehensive plan would curb costs and prevent excessive care by placing the 6,000 hospitals and hundreds of thousands of physicians now in private practice on a budget and in a system that will punish them for excesses.

Despite a past unpromising record, the possibility for health legislation seemed more plausible in a Carter administration. This was one reason labor, a long-time supporter of national health insurance, worked to get Carter elected.

What was not clear at the time was the intractability of powerful, monied, special interests, especially doctors and hospitals. It should come as little surprise that they are the biggest opponents of national health insurance and other forms of federal control of the health system.

Ironically, undercutting national health insurance plans and their groundwork in Congress has not prevented other plans from being introduced, even by groups opposed to the concept. The AMA and the insurance industry have health proposals that rely heavily on private insurance.

And along with these two group's proposal is labor's health security plan, promoting so-called "cradle to grave" coverage financed through federal revenue and payroll taxes.

And President Carter is working on a hybrid plan that would allow employers the option of financing employee benefit plans through a public or private insurance carrier.

But this is a game where the participants shrewdly play both sides, preparing plans should the legislation go forward, but also working to make certain nothing changes.

And the game has its strong and weak participants. The organized doctors, hospitals, drug companies, and labor groups garner most of the public attention.

But also included in the lobbying are nurses, insurance companies, medical schools, and groups representing mayors, governors, counties, cities, and states.

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COINTELPRO PLOT: F.B.I. Used Howard University To Discredit B.P.P.

(Washington, D.C.) - The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) used Howard University in several instances during their campaign to discredit the Black Panther Party in the early 1970's, declassified files on the federal government's notorious Counter-Intelligence Program (COINTELPRO) revealed.

The files, made public under the Freedom of Information Act, disclose that the FBI attempted to exploit a rift between Howard students and the BPP, the Howard University Hilltop reports. The rift stemmed from problems caused by the Party's 1970 Revolutionary People's Party Constitutional Convention held in Washington.

The COINTELPRO files disclose that the FBI composed a letter critical of the BPP and, after signing the letter "Concerned Students of Howard University," sent it to Black colleges and student unions throughout the nation.

Along with the letter, the FBI sent an article that had appeared in the Hilltop criticizing the Party for allegedly reneging on numerous speaking engagements.

The Hilltop article was also sent to Black national and communty organizations and commercial weekly and daily newspapers across the country.

On another occasion, the FBI sent an article from THE BLACK PANTHER that was critical of Howard University to the Hilltop. Along with this article, a letter from a fictitious Howard student condemning the BPP as having betrayed Black people and urging all Black colleges to oppose the organization was sent.

The dissension between Howard students and the Party, which the FBI sought to capitalize on, peaked shortly after the Party's Revolutionary People's

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Constitutional Convention (RPCC).

At one time, the convention was scheduled to be held on the Howard University campus. However, the university would only permit use of its facilities if costs of approximately $7,300 were paid in advance.

Speaking on the issue recently, Michael Harris, who was president of the Howard University Student Association at that time (1970-71), said, "the FBI may have exploited the differences in ideology of Howard students and the Black Panthers, but they did not create them. The people on campus weren't into coalitions with Whites. The Party was into a thing of class struggle, but at that time, the sentiment on campus was that race was the issue."

The Convention was set to be the second meeting in the Party's attempt to write a constitution for revolutionary people in the United States. The initial meeting had been held two months earlier in Philadelphia. About 6,000 people attended.

The Washington field office of the FBI sought "to take advantage of this situation in an attempt to drive a wedge between the BPP and the Black student community."

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VETO EXPECTED: Senate Passes $5.7 Billion Emergency Farm Relief Bill

(Washington, D.C.) - The Senate last week gave final approval, 49 to 41, to an emergency, multibillion dollar farm bill, but by a margin too thin to override a promised Presidential veto if it survives a House vote later this week.

The Senate was responding to pressure by farmers who have been demonstrating in Washington since the first of the year.

The senate visitors' galleries were filled with farmers, as have been the committee rooms throughout the progress of the bill through House, Senate, a House-Senate conference and now Senate approval of the final product.

The bill would raise the level of price supports in direct proportion to the amount of land a farmer agreed to take out of production.

If he set aside one-third of his wheat land, the target price that the government would guarantee for a bushel of wheat would increase from three dollars to $5.04 a bushel. The Carter administration has agreed only to raise the target price of wheat to $3.40.

The White House wants the House either to kill the package approved by the Senate or send it to the President so he can veto it.

Congress can override a veto by a two-thirds vote of both House and Senate.

Oblivious to recent massive farmers protests decrying the plight of small growers, White House Press Secretary Jody Powell said that President Jimmy Carter would reject the emergency legislation as inflationary.

"The President expressed his view the farm bill was conceived in haste and it would be disastrous to farmers and consumers… it is unacceptable to him," Powell said.

When the White House announced it intended to veto the bill three weeks ago, the Carter administration announced an alternate plan. The conservative program -- which does not require Congressional approval -- includes payments of only $600 million to $700 million to feed grain and cotton farmers who agree not to plant about five million acres of crop land.

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NATIONWIDE ANTI-BAKKE MARCH SET FOR APRIL 15

(Washington, D.C.) - A national coalition of progressive organizations is gearing for an April 15 march on Washington, D.C., to protest the California courts' decision on the Bakke case, now before the U.S. Supreme Court.

The high court is expected to issue its ruling on the "reverse discrimination" case sometime this spring.

On April 8, local actions were sponsored throughout the country in support of affirmative action.

The Bakke case revolves around the claims of a White engineer that he was denied admission at the University of California-Davis Medical School because "less qualified" minority students were admitted through a special admissions program.

Alan Bakke charged he was a victim of "reverse discrimination" and was upheld by the California Supreme Court. The U.S. Supreme Court heard arguments on the case last fall.

A clearly-articulated position paper which cuts to the heart of the true issues involved in the controversial Bakke case was written and sent by Black Panther Party President and chief theoretician Huey P. Newton last fall to William Coblentz, chairman of the Board of Regents of the University of California.

In the letter, the BPP leader said:

"The special admissions program at the Davis Medical School does not achieve its express goal as well as an alternative program could, and the issue posed by its continuance -- i.e., the Constitutionality of preferential racial quotas -- is unnecessary, false and bitterly divisive to our country at this time.

"In terms of its own stated purposes -- with which I and probably most citizens agree -- it is a failure. The two-fold purpose of the program is (1) to equalize the opportunity for 'educationally or economically disadvantaged' students to obtain a medical education, and (2) to increase the number of doctors who will practice in medical underserved areas.

"Granted that a disproportionate number of educationally or economically disadvantaged applicants for medical school are likely to be racial minorities, we all know there are poor ethnic Whites who also fit this category.

"Thus, the practical application of the special admissions program fails to meet its own theoretical standard of assisting 'educationally or economically disadvantaged' students; instead, it has obviously only focused on those 'disadvantaged' who also happen to be minority. I believe this is a prime example of a program that -- at least in terms of the lofty stated purpose of assisting the 'disadvantaged' -- is Constitutional on its face, but not as applied.

"Neither does the special admissions program necessarily increase the number of doctors who will practice in medically underserved areas. Again, this is a commendable goal of the program and a pressing societal need."

The anti-Bakke movement has touched many bases in recent months. In late February, there were a number of teach-ins and community meetings during a "National Week of Education" on Bakke initiated by the National Committee to Overturn the Bakke Decision (NCOBD).

BROADENING

In an important broadening of forces, a number of trade unions, community groups and local and national organizations have joined the Bakke fightback. The National Lawyers Guild (NLG), for example, passed a resolution at its February national executive board meeting calling for the establishment of a committee to study Bakke-related issues.

Anti-Bakke forces hope to see 10,000 people at the April 15 march.

Recently, the broad-based NCOBD, the People's Alliance, the NLG, the Black American Law Students Association and the Anti-Bakke Decision Coalition (ABDC) -- a group initiated by West Coast-based groups -- joined together to coordinate the April 15 march, the April 8 local action and an April 15 West Coast protest.

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Worldwide Criticism Postpones Neutron Bomb

(Washington, D.C.) - President Jimmy Carter was forced last week to postpone a final decision on production of the controversial neutron bomb after he was unable to pressure Western allies -- who face massive criticism of the deadly weapon at home -- to deploy it on European soil.

As a result of Carter's ambiguous orders, however, for about the next six months, Pentagon activity will be indistinguishable from the steps the Defense Department would have had to take if Carter had approved immediate production of the weapon.

Carter ordered the Pentagon to begin at once to modify Lance missile warheads and eight-inchartillery shells to fit the N-bomb described as the "ultimate capitalist weapon" because it causes massive human destruction while doing little or no damage to property.

If Carter decides by next fall to go ahead with the project, neutron-armed Lance missiles could be in the hands of battlefield commanders in Europe by July, 1979, the same time the weapons would have been delivered if the President had ordered an immediate go-ahead

If Carter delays a decision on the N-bomb beyond next fall and later decides to produce it, the Lance warheads could be delivered six to nine months after that decision is made, at least six months earlier than they could be deployed if he project had to be started from scratch.

A White House spokesperson said that the modernization work on the Lance and the eight-inch shell would give those weapons more efficient delivery systems for existing battlefield nuclear weapons. Therefore, the spokesperson claimed, the work would not be wasted even if Carter decided to scrap production of the N-bomb.

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A Pentagon official, however, admitted that the modifications are intended only to accommodate the N-Bomb. He acknowledged that no such changes had been planned in connection with existing tactical nuclear weapons.

The official history of Carter's decision to delay production of the N-bomb bears little relation to the news accounts that preceded it.

An announcement had been scheduled last month, but Carter postponed his plan for moving ahead with production in an attempt to pressure North American Treaty Organization (NATO) allies to announce that they would allow the U.S. to deploy the controversial weapon in Europe.

Under massive pressure to do so at home -- 50,000 demonstrators marched through the streets of Amsterdam, Netherlands, on March 19 to protest the use of the N-bomb -- NATO refused.

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PROTEST MOUNTS AGAINST U.S. AMENDMENT: PANAMA SEEKS U.N. SUPPORT IN CANAL DISPUTE

(Washington, D.C.) - The Panamanian government last week issued a protest to the United Nations concerning a U.S. amendment to the Panama Canal treaty that would allow America to intervene militarily to keep the canal open

Panama also sent 115 heads of state copies of the amendment approved by the U.S. Senate.

Diplomatic sources here acknowledged that both Panamanian actions were an attempt to deal with mounting criticism at home against changes in the treaty which allows U.S. troops to move in if the Canal were shut down by a strike or if its operations were threatened by another nation.

In Panama City, about 400 Panamanian students demonstrated against the canal treaties and burned President Jimmy carter in effigy.

The Senate amendment, which was sponsored by Senator Dennis DeConcini of Arizona, was attached to the first of two canal pacts concerning the "neutrality" of the Canal once Panama takes control.

The Senate narrowly ratified -- with only one vote to spare -- the first accord 68-32 last month and will vote on the second treaty -- which turns over control of the canal to Panama in the year 2,000 -- on April 18.

A letter dated March 28 from U.N. Panamanian delegate Jorge Ernesto Illueca to U.N. Secretary General Kurt Waldheim charged that the DeConcini resolution "is intended to give the United States of America the unilateral and perpetual right to take military action on Panamanian soil without the consent of the Panamanian government".

Quoting a speech by Senator Edward Kennedy of Massachusetts, who opposed the amendment, the letter declares, "Now Panama is asked… to accept an amendment which has the ring of military interventionism -- not just during this century but for all time".

The letter also notes that "we have the decisive support of the peoples of the whole world" and cites a U.N. Security Council session in Panama five years ago in which "the world… vetoed the United States for not removing the causes of conflict engendered by the presence of a foreign government within Panamanian territory."

Panama's Foreign Ministry issued a statement saying that Panama would wait until the Senate voted on the second treaty before deciding what formal action it would take concerning the DeConcini amendment

The Associated Press had earlier quoted Foreign Ministry sources as saying that Panamanian head of state Omar Torrijos had forwarded a confidential protest to the State Department, declaring that he found the amendment unacceptable.

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Black Unemployment Rate Jumps To 12.4 Per Cent

(Washington, D.C.) - Higher unemployment among Black women and Black teenagers increased the nation's unemployment rate up to 6.2 per cent in March, the Labor Department reported last week

Based on the Department's statistics, the total number of unemployed people rose to 6.15 million, with the increase of 58,000 concentrated entirely among Black women and Black teenagers. Two out of every five Black teenagers was unemployed last month, with the official Black and minority unemployment rate moving up from 11.8 per cent to 12.4 per cent.

JOB PICTURE

Meanwhile, the job picture for Whites was unchanged, with the unemployment rate holding at 5.3 per cent.

A New York-based group called Youth March for Jobs organized a youth unemployment demonstration on April 8 here and several thousand youth marched down Pennsylvania Avenue and massed on the Capitol steps.

Chanting "We Want Jobs… We Want Them Now," the youth then heard speakers point out that the youth unemployment rate continues to climb with no sign of concern shown by the Carter administration.

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CHICANO MURDER CASE: JUSTICE DEPT. HITS HOUSTON COP RULING

(Washington, D.C.) - The Justice Department last week filed federal civil rights charges against a judge on grounds that he acted illegally in imposing sentences of only one year on three Houston police officers convicted of murdering a young Chicano man last year.

Terry Wayne Denson, Stephen Orlando and Joseph James, all former Houston police officers, were charged with brutally beating Joe Campos Torres, Jr., a 23-year-old Vietnam veteran, and then forcing him to swim in a bayou where he drowned.

His body was found floating in Buffalo Bayou on May 8, 1977.

In response to pressure from Chicano rights organizations, the Justice Department filed the federal civil rights charges against U.S. District Judge Ross N. Sterling, requesting a review of the case because the Department is dissatisfied with the state's prosecution of the officers.

Judge Sterling imposed 10-year suspended sentences on the three ex-Houston cops on March 28, placed them on probation for five years for felony violations and imposed one-year sentences for a misdemeanor violation.

The Justice Department said federal law forbids suspending a sentence for an offense that carries a maximum penalty of life imprisonment or death. A civil rights violation that causes death has a life imprisonment maximum.

In a formal motion requesting the review, the Department said the sentences were "entirely inappropriate considering the offenses for which the defendants were convicted…

"GRAVE CONCERN"

"The United States has grave concern that the imposition of probation in this case will cause citizens of all races and backgrounds to believe that the sentence was a result of the continuing inequality of treatment accorded to minorities."

Sterling's contention before issuing the sentence was that "substantial incarceration would have little effect on the Houston Police Department." He claimed the case was "a situational offense" that the officers "will never encounter again."

-- 6 --

PEOPLE'S PERSPECTIVE

Ex F.B.I. Head
Indicted

(Washington, D.C.) - Former FBI Director L. Patrick Gray and two of his top aides were indicted last week for ordering agents to conduct illegal breakins, wiretaps and mail tampering in their witchhunt of members of the radical Weathermen group in the early 1970's. After announcing the indictment against the Bureau "higherups," Attorney General Griffin Bell said charges were dropped against John Kearney, the former FBI supervisor in New York who had been the only agent charged in the case.

Diggs Pleads
Innocent

(Washington, D.C.) - Black Congressman Charles Diggs pleaded innocent last week to charges that he allegedly took more than $100,000 in kickbacks from aides on his Congressional payroll and vowed not to resign while the case is tried. The nature of the attack on the popular Michigan congressman, who is the senior Black member of Congress, is reminiscent of the witchhunt launched against the late Harlem Congressman Adam Clayton Powell.

Seek New Trial
For Ray

(Memphis, Tenn.) - A committee of 17 clergymen last week demanded a new trial for James Earl Ray, the convicted assassin of Martin Luther King, Jr. The clergymen charged that Ray was the victim of a conspiracy and called for an investigation of the relationship of Memphis police and the FBI to the King slaying.

U. C. Med.
School Bias

(Davis, Calif.) - Paul Goodman, president of the Faculty Union at the University of California at Davis, recently charged that the school, contrary to the California Supreme Court's decision in the Allan Bakke case, does in fact discriminate against minority students at its medical school. Goodman charged that the medical school had never admitted a Black student under regular admissions procedures; routinely turned down other qualified minority applicants under the regular program; reversed admissions procedures to admit sons of wealthy families; subjected Blacks to discriminatory grading and discipline; and falsified minority admissions statistics by counting foreign Third World students in its "affirmative action" reports.

Disabled
Congressmen?

(Washington, D.C.) - Eighteen members of Congress are currently receiving monthly checks for alleged disabilities. At least 14 other congressmen receive a monthly military pension check or Veterans Administration payment in addition to their $57,500-a-year salary, their travel allowances and other benefits. The payments range from $41 to $1,109 a month.

Cleveland Recall
Drive Mounts

(Cleveland, Ohio) - Sponsors of a move to recall 31-year-old Mayor Dennis Kucinich because of his firing of Police Chief Richard Hongisto last week said they had collected more than 20,000 of the 37,000 signatures they need by April 26. Hongisto, who resigned as San Francisco sheriff to become Cleveland's police chief last December 14, was fired March 24 after he accused the mayor of demanding that he carry out "unethical" practices.

Calif. Legislature
Probed

(Sacramento, Calif.) - A special grand jury was ordered last week to hear evidence in an investigation of vote-buying in the California legislature. The FBI has for months been investigating reported corruption involving current and former lawmakers and lobbyists. Donald Kent Brown, a lobbyist for several corporations owned by the Howard Hughes empire, has been identified as a central figure in the probe.

JoAnne Little
Atty. Charged

(Raleigh, N.C.) - The North Carolina Bar Association recently charged Jerry Paul with violating its disciplinary rules by making certain statements during his successful defense in the celebrated trial of JoAnne Little. The White attorney is charged with referring to himself as a "freedom fighter"; charging that a person's guilt or innocence depends as much on his or her economic status as evidence in court, and making statements concerning the trial judge's racism.

-- 6 --

Dessie Woods Organizer Visits Bay Area

(San Francisco, Calif.) - Omowale Kefing, chairman of the National Committee to Defend Dessie Woods, was in the Bay Area last week to organize support for the Black woman who is now serving an unjust 22-year prison sentence in the Georgia Women's Institute of Corrections for killing a White businessman who tried to rape her in 1975.

Kefing, who resides in Atlanta where the Committee is based, spoke throughout the Bay Area, including at a benefit held on April 14 at the Marcus Book Store here. Anyone interested in working in support of Dessie Woods should contact the Burning Spear Support Committee, P. O. Box 1443, San Francisco, Calif. 94101.

-- 7 --

BOSTON COLLEGE SPEECH

On Revolutionary Intercommunalism

By Huey P. Newton

The following is Part 3 of a speech delivered by Black Panther Party President Huey P. Newton at Boston College in November, 1970, in which the BPP leader outlines the ideological principles of the Party. In this week's excerpt, Huey discusses the relationship between the rapid growth of technology and the rise of unemployment among workers.

PART 3

If things are in a constant state of change, we cannot expect them to be the same. Words used to describe old phenomena may be useless to describe the new. And if we use the old words to describe new events we run the risk of confusing people and misleading them into thinking that things are static.

In 1917 an event occured in the Soviet Union that was called a revolution. Two classes had a contradiction and the whole country was transformed.

In this country, 1970, the Black Panther Party issued a document. We wrote a pamphlet called "On the Ideology of the Black Panther Party." In that work we stated that neither the proletarians nor the industrial workers carry the potentialities for revolution in this country at this time. We claimed that the left wing of the proletarians, the lumpen-proletarians, have that revolutionary potential, and in fact, acting as the vanguard, they would carry the people of the world to the final climax of the transformation of society.

It has been stated by some people, by some parties, by some organizations, by the Progressive Labor Party, that revolution is impossible. How can the lumpenproletarians carry out a successful socialist transformation when they are only a minority? And in fact how can they do it when history shows that only the proletarians have carried out a successful social revolution.

I agree that it is necessary for the people who carry out a social revolution to represent the popular majority's interests. It is necessary for this group to represent the broad masses of the people. We analyzed what happened in the Soviet Union in 1917.

I also agree that the lumpenproletarians are the minority in this country. No disagreement. Have I contradicted myself? It only goes to show that what's apparent might not actually be a fact. What appears to be a contradiction may be only a paradox. Let's examine this apparent contradiction.

The Soviet Union, in 1917, was basically an agricultural society with a very large peasantry. A set of social conditions existing there at that time was responsible for the development of a small industrial base. The people who worked in this industrial base were called proletarians.

Lenin, using Marx's theory, saw the trends. He was not a historical materialist, but a dialectical materialist, and therefore very interested in the everchanging status of things. He saw that while the proletarians were a minority in 1917, they had the potential to carry out a revolution because their class was increasing and the peasantry was declining. That was one of the conditions.

PROLETARIANS

The proletarians were destined to be a popular force. They also had access to the properties necessary for carrying out a socialist revolution.

In this country the Black Panther Party, taking careful note of the dialectical method, taking careful note of the social trends and the ever-changing nature of things, sees that while the lumpenproletarians are the minority and the proletarians are the majority, technology is developing at such a rapid rate that automation will progress to cybernation, and cybernation probably to technocracy.

As I came into town I saw MIT over the way. If the ruling circle remains in power it seems to me that capitalists will continue to develop their technological machinery because they are not interested in the people. Therefore, I expect from them the logic that they have always followed: to make as much money as possible, and pay the people as little as possible -- until the people demand more, and finally demand their heads.

TECHNOLOGY

If revolution does not occur almost immediately, and I say almost immediately because technology is making leaps (it made a leap all the way to the moon), and if the ruling circle remains in power the proletarian working class will definitely be on the decline because they will be unemployables and therefore swell the ranks of the lumpens, who are the present unemployables.

Every worker is in jeopardy because of the ruling circle, which is why we say that the lumpenproletarians have the potential for revolution, will probably carry out the revolution, and in the near future will be the popular majority.

Of course, I would not like to see more of my people unemployed or become unemployables, but being objective, because we're dialectical materialists, we must acknowledge the facts.

Marx outlined a rough process of the development of society. He said that society goes from a slave class to a feudalistic class structure to a capitalist class structure to a socialist class structure and finally to communism. Or in other words, from capitalist state to socialist state to nonstate: communism.

I think we can all agree that the slave class in the world has virtually been transformed into the wage slave. In other words, the slave class in the world no longer exists as a significant force, and if we agree to that we can agree that classes can be transformed literally out of existence.

TRANSFORMED

If this is so, if the slave class can disappear and become something else -- or not disappear but just be transformed -- and take on other characteristics, then it is also true that the proletarians or the industrial working class can possible be transformed out of existence.

Of course the people themselves would not disappear; they would only take on other attributes. The attribute that I am interested in is the fact that soon the ruling circle will not need the workers, and if the ruling circle is in control of the means of production the working class will become unemployables or lumpens.

That is logical; that is dialectical. I think it would be wrong to say that only the slave class could disappear.

TO BE CONTINUED

-- 8 --

TOP SECRET “KAISER PLAN” EXPOSED: BUSINESSMEN PLOT TAKEOVER OF OAKLAND'S ECONOMY

The following article, reprinted from the East Bay Voice, is an expose on the yet little known "Kaiser Plan," which, if approved, would give Oakland businessmen dangerous, unchecked control over the city's economy.

(Oakland, Calif.) - A recently prepared, top secret plan for Oakland's economic future resembles the "sting" on an epic scale. In this version, the "operator" consists of a consortium of big businesses; the intended "pigeon" is the city of Oakland; and the cash package consists of all federal, state and local funds used for economic development purposes in Oakland.

The secret plan for fleecing the city of Oakland is contained in a 23-page document submitted in February to Mayor Lionel J. Wilson by Kaiser Aluminum & Chemical Corporation, a huge multinational firm with headquarters overlooking Lake Merritt.

According to this Kaiser Plan, stamped "CONFIDENTIAL" on its cover, Oakland's future depends upon a corporation takeover of key local government functions.

The Kaiser Plan, as yet unknown outside an inner circle of corporate executives and key municipal officials, proposed the immediate establishment of an "Economic Development Corporation," which will serve as "the central coordinating body for all of the city's economic development efforts" -- which are expected to cost $35 million every year. The Development Corporation will be an updated version of the urban redevelopment agencies during the 1960's -- but without the constraints of public accountability.

According to the Kaiser Plan, the Development Corporation (DC) will be able to "conduct a wide range of activities which may not be appropriate for, or permitted by, cities."

These profit-generating activities include issuing industrial bonds ($75 million by 1982) without voter approval, assembling land for large commercial and industrial projects, packaging "financial incentives" for businesses, acquiring city-owned land, and other unspecified actions.

As a private corporation instead of a city agency, the D.C. will be able to avoid the legal "public use" constraints on public agencies, as well as to circimvent such problems as "high taxes, high wages and difficulty with unions," according to the document. Insulated from public scrutiny, the Corporation will be able "to manage [its] business with a minimum in interference."

The Kaiser Plan is couched in the rhetoric of "cooperation of the public and private sectors." But the 36-member board of directors will be heavily business-dominated.

Aside from seats alloted to the mayor, one city council member, two labor representatives, and five representatives from specified community organizations (no Black groups are recommended) -- the remainder of the 36 members will be business and professional leaders.

The executive board, which will actually run the Corporation, will be even more heavily stacked in favor of businessmen -- 10 members out of 14.

The public sector will be used to subsidize the D.C.'s ventures. "Most importantly," states the plan, "the Corporation must have access to federal and state funds." It will be a "conduit for the transmission of federal monies into" Oakland. Local subsidies will be required also -- "city staff members…. should be made available to assist the Corporation."

The entire plan hinges on this wholesale giveaway of the public treasury to private capital.

The Kaiser Plan was originally commissioned by Wilson and by the Oakland Council for Economic Development (OCED), a private organization of business executives which has nurtured an intimate relationship with city hall.

David Way, community relations officer for Clorox Company, and a spokesman for the OCED, said that the Kaiser Plan is still in preliminary form, adding that, "We don't want to talk about the proposal yet, publicly."

Whenever it does surface publicly, the Kaiser Plan may exert surprising magnetism on key Oakland politicians. The mayor and city council members, especially those newly elected last year, are sensitive to constituents' expectations that the city government should be able to improve Oakland's economy and lessen the unemployment rate.

OPPOSITE DIRECTION

From the opposite direction, the council has been subjected to strong and steady pressure by land speculators, commercial developers, and industrial interests who want obstacles to private investment in Oakland removed. These lobbyists promise that more business will mean more jobs.

City council members in Oakland hold only part-time tenure in their positions, preventing them from devoting full attention to city afairs.

In addition, the council is inexperienced in directing any economic development activities -- much less a massive effort budgeted at $35 million annually.

Mayor Wilson, in particular, has been continualy frustrated in his oft-expressed desire to cut Oakland's unemployment and improve the local economy.

When he took office last July, unemployment in Oakland exceeded 20,000 persons -- largely concentrated in the flatlands neighborhoods Wilson's assessment of the situation has been blunt. "We are sitting on a powderkeg of unemployment here in Oakland," he declared in February.

But the mayor's $500,000 "Hire Oakland" program, created last fall, has been a miserable failure.

EXASPERATING

Equally exasperating has been the refusal of Bullock's Corporation and other major department stores to commit themselves to the City Center project, even after Governor Jerry Brown satisfied their demand that the Grove-Shafter Freeway completion be expedited. Without the corporate go-ahead, the downtown redevelopment project, launched in 1965, will remain indefinitely stalled.

In effect, the corporations, suspicious of Oakland's first Democratic mayor in 50 years, are pursuing a rule-or-ruin strategy. Either the mayor and council will relinquish the decisive role in Oakland's future to private enterprise -- or, the corporations will continue to stonewall, preventing any economic development at all.

A move towards accommodation may have begun, however. In the aftermath of City Manager Cecil Riley's sudden resignation, the city council last month adopted Mayor Wilson's "Five Year Economic Development Strategy." This created a new Department of Economic Development and Employment, which consolidated the city's previously-fragmented economic development efforts into a single super-office, with a yearly budget of $35 million.

This bureaucratic reorganization is specified in the Kaiser Plan as an essential prerequisite to its overall proposal. Once established, the D.C. is expected to dictate the operations of this centralized city bureaucracy.

The two required readings of the mayor's proposal at consecutive council sessions elicited no discussion among council members prior to their vote for approval -- and the public was not allowed to speak. The mayor's Five Year Plan mentioned the prospect of a D.C., but its powers were not explained.

-- 9 --

F.B.I. PREPARES ATTACKS AGAINST U. S. “TERRORISTS”

(Washington, D.C.) - In tones reminiscent of the McCarthy era "red scare" hysteria, FBI Director William Webster, warning of what he and a recent mass media blitz have termed an "epidemic" of "terrorist" activity in Europe which could spread to the United States, announced two weeks ago that the Bureau has high priority preparations under way to meet the alleged threat.

Webster, holding his first news conference since he took office six weeks ago, said:

"Experience tells us that when you have epidemics of this kind in various parts of the world, it's very likely to come to the United States if it didn't start here. We want to be prepared for that eventuality."

Webster said that the FBI is conducting anti-"terrorist" training classes at its Quantico, Virginia, training academy; has brought in expert European instructors; is developing sophisticated "profiles" of potential "terrorists"; and is maintaining close liaision with the Army's anti-"terrorism" program.

A continuing mass media campaign, prominently citing the opinions of so-called experts on "terrorism," is apparently trying to revive the "red-scare" witchhunt hysteria of the 1950's and extolling the need for a centralized, high-level government authority to meet the invisioned threat.

For example, Dr. Irving Goldaber, a Miami-based sociologist and who is a "private consultant on terrorism," decrying an alleged conspiracy among radical groups in Europe, Asia and Third World liberation movements, said, "The irony is that the terrorists, such as the Japanese Red Army and the Palestinians, have a network of coordination at various levels.

"But we haven't reached the point yet in this country where we have a cooperative relationship among local police jurisdictions, state agencies, and the federal government."

Senator Abraham Ribicoff of Connecticut has introduced legislation to create a Council to Combat Terrorism, to be headed by an assistant secretary of state and an assistant attorney general.

Dr. M. Cherif Bassiouni, professor of international criminal law at De Paul University in Chicago and a government adviser on "terrorism," has called for the government to create a National Task Force for the Prevention and Suppression of Terrorism to determine national policy and coordinate it.

However, Bassiouni acknowledged "the danger of encouraging government to repress individuals.

"The real danger I've sensed in the proposals of some people who are purportedly experts on 'terrorism' is that we could easily move in the direction of having everyone get up and check under the bed for 'terrorists' every morning," he said.

The FBI has been under heavy attack due to recent disclosures of past massive illegal spying activities and various anti-terrorist" activities, which Webster conceded, he cannot assure is not continuing.

Webster, blasted by Black groups as a modern day "Adolf Hitler" at his confirmation hearings in February when he refused to resign from four all-White social clubs to which he belongs, arrogantly declared:

"I don't think, as the new leader of the FBI, the first thing to do is ask, 'have you stopped beating your wife?'"

He said he has talked to FBI agents across the country by means of a videotape in which he urged them to "uphold the law and act with professionalism instead of using unprofessional shortcuts."

Webster refused to comment directly on the case of John Kearney, a former supervisor at the FBI's New York City office who has been indicted for various Bureau "anti-terrorist" activities including charges of conducting illegal wiretaps and mail openings in searching for fugitives from the radical Weathermen group.

-- 9 --

Congressional Black Caucus Blasts Carter's Urban Policy

(Washington, D.C.) - The Congressional Black Caucus (CBC) has made public a statement on urban policy that is highly critical of the Carter administration's past and present performance in resolving urban problems.

"It is clear that the administration's budget for the fiscal year 1979 emphasized bombs and guns rather than jobs and training. The $128.4 billion military budget is a 9.4 per cent annual increase and sets the military budget at $175 billion by 1983 which is an indication that both now and in the future Black America, the elderly, the poor and the cities will again be sacrificed.

"The agenda we have set forth for an urban policy and strong statements of purpose are necessary to avoid the trap of a self-fulfilling prophecies based on the belief that we should not promise more than we can deliver."

Black leaders across the country attacked the long awaited White House urban aid policy to help the nation's distressed cities unveiled on March 27 by Jimmy Carter.

Administration officials conceded that the program will not funnel much money into cities -- only about $742 million to begin with the first fiscal year. The business sector will benefit more from Carter's plan, which calls for potential new spending of $4.4 billion in fiscal 1979 and another $6 billion in 1980 for programs covering such areas as jobs, housing, parks and crime prevention.

The major theme of the CBC statement is that the nation's urban problems must be addressed in terms of providing fulfillment of basic human rights in employment, housing, health care, educational opportunities and other elements of a decent quality of life.

The major provisions of the CBC's urban policy are:

- Revitalizing the cities through massive federal funding;

- Providing employment at decent wages for every person willing and able to work;

- Eliminating barriers to employment of minorities and youth;

- Improving the mobility of poor workers by improving surface transportation which would reduce travel time and increase accessibility to jobs at much less cost;

- Providing supplemental community development grants. Under this proposed $6 billion program, emphasis could be given to renovating, repairing and insulating homes which will be occupied by persons and families earning less than $8,000 per year;

- Instituting large scale economic development through a variety of mechanisms, including funding of commercial strip redevelopment and through much larger utilization of consumer cooperatives, as in Europe. In addition, increased access to credit for neighborhood and community financial institutions must be provided.

-- 10 --

Intercommunal News: E.P.L.F. VICTORIES: Ethiopia Prepares Massive Invasion Of Eritrea

(Inside Eritrea) - In the wake of the collapse of the Somali army in Ethiopia's contested Ogaden region, extensive preparations are now underway for an Ethiopian offensive in Eritrea.

There are strong indications that Cuban forces will play a major role in the impending Ethiopian campaign, similar to that in the Ogaden last month, the Guardian reports.

The results for Ethiopia, however -- with or without increased foreign help -- are likely to be quite different in Eritrea where they will face not only the highly disciplined and experienced army of the Eritrean People's Liberation Front (EPLF) and allied antigovernment forces, but also a thoroughly mobilized and conscious civilian population

According to EPLF, more than 2,000 Cuban combat troops have been airlifted into the besieged Eritrean capital of Asmara and a series of bases are being constructed in the northern Ethiopian province of Tigray.

In a major battle March14-16, some 10,000 Ethiopian troops were turned back when they attempted to break out of Asmara and crush the EPLF encirclement. EPLF sources said 1,500 Ethiopian troops wre killed in the clash.

Cuban officials have in the past denied any intention of becoming directly involved in Eritrea, but an EPLF spokesman says that Cuban soldiers were active in the battle.

In support of the campaign against Eritrea, day and night construction work has been proceeding on an airstrip for Ethiopia's new MIG jet fighters in the Tigray capital of Makele, 60 miles south of the Eritrean border, with Soviet Antanov-12 supply planes

-- 14 --
ferrying in materials and equipment from Addis Ababa.

Supply bases for the Ethiopian move north are being built in the cities of Gondar and Axum.

An airstrip is also being set up to accommodate light reconaissance planes on the Dahlak islands off the Eritrean coast, and army, navy and air force bases are being erected in the Eritrean port of Assab.

Thousands of hastily trained recruits of Ethiopia's peasant militia are also reported moving north and reinforcements are expected soon from the more experienced Ethiopian forces in the Ogaden as the war there winds down.

Now in its 17th year, the war in Eritrea has reached a pivotal stage. Eritrean independence forces have scored an unbroken series of victories against the Ethiopian government which has carried them to within striking distance of Asmara and almost complete occupation of the central Eritrean highlands.

A six-month tour of Eritrea showed that the armies of the EPLF and the Eritrean Liberation Front (ELF) control the entire countryside. The EPLF dominates the north, east and center, while the smaller ELF holds the western lowlands and sections of Eritrea's southern border with Tigray province.

The EPLF has also made gains in southern Eritrea, and both fronts overlap in the southeastern Danakil lowlands that stretch along the coast toward the port of Assab, through which Ethiopia receives most of its arms and supplies.

Apart from Massawa and Barentu, the only towns still in Ethiopian hands are Asmara, the remote southeastern port of Assab and a small garrison at Adi Caieh in the south. Both Adi Caieh and Asmara are under EPLF siege.

The Ethiopian position in Eritrea has become critical. The loss of Asmara would not only be a crushing military blow but also a severe political setback likely to be followed by an Eritrean declaration of independence.

The impending Ethiopian offensive seems to be aimed at reopening supply lines to Asmara where more than 20,000 Ethiopian troops and 200,000 civilian residents have been encircled since mid-October.

Refugees and Ethiopian army deserters say that the city is facing acute shortages of food, fuel, water and medicines, Emergency stockpiles have run out.

-- 10 --

WIDESPREAD PROTESTS FOLLOW ILLEGAL PHILIPPINE ELECTIONS

(Manila, Philippines) - Six opposition party leaders remain imprisoned here last week following their arrests along with about 700 demonstrators who staged a mock funeral march to protest massive fraud in a legislative "election."

Also kept in custody following the release of the demonstrators, who were detained for several days in a military blockade, was former Senator Lorenzo J. Tanada, 76, the noted attorney and campaign manager of the People's Power Party (PPP).

Four of the six PPP members arrested, Francisco Rodrigo, Teofisto Guingona, Ernesto Rondon and Aquilino Pimentel, were candidates in the bogus National Assembly "election." Attorney Joker Arroyo was also among the six PPP members incarcerated.

The PPP charged President Ferdinand Marcos used massive fraud to sweep the 21 Manila seats in the interim National Assembly.

Four other candidates, attorney Charito Planas, Trining Herrera, Jerry Barican and Alexander

-- 14 --
Boncayao, went into hiding to avoid arrest.

About 1,200 protesters set out from Saint Theresa's college in suburban Quezon City on a five-mile march to the Manila Cathedral carrying two coffins, funeral wreaths and banners proclaiming "the death of democracy in the Philippines."

Police commandeered six public buses on busy Espana Street, ordered the passengers to get off, and loaded on more than 700 demonstrators.

The protesters were taken to Ft. Bonifacio, the huge army base where an arch foe of the Marcos martial law regime, former Senator Benigno Aquino, is serving his sixth year as a political prisoner.

Another 500 protesters who awaited the marchers at the Cathedral reportedly maintained a vigil inside until the demonstrators were released.

Marcos told a nationally televised press conference the day after the bogus "election" that "undoubtedly the subversives have infiltrated Laban," the acronym meaning "fight" used by the anti-Marcos campaign slate in Manila.

The Philippine dictator warned that he would take action to prevent such demonstrations in the future and said police were looking for Planas on suspicion of harboring anti-Marcos guerrillas.

Worldwide condemnation of massive human rights violations forced Marcos to call last week's "election," the country's first in more than six years.

The extremely slow counting of the estimated 23 million votes cast nationwide added to the charges of voter fraud. Marcos said his wife, Imelda, and the 20 other pro-Marcos candidates in Manila had been elected.

But the announcement of the latest official results indicated less than 200,000 of possibly 3.5 million votes had been counted. The announcement claimed Mrs. Marcos was leading with 106,304 votes, followed by Foreign Secretary Carlos Romulo with 106,026.

An independent vote-counting organization set up by the Jaycees in Manila was forced to quit tabulating the day after the election. Spokespersons for the group said their results at that time showed Mrs. Marcos in third place in the Manila area, and put five opposition candidates, including Aquino, in the top 21.

The "election" has no effect on Marcos' tenure as president, which was extended indefinitely by a bogus "referendum" in 1973. He is also the prime minister and retains the power to legislate by decree if he is not satisfied with the assembly's actions.

-- 10 --

Leading S.W.A.P.O. Officials Arrested In Namibia

(London, England) - In an effort to crush the armed liberation struggle against the South African apartheid regime in Namibia, the government has arrested 11 leading officials and members of the South West African People's Organization (SWAPO), Focus on Political Repression in Southern Africa reports.

The SWAPO leaders were arrested in the Ovamboland area on December 2, 1977, after traveling from Windhoek to Oniipa to attend a symposium organized by the multidenominational Christian Center.

Those arrested included Daniel Tjongarero, SWAPO vice chairman; Tauno Hatuikulipi, national treasurer and director of the Christian Center; Martha Ford, secretary of the Women's Council; Lucia Hamutenya, secretary for legal affairs; Charles Sihani; Geoffrey Maezi; Simon Hisikia; and four others, including Justin Ellis, an official of the Christian Center and a correspondent in Namibia for the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC).

Ten of the 11 were detained in Ishaakti under new highly repressive African security laws while Bernadus Petrus, chairman of the Windhoek branch of the SWAPO Youth League, was held under the Terrorism Act.

DETAINEES

Two of the detainees, Hatuikulipi and Ellis, were released on December 4, while the remainder, with the exception of Bernardus Petrus, were released on December 5. Brigadier H.V. Verster, divisional commissioner of police, initially declined to say why any of them had been arrested, but was later reported to have disclosed that the detainees had been suspected of associating with armed guerrillas.

According to SWAPO, the detainees had been separated from each other, physically threatened and told that they would not return home alive.

Daniel Tjongarero, in particular, received special attention and was interrogated continuously during his detention.

In a statement issued in Windhoek following his return from Oshakati, Tjongarero revealed that he had been threatened and intimidated until he signed a 22-page document repudiating SWAPO's "senseless murders" and resigning from his office as vice-chairman.

REPUDIATE RESIGNATION

"I repudiate this resignation as it is not and never has been my intention to step down from my post in an organization which historically and still today strives for democratic participation of all people of Namibia, irrespective of race."

-- 11 --

CLUSTER BOMBS DROPPED ON PALESTINIANS: LIMITED ISRAELI WITHDRAWAL FROM LEBANON ATTACKED

(United Nations, N.Y.) - U.N. Secretary-General Kurt Waldheim last week sharply criticized as "inadequate" Israel's plan for only a limited withdrawal of its forces occupying southern Lebanon.

Waldheim said that the plan fell far short of a Security Council resolution demanding the "immediate" withdrawal of "all" Israeli forces occupying southern Lebanon.

The first phase of the two-stage withdrawal affects only troops along the eastern half of Israel's front in Lebanon. The Israeli plan excludes its occupying forces along the Western half of the front to the coast.

In a related development, the Israeli Army and the U.S. State Department admitted last week that Israel used American-made cluster bombs - a devastating weapon developed for and widely used against civilian targets in the Vietnam war - during its invasion of Lebanon.

The State Department refused to take action against Israel for its dropping of the bomb in violation of an unpublicized agreement restricting use of the deadly weapon -- which scatters small "bomblets" or shrapnel grenades across 100-yard areas -- to fullscale war and only against military targets.

DAMAGE

The Israeli onslaught which the civilians fled inflicted relatively minor damage on the Palestinian and progressive Lebanese military forces in south Lebanon: the casualty reports do not exceed 200 commandos killed.

The main brunt of the attack fell upon civilians, with an estimated 2,500 noncombatants killed, the Guardian reports. These deaths were the result of an Israeli policy which aimed to facilitate enforcement of the occupation of southern Lebanon by clearing out most of the population, while at the same time minimizing Israeli military casualties -- an important domestic political consideration.

Washington Post correspondent H.D.S. Greenway wrote from Bint Jbail, a devastated southern Lebanese village: "It is clear that the Israelies have used the same tactic that the Americans used in Vietnam: concentrated and heavy firepower and air strikes to blow away all before them -- be they enemies or civilians -- in order to hold down their own casualties."

An indication that the Israeli command expected the high toll among noncombatants is the fact that teams of morticians accompanied the Israeli troops into battle, and quickly buried the dead before they could be counted by reporters.

In addition to use of the cluster bombs, Secretary of State Cyrus R. Vance reported to Congress that Israel violated a law limiting use of American-supplied weapons to defensive purposes.

However, Vance declared that the Carter administration will take no action against its Zionist all in the matter.

Meanwhile Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) guerrillas killed five members of an Israeli patrol -- disguised in Lebanese army uniforms, according to one Arab source -- which infiltrated a PLO zone near the port city of Tyre.

Heavy artillery, machine-gun and rifle fire engulfed southeast Beirut in another incident when right-wing Christians attacked leftist Moslems.

The three-hour battle reportedly came about as a result of opposition by the rightists to attempts to move Palestinian refugees from the Israeli invasion into buildings along the boundary of the predominantly Christian suburb of Ain Rummaneh and the adjacent Moslem community of Shiaa.

-- 11 --

Africa In Focus

Transkei Breaks
S.A. Ties

(Umtata, Transkei) - The first "homeland" granted "independence" by South Africa, the Transkei, last week announced that it would severe diplomatic relations with the apartheid regime. In a speech to the Transkei Parliament "Prime Minister" Kaiser D. Matanzima said, "We have been compelled to join the liberatory movements and claim the whole of South Africa as belonging to Blacks and Whites with Blacks controlling the majority… We are going to propagate majority rule in South Africa…" Matanzima predicted not only a confrontation between Transkei and South Africa but a "bloody struggle" between Black and White South Africans. The Transkei, with a population of 1.7 million, remains economically dependent on South Africa, which provides more than half of its 1977-78 national budget of $274 million. The major reasons for the diplomatic break is due to increasing international and domestic pressure on the Transkei to take a hard line against South Africa.

New Rhodesian
Talks Halted

(Salisbury, Rhodesia) - Rhodesia's bogus "interim" government last week refused to meet with the Patriotic Front for the second part of a two-stage Rhodesian conference pushed for by the U.S. and Britain to attempt to end the armed struggle against the Ian Smith regime. The "interim" government did, however, invite Secretary of State Cyrus Vance and British Foreign Secretary David Owens to Salisbury to discuss the idea. Prior to Rhodesia's refusal, Stephen Low, U.S. ambassador to Zambia, and John Graham, of the British Foreign Office, met in Maputo, Mozambique, with Patriotic Front co-leader Joshua Nkomo. An all-party Rhodesian conference has been scheduled for April 25 following a meeting between the Patriotic Front, Vance and Owens.

Zimbabwean
Prisoners Released

(Salisbury, Rhodesia) - Seeking to offset worldwide condemnation of the bogus "internal" settlement, Rhodesia's "new" government last week announced that several hundred Zimbabwean political prisoners are being freed. A statement released by "Prime Minister" Smith and the three Black puppet leaders, Muzorewa, Sithole and Chirau, said that 254 detainees have already been released and that several hundred others will be freed within the week.

Somali Coup
Crushed

(Mogadishu, Somalia) - The Somalian government last weekend crushed an attempted coup by a group of rebel army officers, President Said Barre announced. News reports said a number of "senior officials" were killed in the shortlived rebellion, but is was not immediately clear if they were part of the government or rebel forces. Diplomatic sources said the coup attempt had been expected for several weeks in the aftermath of Somalia's military defeat by Ethiopia in the Ogaden region.

Eritreans Build
Radio Station

(Berkeley, Calif.) - The Association of Eritrean Students in North America (AESNA) and the Association of Eritrean Women in North America (AEWNA) have launched a $50,000 campaign drive to construct a radio station in the liberated areas of Eritrea. The two groups are asking progressive groups throughout the U.S. to join in the Radio Liberation-Eritrea Coalition. Additional information may be obtained by writing the AESNA Bay Area Chapter, P.O. Box 3211, Berkeley, Calif. 94703, or calling (415) 654-7482.

Nigeria Backs
Guerrilla War

(Lagos, Nigeria) - A highranking Nigerian government official said last week that his country is backing guerrilla warfare inside South Africa against the apartheid regime. Interviewed following President Jimmy Carter's visit to the West African nation, Joseph N. Garba, the Nigerian commissioner for external affairs, predicted that guerrilla warfare would soon break out in South Africa and that it was the only solution as long as the White minority government continues its present policies.

-- 12 --

ENTERTAINMENT: NEW BEST-SELLING NOVEL: “SONG OF SOLOMON”: THE STUFF BLACK PEOPLE ARE MADE OF

The following article, written by Michelle Russell, is excerpted from Looking for America.

In a time when Black folk are scouring the earth, beating the bushes, even scaling Kilamanjaro in far-reaching attempts to find their origins, Toni Morrison sinks her roots ever-deeper into the region of her birth: the Midwest. Ohio and Michigan.

The Frontier, really, known for the persistence of the Amer-Indian place-names and tree-colors; the waters carrying the memories of slave-crossings and Klan lynchings. The land of trappers, hunters, and bounties of varying kinds, connected for purposes of commerce, but never wholly settled. Trading territory.

The Midwest that we live in is a region known today to industrialists as the Fertile Crescent, for its ability to yield as many smoke-stacks as trees, as much steel as fruit, as much profit as leaves. It is where, too, the South lives in the North, minus manners.

For Black folk in this situation, life, itself, becomes improvisational No set of rules or customs, however prejudically defined, are uniformly applied. Even the weather is to changeable to set store by. And human relationships? Chancey.

In a region wedded to transport -- by rail, boat, auto -- Mid-westerners learn to be both drivers and driven, even when they be standing still. Those who live without heat, water, or electricity and who act as though "progress was a word that meant walking a little farther down the road" exist side by side with Blacks and Whites who must own the newest model of everything.

Indeed, they are often related by blood, though all society is designed to mask that fact. The relatives, themselves, spend most of their time trying to forget.

CLARITY

Sad to say, we even lose clarity sometimes about what shore we are on. In Song of Solomon, Toni Morrison reminds us how "the people living in the Great Lakes region are confused by their place on the country's edge -- an edge that is border but not coast.

The process of liberating the past in the present is the Song of Solomon. The book asks the questions: What survives, and who? By what means and on what terms?

It takes the oldest mythic memory among African peoples in diaspora -- freedom in flight -- and gives it shape through the story of one family, women and men alike.

It traces the development of narrow acquisitiveness among Black folk who resort to the methods of the thieves who originally stole from them; the desperation of those who can only even the score by keeping the Black/White death ratio in balance.

But most significantly, Song of Solomon indicates the continuation and the morality of those who survive by refusing to get caught up in the immediate chaos, whose lives trace a larger arc, and for whom the only unnatural things in the world are the ways we come to die before our time.

CHRONICLES

Those who are used to evaluating family chronicles in terms of "success" and "failure" will find Song of Solomon unsatisfying. It approaches a much deeper issue: self-knowledge. How do we find the "stuff we are made of?"

Stripped of stylish clothes, cars, money, property, titles, even name -- every legal tender this society equates with legitimacy -- how is an "I" fashioned, a "we" recognized, a home created, freedom gained?

In this sense, Song of Solomon is a mystery. And, as in life, the answer is right before us, once the veils of convention are scaled from our eyes, the roar of social static cleared from our ears, the phlegm of small-talk dissolved in our throats

Indeed, it is about everything and everyone that history books deny. It is about the promise of flight in the middle of Depression, the power of the powerless, the humor forged in denial. The life of the Dead family, the dark side of the moon, the underground knowledge and actions of Black folk who, by all rights, ought to be long gone.

Song of Solomon is about the Black men who take flight and the Black women who take root. It is about the possibility of creating out own plane of existence in spite of all that is designed to drag us down or pull us up from where we want to be.

-- 12 --

NEVER TOO MUCH LOVE

Too much hate, too much hate

Always in this world there is too much hate.

Too much war, too much war,

Always in this world there is too much war
War is sad, war is long

Everybody knows that war is wrong,

People tired, people sore,

People just want to end the war.
People in Mississippi thrown off their land

Even the government won't give a hand.

But the Movement stays on and on

People are living on hope and a song.
If religion were a thing that money could buy

The rich would live and the poor would die,

But I thank my people it is not so

Both the rich and poor together must go.
Some people are good, some people are bad,

Some people are happy, some people are sad,

Some people are Black, some people are White,

But we're all together in the human plight.
They say the Movement is a nonviolent thing

Led by people like Martin Luther King,

I want my freedom, and I want it now

Join with us and we will show you how.
Jimmy Collier

-- 13 --

SPORTS: Martial Arts Student of the Month

Byron Aldridge

Byron Aldridge, or "Binky" as he is known to his friends, joined the Oakland Community Learning Center (OCLC) Karate Club in 1975, and is one of the most talented and respected members of the club.

Binky was the first OCLC student to place in tournaments and was among those students featured in an interview and picture story with Black Belt magazine in August, 1975. He left us to live in Seattle for a year, returning in 1976 to continue his interests.

Aside from Tae Kwon Do, Binky is an accomplished wrestler at Castlemont High School as well as a skillful boxer, having won three trophies while in Seattle. Binky lends his talents by instructing the OCLC elementary and beginning students and trains regularly with the advanced groups.

Soon to be promoted to 1st dan (1st degree black belt), Binky has become one of the OCLC's finest ambassadors of karate. His skills as an outstanding martial artist have been envied on the tough Northern California tournament circuit.

A member of the OCLC "Mean Machine," Binky's past and present abilities and contributions have more than earned him the distinction of being our Student of the Month.

-- 13 --

COLISEUM HOLDS FINLEY TO CONTRACT -- A'S STAY IN OAKLAND

(Oakland, Calif.) - Officials of the Oakland Coliseum said last week that they were calling off negotiations with the San Francisco Giants for a split schedule and would hold the A's to their lease, meaning that the A's will play their 1978 season here.

At a special meeting of the Coliseum Board of Directors, it was decided that the Coliseum will not release owner Charlie Finley from his contract, and that it expects the A's to play its home schedule at the Coliseum.

TERMINATE NEGOTIATIONS

Coliseum, Inc. has decided to terminate any further negotiations concerning the Giants splitting their schedule between Candlestick Park and the Oakland Coliseum. Coliseum President Bill Cunningham noted that, "It is not longer feasible for changes to be made this season."

Cunninghan added that, "Because of commitments to football, soccer, concerts and other activities, an equally split schedule in 1978 is virtually impossible." He said that the decision by the board of directors to hold Finley to his contract was unanimous.

The Giants have refused to commit themselves to long term leases in the two stadiums. They would like a year or so of playing as the only team in the area, to see if that is really what everyone wants. But the Coliseum is holding on to Finley and their contract, and they are not going to give any ground with the Giants either.

Meanwhile, the 7th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Chicago turned down Finley's long-standing appeal of a U.S. district court ruling that upheld Commissioner Bowie Kuhn. Finley's appeal, filed in March 1977, grew out of Kuhn's overruling of the A's' 1976 sales of Vida Blue for $1.5 million and Joe Rudi and Rollie Fingers for $1 million each.

A three-judge panel in Chicago last week ruled that Kuhn "acted in good faith… in a manner which he determined to be in the best interests of baseball."

For now, the deal which would have sent the A's to Denver and brought the Giants to this side of the Bay is off. Finley, who lost his match with the Coliseum and the courts is 0 and 2, and the A's after their first two games, have the same record - 0 and 2.

-- 13 --

Spinks, AliSign For Multimillion Dollar Rematch

(New Orleans, La.) - The rematch between world heavy-weight boxing champion Leon Spinks and Muhammad Ali has been scheduled for the Superdome here on September 15. Ali and Spinks signed the contract for the multi-million-dollar fight last week.

Bob Arum, president of Top Rank, Inc., the New York-based promotions firm that holds the rights to the rematch, said the New Orleans group that will stage the match has promised the largest gate guarantee in boxing history to land the fight in the Superdome.

The New Orleans group plans to sell 85,000 seats for the fight, about 13,500 priced at $200 apiece, some 33,000 at $25 apiece, and the rest scaled somewhere between.

At an airport press conference held by the two Black boxing stars, Ali discussed the February fight in which he lost the championship to Spinks. He said he lost his championship because he underestimated Spinks. "I'm not going to take anything away from Leon Spinks," Ali said." He was much better than I thought. He was much better than the experts thought.

FAVORITE

"I was a 10-to-1 favorite, and there were no bets. He wasn't supposed to go 10 rounds. My battle plan for that fight was to give him seven rounds and let him tire…He didn't tire."

Spinks said he doesn't believe that's exactly the way it went.

"As hard as that man fought, he knows he didn't give me nothing," Spinks said. "All I know is from the first 'ding' I was fighting, and when that bell went 'ding' the last time, I was still fighting."

-- 16 --

COALITION ORGANIZES AGAINST PRIVATE FUNDING OF HIGHLAND HOSPITAL

(Oakland, Calif.) - Alameda County's Highland Hospital -- the only hospital in the county designated to provide services for the poor and "medically indigent" -- may soon succumb to a rapidly spreading syndrome in the health care business -- the management of public hospitals for private profit, the East Bay Voice reports.

Under a plan approved last month by the Alameda County Board of Supervisors, four private management firms will bid to take over the East Oakland facility for a two-year reorganization that could cost county taxpayers more than one million dollars, and at the same time, jeopardize hospital services for the county's poor.

It appears that a statewide trend has developed whereby county governments have side-stepped their mandated duty to provide for the medical needs of low income people as evidenced by several California counties closing their hospitals completely.

Highland Hospital infamous for its racist treatment of Black and poor people for whom it provides one of the few sources of emergency and primary health care in the Oakland area, has experienced chronic financial and administrative problems in recent years, which have been studied and analyzed by a battery of specialists.

Last July, to end the confusion, the Board of Supervisors approved the most ambitious study to date -- the $220,000 County Hospitals Project under consultant Julien Phillips, whose first substantial recommendation to the Board was outside management for Highland Hospital.

Despite strong opposition to Phillips' recommendation from administrators in the Alameda County Health Care Services Agency, the Alameda Health Consortium (representing 12 community health clinics), Service Employees' International Union, Local 616, and Black Supervisor John George, the Board voted 4 to 1 to approve the plan.

The community groups voiced their strong objection to the hiring of a contract management firm for Highland Hospital on the basis that it will mean a cutback in health care services to the poor; it is financially a waste of taxpayer's money; and that it will not solve the problems of the county hospital.

The groups further argued that such action by the Board of Supervisors required public hearing by law before a change of management could occur. As a result, the Board conceded to a public hearing on the matter -- which has been set for June 13.

In a letter addressed to the supervisors, Ms. Dorothy Marshall, chairperson of the Highland Community Advisory Committee, warned of the negative experiences of other counties who had contracted private hospital administration firms.

"It too often appears to us that the Board's major concern is the financial burden of the hospital and not the potential for overall improvement," she stated.

In contrast to this, the Community Advisory Committee, which is composed of volunteers who have direct experiences with the problems of Highland, has also studied the areas which need change. However, after expressing their concerns to the Health Care Services Agency, the County Administrator's Office, and the Board of Supervisors, they have been met with bureaucracy and often blatant disregard of the community's recommendations, and no action has been taken.

In the course of the discussion, the Board of Supervisors were targetted as the elected officials who should be accountable for determining priorities, establishing commitments and seeing that they are carried out and adhered to.

"Clearly, the lines of accountability are not working well in the present system and there is great need for an overhaul of the system in order for effective management and governance of Highland to take place," said the Advisory Committee spokesperson.

Further information can be obtained from the Highland Hospital Advisory Committee at (415) 534-8055 or the Alameda Health Consortium at 653-6355.

Decent Health Care
Is A Right

-- 16 --

San Francisco Police Bias Suit Wins Hurdle

(San Francisco, Calif.) - The Board of Supervisors voted 6 to 5 last week to approve a $2.5 million negotiated settlement to end a five-year-old lawsuit charging racial and sex discrimination in the San Francisco Police Department.

The settlement provides a quota system for hiring and promotion within the department for the next 10 years.

The supervisors' action paves the way for a final settlement of the discrimination suit filed by the Black Officers for Justice organization and a number of other plaintiffs in April, 1973.

The suit charged that the city's police department was more racially biased than departments in Mississippi, with less than 10 per cent of the officers members of minority groups.

The plaintiffs were joined in the suit by the U.S. Department of Justice in December, 1977.

U.S. District Judge Robert Peckham has the power to accept, reject or alter the decree.

A copy of the settlement obtained by the San Francisco Chronicle shows that $1.397 million of the total $2.535 million is to be used for "back pay distribution" to Blacks, Asians, Latins or women who file claims saying they were denied employment or promotion because of racial or sex discrimination.

Meanwhile, five community organizations have demanded that San Francisco Mayor George Moscone Create a special commission on racism in the police department in response to a continuing series of racist incidents they have documented in the department within the past year.

A letter hand-delivered to Moscone by Attorney Robert Gnaizda of Public Advocates Inc., the NAACP, Officers for Justice, League of United Latin American Citizens, Chinese for Affirmative Action, and National Organization for Women declared:

"Law and order do not exist within your police department. Racism, intimidation, harassment of material witnesses, and infantile behavior that would be banned in any high school in the land (are) condoned by top officials within the department.

"As you are aware, your police chief has been unable, or unwilling, to effectively investigate any of the acts that have occurred over the past 12 months."

Attached to the letter was a sworn declaration by Earl Sanders, president of the Officers for Justice, which was filed in the long-standing racial and sex discrimination suit against the city and police department, describing a series of unflattering pictures with captions containing racial slurs that had been posted during the last two months.