By ISUF HAJRIZI

© Pacific News Service

NEW YORK -- I stare at my computer screen confused and unable to organize my thoughts.

Every few minutes I check my e-mail -- how many more have been killed, how many crossed into Albania today, where is my family? A friend calls to say he may have seen a photo of my elderly parents fleeing among the thousands of refugees.

That can't be, I think, but there is no way to find out. In the villages under siege, phone lines are cut.

I think back to my childhood, running happily through the plush green forests and along dirt roads that led to my school -- roads now filled with tanks surrounding the village and firing relentlessly on the houses and the people inside them.

I go back to my computer. A headline reads: "Mass refugees head towards the border" with a subhead, "Three-year-old boy dies in his mother's arms from fatigue." A report tells of some 50 dead and hundreds wounded and describes heavy Serb police and military attacks in the western Kosova town of Decan and the "surrounding villages." I was born and raised in those villages. I know most of the people in them. I know the names of the dead, I recognize the houses, or what's left of the houses.

My heart aches.

Why doesn't anybody do something to stop this madness? Why do humans refuse to take the time to help their fellow men and women in a day of need?

Not all people are indifferent -- many try their best, even to the point of risking their own lives, but they are in a very small minority. Am I being hypocritical -- asking help now that my people are in trouble? What did I do to relieve the pain of people in Rwanda, Burundi, Haiti, Chechnya, Croatia, Bosnia?

While most of my family and the rest of the village have left their homes, my two brothers have armed themselves and are trying to defend the village with others who have stayed behind.

Should I call them freedom fighters -- or are they desperate people pushed against the wall defending homes where their ancestors, our ancestors have lived for centuries?

The Serbs, Russians, Greeks, French and at least one State Department "expert" have chosen to name them "terrorist" but these people do not know my brothers. They are honorable men, who always provided for their families and now are risking their lives to protect them.

When I ask why someone doesn't help, I have Washington in mind. I am convinced that people there -- one man there, Bill Clinton -- can make a world of difference. Only with his backing can NATO intervene. Only intervention by a NATO force can save Kosova.

Hajrizi is an editor of the Albanian-American newspaper Illyria published in New York.

By JIM HIGGS

I had told Indira Clark that she and Deborah Roberts could tell me what to do all morning. I was ready to serve where needed. These two individuals give much to the cause of peace. I respect and love them both, although I seldom directly show it. Anyway, the tasks were to set up the Peace Center table and the wonderful jams, breads, plants and cookies people donated to the cause.

At eight in the morning, we were open for business and the crowds came. The College Avenue Congregational Church was an especially good site for the breakfast. It is central and the historic peace churches were alerted to the event in their church bulletins. I mean to tell you, the crowds came and kept coming. The before church crowds were constant. Soon the kitchen was way behind in completing orders. Kenna Smith was a godsend at the dish washer. As I cleared dishes from the tables, I noted the usual extended conversations that took place throughout the Fellowship Hall. A few exasperated me by congregating in the doorway into the kitchen, but I got over that.

The purpose of the breakfast is to raise money for the Modesto Peace/Life Center. This year we are pleased to announce that just over nine hundred dollars in profit were realized. Thanks to all you came, dined, conversed and helped fill our coffers.

Deborah says the scene in the hall remininded her of the Peace Center events of her childhood, bustling with children, teenagers seving, adults in conversation. We thank you for your patience. See you next year. the 25th  -  Indira

Real Scandal in Washington: weapons spending

Adapted from Peace Action

This year the average Californian household spends about $1,531 on the Pentagon, 18 times what they spent on federal support of education, 64 times what they spend on the environment, and 1,500 what they spend on mass transit.

In 1998 the US will spend more to defend Europe than all the European nations combined.

The child poverty rate in Western Europe is 7 percent.

In Los Angeles it is 27.3 percent.

In Oakland it's 30.1 percent.

While in California alone 1.4 million children live below the poverty line, the US will spend $267 billion on the military budget.

Last year, politicians added 750 individual programs to the military budget -- programs the Pentagon didn't even ask for. In fact, over the past three years Congress has appropriated $21.8 billion in military spending that the Pentagon deemed was unnecessary. As much as 74 per cent of this money went to the districts of the very politicians who sit on the committees which control military spending (pork barrel programs). In exchange for all this money the taxpayers get programs like the B-2 bomber, a $2 billion plane that can't tell the difference between a cloud or a mountain. Every single B-2 plane costs as much as the combined taxes paid by 579,878 California households.

According to The New York Times, the weapons industry has spent $51 million lobbying Congress over the last two years. to add insult to injury, these companies claim their lobbying expenses as a tax write-off. The don't just lobby politicians -- they pay a lot to put them in office. In the last election cycle the weapons industry contributed more than $11 million in PAC money to congressional campaigns. They gave money to 89 percent of the members of Congress, affecting over 400 elections.

Senator Barbara Boxer's seat on the Appropriations Committee provides her the ability to call attention to bloated weapons spending before it comes to the Senate floor. Senator Dianne Feinstein, who prides herself on her fiscal conservatism, should not allow military pork to be spared the chopping block.

Hiroshima Commemoration

Thursday, August 6, 1998

Flowers
    Candles
        Readings
            Food to Share
                Table Service

Hiroshima: "making the world safe for conventional warfare"

[Nuclear deterrence is] essentially a mind game. "And it is based on this really uncivilized principle: you as a potential," [Deputy program director for nuclear weapons technology at the Los Alamos National Laboratory James "Jas"]Merced-Smith continued. "You as a potential adversary will behave, or I will kill you, your children, and your children's children to the nth generation. Therefore I hope that, out of your own self-interest, you will behave in a rational fashion."...

In 1968 Henry Kissinger wrote that while deterrence logic may have prevented nuclear war by posing unacceptable risks, it also fundamentally changed the meaning of power. Before the bomb, a nation's strength was measured by its ability to protect its people from invasion. After WWII, however, as the superpowers armed themselves with increasingly destructive weapons, it became clear that thermonnuclear devices would not guarantee the safety of the country that chose to use them. In fact, it would likely result in extravagant death and destruction on both sides. Thus military strength became separated from the practical formulation of policy. "Making the world safe for conventional warfare," Merced-Smith said, with a wry smile. Indeed, some historians suggest that a growing nuclear stockpile gave U.S. leaders the confidence to enter into conventional wars like Korea and Vietnam, wars that might otherwise have been deemed, in General Omar Bradley's words, "the wrong war in the wrong place at the wrong time. pp.20-1

—From Secret Mesa: Inside Los Alamos National Laboratory by JoAnn Shroyer, excerpted by Indira Clark.

By SARITA SARVATE

© Pacific News Service

Just this time a year ago, the world celebrated the 50th anniversary of India's independence. The British literary magazine Granta issued a special India edition. The New Yorker followed suit, with a nostalgic look at the aftermath of British rule in India. The beautiful Arundhati Roy was hailed as a new literary genius.

Looking back now, it seems such a magical moment in history -- as if nations around the world were acknowledging not just 50 years of freedom from colonial rule but the ushering in of a new world order, one in which there were no first class citizens or second.

Today India is making headlines again, along with Pakistan, with nuclear tests on the subcontinent. But this time the West is not cheering.

India's Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee has called on "all nuclear states... and the international community to join... in a convention to deal with... all nuclear weapons in a global, nondiscriminatory framework." At the dawn of the new millennium, an ancient civilization has called for a new world order in which the powerful nations would sit down with the less powerful to negotiate arms reduction on all sides.

The superpowers have responded to the call with utter indifference; indeed, they held their own convention in Geneva, without India or Pakistan. "Stop playing with fire," Clinton seems to be saying to the leaders of India and Pakistan, "or else you will get burned."

The countries of South Asia do not have the wherewithal to use nuclear weapons in a strategic, responsible manner, Pentagon experts claim, and might set them off in a fit of passion. Military strategists are preaching that the poor countries of South Asia should not waste their precious resources on nuclear tests instead of uplifting the lot of the masses.

It seems we are back with the old world order, in which "third world" countries are underdogs, and Western leaders are patriarchs. Certainly no one in the media here has questioned the role of America as the moral cop of the world.

But most Indians and Pakistanis see it differently. Does America not have hungry and homeless? they ask. Does America not spend billions of dollars on its so-called "defense" while begrudging paltry millions for its welfare recipients? They know that America, the world's richest country, has some of the world's poorest schools because it takes money away from its children to give to weapon-builders. In their eyes, America has no moral ground to stand on.

Unlike the people of the United States, the people of South Asia have long memories. They know that long before America was "discovered," an advanced Indian civilization produced "cotton so fine, a garment could be folded inside a thimble." Long before Europe's barbaric tribes were killing each other, the Indian scholar Chanakya had written an economic and political treatise, the "Arthashastra."

American experts claim that America has been and will always be the economic, military and moral leader of the world. But for residents of the Indian subcontinent, Western ascendancy seems a mere split-second in the span of recorded history.

"Third World" countries want the consumer goods, the infrastructure, the luxury that Americans have, U.S. analysts say. Perhaps they do. But even during America's most affluent 1960s, most Indians berated America for problems of teenage sex and violence, its breakdown of family life, its horrifying street crime -- and the bystanders' apathy toward it -- just as they talked glowingly of its smooth multi-lane highways, its long escalators, its gigantic department stores.

Long before CNN came along, American scandals, political and social, were the fodder of Indian newsprint. Patricia Hearst's kidnapping and Watergate are forever intertwined in our collective memories. As a native of India, I can vouch for the fact that most Indians never accepted America as a moral leader in any sphere of life, political, social or philosophical.

The treatise of Arthashastra laid down guidelines for a king's behavior in the year 325 BC. The ruler must learn to control his "six enemies" -- lust, anger, greed, vanity, hautiness, and exuberance. Clinton might think himself the moral leader of the world, but the South Asian populace grimaces while imagining his alleged promiscuities as he preaches restraint on them.

India's political rhetoric indicates that it is more interested in the superpowers reducing nuclear arsenals and less interested in melting down the subcontinent. Perhaps the South Asian position on the Nuclear Proliferation Treaty is purely symbolic, but the metaphor cannot be overstated. The timing of the nuclear tests is not purely coincidental. Fifty years after the end of colonialism, old underdogs are demanding new respect.

Every moment that Clinton wastes in adhering to the old pedagogy, he brings the Indian subcontinent closer toward a nuclear holocaust. It is time for the powerful nations to sit down with the less powerful in a spirit of cooperation and negotiate arms reduction on all sides. Only then will we begin to forge a new ideology of equality for the new millennium.

PNS commentator Sarita Sarvate, a Bay Area writer who trained as a physicist, was born and raised in India.

By INDIRA CLARK

"There aren't many farmers who look like they've just tumbled out of the fields, anymore," remarked Laura Paull last summer surveying the stalls at Modesto Certified Farmers Market. The Modesto Junior College journalism instructor's observations echoed by others on summer mornings as the open-air market comes alive with the bustle of shoppers and friends meeting.

When her aunt retired to Modesto in the early '80s, Sandy Sample thought her weekly request for fresh flowers was kind of strange. But fresh flowers have become a habit for Sandy herself in recent years, thanks to Farmers Market. Seeing so many arms filled with blooms that Sam Tyson exclaimed last summer, "It's a flower market!" Two decades have brought a lot of changes to our community and they are reflected in the increased "sophistication" and other changes in the market.

A longtime Waterford farmer, Sam was at the Modesto Farmers Market on the first day it open on the street next to the library downtown in 1979 and our family is one of the very few to have sold all 20 seasons.

"The initial work was done by Ron Alves and Ray Rodgers of the Modesto Junior College and Bob Taro, a local farmer," Sam recalls.

Stockton had just started a farmers market led by Mack Warner and he was asked for help in Modesto. Looking for ways of strengthening the viability of family farmers; Mack had founded the Rural Economic Alternative Project in 1978, as a project of the American Friends Service Committee, the Quaker service organization. Farmers markets seemed a possible answer to keeping farm families going by increasing income from what was produced and improving cash flow by selling directly to the customer.

There were only a handful of farmers markets in all of California in 1979. "Mack become the father of the present day spread of farmers markets in California," Sam says. At peak season in 1996, there were over 230 markets bringing in an estimated $300 million annually to local economies. (Mack always spoke affectionately of Peggy Mensinger. As Modesto mayor she was so much more enthusiastic and helpful in starting up farmers markets than most officials he encountered in other locales.)

In the early days the fees were nominal. A grower did not need a large quantity or variety of products to make selling at farmers markets profitable. Some farmers would come for a just a few weeks each season when their specialties were ripe: trucks filled with just melons or corn. Even gardeners dropped in, like the Pollocks (of Mud Pie and Purple Onion fame) with the bounty from their one fig tree. This added variety and character to the market. And a farmer could leave as soon as he or she was sold out. The market has reflected the gambit of California farming and market philosophies and methods for customers to choose from.

Our family started out offering a few well-known and popular fruits: Faye Elberta peaches, Santa Rosa plums, Thompson seedless grapes and some other "old-fashioned" varieties from our home orchard and vineyard. Customers came back because fruit was ripe, tasting like their grandparents used to grow. They came back for our prices; we cut out the middleman and split the difference with the customers. And in the early days a few came back because they were concerned about how their food was grown, now many do. (When the United Farmworker pesticide awareness campaign began, I had more questions about chemicals in one week than in all the previous ten years.)

The need to comply with ever growing government regulations, including membership with fees and market manager, etc., and the great bugaboo of the late 20th century, liability insurance, brought membership fees and more rules, a market manager, and ever higher daily stall fees, etc. Familiar faces dropped out of the market and others of us diversified to produce enough to make coming to market (and staying the whole morning when there is so much work to be done on the farm) profitable.

The season has also doubled in length from the initial thirteen weeks to a market which runs from mid-May to Thanksgiving. Only a few farms are present for the full six-month run.

So our family tries new varieties of fruit as well as continuing to search sources for old favorites, now listing twenty-two kinds of plums, thirteen peaches, twenty-two grapes. One day in the mid-80s, I picked a bucket of zinnias from my garden to help fill out the load-and the rest is history. Our kids cultivate vegetables for their pocket money and college funds.

There have been changes in customer tastes and buying habits. Fewer people buy large quantities to can. Our ever-widening ethnically diverse community brings requests for pomegranates sweeter than "Wonderful" for the Middle Easterners (sorry Dan, see p 4), white-fleshed plums and peaches picked while still crunchy for the Southeast Asians, prunes picked green for Indian cuisine, richly-flavored grapes the kind with seeds like home in Russia.

Farmers Market holds dimensions and dynamics other than just marketing for farmers willing be engaged. Customers and farmers watch each others' children grow and lives change. Fresh fruit is lovingly carried to Alaska, Maine, Belgium and herbal wreaths to far-away college dorm rooms. There are special formal requests for weddings, 50th anniversary parties, memorial services. Many classes tour the market as part of downtown field trips and tourist buses stop by on their way to Yosemite. One MJC instructor regularly sends her Freshman Composition class down to interview farmers. Questions on economics lead to mini-lectures on elementary botany, land use, public policy--its all related. Recipe discussions turn into multicultural exchanges. Conversations inspire Connections articles and polish Peace Essay Contest topics. Not just gardening advice is requested: somedays I wonder if Lucy has hung her "In" sign over my stall.

During the busy summer months, the twice-weekly Modesto market now probably make available $50,000 in fruit, vegetable, and flowers to local consumers who value freshness and supporting the local economy, Sam estimates. It is far more than just a place to buy a peach.

Modesto Farmers Market runs through the week before Thanksgiving, 16th Street between H and I streets, Thursday and Saturday mornings, 7 am-12 noon.

By INDIRA CLARK

Biting into a warm, succulent peach is the quintessence of summer for many people.

To paraphrase Ben Franklin: there never was a good war or needs to be a bad peach. Living in this area of farmers markets and roadside stands, good peaches abound from Springcrest in late May to Fairtime in late September.

Here's a simple cooling recipe for a hot day:

1. Peel and slice a peach.
2. Cover with a simple syrup (sugar or honey dissolved in water) or diluted orange or other complimentary juice.
3. Freeze until at least slushy. (Can be frozen for up to a year in a tightly covered container).
4. Put in blender with a little liquid ( chunk if frozen hard): water, juice, milk, yogurt, ginger ale, rum, . . .
5. Frappe until smooth.
6. Mound into a sherbet glass or add more liquid and drink as a shake.

Enjoy!

By DON MCMILLAN

Picture a community whose members circulate their own money to supplement the national currency. Through exchanging their own currency for goods (like home-grown tomatoes) and services (like tutoring), they create circumstances in which more people earn their livelihood in meaningful activities they enjoy. More people altogether could help themselves by helping others. To achieve this in our own community is the invitation of Hardee Miller of Modesto. Miller's search for economic alternatives has led to his researching a local currency system presently in use in Ithaca, New York, the Ithaca Hour. He proposes establishing a similar system, called the StanisHour, for our own locale.

Miller's investigation of alternative economies goes back into detail-blurring years. More recently, names of those whose tips guided him do come to mind.

In 1993, Miller attempted to stir interest within the Stanislaus Green Party for some type of local currency. Although the group did not follow through with a study group focused on Truth in Money, one of its members, Barbara Eniti, shared a Mother Earth magazine article with Miller which introduced him to the Hometown Money concept pioneered by Paul Glover, the Ithaca Hour.

Awareness of the Ithaca system stuck with Miller. Recently, serving on the board of the Modesto Garden Project, he decided to act. As a result, the board is "in possession of the Hometown Money Kit," he said. "We are considering it as a way for the garden to get organic produce" to a wider local market.

But beyond the Garden Project, the system's potential benefits within local communities are limited mostly by how widely the local currency is accepted. Miller envisions a more humane local economy in which ordinary people could collectively decide to make essential grants to charities, where people unsatisfied with bargains negotiated in the hometown currency can bring forward their grievances among trusted peers in the community.

Miller sees such important business taking place at potlucks sponsored by the citizens who use the local currency. "It's with people getting acquainted," he said. He describes such meetings as they presently occur at Ithaca: "They have a potluck once a month. You'll get a bonus of one Hour" for participating, giving those who attend the potluck a tangible benefit for taking part in decisions affecting their currency. "They take a vote on things," including which charities will receive grants in the local currency.

With as yet no local notes printed, no one signed up to earn, spend and save them, Miller hesitates to predict what might happen. Still, he envisions great good in the development of such a system: "Anything can happen. I'm really reluctant to paint pictures of how it would happen and what would happen. The important thing is to be open to change."

He imagines people saying, "'We can do this better,' and they just go about doing it. We'd be enjoying what we are doing. We would find not only ourselves as individuals but the religions, the charities, the scientific organizations would be finding a new relatedness."

"Nature really wants to organize," he said, "and if we're willing to open ourselves up to nature then we'll find ourselves being one with nature. That will be a very beautiful change."

Much work must be done for such a Hometown Money system to take root in our area. Decisions must be made such as which system of local currency our own StanisHour would most resemble. Besides Ithaca's Hometown Money prototype, Miller lists other ways communities have circulated their own currencies. Local Exchange Trading Systems (LETS) have roots in the efforts of Michael Linton in Ottowa and Toronto, according to Miller. Miller added that Ithaca's Glover participated in a LETS network through the seventies until '88. Another conception of local currency, the Green Dollar, doesn't rely on printed notes at all. Instead, the parties to exchanges report transactions to a local data base where digital, local-currency transfers are recorded. Senior citizens developed another system, Miller said, the Time Dollar.

For StanisHours to begin circulating, Miller said that support should include "people with reputation and integrity." Cash investments would be necessary to begin operating. "If we say, 'why don't you invest in the StanisHour. We'll give you an equal amount in the StanisHour. We'll pay you back,'" Miller said, investors could exchange the StanisHours back to U. S. Dollars or "spend the StanisHours for their needs within the community."

Miller sees a word-of-mouth approach as important to starting a local currency. He calls for people interested in starting such a system to "contact people you know who are into setting up a data base and who are into designing the currency and who know about business."

When a critical mass develops, "have these people who are volunteering É call a meeting, and they'd decide how, where, and what to do about it."

Finally, though, Miller seems more interested in why than how. Organic metaphors come readily to Miller's consideration: "Every cell of the body has its own little system. É These are all living entities, but they all live in a body. We people in communities all live in a body. We people in communities really need each other and need the system. Hometown money gives a sense of freedom and independence."

ACTION: Contact Miller at 549-7527. For information on Ithaca Hours from the source, write Paul Glover, Ithaca Money, P. O. Box 6578, Ithaca NY 14851.

Never Again report links SOA graduates to human rights abuses in Guatemala

With the recent assassination of Guatemalan bishop Juan Gerardi, international attention has focused on human rights abuses during that country's civil war. Just days prior to his assassination, Bishop Gerardi played a key role in the release of an extensive human rights report titled Guatemala: Never Again, which details the worst of the atrocities. The report, written by the Office of Human Rights of the Archbishop of Guatemala's Recuperation of Historical Memory (REMHI) project and which is widely viewed as critical to ending the state of impunity in Guatemala, confirms that School of the Americas graduates played a key role in planning and initiating the brutal counterinsurgency strategies used during that country's civil war.

The report consists of four volumes, only two of which are currently available. Although the two volumes mention few names of human rights violators, most of those listed are SOA graduates. SOA graduates formed the backbone of the presidential cabinets under the dictatorships of Gen. Romeo Lucas Garcia and Gen. Efrain Rios Montt. They were also deeply involved in the Guatemalan Intelligence Agency (D-2), in the formation of the notorious civil defense patrols, and in several of the most infamous human rights cases.

Guatemalan Intelligence Agency (D-2)

Throughout the war, the Guatemalan intelligence agency was one of the most feared instruments of government repression. According to Never Again, the D-2 was involved in systematic human rights abuses, including extrajudicial executions and assassinations. Declassified documents define the military intelligence agency as "Dedicated to finding and eliminating leftists by three different means: disappearing them, publicly eliminating them, or inviting them to leave the country." (Vol. 2, pp. 88-89). Never Again lists the following SOA graduates as holding posts in the D-2: Federico Sablavarro Meza, Cesar Quinteros Alvarado, Luis Felipe Caballeros Meza, Harry Ponce, Francisco Edgar Dominguez Lopez, Eduardo Ochoa Barrios (Vol. 2, p.90), Francisco Ortega Menaldo (Vol. 2, p. 91), Manuel Callejas y Callejas (Vol. 2, p. 93), Domingo Velasquez Axpuac, Jose Manuel Rivas Rios (Vol. 2, p. 111).

Creation of the Civil Defense Patrols

According to Never Again, Gen. Lucas Garcia's brother, Benedicto Lucas Garcia, an SOA graduate, was responsible for the creation of civil militias, which later became known as the Civilian Defense Patrols (or PAC for their initials in Spanish). The PACs were responsible for many human rights violations during the war, and are described in the report as "a permanent control apparatus" (Vol. 2, p. 73).

Myrna Mack Case

The 1991 assassination of Guatemalan anthropologist Myrna Mack was one of the best-known human rights cases in Guatemala and has galvanized attempts to put an end to impunity. Two of the three military officers cited in the report are SOA graduates. They are Juan Oliva and Edgar Godoy Gaitan, who have been brought to court on charges that they were the intellectual authors of her assassination (Vol. 2, p. 77),.

Mincho Case

Another notable human rights case that occurred in 1996, nearly derailing the peace negotiations between the government and the URNG, was the Mincho case. SOA graduate Marco Tulio Espinoza was named in a preliminary United Nations report on 5/20/97 as responsible for the disappearance of Juan Jose Rodas (alias Mincho), a member of the ORPA, who was involved in the kidnapping of Olga de Novella (Vol. 2, p.76).

Michael Devine Case

The assassination of U.S. citizen Michael Devine by Guatemalan military forces in 1990 resulted in a cut off of U.S. aid to that country. Guatemalan President Serrano Elias ordered that charges be brought against those responsible for the assassination. However, he soon became frustrated by the evasiveness of the army and the D-2, and he blamed SOA graduate Cesar Augusto Cabrera Mejia for being the first to block the investigation, by denying access to the relevant records. (Vol. 2, p.91) Another SOA graduate, Luis Miranda Trejo, commanded the military base from which Captain Hugo Contreras, who was implicated in Devine's assassination, supposedly escaped from a high security area (Vol. 2, p. 84).

Bamaca Case

Never Again also contains testimony relating to the torture in 1992 of Efrain Bamaca, husband of U.S. citizen Jennifer Harbury. According to the testimony, SOA graduate Julio Alpirez was present during the torture sessions (Vol. 2, p. 205). Two other SOA graduates, Ismael Segura Abularcach and Col. Haroldo Ruano del Cid commanded the special forces that made use of Bamaca while he was a prisoner by forcing him to guide army patrols in their search for guerrilla arms caches (Vol. 2, p.105).

ACTION: Contact School of the Americas Watch, 202-234-3440; http://www.derechos.org/soaw/

Support imprisoned SOA Watch activists

On March 23, 1998, eighteen of the people listed below reported to prison to serve 6-month sentences for trespassing on to Fort Benning during a solemn funeral procession protesting against the School of the Americas. You may write them at the following addresses:

Fr. Roy Bourgeois, MM
Prisoner # 83274-020
FPC Estill
100 Prison Road
Estill, SC 29918

Nicholas Cardell
Prisoner # 88109-020
FPC Allenwood
P.O. Box 1000
Montgomery, PA 17752

Mary Earley
Prisoner # 88117-020
FCI Coleman
P.O. Box 759
Coleman FL 33521

Sr. Mary Kay Flanigan
Prisoner # 88121-020
FPC Pekin
KS building
PO Box 6000
Pekin, IL 61555-6000

Anne Herman
Prisoner # 88104-020
FCI Danbury
Rt. 37
Danbury CT 06811-3044 Updated

Paddy Inman
# 88111-020 Unit 5
FPC Sheridan
P.O. Box 6000
Sheridan, OR 97378-6000

Christopher Jones
# 88118-020
FPC Sheridan
P.O. Box 6000
Sheridan, OR 97378-6000 Updated

Ken Kennon
Prisoner # 88105-020
FPC La Tuna
P.O. Box 8000
Anthony, NM 88021-9899

Dwight Lawton
Prisoner # 88103-020
FPC Jesup
2650 Highway 301 South
Jesup, GA 31599

Rita Lucey
Prisoner # 88120-020
FCI Coleman
P.O. Box 759
Coleman, FL 33521

Bill McNulty
Prisoner # 88108-020
FPC Schuylkill
P.O. Box 670
Minersville, PA 17954

Sr. Meagan Rice
Prisoner # 88101-020
FPC Danbury
Rt. 37
Danbury, CT 06811-3099

Carol Richardson
Prisoner # 88116-020
FPC Alderson
C-22
Box A
Alderson, WV 24910-0991

Dan Sage
Prisoner #88083-020
FPC Allenwood
P.O.Box 1000
Montgomery, PA 17752

Doris Sage
Prisoner # 88099-020
FPC Danbury
Rt. 37
Danbury, CT 06811-3099

Randall Serraglio
Prisoner# 88100-020
FCI Safford
PO Box 9000
Safford AZ 85548-9000

Sr. Rita Steinhagen
Prisoner # 88119-020
FPC Pekin
KS building
PO Box 6000
Pekin, IL 61555-6000

Ann Tiffany
Prisoner # 88114-020
FPC Danbury
Rt. 37
Danbury, CT 06811-3099

Judith Williams
Prisoner # 88115-020
FPC Pekin
KS building
PO Box 6000
Pekin, IL 61555-6000

Ruthy Woodring
Prisoner # 88112-020
FPC Lexington
P.O. Box 14525
Lexington, KY 40510

By DAN ONORATO

On Dec. 22, 1997, a paramilitary squad entered the town of Acteal in the state of Chiapas in southern Mexico, walked to the local church, and began killing 45 unarmed Tzotzil Indians. Fifteen were children, 19 were women. This slaughter is just the tip of the iceberg.

In 1997, 500 people in Chiapas were killed, mostly by security and paramilitary forces. In the last three months of 1997, 7,000 people, mostly Indians, fled their homes and villages. A war is going on in Chiapas, and the U.S. media, though sometimes reporting specific events like the massacre at Acteal, generally provides little context for understanding the issues. Saliently missing from most reporting is that, as in Central America in the 1980's, the U.S. is part of the problem.

The Zapatista armed uprising began in January of 1994. The movement was named after one of Mexico's much loved revolutionary leaders, Emiliano Zapata. Zapata was from southern Mexico and he sincerely cared about the poor and landless.

The larger backdrop to the conflict is centuries of oppression against Indians in Chiapas, a growing awareness among the Indians of their rights and dignity, and a clash between Western capitalism and the ancient ways of the indigenous population.

What's going on is textbook low-intensity warfare, with one modification. The aim of paramilitary actions like the one at Acteal is to undermine support among the people for the insurgent movement by terrorizing civilians in the conflict areas. The methods include intimidation techniques such as arrests, torture, massacres and the razing of entire villages while government agencies and army units try to win the "hearts and minds" of the peasants by offering handouts and subsidies.

The novelty in Chiapas is that paramilitary groups are taking the lead in the counterinsurgency. The reality is that they're backed heavily by elements in the ruling PRI party, especially the PRI leaders in Chiapas, but the official pretense is that uncontrollable paramilitary groups are escalating the violence. This charade is linked directly to Mexico's need to maintain a veneer of legitimacy and stability in order to assure continued foreign investment.

In 1995, the Mexican government ordered a massive military campaign against the Zapatistas. The military took over much of the territory the Zapatistas held, but they paid a big price both within Mexico and abroad. Mexico is facing its worst human rights crisis in decades. Much of Mexico and the world community sympathized with what the Zapatistas were asking for and condemned Mexico's President Ernesto Zedillo and his already unpopular PRI party for the harsh measures. In 1996, Zedillo reacted by entering again into discussions with the Zapatistas. Out of those meetings came the Indigenous Rights and Culture Accords, or the San Andrés Accords. These agreements incorporated two main Zapatista demands: they officially recognized the rights of indigenous communities (1) to choose their own leadship, and (2) to control the natural resources in their territories.

Those two demands underline the two major issues in the conflict: political autonomy for the Indians and control of the considerable mineral and natural resources in Chiapas. The issues are intertwined: if the Indians have the say over the future of their land, they will be able to preserve their way of life. If the PRI and its local cronies have the power, the land and resources will go to the highest bidder. What's at stake is large quantities of oil and natural gas, as well as forests filled with precious hardwoods and other valuable products. Also at stake is the prospect of a booming tourism industry, since much of the state is scenic and offers unique adventure.

A simple example of resource control is corn. Corn in Mexico is a main staple in people's diet. Small farmers consume some of what they grow and sell the rest to the market. But with the North American Free Trade Agreement in place since 1994, the local farmers can no longer set the price for corn. It's set in New York.

NAFTA influenced another change that's even more significant for the Indians. It has to do with land. No longer is the Ejido system of communal landowning protected by Mexican law. The former president, now in exile, ended it shortly before Mexico and the U.S. signed the trade agreement. The Ejido land may now be titled and sold. For people who are usually very poor, the temptation of instant money can lead to the disruption of a way of life. The situation is ripe for exploitation by the wealthy elite in Mexico and by foreign multinational corporations.

The Catholic Church, especially the bishop of San Cristobal in Chiapas, Samuel Ru’z, has played a major role in defending the Indians. The church, influenced by Liberation Theology, no longer teaches that if people are poor it's God's will. Instead, it helps people believe in their dignity and rights as human beings. Bolstered by this more mature faith and helped by very clever leadership, the Zapatista movement poses a major threat to the local power structure and even the national power structure, since there are hundreds of Indian groups and hundreds of thousands of Mexicans seeing the justice of the Zapatista demands.

In the face of the threat of radical change, the Mexican government talks peace but has reacted with military solutions. Its policy, despite the San Andres Accords which it hasn't followed, has been to squeeze the Zapatistas militarily, to paramilitarize the conflict, to wear down support for the rebels, and to hope the problem will blow away.

How is the U.S. involved? The plan that lay out this military strategy, Campaign Plan Chiapas '94, was written by General Jose Ruben Rivas Peña, one of 13 graduates of the U.S. School of the Americas now playing key roles in the repression in southern Mexico. This school, located in Fort Benning, Georgia, and named by some the School of Assassins, has become infamous for training Latin American military in highly questionable methods of counterinsurgency. Many of the trainees have gone on to become culprits of the worst human rights crimes in recent Latin American history.

The U.S. drug war in Mexico is partly responsible for some of the repression. In 1997 203 members of the officer corps of the Mexican rapid deployment counterinsurgency force were trained in the U.S. at U.S. tax-payer expense. The stated Pentagon goal is to train these officers to combat drug trafficking, but the reality is that this program has led to mounting human rights abuses nationwide, as well as in Chiapas. The funding for this training comes from the Pentagon budget, not the foreign assistance budget. As a result the requirement that aid be withdrawn if there are human rights violations does not apply. Congressional oversight is also less rigorous. The Clinton administration and Congress, with a few exceptions, have said close to nothing about this growing problem.

The U.S. is supplying sophisticated Huey attack helicopters to the Mexican military, ostensibly for the war on drugs. But with indifference, the prevailing attitude in Washington, it isn't a stretch of the imagination to assume that they are being used or may soon be used in the war against the Zapatistas.

The situation now in Chiapas is tense. Currently, Mexico is deporting foreigners from Chiapas. Foreign clergy and members of U.S. and other national human rights groups are being kicked out of the country and are being told they can't return for ten years. Members of the press corps are also being forced to leave.

Is a final military action imminent? If it happens, what will we and the world know about it? What are the chances of a peaceful, fair settlement? The future isn't certain, but if we raise our protests, as we did against U.S. policy in Central America, we might help bring about a more positive answer to the last question.

Sources: NACLA articles, March/April 1998; National Catholic Reporter, January 23, 1998; The Washington Post, "Mexican Drug Force is U.S.-Bred," Feb. 26, 1998; and the San Francisco Chroncle, "Elite Army Unit Accused of Human Rights Abuse," April 4, 1998.

ACTION: (1) Become better informed. (2) Write the press asking for more information and analysis on this issue. (3) Write congressional representatives urging them to speak out against the growing human rights violations in Chiapas and against U.S. complicity. Target Senator Feinstein who is on the Senate Foreign Affairs Committee. (4) Write the Mexican consulate in San Francisco expressing your concern.Consulate General of Mexico, 870 Market Street, San Francisco, CA. 94102, (415)392-5554, FAX (415)392-3233.

By JIM SCHULTZ

Edited from Democracy Online

By any measure it was a stunning victory - 61 percent Yes, 39 percent No. Proposition 227 won in every county except San Francisco and Alameda, even among key litmus test voters -  Latinos. The day-after headlines, around the nation, discarded all the subtleties debated during the campaign and stamped the results with one simple message - "Californians vote to end bilingual education". What happened?

The outcome of Proposition 227 was not decided this June 2nd but more than a year ago when bilingual education's chief advocates took a no-compromise stand on the issue in the Legislature. It was a mistake. In the wake of Proposition 187 and Proposition 209 (immigration and affirmative action), all issues with a racial slant have become so politically charged that bilingual education was turned into a civil rights issue instead of an educational issue. The problem is that bilingual education was in fact a legitimate educational issue as well. Anyone who wasn't hearing complaints from Latino parents wasn't listening. The challenge for bilingual education's champions was to devise a strategy to address its weaknesses, protect its successes and steal the wind out of the anti-bilingual education movement's sails. Instead they convinced Latino lawmakers to keep reform stalled in the Assembly.

What's the lesson? If you've taken responsibility to lead on an issue where there are legitimate beefs, don't pretend those beefs aren't there. Deal with them before someone else comes along (like Ron Unz) and deals with them for you in a destructive way.

A second lesson from the campaign is about message. Like all effective initiative campaigners, Ron Unz crafted a strong story line like this: "Bilingual education is an experiment of the 1960s that was tried and has failed. 95 percent of all English learners in California fail every year to learn English. Parents feel so trapped by the 'bilingual bureaucracy' that in one Los Angeles school they had to carry picket signs to get the school to teach their children English". I heard Unz deliver the tale calmly and robotically over and over again. No matter that it was at least half fiction. It was a story that sold well to both the media and the public.

In response, the NO on 227 campaign crafted messages, largely driven by polling and focus groups, that were too general, too laced with education jargon and so often focused on tangential issues that it strained credibility. The first official campaign theme was about a provision in the initiative that allows teachers to be sued. Later a new theme would be selected  -  this one focusing on 227's appropriation of $50 million per year for adult literacy programs (dubbed "the $500 million taxpayer giveaway"). While these messages may have worked in theory in the sterile simulation of a focus group, they were no match for Ron Unz's dramatic rhetoric about Latino parents with picket signs.

Even the campaign's general message, "one size fits all doesn't work", was too general. When NO on 227 backers tossed out terms like "untested methods" and "academic achievement" it didn't resonate. When they warned that the initiative would spend $50 million a year on adult literacy, reporters and the public said, "yeah right, that's why you oppose it."

The key to persuading others was to use real examples about real kids and real families (not general characterizations) to show how authentically goofy 227 really is, especially on the issue of parent choice. When I confronted Unz in public about his "try it you'll like it" provision  -  the one that requires parents to put their kids in an English-only classroom for the first 30 days of each school year whether they like it or not  -  both Unz and his initiative just looked half-baked. The campaign also made a mistake by having its messages carried almost exclusively by advocates, public relations people and educators and rarely by actual parents with children directly affected. The professionals and their jargon played right into Unz's portrait of a self-protecting bilingual bureaucracy.

Since Proposition 227 is the law, what should supporters of bilingual education do next? Lawyers are challenging the initiative on Constitutional grounds. Maybe they will succeed, maybe they won't, but bilingual education supporters should not just stand aside and hope the lawyers will bail the issue out in court. People who genuinely care about bilingual education should proceed based on two essential principles. First, protect the ability of parents to select bilingual education for their children. Second, work to make bilingual education programs stronger and better so that they are worth choosing.

To protect parent choice we need to help parents understand their rights under the law. We need to insure that districts honor those rights, and help parents get the information to make their own best decisions. To make bilingual education programs stronger we must take seriously the criticisms leveled during the campaign, many of which resonated deeply in the Latino and Asian communities.

I spent much of Election Day on a school field trip with my daughter's fifth grade class. They graduated from elementary school the next day. These children are the bilingual education products of our public school and I've watched them closely as a classroom volunteer almost every week for six years. Most are brilliantly bilingual but several others (who came to the U.S. in later grades) have not learned English well and are falling farther and farther behind. Bilingual education works well for some and not for others. That was the issue we needed to deal with before Proposition 227 and it is still the issue.

To receive THE DEMOCRACY CENTER ON-LINE, an electronic publication of The Democracy Center, email :JShultz@democracyctr.org 1535 Mission St., San Francisco, CA 94103 (415) 431-2051, FAX (415) 431-0906, email: info@democracyctr.org

Web site: http://www.democracyctr.org

From Headwaters, a quarterly publication of Friends of the River, Spring 1998

CalFed, a new joint federal and state plan intended to "restore the Delta ecosystem," is mostly commendable. However, some of the restoration objectives and actions actually threaten the environment; for example, 23 new or enlarged dams and canals, including a peripheral canal, such as citizens voted down in 1982, to ship even more water south. Governor Wilson is negotiating with legislative leaders to place a $1.3 billion bond measure on the November 1998 ballot to help pay for feasibility studies of new and enlarged dams and canals. Actual construction could cost taxpayers billions more.

CalFed depends on the water demand projections and water use efficiency analysis provided by the California Water Plan Update (also known as Bulletin 160-98). The Water Plan both overestimates demand and gives short shrift to reasonable and practical measures that can be taken to stretch existing water supplies.

State water engineers use a simplistic formula based on current per capita water use multiplied by projected population growth. This same formula led energy "experts" to predict a supposed need to build dozens of nuclear power plants in the 1970s. [Twenty were slated for the Central Valley alone.] But Californians changed how they used energy and today there is an energy surplus, without the massive nuclear power program prophesied 30 years ago. [And not one in the Central Valley!] Similarly, we can change how we use water today, thereby significantly reducing future demand.

The water plan and CalFed assume that agricultural use of water will remain largely unmeasured. Both documents also assume that existing unmetered Central Valley urban areas will not be required to meter their water. Measuring water to each customer is essential to quantify water conservation efforts. After all, how can you conserve something you don't bother to measure?

Both the Water Plan and CalFed underestimate the amount of marginal farm land in the San Joaquin Valley which should be taken out of production because of selenium poisoning concerns and to restore habitat for endangered species. Likewise, both plans assume no major shifts for low value, water intensive crops like irrigated pasture, to less water intensive crops.

State and federal authorities also fail to consider any reduction in water demand based on elimination of agricultural subsidies. For example, reducing or eliminating federal dairy subsidies could significantly decrease demand for water intensive crops such as irrigated pasture and alfalfa.

Water reclamation and reuse is also given little credit as a way of extending existing water supplies. Some regions of California have taken significant strides in reclaiming and reusing water, but little has been done from a statewide perspective. In the nest 20 years, California could be recycled and reusing up to 3 million acre-feet of wastewater. The biggest impediment to capturing this water is funding, which state bureaucrats tend to allocate mostly to new dams and canals.

[Citizen action, on many fronts, was largely responsible for stopping nuclear power proliferation in California (in addition to lousy reactor operating records and economics) and pushing energy conservation and efficiency to its current state of the art. There are also local homeowners, farmers, nursery and other business owners who have successfully experimented with reducing water usage. It can be done.]

ACTION: For info on CalFed contact Lester Snow, Executive Director, CalFed Bay-Delta Program, 1416 Ninth Street - Suite 1155, Sacramento, CA 95814. Contact Friends of the River at 128 J Street - Second Floor, Sacramento, CA 95814-2007; phone: (916) 442-3155; FAX: (916) 442-3396; email: info@friendsoftheriver.org; or http://www.friendsoftheriver.org

--Edited by Indira Clark

By BETSY REIFSNIDER

Excepted from editorial in Headwaters, a quarterly publication of Friends of the River, Spring, 1998.

Great strides have been made over the past decade to make water users in California much more efficient, according to the Oakland based Pacific Institute, especially those in urban areas.

However, an insidious plan is afoot which will reserve some of these conservation gains. A bill introduced in Congress is gaining momentum. Unless Congress hears from us though hundred of letters, faxes, and phone calls, we could lose an important tool to restore rivers and protect estuaries like the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta.

Congressman Joseph Knollenberg (MI) has introduced HR 859, which would real all the water efficiency standards created under the 1992 Energy Policy Act, Knollenberg's bill would revoke standards for showerheads, faucet aerators, and toilets. Since becoming law, these national plumbing stands have provided an incentive to manufacturers to invest hevily in water efficient plumbing products, reduced customers' water and energy bills, and ultimately, saved lots of water.

If HR 859 becomes law, entities like the Metropolitan Water District of Southern California have stated unequivocally that the new law "will jeopardized California water supply agencies' ability to meet future demands." And how else can those demands be slacked? An always powerful water brotherhood certainly will call for constructing more dams, canals, and reservoirs, and relying more heavily on the already over-committed Bay/Delta estuary.

While water efficient toilets and showerheads may seem an unlikely environmental battlefield, they are already stretching California's water supplies dramatically. For instance, according to the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power, low flush toilet enable the City to use virtually the same amount of water today as in 1970, despite a 28 per cent population increase. The same can be said for many other communities around the state. [Think Mono Lakes and Owens Valley.]

ACTION: Write to your member of Congress and urge a "No" vote on repealing the national plumbing standards. Explain that the existing standards reduce water and energy bills, they can delay or even eliminate the need to develop expensive new municipal water supply and treatment facilities, and they promote water conservation - the most economically- and environmentally -sound water supply option in the nation.So write a letter. Install a 1.6 gallon toilet. By doing so, you may help protect some of California's grand but fragile natural heritage.

— Edited by Indira Clark

By TINA DRISKILL

The venerable Phra Ajahn Yantra Amaro, monk of the Thai Forest tradition of Buddhism and founder of Sunnataram Meditation Monastaries in Thailand, Denmark, the United States, New Zealand and Australia will be the honored speaker July 1 at 7 p.m. in the Unity of Modesto Church, 2467 Veneman Ave.

Phra Ajahn will teach on The True Perfection of Buddhism, living in the moment, the practice of loving kindness, and the right way of living, as well as lead particpants in meditation.

Currently residing at the Sunnataram Monastary in Escondido, Phra Ajahn has lived in the US since 1995 and was granted political asylum in 1997.

The special evening, sponsored by Unity of Modesto and Stillpoint Retreat, is open to the public and a love offering will be taken.

ACTION: For information call Unity of Modesto at 578-5433.

By JUDY LORETELLI and TINA ARNOPOLE DRISKILL

Modesto taxpayers get possibly the biggest bang for their buck through offerings of the newly renamed City of Modesto Community Services & Neighborhood Connections Department (formerly Parks and Recreation).

Because recreation opportunities are so beneficial to the health of the entire community, the City of Modesto has committee more than 45 full time administrators, supervisors and support personnel, some 175 temporary and part time supervisors and recreation leaders, plus hundreds of volunteers, as well as an annual budget in excess of $15 million to the Community Services and Neighborhood Connections Department, which includes an administrative division, a cultural and events services division (Modesto Centre Plaza, John Thurman Field and cultural sites like the McHenry Mansion and the McHenry Museum), and the recreation division (leisure services, parks planning and development, King-Kennedy Memorial Center, Senior Citizens Center, City Hall at the Mall and the golf program), and to the parks division of the Operations and Maintenance Department.

"Recent studies conducted by the National Parks and Recreation Association (show) that individuals who participate in recreational activities lead a happier and healthier life, " points out Judy Loretelli, Recreation Supervisor II. "Recreation and leisure activities play a major role in assisting children to develop lifelong skills and abilities," she adds, "while...offering a safe environment." Going far beyond warehousing children to keep them busy between school terms, recreation benefits offer "a safe place to interact with others, meet new friends and create lifelong memories. Studies further indicate that participating in recreation has lead to a reduction in crime, greater self- esteem and a sensitivity towards cultural diversity."

Besides extensive aquatics, tennis, golf, sports league and senior center programs, the summer activity guide lists camps, classes, and events for every age and physical ability level at a variety of facilities, including the Senior Citizens Center, King-Kennedy Memorial Center, Maddux Youth Center, skating rinks, bowling alleys, city golf courses, high school and Modesto Junior College pools, and neighborhood school and park facilities throughout the city.

The camps program offers day camps and sports camps, including the Razzle-Dazzle Drama Camp and the Children's Friendship Camp promoting "unity and understanding between cultures and children."

Special opportunities for youth encompass the Male/Female Rites of Passage series at the King-Kennedy Center, the Youth Entrepreneur Program at the Maddux Youth Center, the Modesto Youth Conservation Corps, teen swim nights, and workshops in job training, arts and crafts and break dancing.

Tournaments and competitions in skateboarding, volleyball, weight lifting, tennis, table tennis, swimming, eight-ball call pocket pool and others are scheduled throughout the summer. Summer class listings for all ages include tumbling and gymnastics, aerobics, skating, bowling, rock climbing, basketball, martial arts, cheer leading, dancing, drama, arts, crafts, cooking and more.

Special events include the Community Connection Fair, Jazz and Blues in Mellis Park, Kid's Corner-Meet Us At the Mall, Hidro-Slam, King Kennedy Neighborhood Collaborative Dance, Senior 4th of July Potluck BBQ, Fantastic Family Fridays, Super Spash Saturdays and Family Night Swims.

You can even plan special swim parties, traveling workshops or group parties through the department's Port-able Parties.

Programs are available to all Modestans, and financial assistance for registrations and other fees is available to qualified youth and seniors through the Senior/Youth Recreational Financial Assistance Program.

ACTION: To learn more about specific programs or to volunteer or obtain financial assistance, call 577-5344 or pick up an activity guide at 801-11th Street.

Willie Nelson comes to CSU Stanislaus

"TURLOCK-Mark your calendar for Tuesday, July 14. That's when country music legend Willie Nelson described in many music circles as a 'national monument', will make his first concert appearance in Stanislaus County.

Tickets for the 7:30 p.m. concert, priced at $18 general admission and $28 for preferred seating at the 10,000-seat CSU Stanislaus Amphitheater are now on sale. Call BASS, (209)226-2277, or the CSU Stanislaus Office of Development and University Relations (209) 667-3131, for ticket reservations. Amphitheater gates will open at 6:15.

A number of Willie Nelson's songs, such as "On The Road Again" and "Whiskey River," have crossed over from the country charts to become rock 'n roll hits. Willie's latest album release, "Just One Love" with Justice Records, is a collection that Nelson said takes him "back to the basics of country." Recorded at the historical Pedernales Recording Studio just outside Austin, Texas, this collection of ballads and upbeat toe tappers is Willie's first country alum in over six years.

His Fourth of July picnics which began in 1973 in Texas have become the stuff of legend, while his annual Farm Aid shows have helped call attention to the plight of the American farmer since 1985. [Connections editor Nancy Dimon was there in Champagne for the first one]. His reputation as a musical icon armed with a voice as a weapon makes Nelson a spiritual leader and guru of those who have followed the former Bible salesman's career. Singing star Emmylou Harris said of Nelson, " He has this presence that radiates out him, an aura. You can feel it even when he's not in the room. If you want to understand what I'm talking about, go to one of his concerts. People act like they're in church, as if he fills a spiritual void for them."

By MYRTLE OSNER

What do you think of when you say "Appalachia"? Coal mines stripping the land, hillbillies, poverty, mountain people? I now know what "way back in the boonies" means!

I saw a different face of Kentucky on a tour with Heifer Project International in June. Yes, people are poor, and yes, the people are isolated back in those hills and "hollers". But I saw a generous, spirited people that work long, hard hours for very little return, with a love of their land and their kin that we seldom see in rootless California living.

And a spirit of revolution is rising, partly thanks to Heifer Project. It's nothing less than community organizing. I learned that families receive animals from HPI only when there is an organized group with a plan and a vision of their needs to carry out with their gift. Heifer Project is not a giveaway--it's a helping hand up.

The most exciting team we visited was headed by a Family Resource Center in two schools. Beginning with eleven children who received goats to raise, the goats became the catalyst to interest whole families in their children's education. One slow reader became so interested in goats that he took out books and learned as he went along. In this county, seventy-six percent of children are eligible for free lunch programs. Then teachers were able to relate to the families to help solve some of the children's health problems. The teacher was born right there.

At each project we visited during our five day tour, we heard the stories of how people receiving animals must take training and the first born offspring must be passed on to another family. By this method, people are able to stay on their small farms and have a healthier diet. Over and over we saw examples of talent and creativity. Thus, I learned that Heifer Project is not about animals; it's about people and the pride they have in their work and the ( often unsuspected) leadership abilities they can display. Each group has its own dynamic.

Ah, but the land is beautiful! Those wooded hills have been strip mined for coal. In spite of mining, forests clothe the hills in unending green and wild game still roam the woods.

Many injured ex-miners live on the small farms passed down through generations. With their families and a means to grow their own food they may be able to feed themselves. In Kentucky, tobacco is the only cash crop most farmers have.

Each farmer has a tobacco quota which the tobacco companies require to pay at least a minimum price. This program costs taxpayers nothing. While in Kentucky, we read Wendell Berrys' criticism of Senator Lugars' plan to buy small farmers' tobacco allotment. Berry says "To pay farmers an average of $80,000 over three years for tobacco quotas, without having in place an alternative, is the same as paying them to quit farming". What then?

What is missing is a program to phase in and develop markets. Heifer Project has already begun some projects such as "pastured poultry", goats, vegetables and farmers markets. But it takes time to switch.

We often tout the virtues of small family farms, but our support is usually only lip service. Cooperatives and community organizing can provide some of the answers. Otherwise, we will lose a way of life that has sustained our families and our culture for generations.

Our day at Berea College was also an eye opener. The college was founded in the 11860's by a fervent abolitionist minister and was the first interracial college in the United States. It is still a "working college". No student pays tuition; each must be "financially challenged", and each is required to do work on campus ten hours a week. It is a liberal arts school, training students for many professions. It's agricultural department and its country crafts are famous.

ACTION: Study tours with Heifer Project International are available world-wide ( you will find yourself tromping through the muck). Information about programs to learn about Heifer programs can be acquired from our own Western Regional Center in Ceres, or call 1-800-422-0474.

By NANCY DIMOND

It seems that lately I've been relegated to the appetizer duties at potlucks. This dip for tortilla chips is something I threw together. Actually, this is a revised version and an improvement on the original. It's a nice alternative to regular salsa or a bean dip. Note: Dips are not just for parties. They can be used as part of a light meal when balanced with other foods for people who eat on the go. (This wisdom courtesy of Molly Katzen.)

Southwest Seafood Dip

1/2 pound imitation crab meat, shredded
1 medium avocado, chopped
1 large tomato, deseeded and chopped
1 green onion (white and green parts), sliced thinly
2 tablespoons minced cilantro
2 tablespoons minced jalapenos
1 1/2 cups plain yogurt
a heaping 1/4 teaspoon each, salt and lemon pepper

There is a new restaurant in Modesto that is worthy of the title of this article.

Indian Palate has a wonderful buffet lunch for $5.99 that includes lentils, lamb, curries and an assortment of breads, including Garlic Nan. The restaurant features eight appetizers, soup and salad, eleven breads, vegetables entrees, South Indian entrees, Chicken, lamb, sea food entrees and eight Tandoori entrees.

The fare also includes an array of Indian drinks. The Mango Lassi is particularly good.

In addition to the food, the restaurant features a dance floor and a stage for live shows, that often includes belly dancing.

The four hundred seating capacity restaurant is located at 915 Yosemite Blvd.

The entrees come in either mild or spicy hot versions and the owners are very pleasant and polite. Next time you want something different, try Indian Palate. You will not be disappointed.