UNHAPPY OVER ANTIWAR DEMONSTRATORS
By Alan Harris
Vancouver
"Pearson, Martin, LBJ -- How many kids did you kill today?" chanted some 100 placard-waving demonstrators as Prime Minister Lester B. Pearson and his wife entered the Hotel Vancouver to attend a British Columbia Liberal party fund-raising dinner March 31. Paul Martin is Canada's external affairs minister; but Pearson bears responsibility for the policies followed by that department of his government.
Obviously rattled by the demonstrators, who followed him around on his three-day trip to Vancouver March 30-April 1, Pearson told them to "ask in Washington" about ending the war in Vietnan.
This was a novel twist to the cry which hecklers used to shout at socialist speakers: "If you don't like it here, why don't you go back to Russia?"
A leaflet distributed by the Vancouver Vietnam Day Committee took up the logic of telling Canadians to ask "in Washington" for an end to the war.
"Are you saying to us, Mr. Pearson, that we must see Washington about Canadian complicity: that it is the State Department and not you who controls Canadian foreign policy? But even then, we must address our protests to you. We must say: End subservience to Washington's foreign policy; speak out against the war in Vietnam; stop Canadian arms shipments to the U.S." (Canadian industry last year sold $300 million worth of arms and munitions to the U.S. government. )
Stung by the slogans demanding an end to Canadian complicity, Pearson conceded at a press conference that some Canadian arms and equipment sold to the U.S. found their way to Vietnam. "I'm not denying that," he said. "But it would be a small percentage." He did not elaborate on how much a "small percentage" is.
After the demonstration in front of the Hotel Vancouver, the antiwar activists wound their way downtown before crowds of Friday-night shoppers. They ended at the Public Library to hold a short meeting.
The bulk of the persons on the demonstration were supporters of the Vancouver Vietnam Day Committee or the Ad Hoc Committee of Youth for Peace in Vietnan.
The action was seen as a builder for the April 15 demonstrations and rally and was given wide publicity over TV and in the daily press.
WORKERS BATTLE POLICE IN BILBAO
More than 5,000