Datelines

al., Andrea Bernstein et.

Battle in the Black Belt BIRMINGHAM Two decades after passage of the Voting Rights Act, the Federal Government is back in town—but this time it is on the other side. "Twenty years ago, the...

...Morrison County commissioners weren't persuaded...
...ambassador to Haiti initially hailed the referendum as "a measure [that] reflects President Duvalier's stated commitment to lead Haiti to democracy, which has our full support," The State Department's desk officer for Haiti later said the United States "conferred no legitimacy upon the referendum...
...Karl D. Bremer (Karl D. Bremer is a free-lance writer in St...
...The Haitian government says he was murdered by a burglar, but others, including the Vatican, accuse the regime itself...
...In 1982, his older brother Everett was bedridden, convalescing from a stroke, when a wayward Navy jet buzzed over his rooftop...
...Still others assailed the proposal on moral grounds...
...Andrea Bernstein (Andrea Bernstein is a freelance writer in Carrboro, North Carolina...
...But the issue did not end there...
...Triest, a Belgian, was warned not to use the radio station to broadcast criticism of the referendum or Duva-lier, but Radio Soleil continued on its independent way...
...According to union estimates, the effort will be effective if three million consumers stop buying nonunion California table grapes—far fewer than the number who supported the earlier boycott...
...Morrison County residents found little comfort in the experience of those living by Honeywell's other weapons testing ground near the Twin Cities...
...Whether or not they lead to convictions, the Federal investigations may discourage black voters from casting their ballots...
...As blacks begin to take control of political offices in predominantly black areas, the Reagan Administration has launched an attack on the front line of black leadership, indicting mayors, sheriffs, and community activists on charges of vote fraud...
...Perhaps pregnancy should not be considered a "disability" in the traditional sense of the word, but it would be difficult for a student to deliver a child and return to school without falling behind in class work...
...You have to convince them to vote...
...The U.S...
...An Equal Rights Amendment might have protected Jolly, "but we don't have an Equal Rights Amendment either in Wisconsin or nationally," says Linda Roberson, a Madison lawyer...
...The night after the referendum, seventy-eight-year-old Father Albert De-Smet was beaten to death in his home...
...The FBI raided Cooke's office last October and seized materials ranging from voter lists to liquid paper and blank envelopes...
...In this county in rural north-central Minnesota, citizens fought the armament company's proposal to convert 1,100 acres of forest and agricultural land into a weapons-testing facility—and won...
...He's committed to the interests of the growers and their capacity for political campaign support...
...Using direct-mail lists instead of pickets, the United Farm Workers of America (UFW) has renewed its battle against California grape growers...
...On the day of the balloting, the regime sent armed militia into neighborhoods and rounded up scores of individuals...
...Unless the nation rises up and asks Reagan and his Justice Department to step aside and stop trying to involve himself in who will run the local government in these counties," says Turner, "it will be a very dark page in the history of our country...
...He had a startle reaction," says Rosse...
...The most popular station on the island, Radio Soleil doesn't flinch from revealing the dictatorial policies of Jean-Claude Du-valier...
...A board agent who asks to remain anonymous says that of the filed charges, "the vast majority involved cases where workers were fired for being in support of the UFW...
...By not considering pregnancy as a basis for deferral," he said, "the Department is taking the position of making abortion the only recourse" for a woman who wishes to remain in school...
...The Bureau still holds records dealing with a planned county-wide water project, and has thus effectively put a halt to the project...
...All other independent stations and newspapers have been harassed into submission or completely shut down...
...It's important to understand that the Black Belt is in a state of political siege and almost legal tyranny," says Wofford...
...Some 80,000 grape workers are employed in California...
...We have to train our men the way we're going to fight the war or we're teaching them defeat," says Captain Paul Austin, Commander of Fallon Naval Air Station in Nevada...
...The general counsel of the state's Agricultural Labor Relations Board has dismissed most charges of unfair labor practices brought against employers...
...The UFW is calling for a contract with grape growers to provide for "free and fair elections" and the opportunity to "negotiate in good faith...
...attorneys bringing investigations and indictments against people for alleged criminal acts of vote fraud, but we understand that these indictments are politically motivated...
...The official said the Department had decided to change its rule and would instruct state agencies to grant loan deferments to pregnant students...
...Honeywell Proving Ground Manager John FitzGerald denies the company is to blame for well problems and says complaints about blasting are exaggerated...
...Instead of leafletting and picketing grocery stores as it did a decade ago, the union is using computerized direct-mail techniques to target consumers most likely to support the cause...
...With the cheapest labor force in the hemisphere, Haiti has attracted more than 220 U.S...
...This general counsel has dismissed more charges than anyone before him," says board member Jerome Wal-die, former Governor Jerry Brown's appointee...
...Father Yvan Pollefeyt was sent packing after he, too, publicly denounced the present state of affairs...
...Shortly after the row, Kas-tenmeier's office received a telephone call from an under secretary at the Education Department...
...Department of Education...
...On the advice of her physician, Karen Jolly took a leave of absence from the University of Wisconsin-Madison in the fall of 1984 to deliver her first child...
...As the referendum campaign wound up, the telephone lines of Radio Soleil were damaged and its broadcasts interfered with...
...It was the combined efforts of a lot of citizens working very diligently to do their homework and present the facts in a rational fashion," says local business executive Al Kuebelbeck, who founded a group called Preserve Our Land...
...The Justice Department has taken off the mantle of freedom and justice and dignity and has assumed the mantle of intervention and propping up minority folk in the Black Belt of Alabama...
...They say the older generations of jets have already made illegal supersonic flights...
...Twenty years ago, the Justice Department was on the side of justice," says Lawrence Wofford, research director of Campaign for a New South, an organization that promotes black voting strength in the region...
...The Navy suggested in its Draft Environmental Impact Statement that it might buy out and relocate the 370 residents who would be most affected by the booms...
...This summer, the station ran into problems, largely for debunking a national referendum that asked Haitians to approve Duvalier as President-for-Life, grant him the right to appoint a prime minister and choose his own successor, and legalize political parties...
...Father Jean Hos-tens was accused of "inciting the people" for delivering a homily about the miserable conditions under which Haitians must live...
...Jeanan Yasiri (Jeanan Yasiri is a producer of Contact 15, a consumer-affairs program televised on WMTV in Madison...
...We have more black elected officials and more politicians in terms of determining self-autonomy...
...In the two-and-a-half years that Deukmejian has been in office, the UFW says, pro-union farm workers have been harassed and fired...
...He fell out of bed and died...
...Allan Ebert (Allan Ebert is project director of the Washington Office on Haiti...
...Paul...
...The final tally, as reported by the government, was 2.3 million in favor and forty-nine against...
...Education Department officials told Kastenmeier that "since pregnancy is not considered an injury or illness, borrowers would not be eligible for a deferment due to pregnancy...
...Now the boycott is back-high-tech style...
...They're engaged in terrorism at home," says Wofford...
...The meeting turned into a diatribe against Radio Soleil, and Triest was accused of "inciting the people...
...The parallels are frightening to me...
...Lowering the Boom FALLON, NEVADA Fourteen years after the Supersonic Transport (SST) was banned from making transcontinental flights across the United States, the Department of Defense wants its own sonic booms to echo over the Southwest...
...As part of the campaign, the UFW is taking on Republican Governor George Deukmeji-an's administration, which the union accuses of siding with the growers...
...I felt like it would have really hurt my grades to take off even a couple of weeks," Jolly recalls...
...They are contemplating other forms of civil disobedience to dissuade the Navy from going through with its air combat training...
...Triest was arrested...
...If anything, we've helped make the general public more aware of the decisions government officials make and how they can be affected by them...
...The boycott, announced in July, is only beginning to reach mailboxes and supermarkets across the country...
...The company assured the county that it would minimize disturbance to the environment...
...Five days before the referendum, the station director, Father Hugo Triest, was summoned by the Minister of Foreign and Religious Affairs to discuss a broadcast concerning the murder of ten Haitians on the Dominican Republic border...
...They need to start here, and if they can stop it here, they will stop it all over," says Albert Turner, one of the three recently acquitted...
...If the Navy wants to use the air above our land, they'll need our permission...
...While the issues at the root of the current grape boycott are similar to those of the mid-1970s, the UFW's tactics have changed dramatically...
...a report by the board itself reveals that 74 per cent of all such cases were dismissed last year...
...The last proposal, though desirable, was accompanied by forty-nine restrictions that rendered it useless...
...If the opposition had not formed around this proposal, it would have been approved and in place today...
...Old Boycott, New Bottle SAN FRANCISCO Boycott Grapes...
...During the course of Turner's trial, his home was fire-bombed and the Greene County office of planning and development was burned down...
...Kastenmeier said he was prepared to propose Federal legislation to redress the problem...
...Honeywell's promises did not impress those living in the area...
...He favors growers over farm workers...
...But five months later, Jolly learned that the Wisconsin Higher Education Corporation had denied her a disability deferment on the grounds that Federal education officials do not consider pregnancy a disability...
...After a local consumer-affairs program, "Contact 15," publicized Jolly's predicament, the lender agreed to a forbearance, which allows Jolly to pay only the interest on her loan until she can return to school full-time...
...Kastenmeier was not pleased...
...Bank officials said she would have no problem in securing a deferment...
...Honeywell had asked county officials to rezone the land for general industrial use so the company could test a variety of munitions there, ranging from twenty-millimeter ammunition to 150-millimeter artillery shells...
...Most of the arms tested at the newly proposed site will no doubt be sold or given to the oppressive governments of Central America or other parts of the world," read one advertisement placed in local newspapers by the Franciscan Sisters of Little Falls...
...There is no clear distinction between intervention in the Black Belt and intervention in Third World countries...
...Major opposition leaders called for a boycott of the referendum and Radio Soleil relayed that message...
...For Rosse, the Navy plans are no small threat...
...The demonstrators included ranchers, Shoshone and Paiute Indians, and other residents from around Nevada...
...The bottom line: If Jolly left school, she would have to start paying back her $2,300 loan...
...companies...
...And because of that, because we don't have a specific piece of legislation that addresses itself to this specific problem, we have a class of people here that falls through the cracks...
...Others feared declining land values and erosion of their rural lifestyle...
...To no one's surprise, Du-valier won the referendum...
...I thought it was very unrealistic for them to feel I could have a baby and return to school immediately...
...Along with Triest, two other Belgian priests had their residency permits revoked and were expelled from the country in July...
...It was in this area that the Reverend Martin Luther King Jr...
...Land owners adjacent to that site have blamed Honeywell for damaged wells, broken windows, and, according to one home owner, blasts so loud "it knocks the crystal off the chandelier...
...To protest the decision, members of the Coalition of Rural Americans, a local citizens' group, camped out at three of the four bombing ranges near Fallon...
...All the investigations have taken place in the "Black Belt," a ten-county region running from Montgomery west to Mississippi...
...Representative Robert Kastenmeier, Wisconsin Democrat, brought the matter before the Federal bureaucracy...
...Disputes entailing employer "coercion, restraint, interference, threats, and surveillance" have also been dismissed, he adds...
...On referendum day, July 22, the transmission lines were completely cut and the fuses removed from the transmission boxes...
...Radio Soleil, funded and staffed by the Catholic Church, is the last remaining voice of opposition in Haiti...
...In July, Commissioner Fay Pe-tron introduced a resolution to reject the project, and it passed by a vote of 3-to-l...
...Many of the Nevada residents who live directly beneath the planned supersonic route have organized to prohibit the flights...
...Wildlife Wins, Honeywell Loses MORRISON COUNTY, MINNESOTA The Honeywell Corporation has a lot of weight in these parts, but evidently not quite enough...
...The commission seemed most convinced by the information presented by a lot of people in regards to the appropriate land use for that area," Kuebelbeck says...
...Haiti Cracks Down on the Church WASHINGTON, D.C...
...Or, alternatively, it would expose residents to the booms and compile "long-term public health data...
...only 3 per cent of them are unionized...
...We have three U.S...
...The three priests were more fortunate than one of their colleagues...
...Environmentalists wanted to protect wildlife—deer, ducks, and heron-r-that would be endangered by weapons testing on the land...
...Local residents formed a coalition to defeat the proposed zoning change...
...did much of his early work...
...The Justice Department is no longer our friend...
...We are sovereign here," says tribal chairman William Rosse...
...Growers "do what they please to workers," says Rodriguez...
...This is where people began fighting for the right to vote, and we are further advanced here in my opinion than any other part of the nation...
...The Navy hopes to use 5,500 square miles of airspace above central Nevada to conduct mock dogfights with its F-18 jets...
...Jolly, who held a Guaranteed Student Loan from her hometown bank, contacted her lender to make sure that pregnancy entitled her to leave school without beginning repayment...
...And, they say, it's a woman's choice to get pregnant in the first place...
...In late June, Navy Secretary John Lehman approved the supersonic flights over central Nevada...
...Buttons urging consumers to do so vanished from the political landscape almost'ten years ago, when the California legislature passed a law giving farm workers the right to organize and protecting them from unfair labor practices...
...The Navy can't send its pilots casually over the border into Mexico, and they shouldn't do it here...
...Devorah Lanner (Devorah Lanner is a Washington correspondent for the Center for Investigative Reporting...
...Deukmejian has taken the guts out of the law so there's no enforcement," says Artie Rodriguez, a UFW representative...
...Women Win One CROSS PLAINS, WISCONSIN Though Federal law permits working women time off to have children, it does not give female students the same right, a Wisconsin woman discovered to her dismay...
...At stake in the battle for the Black Belt is economic as well as political control of the region, which covers some 5,000 square miles...
...In July, a Federal jury in Selma, Alabama, acquitted three of the black leaders of twenty-nine counts of vote fraud, but five others are standing trial in Greene County, Alabama...
...After several hours of questioning, he was ordered to leave the country...
...Firing at the new Morrison County site, he claims, would have been far less frequent than that already carried out at nearby Camp Ripley Military Reservation...
...Most people don't vote anyway," says Booker Cooke Jr., Greene County planner and coordinator of Campaign for a New South...
...Officials of the Wisconsin Higher Education Corporation say they "only follow the rules" handed down by the U.S...
...The training flights could cause twenty to 100 sonic booms daily—reaching an intensity two to nine times that of the SST and affecting as many as 15,000 people...
...And if it's too much trouble, they won't bother...
...Laura Fraser (Laura Fraser, a free-lance writer in San Francisco, is a member of the Cooperative News Service of New Haven, Connecticut...
...The Yomba Shoshone tribe holds claim to most of the land under the Navy's proposed supersonic range...

Vol. 49 • October 1985 • No. 10


 
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