This Weeks Cover

It gets bloody difficult thinking up attractive covers for Salient, which will inspire students to seize the paper and read it avidly. Late Monday night we were still wracking our brains for an idea for this issue when some bright spark remembered that Thursday is the International Day of Solidarity with the Brazilian People and Students.

Brazil may seem remote to many students. But the struggle there and in many other Third World countries should remind people here of their privileged position and international obligations to the exploited people of the world. The cover also refers to the brutality of the South African regime and the suffering of banned students, see story on page 6. Our man in Rio de Janiero writes:

Since 1964 the people of Brazil have suffered under the vicious military dictatorship of General Medici. In September 1972 Amnesty International released a report on the widespread torture of political prisoners carried out by the Brazilian police and military.

One particularly notorious torture used is the "pan de arara". This involves tying a prisoner's wrists and ankles together and suspending him above the floor by an iron bar under his knees, leaving his naked body doubled over as electric shocks and other tortures are administered.

Through its "aid for public safety" programme the United States Agency for International Development (A.I.D.) gives training and financial support to the Brazilian police. American advisors in Brazil teach the local police the latest and most sophisticated police "techniques".

Brazilian students have been in the forefront of the struggle to free their country from General Medici's fascist dictatorship and the foreign monopolies which rob the people of their wealth. Throughout Latin America students have joined the masses in fighting U.S. and Western imperialism and struggling for national independence and socialism.

The Brazilian dictatorship doesn't have an embassy in Wellington. But ring up the U.S. Embassy (phone 41-076) and ask why the American Government provides military and police training for the Medici regime to eliminate its opposition.