Fuck Ronald Reagan - Bill Weinberg The June 2004 death of former US President Ronald Reagan (1980-88) produced an outpouring of quite extraordinary rosetinted nostalgia for an apparent "Golden Age" (the 80s, for Gods sake), when America, and the world, were led by "The Great Communicator". A prime example of this is the Commemorative Issue of Time (14/6/04) devoted entirely to this myth. New Zealanders have plenty of reasons to not look back fondly on Reagan  his was the intransigent US Administration that tried to bully us out of our nuclear free policy, and didnt say a word when French State terrorists bombed the Rainbow Warrior in Auckland Harbour in 1985, killing a man in the process. The peoples of America and the world have also got no shortage of reasons to not mythologise this most reactionary of US Presidents. There was a flood of critical material following his death. This one (World War 3 Report; 10/6/04; WW3Report.com) was my favourite. I couldnt have put it better myself. Ed. What a tsunami of bullshit has been unleashed by the demise of Ronald Wilson Reagan, architect of the conservative revolution we still suffer under today. The media blitz occasioned by the near-simultaneous presidential passing (June 5) and the 60th anniversary of D-Day* (June 6) has been a boon to the sitting President, himself the spawn of a dynasty that rode the Reagan revolution to power. America gets a time-out from the Iraq horror show to feel good about itself and celebrate past militaristic glories. It almost makes you wonder if news of the death wasn't withheld awhile to coordinate the spectacle. * June 6, 1944. The date when the Allies landed in Normandy, starting the liberation of Western Europe from the Nazis. Ed. The hideous irony of the implicit media linking of Reagan and D-Day is that Reagan's "revolution" was undoing the legacy of President Franklin Roosevelt (1932-45) - the "Welfare State" was dismantled in favor of "Reaganomics": radical corporate deregulation, with the hallucinatory sugar-coating that wealth would spontaneously "trickle down." It didn't, and as the ranks of the urban homeless swelled dramatically under his rule, '30s-style Hoovervilles* popped up all over the inner cities. Playing to nostalgia for an America that never really was, Reagan plunged the country back into horrors that had been all too real. * Hoovervilles. The ironic name for settlements of the countless ranks of the homeless, dispossessed by the policies of the former President Herbert Hoover, who took the US into the Great Depression of the 1930s. Ed. Making The World Safe For Fascism Simultaneously, the Reagan White House backed fascism abroad. The massively US-funded-and-directed bloodbath in El Salvador in the Reagan years claimed some 50,000 lives by the UN Truth Commission's estimate--and double that by many rights observers. The genocide of Maya Indians in neighbouring Guatemala, with the US aid more covert and the Israelis serving as proxies, claimed similar numbers--while Reagan advocated restoring overt aid to the military dictatorship, claiming it had received a "bum rap." Reagan called Guatemalan dictator Rios Montt, author of the genocide, "a man of great personal integrity and commitment... I know he wants to improve the quality of life for all Guatemalans and to promote social justice." The (1976-80) Carter-era notion of "human rights" was replaced by "national security" as the cornerstone of US foreign policy. Reagan's UN Ambassador, Jeane Kirkpatrick, theorised on the distinction between the mere "authoritarianism" of anti-communist regimes such as Augusto Pinochet's in Chile (at least 3,000 killed or "disappeared") and the intolerable "totalitarianism" of those such as Cubas Fidel Castro. Reagan's Victory in Europe (VE) Day 1985 visit to (the former) West Germany's Bitburg cemetery, where officers of Hitler's SS are buried, illustrated the historical and ideological shift. "No Pasaran!"--they shall not pass!--the slogan of the Spanish Loyalists who resisted the Nazi-backed fascist forces of Generalissimo Francisco Franco in the Spanish Civil War prelude to World War II, was resurrected by Nicaraguan loyalists who similarly defended an elected government against the Reagan-backed "contra" guerillas. In 1984, the World Court ruled in favour of little Nicaragua, finding US support for the contras--"terrorists" by any single-standard definition, openly seeking to destabilise Nicaragua's first freely elected government by attacking its civilian supporters--was illegal. Reagan refused to recognise the Court's ruling. And when Congress cut off funds to the contras following reports of rights abuses, Reagan turned to a private spy network and kickbacks from secret arms deals with Iran to keep the insurgency alive. In an October 25, 1984, Scripps-Howard interview, Reagan justified US mercenaries fighting for the contras by pointing out that "nothing was done legally about the formation of a brigade of Americans in the (1930s) Spanish Civil War"--a reference to the Abraham Lincoln Brigade, that fought against Franco--and added that they had been "in the opinions of most Americans, fighting on the wrong side." If anyone doubts that Reagan was really pro-fascist, the Great Communicator's own words speak eloquently for themselves. Of course Reagan did all this in the name of "protecting democracy," and few today seem to grasp the irony, as he is now portrayed as the saviour of the Free World. The vastly cynical Reagan slogan "Government off the backs of the American people"--really a euphemism for unleashing corporate power from public oversight--has similarly been accepted uncritically. Even the New York Times headline on his death hailed him as an icon of "limited government." This of the man who oversaw a hypertrophy of the prison system, the federal-led expansion and militarisation of police forces, the reign of urine-tests in the workplace, saturation propaganda against illegal drugs, a thrust to put prayer in public schools and to ban abortion. The mind boggles! A further irony is that the slashing of social programmes was carried out in the name of "fiscal responsibility," while Reaganomics combined with the unprecedented post-Vietnam War bloating of Pentagon budgets opened huge deficits. And the man who made much of his support for the Solidarity union in Communist Poland was a union-buster at home: when 11,000 air-traffic controllers went on strike for a better contract in 1981, Reagan fired every last one of them. Wrote Juan Gonzalez in the June 8, 2004, New York Daily News (one of the few commentators out there who doesn't have his head down an Orwellian Memory Hole): "It was the signal to every corporate chief in America that it was open season on unions". Insane Nuclear Arms Race The saviour-of-the-Free-World jazz is based in the notion that Reagan precipitated the Soviet collapse, and there is some truth to that--but the way the grim, amoral struggle of contending military-industrial empires is being glorified now is sickening. In the current atmosphere of official amnesia I guess we aren't supposed to talk about how everybody was scared shitless of nuclear holocaust back in the early '80s. At an August 11, 1984, press conference, Reagan quipped during the microphone check: "My fellow Americans, I'm pleased to tell you today that I've signed legislation that will outlaw Russia forever. We begin bombing in five minutes". It wasn't just a joke. The hypertrophy of nuclear weapons production reached such a breakneck pace that safety corner-cutting resulted in a wave of cancers near the Energy Department's plutonium plant at Hanford, Washington. Despite massive protests, the Cruise and Pershing missiles were installed in Europe, as the Soviets placed their own SS-20 missiles in the former East Germany and Czechoslovakia--bringing the interval between launch time and Einstein's feared "unparalleled catastrophe" to a mere ten minutes. The "Star Wars" programme was launched, with the US abandoning its commitment to the 1967 Outer Space Treaty and 1972 Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty--although sheer technical hubris has kept the scheme an empty dream, even in its current down-sized version. Nobody has even pointed out how the title of the current Hollywood climate-destabilisation thriller "The Day After Tomorrow" recalls that of the 1983 TV movie "The Day After," depicting nuclear war. The pic was sanitised and mediocre, but the fact that it was made (and received much hoopla) indicates the apocalyptic zeitgeist of the Reagan era. In 1984, the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists moved the hands of its symbolic "Doomsday Clock" to three minutes of midnight--the closest since 1953, when the Soviets developed the hydrogen bomb. We are also apparently not supposed to talk about what an objective disaster the restoration of capitalism in the post-Communist world has been in simple human terms. The bloodlettings in the Balkans and the Caucasus loan credence to Cornelius Castoriadis' juxtaposition of "socialism or barbarism." Even where ethnic warfare and neo-fascism have not followed the Communist collapse, the results have been horrific--the plummeting of Russian life expectancy, the implosion of agriculture, the virtual abandonment of controls on toxic industries, the plunder of Siberia's forests, the sinister black market in Soviet nuclear materials. And the pro-democracy dissidents aided by Reagan's Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) in the Communist world (along with unsavoury fascism-nostalgists) would be radically sidelined by Bush pere in favor of Western-trained technocrats once the collapse arrived and they had outlived their usefulness--assuring that the vision of socialism with a human face (long opposed by both superpowers) would not be realised. Today it has been nearly erased from historical memory. If the Stalin-nostalgia now inevitably emerging in Russia is perverse, equally so is the American consensus that celebrates the Soviet collapse as an unequivocal victory for human freedom. The Reagan-era nuclear arms race was one leg of a strategic gambit to force the Soviet Union into collapse--through morally and even legally criminal methods. The other leg was the Mujahedeen insurgency against the Soviet Army in Afghanistan. The Reagan era was the high noon of covert proxy wars. Nicaragua and Afghanistan were the most celebrated cases, but there was also CIA aid and direction of the brutal Jonas Savimbi insurgency in Angola, and (via South African proxies) the even more brutal Renamo guerillas in Mozambique (again in the name of the anti-Communist crusade, Reagan helped shore up white supremacy in South Africa, opposing sanctions against the apartheid state in favour of "constructive engagement"). US streets were flooded with crack cocaine and heroin as a direct "blowback" from the secret wars in Central America and Afghanistan; the contras merged the CIA arms pipeline with cocaine smuggling networks to augment their war chest, and the Mujahedeen similarly turned to the "Golden Crescent" heroin trade. Paradoxically (and not coincidentally) this CIA-greased profusion in the availability of deadly street drugs came just as the Drug War orthodoxy was reaching a fever pitch. Reagans Pals: Bin Laden, Saddam Hussein But the even more disastrous blowback became dramatically evident on the morning of September 11, 2001. It was under Reagan's watch that the US began training, arming and funding Osama bin Laden. In Reagan's Cold War end-game, Islamist extremism was cultivated as a pawn against the rival superpower--despite the obvious reality that the jihadis saw in godless Communism an enemy second only to godless capitalism, and would inevitably turn their new-found prowess against their erstwhile underwriters. So the end of the Cold War only presaged a new, in many ways even more terrifying dualistic global conflict--this time, the West against "Islamic terrorism". And while the Soviet "Evil Empire" (as Reagan dubbed it, characteristically taking a cue from Hollywood) was at least a centralised monolith, the new enemy is hydra-headed, molecularised, everywhere and nowhere. The stage is set for a war that could last generations, centuries. This is Reagan's grimmest legacy. For good measure, it was also under Reagan that the US began supporting Saddam Hussein with military sales and intelligence in his 1980-88 war with Iran. In March 1988, Reagan's final year in office, Saddam Hussein used chemical weapons against his own populace, instantly killing 5,000 in the gassing of the Kurdish city of Halabja. A Bill to impose sanctions against Iraq in response to the attack was opposed by the White House and never got out of Congress. Then there were Reagan's actual direct military interventions--most notably the 1983 expedition to Lebanon and invasion of Grenada--which tested public tolerance for post-Vietnam Syndrome adventures, again paving the way for the current paroxysm of ultra-imperialism. Libya's Colonel Moammar Qaddafi reacted to Reagan's passing by expressing his "deep regret" that Ronnie had died before being brought to a war crimes tribunal for the 1986 US airstrikes on Tripoli that killed Qaddafi's adopted daughter and 36 others (in retaliation for an anonymous Berlin disco bombing that killed three, including two US soldiers. Associated Press, 7/6/04). One hates to agree with so unsavoury a character, but I am with the colonel on this one. Ronald Reagan did more to move America and the world in the wrong direction than just about anyone else in the second half of the 20th Century. The current official hagiography is historical revisionism of the lowest order. Do not eat this vomit. Fuck Ronald Reagan. Reagan and Marcos: The Gruesome Twosome This Philippine Daily Inquirer editorial ("Mixed Legacy", 9/6/04) is a vital reality check for those wading through the bullshit following Reagans death. Its startlingly different from those of mainstream media in other countries, including New Zealand and provides the true Third World perspective. Filipinos have no reason to mourn Reagan. His Presidency coincided with the final years of the vicious Marcos martial law dictatorship, which Reagan supported to the hilt. When People Power 1 had Ferdinand Marcos surrounded in the Malacanang Palace, in 1986, it was the US military that flew him out, and he went into exile in Reagans America. At least Reagan got a State funeral and was promptly buried. Ferdinand Marcos has had neither. He died, in Hawaiian exile, in 1989, and remains, unburied and on public display, in a refrigerated crypt in his political stronghold in the far north of Luzon, the main island. His widow, the repulsive Imelda, is holding out for him to be buried with other former Presidents, in Metro Manila. Shed also like him to have a State funeral. These remain political hot potatoes for Filipino governments, no matter how kindly disposed they might be towards the Marcoses, so hes not likely to be buried anytime soon. Ed. The "Palace in the Sky *," the hilltop mansion the Ferdinand Marcos had built in Tagaytay City, outside Manila, is Ronald Wilson Reagan's monument in the Philippines. It is a monument to the cynicism and extravagance his leadership inspired in Filipino politicians. A manipulative and mendicant reaction to Reagan that, in the end, resulted in the betrayal of a traditional relationship that is Reagan's true legacy to Filipinos. *The Palace in the Sky, overlooking the beautiful Lake Taal, is a blot on the landscape, and another illustration of the fact that, although the Marcoses were guilty of many heinous crimes, nobody ever accused them of having good taste. Ed. His relation with the Philippines began as a special guest in the inauguration of the Cultural Center of the Philippines in the early 1970s. It blossomed into a personal relationship with the Marcoses. A relationship the Marcoses used to personify the larger, sentimental, relationship an older generation of Filipinos felt for America and Americans. It ended in bitterness, disbelief and betrayal. Reagan and Ferdinand Marcos belonged to what the Americans call their "greatest generation," and which we remember as the generation of Filipinos and Americans bound together by ties of loyalty and sentiment due to the shared sacrifices of World War II. It was a relationship characterised by a sense of brotherhood filled with gratitude on the part of Filipinos. Reagan and Marcos, for a time, stood tall together. Their countrymen took pride in that shared sense of partnership. For all his sense of vision, his devotion to the American brand of democracy, and his conservatism that changed the political landscape of America, Reagan's influence on the Philippines and Latin America represented nothing new, and in fact, represented a darker, more sinister permutation of American policy. Democracy was something to be insisted upon in Europe, but was something unnecessary, and even inconvenient, in Asia and Latin America. Democracy Inconvenient And Unnecessary Democracy in the Philippines was inconvenient and unnecessary in Ronald Reagan's worldview. Having a loyal lackey in Manila was, however, essential. The Philippines cannot forget the friendship he shared with the Marcoses because it was that friendship that destroyed a larger friendship. His trust in Marcos' capacity to be a bulwark against Communism fostered the growing strength of Communism in this country. His esteem for Marcos shown in messages and State visits resulted in the erosion of Filipino esteem for the America that Reagan presided over. His ambivalence in the face of a furious and brave effort by Filipinos to redeem their freedoms resulted in a redemption achieved despite of, and not because of, the efforts of Reagan's America. We can never forget Reagan sending his Vice President, George Bush, to proclaim their "love" for Marcos' "devotion to the democratic process." We can never forget, nor forgive, Reagan's public statements than in a country where Filipinos were chaining themselves to ballot boxes and dying at the hands of Marcos' goons, "there was cheating on both sides". We can neither gloss over nor understand, then, as now, Reagan's last-ditch efforts to try to form a government composed of Marcos and the opposition. Americas Interests Are Not The Philippines When Reagan began to suffer from Alzheimer's disease, he engineered a bowing out from the public eye, all the better to preserve his image and his legacy. Undeniably, he was and remains a beloved American president. We are not, however, America, and we are not Americans. At the bier of Reagan must be laid, posthumously, the eradication of a bond of trust nurtured by World War II, and dissipated by martial law. We cannot be kind to him in death, because every day of our lives, our country continues to suffer from the manner in which Reagan confused his friendship with the Marcoses with the broader interests of his country and ours. It may be that everything Reagan did was less due to affection for the Marcoses, and more along the lines of American interests in our region. This only goes to show how those interests are so widely divergent from the interests of our own country. The billions of pesos stolen; the thousands of people dead and maimed; the lives crushed and wasted; the ideals ground in the dust: all these are factors in the delicate democracy we are still so hard pressed to sustain. Ronald Wilson Reagan turned a blind eye to all these sufferings. As he rests in peace, this country must remember its uneasiness will long outlive the man. That he is a great man by American standards only goes to show how different American ideals can be from what should be our own. Ill confine myself to the impact of the Marcos dictatorship on just one family, the Hilaos  two of my wifes aunts and her only uncle were among the hundreds of thousands held without charge or trial for several years, when Marcos declared martial law. Another aunt, a student newspaper editor in her early 20s, was raped, tortured (enduring things such as cigarettres being stubbed out on her lips) and beaten to death. Drain cleaning acid was poured down her throat and the official cause of death was listed as "suicide". She was the first female political prisoner to be murdered during the 14 years of martial law and her case remains a cause celebre to this day, more than 30 years later. Her mother, Beckys maternal grandmother (who died in 2003) was the lead plaintiff in the class action suit taken against the Marcos estate by human right victims and their families. This historic case was heard in Hawaii, under US law, because it was to Reagans US that the Marcoses fled, so they came under the jurisdiction of US civil law. The plaintiffs were awarded $NZ2 billion. They havent received a cent yet. Imelda Marcos has never been convicted of anything; she, and two of her children, hold political office in the Philippines today. I recommend that you watch the fascinating documentary "Imelda", which screened throughout NZ at this years Internatinoal Film Festival (its subject succeeded in getting it banned in the Philippines, at least temporarily). One of my wifes imprisoned aunts is Marie Hilao-Enriquez (she gave birth to her oldest daughter in prison). She is the Philippines best-known human rights leader and heads the organisation of former Marcos political prisoners. She is touring New Zealand, in the first two weeks of October (I will be accompanying her, in my Philippines Solidarity capacity). For tour details, go to www.converge.org.nz/psna and click on Activities. When you hear Marie speak, reflect on Ronald Reagan and his faithful servant, Ferdinand Marcos. But weve got one thing to thank old Ronnie for. If it wasnt for him and his lunatic nuclear arms buildup, we wouldnt have Bob Leonard. The Leonards  Bob, Barbara and their infant son, Graham  were among the American diaspora of Reagan Refugees who poured out of the US in the early 1980s. They threw themselves into the ferment of the nuclear free movement of 1980s New Zealand and Bob became one of the founders of what evolved into todays Anti-Bases Campaign. Others like them also came to New Zealand. So, thank you, Ronnie, Americas loss is our gain. Ed. In Memory Of Graeme Tapper - Murray Horton Graeme Tapper, who died in April 2004, aged 71, was never a member of CAFCA but we had worked with him in the 1990s in his capacity as President of the 4,000 strong Christchurch branch of Greypower. He was elected to that position for seven consecutive years, from 1996. Graeme was a leading figure in the ad hoc coalition set up to fight the sale of Trust Bank to Westpac, in 1996. One tactic was to make protest withdrawals of money from Trust Bank. Watchdog 82 (August 1996; "The Trust Bank Campaign", Murray Horton) reported that: "On May 10, at Trust Banks main Christchurch branch, a number of individuals and organisations made their withdrawals under the watchful eye of several TV networks. We printed some slips to be handed across the counter, when the withdrawal was made. They read: The Manager, Trust Bank. This withdrawal is made in protest at Trust Banks decision to sell out and become just another foreign-owned bank. This is not in the public interest. It is a betrayal of trust There were withdrawals all over town that day, most of the $10 variety but some were decidedly more than token  Graeme Tapper, a leading figure in both Greypower and the informal coalition, pulled all $10,000 out of his personal account, in front of the national TV cameras ". Another big issue of the mid 1990s was that of Southpower (remember Southpower? This was before Max Bradfords electricity market "reforms" consigned it to oblivion. It was sold to TransAlta and then Meridian. The lines company, which was forcibly split from the retailer by Max, became Orion). CAFCA had played a leading role in the coalition known as the Campaign for Peoples Sovereignty and Southpower was our main issue. We used to attend Southpowers annual meetings, where Graeme Tapper used to regularly lambaste the directors and management. And health was another big issue of the 90s (actually, its always a big issue). CAFCA was involved in the Canterbury Health Coalition, and I was amongst those who refused to pay hospital outpatients bills (the Cant Pay, Wont Pay, Dont Pay Twice Campaign; in one memorable protest, we burnt the bills in the Square). Once again, Graeme Tapper was to the fore in fighting the health "market reforms" of Bill Birch. Not to mention other huge issues such as Nationals betrayal over the Superannuation surcharge. This underscores the fact that for a number of years in the ideologically mad 1990s, Greypower was often a lone opposition voice to Nationals drive to privatise and corporatise social services such as health. Labour was in hiding after its shattering 1990 defeat and was too compromised to denounce a process that it had started in the 80s; unions were fighting for survival against the onslaught of Birchs Employment Contracts Act. Greypower, representing a huge and vocal chunk of the population, held big public meetings and protests. And it was a key political constituency, with radio talkback as its chosen medium, mainly Radio Pacific, and Pam Corkerys show in particular. Alister Barrys documentary "Someone Elses Country" made excellent sales through Greypower networks and Radio Pacific. More than once, Graeme invited me to speak to regular meetings of the Christchurch branch, meetings which attracted 100-200 members. And several times, I was interviewed on Greypowers programme on Plains FM community radio. In the early to mid 1990s Greypower developed a rapport with Winston Peters. That came to a halt when Peters and New Zealand First went into coalition with National in 1996 and he became thoroughly compromised as a leading member of that Government (see Watchdog 84, May 1997; "Winston Peters Out", Murray Horton). Since that time, Greypower has never made the mistake again of identifying so closely with apolitician or party, nor has it been the political voice for the elderly that it was in its glory days last decade. I didnt know Graeme Tapper well, only meeting him a few times. He was an angry man. His Press obituary ("Greypower champion", 17/4/04, Mike Crean) used words such as "redoubtable, fearless, fiery, argumentative, irascible and stubborn ". You get the picture. In short, he was a battler who got up the noses of those in power. There was plenty to be angry about. Despite pain in his personal life (he lost a son to a motor accident in the 80s and it grieved him) and despite his own poor health (hed had heart surgery), he fought the good fight. Good on you Graeme, you pigheaded old bugger. You will be missed but you wont be forgotten. Deaths In The Family:

Pat Kelly & Ngaire Duggan - Murray Horton CAFCA expresses our condolences to Cath Kelly, of Wellington, for the death of her husband, Pat. He died in June 2004, aged 75. Pat Kelly was one of the last of the old school trade union leaders, serving as President of the Wellington Trades Council from 1977-86, as an organiser for the Drivers Union and later as secretary of the Cleaners and Caretakers Union. Decades ago, he was a leading member of the Wellington branch of the former Communist Party of New Zealand (the entire branch was expelled by head office, in Auckland), and later he became a leading activist in the Labour Party. He got involved on the strength of his position in the Cleaners Union, and in 1981, he was elected President of the Affiliates Council. From that position, he attacked Rogernomics from inside the Party (unlike all but a handful of the gutless MPs), predicting  entirely correctly  that those policies would lead to massive unemployment. Pat was inside the Wellington Trades Hall on that day in 1984 when it was bombed, killing his friend and fellow unionist, Ernie Abbott. That murder has never been solved; the countrys trade union leadership was believed to be the target. Pat was an uncle of CAFCAs Bill Rosenberg. For the past couple of years, Bill has been President of the Association of University Staff (Pat and Caths daughter, Helen, is the secretary) and the Kelly household has been his home away from home during his weekly sojourns in Wellington. Ross Wilson, President of the NZ Council of Trade Unions, said: "Pat dedicated his working life to fighting for the rights of his fellow workers. He was a real character of the trade union movement" (Press, 25/6/04, "Dogged unionist Kelly dies"). Its the end of an era. And CAFCA expresses our condolences to Maxine Gay, for the death of her mother, Ngaire Duggan, who died of a heart attack, in Timaru, in July 2004. She was 82. One of my other hats is the Philippines Solidarity Network of Aootearoa (PSNA). Back in 2002, PSNA toured Emilia Dapulang, a leader of the Kilusang Mayo Uno (KMU - May First Movement) trade union confederation. In her capacities as both a longstanding PSNA member and a national trade union leader, Maxine played a key role in that tour. For several days she drove Emilia through the North Island, meeting workers in factories, speaking at public meetings and talking to the media. They were accompanied by Ngaire, who was then 80. It might be considered unusual by New Zealanders to take your Dear Old Mum along on a political trip, but for Emilia this was wonderful, and entirely the normal practice in Philippine culture. She and Ngaire got on like a house on fire, with the latter treating Emilia like another daughter. They had a highly memorable few days and it certainly wasnt all work. They squeezed in visits to several tourist spots and provided Emilia with one of the highlights of her life  her first ever experience with snow (which Filipinos only know from Christmas cards, the real thing doesnt exist in the tropical Philippines, not even on the highest mountains), when they made a sidetrip up to a skifield (Maxine and Emilia were definitely the odd couple among the female skiers, with Maxine in a skirt and Emilia a suit). Emilia sent Maxine a message, part of which said: " I will treasure and remember your mom and our great time together while I was staying in your house. She became a mother to me even for a short time only I usually update her at night about my whole day activities and meetings. I will always remember her favourite TV sport (football) and, of course, her hospitality and care. I will really miss her " Rest in peace, Pat and Ngaire. Non-Members:

It takes a lot of work to compile and write the material presented on these pages - if you value the information, please send a donation to the address below to help us continue the work. Foreign Control Watchdog, P O Box 2258, Christchurch, New Zealand/Aotearoa. August 2004. Email cafca@chch.planet.org.nz