Protest plans for Allende visit

Press, 19 April 1980, Page 6

Protest plans for Allende visit

Thousands of Christchurch people have signed an anti-Commuhist petition circulated by a group which plans to stage protest marches throughout New Zealand.

Calling itself, The Individuals Fight for Freedom, the group is planning protest marches in Auckland and Christchurch against the visit next’month of Isabel Allende, the daughter of the assassinated Communist Chilean president, Salvador Allende. Of. the total of “anything above 15,000” signatures to the petition, more than 6000 have come from Christchurch, according to the president, of T.1.F.F., Miss Mishael Channing. “There are about 4000 more supporters in Christchurch than in any other region in the country,” she said from her home in Palmerston North last evening. The petition, headed “Freedom or Slavery,” has been circulated in Christchurch by among others, fast-food bars, run by members of the Zenith Applied Philosophy organisation. The shops are at present being investigated by the Canterbury Hotel, Hospital, arid Restaurant Workers’ Union for alleged breaches of its award.

organisation whose members were barred last year from i 'the Social Credit Political ; League allegedly for holding i anti-Semitic views.- " About two - thirds- of. th.ej' workers. in a North Island freezing works could also be counted among her supporters, she said. However, she declined to name the works, saying .that she had been barred from its premises by the management. The petition calls on the Federation of Labour to lift its trade ban against Chile, or to place a total ban on trade with the Soviet Union and China. It also asks the F.O.L. to state where it stands on communism. Miss Channing said that the F.O.L. had already shown where it stood on communism by inviting Miss Allende who was well-known as a socialist leader. Christchurch had given such strong support to the movement because of • the work of “group leaders” in the city. T.I.F.F. had first advertised its aims six months' ago, and Miss Channing said I she had then written to.people | who had replied to its advertisements, asking them to ( recruit 10 supporters each. | The recruits 'were then each " asked to find 10 more. /

People were not allowed to support the movement as groups, but only as individuals, “so that they can say what they like,”-" she said. T.I.F.F. would continue to fight for “free and democratic trade unionism.” The group was not “anti-union,” but it wanted to see voluntary . unionism introduced. The group did not have a membership fee, but it received gifts which had paid for the advertisements plac- • ed in three ■ newspapers recently, for postage, and for trips Miss Channing had made canvassing support in the North Island. She said that she also paid for these trips from her own pocket. Miss Channing said that she had been “absolutely overwhelmed” by the response to her petition. She believed it showed that the F.O.L. was “not doing what the country wanted.” “It means that the apathy in the country is not there. The F.O.L. is not doing ;what its members want,” she I said. I The group had also received abuse, and Miss Channing i cited a person from Christi church who had written Threatening to shoot her.

Miss Channing listed > among her supporters Mr David Thompson, the New I Zealand director of the Lea-, gue of Rights, a Right-wing!