ANTI-BUDGET RALLY SET MAR. 31

:

RS

Wednesday, March 14, 1984

Newsstand Price 40° Vol. 47, No. 10

will grow, rally declares

The Canadian government's determina-

: tion to ignore mass public opinion and allow

1 the U.S. military’s testing of the cruise mis-

. sile to proceed provoked anger and demon-
strations across Canada last week.

In Vancouver, 300 turned out on an after-
noon Mar. 6, the day a B-52 bomber carried
cruise missiles over Canada in the first test
run, to demand cancellation of the tests.
Vancouver Peace Assembly chair Bea Fer-
neyhough (I) told the rally at Robson Square
that protests would continue to escalate, and
urged everyone to participate in the Walk for
Peace Apr. 28. A mock cruise missile bearing
the words, ‘’Refuse the Cruise — Test
Peace,’ was borne around the square by
members of Headlines Theater, whose 1983
production ‘‘Under the Gun” still plays to
audiences around the province. :

Several other protests across the country
took place that day, including one at the
gates of the Primrose Lake Weapons Testing
Range, where the U.S. bomber, bearing four
cruise missiles, passed at low altitudes before
returning to its base in: Grand Forks,
Nebraska.

On Saturday, demonstrators took to the
streets in centres around Canada. In Toronto,
500 anti-cruise protesters heard Angela
Browning, head of the Against Cruise Test-
ing Coalition, call the test ‘the first step in a
process of accelerating insanity,”’ while coa-
lition secretary Bill Keser promised escalated
efforts to ensure no further cruise tests. In
Ottawa, some 200 marched.

The Mar. 6 test, the only one scheduled
this year, was allegedly to test the cruise’s
on-board computer, which functions as a
guidance system for the self-propelled, pilot-
less aircraft and allows it to thwart radar
detection and hit military targets with pin-
point accuracy. But peace leaders see the
tests more as a means of announcing to the
world that Canadais firmly in the grip of U.S.
foreign policy. Frank Kennedy, president of
the Vancouver and District Labor Council
and of the -broadly-based coalition, End the
Arms Race, called the tests a “bloody disgrace
...It’s clear the cruise test today was
intended as straightforward intimidation of
the Canadian people, and the result of pres-
sure from the U.S.” ‘ :

End the Arms Race is the planning group
for the annual peace walks, which last year
drew 80,000 and is expected to involve
thousands more in 1984.

TRIBUNE PHOTOS — SEAN GRIFFIN

cern on oP EEE

—PAGE 3—

Stick with
picket line
policy, says
B.C. Fed

—page 4, 12—