Peace 102nd year anniversary May Day greetings Port Alberni & District Labour Council What we desire for ourselves we wish for all. May Day Greetings to the labour movement from the executive and members of The Vancouver and New Westminster Newspaper Guild May Day Greetings United Fishermen & Allied Workers Union , Local 7 MAY DAY GREETINGS Jrade Union Research Buroau The only dedicated labour research group in Canada to operate continuously for over 48 years — providing unique research, advisory, advocacy, benefit plan and computer services. Maritime Labor Centre, #170-111 Victoria Drive Vancouver, B.C. V5L 4C4. Telephone: 255-7346 CUPE Local 389 marks May Day, 1988 in celebration of all workers, men and women, standing together for economic, social and trade union rights. 6 ¢ Pacific Tribune, April 27, 1988 Burnaby MP Svend Robinson (c), flanked b Libby Davies, Hank Rosenthal. y (left to right) Mordecai Breimberg, Ald. MP nominates Vanunu for Nobel Peace Prize Burnaby MP Svend Robinson has joined other world ‘parliamentarians in nominat- ing for the Nobel Peace Prize an Israeli nuclear technician jailed for 18 years for revealing his country has a secret stockpile of nuclear weapons. The New Democratic Member of Parli- ament said April 22 he chose to make his announcement on the eve of the Walk for Peace in Vancouver because Mordechai Vanunu’s actions helped the cause of world peace. “Mordechai Vanunu, at great personal risk, took a very courageous step in reveal- ing the extent of Israeli involvement in the production of nuclear weapons,” Robinson said at his constituency office. Vanunu’s evidence showed Israel ranked sixth among the world’s nuclear powers. Robinson said he anticipated the support of other Canadian MPs, including those from the other two political parties in the House, in making the nomination which has come from parliamentarians in Britain, Australia and the European Parliament. The Israeli court which tried Vanunu in closed-door sessions received a petition cal- ling for clemency signed by 20 Nobel Prize winners. They included University of Toronto professor and Nobel Prize for Chemistry winner John Polyani — also a prominent peace spokesman — Nobel Peace Prize and Chemistry Prize winner, and peace activist, Linus Pauling, and astronomer Carl Sagan. Vanunu, a former worker at Israel’s top- secret Dimona nuclear facility, told his story to The Sunday Times of London in October, 1986. He was later kidnapped in Rome by agents of the Israeli intelligence agency, Mossad, and taken to Israel. Vanunu was convicted for treason and sentenced to 18 years imprisonment. News accounts said the Jerusalem District Court justices rejected calls for a life sentence — which carries a maximum 20 years — on the grounds that “the accused showed signs of regret in recent remarks” and that Vanunu had already spent 18 months in harsh solitary confinement. But the trial, conducted out of the public eye, has also drawn worldwide condemna- tion and demands that Israel come clean on what is essentially an open secret: that it has, through a variety of illegal means, acquired bomb-grade plutonium and has manufac- tured nuclear weapons. Robinson said that, combined with _ recent actions such as the assassination, by Israeli commandos, of Palestine Liberation Organization official Khalil el Wazir pres- ent “a shocking illustration of the extent to which the situation (in the Middle East) has deteriorated.” Calling it an example of “state terror- ism,” Robinson said he hoped the Cana- dian government would demand an end to the violence. Vancouver alderman Libby Davies, who with others joined Robinson in making his announcement, said it is important that Canadians learn of the little-publicized Vanunu case. : “Sometimes it’s important to remember what an individual has done. We’re all part of a very large movement, but here is one person who has made an outstanding con- tribution,” Davies said. The Committee of Progressive Electors alderman said it is “important for people in Vancouver to take some action, and write to their MP and urge their support and write Canadian government and urge that he be released, and support his nomination for a Nobel Peace Prize.” Hank Rosenthal, editor of Canadian Jewish Outlook, said Vanunu’s action “is an act for all of humanity, and transcends national boundaries and the narrow goals of any particular nationalism, including the Israeli one.” “What Vanunu has done is particularly important for the prevention of nuclear war because a tradition has been established recently of individuals taking some con- structive action where governments don’t,” peace activist Dr. Tom Perry said. He compared the action to that taken by leaders of the International Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War, who on their initiative petitioned ina meeting Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev to unilaterally cancel nuclear weapons testing, which the Soviet Union did. “Here’s an example of an individual who did something that his government was not yet prepared to do... .I think it is in the very best tradition of human beings taking responsibility for humanity as a whole. I think he richly deserves the Nobel Peace Prize,” Perry said. Mordecai Briemberg, a local activist for a Palestinian homeland, said that Vanunu acted in the “best traditions of the Nurem- berg laws.” The Nuremberg trials of Nazi leaders after World War II established that individuals have a personal responsibility not to carry out crimes against humanity. “What (Vanunu) did-was say ‘I choose to act against nuclear war, I choose to make known the world the dangers they face in the case of Israel, because Israel had illegally and secretly manufactured these wea- pons,” Breimberg asserted. TRIBLINE PHOTO . NAM voeTRAK