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Two streams of marchers merge in Vancouver Walk for Peace; Joan Ruddock (inset) of Britain's Campaign for Nuclear

Disarmament hits social service cuts and hiked military spending.

March of 70,000 caps peace fest

“What can I say here except, congratula-
tions on a fantastic demonstration.”

British disarmament activist Joan Rud-
dock’s comments summed it up as she
addressed the crowd in B.C. Place Stadium
Sunday after some 70,000 citizens had
poured through Vancouver’s streets to
mark the end of an overwhelmingly success-
ful peace festival and the fifth annual Walk
for Peace.

“A demonstration at a time when your
country, like mine, has gone to the obscene
step of.cutting social programs in order to
increase the military budget,’ the out-
spoken chair of the.250,000-member Cam-
paign for Nuclear Disarmament continued
to applause.

While an audience of only some 30,000
was on hand in the giant sports stadium at
one point, stadium officials reported some
100,000 passed through the turnstiles to
hear Ruddock and several other interna-
tional peace leaders bring to a close the
nine-day event that reaffirmed Vancouver’s
position as the peace capital of North Amer-
ica.

_ MAY DAY
_ GREETINGS
from the
Congress of
Canadian

Women

"BOUALITY,
DEVELOPMENT
AND PEACE.”

CCW, Box 65703. Station F. Van.. VGN 1K7

More important, however, was the sense
throughout the days of cultural events,
symposium and conferences, that Canadi-
ans had taken an important new step in
becoming part of a citizens’ global network
pressing for complete disarmament.

While it wasn’t the largest peace walk in
Vancouver’s recent history, it was perhaps

the most impressive as two streams of

marchers — one which moved over the
new Cambie Street bridge from a rallying
point near city hall, and the other which
came from the traditional starting point at
Kitsilano Beach — merged outside the sta-
dium to fill the surrounding area.

Leading the marches were the regular
banners proclaiming the sentiment and
name of the city’s umbrella peace group —
End the Arms Race, the event’s organizer
which now boasts a group membership
exceeding 225 local organizations — and
those demanding an end to cruise missile
testing in Canada and no Canadian invol-
vement in the U.S. Star Wars scheme.

But a new demand was emerging out of
this year’s peace festivities, one which
headed the list of disarmament priorities
contained in the Vancouver peace propos-
als.

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(604) 734-1712

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The proposals, which had been produced
through hours of effort Nobel peace-prize
winners Dorothy Hodgkins and Sean
McBride — and which reflected submis-
sions tendered from around the globe in the
preceding months — clearly found a key
inspiration in the Soviet Union’s unilateral
nine-month old moratorium on nuclear
testing. °

Read before an audience of some 1,500
who packed the Orpheum Theatre on the
last day of the three-day peace symposium
April 24-26, the Vancouver proposals were
announced again in a symbolic reading to
the peace walk rally by Soviet-Canada U.S.
affairs expert Vitaly Zhurkin and former
U.S. SALT II negotiator Paul Warnke.

Topping the list was the call for a com-
prehensive test ban treaty among nuclear-
capable nations. The seven-point program
went on to urge a ban on weapons in space,
a nuclear weapons freeze, immediate reduc-
tion in nuclear arsenals, the creation of new
world nuclear-free zones, forgoing the use
of force to settle international disputes and a
reduction in military budgets, with monies
transferred to funding “human needs.”

Reading from his section of the peace
proposals text, Warnke noted that the
recent peace initatives from Soviet leader

Mikhail Gorbachev “could lead to signifi- .

cant progress” in disarmament and urged

Victoria
Peace Council
A toast to 1986

International
Year of Peace

TRIBUNE PHOTO — DAN KEETON

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nations’ right to self-determination an a
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peace.” He was followed by Hire
Mayor Takeshi Araki, who read in B
a text proclaiming the Japanese city
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form the logo of End the Arms Ra” —

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