Canada

Vet took Mac-Pap §

Delta resident Arne Knudsen (above)
displays book on Danish veterans of the
Spanish Civil War. Danish-born Knud-
sen, a veteran who served with the Ger-
man Edgard Andre Battalion, recently
returned from Denmark where, with
other veterans attending, he laid a
wreath on behalf of the Mackenzie-
Papineau Battalion at the foot of the
cenotaph to the vets erected recently by
the Danish government. Among the
veterans was former major Ernst Jensen
(immediate left of monument) who also
fought in the Danish underground
against the Nazi occupation.

World Peace Council resisting
_change, peace leader charges

The world’s largest peace organization is
Not changing to meet the challenges of new
thinking in international relations, says the
€xecutive director of the Canadian Peace
Congress,

Gordon Flowers had just returned from
4 session of the bureau of the World Peace
Council where calls for making the council
More relevant and responsive to the needs
of member organizations met a cool recep-
tion, he said.

“We were asking the council to move
forward on commitments made at the last
Congress held in Sofia. There have been
Meetings, but little else. The council is heavy
into meetings and slow on action,” Flowers
charged,

The Canadian Peace Congress was one
Of nine member organizations to sign an
Open letter to the WPC bureau. An initia-
tive of the Nordic countries, the letter
Pointed to the resistance to change within
the council, which has met calls for greater

€mocracy and collective leadership.

The WPC is headed by a 55-member
bureau composed of a number of leading
World personalities, including members of
80vernment, poets, writers and heads of
National liberation movements.

“They are important people, but they’re
too busy to do the work,” Flowers says.

hile the Council complains about a
Mancial crisis, it sponsors huge and expen-
Slve conferences which accomplish little.
€ success of a meeting is judged by what
Personalities attend.

“There is no role for the activists in
Member organizations who carry out the
day to work of the peace movement,” he
Says.

He points to a meeting of the council’s

~mMember disarmament committee which
the Canadian congress was asked to organ-
'ze in Vancouver earlier this year. “This is
an important committee with a pressing
Mandate. We puta lot of work into organiz-
Ing the session. Two weeks before it’s to

4ppen we’re told no one but the president
Can attend, they’re all too busy.”

GORDON FLOWERS Canadian
Peace Congress signs letter citing inac-
tivity, failure to respond to “new think-
ing.”

Flowers also cites the dozens of letters the

WPC has received from national organiza-

tions with concrete proposals for improving

its work. “They were met with little or no

response. In our case, a letter sent to the

council resulted in a nasty response from the

Soviet Peace Committee.”

Signatories to the letter — the leaders of
peace organizations in Canada, the United
States, Finland, Iceland, Luxembourg,
Norway, Sweden and Great Britain — were
called sectarian and racist for their position.

“We were told the national peace com-
mittees were too narrow to reflect popular
opinion,” Flowers related. “If this is true
then we have a real problem to address.”

He is more disturbed about the racism
charge. “Since all the signatories are from
western countries, we were accused of being
unhappy with the influence of the Third
World countries in the peace council.

We are not arguing for European con-
trol. We want national committee control.
This of course includes the members from
the Third World.”

The criticism reflects the current prob-
lems in the peace council, Flowers notes.
“We aren’t claiming to have all the answers,

but it’s a bad sign when legitimate concerns
are met with this kind of labeling.”

It is not accidental that member organi-
zations from western countries have similar
complaints, Flowers says. ““We share com-
mon problems. We’re all from NATO
countries and recognize that the main
dangers confronting world peace stem from
this. But the main problem is that the World
Peace Council is not able to help us in our
work.”

Headquartered in Helsinki, Finland, the
WPC was founded after World War II, and
brings together peace organizations from
more than 130 countries. It survived the
Cold War largely through financial assist-
ance from the socialist countries, mainly the
Soviet Union. Over the years the council
came to model itself after the socialist peace
councils, which were mainly top-heavy
bodies led by respected personalities
appointed to their posts.

The WPC’s major strength is its close ties
with the developing world, but the last
WPC congress widely acknowledged its
organizational paralysis in responding to
the burgeoning grass roots peace move-
ments in the West and the failure to bring its
activities in line with the new international
situation.

The fact that the commitments to change
did not happen in practice has left many
long-standing WPC members, even found-
ing members, frustrated and uncertain of
their future relationship with the organiza-
tion.

Hungary has already broken away and
joined the Europe-based END. Most other
member groups are waiting for the upcom-
ing Athens conference as a last chance to see
if the promised changes will materialize.

Many, including the Canadian Peace
Congress, are going through their own
internal reviews. “We are working to over-
come our own sectarianism,” Flowers says.
“We need to be more responsive to devel-
opments both in Canada and internation-
ally. Part of this review will be to assess our
relationship to the World Peace Council.”

ANC warns against
relaxing sanctions

The Canadian office of the African
National Congress is “perturbed” by
statements that the Department of
External Affairs is considering relaxing
sanctions against South Africa in antici-
pation of reforms following this Sep-
tember’s elections.

“We would like the Canadian govern-
ment to move towards more sanctions,
not withdraw existing ones,” said Jabu
Dube, a spokesperson at the ANC’s
office in Toronto.

While External Affairs Minister Joe
Clark has distanced himself from state-
ments made earlier by the government’s
watchdog on Canadian. companies
operating in South Africa, John Small,
there is a mistaken belief that new
National Party leader F.W. de Klerk is
more moderate than his predecessor
P.W. Botha, Dube said.

Small held a press conference last
week saying Canada should be ready to
reward South Africa if it sees real pro-
gress which benefits blacks and coloured
people.

While Small’s fourth annual report on
Canadian business says only six compan-
ies still have operations in South Africa,
a Statstics Canada spokesperson told
Canadian Press that South African
imports to Canada have more than
doubled over the same period last year.

Neo-nazi rally
raises alarm

MINDEN, Ont. — A neo-nazi rally
held over the Canada Day holiday week-
end provoked alarm and protests from _
town residents and 100 protesters from
the B’nai B’rith. The event was held on
property leased by former Canadian
Nazi Party leader John Beattie in this
Ontario resort town about 200 kilome-
tres north of Toronto.

The two-day “whites-only celebra-
tion” was attended, primarily, by neo-
nazi skinheads from Toronto, the United
States and Montreal. Police kept a cor-
don around the farm to keep anti-racist
protesters away from the rally where a
cross was burned at midnight and a
skinhead band played.

The anti-racism protesters expressed
alarm at the fact that most of the more
than 100 who attended the rally were in
their early twenties. ““This is exactly how
the Hitler Youth started out,” a German
concentration camp survivor pointed
out

Voluntary groups
hit sale tax

The National Voluntary Organiza-
tions, a coalition of 25 groups working in
the voluntary, charitable and non-profit
sector, says the government’s white
paper on tax reform ignores the distinc-
tive role played by their organizations.

A paper commissioned by the groups
on the impact of the proposed sales tax
on goods and service concludes that their
operating and administrative costs would
significantly increase.

The NVO, which includes the YMCA,
Boy Scouts, Victorian Order of Nurses,
and Canadian Cancer Society among
others, is also disturbed about having to
collect taxes on the services they provide.

While such groups are eligible for tax
rebates under the proposals, the NVO
study challenges the claim that rebates
would offset increased costs.

Pacific Tribune, July 17, 1989 « 3