WORLD

: By FRED WEIR
__ Arab leaders are beginning to awaken to the real-
ization that the coming deployment of superaccurate,
radar-evading Cruise missiles in Italy will have reper-
cussions far beyond the European theatre. For the first
time, the entire Middle East will find itself living under
the nuclear gun.

According to a cover story in the J anuary 1984 edition

of the authoritative Middle East magazine, the 112
Ground Launched Cruise Missiles (GLCM’s) scheduled
to be stationed at Comiso, Sicily this spring will be
directed primarily at targets in the Southern and Eastern
Mediterranean, rather than targets in the Warsaw Pact
countries.
E “The whole of North Africa, Turkey, and the Arab
_ countries east of the Mediterranean will be within
range,” a former senior Italian naval officer, Falco
Acame, is quoted as saying, ‘‘What is worrying is that it
is impossible to see how these missiles can be part of
NATO’s ‘strategic balance’ against the weapons of the
Soviet Union. I believe that they are to be positioned in
Sicily for use in the Mediterranean theater.”

Although U.S. and NATO leaders are not comment-
ing directly upon the wider implications of GLCM
deployment in Sicily, they have offered ominous hints
that the base at Comiso was indeed chosen for its central-
ity to, and therefore its ability to dominate the Middle
Eastern arena.

| _ Former Commander in Chief of NATO’s Southern
_ Region, U.S. Navy Admiral W.J: Crowe recently re-
_ marked that “‘activation of the GLCM base at Comiso
_ will provide a new dimension in Italian defence and may
_ call for some rethinking of defence requirements outside
__ the traditional northern area’.

The current Commander of Allied Forces in Southern
Europe, Italian Admiral Guiseppe Di Giovani, is some-
what more forthcoming about the broader purposes of
_ NATO military power in the region. Says he: ‘‘Control
|» of the Mediterranean Sea and denial of its use to hostile
|» forces is vital to the southern flank of NATO . . . Master-
_ ing the Mediterranean will also influence the political
_ orientations of many governments of the Third World
countries facing the North African and Asian coasts.”’

The Mid-East under
NATO’s nuclear gun

Seen in the present context of escalating U.S. military
involvement in the Eastern Mediterranean, the Persian
Gulf, and the new American “‘strategic accord’”’ with
Israel, the implications of the Comiso GLCM base be-
come overpowering. ‘‘I do not like conspiracy theo-
ries,” says Falco Acame, “But why place these missiles
nearly 1,300 kilometers further south than missiles in
Germany, giving no real advantage in hitting Eastern
Europe, but a wide range of strike over the Middle
East?”’

Cruise missile deployment has been actively opposed
for some time by broad sections of the European popula-
tion, and the projected GLCM base at Comiso has been
frequently besieged by Italian protesters. People in the
Arab countries, however, have been slow to recognize
the threat.

That situation appears to be changing. A meeting held
in Vienna last November, organized by the Austrian
Institute for Peace Relations in co-operation with the
Arab League, brought together Arab leaders and Euro-
pean peace activists to initiate a ‘“‘Euro-Arab peace
dialogue’’. The meeting roundly condemned nuclear-
ization of the Mediterranean, and drew particular atten-
tion to the danger presented by GLCM deployment at
Comiso.

“It is time that people stopped being blackmailed by
the repeated statement that nuclear weapons will never
be used or that they are directed solely against the
weapons of the Eastern bloc,’ noted one of the particip-
ants. ‘‘Cruise missiles fit into the overall strategy for the
region. They will command North Africa and other parts
of the Arab world in a way that less flexible weapons
cannot do’’.

The Ground Launched Cruise Missile is a small, high-
ly-mobile unmanned aircraft which will be deployed and
fired from trucks. It can carry a 200 kiloton nuclear
warhead up to 2,500 kilometers and place it within 40
meters of the target. The GLCM’s advanced terrain-fol-
lowing radar and ultra-sophisticated electronics give it
almost complete immunity from detection. It is reputed
to be “‘virtually unstoppable’.

A total of 464 GLCM’s are destined for Western
Europe: 160 to Britain; 112 to Italy; 96 to West Germany;
48 to Belgium; and 48 to the Netherlands.

a

Hall, Davis on CPUSA ticket

NEW YORK — The Communist Party of the
United States announced its ticket for the 1984
presidential election, Gus Hall, party leader and
Angela Davis, a leading activist will run for presi-
dent and vice-president respectively.

Trudeau visits GDR

BERLIN — ‘There is considerable interest here
in Trudeau’s visit for talks with GDR leaders,”
reports Tribune Berlin correspondent Fils Delisle
on the eve of the Prime Minister’s two-day trip to
discuss his peace initiative. ‘‘There is no doubt
whatsoever that any initiatives designed to create a
better atmosphere for peace will find support
here,’ Delisle reports. Trudeau’s visit also takes
him to Czechoslovakia and Romania.

Reagan’s ‘election’ speech

__ WASHINGTON — President Reagan’s State of
the Union speech Jan. 25 was described by the
Soviet news agency TASS and “‘an election docu-
ment”’ containing no new proposals to help lessen
international tensions. The 45-minute address cata-
logued. the administration’s ‘‘successes’’ and
downplayed the dangerous arms race, chronic
unemployment and the U.S.’s record deficit.

Ottawa policy ‘decorative’

OTTAWA — The Inter-Church Committee on
Human Rights in Latin America has called Otta-
wa's policy in the region ‘‘decorative’’ and ‘‘com-
partmentalized”’ and urged the government to
press harder for human rights. It pointed to the lack
of clear guidelines for policy and said Canada
should oppose U.S. efforts to overthrow the
Nicaraguan revolution.

ing right wing regimes, regularly votes in support of

The. report charged that Canada, while criticiz- _
aid to them in international financial agencies. 5 |

International Focus

Tom Morris

Acast
of criminals

Like vultures they return to
stricken Grenada occupied by

the United States Marines and :

all they represent.

he ‘‘investors’’, drug
pushers and even some of the
medical students who thanked
| Reagan for their salvation are
| back. U.S. army psychological
warfare teams peddle hatred
and feed off stool-pigeons and
traitors,

The wretched Sir Paul
Scoon parades as governor
general and runs about under
the protection of U.S.
bayonets. The U.S. embassy is

a hub of activity, busy dis-
mantling the gains of the
revolution.

And now another indignity
is visited upon the Gre-
nadian people — Sir Eric
Gairy, gangster former Prime
Minister, UFO freak, organ-
izer of the nazi-style Mon-
goose Gang, has returned to
the Island.

This maggot lived in the
United States since his over-
throw in 1979. Now he returns

to: again sink his teeth into the ~

country he once plundered. :
Scoon, .Gairy, the CIA, the
marines, stool-pigeons, dope
dealers, repression — how
proud this must make Reagan

| . Gairy with former president Ford and Henry Kissinger. He also had
| 4 fondness for Chilean dictator Pinochet and UFOs. :

and puppets Eugenia Charles,
Tom Adams and Edward
Seaga who engineered this
“‘rescue operation’’.

The commissioners
aren’t hungry
Reagan has numerous com-

missions running about.
Almost submerged by the

fanfare of the Kissinger com- .

mission on Central America
last week was another one cal-
led the President’s Task Force
on Food Assistance.

Its role was to probe into
charges of widespread hunger
in the United States two years
after Reagan cut the food
stamp program for one million
Americans, lowered the bene-
fits for another 20 million and
took 2.6 million children out of
the school lunch program.

The commission’s finding?
“We have not been able to
substantiate allegations of
rampant hunger,’’ wrote the
conservative and Republican
appointees. At least we know
they weren’t hungry during the
four month study which ate up
$320,000.

The commissioners obvi-
ously didn’t talk to the Atlanta
Centres for Disease whose
study revealed 500,000 poor
children under the age of six
suffer from malnutrition.

They didn’t watch the Miami
City authorities try to divide
the reduced $1.2 million in fed-
eral funds between 30 social
agencies which help feed that
city’s poor and hungry.

How would they? Some of

_the commissioners helped

Reagan draft his food cuts dur-
ing those heady first days.

But something must have
seeped in. Their report re-
commends adding $200-million
to the federal food spending for
the poor.

The catch is Reagan is ask-
ing for an addition $636-million
cut in food programs for 1985.

Many thanks
and goodbye

When Ford Motor Com-
pany was losing money it
called on its workers in the
U.S. (and here) to pitch in to
save the company — and their
jobs. In 1982, Ford U.S. lost
$658-million and was bailed
out by worker concessions.

The general plea, not only
by Ford, but also by GM and
Chrysler, promised the unions
security and prosperity once
the auto industry turned the
corner, aided by wage re-
straint and cutbacks.

Well, Ford has turned the
corner. In the U.S. the com-

PACIFIC TRIBUNE, FEBRUARY 1, 198409

pany stacked up a neat $1.1-
billion profits for the first nine
months of 1983.

The time, obviously, has
come to repay the American
autoworker and Ford set to
the task with corporate dili-
gence: it headed south to
Mexico where it will set up a
small car plant to turn out
130,000 cars a year for the
U.S. and Canadian markets.

In Mexico, Ford finds it can
pay workers as low as 56 cents
an hour compared to $12.71 an
hour for U.S. unionized
workers.

Ford advertising boasts that
company “‘has a better idea’’.
The problem for U.S. auto-
workers is that Ford didn’t tell
them back in 1982 what that
idea was. -

Princes
and paupers

Britain has 4.5 million job-
less. Four million elderly sub-
sist on means-tested pensions.
It’s grim.

But cheer up. The Queen
and her family got a pay hike.
She now “‘earns’’ $6.93-million
and blows $48,600 on tips.
$157,000 goes on horses. Full
cost to keep the lady smiling
now exceeds $50-million a
year. It’s all quite obscene.

AIA ORR AMEK §