DISARMAMENT

By TOM MORRIS

It’s symbolic that to mark its 40th
anniversary, the United Nations
Organization proclaimed 1986 Inter-
national Year of Peace.

In doing so, the UN outlined the fol-
lowing objectives for member states:

‘To stimulate concerted and effective
actions by the United Nations ... in
promoting peace, international security
and cooperation on the basis of the Char-

ter of the United Nations, and the resolu--

tion of conflict by peaceful means;

‘*To focus attention and encourage re-
flection on the basic requirements of
peace in the contemporary world, in par-
ticular:

(i) ‘“‘The interrelationships of peace
and development and social progress,

security, national independence and

justice;

(ii) Disarmament and prevention of
nuclear catastrophe as essential ele-
ments of peace;

(ili) The exercise of human rights and
freedom as an essential element of peace;

(iv) The role of international coopera-
tion, dialogue, mutual understanding and
trust in the maintenance of peace with
the involvement of governments,
parliaments and non-government
organizations;

(v) Preparation for life in peace, a pro-
cess in which education, science, relig-
ion and the mass media play important

roles, and which requires effective par-'

ticipation of various social groups,
especially women, youth, elderly, war
veterans and professionals;

(vi) Peace as arequirement for the total
satisfaction of such human needs as
food, shelter, health, education, labor
and the environment.

While the United Nations’ Inter-
national Year of Peace began officially on
the date of its 40th anniversary, October
24, 1985, its full effect will more likely be
felt as 1986 begins, a time when human-
Kind traditionally takes stock and looks
to the future.

The new year had barely begun when
the dramatic Soviet 15-year peace pro-
posals, sweeping in character, concrete
in form, were announced Jan. 15. The

1986: A

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three-stage plan for the eventual com-
plete elimination of nuclear arsenals by
the year 2000 pulled together all the
inter-connected pieces of the complex
disarmament issue. It addressed con-
cerns for verification. It opened wide the
path to a world without nuclear arms. It
offers humankind an alternative to the
dangerous and costly arms race while
guaranteeing nations’ security.

The Soviet plan challenges the capital-
ist world’s fine-sounding words about
peace by placing before them a detailed,
step-by-step blueprint as a basis for seri-
Ous negotiation. Its thrust is clear: the
way to eliminate the arms race and hor-
rendous stockpiles; the way to prevent
new technology from overwhelming
humankind is to first stop where we are,

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begin to scale down and then eventually
eliminate nuclear weapons and delivery
systems altogether.

The ball has been put squarely in the
capitalist court.

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The USSR’s challenge is deep and
basic. General Secretary Gorbachev put
it squarely at a Moscow news confer-
ence: ‘The principle imposed by militar-
ism — armament instead of development
— should be replaced by the opposite
order of things — disarmament for
development.”

This fundamental ingredient flows
from the scope of the Soviet Union’s
overall proposal. While the overriding

Movement finds new maturity

The Tribune asked Gordon Flowers,
executive director of the Canadian Peace
Congress to comment on some aspects of
working for peace in 1986.

As you may know there haven’t been
any negotiations or agreements be-
tween the Soviet Union and the United
States for more than 12 years, since
SALT II, in fact. What develops in the
Geneva talks should give an indication
of how the next summit will deal with
things in more concrete terms.

I think it’s a question of whether the
United States is prepared to be more
serious about supporting the process of
disarmament.

In some ways the level of struggle has
changed. No longer are people re-
sponding simply to the question of sur-
vival. They are asking who is really re-
sponsible for the war danger. They
have seen a tremendous number of
proposals from the Soviet Union in the
last few months.

Ifthe United States does not respond
in the way that it should, people are
going to come to grips with the fact that
it is the United States that is the danger
— American imperialism is the source
of the danger of war.

On the question of NORAD, our
position has been for many years for the

withdrawal of Canada from NATO and
NORAD. With the Star Wars proposal
from the United States and the billions —
of dollars to be spent on it there are new
questions about Canada’s role in
NORAD. :

Several peace organizations in this
country have initiated campaigns to
have the ABM clause that was taken
out several years ago on the initiative of
the United States, reinserted in the
agreement. Toronto Disarmament
Network, for example, has a card cam-
paign to members of parliament: Keep
Star Wars out of Canada.

We in the Peace Congress see this as
positive if this could be accomplished.
But we feel that it’s not good enough at
this time. There is no question Star Wars
is linked to NORAD and, in our opinion,
those whoare opposedto Star Wars must
be opposed to NORAD.

The Peace Congress will be produc-
ing a leafiet for mass distribution which
will explain the interrelationship be-
tween NORAD and Star Wars, and the
need for Canada to withdraw from
NORAD. As well, we have produced a
button which we’ll be using widely.

I think that everyone who has been
involved with building the Canadian
Peace Alliance feels that it has been a

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very positive development bringing to-
gether large numbers of people who are
concerned about peace — peace
groups, the labor movement, women’s
organizations and so forth.

The key point — apart from its being
a historic development — is the
achievement of unity.

Those issues it could not get agree-
ment on, it set aside. It has shown that
there are possibilities if people are con-
cerned, to unite around common goals
and aims and then to work around those
goals and set aside their differences.

Overall, I think what is going to hap-
pen is that the Canadian Government is
going to have to deal with a far more

_ sophisticated peace movement than in

the past. They are not going to be able
to out-manoeuvre the peace movement
and offer nice clichés while continuing
the old policies.

The struggle is going to be intensified
and on a higher level in 1986. It is Un-
ited Nations International Year of
Peace and, besides the manifestations
that have become traditional in many
parts of Canada, there will be in the
middle of October, with Canadians tak-
ing part, a gathering in Copenhagen,
entitled the World Congress Devoted to
the International Year of Peace.

YEAR? |

issue of nuclear weapons and their
elimination is the cutting edge, the pro-
posal envisions a 180-degree turn in
international goals and conduct of states.

It proposes cessation of the develop-
ment, manufacture and deployment of
space-based weapons. It proposes a ban
on development and production of chem-
ical weapons and destruction of stock-
piles and the industrial base for their
manufacture.

Simultaneously, the USSR suggests
active steps be taken to stop the destruc-
tion of the environment, that humankind
launch a united search for new energy
sources and together attack world
economic backwardness, hunger and
disease.

In short, the Soviet Union’s plan
meets all the criteria of the United Na-
tions’ International Year of Peace.

* * *

While the 15-year plan is placed before
the entire world, its chance for success
lies to a large degree in the response by
the capitalist states and particularly the
United States. -

The Toronto Globe & Mail, Jan. 17
grasped this essential when it wrote
editorially: *‘United States President
Reagan wants a world in which nuclear
arms will be ‘impotent and obsolete’ by
circa 2000 A.D., and counts on the Star
Wars project to achieve it. Deployment
of a space-based anti-missile shield by
both superpowers would make each in-
vulnerable, he believes, and would thus
deprive offensive nukes of their utility.

**Soviet General Secretary Gorbachev
has a less convoluted approach: the
easiest way to eliminate the nuclear
threat, he maintains, is simply to scrap
the weapons. Period, And this week he
has proposed a phased, 15-year timetable
by which the superpowers would do
exactly that.”’

At face value, logic would dictate that
were there no nuclear weapons aimed at
States, Star Wars itself would be an ex-
pensive white elephant, in place to de-
fend against a non-existent threat. And
that’s exactly the point.

But there’s a catch, and this is where
Washington has a problem: Star Wars
never was designed as an international
missile shield. Its purpose is to build a
Shield from which which the United
States, based on its triad nuclear punch,
could eventually deliver a telling first
strike against the USSR and socialist
world. The modernization of NATO’s
nuclear attack arsenal being built side by
side with the Star Wars ‘‘shield’’ fools
few astute observers and certainly not
Soviet defence experts.

The Soviet Union’s overall plan,
therefore, contains the vital prerequisite
that the U.S. abandon SDI, that it join
with all nations through the United Na-
tions to proclaim outer space as a zone of
Peace, cooperation and development.
“Star peace, not Star wars,” was the
way the USSR United Nations repre-
sentative put it last autumn in advancing
a comprehensive plan for peaceful space
development before the world body.

* * *

By linking together nuclear disarma-
ment, elimination and destruction of all
weapons of mass destruction, peaceful
development of space, conversion to-
ward world economic and social
development, an attack on hunger, dis-
ease and poverty, the Soviet Union has
captured the high ground as 1986 begins.

Theirs is an eminently human pro-
posal, a highly workable and logical plan.
It corresponds with the deepest desires
and needs of humanity. It offers hope,
not despair. It is a fitting start for the
UN’s TYP.

We must not miss this opportunity.

6 e PACIFIC TRIBUNE, JANUARY 29, 1986

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