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Peace delegates hail Sofia Congress

By JANICE HARRIS
-Too many it would have sound-
ed like the biblical dream of
“beating swords into
Ploughshares,’’ but the trade union

‘Tepresentatives from around the

World attending the World Parlia-
Ment of Peoples for Peace were
deadly serious when proposing a
Peace ‘‘conversion program’’ that
envisaged workers refusing to build
arms and spearheading a campaign
tO convert arms production into
Peaceful, socially beneficial pro-
duction of good and services.

This proposal was one of the

ts of the first Peace Parlia-

Ment held in Sofia, Bulgaria, Sept.

23-27, which brought together

2,336 delegates from 134 countries

ao 110 international organiza-
Ons.

. Initiated by the World Peace
Council, the Peace Parliament had
a host of supporters, including the
United Nations, which sent a per-
Sonal message from UN general
Secretary, Kurt Waldheim by way
ae special assistant, Muafak

Lorne Robson, provincial
Secretary of the B.C. Council of
ters and one of the 38 Cana-
delegates, attended the trade
Union round table with 350 trade
Unionists from 80 countries,
“Many of them making up the top
trade union leadership from
around the world.’’

Flowing out of the discussion
that greater arms spending didn’t
bring about greater prosperity for
workers, but fewer jobs, inflation
and cutbacks in social health,
welfare and education programs,
the trade unionists developed a
Peace ‘‘conversion program.’’

“Tt is a call for the trade union
Movement and the working class to
bring about the end of arms pro-
duction which gobbles up energy
and resources in short supply, by
Converting that production into

Commodities and services that fill’

human needs,”” Robson said.

was also expressed by
the aE upionists over the curtail-
ment of workers’ rights during
periods of arms buildup. ‘‘Every
time there is a drive for arms pro-
duction, there is an accompanying
erosion of the rights of the trade
union movement, the best example
provided by the cold war in the
U.S. when it reached its height in
the ’40’s and ’50’s.”’

A four-point draft statement,
supported by the trade union
delegates, and which will be issued
in final form in the near future, in-
cluded the establishment of an in-
ternational prepatory committee to
organize a special international
conference of trade unionists on
the economic and social aspects of
disarmament at the earliest possible
date.

The trade union round table was
“something new’’ at the Peace
Parliament, and was one of many
more forums providing delegates
with the opportunity for greater in-
put into peace-related issues.

Another new feature, was the
tone of the Parliament. It was one
of growing alarm and urgency, as
delegate after delegate denounced
the U.S. strategy of a “‘limited and
prolonged nuclear war,’’ adopted
with the passing of directives 58
and 59.

“It’s a real con job,’’ Bert
Ogden, United Fisherman and
Allied Workers Union welfare of-
ficer, B.C. Peace Council president
and delegate to the Peace Parlia-
ment declared.

“There is a big danger of people
being sucked into thinking that it’s
perhaps possible to avoid
wholesale confrontation by a
strategically-located, properly-
timed nuclear war.

‘‘There is no such thing as a
limited nuclear war. A nuclear war
is a nuclear war, period, whether
250 million people are killed or one
billion,’’ Ogden said.

’ Bette Pepper, a delegate from
the Fraser Valley Peace Council
added that at a round table discus-
sion on culture and science, the

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Sofia, s

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SOFIA DELEGATE BERT OGDEN ...
Parliament.

chairman noted that ‘‘up to 40 per
cent of the world population
believed in the inevitability of
nuclear war by 1984.”’

There was no doubt in the minds
of most of the delegates where the
war danger emanated, sccoeding to
Ogden.

“Every finger pointed to the
drive for super profits by the
transnational corporations as the
motive force behind the stepped up
arms race,’’ he noted.

Ogden said that Louis Corvalan,

Chilean Communist Party leader
had broken down the $500 billion
annual arms expenditure into a
smaller and more alarming figure
— to $1 million spent every minute
on arms.

“At the same time, while arms
merchants make profits,’” Romesh
Chandra, president of the World
Peace Council said, ‘‘84,000
children die every day for lack of
food or medical attention.”’

The special role of politicians
was discussed at a special forum,
attended by NDP MLA Al
Passarell (Atlin-B.C.) and Mac
Makarchuk, an NDP MPP from
Ontario, the two elected represen-
tatives on the Canadian delegation.

‘Although it was hard to find a °

consensus of opinion among politi-
cians, Mac and myself felt the best
way to place pressure on the
government in Canada, would be
to raise the question of peace
around specific issues.”’

His overall observation that
Canada needs’ to play a more

, Positive role in securing peace was

‘coupled with demand that Canada
“get out of NATO and redirect the
amount of money spent there to
other vital areas.”

Impressed by a leaflet produced
by the St. Catherine’s Peace Coun-
cil which illustrated what a million
dollars could mean in terms of jobs

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with posters from

and education as opposed to the

small amount of jobs a million *

dollars represents in a military
budget, Passarell said ‘‘that kindof

‘thing would get a lot of people

ssTt showed graphically the

economic fallacy that the arms race
stimulated the economy,”’’ he said.
Other workshops, commissions
and round tables at the Parliament
were tailored for special interest
groups and their role in the fight for
peace, for instance, journalists,
religious peoples, women, youth,
students and lawyers, in turn reflec-
ting the broadness of the event.
For the B.C. delegates, including
Eila Male of the Finnish Organiza-

- tion, the key motion coming out of

the Peace Parliament was the
resolution on the arms build up and
the war danger, and their impact on
the struggle for disarmament and
detente.

Among other things it called for
the “‘dismantling of the U.S. Rapid
Development Joint Task Force and
the chain of military bases and
facilities for its operation,’’ ‘‘the
creation of a collective security
system in Europe and the ultimate
abolition of NATO and the War-
saw Pact by mutual agreement’
and “‘the simultaneous agreement
by all nations for the dissolution of
all military pacts and withdrawal of
all troops from foreign territory
and for the liquidation of all
military bases.’’

Featured in the text of the resolu- -

tion was the call on the represen-
tatives of those states who are
signatories to the Helsinki Final
Act ‘‘to take bold initiatives in
making a positive contribution to
the preservation and consolidation
of detente.”’

The international gathering will
be held in Madrid, Spain.

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