World

CND chides Kinnock |

for N-arms comment

Britain’s largest peace organization,
Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament
(CND), has sharply criticized Labour Party
leader Neil Kinnock for failing to state
whether he would ever use nuclear weapons
when he gave a major speech to the Welsh
Labour Party Conference in Llandudno
May 12.

Kinnock’s speech followed the Labour
Party national executive’s decision May 9 to
abandon the party’s longstanding unilateral
nuclear disarmament policy.

“We shall take vital actions to pursue and
secure nuclear disarmament by ourselves
and by others through the negotiation of
verifiable agreements,” Kinnock stated in
his address to the conference.

“In that process we shall negotiate with
everything that we inherit with everything
that we have got ... We will negotiate with
Trident and with the policy line that comes
with all that operational weaponry — the
policy line that never says yes or no to the
question — will you press the button?”

Kinnock also failed to emphasize Soviet
President Mikhail Gorbachev’s announce-
ment last week that the USSR would unilat-
erally eliminate 500 of its short-range
nuclear weapons in Europe.

CND general secretary Meg Beresford
termed Kinnock’s speech a “most extraor-
dinary statement” which echoed Conserva-
tive Defence Secretary George Younger’s

refusal to say when he would press the
nuclear button.

Beresford called the speech “bizarre in
the extreme” and said the British people had

the right to know the answer to a simple
question,

Disband both |

On the eve of the NATO summit,
members of the Warsaw Treaty —
Organization Monday proposed sim-

_ ultaneously disbanding both military

_ Organizations as a first step toward

_ completely disbanding both military- _

political alliances. The WTO member _

_ States — Bulgaria, Czechoslovakia, —

_ the German Democratic Republic, —
Hungary, Poland, Romania, and the —
Soviet Union — urged the North

_ Atlantic Treaty Organization to take —

_ Stock of new realities and use the

_ Opportunity to do away with the cold

_ War in Europe and the world. _

___ On the road to this goal, the WTO
and NATO members “would direct

_ their joint efforts into the quest for —
_ Ways to abandon military confronta- _

_ tion, to develop interaction between _

_ States regardless of membership in

_ One or the other alliance, and to estab- _

_ lish peace in Europe with complete

_ Tespect for the existing territorial and

political realities,’ their statement _

said.

The WTO member states said they _
_ would like to see all weapons not
covered by current negotiations, ©
_ including naval forces, covered in the

NEIL KINNOCK ... “negotiate with all
we inherit.”’ ‘

Following the Labour Party’s May 9
decision, unilateral disarmament forces
within the party pledged to step up their
fight for the policy’s reinstatement.

The Campaign Group .of Labour
Members of Parliament said it would
launch a fightback to save the peace policy
by announcing a series of meetings at union
conferences this summer.

The new policy document says a Labour
Party government would adopt a policy of
no-first-use of nuclear arms, would strive
within NATO to have short-range nuclear
weapons included in talks, work for the
abandonment of flexible response and sup-
port the “third zero option” as a NATO
objective.

Left MP Tony Benn is proposing an
alternative program which would retain
unilateral disarmament, remove all U.S.
bases from Britain and withdraw from
NATO.

“Foreign and defence policies of British
governments since 1945 which have been
based upon creating military blocs and the
stockpiling of nuclear weapons are now
completely obsolete,” he told the party’s
executive.

ence in election.

The Bush administration’s actions
toward Panama are “‘a barefaced viola-
tion of the treaties with Panama” and
“psychological warfare,” Luther Tho-
mas, international secretary of the Peo-
ple’s (Communist) Party of Panama told
the People’s Daily World this week.

“They said the troops’ would come by
boat but they came by plane” said Tho-
mas, “flying over Panamanian territory
over the general quarters of the Armed
Forces, helicopters flying overhead as a
constant harassment.”

The arrival of new U.S. troops in
Panama “adds a new element of ten-
sion,” the PPP said in a prepared state-
ment. The arrival of additional troops
over the weekend violates the Torrijos-
Carter agreements “in an attempt to
intimidate the people and the govern-
ment” the statement said.

Representatives of the White House
and the Pentagon hid behind their
diplomatic status to intervene directly in
Panama’s internal affairs, personally
participating in opposition meetings and
rallies, the PPP said.

“Long before the electoral process
began, Washington began to prepare
public opinion in the United States, as
well as in the world, regarding the alleged

>

Opposition tears down COLINA candidate billboard... widespread U.S. interfer-

U.S. breaching pact, —
Panama CP charges

’ said.

electoral fraud in Panama,” the state-
ment said. “Asa culmination of this pro-
cess Bush himself a few days before the
elections, declared in a contemptuous
and arrogant manner that the United
States would not reocgnize any electoral
result other than the victory of its own
lackeys in Panama.”

. The arrival of additional troops is an
open act of aggression in preparation for
a large scale invasion, and the U.S. peo-
ple should reject it at once because of its
potential tragic consequences, the PPP

Washington “cannot determine the
future of our people, which has not
resigned nor ever will resign their right to
self-determination and independence
and to determine their future,” the
statement said. “We reject Bush’s pret-
ension to decide which Panamanian can
live in this country and who can govern
our nation.

“We reject the fallacy that the problem
is the current head of the armed forces
General Noriega becuase we know that
behind all the actions of the imperialists
is the intent to continue physically
occupying our country beyond Decem-
ber, 1999.”

Nicaragua affirms ties with USSR

By MARC FRANK

Nicaraguan President Daniel Ortega told
the media May 19 that his government is in
agreement with the Soviet Union’s decision
to stop arms shipments to Nicaragua. The
Soviet move, in effect since Jan. 1, was offi-
cially announced May 18 in Moscow.

Ortega said relations with the Soviet
Union are “excellent” and that both coun-
tries are working to have limits set to out-
side arms supplies to Central America and
an end to all foreign military advisors and
troops in the area.

Nicaraguan Interior Minister Thomas
Borge was in Moscow for talks with the
Soviet government. He said May 19 that
Nicaragua supports efforts to end arms
supplies to Central American governments.

Borge termed relations between his coun-

try and the USSR exemplary. “Throughout
these years there has been no change in our
bilateral relations except that they have
grown more and more profound,” said
Borge.

He warned against equating and linking
the end of Soviet arms shipments to the
supposed cut-off of U.S. military support
for the contras. ““The USSR has every right
to send arms to Nicaragua’s legitimate
government,” he said, “‘while the U.S. has
no right to do the same with the contras
who are trying to overthrow it. The Soviet
decision must be interpreted within the con-
text of efforts to limit arms shipments and
outside military support for Central Ameri-
ca’s governments in general.”

Meanwhile, Nicaragua has sent a formal
protest note to the Bush administration,

charging that it is undermining area peace
efforts. Central America’s presidents had
set May 14 as the deadline to begin disman-
tling the contras. But the Bush administra-
tion, backed by both Republicans and
Democrats in Congress, has voted to con-
tinue so-called humanitarian aid to the mer-
cenaries.

Washington’s allies in Central America
— in particular El Salvador and Honduras,
but also Guatemala and Costa Rica — now
say there is no reason to dismantle the con-
tras as they plan to re-integrate into Nicara-
guan life. But political observers note that in

‘the next breath, they link the contras’

demobilization to that of El Salvador’s
FMLN. Both positions fly in the face of the
agreement all Central American presidents
signed three months ago.

Pacific Tribune, June 5, 1989 e 7