dae ijy - anenennt At pnn e t -oe

: in South Africa.

Canadian arms merchants

grow fat on tax dollars

- By HERVE FUYET ~
After 16 months of hearings, a U.S. grand jury

condemned Space Research president Rogers Greg-
"ory to only six months in jail. As for Gerard Bull, his

Quebec accomplice in the sale of arms to South Afri-

“a, he won’t go to jail right away. He was hit so hard -

by the news of his conviction that he has had to
undergo psychiatric care.

As for the other gun merchants and makers of as-
sorted death machines, when will they be punished
for their crimes against humanity?

For example, Pratt and Whitney with its aircraft
engines, is the biggest supplier for Canada’s armed
forces in NATO. It must be understood as le Devoir

_ writer Gilles Provost said in an article last June that

the influence of the ‘‘military’’ in a company’s pro-
duction “in effect provides access to generous sub-
sidies, the latest technologies, as well as govern-
mental or foreign expertise ... military contracts
generally include a much larger profit margin than
civilian contracts.’’

_ C.B. Wrong, a vice-president at Pratt and Whitney, —
in a recent article in the Canadian Aeronautic and -

Space Journal wrote that the Quebec facility created

_ upon demand by the military first in 1928 was able to

expand at Longeuil thanks to aircraft engine sales to

_ the U.S. during the Korean War. The plant then sold

turbine engines for U.S. assault helicopters to the U.S.
during the war in Vietnam. ==

The Korean War was also a period of expansion for
Quebec’s other aircraft maker — Canadair — thanks
to the sale of Sabre jet aircraft which were later re-
fitted for sale to Shah of Iran and the apartheid regime

Military production is also considerable in the field
of electronics. The Marconi company in Montreal for

_ examiple, is among those industries specializing al-

most exclusively in the export of military hardware.

Marconi helped equip Black Hawk assault helicopters

used in Vietnam. -
Arms Subsidies
Perhaps even more aggravating is the fact that over

” the past 10 years halfa billion dollars of our taxes have
been stuffed into the coffers of the armaments indus- -

try in the form of subsidies, in addition to their exor-
pitant super profits. Since 1978, 90% of the subsidies

for industrial research from the federal Industry, _

Trade and Commerce ministry went to military re-
search. Almost half of that goes to Quebec, above all
to Pratt and Whitney, which received $105-million in

_ subsidies in 12 years.

The subsidiaries of Canadian Technical Industries,
which includes Space Research, whose management
will be making a brief visit to jail, shared some $9-mil-
lion in federal government subsidies since South Af-
rica became a shareholder in 1977. Before that, almost
10% of its subsidies, coming from our taxes, went to
subsidiaries controlled by foreign interests. . -

" The Canadian Government assists in the selling of
military equipment. It has offices right inside the
Wright Patterson aviation base in Ohio and the Army
Missile Plant in Michigan. According to the 1978 fed-

_ eral bulletin ‘‘World Market Possibilities”’ , dedicated

to military hardware, Argentina, notorious around the
globe for its total denial of human rights, is described
as “‘one of the most important markets for defence
materials perfected in Latin America.’’ As for

_ Ecuador, the federal bulletin notes ‘*modernization of

military equipment constitutes a priority for the mili-

_tary junta in power.”

is -Total Integration Goal

Since the signing in 1959 of the Defence Production
Sharing Agreement (between Canada and the USA),
expanded to include military research in 1963,.there
are no tariffs, or export and import licenses required
in the Canada-U.S. arms trade. A directive of the
U.S. Defence Department in 1959, specifically stated
that this agreement ‘favored the maximum integra-
tion of production programs and the development of

military planning services well integrated between _

-both countries.”’ :

- The agreement foresees joint control of rare natural -

resources necessary for the war effort, including met-

als, petroleum, uranium and others. The bottom line,

as Gilles Provost of le Devoir noted in his June article,
is that ‘‘military production in Canada is totally integ-
rated ‘with that of the U.S. It is under American
tutelage ...”” ae i

Yesterday napalm, “made in Quebec’? burnt out. .

the villages of Vietnam with their familiés, children
and old people. Today our shells. and shrapnel are
murdering Black school kids in the ragist Republic of
South Africa. ae

‘industrial complex,

What will it be tomorrow if the democratic political

forces including the labor movement, don’t force-our-

governments, whether in Quebec or Ottawa, to put an

end to the massacre? — ; vi
“The Parti Québécois and even Prime Minister
Trudeau have, from time to time, flirted with this idea.

They’ ve won votes by promising to withdraw from.

‘NATO and NORAD, but have forgotten everything

once in power and in the clutches of the military
and monopoly capitalism in
De ie no alternative to détente other than the
madness of nuclear self-destruction. Our own good
sense should make us pause to reflect on all of this
without ignoring that for the same amount of capital

- invested, civilian construction, civilian industry or
the expansion of public services creates more jobs

than the arms industry. ae

The only losers would be the military industrial
complex who'd be deprived of their super profits.
However, this would benefit everyone else because
what's good for them is bad for the country.

a —— ~ a

U.S. helicopters equiped with “Made in Canada” en-
gines were used against the Vietnamese people dur-
ing that war. Canada also sells arms to South Africa,
Argentina and Equador to name a few:

End of two part series

End Pol Pot support says CPC |

On the eve of an accrediation vote
in the United Nations for the seating
of the legitimate government of

_ Kampuchea, the Central Executive

Committee of the Communist Party
of Canada called on the Trudeau
“government to stop its backing of the
Pol Pot group and join with the grow-
ing number of states in the recogni-
tion of the Heng Samrin government
in Phnom Penh. The CPC press
statement reads:

The debate over recognition of the
Heng Samrin government as - the
legitimate government of Kam-
puchea is gathering strength. India is
among the latest countries to recog-
nize that government and others will

_ inevitably follow.

What about Canada?

External Affairs Minister Mark
MacGuigan says his government will
continue to recognize the Pol Pot re-

_ gime as the “‘legitimate”’ Govern-

ment of Cambodia. e:
What is legitimate about that re-

gime?

It was that government which
murdered over 3 million Cambo-
dians, a fact universally known and
which now the Globe and Mail has
been compelled to note, at least in an
article by one of its correspondents.

That regime was chased out of
Kampuchea. The people of Kam-

puchea are painfully rebuilding their .

country with great effort, aided by

Vietnam and by other socialist coun-
tries.

The.refusal of the Canadian gov-
ernment so far to recognize the Heng
Samrin government and to support
its entry into the United Nations
reflects, not the real national in-
terests of Canada, but the aims of
U.S. imperialism which has never
forgiven Vietnam for its historic de-
feat and is now trying to knock to-
gether a military alliance which
could re-establish U.S. imperialist
positons in Southeast Asia.

“ Why is the Canadian Government
supporting such. dangerous policies
which lead not to peace but to war in
Southeast Asia? Is it because of
some secret deal with the Peking
government? MacGuigan says he
has thrown Canada’s weight behind
China as a ‘‘factor for peace”’ in that
region because of its restraining ef-
fect on Vietnamese aggressive inten-
tions” (!) This in light of Chinese
aggression against Vietnam and in

Chile.

Nothing for Chile ——
TORONTO -—Last weekend Chileans here wen
on a two-day hunger strike to protest the
plebiscite called for Sept. 11 by the Chilean
dictatorship. Similar actions also took place in
Quebec, Montreal, Regina, Winnipeg, Saska-
toon and Calgary. The plebiscite has: thrown
Chile into turmoil, sparking mass opposition to
the new “constitution” the regime seeks to im-
pose which would deny all democratic rights.
‘Canadian supporters of the Chilean struggle~
for a return to democracy are callingon Ottawa (/% 6+
to break all trade and diplomatic relations with

No new math there
: WASHINGTON (ZNS) — Back

in the early 1960's, a system of

mathematics called “the new math”
swept through North American.
schools systems. Shae cat

The military rulers of Argentina
are now outlawing the new math in
that country because they believe it
promotes a disrespect for authority
and subversion. :

TRIBUNE PHOTO — MIKE

spite of the statements of the
Chinese leaders of the inevitability
of world war which they try to brin;
about by their policies.

“MacGuigan has joined in the
Carter-Brzezinski campaign against
Kampuchea and Vietnam. This is a
dangerous and shortsighted policy
which has no future. ~

Canada's image as an independent
state with truly independent foreign
policies has been tarnished by such
‘**me too’ policies, as it was under-

-_mined_by. the senseless..boycott of}

the Olympics and the embargo. At
the end it is the Canadian people who
pay for such stupidities.

Canada doesn’t need MacGuigan
and his pro U.S. policies. It needs a
truly independent foreign policy. A
step in that direction would be sup-
port for entry of the Heng-Samrin
government into the UN and recog-
nition of that government by Cana-
da.

PACIFIC TRIBUNE—SEPT. 19, 1980—Page 9