outh occupied the centre stage
Saturday as once again, tens of
thousands of British Columbians
poured over Vancouver’s Burrard
Street bridge in a massive call for an
end to the nuclear arms race.

Teenagers and adolescents seemed
everywhere in the April 25 Walk for
Peace, in which an estimated 60,000
to 80,000 mainly Lower Mainland residents heeded the call
of the organizing alliance, End the Arms Race (EAR) and
marched the five-kilometre route from Kitsilano to Sunset
Beach park, passing through Vancouver’s downtown core.

Youth was the theme on the stage at the rally at Sunset
Beach, with a moving presentation by the four members of
Students Against Global Extermination (SAGE)
constituting the highlight of a program that emphasized
young people’s participation in the disarmament
movement.

Their representation was complemented with a rap
music number by four Grade 7 students from North
Vancouver’s Blue Ridge elementary school — Sean
McKenzie, Austin Gangur, Mike Danielson and Robert
Norris — and a large number of children flanking End the
Arms Race vice-president Jean McCutcheon during her
address.

In the march a group of students heading a large “Kids
for Peace” banner exploded in excitement when a camera
turned their way.

This was also the year of the peace voter pledge
campaign.

Individuals emerged briefly from the street-wide “river of
humanity” to fill out and drop ballots into boxes at polling
booths set up along the route of the march. The ballots
pledged the participant to vote only for public office
candidates who promised to work for disarmament.

And the Walk for Peace in 1987 reaffirmed Vancouver
as the peace capital of Canada, and disarmament as the
sentiment that rules the world’s peoples at this time,
drawing crowds comparable with those of earlier years and
enjoying the continued support of city council, and school
and parks boards — despite the fact that all of these are
now dominated by right-wing civic forces.

Sunny skies and warm temperatures greeted the
marchers from trade unions, church groups, community
organizations and peace assemblies as they moved among a
sea of banners through the city streets.

The only phenomenon to mar the event was the
appearance in Vancouver harbor — repeating last year’s
controversial visit — of four United States nuclear-capable
warships. End the Arms Race extended an invitation to the
crews of the vessels to participate in the peace walk.

A emotional audience of thousands spread out over the
hillside and flat ground of Sunset Beach park repeatedly
applauded and gave a standing ovation to the four
members of SAGE, Montreal high school students who
have taken a year from their studies to speak to their peers
about their power to change the course of the world.

Seth Klein told the audience that, in visiting some 300
schools across Canada, “we've been fortunate enough to
see thousands of youth find out they can do something.”

SAGE member Desiree McGraw compared the struggle
to convince youth to fight for peace to the anti-slavery fight
in the U.S. 150 years ago, when “only a handful of blacks
and whites got together.

““Now we look back and see that those who said slavery
was a part of human nature were naive,” she said.

“Don’t let your fear overpower you, let it empower
you,” McGraw advised the young people in the crowd.

“Unless we get our politicians to speak out on the arms
race, there will be no unemployment, taxes or deficit to talk
about,” asserted Max Faille. He reminded the audience
that in only a few years he and thousands of other
teenagers would be voting.

SAGE speaker Alison Carpenter won cheers when she
said, ““We need to stand up and make (peace) the election
ie, just like New Zealand.”

Thousands of voices repeated the words of a special
pledge Carpenter recited, vowing to “make the survival of
our planet the number one priority in the next election. We
pledge to vote only for those politicians who will work
actively towards nuclear disarmament.

“We pledge to empower our peers, our youth, so they
believe that they really can make a difference. We pledge to
make leaders of the world love their children more than
they hate their enemies,” thousands vowed, closing the
pledge with a prolonged, standing ovation.

Mayor Gordon Campbell acknowledged the Vancouver
tradition of large peace marches, saying, “ We’ve played a
leadership role and we will in the future.”

VANCOUVER PEACE, 1987 school
children (centre photo) release balloons
bearing peace messages at city hall in first
annual School Balloon Initiative. At the
Walk for Peace on Saturday (right, from-
top): members of Students Against Global
Extermination move audience at Sunset
Beach park with passionate pleas to get
involved in disarmament; marchers take
the peace voter pledge; trade union con-
tingents move through Burrard Street
bridge span; children, who marched in
unprecedented numbers in Vancouver and
around B.C. on April 25, display their con-
tribution to the peace walk. -

14 e PACIFIC TRIBUNE, APRIL 29, 1987