EDITORIAL

* Canadian Defence Minister Robert Coates has
become a high profile member of Mulroney’s right

wing government.

There he is one day calling for “thousands more
troops and tens of thousands more reservists.”
Another day he’s telling reporters he knows nothing
of U.S. plans to station 32 nuclear bombs in Canada
while his aide tells us we should “trust the United
States.”

Then Coates surfaces as the cabinet member in
charge of “emergency planning” to frame new legis-
lation to deal with such things as public disorders
that fall short of insurrections.

“In terms of my own mandate to improve
national security,” Coates told a Conference of
Defence Associations seminar last week, “I find
myself in a position similar to my colleague (U.S.
Defence Secretary) Caspar Weinberger four years
ago.”

Exactly five days later, a U.S. B-52 bomber carry-
ing a cruise missile flew across northern Canada
thus further tightening the grip of the American
military of this country.

The other bower of the government’s military
binge is home-grown Reaganomics which argues
that increased military spending will fuel an eco-
nomic recovery.

The defence dollar can be “invested” to increase
economic activity and create more jobs, Defence
Minister Coates said, as he announced Tory plans
to boost the armed forces by 10 per cent and
increase the reserves by 30,000 troops.

Coates cited the recent tour by Pentagon sales-
men as an example of his government’s approach to
job creation. Kicking the economy into a war gear,
Coates says, is the secret. “More jobs mean more
income tax revenues with which the government
can afford its expansion of defence,” he reasoned.

In clear terms, the Tory jobs program now
becomes an arms program. The “free enterprise”
pitch turns out to be an open invitation to the
military-industrial complex to soak the people.

The notion that boosted military spending will
create jobs and cure a sick economy is a fraud.
Countless studies have proven decisively that peace-
time production, not military, is the job creation

Militarization of Canada

With Coates at the helm, Canadians are begin-
ning to feel the full implications of Mulroney’s New
York speech where he announced “Canada is open
for business again,”’ and the PM’s unabashed love
for the Reagan administration. Coates, like his idol
Weinberger, is a militarist through and through.

The government’s green paper is due next month
dealing with Canada’s defence posture through the
next 15 years. Coates already has served notice
which way the Tories want to take Canada — cruise
tets, more troops, bigger arms budget, closer ties
with the Pentagon and a new set of internal laws to
crush public dissent to this drift toward war.

There is, however, another way. The majority of
Canadians are for peace, a non-nuclear Canada and
disarmament. They are for the non-militarization of
space, a nuclear freeze and support the concept of
an independent foreign policy which will strive to
bring these about.

Unlike Coates and his colleague Weinberger,
Canadians do not see their futures tied hand and
foot to the idea of an arms race leading to oblivion.

At this crucial juncture, this message should be
brought home to the Tory machine at Ottawa.

And economic suicide

vehicle as well as the guarantee of Canada’s secur-
Ity.

Two examples can be offered: the U.S. economy
under Reagan’s record-setting arms program is in
deep trouble. The total U.S. national debt, $750-
billion when Reagan took office in 1980, will climb
to $2.2 trillion when he leaves office in 1988. Studies
show a drastic shift of income from worker to
capitalist. Between 1980 and 1984 the real income of
the bottom 20 per cent of Americans dropped by 8
per cent while that of the top 20 per cent rose by 9
per cent.

As trillions pour into the coffers of the arms-

makers, millions of working people pay the price, as _

do the jobless, the elderly and the youth.

Israel, one of the world’s most militarized econ-
omies, is also one of the world’s worst. Despite
billions poured into the Israeli economy each year
by Washington in direct and indirect loans and gifts
($4.9 billion in the next 21 months) Israel’s inflation
rate soars by a remarkable 486 per cent per year.

The Tory plan to further tie Canada to the U.S. is
a recipe for economic suicide as well as a direct
threat to our national security.

THEY TOLD ME
A BILLION DOLLARS
WOULD CREATE
45,000 JOBS
IN THE MILITARY...

EL 187000 JOBS

IN EDUCATION...
OR 138000 JOBS
IN HEALTH CARE...
OR 100,000 JOBS
IN CONSTRUCTION.

quaTs ripicuLous!
WHO WANTS TO SEE
N A Movie ABOUT
CONSTRUCTION WORK?

ya Aad ft oS) O

f

Profiteer of the week

Canadian General Electric, known fondly to employees as —
“generous electric” was kind to itself in the nine months ended ~
Sept. 30, with an after-tax profit of $19,180,000. While revenue was —
down sightly, profit was up from $17,522,000 in the same 1983
period.

RIiBUNE

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oo

The following is excerpted from New
Age, paper of the Communist Party of India
(CPD. :

As of Dec. 5, about 3,000 people are
dead in Bhopal from the poison gas leak-
age from U.S. multinational Union Car-
bide’s pesticide plant. Another 2,000, half

= Commentary

On March 4, 1983, advocate Shah -
Nawaz Khan on behalf of the CPI served a
notice on the campny warning against the
danger that gas leakage from the plant
posed for the people.

_ The protests of the people have been
ignored by the U.S. multinational well as

among them children, are in critical condi-
tion. Over 200,000 within a radius of 45
km are affected. This is the worst mass
slaughter in India.

Should it be called an accident at all?
Both the central and Madhya Pradesh
governments as well as Union Carbide
must be held responsible for this carnage.

The historic city of Bhopal as a whole
could have died, for only part of the 35-ton
storage of this deadly gas leaked. The tol-
erance limit of the human body for this gas
is just 0.02 parts per million parts of air.
Anything above that limit is fatal. Had the
three storage tanks burst — there was an
explosion — there would have been no
living being and livestock in and around
Bhopal. As it is, Bhopal is without milk as
the cattle have all died.

What makes the tragedy so terrible is
the fact the Union Carbide factory for 45
minutes failed to blow the factory whistle
to warn people.

For some 18 hours the administration
was paralyzed. And Congress-I ministers?
They ran away from Bhopal immediately
on knowing the danger along with their
families.

It is clear that the location of the factory
in the heavily populated zone was an act of
crime with extreme callousness. Or was ita
deliberate act to give the U.S. company
easy rail access?

In 1975, the then municipal administra-
tor and environmental secretary, M.N.
Buch had asked the company to remove
its factory from that locality. The factory
remained; Buch was transferred.

Ever since the plant began full-scale
operation, it posed a constant danger to
the population. Already in 1975, there was
a blast and leakage of gas. In 1980, there
was a fire in the plant. Since then, there
was no year without an accident.

In 1981, one worker died in phosgene
gas leakage. In 1982, another gas leakage
affected 24 persons, followed by a valve
burst on the gas pipeline in October of the
same year. Four persons were seriously
affected by that leakage. Escaped gas also
entered the adjoining localities.

In 1983, two were affected by gas leak-
age and now 3,000 have died already from
the leakage that took place Dec. 3.

In 1969, when Congress ministry in the

state was led by D.P. Mishra, this com-

pany was given the letter of intent to set up
a chemical plant. CPI leader, the late
Shakir Ali Khan, at that time objected to
the location of the plant.

In 1979, when the construction of the
Sevin plant based on methyl iso-cynate gas
(MIC) and phosgene gas was inaugurated
by BJP (the then ruling Janata party) chief
minister B.K. Saklecha, there was a public
protest against that plant. But Saklecha
overruled all objections from the people
and environmentalists.

In 1982, the failure of safety measures in
this plant and the issue of shifting it from
that locality were raised in the state legisla-
ture by CPI leader Mahendra Kerma. The
plant unions also made the same
demands. ‘ .

_Congress-I labor minister Tarasingh
Viyogi in reply to Kerma stated how much
had been invested in that factory: “It is not
a piece of stone which I can pick up and
place at some other location. And it is not
that it is posing a big danger to Bhopal or
that there is any such possibility.” How-
ever, he promised an inquiry. An inquiry
was ordered at official level and then for-
gotten.

the government. Now the citizens have
decided not to allow the reopening of the
Union Carbide factory at all.

_ The danger the factory poses to popula-
on and environment was clear from the
beginning. The process of making the pes-
ticidé called Sevin has been developed by
Union Carbide.

No other chemical or pesticide com-

pany uses this method as it is very danger-
ous. Sevin has already caused a number of
deaths among peasants in several coun-
tries of Asia, Africa, and Latin America. —
At each stage of production, the product
of this factory is dangerous to human
beings, .
_ The question therefore is why were the
industrial licensing and location policies
totally ignored in respect of this U.S. multi-
national?

Those responsible for this must be
brought to justice, including the then labor
minister who assured there was no danger
2 all from this plant to Bhopal’s popula-

ion.

The entire matter concerning this plant

_ 1S a record of unconcern and callousness

towards safety.

4 e PACIFIC TRIBUNE, JANUARY 23, 1985

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