AM NI A A AL LN ll eel vee ee tt WORLD Defusing the European By FRED WEIR Tribune Moscow Correspondent MOSCOW — To link, or not to link? At least on the surface, this would seem to be the most burning question of arms control these days, and the most bitter bone of contention. As the complications mount in the search for an acceptable accord on nuclear missiles in Europe, as each side tries to answer this question in context, fundamental differences in approach are increasingly revealed. On one hand there is the Soviet position, put forward by Mikhail Gorbachev in January, 1986. This stresses the interrelated- ness of all aspects of the arms race, and urges that the two sides agree politically upon prin- ciples of disarmament before getting down to dealing with the technical details involved. Nuclear Free World Viable “The prime and chief requirement of the new thinking is to recognize both the neces- sity and the practicability of a nuclear weap- ons free world,” the Soviet Union’s senior foreign policy expert, Anatoly Dobrynin, told a meeting of communist editors last week. ‘‘The distinctiveness of the Soviet pos- ition is that we visualize the reduction and © elimination of nuclear arsenals from an en- tirely new conceptual angle: as a political and psychological, and not exclusively tech- nico-military problem.” At Reykjavik last October, the Soviet leader proposed a comprehensive *‘pack- age”’ of arms control measures designed to eliminate nuclear weapons by 1995. In con- junction with other Soviet initiatives in the field of conventional and chemical weapons, this was a formula not only for reducing the risk of nuclear catastrophe, but for dismant- ling the entire machinery of cold war con- frontation that has dominated the world pic- ture since the end of WW II. The Soviets have gone much further than this, and argue that the possibilities for solv- ing the critical problems of development, so- cial justice, environmental control, etc., in our world today turn upon our ability to apply the resources presently squandered on the arms race to these problems instead. In Delhi last November, Mikhail Gorbachev put for- ward a program based upon these principles which, if implemented, would completely re- novate global relations. The U.S. position, on the other hand, has always been that some forms of “‘arms con- trol’? — as distinct from “‘disarmament’’ — might be useful from the standpoint of American security interests, and some not. In practice, this has always been viewed as a matter of military expediency, and has usu- ally meant that Washington is interested in negotiating limits on weapons and forces where the USSR enjoys some advantage, and not at all enthusiastic about bargaining away U.S. supremacy in any field. The U.S. has, therefore, always insisted on breaking down the arms race into categories, and playing a kind of poker with ‘‘bargaining chips’’. On the American side, technical arguments have always overshadowed political principles and the politico-economic sources of military buildup have been obscured by the rhetoric of security and the hyperbole of the ‘Soviet threat’. The broad agreement achieved at Reykjavik between Reagan and Gorbachev seemed an astonishing break with traditional U.S. arms control policy but, as it turned out, only a momentary one. Linkage Impasse Something strange has been happening in recent months, however. The Soviets, anxi- ous to generate some movement in the arms talks, have shown a willingness to separate some issues from the ‘“‘package’’, while the Americans appear to have discovered linkage with a vengeance. This unexpected turn of events pivoted upon the issue of medium range missiles in Europe. Noting that this was the least com- plicated item in the “‘package’’, the USSR proposed in February that these weapons be negotiated separately on the basis of agree- 8 e PACIFIC TRIBUNE, MAY 13, 1987 ment reached in principle at Reykjavik. Al- though this proposal, known as the *‘zero option’, has been U.S. and NATO policy since 1981, the western side suddenly balked. Medium range missiles, which have a range of over 1,000 kilometers, should not be di- vorced from shorter-range missiles, with a range of over 500 kilometers, they said. Next, Gorbachev offered to freeze and negotiate the shorter-range weapons — with the aim of total elimination — in tandem with medium range missiles. Later he went even further and expressed Soviet willingness to abolish even the ‘‘battlefield’’ nuclear sys- tems — atomic mines, artillery shells, tactical rockets, etc: — that each side presently main- tains in the European theatre. NATO Balks Now many American and Western Euro- pean leaders are finding other connections that argue against a separate agreement on missiles in Europe. ‘Things are too much concentrated on solely nuclear issues,”’ says a top advisor to West German Chancellor Kohl. The Soviet passion for nuclear disarmament is simply a ruse, he says, to leave the field open for superior Soviet armies. ‘“They have finally discovered where their real military advan- tages are — in conventional forces.” Unfortunately, these- perambulations, while stalling an agreement on nuclear mis- powderkeg They transfer resources on a huge scale from the public sphere to private profit — a gigantic welfare program for the largest and most influential corporations. Perhaps most important, the constant threat of western strategic superiority drives the socialist world to divert a critical margin of its own less aboundant resources to the needs of de- fence. Social and economic development suf- fer in proportion. The bottom line is that western, and par- ticularly U.S. leaders are reluctant to move in the direction of dismantling the cold war sys- tem. There are too many vested interests and political uncertainties. Perhaps they fear the long-term consequences of doing so more than they feel the abstract danger of nuclear holocaust, with which they flirt every day. Public pressure, however, is driving them down this road. If we will have some sort of an agreement on nuclear missiles in Europe this year, and some new momentum in the direction of comprehensive disarmament, it will be because people in the west can no longer stomach the contradictions of the cold war and are moving toward the political prin- ciple of a nuclear free world. On the Soviet side, the idea of peaceful co-existence has long been a guiding prin- ciple of foreign policy, but under the Gor- bachev leadership it has been infused with a new flexibility and creative content. There is a seamless web connecting the ambitious 2 3 ‘ , ’ : ‘fA ee L f AwLN OS ...THEN ONE MILLION BIG SCARY RUSSIAN BEARS CAME OUT OF THE WOODS ARMED WITH MEDIUM-RANGE NUCLEAR WARHEADS... ~ . STAVES | siles, are not bringing the western allies closer to the Soviet concept of an arms con- trol package. It seems rather to be bringing into the open their determination to avoid comprehensive disarmament at all costs. Upon his return from talks in Moscow last month, U.S. Secretary of State George Shultz in effect turned down the idea of a de-nuclearized Europe and told the western public that they should stop worrying and learn to love the bomb. NATO, which cur- rently maintains some 4,600 nuclear war- heads in Europe, needs these weapons to deter Soviet armies. : “In order to have the ability to respond flexibly ... we need to have these different forces to be flexible with — and we are going to keep them,”” Shultz said. West European leaders and American hard-liners are reacting like this for hard, basic reasons. In the West, acold war system — with an ever-escalating arms race at its heart — has been the essential response to the global challenge of socialism since 1945. The cold war serves as a political procrustean bed, to force all foreign policy — and many issues — domestic into the shape of a ‘‘them”’ versus “‘us’” East-West contest. The ‘Threat’ The Soviet ‘‘military threat’? is the psychological and political glue that binds the western alliance together. Soaring military budgets have become basic to western, parti- cularly American, economic development. domestic plans to restructure and renew Soviet society and the broader goal of achiev- ing a safe, predictable world for us all to live in. The Soviets hold an optimistic view of their own future and it is this more than any- thing else that drives them to search for sweeping, comprehensive solutions to Global problems. Outdated Formulas And it is precisely this that the leaders of the west, clinging to their outdated formulas, have failed to grasp. The world has reached a point, as Dobrynin noted last week, where simple human survival demands new think- ing and integral approaches to problems. The world, he said, ““has become more complex, more diverse, and more contradictory over the past 40 years. At the same time it has become more interdependent. In other words, it is a contradictory integrity which has common problems that require mutually acceptable solutions precisely in the setting of this diversity.”’ It is this thinking, and these realities that underlie the Soviet drive for comprehensive disarmament, and the west’s apparent rejec- tion of it. But it is an approach whose time has come, as even George Shultz indirectly con- ceded when he mused to reporters: ‘‘Why are the Soviets doing this? I don’t know. They say they want a less threatening and less nu- clear world, and maybe you should take them at face value.” Afghans respond to January reconciliation KABUL — About 35,000 re- fugees have returned to Afghanistan since the govern- ment announced its program for national reconcilliation last January. Under the announced terms refugees returning to their na- tive villages will have theif rights to land and housing rein- stated, receive benefits and credits for seeds and fertilizers. Meanwhile Washington has supplied the counter-revolu- tionary mujaheddins with $630-million in military aid, making these bandits the fifth largest U.S..aid receivers. However fears of another contragate have plagued the administration. Allegations that as muchas one-third of the money can not be accounted for has promted the U.S. Gen- eral Accounting Office to undertake an investigation. Guilty plea in lrangate WASHINGTON (PDW) — The first guilty pleas by 4 ‘*Contragate’’ conspirator were greeted here with calls for further prosecutions to bring all White House war criminals to justice. The calls followed Carl Channell’s admission that he 1S guilty of conspiring to defraud the government. He is charged with raising tax-exempt funds to arm anti-Nicaraguan cone tras. Channell named Lt. Col. Oliver North, President Reagan’s covert operative, 5 a co-conspirator. Channell, president of the National Endowment for the Preservation of Liberty, raised -more than $2-million from right wing donors who were assure their contributions were ta% exempt. The money was use to purchase arms at a time when Congress prohibite arms shipments to the contras- Salvadorans defy army on May Day SAN SALVADOR (SAL“ PRESS) — Despite the tensio# created by a strong military mobilization and intense gov” ernment campaign to dis courage May Day mobiliZ® tion, 50,000 workers marc May 1 through the main stree!® of the capital and several 1 gional towns. The workers called for thé resignation of President Nap leon Duarte, as a first step resolving national problems Foreign delegations in t march included U.S. teachef and activists along with Eur” pean, Brazilian and Canadi union members. Soldiers of the Salvadora? army were stationed along o march route. In other parts 9 the country, army chee f points prevented bus-loads © workers and peasants ff0' entering the cities for ! marches.