roo oA TT OT Scapegoats found, genocidal policies remain __ Israeli crimes commission not enoug The report by the Israeli commission of inquiry in which top government and military leaders are charged with varying degrees of responsibility for the murders committed by Falangist troops in the Beirut Palestinian camps last September has answered some questions and raised still more. The report found former Defence Minister Ariel Sha- ron as having ‘“‘made a grave mistake”’ in ignoring poten- tial acts of revenge the right-wing Falangists would per- petrate on the civilian camps. It named several top military leaders, including Army Chief of Staff Lieut. General Rafael Eitan and chief of army intelligence Major General Yehoshua Saguy as committing acts of indifference and neglect before, dur- ing and after the September massacres. The report chastized Premier Begin, saying ‘‘he showed absolutely no interest in the camps ...’’ It recom- mended Sharon resign his post (he did); that Eitan be allowed to retire next month and Saguy not be re- appointed as a field commander for three years. No recommendations for action against Prime Min- ister Begin were made nor against Israeli Foreign Min- ister Shamir who, the commission said, failed to act when he received information about the slaughters. As the saying goes: The elephant labored, and pro- duced a mouse. : Western press reports fairly glowed with the commis- sion’s findings calling them an example of what Israeli democracy can produce. They marvelled at the ““harshness”’ of the findings: The Arab press was not so taken in. The Kuwait Times recalled Reagan’s words at the time of the killings, that “‘no punishment is enough”’ and called on him to remind Israel of this today. Saudi Arabia said the findings did not go far enough and called for an international tribunal to go fully into the matter. This sentiment was echoed by PLO Chairman Yasser Arafat who pointed to the responsibility of the United States in arming and backing Israel’s aggression against Lebanon as well as its complicity by withdrawing its peacekeeping force the day before the slaughters began. SABRA AND SHATILA: They were slaughtered like cattle, their homes bulldozed over them. The commission’s inquiry, for all its fascinating deta about who knew what and when, absolved the Is ; army of blame. It made no connection between Is I occupation of Beirut and the slaughters. a The report failed to indict the U.S. and its crucial 10 in the Lebanon invasion. It made no mention of the ™ that Israel still occupies that country or that its puP ; force of Falangists continues to strengthen its grip along the Lebanon-Israel border. i Despite temporary embarrassment brought on by th report’s findings, its deficiencies fairly scream out. — This is shown in real life — Ariel Sharon, while stef ping down from the defence post, stays in the cab! where, it is rumored, he-will take up responsibility for illegal West Bank settlements program. The. new defence chief will be the ultra-hawk U} ambassador, a long-time Begin crony. His viewS everything mirror Sharon’s. Begin’s cabinet has been stonewalling the withdraw! talks until Israel’s grip on Lebanon becomes set in col crete. The settlements program of occupied Arab lan quickening despite Reagan’s orchestrated public pro tests. The commission, in fact, fulfilled its mandate to deft the outcry over the massacres which rained down frot within and outside Israel while leaving untouched # fundamental pillars of Israeli expansionist policy whic led directly to the killings. a Inshort, 800civilian murders brought about one cabin shuffle. TM Bush tour: effort to stem peace tide U.S. Vice President George Bush, sent by the Reagan Administration to counter the positive reactions in Western Europe to the latest Soviet disarmament proposals, mired himself in crude Reagan propaganda on his very first stop-over, the Federal Republic of Ger- many. It would stick to him throughout the rest of his Western European tour. Every observer in Western Europe viewed Bush's trip as a mission to in- fluence voters in the coming March 6 election in the FRG. Both the proposals of Yuri Andropov and the recent visit of Soviet Foreign Affairs Minister Gromyko have reportedly augmented a swing toward the opposition anti-zero option Social Democrats. Following the malicious tendency of NATO member leaders to make pro- vacative speeches in West Berlin, Vice President Bush (who had said he was on ‘‘a mission of peace’’) chose that site to deliver, as part of a cold war speech loaded with anti-Soviet epithets, an “open letter to the people of Europe from President Reagan.’’ That notorious “‘letter’’ proposed a Reagan-Andropov summit meeting for the purpose of sign- ing an agreement to ban medium-range missiles. Old ‘Option’ This U.S. delegation that was sup- posed to be the weighty answer to the Soviet Union’s peace steps fell like a clanger among Bush’s immediate audi- ence (who received it with a few feeble claps) and among leading circles in Western Europe. Not only was it promptly seen as a slightly prettied-up repetition of the old zero option, but the fact that Reagan had not addressed his “‘letter’’ to the Soviet leader himself or informed the Soviet government in any way of his intention, or even informed the West German hosts of Bush in ad- vance and that he had limited a summit meeting merely to the signing of an PACIFIC TRIBUNE—FEBRUARY 25, 1983—Page 8 “‘agreement’’ utterly counter to the Soviet posit:on, caused near incredulity among NATO allies of the U.S. The London Times which had tended to go along with the zero option but is now backing away, commented: the Bush speech “‘is a strange way to launch a delicate diplomatic idea. So strange, indeed, that it seems to have provoked such criticism in West Germany that it has boomeranged even as propaganda.” While Bush was speaking over 10,000 people demonstrated in West Berlin streets against his presence and when Bush paid his ritual visit to the Berlin Wall a huge sing on an adjoining house proclaimed *‘Bush go home to CIA.”’ The British Guardian editorialized: ‘‘In any war of words there is a difference between good propaganda and bad prop- aganda. This is bad propaganda, treating millions who can think and vote as if they were dummies.’’ The Guardian thought that ‘‘Mr/ Andropov has, in recent months, been making — at the very least — good propaganda.” The correspondent of the Guardian who attended the Bush meeting in West - Berlin quoted approvingly the Andropov - reply to it which said the Reagan ap- proach ‘‘can only be regretted.”’ Skepticism Any belief in Washington that a Bush tour tossing around clever propaganda speeches would solidify Western Euro- pean ranks behind the great leader in the White House should certainly have been punctured by the clouds of skepticism that have risen in the U.S. Vice Presi- dent’s wake. There has been hope: in Western Europe, made bright by the Soviet dis- armament proposals that are considered serious, that the Reagan Administration would be persuaded to engage in serious negotiations that would lead to the non- installation of U.S. cruise and Pershing II missiles and a reduction of Soviet SS20 From London William Pomeroy missiles. That hope has been diminished by the Bush tour. The consequence must be a further swelling of the peace forces. In Britain those forces have reached a point where a deeply worried Thatcher government is beginning to make rash moves to try-to contend with it. One of these has been the appointment of a new minister of defense, Michael Heseltine, whose assignment was quite openly said to be ‘‘counter the CND (Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament).”’ Out of the defense ministery has come areport that the government is proposing to launch a $1.6-million anti-CND prop- aganda campaign. The money is to be used to hire one of the big U.S. advertis- ing agencies, J. Walter Thompson, to flood the country with slick wordage and gimmicks to undermine the peace movement and extol the cruise and Tri- dent way to international understanding. This move has brought a storm of pro- test from all the opposition parties, from some Tories themselves, from the CND and from progressive sectors in general. The protest is one hand against the use of public money to promote a partisan polit- ical line and on the other hand against the immorality of a government prop- agandizing against a peace movement. Michael Foot, the Labor Party leader, has asked why the government doesn’t use the money to propagandize the pro- gram of the U.N. disarmament meeting. Chain for Peace In the meantime, the CND, unmoved by the threat of Mr. Heseltine’s vocal WEST BERLIN — 5,000 turn out to prote’ U.S. vice-president Bush’s visit with ba’ ners citing his former post as CIA chi and the agency’s role in killing Chileé democracy in 1973. They also questic the CIA’s role today in Central Americ: chords, has announced its plans for tl peace demonstrations at the East weekend. It has called for a ‘“‘huma peace chain’’ of at least 40,000 people t form a ‘‘bond of peace’’ around the mil tary establishment at Greenham Com mon and Aldermaston. A 14-mile long chain of demonstrato! is to extend between and around thre points: the nuclear weapon manufactu ing Burghfield Royal Ordinance Factor the nuclear laboratory at Aldermasto and the cruise missile base under co! struction at the U.S. base at Greenhai Common (where 30,000 women in Di cember formed a nine-mile long han linked chain about the base).