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End the Arms Race poster for April 23 walk in Vancouver.

People all over the province
will be taking to the streets April
23 to give new momentum to the
demand for disarmament and to
reaffirm the beginning that was
made in last year’s INF treaty
scrapping medium-range nuclear
missiles in Europe.

And this year, students’ groups
will be playing a prominent role
in many cities, taking centre stage
at rallies and at events leading up
to the April 23 walks.

At Tribune press time, peace
marches were planned for Van-

couver, Victoria, Courtenay,
Kamloops, Prince George and
Prince Rupert.

In Vancouver, where the annual
walk for peace has captured
international attention, marchers
will assemble at Kitsilano Beach
at 11 a.m., with the march —
across Burrard Bridge, through
downtown Vancouver to Sunset
Beach — set to begin at 12 noon.
The walk is jointly sponsored this
year by the 230-member organi-
zation End the Arms Race as well
as Vancouver city council, school
board and parks board.

At the 1:30 p.m. rally, the
emphasis will be on youth and
music, with children’s singer-
songwriter Charlotte Diamond
on stage with the Brass Roots
Band, Simple Folk, Tom Hawken
and a rap song group from Cap-
tain Cook Elementary. Graham
Cook of Students Together on
Peace (STOP) heads a brief list of
speakers.

That emphasis will be echoed

in Victoria where the April 23
walk gets underway at 12 noon at
Centennial Square. Marchers will
proceed through downtown Vic-
toria to the rally at the provincial
legislature where Canadian record-
ing artist Valdy will be both mas-
ter of ceremonies and the featured
entertainer.

He will be joined on the stage
by the band, Spirit of the West
and by Fred Knelman, author of
Reagan, God and The Bomb,
who will be the feature speaker
for the rally. The march and rally
is organized by the Greater Vic-
toria Disarmament Group.

Up-Island in Courtenay, the
Comox Valley Nuclear Respon-
sibility Society, the Campbell
River, Courtenay and District
Labour Council and the Camp-
bell River Peace Group have
joined forces to organize the
peace walk which begins at | p.m.
at Anderton Park. Marchers will
be going through downtown
Courtenay to a rally at Lewis
Park where, like other centres in
the province, the focus will be on
youth. bs

A representative of the student
group, Students Against Global

Extermination (SAGE), which

organized the cross-country tour
by Montreal students last year,
will be the featured speaker.
Farther north, in Prince Rupert,
the peace marchers will assemble

at 10:30 a.m. at Fishermen’s Hall, ’

which is also the site for the after-
noon rally, organized by the
Prince Rupert Organization for
Disarmament (PROD).

PROD organizer Paddy Jones
said that students will be playing
a major role in this year’s event,
highlighted by “Peace Week”
which has been organized for the
week prior to the walk in con-
junction with the secondary
school in Prince Rupert.

In the Interior, Prince George
is one of two centres where peace
walks are scheduled. Zella Tay-
lor, chair of the Prince George
Campaign for Disarmament, said
that marchers will assemble at the
provincial government parking
lot on Third Ave. fora brief rally
at 1] a.m, before walking through
the city centre to St. Michael’s
Church for a fund-raising lunch.
City alderman Cliff Dezell is
scheduled to address the kickoff
rally.

Over in Kamloops, the Kam-
loops Peace Umbrella has sche-
duled the walk to begin at 11 a.m.
at Allan Matthews School, 543
St. Paul. Marchers will proceed
from there to a rally at Riverside
Park where United Church Min-
ister Allan Richards and Jim
Ford from Veterans Against
Nuclear Arms are scheduled to
speak.

In the Slocan Valley, no peace
walk was scheduled at press time
but peace organizations in Cas-
tlegar have organized buses to
take activists to the peace walk
and rally in Vancouver. Buses are
scheduled to leave Friday April
22 and return on April 24. Those
interested can phone 399-4207 for
more information.

Canadian arms dealers push for new business

By DEREK MACKIE

The American stood well over six feet
tall. On a cold December day in 1985, he
came calling on the small offices of Propair,
a regional commercial airline based in
Rouyn, Quebec. His aim? To purchase two
Caribou cargo aircraft and spare parts.

The man was William Langton, presi-
dent of Southern Air Transport Inc. of
Miami.

His airline is familiar to those in intelli-
gence circles, having been uncovered in the
1970s as a Central Intelligence Agency
front. Sold in 1976 on orders of the U.S.
Congress, Southern Air Transport is
known to still do CIA work.

Indeed, Langton wanted to buy the two
Caribou that Propair was selling and use
them to ship weapons and supplies to Nica-
raguan contras. After the deal was struck,
Propair pilots and mechanics flew the air-
craft to a contra base in El Salvador in
January, 1986. There they helped train U.S.
and Salvadoran military personnel in main-
taining and piloting the aircraft.

Was this an extraordinary case of a Can-
adian company entangled in international
arms trading? Not at all.

It’s one of numerous examples of Cana-
dian arms manufacturing wheeling and
dealing with brutal regimes. Regimes often
at war either with their neighbours or their
own people. i

The Southern Air Transport/Propair
deal wasn’t the first time Canadian-made
deadly goods ended up in contra hands. In
1983, while visiting contra camps, journal-
ists stumbled across boxes of bullets made
by a Quebec City-based company, Valcart-

ier Industries Inc. The firm manufactures
7.62 mm. cartridges, widely used in NATO-
issued assault rifles. How these bullets came
to be with the contras is unknown.

And last year, during the Iran-contra
scandal hearings, it was discovered that a
Montreal-based company, Trans World
Arms Inc., had arranged the first secret
weapons’ shipments to the contras in late
1984 and early 1985. The company bro-
kered, among other things, 90,000 Ibs. of
mortar shells and 7.62-by-39 mm. ammuni-
tion, suitable for the contras’ rifles.

In size, this business is not peanuts. And
peace groups like the Waterloo, Ontario-
based Project Ploughshares say trade
between Canada and Third World hot
spots is growing.

Currently, at least $300 million worth of

_ Canadian military products arrive in the

arsenals of developing nations’ armies every
year — a threefold jump from 10 years ago.
Admittedly, this sum is a drop in the Third
World’s $30-billion arms bazaar bucket.
Stull, Ernie Regehr, director of Project
Ploughshares, says the Canadian arms

& Currently, $300 million
worth of Canadian military
products arrive in the
arsenals of developing
nations every year.9

industry — made up of 300 firms employ-
ing 35,000 people — has grown so large

that to maintain sales, it must search abroad
for business. What’s more, Regehr says, the
perceived necessity of Canadian companies
to sell in the Third World has pressured the
federal government to ignore export laws
designed to stop weapons from reaching
war zones.

There are two ways Canadian arms end
up in the Third World — directly or indi-
rectly. Thus, Canadian-built helicopter
parts can be shipped straight to Iran, as they
were in 1986, and possibly used in the Iran-
Iraq war. Or, Montreal-based Pratt and
Whitney Aircraft Ltd. engines can be put
aboard planes in Brazil, but then sold to El
Salvador’s military — as has been done.

Overall, components have gone to nearly
every major warring nation, including
Chad, Libya, Morocco, Lebanon, South
Africa, Iraq, Iran, Israel, the Philippines
and El Salvador. They have reached the
arsenals of numerous human_ rights-
violating regimes including Chile, Argen-
tina, South Korea, Pakistan, Turkey,
Paraguay and Guatemala.

The products include tank and aircraft
parts, radar equipment, sensors for jet figh-
ters, handguns and bullets. Take Med-Eng
Systems of Ottawa, for example: it sold
$33,000 worth of explosives-disposal suits
and helmets to the Chilean National Police
in 1984.

Another firm playing this market well is
Patlon Aircraft and Industries Ltd. The
brokerage house operates from a modern,
unassuming, 750-square metre building ina
Mississauga, Ontario industrial park.

Patlon buys and sells transport and figh-
ter plane parts, primarily for the Canadian

military. If the armed forces needs brake
shoes, they phone Patlon, which orders the

& The Canadian arms
industry has grown so
large that to maintain
Sales, it must search
abroad for business.¥

parts from the manufacturer. The brake
shoes are then sold back to the army with a
mark up.

Pation also plays the middleman role for
sullied regimes like Honduras, Chile, Tur-
key, Pakistan and Indonesia. But its most
reprehensible business is the “blanket con-
tract” it has with the government of
Guatemala — considered one of the grav-
est abusers of human rights — to supply
parts and servicing.

In 1979, Patlon also bought a subsidiary
in Florida. Declared the company’s baleful
33-year-old president, Patrick Mann: “Just
about every Central and South American
government has a military acquisition office _
in Miami. It’s a logical point to position
oneself to service those markets.”

So far, Canada’s role in supplying arms
to the wars of the world has gone relatively
unnoticed. But as the Mulroney govern-
ment continues building up “conventional”
forces, it’s worth noting that many of the
same Canadian companies making guns
and tanks for our soldiers are building them
for countries locked in mortal combat.

Pacific Tribune, April 6, 1988 « 3