after the vote?

What happens

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By JOHN HANLY MORGAN
The October 30 ‘‘No to the Cruise missile and Yes to

_ the referendum” rallies across Canada represent the

interrelationship of the general and the specific, a general
appeal to voters in 126 municipal referenda to urge our
federal government to be more active in working for
disarmament, and the specific in the call to abandon
Canadian complicity in the production and testing of a
Particular weapon.

The municipal referenda are couched in such general
language that Ottawa can easily reply that the govern-
Ment is indeed for peace and disarmament and list
Numerous activities supportive of these goals, pursued
by Canadian diplomats and officials both in the United
Nations and government-to-government.

No to the Cruise
Yes to the referendum

ae

No doubt the government will find ways to interpret
the referenda as fundamentally supportive of its posi-
tion: are we all not for peace and disarmament? And in
the nuclear arms question, will not the Canadian armed
forces soon be completely conventionally armed only,
When the newly-purchased planes arrive?

Hence, while we anticipate a massive vote of approval
On the disarmament referenda, give full support to the
“yes” campaign, and view this as a genuine raising of
general consciousness, unless it is accompanied by a
concrete, specific action proposal the result could be
Only routine letters of acknowledgement from Ottawa,
and cheerful handshakes for deputations to External
Affairs.

But, why then the Cruise missile?

Might not the whole question of Canada’s participa-
tion in NATO's first-strike nuclear policy, the storage of
U.S. nuclear bombs on Canadian soil, the overflight of
Canada by nuclear equipped U.S. planes, been raised?
By implication they are, but they are matters on which
we have some time on which to work; not so the Cruise
Missile. Unless it can be prevented, the U.S. will have
effected another abrupt leap upward in the arms esca-
lation with a nuclear weapon that cannot be detected and
Cannot be stopped, hence the almost mepertect
first-strike weapon. ;

Forget the nonsense about its use as an anti-tank
Weapon; NATO has dozens of thousands of anti-tank

- Weapons that do not as they target in by the hundreds kill

all life. Understandable, therefore, is the horror in
Europe when U.S.-NATO announces the neutron bomb
Carrier Cruise missile as ‘‘defensive’’; by the millions
Europeans are saying no to sucha ‘‘defence’’. And as an

“offensive weapon the result is the same; the Soviet

Union would be compelled to reply to such an attack,
either with their own eventual version of the Cruise or
Other means. In either event, Europe would be ruined.
Nor would such a terrible war be confined to Europe,
as the Pentagon and Mad Ronnie image; with Soviet
Cities turned into giant crematoria, all life neutroned to
death in vast areas, is it conceivable that the U.S. would
escape terrible retaliation? and Canada? maker of the
Suidance system for the ghastly machine that struck first
and triggered the holocaust? Canada, compliant tester of
it for the U.S. military? Unless we can stop this, we shall
all be held guilty should the nuclear war come, and we

Will not escape.

We want the American people to escape this night-
Mare, and we cheer them on as they organize by the
dozens of millions, as they vote for the freeze, as they get
Teady during the next two years to throw the Reaganite
Warriors, both cold and hot war, out of the national
Offices they profane.

The fate of humanity hangs on their struggle. But we

also have our great tasks, here in Canada: first to vote for

Peace and disarmament, then to stop the production and
testing of the Cruise, then a great campaign to declare
Canada a nuclear weapons-free zone, with all U.S. stor-
age and overflights stopped, and finally, withdrawal from
first-strike NATO and its Canadian eye and ear,
NORAD.

But, one thing at a time: first, the general, vote; then
by public, democratic campaigns, get rid of the Cruise.
We can do it. And we must.

Dr. John Hanly Morgan is president of the Canadian
Peace Congress and a member of the Presidential

Committee of the World Peace Council.

| Tories
dine
with

racists
© =}

©

TORONTO _—
“Enjoying your lunch,
gentlemen?” asked

members of Canadians
Concerned about South
Africa as they paraded
outside the Sutton Place
Hotel in the city’s down-
town, Oct. 18.

Inside, three~ Tory Soa
members of the Ontario
legislature were dining
with four parliament-
arians from South Afri-
ca’s apartheid regime
which included three
from the ruling racist Na-
tional Party.

In a leaflet distributed
to the press and
passers-by, CCSA
charged that the dinner
could not have taken
place without the ap-
proval of the office of
Premier William. Davis.
“‘Obviously,’’ it said,
‘‘such a meeting can only
lend legitimacy to a sys-
tem that is so vile that it

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has been declared by the
United Nations as a
crime against humani-
Lac
CCSA pointed out that
the racist system run by

people from national and
provincial elections, ex-
the Tory guests ‘‘denies __ ploits Black workers, re-
the most basic rights to _ stricts their movements
South Africa’s Black and _ divides
majority. It bars over families. ...

Nas of its 28 million

their

Black children die betore
the age of five and malnu-
trition is endemic. Is this
what the Tory members
are discussing over
lunch?’ the protesters

Ontario’s Davis had to approve meeting, demonstrators charge.

CCSA points out that
the meeting flies in the
face of world-wide calls
on all governments and
organizations to impose
total sanctions against

eS gee Tee

“Close to 50% of

asked. South Africa.

Cruise missile manufacturer bombed

Peace activists condemn action

TORONTO — Four days before a group calling itself
Direct Action claimed responsibility for the Oct. 14
bombing of a plant at Litton Systems Ltd.’s Rexdale
operation, anti-Cruise missile activists and peace
organizations strongly condemned the violent action.

On Oct. 20 Direct Action, in a letter to the Toronto
Clarion claimed responsibility for the explosion explain-
ing the action they took as a blow against the creation of a
weapon of mass destruction, the Cruise missile.

Three Litton workers, a plant security guard and three
Metro police officers were injured when a van containing
550 pounds of dynamite exploded outside one of the four
plants in the Litton complex at Rexdale, at about 11:31
p.m. Oct. 14.

Litton manufactures the guidance system for. the
Cruise missile; and the Cruise Missile Conversion Pro-

ject group, with widespread support, has campaigned for ~

more than three years to convince the corporation to
stop producing parts for the deadly nuclear weapon, and
shift production to peaceful, socially useful work.

The CMCP moved quickly to head off any media and
company efforts to pin them with the blame for the
explosion, witha press conference Oct. 15, in which they
expressed in the first place their ‘‘thoughts and prayers
with the workers and police (who were) injured ...”’,
then condemned the bombing as an action totally incon-
sistent with the group’s pacifist, non-violent approach.

While Litton management, and the police claim not to
suspect any involvement by these groups in the bomb-
ing, the press and media have assisted the U.S.-based
corporation in trying to link the peace movement with
the blast. In an Oct. 19 press conference, a senior Litton
executive, responding to questions from a Canadian

Broadcasting Corporation reporter, said that while he
didn’t feel an organization known as the Cruise Missile —

Conversion Project had any direct connection with the ~
bombing, their persistent demonstrations outside the

plant against the manufacture of the Cruise Missile may
have inpsired the bombers to take the action they did.

Police have said that the bombing appears to have ©

been carried out by persons with demolition expertise.
CMCP spokesperson Jane Wright said of the blast,

that ‘violence is unacceptable in Rexdale as it is in any ©
part of the world. The Cruise Missile Conversion Project —

abhors any act that leads to personal injury, just as we
oppose the destructiveness of the Cruise missile.”
Other peace organizations condemned the Litton
bombing. The Canadian Peace Congress voiced its sus-
picions, shared by many peace activists, that the act was
a provocation, probably aimed at discrediting the mas
sive country-wide campaign to stop production and test-
ing of the Cruise in Canada.
Recalling similar provocative acts from the past, such ©
as the bombing and buring of U.S. research facilities -
during the Vietnam war, the Peace Congress stressed
that ‘‘military production is not stopped by such means.
but (that such actions) only gain sympathy for the arma-
ments producer.
‘“‘Canada’s present nuclear weapons compliance can
only be stopped by a massive public opinion organized as"
political action’’, the Congress noted.
Organizers for the Oct. 30 ‘‘Refuse the Cruise”’ rally in
Ottawa also condemned the bombing and re-emphasized
the group’s commitment ‘‘to the principles of non-
violence in pursuing our objective of stopping the testing
and production of the Cruise Missile in Canada."
PACIFIC TRIBUNE—OCTOBER 29, 1982—Page 5

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