FEATURES — =

_ The Ethiopian famine

The following article, by Dr. Charles E. Cobb of the
United Church of Christ, is reprinted from the Milwaukee

Courier.
* * *

The reality of the Reagan administration’s Africa poli-
cy has not interfered at all with the benevolent image it
wishes to present to the world. Take the administration’s
relief effort for drought-stricken Ethiopia, for instance.

President Reagan would have us believe that he has
Tushed to the aid of this ravaged country out of his usual
humanitarian concern for the needy. Nothing could be
further from the truth. In fact, Ethiopia alerted the U.S.
to the potential destructiveness of the drought two years
ago. During that time the Ethiopian government re-
quested aid from the U.S. and was just as consistently
refused. In addition, the Reagan Administration has
Voted against African Development Bank loans for
Ethiopia, and has used its power to stall urgently needed
World Bank loans, as well.

In Fiscal Year 1984, the United States provided $19
million in food aid to Ethiopia. This probably sounds like
a magnanimous effort, but let’s examine the figure more
closely. First, compare that $19 million with the $775

million in military aid which the administration re-
quested for the repressive government of Turkey, or
with the $1.8 billion cost of a Trident submarine.

Next, consider that U.S. food assistance for 1984
broke down to approximately 25 cents per Ethiopian
citizen. The U.S. has traditionally provided 35 to 50 per
cent of a country’s emergency aid in a crisis such as this.
In the case of Africa, the administration supplied only 20
per cent of that aid as of August of this year.

Why the disparity? One reason, of course, is the racial-
ly sinister way in which many white Americans still view
Africa. But the recalcitrance of this administration in
aiding countries like Ethiopia is also due to another
equally vicious factor — politics. If a country like racist
South Africa were in the throes of similar devastation,
we are certain the White House would leave no stone
unturned to ensure the survival of its white minority.

The government of Ethiopia, on the other hand, is now
avowedly Marxist. Therefore, even though land is now
distributed more equitably, and other economic reforms
are being instituted, the administration has been re-
strained, at best, in its assistance.

It is as the recent Catholic bishops’ pastoral letter
stated: ‘‘In recent years U.S. policy toward the develop-
ing world has shifted from its earlier emphasis on basic
human needs and social and economic’development . . .
The result is that issues of political and economic
development take second place to the political-strategic
argument. We deplore this change.”’

President Reagan tries to use urgently needed food as
a deadly pawn in the game of power politics.

A study released by the Canadian government last
week offers a grim foretaste of the military policies our
Tory rulers plan to pursue in coming years. The Lafond
Committee’s report, entitled ‘‘Canada’s Territorial Air
Defence’’, is basically a call for Canada to become a
full-fledged participant in the next round of the nuclear
arms race.

Not coincidentally, the report was released on the
heels of the Conservative government’s declaration of
full support for the Reagan administration’s ‘‘Star
Wars’”’ strategic defence program.

Star Wars, said External Affairs Minister Joe Clark, is
necessary as a means of maintaining pressure on the
USSR during the upcoming arms talks. “‘It is only pru-

dent,’’ said Clark, ‘‘for the U.S. to continue research on |

the so-called Star Wars system while negotiating for
nuclear arms control’’.

This is sheer idiocy. Every new weapons-system in
the past 40 years, from the A-bomb to the Pershing II,
has been justified as a ‘bargaining chip’. Unfortunately,
once they are developed and deployed, they become
“‘realities’’, and the arms race climbs to a higher, dead-
lier level of confrontation. The advent of space weapons
will be the biggest qualitative escalation since the split-
ting of the atom. Once the genie is out of the bottle, there
may be no way of containing it.

It is jolting to recall that barely one year ago, then-
Prime Minister Trudeau was launching his famous

One of the major proposals of the report is that Canada
deploy a fleet of the expensive AWACS (Airborne Early
Warning and Contro! Systems) such as the one above.

‘ Report ‘grim foretaste’ of Tory policies :

Backgrounder |
Fred Weir

‘*peace initiative’. Whatever faults Trudeau had — and
there were plenty — he did at least try to insulate Canada
from the most extreme manifestations of war fever
emanating from south of the border, and he frequently
made positive contributions to the global struggle for
peace and co-existence. Foremost among the five prop-
osals in his ‘peace initiative’ was a call for a moratorium
on the development of space weapons.

In the five months since coming into office, Brian
Mulroney’s Tories have unceremoniously dumped
every independent plank in Canada’s foreign affairs
agenda. They have substituted, in each case, a total and
servile identification with the policies of the Reagan
administration. In the short space of one year Canada
has gone from being a constructive voice for world
peace, to being a significant part of the problem.

The Lafond Committee report is a clear indication of
just how far the Tories intend to go. It is an unabashed
call for Canada to not only support the Star Wars pro-
gram, but to join wholeheartedly in it.

The study proposes that Canada should loft its own
network of ‘‘warning, surveillance and communications
satellites’ to help the U.S. consolidate its control of the
new military ‘high ground’. Lafond insists that our role
in space should ‘remain dedicated to passive detection
and surveillance, rather than being part of offensive sys-
tems’’, which makes it sound very nice.

What few Canadians realize is that whatever we think
about the militarization of space, as long as we belong to
NORAD we are going to be involved in it. NORAD —
North American Aerospace Defence — is the alliance
that binds Canada’s home-based air defences into a con-
tinental command-structure dominated by U.S. Airforce
generals. NORAD is also the organization responsible
for the U.S. space weapons program. If Reagan’s Star
Wars system is built, it will fall under the command of
NORAD. Therefore, the only way that Canada can con-
ceivably avoid being part of space militarization is to get
out of NORAD.

e Senator Lafond recommends that we participate in
a $6-billion ‘‘modernization’’ of the NORAD early warn-
ing radar network in the North. (Canada’s share of this
would be around $800-million). These radars, primarily
the DEW and Pinetree lines, were designed in the late
1950’s to scan the North for an alleged Soviet ‘‘bomber
threat’’.

Ina semi-hysterical style that has become all-too-fami-
liar in recent years, Lafond warns that there is presently
a huge hole in Canada’s radar defences — somewhere
over Labrador or the Davis Strait, he says — through

which Soviet bombers can fly “‘virtually undetected”’. If
something is not done quickly comes the conclusion,
“the Soviets can have their way with us’’.

If there were any chance of this being true, one would
have to wonder why the good Senator is publicizing it?
But, in fact, there never was a Soviet ‘‘bomber threat’’.
NORAD is a gigantic, multi-billion dollar fraud. It was
founded in 1957 at the height of the ‘‘bomber gap”’ scare.
In tones that are echoed today by Senator Lafond, our
leaders were then claiming that thousands of Soviet
intercontinental bombers stood poised to attack a
“‘virtually undefended’’ North America. We now know:
that those fleets of bombers were imaginary.

In the 1980's, the Soviet Air Force deploys barely 100
30-year-old propeller-driven Tu-95 *‘Bear’’ interconti-
nental bombers — and they have been mostly relegated
to Maritime reconnaissance duties. There is no conceiv-
able ‘‘bomber threat’’ in the North, hence there is no
Canadian ‘‘window of vulnerability’’.

e A major proposal of the report is that Canada de-
ploy a fleet of AWACS (airborne Early Warning and
Control System) aircraft. Everyone should have seen
this coming. We have now irrevocably entered the
Cruise Missile Era. At SALT II, almost 10 years ago,
there was a chance to ban Cruise Missiles forever. But
the U.S., since it was ahead in this technology, refused
to consider it. Canada, to our everlasting shame, not.
only supported the U.S. position but also played a major
role in the production and testing of Cruise Missiles.

Now the Soviets have, predictably, begun deploying
their own version of the Cruise. And Senator Lafond is
telling us that we will need ultra-expensive AWACS
planes to be able to detect Soviet Cruise Missiles coming
over the Pole.

When will we learn? Canada failed to speak up against
the Cruise Missile; we became, in fact, ajunior partner in
its development. Now we are its victim, and we are being
dragged deeper and deeper into a bottomless whirlpool.

e Finally, in the spirit of throwing good money after
bad, the Lafond Committee recommends that we beef up
our anti-bomber defences by taking up the option to buy
an additional 20 CF-18 fighter planes on the existing
contract for 138 of them. That is the crowning absurdity:
a plane that doesn’t fly, to perform a mission that has no
relevance. :

The CF-18 cannot even be justified as an expensive
make-work project for Canadian corporations because it
is American-made, and because the Reagan admin-
istration has made it plain that it will not permit any more
financial ‘‘offsets’’ of the kind that allowed the money on
the original contract to be invested back in Canada.
Reagan does not consider that a “‘proper way to do
business.”

If the Mulroney government has its way, Canada will
soon be buying into the nightmare of space war. As tough
as it seems, the only alternative is to break with the
U.S.-dominated military network, and to join the ranks
of those nations that are working for peaceful co-exis-
tence, and a halt to the endless insanity of the arms es

PACIFIC TRIBUNE, FEBRUARY 6, 1985 e 5