Editorial

Rift within NATO

At the recent NATO meeting of the 16 heads of state in Brussels, it was
reported that Prime Minister Brian Mulroney “sided pointedly with Mrs.
Thatcher” in her bid to convince the alliance of the need for rapid moderniza-
* tion of its nuclear arsenal.

Mulroney, the press says, “repeated his own support for NATO’s two-track
approach of combining disarmament negotiations with defence.” He said he
was pleased with the meeting, adding, “I’m no expert in NATO summits, but I
can tell you this was a very valuable exercise.”

Really?

Whether Mulroney (and Defence Minister Perrin Beatty) noticed or not, the
Brussels meeting showed a sharp rift among NATO members. On one side were
European states like West Germany who worried (quite properly) that NATO’s
nuclear arsenal will also explode above the FRG — and that a “modernized”
one will be that much more efficient.

On the other, Thatcher and Reagan (abetted by Canada’s finest) want the
modernization of nuclear arms to quickly “make up the gap” created by the
U.S.-Soviet INF pact. They urged that a united front be presented to Soviet
leader Mikhail Gorbachev by NATO when Reagan travels to Moscow later this
year, a united front of updated weapons aimed at the USSR and an alliance
willing to throw the dice.

It’s this cabal Brian Mulroney pinned Canadian allegiance to. This is what he
says he is “pleased” about.

NATO’s top dogs, the U.S. and Britain, are determined to derail arms control
while talking arms control. That’s what its “two-track” policy means. “Peace
Through Strength,” not peace through disarmament and co-operation, is still
NATO?’s credo — a credo Mulroney has tied our country to.

The USSR warns that replacing demobilized INF weapons with new ones
will kill the disarmament process. Its position is abundantly clear: it wants talks
and cuts on all weapons systems — nuclear, conventional, chemical, biological
and space — and their replacement by treaties guaranteeing security for all
nations and peoples.

The disarmament momentum created by the INF pact can be followed with
further progress by the signing of a strategic arms pact when Reagan goes to
Moscow this spring. Or it can be torpedoed by NATO and the world plunged
once more into an abyss of endless nuclear arms.

It’s up to people everywhere to keep the peace momentum going. As seen
before, the forces for disarmament, co-operation and sanity outweigh those
favouring more arms and a new arms race.

When you get right down to it, Mulroney is really a small but dangerous man
in the wrong place at the wrong time. When it comes to world peace, he doesn’t
speak for Canadians.

>

CON

DICTA TORI

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FIRIBUN

EDITOR
Sean Griffin

ASSISTANT EDITOR
Dan Keeton

BUSINESS & CIRCULATION MANAGER
Mike Proniuk

GRAPHICS
Angela Kenyon

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f our many readers and supporters,
there are few of whom we can say
that he held a string of union memberships
as long as his arm. Or that he was involved
with Communist and progressive move-
ments in two countries. But such was the

case with White Rock resident Jim both mayor and alderman in White Rock

Ormerod, who, sadly, passed away sud-
denly on March 8, the victim of a heart
attack.

Born in England some seven decades
ago, Jim emigrated at an early age to New
Zealand, where he became involved in
unemployed workers’ struggles in the
1930s. It was there that he joined the
Communist Party, making a commitment
he would keep all the rest of his life. He
also became a marine engineer and a
member of New Zealand’s militant Sea-
men’s Union, and has many friends in the
union to this day,

Later Jim moved to Canada, and
served in the Merchant Marine during
World War II. In subsequent years he was
to help organize the International Wood-
workers local at Harrsion Lake, join the
United Fishermen and Allied Workers
Union as a marine engineer, and become a
member and, fora short time an executive
member, of the Ironworkers, Local 97, a
membership he retained until his death.

Jim also worked on constructing pulp
mills in Prince George and Quesnel. Later
involved in municipal politics, he ran for

in the late Seventies and early Eighties.
Jim was a member of the White Rock club
of the Communist Party at the time of his
death.

A memorial has been set for March 19,
1:30 p.m., at the Centre for Socialist Edu-
cation, 1726 E. Hastings. St., in Van-
couver.

Foe Ok Phe

t isn’t very often that the actions of U.S.

industries can be said to be for the
benefit of Canada. But, ironically, the pro-
tectionist lobby that is so active south of
the border these days may do its part to
lessen Canadian involvement in the Uni-
ted States’ share of the arms race.

According to an item in The Financial
Post, several protectionist bills currently
before the U.S. Congress threaten to put
the brakes on Canadian corporate invol-
vement in U.S. military contracts. Pro-
posed legislation like the Defence Industrial
Base Preservation Act may mean that by
1989 many Canadian and other defence
contractors in NATO countries will be
replaced by American small businesses
and other U.S. enterprises.

People and Issues

aS ee ae ay

Granted, the protectionist sentiment of
some U.S. industrialists has been used pol-
itically by the Reagan administration and
the Mulroney government to help sell the
so-called free trade deal to Canadians. But
we can’t help but think that anything that
pulls Canada out of the economically rui-
nous and dangerous arms race — which
Canadian trade unionist Madeleine Par-
ent noted ina Vancouver speech last week
has caused so many problems for the Uni-
ted States, which it seeks to alleviate
through free trade — is to be welcomed.

The real force to end arms production
is, of course, disarmament initiatives and
arms limitation treaties, such as the recent
INF agreement on Euromissiles. And it’s
noteworthy that another article in the
same edition of the Post reports that dur-
ing the recent meeting in Brussels, the
heads of NATO countries “grappled with
ways to cope with the Gorbachev pheno-
menon and with the consequences of pos-
sible further arms cuts in long-range
nuclear weapons and in conventional for-
ces in Europe.”

In other words, the bold peace initia-
tives of Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev

_ may force the west’s cold warriors to

withdraw troops and equipment from
Europe. As the financial newspaper
observes, this catches Canada in the mid-
dle of a re-arming phase. Military build-
ups such as Defence Minister Perrin
Beatty’s nuclear-powered submarines
already isolate the Tory government from
the world peace process. Continued pres-
sure for peace can hopefully make such
plans appear as absurd and as dangerous
as they certainly are.

* * *k

e note that the Vancouver Food Bank

has moved from its old premises to a
new location at the Polish Community
Centre, at 4015 Fraser St.

What makes this remarkable is that the
new locale is across the street from a Min-
istry of Social Services and Housing office.
The irony wasn’t lost on Food Bank exec-
utive director Sylvia Russell, who called
the coincidence “a sad a _ poignant
reminder of how the inadequacy of social
assistance forces thousands to depend on
food banks for their subsistence.”

It isn’t likely that the Food Bank will
suffer any loss in clientele. The latest Sta-
tistics Canada figures show that, while the
jobless rate in Canada fell last month, in
British Columbia it rose 0.6 per cent over
January to stand at 10.7 per cent, season-
ally adjusted.

« Pacific Tribune, March 16, 1988

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