World

When the Tories close and scale down 14
Canadian Forces bases, they do so without
provision for conversion and relocation of
resources and jobs. Having made entire
communities and areas dependent on an

economy based on the military, the sudden

ending of this dependency, without consulta-
tion, warning or a rational conversion plan
has caused anger and anxiety.

Obviously, in a world that spends one mil-
lion dollars each second on war and war read-
iness, the deep-going re-thinking of defence
strategies away from an endless arms race to
one of down-sizing and disarmament is going
to mean massive economic shifts of resources,
skills and jobs.

More and more, if disarmament continues,
the complex issues of conversion will take on
real meaning. New strategies and long-term

A military machine plant now turns out
beef and pork processing complexes and
sausage-making plants for remote rural
areas; and a U.S.-Soviet venture is turning a
military installation into a children’s clo-
thing factory.

“I’m an old soldier, but I’ve never seen
anything like that in all my life,” said
Colonel Victor Makarov at the ceremony
marking the opening of the Leningrad
Children’s Garment Shop. “It’s really mov-
ing.”

“T have never witnessed such a sharp turn
toward civilian production as the one
started last year,” defence industry minister
Pavel Finogenov said recently. “Already
civilian products account for about half of
the industry’s output.”

The country has begun to curtail some

b| Carl
Bloice

economic planning is needed. Societies which
have hooked workers and their communities
on military economics will be required to take
the responsibility for their rehabilitation and
conversion.

The debate in Canada has just started for
real with the proposals to close and down-size
the 14 Canadian Forces bases and Tory
efforts to simply walk away without alterna-
tives. In the USSR, with a far larger military
machine, with far greater portions of its eco-
nomic life geared to defence, conversion has
already become an active matter“There they
helieve that military disarmament means not
less jobs — but other jobs and skills benefi-
cial to their society. Here are some examples
of conversion in action in a recent article by
Carl Bloice, Moscow correspondent for the
U.S. People’s Daily World.

MOSCOW — Last week it was announ-
ced that a Leningrad military shipyard had
been instructed to design and start produc-
ing equipment for fast-food shops, pizze-
rias, snack bars and machines to make
pelmeni, delicious Siberian meat dum-
plings. This will, no doubt, come as good
news to the people in this city, where finding
a place to have a quick bite to eat is a real
problem. aes

The next day came word that Soviet mil-
itary aircraft will soon begin to move fresh
vegetables, fruit and other perishables
around the country — 50,000 tons worth
by the end of the year. This will gladden the
hearts of people from Nakhodka to Riga
who often are short on vegetables and salad
greens, even though they are being harv-
ested in other parts of the country.

The question of conversion from meeting
military to civilian needs figured promi-
nently here recently in discussions between
Soviet and American trade unionists.

The leaders of the U.S. group, Interna-
tional Association of Machinists (IAM)
president William Winpisinger and Jack
Sheinkman, head of the Amalgamated Clo-
thing and Textile Workers Union, expressed
hope for further exchanges of experiences

‘ and views on the subject of conversion. The
- matter was also a major topic in a meeting

the two had with Soviet President Mikhail
Gorbachev. While the discussions were
underway, more information was released
about current Soviet conversion projects.

Nearly each day brings news of such
transformations. An aircraft factory now
makes juicers and other kitchen utensils. A
plant the used to produce SS-20 medium-
range missiles now produces milk pasteuri-
zation machines, chicken packagers, brew-
ery equipment and canned fruit.

FROM
MOSCOW

arms production and convert weapons pro-
duction to turning out civilian products.
The plan calls for converting 40 per cent of
military production this year, rising to 60
per cent by 1995. Over the next two years
the Soviet defence budget is slated to be cut
by 14.2 per cent and the production of guns,
bombs and uniforms by 19.5 per cent.
Production of consumer goods, such as
appliances, fashionable clothes and food
processing equipment, is a major problem

DRI MEMMieOrT Yr DIT? OF TE ViInebores

| Tempo of-Soviet conversion picks up

MISSILE CARRIERS TO CRANES ... the Soviets are working in a joint venture

with the West German company Liebherr-Werk Ehingen Gmbh to convert SS-20

missile carriers to mobile cranes.

in the Soviet economy right now and is
given great attention in the conversion
plans.

In the United States and other capitalist
countries, such production has nearly
reached the saturation point, raising the

spectre of an economic recession due to.

over-production and sharpened trade con-
flicts between the U.S., Western Europe and
Japan. At the same time, elements of the
national infrastructure (roads, bridges, rail
lines) are deteriorating, while the gap
between rich and poor widens rapidly in the
West.

Cutbacks are being made in spending on
such items as education, health care and
nutrition assistance. All these areas would
benefit enormously if funds cut from the
military were redirected to them.

“It’s no secret that any plans for arms
cuts in the United States meet with serious
resistance from the powerful military-

story cer!

7:6 Ns2ogotrs Ds tiauiw

‘industrial complex which doesn’t want to
lose its multi-billion dollar profits,” said
Igor Belousov, deputy chair of the USSR
Council of Ministers in a recent interview
with the newspaper Sovietskaya Rossiya.
“Yet, despite considerable and even funda-
mental differences in our approaches to this
problem, we are ready to exchange ideas
and experiences with the U.S. and other
countries,” said Belousov. ““The USSR con-
siders it desireable for all nations, and first
of all the major military powers, to submit
their national conversion plans to the Uni-
ted Nations.”

A UN-sponsored conversion conference
is scheduled next year, and time will tell
what approach the Bush administration will
take on the subject. The trade union discus-
sions here suggested that the world labour
movement has a special interest in conver-
sion. Peace, jobs and economic develop-
ment, it is said, are now part of the same
agenda.

BuMbhorrertcecasest

By RITA HOPPE
Tribune Berlin Correspondent

BERLIN — NATO’s credibility gap is
showing, and its exposure has prompted a
crisis.

On the one side, most NATO countries
of continental Europe are acquiescing to
public pressure and advocating a con-
structive response to the Soviet Union’s
extended hand of friendship.

But opposite this, a belligerent United
States and Great Britain (supported only
by Turkey and Canada) remain convinced
that confrontational and aggressive poli-
cies will gain them the political and mil-

itary supremacy they sense are within
reach.

This is why the U.S. administration has
ruled out negotiations with the Soviet
Union on short-range nuclear missiles in
Europe, and why West Germany along
with most other NATO allies supports the
Warsaw Pact’s recent proposals to discuss
their eventual elimination.

The dispute within NATO is directly
attributable to Washington’s undisguised
willingness to fight a limited nuclear war in
Central Europe, the two Germanies being
the preferred site. Most Europeans are not
favorably inclined toward this scenario.
What to the United States is a mere battle-
field is for Europeans a potential nuclear
slaughterhouse.

This explains the reluctance of Belgium,
Italy, Denmark, Norway, Greece and
Spain, led by West Germany, to accept
new Lance short-range nuclear missiles,
custom-designed to fight a war in Europe.

NATO facing credibility crisis

And this is why they want a concrete and
favourable response to the Soviet Union’s
many arms control initiatives.

European public opinion is now pres-
suring NATO to demonstrate a willing-
ness to work toward disarmament, and
should this not be forthcoming, the very
reason for NATO’s existence will be chal-
lenged. Soiviet leader Mikhail Gorba-
chev’s new thinking has won hearts and
minds, and is provoking a powerful impe-
tus toward fundamental re-assessment of
NATO’s sacred nuclear deterrence doc-
trine.

Ultimately, peace and security in the
nuclear age can only be guaranteed if pub-
lic opinion is absolutely convinced that
nuclear deterrence is obsolete.

British Prime Minister Margaret That-
cher and NATO armed forces com-
mander John Galvin have often stated
their side of the argument which credits
nuclear weapons with having kept peace in
Europe since World War II.

I recently had the opportunity to speak
with a GDR military expert, Colonel D.R.
Hoecke of the Friedrich Engels military
academy, who offered the following
assessment: “The concept of deterrence
requires security to be dependent upon
military strength which by its very nature
is self-escalating. Armaments continue to
rise, and finally at some point people lose
control, either to an accident, or some-
one’s first strike manoeuvre, or to the
breakdown of the environment or collapse
of the world’s economy.”

Colonel Hoecke made it clear the GDR

‘verting the very democracy NATO is

and other socialist countries wholeheart-
edly embrace the Soviet Union’s peace
initiatives because they offer the only way
out of the destructive military spiral in
which we are all trapped. Either the world
talks about mutual security vis-a-vis co-
operation, or we are stuck threatening the
“enemy” with suicide.

The differences within NATO on the
question of deterrence point to an interest-
ing irony, exposing an attempt on the part
of NATO’s hawks to subvert the very
democracy the alliance was ostensibly
created to defend. The same Margaret
Thatcher who has often reminded the
world that the strength of Western democ-
racies lies in their ability to respond to the
wishes of their constituents now chastises
Helmut Kohl for his attempts to satisfy
West German majority public opinion.
She and President Bush now accuse Kohl
of playing domestic politics with NATO’s
security.

Thatcher’s ability to flaunt her unpopu-
lar policies can be explained by the rela-
tively fewer constraints within the British
parliamentary system where one can
become government leader without hav-
ing been voted for by a majority of the
electorate. (This also holds true for the
U.S. and Canada.) Chancellor Kohl, on
the other hand, leads a government within
a system of proportional representation
which tends to hold him more accountable
to his voters.

An illuminating situation — thestrong-
est of its members are caught actively sub-

supposed to defend.

Pacific Tribune, May 22, 1989 e 9

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