BC. peace | events draw thousands While attention was focussed on Van- Couver’s great Walk for Peace, marches and ie in other cities ensured that the demand Or peace and disarmament was heard Oughout the province. pite rain and the confusion caused by a change of plans, a march and rally in Vic- toria on Sunday drew between 5,000 and 000 people — estimates varied because Several hundred people gathered at Beacon Park unaware that the march route had He shortened to take marchers back to f ir assembly point in Centennial Square tor the rally. ___ Speakers at the rally, organized by the reater Victoria Disarmament Group and € largest ever held in Victoria, were New mMocratic MP Pauline Jewett, Vancouver €rman Harry Rankin and writer Ben Metcalfe, Similar marches and rallies were held in all major centres in the southern Interior from AamMiOOps south to Penticton. In Kamloops, where some 500 people matched behind a replica of the cruise Missile to a rally in St. Paul’s Cathedral Hall n Sunday, Nelson Riis, New Democratic h P for Kamloops-Shuswap, pledged that € and his ‘‘political colleagues in Ottawa _ 4nd British Columbia will fight to declare - ada and British Columbia nuclear free Zones at the earliest possible times.”” Others who addressed the rally, spon- Sored by the Kamloops Nuclear Awareness Ommittee, were Dr. Bob Willard of Clear- Water, Sherry Berger, a Parent Craft Member, and Kamloops high school teacher es Cambridge, who observed that it was Not a beautiful thing to be fried for your Country in a nuclear holacaust.”” On Saturday, about 500 people attending 4 peace rally sponsored by the Shuswap Nuclear Awareness Group prompted a change of heart by Salmon Arm city council, _ Which earlier had refused to submit the ament referendum te a ballot. Two says after the rally, council agreed to submit €referendum. — Turnout for the peace rally held in Vernon a Saturday was around 400 and in Pentic- ON, staging its first peace rally, around 500. In Kelowna, the newly formed Kelowna €ace Group successfully held a peace March Saturday in which some 400 took part €spite what they saw as obstruction by the RCMP. _ According to John Molaert, public rela- Pee MID-ISLAND DISARMAMENT ASSOCIATION is working @ for Nanaimo Regional District to become a nuclear weapons free zone. ®@ for jobs and funding for human needs vs. increased military Spending. @ against Cruise missile testing in Canada. ® for world peace. IMAY DAY |Greetings peace march in the city’s history. ~ tions officer for the peace group and organizer of the march, he was informed by Kelowna RCMP that he did not have a per- mit from the city and that charges for obstructing traffic could be laid against any marchers who failed to keep to the sidewalk. At the rally following the march along Bernard Avenue, Molaert drew a contrast between the B.C. Dragoons military parade held earlier and the peace march, pointing out that the B.C. Dragoons had marched westward along Bernard Avenue toward the setting sun while the peace march had walk- ed eastward ‘“‘where the sun comes up.” Molaert noted that while Kelowna mayor John Hindle had been on the podium for the military parade, not a single alderman has archera make their way down Victoria’s Government Street Sunday in the biggest participated in the peace march, although all had been personally invited. Asserting that ‘‘politicians don’t see the light until they feel the heat,” Molaert charg- ed that Kelowna civic leaders were out of step with the rest of the world in refusing to recognize public concern with the nuclear danger. The march, he said, had been represen- tative of all walks of life, “‘farm workers, professionals, businessmen, and that’s where the strength of the peace movement lies when it is joined by generals, doctors, lawyers.” Terrace swung the northern area into what is rapidly becoming a province-wide movement with a rally of 300 people. 85, In one sense — and a very significant one at that — our wish for “*85,000”’ has come true. That number approximates the turn- out at this year’s Walk for Peace event. It was. a fine compliment to the tireless ef- forts of all those:in End the Arms Race, and a most powerful rejection of the Trudeau government’s cruise missile testing plans. The “85,000” figure also represents our target in this year’s press drive. And here we have to register some concern. This week the drive figure stands at $14,217, which falls far short of what the ‘amount should be at this time, five weeks — _ the Socreds were ousted from office. Target '83 — *85,000 into the drive. We know that other — and equally im- portant — considerations compete for our readers’ attentions, particularly the provincial election effort. And we’d smile as broadly as anyone if ‘85,000’ represented the number of votes by which But we need $85,000 to keep the Tribune in the forefront of struggles for peace, for progressive policies, and for gains in the fight for jobs and better - wages. Please make that extra effort, and keep the spirit of ‘*85,000”’ alive in ’83. Refuse the Cruise — Make Canada a nuclear weapons free zone. B.C. PEACE COUNCIL 712-207 West Hastings, Vancouver, B.C. V6B 1H7 685-9958 City action spurs turnout for march Continued from page 1 that seems determined to bring about the final holacaust. Meanwhile, in European centres hun- dreds of thousands formed mass protests against the deployment of cruise and Per- shing II missiles over the Easter weekend. And in Vancouver, the peace events continued. Last fall noted scientist Linus Pauling said the United States was clearly escalating the arms race, and he en- couraged hundreds at a packed meeting to work for the cancellation of the pro- posed cruise tests. British disarmament leader Dr. Michael Pentz, the keynote speaker at a conference of scientists and physicians which drew more than 700 at the University of B.C. in March, repeated that message. : Perhaps most meaningful was the leadership shown by the Vancouver city council. In the past five months the coun- cil hds taken numerous peace initiatives. In January, a majority on council voted to send the results of the November peace referendum, in which Vancouver citizens voted 80 percent in favor of balanced disarmament, to the Canadian, U.S. and Soviet governments. They also urged Canada to reject any new ‘‘arms race supporting programs”’ and to press these points with the four B.C. senators. In March a strong majority of aldermen favored sending three resolu- tions — calling for a national peace referendum, a nuclear weapons-free Canada, and a rejection of cruise testing — to the Federation of Canadian Municipalities’ annual meeting in June. More recently, aldermen voted 10 to one to endorse the Apr. 23 peace walk and to distribute a pamphlet on the ef- fects of nuclear war to all households. And the Tuesday prior to the walk, Van- couver joined hundreds of other cities in declaring itself a nuclear weapons-free zone. ; Additionally, this year labor support for the peace movement took a big step with the formation of the Trade Union Peace Committee, which covered key areas of the Lower Mainland with huge billboards promoting the peace walk. In- dividual unions made participation a priority at their regular meetings. Relatively few people were gathered at the assembly point at Kitsilano Beach park approximately one hour before the scheduled noon starting time, and grey -skys coupled with a sudden cold breeze prompted speculation that the march would not match last year’s record tur- nout. But the sun came out as the march began, somewhat late, and thousands who seemingly materialized from nowhere thronged the entire width of Cornwall Street, on the way to the Bur- rard Street bridge, it became obvious that this march would easily outstrip last year’s in participation. They marched — the young and the elderly, punk rockers and Sunday church-goers, sporting a forest of placards and banners, united around the demand for no cruise testing and a nuclear weapons-free Canada. They walked quietly for the most part, with the silence broken by the occasional sound of an acoustic guitar or some other instru- ment. At one point, however, a roar of ap- proval went up as those on the bridge waved down to the people at the head of the march passing on Pacific Avenue below, who had almost completed the five-km walk through the downtown } core. With thousands more still behind them, it was clear that B.C., and Canada along with it, had added a strong voice to the world protest against the nuclear arms race. ~ PACIFIC TRIBUNE—APRIL 29, 1983—Page 5 ieee Heese weer A