Cruise test protested

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needed because the old cruise model was
“no longer effective at penetrating Soviet
defensive technology” — underscoring
the first-strike capabilities of the
missile.

The development of the missile has
been cited by arms control experts as a
further escalation of the arms race. And
Ottawa’s decision has indicated its deci-
sion to participate in that escalation.

addition, the Soviets took unilateral
steps to reduce their armed force by
500,000 men and remove all their troops
from Eastern Europe.

On the same day cruise tests were to
resume over Alberta’s north, the Ger-
man Democratic Republic announced a
10 per cut in its defence budget, including
a troop reduction of 10,000, the disman-
tling of 600 tanks and 50 fighter jets, and
the elimination of one air squadron.

Changes seen coming
in world peace body

At its last session, held in Sofia, Bulgaria,
in April, 1986, the World Peace Council
(WPC) proposed major restructuring of its
work and style in an effort to discard formal-
ism and complacency, and adopted a new
approach to help strengthen the council.

Tt called for radi- ,
cal changes in the
role of its leading
bodies and set up
working groups to
undertake some
action. It called for }
the reinstatement of }
the post of General
Secretary to be res- »

5 aS
ponsible for day-to-
day activity, elected FLOWERS
a Secretariat with
more representation from the peace move-
ments in Western Europe, and proposed far-
reaching improvements of the entire publish-
ing activity of the WPC.

The Tribune spoke with Gordon Flowers,
Executive Director of the Canadian Peace
Congress about this process. ~

Tribune: Could you give us a background

on the growing debate in the WPC and how
_ you see it developing?

Flowers: First, let me say that the Cana-

dian Peace Congress was a founding

secretary which was re-established by the
Sofia meeting. Such an action cannot be
taken until the next WPC session scheduled
for December, 1989. We are also concerned
about planned cuts in the secretariat of per-
sons added with the general secretary in
1986 to improve the work.

Tribune: Why do you think such changes
occurred?

Flowers: It would be naive to think any
major reorganization would unfold without
tensions of some kind among people and
organizations who hold a similar vision.
Unfortunately, our expectations for an
open and democratic process have been
jeopardized by undemocratic and old style
administrative measures.

Tribune: How will these latest changes
affect the Canadian Peace Congress?

Flowers: I believe the Congress has much
to contribute to the overall process based on
our consistent hard work for unity, our
positions, policies and program which has
won us respect and trust within the larger
peace movement. At the same time, the
Congress continues to be concerned about
broadening the movement more to include
all political opinions.

Efforts to split and isolate us, using our
association with the WPC, to redbait and

member of the WPC in 1949. Many of our
long-time members recall being part of the
historic, worldwide “Ban the Bomb”
movement which gathered 500 million
names on the first Stockholm peace appeal.

place roadblocks to destroy any unity have
failed. But we understand that there are
forces which will continue to work at weak-
ening and misdirecting the peace movement ©
in the interests of anti-democratic forces in

More than anything, Wednesday’s
cabinet decision and the cruise test car-
ried out last week have demonstrated the

Bill Stollery of the Edmonton branch
of Project Ploughshares is spokesperson
for a committee of local peace activists in

1 Ashes Themes Mae

Tory government's refusal to move in
step with Canadian public opinion or
with the international trend towards
arms reduction.

“There is no longer any excuse to test
the cruise missile”, said David Kraft of
Greenpeace on the eve of the first of six
scheduled cruise tests which began Jan.
24. The test was later re-scheduled to
Jan. 26.

“Canada has refused to take even the
smallest independent steps to hasten the
international peace process. A succession

of Soviet initiatives have been received _
positively even by the United States. And -

yet our own government has responded
to unilateral initiatives with stony silence
and even hostility. It is hard to think of a
single government which is more out of
step with the historic process currently
underway,” Kraft told a Toronto press
conference Jan. 23.

Ina telegram to Prime Minister Brian
Mulroney following the test, Canadian
Peace Congress executive director Gor-
don Flowers also condemned the conti-
nuation of cruise testing.

“We are deeply disturbed that in an
era with all indications of progress
towards mutual disarmament, the Can-
adian government not only still adheres
to a cold war strategy by allowing these
tests, but (also) escalates the arms race by
involving Canadian forces,” the telegram
stated.

In 1983, when cruise testing first began
in Canada, the then Liberal government
of Pierre Trudeau argued it would end
when “concrete results were achieved in
INF negotiations.” In 1987, Conserva-
tive External Affairs Minister Joe Clark
reaffirmed that policy.

Since that time, the INF treaty has
been signed and intermediate nuclear
missiles eliminated from Europe. In

the Alberta Citizen’s Anti-Cruise Com-
mittee who planned to demonstrate
against the flights. He speculated the
failure of the Tories to abide by their own
policy reflects pressure from Washing-
ton.

“The government succeeded in getting
what it was asking for but has not
changed its mind. What this indicates to
us,” said Stollery, “is there’s been a lot of
pressure brought to bear from outside
forces, and we suspect it’s coming from
Washington.”

While the U.S. appears to have wel-
comed the INF signing, it is moving now
to replace outdated weapons and in
effect sabotaging the treaty, Stollery told
the Tribune.

“The Americans have been anxious to
keep off the bargaining table the sea-
launched and air-launched cruise mis-
siles. All they let be discussed in the INF
is the ground-launched cruise. This
leaves the door open to go around the
side and build more of these weapons,
and the fact that they’re testing them
seems to indicate that. It’s an end run
around the INF.”

On the first scheduled day of testing,
the Toronto Disarmament Network
organized the city’s peace movement ina
letter writing campaign to the prime min-
ister.

“The current international political
climate shows concrete signs of positive
improvement,” said TDN coordinator
Wendy Wright. “Yet, the Mulroney
government continues to extol the hard
line cold war rhetoric of its 1987 White
Paper on Defence. Obviously, they are
bent on being a part of the international
military problem, instead of the solu-
tion.”

8 « Pacific Tribune, February 6, 1989

They speak of the difficulties collecting sig-
natures in those days here in Canada where
people faced verbal and even physical
abuse.

It’s a different world today. Several years
ago, when we were involved in our “Peace is
Everybody’s Business” campaign, almost
everyone would sign the petition. Peace, in
fact, has become respectable.

The national executive of the Congress
has been following developments in the
WPC with great interest. Well before the
1986 meeting in Sofia, we were aware of the
need to bring the activities of the World
Peace Council into accord with the new
world situation. We welcomed the critical,
constructive and far-reaching proposals for
changes in the style of work presented at the
Sofia session and especially the substantial
points made by Yuri Zhukov, chair of the
Soviet Peace Committee.

We’ve seen improvement in the WPC’s
work over the past two and one-half years.
The paper Peace Courier has become a first
rate publication to which our members and
others have responded favourably.

Tribune: Is this process still moving in the
direction you believe it should?

Flowers: We continue to support the on-
going debate in the WPC toward further
democratization and improvements in
organization. At the same time we are criti-
cal at the slowness of changes, and we are
particularly concerned over recent decisions
by the WPC Bureau which took place in
Geneva this past November.

We're disappointed by information and
reports from the Geneva meeting which
indicate a 180-degree turn from the 1986
Sofia decisions. Some of the changes pro-
posed by the Ad Hoc Commission on Rules
and Regulations, for example, will not
improve or make the WPC more demo-
cratic, but, in fact, will do quite the opposite.

In our opinion, the WPC Bureau has no
right to “vacate” the position of general

Canada and world-wide.

Tribune: What changes, then, does the
Congress believe are needed today in the

World Peace Council?

Flowers: Our Feb. 3-5 national board
meeting will have part of its agenda devoted
to this question, so the following comments
are my views.

First, like many other national commit-
tees, I believe the WPC needs to be radically
restructured to meet this new international
situation. The WPC is over-structured and
bureaucratic. It holds too many meetings
with no positive results or concrete propos-
als for action.

The WPC structure should be represen-
tative of national committees, and not made
up of “personalities” in their ‘individual
capacities.” It should streamline its struc-
ture to be more democratic with all bodies
elected by, and directly responsible to
national committees. All WPC organs
should improve like the Peace Courier.

Campaigns and other actions must be
initiated more quickly to meet today’s fast-
changing events. Such activities cannot wait
for regularly-scheduled meetings. The WPC
leadership should call special meetings of
national committees on regional, continen-
tal or world-wide scale for common action.
It’s been years since the WPC has con-
ducted a campaign.

It’s time for action if we want to maintain
the momentum provided by recent U.S.-
USSR initiatives such as the summit meet-
ings and the INF treaty which reflect a
major shift of the utmost importance for the
improvement of international relations.

This development would not have been
possible without the decades-long efforts of
the largest peace movement in history. The
question is: can the world peace movement
maintain the momentum which has
brought about a shift in political decisions
from the ideology of deterrence which had
prevailed for so long?

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