[Disarmament oe

Veteran’s Dresden encounter
dramatizes quest for peace

_It was just four weeks ago that veterans’
disarmament leader C.J. Gifford was
among the 200,000 who filled the Theatre-
platz in Dresden, in the German Demo-
cratic Republic, to mark the re-opening of
the famed Semper Opera House which has
Now been completely restored after having
been razed along with the rest of the historic
City in the Allies’ saturation bombing raid in
February, 1945.

As he stood among the crowd, a small
number of whom were survivors of the fire-
Storms which roared through the city fol-
lowing the bombing, he was overwhelmed
by the feelings of apprehensiveness and
grief.

The last time he had seen Dresden was at
1a.m. on Feb. 13, 1945 when, as a Royal
Air Force navigator on a Lancaster
bomber, he took part in the Allied devasta-
tion of the city — a devastation that history
Now agrees was without any military pur-
Pose.

Gifford, chairman and co-founder of
Veterans for Multilateral Disarmament,
was formally in Dresden to take part in the
Montreal filmmaker. Martin Duckworth’s
film Face to Face, which will document the
€ncounter between Gifford and survivors of
the Dresden bombing. But as Gifford told
an audience at the University of B.C. Feb.
28, the visit was also a mission of peace.

“One of the most dramatic moments was
an encounter with an old school teacher, a
Suvivor of the bombing,” he said.

“As the crowd was dispersing, he saw our
camera crew and since he spoke English, he
inquired. what we were doing. We were
introduced and he was shocked to find out
who I was.

“He had never met anyone before who
had taken part in the bombing and he began
telling me in a loud voice what a terrible
experience it had been. People began gather-
ing around and soon there was a group of
about 80 or 100 people, with questions com-
ing from all over.”

The questions weren’t hostile said Gif-
ford, but they were penetrating — and dis-
turbing. :

“They kept asking: what was the point?
Didn’t we know that the city was unde-
fended? And why did the Allies come back
the following day?”

In fact, Gifford noted, they hadn’t
known that the city was undefended. Many
Were to find out only much later that the
bombing raids were unnecessary since the
City, where a population of some 600,000
had been swelled by civilian refugees, had
had no military installations. And the

Soviet Army was within days of liberating
the city.

Despite that, some 1,400 U.S. and British
planes dropped their bombs over the city,
creating one of the worst firestorms the
world has seen and killing an estimated
100,000 people.

“What I also didn’t know — and I had
never heard until Martin Duckworth did
exploratory interviews and was repeatedly
told this — was that American Tomahawk
fighters had followed the daylight bombing
raids by gunning down the civilians as they
were trying to escape,” he said.

“There was a lot of feeling among the
people of Dresden about that,” Gifford
said, adding that he has his own feelings of
grief in recalling the events.

Still, he told the students at UBC, “the
outcome of the encounter was that we went
away with a very real feeling of working
together for peace.

As the group of people in the Theatre-
platz began to leave, he said, one woman
offered her hand and said: “Alles gut” — all
the best.

Gifford uses the encounter, together with
his comments about an earlier two-week
veterans’ tour of the USSR, to illustrate the
point that making contact with people in
other countries is essential to peace. And
one of the major purposes of the Veterans
for Multilateral Disarmament, he noted, “is
to demonstrate our perception that the
Soviets are not our enemy.”

That point must be made because the
“Soviet threat” is being used — in NATO,
the U.S., and elsewhere — to justify a mas-
sive arms build-up, Gifford warned.

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C.J. GIFFORD. ..arms race a ‘‘welfare program” for arms manufacturers.

“Our organization believes that we are
entering an increasingly dangerous situa-
tion,” he said, calling the arms race “a cur-
able cancer that continues to spread.”

Even for those who accept deterrence, the
existing weaponry is excessive, he noted.
“And the recent spurt in the arms race,
which was initiated in Washington, can
only be explained as a ‘welfare program’ for
Lockheed and General Dynamics.

“How else can you explain building 20
Trident submarines each with the firepower
of 10 Hiroshimas — except to do as Hitler
did in our day, to try and build prosperity
through militarism?” he said.

Gifford emphasized that Canada’s “nat-
ural allies” are outside the U.S. with such
countries as Norway and Denmark which
have refused nuclear arms on their soil.

“That’s the kind of linkage Canada
should-develop,” he. said.

He emphasized that the peace movement
would have to step up its activities and pres-
sure on Ottawa for change since “it’s very
clear that the Mulroney government is
endorsing the nuclear arms race and intends
to enhance Canada’s contribution.”

Vigil to protest
apartheid arrests

The Southern Africa Action Coalition is
holding a candlelight vigil Mar. 6 to protest
the South African regime’s brutal attack on
the Black township of Crossroads and the
arrest of 16 leaders of the United Demo-

"TRIBUNE PHOTO -

SEAN GRIFFIN

cratic Front. The vigil is set for 7:30 p.m. at’

Robson Square.

“These actions by the apartheid regime
demonstrate that nothing of substance has
really changed in South Africa, save an esca-
lation of repression against the people,” said
SAAC chair Zayed Gamiet. He noted that
the UDF leaders have been charged with
treason and face possible death sentences.

Anglican minister Rev. Thomas Anthony
and CBRT Local 400 president Dave For-
syth are among scheduled speakers.

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