Editorial

Tories and weapons

All you had to do last week was use your handy TV channel selector to see that the
lady was lying.

On one channel, there was associate defence minister Mary Collins assuring Parlia-
ment that the ARMX exhibit in Ottawa was for Canada’s NATO allies only, not for
those with records of human rights abuses. Under particularly intense questioning
from opposition MPs, Collins was even bailed out by John Crosbie. But if you switched
to another channel, there was a smiling Chilean colonel browsing among the latest in
rockets, tanks and military electronic equipment the same way you and I shop for
groceries. ;

Even Crosbie and Collins wouldn’t try and defend the regime of Pinochet and his
smiling colonels when it comes to human rights.

ARMxX, obviously held with government approval, is a large shopping mall of
weaponry displayed by about 400 firms from some 16 countries, and is visited by
thousands of people who make their living in the killing business.

Over 2,000 demonstrators who marched in protest saw the exhibit for what it was
and the Tory government for what it is. They marched through Ottawa streets calling
for the closing of the “obscenity.” They urged Canada to become a peacemaker, nota
death purveyor. “We don’t want to see our planet destroyed by bombs, by garbage, by
hatred,” one young student told the crowd. And, when they sat down to put themselves
on the line against the death merchants, 160 were arrested.

The fact is, this Tory government is guilty on all counts: Canada does actively engage
in the arms trade. We do contribute to both the construction of weapons and the
circulation of them. Canada does peddle both military material and know-how to
repressive regimes such as that represented by the Chilean colonel.

The Tories, despite their so-called smoke-and-mirrors arms budget “cuts” are a
military-minded lot. There are no spending cuts. In fact, Wilson’s budget increases
arms spending in 1989-90 by $240-million — a sum that will grow by over $3 billion in
the next five years to reach the $15-billion figure by 1994-95. Even the turmoil over the
closing and scaling down of 14 bases isn’t being done for peace reasons or to save
money, but because the military wants to divert the funds to new equipment. And the
cancellation of the outrageous nuclear sub pipedream, while a victory for sanity, simply
trims the military’s wish list in one area.

When it comes to Tories and weapons, there’s much left to be done as the ARMX
obscenity and Mary Collins clearly show.

“WHAT 00 YoU MEAN MAYBE WE SHOULD ENROLL IN THE GOV'TS. NEW JOB CREATION SCHEME? THIS
THE Gov'Ts, NEW JOB CREATION SUHEMEL . aie

EDITOR

Sean Griffin

ASSOCIATE EDITOR

Dan Keeton
BUSINESS & CIRCULATION MANAGER
Mike Proniuk
GRAPHICS

Angela Kenyon

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orty years ago, they fought a year-

long, and ultimately unsuccessful,
strike to preserve not only their Canadian
union but Canada’s merchant marine as
well. And regularly, the former members
of the now defunct Canadian Seamen’s
Union mark that event, as they did in a
reunion in Montreal on May 27.

But the CSU veterans — who last
gathered in Vancouver to herald the 1986
release of Jim Green’s historical account
of the union, Against the Tide — do more
than remember the past. They used the
40th anniversary commemoration of the
strike to warn against the new threat to
Canada’s transportation services under
the deregulation and privatization policies
of the Tory government.

The history of that struggle is known to
many Tribune readers. In 1949, the CSU
mounted an international strike against
the impending conversion of Canada’s
deep-sea vessels to foreign ownership. The
government of the day brought the full
might of the state against the seamen,

importing the U.S. based Seafarers Inter-

national Union to replace the CSU, and
banning the progressive, Canadian union
one year later.

The government, and not a few trade
unionists, used the anti-Communist hyste-
ria of the day to smash the CSU, ‘while
dubbing the union alarmist for warning of
the threat to Canada’s merchant marine.
The reality today is that this country, with
coasts on three oceans, has no deep-sea
merchant marine fleet.

That same threat is looming today, only
this time it’s Canada’s lake and coastal
vessels, former CSU president Harry
Davis has warned. Ina release announcing
the reunion, he states: “In fact, the entire
transport industry is today under attack.
Our passenger railways are under assault,
and our national airline which has served

the Canadian public may not continue this ~

needed service if they are privatized as is
the intent of the present Ottawa adminis-
tration.”

Davis observes: “We are no longer on
strike, but we are still calling attention to
that which has to be said. And that will be
our banner headline of our reunions this
year.”

The Montreal reunion was organized
by Davis, Dan Daniels (former editor of
the CSU paper, Searchlight), Tom McGrath
of the Canadian Brotherhood of Railway,
Transport and General Workers, and
Stan Wingfield of the CSU History Project
Committee. Among the delegates from
Vancouver was veteran trade unionist Bill
“Moose” Mozdir.

ci =, Sera

Yo can send postcards calling on your
MP to promote disarmament. But
unless Parliament is willing, it’s debatable
whether they'll reach their intended desti-
nation on time.

That, at least, seems to be the case
regarding the recent postcard campaign
— called On Track for Disarmament —
launched last fall by the church based coa-
lition, Project Ploughshares. That cam-
paign was an overwhelming success, with
some two million postcards, one-third of
them from B.C., sent to each MP in the
House. of Commons.

The campaign is meant to ensure a
follow-through from the INF treaty ban-
ning Soviet and U.S. medium-range mis-
siles in Europe. It called on all MPs “to
ensure the continued progress of disar-
mament by speaking out against the
development of new generations of
nuclear weapons.” Specifically, the cam-
paign urged Canada’s elected representa-
tives to promote a resolution in the House
calling on a treaty banning all tests of
nuclear explosives, missile flights and
spacé weapons, and to back a similar reso-

People and Issues

lution for the United Nations.

Project Ploughshares’ national political
affairs co-ordinator, Simon Rosenblum,
put it succinctly ina Globe and Mail opin-
ion piece in which he noted the continued
development of modern, strategic wea-
pons. “The world will not be a safer place
if the superpowers produce nothing more
than a ‘disarmament’ treaty that creates
‘leaner but meaner’ nuclear forces,” he
wrote.

Rosenblum observed that the United
States in particular has been pushing
ahead with modernizing plans while the
Soviet Union is offering “balanced and
far-reaching nuclear disarmament.” Mean-
while, although Canada supports a Com-
prehensive Test Ban, it follows the US?
snails-pace approach to disarmament.
And, of course, the Conservative govern-
ment has dropped opposition to flight test-
ing and continues to allow the testing of
cruise missiles in Canada.

The postcard campaign convinced
thousands of Canadians — including
2,200 British Columbians — to purchase
and mail in a postcard to each MP. The
problem is, the cards, mailed in April,
have been languishing in the basement of
the Parliament Buildings for the past
month. '

Ploughshares says it has been told that
the sheer volume of the cards has
swamped the Commons mail service.
Nonetheless, they’ve asked sympathetic
MPs to prod the government into putting
more effort into getting the cards to MPs’
offices. As B.C. Ploughshares representa-
tive Heather Neun put in a letter to MPs,
“Given the agenda of the upcoming
NATO summit, the message about
nuclear weapons modernization is more

. pertinent than ever.”

G iven the current optimism for dis-
armament in the wake of fresh Soviet
initiatives, it’s tempting to assume that
leaders on both sides share the desire for :
nuclear-free world. If anyone does, a
recent interview in Time magazine will put
those assumptions to rest.

In the May 29 issue, NATO commander
Gen. John Galvin flatly states that a denu-
clearized Europe is, to him, unwanted. He
says: “...I don’t want to see us ever do
away with our nuclear capability in
Europe... they have compensated for the
conventional-force imbalance between the
alliance and the Soviet bloc.”

The general’s mindset — one on which
the arms manufacturers depend — shows
the tough road ahead for arms negotia-
tions, no matter how may offers the Soviet
Union makes. Galvin justifies his stance
by citing what he calls the modernizing of
the Soviet tank force. He claims that while
Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev talks of

retiring 10,000 tanks, the USSR is busy

building 6,000 modernized versions to
replace these over the next two years.

The NATO commander is apparently
referring to a report that was refuted in.an
earlier. — May 18 — press release from
the Soviet news agency, Novosti. The
release states: “A senior defence ministry
official ...denied that there had been a
‘record high level of production of T-72
and T-80 tanks.’

“He emphasized that by December
1988 the output of tanks was only 75 per
cent of that recorded in 1987. In the com-
ing two years their production will be
reduced by almost 50 per cent.”

Novosti states that the reduction in tank
output reflects the country’s conversion of
military facilities to civilian production.
For some in the West, however, the Soviet
Union’s peace offers — which are, after
all, simply a call to sit down and
negotiate — will continue to fall on deaf _
ears.

4 Pacific Tribune, June 5, 1989