DISARMAMENT

——

‘Need for peace mutual,’ say Soviets

The Soviet Union and Canada have a
“very dangerous common enemy — the
threat of nuclear war,” a member of a
visiting Soviet peace delegation declared in
B.C. last week.

Lev Voronkov, a leading member of the
Soviet peace committee, repeated’ this
message in visits to Vancouver and at
meetings with citizens and city councils in
Vancouver Island communities during a
brief tour sponsored by the Canadian
Peace Congress, the Quebec Peace Con-
gress, the B.C. Peace Council and the Mid-
Island Disarmament Committee.

Voronkov, who addressed the city
councils in Ladysmith and Nanaimo, and
a packed meeting in Courtenay June 10,
said he found Canadians “warm and
receptive” to the message from Soviet
peace activists.

“We had a very frank, open-minded
discussion. I was very satisfied with the
questions, and impressed with the desire of
people to hear me, and to understand,”
Voronkov said in an interview in English
following a press conference at Vancouver
city hall June 11.

Referring to the meeting of some 200
‘area residents who packed the hall in
Courtenay, Voronkov remarked: “This is
the background for my optimism. Such
dialogues are very important precondi-
tions for world peace.” ;

That theme was stressed repeatedly dur-
ing meetings and press conferences by the
delegation, which also included Ukrainian
MP Vitaly Korotich, journalist Viola
Amichkina, Soviet Peace Committee con-
sultant Vyascheslav Baykov, Russian
Orthodox priest Arkady Tytschuk and
interpreter Oleg Skulkov.

In that context the delegates, asked
about alleged “‘peace activists” and dissi-
dents such. as physicist,Andrei,Sakharov,
said attitudes of confrontation and dis-

trust do not enhance the effort to achieve

world peace.

“Sakharov sees the Soviet Union as the
‘only source of evil’ in the world. That’s
not a good premise for talks on peace,”
said Baykov through translator Skulkov.

Said Amichkina: ‘Sakahrov is seen by
the Soviet people as one who contributes

to an atmosphere of confrontation.”

“We have 270 million people in my
country, and this one man is the only one
who can speak for peace? The so-called
dissident groups have done a lot to foster
distrust and discord,” commented Varan-

kov.

Most such dissidents are those who,
“we know were denied, for various rea-
sons at One time, permission to leave the
Soviet Union,” Varankov told some 200
Vancouver residents at a public meeting

June 11.

The Soviet delegates stressed the inde-
pendence of the Soviet peace committee
and other peace organizations from the
government. Donations, which are volun-
tary, are given to a central body called the
Soviet Peace Foundation, which channels
funds to the various oragnizations, the

delegates told the Vancouver meeting.

Donations are accepted from all,
Tegardless of age or sex, and come from
sources as diverse as artists and workers
who do weekend shifts and donate the

wages.

In Nanaimo, city council voted 5-2 to’
hear Voronkovy, rejecting a Cold-War call
from Ald. Frank Durksen to refuse the

Soviet visitor.

“They are totally against God and any-
thing that represents decency,” said the

council right-winger.

Council instead heeded the advice of
Ald. Gary Korpan, who noted, “If we
Tefuse to talk about peace, it will never

happen. ”

Soviet peace delegates Viola Amichkina and Vitaly Korotich at Vancouver city

hall press conference.

Voronkov, whose father died in the
Second World War while his mother was
interned in a German concentration
camp, urged council to play a role in the
effort for disarmament. Acting mayor Jim
Moffatt noted Nanaimo citizens recently
voted 78 per cent in favor of world disar-
mament.

At the Vancouver press conference
Russian Orthodox priest Tytschuk said his |
church, one of the largest Orthodox
churches in the USSR, has been “extremely
active in the peace movement since World
War II.”

The church has been involved in
numerous interfaith religious conferences
since then, including a massive interna-
tional meeting in Moscow in 1982, “with
the aim of defending the sacred gift of life
from the dangers of nuclear war,” said
Tytschuk.

On the issue of Star Wars, the U.
Strategic Defence Initiative, Voronko
said the delegates “are unanimous in ov
opposition to the militaraization of oute
space.”

The aim of Star Wars is to aid the U.S
in developing “a first-strike strategy” ani
also “to make it very heavy on the Sovie
economy (to develop an adequate defenc
system),” he said.

While Star Wars threatens the progres
of the current disarmament talks in Gen
eva, a recent conference of peace organiza
tions in Vienna pointed the way to ensur
the success of the talks, said Voronkov.

The proposals included “both sides’
agreeing to a freeze on development anc
deployment of outer space weapons, stra
tegic weapons and mid-range missile:
installed in Europe, he said.

Star Wars salesman challenged |

The ideological architect of Star Wars,
retired U.S. general Daniel Graham came
to Vancouver last week with a glib sales
pitch about the space weapons system that
would provide thousands of jobs and set up
a nuclear shield over North America.

But his visit only demonstrated the grow-
ing public opposition to the Star Wars pro-
gram. And by the time he left, Graham’s
pitch had been revealed for what is really is:
a right-wing effort to sell Canadians on a
costly plan to achieve. U.S. military super-
jority.

More than 300*people gathered outside
the Hyatt Regency Hotel where Graham
was addressing a business audience June 14
to declare their opposition to any Canadian
participation in Star Wars — the second
such demonstration on Graham’s three-city
tour.

Gary Marchant, vice-president of End
the Arms Race, which organized the noon-
hour picket, told demonstrators that the
“reality of Star Wars. . .is that it will replace
one arms race with two — one on earth
and one in space.”

This week, some 700 Canadian scientists
made public their opposition to Canadian
participation in Star Wars research and
vowed not to co-operate should the federal
government join the Strategic Defence
Initiative — Star Wars — program.

The scientists’ opposition is only the first
response to a computer message sent out by
University of B.C. computer scientist Ray

_ Reiter who drafted the declaration and dis-

patched it via a computer link-up to some
20 institutions across the country. —

It has become increasingly apparent in
the two months since the U.S. gave NATO
countries 60 days to declare whether or not
they would participate that the support for

Star Wars research — albeit powerful

GARY MARCHANT.. .Star Wars part of

U.S. first-strike strategy.

Support — comes only from the Tory
government and the defence and high tech
sector of the business establishment.
_Several high tech companies in this pro-

vince including MacDonald Dettweiler and
Dynamic Systems Inc., which hope to get on
lucrative Pentagon contracts, have urged a
decision in favor of participation.

Graham’s visit also coincided with a call
by Ken Lewis, president of Aerospace
Industries Association of Canada for quick
action by the federal government to “get on
board with Star Wars.”

But despite that lobby, the audience for
Graham was considerably smaller than the
organizers, the ultra-right Canadian Con-

servative Centre, had expected and several
at the lunch made clear their opposition to
Star Wars. ;

One businessman, Jim Lipkovits, of the
Business and Professional Association of
B.C. told the End the Arms Race rally out-
side that Star Wars research “‘is bad busines
and bad for business.

“The Star Wars initiative, coupled with
the U.S. first-strike capability, moves us two
steps closer to a strategically-realizable
nuclear war,” he warned.

Inside the hotel during a press conference
with reporters, General Graham pooh-
poohed the warnings about escalation of
the arms race and talked of nuclear war
scenarios as if they were little more than
mathematical formulas.

Acknowleding that there would be a five
per cent “leakage” in any Star Wars
defence, he noted that some five per cent of
the missiles could get through. “But if there
is a 95 per cent capability to stop those
weapons, the two or three that are aimed at
Vancouver are highly unlikely to be among
the five per cent that get through. And you
don’t have to be Einstein to figure out the
mathematics,” he said.

Significantly, he gave reporters in
Toronto the same assurances.

Graham indicated that a primary objec-
tive of the U.S. is to take advantage of its
current technological advancement in cer-
tain key areas to obtain military superiority.

“The USSR doesn’t have the space shut-
tle, it doesn’t have the ability to micro-
miniaturize and it doesn’t have the
computer capability,” he said.

And military superiority is exactly what
General Graham and the Reagan adminis-
tration is seeking to obtain with the Star
Wars program, Marchant told the rally out-
side. —

“Even Graham acknowledges that S
Wars will not stop all incoming missiles
and therefore it is useless as a defer
against a first strike,” he said.

“But if the U.S. itself were to launc
first strike it could destroy a signific
number of Soviet missiles in their silos
and then a Star Wars system could be eff
tive against what few weapons the US
has left.

“In fact, Star Wars only makes sense
part of a first-strike U.S. strategy,”
‘warned, noting that Graham himself |
long been an advocate of U.S. milite
superiority.

But because there is little public supp:
for a strategy to achieve superiority, M:
chant noted, Graham and others ha
deliberately masked their message.

He cited a leaked document from t
institute which Graham founded, Hi
Frontier Inc., which stated that the “be
way to sell Star Wars is to cloak it in t
language of arms control, even disarm
ment.”

“That’s exactly what Graham is doing -

- his presentation is a mask to hide the re

face of Star Wars,” Marchant charged.

Marchant warned that there would be
powerful business lobby, backed by t!
Canadian Conservative Centre, whi
would be seeking to pressure the gover
ment into accepting the U.S. invitation.

He urged peace activists to keep up tl
campaign against Canadian participation
Star Wars. :

He also warned that the peace moveme
would organize demonstrations outside a1

businesses which became involved in St:
Wars research. :

PACIFIC TRIBUNE, JUNE 19, 1985 e