CANADA Communist Party statement: Gov't must end cover-up on nazi criminals here Recent revelations in the media regarding nazi war criminals in Canada are not new information. Anti-fascist organizations, including the Communist Party of Canada, have for years ex- posed the clandestine policy of post-war Cana- dian governments to give sanctuary and even citizenship to nazi war criminals and to obstruct the persistent efforts of governments, including that of the USSR, to have them brought to justice. Books have been written such as Lest We Forget, by M. Hanusiak, that name names and provide irrefutable documentary evidence of the crimes of these nazi and collaborationist war criminals. Their aliases, their addresses in Canada have been provided, yet nothing has been done, apart from the very belated deportation of Helmut Rauca to the Federal Republic of Germany. Each post-war Canadian government has per- sisted in the cover-up for two reasons. The first is that Canada participated in a dirty conspiracy hatched by the imperialist powers be- fore the ink was even dry on the Yalta and Pots- dam agreements to wage war against the USSR and the other European socialist states. The scum of Hitler fascism, such as the 230 fascist Ukrainian SS, traitors to their own country, were to be used once again as collaborators, torturers and exterminators. Their undercover removal from war-ravaged Europe to various countries, including Canada, was planned and co-ordinated with the blessing of the highest of circles. The smokescreen for this was the trumped-up ‘‘Soviet menace.” The second reason is that any belated deporta- tion, extradition or prosecution would doubtless reveal to the public how and why they came to Canada; under whose protection and with what papers. The claim of the former Solicitor General, Robert Kaplan, that they were not extradited to certain socialist countries because they would not get a ‘‘fairtrial’’ is as mucha lie as it is hypocrisy. The truth is that his hands and those of others in Liberal and Conservative governments are dirty — very dirty indeed. Their intention has been to block and delay any action until every last one has died from natural causes. Dead men tell no tales. Under public pressure, however, the present government has been forced to take some action. It has established a one-man commission of in- quiry to look into the matter, but it has not given the commission head, Justice Descheres, any terms of reference. This justifies the very real fear that this could become yet another part of the shameful cover-up. It should be noted that these same people who gave asylum and comfort to nazi butchers, one decade earlier had made it impossible for Jews fleeing fascism in Europe to gain refuge in Cana- da. Of the hundreds and thousands of Jews who could have been saved from the gas ovens by Canada, only 5,000 were allowed in. This figure is not that different from the as many as 3,000 geno- cidal killers admitted after the war. This appalling policy continues today, whereby Marxists and other refugees from military and pro-fascist dictatorship run impossible obstacle courses to gain sanctuary here, while the perpe- trators of oppression are received with open arms. The world is about to celebrate the 40th: Anniversary of the Allied Victory over German fascism. Great efforts are under way to rewrite history, to obscure the truth about who befriend- ed fascism, and who warned the world that fas- cism meant war. Post-war generations in Canada are danger- ously ignorant about the war. It has been reported that the majority of university students believe the war to have been fought between the USSR and Germany on the one hand, and Britain, Canada and the USA on the other. This is not accidental. The courts are presently being used in Toronto to allow the ultra-right Ernst Zundel to put the _Nuremburg principles on trial to cover up the obscenity of the destruction of tens of millions of Soviet people, Poles, Yugoslavs, Jews and people of other nationality. Truth is the first casualty in the imperialist- inspired cold war. This has a deadly purpose: To prepare the ground once again to try to: succeed Where Hitler failed — the destruction of socialism, starting with the USSR. In World War Two, fifty million lives were lost. If President Reagan and his allies use their first strike policy, the whole world will go up in nuclear smoke. Canadians must demand that the government come clean. Open up the records to public scru- tiny; tell the truth about WW II; strip the war criminals of their citizenship; deport them to face trial for their heinous crimes. Canada must cease to be part of the U.S.- inspired efforts to rewrite, distort and remake history. — Central Executive Committee, Communist Party of Canada Cruise flies while House in recess The U.S. Air Force utilized last week when the Canadian parlia- ment was in recess to stage it’s third and fourth cruise missile tests over Canada’s northwest. Holding to procedure Ottawa gave only two days notice of the tests by warning aircraft to stay out of the missile’s flight path. The unarmed missile took two free flights, the first on Feb. 19, the second on Feb. 22. Launched from a B-52 bomber it travelled down the Mackenzie Valley through northern British Colum- bia and Alberta before landing at the Primrose Lake Air Weapons Range near Cold Lake, Alberta. Just prior to the test of Feb. 19, Operation Dismantle rushed to the Supreme Court in an effort to block the tests. The four judges overturned the request without reasons. Peace groups were angered at the timing of the tests, charging that the government deliberately gave such short notice to prevent the organization of protests. With parliament not in session, opposi- ‘tion MPs were prevented from questioning the government on its actions. Bob Penner of the Toronto Dis- armament Network charged that the same process took place when the umbrella agreement with the U.S. was signed and when the Cruise agreement was reached. ‘*The government was secretive. It is well aware of public opposi- tion and is doing its best to mini- mize it.”’ Penner says Ottawa is probably feeling “‘self-congratulatory”’’ be- cause demonstrations in response to the tests have been small com- pared to peace marches held in the past. “‘It is really an inaccur- ate way of judging the strength of the peace movement by the size of a demonstration held in the middle of winter,’ he charged. Several demonstrations were held in centres across the coun- try. In Ottawa the Parliament Hill Peace Camp and acoalition called People Against the Cruise rallied in front of the Eternal Flame. | Against Cruise Testing, a Toronto coalition marched on the offices of the federal Progressive Con- servative Party. In Edmonton 150 people de- monstrated and laid plans for a | meeting in which local members of parliament would be invited to discuss the tests. Thunder Bay’s Coalition for Peace and Nuclear Disarmament held a vigil at the local Revenue Canada office. The day before the Feb. 19 test, the Regina Coalition for Peace and Disarmament released the re- sults of a survey they conducted. Two-thirds of those questioned disapprove of the tests. A further 84 per cent support a nuclear freeze and ‘‘balanced reduction | and elimination by all nations”’ of nuclear weapons. 7 Penner says the peace move- ment remains united in its opposi- _ tion to the Cruise test. ‘‘It is the main symbol of Canada’s in- | volvement in the nuclear arms race ... a race we're not sup- posed to be involved in. It is the most advanced and destabilizing of all weapons in existence. The Cruise is designed to fight a nuc- © lear war; it is not a deterrent and is unverifiable in arms control — negotiations.”’ Although Penner says the TDN - will take part in demonstrations — against Cruise testing, he ques- tions calling a protest ‘“‘every time the government does something we don’t ‘like’. Rather: it-is im- portant for the peace movement to broaden its focus, to advance new long-term strategies and not to concentrate on the Cruise at the exclusion of other issues. Opposition to the Cruise has performed two functions he claims, as an attempt to influence _ government policy and to educate — the public about Canada’s role in the arms race. “We have to start dealing with other. aspects including Canada — being dragged into Star Wars. This will be with us for years to come.”’ : Nazis in Canada: ignorance or complicity? By TOM MORRIS Leaders of right-wing Ukrainian- Canadian groups are outraged at charges that more than 218 former Ukrainian officers in the Nazi SS were war crimi- nals and are living in Canada. Orest Rudzik, past president of the Ukrainian-Canadian Committee, chal- lenged the accusers to ‘put up or shut up’’, and charged that a whitch hunt is underway. He wanted names and hard proof. UCC president John Nowasad said the allegations were ‘‘not historically accurate’’. Lubomyr Luciuk, described by the press as ‘tan expert on Ukrainian refugee immigration to Canada’, said no evidence has yet been produced that Ukrainian war criminals were living in this country. Two Tory MPs, Alex Kindy (Calgary East) and Don Blenkarn (Mississauga South), told Parliament last week that the Federal Commission of Inquiry estab- lished to look into war criminals living in Canada “‘should not be used to fan racial prejudice or to settle old scores.”’ Giving rise to this outcry was a recent Israeli radio interview in which nazi hunter Simon Wiesenthal revealed that 6 e PACIFIC TRIBUNE, FEBRUARY 27, 1985 218 former Ukrainian officers of Hitler’s SS, which ran death camps in occupied Europe, were living in Canada. He further charged that he had sent a list of 28 names to the Canadian government and had received no reply. Further fuel was added when Sol Littman, spokes- man for the Los Angeles-based Simon Weisenthal Centre of Holocaust Studies, said he tracked down some of the 28 names from the Toronto phone book and from social insurance numbers. The controversy heightened when this was followed by documents released by the Jewish Defence League that at least six members of the fascist Romanian Iron Guard responsible for war crimes were living in southern Ontario. These latest revelations coincide with increased international attention focus- sed on the whereabouts of notorious nazi killer Josef Mengele and the possibility he may have tried to enter Canada in 1962. While the Ukrainian-Canadian right wing was crying foul, Mike Kucher of Edmonton told the press he joined Hitler’s Waffen SS in 1943 ‘‘to fight Bol- sheviks’’ and, as president of the 70- member local chapter of the Brother- hood of the First Division of the Ukrain- ian National Army, he is ‘‘concerned’’ about allegations of war crimes. The Lithuanian right wing has also sur- faced with its tired song of ‘‘Soviet occupation’’, despite the fact that from 1941 to 1944 Lithuania was under nazi occupation and was liberated by Red Army units who defeated not only German troops but Lithuanian colla- borators, many of whom fled to the west. The question of nazi criminals who have been given residence in Canada isn’t new. While the figure varies (up to 3,000 according to the Simon Weisenthal Centre), the facts bear out that many per- sons arrived here following World War Two fresh from nazi units, as did many known collaborators. Another fact: with one exception, all efforts to extradite such persons to face criminal charges have failed. The USSR and other socialist states have repeatedly sought the extradition of individuals for crimes committed in nazi occupied terri- tory. Canada replied with silence. The one exception was Helmut Rauca, charged with murdering 11,584 persons, who was extradited to West Germany in 1983 where he died before his case came to court. Other criminals have been named by the USSR in extradition requests — all were ignored by Canada. Some have since died, others remain. Successive Canadian governments, Liberal and Tory, have followed the U.S. position that extradition to socialist states is impossible because evidence may be rigged or that suspects would not receive a fair trial. Ottawa (and Wash- ington) have also cited the absence of — extradition treaties with socialist states — as another difficulty. But a recent report by the League of | Human Rights of the B’nai B’rith calls this position hypocritical, pointing out that Canada has said since 1946 at the United Nations that prosecution of war crimes and crimes against humanity “‘constitutes a universal commitment for all states.”’ The report urges Ottawa to act, saying several legal options are open, including extradition, deportation, prosecution under existing laws, enacting new war criminal leglislation and publicly naming nazi criminals. It argues extradition would be the best option, followed by a second option — new laws to permit the trial of nazis in Canada.