World

ee,

e years in space

Mir station thre

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TASS PHOTO — A. PUSHKARYOV

The Soviet Union's Mir (Peace) space station, shown here
Training Centre, marked its third year in continuous orbit F
well as cosmonauts from Syria,
Krikalev, flight engineer (r); commander Alexander Volkov (centre) and Valery Polyakov (not shown). Krikalev and
Vokov are seen here with French cosmonaut Jean-Loup Chretien (I), who was part of a three-man mission last year.

in its simulator version at the Yuri Gagarin Cosmonaut’s
) eb. 20. During that time, there have been Soviet crews as
Afghanistan, Bulgaria and France. Currently on the station are Soviets Sergei

Growing support for peace in FRG
causing headaches for U.S., NATO

By WILLIAM POMEROY

On Feb. 1, the U.S. military forces based

in the Federal Republic of Germany
announced the cancellation of large-scale
manoeuvres NATO had planned to hold on
ERG soil in 1989. The manoeuvres, which
have occurred every year for the last 20
ears, were designed primarily to test the

‘speed with which troops can be airlifted

from the United States to the FRG in the
war.

see 124,000 NATO troops took
part in the exercises. The manoeuvres take
place in heavily populated areas and NATO
has usually had to pay a huge bill for
wrecked buildings, roads and bridges and
for crops torn up by armoured vehicles wag-
ing simulated battles in the fields.

The operation has been rescheduled for
1990, with participating forces reduced by
half, but this may ultimately also be can-
celled. Not because of the enormous cost,
but because of the adverse reaction among
the West German people.

After decades of serving as the main con-
centration area for NATO members’ com-
bat forces, the principal depot for every type
of weapon, the site for the bulk of NATO’s
medium-and short-range missiles and other
nuclear weaponry, the launching pad for
NATO?’s first-strike plans and the potential
target of counterattack by Warsaw Treaty
Organization missile and ground forces, the
great majority of the people want no more
of it.

A growing sore point is the constant low-
level flights by NATO military jets. There
have been over 100 crashes, often in or near
towns, with loss of life. The latest was the
crash of a U.S. Thunderbolt fighter-bomber
in Remscheld, near Dusseldorf, on Dec. 8,
in which six people were killed and 50
injured. It sparked anti-NATO, anti-U.S.
demonstrations and protests.

FRG Undersecretary of Defence Peter
Wuerzbach responded to the anger, taking

it upon himself to ban all military low-level
flying from then until after the New Year.

Although forced to resign by hawkish -

Defence Minister Rupert Scholz, Wuerz-
bach won the backing of much of the Kohl
cabinet. Low-level NATO flights have now
been cut from 100,000 to 67,000 per year.
In December, an article by Adm. Elmar
Schmahling — head of the Office for Stu-
dies and Exercises, one of the main FRG
military think-tanks — in the mass-circula-
tion magazine Stern called for scrapping
both NATO and the Warsaw Treaty
Organization and removing all tactical
weapons and allied troops from the FRG.

Poll after poll has shown that
the majority of the people
want their country freed
from the threat of being
World War Ill’s most devas-
tated battlefield.

TGP CTR eT BEN ONS I
Schmahling called for an end to confronta-

tion with Warsaw Treaty nations. He said
funds are being “wasted on_ senseless
armaments” and should be used “‘to solve
the world’ real problems.”

For NATO chiefs the greatest concern is
over the mass support in the FRG for
detente, for the peace and disarmament
initiatives of the Soviet Union as voiced by
President Mikhail Gorbachev, and against
the NATO drive for modernization of
nuclear and other weaponry, which is seen
as a move to revive the arms race and add to
the nuclear arsenal on FRG soil.

The opposition to modernization has
caused the back-tracking on NATO
manoeuvres and low-level flights, and has
led to growing friction between the Kohl

government and the United States, the main
pusher for modernization. Kohl is threaten-
ing to veto a NATO decision to go ahead
with the introduction of new nuclear mis-
siles, like a hyped-up Lance missile, and the
transfer to air and naval forces of the land-
based cruise missiles being removed under
the INF Treaty. é

Endorsing modernization could well be
political suicide for Kohl and his ruling
Christian Democratic Union. The next
national election in the FRG will occur
early in 1990, and if the United States
presses Kohl to support such a NATO deci-
sion before that, a CDU defeat is felt to be
inevitable. Since 1987 the CDU has lost
heavily in six out of eight state elections. The
losses are widely believed to have resulted
from Kohl’s failure to back detente and
disarmament.

Popular resentment of U.S. policies and
pressure tactics was strengthened by the
way the Reagan administration singled out
FRG companies for condemnation, even
threatening trade sanctions, over claims
they assisted in building an alleged chemical
weapons plant in Libya. Japanese, Swiss,
French, Italian and South Korean compan-
ies were also supposed to be involved, but

the FRG firms were made virtually the sole °

scapegoat.

In June, Soviet President Gorbachev is
scheduled to visit the FRG. NATO officials
fear that further Gorbachev initiatives will
be announced on that occasion, in the areas
of both disarmament and trade, stimulating
further sentiment for detente.

Poll after poll has shown that the major-
ity of the people want their country freed

from the threat of being World War III’s

most devastated battle-field. With 80 per
cent or more now expressing the belief that
the Soviet Union can no longer be viewed as
a threat, it is logical to conclude that they
may soon perceive the threat as coming
from NATO and U.S. policies.

lranian

women
urge aid |
to halt —
executions | —

By TOM FOLEY
The lives of hundreds of Iranian
women political prisoners are in
“very serious and real” danger and
“not a single moment can be |
wasted” to try to save them, the
Democratic Organization of Iran- |
ian Women said in an urgent

appeal received last week.

Since the cease-fire last July in
the Iran-Iraq war, the Teheran |
regime has carried out mass execu-
tions of political prisoners includ-
ing leading members of the Tudeh
Party of iran, the country’s under- 3
ground Marxist-Leninist , party.
According to a Dec. 19 column by
U.S. writer Jack Anderson, quot-
ing froma secret letter of the Iran-
ian Supreme Judicial Council to
the Ayatollah Ruhollah Kho-
meini, at least 12,000 political pri-
soners were executed between July
and mid-November.

The DOIW appeal said: “Accord-
ing to confirmed reports, the
regime is now preparing to set up
for women political prisoners the
same type of ‘religious’ courts
which condemned thousands of
male political prisoners to death.

“These ‘religious’ courts are
actually nothing but simple meet-
ings to which a number of political
prisoners are summoned and
asked by a clergyman whether
they still maintain their beliefs,
whether. they are prepared to
recant their political views and
past activities and whether they
are willing publicly to announce
their recantation through the Iran-
ian mass media,” the DOIW
explained. It pointed out that there
are hundreds of women political
prisoners facing the threat of
death, including DOIW president
Mariam Firooz and many other
members of the organization. |

Families of a group of executed
Iranian political prisoners recently
sent an appeal to United Nations |
Secretary General Javier Perez de |

|

Cuellar, urging him to do his
utmost to stop the mass execution.
“We must inform you,” the fami-
lies said in their appeal, “that at
present the Islamic Republic re-
~ime has embarked on a second
.. and of criminal activity: its guns
are now pointed at a new group of

political prisoners, namely women. .
The lives of women political pri-

soners are in serious danger.”

Appeals to save the lives of |
women prisoners in Iran — and
all political prisoners — can be
sent to the Hon. Javier Perez de ]
Cuellar, Secretary General, Uni- ee
ted Nations, New York 10017, and
to Mohammed Ali Moussavi,
Embassy of the Islamic Republic .
of Iran, 411 Roosevelt Ave., 4th
Floor, Ottawa, K2A 3X9.

Pacific Tribune, March 6, 1989 « 9