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International Focus

By FILS DELISLE
Tribune Berlin Correspondent

BERLIN — The official U.S.-NATO propa-
8anda that the peoples of Western Europe favor
the plan for more nuclear missiles on their terri-

_tory has been exposed as a tissue of lies.

It has long been public knowledge that the
Onn government carried out secret opinion
Polls on the question which showed the majority
of West Germans were against accepting new
U.S. medium-range nuclear missiles. The in-

formation was locked away, and West German

leaders kept insisting the public back the station-

ing of more U.S. missiles within their borders.

_ Now, however, the latest public opinion poll
i the FRG has revealed that no less than 75.5
Per cent of FRG citizens oppose the NATO
Plan, under which the FRG itself would become
the most thickly sown nuclear missile area in the

World. The same poll revealed that 60 per cent of

West Germans support the view that if there is

_ NO agreement at the U.S.-USSR disarmament

talks at Geneva this year the negotiations should
extended for another six months.

The latest poll was conducted by a research

Soup of election experts at Mannheim. It con-

the results of another poll undertaken in

the FRG by the Munich Sinus Institute at the
beginning of the year.

© view expressed by the overwhelming

Majority in the latest poll was that the FRG

‘Should oppose the stationing of Pershing-2 and
Cruise missiles in the event that the U.S. does
Rot seriously conduct disarmament negotiations

Geneva’. _
At the same time a number of leading political
ures in Western Europe endorsed identical or
ar positions. One of these was Willi Brandt,

Ormer West German Chancellor and now
Chairman of the Socialist International and of
the West German Social Democratic Party.

Brandt said there should be no automatic
Stationing of new U.S. missiles in Western

— Polls reveal majority
_ in FRG oppose missiles

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‘Jobs not missiles’ says FRG demo.

Europe because of lack of success at Geneva.
He also maintained that the nuclear missiles of
Britain should logically be included in the
figures for missiles already stationed in the
West, which Washington and some other
NATO countries refuse to do, setting up a road
block against agreement at Geneva.

Olof Palme, Prime Minister of Sweden, joined

those demanding that more time be allowed for
the Geneva negotiations. He supported a plea
made by Greece’s Prime Minister Papandreou
that the Geneva talks be-extended until the mid-
dle of 1984. Terminating the Geneva talks.and
stationing new missiles in Western Europe,
Palme warned, would immediately increase the
danger of war.

Other West Gernam Social Democratic lead-

ers also voiced their opposition to Bonn’s an-

nounced determination to go ahead with the

stationing of the new rockets. Egon Bahr, the -

SPD’s expert on disarmament, has arrived in the
GDR on a “‘private trip’’ during which he will
visit various cities and meet with leading mem-
bers of the government. His main concern has
increasingly been the working out of solutions
that will avert the implementing of the NATO
plan. He has developed the thesis that Western
security can only be guaranteed if the security of
the socialist countries is guaranteed.

Bringing a child
into the world...

MOSCOW — Igor Lobanov, a~
former Soviet press attaché in
Canada, writes that hundreds of
letters have been received by
U.S. President Reagan and
Soviet Premier Yuri Andropov
from Canadians concerned about
peace and the threat of nuclear.

war, The majority of these letters

have come from British Columbia
— Vancouver, Victoria, Kelow-
na, Prince George, Sparwood,
Masset and nearly 160 letters
from Kamloops.

+ * &

Lobanov writes that the fears
and sentiments expressed in the
letters from Canada are felt by all
people. He describes the concern
expressed by Mildred Mayberry,
Sparwood, who worries about the
fate of her only grandchild. He
also mentions Dora Marie Foote
of Masset who expressed concern
about bringing a child into a world
threatened by nuclear war.

One letter to the Soviet Union
advances the theory that new
weapons are good because they
put more pressure on arms talks.

Lobanov points out, “‘The
Soviet Union does not share this
dangerous concept. It believes
the arms buildup not only compli-
cates arms agreement, but also
increases the risk of nuclear
war.”” He noted there have been
more than 150 false alarms re-
corded on U.S. defence com-
puters and more than 3,700 other
faulty signals, and ‘‘we are lucky

these have not led to a nuclear
catastrophe.”

He also noted that on August 17
during a visit to the USSR by Wil-
liam Winpisinger, president of the
International Association of
Machinists and Aerospace Work-
ers and, vice-president of the
AFL-CIO, Andropov. stressed .
that in the Soviet Union, both
leaders and rank-and-file working
people consider it to be a top
priority to strengthen the fight for
peace.

Lobanov notes the Soviet

Union has already taken many

steps to prevent a new round in
the arms race, to lessen world
tensions and to create an atmos-
phere of mutual trust which could
promote the reaching of arms
agreements. The Soviet Union
has submitted proposals which
take into account the security
interests of both East and West at
the Geneva talks. It has spoken
out in favor of a freeze on all com-
ponents of the nuclear arsenals of
the USSR and USA and has taken
the commitment not to be the first
to use nuclear weapons.
Together with its allies the
Soviet Union suggested to west-
em countries that\a treaty on the
non-use of military force and on
the development of peaceful rela-
tions should be concluded. Of
paramount importance is the
latest Soviet decision — the uni-
lateral commitment not to be the
first to put into outer space any
type of anti-satellite weapon.

Tom Morris —

A significant event took
Place in South Africa last week
as 8,000 people gathered pub-
licly in Cape Town to step up
the mass campaign against the
apartheid system.

Called by the United Demo-
Cratic Front, an alliance of 400
Civic, union, religious and
Sports organizations, the rally
€xposed the regime’s efforts to
foist a new “‘reform’’ law on
the country which would con-
Unue to exclude the nation’s
fee majority from political

e.

The rally’s significance is
Seen in the fact that it was the
rst mass public gathering
Since the banning of the Afri-

sent over one million people to
fight, as one speaker said, “‘the
evil system of apartheid at
every level.”

In a country where ban-
nings, pass laws, intimidation,
arbitrary arrests, ‘‘legal’’ mur-
ders, life sentences and torture
are built into the system, a
gathering of 8,000 people ina
public place assumes im-
portant dimensions. It is a
courageous and defiant act.

This is all the more so since
the Reagan administration
publicly described South Af-
rica as a ‘‘dependable ally’’,
which is a clear signal to the
Botha regime to hang in there
against the tide of social
liberation.

re—__

29 -
A major slap can National Congress (ANC) The boycott
in 1960. Rally organizers told
at apartheid the press the 400 groups repre- that backfired

Since the 1981 Reagan boy-
cott of equipment to the USSR
for its tremendous gas pipeline
project (almost completed),
friend and foe alike of the pres-
ident told him the only casualty
would be the USA. =

When he imposed the ban,
Reagan arm-twisted his allies
to follow suit. He reasoned the
combined Western effort
would close down the Soviet
pipeline project. He reasoned
wrong.

Reagan’s allies in Europe
told him they wouldn’t climb
aboard. The West Germans,
for example, have close to
500,000 jobs riding on mas-
sive trade with the USSR. The
Japanese bushwacked
Reagan’s boycott too. They
picked up the slack caused by
the embargo in the U.S. and
reaped the benefits. The

French honored their trade.

commitments.

So Reagan and the U.S. cor-
porations found themselves
alone and hurting. Companies
like Caterpillar Tractor began
laying off workers.

' Last week, Reagan lifted the
sanctions. It may or may not
help those U.S. companies
directly hurt because the
USSR simply signed contracts
with suppliers in other coun-
tries and went about its busi-

ness.

But a lesson may have been
learned, at least in some quar-
ters. A spokesman for Cater-
pillar reacted to the Reagan
decision by commenting that
the USSR may not choose to
resume purchases from his
firm. “‘They see us as unreliable
trading partners,’’ he said.

So the U.S. president comes
out looking stupid, as he
should. There’s an old tale
about a man who lifted a large
rock only to drop it on his own
foot.

Not a roar,
just a whimper

No amount of Western:
media hype and stirring ad-
vanced billing could breath life
into the project.
We were all supposed to
hold our breath Aug. 23 and
wait for the drama of the Sol-
idamosc ‘‘work slowdown’’ to
unfold, thus heralding to the
world the continuation of the
“‘freedom struggle’ of Walesa
and a handful of other misfits.
The Lenin shipyards in
Gdansk where Walesa works
as an electrician when he’s not
_ otherwise occupied, was the
focus of the ‘‘slowdown’’.
17,000 workers received in-
structions, goes the story, from
the ‘‘Solidarnosc under-
ground’”’ to “go slow”’.

At the end of the shift, the
only tangible news was that
one of the five members of

Solidarnosc’s ‘‘temporary cv-
ordinating commission’’ has
come in from the cold and ac-
cepted a government amnesty
offered July 22.

The slowdown, says the
Western: press, was to force
Polish authorities to open talks
with Walesa. The stupidity of
that demand was reinforced as
the slowdown flop made crys-
tal clear that Walesa speaks for
Walesa (and perhaps his fami-
ly) but nobody else.

The salad days are over. It’s

_ back to work. No more Time

magazine Man-of-the-Year
covers. No more free cars, free
trips and a free ride.

© oR

All this leaves the CLC-
sponsored “*Solidarnosc
committee’’ in Canada at a bit
of a loose end. Tribune labor
columnist William Stewart this
week (page 5) has some excel-
lent comments as he contrasts
CLC president McDermott’s
timidity in support of em-
battled B.C. workers to his
‘“‘militancy and commitment’’
in support of Polish workers.

“It’s surely not too much to
ask,”’ writes Stewart, ‘‘that the
same spirit of militancy and
commitment be afforded B.C.
workers who are just a little
closer to his direct
responsibility.”’

Stewart is dead right —
Gdansk is doing fine. But in
B.C. there’s a réal demand for
solidarity. :

PACIFIC TRIBUNE—SEPTEMBER 2, 1983—Page 5