By STAN DALTON
TORONTO — The Toronto
Association for Peace, Voice of
Women, Ryerson Peace Commit-
tee and’the Congress of Canadian
Women jointly requested To-
[ ronto Mayor John Sewell to name
the week of May 5-11 Peace Week
in the City of Toronto.
In his letter of compliance
_ Mayor Sewell said: ‘‘May 8th,
1980, will commemorate the clos-
ing of the most destructive war in
history and will bring to the fore,
the need to put an end to war.
War is a small word, but a word
_ which badly affects all people for
generations. The losses suffered
can never be regained.”’
__ From April 28 to May 9 (exclud-
ing weekends) the May 10th Ad

' Hoc Committee, including more

than a dozen organizations, main-
tained a daily noon-hour vigil at
the cenotaph in front of Old City
Hall. Bearing banners calling for
an end to the arms race, the ban-
ning of the neutron bomb, Persh-
‘ing I and the Cruise missile, the

activists, numbering up to

20 daily, distributed some 20,000

pieces of literature to passersby
who, despite the strong cold war
atmosphere, were friendly and
polite.
On May 8 — V-E Day — the
giant 30-foot banner: “Never
in’’ was held to proclaim sim-
and to the point what is proc-
laimed in the hearts of millions of

» Canadians: No More War!

On Saturday, May 10 more
than 250 peace marchers gathered
at Queen’s Park bearing placards
and banners bearing the vital slo-
gans for peace and disarmament.

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As they marched down Yonge St.
to City Hall, the main slogan,
echoing loud above the roar of the
city was: ‘‘Peace — Yes, War —
No, Ban the Neutron Bomb!”

_ War’s losses
Never regained

Thousands of strolling shoppers
stopped to listen and read the lit-
erature handed out on the way.
A rally at Nathan Philips
Square featured retired U.S.
General, Hugh B. Hester. Adam-
ant in his condemnation of U.S.
President Jimmy Carter and his
National Security advisor, Zbig-

niew Brzezinski, (madmen, he

called them) for their reckless es-
capades concerning the situations
in Iran and Afghanistan and the
entire Middle East, Hester
pointed to the obvious threat to all
of humanity if these, and other
Pentagon hawks, are not stopped.
Hester reiterated the connection
between the drive to a cold and
hot war, to the unrelenting appe-
tite of the arms merchants for big-
ger and bigger profit.

Among the speakers was civic
activist, lawyer Charles Roach,
who noted with irony that while
the U.S. and its allied yes-men
(the Canadian Government in
particular) are frantically working
up a boycott of the Olympic
Games in Moscow, and against
Soviet goods — all in the name of
“‘justice”’ — are still maintaining
strong trade relations with racist
and fascist regimes like South Af-
rica and Chile.

The well known Toronto AlI-
derman, Dan Heap spoke out
against the war overtures of the
U.S. Pentagon and NATO. He
noted with regret the ‘‘sabre-rattl-
ing’’ engaged in by the leadership
of the New Democratic Party dur-

_ ing the February federal election,

and indicated his wish for disar-
mament and a world at peace.

Tim Feher, Ryerson journalism
student and chairman -of the
Ryerson Peace Committee, drew
the connection between the tre-
mendous.cost of arms and student
tuition increases.

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These children send their own messages for peace at the May 10 demonstration marking the 35th anniversary

of the end of World War Il.

Joe Bouchard, president of the
St. Catharine’s Labor Council
and chairman of the Niagara
Peace Movement, condemned
the arms race, noting the severe
implications this has for workers
everywhere. Bouchard expressed
the hopes of millions when he cal-
led for an end to the arms race, for
a nuclear weapon-free world
where working people can get on
with peaceful labor. ;

Jean Vautour, executive sec-
retary of the Canadian Peace
Congress drew attention to the
growing respect for the Canadian
Peace Congress internationally.
This was recently underlined, she
pointed out, by an invitation to
the Congress from the govern-
ment of Iran to send two Cana-
dian revresentatives to their
country to see, first hand, what’s

actually happening there. This is a
necessary measure by the Ira-
nians because of the intense cam-
paign of lies and deception by the
‘free’ press of the U.S., Canada,

and their allies in the ‘‘free’’ west.

The rally wound up with the
song ‘Blowin’ in the Wind’, sung
by Ryerson students, Tim Feher
and Wayne Cohen.

Egypt’s Sadat, friend of
Jimmy Carter; self-appointed
spokesman for the Palestinian
people, is in deep trouble.

From 1977, when he first
betrayed Arab unity and, with
U.S. backing, sold out Palesti-
nian rights, Sadat has seen the
highly-touted Camp David ac-
cords go down the drain. It
couldn’t be otherwise.

Camp David evaporates

Israel’s Begin and the hawks
have made Sadat look foolish.
They have made no conces-
sions on occupied Arab land,
on their settlements program
or anything else. On the con-
trary, Israel stepped up its
campaign and _ publicly
thumbed its nose at Sadat. The
May 26 deadline for a settle-
ment, like the Camp David
agreement, is meaningless.

Warsaw, Nato meetings — a contrast

The foreign and defence ministers of
the NATO countries have recently
concluded a meeting designed on the
insistence of the U.S. military to bring
its NATO partners into line with U.S.
aims. According to the daily press for
May 15 the meeting ‘‘condemned the
Soviet Union for jeopardizing world
peace and agreed on certain military
measures to bolster Western defence in
the aftermath of Soviet moves into Af-
ghanistan.”’ In other words to heat up
the arms race.

_ The military measures agreed upon
were “‘to expedite plans to deploy new
weapons (read medium-range nuclear
weapons, A.D.) and increase stock of
ammunition and transport aircraft in
Europe.” Readers will note the NATO
strategists have apparently moved
Afghanistan into western Europe.

The daily press of the same date re-
ports a meeting of the leaders of the
Warsaw Pact countries. This meeting
noted that ‘‘détente was dangerously
overshadowed by the intensified activ-
ity of imperialist and cold war forces’’.
It went on to state that these forces
were “‘seeking to aggravate tension
and escalate the arms race and pursue
policies from a position of strength.””

In sharp contrast to the NATO
meeting, the Warsaw Pact meeting,
according to the Globe and Mail of

Marxism-Leninism in Today’s World

May 16, agreed upon a joint declara-
tion “designed to give fresh impetus to
disarmament and détente talks with

the West’’.

* * *

It is useful to repeat from the Globe"

and Mail of the same date the words of
general-secretary Gierek of the Polish
United Workers Party that the main
target of the joint declaration ‘‘is the
elimination of the present tension’’.
And that ‘‘there is no reasonable alter-
native to the policy of détente.”
Gierek also drew attention to his pro-
posal for a new European disarmament
conference in Warsaw which would
likely “‘figure prominently in the joint
declaration’.

The same press release reported
that Soviet President Brezhnev stated
that “‘in the present complex situation,
when millions of people feel anxious

_about the destiny of détente and peace,

a firm warning resounds from Warsaw
against the policy of war adventures
and the feverish arms race’’.
* * x

The sharp Contrast between the ap-
proaches of NATO and the Warsaw
meetings of how to solve the most cru-
cial issue of our times — war or peace
—deserves sober study by Canadians.

This is particularly so in view of Cana-
da’s stance at the NATO meeting. The
daily press for May. 14 reports that
‘‘Canada gave a firm pledge’’ to sup-
port the defence spending of NATO.

This pledge was given as anexpression —

of ‘‘willingness’’ to shoulder a greater
part of the European defence burden.
This is necessary because of ‘‘addi-
tional U.S. commitments in the Per-
sian Gulf and.the Indian Ocean.”
Canada’s Defence Minister Lamon-
tagne said at the NATO meeting that
there is ‘‘no reason’’ why Canada can-
not meet the 3% yearly increase in

NATO funding. He offered to help.
NATO’s poorest members, Turkey

and Portugal. How generous! In order
to fire up the arms race our Minister of
Defence is prepared to undermine the
dietary and shelter standards of our
poor working class kids.

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The aggressive-minded circles of
U.S. imperialism constitute the
greatest menace to peace. They aim to
establish a commanding position in the
imperialist camp by seizing political
and financial control of the former col-
onial countries. They hope to stop the
decline of capitalist by striving to re-
solve its contradictions at the expense

of the socialist countries by organizing
a war against them. NATO isa military
vehicle for the realization of these im-
perialist objectives.

The cold war against the Soviet
Union and the other socialist countries
is key to this strategy. The cold war
can only be classified as an inter-
mediate, unstable state between war
and peace, a state of political hostility,
one step removed from armed con-
flict. It involves maximum restriction
of normal trade relations between so-
cialist and capitalist countries, restric-
tive trade lists, embargoes and
economic blockade, cessation or re-
duction to a minimum of cultural ex-
change and scientific contacts, and
subversion against socialist states
while outwardly maintaining normal
diplomatic relations.

* * *

This is the cold war which the Cana-
dian government wants to support
with our tax dollars, and with the loss
of profitable markets such as the grain
sales to the Soviet Union and other
socialist countries. Canadians have
everything to gain by uniting to check
the cold war and threats .of nuclear
war, and strengthening the cause of
peace, détente and disarmament, and
normal relations with the socialist
countries.

PACIFIC TRIBUNE—MAY 30, 1980—Page 9