EDITORIAL

NATO adds to war danger

At a time when liying standards of
working people are being forced down
in Canada, military spending is in a con-
stant climb..A large part of the reason for
that is the so-called North Adantic Tre-
aty Organization of which Canada is a
member. .

NATO was established to confront, in-
timidate, and if the opportunity should
arise, probe into Europe’s socialist coun-
tries. Its role has been as well to gather
up bases and new “members”, stretchin
the north Atlantic to include Turkey an
Greece and to the establishment of spy
centres at the British bases on Cyprus.

NATO has sharply increased the
danger of war through its 1979 decision
to deploy a new generation of nuclear
missiles in western Europe. Mighty pro-

tests have been mounted against the in~,.«

stallation of these U.S. weapons — the
Pershing II and the Cruise. Masses of
people in Britain, West Germany, Bel-
gium, Netherlands and France, for
example, have demanded their govern-
ments keep these messengers of disaster
off their territories. —

There is very good reason why the
egies in Canada — and there have
n a number (blacked out by the
monopoly media) — should grow in
breadth and size. First: there will be no
such thing as a local nuclear war, which
will destroy Europeans but not us. A nuc-
lear war would be a world-wide horror.
As the apt slogan of the Kamloops-
Shuswap Peace Council puts it: If you've
seen one nuclear war, you’ve seen them
all.

Second: it is criminal for Canada’s ex-
ternal affairs minister to state on behalf
of the federal government that Canada’s

ruling class “weren’t prepared to go with

_that proposal,” the proposal made by

neutral and non-aligned countries for a
disarmament conference following the
current Madrid meeting on peace and
security in Europe.

Canada should be jumping at a chance

to promote disarmament, both for the ~

sake of life itself, and because the infla-
tion and cutbacks we are suffering are
directly related to the soaring, inflatio-
nary military budget, now well over $5-
billion a year. :

It should also. be kept in mind, al-
though the big media order us to dismiss
it, that the USSR undertakes not to direct
nuclear weapons against any country
which does not,manufacture them or
have them on its soil.

Canada has been made a willing
powder-monkey of U.S. military strategy
by successive big business governments
in Ottawa. For too long our people have

‘been paying to bloat U.S. imperialism

and its NATO department.

Now NATO is taking a new and most
dangerous step. It is pushing its

-influence into the Persian Gulf and sur-’

rounding region. Instead of going along

_with this provocation, Ottawa should be

protesting it with all its means. Are
Canadians expected, as well as seeing
U.S. transnationals rob them at home, to
tighten their belts to help pay for U.S.
bullying in the Gulf?

Never have there been more reasons
for demanding our country’s withdrawal
from NATO. Let government ministers
stop their impertinent belt-tightening
advice, and their stuffy refusal to talk of
disarmament, and instead redirect their
NATO squandering to useful and
peaceful purposes.

~- Mideast meet has merit

The credibility of the USA’s current
Middle East policy suffered a damaging
blow, May 22, with General Haig’s sneer _
at a proposal for an international con--
ference to help prevent all-out war
around Lebanon. :

If peace, rather than back-door, anti-
Soviet military deals were the main pur-
pose of shuttling U.S. envoy Philip
Habib, the USA would surely seize upon
the proposal by the Soviet president as a
positive step.

It is heartening for the world that Jor-
dan’s King Hussein took this position
during a recent visit to Moscow, endors-
ing such a conference, and its inclusion
of the Palestine Liberation Organization
~ as “an equal partner”.

Amid wails about the so-called Syrian
“missile crisis”, the real crisis stems from
Israeli expansionism, including the use
of terrorism to deprive the Palestinian
Arabs of their homeland. It stems also
from Israel’s evident attempts to parti- .
tion Lebanon. :

The crisis stems as well from the U.S.
grand plan to establish its military con-
trol of the Middle East and the area’s oil
resources.

PACIFIC TRIBUNE—JUNE 5, 1981—Page 4

While Canadian big business media
detail Premier Begin’s threats of attack if
Syria does not withdraw ground-to-air
missiles from Lebanon’s Bekaa Valley
(and even from Syria’s own border ter-

ritory!), they take for granted Israel’s

overflights and across the border mur-
der raids. They also choose to overlook
the fact that the Syrian troops are in
Lebanon under an Arab League man-
date, not subject to U.S. approval, and
agreed to by Lebanon’s government.
They are there to resist attack by the
Israelis and their fifth column ac-
complices, the falangist sect of Lebanese
Christians.
With Premier Begin threatening dir
actions to assert Israeli domination of

Lebanon and its air space, it is obvious ~

that the international conference to seek
urgent solutions has merit which U.S.
rejection cannot invalidate.

In calling for such a conference,
Brezhnev warned: “One ill-considered
step is enough for the whole Middle East
to be engulfed in the flames of war and it
is unknown how far the sparks of the fire
will fly.”

' That is something all governments
should contemplate. a

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Vsevolod Arsenyev in Moscow News

Flashbacks

25 years ago... 50 years ago...

s=MORE TERROR
IN SOUTH AFRICA

Concluding one of the most
notorious cases of _ police
provocation in South African
history, Alexander Benkes, a
native agricultural laborer, was
given the savage sentence of six
and one-half years and nine
cuts with the cane on a
framed-up charge arising out of
a farmer's strike.

The farmers struck for better
food, higher wages and against
the practice of white farmers
giving alcohol to native chil-
dren. Police charged the far-
mers’ march with fixed bayonets.
They shot down and killed
seven workers and wounded 20.

In the battle a police captain
was knocked down but was un-
injured. For this Benkes re-
ceived this sentence without
even being allowed to address
the court.
The Worker,
June 6, 1931

PKA

Banks are raking in fortunes but we're told the high rates go to
cut inflation, bolster the Canadian dollar. One thing they obviously
do is produce super-profits for banks. In just six months, to April
30, the Bank of Montreal had after-tax profits of $173,900,000, up
from $124,600,000 in the same period a year earlier.

Profiteer of the week

SCANDALOUS,
OUTRAGEOUS

The House of Commons was ~
somewhat quieter when CCF
leader M.J. Coldwell rose to —
speak last Monday. His words ©
were those most Canadians
might have used had they stood ~
in his place.

“The people of Canada are ©
financing some $200-million of
this pipeline project ... for a —
corporation which is controlled —
83.4% by powerful gas and oil
companies in the United States.

“I say this is a scandalous
thing, it is an outrageous thing,
and the Canadian ple
should understand exactly how
it is being undertaken.” Here
was manifest the crisis of Cana-
da’s national policy, here .was—
summed up: the need for a-
national policy for Canada.

Tribune, —
June 4, 1956

PACIFIC

RiBUN

Editor — SEAN GRIFFIN
Associate Editor — FRED WILSON
Business and Circulation Manager — PAT O’CONNOR

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