Gemelnsam.fllr dle Grund intechtexin der BRD West German and foreign representatives of the movement against “Bans on Professions” as well as victims of political discrimination rallied recently at a protext meeting in Dortmund, FRG. The participants at the meeting demanded an end to the persecution of people for their convictions and declared that such activities Is a violation of human rights and contradicts the letter and spirit of the Final Act of the European Conference in Helsinki. ETHIOPIA JOINS IN WORLD DENUNCIATION OF N-BOMB GENEVA — Ethiopia denounced the neutron bomb at a 25-nation Disarmament Committee meeting held here recently. T. Theref, Ethiopia’s representative in the United Nations related committee meeting, stated ‘‘the N-bomb is inadmissable because it would inevita- bly lead to an intensification of the arms race. Ethiopia is for ending the = race, for complete disarmament under strict international con- trol.” PONOMARYOV ATTENDS SOCIALIST INTERNATIONAL MEET HELSINKI — The Socialist International recently held a special conference on Disarmament in Helsinki, Finland. The Socialist Inter- national is the organization of various social-democratic parties throughout the world. Boris Ponomarev, alternate member of the Political Bureau of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, was invited to attend the conference, and was welcomed in Helsinki by Kalevi Sorsa, chairman of the Finnish Social Democratic Party; by : Karlsson, Socialist International general secretary, and other Officials. CIA’S ROLE IN ANGOLA BARED BY EX-AGENT WASHINGTON — Ex-CIA agent John Stockwell has written a _ book about the CIA’s role in the Angolan civil war. He discussed some se oo appear of his book in the television show, 60 Minutes, on ay 7. _ ‘*We were running a secret war’’ Stockwell said, with the CIA helping UNITA and FNLA against the MPLA. He learned that the CIA ‘‘was incompetent. That we were not very good at running a. covert war. That we were dishonest. That we were willing to lie about it to keep it going, to con the American public, to manipulate the Congress in order to keep playing our games.” 100,000 POLITICAL PRISONERS STILL HELD IN INDONESIA JAKARTA — World Beat magazine reports that 1,500 political prisoners were released from the Indonesian prison island of Buru. However, George Oliver of Gemini News.Services writes that Am- nesty International estimates that as many as 100,000 political prison- ers remain in detention in Indonesia. Most have been held, without trial, since 1965, when the army rounded up members of the three million member Indonesian Communist Party. CELEBRATION OF THIRD ANNIVERSARY OF VIETNAM’S LIBERATION HO CHI MINH CITY — More than 30,000 Vietnamese gathered before the former Presidential Palace in Ho Chi Minh City (Saigon) on April 30, to celebrate the 3rd anniversary of the day Saigon was liberated, in April 30, 1975. Visiting speakers included Luis Corvalan, head of the Chilean Communist Party, Guenter Berger, leading a delegation from the Ger- man Democratic Republic, and Ounheauane Phounsavant, Laotian minister of information. Vo An Kiet, the city’s mayor, praised the people ‘‘who in the past three years have carried out tireless revolutionary activity with a sense of being the collective master of society.”’ IRISH WOMEN PROTEST CONTINUED BRITISH REPRESSION BELFAST — Three mothers in Northern Ireland whose sons were killed by British troops protested against continued British repression in a letter to prime minister Callaghan of Britain. Anne Horney, Cath- leen Stewart and Rosin MacQuee, leaders of the Movement Against British Violence in Ireland, demanded an independent inquiry into British military repression. In an interview with Igor Titov, cor- respondent for the Soviet news agency TASS, they said that special units of the British Royal Marines, notorious for its past murders and tortures, has once again been posted as a “‘peacekeeping force”’ in Belfast. Members of this unit killed their teenage sons, the women said. PACIFIC TRIBUNE—May 19, 1978—Page 4 SOVIET LEADER SPEAKS TO WEST GERMANS Let’s build peace and trust Just prior to his visit to the Fed- eral Republic of Germany, Soviet leader Leonid Brezhnev was inter- viewed by Vorwarts, weekly news- paper of the Social Democratic Party of Germany. The entire text was also reprinted in the Soviet dai- ly, Pravda. We provide below some of the key points made in this interview: On USSR-FRG Trade Soviet-FRG trade looks quite impressive. It has risen 5.5 times compared with 1970 and today the FRG is our leading Western trad- ing’ partner. We have many mutually-advantageous agree- merits, for example the contract 2 to exchange Soviet natural gas for = pipes. Its significance is not only seen in its large scale, but also by its long term which symbolizes our mutual desire for stability in our economic ties. West German firms are taking part in the building in the USSR of the world’s largest electrometal- lurgical complex and in the build- ing of Moscow’s Sheremetyevo airport. During a recent visit to Siberia I saw FRG trucks being used in the construction of the Baikal-Amur railway. On the other hand, many of your citizens like the Lada automobile from our Volga Motor Plant. There are many such examples. Naturally problems crop up from time to time which we, on our part, try to overcome. We are counting on the FRG to also help in overcoming difficulties — for example we expect that restric- tions on Soviet products will soon be lifted and more favorable cus- toms regulations adopted. USSR-FRG trade has certainly not reached its ceiling. Soviet ex- ports to the FRG amount to 0.09% of our gross national product while FRG exports to the USSR stand at 0.6%. There’s still plenty- of room to expand trade. . On Detente and Peace in Europe: We believe further detente in B Europe largely depends on solv- ing urgent military questions. Political detente should now merge with military detente — by reducing the arms race, curbing this race. The USSR set forth a whole program for military detente in- cluding a proposal that states pub- licly pledge not to be the first to use nuclear weapons; non- expansion of existing military al- liances and a ceiling on troops tak- ing part in maneuovres. A Soviet military threat to Europe or anywhere else simply does not exist. We see the cam- paign in the West charging the USSR with trying to achieve military superiority. First, the USSR is not building up its forces in Europe ... furthermore we keep proposing to the Western side at the Vienna talks that the two sides agree to no troop in- creases in Central Europe. Re- gretably, so far the West has not accepted our proposal. Regarding ‘“‘superiority’’, we have exchanged official statistics at the Vienna talks and find that each side has a little. more than 980,000 troops in Central Europe. There are, of course, some differ- ences due to the different struc- turing of armed forces. We, for instance, are superior in land force missiles whereas the NATO bloc has the edge in air force mis- siles with nuclear warheads. Where the two military- political groups confront each other in Europe, equilibrium clearly exists. We are asking: is it necessary to keep this equilibrium at its present high level or can it be lowered without "upsetting the balance in anyone’s favor? The USSR strongly be- lieves it could and should be low- ered. Concerning a so-called global “Soviet threat’, there is rough parity between the two biggest global powers — the U.S. and USSR. It is precisely this parity which forms the basis of the a military Soviet-American agreement of strategic offensive arms limitation — — both in the 1972 agreement and the one now being drawn up. About our navy: first you must remember we have some ‘40, kilometres of coastline to defend and we have built our fleet for this defense. NATO has a strong of fensive capability on the higl seas. The structure. of our fleet 1S of a purely defensive nature. For example it is no accident that the Soviet fleet does not have, and is not building strike aircraft car- riers. We do not want a war and are | not preparing for a war. We find the numbers game about “‘ac- ceptable losses”’ in a nuclear wat callous. We are not heartened by. talk in the West that ‘‘only 10% of the world’s people will die in 4 nuclear: war’’. We don’t want anyone to be among that 10%. I say bluntly: The USSR is not © going to make “‘a first strike’. On — the contrary, we keep urging the NATO nations to join us in sucha pledge and they keep refusing. , Who is threatening whom? The Soviet Union is, indeed, 2 strong state — politically, economically and militarally. But” we are a peaceful state. There is not a single task we want to ac- — complish in a-military way. We know what the face of wat looks like and those in the FRG who belong to the older genera- tion also know what this face looks like. They understand this better than, say, the people of the ~ United States. Our history shows why we have had to devote so much atten- tion to national defence. When, 10 the early days after our Revolu- ,tion, we urged all warring powers to conclude a peace treaty, the Western powers replied with col- lective intervention. When, inthe _ 1930’s, we asked for a European collective security agreement the answer was the Munich Pact and the Hitler aggression that -fol- lowed. When, after the defeat of fas- cism, the USSR began rebuilding its war-torn country, the West launched the ‘‘cold war’ and began blackmailing us with atomic war. They calculated the — USSR, weakened by war, would bow to this pressure. And today when the USSR advances prop- ~ osals for curbing the arms race, for disarmament — neutron — bombs are’ brandished in reply. It must be recalled that it was — not us, but the USA which built dozens of military bases with bombers, submarines, nuclear — arms and strung them along our borders in an ominous chain. It _ would be interesting to see how the inventors of fear would react | ina similar situation. Afterall, our~ _ country has been surrounded in — this way for decades. The USSR is opposed to a ““ba- lance of terror’. We want a ba- * Jance of trust and that’s why we persue detente so vigorously. We are ready, at any moment, to sign an agreement in Vienna lowering the level of troops and arms in Central Europe by 5, 10, 20, and, if you like, by 50%. But let’s do this honestly, so as not to upset the balance; so there is no gain for one side and no loss for the other. Let’s take such real - steps right now ...