- victor perio
PEOPLE VS. PROFITS
The military-buildup drive

T he U.S. media gives unprecedented publicity to the CIA lie that the USSR

is outspending the U.S. for military purposes by 45%, and is increasing its
military budget at a furious rate, while the U.S. military budget is “really”
being reduced.

This is being used to justify the rapid acceleration of the U.S. military
budget now underway, and the campaign against ratification of SALT II.
President Carter proposes an extra $5 billion for the 1980 military budget,
and has approved the $33 billion MX missile program.

The campaign is being promoted actively not only by the usual
military-industrial-political, right-wing complex, but directly by major fi-
nancial powers.

The First National Bank of Chicago, in a monthly business letter, leads
with an article with Lt. General Thomas P. Stafford, of moon-landing fame,
spreading the CIA lie, and concludes with an oration for a big military
budget increase as the ‘‘price” this generation must pay ‘‘to maintain
freedom and liberty.”

The Wall Street Journal carries a major editorial ‘“Reject SALT Now”
buttressed by an editorial page feature on Soviet vs. U.S. military expendi-
tures, which criticizes the CIA liars for not lying big enough. The author,
Henry S. Rowen, pictures the U.S. as a helpless military midget alongside
the Soviet giant.

The Wall Street Journal says that even Senator Nunn, with his demand
for a 4-5% “real growth,’”’ doesn’t go far enough. Its position, in effect, would

call for a 20% per year rise in the current dollar military budget (Sept. 11). -

I provided a basic response to the CIA lie about Soviet military spend-
ing in an “answer” for World Magazine’s Q&A page. But let’s take some
other, capitalist sources. Rowen, homself, in the Wall Street Journal article,
admits:

“The credibility of the CIA’s costing procedures received a jolt in 1975
when the agency abruptly increased its estimate of (the Soviet defense)
burden from 6% to 8% of GNP to 11% to 13%. Of particular note was a 200%
increase in its estimate of the cost of weapons and construction.”

That was the year of the final U.S. defeat in Vietnam, when afresh U.S.
military buildup began, and the public’s hopes of a shift in priorities was
- dashed. The former CIA lying estimate didn’t provide a sufficient prop-

aganda base for the new military buildup. So the CIA increased its overall
~ Soviet budget estimate by 50%, and heavy weapons estimate by 200%, to fit
the new political requirements of the military-industrial complex.

Frank Barnaby, president of the Stockholm International Peace Re-
search Institute (SIPRI), gives that institute’s estimates of relative arsen-
als and military spending in 1978 (Bulletin of Atomic Scientists, September
1979). SIPRI isoa capitalist institute. It manipulates Soviet budget figures in
a way similar to that of the CIA, but not so extremely.

SIPRI estimates that U.S. and Soviet military spending were almost
identical in 1978, each at about 25% of the world total. But NATO spending
came to 42.8% of the total, as against 28.6% for the Warsaw Treaty Organi-
zation states. Moreover, China, NATO’s new and most fervent anti-Soviet
ally, accounted for 10.5% of the world total, raising the anti-socialist bloc’s
military spending to 53:3% of the world total, nearly double that of the
socialist community!

Pentagon propaganda has spread tales of imminent Soviet naval
superiority. About this, SIPRI states:

“Currently, NATO and Warsaw Treaty countries operate 485 and 195
major naval warships, respectively .. .But the characteristics of these
forces vary soconsiderably that comparisons can be misleading. The Soviet
Navy, for example, is probably not capable of sustained fighting.”’

Probably Soviet admirals would disagree with that last sentence, but
hardly with the overall conclusion of the much greater strength of the NATO
navies.

Recent wars have been fought in developing countries, and a
mankind-destroying world war can originate there. SIPRI estimates that
NATO accounts for 70% of the exports of major weapons (47% from the U.S.
along), versus 27% from the Warsaw Pact powers.

The Wall Street Journal and SIPRI agree on one thing: that the MX _

missile will deal a devastating blow to arms control.

The Wall Street Journal prints an alleged conversation between U.S.
Defense Secretary Harold Brown, joint Chiefs Chairman David C. Jones,
and Soviet Defense Minister Dmitriy F. Ustinov, at the June Vienna summit
meeting. The U.S. spokesmen tried to get Soviet acceptance of a mobile
missile dispersion scheme, apparently the ‘race track”’ scheme just an-
nounced by Carter. Ustinov was very defintie: ‘“‘Such deployments are
unacceptable and we cannot agree to them.”’

The Wall Street Journal hopes Soviet refusal to accept the MX will heip
to prevent U.S. ratification of SALT IT. Because the missiles would not be
deployed until the treaty expiration in 1985, the buildup towards the MX — at
up to $10 billion per year — might not be considered an immediate violation
of SALT II, but would certainly cripple the possibility of SALT III progress.

Indeed, the whole U.S. military propaganda and budgetary buildup is
designed to defeat the arms control and disarmament perspedtive strategi-
cally, even if it can’t be defeated tactically during the SALT II debate.

By Carole Collier

MIAMI

Recently six Haitians, five of them
children (including a two-year old),
drowned off the coast of Florida aftér
they were thrown into high seas.
eS more Haitians made it safely to
shore.

“There are always people who will ...
make a dollar off someone else’s mis-
fortune.”’ The Haitians who made it to
shore told authorities they paid $550
each to be brought from the Bahamas
to Florida.

The Tampa Times added, “‘... what
happened off the coast near Lantana
reminds us of some of the gruesome
stories from the days of illegal slave
trade .... Slaveships would often dump
their illegal contraband — consisting of
men, women, and children, wrapped in
heavy chains — into the ocean if they
were in danger of being caught by au-
thorities.”’

This editorial also raised the ques-
tion of why there had not been concern
by the authorities regarding the Hai-
tians while there has been much activ-
ity and publicity around those people
leaving Vietnam.

These drownings off the Florida
coast are not the first. Many have died
at sea between the perilous trip from
Haiti, Cuba, the Bahamas and U.S.
| shores. Last year, in one incident 23
Haitians drowned while sailing here in
a 23-foot vessel carrying 40 or more
people. The boat, which capsized in
rough seas and a torrential storm, car-
ried no lifesaving equipment. Fifteen
‘persons were saved by oil refinery
workers who heard their screams and
rescued them in tugboats.

Another small, old, wooden boat,
Etoile Andre (Andre’s Star), brought 61
Haitians after a month at sea. During
the last three days they had no food or
water.

Haitians flee from their home be-
cause of the high unemployment rates
and severe economic hardship, and be-
cause of wide spread repression.

Many tell stories about the Tontons
Macoute — the cruel secret police force
organized by former President Fran-
cois Duvalier, known as Papa Doc, and
which still exists under his son, Jean

PACIFIC TRIBUNE— OCTOBER 12, 1979—Page 6

A Tampa Times editorial charged, .

‘cousin, Leon Caimite, intervened and

_ 1972, but the largest number came

_ Creole, a mixture of French and pato

Claude Duvalier, the present dictator
of Haiti. : J

One such story is told by Antoine}
Fils-Aimee. a

“One time the Tontons Macoute
tried to kill me. I was with some other |
people in the street and they shot at me, |
but missed. Another fellow, a boy of
some 18 years, was struck by. the bullet
and died. :

‘‘Another time, when I lived
Leogane, in 1969, I woke up and saw two;
hanged men outside my door. I called’
the Macoutes and told them about the
dead men; they told me it was not my
business.”’

In 1972 Fils-Aimee was talking wi
a group, criticizing Duvalier. The ne
morning the Tonton Macoutes bro
into his home and took him to Fort Dr
manche, where he was beaten. H

arranged for him to be released on tht
condition that he stop criticizing the
government. He refused. Later, 4)
co helped him escape from Haiti by}
at. : =
Haitians began migrating to the
Bahamas in 1957. About 40,000 live
Nassau, Freeport and other island:
The government of the Bahamas, how)
ever, has said that economic conditions)
there do not allow for such a large i
flux of Haitians. Hundreds of Haitia
were arrested in nighttime raids, jail
and then deported to Port au Prince:
Some 120,000 Haitians are expected
seek refuge in Florida to escape depo!
tation from the Bahamas. They begal)
arriving in-south Florida in Decem

summer.
_ The initial processing of Haitiam®
who are apprehended when they land
on Florida shores consists of the im
migration interpreter asking them

their names, birthdates and home 4a!
dresses in Haiti. They are then put
vans and taken to jail. Most Haiti
arrive in the U.S. penniless. They th’
have no money for bail, and many Fé)
main in jail for months.

As a result, over the years jail hi
been home for many Haitian refugeé
They-are sent as far away as If
mokalee in the southwestern part of
state.

Warden James T. Lester of the 1?
mokalee jail has described the fi a |
cial_advantages of having the jail fu)

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