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WORLD

Gorbachev assesses reaction
to Soviet test ban initiative

By EDGAR CHEPOLOV
Novosti Political Analyst

MOSCOW — Responding to reporters’ questions,
Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev analyzed the re-
sponse of the international public and of American lead-
ers to the imposition of a moratorium on nuclear testing
by the USSR. He noted that prominent statesmen and
public figures in many countries, the United States in-
eeced, have expressed their support for the moratorium
idea.

They did so because they hope that the Soviet initia-
tive will lead to a slowdown and subsequently an end to
the nuclear arms race. To sum up, many view the Soviet
Proposal as a major step towards improving the inter-
national climate. The feel that if the United States re-
sponded to the Soviet call and discontinued its nuclear
tests as well, an end would be put to the development of
new, more destructive nuclear weapons, and better
conditions would be created for reaching mutually ac-
ceptable agreements on reducing current nuclear
stockpiles.

Meanwhile, Washington has dodged a positive answer
to the Soviet proposal. In this connection, Gorbachev

The USSR urges steps to halt the arms race at the recent
Helsinki conference. Photo: New Soviet Foreign Minister
Eduard Shevardnadze (right) greets his U.S. counterpart
George Shultz.

noted: ‘‘We had no intention at all of placing the U.S.
leadership in a difficult position. The U.S. President was
notified in advance of our action by letter in which we
suggested that the American side act in an analogous
way.” 3

American politicians oppose the moratorium because
they do not want the nuclear arms assembly lines to
come to a standstill, Gorbachev emphasized. In the final
analysis, this position is prompted by a desire to gain
military supremacy over the USSR — an unattainable
goal.

To justify its refusal to join the moratorium, the U.S. is
trying to distort our real intentions. It claims that the
Russians are now striving for a respite after a series of
nuclear explosions, that the U.S. is lagging behind the
USSR in the field of nuclear weapons. In real fact, the
new Soviet initiative is an honest and open move. We
proceed from the premise that it is necessary to take
practical measures in order to stop the buildup and
sophistication of nuclear weapons.

In his interview with Tass, Gorbachev noted that it
was not easy for the USSR to take such a step. To
introduce the unilateral moratorium, it had to interrupt
its testing program, leaving it unfinished. In the current
year before the moratorium, practically the same
number of nuclear explosions were carried out in the
USSRas inthe USA. If one is to speak of all nuclear tests
which have been held up to now, their number was much
greater in the United States than in the USSR.

But in taking the decision for a unilateral moratorium,

' the Soviet Union was guided not by arithmetic, but by

principled political considerations, by a striving to help
end the nuclear arms race and to induce the USA and
other nuclear powers to take such a step. Our goal is
complete and general cessation of nuclear weapons
tests.

In the U.S. today there is much talk about the ‘‘impos-
sibility’’ of verifying compliance with the moratorium.
The Soviet leader noted in this context that the scientific
and technical potential existing in this country, the
United States and other countries provides the neces-
sary degree of confidence that a nuclear explosion, even
ofa small yield, will be detected and will become known.

Unilateral steps to end nuclear explosions cannot, of
course altogether resolve the matter of an overall nuclear

Peace group’s note
welcomed in USSR

A letter sent to Soviet leader Gorbachev by
Operation Dismantle congratulating the USSR on
its decision to unilaterally halt nuclear testing has
received wide public coverage in the Soviet media.

Signed by the Ottawa-based group’s president,
Jim Stark, the letter described the Soviet move as
“‘constructive’’ and likened it to the 1960s U.S.
decision to ban atmospheric testing, a move which
was taken up by the USSR resulting in the conclu-
sion of an atmospheric test ban agreement.

‘The letter took issue with the American re-
sponse to the Soviet move,’ Stark told the
Tribune. ‘‘In it we told the Soviet leader our group
will press our government to urge reciprocation by
Western powers.”

Stark said he recognized the Soviet moratorium
“is part and parcel of their efforts to stop the U.S.
Star Wars program’’ and, if matched by the U.S.,
‘would help stop Star Wars.”

‘Our organization is not ‘pro-Soviet’,” Stark
concluded. “‘We may pay a political price for this,
but that’s okay. On this the Soviets are right.”

weapons test ban. “An international agreement is essen-
tial for the matter to be solved once and for all. Apart
from appropriate obligations, it would also contain an
appropriate system of verification measures — both na-
tional and international. In short, we are for verification
of the ending of nuclear explosions, but we are against
cessation of tests being substituted by their continuation
in the presence of observers’’, said Gorbachev.

The Soviet Union has repeatedly proposed to the
United States that the talks on general and complete
cessation of nuclear weapons tests be resumed. Moscow
is reaffirming this proposal today. It is clear that the
holding of such talks and the attainment of constructive
results at them would be much easier in conditions where
the USSR and the USA would not be conducting nuclear
tests.

However, the United States does not want to return to
the negotiating table. But it is important to consider the

problem earnestly and without delay, -with a view,

among other things, to the forthcoming Soviet-American
summit meeting.

international Focus

Tom Morris

Brutal murder

‘not excessive’

When Israeli troops stormed
a bus being held by four young
Palestinians in April, 1984, two
of them died in the fighting and
two were taken off by their
captors led by General Yitzhak
Mordechai, the country’s top
infantry and paratroop officer.
The Palestinians had seized the
bus demanding freedom for 25
of their jailed comrades.

What followed was as biz-
Zarre as it was savage.

The two captured Palesti-
nian youth disappeared and
later turned up dead. An Israeli
army official communiqué ex-
plained that they died of their
injuries on way to hospital.

But the story was_ short
lived.

News photographer Alex
Libak of the Israeli paper
Hadashot had film of the two
Palestinians, in perfect health,
being led off. Despite military
censorship, the photo was cir-
culated and identified positive-
ly by family and friends as the
murdered men.

Unable to escape. the fact it
had lied, the Israeli army put

the matter before an army dis-.

ciplinary court which pon-
dered evidence that the Gen-
eral personally pistol-whipped

the men; that others under his
command beat them to death
with rifle butts moments after
their capture.

The court’s verdict? It ruled
that the General and others had
not used excessive violence
against their prisoners. ““The
injury done by the chief para-
trooper was not unreasonable
... it found.

If cold-bloodedly beating
Arab prisoners to death is held
‘*not unreasonable”’ in Israel,
then that country is setting upa
new code of conduct whose
implications can only be im-
agined.

Seeing eye-to-eye
with apartheid

Jerry Falwell, Christian
Moral Majority guru, is often
seen at Ronald Reagan’s side.

He’s an excellent commu- |

nicator, like his boss, and, also
like Reagan, a right-wing
fundamentalist.

Falwell, along with a host of
others, makes his living
preaching a simple message:
Americans are God’s chosen
people with a mission to lead
the world; Russians are evil —
period.

Little wonder that Falwell
would find South Africa’s

Moral
Reagan’s right bower, says ra-
cist South Africa is a ‘friend of
the West.”

Majority’s Falwell,

P.W. Botha appealing. Emerg-
ing last week from a meeting
with the racist president in Pre-
toria, Falwell announced he
will return home to begin a
campaign to convince Ameri-
cans that South Africa “‘is a
country making progress and a
friend of the West’’.

Millions who watch U.S.
right-wing Christian television
stations will now have their
minds picked as well as their
pockets as Falwell’s message
against sanction begin.

This new crusade is also
timed to counter upcoming
measures by Congress against
apartheid, measures Reagan
doesn’t want and may veto.

So we have the two bowers:
Reagan pushing his discredited
“‘constructive engagement”’
hoax and Falwell pumping up
his fundamentalist hoards in
support of apartheid. =

Falwell’s visit must have
been one of the few bright mo-
ments in Botha’s week. Un-
fortunately the guru doesn’t
have the means to make him a
saint.

Somebody help

the Prince

“Life is not all a bed of
rose’’, he mused last week.

‘“‘We’re all trying to explain
why we’re here, and where on
earth we're going. Some
people feel there’s nothing at
all, others feel there is’’, he
went on. .

A guy being ground down at
a dead-end job? Some robot
sweating it out on an assembly
line? Or maybe a wretch
watching his pogey run out
wondering how to pav the
rent?

Nope. It’s Charles, Prince of
Wales, heir to the British
Throne, co-producer of a new
line of spoon-fed parasites
speaking. It seems the good pr-
ince is bored, perhaps reaching
his mid-life crisis, or contem-
plating why it is he’s been af-

forded such luck while millions
of British youth wither on the
vine of joblessness and
despair.

Maybe he’s empathizing,
or has watched film of Ethio-
pian kids.

Charles then revealled he’s
going to study philosophy —
from the ancients Greeks to
Indian thinking — as well as
analytical psychology. Good
for him. Among other things,
he might contemplate why
neither India nor Greece have
kings.

It’s a dirty job, betaamebadys
got to do it...

PACIFIC TRIBUNE, AUGUST 28, 1985 e 5