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DISARMAMENT

y MIKE PHILLIPS
Massive spending on arms production
creates jobs. Not so, says the Peace Conver-
sion Task Force, a group of bright, young
trade union researchers who've done peace
activists and trade union militants a valua-
ble service with their recent pamphlet, Jobs

“Not Bombs — the case for economic
conversion.

Ina well-researched and convincing piece
of work the Peace Conversion Task Force
methodically breaks down the old myth
that we can gave guns and butter and that
flushing away billions of dollars down the
sink hole of arms production will somehow

be good for working people in the long run. .

‘ With a couple of million Canadians out
of work, the task force says it is inexcusable
to be wasting $9-billion a year on military
spending, with a full billion of that going
straight into arms production.

Conversion, the task force -argues,
doesn’t have to cost a single job. It broadens
the range of occupations needed to produce

_ goods and services to satisfy human needs.

The main obstacle to this taking place,
however, are the corporations whose mil-
itary contracts rake in huge profits as well as
massive government handouts. It has been
shown that continuing military spending,
not only puts a severe drain on the economy
but actually creates fewer and fewer jobs
every year.

or arms,

Using U.S. figures, the task force traces
the outline of the jobs crisis fueled by mas-
sive arms spending. Some 91,000 jobs have
been lost to the wholesale and retail services
industry since the introduction of the 1981
USS. military budget. Textiles and clothing
have said good bye to some 260,000 jobs
since 1981, construction has lost 116,000

. jobs, auto, 206,000 and manufacturing,

166,700 jobs.

Comparing the U.S. statistics, where it is
estimated that 12,000 jobs are lost for every
billion spent on arms production, with the
situation in Canada, and its $8.7-billion
annual military budget, the figures suggest a

net loss of 70,000 to 80,000 jobs in this ~

country as a result of arms spending.
With the Canada-U.S. Defence Produc-

tion Sharing Agreement even more jobs are

lost in this country. As the task force points
out, “for every. dollar Canadian firms earn
from U.S. military contracts the Canadian
government has to buy one dollar’s worth
of finished military hardware from the
U.S.” In fact, in the 10-year period, 1971-81,
Canada spent $1-billion more than we
earned. spt

With the Canadian government doling
out huge sums of money to Canadian firms,
and U.S,-owned “Canadian” subsidiaries,
the working people in this country through
their taxes directly or indirectly subsidize
the U.S. arms industry in addition to foot-

Task force documents case
defence conversion —

ing the bill for our own bloated budget.
An idea of the tremendous job-creating
potential of conversion was seen in another
recent U.S. study which demonstrated how
a diversion of some $10-billion (a tiny por-
tion of the $386-billion spent annually on
the U.S. military), from the four main arms-
dependent industries toward railway equip-
ment, gasohol production, fishing vessel
construction, and solar energy projects
would create 34,000 extra and indirect jobs.
The job-creating prospects which could
flow from conversion in Canada are equally
stunning. Aside from the social services
such as low cost housing, better health care,
education and other public services, the
cash our government is blowing annually
on the arms race could be used to make our
country leaders in mass transit technology,
the development of sophisticated remote
handling and control systems, and such
other technologies as those related to energy

- conservation and environmental pollution

control. :
Yet as the task force pamphlet shows, the

” arms race is damaging and disfiguring the

-Canadian economy. ;

Industries serving the military already tie
up some 20-30 per cent of this country’s best
engineers and scientists, according to the
Peace Conversion Task Force. The pam-
phlet warns that “civilian industry is starved
of the capital it needs to invest in new

By FRED WEIR

traditional site of Italian peace marches.

the first time, the socialist. countries.

as a SUCCESS.

possibilities for common action.

all

peace movements of Eastern Europe.

pean dissident groups.

PERUGIA, Italy — The Third Annual
Conference of END (European Nuclear
Disarmament) concluded here July 21
with a mass candlelight parade to Assisi,

The conference, which opened in Peru-
gia July 17, brought together more than
1,000 delegates representing diverse peace
forces from all over Europe, North and
South America, the Middle East and, for

Despite serious organizational and pro-
cedural defects, and the emergence of a
highly vocal anti-Soviet tendency that
threatened to wreck the fragile “East-West
Dialogue”, the meeting was widely viewed

Delegates had ample opportunity to
make broad contacts, to exchange expe- .
riences and information, and to discuss

Many, however, complained about the
“open character of the conference which
made no distinction between delegates —
giving the same weight to individuals as to
the representatives of mass organizations.

_ There were also widely expressed doubts
concerning the limitations of “dialogue”.
The conference organizers had made no
provision for resolutions to be entertained,
for a final document outlining. areas of
broad agreement or, indeed, for any clear

conclusions to emerge from the meeting at

Worse still were the demonstrations
and organized provocations directed
against. the presence at the conference of
several delegates representing the mass

Both plenary sessions were disupted by
strident supporters of various East Euro-

END, the organizing body, was
founded four years ago in an attempt to
create an. umbrella for the burgeoning

western. European peace movement.
While it has succeeded in attracting very
broad forces to its meetings, END itself
has remained a relatively small and frac-

tious group best known for the ideas of its —

leading intellectual lights, E.P. Thompson,
Mient Jan Faber, Mary: Kaldor and
Johann Galtung. END’s basic approach
thas been to link the struggle for nuclear
disarmament to a violent rejection of the
“two super-powers”’, and to advocate a
“third way” of pan-European unity and
independence. Ses =
In Perugia, some of the END people
-_ and many others taking advantage of
the “openness” of the conference — made
a concerted effort to change the priorities
of the European peace movement. Their
intention was to shift the focus from a
single-minded concentration upon the
need for nuclear disarmament, to an
advocacy of “human rights” issues.
This hidden agenda. clearly emerged

during the several workshops devoted to

“Bast-West Dialogue”. It-became appar-
ent that a large number of the delegates
had no discernible roots in the peace
movement, but had come to Perugia to
wage an ideological ‘battle against the
socialist countries of Eastern Europe.
The target of this attack were the 18
delegates representing the Soviet Peace
Committee; 10 from the Peace Council of
Hungary, 10 from Poland, nine from Bul-
garia, eight from Czechoslovakia and one
from Romania, .

One speaker, a commentator for Radio
Free Europe (!), declared that the presence »
of these delegations “dishonored” the con-

ference, and that these groups could not be
considered “genuine”’ peace organizations
as they are “aligned with a super-power
government”. Other participants — many
of them apparently representing only

themselves — demanded to see the “anti- -
authoritarian” credentials of the socialist

European Nuclear Disarmament

* equipment.” The result.is a decline in key

ae

industries such as steel, manufacturine;

consumer electronics, mining, textiles an

forestry, and massive unemployment 1

areas that depend on these industries.

The task force recognizes that a countly
will need to have a defence budget, but there
“has to be a socially-useful balance betwee?
what is spent for legitimate defence © B

country’s territory and the allocation 0

funds to other sectors.

peace groups, and insisted that the confer-
ence should recognize only dissidents as
the legitimate representatives of public

sentiment in the East.

Delegates fromthe peace councils of the
socialist countries took the floor —
whenever they were given the chance — to.
argue that, whatever “bizarre definitions”
some people may wish to subject them to,
they are in fact mass, grassroots peace
organizations, with broad access to
government, media and the educational
system, and with “the ability to mobilize
the society in support of peace and disar-
mament.” While they had come to Peru-
gia, they said, in a-spirit of dialogue and

co-operation, they were not interested in _

confrontation, nor in listening to lectures

on how they ought to conduct their affairs.

Moreover, they made clear that the

demand that they must alter their social

system as a precondition for peace is

“Gdentical to the approach of Ronald Rea--
gan, and completely unacceptable.”

_ As: the meeting wore on, @ growing
number of delegates expressed impatience
with the atmosphere of confrontation.
Many indicated that they found the con-
tinual attacks on East European peace
representatives to be both distasteful and
counterproductive.

.“]f | had wanted to listen to a litany of
Cold War cliches I would have stayed
home and watched American TV,” said
Katherine Kasch, an urban planner from _
Boston. “I came here to find a common

‘strategy for nuclear disarmament. The

representatives of the Soviet Peace Com-
mittee have made a lot of good proposals.
Why don’t we discuss them?” -

“This is not a game. Nothing less than
human survival is at stake,” said John

- Baltzersen, a Danish schoolteacher and

peace activist. He urged the conference to
show “more responsiblity, more maturity,

Canadian Peace Congress.

more diplomacy and more commitment |

to the cause of peace above allet:

In this spirit, a number of Western dele-
gations at Perugia — including the Cana-
dian Peace Congress and the Quebec
Peace Council — came together to adopt
a brief, positive statement at the end of the
conference. Although the conference
organizers never permitted it — or any
other document — to’be submitted to the
final session, the statement was endorse@ —

by more than 50 delegations, including |

representatives of mass organizations. It
may therefore be taken to represent a sigr
nificant section of sentiment at the
conference: oa

“We, peace people from all over the
world, but mainly from western Europe, |
came to Perugia to establish in a dialogue
our common interests, common aims an
common goals as peace movements.

“We have to be clearly aware of our real

Meet a success despite ‘hidden agenda’

priorities in the present critical interna _—

tional situation. Otherwise we could easily
become tools in the New Cold War OF
today. _ Z
“In our opinion, the most burning —
issues, and therefore the priorities of the
peace movement are: a
© to prevent nuclear war, y
© tostop further deployment of missiles
in Europe — East and West — and to
withdraw those deployed since Novembet
1983 asa first step to nuclear disarnament
@ to stop the New Cold War and to
achieve political detente between East and :
West in order to make real disarmament
possible, if necessary step by step; 7
@ to organize common actions op
national as well as intrnational levels, 10
achieve these aims, with the long-term
goal of a nuclear-free-Europe.”* 3

Fred Weir attended as a delegate of the

ee

6 e PACIFIC TRIBUNE, AUGUST 1, 1984