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Disarmament

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WADA

Telebridge to link
Lviv and Winnipeg

_ WINNIPEG — Local cable televi-
sion and satellite signal viewers across
Canada will be able to tune in April 24 to
a live “people-to-people” event between
Winnipeg and Lviv, Ukraine.

The gala, featuring performers from
Ukraine and Manitoba, is produced by
Telebridge Inc., a non-profit community

group. The broadcast, endorsed by

hundreds of organizations, has Mayor
William Norris as its honorary chairper-
son.

Large theatres in both cities will be
connected via a satellite video link. The
first such project between Canada and
the Soviet Union, Lviv is one of Winnip-
€g's sister cities. Cable companies in the
major markets across the country plan to
broadcast the program live on the parli-
amentary channel. (see local listings)

‘he committee says it undertook the
Project to help break down barriers
between the two countries. “Regardless
of political or religious beliefs, the people
of the world will either learn to live
together or to die together. Telebridge
uses modern technology in a peaceful
Way to bring us closer together to show
each other our common humanity.”

Peace delegation
returns from China

TORONTO — A six-member dele-
gation from the Canadian Peace Alliance
returned April 10 from a two-week tour
of China. The visit hosted by the Chinese
People’s Association for Peace and Dis-
armament (CPAPD) was the first official
contact between Canadian and Chinese
peace organizations.

At meetings in four Chinese cities with
representatives from CPAPD, the Chi-
nese People’s Association for the Peace-
ful Utilization of Defence Technology
and the State Commission for Restruc-
turing the Economic System, delegates
discussed China’s controversial arms
trade and their nuclear weapons pro-
gram. The Chinese hosts stressed their
Programs to convert military to civilian
Production, reductions in China’s arms
forces, economic restructuring and polit-
ical reform.

“The Chinese government wants to
build links with the peace movement
around the world. This visit in an impor-
tant first step in opening up links
between the Canadian peace movement
and the Chinese People’s Association for
Peace and Disarmament,” said a
member of the delegation.

Caldicott visit nets
$11,316 for peace

VICTORIA — Dr. Helen Caldicott’s
sold-out appearance at the University of
Victoria April 8 raised donations of
$11,316 in support of the Canadian
Peace Pledge campaign.

The Victoria meeting was the first ofa
cross-country tour, facilitated by the
Canadian Peace Alliance, which will visit
14 cities in April as Caldicott brings her
message of “Making Canada a world
leader for peace” to a growing number of
Canadians.

Some 650 people heard Caldicott
speak the following night in Regina
where a total of $6,000 was donated to
the Peace Pledge campaign.

The Canadian Peace Pledge cam-
paign, sponsored by 130 peace groups, is
a Canada-wide effort to ensure that
peace and disarmament issues are a top
priority in the upcoming federal election.

Chemical weapons: stopping the build-up

By ROB PRINCE

On Dec. 16, 1987, less than a week after
President Ronald Reagan and General
Secretary Mikhail Gorbachev signed the
INF Treaty and an additional statement
agreeing to a “commitment to negotiation
of a verifiable, comprehensive and effective
international convention on the prohibition
and destruction of chemical weapons,”
production began of a new and more dan-
gerous generation of chemical weapons in
Pine Bluff, Arkansas.

The special binary chemical 155 mm
howitzer artillery shells being produced
there have a range of 35 miles. They are
filled with two non-
poisonous substan-
ces which combine
after. firing into a
lethal mix. The re-
sulting explosion
produces gases which
are invisible, odor-
less, tasteless and
capable of killing
thousands of people
almost instantly.
Given the current
level of scientific knowledge, it is not possi-
ble to effectively monitor such binary wea-
pons. They present a nightmare for
verification, as the non-toxic ingredients
could easily be stored separately. Their
development severely impedes the possibil-
ity of achieving positive results on a world-
wide ban on chemical weapons.

In the same deadly spirit, in 1989, the
United States is scheduled to launch the

PRINCE

_ manufacture of even more powerful chemi-

cal weapons when production begins on
new 500-pound Big Eye aerial bombs made
up of VX-2 gas. The killing power of this
weapon is some ten times more deadly than
Sarin, the main ingredient in the binary
chemical 155 mm shell.

Moreover, in the next few years the Uni-
ted States has plans to produce a vast array
of other chemical weapons, including a
203.2 mm howitzer shell, XM-135 rockets
for multiple-launch rocket systems, war-
heads for Harpoon-type cruise missiles and

some other air-to-surface missiles, all capa- —

ble of delivering chemical weapons. This is
part of an even larger military program to
create an array of non-nuclear weapons of
mass destruction. Veiled under an innocent-
sounding program of “modernization” of
existing conventional military forces, it is
essentially a means of attaining the destruc-
tive power of nuclear weaponry by other
means.

Much of this chemical weaponry is meant
for NATO stocks in Europe. According toa
May 1986 NATO decision, the United
States intends to deploy some 460,000 new
chemical weapon shells in West Germany,
where a considerable stockpile already
exists. There were press reports from
December 1986 of the deployment of the
last generation of Big Eye bombs in Great
Britain. The new generation is expected to
join them after production takes off next
year. They are used by F-111 fighter jets,
which are part of an American strategic
force that has the ability of making strikes
deep inside the Soviet Union from Great
Britain. (F-111s were used in the April 1986
pirate assault against Libya.)

This intensified arms production is
explained to the public as a Western
attempt to catch up with the Soviet chemi-
cal weapons stock. But, like so many other
“gaps” in the past that proved non-existent
(missile gap, bomber gap, sub gap, conven-
tional weapons gap) and then were used to
escalate the arms race, no substantial proof
has been offered.

While the United States moving ahead
with its chemical weapons program seems
to make a mockery of its public commit-
ment to negotiate chemical weapons cuts,

last October the Soviets neutralized a 250 kg
(551 Ib) Sarin (nerve gas) bomb in Shikany
before foreign observers and announced
that their chemical weapons stock “does not
exceed 50,000 tons,’ — a figure roughly
corresponding to U.S. chemical weapons
stocks. They rejected the claims of a Soviet
chemical arsenal of over 250,000 tons and,
in the same spirit that helped pave the way
to the INF treaty, Moscow made. a public
commitment to on-site inspection of its
chemical stocks as part of a chemical wea-
pons treaty.

There is much to suggest, despite Ronald
Reagan’s promises in Washington late last
year to work for reductions in chemical
weapons, that the U.S. hopes to gain mil-

itary superiority over the Soviets, in part ©

through chemical weapons. As cruise and
Pershing II nuclear missiles are being with-
drawn in Europe along with Soviet SS-20s,
SS-4s and SS-5s, chemical weapons are
being actively integrated into NATO’s
offensive strategy in their place.

Although they are non-nuclear, contem-
porary chemical weapons fall into the cate-
gory of weapons of mass destruction and
represent a grave danger to humanity.

Nearly 20 years ago, a report by the UN
secretary-general noted, “A modern stra-
tegic bomber ... can carry about 15 tons of
toxic chemical agents, and it is estimated
that only 250 tons of V-gas, an amount
which could be delivered by no more than
15 or 16 aircraft, is enough to contaminate a
great city with an area of 1,000 square
kilometres and a population of 7 to 10 mil-
lion people. In other words, 15 strategic
bombers would easily contaminate to the
point of utter destruction cities like London,
Rome Paris, Moscow or New York.

These. chemical, weapons, along with

_ other extraordinarily dangerous and power-

ful new conventional weapons, are part of
what the military calls the “integrated bat-
tlefield.” It is a plan to fight and win an
all-out war against the Warsaw Treaty

_ countries. There is nothing defensive about

it. The integrated battlefield plan calls for

utilizing NATO’s land and airbased fire--

power in a co-ordinated fashion.to deliver a
devastating, unanswerable blow.
In response to these developments, there
has been a growing momentum from peace
forces to reverse the chemical weapons arms
race. The extensive use of chemical weapons
by the United States in Vietnam created
strong international public opinion against
such weapons in the 1960s and 1970s. There
has been continued opposition from peace
movements to the deployment of these
weapons in Europe. That is why these con-

cerns were addressed in the joint statement
made by Reagan and Gorbachev that
accompanied the INF treaty. Its call for
progress in eliminating chemical weapons
reflects the peace movement’s concerns.
The most dramatic indication of this
momentum in the period before the INF
treaty was the May 13, 1986, call from
Prague for establishing a chemical-weapons-
free zone in Central Europe. It was made by
leading personalities of Czechoslovakia, the
German Democratic Republic and the
leadership of the Social Democratic Party
of the Federal Republic of Germany and
marked a turning point in the movement for
chemical weapons disarmament in Europe.
For the first time, West German Social

‘Democrat spoke out in unison with Czech

and GDR political leaders for the elimina-
tion of chemical weapons from Europe.

Speaking at the Prague press conference
at that time was Karsten D. Voigt, member
of the Executive Committee of the parlia-
mentary group of the Social Democratic
Party of (West) Germany and a member of
the party’s Executive Board. In remarks
clearly intended to frustrate the U.S. devel-
opment of new binary chemical weapons in
Europe, many if not most of which would
be deployed in West Germany, Voigt
underlined that an agreement on the estab-
lishment of a chemical weapon-free zone in
Europe would withdraw the necessity of
any decision being taken on the manufac-
ture of the chemical weapons.

Describing such a step as a precondition
for a worldwide ban on chemical weapons,
Voigt commented, “We want a universal
prohibition of chemical weapons. What we
do not want is the manufacture of new
chemical agents. The threat which is already
being posed by, nuclear and conventional
armaments must not be stepped up further
by agents of chemical warfare whose appli-
cation would have devastating effects, espe-
cially for the civilian population.”

The INF treaty, a breakthrough for dis-
armament, has stimulated renewed activi-

- ties from peace movement towards the

elimination of chemical weapons. The pos-
sibilities of achieving a chemical-weapon-
free zone in Central Europe and for
reaching a major accord between the Uni-
ted States and the Soviets on reducing
chemical weapons stocks have been

enhanced. Among the first challenges is to
frustrate NATO’s attempts to “compen-
sate” for the INF treaty by introducing
other weapons systems, including chemical
weapons, into Europe.

Rob Prince is the U.S. representative to the
secretariat of the World Peace Council.

Victims of the Iraqi gas attack at Halabja recover in a Tehran hospital.

Pacific Tribune, April 20, 1988 « 5

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