WORLD

INTERNATIONAL FOCUS

Tom Morris

Without firing a shot...

Has he ever lied to us before?

When Ronald Reagan assured us last week that free trade will not threaten Canada’s sovereignty, is there any reason to doubt it?

Isn’t Reagan the man who told us acid rain isn’t a problem, that it’s caused by ducks?

Isn’t he the one who told us that the airport in Grenada was to be a Soviet base?

Wasn’t it Reagan who said he

) SALE:

hadn’t sold weapons to Iran?

It is Reagan, isn’tit, who tells us North America’s salvation lies in Star Wars?

Who coined the phrase ‘‘evil empire’’ when describing the USSR and likens the killer contras to America’s founding fathers?

Wasn’t it this president who promised to balance the budget --

then produced his country’s highest-_

ever deficit? So why worry?

Ron and Brian, the dynamic duo of showbiz shlock have devised a plan that Reagan says will rival the

American Revolution. aé

Witha hammerlock on Canadian energy, raw materials, banking and manufacturing, and with Mulroney safely in his pocket, Reagan may have achieved what an American army failed to do in 1812.

But in those days the United- States didn’t have Brian Mulroney on their side.

Some scenes from Gaza

+ January 10,1988: 39 Pales- tinians are admitted to Shifa Hospi- tal, Gaza, for gunshot wounds. Af- ter first aid, some are turned away for lack of room.

+ Januaray 9,1988: While in labour, a 35 year-old woman dies of suffocation inside her Khan Yunis home when an Israeli tear gas can- nister explodes.

+ Israeli apartheid: Like their Black counterparts in South Africa, two million Palestinians in occupied West Bank and Gaza must carry passes. Failure to produce your pass

when stopped by Israeli authorities

+ January 11: Another Israeli infantry brigade is moved into Gaza to reinforce its ‘‘iron fist’’ policy. This includes persuing Palestinians into their homes to beatthem in front of families before arresting them.

+ January 10,1988: A dozen young Palestinians kneel, hands tied behind their backs, by the entrance to Bureij camp. Soldiers with clubs stand over them.

+ Israeli Defense Minister Rabin flies over Gaza in a military helicopter, then tells the media the Palestinians ‘‘had better get back to normal life...”

+ January 9: An Israeli settler leaps from his car and shoots a Pal- estinian youth dead.

+ January 12: Israeli troops bar entry to Jabaliya refugee camp in Gaza to United Nations Undersec- retary-General Marrack Goulding where he had gone to look into the conditions on behalf of the UN.

‘The UN has no role to play in the administration of the territo- ries,’ growls Foreign Minister Shimon Perez. The Israeli military, like the South African Defence

is a crime.

Force, prefer to murder in private.

to disarmament

Soviet experts that spent three days with a similar American group under Ambassador Paul Nitze. The purpose was to speed up preparations for a draft treaty on reducing strategic offensive weapons. What happened during those three days?

Akhromeyev: There was a great deal of work to do. Our groups spent hours talking; it was tense and difficult. Eight sessions were held.

We found the U.S. rigid on a number of issues. The talks on a strategic offensive weap- ons treaty in connection with the functioning Anti-Ballistic Missile treaty signed in 1972 were especially complicated.

A struggle evolved around how the ABM treaty should be understood. The American experts suggested the USSR develop its own anti-ballistic missile system (Star Wars). We rejected this outright.

Pravda: Inother words, theAmericans tried to break the connection between the ABM treaty and a treaty on strategic offen- sive weapons?

Akhromeyev: Precisely -- break it or at least weaken it. To prevent this, the commit- ment tocomply with the ABM treaty in the form in which it was signed in 1972 was formalized in

~ the joint statement.

Furthermore, to have their formula used as the basis forreducing strategic offensive weap- ons, the’ Americans also triec to exempt long- range sea-based Cruise missiles, that is, to project the arms race in this direction and win advantages for themselves.

Their argument against limits on sea-based Cruise missiles was that, the matter was too complex, and that this category of weapons utterly defies control.

The Americans also insisted, without any good reason whatsoever, on categorizing our TU-22M medium-range bomber as a strategic offensive weapon.

After some pretty intense work and conces-

sions on both sides, we managed to synchronize our positions and bring them closer, and to find the solutions we both agreed on that were for- malized in the joint statement following the summit by Gorbachev and Reagan.

Pravda: One of the features of the INF treaty is the extent and breadth of the verifi- cation measures. Do both sides have equal possibilities and technical means of control?

Akhromeyev: Here I would like to point out that we might have gone even further on verification. But the U.S. hedged on several positions and we could not come to an agree- ment.

We agree to strict, mutual verification, But this has to be control over disarmament. We possess the necessary technical means, includ- ing those for monitoring long-range sea-based Cruise missiles.

Pravda: What are the prospects for an agreement on limiting nuclear weapons tests?

Akhromeyev: The USSR favours an.

immediate end to all nuclear tests and is pre- pared atany time tohaltits testprogram. Unfor- tunately, the United States is not.

If a complete ban cannot be reached in the immediate future, we might be able to agree to greatly reduce the number and yield of the nuclear tests.

Now that the process of real disarmament is beginning, we feel this is the direction to go on nuclear testing.

Pravda: What difficulties still have to be hurdled before getting a mandate for holding talks on conventional armed forces and armaments in Europe?

Akhromeyev: First, we have to clearly ascertain the imbalances and asymmetries be- tween the armed forces and hardware of NATO and the Warsaw Pact. Incidentally, quite a while ago our side suggested to NATO that we together determine the imbalances and then

Western Europe (above) and Greenham Common

} . : 7 wa Scenes from the recent past: American troops in

protesters being arrested.

decide what each side has to reduce.

The second important element in our ap- proach is to find ways to reduce dual-purpose systems, that is, those that can be used with conventional or nuclear ammunition. This en- compasses tactical strike aircraft, tactical mis- siles and nuclear-capable artillery. They cannot be separated from conventional weapons be- cause they have a two-fold purpose.

NATO does not want to include strike air- craft, which they have more of than we, in the framework of the talks. These are the two main issues which still have to be resolved before a mandate for future negotiations is arrived at.

Pravda: A question about Afghani- stan. It is said Soviet forces will be with- drawn within 12 months. How will this pro- ceed?

Akhromeyev: The political decision to withdraw has indeed been made. Thebeginning of the actual withdrawal depends only on when the United States will stop interfering in Afghanistan’s internal affairs.

Assoonas the U.S. stops arming and financ- ing the counter-revolutionary mujihaddin, the USSR will start pulling its troops out of Af- ghanistan.

Pravda: Has the Soviet military com- mand changed its position on the prohibition and destruction of chemical weapons?

Akhromeyev: No. We still want a total ban on chemical weapons, including binary. But there has to be reliable control over all

forms of chemical weapons production, par- ticularly by transnational corporations and pri- vate companies.

There has been a certain amount of progress at the talks on this issue. But the U.S. has recently begun to drag its feet, citing differ- ences on verification. “

Still, we would like to hope that the joint Soviet-American statement that came out of the Washington summit will give these talks some new impetus.

Pravda: You apparently are the first Soviet military leader to have ever visited the Pentagon and to havetaken part in talks with members of the U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff. What happened?

Akhromeyev: On Dec. 9, Academician Velikhov, Ambassador Karpov and I met with Secretary of Defence Frank Carlucci.

Our discussion centred primarily on the consequences of the hypothetical deployment by the United States of a nation-wide ABM system through its Star Wars program.

We let it be known that we disapprove of the deployment of such a system. The next day, we met Admiral William Crow, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, the chiefs of staff of the U.S. Army, Navy and Air Force, and the commander of the Marine Corps.

Our talks concerned purely military mat- ters. One thing we discussed were possibilities for broader contacts in this area.

We were polite and frank with each other.

sak aa at ig ll tials

10 e PACIFIC TRIBUNE, JANUARY 20, 1988