werk

ee

FEATURE

Honecker’s visit opens doors of hope

By GERRY VAN HOUTEN BERLIN CORRESPONDENT

Historic, unprecedented, emotional, exciting all

accurately describe Erich Honecker’s visit to the Fed-

‘ral Republic of Germany (FRG). Consider the following: Firstly, Honecker, General-Secretary of the Socialist nity Party and head of state of the German Democratic

Republic (GDR), was received with full state honours by

: ee cmament which vowed for most of its 38 years of ance never to recognize the GDR as an independent : ereign state. Although FRG Chancellor Helmut Kohl MSisted on ‘the unity of the German nation,”’ he con- ®eded the existence of two German states. As Kohl imself expressed it, reunification ‘‘is at present not on € agenda of world history.” that communiqué signed by the two leaders agreed = ‘both states respect the _independence and Vereignty of the other state in its internal and external Gre’. Considering that Kohl saw fit to interfere in the R’s internal affairs as recently as last January’s Fed- el German elections, the communiqué constitutes a €markable public turnaround for the Bonn government. ae ere is of course no guarantee that Bonn will not ege On the commitment it made in the communique aa It is highly significant that he acquiesced to the prin- Ple in relations between the two German states. Secondly, Honecker is the first leader from a Warsaw pat Country to visit the FRG although it is not the first ime a visit was attempted. In 1984, Bonn’s lurch to the fe in domestic and foreign affairs, which was reflected o Stepped-up demands for German reunification, forced Onecker to cancel the last planned visit.

Removing Obstacles

This time, instead of creating obstacles, Kohl actually Temoved some. His decision to get rid of the Pershing 1A

‘Missiles if the Soviet Union and the United States come

0 an IMF agreement was seen in Berlin as an indication th Bonn sincerely. wanted to.improve its relations with © GDR and the other socialist countries. cn effect, Honecker’s visit has opened the door to “sits from other Eastern European leaders, particularly Viet leader Gorbachev, now that Bonn has given some ‘Vidence that it will tone down its revanchism.

The official side of Honecker’s five-day visit took two “Ys. In addition to signing three agreements, on en- Tonmental protection, exchanging information and ex-

Nlences on nuclear radiation and increasing scientific

d technical cooperation, the two leaders had eight

ces of talks which ended with the signing of the joint

Mmuniqué.

e he communiqué stated that war should never again et from German soil. Significantly, the wording used is "tually identical with statements Honecker has been Ing on this issue for years. he two leaders expressed their belief in and commit- Ment to the 1971 Four-Power agreement on West Berlin. °nn had violated this agreement as recently as last June When Kohl accompanied Reagan to West Berlin. €agan’s speech and presence was a public relations ISaster., th Honecker and Kohl expressed their satisfaction with N€ positive development of economic and trade rela- ‘Ons between the two countries. These relations are already quite substantial.

[rates eee esta AO Le ae a

Kohl and Honecker: The chance to ease tensions

in Europe.

[snr oa asuanee RAMORE LCN Teo en ce)

On the question of security, the two leaders agreed that arms control and disarmament must be “‘based on the principle of equality and parity, a stable balance of forces at the lowest possible level linked with the re- moval of imbalances. They must be genuinely verifiable.”

Steps to Peace

The joint communiqué advocated the prevention of an arms race in-space and called for the maintenance of the ABM treaty and an agreement for a reliable and veri- fiable nuclear test ban treaty. (However, the FRG par- ticipates officially in SDI research.) :

The remaining three days were devoted to what were sometimes highly emotional visits to various places in four states. In addition to talks with four state premiers, Johannes Rau (SPD) in Northrhine Westphalia, Oskar Lafontaine (SPD) in Saarland, Bernhard Vogel (CDU) in Rhineland-Palatinate and Josef Strauss (CDU) in Bavaria, Honecker visted the birth places of Karl Marx in Trier and Frederick Engels in Wuppertal. He also honoured the victims of the nazi death camp.at Dachau in, Bavaria.

But for Honecker personally, the most important visit was to Neunkirchen and the neighbouring town of Wiebelskirchen. Honecker was born in Neunkirchen, the fourth child of acoal miner’s family, 75 years ago. He grew up in Wiebelskirchen where his only surviving sibling, a sister still lives and where his parents are buried. For the first time in 40 years he was able to pay hommage to his parents.

It was in Neunkirchen, during a talk with the town’s mayor, that Honecker provided what turned out to be his visit’s surprise.

Throughout his five-day visit, the GDR leader was subjected to FRG complaints about the fact that there are extensive restrictions on the ability of GDR citizens below retirement age to visit the west. (Pensioners may travel freely.) It was not a policy that the GDR govern-

~ ment has ever liked.

For most of the 38 years of the existence of the two Germanies, the FRG, supported by the U.S. and NATO, publicly proclaimed its revanchist ambitions to reunite Germany on an imperialist basis and conducted activi- ties against the economy and security of the GDR. AlI- though the GDR has always and consistently sought peaceful and cordial relations with the FRG, the FRG usually fell victim to the reactionary dreams ofits rulers.

analysis

Even then, the GDR, despite the cold war rhetoric expressed during the January FRG elections and in June in West Berlin has slowly but surely liberalized its travel restrictions. In 1986, 573,000 GDR citizens below re- tirement age visited the FRG or West Berlin. In the first eight months of this year, the number shot up to 866,000.

Improving Contacts

GDR citizens may travel on ‘“‘urgent family business.”’ Although how this is defined depends on the official to whom the application is made, it is clear that the defini- tion has broadened considerably.

Indeed, the two leaders’ joint communiqué noted ‘‘previously achieved progress and affirmed the inten- tion to work towards its further improvement and ease in the people’s interests.”

Nevertheless, Honecker caught his hosts off-guard when he announced in Neunkirchen that, if the peaceful cooperation promised in the joint communiqué becomes a reality, ‘‘then the day will come when the borders will no longer divide us, but when they will unit us, as the border between the German Democratic Republic and the People’s Republic of Poland unites us.’” In short, better relations between the two countries will mean furhter easing of travel restrictions on GDR citizens.

This statement was widely welcomed in both Ger- manies. j

And why this turnaround in the Kohl government’s attitude?) West Germans have made it plain that they want nuclear disarmament and peaceful co-existence with the GDR, the Soviet Union and other socialist countries.

In recent months, Kohl’s turnaround, however, was too late to help the Christian Democratic Union in the state elections in Bremen and Schleswig-Hostein where the CDU suffered heavy losses to the opposition Social Democratic Party and its peace-oriented coalition part- ner, the Free Democratic Party.

Honecker’s visit did not help Kohl. Most West Ger- mans believe that a Honecker visit would have taken place years earlier if the Kohl government had not poisoned relations with the GDR and the Soviet Union.

On the other hand, Honecker proved to be very popu- lar in the FRG. As one West German put it, ‘‘We never knew he was so nice. We had such a different picture of him from over here.”

Honecker’s visit is indeed historic and promises to open up new possibilities for easing tensions in Europe.

Letters bse nn seme

vast network of bandits running around

More response to Fred Weir -

I study English in my spare time and read your paper. Best of all I like your Moscow correspondent Fred Weir’s ar- ticles. He is a real friend of my country.

His judgement is objective and, as an ©

honest journalist, he sees our achieve- Ments, as well as our problems and the processes toward solving them. Glas- Nost is a real thing today in my native land.

I think Weir is doing good work and I wish him success. I also want to ex- Press my respect for the Tribune as a

reliable source of the truth about my The real ountry for Canadians. : 3 * I ste a student at the Byelorussian terrorists

Polytechnical Institute, civil engineer- ing department. In this connection, I suggest Weir write on the problems of higher education both here and in Canada. There are many problems here in this field in light of peristroika and perhaps it would be useful for both sides. I think we Soviets should search for making use of everything which could help us in our reconstruction pro- cess.

What do you say, Fred? _ : Arsen Dobricov,

Minsk, USSR

If only the ‘‘popular’’ media would devote one page per week for your arti- cles, the general public would greatly benefit — but we know that they don’t want to really publish the facts. Your articles are gems. Can you imagine T-shirts with things on like ‘‘Become a Bimbo — Join Reagan’s Supporters’’, or ‘‘A Reagan Clown’’?

But seriously, Reagan is a criminal, a murderer, worse than a drug pusher. He’s a death squad pusher who has a

the globe doing what they feel like.

‘‘Become a 20th Century Nazi — Join Reagan’’. Death squads like those in South Africa and other places will no doubt also be used in Canada and America, if they haven't already, and I often ponder how this can be dealt with. Oliver North is just one of many thugs running about — the real terrorist network.

The struggle continues ...

Fred Schwentafsky, Medicine Hat, Alberta

PACIFIC TRIBUNE, SEPTEMBER 23, 1987 e 9