} kiloton warhead, which is 15 times than the Hiroshima bomb) and its are the reasons it is classified as an on. ction is to destroy Soviet strategic ir silos, he says. ‘‘There’s no use e missile if there are no missiles to istrike potential means a permanently $ race once the cruise missile is administration has said the cruise ‘be used as a first-strike weapon eves slowly. The Russians have no eve this, and are likely to view it as ss of what the Americans say, says ze, a member of the B.C. chapter of ace. > danger is that it may force the Jaunch-on-warning posture,’’ Spence e missile makes you suscepitible to ‘warning error.”’ hig ent Ronald Reagan has promoted national security department who x war is survivable and winnable. ssile is giving Reagan and his cohorts mtial, and as long as the U.S. has that and pursue that kind of aggressive y dangerous,’’ says Prongos. e U.S. is finalizing an agreement with ting the U.S. to test its cruise missiles Lake weapons range near Cold Lake n Alberta. The negotiations over d missiles have gone for six months; aiting for final approval from the rnment. site was chosen because of the mate in the Cold Lake area are Conditions in the Soviet Union. ent is part of an umbrella deal which he testing and evaluating of U.S. ms and could extend beyond testing Md launched cruise missiles. The lhe Other Press umbrella deal contains economic benefits for Canada - the Trudeau government may get a better financial deal on F-18A fighter planes. U.S. congressional sources in Washington D.C. have indicated a connection between the tests and a U.S. decision to allow Canada to forego a $70 million payment in F-18A fighter plane research and development. The Canadian armed forces are -buying 138 F-18A from the U.S. aircraft company, McDonnell Douglas. Washington has relaxed some of the development costs Ottawa would have to pay. In addition, Litton Systems Canada Ltd., a Toronto-based company which Direct Action bombed Oct. 14, has $1.2 billion in contracts to produce the cruise missiles’ guidance systems. “The general deal is that in exchange for financing plants up here, the U.S. is allowed to test on Canadian soil,’’ says De Mille. ‘‘There’s some kind of backroom trade-off going on. It only benefits a few companies not the economy as a whole because these investments are not labor intensive.”’ Pauline Jewett (NDP-New Westminster), one of the six MPs who signed the minority report on security and disarmament demanding a prohibition on cruise missile tests in Canada, says she suspects the Canadian government is negotiating an exten- sive weapons deal, much greater than what is publicly known, but says she is only guessing. “If Canada allows the testing, she will become more of a powder monkey than a peacemaker. The testing will do the opposite of suffocating the arms race, it will enhance it,’’ she adds. The umbrella deal is to be signed before the end of the year, and the proposed tests are planned to begin in early 1984. In the meantime, peace organizaions have embarked on an information and education campaign to alert the public to the cruise missile’s dangers. They are encouraging Canadians to write to their MPs voicing their opposition and thus putting pressure on the government. DeMille says a handful of letters sent to one MP makes it ‘‘the issue of the day’’ in parliament. She ' paged says people should exercise their democratic rights and scrutinize the government’s actions. Canadians Against the Cruise have written to all B.C. MPs asking for their position on the testing. Their major objective is to stop the government from signing the U.S. agreement, and although this may be impossible at this point in the negotiations, Prongos admits, it is hoped enough people will be aware of the issues so that the government will not be able to do something like this again. And in the Cold Lake area itself, a peace camp is being set up as close as possible to the in-flight testing site. It will be run on volunteer contributions and is supported by peace groups across Canada. It also has the support of native Indian groups on whose land the testing will take place. The peace camp is going to be declared a nuclear weapon free zone. A peace camp is a physical presence near the site of a military facility. The idea was pioneered in Britain, where people enlisted to camp on a permanent rotating basis. The Cold Lake peace camp committee has contacted British camp organizers for advice and support. Peace camps are being established~at planned deployment sites in Germany, the Netherlands, Belgium and Italy. The ones in Europe will serve as useful models, Moore says. The Cold Lake committee sent a letter to Colonel Sutherland of the Cold Lake armed forces base informing them of their actions. It indicated they ““are not attempting to dismantle the military establishment, but only to halt this life-threatening force which pushes us to the brink of extinction. ‘“‘The decision to test the cruise missile on Canadian soil is contrary to the stated aims of the Canadian government in playing a non-nuclear role in the international arena. It is also contradictory of the four point suffocation strategy put forth by the Prime Minister Trudeau in his address to the United Nations in its Special Session on Disarmament in 1978 and again in 1982. A cornerstone of this strategy is ‘a halt to the flight-testing of all new strategic delivery vehicles.’ The testing is strictly a part of the U.S. strategic arsenal and does not constitute Canada’s obligations to NATO,”’ it reads. vote “YES” OTTAWA (CUP) - This fall voters in hundreds of Cana- dian cities will be asked to vote on something they’ve never seen on a municipal ballot before: disarmament. They will be asked if they support balanced moves to- wards removing nuclear weapons and whether they support giving the federal government a mandate to negotiate agreements to- wards that goal. Operation Dismantle, the referenda organizers, have ridden the wave of enthusi- asm for the new _ peace movement to win approval for referenda in 137 munici- palities representing four million Canadian voters. Op- eration Dismantle is a small Ottawa-based group of peace activists who have organized to convince city councils to approve the disarmament referenda. They hope ‘yes’ votes for disarmament will pressure governments into serious negotiations. They believe a global reterendum va ihe question will eventually suc- ceed. DISARM: daininln te etna tet gine iebaabiaiieds LOE 2 ecered