Page 8 Jan 20, 1986

y James Young

Nanoose Bay, Vancouver Island, is
the site of farms, rural subdivisions
and a naval weapons testing range
directly linked with the nuclear arms
race. Situated only 26 kilometres from
Nanaimo and 48 kilometres from Van-
couver, the bay is the centre of

attention for the Nanoose Conversion -

Campaign (NCC) a peace group
formed in September military to
peaceful purposes.

“| felt it was really appropriate to be
working on something that’s right
here :at home,’’ said NCC member
_ Sunshine Goldstream, a farmer from
nearby Hilliers, who first became
concerned with the range two years
ago after reading an article in a local

per.

“‘They had one of those maps
where they show ground zero and that
we would be blown to smithereens
if anything happened adversely
here,’’ she said. _

The focus of concern for
Goldstream and 15 other active mem-
bers of the campaign is the Canadian
Forces Maritime Experimental Range
(CFMETR), a facility jointly operated
by Canada and the U.S. The range
comprises a base at Nanoose Bay and
130 square kilometres of Georgia
Strait lined with sophisticated moni-
toring devices and installations on
nearby islands. The purpose of the
range is to test anti-submarine wea-
pons which activists fear may be part
of a developing U.S. first-strike
strategy.

Canadian Territory is being used to
develop new systems of killing
people,’’ said Laurie MacBride, who
objects to both the weapons systems
tested at the range and those carried
into the bay.

Among the systems tested there is
' the anti-submarine rocket (ASROC),
ors to be fired from a surface
ship.

‘““A system like the ASROC, which
can be either nuclear or conventional-
ly armed, is difficult to verify,’’ said
MacBride.

“It's destabilizing, just like the
cruise.’’ ~

Another anti-submarine weapon,
the SUBROC missile, has a nuclear
depth charge of up to one-quarter the
power of the atomic bomb dropped on
Hiroshima in 1945.

Even more alarming, _ said
MacBride, are nuclear-armed Toma-
hawk cruise missiles, the sea-launch-
ed version of the cruise missile tested
at Cold Lake, Alberta, in 1984. The
weapons are almost certainly carried
into Nanoose on Sturgeon and Los,
Angeles class submarines.

MacBride bases her conviction on
research done by a Hawaiian group

which compares the schedules for ~

submarine fleet construction with
those for the deployment of the 4,000
Tomahawks, 758 of which are nuclear-
armed. She said two LA class sub-
marines, the La Jolla, which visited
the range in late May, and the Salt
Lake City, which made three visits in
August and September, probably car-
ried eight to 12 Tomahawks each. The

missiles have 10 to 15 times the
destructive power of the Hiroshima
bomb, she said.

“A report that came out of the U.S.

. Senate last year confirmed that they

were beginning with the nuclear
Tomahawks and later they would
begin deploying the conventional
ones,’’ she said.

She said the U.S. may be bringing
Tomahawks into Nanoose Bay to test
their launch mechanism, a view sup-
ported by New Zealand peace activist
Owen Wilkes, who visited B.C. in
October.

The military importance of the
tomahawk is underscored by defense
analyst William Arkin of Washing-
ton’s Institute for Policy Studies who
said the missile is ‘‘emerging as the
most important and flexible weapon in
the U.S. arsenal’’ adding it is most
likely to be used at the start of World
War Ill.

Both the Canadian and American
military have consistently refused to
confirm or deny whether Tomahawks
or other nuclear weapons are carried
into Nanoose. Armed Forces spokes-
person Major Norbert Cyr denies that
the Tomahawk launch system is being
tested there. But he also says that it is
not a Canadian concern whether U.S.
vessels visiting Canada have nuclear

weapons on board.

‘“‘Nuclear capable vessels, be they
armed or capable of being armed with
nuclear. weapons are perfectly wel-
come to visit Canadian ports,’’ Cyr .
said.

Statements like Cyr’s prompt the
NCC to wonder whether Ottawa_ or
Washington is in charge of the
facility.

‘“‘There’s a Canadian commander,
but it appears that many of the
decisions and day to day operations
are controlled from Keyport, Wash-
ington,’’ said MacBride, adding that
Keyport is the command and control
center for a network of Pacific under-
sea warfare testing ranges.

The NCC uses various methods to °
educate the public about the test
range and has received a fair amount
of coverage from island media. But
the range was largely ignored by
mainstream provincial media until the
end of September when six NCC
organized a demonstration at the base
gates.

On September 26, a group of 40 ©
people protested the submarine’s pre-

‘sence. Activist Bert Thomas, one of

those later arrested, read a letter from
the NCC to the vessel’s commander.

“We believe that the presence of
the U.S.S. Salt Lake City sub is a
violation of the International Law
which prohibits _ crimes _ against
humanity,’’ the letter began, refer-
ring to the Nuremburg_ principles
established after World War II.

“We ask you, in the name of
humanity, to take your submarine
away from this place and let it become
a nuclear weapons free zone.’’

When the commander refused to
meet the demonstrators, Thomas and

_ five others sat down in the middle of

the road, saying they would not leave
until either the commander agreed to