84.33 Snippets From The Press (Summarized)

U.S. Taking Wrong Road: MacEachen (Globe & Mail, Tuesday, April 17, 1984, p.1). In an interview on the CBC programme, Morningside, External Affairs Minister Allan MacEachen spoke out against the intrusion of outsiders which has complicated the problems of Central America. He emphasized that the issue goes further than mining Nicaragua’s ports, and cited an increase in the level of guerrilla activity. For the past two weeks, Mr. MacEachen has been on a tour to Nicaragua, Costa Rica, Columbia and Honduras, but not, to the consternation of the U.S., to El Salvador. In Managua, last week, Mr. MacEachen affirmed Canada’s support for impartial elections in Nicaragua and was prepared to allow the Sandinista government the benefit of the doubt with respect to opposition participation. Editorial (Forum for Correspondence and Contact, Vol. 14, No. 2, March, 1984, p. ii). While the arms race debate and the threat of nuclear war intensifies, an ever-growing number of organizations, some philanthropic, are trying to give expression to the widespread yearning for peace. Yet governments appear to be oblivious to this as their increasing militarization increases the danger. Ruth Leger Sivard in World Military and Social Expenditures, two years ago drew attention to the tendency of political process to come under military control, with attendant violations of human rights, and to the fact that even in developed countries, decisions on military matters seemed to be out of the reach of public control. The global military expenditure of over $1,000 billion per year has become our century’s “burden of Sisyphus”. While the prospects appear bleak, our time period may be the harbinger of change as people become more educated and willing to act and channel resources. “We are going to see fully tested whether or not a growing multitude of concerned people determined to speak out against military mania can have an effect on world priorities”. [F.C.C. is published by the International Center for Integrative Studies, 45 West 18th Street, New York, NY 10011.]

Is peace institute needed? (Toronto Star, Tuesday, April 17, 1984, p. A16). Adam Bromke, professor of international politics at McMaster University, is concerned about setting up a new research body while existing organizations such as the Centre for Russian and East European Studies at the University of Toronto and the Institute of Soviet and East European Studies at Carleton University are being strangled by insufficient funding. These organizations along with other (such as the CIIA) already have assembled the experts who can suggest ways out of the East-West impasse.