MAKING
PEACE  For
a pacific Pacific |
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Voyage
of the Peacemaker
The peace
movement is not confined just to Europe and North America. Cameron
Forbes tells of a peace odyssey challenging the right of
the US and France to use the Pacific Ocean for nuclear target practice.
Soon
Pacific Peacemaker will set sail again. It is likely to be another
stormy passage.
Last
year the yacht, flying the nuclear disarmament flag, set off across the
Pacific from Australia to protest against the development of a special
port for America’s Trident nuclear-missile submarines in Western
Australia. Months later it arrived at Seattle on the US west coast—
home base of SS Ohio, the first Trident destined for the
Pacific. There, on 12 August last year, Pacific Peacernaker found
herself at the head of a flotilla of small craft blocking the submarine’s
path.
During
their eight-month voyage yacht and crew were also the focus of land rights
and anti-nuclear demonstrations throughout the Pacific. In Mururoa Atoll,
centre of the French nuclear testing programme, the yacht was rammed by
a French naval vessel, dismasted, then impounded by French authorities
for intruding info territorial waters. Skipper Bill Ethel was fined and
the French threatened to hold the yacht for months — until three
Australian maritime unions counter-attacked by ‘arresting’ the
French container vessel Kangoorou in Australia’s Botany Bay.
Facing
losses of $26,OOO a day as the vessel was immobilised, the French authorities
relented three days later and released Pacific Peacemaker.
The
yacht’s peace odyssey actually began at a ‘Nuclear Free Pacific’
conference in Hawaii. Among those attending was Bill Ethel. an Englishman
who had migrated to Australia after nine years’ military service.
He says he wanted to get away from it all but found there were suggestions
that a Trident submarine base would be built in Western Australia, where
he lived.
Ethel
and other Australians and New Zealanders realised the only weapon they
had against the Trident programme was publicity. The idea was born of
a yacht voyage, culminating in a blockade of the American Trident base
in Seattle. The group started campaigning for support and got it from
church groups and trade unions. The Ethels themselves mortgaged their
home. Eventually the money was raised to buy a 20-metre steel ketch and
Bill’s wife, Lorraine, went to night school to learn navigation.
They decided to take their four children with them and said in reply to
criticism that concern for the children’s safety was the motivation
for the whole exercise. ‘We have to ensure that they have a future.’
 When
Pacific Peacemaker arrived in the waters off Seattle the US authorities
were waiting, ‘It was amazing,’ Bill Ethel says. ‘The coast
guard, navy helicopters, state troopers and the whole of the local naval
reserve had all been mobilised. All for 50 protestors!’
The
demonstration attracted wide media coverage. Small craft were swamped
by helicopter down-drafts, protestors were hosed and 26 were arrested
— including Bill and Lorraine. ‘But we succeeded,’ says
Bill. ‘We caught world attention at a time when the ‘Nuclear
Freeze’ movement was taking off in the US.’
Having
sold Pacific Peacemaker to a peace group in San Diego the Ethel
family are now home from the sea. But the yacht will sail again in May,
this time bound for the Marshall Islands, Palau and Japan.
The
Marshalls and Palau were part of Micronesia, an area of sea and scattered
islands which, according to Bill Ethel, has been used and abused by the
United States in its nuclear testing programme. He hopes that by the time
Pacific Peacemaker reaches the isolated islands. media and world
attention will be focussed on them. Then local people, who have already
conducted their own protests, will realise that they have international
support.
Cameron
Forbes is Foreign Editor on the Melbourne Age.
From
Donetsk with love
Last
year city councilors from Sheffield, heart of UK
steel, visited their twin city Donetsk in the Soviet
Union. The leaders of the two councils signed a
joint declaration condemning nuclear weapons. David
Blunkett, Labour leader of the Sheffield City Council,
spoke to Glen Williams.
THIS
IS A UNIQUE declaration for three reasons. First, it
expresses opposition, not just to the use of nuclear
weapons, but to their very existence. Second, it urges
the extension of nuclear weapon-free zones. And third,
it advocates less military expenditure and the reallocation
of resources towards peaceful objectives.’
But
this is just a start. We would now like other towns
and cities to build on it. There is a great deal of
progress to be made, person to person, group to group,
in lowering the barriers and removing the suspicions
that lead people to feel that others are a threat.’
The
visit also had its amusing side. ‘The Russians
found our delegation a little confusing— a Labour
Party leader (myself) who is visually disabled, a Conservative
Lord Mayor, a Deputy Mayor who is also a vicar and a
woman journalist who speaks perfect Russian. Our hosts
were completely thrown!’
But
the joint declaration on peace and the threat of nuclear
war was no cut-and-dried affair. It followed two days
of intense negotiations and involved frequent contact
between Donetsk and Moscow. David Blunkett is not greatly
concerned about accusations that Moscow will use the
declaration for propaganda purposes.
‘There
are real dangers in everything we do — either
being used by our own government or that of other people’s,
and we ought to be aware of these dangers. But we should
also have the humanity to accept people as friends and
build on that friendship in a positive way.’
‘Since
our return there has been an upsurge of interest in
contacts with Donetsk from people like teachers, youth
workers, sporting teams and members of the junior chamber
of commerce.
‘These
links won’t change the world overnight, but we
can make a small contribution. If we don’t believe
that, then we just leave everything to senior politicians
who act as our mouthpiece. But democracy is not just
about voting people into office. It’s also about
putting on pressure. And that pressure can be person
to person and city to city as well as government to
government.’
On
the Eastern Front
In
East Germany, peace is no longer a state monopoly.
A report from Paul Oestreicher.
After
losing two world wars, after the trauma of Hitler’s
nightmare, after division into two antagonistic states
and more than a generation of confrontation, is it any
wonder that Germans want nothing to do with war?
In fact, after World War II, militarism was so
radically rejected by the socialist rulers of the German
Democratic Republic (East Germany) that even war toys
were banned Now soldiering is back with a romantic vengeance.
The Prussian military tradition is being rekindled,
and not entirely without success.
Yet
many will have none of it, opting instead for unarmed
service in army construction units or even refusing
to wear military uniform and facing prison sentences.
Most
members of peace groups in the German Democratic Republic
(GDR) are not pacifists. but simply people who believe
that in a nuclear age war is no longer permissible if
civilization or even life itself is to survive. Nothing
is worth defending, not even socialism, if the whole
world is thereby put at risk. There is no independent
peace movement in the GDR comparable to Western
movements with definable political programmes. But the
Protestant churches are providing a forum for debating
the issues and defending freedom of conscience. Synod
after synod has called into question aspects of GDR
militarism. Up and down the country churches have become
peace workshops — places of free discussion for
vast numbers of people. Thousands gather at special
peace events without any printed forms of invitation.
The grapevine works.
Yet
this is not, definitely not, a dissident phenomenon.
Some discontented people have latched onto the peace
theme to embarrass the establishment but they are not
typical. Peace groups in the GDR are no more in the
service of the West than the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament
is in the service of the East.
What
endangers this church-supported movement in the GDR
is the attempt of a few within it to latch Onto the
Western peace movement and of some in the West who are
determined to create links to the East in order to increase
the credibility of the Western peace movement. The situation
in the GDR is far too delicate for such Western ‘help’
to be helpful. By all means let there be trust and friendship
between ‘peace people’ in the East and West.
But that friendship should never exclude dialogue with
those who actually hold power in East and West. They
must never be classed as ‘the enemy’, for
on them rests the greatest burden of decision-making,
Without a real measure of critical solidarity with them
the prospects for peace are utterly bleak.
Canon
Paul Oestreicher is Secretary of the British
Council of Churches Division of International Affairs
and is a frequent visitor to East Germany.
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