IN THE autumn of 1982 the general assembly of the United Nations will hold a special session on the problems of world peace and ment weeks and days, and 1982 is to be disarmament year.
The general assembly will be presented with a monster petition containing millions of signatures demanding peace and organised by the Disarmament Campaign.
In Britain this campaign is led by Brigadier Harbottle, who intends to canvass the whole population. This grandiose scheme is in inverse proportion to the number people the campaign organises so the WDS looking to the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament for its troops.
Leading supporters of the Campaign like Lord Fenner Rrockwav and Philip Noel Baker want to reap the rewards of milions names provides by the thousands of WUIK CND activists.
The national council of CND on 7 February took a long discussion on aspects of CND's relationship with this campaign'. The minutes of the meeting report that at least three lines of thought were expressed Ill variety ways: The UN has already organised disarmaThe World Disarmament Campaign petition THESE are the demands for which the World Disarmament Campaign is seeking millions of signatures: weapons of destruction. 2. i reen sales coote disarmament do The 3. General and complete disarmament and 4. transference of military expenditure to end world general and complete disarmament of the whole conventional weapons as wen as lucical weapons.
The agencies throug! which the WDC hopes thi: worthy aim will be achievtional conferences peace COVerLONS and United Nations • indeed any forum willing to fill its platform with speakers of worthy sentiment and little disarm CND 1. The abolition of all nuclear weapons and all The abolition by amil capable of directing capable of directing he oa lic douces the Tory government.
Of petitions can have a role, but only it they are an adjunct to generating Huds.
The most powertul action generate alist Thatcher's war policies is united working tion.
While the prospects for such a mass movement are infinitely more promising than in the 1950s '60s, there is still much to do -clear Collidicul unilateralism has yet to be in the and Labour Party.
Petitions appealing for general disarmament are exactly what is wanted by those like Michael Foot whose aim is to fudge the could issue. They want to continue to edge away from a government of weapons Genera appeals for 'peace' are worse than useless. First, they offer no definite objectives by which peace can be fought for. They present hopes that can be readily agreed without anyone to anything.
Secondly, it is wrong in principle to approach all conflicts with a simple appeal for peace, which is a stock-in-trade the Kremlin bureaucrats.
For example, should we approach the struggle in El Salvador or the uprising of the blacks in Soweto with an appeal for 'peace' and 'general and complete KOMITE ted outside NATO Brussels last weekend. They demandheadquarters in the ed a nuclear free Europe and opposed placing of Cruise missiles. Over 1,000 people came from CND groups