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OPINION
Thursday, October 1, 1981
Poj~ea
Edited and managed by students at The University of Michigan
Canada seeks
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Vol. XCHi, No. 19
420 Moynard St.
Ann Arbor, MI 48109
Editorials represent a majority opinion of the Daily's Editorial Board
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Pakistan adthe bm
HERE WERE more indications reactor-extra fuel that could, in time,
this week that Pakistan is using be the ingredients of an atomic bomb.
As uclarreactor to develop an Pakistan has not signed the Nuclear
stomic bomb. Proliferation Treaty, and although it
The developments cast serious doubt has publicly pledged to not develop
dn the wisdom of some of the nuclear weapons, it has not ruled out
provisions of President Reagan's the development of a "peaceful
proposed military aid package to nuclear device" similar to the
Pakistan. "peaceful" nuclear bomb India has
: Experts have long suspected that exploded.
Pakistan wanted to develop a nuclear Part of President Reagan's recent
weapon-especially after India ex- aid program for Pakistan was a
ploded an atomic bomb several years request to exclude Pakistan from a law
ego. But there has remained some that forbids giving military aid to
doubt in the past about whether countries that have a nuclear weapons
Pakistan would be able to acquire the program. The President argued that
vital components to build a bomb. In the exemption was necessary to main-
addition, at least under the Carter ad- tain Pakistan's strength in the wake of
ministration, there was some question the Soviet takeover of Afghanistan.
whether Pakistani strongman But United States concerns in the
Mohammad Zia ul-Haq might be per- area should go far beyond trying to
suaded through threatened cutbacks in keep General Zia in power in Pakistan.
U.S. military aid to scrap his plans for Nuclear weapons in
atomic weaponry. Pakistan-especially nuclear weapons
Reports this week, however, seem to in the hands of the Zia regime-can
suggest that Pakistan is going full only serve to further destabilize an
steam ahead with the project. already unstable area. -If the ad-
Some officials in Congress and the ministration is seeking to create
administration said on Tuesday that stability in the region,. removing the
the International Atomic Energy incentive for Pakistan to junk its
Agency, which 'is charged with nuclear program is not the way to do it.
monitorying Pakistan's reactor near The "irregularities" that have oc-
Karachi, has detected several curred at the Pakistani reactor are
"anamolies" in the operation of the just further indications of Pakistan's
plant. intent to acquire nuclear weaponry.
Among the "irregularities'' at the The administration should realize that
plant have been an exceptionally large America's interest goes beyond:
number of failures in the surveillance bolstering the friendly regimes in the
equipment installed by the IAEA. area; one of our highest priorities
What is feared is that Pakistan is should be to do all we can to halt the
sneeking extra nuclear fuel into the spread of nuclear bombs.
Letters and columns represent
the opinions of the individual
author(s) and do not necessarily
reflect the attitudes or beliefs of
the Daily.
Ask any American who has
recently arrived back from a
vacation in Canada about what
differences they found there, and
you'll hear replies such as:
"They like vinegar on their fren-
ch fries." "Toronto is so safe and
clean." "Even the cereal box is in
French and English."
Hardly ever will someone
note, "Canada doesn't have a
constitution."
IN FACT, Canada is the only
independent country in the world
that doesn't have a constitution.
Instead, its foundation rests on
the British North American Act
of 1867, which can only be amen-
ded by act of the British
Parliament.
So why not bring the BNA Act
home to Canada? Obviously, the
Queen of England is just a figure-
head in the Canadian political
structure, so what's the problem?
The problem is that there has
never been a consensus between
the Federal and Provincial
governments. And even with the
historic Supreme Court ruling
this past Monday, it still appears
that no consensus is in sight.
IN THE CASE it decided this
week, the Supreme Court was
supposed to determine whether
the Federal government needed
the consentgof the individual
provinces to go ahead with Prime
Minister Pierre Trudeau's plan to
bring the constitution to Canada.
But instead of giving a precise
-ruling in the case, the ruling was
ambigious.
On the one hand, the court said,
tradition dictates that consent be
obtained from the provinces, but
on the other hand, Trudeau
legally can proceed with his plan
to London. As a result, both sides
are claiming victory.
, One can argue for hours
legality versus tradition in
Canada, but the future of a
Canadian constitution, as always,
will be laced with politics. A look
at three of the groups involved in
the dispute explains why this is
so.
FIRST, THERE are Trudeau's
forces. A columnist for the Toron-
to Star once noted that Trudeau
has never lost a battle in his
lifetime, and the closest anyone
came in doing so was Maggie,
who only succeeded with a draw.
The same is true in the con-
stitutional ring: Trudeau plans to
slug it out until the end. His sights
are aimed at the history books
(not People magazine), and he
isn't going to let any provincial
premiers get in his way of being
the Canadian prime minister who
brought the constitution home.
power o
Alberta h
Saskatch
Newfound
have man
And the li
Langua
tor. Some
French p
bilinguist
other extr
By Georgs Golubo
The Michigan Doily
constitution
resources.
vskis Although tension is mountinigt
our northern doorstep, the idea'f
ver their resources. separation would be foolhardy i!O
as a large oil industry. either Quebec or any of the
ewan has potash. Western provinces. Concerning
land hopes to one day the latter, there has even been6
y off shore drilling rigs. talk by a small few that these
st goes on. provinces should join the United
ge rights is another fac- States, thinking they would have
provinces with small more provincial autonomy.
opulations don't want What madness! Even with
ic policies. While at the President Reagan's plan to give
eme, Quebec's Premier states more power, the level of
autonomy wouldn't be anything
close to what exists in Canada
today. Still, the situation'in
Quebec does warrant our atten-
tion.
ONE OF THE major reasons
that the constitution is an issue
today is a promise to start its
process again by Trudeau during
the 1980 Quebec referendum,
which asked Quebec voters
whether they wanted to negotiate
"Sovereignty-association." That
is, a sovereign Quebec that is
economically associated with
Canada. Thanks to Trudeau, the
777 item went down decisively to
defeat among both Frenchand
English Quebecois.
There is underlying support in
Quebec for such a program to be
resurrected today, but there is
also opposition to it. The question
~~'then is' whether this opposition
be used to blunt the support. I
would speculate that initially it
may be difficult, because the op-
position is more latent than the
support. But in the long run,
the sovereignty-association plan
would be defeated, not to mention
rudeau the separation.
As with a long distance
sque wants the French marathon, the last stretch of
nore widely used in his creating a Canadian constitution
.ntly French speaking is the most difficult. As a O
Trudeau's middle Canadian, I hope my country will
't acceptable to either become more than, as some have
quipped, "a confederation of
ST of the three groups shopping centers."
Canadian Prime Minister Pierre T
Trudeau punctuated this point
in Monday's news conference, by
reflecting back to his infamous
remark in October 1970 as to what
he would' do with the radical
Quebec separatists: "You just
watch," he said.
THE SECOND GROUP is com-
posed of those provincial
premiers who oppose Trudeau.
These premiers are of different
political parties than Trudeau
but this is only a partial ex-
planation for their dissent.
The real reason is economic.
The provinces want to have
Rene Leve
language r
predomina
province.
ground isn
extreme.
THE LA
are the provincial premiers who
support Trudeau. The most im-
portant is Ontario's William
Davis, because of Ontario's in-
dustrial strength. This is also the
reason why Davis decided to.
forego partisanship to support
Trudeau's plan:sOntario's fac-
tories need other province's.
Golubovskis is a graduate
student at the Institute of
Public Policy Studies and
recently completed a book en-
titled Crazy Dreaming-The Ander-
son Campaign 1980.
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4
A crisis in NA TO?
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By Robert Lence
THIS IS IT. u Rrn
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WEST BERLIN - For the first time in
NATO's 32-year history, the overused word
"crisis"' is an appropriate epithet. The
traditional, tension-ridden "Atlantic gap" in
the alliance is looking more and more like an
unbridgeable gap.
Even Secretary of State Alexander Haig,
the former NATO commander, was forced to
acknowledge the "disturbing turn" in "both
the substance and tone of our debates of late,"
during his West Berlin visit. He felt com-
pelled to remind West Berliners that "it is
Soviet tanks, not NATO's defense against
those, that threaten the peace of Europe."
The mesage was directed not only at the
rioting demonstrators in the streets, but at
key political policy-makers throughout
Western Europe who have recentlyebegun to
talk openly of "alternatives" to the present
NATO strategies, ranging from new
European power blocks within NATO to
separate, independent alliances and nuclear-
free zones.
While support for NATO membership
remains strong in public opinion polls
throughout Europe, many other surveys
reveal equally strong majority opposition to
nearly every current NATO policy, especially
those emanating from the United States.
Political leaders and security experts
throughout northern Europe say they no
longer perceive a credible defense concept in
NATO, short of nuclear war. The reliability of
the alliance's conventional military response
is nearly nil, they complain, and the past em-
phasis on a creative and positive detente
policy with the East has been replaced by a
loud saber-rattling campaign backed by a
massive arms buildup centered around
nuclear weapons which has little support
here.
From the Reagan administration perspec-
tive, the Europeans' failure to increase-or
even maintain current levels of-defense
spending, coupled with their questions over
NATO's nuclear strategy, looks like,
"pacifism," and "Denmarkization," a term
coined to describe the alleged laxity and soft
approach to defense issues favored by the
weathy, liberal Social Democrats of northern
Europe.
Denmark's prime minister, Anker Jorgen-
son, now has embraced the term to describe
By Jon Stewart
Such views find little acceptance in the
hard-line military approach to security that
the Reagan administration has pursued.
"I think that if the present American policy
continues, it will be extremely difficult for the
Western European nations to follow this
line," said Gert Peterson, a tough NATO
critic and head of Denmark's largest leftist
party, the Socialist People's party. "The
reason is primarily that if it comes to a
cataclysmic situation, we know that Europe
will be the victim."
This last point tends to overshadow all the
older, more traditional tensions within the
alliance. Opposition to the growing NATO
reliance on nuclear weapons acquires special
urgency because it is one issue which massive
public opinion already has affected: Key
European governments are leaning heavily
toward outright refusal to deploy the new U.S.
Pershing II and cruise nuclear missiles in
1983-a modernization plan which the United
States fought hard for and won in December
1979. The plan required "obligatory
unanimity" of all NATO countries in which
the new missiles would be deployed.
If even one of the five countries selected for
the new weapons bows out, the way would be
open for others to follow suit. And the
pressure to refuse the weapons is growing
daily in the Netherlands, Belgium, England,
and especially West Germany, which would
receive the bulk of the new missiles.
Predicts Klaas DeVries, a leading security
expert and a NATO supporter in the Dutch
parliament: "In December our message will
be that we won't deploy yet; we will postpone.
Nobody knows how many years, but I guess
forever.
As DeVries and others see it, Holland's
refusal to deploy will influence the Belgians to
do likewise. Britain surely would follow suit if
the left is returned to power by 1983, since
even the moderate David Owen of the Social
Democrats favors the nuclear-free-zone con-
cept. Italy is unpredictable.
But even if only one or two governments
refuse to deploy the weapons, the pressure on
West Germany's Helmut Schmidt to refuse
demnl a mpn wll p ..nmnuag i, o hp
Washington, is something very new: A
"Europeanized" NATO-an essentially diW
ferent alliance in which the long-dominant
U.S. influence would be tempered by con-
tinental perspectives.
Such a realignment is precisely what
growing numbers of European politital
leaders now are demanding. 'Gert Peterson
forsees two possibilities emerging from the'
present Reagan policies.
One is a "growing isolationism in the
United States, even when it acts more inter-
ventionist--a mixture of isolationism and ex-
treme nationalism. But there is another
possibility," he asserted, "and it is that-a
stronger, more independent Western
European posture inside NATO, in favor of-
detente, might persuade the United Startes
that this is the only common denominator
which could be established for the Western~
world."
Both Denmark and Norway are strong ad-
vocates, of such a Europeanized NATO, in
which the- nuclear option would be pulled far
back from the front line of dissent.
"For us, the only alternatives in the
foreseeable future," said Lasse Budtz,
foreign policy spokesman for Denmark's
ruling Social Democratic Party, "would be a 0
broad European (defense) system. People
are talking about it, and it's understandable
when you look at the kind of policy Reagan is
following. He is widening the gap between
Europe and the United Sates, and that is
dangerous."
Another more radical but increasingly
popular view of alternatives includes the
possibility of a Nordic Nuclear-Free Zone
leading to a Nordic defense pact. Said a Nor-
wegian advocate of the idea: "It is not a
question of leading NATO, but a question of
putting up some limits inside NATO."
As the Dutch observer, DeVries views it:
"NATO has to renew itself, and I think you
could fine a very strong constituency if NATO
would make it clear to the public and to
political leaders that it really has a concept,
and that the concept is meant to work.
"NATO cannot function if it doesn't have
enough public support, if people don't believe
in the weapons policy: If we can't be credible-
to our own people, how can we be credible to
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JOHN DEAP,
ANP ARIY MANILOW
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