Opinion Page 6 Tuesday, June 15, 1982- The Michigan Daily The Michigan Daily Vol. XCII, No. 29-S Ninety-two Years of Editorial Freedom Edited and managed by students at the University of Michigan Peace i Begin at the end THE GUNS ON the Falkland Islands now have fallen silent, returning the islands to the peace and tranquility that was so suddenly and brutally replaced by the sounds of war. Aggression was not allowed to succeed and so begins the tenuous path toward the long-term solution that has so eluded negotiators. Scores of Britons gave their lives to show Argentina and the world that aggression does not pay. But now that the fighting has stopped and the light of glory shines on their shores, the British should not forget their cause. Aggression has been put down, at great cost of not only lives, but fragile political ties as well. The United States has as much, if not more, stake in the eventual outcome of the cease-fire. If the British insist upon kicking the Argentines while they are down, it will jeopardize already damaged (but reparable) relations with Latin America as well as continued U.S. support. The best solution for the Falklands again lies on the negotiating table, not in jingoistic chauvinism. Some peacekeeping force must be put together (preferably not American, which the Argentines will resist) to take control of the islands from British and Argentine troops. The Falklands crisis has put Prime Minister Thatcher on firmer footing on her home turf, but she should remember that even Winston Churchill was thrown from office within months of his finest hour. War or no war, the conflict over the islands remains, and Thatcher would do well to return that conflict to negotiations and work on a solution. ~. 7 "1eITS rArCE>.Od \ULL TA Lu. TAleC OF-HE RICHt By Phillip Ochieng A question I often ask myself about the peace movement now sweeping across the United States is: What is there in it for me as a member of the Third World? And the answer I keep arriving at - perplexing though it may sound to most Americans - is nothing. I could even say that the movement runs afoul of my best interests. THE CENTRAL demand of the movement is general disar- mament or, most specifically, a nuclear freeze. It is a demand, however, based on assumptions which are fundamentally false; indeed, they can only impair the real cause of peace in the long run. Onefalse assumption is that a freeze or arms accord can provide a long-term answer to the intense rivalry between the United States and the Soviet Union. A second false assumption is that the conflict is a purely Soviet-American affair, a phenomenon exclusively of the Northern Hemisphere. It is probably from this assumption that the peace movement behaveshas though the problem can be solved without any reference to the Third World. To ask questions is to begin to understand that the political rivalry and the arms race aresnot ends in themselves. To ask questions is to realize that, in the last instance, politics and war are means to ends which are sometimes - as now - seldom mentioned by the belligerents. Even when theydo refer to en- ds, it is only in extremely subjec- tive terms, phrases which are so hackneyed that they only help to mystify the real objective of the present rivalry. Such is the case when the U.S. and its allies claim that their only aim in the world is to foster and defend "freedom" and "democracy" or, to put it another way, to counter the "threat" of Soviet "com- munism" and "totalitarianism." SUCH IS THE case, too, when the Soviet Union alleges that its only mission in the world is to "liberate" mankind by helping defeat U.S-led imperialism and building "socialism." But neither assertion prevents the United States from siding with some of the most totalitarian and tyrannical regimes in the world - as long as those regimes tend for the time being to serve the long-term interests of the U.S. and NATO. Likewise, such terms as "socialism" and "liberation" have not prevented the Soviet Union from going out of its way, wherever it has a foothold, to n~1 heong run ~ R 4 4 a a l " : - - . . s . - , Protesters march for a nuclear weapons freeze inuNew York City, while the East-West conflict over the Third World continues. channel most revolutionary fer- vor to the Soviet mold so as to prevent it from taking a more popular dimension. TO TALK OF Soviet and American rivalry in the Third World is to begin to answer the question posed at the outset: The Third World is the spoil,the aim, the target of the intense rivalry between the United States and the Soviet Union. This should be clear enough. The Soviet Union is not interested in any territorial part of the United States, nor is the United States interested in any territorial part of the Soviet Union. They would not go to war, much less arm themselves so frighteningly, in the claim of such territory. What is' there in the Third World to warrant such an un- precedented race then, such a frighteningly military array on both sides? The answer, of cour- se, is raw materials. They are the kernel of the conflict. But to say that alone oversimplifies the whole situation. IN MANY AREAS both the United States and the Soviet Union have more natural resour- ces internally than have many Third World countries. But this is where political tactics and military strategy comes in. To secure Third World ground for the Western alliance is to block Soviet political, military and, ultimately, economics in- filtration into the Western Hemisphere. That is why Cuba is such an anathema: not because it is "communist" - it isn't - but because it furthers the political, military and economic interests of a great rival. The entire political and military strategy of the United States in West Africa, East Africa, the Indian Ocean and the Middle East is to make sure that those areas are safe politically and militarily, not for their own sake, but for the protection of the vast riches in which Africa and the Middle East abound. It is not that the Western alliance is discovering the economic imporancerofgthese areas for the first time. These have been Western spheres of in- fluence ever since the 15th cen- tury. In fact, Western states fought bitter wars among them- selves there long before the emergence of the Soviet Union. THE SOVIET-AMERICAN rivalry, in truth, is a very recent, postwar phenomenon. Both coun- tries emerge as world powers, af- ter World War II nearly tore the old imperial powers of Europe to death. But whereas collective in- terests allowed the United States to easily enter the spheres of in- fluence of the Western European powers, the Soviet Union'found it much more difficult to enter the fray of international plunder. For the Third World, therefore, the rivalry is between two kinds of powers: one kind which has been fleecing us for centuries and another which now challenges the first everywhere. For the people of the Third World, this conflict has meant the consigning of millions to the grave while others sink below the starvation line. We can thus say that the North- South conflict is the essence of the East-West conflict. The East- West conflict is an important form of the conflict from the political and military point of view, but the North-South conflict is its true content. This the American-Soviet rivalry cannot be resolved until the North-South line (between poverty and affluence) has been solved. Any peace movement which ignores this fact will only perpetuate war and world poverty. Ochieng, a prominent African journalist, wrote this article for the Pacific News Service. 4 I I