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What your NZUSA reps are saying

Speech given by David Tripe, General Vice President of NZUSA. to the Canwar Easter Seminar on Peace and the Environment.

Speech given by Lisa Sacksen, President of NZUSA. to the Canwar Easter Seminar on Superpower rivalry in the Pacific.

Whenever I get asked to look at something from an environmental viewpoint, I always strike the problem of knowing exactly what an environmental viewpoint is supposed to be. And this confusion is added to by trying to also relate this environmental viewpoint to the struggle for disarmament.

But, as a starting point, I will look back to the International Convention for Peace Action, held in Wellington in February, and to a special interest group at that convention, which considered the question of "Peace and the Environment." To protect my reputation, I feel obliged to say that a reference to that convention should not be construed as implying approval of it; but rather I use it as a basis for criticism and comment, from which to develop further ideas.

I remember two points being made by way of introduction: the first of these related to the environmental degradation that ensued from nuclear warfare, while the second approach questioned the extent to which New Zealand's militan forces harmed our environment in the course of their normal activities. The way in which these ideas were treared, however, did not take things very far. We had to agree that New Zealand's military forces did not do a great deal of damage to the environment, beyond the odd fire started by artillery practice at Waiouru. The damage wrought by nuclear warfare is rather graver in its consequences (to put it mildly), but, in this case, people were not really prepared to give serious consideration to the conditions which cause nuclear war. I will put some ideas forward on this question later.

The special interest group on "Peace and the Environment" did, however extend its scope beyond these two topics. It started to consider questions relating to resources, and I believe that there was some recognition that peace was not possible while the world's resources were so patently unevenly distributed amongst the world's people. There was a recognition of what, in my view, is a very proper attitude: that peace requires justice.

Various people see environmental movements as having various different social objectives, and these social objectives can vary widely from the reactionary to the radical. One recent survey, by a sociologist, which was reported to the Environment '77 Conference in Christchurch earlier this year, suggested that New Zealand's current crop of environmentalists tended towards the former category — that is, that the environmentalists tended to be conservative in their social and political viewpoints — but it was further recognised that there was no necessity for this to be always true.

My personal viewpoint is more towards the radical end of the environmental spectrum, however. To take one example, I don't get quite so concerned about subdivisions on hills up to the west of Brooklyn The goals of the environmental movement that I support are rather, to establish a social order where man's relationship to his environment is non-exploitative, where the word exploitative is used in a political sense. This means that I look to a society where resources are used according to our social needs for them, and where it will be possible for us to continue to use them for as long as possible, and where we do not seek to exploit resources, in the minimum possible time for the maximum of profit.

Criteria that are something similar must be applied to the struggle for disarmament, or the movement for peace. The sources of conflict in the modern world are the struggles between rival imperialisms, and the struggle against imperialism. The struggles between rival imperialisms are the conflicts that develop between the big powers as they jockey against one another for influence: the struggle against imperialism is the attempt by peoples in different parts of the world to fight off their foreign masters, and to free themselves from the system which oppressed and exploits them. Thus the struggle for disarmament must entail a struggle against imperialism.

Furthermore, imperialism is a system with an insatiable appetite for the world's resources. Thus the struggle against imperialism is not only a struggle for disarmament: it is also a struggle to defend resources, and protect the environment. And it is further a struggle to establish a system which is non-exploitative between different sections of the population.

I can now go back to the issue of nuclear warfare and nuclear weaponry, the concentrated development of which is undoubtedly environmentally damaging. And again, we can see that the major imperialist nations of the world, the superpowers, are the ones that are primarily responsible at the present time for the development of nuclear weapons and nuclear warfare. And while these two nations are busily pretending to be talking about peace, they are, in fact, just as busily preparing for war.

The question is then one of what we can do about it, once the problem is recognised. I believe that we should support the call made by United Nations Secretary General Kurt Waldheim to the opening meeting of the committee which is preparing for next year's UN special session on disarmament — that the scrapping of existing stocks of nuclear weapons was the only way to avoid a nuclear holocaust. And I would remind people of the call made by the late Chinese Premier Chou enLai for the Chinese Government, "for the complete prohibition and thorough destruction of nuclear weapons."

However, we have another example of the relationships between the struggles for disarmament and the struggle to protect our environment taking place rather closer to home. We have a particular instance where we are striving to protect our resources from excessive exploitation, with regard to fishing.

Many fishermen, and a number of other people besides, are raising the cry that the operations of foreign fishing fleets in our waters are upsetting fish supplies, with the result that we are having to pay even higher prices for fish in our local shops. There has recently been controversy over the mesh sizes of the nets used by Japanese and Russian trawlers operating in our waters and only last Wednesday we saw in the Evening Post something of net sizes being used by South Korean trawlers. We find foreign fishing vessels interfering with the operations of New Zealand trawlers, and there have recently been reports from Tauranga of shots being fired between New Zealand and United States owned trawlers.

By a number of processes, then, a serious depletion of our fishing stocks is taking place. The answer is commonly talked about the only way to properly protect the resources and environment in the seas around us is for us to declare a 200 mile zone of economic management around us, and we must urge the government to go ahead with this at once.

But it is here that we strike the problem in relation to the struggle for disarmament, for if we are to achieve our environmental goals in this respect, we cannot have disarmament. If the Ministry of Defence's assessment of New Zealand's capabilities are anything like correct, we must have the exact opposite of disarmament, and in this respect I refer to the Minister of Defence's speech to the Upper Mutt Rotary Club on March 28, where he said that: "New Zealand would be hard-pressed to establish and maintain a surveillance and policing effort on the scale needed to ensure that persistent infringements could be detected, and sufficient violators arrested, to constitute a deterrent."

Plainly, for such purposes, a substantial increase in our defence commitment to our navy and air force would be required, and here again, I must disagree with the general attitudes shown at the International Convention for Peace Action. Although the situation may appear to be contradictory, so long as the present world system exists, we cannot protect our environment and struggle in all spheres for disarmament. The goals of the environmental movement and of the movement for disarmanent must then be the same: for as long as their goals cannot be satisfied within this system, the system must be changed.

N.Z.U.S.A. is the National Student Organisation which represents the country's 39,000 University Students.

This policy is linked to our most important and controversial piece of International Policy which states:

That NZUSA condemns the U.S. and the U.S.S.R. military, political and economic domination and competition as being contrary to the independence and development of all other nations and their peoples.

We oppose the visits of Nuclear Warships not only because of the danger they bring in themselves; the risk of accident and contamination, but also because of the danger they represent. They indicate for New Zealand a future which we do not wish to see. They represent the growing threat of confrontation between the U.S. and the U.S.S.R.

Many people belive that the U.S.S.R. is still a socialist country, that its arms build-up has been in response to the threats of the United States in this area, that its recent forays into Africa, its commercial interests in Europe, India, Singapore and Australia are only signs of the USSR asserting its right to a "legitimate sphere of influence."

We wish we could share this view of the world. Nothing would give us more comfort than to consider the U.S.S.R. as a bulwark on the side of the world's people, standing in defence of their rights against the aggression and imperialism of the United States.

But to believe this, to take this comfort we would have to be blind, wilfully blind. We would be neglecting our responsibilities and obligations as the youth of this country.

For us, it is clear that the world is coming closer and closer to a third world war, We believe detente to be a smokescreen set up to disguise the realities of the world. Do we then give up all hope for Peace. Most certainly we do not.

There is a path away from this awful danger.

First N.Z. must withdraw from the American Alliance, particularly the Arms pact and, couple this with greater unity with the Third World countries and an independent, non-aligned foreign policy. As long as New Zealand bases its security on great powers it will inevitably be drawn into the adventures of the great power — IndoChina shows that. And independent, non-aligned foreign policy, based, on unity with the Third World serves the best interests of New Zealanders and the people of countries by placing us with those who bear the brunt of superpower contention.

Second New Zealand must strive for greater economic independence, particularly by pushing out foreign capital. New Zealand's main economic ties with foreign imperialism — its main markets in the developed capitalist world, foreign investment by transnational corporations and heavy borrowing in the world's money markets — all these strengthen the grip of imperialism in New Zealand and draws us into greater political ties with it. Without greater economic independence New Zealand will not be able to defend its political independence.

New Zealand must promote a nuclear weapon-free peace zone in the South Pacific. Such a peace zone excludes great power rivalries from the South Pacific. It will force the two superpowers to dismantle their military bases, including U.S. military bases in New Zealand, to remove all their nuclear weapons and their armed forces from the South Pacific. In particular, the South Pacific will be closed to the surface military ships and submarines of the two superpowers, they will no longer be able to use it for their fleets, particularly their nuclear-powered, strategic missile-carrying submarines.

N.Z.U.S.A. can and does play a part in this.

Through our fraternal relationships with the universities in the Pacific— the University of the South Pacific in Fiji, the University of Papua New Guinea, and the Australian Union of Students, we promote and foster the idea of a Nuclear Free Peace Zone in the Pacific. Our struggle is made that much easier because each of these Students' Associations has positive policy on this matter.

Through the Asian Students Association we have contact with many Third World Students Unions ranging from Student unions in the Middle East to Japan. The A.S.A. has strong and militant policy on the question of the Superpowers. In this framework we lay down the basis for the united front against war.

Here in New Zealand we lend our support to the Campaign Against Nuclear Warships, and propagate the idea of an idependent and non-aligned foreign policy for New Zealand.