Kremlin sponsors peace rallies

Press, 25 August 1986, Page 10

Kremlin sponsors peace rallies

NZPA-Reuter Moscow Thousands of Muscovites at the week-end attended official peace rallies that were organised after the Kremlin extended its nuclear test pause.

Crowds carrying red flags and banners went to the rallying-points in the city’s Gorky and Sokolniki parks, as well as a car factory and the central Luzhniki sports stadium. In Gorky Park hundreds of people filled the

front square and overflowed beyond the gates to hear speakers from the trade unions, State Peace Committee and the Communist youth organisation, Komsomol, appeal for disarmament. Demonstrations in the Soviet Union are either officially orchestrated or short-lived — anyone spontaneously unfurling a banner is almost certain to be arrested. The hour-long rallies were part of an intense

propaganda campaign launched by the ideology chief, Yegor Ligachev, after Mikhail Gorbachev said on Monday that the Kremlin was extending the test freeze until January 1, 1987. The Soviet Union and United States could agree to end nuclear tests at a summit meeting later this year, he said. American officials have held out some hope of a limited nuclear test accord but rejected the call

for a total freeze as a propaganda stunt. They have said privately that American nuclear tests must continue to maintain the offensive deterrent and develop the strategic defence initiative, or "star wars” programme for a space missile shield.

People leaving the rally in Gorky Park said they were disappointed by Washington’s continued refusal to join the test pause, first announced by

the Kremlin last year. The Communist Party’s newspaper, “Pravda” kept up the pressure on the United States by printing an open letter from Soviet war veterans to their American counterparts. “Why is it today, when we no longer wear our army coats and when we have raised our children and grandchildren, influential ‘hawkish’ forces would like us to be on different sides of the nuclear barricade?” the letter asked.