New frigates

Press, 23 September 1988, Page 12

New frigates

Sir, —I had no interest in politics until the nuclear-free declaration of 1984 started becoming a reality. The Muldoon era left me cold. Now there is purpose and life in New Zealand which demands my participation. So here I am saying “no” to SSOOM frigates. We have more pressing needs than joining war games and having a strutting grey bantam at our local celebrations. Our neighbours and ourselves need craft for resource management, relief work, search and rescue etc. Frigates have no room for these tasks: even the helicopter is jammed with electronics to detect submarines! I suggest S2OOM will buy us the craft we need. The SIBOOM saving can be used to develop the people of Aotearoa-New Zealand.—Yours, etc., NIGEL WESTON. September 19, 1988.

Sir, —In alleging he was told when in the Hungarian Army during the early 1950 s that his division would join a-Soviet push into a then “neutral” Austria, C. E. L. Field (September 19) must be fantasising. Austria was not neutral. It became so only in 1955, when post-war Soviet occupation forces withdrew. They left only on condition that Austria became neutral — hardly indicating Soviet rejection of neutrality. The United States Secretary of State, George Shultz, underlined the international value of Austrian neutrality when in 1985 he, with the Soviet Foreign Minister, Andrei Gromyko, toasted its thirtieth anniversary. Mr Shultz praised Austria’s active neutrality, singling out its mediating role (“The Press,” May 17, 1985). As the Soviet leader, Mr Gorbachev, points out, post-Cher-nobyl, even a conventional European war would become nuclear when reactors were hit (or melted down, abandoned by fleeing staff?). Only international dialogue, usually requiring neutral venues, can prevent this. — Yours, etc., J. GALLAGHER. September 19, 1988.

Sir,—l am not sure what doctrine C. E. L. Field meant (September 19), wondering; whether I had asked the Soviet Embassy whether it had been abandoned. But I am sure that Gorbachev’s Soviet Union, faced with minority nationalities’ demands for increased self-deter-mination, the failure to hold Afghanistan and, much earlier, the refusals of countries like Yugoslavia, Albania and China to accept Soviet decisions, will not intend so blandly to liberate oppressed people under capitalism. Capitalism will cause any armed struggle with communism, to maintain its selfish wealth. Armed struggle with capitalism is definitely off the Soviet agenda and Comrade Gorbachev is making concessions to keep it off. We do not need expensive frigates to defend ourselves from

the Soviets or anyone else. Only our former A.N.Z.U.S. allies have the capacity to invade us, and the billions wanted for those useless frigates are urgently needed for many humanitarian purposes here. — Yours, etc., SUSAN TAYLOR. September 20, 1988.