page 6

Peace Convention—Debate taken up

Members of the organising Committees for the recent Convention welcome critical comment. However, we cannot allow the catalogue of misrepresentations that you published to go unchallenged.

The Organising Committees: Right from the beginning the Committees were open to anyone who was willing to offer assistance. About 25 of us from various groups were involved. Don Carson attended one or two of the first meetings in Wellington and I believe was invited to every subsequent committee meeting. Everyone was welcome to our meetings and to contribute their ideas, time and energies. We certainly needed far more support in the beginning.

Contrary to your allegation we were not all members of the Socialist Unity Party. Indeed not one of us is.

We never sought to be anything other than an ad hoc group constituted solely to organise the Convention. No claim has ever been made by any of us to represent the NZ Peace Movement.

The New Liaison Committee: The fear that some new organisation has been unde mocratically forced upon peace organisations has no basis. The idea of a liaison committee was merely stated in the list of action proposals to be considered at the Convention. It was debated at length in the small groups and received favourable support. Delegates from each centre will be asked to meet to discuss further its format its policy and its representation on the basis of the ideas suggested at the Convention. The anonymous NZUSA delegate should understand the meaning of 'proposal'.

To be upset by one person's suggestion that this Committee be affiliated to the World Peace Council is a sad reaction. Why shouldn't the suggestion be made. The discussion groups were set up for creative dialogue.

Your reference to a complaint lodged by 'a Quaker Centre for Peace Studies' about the setting up of a 'competing organisation... without prior discussion' is misguided. We imagine you are refering to the NZ Foundation for Peace Studies which is not a Quaker organisation. Several members of this organisation's Council were involved in the Auckland organising committee.

At no time prior to your report has [unclear: any-jested] that the Liason committee should be a 'competing organisation. Most support seems to be for a committee which serves to facilitate communication between the various different groups. Your suggestion that a Peace Council has been established has no basis. Not even a name has been decided upon.

Socialist Unity Party: Your team seems obsessed by their discovery that the S.U.P. was represented. There were not 50 as you suggest. There were three delegates and apparently about eight other members at tended representing different organisations.

You suggest there is something insidious about the fact that their people could understand what was happening. This was probably because they, like most of the delegates, took the Convention seriously and read the information sent out prior to the Convention. Contrary to your allegation most delegates who had registered received most of the action proposals before Christmas. Thus most delegates had the opportunity to become familiar with the material well in advance of the Convention. Six newsletters were mailed out giving progress reports on who was coming and how the programme was shaping up.

There is absolutely no evidence that the S.U.P. "turned up... in large numbers... to push through the formation of a New Zealand Peace organisation affiliated to the World Peace Council.' Once again the organisation and the affiliation policies have yet to be established.

To suggest that this liaison committee would "merely be a front for the escalating Soviet diplomatic and economic offensive in the South Pacific" is preposterous.

Policy Debate: If your team had read the pre-Convention literature and the registration form, and listened to the statements of George Armstrong and myself they should not have made their most fundamental error of judgment This was that the Convention was never structured to be a policy debating, ideological free for all. This is why it was not called a 'Conference'. The reasons for this have been repeated often.

First, there is no organisation yet and it would be a rather pointless exercise to debate policy and pass resolutions for a non existent organisation. Indeed countrary to your allegations, not a single motion was passed. I explained that the five statements read out on Friday night were not to be considered resolutions but affirmations. This decision was made months ago and was reflected in changed registration forms.

Secondly, a number of us have been involved in policy debating discussions and invariably have come out with statements similar to those in the five affirmations. It was our stated concern to go beyond policy making and consider suggestions for action. These were sent in by numerous people and were published in the form of 80 action proposals.

Throughout the 18 months only one person made a suggestion for altering the affirmations. George Goddard insisted that the words 'possession' and 'destruction' be added to the phrase "we oppose the manufacture, testing, sale and use of all nuclear weapons". Both these ideas seemed to be self-evident, given the rest of the sentence, but it was decided to incorporate possession' and this I read out on Friday evening.

Would your team kindly explain what our "false policies on world peace 'are? We are not aware we ever determined such a policy. You contend that "the definition of peace was dictated to the delegates from above". Many of us are still searching for a clear definition of "peace". We might get a clue if you could possibly tell us what it is that we are supposed to have 'dictated". And please cite one speaker who specifically said "that peace could come without real changes in political structures". (Anecdote 2)

David Tripe was incensed that there was some cunning "ploy" to "engineer" the endorsement of the New Stockholm Appeal When was this done? It was listed as an action proposal and individuals were given the opportunity to sign if they so desired. This was also the case with other petitions and a number of proposals which called for individual commitment. No-one intended to force David into signing it. Did he feel any such pressure? Did he wish to prevent others from signing it?

Anecdote 3 contains numerous inaccuracies. Prior to the Convention I attended two (not several) Conferences. One was Gensuikyo's Conference in Japan last August (not 18 months ago). Whoever heard me "promise the Japanese Peace Movement that an appeal of their's would be endorsed at the Convention"? I asked Gensuikyo to bring their petition for people to sign who wished to. This was listed as an action proposal. There was no promise to do otherwise.

The other Conference was in Helsinki and there I did invite people from over a 100 different countries to attend the Wellington Convention at their own expense. The organising Committees saw no harm in this.

Plenary Session: There were several reasons why the request for a plenary was denied.

1.	There were so many registrations, representing so many backgrounds and with such a wide range of ideas, and arguments it was believed that no useful purpose would be served.
2.	There was no organisation for which to fashion a policy statement.
3.	Time was against having a useful session on Sunday afternoon. Four buses were due to travel the 12 hour journey back to Auckland. Many held airline bookings.
4.	Most importantly the request came from only one or two sources. This was proved when the issue was put to a vote. No more than 50 out of more than 700 present thought it could be productive. We wonder why this vote was not reported by your team.
5.	It was considered that a far more valuable exchange of ideas would take place between people in the smaller action proposal discussion groups on Saturday and in the special interest groups on Sunday. The ideas were recorded and will be included in the Convention Booklet.
6.	If your team's advisors had participated in the planning sessions perhaps an open plenary session could have been scheduled. It could not be done on the spot without disrupting the preparations of many people.

The decision to organise it the way we did was made at least a year before we heard that there would be "a group of Maoists...out to disrupt the Conference." We were pleased your 'team' found this an 'unlikely reason"! (Anecdote 1)

I deny saying that "there would be a final plenary session to discuss all the action proposals". I said something to the effect that at the final session a statement would be made about the findings of the action proposal discussion groups.

The Overseas Delegates: The insinuation repeatedly made by your team that the Convention was a Soviet 'jack-up' is laughable. We defy you to prove that the ICPA committee are "agents of the Superpowers and the S.U.P." and that the "Conference got a line manufactured by the Superpowers".

In one of your misrepresentations you allege that the Rev. Ron O'Grady representing the Christian Conference of Asia, said "the entire Conference was used by the Superpowers to further their battle of propoganda". He was in Auckland when your article was received and he denies saying what you have made him say. He told me that he had said that the key to disarmament lay with the Superpowers and that they would have to do more than confront each other at Conferences for there to be disarmament.

Certainly the USA-USSR relationship was an important aspect of the Convention. Detente was inevitably discussed. But please be fair, there were many, many other issues and many delegates with different concerns. Our feeling is that you have totally misrepresented the Convention when you reduce it to the confrontation between two of the Superpowers.

Your team have totally ignored the valuable contributions of people such as Isaac Soaladoab, Mairead Gorrigan, Bob Aldridge, Marty Osberg, Ron O'Grady, Alice Coppard Dr Yap Thiam Hien, Sir Mark Oliphant Arthur Hewlett, and Senator Macintosh.

Statements made by New Zealand's Viola Palmer, Jim Knox. George Armstrong, and the moving message from Myra Szazy were ignored.

The efforts of 22 special interest groups discussing issues such as non-alignment, Nuclear weapon free zones, research, peace squadrons etc. have been ignored.

And you concentrate merely on two or three of the 80 action proposals.

The Chinese Question Obviously your team was frustrated by the fact that no delegates came from China. This was understandable but to say that "Hinchcliff never invited the Chinese Peace Council" is to convey entirely the wrong impression. It was indeed true that members of the Committee had tried several ways to invite the Chinese. Why were these not reported?

One of our approaches was via Ron Howell present Chairman of the NZ-China Society. I quote from his unsolicited letter dated 22 February. "Permit me to offer congratulations on the obvious success of the Convention for Peace Action...I was rather horrified to be told this morning that someone had spoken very critically that 'no effort had been made to ensure representation from China'- or something along those lines. That was of course, quite untrue. With your knowledge and support I had discussed this on behalf of the Organisers while I was in Peking last October. The situation was very seriously considered by the appropriate people there but the decision was that they felt direct representation would be inappropriate and that they would trust their friends to present their points of view...That much I duly reported to you via one of your assistants.. The Society then decided that we would produce a brief statement to encourage discussion and agin I reported this to your folk who expressed approval of this move. And such a statement was printed and duly distributed.... Nothing more could possibly have been asked of the Organisers."

Another approach was a letter to Rewi Alley dated 25 November 1976, Two students took our registration forms to China and were asked to convey our invitation. Also a letter was written to the Chinese Embassy inviting the Ambassador or a representative to be present. Their letter expressing regrets was dated 4 February.

We sincerely regret the Chinese could not come but were delighted that the NZ China Society took the trouble to print a brochure to make known their position. This was distributed and will be included page 7 in the Convention booklet.

Canwar: The anonymous Canwar delegate explains that some of his committee "had taken a major part in the organisation of the Conference". Who were they? And what were they doing? Where were they when we needed them?

The suggestion that "Hinchcliff refused to alter by as much as a minute the planned starting time to accommodate the march" is untrue. This can be proved by checking the preliminary programme outlines. Originally the Friday meeting was scheduled to begin at 8 p.m. Then Newsletter No. 5 says the time was rescheduled for 8.15 p.m. because of the march being organised by Canwar. In the letter written by Raewyn Tate dated 14 January she explains that at a meeting on 29 November they decided they could not organise the march as they had agreed to because of "the lack of organisation support at this time of the year and the fact that you yourself are tied to a tight schedule".

Canwar's action proposals were considered. The action proposal for a campaign for a nuclear weapon free zone in the South Pacific was no more than a statement favouring the plan. There were no specific suggestions for action that New Zealanders could take. This was one of the five affirmations. Also a special interest group was scheduled to discuss the zone in depth. We believe the idea is crucial and that it did receive a lot of consideration. There were proposals for Pacific peoples "to be left to live in peace" (cf. proposal 24) and for "a comprehensive educational programme" (cf. proposals 13,47,53). A further suggestion was for a World disarmament Conference to ensure nuclear weapons would be destroyed and that "no-one would be first to use nuclear weapons". Please read proposal 27 to see that this also has been incorporated.

There was a request for the Convention to endorse the founding resolution of Canwar. However, the ideas within this resolution were already included throughout the list of proposals and affirmations.

We apologized publicly for the secretarial error in omitting Canwar from the roll call.

How can Canwar say the "nuclear warships question was largely ignored '? George Armstrong and Ken Hulls—organisers of the Auckland and Wellington Peace Squadrons, were organisers of the Convention and they led a special interest discussion group on their Peace Squadrons and the affirmations stated clearly our objections to the presence of nuclear warships.

Conclusion: Many of us on the planning Committees have experienced despair at the apparent unwillingness of the Superpowers to disarm in the past. Those of us who have experienced the hostility and paranoia of people from both sides feared that nothing could be done. But recently the barriers have started coming down. Friendships are being made. There are some signs of trust and a reduction of suspicion and fear. The UN decision to call a special session on disarmament next year is something many of us have sought for years.

These seem to be real signs for hope and must be given every chance to develop. I believe those who violently condemn such beginnings are misguided and foster the dangerous cold war mentality.

Postcript: We regret your team were disappointed with the Convention. We hope we will be able to work together in the future.

John Hinchcliff