é ~ Wednesday, November 20, 1985 — North Shore News Editorial Page News Viewpoint No brainwash ome North Van City folk are crying dirty pool because they suspect a developer of funding election advertising for suppor- tive candidates. Whatever happened to the ‘freedom of association’’ guaranteed hy the Charter of Rights? Daon Development wants to build a $36 million shopping centre on the former Park & Tilford site, with operation and maintenance of the famious Gardens at no cost to the City. But its proposal was recently defeated 4-3 in City council. _ Saturday’s election has now produced a ma- jority of four aldermen favorable to the pro- ject, who were backed in the campaign by a volunteer ‘‘Save the Park & Tilford Gardens*’ committee. Daon denies that it bankrolled that committee. But what’s wrong even if it did? In a free democratic society everyone has the right to associate with whomever he chooses and to pro- mote causes he believes in with both his mouth and his money. To argue that this can unfair- ly benefit groups with outside financing (such as all political parties enjoy) insults the intelli- gence of the voters, who are quite capable of seeing through dubious claims, however well funded, that run counter to their interests. Otherwise, why wasn’t a single council seat won by candidates of the pro-NDP Community Electors Association, which reputedly receiv- ed significant financial aid from the Canadian Union of Public Employees — also perfectly right and proper, provided CUPE members ap- proved of their dues being used in that way? Today’s educated electorate is not for brain- washing. It’s the value of the policies, not the price tag on the campaign budget, that con- vinces it. Freedom's bill reedom of association is again the issue at the venerable Vancouver Club. Its ex- . clusively male membership is being poll- ed on whether to allow women into the dining room, which is rumored to be in financial need of more customers. If the old boys stand fast -and have to pay more for keeping the ladies * at bay, that’s fair enough, too. Nobody ever said freedom of association came free of charge! THE VOICK OF NORTH AND WEST VANCOUVER Display Advertising 980-0511 Classitied Advertising 986-6222 Newsroom 985-2137 Circulation 986-1337 mpav Subscriptions 986-1337 1139 Lonsdale Ave., North Vancouver, B.C. V7M 2H4 publisher: Peter Speck operations mgr. advertising director Berni Hilliard Linda Stewart editor-in-chief managing editor Noel Wright Nancy Weatherley North Shore News, founded in 1969 a5 an indepenceny suburban Newspaper and qualifred under Schedule ti, Parti, Paragraph I) of the Excise Tax Act, is publisned each Wednesday, Friday and Sunday oy North Shore Free Press Lid. and distributes to every door on the North Shore Second Ciass Mail Registration Numper 3885 Entire contents © 1985 Nortn Shore Free Press Ltd. All nghts reserved Member of the B.C. Press Council eM 56,245 (average. Wednesday Friday & Sunday} SN G THIS PAPER IS RECYCLABLE SD4 DIVISIO NO ONE HAG HEARD FROM THEM FOR AGES, wBUT LEGEND HAS IT BOB KELLY AND THE NOP ARE SOMEWHERE IN THAT BUILDING. THE PEACE INDUSTRY — PART 4 The UN family in Geneva THE FAMED WATCHMAKERS of Geneva have litle chance of recapturing their one-time dominant role in the city’s affairs after President Reagan and Soviet leader Gorbachev head home tomorrow. Peace and its vast in- frastructure, the slow, pains- taking betterment of the human condition in every corner of the globe, is now firmly established as the ci- ty’s No. | industry. Although New York is the formal headquarters of the United Nations — the home of its General Assembly, Se- curity Council, Economic and Social Council, and a large portion of the Secretariat — the UN presence in Geneva strikes a visitor as being relatively much more impressive and all-embracing. It’s in Geneva that so much of the positive and detailed work on the UN's worldwide goals patiently continue, month by month and year by year. Focal point of the activity is the UN Office at Geneva, headed by Erik, Suy, the UN’s Under-Secretary- General, and housed in the Stately Palais des Nations, home of the pre-1939- League of Nations, Some 3,000 staff members of the UN Secretariat work there and it ranks as the busiest con- ference centre in the world, hosting each year around 25,000 participants in hun- dreds of conferences — many of them in the huge Assembly Hall which can hold over 2,000 delegates. But the UN Office itself is only part of the story, Located with it in the Palais and in the striking modern buildings dotted around the parklike interna- tional enclave are the head- quarters and offices of near- ly 40 specialized UN agencies and affiliated world organizations. Routinely referred to by their initials, many are unfamiliar to the general public. High on the list, of course, come five separate arms control bodies in- cluding the Arms Control and Disarmament Agency (ACDA) and the vital Strategic Arms Reduction Talks (START). Among the better known tides: the World Health Organization (WHO), the International Labor Organization (JLO), the General Agreement on Tar- iffs and Trade (GATT), the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), the UN Children's Fund (UNICEF), the UN Disaster Relief Coordinator (UNDRO) and the International Red Cross (IRC). But how many readers, one wonders, have ever heard of UNCTAD (the UN Conference on Trade and Development), WMO (the World Meteorclogical Organization), IBE (the In- ternational Bureau of Education) or WIPO (the World Intellectual Property Organization -—- concerned . wih patents and copyright). And that’s only a beginning. Noel Wright RESCUE MISSIONS for disaster victims .,. one of the maay © focus ® jobs of specialized UN agencies in their worldwide drive to better the human condition. In addition to the 3,000 UN Secretariat staffers, thousands more work in these ancillary organs. Throw in also the am- bassadors and staffs of the 119 permanent missions of member-nations accredited to the UN Office. and it quickly becomes clear why the peace industry is Geneva’s biggest employer. As the names of many of the organizations indicate, “‘peace’’ is a much more complex product than the all-important disarmament talks alone. Stephen Lewis, Canada’s Ambassador ta the UN in New York, predicts that the future of the UN will lie less and less in the _ political arena, more and more in the economic and social sphere. Economic and social pro- blems, he argues to our media group, lie at the root of international strife and conflict. It’s with precisely these problems — the plight of millions of refugees, disease among the world’s poorest inhabitants, human rights of workers in totalitarian states “and economic self-help for underdeveloped countries —— that the many specialized Geneva agencies are grappl- ing full time. That, plus repeated inter- national rescue missions for the victims of major disasters such as the Mexico earthquake and the Colom- bia volcano catastrophe. Geneva grabs the headlines most often in the context of the nuclear drama, climaxed by this week's Summit. Far less often publicized is the rea/ job of the UN fami- ly in Geneva: a massive, ongoing humanitarian drive to eventually create the kind of world where nuclear arms become totally irrelevant, Like the art of the Swiss watchmakers, it's skilled and patient work.