Editorial

The biggest news of the decade for peace activists has hardly been publicized at all. As we predicted cautiously last time, President Bush has actually signed legislation putting nuclear tests on hold; this will lead to a Comprehensive Test Ban in a few years-if the other nuclear powers stop testing. Unfortunately, Britain and China have not yet promised to stop. Moreover, according to the Globe and Mail on October 20, the Russian military are objecting to the cessation of testing, and they seem to have more influence over Yeltsin than they did with Gorbachev. So we have to turn even more toward international work for a CTB. After you read A Step Forward for the Test Ban, send us your ideas for doing so.

Memorial is one of the most remarkable organizations in the former Soviet Union. It occupies a building in the centre of Moscow, where every hallway is filled with boxes of postcards, letters, documents, and tape recordings send in by former victims of the Gulag. It was founded a few years ago when, after singing a famous protest sung together; some young Russians realized that after their lives, nobody would remember the tragic stories and songs about the Stalinist period. They decided spontaneously to create an organization specifically to make sure that the victims would never he forgotten. Memorial is the result. Today the group also does charitable work for former victims, and works to ensure that such events never happen again. See Yeshua Moser's story on page 16 about their conflict resolution activities in the former republics.

The war in Bosnia and the future of Russian military policy are on our minds. We got some people together to discuss Bosnia. See "Ex Yugoslavia: what Can Be Done?" For an astute commentary on the situation in Russia, read our interview with Sergei Rogoff, who heads a commission that is developing military policy for the Russian parliament.

Finally, let me remind you about our experiment in developing a new voting scheme. Few of you have sent in the first stage of this experiment, so we will wait until next time to move on to stage two. If you haven't sent yours in, please read the Helsinki Citizens Assembly page from the last issue and reply ASAP Thanks!