Abolition of nuclear weapons and the Indo US Nuclear Deal
[The following is the text of the speech delivered by the Sukla Sen as the representative of the people’s movements in India against nuclear weapons during a panel discussion on the above theme held in Japan. The other members of the panel were the representatives of the governments of Mexico and Egypt; Arab League and the General Secretary of the Japan Council against Atomic and Hydrogen Bombs (Gensuikyo) - the host.]
o o o
International Forum
2006 World Conference against A & H Bombs - Nagasaki
Nakabe Auditorium, August 8, 2006
Sukla Sen
Coalition for Nuclear Disarmament and Peace
India
Respected Members of the Chair, Other Distinguished
Dignitaries on the Panel and Dear Friends and
Comrades,
I now propose to make only a brief initial presentation on the theme of quick abolition of nuclear weapons from a specific angle which I’ll elaborate as I go along. The essential points made now will be enlarged upon later during the interactive session.
My presentation will have three sections: first, I’ll very briefly touch upon the uniqueness of nuclear weapons as an instrument of deliberate and indiscriminate mass murder on a mind boggling scale; then I’ll try to present a bird’s eye view of the developments on the nuclear front in the global arena during the last decade; and finally, as the representative of the anti-nuke peace movement in India, I’ll deliberate the Indo-US nuke ‘deal’, which, if eventually implemented, will have a serious bearing on the course of events in the coming days.
As regards the question why it is at all necessary to work wholeheartedly and with single-minded determination towards quick abolition of the nuclear weapon, we have to investigate and underscore its uniqueness as a weapon of deliberate mass murder.
The nuclear weapon is unique just not in terms of its instant destructive effects caused by terrible blast and heat - way beyond the limits of conventional explosives, but it’s also unique as it keeps on killing and maiming silently and invisibly through nuclear radiation emitted for decades and decades punishing cruelly even unborn generations, and at times, in faraway lands beyond national boundaries. Not only the hapless targets of Hiroshima and Nagasaki bombings, but also the unintended victims of the Chernobyl disaster twenty years back - mostly in Belarus and Ukraine but also elsewhere in Europe in this regard provide the most tragic and graphic evidences. It is precisely this that makes the weapon a unique and absolute evil regardless of the holder.
Now I come to the second part.
Just over a decade back, in 1995, the NPT was indefinitely extended without any concrete commitment from the five recognised Nuclear Weapon States (NWSs) as regards a time-bound disarmament programme. The Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty (CTBT) that, however, came up in the process as a sort of inadequate but nevertheless a positive move towards global disarmament most unfortunately failed to be born in any meaningful sense. The major impediments were firstly Indian intransigence and subsequently the refusal of the US Senate to grant the mandatory ratification. This development had a profoundly negative impact and seriously undermined the mood of tentative optimism that had been generated in the immediate aftermath of the end of the Cold War. The 2000 NPT Review Conference was, however, a modest success. The NWSs renewed their commitment to nuclear disarmament and, even more importantly, thirteen practical steps were laid out to commence a purposeful journey in that direction. The change in regime in the US soon after with George Bush grabbing the Presidential throne in January 2001 however changed all that. It inaugurated an almost uninterrupted journey downhill. Since then gross and brazen unilateralism has emerged as the most significant marker of the policies of the Bush regime propelled by its relentless drive for unfettered global dominance nicknamed as the Project for the New American Century (PNAC). Towards this goal the regime has unashamedly foregrounded its awesome military might, including the nuclear firepower, to make up for the deficiencies of its otherwise huge economic muscles and political/diplomatic clout. It soon reactivated its nuclear arsenal development programme including tactical and earth-penetrating nukes and launched the Ballistic Missile Defence (BMD) Programme unilaterally scrapping the 1972 ABM Treaty. But the most significant development was unarguably its savage War on Iraq launched in March 2003 to gain control over its oil and in turn the lifeline of the global economy. Under the circumstances it is no wonder that the 2005 NPT Review Conference ended in a stalemate. The positive hopes generated by the previous Conference were all but lost. The ongoing highpitched campaigns of the US, together with its allies, to cap the nuclear capabilities of Iran and North Korea have emerged as two major recent flashpoints. Moreover, tensions and conflicts are at the moment indeed boiling over in West Asia. This has all the potentialities of turning into a full-scale nuclear holocaust.
Now I take up the third and last part.
The proposed Indo-US nuke deal, the first outlines of which were given out on July 18 last year, is yet another profoundly negative development in the making demanding all our immediate attention. This has to be viewed in the context of the utterly disturbing global scenario, as we’ve just discussed in brief, and the overt nuclearisation of South Asia in May 1998.
This would-be ‘deal’, which has already crossed a number of milestones, would enable India - a non-signatory to the NPT - as are Pakistan and Israel, in gross contravention of its underlying principles and the current norms of the 45-member Nuclear Suppliers Groups (NSG), to have civilian nuclear trade with the US and also the rest of the world. In return India is to designate and separate its civilian and ‘strategic’ nuclear power plants and negotiate with the IAEA the special and specific terms of its inspections of the plants designated ‘civilian’ by India at its own option. The nuclear trade - understandably consisting of fuel, plants, spares, technologies etc., would, however, be restricted to the plants under IAEA inspection only.
This ongoing act of unique exceptionalism is a severe frontal assault on whatever credibility of the NPT - the only multilateral commitment, however vague, of the five NWSs to global nuclear disarmament. The virtual legitimisation of India’s nuclear status, as and when the ‘deal’ comes through would deal a severe blow to the prospects of nuclear non-proliferation and thereby disarmament. Further cementing of the strategic ties between the US and India, as its junior regional ally, through this ‘deal’ would provide an added fillip to the aggressive ambitions of the Bush administration. This asymmetric ‘favour’ to India would also go to further aggravate the simmering tensions and spiralling arms race in South Asia.
This would also distort India’s energy options by diverting scarce resources to developments of resource-guzzling, intrinsically hazardous and potentially catastrophic, nuclear power at the cost of ecologically benign renewable sources of energy.
The ‘deal’ mercifully, however, calls for the US Congressional assent, as it’d impact the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Act, 1978, and primarily the US Atomic Energy Act, 1954. Two Congressional committees, from both the houses, have already given green signals to the Bill proposed by the Bush administration in this regard albeit with a few (thorny) riders. Subsequently the House of Representatives has passed the ‘US India Nuclear Cooperation Promotion Act of 2006’. In the process, however, the assent has become a two-stage affair instead of one, that too in advance, as originally envisaged. So, while even the ongoing first stage remains to be completed with the approval by the Senate still pending; when the full details of the separation plan and nuclear cooperation are worked out between India and the Bush administration, the terms of inspections by the IAEA are finalised and, most significantly, the NSG discusses and (consensually) clears the ‘deal’, the ‘deal’ would again go back to the Congress for its final nod.
The Indian peace movement as spearheaded by the Coalition for Nuclear Disarmament and Peace (CNDP) is seriously engaged with raising public awareness and mobilising opinion against the ‘deal’. This, we must keep in mind, is very different from the Rightwing and hawkish opposition on the false pretext that the ‘deal’ would delimit India’s capacity to produce as many Bombs as it likes. In fact the ‘deal’ would do just the opposite by allowing India to use its indigenously mined uranium exclusively for Bomb production. The ‘deal’, in any case, doesn’t call for any parliamentary ratification in India.
Under the circumstances, while it’s extremely important to carry out vigorous campaigns against this pernicious move all over the world including India and, more importantly, the US; there is an urgent need to focus our attention on the NSG members who’re not too enamoured by the commercial prospects of the ‘deal’. We must do whatever we can to encourage and further strengthen the contrarian voices. The members of the NAM and the erstwhile New Agenda Coalition in the NSG deserve our special attention. So do Norway and a few other members.
It is extremely important for the global peace movement to take due note of the severely damaging fallout of this dangerous ‘deal’ and spare no efforts, both conventional and creative, to stop it in its track.
Thank you.
o o o
International Forum
2006 World Conference against A & H Bombs - Nagasaki
Nakabe Auditorium, August 8, 2006
Sukla Sen
Coalition for Nuclear Disarmament and Peace
India
Respected Members of the Chair, Other Distinguished
Dignitaries on the Panel and Dear Friends and
Comrades,
I now propose to make only a brief initial presentation on the theme of quick abolition of nuclear weapons from a specific angle which I’ll elaborate as I go along. The essential points made now will be enlarged upon later during the interactive session.
My presentation will have three sections: first, I’ll very briefly touch upon the uniqueness of nuclear weapons as an instrument of deliberate and indiscriminate mass murder on a mind boggling scale; then I’ll try to present a bird’s eye view of the developments on the nuclear front in the global arena during the last decade; and finally, as the representative of the anti-nuke peace movement in India, I’ll deliberate the Indo-US nuke ‘deal’, which, if eventually implemented, will have a serious bearing on the course of events in the coming days.
As regards the question why it is at all necessary to work wholeheartedly and with single-minded determination towards quick abolition of the nuclear weapon, we have to investigate and underscore its uniqueness as a weapon of deliberate mass murder.
The nuclear weapon is unique just not in terms of its instant destructive effects caused by terrible blast and heat - way beyond the limits of conventional explosives, but it’s also unique as it keeps on killing and maiming silently and invisibly through nuclear radiation emitted for decades and decades punishing cruelly even unborn generations, and at times, in faraway lands beyond national boundaries. Not only the hapless targets of Hiroshima and Nagasaki bombings, but also the unintended victims of the Chernobyl disaster twenty years back - mostly in Belarus and Ukraine but also elsewhere in Europe in this regard provide the most tragic and graphic evidences. It is precisely this that makes the weapon a unique and absolute evil regardless of the holder.
Now I come to the second part.
Just over a decade back, in 1995, the NPT was indefinitely extended without any concrete commitment from the five recognised Nuclear Weapon States (NWSs) as regards a time-bound disarmament programme. The Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty (CTBT) that, however, came up in the process as a sort of inadequate but nevertheless a positive move towards global disarmament most unfortunately failed to be born in any meaningful sense. The major impediments were firstly Indian intransigence and subsequently the refusal of the US Senate to grant the mandatory ratification. This development had a profoundly negative impact and seriously undermined the mood of tentative optimism that had been generated in the immediate aftermath of the end of the Cold War. The 2000 NPT Review Conference was, however, a modest success. The NWSs renewed their commitment to nuclear disarmament and, even more importantly, thirteen practical steps were laid out to commence a purposeful journey in that direction. The change in regime in the US soon after with George Bush grabbing the Presidential throne in January 2001 however changed all that. It inaugurated an almost uninterrupted journey downhill. Since then gross and brazen unilateralism has emerged as the most significant marker of the policies of the Bush regime propelled by its relentless drive for unfettered global dominance nicknamed as the Project for the New American Century (PNAC). Towards this goal the regime has unashamedly foregrounded its awesome military might, including the nuclear firepower, to make up for the deficiencies of its otherwise huge economic muscles and political/diplomatic clout. It soon reactivated its nuclear arsenal development programme including tactical and earth-penetrating nukes and launched the Ballistic Missile Defence (BMD) Programme unilaterally scrapping the 1972 ABM Treaty. But the most significant development was unarguably its savage War on Iraq launched in March 2003 to gain control over its oil and in turn the lifeline of the global economy. Under the circumstances it is no wonder that the 2005 NPT Review Conference ended in a stalemate. The positive hopes generated by the previous Conference were all but lost. The ongoing highpitched campaigns of the US, together with its allies, to cap the nuclear capabilities of Iran and North Korea have emerged as two major recent flashpoints. Moreover, tensions and conflicts are at the moment indeed boiling over in West Asia. This has all the potentialities of turning into a full-scale nuclear holocaust.
Now I take up the third and last part.
The proposed Indo-US nuke deal, the first outlines of which were given out on July 18 last year, is yet another profoundly negative development in the making demanding all our immediate attention. This has to be viewed in the context of the utterly disturbing global scenario, as we’ve just discussed in brief, and the overt nuclearisation of South Asia in May 1998.
This would-be ‘deal’, which has already crossed a number of milestones, would enable India - a non-signatory to the NPT - as are Pakistan and Israel, in gross contravention of its underlying principles and the current norms of the 45-member Nuclear Suppliers Groups (NSG), to have civilian nuclear trade with the US and also the rest of the world. In return India is to designate and separate its civilian and ‘strategic’ nuclear power plants and negotiate with the IAEA the special and specific terms of its inspections of the plants designated ‘civilian’ by India at its own option. The nuclear trade - understandably consisting of fuel, plants, spares, technologies etc., would, however, be restricted to the plants under IAEA inspection only.
This ongoing act of unique exceptionalism is a severe frontal assault on whatever credibility of the NPT - the only multilateral commitment, however vague, of the five NWSs to global nuclear disarmament. The virtual legitimisation of India’s nuclear status, as and when the ‘deal’ comes through would deal a severe blow to the prospects of nuclear non-proliferation and thereby disarmament. Further cementing of the strategic ties between the US and India, as its junior regional ally, through this ‘deal’ would provide an added fillip to the aggressive ambitions of the Bush administration. This asymmetric ‘favour’ to India would also go to further aggravate the simmering tensions and spiralling arms race in South Asia.
This would also distort India’s energy options by diverting scarce resources to developments of resource-guzzling, intrinsically hazardous and potentially catastrophic, nuclear power at the cost of ecologically benign renewable sources of energy.
The ‘deal’ mercifully, however, calls for the US Congressional assent, as it’d impact the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Act, 1978, and primarily the US Atomic Energy Act, 1954. Two Congressional committees, from both the houses, have already given green signals to the Bill proposed by the Bush administration in this regard albeit with a few (thorny) riders. Subsequently the House of Representatives has passed the ‘US India Nuclear Cooperation Promotion Act of 2006’. In the process, however, the assent has become a two-stage affair instead of one, that too in advance, as originally envisaged. So, while even the ongoing first stage remains to be completed with the approval by the Senate still pending; when the full details of the separation plan and nuclear cooperation are worked out between India and the Bush administration, the terms of inspections by the IAEA are finalised and, most significantly, the NSG discusses and (consensually) clears the ‘deal’, the ‘deal’ would again go back to the Congress for its final nod.
The Indian peace movement as spearheaded by the Coalition for Nuclear Disarmament and Peace (CNDP) is seriously engaged with raising public awareness and mobilising opinion against the ‘deal’. This, we must keep in mind, is very different from the Rightwing and hawkish opposition on the false pretext that the ‘deal’ would delimit India’s capacity to produce as many Bombs as it likes. In fact the ‘deal’ would do just the opposite by allowing India to use its indigenously mined uranium exclusively for Bomb production. The ‘deal’, in any case, doesn’t call for any parliamentary ratification in India.
Under the circumstances, while it’s extremely important to carry out vigorous campaigns against this pernicious move all over the world including India and, more importantly, the US; there is an urgent need to focus our attention on the NSG members who’re not too enamoured by the commercial prospects of the ‘deal’. We must do whatever we can to encourage and further strengthen the contrarian voices. The members of the NAM and the erstwhile New Agenda Coalition in the NSG deserve our special attention. So do Norway and a few other members.
It is extremely important for the global peace movement to take due note of the severely damaging fallout of this dangerous ‘deal’ and spare no efforts, both conventional and creative, to stop it in its track.
Thank you.