[sacw] Anti-Nuclear Activists Meet In Karachi

[Harsh Kapoor]

FYI
South Asians Against Nukes
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SOUTH ASIA: Anti-Nuclear Activists Meet In Karachi

By Beena Sarwar

KARACHI, Mar 3 (IPS) - India and Pakistan must immediately put 
brakes on their nuclear ambitions and sign a no-war pact as a 
follow-up to the successful recent meeting of their prime 
ministers, peace activists urged at a regional meeting here.

More than 500 people, among them Indians, Sri Lankans, Nepalis 
and Bangladeshis participated in the meeting organised by the 
Pakistan Peace Coalition formed after the two countries conducted 
tit-for-tat nuclear tests last May.

Delegates to the first anti-nuclear South Asia conference 
included economists, film-makers, women's activists, journalists, 
lawyers, academics, retired military personnel, students and 
artists who paid their own way to the meeting over the weekend.

''There is a symbolic significance in choosing Karachi as the 
venue,'' said conference convenor B.M. Kutty, pointing out that 
this port city has become synonymous with sectarian violence.
''This conference sends out the message that this city and its 
people ardently desire peace, not only for themselves, but also 
for all those who live in this country and in the region.''

''Until (last) May, all those working for peace and justice 
presumed a continuity of state and society,'' observed Pakistani 
physicist Zia Mian, who teaches at Princeton University in the 
United States. ''Nuclear weapons threaten that continuation ...''

India's right-wing Hindu ruling party's decision to flex its 
nuclear muscle with underground tests in the desert on May 11, 
followed by Pakistan's counter tests on May 28 in the country's 
southwest, has galvanised a nascent peace movement in the region.

Indian and Pakistani peaceniks have challenged their 
government's claims that the tests were conducted for ''national 
security'' reasons.

The tests ''delivered a most foul blow to people's interests 
by raising the spectre of extinction,'' I.A. Rehman, director of 
the independent Human Rights Commission of Pakistan who has been 
at the forefront of the anti-nuclear campaign said on Saturday.

Indian film-maker Anand Patwardhan based in Bombay or Mumbai 
announced that a peace march was being planned on the first 
anniversary of the tests at Pokharan, the town closest to the 
site of India's underground tests.

Villages in and around the test site have been vocal in their 
criticism, accusing the Indian government of playing with their 
lives and ignoring complaints of radiation-related illness in the 
area which is also the site of India's first successful nuclear 
tests in 1974.

''People are the best guarantee for peace,'' commented Nirmala 
Deshpande, a follower of Indian independence leader Mahatma 
Gandhi. She was one of the two Indian members of Parliament who 
attended the conference.

''The common man is still sound and peace loving. All that is 
needed is mobilising the people for action to build a peaceful 
society,'' she said, a view that found support among attending 
legislators from the Sindh Provincial Assembly, the local 
government. Karachi is the capital of Sindh province.

Speakers dwelt on the recent thaw in India-Pakistani rivalry 
as their leaders, Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif and his counterpart 
in New Delhi Atal Bihari Vajpayee, talked the language of peace 
and cooperation in Lahore late last month.

Agreements signed by both leaders fell short of the hope that 
they would agree to a no-aggression pact and undertake specific 
measures of nuclear restraint.

However, they recognised the importance of ''immediate steps'' 
to reduce the risk of war, in particular ''accidental or 
unauthorised use of nuclear weapons under their respective 
control''.

''At least it (Feb 20 and 21 talks) has lowered the 
temperature a bit,'' commented veteran Pakistani peace campaigner 
Sobho Gianchandani, 80, who began his political activism in 1942, 
during the struggle for freedom from British imperialism.

''We are poor countries; we cannot afford to have most of our 
budgets swallowed by armies. We have to sit together and coolly 
discuss matters,'' Gianchandani added.

Peace activists are worried about the secretive nuclear 
programmes of both countries given the high risks of strategic 
misconception and miscalculation between India and Pakistan, and 
the potential for unintended, unauthorised or accidental use of 
weapons of mass destruction.

''I am not prepared to credit the apparatuses governing us 
with the ability to break out of the suicide pact they have
painstakingly created,'' observed the Human Rights Commission's 
Rehman.

The Karachi regional meeting of peace campaigners hopes to 
mobilise public opinion on the urgent need for a peace agenda in 
the region, particularly in the two biggest countries, India and 
Pakistan.

Islamabad-based political activist and development economist 
Kaiser Bengali said ''there is a need to link movements like this 
with the larger effort for social change. Isolated, stand-alone 
efforts don't bear fruit. We need to make it (peace movement) 
part of a larger political effort to restructure the state.''
(END/IPS/bs/an/99)


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