[sacw] [ACT] Bangladesh, Nepal, Sri-Lanka / Nuclear Weapons Free Zone

Harsh Kapoor aiindex@mnet.fr
Thu, 23 Mar 2000 10:53:20 +0100


=46YI
(South Asians Against Nukes)
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The Hindu
Thursday, March 23, 2000
Opinion

A South Asian issue too
By Achin Vanaik

FOR DECADES, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka and Nepal have voted in yearly U.N.
resolutions for the establishment of a South Asian Nuclear Weapons Free
Zone (NWFZ). When Pokhran and Chagai happened, all these three
Governments were deeply unhappy. But because of the disproportionate
regional power of India and Pakistan, particularly the former,
they contended themselves with general murmurings of unease without
specifically blaming either country. Of course, they all recognised
that India was the principal culprit in nuclearising the region with
Pakistan the reactor. Despite the highly subdued official position of
these countries no one in India or Pakistan should be in any doubt about
the true sentiment prevailing. The Governments and the peoples (in their
overwhelming majority) of Nepal, Bangladesh and Sri Lanka are against
nuclearisation of the region and see Pakistan, and particularly
India, as nuclear bullies contemptuous of their security concerns.

They have to find a way of making their voices heard - of making it
clear that they want to de-nuclearise this part of the world no matter
what India and Pakistan think is in their ``national interests''. What
then are the ways for them to intervene to promote the eventual
establishment of a South Asian NWFZ? To call for such a zone openly after
Pokhran and Chagai, while no doubt courageous and justified, would mean
directly confronting their more powerful neighbours. This would be
difficult and would entail significant political-diplomatic
costs which understandably Dhaka, Colombo and Kathmandu wish to
avoid at least until such time as they can be more explicitly
defiant. There are, however, two distinct alternative strategies - one for
Bangladesh and Sri Lanka, the other for Nepal - to seriously
consider.

Bangladesh and Sri Lanka should carefully move towards generating the
political and technical pre-conditions for eventually applying to
join the Southeast Asian NWFZ or Bangkok Treaty whose geographical spread
currently covers the area up to and including Myanmar. That is to say,
demand a `stretching' of an existing NWFZ to include them. This idea
of stretching an NWFZ has precedents. The original Latin American
NWFZ as it gathered momentum changed its name to include the Caribbean
countries. At the moment, the South Pacific NWFZ or Treaty of Rarotonga
does not include the U.S.-controlled Marshall Islands and there is
already an existing demand for such stretching to include them.

The advantages of such an approach in comparison to an explicit and
aggressive campaign by Bangladesh and Sri Lanka for a South Asian NWFZ
are obvious. Both India and Pakistan would find it much more difficult
to overtly oppose and work against such a demand from Dhaka and
Colombo. After all, neither capital would then be demanding that India
or Pakistan de-nuclearise. They would merely be exercising their own
sovereign right to join whatever treaties or regional arrangements
they wish. Yet were such an extension of the Bangkok Treaty to take
place it would constitute a powerful indirect rebuke of Indian and
Pakistani nuclearisation and the danger that this represents for the
region as a whole. It would put both the Indian and Pakistani nuclear
elites in the dock, as it were, and would also be a way of these two
smaller countries intervening in an issue that New Delhi and Islamabad
would like to believe is solely their preserve. Such a stretching of
the Bangkok Treaty would stimulate the general effort by the vast
majority of the world's comity of nations to denuclearise the region
and also politically undermine the `nuclear credibility' of India and
Pakistan.

The political value of such an extension can be perceived by the
existing P-5 which should have no objection to it. The
overwhelming bulk of the world's non-nuclear weapons states (NNWSs)
would also have reason to welcome it. The other members of the Bangkok
Treaty knowing of this general widespread support could with quiet
confidence move towards endorsing the idea. There are no legal problems
in carrying out such an extension of the Bangkok Treaty once all the
possible political obstacles to it are dealt with. Such an
application for membership by Bangladesh and Sri Lanka does not create
any problems in the way that earlier Sri Lankan efforts to join ASEAN
did. Decisions on expanding the ASEAN in principle or in practice
are hugely onerous precisely because ASEAN is a material entity
bound together by rules, institutions, etc., carrying huge economic and
political consequences for all members and for the collective's own
functioning. The same can be said for expanding the European Union
(E.U.), except here the principle to expand (unlike in the ASEAN) has
already been accepted.

But the Southeast Asian NWFZ is a symbolic entity and is not
comparable to the ASEAN, the E.U., the NAFTA (North American Free Trade
Agreement) or even the SAFTA (South Asian Free Trade Area). Expansion
creates no such material problems for existing members. And from the
Bangladeshi and Sri Lankan points of view, this extension does set a
small precedent for exploring closer cooperation with Southeast Asian
countries in other fields,

something that India and Pakistan, given the `miracle'
performances of this region and East Asia, are themselves seeking to
explore. In short, looking from all angles at the `national interests'
of Bangladesh and Sri Lanka, there are many good reasons and no bad
ones for wanting such an extension of the Bangkok Treaty.

India offered to reorganise the Southeast Asian NWFZ by signing the
protocols of the existing Bangkok Treaty as a nuclear weapons state (NWS),
i.e., pursuing a backhanded way of getting de facto NWS status. Its
offer was rejected by China and some other NWSs for this very reason. But
regardless of whether or not India and Pakistan offer to recognise such
a stretching of the Bangkok Treaty, or whether any such offer is
accepted or not, the crucial purpose of the exercise - showing India
and Pakistan up and asserting the right and necessity of the peoples
and Governments of the other South Asian countries to fight for nuclear
security in the region - would have been achieved.

Given the landlocked character and lack of geographical
contiguity with the Southeast Asian NWFZ, Nepal can consider another
alternative - the Mongolian precedent of declaring itself a nuclear
weapons free nation zone. Again, this would be a powerful rebuke
against all its three nuclear neighbours, India, Pakistan and China. It
is almost impossible for any other country to oppose Nepal since such
a unilteral declaration is any country's sovereign right to consider
or carry out. Virtually, all the existing major NNWSs and the P-5 would
welcome it, again putting New Delhi and Islamabad into some
embarrassment. Once such a nuclear weapon free status is declared
Nepal, like Mongolia, can also demand a `thinning out' of such a
country- zone, i.e., that none of its three nuclear neighbours place any
nuclear-related facility of any kind (which could be targeted by nuclear
weapons) near its borders. For such a country-zone there would be no
treaty protocols for other countries to sign and no worries about
whether India or Pakistan could get de facto NWS status. They would
simply have to decide whether or not to accept the declaration and
swallow the implicit attack on their irresponsible behaviour.

Should such outcomes eventually emerge, they would greatly
strengthen the collective effort by anti-nuclear activists and
supporters in all the South Asian countries to restore nuclear sanity
- denuclearisation - in the region as well as have a powerful
beneficial effect on the worldwide struggle for disarmament. To
begin with, it is civil society organisation and groups in these three
countries that should discuss these alternative strategies, to
familiarise a wider public with them, and to generate pressure on their
Governments to move in the desired direction. Even as these Governments
do not rush to take an open stand they should themselves be able to see
the value of quietly encouraging such discussions by civil society
groups in public political spaces and thus generate internal demand
for what they themselves could find attractive, and in time, very
feasible indeed.

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