[sacw] SAAN Post (26 May 00)

[Harsh Kapoor]

South Asians Against Nukes Post
26 May 2000

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#1. 2 years after N Tests: Lack of Democratic Debate in India & Pakistan
#2. Disarming Success
#3. Press Statement by Bangalore Platform against Nuclear weaponisation
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#1.

Neue Z=FCrcher Zeitung
NZZ Background on World Affairs, May 2000

TWO YEARS AFTER THE ATOMIC TESTS:

A LACK OF DEMOCRATIC DEBATE IN INDIA AND PAKISTAN

by Bernard Imhasly

With their nuclear tests of May 1998, India and Pakistan crossed a
threshold to become acknowledged nuclear powers. Their euphoria was
followed by the sobering reality of sanctions - and by the knowledge abroad
that the two countries had been working toward the tests for a long time.
Because of a lack of democratic debate, India today does not quite know how
to reconcile its new status as a nuclear power with its older one as an
apostle of disarmament.
On 28 April, a fire broke out in India's second-largest munitions dump,
near the city of Bharatpur in the state of Rajasthan. The blaze destroyed
at least 12,000 tons of munitions, including ground-to-air and anti-tank
missiles. In the fireworks, during which thousands of grenades rained down
on some 20 villages in the area around the depot, two people were killed
and countless others injured. The inferno, which had broken out while the
ambient temperature was well above 100 degrees Fahrenheit, caused damage
estimated at the equivalent of 88 million dollars.
In violation of regulations, the elephant grass which grows around the
explosive munitions stored in the open had not been cut for two years. The
question in many inhabitants' minds after this huge accident was openly
voiced in India's Parliament by Deputy Eduardo Faleiro: What would have
happened if a similar incident had occurred at a nuclear storage
depot?Highs and LowsIndia's atomic tests of 11 and 13 May 1998, followed by
Pakistan's on 28 May, triggered euphoric reactions in both countries before
a sobering-up process began when sanctions were imposed on them. But the
sanctions had widely divergent impact: Pakistan's economy threatened to
collapse under their weight, while the incomparably larger Indian economy,
strengthened by decades of import substitution, was able to shrug them off.
Indeed, the sanctions strengthened the national applause of the tests,
which drowned out the isolated voices of anti-nuclear forces. When the
latter carried out a protest march lasting several weeks and extending from
the testing ground in Rajasthan to Buddha's traditional territory in Bihar,
participation was thin and the media barely reported on the event.
Subsequently, there was no national pro-and-con debate about atomic
weapons, and the enormous costs to a poor country of creating an adequate
control system for nuclear weapons came up for very little discussion.
Questions about the lack of facilities for civil defense or protection
against radiation are met with the same shrug of the shoulders as those
concerning the truth or falsity of frequent reports about "leaky" nuclear
power stations.
=46or decades, official India had trumpeted its policy of unconditional
rejection of atomic weapons. The government underscored this stance with
its decision not to translate the technical competence shown in its 1974
atomic tests into a nuclear arsenal. But, as author Arundhati Roy expressed
it, the second series of tests in 1998 marked "the end of a fantasy":
India, too, had accepted the Bomb as the ultimate emblem of power.
This was accompanied by the end of an illusion. Several studies, especially
that of American political scientist George Perkovich ("India's Nuclear
Bomb"), have since demonstrated that the government's long years of moral
wrestling between idealistic rejection and "realistic" acceptance of the
atomic bomb was nothing but a highly effective public relations show. To
demonstrate that the 1998 tests had not been a mere upwelling of
nationalism, the government headed by the Bharatiya Janata Party opened its
archives. And what was revealed was that India's acquisition of nuclear
arms had been systematically prepared for over decades and had received the
political approval of all its governments.Behind Closed DoorsThe silence of
those in India who oppose nuclear power is doubtless also an expression of
shock at the revelation that, in an ostensibly democratic state, a small
group of insiders makes all the crucial decisions and had been able to fool
the public and Parliament for many years. Critics' tongues were not
loosened even when the government made public an aggressively formulated
draft of a nuclear doctrine last August. The projected doctrine assured the
world that India would not carry out a nuclear first strike and imposed
upon itself the limit of a "minimal deterrent" - but the flexibility built
into the definition of that minimum did nothing to reassure outsiders. And
the formulation of the country's second-strike capability leaves a fearful
question hanging in the air: Might that capability be used at the mere
threat of an enemy's nuclear first strike? Moreover, the capability is
conceived in the form of a triad of land, air and sea-based carrier systems
involving enormous investments and maintenance costs.
Here, too, criticism has been voiced primarily from abroad, while it has
been limited in India itself to a few journalists and academics. According
to political scientist Amitabh Mattoo, this is the result of a decades-long
hide-and-seek game played by a numerically tiny establishment, which has
hindered the formation of an open, broad-based public opinion in the name
of national security.
The lack of a diverse public voice actively interested in nuclear policy is
especially evident in the weakness of the running debate on Indian
accession to the Nuclear Test Ban Treaty (NTBT). The government enjoys
trumpeting its increased power, but seems baffled about what to do with its
newly won nuclear trump. It made no effort to be admitted as an observer to
the review conference on the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty currently
running in New York, in order at least to establish contacts with the
nations of the "new agenda coalition." In its drive to be recognized as a
nuclear power - possibly to be accompanied by a seat on the UN Security
Council - Delhi has also avoided any criticism of Washington's plans for a
National Missile Defense system.
The Indian government is so torn between acceptance and rejection of the
Nuclear Test Ban Treaty that it could not even bring itself to welcome the
recent ratification of the pact by its Russian allies. Nor can Delhi decide
whether the NTBT would tie India's hands while the other nuclear powers
would be able to expand their capabilities through test simulations, or
whether the treaty is a genuine instrument of disarmament capable of
imposing limits on America's upgrading of its armaments through its
"stockpile stewardship program."Tilting at WindmillsPakistan too, its
nuclear policy fixated on India in any case, is undecided whether it should
sign the NTBT. Doing so could win it some urgently needed diplomatic points
in the West. But Islamabad cannot shake the fear that India, by continuing
to stand on the sidelines, might score some strategic advantage. Pakistan's
military regime accepts that its nuclear arms program must be allowed to
continue gravely undermining the country's economy, because its members are
firmly convinced that nuclear parity with India is a way to finally
neutralize the enemy's superiority in the realm of conventional armaments.
Even after its defeat at Kargil, Pakistan continues to value the usefulness
of such military actions on the grounds that the risk of a nuclear
escalation sharply lowers the probability of a conventional war. Pakistan
cannot win such wars - but it could win locally limited mini-wars under the
shadow of its nuclear umbrella. The head of Pakistan's disarmament agency
recently opined that "only when an atmosphere of confidence is created,
will South Asia be capable of relinquishing its atomic weapons." But the
creation of such an atmosphere is very remote indeed. As long as the
Kashmir dispute remains unresolved, the diplomat clearly stated, the idea
of a disappearance of nuclear weapons from the subcontinent is "nothing but
tilting at windmills."
23 May 2000 / Neue Z=FCrcher Zeitung, 20/21 May 2000=20
________

#2.

The Telegraph
26 May 2000
Op-Ed.

DISARMING SUCCESS=20

BY SEAN HOWARD =20

The outcome of the recently concluded review conference of the nuclear
nonproliferation treaty in New York City poses some interesting and awkward
policy dilemmas for the Indian government. Against most predictions, the
treaty=92s 187 members agreed to a final document containing an "unequivocal
undertaking" by the nuclear-weapon states to "accomplish the total
elimination of their nuclear arsenals".
This declaration was not only stronger than any previously issued, but also
backed by commitments to take major, concrete steps such as reducing "the
operational status" of nuclear weapons, cutting tactical nuclear weapons
and increasing transparency with regard to existing arsenals and stocks.
This outcome has variously been described as a "triumph" and a "victory"
for the non-nuclear weapon states, particularly the states associated with
the "new agenda coalition" who held their nerve and insisted the NPT=92s fiv=
e
nuclear powers commit themselves, both rhetorically and programmatically,
to go further and faster than ever before down the long road to zero.
True, the final document contains no timetable for achieving a
nuclear-weapon free world. True, the nuclear powers are already obliged,
under article VI of the treaty, to try to disarm. And true, a United States
decision later this year to deploy a national missile defence system would
decisively wreck whatever momentum has been gained. But the fact remains
that the NPT regime, rocked by severe disappointments since it was made
permanent in 1995, has, in the eyes of many states and observers, redeemed
itself as a credible vehicle for delivering a safer world.
This is not the result the government in New Delhi either expected or
wanted. Only four states =97 India and Pakistan, Cuba and Israel =97 stand
outside the NPT. Naturally, the review conference strongly urged all these
countries to join. It reserved special condemnation for Israel, for its
unsafeguarded nuclear facilities, and India and Pakistan, for their
"deplorable" decision to conduct nuclear tests two years ago.
Without the undeniable progress made at the conference in persuading the
five NPT nuclear powers to commit themselves more seriously to disarmament,
this condemnation would have meant little. India has consistently lambasted
the NPT for being ineffectual and hypocritical. Until the conference, an
increasing number of NPT states were tending towards agreement. But no
longer. The insistence of Israel, India and Pakistan on their right to
possess weapons of mass destruction =97 to seek to ensure their security by
demonstrating a capacity and preparedness to annihilate their neighbours =97
is regarded as obscene and indefensible by almost all other nations. More
importantly, it is regarded as a major obstacle in the path of achieving,
or even bringing within realistic striking distance, a nuclear weapon free
world.
If the five NPT nuclear powers are, as many suspect, not serious about the
new commitments they have just entered into, then the nuclear weapons
programmes of these three countries are a godsend to them, making it
infinitely easier than it would otherwise be to retain their arsenals.
In recent months, India has been sounding increasingly confident that,
after the initial barrage of criticism and condemnation, its decision to
test has been increasingly well understood and, if not appreciated, then at
least accepted as realistic and reasonable. Its diplomatic relationship
with the US seems almost to have been strengthened by the tests. Russia is
keen to sell nuclear reactors to India even though it does not have a
full-scope safeguards agreement with the International Atomic Energy
Agency. Other states, including France, have talked about the prospects for
increased civil nuclear cooperation with India if it joins the
comprehensive test ban treaty.
Indications have not been hard to find =97 particularly when taken in
conjunction with the demise of Pakistan=92s international standing since the
military coup there =97 that India as a nuclear power is quickly and
effectively establishing itself as a stronger, more influential player on
the world stage.
Having the bomb pays off. This is the strident subtext, the brutal
political calculus of routine statements by the Indian leadership that it
remains fully committed to nuclear disarmament, that it will only ever
possess a minimum "credible" nuclear deterrent, that it threatens nobody,
that the only hypocrites are the NPT nuclear powers, that the 182
non-nuclear weapon NPT states are fools to believe in the treaty, and so
on.
Such statements may once have had power and credibility. The outcome of the
NPT conference should alert New Delhi to the fact that those days are gone.
India cannot hope to be taken seriously as both a nuclear weapon power and
a champion of the anti-nuclear cause.
Alongside this laughable self presentation, New Delhi continues to insist =
=97
as it stressed repeatedly to Bill Clinton during his visit in March =97 that
there is no danger of a nuclear exchange between itself and Pakistan, that
nuclear weapons have made the region safer, not more dangerous. Such a
conviction is deeply worrying, on two counts.
=46irst, the logical implication of identifying and praising nuclear weapons
as a stabilizing factor in the security equation =97 a conclusion which, lik=
e
Washington, Moscow, Beijing, Paris and London, it would rather no other
state was ready to draw or act upon =97 is that it would be reckless and
irresponsible to get rid of nuclear weapons except in conditions of
idyllic, permanent harmony, conditions which a nuclear balance of terror is
hardly likely to bring nearer. So much for the continuing commitment to
disarm.
Second, and even more serious for the people of the region, the argument
that nuclear weapons will not be used because their use would be so
terrible should reassure nobody. In a crisis situation, would not the
prospect of suffering a first strike be so terrible that a first strike
would appear the only "sensible" option?
And would it not be therefore "sensible" to make sure you were able to
strike with such speed and devastation as would radically diminish the
impact of any counterstrike? And would this not suggest the "prudence" of a
formidable, widely dispersed and well protected arsenal =97 the prudence, in
short, of an arms race?
The Indian leadership will obviously wish to state =97 and to believe =97 th=
at
all will be well; how could it argue or accept that millions of lives are
at risk? If there ever is a nuclear exchange in south Asia, it will be the
"sensible", "rational" outcome of the "prudent", "reasonable" decision
taken by the prime minister, Atal Behari Vajpayee, in May 1998. The road to
nuclear hell is paved with wise precautions.
As the overwhelmingly majority of the world=92s states are now beseeching
India, Pakistan and Israel to understand, the only way back from
catastrophe is to reject the nuclear path completely. Almost all the world
has done so. All the world has to.

The author is founding editor, Disarmament Diplomacy, journal of the
Acronym Institute, London =20
________

#3.

26 May 2000 12:11:15 +0530

PRESS STATEMENT ISSUED BY

BANGALORE PLATFORM AGAINST NUCLEAR WEAPONISATION

- 24th of May 11 AM, Press Club.

India exploded five nuclear test bombs between May 11th and May 13th of
1998. These explosions sent shock waves throughout the world. India's
traditional position in the comity of nations as a peace- campaigner and a
champion of nuclear disarmament was shattered in one blow.

The officials justified the explosions as imperatives due to security
reasons and the government of the day initiated a massive propaganda
campaign to sell this act of violence to the Indian public and the world
governments. While the tests horrified peace-loving people throughout the
world, an initial euphoria of jingoistic jubilation swept India.
However, as the actual facts started to emerge, a more sober view
crystallised.

Groups in virtually every corner of India started to protest against this
nuclear weaponisation programme pointing out the immorality and enormous
social and economic cost of this adventurism. It is conservatively
estimated that a full scale nuclear weaponisation programme will cost at
least Rs.50,000 crores over the next decade, which averages out to
Rs.5,000 crores per year. By contrast, three of the most affected states in
the recent drought, the worst in our country this century, received barely
a tenth of this figure for relief >from the Central Government.

These groups further pointed out that the very existence of nuclear bombs
in an atmosphere of mutual distrust and political instability as it
prevails now in this subcontinent, poses a real and imminent danger to all
life and environment in this part of the world. The falsity of the
'security imperative' argument became clear as the so-called nuclear
deterrent failed to prevent the border infiltration and the ensuing Kargil
conflagration. A realisation also came into place that the weaponisation
programme has taken place behind a cloak of secrecy enshrined in the 1962
Atomic Energy Act. Under this Act the activities of the nuclear
establishment in India is not liable to any scrutiny by the Parliament let
alone the Indian public.

The citizens of Bangalore were some of the first in the country to come out
in open protest after the 1998 tests. Scientists, artists, lawyers, trade
unionists, students, non-governmental organisations (NGOs) and women=92s
groups got together in Bangalore and observed Hiroshima Day as a day of
peace and protest. This happened in spite of many provocations and threats
posed by many reactionary groups who glorified nuclear weapons as symbols
of national chauvinism and aggressive manhood.

The protest movement in India has now snowballed and acquired a new
dimension. Different groups have come together from all corners to form a
loose national coalition. The coalition is organising a national
convention against nuclear weaponisation to take place in November this
year in New Delhi.
=0C In Bangalore more than twenty organisations, and many individuals have
built the Bangalore Platform against Nuclear Weaponisation. The Platform
sees as its objective the task of building a mass movement that can force
the politicians to roll back the nuclear weaponisation programme. We are
convinced that this can be done, as has in fact happened in South Africa,
Brazil and Ukraine. We launch this movement formally on the 10th of June
2000 with a campaign to collect 5000 signatures protesting against the
weaponisation. We hope to follow this up with popular publications,
lectures, exhibitions, cultural performances and discussions in schools,
colleges, factories and rural areas.

Our campaign will consist of dissemination of information related to
India's nuclear weaponisation programme as well as to build up, as a part
of the national movement, demands for the following.

No assembly, induction and deployment of nuclear weapons.

No acquisition and development of delivery vehicles: aircraft, missile and
submarine.

Advanced research into nuclear weapons to be halted immediately;
moratoriums on explosive testing, subcritical tests, production of
weapons --usable fissile materials and tritium.

Public accountability of veracity and efficacy of freeze.

Complete transparency and independent monitoring of the performance of
Department of Atomic Energy and its full public accountability.

Proper compensation and reparation to all victims of radiation exposure
incurred during tests and other processes related to the production of
nuclear bombs.

Bangalore Platform against Nuclear Weaponisation AIBEA (Canara Bank),
Alternate Lawyers Forum, BEL Employee=92s Union, Centre for Education and
Documentation, Citizens Against Nuclear Energy, Documentation and
Dissemination Centre for Disarmament Information, Federation of Voluntary
Organisations for Rural Development -Karnataka, Gandhi Peace Centre,
General Insurance Employees Union, Indian Scientists Against Nuclear
Weapons, International Energy Initiative, Karnataka State Peace and
Solidarity Organisation, Manasa, New Entity for Social Action, People=92s
Union for Civil Liberties- Karnataka, Pipal Tree, Samvada, Science for
Society, Anglo-Indian Guild, Visthar

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