[sacw] SAAN Post [on Pak. Anniversary - May 98 N. tests] (29 May 00)

[Harsh Kapoor]

South Asians Against Nukes - Post
29 May 2000

On Pakistan Anniversary - May 98 N. Explosions
------------------------------------------

#1. Pakistan: Joint Statement Against Nuclearisation/Militarisation]
#2. Pakistan: Labour Party report of the Anti Nuke seminar
#3. Pakistani tribal warlord offeres to sell nuclear bombs
__________________________

#1.

Pakistan:
JOINT STATEMENT AGAINST NUCLEARISATION/MILITARISATION]

The statement issued to press on 27th May, and distributed on 28th May 2000
at the seminar on =93Nuclearisation and its impact on our life and survival=
=94
organised by Pakistani Doctors for Peace & Development (PDPD) in
collaboration with:

-Pakistan India People=92s Forum for Peace and Democracy (PIPFPD) -Action
Committee Against Arms Race (ACAAR) -Pakistan Peace Coalition (PPC)
-Citizens Peace Committee (CPC), Islamabad -Joint Action Committee for
People=92s Rights, Lahore -Association of Peoples of Asia (APA)
-International Physicians for Prevention of Nuclear War, Pakistan Chapter
-------------------------------------

Press Statement =3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D This May 28 marks the=
second anniversary of
the six nuclear tests that Pakistan conducted on May 28 and 30, 1998. These
two years, as is obvious, have been marked by grave military tensions and a
sense of extreme insecurity felt by the people of Pakistan. Nuclear weapons
have done nothing to improve the situation vis-=E0-vis Kashmir dispute or
relations with India. The Lahore Initiative of both the Indian and
Pakistani governments was aborted largely by the euphoria crated by the
nuclear capability. With Kargil and intensification of insurgency in
Kashmir, the situation in South Asia has become volatile and unpredictable.

There is an urgent need for Pakistan and India to restart their stalled
dialogue after due preparations. Meantime a proper national debate
regarding the place of nuclear weapons in Pakistan=92s security needs to be
organised.

Indeed, it is necessary to define what the country=92s security implies. The
security of the people of Pakistan, however, requires more peaceable
policies. Military defence against foreign aggression can only be a part of
national security arrangements. It needs giving peaceful orientation to all
the domestic political and economic policies. That includes a foreign
policy of peace. People=92s security presupposes their needs being attended
to first. Thus, highest possible priority attaches to fighting poverty,
unemployment and giving the people of Pakistan all their fundamental
rights. This is the starting point of the desired security of the people.
It is easy to see that nuclear weapons can have little place even in the
military defence of Pakistan.

It has to be remembered that nuclear weapons are meant for offence, they do
not distinguish between noncombatants and soldiers. There is no known
defence against them. They are an evil that have a destabilizing influence
as events since

May 1998 have shown. They destabilize not only relations between the
adversaries but also make government leaders unbalanced in making policies,
as indeed euphoria has done in both countries.

We appeal to Pakistan government to reassess the situation and to arrange a
national debate on the nuclearisation of South Asia, particularly that of
Pakistan. We find it urgent to rid the people of South Asia of the nuclear
nightmare that the Indian and Pakistani nuclear weapons are for common
Pakistanis and Indians respectively. Foreign policy of Pakistan must revert
to the earlier stance of wanting not only the Nuclear Weapons Free Zone
(NWFZ) for South Asia but also for Indian Ocean littorals.

Meantime, we also appeal for the removal of the obscenity that are the
replicas of bombs, missiles and Chaghi mountain from traffic roundabouts of
Pakistani cities. We also find Mrs. Kulsum Nawaz=92s Youm-i-Takbir march to
Chaghi as indecent and uncalled for glorifications of nuclear weapons and
promotion of militarism and strongly condemn it.

Released by:

( B.M.Kutty ) Secretary, Pakistan-India People=92s Forum for Peace &
Democracy, Sindh Chapter

______

#2.

29 May 2000
=46rom Labour Party of Pakistan

A short report of the seminar

By Farooq Sulehria

Labour Party Pakistan organized a seminar on 28th May to protest against
the nuke blast of Pakistan two years before. Moeen Nawaz Panoo, president
of Rustum Sahrab Cycle factory workers union presided over the seminar.
=46arooq Tariq, secretary general LPP, Shahtaj Qazalbash, convener Joint
Action Committee for Peoples Rights, Yousaf Baluch, secretary information
Pakistan Workers Confederation, Zafar Mahmood Awan, chairman All Pakistan
Para Medical Staff Federation, Rezwan Atta, member National Committee LPP
spoke on the occasion.

Speakers stressed the need to organise public support against the nuke
blasts. They exposed the hypocricy of many of the arguments used by the
religious fundamentalist in favour of atom bombs. There were several
friends who spoke of a close relationship of India and Pakistan on people
to people basis. They demanded a total destruction of all the nuclear
weapons world wide.

It was the only public activity in Lahore to oppose the celebration of the
two years and Youme-i-Takbir. Most of the participant were young and from
different organizations of youth and labour.

Labour Party Pakistan has kept its tradition of organizing an event on the
day. last year it organized a very successful demo on main Mall Road.

______

#3.

The News International, Pakistan

29 May 2000

Pakistan becoming threat to world peace: UK

By Aamir Ghauri

LONDON: Britain's Foreign Office Minister Peter Hain has accused Pakistan
of rapidly becoming "a threat to world peace" and claimed a link between
Pakistan's export of nuclear capability and terrorism. In his brief
write-up for a Sunday newspaper that carried a story of a Pakistani tribal
warlord who offered to sell nuclear bombs to undercover British weapons
experts, the British minister asked Pakistan to immediately act to halt
this threat to world peace. "It is no good for their government to say they
have no control over third parties or private companies who sell nuclear
materials. If they were determined to put a stop to this, they could." He
went on to say that when nuclear material falls into the hands of private
parties it is a step short to getting into terrorist hands. "There is a
link between Pakistan's exports of nuclear capability and terrorism. The
country is rapidly becoming a threat to world peace." Peter Hain said:
"The export of nuclear capacity from Pakistan is a deadly threat to the
region and the world=8A I will investigate this matter and take action to
alert the international community, the United Nations and other bodies as
to what is going on in Pakistan." Hain's bitter comment which is bound to
generate a heated debate as to whether Pakistan could be accused of the
personal acts and trade of people living on the porous border between
Pakistan and Afghanistan, came after the Sunday Mirror published a story as
to how its "undercover investigation" found out that any one with =A320,000
can buy material needed to make a nuclear bomb in the tribal belt between
Pakistan and Afghanistan.

The paper claimed that doomsday weapons were stocked but never used by the
Soviet army during their invasion of Afghanistan in the 1980s. "Now they
are in the hands of Afghan Muslim extremists and Pakistani tribal warlords
with close links to black market arms dealers in Britain." It is also
claimed by the paper that the team of its undercover investigators, which
also included a former Royal Marine sergeant, inspected the "deadly
canisters" containing uranium and plutonium for missile warheads in tribal
Pakistan and returned to the UK with photographic material and other
evidence to be analysed by nuclear experts.

Back in Britain, experts confirmed the components were genuine, the paper
claimed and added that the British foreign minister Peter Hain has promised
to investigate the matter. The names of the tribal warlords, who the paper
claimed were offering to sell the nuclear material, were Waheed Malik Khan
and Kamal Akir. Apart from the nuclear material, the paper claimed these
warlords offered to sell sarin nerve gas shells (at =A315,000 each) and
mustard gas phosgene grenades (at =A35,000 each). These tribals have also
claimed to have given one of the (nuclear) canisters to the Pakistani
government nuclear weapons development programme for testing, the paper
further claimed.

______________________________________________
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