[sacw] South Asians Against Nukes Post (21 June 00)

Wed, 21 Jun 2000 07:23:21 +0100

South Asians Against Nukes Post
21 June 2000

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#1. Pakistan Now Producing Enough Plutonium for 1 Bomb / Year
#2. India had deployed at least 5 nuclear tipped missiles during Kargil
(May-July 99)
#3. Pakistan / India: Muslim nuke versus Hindu nuke:
#4. India / Pakistan: Nuclear WEeapons Armed With Hair Triggers
#5. India: Radioactive materials recently Gutted in a Cargo Godown?

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#1.

Pakistan Press International Information Services Limited
13 June 2000

PAKISTAN NOW PRODUCING ENOUGH PLUTONIUM FOR ONE BOMB PER YEAR

WASHINGTON June 13 PPI. Pakistan is now generating plutonium at a rate
of between 8 and 10 kilograms per year, providing more than enough material
to make
one bomb a year, according to Monday's issue of McGraw-Hill's Nuclear Fuel
newsletter.
That capability gives Pakistan the bomb fuel it needs to wed its Nuclear
weapons and ballistic missile programs to eventually give it lighter
weapons capable of being launched in an air attack against arch-rival
India.

Senior editor Mark Hibbs, writing in Nuclear Fuel and sister publication
Nucleonics Week, published by McGraw-Hill Energy Information Group, the
world's largest and most authoritative provider of news, pricing and
analysis for oil, electricity, natural gas, coal, nuclear , petrochemical,
etc., has previously revealed the existence of Pakistan's Khushab plutonium
production reactor and an indigenous heavy water plant, both needed for the
plutonium chain. A pilot reprocessing facility at New Labs in Rawalpindi,
Pakistan , is now fully operational and separating plutonium for Pakistan
's bomb program at the rate of between 8 and 10 kg per year.

The facility also has the capability to produce without difficulty the same
amount of plutonium every year using all the spent fuel burned in the
Khushab reactor. International safeguards experts consider 8 kg as roughly
the amount needed for a bomb. The significance of this capability-developed
both by buying and Smuggling technology from abroad and by indigenous
work-is that it gives Pakistan the potential to make nuclear devices small
enough to mount on missiles such as the North Korean model Pakistan has
already tested. That would give the country the capability to launch a
nuclear strike hundreds of miles inside traditional political rival India.
More immediately, the capability also increases internal pressure In
Pakistan to allow scientists to test a plutonium -based bomb to ensure its
operability, he wrote. The pressure is coming at the same time pressure is
building in India to allow a new test of its redesigned hydrogen bomb,
because the original design partially fizzled in a test in 1998.

(c) 2000 PPI Information Services Ltd.
(THROUGH ASIA PULSE) 13-06 2000

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#2.

ASIA PULSE
18 June 2000

INDIA HAD DEPLOYED AGNI DURING KARGIL : EXPERT

New Delhi, Jun 18 (PTI) India had deployed at least five nuclear tipped
missiles including Agni for retaliatory strikes during the Kargil conflict,
a security expert has claimed. Quoting another expert that "four nuclear
armed Prithvis and one Agni
were deployed for retaliatory strikes during Kargil ", the expert, Dr Sanjay
Badri-Maharaj, said "this I later more or less confirmed independently."

In an article on "Nuclear India 's Status" in a leading defence journal,
he said in 1996-97, India "actually began work on mating nuclear warheads
to missiles" after the clearance given by the H D Deve Gowda government.
"This was confirmed to me in 1997 by a former artillery officer. This
required modifications in safety locking systems and validating the
mechanism's ability to withstand high-G (gravitation) forces," he said in
the forthcoming issue of "Indian Defence Review". Badri-Maharaj, who is
authoring a book "The Armageddon Factor", said two tests for the mechanism
to mount and trigger warheads were done on Prithvi SS-250 missiles before
these were formally deployed in September 1997.

Stating that it was difficult to estimate how many nuclear weapons India
had, the expert said the weaponisation programme "has certainly taken place
- with full mock delivery trials being completed by 1994". A rudimentary
system was in place from 1986-88, he added.

To counter the claim by certain US officials that Indian nuclear
capabilities could not match those of Pakistan, the expert said India
possessed a "fully viable and operational nuclear warhead capability" for
an intermediate range ballistic missile from April 11 last year when Agni
-II was tested.
"The importance of Agni -II test was that as part of its payload, a
nuclear weapons assembly minus its plutonium core, was mounted. This was to
test whether all systems, including the safety locks would work,"
Badri-Maharaj said, adding he had confirmed that Defence Research and
Development Organisation was working on such a system since late 1996. He
said the Indian Air Force had conducted a number of experiments to find the
most suitable aircraft. "The Jaguar was initially selected - the MiG-27
fleet, though equally suitable, was earmarked for operations. But two
things counted against it," the defence expert said.

"There was a somewhat inadequate ground clearance and with a heavy
centreline payload, two drop tanks and two R-550 air-to-air missiles,
Jaguar's performance is
somewhat sluggish," he said. This, he said, was the reason for selection
of Mirage-2000 as the primary strike aircraft. "Weapons have been available
for air delivery since 1986-88 - believed to be 12-15 kilotonne fission
weapons." Badri-Maharaj also claimed that there were at least two "hardened
sites" for storage of nuclear weapons.

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#3.

The Guardian
17 June 2000

BOMB BAY : MUSLIM NUKE VERSUS HINDU NUKE:

Tariq Ali ON A NEW ATOMIC ENDGAME

New Nukes: India, Pakistan and Global Nuclear Disarmament by Praful
Bidwai and Achin Vanaik
312pp, Signal Books, pounds 12.99

The nuclear games being played by India and Pakistan are both dangerous and
obscene. They are dangerous because there are Taliban-type elements within
the Pakistan army (and, I'm sure, their equivalents in India) who could, in
extremis, press the dreaded button.

They are obscene because both countries are racked by poverty of the most
abject sort, illiteracy, mass unemployment and the lack of basic amenities
for countless millions. The lack of these necessities of life is not
considered to be a denial of 'human rights' as far as western policymakers
are concerned, a view increasingly contested by the young on the streets of
Seattle and Washington.

The figures speak for themselves. Following the nuclear tests of 1998, the
Indian government announced an allocation of Dollars 9.9bn for defence
spending in 1999, an increase of 14 per cent on the previous year. Pakistan
mimicked this increase with one of 8.5 per cent, pushing its spending to
Dollars 3.3bn. South Asia today is one of the world's most heavily
militarised regions. The Indian and Pakistani armies form part of the
world's 10 largest war machines. There are six soldiers to every doctor.
The social cost of arms expenditure is horrendous.

If nothing else, the extension of the nuclear race to South Asia should
compel policymakers in Washington to pause and reflect on their own actions
since the official end of the cold war. The fact is that the US military
budget remains inflated and accounts for over a third of the world's
spending on armaments. The old enemy no longer exists, but the Cold-War
scenarios remain in place. US military planners continue to target Russia
and China. The latest wave of Nato expansion, followed by a Balkan war,
only hardened Russian opposition to nuclear disarmament. When Nato patrols
the Black Sea, what price the 'partnership for peace'? Herein lies the
crux of the problem. Unless the West begins the process of unilateral
nuclear disarmament, it has no moral or material basis to demand that
others do the same. It is a twisted logic that accepts that while London
and Paris can have the bomb, New Delhi and Islamabad, not to mention Seoul
and Pyongyang, cannot.

Praful Bidwai and Achin Vanaik are two of India's most courageous radical
journalists. Like others who tell the truth, they are sometimes heaped with
ridicule, but they remain steadfast. They interrogate power and often
venture into dangerous territory. They are immune to the usual pressures
and inducements with which governments, eastern and western, seek to
intimidate or bribe journalists. Among the most valuable sections of New
Nukes is the account of India's previous stance on the question of atomic
weapons. Jawaharlal Nehru was a firm believer in nuclear abstinence.
'Coming from a warm country,' he informed the United Nations in 1960, 'I
have shivered occasionally from these cold blasts.' Now the blasts have
overpowered the political elites in India and Pakistan.

Bidwai and Vanaik are in favour of unilateral nuclear disarmament by both
India and Pakistan: for them, this is a moral and a political imperative.
The case they make is unanswerable, but politicians and generals usually
concede only to mass pressure; rational arguments leave them unmoved. The
authors complain that the Indian left (India's two communist parties) is
part of the problem: 'The socialist bomb has been seen as the progressive
weapon against the imperialist bomb. The adjective has been made more
important than the noun in perverse understanding of the history and
politics of nuclearism. The left's claim that deterrence has sometimes
worked is a self-serving delusion.' In any event, the conflict in the
region is seen by fanatics on both sides as the 'Muslim' bomb versus the
'Hindu' bomb. The former believe they will end up in paradise anyway, and
for the latter there is always the hope of reincarnation, if this time in
the shape of ants. Bidwai and Vanaik argue that unilateral nuclear
disarmament in South Asia should not be seen in a national context, but as
a stepping stone towards global disarmament.

This is an extremely useful book, and not just for India. The projected
scenarios in the case of nuclear conflict would not remained confined to
South Asia. Nuclear rain is no respecter of frontiers: it will cripple
humans and plants alike. Western leaders in the grip of a triumphalist
fever appear to have given up on disarmament, blighting the harvest of
hopes that arose briefly during the time of Gorbachev. It could turn out to
be a fatal error.

Copyright (C) 2000 The Guardian
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#4.

Sydney Morning Herald
14 June 2000
Page 15

NUCLEAR WEAPONS ARMED WITH HAIR TRIGGERS

by Christopher Kremmer

A border incident in Kashmir rapidly escalates into war, with Indian
armoured divisions driving deep into Pakistan. Facing imminent defeat,
Islamabad gives New Delhi four hours to pull back its troops or face a
nuclear attack.

It's only a scenario, but two years after the Subcontinent went nuclear,
Kashmir where a Muslim uprising backed by Pakistan has cost 25,000 lives in
a decade remains the burning fuse of a potential holocaust.

The nuclear arsenals lack sophisticated early warning systems, and experts
say delivery systems are more advanced than previously thought. The
nuclear arms race is not restrained by treaties, which India and Pakistan
have not signed, and missile flight times between major cities are as short
as three minutes.

``Apart from the Cuban missile crisis in the early '60s, the world has
probably never experienced such a dangerously hair-trigger nuclear
environment,'' says Praful Bidwai, a New Delhi researcher and critic of
nuclearisation.

In May 1999, a year after both countries tested nuclear weapons, hundreds
of Indian and Pakistan-based troops were dying in a bitter battle for
mountainous terrain in the Kargil sector of Kashmir. Says Bidwai: ``On no
fewer than 13 occasions during Kargil, senior
politicians on both sides made public statements suggesting they were ready
for a wider even a nuclear war.''

Among the cheerleaders was India's Defence Minister, George Fernandes, who
earlier this year said nuclear weapons would not preclude a conventional
war, which India would win ``any time, anywhere''. He knows the dangers of
escalation, but India's size has encouraged a belief that it can fight and
win a nuclear war. ``Senior Indian officials regularly tell us that a
nuclear exchange would devastate Pakistan but India would survive, even if
Delhi and Bombay were destroyed,'' said a Western diplomat in New Delhi.

Despite the bombast, it was Indian restraint that prevented the Kargil
conflict sliding into general war, reaping rich diplomatic dividends for
New Delhi.

In March, visiting US President Bill Clinton sealed the West's acceptance
of India's primacy in the region, based on economic potential and
democratic traditions. Australia followed, agreeing to resume defence
co-operation during a visit by the Foreign Minister, Mr Downer, who, unlike
Mr Clinton did not visit Pakistan.

Critics of that approach say it has inspired smugness in India, and
desperation in Pakistan, which feels isolated and wronged. The Kargil
debacle saw Pakistan's Prime Minister, Nawaz Sharif, toppled in a coup on
October 13. Since then India has refused to talk to Islamabad unless
Pakistan stops aiding and abetting the Muslim uprising in Kashmir.

``India's stand is understandable, but frankly untenable. There is no
justification for refusing talks,'' says Kanti Bajpai, visiting fellow at
the Kroc Institute at the University of Notre Dame. ``Even without
Pakistan, violence in Kashmir will go on.'' Pakistan's military leader,
General Pervaiz Musharraf, confronts an economy dependent on drip-feed
finance from the International Monetary Fund, and a defiant fundamentalist
movement which continues to export Islamic extremism to Kashmir and
elsewhere and regards accused terrorist Osama bin Laden as a hero.
Western diplomats believe Musharraf is a tough, straightforward moderate.
But his doubtful political skills and the prospects of Pakistan
disintegrating are vigorously discussed in the local press, which remains
uncensored.

The Supreme Court has given Musharraf three years to root out corrupt
politicians, revive the economy and return the country to democracy. If he
fails, the reins of power and control over Pakistan's nukes could by
default fall to the fundamentalists.

American influence and the global non-proliferation regime has been
damaged by Washington's own push for an anti- ballistic missile screen and
its failure to ratify the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty. India once
regarded with suspicion as a Cold War fence-sitter now finds itself
expected to play a greater role in maintaining regional security. Yet in
Sri Lanka, where a weak central government battles to save the northern
town of Jaffna from falling to the world's most ruthlesslessly efficient
guerilla army and terrorist organisation, the Liberation Tigers of Tamil
Eelam, New Delhi has dithered. Domestically, India's broad-based coalition
government has decentralised power and kept a check on Hindu hardliners in
the largest coalition partner, the Bharatiya Janata Party. But a weakened
centre is unable to restrain the financial mismanagement of the States,
with many on the edge of bankruptcy. Without continued economic reform and
growth, India's aspirations to be a great power could be as illusory as the
former Soviet Union's, its unity as fragile as Indonesia's. Defence
spending is rising faster than national income.

The continued health of 76-year-old Prime Minister, Atal Behari Vajpayee,
will also be crucial. It is his steady hand which has given an air of
stability to what is otherwise a dangerously volatile region.

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#5.

The Hindu
14 June 2000

INDIA : RADIOACTIVE CARGO IN GUTTED MSIL GODOWN?

by A.A. Harichandan

BANGALORE, JUNE 13. Radioactive material imported by a Peenya-based
company was part of the cargo in the MSIL air cargo godown that was gutted
recently, according to sources.

Tritium activated zinc sulphide was being imported by the company. The
cargo, with airway bill number 098-7249-5150 and IGM number 1289-2000, was
stored in the godown during the fire at the MSIL air cargo complex on June
4. However, the company has
denied any knowledge of such cargo imported by it. According to sources, in
a letter to the General Manager of MSIL on June 3, the company stated that
the cargo of tritium activated zinc sulphide must not be disposed of as
ordinary waste, but should be treated as nuclear radioactive waste. The
company is also said to have forwarded a copy of the letter to the Bhabha
Atomic Research Centre in Mumbai.
Sources say that the temperature inside the godown was high enough to
melt the lead containers of the radioactive material, and expose it.
However, it is not known if the concentration of tritium in the cargo was
high enough to be dangerous.
The scientific officers from the Forensic Sciences Laboratories, who
are investigating the fire, collected evidence from the air cargo godown
over two days. It is not known if they were exposed to any radioactivity.
When contacted, the Director of the laboratories, Dr. B.M.Mohan, said
that the FSL was not equipped to handle radioactive material, and the
disposal of the cargo must be handled by competent professionals.
An expert on aspects of safety relating to atomic energy told The Hindu
that the actual quantity of tritium was usually too low in the case of
tritium activated zinc sulphide for it to be harmful. The radioactive
concentration of tritium that may be present was also low in this case, he
said.

=46urther, there is the possibility of the tritium being locked-in by the
melting lead pots which would solidify into single units. Tritium gets
easily mixed in the atmosphere. If ingested, it gets eliminated in the
normal process in two to six days in the Indian conditions where people
drink a lot of water. Tritium activated zinc sulphide, a phosphorescent
material, is used in the manufacture of dials. Tritium is being phased out
from the process in favour of promethium, which is less harmful.

Copyright (C) 2000 Kasturi & Sons

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