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New coalition targets nuclear
states
By Haider Rizvi
NEW
YORK - A group of nations is taking the United States
and seven other nuclear powers to task at the United
Nations General Assembly for not paying closer attention
to the issue of nuclear disarmament.
Last week,
the Coalition for a New Agenda - Ireland, Mexico,
Brazil, Egypt, New Zealand, South Africa and Sweden -
adopted a unanimous resolution expressing its "deep
concern" over the existence of thousands of nuclear
weapons and the continuing possibility of their use.
The coalition says that it is particularly
concerned over the development of new types of nuclear
weapons, a reference to US policy to develop a new
generation of nuclear weapons that are perceived to be
more useable, so more likely to be used.
Recent
reports indicate that the administration of President
George W Bush has already directed the US military to
prepare contingency plans to use nuclear weapons against
at least seven countries, and to build smaller weapons
for use in warfare.
Critics say these plans
break US promises made 30 years ago when the country
signed the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) and
agreed to negotiate the elimination of its nuclear
weapons. Like other nuclear-armed countries, the United
States renewed that promise in 2000, giving an
"unequivocal undertaking" to accomplish the "total
elimination" of its nuclear arsenals.
Bush also
continues to oppose the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty
(CTBT), which the United States has signed but refused
to ratify. The treaty will be effective three months
only after all 44 designated countries have ratified it.
France and Britain are the only two of the five original
nuclear powers to have ratified the CTBT. The US Senate
rejected ratification in 1999.
It is widely
believed that if the United States fails to ratify the
treaty in the next few years, Russia and China are
unlikely to do so. If they do not, India and Pakistan
will almost surely not ratify the CTBT.
"At a
time when the people of our planet desperately seeks
ways to create a safer, more secure world, the US
strikes nuclear terror into all of our hearts," says
Abolition 2000, a global network of more than 2,000
citizen groups in more than 90 countries. "The US shows
it will use nuclear weapons against countries that do
not have them. That is a complete reversal of previous
agreements."
The resolution of the UN coalition,
which is currently being discussed at the General
Assembly's first committee, says, "The indefinite
possession of nuclear weapons is incompatible with the
non-proliferation regime and with the broader goal of
promoting international peace and security".
Philomena Murnaghan, a senior diplomat from
Ireland, the coalition's current coordinating country,
says, "We would like to have speedy progress towards
nuclear disarmament. There is a need for international
momentum."
The world's eight nuclear powers
maintain over 17,000 nuclear warheads, with the United
States and Russia accounting for 93 percent, according
to Sipri, a Sweden-based think-tank that tracks weapon
production and export.
China has nearly 400
warheads, France 348, and Israel and Britain about 200
each. India is believed to have more than 30 and
Pakistan about 40 nuclear weapons.
The coalition
resolution demands that all nuclear weapons states
increase the "transparency and accountability" of their
nuclear weapons arsenals and their implementation of
disarmament measures. "Formalization by nuclear weapon
states of their unilateral declarations in a legally
binding agreement including provisions ensuring
transparency, verification and irreversibility is
essential", it says. "They should bear in mind that
reductions of deployments are a positive signal but no
replacement for the actual elimination of nuclear
weapons."
The New Agenda countries are equally
worried about the role of new nuclear states, such as
India, Pakistan and Israel, who have refused to sign the
treaty on non-proliferation. They urge those three
nations to accede to the Treaty as "non-nuclear weapons
states" and to place their facilities under
comprehensive international safeguards.
India
and Pakistan have gone to war three times in the past 50
years, and have recently only narrowly averted a
possible war over the disputed territory of Kashmir.
"We are concerned by the continued retention of
the nuclear weapons option by those three states that
operate unsafe guarded nuclear facilities and have not
acceded to the NPT, as well as their failure to renounce
that option," says the coalition.
Without naming
the United States, the coalition warned that development
of strategic missile defenses "could impact negatively
on nuclear disarmament and non-proliferation, and lead
to a new arms race on earth and outer space".
The US Department of Defense has put total
spending on missile defense systems at more than US$100
billion, while continuing with plans to build weapons in
outer space. "No steps should be taken which would lead
to the weaponization of space," the resolution said.
The General Assembly is likely to vote on the
coalition resolution by the end of this month.
(Inter Press Service)
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