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Your Excellencies: The outcome of the 2000 Non-Proliferation Treaty Review Conference, which begins April 24, 2000 at the United Nations in New York, will play a significant role in determining the security of humanity in the 21st century. Your personal commitment to a successful outcome of this Review Conference is essential to strengthening nuclear non-proliferation and disarmament efforts, and thus to humanity’s future. The nuclear perils to humanity are not sufficiently widely recognized nor appreciated. In the words of writer Jonathan Schell, we have been given “the gift of time,” but that gift is running out. For this reason vision and bold action are called for. General George Lee Butler, a former Commander in Chief of all US strategic nuclear weapons, poses these questions: “By what authority do succeeding generations of leaders in the nuclear weapons states usurp the power to dictate the odds of continued life on our planet? Most urgently, why does such breathtaking audacity persist at the moment when we should stand trembling in the face of our folly and united in our commitment to abolish its most deadly manifestation?” It is time to heed the warnings of men like General Butler, who know intimately the risks and consequences of nuclear war. The time is overdue for a New Agenda on nuclear disarmament. What is needed is commitment and leadership on behalf of humanity and all life. The heart of the Non-Proliferation Treaty agreement is the link between non-proliferation and nuclear disarmament. The non-nuclear weapons states agree in the Treaty not to develop nor acquire nuclear weapons in exchange for the nuclear weapons states agreeing to negotiate in good faith to achieve nuclear disarmament. The Treaty has become nearly universal and the non-nuclear weapons states, with a few notable exceptions, have adhered to the non-proliferation side of the bargain. The progress on nuclear disarmament, however, has been almost entirely unsatisfactory, leading many observers to conclude that the intention of the nuclear weapons states is to preserve indefinitely a two-tier structure of nuclear “haves” and “have-nots.” At the 1995 Non-Proliferation Treaty Review and Extension Conference many countries and non-governmental organizations challenged the nuclear disarmament record of the nuclear weapons states. They argued that to extend the Treaty indefinitely without more specific progress from the nuclear weapons states was equivalent to writing a blank check to states that had failed to keep their promises for 25 years. These countries and NGOs urged instead that the extension of the Non-Proliferation Treaty be linked to progress on Article VI promises of good faith efforts to achieve nuclear disarmament. Pressure from the nuclear weapons states led to the Treaty being extended indefinitely, but only with agreement to a set of non-binding Principles and Objectives that was put forward by the Republic of South Africa. These Principles and Objectives provided for: — completion of a universal and internationally and effectively verifiable Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty by 1996; — early conclusion of negotiations for a non-discriminatory and universally applicable treaty banning production of fissile materials; and — determined pursuit by the nuclear weapons states of systematic and progressive efforts to reduce nuclear weapons globally with the ultimate goal of their elimination. Progress toward these goals has been unimpressive. A CTBT was adopted in 1996, but has been ratified only by the UK and France among the nuclear weapons states. The US argues that the CTBT necessitates its $4.6 billion per year “Stockpile Stewardship” program, which enables it to design new nuclear weapons and modify existing nuclear weapons in computer-simulated virtual reality tests and “sub-critical” nuclear tests. Despite the existence of this provocative program, ratification of the CTBT by the US Senate was rejected in October 1999. The US and Russia continue to conduct “sub-critical” nuclear weapons tests. Negotiations on a fissile material cut-off treaty have yet to begin, and the “determined pursuit” promise has been systematically and progressively ignored by the nuclear weapons states. In its 1997 Presidential Decision Directive 60, the US reaffirmed nuclear weapons as the “cornerstone” of its security policy and opened the door to the use of nuclear weapons against a country using chemical or biological weapons. The US, UK and France have also resisted proposals by other NATO members for a review of NATO nuclear policy. Under urgent prodding by Canada and Germany, they did finally agree to a review of nuclear policy, but this will not be completed until December 2000, after the 2000 NPT Review Conference. The US seems intent on moving ahead with a National Missile Defense plan, even if it means abrogating the 1972 Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty, which most analysts view as a bedrock treaty for further nuclear arms reductions. The US is also moving ahead with space militarization programs. In the US Space Command’s “Vision for 2020” document, the US proclaims its intention of “dominating the space dimension of military operations to protect US interests and investment.” Russia has abandoned its policy of No First Use of nuclear weapons in favor of a policy mirroring that of the western nuclear weapons states. The START II agreement is stalled and is still not ratified by the Russian Duma. The date for completion of START II has, in fact, been set back for five years from the beginning of 2003 to the end of 2007. Negotiations on START III are stalled. China is modernizing its nuclear arsenal. India and Pakistan, countries that have consistently criticized the discriminatory nature of the NPT, have both overtly tested nuclear weapons and joined the nuclear weapons club. Israel, another country refusing to join the NPT, will not acknowledge that it has developed nuclear weapons and has imprisoned Mordechai Vanunu for more than 13 years for speaking out on Israel’s nuclear arsenal. In the face of the intransigence of the nuclear weapons states, the warning bells are sounding louder and louder. These warnings have been put forward by the Canberra Commission, the International Court of Justice, retired generals and admirals, past and present political leaders, the New Agenda Coalition, the Tokyo Forum, and many other distinguished individuals and non-governmental organizations working for peace and disarmament. The future of humanity is being held hostage to self-serving policies of the nuclear weapons states. This is an intolerable situation, not only for the myopic vision it represents and the disrespect for the rest of the world that is implicit in these policies, but, more important, for the squandering of the precious opportunity to eliminate the nuclear weapons threat to our common future. The more nuclear weapons in the world, the greater the danger to humanity. At present we lack even an effective accounting of the numbers and locations of these weapons and the nuclear materials to construct them. The possibilities of these weapons or the materials to make them falling into the hands of terrorists, criminals or potential new nuclear weapons states has increased since the breakup of the former Soviet Union. What is to be done? Will the 2000 NPT Review Conference again be bullied by strong-armed negotiating techniques and false promises of the nuclear weapons states? Or will the non-nuclear weapons states, the vast majority of the world’s nations, unite in common purpose to demand that the nuclear weapons states fulfill their long-standing promises and obligations in Article VI of the Non-Proliferation Treaty? Ridding the world of nuclear weapons is the greatest challenge of our time. We ask you to step forward and meet this challenge by demanding in a unified voice that the nuclear weapons states fulfill their obligations under Article VI of the Non-Proliferation Treaty. As we stand on the threshold of a new century and millennium, we ask that you call upon the nuclear weapons states to take the following steps to preserve the Non-Proliferation Treaty and end the threat that nuclear weapons arsenals pose to all humanity:
Sincerely, David Krieger President, Nuclear Age Peace Foundation cc: Leaders of United States, Russia, United Kingdom, France, China, India, Pakistan and Israel |
Category: Uncategorized
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Open Letter to the Leaders of all Non-Nuclear Weapons States
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Errors Found In Hanford Thyroid Disease Study
Hanford Study Sees No Harm proclaimed the New York Times headline of January 28, 1999. The headlines in USA TODAY, December 15, 1999 read, Errors Are Found In Radiation Review at Hanford Nuclear Site.
I started my day on the January 28, 1999 with the phone ringing off the hook with calls from national, Pacific Northwest, and local media asking me what I thought about this purported “No Harm” finding of the Hanford Thyroid Disease Study (HTDS). The HTDS was a nine-year, $18 million epidemiological study to assess the impact of the Hanford Nuclear Reservation offsite emissions of radioiodine (I-131) onto an unsuspecting public from the mid 1940s to the late 1950s. Hanford released approximately 900,000 curies of I-131 between 1944 and 1957, as a byproduct of plutonium production at the facility.
Since I was one of those exposed to Hanford’s I-131 as a child, when most vulnerable to uptake of the radioactive substance into my thyroid gland, I had followed the emissions study from its inception years ago. But I was not prepared for this unbelievable “no harm” conclusion of the HTDS researchers. The disturbing Hanford Study Sees No Harm headline appeared the New York Times just hours before the scheduled briefing in which I was to participate as a member of the Hanford Health Effects Subcommittee. Somehow, someone had leaked this tidbit from the Congressional briefing on HTDS which had taken place in Washington D.C. on January 27th, a day before the public and press were to know the results of this study.
As I spoke with NPR, national and local TV stations, and print media reporters — not yet having seen the summary materials on HTDS published by the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), and its contractor, the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center (FHCRC) — all I could say to this barrage of media seeking me out was “I am shocked by this conclusion. This does not reflect the reality of what has happened to those of us exposed to Hanford’s radioactive emissions.” I went on to describe the fact that my entire family, exposed to Hanford’s radioiodine and other radionuclides, developed thyroid disease and cancer, and that I am the only member of my family who has survived.
A Downwinder’s Burden – The Reality
My father, a nuclear engineer at the Hanford facility during years of I-131 (and other radionuclide) releases, had died of aggressive, metastatic thyroid cancer three years ago. He also had hypothyroidism. My mother, who had developed both hypothyroidism and hyperparathyroidism, was to be diagnosed (just two weeks after this pronouncement by the HTDS research team of no health impact from Hanford’s radioiodine) with malignant melanoma, which killed her in less than six weeks’ time. My older brother had died in 1947, during years of Hanford radiation emissions, within the Hanford downwind area, part of an unexplained surge of neonatal deaths within the Hanford downwind area. Exposed to Hanford’s I-131 as a fetus, infant and child, I also have developed severe hypothyroidism and related health problems. Of note is that there is no history of thyroid disease anywhere in our extended family other than those of us who lived in the shadow of the Hanford nuclear facility during years of I-131 emissions. And we are not alone. An entire family devastated by thyroid disease and cancer. This story is repeated over and over amongst those of us who are Hanford “downwinders.”
The Struggle To Correct An Erroneous Official Study
So began the struggle by a small group of determined Hanford-exposed citizens and activists to correct this surreal, unfathomable, purported “no harm” conclusion reached by HTDS researchers. This struggle involved confronting defensive HTDS research team members in public meetings, trying to reverse the harm being done by this “conclusion” which truly did not reflect the reality of the Hanford situation.
The HTDS summary materials given to the public and the media contained the following statement: “[T]hese results provide rather strong evidence that exposures at these levels to I-131 do not increase the risk of thyroid disease or hyperparathyroidism. These results should consequently provide a substantial degree of reassurance to the population exposed to Hanford radiation that the exposures are not likely to have affected their thyroid or parathyroid health [emphasis added].” In these public meetings, I repeatedly requested the FHCRC HTDS researchers to retract this offensive statement publicly. I asked, ‘How could Hanford-exposed people like me possibly be told we should be reassured when our loved ones were dead of thyroid cancer, and when whole families without history of thyroid disorders had developed thyroid disease?” To me, their “no harm” statement insulted the suffering, the reality of those who had been subjected to involuntary radiation exposures.
The media, overall, was very supportive of our efforts, perhaps because it was clear to all concerned that something was definitely wrong with this “no harm” conclusion. Particularly, in light of the Chernobyl studies that brought forward facts that children exposed to I-131 from the Chernobyl nuclear disaster had statistically significant incidence of thyroid disease and thyroid cancer. This “no harm” conclusion of HTDS was inconsistent with other studies of radioiodine exposure and thyroid health harm. Something was definitely wrong with this picture.
And so the analysis began, by citizens and scientists alike, trying to determine how this study could come to such a surreal conclusion. Already, articles and letters to the editor were appearing in regional papers from members of the American Nuclear Society and their allies, portraying these conclusions of HTDS as final, irrefutable evidence that Hanford’s I-131 had caused no harm to those exposed.
One of the true scientific heroes in this effort is Dr. Owen Hoffman of SENES, Oak Ridge, Inc., Center for Risk Analysis. It was through the efforts of Dr. Hoffman that we were able to begin to understand what had gone wrong, and how to discuss the scientific fallacies of this study publicly. Dr. Hoffman was able to translate complex statistical concepts into understandable terms, thus empowering us to raise these issues of import with the HTDS researchers and the media.
And, thus empowered by Dr Hoffman and others, my colleague Tim Connor, an investigative journalist and Hanford activist for many decades, and I, armed with a letter of protest co-signed by more than 22 representatives of citizen groups from around the country, went to meet with Dr Dick Jackson, director of the National Center for Environmental Health of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. This letter raised serious concerns with regard to a number of scientific issues within HTDS and as to the communication and interpretation of the findings of this study by FHCRC and CDC to the public, Congress, and the media. These concerns included HTDS researchers’ presentation of this study as if it were conclusive proof of no thyroid or parathyroid impact from Hanford’s I-131 releases, that FHCRC exaggerated the statistical power of the study, and that the uncertainties in dose estimates and confounding NTS and global fallout I-131 doses were not specifically addressed for the HTDS cohort. The letter went on to discuss significant problems created by the information “blackout” which kept even those citizens who had been following the study throughout its history, from learning about the results of the preliminary draft of the study until we read about it in the New York Times on the morning of January 28.
We asked Dr. Jackson to support a precedent-setting extended review by the National Academies of Science (NAS) of HTDS, a review which would address both the scientific and communications aspects of HTDS. Dr. Jackson, to his credit, understood the importance of this review, and granted our request. This is one of the first such extended reviews to be carried out by NAS, initiated by concerned citizens, reviewing not just the typical scientific components and qualities of a study, but concentrating as well upon the way the study’s preliminary findings were communicated to the public, Congress, and the media. The “normal” NAS review of this type comprises only a review of the science.
The NAS, which is the entity reviewing HTDS, was chartered in l863. The NAS is one of the world’s most prominent scientific organizations. Its purpose is to advise the US Congress and federal agencies on scientific and technical matters. Its Board on Radiation Effects Research has played a leading role over the years in evaluating radiation health studies.
NAS Review Conclusions
The NAS committee released the results of its extended review of HTDS this December 12, l999, in a public meeting in Spokane, Washington, followed the next day by a briefing in Washington D.C. The conclusions reached by the NAS validated all of the arguments made by those of us who had “gone public” to contradict the misinformation portrayed by the HTDS research team. The headlines in USA TODAY, December 15, l999 read: “Errors Are Found In Radiation Review at Hanford Nuclear Site. ”
This is truly a victory for Hanford and all downwinders, for people everywhere exposed to I-131 — from US Department of Energy nuclear weapons facilites such as Hanford, Oak Ridge or the Idaho National Engineering Lab, or from nuclear weapons test sites such as the Nevada Test Site or Semipalatalinsk in Kazakhstan, or from nuclear accidents resulting in exposure due to global fallout. No longer can the HTDS be portrayed by US pro-nuclear factions and their allies as conclusive proof that I-131 does not cause thyroid cancer, thyroid disease and parathyroid disease.
The NAS committee concluded the following:
1. While the study itself was well designed, the study researchers reported the study’s findings as more conclusive than they really were purported to be.
The committee found that “shortcomings in the analytical and statistical methods used by the study’s investigators overestimated the ability to detect radiation effects, which means the study results are less definitive than had been reported.” [NAS review report, 12/14/99, at page l] The failure by HTDS researchers to find a statistically significant relationship between increasing dose and frequency of thyroid disease was interpreted by the authors of HTDS as evidence of no effect (that is, that the negative findings were conclusive). Because there could be a true underlying effect that couldn’t be detected by this study, the results of the study were, at best inconclusive, rather than conclusive of no health impact from Hanford’s I-131 exposures, as portrayed by HTDS’ authors.
There are several important reasons why HTDS may have not picked up this underlying effect, and these are discussed within the other findings of the NAS review, discussed below.
2. Unlike conventional epidemiological studies, the HTDS researchers released their findings without sufficiently explaining the uncertainties involved in reconstructing radiation exposures from decades ago.
While the NAS committee emphasized that the HTDS appears to have been well designed, the weakest link is the dosimetry (which is the method of estimating individual exposure and radiation dose). The dose estimates which were assigned to members of the group (cohort) of exposed people studied were recreated using mathematical models involving input from study participants (and their mothers, if available) with regard to their recollections of approximately how much milk study participants drank some 50+ years ago. The milk pathway is one of the primary means by which radioiodine is ingested, and is a particular concern with infants and children. The radioiodine deposits on pasture grass, the cows or goats eat the contaminated grass, and then, the radioiodine is ingested by humans as the milk is consumed. Children uptake far more radioiodine than adults in this manner, because they often consume a greater quantity of milk than adults, because their thyroids are smaller and more vulnerable than those of adults, and because of a faster metabolism than that of adults.
Therefore, the estimated doses which were being correlated to incidence of thyroid and parathyroid disease within the HTDS study group were reconstructed from memories of milk intake years ago, and then based upon mathematical modeling of wind patterns, fallout of the radioiodine from rain, and deposition of radioiodine. These estimated Hanford doses were further confounded by the additional exposures of people within the HTDS cohort to Nevada Test Site radioiodine (from atomic bomb tests in the l950s and l960s) which was often a very substantial contributor to dose, and by fallout from global sources and the Marshall Islands Test of l954 (Test Bravo) in which fallout travelled west to east, depositing upon the Hanford exposure area as well. These confounding doses were not given detailed consideration by HTDS. An example of just how such an issue should be addressed is shown by the exemplary study performed by SENES Oak Ridge, Inc. Center for Risk Analysis, which was the first of its kind to estimate the cumulative I-131 dose received from Oak Ridge and Nevada Test Site I-131 exposures, within “uncertainty ranges” (that is, within a range of possible doses one may have received once age, diet and location are taken into account), and providing exposed populations with their estimated risk of health outcomes from these exposures. The HTDS did not deal in this way with specificity with these confounding exposures received by member of the HTDS study group.
The amount of I-131 Hanford released after mid-l951 also were more than likely underestimated, raising the total curies released from about 750,000 to more than 900,000. Revision of the amount released would have a significant effect on the dose estimates for those who were considered within HTDS to have received low doses as compared to the higher peak releases of l945-46.
3. The NAS committee found that the statistical power of the HTDS was not as high as claimed by the HTDS researchers.
The NAS committee found that the statistical power calculations made by the HTDS researchers made inadequate allowance for imprecision in the dose estimates. Due to this factor, the committee concluded that HTDS did not have as much statistical power to detect radiation effects as the investigators claimed.
4. The committee found that in media and public briefings on HTDS, the investigators failed to pay sufficient attention to the health concerns of the audience, and that HTDS investigators and CDC officials should have offered more balanced, and possibly alternative, interpretations of the findings and discussed their implications for individuals.
This last conclusion of the NAS committee is so well reflected in the actions of one Hanford-exposed person in attendance at the public briefing held in the Hanford area, on the evening of January 28, l999. Throughout the entire several-hour briefing, this woman held up a hand painted sign, reading “I DONT BELIEVE YOU.”
Victory Comes After Tireless Efforts
The battle to expose the truth of the Hanford situation began on the morning of January 28, l999, and ended in the afternoon of December 12, l999, with the public briefing on the results of the NAS review of HTDS. The battle ended with the headline in USA TODAY, December 15, l999, Errors Are Found In Radiation Review at Hanford Nuclear Site. The tireless efforts of a small group of activists succeeded and the HTDS study can no longer be portrayed as conclusive proof of no health impact from Hanford I-131.
The HTDS study may actually turn out, upon follow-up, to be looked upon as a study portraying a slightly positive association between exposure and health. The purported “no impact” message had been echoed by conservative forces to rebut exposed communities concerns. Uncorrected, this “no impact” message was beginning to be used to nullify the public’s concerns about Nevada Test Site radioiodine exposures, exposures of radioiodine from local sites such as the Idaho National Engineering Lab (INEEL), in Oak Ridge, and exposures at other sites where I-131 was emitted as a byproduct nuclear weapons production.
This is a truly welcomed victory for everyone. It is an especially important victory for “downwinders” including all who have been exposed anywhere in the US from the Nevada Test Site to the Department of Energy nuclear weapons research and production facilities. Downwinders face hurdles trying to get even the most minimal medical screening or medical care; even to get relief through the justice system; and all the while we bury our loved ones and hope that we are not, indeed, the sacrificial minority we have sometimes been deemed.
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“We, The People”: Weaponization and Citizenship
“‘We, the people’ who, according to the preamble of our constitution are entrusted with sovereign power, have not been expected to participate in the decision making process on a matter as serious as this. We have been relieved of the responsibility of citizenship, spared the trouble of debating and deciding about the developmental priorities of our poor nation and the desired budgetary allocations across sectors. We have been told and, in turn, accepted that power is defined as domination and war capability and not as empowerment and human capability.”
A year after Pokharan II nuclear explosions and a few weeks after the publication of India’s draft nuclear doctrine, this note is addressed not to the politicians and policy makers who are directly responsible for conducting those tests or drafting the `nuclear doctrine’, nor to the group of scientists whose active interests and efforts, sadly misdirected, have made such tests possible, nor to the military-industrial complex, national and international, whose vested interests relentlessly fuel the engine of weaponization worldwide. Understandably, a variety of comments and criticisms have been leveled against them and their activities during the course of the year by persons of diverse analytical and political proclivities. Here I intend to divert our attention away from “them” to “us” – to the generic public, to ordinary people, to relatives, friends, colleagues and neighbors who are my fellow citizens on a daily basis.
Jingoism, Mass-Mesmerization, Powerlessness
Most of us are not directly involved in the act of weaponization, nuclear or otherwise, but we have an opinion about the nation’s nuclear policies and more particularly about the recent nuclear tests. Very disturbingly, for many of us, this opinion is quite positive, occasionally veering towards a vulgar and alarming tone of jingoism (though the initial euphoria amongst some of us has died down over time). However distressed, one cannot dismiss this hard reality as mere trivia, since it involves a large number of people around us whose views, or more appropriately, blissful indifference, inaction and passificism do create a congenial yet inert public opinion – an ideal atmosphere from which elite-dominated, citizen-irreverent public policies originate.
While one may retain a basic faith in the old maxim that “all the people cannot be fooled all of the time”, one cannot but acknowledge the dangerous possibility that a sizable number of people can be effectively persuaded within quite a short period of time to suspend their refined common sense and judgments about things that really matter in their day-to-day living and believe instead in the illusion that “military security” will enhance human security, that flexing our nuclear muscles will literally energize the muscles of our teeming millions who are poor, famished and malnourished and help them cope with the perpetual vulnerabilities which adorn their daily existence. Many of us have descended into this disillusionment in recent times. How has a country with a legacy of passive resistance, non-aligned movements and democratic socialism stooped to this level?
Postponing the examination of this momentous issue for now, here I would like to underline the supreme need to acknowledge the reality of such a mass-mesmerization. As a fellow citizen I find it important to comprehend this not-so-insignificant support for pro-nuclear policies. Such an act of comprehension and serious recognition of the ground reality alone can enable us to launch a strategy of counter-persuasion. The plentiful nuclear-philists amidst us compel a nuclear-phobist, like myself, to take them seriously. However, it is the responsibility of the nuclear-phobist to convince them to think otherwise and help them break free of their brain-washed, pro-nuclear mind set.
More concretely, I base my appeal to the unconverted audience on three arguments: 1) Weaponization, especially nuclear, is the poorest method of ensuring human security. 2) In uncritically endorsing the “logic” behind nuclear tests then and the nuclear doctrine now, we are playing the role of powerless subjects in the euphemistic guise of citizenship. 3) Unlike many crises that are “more or less” in nature, damages that can be potentially caused by nuclear conflicts are of the kind of “either or”; they contain the germs of total annihilation, leading to points of no return.
Is there any military answer to the social and economic malaise that plagues the majority of the country? Does the bomb guarantee our security when it is understood in the sense of providing a safety net for all? A pragmatic look at the fragile existence of the mass of the Indian population would suggest the exact opposite.
Excessive preoccupation with military security in fact undermines human security. Rather, it appallingly detracts our attention from issues related to development, environment and human rights. When the daily existence of a large number of people in the country is subject to calamitous conditions caused by economic, social and political constraints, to speak of bomb-bred security indeed seems to be a bombastic claim! Furthermore, the risks and costs of weaponization are bound to be socialized, though in a very regressive way.
An oversized military budget, which is a likely fallout of the ongoing trend in armament, and an attendant decline in social sector spending are bound to create new social and economic risks and vulnerabilities for workers, agricultural laborers, slum dwellers, in short, the mass of the people who had nothing to do with the decision to go nuclear. They are the ones who will end up bearing a disproportionate amount of the costs and grievously suffering from the effects, i.e. social expenditure cuts, sanctions and so on, of acquiring the “exotic nuclear endowment”.
It is indeed ironic that, in the current national and international climate of cost-consciousness, we often hear a clamor for rolling back or even dismantling the state in various sectors of activities. Yet, the same state is expected to be hyperactive in the task of expanding nuclear and other weapons! Let the state take the lead in proliferating the “public bad” of huge military arsenals, its absolute inertia and sloth in providing fundamental “public goods” to citizens notwithstanding! The military budget indeed appears to be a sacred cow, supplying much-needed subsidies to the military-industrial complex, while vociferous advocates of fiscal adjustment selectively target their guns at helpless victims like education and health care spending. The message is clear and simple : austerity in public spending and the “free market” are for the poor, whereas the welfare state is for the rich who will take shelter under the wings of a generous defense expenditure.
Have the weaponization proponents amongst us noticed this role reversal of the state, while celebrating the nation’s newly acquired nuclear prowess or endorsing the recently published nuclear doctrine which appears to call for a robust nuclear force? Unfortunately, the answer is no. The reason for this is easily found. Recall that the decision to conduct nuclear tests was made in the most undemocratic fashion under tight security and control, without even full cabinet knowledge, let alone public discussions.
“We, the people” who, according to the preamble of our constitution are entrusted with sovereign power, have not been expected to participate in the decision making process on a matter as serious as this. We have been relieved of the responsibility of citizenship, spared the trouble of debating and deciding about the developmental priorities of our poor nation and the desired budgetary allocations across sectors. We have been told and, in turn, accepted that power is defined as domination and war capability and not as empowerment and human capability.
Simply put, we have embraced a model of citizenship in the form of subjects who remain at the margin of agenda-setting and decision-making, yet we are happy, docile and proud of the national military prowess. What is more, we are strongly discouraged, penalized, or disregarded when we try to assert our rights of citizenship.
The ongoing political and electoral drama of coalition-breaking and coalition-making at the center is an utter disregard for popular mandates. We are encouraged to ungrudgingly consume, not to question or debate, the official “logic” of empowerment through armament. This consumer orientation to citizenship is a step towards the marginalization of people, towards denying them some influence over their rights and affairs as citizens. Noam Chomsky’s observed in a different but related context, “The Public are to be observers, not participants, to be consumers of ideology as well as products.” We are the uninformed, subject “citizenry”, the riffraff, flaunting an unexamined faith in the special interests and ambitions of the political, scientific and bureaucratic elite, cleverly camouflaged as the national interest. So much for our well thought-out and informed endorsement of nuclear and arms proliferation!
One may argue that on an issue as vital and serious as national security, decisions should be left to “experts” alone and kept away from the public. In a deliberative democracy, voters are expected to participate and contemplate serious issues and not simply vote. Norms such as participation and accountability are indeed the bedrock of democracy. The examination of pros and cons of security issues may be conducted by experts, but they are then required to present their views and results for citizens and elected leaders to consider in the context of country’s overall social, economic and political objectives.
To be sure, people do not speak in a single voice; neither can we assert that deliberation is always the only or the best way to arrive at a political decision. It is precisely because the weaponization issue at hand has wide-ranging ramifications for the public that citizens should have the opportunity for debating the question of its merits. Each accountable representative should justify their views and decisions by giving persuadable reasons. Such collective engagement in the underlying reasoning of divergent views is a vital source of the legitimacy of collective decisions. In the case of the nuclear question, it is precisely the denial of such a scope for public debate and dialogue that has rendered the country’s citizens as subjects and consumers rather than producers of ideas.
Draft Nuclear Doctrine
Admittedly, the recently published nuclear doctrine, prepared by the National Security Advisory Board, is a draft document aimed at generating wider public discussions. In principle there is some scope for citizens to deliberate on the country’ s future nuclear policy, practice and posture. Keeping in mind how rhetoric translates into reality, two important issues merit attention here. First, if there were “security” reasons that compelled the concerned authorities to be secretive about the nuclear tests, now there are political and electoral reasons to make the document public, that is to say, to tap into our “Kargil euphoria” for the vindication of a pro-nuclear posture. Second, moving beyond the logic of the timing of the publication and coming to the specifics of the doctrine, the document focuses on “effective credible minimum deterrence”.
We have tolerated such abject human conditions for a full fifty years of our independent existence, despite pious policy rhetoric to do otherwise. More distressingly, no corrupt practices on the part of the elite, no pilferage of public funds, no flagrant violations of public duties (e.g., the Gaisal rail accident) have been “deterred” on account of their unacceptably deleterious consequences for the well-being of the poor and the unfavored.
When persistent damages to the lives of “sovereign” people have been routinely and infinitely tolerated by the governing classes of our country as well as those of our neighboring nuclear “adversary”, is it reasonable to expect that jingoistic nuclear behavior of vested interests on either side of the LOC will be deterred by the human costs it entails? Do “We, the people” matter in the calculus of unacceptable damage? Our heritage of deprivation, our social policy failures and our citizenship records reveal quite the opposite.
Recent debates on the notion of unacceptable damage concentrate mainly on strategic and geo-political considerations, which relatively neglect and threaten, both in times of war and peace, the lives of large segments of the population. In the face of such chronic insensitivity on the part of the political leadership to human security issues, we need to be wary as to whether “We, the people” and our day-to-day vulnerabilities will be factored into the damage assessment of the powers that exist.
Informed Public and Responsive Governments
Reclaiming our sovereignty as the people of a democratic nation is, however, not an impossible task. Indeed, when policy making is embedded in consultative and transparent processes, democracy offers a way of rescuing governments that have fallen under t he sway of vested interests. As Churchill once said, “Democracy is the worst form of government except for all the others.” Therefore, the real challenge is to encourage the initiatives of the citizens, to harness the power of public opinion and action so that governments become responsive and accountable to the will of the majority and make a real difference in the quality of people’s lives.
Fortunately, informed public debates have been taking place during the last year in different corners of the country, critically reviewing the `merits’ of the decision to go nuclear. Out of the nuances and well-documented evidence that are being presented in these discourses, what echoes in resounding notes is the unmistakable and plain understanding that we have only one earth to live in and save. The destructive capacity of a nuclear conflict is so catastrophic, so complete and final that it cannot be measured on a scale of “more or less”. It is a judgment call of “either, or”, “preserve or perish”. There are no two ways about it. To take liberty with Gandhi, an eye for an eye, the so-called “mutually assured destruction” will indeed make the whole world blind and a radiated ruin. It is, therefore, futile to endorse a position of the limited use of low-yield nuclear weapons. There is no alternative to developing an absolute nuclear phobia, to admitting that it is an utter prejudice to take pride in nuclear possessions, low-yield or high-yield.
Why is this prejudice still so prominent in our minds? I take a shorthand to address this profound issue by quoting economist Paul Krugman, “Bad ideas flourish because they are in the interest of powerful groups.” We, the people” are responsible to see through the deceit.
I would like to conclude this note on a self-policing tone. While making a strong case for nuclear disarmament and abolition, I am willing to concede that many concerns vis-à-vis the de-weaponization path still endure. More concretely, the cautionary views and nagging doubts about the viability of the de-weaponization path now being expressed in light of the recent NATO bombings in Yugoslavia, cannot be left unacknowledged. To do so would be unconvincing to those with whom we disagree on the issue of weaponization. A realist would argue that in a uni-polar world with an overly militarized rogue superpower, it is a compulsion to arm and to even go nuclear in order to protect people’s sovereignty and territorial integrity. Conversely, a proponent of disarmament and peace will have to address this issue squarely. She has to relentlessly search for an alternative to armament which at once engenders peace and protects sovereignty and the right to self-determination of the people in the developing world against the military aggrandizement of the nuclear-rich countries. This is not an easy task; but neither is it impenetrable.
Sane voices for global peace must converge and raise a clamor for wholesale disarmament and abolition of nuclear weapons, both locally and globally, both in developed and in developing countries. The challenge that lays before us is to find a feasible way of resolving the alleged tension between ensuring global peace on the one hand and local freedom on the other in a highly militarized, geo-political situation. There is surely no magical solution.
One may also point out that in this age of MNC-dominated globalization, countries — especially the resource poor countries — are vulnerable not just to military threats but more frequently to economic insecurities and predicaments. These political-economic arguments, highlighting the iniquitous nature of the present world economic order, must be factored to ensure a just treatment of the question of global peace.
An Appeal for International Law
To be sure, these concerns are not new. They have indeed continued to grip the imagination of nation-states since the Second World War. One thing, however, that has become transparent to peace proponents over time, is that the solution to these entrenched problems must be sought in political and not in military terms. A rule of International Law administered by a supra-national global government is the only viable tool to ensure peace on earth and to tame the extant military and economic hegemonies. To that end, debates, discussions and public action must occur in order to empower the currently atrophied United Nations, revive the moribund non-aligned movement and educate people worldwide about the misleading nature of the deterrence argument. This is an appeal to enact all of the standard democratic practices, debates, deliberations, organizations and protests in order to promote the emergence of a sane and collective wisdom.
*Manabi Majumdar is a social scientist who works at the Madras Institute of Development Studies in Chennai, India, specializing in political economy. Her research interests include social exclusion, democratic decentralization, and child labor from the human security perspective. Manabi has studied at Presidency College, Calcutta University and University of Maryland. Manabi currently lives in Chennai with her husband.
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Analysis of NPT PrepComm III
Summary
The third and final preparatory meeting for the 2000 Review of the Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) concluded at 10:30 p.m. May 21st with an agreement to disagree. In the arcane world of nuclear diplomacy, this was considered a step forward, since the 1998 Second PrepComm had concluded in disarray without an agreement that the parties disagreed. The 1999 action was but a thin cover over the deadlock persisting between the Western Nuclear Weapons States and the leading non-Nuclear Weapons States and, given the worsening international climate, signals a struggle of immense proportions to maintain the viability of the NPT after 2000.
China excoriated the United States for “wantonly bombing Yugoslavia for more than 40 days,” bullying other countries, and pursuing an inflammatory missile defence system. The U.S. stated that its commitment to the NPT’s Article VI “is broad and deep,” but refused to allow a subsidiary body, which would examine the details of nuclear disarmament, to be established at the 2000 Review. The New Agenda Coalition tabled a working paper with 44 co-sponsors, criticizing the NWS for re-rationalizing their continued possession of nuclear weapons, and calling for “a clear and unequivocal commitment to the speedy pursuit of the total elimination” of nuclear weapons, which “will require a multilateral agreement.” The Non-Aligned Movement went further, with its repeated call for the commencement of negotiations on a phased program of nuclear disarmament within “a specified framework of time, including a Nuclear-Weapons Convention… .” Canada, building on its new nuclear weapons policy statement, presented a draft of new Principles and Objectives for the 2000 Review, which called for acceleration of the START process, the engagement of the three other NWS “in the near future,” and additional new measures such as de-alerting. A lengthy list of States’ proposals was blended into a 61-paragraph Chairman’s Paper which, while not going as far as the NAM desires, went well beyond what the Western NWS would accept. The Chairman, Ambassador Camilo Reyes of Colombia, included: a call for negotiations on the elimination of non-strategic nuclear weapons; de-alerting, de-targeting and de-activating all nuclear weapons and removing nuclear warheads from delivery vehicles; an expression of “deep concern that Israel continues to be the only State in the [Middle East] which has not yet acceded to the [NPT] and refuses to place all its nuclear facilities under the full-scope safeguards of the IAEA; a legally-binding negative security assurances regime; an ad-hoc committee at the Conference on Disarmament “with a negotiating mandate to address nuclear disarmament.” Several hours of debate on the Chairman’s Paper revealed once more the continuing wide split between the Western NWS and the gathering forces of the NNWS who are increasing their demands that the “systematic and progressive efforts to reduce nuclear weapons globally,” promised in 1995, be lived up to. Almost to the end of the PrepComm, it appeared that absolute deadlock would prevail, as occurred in 1998. But deft steering by the Chairman and a general feeling on all sides that a second total collapse of the PrepComm process could prove fatal for the 2000 Review led to an agreement to send to the 2000 Review the Chairman’s Paper along with all the papers submitted by States with the notation: “The Preparatory Committee was unable to reach agreement on any substantive recommendations to the 2000 Review Conference.”
This strategem allows the PrepComm material, containing many ideas for strengthening the NPT, to go forward. But Western NWS opposition to the ideas themselves persists.
1. During the three years of annual PrepComms leading up to the 2000 Review, the nuclear weapons situation has worsened. START II is blocked. The Conference on Disarmament is virtually paralyzed. Overt nuclear proliferation has spread to India and Pakistan. The Nuclear Weapons States continue to modernize their nuclear arsenals. NATO has reaffirmed that nuclear weapons are “essential.” The Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty is nowhere near entering into force. A fourth U.N. Special Session on Disarmament has been blocked by India, which says that as long as the U.S. opposes nuclear disarmament as a chief item on the agenda, India doesn’t want the Session at all.
2. The 1999 PrepComm opened under the cloud of the Kosovo war, which, among its other serious consequences for the international community, has severely strained relations between the U.S. and Russia and the U.S. and China. NATO’s decisions to take in nine more nations (on top of the three new members), operate aggressively out-of-area, and bypass the U.N. Security Council in prosecuting the Kosovo war have angered Russia and China in the extreme. An additional $300 billion will be pumped into the U.S. defence budget by 2003 which already is 18 times larger than the combined spending of the seven so-called “rogue” States identified by the Pentagon. The U.S. Congress has enshrined in ional security policy the intention to field a national ballistic missile defence system; the Pentagon has budgeted $10.5 billion over the next six years to create a workable system. Not only is the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty now under threat, the whole non-proliferation regime is under siege. A new nuclear arms race is certain, unless Washington, Moscow and Beijing can quickly put collaborative efforts back on track.
3. China went up front at the PrepComm in castigating the U.S. Stung by the three NATO missiles that struck China’s embassy in Belgrade, Ambassador Sha Zukang led off his opening speech with a condemnation of NATO’s bombing campaign. “The Chinese Government and people express their utmost indignation and severe condemnation of the barbarian act and lodge the strongest protest. U.S-led NATO should bear all responsibilities arising therefrom.” Sha then accused the U.S., through trying to build absolute security on the insecurity of others, of undermining international peace and security and impairing efforts towards nuclear disarmament and non-proliferation. He singled out the proposed U.S. missile defence system as an unacceptable U.S. effort to achieve strategic superiority in the 21st century. “It will disrupt global and regional strategic balances and stability, and possibly trigger off a new round of arms races.” He foresaw the collapse of existing international regimes on disarmament if the U.S. continues its present bullying methods, forcing other countries to resort to every possible means to protect themselves. “If that happens, the bombardment by the U.S. led NATO is the only thing to blame and it is U.S. and NATO which will provoke the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction.” Calling for the negotiation of a Nuclear Weapons Convention, he promoted proposals already put forward, including the time-bound nuclear disarmament program advanced by the NAM, the work of the New Agenda Coalition, and the Canberra Commission Report.
4. The U.S. speech, given by Norman A. Wulf, reiterated U.S. strong commitment to the NPT and “continuing to meet its obligations under all aspects of the Treaty.” He criticized the nuclear testing by India and Pakistan as “a grave disservice to our collective efforts because it occurred in the context of an historic achievement of a CTBT and a continuing deep reduction in the number of nuclear weapons worldwide.” He called for a “balanced” review process. “We must approach our work with a healthy dose of realism and avoid the assumption that the NPT process can achieve what has not been achievable elsewhere.”
5. The U.S. tabled two lengthy Fact Sheets detailing steps the U.S. has taken in nuclear disarmament and non-proliferation. The information package showed that the U.S. has brought its deployed strategic nuclear weapons down from 12,000 in 1989 to about 8,000 today, and that 80 percent of the tactical warhead stockpile has been eliminated. “The U.S., through the vigorous pursuit and conclusion of strategic and theater nuclear arms control and reduction agreements with the former Soviet Union, and by canceling new procurement and development programs, has helped to end the Superpower nuclear arms race. This Article VI obligation has been achieved.” Mr. Wulf attempted to marginalize the New Agenda Coalition by stating: “There has been a lot of focus this past year on trying to identify a new agenda for the disarmament process. I would suggest that we have an existing agenda that remains to be completed.”
6. The NGO community immediately issued a rebuttal to U.S. claims that it is advancing nuclear disarmament. The U.S. Fact Sheets had not mentioned Presidential Decision Directive 60, in which the U.S. will continue to rely on nuclear arms as a cornerstone of its national security for the “indefinite future.” In addition, recent planning documents of the U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff contemplate nuclear retaliation against the use of chemical and biological arms, an action that would violate negative security assurances.
The NGO statement said the 8,000 figure was misleading because it counted only operational weapons. By counting those in reserve, the total exceeds 10,000 warheads. The Stockpile Stewardship Program, encompassing sub-critical testing at weapons laboratories at Los Alamos and Livermore, violates the spirit, if not the letter, of the CTBT; and the U.S. plans to invest $45 billion over the next decade for nuclear weapons research, development, testing, and production. Stocks of plutonium and highly-enriched uranium are maintained at excessive levels. “While the U.S. may have completely eliminated more than a dozen different types of nuclear warheads, during the same period it has initiated programs to develop several new warheads, or modifications of existing warheads.” These include: the B-61/11, a new earth-penetrating warhead, a new warhead to be deployed on the Trident I and II missile, a refurbishment for the W87, currently used on MX missiles, and improvements for the B83.
7. Thirteen NGO papers were verbally presented to the PrepComm, covering many aspects of the NPT. Forums and literature were in abundance. At one forum, the new book, “Security and Survival: The Case for a Nuclear Weapons Convention,” whose principal authors are Merav Datan and Alyn Ware, was presented. This thorough examination of the Model Nuclear Weapons Convention, already a U.N. document, was distributed to delegates. At the forum, Rebecca Johnson, who provided excellent daily reporting (with Nicola Butler) of the PrepComm on behalf of the Acronym Institute, made an interesting observation. A paradigm shift of thinking from the impossibility to the practicality of nuclear weapons abolition is needed. When the paradigm shift occurs, we will be surprised how fast nuclear abolition will take hold. She likened the work of NGOs today to loosening the earth around a big rock at the top of a mountain; after enough digging, the rock will start to roll down the mountain – unstoppable.
8. The NAM paper called once again for commencement of negotiations in the Conference on Disarmament on “a phased program of nuclear disarmament and for the complete elimination of nuclear weapons with a specified framework of time, including a Nuclear Weapons Convention… .” The NAM also called for negotiations for a legal instrument assuring non-nuclear States against the threat or use of nuclear weapons (negative security assurances) to be annexed as a protocol to the NPT. In fulfillment of the 1995 Resolution on the Middle East, the NAM stressed the urgency of Israel acceding to the NPT without delay and recommended a subsidiary body at the 2000 Review to examine this question.
9. Following adoption of its Resolution 53/77Y at the 1998 UNGA, the New Agenda Coalition submitted a paper, which showed growth of support for the NAC. Though Slovenia, a NATO aspirant, had dropped off the original membership of Brazil, Egypt, Ireland, Mexico, New Zealand, South Africa and Sweden, the group was augmented by 37 more countries that co-sponsored the paper: Angola, Benin, Bolivia, Botswana, Cameroon, Chile, Colombia, Congo, Costa Rica, Ecuador, El Salvador, Fiji, Ghana, Guatemala, Indonesia, Iran, Kenya, Lesotho, Liberia, Mali, Malaysia, Malawi, Morocco, Nigeria, Panama, Peru, Philippines, Samoa, Solomon Islands, Swaziland, Switzerland, Thailand, Togo, Uruguay, Venezuela, Zambia, and Zimbabwe.
The NAC paper expressed “profound concern” at the lack of evidence that the NWS are living up to their commitments to Article VI. “On the contrary, the continued possession of nuclear weapons has been re-rationalized. Nuclear doctrines have been reaffirmed. …The indefinite extension of the NPT does not sanction the indefinite retention of nuclear weapons. That must be absolutely clear. …It is imperative to secure a clear and unequivocal commitment to the speedy pursuit of the total elimination of these weapons.”
The NAC called for the pursuit of the START process, the “seamless integration” into the process by the other NWS, de-alerting, reduction of reliance on tactical nuclear weapons, and a legally-binding Negative Security Assurances.
10. Canada, building on its new policy statement on nuclear weapons, said that all members of the international community have “a binding obligation” to pursue nuclear disarmament under Article VI, even though for the foreseeable future the primary responsibility for the negotiation of nuclear reductions rests with the U.S. and Russia, with the engagement of the other three NWS “in the near future.” Canada proposed a new set of Principles and Objectives, to be adopted at the 2000 Review, which would press for acceleration of the START process, de-alerting, entry-into-force of the CTBT, a treaty banning the production of fissile material for nuclear weapons, and discussion of nuclear disarmament issues at the Conference on Disarmament.
11. It was left to the Chairman to distill the 27 working papers and other documents submitted by delegations into a coherent presentation of ideas to strengthen the NPT. His final version, amounting to 61 paragraphs, was considered a progressive document, since it embodied an ad hoc committee at the Conference on Disarmament with a negotiating mandate to address nuclear disarmament, and a call to Israel to accede to the NPT and to place all its nuclear facilities under the full-scope IAEA safeguards “without further delay and without conditions.” These two subjects – comprehensive negotiations for nuclear disarmament and Israeli compliance with the NPT – are the thorniest issues the 2000 Review will face. Therefore, the NAM, led by South Africa, pressed for subsidiary bodies to be attached to the regular main committees in 2000 for the purpose of giving detailed attention to nuclear disarmament and the Israeli situation. The United States vigorously objected – as it had in 1998 to the same proposal. For a few moments the PrepComm teetered on the point of subsidiary bodies, a surrogate issue representing the basic split between the NWS and the leading NNWS. Then,because neither side wanted the PrepComm to fail outright, compromise language was crafted in which it was noted that some delegations proposed subsidiary bodies be established, and some delegations wanted to defer the decision, and thus the question would be resolved at the 2000 Review. A sigh of relief went around the room. And when the formal decision was taken to send the Chairman’s Paper forward, with the specific notation that it was not an agreed text, delegates applauded.
12. Egypt immediately struck a realistic note, stating the PrepComm had not been a success and that no substantive recommendations had been sent to the 2000 Review. It hoped for better results on nuclear disarmament and the Middle East problem in 2000.
Conclusion
The NPT stalemate, crucial as it is to the hopes for a viable non-proliferation regime in the 21st century, is itself part of a larger world struggle today. Nuclear weapons, like the Kosovo war, are about the rule of law. How will international law be imposed in the years ahead: by the militarily powerful determining what the law will be, or by a collective world effort reposing the seat of law in the United Nations system? Already, only a decade after the end of the Cold War, the hopes for a cooperative global security system have been dashed on the rocks of power. The trust, engendered during the early post-Cold War years, is now shattered. New arms races are underway.
It would be the height of folly to sweep under the rug this unpleasant turn of events. It would be equally folly to think that the rest of the world is powerless against the NWS. Gains are being made, however small compared to the immensity of the nuclear weapons problem. Reductions have occurred. Good documentation, even if not agreed, has been prepared for the 2000 Review. The New Agenda Coalition is developing strength. NATO has committed itself to review its nuclear weapons policy. There is an interplay in these NPT-NAC-NATO developments. Singly,they may not amount to much; taken together and built upon by a new fusion of strength by like-minded governments and the advanced wave of civil society, they can create enormous world pressure that the NWS will not be able to ignore.
The world is staring into an abyss of nuclear weapons proliferation. The danger of the use of nuclear weapons is growing. The recognition of this should galvanize intelligent and committed people – in both governments and civil society – to action.
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Canada and the Nuclear Challenge
The report of the Canadian House of Commons’ Standing Committee on Foreign Affairs and International Trade, entitled “Canada and the Nuclear Challenge,” was released today.
The committee’s 15 recommendations are reproduced in full below.
LIST OF RECOMMENDATIONS
RECOMMENDATION 1
The Committee recommends that the Government of Canada adopt the following fundamental principle to guide its nuclear non-proliferation, arms control and disarmament policy, within an overarching framework encompassing all aspects – political, military, and commercial – of Canada’s international relations:* That Canada work consistently to reduce the political legitimacy and value of nuclear weapons in order to contribute to the goal of their progressive reduction and eventual elimination.
RECOMMENDATION 2
In order to implement this fundamental principle, the Committee recommends that the Government of Canada issue a policy statement which explains the links between Canada’s nuclear non-proliferation, arms control and disarmament policy and all other aspects of its international relations. In addition, it must also establish a process to achieve a basis for ongoing consensus by keeping the Canadian public and parliamentarians informed of developments in this area, in particular by means of:* Annual preparatory meetings – held, for example, under the auspices of the Canadian Centre for Foreign Policy Development – of the type held with non-governmental organizations and representatives of civil society before the annual meeting of the UN Human Rights Commission;
* An annual public appearance before this Committee by the Ambassador to the United Nations for Disarmament Affairs;
* Strengthened coordination between the departments of Foreign Affairs and International Trade and National Defence, in the first instance by the inclusion of a representative from National Defence on Canadian delegations to multilateral nuclear non-proliferation fora.RECOMMENDATION 3
The Committee recommends that the Government of Canada intensify its efforts, in cooperation with States such as its NATO allies and the members of the New Agenda Coalition, to advance the process of nuclear disarmament. To this end, it must encourage public input and inform the public on the exorbitant humanitarian, environmental and economic costs of nuclear weapons as well as their impact on international peace and security. In addition, the Government must encourage the nuclear-weapon States to demonstrate their unequivocal commitment to enter into and conclude negotiations leading to the elimination of nuclear weapons. Drawing on the lessons of the Ottawa Process, it should also examine innovative means to advance the process of nuclear disarmament.RECOMMENDATION 4
The Committee recommends that the Government of Canada explore additional means of both providing more information to Canadians on civilian uses of nuclear technology, and receiving more public input into government policy in this area. As one means of achieving this, the Committee also recommends that the Parliament of Canada conduct a separate and in-depth study on the domestic use, and foreign export of, Canada’s civilian nuclear technology.RECOMMENDATION 5
In the interest of increased nuclear safety and stability, and as a means to advance toward the broader goal of eliminating nuclear weapons, the Committee recommends that the Government of Canada endorse the concept of de-alerting all nuclear forces, subject to reciprocity and verification – including the arsenals of the permanent members of the UN Security Council and the three nuclear-weapons-capable States – and encourage their governments to pursue this option.RECOMMENDATION 6
The Committee recommends that the Government of Canada take all possible action to encourage the United States and Russia to continue the START process. In particular, Canada should encourage Russia to ratify START II, should provide concrete support towards achieving this objective, and should encourage like-minded states to work with Russia to ensure increased political and economic stability in that country. Beyond this, Canada should urge both parties to pursue progressive and reciprocal reforms to their respective nuclear postures.RECOMMENDATION 7
Given its potential contribution to nuclear safety and stability, and the need to act promptly to address the possible implications of the millennium bug, the Committee recommends that the Government of Canada explore further with the United States and Russia the feasibility of establishing a NORAD “hotline” to supplement and strengthen Russia’s missile early warning system. Canada should also strongly support the idea of broadening such a mechanism to include other nuclear-weapons-capable States.RECOMMENDATION 8
The Committee recommends that the Government reject the idea of burning MOX fuel in Canada because this option is totally unfeasible, but that it continue to work with other governments to address the problem of surplus fissile material.RECOMMENDATION 9
In view of their responsibilities as nuclear-weapon States under the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty and as Permanent Members of the United Nations Security Council, the Committee recommends that the Government of Canada encourage the United Kingdom, France and China to: increase transparency about their nuclear stockpiles, fissile material and doctrine; support the call of Canada and other States for the substantive discussion of nuclear disarmament issues at the Conference on Disarmament; and explore with the United States and Russia means of preparing to enter nuclear disarmament reductions at the earliest possible moment.RECOMMENDATION 10
The Committee recommends that the Government of Canada continue to support all international efforts to address the underlying regional security issues in South Asia and the Middle East. Working with like-minded States, it should take a more proactive role in stressing the regional and global security benefits of immediately increasing communication and co-operation between States in those regions as a means of building trust. In both regions – but particularly in South Asia given the recent nuclear tests – Canada should also stress: the freezing of nuclear weapon programs; adhering to the Comprehensive Nuclear Test-Ban Treaty and participating in the negotiation of the Fissile Material Cut-Off Treaty and; joining the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty as non-nuclear-weapon States.RECOMMENDATION 11
The Committee recommends that the Government of Canada work to strengthen international efforts to prevent the proliferation of chemical and biological weapons and missile systems and to ensure adequate funding for verification purposes. In addition to strengthening the Biological and Toxin Weapons Convention through the negotiation of a Verification Protocol and continuing to support the operation of the Chemical Weapons Convention, the Government should also examine methods of increasing the effectiveness of the Australia Group and the Missile Technology Control Regime, as well as cooperation in intelligence and law enforcement to prevent terrorist acquisition of such weapons.RECOMMENDATION 12
The Committee recommends that the Government, having strengthened the international safeguards regime by signing its new Model Protocol with the International Atomic Energy Agency, use all means at its disposal to convince other States to do likewise. Before entering into a future Nuclear Cooperation Agreement with any other State, the Government should, at a minimum, require that State to adopt the new Model Protocol.RECOMMENDATION 13
The Committee recommends that the Government of Canada meet annually with the other parties to all Nuclear Cooperation Agreements to review the application of such Agreements, and table a report on the results of such meetings in Parliament.RECOMMENDATION 14
The Committee recommends that the Canadian Government intensify its efforts, in cooperation with like-minded States, such as our NATO allies, to advance the global disarmament and security agenda:* Canada should reaffirm its support for the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty as the centrepiece of the global nuclear non-proliferation regime and should reject any attempt to revise the Treaty to acknowledge India and Pakistan as “nuclear-weapon States” under it. It should also continue to strive to ensure that the nuclear-weapon States honour their commitments to a strengthened review process for the NPT, which will lead to an updated statement of Principles and Objectives for Nuclear Non-Proliferation and Disarmament at the 2000 Review Conference. Canada should complete the process of ratifying the Comprehensive Nuclear Test-Ban Treaty as quickly as possible and urge all other States to do likewise. Should India and Pakistan refuse to accept the Treaty unconditionally, Canada should nevertheless encourage the international community to ensure the Treaty’s legal entry into force.
* Canada should play a strong role at the Conference on Disarmament in thr forthcoming negotiations for a broad Fissile Material Cut-Off Treaty which will serve both non-proliferation and disarmament objectives.
* Canada should support the establishment of a nuclear arms register to cover both weapons and fissile material as proposed by Germany in 1993.
* Canada should support the call for the conclusion of a nuclear weapons disarmament convention.RECOMMENDATION 15
The Committee recommends that the Government of Canada argue forcefully within NATO that the present re-examination and update as necessary of the Alliance Strategic Concept should include its nuclear component. -
Philip Berrigan Released from Federal Prison
Before dawn on Feb. 12, 1997, Ash Wednesday, the beginning of the Christian season of Lent, six religious peace activists, Steve Baggarly from Norfolk, Vir., Philip Berrigan, a former Josephite priest from Baltimore, Mark Colville of New Haven, Conn., Susan Crane, from Baltimore, Tom Lewis-Borbely of Worcester, Mass. and the Rev. Steve Kelly, a Jesuit priest from San Jose, Calif., calling themselves Prince of Peace Plowshares, boarded the USS The Sullivans, an Aegis destroyer, at the Bath [Maine] Iron Works (BIW). Inspired by Isaiah’s prophecy to turn swords into plowshares, they poured their own blood and used hammers to beat on the hatches covering the tubes from which nuclear missiles can be fired and unfurled a banner which read Prince of Peace Plowshares, “They shall beat their swords into plowshares and their spears into pruning hooks…Isaiah 2:4.”
The federal government eventually charged them with two felonies: conspiracy to destroy government property and destruction of government property/aiding and abetting. On May 7, 1997, after Federal Judge Gene Carter denied an international law defense, a jury in Portland, Maine convicted all six defendants of both charges. On Oct. 27, 1997, Carter sentenced Berrigan to 24 months in prison, two-years of supervised probation and restitution of approximately $4,667.
On Feb. 16, 1998, Mairead Corrigan Maguire, a 1976 Nobel Peace Prize laureate from Northern Ireland, visited Berrigan in federal prison. She was moved to stage a nonviolent protest against a possible U.S. attack on Iraq. Prison authorities arrested her, but her charge of trespassing was dismissed. Berrigan, however, would serve ten days in solitary confinement and temporarily lose visiting privileges. However, the Plowshares activist is now scheduled for release from from the Federal Correctional Institute in Petersburg, Virginiaon 8:30 AM on Friday, November 20, 1998
Berrigan received enough “good-time” credit to be released before serving the entire 24 months. The other Prince of Peace Plowshares still incarcerated are Susan Crane and Steve Kelly. Crane received a 27-month sentence, while Kelly’s sentence is 25 months.
Elizabeth McAlister will be there when her husband Philip Berrigan walks out the prison gate. They will return to Baltimore’s Jonah House, the Christian resistance community which they helped form in 1973. That same day, some members of the Jonah House will be traveling to Fort Benning, Georgia.
There will be a massive protest at Fort Benning on Nov. 22, when as many as 1,000 people will be arrested trying to close down the School of the Americas. This is the infamous school at Fort Benning, which has trained thousands of the human rights abusers in Latin America.
On Feb. 12, 1997, in Sagadahoc County District Court, when the Prince of Peace Plowshares were brought to arraignment, Judge Joseph Field felt impassioned enough to say, “Anyone of my generation knows Philip Berrigan. He is a moral giant, the conscience of a generation.”
The Plowshares brought to Bath Iron Works an indictment against those who would use weapons of mass destruction. A portion of the indictment made this argument: “The Aegis weapons and system are a present and immediate danger to all life on earth and a robbery of human needs, human talents and resources. If the missiles exist they will be used. Disarmament brings peace; the weapons are the crime.” However, at their trial, they were forbidden to argue the USS The Sullivans, with its weapons of mass destruction, violates the Constitution, international law and the spiritual laws of God.
The Plowshares movement started on Sept. 8, 1980, when eight activists, including Philip and Daniel Berrigan, entered the General Electric plant in King of Prussia, Pennsylvania and hammered and poured blood on two nose cones for nuclear warheads. Since then, there have been more than 50 Plowshares actions, and sentences have ranged in severity to as much as 18 years in jail.
Philip Berrigan and Tom Lewis-Borbely, as part of the Aegis Plowshares, for example, disarmed another Aegis destroyer, the USS Gettysburg, at BIW on Easter Sunday, March 31, 1991. While this was the first Plowshares action for Steve Baggarly and Mark Colville, Susan Crane and Rev. Steve Kelly acted on Aug. 7, 1995, as the Jubilee Plowshares-West in disarming NAVSTAR navigational equipment at Lockheed Martin in Sunnyvale, Calif.
In Berrigan’s autobiography, Fighting the Lamb’s War, Skirmishes with the American Empire, he emphasizes Plowshares activists understand “Christ was condemned in accordance with [Roman] law” and “[U.S.] law legalizes nuclear weapons.” It is expected that he will continue his vigorous efforts toward the abolition of nuclear weapons. He will probably be sent to jail again.
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Linus Pauling and the Spirit of Peace: A Tale of Two Petitions
Linus Pauling was undoubtedly a great scientist. This is attested to by his Nobel Prize in chemistry and his many discoveries in this field. More important, from my perspective, he was also a great human being. He had an unflagging commitment to peace, which he expressed with intelligence and courage.
I met Linus Pauling in April 1991, when he was presented with the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation’s Lifetime Achievement Award for Distinguished Peace Leadership. It was a wonderful occasion, at which we also presented the XIVth Dalai Lama with an award for Distinguished Peace Leadership.
In April 1991 the Persian Gulf War had just ended, and Americans were in a particularly patriotic mood. Yellow ribbons abounded, and President Bush’s approval ratings were above 90 percent. In his acceptance speech, before an audience of more than 800 people, Dr. Pauling chose to address what had just happened in the Persian Gulf. He began with a syllogism:
“To kill and maim people is immoral.
War kills and maims people.
War is immoral.”For Pauling it was that simple. On January 8th of that year he had taken out a quarter page ad in the New York Times with the heading, “Stop the Rush to War!” He paid for the ad himself. On January 18th, three days after the war began, he published another advertisement, this time in the Washington Post. It was an Open Letter to President Bush, and it contained the syllogism concluding that war is immoral. Again, Dr. Pauling paid for the ad himself.
In his acceptance speech for our award, Pauling noted that in the military operations of the Persian Gulf War some 300,000 Iraqis had been killed while some 150 Americans had died. The ratio was 2,000 to one. He concluded from this that what happened in the Persian Gulf was not a war.
“In a war,” he said, “you have opposing forces that fight and there are deaths on both sides and finally one side wins. In the old days perhaps this was a demonstration of the democratic process – the side with the biggest number of fighters won. This wasn’t a war. This you could call a massacre or slaughter, perhaps even murder.”
Speaking Truth to Power
Linus Pauling was extremely direct. He stated the truth as he saw it. He was honest and without concern that his views might be very unpopular. He spoke truth to power. He spoke truth whomever he addressed. He spoke truth in the face of overwhelming and irrational patriotic fervor.
In 1955, Pauling was one of 11 prominent signers of the Russell-Einstein Manifesto. That document called for an end to war, and posed the problem of our powerful new weapons in this way: “Shall we put an end to the human race; or shall mankind renounce war?” The Manifesto concluded with this famous statement:
“There lies before us, if we choose, continual progress in happiness, knowledge and wisdom. Shall we instead choose death, because we cannot forget our quarrels? We appeal, as human beings, to human beings; remember your humanity and forget the rest. If you can do so, the way lies open to a new Paradise; if you cannot, there lies before you the risk of universal death.”
In 1958 Linus Pauling published a book entitled No More War! In this book he stated, “I believe that there will never again be a great world war, if only the people of the United States and of the rest of the world can be informed in time about the present world situation. I believe that there will never be a war in which the terrible nuclear weapons – atom bombs, hydrogen bombs, superbombs – are used. I believe that the development of these terrible weapons forces us to move into a new period in the history of the world, a period of peace and reason, when world problems are not solved by war or by force, but are solved by the application of man’s power of reason, in a way that does justice to all nations and that benefits all people.”
The Scientists’ Petition To Stop Nuclear Testing
Pauling described in that book the terrible consequences of nuclear war. He also described the spurious arguments of Edward Teller for a so-called “clean” nuclear bomb. He also described a petition which he had prepared and circulated to scientists calling for an international agreement to stop the testing of nuclear weapons. The petition stated:
“We, the scientists whose names are signed below, urge that an international agreement to stop the testing of nuclear bombs be made now.
“Each nuclear bomb test spreads an added burden of radioactive elements over every part of the world. Each added amount of radiation causes damage to the health of human beings all over the world and causes damage to the pool of human germ plasm such as to lead to an increase in the number of seriously defective children that will be born in future generations.
“So long as these weapons are in the hands of only three powers an agreement for their control is feasible. If testing continues, and the possession of these weapons spreads to additional governments, the danger of outbreak of a cataclysmic nuclear war through reckless action of some irresponsible national leader will be greatly increased.
“An international agreement to stop the testing of nuclear bombs now could serve as a first step toward a more general disarmament and the ultimate effective abolition of nuclear weapons, averting the possibility of a nuclear war that would be a catastrophe to all humanity.
“We have in common with our fellow men a deep concern for the welfare of all human beings. As scientists we have knowledge of the dangers involved and therefore a special responsibility to make those dangers known. We deem it imperative that immediate action be taken to effect an international agreement to stop testing of all nuclear weapons.”
The petition was originally prepared for American scientists, but soon it was being signed by scientists around the world. By early 1958 the petition had been signed by 9,235 scientists, including 36 Nobel Laureates. On January 15, 1958, Pauling presented the petition with these signatures to Dag Hammarskjold, the Secretary-General of the United Nations. Later the number of signatories of the petition grew to 11,021, representing 49 countries, and 37 Nobel Laureates. All of these signatures were collected on the initiative of Linus Pauling and his wife, Ava Helen, who played a very instrumental role in his life and his work for peace.
Abolition of Nuclear Weapons
As a result of Dr. Pauling’s efforts and those of others, a Partial Test Ban Treaty was achieved in 1963. This was far less than Pauling had worked for. The treaty banned nuclear testing in the atmosphere, the oceans, and outer space, but it allowed testing to continue underground. In reality, it was an environmental treaty rather than a disarmament treaty. The treaty ultimately stopped atmospheric nuclear testing, with all of its hazards for human health. It did not, however, stop the nuclear arms race, which continued unabated for the next 35 years and in certain respects continues today.
Dr. Pauling’s petition called for the “ultimate effective abolition of nuclear weapons.” This great goal remains to be achieved, and it falls to us – all of us – to achieve it. This brings me to the tale of the second petition, a tale all of us can participate in completing.
In August 1997 a few of us working on Abolition 2000, which is a global network to abolish nuclear weapons, met in Santa Barbara for a brainstorming session. We decided that we needed a vehicle to go directly to the people for the cause of nuclear weapons abolition. We developed a simple petition, with three main points:
1. End the Nuclear Threat. End the nuclear threat by dealerting all nuclear weapons, withdrawing all nuclear weapons from foreign soil and international waters, separating warheads from delivery vehicles and disabling them, committing to unconditional no first use of nuclear weapons, and ceasing all nuclear weapons tests, including laboratory tests and “subcriticals.”
2. Sign the Treaty. Sign a Nuclear Weapons Convention by the year 2000, agreeing to the elimination of all nuclear weapons within a timebound framework.
3. Reallocate Resources. Reallocate resources to ensure a sustainable global future and to redress the environmental devastation and human suffering caused by nuclear weapons production and testing, which have been disproportionately borne by the world’s indigenous peoples.
Abolition 2000 Petition, Gathering the Signatures
A month later, I was in Japan to help commemorate the 40th anniversary of the call for the abolition of nuclear weapons issued by Josei Toda, the second president of Soka Gakkai. In speaking with an international youth group of Soka Gakkai International, I mentioned the Abolition 2000 petition and spoke of its three important points. To my great surprise, I received word the next month that the youth division of Soka Gakkai in the Hiroshima region had decided to gather signatures on this petition. They set their initial goal at one million signatures.
About a month later, I learned that signatures were to be gathered throughout Japan and the goal was 5 million signatures. In the end, in just three months, from November 1997 to January 1998, over 13 million signatures were gathered in Japan. One out of every nine persons in Japan signed the petition.
In April 1998 a representative sample of these signatures was presented in Geneva to Ambassador Wyzner, the chair of the 1998 preparatory committee meeting for the year 2000 Non-Proliferation Treaty Review Conference.
The effort by the Soka Gakkai youth in Japan was highly commendable. I’m sure it would have been welcomed and applauded by both Josei Toda and Linus Pauling. But the effort must not stop there. We are continuing to gather signatures in other parts of the world, including the United States.
In my view, it is the United States, more than any other country, that must change its position on the abolition of nuclear weapons. Until the United States becomes seriously involved in this effort, the effort cannot succeed. And I am convinced that the United States will not become the leader of this effort until the people of this country demand of their government that it do so.
This is why this petition is so important, and why I enlist your help in reaching out to people all over this country to call for the phased elimination of all nuclear weapons. If we were to gather a number of signatures proportionate to our population as were gathered in Japan, we would need more than 25 million signatures. Can you imagine the power of presenting 25 million American signatures to the President and Congress? They would have to listen to us. They would have to act to achieve this end.
Moral Countries Lead the Way
Dr. Pauling concluded his speech at the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation by saying, “I hope that the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation will work in the effort to make the United States into a moral country that could lead the world into a future of morality, a future worthy of man’s intelligence.”
We are trying to do this, and I ask you to join in the effort to make the United States a moral country that could lead the way in achieving “a future worthy of man’s intelligence.”
To make the United States a moral country, we should take the following steps:
1. End the nuclear threat, and work to abolish all nuclear weapons from Earth. Nothing could be more immoral than threatening to murder hundreds of millions of innocent people in the name of national security. Remember this: nuclear weapons incinerate people. They are instruments of genocide that no sane nor moral person would ever want to be faced with using. And yet, even now, more than eight years into the post-Cold War era, we continue to rely upon these weapons and our official policy states that we will do so for the indefinite future. At many international conferences connected with the Non-Proliferation Treaty that I have attended, it has been the representatives of the United States who have thrown up the greatest stumbling blocks to nuclear disarmament. If we are to have a moral country this must change.
2. Support an Arms Trade Code of Conduct. Stop selling arms to dictators and countries that violate human rights. The United States has become the arms salesman to the world. We lead all other nations in the sale of armaments. If we are to be a moral country, we must cease this practice, and place strict limitations on the transfer of armaments to other nations.
3. Reallocate resources from military purposes to supporting adequate nutrition, health care, shelter and education for all members of society. The United States is the undisputed world champion in military spending. We spend more than the next 13 highest spending countries combined. These include Russia, Japan, United Kingdom, France, Germany and China. We need to realize that security requires more than military power. It also requires meeting human needs. A moral nation can be judged by its compassion toward its poorest and least fortunate members.
4. Abide by international law and work to strengthen it. On many occasions in our recent past we have chosen not to give our support to international law. We were in the minority of nations in opposing a global ban on landmines, although most of our allies supported this ban. We were again in the minority in opposing the creation of an International Criminal Court, although most of our allies supported the creation of this court – a court to hold individuals accountable for the worst violations of international law, the ones that we held the Nazi leaders accountable for at Nuremberg. Recently, we took it upon ourselves to bomb sites in Sudan and Afghanistan in retaliation for terrorist attacks rather than turning this matter over to the United Nations Security Council as we are required to do under international law. If we are to be a moral country, we cannot both fight terrorism and be terrorists ourselves.
5. End all covert actions designed to destabilize or overthrow foreign governments. If we wish to see governments changed in other countries, we should speak out and give support to the opposition. We should not, however, be secretly providing arms, fomenting revolution, or attempting political assassinations. If we are to be a moral country, we cannot use immoral means to achieve what we believe are good ends.
6. Work to resolve conflicts peacefully through negotiations, mediation, arbitration, and the International Court of Justice. There are many means to resolve conflicts short of violence, and to be a moral country we must support these means and use them. When a country is powerful militarily, as we are, there is a temptation to rely upon raw force rather than the power of the law. This temptation must be resisted.
7. Apply our science and technology in constructive ways for the good of humanity rather than in destructive ways. Far too much of our government research and development budget goes into ever more sophisticated weaponry. Despite having agreed to the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty, we are still conducting “subcritical” tests of nuclear weapons. In doing so, we violate the spirit, if not the letter, of the Treaty. If we are to be a moral country, we must shift our technological priorities to fighting infant mortality, combating disease, improving nutrition, eliminating pollution, and eradicating poverty.
8. Be honest with the American people. Stop hiding information under the guise of national security. Pursue a policy of informed consent. Without honesty and full information from the officials we elect, we cannot make informed decisions about the kind of future we choose for ourselves, our children and grandchildren. If we are to have a moral country, we must have an honest and open government.
There is, of course, more we must do to be a moral country, but these steps would set us on the right road. They are steps that I feel certain Linus Pauling would support with all his energy, and I encourage you to endorse them and work for them as well.
In the concluding chapter of his book, Linus Pauling wrote: “I believe that there is a greater power in the world than the evil power of military force, of nuclear bombs – there is the power of good, of morality, of humanitarianism.” He also wrote: “I believe in the power of the human spirit.”
There is no greater force than the power of the people when moved to action. The power of the people brought independence to India. It ended the war in Vietnam. It brought down the Berlin Wall. It ended the Cold War. It brought democracy to Eastern Europe and to Russia. It ended the Duvallier regime in Haiti, the Marcos regime in the Philippines, and the Suharto regime in Indonesia. It brought down the regime based on apartheid in South Africa, and brought forth a leader like Nelson Mandela who has lived with the spirit of forgiveness.
If the American people are moved to action, we can create a moral country. Our first step must be to end the intolerable threat that nuclear weapons pose for humanity. We must complete the task that Linus Pauling and other peace leaders began more than four decades ago. We stand on the threshold of a new century. Let us commit ourselves to crossing this threshold with a treaty in place to eliminate all nuclear weapons.
There is great power for both good and evil in the human spirit. Let us choose good, let us choose life, let us choose hope, let us choose peace. Let us work, as Linus Pauling did, to make our country “a moral country that could lead the world into a future of morality, a future worthy of man’s intelligence.” This was the challenge that Linus Pauling worked for during his life, and the legacy he has left to us.
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JAMA Study Calls for Medical Organizations to Unite in Campaign for Nuclear Abolition
BOSTON, Aug. 4 /PRNewswire/ — Since Hiroshima, physicians have frequently warned of the horrifying burn, blast, and radiation casualties a nuclear war would produce. Even in the post-Cold War era, the world faces the continuing risks of proliferation, terrorism, and deliberate or accidental nuclear war. An organized, global campaign led by medical organizations in support of a verifiable and enforceable Nuclear Weapons Convention would make a significant contribution to safeguarding health in 21st century, according to a study published in the August 5 Journal of the American Medical Association.
“With a united, global voice, we in medicine must call for the zero tolerance of nuclear weapons — no different from the world’s zero tolerance of chemical and biological weapons,” says Lachlan Forrow, MD, principal author of the JAMA article, “Medicine and Nuclear War: From Hiroshima to Mutual Assured Destruction to Abolition 2000,” and internist at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center.
The study, co-authored by Victor Sidel, MD, co-president of International Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War (IPPNW) and former president of the American Public Health Association (APHA), of the Department of Epidemiology and Social Medicine, Montefiore Medical Center and Albert Einstein College of Medicine, Bronx, New York, traces the history of nuclear weapons, from a medical perspective, since the blast at Hiroshima in 1945 and reviews the current status of nuclear arsenals and the dangers they pose worldwide. According to the JAMA authors, today’s dangers include the 35,000 warheads that remain in superpower nuclear arsenals, many of them still on hair trigger alert.
For more than 50 years, physicians have played important roles in public policy related to nuclear weapons, first as partners in the government’s civil defense planning in the late 1940s and the 1950s. A decade later, in the 1960s, physicians organized to help end atmospheric nuclear testing and, in the 1980s, doctors would again unite, helping to end the superpowers’ plans to fight a nuclear war.
The authors report that as early as 1946, just one year after the attack on Hiroshima, a high-level U.S. Government committee was urging a United-Nation-enforced global ban on all nuclear weapons. When their efforts failed, the superpowers, led by the United States, entered an era in which having “more” and “better” nuclear weapons was thought to be the best safeguard against nuclear disaster. Dangers of radiation from nuclear weapons was routinely minimized, according to Dr. Forrow, with U.S. General Leslie Groves, director of the Manhattan Project testifying before the U.S. Congress that radiation poisoning, was “a very pleasant way to die.”
In 1962, there was an abrupt change in the medical profession’s role in the fight against nuclear weapons. An issue of the New England Journal of Medicine was dedicated to articles on the medical consequences of nuclear war and a new force emerged. Physicians for Social Responsibility was born and began documenting in graphic detail the dire health effects of nuclear explosions. The NEJM articles and an accompanying editorial concluded that physicians, because of their special knowledge of the real medical effects of nuclear weapons also had a special responsibility to prevent their use.
Countless medical studies have documented the toll of nuclear weapons production and testing. According to the authors, the U.S. National Cancer Institute estimated recently that the release of I-131 in fallout from U.S. nuclear test explosions was responsible for nearly 50,000 excess cases of thyroid cancer among Americans. In a separate study by the IPPNW, the physician organization estimated that the Strontium-90, Cesium-137, Carbon-14, and Plutonium-239 released worldwide in all such explosions would be responsible for 430,000 cancer deaths by the year 2000.
In an NEJM article earlier this year, Forrow and his medical colleagues warned that the risk of an “accidental,” nuclear attack has increased recently and called for immediate de-alerting steps to be rapidly followed by a signed global agreement by the Year 2000 committing the world to the elimination of all nuclear weapons within a specified timeframe.
Known as Abolition 2000, the initiative has been endorsed by leading U.S. medical organizations, including the American College of Physicians, the American Public Health Association and Physicians for Social Responsibility, as well as International Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War (IPPNW), the 1985 Nobel Peace Prize Laureate, and over 1000 other nongovernmental agencies in 75 countries. Over 80 percent of Americans support the abolition of all nuclear weapons even though the U.S. government has yet to seriously question its own commitment to maintaining a nuclear arsenal, says Forrow.
“As physicians we have an opportunity and a responsibility to make our own commitment to the abolition of nuclear weapons a living example of the power of our convictions,” says Forrow. “We must do this for ourselves, our families, and the generations that will follow, for as Albert Schweitzer once said, ‘Example is not the main thing in influencing others; it is the only thing.’”
This study was supported by the Albert Schweitzer Fellowship. -
Chronology of the India-Pakistan Conflict
NEW DELHI, July 26 (Reuters) – Following is a chronology of major events involving arch-rivals India and Pakistan, whose prime ministers meet in Colombo on the sidelines of a regional conference in Sri Lanka on Wednesday.
October 27, 1947: War breaks out between India and Pakistan in disputed Himalayan region of Kashmir barely two months after their independence from Britain.
January 1, 1949: Ceasefire, ordered by United Nations Security Council, takes effect in Kashmir.
September 6-22, 1965: Full-scale India-Pakistan war over Kashmir, which ends after a U.N. call for ceasefire.
January 3, 1966: Indian Prime Minister Lal Bahadur Shastri and Pakistani President Ayub Khan sign Soviet-mediated peace pact.
December 3-17, 1971: India-Pakistan War over East Pakistan (later Bangladesh) which ends when 90,000 Pakistani troops surrender.
July 2, 1972: Indian Prime Minister Indira Gandhi and counterpart Zulfikar Ali Bhutto sign peace accord in Shimla.
Nov 1, 1982: Gandhi and Pakistani President Mohammad Zia-ul-Haq agree to begin talks on a non-aggression treaty.
May 18, 1974: India detonates first nuclear device, but says it is for atomic research and not weapons.
January 20, 1986: Talks between Indian and Pakistani foreign secretaries end inconclusively in Islamabad. But both agree on “desirability” of a peace treaty and non-aggression pact.
December 31, 1988: India and Pakistan sign agreement not to attack each other’s nuclear facilities.
February 5, 1989: Pakistan army chief General Mirza Aslam Beg says Pakistan has successfully test-fired its first long-range surface-to-surface rockets, named Hatf-1 and Hatf-2.
Feb 6, 1992: Pakistan says it has acquired knowledge to make a nuclear bomb but will not do so.
January 1-3, 1994: Foreign secretaries of the two countries fail to narrow differences on Kashmir. Pakistan rules out more talks unless India stops alleged human rights violations in Kashmir.
August 23, 1994: Then former premier Nawaz Sharif tells rally in Pakistan-ruled Azad (Free) Kashmir, forming a third of Jammu and Kashmir, that Pakistan has an atomic bomb. The government denies this.
January 30, 1996: Pakistani and Indian military officers meet on ceasefire line dividing Kashmir to ease tension after clashes.
June 4, 1996: Pakistani Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto urges Indian counterpart H.D. Deve Gowda to resume dialogue. Deve Gowda responds positively, but Pakistan drops idea when India holds local elections in Jammu and Kashmir.
March 28-31, 1997: Indian and Pakistani foreign secretaries open the first round peace talks in New Delhi, agree to meet again in Islamabad.
April 9: Indian Foreign Minister Inder Kumar Gujral and Pakistani counterpart Gohar Ayub Khan meet in New Delhi. India says several hundred fishermen held by each side will be freed.
May 12: Prime Ministers Inder Kumar Gujral and Nawaz Sharif hold separate talks at SAARC summit in Maldives.
June 19-23: After second round of talks in Islamabad, Indian and Pakistani foreign secretaries announce eight-point agenda for peace talks, including Kashmir issue, and say they will set up mechanism to tackle it.
August 14-15 : India and Pakistan mark 50 years of independence.
Aug 26 – India rejects U.S. offer to mediate to end Kashmir border clashes, saying differences should be solved in bilateral talks.
September 18 – Talks between foreign secretaries end in stalemate, but both sides say they will meet again.
Sept 22 – In a speech to the U.N. General Assembly, Pakistan Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif offers to open talks on a non-aggression pact with India, proposing that both nations strike a deal to restrain their nuclear and missile capabilities.
Sept 23 – Sharif meets Gujral for talks in New York which end with no breakthrough.
Oct 26 – Gujral says he is cautiously optimistic that personal friendship with Sharif will help ease tension over Kashmir, but their meet on the fringes of a Commonwealth summit achieves little.
Feb 4, 1998 – Pakistan warns it might review its policy of nuclear restraint if India’s new Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party government redeems election pledge to make nuclear weapons.
April 6 – Pakistan tests its longest range, 1,500 km (932 mile) Ghauri missile.
May 11 – India conducts three underground nuclear tests in the western desert state of Rajasthan near the border with Pakistan.
May 13 – India conducts two more tests and says its series of tests is complete.
May 14 – U.S. President Bill Clinton says the tests ae a “terrible” mistake and orders sanctions that put more than $20 billion of aid, loans and trade on ice. Japan orders a block on around $1 billion of aid loans, followed by a host of European nations.
May 28 – Pakistan conducts five nuclear tests in response to the Indian blasts. President Clinton, his request to Sharif not to test rebuffed, vows sanctions.
May 30 – Pakistan conducts one more nuclear test and says its series of tests is complete.
June 6 – U.N. Security Council condemns India and Pakistan for carrying out nuclear tests and urges the two nations to stop all nuclear weapons programs.
June 12 – India and Pakistan invite each other for talks, but fail to agree on the agenda.
Group of Eight Nations (G-8) imposes a ban on non-humanitarian loans to India and Pakistan as punishment for their nuclear tests.
June 23- India suggests talks between the two countries’ prime ministers at South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation (SAARC) summit in Colombo, Sri Lanka.
June 24 – Pakistan agrees to talks with India in Colombo.
July 10 – Vajpayee offers Pakistan a no-first-use pact, economic cooperation, and appeals for its participation in joint efforts to achieve universal disarmament. Pakistan in turn says it is ready to sign a non-aggression treaty with India.
July 25 – Vajpayee says in a magazine interview that India is committed to resolving differences with Pakistan through a bilateral dialogue. He also indicates that India could conduct further tests of its Agni intermediate-range missile.
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India Press Statement
As announced by the Prime Minister this afternoon, today India conducted three underground nuclear tests in the Pokhran range. The tests conducted today were with a fission device, a low yield device and a thermonuclear device. The measured yields are in line with expected values. Measurement have also confirmed that there was no release of radioactivity into the atmosphere. These were contained explosions like the experiment conducted in May 1974.
These tests have established that India has a proven capability for a weaponised nuclear programme. They also provide a valuable database which is useful in the design of nuclear weapons of different yields for different applications and for different delivery systems. Further, they are expected to carry Indian scientists towards a sound computer simulation capability which may be supported by sub-critical experiments, if considered necessary.
The Government is deeply concerned, as were previous Governments, about the nuclear environment in India’s neighbourhood. These tests provide reassurance to the people of India that their national security interests are paramount and will be promoted and protected. Succeeding generations of Indians would also rest assured that contemporary technologies associated with nuclear option have been passed on to them in this the 50th year of our independence.
It is necessary to highlight today that India was in the vanguard of nations which ushered in the Partial Test Ban Treaty in 1963 due to environmental concerns. Indian representatives have worked in various international forums, including the Conference on Disarmament for universal, non-discriminatory and verifiable arrangements for the elimination of weapons of mass destruction. The Government would like to reiterate its support to efforts to realise the goal of a truly comprehensive international arrangement which would prohibit underground nuclear testing of all weapons as well as related experiments described as ‘sub-critical’ or ‘hydronuclear.’
India would be prepared to consider being an adherent to some of the undertakings in the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty. But this cannot obviously be done in a vacuum. It would necessarily be an evolutionary process from concept to commitment and would depend on a number of reciprocal activities.
We would like to reaffirm categorically that we will continue to exercise the most stringent control on the export of sensitive technologies, equipment and commodities – especially those related to weapons of mass destruction. Our track record has been impeccable in this regard. Therefore we expect recognition of our responsible policy by the international community.
India remains committed to a speedy process of nuclear disarmament leading to total and global elimination of nuclear weapons. Our adherence to the Chemical Weapons Convention and the Biological Weapons Convention is evidence of our commitment to any global disarmament regime which is non-discriminatory and verifiable. We shall also be happy to participate in the negotiations for the conclusion of a fissile material cut-off treaty in the Geneva based Conference on Disarmament.
In our neighbourhood we have many friends with whom relations of fruitful cooperation for mutual benefit have existed and deepened over a long period. We assure them that it will be our sincere endeavour to intensify and diversify those relations further for the benefit of all our peoples. For India, as for others, the prime need is for peaceful cooperation and economic development.