By Jim Wurst
UN WireMay 1, 2003
Nongovernmental organizations attending the 2003 meeting of the parties to the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty have been saying directly what most governments have been hinting -- that the nuclear weapons policies of the United States threaten the NPT.
Addressing a meeting of the committee yesterday, and in numerous news conferences and side events, the NGOs said changes in U.S. strategies have the effect of integrating nuclear weapons more tightly into military doctrine and developing new weapons to implement those strategies, thus making nuclear weapons more useable.
Victor Sidel of the International Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War said yesterday that U.S. policies "are designed to make the use of nuclear weapons more credible, by designing more 'useable' nuclear weapons and by integrating nuclear weapons into a broad spectrum of military capabilities. This shift represents a repudiation of disarmament obligations under … the NPT and places new pressures on non-nuclear weapon states to acquire nuclear weapons."
While all the nuclear weapons states were criticized for retaining these weapons and NATO was criticized for accepting the U.S. nuclear doctrine, nearly all of the ire was directed at the United States. According to Rhianna Tyson of the Women's International League for Peace and Freedom, "The world's first nuclear weapons state, the United States, is leading the backwards charge away from the unequivocal undertaking to eliminate nuclear weapons."
Charges made by the NGOs included shorting the time the United States could resume nuclear testing, abrogating the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty in order to develop missile defenses and space-based weaponry, threatening the first use of nuclear weapons even in response to a non-nuclear attack and developing new weapons and new ballistic missiles for delivering the weapons.
"It is all too obvious that the nuclear weapons states have failed to implement the practical, attainable 13 step nuclear disarmament plan, agreed to unanimously at the conclusion of the 2000 Review Conference, in some cases blatantly casting aside or repudiating its central elements," Tyson said.
The 13 steps were part of the consensus agreement at the treaty's 2000 review conference. The steps include "an unequivocal undertaking by the nuclear weapon states to accomplish the total elimination of their nuclear arsenals," bringing the comprehensive test ban treaty into force, negotiating a ban on the production of weapons grade fissile materials, and a "diminishing role for nuclear weapons in security policies." U.S. Ambassador John Wolf of the United States said Monday that the NPT "is dangerously out of balance. Disarmament continues," while nonproliferation is weakened.
Jacqueline Cabasso of the U.S.-based Western States Legal Foundation responded, "They've got it exactly backwards. … They are working on the whole suite" of new nuclear weapons and "the use doctrine is there" in the Nuclear Posture Review and policy documents.
One type of weapon on which the NGOs focused is the earth-penetrating weapon, including the Robust Nuclear Earth Penetrator. Such weapons are designed so that the missile burrows into the earth before the warhead explodes. The goal is to destroy underground command centers and weapons sites while minimizing above ground damage. Sidel said the development of penetrators and low-yield (10-kiloton range) weapons "would place additional -- perhaps fatal -- stress on the nonproliferation regime. … Furthermore, the use of low-yield nuclear weapons may lead to weakening the restraints against the use of nuclear weapons of greater yield." The fallout from such weapons would still be extensive, he said.
Kathy Wan Povi Sanchez said indigenous peoples around the world have already suffered "devastation" from nuclear weapons in the form of uranium mining, nuclear testing and waste disposal. "We, indigenous peoples of the world, reiterate the call for measurable and verifiable cessation of scientific, technological, political and corporate activities that result in a threat to the earth and her inhabitants," said Sanchez, a Tewah T'owah from the U.S. state of New Mexico. "We need to redefine homeland security as healthy boundaries and sacred spaces." Hiroshima Mayor Tadatoshi Akiba -- head of one of the world's two cities struck by a nuclear weapon -- also attended the forum. "Given U.S. intransigence, other nuclear weapon states cling to their weapons, and several non-nuclear weapon states appear to be re-evaluating the need for such weapons," Akiba said. "Therefore, it is incumbent upon the rest of the world … to stand up now and tell all of our military leaders that we refuse to be threatened or protected by nuclear weapons. We refuse to live in a world of continually recycled fear and hatred." The NGOs are promoting the idea first raised by Secretary General Kofi Annan at the U.N. Millennium Summit in 2000 for an "international conference to identify ways of eliminating nuclear dangers of all kinds." Akiba offered Hiroshima as the site for such a conference in 2005 -- the 60th anniversary of the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. He said this would be a central campaign by the World Conference of Mayors for Peace, which he said represents 539 cities and over 250 million people worldwide. Other issues on the NGO agenda include prohibiting the use of depleted uranium weapons, a ban on testing ballistic missiles and missile defenses, a nuclear weapon-free zone on the Korean peninsula and neighboring Northeast Asia countries and a zone free of weapons of mass destruction in the Middle East. © 2002 by National Journal Group Inc. 1501 M St. N.W., Washington, DC 20005.
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