Civic’s Endeavors for Nuclear Weapon Free World

Khadga K.C

Civil society has become a much talked word of today’s world politics. It is to be said that a vibrant civil society helps make the institutions and actors of the governance accountable to the people and the entire world.

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Recently, a peace symposium has been organized by a Nagasaki-based civic forum called “Global Citizen Forum for Peace”, held in a hall within the premise of Atomic bomb museum (Nov. 17, 2002). Scholars from the U.S., India, South Korea and Sweden were the key presenters. Academics, diplomats and Journalists from around Japan were participating as the key interveners. However, participants also raised some pertinent questions. The program was presided by two chairpersons, H. Tsuchiyama and H. Umebayashi. It was conducted in bilingual basis, so the non-Japanese audiences could also enjoy quite a lot.

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In his inaugural speech the first chair person of the program briefed about the forum and highlighted the needs of solidarity against the peace breaker. He insistently said that even after the cold war the peace-loving citizens of the world are still suspecting for permanent peace. He criticised the Bush administration defense policy and Afghan war strategies and also reminded the Nagasaki Appeal made by the forum in year 2000. As per the Appeal, all concerned countries should ratify the CTBT (Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty) and should reduce their nuclear weapons. It is urged that Nagasaki must remain the final site of the calamity of nuclear catastrophe . He shed lighted on the objectives and programs of the forum that it has been working with the formation of some small volunteer groups and of among the junior high school students who sometimes use to go somewhere outside Japan to aware the people towards the nuclear abolition.

David Krieger, the president of U.S.-based Nuclear Age Peace Foundation began his speech lambasting the Bush administration’s defense and foreign policy and pointed out some steps of what president Bush has adopted since after he got elected as the U.S. president. Listing the fallacies of the defense and foreign policy of Bush administration he further said, militarily dominant offensive strive system, defensive missile system in the name of protecting the U.S. and its allies, trippling the defense budget nearly as the half of the world budget and revitalizing its defense structure. He discussed about the American contingency plans against China and Russia and its unceremonious declaration to Iraq, North Korea, Iran, Syria and Libya as evil states. Bush administration has ruled out its interest so far to ratify the CTBT, and maneuvering its full strength to reduce the nuclear weapons of its so-called enemies. While criticizing the U.S. foreign policy Krieger cited some top electoral slogans of president Bush as; to contain the rival strength and built-up the missile defense system for US and its allies. It has been so far proven that he has been working on that direction .

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Bush administration is concentrating its full attention to lay down the Russian nuclear plan under the carpet which could be seen in December 13, last year as president Bush unilaterally decided to withdraw as a part of signatory of nuclear non-proliferation treaty with Russia. His activities seem non-compliant for the resolutions of non-proliferation review conference of year 2000. The U.S. nuclear movement has got momentum mainly due to the ideologue character of President Bush who later overwhelmingly mandated from the American people particularly after the incident of the September 11. Since then the American people put more faith on Bush administration which he has been cashing in his ambitious defense strategies. Nonetheless, for the first time in the history of United States some congressmen are suing the President in the federal court that he unilaterally took the decision for withdrawal from the nuclear- nonproliferation treaty with Russia that was an unconstitutional move. Since any treaty once signed on behalf of the United States that automatically becomes a part of the federal law, even president can not deserve his right to change it without the consent of the congressmen. It was said that we all people around the world should go against the war policy of Bush administration. Since a country which has more than 1000 nuclear weapons is manipulating her whole muscle power that Iraq has destructive weapons so it should be punished punitively! Its one of the best example of double-standard foreign policy of Bush administration. Once and again United States screaming that peace can be jeopardized if such nuclear weapons would be go with the hand of weak states and actors. So does it mean that intelligent leadership of president Bush can afford the destructions of nuclear weapons. He appreciated Canadian role in a recent UN Security Council meeting that it denounced the U.S. nuclear policy, which White House ever has expected from Canada. Krieger asked the people of Japan put more pressure to their government for making change in Japanese government policy towards Bush administration. He fantatistically made his remark that let them invite president Bush in Hiroshima and Nagasaki for educating him how deep and unforgettable wound one should bear of nuclear explosion.

The second presenter an ex-admiral of Indian navy, who is now presiding a civic forum for nuclear free world mentioned the tragedy of the partition plan in 1947 which left India and Pakistan divided. He discussed about the Indo-Pak wars in 1947, 1965, 1972 and continuous border disputes between them that in a far extent pushed two rivals into the nuclear world. Kashmir issue is the only foremost and prominent cause to escalate the nuclear programs in the region. Admiral Ramdas firmly criticized the Pakistani policy towards India and urged Pakistan that it should contain the permanent infiltration from the border side simultaneously asked India for protecting human rights of Kashmiri people. Elucidating the points of peaceful resolution of Kashmir issue Ramdas said, proper identification of the real Kashmirese, diffusing tension with Pakistan through Simala agreement, to open-up the normal movement of people from both countries and to have started trade and commerce with each other. He later showed his reluctance on answering the questions of this author of “What is the ground reality of the Kashmir issue and can plebiscite bring any conclusive end of the half-century long issue?” He just denied any kind of plebiscite over the Kashmir issue. Presenting his firm ideas not as an individual, Ramdas said ,India has always non-first use nuclear policy while Pakistan may have first-use nuclear policy which co-incidently has become a matter of risk of anytime nuclear war eruption in South Asia. Religious fanaticism, extremism and most times military regimes in Pakistan have been predominately causing more nuclear threat in South Asia. Nevertheless, here what it can be said that Indian innate desire to become a world power and China factor also concomitantly contributing to nuclearize the region.

The third presenter, minister councilor of Swedish embassy to Japan talked about the potential risks of nuclear proliferations and elaborated the decisions and outcomes of nuclear non-proliferation review conference 2000. The speaker flatly said North Korea, India, Pakistan and the Middle East would be the most possible nuclearly vulnerable zones of the world. He informed that there are 44 countries around the world which has nuclear powers and reactors. The most viable eruptive countries are United States, China, North Korea, Israel and Pakistan. So, it should be called that we all the human being around the world should organize themselves to have pressurized those respective powers for making assurance from them in front of the mankind that they would abolish those nuclear weapons and do not proceed for further nuclearization. It is must to launch such civic campaigns against the nuclear state for abolishing all their nuclear weapons. NGOs, civil societies and individual efforts should concentrate to build-up such a network so that more pressures can put over those states for abolishing the nuclear power. More necessarily, attention should be targeted to pressure on the Bush administration for not escalating the war and not launching any further nuclear programs either in the name of missile defense or in any other pretending programs.

The fourth and last presenter Dr. Cheng, from South Korea expressed his views that North Korean nuclear program and U.S. hostile defense- base in South Korea are responsibly making threat to nuclear free North East Asia. He talked about the vulnerability of Asia-Pacific region and lagging behindness of multilateral dialogue culture among the nations of the region. He remarked that North Korean nuclear program has threatened the international obligation and fragiling the feasibility of Korean unification. Unless and until North Korea will not leave its nuclear policy, unification would remain a futile effort because if unification be held under such a situation nuclearized North Korea will hold the dominant position over the liberal South Korea which further make displeased to the countries around the region and the United States. It is needed to make a global net work of citizens by which to some extent nuclear powers can be influenced towards the deescalation of their nuclear programs.

During the discussion hours some distinguished personalities from the floor intervened saying that not only the President Bush but also the mentality of American people is responsible for encouraging Bush administration towards war against Iraq. While responding this question Dr. Kreiger agreed with the participants and elaborated American mythology of its education system which sounds mostly responsible for this entire mis-conception. Since after the Second World War United States framed its school curriculum for teaching their young pupils that if United States had not such nuclear weapon it could not overcome Japanese Empire. So, nuclear power is must for its safety which largely has been contributing to produce more war loving citizens.

Then after many queries were raised to the presenters. Some of them were about the possible environmental degradation due to the wastage which may come out from the nuclear plants and most of them were how can civic efforts make successful for nuclear free world. This writer asked three written queries respectively with Kriger, Ramdas and Cheng. The first question for Dr. Kreiger was, “Do you agree that U.S. hostile defense policy towards its so-called evil-states is responsible to pave the way for them to escalate their nuclear programs in order to save them from the possible U.S. attack against them?”, and the second question to Dr. Cheng was “What does co-operative security mean and do you think it would be contributing formula for nuclear free North East Asia?” Question to Admiral Ramdas has already been covered up in the previous chapters.

Answering the question Krieger argued that president Bush was not indeed got elected with the real vote of American people but with the seal of federal court. So, Bush administration seems more unaccountable and has been making such fool decisions of tagging some states as “evil” and insisting militarization of the regime which of course may consequently bring some counter productive results to the states to which his administration has black listed. Dr. Cheng did not make elaborated his idea of co-operative security but he just mentioned that U.S. presence in South Korea, North Korean nuclearization process and some irresponsible remark sometime given by Japanese politicians have threatened the prospect of nuclear free North East Asia. He illustrated one of a Japanese minister’s remark which came just a day before the world cup football game began in South Korea this year that “soon Japan is also going to be a nuclear state”. Expressing his deep concern Cheng said such remark undoubtedly discourage the move like this.

Throughout the questioning hour many Japanese diplomats and journalists asked Kreiger mostly about the mindset of American people and suspected the future of this sort of citizens movement in within the United States. He ruled out the failure of such moves and highlighted the needs of such steps and told a story of success that with the civic efforts it has lately been established a commission against the landmine users. It is praiseworthy that anti-nuclear voices are started to come out from within the United States unlike in the past. Learning from it, if the people of other region do organize such world-wide campaigns against the nuclear policy and warring strategies it would be instrumental step for saving the world from the possible nuclear catastrophe.

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The double-standard U.S. policy is largely responsible for the nuclearization of the world. It is utmost to campaign through civic forums by making a strong media networks and channeling with the UN institutions to make influenced the U.S. and the other nuclear states. Nation-states are still insisting the traditional view of the security, which always focus on using the military to ensure the territorial integrity of sovereign states and avoid or prevent the foreign invasion. But, human poverty, environment degradation natural disasters such as; epidemics, floods, earthquakes and droughts are far more complicated threats to security. Therefore, civic endeavors should be triggered towards making global awareness that countries should focus their policies and programs to support-up the human security which can significantly guarantees the long-lasting peace and security of a state unlike through military warheads.

In this context, the American policy may to some extent responsible for making world more hostile and at the same time it is true that if nuclear power goes to the hand of weak states and fanatic leaders it undoubtedly may endanger the peace of either parts of the world. But it is an unfair that if a state differs with the U.S. policies it should be black listed and war should be declared against it. International conditions seems more vulnerable mainly after the American unilateral withdrawal from the anti-ballistic missile treaty with Russia in the name of terrorist countermeasures, and is moving forward with missile defense program. The U.S. government has also denied to ratify the Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty and engaging to develop a new generation of compact nuclear weapons.

Similarly, South Asia, a poorest region of the world where almost 40% people are below poverty line, the human development index of the region is probably the world least-one but due to the ever growing conflicts of two permanent rival powers India and Pakistan people are forced to live under anytime nuclear eruption.

Against this background, initiatives taken by the citizens of Nagasaki, is indispensably appreciable since they themselves experienced the tragedy of an atomic bombing firsthand, who have tirelessly continued to appeal to the world for the total abolition of nuclear arms. So, the people of South Asia and the other parts of the world should learn from the nuclear victims of Japan and take more stronger initiatives for forming more forums and establish linkages among the NGOs like “Citizen Forum for Peace” Nuclear Age Peace Foundation, governments of their respective states and consolidate solidarity and working togetherness with the UN institutions for pressuring the nuclear powers.

The abolition of nuclear arms through mutual understanding and dialogue is an absolute precondition for the realization of nuclear weapons free peaceful region and the world. Every conscious citizens of the world should awake, rise up, organise, campaign, come up and lead for the making the world peaceful.

(Nov. 25, 2002)