International Network of Engineers and Scientists Against Proliferation

Joint Statement by Retired Indian and Pakistani Armed Forces Personnel Against Nuclear Tests and Weapons

Background

The recent nuclear tests conducted by India and Pakistan shocked many of us in the subcontinent and also many others worldwide. We as military professionals understand the devastating effects of such weapons and also the relatively primitive technologies, command and control systems that both countries can muster at this stage. Whilst not exonerating the hypocritical stand of the `Nuclear Five', there is little doubt that neither India, nor Pakistan had done a detailed cost benefit analysis of taking such a far reaching decision . Many people argue that if USA can conduct over a thousand tests, and the others some hundreds, what is wrong if we go ahead with just a few? No one can fault the logic of the discriminatory aspect of this argument. However, what is at stake is not a demand for equality, but to determine whether any good will accrue to India or Pakistan by possessing these weapons. The traditional concept that this weapon gives you power, status and assured deterrence is flawed and totally discredited.

We are also well aware of the high risk involved in storing, maintaining and deploying such weapons. There is a high probability of these weapons being deployed accidentally or by design. In short all that these tests and weaponisation have done is to make both our countries that much more vulnerable to attack resulting in damage of incalculable proportions. How then, one may ask, will a joint statement from a few retired Armed Forces Personnel make any difference? If anybody should know the awesome effectiveness and the horrors of a nuclear exchange it would be men like us, who have spent a lifetime in uniform, doing our duty by and for our countries, in war and peace. So if we stand up now and tell our peoples that this madness of nuclear weapons in India, Pakistan and the rest of the world must end, chances are that they will take us more seriously than anyone else.

It will interest us to know that many others before us have also undergone a similar process of re-thinking about nuclearisation. As a part of the `Abolition 2000' initiative, nearly 60 retired Generals and Admirals from a number of countries, including Gen Lee Butler, Head of U.S. Strategic command from 1992 to 1994, released a statement on December 5, 1996, calling for the elimination of all nuclear weapons. Gen Lee Butler had the awesome responsibility of controlling over ten thousand nuclear weapons during the cold war era. These people have been at the business end of nuclear weaponry , for many years and have come to the firm conclusion about the risks the world and its peoples are exposed to by the continuing retention of these weapons. A copy of that statement is available on the internet.

In our own modest way , Air Marshal Zafar A.Choudhry from Pakistan and myself, decided to launch a joint statement as given below. So far we have six signatories from India and one from Pakistan, as also one from Bangladesh who has especially asked to be included. We intend closing this list on 30 September after which I propose that we mail it to the Prime Ministers of Pakistan and India as also to the Heads of States of the Nuclear Five, and the Secretary General of the United Nations. Naturally we would like to get as many of the retired fraternity as possible to join us in this statement. Should any of you also share some of these concerns then please append your names or convey your willingness to do so to me or Ms Beena Sarwar <bsarwar@lakshmi.lhr-com.net> or to Harsh Kapoor <aiindex@mnet.fr>

Contact Details: Admiral L.Ramdas (retd), tel +91- 2141 - 48711, fax -48733, email lramdas@giasbm01.vsnl.net.in.

Recent developments in South Asia in the field of nuclear weapons and the means of their delivery are a serious threat to the well being of this region. The fact that India and Pakistan have fought wars in the recent past and do not as yet enjoy the best of relations, makes this development all the more ominous. The signatories of this statement are not theoreticians or arm-chair idealists; we have spent many long years in the profession of arms and have served our countries both in peacetime and in war. By virtue of our experience and the positions we have held, we have a fair understanding of the destructive parameters of conventional and nuclear weapons. We are of the considered view that nuclear weapons should be banished from the South Asian region, and indeed from the entire globe. We urge India and Pakistan to take the lead by doing away with nuclear weapons in a manifest and verifiable manner, and to confine nuclear research and development strictly to peaceful and beneficient spheres.

We are convinced that the best way of resolving disputes is through peaceful means and not through war ^__ least of all by the threat or use of nuclear weapons. India and Pakistan need to address their real problems of poverty and backwardness, not waste our scarce resources on acquiring means of greater and greater destruction.