The NPT Under Siege
Alice Slater 
The upcoming Non-Proliferation Treaty Preparatory Committee (NPT PrepCom) meeting scheduled from April 29th to May 9th, will hardly be "business as usual". The parties will meet against the backdrop of an illegal, aggressive war against Iraq, unsanctioned by the UN Security Council, which may still be raging as they gather in Geneva. With North Korea having withdrawn from the NPT to pursue the acquisition of a nuclear arsenal, with Iran using the cover of the NPT to develop nuclear weapons under the permissible socalled "peaceful use" of nuclear technology —and the United States having violated many of the promises extracted from the nuclear weapons states at the 2000 NPT Review Conference, non-governmental organizations (NGOs) wonder whether there is any life in the NPT to be saved.
As the scaffolding of the treaty begins to crumble before our very eyes, it seems a lifetime ago that members of INESAP together with other NGOs from around the world came together in New York in 1995, at the NPT Review and Extension Conference to adopt a call for nuclear abolition and the negotiation of a treaty to ban the bomb by the year 2000. At that review conference, "systematic and progressive steps" toward nuclear disarmament were promised by the nuclear weapons states. Shortly after that meeting, France began a series of underground nuclear tests at the fragile coral atoll of Mururoa, despite the 1995 promises to negotiate a test ban. Using the internet to create a worldwide boycott of French wine and cheese, an extraordinary network of nuclear abolitionists, Abolition 2000, in over 90 countries, working with the indigenous people of the Free and Independent Pacific, were able to generate enough pressure to stop the French, after six tests, from completing the last two tests in their planned series.
Working with scientists, lawyers, and knowledgeable experts, Abolition 2000 produced a model Nuclear Weapons Convention, now an official UN document, which laid out the road map for nuclear disarmament. Nevertheless, a number of the nuclear weapons states continued to design new nuclear weapons in the weapons labs using computer-simulated cyberspace. The US and Russia continued to test nuclear materials in so–called "subcritical" tests at the Nevada test site and at Novaya Zemlya . In 1997, India and Pakistan, two of the then four non-parties to the NPT, began their nuclear testing and went overtly nuclear. (Israel and Cuba were the other two non-parties, but in 2002, Cuba agreed to sign the NPT.)
The New Agenda Coalition of Ireland, New Zealand, Mexico, Sweden, Brazil, and Egypt formed to influence the outcome of the 2000 NPT Review, and NGOs all celebrated the results. In a series of thirteen "practical" steps, the nuclear weapons states made a number of promises for nuclear disarmament, among which were early ratification of the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty (CTBT), making steps for nuclear disarmament irreversible, an unequivocal undertaking for the total elimination of nuclear arsenals, preserving and strengthening the Anti-Ballistic Missile (ABM) Treaty (ABM) as a cornerstone of strategic stability, and a diminishing role for nuclear weapons in security policies.
To the world's dismay, the Bush Administration has blatantly disregarded these prior commitments. President Bush has refused to submit the CTBT to the Senate for ratification—indeed the House Republicans released a report calling on Congress to shorten the time-frame for the resumption of full-scale underground tests to no more than 18 months, and possibly as low as 12 months. Instead of making nuclear disarmament irreversible, the Bush Administration has plans in the works for new smaller, more "usable" nuclear weapons. The new Strategic Offensive Reduction Treaty (SORT) with Russia, disposed of all the carefully negotiated points for START III and allows the parties to literally do whatever they want. The SORT treaty does not require the destruction of a single weapon, providing only for cuts in "deployed" weapons. The parties can put these weapons on the shelf and reuse them at will—hardly irreversible nuclear disarmament as promised at the 2000 NPT. Further, rather than maintaining the ABM Treaty, the US walked out of the treaty to pursue the provocative folly of controlling and dominating the military use of space. As for the promise to diminish the role of nuclear weapons in national security policies, the Bush Nuclear Posture Review (January 2002) reserves the right to use nuclear weapons in a pre-emptive attack on a threatening foreign country.
Is it any wonder, that after Bush's infamous speech, in which he named Iraq, Iran and North Korea as the "axis of evil", and after his huge manipulation and ultimate flouting of the UN Security Council to wage an illegal war against Iraq, that North Korea and Iran are pursuing their own nuclear arsenals!? What are NGOs to do now as we approach this badly battered NPT regime?
We are not powerless. We have seen what the New York Times has characterized as the "second super-power", the millions of people demonstrating across the globe against the unjust, illegal war on Iraq. Nuclear abolitionists have a particularly unique stake in seeing the UN inspections work. We know that inspections are the only way to verify nuclear disarmament. Without an impartial, global inspection process for ALL all nuclear weapons states, we will never be able to create the trust required that will enable states to feel safe enough to dismantle their nuclear arsenals. The super power of the people cannot be denied. Although we were unable to stop the deadly assault on Iraq, we continue to organize and press for an end to the war. Right now there is an initiative to take the issue to the General Assembly and it is most likely that our "people power" will carry the day to have the Iraq war addressed in that body, through the legal mechanisms of the UN.
There is another possibility for us, stated in an initiative put forth by Secretary-General Kofi Annan at the Millenium Conference in 2000, just before the 2000 NPT Review Conference to hold a special global conference to eliminate nuclear dangers. Annan said:
Nuclear Non-Proliferation under Review "This month's review conference on the Non-Proliferation Treaty [April 2000] is likely to be a depressing affair unless there are clear signals that all parties, including the nuclear weapons states, are ready for a real effort. I am suggesting that a broaderbased international conference, to identify ways of eliminating nuclear dangers of all kinds, should now be seriously considered."
Annan's proposal is worthy of NGO support. It would enable a meeting with all the nuclear weapons states, including India, Israel, and Pakistan, who are not members of the NPT. Billed as a conference to eliminate nuclear dangers "of all kinds", it would also allow us to address the unholy bargain of the NPT in which the nuclear weapons states give civilian nuclear technology to non-weapons states—in effect handing over the keys to the bomb factory—as we see with India, Pakistan, North Korea, and now Iran. At any time, any one of the 40 plus nuclearcapable states with civilian technology can walk out of the NPT and use their technological know-how to build their own bombs. Calling for worldwide support for Annan's Conference on Nuclear Dangers may allow us to set up a new regime for true nuclear disarmament with all of the parties at the table. Perhaps it could serve as an '"Ottawa Process"' for nuclear weapons. Let those who would stay away do so at their peril. The power of the people can and must push the nuclear abolition agenda forward!
In Geneva, during the NPT, on May 3, from 9:00 am to 6:00 pm, Abolition 2000 will hold it's Annual General Meeting at Centre Universitaire Protestant, 2 ave. du Mail, Plainpalais, Geneva. If you're there please join us to work on the abolition of nuclear weapons. There will be panels, workshops, roundtables, morning caucuses, and NGO presentations during the course of the Prep-Com. If you can't join us in Geneva, check out our website at www.abolition2000.org, for petitions supporting Annan's millenium call, and other material to forward our work to rid the world of the nuclear scourge.
The power of the people can and must push the nuclear agenda forward! For petitions supporting Kofi Annan's millenium call, and other material to forward our work to rid the world of the nuclear scourge, please go to www.abolition2000.org.
