Late Night Thoughts on NPT Prep Com

By Gunnar Westberg, M.D.

I will not summarize the conference; this has been done very well by John Loretz.

After a conference which has not been a big success – which a PrepCom can never be - I tend to ruminate on the question: How to do it better next time. And in this case, even more the next next time, the NPT Review Conference in New York April 26 to May 21 2010, the event when the treaty shall be re-evaluated and the direction to a world free of nuclear weapons shall be decided.

For us, I see three most important tasks up till then: To make the Nuclear Weapons Convention a centrepiece of the NPT process; to promote some of the ideas of the “Gang of Four”; to make the 13 steps from the NPT Rev in 2000 practical reality.

We should decide during the fall 2008 how to make our priorities.

NWC and the Blue Book “Securing our Survival”. We have tried to make the convention recognized with relatively little success. Few diplomats have read it, most have not even looked into it. Up until the next NPT PrepCom May 4-14 2009 in New York it should be a priority to get as many diplomats and their advisers as possible to read at least parts of the book. We shall also ask them to offer their criticism of the content and to tell us why “it won’t work”. Maybe the critics are right: The time has not come. If so, when? And why?

Probably we will find that the NWC is the right tool and the time is right. If so, we should concentrate on getting it discussed as much as possible within the U.N. and at the NPT PrepCom.

The “Gang of Four” proposals (anyone found a better name yet?). The four Grey Eminences have now received the support of a large majority of the still living former Secretaries of State, National Security Advisers and Secretaries of defense. And the support from Barack Obama. Indeed remarkable, considering they are explicitly demanding that for the security of the USA all nuclear weapons shall be abolished. They have also got an organization to work for them, the Nuclear Threat Initiative and with that the support of Ted Turner. They are spreading the message world wide. Great!

We shall be shouting our Hurrahs, but keep our fingers crossed. This idea may have arrived too late. Ten years ago Russia would probably have agreed, today this is more uncertain. Put yourself in the place of the Russian generals: “In a world without nuclear weapons the USA will reign supreme. If the US demands access to our Russian oil, gas and minerals on their conditions and at their price, how can we stop them? The Red Army is in disarray, the only weapons we can trust are nukes”. I am concerned that Russia will make heavy demands requesting both a decrease in the US non-nuclear forces and serious commitments and non-aggression treaties. Will the new US administration see how important the issue is and accept compromises?

Let’s hope, and support. Every peace group will do the same. But the basic flaw in the approach of these statesmen is obvious: They speak primarily for the security of the US. We speak for the security of the world.

The Thirteen steps from NPT Review 2000 are what the diplomats in the Non-nuclear weapon states are likely to go for. Here are many chances to build alliances and try different approaches. IPPNW should not devote too much energy to the details, that is not our strength. We should keep reminding the nuclear weapon states of their solemn pledges to work for a nuclear weapons free world. A CTBT, a Fissile material treaty is just a tool, a condition to be met, on that road.

In the fall of 2008 we should agree on our strategy for NPT Rev 2010. We should make plans to meet with Foreign Office diplomats in many countries, before both the 2009 Prep and 2010 NPT Rev, with a concise agenda and plans for follow up. We need the support from the Central Office to encourage and keep track of these activities.

Gunnar Westberg

“Do not whisper when speaking truth to power”

On  Tuesday March 11 there was a Plenary session  “Dialogue with Parliamentarians and Political Leaders” during which several members of the Parliament of India spoke. My experience of this session finally led me to ask for the word during the afternoon session:

“I have been sitting here this morning, listening to one politician after another, who argue that India must have nuclear weapons in order to work for nuclear abolition. I felt anger and rage rising within me. It was difficult to identify the origin of my wrath. Then the words of  Bernard Lown started to reverberate in my head: “Do not whisper when speaking truth to power”.

 I was angry at myself: I had not even whispered. I had kept quiet, and applauded. The politicians spoke, and quickly went away. They probably left with the feeling that we all agree: India is working hard for a nuclear weapons free world. One speaker, one only, Dr Farooq Abdullah, admitted that India started the nuclear arms race on the subcontinent in 1974 with its so called “peaceful nuclear explosions”. But India continued to speak for nuclear abolition.

All credibility India may have had as country working for nuclear disarmament was then effectively blown away with the nuclear tests in 1998. Not one of the Indian Parliamentarians said that these tests were a horrendous mistake. The arms race increased, India had become a likely target for a nuclear attack, and India had exposed itself as just another nationalistic country.

And here we sat, trying to understand the message: If you want nuclear abolition, build nuclear weapons. Maybe the speakers were able to trick themselves into believing what they were saying. The human capacity of self-delusion is remarkable. But we should not pretend that we believed their Orwellian newspeak. We should say: You have betrayed India’s great tradition as a peace-making country. You must begin anew. The first step is to regret the nuclear tests. The second is to sign the nuclear test ban treaty, CTBT. If you do not sign  you would show that you are planning to go ahead with new bombs, more bombs, “nuclear superiority” instead of “minimal deterrence”. 

India’s politicians, you have a great tradition from Mahatma Gandhi and from Jawaharlal Nehru to build on. Do not squander your heritage.”

—-

The following should be added: The tests in 1998 were met with a great outburst of nationalist pride in India. One of the very few dissenting voice came from Indian Doctors for Peace and Development. The President of IDPD dr L.S. Chawla said that IDPD did regret the tests, explaining that they would accelerate the nuclear arms race in the region and decrease the security of India. The cost of nuclear weapons would make fewer resources available for health. For this Dr Chawla and his brave colleagues were called traitors.

They did not whisper. They spoke the truth loud and clear. IPPNW should be proud of our Indian affiliate.

Reflections on meeting the President and the Prime Minister of India

It is indeed a sign of the high respect paid to IPPNW by Indian officials that delegations were invited to meet both the President and the Prime Minister of India.

 Meeting with President of India Smt. Pratibha Devisingh Patil. 

Dr. L.S. Chawla, President of Indian Doctors for Peace and Development introduced us to President Patil at her residence on March 8, and we were also joined by our Co-President Ime John of Nigeria, IPPNW Board Chair Bjorn Hilt of Norway, Tilman Ruff and Ruth Mitchell of Australia, Bob Gould of the United States, Inga Blum of Germany, and IPPNW Executive Director Michael Christ.

The President of India has a mostly symbolic function as an embodiment of the greatness and spirit of the country. 

Originally the intention was that the President should speak at our Inaugural Session. However, the cost of the security around such an arrangement would have been extremely high and the organizers opted for the vice president whose presence required less extensive security.The presidential residence building is enormous. The opulence and magnificence of the rooms and of the guards contrasted with the unpretentious appearance of the President, an elderly Mother of India, a seemingly frail, almost Gandhi-thin woman whom we met. Smt. Pratibha Devisingh Patil  assumed office as the 12th president of India July 25 2007. She was trained as a lawyer. She was in her early years an excellent table tennis player.During our about 20 minutes of audience with the President Dr Chawla talked about our organisation.  In our presentation we recalled India’s proud tradition of work for international nuclear disarmament. If the USA, when the new administration comes into power, takes action for nuclear disarmament, what would India do? We expressed the hope that India would in cooperation with its neighbors Pakistan and China act for regional nuclear disarmament. After all, we had seen the bust of Mahatma Gandhi in the anteroom. We expected great initiatives from India.The President voiced great appreciation of our movement and said that our work was really for the benefit of all of us. ”All mankind is one family, isn’t that so” said the President. Our question was, as was to be expected, not answered directly.Ruth Mitchell from Australia  congratulated India to its victory over Australia in cricket recently which the President gratefully appreciated.We gave the President a “guidebook” for the path to nuclear disarmament “Draft Model Nuclear Convention” in the hope that this would show that nuclear disarmament is a real possibility. After the meeting we where shown the great beautiful garden behind the palace.        

 Meeting with Prime Minister Manmohan Singh

  

On the 10th, we met with Prime Minister Manmohan Singh. Dr. Chawla again made the introductions of Ime John, Ruth Mitchell, Bob Gould and Inga Blum. This time we were joined by former Canadian Senator Douglas Roche, the Chair of the Middle Powers Initiative, and IPPNW Program Director John Loretz.

The Prime minister of a country of more than one billion inhabitants is of course very busy. It is all the more remarkable  that he set aside more than one quarter of an hour for our delegation. Dr Chawla opened by introducing IPPNW, our history and our Nobel Peace Award.  The PM seemed to be well informed about this. During the meeting he repeatedly expressed his sincere appreciation of our work which he saw as being in line with the work of the India Gov’t. We then described recent developments which give us a hope that initiatives for  nuclear weapons abolition would be taken by USA soon. How would India act if USA and Russia began sincere negotiations for nuclear abolition, aiming for Zero? May we expect that India calls on its neighbors China and Pakistan for possible regional nuclear disarmament? Or would India, in the tradition of Rajiv Gandhi, take any other bold initiatives for nuclear abolition?Prime Minister Manmohan Singh said that he had repeated and updated the Rajiv Gandhi plan in his speech in the UN General Assembly two years ago. However, nuclear disarmament would have to be a global process. There was no place for a local, bilateral or regional initiative. China in particular would not be interested, China compares itself with the US, not with India.Senator Douglas Roche tried, using his diplomatic experience, to reformulate the question in several ways. However, the response was clear and unwavering:  We are not to expect any initiative from India other  than cooperation in a global disarmament process. “But how long would India wait? Until the US and Russia came down to the same number of nuclear weapons as India?” This was a rather academic question said the PM. We gave our host a copy of the Model Nuclear Convention and some other documents. He promised to study the convention (and his aides started immediately, we saw) and again expressed his appreciation of our work. The tenor of the discussion was polite and friendly.From the meeting with the President we got what we hoped for: Respect and recognition. Personally I was somewhat disappointed by the meeting with Prime Minister Manmohan Singh. He was well informed of recent developments in USA and UK which opened an opportunity for initiatives for nuclear disarmament. He had no intention to take any initiative to use that opportunity. This is likely to be a result of his problems of balancing the domestic political forces. We did not discuss the US-India Nuclear Deal as we knew that there we would have no chance of making any impact, only cause irritation and decreasing our chances for future meetings.

Gunnar Westberg, IPPNW Outgoing Co-President

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