A South Asian issue too

By Achin Vanaik

FOR DECADES, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka and Nepal have voted in yearly U.N. resolutions for the establishment of a South Asian Nuclear Weapons Free Zone (NWFZ). When Pokhran and Chagai happened, all these three Governments were deeply unhappy. But because of the disproportionate regional power of India and Pakistan, particularly the former, they contended themselves with general murmurings of unease without specifically blaming either country. Of course, they all recognised that India was the principal culprit in nuclearising the region with Pakistan the reactor. Despite the highly subdued official position of these countries no one in India or Pakistan should be in any doubt about the true sentiment prevailing. The Governments and the peoples (in their overwhelming majority) of Nepal, Bangladesh and Sri Lanka are against nuclearisation of the region and see Pakistan, and particularly India, as nuclear bullies contemptuous of their security concerns.

They have to find a way of making their voices heard - of making it clear that they want to de-nuclearise this part of the world no matter what India and Pakistan think is in their ``national interests''. What then are the ways for them to intervene to promote the eventual establishment of a South Asian NWFZ? To call for such a zone openly after Pokhran and Chagai, while no doubt courageous and justified, would mean directly confronting their more powerful neighbours. This would be difficult and would entail significant political-diplomatic costs which understandably Dhaka, Colombo and Kathmandu wish to avoid at least until such time as they can be more explicitly defiant. There are, however, two distinct alternative strategies - one for Bangladesh and Sri Lanka, the other for Nepal - to seriously consider.

Bangladesh and Sri Lanka should carefully move towards generating the political and technical pre-conditions for eventually applying to join the Southeast Asian NWFZ or Bangkok Treaty whose geographical spread currently covers the area up to and including Myanmar. That is to say, demand a `stretching' of an existing NWFZ to include them. This idea of stretching an NWFZ has precedents. The original Latin American NWFZ as it gathered momentum changed its name to include the Caribbean countries. At the moment, the South Pacific NWFZ or Treaty of Rarotonga does not include the U.S.-controlled Marshall Islands and there is already an existing demand for such stretching to include them.

The advantages of such an approach in comparison to an explicit and aggressive campaign by Bangladesh and Sri Lanka for a South Asian NWFZ are obvious. Both India and Pakistan would find it much more difficult to overtly oppose and work against such a demand from Dhaka and Colombo. After all, neither capital would then be demanding that India or Pakistan de-nuclearise. They would merely be exercising their own sovereign right to join whatever treaties or regional arrangements they wish. Yet were such an extension of the Bangkok Treaty to take place it would constitute a powerful indirect rebuke of Indian and Pakistani nuclearisation and the danger that this represents for the region as a whole. It would put both the Indian and Pakistani nuclear elites in the dock, as it were, and would also be a way of these two smaller countries intervening in an issue that New Delhi and Islamabad would like to believe is solely their preserve. Such a stretching of the Bangkok Treaty would stimulate the general effort by the vast majority of the world's comity of nations to denuclearise the region and also politically undermine the `nuclear credibility' of India and Pakistan.

The political value of such an extension can be perceived by the existing P-5 which should have no objection to it. The overwhelming bulk of the world's non-nuclear weapons states (NNWSs) would also have reason to welcome it. The other members of the Bangkok Treaty knowing of this general widespread support could with quiet confidence move towards endorsing the idea. There are no legal problems in carrying out such an extension of the Bangkok Treaty once all the possible political obstacles to it are dealt with. Such an application for membership by Bangladesh and Sri Lanka does not create any problems in the way that earlier Sri Lankan efforts to join ASEAN did. Decisions on expanding the ASEAN in principle or in practice are hugely onerous precisely because ASEAN is a material entity bound together by rules, institutions, etc., carrying huge economic and political consequences for all members and for the collective's own functioning. The same can be said for expanding the European Union (E.U.), except here the principle to expand (unlike in the ASEAN) has already been accepted.

But the Southeast Asian NWFZ is a symbolic entity and is not comparable to the ASEAN, the E.U., the NAFTA (North American Free Trade Agreement) or even the SAFTA (South Asian Free Trade Area). Expansion creates no such material problems for existing members. And from the Bangladeshi and Sri Lankan points of view, this extension does set a small precedent for exploring closer cooperation with Southeast Asian countries in other fields,

something that India and Pakistan, given the `miracle' performances of this region and East Asia, are themselves seeking to explore. In short, looking from all angles at the `national interests' of Bangladesh and Sri Lanka, there are many good reasons and no bad ones for wanting such an extension of the Bangkok Treaty.

India offered to reorganise the Southeast Asian NWFZ by signing the protocols of the existing Bangkok Treaty as a nuclear weapons state (NWS), i.e., pursuing a backhanded way of getting de facto NWS status. Its offer was rejected by China and some other NWSs for this very reason. But regardless of whether or not India and Pakistan offer to recognise such a stretching of the Bangkok Treaty, or whether any such offer is accepted or not, the crucial purpose of the exercise - showing India and Pakistan up and asserting the right and necessity of the peoples and Governments of the other South Asian countries to fight for nuclear security in the region - would have been achieved.

Given the landlocked character and lack of geographical contiguity with the Southeast Asian NWFZ, Nepal can consider another alternative - the Mongolian precedent of declaring itself a nuclear weapons free nation zone. Again, this would be a powerful rebuke against all its three nuclear neighbours, India, Pakistan and China. It is almost impossible for any other country to oppose Nepal since such a unilteral declaration is any country's sovereign right to consider or carry out. Virtually, all the existing major NNWSs and the P-5 would welcome it, again putting New Delhi and Islamabad into some embarrassment. Once such a nuclear weapon free status is declared Nepal, like Mongolia, can also demand a `thinning out' of such a country- zone, i.e., that none of its three nuclear neighbours place any nuclear-related facility of any kind (which could be targeted by nuclear weapons) near its borders. For such a country-zone there would be no treaty protocols for other countries to sign and no worries about whether India or Pakistan could get de facto NWS status. They would simply have to decide whether or not to accept the declaration and swallow the implicit attack on their irresponsible behaviour.

Should such outcomes eventually emerge, they would greatly strengthen the collective effort by anti-nuclear activists and supporters in all the South Asian countries to restore nuclear sanity - denuclearisation - in the region as well as have a powerful beneficial effect on the worldwide struggle for disarmament. To begin with, it is civil society organisation and groups in these three countries that should discuss these alternative strategies, to familiarise a wider public with them, and to generate pressure on their Governments to move in the desired direction. Even as these Governments do not rush to take an open stand they should themselves be able to see the value of quietly encouraging such discussions by civil society groups in public political spaces and thus generate internal demand for what they themselves could find attractive, and in time, very feasible indeed.

Send this article to Friends by E-Mail

Section  : Opinion
Previous : The twilight of Parliament
Next     : Unimaginative