Antinuclear

India’s very bad record on nuclear weapons

As Opposition Leader in 2007, Kevin Rudd argued against uranium sales to India with the prescient warning that: “No-one in Australia wants a nuclear arms race aided by us in the Indian sub-continent or between India and China because we’ve failed to properly ensure the upholding of the NPT and the [International Atomic Energy Agency] safeguards
regime under it.”

Promises and U-turns of the nuclear kind, The Drum, Jim Green, 19 Nov 11 The nuclear lobby has been softening us up for years to the idea of selling uranium to nuclear-armed India. They’ve promised the world – and delivered nothing.

This con-job began with the US-India nuclear cooperation agreement concluded in 2008. Proponents of the agreement promised non-proliferation and disarmament concessions from India but the opposite occurred. India did not commit to nuclear weapons disarmament or even to a process that would – or might – lead to disarmament in the long term. India did not commit to sign and ratify the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty (CTBT). India has not stopped producing
fissile (explosive) material for nuclear weapons nor has it committed to doing so.

There is no restraint on India building new, unsafeguarded reactors orother facilities for its weapons program. India did not commit to comprehensive safeguards inspections. India is able to divert more of its own uranium to weapons and the net result of the US-India agreement has been to boost India’s capacity to produce fissile material for weapons…..

India’s willingness to separate its peaceful and military programs is
portrayed as a successful outcome, but it does not constrain India’s
nuclear weapons program in any way and is part of a process which
legitimises India’s weapons program and facilitates its expansion.

The mantra that India has a good track record on nuclear
non-proliferation beggars belief. India is a nuclear weapons state,
tested weapons in 1974 and 1998, violated its pledge not to use a
Canadian-supplied research reactor to produce plutonium for weapons,
refuses to sign the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) or the
CTBT, has a history of illicit nuclear procurement and inadequate
nuclear export controls, and continues to expand its nuclear weapons
and missile capabilities. Could India possibly have a worse record?

The events set in train by the opening up of nuclear trade with India
have been disastrous from a non-proliferation standpoint. They have
led to an escalating nuclear arms race between India and Pakistan, and
a weakening of the global non-proliferation and disarmament regime
which others are now exploiting – an important example being China’s
plan to supply reactors to Pakistan in the wake of the US-India
agreement.
As Opposition Leader in 2007, Kevin Rudd argued against uranium sales
to India with the prescient warning that: “No-one in Australia wants a
nuclear arms race aided by us in the Indian sub-continent or between
India and China because we’ve failed to properly ensure the upholding
of the NPT and the [International Atomic Energy Agency] safeguards
regime under it.”

Another serious problem is that the precedent set by nuclear trade
with India increases the risk of other countries pulling out of the
NPT, and building nuclear weapons with the expectation that civil
nuclear trade would continue…

http://www.abc.net.au/unleashed/3680602.html

November 19, 2011 - Posted by Christina Macpherson | Uncategorized