Opinion

Are the Nations' Contributions Enough for the

Promotion of World Peace

  • The confessions of Dr. A.Q. Khan, Pakistan's Father of Nuclear Bomb reveals how nuclear technological know-how has been stolen from Europe and sold out to North Korea, Libya and Iran. This is just a tip of the iceberg. So far, nobody has ascertained where else further this nuclear technology might have spread to. Also, the danger of nuclear proliferation, clandestine sales or smuggling of nuclear materials has not been brought to an end by the Nuclear Club members of the world such as USA, UK, France, Russia and China, the permanent five members of United Nations Security Council.

  • It has come to the open that nuclear fuel has been brought from Niger for the production of Nuclear Weapons in Iraq by the Intelligence Report of Britain, which was the cause for the start of war on Iraq by the Anglo-American forces. Unfortunately nothing of the sort has been unearthed or proved so far! But both the President of America, George W. Bush and the Prime Minister of Britain, Tony Blair say that irrespective of the proof not found out for the existence of WMD and the link between Iraq's Ba'ath party and the Al Qaeda terrorist organisation, they have waged war on Iraq in order to eliminate the threat to world peace and the war will continue wherever there is threat to world peace due to the programs of production of WMD or perpetration of terrorism.

  • In spite of the opposition from their own people and the international community for unilateral war on terrorism, they justify for their pre-emptive action in Iraq on the ground that they have ousted the tyrant Saddam Hussein from power, which is a great relief for the suffering Iraqis, brought freedom and created condition for the commencement of democratization process there.

  • Recently, Mr. Blair has philosophized that international law should be amended in such a way that pre-emptive intervention can be made in any country if it is supporting terrorism, perpetrating terrorism for the freedom of any other country and producing Nuclear Weapons for that purpose. According to him, to develop new world order, UNO should be reformed and also with or without the approval of UNO, unilateral action can be taken against the country posing a great threat to world peace and security. This philosophy of Tony Blair, according to the intellectuals of the world, is only a prescription for world anarchy and not for world order.

  • In the long Vietnam War, France had bitter experience in the past. Afterwards America also did not materialize anything according to its plan in Vietnam. Then, the way USA waged war in Afghanistan and later in Iraq, it seems that it has not learnt any lesson from the Vietnam experience as the approach to tackle the problem has not changed in the least.

  • Unilateral intervention with arrogance, recklessness and meaninglessness in the internal affairs of other nation as USA has done in Iraq is nothing but sheer neo-imperialism only. To solve the problems of proliferation of nuclear weapons and international terrorism, multilateral effort with the collective and cooperative involvement of all the nations is necessary.

  • Freedom, reform, democracy, good governance and modernism are needed in the West Asian countries in order to stop the politically and economically disenfranchised individuals opting for extremism and terrorism. Then to stop the production of weapons of mass destruction by new nations or vulnerable nations, genuine nuclear non-proliferation treaty that is popularly acceptable only can be signed and followed by all the nations.

  • To keep this world a peaceful place for human habitation, nuclear weapons are a great hurdle to mankind. So, total elimination of nuclear weapons is the biggest task for all the nations now in the world. Disarmament and destruction of all weapons of mass destruction have to be carried out unanimously by all the nations of the world. In this connection, the American proposal of new nuclear order for the whole world holds the attention of both the nuclear and non-nuclear nations now. The old Nuclear Non-proliferation Treaty was rejected by India and other developing countries because of the discriminatory approach being followed by the Nuclear Power nations. Now India is cautiously accepting to consider the matter in order to do something positive so that the new nuclear order can be achieved for the promotion of world peace. But India is not ready to sign on the dotted line initiated by the Nuclear Non-proliferation regime unless a credible multilateral mechanism is initiated by UNO to inspect and monitor the peaceful nuclear activities of all the nations without any partiality or discrimination.

  • Of the seven proposals of the New Non-proliferation Protocol of International Atomic Energy Agency, two items such as Countering proliferation and Completion of nuclear fuel cycle have assumed importance now. So, prevention of proliferation and inspection of civil nuclear activities should be carried out not in discrimination but with genuine approach, which would be the best way to solve this international problem.

  • According to the Strategic Arms Limitation Talks (SALT) I and II between America and Russia, Nuclear Weapons were reduced from 22,000 to 6,000 or so in each of the two countries, which have to be further reduced to 200 in each, as strategically that would be enough to maintain world order according to the view of Robert McNamara, the former US Secretary of Defence. How far this is going to be implemented depends upon the decision of these two Nuclear Powers of the world only. If it is sincerely accomplished, next, NPT and CTBT also can be implemented by the efforts of the UNO soon.

  • Multilateralism rather than unilateralism is the best approach that can credibly be followed to solve the problems of proliferation of nuclear weapons and international terrorism. But war on terrorism has been unilaterally started by USA with some like-minded nations and has made this matter a big mess needing the help of UNO to set right it in order to bring a good end to it. To prevent nuclear proliferation and weapons of mass destruction falling into the hands of terrorists, strategic partnerships among nations are also taking place here and there. In this connection as part of war on terrorism, the US proposal of participation of nations towards the proliferation security initiative is now on the international agenda so as to interdict ships suspected of carrying nuclear spare parts or smuggling nuclear materials anywhere on the mid ocean. Though this is a new idea, if it is initiated by UNO and implemented with the cooperation of all the nations, something positive can be achieved according to international law so that it will not lead to new crisis later.

  • Now both America and Russia are taking efforts to develop anti-ballistic missile defence system, which is useful to intercept and destroy enemy missiles in the space itself before they reach the targets. In this respect, Russia has achieved an edge over other countries in making a break through in the development of anti-ballistic missile defence system. But by such acts both the countries have broken the arms limitation programme started some years ago. So, it has come to the stage that no political mechanism can bar any nation going ahead with the programme of producing nuclear weapons for its defence purpose. As a result, proliferation of nuclear weapons by some nations has resumed without any control or restriction being imposed by any UN resolution.  

 

05-Feb-2006

More by :  T. A. Ramesh

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