India and non-proliferation: money talks, treaties walk
So, India and the US got exactly what they wanted at the weekend. The 45-nation Nuclear Suppliers Group (NSG) gave India permission to join the nuclear club without all the fuss of having to first sign the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT).
The scramble is now on to sell India nuclear technology. Despite the many instances of nuclear energy’s leaks, accidents, cost and schedule overruns, and failures to live up to its promises to be cheap, safe and clean, India is intent on repeating the nuclear mistakes made all over the world. The US government must now hurry to ratify the NSG’s decision in Congress in order that American companies can join the gold rush. France’s Areva and Russia’s Rosatom are already in the lead and with the Bush Administration in its last days time is tight.
It all goes to show how countries are willing to double their standards or throw them away all together at the first smell of hard cash. Why are the US so keen to allow India nuclear technology without it signing the NPT if not in the hope of grabbing a slice of that hugely lucrative market? Iran is a signatory to the NPT and yet the US and the wider global community are determined to stop Iran’s nuclear ambitions.
India has given non-proliferation assurances outside the NPT but questions must be asked just how binding these assurances are and what happens in the event of India electing a less friendly government in the future. One of the reasons India gives for not signing the treaty is that it borders China and its nuclear arsenal.
This looks a lot little like a bunch of kids jealous about each others toys. If only we made our governments behave as well as our children. If we were truly interested in high standards of global behaviour, we’d send China and India - and all other countries with nuclear weapons for that matter - to their rooms without any supper.
The best part of this story is that it was because of India that the NSG was formed in the first place – in 1974 in response to India testing a nuclear weapon that year. And here it is 34 years later giving that same nation the nuclear go ahead without binding international commitments. But that’s nuclear power for you. Treaties are enforced except when they’re not. One country’s word is good enough while another’s isn’t. Money trumps everything else.
So, countries can sell India everything it needs for its own ‘nuclear renaissance’. It says it ‘remains committed to a voluntary, unilateral moratorium on nuclear testing.’ But what happens if India decides to resume nuclear testing or proliferate nuclear technology? Nobody really knows – the agreement passed this weekend has nothing to say on those matters. India isn’t signed up to the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty either. The US, France, Russia and others have their fingers crossed as they count the cash.
Comments
Wait a second. The "Non Proliferation Treaty" allows China to aim nuclear weapons at India, but points a boney finger at India for aiming nuclear weapons back. India is in favour of disarmament, but not disarmament where it's left defenseless while others are allowed to point nukes at it. That's not real disarmament. How come you don't mention these important facts? China has proliferated nuclear weapons to Pakistan and North Korea. Pakistan has in turn proliferated nuclear weapons to Iran. But India has proliferated nuclear weapons to nobody. How is the NPT holding China accountable for its nuclear weapons proliferation? Article 1 of the NPT states that no country possessing nuclear weapons shall help any country without them to acquire them. But China has done precisely this! How come you don't mention these important facts? Your comments tell me more about you than about the subject you're commenting upon. Your article is very biased and misleading, with a lot of glaring omissions.
Posted by: Sanjay | September 9, 2008 4:56 AM
"what happens in the event of India electing a less friendly government in the future."
What do you mean by friendly? Do I need some requisite quota of White Anglo Saxon friends in order to be deemed a friendly person? India is a democratic country, and certainly hasn't conducted any wanton Iraq-style invasion looking for "WMD" like the USA has. Nor has it bombed Serbia under the pretext of "stopping war between Turkey and Greece" as Bill Clinton stated on the eve of his bombing campaign. I'm not sure whom you feel I have to keep company with, in order to be considered a "friendly" person. Perhaps you need to change the name of your organization to WhitePeace instead of GreenPeace. I remember an attempt to take over the Sierra Club some years ago, to impose a certain kind of agenda on that organization. You sound like you'd fit right in with that.
Posted by: Sanjay | September 9, 2008 5:01 AM
Dear Sanjay,
Before answering any of your comments, I would like you to have a look at our International Board of Directors (http://www.greenpeace.org/international/about/how-is-greenpeace-structured/governance-structure/board)Did you have a look? I think this answered your accusation of us being racists. Now we can continue with the rest:
I am guessing you have only read this particular entry. Anywhere in this blog and on our website you could have seen that Greenpeace is against all nuclear energy and nuclear weapons in the world. If you had read this entry more carefully you would have realized that we have written about other countries as much as we have about India, As stated in this very entry itself we do not want nuclear weapons in any country. For more information on our position on nuclear weapons please check out;
our campaigns (http://www.greenpeace.org/international/campaigns/peace)
Other places in this very blog you also can see entries where we particularly talk about French nuclear failures, and/or Finnish and/or American and/or Japanese ...etc. Also at the “about this blog (http://weblog.greenpeace.org/nuclear-reaction/admin/)” section you can find that we are writing about the nuclear industry and following the daily news on their new adventures, wherever in the world. If you think we have missed any particular news please give us a heads up, it will be appreciated.
Posted by: Aslihan | September 10, 2008 12:13 PM