Current Events October 2006

North Korean Nuclear Test

Every month in this column we try in various ways to make the point that nuclear weapons are not mere relics of history. The Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK), better known as North Korea, has helped make this point abundantly clear this month by conducting the first explosive nuclear test since 1998.

This test has been met with harsh criticism from virtually everyone, from the peace and disarmament community to the Bush administration. The world appears amazingly united in its belief that a nuclear-armed North Korea is a terrible threat to world peace and the stock market. So why would North Korea commit such a crazy, anti-social gaff? Are they deliberately trying to establish themselves as the world’s number one pariah?

According to the Korean Central News Agency, the official mouthpiece of the North Korean government:

The U.S. daily increasing threat of a nuclear war and its vicious sanctions and pressure have caused a grave situation on the Korean Peninsula in which the supreme interests and security of our State are seriously infringed upon and the Korean nation stands at the crossroads of life and death.

The U.S. has become more frantic in its military exercises and arms build-up on the peninsula and in its vicinity for the purpose of launching the second Korean War since it made a de facto "declaration of war" against the DPRK through the recent brigandish adoption of a UNSC resolution.

At the same time it is making desperate efforts to internationalize the sanctions and blockade against the DPRK by leaving no dastardly means and methods untried in a foolish attempt to isolate and stifle it economically and bring down the socialist system chosen by its people themselves.

The present Bush administration has gone the lengths of making ultimatum that it would punish the DPRK if it refuses to yield to the U.S. within the timetable set by it. Under the present situation in which the U.S. moves to isolate and stifle the DPRK have reached the worst phase, going beyond the extremity, the DPRK can no longer remain an on-looker to the developments.

The DPRK has already declared that it would take all necessary countermeasures to defend the sovereignty of the country and the dignity of the nation from the Bush administration's vicious hostile actions....

The U.S. extreme threat of a nuclear war and sanctions and pressure compel the DPRK to conduct a nuclear test, an essential process for bolstering nuclear deterrent, as a corresponding measure for defense….

A people without reliable war deterrent are bound to meet a tragic death and the sovereignty of their country is bound to be wantonly infringed upon. This is a bitter lesson taught by the bloodshed resulting from the law of the jungle in different parts of the world.

The DPRK's nuclear weapons will serve as reliable war deterrent for protecting the supreme interests of the state and the security of the Korean nation from the U.S. threat of aggression and averting a new war and firmly safeguarding peace and stability on the Korean peninsula under any circumstances.

Clearly the story in Pyongyang is this: the US is about to launch an attack that might destroy the DPRK. The only way to prevent such an attack is to develop a nuclear deterrent. Luckily, the DPRK has just what the doctor ordered. The Glorious Leader is not afraid to do whatever it takes to protect his people, and what better protection than a nuclear weapon? Surely, with a nuclear weapon, the DPRK is perfectly safe.

Leaving aside for the moment some pretty serious questions, (Is the US really threatening to attack and destroy North Korea? Can the US really be deterred by a couple of little atomic bombs? What would happen if North Korea actually bombed Anchorage or San Francisco or, more likely given the technology available, Tokyo? Is the ability to destroy Tokyo or Seoul really going to protect the North Koreans? Is it going to get them more to eat?) the Korean article reveals once again that the hibakusha (A-bomb survivors) were right. They have said all along that unless we eliminate all nuclear weapons, eventually, everyone will want one. Nuclear weapons will become a sign of manhood for the worst kind of politician, the kind that uses tough talk to ride waves of fear and anger.

The promise to make India a nuclear-weapon state helped the right-wing, tough-talking BJP wrest control of the government from the non-nuclear Congress Party. Then, when India “went nuclear” Pakistan was forced, by internal, domestic politics, to do the same. No Pakistani politician could afford to look weak or second rate in response to India.

So what is Iran doing? The Iranian government claims it is interested only in the peaceful atom, but the US and Israel claim it is working on a bomb. Do the Iranians believe, as the North Koreans appear to, that having a nuclear weapon would prevent what happened to Iraq?

In Hiroshima, we don’t know the truth of any of these claims and counterclaims. All we know is, nuclear weapons are on the verge of becoming a fad, just as we said they would. Who will be next? Indonesia? Singapore? Taiwan? Austria? Japan? Any of these and about 40 other countries could easily have nuclear weapons if some maniac leader decides it is in his international or domestic political interest.

The international situation is described well by Scott Galindez writing for Truthout on October 9.

As North Korea becomes the eighth confirmed nuclear power (Israel is not confirmed but considered the ninth) some of the blame has to go to the original five nuclear powers. When the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty went into effect in 1970, the five countries that had nuclear bombs - the US, France, China, Great Britain, and the USSR - agreed to work to reduce and eventually eliminate their nuclear arsenal.

Now, 36 years later, no disarmament talks are taking place between those countries. North Korea has been a "threshold" country since the late 80s. The fall of the Soviet Union eliminated shared security arrangement and prompted North Korea to aggressively pursue a nuclear weapon. The Clinton administration, recognizing the threat entered into an agreement with North Korea to provide reactors for peaceful use in exchange for an end to the weapons program. In 2003, North Korea announced they were leaving the Non-Proliferation Treaty and reconstituting its weapons program, citing US failure to deliver the reactors. North Korea's joining the list of nations with nuclear weapons is a sad day for our world. As was the day that the United States became the first nuclear power, and the Soviet Union the second, etc.... As long as one country possesses the ability to annihilate another it is only natural for those without that power to seek it.

On October 4 the following question was posed on washingtonpost.com:

“Is North Korea going to try to put warheads on missiles on subs? Will they sell those to other states like Saudi Arabia or Iran? Is Pakistan working on the same thing? Will North Korea, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, UAE, Palestinian Authority, Iran, new Iraq, Cuba, Venezuela, etc. have these subs in 5 to 10 years off the coasts of Europe, America and India? Will they form a new axis around this? Will they ask us for money as a group in a shakedown?”

These are good questions. Not many people spend much time thinking about what a world full of nuclear weapons would be like. As Mayor Akiba of Hiroshima has pointed out frequently, the human family is in the process of deciding whether to eliminate nuclear weapons or let everyone have one. If we let everyone have one, it is only a matter of time until one is used, and if one is used, it will not stop with one.

Central Asian Nuclear Weapon Free Zone Announced

There was some happy news last month, about which we would have written at length if not for a certain nuclear test. Scott Parrish and William Potter writing for the Center for Nonproliferation Studies tell us that:

The five former Soviet Central Asian republics -- Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, and Uzbekistan -- have announced that they will sign a treaty establishing a Central Asian nuclear-weapon-free zone (CANWFZ) on September 8, 2006. The treaty will create the world's fifth nuclear-weapon-free zone (NWFZ), alongside those in Latin America and the Caribbean, the South Pacific, Southeast Asia, and Africa. The result of negotiations that began in 1997, the CANWFZ treaty text was finalized at talks held in Tashkent, Uzbekistan in February 2005. Reflecting the strategic importance of Central Asia, the eight-year process of negotiating the treaty has been heavily influenced by the nuclear weapons states, especially the United States and Russia….
While some hard-nosed critics might deride the treaty as nothing but a paper accord, the political importance of the new zone should not be underestimated. To a greater extent than the previous NWFZ, the one in Central Asia will showcase a commitment to nuclear disarmament by a group of states, which previously had nuclear weapons on their territory and continue to live in a nuclear-armed neighborhood. Surrounded by Russian, Chinese, Pakistani, Indian, and Israeli nuclear weapons, and housing Russian and U.S. military bases, the new zone will serve as a powerful example of nonproliferation-an important antidote and positive counter-example to Iranian and North Korean nuclear brinkmanship. It will also be the first NWFZ located entirely in the northern hemisphere.

With these five new nuclear-free zone nations, approximately 113 of the 192 members of the United Nations (with the Vatican there are 193 nations in the world) are actually parties to a nuclear-free zone treaty. This 113 is a majority. Furthermore, every time the issue of nuclear abolition comes up in the General Assembly, super majorities of 150 or 160 or 170 or more nations vote to be rid of nuclear weapons. In 1996, the International Court of Justice found unanimously that “There exists an obligation to pursue in good faith and bring to a conclusion negotiations leading to nuclear disarmament in all its aspects under strict and effective international control.” Thus, the vast majority of people and nations on Earth wish to be rid of nuclear weapons, and the highest court on the planet has declared that negotiations to that end are a legal obligation. In a democratic and civilized world, nuclear weapons would be long gone. Instead, we live under the tyranny of the tiny minority of nations that cling absurdly to the power to annihilate us all, including themselves.