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CTBT: playing it by the ear

Amberish K Diwanjiin New Delhi

With elections just a few months away, former diplomat Arundhati Ghose has suggested that India, instead of signing the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty, should get Parliament to adopt a resolution on India's nuclear policy, which our diplomats can "sell" abroad to make it acceptable to the rest of the world.

"How can we sign the CTBT now with elections in September and the two major parties still undecided on their respective stands," asked Ghose, who represented India at the Conference on Disarmament in Geneva in 1996, when the CTBT was hammered out.

Ghose is convinced the BJP-led coalition government will not sign the treaty at this juncture, fearing an electoral backlash with the Congress using the issue to whip up support for itself.

"The Congress has already said it does not want a caretaker government signing the treaty," she pointed out.

The government has said it would seek a national consensus before signing the treaty, but it has also acknowledged that with elections round the corner, this might not be immediately possible. "However, we have declared that we will not prevent the treaty from coming into force if the other countries under Article 14 are agreeable," External Affairs Minister Jaswant Singh said.

"There is no consensus on the treaty," said K Natwar Singh, who looks after the foreign affairs cell in the Congress. "We have been kept in the dark and have no idea what is going on. In such circumstances, how can we support the signing of the treaty?"

Incidentally, the Congress has said it is not against the CTBT, but must have all the facts on the table. "We want to know what India will gain, what are our safeguards, if we are to sign the treaty. After all, the US has categorically said the CTBT cannot be amended and will have to be signed as it is," Natwar Singh added.

Ghose said that in such circumstances, one way out is for both Houses of Parliament to adopt a resolution on India's nuclear policy and send it to the United Nations secretary general. "We have already declared a moratorium and along with a statement from Parliament, it should satisfy the international community," she said.

India could even offer the various seismic stations in the country to monitor compliance with the treaty, to prove New Delhi's bona fides, she said.

It has been reported in the media in the past that the United States would like India to sign the treaty by September 1999. But Ghose dismisses the suggestion. "There is no September deadline," she declared. "It is just a myth propagated by certain spin doctors, both in the US and India."

She pointed out that in the US too, Republican Senator Jesse Helms has not even allowed any discussion of the treaty in the Senate. For the CTBT to be effective, certain countries listed under Article 14 - which includes India, the US, China and Russia - have to sign and ratify the treaty. "There is no need to worry about the US pressure because they too are far away from signing the treaty," she said. "The Senate is now due to meet only once before September and it is doubtful if they will discuss the CTBT then."

Natwar Singh echoed this. "Clinton is facing difficulties with Helms, hence there is no hurry in India for us to sign the treaty," he said, adding, "We want to also ensure that the other countries ratify the treaty before we do so."

Ghose remains firm that it is to India's advantage not to sign the treaty. "The CTBT remains a flawed treaty and after the Yugoslavia crisis, I think it only shows the need to keep nuclear arms," she added.

The former diplomat reasons that if Yugoslavia had nuclear weapons, then the US would have hesitated before bombing the country. "Today, Yugoslavia is restrained by the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, otherwise it too would have retaliated," she said.

She said the on-going conflict in Kosovo was a turning point in international relations. "NATO has lost the moral victory and is nowhere near winning the war. And after this unilateral action in Yugoslavia, I seriously doubt if the Russian Duma or the Chinese government will agree to the CTBT. Everyone will now want to keep nuclear weapons, and you will have to test new weapons, which is why everyone will hesitate before signing the CTBT," said the ex-diplomat, at present with the Union Public Service Commission.

"The US wants India to join the CTBT as a non-nuclear weapon state, not as a nuclear weapon state. If we do that, what have we gained from the Pokhran and Agni tests," asked Ghose, adding, "I sincerely believe in a nuclear free world, but as long some nations keep nuclear weapons, we too must keep them."

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