The Hindu : Physicians against nuclear war to talk to India, Pakistan

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Wednesday, Feb 25, 2004

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Physicians against nuclear war to talk to India, Pakistan

By Our Special Correspondent

NEW DELHI, FEB. 24. A delegation of the International Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War (IPPNW), which won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1985 for its service to mankind by highlighting the hazards of nuclear wars, will meet senior leaders of Pakistan and India over the next one week to impress upon them the need for both the countries to give up their nuclear weapons programme and instead focus more on improving health care and other basic amenities of their citizens.

Led by the president of the forum, Ronald McCoy, the delegation would first visit Pakistan for two days beginning on Wednesday and call on its Foreign Minister and Defence Secretary. After that, they would call on the Indian leaders.

Addressing a press conference here today, Mr. McCoy said appointments had been sought with the President, A.P.J. Abdul Kalam, the Prime Minister, Atal Bihari Vajpayee, the Leader of the Opposition, Sonia Gandhi, as well as leaders of all major parties. At present, the CPI(M) leader, Harkishan Singh Surjeet, and the CPI leader, A.B. Bardhan, have agreed to meet and appointments with others are likely to be firmed up by Saturday.

The delegation, he said, would impress upon the two countries to sign and ratify the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty and the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty, abandon the imperative of minimum deterrence, adopt a no-first-use policy and provide for greater nuclear transparency such as sharing of information that would help remove dangerous ambiguities, especially in crisis management.It would also call upon the two countries to adopt `de-alerting' and `no launch-on-warning' policies considering that the flight time of nuclear-tipped missiles in either direction was too short, raising the possibility of a nuclear launch by either country because of accident or miscalculation. Further, they would emphasise the need for an early solution to Kashmir since it was the core issue between the two countries, Mr. McCoy said.

Stressing that South Asia has been converted into a tinderbox since India and Pakistan became nuclear powers in 1998, Mr. McCoy said that studies had shown that even in a limited nuclear exchange against five of the largest cities in India or Pakistan, there would be at least three million deaths. It was clarified that both the countries must put an end to further development and deployment of nuclear forces and missile capabilities. They must abandon their nuclear arsenals and embrace human security.

On the theory that nuclear deterrence was needed to ensure security, he said nothing could be further from the truth. On the other hand, the mere possession of nuclear weapons immediately raised the possibility of a nuclear attack by another nuclear weapon State in a conflict situation.

"It was not because of any human intervention, but sheer good fortune that the Cuban missile crisis did not trigger a global nuclear catastrophe in 1962."

Emphasising that physicians in India and Pakistan bore a heavy responsibility for using their medical expertise and care to create a groundswell of public opinion that will demand of their governments the total elimination of nuclear weapons, he stressed that while there was no fear of a global nuclear catastrophe today, it had given way to the fear of a regional catastrophe in South Asia and to international nuclear terrorism at the local level. On the recent thaw in India-Pakistan relations, he said the IPPNW welcomed the peace moves by the two countries and hoped that they would lead to lasting peace. The leaders of the two countries must realise that dialogue and not war was the way forward, he said.

Apart from meeting Indian and Pakistani leaders, the IPPNW was holding dialogues with decision-makers in the United States, the United Kingdom, Russia, China, France and at the headquarters of NATO in BrusselsL.S. Chawla, president, and Arun Mitra, general secretary of the Indian Doctors for Peace and Development, the Indian affiliate of the IPPNW, were present at the press conference.

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