Parts and rim-nacers, musicians National Convention for Nuclear ELA landmark LEs in popular raresistance Praful Bidwai T hey came from near the uranium "mines of Jaduguda and They represented the Adivasis (aboringinal people) Narmada Valley, the industrial workers of Mumbai, the fisherfolk of Tamil Nadu, and the peasants of West Bengal. They came from schools and colleges, from art studios and science laboratories, from community health organisations and right-to know campaigns. From the semi-desert of Baluchistan, the lush-green south of Sri Lanka, the paddygrowing plains of Bangladesh.
They were feminists and social activists, trade unionists and small farmers, writers and journalists, physicians and engineers, teachers and students, environmentalists and people's science activists, Gandhians and post-modernists, human-rights artists and film-makers, musicians and theatre people, even tormer came from Japan and England, Holland and Malaysia, America They came with hundreds of banners signed by thousands, and with scores of posters and papercrane buntings. They spoke Oriya Punjabi and Tamil, English and The 600-plus delegates to India's first-ever National Convention for held in New Delhi comprised the was, as former Chief of Naval Staff L. Ramdas put it, "a veritable and an altogether exciting historic landmark".
The Convention was the culminvolving nearly 120 groups and organisations, as well as individual peace activists, in more than 10 Indian cities. It was also the beginning of a new phase in India's broad-based Rainbow Coalition-type movement for nuclear weapons abolition.
The Convention offered Indian peace activists the first national-level opportunity to debate a range of theoretical and practical issues, exchange experiences, and achieve a degree of clarity on aims and methods. It established India's first-ever Coalition for Defence of the USA This National Convention for Nuclear Disarmament and Peace condemns unequivocally the proposal of the US Government to deploy so-called National Missile Defence (NMD) and Theatre Missile Defence (TMD) systems.
While this programme may be currently on hold under the Clinton administration, it is more than likely that the next administration under the pressure of defence contractors will actually deploy Nuclear Missile Defence and Theatre Missile Defence sysTANS The promotion of the Nuclear Missile Defence and the Theatre Missile Defence in the US political arena has all the hallmarks of the manner in which the US nuclear programme has been expanded, refined and snarpened.
Fraudulent tests (or improperly designed ones) are used to argue that the technology for this exists and can be developed and deployed. International treaties like the Anti Ballistic Missile (ABM) Treaty are sought to be circumvented or undermined or rejected.
New bogus threats, like the danger of nuclear weapons in the hands of so-called 'rogue states' are created to justify the prothe Pokharan. OI the Nuclear Disarmament and Peace (CNDP), a network with a 50-member Coordination Committee and growing—protests in more than 40 cities grammes. Objective opinion concurs that even against 'nuclear' terrorist threats, NMD and TMD make little sense.
The very discussion of the proposals for the NMD and the TMD in the US has evoked strong reactions from other Nuclear Weapon States (NWS) and any pursuit of these programmes will only harden the nuclear doctrine, strategies and postures of the other NWS.
The pursuit of the NMD and the TMD will be a serious blow to the cause of global nuclear disarmament. This conference considers it a crucial task of the global anti-nuclear weapons movement to mobilize vigorously against these programmes.
This conference calls on the Government of India to resolutely and forcefully record the opposition of the Indian people to the NMD and the TMD in all internationa: fora.
Organising Committee, National Convention for Nuclear Disarmament C/o Delhi Science Forum, B- I, Second Floor, LSC, J- Block, Saket, New Delhi 110017 Tel: 11962-4323: 11-652-4324; Telefax: 11-686-2716 E-mail: [email protected] Conflicts such as that over Kashmir are dangerous enough without the threat of nuclear weapons being used by either side he Coalition gives India's peace movement an organised national presence, profile and perspective.
This fills a major void. Since the 1998 nuclear tests, there have been sustained- ing of three preparatory sition, finance and logistics. Three-quarters Convention's delegates came from outside Delhi. all paid for their travel and on an average spent a week in preparing for and attending the Convention. There were gates from (down from 60 owing to visa problems), 15 from the rest of South Asia, and about Australasia, and Southeast Africa, Europe America. i nev campaigners such Kent and Jeremy Corbyn (MP) from the Campaign Abolition-2000 activists, besides Coalition. over three days. 13/11/2000 New Delhi nating in f Delhi.
South Asia. and the Committee. ties, radiation Reddy, against weapons of mass destruction and India's nuclear policy volte face. These tended to be discrete, and unconnected to a structure with a national (and international) Matters changed with networking among different groups early in 2000 and the holdspersed with an intense and very robust email debate on the Convention's concept, func- Following tion, programme, organisation, compoof the They own 50 delePakistan from Northeast Asia, and included as Bruce for Nuclear Disarmament (CND), representatives of the network. and Japanese the variston Peace The Programme of the Convention, spread was divided into five Plenaries, 22 Working Group sessions in four broad categories, and cultural events culmi"Celebration of Peace", with live music, theatre and poetry recital. in Central The flow of the Conrention's deliberations led from an analisis of recent international and national developments; discussions on hot to construct a strong moral, legal, political and security-based case against nuclear weapons and their impact; understanding the experience of peace movements regionally and globally; and developing strategies and campaign tools for an abolition movement in The deliberations ended with the adoption of an Action Plan and an Interim Charter, election of Coordination The Action Plan includes a number of specific programmes and campaigns, including:
• regional disarmament conventions and sectoral meetings of professionals, • advocacy and lobbying of political par"twinning" of 10 anti-nuclear weapons schools and colleges in India and Pakistan, institutionalising "Nuclear Disarmament and Peace Week" from August 4 to 10 every year, • and setting up a national federation of victims, besides enhancing the South Asian peace movement's presence in international peace forums.
The Inaugural Plenary set the tone and broad agenda of the Convention. The speakers included novelist Arundhati Roy, former Admiral L. Ramdas, energy scientist A.K.N.
Narmada Bachao Andolan leader Medha Patkar and M.B. Nagvi and Karamat Ali (both from Pakistan Peace Coalition), besides Praful Bidwai, who introduced the Convention's rationale. The two chairs who read a few of the 30-plus solidarity messages received from peace networks and organisations and one government (New Zealand).
The principal thrust of the speeches was on the immorality of nuclear weapons, the fallacy of nuclear deterrence, the crucial importance of comprehensive or human security, and need to build the broadest possible social coalition for peace.
the Plenary, the first set of Working Groups dealt with "The Case against Nuclear Weapons. The discussions were initiated wherever possible by mixed teams from India, Pakistan and elsewhere, and encouraged full participation from all present in Indian languages (with informal interpretation) as well as English. The Groups stressed the deterioration in South Asian security caused by nuclearisation, the further hardening of India's (Pakistan's) nuclear postures since 1998, and the growing danger of allistic missile ponanti-ballistic missile programmes. Differences between participants remained sharp on the issue of the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty, although there was better appreciation of divergent positions.
There was complete unanimity that 'there must be no further nuclear tests, acquisition of fissile material and no research on nuclear weapons. (See the attached tentative Charter.)
The second category of Working Groups dealt with "The Impact of Nuclear Weapons on the People". These Groups generated a potent critique of the ideology of nuclearism
Resolution on Nuclear Missile Defence and Theatre Missile