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PAKISTAN MISSION TO THE

UNITED NATIONS, NEW YORK

PAPER ON REGIONAL DISARMAMENT - A SOUTH ASIAN PERSPECTIVE DELIVERED BY THE PERMANENT REPRESENTATIVE OF PAKISTAN TO THE UN AT THE TENTH REGIONAL DISARMAMENT MEETING OF THE ASIA PACIFIC REGION HELD IN KATHMANDU ON 23 FEBRUARY 1988

The process of disarmament, like much of the United Nations and of multilateralism is passing through deep change and re-examination. Most of this is because of the end of the Cold War, and the resulting need to adjust to a uni-polar world which has significantly upset the earlier bi-polar equilibrium. The change implies adjustments for all states, including even the sole surviving super power, as it itself adjusts also to the extraordinary pressures and responsibilities inherent in the situation.

The Fiftieth Anniversary of the United Nations three years ago drove the point home with the great impact, as member states were faced with the sudden realization that multilateralism, could not only be endangered in this new uni-polar world, but also that the United Nations itself has to be reformed and recast in a form which would be able to survive well into the next century. If United Nations reform is the order of the day, it is because multilateralism itself has been put in some doubt by the boost which unilateralism has received in the current scenario.

Disarmament, as most of us know it, is also undergoing the same profound change. Among other reasons, this is because the erosion of the earlier balance between the two erstwhile super powers has reduced the role of the Non-Aligned Movement, and severely impacted on its ability to mount pressures towards disarmament in strict accordance with the established priorities of the past. The tendency now is to set the agenda elsewhere and to brush aside the principles and proposals of the Non-Aligned Movement despite the high moral ground from which they are enunciated.

Some of these unfortunate tendencies on the global canvas unfortunately gets replicated at regional levels also, much like the fractal images in computer simulations. Regional powers are also beginning to flex their own puny muscles, and to show sad tendencies to see themselves in the same image, and frequently to justify the same theses of unilateralism and bilateralism. In the process it is only multilateralism which suffers, as the law of the jungle looms again on the horizon, reversing decades of a global effort at establishing a non-discriminatory and civilized society of nations.

Many of these unfortunate tendencies came up in a most vivid fashion just a few months ago when an effort was made to use the buzzword of reform to slip in a change in the very mandate of disarmament. That mandate, as we all know, was defined by SSOD-1 as a result of a happy consensus. Efforts to improve upon that consensus were unsuccessful in SSOD-2 and SSOD-3. As for SSOD-4 much effort is being expended to delay it through procedural moves, up to a point where it is hoped by some that it will perhaps peter out or become irrelevant. SSOD-1, and the mechanisms painfully negotiated in various disarmament treaties and conventions in the Conference on Disarmament, thus remain the fundamental consensus of the international community in matters relating to disarmament. That is why the disguised effort to undermine this existing consensus under the guise of reform was resisted as strongly as it was. That is why the effort failed.

It is in this context that we have to examine the importance of the regional approach to disarmament. The debate between the global and regional approaches is not new. On the one hand stand those who feel that all problems of disarmament are essentially global, and therefore have to be resolved only globally, a thesis which has frequently led to avoidable confrontations, and a consequential slow down of the very process of disarmament. On the other hand stand those countries, like Pakistan, which consistently argue in favour of a regional approach, not as a supplement, but as a complement to the global approach. The arguments are well known and do not need to be repeated. It is a matter of great satisfaction that this latter approach has been constantly gaining ground, despite the initial resistance by some, and despite efforts to dilute it through procedural manoeuvres and delaying tactics. It is also a matter of satisfaction to note that not only is the concept of the regional approach now firmly anchored, among other places in the Kathmandu Regional Centre for Peace and Disarmament in Asia and the Pacific which unites us all around this table, but also in that, not just regional, but even sub-regional initiatives, are being recognized increasingly as having a due role in the process of disarmament.

South Asia has the dubious distinction of being identified as one of the three zones of tension which constantly occupy the centre stage in disarmament deliberations. In a way even more is at stake in this region than elsewhere. With a population mass of more than a billion, or a full one-fifth of humanity, and relatively poor living standards, the levels of armaments protrude most visibly on the canvas, and cannot but be the subject of concern. Not only do we see some of the largest armies of the world here, not only some of the largest stockpiles of conventional weapons, but also a nuclear capacity which is demonstrated and taunted in the case of one country, and ambiguously acknowledged in the case of another. As if that was not enough, we now have sophisticated medium and long range missile delivery systems which complicate the situation immeasurably. The development and deployment of these delivery systems creates a hair-trigger situation which deeply endangers peace and security in the region, and beyond.

It is obvious that something needs to be done in South Asia to reduce the level of tensions, and to move back for a brink which has already been crossed thrice in the past. Over the years, Pakistan has taken the initiative to make a number of proposals in the priority area of nuclear disarmament, ranging from a complete denuclearization of South Asia through the establishment of a nuclear-weapons-free zone, to joint signature of the Non-Proliferation Treaty, or joint subscription to IAEA safeguards on all nuclear installations, and even an international conference on a non-nuclear South Asia with their participation of several non-regional states also. Unfortunately, none of these proposals have been accepted by India, as a result of which much of the problem remains where it was.

Initiatives have not just been taken in the nuclear field alone. A rude shock was received a few months ago when India tabled a declaration in the Organization for the Prevention of Chemical Weapons as a holder of a significant stockpile of chemical weapons and scheduled precursors. This was in total contradiction to its signature of the Chemical Weapons Convention just a few weeks earlier as a non-chemical weapons holder, and to a solemn bilateral declaration signed with Pakistan in 1992 abjuring chemical weapons altogether. Despite the stunning declaration filed by India, Pakistan has taken the exceptionably courageous step of ratifying the Chemical Weapons Convention in the total conviction that this abhorrent weapon of mass destruction at least needs to be eliminated altogether from South Asia. Pakistan and all others shall now be monitoring the destruction of a declared Indian stockpiles carefully as can be well imagined, and ensuring that no undeclared chemical weapons stockpiles remain concealed.

The existence of both nuclear and chemical weapons capacity in the largest state of the region adds ever greater poignancy to the sophisticated delivery systems, whose development, is openly acknowledged by India, and whose deployment is suspected. Obviously, greater attention has to be paid to these delivery systems than has been done in the past, as also to the need for a more focused debate on the reality or otherwise of the so-called extra-regional threat perceptions which have been conveniently used as a justification for a missile build-up and blue water navy deployment which cannot be taken either light or casually.

Conventional weapons levels too are a matter of concern in South Asia. The imbalance is great, and is seen with deep concern not only by Pakistan, but by all the other neighbours of India also, all of whom have reasons to be worried by its tendency towards hegemony and expansionism, which has already led to the disappearance and swallowing up of several states and territories in the region, including one just across the eastern border of Nepal.

That is why the regional disarmament process in South Asia has not only to deal with nuclear and chemical and conventional weapons and missile deployments in the region, not only with the tendencies towards hegemony and expansionism in the largest country in the region, but also and most essentially towards addressing the root causes of the tension in South Asia. Much of that tension arises from the core dispute over Kashmir, which remains a flash point today as in the past, and a sad commentary of the inability on the part of the United Nations to enforce the relevant consensus resolutions of the Security Council dating back a full half century already, and reiterated several times subsequently.

That then is the context in which the Regional Centre for Disarmament and the Kathmandu Process has to operate in South Asia. While the Regional Centre is obviously not an arms control agency, or a dispute settlement mechanism, the forum which it provides for discussion and dialogue and dissemination of information has to be measured not just in terms of polite generalities and pious confidence building, but rather in terms of its ability to deliver in what the remains one of the most explosive zones of tension in today's world.

Pakistan, and most other countries in South Asia, have consistently supported the Regional Centre, and have participated actively in the Kathmandu Process. They do so in the conviction that all avenues have to be explored, and all opportunities availed of to bring peace and security into the region. Only that will enable South Asia to embark on the path of focusing all its energies, material and moral, on creating greater prosperity for the peoples of the region, which is the real need of the day.

The government and people of Nepal, who host the Centre on their soil, howsoever notional it might still be, are to be congratulated for the deep interest that they have taken in this Centre and of the consistent support that they have extended to it. So do the government and people of Japan. It is Under Secretary General Akashi who is in many ways the father of this Centre, it is Director Ishiguri who continues to lead it energetically despite physical distance, it is the cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki and Kyoto and Sapporo which have associated themselves intimately with Kathmandu itself, and blazed the way for others, including Jakarta most recently, it is the Government of Japan which continues to lend its weight to the process, not the least by encouraging its senior-most diplomat, Ambassador Donowaki, to remain committed to the process even after his retirement from active diplomatic service, it is the people of Japan represented as they are in non-organizations like the Rissho Kosei-Kai who have produced the moral guidance and the physical contributions which have produced the moral guidance and the physical contributions which have enabled the Centre to continue operating even under adverse financial circumstances. We owe a tribute to them all, and unadulterated admiration for what they have done so far already.

Finally, a word about one of the most significant strengths of the Kathmandu Process, namely, the association that it has with non-governmental organizations. Much is at stake here, for as the United Nations seeks to reform itself, and to prepare its difficult adjustment to the second half century of its existence, the member states and governments who are the actors in this inter-governmental organization have much to learn from the wealth of ideas and expertise of the people represented in the non-governmental organizations have been relegated to second class citizenship, and confined to the economic and social field alone in the United Nations. It is the hope of many here that these non-governmental organizations will occupy the same level of recognition and participation in the United Nations disarmament mechanisms as they do in the Kathmandu Process. Let us hope that that day will dawn soon.

Kathmandu, 23 February 1998.