NATIONAL INTEREST & NUCLEAR
POLICY
Statement by Foreign
Minister Abdul Sattar at Lahore,
25 February 2000
Commendation is due to the Pakistan National Forum for expanding the scope of discussion at the meeting today. We can all agree that national interest must remain in the forefront of our mind as the determining factor when we ponder state policy whether on nuclear or other matters. Today, I shall speak on one of the other matters, too.2. Few issues are more directly linked to national interest than our nuclear policy. All of us, Government as well as people are aware that nuclear capability is indispensable for preservation of the peace and security of our country. That conclusion became obvious in 1971 when India exploited power disparity to impose a war on Pakistan and cut our country into two.
3. Thereafter Pakistan pursued acquisition of the nuclear option with determination and single-mindedness. No sanctions or threats, no costs or sacrifices were allowed to divert us from the goal. The nation has given that policy sustained and enthusiastic support.
4. Acquisition of nuclear capability by Pakistan has proved a positive factor for peace. Scholarly studies perceive nuclear deterrence at work in 1986 when India massed a quarter million troops close to our border on the pretext of a military exercise. The nuclear capability prevented war in 1990 and again in 1999.
5. Experience testifies to Pakistan's indispensable need for nuclear deterrence. So long as India continues to harbour evil intentions, and persists in threats of use of force, Pakistan has no option other than maintaining credible deterrence capability. That is clear to every citizen of Pakistan.
6. No Government, least one led by the Chief of Army Staff and Chairman, Joint Chiefs of Staff, can entertain any suggestion that might in any way compromise Pakistan's deterrence capability. We are fully cognisant of the imperative and we continue to develop and upgrade our nuclear capability.
7. During the past month the Government has announced the establishment of a Strategic Planning Organisation with the Head of Government as chairman and key ministers and chiefs of staff as members. One of its responsibilities will be continued development of our strategic forces.
8. At the same time, Pakistan will continue to act in future, as it has done in the past, with responsibility and restraint. We are sensitive to humanity's concerns for reducing nuclear dangers. For forty years Pakistan has played a role of moderation. In the United Nations General Assembly, our country has consistently supported nuclear restraints, subject only to one condition: the restraints should be universal and non-discriminatory. That was also the key to our policy on the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty when it came up for consideration in the Conference on Disarmament in the spring of 1996.
9. The Pakistan delegation played an active and constructive role in the CD. In co-operation with like-minded states Pakistan presented amendments to ensure that the obligation to refrain from test explosions would apply to all nuclear states without a single exception. The amendment was adopted in July 1996. As a result, the treaty cannot come into force until and unless all 44 states with nuclear weapons or nuclear reactors ratify the treaty. The UN General Assembly adopted the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty in September 1996. Pakistan voted in favour.
10. Included among the 44 designated states are Pakistan and India. That means (a) both must sign and ratify and (b) the treaty must enter into force before the obligation not to conduct test explosions begins to apply to either. It was, therefore, no longer necessary to make Pakistan's signature conditional on Indian signatures; that condition was now built into the text of the treaty itself.
11. The then Government took unduly long to reach the correct conclusion that it was no longer necessary to link Pakistan's signature with that of India. In September 1998, Pakistan offered to sign the treaty provided sanctions against Pakistan were removed. Whatever the merit of that condition, it obviously meant that Pakistan found nothing wrong with the provisions of the treaty itself.
II
12. Much has been said and written on the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty over the past two months since we opened the treaty to discussion and debate. Many of the commentaries have been objective. Some of the writers seem even to have studied the text of the treaty. Their knowledgeable analyses have contributed to better understanding of the treaty.
13. Discussion and debate has been helpful for those who did not take the time to read the treaty. Even they have begun to understand the vital distinctions between (a) signing, (b) ratification, and (3) entry into force of this treaty.
14. It is now realised that signature alone does not make a state party to the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty, and that ratification, too, is a necessary prerequisite. It is also clear that ratification is not done automatically by the Foreign Office but requires approval of the Cabinet. At that stage, the Government satisfies itself that developments since the signing did not prejudice Pakistan's national interest. Now, knowledgeable commentators are also aware that Pakistan did not ratify some treaties for years after it signed them.
15. As for entry into force, I trust members of this forum appreciate that the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty is unique with respect to universality and non-discrimination. It will not enter into force until and unless each and every one of 44 designated states has ratified the treaty. It does not matter which country signs or ratifies first and which last. Until the 44th state has ratified it, none of the others will be bound by the treaty obligations.
16. I shall be glad to address any substantive questions and talk more about the contents of the treaty. I am confident that those who keep an open mind will ultimately reach the conclusion that the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty is a good treaty. It is consonant with our national interest. The world will be better off if and when this treaty comes in to force.
17. You can take your time. As we said at the start of the public debate, the Government is in no hurry. More than three years have elapsed since the treaty was opened for signature. Although 155 states have signed the treaty, the speed of ratification is rather slow. Only 26 out of 44 designated states have done so. Prospects of the treaty's entry into force have darkened because of the US Senate's rejection of its ratification.
III
18. While we in the Foreign Ministry are satisfied about the contribution public discussion has made to better understanding of the treaty, one cannot but deplore attempts on the part of vested interests to hijack the opportunity for their narrow agendas.
19. Some have sought to exploit our people's natural concern for national security by misrepresenting the treaty. A few have exposed their intolerance by equating difference of opinion with treason. Instead of such a divisive approach harmful to national interest, we should try to gain common understanding.
20. Some others have used the debate to eclipse the achievements of the Government and divert popular attention away from the misdeeds of former rulers.
21. Hardly a word is written in a section of the press about those who abused political power to plunder the national treasury, who emptied public sector banks for loans to their family and friends, and who transferred funds into secret accounts abroad.
22. Not a picture is to be seen in these newspapers of the mansions and luxury apartments acquired by these families abroad or the exclusive estates built at home. Not even Ferdinand Marcos or the notorious Joseph Mobuto dared to make such display of wealth as is to be seen in the kilometre square family estate, more obscene than any owned by any head of government in the world.
23. They can instantly pay twelve million pounds in foreign exchange to settle a loan from a private foreign party in order to save their luxury apartments in London from public auction. We need to ask how they took a billion rupees out of Pakistan to pay the loan, and why do they stall payment of loans they gave themselves from Pakistani banks.
24. One Prime Minister squandered 143 million rupees in a single year on tours abroad, taking large delegations on shopping trips. Another spent millions of dollars on advertisements in the US press largely for self-publicity.
25. Mismanaging the economy, our rulers incurred huge loans for favourite but unproductive projects. In the process they buried the state under a mountain of debt, which the present and coming generations will have to carry.
26. In the months since our government assumed responsibility, the finance and foreign ministries have been burdened by the unedifying task of having to request and persuade dozens of foreign lenders to kindly reschedule our debt.
27. The government and the nation are thus forced to pay a high price in prestige and good name for the economic mismanagement and political and bureaucratic corruption of its predecessors.
28. The legacy of the present plight illustrates the urgent and desperate need to halt and reverse past trends, rescue and revive the economy, reinvent and reinstitute good governance and recommit and rededicate ourselves to building our state in the image of our nation's aspirations.
30. We need to remind ourselves of the Quaid-e-Azam's warning against corruption and nepotism. These evils have become the bane of our society.
31. Only thus can we recapture the dream of our founding fathers. They envisioned Pakistan as a state founded on Islamic principles of democracy, freedom, equality, tolerance and social justice.
IV
32. General Pervez Musharraf's government is battling hard to cope with the challenge. The Government has collected 11 billion rupees out of defaulted loans. Business and investment are picking up. The value of shares on the stock market has doubled. As a result of austerity measures and responsible fiscal policies, the country's credit rating has notched up a little.
33. The monumental legacy of problems cannot be overcome in quick time. But, meanwhile, the government has decided not to allow the poor to be penalised for the crimes of the corrupt. General Musharraf's government is striving hard to alleviate the suffering of the people.
34. Fifteen billion rupees have been released to provincial governments for relief measures and poverty alleviation schemes. During the current calendar year, each district will get over fifteen crore rupees on average.
35. The Government is also proceeding earnestly with preparations and performance of tasks necessary for the establishment of genuine democracy. Voters' rolls are being prepared on the basis of the 1998 census. Election to local self-government bodies will be held within this year. Devolution of power to provinces has already begun. Independence of the Election Commission will be strengthened. The process of accountability will disqualify the corrupt.
36. Obviously, the nation cannot afford to return to the kind of democracy we had for the last decade. It was termed as kleptocracy. Political standards desperately need to be raised from the low level to which they fell. That, however, requires joint action by the government and the people.
37. On the moral plane, each of us can personally help by shunning and socially boycotting persons notorious for haram income. On the legal plane, the state must fulfil its responsibility and bring to justice those who were corrupt. Retribution is indispensable for demonstration of a nexus between crime and punishment.
38. Only thus can our polity be cleansed, and our elected representatives and state functionaries expected to use power with a greater sense of responsibility.
V
39. Coming back to the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty, I suggest that all of us use the full name. That would help focus on the only purpose of this treaty, namely to ban nuclear test explosions. The acronym CTBT is confused by too many with NPT of 1969 which aimed at restricting possession of nuclear weapons to five states. Thirty years later, three other states are known to possess nuclear weapons. Pakistan is one of them.
40. If you have read as much as I have of what has been published in our press, you would be surprised to learn how many have been misled to think that the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty will entail a rollback of our nuclear programme.
41. Many still do not know that the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty does not have anything to do with possession or maintenance of nuclear arsenals.
42. No provision in this treaty in any way affects the right of nuclear weapon states to decide what should be the level of their nuclear force. There would be no restraint on research and development. Like each of the others Pakistan, too, has the right to itself determine the requirements of defence and deterrence.
43. Were the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty to come into effect, it would help restrain nuclear test explosions. Constant development of more destructive bombs is both unnecessary and wasteful.
44. Authoritative opinion in two states that built up vast arsenals now recognises that their over-kill capacity was insane. It involved prodigious costs. Now these states are engaged in scaling down their arsenals, which again involves considerable expenditures.
45. The US-USSR paradigm is irrelevant for us. We would be wise to learn from China instead. Even when its relations with both super-powers were strained, it did not engage in nuclear competition.
46. It is well known that nuclear deterrence does not depend on parity of arsenals. Beside the fact that an arms race can be unaffordable, it is unnecessary to match an adversary bomb for bomb. The condition for minimum credible nuclear deterrence is not equality in numbers or quality, but sufficiency and survivability of the nuclear force. That has to be ensured, and Pakistan is determined to dedicate requisite resources to that end.
47. In conclusion, I wish members of the Pakistan National Forum success in their efforts to arrive at well-informed conclusions. There is no substitute for information as to facts and rationality in analysis. >
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