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REPORTS: LATIN AMERICA |
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Health
of Millions Makes Nuclear Ban
'Crucial'
Patricia
Grogg
HAVANA, (IPS) - The cancer
fatalities caused by nuclear weapons
testing could reach 2.4 million in the
near future, warned the International
Physicians for the Prevention of
Nuclear War during a disarmament
conference in the Cuban capital.
A ban on nuclear testing is crucial
for preventing ”the devastation of
human health and the environment”
and for halting the spiralling arms
race, says the U.S.-based federation
of national medical organizations,
representing 200,000 doctors in 80
countries.
Atmospheric atomic bomb tests had
claimed 430,000 cancer victims by the
year 2000, according to IPPNW.
”In a not-so-distant future, the
total will reach 2.4 million,”
Carlos Pazos, IPPNW spokesman, told
the conference of the Agency for the
Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons in
Latin America and the Caribbean (OPANAL),
held this week in Havana.
The impact of nuclear weapons on
development has hit particularly hard
the world's indigenous populations in
general, such as the minority
aboriginal groups of Australia, and
the islands of Micronesia and
Polynesia, among others, says the
report presented by IPPNW.
The organization,
winner of the 1985 Nobel Peace Prize,
also expressed concern about the use
of depleted uranium in at least four
U.S.-led armed conflicts in recent
years.
The radiation and toxic contamination
caused by depleted uranium (DU) is
associated with grave health problems,
which can affect the civilian
populations and military forces caught
up in these conflicts, says the
report.
Other experts consulted by IPS noted
that the radioactivity of DU, used in
manufacturing missiles, usually as an
alloy with titanium, is half that of
naturally occurring uranium, but
maintains a high level of toxicity.
Continued use of DU indicates the
intention to accustom public opinion
to the knowledge of the use of
radiation in the battlefield as a
precursor to nuclear weapons
themselves, says IPPNW.
Concern about the nuclear arms threat
to health and the environment was the
common denominator among the delegates
gathered in Havana on Wednesday and
Thursday, representing the 33 member
states of OPANAL, the lead agency of
the Treaty of Tlatelolco.
”The mere existence of nuclear
weapons constitutes a threat to the
survival of humanity,” states the
”Havana Declaration”, signed at
the close of the meeting, also
attended by representatives of
international agencies and groups
involved in the nuclear disarmament
debate.
The Treaty of Tlatelolco, which
prohibits nuclear weapons in Latin
America and the Caribbean, was
established in 1967 in Mexico City and
entered into force on Apr. 24, 1969,
although Cuba only ratified its
signature last year.
The Havana Declaration states that
with the Cuban ratification the treaty
has taken full effect, consolidating
what was the first nuclear weapon-free
zone in a densely populated region.
The document also appeals to all
countries that possess nuclear arms to
provide full guarantees to the members
states of nuclear weapons-free zones
that they ”will not use or threaten
to use” such weapons against them.
The delegates in Havana also called
for a review of the statements made by
the nuclear powers that are party to
Protocols I and II of the Treaty of
Tlatelolco, whose signatures to these
mechanisms date back to the 1970s and
early 1980s.
In the first protocol, the states that
are not part of the region but that
have territories in the treaty zone
”undertake to apply the statute of
denuclearization
in respect of warlike purposes,” as
defined by the treaty.
Britain, France, the Netherlands and
the United States ratified this
instrument.
Protocol II commits the nuclear powers
-- Britain, China, France, Russia and
the United States -- to fully respect
the Treaty of Tlatelolco ”in all its
express aims and provisions.”
But the working documents studied by
the delegates in Havana revealed that
the interpretive declarations of the
treaty in some cases leave the
possibility open for the use of
nuclear weapons under claims of
”legitimate defence”.
Russia, which inherited the
international accords of the former
Soviet Union, reserves the right to
revise its obligations under the
agreement in the case of actions by
countries party to the treaty that are
considered incompatible with the
denuclearization
statute.
The United States says that a
potential attack by a country in the
zone, backed by a nuclear power, would
be ”incompatible with the
obligations” of the Tlatelolco
Treaty.
The petition for a modification or
withdrawal of these reservations is
based on the fact that the
international context has changed
markedly since the protocols were
signed.
Monitoring and verification of
compliance with agreements for the
exclusively peaceful use of nuclear
materials and installations is
entrusted to the International Atomic
Energy Agency (IAEA).
Cuba, which last year also signed the
Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of
Nuclear Weapons (NPT), in September
also signed the accord for safeguards
with the IAEA, and the additional
protocol.
The NPT was passed by the United
Nations General Assembly on jun. 12,
1968, and entered into force on Mar.
5, 1970.
Cuban experts have warned that the NPT
had its hands tied from the outset by
the ”strategic interests of the two
leading political-military blocs of
that era (United States and Soviet
Union), so that deadly nuclear weapons
were an instrument of dissuasion
between them.”
In that sense, the Cubans say it as a
discriminatory treaty aimed at
preventing other countries from access
to nuclear arms, while guaranteeing
the existence of a ”Nuclear Club”,
without limiting their rights to the
quantitative or qualitative
improvement of such weapons.
The Non-Proliferation Treaty
establishes that the nuclear powers
shall not to transfer nuclear weapons
to others, nor will they receive or
acquire such arms in other ways.
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