DISARMAMENT: U.N. Split Over New Department for Disarmament

By Thalif Deen Reprint | | Print |

Thalif Deen

UNITED NATIONS, Oct 16 1997 (IPS) - A coalition of 21 developing nations, actively involved in disarmament issues in Geneva, have strong reservations on U.N. plans to create a Department for Disarmament and Arms Regulation.

The ‘Group of 21’ – that includes India, Pakistan, Cuba, Brazil, Egypt, Zimbabwe, Iran, Nigeria and Indonesia – argues that the proposed new department in New York would dilute the importance of the existing U.N. Conference on Disarmament in Geneva. All 21 nations are members of the Conference on Disarmament, which has been described as the only multilateral disarmament negotiating body in the U.N. system.

As part of the restructuring of the United Nations, Secretary- General Kofi Annan announced in July that he plans to create the new department virtually by upgrading the existing Centre for Disarmament in New York. But the Group of 21 says that “any restructuring of the Secretariat in New York, including the proposal regarding its upgrading, should be proportionate to the specific supporting role being played satisfactorily by the U.N. Centre for Disarmament.”

The 132 members of the Group of 77 (G-77) developing nations and the 116-member Non-Aliged Movement (NAM) remain divided on Annan’s proposal, which has likely support only from the 15-member European Union (EU) and, possibly, the United States.

“We have no NAM position and we have no G-77 position on this,” says Ambassador Daudi Mwakawago of Tanzania, chairman of the Group of 77.

Mwakawago said the “views (of member states) are so divergent” that the proposal has generated “a passionate debate” at the United Nations. “There are divisions within groups and divisions within countries,” he added. Mawakawago also said that one of the points at dispute is the definition of “arms regulation”.

One Third World diplomat, speaking on condition of anonymity, said that countries on the verge of developing nuclear weapons – such as India and Pakistan – are sceptical of the proposal because they fear the new department may pursue the issue of nuclear nonproliferation. “They think it has a hidden agenda — and that agenda is nuclear nonproliferation,” he said.

A senior U.N. official told reporters last week there is a misconception that the proposed new department would either supplant or duplicate the work now being done in Geneva. “This is not true,” he said, adding that the new department will only help strengthen the existing U.N. disarmament mechanisms.

Addressing delegates last week, Ambassador Ahmad Kamal of Pakistan said that “if any strengthening is necessary in the disarmament field, this should be done in Geneva where the Conference on Disarmament is headquartered.”

The Secretary-General’s action, he said, is an attempt to move “the centre of gravity in the disarmament field, away from Geneva where it belongs, to New York where it does not belong.”

“Attempts to by-pass the Conference on Disarmament, or the agreed provisions of disarmament treaties by placing additional and direct demands on other organs, will not further the cause of true disarmament,” Kamal said.

In post-Cold War 1992, former Secretary-General Boutros Boutros- Ghali downgraded the then existing Department of Disarmanent Affairs to a lack-lustre Centre for Disarmament. “I think it was a mistake to have downgraded disarmament,” Annan said, “And I am correcting that mistake.”

In proposing the new department, Annan said that with the end of the superpower rivalry, nations everywhere have come to recognise their stake in the success of multilateral negotiations and the monitoring of weapons developments. “As a consequence, the United Nations has taken centre stage in the worldwide effort to limit both weapons and conflict,” he said.

Annan said the emergence of new dangers and actors have added new urgency to the tasks that the United Nations is called upon to play in the area of disarmament.

“In the post-Cold War period, there is a growing threat from the spread of nuclear weapons technology and material, as well as a wider interest in acquiring biological and chemical weapons and means of delivery for such weapons,” he said. “Regional warlords, criminal syndicates and various terrorist groups have, during recent years, become involved in trading in and the acquisition of weapons of mass destruction.”

Several non-governmental organisations (NGOs), headed by the NGO Committee on Disarmament, meanwhile welcomed Annan’s proposal. The 30-member Committee, which serves as the UN focal point on disarmament for some 250 NGOs worldwide, has urged “all member states of the U.N., and in particular, the permanent members of the Security Council, to give full support” to the new department.

Robert Leavitt of the Boston-based Centre for War, Peace and the News Media, said it is very appropriate and timely for the world body to make a significant contribution towards arms control and disarmament.

“The United Nations can certainly maintain the pressure on all states to keep their commitments to the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) and also add its weight towards implementing the Chemical Weapons convention,” he told IPS.

The treaty, which is aimed at curbing the spread of nuclear weapons worldwide was adopted in 1995, and the Chemical Weapons Convention outlawing biological arms came into force in 1996.

Leavitt said it is time the world body took a long hard look at arms control – both conventional arms, and weapons of mass destruction. These would include not only nuclear and biological weapons but also landmines and small arms currently used in virtually all of the civil wars and ethnic conflicts raging through many parts of the world.

The momentum towards nuclear disarmament has increased significantly with the signing during the last two years of several arms control agreements, including the Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty, the indefinite extension of the NPT and the establishment of the African Nuclear-Weapon-Free Zone. The United Nations is also monitoring efforts to finalise the Treaty of Bangkok which establishes a nuclear-weapon-free zone in Southeast Asia.