POLITICS-PAKISTAN: Anti-bomb Lobby Urges Restraint

By IPS Correspondents Reprint | | Print |

Beena Sarwar

LAHORE, May 18 1998 (IPS) - The anti-bomb lobby is relieved that Pakistan did not after all carry out Sunday a nuclear test in response to India’s series of tests last week.

Pakistan, say peaceniks, cannot afford to react emotionally to the series of five nuclear devices exploded by India, last week, and universally condemned in this country.

But the relief could be short-lived. According to another report from Washington, ISLAMABAD preparing underground nuclear test next week. The London-based defence information group ‘Janes on Defence,’ says a test is possible by the end of June.

The Washington report, however, notes that there is evidence that the Pakistani leadership is taking a measured approach evident in the Nawaz Sharif government’s decision to withstand the pressure to react immediately in a tit-for-tat move to India’s nuclear tests.

The government’s present restraint could be viewed as a small victory for the anti-bomb lobby in Pakistan which has been warning of the consequences of an emotional, hasty response.

” Ours is a mature nation – we cannot act in madness as India did in the past and particularly now,” said foreign secretary Shamshed Ahmed.

But he also reiterated that the government is keeping its options open given the immediate danger posed to country’s security. It is the new threat which has given Pakistani peaceniks a setback.

While some have bravely stuck to their position of demanding unilateral renunciation of the nuclear option others have retreated to a position where they are only calling for restraint, observed the respected scientist Dr. A. H. Nayyar in a May 17 article in the national daily, ‘The News.’

“They have come down to asking Pakistan to keep the nuclear ambiguity intact – an ambiguity that is a destabilising factor in the region,” he noted.

Dr. Nayyar wants Pakistan to make a hard choice – that of unilateral nuclear disarmament, rather than choosing to match the Indian response with a test of its own.”

“Pakistan has to come out of the binds of its security perceptions and make a rational choice, to put all its resources into economic development and the people,’s welfare. That is the only way to make the country worth defending,” he concluded.

Former finance minister and leading advocate of peace in the region, Dr. Mubashir Hasan, also takes this line, saying that Pakistan must not explode a nucealr device, arguing that ” a bomb that cannot be used should not be made.”

“It is time that foundations are laid for just, equitable relations among the nations of the world, particularly of South Asia,” Hasan said. He points out that South Asia with 40 per cent of the world’s poor spends USD 14 billion on defence.

Soldiers in the region outnumber doctors by six to one and Pakistan, the world’s 119th country in terms of social indicators, is the tenth largest arms importer.

Thus Pakistan’s situation is not much better than that of its traditional enemy, India which ranks as 142nd country in terms of social indicators but is the world’s largest arms importer.

The inter-dependence of the region’s countries in terms of geography and environment was underlined a day after India completed its series of nuclear tests when the Pakistan-India Permanent Indus Commission agreed that India would provide advance information on flood flows in the Indus river.

Another former finance minister, Dr. Mahbubul Haq, author of the UNDP Human Development Report, currently on a visit to New York, has also opposed a matching reply by Pakistan and urged a “calm, measured and statesman-like response.”

Such advice is in stark contrast to the emotionalism of the country’s right-wing parties who have urged the government to respond in kind. “Show the enemy that they have taken on the wrong nation,” proclaimed one banner at a demonstration staged by the right-wing, religious party Shabab-e-Milli in Lahore.

But other people like former inter-services intelligence (ISI) chief, Hamid Gul and Benazir Bhutto who leads the opposition People’s Party (PPP) are seeking to make political capital through a hawkish approach.

Karachi-based political analyst, Kunwar Idris, a widely- respected former bureaucrat terms such advice as jingoistic, and selfish because it is being offered by an opposition leader

fighting for her political survival or by retired generals with political ambitions.

An emotional response based on such advice could cost the government dear, given its dependence on western money and World Bank and International Monetary Fund (IMF) loans.

“Sanctions will be much more biting for Pakistan if it explodes the nuclear device,” points out economic analyst Imtiaz Alam.

Apart from a debt of USD 32 billion, Paksitan needs annual foreign investment and aid worth USD five billion. “Our total revenues are insufficient to meet expenditure on defence and internal debt. In the absence of a rent economy, such as oil, there will be nothing to survive on,” Alam said.

Defence analyst Ejaz Haider, a former army man, also urges a “cool-headed, proactive rather than a reactive,” role by the Sharif government.

As a recognised threshold nuclear power state with demonstrated missile capabilities, Pakistan’s security can be reasonably assured without testing a nuclear device, Haidar said.

“Islamabad must weigh the fact that sanctions against Pakistan, if it tests a nuclear device, are likely to be tougher and hurt the country much more than India,” he said.

Many analysts also point out that this may be the right time to gain a moral edge over India which has traditionally enjoyed a better image world-wide.