DISARMAMENT-LATAM: Cuba Ratifies Tlatelolco Treaty

By Patricia Grogg Reprint | | Print |

Patricia Grogg

HAVANA, Oct 25 2002 (IPS) - Cuba ratified the Treaty for the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons in Latin America and the Caribbean this week, making the region the world’s first nuclear weapons-free zone.

Cuba was the only country in the region that had not yet fully adhered to the agreement, better known as the Tlatelolco Treaty.

”The ratification of the Tlatelolco Treaty reaffirms Cuba’s commitment to and respect for the principle of nuclear non-proliferation in a global context,” the Ministry of Foreign Relations said in a communique released Friday.

The ratification was deposited Wednesday at the Cuban Embassy in Mexico. At the United Nations General Assembly in mid-September, the socialist government of Fidel Castro had announced its decision to ratify the treaty.

Havana signed the Tlatelolco Treaty on Mar 25, 1995, ”despite the fact that the United States, the only nuclear power in the Americas, maintained its policy of hostility against Cuba,” and its four-decade blockade against this country, said the Ministry of Foreign Relations.

The statement added that even though these obstacles ”remain in place and have even grown,” Cuba ratified the treaty, ”demonstrating its commitment” to international agreements on disarmament and arms-control.

The Tlatelolco Treaty, which went into effect on Apr 24, 1969, was the first international agreement to force the five nuclear powers at that time – Britain, China, France, the Soviet Union, and the United States – to respect the nuclear weapons-free status of Latin America and the Caribbean.

Signatories to the treaty have agreed to a ban on the testing, use, manufacturing, production or acquisition of nuclear weapons. The agreement also prohibits signatory nations to receive, store, install, or station a nuclear explosive device in their sovereign territory.

At the UN General Assembly’s 57th period of sessions on Sep 14, Cuban Foreign Minister Felipe Pérez Roque also announced that his government had decided to adhere to the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons (NPT), which was approved by the UN General Assembly on Jun 12, 1968 and entered into force on Mar 5, 1970.

Pérez Roque explained that up to now, Cuba had refused to sign the NPT ”because it is an instrument that is insufficient and discriminatory, since it permits the creation of a club of nuclear powers that undertake no concrete commitments towards disarmament.”

However, ”our country has now decided to adhere to the NPT, reaffirming our hope that all nuclear weapons can eventually be totally eliminated, under strict international verification procedures.”

According to an article in Granma, the official publication of the ruling Communist Party, the NPT was ”impaired from the outset by the strategic interests of the two big political-military powers of that time (the United States and the now-defunct Soviet Union), for which deadly nuclear weapons were an instrument of dissuasion.”

The NPT was ”discriminatory in essence,” aimed at keeping other countries from gaining access to the weapons of mass destruction, while guaranteeing the existence of a ”nuclear club,” whose members are subject to no limitations on their right to continuously upgrade their stocks of nuclear weapons, in both qualitative and quantitative terms.

The NPT establishes a commitment on the part of nations possessing nuclear weapons not to sell or cede control of them, as well as a commitment on the part of non-nuclear weapons states not to purchase or acquire such weapons in any other way.

In addition, the treaty stipulates that non-possessors of nuclear weapons must assume a commitment to accept monitoring by the International Atomic Energy Agency.

The NPT also recognises the right of signatory nations to the use of nuclear energy for peaceful ends.

”The NPT limits the right of possession of nuclear weapons only to the five permanent members of the UN Security Council: the United States, Russia, France, China and Britain, thus giving its blessing to the emergence of a club of possessors of nuclear weapons,” according to Nidia Díaz, a commentator writing in Granma.

In her early October article, Díaz wrote that Cuba decided to adhere to the NPT, despite the ”imperfections” of the treaty, because ”world peace is currently more threatened than ever, given the existence of one sole hegemonic power in possession of nuclear weapons” – the United States.

”Our country has never based its defence plans on the possession of nuclear arms or any weapons of mass destruction,” she underlined.

Cuba also ratified its adhesion late last year to the 12 United Nations counter-terrorism conventions and protocols.

DISARMAMENT-LATAM: Cuba Ratifies Tlatelolco Treaty

By Patricia Grogg Reprint | | Print |

Patricia Grogg

HAVANA, Oct 25 2002 (IPS) - Cuba ratified the Treaty for the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons in Latin America and the Caribbean this week, making the region the world’s first nuclear weapons-free zone.
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