By Ranjit Devraj
TRIESTE, Italy, Oct 5 2004 (IPS)

U.S. embargos on ‘dual use’ technology are stifling knowledge vital for development, scientists say.

"They are mixing the legitimate use of frontline technology for genuine development with military applications," M.H.A. Hassan, a long-term associate of the International Centre for Theoretical Physics (ICTP) here told IPS Tuesday. The research centre was celebrating its 40th anniversary.

Hassan, now executive director of the Third World Academy of Sciences (TWAS) in Trieste which works closely with the ICTP said countries like Iran and Brazil had the capacity to use nuclear power as an alternative to fossil fuels.

"Nuclear technology has too many peaceful applications and cannot be ignored in the future by developing countries, and the same goes for satellite technology as well," said Hassan. "Of course nuclear technology and satellites can be misused but then if you think negatively just about anything can be negative and there is no end to it."

Ricardo Galvao, director of the Brazilian Centre for Physics Research said he negotiated the purchase of microwave reflectometers (used to measure the density of gases and plasmas) from Portugal earlier this year only to find that the United States had intercepted the shipment.

"That resulted in a delay of several months before we could secure the release of the equipment and that too on certification from the Portuguese exporters that it did not have any military application," he said.

Galvao said the United States had tried also to gain access to Brazilian nuclear technology. "They have been pressurising the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) to inspect ultracentrifuges developed by Brazilian scientists for uranium enrichment when Brazilian law does not allow it – and we see no reason to share what is our own technology."

"If there was concern about proliferation all that they needed to do was monitor the movement of enriched uranium into and out of Brazil rather than pry into our technology in the name of security.," he said.

Brazil, which also has an ambitious space programme, had to source satellite technology from India and China.

Shamsher Ali, former director of the Atomic Energy Centre in Dhaka in Bangladesh said "nuclear technology represents a clean source of power but we have never been able to exploit it because of adverse world opinion on security issues – and this although Bangladesh is signatory to the Nuclear Non-proliferation Treaty (NPT)."

Some scientists said transfer of technology can be delayed but not eventually denied. "Once the ideas are known there is no way that you can stop technology flow," said Faheem Hussain, a Pakistani scientist who retired recently from the ICTP. He cited Pakistan’s own clandestine acquisition of nuclear technology as an instance.

He referred also to India’s independent nuclear and space programmes in spite of embargos imposed on it after it first exploded a nuclear device in 1974.

Hussain said the United States had opposed the creation of the ICTP, though individual U.S. scientists had been supportive. The United States remains suspicious of the ICTP, particularly after Iran bailed the institution out of a financial crisis in 1992 with a three million dollar loan.

IAEA director general Mohamed El Baradei warned at the start of the two-day celebrations Monday that ICTP research should remain "balanced" while addressing the increasing demands of member states.

The conference drew several well-known scientists and mathematicians from both developed and developing countries. They included chemistry Nobel laureates John F. Nash Jr. (1984) Rudolph Marcus (1992) and Ahmed H. Zewail (1999).

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