Civilian Nuclear
Power Plants or a Weapons Trove?
By Adnan Gill
Rancho Palos Verdes, CA
In a clear violation of Nuclear
Nonproliferation Treaty [NPT] the United States
is once again offering India civilian nuclear
technology transfer. Last time the US generously
handed over the civilian nuclear technology to
India it resulted in a so-called “peaceful
nuclear explosion” (detonated on May 18,
1974). As matter of fact, the radioactive core
for India’s first nuclear weapon was the
plutonium diverted from its American-Canadian
supplied civilian nuclear reactor.
In return for a flagrant abuse and disregard of
NPT the US is expecting India to renounce further
nuclear tests, open its civilian nuclear reactors
to international inspections and avoid cooperation
with nuclear proliferators. Reportedly, Americans
are also demanding Indians to separate its military
nuclear facilities from its civilian facilities.
As the details of the deal are not known, it is
hard to imagine how the Americans will ensure
that this time around Indians will not divert
or copy the technology transfer for military purposes?
Anyone with even rudimentary knowledge of how
nuclear technology works knows there are no fundamental
differences between so-called ‘civilian’
and ‘military’ nuclear facilities.
No matter how one designates a nuclear facility,
all it takes to fashion a nuclear weapon is a
transfer of irradiated fuel (e.g. plutonium) from
a nuclear reactor to a reprocessing plant. India
is not an NPT signatory and has a history of diverting
nuclear fuel from its civilian facilities for
weapons production. The world will have to take
United States’ word that India will not
misuse US technology to modernize and increase
its nuclear weapons stockpile.
If the Americans in their pursuit of contain-China-by-building-up-India
strategy can be callus enough to unilaterally
violate the NPT by transferring the latest nuclear
technology to India, it will be anyone’s
guess why or how it will guarantee that such a
transfer will not benefit India’s nuclear
weapons program.
However, contrary to the Bush Administration’s
bullish pursuit to modernize Indian nuclear program,
serious objections are being raised in India and
the United States against this particular deal.
American environmentalists, opinion makers (e.g.
New York Times and Washington Post), and legislators
are questioning the wisdom behind Bush Administration’s
desire to modernize Indian nuclear program at
the cost of violating international treaties like
NPT and in barefaced defiance of “Nuclear
Suppliers Group” ban. Remarkably, a partnership
against the U.-Indian deal has also developed
between Indian leftist government coalition partners
and prominent nuclear scientists.
At the heart of this much opposed and increasingly
controversial US-Indian deal is India’s
Fast Breeder Reactor [FBR]. The Americans are
demanding the FBR to be separated from the Indian
military nuclear facilities. On the other hand,
leading Indian scientists believe their nuclear
program to be much more advanced than the Americans’,
especially the FBR program. They believe FBRs
to be the salvation for the unhindered production
of fissile material for India’s unverifiable
nuclear weapons. Therefore, they are staunchly
opposed to categorize the Fast Breeder Test Reactor
[FBTR] as a civilian nuclear facility.
India's first fast breeder nuclear reactor (adopted
from the French reactor design) has already completed
20 years of work. The FBTR is located at the Indira
Gandhi Centre for Atomic Research [IGCAR] at Kalpakkam.
Indian experts envision FBRs to be the technology
that could secure India's energy future as it
can convert thorium (readily available in India)
into U-233. Such reactors also form the second
stage of India's nuclear program, converting Uranium
238 present in nature to Plutonium. It is basically
a source of unaccounted fissile material for India’s
nuclear weapons.
Ironically, highly suspicious Indian scientists
who belong to the Swadeshi Science Movement (Vijnana
Bharti) believe the US offer of collaboration
in India’s nuclear research to be an attempt
to steal Indian technology. Vijnana Bharti’s
organizing Secretary A. Jayakumar, in an open
letter to Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, said,
“The deal offers no tangible benefits to
India”. Mr. Jayakumar said, “The American
offer of reciprocity and collaboration in our
nuclear research and development is nothing more
than the ancient tactic of Dhrithrashtra embrace.”
He further complained, “Experience shows
that either [US] would stall it, or steal it.”
Mr. Jayakumar asked the government not to surrender
Indian interests to the US and finally warned,
“otherwise all patriotic citizens of this
land, cutting across political and academic lines,
would take to the streets”.
It’s also worth mentioning that the IGCAR
has a tainted safety and hazard record. According
to IGCAR, in 1987, during a fuel transfer process,
a tube that guides fuel into the reactor snapped.
Then in 2002, 75kg of radioactive sodium leaked
inside a purification cabin.
Regardless of what proponents or opponents of
the deal say, it should be clear to the world;,
sooner or later India will divert American nuclear
technological transfer to its weapons program
just as it did in the past. The questions Bush
Administration and members of Nuclear Suppliers
Group should be seriously asking are: Will the
advancement of Indian nuclear weapons make the
world, especially, South Asia safer? Will the
American technology transfer start a new nuclear
weapons race between India and Pakistan vis-à-vis
China? Is it wise to destabilize the world by
further arming a nation with a history of dishonoring
its word? If not, then why the neo-cons in the
Bush Administration are hell-bent at undermining
the international treaties and conventions by
breaking them in spirit and practice?
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