Monday, 12th April 2010
World must look East for nuclear example
Today and tomorrow (April 12 and 13), world leaders are gathering in Washington for a summit on nuclear security, hosted by President Barack Obama.
Obama and his Russian counterpart, Dmitri Medvedev, last week set the tone for the conference with their historic announcement to reduce their nuclear arsenals – a move seen by many as a sign of detente following a period of heightened tensions between the former Cold War foes.
No amount of bonhomie between the ex-rivals, however, can disguise the growing appetite for possession of nuclear weapons globally. North Korea claims to have already developed such weapons of mass destruction, while Iran appears intent on producing them as well – to widespread international consternation.
One can hardly be surprised at this reaction when one considers that Iran’s president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, has boasted of his wish to ‘wipe Israel off the map’.
But while the sabre-rattling and increasingly aggressive rhetoric from these rogue states has dominated the headlines, another Asian nation has shown the way to others in the opposite direction.
In Kazakhstan, President Nursultan Nazarbayev has for more than two decades led the fight against nuclear weapons and proliferation – first in his own country and now worldwide.
Last week, I was in Kazakhstan with the UN Secretary General, Ban Ki-moon. Together, we visited the area around Semipalatinsk in the east of the country, once the epicentre of the USSR’s nuclear war machine and home to some of the true casualties of the Cold War.
In Soviet times it was secretively referred to as ‘the Polygon’. It’s an area I have been visiting for 11 years and the horrific legacy of nuclear testing there was the subject of my book, ‘Crying Forever: A Nuclear Diary’, the proceeds of which have raised $115,000 for local hospitals and charities.
The region saw 40 years of uninterrupted nuclear weapons testing, witnessing 607 nuclear explosions above and below ground. The force of these explosions was equivalent to 20,000 Hiroshima bombs.
The 1.5 people of the region were treated as human guinea pigs by the Soviet authorities, with KGB doctors studying the effects of radiation on their own population.
Now, cancers run at five times the national average, with those of the throat, lungs and breasts particularly common. Birth defects are three times the national average. Children are born with learning difficulties, Down’s Syndrome is common and virtually all suffer from anaemia. Psychological disorders are rife and suicides are widespread, especially among young men and even, alarmingly, among children. Seepage from the underground tests has polluted watercourses, while farmland has been heavily irradiated. Radioactive contamination has entered the food chain.
After widespread protests led by Nursultan Nazarbayev, Mikhail Gorbachev ordered a moratorium on all further tests in 1990, shortly before the Soviet Union finally collapsed in December 1991 and Kazakhstan gained its independence.
Ban Ki-moon chose Kazakhstan to call for global nuclear disarmament in recognition of President Nazarbayev’s role in closing down the Soviet atomic test site on 29th August 1991 and clearing nuclear weapons from his territory. The UN Secretary General even announced that he would urge the United Nations to adopt 29th August as global ‘Nuclear Non-Proliferation Day’.
In a recent article, President Nazarbayev said that a world free of nuclear weapons is “a grandiose goal which cannot be reached in short historical terms” but can only become a reality “through joint efforts of all countries and nations”.
Iran and President Ahmadinejad should take note. Anyone tempted to develop nuclear weapons should visit the Polygon in Kazakhstan. The horrors of exposure to radioactive fallout are everywhere to be seen.
These are the reasons why the international community must continue to work towards the goal of nuclear non-proliferation that President Nazarbayev has called for.
