Aussie PM Rudd Damns Nukes
Australian Prime Minister Commits to Nuclear Non-proliferation
Rudd laid a wreath in commemoration of the 140,000 victims of the World War II U.S. nuclear attack on the Japanese city on August 6, 1945. A second bomb was dropped in Nagasaki three days later, killing a further 80,000 people. Thousands more died over the ensuing years from radiation exposure.
The announcement to form the Nuclear Non-Proliferations and Disarmament Commission, was made by Rudd on June 9 in Kyoto. The Commission will be chaired by former Labor foreign minister, Gareth Evans. Rudd says that the current weapons control regime is not working and hopes this new initiative will reinvigorate the world's sense of urgency on nuclear weapons.
Australia is already signatory to the Nuclear Non Proliferation Treaty (NPT) since 1970, along with 189 other nations. Five members of the treaty possess nuclear weapons. India, Israel, Pakistan and North Korea are not signatories. Indian and Pakistan have openly tested nuclear weapons, while Israel has done so secretly. North Korea has recently capitulated to international pressure to reveal their nuclear capabilities and to cease weapons development.
The NNP treaty has three core tenets: non proliferation, disarmament and peaceful use of nuclear technology.
Australia has the world's biggest reserves of uranium, and in 2006 and 2007 made deals to sell uranium with China and Russia under an International Atomic Energy Agency run 'safeguards' regime supposed to prevent Australian uranium being used in weapons. However Australia has been selling uranium to nuclear weapons states the United States, France and the United Kingdom.
The safeguards program has been widely criticised as ineffective. Dr Jim Green, of Friends of the Earth Australia, says that the safeguards regime cannot effectively trace the destination of Australian uranium. Green says, even if they could guarantee no Australian uranium went to weapons production, the use of Australian uranium merely frees up other uranium in the possession of nuclear weapons states for weapons production.
Green says that the safeguards office has already proved it's inadequacy when in 2006 it failed to alert the Australian governments Joint Standing Committee inquiry into sales of uranium to China, that China had been sanctioned by the U.S. On four occasions over “dual use nuclear exports to Iran” (source: FoE MR).
Robin Taubenfeld, speaking for the Queensland Nuclear Free Alliance in Brisbane, said in an interview with the author that, “The QNFA welcomes the PM's new initiative, but we'd like to see nuclear power and uranium mining restricted too in a new treaty. It's hypocritical of Rudd to say he wants to reduce nuclear weapons when he is so enthusiastic about uranium mining. You can't disconnect them.
“Nuclear weapons are abominable, but so too is the environmental legacy of pollution caused by the use of uranium anywhere. If the new Commission continues the notion that nuclear power is clean and safe, it will be as ineffective as the NPT has been. If Rudd is serious about nuclear weapons, he should stop selling uranium to weapons states, including the United States.”
