[Congressional Record Volume 142, Number 11 (Friday, January 26, 1996)]
[Senate]
[Pages S487-S490]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                 REDUCING NUCLEAR TENSIONS IN THE WORLD

  Mr. HARKIN. Mr. President, I rise on a matter of great concern to me 
and all those who are concerned about reducing nuclear tensions in the 
world, who are concerned about nonproliferation, and who are in favor 
of and concerned about a comprehensive test ban treaty. I might point 
out that in the State of the Union Message last Tuesday, President 
Clinton said that one of the things he wanted to accomplish was a 
comprehensive nuclear test ban treaty.
  Most experts agree that nowhere on Earth is the potential for a 
nuclear 

[[Page S488]]
confrontation more real today than on the Indian subcontinent. Recent 
news has only served to heighten those concerns.
  According to an article in the December 15, 1995, issue of the New 
York Times, ``U.S. intelligence experts suspect that India may be 
preparing for its first nuclear test since 1974.'' Needless to say, Mr. 
President, this is alarming news and it cannot be taken lightly.

  Mr. President, this is the article from the New York Times, Friday, 
December 15: ``U.S. Suspects India Prepares To Conduct Nuclear Test.''
  The day after that, on December 16--I might add in this article of 
December 15, the Indian spokesman said that that is not what it was. He 
said that these were army exercises whose ``movements have been 
absurdly misinterpreted.'' That was on December 15.
  On December 16, the next day, a story in the New York Times: ``India 
Denies Atom-Test Plan But Then Turns Ambiguous.''
  It went on to say that the Indian Government denied it was planning 
its first nuclear test, and a few hours later recast its position to 
describe as ``highly speculative'' a report in the New York Times that 
quoted American intelligence experts as saying they suspected an Indian 
test was being prepared.
  Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that these two articles be 
printed in the Record.
  There being no objection, the material was ordered to be printed in 
the Record, as follows:

                [From the New York Times, Dec. 15, 1995]

          U.S. Suspects India Prepares To Conduct Nuclear Test

                            (By Tim Weiner)

       Washington, December 14.--American intelligence experts 
     suspect India is preparing for its first nuclear test since 
     1974, Government officials said today.
       The United States is working to discourage it, fearing a 
     political chain reaction among nuclear nations.
       In recent weeks, spy satellites have recorded scientific 
     and technical activity at the Pokaran test site in the 
     Rajasthan desert in India. But intelligence experts said they 
     could not tell whether the activity involved preparations for 
     exploding a nuclear bomb or some other experiment to increase 
     India's expertise in making nuclear weapons.
       ``We're not sure what they're up to,'' a Government 
     official said. ``The big question is what their motive is. If 
     their motive is to get scientific knowledge, it might be 
     months or years before they do the test. If it's for purely 
     political reasons, it could be this weekend. We don't know 
     the answer to those questions.''
       Shive Mukherjee, Press Minister of the Indian Embassy here, 
     said today that the activities at the nuclear test site were 
     army exercises whose ``movements have been absurdly 
     misinterpreted.''
       The Congress Party of India, which has governed the country 
     most of the years since independence in 1947, is facing a 
     serious challenge from a right-wing Hindu nationalist party. 
     United States Government officials say a nuclear weapons test 
     could be used by the Congress Party as a symbol of its 
     political potency.
       Despite efforts to persuade the world's nuclear powers to 
     sign a comprehensive test ban treaty, China and France have 
     tested nuclear weapons in recent months. If India follows 
     suit, its neighbor, Pakistan, with which it has tense 
     relations, may also test a nuclear weapon, Government and 
     civilian experts said. Neither country has signed the Nuclear 
     Nonproliferation Treaty.
       ``It's going to have a nuclear snowball effect,'' said Gary 
     Milhollin, director of the Wisconsin Project on Nuclear Arms 
     Control in Washington and a leader civilian expert on the 
     spread of nuclear weapons. ``It also jeopardizes the 
     possibility that the world will sign a comprehensive test ban 
     treaty next year.''
       A State Department official who spoke on condition of 
     anonymity said that if India exploded a nuclear bomb, it 
     ``would be a matter of great concern and a serious setback to 
     nonproliferation efforts.''
       ``The United States is committed to the early completion of 
     a comprehensive test ban,'' the official said. ``We are 
     observing a moratorium on nuclear testing and we have called 
     upon all nations to demonstrate similar restraint.''
       But not all nations have heard the call.
       India says publicly that it wants the complete elimination 
     of nuclear weapons. But its nuclear hawks argue that the 
     United States and Russia will never live up to that ideal and 
     that a comprehensive test ban that is not linked to drastic 
     reductions in the world's nuclear arsenals could leave India 
     a second-rate or third-rate nuclear power.
       Mr. Milhollin said India did not have a great archive of 
     test data for nuclear weapons that could be mounted on a 
     warhead and placed on a missile. ``Once the test ban treaty 
     comes in, they will be data-poor,'' he said ``A test now 
     would supply them data, it would be a tremendous plus for the 
     Congress Party, it would give them a big boost in the 
     elections.''
       Political pressure for a nuclear test is building among 
     India's right wing. ``They are saying: `What are we sitting 
     around for? Why should we sign a test ban treaty not linked 
     to the reduction of nuclear weapons?' '' said Selig S. 
     Harrison, an expert on South Asia at the Carnegie Endowment 
     for International Peace.
       In 1974 India exploded what was believed to be a Hiroshima-
     sized bomb equal to 12,000 tons of TNT, which it called a 
     ``peaceful nuclear explosion.'' It renewed its program some 
     years later, and in 1989 the Director of Central 
     Intelligence, William H. Webster, testified that India had 
     resumed research on thermonuclear weapons.
       While India has sought to limit the nuclear abilities of 
     China, it is most concerned about the nuclear-weapons program 
     of Pakistan, although Pakistan has not acknowledged it has 
     one. The two countries have had three wars, unending 
     political tensions and constant border disputes since they 
     were formed by the partition of India in 1947 after its 
     independence from Britain.
       A subnuclear experiment, which would not involve a nuclear 
     explosion, might not have the political effect of a full-
     fledged detonation. But Administration officials said they 
     feared that any test would create pressure on Pakistan to 
     follow suit.
       ``We look at this in a balance with Pakistan,'' a White 
     house official said.
                                                                    ____


                [From the New York Times, Dec. 16, 1995]

          India Denies Atom-Test Plan But Then Turns Ambiguous

                           (By John F. Burns)

       New Delhi, Dec. 15.--The Indian Government denied today 
     that it was planning its first nuclear test since 1974, then 
     recast its position a few hours later to describe as ``highly 
     speculative'' a report in the New York Times today that 
     quoted American intelligence experts as saying they suspected 
     an Indian test was being prepared.
       The Government offered no explanation for the change in its 
     statements. But the effect was to leave open the possibility 
     that an underground test is being prepared or that the 
     Government wants to keep alive the impression that it has the 
     option to conduct a test.
       Senior political, military and scientific officials in 
     India gathered to discuss the response to the Times report, 
     which said United States spy satellites had detected 
     preparations at the Pokaran test site in Rajasthan, 340 miles 
     west of New Delhi.
       Western intelligence agencies say India has been pursuing a 
     secret nuclear weapons program intensively for years.
       Someone faxed a copy of the Times article to the Foreign 
     Ministry shortly after the first edition of the newspaper 
     went on sale in New York on Thursday night. Within an hour, 
     Arif Khan, Foreign Ministry spokesman, telephoned the Times 
     bureau in New Delhi with a denial. ``There is no truth in 
     this,'' he said. ``There is no question of any test being 
     conducted.''
       Mr. Khan said the technical activity detected could have 
     been related to ``routine military exercises,'' including a 
     recent air force training operation in the area, which is 
     near the Pakistan border.
       After the high-level officials had met to discuss the 
     issue, Mr. Khan held a briefing for reporters, and was 
     cautious in his responses, avoiding outright denial. ``It is 
     a totally speculative kind of report,'' he said. When a 
     reporter asked if the speculation was true or false, he 
     replied: ``There is no such thing as true speculation. 
     Speculation is speculation.''
       By encouraging uncertainty about its plans the Government 
     appeared to be following the ambiguous policy it has laid 
     down since the test at Pokaran on May 18, 1974. That test 
     stunned Western governments that had hoped that India would 
     turn its back on nuclear weapons. At the time, India 
     described the test of a Hiroshima-sized bomb equal to about 
     12,000 tons of TNT, as ``a peaceful nuclear explosion,'' a 
     description Mr. Khan repeated today.
       India's program to perfect nuclear warheads has been 
     presented as a contingency plan, not as a program aimed at 
     building or deploying nuclear weapons. Mr. Khan re-affirmed 
     this position today, saying, ``While we have the capability, 
     we have not utilized it, because we believe in the peaceful 
     uses of nuclear energy and not for weapons purposes.''
       But behind this public stance, Indian experts said, 
     pressures have been building for new tests. The experts said 
     the tests would measure the effectiveness of development 
     since 1974, allowing scientists to measure the efficiency of 
     new approaches to bomb-making, including miniaturization of 
     warheads and new triggering mechanisms.
       But others said the main pressure has been political. While 
     the nuclear debate here has focused on Pakistan, which has 
     been identified by United States intelligence officials as 
     having its own secret nuclear weapons program, officials say 
     India's long-range concerns focus more on China, which has at 
     least 450 nuclear-armed ballistic missiles capable of 
     striking targets in India.

  Mr. HARKIN. India has denied but Indian officials have failed to 
state clearly and categorically that India will refrain from testing. I 
fear, and many others fear, if India proceeds with its testing program 
then Pakistan will feel obligated for their own security reasons to 
follow suit. This deadly game of 

[[Page S489]]
chicken would almost certainly escalate.
  To make matters even more troubling, reports today indicate that 
international negotiations in Geneva on a comprehensive nuclear test 
ban treaty are being severely complicated, perhaps even undermined, by 
India's insistence to link a test ban with total nuclear disarmament.
  Mr. President, India must be reminded that a nuclear test will 
trigger severe economic sanctions. U.S. military and economic aid, U.S. 
support for loans by the World Bank and other multilateral 
institutions, and export licenses, would all be suspended.
  Mr. President, it is time for both India and Pakistan to pull back 
from a nuclear collision course. It is time to end the nuclear saber-
rattling and begin real talks at the negotiating table. To that end, 
Mr. President, I commend the recent statement by Pakistan Prime 
Minister Benazir Bhutto expressing Pakistan's willingness to meet with 
India anywhere in the world at any time to ensure that what happened in 
Hiroshima and Nagasaki does not happen in Pakistan or India. I hope 
Indian officials take up her offer. It is the right thing to do.
  The fact is that in the two decades since India's first nuclear 
weapons test, Pakistan has initiated at least eight proposals to reduce 
or eliminate the threat of nuclear weapons in that region. Most 
recently, it proposed the creation of a missile-free zone in all of 
South Asia. Each time, India has resisted these proposals.
  Mr. President, I had a chart prepared which is the Pakistani 
proposals that they have provided, that they have produced over the 
years, trying to seek an accommodation, trying to keep nuclear weapons 
from being produced in their area. I might just briefly go through 
those.
  First, to establish a nuclear weapons free-zone in South Asia, 
proposed in 1974; second, to issue a joint Indo-Pakistan declaration 
renouncing the acquisition and manufacture of nuclear weapons, proposed 
in 1978; to have mutual inspections by India and Pakistan of nuclear 
facilities, proposed in 1979; for simultaneous adherence to NPT by 
India and Pakistan, proposed in 1979; to endorse a simultaneous 
acceptance of full-scope international atomic energy agency safeguards, 
proposed in 1979; for agreement on a bilateral or regional nuclear test 
ban treaty, proposed in 1987; to commence a multilateral conference on 
the question of nuclear proliferation in South Asia, proposed in 1991; 
and to create a missile-free zone in all of South Asia, proposed in 
1993.
  These are the steps that Pakistan has proposed over the years to 
reduce the level of tensions, to stop the production of nuclear weapons 
in that area. Each time that they have proposed this, India has 
resisted these proposals.
  Mr. President, since the end of the cold war, solving nuclear 
tensions in the Indian subcontinent has been a leading nonproliferation 
goal of the United States. At best, this senseless arms race would 
squander billions of dollars and decrease security in the region and 
beyond. For this reason I call on my colleagues to join me in urging 
India to clearly state that it will refrain from nuclear testing. 
Furthermore, I call on the administration to support efforts to bring 
both India and Pakistan together for negotiations to eliminate the 
threat of nuclear proliferation in that region once and for all.
  Mr. President, I further ask unanimous consent to have printed in the 
Record an editorial that appears in the Chicago Tribune, Sunday, 
January 7, 1996, entitled ``The Nuclear Danger In South Asia.''
  There being no objection, the material was ordered to be printed in 
the Record, as follows:

                [From the Chicago Tribune, Jan. 7, 1996]

                    The Nuclear Danger in South Asia

       Here's question certain to unsettle those who still delude 
     themselves that the end of the Cold War eliminated the menace 
     of potential nuclear war on planet Earth: Is there an 
     international rivalry today, one so unstable and hostile, 
     that nuclear weapons might be launched in anger?
       According to those in the government charged with keeping 
     an American eagle on this problem, the answer, sadly, is yes. 
     Not so very likely between the U.S. and Russia, they say--
     thank goodness!--nor between the U.S. and China. And while 
     the two Koreas remain locked in a standoff of highly hostile 
     intent, the South has no nuclear capability.
       A nuclear war between India and Pakistan is the most likely 
     scenario. Partitioned from former British colonial territory, 
     the two nations are divided by religion and already have 
     fought three wars over territory.
       The Bush administration went so far as to say in private 
     that it believed the 1990 Indo-Pakistani dispute over the 
     province of Kashmir might have gone nuclear had shooting 
     started in that crisis.
       That's why reports from the U.S. intelligence community 
     that India is preparing for another nuclear test, its first 
     in 21 years, are worrisome. Why would India want to throw a 
     match into this tinderbox?
       The government of India denies American accusations, that 
     it is about to conduct a nuclear operation at its Pokaran 
     test site in the Rajasthan desert. But American experts say 
     that two motivations may be driving India to a new round of 
     testing.
       First, the sitting government has been stung by weak 
     electoral showings and can read public opinion that favors a 
     strong defense, including nuclear arms.
       And second, India wants to publicly defy the will of the 
     major nuclear powers, which are urging treaties that would 
     forever bar new states from seeking nuclear defenses. India 
     derides such a system of dividing the world into ``bomb 
     haves'' and ``bomb have-nots'' as ``nuclear apartheid.''
       Why should the world care if India and Pakistan continue to 
     go nuclear? There are reasons of the heart and of the mind.
       Between them, India and Pakistan are home to a full one-
     fifth of the world's population, and even a nuclear exchange 
     ``limited'' to a few warheads would present a humanitarian 
     and ecological disaster of near-biblical proportions.
       And to be coldly realistic, nobody knows what would happen 
     once the nuclear tobaoo was broken, but the liberating 
     effects--and on possible enemies of the United States--cannot 
     be dismissed. The nuclear genie must remain locked in the 
     bottle.
       Thus, India must be dissuaded in every way possible from 
     conducting a nuclear test. And it should join in 
     understanding that the Nuclear Non-proliferation Treaty and 
     the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty will make the whole planet 
     safer for all by limiting the spread of nuclear weapons and 
     know-how.

  Mr. HARKIN. Mr. President, I have several articles from newspapers 
around the country talking about the problem of nuclear proliferation 
in that part of the world, talking about the indications that India may 
be ready to conduct a nuclear test. I ask unanimous consent that the 
various articles be printed in the Record.
  There being no objection, the material was ordered to be printed in 
the Record, as follows:

                [From the New York Times, Dec. 15, 1995]

                        Arrest in Pakistan Blast

       Islamabad, Pakistan,--December 14.--Pakistan is holding a 
     Canadian relief worker of Egyptian origin, apparently in 
     connection with the suicide bombing of the Egyptian Embassy 
     in Islamabad on Nov. 19, his wife said today.
       Maha Elsamna, 38, said that the police detained her 
     husband, Ahmed Saeed Khadr, regional director of the 
     Canadian-based aid agency Human Concern International, in 
     Peshawar in northwestern Pakistan on Dec. 3.
       Ms. Elsamna said her husband was detained by the police a 
     day after returning from Afghanistan.
                                                                    ____


            [From the Philadelphia Inquirer, Dec. 14, 1995]

  World in Brief--Pakistan Accuses the United States of Meddling Over 
                                Killings

       Islamabad, Pakistan.--Pakistan accused the U.S. government 
     yesterday of meddling in its affairs after Washington 
     expressed concern over a sharp rise in killings of people 
     detained by security forces.
       State Department spokesman Nicholas Burns said Monday that 
     the Clinton administration ``deplores the senseless murder of 
     family members of government and political leaders'' in 
     Karachi, Pakistan's violence-plagued largest city. His 
     comments followed the shooting deaths of Nasir Hussain, 62, 
     and Arif Hussain, 28, the brother and nephew of Altaf 
     Hussain, the opposition leader blamed for leading an ethnic 
     war against the Karachi authorities.
       A Pakistani human-rights official, Iqbal Haider, sharply 
     criticized the State Department yesterday, saying its 
     statement was ``uncalled for and a clear interference in 
     Pakistan's internal affairs.'' He accused Washington of 
     ignoring the deaths of law-enforcement officers, nearly 200 
     of whom have been killed in Karachi in the last six months as 
     a result of the ethnic violence.

  Mr. HARKIN. Again, Mr. President, it is time to reduce the tensions 
in that area. The best way to do that is to use our good offices, the 
administration, and also to let our voices be heard so that our friends 
in India--and I say that forthrightly; India is not an enemy of ours. 
They are a friend of ours. We have relations with India. But they have 
to understand the gravity of this situation. They have to understand 
that if they would clearly state that they will not conduct nuclear 
testing, how much further that would advance the cause of peace and 
reduce the tensions in that area. 

[[Page S490]]

  Perhaps then we can get about bringing both India and Pakistan 
together, to stall the problems that we have in Kashmir, where 
thousands of innocent people are losing their lives. It need not be 
that way. We can solve these problems. But India must first renounce 
the use of nuclear weapons and must first state very clearly that they 
are not going to conduct nuclear testing.
  With that out of the road, and I believe the pathway would be clear 
for this administration and for other governments to get India and 
Pakistan together to solve the outstanding problems that continue to 
engulf the entire area.

                          ____________________