Abstract
The decision by nations to build or acquire nuclear weapons is influenced by a variety of factors, including location and the character of local politics and leadership. It can be expected that the processes of arriving at such a decision in a democratic political system will be significantly different from that of a dictatorship. In the latter an individual could take and pursue the decision to develop or acquire weapons of mass destruction (WMD), as has been the case in Iraq and Libya among others.3 Beyond the individual or leadership factors however, are security concerns, the quest for regional prestige, the ambitions of particular regimes, the desire to move technological developments to a higher level, industrial determination and international prestige. For instance, one reason given by India for opposing the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) is that while it is designed to stop the ‘spread of nuclear weapons to non-nuclear states’, it fails to provide ‘adequate security guarantees’, and ‘it fails to reduce or eliminate stockpiles of the weapon states and thus legitimates them’.4 Thus the main consideration often advanced by states seeking to develop ‘threshold’ nuclear-weapons capability is security. India’s neighbour Pakistan invokes exactly the same reasons, as do South Africa and Israel.
Some states appear to be willing to starve their people and to take enormous heat from the international community in order to obtain nuclear weapons.1
The Treaty of Pelindaba is an African success story even if it has taken 31 years to give birth to it. The Treaty represents some of the best news coming out of an Africa that continues to suffer its share of the tragic and destructive effects of conflict.2
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Notes
George H. Quester, ‘Toward an International Nuclear Security Policy’, Washington Quarterly 17 (Autumn 1994), pp. 1–2. (UTCAT version).
Sola Ogunbanwo, ‘History of the Efforts to Establish an African NuclearWeapon-Free Zone’, Disarmament 19: 1 (1996), p. 19.
Libya is said to have constructed an underground chemical-weapons facility at ai Tarhunah, about 80 km southeast of Tripoli, the country’s capital. Though the US signed the two protocols of the ANWFZ ‘without reservations’, its officials have continued to make statements to the effect that nuclear weapons could be used to destroy the Libyan facility. See William M. Arkin, ’Nuking Libya’, Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists 52 (July–August 1996), p. 64.
Deepa Ollapally, ‘US–India Tensions: Misperceptions on Nuclear Proliferation’, Foreign Affairs 74 (January–February 1995), p. 1.
For a discussion of the Middle East see Shai Feldman, ‘Middle East Nuclear Stability: The State of the Region and the State of the Debate’, Journal of International Affairs 49 (Summer 1995), pp. 205–30.
See Alexander Kalyadin and Elina Kirchenko, ‘Nonproliferation After the New York Conference’, International Affairs 7 (1995), pp. 27–33.
David Albright, ‘A Curious Conversion’, Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists 49 (June 1993), p. 10.
See T. V. Paul, ‘Strengthening the Non-Proliferation Regime: The Role of Coercive Sanctions’, International Journal 51 (Summer 1996), pp. 440–65.
There are about 485 nuclear power stations in the world (operational or under construction). ‘Africa can boast only two power plants in South Africa... With the clear exception of South Africa, and possibly Egypt, it is obvious that Africa’s nuclear science and technology is only at its nascent stage.’ Tilahum W. Selassie, ’The African Nuclear-Weapon-Free Zone and Sustainable Development on the Continent’, Disarmament 19: 1 (1996), pp. 41–2.
See Julius O. Ihonvbere, Nigeria: The Politics of Adjustment and Democracy (New Brunswick, NJ: Transaction Publishers, 1994);
Toyin Falola and Julius Ihonvbere, The Rise and Fall of Nigeria’s Second Republic, 1979–1984 (London: Zed Books, 1985);
Tom Forrest, Politics and Economic Development in Nigeria (Boulder: Westview, 1995).
For a very good discussion of Africa’s security issues and perceptions see G. Afroka Nweke, African Security in the Nuclear Age (Enugu, Nigeria: Fourth Dimension Publishers, 1985).
Atsu-Koffi Amega, ‘Welcome Remarks’, in Conference on Security, Disarmament and Development: Meeting of Experts (New York: United Nations, 1986), p. 15.
Oluyemi Adeniji, ‘The Concept of Disarmament in the African Context’, in Conference on Security, Disarmament and Development, p. 35. It is argued by African leaders that this initiative on NWFZ encouraged other developing regions and led to the conclusion in 1967 of the Treaty of Tlatelolco.
Prvoslav Davinic, ‘Opening Remarks’, in Conference on Security, Disarmament and Development, p. 10.
Benson N. C. Agu, ‘Denuclearization: Enhancing African Regional Cooperation in Peaceful Nuclear Applications’, Disarmament 19: 1 (1996), p. 21.
Ibrahim Sy, ‘A Nuclear-Weapon-Free-Zone in Africa’, Disarmament 16: 3 (1993), p. 95.
J. W. de Villiers, ‘Why South Africa Gave up the Bomb’, Foreign Affairs 72 (November–December 1993), p. 4. (UTCAT version).
David Albright, ‘South Africa and the Affordable Bomb’, Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists 50 (July–August 1994), pp. 37–8.
See Julius O. Ihonvbere, ‘Africa in the 1990s and Beyond: Alternative Prescriptions and Projections’, Futures 28:1 (1996), pp. 15–35 and Africa and the New World Order (New York: Peter Lang Publishing, forthcoming);
Adebayo Adedeji, ed, Africa Within the World: Beyond Dispossession and Dependence (London and Akure: Zed Books and ACDESS, 1993).
For the Zambian example see Julius O. Ihonvbere, Economic Crisis, Civil Society and Democratization: The Case of Zambia (New Brunswick, NJ: Transaction, 1996).
See OAU, Lagos Plan of Action for the Economic Development of Africa 1980–2000 (Geneva: International Institute for Labour Studies, 1981). This document confessed that ‘Africa is unable to point to any significant growth rate, or satisfactory index of general well being, in the past 20 years.’ (p.1).
For a critical evaluation, see the introduction to Julius O. Ihonvbere, ed, Political Economy of Crisis and Underdevelopment in Africa: Selected Works of Claude Ake (Lagos: JAD, 1989).
See UN Development Programme, Human Development Report 1994 (London: Oxford University Press, 1994)
Economic Commission for Africa, African Charter for Popular Participation in Development and Transformation (Addis Ababa: ECA, 1990).
Bereng Mtimkulu, ‘Africa Bans the Bomb - Treaty of Pelindaba Signed’, Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists 52 (July–August 1996), p. 11.
For a discussion of one major incident of toxic waste dumping See Julius O. Ihonvbere, ‘The State and Environmental Degradation in Nigeria: A Study of the 1988 Toxic Waste Dump in Koko’, Journal of Environmental Systems 23:3 (1993–4), pp. 1–21.
Olu Adeniji, ‘The African Nuclear-Weapon-Free Zone Treaty - The Pelindaba Text and its Provisions’, Disarmament 19:1 (1996), p. 4. See also ’Fact Sheet: African Nuclear-Weapon-Free Zone Treaty’, U.S. Department of State Dispatch 7 (15 April 1996), p. 194.
Even in the NWS there are increasing doubts as to the ‘decades-old role of nuclear weapons as cornerstone of Western defence policy’. In the case of the United States, it is increasingly being concluded that ’nuclear weapons diminish rather than enhance US security.’ Robert McNamara noted in 1992 that only a return to a non-nuclear world could guarantee security. See Michael McGuire, ‘Eliminate or Marginalize: Nuclear Weapons in US Foreign Policy’, The Brookings Review 13 (Spring 1995), p. 36.
See also Kenneth N. Waltz, ‘Nuclear Myths and Political Realities’, American Political Science Review 84 (September 1990), pp. 733–44.
William J. Clinton, ‘Message to the Congress on the South Africa-United States Agreement on the Peaceful Use of Nuclear Energy’, Weekly Compilation of Presidential Documents 31 (2 October 1995), p. 1746. Though the 1957 agreement was scheduled to expire in 2007, and had been suspended in the 1970s by the United States when South Africa commenced its nuclear-weapons development and manufacturing programme, changes in the global order, the African continent and within South Africa dictated a drastic review. The new agreement also puts in important safeguards which were absent in the 1957 agreement: ‘full-scope safeguard; perpetuity of safeguards; ban on ‘peaceful’ nuclear explosives; a right to require the return of exported nuclear items in certain circumstances; a guarantee of adequate physical security; and a consent right to enrichment of nuclear material subject to the agreement.’
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Ihonvbere, J.O. (1998). Africa — The Treaty of Pelindaba. In: Thakur, R. (eds) Nuclear Weapons-Free Zones. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-349-26972-3_5
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