by Parliamentary Opposition Leader, DAP Secretary-General and MP for Tanjung, Lim Kit Siang, in Petaling Jaya on Tuesday, November 7, 1995:
DAP commends Malaysian Government for taking an active part in the International Court of Justice at The Hague to seek a world court declaration that possession of nuclear weapons violated international law
DAP commends the Malaysian Government for taking an active part in the International Court of Justice of the Hague to seek a world court declaration that possession of nuclear weapons violates international law.
It has been reported that the Attorney-General, Datuk Mokhtar Abdullah will be making oral submissions to the international Court of Justice which had been holding hearings on the issue since October 30, involving 25 nations.
The timing is most opportune, particularly at a time when French president Chirac and the French Government are defying international opinion and morality in continuing with French nuclear tests in the South Pacific.
Malaysia has an international responsibility to demand for total nuclear disarmament and the destruction of all nuclear weapon by all members of the nuclear club.
This is why Malaysia must also play leading role in the international arena to protest against French resumption of nuclear tests, as well as to demand that the French should cease and desist from further nuclear tests in the South Pacific atolls of Momuroa and Fangataufa.
I have sent an urgent message to New Zealand Prime Minister, Jim Bolger as host of CHOGM next week proposing that CHOGM should commission 1995 Nobel peace laureate Joseph Rotblat and Pugwash Conferences of science and World Affairs, to lead an international study of the impact of French nuclear tests on the environment and health of South Pacific islanders and the eco-system.
This is essential as the French Government as well as their Ambassadors have been blithely claiming that the French nuclear tests in the South Pacific are “completely harmless”.
This is a most outrageous claim which cannot be allowed to go unchallenged.
The CHOGM in Auckland next week should commission 1995 Nobel Peace Laureate, Joseph Rotblat and Pugwash Conferences of Science and World Affairs, to lead an international study of the impact of French nuclear tests on the environment and health of South Pacific islanders and the eco-system.
Such a CHOGM commission would be pregnant with meaning and symbolism, as this was also the reason why the Norwegian Nobel Committee gave its 1995 peace Prize jointly to Robiat and Pugwash Conferences of Science and World Affairs.
In 1955, Rotblat joined Albert Einstein, Bertrand Russell and six other scientists in signing a manifesto that led to the founding of the annual Pugwash Conferences on Science and World Affairs to lobby governments on nuclear disarmament.
The 1995 Nobel Peace Prize award was most opportune, for it was not only 50 years since atom bombs were dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, it was also in the midst of international controversy over the resumption of French nuclear tests, as the Nobel Committee said, “One of the reasons for the prize is a sort of protest against testing of nuclear weapons, and nuclear arms in general”.
Rotblat and the Pugwash Conferences can be joined by other international organisations of scientists, like the international Physicians for the Prevention of nuclear War which was also awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1985, in the study of the impact of the French nuclear tests on the environment and health of the South Pacific islanders and the eco-system.
This study can also from the basis for drawing up of a Bill of Indemnity to demand French compensation for all damages to the health of those affected and the eco-system, whether past, present of future, arising from French nuclear tests in the South Pacific.