Canada : 40 ans d’initiatives, 20 ans d’inertie

Une version actualisée de cet article est parue dans l’édition du 28 mars de l’Aut’journal http://lautjournal.info/20170328/ou-va-le-canada-apres-41-ans-donu-et-18-ans-dotan

Le Canada de Trudeau a décidé de faire confiance à Kim Jung-un, Vladimir Poutine et Donald Trump pour la paix nucléaire. Si VOUS entretenez un doute, relayez ce texte à votre député ou ministre d’ici le 27 mars ! Car c’est ce lundi que l’ONU entame le processus de négociation d’un instrument juridiquement contraignant visant à interdire les armes nucléaires !

Trois conférences internationales sur les incidences humanitaires des armes nucléaires tenues en 2013 et 2014, respectivement en Norvège, au Mexique et en Autriche, ont eu un impact décisif pour favoriser une prise de conscience mondiale sur la nécessité de lancer de telles négociations.

Une première Conférence ONUSIENNE le 27 mars fera suite à la résolution 71/258 de l’Assemblée générale des Nations-Unies, ulcérée par l’absence d’évolution concrète en matière de négociations multilatérales de désarmement nucléaire. Présidée par l’Ambassadrice Elayne Whyte Gómez, du Costa Rica, cette conférence tiendra sa deuxième session de fond du 15 juin au 7 juillet 2017.

Site de la Conférence: https://www.un.org/disarmament/ptnw/

27 mars : la Paix sera-t-elle encore une valeur canadienne ?

Plus jeune que les puissances européennes et moins gros que les États-Unis, le Canada a la liberté de choisir, au lieu d’emprunter les voies du militarisme et du colonialisme, de travailler pour le bien commun mondial et la démocratie, non pas celle fondée sur les froids calculs économiques des entreprises et des 1 %, mais celle agissante qui s’inscrit dans la perspective des droits humains et de la compassion. Quelques exemples non exhaustifs :

• Prix Nobel de la Paix 1957, Lester B. Pearson fonde les Casques bleus de l’ONU;
• En 1957 aussi, accueil en Nouvelle-Écosse par le Canadien Cyrus Eaton des Conférences mondiales Pugwash pour la science et les affaires mondiales qui recevront le prix Nobel de la Paix en 1995 pour leurs efforts à contrer la menace globale nucléaire;
• En 1961, fondation de l’Institut canadien de recherche pour la paix (CPRI);
• En 1963, John Diefenbaker s’oppose à l’acquisition d’armes nucléaires par le Canada;
• Grâce à des investissements généreux en faveur de la science et des arts, EXPO67 Terre des Hommes fait rayonner de Montréal une vision mondiale de solidarité;
• En 1975, la Charte des droits et libertés de la personne du Québec (Jacques-Yvan Morin, co-auteur) suit de 27 ans la Déclaration universelle des Droits de l’Homme;
• En 1978, Pierre-Elliott Trudeau entreprend son audacieuse stratégie de « suffocation des armes nucléaires » à l’ONU; avec SALT II, serait-elle responsable de la réduction du nombre de 70 000 bombes américaines et russes aux 15 000 actuelles?
• En 1984, à partir des Performing Artists for Nuclear Disarmament (Harry Belafonte & Liv Ullman), se forment les Artistes pour la Paix sous la présidence du comédien fondateur du TNM, Jean-Louis Roux;
• En 1990, contre l’avis des Thatcher et Reagan, Brian Mulroney obtient la libération de Nelson Mandela; emprisonné depuis 27 ans, devenu symbole de la résistance populaire, le futur président de l’Afrique du Sud vaincra l’apartheid;
• En 1995, le général canadien De Chastelain entreprend en Irlande du Nord le désarmement des milices paramilitaires (Ian Paisley/Gerry Adams) et avec l’aide de Mairead Maguire, Prix Nobel de la Paix 1976, obtient la paix à un coût mille fois inférieur aux absurdes expéditions guerrières canadiennes envoyées par Stephen Harper en Afghanistan;
• En 1997-8, Jean Chrétien instaure le traité d’Ottawa contre les mines anti-personnel (Prix Nobel de la Paix 1997) et favorise l’émergence de la Cour Pénale Internationale de La Haye (1998) avec son fondateur et premier juge, le diplomate canadien Philippe Kirsch;

dans les 20 prochaines années, ce sera la société civile qui prendra le relais avec deux manifestations d’un quart de million de personnes à Montréal, contre la guerre d’Irak en 2003 et pour un printemps érable en 2012 + le mouvement idle no more des Premières Nations à partir de la Colombie Britannique en 2012 aussi, mais RIEN DE CONSTRUCTIF DE LA PART DU GOUVERNEMENT CANADIEN:

• En 2013, prix Nobel de la paix décerné à l’Organisation pour l’interdiction des armes chimiques (OPCW, en anglais), en particulier au militaire canadien Scott Cairns qui supervise en Syrie le démantèlement de l’arsenal chimique du tyran Bachar al-Assad;
• En 2015, l’Élan global.org au Québec et le Leap manifesto de Naomi Klein élaborent un plan écologique viable en vue de la Conférence de Paris sur le climat;
• En décembre 2016, la Fondation Michaëlle-Jean, dirigée par Jean-Daniel Lafond, organise au Musée des Beaux-Arts de Montréal et ailleurs dans le monde des expositions d’artistes musulmanes, afin de contrer l’islamophobie, aussi dénoncée le 23 mars par tous les députés libéraux, néo-démocrates et le Parti vert (M-103 par la député Iqra Khalid);
• L’Institut International de Recherche sur la Paix de Stockholm (SIPRI) voit présentement deux Canadiens, Tarik Rauf et Aude-Emmanuelle Fleurant, diriger ses programmes de désarmement nucléaire et celui sur les dépenses militaires mondiales;
• 940 membres de l’Ordre du Canada (Canadiens pour une convention sur les armes nucléaires), rassemblés par le Pugwashite émérite Murray Thomson, demandent au gouvernement canadien de se joindre à 135 pays, 7000 Maires pour la Paix (organisme basé à Hiroshima) et au Secrétaire général de l’ONU qui entreprennent de négocier l’abolition de l’arme nucléaire à partir du 27 mars 2017 à New York.

Hélas, à l’exception de son accueil libéral aux Premières Nations et aux réfugiés syriens de guerre, le gouvernement Justin Trudeau renie ces valeurs canadiennes :

1. par la poursuite de plusieurs sombres politiques conservatrices;
2. par ses dépenses militaires [1] au profit de l’agressivité russophobe de l’OTAN;
3. par ses pipelines de pétrole scandaleusement subventionné des sables bitumineux qui envahissent des territoires autochtones et aggravent le réchauffement climatique;
4. par ses véhicules blindés de 15 milliards de $ vendus à son alliée l’Arabie saoudite, en guerre avec le Yémen et principal commanditaire de la terreur djihadiste salafiste et
5. par sa complicité avec les États-Unis, l’OTAN et la Russie qui cherchent à contrer les efforts de l’ONU d’abolir les armes nucléaires.

Document du 24 mars 2017 par Pierre Jasmin,
siègeant à l’exécutif des Artistes pour la Paix et de Pugwash Canada. Il remercie ses collègues Derek Paul, André Jacob (son article sur les valeurs canadiennes), Adele Buckley, Sébastien Dhavernas et Christian Morin, de même que Margaret Atwood, pour leur aide et encouragement. Il aura besoin de toute aide bienvenue des médias lors de la réunion du 10 avril à Ottawa où il est convoqué par la Direction de la non-prolifération et du désarmement des Affaires mondiales.

---

[1] Trudeau aura le choix de refuser l’extension du budget du 22 mars 2017 que le ministre de la Défense Sajjan prépare avec des dépenses accrues au goût de Trump, en refusant de reconnaître les conséquences désastreuses des bombardements de l’OTAN commandés par le général Bouchard sur la Libye en 2011.

Veuillez lire ci-dessous la position énergique du 21 mars (que je partage) de ma collègue Erin Hunt (Mines Action Canada)

By sitting out nuclear weapons meeting, Canada backtracks on its commitment to peace.

Whether due to U.S. pressure or a lack of political courage — or both —, Canada is expected to be absent from next week’s negotiations in New York. Erin Hunt looks at the motives behind the move, and the message it sends.

On March 27, states will convene at the United Nations to begin negotiations on a new treaty to prohibit nuclear weapons — a meeting which will be the first major development in nuclear disarmament in decades, and which has taken on greater urgency in light of the irrational and worrying governing style of United States President Donald Trump.

The negotiations, which will aim to ban nuclear weapons (the only weapons of mass destruction not prohibited by international law), have come about through an unconventional process that was inspired by the way Canada led the world to ban antipersonnel landmines, culminating in the 1997 Ottawa Treaty.

Between March 2013 and December 2014, over 100 states, along with international organizations and civil society led by the International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons, met three times in Norway, Mexico and Austria to discuss the humanitarian impact of nuclear weapons, through a diplomatic process known as the Humanitarian Initiative. Shockingly, these meetings were the first time the international community had discussed the humanitarian harm caused by nuclear weapons and our collective capacity to respond should a nuclear weapon be detonated again.

Those meetings led to last year’s October UN resolution to start negotiations, which was passed by the General Assembly by a wide margin in December.

Surprisingly, Canada wasn’t among the countries voting in favour of starting negotiations and the government has said it will not be attending this month’s meeting at the UN, as reported by The Globe and Mail.

Despite our long history of pushing for disarmament — Canada was the first state with the capacity to produce nuclear weapons that chose not to do so — when it comes to these recent meetings and the upcoming negotiations, Canada doesn’t seem to be “back.” But why?

Canada under pressure?

Reports indicate that some nuclear-armed states, particularly the U.S. and the United Kingdom, have been pressuring Canada and other allied states to not attend the negotiations, regardless of their decades-old obligation to disarm under the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT). Other states with nuclear weapons, including Pakistan and India, are still considering participating.

In a leaked memo to other NATO countries, the U.S. wrote last year that “if negotiations do start, we ask allies and partners to refrain from joining them.” It seems these nuclear-armed states are concerned that a ban treaty would create new norms against nuclear weapons and increase pressure to meet their disarmament obligations. Increased pressure to disarm would be especially challenging to the U.S. and the UK, because they both have plans to modernize their nuclear arsenals. These actions run contrary to the NPT, which Canada has been party to since 1970, and which calls on all states “to pursue negotiations in good faith on effective measures relating …to nuclear disarmament.”

They also run contrary to NATO’s commitment to arms control, disarmament and non-proliferation. While NATO may currently be a nuclear alliance (remember, it was not founded as one, and some states have opted out of nuclear sharing), its 2010 Strategic Doctrine commits member states “to create the conditions for a world without nuclear weapons.” Under then-Prime Minister Jean Chrétien, Canada pushed for a review of the importance of nuclear weapons in NATO’s Strategic Concept; unfortunately, the review recommended maintaining the status quo with regards to nuclear weapons. Now, despite our previous work towards disarmament and our legal obligations under the NPT, Canada looks set to be on the outside looking in when it comes to the nuclear disarmament debate.

It is difficult to find a reason for such a dramatic change in direction from Canada. Canadian values of humanitarianism, peace and security have not changed. Nuclear deterrence and nuclear weapons cannot protect our country from current threats like terrorism, cyber attacks and climate change. The international community has learned more about the humanitarian impact of nuclear weapons and the risks of a future nuclear detonation, furthering the case for disarmament.

One possible explanation for Canada’s change in direction could be a lack of political courage to challenge the status quo. This lack of political courage could also explain the government’s reticence to announce its intentions with regards to attending the negotiations. When asked in parliament about attending the negotiations, the government refers to work being done on the Fissile Materials Cut-Off Treaty (FMCT) and does not address the upcoming negotiations.

In a recent statement to The Globe, a Global Affairs Canada spokesperson said: “The negotiation of a nuclear-weapon ban without the participation of states that possess nuclear weapons is certain to be ineffective and will not eliminate any nuclear weapons.” This statement is rather problematic. First, it presumes to know how effective a legal instrument will be before it is negotiated or implemented. Without knowing what the treaty will say, how is GAC certain it will be ineffective? The assertion that the treaty will not eliminate any nuclear weapons is a talking point we have heard from Canada before, and there is a simple response: Well, of course not — treaties are not magic.

But a ban treaty would be another step in a gradual process leading to complete nuclear disarmament, and complementary to the FMCT, the NPT and other actions Canada promotes. It would also increase the pressure on the nuclear weapon states to effectively carry out steps towards disarmament. We have seen from other disarmament issues that prohibition comes before elimination.

A treaty prohibiting nuclear weapons would finally state clearly that nuclear weapons are illegitimate and incompatible with international humanitarian law.

If Canada does not attend these negotiations, we will be left out of the conversation. Considering one of the topics for discussion would be interoperability with states outside the treaty and with states who continue to possess nuclear weapons, boycotting the talks means not having a say in a decision-making process that could impact our alliances around the world.

Our close ally and NATO member, the Netherlands, “has chosen to take part constructively, with an open mind and without being naïve,” as Dutch Foreign Minister Bert Koenders said in February. This position is one Canada could adopt easily; attending the negotiations does not automatically require signing the resulting treaty but merely listening with an open mind, asking questions and weighing in on issues that affect Canada.

More worryingly than being left out of the decision-making process, boycotting the negotiations will raise questions from states participating in the negotiations and civil society beyond whether not Canada is committed to the NPT and disarmament. With these negotiations, the vast majority of the world is saying that nuclear weapons threaten international security and that a prohibition on nuclear weapons will help, so why is Canada ignoring these concerns? Much of the discourse from states under the U.S.’s nuclear umbrella has seemed to imply that the security concerns of these few states were more important than the security concerns of the over 120 countries who see nuclear weapons as a serious threat. Will these states support Canada’s UN Security Council bid, if we disregard their concerns about weapons that threaten the security of us all?

Above all there will be questions about Canada’s views on the legitimacy of nuclear weapons. If Canada does not support a prohibition on nuclear weapons, then the logical conclusion is that Canada feels that nuclear weapons are legitimate weapons.

According to NATO’s website, “deterrence, based on an appropriate mix of nuclear and conventional capabilities, remains a core element” of the alliance’s overall strategy. But it is rarely explained that this means we as Canadians accept that one possible response to an attack on Canada or one of our allies is the use of nuclear weapons, despite their indiscriminate and widespread humanitarian consequences. As a country under the U.S.’ nuclear umbrella, we have agreed to the use of one or more weapons of mass destruction on cities to defend Canada. What would justify the complete destruction of a city, irradiation of the environment and deaths of thousands or millions of civilians in our name?

Political will needed

Staying outside of the upcoming negotiations will raise questions not only internationally but also domestically. Canadians have been speaking out and taking to the streets to ban the bomb for decades. Cities from coast to coast to coast are members of the disarmament organization Mayors for Peace; parliament under Stephen Harper passed a unanimous motion calling for Canadian leadership on nuclear disarmament in 2010; hundreds of Members of the Order of Canada have joined a letter calling for nuclear disarmament.

This public support for disarmament was a key driver behind Canada’s previous efforts towards nuclear disarmament. Now, Canadians themselves need to speak up again and call on Justin Trudeau to participate in the negotiations. It’s time to call your member of parliament and remind them that Canadians want a world without nuclear weapons.

In 1978, then-Prime Minister Pierre Elliott Trudeau told a special session of the UN that “we must impart a fresh momentum to the lagging process of disarmament.” In 1998, the House of Commons Foreign Affairs committee noted that “the challenge of moving toward the prohibition on nuclear weapons remains fundamentally political and moral.” In 2017, the Humanitarian Initiative has provided fresh momentum and the moral argument for prohibiting nuclear weapons. It’s time for the prime minister to find the courage and the political will to take a step towards nuclear disarmament.