Statement on the North Korean Nuclear Test

October 13, 2006

The United States, Canada and their allies have reacted with "shock" at the first testing of a nuclear bomb by North Korea and have called for a swift international response. While the Canadian Peace Alliance is against the production and use of any nuclear weapons, we are opposed to this new test being used as a pretext for punitive or violent actions against North Korea. Any attack on North Korea would endanger the lives of millions of people in both the North and the South of this highly militarized peninsula and must be opposed.

The condemnation of this test by the other nuclear powers is hypocritical. The United States which has more than 10,000 nuclear warheads, the largest arsenal on earth, is calling on the United Nations to enact sanctions against the regime of Kim Jong Il. This is the same US administration that openly threatened military action against North Korea, labeling them members of the "axis of evil" in the speech by George Bush in 2002. These are not idle threats. The US has tens of thousands of soldiers and a vast arsenal, including nuclear weapons, in South Korea pointed at the north. These threats against North Korea provoked the creation of this new weapon.

We also cannot divorce this situation from the larger context of US threats against Iran. US and Israeli government officials said that this test may encourage Iran to create a nuclear weapon. This is nothing more than an attempt to fabricate a "smoking gun" that would justify aggression and act as a trial run for a sanctions regime against Iran.

It remains the position of the peace movement that nuclear proliferation will continue to occur so long as those countries with the largest nuclear arsenals refuse to disarm. This situation is no different. What it speaks to is a weak and manipulated international non-proliferation regime. The dismantling of that regime has been encouraged by some of those same states that now react with dismay at this new test. The United States has systematically undermined attempts to develop a non-discriminatory and binding nuclear non-proliferation agreement while refusing to dismantle its own arsenals.

In much the same way that the sanctions against Iraq did nothing to limit the power of the government but resulted in the deaths of 1 million people, any sanctions against North Korea will cause great hardship for the civilian population but will not likely hurt the government of Kim Jong Il. We are therefore calling on the government of Canada to oppose sanctions against North Korea and to call for the elimination of not only North Korea's weapons, but all nuclear weapons through the full implementation of Article VI of the Non-Proliferation Treaty.

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