Paulo Roberto de Almeida
By ALISON MITCHELL
The New York Times, September 24, 1996
UNITED NATIONS, Sept. 24 -- President Clinton signed a treaty today that would ban all nuclear weapons testing and called on world leaders to take further steps to limit weapons of mass destruction. He also urged them to show 'zero tolerance' for international drug smuggling and for terrorism.
In an address to the 51st session of the United Nations General Assembly, Mr. Clinton noted that it was the second year in a row that he had asked diplomats and world leaders to take a strong stand against what he calls the 'new threats' of the post-cold-war era: Drug traffickers, terrorists and unsafeguarded weapons materials. 'Frankly, we have not done that yet,' Mr. Clinton said.
'Real zero tolerance requires us to isolate states that refuse to play by the rules we have all accepted for civilized behavior,' he said. 'As long as Iraq threatens its neighbors and people, as long as Iran supports and protects terrorists, as long as Libya refuses to give up the people who blew up Pan Am 103, they should not become full members of the family of nations.'
Mr. Clinton's annual visit to the United Nations was unusually brief -- less than two hours long -- and was coupled with a campaign rally later in New Jersey. It came at a time when the Administration has said it would use its Security Council veto to keep Boutros Boutros-Ghali, who the United States says has not initiated enough reform at the United Nations, from serving a second term as Secretary General.
Nonetheless, the President and the Secretary General met and posed for a photo together, with Mr. Boutros-Ghali smiling and Mr. Clinton looking stiff and solemn. Later Mr. Clinton said the question of Mr. Boutros-Ghali's tenure did not arise 'because he and everyone else knows our position,' adding, 'They know it's firm.'
Before delivering his address, Mr. Clinton used the same pen with which John F. Kennedy signed the Limited Test Ban Treaty in 1963 to sign the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty. The comprehensive accord is intended to thwart the development of new generations of weapons by banning all nuclear explosions, underground and above ground, military or civilian, high yield or low yield.
The President called the treaty 'the longest-sought, hardest-fought prize in arms control history.'
An overwhelming majority of countries, including the five declared nuclear weapons powers -- the United States, Britain, China, France and Russia -- have now agreed to the treaty and the comprehensive ban. But India, which set off a nuclear explosion in 1974 and is believed to have a clandestine nuclear weapons program that it does not want to give up, has said it will not sign because the treaty does not set a date for the total elimination of nuclear weapons. Pakistan, which is also thought to have a covert nuclear program, has indicated that it will boycott the pact if India does.
The treaty will not go into effect for at least two years, and Clinton Administration officials say they hope India can be brought around by then. Without assent by India and other potential nuclear states, the treaty and its enforcement measures will not enter into force although countries that do ratify it will be required to observe its provisions.
The President, however, said today that the signatures of the five declared nuclear powers, along with those of the vast majority of countries, 'will immediately create an international norm against nuclear testing even before the treaty formally enters into force.'
'Some,' Mr. Clinton said in a reference to India, 'have complained that it does not mandate total nuclear disarmament by a date certain. I would say to them, do not forsake the benefits of this achievement by ignoring the tremendous progress we have already made toward that goal.' Representatives of about 60 countries signed the treaty by the end of the day.
The treaty, however, must also be approved by national legislatures. The makeup of the next Congress may determine whether the accord wins Senate ratification in the United States. The Republican platform repudiates the treaty as 'inconsistent with American security interests' and argues that the United States, in order to deter the threat of weapons of mass destruction from rogue states, will 'require the continuing maintenance and development of nuclear weapons and other periodic testing.'
This month the Senate indefinitely shelved a vote on another arms control measure, the Chemical Weapons Convention. 'I deeply regret that the United States Senate has not yet voted on the convention,' Mr. Clinton said. 'But I want to assure you and people throughout the world that I will not let this treaty die.'
Besides advocating the implementation of the chemical weapons treaty, the President called for five additional steps in arms control: freezing the production of nuclear bomb-making material; making further reductions in nuclear arsenals; stregthening measures against nuclear smuggling; improving compliance with a biological weapons treaty and banning anti-personnel land mines.
Mr. Clinton also urged United Nations members to adopt a declaration on crime and pledge to give no sanctuary to drug traffickers and terrorists. In a move that could help blunt Republican charges that he has been lax about fighting drugs, the President announced that the United States would provide more than $100 million in military equipment, services and training to Mexico, Colombia and other South American and Caribbean nations to 'stop the flow of drugs at the source.'
The United States owes $1.7 billion in back dues, peacekeeping fees and special assessments to the United Nations and its agencies, making it the country with the biggest debt to the United Nations. Mr. Clinton noted that America was also the organization's largest contributor and said he was committed to paying off the debt. He stressed that he also wanted to see further budget-cutting and streamlining of the world organization.
'In this time of challenge and change, the United Nations is more important than ever before,' he said, 'because our world is more interdependent than ever before. Most Americans know this.'
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