ＥＥＥ会議（ブラジルのウラン濃縮工場に疑惑あり？）..................................................................031229


今年はイラク、北朝鮮、イラン、リビア等いわゆる「ならずもの国家」の核開発問題
が次々と話題になりましたが、年末になって、もう１つ「おまけ」のように、ブラジ
ルの核開発疑惑が再浮上してきました。　かつて２０年間に及ぶ軍事政権時代に核兵
器製造を画策していたブラジルは、民主政権誕生後１９９７年に核不拡散条約（ＮＰ
Ｔ）に加盟し、国際原子力機関（ＩＡＥＡ）の核査察（保障措置）を受け入れてきま
したが、現在、独自のウラン濃縮工場を完成させ、来年５月から運転開始の予定だと
いうのに、ＩＡＥＡ査察官の立ち入り査察を妨害しているとの批判を浴びているよう
です。ブラジルの科学技術大臣によれば、ウラン濃縮はもっぱら平和目的で兵器級ウ
ラン濃縮は計画していないということですが、同国は「追加議定書」には未加盟で、
上記ウラン濃縮工場へのＩＡＥＡ査察官の立ち入りを制限しているとＩＡＥＡ側は
言っているようです。ちなみに、ブラジルは世界第６位のウラン資源埋蔵量を持って
おり、以前２６．７トンの２酸化ウランをリビアに輸出したとか、１９８９年には同
国の核兵器製造計画の責任者がイラクでコンサルタントとして働いたこともある（そ
の後米国の圧力で撤退）とか言われております。　詳細は次のNew York Times記事
（12/28)でどうぞ。
--KK

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Brazil Resists Plan to Allow Spot Inspection of Nuclear Site

   By LARRY ROHTER,  Published: December 28, 2003

BRASILIA, Dec. 27 ? Brazil has announced that by mid-2004 it expects to join
the select group of nations producing enriched uranium and that within a
decade it intends to begin exporting the product. But it is balking at
giving international inspectors unimpeded access to the plant that will
produce the nuclear fuel.

Officials here describe the uranium enrichment effort as entirely peaceful
in purpose, aimed at providing fuel far short of weapons grade for the
country's nuclear power plants. But they also maintain that as a peaceful
nation, Brazil, which has the world's sixth-largest known deposits of
uranium, should not be subject to the same regimen of unannounced spot
inspections by the International Atomic Energy Agency that Iran and Libya
have recently accepted.

"All we've got are a couple of itty-bitty reactors," Roberto Amaral, the
minister of science and technology in the left-wing government that took
office in January, said in an interview this month. "It is necessary to be
worried about what goes on out there, not here."

The issue has come to a boil now because work has concluded on a uranium
enrichment plant that officials say will be ready to begin production as
early as next May.

Mark Gwozdecky, a spokesman for the International Atomic Energy Agency, said
in a telephone interview from the organization's headquarters in Vienna, "We
are working and have been working for some time with the government and
authorities in Brazil to develop an appropriate verification regime for this
new facility," but the agency otherwise declined comment.

After years of resistance, Brazil adhered to the Nuclear Nonproliferation
Treaty in 1997 and has since permitted limited, controlled visits to its
nuclear facilities. But it has refused to approve the so-called additional
protocol that authorizes spot inspections. Diplomats here say the
international agency earlier this month sent a letter asking for a clear,
prompt and definitive response.

During Brazil's military dictatorship, from 1964 to 1985, the government
clandestinely pursued a nuclear weapons program. In 1981, Brazil and Iraq
signed a nuclear cooperation agreement that, according to an I.A.E.A. report
issued last year, led the government to ship 26.7 tons of uranium dioxide to
Baghdad. In 1989, the former head of Brazil's nuclear weapons program worked
in Iraq as a consultant until American pressure forced his recall.

With the return of democratic civilian rule, Brazil and its historic rival
Argentina jointly renounced the manufacture of nuclear weapons and set up a
mutual inspection system. But the Brazilian program continued secretly, and
when a new government came to power in 1990, it found and destroyed a
1,050-foot-deep shaft built by the Air Force in the heart of the Amazon that
scientists said had all the characteristics of a nuclear test site.

In addition, the Brazilian Navy has long been working on a program to build
nuclear-powered submarines, which would require a degree of enrichment
higher than that needed for a power plant.

During the presidential campaign he won last year, President Luiz Inacio
Lula da Silva criticized the Nonproliferation Treaty as unjust, saying it
favored countries that already have nuclear weapons.

Then, during the new government's first week in office in January, Mr.
Amaral caused a furor when he argued that Brazil should acquire the capacity
to produce a nuclear weapon. He backed away from that position after he was
severely criticized here and in Argentina.

This month Mr. Amaral publicly criticized the I.A.E.A.'s position on spot
inspections as "idiotic" and "foolish." But he also said, "We're not
interested in a bomb and we've never made a bomb or ordered it used in a war
against Argentina, so we have the moral and ethical authority to talk about
this subject."