India, Pak join forces against US move on N-proliferation

23 April 2004
The Times of India

UNSC resolution on proliferation

India, Pak join forces against US move

SIDDHARTH VARADARAJAN
TIMES NEWS NETWORK

NEW DELHI: Declaring that the Security Council has no right to compel UN members to pass domestic legislation on any issue, India and Pakistan on Thursday joined hands to oppose an intrusive US-backed draft resolution which demands that all states adopt "effective laws" banning the proliferation of nuclear weapons to "non-state actors".

Both India and Pakistan have argued in the UN Security Council that the US proposal on non-proliferation was “intrusive”.

India's permanent representative to the UN, Satish Nambiar, told the Council that the urgency of taking steps to prevent terrorists from getting hold of weapons of mass destruction "does not obscure our more basic concerns over the increasing tendency of the Security Council ... to assume new and wider powers of legislation on behalf of the international community, and binding on all states".

Pakistani ambassador Munir Akram voiced a similar objection and said the Security Council was not the most appropriate forum to oversee nonproliferation since its five permanent members all possessed nuclear weapons and were doing nothing to fulfil their obligations to disarm.

Among the other objections raised by India:

• International treaties or agreements in this field should be multilaterally negotiated, not imposed.

• The issue should have been addressed through existing international instruments and fora such as the Biological Weapons Convention, Chemical Weapons Convention and the Conference on Disarmament.

• By exclusively focusing on nonproliferation, the draft undermines the "mutually reinforcable linkage between disarmament and nonproliferation".

• The Security Council should not prescribe norms on export controls

Pakistan has also expressed the fear that the resolution "because it invokes Chapter VII of the UN Charter authorising the use of coercive measures" could be used to impose sanctions or use force against a country for the actions of individuals or groups outside that country's control.

While arguing that "state accountability cannot be absolved on grounds that proliferation was the result of private enterprise" - a clear reference to the A Q Khan episode - India too is opposed to the threat of force.

"The resolution ought to steer clear of any coercive or punitive approach or follow-up mechanism," Nambiar told the Security Council.

Despite the stiff opposition of most non-aligned countries, the resolution is expected to be passed by the end of April.

In the event that it is passed, India, said Nambiar, would "not accept any interpretation of the resolution that imposes obligations arising from treaties that India has not signed. India will not accept externally prescribed norms or standards, whatever their source, on matters pertaining to domestic jurisdiction of its Parliament.".

The US amended an earlier draft of the resolution authorising the interdiction of suspect shipping on the high seas after China threatened a veto.

But Washington contends that operational Para 8 of the draft - which "calls upon all states ... to take cooperative action to prevent illicit trafficking in nuclear, chemical or biological weapons, their means of delivery, and related material".

John Bolton, US undersecretary of state for arms control, told the Washington Post last month that this language covered the interdiction of ships suspected of illicitly carrying WMD or missiles.

The interdiction of shipping - a key part of the Bush administration's controversial Proliferation Security Initiative (PSI) - currently rests on extremely shaky legality. The Law of the Sea convention (UNCLOS) prohibits it and a number of NGOs working on disarmament issues have urged that the draft resolution be amended to state that any action taken by member states pursuant to it be in accordance with UNCLOS.

India, which is mulling over a US invitation to join the PSI, has not taken a public view on the law of the seas implications.

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Elections 2004: Chili capital not shining bright

22 April 2004
The Times of India

Chili capital not shining bright

SIDDHARTH VARADARAJAN
TIMES NEWS NETWORK

BYADGI, Karnataka: The weathered faces and calloused hands of Yelamma and Jamalbee are not the best advertisement for the multi-million dollar global cosmetics industry, but the luscious red that adorns the lips of models around the world begins its journey with their labour here in the chili capital of Karnataka.

Fiery and dark red, the Byadgi chili is prized for its oil which, once extracted and properly processed, forms the base for lipsticks and even colas. Working through buying agents, say local traders, multinational companies purchase the bulk of the crop. Prices are currently running at around Rs 5,000-6,000 per quintal, about Rs 1,500 more than "average" because continuous drought in the Dharwar region.

Jamalbee has two acres of unirrigated land in her native village of Motebennur, some 10 kms away. But since nothing has grown on it for the better part of three years, she is forced to take the bus every day to this market town to clean chillies for a living.

Work is uncertain: some days she will have to return home empty-handed. Neither she nor any of the other women sitting out in the 40 ºC heat plucking the tops off a huge mound of chilies has the least bit of enthusiasm for the elections. "We know nothing about the govt and the govt knows nothing about us", says Yelamma from Mallur village.

"I get paid Rs 2.50 per kilo of cleaned chilies and if I work fast, I can make as much as Rs 35 in the day".

Is India shining for them? Jamalbee has never heard the slogan. Is she better off today than she was five years ago? "Three years ago, the rate for cleaning chilies was Rs 1.50 per kilo and we used to make Rs 25 a day", she says. "We are definitely not better off," another woman says angrily. By now, the wholesale merchant who has been watching his employees being interviewed, scolds the women. "What do these poor ladies know about politics," he says.
"Better you come inside and talk to saar."

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India wants US not to humiliate VIP fingers

18 April 2004
The Times of India

India wants US not to humiliate VIP fingers

SIDDHARTH VARADARAJAN
TIMES NEWS NETWORK

NEW DELHI: The Vajpayee government is unhappy with the new US policy of fingerprinting foreign visitors, including Indians on arrival. But unlike Brazil and China - which have begun retaliating against US visitors, India is only seeking to exempt its VIP and VVIP travellers from the humiliating requirement.

Last week, senior officials from the external affairs ministry met diplomats in the US embassy here to seek "clarifications" about a key grey area in the fingerprinting rule: what happens to holders of diplomatic passports?

As matters stand, the only exception permissible under the new US statute is for diplomatic passport holders travelling on official work.

It means that if external affairs minister Yashwant Sinha were to fly in to New York on personal business - say, to visit relatives - he would have to leave behind at JFK airport a freshly minted set of fingerprints.

The same would be true of the Chief Justice of India, or indeed any one of the huge tribe of VIPs and VVIPs that populate this land of ours.

"We have sought some clarifications on this issue," a senior Indian official told Times News Network. "Our embassy in Washington has also raised some questions. Let us see what they say."

Earlier this month, the Chinese government became the second country, after Brazil, to announce it would take retaliatory measures against the US for fingerprinting most Chinese visitors to that country.

According to Xinhua news agency, the measures include granting ordinary visas and levying a visa fee for US diplomatic passport holders travelling for personal purposes.

In-person visa interviews may henceforth be required and US citizens can no longer apply for visas on arrival in China. On its part, Brazil has been fingerprinting US visitors since January.

As things stand, however, MEA officials insist India is not going to take any retaliatory action against the US.

Says an official: "Our view is that Indians are not being singled out for fingerprinting, so there is no need for us to react. It is a general US rule. In fact, from October, even visitors from countries like Britain and Japan, who don't require visas to enter the US, will also be fingerprinted on arrival there."

Indian tour operators disagree with the government's approach. "India should not be taken for granted", says one Delhi-based travel agent. "Otherwise tomorrow, Americans will start collecting our fingerprints here itself."

In Indonesia, the government has resorted to retaliation of a different kind to fight against what it feels is Western "finger-pointing" over the alleged dangers of travelling to South-East Asia.

Last week, the Indonesian authorities issued a travel advisory to their citizens urging them to cancel non-essential travel to the UK, citing the heightened threat of a terror attack in London following the Madrid blasts.

Hailing the stand of both Jakarta and Beijing, an Asian travel industry newsletter, Travel Impact Newswire, says that while the Chinese and Indonesian actions will be statistically meaningless in terms of actual visitor movements, "they are, however, symbolically significant... The Chinese are signalling that they may not yet wish to fingerprint and photograph US visitors, partly because they may not have the equipment in place to do so, but they certainly can and will take other 'countermeasures'. In turn, the Indonesians are indicating that if UK advisories against Indonesia are designed to 'protect UK citizens', the Indonesian government has an equal right to protect its citizens by warning them of potential dangers of visiting UK."

The newsletter argues that "if the governments of India and other increasingly powerful developing countries take similar counter-measures, the tables will start turning big time."

However, given the Indian government's primary aim of insulating only its VIPs, a defiant stand is unlikely.

Of course, a big obstacle in securing the exemption from fingerprinting for Indian VIPs is their sheer number.

"There are literally thousands of diplomatic passport holders out there," says an official. "Ex-MPs, former officials, MLAs. Who all will the US exempt?"

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Indian troops for Iraq is "wishful thinking"

10 April 2004
The Times of India

Indian troops for Iraq is "wishful thinking"

SIDDHARTH VARADARAJAN
TIMES NEWS NETWORK

NEW DELHI: The Vajpayee government may not have put out an official denial yet but senior officials say a US State Department spokesman's claim about New Delhi considering the dispatch of troops to Iraq is a case of "wishful thinking, pure and simple".

A number of South Block officials involved with the issue told The Times of India on Saturday that there had, not even been any new request from Washington for Indian troops to be sent into Iraq after the so-called transfer of sovereignty takes place on June 30.

"Given the violence there, and the fact that we're going in for elections, it is completely unrealistic for the US to think India can reconsider its stand," said a senior official, adding "Washington is usually never realistic but this is going too far".

According to PTI, Adam Ereli of the State Department told reporters on Friday, "We have, I think, regular and ongoing contacts not only obviously, with the members of the coalition currently in Iraq, but possible new countries that might want to contribute. These include India and Bangladesh".

Ereli was replying to a question about a statement made by US secretary of state Colin Powell that a number of countries, including India, were still open to the idea of sending troops.

Indian officials see these 'optimistic' statements as a sign of Washington's growing desperation with the unfolding crisis in Iraq. "It wouldn't surprise me if these things are said with a domestic US audience in mind, that a bail-out by the rest of the world is on the cards."

If at all Washington has sought to open a channel with New Delhi on Iraq, this is likely to have been at the political (i.e. PMO) rather than official (i.e.MEA) level.

The French government has confirmed that it has been approached by the US to contribute troops for a multinational force to protect UN personnel in Iraq.

But Paris is unwilling to budge. And given the scale of the ongoing insurgency in Iraq, the large number of civilians killed and injured by the US occupiers and the growing signs of a unified, non-sectarian patriotic sentiment among ordinary Iraqis, no Indian leader is likely to want to send Indian troops there.

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Sonia as PM? Many countries had foreign-born at the top

2 April 2004
The Times of India

Many had foreigners at the top

SIDDHARTH VARADARAJAN
TIMES NEWS NETWORK

NEW DELHI: Sonia Gandhi is not the first foreign-born spouse of an ethnic Indian head of government to aspire for the top post after her husband's death. In 1997, Janet Jagan, the US-born widow of legendary Guyanese leader Cheddi Jagan, was elected president of Guyana and ran the Souh American country till 1999.

But unlike Sonia, Janet Jagan — born Janet Rosalie Rosenberg in Chicago in 1920 — was a political veteran by the time she became President. She came to British Guiana to work as a nurse in 1943, a year after her marriage to Cheddi, whom she met in the US. In 1950, she and Cheddi founded the People's Progressive Party and remained political activists for the rest of their lives.

Like the BJP, Desmond Hoyte — Janet's rival in 1997 — tried to raise the 'foreign born' issue. But Guyana's voters didn't agree.

A random survey of recent heads of government internationally suggests it is not all that uncommon for foreign-born citizens to get elected to top political posts.

France: Valery Giscard d'Estaing, President from 1974 to 1981 was born in Koblenz, Germany in 1926. Edouard Balladur, French PM in the 1990s, was born in Turkey.

Canada: John Turner, Canadian PM in 1984, was born in Richmond, England.

Ireland: Eamon de Valera, the three-time PM who retired as president before he died, was born in New York city in 1882.

Jean-Luc Dehaene, recently prime minister of Belgium, was born in Montpelier, France.

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