Showing posts with label foreign policy. Show all posts
Showing posts with label foreign policy. Show all posts
Sunday, 28 April 2024
Saturday, 15 April 2017
Why rightwingers are desperate for Sweden to ‘fail’
Christian Christen in The Guardian
Of course Sweden isn’t perfect, but those who love to portray it as teeming with terrorists and naive towards reality, are just cynical hypocrites
‘When terrible events take place, they are framed as evidence of the decline and fall of the European social democratic project, the failure of European immigration policies and of Swedish innocence lost.’ Photograph: Fredrik Sandberg/AFP/Getty Images
There are few countries in the world that have “lost their innocence” as many times as Sweden. Even before a suspected terrorist and Isis supporter killed four and injured many more in last week’s attack in central Stockholm, Sweden’s policies were being portrayed on the programmes of Fox News and pages of the Daily Mail as, at best, exercises in well-meaning-but-naive multiculturalism, and at worst terrorist appeasement.
So, when terrible events take place, they are framed as evidence of the decline and fall of the European social democratic project, the failure of European immigration policies and of Swedish innocence lost.
When Donald Trump argued against the intake of Syrian refugees to the US earlier this year, he used supposed problems in Sweden as part of his rationale. “You look at what’s happening last night in Sweden,” the president said at a rally in Florida in February. “Sweden. Who would believe this? Sweden. They took in large numbers. They’re having problems like they never thought possible.” The White House later clarified that Trump had been speaking about general “rising crime”, when he seemed to be describing a then non-existent terror attack.
Sweden is a capitalist, economic power – usually found near the top of rankings of innovative and competitive economies
The obsession with Sweden has a lot to do with the country’s history of taking in refugees and asylum seekers, combined with social democratic politics. Both are poison to the political right. When prime minister Olof Palme was shot walking home (without bodyguards) from a cinema in 1986, we were told that Swedish innocence and utopian notions of a non-violent society had come to an end. But Swedes miraculously regained their innocence, only to lose it again in 2003 when the popular foreign minister Anna Lindh (also without bodyguards) was stabbed to death in a Stockholm department store. This possession and dispossession of innocence – which some call naivety – has ebbed and flowed with the years.
The election to parliament and subsequent rise of the anti-immigration Sweden Democrats were discussed in similar terms, as was the decision in late 2015 by the Swedish government to halt the intake of refugees after a decades-long policy of humanitarian acceptance.
Yet the notion of a doe-eyed Sweden buffeted by the cruel winds of the real world is a nonsense. Sweden is an economic power – usually found near the top of rankings of innovative and competitive economies. Companies that are household names, from H&M to Ericsson and Skype, and food packaging giant Tetra Pak, are Swedish. It plays the capitalist game better than most (and not always in an ethical manner. The country is, per capita, one of the largest weapons exporters in the world. As for the argument that Swedes are in denial, unwilling to discuss the impact of immigration? This comes as news to citizens who see the issue addressed regularly in the Swedish media, most obviously in the context of the rise of the Sweden Democrats.
There are few countries in the world that have “lost their innocence” as many times as Sweden. Even before a suspected terrorist and Isis supporter killed four and injured many more in last week’s attack in central Stockholm, Sweden’s policies were being portrayed on the programmes of Fox News and pages of the Daily Mail as, at best, exercises in well-meaning-but-naive multiculturalism, and at worst terrorist appeasement.
So, when terrible events take place, they are framed as evidence of the decline and fall of the European social democratic project, the failure of European immigration policies and of Swedish innocence lost.
When Donald Trump argued against the intake of Syrian refugees to the US earlier this year, he used supposed problems in Sweden as part of his rationale. “You look at what’s happening last night in Sweden,” the president said at a rally in Florida in February. “Sweden. Who would believe this? Sweden. They took in large numbers. They’re having problems like they never thought possible.” The White House later clarified that Trump had been speaking about general “rising crime”, when he seemed to be describing a then non-existent terror attack.
Sweden is a capitalist, economic power – usually found near the top of rankings of innovative and competitive economies
The obsession with Sweden has a lot to do with the country’s history of taking in refugees and asylum seekers, combined with social democratic politics. Both are poison to the political right. When prime minister Olof Palme was shot walking home (without bodyguards) from a cinema in 1986, we were told that Swedish innocence and utopian notions of a non-violent society had come to an end. But Swedes miraculously regained their innocence, only to lose it again in 2003 when the popular foreign minister Anna Lindh (also without bodyguards) was stabbed to death in a Stockholm department store. This possession and dispossession of innocence – which some call naivety – has ebbed and flowed with the years.
The election to parliament and subsequent rise of the anti-immigration Sweden Democrats were discussed in similar terms, as was the decision in late 2015 by the Swedish government to halt the intake of refugees after a decades-long policy of humanitarian acceptance.
Yet the notion of a doe-eyed Sweden buffeted by the cruel winds of the real world is a nonsense. Sweden is an economic power – usually found near the top of rankings of innovative and competitive economies. Companies that are household names, from H&M to Ericsson and Skype, and food packaging giant Tetra Pak, are Swedish. It plays the capitalist game better than most (and not always in an ethical manner. The country is, per capita, one of the largest weapons exporters in the world. As for the argument that Swedes are in denial, unwilling to discuss the impact of immigration? This comes as news to citizens who see the issue addressed regularly in the Swedish media, most obviously in the context of the rise of the Sweden Democrats.
Stockholm attack suspect 'known to security services'
Between 2014 and 2016, Sweden received roughly 240,000 asylum seekers: far and away the most refugees per capita in Europe. But the process has not been smooth. Throughout 2016 and 2017, the issue of men leaving Sweden to fight for Isis has been a major story, as has the Swedish government’s perceived lack of preparation about what to do when these fighters return. There is also much debate on the practice of gender segregation in some Muslim schools in Sweden.
As Stockholm goes through a period of mourning for last week’s attack, it is worth asking: is Sweden the country divorced from reality? If we are speaking of naivety in relation to terrorism, a good place to start might be US foreign policy in the Middle East , and not Sweden’s humanitarian intake of the immigrants and refugees created (at least in part) as a result of that US policy.
Has Swedish immigration policy always been well thought-out? No. Is Sweden marked by social and economic divisions? Yes. But the presentation of Sweden as some kind of case study in failed utopianism often comes from those who talk a big game on democracy, human rights and equality, but who refuse to move beyond talk into action.
So, when pundits and experts opine on Swedish “innocence lost” it is worth remembering that Sweden has never been innocent. It is also worth remembering that Sweden was willing to put its money where its mouth was when it came to taking in refugees and immigrants fleeing the conflicts and instability fuelled by countries unwilling to deal with the consequences of their actions. This shirking of responsibility while condemning the efforts of others is far worse than being naive. It’s cynical hypocrisy.
Monday, 2 September 2013
Chemical export licences for Syria – just another UK deal with a dictator
Britain is in no position to lecture on human rights when Vince Cable's authorisation follows a long history of arms sales
Defence Systems and Equipment International arms fair at the Excel Centre, Docklands, London. Photograph: Rex Features
The latest revelations about the authorisation of chemical exports to Syria proves that British ministers should avoid two things – lecturing the public on personal morality and lecturing the world on human rights. Both will come back to bite them. While Nick Clegg commented on the pages of the Guardian earlier this year that the UK was a "beacon for human rights", his business secretary was authorising companies to sell chemicals capable of being used to make nerve gas to a country in the middle of a civil war.
Clegg almost certainly knew nothing about the potential sales, and indeed the sales themselves might have been quite innocent, but our history should tell us that precaution is the best principle. If the companies had got their act together to ship the goods to Syria, they would probably have received government support through a unit of Cable's Department for Business, Innovation and Skills, called UK Export Finance. This unit has sold weapons to some of the worst dictators of the past 40 years – and had a role to play in the most serious chemical weapons abuses since the Vietnam war.
Jubilee Debt Campaign has released new information which confirms that the British government effectively armed both sides during the Iran-Iraq war – one of the Middle East's most bloody conflicts.
Britain had been happily selling weapons to Saddam Hussein, our ally during his war against the new Islamic Republic, in the early 1980s. The UK government also allowed the sale of the goods needed to make a chemical plant which the US later claimed was essential to Saddam's chemical weapons arsenal, with the full knowledge that the plant was likely to be used to produce nerve gas. Saddam used chemical weapons against Iranian soldiers and against civilians within his own country in 1988, killing tens of thousands.
This is old news, but we now also know that until the fall of the Shah in 1979, Britain also sold Rapier missiles and Chieftain tanks to Iran's autocratic regime – weapons that were undoubtedly also used in the Iran-Iraq war.
Both sets of arms were effectively paid for by the British taxpayer, as both Iraq and Iran defaulted on the loans given by Britain, and they became part of Iraq and Iran's debt. Though Iran still "owes" £28m to Britain, plus an undisclosed amount of interest, this didn't stop Britain guaranteeing £178m of loans to Iran to buy British exports for gas and oil developments in the mid 2000s, thus breaking its own rules.
This new information adds to a litany of such cases – supporting arms sales to the brutal General Suharto of Indonesia, both Sadat and Mubarak in Egypt and military juntas in Ecuador and Argentina, the latter using its British weapons to invade the Falkland Islands.
In opposition, Cable railed against the use of taxpayer money to support such sales, and his party promised to audit and cancel these debts and stop the sales. In power, he behaves the same way as his predecessors. While regularly claiming such deals are a "thing of the past", Cable has signed off £2bn of loans to the dictatorship in Oman to buy British Typhoon fighter aircraft, the sale of a hovercraft to the highly indebted Pakistan navy and an iron ore mine in Sierra Leone which has not even been assessed for its human rights impact.
Cable has ripped up Liberal Democrat policy to keep on supporting the sale of dangerous goods. He continues to insist on the repayment of debts run up by the UK selling weapons to now deposed dictators. Far from being a beacon for human rights, the UK has little legitimacy around the world when it comes to taking sides in wars – a fact that parliament recognised in its welcome vote last Thursday.
Next week, Britain's true role in the world will be on show in Docklands – when the world's "leading" military sales event meets in London. As war and the aftermath of war still rage across the Middle East, one way we as citizens improve our country's damaged reputation is to protest against such an appalling expression of Britain's role in the world. Authorising the export of chemicals to Syria is simply part of a long trend of support for dangerous technology which undermines this country's legitimacy when it comes to speaking about human rights.
Monday, 10 June 2013
Hypocrisy lies at the heart of the trial of Bradley Manning
It is an outrage that soldiers who killed innocents remain free but the man who exposed them is accused of 'aiding the enemy'
Bradley Manning is escorted out of a courthouse in Fort Meade, Maryland. Photograph: Patrick Semansky/AP
In 2009 the American ambassador to Tunisia spent the evening at the home of Mohamed Sakher el-Materi, the president's son-in-law. By any standards the dinner was lavish – yogurt and ice cream were flown in from St Tropez – and the home was opulent. In a cable, made public by WikiLeaks, the diplomat wrote: "The house was recently renovated and includes an infinity pool … there are ancient artefacts everywhere: Roman columns, frescos and even a lion's head from which water pours into the pool. Materi insisted the pieces are real." By Tunisian standards it was particularly obscene. El-Materi owned a tiger and fed it four chickens a day.
The US diplomatic corps in Tunis understood this was a problem. In a cable the previous year, entitled What's yours is mine, they'd written: "With Tunisians facing rising inflation and high unemployment, the conspicuous displays of wealth and persistent rumours of corruption have added fuel to the fire." But the US continued to back the Tunisian president anyway, considering him a reliable ally against terrorism and preferring a dependable dictatorship to an unpredictable democracy. Until, of course, a couple months after the WikiLeaks revelations, Tunisians rose up and ejected him, unleashing a wave of revolutions in the region.
WikiLeaks did not cause these uprisings but it certainly informed them. The dispatches revealed details of corruption and kleptocracy that many Tunisians suspected, but could not prove, and would cite as they took to the streets. They also exposed the blatant discrepancy between the west's professed values and actual foreign policies. Having lectured the Arab world about democracy for years, its collusion in suppressing freedom was undeniable as protesters were met by weaponry and tear gas made in the west, employed by a military trained by westerners.
On Monday Bradley Manning, the young man who leaked those diplomatic cables, goes on trial in a military court in Maryland. He has pleaded guilty to 10 charges which would put him behind bars for 20 years. But that is not enough for the US military that has levelled 22 charges against him, including espionage and "aiding the enemy", which carries up to life in prison without parole. At the time Manning released the diplomatic cables and military reports he wrote: "I want people to see the truth … regardless of who they are. Because without information, you cannot make informed decisions as a public." He hoped by releasing the cables he would spark "worldwide discussion, debates, and reforms".
If the leaks laid bare the hypocritical claim that the US was exporting democracy, then the nature of his incarceration and prosecution illustrate the fallacy of its insistence that it is protecting both freedom and security at home. Manning's treatment since his arrest in May 2010 has involved a number of serious human rights violations.
At various times since his arrest he has been held in solitary confinement for 23 out of 24 hours a day for five months in succession, held in an 8ft by 6ft cell, been forced to sleep naked apart from an anti-suicide smock for two months, and been woken up to three times a night while on suicide watch. Following an investigation, the UN special rapporteur on torture, Juan Ernesto Méndez, last year argued Manning had been "subjected to cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment".
Meanwhile, the case against him indicates the degree to which the war on terror (a campaign that has been officially retired describing a legal, military and political edifice that remains firmly intact) privileges secrecy over not only transparency but humanity. This is exemplified in one of his leak's more explosive revelations – a video that soon went viral showing two Reuters employees, among others, being shot dead by a US Apache helicopter in Iraq. They were among a dozen or so people milling around near an area where US troops had been exposed to small arms fire. The soldiers, believing the camera to be a weapon, opened fire, leaving several dead and some wounded.
"Look at those dead bastards," says one pilot. "Nice," says the other. When a van comes to pick up the wounded they shoot at that too, wounding two children inside. "Well, it's their fault for bringing their kids into a battle," one of the pilots says.
An investigation exonerated the soldiers on the grounds that they couldn't have known who they were shooting. No disciplinary action was taken. When Reuters tried to get a copy of the video under the Freedom of Information Act, its request was denied. Were it not for Manning it would never have been made public. So the men who killed innocents, thereby stoking legitimate grievances across the globe and fanning the flames of resistance, are free to kill another day and the man who exposed them is behind bars, accused of "aiding the enemy".
In this world, murder is not the crime; unmasking and distributing evidence of it is. To insist that Manning's disclosure put his military colleagues in harm's way is a bit like a cheating husband claiming that his partner reading his diary, not the infidelity, is what is truly imperilling their marriage. Avoiding responsibility for action, one instead blames the information and informant who makes that action known.
There is no need to deify Manning, or WikiLeaks, in all of this. While no one has yet to make a credible case that any of the information he released put a single US soldier in greater danger than they already were by occupying a foreign country, not all of it was as damning as the Apache incident or revelatory as the Tunisian cables.
Much was the routine reports of diplomats to their bosses – channels that, for those of us who prefer diplomacy to war, we should want to protect. The chance of exposing hypocrisy must be weighed against the certainty of inhibiting the kind of candid, private back-door discussions that have helped make everything from the Northern Ireland peace process to the release of Nelson Mandela possible.
Elizabeth Goitein, co-director of the Brennan Center for Justice's Liberty and National Security Program, told the Washington Post that Manning's leaks were a "reckless … data dump … [but] he is not an enemy of the state". But it's not just about Manning. It's about a government, obsessed with secrecy, that has prosecuted more whistleblowers than all previous administrations combined. And it's about wars in which the resistance to, and exposure of, crimes and abuses has been criminalised while the criminals and abusers go free. If Manning is an enemy of the state then so too is truth.
Friday, 12 August 2011
German tax dodgers with money hidden in Swiss banks can sleep easy tonight.
Germany has set back the fight against tax evasion
Those who squirrel away undeclared wealth in Switzerland will be pleased by this deal. What's worse, the UK may follow suit
'Germany is setting back years of work towards the global prize of ending banking secrecy in the world's most pervasive tax haven.' Photograph: Arnd Wiegmann/Reuters/Corbis
German tax dodgers with money hidden in Swiss banks can sleep easy tonight. For the German government this week initialled a beggar-thy-neighbour deal that undermines years of diplomatic work to penetrate Switzerland's globally corrosive banking secrecy. The agreement, which is due to be signed by both governments over the next few weeks, sees Germany accepting a paltry $2.8bn upfront from the Swiss banks said to hold some $276bn of Germans' undeclared wealth .
In addition, the deal says that Germans will in future be taxed at 26% on the income from their Alpine accounts – money the Swiss authorities will then hand over to Germany. But the Germans with secret accounts will not be forced to tell the taxman that they are hiding their wealth abroad. Their identities will remain secret, allowing Swiss bankers to keep their boasts about "privacy" and "confidentiality".
Both governments are spinning their agreement as a huge success for international co-operation and the fight against tax evasion.
In fact, Germany is setting back years of work towards the global prize of ending banking secrecy in the world's most pervasive tax haven. It has dealt a serious blow to prospects for automatic, multilateral exchange of tax-related information between governments, which is the gold standard for deterring tax dodging.
German Tax Justice Campaigners are hoping the deal with Switzerland can be repealed. But what about the scores of countries without the economic and political clout to negotiate such agreements with Switzerland? How are they to capture some of the billions they are haemorrhaging as a result of tax dodging and corruption?
They are reliant on the kind on international co-operation that NGOs including Christian Aid are fighting for, in order to End Tax Haven Secrecy. There may be worse to come. Here in the UK, HM Treasury is negotiating a similar agreement with Switzerland. It has simply been biding its time to see what kind of deal Germany gets.
With the UK government pursuing such a self-interested and myopic policy, it is no surprise that senior UK diplomats appear distinctly disinterested in playing ball at the G20, where a truly global deal to end tax haven secrecy could be brokered.
A former senior US Treasury official, who used to negotiate tax treaties for the US, recently told me of his fury about how these dirty deals are undoing a whole career's worth of work against financial secrecy.
Such is the scourge of tax havens that the Tax Justice Network estimate assets held offshore total $11.5tn – which if taxed could yield revenues in excess of $225bn. This is money that could be paying for schools, hospitals, university fees and so on – not only in the developed world but also in developing countries. It is $11.5tn that could be used productively in the global economy rather than stashed away in an Alpine tax haven for private gain.
Meanwhile, the real Swiss economy doesn't seem to be benefiting too much from the influx of dodgy capital. Its government this week met for a third unscheduled session to grapple with curbing the surging value of the Swiss franc, which is damaging Swiss exports and sending the economy down a precarious path.
Yet again, it is vested interests who are winning out over the real economy and the everyday citizens who are being deprived of essential services, whether in Basel, Berlin or Bamako.
Sunday, 27 March 2011
Is the US ambassador the only confidant of Indian politicians and bureaucrats?
wikileaks
The Call Of The American Demarche
Does India really follow the US lead as blindly as the Wikileaks cables seem to suggest?
Pranay Sharma
A Few Views Through The Cablegate
Cable 162458 July 17, 2008: Claims Congress MP Satish Sharma's aide, Nachiketa Kapur, confided to an embassy official that RLD MPs had been bribed Rs 10 crore each and showed him two chests containing Rs 50-80 crore for bribing Opposition MPs before a no-confidence vote against UPA-I.
Cable 195165 March 4, 2009: Home Minister P. Chidambaram confides to FBI chief that the constitutional status of the National Investigation Agency is debatable.
Cable 220281 Aug 11, 2009: US ambassador Timothy Roemer is told by NSA M.K. Narayanan that he differs with PM Singh on his policy to engage Pakistan.
Cable 206814 May 13, 2009: BJP leader L.K. Advani says his party, if it were to come to power, would rethink its decision of opposing the nuclear deal.
Cable 243925 Jan 15, 2010: M.K. Narayanan tells US ambassador Roemer that Chidambaram needs someone “to check him and put a bit in his mouth”. Congress leader Digvijay Singh says Narayanan had to leave because of his turf war with the home minister.
Cable No 215357 July 7, 2009: Quotes India's PR to the UN Hardeep Puri saying his “clear” brief from New Delhi is to seek “a greater degree of convergence with the US” in the UN.
Cable No 205168 May 1, 2009: Cites joint secretary (Americas) Gaitri Kumar saying that the US should convey to the MEA any complaint about Puri's functioning in the UN.
Cable No 149884 April 15, 2008: An MEA official informs the US about the Iranian president's visit to India even before the information is made public or conveyed to other government agencies.
Cable No. 64794 May 19, 2006: Indian deputy PR Ajai Malhotra criticises his boss, Nirupam Sen, for opposing the US in UN, says his brief is to oppose him.
Cable 225053 Sept 14, 2009: Secretary of State Hillary Clinton wants to know about finance minister Pranab Mukherjee's ideological orientation, and why Montek Singh Ahluwalia wasn't given that post.
Cable 40501 Sept 13, 2005: Ambassador David Mulford asks Condoleezza Rice to tell Manmohan Singh that India's decision to not vote on Iran in the IAEA could have an adverse impact on the nuclear deal.
Cable 51088 Jan 30, 2006: Mulford hails the sacking of Mani Shankar Aiyar from the petroleum ministry, and says the cabinet reshuffle has an "undeniable pro-America tilt".
***
As Parliament stalled repeatedly over the sensational Wikileaks cables and the nation was left aghast at the seemingly unfettered access American officials have to the corridors of power in New Delhi, you’d have thought the Indian officialdom had been warned about the perils of rubbing shoulders with all those whose calling cards mention the Embassy of the United States of America. Yet, indifferent to the shock and awe The Hindu-Wikileaks cables generated, a government luminary had the chutzpah to accommodate in his breathless schedule a meeting with a middle-rung American official, to brief him, of all things, on the functioning of his department. It was a gross violation of protocol—the Indian official’s rank meant he met none other than the American ambassador.
Last week also saw a leader of a coalition partner of the UPA government desperately seek from the US embassy a special slot for a visa interview for his son, in the hope of helping him circumvent long queues. Imagine the scenario before the little Wikileaks bombs exploded so dramatically? Secretary-level officials of different ministries readily furnish their mobile numbers to US embassy officials and provide appointments to them without going through the Union ministry of external affairs (MEA). In fact, all those who matter in New Delhi—from politicians to industrialists to opinion-makers—vie with each other to have a one-to-one meeting with the Americans, sharing information and gossip, and unwittingly articulating, often highlighting, the American point of view on sensitive issues.
There are simply too many Indian tongues whispering into the American ear, spilling, as the Wikileaks cables (see infographic) bear out, sensitive aspects of Indian foreign policy, relations between top politicians, their ideological inclinations, even their machinations, and their propensity to strike strong anti-America poses only for public consumption. So then, are we America’s chamcha, a lackey willing to do its bidding? Is America’s penetration of the Indian system worrying?
Take the cable that quotes an American official saying he had been shown two chests of cash by Congress MP Satish Sharma’s aide, Nachiketa Kapur, who claimed the money would soon be utilised for bribing Opposition MPs to vote against the no-confidence motion against UPA-I. A school of thought argues that the money was perhaps America’s, supplied by an intelligence operative, and Kapur was only accounting for the cash to the official who had come calling on him. “What was the need for Kapur to otherwise show the cash to the official? It proves America has become a player in our system,” says one diplomatic source.
A tad exaggerated perhaps. Yet, Kapur’s candour illustrates vividly the confidence an aide of an important MP reposes in the Americans. Says former foreign minister and BJP leader Yashwant Sinha, “Since the US hasn’t spoken about the authenticity of the cables, these are therefore deemed genuine. It’s an invasion by the Americans into the Indian system.” Endorsing Sinha is former foreign minister K. Natwar Singh, who was miffed to discover that his parleys with Myanmarese leaders during his 2005 trip to Yangon had been relayed to the US, quite obvious from a Wikileaks cable. “How many moles do we have? The American penetration of the Indian establishment is alarming indeed,” he said, adding that the controversy shows the Manmohan government in “poor light”.
Waltzing to whose tune? A US embassy party in New Delhi. (Photograph by Sanjoy Ghosh)
A clutch of cables pertaining to the United Nations bolsters the theory about America penetrating the Indian system. One cable quotes India’s Permanent Representative in the UN, Hardeep Puri, as saying that his specific brief is to seek a “greater degree of convergence” with the US, in contrast to his predecessor, Nirupam Sen’s. Another cable has an Indian official criticise Sen’s ‘anti-US’ approach. But the former diplomat asks of his detractors: “Since I was perceived by at least some American diplomats in an adversarial light, how was I able to continue there for another two years after retiring on March 31, 2007?” Sen wasn’t willing to provide the answer, but MEA sources say he was given an extension at the behest of Sonia Gandhi, who wanted to correct UPA's pro-Washington tilt.
Yet, the pro-America lobby in the UPA-I regime felt emboldened enough to scuttle a fundamental change in the UN that Sen had initiated, only to please the Americans. This pertained to the choice of a candidate for the post of UN secretary-general. Under a 1946 resolution, described as 11/1, the US and other P-5 members of the Security Council (SC), along with the support of four non-permanent members, send only one name for the approval of General Assembly (GA). This practice had once led Sen to remark that the UN secretary-general acted more like a “secretary to the P-5” and a “general to the General Assembly”.
Sen and some members of the GA, therefore, proposed that it be made mandatory for the SC to shortlist at least three names for the post of secretary-general. South Block, sources say, initially tried to dissuade Sen from pursuing this course, but he remained steadfast saying he needed a written order before he could retract from his position. It was then that South Block turned wily, writing a new script that, sources insist, was truly Machiavellian—and aimed at pleasing the Americans.
What was that script? In 2006, Shashi Tharoor threw his hat in the ring, not as an official Indian candidate, but as an ‘independent’ who, straw polls indicated, enjoyed tremendous popularity in the UN and was supposed to give the SC (read the US) nominee a run for the money. Sources say a nervous US asked New Delhi to endorse Tharoor as its official candidate. The announcement sowed seeds of doubt among the GA members who perceived Sen’s attempt to alter 11/1 as a ruse to win for India the post of secretary-general. The GA became badly divided, provoking many of its members to abandon the plan of rewriting 11/1—and diluting the powers of P-5.
Yet another example of the craven behaviour of Indian officials towards America is borne out by the experience of Congress leader Mani Shankar Aiyar, whose divestment of the petroleum ministry portfolio is celebrated in a Wikileaks cable. The Americans thought Aiyar was anti-America, a charge he dismisses outright. “I was disappointed (at the divestment),” says Aiyar, “but I don’t believe it was because of pressure from outside.”
But what rankled Aiyar was that then US ambassador David Mulford declared in a public speech that Murli Deora was better informed about the petroleum ministry than Aiyar. As he told Outlook, “While Mulford was perfectly within his rights to send secret cables to his government about us, to make a public statement comparing two ministers was an act of gross impropriety. I objected very strongly to it, and conveyed my protest to the foreign secretary. But instead of a public expression of deep displeasure, the foreign secretary preferred merely to whisper in the US ambassador’s ear. I thought it was inadequate.”
The love for America is a trait the BJP too shares with the Congress. One cable has the US embassy complaining to Washington that the NDA government gave them better access than the UPA. Again, BJP leader L.K. Advani was initially opposed to the idea of sending Indian troops to Iraq, but a 2003 trip to the US and defence secretary Donald Rumsfeld’s visit to his hotel room saw him accede to Washington. Ultimately, Indian troops weren’t sent because of prime minister A.B. Vajpayee’s opposition. Says Sinha, “There is no denying that there were elements even in the NDA who were very close to the US, but you should judge us by our actions.” He says it is well-documented that the BJP-led NDA warded off American pressure to sign the CTBT and the nuclear deal, believing these militated against India’s interest. (Analysts, however, say the NDA would have agreed to the nuclear deal had it been voted to power in 2004.)
The aggrieved Both Aiyar and Natwar Singh have bones to pick
What has enabled the Americans to make deep inroads into the Indian system? To begin with, the Indian middle class, to which the elite belong, has made an ideological shift to the US. Every middle-class family seems to have a member working in the US. It is the land where parents wish to send their children for education, and seasoned bureaucrats are keen on short-term courses in the American universities. Visas have granted the US embassy an unprecedented clout and reach. In addition, bureaucrats have seen three successive governments, beginning 1999, tilt away from Russia and inch closer to Washington. This shift has transmitted a message to the officialdom that America is the flavour of the season, engendering hopes in them of advancing their careers by taking a pro-US line in consonance with that of their political masters.
There’s no denying that America’s support to India has given it a considerable heft in the international arena. Says an Indian diplomat, “We have used the US as a stepladder.” Has the climb up the hierarchy of global powers compromised India’s sovereignty? And though a country’s interests keep shifting, and there’s always give-and-take in diplomacy, New Delhi can’t be seen to have bartered on possible gains of the future for America’s support, other than on Iran.
Iran remains a contentious issue among foreign policy wonks. Former foreign secretary Shyam Saran insists it was in India’s interest to have voted along with the US in the IAEA in 2005 (see interview). Again, Aiyar pursued the India-Pakistan-Iran (IPI) gas pipeline on the basis of a cabinet decision. Substantial progress was registered on the issue in the first two years of Aiyar’s departure from the petroleum ministry. But the pipeline subsequently got stalled because of the instability in Pakistan.
Perhaps the Wikileaks cables are a timely warning to India to draw certain lines in its relationship with the US. As Aiyar says, “My only suggestion to our ministries is to exercise greater discretion in their exchange with foreign diplomats. Do not retail gossip, be more disciplined.” Perhaps the furore over Wikileaks cables is a reminder to Indians to not be unduly enamoured of America, to not sacrifice their self-respect, to introduce a certain balance in its conduct of foreign policy.
The Call Of The American Demarche
Does India really follow the US lead as blindly as the Wikileaks cables seem to suggest?
Pranay Sharma
A Few Views Through The Cablegate
Cable 162458 July 17, 2008: Claims Congress MP Satish Sharma's aide, Nachiketa Kapur, confided to an embassy official that RLD MPs had been bribed Rs 10 crore each and showed him two chests containing Rs 50-80 crore for bribing Opposition MPs before a no-confidence vote against UPA-I.
Cable 195165 March 4, 2009: Home Minister P. Chidambaram confides to FBI chief that the constitutional status of the National Investigation Agency is debatable.
Cable 220281 Aug 11, 2009: US ambassador Timothy Roemer is told by NSA M.K. Narayanan that he differs with PM Singh on his policy to engage Pakistan.
Cable 206814 May 13, 2009: BJP leader L.K. Advani says his party, if it were to come to power, would rethink its decision of opposing the nuclear deal.
Cable 243925 Jan 15, 2010: M.K. Narayanan tells US ambassador Roemer that Chidambaram needs someone “to check him and put a bit in his mouth”. Congress leader Digvijay Singh says Narayanan had to leave because of his turf war with the home minister.
Cable No 215357 July 7, 2009: Quotes India's PR to the UN Hardeep Puri saying his “clear” brief from New Delhi is to seek “a greater degree of convergence with the US” in the UN.
Cable No 205168 May 1, 2009: Cites joint secretary (Americas) Gaitri Kumar saying that the US should convey to the MEA any complaint about Puri's functioning in the UN.
Cable No 149884 April 15, 2008: An MEA official informs the US about the Iranian president's visit to India even before the information is made public or conveyed to other government agencies.
Cable No. 64794 May 19, 2006: Indian deputy PR Ajai Malhotra criticises his boss, Nirupam Sen, for opposing the US in UN, says his brief is to oppose him.
Cable 225053 Sept 14, 2009: Secretary of State Hillary Clinton wants to know about finance minister Pranab Mukherjee's ideological orientation, and why Montek Singh Ahluwalia wasn't given that post.
Cable 40501 Sept 13, 2005: Ambassador David Mulford asks Condoleezza Rice to tell Manmohan Singh that India's decision to not vote on Iran in the IAEA could have an adverse impact on the nuclear deal.
Cable 51088 Jan 30, 2006: Mulford hails the sacking of Mani Shankar Aiyar from the petroleum ministry, and says the cabinet reshuffle has an "undeniable pro-America tilt".
***
As Parliament stalled repeatedly over the sensational Wikileaks cables and the nation was left aghast at the seemingly unfettered access American officials have to the corridors of power in New Delhi, you’d have thought the Indian officialdom had been warned about the perils of rubbing shoulders with all those whose calling cards mention the Embassy of the United States of America. Yet, indifferent to the shock and awe The Hindu-Wikileaks cables generated, a government luminary had the chutzpah to accommodate in his breathless schedule a meeting with a middle-rung American official, to brief him, of all things, on the functioning of his department. It was a gross violation of protocol—the Indian official’s rank meant he met none other than the American ambassador.
Last week also saw a leader of a coalition partner of the UPA government desperately seek from the US embassy a special slot for a visa interview for his son, in the hope of helping him circumvent long queues. Imagine the scenario before the little Wikileaks bombs exploded so dramatically? Secretary-level officials of different ministries readily furnish their mobile numbers to US embassy officials and provide appointments to them without going through the Union ministry of external affairs (MEA). In fact, all those who matter in New Delhi—from politicians to industrialists to opinion-makers—vie with each other to have a one-to-one meeting with the Americans, sharing information and gossip, and unwittingly articulating, often highlighting, the American point of view on sensitive issues.
There are simply too many Indian tongues whispering into the American ear, spilling, as the Wikileaks cables (see infographic) bear out, sensitive aspects of Indian foreign policy, relations between top politicians, their ideological inclinations, even their machinations, and their propensity to strike strong anti-America poses only for public consumption. So then, are we America’s chamcha, a lackey willing to do its bidding? Is America’s penetration of the Indian system worrying?
Take the cable that quotes an American official saying he had been shown two chests of cash by Congress MP Satish Sharma’s aide, Nachiketa Kapur, who claimed the money would soon be utilised for bribing Opposition MPs to vote against the no-confidence motion against UPA-I. A school of thought argues that the money was perhaps America’s, supplied by an intelligence operative, and Kapur was only accounting for the cash to the official who had come calling on him. “What was the need for Kapur to otherwise show the cash to the official? It proves America has become a player in our system,” says one diplomatic source.
A tad exaggerated perhaps. Yet, Kapur’s candour illustrates vividly the confidence an aide of an important MP reposes in the Americans. Says former foreign minister and BJP leader Yashwant Sinha, “Since the US hasn’t spoken about the authenticity of the cables, these are therefore deemed genuine. It’s an invasion by the Americans into the Indian system.” Endorsing Sinha is former foreign minister K. Natwar Singh, who was miffed to discover that his parleys with Myanmarese leaders during his 2005 trip to Yangon had been relayed to the US, quite obvious from a Wikileaks cable. “How many moles do we have? The American penetration of the Indian establishment is alarming indeed,” he said, adding that the controversy shows the Manmohan government in “poor light”.
Waltzing to whose tune? A US embassy party in New Delhi. (Photograph by Sanjoy Ghosh)
A clutch of cables pertaining to the United Nations bolsters the theory about America penetrating the Indian system. One cable quotes India’s Permanent Representative in the UN, Hardeep Puri, as saying that his specific brief is to seek a “greater degree of convergence” with the US, in contrast to his predecessor, Nirupam Sen’s. Another cable has an Indian official criticise Sen’s ‘anti-US’ approach. But the former diplomat asks of his detractors: “Since I was perceived by at least some American diplomats in an adversarial light, how was I able to continue there for another two years after retiring on March 31, 2007?” Sen wasn’t willing to provide the answer, but MEA sources say he was given an extension at the behest of Sonia Gandhi, who wanted to correct UPA's pro-Washington tilt.
Yet, the pro-America lobby in the UPA-I regime felt emboldened enough to scuttle a fundamental change in the UN that Sen had initiated, only to please the Americans. This pertained to the choice of a candidate for the post of UN secretary-general. Under a 1946 resolution, described as 11/1, the US and other P-5 members of the Security Council (SC), along with the support of four non-permanent members, send only one name for the approval of General Assembly (GA). This practice had once led Sen to remark that the UN secretary-general acted more like a “secretary to the P-5” and a “general to the General Assembly”.
Sen and some members of the GA, therefore, proposed that it be made mandatory for the SC to shortlist at least three names for the post of secretary-general. South Block, sources say, initially tried to dissuade Sen from pursuing this course, but he remained steadfast saying he needed a written order before he could retract from his position. It was then that South Block turned wily, writing a new script that, sources insist, was truly Machiavellian—and aimed at pleasing the Americans.
What was that script? In 2006, Shashi Tharoor threw his hat in the ring, not as an official Indian candidate, but as an ‘independent’ who, straw polls indicated, enjoyed tremendous popularity in the UN and was supposed to give the SC (read the US) nominee a run for the money. Sources say a nervous US asked New Delhi to endorse Tharoor as its official candidate. The announcement sowed seeds of doubt among the GA members who perceived Sen’s attempt to alter 11/1 as a ruse to win for India the post of secretary-general. The GA became badly divided, provoking many of its members to abandon the plan of rewriting 11/1—and diluting the powers of P-5.
Yet another example of the craven behaviour of Indian officials towards America is borne out by the experience of Congress leader Mani Shankar Aiyar, whose divestment of the petroleum ministry portfolio is celebrated in a Wikileaks cable. The Americans thought Aiyar was anti-America, a charge he dismisses outright. “I was disappointed (at the divestment),” says Aiyar, “but I don’t believe it was because of pressure from outside.”
But what rankled Aiyar was that then US ambassador David Mulford declared in a public speech that Murli Deora was better informed about the petroleum ministry than Aiyar. As he told Outlook, “While Mulford was perfectly within his rights to send secret cables to his government about us, to make a public statement comparing two ministers was an act of gross impropriety. I objected very strongly to it, and conveyed my protest to the foreign secretary. But instead of a public expression of deep displeasure, the foreign secretary preferred merely to whisper in the US ambassador’s ear. I thought it was inadequate.”
The love for America is a trait the BJP too shares with the Congress. One cable has the US embassy complaining to Washington that the NDA government gave them better access than the UPA. Again, BJP leader L.K. Advani was initially opposed to the idea of sending Indian troops to Iraq, but a 2003 trip to the US and defence secretary Donald Rumsfeld’s visit to his hotel room saw him accede to Washington. Ultimately, Indian troops weren’t sent because of prime minister A.B. Vajpayee’s opposition. Says Sinha, “There is no denying that there were elements even in the NDA who were very close to the US, but you should judge us by our actions.” He says it is well-documented that the BJP-led NDA warded off American pressure to sign the CTBT and the nuclear deal, believing these militated against India’s interest. (Analysts, however, say the NDA would have agreed to the nuclear deal had it been voted to power in 2004.)
The aggrieved Both Aiyar and Natwar Singh have bones to pick
What has enabled the Americans to make deep inroads into the Indian system? To begin with, the Indian middle class, to which the elite belong, has made an ideological shift to the US. Every middle-class family seems to have a member working in the US. It is the land where parents wish to send their children for education, and seasoned bureaucrats are keen on short-term courses in the American universities. Visas have granted the US embassy an unprecedented clout and reach. In addition, bureaucrats have seen three successive governments, beginning 1999, tilt away from Russia and inch closer to Washington. This shift has transmitted a message to the officialdom that America is the flavour of the season, engendering hopes in them of advancing their careers by taking a pro-US line in consonance with that of their political masters.
There’s no denying that America’s support to India has given it a considerable heft in the international arena. Says an Indian diplomat, “We have used the US as a stepladder.” Has the climb up the hierarchy of global powers compromised India’s sovereignty? And though a country’s interests keep shifting, and there’s always give-and-take in diplomacy, New Delhi can’t be seen to have bartered on possible gains of the future for America’s support, other than on Iran.
Iran remains a contentious issue among foreign policy wonks. Former foreign secretary Shyam Saran insists it was in India’s interest to have voted along with the US in the IAEA in 2005 (see interview). Again, Aiyar pursued the India-Pakistan-Iran (IPI) gas pipeline on the basis of a cabinet decision. Substantial progress was registered on the issue in the first two years of Aiyar’s departure from the petroleum ministry. But the pipeline subsequently got stalled because of the instability in Pakistan.
Perhaps the Wikileaks cables are a timely warning to India to draw certain lines in its relationship with the US. As Aiyar says, “My only suggestion to our ministries is to exercise greater discretion in their exchange with foreign diplomats. Do not retail gossip, be more disciplined.” Perhaps the furore over Wikileaks cables is a reminder to Indians to not be unduly enamoured of America, to not sacrifice their self-respect, to introduce a certain balance in its conduct of foreign policy.
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