Khalistan Calling newsletter dated May 12, 2004.

The three million strong diaspora Sikhs, unlike their 22 million compatriots captive in India, are free and prosperous and they are determined - as they believe it is their destiny and pray for it every day; "Raj Karayga Khalsa; (Sikhs will rule) Aaaqi Rahaya nah Koyay: Khawar hoiyey Sab Milaingay; Bachay Sharan Joh Hoyay; DILLI Takht Par Bahay Gee; Aap Guru Kee Fauj; Chattar Chulayn gay Sis Par; Barri Karaygee Mauj," - to create a sovereign, democratic, egalitarian Sikh buffer state of KHALISTAN in South Asia, stretching from the Jumna river on the East, to the Pakistan border on the West, China on the Northeast and Kashmir on the North, playing its God-given role of a granary for countries of Central Asia and acting as a 'bridge of prosperity' and commerce between Central and South Asia.

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The United States does not accept

India and Pakistan as Nuclear-weapons states -

- US Assistant Secretary of State John Wolf

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Sikhs appreciate the US stand

By

Dr. Amarjit Singh

Khalistan Affairs Centre

956-National Press Building, Washington DC 20045 USA

Tel: 202-637-9210 :: Fax: 202-637-9211

INTERNET SITE INFORMATION:-

Web Site: www.khalistan-affairs.org 

E-mail Address:  kacwashdc@yahoo.com

Washington DC: May 12, 2005: The 25 Million strong Sikh nation (3 million free in the diaspora & 22 million captive in India) unanimously endorses and welcomes last week's New York statement of US Assistant Secretary of State for Non-Proliferation, John Wolf, that although the United States has recently taken steps to strengthen relations with both India and Pakistan to enhance its regional goals, these moves should not be taken to suggest that Washington has "accepted" the status of either country as a nuclear weapons state under the Non-Proliferation Treaty. Bravo! Well said!

We Sikhs under the threat of a nuclear Armageddon, located as we are smack in the middle of warring India and Pakistan, are with the United States on its noble stand and support fully all moves to declare South Asia as a nuclear/missile free zone.

The current American position on nuclear South Asia is clear but the two dirt poor fledgling nuclear-armed states are hoping that there will be a change of thinking in Washington. The two, India and Pakistan, issued a Joint Statement on February 18, 2004, which envisaged, "expert-level talks on nuclear CBMs in the latter half of May 2004". Pakistan has on April 04 proposal that those talks be held on May 25 and 26, 2004, which offer has been accepted by the Indian government.

An earlier memorandum of understanding signed, by India and Pakistan, in Lahore, on February 21, 1999, which will obviously be the basis of discussion on May 25 & 26, binds the two countries to a few confidence-building measures (CBMs) and to "bilateral consultations on security concepts and nuclear doctrines, with a view to developing measures for confidence-building in the nuclear and conventional fields aimed at avoidance of conflict". Such a dialogue, although aimed at confidence-building measures (CBMs) would necessarily involve issues far more fundamental, would be futile unless there is a willingness to arrive at a modus vivendi. Conventional arms and nuclear weapons should be an integral part of the understanding. This will not be easy given the mindset in some quarters in India, within the governments and "the strategic community." Once one of India's leading lights, forgetting that Pakistan had nuclear weapons scornfully ridiculed suggestions even for a dialogue with India's neighbour. He asked, "Does the United States discuss the military balance with Cuba?" For very many jingoists in India with inflated egos, the problem is not India's security; it is projection of its power. How stupid can one get?

The jingoist India's chicken-hawk 'strategic community' seems to be in NO mood for a modus vivendi. The 'temperature' of the mindset in some quarters in India, within the government, can be guaged from the ravings of the Indian Defence minister, George Fernandes. Delivering the P.C. Lal Memorial Lecture on February 19, 2004, Fernandes, tried to intimidate Pakistan and Bangladesh, and other India's neighbours, by asserting that: "History has shown that when states become visibly prosperous, there is a pattern wherein they invest in trans-border military capability... Objectively assessed, China and India will both follow this trajectory."

George Fernandes has much to learn about geography and strategy. While the Himalayas and lay of the land makes India's heartland with its fifty four 'naked' dams - and scores of urban population/ industrial/ military centres like Chandigarh, Delhi, Agra, Allahabad, Calcutta et al., - vulnerable to 'trans-border military activity' with non-nuclear short range Chinese M-11 missiles India is boxed in by the same Himalayas and is at a great disadvantage as Chinese Tibet is under populated and barren. It offers no juicy targets unless India wants to escalate a border missile skirmish to intercontinental nuclear missile warfare in which case South India will get wiped out.

Such jingoistic, and ignorant, talk of trans-border military capability - preemption - by people like George Fernandes and Jaswant Singh has set the alarm bells ringing in nuclear-armed Pakistan which responded, eighteen days later, by test firing an intermediate-range (2,000 kilometers) surface-to-surface ballistic missile Shaheen II, which is capable of carrying a nuclear warhead deep into India or across India into the Bay of Bengal. This capability provides a nuclear umbrella to beleagured Bangladesh which country India's loves to bully.

Earlier on October 04 and 08, 2002, Pakistan successfully test fired two Shaheen-I medium range (500 miles) missiles, capable of hitting Mumbai & Delhi to put an end to the 'tamasha' of a million Indian troops massed on the India Pakistan border who twiddled their thumbs for nearly a year. This Shaheen nuclear-capable missile weapon system - reportedly accurate to thirty meters - even in its non-nuclear conventional mode, with a 2,200 pounds high explosive payload can cause incalculable and unbearable damage to value targets in India's heartland located within an 'arc' stretching from Poona, Bombay, Trombay, Aurangabad, Ahmedabad, Nagpur, Indore, Bhopal, Jhansi, Delhi, Meerut, Agra, Kanpur, Lucknow, Narore, DehraDun, Ambala, Simla, Bhakra Nangal and Leh et. al.

Several test firings of IRBM missiles (like GHAURI and shorter range missiles like Abdali and Ghaznavi, since May 1998, postulate that, in Pakistan's security and military strategy, conventional armed missiles will play a key defensive role in the future and that any cross-border military incursion will neither be ignored or tolerated and there will be a robust response. The Shaheen series of missiles provide Pakistan the capability of deep penetration across the Indo/Pak border and and makes India's geographical depth a clear and permanent disadvantage to it in any nuclear or conventional missile confrontation with Pakistan. A retired Pakistani General delicately put that situation in words when he suggested that, "in future all political and geo-strategic 'power' will flow from the tip of a Shaheen or M-11 missile in South Asia."

The 22 million Sikhs living in their Punjab homeland on the Pakistan border, captive behind a barbed wire 'Berlin wall' in what is India, are deeply concerned with nuclear-weapons related development in the subcontinent as we, and our holy shrines, will be the first to be hit in any Indo/Pakistan nuclear or conventional war. While the Brahmin rulers in Delhi have built deep nuclear bunkers to protect themselves (> http://www.khalistan-affairs.org/Main/K_Calling/kc10222003.htm <) the 22 million Sikhs, and their holy shrines, are very vulnerable as they have only the sky as a cover in the Punjab. For a backgrounder read our column, dated November 06, 2002, headlined, "Indian leaders need a nuclear tutorial - They are called 'delusional with large egoes and little minds," by clicking at: > http://www.khalistan-affairs.org/Main/K_Calling/kc01162002.htm > and our column dated May 29, 2002, headlined, "India wants to fight Pakistan to the last Sikh", at : < http://www.khalistan-affairs.org/Main/K_Calling/kc05292002.htm > and > column dated October 09, 2002, headlined, "Pakistan tests missiles," at: > http://www.khalistan-affairs.org/Main/K_Calling/kc10092002.htm <

Notwithstanding the jingoistic noises from New Delhi we Sikhs seek a nuclear/ missile free South Asia. Therefore, we endorse fully the stand taken by the US Assistant Secretary of State for Non-Proliferation, John Wolf, in New York that Washington has NOT "accepted" India or Pakistan as a nuclear weapons states under the Non-Proliferation Treaty. We urge the US Administration to hold the course and apply sanctions (and umpteen other coercive methods in its 'armoury') to deflate the ego and unwarranted nuclear ambitions of the Brahmin rulers of dirt-poor India and force their government to join the Non-proliferation Treaty as a non-Nuclear weapons state. After that one phone call will suffice to ensure Pakistani compliance.

Khalistan Zindabad :: Long Live Khalistan

 

Khalistan Calling weekly newsletter dated May 12, 2004

(and its archives) can be viewed on the South Asia Tribune site at:

> http://www.satribune.com >

by clicking on the 'SIKH CORNER" on the Front Page.

It can also be seen by clicking at: > http://www.khalistan-affairs.org/Main/K_Calling/kc05122004.htm <.

The above newsletter has been published in the leading Punjabi-English newspaper of the Sikh diaspora, Surrey-Canada-based CHARHDI KALA, Issue of May 12-18, 2004 :: Vol. 20 : No. 19. Last week's Khalistan Calling is available on the Khalistan Affairs Centre website at: (> http://www.khalistan-affairs.org/Main/K_Calling/kc05052004.htm <) The Khalistan Calling newsletter was also published in the second week of May 2004, in the Vancouver-based PUNJAB GUARDIAN, and AKAL GUARDIAN, Toronto-based SANJH SAVERA, Calgary-based SIKH VIRSA and numerous other Punjabi/English weekly and monthly publications which cater to the three million strong Sikh diaspora in Europe, Africa, Asia and Australia.

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