US Sanctions For India's Nuclear Audacity, How Will They Be Applied?
Washington, D.C., Wednesday, May 20, 1998 - Senator Jesse Helms (R-NC), a great American, the powerful chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee-known to the world over for his integrity, straight talk and Jeffersonian thought-may have done more to stop the proliferation of nuclear weapons in South Asia with two honest remarks during a Senate Foreign Relations Committee meeting on Wednesday May 13, than ALLthe G-8 or EU communiques, statements by heads of States, threats of sanctions, doomsday scenarios in the media and personal diplomacy by numerous Presidents, Prime Ministers and special envoys of this world.During the May 13th meeting (the day President Clinton imposed sanctions on India) of the Senate Near Eastern and South Asian Affairs sub - committee, presided over by that brilliant Senator from Kansas, Samuel Brownback, Senator Jesse Helms put India in its place by saying; "India has made a major miscalculation .... deluded itself into the absurd assumption that the possession of nuclear weapons will make India a super power at a time when hundreds of millions of India's people are in abject poverty." "I have tried to be a friend to India", he said,"but as long as there is breath in me I will NEVER SUPPORT the lifting of US sanctions on India, UNLESS they abandon ALL nuclear ambitions."
During the same May 13 meeting the great Senator from North Carolina, Jesse Helms casted a narrow message to Pakistan, in which he said that; "This is the moment of truth for Pakistan as a nation. It can be a partner to the United States in fighting nuclear proliferation, or it can be a school-yard rival to India and engage in the folly of nuclear testing. I hope Pakistan will choose to be our partner."
According to our sources in Pakistan - and we have many sources there too, as our mother - tongue Punjabi is spoken by 90 million friendly Pakistanis and some of the Sikh religion's holiest shrines are located in that neighboring country and are visited by most Sikhs. Pakistan's Prime Mmister, Mr. Nawaz Sharif, a Punjabi speaking and a known friend of the Sikhs, is currently under immense pressure from the powerful Pakistan army to order a nuclear test. The Pakistani leader is also under even greater pressure,from the vociferous, and hawkish religious right wing (with great street power). This right wing has the is being backed by so called Westernized liberal opposition leaders like Benazir Bhutto, on the nuclear issue, to order a tit for tat nuclear test in the Chagai Hills in Pakistani Baluchistan. We understand that the Pakistani Prime Minister, an admirer of Sen. Jesse Helms, believes that the Senator would indeed not allow the just imposed US sanctions against India to be mocked or lifted easily unless India abandoned all nuclear ambitions, which is what every sane person in this world desiring peaceand tranquility wants.
The Pakistani Prime Minister Mr. Nawaz Sharif, who has grown in international stature during the current crisis and has shown great wisdom to resist the temptation of a copyeat nuclear test. He has thrown his weight on the issue of nuclear tests, our sources tell us, with the "doves" in Pakistan and is courageously holding the numerous Palkistanis "hawks" at bay. He has however, promised the "hawks" we understand, that he would order Pakistani nuclear tests ONLY if he sees that Senator Jesse Helms is failing to stop the Indian lobby on the Hill from lifting the sanctions imposed by President Clinton on India on May 13, 1998 under the 1994 Nuclear Prollferatmn Prevention Act. Bravo Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif!
Another distinguished American, Fred C. Ilke, (a former director of the Arms Control Agency in the Ford administration), who was a witness at the Brownback subcommittee meeting on May 13th, has aired his apprehensions in an article in the May 17 issue of the Washington Post that; "even before the economic sanctions were fully in place India was being offered an easy exit strategy" and a package deal was being "suggested by administration officials in background briefings and congressional testimony."
Well known Washington Post columnists, Rowland Evans and Robert Novak-two Washington insiders - have revealed in the May 18th issue of the newspaper that Pakistani Prime Minister, Mr. Nawaz Sharif, wrote an "urgent" letter on April 3,1998 (three days before the April 6 GHAURI missile test) to President Clinton warning that India was on the verge of a nuclear testing program that could wreck the administration nonproliferation strategy in South Asia and Middle East. The Pakistani Prime Minister's letter, the Washington Post colunmists have revealed, was ignored and was chalked up at the White House to a bad case of jitters.
Similar warnings of preparations for nuclear testing by India, at Pokharan in the Sikh Homeland's backyard, was broadcast in this column, Khalistan Calling,CHARHDI KALA, PUNJAB GAURDIAN, SANJH SAVERA and other ethnic weeklies of the 3 million strong Sikh diaspora, in their issues of March 19 and May 7,1998, as everyone is concerned about nuclear fallout and the environmental safety of compatriots in the Punjab. Alas! The two warnings that India was about to detonate a nuclear device, and contaminate the two Punjabs(Sikh and Pakistani), although faxed to numerous opinion makers and Think Tanks in the United States, failed, for some reason, to ring the alarm bells in the right quarters!
The hope in Washington now seems to be that with a powerful Senator like Jesse Helms, having given a public pledge to watch over the US sanctions, the chances are that the restrictons will stay on the books for some time and will, as time goes by, hammer India economically and diplomatically. This in turn could reduce the jingoistic fever; now running high among the Hindu fundamentalist BJP leadership, which in the past has always resulted in pogroms targeting India's minorities like the Sikhs, Christains and Muslims.
The US sanctions hopefully will,"divide" the BJP's nuclear ambitious leaders and super power dream, by the reality of India's US $.340 per capita annual GNP, its 450 million illiterates, its 250 million child slaves, its 100 million lepers, its 90 million blind folk, its 35 million widows who are condemned to live as prostitutes and last, but not the least, its 560 million (yes 560 million) citizens who have to every morning, for lack of latrines, fend for themselves like ammais behind bushes and street corners in every nook and corner of that squalidly and unjust country whose current fascist BJP leaders are hoping to finesse a permanent seat at the UN Security Council riding on a nuclear "steed".