Washington-based Khalistan Affairs Center launches advocacy campaign to educate U.S. Law makers against the US-India ‘Nukes-for-Mangoes’ deal



Washington, D.C., Wednesday, November 15, 2006 - One does not have to be a military expert to know that, unlike the two conventional wars fought in South Asia, in 1965 and 1971, the next Indo-Pakistan war will be a nuclear one in which the captive 22 million strong Sikh nation living unhappy under Indian rule in the Sikh Homeland of Punjab, Khalistan, will face annihilation along with numerous historic Sikh holy shrines located in India as well as Pakistan..

Every expert recognizes that the U.S.-India ‘Nukes-for-Mangoes’ deal, currently being debated in the US Congress, circumvents the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty which came into force on March 05, 1970. In fact this U.S.-India deal encourages Nuclear proliferation and ridicules the 45-member (NSG) Nuclear Suppliers Group and its raison d`etre. Nuclear Suppliers Group (NSG) came into being after India tested a ‘peaceful’ nuclear device, on May 18, 1974, after pilfering the US/Canadian supplied CIRUS Tarapore nuclear reactors in breach of sovereign agreements. The 45-member Nuclear Suppliers Group (NSG) seeks to contribute to the non-proliferation of nuclear weapons through the implementation of Guidelines for Nuclear Exports and nuclear related exports.

If this U.S.-India ‘nukes-for-Mangoes’ deal goes through it will give hegemonist India a pass to continue its ‘illegal’ nuclear bomb-making outside the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty. One result will be that the Sikh Homeland of Punjab, Khalistan, (sandwiched as it is between nuclear-armed India and Pakistan) will become a nuclear battlefield in any future Indo-Pakistan war, just like it became, unwillingly, a battleground in two conventional wars fought between these two dirt-poor powers in the 2nd half of the 20th century.  The numerous articles that frequently appear in the international media which speculate that some Western countries have plans to ‘defang’ Pakistan’s nuclear assets are most disturbing for the Sikhs. The thought that comes to mind after reading these articles is, that the ‘experts’ of these countries may not realize, that Pakistan may have a ‘use it or lose it’ defensive ‘John Wayne’ nuclear doctrine, up its sleeve, to protect its nuclear assets – “your fault, his fault, her fault, any country’s fault, India gets shot”. And in India Ambala, Jalandhar, Ludhiana, Bhatinda, Meerut and Delhi make better quick-to-reach – two seconds a mile - juicy targets for Pakistani tactical missiles than strategic nuclear missiles hurled at far away Mumbai, Bangalore, Kolcutta or Chennai.

The tragedy is that the above mentioned dangers of vital interest to the Sikhs, - their very survival is at stake - are entrusted, at this point in time, to the shaky hands of Punjab’s mostly old, corrupt, and uneducated political leaders, like Prakash Singh Badal, and feudals like Amrinder Singh. These leaders were born timid and their silence, on this life and death nuclear proliferation question, tells us that they are unable, or unwilling, to discuss openly and publicly the mushroom cloud heading in the direction of the Sikh Homeland via the U.S.-India nuclear deal, a brazen deal of nuclear proliferation. These ‘leaders’ are acting like the proverbial pigeon shutting its eyes when it sees a cat prowling in its’ loft. The educated Sikh elite, captive in India or free among the three million strong Sikh diaspora, (with the exception of Shiromani Akali Dal – Amritsar - President, Sirdar Simranjit Singh Mann) has avoided discussing the dangers to the Sikh Homeland from the nuke deal. They have preferred to lie low and toe the line of the jingoistic and hallucinatory Brahmin-caste Indian ruling elite instead of shouting out aloud that the US-India nuclear deal completely ignores the military aspects of India’s nuclear program. A program which threatens the very existence of the 25 million strong Sikh nation and its holy shrines located in both India and Pakistan   

The media has been flooded with reports that the United States' Senate may take up a Bill to facilitate the much talked about U.S.-India civilian nuclear cooperation deal, during its "lame duck" session of the US Congress on Wednesday November 15 or Thursday November 16, 2006, when minimum amount of debate and amendments are expected. This week the leaders of the U.S. Senate Foreign Relation’s Committee will have to come to a broad agreement on the terms of the Unanimous Consent Agreement before the legislation on the US-India nuclear deal can proceed further. The bill has to clear a number of hurdles on the HILL before it becomes law and is implemented. If the Senate overrides the amendments and passes  the Bill, it will have to go to conference with the different House of Representative version, which was passed some months ago – on July 26, 2006 - and the differences will have to be reconciled for a final version. Once that final version is approved – sometime in December, 2006 – the bill can then go to the desk of President Bush for signature. Even after that several obstacles have to be crossed before the two countries can begin trade in civilian nuclear materials. India would need to get approval for the deal from the 45-member Nuclear Suppliers Group, an assembly of nations (which includes China) that export nuclear material which seeks to control exports of nuclear materials, equipment, and technology, both dual-use and specially designed and prepared. India would also need to negotiate a safeguard agreement with the UN nuclear watchdog, the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA).

As this is a matter which effects the very survival of the Sikh nation captive in India, the three million strong Free Sikh diaspora in general, and the half million Sikh American community in particular, MUST, and WILL, do all that can be done to make sure that the US Law makers are not misinformed by jingoistic representatives of the Indian government. Washington-based Khalistan Affairs Center has therefore, taken up the gauntlet to ensure that the concerns of the 25 million strong Sikh nation, about the US-India nuke deal, are conveyed to the members of the US Senate, the U.S. House of Representatives, the Nuclear Suppliers Group and the IAEA. The Khalistan Affairs Center has launched an advocacy advertisement campaign in the OP-ED section, of the print and internet editions, of the Washington Times newspaper, on November 14, 15 and 16 November, 2006, synchronized with the lame duck session of the US Senate, against the proposed Indo-US nuclear deal, which has been ridiculed by Republican TV commentator, Pat Buchanan, as a ‘Nukes-for-Mangoes’ deal. 

The Khalistan Affairs Center advocacy advertisement, (> /home/senate.aspx <) which addresses an ‘S O S’ to Senators Richard Lugar and Joseph Biden, and the other members of the U.S. Senate Foreign Relations Committee, was published on Tuesday 14 November 2006, in the Op-Ed section of the Washington Times print edition. The advocacy advertisement is being repeated in the Op-Ed section of the Washington Times on Wednesday 15 November and Thursday 16 November 2006, also. These are the three days when the lame duck session of the U.S. Senate will be discussing the US-India nuclear deal. The advocacy advertisement will also simultaneously appear on the website of the Washington Times on November 14, 15 and 16, 2006, when representatives of the Khalistan Affairs Center will lead delegation of concerned Sikh-Americans to personally lobby all the members of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee against the ‘Nukes-for-Mangoes’ deal. The above mentioned, advocacy advertisement already published in the Washington Times, on November 14 and November 15 will be repeated tomorrow, on November 16, 2006, is repeated verbatim below for our readers as a backgrounder so that they can, on their own, lobby their Congressmen and Senators:

 

WASHINGTON TIMES November 14, 15 & 16 November advocacy adveritisement

 

 

SOS

to Senators Lugar, Biden

& the Members of Senate Foreign Relations Committee 

Do Not Approve US-India nuclear deal

 

An Appeal from 25 million Sikhs

 

Dear Senators:

The world’s 25 million strong Sikh nation has a hard time believing the alarming media reports that  Senate Foreign Relations Committee is willing to approve, in the lame duck session, the US-India nuclear deal, under section 123 of the U.S. Atomic Energy Act, without making it conditional on an end to fissile material production by India.

Apart from the fissile material issue, how is it possible that worldly wise and well-informed U.S. Law makers are planning to give a ‘wink and a nod’ to the U.S. nuclear deal with India without any powers of oversight in terms of requiring the usual annual certification of Indian good behavior? What if India tests a thermo-nuclear device, sometime in the future, at its’ Test site, which is being kept ready near Pokharan in Rajasthan, and repeats what it did in 1974, by pilfering from its safeguarded civilian nuclear reactors provided by the U.S. and Canada?

The latest U.N. Human Development Report-2006, released last week, reveals (Table 21; Energy & Environment: > http://hdr.undp.org/hdr2006/pdfs/report/HDR06-complete.pdf  <) that India’s electricity consumption demand projection - the raison d`etre for the deal - is 594 Kilowatt hours per capita - a paltry increase of 421 Kilowatt hours per capita in twenty three years. Electricity demand per capita in India (where over seven hundred million human beings have no access to clean water and sanitation - no latrines) is increasing at a snail’s pace as compared to the galloping demand in countries like S. Korea (7,338 Kilowatt hours per capita), Saudi Arabia (6,749), South Africa (4,595),  Malaysia (3,196), Argentina (2,543), Brazil (2,246), Mexico (2,108), Turkey (1,979), Thailand (1,896), Egypt (1,340) Algeria (929) and others. These countries having all signed the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT was also ratified and proclaimed by the U.S. on March 5, 1970) have a far stronger argument for a nuclear cooperation deal than hegemonic, dirt-poor, brittle, caste-ridden India, at war with its minorities and sinking under the weight of a thousand mutinies. India has not signed the NPT because its’ hallucinative rulers have always treated the treaty with contempt. The three million strong Sikh diaspora (including half a million Sikhs in the United States) fear for the 22 million Sikhs captive in India, living dangerously and unhappily in their homeland of Punjab, Khalistan, which is sandwiched between two nuclear armed rivals, India and Pakistan. Sikhs demand a nuclear free South Asia. It is a question of survival of our people and our historic holy shrines located in both India and Pakistan.

Ladies and Gentlemen, please DO NOT approve the U.S.-India Nuclear deal. Even Republican columnist, author and TV personality, Pat Buchanan, has rightly described it as a ‘Nukes-for-Mangoes’ deal about which, he says, > http://www.antiwar.com/pat/?articleid=8671  < the U.S. has, "traded a horse for a rabbit, and some of us are wondering as to the whereabouts of the rabbit."

Khalistan Affairs Center

956-National Press Building, Washington DC 20045 USA

Tel: 202-637-9210 :: E-Mail: kacwashdc@yahoo.com