Iran reveals to the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) that the 'Fathers' of the Indian and Pakistani May 1998 nuclear bombs, Dr. Y. S. R. Prasad and Dr. Abdul Qadeer Khan were deeply involved in the 'underground' Nuclear Supply train to that country
Indian nuclear/missile scientists & technicians are helping run nuclear/missile/enrichment programmes in Iran, Libya and Brazil
India, Pakistan and Israel MUST sign Non-proliferation Treaty
Washington, D.C., Wednesday, February 11, 2004 - In recent months the Vienna-based International Atomic Energy Agency has discovered that Iran and Libya, both of them signators to the Nuclear Non-prolferation Treaty, have been cheating by violating their nuclear non-proliferation obligation not to build nuclear weapons with help from nuclear-armed India and Pakistan, two 'hungry' countries who have NOT signed the Nuclear Non-proliferation Treaty or the CTBT which bans nuclear tests.Any nuclear activity, peaceful or warlike, above or underground, overt or covert, in South Asia is of great interest and concern to the peaceful, egalitarian 25 million Sikhs (3 million FREE and prospering in the diaspora and 22 milion captive in India behind the South Asian 'Berlin Wall') as our homeland of Punjab, Khalistan, is located smack in the middle of warring nuclear-armed India and Pakistan and we will be the first to get hurt in any Indo/Pak altercation.
The readers might recollect that this Sikh newsletter has been focusing, over the years, on the nuclear/missile developments in South Asia as they effect the very survival of the Sikh nation in the subcontinent stretching from the Pakistan border to the River Jumna. As a reult this newsletter was honorably mentioned by the New York Times, way back in its issue of May 17, 1998, with a report by its ace reporter, Ms. Elaine Sciolino, when she wrote that, "The US Central Intelligence Agency may have missed India's preparations for its nuclear tests this week but a weekly newsletter (Khalistan Calling of May 07, 1998) by a Sikh separatist group did not." The New York Times report, on page A5, said that this Sikh newsletter predicted India's nuclear test plans three days before the nuclear explosions took place.
That particular scoop, predicting India's nuclear tests at Pokharan, by this newsletter was also honored on Page two of the 2001 book 'Reshaping National Intelligence for an Age of Information' (Cambridge University Press - ISBN0-521-58096-X) by Gregory F. Treverton, currently Senior Consultant at the RAND think tank and former Vice-chair of the powerful US National Intelligence Council. The book has become a MUST read book after it was recommended (on the book jacket) by four former directors of the US Central Intelligence Agency, James Schlesinger, James Woolsey, Admiral Bob Inman and Robert M. Gates as well as President Carter's National Security Advisor, the formidable Prof. Zbigniew Brzezinski.
The recent nuclear devlopments in Iran also concern us Sikhs specially if India and Pakistan are involved in any shape or form. Sometime in July/August 2003 the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) which monitors the Nuclear Non-proliferation Treaty, after inspecting two nuclear 'power' plants Russia is building and a few other suspicious sites in Iran, set a deadline of 31 October 2003, for "Iran to prove it is not trying to build nuclear weapons under the cover of a civilian nuclear energy program." Iran refused to accept the deadline of October 31, 2003. On September 12, 2003, the Board of Governors of the IAEA member states (Argentina, Australia, Brazil, Belgium, Canada, Denmark, France, Germany, Hungary, Italy, Japan, Mexico, Netherlands, New Zealand, Nigeria, Poland, Russian Federation, South Africa, Spain and the United Kingdom) passed a resolution backing the IAEA October 31, 2003 deadline and advised Iran to reconsider its options or else.
When Iran started quoting its rights as a sovereign state etc., the Egyptian-born Director General of IAEA, Mohammad El Baradei, finally hinted that his report to the Board of Governors of IAEA might hold Iran in non-compliance of the Nuclear Non-proliferation Treaty which, as is normal in such instances, would be forwarded to the UN Security Council for action. At the UN Security Council the permanent Veto-wielding members - the big five - the U.S., the U.K., the Russian Federation, France and China would then debate on UN sanctions etc., which could seal Iran’s fate. In the third week of October 2003, the Foreign ministers of France, Germany and the UK, whose country's are the members of the IAEA (International Atomic Energy Agency) Board of Governors also flew into Tehran, Iran, on an arm-twisting mission. Sensing the danger of UN sanctions implied in Mohammad El Baradei loud and public hint, Iran backed off. On Tuesday October 21, 2003, ten days prior to the expiration of the IAEA October 31, 2003 deadline, Iran promised to provide the nuclear information following talks in Tehran with the foreign ministers of Britain, France and Germany.
Iran submitted her nuclear dossier announcing that Iran shall, "comply with demands to suspend its uranium enrichment program and also allow unannounced inspections by international nuclear regulators." By a strange coincidence a few hours before it became known on October 24, 2003 that Iran had submitted its nuclear dossier to IAEA, Agencie France Press (AFP) shocked the world when it circulated a New Delhi-datelined report, based on a Hindutan Times 'planted story' headlined, "Top Indian nuclear expert aided Iran develop power plants WITHOUT Indian government permission." The Hindustan Times report named India's top nuclear scientist Dr. Y. S. R. Prasad, who had retired (as Chairman & Managing Director) in April, 2000, from the Nuclear Power Corporation of India, which operates fourteen nuclear reactors in India as the senior nuclear expert covertly helping Iran. (www.hindustantimes.com/2003/Oct/23/5987_0,00430001.htm and www.spacewar.com/2003/031023051623.vbyeqa4o.html)
This report about Iran's compliance to the IAEA demands, according to our sources in India, hit the panic button among the right-wing BJP rulers in New Delhi, who had thought up the idea of sending the Bihar-born Brahmin, Dr. Y. S. R. Prasad, the retiring Chairman of the Nuclear Corporation of India (and one of the 'fathers' of the 1998 Pokharan nuclear explosions) to go incognito into Iran, in July 2000, on an Indian passport with a Muslim name (Dr. A. Ansari a la the hundreds of thousands of Indian Hindus flourishing in Saudi Arabia with Indian passports with Muslim names) on a hush hush deputation to covertly help Iran develop its nuclear weapon's programme. Our sources tell us that a team of over fifty nuclear scientists from India's top secret Defence Research & Development Organization (DRDO) - all with passports bearing Muslim names accompanied - Dr. Y. S. R. Prasad alias Dr. A. Ansari on his secret mission to Iran.
After Iran's surrender to the IAEA demands Libya, a signator to the Nuclear Non-proliferation treaty, also volunteered, on its own volition on December 20, 2003, that it too had an on-going covert nuclear weapons programme for many years - 'gifted' by Dr. A. Q. Khan of Pakistan and other European suppliers - which it was shutting down in order to improve relations with the US and Britain. Our sources in India tell us, that Col. Qaddafi had contracted at very high salaries about two hundred Indian scientists for a number of years most of them formerly employed in the Indian Space Research Organization (ISRO read missiles) and the Indian Defence Research and Development Organization (DRDO read nuclear weapons programme). By January 2004, the US sent a 747 chartered plane to collect the centrifuge equipment and nuclear warhead designs etc., Col. Muammar Qadaffi had covertly collected. According to a report by reporter William J. Broad, in the February 10, 2004, issue of New York Times, the US investigators have determined that the nuclear weapon blueprints, 'wrapped in an Islamabad drycleaners plastic bag', were Dr. Abdul Qadir's 'own relatively crude type of bomb' and not the more advanced models that Pakistan had developed and successfully tested. In other words Dr. A. Q. Khan had been conning the naive, but wealthy Libyan leader over the years with some nuclear junk in exchange for suitcases full of cash. (www.nytimes.com/2004/02/09/international/africa/09WEAP.html)
Both the Islamic countries - Iran and Libya - are also reported to have submitted a list of middle-men, suppliers, business men and nuclear scientists/technitians who have been assisting them in the Nuclear weapons field over the years. Media reports claim, that the long underground nuclear supply 'train', used by these two countries (Iran & Libya) in their effort to setup Nuclear weapons programmes, in violation of the Non-proliferation Treaty which these two countries had signed, were manned by Belgians, Brazilians, Britons, Czechs Germans, Greeks, Indians, Japanese, Malaysians, Dutchmen, Pakistanis, Russians, South Africans, Spaniards, Sri Lankans, Swiss, Ukrainians and nationals of a few other countries. (http://news.independent.co.uk/europe/story.jsp?story=490475)
However, in this murky episode, the names of two underground nuclear cartels run by rogue and greedy South Asian scientists stand out like sore thumbs, in the clandestine Nuclear supply train to Iran. One was Dr. Abdul Qadeer Khan, a Pakistani, the socalled 'Father' of the Pakistani bomb, which was tested in Chagai, in Baluchistan province of Pakistan, in late May 1998, and the other was an Indian nuclear scientist, Dr Y. S. R. Prasad, a retired Chairman & Managing Director (from August 1997 to April 30, 2000) of the huge Nuclear Corporation of India, Mumbai who some say is the 'real father' of the Indian nuclear bombs tested on 11 May 1998 at Pokharan, in Rajasthan state of India, in Sikh Punjab's backyard and near Pakistan's geographic underbelly.
Scuttlebutt has it that the Iranian government had been working covertly with Dr. Y. S. R. Prasad (a personal friend of the Indian Foreign minister as they both hail from Bihar) for a number of years, a la Dr. Abdul Qadeer Khan. Iran secretly hired Dr. Y. S. R. Prasad on a salary of one million US Dollars a year after the man retired in April 2000 to advise on Iranian nuclear 'projects' and its nuclear weapons programme. Our sources in India tell us that Dr. Prasad shaved his moustache off after his retirement, acquired a wig from Italy and proceeded to Iran on his hush hush mission useing his second Indian passport, in which he had the Muslim name of Dr. A. Ansari listed.
This Iranian nuclear proliferation scandal, in which the top nuclear scientists of both India and Pakistan are involved, has once again highlighted the plight of the Sikh Homeland of Punjab, sandwitched as it is between nuclear-armed India and Pakistan on the subcontinent - stretching from the Pakistan border in the West to the River Jumna on the East, Kashmir on the North and China's Tibet province in the North East.
We urge our readers, the Sikh public and its leadership in captive Punjab, Khalistan, to pause and think that (no matter what one's political leanings maybe) the time has come where every Sikh for the sake of the survival of our people, our holy shrines (located in both India and Pakistan) and our children's children should try to convince/cajole the mad Brahmin-fundamentalist BJP leadership, that their jingoist behavior, and nuclear proliferation, will not only destroy Sikh Punjab but is also leading South Asia towards disaster where everybody will suffer. Success of the Nuclear Non-proliferation Treaty and CTBT have therefore become, matters of life and death for every Sikh, which sentiment of a South Asian community (nation) is rather unique as it runs parallel with American and EU interests and aims for a nuclear-FREE South Asia.
We Sikhs want a Nuclear/Missile FREE South Asia and we would like to see the US use its muscle to ensure that India and Pakistan sign the Nuclear Non-proliferation Treaty as Non-nuclear states as both of them have proved in Iran and Libya that their governments have little control on their nuclear knowhow and nuclear scientists who roam the world sniffing for money.
Soon India's Brazilian 'nuclear connection' too is going to surface, as our sources in India confirm, that a number of Indian nuclear 'technicians' who used to work with the Indian Defence Research and Development Organization (DRDO) and Indian Space Research Organization (ISRO) are now in Brazil helping build a Uranium Enrichment Plant there. We understand that following the Libyan and Iranian revelations a nervous Indian government has instructed its embassy in Brazil to arrange paperwork so that these Indian nuclear scientists and technician's status is changed to show them as legal immigrants to Brazil. For a backgrounder on Brazilian plans please read Larry Rohter's report in the New York Times of December 28, 2003, headlined, "Brazil resists Plan to Allow Spot Inspection of Nuclear Site." (www.nytimes.com/2003/12/28/international/americas/28BRAZ.html?ei=5070&en=1c577e9465b6eedf&ex=1076821200&pagewanted=print&position
It is very interesting, nay it is sad, that the American media instead of being critical of both Nuclear proliferators, India and Pakistan, (who have NOT signed the Nuclear Non-proliferation Treaty unlike Iran and Libya but whose top nuclear scientists, Dr. Y. S. R. Prasad and Dr. A. Q. Khan have been caught redhanded peddling nuclear knowhow and equipment to Iran) seems to have zeroed in only on Pakistan when India is equally guilty of nuclear proliferation in Iran and Libya. The February 07, 2004, editorial in the New York Times headlined, "Ending Pakistan's nuclear trade" is typical of the Pakophobia, sweeping the Western world fanned by India disinformation about Sikh Punjab's friendly neighbour, Pakistan.
We Sikhs believe that it is in American interest, India's interest, as well as in the interest of Sikhs - the survival of the Sikh nation and its holy shrines depends on it - that the South Asian and Middle Eastern nuclear jinnis be put back into the bottle as quickly as possible. The best and quickest way to do that is for these great United States - the only super power in this world - to be fair, and NOT play favourites on the Nuclear issue. It ought to use its muscle fairly, justly and firmly to force India, Pakistan and Isreal - ALL three of them - to sign the Nuclear Non-proliferation and CTBT treaties.