Foreign policy | SabrangIndia

Who Is India’s All-Weather Friend in This World?

sabrang — Fri, 20 Jun 2025 09:57:40 +0000

In his latest book, S. Jaishankar writes: “After all, diplomacy is all about making friends and influencing people”. In the armed conflict between Pakistan and India this May, China reinforced its role as Islamabad’s “all-weather friend”. Beijing took Pakistan’s side far more clearly than in previous wars between the two neighbors. When the likelihood of Indian retaliation to the April 22 attack in Pahalgam increased, Chinese foreign minister Wang Yi declared: “As an ironclad friend and an all-weather strategic cooperative partner, China fully understands Pakistan’s legitimate security concerns and supports Pakistan in safeguarding its sovereignty and security interests“. During the conflict, according to Indian sources, China helped Pakistan with air defense and satellite imagery. And after the guns fell silent, when India – which had just denounced the Indus Treaty – indicated that it might deprive Pakistan of some of the water to which that treaty entitled it, China hinted that it too might deprive India of water from the Brahmaputra.

How do you explain this seemingly unconditional support?

First, Pakistan has become an important customer for Chinese arms dealers, as 80% of its arsenal is Chinese-made. Not only is Pakistan an attractive market for China, it also enables the latter to test on the battlefield weapons that the two countries have sometimes developed together.

Secondly, China has invested $68 billion in foreign direct investment in Pakistan in the framework of the China Pakistan Economic Corridor, the flagship of the Belt and Roads Initiative, despite the recurring tensions between Beijing and Islamabad stemming from Pakistan’s late payments or attacks on Chinese engineers by Baloch nationalists. What’s more, part of the $68 billion has been used to build roads, railroads and power plants in areas claimed by India, such as Gilgit Baltistan.

Thirdly, China probably wanted to seize the opportunity to make India’s life complicated, as two bones of contention have (re)emerged since Narendra Modi came to power. First, in keeping with Hindu nationalist ideology, the Indian government has expressed revisionist views, proclaiming its desire to restore Akhand Bharat, which would include the part of Ladakh conquered by China in the 1962 war. Secondly, India sought to resist China’s push into other South Asian countries, starting with Bangladesh, Sri Lanka and Nepal. For decades, China has kept India busy on its western flank by arming Pakistan, forcing New Delhi especially towards regional policies like Neighbourhood First or Look East.

Fourthly, India has alienated China by pursuing its rapprochement with the United States, as evidenced by good relations – till recently at least – between Modi and Trump, and India’s intention to attract American companies looking to relocate their Chinese factories to India.

Who is India’s all-weather friend?

While Islamabad can count on a particularly valuable all-weather friend, not only because it is the world’s second major power, but also because China clashes with India in the Himalayas, New Delhi, by contrast, was relatively isolated during the May crisis.

At the United Nations Security Council, India failed to get either Pakistan or the terrorist group to which it attributed the Pahalgam attack mentioned in the press release. Above all, the US intervention caught India off-guard. While the Trump administration, initially, refused to get involved, on the third day of the conflict, the hypothesis of a nuclear escalation led the White House to intervene – and it did without sparing India. On May 10, Donald Trump announced that he had silenced the guns thanks to an express mediation during which he promised good trade deals to the belligerents. He also invited them to negotiate a lasting peace and offered to act as his good offices to settle the Kashmir question. This sequence could only be seen as an affront by New Delhi for two reasons.

First, whenever American presidents have put an end to a conflict between Indians and Pakistanis, it has always been to the benefit of the former. On July 4, 1999, Bill Clinton summoned Nawaz Sharif to Washington to withdraw Pakistani forces from the Kargil heights. This time, Trump presented himself as the saviour who spared the world a nuclear war. While India claimed to have demonstrated its military superiority, the impression the world took away from this episode was that the conflict ended in a draw. The Indians who were the most determined to “do away with Pakistan”, whipped up into a frenzy by the nationalist hysteria of a media in thrall of the government, could only feel immense frustration.

Secondly, Trump was ruining India’s efforts not to internationalise the Kashmir issue, which, since the Treaty of Shimla negotiated by Indira Gandhi in 1972, was to be considered a bilateral affair. Here again, Trump was playing into Pakistan’s hands.

All in all, while India had been striving for years to avoid appearing indissolubly linked to Pakistan on the international stage, Trump marked a return to an “India-Pakistan hyphenation” that was dragging India down: entangled in an endless regional conflict, the country can hardly appear as a global power in the making.

In the aftermath, Trump showed even greater benevolence towards Pakistan when he declared: “Pakistan has very strong leadership. Some people don’t like when I say this, but it is what it is. And they stopped that war. I’m very proud of them”. In unison, General Michael Kurilla, the head of US Central Command (CENTCOM), recently hailed Pakistan as “a “phenomenal partner in the counter-terrorism world”.

The fight against terrorism, in fact, could be the explanation for the recent American-Pakistani rapprochement. At the end of February, the Trump administration decided “to exempt $397 million in security assistance to Pakistan from its massive foreign aid cuts. The funds will be allocated to a program that monitors Pakistan’s U.S.-made F-16 fighter jets-to make sure that they are used for counterterrorism, and not for action against India”. But then there is something paradoxical in Trump’s post-Pahalgam treatment of India and Pakistan as equals, as if one were not a victim of terrorism and the other the crucible of so many terrorist groups. Things may become clearer during the five-day official visit of Field Marshal Asim Munir who has been invited in Washington to discuss military and strategic ties between Pakistan and the United States.

Whatever the reason for Trump’s positive assessment of Pakistan, it contradicts India’s efforts to isolate the country. In fact, while New Delhi has been trying for years to marginalise Islamabad on the international stage, the past few weeks have shown that Pakistan retains many supporters – and not just in the United States.

At the very time when India and Pakistan were going through a serious crisis, the latter being accused by India of supporting jihadist groups operating on its soil, on May 9, the International Monetary Fund executive board approved a fresh $1.4 billion loan to Pakistan under its climate resilience fund and approved the first review of its $7 billion programme, freeing about $1 billion in cash. India protested at the board meeting that the Pakistan programme raised concerns about the “possibility of misuse of debt-financing funds for state-sponsored cross-border terrorism.” But no other country represented on the board supported it, even if only by abstaining from the vote. A month later, Pakistan obtained two positions in two UN bodies: on the one hand, Pakistan’s permanent representative to the United Nations, has been appointed chair of the U.N. Security Council’s 1988 Sanctions Committee, which monitors sanctions targeting the Taliban and, on the other, a Pakistani diplomat has also become vice-chair of the 1373 Counter-Terrorism Committee. These positions could hardly have escaped Pakistan by virtue of its status as a non-permanent member. But Pakistan’s election as a non-permanent member with 182 votes in 2024 alone testifies to the country’s non-marginalisation.

How is India’s longest-standing partner, Russia, behaving in this context? It has tended to show neutrality, even siding with Pakistan. Not only did Moscow keep silent after the Pahalgam attack, but it also pledged to resurrect a Soviet-era steel mill near Karachi. To give substance to the corridor that Pakistan and Russia are seeking to develop through Central Asia, a Lahore-Moscow train even inaugurated a new rail link this month.

In the aftermath of the Pahalgam attack, only two countries showed a vocam solidarity with India: Afghanistan and Israel. The former was responding to India’s overtures, with New Delhi and Kabul seeking to catch Pakistan on the back foot, but this strategy came to a halt when Beijing intervened, determined to pursue the Road and Belt Initiative in the area: Chinese mediation led to Afghan-Pakistani reconciliation, culminating in the opening of a Pakistani embassy in Kabul .

As a “friend of India”, in the words of Kobbi Shoshani, the Israeli Consul General in Mumbai, Israel supported the post-Pahalgam retaliation. Many Israeli observers have also drawn parallels between Netanyahu’s retaliation after the Hamas attack on October 7, 2024 and Modi’s last May. Whether the comparison is apt or not, India abstained – yes, abstained – at the United Nations when a motion calling for a ceasefire in Gaza was put to the vote in June 2025 when 149 countries supported it – and failed to condemn Israel’s attack on Iran in mid-June, dissociating itself from the stance taken by the Shanghai Cooperation Organization, whose main pillars are China and Russia.

Are we to conclude from recent developments that Israel is now India’s all-weather friend? It’s too early to say. But another question deserves to be asked: if China is more than ever Pakistan’s all-weather friend, can India afford not to deal China?

India’s dependence on China

The fact is that China has been providing unstinting support to a country that India’s political leadership portrays as ‘public enemy number one’ at a time when India is proving more dependent on China than ever in economic, industrial and commercial terms.

In 2024-25, China’s exports to India represented a record $113.5 billion, while India’s declining exports to China fell to $14.3 billion, resulting in a deficit of $99.2 billion. This figure reflects not only the weakness of Indian industry, which is unable to compete with Chinese manufactured goods, but also its dependence on Chinese suppliers.

Indeed, finished goods represent only a small proportion of India’s imports from China (6.8% in 2023-24), the bulk of which are intermediate goods (70.9%) and production goods (22.3%) that India’s industry and services need to produce and export. As a result, the more India exports, the more it imports from China. This logic is particularly at work in the electronics and pharmaceuticals sectors: while India exports a growing number of smartphones, starting with the iPhone, it imports components from China; while India has become “the world’s pharmacy” thanks to its exports of generic medicines, many of the active ingredients come from China.

It should be noted that India’s dependence on China is even greater than the statistics show, as India imports products manufactured by Chinese firms based in Malaysia or Vietnam – where they have relocated to circumvent the tariff barriers or import quotas set by many countries, including India. Solar panels are a case in point, making India extremely dependent on China for its energy transition.

In this context, the April-May crisis between India and Pakistan gave China the opportunity to put pressure on New Delhi. On April 28, the Indian press reported on additional delays in deliveries to India of iPhone spare parts imposed by the Chinese. Shortly afterwards, China decided to make access to rare earths more difficult, putting the Indian automotive sector in difficulty – hence New Delhi’s idea of sending a delegation to Beijing to negotiate an exceptional regime for India.

Indeed, India has begun talks with China on this and other issues and is seeking a compromise. Earlier this month, the Indian government announced that India would facilitate Chinese investment on its soil, reversing the decision that had been taken in 2020 in the wake of the confrontation between soldiers from the two countries. At the same time, on June 5, the Indian ambassador to China Pradeep Kumar Rawat was received by the Chinese vice-minister of foreign affairs, Sun Weidong, with both parties pledging to “jointly implement the leaders’ important consensus, fostering people-to-people exchanges [and] win-win cooperation, and driving China-India relations forward on a healthy and stable path”.

In conclusion, if, as Jaishankar says, “diplomacy is all about making friends and influencing people”, the question that Indian diplomats should closely examine today is none other than: where are the friends of India who are prepared to support her in adversity and isolate her public enemy number one, Pakistan? The question is all the more pertinent given that Pakistan itself has an all-weather friend on whom India is economically highly dependent – not to mention the Chinese threat in the Himalayas and India’s neighbourhood. If neither the USA nor Russia can play the role of India’s all-weather’ friend, India’s vulnerability to China will be even more difficult to counter.

Indian diplomacy, which had to be supplemented by other forces, as evident from the fact that that New Delhi had to send seven all-party delegations to explain India’s policy in 32 countries, is challenged to find a solution to the risk of New Delhi’s relative isolation vis-à-vis the growing threats coming from the China-Pakistan duo. All in all, isn’t it the transactional philosophy of multilateralism that deserves to be revisited? In his 2020 book The India Way: Strategies for an Uncertain World, S. Jaishankar wrote: “This is a time for us to engage America, manage China, cultivate Europe, reassure Russia, bring Japan into play, draw neighbours in …” But what about making friends, especially if this is what diplomacy is “all about”? Here, it’s India’s tradition of refusing alliances that is at stake. By multiplying its partners the plurilateral way, India has diversified its supports, but it has also diluted them: these transactional links are weak compared to those forged with an ally.

Christophe Jaffrelot is Senior Research Fellow at CERI-Sciences Po/CNRS, Paris, Professor of Indian Politics and Sociology at King’s College London, Non resident Scholar at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace and Chair of the British Association for South Asian Studies.

Courtesy: The Wire

The post Who Is India’s All-Weather Friend in This World? appeared first on SabrangIndia.

मोदी के विदेश दौरों के खर्चों पर चुप्पी क्यों?

Tue, 01 Nov 2016 10:57:09 +0000

केंद्रीय सूचना आयोग (सीआईसी) अभी तक प्रधानमंत्री नरेंद्र मोदी की विदेश दौरों के खर्चों की फाइल का इंतजार कर रहा है। लिहाजा वह अब तक यह फैसला नहीं कर पाया है कि पीएम के 40 देशों के दौरों के खर्चों को सार्वजनिक किया जा सकता है या नहीं

सबरंगइंडिया ने कुछ दिनों पहले की एक रिपोर्ट में लिखा था कि पीएमओ ने मोदी के विदेश दौरों के बिल की जानकारी देने से इनकार कर दिया है। हालांकि केंद्रीय सूचना आयोग ने इसके लिए पीएमओ को 18 नवंबर की नई डेडलाइन जारी की है। सीआईसी ने कहा है कि पीएमओ उसके पास पीएम दौरे के दौरान हुए खर्चों का ब्योरा पेश करे।

खबरों के मुताबिक आरटीआई कार्यकर्ता और रिटायर्ड नेवी कमोडोर लोकेश बत्रा ने आरटीआई आवेदन का इस्तेमाल कर पीएम नरेंद्र मोदी और पूर्व प्रधानमंत्री मनमोहन सिंह की विदेश यात्राओं के दौरान हुए खर्चे का ब्योरा मांगा है। लेकिन पीएमओ और विदेश मंत्रालय ने सुरक्षा कारणों का हवाला देते हुए यह ब्योरा देने से इनकार कर दिया। कमोडोर बत्रा ने यह भी जानना चाहा है आखिर नकदी संकट से जूझ रही एयरइंडिया को पीएमओ की ओर से पेमेंट में देर क्यों हुई।

पहले भी इस आशय की खबरें आई हैं की पीएम मोदी ने जून से दिसंबर 2015 के बीच कम से कम दस बार एयर इंडिया की चार्टड फ्लाइट की सेवा ली और इस मद में पीएमओ पर एयर इंडिया का 134 करोड़ रुपये का बकाया है। एयर इंडिया ने इस भुगतान के लिए तकादा किया है लेकिन जैसा कि अब यह एक अघोषित नियम सा बन चुका है कि पेमेंट में देरी कर दी जाए। इस बार भी ऐसा ही हुआ है।

कमोडोर बत्रा कहते हैं कि एयर इंडिया घाटे में चल रही है। यह नकदी संकट से जूझ रही है। ऐसे में देश के शीर्ष दफ्तर (पीएमओ) से एयर इंडिया को पेमेंट करने में दिक्कत क्यों हो रही है। इस बिल का ब्याज की भरपाई कौन करेगा। आदर्श स्थिति तो यह है कि पीएमओ इऩवॉयस मिलने के एक महीने के भीतर इस बिल का भुगतान कर देता।

‘बिजनेस स्टैंडर्ड’ की एक रिपोर्ट में कहा गया है कि पीएमओ प्रधानमंत्री नरेंद्र मोदी के विदेश दौरों के खर्चे को जाहिर करने में काफी सतर्कता बरतता रहा है। आरटीआई आवेदनों के जवाब में वह यह कह इसे टालता रहा है कि संबंधित पार्टी (एयरलाइन की ओर से बिल आदि के संदर्भ) से बिल नहीं मिला है। जवाब इस तरह दिए जाते हैं- बिल प्रोसेस में है या बिल नहीं मिला है। पीएम के विदेश दौरों के दौरान एयर इंडिया के बिल की विस्तृत जानकारी कमोडोर बत्रा के आरटीआई आवेदन के जवाब के दौरान मिली। कमोडोर बत्रा ने ‘एनडीटीवी’ को बताया कि एयर इंडिया गहरे वित्तीय संकट में है। मैं जानना चाहता था कि अलग-अलग सरकारों में एयर इंडिया के बिल के भुगतान में इतनी देरी की वजह क्या थी।

यह जानना दिलचस्प होगा क्या पहले के पीएम दौरों की तुलना में अब खर्चे बढ़े या घटे हैं। वास्तविकता यह है कि पिछले सालों की तुलना में पीएम दौरों के खर्चे 80 फीसदी बढ़ गए हैं।

‘टाइम्स ऑफ इंडिया’ की रिपोर्ट के मुताबिक दस्तावेजों से यह साफ हुआ है कि वित्त वर्ष 2015-16 के दौरान पीएम और उनकी कैबिनेट के मंत्रियों के दौरों पर 567 करोड़ रुपये खर्च हुए। इसके अलावा मोदी सरकार के नौकरशाहों ने हर साल इन दौरों पर औसतन 500 करोड़ रुपये खर्च किए।

वित्त वर्ष 2015-16 की शुरुआत में बजट में पीएम के दौरे पर 269 करोड़ रुपये के खर्च का अनुमानित प्रावधान था लेकिन संशोधित आकलन के मुताबिक यह आंकड़ा 567 करोड़ रुपये पर पहुंच गया। इसके अलावा, 2014-15 तक तीन वर्षों के दौरान नौकरशाहों के दौरों पर खर्च बढ़ कर 1500 करोड़ रुपये हो गए।

पिछली सरकार के पांच साल के कार्यकाल में दौरों पर हुआ कुल खर्चा 1500 करोड़ रुपये का था। इसकी तुलना में तीन साल यानी वित्त वर्ष 2014-15 से 2016-17 के दौरान एऩडीए सरकार में अकेले यात्राओं पर ही खर्च 1140 करोड़ रुपये पर पहुंच गया।
‘द हिंदू’की एक रिपोर्ट में इन खर्चों और इसके बरक्स विभिन्न देशों से हुए समझौतों का आंकड़ा पेश किया गया है। –

देश	पीएम की भाषणों की संख्या	दस्तख्त हुए समझौतों की सं.	खर्च (रुपयों में )
कनाडा	0	0	6,05,47,967
अमेरिका	3	0	6,13,54,433
जर्मनी	2	0	2,92,01,498
फिजी	4	3	2,59,06,527
सेशेल्स	1	0	1,28,61,928
ऑस्ट्रेलिया	3	5	8,91,58,926
मॉरीशस	3	5	1,37,92,690
नेपाल	1	12	3,00,90,226
म्यांमार	3	0	98,98,258
चीन	3	24	2,34,98,272
मंगोलिया	2	12	2,15,70,547
सिंगापुर	0	0	1,05,88,706
बांग्लादेश	2	13	1,37,70,130

सारे इनपुट्स – द हिंदू

ऊपर के चार्ट से साफ है कि जिन देशों का मोदी ने दौरा किया, उनमें से आधे के साथ भारत का कोई समझौता नहीं हुआ। 13 देशों की इस सूची में दो में उनका कोई भाषण नहीं हुआ। जबकि हकीकत यह है कि मोदी और उनकी कैबिनेट के मंत्रियों के इन दौरों पर करदाताओं के करोड़ों रुपये खर्च हो रहे हैं। इसलिए इस बात पर नजर रखना जरूरी है कि मोदी और उनके मंत्री जिस हिसाब से इन दौरों पर खर्च कर रहे हैं उसके मुताबिक परिणाम मिल रहे हैं या नहीं।

Image credit: Times of India

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What is secret about PM Modi’s Public Expenditures?

Tue, 01 Nov 2016 09:19:29 +0000

While the Chief Information Commission (CIC) awaits files on PM Modi’s expenditure on foreign trips, it is yet to take a call on whether the information of the expense during Modi’s visit to 40 different countries can be made public.

Image credit: NDTV

As SabrangIndia had reported earlier, Prime Minister’s Office (PMO) has refused to give information on PM’s foreign trip bills. However, CIC has a set a deadline of November 18 for the PMO to submit all the expense details from the trips to the commission.

According to the news reports, Right to Information (RTI) campaigner and retired navy commodore Lokesh Batra had used his RTI applications to ask for details of the foreign travels of PM Modi and his predecessor Manmohan Singh.The Prime Minister's Office and the External Affairs Ministry had refused to share the details, citing security concerns.

Commodore Batra has claimed that he wants study the reason behind the delay in the payment by PMO to the cash-strapped airline Air India.

It was previously reported that PM Modi, owes Rs 134 crore to the airline for chartered flights he embarked upon no less than 10 times between June and December 2015. The company has raised the invoices to all these trips but as has become the norm, the bills are yet to be cleared.

"This is a cash-strapped airline that does not make money. Why is there such a delay on the part of the highest office in the country to settle these bills? Who bears the cost of the interest?" questions Batra. "Ideally, the PMO should settle each of these bills within a month of receiving the invoices."

A Business Standard report claims that the PMO itself has been cagey about revealing expenses of each of Modi's foreign trips. RTI applications yield truncated replies, and reasons like "bill under process" or "bill not received" are frequently used. The details about the amount due to Air India came to light after a separate RTI was filed by Batra directly to Air India.

"Air India is in deep financial crisis and I wanted to know why it takes so long to clear bills to the national carrier under different regimes," Commodore Batra told NDTV.

It’ll be interesting to know if the expenditure has increased or decreased from the last year’s figure, which had shown an increase by more than 80 percent over previous years.

According to a Times of India report, trips taken by PM Modi and his cabinet colleagues costed Rs 567 crore in the financial year 2015-16 – a steep increase from the previous year, budget documents show. This was besides the over Rs 500 crore that his bureaucrats spend on their travel each year on an average.

The total tour expenses of the PM and his ministers went up from Rs 269 crore as estimated in the budget at the beginning of the 2015-16 fiscal to Rs 567 crore, as per the revised estimates towards the end of the year. In addition, the total tour expenditure of bureaucrats was over Rs 1,500 crore in the three years up to 2014-15.

The previous government during its five-year-tenure had spent Rs 1,500 crore on travel.

In comparison, the travel bill of the NDA government in just three years (between 2014-15 and 2016-17) is estimated at Rs 1,140 crore, claims the report.

A Hindu report has broken up the available expenditure figures and has correlated it with the agreement signed or speeches delivered during that particular trip. The correlation makes for an interesting analysis.

Country	Speeches Delivered	Agreements signed	Expense (Rs)
Canada	0	0	6,05,47,967
USA	3	0	6,13,54,433
Germany	2	0	2,92,01,498
Fiji	4	3	2,59,06,527
Seychelles	1	0	1,28,61,928
Australia	3	5	8,91,58,926
Mauritius	3	5	1,37,92,690
Nepal	1	12	3,00,90,226
Myanmar	3	0	98,98,258
China	3	24	2,34,98,272
Mongolia	2	12	2,15,70,547
Singapore	0	0	1,05,88,706
Bangladesh	2	13	1,37,70,130

(With all inputs from The Hindu)

The chart shows that nearly in the 50 per cent of the countries Modi visited from the chart, not even a single agreement was signed, and no speech was delivered in two of the 13 listed countries. While crores of Rupees from taxpayers’ money are being spent on the foreign trips of the PM and the cabinet ministers, it’s also a high time to monitor our gains as against our expenditure.

Image credit: Times of India

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‘Win without war’

Fri, 28 Feb 2003 18:30:00 +0000

September 11 Families for Peaceful Tomorrows was launched on February 14, 2002, and today includes more than 50 family members directly affected by the events of September 11, 2001, as well as 2,000 supporters. Its mission is to seek effective non-violent solutions to terrorism, and to acknowledge the shared experience of September 11 families with all people similarly affected by violence throughout the world. By conscientiously exploring peaceful options in their search for justice, the group’s members work to break the endless cycle of violence and retaliation engendered by war. In doing so, they hope to create a safer world for themselves and for their children.

NEW YORK CITY,
February 12: Returning from six days of making people-to-people contacts at schools, hospitals and universities in Baghdad and Basra, Iraq, family members of September 11 victims challenged world leaders to "use some imagination" to find alternatives to military action in that nation. The four-member delegation represents September 11 Families for Peaceful Tomorrows, an advocacy group seeking effective, non-violent alternatives to war and terrorism.

"During our trip, I met a lot of people who want their country healthy again, and their children happy," said Kat Tinley, whose uncle, Mike Tinley, perished at the World Trade Center on September 11, 2001. "Like much of the world, the people of Iraq have known violence entirely too long, and they long for peace."

"We talked with the teachers of a primary school who described the hopes they have for their students," added Terry Rockefeller, who lost her sister, Laura Rockefeller, at the twin towers. "We found a striking commonality in our grief for lost loved ones and our dreams for our children."

The delegation also visited the Amariyah bomb shelter and met relatives of the hundreds of civilians who died after a US missile struck the shelter on February 14, 1991.

"The personal connections we made with the people of Iraq have been very deep and meaningful," said Kristina Olsen, whose sister, Laurie Neira, was aboard Flight 11 on September 11, 2001. "Meeting with sick children and families who have lost loved ones has underscored the importance of the human bond that we share in our mutual suffering."

Colleen Kelly, who lost her brother, Bill Kelly Jr., at the World Trade Center, added, "In Iraq, we have begun to realise our hope of connecting a human face and story to the people of Iraq. This has only deepened our resolve to petition the governments of this world to explore every viable, peaceful alternative to the crisis here, using creative and perhaps non-conventional diplomacy."

In a press conference at the UN Church Center in New York City, the delegation also recognised that January 15 was the birthday of Rev. Martin Luther King Jr., whose 1967 declaration that "wars are poor chisels for carving out peaceful tomorrows" provided the inspiration for the group’s name.

(www.peacefultomorrows.org/)

A Grieving Father’s Hope for Peace

JOHN TITUS

I write this letter with sadness in my heart and with a hope that we the people of the United States of America can overcome our differences, put aside our political biases, and open our hearts and minds to greater understanding and compassion. We are standing at the precipice of a war that looms like a dark shadow in the distance and my soul cries out.

Much controversy has resulted as our nation’s leaders move forward with preparation for war. Families, friends, the citizens of our country and the world are divided on the rightness or wrongness of such action. Each of us must search our hearts and souls and come to our own conclusions. I pray for enlightenment for each of us and especially for the leaders of the world as we move forward.

My message is borne of grief but with a clarity that comes from deep soul searching and meditation. When death strikes the heart our view of the world changes profoundly. Clarity finds its way to those who seek truth and understanding born from love.

My daughter, Alicia Titus was murdered by terrorists on September 11, 2001. She was a wizened young woman who lived life with grace, beauty, and compassion. Her whole life was dedicated to loving others, embracing differences, seeking truth and doing acts of goodness. Her joy was a gift she gave freely to all. She was able to see through the outer façade that so many of us maintain to protect our gentle souls. And she communicated at a deep level, beyond the trivial, beyond the mundane, to a level of love and understanding.

She travelled the world with the goal of experiencing all that life had to offer and to meet people from all walks of life. She embraced the sanctity of life. The people of the world were her family. It is a sad irony that she would die so violently at the hands of hate-filled zealots, diametrically opposed to all she stood for and believed in.

My message comes from deep within my soul, a place that feels the connection with all of life, that place where the Divine resides in each of us. The dark forces that took Alicia’s life self-righteously believed that they were fighting evil, ridding the world of the infidels who opposed their core beliefs. They struck at the heart and soul of America and over 3,000 innocent people died. Now we stand ready to use our advanced technology and risk our sons and daughters to fight those whom we believe to be infidels, those who oppose our ideologies and beliefs.

There is no doubt that Saddam Hussein is a corrupt, self- centred, egotistic and "evil" person. But, can we justify in our hearts and souls, the killing of hundreds of thousands of innocent people to try and get one man? And, like Osama bin Laden, he may elude our efforts and taunt us as the innocent dead lie in the Iraqi streets. Estimates range from 500,000 to 1,000,000 people who will directly or indirectly die as a result of our bombing. Sixty per cent of these are children under the age of 15 whose greatest sin is being born. Please, do not write these human lives off as "collateral damage". This is very dehumanising, extremely callous and it goes against all that is right and good.

We have a choice whether or not to move forward with this war. Unlike the message you have been repeatedly given, this is a war on the Iraqi people, not a war on terrorism. If we systematically kill the citizens of Iraq out of our own sense of self-righteousness and fear, we reduce ourselves to the level of those that we deem as terrorists. Look deep within your soul and seek the truth that longs for expression. There has to be a better way of resolving this conflict other than committing more senseless killing. It is my hope that we can learn from the terrible tragedy of September 11, 2001, without perpetuating a world in which violence and unjust killing are accepted as a solution to conflict. This is how our primitive ancestors resolved differences.

Surely, we have grown in love and understanding beyond that. My prayer is that God will be with our world leaders, our troops who would sacrifice their lives for us and to the children of Iraq whose cries will ring out in agony and resound in the soul of America.

(March 2003).
(http://www.peacefultomorrows.org/voices/jt_030903.html)

___________

‘I’m not going to respond to terrorism by becoming a terrorist’

If you had lost a loved one, would you want revenge? As the world edges closer to war, RACHEL SHABI talks to relatives who believe retaliation is wrong.

RITA LASAR, 71

New York, USA

My brother Abe (Zelmanowitz, 55) worked in the north tower of the World Trade Center, on the 27th floor. He could have got out, but his colleague, Ed, a quadriplegic, was trapped with him. My other brother and sister-in-law called him, begging him to leave, but he said he would wait for help to get Ed out. But help came too late.

Then Bush made his speech at the National Cathedral (September 14, 2001). He mentioned my brother’s heroic act, and it became immediately apparent to me that my country was going to use my brother’s death to justify attacks in Afghanistan. That was as horrendous a blow to me as the actual attacks on September 11. I hoped and prayed that this country would not unleash forces in my brother’s name. When it (the bombing of Afghanistan) happened, I was horrified and devastated. I felt so impotent.

Then I got a call from Global Exchange (a human rights organisation), asking me if I’d like to go to Afghanistan. What I saw there changed my life forever. I had been a very privileged, blessed American who had only ever seen war on TV. And then I went to Afghanistan and saw the devastation and horror of what happens to innocent people when bombs fall — anyone’s bombs, anywhere in the world. That my brother’s name had been used to justify attacks on the people I met, became family with, cried and grieved with, brought it to a point where it was emotional and real. I found nothing but understanding, warmth, hugs — they knew all about 9/11 and they grieved for us and apologised to us. Every American should go there — because, if they did, they would stop the plans for war on Iraq immediately.

I did not pay any attention to who was to blame for 9/11 — there was no place left in my mind and heart other than the grief about my brother and the people who were going to be killed in his name. I didn’t feel anger. I didn’t want any other sister or mother to feel this way. It was only later that I began to think about how to bring the perpetrators to justice. I knew that bombing was not the answer. We are no safer now than when we started bombing. We are going to war with a country that had no connection to 9/11, our privacy and our freedom in this country are being slowly whittled away, and Muslims are afraid to go out in the street — in a city that used to welcome everybody.

Revenge for 9/11 is the excuse they are using to bomb Iraq. There are people in Iraq who are alive today and who will be dead next month if we have a war — and my country will say that they have done that to avenge my brother’s death. I will not let my brother, my dear brother’s death, be hypocritically used in this war — the fact that his death is being used cynically hurts me so much, I can’t tell you. Imagine someone who you loved, who died violently, being used insincerely and untruthfully in a political campaign. It is an exploitation.

So I have no intention of touching the subject of revenge. If people ask me why I don’t want retribution, I say that it is the natural human reaction to not seek retribution — or it should be. It cannot accomplish anything. My brother is dead. I privately mourn for him every moment. But I am not looking to atone for his death. I’m looking to prevent the death of others. I don’t want to see other people die to amend a ghastly, unbelievable death. The world is larger than just me. Things don’t have to be done to make up for things that have happened to me. Things have to be done to make things better in the world. I draw from my love of human beings that everyone is the same as I am. That it is possible — not in a dream, but some day — for this to be a peaceful planet. I’ll fight to the day I die against this war on terror. I don’t want my granddaughter to be sitting here at my age, facing the same world that I’m facing now: a world of starvation, war and inequity. Surely we can do better than this.

DAVID POTORTI, 46

North Carolina, USA

His name was Jim Potorti – he was my eldest brother,53. Jim worked on the 95th floor of the north tower, almost directly where the plane hit.

I was surprised at my reaction at the time, which was that I didn’t have a lot of anger in the way that others did. I felt sadness more than anger, because I recognised that these terrible acts were desperate acts reflecting a desperate feeling.

All the radio and TV stations were saying we should kill the people responsible for 9/11, just go and bomb people — and it made me sick in the heart to hear that. I had just lost someone and they were saying we should do the same to others. I never remember being angry at the people who did it, because it was such a political act. It wasn’t like a drunk driver hitting my brother, where I would have been really angry.

I remember being angry that the bombing of Afghanistan was being carried out in my name. Yes, anger is the only word, because I think of what a nice person my brother was, how much he loved his family. I felt we were really dishonouring his memory by throwing our constitution out of the window, that if we really wanted to honour him we should hold on to our principles instead of throwing them all away. I don’t think my brother died for my country, but I hope that my country doesn’t die for him, by rejecting its values and principles.

The goal is always justice, but how you achieve justice is the question. We have all wanted to bring the people responsible for 9/11 to justice. And so another source of anger is that we are not doing that, we are not locating Osama bin Laden or the Al Quaeda network — in fact, we are making it harder to find them. It’s the exact opposite of what we should be doing. Justice for me would be a more equitable world, where people did not live in such misery that they had to hate each other. A world in which the US contributes to a sense of equality, rather than making it worse.

So the rage I felt after 9/11 was rage at the whole system, that people could be so desperate that they would do something like this. The people who flew the planes into the building are dead: what more can you do to them? But this kind of terrorism is like a cancer. The only way you stop it is to stop the cycle, by saying, "I’m not going to respond to terrorism by becoming a terrorist." If you do respond with violence, you are just promoting more and more terrorism.

I don’t make any connection between Iraq and 9/11, because I’ve never seen any. I would only justify an attack on Iraq if the Iraqi army attacked the continental US. Not a terrorist attack, but the official Iraqi army. I got a vicious e-mail today in which someone claimed that Saddam killed my brother. How do you respond to someone who’s so out of touch with reality? My brother’s death was a nightmare, and I feel like it just gets worse every time it’s used to justify more terror and more pain. I just want this to be over. I just want people to stop being so angry. I want people to stop dying.

No one has ever asked me how I feel about anything. That’s where the feeling of violation comes in — speaking for me, instead of asking me how I feel. We had a baby about a month ago, and I’m realising that she will never know my brother. How could I possibly wish that kind of loss on anyone else’s brother, or daughter, or parents?

The thing to atone my brother’s death would be for there to be more honesty in the world, for America to start being more honest about the repercussions of its world policy. Over the past year, I have really educated myself about foreign policy – I wanted to know why this happened. What I wish now is that people in the US would do the same. I want people to just shut their mouths and read – stop talking until they know something. We all have to do that, including me.

(Excerpted from a report in The Guardian, UK, Saturday February 22, 2003).

Archived from Communalism Combat, March 2003 Year 9 No. 85, Cover Story 2

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Cracks within

Fri, 28 Feb 2003 18:30:00 +0000

Statistically insignificant they may be, but the resignations of a few politicians and diplomats in the US, UK and Australia puncture more holes in the dubious claims of the warmongers

Why I had to leave the cabinet

ROBIN COOK

March 19, 2003

I have resigned from the cabinet because I believe that a fundamental principle of Labour’s foreign policy has been violated. If we believe in an international community based on binding rules and institutions, we cannot simply set them aside when they produce results that are inconvenient to us.

I cannot defend a war with neither international agreement nor domestic support. I applaud the determined efforts of the prime minister and foreign secretary to secure a second resolution. Now that those attempts have ended in failure, we cannot pretend that getting a second resolution was of no importance.

In recent days, France has been at the receiving end of the most vitriolic criticism. However, it is not France alone that wants more time for inspections. Germany is opposed to us. Russia is opposed to us. Indeed, at no time have we signed up even the minimum majority to carry a second resolution. We delude ourselves about the degree of international hostility to military action if we imagine that it is all the fault of President Chirac.

The harsh reality is that Britain is being asked to embark on a war without agreement in any of the international bodies of which we are a leading member. Not NATO. Not the EU. And now not the Security Council.

To end up in such diplomatic isolation is a serious reverse. Only a year ago we and the US were part of a coalition against terrorism which was wider and more diverse than I would previously have thought possible. History will be astonished at the diplomatic miscalculations that led so quickly to the disintegration of that powerful coalition.

Britain is not a superpower. Our interests are best protected, not by unilateral action, but by multilateral agreement and a world order governed by rules. Yet, tonight the international partnerships most important to us are weakened. The European Union is divided. The Security Council is in stalemate. Those are heavy casualties of war without a single shot yet being fired.

The threshold for war should always be high. None of us can predict the death toll of civilians in the forthcoming bombardment of Iraq. But the US warning of a bombing campaign that will "shock and awe" makes it likely that casualties will be numbered at the very least in the thousands. Iraq’s military strength is now less than half its size than at the time of the last Gulf war. Ironically, it is only because Iraq’s military forces are so weak that we can even contemplate invasion. And some claim his forces are so weak, so demoralised and so badly equipped that the war will be over in days.

We cannot base our military strategy on the basis that Saddam is weak and at the same time justify pre-emptive action on the claim that he is a serious threat. Iraq probably has no weapons of mass destruction in the commonly understood sense of that term — namely, a credible device capable of being delivered against strategic city targets. It probably does still have biological toxins and battlefield chemical munitions. But it has had them since the Eighties when the US sold Saddam the anthrax agents and the then British government built his chemical and munitions factories.

Why is it now so urgent that we should take military action to disarm a military capacity that has been there for 20 years and which we helped to create? And why is it necessary to resort to war this week while Saddam’s ambition to complete his weapons programme is frustrated by the presence of UN inspectors?

I have heard it said that Iraq has had not months but 12 years in which to disarm, and our patience is exhausted. Yet, it is over 30 years since Resolution 242 called on Israel to withdraw from the occupied territories.

We do not express the same impatience with the persistent refusal of Israel to comply. What has come to trouble me most over past weeks is the suspicion that if the hanging chads in Florida had gone the other way and Al Gore had been elected, we would not now be about to commit British troops to action in Iraq.

I believe the prevailing mood of the British public is sound. They do not doubt that Saddam Hussein is a brutal dictator. But they are not persuaded he is a clear and present danger to Britain. They want the inspections to be given a chance. And they are suspicious that they are being pushed hurriedly into conflict by a US administration with an agenda of its own. Above all, they are uneasy at Britain taking part in a military adventure without a broader international coalition and against the hostility of many of our traditional allies. It has been a favourite theme of commentators that the House of Commons has lost its central role in British politics. Nothing could better demonstrate that they are wrong than for Parliament to stop the commitment of British troops to a war that has neither international authority nor domestic support.

(The Guardian, UK)
(The writer is a former British foreign secretary and till March 17 was the leader
of the House of Commons)

Anti-war official rocks Australian govt.

BOB BURTON

March 12, 2003

CANBERRA:The Australian government has been stunned by the resignation of one of its senior intelligence analysts who argues that, based on US and other intelligence information he has seen, there is currently no justification for a war on Iraq.

"I’m convinced a war against Iraq at this time would be wrong. For a start, Iraq does not pose a security threat to the US, or to the UK or Australia, or to any other country, at this point in time," former Office of National Assessments intelligence analyst Andrew Wilkie said, announcing his resignation late on Wednesday evening.

"I just don’t believe that a war at this time would be worth the risk,’’ he said.

A critical factor behind Wilkie’s resignation was claims made by US secretary of state Colin Powell to the UN Security Council purporting that a link exists between Al Qaeda and Iraq. "As far as I’m aware there was no hard evidence and there is still no hard evidence that there is any active co-operation between Iraq and Al Qaeda,’’ Wilkie told Australia Broadcasting Corp. (ABC) television.

Three years ago, Wilkie, a 41-year-old career military officer, was seconded to the Office of National Assessments, which prepares briefings for the department of Prime Minister and Cabinet from a wide range of intelligence sources.

Wilkie has worked on global terrorism and transnational issues including Afghanistan and the likely humanitarian consequences of a war on Iraq.

Wilkie describes his resignation as the "biggest decision I think I’ve ever made in my life’’ but felt compelled to act by what he thought is the prospect of a high risk of humanitarian crisis from any US-led attack on Iraq.

"I don’t believe I could stand by any longer and take no action as this coalition marches to war. I think the interests of the thousands of people, perhaps tens or even more, tens of thousands of people or even more who could be injured, displaced or killed in a war, I think their interests are more important,’’ he said.

The director general of the Office of National Assessments, Kim Jones, sought to downplay the significance of Wilkie’s resignation. "The officer concerned was a member of our transnational issues branch. He normally worked on illegal immigration issues. The transnational issues branch does not deal with issues related to Iraq,’’ Jones said, reading from a statement.

Speaking to journalists in Jakarta late Wednesday evening, minister of foreign affairs Alexander Downer, also sought to dismiss Wilkie’s resignation. "Mr Wilkie has come to the view that he doesn’t support the Australian government’s policy, and I think in those circumstances he’s done the honourable thing and resigned.’’

As one of the few ex-military officers that work at the Office of National Assessments, Wilkie was identified as one of the people who would work in the national intelligence watch office if a war in Iraq eventuated. In preparation for that role he had access to all intelligence information flowing into the agency on the topic.

Only hours before Wilkie’s resignation, Prime Minister John Howard sought to justify Australia’s support for the US war on Iraq on the basis of countering groups like Al Qaeda.

"To me, the ultimate nightmare of the modern world is that chemical and biological weapons will get into the hands of terrorists, and believe me, they will use them. They will not care about the cost (of what) they do to the countries against, or the peoples against which they are used,’’ Howard said in Sydney.

Wilkie believes that a war on Iraq may well turn out to be counter-productive. "In fact, a war is the exact course of action most likely to cause Saddam to do exactly what we’re trying to prevent. I believe it’s the course of action that is most likely to cause him to lash out recklessly, to use weapons of mass destruction and to possibly play a terrorism card,’’ he said.

Wilkie hopes that his actions will force Howard to rethink its unquestioning support for a unilateral strike against Iraq. "If my action today and over the next couple of days, can make the Australian government rethink its position, and maybe take a more sensible approach to developing its policy on Iraq, I think it’s been worthwhile,’’ he said.

In the wake of mass rallies in mid-February in which well over half a million citizens publicly demonstrated against the war, Wilkie’s resignation has demonstrated the depth of concern amongst the normally conservative ranks of the intelligence and foreign affairs establishment.

Former Office of National Assessments analyst and now the head of the Global Terrorism Center at Monash University, David Wright Neville, believes there is great concern about Howard’s policy in intelligence and military circles.

’’Speaking to former colleagues, former contacts both in the Office of National Assessments and other elements of the intelligence community, (there) are widespread concerns that are similar to Andrew’s about the direction in which the government is taking us,’’ he said.

With opposition to Australia’s deployment of 2,000 personnel to the Middle East growing, opposition political parties and the peace movement sense that Howard is now becoming electorally very vulnerable.

An opinion poll commissioned by the public relations company that works for the Labour Party and released on Wednesday revealed that 59 per cent of Australians oppose a unilateral attack on Iraq. However, a UN-endorsed attack was supported by 64 per cent of the 1,000 people surveyed.

According to opposition foreign affairs spokesman, Kevin Rudd, Wilkie’s resignation ‘’torpedoes the credibility’’ of Howard. (Courtesy: IPS)

Second US diplomat resigns

March 10, 2003

A veteran US diplomat resigned today in protest over US policy toward Iraq, becoming the second career foreign service officer to do so in the past month.

John Brown, who joined the State Department in 1981, said he resigned because he could not support Washington’s Iraq policy, which he said was fomenting a massive rise in anti-US sentiment around the world.

In a resignation letter to Secretary of State Colin Powell, Brown said he agreed with J Brady Kiesling, a diplomat at the US embassy in Athens who quit in February over President George W Bush’s apparent intent on fighting Iraq.

"I am joining my colleague John Brady Kiesling in submitting my resignation from the Foreign Service — effective immediately — because I cannot in good conscience support President Bush’s war plans against Iraq," he said.

"Throughout the globe the United States is becoming associated with the unjustified use of force," Brown said in the letter, a copy of which he sent to AFP.

"The president’s disregard for views in other nations, borne out by his neglect of public diplomacy, is giving birth to an anti-American century," he said.

"I joined the Foreign Service because I love our country," Brown said. "Respectfully, Mr Secretary, I am now bringing this calling to a close, with a heavy heart but for the same reason that I embraced it."

Two senior State Department officials confirmed that Powell had received the letter from Brown, who had served at the US embassies in London, Prague, Krakow, Kiev, Belgrade and Moscow before being assigned to be a diplomat-in-residence at Georgetown University in Washington. n

(Wire Services) (http://www.unitedforpeace.org)

Archived from Communalism Combat, March 2003 Year 9 No. 85, Cover Story 11

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