Author: Aziz Haniffa, India Abroad
News Service
Publication: Yahoo News
Date: March 22, 2001
Representative Benjamin Gilman,
who chairs the South Asian subcommittee of the powerful House International
Relations Committee, has predicted "a dramatic positive shift towards India"
under the new Bush administration. Speaking at the inaugural dinner
of the Indian American National Foundation (IANF) -- a newly constituted
umbrella organization of four major Indian American groups that have come
together pledging to represent the common interests of the estimated 1.5
million Indian Americans -- Gilman said, "Past policy that turned a blind
eye on China's sale of missile and nuclear technology to Pakistan is under
close scrutiny by the new administration."
Gilman, who has access to intelligence
reports, disclosed that "the way the new Bush team has lined up, it is
certain that Beijing's dangerous meddling aimed at threatening democratic
India will finally receive an appropriate response."
The lawmaker said, "The same is
true for Pakistan's support for terrorism in Kashmir and its assistance
to the misguided Taliban who give refuge to Osama bin Laden."
Gilman noted that "last week's destruction
of all the Buddhist religious structures throughout the country by the
Taliban confirmed for all the world that we are dealing with extreme Pushtun
tribal nationalists whose Islamic fundamentalist beliefs preach intolerance
of other peoples and cultures."
"The United States and all the countries
in the region, and especially India, need to assist the Afghan Uzbeks,
Tajiks, Turkmens and Hazaras who are in the Northern Alliance and are battling
against these Pashtun nationalists," he said, and added: "The United States
should work closely with India in this effort."
Gilman said that India's attempts
"to promote regional stability by assisting democratic movements are in
tune with our own national interests."
"Regrettably," he argued," the countries
surrounding India, such as China, Pakistan and Burma don't hold our same
values and are intent on undermining India." Thus, Gilman declared, "Accordingly,
be prepared to see the Bush administration respond in ways that will appropriately
reflect India's important role in the region."
He also asserted that the Bush administration's
"policy toward terrorism is clear. The Bush White House recognizes India
as a source of regional democratic stability and, therefore, is a natural
target of the same terrorist movements that have murdered Americans and
are opposed to our interests. China, which lends support to Pakistan, needs
to receive a firm signal from the international community that such behavior
will no longer be tolerated."
Gilman said that Beijing should
"never have been awarded with a 'strategic partnership' with the United
States. India is a natural ally and as chairman of the subcommittee on
the Middle East and South Asia, I intend to ensure that our policy finally
reflects this reality."
He warned that "if we do not soon
address the root causes of India's security difficulties by reining in
China and its critical support for Pakistan and also Pakistan's assistance
to the Taliban, then at the very least we must begin to focus directly
on the Taliban itself."
"We need to recognize it for what
it is, not as a spin off of the Cold War Afghan freedom fighters but as
a chauvinist, ethnic movement that has a myopic view of the world," he
said." The Taliban has caused and will cause far more damage to international
stability than any other recent nationalist movement."
Senator John Kerry, who is a ranking
member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, in his remarks, said
that unlike during the Cold War years, "now there is no excuse," for the
United States not to have a much closer and strategic relationship with
India. "Now it is clear the course that Pakistan is on, and it's clear
the course India is on."
Consequently, Kerry argued, "We
need a policy that is prepared to distinguish between India and Pakistan
and to recognize that India," is Washington's natural ally.
Kerry called on the Bush administration
to immediately lift the sanctions imposed on India after the May 1998 Pokhran
nuclear tests and "to recognize this new reality, "that India is all about
as the pre-eminent power in South Asia" and "build on the relationship
that President Clinton's visit so properly and so effectively began."
Similar sentiments were expressed
by Representative Ed Royce, Republican co-chair of the Congressional Caucus
on India and Indian Americans, who said the relationship now offers "tremendous
opportunities to correct some of the errors that we have made."
He said an urgent corrective measure
is the lifting of the sanctions "and the sooner it happens the better."
Royce also called for a military relationship with India, saying "we need
to be looking at joint military-to-military exercises with India," because
he firmly believed that "India is a force for stability in Asia."
Royce also said it is imperative
that "we need to work in a bipartisan way," to get President Bush to visit
India, as the Caucus, working in concert with the community had got President
Clinton to make the trip to India -- the first by a U.S. chief executive
after 22 years.
