U.S. non-proliferation group ups the ante with draft separation plan

David Albright's ISIS has come up with the first unofficial U.S. attempt to specify what the proposed separation of India's civilian and nuclear facilities should look like. Unlike the 18 American proliferation experts and former government officials who wrote to the U.S. Congress on November 18 saying the Indo-U.S. nuclear deal could do "unintentional damage" to the "international non-proliferation regime", the ISIS report is less bearish on the landmark nuclear agreement struck by Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and President George Bush on July 18, 2005. However, Indian nuclear experts do not think much of its separation prescriptions.

21 December 2005
The Hindu

U.S. non-proliferation group ups the ante with draft separation plan

"India should place all power reactors, naval fuel cycle, Rare Materials Plant under safeguards"

Siddharth Varadarajan

New Delhi: On the eve of India's crucial talks with the United States on its proposed separation of civilian and military nuclear facilities, an influential U.S. non-proliferation think tank has come up with its own plan for how the separation should be effected.

In a six-page report released on Monday, David Albright and Susan Basu of the Institute for Science and International Security (ISIS) say all of India's nuclear facilities "not directly associated with nuclear weapons production or deployment" should be placed under international safeguards which "should apply in perpetuity, with minor, standard exceptions that do not include use in nuclear explosives or weapons."

The report also says safeguarded nuclear material "should not co-mingle with unsafeguarded nuclear material in any facility, unless this unsafeguarded nuclear material also comes under safeguards."

Calling this latter condition an example of the "key safeguards principle" of "contamination," it admits that these conditions "do not appear to have been accepted by India" as per the text of the July 18, 2005 statement. At the same time, the report asserts that the perpetuity and contamination principles are necessary "to prevent civil nuclear cooperation from benefiting India's nuclear weapons program."

The ISIS report is the first unofficial U.S. attempt to specify what the Indian separation plan should look like. It divides India's nuclear facilities into three categories: first, those "not directly associated with nuclear weapons production or deployment;" second, its weapons-related facilities, and third, facilities "associated with its naval nuclear fuel cycle." The report says all facilities in the first and third categories must be placed under international safeguards without exception. This means all power reactors, spent fuel reprocessing plants and the two prototype fast breeder reactors at Kalpakkamin Tamil Nadu.

Naval facilities

As for the naval-related facilities — listed in the report as the Advanced Technology Reactor Programme at Kalpakkam, the gas centrifuge plant at the Rare Materials Plant (RMP) at Rattehalli in Karnataka, and all nuclear submarine reactors — the ISIS says exempting such facilities from safeguards "would undermine efforts to safeguard such facilities in non-nuclear weapon states party to the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty." It notes that Brazil accepted safeguards on its prototype naval reactor and its enrichment plants at Aramar that are dedicated to the production of naval reactor fuel. "Safeguards applied in India should be consistent with the IAEA's approach in Brazil," it says.

Indian nuclear experts who have been through the ISIS "separation plan" say there is no way its prescriptions can be accepted. "The basic idea in all these unofficial and official U.S. approaches is that [notwithstanding whatever was agreed to in the July 18 statement] India cannot be treated as a nuclear weapon state," Dr. A.N. Prasad, a former director of the Bhabha Atomic Research Centre, told The Hindu on Tuesday.

On the question of separation, Dr. Prasad said the pressure to include specific facilities would go on. "The U.S. wants our plan to be `credible,' which means it must be acceptable to them, and `transparent,' which means every aspect of our thinking has to be known to them." It was also unrealistic to expect that the U.S. would keep its side of the bargain before India took any concrete step. The key, he said, was to ensure that India did not take measures it would then find difficult or costly to reverse if the U.S. failed to deliver.

As for the ISIS report, Dr. Prasad said the proposals on the breeder programme, naval reactors and other facilities were outlandish. "The Rare Materials Plant cannot even be discussed, let alone safeguarded," he said.

The only facilities the ISIS says India should be allowed to keep off the safeguarded list are those directly connected to its weapons programme. According to the report, these are the Dhruva research reactor, the Fuel Fabrication Plant, the Plutonium Separation Plant and the Plutonium Weapon Component facility (all at Trombay), India's unknown nuclear weapons storage sites, its nuclear test range at Pokhran, and its unknown uranium weapons component facility. The report acknowledges that the RMP may produce "a limited amount of highly enriched uranium for nuclear weapons" but says "the main purpose of the plant appears to be to make enriched uranium for naval reactors and possibly a small amount of enriched uranium for civil research reactors." Hence, safeguards should be applied here too.

As for the 40-MW CIRUS research reactor — which, Dr. Albright has previously claimed, produced as much as 25 per cent of the fissile material for India's nuclear weapons — the ISIS report says that if India keeps it off the civilian list, this will "directly violate its commitment to Canada," which supplied the reactor in 1960 under a "peaceful use" pledge.

© Copyright 2000 - 2005 The Hindu

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Stage set for nuclear separation talks

The Department of Atomic Energy has prepared a number of "options" to put into effect the Indian government's commitment to effect a separation between its civilian and military nuclear facilities. The final decision, of course, will lie with Prime Minister Manmohan Singh but the Bush administration is also insisting the plan should be acceptable to it.

20 December 2005
The Hindu

Stage set for nuclear separation talks

Siddharth Varadarajan

• Deal unlikely to be clinched this time

• Additional rounds of technical talks needed

New Delhi: With the expert group headed by Foreign Secretary Shyam Saran now en route to Washington, India is set to hold the most detailed round of discussions to date with the U.S. on the planned separation of its civilian and military nuclear facilities.

However, senior officials familiar with the issue told The Hindu on Monday that the two sides were not expected to clinch a deal this time, and that additional rounds of technical talks would be necessary before mutually acceptable specific reciprocal commitments could finally be worked out.

According to official sources, the Department of Atomic Energy had prepared a number of options and scenarios for the proposed separation, involving the inclusion and exclusion of different facilities. While the officials declined to elaborate they said all the scenarios had been crafted to ensure two minimum outcomes: preserving the flexibility and robustness of the Indian strategic programme, and ensuring the long-term energy security of the country based on the development of indigenous resources and technologies.

"These options have been put to the country's leadership at the highest level, and the decision taken at that level will drive the Indian negotiating team's stance" in the crucial December 21 meeting of the India-U.S. working group on civil nuclear cooperation.

Asked about the fate of the CIRUS research reactor, the fast breeder reactor, MAPS at Kalpakkam and other indigenous plants and facilities, a senior official told The Hindu that any public airing of the final plan that the leadership settles on — or indeed of any scenarios the DAE had presented to the Prime Minister — would compromise the Indian ability to negotiate.

The officials also expressed surprise at the fact that some sections of the Government who were not involved in the decision-making process, and who did not understand the parameters involved, were busy floating options. They added that many people inside and outside the Government mistakenly believed that India needed fissile material only for its strategic programme and were projecting scenarios of separation on that basis.

However, the fact, they said, was that the country needed a lot of fissile material for its long-term energy security.

The officials stressed that it was not useful to think of the forthcoming meeting — which is only the second time experts from the two sides are meeting — as the occasion when all outstanding issues flowing from the July 18, 2005 India-U.S. nuclear agreement would be settled. "The Americans are keen to settle matters before President Bush comes here next year but there is plenty of time between now and then," an official said.

The issues to be sorted out — separation, sequencing and safeguards — were complicated and the Indian side saw no reason to telescope its technical decision-making process to fit an artificial, political deadline, the officials added.

The Indian negotiating team includes two members from the Ministry of External Affairs, in addition to the Foreign Secretary, and two members from the DAE.

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Watch out for the John Bolton clones...

Selig Harrison says Indian negotiators should be wary of the hardline 'nuclear dominance types' in the Bush administration who are out to write into the U.S.-India nuclear agreement of July 18, 2005 conditions which are even more onerous than the Indians agreed to back then.

17 December 2005
The Hindu

Keep fast breeder reactor out of IAEA inspections: U.S. expert

Siddharth Varadarajan

`Only imported fuel and reactors should be placed under in-perpetuity safeguards'

• Indian negotiators should guard against hardline "American nationalists" who are reluctant to accept India's nuclear status

• Demand for in-perpetuity safeguards on all civilian facilities is "an affront to Indian sovereignty"

• Placing imported nuclear fuel or reactors under in-perpetuity safeguards a pragmatic adjustment

NEW DELHI: On the eve of crucial negotiations with the U.S. on the separation of India's civilian and military nuclear facilities, a well-known American analyst has strongly defended the Indian atomic establishment's desire to keep indigenous programmes like the fast breeder reactor (FBR) outside the purview of international safeguards and inspections.

In an interview to The Hindu on Friday, Selig S. Harrison, director of the Washington-based Center for International Policy's Asia programme, said Indian negotiators had to guard against hardline "American nationalists" in the Bush administration who are reluctant to accept India's nuclear status. Among them are Robert Joseph, Under-Secretary of State for Arms Control, whose "abhorrent" testimony at a Senate hearing last month on India accepting `in-perpetuity' safeguards for all its civilian facilities, Mr. Harrison says, "made my hair stand on end".

Mr. Harrison, an India hand of long standing and a keen watcher of Beltway politics, says opposition in the U.S. to the July 18 nuclear agreement comes from two different quarters. "Too much emphasis in India has been given to non-proliferation theologians like Bob Einhorn, George Perkovich and Michael Krepon — who have strong feelings about this agreement and are a problem — but another strong focus of opposition is the `nuclear dominance' types in the administration like Bob Joseph and J.D. Crouch II, the Deputy National Security Adviser."

Describing Mr. Joseph as "a John Bolton in different clothing," Mr. Harrison said that hardliners like him are "stuck on the idea that the U.S. is entitled to exercise a dominant global position through its nuclear dominance... They have zeroed in on `in-perpetuity safeguards' because this is what most clearly defines for them the fact that the U.S. is a nuclear power and India is not".

He added: "If the whole question of safeguards — in the exact way Mr. Joseph expressed it in his testimony to the Senate on November 2 — is in fact this administration's settled policy, then we are in for a very difficult negotiation indeed." The demand for in-perpetuity safeguards on all civilian facilities, including indigenously developed ones such as the FBR, is "an affront to Indian sovereignty," says Mr. Harrison.

Dr. Anil Kakodkar of the Department of Atomic Energy has said the FBR and other civilian R&D projects must not be subjected to safeguards for the present, and Mr. Harrison agrees. "To me, it seems clear that India cannot sacrifice the integrity of that programme... Indeed, India can afford to compromise on many of the modalities of this agreement precisely because if the FBR programme does succeed, which I am sure it will, this will give you a tremendous military potential. This is why they don't like it."

The FBR would produce fissile material but the only U.S. concern ought to be that this material not leave India. "The July 18 agreement will bring India into the non-proliferation regime and strengthen export control so that issue is taken care of," says Mr. Harrison. "The FBR is going to be a big problem for Bob Joseph and his people but I see no scope for compromise on India's part. This has to be off the safeguards list in terms of India's strategic priorities."

Suggestion

As a sweetener, Mr. Harrison suggests India offer two compromises. First, it should place the Canadian-supplied Cirus reactor — which has so far been used for weapons-related activities but is old and on "life support" — in the list of civilian facilities. And it should be willing to accept in-perpetuity safeguards for any imported fuel, equipment or reactor. The latter would be "highly regrettable" and a "sacrifice of principle" but is a price India should consider paying.

"The obvious compromise is that any imported nuclear fuel or reactors could be placed in safeguards in perpetuity as a pragmatic adjustment, necessitated by the importance of getting civilian nuclear cooperation", he says. "And it seems to me there will be enough facilities not under safeguards — if the U.S. is prepared to accept India's civilian list — that the Indian deterrent would be quite secure. There will be plenty of plutonium in the unsafeguarded facilities, and there's the FBR is the long run".

On the sequencing of Indian and U.S. actions, Mr. Harrison says there would also be difficulty. "In the end, I am not sure if State Department types who see a strategic benefit to the U.S. from nuclear cooperation with India will prevail. I don't know if Condoleezza Rice will get into this enough herself, or Mr. Bush, to keep the hardline nationalist types from getting terms written into this deal and then making it seem like these terms are reasonable and that India is not accepting them. So I am not sure how deeply Bush will get into this."

© Copyright 2000 - 2005 The Hindu

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Asian interests and the myth of 'balance'

The East Asian Summit process, the proposed Asian energy grid, and the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation are three pillars of the emerging strategic architecture in Asia. There is no need for the region to turn to outside powers in the name of "balance of power."
13 December 2005
The Hindu

Asian interests and the myth of 'balance'

Siddharth Varadarajan

THIS WEEK, the leaders of several Asian countries — India, China, Korea, Japan, and the ASEAN states — will meet in Malaysia for the first-ever East Asia Summit (EAS). Australia and New Zealand, which, like India, are on the periphery of East Asia, have also been invited to the summit since they are considered vital to the economic geography of the region. Many years in the making, the EAS is still something of an unknown quantity. The countries participating know the event is important, even if they are not quite sure why. The only country that is quite clear about the importance of the summit is the United States, which, rightly, sees great strategic significance in the fact that it will not be there. The U.S. has a considerable and growing military presence in the continent stretching all the way from Turkey and Iraq in the west to the Kyrgyz Republic in the north and Okinawa in the east. Its armed forces are fighting two wars on the soil of Asia. Yet, people forget the fact that the U.S. is not in Asia.

When Mahathir Mohammed of Malaysia first proposed an East Asian Economic Caucus in the 1990s, Washington strongly objected to the idea. Japan, under trade pressure from the U.S. through Super 301, initially hinted at support for the concept but quickly backed off. The proposal soon withered. There were sound economic reasons for the Malaysian proposal failing to get traction at the time: China and India were not major players and Asian countries traded more with the outside world than with each other. Nor was Dr. Mahathir's political agenda an attractive one. The Cold War had ended, there was talk of "multipolarity" and little concern in Asia that the continent would need an organisation to restrain the exercise of American power. Into this institutional vacuum, the U.S., and Australia stepped in with APEC, a forum linking East Asia with the Americas, thereby diluting the concept of Asia.

In the intervening decade and a half, the entire strategic scenario in Asia has changed. There are three distinct elements involved. First, patterns of trade — and the nature of trading arrangements — in Asia and the world have radically altered. Despite the onset of the World Trade Organisation with its emphasis on `most favoured nation' status, there has been an explosion in preferential trading areas (PTAs) around the world. Asia has its share of bilateral PTAs but there is nothing at the multilateral level to match what Europe, North America, and South America have done. At the same time, intra-Asian trade has risen dramatically. The trade of each Asian country with the group of `Developing Asian Countries' increased at a much faster rate than its trade with the rest of the world during 1991-2000, notes Ramesh Chand of the National Centre for Agricultural Economics and Policy Research in a recent monograph, Free Trade in Asia (Academic Foundation, 2006). China has supplanted the U.S. as South Korea's most important trading partner. India's trade with the DAC went up from 11.8 per cent of its total trade in 1990 to 24 per cent by 2000 (The only major exception to this trend is China, due to the sheer volume of its trade worldwide). This neighbourhood bias in trade suggests Asia is following the same path as Europe did in the run-up to its formal integration as a trading bloc.

Secondly, the growth of China and India and the discovery of oil and gas in Central Asia have transformed the Asian energy scene since some of the largest producers and consumers of hydrocarbons are now located in the continent. However, the dynamics of the world oil and gas markets are still driven by benchmarks set by Europe and North America. The price volatility of recent months — which is more the product of speculative activity on western mercantile exchanges than a reflection of actual supply-demand mismatch — provides an incentive for major Asian producers and consumers to come together and see what can be done to ensure greater stability in the energy market.

Thirdly, a host of new threats and security challenges have arisen in the run-up to 9/11 and its aftermath that require a collective Asian approach. These include terrorism, the stationing of outside military forces in the region, the development of new weapons of mass destruction and doctrines, the notions of `regime change' and `preventive war', as well as issues of maritime security and disaster relief.

Each of these three underlying changes — on the trade, energy, and security fronts — poses challenges and presents opportunities that require separate institutional mechanisms. It is not a coincidence that the past year has witnessed serious efforts by several Asian countries to push in this direction.

On the security front, the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation is evolving into a broad-based entity linking China, Russia, and the Central Asian countries with India, Iran, and Pakistan — which joined as observers earlier this year. There is also the Russia-India-China initiative that has involved frequent consultations on strategic issues. At its last summit, the SCO called on the U.S.-led coalition forces in the region to specify a timeframe by when they will leave. At the same time, the organisation has begun speaking of developing regional capabilities to deal with the threats posed by terrorism. Joint military exercises between China and Russia, as well as China and India, and India and Russia have been held. The Russians are now speaking of trilateral military exercises involving these three countries. Could the SCO be the harbinger for a pan-Asian confidence-building body based on a new security concept of mutual respect and cooperation rather than the outdated, dangerous idea of "balance of power"? For this to happen, India, China, and Russia have to work closely together but Japan and South Korea too will have to be brought within the ambit of the SCO.

On the trade front, the EAS process will likely provide answers about the precise institutional shape greater Asian cooperation will take. Along with the creation of an Asian free trade area with developing country safeguards, there is need for Asia to develop its own financial institutions. The absence of such institutions led to the 1997 Asian financial crisis and to its deflationary denouement, as countries like Indonesia and South Korea were forced by the International Monetary Fund to accept irrational conditionalities.

Finally, the energy front has seen two sets of promising meetings between major Asian producers and consumers this year, held at the initiative of the Indian Ministry for Petroleum and Natural Gas. On the agenda are not just financial and inventory-related measures to stabilise prices but, more importantly, the creation of pan-Asian pipeline grids. The proposed $22 billion grid -- unveiled in New Delhi at the end of November -- will allow gas to be moved around the region more easily, avoiding geopolitically sensitive maritime choke points like the Straits of Hormuz, Malacca, and Taiwan. Pan-Asian energy grids will also give a major boost to regional political cooperation and inter-dependence.

In the light of developments in these three directions, the evolution of an Asian strategic architecture is only a matter of time. The one fly in the ointment is the U.S., which would like to scuttle all such exclusively Asian initiatives.

For years, Washington has thrived on Asian insecurities, often fuelling suspicions and rivalries between countries. The more there is a perception of insecurity — China versus Japan, China versus India, Japan versus Korea, India versus Pakistan, not to speak of `minor' insecurities — the greater the role for the U.S. as a "balancer."

While it is understandable for the U.S. to advocate the concept of `balance,' what is inexplicable is India's decision to do so as well. In a speech to the India Economic Forum on November 28, Foreign Secretary Shyam Saran offered the U.S. India's help in this `balance of power' game. "If we are looking at Asia in the coming years, there is no doubt that there is a major realignment of forces taking place in Asia," Mr. Saran said. "There is the emergence of China as a global economic powerhouse. There will be increased capabilities that China will be able to bring to bear in this region and even beyond. India also is going to be a major player in Asia ... I think India and the United States can contribute to a much better balance in the Asian region."

Though Mr. Saran acknowledges India's "strong engagement" with China, he adds: "We believe that in terms of managing the emerging security scenario in Asia we need to bring more and more countries within the discipline of a mutually agreed security paradigm for this region. I think both the U.S. and India can contribute to that." China, presumably, is the main country needing the "discipline" of a "security paradigm" to which India and the U.S. can "contribute."

It doesn't take a lot of analysis to recognise that these ideas run counter to the new spirit so evident in Asia. Taken together with other recent shifts in Indian foreign policy, they suggest India's commitment to Asia may be less robust than its commitment to the United States.

© Copyright 2000 - 2005 The Hindu

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Living up to the legacy of Nuremberg

With 100 states on board, the International Criminal Court is slowly negotiating the hurdle of universality. But with major countries like the United States (and India) outside its purview, how effective will it be in dealing with war crimes, crimes against humanity, aggression and torture? In an exclusive and far-ranging interview with me in New Delhi last week, ICC President Philippe Kirsch, who is normally very hesitant to get into what he calls "specific situations", discussed the court’s limitations, the jurisdiction issue in recent allegations of torture by the German national, Khaled el-Masri, the issue of Afghanistan and other topics.

Note: A shorter version of this interview, with some questions and answers cut out, appeared in The Hindu on 12 December 2005. What follows here is the complete transcript.

Living up to the legacy of Nuremberg

An interview of International Criminal Court President Philippe Kirsch by Siddharth Varadarajan

Siddharth Varadarajan: In a recent speech on the 60th anniversary of the Nuremberg trials, you said the International Criminal Court was the true inheritor of that tradition. Is that an accurate description?

Philippe Kirsch: The Nuremberg trials were a response to crimes committed on a massive scale which had tremendous consequences not only on individuals but on international peace and stability. It became clear you need to have a mechanism when national institutions were unable to act, that would try the most serious perpetrators of crimes, and would isolate the guilt to those individuals -- as opposed, for example, to a whole population. That idea led to the thought that if further crimes were to be committed, it would be good to have a permanent institution. Efforts began to be made in that direction but soon collapsed.

Once the Cold War ended, you had renewed efforts to create a permanent international court, as well as the tragedies in Rwanda and former Yugoslavia. Massive crimes were committed. The Rwanda and Yugoslavia tribunals showed international criminal justice could work but they had inherent limitations. They were created for a particular situation as a political decision, they were retroactive. In any event, those tribunals could not achieve what is one of the aims of international justice, the creation of a culture of deterrence. Eventually, that led to the creation of the ICC. It was created by treaty and there was no question of it being imposed, it is prospective and not retroactive, it is not specifically directed to any particular situation, and it is open, it is available, it does not depend on any political decision of a few states at the time.

Varadarajan: In their reflections, Justice Robert Jackson, Telford Taylor and others associated with Nuremberg as prosecutors have argued that the tribunal’s main achievement was establishing the crime of aggression as the supreme international crime, because aggression contains within it the “accumulated evil” of all other crimes. Isn’t the absence of aggression from the mandate of the ICC – at least till 2009, if not later – a fatal flaw?

Kirsch: Aggression, as you know, is listed among the crimes, but is not yet operational because it has not yet been defined… There will be a review conference in 2009 and we will see. One of the certainties is that this issue will be revisited again. Its absence today is a lack, but I don’t think the jurisdiction of the ICC is fatally flawed for that reason. First, aggression implies an international act, an attack by one state on another. When you see the situation of Rwanda, or Cambodia, or the situation within former Yugoslavia, in many cases there was no international element. Yet, massive crimes were committed and national systems did not function at all. So you have a whole range of situations that, even if aggression is included in the statute, it would not be relevant to those. The second point is that if an attack is committed by a state against another, and even if the attack is not covered, all the crimes that may come with an attack – war crimes, almost always, crimes against humanity, increasingly -- are covered under the statute.

Varadarajan: So an attack of the kind that took place on Iraq, say, would be covered by the kind of situation you are talking about?


Kirsch: As a judge of the ICC, I cannot comment on specific situations. I am bound to deal in concepts.

Varadarajan: You have described the ICC as an improvement over the ad-hoc tribunals for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY) and Rwanda. One of the criticisms of the ICTY is the seemingly political manner of the conduct of its prosecutorial system. I have in mind, for example, its refusal to take up the case of the killing of Yugoslav journalists by NATO when it deliberately bombed Belgrade’s TV station in 1999. What is different about the ICC’s system of taking up cases that could protect against this perception of political bias?

Kirsch: I will not comment on the way another tribunal conducts itself. But on the question of possible politicisation, put yourself in the position of the states which created the ICC in 1998. What they did was to create a court whose jurisdiction was completely unpredictable. The court could do anything anywhere, it all depended on what states became parties what situations came up, where crimes were committed. The last thing the states wanted in doing that was a court that had any remote possibility of conducting politically-motivated prosecutions or behaving politically. There are procedural principles within the statute which are extremely tight and detailed. For example, the prosecutor in undertaking an investigation on his own accord has to have the authorization of a pre-trial chamber. At that time, the accused, or the state of the nationality of the accused, will come and tell the ICC, ‘our national system is operating properly, you have no business there’. And then the pre-trial chamber’s decision can be taken to an appeal chamber of five judges. So the system is extremely tight, and the rights of the states and the accused are defined in great detail.

All that was done in 1998, and then a preparatory commission developed the elements of crimes, which is a further definition of the crimes in the statute, and the rules of procedure and evidence which for every other tribunal had been left to judges. So the system was designed to be extremely tight, where the ICC would have no margin of manouevre to stray even slightly outside its mandate, and that’s the way it should be.

Varadarajan: In a sense, what I’m trying to get at is that the rules are so tightly construed to protect states against what they feel might be political motivation that this itself can lead to politicisation of another kind. For example, Khaled el-Masri, a German citizen, says he was kidnapped in Macedonia by U.S. forces, taken to Afghanistan and tortured, and then dumped in Albania. Germany, Macedonia, Afghanistan are all states parties to the ICC. If he were interested in approaching the ICC, would he be able to?

Kirsch: The ICC prosecutor has received more than 1600 communications from a variety of sources, quite apart from the four referrals that were made formally to the ICC, containing allegations of crimes that had been committed under the statute. More than 80 per cent of those communications were dismissed by the prosecutor on the grounds that the crimes were not right, or the timeframe was not right, or that the situation invoked involved no state party. So there is already a clear decision to stick to the statute. Now the case – hypothetical case – you are raising…

Varadarajan: It is a real case. The only thing hypothetical is his decision to move the ICC.

Kirsch: Right, the kind of case you are raising involves a situation where all states are parties where, technically, the court has jurisdiction. But then comes the element of gravity. Take crimes against humanity, you have a list of crimes, starting with murder. Now, any murder is not a crime against humanity. For a murder to be a crime against humanity, it has to be committed in the context of a systematic, widespread attack against a civilian population, and that attack has to be in application of a policy of a state or organization, and the perpetrator has to know that. This is an extremely high threshold. The business of the ICC is not to take up isolated issues like this. One of the aims of the ICC is to prevent genocide, war crimes, crimes against humanity – they all reflect crimes of a widespread nature. If the ICC began to deal with isolated incidents, it would not only be a mistake, it would be against its mandate, its mandate being the high-level commission of crimes.

And even within situations, suppose there have been massive crimes committed somewhere, the ICC – that is the policy of the prosecutor and he has said it many times, this is the philosophy underlying the court – the ICC will only try the highest perpetrators, because you do not create a deterrent by going after individuals who have killed someone, you create deterrence by going after the high-level people who have done this. The ICC is not a court of appeal. If a national system functions, and someone is acquitted, or is not prosecuted, the ICC is not going to challenge that if the system works properly. The ICC’s goals are very, very narrow, and the ICC’s capacity is always going to be limited to four or five situations at the same time…

Varadarajan: But who decides if a national system works properly? If a Sudanese court were to find someone guilty and sentence them to six months or two years – as American civil courts and courts martial have done to Lynddie England and some of the other U.S. soldiers found guilty of torturing Iraqis – how would you decide which domestic legal process is legitimate and valid and which is not? I understand Iraq and the U.S. are not signatories but egregious leniency in sentencing is not the preserve of just a few ‘undemocratic’ states.

Kirsch: Ultimately, the process will be left to jurisprudence. There will have to be a judicial determination made, first by the pre-trial chamber, then by the chamber of appeal. But the criteria that are in the statute – let’s consider a state which is unwilling to act. What this means is that you have proceedings aimed not at administering justice but shielding a perpetrator. So the state undertakes proceedings essentially to cover itself. That’s really the basic criteria. This could take various forms. Indefinite delays, where proceedings never end, or the proceedings are weird, in a manner that is not normal. Ultimately, there will have to be a judicial decision on a case by case basis depending on the circumstances. I cannot give a general answer at this stage. If the court’s jurisdiction is challenged by a state a national of which comes up before the court, then we will have a concrete example.

Varadarajan: Do you think the fact that major countries like the US, India, China are not signatories affects the credibility of the court?

Kirsch: I have always been convinced that the aim of the ICC has to be to reach universality. It is matter or principle and a practical matter, because you have constraints over its jurisdiction that eliminate certain situations if states are not a party. The ICC does not have universal jurisdiction. It has jurisdiction, except in the case of a Security Council referral, only where it has the consent of the state of the nationality of the accused or the state of the territory where the crime is committed, which is very restrictive. Therefore, to fulfill its role as was anticipated at its creation, the ICC will have to have more ratifications, to get as close as possible to universality.

There is also another reason. The statute has been designed by all. There has been controversy about the jurisdiction of the ICC but not really about the way its judicial system was constructed. Even now, there would be details but the fact that it is a system which reconciles and combines very different systems has been accepted. But, within the court, certain legal systems are not well represented yet, and so those systems have to be in the court too. A state can only have a judge selected if that state is party to the statute. So from that respect too, universality it is necessary.

If you compare the ICC’s development with the development of other major international treaties which have far less impact on domestic legislation, say the Law of the Sea, it took 12 years for UNCLOS to come into force but only four years for the ICC statute to come into force. I think this reflects the very, very strong momentum at the time that the ICC should be created and begin to act.

Now, there are a number of states that have not been as convinced as the 100 ratifiers that the legal foundation of the system is impeccable. I think if states want to wait, it is their national decision, but then the answer to this has to be the way the ICC behaves. If the ICC behaves in an absolutely and exclusively judicial way, without any trace of politicisation, if its proceedings are effective, if it is seen eventually as help to the international community and not as a threat to sovereignty, then it stands to reason that the broader objectives of the ICC -- which is the reduction of the commission of massive crimes, the reduction of phenomena that come with it like the flow of refugees -- will begin to dominate the scene and not vague apprehensions about what the ICC could do. I think at that point, support for the ICC by states which are hesitant is bound to increase.

Varadarajan: The US is one of those countries which feels the process could be political, it is signing agreements with states parties to ensure its citizens are never brought before the court. What specific arguments have you made to convince the US that the ICC is a judicial and not a political body.

Kirsch: The ICC is not a diplomatic body. We are not in contact with governments to negotiate the application of the statute. But I have been invited several times to the US for tours, conferences and have met individuals who are interested. It is clear to me that the level of understanding has increased a lot in the US about what the ICC really is and, therefore, the level of apprehension has decreased. It is a fair statement to say that the referral by the UN Security Council of Darfur to the ICC would not have been possible a year ago. The recognition that the ICC is not a threat, that it is useful in situations of massive crimes, has been acknowledged, these are facts. And it is a fact that in the two-and-a-half years of existence of the ICC, there has not been a shred of evidence of any politicisation.

Varadarajan: Is there a danger that in your concern to demonstrate the ICC will not “politically” target the U.S., the court and its system will soft pedal cases which may fall under its mandate but where the US would take an adverse view, such as the case which I mentioned of Mr el-Masri? This is not an isolated case as you seem to suggest, but part of a host of evidence in the last two-three years of the customary norm against torture being violated by the U.S. You have official memos which advocate a certain interrogation system. So these are not individual or isolated instances.

Kirsch: We are not trying so hard to convince the Americans we are not political. We are not political. The court behaves in a judicial way because that’s its job. To be political would be against its mandate. It is not a matter of diplomacy but of judicial administration. As for the broader point you are raising, as I see it, first, the ICC cannot intervene in situations which concern non-state parties. But, second, the ultimate criterion for anything the ICC does now is gravity.

Varadarajan: But if I may interject, the allegations on torture involve flights to -- and torture in -- countries which are signatories, which would suggest geographical jurisdiction would not be so much of a problem. And the fact that it is not just one incident but many would suggest these are not isolated instances.

Kirsch: I cannot substitute myself for what the prosecutor is doing. The prosecutor has received four situations formally and has his hands full. As a result of these 1600 communications, he is also monitoring eight other situations that are not public, that are not known to me. There is a separation of powers. But certainly I can see that there is a great deal of consistency in the prosecutor’s policy so far, which is, that he focuses his efforts on the gravest situations. Now, how that will be applied to specific situations I cannot say.

Varadarajan: On jurisdiction, Afghanistan is a signatory. If Afghan citizens make allegations against soldiers from coalition countries which are not signatories, there would be no problem of physical jurisdiction, right?

Kirsch: Yes.

Varadarajan: And notwithstanding any immunity agreement the Afghan government may sign with those coalition countries?

Kirsch: I can’t talk about that. That’s the kind of question that may come before the court for judicial determination. I cannot give an opinion on that now.

Varadarajan: So it is an open question?

Kirsch: Yes.

Varadarajan: Are there safeguards to protect against potential conflicts of interest when it comes to decisions taken by the prosecutor or particular judges in cases concerning “their” countries? Eyebrows were raised when a Canadian lady, who was the ICTY’s prosecutor during the Nato bombing of Yugoslavia and refused to open an investigation against her own government (which was part of Nato) for the TV station bombing case, then went back home and was nominated by the same government as a Supreme Court chief justice. In the ICC, how can one guard against the appearance of conflict of interest? Is there a bar on future appointments, sinecures?

Kirsch: The fact that a person who has performed high services abroad is later on recognized as an eminent person in his or her own country is not surprising. I think that making a link between that recognition and partiality on the part of the prosecutor is a great leap. Speaking specifically, I think there is a general rule in the ICC that a judge cannot be involved in a situation where he or she has an interest.

Varadarajan: Earlier this year, the Iraqi government revoked its decision to join the ICC. What arguments would you like to make to tell the Iraqis they should be part of the ICC.

Kirsch: I cannot comment on any specific situation on any specific state. I think…

Varadarajan: But you said you would like the US or India, for example, to be parties. So what about Iraq?

Kirsch: That is a general proposition. My general proposition remains, that the ICC statute is a very strong legal foundation, it has been designed to deal with serious crimes when national systems are unable to deal with them. Ratification itself is a matter of national sovereignty. The legal foundation is strong, the ICC will show it responds to the objectives set, obviously it is up so states to join. But the ICC, even if it is not suffering now from the lack of wide ratification, ultimately, [universality] will be important for the ICC in terms of effectiveness, but it will be more important for the international community for which it was created.

Let us take an abstract example, an international situation. There is a widespread misconception that for the ICC to be able to intervene, you need the consent of the nationality of the accused, his or her state in all cases. That is a widespread misconception, and it is leading to national positions that are, that may influence some positions on the basis of an inaccurate assumption. In reality, let’s get back to the aggression point. Say State A attacks State B. State A is not a ratifier, but State B is. The attack itself is not covered at this point, but if crimes are then committed by nationals of State A on the territory of State B, the ICC does have jurisdiction even though State A has not ratified. This is to me a very important point. If your own premise, that aggression is the cause of other crimes, is correct, then that is a very powerful argument for states to ratify.

Varadarajan: What are the Iraqi objections?

Kirsch: I have not heard anything. All I heard was that they were going to ratify, and one week later they said they were not going to.

Varadarajan: What do you think happened in that week?

Kirsch: I don’t know. Ask the Iraqis. (laughs)

Varadarajan: One of the arguments you made was about the ICC as a deterrent. Are you concerned that there has been a general slippage in well-recognised international humanitarian law (IHL) norms against perpetual confinement, torture, does it worry you that even as you have an ICC which has been ratified by 100 countries and which reflects growing adherence to IHL, you have this other trend?

Kirsch: I think it is not in dispute that a large problem in armed conflicts is that the norms are not applied properly. I myself believe that if the existing norms were to be applied properly, far fewer crimes would be committed. The ICC is not instant coffee. One gets questions about the ICC which has existed for two and a half years, as if it has had 30 years to perform and improve itself. It is the beginning of a process. You need to have some time to see how the process evolves, that the ICC does its job, and that it has the deterrence which is hoped for.

Varadarajan: Based on the cases taken up so far – Uganda, Congo, Central African Republic and now Darfur -- is there a danger that you will be seen as a court which only goes after little brown and black men, that those responsible for other, bigger crimes internationally will never be brought before you. If this trend continues, and the prosecutor doesn’t pick up other cases, wouldn’t there be a feeling that the ICC is a political court?

Kirsch: If this is the situation 15 years ahead, then I think there might be a problem. But if you look at the situation now, the ICC has not taken up any case on its own. Cases have been referred to us. The ICC statute would not have been adopted if Africa had not supported it strongly. For them, it is a practical issue. They are worried about what might happen on their territory. The Europeans, Canadians and others had two interests – humanitarian concerns, and international peace and security, stability. But the African states were concerned about the direct effects of these crimes and saw the court as protection. Africa is, in terms of numbers, the highest represented group among regions. It has 27 signatories. And the three states which have referred situations to us have referred situations on their own territory, not against their neighbours. As for Darfur, it has been referred by the SC.

So the ICC has not been after Africa, Africa has been after the ICC. In 15 years, it may be another matter, but for now, there is no ICC going after little people.

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India, Russia inching towards fresh nuclear cooperation

7 December 2005
The Hindu

India, Russia inching towards fresh nuclear cooperation

Siddharth Varadarajan

Moment for broadening scope of nuclear ties will soon be at hand, says Putin

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India is a strategic partner: Putin

Indian officials hopeful of solution to Tarapore fuel matter

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Moscow: The question how to expand cooperation between Russia and India in the field of energy — and especially civilian nuclear energy — figured prominently in the summit between Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and President Vladimir Putin here on Tuesday, though both sides were wary of publicly fleshing out any of the new nuclear ideas under consideration.

Russia has provided two 1000 MW reactors for the Kudankulam nuclear power plant in Tamil Nadu but has so far been non-committal on India's request for two to four additional reactors for the same project, citing its obligations as a member of the Nuclear Suppliers Group. But the July 18 Indo-U.S. nuclear agreement has opened up a window which the Indian nuclear establishment is keen to exploit. Accordingly, while the two leaders did not discuss specific figures for additional reactors at Kudankulam, Indian officials said they agreed that there were "good prospects for expanding cooperation in all sectors of civil nuclear cooperation."

At a joint press conference with Dr. Singh, Mr. Putin expressed his confidence that the moment for broadening the scope of the nuclear relationship with India would soon be at hand. Asked whether Russia would be prepared to take the lead on this front if the current U.S.-led efforts to amend the NSG's rules got delayed or derailed, the Russian President said he believed that India was "taking all the necessary steps to build its relationship with the international community, including with the countries of the Nuclear Suppliers Group ... [It] is separating its military and peaceful nuclear programs, it [has adopted] the necessary legislation, and is actively working with the members of the NSG."

Mr. Putin said Russia considered India its strategic partner, adding, "And we will actively work to be sure that India will cope with all its problems and tasks that it is addressing, including in the peaceful use of nuclear energy." Though emphasising the need for India to work with the NSG, Mr. Putin's statement — and the promise to actively work to help India address its problems in the civil nuclear field — marked a departure from the recent Russian formulations on the prospects for nuclear commerce with India which tended to highlight the impossibility of cooperation given the existing NSG guidelines.

Asked about the prospects of Russia once again providing low-enriched uranium for Tarapur, Sergei Kirienko, head of the Russian Federal Atomic Energy Agency, told The Hindu he did not wish to comment on the issue. However, Indian officials said they were hopeful that the Tarapur fuel matter would be resolved.

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Russia sees India as long-term partner in energy sector

7 December 2005
The Hindu

Russia sees India as long-term partner in energy sector

Siddharth Varadarajan

Iran pipeline vital for energy security, regional cooperation: Manmohan

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Sakhalin-I project clear indication of a good beginning: Putin

Manmohan, Putin discuss Iran nuclear issue

Possibility of Economic Cooperation Agreement with Russia to be studied

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Moscow: Russia sees India as a "long-term partner" in the energy sector and is looking to vastly expand the scope of the bilateral relationship in the field of oil and gas exploration and production, Russian President Vladimir Putin said here on Tuesday.

In a joint press conference to mark the end of the sixth annual summit between India and Russia, he appreciated India's equity participation in the Sakhalin-I project and said the new Indian expressions of interest in further developing oil fields in Sakhalin — which require an overall investment of $10 billion — are "a clear indication of the fact that this has been a very successful beginning."

Prime Minister Manmohan Singh described Sakhalin-I as India's "most important overseas investment."

Iran-India pipeline

Asked about the Iran-India gas pipeline, Dr. Singh said the project made sense from the perspective of both energy security and regional détente. "India's needs for commercial energy are increasing very rapidly ... and [our] dependence on the outside world will increase," he said. "Therefore, we are in need of exploring the possibilities of utilising gas which is available in our neighbourhood in Iran for our development purposes. I think the overall demand picture is very encouraging and I believe if the countries of the region get together, this gas can become an important source of promoting regional cooperation."

The Iran nuclear issue also figured in the discussions between the two leaders, said Mr. Putin. "We did hope that our Iranian partners will comply with all commitments and undertakings they have given, even unilaterally." He added that neither Russia nor India believed the potential for the International Atomic Energy Agency closing the Iran dossier had been exhausted. Dr. Singh expressed the hope that the issue would be resolved within the framework of the IAEA.

Working group

On the economic and trade front, the Prime Minister announced the decision to set up a joint working group to examine the feasibility of a Comprehensive Economic Cooperation Agreement between India and Russia.

He said he had assured Mr. Putin that India supported Russia's accession to the World Trade Organisation and that a bilateral Accession Agreement would be concluded at the earliest.

To a question about trilateral cooperation between Russia, India and China, Mr. Putin said the three countries were interested in "directly contributing to peace and stability in the Asian region." He welcomed India's membership — as an observer — in the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation.

Dr. Singh described Russia, India and China as being among the fastest developing economies of the world and said bilateral and trilateral initiatives were needed to exploit the full potential of cooperation.

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Manmohan Singh urges Russians to discover a "new generation of Raj Kapoors''

Dateline Moscow: Is a "young" India the answer to "ageing" Russia's demographic nightmare? Can the two work together to better harness Russia's scientific and techological skills? Manmohan Singh seems to think so.

6 December 2005
The Hindu

Manmohan Singh urges Russians to discover a ``new generation of Raj Kapoors''

Siddharth Varadarajan

Moscow: One day ahead of his summit-level talks with President Vladimir Putin, the Prime Minister spoke of the need for a "strategic partnership in the knowledge-based sectors" between India and Russia. In a speech before the academic council of Moscow State University — which awarded him with an honorary professorship on Monday — Dr. Singh said the 21st century would be "predicated on knowledge" in which the development of human resource held the key. In an oblique reference to Russia's abysmal post-socialist demographic profile — with its falling birth and increasing death rates — he said, "Thus, demographic characteristics, the ratio of the young population to the ageing and the reproductive index will acquire a greater strategic significance."

This is where India could come in handy. Russia's greatest asset, he said, was its rich tradition of human creativity and scientific and technological ingenuity. India, on the other hand, was developing these capabilities "and will have the largest pool of young people in the foreseeable future." If the greying of Russia was an area of "vulnerability in the long cycle of the next century," India's youthfulness was an advantage that Moscow could leverage, he argued. Hence the logic of a "knowledge-based" strategic partnership.

As if to underscore the point of youth, the Prime Minister told his university audience that he hoped young Russians "will once again look at India and discover the new face of India."

"I know many of your senior faculty may still hum the tunes of Awara and may still be nostalgic about Raj Kapoor!" he said. "But I want you, students, to come and discover a new generation of Raj Kapoors and the new music that your generation in India taps its feet to... There is a need for a new generation of Indians and Russians to rediscover each other."

Energy cooperation

Later in the day, Russian Energy and Industry Minister Viktor Khristenko called on the Prime Minister Manmohan and held wide-ranging discussions on energy cooperation between the two countries. "They agreed that India and Russia must develop a long-term energy partnership," the External Affairs Ministry spokesperson said. Mr. Khristenko invited India both to invest in Russia's energy sector and also to join Russian companies in exploration and extraction activities in third countries, particularly in Central Asia.

In the context of the interest expressed by ONGC and other Indian companies in picking up a stake in Russian energy companies like Transneft, Dr. Singh and Mr. Khristenko agreed to promote cooperation between their respective oil companies through "joint ventures and equity participation," the spokesperson said.

Oil project

The Russian minister specifically welcomed India's interest in participating in the Sakhalin-3 oil project in Siberia. India has already invested $2.7 billion in Sakhalin-1 but is expected to have to bargain hard for a share in the even more lucrative Sakhalin-3 venture where Russian and international energy majors such as Lukoil, Gazprom, Rosneft and ExxonMobil are all jockeying for position.

On the nuclear front, the Prime Minister and Mr. Khristenko reviewed the progress being made in the Kudankulam project. "[The PM] conveyed India's willingness to consider positively the construction of additional reactors in view of its growing energy needs," the spokesman said.

© Copyright 2000 - 2005 The Hindu

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Fuel for Tarapur not related to nuclear deal with the U.S., says Manmohan Singh

Dateline Moscow: Here's yet another instance of the U.S. trying to push the envelope on the July 18 nuclear deal. The American commitment to secure LEU for Tarapur was not linked to the timetable or conditionalities of the wider commitments each side undertook to pave the way for full-scale civil nuclear cooperation. Yet, Washington now wants India to implement its commitments before securing fuel for its safeguarded reactors at Tarapur.

5 December 2005
The Hindu

Fuel for Tarapur not related to nuclear deal with the U.S., says Manmohan Singh

Siddharth Varadarajan

• India to seek a Russian commitment for the supply of low-enriched uranium to nuclear reactors
• Prime Minister's comments stem from text of July 18 agreement
• Early indications from the Russian side positive

On board PM's aircraft: Prime Minister Manmohan Singh said on Sunday that the question of supply of low-enriched uranium (LEU) for the Tarapur nuclear reactors was "separate" from the timetable and conditions under which the July 18 Indo-U.S. nuclear deal was to be implemented. Accordingly, India fully intended to seek a Russian commitment for the supply of the vital fuel. "The fuel for Tarapur is a separate question, it is not related to the nuclear deal," Dr. Singh told reporters accompanying him on his visit to Moscow. "Issues relating to energy security will figure in my discussions [with President Putin] and it is quite possible that we may touch upon [LEU for Tarapur] as well."

Concrete talks expected

Dr. Anil Kakodkar, chairman of the Atomic Energy Commission, is accompanying the Prime Minister and is expected to have concrete talks with his Russian counterparts on the fuel supply issue.

According to senior officials, the Prime Minister's comments on the Tarapur issue being distinct from the overall Indo-U.S. nuclear framework sprang directly from the text of the July 18 agreement. An official said: "The agreement is clear: `In the meantime, the United States will encourage its partners to also consider this request (of fuel supplies for safeguarded reactors at Tarapur) expeditiously.' This means the supply of LEU is not linked to the implementation of other commitments like separation of civil and military facilities."

The official acknowledged that the U.S. side disagreed with this interpretation of the language by the Indian side and had suggested that an LEU agreement reached outside the conditionalities of the July 18 agreement would make passage of the requisite legislative changes by Congress difficult.

However, senior officials said early indications from the Russian side were positive and that even if the Indo-U.S. nuclear deal were to hit a major implementation roadblock, Moscow was leaning towards providing LEU for Tarapur under the "safety" clause of its amended domestic nuclear legislation. "But these things are being negotiated. After all, the Russians are also looking for something, maybe a commitment that India will buy equipment from them as and when nuclear commerce opens up."

Scope for expansion

The Prime Minister, however, refused to strike a bearish tone on the Indo-U.S. nuclear agreement. Asked whether India was counting on Russian support in the event that the July 18 deal hit a roadblock, Dr. Singh said, "We will cross that bridge when we reach there ... We have appointed working groups on both sides [to implement the agreement], they are busy working out the details, and therefore, I am hopeful that things will work out the way we wanted them to work out." But he added that cooperation with Russia in nuclear energy "has already come to stay." "The Kudankulam project is being built with Russian help, so cooperation in the field of nuclear energy is ongoing ... and there is certainly scope for expansion in years to come."
Dr. Singh denied that the November 2 Senate testimony of two senior U.S. officials — that India was not entitled to sign a similar safeguards agreement with the IAEA as Washington had — contradicted his own statement made to Parliament on July 29 that India would not accept any discrimination in nuclear arrangements. "I wouldn't like to go into the details of what an individual in a particular situation may have said. I stand by what I said in Parliament," the Prime Minister said. "Whatever we do with the United States would be consistent with the statement made in Parliament."

Asked about the recent proposal for an Asian gas grid connecting Central Asia, Iran, India, China and Russia — floated at the meeting in New Delhi last week of major North and Central Asian energy producers — the Prime Minister said he had not studied the proposal in detail but believed "regional and multi-regional cooperation" was needed to tackle the problem of energy security. "Therefore, in principal, India would be in favour of all arrangements that would promote cooperation to solve the problem of scare energy resources," he added.
Strategy on Iran

On Iran, Dr. Singh said India's main concern in its discussions with the European Union, Russia and China was to "find a solution to this problem within the framework of the IAEA and not to allow it to go to the U.N. Security Council." He added that he was glad "our strategy as of now seems to be working."

© Copyright 2000 - 2005 The Hindu

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Manmohan yet to make up mind on External Affairs

Natwar Singh's days in government are seriously numbered but the Government stil won't say why it slept on the news that India's ruling party and foreign minister were being implicated in corruption charges for over a year. M.K. Narayanan, National Security Advisor and India's intelligence czar, whose job it presumably was to keep abreast of the charges when they were first levelled by the CIA in September 2004, says those who speak of intelligence failure are under the influence of the CIA...

5 December 2005
The Hindu

Manmohan yet to make up mind on External Affairs

Siddharth Varadarajan

• Cabinet reshuffle only at the end of current session of Parliament
• `The BJP itself knows there is no substance in what it is saying in Parliament'
• No difference in approach between Ms. Gandhi and himself on Natwar's status
  

On board PM's aircraft: Declaring that he did not "attach great importance to what the Bharatiya Janata Party is saying on [the Volcker Report]," Prime Minister Manmohan Singh on Sunday was dismissive about the Opposition's attempts to target Congress president Sonia Gandhi in the oil-for-food affair. "The BJP itself knows there is no substance in what it is saying in Parliament," he told reporters accompanying him for the sixth bilateral India-Russia summit to be held in Moscow on Tuesday.

Asked whether he would be willing to accept the resignation of Natwar Singh if the Minister without portfolio were voluntarily to tender it, the Prime Minister said, "If a person takes a decision voluntarily, when that situation arises, we will consider what to do."

Describing his discussions on Saturday night with the former External Affairs Minister, Dr. Singh said: "He is a colleague of mine, he came to see me, we discussed various issues, particularly what has happened in the last couple of weeks. So there's nothing more significant than that." He added in response to a pointed question that there was no difference in approach between Ms. Gandhi and himself on the status of Mr. Natwar Singh.

The Prime Minister said a Cabinet reshuffle would be carried out at the end of the current session of Parliament but was non-committal about the fate of the External Affairs portfolio. Asked whether he would wait for the Pathak Committee report before filling the crucial slot — which he currently holds — Dr. Singh replied: "Well, as of now, I have not made up my mind which way to go."

In a separate conversation with reporters, National Security Adviser M.K. Narayanan refused to say when the Government first became aware of the oil-for-food allegations against Mr. Natwar Singh and the Congress party.

He bristled at the suggestion that there had been any "intelligence failure" manifest in the Government not reacting to these allegations when they were first made by the Central Intelligence Agency on its website on September 30, 2004. "Do you want us to be like the Gestapo," he asked, "questioning people, interrogating people? Is that what you want?" He also suggested that journalists who questioned why the Indian Government had not reacted to the CIA's allegations at the time were perhaps unduly influenced by the American intelligence agency. A senior PMO official added that the issue only became serious when the CIA's charges were reiterated by the Volcker panel, a U.N.-appointed body.

Asked about his reported statements earlier this week blaming Pakistan for the killing of the Border Roads Organisation driver M.R. Kutty in Afghanistan, Mr. Narayanan said the statement attributed to him was incorrect. "I was speaking half in English, half in Malayalam," he explained, suggesting that local journalists in Kerala had, therefore, misunderstood him. He reiterated that there was no evidence linking Pakistan to the murder by the Taliban, but added, "What I think may be different, but what I think does not matter."
© Copyright 2000 - 2005 The Hindu

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Persian Puzzles win a prize...

I just received a press release from the United Nations Correspondents Association in New York announcing that I have won the Silver Medal for Excellence in Journalism in the print category for my series of articles in September on the ongoing crisis between the United States, the European Union, the IAEA and Iran. The pieces ran under the slug 'Persian Puzzle'. I would like to thank all my readers who also wrote in with words of appreciation. The series was meant to restore some sanity to what was -- and still is -- an issue overwrought by spin. But the battle of public opinion has yet to be decisively won.

Here are the links to the series:

The Persian Puzzle I: Iran and the invention of a nuclear crisis (21 September 2005)
The Persian Puzzle II: What the IAEA really found in Iran (22 September 2005)
The Persian Puzzle III: The world must stand firm on diplomacy (23 September 2005)
The unravelling of India's Persian puzzle (27 September 2005)

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If you can't shoot the messenger, lock him up

President Bush's alleged threat to bomb Al Jazeera shouldn't surprise us. Ever since the NATO attack on Yugoslavia, the U.S. has looked at the media it can't control as the "enemy."

1 December 2005
The Hindu

If you can't shoot the messenger, lock him up

Siddharth Varadarajan

IF THERE were any doubts about the authenticity of the Daily Mirror story on President George W. Bush wanting to bomb the head offices of Al Jazeera, the British government would appear to have cleared them up by threatening editors with prison if they publish the text of the confidential memo from which the London tabloid sourced its account.

After all, if the White House's line about the story being "outlandish" were really true, why on earth would Tony Blair — whose conversation with the American President last April is the subject of the memo — invoke the Official Secrets Act to prevent its publication? I can think of only two reasons, neither of which does Mr. Blair or Mr. Bush any credit. Either the American President did threaten to blow up the Qatar-based Arabic news channel because he was upset at its coverage of U.S. counter-insurgency operations in Fallujah. Or he did not, in which case the British Prime Minister wants to suppress the memo because it records Mr. Bush admitting — or threatening — something even more terrible.

Tempting though it is to dismiss the alleged threat against the Arabic broadcaster as a "conspiracy theory" (as Mr. Blair is suggesting) or a "joke" on the part of the U.S. President, there is the unsettling coincidence of Al Jazeera having been hit by American bombs twice before.

In November 2001, the channel's Kabul office was hit by a U.S. missile and in April 2003, a `smart' bomb terminated its Baghdad operation with extreme prejudice, killing a journalist, Tareq Ayoub. Even without reading the April 2004 memo, we know from an earlier outburst by Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld that the Bush administration just doesn't like the upstart broadcaster. They move about on their own in Iraq and refuse to be tied down as `embeds'. They speak the local language. And the footage they show has rather more shock and awe than what the Pentagon is comfortable putting on air. Does this mean the U.S. would deliberately bomb journalists in contravention of the laws of war — and the "freedoms" in whose name Iraq was invaded? Perhaps not, but what NATO did to the Radio Television Serbia (RTS) studios in Belgrade in 1999 suggests this military and moral Rubicon is more easily crossed than one would like to imagine.

During the U.S.-led bombing of Yugoslavia, NATO aircraft deliberately bombed the RTS station in Belgrade. Sixteen civilians were killed in the attack that NATO and Pentagon spokesmen defended as an act of military necessity against "enemy propaganda." RTS broadcasts may have been propaganda and Yugoslavia, technically, was NATO's enemy. But RTS was media and the people who worked — and died — for it were entitled to the Geneva Convention's protections from armed attack both as civilians and journalists. The bottom line, however, was that they broadcast things which the U.S. military couldn't control and didn't like. Images of civilians killed or injured by NATO bombings. The same sort of images Al Jazeera was showing out of Fallujah. The only difference is that in those days, the Clinton administration didn't have a Secretary of Defence who went around saying, "We don't do Geneva Conventions here."

Contagious intolerance

Unfortunately for press freedom, intolerance towards the media is a malignant and contagious disease. One hostile act against journalists quickly begets another. Mr Bush's threat against Al Jazeera quickly led to Mr. Blair's ultimatum to the British media. Slobodan Milosevic did not go after CNN or the BBC, whose NATO correspondent during the war went on to become NATO spokesman after it ended. But had the Yugoslav leader done so and cited a dislike for their "enemy propaganda" as justification, how different would he have been from NATO? Similarly, threatening Al Jazeera makes the terrain in Iraq and elsewhere more dangerous for all journalists because it tells Al Qaeda and their allies that journalists are fair game, that it is okay to kidnap or kill foreign reporters.

The slippery slope doesn't end there. President Bush's dislike of Al Jazeera is only an extreme manifestation of the antipathy governments around the world feel towards media coverage that they cannot suppress, spin or control. In the aftermath of 9/11 — and the extraordinary perversion of democratic norms this has led to in almost all established democracies — this intolerance is being kitted out with legal and even military teeth. Britain's new anti-terror proposals and Australia's draft anti-terrorism legislation and proposed extensions to the sedition law, for example, both aim to regulate what journalists can and cannot report on pain of imprisonment. Under India's Prevention of Terrorism Act — repealed under public pressure last year — the definition of "providing support" to a designated terrorist organisation was left so vague as to encompass even news reports or opinion pieces.

Moreover, as the recent British gag order shows, governments are quite capable of dredging up old, anachronistic laws like the OSA to control the dissemination of information when they find their backs truly up against the wall and when anti-terrorism laws are of no help. Section 5 of the OSA — making it illegal for an unauthorised individual to be in possession of official documents — has rarely been used in Britain and never against journalists. Sometimes, governments don't even need a `compelling' reason to act against the media other than the very existence of laws that can be invoked. In India, the OSA was used by the erstwhile Vajpayee government in 2002 to imprison a senior Kashmiri journalist, Iftikhar Gilani, on the flimsiest of grounds in pursuit of a political vendetta against his father-in-law, the separatist politician Syed Ali Shah Geelani.

Guantanamo, Abu Ghraib, Jose Padilla, the White House torture memos and other dystopic products of the post 9/11 world testify to just how corrosive the war on terror has been for civil liberties and democratic values. We are some way away from the point of no return but if the media were also to fall victim, the prospects for collective recovery would be dim indeed.

© Copyright 2000 - 2005 The Hindu

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