South Asia Peace Wire

The Times of India, 7 October 2009

'To end Indo-Pak dispute, make Siachen a peace park'
   
Having seen plastic bottles, polythene covers, kerosene cans, human waste and artillery shells strewn around on the white snow and 800 army personnel, including his friends, fighting frostbite and guarding against unknown enemies, Harish Kapadia has started a new mission a peace park at Siachen. The 65-year-old mountaineer tells Sruthy Susan Ullas about his passion:

Why do you want to set up the peace park?

Peace parks are solutions for regions of dispute between two countries. There are 170 such parks around the world today, where the area is given for rejuvenation and for tourists to visit. The best way to end the Indo-Pak dispute is to withdraw the army from the land and make it a peace park. The park will come up at the Sino-Indian border to be extended till the Siachen.

Besides resolving disputes, what is the objective of setting up this park?

It is the recent degradation of the land that requires immediate attention. The pollution level will come down once human habitation goes down.

How about the pollution in other areas of the Himalayas? Don't mountaineers also play a role in it?

In other areas, villagers themselves are responsible for the pollution rather than the mountaineers. Their changing lifestyle is becoming an increasing menace. If a family was using one bottle of kerosene earlier, now it uses one can. They throw the empty can down the nullah, which joins the rivers. This year there is a dangerous water shortage in the mountains. All the streams have dried up due to the absence of afternoon rains and lack of snowfall. The rivers are of not much use to villagers as they flow down into the valleys and villagers depend on the streams.

How do you plan to change these?

In order to sensitise villagers, a three-day workshop was organised for them in the last week of August with experts from Canada training them. I go up to the mountains regularly to keep an eye on the changes. Mountains have been a part of my life since i was 14. It disturbs me when i see them in such a pathetic stage. I'm travelling across the world and speaking on the need to set up the peace park. I began with the Cannes film festival and covered over a hundred meetings. I write about it regularly in the Himalayan Journal. I've also spoken to the environment secretary and government officials.

What is the hindrance to the park project?

The real problem is the lack of trust between the two countries. Given the current political scenario in Pakistan, we do not even know who to talk to. There have been talks earlier, but nothing worthwhile has come out of them because of the zero trust.

by Zia Mian | July 27, 2009

Foreign Policy In Focus   
http://www.fpif.org/

The contradictions and confusions in U.S. policy in South Asia were on full display during Secretary of State Hilary Clinton's recent visit to India. U.S. support for India, which centers on making money, selling weapons, and turning a blind eye to the country's nuclear weapons, is fatally at odds with U.S. policy and concerns about Pakistan.

By enabling an India-Pakistan arms race, rather than focusing on resolving the conflict and helping them make peace, the United States is driving Pakistan toward the very collapse it fears.

America's New India

In an op-ed in The Times of India just before the start of her visit, Clinton laid out U.S. interests in India. The first item on Clinton's list was "the 300 million members of India's burgeoning middle class," that she identified as "a vast new market and opportunity."

The emerging Indian middle class is large — for comparison, the current total U.S. population is also about 300 million — and greedy for a more American lifestyle. But the focus on India as fundamentally a market for U.S. goods and services, and a source of cheap labor for U.S. corporations, marks a remarkable shift. The United States and other western countries have traditionally seen India as the home of the desperately poor, deserving charity and needing development. But no more. Clinton's article made no mention of India's poor, which the World Bank recently estimated as including over 450 million people living on less than $1.25 a day.

India is also seen as a new emerging power of the 21st century, one that can be an ally of the United States and help it balance and contain the rise of China. Under the Bush Administration, in 2004, the U.S. and India signed an agreement called the "Next Steps in Strategic Partnership." To make India a fitting strategic partner, a senior State Department official later explained the U.S."goal is to help India become a major world power in the 21st century," and left no doubt what this meant, saying "we understand fully the implications, including military implications, of that statement."

India is seeking both to modernize and expand its military forces. It has dramatically increased its military budget, up over 34% alone this year. India now has the 10th-highest military spending in the world. It's becoming a major market for U.S. arms sales. U.S. weapons makers Lockheed Martin and Boeing have already racked up deals worth billions of dollars. But the real bonanza is still to come. India is said to be planning to spend as much $55 billion on weapons over the next five years.

But the big news of the Clinton visit was the announcement of an India-U.S. Strategic Dialogue. This will include an annual formal meeting of key officials, co-chaired by the secretary of State and India's external affairs minister, and including on the U.S. side the secretaries of Agriculture, Trade, Energy, Education, Finance, Health and Human Services, Homeland Security, and others. But given the difference in the power and range of interests of the two states, this will be no dialogue of equals. The process is intended to align Indian interests and policies in a wide range of areas with those of the United States.

Nuclear India

In her press conference with India's minister of external affairs, Clinton said, "We discussed our common vision of a world without nuclear weapons and the practical steps that our countries can take to strengthen the goal of nonproliferation." But there was no mention here of India's nuclear buildup, or of the United States asking India to slow down or to end its program. In fact, one would never guess from Clinton's remarks that India even had a nuclear weapons program. She seemed interested only in the prospect of U.S. sales of nuclear reactors to India worth $10 billion or more.

India is one of perhaps only three countries still making material for new nuclear weapons. The others are Pakistan and Israel (with North Korea threatening to resume production). India is building a fast-breeder reactor that is expected to begin operation in 2010 and is outside International Atomic Energy Agency safeguards. It could increase three- to five-fold India's current capacity to make plutonium for nuclear weapons.

India seeks to become a major nuclear power. On July 26, it launched its first nuclear–powered submarine. India plans to deploy several of these submarines. Last year, it carried out its first successful underwater launch of a 700 kilometer-range ballistic missile, Sagarika, intended for the submarine. India joins the United States, Russia, the United Kingdom, France, and China in the club of those owning such nuclear-armed, nuclear-powered submarines. Israel is believed to have nuclear-armed cruise missiles on diesel powered submarines.

India is also developing an array of land-based missiles. In May 2008, it tested the 3,500 kilometer-range Agni-III missile, which was subsequently reported to have been approved for deployment with the army, and is working on a missile with a range of over 5,000 kilometer. In November 2008, India also tested a 600 kilometer-range silo-based missile, Shourya. In 2009, India carried out several tests of its cruise missile, Brahmos, which the army and navy are inducting into service.

The U.S. silence on India's nuclear weapons and missile programs is all the more telling, given that it was the Clinton administration that proposed United Nations Security Council resolution 1172. In 1998, this unanimous Security Council resolution called on India and Pakistan to "immediately stop their nuclear weapon development programs, to refrain from the deployment of nuclear weapons, to cease development of ballistic missiles capable of delivering nuclear weapons, and any further production of fissile material for nuclear weapons." The Bush administration ignored it. It seems the Obama administration will too.

Pakistan v. India

Pakistan was noticeable for its near absence from Clinton's agenda in India. It came up only in the context of the need to fight terrorism. Forgotten was the brute fact that India and Pakistan are straining harder than ever in their nuclear and conventional arms race. A Pakistani diplomat responded to the Clinton visit to India by telling The Washington Post that "What Hillary is doing there is probably again going to start an arms race." This race drives Pakistan toward collapse, the very thing the United States fears.

Pakistan is buying U.S. weapons as fast as it can, some paid for with U.S. military aid, with arms sales agreements worth over $6 billion since 2001, including for new F-16 jet-fighters. China, an old ally, is also supplying the country with jet fighters and other weapons. Pakistan is also boosting its nuclear program. It's building two new reactors to make plutonium for nuclear weapons. It continues to test both ballistic missiles and cruise missiles to carry nuclear weapons.

The principal U.S. concern about Pakistan, aside from the country falling apart and its nuclear weapons falling into the hands of Islamists, is the war against al-Qaeda and the Taliban in Afghanistan and in the border areas of Pakistan. It has been telling Pakistan to focus its military forces and strategic concerns on this battle, which requires moving more soldiers away from the border with India. The generals who command Pakistan's army were bound to resist such a redeployment. They worry about the new U.S.-India strategic relationship, and what it may mean for them when the war on the Taliban is over and the United States no longer needs Pakistan.

The Pakistani army, which rules the country even when civilians are in office, will not easily shift its view of India. The army and those who lead it see the threat from India as their very reason for being. The army has grown in size, influence, and power, to the point where it dwarfs all other institutions in society and would lose much if there was peace with India. But there is a personal dimension as well. The partition of the subcontinent 62 years ago that created Pakistan is in the living memory of many who make decisions in Pakistan. General Pervez Musharraf, who was chief of army staff before he seized power in 1999 and ruled for nine years, was born in India before partition. General Musharraf, along with the current chief of army staff, General Kayani, and others in Pakistan's high command, fought as young officers in the 1971 war against India. The war ended with Pakistan itself partitioned, as East Pakistan became the independent state of Bangladesh, with India's help, and 90,000 Pakistani soldiers captured by India as prisoners of war.

As Graham Usher notes in the new issue of the Middle East Report, before becoming president, Barack Obama seemed to understand that resolving the conflict between India and Pakistan was critical to dealing with the problems in Afghanistan and with the Taliban. In 2007, Obama claimed "I will encourage dialogue between Pakistan and India to work toward resolving their dispute over Kashmir and between Afghanistan and Pakistan to resolve their historic differences and develop the Pashtun border region. If Pakistan can look toward the east with greater confidence, it will be less likely to believe that its interests are best advanced through cooperation with the Taliban." There is little evidence that this view has yet informed U.S. policy.

The Reality of Pakistan

In their rush to make money and to preserve American power in the world by crafting an alliance with India, U.S. policymakers seem to have averted their eyes from the reality that stares them in the face in Pakistan. In March 2009, the Director of National Intelligence summed up the situation in Pakistan:

    The government is losing authority in parts of the North-West Frontier Province and has less control of its semi-autonomous tribal areas: even in the more developed parts of the country, mounting economic hardships and frustration over poor governance have given rise to greater radicalization…Economic hardships are intense, and the country is now facing a major balance of payments challenge. Islamabad needs to make painful reforms to improve overall macroeconomic stability. Pakistan's law-and-order situation is dismal, affecting even Pakistani elites, and violence between various sectarian, ethnic, and political groups threatens to escalate. Pakistan's population is growing rapidly at a rate of about 2 percent a year, and roughly half of the country's 172 million residents are illiterate, under the age of 20, and live near or below the poverty line.

Things have worsened since then. The Taliban is now seeking to escape U.S. drone attacks and major assaults by the Pakistan army in the Tribal Areas by taking refuge in the cities. There are already no-go areas in Karachi, Pakistan's largest city, where the Taliban controls the streets. Meanwhile electricity riots have exploded in cities across the country, with mobs attacking public buildings, blocking highways, and damaging trains and buses. Each day seems to bring news of some new failure of the state to provide basic social services.

The Obama administration believes that an increase in U.S. aid to Pakistan can help solve the problem. The Kerry-Lugar bill (the Enhanced Partnership with Pakistan Act) approved by the Senate in June would triple economic aid to Pakistan to $1.5 billion a year for five years. But as the Congressional Research Service noted in its recent report on Pakistan, the United States has given Pakistan about $16.5 billion in "direct, overt U.S. aid" up to 2007. More of the same offers little hope for change.

A basic reordering of U.S. priorities in South Asia is long overdue. The first principle of U.S. policy in the region should be to do no more harm. This means it has to stop feeding the fire between India and Pakistan. Only an end to the South Asian arms race can begin to undo the structures of fear, hostility, and violence that have sustained the conflict in the subcontinent for so long. The search for peace may then have at least a chance of success.


Zia Mian is a physicist with the Program on Science and Global Security at the Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs at Princeton University and a columnist for Foreign Policy In Focus.

[The above article is now also available at:  http://www.sacw.net/article1068.html ]

India: Steep 34% hike in defence budget - Up to $29 Billion

(The Times of India, 6 Jul 2009, 1400 hrs IST, PTI)

NEW DELHI: With an aim of fast-tracking procurement of defence equipment, the government steeply hiked the budgetary allocation for defence to Rs

1,41,703 crore, a 34% increase over the previous fiscal.

The increase in real terms amounted to Rs 36,103 crore over last year's allocation of Rs 1,05,600 crore, and is apparently intended to speed up procurement of defence equipment and plug the security gaps exposed by the November 26 Mumbai terror attacks last year.

The 34% increase is substantial compared to the increase of only 10% effected in last year's budget
over Rs 96,000 crore allocated in 2007-08.

In fact, Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee had allocated the same amount for defence in his interim budget presented in Parliament on February 16 before the Lok Sabha polls.

Despite the hike this year, India's defence spending is still at about 2% of the GDP, compared to China's 7% and Pakistan's 5%.

The defence ministry had returned nearly Rs 7,000 crore as unspent money
from its last year's capital outlay of Rs 48,007 crore as its plans to procure light utility helicopters and 155mm artillery guns did not fructify.

----

India Boosts Defense Spending To About $29 Billion

(http://www.easybourse.com/ July 6th, 2009 / 11h58)

NEW DELHI (AFP)--India on Monday confirmed a huge increase in military spending and offered sweeping benefits to the police, linking the ongoing drive to ramp up national security to economic development.
Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee hiked the defense budget for the financial year to March 2010 by 24% to INR1.42 trillion (about $29 billion) to partly fund a program to modernize India's 1.23-million-strong military.
The size of the increase had been flagged in a pre-election interim budget in February.
An attack by Islamist militants in Mumbai in November that left 166 people dead also prompted Mukherjee to grant additional funds for the paramilitary and state police.
New Delhi blamed "official agencies" in Pakistan for the carnage in Mumbai, but conceded the 10 militants who came undetected by the sea took advantage of India's antiquated maritime security and gaps in intelligence networks.
In addition to the defense budget, Mukherjee sanctioned an additional $143 million for the paramilitary and said he will also spend $456 million more to strengthen border security during the current fiscal year.
"Significant augmentation in the strength of the paramilitary forces is being done," Mukherjee said, adding the government will build 100,000 houses for personnel to "boost morale."
In a bid to stem discontent of retired soldiers from spilling into the ranks, he promised an attractive pension program for 1.2 million ex-military personnel, some of whom in recent months had taken their agitation to the streets.
Prime Minister Manmohan Singh said the security modernization program was crucial to the unhindered development of Asia's third-largest economy.
"Law and order is a prerequisite to sustainable development...so the modernization of our intelligence is a must," Singh told Doordarshan national television.
India's army is clamoring for helicopters, artillery, armor and infantry, while the air force is on the verge of buying 126 war jets worth almost $12 billion and the navy wants an aircraft carrier.
India, which is the biggest weapons buyer among emerging countries and has imported military hardware worth $28 billion since 2000, plans to sign further contracts estimated at up to $30 billion in the next few years.
However, strategy expert Uday Bhaskar noted the lion's share of the funds will be taken up by wages and pensions, and said: "The current defense allocation may look good, but it will not enhance the capability of the military in any way."
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The News International, 13 March 2009

‘Nobody will be a winner in an Indo-Pak war'
Friday, March 13, 2009
By Shahid Husain

Karachi

Jatin Desai, a senior journalist associated with leading Indian newspaper Hindustan Times, has said that war should not even be the “last option” between Pakistan and India because there will be no winners in a war between the two countries.

“Both India and Pakistan are nuclear-powered countries. Nowadays we have nuclear bombs that are 100 times superior to the ones used by the Americans in Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Just imagine the havoc they can cause,” he said.

Born in Mumbai on January 1, 1955, Desai was whole timer with left-wing organisations in Maharashtra while he was a student and also worked on the trade union front. In 1986, he started his journalistic career with Guajarati Samachaar, a newspaper published from Mumbai. However, a year later he opted for a Guajarati paper called Janmabhoomi. Thereafter he joined Midday and worked there for nine years. Now he writes a column for Hindustan Times. He also remained the president of Mumbai Union of Journalists for four years and spearheaded movements for the freedom of press and speech. He also fought against fascist politics in Mumbai. “Two of our female journalists were attacked by these forces which only manifested their weakness,” he told The News.

Desai is also active in Pakistan-India Peoples’ Forum for Peace & Democracy and is a prominent anti-nuclear and human rights activist. He said that people have to accept that Mumbai carnage is a great setback for peace but he is optimistic that the people will compel their respective governments to immediately begin peace process which has been in the back burner.

“The common people on both sides of the border want peace. Day before yesterday, I was in Lahore and went to a second-hand bookshop to buy books but I was amazed that the shopkeeper simply refused to take money from me when he learnt that I was from India,” he said. He was met with the same hospitability in Islamabad, reveals Desai.

On his seventh visit to Pakistan, Desai strongly believes that the people of Pakistan and India want peace. Citing an example he adds, “Immediately after 26/11—the Mumbai attack — fundamentalist forces in India insisted that there should be a war or at least a “surgical strike” on terrorists hiding in Pakistan but the people thwarted the design.”

“It’s true that peace movement is weak but the majorities in both countries want peace. Unfortunately, the hawkish minorities in both countries are more organised and vocal as compared to the silent majority,” he said. “It’s high time that we take peace movement to the common man,” he said.

He agreed that the Indian media in general was hawkish after the Mumbai carnage but pointed out that the media has reviewed and realised its mistakes. “We never had an experience of 60-hour-long shootings and the media was unaware. We are in the process of learning. I guess the Indian media will behave more rationally in future,” he said.

He said on December 12 of last year the people of Mumbai organised a 100-kilometer human chain in support of peace and as many as 150,000 people participated in it. That amply demonstrates that they are against terrorism and disapprove of war, he added.

Asked if there was any possibility of a confederation amongst South Asian nations, he said Ram Manohar Lohia, a socialist, floated such an idea as early as 1962, today we have SAARC comprising eight countries and its original concept was regional cooperation on the lines of European Union, “the Euro is stronger than Dollar and South Asian countries can be strong too if we cooperate with each other.”

Referring to the problems of Indian and Pakistani fishermen, he said there should be consular access to fisher folk who tread unknowingly in territorial water, “both India and Pakistan should establish more consulates in order to facilitate people. Former President Musharraf and Prime Minister Vajpayee agreed some years ago that both countries will establish more consulates by January 4, 2006, but its 2009 now and there has been no progress in this regard,” he regretted.

[Published in: The Telegraph (Calcutta), 18 August 2008]

Inflation and Morals:
- The answer to inflation is to cut down defence spending

by Ashok Mitra

Please have a heart; to ask a government wedded to the philosophy of the free market to discipline the demon of rising prices would be no less than cruelty. Inflation opens a floodgate of opportunities for producers and traders. A time lag exists between the production of a commodity and its sale. If prices shoot up during this interval, the producer makes a windfall profit in addition to the normal profit he already had borne in mind in his calculations. Given the gap of time between the purchase of stocks and their actual sales, the trader too experiences a windfall gain if market prices shoot up meanwhile. Free market economics ordains non-interference on the part of the government with happenings in the market. The continuing process of inflation helps producers and traders to keep making windfall profits. They should be allowed to do so, admonishes the doctrine of laissez-faire, the government must look the other way.

Such, then, is the crux of the matter. Inflation in the country, as measured by movements in the wholesale price index, is currently spilling beyond the rate of 12 per cent; in terms of the retail price index, it must be even higher. The government, given its commitment to neo-liberalism, can only watch the situation. It watches the situation with complacence for another, more intimate reason. The producers and the traders who are gathering in the profits are its classmates; their support sustains the government.

True, there is the other point of view. Whatever its class interests, the government functions within a democratic framework and will have to face the electorate soon. The overwhelming majority of the electorate consists of the poor and middle classes who are the severest victims of inflation. They could very well turn away from the parties constituting the government in case the wounds inflicted by rising prices become intolerable. Should not the government, for dear life, do something to save itself from the wrath of the people? For instance, could it not arrange to supply, through the public distribution system, essential commodities at a subsidy to the less fortunate sections? No, it could not; the proposal would be immediately shot down by decision-makers who shape and guide the destiny of the government. It is all very simple. Subsidized supply of commodities would adversely affect money-making by producers and traders; demand gets diverted from the free market to the public distribution system. That is as good as sabotaging the free market. The government, therefore, makes up its mind; it would not expand — on the contrary, it would phase out — the practice of supplying essential goods at subsidized prices.

There is a more basic reason why votaries of free market economics disfavour subsidies. Subsidies involve extra outlays on the part of the government. Such additional spending calls for additional taxation, the main burden of which supposedly falls on the traders and producers who rake up the profits engineered by inflation. Once more, class interests emerge as the issue. That part, the government, the free market doctrine says, is an evil; by its very existence, it stifles the freedom of individuals. This evil should not be allowed to extend its sphere of activities beyond defence and the maintenance of law and order. Offering subsidies belongs to this category of forbidden expenditure.

There is always an exception to the rule. Free marketeers do not mind increases in government expenditure if it is for defence spending. They would also not protest against the government laying out extra money on an extravagant scale for supposedly ensuring greater security for the nation, more specifically, for its leaders.

One further argument posted by those opposing subsidies is that these often lead to an excess of public spending over the government’s aggregate income. The inevitable sequel is again inflation, since too much money allegedly chases too few goods. Somewhat breathlessly, the conclusion is then drawn: any attempt to contain inflation via subsidies is self-defeating, it would only feed into inflation. Such simplistic logic will scandalize the followers of John Maynard Keynes, who had proved most effectively how a skilful deployment of deficit financing ensures gushing increases in income and employment and does not cause inflation. But Keynesians are now in the doghouse and the orthodoxy of balanced budget is back as king.

A timid soul might still offer a suggestion at this juncture: by all means have a balanced budget, but why not cut back on defence spending and use the savings to provide subsidies that could quell inflation? The timid soul, the chances are high, would immediately be dubbed an enemy of the country. Members of parliament will debate for hours on end the wisdom of according farmers an additional fertilizer subsidy of a thousand crore rupees; they will pass without discussion a 30,000-crore hike in the defence budget.

Better admit the nitty-gritty of reality: inflation is one of the corollaries of a free market existence. It widens the scope of profit-making. The higher the level of profit enjoyed by the top brackets in society, the greater is deemed to be the success of the liberal experiment, never mind what it does to the majority of the nation. There is, of course, a flip side to it. While the nation’s majority might feel helpless for a while, being at the receiving end of the maulings caused by inflation, this helplessness could gradually give rise to resentment and anger; this could have repercussions on the ballot box.

That bridge will be crossed, it will be said, when the government arrives there. A caste-, clan-, ethnicity-divided electorate can be expected to produce a caste-, clan-, ethnicity-divided parliament. In that event, it might well be possible to manoeuvre a majority support and come back to governance. Traders and producers, currently having it so good thanks to inflation, could then prove to be a most effective deus ex machina.

Inevitably, a moral will be sought to be drawn. Inflation and absence of subsidies do not necessarily topple a government. The not-so-ancient history of the collapse of the Soviet Union might be alluded to as a counter-point: the Soviet authorities subsidized about everything, from childcare to house rent to opera tickets, and yet failed to defeat destiny.

But is not a wrong reason being adduced here for the collapse of the Soviet Union? Its population enjoyed the bliss of comprehensive social welfare measures. Yes, the shadow nonetheless fell. Most of the population yearned for the richer, more luxurious things in life; which the State was unable to provide. Budgetary constraints stood in the way. A middle-income country’s leaders had vaulting ambition, they wanted to match the United States of America in military prowess, including in the arena of nuclear capability. The strain was too much on the country’s resources; the better things in life had to be denied to the populace. The disappointed people turned their backs on the leaders — and on their party.

If there is a lesson from the Soviet catastrophe, it is for reining in defence expenditure and spending what is saved thereby to provide the people with the kind of things they badly want. That moral should stand all countries in good stead and in all seasons, including in the season of inflation.

Letter sent to foreign ministers of governments represented on the NSG

Decision Time on the Indian Nuclear Deal: Help Avert a Nonproliferation Disaster

August 15, 2008

Dear Foreign Minister

Your government and other members of the Nuclear Suppliers Group (NSG) are being asked to consider the Bush administration's proposal to exempt India from longstanding NSG guidelines that require comprehensive IAEA safeguards as a condition of supply.

As many of us wrote in a January 2008 letter ("Fix the Proposal for Nuclear Cooperation with India"), India's commitments under the current terms of the proposed arrangement do not justify making far-reaching exceptions to international nonproliferation rules and norms.

Contrary to the claims of its advocates, the deal fails to bring India further into conformity with the nonproliferation behavior expected of the member states of the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT). Unlike 178 other countries, India has not signed the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty (CTBT). It continues to produce fissile material and expand its nuclear arsenal. As one of only three states never to have signed the NPT, it has not made a legally-binding commitment to achieve nuclear disarmament, and it refuses to allow comprehensive, full-scope International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) safeguards.

Yet the arrangement would give India rights and privileges of civil nuclear trade that have been reserved only for members in good standing under the NPT. It creates a dangerous distinction between "good" proliferators and "bad" proliferators and sends out misleading signals to the international community with regard to NPT norms.

We urge you to support measures that would avert further damage to the already beleaguered global nonproliferation and disarmament regime.

Given that the NSG only takes decisions by consensus, your government has a responsibility to consider the following adverse implications of the U.S. proposal to exempt India from key NSG guidelines:

1. Undermining the Nuclear Safeguards Regime
The proposed exemption of India from the comprehensive nuclear safeguards standard of supply threatens to undermine the nuclear safeguards system. Given that India maintains a nuclear weapons program outside of safeguards, facility-specific safeguards on a few additional "civilian" reactors provide no serious nonproliferation benefits.

As part of the carefully crafted final document of the 1995 NPT Review and Extension Conference, all NPT states-parties endorsed the principle of full-scope safeguards as a condition of supply. A decision by the NSG to exempt India from this requirement would also contradict this important element of the NPT bargain. Furthermore, it is inappropriate for the member states of the NSG to take it upon themselves to make a decision on this matter for the 140-plus other members of the NPT.

Making matters worse, Indian officials have suggested that it might cease IAEA scrutiny if fuel supplies are cut off, even if that is because it renews nuclear testing. NSG members should reject such an interpretation. Your government has a solemn responsibility to reject any India-specific exemption from NSG guidelines that is premised on a safeguards agreement that is in any way inconsistent with the principle of permanent safeguards over all nuclear materials and facilities.

India also pledged on July 18, 2005 to conclude an additional protocol to its safeguards agreement. States should insist that India conclude a meaningful Additional Protocol safeguards regime before considering whether and how to make any India-specific alteration to the NSG guidelines.

2. Possible Transfer of Sensitive Enrichment and Reprocessing Items
Unless rejected by the NSG, India's insistence on obtaining "full" nuclear cooperation would undermine efforts to prevent the proliferation of technologies that may be used to produce nuclear bomb material, including reprocessing and enrichment technologies and items. Allowing transfers of these sensitive nuclear technologies is extremely unwise given that IAEA safeguards cannot prevent such items from being replicated and used to advance India's weapons program. U.S. officials have stated that they do not intend to sell such technology, but other states may. Virtually all NSG states support proposals that would bar transfers of these sensitive nuclear technologies to non-NPT members. India must be no exception.

Recall that India detonated a nuclear device in 1974 that used plutonium harvested from a reactor supplied by Canada using heavy water from the United States in violation of earlier bilateral peaceful nuclear use agreements.

3. Indirect Assistance to India's Nuclear Weapons Program
In the absence of a suspension of fissile material production for weapons by India, foreign nuclear fuel supplies would free up India's relatively limited domestic supplies to be used exclusively in its military nuclear sector, thereby indirectly contributing to the potential expansion of India's nuclear arsenal. This would contradict the spirit if not the letter of Article I of the NPT (which prohibits direct or indirect assistance to another state's nuclear weapons program), and it would spur further arms racing in South Asia.

India's political commitment to support negotiations of a global verifiable fissile material cut off treaty is a hollow gesture given the fact that states have failed to initiate negotiations on such a treaty for over a decade.

4. Facilitating Indian Nuclear Testing
If, as Prime Minister Manmohan Singh said on July 18, 2005, India would "assume the same responsibilities and practices" as other countries with advanced nuclear capabilities, it is reasonable to expect that India should agree to a legally-binding moratorium on nuclear test explosions. It would be highly irresponsible for CTBT signatories not to establish CTBT signature as a basic condition for NSG nuclear trade with India or any state that has not yet signed that treaty.

While Singh has reiterated his commitment to maintaining India's voluntary nuclear test moratorium, India has refused to make any commitment to a legally-binding commitment to a test ban and has sought to avoid the possibility of any penalty in the event that it does resume testing. As Singh asserted most recently in his July 22 statement to the Lok Sabha, "I confirm that there is nothing in these agreements which prevents us from further nuclear tests if warranted by our national security concerns."

To reduce the impact of a fuel supply cut off if India were to resume nuclear testing, Indian officials have gone further and are demanding a so-called "clean" and "unconditional" exemption from NSG guidelines and are seeking bilateral nuclear cooperation agreements that help provide India with strategic fuel reserves and/or lifetime fuel guarantees.

This flatly contradicts a provision in the 2006 U.S. Henry Hyde Act, which was championed by Sen. Barack Obama and approved by the U.S. Congress that stipulates that fuel supplies be limited to reasonable reactor operating requirements.1 It would also contradict the policy mandated by the U.S. implementing legislation that a nuclear test would lead to the immediate cessation of all U.S. nuclear cooperation with India.

If nuclear testing is to be deterred, meaningful penalties must be available. If NSG states do agree to supply fuel for India's "civilian" nuclear sector, they must avoid arrangements that would enable or encourage future nuclear testing by India. Otherwise, you and your government may become complicit in the facilitation of a new round of destabilizing nuclear tests.

In light of the above-mentioned flaws in the ill-conceived proposal to exempt India from certain NSG guidelines, we recommend that:

    * If NSG supplier states agree to supply fuel to India, they should establish a policy that if India resumes nuclear testing, or if India violates its safeguards agreement with the IAEA or withdraws "civilian" facilities or materials from international safeguards, all nuclear cooperation with India involving NSG members shall be terminated and unused fuel supplies from NSG states shall be returned.
    * If NSG supplier states agree to supply fuel to India, they should do so in a manner that is commensurate with ordinary reactor operating requirements and not provide - individually or collectively - strategic or lifetime nuclear fuel reserves.
    * NSG states should expressly prohibit any transfer of sensitive plutonium reprocessing, uranium enrichment, or heavy water production items to India, whether inside or outside bilateral nuclear cooperation agreements.
    * NSG states should actively oppose any arrangement that would give India any special safeguards exemptions or would in any way be inconsistent with the principle of permanent and unconditional safeguards over all nuclear materials and facilities subject to its safeguards agreement with the IAEA.
    * Before India is granted a waiver from the NSG's full-scope safeguards standard, it should join the other original nuclear weapon states by declaring it has stopped fissile material production for weapons purposes and transform its nuclear test moratorium into a meaningful, legally-binding commitment.2
    * NSG states should agree not to grant India consent to reprocess nuclear fuel supplied by an NSG member state in a facility that is not under permanent and unconditional IAEA safeguards, and also agree that any material produced in other facilities may not be transferred to any unsafeguarded facility.
    * NSG states should agree that all bilateral nuclear cooperation agreements between an NSG member state and India explicitly prohibit the replication or use of such technology in any unsafeguarded Indian facilities.

The Indian nuclear deal would be a nonproliferation disaster and a serious setback to the prospects of global nuclear disarmament, especially now. For those world leaders who are serious about ending the arms race, holding all states to their international commitments, and strengthening the nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty, it is time to stand up and be counted.

Sincerely,

Daryl G. Kimball,
Executive Director,
Arms Control Association, Washington, D.C.

Steven Staples
Director
Rideau Institute on International Affairs (Canada)
Global Secretariat to Abolition 2000

Hideyuki Ban
Co-Director
Citizens' Nuclear Information Center (Tokyo, Japan)

Endorsements continued below

1. See September 16, 2006 exchange on the floor of the Senate between Sen. Barack Obama and Sen. Richard Lugar, then Chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, available from <http://bulk.resource.org/gpo.gov/record/2006/2006_S11021.pdf > and <http://bulk.resource.org/gpo.gov/record/2006/2006_S11022.pdf>. Also see Sec. 103 (b) para 10 of the Henry J. Hyde United States-India Peaceful Atomic Energy Cooperation Act.

2. All UN members states are also obligated to support UN Security Council Resolution 1172, which calls on India and Pakistan to sign the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty (CTBT) stop producing fissile material for weapons, and undertake other nuclear risk reduction measures. All NSG states have a responsibility to uphold their obligations under UNSC 1172 by reiterating and actively encouraging India and Pakistan to implement these and other nuclear restraint measures.

Contact Addresses:

Abolition 2000 US-India Deal Working Group
c/o Citizens' Nuclear Information Center, Akebonobashi Co-op 2F-B, 8-5 Sumiyoshi-cho, Shinjuku-ku, Tokyo, 162-0065, Japan
Tel: 03-3357-3800 Fax: 03-3357-3801

Arms Control Association
1313 L Street NW, Washington, DC 20005

Endorsements continued

Individual Endorsements

International NGOs

National and Local NGOs

Individual Endorsements (organizations listed for identification purposes only)

Tadatoshi Akiba (Japan)
Mayor of Hiroshima

Tomihisa Taue (Japan)
Mayor of Nagasaki City

Amb. Richard Broinowski (Australia)
Adjunct Professor,
School of Letters, Art and Media
University of Sydney, and
Former Ambassador to Vietnam, Republic of Korea, Mexico, the Central American Republics and Cuba

Amb. George Bunn (Stanford, CA, USA)
First General Consul for the U.S. Arms Control and Disarmament Agency,
Former Ambassador to the Geneva Disarmament Conference, and
Consulting Professor at the Center for International Security and Cooperation
Stanford University

Amb. Jayantha Dhanapala (Sri Lanka)
Former United Nations Under-Secretary-General for Disarmament Affairs, and
President of the 1995 NPT Review & Extension Conference

Amb. Robert Grey (USA)
Director, Bipartisan Security Group
Former U.S. Representative to the Conference on Disarmament

Fred McGoldrick (USA)
Consultant and
Former Director of Nonproliferation and Export Policy U.S. Department of State

Hon. Douglas Roche, O.C., (Canada)
Canadian Senator Emeritus
Former Canadian Ambassador for Disarmament

Praful Bidwai (India)
Senior journalist and author
Fellow at the Transnational Institute

Dennis Brutus (South Africa)
Honorary Professor Centre for Civil Society
University of Kwazulu-Natal, Durban

Adele Buckley (Canada)
Canadian Pugwash Group
Executive Committee, Member
Pugwash Council

Michael Byers (Canada)
Chair in Global Politics and Intl. Law
University of British Columbia

Helen Caldicott (Australia)
Co-founder, Physicians for Social Responsibility
Founder, Women's Action for Nuclear Disarmament
Founder, Nuclear Policy Research Institute

Noam Chomsky (Cambridge, MA, USA)
Emeritus Professor of Linguistics and Philosophy
Massachusetts Institute of Technology

Joseph Cirincione (USA)
President
Ploughshares Fund

Mark Diesendorf (Australia)
Senior Lecturer
Institute of Environmental Studies
University of New South Wales

Jim Falk (Australia)
Director
Australian Centre for Science, Innovation, and Society
Melbourne University

Charles D. Ferguson (Washington, D.C., USA)
Philip D. Reed Senior Fellow for Science and Technology
Council on Foreign Relations

John Finney (UK)
Chair, British Pugwash Group
Member of the Council and Executive Committee of International Pugwash
Department of Physics and Astronomy
University College London

Geoffrey Forden (Cambridge, MA, USA)
Research Associate, Program in Science, Technology and Society
Massachusetts Institute of Technology

Lt. Gen. Robert Gard Jr. (USA, Ret.)
Senior Military Fellow
Center for Arms Control and Non-Proliferation

Subrata Ghoshroy (Cambridge, MA, USA)
Research Associate, Program in Science, Technology and Society
Massachusetts Institute of Technology

Prof. Dr. Ulrich Gottstein (Germany)
Emeritus IPPNW Vice President Europe and
Honorary board member, IPPNW-Germany

Frank von Hippel (Princeton, NJ, USA)
Professor of Public and International Affairs
Program on Science and Global Security
Princeton University

Kayoko Ikeda (Japan)
Member of the Committee of Seven for World Peace Appeal

Jungmin Kang (Stanford, CA, USA)
Science Fellow
Center for International Security and Cooperation, Stanford University

Michiji Konuma (Japan)
Member of the Committee of Seven for World Peace Appeal
Former Council Member of the Pugwash Conferences, and
Professor Emeritus, Keio University and Musashi Institute of Technology

Oliver Meier (Germany)
Researcher
Hamburg Peace Research Institute

Zia Mian (Princeton, NJ, USA)
Research Scientist
Program on Science and Global Security
Princeton University

Gavin Mudd (Australia)
Engineering Lecturer
Monash University

Masashi Nishihara (Japan)
President
Research Institute for Peace and Security

Jin Hee Park (South Korea)
Assistant Professor
Dongguk University

William C. Potter (Monterey, CA, USA)
Sam Nunn and Richard Lugar Professor of Nonproliferation Studies
Monterey Institute of International Studies

Ernie Regehr, O.C. (Canada)
Co-Founder
Project Ploughshares of Canada
Adjunct Associate Professor of Peace and Conflict Studies
University of Waterloo

Alan Roberts (Australia)
Former member of the
Nuclear Safety Committee of the Australian Radiation Protection and Nuclear Safety Agency

Timothy L. Savage (Republic of Korea)
Deputy Director
Nautilus Institute at Seoul

Shoji Sawada (Japan)
Emeritus Professor
Nagoya University

Henry D. Sokolski (USA)
Executive Director
Nonproliferation Policy Education Center

Tatsujiro Suzuki (Japan)
Member, Japan Pugwash Group
Co-founder, Peace Pledge Japan

Takao Takahara (Japan)
Professor, International Peace Research Institute
Meijigakuin University

Aaron Tovish
Director, 2020 Vision Campaign
Mayors for Peace

Hideo Tsuchiyama (Japan)
Member of The Committee of Seven for World Peace Appeal
Emeritus Professor and former President of Nagasaki University

Hiromichi Umebayashi (Japan)
Special Advisor
Peace Depot

Achin Vanaik (India)
Professor of International Relations and Global Politics
Department of Political Science
Delhi University
Fellow, Transnational Institute

Leonard Weiss (United States)
Consultant and Chief Architect of the Nuclear Nonproliferation Act of 1978

Kiho Yi ( Republic of Korea)
Research Professor
Democracy and Social Movement Institute
Sungkonghoe University

Ichiro Yuasa (Japan)
President
Peace Depot

International NGOs

Regina Hagen
Coordinator
International Network of Engineers and Scientists Against Proliferation

Tilman Ruff
Chair, International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons (ICAN) of the International Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War
Chair, Australian Management Committee of ICAN

Susi Snyder
Secretary General
Women's International League for Peace and Freedom

Alyn Ware
Consultant
International Association of Lawyers Against Nuclear Arms

National and Local NGOs (listed by region)

South Asia

India

Sujay Basu
Director
Centre of Energy and Environment Management (Kolkata)

Santanu Chacraverti
Secretary
Society for Direct Initiative for Social and Health Action

Anil K. Chaudhary
Popular Education and Action Centre (New Delhi)

Sajaya Kakarla
Caring Citizens Collective (Hyderabad)

Saraswati Kavula and Dr. Satya Lakshmi Komarraju
Movement Against Uranium Projects (Hyderabad)

N. Ramesh
Organiser
Journalists Against Nuclear Weapons, Thanjavur Chapter

Captain J. Rama Rao and Dr. K. Babu Rao
Forum for Sustainable Development (Hyderabad)

Sukla Sen
EKTA (Committee for Communal Amity) (Mumbai)

S. P. Udayakumar
Coordinator
People's Movement Against Nuclear Energy (Nagercoil, Tamil Nadu)

South Asian Diaspora

Harsh Kapoor
South Asians Against Nukes (France)

Hari Sharma
President
South Asian Network for Secularism and Democracy (Vancouver, Canada)

Africa

South Africa

Genni Easton
Chair
Table View Ratepayers Association

Dominique Gilbert
Pelindaba Working Group

Mike Kantey
National Chair
Coalition Against Nuclear Energy

Andy W. Pienaar
Namaqualand Action Group for Environmental Justice (Komaggas)


East Asia

Japan

Sadao Ichikawa
Chair
Japan Congress Against A- and H- Bombs (Gensuikin)

Mayako Ishii
President:
YWCA of Japan

Goro Kawai, Haruko Moritaki, Mitsuo Okamoto
Co-Directors
Hiroshima Alliance for Nuclear Weapons Abolition

Akira Kawasaki
Executive Committee Member
Peace Boat

Nobuo Kazashi, Director and
Haruko Moritaki, Executive Director
NO DU Hiroshima Project

Masayoshi Naito
Coordinator
Citizens' Network for Nuclear Weapons Abolition (Tokyo)

Osamu Niikura
President
Japanese Lawyers International Solidarity Association

Kenichi Ohkubo
Secretary General
Japan Association of Lawyers Against Nuclear Arms (JALANA)

Daisuke Sato
Secretary-General
NoNukes Asia Forum Japan

Yoshiko Shidara
Co-Director
Women's Democratic Club

Aileen Mioko Smith
Director
Green Action (Kyoto)

Terumi Tanaka
Secretary General
Nihon Hidankyo (Japan Confederation of A- and H-bomb Sufferers)

Republic of Korea

Cheong Wooksik
Representative
Peace Network

Koo Kab-woo
Director
Center for Peace and Disarmament
People's Solidarity for Participatory Democracy

Lee Heonseok
Representative
Korea Eco-Center

Park Jung-eun
Chief Coordinator
Center for Peace and Disarmament
People's Solidarity for Participatory Democracy

Seok Kwanghoon
Energy Policy Consultant
Green Korea United

Malaysia

Ronald McCoy
President
Malaysian Physicians for Peace and Social Responsibility

Europe

Austria

Hildegard Breiner
President
Naturschutzbund Osterreich, Landesgruppe Vorarlberg (Dornbirn) and
Speaker
Vorarlberger Plattform gegen Atomgefahren (Bregenz)

Pete H_mmerle
Austrian Fellowship of Reconciliation
(Internationaler Vers_hnungsbund, _sterreichischer Zweig)

Hans Holzinger
Robert-Jungk-Foundation (Salzburg)

Maga. Johanna Nekowitsch
Wiener Plattform "Atomkraftfreie Zukunft"



Matthias Reichl
Center for Encounter and active Non-Violence (Bad Ischl)

Dr. Klaus Renoldner, Chair
International Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War Austria

Heinz Stockinger
PLAGE (Salzburg Platform Against Nuclear Dangers)

Belgium

Jef De Loof
President
'Physicians for Peace' (Belgian Affiliate of IPPNW)

Gio De Weerd
Pax Christi Vlaanderen

David Heller
Coordinator
Friends of the Earth, Flanders & Brussels

Hans Lammerant
Vredesactie - Bombspotting

Georges Spriet
Secretary General
Vrede

Michel Vanhoorne
Coordinator
Left Ecological Forum

Finland

Laura Lodenius
Executive Director
Peace Union of Finland

Anna-Liisa Mattsoff
Coordinator
No More Nuclear Power movement

France

Dominique Lalanne
Chair
Abolition of Nuclear Weapons / Stop essais

Germany

Johannes M. Becker
Board
Wissenschaft & Frieden

Xanthe Hall
IPPNW Germany

Martin Kalinowski
Board
Forschungsverbund Naturwissenschaft, Abr_stung und internationale Sicherheit (FONAS)

Prof. G_tz Neuneck, Ph.D.
Chair
Germany Pugwash Group

Ireland

Mary McCarrick
Executive Committee Member
Irish Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament

Italy

Albino Bizzotto
President
Beati i Costruttori di Pace (Blessed Are the Peacemakers)

Lisa Clark
Nuclear Weapons Working Group
Rete Italiana per il Disarmo (Italian Disarmament Network)

Nicola Cufaro Petroni
Secretary Generale
USPID (Union of Scientists for Disarmament)

Netherlands

Marjan Lucas
IKV Pax Christi Netherlands

Ak Malten
Director
Global Anti-Nuclear Alliance

Fred Valkenburg
Chair
Pais (Dutch Section War Resisters International)

Wendela de Vries
Coordinator
Campagne tegen Wapenhandel (Campaign Against Arms Trade)

Norway

Tordis S_rensen H_if_dt
Chair
Norske Leger mot atomv_pen, NLA
(Norwegian Affiliate of International Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War)

Stine Rodmyr
Director
No to Nuclear Weapons

Russia

Alexey Toropov
NGO Siberian Ecological Agency

Spain

Josep Puig
President
Group of Scientists and Technicians for a Non Nuclear Future (Barcelona)

Sweden

Frida Sundberg (President) and Gunnar Westberg (Member of the Board)
Swedish Physicians Against Nuclear Weapons (SLMK)

United Kingdom

Pat Haward (Chair) and George Farebrother (Secretary)
World Court Project UK

Paul Ingram
Executive Director
British American Security Information Council (London and Washington, D.C.)

Oceania

Australia

Michael Denborough
The Nuclear Disarmament Party of Australia

John Hallam
People for Nuclear Disarmament Nuclear Flashpoints Project

Don Jarrett
President
Australian Peace Committee

Pauline Mitchell
Campaign for International Cooperation and Disarmament (Melbourne)

South Australian Regional Meeting
Religious Society of Friends (Quakers)

Cam Walker
National Liaison Officer
Friends of the Earth Australia

Sue Wareham OAM
President
Medical Association for Prevention of War

New Zealand

Dr. Kate Dewes (Coordinator) and Commander Robert D. Green (Royal Navy - Ret.)
Disarmament & Security Centre (Christchurch, New Zealand)

Simon Reeves
Chair
Aotearoa Lawyers for Peace

North America

Canada

Elaine Hughes
Spokesperson
Stop the Hogs Coalition


S. (Ziggy) Kleinau
Coordinator
Citizens for Renewable Energy (Lion's Head, Ontario)

David H. Martin
Climate & Energy Coordinator
Greenpeace (Canada)

Dr. Joan Russow
Global Compliance Research Project (Victoria, B.C.)

Laura Savinkoff
Boundary Peace Initiative (Grand Forks, B.C.)

Mexico

Luis Guti_rrez Esparza
President
Latin American Circle for International Studies (Mexico City)

USA - National

David Culp
Legislative Representative
Friends Committee on National Legislation (Quakers) (Washington, DC)

Marie Dennis
Director
Maryknoll Office for Global Concerns (Washington, DC)

Bruce K. Gagnon
Coordinator
Global Network Against Weapons & Nuclear Power in Space

Amy Isaacs
National Director
Americans for Democratic Action (Washington, DC)

John Isaacs
Executive Director
Council for a Livable World (Washington, DC)

Rob Keithan
Director
Washington Office for Advocacy
Unitarian Universalist Association of Congregations (Washington, DC)

Michael Mariotte
Executive Director
Nuclear Information and Resource Service

Paul Kawika Martin
Organizing and Policy Director
Peace Action

Michael McNally, MD, Ph. D
Executive Director
Physicians for Social Responsibility

Jon Rainwater
Executive Director
Peace Action West

Susan Shaer
Executive Director
Women's Action for New Directions (Washington, DC)

Alice Slater
Convener
Abolition 2000 Sustainable Energy Working Group

USA - Regional

Chuck Baynton
Member
Wisconsin Network for Peace and Justice

Ken Bossong
Executive Director
SUN DAY Campaign (Takoma Park, MD)

Buffalo Bruce
Vice-Chair
Western Nebraska Resources Council

George Crocker
Executive Director
North American Water Office (Lake Elmo, MN)

Mary Davis
Director
Yggdrasil, a project of Earth Island Institute (Lexington, KY)

Elena Day
Steering Committee Chair
People's Alliance for Safe Energy (Charlottesville, VA)

Bruce A. Drew
Steering Committee
Prairie Island Coalition (Minneapolis, MN)

Wells Eddleman
Staff Scientist
North Carolina Citizens Research Group

Judi Friedman
Chair
People's Action for Clean Energy (Connecticut)

Marylia Kelley
Executive Director
Tri-Valley CAREs (Livermore, CA)

Mary Lampert
Director
Pilgrim Watch (Duxbury, MA)

Conrad Miller, MD
Founder
Physicians For Life (Watermill, NY)

Capt. William S. Linnell
Spokesperson
Cheaper, Safer Power (Portland, OR)

Sal Mangiagli
Board Member
Citizens Awareness Network - Connecticut Chapter

Alan Muller
Executive Director
Green Delaware

Lewis E. Patrie, MD
Chair
Western North Carolina Physicians for Social Responsibility

Guy C. Quinlan
Chair, Nuclear Disarmament Task Force
All Souls Unitarian Church (New York, NY)

Judy Treichel
Executive Director
Nevada Nuclear Waste Task Force (Las Vegas, NV)

Michael Welch
Redwood Alliance (Arcata, CA)