Author: B. Raman
Publication: South Asia Analysis
Date: August 3, 2009
URL: http://www.southasiaanalysis.org/%5Cpapers34%5Cpaper3327.html
The "News", the Pakistani daily,
has reported on August 3, 2009, that the Barack Obama Administration has decided
to appoint Robin Raphel, who was a Counselor for Political Affairs in the
US Embassy in New Delhi from 1991 to 1993 and subsequently became the Assistant
Secretary of State for South Asian Affairs in the Bill Clinton Administration,
as a member of the team of Richard Holbrooke, the Special Representative to
the Af-Pak region.
2. According to the paper, she will be based
in Pakistan and will co-ordinate the implementation of the plan for non-military
assistance to Pakistan. She is expected to arrive in Pakistan on August 14,
2009. Her bio-data as taken from the Wikipedia is annexed.
3. During her posting in the US Embassy in
New Delhi, she was actively interacting with the various anti-India groups
in Jammu & Kashmir and it was reportedly on her advice that the Hurriyat,
as an umbrella organization of these groups, became very active.
4. After Bill Clinton assumed office as the
President in January, 1993, she joined the State Department as the Assistant
Secretary of State in charge of South Asian Affairs under Warren Christopher,
who was the Secretary of State. It used to be said that she knew the Clintons
from her younger days and this gave her easy access to the President despite
her junior position in the State Department. She exploited this to prevent
Pakistan being declared as a State sponsor of terrorism after the Mumbai blasts
of March, 1993.
5. It was during her tenure as the Assistant
Secretary of State that the Clinton Administration declared Jammu & Kashmir
as a "disputed territory" and started calling for the resolution
of the dispute between India and Pakistan over the Kashmir issue in accordance
with the wishes of the Kashmiri people. This refrain has once again been taken
up by the Obama Administration.
6. Towards the end of 1993 , during a non-attributable
discussion with some Indian journalists in Washington DC she reportedly defended
this formulation and contended that the US considered the Kashmiri territory
transferred by Pakistan to China in 1963 when Ayub Khan was the President
also as disputed territory, whose future was yet to be decided.
7. The "Times of India" prominently
carried this story on the front page without identifying the official of the
State Department who had talked to the Indian journalists on the Kashmir issue.
Enquiries made by the Government of India identified the official as Robin
Raphel.
8. It was during her stewardship of the South
Asian Affairs portfolio in the State Department that the Taliban under Mulla
Mohammad Omar came into existence in 1994 with the joint support of the Pakistan
and US Governments. The Taliban was prepared to support the construction of
an oil and gas pipeline by UNOCAL, an American oil company, from Turkmenistan
to Pakistan via Afghanistan and she had met Mulla Mohammad Omar in this connection.
This period also saw Osama bin Laden shift from Khartoum to Jalalabad in 1996
without any objection from the US. The Taliban later shifted him to Kandahar.
9. Even after she left the State Department
and joined the faculty of the National Defence University, she reportedly
maintained active contacts with anti-India elements in J&K.
10. The "News" has correctly described
her as "one known to be Pakistan's friend".
11. She is.
12. The text of the "News" report
is also annexed.
(The writer is Additional Secretary (retd),
Cabinet Secretariat, Govt. of India, New Delhi and, presently, Director, Institute
For Topical Studies, Chennai. E-mail: seventyone2@gmail.com)
