archive: Anti-India amendment suffers defeat
Anti-India amendment suffers defeat
Ramesh Chandran
The Times of India
July 24, 1999
Title: Anti-India amendment suffers defeat
Author: Ramesh Chandran
Publication: The Times of India
Date: July 24, 1999
An anti-India amendment, offered by hawkish Republican Congressmen
William F. Goodling, which proposed withholding American assistance to
countries that voted less than 25 per cent of the time with the U.S.
at the UN was defeated in the House of Representatives on Wednesday.
The Goodling Amendment that lumped India with countries like North
Korea, Libya, Cuba and Syria was defeated by a margin of 256 votes to
169 after a rousing debate when the House considered amendments to the
state department authorisation bill. Among those who led the spirited
defence on India's behalf included Rep. Gary Ackerman who said: "We
were privileged once again in being victorious over those who were
senselessly bashing India for whatever reason of their own." Others
who argued eloquently on India's behalf included Benjamin Gilman, Sam
Gejdenson, Frank Pallone and Cynthia McKinney. Rep.
Goodling, who managed to get 161 Republicans to say "aye" to his
amendment as well as eight Democrats had argued that those who were so
inflexibly opposed to the UN so consistently, threatened Washington's
national security interests. However, those who defended India's
record at the UN pointed out that Mr. Goodling's interpretation was
not a fair indication of the U.S. position in the UN general
assembly. Seventy-eight per cent of the resolutions by the general
assembly were adopted by consensus and if these consensus resolutions
were "factored" in as agreement with the U.S., no country scored below
72 per cent in 1998.
Besides, Congressmen like Mr. Ackerman argued that India was the
world's largest democracy and the "irony of this amendment was that it
would penalise India while holding Pakistan harmless at a time when
the world community had just caught Pakistan red-handed in the
commission of terrorist acts and acts of aggression, while India
con-ducted itself in a statesmanlike fashion using admirable restraint
as a nuclear power."
Initially, as the amendment was put to vote, support for it had surged
but the Democrats and a section of the Republicans were quickly
rallied.
Sources in the Congress stated that a "dear colleague" joint letter by
Mr. Ackerman and James Greenwood, Co-Chairman of the India Caucus, to
all 435 lawmakers stressing the lop-sidedness of the Goodling
Amendment and how it would undermine Indo-U.S. relations at a time
when the post-Kargil prospects held promise, proved to be timely.
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