Author: Aziz Haniffa in Washington
DC
Publication: Rediff on Net
Date: May 8, 2003
URL: http://www.rediff.com/us/2003/may/08us.htm
In a major victory for India, the
House International Relations Committee late on Wednesday unanimously approved
a resolution requiring the Bush Administration to disclose to Congress
the extent to which Pakistan is fulfilling its pledge to permanently halt
cross-border terrorism, shut down terrorist camps in PoK and eschew proliferation
of nuclear weapons.
This is the first time the main
foreign policy panel in Congress has acknowledged in a bipartisan manner
Pakistan's role in fomenting militancy in Jammu and Kashmir and virtually
accused it of proliferating nuclear weapons technology.
The resolution acquires special
significance as it comes on the eve of Deputy Secretary of State Richard
Armitage's visit to Islamabad and his meetings with President Gen Pervez
Musharraf and other senior Pakistani officials where he will seek Islamabad's
commitments on these very issues.
It is certainly a slap in the face
for Pakistan that has vehemently denied any complicity in promoting cross-border
terrorism or clandestinely transferring nuclear weapons technology and
expertise to North Korea as the Central Intelligence Agency has alleged.
Wednesday's resolution was the outcome
of the efforts of the pro-India lobby led by the nascent US-India Political
Action Committee (USINPAC) and Eni Faleomavaega, a Democrat Congressman
who represents American Samoa, who authored and pushed through the resolution
before the panel.
Faleomavaega is a ranking member
of the International Relations Committee's Subcommittee on Asia and the
Pacific.
USINPAC members, led by its founder
and president Sanjay Puri and Manish Thakur, co-chair of USINPAC's Strategic
and Defense Affairs Committee, had first convinced Faleomavaega to introduce
the resolution and then had reached out to both Republican and Democratic
members of the committee to build support for the resolution.
Their efforts paid off handsomely
as even the chairman of the panel Congressman Henry Hyde, from Illinois,
had said he would vote for the resolution and convince his Republican colleagues
to do the same.
An elated Thakur said, "In passing
this amendment, the House is sending a clear message that all terrorism
is wrong, wherever it occurs in the world, and harbouring terrorists or
proliferating technology associated with weapons of mass destruction can
no longer be tolerated."
The resolution titled, Section 708,
Report on Action Taken by Pakistan, states:
For each of fiscal years 2004 and
2005, the US President shall prepare and transmit to the appropriate congressional
committees a report that contains a description of the extent to which
the government of Pakistan:
(1) has closed all known terrorist
training camps operating in Pakistan and Pakistan-held Kashmir;
(2) has established serious and
identifiable measures to prohibit the infiltration of Islamic extremists
across the 'Line of Control' into India;
(3) has ceased the transfer of weapons
of mass destruction, including any associated technologies, to any third
country or terrorist organisation.
After the vote, Faleomavaega said,
"Pakistan remains a dictatorship while only a few years ago, it was a democracy.
By contrast, India has demonstrated that democracy can take root and prosper
in non-Western cultures as well."
Congressman Joseph Crowley, New
York Democrat and co-chair of the Congressional Caucus on India and Indian
Americans, who is also a member of the House International Relations committee,
said after the vote, "It will make a tangible difference by putting the
issue of cross- border terrorism and nuclear proliferation firmly on the
record."
Puri and Thakur acknowledged the
support of the Indian American community from across the country, who they
said had called members of Congress and members of the Committee, urging
them to support the Faleomavaega resolution.
The resolution will now go to the
full House. The pro-Pakistan lobby is expected to go on overdrive to prevent
its passage in the US House of Representatives.
Meanwhile, USINPAC is working toward
getting a clone of the resolution introduced in the US senate, possibly
in the powerful Senate Foreign Relations Committee.
If they can get the senate committee
to adopt a similar amendment, both resolutions would have to be reconciled
by a House-Senate conference committee, before the resolution can be enacted
as a Sense of the Congress.
