Author: Arvind Lavakare
Publication: Rediff.com
Date: August 22, 2007
URL: http://www.rediff.com/news/2007/aug/22arvind.htm
Former prime minister V P Singh has dubbed
the finalised India-US 123 Agreement as 'a step towards slavery.' Former finance
minister and external affairs minister Yashwant Sinha has described its defence
in the Rajya Sabha by the PM as 'a bundle of untruths, half-truths and pure
white lies.'
Indeed, many more than half of the political
class in our Lok Sabha is now opposed to the 123 pact.
Outside Parliament, at least three reputed
nuclear scientists have been critical all along of the nuclear deal. Further,
two acknowledged strategic experts, Brahma Chellaney and Bharat Karnad, with
weighty books to their credit, have been relentlessly ruthless in their writings
over the last two years in The Asian Age, the only major English language
newspaper that has allowed them to express their views freely and frankly
without concern for the government's patronage. None of the gentlemen in this
group can be accused of harbouring any sort of political agenda.
Yet, the Congress Party has labeled the 123
Agreement as 'historic' and congratulated their PM for shepherding it. The
Doctor Sa'ab has not only blushed at this praise but has apparently now come
to believe that he is a man of destiny who alone knows what exactly it is
that is in the national interest -- 'enlightened national interest' to use
the novel phrase he coined with his penchant for 'out of the box' thinking.
He has apparently started believing that he can simply do no wrong by India.
Any criticism now makes him emotional and agitated, regarding it as an assault
on his integrity.
But a billion dollar question arises. Instead
of making sanitised statements in praise of his nuclear deal mixed with assurances
of cookies to come and pleas for putting trust in him, why has he never given
a point-by-point rebuttal of the criticism levied by the kind of worthies
mentioned above? Why has he relied instead on his bureaucrats and petjournalists
to attempt that in vain?
With his government's future now in peril,
Doctor Sa'ab must really attain the 'historic' by being the first Indian prime
minister to author a public document refuting each and every criticism made
so far against his biggest policy yet.
Let him sulk no more at criticism. Let him
instead pick up his pen and start by shooting down just six points of Brahma
Chellaney's long critique splashed on the front page and beyond of The Asian
Age of August 4, 2007.
Below are the six of Chellaney's several contentions:
1. The 123 Agreement confers on the US an
unfettered right to terminate cooperation with India at will. Even though
the termination of the pact is to take effect at the end of a one-year notice,
the agreement explicitly empowers the US to forthwith suspend all cooperation
without much ado. And termination does not enjoin it to make alternate arrangements
for supplies before it ceases cooperation.
2. In a departure from a standard clause in
America's other 123 Agreements, this accord with India violates a core principle
of international law wherein the failure to perform a treaty cannot be justified
by invoking a domestic law. Instead, America's latest pact with India is unambiguously
anchored in the supremacy of national laws and regulations -- meaning laws
like the Hyde Act of the US because there is no Indian law governing nuclear
cooperation with the US or any other country. This feature is in contrast
with the 1985 US-China 123 Agreement which recognises that principle of international
law and prohibits invoking an internal law as justification for its failure
to perform a treaty. By also allowing, in the event of termination, the US
to demand the return of all equipment and fuel supplies in the past, it is
at liberty to terminate cooperation retroactively.
3. While Section 106 of the Hyde Act openly
bans Indian testing, and the agreement upholds reinforces that test ban by
upholding the applicability of domestic laws, Washington has already recommended
that the Nuclear Suppliers Group (NSG) link its proposed exemption for India
to a similar test ban. In other words, the test ban under the 123 Accord is
to be converted into a multilateral legality through the NSG.
4. The US has the right to terminate cooperation
at will and withdraw from all its obligations, but India has been denied that
right to withdraw from its obligations even if the agreement is terminated
at the insistence of the US. The agreement more than once states the permanent
nature of India's obligation to accept inspection of its entire civil nuclear
programme, including the indigenously built facilities which it is voluntarily
opening to external scrutiny.
5. The text of the agreement clearly shows
that US has granted India the right to reprocess only in principle. It will
happen only after India builds the new facility (expected to take at least
five years) after which 'the parties will agree on arrangements and procedures
for reprocessing 'in this new facility." This reprocessing agreement
would be vetted by the US Congress.
6. Transfer of 'dual use' equipment and technology
is not guaranteed as envisaged but is subject to amendment of the present
Agreement, with the Hyde Act itself prohibiting transfer to certain areas.
Moreover, India has accepted that any enrichment, reprocessing or heavy water
activity, even when under stringent IAEA inspections, constitute 'dual use'
and thus liable to be restricted. In addition to IAEA inspections, the US
has staked in its end-use monitoring as called for in the Hyde Act if the
IAEA decides that the application of its safeguards is no longer possible.
Does Doctor Sa'ab have the conviction to refute
the above in black and white? Or will he sulk at the challenge and merely
ask us to trust his integrity and vision of 'enlightened national interest?'