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Journalism of Courage
WASHINGTON, JUNE 6: Two influential United States Senators with special South Asia interest will be visiting India shortly amid indications that Washington will ease up on sanctions against both New Delhi and Islamabad.
Republican Senator Sam Brownback, chairman of the International Foreign Relations Sub-Committee on South Asia, and Senator Charles Robb, the ranking Democratic member, are both packing their bags for a visit which could materialise as early as next week, Congressional sources told The Indian Express.
The Senators want to look and hear first hand the security concerns of India and Pakistan and see what US lawmakers can do to ease the tensions in the region.
The visit could swiftly and dramatically alter the mood and law on Capitol Hill, seat of the US legislature, where there are already murmurs of doubt about whether the sanctions regime it has mandated on the administration has the desired effect.
Sanctions now in place against India and Pakistan can only be reversed by theCongress. In fact, it transpires that even if the Clinton administration wants to dilute or modify the sanctions regime, it will need a Congressional go-ahead.
While the administration is struggling and tarrying to come up with rules and regulations for the sweeping Glenn Amendment, the establishment here is suddenly seized with a feeling that sanctions are not such a great idea after all, and the administration should have some leeway in dealing with India and Pakistan especially the latter, since its economy is already on a respirator.
It may now need another amendment to give back the White House some authority and allow the Clinton administration wiggle room. Such a piece of legislation could originate in Brownback’s International Relations Sub-Committee. Robb himself is said to support the move by Congress to provide the President the statutory authority to act in the best interests of the United States.
“I don’t believe that I am qualified, nor do I think anyone in the Senate is qualified, toimplement de facto control over our foreign policy in this region,” Robb said at a hearing earlier this week. Brownback visited India last year with First Lady Hillary Clinton for Mother Teresa’s funeral and stayed back to talk to the dispensation in New Delhi. He was favourably inclined towards India till the tests, after which he has been a trenchant critic of the government in New Delhi. It was Brownback who introduced an amendment to the Pressler law last month to enable the passage of arms and F-16s to Pakistan in a bid to coax Islamabad away from conducing retaliatory nuclear tests. He has since withdrawn the amendment because of what he called the nuclear tic-tac-toe between the two countries.
Indian officials welcomed the Congressional initiative saying it would provide New Delhi a chance to put forward its views amid the needless hype and exaggeration.
Meanwhile, as the administration and lawmakers are bellyaching for Pakistan, there is strong pressure from the industry to ease up on New Delhito allow US companies to do business as usual in India.
There was near unanimity at a US-India Business Council meeting here on Thursday that unilateral sanctions would not work and it would only harm American business interests in India. While the Council itself decided not to lobby vocally or publicly against the sanctions because it was the administration’s foreign policy prerogative various industry honchos said they would communicate their views individually to the establishment.
“We want to keep it low key and quiet. These are difficult times, but we are confident it will pass,” a Council spokesman said.
