Over two months ago your forceful plea to the Indian Government to allow Amnesty International to visit Kashmir and Punjab won you our respect and support,
In view of your energetic support to every Indian cause on the Hill we rejoiced and assumed that in a matter of hours or days your “friends” in Delhi would reciprocate and “give you face” as the Chinese say and put an end to the “Night of the Long Knives” for the six million Kashmiris and 17 million Sikhs. We know about the snail-like speed of the Indian bureaucracy but on the amnesty issue, despite your appeal, it has not moved an inch and the extra judicial murders, killings and massacres continue-since January 1, 1990 over 700 Sikhs and 1500 Kashmiris have been butchered by Indian security forces and vigilantes.
I sit possible, Respected Congressman, that the Swastika worshipping Indian Brahmin ruling elite are using you while they, and the Soviets, continue to trample on American interests in south Asia as they have done for the last 40 years? Are you aware Sir that at this very moment India is pressuring Sri Lanka Not to allow a Voice of America relay station on its soil, as it would be a threat to India? How VOA is a threat to India I cannot fathom can you?
I am sure you are aware that India is encouraging the Republic of Mauritius Island (where Hindus are in a majority and {India enjoys great influence) to jay claim on the Island of Diego Garcia where U.S. has its only passé in the Indian Ocean. In fact, the Prime Minister of Mauritius was the guest of honor at India’s Republic Day Parade on January 26, 1990 and he obliged by issuing a statement in Delhi claiming Diego Garcia.
Everyone in South Asia knows that when Sri Lanka offered U.S. the use of Trincomalee, one of the best natural harbors in the world, India thwarted the move by encouraging, training and arming a Tamil insurgency in that area and eventually occupying it with an expeditionary force of over a 100,000 troops. India also intervened with airborne troops in the pro-western Maldives Islands in the Arabian Sea to forestall a move by that country to offer the British built Gan Airbase as a refueling stop to the U.S.
In Afghanistan, unlike the rest of the free world, India has never condemned the Soviet invasion and in fact even today is helping to prop up the communist Najibullah regime in Kabul to oblige Moscow. It is the same story in Cambodia where India opposes every move we make and in the only free world country which recognizes the communist regime in Phnom Phen.
India’s unfair trade policies, which are still going on, triggered US action under the Super 301 Provision of the 1988 Omnibus Trade Act to label India as an unfair trading partner. Perhaps Congress can take up your suggestion, made the other day in Committee, that all aid should be cut off to countries that persist on extra judicial killings and do not allow visits by Amnesty International we can use this money to encourage the new democracies of Eastern Europe and Central America.
- Shaikh
Member
Solarz Congressional Club
Article extracted from this publication >> March 16, 1990