| |
COMMENTARY
Arming South Asia isn't the
path to peace
By Conn Hallinan
(Posted with permission of Foreign Policy In Focus)
As tensions between India and Pakistan began
building late last year, high-level delegations from the
United States and Britain flew in and out of New Delhi
and Karachi lobbying for peace. That's not all they were
lobbying for. With the scent of blood in the air, the
arms jackals have poured into South Asia, sometimes in
the suits of leading government officials.
When
British Prime Minister Tony Blair visited India in
January, ostensibly it was to calm troubled waters. But
according to Indian Defense Minister George Fernandes,
Mr Blair also was pushing a US$1.43 billion deal for
India to purchase 66 British-made Hawk fighter-bombers.
The Hawk deal is part of a drive by British arms
manufacturers to make a killing from the crisis. London
is also selling the Indians Jaguar bombers capable of
delivering nuclear weapons, in addition to peddling
tanks, artillery, anti-aircraft guns, small arms and
ammunition.
The British are not alone in this
seamy business. In February, General Richard B Myers,
chairman of the US Joint Chiefs of Staff, visited New
Delhi. Shortly thereafter, US arms maker Raytheon closed
a $146 million deal to sell the Indians
counter-artillery radar. The United States has approved
20 other defense agreements, including a contract for
General Electric to build engines for India's
multimillion-dollar Light Combat Aircraft project.
US technology is also slipping in through the
back door via weapons agreements between Israel and
India. New Delhi is buying the $1 billion Phalcon
airborne radar, which is based on the US AWAC
surveillance system, and is negotiating to buy the Arrow
anti-missile system jointly developed by the United
States and Israel. Boeing makes 52 percent of the
Arrow's components.
"India realizes it needs to
be as close to the US and Israeli technology as possible
if it is to modernize its armed forces," Indian defense
analyst P R Chari told the Financial Times.
India is one of the biggest weapons markets in
the world, with an annual budget of $14 billion. And the
United States is the world's No 1 weapons dealer, with
$18.6 billion in arms sales last year.
But is
pouring massive amounts of sophisticated weapons into
what is undeniably the most dangerous flashpoint on the
globe a good idea? It has certainly frightened the
Pakistanis.
"We are ... alarmed by India's
relentless pursuit and acquisition of defense equipment
that is far beyond India's genuine needs," said
Pakistani Foreign Ministry spokesman Aziz Ahmed Khan.
With 35 percent of its budget already devoted to the
military, Pakistan is in no position to match India's
weapons-buying spree. But as Pakistan falls further
behind in the conventional sphere, the Pakistanis have
made it clear that they will counterbalance that
weakness with nuclear weapons.
India has
rationalized its military buildup as part of a "war on
terrorism" and has successfully hung a "Muslim
extremist" label on Pakistan. But the Indian government
has an extremist streak of its own. After the
intercommunal riots in which more than 1,000 people were
killed earlier this year, Prime Minister Atal Bihari
Vajpayee blamed the violence on Muslims, who he claimed
"do not want to live with others."
His ruling
Bharatiya Janata Party is closely tied to the RSS, a
shadowy Hindu extremist group associated with the
assassination of India's founder, Mahatma Gandhi. The
initials stand for Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) ,
or the Organization of National Volunteers.
The
RSS runs more than 20,000 private schools in India to
pursue its goal of Hindutva - creating an all-Hindu
society. The RSS and its close ally, the World Hindu
Council, led the intercommunal riots that destroyed the
Babri mosque at Ayodhya in 1992, sparking tens of
thousands of deaths across India - the vast majority of
them Muslims. The present deputy prime minister, Lal
Krishna Advani, led the movement to destroy the mosque
and build a temple to the Hindu god Ram in its place.
In short, this is not as simple as "civilized
good guys" vs "terrorist bad guys".
The solution
to reducing tensions in South Asia is not more weapons,
but a serious effort to resolve the 55-year-old standoff
between India and Pakistan over Kashmir. Reducing that
complex business to black-and-white while feeding an
arms race on the subcontinent could end up getting a lot
of people killed.
Conn Hallinan
is the provost at the University of
California at Santa Cruz and a political analyst for Foreign Policy In
Focus
|
| |
|
|
 |
|
