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“RELEASE OVER 52,000 SIKH POLITICAL PRISONERS, STOP ITS REPRESSION AND TERRORISM” mentioning the U.S. Dept of State was published in the Extensions of Remarks section on pages E1552-E1553 on Sept. 11, 2002.
The publication is reproduced in full below:
RELEASE OVER 52,000 SIKH POLITICAL PRISONERS, STOP ITS REPRESSION AND
TERRORISM
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HON. EDOLPHUS TOWNS
of New York
in the house of representatives
Wednesday, September 11, 2002
Mr. TOWNS. Mr. Speaker, on August 12, Indian Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee will meet with President Bush. The next day he will speak at the United Nations in New York. I am sure he will be preaching the principles of democracy and human rights, things that we all support. However, Mr. Vajpayee would have much more credibility on these issues if India lived by the principles it preaches.
Unfortunately, India is only a democracy for the upper-caste Brahmins. For minorities, it is a repressive state with little freedom. According to the Movement Against State Repression, India admitted to holding 52,268 political prisoners under the repressive, expired TADA law.
Recently, it was reported in the Hindu newspaper that the violence in Gujarat this spring killed over 5,000 Muslims. According to published reports, the government orchestrated the violence and ordered police not to stop it. This is typical of India's pattern of repression against minorities.
The Indian government has murdered over 250,000 Sikhs since 1984, over 200,000 Christians in Nagaland since 1947, more than 85,000 Kashmiri Muslims since 1988, and thousands of other minorities. Over 50,000 Sikhs have been made to ``disappear.'' The Washington Times reported that India admitted that its forces committed the March 2000 massacre of 35 Sikhs in Chithisinghpora.
The former majority leader of the Senate, George Mitchell, has said that ``the essence of democracy is the right to self-determination.'' Yet India has never kept its promise to the UN in 1948 that it would hold a plebiscite in Kashmir. India refuses to do the democratic thing and allow the people of Nagaland, Khalistan, and the other nations seeking their freedom from Indian rule. Multinational states like India, the Soviet Union, Austria-Hungary, and others are doomed to eventual collapse.
India is a practitioner of terrorism, as an excellent article by Tim Phares at NewsMax.com entitled ``The Terrorism of the Indian Government'' demonstrates. The Washington Times reported on January 2 that India sponsors cross-border terrorism in Sindh, a province of Pakistan. Journalist Tavleen Singh reported in India's leading news magazine, India Today, that India itself created the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE), which the U.S. government has called a
``terrorist organization.'' It paid the late governor of Punjab, Surendra Nath, $1.5 billion to foment covert state terrorist activity in Kashmir and in Punjab, Khalistan, according to the Indian newspaper Hitavada. India has recently made deals to provide materials to Iraq. When we are fighting a war on terrorism, ``the world's largest democracy'' is practicing and supporting it.
Mr. Speaker, we must do something to stop these activities. I hope that President Bush and Secretary General Annan will press Mr. Vajpayee on the issues of political prisoners, violence against minorities, and terrorism. The U.S. government also has other actions at its disposal. It is time to impose sanctions on India and cut off its aid and trade. And the U.S. Congress should go on record in support of self-
determination for Khalistan, Kashmir, Nagaland, and the other nations seeking their freedom in South Asia.
I would like to insert the article ``The Terrorism of the Indian Government'' into the Record at this time.
The Terrorism of the Indian Government
(By Tim Phares)
The South Asian subcontinent has been called the most dangerous place in the world, and events there over the past few months seem to confirm this description. While the danger of war seems to have passed for now, India and Pakistan remain on alert and both countries continued to point nuclear-capable missiles at each other. Unfortunately, tensions remain high as each side tries to gain an advantage over the other. Pakistan and minorities within India's borders charge that India is seeking hegemony in the South Asian subcontinent. Certainly is deployment of new missiles that can reach deep into Pakistan and its tests that began the nuclear escalation in the region suggest that this may be true.
At the recent Asian security conference in Kazakhstan, India refused to talk with the Pakistanis about Kashmir. In 1948, India promised to hold a plebiscite on the status of Kashmir, but it has never been held. Recently, the BBC reported that Iraq and India have signed an agreement to boost trade ties, especially in the oil sector. This comes at a time when the United States may be preparing to fight Iraq again. Unfortunately, this is consistent with India's pattern of behavior.
India now tries to create the impression that it supports the United States, but its long record says otherwise. The May 18, 1999, issue of the Indian Express reported that George Fernandes, the defense minister, organized and led a meeting with the ambassadors from Red China, Cuba, Russia, Yugoslavia, Libya and Iraq to discuss setting up a security alliance ``to stop the U.S.''
India had a long-term friendship with the former Soviet Union and supported its invasion of Afghanistan, yet it has shown little support for the United States in its war on terrorism. On Jan. 2, Tony Blankley wrote in the Washington Times that India is sponsoring cross-border terrorism in the Pakistani province of Sindh. Journalist Tavleen Singh has reported in India's leading news magazine, India Today, that the Indian government created the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE), which the U.S. government has identified as a
``terrorist organization.''
The government also has taken quiet, implicit control of two Sikh organizations, Babbar Khalsa International and the International Sikh Youth Federation, which the United States also has designated as ``terrorist organizations.''
India's implicit support for terrorist activity is consistent with its internal behavior. It has a record of repressing minorities that undermines its proclamation of democratic values.
The violence this spring in Gujarat, in which over 5,000 people were killed, according to The Hindu newspaper, has also heightened tensions. Muslims and other minorities charge that the violence was stirred up by the government to diminish Muslims in India.
In addition, the pro-Fascist Rashtriya Swayamsewak Sangh
(RSS), the parent organization of the ruling BJP, has recently called for the majority-Muslim state of Kashmir to be divided into three states, despite India's 1948 pledge to the United Nations that it would let the people of Kashmir decide their fate in a plebiscite. The majority-Sikh state of Punjab, Khalistan, the predominantly Christian state of Nagaland, and several other states also have strong, active movements seeking their independence.
Human rights organizations report that more than 200,000 Christians in Nagaland have been killed by the Indian government. The book ``The Politics of Genocide,'' by Inderjit Singh Jaijee, cites figures from the Punjab State Magistracy showing that over 50,000 Sikhs have been murdered by the Indian government since it invaded the Sikhs' holiest shrine, the Golden Temple, in June 1984.
In addition, according to a report by the Movement Against State Repression (MASR), the Indian government admitted to holding 52,268 Sikhs as political prisoners under the repressive, expired TADA law. According to Amnesty International, tens of thousands of other minorities are also being held.
In February, a bipartisan coalition of 42 members of the U.S. House of Representatives, led by Reps. Dan Burton, R-Ind., and Edolphus Towns, D-N.Y., wrote to President Bush urging him to work for the release of these political prisoners.
In 1994, the U.S. State Department reported that the Indian government paid out over 41,000 cash bounties to police officers for killing members of the Sikh minority. In the same year, the Indian newspaper Hitavada reported that the Indian government paid the late governor of Punjab, Surendra Nath, the equivalent of $1.5 billion to foment terrorist activity in Punjab and Kashmir. According to human rights groups, Indian forces have killed over 80,000 Muslims in Kashmir and thousands of other minorities, including Dalit
``untouchables,'' Tamils and others.
MASR also co-sponsored with the Punjab Human Rights Organization an investigation of the March 2000 massacre of 35 Sikhs in Chithisinghpora. It concluded that Indian forces carried out the massacre. A separate investigation conducted by the International Human Rights Organization came to the same conclusion. Retired General Narinder Singh has said that
``Punjab is a police state.''
The book ``Soft Target,'' written by Canadian journalists Zuhair Kashmeri of the Toronto Globe and Mail and Brian McAndrew of the Toronto Star, shows that India blew up its own airliner in 1985, killing 329 people, apparently in order to blame Sikhs for the atrocity and create a pretext for more violence against them. The book shows that the Indian consul general in Toronto pulled his daughter off the flight shortly before it was due to depart. An auto dealer who was a friend of the consul general also canceled his reservation at the last minute. Surinder Singh, director of North American Affairs for the External Affairs office in New Delhi, also canceled his reservation on that flight.
The consul general also called to finger a suspect in the case before the public knew that the bombing had taken place. The book quotes an agent of the Canadian State investigative Service (CSIS) as saying, ``If you really want to clear the incidents quickly, take vans down to the Indian High Commission and the consulates in Toronto and Vancouver, load up everybody and take them down for questioning. We know it, and they know it, that they are involved.''
In recent months, India has been added to the State Department's ``watch list'' of countries that violate religious freedom. Some members of Congress have called for sanctions against India and for an end to American aid. Some have also endorsed self-determination for the peoples seeking freedom from India through a plebiscite on independence. While these events seem unlikely to occur anytime soon, the Indian government has held negotiations with the freedom fighters in Nagaland. Home Minister L.K. Advani recently admitted that if Kashmir achieves freedom (which now seems more likely than ever), it will cause India to break apart. Some experts have predicted that within a decade, neither India nor Pakistan will exist in their current form.
The Indian subcontinent will continue to be a region that bears close attention by American policymakers.
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