POLITICS: India’s Foreign Minister Skids on ‘Oil-for-Food’ Scam

By Ranjit Devraj Reprint | | Print |

Ranjit Devraj

NEW DELHI , Nov 7 2005 (IPS) - Indian External Affairs Minister Natwar Singh, known for his staunch opposition to the invasion of Iraq, was compelled to stand down Monday for allegedly benefiting illegally from the United Nations’ ‘oil-for-food’ scheme.

Natwar Singh, one of the topmost members of Prime Minister Manmohan Singh’s cabinet, will remain a minister without portfolio and be reinstated if a judicial commission headed by former chief justice RS Pathak clears him of involvement in the scam.

A separate probe ordered on Sunday will be conducted by former diplomat Virendra Dayal, who served as UN under-secretary general during the tenure of former secretary-general Boutros Boutros Ghali.

The allegation that Singh, among many other individuals and groups, received oil at discounted prices after commissions were paid to former Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein were made in an investigation led by Paul Volcker, former chairman of the U.S. Federal Reserve.

The United Nations set up the oil-for-food programme so the Hussein government could sell oil to raise money to purchase essential goods required by the country’s people during the world community’s economic boycott of Iraq that followed Baghdad’s invasion of Kuwait.

Through 10 days of high political drama since Volcker’s report was released, Natwar Singh has denied any wrongdoing and insisted he would not resign despite constant attacks by the right-wing, opposition Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP). His Congress party was also named a beneficiary of irregularities in the UN programme.

”He (Natwar Singh) should not have been allowed to remain in the cabinet. We are going to continue with the agitation inside and outside parliament…Natwar Singh is an albatross around the neck of this government,” BJP Spokesman Arun Jaitley told journalists this week.

Earlier, as the controversy broke, Singh said he was being targeted by Volcker for opposing the crippling U.S.-led sanctions against Iraq, opposing the subsequent U.S.-led attack and also politically blocking any move to send Indian troops to Iraq in 2003 as planned by the then BJP-led government.

”If any country (the U.S.) launches a war against another country (Iraq) and calls it humanitarian intervention, it’s unacceptable …Kofi Annan said the war against Iraq is illegal so they got after him,” Natwar Singh told the interviewer in his characteristically blunt manner.

Singh, who is known for a blatantly anti-US approach that goes back to his days as a career diplomat under Indira Gandhi (who signed a military pact with the former Soviet Union) on the weekend told an interviewer he thought that ”one of the tragedies of the 20th century was the disintegration of the Soviet Union”.

An editorial in the influential ‘Indian Express’ on Tuesday said because of such pro-Soviet statements, Natwar Singh could not now ”possibly go to the US or the United Nations without inviting ridicule”.

Volcker’s allegations against the politician are based on documents seized by invading U.S. troops that allegedly say he was personally allotted contracts by the Saddam Hussein regime for two million barrels of oil while the Congress party was allocated four million barrels.

Surcharges (or kickbacks to the Saddam regime) were allegedly paid by Hamdan Export, a firm owned by Andaleeb Sehgal, a close family friend of Natwar Singh.

The Volcker report called both Natwar Singh and the Congress party as ‘non-contractual beneficiaries’.

While the Congress party has been accused of making a scapegoat out of Natwar Singh, it has defended against itself by saying the report does not mention who exactly paid kickbacks or commissions on its behalf.

But top political commentators like Prem Shankar Jha say the focus on Natwar Singh is unfair. ”The same rule must apply equally to both Natwar Singh and to the Congress party.”

Jha said the party and the government itself should have ignored the Volcker report and that by responding to it had ”retrospectively legitimised the invasion of Iraq by the U.S.”

Officially, India condemned the invasion of Iraq through a unanimous Parliamentary resolution in March 2003 and refused to entertain requests from Washington to participate militarily in the ”illegitimate war”.

However, it was under Natwar Singh’s stewardship of the foreign ministry that the government successfully negotiated in July a deal with Washington that would allow it to access civilian nuclear technology and material while staying out of the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT).

Not surprisingly, Natwar Singh’s strongest supporters have been India’s powerful communist parties, which provide crucial outside support to the minority Manmohan Singh government and have all along opposed the invasion of Iraq.

Prakash Karat, general secretary of the Communist Party of India – Marxist (CPI-M) has been critical of the “pro-US tilt” of the Manmohan Singh government and has objected to India signing military deals with Washington.

Karat and the CPI-M have, in particular, been critical of India voting with a western-sponsored resolution against Iran at the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) meeting in Vienna late in September to consider referring Iran to the UN Security Council for violating obligations as a signatory to the NPT regime.

In one of his last public statements as external affairs minister, Natwar Singh declared that India could vote with Iran if the West adopted too harsh an attitude towards Tehran at the next board meeting of the IAEA, due Nov. 24, and could also oppose a referral of Iran’s case to the UNSC.