DISARMAMENT-US: Clinton to Impose Sanctions Against India

By Jim Lobe Reprint | | Print |

Jim Lobe

WASHINGTON, May 12 1998 (IPS) - U.S. President Bill Clinton said Tuesday he would impose sanctions against India and called on New Delhi to halt all nuclear tests and sign the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty “now and without conditions.”

Speaking one day after India shocked the world by carrying out three underground nuclear tests, Clinton said he would be imposing the sanctions against the new nationalist government as required under Congressional legislation. This includes a requirement that the US representative on the boards of international financial institutions (IFIs), such as the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund (IMF), oppose loans to India.

Washington cannot veto such loans by itself but, as the major contributor to both agencies, the United States wields substantial influence.

India is the World Bank’s biggest borrower. Last year, it received 1.5 billion dollars in loans and credits from the Bank and its soft-loan affiliate, the International Development Association. The Bank’s total lending portfolio for India as of the end of June 1997 was 15.1 billion dollars.

Clinton also stressed that the nuclear blasts, preparations for which went undetected by US intelligence agencies, could have major geopolitical implications.

“This action by India not only threatens the stability of the region,” he said. “It directly challenges the firm international consensus to stop the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction.

“I call on India to announce that it will conduct no further tests and that it will sign the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty (CTBT) now and without conditions. I also urge India’s neighbours not to follow suit, not to follow down the path of a dangerous arms race.”

Washington is particularly worried that the detonations will spur a new arms race with Pakistan which last month tested a new, medium-range missile capable of reaching deep into India’s territory. Pakistan is also believed to have the capacity to detonate nuclear devices.

There also is concern here about how India’s action will be interpreted in Beijing, a major nuclear power which suspended its testing of nuclear weapons in 1996 just before the approval of the CTBT.

For years India has regarded China as its chief strategic threat. Earlier this month, India’s Defence Minister, George Fernandes, called China “potential threat No. 1.” He warned that the Indian people would have to make “real economic sacrifices,” apparently to counter the threat posed by China.

“This is a major geopolitical event,” noted one senior State Department official. “The implications could be enormous.” He noted that China itself had not yet responded officially to the test.

The impact on US-Indian relations alone could be enormous. Clinton, who had been planning to visit India as part of a swing through South Asia later this year, may now be forced to cancel his trip, according to White House spokesman Mike McCurry. He said US Ambassador Richard Celeste, who was en route to Delhi when the detonations occurred, had been ordered home to Washington for urgent consultations.

Under the Nuclear Proliferation Prevent Act of 1994, the president is required to impose sanctions within 30 days against any country which is a non-nuclear weapon state and either receives a “nuclear explosive device or detonates a nuclear explosive device.”

Clinton said Tuesday that he intended “to implement them fully.”

Sanctions include terminating all but humanitarian or food aid; banning arms sales and military financing; denying all bilateral financial or loan credits; and opposing loans in the IFIs. They also include banning the export of certain high-technology items which could be used for military or nuclear purposes. That ban will likely mean that US-made supercomputers, the world’s fastest and most sophisticated, would become unavailable to India.

Washington wants its industrialised allies to follow suit in order to exert the greatest possible pressure on the coalition government led by the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), according to officials here who expressed satisfaction with the announcement by Japan earlier Tueday that it, too, was reviewing its policy towards the South Asian giant.

Clinton’s strong statements mark a major shift in U.S. rhetoric. Washington has fretted in the past about India’s nuclear ambitions and its arms race with Pakistan but the focus of the last several years has been on India as a ” big emerging market.”

As previous governments have liberalised India’s economy, Washington has been quick to take advantage. Since 1990, two-way trade has grown by more than 50 percent, and investment skyrocketed. U.S. and private-sector officials have identified consumer goods and infrastructure projects, particularly in energy and telecommunications as particularly promising.

At the same time, U.S. military contractors have seen India as a potential billion-dollar market. While Delhi historically bought mainly from Soviet bloc countries, it has been looking increasingly to the United States as a potential source of major hi-tech and high-priced weaponry.

All of that now appears at risk, according to officials. “This is our nightmare scenario,” said the senior official. “It throw just about everything into question.”

The administration, which long has complained about Congressional restraints on its South Asia policy, also is likely to come under heavy pressure from Capitol Hill to toughen US policy across-the-board. Sen. Sam Brownback, who chairs the subcommittee on South Asian affairs and has called a hearing for Wednesday, called the detonations an “enormous setback.”

India’s nuclear tests followed a visit to the region earlier this month by U.N. Ambassador Bill Richardson and Thomas Pickering, the number three at the State Department, who cautioned both Pakistan and India against stepping up the arms race in the wake of Islamabad’s test of its new Ghauri missile.

Pakistan suggested that the test was related to the pledge by the new Indian government of Prime Minsiter Atal Bihari Vajpayee that it would “re-evaluate (the country’s) nuclear policy and exercise the option to induct nuclear weapons” into its arsenal.