Congressional Statements

Pallone urges rejection of mediator for Kashmir; fights against anti-India foreign ops provision

Warns of dangers of Pakistani M-11 acquisition

Press Release
September 22, 1999

Rep. Frank Pallone, Jr., D-NJ, spoke out on three key issues in U.S.-India relations, in a speech in the House of Representatives on Tuesday, Sept. 21, 1999.

First, Pallone urged his Congressional colleagues not to support efforts to establish a U.S. or international mediation role in the Kashmir conflict.

Also, on the eve of a scheduled House-Senate Conference on the fiscal year 2000 Foreign Operations Appropriations bill, Pallone called for the removal of a provision in the Senate version of the bill singling out India as one of a handful of nations that would have to receive Congressional approval before the allocation of foreign aid.

Finally, Pallone cited the recent U.S. intelligence report of Pakistani receipt of M-11 ballistic missiles from China as a strong reason for not repealing the Pressler Amendment. A provision to repeal Pressler is in the Senate version of the Defense Appropriations bill - also set to go to Conference this week. Pallone has written to the House and Senate conferees urging that they not adopt the Pressler repeal, but instead stick to lifting the Glenn Amendment sanctions imposed on India last year after the nuclear tests.

Below is Pallone's statement, as it appeared in the Congressional Record:

Mr. Speaker, I would like now to turn some of the issues relative to India-U.S. relations, and there are basically three topics that I would like to mention which I think are relevant, particularly in light of some of the appropriations bills that are now going to conference and which will be coming to the floor within the next week or two.

First, I did want to start out by saying with regard to India-U.S. Relations that there has been, I noticed in the last week or two, since we came back from the August break, an effort by Pakistan once again to internationalize the Kashmir conflict by trying to bring in the United States as a mediator. I think many of us know, my colleagues know, that India maintains that the Kashmir conflict should be addressed on a bilateral basis with Pakistan under established frameworks agreed to by both countries.

Now, thus far, the Clinton administration has wisely resisted Pakistani attempts to internationalize the Kashmir conflict; and certainly that was the case after the last conflict where President Clinton specifically said that he was not going to act as a mediator and that the two nations basically had to sit down together and work out their differences. However, I understand that some of my colleagues, Democrats and Republicans, in the House are circulating letters urging that the administration break with this long-standing precedent and intervene in this bilateral dispute in Pakistan.

I think such a development would not contribute to peace and stability in South Asia. Rather than seeking this what I consider reckless change of policy, it is important for Members of Congress to encourage the administration to maintain its current prudent approach.

I believe President Clinton's July 4 meeting with Prime Minister Sharif of Pakistan succeeded in bringing about a Pakistani withdrawal of troops from India's side of the line of control. I welcome that. There is absolutely no question that President Clinton played a major role in the ultimate withdrawal, if you will, of Pakistan back to the line of control, so now we have relative peace in Kashmir.

But, unfortunately, Pakistan is still trying to drag the United States into this conflict as an international mediator. This is really nothing more than a strategic ploy to enhance Pakistan's position in the conflict.

India has made it clear that it does not favor third party mediation. Pakistan has earned its recent international isolation, given its destabilizing actions in Kashmir. Pakistan must not be rewarded with gains at the negotiating table in light of its costly gambit in Kashmir, a policy that has militarily failed and has strategically failed. They should not be given some propaganda advantage by having this Congress suggest that the United States should intervene.

Mr. Speaker, as part of this special order I include for the Record the text of a letter I sent to President Clinton back in July before the break, where I urged him to resist Pakistan's efforts to bring the United States into its bilateral conflict with India. I think this letter was appropriate in July, and it is still appropriate today.

The second issue I want to mention relative to India relates to the foreign operations appropriations bill, on which I believe tomorrow the House and Senate conferees will meet to hammer out the differences between the two bills in the two Houses with regard to the Foreign Operations Appropriations Act.

What I am asking is that the conferees not adopt a Senate provision which could affect India. Section 521 of the Senate fiscal year 2000 foreign operations bill reads or talks about special notification requirements.

It says in section 521 that, `None of the funds appropriated in this Act shall be obligated or intended for Colombia, India, Haiti, Liberia, Pakistan, Serbia, Sudan, or the Democratic Republic of Congo, except as provided through the regular notification procedures of the Committee on Appropriations.'

What this section does, what this Senate provision will do, is to require the administration to notify the House and Senate appropriations committees whenever the fiscal year 2000 foreign aid is allocated to India. The Committee on Appropriations, as required by law, would have 15 days to approve or disapprove the allocation.

But I would point out to my colleagues, Mr. Speaker, that this procedure is not imposed on all countries that receive U.S. foreign aid. It is used to closely monitor countries that receive U.S. Foreign aid only if there is concern on the part of the Committee on Appropriations.

The House bill, the House Foreign Operations Act, contains a similar provision, but it does not include India as one of the countries that come under this provision. I want to commend the House appropriators for recognizing that there is no reason to include India along with these other countries that are mentioned.

I say that and I urge the conferees not to adopt the Senate language and to adhere to the House language because India is a democracy. India is a market economy. India has become increasingly close to the United States. It has a huge market for U.S. goods and trade.

I think it would be a mistake to label India as a pariah in this fashion for any limited U.S. assistance that the State Department or the USAID may try to provide to India through humanitarian or development assistance. We provide very little aid to India. It is relatively insignificant. But the point is that India should not be painted as the sort of pariah these other countries that require this notification are.

I know some of my colleagues will say, well, Pakistan is included as one of these nations. But the fact that Pakistan is included on this list for prior notification does not mean that India should be included. If the recent conflict in Kashmir that I just pointed out showed anything, it was that India acted responsibly, whereas Pakistan instigated a military incursion that could have led to a wider war. Let us not reward, if you will, Pakistan by saying that India should be included on this notification list when there is absolutely no reason to do that.

In a similar vein, and lastly, with regard to U.S.-India relations this evening, Mr. Speaker, I wanted to mention the fiscal year 2000 defense appropriations bill, which is also in conference at this time.

There is a provision in the Senate bill that would suspend for 5 years certain sanctions against India and Pakistan. I support this provision wholeheartedly. There is no reason for us to continue these sanctions against both nations because the only country that is suffering for it is the United States, because of limitations on our exports and our trade and our business opportunities in India and Pakistan.

I want to say that while I strongly support the end of the sanctions and the suspension of the Glenn amendment sanctions against these two South Asian nations, there is another critical provision in the Senate language that would, in my opinion, be a grave mistake. That is the Senate language to repeal the Pressler amendment, which bans U.S. Assistance to Pakistan.

I have already spoken out on the floor previously and explained the reasons why we should not repeal the Pressler amendment.

Again, a lot of this goes back to what has been happening the last few months, the Kashmir conflict; the fact that Pakistan continues a policy of nuclear proliferation, which is not what India is doing.

We were reminded about why the Pressler amendment was needed because of the way that Pakistan carried out this war in Kashmir over the summer and instigated the war, many times with regular Pakistan army troops.

Pakistan has also repeatedly been implicated, along with China, Iran, and North Korea, in the proliferation of nuclear weapons and missile technology. India's nuclear program, by contrast, is an indigenous program, and India has not been involved in sharing in technology with unstable regimes.

I want to mention one more thing tonight that is new in this regard. That is that this month, in September, the CIA issued its annual national intelligence estimate on missile threats reported. In this annual report, they reported that Pakistan has obtained M-11 short-range missiles from China and medium-range missiles from North Korea. The CIA's assessment is that both missiles may have a nuclear role, and there have been calls in Congress for new sanctions to be imposed on China in light of these latest revelations, a step that I would certainly be prepared to support.

But besides imposing sanctions on countries that transfer this type of technology, like China, I believe we should also hold the countries who receive these weapons systems accountable. We certainly should not reward countries like Pakistan by lifting the existing sanctions on military transfers in light of the information that has recently come to light in this CIA report.

So I would once again say, Mr. Speaker, that this is yet another reason why we should not support repeal of the Pressler amendment. I would say again that I hope that the conferees, and I would urge the conferees to not repeal the Pressler amendment, even as I support the idea of eliminating the Glenn amendment sanctions against both India and Pakistan.