Congressional Statements

Pallone applauds removal of anti-India provision from Foreign Operations Bill

News Release
October 5, 1999

Rep. Frank Pallone, Jr., D-NJ, today expressed his strong support for the removal of language from the fiscal year 2000 Foreign Operations Appropriations bill that would have stigmatized India in the provision of foreign assistance.

Pallone, who had strongly lobbied the Foreign Operations Conferees to drop the anti-India language, praised the work of Rep. Nancy Pelosi, D-CA, the Ranking Democrat on the Foreign Operations Subcommittee.

During today's debate in the House of Representatives on the Foreign Operations bill, Pallone cited the importance of not adopting a provision in the Senate version of the legislation singling out India as one of a handful of nations that would have to receive special Congressional approval before the allocation of foreign aid. The House version of the legislation did not include India on the list of nations requiring special approval, and the Members of the House-Senate Conference Committee ultimately sided with the House language. The Conference Report was expected to come to a vote this evening.

Section 521 of the Senate bill imposed special notification requirements for countries such as Colombia, Haiti, Liberia, Pakistan, Serbia, Sudan, and the Democratic Republic of Congo. It also included India in this list. This procedure is used to closely monitor certain countries only if there is concern on the part of the Committee on Appropriations.

"I want to commend the Conference Committee for going along with the House appropriators in recognizing that there is no reason to include India along with these other countries," Pallone said today.

"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. It would have been 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 relatively little aid to India. But the point is that India should not be painted as the same sort of pariah as these other countries.

"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 showed anything, it was that India acted responsibly, whereas Pakistan instigated a military incursion that could have led to a wider war. We must not reward Pakistan by suggesting some kind of equivalence between the actions of India and Pakistan in the recent conflict," Pallone concluded.