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From: Sukla Sen <suklasen@yahoo.com> Date: Mon Aug 16, 2004 3:59pm Subject: America Presuurises India and Japan http://www.telegraphindia.com/1040815/asp/nation/story_3628163.asp?headline=US~rips~Delhi~seat~hope~+]~--> | Sunday, August 15, 2004 | US rips Delhi seat hope K.P. NAYAR Powell in Washington on Saturday. (Reuters) Washington, Aug. 14: Just over a month before Prime Minister Manmohan Singh holds his first meeting with US President George W. Bush in New York, the Americans have dealt a severe blow to India??™s cherished hopes of a permanent seat in the UN Security Council. US secretary of state Colin Powell made it clear this week that Washington??™s support for Security Council membership can only come with the price of following its dictates. At a specially arranged meeting with Japanese correspondents here on Thursday, Powell said Japan must consider revising its pacifist constitution if it wants a permanent seat in the UN Security Council. Japan currently has troops serving with the Americans in Iraq and is engaged in peace-keeping elsewhere, but what Powell clearly wants is for Tokyo to be its cat??™s paw as the US military finds itself stretched and its overseas operations increasingly controversial at home. The centerpiece of Japan??™s pacifist constitution is its Article 9, which stipulates that ???the Japanese people forever renounce war as a sovereign right of the nation and the threat or use of force as means of settling international disputes???. Powell told Japanese reporters that ???if Japan is going to play a full role on the world stage and become a full active participating member of the Security Council and have the kinds of obligations that it would pick up as a member of the Security Council, then Article 9 would have to be (re)examined in that light???. Powell??™s comments immediately drew the ire of Japan??™s Opposition parties. Tadayoshi Ichida, head of the secretariat of Japan??™s Communist Party, said: ???You can??™t virtually urge another country to change its constitution to enable the exercise of armed might.??? Mizuho Fukushima, leader of Japan??™s Social Democratic Party, condemned Powell??™s remarks. ???Under its tactics, the US government is pushing to change Article 9 for the worse. I want to strongly protest the remark.??? Japan??™s Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi is in favour of a greater global military role for Japan. The irony is that even as Tokyo was seeking deals with Washington to revive Japanese militarism and advance its case for a Security Council seat, its foreign minister, Yoriko Kawaguchi, was in New Delhi urging India to dismantle its nuclear and missile programmes, at the same time professing support for India??™s case for permanent membership of the Security Council. It is clear that Powell??™s was no off-the-cuff remark. Last month, US deputy secretary of state Richard Armitage made it clear to a group of Japanese legislators that Japan could not hope to become a permanent member of the Security Council if it did not embrace a greater military role. Powell said on Thursday: ???We certainly have been supportive of Japan??™s interest in becoming a member of this major body within the UN, the Security Council.??? Unlike in the case of Japan, the Americans have never expressly stated their support for India??™s permanent seat in the Security Council. They have also been silent on German membership: it is assumed that the Bush administration does not want Berlin in the council after Germany??™s role as a non-permanent member of the council in the run-up to the war in Iraq. Successive US administrations have been ambivalent about India??™s demand for permanent membership of the council, nuancing their statements to imply support without ever explicitly saying so. The Armitage and Powell statements are a clear signal that India, with its independent foreign policy, cannot hope for US support in its bid for a greater UN role. |
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