Speaking against the motion for condemnation of the the alleged involvement of some Indianentities and individuals as non-contractual beneficiaries of the United Nations'Oil-for-Food-Programme in Iraq, as reported in the Report of the United Nations'Independent Inquiry Committee (Volcker Committee).
Source: Verbatim uncorrected proceedings of the Rajya Sabha
Sir, Ithink Mr. Kapil Sibal has put up a very spirited defence of the Government'scase. But I would like to begin, Sir, by actually welcoming this discussionbecause I think it's after a long time that we have a discussion on matters ofgraft and corruption that are actually taking place in the House for the lastsix years. Somehow, I mean, unfortunately, we did not manage to get a properdiscussion organised and since this is taking place, I would like to complimentthe Government also for having announced an inquiry. We, as CPI (M), who wereone of the earliest of the political parties to have asked for a full-fledgedinquiry despite the fact that many of the issues on which Mr. Kapil Sibbal hasnow referred to, there are question marks that have arisen which I would alsowant to clarify. But we are very happy that the Commission of Inquiry has beenestablished and if there are any lapses which our learned colleagues from theOpposition have raised, I am sure they will take them into account and, I amsure, this inquiry will proceed and come up with its conclusions andinvestigations as soon as possible.
But, Sir, I would like to begin also with a certain shift in stand that hasoccurred. What was served yesterday, in the List of Business, with yourpermission, I would just like to read it out. That has obviously been changedtoday. I welcome that change. It is a good change. But it only says that thereis shift in sense. I mean the positions have been shifted. I hope they willactually shift for better because yesterday...(Interruptions)...
MR. CHAIRMAN: That is not the case...(Interruptions)...
I can continue, Sir. Since you have made the change, I am sure you willexplain it. Then, I am not going to make that an issue. But I would like todiscuss some of these issues in the larger context because, on the question ofcorruption, if there are people involved in corruption, if there is a primafacie case that can be proved, action should be taken.
We are happy to note that the Minister has given an assurance to the Housethat it will be proceeded upon to the full, and action would be taken, and thatis the assurance, which we believe, the Government is giving to the House, whichis welcome. But I think, it should also be seen in the larger context because,what we are discussing now, is the final report of the Independent InquiryCommittee. Mr. Kapil Sibal has quoted, and I have also got a copy of the interimreport that was submitted very strangely to the International Relations of theHouse of Representatives of the United States of America, where what is quoted,these names come in.
But, what Mr. Sibal has not really said was the newspaper from where thisinformation has been taken, that is, the ALMADA. ALMADA actually belongsto Mr. Ahmad Chellabi, who was the then Head of the Iraqi National Council, andtill mid 2004, was the Pentagon's Chief Advisor on Iraq, and Washington'scandidate for the Presidency. It is his newspaper, and that is where the listfirst appeared in which these names are written.
In the first list, Mr. Natwar Singh's name does not appear at all. There aretwo entities that have been mentioned, that is, Mr. Bhim Singh, which is calledBiham Singh or Bhim Singh, whatever it is, and the Indian National Congress, andlater, subsequently, these names are added, and in the final report, we see intable 3, which was quoted a number of times, on oil sales by non-contractualbeneficiaries, there are 4 individual entities listed in that list.
They are, the Congress Party, Shri Bhim Singh, Shri Natwar Singh and theReliance Petroleum Limited. Now, these are the 4 entities that are listed inyour table 3. In the other section, there are 129 Indian companies that arelisted, in which there is the State Trading Corporation, there is Barmer andLaurie, which is also a State-run corporation, and we would like the Governmentalso to give this assurance that all these companies will also be looked into,and it is not only confined to this... (Interruptions)....
SOME HON. MEMBER: What about Reliance?
No, no. I will leave it to the Finance Minister, and I am sure that he willtake this into account when he replies. But in the larger context, I wanted todraw the attention of the House to the fact that Mr. Kapil Sibal made a passingreference to Mr. Paul Volcker, who was the Chairman of the United States FederalReserves, and therefore, he was intimately associated with the pursuit ofinternational finance capital, which the Government of United States possesses.The other leading member, Mr. Richard Gladstone, a former White Judge from SouthAfrica, he was the prosecutor of the International Criminal Tribunal for FormerYugoslavia, a body set up to prosecute mainly the Serbian adversaries of NATO inthe Balkans. That is the background of Mr. Gladstone. The third one resigned. Heresigned because of the alleged manipulation of the records in order to protectthe United Nations Secretary-General. So, the reports in the international mediawent, and therefore, the third person resigned. But the text of report shouldnot blind us to the context which is equally important.
It would be recalled that the Secretary-General, Kofi Annan had, at one pointof time, told the BBC that the US action in Iraq was illegal. The sanctionsimposed by the United States and THE U.K. and the pliable U.N. Security Councilon Iraq were clearly illegal in terms of International Law. In InternationalLaw, there is a concept called "Jus Cogens", which is apre-emptory and the customary international law, which no treaty, and noSecurity Council decision can supersede, and in the case of Iraq, the principleof "Jus Cogens" was violated, and all of us know whatwas the result of that. A million children died, and in fact, at that point oftime, Madeleine Albright, the Secretary of State of the United States of Americahas gone on record to say that, this is worth the price. A million children losttheir lives. This is called the collateral damage. So many people were being putto immense hardships by what we consider, say, an illegal sanctions regimeimposed on Iraq, and in fact, my party has been part of the internationalsolidarity. We collected medicines for Iraqi students.
Yes, we violated, as Mr. Kapil Sibal said, not as a Government, but asindividuals. We violated the Resolution of the Security Council and we werefeeling that we had a right to do that and we had done that. But, at that pointof time, because of the international outcry, this Oil-for-Food Programme began.This is part of the international pressure by which the United States and the UNwere forced to start this programme in order to provide some avenues forhumanitarian assistance for the Iraqi people, which were actually beingsuppressed by these sanctions. Therefore, what we in this context think is thatwe in India, in this debate, have to concentrate on whether political influencewas exerted, any impropriety was committed and any domestic Indian law wasbroken. These are the three objectives that we will have to actually pursue.
In this context, we welcome the Commission of Inquiry and we also welcome thefact, which the Finance Minister had informed the other House yesterday, thatthe Special Envoy and the Director of Enforcement had, in fact, returned with alot of material, with a lot of data. They have done a good work in a short time,which should not have been possible without the groundwork done by our Embassyin New York. However, we are little concerned about some media commentsattributed to this team. In fact, why I say this is that Mr. Volcker has himselfsaid that he has not carried out any forensic examination of the documents,neither has he vouched that these documents are authentic. That is what you havesaid just now. But when the Special Envoy was asked, he said that thesedocuments were authentic. Now, the reason why.... (Interruptions)...
THE MINISTER OF FINANCE (SHRI P. CHIDAMBARAM): What he said was that this document had to be authenticated by our permanent Mission from the documents available with... (Interruptions)...
SHRI SITARAM YECHURI: Sir, we are not presuming that they are... (Interruptions)...
SHRI P. CHIDAMBARAM: This, I think, Yashwant Sinhaji knows. Our Embassy, our Mission has to authenticate any document. That is what he said. This is an authenticated document. This is not an authentic document.
I stand corrected and satisfied. I don't want a certificate of authenticityto be given to this document. But why I am trying to draw the attention to thisparticular statement is that we should see what has happened to many of thesepeople from other countries who were referred to in the Volcker CommitteeReport. If I can say, there are special sections in the Volcker Committee Reporton Russia and France. I just want to quote, with your permission, Sir, the Pressrelease of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Russian Federation because itis quite revealing. In fact, the Russian Foreign Minister, Mr. Lavrov, said andI quote:
"The need for a thorough examination of all the circumstances cited inthe Report regarding Russian participation in the Oil-for-Food Programme isprompted, in particular, by the fact that in a number of earlier cases theCommission gave us some rather questionable or downright fake documents. TheRussian side has repeatedly queried the Commission about the sources from whichsuch documents were obtained but has never received any answer."
The Russian Foreign Affairs Minister is on record.
Then, we know the famous Galloway case and all of us have gone through it. Itis very informative. He was accused of having received a huge amount of moneyfrom Saddam Hussein because he opposed the sanctions. Last year, The DailyTelegraph which published those accusations had not only to apologise but alsoto pay a hefty compensation to Mr. Gallowfor making wrong accusations. The pointthat I want to make, Mr. Chairman, Sir, is that we want the Government toinquire into these aspects as well, not merely to stop by saying that there isno evidence of any graft, but actually go into the larger context in which thisReport has come and also cover all other entities and Indian companies. We spokeof the FEMA. If they have avoided any tax, you please go into all that and doit.
The next point which I want to talk about is that the Oil-for-Food Programmehas been a programme which is under a lot of cloud and the Report itself hascreated a lot of controversy in many countries. In fact, it is understood that aMember of the Volcker Committee, as I mentioned earlier, has resigned because ofthe manipulation of evidence to exonerate Mr. Kofi Annan. Apart from that, nowthe US Congress is hearing this evidence and the Henry Hyde Report--theCommittee which you have referred to--is expected any time. In this background,all those who had criticised the US sanctions are also being targeted is a factwhich we can't ignore.
That is also the political context in which this report has come. And therole of the United States of America in bypassing that Special Committee 661, asMr. Kapil Sibal referred to it, and in creating the avenues for suchopportunities for graft and corruption to take place, to begin with. If thatbypassing was not done primarily by the USA, these opportunities for graft andcorruption might not have existed. But these are also the issues that requirethe attention and probe. We may not be competent ourselves to probe into thisaspect. But India, as a country, will definitely have to raise these issues atthe international body and insist that this also must be properly inquired into.
Finally, I want to raise a point which is of great concern to us here inIndia which is that we need to probe objectively and thoroughly any exercise ofundue political influence, any commission of impropriety, any violation ofdomestic Indian law. All this is needed to be done. There is no dispute on that.But at the same time, we have to be vigilant that we do not let this be used tofacilitate the dominance of US imperialism in India. I am saying that veryclearly and candidly because it would be a great pity if those who want to servethese interests in India try to use this probe -- I don't mean the Indian probethat we have ordered, but the Volcker probe as a whole --to strengthen the US interests in our country. These sections would do well tolook at recent reports in the international press from which it is clear thateven such a loyal junior partner of the USA like the UK is finding it difficultto obtain even routine military equipment from the USA except through acomplicated process because the US Congress is refusing to give blanket waivers.Only Canada gets it today.
The reason why I am raising this is -- it may sound a little digression --that we are in the midst of another big and important issue that is concerningour country and that is on the question of atomic cooperation with the USA.Therefore, I want to draw your attention that this should not be used to cloudthe other problems that we will face from US pressures like we have theassertion of the US Congress that it wants to make India first divide itscivilian and military programmes and also, then try and scuttle the thoriumprogramme, etc.
All these are issues in the background of which we must, in today's context,see this entire Volcker controversy. I would only want to submit before theHouse and before all of you that please proceed with this inquiry as soon aspossible. Please come out with the facts so that the nation is put at rest andalso keep the larger political implications of this in mind and understand theimplications of this and not be swayed by the questions of authenticity of thefindings of this report, conclusions of this report, as has been explained.
At the same time, the final issue that I want to refer to, as Mr. Jaitleysaid this morning, is the larger question of Indian politicians being fundedfrom abroad. Various other books were named and various other things have beenbrought out here. Sir, I have with me a document and a publication which iscalled the 'Foreign Exchange of Hate'. I would like to give it to you
The point I want to submit is that if you want to discuss it, I am preparedand we are prepared to discuss this entire question of foreign funding ofpoliticians and political processes. But that should be comprehensive. Here isthat entire thing. I would like to submit it to you for your perusal, if you sopermit, the entire documentation of how foreign money has come in for the spreadof hate and communal campaign in India. All that is here. Sir, I will give it toyou for your perusal and later on we can discuss it.
