Left to oppose Clinton visit

By Our Special Correspondent

NEW DELHI, FEB.7. The Left parties would organise demonstrations during the U.S. President Mr. Bill Clinton's visit here next month to protest his Government's policies towards India. They are also likely to give him a memorandum listing the areas where they think the U.S. is pressuring India to fall in line with its own positions on issues like the CTBT and WTO-related matters.

The initiative is being taken by the CPI(M) and the CPI, and in the coming weeks they plan to coordinate with other Left parties to build what they expect to be a ``massive'' campaign of mass mobilisation. The protest, it is stated, would also focus on the Vajpayee Government's ``capitulation'' to the U.S. on key issues affecting the country's sovereignty.

The CPI(M) politburo member, Mr. Sitaram Yechury, said that the visit would formalise the Vajpayee Government's ``subservience'' to the Clinton administration. Mr. Clinton's visit, he pointed out, was coming at a time when the U.S. pressures on India were at a peak. Most of the sanctions it had imposed after the Pokhran nuclear tests were still in force with nearly 150 Indian institutions continuing to be barred from any contact with U.S. agencies.

Mr. Yechury called the Vajpayee Government's attitude ``servile'' saying that it had made no attempt to fight the sanctions or other ``arbitrary'' U.S. actions. The Government had shown itself to be particularly ``vulnerable'' in the economic sphere, and the latest example was the decision to lift quantitative restrictions on imports after the Seattle conference even though the WTO deadline was still three years away.

The Vajpayee Government, Mr. Yechury said, was bending backwards to appease the Clinton administration and was tailoring its entire agenda to Washington's demands. The people, he contended, would ``not tolerate'' this and the CPI(M) along with other Left parties would help them convey the message to Mr. Clinton.

The CPI charged the Government with ``kow-towing'' to the dictates of the U.S. administration and said that the second generation of economic reforms were a ``phased surrender'' of the country's economic sovereignty. ``The Cabinet decision on foreign direct investment has come along with the news that the U.S. President `agreed' to `grace' New Delhi with his five-day presence in March. The mandarins in the South Block are happy that the Vajpayee Government is creating favourable condition for the `royal' visit by taking such economic measures which may please the President,'' the party has said in an editorial in its official weekly New Age.

The CPI national secretary, Mr. D. Raja, said that his party was not opposed to Mr. Clinton as a person but as the head of a Government whose policies were against India's national interests he was not welcome.

Send this article to Friends by E-Mail

Section  : National
Previous : Allies have not objected to Gujarat order: Advani
Next     : Direct Haj flight from Gujarat launched