People's Democracy

Following are excerpts from the speech delivered by CPI(M) Polit Bureau member and MP, Sitaram Yechury in Rajya Sabha on November 29 while participating in the discussion on the Volcker Committee Report.

I would like to begin, by actually welcoming this discussion because I think it is after a long time that we are having a discussion in the House on matters of graft and corruption, in fact it is taking place after six years. We, as CPI(M), were one of the earliest among the political parties to have asked for a fullfledged inquiry. We are very happy that the commission of inquiry has been established.

I would like to discuss some of these issues in the larger context because, on the question of corruption, if there are people involved in corruption, if there is a prima facie case that can be proved, action should be taken. We are happy to note that the minister has given an assurance to the House that it will be proceeded upon to the full, and action would be taken.

I have also got a copy of the interim report that was submitted very strangely to the International Relations Committee of the House of Representatives of the United States of America, where these names come in. But what Kapil Sibal has not really noted was the newspaper from where this information has been taken. It is the Almada , which actually belongs to Ahmad Chalabi, who was the then head of the Iraqi National council, and till mid 2004, was the Pentagon’s chief advisor on Iraq, and Washington’s candidate for the presidency in Iraq. It is his newspaper, and that is where the list first appeared containing these names. In the first list, Natwar Singh’s name does not appear at all. There are two entities that have been mentioned, that is, Bhim Singh and the Indian National Congress. It is only later that these names are added in the final report. We see in table 3, which was quoted a number of times, on oil sales by non-contractual beneficiaries, there are four individual entities listed in that list. They are, the Congress Party, Bhim Singh, Natwar Singh and the Reliance Petroleum Limited. In the other section, there are 129 Indian companies that are listed, in which there is the State Trading Corporation, there is Balmer and Lawrie, which is also a State-run corporation, and we would like the government also to give this assurance that all these companies will also be looked into.

I will leave it to the finance minister, and I am sure that he will take this into account when he replies. But in the larger context, I wanted to draw the attention of the House to the fact that Kapil Sibal made a passing reference to Paul Volcker, who was the chairman of the United States Federal Reserve, and therefore, he was intimately associated with the pursuit of international finance capital, which the government of United States pursues. The other leading member, Richard Gladstone, a former white judge from South Africa, he was the prosecutor of the International Criminal Tribunal for former Yugoslavia, a body set up to prosecute mainly the Serbian adversaries of NATO in the Balkans. That is the background of Gladstone. The third one resigned. He resigned because of the alleged manipulation of the records in order to protect the United Nations Secretary-General. Such were the reports in the international media and therefore, the third person resigned. But the text of report should not blind us to the context which is equally important. It would be recalled that the Secretary-General, Kofi Annan had, at one point of time, told the BBC that US action in Iraq was "illegal".  The sanctions imposed by the United States and UK and a pliable UN Security Council on Iraq were clearly illegal in terms of international law. In International Law, there is a concept called "Jus Cogens", which is a pre-emptory and the customary international law, which no treaty, and no Security Council decision can supersede, and in the case of Iraq, the principle of "Jus Cogens" was violated, and all of us know what was the result of that. A million children died, and in fact, at that point of time, Madeleine Albright, the secretary of State of the United States of America has gone on record to say that, this is "worth the price". A million children lost their lives. This is called collateral damage. So many people were being put to immense hardships by what we consider an illegal sanctions regime imposed on Iraq, and in fact, my Party has been part of the international solidarity. We collected medicines for Iraqi students.

We violated the Resolution of the Security Council by sending material, but we were feeling that we had a right to do that and we had done that. But, at that point of 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 UN were forced to start this programme in order to provide some avenues for humanitarian assistance for the Iraqi people, who were actually being suppressed by these sanctions. Therefore, what we in this context think is that we in India, in this debate, have to concentrate on whether political influence was exerted, any impropriety was committed and any domestic Indian law was broken. 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 the fact, which the finance minister had informed the other House yesterday, that the Special envoy and the Director of Enforcement had, in fact, returned with a lot of material, with a lot of data. They have done good work in a short time, which should not have been possible without the groundwork done by our Permanent Mission in New York. However, we are little concerned about some media comment attributed to this team. In fact, why I say this is that Volcker has himself said 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 have said just now. But when the Special Envoy was asked, he said that these documents were authentic.

I am trying to draw the attention to this particular statement is that we should see what has happened to many of these people from other countries who were referred to in the Volcker Committee Report. There are special sections in the Volcker Committee Report on Russia and France. I just want to quote, the press release of the ministry of foreign affairs of the Russian Federation because it is quite revealing. In fact, the Russian foreign minister, Lavrov, said and I quote:

"The need for a thorough examination of all the circumstances cited in the Report regarding Russian participation in the Oil-for-food programme is prompted, in particular, by the fact that in a number of earlier cases the Commission gave us some rather questionable or downright fake documents. The Russian side has repeatedly queried the Commission about the sources from which such documents were obtained but has never received any answer."

We know the famous Galloway case and all of us have gone through it. It is very informative. He was accused of having received a huge amount of money from Saddam Hussein because he opposed the sanctions. Last year, The Daily Telegraph which published those accusations had not only to apologise but also to pay a hefty compensation to Galloway for making wrong accusations. The point that I want to make, is that we want the government to inquire into these aspects as well, not merely to stop by saying that there is no evidence of any graft, but actually go into the larger context in which this Report has come and also cover all other entities and Indian companies. We spoke of the FEMA. If they have avoided any tax, you please go into all that.

There is also the political context in which this report has come. And the role of the United States of America in bypassing that Special Committee 661, and in creating the avenues for such opportunities for graft and corruption to take place, to begin with. If that bypassing was not done primarily by the USA, these opportunities for graft and corruption might not have existed. But these are also the issues that require attention and probe. We may not be competent ourselves to probe into this aspect. But India, as a country, will definitely have to raise these issues at the 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 in India which is that we need to probe objectively and thoroughly any exercise of undue political influence, any commission of impropriety, any violation of domestic 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 to facilitate the dominance of US imperialism in India. I am saying that very clearly and candidly because it would be a great pity if those who want to serve these interests in India try to use this probe — I don’t mean the Indian probe that we have ordered, but the Volcker probe as a whole — use this Volcker probe to strengthen the US interests in our country. These sections would do well to look at recent reports in the international press from which it is clear that even such a loyal junior partner of the USA like the UK is finding it difficult to obtain even routine military equipment from the USA except through a complicated 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 like a digression — that we are in the midst of another big and important issue that is concerning our country, the question of atomic cooperation with the USA. Therefore, I want to draw your attention that this should not be used to cloud the other problems that we will face from US pressures, like we have the assertion of the US Congress that it wants to make India first divide its civilian and military programmes and also, then try and scuttle the thorium programme, etc. All these are issues in the background of which we must, in today’s context, see this entire Volcker controversy.

At the same time, the final issue that I want to refer to, is the larger question of Indian politicians being funded from abroad. Various other books are named and various other things have been brought out here. I have with me a document and a publication which is called the ‘Foreign Funding 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 prepared and we are prepared to discuss this entire question of foreign funding of politicians and political processes. But that should be comprehensive. Here is that entire thing. I would like to submit it to you for your perusal, if you so permit, the entire documentation of how foreign money has come in for the spread of hate and communal campaign in India. All that is here.