Of Spies And Lies

PUBLICLY, the US State Department appears to be unaffected. Fact is, it is fuming. The latest Indo-American spat began with the expulsion of two Indian diplomats from the US in retaliation to New Delhi's march orders to the CIA deputy station director. Observers believe it could dampen bilateral ties and cast a shadow on the coming visit to Washington of Indian External Affairs Minister Inder Kumar Gujral.

On February 10, the Indian Charge d'Affaires Shiv Mukherjee was summoned to the State Department and informed that the US wanted two Indian officials withdrawn for activities "incompatible with their consular status". The two in question were junior officials at the San Francisco and Chicago consulates whose activities had reportedly been quite innocuous. Interestingly, the senior Research and Analysis Wing (RAW) official based in Washington—whose posting is due to end soon—was not asked to leave.

Although the Indian Embassy declined comment, Administration sources con-firmed that the US decision followed the expulsion of the CIA man from New Delhi because of "unauthorised" links with Rattan Sehgal, who was additional director in the Intelligence Bureau, looking after counter-intelligence. On February 18, State Department spokesperson Glyn Davies downplayed the significance of what had happened. It "was a one-time incident. It's now over, and we'd like to move on from here." Refusing to characterise the tit-for-tat expulsions as a "diplomatic war", he added, "we certainly wouldn't like to see it escalate. We don't believe it will. Our understanding is that New Delhi shares our wish to move on from here and put this behind us, so that's what we're going to do."바카라 웹사이트바카라 웹사이트

But an Administration insider characterised the expulsion of the US diplomat from Delhi as "completely unnecessary and avoidable" and said the US "had been caught in a fight between Indian government agencies—the Home Ministry, the Prime Minister's Office, and the Ministry of External Affairs (MEA)". New Delhi should have heeded Ambassador Frank Wisner's advice to defuse the situation and not make an international incident out of it, he added.

"The US becomes a target in what amounts to internal feuding between Indian agencies—it takes us back to the old days when Indira Gandhi saw 'a hidden hand' behind everything," said Dennis Kux, a former State Department official and an expert on South Asian affairs. Kux added that the American official who was expelled from Delhi was a declared CIA operative who was there to liaise and do his job. He hadn't been caught spying and it was therefore "sad" that the Indian Government had decided it was "worthwhile ticking off the US ...this is not very heartening. It suggests that there is still a tendency to think that the way you score points is to make the

US the target." He admitted that the official American reaction was also "discouraging in terms of relationship-building." Another Administration source agreed that the incident appeared to be the "result of one-upmanship" between various Indian agencies, playing on the "popular Indian paranoia of the CIA bogey. " The source also speculated that the cooperation between US and Indian intelligence agencies on various issues—such as narcotics trafficking, arms smuggling and terrorist activities—might have been jeopardised by the "Indian overreaction".

One senior source in the MEA brushed off the expulsion of the diplomats with a casual "these things happen", while Pran Chopra from the Centre for Policy Research said the "proforma retaliation is established practice". Although both the US and India appear determined to put the matter behind them, it is possible that there might be an interruption in invaluable intelligence exchange.

What is not widely known is that Washington and New Delhi have worked together in recent years to uncover terrorist activities by Sikh separatist groups in the US. According to a South Asian reporter, this cooperation dates back to the mid-'80s when the FBI uncovered Sikh terrorist plots against former prime minister Rajiv Gandhi during a visit to the US. In fact, much of this US-based Sikh separatist enthusiasm died down because of바카라 웹사이트 constant FBI surveillance. Recently, a Sikh separatist from Minneapolis was also extradited to India.

What hasn't made the headlines is the much quieter cooperation between the agencies, especially with regard to sharing information on the hostages taken by the Al Faran group in Kashmir. Officials from RAW have attended anti-terrorism seminars in Washington. Then, the FBI and the Drug Enforcement Agency benefited from assistance given by Indian intelligence sources monitoring drug pedlars from Afghanistan and Pakistan.

But India's refusal to sign the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty is still a "cloud over the relationship," says Chopra, although he believes that both the US and India are becoming less strident about their stands on the issue. But India has refuted the accusation from some quarters that it may have mishandled the spy case. "That is not our feeling. This is a subjective issue, and it is not our perception of the situation," says an MEA source. Indian Home Minister Indrajit Gupta has taken a serious view of the incident and promises to investigate.바카라 웹사이트

Another US Administration source said he doubted that the spy incident could mean a postponement of Gujral's visit to the US. He pointed out that the Indian Charge d'Affaires had been given the expulsion order by a middle-level officer at the State Department and not summoned by a senior official like Deputy Secretary of State Strobe Talbott or Assistant Secretary of State Robin Raphel. This meant that the US reaction was to be taken in a "symbolic" rather than a "literal" way. He was therefore "optimistic" about future ties.

However, the official warned that Gujral should expect that Secretary of State Madeleine Albright would have no qualms about casting diplomatic niceties aside and speaking her mind about issues where there is discord. "Her style is to call a spade a spade, to raise areas of contention and disagreement herself, and then to expound the American position in frank, even blunt, terms that may go beyond her talking points." The Washington Post reported that there have been two recent cases of foreign governments moving against CIA officers allegedly involved in spying in their countries. In 1995, France asked five Americans, including four diplomats, to leave in the wake of an economic spying operation. In the end, only one of those involved left immediately. In 1996, the Italian government, concerned about an intelligence flap, asked two CIA officers working at the US Embassy to leave the country.

A State Department official pointed out that, a few years ago, New Delhi refused to allow George Griffin, a bona fide foreign service officer, to take up the post of political counsellor in India on the grounds that he was with the CIA.

Could it be possible that the CIA has been entirely blameless in this whole episode? According to India Abroad, a New York-based news weekly, India is an important recruiting ground because of the wealth of information that could be gathered—on New Delhi's nuclear weapons and ballistic missile development programmes, its geostrategic designs in the region and various militant factions in Afghanistan and their links with Iran, Pakistan and Saudi Arabia. Apparently, the CIA hasn't gone home, despite the end of the Cold War. It is alive and well and active in South Asia. n