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Complete surrender: CPI(M)

Special Correspondent

It is betrayal of India’s vital interests, says Karat

Prakash Karat

NEW DELHI: With the U.S. Congress adopting an Act to approve the 123 Agreement with several key measures including no assurance of fuel supply or building strategic fuel reserves, the Communist Party of India (Marxist) said signing it would be a “complete surrender to the United States.”

The U.S. Senate on Wednesday passed the Bill introduced by Representative Howard Berman and passed by the House of Representatives earlier this week.

“This Act is a Hyde Act-plus version which has the key provisions of the Hyde Act with many added measures” party general secretary Prakash Karat told a press conference here on Thursday.

Mr. Karat said the five key elements, which now form part of the latest Act, include: no fuel supply assurance; no assurance of building a strategic fuel reserve for the life-time of the reactor; whatever corrective measures India takes regarding fuel supply failure does not permit taking the reactors out of safeguards; the consent to reprocess is only notional, and the U.S. will also work to prevent other countries from providing nuclear supplies to India, if the U.S. terminates the agreement.

He said U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice had also assured Congress that India would be barred from the Enrichment and Reprocessing Technology at the next Nuclear Suppliers Group (NSG) meeting to be held in November, formalising an unofficial consensus reached during the NSG waiver meeting of September 4-6. He said Mr. Berman also made this commitment part of his record in the House

In addition to what is in the text of the 123 Agreement, he said, there is a sub-text, which becomes clear in the letter written by Foreign Secretary Shiv Shankar Menon to Under Secretary William Burns on September 10.

As per the letter, India is committing to buy a minimum of 10,000 MWe from the dying U.S. nuclear industry, which has not received any new order for the last 30 years.

It is going to indemnify suppliers from all consequences of a nuclear accident.

“Totally unviable”

Mr. Karat said India would be paying about $ 70 billion (Rs. 2,80,000 crore) to import these reactors, which is about seven to eight times the capital cost for setting up a thermal power plant. “It is totally unviable.”

The device of getting a presidential signing statement to waive the objectionable provisions of the Act will not hold water, as this is a law passed by Congress and George Bush will not be President after four months.

The Manmohan Singh government had been claiming that the Hyde Act would be overridden by the last Act passed by the U.S. Congress as per U.S. jurisprudence.

He said even Union Minster Kapil Sibal had given this argument and it was for him to respond now that the last Act contained all the Hyde Act restrictions and they were made more explicit.

After this, if the Congress-led government still goes ahead and signs the 123 Agreement, it will be a complete surrender to the U.S. and betrayal of India’s vital interests, Mr. Karat said.

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