First published 03/31/2008 21:41
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Coimbatore (PTI): The Left parties in India on Sunday got a shot in the arm in their opposition to the strategic tie-up with the United States, with an American communist leader saying Washington's plan for Asia was to "pit one country against another" and isolate China.
Describing the Bush Administration as a "destabilising factor" in the "world polity", Communist Party of USA's leader Terrie Albano said "we have no illusion what they want to do with the Indo-US nuclear deal. They want to bind India into a long-term coalition for them which they can use against another country."
In an interview to PTI on the sidelines of the 19th Congress of CPI(M) here, she said "they (Bush Administration) have an overall strategic plan for Asia. They will try to pit one country against the other and, in particular, isolate China".
Albano, who is a member of the National Board of the US Communist Party, supported the CPI(M)'s stand that the independence of India's foreign policy would be adversely affected through a strategic tie-up with the US and said "this independent stand of India has been a stabilising factor" in the South Asian sub-continent.
"The Bush Administration is a destabilising factor in the world polity. This has been reflected in their military invasion of Iraq and their support for Israel which has been carrying out massacre of the Palestinian people, especially women and children, in the Gaza strip," she said.
However, she supported India's need for energy, including nuclear power, but made it clear that the US "military-industrial complex" was supporting the American government for the policies it was pursuing like opposing the Iran-Pakistan-India gas pipeline project.
As the US government policies were "heavily influenced by the American military-industrial complex, so it (Indo-US nuclear deal) may not be an equal cooperation which we favour. The position of the US Communist Party is totally different from that of our government," Albano said.
Asked what her party thought about the US-led war on terror, she said "now we have more terrorists in the world. The war on terror is a fig-leaf for bigger ambitions of the Bush Administration."
Terry Albano wrote the following letter to the editor in response to this article:
I would like to clarify a comment published in the report “U.S. delegate backs CPI(M) stand on the civilian nuclear agreement” (March 31). It referred to me as “Agreeing that India’s energy needs were growing and nuclear energy was one of the cleanest sources of energy...” I certainly agreed that India’s needs were growing and nuclear energy is one possible source that India and other countries like the U.S. utilise. But I don’t think it is a “clean” source. In the U.S., there is much controversy about what to do with the nuclear waste generated from the plants. This waste is radioactive and no one likes to think about its transport or storage near them or their families.
One such large-scale battle is taking place in Nevada where the Department of Energy wants to use the Yucca Mountain as the storage facility for such waste. Public safety and health issues loom large around nuclear waste, which in my opinion does not make it “clean.”
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