A rchive Date
[ 26-03-2001 ]
Category
[ International Relations ]
sub-Categoy
[ India ]
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[Caught with their hands in the cookie jar
Secret videotapes capture depth of corruption in New Delhi politics
By ERIC MARGOLIS
Contributing Foreign Editor
March 25, 2001
India is still being shaken by the dramatic arms bribery scandal that erupted three weeks ago when a group of young dot-com warriors posted evidence on the Internet of the staggering degree of corruption in India's ruling circles.
The scandal has so far forced the resignations of India's defence minister, George Fernandes, and the presidents of two parties in the ruling government coalition led by the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP).
India is well rid of the loudmouthed, bellicose Fernandes, who repeatedly threatened war - including nuclear attack - against Pakistan, and seriously raised tensions with Beijing by branding China as India's No. 1 enemy.
The mushrooming scandal has also badly tarnished the image of Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee, who had billed himself as India's "Mr. Clean" and promised to clear up the swamp of corruption left by the former ruling Congress Party - which itself was done in by a still ongoing scandal over huge bribes allegedly paid in the 1980s to PM Rajiv Gandhi and his family on the purchase of 155-mm howitzers from Sweden.
Caught red-handed, the BJP adopted the Hillary Clinton defence, claiming the whole scandal was a plot by a vast, mysterious conspiracy.
Videos secretly made by members of the Internet news company, Tehelka.com, disguised as arms dealers, showed Indian politicians, generals and bureaucrats readily accepting thick bundles of rupees to promote the sale of fictitious thermal imaging devices to the Indian Army, or boasting they could peddle influence higher up, right to the prime minister's office.
The Tehelka raiders may have modeled their sting operation on the FBI's Abscam operation of the late '70s. FBI agents, comically disguised as Arab "sheiks," offered bribes to corrupt U.S. congressmen and then arrested them.
The bribery scandal now rocking Delhi amply confirms that India's government, bureaucracy and military are steeped in corruption. Unfortunately, many developing nations are no less corrupt than India. In fact, the main lesson to be drawn from this latest bribery uproar in India is how arms purchases are the principal way ruling oligarchies feather their nests.
UNIQUE OPPORTUNITY
Power plants, roads, civilian airliners and telecom systems all offer good opportunities for payoffs, but nothing equals the opportunities for kickbacks from buying jet fighters at $40 million each and the future flow of spare parts that can reach $80 million or more per aircraft.
Few nations are immune from buying weapons not for real defence needs, but to generate kickbacks or votes for corrupt or self-serving officials. The U.S. had its V-22 Osprey, a flying coffin that was forced on the Pentagon by senators and congressmen from the states where the aircraft were built.
France uses the Paris Air Show to sell unneeded weapons systems to African and Asian generals, clinching the deals with champagne and blonde courtesans. Many of these buyers receive discreet payments in Switzerland or Monaco. French politicians get a steady stream of secret payoffs from the arms deals, as illustrated by the current courtroom drama in Paris over kickbacks from the sale of frigates to Taiwan.
Most of the tens of billions worth of U.S. and British arms sold to Saudi Arabia and the Gulf States sit unused in warehouses. Commissions of 5%-20% on these sales are routinely kicked back to ruling royal families through middlemen, and used on occasion to bribe western politicians or fund secret "black" intelligence operations. No weapons systems are sold to pro-American Mideast regimes without massive bribery, kickbacks and "consulting fees."
The generals who run Egypt and Turkey behind a thin veneer of parliamentary government have long received "commissions" on the purchase of western arms.
Pakistan has been deluged with bribery scandals over purchases of arms and civilian airliners.
The story is the same across Asia, Africa and Latin America.
Money that should be devoted to development and health is spent on weapons solely to enrich members of the government and their cronies. What sets India somewhat apart from this sordid business is both the outrageous crassness of its grasping officials and the appalling contrast between India's poverty and its increasing purchases of high-tech arms.
RECEIVING AID
While Delhi was requesting and receiving substantial aid from the outside world to help repair damage from the Gujarat earthquake, India's defence establishment was busy buying billions worth of Russian T-90 tanks, SU-30 warplanes and a large aircraft carrier with 40 fighters. India didn't even have the good taste to at least temporarily suspend any of these major arms purchases until after the earthquake.
Was it callousness, indifference, or the need to keep payoff money coming that led Delhi to keep buying arms while Gujarat lay in ruins? It's estimated that India's purchase of arms from Russia, France and Israel somewhat exceeds the total funds it receives in development and health aid from the West and Japan.
While at least a third of India's people live in the direst poverty, with millions sleeping on city streets, Delhi just announced it will acquire a nuclear submarine and deploy sea-launched ballistic missiles to complement its air- and missile-delivered nuclear forces.
Eric can be reached by e-mail at margolis@foreigncorrespondent.com Letters to the editor should be sent to editor@sunpub.com
 World Fact Book (CIA)]
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