Name: Kunwar Natwar Singh Age: 74 Nationality: Indian Claim to fame: Ex-Foreign Minister of India now caught up in controversy
After Kofi Annan, the latest public figure caught in a controversy over the now infamous UN Oil-for-Food programme for Iraq is India’s Kunwar Natwar Singh. Till recently the Indian Foreign Minister, Mr Singh had to resign following days of high tension, accusations and denials after the former US Federal Reserve chief Paul Volcker named him and the Congress party as “on-contractual beneficiaries” of the $64 billion oil-for-food programme. So far he remains a Minister without portfolio in the government and Prime Minister Manmohan Singh would be keeping the foreign minister’s portfolio.
In his report, Paul Volcker said that Natwar Singh and the Congress paid bribes to Iraqi authorities to buy oil in the UN sponsored oil-for-food programme. Both the parties have denied Mr Volcker’s allegations. The Congress officially stressed that Mr Singh’s resignation was not an acceptance of the Volcker report, but a way to avoid any perceived conflict of interest if he had stayed on as foreign minister. In an attempt to get to the truth of the matter and to clear Natwar Singh’s and Congress’ names, the government has appointed a judicial commission headed by the former Supreme Court Chief Justice, R.S. Pathak, that inquire into findings of the Volcker report.
Insiders believe that there is more to the matter than what meets the eye. For sometime Natwar Singh had won a few critics both in his Congress party and the opposition. He had been taking a position different from the official one of the Government on matters of foreign policy, particularly in relations to the US. Mr Singh has favoured China and Russia as crucial allies while others, like Defence Minister Pranab Mukherjee, support close ties with the United States. Mr Singh had good relations with the Saddam government and with the leaders of Iran, and he advocates close Indo-Iranian relations. In addition, he strongly opposed the reported move by the BJP-led government in 2003 to send an Indian army division to Iraq to serve under the American occupation forces there. These are enough reasons for the US to dislike him and want him out of his important position.
Natwar Singh is rather unusual for a foreign diplomat. His responses are usually direct, hitting and sometimes hurting. He does not hesitate to call a spade a spade. And many see him as the latest public figure to paying a price for not showing unconditional support for the US and all its policies. It will also not be out of place to observe that the Volcker report and all its accompanying media circus is encouraged by the Bush administration to take the attention away from the continued occupation of Iraq. The anti-Saddam campaign of the Bush administration was based on four claims: Iraq was secretly acquiring weapons of mass destruction; it was in league with the Al Qaeda; it had carried out large-scale massacres of the Shias; lastly, it had misused the UN’s Oil-For-Food-Programme.
Of the four, the first three have proved to be false and deliberate disinformation by the US intelligence agencies. Understandably, there is a compulsive urge in the Bush administration to show at least the fourth allegation as correct. And in proving so, if a few heads take a blow, like that of Kofi Annan’s and now Natwar Singh’s, it really doesn’t matter much to Uncle Sam. — Wajeeha Rehan
Name: Kunwar Natwar Singh
