Sunday, April 3, 2016
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Saturday, February 27, 2016
Turkey is Screwed
That Turkish dictator has Islamised Ataturks' secular republic from the ashes of Ottoman empire after WWI,hese are terrible development by hemegalamanic, whom I didnot trust him from the beginning.US is using Turkey o weaken Russia .In this battle haugthy Saudis have joined too by sending aircraft.But do they have soldiers to fight.They are using merceneriers against Yemen.and creating problems for themseles.Pakistanis had refuse d to help out in Yemen.Yes USUK and other sell arms , special frces which Islamic state etc use.
If Saudi unravels ,what will happen . to million sof Indians working in the Gulf.How many you can fly or bring by sea or road o Wagha border.Let that wait.Greater West Asia will impact Souh Asia too.
Int he auricle on Erdogan follies ,the history of Turkish republic is quite accurate .I have kep a wach sinc 1968 tand spent ten years there .I feel so disheartened .Alhough the fat Pashas have been downsized they are the only one who understand foreign folicy better,But have no fough a real war agains anoher army .Only PKK killed 4000 Kurds aand los 5000 soldiers
Also read how WESt is breaking aand destroying states in greater middle Ealts o make I easy for Israel .The jews conrol USA.
I love Turkey and hospitality and had savoured Turkish Cuisine and warmth..
Finally a salute o Turkish journalists .Indiians are pressitutes and pressigolos
Ihad written for Turkish Daily News Cumhuriet and Zaman.
KGajendra singh
| Turkey is Screwed. And it's all US Fault -In my opinion Erdogans By Arras February 25, 2016 "Information Clearing House" - "The Saker" - Amid rising tensions between Turkey and Russia over the situation in Syria, one important fact got lost. It's not Russia that caused the current Turkish problems. It was the USA. The most fundamental problem modern Turkey is facing is the Kurdish question. It's a chronic problem, which threatens the integrity of Turkey and the Turkish elite perceives it as the largest security treat the country is facing. Turkish policies in Syria are determined by the Kurdish issue more than anything else. The change from the so called policy of zero problems with neighbors, which Erdogan and his government used to promote, came as a surprise to many and is directly related to the Kurdish issue and the events in Iraq after the disastrous US invasion. Here, a little historical excursion is needed. When the modern Turkish state was created on the ashes of the Ottoman empire following defeat in WWI, it was seeking a new identity on which it could successfully establish itself. The new young Turkish elite chose the model of nationalism, at that time a progressive concept so popular in contemporary Europe. Turkey, just like some of its European counterparts, was however faced with the imperial heritage of diverse ethnic groups living on its newly established territory. There were large and ancient communities of Greeks, Armenians, Kurds and many other people living in Anatolia and the European part of Turkey. Ethnic Turks themselves were relative newcomers to these parts of the world, having arrived only in the 11th century. Greeks and other ethnic groups, on the other hand, can trace their presence in what is now Turkey well into the Bronze Age and beyond (3300-1200 BC). The Turks managed to solve the Greek question after the Graeco-Turkish war of 1919-1922 and the large exchange of population which followed it. Most Greeks left Turkey and Turkey received an influx of ethnic Turks from Greece in return. The Armenian question got solved already during WWI in what many call the Armenian genocide. Term which Turkey fiercely opposes. It was a forceful deportation of Armenians into the Syrian desert. It is estimated that about 1.5 million of them died. Turkey acknowledges the fact of the deportation, but claims that loss of life was an unintended consequence rather than a deliberate act. One ethnic question which Turkey however did not manage to solve is the Kurdish question. The Kurds are an ancient community of Iranian people who accepted Islam. They were skilled soldiers and played an important role in Islamic armies, including the Seljuk and the Ottoman. Indeed, the most famous historical Kurdish figure is Saladin (name under which he is known in the West), a Muslim general who reconquered Jerusalem during the Crusades and a sultan of Egypt and Syria. The Turks tried to solve the Kurdish issue by straightforward assimilation. They announced that from now on, Kurds are simply „Eastern Turks" and banned the Kurdish language. The Kurds resisted and the Turks answered with repression, forced relocation, discrimination and heavy handed military crackdown. Kurds in Turkey are since then in de facto constant rebellion and a, sometimes less sometimes more intense, war with the Turkish government, which claimed thousands of lives on both sides. Despite having an advantage in numbers and equipment, Turkey seems to be slowly losing this war. It is estimated that Kurds make up to about 20% of the Turkish population and Kurdish families have about double the birthrate of Turkish ones. In a few decades, this will eventually lead to a situation when there will be more Kurdish than Turkish men of military age in Turkey. To make matters worse for Turkey, Kurds do not live only in Turkey. Thanks to the post colonial legacy and arbitrariness of borders, which France and Britain drew in the sands, plains and hills of the Middle East, similarly sized Kurdish communities live in the neighboring countries of Syria, Iraq and Iran. Together they inhabit one large, almost continuous area called Kurdistan. Fortunately for the Turks, the Kurds in these countries until recently faced similar persecution as in Turkey. All these countries perceive their Kurds as a threat to their territorial integrity. The most well know episode of this repression came when Saddam Hussein used poison gas on Kurds in Northern Iraq. That was by no means an exclusive example, but one which at the time suited Western interests in the Middle East and thus received widespread publicity in Western media. After decades of silent complicity. Which brings us back to the cause of the recent change in Turkish policies and the rising tension on Turkish-Syrian border. When the USA decided to invade Iraq in 2003, Turkey correctly concluded that the operation is pure hazard with an unpredictable outcome. In a hope of minimizing the negative impact on Turkey itself, they decided to keep strict neutrality and to not intervene, and went so far as to refuse to allow their US and British NATO allies to use Turkish territory and bases for an attack. The US attack on Iraq and the occupation led to an all out civil war inside the country and eventually broke Iraq into de facto Shia, Sunni and Kurdish parts. All of a sudden Turkey was faced not just with Kurdish insurgency inside Turkey, but, for the first time. also with (de facto) an independent Kurdish state right on its borders which could provide a safe haven (regroup and supply) area for Kurds from inside Turkey. That was a disaster. The Turks tried to deal with the situation with limited military incursions into Iraqi Kurdistan, attempts to buy Kurdish leaders and reliance on the ability of their US partners to keep the Kurds in check and prevent damage. Something the Americans turned out not to be very capable at. Perhaps even not willing. The lesson Erdogan and the Turkish leadership sees to have learned from the events in Iraq was likely that abstaining from conflicts in the region will not shield Turkey from negative consequences and, if Turkey can not prevent these conflicts, it's better that Turkey participates in them and thus is at last able to protect its interests by influencing the outcome. When the USA and their NATO allies decided to change regimes in Northern Africa and engaged in yet another imperial adventure in Libya, following initial reluctance, Turkey agreed to join. And when the USA then decided to start a war in Syria, Turkey jumped on the wagon, probably on the promise of a quick victory and the instalment of a new government of the Muslim Brotherhood, friendly to Turkey and its ruling party. Ankara might have even expected such a government to be a Turkish client. That certainly was the expectation of Riyadh, another unfortunate victim of US Middle Eastern policies. As is the rule with similar US foreign policies, they seldom work as advertised. When Assad proved to be resilient, Ankara and Riyadh were expecting Washington to do what it did in Libya and intervene under the pretext of a no fly zone and an alleged protection of civilians, a pretext well tested already in Yugoslavia. No man however steps into the same river twice, wisdom already ancient Greeks understood. After the disaster in Libya, opposition to intervention, led prominently by Russia and China, proved to be stronger, and support inside the USA and their British and French allies weaker than might have been anticipated. A no fly zone did not materialize. Of note is, that Turks and Saudis were its most outspoken proponents and they insist on establishing a no fly zone in Syria (euphemism for a US led intervention) till today. Meanwhile, Obama's administration walked away, quietly thankful to the Russians for the face saving pretext in form of the chemical weapons deal. Regime change in Syria thus had to be accomplished solely through proxies in the form of a colorful collection of various more or less disgusting Sunny Islamic groups, both local and foreign. Turkey and Saudi Arabia engaged in an enthusiastic support of these groups; openly supporting those under the moderate name, and less openly others, while publicly pretending to fight them as radicals and terrorists. In reality. the only group Turkey ever really fought in Syria were Kurds. Which is ironically probably the only significant opposition group in Syria which really deserves name moderate. Despite the catastrophic heterogeneity of these opposition groups, which are willing to fight each other as much as they are willing to fight Syrian government, it seemed that the government will be eventually worn down in a war of attrition. But then came the unexpected Russian intervention and, against all assurances from Washington about the Russians having another Afghanistan, it managed to turn the tables and forced the rebels to what is increasingly looking like an all-out retreat. This is a disaster of epic proportions for Turkey. Instead of a friendly regime of the Muslim Brotherhood type in Damascus, which Ankara would be able to control, they are faced with the creation of a second Kurdish independent state on their borders. That's what has sent the Turkish leadership into panic mode and that's why the Turks are seemingly irrationally rising tensions on the border with Syria. In my opinion, the downing of the Russian plane, the shelling of Kurds and the concentration of military forces on the border, accompanied with aggressive rhetoric, are not so much meant to threaten Russia or Assad, they are first of all desperate attempts to force Washington to lead an invasion in Syria at last. Which is probably something Washington itself made Ankara and Riyadh expect in the first place. Now Washington is being seen dragging their feet and backing out. Neither Turkey, nor Saudi Arabia are likely to invade alone. To conclude, the US policies of destabilizing countries and whole regions to suit their geopolitical and economic interests in the last decade or two proved to be often as damaging to US allies as they are to US opponents. If not more. Another case in point of course is the European migration crisis. What effect is that going to have on relations between the USA and their allies on one side, and US opponents on the other, remains to be seen. But it is reasonable to expect that dissatisfaction with US leadership will be on the rise. |
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Wednesday, February 3, 2016
Re: OVER 150,000 INDIANS FROM KUWAIT WERE FLOWN OUT FROM AMMAN (JORDAN) 1990-91
OVER 150,000 INDIANS FROM KUWAIT WERE FLOWN OUT FROM AMMAN (JORDAN) BY AIRINDIA FLIGHTS (FROM AUGUST 1990 T0 FEB 1991.
First please read the resolution later passed by Indians in Kuwait 1994
INDIAN CITIZEN'S COMMITTEE
Patron H.E ; Prem Singh
Ambassador of India
Chairman: H.S, Vedi
Vice Chairman: Raman Sharma
Secretary: Mathew Kurvilla
Treasurer: Abraham Mathew
To ; Shri P.V. Narsimha Roa ,.
Prime Minister of India ,
South Block.
N. Delhi
INDIAN CITIZEN'S COMMITTEE which was formed on the dusty evening of 2nd Aug. 1990
the day of lraqi brutal invasion of' Kuwait met in the afternoon of Friday the 1st April 1994 at its
office in Shaab Kuwait and unanimously passed thc attached resolution.
Sd-
H.S Vcdi
Chairman I.C.C
2nd April I994..
C.C
1. Shri Dinesh Singh E.A.M, N. Delhi
2. Shri Salman Khursheed M.E A - N: Delhi
3. Shri K. Sri Niwasun F.S - N. Delhi
4. Secretary to President of India - N. Delhi
Issued 4/4/9
Resolution By Indian Citizen's
Committee Kuwait On 1st April 1994
We are extremely happy to have with us today H.E. Gajendra Singh presently Indian ambassador to Turkey, who is one of the few persons who will long be remembered in our minds and recorded in the history of evacuation of Indian citizens of Kuwait for his long dedicated and unstinted services during the dark and black days of vicious Iraqi occupation of Kuwait when he was to our good luck stationed in Amman as our Indian Ambassador.
During the seven months long period from Aug. 1990 to March 1991, the Indian Embassy in Amman under his unflinching leadership imbued with compassion for the plight of Indian evacuees that went beyond the call of duty, in the Herculean task of arranging transport for Indian citizens of Kuwait from the Iraqi Jordanian border, some times even from Baghdad, upto Amman to a distance of over 250 KM and refugee camps, reception and migration for citizens etc. at the border and in Amman, boarding , loading in Amman upto mid Sept. 1990 till international Agencies established refugee camps and finally making sure that our citizens reached India safely. It took nearly six hundred air flights including 420 Air India Flights, an aviation history record to evacuate nearly 140,000 Indian citizens from Amman.
Ambassador Singh stuck to his duties even during the war days of Jan/Feb, 1991, evacuating thousand of Indian citizens including nurses, under most trying and dangerous conditions.
We the members of the Indian Citizens Committee in Kuwait express our sincere thanks and gratitude to you for shouldering such enormous responsibilities under tremendous physical and functional tensions, working round the clock for months without any break during this period.
We had noted with satisfaction that your services and those of your colleagues were widely acclaimed in lndian media including Times of lndia, Indian Express, India To day etc. and even in the international media. The Crown Prince of Jordan, the foreign Minister of Bhutan, International Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies and other organizations, praised the remarkable work "of the Indian Embassy in Amman.
We have, therefore, learnt with great sorrow and anguish that the Govt. of India instead decorating you for your services, have instead punished you in 1992 and 1993 on the basis of
false allegations. We firmly believe and request the Government of India to undo this grave miscarriage of justice and accord you the reward and acclaim which you so surely deserve.
We also are reminded of your meetings with many of us with severe mental, physical tension, sick and dead where you kindly attention and services were of great solace.
We also are aware that had the Govt. of Indian then fully complied with your recommendations, the operation of refugee exodus would have been much smoother.
We also note with utter shame that so called national leaders of that time displayed utter ignorance and incompetence and arrogance in dealing with the situation and further making unforgivable statements in foreign countries . Their graceless behavior left a very bad impression with Jordanian leaders.
We recommend a high level enquiry to the Mismanagement of evacuation Sub-committee of Ministry of External Affairs.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
P.O.Box 23228 Safat, Kuwait 13093
Tel: 2624719 - Fax 2623124
NEXT DAY KUWAIT TIMES ,WHILE COVERING THIS MEETING HEADLINED IT AS' INDIANS" WELCOME WAR HERO ( INDIAN AMBASSADOR IN AMMAN AND HIS STAFF ), ONLY WITH TWO OFFICERS TO BEGIN WITH)
FOUNDATION FOR INDO-TURKIC STUDIES
Tel/Fax ; 004016374602 Amb (Rtd) K Gajendra Singh
Emails; Gajendrak@hotmail.com Flat No 5, 3rd Floor
KGSingh@Yahoo.com 9, Sos Cotroceni,
Web site W3.geocities.com/Kgsngh Bucharest (Romania ).
12 December, 2002
ASIA TIMES online –December 13, 2002
AMBASSADOR'S JOURNAL
Gulf crisis: Lessons from 1991
K Gajendra Singh, who was stationed in Amman as India's ambassador to Jordan during the Gulf crisis of 1990-91, recalls the frantic efforts and bureaucratic bungling in handling the flood of Indian refugee workers from the troubled region. And he ponders whether the Indian government is any better prepared this time around. Ed
AMBASSADOR'S JOURNAL
Gulf crisis: Lessons from 1991 http://www.atimes.com/atimes/South_Asia/DL13Df01.html
By K Gajendra Singh
Dinner on January 15, 1991, at the Indian embassy residence in Amman, the capital of Jordan, turned out to be a much bigger affair than I had bargained for. On January 1, I had casually asked US Ambassador Roger Harrison if he would be free for dinner on the 15th, the deadline given by the coalition led by US President George H W Bush to Iraqi President Saddam Hussein to withdraw from Kuwait, which he had invaded in August 1990.
When Roger said yes, apart from senior Jordanian officials, journalists and others, I also invited ambassadors from the countries represented in the Security Council, my human shield against the coalition attack, as I jokingly remarked. Soon word went round and everyone wanted to join in, and suddenly 70 guests were expected.
I had to dust off ceremonial and personal crockery and cutlery, and set up bridge tables and garden chairs to seat them all. I also had to borrow my cook's TV so that guests could watch King Hussein deliver a stirring speech on Jordanian TV as many were already watching the latest news from Israeli TV. CNN had not yet reached Amman. Guests were sprawled on sofas and wandering through my study and bedrooms. When King Hussein heard about this unusual get together, he remarked that only an ambassador from India could have thought of such a dinner. A great compliment indeed.
Most embassies in Amman had already sent their families home and were functioning on skeleton staff. The cook at the Chinese embassy, though, was considered essential, and understandably, as I have never eaten such tasty Chinese food. There were regular meetings among ambassadors. Tony, the British envoy, would turn up on odd occasions for a spot of bridge to take our minds off the mounting tension. No politics, we had agreed. Once, he got me three down doubled (a rare thing). Tony was delighted, "I do not care if Saddam wins now," he teased. His armed bodyguard would watch TV with my cook, sharing samosas. The Romanian ambassador handed out gas masks designed for oil drilling while the Chinese loaded me with various safety devices to counter poisonous biological attacks. But I used to show them the strong life line on my hand and say that nothing untoward was indicated.
The worst case nightmare for the coalition was that a few germ-loaded Iraqi Scuds (which we could see over the Amman sky cruising towards Israel) would kill a few hundred Israelis, and even the presence of senior US officials stationed in Israel to restrain them would not have stopped the Israelis from joining in the fray and directly marching to Iraq, the first stop being Amman. In the event of that happening, the coalition, almost a mini-UN force, with Pakistani, Egyptian and even Syrian and other Muslim troops in it for the money and other considerations, would have been impossible to hold together.
In this contingency, Western diplomats were to rush to the desert southeast of Amman, from where helicopters would ferry them to war ships positioned in the Gulf of Aqaba, cruising there to enforce the embargo against Iraq. The embassy Indians, though, were to remain in Amman as the ministry in New Delhi could not accommodate the families in its hostels. So our plan was to get into our cars and speed north, if we could, for shelter with the Indian ambassador and his colleagues in Damascus, the capital of Syria.
Having seen rich Indians from Kuwait reduced to sharing or fighting for food or a bottle of water with their workers in the infamous Shalan camp on the way from Kuwait to Jordan via Iraq, the only thing worth saving, I used to say, were my 10 favorite and priceless long-playing records. Only Jordan had kept its borders open with Iraq, so Amman was the only point for entry and exit from Iraq.
Meanwhile, during the evening of January 15, there was an atmosphere of great gaiety and excitement, with adrenaline levels running high after months of anxiety. Apart from sharing an historic evening and exchanging the latest news, everyone was dying to see my collection of LPs. Among them were; Bade Ghulam Ali Khan, Amir Ali Khan, Beethoven, Strauss, Chopin and Mozart. But only Lata Mangeshkar had two LPs in this set, and people were asking who she was. I had to tell them she was one of India's all-time great singers and she had sent me two autographed records (Geeta and Ghazals) after a meeting in 1974 in Paris, where I was then posted. My family and I, aware that she sang only light music, and fearful that thousands of people might be about to die, put on the funereal Requiem. But animated and absorbed in conversation, few heard it. But Roger did, and we both became very sad.
The grand coalition attack on Iraqi forces did not begin that night. It came the next day, January 16, actually in the early hours of the 17th. Despite requests to all journalists to inform us immediately, and a pact with other ambassadors to inform each other, my son Tinoo from New York was the first to telephone me at 00210 hrs (LST) on January 17, and tell me that the attack on Iraq had commenced. Only just woken up, I queried how the hell did he know. CNN, he said. Soon journalists from the Jordan Times and others followed with calls. No wonder that world presidents and others confess that they learn about world events first from CNN. It takes too long for secret messages to be coded and decoded in the chancelleries.
August 2, 1990: The Gulf crisis begins
It all began on August 2, 1990. A day earlier, I had been in the Nabatean pink city of Petra, in the south of Jordan, some 262 kilometers from Amman, once the stronghold of the gifted Nabateans, an early Arab people. The Victorian traveler and poet, Dean Burgeon, gave Petra a description that holds to this day, "Match me such a marvel save in Eastern clime, a rose red city half as old as time."
After a morning visit to the sprawling ruins, just before going for lunch at the hotel restaurant, as per habit, I switched on the BBC news. The news of Iraqi troops entering Kuwait shocked me out of my reveries of the magnificent pink Hazane (treasury ) monument that suddenly comes into view as one rides through a narrow gorge. Truly a marvelous sight. Although Baghdad was 1,200 kilometers from Amman and Kuwait even farther, after three decades in diplomacy I instinctively felt that something was seriously amiss. The next morning I returned to Amman, although I had planned to explore Petra at leisure.
Yes, tension had been building up between Kuwait and Iraq, but an invasion was not on the cards; after all, inter-Arab tensions are not exactly uncommon. The last round of negotiations between Iraq and Kuwait in Jeddah over disputed territory had collapsed on August 1, and Saddam Hussein was incensed, feeling squeezed. Instead of being grateful, Kuwait, with encouragement from the West, was insisting on the repayment of "loans", and it was flooding the oil market, thus lowering the price of a barrel of oil from US$18 to $12 to $14, which hurt Iraq the most.
Saddam also felt that he had saved the Arab Gulf states, many with large Shi'ite populations, from the fury of the Shi'ite revolution in Iran, for which he had been lauded by the Arab masses and governments, and gifted billions of dollars and friendly loans. Western nations, notably the United Kingdom, France and even the US, granted him credit, dual use of technology, chemicals and machinery and even aerial intelligence on Iranian forces.
And of course there remains the mystery and enigma of the full details of the last meeting between the US ambassador to Iraq, April Glaspie, and Saddam in Baghdad on July 25, when she told Saddam that his dispute with Kuwait was a bilateral Arab matter. Glaspie then disappeared from public view, and was barred from giving interviews or writing a book. The Western media did not pursue her as they do others, and with a few exceptions the media have subsequently functioned as a handmaiden of the Pentagon and Western spokesmen.
In the first week of August, there were hectic international political developments, with King Hussein of Jordan playing an active and constructive role in trying to defuse Iraqi aggression with an Arab solution, with help from Saudi and Egyptian leaders. There have been various versions of these events, but it appears that the US finally prevailed on President Hosni Mubarak of Egypt, so dependent on US aid, and he fell into line.
On returning to Delhi in 1984 after six years, having headed missions in Dakar (Senegal) and Bucharest (Romania), I served as chairman-managing director of the Indian Drugs and Pharmaceuticals company, with 13,000 personnel in five units, and established the Foreign Service Training Institute in New Delhi. So my posting in July 1989 to Amman, with only a first secretary and an attache, was considered a light mission. So in Amman my bridge game improved, but I was getting distrait - bored - as the French would say. But this was only the lull before the storm.
From India's point of view, the serious issue was the safety of its foreign workers - about 180,000 in Kuwait and 10,000 in Iraq. By early August they had started to trickle into Amman as refugees. The earliest batches were mostly Indian Hajis - pilgrims to Mecca - a thousand odd, who had been stranded as Air India flights to Iraq and back had been cancelled after August 2. After Mecca, many Hajis, specially Shi'ites, go on a pilgrimage to the holy cities of Najaf and Karbala in neighboring Iraq.
But soon the numbers of refugees from Kuwait reaching the Amman embassy started growing. In the beginning, whatever the time of the day or night, the small Indian staff of half a dozen would rush to make tea or buy food to make the tired Indian arrivals feel at home. In the evening, the embassy would telephone that two or three more buses had arrived from Baghdad - 100 or 150 Indians. This meant arranging places to stay, and providing food until air transport to India could be arranged. Soon the staff were exhausted, but their dedication and that of others who were deputed to help the embassy later, barring a few black sheep, never flagged.
There were more frequent meetings between ambassadors. I would see Crown Prince Hassan and other important persons to assess the political situation and its likely impact on the influx of refugees. In between, I made a few trips to the Jordan-Iraq border, where there was little in terms of facilities and infrastructure. But we had still not envisaged the deluge that was to hit us.
Soon, Amman became vital as it was the only point of access to Baghdad by air, road or telephone. Apart from short telephone contacts allowed between me and the Indian ambassador in Baghdad (the Indian ambassador to Kuwait had shifted to Basra), Iraq and Kuwait were effectively cut off from the world. So, with other countries closing their borders, apart from the refugee flood, Amman became the staging point for international politicians and others visiting Iraq. Soon, too, Amman was crawling with international media.
Because of more than half of Jordan's population being of Palestinian origin and Yasser Arafat's full reciprocal support to Saddam, and Amman's close relations with Iraq, there were regular demonstrations in Amman in support of Saddam and Iraq. Jordan TV gave the Iraqi viewpoint, which was drowned elsewhere by anti-Saddam rhetoric spread by the Western media. For us, the Western viewpoint was available from Israeli TV, across the Jordan Valley 40 kilometers away. It was necessary to keep a watch on political developments to help assess their impact on the influx of refugees.
Jordan had only a small Indian community, mostly workers earning barely $75 to $100 per month, hoping to migrate to better-paying Gulf states. We hired some of them to help us out. Only a few families were well off, but I regret to say that we were let down. In the first week of refugee arrivals, before we had assessed the situation, we requested one family completing a big project to put a van at our disposal. This was refused. We requested another Indian who had an empty warehouse to let us use it to temporarily house the refugees. He also refused. In countries like Saudi Arabia or Iran or Turkey, where only a few thousand refugees in all went in the first few days, there was full support from the well-organized and large Indian communities. Soon, we started hiring whatever accommodation we could find in hotels and flats, and making arrangements for food.
Nearly a million refugees, a majority from Egypt, mostly working in Iraq, and Yemenis and others transited through Jordan, a country of less than 4 million. It was the equivalent of 200 million refugees wading through India and using its infrastructure. There was pressure on accommodation, food and transport and decisions had to be taken on the spot. Apart from morning and evening policy sessions with my colleagues, I would invite them by turn for a meal to maintain espirit de corps and I tried to make their living conditions as smooth as possible. They were working 14 to 18 hours every day, many even when ill and down with fever. The main stress was on patience against all provocation from the refugees, who, while they had been silent while in Kuwait or Iraq, started shouting and abusing once they saw Indian embassy personnel. As the majority of the refugees were from Kerala in India, four officers who had come to assist us had to pretend that they did not understand the abuses showered on them in Malyali. Some of our personnel were even assaulted and embassy cars stoned by tired and jittery Indian refugees. On many occasions the Jordan police had to step in.
The Indian government did not appreciate the gravity of the situation and gave us too little too late. In a fast-changing situation, when I requested Delhi to depute more staff, they quoted back the previous week's telegram. They even sent a junior officer to study the situation, who, on arrival, appeared more interested in visiting Petra. We had to carry out the evacuation as per normal rules designed for a few or 50 or even 100-odd stranded Indians abroad. We had to follow them, even though three to four thousand Indians per day were flying out on 10 to 15 Air India and International Movement Organization (IMO) flights. This included making them sign indemnity bonds and providing individual tickets. Despite my pleas, these superfluous formalities were not done away with. It meant queuing up for registration, air tickets and the return of forms etc, by tired and hungry refugees, even when there were up to 8,000 of them in Amman.
Once the evacuation was over, the government of India did decide to waive the indemnity ie repayment of the cost of the ticket. In 106 charity flights organized for Indians by the IOM, the only formality was the registration of the passengers in the flight manifest with passport details, etc. Without time-consuming and unnecessary formalities, the refugees would have been saved much stress and strain and my colleagues (15 to 25 at the peak ), who had to be at the embassy, hotels, apartment blocks, airports, border points and even in no man's land, could have devoted more time to looking after the comforts of the evacuees.
External Affairs Minister Inder Kumar Gujral, during his transit stay in Amman in early August 1990 on the way to his famous hug with Saddam Hussein in Baghdad and the "Millionaire's flight" in an Indian Air Force aircraft from Kuwait, as the media described it, appeared curiously reluctant to meet King Hussein and Crown Prince Hassan. They received him with great warmth and brought him up to date on the situation, of which he appeared to have little grasp. Later, a non-professional Indian diplomat was sent to Amman by Gujral, who wanted to be included with King Hussein and King Hassan of Morocco, then planning to take a peace mission to Saddam. The Hashemite palace was most embarrassed. Gujral made extravagant promises to Indians in Kuwait, such as flying them out from Basra and Baghdad, with planes waiting for them. In my office, Gujral told waiting Indian refugees that they would get air tickets for their home towns on arrival in Bombay. All they got were the lowest class train tickets. He was making extravagant promises as if he were fighting a parliamentary election.
To overcome the staff shortage problem at the embassy on a permanent basis, Gujral, in consultation with the Foreign Secretary Muchkund Dubey, selected an officer. But that officer never reached Amman to assist "people like us". Gujral kept shouting at everyone in Amman until he left for Baghdad, much to the disgust of the officers and staff who had just started trickling in from India to assist us in our monumental task, which even we had not envisaged. Gujral appeared to be edgy, short-tempered and rude. But much worse was to follow. Except for Civil Aviation Minister Arif Mohammed Khan, who flew in with the first Air India plane on August 12, who was a gentleman of the old school.
It speaks volumes for the Indian government's perspective and contingency planning under I K Gujral and the foreign secretary that it held the only conference of Indian ambassadors in the region to discuss the refugee problem and international political developments just a few days before the deadline for Iraq's withdrawal on January 15.
Now the US, with support from the UK, is threatening a war and regime change in Iraq. If it takes place, it will be a terribly messy affair, overflowing if not involving neighboring Turkey and the Arab states, including Saudi Arabia, which is also under scrutiny and attack by the hawks in the US administration. Unlike 1990-91, when they were enthusiastic allies, these states are now reluctant to support the US' unilateral action. The gulf region has nearly 5 million Indian workers. The question is, has the Indian government learned from its mistakes, and is it prepared this time around?
K Gajendra Singh, Indian ambassador (retired), served as ambassador to Turkey from August 1992 to April 1996. Prior to that, he served terms as ambassador to Jordan, Romania and Senegal.
(©2002 Asia Times Online Co, Ltd. All rights reserved. Please contactcontent@atimes.com for information on our sales and syndication policies.)
Tuesday, February 2, 2016
Re: OVER 150,000 INDIANS FROM KUWAIT WERE FLOWN OUT FROM AMMAN (JORDAN) 1990-91
OVER 150,000 INDIANS FROM KUWAIT WERE FLOWN OUT FROM AMMAN (JORDAN) BY AIRINDIA FLIGHTS (FROM AUGUST 1990 T0 FEB 1991.
First please read the resolution later passed by Indians in Kuwait 1994
INDIAN CITIZEN'S COMMITTEE
Patron H.E ; Prem Singh
Ambassador of India
Chairman: H.S, Vedi
Vice Chairman: Raman Sharma
Secretary: Mathew Kurvilla
Treasurer: Abraham Mathew
To ; Shri P.V. Narsimha Roa ,.
Prime Minister of India ,
South Block.
N. Delhi
INDIAN CITIZEN'S COMMITTEE which was formed on the dusty evening of 2nd Aug. 1990
the day of lraqi brutal invasion of' Kuwait met in the afternoon of Friday the 1st April 1994 at its
office in Shaab Kuwait and unanimously passed thc attached resolution.
Sd-
H.S Vcdi
Chairman I.C.C
2nd April I994..
C.C
1. Shri Dinesh Singh E.A.M, N. Delhi
2. Shri Salman Khursheed M.E A - N: Delhi
3. Shri K. Sri Niwasun F.S - N. Delhi
4. Secretary to President of India - N. Delhi
Issued 4/4/9
Resolution By Indian Citizen's
Committee Kuwait On 1st April 1994
We are extremely happy to have with us today H.E. Gajendra Singh presently Indian ambassador to Turkey, who is one of the few persons who will long be remembered in our minds and recorded in the history of evacuation of Indian citizens of Kuwait for his long dedicated and unstinted services during the dark and black days of vicious Iraqi occupation of Kuwait when he was to our good luck stationed in Amman as our Indian Ambassador.
During the seven months long period from Aug. 1990 to March 1991, the Indian Embassy in Amman under his unflinching leadership imbued with compassion for the plight of Indian evacuees that went beyond the call of duty, in the Herculean task of arranging transport for Indian citizens of Kuwait from the Iraqi Jordanian border, some times even from Baghdad, upto Amman to a distance of over 250 KM and refugee camps, reception and migration for citizens etc. at the border and in Amman, boarding , loading in Amman upto mid Sept. 1990 till international Agencies established refugee camps and finally making sure that our citizens reached India safely. It took nearly six hundred air flights including 420 Air India Flights, an aviation history record to evacuate nearly 140,000 Indian citizens from Amman.
Ambassador Singh stuck to his duties even during the war days of Jan/Feb, 1991, evacuating thousand of Indian citizens including nurses, under most trying and dangerous conditions.
We the members of the Indian Citizens Committee in Kuwait express our sincere thanks and gratitude to you for shouldering such enormous responsibilities under tremendous physical and functional tensions, working round the clock for months without any break during this period.
We had noted with satisfaction that your services and those of your colleagues were widely acclaimed in lndian media including Times of lndia, Indian Express, India To day etc. and even in the international media. The Crown Prince of Jordan, the foreign Minister of Bhutan, International Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies and other organizations, praised the remarkable work "of the Indian Embassy in Amman.
We have, therefore, learnt with great sorrow and anguish that the Govt. of India instead decorating you for your services, have instead punished you in 1992 and 1993 on the basis of
false allegations. We firmly believe and request the Government of India to undo this grave miscarriage of justice and accord you the reward and acclaim which you so surely deserve.
We also are reminded of your meetings with many of us with severe mental, physical tension, sick and dead where you kindly attention and services were of great solace.
We also are aware that had the Govt. of Indian then fully complied with your recommendations, the operation of refugee exodus would have been much smoother.
We also note with utter shame that so called national leaders of that time displayed utter ignorance and incompetence and arrogance in dealing with the situation and further making unforgivable statements in foreign countries . Their graceless behavior left a very bad impression with Jordanian leaders.
We recommend a high level enquiry to the Mismanagement of evacuation Sub-committee of Ministry of External Affairs.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
P.O.Box 23228 Safat, Kuwait 13093
Tel: 2624719 - Fax 2623124
NEXT DAY KUWAIT TIMES ,WHILE COVERING THIS MEETING HEADLINED IT AS' INDIANS" WELCOME WAR HERO ( INDIAN AMBASSADOR IN AMMAN AND HIS STAFF ), ONLY WITH TWO OFFICERS TO BEGIN WITH)
FOUNDATION FOR INDO-TURKIC STUDIES
Tel/Fax ; 004016374602 Amb (Rtd) K Gajendra Singh
Emails; Gajendrak@hotmail.com Flat No 5, 3rd Floor
KGSingh@Yahoo.com 9, Sos Cotroceni,
Web site W3.geocities.com/Kgsngh Bucharest (Romania ).
12 December, 2002
ASIA TIMES online –December 13, 2002
AMBASSADOR'S JOURNAL
Gulf crisis: Lessons from 1991
K Gajendra Singh, who was stationed in Amman as India's ambassador to Jordan during the Gulf crisis of 1990-91, recalls the frantic efforts and bureaucratic bungling in handling the flood of Indian refugee workers from the troubled region. And he ponders whether the Indian government is any better prepared this time around. Ed
AMBASSADOR'S JOURNAL
Gulf crisis: Lessons from 1991 http://www.atimes.com/atimes/South_Asia/DL13Df01.html
By K Gajendra Singh
Dinner on January 15, 1991, at the Indian embassy residence in Amman, the capital of Jordan, turned out to be a much bigger affair than I had bargained for. On January 1, I had casually asked US Ambassador Roger Harrison if he would be free for dinner on the 15th, the deadline given by the coalition led by US President George H W Bush to Iraqi President Saddam Hussein to withdraw from Kuwait, which he had invaded in August 1990.
When Roger said yes, apart from senior Jordanian officials, journalists and others, I also invited ambassadors from the countries represented in the Security Council, my human shield against the coalition attack, as I jokingly remarked. Soon word went round and everyone wanted to join in, and suddenly 70 guests were expected.
I had to dust off ceremonial and personal crockery and cutlery, and set up bridge tables and garden chairs to seat them all. I also had to borrow my cook's TV so that guests could watch King Hussein deliver a stirring speech on Jordanian TV as many were already watching the latest news from Israeli TV. CNN had not yet reached Amman. Guests were sprawled on sofas and wandering through my study and bedrooms. When King Hussein heard about this unusual get together, he remarked that only an ambassador from India could have thought of such a dinner. A great compliment indeed.
Most embassies in Amman had already sent their families home and were functioning on skeleton staff. The cook at the Chinese embassy, though, was considered essential, and understandably, as I have never eaten such tasty Chinese food. There were regular meetings among ambassadors. Tony, the British envoy, would turn up on odd occasions for a spot of bridge to take our minds off the mounting tension. No politics, we had agreed. Once, he got me three down doubled (a rare thing). Tony was delighted, "I do not care if Saddam wins now," he teased. His armed bodyguard would watch TV with my cook, sharing samosas. The Romanian ambassador handed out gas masks designed for oil drilling while the Chinese loaded me with various safety devices to counter poisonous biological attacks. But I used to show them the strong life line on my hand and say that nothing untoward was indicated.
The worst case nightmare for the coalition was that a few germ-loaded Iraqi Scuds (which we could see over the Amman sky cruising towards Israel) would kill a few hundred Israelis, and even the presence of senior US officials stationed in Israel to restrain them would not have stopped the Israelis from joining in the fray and directly marching to Iraq, the first stop being Amman. In the event of that happening, the coalition, almost a mini-UN force, with Pakistani, Egyptian and even Syrian and other Muslim troops in it for the money and other considerations, would have been impossible to hold together.
In this contingency, Western diplomats were to rush to the desert southeast of Amman, from where helicopters would ferry them to war ships positioned in the Gulf of Aqaba, cruising there to enforce the embargo against Iraq. The embassy Indians, though, were to remain in Amman as the ministry in New Delhi could not accommodate the families in its hostels. So our plan was to get into our cars and speed north, if we could, for shelter with the Indian ambassador and his colleagues in Damascus, the capital of Syria.
Having seen rich Indians from Kuwait reduced to sharing or fighting for food or a bottle of water with their workers in the infamous Shalan camp on the way from Kuwait to Jordan via Iraq, the only thing worth saving, I used to say, were my 10 favorite and priceless long-playing records. Only Jordan had kept its borders open with Iraq, so Amman was the only point for entry and exit from Iraq.
Meanwhile, during the evening of January 15, there was an atmosphere of great gaiety and excitement, with adrenaline levels running high after months of anxiety. Apart from sharing an historic evening and exchanging the latest news, everyone was dying to see my collection of LPs. Among them were; Bade Ghulam Ali Khan, Amir Ali Khan, Beethoven, Strauss, Chopin and Mozart. But only Lata Mangeshkar had two LPs in this set, and people were asking who she was. I had to tell them she was one of India's all-time great singers and she had sent me two autographed records (Geeta and Ghazals) after a meeting in 1974 in Paris, where I was then posted. My family and I, aware that she sang only light music, and fearful that thousands of people might be about to die, put on the funereal Requiem. But animated and absorbed in conversation, few heard it. But Roger did, and we both became very sad.
The grand coalition attack on Iraqi forces did not begin that night. It came the next day, January 16, actually in the early hours of the 17th. Despite requests to all journalists to inform us immediately, and a pact with other ambassadors to inform each other, my son Tinoo from New York was the first to telephone me at 00210 hrs (LST) on January 17, and tell me that the attack on Iraq had commenced. Only just woken up, I queried how the hell did he know. CNN, he said. Soon journalists from the Jordan Times and others followed with calls. No wonder that world presidents and others confess that they learn about world events first from CNN. It takes too long for secret messages to be coded and decoded in the chancelleries.
August 2, 1990: The Gulf crisis begins
It all began on August 2, 1990. A day earlier, I had been in the Nabatean pink city of Petra, in the south of Jordan, some 262 kilometers from Amman, once the stronghold of the gifted Nabateans, an early Arab people. The Victorian traveler and poet, Dean Burgeon, gave Petra a description that holds to this day, "Match me such a marvel save in Eastern clime, a rose red city half as old as time."
After a morning visit to the sprawling ruins, just before going for lunch at the hotel restaurant, as per habit, I switched on the BBC news. The news of Iraqi troops entering Kuwait shocked me out of my reveries of the magnificent pink Hazane (treasury ) monument that suddenly comes into view as one rides through a narrow gorge. Truly a marvelous sight. Although Baghdad was 1,200 kilometers from Amman and Kuwait even farther, after three decades in diplomacy I instinctively felt that something was seriously amiss. The next morning I returned to Amman, although I had planned to explore Petra at leisure.
Yes, tension had been building up between Kuwait and Iraq, but an invasion was not on the cards; after all, inter-Arab tensions are not exactly uncommon. The last round of negotiations between Iraq and Kuwait in Jeddah over disputed territory had collapsed on August 1, and Saddam Hussein was incensed, feeling squeezed. Instead of being grateful, Kuwait, with encouragement from the West, was insisting on the repayment of "loans", and it was flooding the oil market, thus lowering the price of a barrel of oil from US$18 to $12 to $14, which hurt Iraq the most.
Saddam also felt that he had saved the Arab Gulf states, many with large Shi'ite populations, from the fury of the Shi'ite revolution in Iran, for which he had been lauded by the Arab masses and governments, and gifted billions of dollars and friendly loans. Western nations, notably the United Kingdom, France and even the US, granted him credit, dual use of technology, chemicals and machinery and even aerial intelligence on Iranian forces.
And of course there remains the mystery and enigma of the full details of the last meeting between the US ambassador to Iraq, April Glaspie, and Saddam in Baghdad on July 25, when she told Saddam that his dispute with Kuwait was a bilateral Arab matter. Glaspie then disappeared from public view, and was barred from giving interviews or writing a book. The Western media did not pursue her as they do others, and with a few exceptions the media have subsequently functioned as a handmaiden of the Pentagon and Western spokesmen.
In the first week of August, there were hectic international political developments, with King Hussein of Jordan playing an active and constructive role in trying to defuse Iraqi aggression with an Arab solution, with help from Saudi and Egyptian leaders. There have been various versions of these events, but it appears that the US finally prevailed on President Hosni Mubarak of Egypt, so dependent on US aid, and he fell into line.
On returning to Delhi in 1984 after six years, having headed missions in Dakar (Senegal) and Bucharest (Romania), I served as chairman-managing director of the Indian Drugs and Pharmaceuticals company, with 13,000 personnel in five units, and established the Foreign Service Training Institute in New Delhi. So my posting in July 1989 to Amman, with only a first secretary and an attache, was considered a light mission. So in Amman my bridge game improved, but I was getting distrait - bored - as the French would say. But this was only the lull before the storm.
From India's point of view, the serious issue was the safety of its foreign workers - about 180,000 in Kuwait and 10,000 in Iraq. By early August they had started to trickle into Amman as refugees. The earliest batches were mostly Indian Hajis - pilgrims to Mecca - a thousand odd, who had been stranded as Air India flights to Iraq and back had been cancelled after August 2. After Mecca, many Hajis, specially Shi'ites, go on a pilgrimage to the holy cities of Najaf and Karbala in neighboring Iraq.
But soon the numbers of refugees from Kuwait reaching the Amman embassy started growing. In the beginning, whatever the time of the day or night, the small Indian staff of half a dozen would rush to make tea or buy food to make the tired Indian arrivals feel at home. In the evening, the embassy would telephone that two or three more buses had arrived from Baghdad - 100 or 150 Indians. This meant arranging places to stay, and providing food until air transport to India could be arranged. Soon the staff were exhausted, but their dedication and that of others who were deputed to help the embassy later, barring a few black sheep, never flagged.
There were more frequent meetings between ambassadors. I would see Crown Prince Hassan and other important persons to assess the political situation and its likely impact on the influx of refugees. In between, I made a few trips to the Jordan-Iraq border, where there was little in terms of facilities and infrastructure. But we had still not envisaged the deluge that was to hit us.
Soon, Amman became vital as it was the only point of access to Baghdad by air, road or telephone. Apart from short telephone contacts allowed between me and the Indian ambassador in Baghdad (the Indian ambassador to Kuwait had shifted to Basra), Iraq and Kuwait were effectively cut off from the world. So, with other countries closing their borders, apart from the refugee flood, Amman became the staging point for international politicians and others visiting Iraq. Soon, too, Amman was crawling with international media.
Because of more than half of Jordan's population being of Palestinian origin and Yasser Arafat's full reciprocal support to Saddam, and Amman's close relations with Iraq, there were regular demonstrations in Amman in support of Saddam and Iraq. Jordan TV gave the Iraqi viewpoint, which was drowned elsewhere by anti-Saddam rhetoric spread by the Western media. For us, the Western viewpoint was available from Israeli TV, across the Jordan Valley 40 kilometers away. It was necessary to keep a watch on political developments to help assess their impact on the influx of refugees.
Jordan had only a small Indian community, mostly workers earning barely $75 to $100 per month, hoping to migrate to better-paying Gulf states. We hired some of them to help us out. Only a few families were well off, but I regret to say that we were let down. In the first week of refugee arrivals, before we had assessed the situation, we requested one family completing a big project to put a van at our disposal. This was refused. We requested another Indian who had an empty warehouse to let us use it to temporarily house the refugees. He also refused. In countries like Saudi Arabia or Iran or Turkey, where only a few thousand refugees in all went in the first few days, there was full support from the well-organized and large Indian communities. Soon, we started hiring whatever accommodation we could find in hotels and flats, and making arrangements for food.
Nearly a million refugees, a majority from Egypt, mostly working in Iraq, and Yemenis and others transited through Jordan, a country of less than 4 million. It was the equivalent of 200 million refugees wading through India and using its infrastructure. There was pressure on accommodation, food and transport and decisions had to be taken on the spot. Apart from morning and evening policy sessions with my colleagues, I would invite them by turn for a meal to maintain espirit de corps and I tried to make their living conditions as smooth as possible. They were working 14 to 18 hours every day, many even when ill and down with fever. The main stress was on patience against all provocation from the refugees, who, while they had been silent while in Kuwait or Iraq, started shouting and abusing once they saw Indian embassy personnel. As the majority of the refugees were from Kerala in India, four officers who had come to assist us had to pretend that they did not understand the abuses showered on them in Malyali. Some of our personnel were even assaulted and embassy cars stoned by tired and jittery Indian refugees. On many occasions the Jordan police had to step in.
The Indian government did not appreciate the gravity of the situation and gave us too little too late. In a fast-changing situation, when I requested Delhi to depute more staff, they quoted back the previous week's telegram. They even sent a junior officer to study the situation, who, on arrival, appeared more interested in visiting Petra. We had to carry out the evacuation as per normal rules designed for a few or 50 or even 100-odd stranded Indians abroad. We had to follow them, even though three to four thousand Indians per day were flying out on 10 to 15 Air India and International Movement Organization (IMO) flights. This included making them sign indemnity bonds and providing individual tickets. Despite my pleas, these superfluous formalities were not done away with. It meant queuing up for registration, air tickets and the return of forms etc, by tired and hungry refugees, even when there were up to 8,000 of them in Amman.
Once the evacuation was over, the government of India did decide to waive the indemnity ie repayment of the cost of the ticket. In 106 charity flights organized for Indians by the IOM, the only formality was the registration of the passengers in the flight manifest with passport details, etc. Without time-consuming and unnecessary formalities, the refugees would have been saved much stress and strain and my colleagues (15 to 25 at the peak ), who had to be at the embassy, hotels, apartment blocks, airports, border points and even in no man's land, could have devoted more time to looking after the comforts of the evacuees.
External Affairs Minister Inder Kumar Gujral, during his transit stay in Amman in early August 1990 on the way to his famous hug with Saddam Hussein in Baghdad and the "Millionaire's flight" in an Indian Air Force aircraft from Kuwait, as the media described it, appeared curiously reluctant to meet King Hussein and Crown Prince Hassan. They received him with great warmth and brought him up to date on the situation, of which he appeared to have little grasp. Later, a non-professional Indian diplomat was sent to Amman by Gujral, who wanted to be included with King Hussein and King Hassan of Morocco, then planning to take a peace mission to Saddam. The Hashemite palace was most embarrassed. Gujral made extravagant promises to Indians in Kuwait, such as flying them out from Basra and Baghdad, with planes waiting for them. In my office, Gujral told waiting Indian refugees that they would get air tickets for their home towns on arrival in Bombay. All they got were the lowest class train tickets. He was making extravagant promises as if he were fighting a parliamentary election.
To overcome the staff shortage problem at the embassy on a permanent basis, Gujral, in consultation with the Foreign Secretary Muchkund Dubey, selected an officer. But that officer never reached Amman to assist "people like us". Gujral kept shouting at everyone in Amman until he left for Baghdad, much to the disgust of the officers and staff who had just started trickling in from India to assist us in our monumental task, which even we had not envisaged. Gujral appeared to be edgy, short-tempered and rude. But much worse was to follow. Except for Civil Aviation Minister Arif Mohammed Khan, who flew in with the first Air India plane on August 12, who was a gentleman of the old school.
It speaks volumes for the Indian government's perspective and contingency planning under I K Gujral and the foreign secretary that it held the only conference of Indian ambassadors in the region to discuss the refugee problem and international political developments just a few days before the deadline for Iraq's withdrawal on January 15.
Now the US, with support from the UK, is threatening a war and regime change in Iraq. If it takes place, it will be a terribly messy affair, overflowing if not involving neighboring Turkey and the Arab states, including Saudi Arabia, which is also under scrutiny and attack by the hawks in the US administration. Unlike 1990-91, when they were enthusiastic allies, these states are now reluctant to support the US' unilateral action. The gulf region has nearly 5 million Indian workers. The question is, has the Indian government learned from its mistakes, and is it prepared this time around?
K Gajendra Singh, Indian ambassador (retired), served as ambassador to Turkey from August 1992 to April 1996. Prior to that, he served terms as ambassador to Jordan, Romania and Senegal.
(©2002 Asia Times Online Co, Ltd. All rights reserved. Please contactcontent@atimes.com for information on our sales and syndication policies.)
Friday, January 29, 2016
OVER 150,000 INDIANS FROM KUWAIT WERE FLOWN OUT FROM AMMAN (JORDAN) 1990-91
OVER 150,000 INDIANS FROM KUWAIT WERE FLOWN OUT FROM AMMAN (JORDAN) BY AIRINDIA FLIGHTS (FROM AUGUST 1990 T0 FEB 1991.
First please read the resolution later passed by Indians in Kuwait 1994
INDIAN CITIZEN'S COMMITTEE
Patron H.E ; Prem Singh
Ambassador of India
Chairman: H.S, Vedi
Vice Chairman: Raman Sharma
Secretary: Mathew Kurvilla
Treasurer: Abraham Mathew
To ; Shri P.V. Narsimha Roa ,.
Prime Minister of India ,
South Block.
N. Delhi
INDIAN CITIZEN'S COMMITTEE which was formed on the dusty evening of 2nd Aug. 1990
the day of lraqi brutal invasion of' Kuwait met in the afternoon of Friday the 1st April 1994 at its
office in Shaab Kuwait and unanimously passed thc attached resolution.
Sd-
H.S Vcdi
Chairman I.C.C
2nd April I994..
C.C
1. Shri Dinesh Singh E.A.M, N. Delhi
2. Shri Salman Khursheed M.E A - N: Delhi
3. Shri K. Sri Niwasun F.S - N. Delhi
4. Secretary to President of India - N. Delhi
Issued 4/4/9
Resolution By Indian Citizen's
Committee Kuwait On 1st April 1994
We are extremely happy to have with us today H.E. Gajendra Singh presently Indian ambassador to Turkey, who is one of the few persons who will long be remembered in our minds and recorded in the history of evacuation of Indian citizens of Kuwait for his long dedicated and unstinted services during the dark and black days of vicious Iraqi occupation of Kuwait when he was to our good luck stationed in Amman as our Indian Ambassador.
During the seven months long period from Aug. 1990 to March 1991, the Indian Embassy in Amman under his unflinching leadership imbued with compassion for the plight of Indian evacuees that went beyond the call of duty, in the Herculean task of arranging transport for Indian citizens of Kuwait from the Iraqi Jordanian border, some times even from Baghdad, upto Amman to a distance of over 250 KM and refugee camps, reception and migration for citizens etc. at the border and in Amman, boarding , loading in Amman upto mid Sept. 1990 till international Agencies established refugee camps and finally making sure that our citizens reached India safely. It took nearly six hundred air flights including 420 Air India Flights, an aviation history record to evacuate nearly 140,000 Indian citizens from Amman.
Ambassador Singh stuck to his duties even during the war days of Jan/Feb, 1991, evacuating thousand of Indian citizens including nurses, under most trying and dangerous conditions.
We the members of the Indian Citizens Committee in Kuwait express our sincere thanks and gratitude to you for shouldering such enormous responsibilities under tremendous physical and functional tensions, working round the clock for months without any break during this period.
We had noted with satisfaction that your services and those of your colleagues were widely acclaimed in lndian media including Times of lndia, Indian Express, India To day etc. and even in the international media. The Crown Prince of Jordan, the foreign Minister of Bhutan, International Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies and other organizations, praised the remarkable work "of the Indian Embassy in Amman.
We have, therefore, learnt with great sorrow and anguish that the Govt. of India instead decorating you for your services, have instead punished you in 1992 and 1993 on the basis of
false allegations. We firmly believe and request the Government of India to undo this grave miscarriage of justice and accord you the reward and acclaim which you so surely deserve.
We also are reminded of your meetings with many of us with severe mental, physical tension, sick and dead where you kindly attention and services were of great solace.
We also are aware that had the Govt. of Indian then fully complied with your recommendations, the operation of refugee exodus would have been much smoother.
We also note with utter shame that so called national leaders of that time displayed utter ignorance and incompetence and arrogance in dealing with the situation and further making unforgivable statements in foreign countries . Their graceless behavior left a very bad impression with Jordanian leaders.
We recommend a high level enquiry to the Mismanagement of evacuation Sub-committee of Ministry of External Affairs.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
P.O.Box 23228 Safat, Kuwait 13093
Tel: 2624719 - Fax 2623124
NEXT DAY KUWAIT TIMES ,WHILE COVERING THIS MEETING HEADLINED IT AS' INDIANS" WELCOME WAR HERO ( INDIAN AMBASSADOR IN AMMAN AND HIS STAFF ), ONLY WITH TWO OFFICERS TO BEGIN WITH)
FOUNDATION FOR INDO-TURKIC STUDIES
Tel/Fax ; 004016374602 Amb (Rtd) K Gajendra Singh
Emails; Gajendrak@hotmail.com Flat No 5, 3rd Floor
KGSingh@Yahoo.com 9, Sos Cotroceni,
Web site W3.geocities.com/Kgsngh Bucharest (Romania ).
12 December, 2002
ASIA TIMES online –December 13, 2002
AMBASSADOR'S JOURNAL
Gulf crisis: Lessons from 1991
K Gajendra Singh, who was stationed in Amman as India's ambassador to Jordan during the Gulf crisis of 1990-91, recalls the frantic efforts and bureaucratic bungling in handling the flood of Indian refugee workers from the troubled region. And he ponders whether the Indian government is any better prepared this time around. Ed
AMBASSADOR'S JOURNAL
Gulf crisis: Lessons from 1991 http://www.atimes.com/atimes/South_Asia/DL13Df01.html
By K Gajendra Singh
Dinner on January 15, 1991, at the Indian embassy residence in Amman, the capital of Jordan, turned out to be a much bigger affair than I had bargained for. On January 1, I had casually asked US Ambassador Roger Harrison if he would be free for dinner on the 15th, the deadline given by the coalition led by US President George H W Bush to Iraqi President Saddam Hussein to withdraw from Kuwait, which he had invaded in August 1990.
When Roger said yes, apart from senior Jordanian officials, journalists and others, I also invited ambassadors from the countries represented in the Security Council, my human shield against the coalition attack, as I jokingly remarked. Soon word went round and everyone wanted to join in, and suddenly 70 guests were expected.
I had to dust off ceremonial and personal crockery and cutlery, and set up bridge tables and garden chairs to seat them all. I also had to borrow my cook's TV so that guests could watch King Hussein deliver a stirring speech on Jordanian TV as many were already watching the latest news from Israeli TV. CNN had not yet reached Amman. Guests were sprawled on sofas and wandering through my study and bedrooms. When King Hussein heard about this unusual get together, he remarked that only an ambassador from India could have thought of such a dinner. A great compliment indeed.
Most embassies in Amman had already sent their families home and were functioning on skeleton staff. The cook at the Chinese embassy, though, was considered essential, and understandably, as I have never eaten such tasty Chinese food. There were regular meetings among ambassadors. Tony, the British envoy, would turn up on odd occasions for a spot of bridge to take our minds off the mounting tension. No politics, we had agreed. Once, he got me three down doubled (a rare thing). Tony was delighted, "I do not care if Saddam wins now," he teased. His armed bodyguard would watch TV with my cook, sharing samosas. The Romanian ambassador handed out gas masks designed for oil drilling while the Chinese loaded me with various safety devices to counter poisonous biological attacks. But I used to show them the strong life line on my hand and say that nothing untoward was indicated.
The worst case nightmare for the coalition was that a few germ-loaded Iraqi Scuds (which we could see over the Amman sky cruising towards Israel) would kill a few hundred Israelis, and even the presence of senior US officials stationed in Israel to restrain them would not have stopped the Israelis from joining in the fray and directly marching to Iraq, the first stop being Amman. In the event of that happening, the coalition, almost a mini-UN force, with Pakistani, Egyptian and even Syrian and other Muslim troops in it for the money and other considerations, would have been impossible to hold together.
In this contingency, Western diplomats were to rush to the desert southeast of Amman, from where helicopters would ferry them to war ships positioned in the Gulf of Aqaba, cruising there to enforce the embargo against Iraq. The embassy Indians, though, were to remain in Amman as the ministry in New Delhi could not accommodate the families in its hostels. So our plan was to get into our cars and speed north, if we could, for shelter with the Indian ambassador and his colleagues in Damascus, the capital of Syria.
Having seen rich Indians from Kuwait reduced to sharing or fighting for food or a bottle of water with their workers in the infamous Shalan camp on the way from Kuwait to Jordan via Iraq, the only thing worth saving, I used to say, were my 10 favorite and priceless long-playing records. Only Jordan had kept its borders open with Iraq, so Amman was the only point for entry and exit from Iraq.
Meanwhile, during the evening of January 15, there was an atmosphere of great gaiety and excitement, with adrenaline levels running high after months of anxiety. Apart from sharing an historic evening and exchanging the latest news, everyone was dying to see my collection of LPs. Among them were; Bade Ghulam Ali Khan, Amir Ali Khan, Beethoven, Strauss, Chopin and Mozart. But only Lata Mangeshkar had two LPs in this set, and people were asking who she was. I had to tell them she was one of India's all-time great singers and she had sent me two autographed records (Geeta and Ghazals) after a meeting in 1974 in Paris, where I was then posted. My family and I, aware that she sang only light music, and fearful that thousands of people might be about to die, put on the funereal Requiem. But animated and absorbed in conversation, few heard it. But Roger did, and we both became very sad.
The grand coalition attack on Iraqi forces did not begin that night. It came the next day, January 16, actually in the early hours of the 17th. Despite requests to all journalists to inform us immediately, and a pact with other ambassadors to inform each other, my son Tinoo from New York was the first to telephone me at 00210 hrs (LST) on January 17, and tell me that the attack on Iraq had commenced. Only just woken up, I queried how the hell did he know. CNN, he said. Soon journalists from the Jordan Times and others followed with calls. No wonder that world presidents and others confess that they learn about world events first from CNN. It takes too long for secret messages to be coded and decoded in the chancelleries.
August 2, 1990: The Gulf crisis begins
It all began on August 2, 1990. A day earlier, I had been in the Nabatean pink city of Petra, in the south of Jordan, some 262 kilometers from Amman, once the stronghold of the gifted Nabateans, an early Arab people. The Victorian traveler and poet, Dean Burgeon, gave Petra a description that holds to this day, "Match me such a marvel save in Eastern clime, a rose red city half as old as time."
After a morning visit to the sprawling ruins, just before going for lunch at the hotel restaurant, as per habit, I switched on the BBC news. The news of Iraqi troops entering Kuwait shocked me out of my reveries of the magnificent pink Hazane (treasury ) monument that suddenly comes into view as one rides through a narrow gorge. Truly a marvelous sight. Although Baghdad was 1,200 kilometers from Amman and Kuwait even farther, after three decades in diplomacy I instinctively felt that something was seriously amiss. The next morning I returned to Amman, although I had planned to explore Petra at leisure.
Yes, tension had been building up between Kuwait and Iraq, but an invasion was not on the cards; after all, inter-Arab tensions are not exactly uncommon. The last round of negotiations between Iraq and Kuwait in Jeddah over disputed territory had collapsed on August 1, and Saddam Hussein was incensed, feeling squeezed. Instead of being grateful, Kuwait, with encouragement from the West, was insisting on the repayment of "loans", and it was flooding the oil market, thus lowering the price of a barrel of oil from US$18 to $12 to $14, which hurt Iraq the most.
Saddam also felt that he had saved the Arab Gulf states, many with large Shi'ite populations, from the fury of the Shi'ite revolution in Iran, for which he had been lauded by the Arab masses and governments, and gifted billions of dollars and friendly loans. Western nations, notably the United Kingdom, France and even the US, granted him credit, dual use of technology, chemicals and machinery and even aerial intelligence on Iranian forces.
And of course there remains the mystery and enigma of the full details of the last meeting between the US ambassador to Iraq, April Glaspie, and Saddam in Baghdad on July 25, when she told Saddam that his dispute with Kuwait was a bilateral Arab matter. Glaspie then disappeared from public view, and was barred from giving interviews or writing a book. The Western media did not pursue her as they do others, and with a few exceptions the media have subsequently functioned as a handmaiden of the Pentagon and Western spokesmen.
In the first week of August, there were hectic international political developments, with King Hussein of Jordan playing an active and constructive role in trying to defuse Iraqi aggression with an Arab solution, with help from Saudi and Egyptian leaders. There have been various versions of these events, but it appears that the US finally prevailed on President Hosni Mubarak of Egypt, so dependent on US aid, and he fell into line.
On returning to Delhi in 1984 after six years, having headed missions in Dakar (Senegal) and Bucharest (Romania), I served as chairman-managing director of the Indian Drugs and Pharmaceuticals company, with 13,000 personnel in five units, and established the Foreign Service Training Institute in New Delhi. So my posting in July 1989 to Amman, with only a first secretary and an attache, was considered a light mission. So in Amman my bridge game improved, but I was getting distrait - bored - as the French would say. But this was only the lull before the storm.
From India's point of view, the serious issue was the safety of its foreign workers - about 180,000 in Kuwait and 10,000 in Iraq. By early August they had started to trickle into Amman as refugees. The earliest batches were mostly Indian Hajis - pilgrims to Mecca - a thousand odd, who had been stranded as Air India flights to Iraq and back had been cancelled after August 2. After Mecca, many Hajis, specially Shi'ites, go on a pilgrimage to the holy cities of Najaf and Karbala in neighboring Iraq.
But soon the numbers of refugees from Kuwait reaching the Amman embassy started growing. In the beginning, whatever the time of the day or night, the small Indian staff of half a dozen would rush to make tea or buy food to make the tired Indian arrivals feel at home. In the evening, the embassy would telephone that two or three more buses had arrived from Baghdad - 100 or 150 Indians. This meant arranging places to stay, and providing food until air transport to India could be arranged. Soon the staff were exhausted, but their dedication and that of others who were deputed to help the embassy later, barring a few black sheep, never flagged.
There were more frequent meetings between ambassadors. I would see Crown Prince Hassan and other important persons to assess the political situation and its likely impact on the influx of refugees. In between, I made a few trips to the Jordan-Iraq border, where there was little in terms of facilities and infrastructure. But we had still not envisaged the deluge that was to hit us.
Soon, Amman became vital as it was the only point of access to Baghdad by air, road or telephone. Apart from short telephone contacts allowed between me and the Indian ambassador in Baghdad (the Indian ambassador to Kuwait had shifted to Basra), Iraq and Kuwait were effectively cut off from the world. So, with other countries closing their borders, apart from the refugee flood, Amman became the staging point for international politicians and others visiting Iraq. Soon, too, Amman was crawling with international media.
Because of more than half of Jordan's population being of Palestinian origin and Yasser Arafat's full reciprocal support to Saddam, and Amman's close relations with Iraq, there were regular demonstrations in Amman in support of Saddam and Iraq. Jordan TV gave the Iraqi viewpoint, which was drowned elsewhere by anti-Saddam rhetoric spread by the Western media. For us, the Western viewpoint was available from Israeli TV, across the Jordan Valley 40 kilometers away. It was necessary to keep a watch on political developments to help assess their impact on the influx of refugees.
Jordan had only a small Indian community, mostly workers earning barely $75 to $100 per month, hoping to migrate to better-paying Gulf states. We hired some of them to help us out. Only a few families were well off, but I regret to say that we were let down. In the first week of refugee arrivals, before we had assessed the situation, we requested one family completing a big project to put a van at our disposal. This was refused. We requested another Indian who had an empty warehouse to let us use it to temporarily house the refugees. He also refused. In countries like Saudi Arabia or Iran or Turkey, where only a few thousand refugees in all went in the first few days, there was full support from the well-organized and large Indian communities. Soon, we started hiring whatever accommodation we could find in hotels and flats, and making arrangements for food.
Nearly a million refugees, a majority from Egypt, mostly working in Iraq, and Yemenis and others transited through Jordan, a country of less than 4 million. It was the equivalent of 200 million refugees wading through India and using its infrastructure. There was pressure on accommodation, food and transport and decisions had to be taken on the spot. Apart from morning and evening policy sessions with my colleagues, I would invite them by turn for a meal to maintain espirit de corps and I tried to make their living conditions as smooth as possible. They were working 14 to 18 hours every day, many even when ill and down with fever. The main stress was on patience against all provocation from the refugees, who, while they had been silent while in Kuwait or Iraq, started shouting and abusing once they saw Indian embassy personnel. As the majority of the refugees were from Kerala in India, four officers who had come to assist us had to pretend that they did not understand the abuses showered on them in Malyali. Some of our personnel were even assaulted and embassy cars stoned by tired and jittery Indian refugees. On many occasions the Jordan police had to step in.
The Indian government did not appreciate the gravity of the situation and gave us too little too late. In a fast-changing situation, when I requested Delhi to depute more staff, they quoted back the previous week's telegram. They even sent a junior officer to study the situation, who, on arrival, appeared more interested in visiting Petra. We had to carry out the evacuation as per normal rules designed for a few or 50 or even 100-odd stranded Indians abroad. We had to follow them, even though three to four thousand Indians per day were flying out on 10 to 15 Air India and International Movement Organization (IMO) flights. This included making them sign indemnity bonds and providing individual tickets. Despite my pleas, these superfluous formalities were not done away with. It meant queuing up for registration, air tickets and the return of forms etc, by tired and hungry refugees, even when there were up to 8,000 of them in Amman.
Once the evacuation was over, the government of India did decide to waive the indemnity ie repayment of the cost of the ticket. In 106 charity flights organized for Indians by the IOM, the only formality was the registration of the passengers in the flight manifest with passport details, etc. Without time-consuming and unnecessary formalities, the refugees would have been saved much stress and strain and my colleagues (15 to 25 at the peak ), who had to be at the embassy, hotels, apartment blocks, airports, border points and even in no man's land, could have devoted more time to looking after the comforts of the evacuees.
External Affairs Minister Inder Kumar Gujral, during his transit stay in Amman in early August 1990 on the way to his famous hug with Saddam Hussein in Baghdad and the "Millionaire's flight" in an Indian Air Force aircraft from Kuwait, as the media described it, appeared curiously reluctant to meet King Hussein and Crown Prince Hassan. They received him with great warmth and brought him up to date on the situation, of which he appeared to have little grasp. Later, a non-professional Indian diplomat was sent to Amman by Gujral, who wanted to be included with King Hussein and King Hassan of Morocco, then planning to take a peace mission to Saddam. The Hashemite palace was most embarrassed. Gujral made extravagant promises to Indians in Kuwait, such as flying them out from Basra and Baghdad, with planes waiting for them. In my office, Gujral told waiting Indian refugees that they would get air tickets for their home towns on arrival in Bombay. All they got were the lowest class train tickets. He was making extravagant promises as if he were fighting a parliamentary election.
To overcome the staff shortage problem at the embassy on a permanent basis, Gujral, in consultation with the Foreign Secretary Muchkund Dubey, selected an officer. But that officer never reached Amman to assist "people like us". Gujral kept shouting at everyone in Amman until he left for Baghdad, much to the disgust of the officers and staff who had just started trickling in from India to assist us in our monumental task, which even we had not envisaged. Gujral appeared to be edgy, short-tempered and rude. But much worse was to follow. Except for Civil Aviation Minister Arif Mohammed Khan, who flew in with the first Air India plane on August 12, who was a gentleman of the old school.
It speaks volumes for the Indian government's perspective and contingency planning under I K Gujral and the foreign secretary that it held the only conference of Indian ambassadors in the region to discuss the refugee problem and international political developments just a few days before the deadline for Iraq's withdrawal on January 15.
Now the US, with support from the UK, is threatening a war and regime change in Iraq. If it takes place, it will be a terribly messy affair, overflowing if not involving neighboring Turkey and the Arab states, including Saudi Arabia, which is also under scrutiny and attack by the hawks in the US administration. Unlike 1990-91, when they were enthusiastic allies, these states are now reluctant to support the US' unilateral action. The gulf region has nearly 5 million Indian workers. The question is, has the Indian government learned from its mistakes, and is it prepared this time around?
K Gajendra Singh, Indian ambassador (retired), served as ambassador to Turkey from August 1992 to April 1996. Prior to that, he served terms as ambassador to Jordan, Romania and Senegal.
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