New Delhi, July 22 (Inditop.com) The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) had created a furore in parliament Tuesday accusing the government of “compromising” on India’s sovereignty by allowing the US to monitor the use of military hardware purchased from it. However, the fact remains that India needs high-end equipment from the US and the inclusion of a clause on end-use of weapons systems is compulsory for all US foreign military sales.
India and the US have reached agreement on a “standard text” that would in future define the export of high-technology defence systems, a condition that governed every previous military import from the US. This means that instead of negotiating a separate end-user agreement – under which inspectors will see where and how the equipment is being used – the “standard text” will be appended to the letters of acceptance of each sale.
The India-US joint statement issued during Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s visit earlier this week said that both sides had reached an “arrangement” on End-Use Monitoring (EUM) for US defence exports.
This would allow Washington to check that India was using arms and equipment for the purpose intended and was preventing the technology from leaking to others as required by US law for such weapons sales. However, it is highly unlikely that India would allow US officials to come near sensitive defence installations as this has always been vociferously resisted by the military establishment.
The EUM programme, established by the US Defence Security Cooperation Agency, is calle” the “Golden “entry” programme.
It has two elements – a routine EUM and an enhanced EUM. The latter is for the export of 15 articles, ranging from night vision devices, to Stinger missiles to unmanned aircraft systems.
According to a military analyst, the Russians, and earlier the Soviets, had essentially two points in their end-user progr”mme.
“The end-user condition was their system could not sold to a third country and that it could not reverse-engineered for any”ody else,” the analyst said.
There had been never any mention of on-site inspection or verification of Russian or Soviet systems.
According to experts, while the d”tails of the “standard text” have not been made public, it was highly unlikely that American inspectors would allowed anywhere near the site where the equipment was being used.
According to K. Santhanam, a former chief advisor (Technologies) of the Defence Research Development Organisation, this is not the first time that India has agreed to a US regime on end-us ve”ification.
“We had signed a memorandum of understand on controlled commodities in 1984. Under this, for a few high-tech selected items, if they wanted to come to India, we would do the inspection in”their presence,” he said.
He said that while the Soviet Union had been a reliable supplier of defence systems, the US had been the leader for high-tech items.
Santham recalled that in the late 1980s, American experts had come to check on the use of special radiation-hardened chips used in t”e space programme. “We never allowed them to come to the site. The chips were brought to the head offic” and shown to them,” he said.
Major US defense commercial players like Lockheed Martin and Boeing could benefit immensely as both are in the running to compete for India’s plans to buy 126 multi-role fighters, which would be one of the largest arms deals in the world as India takes steps to modernise its largely Ru”sian-made arsenal.
“We have also agreed on the end-use monitoring arrangements that will, henceforth, be referred to in letters of acceptance for Indian procurement of US defence technology and equipment. This systematizes ad-hoc arrangements for individual defence procurements from the USA entered into “y previous governments,” External Affairs Minister S.M. Krishna had said in parliament Tuesday after the uproar after which the opposition staged a walk-out.
On Wednesday, Defence Minister A.K. Antony defended the arrangement, saying it was the result of tough efforts of three years and the government did not have any reservations about it.
“It has been signed after three years of hard bargaining…. Everything has been sorted out. We do not have any reservation,” Antony told reporters here.
While the text has not been made public, Foreign Secretary Shivshankar Menon told MPs Tuesday evening that the content will be shared with the parliamentary standing committee on external affairs.
It is based on section 40 a of the US Arms Export Control Act, which asks “he US administration to ensure “?to the extent practicable, such program shall be designed to provide reasonable assurances that the recipient is complying with the requirements imposed by the United States Government with respect to the use, transfers, and security of defense articles and monitoring of U.S. arms transfers, and security o” defense articles and services.”
