Democracy Now!: Big Business & Arms Deals

Big Business & Arms Deals, Not Poverty, Top Obama’s Agenda in India

SNIP:

AMY GOODMAN: It’s interesting. I read this article twice in the Times, when it said that the chief executive officer of Boeing, Jim McNerney, who also leads the President’s Export Council, greeted Mr. Obama when Air Force One touched down. I read it twice, because I was confused. The U.S. executives were greeting Obama when he came to India. But they timed their own executive meeting—among the leaders are Jeffrey Immelt, who is the chief executive of GE, which won a $750 million turbine order—they timed a conference in India to be there when Obama arrived. The significance of this? General Electric, Boeing?

VIJAY PRASHAD: Well, about five years ago, India and the United States signed a nuclear deal. And over the last five years, there has been a great deal of disagreement about what this deal is going to mean. As far as India is concerned, the United States carried a lot of water for the country in the Nuclear Suppliers Group to make sure that many of the kind of statutory problems were taken care of. India, on the other hand, has wanted to keep an open mind as far as where it’s going to buy its raw materials and machinery from. In other words, the Russians and the Europeans once again want to be suppliers to India for a very lucrative new nuclear industry complex. The United States has wanted to enter this arena, but it has found two problems. One problem has been that the Indian Parliament asked for all its suppliers to maintain liability for what they are selling in India. In other words, if there is a Bhopal-type accident, the corporation must take responsibility. The American companies, such as Westinghouse and GE, have been very loath to allow this kind of liability on themselves. They are saying, "We’ll only take responsibility if the machinery is broken, not if there’s an accident." So this is the big reason why GE and Westinghouse have been such important players with the Obama trip to India. They are keen for the Obama effect to dazzle the Indian Parliament into allowing this liability question to come off the table.

A second thing, of course, is that GE is a—and Boeing are big manufacturers, especially Boeing, of military planes and military hardware. And once again, India has leaned typically towards Europe and Russia, for good reason, to buy military hardware. And again, they want Obama to pressure the Indian government. The reason they have been moving to Russia and Europe is that the Russians and the Europeans have been, if you can bear this word, less fickle with their arms sales. You see, what happened when India tested nuclear weapons in 1998 was the United States cut off sales of arms to India. So the Indian Parliament—and that is the arms buyers, the military and others—say, "We don’t want to get involved with the United States. The United States might cut off their supply to us at any point. Let’s continue with the Russians and the Europeans, who have less problems with things like nuclear testing." So, the real reason why GE and Westinghouse are playing such a big role in the Obama trip is they are hoping very much that Obama will carry water for them in the Indian Parliament to pass the liability question aside and to move—you know, so that the United States gets the contracts and not Russia or the Europeans



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