[Congressional Record Volume 148, Number 17 (Tuesday, February 26, 2002)]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Page E198]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




ARTICLE COMPARES INDIA TO AUSTRIA-HUNGARY--INDIA IS HEADING FOR SIMILAR 
                                BREAKUP

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                          HON. EDOLPHUS TOWNS

                              of new york

                    in the house of representatives

                       Tuesday, February 26, 2002

  Mr. TOWNS. Mr. Speaker, I would like to call the attention of my 
colleagues to an article by Steve Forbes in the March 4 issue of Forbes 
magazine called ``India, Meet Austria-Hungary.'' In the article, Mr. 
Forbes compares present-day India to the old Austro-Hungarian Empire. 
Like Austria-Hungary, India is a multiethnic, multinational country. 
Such countries are unstable, as Mr. Forbes notes, and they face a 
similar peril.
  The article notes that some leaders in India are ``itching to go to 
war with Pakistan, even though Pakistan's President Pervez Musharraf 
has taken considerable political risks by moving against Pakistani-
based-and-trained anti-India terrorist groups.'' At the same time, 
according to a January 2 article in the Washington Times, India 
continues to sponsor cross-border terrorism against Pakistan. The 
article notes that when the Austro-Hungarian monarchy attacked Serbia 
in 1914, it launched a war in which the Hapsburgs lost their empire. 
Today, several countries exist where the Austro-Hungarian Empire once 
was.
  India is in similar circumstances. It should learn from the example 
of Austria-Hungary, the Soviet Union, and other multinational empires. 
It should realize that the breakup of such states is inevitable. The 
Soviet Union and Austria-Hungary had a stronger, more stable political 
structure and they fell apart because such multinational states cannot 
be held together. In fact, Indian Home Minister L.K. Advani recently 
said that if Kashmir gets its freedom, India will unravel.
  Yet India continues its futile efforts to maintain its multinational 
state by force, in pursuit of Hindu hegemony. It continues to attack 
and kill Christians, Sikhs, Muslims, Dalits, and other minority groups. 
It continues to hold tens of thousands of political prisoners, 
something I find very odd for a democracy. Indian forces have killed 
more than 250,000 Sikhs, over 200,000 Christians in Nagaland, more than 
75,000 Kashmiri Muslims, and many thousands of minorities of all kinds. 
This repressive policy will not work. Eventually, the force that broke 
up the Soviet Union and broke up the Austro-Hungarian Empire will break 
up India. I hope that this happens peacefully. With the war on 
terrorism ongoing, we do not need another violent trouble spot in the 
world.
  America can encourage this process of nationalism and freedom in 
South Asia. We should press India for the release of all political 
prisoners. We should stop our aid and trade with India until they are 
released and the oppression of minorities ends. We should openly 
declare our support for self-determination for all peoples and nations 
in South Asia. By these measures we will help everyone in the 
subcontinent to live freely, prosperously, in dignity, stability, and 
peace.
  Mr. Speaker, I would like to insert the Forbes article into the 
Record at this time.

                  [From Forbes Magazine, Mar. 4, 2002]

                      India, Meet Austria-Hungary

                           (By Steve Forbes)

       Influential elements in India's government and military are 
     still itching to go to war with Pakistan, even though 
     Pakistan's President Pervez Musharraf has taken considerable 
     political risks by moving against Pakistani-based-and-trained 
     anti-India terrorist groups. Sure, Musharraf made a truculent 
     speech condemning India's ``occupation'' of Kashmir, but that 
     was rhetorical cover for cracking down on those groups. 
     Washington should send New Delhi some history books for these 
     hotheads; there is no human activity more prone to unintended 
     consequences than warfare. As cooler heads in the Indian 
     government well know, history is riddled with examples of 
     parties that initiated hostilities in the belief that 
     conflict would resolutely resolve outstanding issues.
       Pericles of Athens thought he could deal with rival Sparta 
     once and for all when he triggered the Peloponnesian War; 
     instead his city-state was undermined and Greek civilization 
     devastated. Similarly, Hannibal brilliantly attacked Rome; he 
     ended up not only losing the conflict but also setting off a 
     train of events that ultimately led to the total destruction 
     of Carthage. Prussia smashed France in 1870, annexing 
     critical French territory for security reasons, but that 
     sowed the seeds for the First World War. At the end of World 
     War I the victorious Allies thought they had dealt decisively 
     with German military power. Israel crushed its Arab foes in 
     1967, but long-term peace did not follow.
       India is not a homogeneous state. Neither was the Austro-
     Hungarian Empire. It attacked Serbia in the summer of 1914 in 
     the hopes of destroying this irritating state after Serbia 
     had committed a spectacular terrorist act against the 
     Hapsburg monarchy. The empire ended up splintering, and the 
     Hapsburgs lost their throne.
       And on it goes.
       Getting back to the present, do Indian war hawks believe 
     China will stand idly by as India tried to reduce Pakistan to 
     vassal-state status? Do they think Arab states and Iran won't 
     fund Muslim guerrilla movements in Pakistan, as well as in 
     India itself? Where does New Delhi think its oil comes from 
     (about 70%, mainly from the Middle East)? Does India think 
     the U.S. will stand by impotently if it starts a war that 
     unleashes nuclear weapons?
       In his second inaugural address, Abraham Lincoln summed up 
     the unpredictable consequences of war, vis-a-vis America's 
     Civil War: ``Neither party expected for the war the magnitude 
     or the duration which it has already attained. . . . Each 
     looked for an easier triumph, and a result less fundamental 
     and astounding.''


                              DUTCH TREAT

       While cracking down on anti-India terrorist groups 
     operating in Pakistan, Islamabad can take the wind out of 
     Indian war sails by turning over the arrested terrorists who 
     carried out murderous acts in Kashmir and New Delhi. It can 
     turn them over not to India--which would be political suicide 
     domestically--but to The Hague for investigation and trial by 
     an international tribunal. India's moral case would then 
     evaporate.

     

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