Statement of the US Special Representative for Afghanistan and Pakistan, Richard C Holbrooke.

I regret any misunderstanding caused by my comments on the recent terrorist attack in Kabul, which claimed the lives of 6 Indians and at least ten citizens of other nations. I did not say Indians were not targeted, but that initially it looked like the target was not an official Indian facility. Early reports on events like this are often unreliable, and I try not to jump to conclusions. We all know that Indian citizens have and continue to be targeted by terrorists, including inside Afghanistan. My heart goes out to the families of all of the victims.

The Afghan people and international community deeply appreciate the very substantial humanitarian and reconstruction assistance that India provides Afghanistan. The willingness of India to take risks and make sacrifices to help Afghanistan is testament to India’s commitment global peace and prosperity and a vital part of the international commitment to Afghanistan’s future.

The general, when he had diplomatic immunity. Kayumba Nyamwasa calls on the Secretary, Micro, Small & Medium Enterprises, Dinesh Rai to discuss possible participation of the Ministry in the 11th Rwanda International Trade Fair 2008, in New Delhi on May 14, 2008.

The Rwandan envoy to India, Lieutenant General Kayumba Nyamwasa, having apparently defected from the Rwandan government, has been sacked from his position as High Commissioner to India and is reported to be on the run.

The general, as reported by StratPost in December 2008, has been earlier indicted for genocide and crimes against humanity with even arrest warrants having been issued against him by courts in France and Spain.

Uganda’s The New Vision website reported that the general is seeking asylum in South Africa. The report says ‘The embattled diplomat fled Rwanda on Friday at the end of a one-week annual retreat for Rwandan diplomats abroad’, adding, ‘Kayumba apparently left to report back to his duty station in India but escaped to Uganda through smuggler’s routes’.

The report also said ‘A statement issued by Rwanda’s foreign affairs ministry announced that Nyamwasa was no longer its envoy to India’. Really?

The report also added that before he fled ‘Nyamwasa was questioned by Rwandan investigative authorities on serious criminal charges’.

Zambian website Times Live reports ‘Former army chief of staff Lieutenant-General Faustin Kayumba Nyamwasa had been “questioned over certain serious criminal activity,” before abandoning his duties, Rwanda’s foreign ministry said.

The report quotes Patrick Guma, Uganda’s foreign ministry spokesman as telling Agence France Presse, “The information we have is that General Kayumba is not in Uganda.”

The report says, ‘Nyamwasa, who was back in Rwanda for an annual ambassadors’ retreat when he fled, is one of nine officials against whom a French anti-terrorist judge issued arrest warrants in 2006. The warrant is likely to limit the number of countries in which he can seek refuge’.

Especially now that he doesn’t have diplomatic immunity.

‘Prior to being sent to India, Nyamwasa, whose background is in military intelligence, was a powerful and respected figure in Kigali. In the past, Rwanda and Uganda have played host to each other’s dissidents,’ says the report.

The Daily Monitor of Uganda says ‘Nyamwasa is one of the highest ranked Rwandan military officers and a key player in the Rwanda Patriotic Army/Front guerrilla movement that brought President Paul Kagame to power in 1994, although it is reported that he has since fallen out with Gen. Kagame over varying political ambitions’.

In a separate report The Daily Monitor said, ‘Up until his flight on Friday after an annual retreat of diplomats in Kigali, the general was the country’s ambassador to India and previously served as the first commander of the Paul Kagame-led Rwanda Patriotic Forces, after the 1994 genocide’.

The Rwandan Embassy in New Delhi, which became the Rwandan High Commission after the country joined the Commonwealth in November last year still has the general inviting visitors to his country on their website.

Rwanda had virtually severed relations with France over the indictments in 2006, which also implicated the Rwandan President Paul Kagame. Until last Thursday, when French President Nicholas Sarkozy visited Rwanda to mend relations with President Kagame.

And the general then does a runner the next day.

And now the French have arrested the widow of the assassinated President of Rwanda Juvenal Habyarimana, Agathe Habyarimana to face trial for the 1994 genocide in Rwanda. This happened on Tuesday.

So the general and the president, rivals and co-accused of genocide, seem to have broken with each other, with the president perhaps having done a deal with the French about the genocide cases, giving up the general and also netting the former president’s wife.

Not to be outdone, and possibly having nothing to do with this, Congolese rebel leader Laurent Nkunda has asked on Monday to be released from house arrest in Rwanda.

The violence in Kabul on Friday which resulted from Taliban suicide bombers running amuck is largely being seen as an attack on Indian interests in Afghanistan, the third such incident; a repeat of the suicide bombings of the Indian Embassy in July 2008 and October last year.

This is apparent from the resulting death of six Indians including two Indian Army majors according to a Press Trust of India (PTI) report carried by The Hindu, and a trooper from the Indo-Tibetan Border Police on Friday out of a casualty figure of 18 dead according to reports latest at the time of writing. This also included at least 12 Indians injured.

‘The deceased were identified as Major Laishram Jyotin Singh of the Army Medical Corps, Major Deepak Yadav of the Army Education Corps, engineer Bhola Ram, tabla player Nawab Khan, staffer of the Kandahar Consulate Nitish Chibber and ITBP constable Roshan Lal, sources in the Indian Embassy told PTI,’ the report said.

NDTV reports intelligence sources as saying that the Noor Guest House where the Indian mission was staying was targeted. The Indian army medical team – seven army officers and five paramedics were housed here.

According to spot accounts by Newsweek journalists, ‘the victims included foreign visitors staying there, mostly from India, but also from France and Italy’. According to the account, ‘It seemed then that, with a profile this low, it (the Park Residence hotel) would be safe; no American or NATO militaryman or anyone else important ever stayed there’.

‘Most of the foreigners killed were on aid missions here, working for non-profit organizations on limited budgets,’ reported The New York Times, also adding, ‘The attack began a little after 6:30 Friday morning when a powerful car bomb exploded outside the Hamid Guest house, which was used primarily by Indians’.

The report also said ‘The Indian citizens who died included people working on reconstruction projects and several doctors who had come to treat impoverished children at the Indira Gandhi Children’s Hospital, a pediatric center built by the Indian government, according to police officers at the scene’.

Agency reports carried by the Indian Express quote a wounded Indian doctor as saying the ’suicide attack was targeted at Indians’.

McClatchy Newspapers reported Taliban spokesman Zabiullah Mujahed as saying, “”Our aim is those foreigners who have troops in the country: We want to put pressure on them to leave.”

Sultan Mohammed Awrang, an Afghan lawmaker was also quoted as saying, “This is the third time that Indians have been targeted.” He also added, “Everyone knows where they are based and who sent them: Pakistan.”

A claim that Mujahed denied in the news report, saying, “”Our aim is not just Indian,” adding further, “It was their bad luck that so many of them were in the guest house.”

But Afghan President Hamid Karzai was unequivocal, condeming the incident as a “terrorist attack against Indian citizens” who were helping the Afghan people, according to NBC News.

This attack has come in the backdrop of larger events. US-led forces in Afghanistan are to launch a campaign to take ‘full control’ over Kandahar city after their offensive to retake Marjah in Helmand, as reported by Reuters.

India-Pakistan talks were also initiated this week, widely being as little more than a gesture of re-engagement, with Pakistan no less intransigent than before.

At the same time, the tracking abilities of Pakistani security forces also seem to have suddenly improved with the arrest of high-value Taliban personalities.

Julian Borger, blogging on Global Security at The Guardian, writes that the attack might have been ‘aimed jointly at the Indo-Pakistani peace moves and a political settlement in Afghanistan’.

Dan Murphy, blogging on Global News at The Christian Science Monitor, refering to a Monitor report stating that ‘Pakistani intelligence officials, speaking on condition of anonymity, told the Monitor this week that they’d arrested about half of the members of the Quetta Shura’, writes ‘Given the context, it’s hard to see today’s attacks in Kabul as anything other than retaliation and an attempt by the Taliban to show that they’re still potent, whatever their leadership losses recently’. He concludes by saying, ‘ What effect, if any, this attack will have on renewed efforts at Indian-Pakistani peace is uncertain’.

The Union Budget for the Financial Year 2010-11 presented by Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee on Friday has left the armed forces disappointed, with what is being perceived to be its lack of attention towards modernization of weapons and equipment, and force accretion as required by existing threat perceptions and imperatives of defense preparedness.

An amount of Rupees 147,344 crore has been earmarked for defense out of a total outlay of Rupees 1,108,000 crore approximately, almost 13.3 per cent of the budget.

While the Budgetary Estimate for defense last year (Financial Year 2009-10) was Rupees 141, 703 crore, the Revised Estimates brought that figure down to Rupees 136,264 crore. This year’s allocation has seen a 3.98 per cent growth over last year’s Budgetary Estimate and an 8.13 per cent growth over the Revised Estimate.

Rupees 87,344 crore from the defense budget has been allocated for revenue (net) expenditure and Rupees 60,000 crore for capital expenditure this year. While the the latter figure is key for facilitating force modernization, the former decides the capacity for accretion of force levels.

There is a growth of 0.54 per cent in the allocation for Revenue Expenditure. This apparent growth is also largely in name only, considering inflation. A serving officer, who declined to be identified for the purpose of this report, told StratPost that this minuscule percentage would abort any hope of force accretion this year by precluding the possibility of enhancing the rates of recruitment of officers and other ranks.

This becomes especially significant in the backdrop of the worsening shortage of officers that the army is already experiencing, as well as the planned raising of two additional divisions.

Retired artillery officer and Director of the Center for Land Warfare Studies, Brigadier Gurmeet Kanwal says, “The defence budget announced today is disappointing. Actually there is no hike in the defence budget this year as the marginal increase over last year’s Budgetary Estimate figure (Rupees 141,703 crore) is less than the annual rate of inflation.”

Growth in the Budgetary Estimates this year for capital expenditure has seen a hike of 9.44 per cent from that of 2009-10. Furthermore, the amount of some Rupees 5,439 crore returned unspent last year has also called into question the system of budgeting for defense, because of the adverse impact on defense procurement. Brigadier Kanwal says, “The Ministry of Defense is once again surrendering about Rupees 5,000 crore from the capital acquisitions account in the Financial Year 2009-10. This will have a deleterious impact on modernization. In order to ensure that funds earmarked for military modernization do not lapse year after year, it is essential to institute a roll-on ‘defense modernization fund’. The plea that the rules of business do not allow it is facetious as such a provision had existed during the British Raj.”

Sources in the armed forces agree and say that defense procurement has suffered because of these systemic deficiencies and also cite instances where, subject as it is to the vagaries of Indian bureaucracy, has also been held hostage by often unclear allegations of corruption that may be whispered across enough to stall defense procurement tender processes.

The armed forces have hoped for movement on their long-delayed plans for modernization, with the army, for instance, especially keen on placing orders for artillery guns in the light of the depletion of strength and wear and tear of existing artillery, as well as on satisfying their requirement for armor. While on the face, the processes for the acquisition of much of the materiel are underway, albeit sputtering at different stages, the armed forces constantly worry about the delays in procurement caused by the abuse of the system of checks and balances and subsequent hijacking of the tender processes, that can eventually lead to budgetary allocations for capital expenditure being returned unspent, year after year.

Note: 1 crore = 10 million