WASHINGTON: President Joe Biden and Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi held a virtual summit Monday, clouded by US frustration over New Delhi’s neutral stance on Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
The South Asian nation has tried to walk a tightrope between maintaining relations with the West and avoiding alienating Russia, and has not imposed sanctions over the war.
New Delhi has raised concerns in Washington in particular by continuing to buy Russian oil and gas, despite pressure from Biden for world leaders to take a hard line against Moscow.
India said ahead of the talks the meeting would be about strengthening the allies’ “comprehensive global strategic partnership,” while Washington spotlighted “Russia’s brutal war against Ukraine and mitigating its destabilizing impact.”
The more pointed US statement suggested that a resolute Biden would press Modi to take a stronger line on Moscow during the call.
Biden began the meeting however by saluting the “deep connection” between the two countries and said he wanted to continue their “close consultation” over the war, as Modi appeared alongside him on a large screen.
The Indian leader said the two countries were “natural partners,” describing the Ukraine crisis as “very worrying” and recalling that India supported talks between Ukraine and Russia while delivering medical assistance to Kyiv.
Biden and Modi failed to reach a joint condemnation of the Russian invasion when they last spoke in early March at a meeting of the so-called “Quad” alliance of the United States, India, Australia and Japan.
New Delhi abstained when the UN General Assembly voted last week to suspend Russia from its seat on the 47-member Human Rights Council over allegations that Russian soldiers in Ukraine engaged in war crimes.
The United States has already warned that any country that actively helps Russia to circumvent international sanctions will suffer “consequences.”
Yet this has not deterred India from working with Russia on a rupee-ruble payment mechanism to circumvent banking sanctions, while taking advantage of discounted oil prices offered by Russian producers.
Meanwhile state-run Indian Oil Corp. has bought at least three million barrels of crude from Russia since the start of the invasion on February 24, in defiance of an embargo by Western nations.
Biden said on March 21 that India was an exception among Washington’s allies with its “somewhat shaky” response to the Russian offensive.
In the Cold War, officially non-aligned India leaned toward the Soviet Union — in part due to US support for arch-rival Pakistan — buying its first Russian MiG-21 fighter jets in 1962.
According to experts, Russia remains India’s biggest supplier of major arms and India is also Russia’s largest customer.
Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov, who met with Modi in New Delhi in early April, lauded India for its approach to the conflict, and in particular for judging “the situation in its entirety, not just in a one-sided way.”
Biden and Modi are also expected to talk about ending the Covid-19 pandemic, countering climate change, and bolstering security and democracy in the Asia-Pacific region, where India is seen as a critical counterweight to growing Chinese power.
The last confrontation between the Chinese and Indian militaries on the Line of Control, on the border of Tibet and the Indian region of Ladakh, flared up as recently as June 2020.
Biden was flanked by his defense and foreign ministers and their Indian counterparts, who were due to meet later Monday in person for the annual “2+2 Dialogue,” launched in 2018 to deepen cooperation between the two countries.
The two sides, who are expected to discuss Ukraine and China, are aiming eventually to take bilateral trade from the $113 billion registered in 2021 to $500 billion.
But another point of contention is likely to be India’s purchase of Russia’s S-400 missile defense system, which contravenes a US prohibition on countries from signing defense deals with Russia, Iran or North Korea.
The US sanctioned China in 2018 for buying the system but has not committed to doing the same for India.
Biden, Modi discuss Ukraine war as Indian response raises concern
https://arab.news/6f8nh
Biden, Modi discuss Ukraine war as Indian response raises concern
- Washington is frustrated over New Delhi’s neutral stance on Russia’s invasion of Ukraine
- India walks a tightrope between maintaining ties with West and avoiding alienating Russia
Ugandan opposition denounces ‘military state’ ahead of election
KAMPALA: As dark clouds gathered overhead, young and old members of Uganda’s long-embattled opposition gathered for prayers at the home of an imprisoned politician — the mood both defiant and bleak.
The mayor of Kampala, Erias Lukwago, told the gathering on Sunday that this week’s election was a “face off” between ordinary Ugandans and President Yoweri Museveni.
“All of you are in two categories: political prisoners and potential political prisoners,” he said.
Museveni is widely expected to extend his 40-year rule of the east African country in Thursday’s election, thanks to his near-total control of the state and security apparatus.
The 81-year-old came to power as a bush fighter in the 1980s and has maintained a militarised control over the country, brutally cracking down on challengers.
The latest campaign has seen hundreds of opposition supporters arrested and at least one killed, with the police claiming they are confronting “hooligans.”
The main opposition candidate Bobi Wine, real name Robert Kyagulanyi, is rarely seen in public without his flak jacket and has described the campaign as a “war.”
He has been arrested multiple times in the past and tortured in military custody.
The only other significant opposition leader, Kizza Besigye, was kidnapped in Kenya in 2024 and secretly smuggled to a Ugandan military prison to face treason charges in a case that has dragged on for months.
His wife, UNAIDS director Winnie Byanyima, hosted Sunday’s prayer meeting at their home. She said Uganda has only a “thin veneer” of democracy.
“We are really a military state,” she told AFP. “There’s total capture of state institutions by the individual who holds military power, President Museveni.”
Police ‘not neutral’
“The police officers I have met have never looked at themselves as neutral,” said Jude Kagoro, a researcher at the University of Bremen who has spent more than a decade studying African police.
Most officers view it as their duty to support the incumbent power, he said, and often require no explicit order to use brute force on opposition rallies.
Museveni’s regime has used many strategies to infiltrate and divide opposition groups, including through handouts to different ethnic groups.
Under a system informally known as “ghetto structures,” security officials recruit young people in opposition areas who “work for the police to disorganize opposition activities, and also to spy,” said Kagoro.
The government was taken by surprise when Wine burst on to the political scene ahead of the 2021 election, becoming the voice of the urban youth, and responded with extreme violence.
Similarly, Tanzania’s authoritarian government was caught unawares when protests broke out over rigging in last October’s election, and security forces responded by killing hundreds.
The Ugandan government is better prepared now.
“For the last four-plus years, they have been building an infrastructure that can withstand any sort of pressure from the opposition,” said Kagoro.
“We are used to the military and the police on the streets during elections.”
‘Too dangerous’
Still, the authorities are not taking any chances. Citizens are being told to vote and return home immediately.
“The regime wants to make people very scared so they don’t come out to vote,” said David Lewis Rubongoya, secretary-general of Wine’s National Unity Platform.
There has been a spate of arrests and abductions targeting the opposition — a tactic also increasingly used in neighboring Kenya and Tanzania — with rights groups accusing the east African governments of coordinating their repression.
The violence makes it hard for opposition groups to organize.
“The price people have to pay for engaging in political opposition has become very high,” said Kristof Titeca, a Uganda expert based at Antwerp University.
“What’s left is a group of core supporters. Is there a grassroots opposition? No, there isn’t. It’s way too dangerous.”
