Thanks for telling this story. The ambassador Kamal Bakshi should face a firing squad.Raja Bose wrote: I will provide a very sanitized version but people will get the drift.
A very good friend of mine and one time GHQ was one of those kidnapped and taken hostage by Saddam's forces during the Kuwait invasion. She was a kid back then and with her family had just landed at Kuwait airport after a vacation trip to US when Saddam's paratroopers landed and captured the airport - literally after their aircraft landed. She was taken hostage along with her family and 100s of others and were moved to Iraq. Saddam kept them moving from one place to another without any food, water or even basic shelter. Her dad along with a few other men were allowed to "buy" food and water from local Iraqis who basically fleeced them mercilessly. One piece of bread cost them something like US$100.- and was shared between a family of 4. Apart from this, the Iraqi soldiers and militia had stripped them of all their belongings, jewelry and most of their cash. Throughout the month and a half ordeal they only had one 4 ft x 4 ft piece of cloth to lay on the ground and sleep for the entire family. So her parents basically slept on bare ground while letting their kids sleep on that piece of cloth taking turns. Her mom still has that piece of cloth as memories of that time and she showed it to me - it still has the bloodstains on it when it was used to bandage someone's head after they got hit by an Iraqi soldier's rifle butt. Finally when they were moved near Baghdad, her dad and a few other guys drafted a letter to the local military commander, to allow them to go to the Indian Embassy. They were allowed to under a heavy guard (& beaten black and blue after the journey). Guess what happened when they reached the embassy? The ambassador refused to meet them, asking them to get an appointment!All this time these guys were pleading to be evacuated. Their kids were literally starving, there were families with newborns where the parents were going without food for days so that they could save their cash to buy milk for the babies, they had nothing except the clothes on their back. And our esteemed diplomatic corps sweetly told them that they were awaiting orders from New Delhi and meanwhile could they please remove their smelly selves back to captivity and stop soiling the beautiful Indian embassy premises? Finally after a month and a half, they were released and taken to the Jordan border where they stayed in refugee camps before being repatriated to India. Within 2 years of that incident, my friend's dad gave up his Indian citizenship and moved to another country where they still live. When I asked him why did he do that, he bluntly told me that he wished to pledge his allegiance to a country whom he could actually trust to rescue his kids in times of extreme danger. I had no answer to that.
That in a nutshell is, what India has become. The way we deal with these events is the same way we watch the soccer World Cup. We root for sides and plead allegiance to countries who have no link with us becoz we ourselves are so weak that we have no say in anything and have to pray that we catch a favorable wind which will lead us to safety. Everything is Ram bharose. Even bird poop has better control of its destiny than what India has in the international arena.
Ramana, thanks for fixing the story - it was not PVNR but Chandrasekhar. And yes, the Indian Govt. did move its ass eventually.
Also this is where we as a nation fail ourselves. There is nothing stopping the gent above and others from putting together a first hand account (even now they can do it) and tell others.
There are enough clauses in the IPC for booking the ambassador under dereliction of duty. Let him face the trial., let other babus also face trial and even if the babu is let off - the fire is set under their arses.