Left wants U.S. warships to leave Chennai port

By Our Special Correspondent

NEW DELHI, NOV. 28. The Left parties today flayed the Vajpayee Government's decision to allow U.S. warships berth at the Chennai docks and demanded withdrawal of permission for such facilities and direct the vessels to quit the port.

The CPI(M) strongly opposed the decision to allow docking and refuelling facilities in Indian ports and charged the Vajpayee Government with ``surreptitiously'' giving logistical facilities to U.S. armed forces.

Critical of the ``rest and recuperation'' facilities offered to U.S. personnel, the party politburo said it would mean that U.S. armed forces personnel were being allowed to recreational facilities which invariably led to an ``increase in prostitution and other vices.''

The CPI central secretariat said that ``in a typical American way of taking every other country's land, sea or air space at its own,'' a U.S. helicopter on board the U.S. warship berthed at the Chennai docks flew over the Indian airspace, not just in passing, but for a full two hours and more, including in its flights route the Kalpakkam Atomic Power Plant.

It said the Americans neither asked for, nor required, any permission from Indian authorities form this sortie. They just took it for granted, and casually replied that this was a ``routine training exercise'' and that they were ``not aware of any violation''.

Demanding an answer, the party said the Government should answer why in the first place, the warships which were engaged in combat operations were provided the facility for refuelling, rest and recreation for its sailors in Indian ports.

To take the incident as a ``routine affair'' and a mere technical breach of not informing the authorities in advance was to compromise with the country's sovereignty and dignity. ``It cannot be passed off as an inevitable part of the Government's association with American war effort and the fight against terrorism'', the party said.

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