Venezuela and Guatemala

Today, the hot news in every news channel is the Voting for the Non-permanent member post in UN security council(UNSC) by Guatemala and Venezuela. There were many stories tied to this contest and the contest is still going on when am blogging this. Out of the 192 member council, either of the them has to secure 125 votes to win. Now Guatemala is leading Venezuela with a vote of 106 for 74. And the voting will continue till one of them secures majority. While this goes on, I was having a look at the views and stories associated.

There was a call from President Bush to our Prime minister Dr. Manmohan Singh yesterday. And it was said that the call was to discuss abt the nuclear deal debate held in the US congress earlier last week. But foreign policy experts see the 'timing' of this call and connect it to the election going on in the UNSC. They say that our Prime minister was compelled by Mr. Bush to vote against Venezuela, and Mr. Bush is continuing this with several other countries bcoz of which there was a major set back in votes for Venezuela which had equal votes against Guatemala in the beginning. This was associated with the remarks, the Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez made against Bush last September.

1. First, some of the critics say that US has no right to 'compel' our Prime minister to vote against a country. They say that its India's right to decide on this based on our foreign policy.

2. Some say, the remarks Hugo Chavez made against Bush were very harsh and even diplomats in US, who were on Mr. Chavez side criticized him for his act in a public body meeting. So US has every right to lobby on getting votes against Venezuela as what Mr. Chavez is also doing, offering petrodollars in exchange for votes.

3. There’s also a comment that, Venezuela in 1998, was very keen in bringing up a motion against India, for our successful nuclear test. On the other hand, US also have been against our interests at times, esp. in the matter of border security with our neighboring countries. So considering all, India has to decide on whom to vote.

Above all, this is a secret voting, nobody will get to know who voted for whom. So countries can decide to vote on their own despite any pressure. And for whoever our PM decides to vote, it is not going to solve any of the domestic issues we have here, right from Chickun Gunya and Dengue fever to the issues relating the dam across Narmada River, Naxalites ET all. So let’s get back to our daily worry of escaping a mosquito bite :)