In response to the Indian Government’s imposition of unwarranted, unfriendly, bad faith, and illegal restrictions on US Government operations to retrieve our approximately 400 war dead from numerous World War II crash sites in northeast India, as well as other anti-American Indian Government policies, the Trump Administration - more specifically the White House National Security Council, Defense Department, State Department, and Commerce Department - took a number of actions that ignored or covered up for these policies. First and foremost, as detailed below, the Trump Administration, in response to this pattern of obstructionism, has had a long-standing policy of making excuses for, and in some instances covering up for, India’s breaches of international law and bilateral agreements in this area. In a nutshell, like the Obama Administration before it, the Trump Administration fabricated and propagated, in collaboration with the Indian Government, a flagrantly false narrative of excellent Indian cooperation with US efforts to recover its India war dead. The Trump Administration also, as described below, turned a blind eye to many other Indian Government policies hostile to US interests, and repeatedly advocated for Indian Government interests and narrow Pentagon and business interests in India, at the expense of broader US national interests.
- On 27 April 2017, Brig. Ravi Murugan, India’s Defense Attache at its Embassy in Washington, DC. sent Gary Zaetz an email in which he made the following statement: “On contacting the US Govt on the issue, we have been assured by them that they are very appreciative of the access and assistance the Indian Government has given them thus far.”
- On 2 June 2017, India’s Washington Embassy issued a press bulletin announcing that the Defense Department had conducted an MIA survey mission in Arunachal Pradesh, India, from November 1 – December 14, 2016. (https://indianembassy.org/press_detail.php?nid=24684;https://www.indianembassy.org/archives_details.php?nid=24684) The disturbing part of this release was this highly dubious statement, intended to portray the Indian Government as much more cooperative with US MIA recovery operations in India than it actually is: “This was seventh such humanitarian mission conducted in India. Government of India has extended its full support to all these humanitarian missions.” This statement neglected to point out that one of these seven humanitarian missions was abruptly terminated by the Government of India in late 2009 before the mission could recover any human remains. The only justifiable reason for terminating a mission prematurely is grave danger to the recovery crew, but the Government of India only offered transparent excuses like “logistical issues” for terminating the mission, and did not come close to citing any danger to the recovery crew. This hardly qualifies as “full support.” The statement also neglected to point out that another one of these humanitarian missions was abruptly terminated by the Indian Government after remains of only one of the eight crewmen being searched for were recovered and before large parts of the airmen's crash site could be investigated. Again, this is anything but “full support.” The statement also crucially omitted the fact that the Indian Government, in the words of a former senior Defense Departy Deputy Assistant Secretary for POW/MIA Affairs, imposes a restriction of only one full-scale recovery mission or one survey mission in the entire territory of India during any given year. Most importantly, this statement conveniently omitted to mention that from January 2010 - August 2015 (a period of almost six years), the Government of India refused permission for US Government MIA recovery teams to enter Arunachal Pradesh on humanitarian recovery missions ! This de facto moratorium by the Indian Government is the diametric opposite of “full support to all these humanitarian missions.” Moreover, the statement covers up the fact that, as late as 2007, the Indian Government absolutely refused permission for any US Government MIA recovery missions anywhere in India. True to form, the Trump Administration not only failed to criticize this statement's lack of accuracy, it was most probably consulted before the statement was issued and approved the statement beforehand.
- On 6 June 2017 the Indian Ministry of External Affairs published a “Brief on India-U.S. Relations.” Reflecting the abysmally low priority the Indian Government attaches to recovery of US MIAs, this 10-page, 4256-word document didn’t devote even a single word to the need to effect the recovery of the estimated 400 US MIAs still unrecovered at US crash sites in India’s territory. Based on how closely the language in this brief follows the language in similar briefs issued by the Trump Administration, it is reasonable to conclude that the Trump Administration approved the contents of this Indian Government brief prior to its publication. In short, the US Government apparently approved the omission of the MIA issue from this brief beforehand in the interest of covering up the Indian Government’s illegal and damaging MIA recovery policy. (https://www.mea.gov.in/Portal/ForeignRelation/India_US_brief.pdf; see also the February 2020 version of this MEA document, entitled “India-U.S. Bilateral Relations,” as well as the March 2021 version, both of which similarly omit any mention of the issue of large numbers of unrecovered US MIAs in India, https://mea.gov.in/Portal/ForeignRelation/India_U_S_Bilateral.pdf; https://mea.gov.in/Portal/ForeignRelation/IndiaUSnew2021.pdf)
- On 13 June 2017, Rep. George Holding, co-chairman of the bipartisan Congressional Caucus on India and Indian-Americans, delivered a landmark speech devoted to “US WWII MIA RECOVERY OPERATIONS INDIA” on the floor of the US House of Representatiaves. In his speech, Rep. Holding emphasized that “the single largest impediment to these recovery operations came when the Government of India placed a de facto moratorium on operations in Arunachal Pradesh for the vast majority of 2010 until 2015.[italics added]” (See Gary Zaetz, “ June 2017: House India Caucus Co-Chair Assesses India’s Record of MIA Cooperation - and He Gives it a Mediocre Grade”, https://www.facebook.com/notes/gary-zaetz/june-2017-house-india-caucus-co-chair-assesses-indias-record-of-mia-cooperation-/1879075538785818/) He made the damning conclusion that “the tempo of recovery operations could be categorized as slow at best for a variety of reasons, leaving the families of the deceased without closure. [italics added]” The Trump Administration, apparently recognizing how damaging this statement was to their efforts to suppress information on India’s MIA recoveries moratorium and to maintain the dubious credibility of its false narrative of excellent US-Indian MIA recovery cooperation, simply ignored Rep. Holding’s devastating critique. For instance, when I brought Rep. Holding’s statement to the attention of Dr. Joseph Felter, the Trump Administration’s Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for South and Southeast Asia, he made no response.
- On November 29, 2017, State Department Spokesperson Heather Nauert, apparently oblivious to the Modi Government’s refusal to relax restrictions on MIA recovery operations, said that “We have a wonderful relationship with Prime Minister Modi and the Government of India.” (!) (https://fpc.state.gov/276071.htm)
- On March 6, 2018, Under Secretary of Defense John Rood responded to a February 8, 2018 letter from House Armed Services Committee Member Matt Gaetz to Secretary of Defense Mattis requesting an update on the Defense Department’s efforts to account for missing DoD personnel lost in India during World War II. Paradoxically, while claiming that “excellent support [has been received] from the Government of India”, Under Secretary Rood also conceded that “at times, Indian political sensitivities have also presented challenges.” In diplospeak, the term “challenges” is a well-known code word for obstructionism. Clearly, his claim of excellent support from the Indian Government is only a transparent ruse intended to deceive Members of Congress, members of the media, and ordinary Americans who aren’t paying attention.
- On March 15, 2018, Adm. Harry Harris, Commander of the US Pacific Command, stated that “We’ve also advanced our partnerships with India, Indonesia, Malaysia, Singapore, Sri Lanka, Vietnam, and many others who are dedicated to the principles of longstanding, customary international law.” (https://www.pacom.mil/Media/Speeches-Testimony/Article/1470271/senate-armed-services-committee-sasc-opening-statement/) As demonstrated by my article “America’s India War Dead and the Indian Government’s Disregard for the Law of War” (https://www.facebook.com/notes/gary-zaetz/americas-india-war-dead-and-the-indian-governments-disregard-for-the-law-of-war/1978675902159114/) the Indian Government’s MIA recoveries policy demonstrates that, contrary to the Trump Administration’s oft-repeated claims, India is NOT dedicated to principles of longstanding, customary international law. In fact, India’s contempt for provisions of international law governing MIA recovery is part and parcel of a larger pattern of Indian Government disrespect for international law in general. This disrespect in practice contradicts the Indian Government’s frequent claims in print that it respects international law. As Siddharth Varadarajan , former Editor of The Hindu and current Editor of The Wire, observed in 2017: “ "...the fact is that the Indian government has never taken international law and its institutions and obligations very seriously. If anything, the Indian state – and the commentariat at large – have traditionally been suspicious of international law, regarding it as some sort of a trap... ...Taken together, this long-term neglect of international law in India has produced a fourth consequence, which is the costliest as far as ordinary citizens are concerned: the government does not feel obliged to abide by its international law commitments on the home front. This is especially so when it comes to its obligations under international humanitarian law and human rights law.” (Siddharth Varadarajan, "Why International Law Matters, From Kulbhushan Jadhav to Kashmiri Human Shield", The Wire, 22 May 2017, https://thewire.in/diplomacy/icj-india-kulbhushan-jadhav-human-shield-kashmir )
- On April 18, 2018, the Trump Pentagon’s report DPAA Year in Review: October 2016-September 2017 listed the locations it investigated around the world for the remains of missing in action US servicemen. The locations investigated were Laos, Italy, Vietnam, Korea, Tarawa, Cambodia, Hong Kong, France, Bulgaria, and Slovenia. Significantly, India was not mentioned at all. This omission reflects the low priority our Government attaches to recovering our 400 missing in action in India, the dismal progress our Government has made in obtaining Indian Government cooperation with their recovery, and the Trump Administration’s efforts to obfuscate the Indian Government’s lack of cooperation.
- On 6 September 2018, at the conclusion of the inaugural 2+2 meeting of the Trump Administration’s Defense Secretary James Mattis and Secretary of State Mike Pompeo with the Modi Government’s External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj and Defence Minister Nirmala Sitharaman, the US and Indian Government issued a “Joint Statement on the Inaugural India-US 2+2 Ministerial Dialogue” (https://www.dnaindia.com/india/report-full-text-joint-statement-on-the-inaugural-india-us-22-ministerial-dialogue-2659930). It's clear from reading this statement that the Trump Administration and the Modi Government have agreed to betray the families of 400 US families waiting for the Modi Government to permit the recovery of their loved ones - US servicemen killed in India in World War II - from their numerous crash sites in northeast India. Their joint statement goes into detail on many issues (among them, trade, counter-terrorism, debt financing, Afghanistan, North Korea, nuclear energy, and space), but not one word on MIA recoveries. That glaring omission is ample evidence that both countries place ZERO priority on recovering the remains of those heroic men. On December 19, 2019, in a “Joint Statement on the Second India-U.S. 2+2 Ministerial Dialogue”, the following claim is made in the section “Building Bonds Between Our Citizens”: “Secretaries Pompeo and Esper expressed appreciation to the Government of India for its continuing support to the Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency (DPAA) as it works to repatriate the remains of U.S. service members missing from World War II.” This claim of Indian support flies in the face of the Indian Government’s refusal to even acknowledge that it imposed an illegal moratorium on US MIA recoveries in India for six years, from the end of 2009 until the autumn of 2015. This joint statement also signals that the US Government under President Trump will continue to turn a blind eye to the Modi Government’s imposition of severe restrictions on the number of annual MIA recovery operations permitted in India, in contravention of international humanitarian law. (https://in.usembassy.gov/joint-statement-on-the-second-u-s-india-22-ministerial-dialogue/; https://mea.gov.in/bilateral-documents.htm?dtl/32227/Joint+Statement+on+the+Second+IndiaUS+2432+Ministerial+Dialogue)
- On December 3, 2018, Secretary of Defense James Mattis, ignoring the Indian Government’s long history of poor cooperation with US MIA recovery efforts in India, ingratiatingly praised visiting Indian Defence Minister Sitharaman’s wreath-laying at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier, saying that “Sitharaman's wreath-laying at the hallowed American military grounds was yet another manifestation that the U.S.-India military relations were not ‘defined by brittle or empty words but by the human aspect of partnership steeped in recognition of the two nations' respective sacrifices and the cause of peace, friendship and freedom.’ ” (Azis Haniffa, “Pentagon rolls out red carpet for India's Defense Minister Nirmala Sitharaman”, India Abroad, December 4, 2018, https://www.indiaabroad.com/diplomacy/pentagon-rolls-out-red-carpet-for-india-s-defense-minister/article_94e9cdf8-f7e2-11e8-8cb8-5f65e2453f08.html) Mattis’ embarrassing display of homage to India’s Defence Minister was just one of the many actions Mattis took to ignore India’s unfriendly actions and subordinate US interests to India’s. As defense journalist and former Indian Army officer Ajai Shukla wrote about Mattis in the Business-Standard, “...he has taken pro-India stands consistently on issues from Afghanistan to the Indo-Pacific....Pentagon insiders recount that, in all of this, Mattis lobbied Congress relentlessly on India’s behalf.” (Ajai Shukla, “Defence Secretary James Mattis' exit leaves India exposed in Washington”, Business Standard, December 22, 2018, https://www.business-standard.com/article/international/defence-secretary-james-mattis-exit-leaves-india-exposed-in-washington-118122200034_1.html). Unquestioningly, James Mattis was the Trump Administration’s most visible and most influential advocate for India’s interests at the expense of America’s.
- To date, the Trump Administration has never criticized India’s longstanding arbitrary restriction that a maximum of only one single-site recovery operation or one multisite survey operation is permitted in the entire territory of India during any given year. This arbitrary restriction stands in clear violation of established provisions of customary international humanitarian law. (See Gary Zaetz, “Pentagon Admitted in 2010 that India Has Imposed an Annual Quota on MIA Operations “ (https://www.facebook.com/notes/gary-zaetz/pentagon-admitted-in-10-that-india-has-imposed-an-annual-quota-on-mia-operatio/1982723118421059/)) In short, these statements and actions by Trump Administration officials are a clear signal to the Indian Government that the Trump Administration will continue to ignore and cover up for India’s obstructionism and intransigence.
- The Trump Pentagon has made it clear to the Modi Government that the Trump Administration attaches extremely low priority to persuading the Indian Government to expedite the recovery of our MIAs in India. The US-India joint statement “The United States and India — Prosperity Through Partnership” (June 26, 2017) went into great detail on how the Trump Administration and the Modi Government are cooperating in the areas of arms sales to India, the United States-India Defense Technology and Trade Initiative (DTTI), Military-Military Engagements, Counter-Terrorism Partnership, Law Enforcement Cooperation, and Facilitating Strategic Trade, but made no mention at all of US-India cooperation to recover the remains of 400 missing airmen lost in northeast India during World War II. (https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefings-statements/fact-sheet-united-states-india-prosperity-partnership/) As a consequence, the Trump Administration’s low priority for MIA recoveries in India has signaled to key leaders of the Indian Government that the Indian Government’s intransigence and obstructionism will not elicit from the Trump Administration any negative reactions.
- The Trump Administration has repeatedly claimed in public statements that India shares the United States’ respect for the “rule of law”, despite overwhelming evidence to the contrary. The website for the US Embassy in New Delhi states that the “U.S.-India relationship is rooted in common values, including the rule of law, respect for diversity, and democratic government.” (https://in.usembassy.gov/our-relationship/) In her 28 June 2018 speech at India’s Observer Research Foundation, entitled "Advancing India-US Relations", United States UN Ambassador Nikki Haley praised India’s dedication to the rule of law. These statements ignore the fact that for years the Indian Government has turned a blind eye toward the explicit dictates of the Geneva Conventions, its associated Protocols, and customary international humanitarian law that it must permit the repatriation of any missing in action soldiers from its territory, at the request of these soldiers’ families. These statements also disregard India’s well known violations of UNSC sanctions against North Korea.
- Despite the fact that diplomatic protest against state violations of international humanitarian law is an accepted practice in international relations, the Trump Administration to date has not filed a diplomatic protest with the Indian Government over its arbitrary quotas on the number of MIA recovery operations permitted in India during any one year. The International Committee of the Red Cross as observed in its discussion of Rule 144. Ensuring Respect for International Humanitarian Law Erga Omnes that “There is extensive practice, especially over the last two decades, of States objecting to violations of international humanitarian law by other States. These objections concern both international and non-international armed conflicts. They are not limited to violations of the Geneva Conventions and are often in relation to conflicts with which the protesting States have no specific connection. These objections have been made through bilateral diplomatic protests, in international fora or by means of resolutions of international organizations. They are usually directly aimed at the violating parties. Such protests have, on occasion, referred specifically to the duty of States, under common Article 1 of the Geneva Conventions, to ensure respect for international humanitarian law.” (https://ihl-databases.icrc.org/customary-ihl/eng/docs/v1_rul_rule144) See for example the multilateral diplomatic protest against the South Sudan Government’s violations of international humanitarian law. (https://www.voanews.com/a/south-sudan-demands-apology-over-western-diplomats-letter/1885747.html)
- The Trump Administration ignored India’s clear violation of the religious freedom rights of US families to bury their war dead according to the rituals of their faiths. Article 18 of the 1966 International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (which the Government of India has signed and ratified) provides: “1. Everyone shall have the right to freedom of thought, conscience and religion. This right shall include freedom to have or to adopt a religion or belief of his choice, and freedom, either individually or in community with others and in public or private, to manifest his religion or belief in worship, observance, practice and teaching....3. Freedom to manifest one’s religion or beliefs may be subject only to such limitations as are prescribed by law and are necessary to protect public safety, order, health, or morals or the fundamental rights and freedoms of others.” (https://www.ohchr.org/en/professionalinterest/pages/ccpr.aspx) Article 18 of the 1948 Universal Declaration of Human Rights provides: “Everyone has the right to freedom of thought, conscience and religion; this right includes freedom to change his religion or belief, and freedom, either alone or in community with others and in public or private, to manifest his religion or belief in teaching, practice, worship and observance.” Article 1 of the 1981 UN Declaration on the Elimination of All Forms of Intolerance and of Discrimination based on Religion or Belief provides: “Everyone shall have the right to freedom of thought, conscience and religion. This right shall include freedom to have a religion or whatever belief of his choice, and freedom, either individually or in community with others and in public or private, to manifest his religion or belief in worship, observance, practice and teaching.” In the case of World Trade Center Families for Proper Burial v. The City of New York, the plaintiffs persuasively contended that “..because burial is a fundamental aspect of religious expression, the city’s decision amounts to a denial of their religious freedom under the First Amendment.” (https://www.nj.com/news/index.ssf/2010/07/world_trade_center_families_fi.html) Rule 115 of Customary International Humanitarian Law states that “The dead must be disposed of in a respectful manner and their graves respected and properly maintained.... State practice establishes this rule as a norm of customary international law applicable in both international and non-international armed conflicts.” (https://ihl-databases.icrc.org/customary-ihl/eng/docs/v1_rul_rule115) In its Guide on Article 8 of the European Convention on Human Rights: Right to respect for private and family life, the European Court on Human Rights, the European Court of Human Rights stated that “The Court has held that the Article 8 protection of private and family life covers the right to bury family members. Individuals have challenged the State’s failure to grant access to the remains of deceased family members in a wide range of contexts.” ( https://www.refworld.org/pdfid/5a016ebe4.pdf ) Another respected legal source has commented that the European Court on Human Rights has established by its decisions in several cases, including Girard v. France (2011), that “the failure to return a dead body to the relatives for burial, or disclose where it was buried, can constitute a violation of Article 8 [of the European Convention on Human Rights] if the interference with the right to bury one’s relative cannot be justified by reference to international human rights law by the state authorities.” (The Last Rights Project, The Dead, the Missing and the Bereaved at Europe’s International Borders: Proposal for a Statement of the International legal obligations of States, May 2017, https://www.ohchr.org/Documents/Issues/Migration/36_42/TheLastRightsProject.pdf) Clearly, the Indian Government, by denying the families of our MIAs their right to bury their loved ones for so many years, has infringed on these families’ freedom of religion, which certainly encompasses their right to bury their loved ones according to the rites of their faith. In fact, a good case can be made that the Indian Government’s long history of denying burial rights to the families of US missing in action in India is not only an infringement on those families’ freedom to exercise their religious rights but also amounts to governmental discrimination against those families’ Christian and Jewish beliefs. Like the Obama Administration before it, the Trump Administration has demonstrated that it is not the least bit inclined to challenge the Indian Government’s MIA recovery policy on these grounds.
- The Trump Administration failed to acknowledge that numerous close relatives of America’s India war dead have themselves died in recent years without having their internationally recognized right to know the fate of their loved ones honored by the Indian Government. (See Gary Zaetz, “The Lasting Cruelty of India’s Inhumane Treatment of the Families of Our World War II MIAs”, https://www.facebook.com/notes/gary-zaetz/the-lasting-cruelty-of-indias-inhumane-treatment-of-the-families-of-our-world-wa/1748087045218002/)
- The Trump Administration refused to endorse House bill H. Con. Res. 61, which expressed “the sense of Congress that all trade agreements the United States enters into with a foreign country should provide reasonable collaboration with that country for the purpose of search and recovery activities for Armed Forces members missing in action from prior wars or military conflicts.” (That bill eventually died in Committee.)
- Kenneth Juster, the Trump Administration’s appointee as Ambassador to India, has demonstrated during his tenure in India that he is biased in favor of India and is therefore neither able nor willing to effectively advocate for the interests of the families of US MIAs still unrecovered in India. When Kenneth Juster was nominated by the Trump Administration to be Ambassador to India, the Indian press warmly welcomed his appointment, citing his well-known reputation as a “pro-India” official. India Today wrote that “Juster has been a pro-India voice ever since he was an Under-secretary in the US Department of Commerce in the George W Bush administration. The US-India Business Council awarded him with the Blackwill Award in 2004 for his contributions to India-US relations.” (https://www.indiatoday.in/world/story/india-us-relations-donald-trump-kenneth-juster-ambassador-984027-2017-06-22) At the time of his confirmation hearing, Ambassador-designate Juster made no mention whatsoever of the Indian Government’s mediocre-to-poor level of cooperation with US Government efforts to recover its war dead (https://www.foreign.senate.gov/imo/media/doc/100317_Juster_Testimony.pdf). It was only after Senator Marco Rubio submitted questions to Juster on the issue after the hearing’s conclusion did Juster feel compelled to make a pledge that he would actively press the Government of India to speed up MIA recoveries in India. Unsurprisingly, in view of his pro-India bias, Ambassador-designate Kenneth Juster failed to follow through on that pledge. His inaugural policy address didn’t include even a single mention of the issue. (US Embassy and Consulates in India, Full Transcript: Ambassador Kenneth I. Juster’s Inaugural Policy Address, 12 January 2018, https://in.usembassy.gov/full-transcript-ambassador-kenneth-justers-inaugural-policy-address/teitonedia). In spite of the fact that Ambassador Juster has traveled extensively in India since being confirmed, he hasn’t bothered to visit any of the 15 documented northeast India USAAF crash sites where the remains of scores of US airmen still lie unrecovered. In spite of the fact that Ambassador Juster has made a multitude of speeches during his tenure as Ambassador, none of those speeches even tangentially refer to the issue of unrecovered US airmen in India. In spite of the fact that Ambassador Juster has met with Indian Government officials many times, none of those meetings appear to have included the issue of MIA recoveries in India on their agendas (based on press reports).
- By covering up for the Indian Government’s violations of provisions of international law governing the recovery of war dead, the Trump Administration is guilty of violating the international law obligation imposed on “third states” to “ensure respect” for those same provisions. Prevailing legal authorities point out that all Governments, even those not a party to a particular conflict, are responsible for observing the obligations imposed by the Geneva Conventions. In the words of Laurence Boisson de Chazournes and Luigi Condorelli, professors at the Department of Public International Law and International Organization, Faculty of Law, University of Geneva, "Indeed, over the last half century the practice of States and international organizations, buttressed by jurisprudential findings [6 ] and doctrinal opinions, clearly supports the interpretation of common Article 1 [of the Geneva Conventions] as a rule that compels all States, whether or not parties to a conflict, not only to take active part in ensuring compliance with rules of international humanitarian law by all concerned, but also to react against violations of that law. Moreover, common Article 1 speaks of an obligation to respect and to ensure respect ‘in all circumstances’, making the obligation unconditional and, in particular, not subject to the constraint of reciprocity." ( Laurence Boisson de Chazournes and Luigi Condorelli, “Common Article 1 of the Geneva Conventions revisited: Protecting collective interests”, 31-03-2000 Article, International Review of the Red Cross, No. 837, (https://www.icrc.org/en/doc/resources/documents/article/other/57jqcp.htm) Article 16 of the Draft Articles on Responsibility of States for Internationally Wrongful Acts specifies that: “A State which aids or assists another State in the commission of an internationally wrongful act by the latter is internationally responsible for doing so if: (a) that State does so with knowledge of the circumstances of the internationally wrongful act; and (b) the act would be internationally wrongful if committed by that State.” (https://legal.un.org/ilc/texts/instruments/english/commentaries/9_6_2001.pdf) To sum up, the Global International Humanitarian Law Centre of Diakonia has pointed out that “Third states violate international law if they aid or assist violations of international law committed by another state. International Humanitarian Law (IHL), through Common Article One of the Geneva Conventions, sets out the obligation on third states to ensure respect for IHL in all circumstances.” (“Enforcement of International Law”, Diakonia, https://www.diakonia.se/en/IHL/The-Law/International-Law1/Enforcement-of-IL/)
- Throughout its dealings with the Narendra Modi Government, the Trump Administration, on the basis of all available evidence, did not even once ask that Government to carry out its legal obligations under the Geneva Conventions and customary international humanitarian law to actively protect the integrity of the 15 documented US crash sites in India from despoliation by looters or unscrupulous tour operators.
- Significantly, when Admiral Philip S. Davidson, Commander of the US Indo-Pacific Command, testified before Congress in February 2019 on the Indo-Pacific region, he discussed in detail the progress being made on POW/MIA recoveries in Laos but omitted any discusson of POW/MIA recoveries in India. In his discussion of Laos, he stated that “[US Indo-Pacific Command] engagements focus around unexploded ordnance (UXO) clearance, POW/MIA recovery, and military medicine. Laos actively supports the Defense Personnel Accounting Agency (DPAA) in the search for 290 missing U.S. service members with an aim to honorably conclude war legacy issues (UXO and POW/MIA recovery missions) by 2030.” In sharp contrast, Admiral Davidson’s discussion of engagements in India avoided any reference at all to the 400 missing U.S. service members in India, apparently to avoid Congressional questioning that could negatively contrast India’s level of MIA recovery cooperation with Laos’ level. (STATEMENT OF ADMIRAL PHILIP S. DAVIDSON, U.S. NAVY COMMANDER, U.S. INDO-PACIFIC COMMAND BEFORE THE SENATE ARMED SERVICES COMMITTEE ON U.S. INDO-PACIFIC COMMAND POSTURE 12 FEBRUARY 2019, https://www.armed-services.senate.gov/imo/media/doc/Davidson_02-12-19.pdf)
- The Trump Administration abruptly cut off, without explanation, communications with Families and Supporters of America’s Arunachal Missing in Action (FSAAMIA), a private US-based organization dedicated to advocating for our unrecovered missing servicemen in India generally and India’s Arunachal region specifically.
- The Trump Administration ignored numerous emails from FSAAMIA to President Trump, Vice President Pence, Secretaries of State Tillerson and Pompeo, UN Ambassador Nikki Haley, US Ambassador to India Kenneth Juster, and other senior State Department and Defense Department officials documenting India’s violations of MIA recoveries law and breaches of promise to the families of America’s India MIAs.
