Experienced diplomats and intelligence officials know that when several powerful countries target a developing country by making allegations one after the other, they are often merely trying to weaken the resistance of the country trying to act in independent ways in international affairs. Some allegations are made directly, and some through media leaks. India has been at the receiving end of such experiences in recent times. So many charges have been made against Indian diplomats in quick succession by countries whose intelligence agencies are known to work in close collusion with each other that all signs of a coordinated effort to create problems for India and Indian diplomacy are evident.

These allegations coming from Canada, the USA, the UK and Australia suggest a concerted effort to push back Indian diplomacy at a time when India has been asserting its independent foreign policy boldly. While rightly emphasizing India’s many-sided strong relationship with the western world, India has kept open its options on important issues to pursue its national interests, and this has not gone down well with those Western leaders who wanted a more compliant role from India.

Hence there have been attempts in recent times by Western powers to try to put Indian diplomacy on the back foot by making allegations of an assassination today, an assassination attempt yesterday, stealing secrets the day before that, and of interference in their internal affairs earlier. India has denied these allegations, although at varying levels. In the context of one such allegation, India’s external affairs minister S. Jaishankar responded with a Hindi idiom ‘ulta chor kotwal ko daante’ (the thief rebuking the police official). Experienced diplomats and intelligence officials of all countries know that clandestine work is sometimes taken up in hostile countries.

The ethical mark is set not by avoiding such work, but by ensuring that this does not harm public welfare in any significant way. In fact, this may be a good time to ask leading Western powers to look inwards at their own record as in their case allegations of killing prominent leaders of other countries and subverting democratic functioning are well documented. To give just one example, the first Prime Minister of the Democratic Republic of Congo, Patrice Lumumba was killed by a conspiracy hatched by Belgium and the USA, and there has been a public apology by the government of Belgium for this. Lumumba was a leader committed to justice and unity, someone who would have prevented the plunder of vast mineral wealth of his country by Western powers and their collaborators.

So, he had to be removed. Together with killing the most popular leader from whom his people had high hopes, secessionist forces and processes were also encouraged by his killers in a country which had just attained freedom, around 1960, after highly exploitative colonial rule. This led to a new cycle of violence, resulting in many deaths, also paving the way for the very long dictatorship of Mobutu who plundered his own country and allowed Western powers to do so, setting new records of human rights abuses and cruelty. In the 1980s, the Sandinista government in Nicaragua was attracting wide attention by achieving significant improvements in health, education, and small peasant-based farming cooperatives. Some of the development achievements it recorded could not be achieved by the Somoza dictatorship, a US client, in the previous four decades.

While the people of Nicaragua were happy and hopeful about the achievements of the new government, US agencies launched a huge campaign to harm not just the Sandinista government but also the symbols of its success such as health centres, hospitals, schools, and cooperatives. For this purpose, various right-wing groups called contras (counter revolutionaries) were mobilized, armed and trained in an operation costing several million dollars. In addition, explosions at ports, refineries and pipelines were arranged. America Watch, which subsequently became part of Human Rights Watch, accused the contras of targeting health care clinics and assassination of health workers, attacking and killing civilians, torturing them, raping women, and burning civilian homes.

Human Rights Watch stated in a report (1989), “The Contras were major and systematic violators of the most basic standards of the laws of armed conflict, including by launching indiscriminate attacks on civilians, selectively murdering non-combatants and mistreating prisoners.” In September 1973, the CIA planned to oust another socialist government committed to the welfare of people – the Popular Unity government led by President Salvador Allende in Chile, a popular leader who has just won the elections. Following Allende’s election, the CIA director had a meeting with President Nixon and a note from this meeting, later declassified, stated – “$10 million available, more if necessary, full time job, best men we have, game plan make the economy scream, 48 hours for plan of action”.

However, before Allende could be removed, it was found necessary to get rid of General Rene Schneider who was committed to the constitution of the country and was a man of great integrity. Big money and weapons to get rid of him were provided by the CIA. Attempts to kidnap him were made and he was eventually killed. Then came the CIA-assisted attack against Allende during which the presidential palace was bombed and Allende died. This led to the Pinochet dictatorship for several decades – characterized by huge corruption, corporate plunder, and inequalities on the one hand and the most terrible torture, executions, and disappearances on the other hand, inflicted on tens of thousands of opponents including women.

The Pinochet regime got full support from the USA and the Chilean model was held up for emulation by a leading group of US economists – the Chicago boys. In 1964, USA assisted efforts led to a coup to bring down the democratic government of Brazil led by President Joao Goulart. This led to a dictatorship characterized by death squads, torture, and human rights violations. Mohammad Mossadegh was a popular leader and Prime Minister of Iran, elected democratically in elections, keen to get more resources for helping his people by curbing the profits of oil multinationals.

This led to a coup by the combined agents of the USA and Britain in 1953, so that the unpopular Shah of Iran could be brought in again for monarchical rule, suppressing the democratic aspirations of the people. While Mossadegh was jailed and many of his supporters were jailed or executed, a secret police force called SAVAK was set up and became notorious for its gruesome torture and repressive activities. In Guatemala, around the same time, a CIA-assisted coup led to the ouster of the democratically elected government of President Jacobo Arbenz that was known to be devoted to the welfare of people. This was followed by nearly four decades of military rule with its death squads, disappearances, torture, and mass executions, claiming over 150,000 victims.

The Church Committee of the US Senate had investigated the allegations relating to the assassination and attempted assassination of almost a dozen foreign leaders by US intelligence agencies like the CIA. Books on this subject have mentioned close to 40 prominent foreign leaders who are likely to have been targeted with assassination or grave harm. In the case of Fidel Castro, the most popular leader and former President of Cuba, dozens of assassination attempts were made but he survived them all. In addition, there have been several other terrorist aggressions aimed at Cuba causing immense harm.

The US War on Terror in this century has resulted, according to Brown University estimates of a peace award winning US project, in 900,000 deaths directly, and in a total of 4.5 million deaths indirectly. At the same time terrorism has become worse in several regions and several new terror groups have been formed. In fact, some of the deadliest new terrorist groups based on sectarian and fundamentalist ideologies were created because of the hostile actions of the USA and its allies in Iraq and Syria. Earlier the USA had mobilized sectarian, fanatic militants from many Islamic countries and armed them heavily with the help of Pakistan to fight the Soviet army and the communist regime in Afghanistan. Over 15,000 of these armed militants later spread violent conflict in many other countries as well, while also attacking several US and western targets.

In Libya in 2011, the USA, Britain and France armed and used such militants for regime change in very violent ways, supported by thousands of air bombing raids. These militants again later troubled and destabilized several neighboring countries. Hence it is evident that the most powerful Western countries have time and again intervened in other countries to disrupt democracies and to cause enormous human distress in other ways. It is such behavior by them that needs to be corrected. In addition, of course, ethical norms must be satisfied by all countries.

(The writer is Honorary Convener, Campaign to Save Earth Now. His recent books include Planet in Peril, A Day in 2071 and Protecting Earth for Children.)