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You can find the answers to Bofors - if you want to
Chitra Subramaniam
GENEVA, Jan 17: The answers to the Bofors story are not hidden in Swiss banks or tucked away in Panama or Channel Islands. Sonia Gandhi's demand -- and now Atal Behari Vajpayee's too -- that the papers be made public will yield little other than noise. And contrary to what the Indian public has been made to believe, the facts aren't difficult to find. If only the government has the will.Most of the answers are available in New Delhi and Sweden and one critical answer is sitting in Malaysia thumbing his nose at India. For ten years beginning 1987, successive Indian governments -- except that of V P Singh -- have tried to sweep the scandal under the carpet. They have claimed in public that they will book the culprits while doing the opposite in private. A genuine effort in New Delhi and Sweden is all that is needed. Here's how to call everyone's bluff:
Cooperate with Swedish investigators. They may not have any new information but they know the whole story as told to them first-hand by Bofors
officials. They know the links, the names, the lies. Sten Lindstrom, the Swedish investigator who led the probe in 1987 -- and now heads Sweden's top investigative bureau -- broke his 10-year silence last year to The Indian Express to say India should concentrate on Otttavio Quattrocchi. He said his investigations were abruptly stopped once he started probing the Gandhi link. The pressure to do so came from India. Lindstrom probably holds all but one piece of the jigsaw: that last piece has to come from India. To date, India has not touched base with Swedish investigators.
Ask Bofors why it paid Quattrocchi. India has the evidence, documents from Sweden and now from Swiss banks that link the Italian directly to the bribes. These papers show that without Quattrocchi -- and his front company A E Services -- being paid, Bofors would not have got the contract.
Interrogate former Bofors official Martin Ardbo. He lied to India about the bribes and told Swedish investigators he would take the
truth about the payments with him to his grave. Ask Bofors and Ardbo who introduced Quattrocchi to them. Ask Ardbo why there was a meeting in Geneva with a Gandhi trustee lawyer at the height of the cover-up in the summer of 1987.
Bofors lied to India about the bribes after it realised that India did not want the truth. It was willing to part with crucial information in the summer of 1987 but realised soon enough that India preferred its own stories to reality. Bribes are not illegal in Sweden and Bofors has broken no Swedish law. It was willing to go along with any story India wanted to hear.
Ask Bofors to return the money paid as bribes immediately and bar the company from entering India's lucrative market if it fails to answer questions. Swedish and Swiss bank documents show where, how, when and under what circumstances the bribes were paid.
Begin extradition procedures against Quattrocchi who lives in Malaysia. The Italian government can help.
Ask the Swedish government forhelp in reaching Bofors. Official Sweden went into bat for the contract very actively including diverting development assistance funds for the first time for an international arms contract. When the scandal surfaced, Sweden helped India cover up, taking the lead from New Delhi. There are people in Sweden who want to help. Just ask.
India has nearly a thousand documents on the payoffs, the contract agreements and the secret deals. There is no need to set up yet another committee to spend 12 months poring over the papers at the end of which will come a report with information that everyone knew at the very beginning.
Begin criminal proceedings in India against people whose links to the bribes have been established. All this is within the realm of the possible right away. If only some government has the will.
Copyright © 1998 Indian Express Newspapers (Bombay) Ltd.
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