KARACHI: Analysts call for urgent steps to avert disaster
By Our Reporter
KARACHI, Dec 23: South Asian security analysts on Sunday called for developing a consensus on traditional and non-traditional paradigms of security, peace process and confidence-building measures in the backdrop of the developments that have taken place after the terrorist attacks in New York and Washington DC on Sept 11.
They also recommended that the regional conflictive issues should be dealt regionally under the auspices of Saarc and with international cooperation.
The South Asian countries should behave responsibly, and they should develop confidence among themselves so that a regional agenda could be developed.
Role of intellectuals for peace building in South Asia should be recognized by the policy-makers. The people of South Asia should take the responsibility and stop elites from acting in an irresponsible manner. Research and development should not be sidelined and should be promoted by the policy- oriented institutions of South Asia. Public awareness of the cost of conflict should be created in South Asia.
Dr Smruti Patnaik of the Institute of Defence Studies and Analysis, New Delhi, dealing with India’s relations with its eastern and northern neighbours, said geo-political reality, cultural linkages, economic imperatives and security considerations had shaped India’s relations with its neighbours.
At the same time the threat perceptions primarily non-military in nature, lack of trust and suspicion regarding India’s intentions had guided neighbours’ relations with India. The cultural factor, India’s physical size and economy and the fear of dominance had influenced neighbours’ foreign policy towards India. Apprehensions about India had been a dominant factor in these countries; however, at the same time, there also existed perceptions in India about lack of sensitiveness on the part of its neighbours towards Indian security concerns.
India became a factor in domestic politics of these countries which compelled them to evolve policies which were independent of domestic political consideration. At the same time it restricted India to openly express any policies of mutual concern for the reason of it being misunderstood.
In her paper she dealt with the immense potential of India using the Bangladesh gas reserves and hydel power of Bhutan for power generation.
But, she said, the poor infrastructure in Bangladesh, Nepal and Bhutan had kept the trade balance in favour of New Delhi.
She also talked about proliferation of small arms and its trafficking to Nepal through its open borders.
Sugeewara Senadhira, Assistant Director of the Regional Institute of Strategic Studies, Colombo, made presentation on the Sri Lankan peace process.
Since the eruption of the ethnic problem in Sri Lanka, with its external dimensions in the first part of the 1980s, external intervention had become the main concern of national security in the country. Most Sri Lankan security analysts and researchers believed that the Indian intervention in Sri Lanka’s ethnic problem, though at one stage became beneficial to the country, resulted in a spring-board effect unleashing an uninhibited wave of chain reactions severely damaging the well-maintained balance of power.
Though there was a renewed attempt to find a consensus, the dilemma nevertheless remained as to how a constitution that laid the foundations for a pluralist democracy could be promulgated in the face of entrenched institutional and cultural bias against it. In all previous peace initiatives, the forces that were galvanized against the constitution, because it espoused the devolution of power, launched successful challenges to those efforts.
Partisan politics defined by a zero-sum political culture and consequently militating against a political solution to the ethnic conflict had been alluded to above. It had frustrated attempts to accommodate minority grievances throughout the post-independence period, thereby giving rise to armed ethnic conflict. At present, despite the optimism afforded by the Prime Minister Wickremsinghe’s new initiative, such partisan politics could resurface, yet again with a similar effect.
On the concluding day a simulation exercise was held on the Kashmir issue in which students of the Department of International Relations of Karachi University were panelists.
Roles such as the Pakistani government, Indian government, APHC, United Nations, United States, Saarc, moderate and hardliner Indians and Pakistanis and ordinary Kashmiris were assigned to the students.
The purpose of the simulation exercise was twofold: a) to make explicit the stand of all parties to the Kashmir conflict and b) to find some common ground and present a forward-looking approach to the Kashmir issue. At the end of a useful and healthy exercise, participants came out with the following observations and suggestions:
1. Economic development be given priority in South Asia and the problems of the people be given top priority by the governments of India and Pakistan.
2. Human development be the main concern of the governments of India and Pakistan.
3. Regional approaches to peace and security be encouraged, which will promote regional stability.
4. War is not a solution to the Kashmir issue and the issue be resolved according to the United Nations resolution through a plebiscite and the will of the Kashmiri people.
Earlier Nabia Gul, Maria Saifuddin and Nadia Khalil, in their presentation on conflict resolution vision in 2047, maintained that with changing international political scenario where the discourse was of terrorism, South Asia was in indispensable need of conflict resolution.
They dealt with a conceptual framework of conflict emergence and conflict resolving theories and approaches with reference to the future vision of South Asia. Nature of inter-state conflicts and future paradigms of conflict resolution in South Asia in the context of future notions. Intra-state conflicts and the paradigms of conflict resolution regarding social and environmental sufferings.
Tayaba Tanvir, in her presentation on futuristic approach, dealt with the existing irritants that needed to be resolved by employing peace techniques for the resolution of conflict.
Naushin Wasi of the PIIA dealt with a conceptual framework of cooperative security, including the importance of its adoption.
Naeem Ahmed emphasized that the regional states should adopt human-interest policies, which had been ignored so far. He also dealt with the question of these states’ failure to fulfil the basic needs of their people.
