KARACHI: Experts term military build-up in S. Asia dangerous
By Our Reporter
KARACHI, Dec 23: The two-day workshop on “Paradigms of conflict resolution in South Asia” concluded on Sunday with a resolve that military buildup is not compatible with the security of South Asia.
The workshop was organized by the Department of International Relations, University of Karachi in collaboration with the Regional Institute of Peace and Security Studies, Karachi, under a programme on peace studies and conflict resolution.
The workshop recommended that all South Asian states should seriously chalk out a strategy to reduce armed forces. Jihadi forces should be re-integrated back into society in the region. Activists and policy-makers of South Asia should have coordination in the peace process and conflict resolution in the region.
The consensus was that the future of South Asia is bleak, but there is a sign of optimism. Small states of South Asia and their security concerns related to environment, population, ethnicity, gender and water should be adequately addressed.
The participants also called for identifying and understanding the new emerging trends in the international security environment and their direct and indirect impact on South Asia.
It was emphasized that a fresh perspective was needed for South Asia.
The participants also maintained that non-traditional threats to security should be taken seriously by the policy-makers of all the South Asian countries such as water, environment, energy, gender and other issues between India and Pakistan.
There should be focus on human security and its role must be taken into consideration. The process of dialogue between leaders should not stop even in adverse conditions.
Experts said with the security environment deteriorating rapidly in South Asia, the region is fast moving towards the brink of disaster, so it has become necessary to take urgent measures to avert catastrophe.
“We have the possibility of conflict, which is very critical,” said Maj-Gen Dipankar Bannerjee (retd), Executive Director of the Regional Centre for Strategic Studies, Colombo, in his presentation on the geo-politics of peace in the post-Cold War era.
“The possibility of a nuclear war is not very unlikely in the South Asian region because if miscalculations continue and are allowed to drift, then there is a possibility of a nuclear exchange (between Pakistan and India),” said Gen Bannerjee.
He emphasized the need for ending all kinds of violence and for initiating dialogue. He was of the view that if the attack on the Indian Parliament had been 15 minutes late, it could have resulted in much bigger damage in which many political figures could have been the target.
The post-Cold War situation, which emerged after the Sept 11 incident, had resulted in shifting alliances which were likely to persist for the next two decades.
Gen Bannerjee called for ending all forms of violence and emphasized the role of civil society. He did not endorse the idea of extraregional role in resolving the contentious issues. South Asian issues had to be addressed by South Asia. Outside involvement had to be resisted because all such players would tend to impose their own agenda.
He advocated sanity and urged the people to evaluate the cost of conflict and benefits of peace.
The geo-politics of South Asia in the 20th century had been shaped by the violence of its creation. The expectations of harmonious coexistence between separate and sovereign entities inhabiting a common geo-economic space had been belied by subsequent reality.
The early conflict in Jammu & Kashmir and related issues led to mutual acrimony, suspicion and military confrontation that lasted the rest of the previous century, each trying to outdo the other in a vicious and never ending zero-sum game. In turn, this affected the geo-politics of South Asia and other regions.
Gen Bannerjee was of the view that the post-Cold War era did open up opportunities of peace and cooperation internationally, but its impact was muted in South Asia. Cold War legacies continued in the mind-set and attitudes of political leaders in both countries and an intensification of violence in Jammu & Kashmir ensured that there was to be no peace dividend in the region.
The last decade of the century saw a continuation, even an intensification of this violence. The paper examined broadly the backdrop to these developments.
The world was now in what was termed the post-Cold War era. The faultlines, alliances and coalitions of this period were yet to evolve, even though the outlines were beginning to emerge. The present was a state of transition characterized by tension, violence and a potential of violent conflict, even the use of nuclear weapons.
At the same time, he said, South Asia might now be emerging from the periphery to the centre of global strategic concern, where it would not be free from direct and indirect influences from outside. In these challenging times, there were also opportunities of moving towards peace and stability.
What would it take to make this possible? Peace would not emerge without the efforts of a strong coalition, the components of which should include, apart from officials and intellectuals, the support of a large section of civil society.
He emphasized that it was necessary to build this through a step-by-step incremental process of peace constructed painstakingly among and with a strong coalition. This would include intensification of civil-sector dialogues, confidence-building measures, economic interactions and political discourse.
Karan R. Sawhny, Director of the International Centre for Peace Initiatives, maintained that conflictive relations defined relations between India and Pakistan in terms of an enduring rivalry with enemy imaging but also zero-sum calculations.
The incompatible ideologies driving Indian and Pakistani nationalism, coupled with separatist aspirations, also served as the compelling force behind the conflict in Kashmir - the root cause of tension between the two countries.
The reasons for adversarial relations between India and Pakistan might also lie in the identity politics rather than in several points of differences between the two countries.
The role of peace summits and dialogue between leaders of the two countries became important here.
In analyzing the successes and failures and the lessons from India-Pakistan summit diplomacy the importance of South Asian realities could not be underplayed.
India’s emphasis on the policy of bilateralism (now “positive unilateralism,” some would argue) was viewed as an instrument for coercive diplomacy based on a “well-crafted” policy to deny any room for manoeuvre available with third-party assistance. Thus, Pakistan sought to balance India in an effort to overcome its insecurities impacting negatively on efforts to peace building between them.
However, the equation had taken a volte face in the aftermath of the Sept 11 attacks in the US, and the Government of Pakistan faced a grim situation in terms of a possible internal collapse, economic stagnation and bankruptcy, the unwinnable confrontation with India over Kashmir, the Talibanization and Kalashnikovization of its society and polity and, above all, the grandiose plan to seek strategic depth from Afghanistan that had gone so terribly wrong.
Mr Sawhny was of the view that General Musharraf’s repeated calls to resume the peace process, started at the Agra Summit in July this year, needed to be accepted quickly, if a dangerous potential source of instability was not to assume alarming proportions.
“The Indian leadership is, however, unwilling to take seriously the Pakistani leadership’s invitation to renew summit-level talks until that country demonstrates its willingness to end all support for violence in India,” he said.
“To the extent that India truly wishes for a stable, peaceful and prosperous Pakistan, it is in India’s interest to do more than just reassure the Pakistani leadership over the telephone that it will not create more difficulties for that country than it already has.”
He also referred to the various India-Pakistan summits and held that there was a lack of will to resolve issues.
The view from Islamabad was presented by Noman Sattar of Quaid-i-Azam University. He said India-Pakistan relations had been acrimonious since the day they achieved independence. The legacy of partition and ensuing problems prevented close and friendly relations between the two neighbours. Pressing political problems and issues of concern, however, brought the leaders of the two countries together for summit meetings. These had yielded mixed results.
India-Pakistan summit diplomacy had changed in many ways in the five decades of their adversarial existence. The paper examined summit diplomacy in the above framework, to bring out generalities, trends and patterns, for a better understanding of the phenomenon, and of India-Pakistan relations.
The Chairman of the session, Maj-Gen Ghulam Umer (retd), emphasized the need for intensive dialogue because if tension was allowed to continue, it would be be disastrous not only for the two countries but for the entire region.
