CONTRARY to the expectations at the outset, US Secretary of State Colin Powell’s detailed talks with the leaders in New Delhi and Islamabad did not lead to any perceptible lessening of the tensions in the region. However, there are indications that the overall atmospherics have marginally improved and, going by the statements from the two sides, the risk of a war has for the present receded.

All the same, whether India will give up its warlike posturing is anybody’s guess. It is encouraging that Mr Colin Powell was discouraged by the outcome of his efforts and expects to continue with his role as a peacemaker without much delay.

The Indian Minister for parliamentary affairs, Pramod Mahajan, who has been described as Prime Minister Vajpayee’s ‘hatchet man’ in a report from New Delhi, continues to be adamant that the Indian military formations on Pakistan’s border will stay on in their positions until such time as Islamabad complies with India’s demand for handing over some 20 persons who were allegedly involved in crimes and terrorist activity in that country. The list provided by India includes some Pakistani nationals, and President General Pervez Musharraf has made it clear that no Pakistani nationals will be handed over to India. The President, nevertheless, feels confident there is no strong possibility of an armed conflict between the two countries. From the political or military point of view, a resort to war would be senseless.

The prospects are that for the present India will keep its forces massed on the Pakistan border and along the Line of Control (LoC) regardless of the risk of an accidental conflict. This is because of the pressure of Indian’s domestic politics, with elections in two crucial states (Uttar Pradesh and Punjab) due to be held within the next few weeks. Many Indian commentators maintain that in view of the erosion of its popularity at home, the BJP-led coalition headed by Mr Atal Behari Vajpayee would want to present the image of a strong government capable of protecting the country’s interests against all odds.

Nonetheless, there is a a general feeling that the situation in the subcontinent is beginning to de-escalate. In a media interview, General Pervez Musharraf has stated quite categorically that India has lowered the state of alert of its forces on the border and also refrained from any further deployment of troops that would be required to mount an offensive against Pakistan. However, he has once again warned that Kashmir remains the core issue between the two nuclear-armed countries and therefore constitutes a potential flashpoint, putting the peace of the region and perhaps of the rest of the world at risk. At the same time, he has reiterated that the Kashmir issue can be resolved provided there is a shift away from the traditional mindset on both sides.

Reports that two key officials of India and Pakistan, Brajesh Mishra, India’s national security adviser; and Mr Abdul Sattar, Pakistan’s foreign minister, would hold a bilateral meeting in Munich in early February, on the occasion of an international conference on security, could mean a possible resumption of the dialogue between Indian and Pakistan.

However, it is too early to place too much hope on whatever developments may take place in Munich. However, it is not without significance that the US secretary of state, at the end of his talks in Islamabad and New Delhi, said: “I don’t want to minimize the dangerous nature of the situation (in the subcontinent). It is going to take sometime before sufficient confidence is built up between the two sides and before the troops start moving back. The important thing is that I think that a political decision has been made that ‘let’s find a diplomatic solution and let’s not let our finger be on the trigger of this loaded gun that we now see on the border’...”

President Pervez Musharraf has not lost any opportunity to reiterate his commitment to peace with India. His message to Colin Powell for India was: “We are for peace.... reconciliation, dialogue, moving forward on Kashmir...” In his meeting with a group of American strategy experts (ASPEN), he expressed the importance of finding an end to the Kashmir dispute. As a practical approach, he also proposed a four-stage process to defuse the crisis in Kashmir. His proposal was: first, India and Pakistan should resume an official dialogue (and he attached no conditions). At the next stage, they need to accept that Kashmir is central to the disputes, and differences between the two countries.

At the third stage, they should agree to eliminate from discussion what each side finds as unacceptable: and, finally, they should construct an agreement on the basis of alternative to their long-held positions. While he did not put it in so many words, what he said could mean that Pakistan should step back from its traditional demand for a plebiscite in accordance with the relevant UN resolutions while India should stop harping on the theme of Kashmir being an “integral part” of India.

There is a view (and this has been expressed by Prof Alastair Lamb whose approach to the Kashmir has generally found favour in Pakistan) that the very concept of a unitary plebiscite for the whole state, with a simple “either all or nothing” option for Pakistan and India is “fundamentally flawed”. He believes that the concept fails to take into account certain ground realities. He also believes that the regional plebiscites approach proposed by Sir Owen Dixon (of the United Nations Commission for India and Pakistan) in 1950 was more practical. Dixon visualized regional plebiscites for the various Muslim and non-Muslim majority regions of the State of Jammu and Kashmir as it existed at the time of partition. This would also be in line with the basis on which India’s partition took place in 1947 and appears to be relevant even in today’s context.

The strong opposition to the division of the disputed state along communal lines expressed by some senior and seasoned observers of the Kashmir situation is difficult to understand. As it is, parts of the state (e.g. Gilgit) have already been divided along communal lines and India appears reconciled to the situation. It is indeed difficult to visualize that the situation could now be altered.

The suggested division of some parts of the state along communal lines which are under dispute would seem like a logical thing to do. The approach would really affect only the valley which has been virtually, and apparently unutterably, alienated from the Indian Union, if the twelve-year long armed insurgency against Indian occupation is viewed. It is a fact of life and should be accepted as such. India’s secular character should also absorb the shock of a communal approach being adopted in the case of a part of Kashmir which has firmly refused to be merged with the Indian Union.

Incidentally, Prof Alastair Lamb has quoted the eminent Indian journalist and writer, Khushwant Singh, from an article published by him in the Telegraph of Calcutta in November 1993. Khushwant Singh accepted the reality that the state of Jammu and Kashmir as it was constituted at the time of partition comprised many disparate parts and was in no sense homogeneous. He also recognized that the question of accession really concerned only one part of the state, i.e. the valley. According to Prof Lamb, Khushwant Sindh also wanted it to be accepted that “despite the instrument of accession”, the majority of the Muslim inhabitants of the disputed territory, i.e. the valley, did not really look upon themselves as Indians; they were Kashmiris. He wanted India to respect the wishes of the Kashmiris “to become an autonomous entity whose existence would be guaranteed by its neighbours — India and Pakistan. He believed that this approach would mean an “Andorra-like” solution for the disputed state. (Andorra is loosely affiliated to both France and Spain who guarantee its autonomous status).

Commenting on Khushwant Sing’s proposal, Prof Alastair Lamb maintains that there is no simple solution, such as unitary plebiscite to the problem of Kashmir. He believes that in practical terms, India and Pakistan only have to agree that their vital interests should be preserved and that they are not faced with “political humiliation.”

In today’s situation, more than ever before, the plan proposed by Khushwant Singh should commend itself to all those who believe in a peaceful resolution of the Kashmir issue. It would inevitably mean abandoning the present mindset and agree on a partial partitioning of whatever remains of the state. This could restore peace and stability to the region.

THE long-awaited second act of President George Bush’s worldwide ‘war against terrorism’ opened last week with the official announcement that 650 US troops would conduct ‘military exercises’ in the southern Philippines against the Muslim rebel movement, Abu Sayyaf.

In fact, it is learnt that the US troops have secretly been conducting operations with the Philippine military against Abu Sayyaf since last fall. Once again, the US is getting embroiled in a complex region about which very little is known.

This is the second time in just over 100 years that the US troops are in action against the Moros, or the Muslims of the southern Philippines. After the US ousted Spain from the Philippines in 1901 and made the island nation an American colony, the Moro sultanates of Mindanao and Sulu resisted fiercely as they had fought the previous Spanish occupiers for 350 years.

The famed Colt .45 pistol was invented specifically to knock down sword-wielding Moro warriors whose courageous but suicidal attacks gave us the Malay term, ‘running amok.’ After heavy fighting and the massacre of large numbers of Moro civilians, the US finally conquered the southern Philippines. The American colonial government moved large numbers of Christian settlers into the southern Philippines in order to undermine Moro nationalism.

But the region, and its six million Muslims, remain apart and distinct from the rest of the 71 million Christian Filipinos. During the 1960s and 1970s, Christian settlers, backed by the Manila government, began pushing into the economically backward, long-neglected south, in many cases stealing land and driving out its Muslim owners in a campaign of ethnic cleansing. Civil war erupted and the Muslim farmers fought back. During the regime of Ferdinand Marcos, the Philippine army and the gangs of paramilitary thugs killed an estimated 50,000 Muslims from 1969-1971 — without a peep of protest from Marcos’ American sponsors.

Two years later, the Moro National Liberation Front was formed in response to Marco’s imposition of martial law. The MNLF, which was financed by Libya, called for an independent Muslim state — Bangsomoro. Three years of heavy fighting between the MNLF and the US-armed Manila regime left over 100,000 Muslims dead; 250,000 were driven from their homes. The world again ignored this massacre. In the mid-1970s, Libya brokered a peace between Manila, the MNLF, and a breakaway group, the MILF. The MNLF leader, Nur Misuari, joined the government, and rebel forces were integrated into the national army. The Muslim regions of southern Philippines were granted autonomy. But tensions simmered on. Christian settlers continued to press the south; Moro factions battled with one another and failed to develop effective local government.

In 1996, a breakaway separatist faction, Abu Sayyaf, rejected the peace accords with Manila and waged a guerrilla war from the jungles of the southern islands. While originally a militant Islamic group battling for independence, in recent years, Abu Sayyaf, which numbered only a few hundred fighters, turned increasingly to banditry. Abu Sayyaf conducted kidnappings, bank robberies, and executed hostages. It currently holds two American missionaries — shades of the Taliban.

Abu Sayyaf is a criminal and not a terrorist. The southern Philippines and the coastal regions around Malaysia and Borneo have traditionally been the haunt of pirates and bandits.

But the president of the Philippines, Gloria Arroyo, who, with the army, recently overthrew and jailed her predecessor, the flamboyant ex-movie actor, Joseph Estrada, went to Washington and claimed Abu Sayyaf and other Muslim groups were ‘linked to Osama bin Laden.’ This, of course, pushed Washington’s hot button and immediately got Manila a pledge of a billion dollars in the US aid and military assistance.

Osama’s al-Qaida did have some supporters in the Philippines and occasionally used safe houses in Manila. But to claim that Abu Sayyaf or Nur Misuari’s MNLF were close allies of Osama is a stretch. Misuari did resume fighting before Christmas, but this was due to murky factional disputes within his organization provoked by Manila’s attempts to undermine his authority. He fled to Malaysia and was promptly arrested.

The troubles in the southern Philippines are not what the West terms terrorism, as President Arroyo claimed, but the result of centuries of land disputes, the denial of equal economic and political rights to the Bangsomoro Muslims, and tribal disputes.

But in Washington’s new world view, any Muslims seeking independence — whether in Kashmir, Chechnya, Palestine, or Mindanao — are ipso facto terrorists. However, in East Timor — a case that much resembles Kashmir and the Mindanao — the US and its allies aided the Christian majority in seceding from Muslim Indonesia and winning independence. In short, a clear double standard.

The billion plus dollars Washington is giving Manila to fight ‘terrorism’ would be far better spent, were the US truly concerned about the Philippines, on education and economic improvement in the impoverished south. Instead, the US aid will be stolen by the government and military officials, or spent chasing a small number of Abu Sayyaf bandits through the jungles of Basilan Island.

Interestingly, the US is ignoring the long-running insurgency in the north by HUK communist guerrillas, who are every bit as nasty as Abu Sayyaf. It seems terrorism, in Bush’s terms, applies only to Muslims.—Copyright Eric S. Margolis 2002

“POVERTY is the parent of revolution and crime”, Aristotle said in the 4th century BC. Poverty is, doubtless, one of the mainsprings of terrorism in developing countries. And when it is in acute condition, as it is in many parts of South Asia these days, the affectees become increasingly militant. But the rich and the powerful take such warnings casually.

The hard fact is that after having waited too long to see that their lot improves the poor find that it is a vain exercise and also discover that the things were getting worse for them. The result is that they lose faith in the official promises for a better tomorrow and instead turn to illegal ways or crimes to make both ends meet.

The despair of the poor is further fuelled by the sharp contrast between their absolute poverty and the conspicuous high living of the rich and the powerful. And when that adds to the humiliation of the poor with their starving, sick and illiterate children and other dependents, they feel justified in taking to violent protests demanding radical changes.

Their anger deepens by their awareness that much of the wealth the rich possess has not been acquired through legitimate means but is a result of outright dishonest and unethical practices. Equally provocative is the indifference of the officials who are expected to serve the public and render justice but are found to be too corrupt and thriving on their corruption as a group. So, the moral basis of the state gets eroded. The seeds of revolt, if not a revolution, are then sown.

A Pakistan economist went to South Korea in the 1970s to see how that country, shattered by war in the 1950s, was faring. He came back to report that Park Chung Hee, the then president, had advised the business community of his country to observe two things: they should maintain the product quality at all costs and improve it constantly; and adopt a simple lifestyle (but could feel free when abroad). The businessmen agreed to that request and had abided by that since then. So, the lower income groups there have little reason to feel provoked when they see the lifestyle of the rich class.

The rich in Pakistan, on the contrary, are too eager to show off their wealth and undeserved success. As a result they invite more crimes against them. They try to protect themselves by hiring more and more guards. And now some of the guards themselves are committing crimes against the families they are assigned to protect. Since revolutions, in the classical sense, are no more possible, committing crimes is possible and has become easier against both the rich and the poor. What is more common among the armed groups is to prefer the moderately guarded or simply unguarded.

On the other hand, the desperately poor but law-abiding citizens commit suicide after prolonged unemployment, depression and humiliation. But such deaths fail to move society. The rich take these deaths casually and talk of higher suicide rates in Japan and Scandinavia as well. But the suicides there are not because of absolute poverty. There, the reasons are of social and cultural origin or failure in love.

The Human Development in South Asia - 2001 report of the Mahbubul Haq Human Development Centre says that globalization, though an inevitable process, is by no means without its risks. It requires many enlightened policies on the part of national governments, international organizations, private sector and civil society to translate the benefits of economic growth.

The report says that owing to the globalization process about half a billion people in South Asia have experienced a decline in their incomes. The benefits of the economic growth that did take place were limited to a small minority of educated urbanized people. In South Asia income inequality has increased. The record so far shows that it is the poor who bear the heaviest burden and they are the ones who do not have any means to support themselves in bad times.”

The report also stresses that economic growth and human development must move together. Otherwise neither growth nor human development can be sustained. The report underscores the need for larger economic cooperation between the countries of South Asia through the SAARC and the proposed South Asia Free Trade Area instead of their mutual trade being limited to just 3 per cent of their total external trade.

Globalization, says the report, in the ultimate analysis is to be seen only as a means to enhance people’s well being. All policies and programmes must focus on people. And “we need to assess globalization from the point of view of human development and poverty reduction.”

The report says the global economy has emerged but the institutions of global governance are not performing either efficiently or equitably. These institutions are the World Bank, IMF and the World Trade Organization. While we in Pakistan cannot change the way the IMF or the World Bank thinks, while exerting pressure in that direction, we certainly can do far more to improve governance at home. It is not enough for the military government to say there is no corruption at the top. What matters more is to save the poor from the wrath of the junior police constables. Unless they see a visible change in the behaviour of such functionaries things cannot improve.

Until now small consumers of electric power in Karachi were fined heavily, punished in other ways, including disconnection of the power supply for delay in payment of their bills even if they were over-billed. And it has taken three years for the high-ups, including over two years of military rule, to lay their hands on the big fish. Secretaries to the Sindh government did not pay their power bills. They and the police chiefs and other influential persons have for the first time experienced power supply disconnections. The power was restored only after they had paid 50 per cent of their bills.

The Asian Development Bank has now raised its assistance to Pakistan from an average of 600 million dollars a year to one billion dollars for three years ending 2003 largely to “combat poverty”. One such method to combat poverty is to advance 250 million dollars for capital market development. The ADB has also offered 350 million dollars for the grossly mismanaged KESC for re-structuring before its privatization.

As the country goes into greater debt in the name of various reforms, will there be any change, any better functioning of the official machinery? Will we experience the spirit of the reforms that should result in real good governance instead of only cosmetic changes? And how well the newly-constituted local bodies that have been invested with new authority function well and really serve the people?

The question arises that while the world is coming to help Pakistan by rescheduling the old loans and giving new loans at low interest rates what are Pakistan’s own industrialists and businessmen doing to revive the economy? They still complain that the government does not understand them or is not willing to help them adequately.

The fact is that for some years now businessmen have been in the forefront of the government. In the days of Nawaz Sharif businessmen were in top positions in the government everywhere. Then they argued that Nawaz Sharif was interested in promoting his family business and not the business in general. And they resorted to several anti-sales tax strikes.

And now under the military regime Shaukat Aziz, a private sector banker, is the finance minister, Razak Dawood is the minister for commerce and industry and another businessman Altaf Saleem is minister for privatization. Abbas Sarfraz, another federal minister, is from a business family of Mardan. And Sindh’s governor Mohammadmian Soomro is a former banker. The State Bank governor Dr Ishart Husain and the Sindh finance minister Abdul Hafeez Shaikh have been in the World Bank and were not bureaucrats.

THE United States has been under pressure particularly in Europe but elsewhere in the world also about the conditions in which it has been keeping Al Qaeda and Taliban fighters in a makeshift camp in the American territory of Guantanamo Bay in Cuba.

There has been fierce criticism in Britain of the allegedly inhumane treatment meted out to the detainees, who are kept in small cages exposed to the weather, and of Washington’s refusal to accord prisoner-of-war status to the arrested men, when they would have been entitled to facilities provided under the Geneva Convention.

The US has denied charges relating to inhumane treatment, and said the Geneva Convention’s guidelines are being followed irrespective of the nomenclature used to describe the prisoners. Matters have been made worse by the usually cool-headed defence secretary, Mr Donald Rumsfeld, who has said, inter alia, that he didn’t feel concerned in the slightest about the Al Qaeda and Taliban men, who were being treated far better than they treated anyone else. This has been seized upon by commentators as suggesting that the US is using Taliban and Al Qaeda behaviour as a benchmark for its own conduct.

Mr Rumsfeld has also made light of the prisoners’ exposure to the weather, saying that people in the world outside should realize that the climate in Guantanamo is far different from that in Afghanistan. He seemed to stop just short of declaring that the weather at the prison compound, named Camp X-Ray, is actually quite balmy and the prisoners should in fact be enjoying it, like ordinary tourists to Cuba.

It is this attitude perhaps that is more galling than the actual treatment of the fighters, who are no doubt dangerous men. The attitude reflects much in the US make-up that so irritates people abroad — a smug sense of self-righteousness born of power. When Mr Rumsfeld was showered with sharp questions about Guantanamo at a briefing on Tuesday, he said with some exasperation that if one looked at recent media reports, one would think that America “is what’s wrong with the world”.

He was, in truth, not far off the mark: it is America that is seen to be the trouble behind much of what is happening in the world, and seen in this light not just by Muslim extremists or fundamentalists. Even in staunch US ally Britain, anti-Americanism simmers just beneath the surface and needs only an occasion like the transfer of prisoners, who include three Britons, to Guantanamo camp to come to the surface.

Pained by the animosity their country arouses, Americans blame it on envy, envy of American prosperity, American military prowess and America’s way of life. Others see anti-Americanism as being due to Washington’s cynical use of its strength — great, undoubtedly, and without match — to manipulate everyone else. It is unfortunate that there is not enough realization among US policy-makers of the simple fact that, abroad, America is judged only by how it is seen to go about unilaterally imposing its will on other nations. Its domestic strengths, such as its multi-racial society, its democratic tradition, its tolerance, and the accountability of its system of governance, are often forgotten.

It is perceived as seeking security for itself at the expense of everyone else. The official and general media glorification of interventions abroad (there’s a blockbuster movie in cinema houses now on the US military adventure in Somalia) only feeds this foreign view of America. Is it only a coincidence that Bush’s rating at present is the highest for any US president on the completion of his first year in office or is it that America is at its patriotic best when externally aggressive?

Pakistan is a good example of some of these random impressions. There has been general welcome there for how the force of circumstances following September 11 and US pressure have pushed the military to take action against its own pampered militant and extremist organizations. Yet, among large sections of even those Pakistanis who have welcomed the new trend in domestic policies, there are strong reservations about the intense US bombing campaign in Afghanistan and the threat of extending the “war against terrorism”.

There is suspicion of US motives, and even Washington’s signal effort in exerting its power to cool down tempers along the Pakistan-India boundary has won only grudging recognition. The images from Guantanamo will have further fuelled discomfort with US attitudes. Not only in Pakistan, but elsewhere too this particular episode has greatly eroded America’s claim to hold the high moral ground.

Understanding why everybody is so ready to pounce on America so soon after Sept 11 shook the world should be the biggest policy challenge for the US establishment and the Washington think-tanks in the coming months. Such an exercise may help explain to America its own failure to win over the world to its side and also why the rest of the world appears to Americans to be so schizophrenic about it. Guantanamo is only a symptom of much of what is wrong with American policy.

CONTRARY to the expectations at the outset, US Secretary of State Colin Powell’s detailed talks with the leaders in New Delhi and Islamabad did not lead to any perceptible lessening of the tensions in the region. However, there are indications that the overall atmospherics have marginally improved and, going by the statements from the two sides, the risk of a war has for the present receded.

All the same, whether India will give up its warlike posturing is anybody’s guess. It is encouraging that Mr Colin Powell was discouraged by the outcome of his efforts and expects to continue with his role as a peacemaker without much delay.

The Indian Minister for parliamentary affairs, Pramod Mahajan, who has been described as Prime Minister Vajpayee’s ‘hatchet man’ in a report from New Delhi, continues to be adamant that the Indian military formations on Pakistan’s border will stay on in their positions until such time as Islamabad complies with India’s demand for handing over some 20 persons who were allegedly involved in crimes and terrorist activity in that country. The list provided by India includes some Pakistani nationals, and President General Pervez Musharraf has made it clear that no Pakistani nationals will be handed over to India. The President, nevertheless, feels confident there is no strong possibility of an armed conflict between the two countries. From the political or military point of view, a resort to war would be senseless.

The prospects are that for the present India will keep its forces massed on the Pakistan border and along the Line of Control (LoC) regardless of the risk of an accidental conflict. This is because of the pressure of Indian’s domestic politics, with elections in two crucial states (Uttar Pradesh and Punjab) due to be held within the next few weeks. Many Indian commentators maintain that in view of the erosion of its popularity at home, the BJP-led coalition headed by Mr Atal Behari Vajpayee would want to present the image of a strong government capable of protecting the country’s interests against all odds.

Nonetheless, there is a a general feeling that the situation in the subcontinent is beginning to de-escalate. In a media interview, General Pervez Musharraf has stated quite categorically that India has lowered the state of alert of its forces on the border and also refrained from any further deployment of troops that would be required to mount an offensive against Pakistan. However, he has once again warned that Kashmir remains the core issue between the two nuclear-armed countries and therefore constitutes a potential flashpoint, putting the peace of the region and perhaps of the rest of the world at risk. At the same time, he has reiterated that the Kashmir issue can be resolved provided there is a shift away from the traditional mindset on both sides.

Reports that two key officials of India and Pakistan, Brajesh Mishra, India’s national security adviser; and Mr Abdul Sattar, Pakistan’s foreign minister, would hold a bilateral meeting in Munich in early February, on the occasion of an international conference on security, could mean a possible resumption of the dialogue between Indian and Pakistan.

However, it is too early to place too much hope on whatever developments may take place in Munich. However, it is not without significance that the US secretary of state, at the end of his talks in Islamabad and New Delhi, said: “I don’t want to minimize the dangerous nature of the situation (in the subcontinent). It is going to take sometime before sufficient confidence is built up between the two sides and before the troops start moving back. The important thing is that I think that a political decision has been made that ‘let’s find a diplomatic solution and let’s not let our finger be on the trigger of this loaded gun that we now see on the border’...”

President Pervez Musharraf has not lost any opportunity to reiterate his commitment to peace with India. His message to Colin Powell for India was: “We are for peace.... reconciliation, dialogue, moving forward on Kashmir...” In his meeting with a group of American strategy experts (ASPEN), he expressed the importance of finding an end to the Kashmir dispute. As a practical approach, he also proposed a four-stage process to defuse the crisis in Kashmir. His proposal was: first, India and Pakistan should resume an official dialogue (and he attached no conditions). At the next stage, they need to accept that Kashmir is central to the disputes, and differences between the two countries.

At the third stage, they should agree to eliminate from discussion what each side finds as unacceptable: and, finally, they should construct an agreement on the basis of alternative to their long-held positions. While he did not put it in so many words, what he said could mean that Pakistan should step back from its traditional demand for a plebiscite in accordance with the relevant UN resolutions while India should stop harping on the theme of Kashmir being an “integral part” of India.

There is a view (and this has been expressed by Prof Alastair Lamb whose approach to the Kashmir has generally found favour in Pakistan) that the very concept of a unitary plebiscite for the whole state, with a simple “either all or nothing” option for Pakistan and India is “fundamentally flawed”. He believes that the concept fails to take into account certain ground realities. He also believes that the regional plebiscites approach proposed by Sir Owen Dixon (of the United Nations Commission for India and Pakistan) in 1950 was more practical. Dixon visualized regional plebiscites for the various Muslim and non-Muslim majority regions of the State of Jammu and Kashmir as it existed at the time of partition. This would also be in line with the basis on which India’s partition took place in 1947 and appears to be relevant even in today’s context.

The strong opposition to the division of the disputed state along communal lines expressed by some senior and seasoned observers of the Kashmir situation is difficult to understand. As it is, parts of the state (e.g. Gilgit) have already been divided along communal lines and India appears reconciled to the situation. It is indeed difficult to visualize that the situation could now be altered.

The suggested division of some parts of the state along communal lines which are under dispute would seem like a logical thing to do. The approach would really affect only the valley which has been virtually, and apparently unutterably, alienated from the Indian Union, if the twelve-year long armed insurgency against Indian occupation is viewed. It is a fact of life and should be accepted as such. India’s secular character should also absorb the shock of a communal approach being adopted in the case of a part of Kashmir which has firmly refused to be merged with the Indian Union.

Incidentally, Prof Alastair Lamb has quoted the eminent Indian journalist and writer, Khushwant Singh, from an article published by him in the Telegraph of Calcutta in November 1993. Khushwant Singh accepted the reality that the state of Jammu and Kashmir as it was constituted at the time of partition comprised many disparate parts and was in no sense homogeneous. He also recognized that the question of accession really concerned only one part of the state, i.e. the valley. According to Prof Lamb, Khushwant Sindh also wanted it to be accepted that “despite the instrument of accession”, the majority of the Muslim inhabitants of the disputed territory, i.e. the valley, did not really look upon themselves as Indians; they were Kashmiris. He wanted India to respect the wishes of the Kashmiris “to become an autonomous entity whose existence would be guaranteed by its neighbours — India and Pakistan. He believed that this approach would mean an “Andorra-like” solution for the disputed state. (Andorra is loosely affiliated to both France and Spain who guarantee its autonomous status).

Commenting on Khushwant Sing’s proposal, Prof Alastair Lamb maintains that there is no simple solution, such as unitary plebiscite to the problem of Kashmir. He believes that in practical terms, India and Pakistan only have to agree that their vital interests should be preserved and that they are not faced with “political humiliation.”

In today’s situation, more than ever before, the plan proposed by Khushwant Singh should commend itself to all those who believe in a peaceful resolution of the Kashmir issue. It would inevitably mean abandoning the present mindset and agree on a partial partitioning of whatever remains of the state. This could restore peace and stability to the region.

THE long-awaited second act of President George Bush’s worldwide ‘war against terrorism’ opened last week with the official announcement that 650 US troops would conduct ‘military exercises’ in the southern Philippines against the Muslim rebel movement, Abu Sayyaf.

In fact, it is learnt that the US troops have secretly been conducting operations with the Philippine military against Abu Sayyaf since last fall. Once again, the US is getting embroiled in a complex region about which very little is known.

This is the second time in just over 100 years that the US troops are in action against the Moros, or the Muslims of the southern Philippines. After the US ousted Spain from the Philippines in 1901 and made the island nation an American colony, the Moro sultanates of Mindanao and Sulu resisted fiercely as they had fought the previous Spanish occupiers for 350 years.

The famed Colt .45 pistol was invented specifically to knock down sword-wielding Moro warriors whose courageous but suicidal attacks gave us the Malay term, ‘running amok.’ After heavy fighting and the massacre of large numbers of Moro civilians, the US finally conquered the southern Philippines. The American colonial government moved large numbers of Christian settlers into the southern Philippines in order to undermine Moro nationalism.

But the region, and its six million Muslims, remain apart and distinct from the rest of the 71 million Christian Filipinos. During the 1960s and 1970s, Christian settlers, backed by the Manila government, began pushing into the economically backward, long-neglected south, in many cases stealing land and driving out its Muslim owners in a campaign of ethnic cleansing. Civil war erupted and the Muslim farmers fought back. During the regime of Ferdinand Marcos, the Philippine army and the gangs of paramilitary thugs killed an estimated 50,000 Muslims from 1969-1971 — without a peep of protest from Marcos’ American sponsors.

Two years later, the Moro National Liberation Front was formed in response to Marco’s imposition of martial law. The MNLF, which was financed by Libya, called for an independent Muslim state — Bangsomoro. Three years of heavy fighting between the MNLF and the US-armed Manila regime left over 100,000 Muslims dead; 250,000 were driven from their homes. The world again ignored this massacre. In the mid-1970s, Libya brokered a peace between Manila, the MNLF, and a breakaway group, the MILF. The MNLF leader, Nur Misuari, joined the government, and rebel forces were integrated into the national army. The Muslim regions of southern Philippines were granted autonomy. But tensions simmered on. Christian settlers continued to press the south; Moro factions battled with one another and failed to develop effective local government.

In 1996, a breakaway separatist faction, Abu Sayyaf, rejected the peace accords with Manila and waged a guerrilla war from the jungles of the southern islands. While originally a militant Islamic group battling for independence, in recent years, Abu Sayyaf, which numbered only a few hundred fighters, turned increasingly to banditry. Abu Sayyaf conducted kidnappings, bank robberies, and executed hostages. It currently holds two American missionaries — shades of the Taliban.

Abu Sayyaf is a criminal and not a terrorist. The southern Philippines and the coastal regions around Malaysia and Borneo have traditionally been the haunt of pirates and bandits.

But the president of the Philippines, Gloria Arroyo, who, with the army, recently overthrew and jailed her predecessor, the flamboyant ex-movie actor, Joseph Estrada, went to Washington and claimed Abu Sayyaf and other Muslim groups were ‘linked to Osama bin Laden.’ This, of course, pushed Washington’s hot button and immediately got Manila a pledge of a billion dollars in the US aid and military assistance.

Osama’s al-Qaida did have some supporters in the Philippines and occasionally used safe houses in Manila. But to claim that Abu Sayyaf or Nur Misuari’s MNLF were close allies of Osama is a stretch. Misuari did resume fighting before Christmas, but this was due to murky factional disputes within his organization provoked by Manila’s attempts to undermine his authority. He fled to Malaysia and was promptly arrested.

The troubles in the southern Philippines are not what the West terms terrorism, as President Arroyo claimed, but the result of centuries of land disputes, the denial of equal economic and political rights to the Bangsomoro Muslims, and tribal disputes.

But in Washington’s new world view, any Muslims seeking independence — whether in Kashmir, Chechnya, Palestine, or Mindanao — are ipso facto terrorists. However, in East Timor — a case that much resembles Kashmir and the Mindanao — the US and its allies aided the Christian majority in seceding from Muslim Indonesia and winning independence. In short, a clear double standard.

The billion plus dollars Washington is giving Manila to fight ‘terrorism’ would be far better spent, were the US truly concerned about the Philippines, on education and economic improvement in the impoverished south. Instead, the US aid will be stolen by the government and military officials, or spent chasing a small number of Abu Sayyaf bandits through the jungles of Basilan Island.

Interestingly, the US is ignoring the long-running insurgency in the north by HUK communist guerrillas, who are every bit as nasty as Abu Sayyaf. It seems terrorism, in Bush’s terms, applies only to Muslims.—Copyright Eric S. Margolis 2002

“POVERTY is the parent of revolution and crime”, Aristotle said in the 4th century BC. Poverty is, doubtless, one of the mainsprings of terrorism in developing countries. And when it is in acute condition, as it is in many parts of South Asia these days, the affectees become increasingly militant. But the rich and the powerful take such warnings casually.

The hard fact is that after having waited too long to see that their lot improves the poor find that it is a vain exercise and also discover that the things were getting worse for them. The result is that they lose faith in the official promises for a better tomorrow and instead turn to illegal ways or crimes to make both ends meet.

The despair of the poor is further fuelled by the sharp contrast between their absolute poverty and the conspicuous high living of the rich and the powerful. And when that adds to the humiliation of the poor with their starving, sick and illiterate children and other dependents, they feel justified in taking to violent protests demanding radical changes.

Their anger deepens by their awareness that much of the wealth the rich possess has not been acquired through legitimate means but is a result of outright dishonest and unethical practices. Equally provocative is the indifference of the officials who are expected to serve the public and render justice but are found to be too corrupt and thriving on their corruption as a group. So, the moral basis of the state gets eroded. The seeds of revolt, if not a revolution, are then sown.

A Pakistan economist went to South Korea in the 1970s to see how that country, shattered by war in the 1950s, was faring. He came back to report that Park Chung Hee, the then president, had advised the business community of his country to observe two things: they should maintain the product quality at all costs and improve it constantly; and adopt a simple lifestyle (but could feel free when abroad). The businessmen agreed to that request and had abided by that since then. So, the lower income groups there have little reason to feel provoked when they see the lifestyle of the rich class.

The rich in Pakistan, on the contrary, are too eager to show off their wealth and undeserved success. As a result they invite more crimes against them. They try to protect themselves by hiring more and more guards. And now some of the guards themselves are committing crimes against the families they are assigned to protect. Since revolutions, in the classical sense, are no more possible, committing crimes is possible and has become easier against both the rich and the poor. What is more common among the armed groups is to prefer the moderately guarded or simply unguarded.

On the other hand, the desperately poor but law-abiding citizens commit suicide after prolonged unemployment, depression and humiliation. But such deaths fail to move society. The rich take these deaths casually and talk of higher suicide rates in Japan and Scandinavia as well. But the suicides there are not because of absolute poverty. There, the reasons are of social and cultural origin or failure in love.

The Human Development in South Asia - 2001 report of the Mahbubul Haq Human Development Centre says that globalization, though an inevitable process, is by no means without its risks. It requires many enlightened policies on the part of national governments, international organizations, private sector and civil society to translate the benefits of economic growth.

The report says that owing to the globalization process about half a billion people in South Asia have experienced a decline in their incomes. The benefits of the economic growth that did take place were limited to a small minority of educated urbanized people. In South Asia income inequality has increased. The record so far shows that it is the poor who bear the heaviest burden and they are the ones who do not have any means to support themselves in bad times.”

The report also stresses that economic growth and human development must move together. Otherwise neither growth nor human development can be sustained. The report underscores the need for larger economic cooperation between the countries of South Asia through the SAARC and the proposed South Asia Free Trade Area instead of their mutual trade being limited to just 3 per cent of their total external trade.

Globalization, says the report, in the ultimate analysis is to be seen only as a means to enhance people’s well being. All policies and programmes must focus on people. And “we need to assess globalization from the point of view of human development and poverty reduction.”

The report says the global economy has emerged but the institutions of global governance are not performing either efficiently or equitably. These institutions are the World Bank, IMF and the World Trade Organization. While we in Pakistan cannot change the way the IMF or the World Bank thinks, while exerting pressure in that direction, we certainly can do far more to improve governance at home. It is not enough for the military government to say there is no corruption at the top. What matters more is to save the poor from the wrath of the junior police constables. Unless they see a visible change in the behaviour of such functionaries things cannot improve.

Until now small consumers of electric power in Karachi were fined heavily, punished in other ways, including disconnection of the power supply for delay in payment of their bills even if they were over-billed. And it has taken three years for the high-ups, including over two years of military rule, to lay their hands on the big fish. Secretaries to the Sindh government did not pay their power bills. They and the police chiefs and other influential persons have for the first time experienced power supply disconnections. The power was restored only after they had paid 50 per cent of their bills.

The Asian Development Bank has now raised its assistance to Pakistan from an average of 600 million dollars a year to one billion dollars for three years ending 2003 largely to “combat poverty”. One such method to combat poverty is to advance 250 million dollars for capital market development. The ADB has also offered 350 million dollars for the grossly mismanaged KESC for re-structuring before its privatization.

As the country goes into greater debt in the name of various reforms, will there be any change, any better functioning of the official machinery? Will we experience the spirit of the reforms that should result in real good governance instead of only cosmetic changes? And how well the newly-constituted local bodies that have been invested with new authority function well and really serve the people?

The question arises that while the world is coming to help Pakistan by rescheduling the old loans and giving new loans at low interest rates what are Pakistan’s own industrialists and businessmen doing to revive the economy? They still complain that the government does not understand them or is not willing to help them adequately.

The fact is that for some years now businessmen have been in the forefront of the government. In the days of Nawaz Sharif businessmen were in top positions in the government everywhere. Then they argued that Nawaz Sharif was interested in promoting his family business and not the business in general. And they resorted to several anti-sales tax strikes.

And now under the military regime Shaukat Aziz, a private sector banker, is the finance minister, Razak Dawood is the minister for commerce and industry and another businessman Altaf Saleem is minister for privatization. Abbas Sarfraz, another federal minister, is from a business family of Mardan. And Sindh’s governor Mohammadmian Soomro is a former banker. The State Bank governor Dr Ishart Husain and the Sindh finance minister Abdul Hafeez Shaikh have been in the World Bank and were not bureaucrats.

THE United States has been under pressure particularly in Europe but elsewhere in the world also about the conditions in which it has been keeping Al Qaeda and Taliban fighters in a makeshift camp in the American territory of Guantanamo Bay in Cuba.

There has been fierce criticism in Britain of the allegedly inhumane treatment meted out to the detainees, who are kept in small cages exposed to the weather, and of Washington’s refusal to accord prisoner-of-war status to the arrested men, when they would have been entitled to facilities provided under the Geneva Convention.

The US has denied charges relating to inhumane treatment, and said the Geneva Convention’s guidelines are being followed irrespective of the nomenclature used to describe the prisoners. Matters have been made worse by the usually cool-headed defence secretary, Mr Donald Rumsfeld, who has said, inter alia, that he didn’t feel concerned in the slightest about the Al Qaeda and Taliban men, who were being treated far better than they treated anyone else. This has been seized upon by commentators as suggesting that the US is using Taliban and Al Qaeda behaviour as a benchmark for its own conduct.

Mr Rumsfeld has also made light of the prisoners’ exposure to the weather, saying that people in the world outside should realize that the climate in Guantanamo is far different from that in Afghanistan. He seemed to stop just short of declaring that the weather at the prison compound, named Camp X-Ray, is actually quite balmy and the prisoners should in fact be enjoying it, like ordinary tourists to Cuba.

It is this attitude perhaps that is more galling than the actual treatment of the fighters, who are no doubt dangerous men. The attitude reflects much in the US make-up that so irritates people abroad — a smug sense of self-righteousness born of power. When Mr Rumsfeld was showered with sharp questions about Guantanamo at a briefing on Tuesday, he said with some exasperation that if one looked at recent media reports, one would think that America “is what’s wrong with the world”.

He was, in truth, not far off the mark: it is America that is seen to be the trouble behind much of what is happening in the world, and seen in this light not just by Muslim extremists or fundamentalists. Even in staunch US ally Britain, anti-Americanism simmers just beneath the surface and needs only an occasion like the transfer of prisoners, who include three Britons, to Guantanamo camp to come to the surface.

Pained by the animosity their country arouses, Americans blame it on envy, envy of American prosperity, American military prowess and America’s way of life. Others see anti-Americanism as being due to Washington’s cynical use of its strength — great, undoubtedly, and without match — to manipulate everyone else. It is unfortunate that there is not enough realization among US policy-makers of the simple fact that, abroad, America is judged only by how it is seen to go about unilaterally imposing its will on other nations. Its domestic strengths, such as its multi-racial society, its democratic tradition, its tolerance, and the accountability of its system of governance, are often forgotten.

It is perceived as seeking security for itself at the expense of everyone else. The official and general media glorification of interventions abroad (there’s a blockbuster movie in cinema houses now on the US military adventure in Somalia) only feeds this foreign view of America. Is it only a coincidence that Bush’s rating at present is the highest for any US president on the completion of his first year in office or is it that America is at its patriotic best when externally aggressive?

Pakistan is a good example of some of these random impressions. There has been general welcome there for how the force of circumstances following September 11 and US pressure have pushed the military to take action against its own pampered militant and extremist organizations. Yet, among large sections of even those Pakistanis who have welcomed the new trend in domestic policies, there are strong reservations about the intense US bombing campaign in Afghanistan and the threat of extending the “war against terrorism”.

There is suspicion of US motives, and even Washington’s signal effort in exerting its power to cool down tempers along the Pakistan-India boundary has won only grudging recognition. The images from Guantanamo will have further fuelled discomfort with US attitudes. Not only in Pakistan, but elsewhere too this particular episode has greatly eroded America’s claim to hold the high moral ground.

Understanding why everybody is so ready to pounce on America so soon after Sept 11 shook the world should be the biggest policy challenge for the US establishment and the Washington think-tanks in the coming months. Such an exercise may help explain to America its own failure to win over the world to its side and also why the rest of the world appears to Americans to be so schizophrenic about it. Guantanamo is only a symptom of much of what is wrong with American policy.