For India to listen

TWO major powers have again called upon Pakistan and India to resume talks to settle their disputes and differences. In Beijing, during his talks with President Pervez Musharraf, President Jiang Zemin urged Islamabad and New Delhi to “solve their dispute through dialogue”. China, he said, supported “all efforts to alleviate the tension” between the two countries. More important, President Jiang praised the “firm and clear” stand taken against terrorism by the Musharraf government. Last month, the US virtually snubbed India for its demand to have Pakistan declared a terrorist state by stating that Islamabad had kept its word by taking effective steps to stop cross-border infiltration into Kashmir. Seen against this background, China’s categorical support to Pakistan’s “firm and clear” stand should help New Delhi do some re-thinking on its “no talks” policy.

At the same time, what the visiting French foreign minister said in India is of equal significance. During his Press conference with his Indian counterpart and in a newspaper interview M. Dominique de Villepin called upon New Delhi and Islamabad to resume dialogue to reduce tension. Without naming Kashmir, he asked if it was “conceivable to ignore a problem with possible strategic consequences” and stressed the urgency and importance of a “genuine solution” to the dispute. In an interview with an English newspaper, the French foreign minister was equally emphatic about the need for a resumption of Indo-Pakistan talks. Waiting for a complete halt to what he called “terrorist activity” as a condition for talks was fraught with risks, including war. To avoid talks, he said, would mean resigning “oneself to the maintenance of a high level of tension, keeping the prospect of armed conflict open...”.

What the Chinese and French leaders have said needs no elaboration. India simply finds itself in a position where its diplomatic stance has become obsolete and untenable, for no country in the world is going to support New Delhi’s totally negative attitude towards the very idea of negotiations. Using the attack on the Indian parliament as an excuse, it has massed troops along the Line of Control and the international border in a threatening manner. In May and June, in fact, a war between the two nuclear neighbours seemed imminent. Thanks to the diplomatic initiatives taken by major world powers, the US in particular, there has been a reduction in tension in the region. But more than a million men still face each other in an eyeball-to-eyeball confrontation.

The Chinese and French statements have vindicated Pakistan’s position on the question of talks. All along the crisis since it began in December, Islamabad has consistently called for a resumption of dialogue to solve all issues, including Kashmir. At Saarc’s Katmandu summit, President Musharraf went out of his way to shake hands with the Indian prime minister and offered talks to begin the process of de-escalation along the border. Unfortunately, Mr Vajpayee’s response was negative — a stance since maintained by him and the hawks around him in a self-righteous spirit of blind obduracy. What is being ignored in the process is that brinkmanship is not going to pay dividends, nor even a war, for Pakistan is quite capable of defending itself. The only way out of the present impasse is for India to give up its intransigence, listen to what the entire world is advising it to do, and begin talks with Pakistan. Negotiations are as much in India’s interest as in Pakistan’s. New Delhi seems hopelessly stuck in the Kashmir mire; only a peaceful solution through talks with Pakistan can pull it out of it.

Another power tariff hike

PRESIDENT Musharraf did a good turn by the common people by forestalling a big jump of 39 paisa per unit of power allowed by NEPRA. But even the 19 paisa per unit increase that has now been effected by Wapda is bound to add to the miseries of common consumers who are already finding it increasingly difficult to make ends meet. The overall price increases have seriously eroded the purchasing power of even the middle classes what to talk of the poorer sections. Widespread unemployment in the country is also making things very difficult for the people at large. In that context, even the lower increase in the power rate that is now to be made payable by the consumers had better been avoided.

One only hopes that Wapda would make honest efforts to enhance its efficiency and plug the massive leakages in its transmission, distribution and billing systems to be able to provide power to the consumers at a reasonable price. There is also an urgent need to convert more of our power stations run on furnace oil to gas so as to substantially lower the cost of power production and reduce dependence on the fluctuating international oil prices. Cheaper power will also help reduce our agricultural and manufacturing input costs, thereby improving the competitive potential of our export goods in the world markets. Hopefully, the high-powered committee set up under the chairmanship of Finance Minister Shaukat Aziz to review the performance of Wapda on a quarterly basis would ensure that all these objectives are constantly kept in view and that the Wapda management is continually kept under pressure and evaluation to adopt all the preventive and curative measures necessary to keep the power tariff at a reasonable level.

Rwandan peace prospects

ONE of Africa’s bloodiest conflicts came one step closer to resolution on Tuesday, following the signing of a peace agreement between the presidents of Rawanda and the Democratic Republic of Congo. The UN and South Africa are the guarantors of the deal which could end a conflict that has led to hundreds of thousands of deaths over the last four years. According to the agreement, the Rawandans will withdraw thousands of their troops from eastern Congo while the Congolese will disarm the Rwandan Hutu gunmen who fled their country to take shelter in Congo (then known as Zaire) during the height of the civil war. It was these Hutus who slaughtered thousands of the minority Tutsis in Rwanda in 1994, during a civil war of unmatched savagery. Congo has also agreed to round up the leading Hutu fighters and bring them to trial for genocide.

Most neutral observers, however, are sceptical about the agreement’s success. Many observers believe that the 90-day deadline for Congo to round up the Hutu fighters responsible for the 1994 genocide is extremely unrealistic. These hardened fighters are hardly likely to surrender willingly, especially given the weakness of the Congolese army. Matters are further complicated by the active involvement of armies from various neighbouring countries in this conflict. In fact, the involvement of so many armies has earned the conflict the name of ‘Africa’s world war’. Over the years, the armies of Zimbabwe, Namibia, Angola, Uganda and Burundi have all been drawn into the prolonged war on one side or the other. Despite widespread pessimism about the prospects for peace, those backing the deal remain hopeful that the agreement represents a first step towards ending the war. For the sake of the long suffering people of this vast region, one can only hope that this optimism is well founded.