Scuttling of Saarc summit

ONCE again, the BJP-led government in India has delivered a new body blow to Saarc. After delaying the previous summit that was scheduled in Kathmandu in November 1999, by over two years, India had responded to constant demand by the smaller members to allow the grouping to meet in January 2002. The Kathmandu Declaration had urged greater efforts by the members to speed up cooperation in various fields. Despite the military stand off along the common border, Indian ministers attended meetings of ministers of information, and economic affairs held in Islamabad during March and April this year.

However, India has adopted such a negative and ambiguous attitude towards participation in the Saarc summit due to be held in January next year in Islamabad that the Pakistan has felt obliged to postpone it indefinitely.

BJP’s top leadership has chosen to voice reservations about Pakistan’s attitude towards India and given statements that have raised tension between the two countries to new heights. The main ground for their hostility has been alleged complicity of Pakistan in “cross-border terrorism.” The deputy prime minister, Mr L.K. Advani, who was playing a leading role in the electioneering in Gujarat, launched the polls campaign on November 30 by calling for a war between the two countries to stop what he called terrorist activities of Jihadis infiltrating into Kashmir. According the official Indian news agency, PTI, he accused Pakistan of “nursing a wound since the creation of Bangladesh.” He also blamed Pakistan for the attacks on Hindu temples in Jammu.

Speaking with even greater arrogance on December 6, he blamed the creation of the Kashmir problem on the Congress Party, which had failed to occupy all of Kashmir in 1948 and then in 1971. He even called the Simla agreement into question, although it has been Indian policy to declare it as valid and binding. Whether this line was linked to the election campaign in Gujarat or reflects a paradigm shift remains unclear. Serious Indian analysts question this attitude that seems to reflect a shift towards the kind of realpolitik adopted by Sharon vis-a-vis Palestine.

This time, Prime Minister Vajpayee has been even more vocal in hurling accusations at Pakistan, which he believes, failed to implement economic measures decided by Saarc, including the extension of the Most Favoured Nation (MFN) status by members to each other. Speaking at Shimla on December 1, he made India’s participation in the Islamabad summit conditional on Pakistan ending its support to “cross-border terrorism.” He also expressed doubts about the usefulness of a dialogue, as the only item Pakistan would want to raise was Kashmir.

One would have hoped that the restoration of democracy and the emergence of a civilian government in Pakistan would have created an atmosphere conducive to opening a fresh chapter in relations between the two countries. The decision announced by New Delhi in October, following the elections in Pakistan, that India would pull back the forces it had concentrated on the border in a threatening posture should logically have been followed by the resumption of dialogue that was interrupted after the events of 9/11.

However, India has clearly decided to cash in on the situation likely to be created by a US attack on Iraq that is advocated by the hard-liners around President Bush. An attack on Iraq would be a signal for the extremist leadership in Israel and India, which is engaged in suppressing indigenous movements in Palestine and Kashmir through repression, to take advantage of the situation for achieving their immediate objectives.

The government of Prime Minister Zafarullah Khan Jamali has left no doubt about the importance that Pakistan attaches to improving relations with India. In his first public statement, after his election as the leader of the house, Mr Jamali made it known that Pakistan would follow a policy of friendship towards all countries. Likewise, following his appointment as foreign minister, Mr Khursheed Mahmud Kasuri, declared in his first public statement that Pakistan attached top priority to improving relations with India. There has been no indication of a new resolve to confine the resumed agenda to a single item, since an eight-point agenda for a bilateral dialogue was agreed four years ago.

There is a paradox in India’s current determination to avoid a resumption of the Agra process, of which Mr Vajpayee claims the authorship. The Saarc charter does not permit the inclusion of contentious bilateral issues on the agenda that are usually taken up informally on the sidelines of summit meetings. The excuse of “cross-border terrorism” being used since 9/11 is but a thin cover for increased repression inside Kashmir and for refusing a dialogue with Pakistan.

It is convenient to suppress the truth that since 1989 there has been an indigenous movement against India’s forcible occupation of Kashmir. Similarly, Pakistan’s reservations about extending the MFN status to India arise out of legitimate concerns about safeguarding the national interest — considerations that have also prevented Bangladesh from doing so.

India’s current stance arises out of two basic goals that have always been there, but which are being pursued with greater determination than before by the present hard-line government. One is to resolve the Kashmir dispute on its own terms, an objective that looks achievable by equating the Kashmiri resistance with terrorism. The question of democratic rights, inherent in the original commitment to honour the UN resolutions on Kashmir can be sidelined and even considerations of human rights ignored, by sticking a terrorist label on the heroic resistance of the people of Kashmir. The other objective is that of establishing India’s hegemony in the region and making Pakistan also a client state.

The timing of the hardening of the Indian stance is highly significant. It has come in the wake of some other unprecedented moves by the US under President Bush, whose unilateralism has grown after a brief interlude of multilateralism necessitated by the need to forge an international coalition after 9/11. The Bush Doctrine, that includes elements derived from the Nuclear Posture Review, claiming the right to use nuclear weapons against a number of potential adversaries and the June 1 declaration at West Point, establishing the right to pre-emption, has encouraged the hawkish regimes in Israel and India to follow suit.

The decision to deescalate, taken by the Indian leadership in October, appears to have been overtaken by opportunities that have arisen since then. The Bush doctrine, and signs of a US decision to attack Iraq even if the UN inspectors fail to come up with concrete proof of Iraqi possession of weapons of mass destruction, have encouraged the hard-line regimes in Israel and India to take full advantage of the resultant weakening of international law. Sharon has stepped up attacks on refugee camps and occupied more Palestinian towns, killing Palestinian Arabs as they persist in sporadic suicide attacks in retaliation. The phase of coercive diplomacy by India, that appeared to be ending with the decision to reduce the concentration of forces against Pakistan, is being replaced by other means to pressure Pakistan.

If a US attack on Iraq does materialize, the doctrine of pre-emption offers fresh options to India. Furthermore, the argument that Pakistan cannot be trusted with nuclear weapons, given the electoral gains made by religious parties, put forward by Russian President Putin, has been picked up by India as well. All these developments are grist to the mill of Pakistan bashing, by India. Is the shrill warlike rhetoric against Pakistan a passing phenomenon that may subside after the Gujarat poll on December 12? Taking all the factors outlined above into consideration, the India proclivity to keep up pressure on Pakistan and to profit from the Bush doctrine suggest that the tensions will be maintained, rather than be allowed to subside.

With all pointers reflecting reservations, and lacking a response from India with just a month to go, Pakistan decided to postpone the Saarc summit. Since the announcement of this decision, India has launched a propaganda barrage, putting the blame for the postponement on Pakistan. As the host, with high stakes in organizing a successful summit, Pakistan had nothing to gain by a cancellation or postponement. India had decided to cause the maximum embarrassment to Pakistan through its enigmatic and positively unhelpful attitude on the question of participation in the Saarc summit.

Pakistan has been urging a dialogue with India and was expecting the Saarc summit to provide the opportunity for bilateral contact between the leaders of the two countries in accordance with Saarc traditions. Hence it clearly had no reason to delay or postpone the meeting. The onus for scuttling the Saarc summit thus lies squarely on India. Should wiser counsel prevail in New Delhi, fresh dates can be set for it since reinvigoration of regional cooperation is very much in the interest of a region with the largest concentration of the absolutely poor in the world.

Tolerance dips in South Asia

BENAZIR BHUTTO was in the wilderness and living in Karachi when she convened a meeting of opposition leaders from South Asian countries — India, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka and Nepal. Her purpose was not so much to enhance her own stock as to get recognition for the opposition’s role and its point of view.

She also wanted the opposition leaders to exert pressure on their governments so that the latter would not adopt the posture of confrontation against their neighbours. This did not work. The parties in power had their own agenda. In fact, the scenario has deteriorated since. Ruling combinations have come to believe that they must stay in power by hook or by crook. They are oblivious to the point of view of different parties in their own country, much less that of neighbours.

Take Bangladesh first. Its opposition leader Sheikh Hasina, daughter of the country’s founder, is being accused of every sin, even sedition, for her speeches in Delhi. She said that the government in Dhaka was doing little to suppress fundamentalists or terrorists. This had made the minorities feel still more insecure.

In fact, if you go by reports, the atmosphere is worse than Hasina’s description. Even journalists, foreign or local, are under pressure and the Al Qaeda is having a free run of the country. The demand for Hasina’s trial for ‘defaming’ Bangladesh is not surprising. She has also been pilloried by people who were opposed to the liberation struggle, 31 years old this month.

The muddied waters of Bangladesh are getting muddier by the day. Besides the opposition leaders, the target is New Delhi. The anti-India feeling erupts whenever Prime Minister Khalida Zia and her Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP) come to power. This happened during their last stint. It is happening again.

The BNP’s pettiness was apparent when Hasina visited New Delhi some days ago. The Bangladesh high commissioner did not attend any function in her honour, much less accompany her on the rounds of meetings with the prime minister, deputy prime minister and the leader of the opposition. What could the poor high commissioner do when there were specific instructions from Dhaka not to go anywhere near Hasina.

The position in Sri Lanka is different. The president and the prime minister are two parallel authorities. They do not hit it off together. What was once the opposition point of view has provided the breakthrough in the 19-year-old Colombo-LTTE war. Prime Minister Ranil Wicklemesinghe, who won on the plank of bringing peace to his country, is happy over a federal structure emerging. But President Chandrika Kumaratunga is not, although she once led the peace lobby. There have been reports that she, after getting new powers under the constitution, may dismiss the prime minister.

That LTTE leader Velupillai Prabhakaran has renounced the demand for independence and accepted self-rule under Colombo is a welcome development. But I am intrigued by New Delhi’s attitude. First, it refused to be present at Oslo despite requests by all the parties, including Norway which brokered the settlement. Now Foreign Secretary Kanwal Sibal has said that Colombo must be certain that the LTTE has given up its demand for a separate homeland.

Prime Minister Wicklemesinghe has hailed the settlement. He must have satisfied himself. We seem to be throwing a spanner in the works. Do we hate the LTTE so much that we do not want a solution? The settlement that envisages regional autonomy may set a healthy precedent, which other countries in the region can follow to sort out their problems with the defiant population. We should be persuading President Kumartunga to give her support to the accord.

Nepal also needs New Delhi’s help in breaking the deadlock between King Gyanendra and the political parties. There can be two opinions whether or not the king should have sacked Prime Minister Sher Bahadur Deuba. But there cannot be two opinions on the kingship that has to conform to the demands of democracy.

The king must set an early date for elections. It is none of his business to forge a consensus among political parties to resolve problems before the country. This is the job of the elected members. The sooner Prime Minister Lokendra Bahadur, the King’s nominee, is replaced by parliament, the better it would be for the country. New Delhi should not influence events one way or the other.

Nowhere has the opposition been so pulverized as in Pakistan. Political parties have gone into shadows that are lengthening since the army is tightening its hold more and more and diluting even the semblance of democracy. Religious parties, once nothing more than a nuisance, have become a power to reckon with. President Pervez Musharraf would rather sup with them than political leaders who, even after avowing loyalty to him, do not want to be considered the king’s men. The key to Islamabad’s predicament is equation with Delhi. But the military, which is the arbiter in Pakistan, is always in the way. It has never gone back to the barracks since the take-over by General Ayub in October 1958. Even Zulfikar Ali Bhutto’s interregnum was not a democratic stint. Perhaps the National Security Council, the apex ruling body that Musharraf has constituted, is an appropriate arrangement for the time being. It looks as if Pakistan, like Turkey, has to live with the military for a long time.

Whether India wants to have any relationship with Pakistan as long as the military is the real ruler is no more an ethical question. It is a real one. After all, New Delhi had normalization of sorts during the regimes of General Ayub and General Ziaul Haq. Why not now when General Musharraf is all powerful and when our army chief has said that cross-border terrorism has come down by 60 per cent.

The SAARC meeting at Islamabad would have been a normal forum. The organization does not belong to Pakistan. All countries in South Asia are its members. The more India stays away from such meetings the more it punishes people in Pakistan. The military revels in such a situation. People-to-people contact is the only silver lining in the dark clouds of Indo-Pak relations. NGOs and people outside the government may some day help the two sides exchange ideas, commodities and cricket and hockey teams. This may generate goodwill that can break the logjam. Official-level talks have led us nowhere.

When one top Hurriyat leader commends regional autonomy within Sri Lanka, it is clear that the Kashmir solution on those lines is a possibility. But the most important thing is a dialogue between the people of India and Pakistan. The governments should be kept into the picture but not allowed to take over the talks till the ground has been prepared. In the process there may be a fillip in Pakistan to the democratic forces.

At present, India is acting the Big Brother towards its neighbours. Its size overawes them. It has to introspect its policies. Foreign Minister Yashwant Sinha did well to start his stint with visits to countries like Nepal and Bangladesh. But then there was no follow-up. There have been such spurts in the past with no long-term strategy. Something is lacking somewhere because “we are ugly Indian” practically throughout South Asia.

Maybe, the opposition leaders of the region should meet once again, this time to consider how to live in accommodative spirit. India’s opposition leader Sonia Gandhi should take the initiative.

The writer is a leading columnist based in New Delhi.

O’Neill’s ouster

IT’S housecleaning time at the White House. The resignations of Treasury Secretary Paul H. O’Neill and top advisor Lawrence B. Lindsey don’t signal radical change, but they probably amount to more than the superficial scrubbing that critics have been predicting. If President Bush trusts his new advisors and receives sensible proposals, he could modify his tax policies in ways that would better lift the economy out of the doldrums.

It’s hard to avoid the suspicion that the forced resignations were precipitated by news that unemployment had reached 6 per cent. All along, the White House has been worried that Bush could be vulnerable in his reelection race, as his father was, to the charge of ignoring the nation’s economic ills. Bush waited until he had no choice but to dismiss Securities and Exchange Commission Chairman Harvey L. Pitt.

In contrast with his foreign policy advisors, Bush’s economic team has been glaringly inept. O’Neill, a former chief executive at Alcoa, never came close to earning the bipartisan confidence enjoyed by a predecessor, Robert E. Rubin, on Wall Street and Capitol Hill. O’Neill repeatedly made controversial and inappropriate remarks about the health of the economy, the strength of the dollar and the state of the stock market. He seemed indifferent to the prospect of a recession, sounding like Herbert Hoover

when he declared that “markets go up and down.” He characterized Enron’s bankruptcy as a tribute to the “genius of capitalism.”

Lindsey, who drafted the tax cut plan on which Bush ran in 2000, was seen as a poor salesman for administration policy.

Bush is wedded to sweeping tax cuts and will not willingly abandon their heavy weighting toward the wealthy, but a fresh set of advisors could persuade him to pump money more swiftly into the economy.

Newcomers with the bipartisan support that Rubin enjoyed could work with Sen. Joseph I. Lieberman, D-Conn., who has offered a recovery plan that seems in sync with White House thinking.— Los Angeles Times

US strategy to redraw the Mideast map

ARMS inspections are a “hoax,” said Tariq Aziz, Iraq’s deputy prime minister, in a forthright and chilling interview with ABC News recently, “war is inevitable.” Aziz is the smartest, most credible member of President Saddam Hussein’s regime — my view after covering Iraq since 1976.

What the US wants is not “regime change” in Iraq but rather “region change,” charged Aziz. He tersely summed up the Bush administration’s reasons for war against Iraq: “oil and Israel.”

Aziz’s undiplomatic language underlines growing fears across the Mideast that the Bush administration intends to use a manufactured war against Iraq to redraw the political map of the region, put it under permanent US military control, and seize its vast oil resources.

These are not idle alarms. Senior administration officials openly speak of invading Iran, Syria, Libya, and Lebanon. Influential, pro-Israel neo-conservative think tanks in Washington have deployed small army of ‘experts’ on TV urging the US to remove governments deemed unfriendly to the US and Israel. Washington’s most powerful lobbies — the oil and Israel lobbies — are urging the US seize Mideast oil and crush any regional states that might one day challenge Israel’s nuclear monopoly or regional superpower dominance.

The radical transformation of the Mideast being considered by the Bush administration is potentially the biggest political change since the notorious 1916 Sykes-Picot Treaty in which victorious Britain and France carved up the Ottoman-ruled region. Under review at the highest level:

(1) Iraq is to be placed under US military rule. Iraq’s current leadership, notably Saddam Hussein and Tarik Aziz, will face US drumhead courts martial and firing squads. Iraq will be broken up into three, semi-autonomous regions: Kurdish north; Sunni centre; Shia south. Iraq’s oil will be exploited by US and British firms. Iraq will become a major customer for US arms. Turkey may get a slice of northern Iraq around the Kirkuk and Mosul oil fields. US forces will repress any attempts by Kurds to set up an independent state. A military dictatorship or kingdom will eventually be created.

The swift, ruthless crushing of Iraq is expected to terrify Arab states, Palestinians, and Iran into obeying US political dictates.

(2) Independent-minded Syria will be ordered to cease support for Lebanon’s Hizbullah, and allow Israel to dominate Jordan and Lebanon, or face invasion and ‘regime change.’ The US will anyway undermine the ruling Ba’ath regime and young leader, Bashir Asad, replacing him by a French-based exile regime. France will get renewed influence in Syria as a consolation prize for losing out in Iraq to the Americans and Brits. Historical note: in 1949, the US staged its first coup in Syria, using General Husni Zai’im to overthrow a civilian government.

(3) Iran will be severely pressured to dismantle its nuclear and missile programmes or face attack by US forces. Israel’s rightist Likud Party, which guides much of the Bush administration’s Mideast thinking, sees Iran, not demolished Iraq, as its principal foe and threat, and is pressing Washington to attack Iran once Iraq is finished off. At minimum, the US will encourage an uprising against Iran’s Islamic regime, replacing it with either a royalist government or one drawn from US-based Iranian exiles.

(4) Saudi Arabia — Keep the royal family in power, but compel it to become more responsive to US demands, and to clamp down on its increasingly anti-American population. If this fails, CIA is reportedly cultivating senior Saudi air force officers who could overthrow the royal family and bring in a compliant military regime like that of Gen. Musharraf in Pakistan. Or, partition Saudi Arabia, making the oil-rich eastern portion an American protectorate.

(5) The most important Arab nation, Egypt — with 40 per cent of all Arabs — will remain a bastion of US influence. The US controls 50 per cent of Egypt’s food supply, 85 per cent of its arms and spare parts, and keeps the military regime of Gen. Hosni Mubarak in power. Once leader of the Arabs, Egypt is keeping a very low profile in the current Iraq crisis, meekly cooperating with US war plans.

(6) Jordan — A US-Israeli protectorate. Its royal family, the Hashemites, are being considered as possible figurehead rulers of US-occupied “liberated” Iraq; more remotely, for Saudi Arabia and/or Syria.

(7) Lebanon — To become an Israeli protectorate and commercial centre dominated by Maronite Christian rightists.

(8)The Gulf Emirates and Oman: former British protectorates, now American protectorates, in effect, tiny colonies.

(9) Libya — Col. Gaddafi remains on Washington’s black list and is marked for extinction once the bigger game is bagged. The US wants Libya’s high-quality oil. Britain may reassert its former influence here.

(10) Morocco, Algeria, and Tunisia — Short of revolution, will remain loyal western satraps under highly repressive, French-backed royalist and military regimes.

(11)Yemen — Former British imperial base at Aden, and former French base at Djibouti, will become important permanent US bases.

(12) Palestine — The White House hopes Palestinians will be cowed by Iraq’s destruction, and forced to accept US-Israeli plans to become a self-governing but isolated native reservation surrounded by Israeli forces.

The lines drawn in the Middle East by old European imperial powers are now to be re-drawn by the world’s newest imperial power, the United States. But, as veteran soldiers know, even the best strategic plans become worthless once real fighting begins. — Copyright Eric S. Margolis, 2002

The bad news messenger

The White House usually speaks with one voice, and sometimes it keeps mum.

This was the case with the firing of Secretary of the Treasury Paul O’Neill. Everyone in Washington agrees he was pushed out of the window, but nobody in the Administration will admit who pushed him.

The major suspect is Vice President Dick Cheney. When at Halliburton, he was noted for pushing people out the window.

The following conversation may or may not be in Bob Woodward’s next book:

The night before the press was informed, Cheney called his best friend, Secretary of the Treasury Paul O’Neill, and said, “How are you, Paul?”

“Never felt better. How is the missus and the family?”

“We’re fine. We’re going to have Christmas together, but it’s a secret where it will be,” Cheney said. “How is your golf game?”

“I shot 90 the other day.”

“I hear the TV in the background. What are you watching?”

O’Neill said, “‘Survivor.’ It’s my favourite show to take my mind off the recession.”

Cheney said, “It’s a good show. Paul, what I admire about you is that you speak your mind on the issues. For example, you have come out against the tax cut to stimulate the economy. You’re my friend so I should tell you the White House believes you are not a team player and we are all thinking of 2004.”

O’Neill said, “The reason I am against the tax cut is because it will never trickle down to the people.”

Cheney said, “That’s heresy, Paul. Why can’t you believe in the president’s tax cut, which will make everyone go out and spend money?”

“Because as soon as an American receives his tax cut, the governors are going to take it, since the states are drowning in debt. And if there is any money left over, the cities will swoop it up. It’s all a Republican shell game.”

Cheney said, “But as long as the taxpayer thinks he is getting his taxes cut, he’s happy.”

O’Neill responded, “My plan for a tax cut is as follows. Instead of the federal government sending a check to the taxpayer, the IRS sends it to the state treasury. For example, if a check were made out to Jones, we would send it to Gov. Pataki. The next one goes to Mayor Bloomberg. This eliminates the middleman, which in this case is the taxpayer. By the way, what are you calling about?”

“Paul, have you seen the latest unemployment figures? It’s up to 6 percent — the highest it’s been in eight years,” Cheney said.

O’Neill said, “I saw the figures. Aren’t they awful?”

“Well, the president told me to tell you he is adding your name to the unemployment list.”

“Dick, does that mean you’re firing me?”

“Yes, but it doesn’t mean we can’t still play golf together.”—Dawn/Tribune Media Services