| July 11, 2003 | Friday | Jumadi-ul-Awwal 10, 1424 |
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Internet breakdown
Unless Israel reciprocates
INDIAN Foreign Minister Yashwant Sinha’s latest statement on the prospects of peace talks with Pakistan will not do much to strengthen the guarded optimism that most South Asia-watchers have about the possibilities for a renewal of Indo-Pakistan dialogue. Speaking to the Press Trust of India on Wednesday, Mr Sinha ruled out an early resumption of talks with Pakistan and said that Islamabad must first halt what he called its support to “terrorism” — an Indian euphemism for the freedom struggle in occupied Kashmir. Meaningful talks and “cross-border terrorism,” he said, could not go together. Unfortunately, his statement is very different in tone and content from his prime minister’s April 18 speech on the same subject. Speaking at Srinagar, Mr Atal Behari Vajpayee offered a hand of friendship to Pakistan and said that New Delhi would hold talks with Islamabad without any conditions attached. He also talked of restoring travel links. In that sense, Mr Vajpayee’s statement marked a major shift in the erstwhile Indian position of linking a dialogue to an end to “cross-border terrorism.” The entire world welcomed Mr Vajpayee’s move because the mere offer of opening a dialogue with Pakistan without any conditions attached served to lower tensions between the two nuclear-armed neighbours.
Since then, considerable progress has been made in the direction of normalization of bilateral relations and initiating a process of talks to resolve disputes and differences. Islamabad promptly reciprocated the gesture when Prime Minister Mir Zafarullah Khan Jamali spoke to the Indian prime minister on the telephone and welcomed his peace initiative. In the meantime, both sides have taken a number of steps reflecting a mutual desire for normalization of relations, though the pace has been generally slow and halting in some cases. These include the decision to restore diplomatic relations to the level existing before December 2001, to restore travel links, and to exchange goodwill visits. The Pakistan high commissioner presented his credentials to the Indian president yesterday, while the delegations that have visited the two countries were those of Pakistani parliamentarians, Indian students and Pakistani businessmen. From every angle, these are positive developments and they deserve to be carried forward and an environment of mutual trust and confidence created and carefully maintained to facilitate the resumption of the long over-due dialogue.
In that context, Mr Sinha’s statement strikes a discordant note and creates doubts whether this is indicative of a policy change in New Delhi since prime minister Vajpayee’s Srinagar speech of April 18. Misgivings arise because besides bringing back the question of “cross-border terrorism,” Mr Sinha has raised quite a few non-issues, including seeking Islamabad’s position on the territory which Pakistan is supposed to have ceded to China. How this is relevant to India-Pakistan peace talks is hard to see, because the demarcation agreement between Pakistan and China in the sixties delineated the border between China’s Xinjiang province and Pakistan’s Northern Area. That agreement has no implications — territorial or legal — for the disputed status of Kashmir.
Whether Mr Sinha’s Wednesday’s statement is indicative of a policy shift on India’s part on the question of peace talks with Pakistan or is to be seen as being part of the foreign minister’s penchant for visceral verbosity is hard to say. Until the picture is made clearer, one would like to believe that whatever the obstacles, talks between Pakistan and India must begin. There is no alternative. The peoples on both sides are fed up with the tension-ridden — at times war-like — situation between the two countries. What they want is a normal South Asia in which the economic and human resources will not be frittered away on bombs and missiles but on their welfare. This is not a utopian but an attainable goal to which all efforts and energies must continue to be directed.
THE breakdown of the country’s two main Internet links with the rest of the world, for almost a day, should impel the ministry of information technology to review its policy of allowing the PTCL a monopoly in this matter. The state-owned telephone firm is the only company allowed by the government to own and operate connectivity links to the Internet and sell these connections to the country’s various Internet service providers (ISPs). There are several problems with this existing arrangement. The first is that whenever there is a breakdown it affects generally all the Internet providers in the country, slowing down services for hundreds of thousands computer users.
There is also a technical ground on which the PTCL’s monopoly needs to be re-examined. The corporation has no service agreement with the ISPs — which allows it to escape any financial penalty if the promised service is not provided. For months, the ISPs have been asking the government to either put in place an agreement that holds PTCL responsible for any breakdown or allow the private sector to develop alternate Internet links with the rest of the world. A rational and realistic approach would be for the government not to let a single company control Pakistan’s Internet links because if they fail there will be no alternative and the country will be cut off from the world as far as the Internet is concerned. The government’s own oft-repeated intentions of making Pakistan a technologically advanced nation with state-of-the-art computing facilities demand that it end the PTCL’s monopoly.
ISRAEL’S refusal to free some 6,000 Palestinians held in its prison is not helping Palestinian Prime Minister Mahmud Abbas to keep the truce, which he painstakingly secured after convincing the militant Islamist groups of the need for peace in the Holy Land. Islamic Jihad and Hamas, the two most powerful militant groups, called off strikes on Israeli targets on June 29, so as to enable the Palestinian leader to restart the stalled peace process and to seek freedom for Palestinian prisoners languishing in Israeli jails. The US, meanwhile, sent a special envoy to Tel Aviv to convince the Israelis of the wisdom of releasing the prisoners as a logical need to help hold the truce. Egypt sent a special envoy to talk to the Palestinians so that the issue of the prisoners does not become a stumbling block in the way of reviving the scuttled peace process. Israeli intransigence in the matter so far, coupled with the recent criticism Mr Abbas drew from sections of the Palestinians for being too soft in his dealings with the Israelis, made the Palestinian leader cancel his last scheduled meeting with Ariel Sharon on Wednesday. The two developments do not augur well for the fragile truce which, fortunately, still holds.
This is the first time since the Oslo process began in 1990 that the militant Islamists have listened to the voice of reason coming from the mainstream Palestinian leadership. They have not only shown restraint, but have actually moved a step further by announcing a moratorium on attacks on Israeli targets since the second Intifada began in September 2001. This should give Tel Aviv a clear indication of the ground Mr Abbas has already covered with his people. Sanity demands that the Israelis reciprocate by releasing all prisoners rounded up on mere suspicion. If the Americans can drive this point home to Tel Aviv forcefully enough, there can be good hope for the current truce holding and the stalled peace process getting back on track.