Peace and its impact

The last few years have not provided the people of Pakistan much cause to cheer. Beginning with sanctions imposed in the wake of the nuclear test, the country has faced woes such as the suspension of constitutional and democratic rule, a macro-economic policy regime that was not sufficiently sensitive to the plight of the poor, pressures with respect to Afghanistan, and eyeball-to-eyeball military confrontation with India.

However, the turn of the year appears to open up several windows of opportunities to inspire hope. In neighbouring Afghanistan, the success of the Loya Jirga in adopting a constitution should bring stability to that country, which will benefit Pakistan. On the domestic front, while there are a number of setbacks and disappointments, there are several favourable straws in the wind as well. These range from democracy to economy to regional peace.

The resolution of the 'LFO crisis' deserves to be welcomed, as it offers hope for a political entente, even if partial. Of course, the terms of the resolution raises several serious concerns. However, there are two redeeming features. The most important aspect of the manner of the resolution of the crisis is that the principle of the supremacy of parliament has been protected. The process has rejected the unilateral insertion of the LFO as part of the Constitution and reaffirmed the exclusive domain of parliament to amend the Constitution.

Further, General Musharraf is now president by virtue of the vote of confidence granted to him by the representatives of the people. The second positive aspect is that the state of uncertainty has ended and the parliament as well as government can now devote due attention to the urgent socio-economic issues facing the people.

While the amendments incorporated into the constitution do have a number of highly disconcerting clauses, there are two positive elements. One is the enhanced representation provided to women in the federal, provincial and local legislatures. There are two benefits to such representation. One is 'forward linkage' effect, i.e., the critical mass factor due to their large number and the consequential impact on the nature of the issues raised in legislative forums and legislation thereof.

The other is the 'backward linkage effect', i.e., the influence that the women legislators can begin to wield in their own areas in terms of empowerment of women and in terms of battling the social ills that beset women. Khairpur district in Sindh is an outstanding example of such a process.

The second positive element is the protection it provides to local government for a number of years. For all its teething problems that call for improvements in the structure, functions, administration and fiscal realms, devolution is a success for the sheer reason that it has provided the people direct access to the levels of government that matter to them. However, it can be said that the amendment fails to provide sufficient protection.

Upon the expiry of the protection period, there is no guarantee that a provincial government will not interfere with a local government to suit its purposes. It can, for example, split, merge or redraw the boundaries of a district to bring an opposition Nazim to heel. This is what Margaret Thatcher did in a developed democracy like England and democracy in Pakistan has yet to take root. Consideration, therefore, needs to be given to defining the broad structure, functions and powers of local government in the Constitution.

The second positive straw in the wind relates to the economy. A number of macro-economic indicators show that the economy of the government is now sufficiently stable. The budget deficit and inflation is down, the current account balance is in surplus, and foreign exchange reserves are at a historic high. These are commendable achievements.

However, the economy of the people has yet to benefit from these developments. Investment levels remain stagnant and unemployment and poverty continues to be high and rising. Independent economists have for some years now been highlighting the fact that the thrust of macro-economic policy is contributing to growth in poverty. Fortunately, the stabilization of the economy has now enabled policymakers to begin to address the chronic economic problems of the people. There is some evidence to this effect as well.

The State Bank of Pakistan's Annual Report for 2003 is a refreshingly candid and objective document and reflects the realization in official circles about the need to begin to tackle the problems of unemployment and poverty. The change suggests a fundamental shift in official perception and certain key passages deserve to be reproduced.

The Report states, " It is true that the incidence of poverty in the country has risen from 20 per cent to 33 per cent ... The reversal of this trend cannot take place until economic growth is put back on the trajectory ... and pro-poor policy interventions are faithfully implemented." "The increase in fiscal space ... should be utilized for increasing pro-poor budgetary expenditure to reverse the rising trends in poverty and inequality among the households."

"The fall in FY03 development expenditure to GDP ratio was particularly disappointing but the government seems to have recognized this problem." "The governments ability to crowd-in private investment, which is essential to the economy's long-term growth, will depend greatly on its expenditures to improve infrastructure." And so on.

It appears that there is now a convergence between official views and that of the independent economists, i.e., the increased fiscal space should be utilized to finance public infrastructure development so as to crowd-in private investment. The twin effect is certain to raise employment and alleviate chronic poverty. Given that what needs to be done appears to be settled, it is now necessary to take up the issue of how is employment generation and poverty reduction to be achieved.

Clearly, there are and can be several routes to achieving the common goals. Some options can, however, be identified. The key requirement is to raise development expenditure to the level of at least 5 per cent of the GDP or, say, Rs. 250 billion. Needless to say, it is imperative that the fiscal space that is now available is not frittered away in consumption expenditure, as was the case in the 1980s. At the same time, it needs to be emphasized that the temptation to select a few large, capital- intensive 'white-elephant' projects - a la mega-dams - needs to be resisted.

The question that arises is that of choosing the areas of investment. The recently floated argument that the economy does not possess the capacity to absorb additional development expenditure is not tenable. Almost every sector of the economy is crying out for investment. The establishment of local government from the district to the union council levels provides the institutional framework for the implementation of a large number of these projects.

Admittedly, there are problems, but they need and can be sorted out. One problem is that of low-level corruption, where facilities built are substandard and crumble in a few years or even months. Perhaps, the Saudi model can be adopted, where the contractor that builds a facility is also responsible for its maintenance for three years. This ensures quality construction on the part of the contractors in order to avoid repair and reconstruction costs.

The sectors that can readily absorb public investment are urban and rural development, water conservation, rural roads, and housing. All these sectors are labour intensive and have the potential to generate substantial direct and secondary employment opportunities. The city of Karachi alone has the capacity to absorb at least one billion US dollars in terms of the construction and rehabilitation of its crumbling urban infrastructure.

This state of affairs is true of most urban centres in the country; except, perhaps, Islamabad and, to some extent, upper income areas of Lahore.Substantial investments are also called for in the water sector. Pakistan's irrigation system was designed in the 19th century when acreage and crop intensity was low and water availability relatively abundant.

The system is based on the principle of flood irrigation, where farms receive water on a rotation basis to cover the entire cropped area. Over the last half a century, significant increases have occurred in area under cultivation and double cropping has become the norm; thus, enhancing the demand for water. Correspondingly, the supply of water has remained constant; thereby creating a relative shortage.

There is thus a need for a paradigm shift in the strategy for development of water resources. In addition to lining of water channels, flood-irrigation needs to be gradually replaced with appropriate forms of drip irrigation. Admittedly, drip irrigation is capital-intensive and expensive. However, the investment will accrue substantial long-term benefits.

The water saving technology offers the benefit of efficient use of water in irrigating crops and, by reducing water seepage, can serve to control water-logging and salinity. Lining of water channels will itself generate employment, while reclamation of thousands of hectares of lands lost to water-logging and salinity, will enhance crop production, with its positive impact on rural employment and incomes.

The third straw in the wind that offers hope is the prospect of regional peace. There have been several statesman-like moves from both the Indian and Pakistani leadership. These measures have been substantive and, in many cases, are not easily reversible. The ceasefire in Kashmir, the resumptions of air links, and Prime Minister Vajpayee's Islamabad visit constitute important milestones.

Clearly, there is broad and widespread public support for normalization of relations. The warmongers in both the countries have effectively been sidelined and even hardliners have been forced to make pacific statements so as not to be left out in the cold. However, the peace momentum will need to be cemented, continuously supported and taken forward.

There are two positive impacts of peace. One is the 'forward linkage' effect, i.e., peace will enable the people of both the countries to benefit from the substantial dividends offered by travel and trade. Families that have been divided can hope to see each other more easily and Pakistan will not have to import iron ore from Australia.

The other is the 'backward linkage' effect, i.e., the end of the 'hate and war' culture in both the countries will serve to neutralize the extremist mindsets stirring up divisive domestic issues and offer dividends in terms of domestic peace and harmony. Both these impacts are now realizable. 2004 promises to be the year of hope on more than one front.

Standing by your opponents

President Pervez Musharraf has received support from an unexpected quarter. At a time when his own life is in such a palpable danger, his opponent, Indian Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee has shown that if there is anything more honourable than coming to the aid of your friends, it is standing by your opponents in their hour of need.

Many would have understood had Mr Vajpayee decided to call off his visit to Islamabad for the Saarc conference. He could have refused to share President Musharraf's bull's-eye seat, and chosen to remain in New Delhi. That would have been the easy course. Instead, he decided to share Musharraf's risks with him.

It is a bold gesture. The last time there had been such a public demonstration of diplomatic camaraderie was on August 14, 1947, when Lord Mountbatten (then still viceroy of India and its governor-general-designate) accompanied the Quaid-i-Azam Mohammed Ali Jinnah in the motorcade drive through the crowded streets of Karachi. Fears of an assassination attempt on one or both of them were rife.

When the two returned intact to Government House, a relieved Quaid told his guest Mountbatten: "Thank God! I've brought you back alive." Mountbatten, not one to be so easily upstaged, retorted to his host: "My God, it is I who brought you back alive."

Mr Vajpayee's gesture is portentous, more so than the conciliatory hand extended to him by President Musharraf at the previous Saarc conference held at Kathmandu. It is even more significant in its own way than the political life-belt tossed by his predecessor Mrs Indira Gandhi to President Zulfikar Ali Bhutto at Shimla in June 1972. It would have been all too easy then for Mrs Gandhi, the proud victor, to have remained intransigent and to have denied Mr Bhutto the concessions he so desperately needed to bolster his image back home.

Until the closing moments of the Shimla meeting, there had been a real risk of Mr Bhutto having to return to Pakistan empty-handed, defeated at the negotiating table as his country had been the previous December during the war over East Pakistan.

Mr Bhutto, being a better student of history, would have recalled Winston Churchill's maxim: In defeat, resolution; in victory, magnanimity. Bhutto struggled manfully to show resolve; it was left to Mrs Gandhi, the better tactician, to show magnanimity. During the closing hours of their private meeting at Shimla, Mr Bhutto appealed to Mrs Gandhi's sense of history. In the end, it was not a feeling for history that swayed Mrs Gandhi. It was the irresistible, almost masochistic opportunity of lending a helping hand to an opponent, however implacable.

To Mr Vajpayee, President Musharraf can never be anything else. There might be some who would argue that because General Musharraf has agreed under the new arrangement with the MMA to shed his uniform by December 2004, he has already begun the gradual, painful metamorphosis from military rank to a civilian status. There are others who experience difficulty in divining that far into the future. To them, a date a year away, is not a commitment. It is merely a statement of intent, and much can happen in 365 days.

In any case, while General Musharraf may have agreed to doff his beret, he has not undertaken to alter his mindset underneath it. Everything about him - his service in the Pakistan army, his training, his conditioned reactions, his instincts, his beliefs - makes him the Muslim soldier he is, not the secular democrat he now aspires to be.

By comparison, Prime Minister Zafarullah Khan Jamali possesses all the qualifications of being a politically correct leader. Although he is one who has not achieved greatness on his own but has had greatness thrust upon him, he carries that onerous burden with dogged diligence on his bulky shoulders. Mir Jamali is the modern equivalent of the modest, unassuming British Prime Minister Clement Attlee, about whom Churchill once commented wryly: 'Yes, he has much to be modest about.'

Sideliners undoubtedly found it interesting to see how Prime Minister Vajpayee treated Prime Minister Jamali during the Saarc meetings.

Millions of sane persons, whether Indians or Pakistanis, on both sides of the border, wished the Saarc deliberations to be free of tensions and without incident. The leaders of six member states did not expect less. Pakistan as the host country could not wish for more. In a sense it was ironical that at least two leaders from these countries - Sri Lanka and Nepal - probably felt safer in Pakistan than they do at home.

Some years ago, in March 1997, an Indian cabinet minister was addressing a conference organized in New Delhi jointly by the Confederation of Indian Industry and the Asia Society of New York. The minister arrived at the convention venue - the Taj Mahal Hotel - with a posse of Black Cat commandos, two of whom then accompanied him on to the stage where they stood on either side of him, like some protective Egyptian deities.

Noticing the reaction of the audience - a gathering of leaders of the Indian business community and foreign guests - the minister explained that as security in New Delhi at the time was on high alert, he was being given special protection because of the sensitivity of his position."These two are the only guards I have allowed to come in with me," he said. "I have made the others wait outside." And then, he narrated an anecdote about his trip to Pakistan some years earlier while he was the minister for information and broadcasting during the Janata government. He had been asked by his Pakistani hosts what he would like to see or visit.

"Brothers," he continued, "As many of you may know, I was born in Karachi. So, I asked to visit my old school - the Sindh Madressah. After they had taken me around it, I told them about the small shop on the corner where my fellow students and I used to buy 'pakoras'. The shop was still there. It had changed hands but it still sold pakoras. And while we were standing there in the street, eating, I overheard a Pakistani ask his companion: "Who is this VIP?" "He is an Indian minister" the other replied. "Wah!" exclaimed the first. "An Indian minister, and he is strolling here without any escort."

"Brothers, I tell you," he concluded, lowering his voice to a confidential tone. "I felt safer in Karachi then than I do here in New Delhi."

It was a startling admission by an Indian cabinet minister, and all the more so because it emanated from none other than Shri L.K. Advani, then Union Home Minister, now Mr Vajpayee's deputy prime minister. Could it have been Mr Advani's experienced advice that finally swayed Mr Vajpayee into travelling to Islamabad?

Flexibility on Kashmir

President Pervez Musharraf's suggestion that the UN Security Council resolutions on Kashmir can be set aside if India and Pakistan show flexibility in addressing this issue, is a pragmatic approach.

The rationale behind this suggestion was well explained by the president himself in his interview. It was, therefore, hardly necessary for any one in the government to further elaborate it, and that too in an apologetic manner even if some adverse reaction was anticipated.

Similarly, those who have made a scathing attack on president's advocacy of flexibility on Kashmir have, evidently, indulged in polemics rather than substance on an issue of great national importance. It is, however, a matter of satisfaction that the Kashmiri leaders on both sides of the Line of Control have generally welcomed the suggestion for flexibility.

More than five decades after independence, India and Pakistan are now closer to a resolution of the Kashmir dispute which has adversely affected millions of innocent Kashmiris.

Since assumption of power in October 1999, President Musharraf has been stressing the need for talks with India for the resolution of the Kashmir dispute. He has repeatedly expressed his readiness to hold discussions with the Indian leadership on this issue with an open mind.

In his recent interview with Reuters he has only reaffirmed this commitment. He has rightly perceived that the complexity of the Kashmir problem demanded that both, India and Pakistan, take a long view and resolve it in a manner acceptable to both India and Pakistan as well as to the people of Kashmir.

By no stretch of the imagination such an upright and judicious approach can be construed an abandonment of the principle of the right of self-determination embodied in the UN Secretary Council resolutions on Kashmir.

Kashmir has been a contentious issue between India and Pakistan since 1947. Despite the recognition of the dangers inherent in this situation they failed to find a mutually acceptable solution of the dispute. They fought two wars over Kashmir. Yet, their efforts to resolve it remained inadequate and plunged the two countries into the mire.

The United Nations also failed to resolve the dispute. It could not get its own resolutions on Kashmir implemented. The international community which could have played a helping role in this regard also failed in doing so, owing to its own constraints. The successive governments in Pakistan could not raise the Kashmir dispute at the Security Council owing to the dwindling international support to the resolution of this issue.

In the wake of nuclear explosions by India and Pakistan in May 1998, the UN Security Council unanimously adopted Resolution 1172, on June 4, 1998, which, inter alia, asked the two countries to find mutually acceptable solution of the Kashmir dispute. The UN Security Council, thus, virtually abdicated its responsibility towards the resolution of the long-standing and the most dangerous dispute in the world. However, it evoked no adverse reaction from the government that was in power in Pakistan at that time.

In the circumstances, bilateral efforts, even though they have not produced any tangible result in the past, remained the only viable alternative to seek a resolution of the festering Kashmir problem. President Musharraf who realized the magnitude of the danger posed by an unresolved Kashmir dispute must be given credit for pursuing this course resolutely and consistently.

The resolutions of the UN Security Council on Kashmir will remain valid until they are either implemented or the Security Council, at the joint request of India and Pakistan, repeals or replaces them. In view of this, the critics of President Musharraf are reading more into his interview with Reuters than is justified. In any case, the UN resolutions are not the only legal foundation for a settlement of the Kashmir dispute. As a matter of fact, the UN charter, which defines the right of self-determination as a fundamental right of the human beings, provides the basis for the resolution of this dispute.

The inherent mistrust between India and Pakistan and the complexities of the Kashmir dispute have prevented its resolution.

However, a beginning seems to have been made by both the countries to normalize their relations. President Musharraf's suggestion to India to take bold and flexible steps to resolve the Kashmir dispute has, therefore, been made at an opportune time.

Now both India and Pakistan should make an earnest effort to avoid acrimony and confrontation and, in concert with each other, create an atmosphere of amity and trust which, in turn, will help in generating a spirit of accommodation that was an essential prerequisite for carrying on a sustained and meaningful dialogue between them.

The writer is a former ambassador of Pakistan.

Our man in Bangkok

The Bush administration has been strongly criticized for the gratuitous damage it has done to US relationships with a number of foreign governments in the past year. Less attention has been paid to the friends the administration has been making - but here, too, there is reason for concern.

Though he has delivered several speeches promising to put democracy promotion at the centre of US foreign policy, President Bush has been building relationships with several leaders who appear to be moving their countries in the opposite direction.

The best-known of these is Russia's Vladimir Putin. But another disturbing case is emerging in Thailand, where a populist prime minister's steady accumulation of power has come in tandem with steadily warming relations with Washington.

Thaksin Shinawatra came to office under a shadow just under three years ago: The election was marked by allegations of vote-buying, and Thaksin, then Thailand's richest man, was accused of illegally hiding assets. Now, thanks partly to a flood of state spending that has pushed the economy into overdrive, Thaksin is very popular.

He is expected to win reelection this year by an overwhelming margin. But a clear majority in a pluralist system does not seem to satisfy the Thai prime minister, who aspires to succeed the retired authoritarian leaders of Singapore and Malaysia as a regional leader. Through the state or his own companies, he has taken over all of Thailand's television channels and has used legal and commercial levers, including numerous lawsuits, to intimidate critics in the press and parliament.

Last year Thaksin launched a "war on drugs" that led to the killings of some 2,500 suspected dealers; human rights groups charge that many were the victims of extrajudicial assassinations by officially sponsored death squads. Rejecting proposals for constitutional reforms meant to prevent him from accumulating too much power, he recently declared that "democracy is only a tool" for achieving other ends.

A US administration intent on promoting democracy might be expected to quickly distance itself from such a leader. Instead, the Bush administration has embraced Thaksin. Thailand was recently designated a "major non-NATO ally" of the United States, entitling it to enhanced military cooperation, and invited to follow Singapore in negotiating a bilateral free trade agreement.

Not only did Mr. Bush heap praise on Thaksin's government during a visit this fall to Bangkok but the regional director of the Drug Enforcement Administration, William J. Snipes, recently endorsed the brutal anti-drug campaign, saying that "we look at it as successful."

It's not hard to understand how Thaksin won this treatment. After distancing himself at first from Thailand's longstanding alliance with the United States, he abruptly reversed course. -The Washington Post