| 01 March 2004 | Monday | 09 Muharram 1425 |
The Samson option
Exposing dubious characters
In pursuance of their January 6, 2004 agreement, India and Pakistan held their preliminary round of discussions in an organizational session in Islamabad last week at the working level and agreed on a basic roadmap involving the "modalities and timeframe" for the resumption of their composite dialogue.
The eight-item agenda and the mechanism laid down in the June 23, 1997 Islamabad Agreement are being followed in structuring the resumed dialogue at different levels. Both sides have agreed to make use of the existing operational tools rather than engaging in the rigmarole of developing new ones.
India's external affairs minister Yashwant Sinha, speaking to reporters in New Delhi on February 16 had predicted a positive outcome of the Islamabad meeting because work had already been done in the past on the India-Pakistan dialogue.
In a recent interview, foreign minister Kasuri also noted with satisfaction that "the work done in 1997 and 1998 was adopted by the present talks". According to him, the fact that neither party sought to re-invent the wheel showed the genuineness of the effort on the part of both sides.
According to the agreed schedule of the meetings, the foreign secretaries will meet in May/June this year for talks on peace and security including the CBMs and Jammu and Kashmir.
Talks on the remaining six issues, namely, Siachen, Wullar Barrage/Tulbul Navigation Project, Sir Creek, terrorism and drug-trafficking, economic and commercial cooperation and promotion of friendly exchanges in various fields, will be held at the already agreed technical/expert levels in July 2004.
Among other technical level meetings scheduled over the next four months are those on border security, nuclear CBMs and drug-trafficking and smuggling..
The foreign ministers of the two countries will meet in August,2004 to review overall progress in the multi-tiered composite dialogue which has remained stalled for almost five years.
All the scheduled meetings, as Foreign Secretary Khokhar acknowledged in his press briefing, would be the resumption of the process that could not continue beyond 1999.
It would be recalled that on the occasion of the Lahore summit in February 1999, India and Pakistan had put in place a clear and comprehensive framework of what was then called "a composite and integrated dialogue" for an early and positive outcome of the agreed bilateral agenda as envisaged in their June 23, 1997 Islamabad Agreement.
In order to provide the necessary political dimension to their dialogue process, the two countries had also agreed in Lahore that their foreign ministers will meet periodically to discuss all issues of mutual concern, including nuclear related issues.
Their first meeting which was expected in mid-1999 will hopefully now materialize in August this year. In India-Pakistan context, with nearly six decades of bitterness and hostility between them, it is perhaps never too late.
In the Lahore Declaration signed by the prime ministers of the two countries on February 21,1999, India and Pakistan recognized that "an environment of peace and security is in the supreme national interest of both sides and that the resolution of all outstanding issues, including Jammu and Kashmir, is essential for this purpose".
They had also agreed to "intensify their efforts to resolve all issues, including the issue of Jammu and Kashmir" through an accelerated process of their "composite and integrated dialogue".
The two sides had anticipated the complexity of the new responsibility that they were carrying after becoming "declared nuclear-weapon states" and decided to "engage in regular bilateral consultations on their respective security concepts and nuclear doctrines with a view to developing measures for confidence building in the nuclear and conventional fields aimed at avoidance of conflict".
They also agreed to provide each other with advance information in respect of ballistic missile flight tests and undertook to conclude an agreement in this regard.
A memorandum of understanding was signed in Lahore at the level of the two foreign secretaries listing concrete national and reciprocal measures to be taken by both sides for mutual confidence building and "for reducing the risks of accidental or unauthorized use of nuclear weapons under their respective control".
These included immediate notification of each other "in the event of any accidental, unauthorized or unexplained incident that could create the risk of a fallout with adverse consequences for both sides, or an outbreak of a nuclear war between the two countries, as well as measures aimed at diminishing the possibility of such actions, or such incidents being misinterpreted by the other".
The two sides also agreed to periodically review "the implementation of the existing confidence-building measures(CBMs) and where necessary, to set up appropriate consultative mechanisms to monitor and ensure effective implementation of these CBMs".
Hopefully, India and Pakistan, in their resumed dialogue, will focus on the issues of peace and security as well as the Kashmir issue with a fresh approach consistent with the global realities and in keeping with the vital interests of their peoples.
A final solution of the Kashmir issue in accordance with the wishes of the Kashmiri people and a strategic restraint regime (or whatever you call it) aimed at averting the risk of a nuclear or conventional war between the two countries and curbing their arms race must be the priority goals.
Both sides have reiterated "their commitment to promote progress towards the common objective of peace, security and economic development for their peoples and for future generations". They must now move beyond declaratory reiterations and become partners, not in arms race but in an economic race in which they have been left far behind.
This would require a genuine political will and determined effort for resolving their long outstanding disputes through peaceful means. What should be clear to them by now is that in today's world, there will be no military solution to their problems. If recent global events have any relevance, the lesson is that wars aggravate, not eliminate problems.
The nuclearization of South Asia has altered the fundamentals of India-Pakistan relations and deepened global stakes in early restoration of durable peace between the two nuclear-weapon states. The world community is also beginning to realize that genuine and lasting peace in South Asia will come only through elimination of the root causes of instability and conflict in the region.
There are multiple new factors that should influence both the process and the prospect of India-Pakistan rapprochement. Among them the most relevant seem to be: (i) the combination and authority of the present India-Pakistan interlocutors at the highest level and the importance of the constituencies they represent; (ii) current regional and global dynamics, including war on terrorism and Pakistan's pivotal role in it; (iii) imperatives of nuclear restraint and responsibility; (iv) unprecedented level of international interest in prevention of conflict and tensions between India and Pakistan; and (v) Pakistan's compulsion to correct its global image and standing through maturity and moderation and by rooting out extremism, violence and militancy from its culture.
The dialogue process will not be immune to domestic and external factors. There will be ups and downs and occasional hiccups could also not be ruled out. In the ultimate analysis, however, the success of this process would depend entirely on the freshness of political approach that both sides would themselves be ready to bring in with sincerity and seriousness of purpose.
There could be no better opportunity for them to turn a new leaf in their embittered history. The process must be sustained with high-level political engagement from both sides. On Kashmir in particular, substantive discussions on the nature of a settlement must be at the political level.
The task ahead is not an easy one; nor should there be any illusion about the complexity of the issues involved. We should be prepared for a long drawn out process which must not be interrupted by change of governments or personalities, nor should it be subjected to the vagaries of domestic politics.
We are dealing with more than half a century old issues and a legacy of animosity and conflicts. Mistrust and apprehensions on both sides are deep-rooted and will not evaporate simply by blowing out the flames. India and Pakistan will have to go beneath the fire to extinguish it at its source.
In Pakistan, we need to build a national consensus on our "new" India policy. India has the clear advantage in terms of complete and uninterrupted political harmony on its policies towards Pakistan. For us, there are lessons to learn from the past. Initiatives for normalization with India could never reach their logical end for reasons known to all.
This time, we have a government which has the "credentials and the power" to reach an "enforceable" peace with India. It may have delineated a new strategic vision by adapting our traditional India policy to the current regional and global dynamics. But if the new approach is consistent with our supreme national interest (which it must be), the government must strengthen its position in its dialogue with India by securing the support of all political forces in the country.
This would require a domestic confidence building through a genuine national effort for "debate and consensus" with the participation of all relevant major political stakeholders in the country.
They must rise above narrow political motivations and stand behind the government in exploring an honourable peace with India on the basis of a just and fair settlement of the Kashmir issue in conformity with the aspirations of the people of Kashmir.
This is the essence of India-Pakistan rapprochement which if translated into reality will benefit the peoples of this region and the world at large in terms of enormous economic opportunities that will accrue through intra-regional as well as inter-regional cooperation with other parts of the world.
Above all, it will enable both countries to fully devote their resources, both human and material, to improving the lives of their peoples, particularly the poorest among them.
The writer is a former foreign secretary, who represented Pakistan in the last round of India-Pakistan talks (1997-1999).
The Samson option
The smoking gun may turn out to be a mushroom cloud, George Bush had warned as he sought approval for making war in Iraq. This took for granted that Iraq not only had nuclear bombs but the means to deliver them.
Tony Blair was more modest. Iraq could launch a chemical and biological attack within 45 minutes. There was no mention of nuclear weapons though he stuck to his accusation that Iraq had tried to acquire the so-called yellow-cakes from Niger though the United States was forced to admit that evidence for this was based on a forgery.
How long ago it seems and we have moved on since then. There were no weapons of mass destruction but who cares? The Saddam regime was changed and the world had become a safer place and Saddam Hussain had been captured.
Iraq remains occupied and at the same has been liberated and soon it will have democracy and the voice of the turtle will be heard in the land. There is still some mopping up to be done.
American soldiers are being killed but the numbers have decreased and Iraqis are being killed and the numbers seem to be on the rise but it is their country and they too must make some sacrifices. To arrive at the best of all possible worlds, it is necessary to shed some blood, other people's.
A rubber band, which is stretched, will snap back. If it continues to be stretched, it loses its tensile strength. So it is with media coverage. The war in Iraq has lost its urgency and one can now listen to a news bulletin and there may be no mention of it at all or just a passing reference.
The focus of interest has now shifted to the black market in centrifuges and other nuclear technology that rogue scientists have been selling to rogue nations triggered off by the confessions of our own Dr A. Q. Khan. George Tenet, the Director of CIA claims that he was on to this black-market but why has he chosen to wait all these years to make the disclosure? North Korea, Iran, Libya are being targeted but not Israel.
Mohamed Elbaradei, the chief of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) makes this astonishing admission: "Unfortunately I can't give a precise opinion about it because we don't do any inspections in Israel," he told Al Arabiya television when asked about the size of Israel's nuclear weapons programme."
I know that it's a developed programme, and Israel does not deny that it has nuclear capability, but the size of the programme, the extent of its development, I really I can't know," he says. Though the book The Samson Option by Seymour Hersh may be out of date, Mr. ElBaradei could profit by reading it for it traces the history of how Israel went nuclear.
The Samson Option was published in 1991 and, therefore, misses out on the current hysteria about weapons of mass destruction. But Israel's nuclear programme was conducted with great secrecy with Senator Bourke B. Hickenlooper, the conservative Republican from Iowa interrupting a closed session of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee testily: "I think the Israelis have just lied to us like horse thieves on this thing.
They have completely distorted, misrepresented and falsified the facts in the past. I think it is very serious... to have them perform in this manner in connection with this very definite production reactor facility which they have been secretly building and which they have consistently, and with a completely often face, denied to us they were building," he accused.
These were the Eisenhower years. The Israelis trusted no one. But it was not the Americans that Israel turned to build the bomb but the French and an elaborate cover story was concocted to explain the bizzare activities at Dimona where French and Israeli scientists and technicians were building a reactor which was "dedicated solely for research purposes to develop scientific knowledge and thus to serve the needs of industry, agriculture, health and science," the official Israeli party-line which was accepted in good faith by the Americans.
Why the Samson Option? Seymour Hersh explains: "Samson, according to the Bible, had been captured by the Philistines after a bloody fight and put on display, with his eyes torn out, for public entertainment in Dagon's Temple in Gaza.
He asked God to give him back his strength for the last time and cried out, 'Let my soul die with the Philistines.' With that he pushed apart the temple pillars, bring down the roof and killing himself and his enemies. For Israel's nuclear advocates, the Samson Option became another way of saying never again."
Fast forward to more recent times and Seymour Hersh tells us that by the mid-1980s, the technicians at Dimona had manufactured hundreds of low-yield neutron warheads capable of destroying large number of enemy troops.
"The size and sophistication of Israel's arsenal allows men such as Ariel Sharon the dream of redrawing the map of the Middle East aided by the implicit threat of nuclear force," he wrote with prophecy in 1991.
Israel's neighbours have been demanding that some notice too be taken of Israel's weapons of mass destruction. These demands in the form of appeals have fallen on deaf ears. No David Kay for Israel not even a Hans Blix and no millions of dollars to ferret out weapons of mass destruction.
Israel has been trading on the Holocaust. The slightest criticism of Israel leads to pained accusations of anti-semitism. Israel is beyond the pale while it's hunting season on the Arab world. Israel has improved on the eye for an eye. Its ten Palestinian eyes for one Israeli eye, may be even more. This is called rough justice, the multiple response to an solitary act. And no one calls Ariel Sharon blood-thirsty?
Exposing dubious characters
In the bad old days in Bombay, the Times of India printed, on a regular basis, photographs of sinister looking men who had achieved a measure of notoriety which earned them the title of Public Enemy No 1. I can't quite remember if there ever was a public enemy number two.
But PEN 1. hogged all the publicity and had a regular fixed position on the front page of every newspaper. Posters carrying his picture also appeared at railway stations, traffic intersections and on the walls of the cricket stadium, blotting out the graffiti, while members of the public stared in disbelief and awe. The terse message was the same. The face, however, changed from time to time as other wanted men were promoted to the top slot.
Most of these characters were being prosecuted for crimes committed against the British Raj, especially when Indian National Army recruits were having a field day blowing up railway lines and munitions depots. But once in a while the mug shot represented a particularly dangerous escaped convict, drenched by dark references of a bygone era, who had been identified for crimes committed against his fellow citizens.
Why this practice is not being employed in Pakistan, is difficult to understand, especially when there have been three dangerous attempts on the life of the president.
One doesn't hear the words Public Enemy Number One these days, unless, of course, one is living and working in Washington D.C., where the Universal Terrorist has been singled out for this dubious title. But if the phrase is ever exhumed and given its rightful place in today's broad sheet, one should include a foe that is equally anonymous, who can't be seen or heard, but who nevertheless causes considerable discomfort and irritation.
I am referring to the computer hacker, the supreme architect of creative nihilism, who spends endless hours devising fresh and novel ways to destroy the hard disks of people he doesn't know, doesn't particularly care about and is unlikely to meet.
After the publication of my article on how men in uniform were usurping civilian jobs, I received 238 emails in the space of 24 hours. My computer, choked to the brim with a reel of useless material, gamely rallied, and spewed out, admittedly at a snail's pace, all the junk mail.. 235 messages contained a virus or a worm, cunningly hidden in an attachment, designed to obliterate the computer's memory. Fortunately, the viruses and worms were detected and cleansed by the server that I use.
Three emails which were clean, however, slipped through unscathed. The first was a pacy drama about a race against time to track down a donor from a random cross section of metropolitan life, for a child who desperately needed an operation. The second was an appeal from some woman in the Congo whose husband had been executed by an illegally appointed president.
She wanted to send me the cash stashed under the mattress amounting to four and a half million dollars, if I would only give her my secret bank account number in Bloemfontein, an air ticket and five days in a five star hotel in Dubai.
The third was a local news report dated February 12, which had been issued from Islamabad. This had been sent by someone from a weekly magazine which is quite intriguing, and bears reproduction..
'A top US official paid a secret visit to Islamabad on Wednesday, sources said. The sources said the official with a 24-member delegation arrived at the Chaklala airbase at around 7pm on Wednesday and left the country on Thursday afternoon.
Foreign office spokesman Masood Khan denied the presence or a 'short visit' by a US delegation to Islamabad. "I can tell you flat that this is not true," he told Dawn.
ISPR director-general Maj-Gen Shaukat Sultan said he was not aware if any senior US official had visited the capital. Other sources claimed that most members of the US delegation checked into two leading hotels in the city, while the top man himself stayed at the US Embassy.
They said there was a movement of the American VVIP in the morning because of which traffic remained jammed for quite some time in all directions on the VVIP route between Rawalpindi and Islamabad. These sources also claimed that 'something important' was likely to happen shortly because the international media - teams of NBC, CBS, CNN and BBC had started converging in Islamabad.'
He wanted to know what was going on, and I presume he thought I might have the answer. So I telephoned the usual people I normally contact on such occasions, who have generated the fiction that they are privy to secret information, and received three rather interesting explanations.
I must apologize to my readers if they find the answers a little droll, but the whole episode and the interpretations given to the incident are a little ridiculous.
The first was that while a busload of waving yanks were doing a round of sightseeing, and signing autographs outside a bookshop near the Polish Embassy, Masood Khan and Maj. Gen Shaukat Sultan were probably at the opticians trying out the latest styles in sunglasses.
The second explanation was that the chaps in the bus were not Americans, but German mountaineers who were initially headed for the high ground beyond the Margalla Hills, and had lost their way. So Messrs Khan and Sultan were telling the truth after all.
The third explanation was the most interesting. 'Do you ever watch a programme called The X Files, which appears on Star television?' my informant wanted to know. I realized at that moment that I had been missing something..
Appeals on the internet, most of which are scams, have been developed into a fine art. But Pakistan also has its share of people who appear to have an infinite capacity for indulging in this sort of thing.
In fact, there was a time in Karachi when a week just couldn't go by without some organization or other appealing against unfair excise and taxation, sales tax, import duties, excessive protectionism, honour killing, the construction of a dam, or one of the myriad strictures designed by the government to harass the law abiding citizen.
The obvious vehicle for the appeal was, of course, a quarter page one advertisement in the daily newspaper, and the reader would suddenly became aware that there was not only a tanner's association and a soda water bottlers' league, but that even lady barbers had some sort of guild to protect them against male tonsorial artists.
The appeals are usually made to various members of the honoured society, according to their pecking order. This is a closed club headed by the honourable president, the honourable prime minister, the honourable governor, the honourable chief minister and occasionally the honourable federal minister, who, at the best of times, is unaware of what is going on in his ministry.
Sometimes a lesser functionary, such as a secretary of the government, who was probably responsible for getting the association into a mess in the first place, is thrown in.
In the absence of a citizen's association designed specifically to cater to citizens' complaints, which has the power to tackle thorny issues and bring about institutional changes, nothing will really change, and society will continue to flounder in the realm of essences.
e-mail: a-mooraj@cyber.net.pk.