| 17 October 2004 | Sunday | 02 Ramazan 1425 |
Time to go back to the people
America-bashing on the increase in Britain
Rough times for Afghanistan
It was good to hear General Pervez Musharraf say in New York on September 23 that we should all discard "hackneyed positions" and make a fresh start in looking for a resolution of the Kashmir dispute. He went to New York partly to see Manmohan Singh, the Indian prime minister. They had a good meeting in that each convinced the other of his trustworthiness and seriousness of purpose in their common search for peace and amity between their two countries. The meeting lasted an hour which was devoted (after exchange of pleasantries and Musharraf's presentation of gifts to Manmohan Singh were done) to getting acquainted.
Let us now see if we can identify positions on Kashmir that have become hackneyed. The general himself pointed to a couple of them: the Indian assertion that the revolt in Kashmir, which we call a freedom movement, has been launched and sustained by militants trained in Pakistan; our claim that the Indian military forces are perpetrating horrible atrocities upon the people of Kashmir.
These are not good examples. Hackneyed or not, they cannot be discarded. Manmohan Singh is reported to have made it clear to Musharraf that talks between the two countries will not go forward if the infiltration of "jihadis" across the LoC continues.
General Musharraf has been telling the world that his government will no longer invoke the UN resolutions of 1948-49 that called for a plebiscite in the state of Jammu and Kashmir. Our oft-repeated demand for a plebiscite, he says, has become outdated, unavailing, and dysfunctional. It has been discarded. Good, but what about India's equally oft-repeated assertion that the state is its integral part, and that the happenings there are none of Pakistan's business? This position has not been discarded but it may have undergone some change.
Considering that India is willing to settle on the basis of the status quo on the ground (LoC), it is clear that it does not claim the entire state as its integral part. Its willingness to discuss the future status of the part it occupies shows that its assertion under reference is further softened. It implies the admission that the developments in that part of the state are Pakistan's business also.
The substantive nature of the dispute has also changed. The issue of the legality or appropriateness of the Maharaja's accession to India has long since been abandoned. In pragmatic terms, India's justification for its occupation of the larger part of the state derives from its victory in its first war with Pakistan (October 1947 - January 1949). The ceasefire line, called the line of control (LoC) following the war in 1971, has effectively remained a line of partition in the state.
As noted above, India does not claim the areas under Pakistani control. Pakistan does not expect to get Jammu (largely Hindu) or Ladakh (Buddhist). It follows that the dispute in its present version relates to the valley of Kashmir, which is overwhelmingly Muslim.
In thinking about ways of resolving the dispute, certain recently formulated caveats should be kept in mind. First, Indian spokesmen insist, and General Musharraf now agrees, that the dispute is political, not religious. Second, the option of a statewide plebiscite has been given up. Third, as General Musharraf would have it, no solution can be viable unless it is acceptable to Pakistan, India, and the Kashmiris.
The proposition that the issue is political, not religious, would appear to mean that Pakistan wants Kashmir not because it is largely Muslim but because it is a valuable piece of real estate and, more important, because it is the source of much of the country's water (the Jhelum river). India wants to keep the part of the state it occupies for essentially the same reason plus the fact that it seized it in war.
The Kashmiris who struggle against Indian occupation are dedicated to their own separate identity, and they do not wish to be Indians. Those who are content with being Indian resent Pakistan's intervention because the resulting conflict has ruined their lives.
At their meeting in New York, Manmohan Singh is said to have invited Musharraf to come up with new proposals for resolving their dispute. What can these be? Actually, the possible elements of a resolution are known and the job really is to find the mix that can be made acceptable to all three parties (India, Pakistan, and the Kashmiris).
Of late, the idea has been circulating that the state of Jammu and Kashmir might become independent. High sounding though it may be, it is very tricky. In the Indian part of the state Jammu and Ladakh have no interest in independence. That leaves only the valley. There is no lively interest in this option in Azad Kashmir, but it may develop if Pakistan supports it with reference to the valley.
In my thinking, it would be sheer folly for Pakistan to let go of a territory that has been its part for all practical purposes for more than 55 years and whose people are Kashmiris only in some remote sense: most of them, being Punjabi-speaking, do not even understand the Kashmiri language.
One may ask what other options are available if those of a statewide plebiscite and independence are set aside. It may be useful to recall the proposal that Sir Owen Dixon, a judge of the Australian High Court, who visited the subcontinent as a UN representative in the summer of 1950, submitted to the Security Council in September of the same year. This proposal is said to have come closer to a resolution acceptable to the parties concerned than any other offered either before or since his visit.
The Dixon plan consisted essentially of territorial adjustments along the ceasefire line. It would allow Pakistan to keep Azad Kashmir and India to keep Ladakh. India would cede portions of Jammu to Pakistan, and the valley would decide its future through a plebiscite. Pakistan accepted it after some hesitation; India is said to have accepted it in principle, but its acceptance was vitiated by Nehru's rejection of the proposed arrangements for holding the plebiscite.
Sheikh Mohammad Abdullah, prime minister of Kashmir at the time, thought well of the plan. He would, however, place the valley and its adjoining areas (district of Doda and the "niyabat" of Arnas) under UN trusteeship for a period of five to 10 years to allow "tempers" to cool and arrangements to be made for the plebiscite.
In April and May of 1964, Sheikh Abdullah, with the concurrence of Prime Minister Nehru, came to Pakistan bearing proposals for settling the dispute. These were (1) an Indo-Pakistan "condominium" over Kashmir with the two governments having joint responsibility for the state's defence and foreign affairs; (2) each side giving its portion of the state maximum autonomy and recognizing the LoC as the border between them; (3) a confederation of India, Pakistan, and Kashmir. These options could not be explored because of Nehru's death in May 1964.
The idea of accepting the LoC as an international border, after India has ceded some additional territory to Pakistan, has surfaced periodically. It was discussed in the several rounds of talks between Zulfikar Ali Bhutto (our foreign minister at the time) and Sardar Swaran Singh between December 1962 and May 1963. At that time, India offered Pakistan some strips of territory to the west and north of the valley but would concede no part of the valley itself.
Prime Minister Kosygin of the Soviet Union commended the same idea to Ayub Khan during the Indo-Pakistan peace conference at Tashkent in January 1966, but the latter could not accept it at that time. Nor could Zulfikar Ali Bhutto in his peace negotiations with Mrs Indira Gandhi at Shimla in the summer of 1972.
General Musharraf said in New York that his mind was closed to the idea of a settlement through territorial adjustments along the LoC. However, according to some Indian sources, a proposal to this effect is actually on the table in the ongoing talks between the two governments. In one version that I have seen, India may be willing to cede a few hundred square kilometres.
Which way, then, shall we go? Let us first identify the problematic options: (1) the idea of a plebiscite has been discarded by both sides; (2) India will not give the valley away to Pakistan; (3) a "condominium" would be very tedious to work insofar as the state's foreign relations are concerned; (4) confederation between India, Pakistan, and the state of Jammu and Kashmir may not be a bad idea, but it is one whose time has not yet come.
What is left? If, as General Musharraf has stipulated, the proposed settlement must be one that is acceptable to each of the three parties, the field of options is virtually bare. Nevertheless, UN trusteeship of the valley for a period of time, as a measure preparatory to the holding of a plebiscite, is an eminently sensible idea. It is likely that the Kashmiris themselves will welcome it and it will probably be well received in Pakistan. India's initial response will not be favourable, but that prospect should not keep Pakistan from proposing it.
If this proposal does not go forward, Pakistan would do well to agree to consider territorial adjustments along the LoC and try to get India to cede as much as possible. It should also press India to allow its portion of the state internal autonomy in all matters other than defence, foreign affairs, and a couple of other subjects. I suggest that if these conditions are met, it would be in our interest to accept a modified LoC as the border between our two countries. I agree that this is not the most desirable outcome, but it is probably the best of the options actually available.
The writer is professor emeritus of political science at the University of Massachusetts at Amherst, USA.
Email: anwarsyed@cox.net
Time to go back to the people
If elections are the lifeblood of democracy, Pakistan has but a trickle of it. Polls have been rarely held, and then have been routinely marred by coercion and rigging. The popular base of every emerging government has thus been narrow and its mandate too doubtful to withstand street agitation or military intervention. Such has been the plight of elected governments, and yet the paradox exists that while they lasted they were no less authoritarian in their ways than the military governments that preceded or followed them.
To illustrate this phenomenon, one can take an example from the recent past. It can be safely said that the cabinet and the parliament were not more assertive nor were the provinces more autonomous under Nawaz Sharif, the politician, than they were later under Musharraf, the army chief. The same can be said about the civil services.
For not calling elections when due, or earlier if the circumstances so demanded, no one but the politicians are to blame. For not conducting elections fairly, the blame falls chiefly on the successive election commissions. However, the people in power - whether civilian or military - cannot be exonerated either.
For want of confidence in the fairness of the electoral process and the fear of intimidation, sometimes even violence, that accompanies it, people's apathy with regard to the holding of elections has been growing. Voter turnout, which used to be in the region of 50 per cent, has now fallen to 30 per cent. A cynical remark generally made by some contesting candidates is that if they were not to transport and feed the voters, especially in the rural constituencies, hardly anyone excepting party activists would go to the polling stations. The election expenses incurred by the candidates can be 10 to 20 times more than that which is permitted by law.
To restore the people's faith in the electoral process and to get them to believe that their vote makes a difference, the first necessary step is to make the election commission independent, competent and effective. The law empowers the commission to issue any order or direction it considers necessary to conduct elections fairly and peacefully, and other organs of the government are bound to enforce this. If fairness is called into question, which invariably is the case, the fault lies not in the electoral law but in the composition and attitude of the commission.
The commission seldom takes cognizance of a violation of the law by the candidates or their parties or by the government i.e. the police and other officials conducting or supervising the polls. It hardly ever blows the whistle although even war-torn Afghanistan's election management board did so when it was alleged that the marking ink was not really indelible.
The proceedings on petitions before the chief election commissioner (CEC) and the tribunals he creates often drag on till the assemblies are dissolved. An incredible voter attendance approaching 70 per cent in the recent uncontested Thar desert bye-election has not been investigated by the commission. It certainly deserved to be investigated when all the 187,522 voters attending, except a thousand or so, were declared as having voted for the official candidate. Similar instances leave one wondering whether a CEC and the commission he heads (the Constitution devotes a full chapter to this) plays any role at all in ensuring that polls are fair and orderly.
The Constitution necessarily requires the CEC and other members of the commission to be either sitting or retired Supreme/High Court judges. The elections, on the other hand, are best planned and supervised by the people with an administrative background and experience. To be fair and firm is a virtue relevant to individuals and not to professions. India offers an instant example.
Its past three election commissioners - Seshan, Gill and Lingodeh - were all administrators. If ever they were accused of bias it was against the candidates of the party in power and for the underdog. Each one of them was accused by the government of excessive intrusion in the administrative routine - postings and transfers of officials, for instance - on the pretext of fair polls. Irregularities were indeed committed during the polls there too but none of the three was ever suspected of connivance or even neglect. Pakistan has a different and sorrier tale to tell.
Yet another Indian example which deserves to be followed is electronic voting. This suits illiterate voters and eliminates irregularities associated with the marking of the ballot paper and inserting it in the box. It is agreed that this year's general election in India was fairer and the results compiled more accurate and quicker than the previous ones - all because of the electronic system. The technology is simple and inexpensive. We should learn to use it and adopt it for the next general elections which, it now appears almost certain, might take place sooner than 2007.
The daily pandemonium in the parliament aside, the people and the parties sitting in it have become utterly unrepresentative of public opinion - so rapid and radical has been the transformation in domestic and world politics. The government on its own is, however, unlikely to advance the date and year of election.
The nation will have a reason to feel beholden to Qazi Hussain Ahmad if an en masse resignation of the members of his MMA alliance precipitates it earlier. Dampening this hope, however, is the government's spokesman, Sheikh Rashid, who keeps asserting that his faction of the Muslim League and the MMA are natural allies and will come together again. He was proved right earlier when the MMA after making much noise, voted for the 17th amendment which made General Musharraf president for five years.
An appeal to the court, now being contemplated, against the law just passed which enables President Musharraf to keep his army rank till 2007 will be surely welcomed by the ragtag governing coalition and suit the equally ragtag opposition as well. It is good going for both. But the point to ponder for all politicians is this: must democracy in Pakistan ride all the time on the back of the army and the judiciary? Isn't it time to go back to the people?
America-bashing on the increase in Britain
Something remarkable has been happening to me in the past three weeks. Wherever I go, no one launches abuse at me. When I open my mouth to speak, I am received with civility and the occasional "Have a good one". I am not attacked or intimidated. Where have I been visiting for the past two and a half weeks? Philadelphia. And where do I live? London.
Here is a scenario from my adopted hometown: a month ago, I was travelling on a double-decker bus. A well-dressed woman boarded with her son, respectable in his school uniform. Ahead of her was an elderly American woman, who said, "I beg your pardon, I didn't mean to bang into you." This prompted a tirade from the Englishwoman - let's call her Lady E. "I rejoice every time I hear of another American soldier dying! You people are destroying the world."
The American - let's call her Mrs A - fought back: "I personally am not destroying the world." This only provoked Lady E more, and she screamed into the American's face: "I wish every one of you would leave this country and not set foot in it ever again." Mrs A began crying. "Thank you for ruining my trip." Lady E lunged at the American and began to shake her. I jumped up and shouted for the driver to stop and for her to leave the woman alone, prompting Lady E to come over and grab me. "Another...American! You are scum." Thankfully, the woman next to me pushed her away. I left the bus. Mrs A sat sobbing.
Did I imagine this? No. Was the Englishwoman crazy? No.
I don't like what is happening in Britain, and am dismayed at the level at which anti-Americanism has peaked in recent months. Does anyone say "George Bush" or "Donald Rumsfeld" or "Dick Cheney" when they fly into these tirades? No. In fact, the visceral, in-your-face America-hatred goes back long before the days of the Bush regime.
When Bill Clinton was president, I attended a human-rights conference at my local synagogue in St John's Wood. During the tea break, I asked a man at one of the booths for a leaflet. He heard my accent and launched into a red-faced screeching session about the evils of American empire and of the "nazism" and "fascism" promulgated by the US.
A black man came over and began shouting about America having "invented slavery" and a delicate elderly lady joined the fray to bellow about the Zionists running America and the "genocides" perpetrated by Americans since the days of William Penn. I wondered why I had ventured out on a Sunday to be with like-minded people concerned about human rights, only to be reduced to a gibbering jelly as an ugly, strident crowd grew around me.
I have lived in Europe for all of my adult life, and from the day I arrived I have been aware not only of an oft-blatant anti-Semitism but also a resentment of Americans among colleagues, teachers, my social circle and neighbours. What is significant about this rage is that it emanates not from the great unwashed but from the educated and intellectual classes.
We all know about the academic boycotts of Israeli scholars. We all know about poor Philip Lader, the former US ambassador, who was reduced to tears on Question Time as David Dimbleby dispassionately watched a studio audience stomping its feet and shouting anti-American epithets two days after 9/11. I cannot conduct business or even take a taxi ride in Britain without a scathing tirade about the scurrilous Yanks. The day after 9/11, a minicab driver informed me that the "yellow Americans" on the four hijacked planes were typical of the way "the Yanks do battle - they chicken out and let the Brits do the dirty work".
As far as the Guardian-reading classes are concerned, my hunch is that the relentless America-bashing in the European media, combined with the abundance of criticism of Israel, has created an atmosphere of hostility that makes me fearful for my safety in my beloved adopted country. We have extremists in Britain holding "festivals" to celebrate the "magnificent 19 of September 11". And last November, when George Bush visited the UK and London's mayor, Ken Livingstone, boycotted the state banquet, ordinary folk gathered in Trafalgar Square to burn and stomp on the Stars and Stripes.
I hesitate to blame the media. But I have stopped going to meetings of my trade union, the National Union of Journalists, because I cannot listen to incessant vitriol about the crimes of my native country. Yes, there is much to worry about in present US policy, but how many American trade unions spend hours devising resolutions to censure their most trusted and valued ally? How many Americans invite expat Brits to their dinner table only to abuse and intimidate them? Friends tell me that the US is one giant fundamentalist-Christian nation of Bible-bashers. Otherwise enlightened colleagues tell me that the US "threatens the world far more than Bin Laden".
Where will it all end? I know many expat Americans - including non-Jews - who have received dressing-downs at social and professional gatherings. The standard reprimand contains the list of American misdemeanors: the project for the New American Century taking over the world's governments; Wolfowitz, Perle and other "Zionists" bullying the Bush and Blair governments into war with Iraq; and American Jews running the world's media, banks and industries.
Here is what I perceive as the explanation: Europe has always been a seething hotbed of anti-Semitism. England, sadly, has the distinction of being the very first country to expel its Jews and initiate the blood libel. The Jews were not allowed back into England until the time of Cromwell, and feel to this day that they worship by the grace of the sovereign. It is impossible to convey to Americans inside the US, or to American Jews, the open loathing of both groups that dominates daily life outside the US today.
I am aware that many Americans are leaving their homes abroad and returning home after decades in Europe because they can no longer endure the daily abuse. Anti-Americanism is not a result of Abu Ghraib or of a Rumsfeldian pronouncement. It is a disturbing and hurtful form of psychosis that is rapidly eroding the all-important special relationship.
I do not yet fear for my life in St John's Wood, but it sure is heaven strolling around the artists' studios at the Torpedo factory in Alexandria, Virginia and being greeted as me, not as a "bloody" American or an accursed Jew.
Rough times for Afghanistan
Three years after the Bush administration led a remarkably quick and bold military operation to overthrow the Taliban, and only days after the country's presidential election, many challenges face Afghanistan's newly elected leader in the years ahead. The big question is how much the US will continue to help.
There has been considerable progress in Afghanistan since the Taliban were overthrown in 2001. But that's largely because things were so bad under the Taliban, not because they are good now. And unfortunately, the current "security-lite" strategy being followed by the US and its Nato partners does not inspire confidence that Afghanistan will soon do better.
President Hamid Karzai or his successor will need more help from the international community to have a decent chance of avoiding future instability in his country and improving the lives of Afghans.
In early November 2001, President Bush promised at the UN that "when that regime (the Taliban) is gone ... America will join the world in helping the people of Afghanistan rebuild their country." In October 2002, he pledged a "full commitment to a future of progress and stability for the Afghan people." But the United States and its allies have fallen short of the president's promises.
To be sure, some real achievements have been made. An oppressive regime is gone. Two successful Loya Jirga meetings have resulted in the creation of an interim government and the ratification of a new constitution. Last weekend, the Afghan people went to the polls to choose their first democratically elected president. Growth rates of the gross domestic product have been averaging 20 per cent to 30 per cent a year, and school enrolment is now 300 per cent greater than before the war.
That said, Afghanistan remains a mediaeval fiefdom of warlords. Some are more benign than others, but most are oppressive. None is conducive to the creation of a healthy economy, and none has produced a safe environment for citizens. Militia forces total close to 90,000, and little progress has been made toward demobilizing them.
Fortunately, official Afghan security forces are growing: As of Thursday, there were 15,000 troops in the Afghan army and 28,000 in the police forces. Some of these successfully resolved a looming crisis in the western region near Herat this summer. But most rural parts of the country, where 80 per cent of Afghans live, remain beyond Karzai's control.
Continued attacks on aid and reconstruction workers have driven even groups known for their bravery, such as Doctors Without Borders, to leave the country. Their departure is particularly tragic given how poor humanitarian conditions remain in Afghanistan.
About 20,000 US troops have beenfighting against the Taliban in Afghanistan's south. Thirty-two Americans have died in Afghanistan this year, after 12 were killed in 2003 - bringing the overall total of the past three years to more than 100. However, the Taliban appears to be reconstituting in places, as evidenced by the spike in the US death toll this year.
It's been a year since the UN gave Nato the mandate to expand its presence beyond Kabul, the capital. But troops making up the mission of the International Security Assistance Force remain concentrated in Kabul; only a few dozen are located in each of five additional provinces. Although Nato temporarily increased the number of ISAF troops from 6,500 to 10,000 for the election period, more Nato troops need to be deployed on a longer-term basis to ensure security in Afghanistan.
Largely because of the poor security situation, the Afghan economy is not good. It has improved since 2001, but it remains weak, with a per capita income of about $250 a year - comparable to the poorest countries in Africa. International assistance has been flowing in, about $1 billion a year. But that is only half of what donors promised and hardly enough for a country ravaged by war for three decades.
Much of the economic growth that has occurred in Afghanistan has resulted, directly or indirectly, from a resumption of the drug trade. Only four years after the Taliban had largely eliminated the cultivation of opium, the country is believed to provide 75 per cent of the world's total supply. In 2003, revenues from the Afghan drug trade equalled half of Afghanistan's non-drug GDP. In addition, heroin trafficking is believed to be the principal source of funding for the remnants of the Taliban and Al Qaeda still in the country.
The Bush administration, its Nato allies and, most of all, the Afghan people have much to be proud of in Afghanistan. But the glass is at most half full. Afghanistan is a unified country in name and form only; it remains factionalized, unsafe and poor.
The next presidential term in both Afghanistan and the United States will be crunch time. In all likelihood, America will either declare victory and leave the place a barely functioning entity or will commit to do the job right and prevent Afghanistan from again becoming a sanctuary for militants.-Dawn/The Baltimore Sun