| 16 December 2004 | Thursday | 03 Ziqa'ad 1425 |
Kathmandu moot on Kashmir
The East Pakistan debacle
From 'tent city' to Nato
Mr Shaukat Aziz has completed hundred days as prime minister. That is a period adequate enough to set the tone of his administration, formulate the policies of his government, and provide a foretaste of things to come.
After assuming office he had asked the members of his unusually large cabinet and secretaries to work as a team and formulate proposals of their ministries within l00 days, identify road-blocks if any, and remove them.
They have been working ever since, some of them frantically, to identify the areas where they can show good results. And the prime minister has begun meeting his ministers again to monitor their progress. Those who fail may ultimately be dropped from the cabinet or given other portfolios suited to their temperament or talent.
He will review their performance every quarter to keep them on their toes. The politically powerful among the ministers may enjoy the usual exemption or reprieve. The opposition, too, is alive in the parliament in questioning the ministers over their performance or lapses, including their frequent absence from the House.
The prime minister is apparently satisfied with the performance of his government. The government, he believes, is on the right track and the economic growth for the current year has already exceeded the revised target of 6.4 per cent.
The growth for the next three years will be eight per cent, he confidently predicts. And the second generation economic reforms will take care of many of the problems of the people including the basic needs of the poor.
But the problem with the current progress in the macro-economic sector in many countries of the world is that it does not translate into jobs for the unemployed. It is a kind of jobless growth the world is facing as productivity increases, exports rise and foreign exchange reserves soar.
The US faces many of the aspects of this problem, although its very high military spending and large budget and current account deficits are the primary causes of its economic malady.
The people here are interested in knowing whom the prime minister will sack if they do not get the jobs promised or other social welfare benefits assured in a country in which over one-third of the people live below the poverty line of a dollar a day. He is also the minister for finance with good many assistants. So he has to succeed in delivering what he is promising to the people, particularly the disadvantaged.
Though unusual for a career banker, he is now giving a great deal of importance to agriculture. After deciding upon a series of steps in this area the federal cabinet has appointed a committee headed by him and including the provincial chief ministers and the federal minister to focus on agriculture.
There are valid reasons for that. And the reasons are not the high pressure brought on the government by the very high price of oil or the inadequacy of gas which has enhanced the cost of industrial production and exports.
All that has resulted in an eleven per cent increase in exports and 49 per cent increase in imports, giving a 2.5 billion dollar trade deficit within the first five months of the current financial year.
In a country with 150 million people, many of them under-nourished, shortage of wheat has forced the government to import a million tonnes of wheat. The Economic Committee of the cabinet has decided to import another half a million tonnes of wheat. Import of another half a million tonnes may follow.
The imported wheat will be sold at Rs. 450 per bag while the landed cost will be far more, and the gap will be met through a subsidy. To make more fertilizer available to the farmers, its export has been banned. The imported fertilisers will be sold at Rs. 475 for 40 kg while the landed cost will be Rs. 1,250 to Rs. 1,300.
The Trading Corporation of Pakistan after having bought cotton from the farmers in view of its surplus output is to export Rs. 1.7 million bales at a time when the world prices are far blow the Pakistani price.
The government says the cotton growers have benefited to the extent of Rs30 billion so far, after having gained Rs60 billion through the same process last year. While all this is happening, Isra has confirmed that the shortage of water for the Rabi crops will be 47 per cent.
Worse still is the prediction of the Meteorological Bureau that the country will experience drought more or less for the next 15 years. The hardships caused by such predictions if it becomes real, will be mitigated if the canals and water courses were lined rather quick instead of taking four to five years together.
The large dams proposed, besides the controversial ones, too should be built quick with the local support of the people who should be their beneficiaries. If along with that the drip cultivation and the use of sprinkler which the Punjab government proposes to popularise in the province are adopted by other provinces as well they will be the gainers.
In this regard a number of farmers from Pakistan have visited East Punjab and seen the tremendous progress small farms there have made. They want the same kind of agricultural reorganization in Pakistan. More farmers from Pakistan should be encouraged to visit East Punjab and Haryana, and benefit by those highly productive methods.
The issue of land reforms and higher productivity of small tenant farmers in our context have come to the fore again. Former Prime Minister Zafarullah Jamali tried to suppress the demand for land reforms by arguing, while in office, the needed reforms had been carried out and there was no scope for further reforms now.
He was speaking more as a landlord than as prime minister of a poor country. But if the issue was also earlier raised by the World Bank experts, the same has been done now by the IMF officials led by the director of the IMF office in Islamabad Henri Lorie.
They argue that lands in large farms are under utilised, and the productivity of the small farms will be far more. They want the farmers to be provided with the requisite facilities for higher production, including a strong banking system to back the farmers. They are not arguing as much on the basis of enhanced social justice as higher productivity of land and the farmers.
There has been spirited talk for long in some quarters for corporate farming, including corporate livestock farming. But nothing much has been done in that direction. There has been talk of diversifying agriculture and setting up a variety of agro-based industries. Nothing much has been done in that direction either.
For the last 30 years, from time to time, there has been talk of crop insurance. But that is more like a bubble: It becomes big and bigger for a while and is then blown off. Will there be more concerted and sustained efforts in that direction now?
What is significant is that no mention is made of developing fisheries despite its vast potential as an export commodity. Fisheries make headlines only for the varied quarrels between the fishing interests and depleting the fish stocks by catching them off-season, often using forbidden nets.
The poultry industry, however, thrives with the prices fluctuating violently from time to time. And now there is talk of importing Halal meat from India which is in surplus there. But that, too, is making small headway.
What will the cabinet committee do to actually promote agriculture? Will it protect only the big farmers or care for the small ones as well? The political clout of the farm lords has been increasing as their number increases with the birth of more children in each family. Some of them are well educated in modern agriculture.
Joining them is a number of bureaucrats whose strength is also on the rise. In addition, there are also an increasing number of military farm lords who have been allotted lands by the government for services rendered or before retirement.
The feudal lords pack the National Assembly and the Senate and the provincial assemblies. And they are well represented in the federal and provincial cabinets. Above all, the feudal outlook influences a lot of others in public life. And they become domineering in their spheres.
In the olden days the feudal lord was also the money lender to his farmers. Since the rate of interest was high the farmers were not able to repay the loans. So the loans on compound interest went on ballooning and the farmer and his family ended up as bonded labour. But now the Zarai Taraqqiati Bank is there in the rural areas and also the Khushal Bank and the First Micro-Finance Bank are there to help the low income groups. They can help the small farmers stand on their own feet instead of borrowing at a high rate from their landlords and ending up miserably.
The fact is that 25 per cent of the GDP comes from agriculture and 50 per cent of the people are employed in this sector and 60 per cent of the people live in the rural areas.
Unless there is prosperity in these areas there cannot be real prosperity in the country. And with the weather so uncertain for the next 15 years the farming belt cannot be left to itself, but should be assisted to the best extent possible.
The sugar industry should not be allowed to face the crisis it does every year before the cane crushing season begins. A formula has to be devised to end the conflict between the cane-growers and the sugar mills that is fair to both.
An industry with its surplus output should not become a national problem so frequently. Nor can it be subsidised too heavily for export. The cost of production at the cane growing stage as well as the sugar manufacturing stage should be reduced. High cost electricity is a major factor which has to be cut. Agriculture should provide a fair deal to all.
Kathmandu moot on Kashmir
A conference on the Kashmir issue has just concluded in the Nepalese capital of Kathmandu. Pug wash, an American-based think tank, initiated the conference which was attended by all Kashmiri political groups from both sides of the Line of Control.
It was indeed a commendable effort on the part of Pug wash to provide a forum for the leaderships of various factions to evolve a common ground and a common Kashmiri position as an alternative to the Indian and Pakistani positions on Kashmir.
On whose initiative did this conference come about? The simple answer is that it was inspired by the Americans. But there's more to it. The Kashmiri groups based in the United States have played a part.
They have always been disenchanted by the Indians, and in the current situation, find themselves equally disenchanted with Pakistan. They say that there is no democracy in Pakistan and ask what chance would Kashmiris have in a Pakistani federation.
The Indian caucus in the United States is quite wealthy and enjoys influence in Congress and the White House to trigger such a move. The Pakistani lobby (if it can be called so) in America has still not quite recovered from the horrendous spill over effects of the 9/11 specially with respect of Muslims residing in America. But primarily, the emergence of Pug wash is the shape of things to come as and when Condoleezza Rice formally takes over as the next secretary of state.
As a consequence of the slow progress of the composite dialogue on Kashmir between India and Pakistan the world powers that matter have, under the leadership of the United States, thought of this new stratagem that may either spur the two countries to hastily arrive at a settlement on an "as-is where-is basis" i.e. demarcating the borders at the Line of Control, or lead Kashmir up the garden path do become another client state on the payroll of the United States.
As everybody knows, the formalization of the LoC came about as a consequence of the Shimla Agreement of 1972, at a time when Pakistan having lost its eastern province had no option but to accept what was offered.
What Mr Bhutto was barely able to extract was the LoC in Kashmir, the release of 90,000 Pakistani POWs and the areas of Punjab and Sindh that had fallen under Indian occupation during the 1971 war.
This, in effect, gave us relative peace for nearly three decades until we messed up once again in 1999 as a consequence of our Himalayan blunder described as the Kargil war. To be realistic an un elected government at that point of time in 1972 was most unlikely to get that much out of a victorious India.
So with the Pug wash process in motion, what is the prognosis for Pakistan in the ongoing Kashmir dispute? Is it not to accept "the unacceptable LoC" as the official boundary line in Kashmir which it already is in a "de facto" sense? If not, then what is the other alternative?
The way Kashmiri opinion is running at present even Azad Kashmir is no longer "the sort of captive audience" we have had for Pakistan since 1947. But the next question that arises is as to what are the advantages, if any, of holding on to the LoC?
The LoC runs through all the component sub-territories that constitute the disputed state of Kashmir i.e. through the Kashmir valley, through Jammu and through the Northern Areas. And what is the net strategic worth of Azad Jammu and Kashmir and the Northern Areas to Pakistan? Firstly, these territories prima facie as well as geophysically are Pakistan's toehold inside the state and has helped us maintain the disputed status of the territory for the last 57 years.
Secondly, it has provided us with the site on which the Mangla dam at old Mirpur was constructed and which is one of our major sources of hydroelectric power in this country under the Indus Waters Treaty.
Thirdly, it provides us with a most feasible site for locating the future Bhasha dam in the Diamer district of the Northern Areas adjacent to its district headquarter town by the name of Chilas.
Fourthly, and what is indeed the greatest plus in favour of our holding on to the AJK and the Northern Areas, is the fact that it provides us the land/road connection with the People's Republic of China that makes it possible for us to conduct even the semblance of an independent foreign policy in the region that we are situated in.
And finally, the AJK and the Northern Areas provide us with a buffer in Indian-occupied Kashmir, preventing the Indians from having land access to the North West Frontier Province and thereby to Afghanistan.
So the moral of the story is that, come what may, Pakistan's vital interests are infinitely intertwined with the AJK and the Northern Areas under any circumstances. There is indeed no room for doing any bargaining here.
In keeping with the principles of the 1947 partition plan of India, the areas in Indian-occupied Kashmir to which we can stake a rightful moral and political claim are the entire Kashmir Valley and that part of Jammu that lies west of the Chenab river. But now, a little more about Pug wash. It is a think tank and describes itself as the Pug wash Conferences to bring together from all over the world scholars and public figures who are concerned with reducing the danger of armed conflict and seeking cooperative solutions to global problems.
Meeting in private as individuals rather than as representatives of governments or institutions, Pug wash participants exchange views and explore alternate approaches to arms control and tension reduction with a combination of candour, continuity and flexibility seldom attained in official discussions and negotiations.
The Pug wash Conferences draw their name from the location of the first meeting which took place in 1957 in the village of Pug wash, Nova Scotia, the birthplace of the American philanthropist Cyrus Eaton who hosted the meeting.
The stimulus for that gathering was a manifesto issued in 1955 by Bertrand Russell and Albert Einstein and several other intellectuals and scientists of world class. A basic rule for Pugwash Conferences is that participation is always by individuals in their private capacity.
If Pug wash can help India and Pakistan overcome the Kashmir impasse it will have succeeded where the United Nations and the big powers have miserably failed. And if this were to actually materialize in the aftermath of the Kathmandu talks, it may well add the new word of "pug washing" to the English language dictionary as indicative of the process of resolving international disputes.
What makes it more interesting is that a leading Indian agricultural scientist, Mr. M.S. Swaminathan, who hails from southern India, is currently the president of Pugwash.
The East Pakistan debacle
December 16, 1971, has special significance in the political history of Pakistan. It was on that fateful day that Pakistani troops surrendered to the Indians in Dhaka, the then capital of East Pakistan. This event, which is also called the fall of Dhaka, marked the dismemberment of Pakistan just after twenty-four years of its creation.
The separation of East Pakistan cannot be ascribed to the ambition or stubbornness of a single general, politician or political party. Rather it was the culmination of a long process spread over more than two decades.
The federation of Pakistan, which came into being in 1947, comprised of two wings: West Pakistan and East Pakistan. There was a marked contrast between these two wings. One, whereas West Pakistan was ethnically diverse, East Pakistan was ethnically homogeneous.
Two, whereas West Pakistan was essentially a feudal society, there was only a vestige of feudalism in East Pakistan. Hence, East Pakistanis were politically more conscious than West Pakistanis.
Three, West Pakistan was economically more prosperous than East Pakistan. And finally, population-wise, the eastern wing was larger than the western wing; the former accounted for nearly 54 per cent of the country's total population.
In the interest of the integrity of the federation of Pakistan, it was imperative that its federating units were given full autonomy, adequate representation in the state apparatus and an equitable share in economic development, and that its various ethnic communities were welded together.
To ensure adequate representation to the units and their equitable share in economic development, it was necessary to hold regular elections and transfer power to the elected representatives of the people, and to grant sufficient autonomy to the provinces.
As for welding various ethnic groups, the country needed a strong and stable political party with a nation-wide base, which could represent various nationalities. However, both these requirements remained unfulfilled. These two acts of omission were no doubt inter linked.
Most of the frontline leaders of the Muslim League, the country's founding and premier party, hailed from Muslim minority provinces which after partition were included in India. Hence, the constituencies these leaders had were left in India. Therefore, they lacked a popular base in Pakistan.
Apprehensive of their defeat, these leaders were against seeking a popular mandate. However, in their attempt to perpetuate their power without having to seek a popular mandate, these leaders became dependent on the bureaucracy - both civil and military. Since the bulk of the bureaucracy hailed from the western wing, it was the western wing that had the ultimate say in the exercise of power.
Since political and economic powers go hand in hand, lack of an adequate share in political power also hampered the economic development of the eastern wing, which gave birth to an acute sense of deprivation and discontent among its people.
They had strongly supported the Pakistan movement in the hope that the creation of an independent Muslim state would bring about their political emancipation and economic uplift. But as things went on in independent Pakistan, their hopes started shattering and their faith in the Muslim League began to erode.
The feeling of discontent was accentuated by the dismissal of prime minister Khawaja Nazimuddin, who hailed from East Pakistan, in 1953 by the governor-general even though he was commanding a majority in the legislature. The action also weakened parliamentary democracy whose smooth functioning was a prerequisite for holding the federation intact.
East Pakistan's discontent with the Muslim League and the ruling elite was reflected in the 1954 provincial elections in which the League was routed by the United Front, an anti-League alliance. The Front formed government in the province.
The election results should have served as an eye-opener for the rulers but they were too intoxicated by power to open their eyes to reality. Within two months of its formation, the Front government was sacked and governor's rule clamped on the province.
Pakistan's first constitution, the 1956 Basic Law, provided for parliamentary form of government and provincial autonomy. But these provisions of the constitution were violated by an ambitious Iskandar Mirza, the president, with the help of a West Pakistan-dominated bureaucracy.
The president dismissed or forced prime ministers to quit one after another. The casualty list included Huseyn Shaheed Suharwerdy, the second and the last prime minister from East Pakistan. Thus both prime ministers from East Pakistan - Khawaja Nazimuddin and Suharwerdy - were not allowed to complete their tenure and forced to exit in an unceremonious fashion.
During Ayub's ten-year rule, things went from bad to worse. Ayub's self-made 1962 constitution discarded the basic principles of holding a federation together: it reduced provincial autonomy to a minimum, denied representative government and concentrated powers in the office of the president.
The powers, which were effectively exercised by a West Pakistan-dominated civil service elite, further alienated East Pakistanis. Hence, not surprisingly, between 1958 and 1966 there were many incidents of violence and turmoil in East Pakistan.
Political deprivation was accompanied by economic deprivation. When Ayub assumed power there was a difference of 30 per cent in per capita income between the two wings; by the time the general was forced to quit, the gap had risen to 61 per cent.
The growing alienation of East Pakistanis was articulated in the famous six-points formula of Mujibur Rahman, the leader of the eastern wing's most popular political party, the Awami League (AL). Enunciated in 1966, these points called for separate military and currency for both regions with a very weak centre.
Though these points also demanded a federal form of government, there is little doubt that if these points were fully implemented, they would have seriously distorted the federal character of the constitution and created a confederation.
It was on the basis of the six points that the AL contested the first ever general elections in Pakistan in 1970. The election results shocked the then military government led by General Agha Muhammad Yahya Khan. In East Pakistan, the AL won 151 out of 153 seats for the National Assembly.
However, the AL failed to win a single, seat in the western wing. Conversely, in West Pakistan the Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP) headed by Zulfikar Ali Bhutto emerged as the single largest party.
However, the PPP could not win a single seat in the eastern wing. It was obvious that neither party had an across-the-country base - a vital condition for holding a federation together.
The total number of National Assembly seats was 300, which meant that the AL was in a position to form the government in the centre on its won. But since the party had achieved electoral success on the basis of six points, which if implemented might have created a confederation, the government was reluctant to transfer power to the League.
Though during his meetings with President Yahya, Mujib had assured him that once in the assembly he would try to tone down his six points so as to preserve the federation, the government was doubtful whether Mujib could be trusted
It seems in retrospect that the West Pakistan-dominated military government was not inclined to transfer power to an East Pakistan-based party. It is hard to believe that having become the prime minister, Mujib would have literally implemented his six points, including separate currency and military for both wings, and thus undermined his own position. As mentioned in the preceding paragraphs, these points were an expression of the discontent of East Pakistanis with the central government.
The reaction, though extreme, was rooted in genuine causes. Once the Awami League was in the saddle at the centre, the eastern wing's discontent would have evaporated and the future constitution of the united Pakistan would have been federal with full autonomy to the provinces, which is the bedrock of federalism.
On the other hand, Z.A. Bhutto, the leader of the PPP, who had the mandate of West Pakistan, wanted the six points issue to be settled before the National Assembly was convened. For this purpose, he held talks with Mujib, which, however, proved abortive.
The failure of the talks prompted Bhutto to order his party legislators-elect not to attend the National Assembly session scheduled to be held in March 1971 in Dhaka. The session was never held.
The military government's dilly-dallying over the transfer of power to the AL caused grave unrest in East Pakistan There were strikes and riots all over the province and the writ of the government existed only in cantonment areas.
In desperation, the central government decided to launch a military crackdown to quell the uprisings. The operation, it is widely believed, was miscalculated. The military action and the subsequent Indian military intervention proved to be the last nail in the coffin of the united Pakistan.
The principal cause of the break-up of Pakistan was the absence of a common bond between the two wings coupled with the denial of adequate political representation to the people of the eastern wing. In a federal multiethnic state such a bond is provided by a strong and stable political party with an across-the-country base, just as the Congress has done in India.
However, there was no leader, no party, which was acceptable to the people of both wings. An additional factor was the absence of democratic conventions in Pakistan, which stipulate that the electorate has the right to choose the government and that the majority party is entitled to govern whether or not it in the good books of the establishment.
From 'tent city' to Nato
KYIV, Ukraine - The world still knows this city as Kiev, its name in Russian, but let this dateline and this column call the capital of Ukraine by its rightful name.
That name, always used by Ukrainians, reflects the historic events unfolding here. The "completion of our revolution," "the most important days in a thousand years," "our final break with Moscow" - all these are phrases one hears here repeatedly.
They are heard not only from the young demonstrators who will continue to occupy parts of central Kyiv until their candidate, Viktor Yushchenko, has won the presidential election rerun scheduled for Dec. 26, but also from political leaders in this bitterly contested struggle.
There is little doubt that Yushchenko will soon be president. Any attempt by the government to declare his opponent, Prime Minister Viktor Yanukovych, the winner would result in overwhelming demonstrations, national paralysis and, possibly, civil war. But that catastrophic outcome is far less likely than was once feared. Leading political figures and even military officers are defecting daily to Yushchenko, and Yanukovych's strongest supporter, Russian President Vladimir Putin, has been isolated and humiliated.
Even President Leonid Kuchma, who ruled with nearly total power for the past 10 years, implicitly acknowledges the inevitability of Yushchenko as he sits in a modest suburban villa, miles from his offices in central Kyiv, which, he says angrily, are "hard to use" at the moment. Nothing symbolizes more clearly the rapid flow of power out of the government's hands.
Yushchenko needs the young, idealistic demonstrators - their tents brought in by the army, their electricity and heating supplied by Kyiv's mayor, who has deserted the government that appointed him - to prevent another fraudulent election. The crowds will swell to record numbers if necessary, right after the voting, and stay until he becomes president.
But what then? Is this simply a struggle for power between the two Viktors? Or is it the beginning of a deep, thoroughgoing democratic transformation? And, even more important, is this the moment when Ukraine, after living almost entirely within "the Russian space" for a thousand years, turns toward the West and seeks membership in Nato and then the European Union?
Make no mistake about it: 2004 has been Putin's "annus horribilis," the year in which he "lost" Georgia and Ukraine to anti-Russian popular revolutions, the year of Yukos and the school massacre at Beslan, a year in which, while remaining popular at home, he lost credibility throughout the rest of the world.
His objective in Ukraine - to help the candidate preferred in Moscow - was entirely rational, but his personal behaviour has been puzzling, petulant and self-demeaning.
He must now either look for a way to back down quickly and learn to live with Yushchenko or - if he tries to stir up separatism in Russian-speaking eastern Ukraine or punish Ukraine economically - risk destroying his relations with much of the West.
Ironically, Putin's heavy-handedness, so reminiscent of the Soviet era, is likely to have an effect opposite to its intent - and to accelerate Ukraine's quest for Nato and E.U. membership. As one of Yushchenko's closest advisers put it, "After what Putin has already done, how can we afford to risk floating between East and West?"
Because of the complexity of integrating the economies, and the concerns the European Union has over the speed at which it is growing, full EU membership is probably a decade away. Putin can live with that. But Nato is a more serious matter, even if the alliance is a long way past its anti-Soviet origins.
Russia will, of course, object, as it did to the earlier rounds of Nato enlargement - especially to Poland. But not one of the fears and predictions of disaster that came from many learned commentators and wise men in the United States turned out to be true after Poland, Hungary and the Czech Republic entered Nato in 1999.
Ditto more recently when the Baltic states and seven more Central European countries joined. So why not Ukraine? From the US point of view, it makes sense. Nato virtually defines our core zone of security in half the world, and danger lurks to the south and east.
Ukraine, as part of the greatest peacetime military alliance in history (it already has 1,600 troops in Iraq), gives added comfort and stability to the eastern tier of Nato nations. But there will be hesitation in some capitals, especially Berlin. It will require strong sponsorship by Washington, assisted vigorously by Warsaw - and speed is important. President Bush will have to recognize that he has gotten little for his four-year affair with Putin, and that we cannot let Ukraine's security be determined in Moscow.
Yushchenko (and his Ukrainian American wife) will seek an official invitation to Washington soon after he takes power. Once there, he should be told that the United States will lead the effort for a road map that would formally begin at the December 2005 Nato ministerial meeting and end, if all goes well, about two years later.
All this must be done so that Moscow does not view another Nato enlargement as a zero-sum game for Russia. Ukraine must find other ways to create a constructive relationship with its giant neighbour; an omni-directional foreign and economic policy is the only way for it to go. - Dawn/Washington Post Service
The writer is a former US ambassador to the United Nations.