| 27 February 2005 | Sunday | 17 Muharram 1426 |
Case for keeping the parties out
Hariri's murder and the blame game
As the euphoria surrounding the recently concluded Kashmir bus service agreement dies down, some questions come to mind. If the bus service is also to be open to Indian and Pakistani nationals, will they be using their national passports and will the LoC crossing for them be an international border crossing?
Does Pakistan share the Indian perception that the Kashmir bus service is the "mother" of all CBMs? Will the bus service, which promises unprecedented relief to the Kashmiri people in terms of reunion of their divided families, continue even if there is no progress on what Islamabad considers the "core" issue?
Islamabad should coolly reflect on these questions and prepare itself for a long haul on its journey to peace with India. No issues, not even the core issue, are now more important than Pakistan itself which will be stable politically and strong economically only in an atmosphere of peace and stability both inside and along its borders. The time has come for us to focus more on our country's economic development and domestic consolidation while leaving, if necessary, a final and "principled" solution of the Kashmir issue to better times.
Foreign Minister Kasuri has described the bus service accord as "yet another milestone" and "a victory of sanity." The people of Kashmir and those of India and Pakistan hope this "trend of sanity" will endure and there will be more "milestones" of peace and stability in the region. Needless to say that the onus to shun any more "fits of insanity" lies on India and Pakistan and their leadership.
It is time for both sides also to have the "sense" and courage to take their people into confidence on the internal and external costs of their confrontational policies and on the limited but "achievable" options they now have in making their current "composite" dialogue productive and meaningful. Rhetoric and cliches have not served the cause of peace during the last 57 years and will not do any good in the coming years.
Another act of "sanity" in both capitals will be to refrain from statements that breed mutual hatred and hostility and lead to animosity among the people. Kashmir should no longer be the cause of India-Pakistan military conflicts, nor should it be the subject of their propaganda wars.
For more than half a century, Kashmir has been at the heart of almost all India-Pakistan problems. The two countries have fought wars and have remained locked in a confrontational mode for most of their independent statehood. They have both paid a heavy price in terms of high defence expenditure (in the case of Pakistan, nearly 35 per cent of our annual budget and over 6.8 per cent of our GDP) and have gained nothing from their endemic hostility. Both have experienced socio-economic problems, and human suffering.
The people of Kashmir have suffered most as a result of their uncertain future and an unabated cycle of violence and repression to which they have been subjected all these years. Half a century of a repressive and violent environment and a life of misery and mayhem have only given them despair and despondency. Many of them openly say that both India and Pakistan have used the Kashmir issue to advance their own strategic and political interests.
While India has also suffered in terms of constraints on its economic potential and limitations on its global ambitions, Pakistan's losses are manifold, both on the domestic and external fronts. These include costly wars, loss of half the country, political breakdowns, long spells of military rule, retarded economic growth, social malaise, societal chaos and disintegration, sectarianism, and a culture of violence, crime and obscurantism.
In recent years, grave crises and acute problems in our region have proliferated in a manner that has not only made us the focus of world attention and anxiety but also forced us to make difficult choices in our perennial struggle for security and survival as an independent state.
We cannot change our geography, nor escape from its political, economic, cultural, social and strategic influences. We must accept and deal with all realities, pleasant or unpleasant, in our neighbourhood. In doing so, our sole consideration has to be how to secure our independence and territorial integrity and our socio-economic stability.
We must stop blaming others for our problems. The history of the last 57 years shows that the real threat to our country's survival and stability has been from within, not from outside. We have remained a house divided against ourselves. Our difficulties have been aggravated by decades of an internal struggle for power and privilege, inept political leadership, weakened institutions, incessant corruption, and general aversion to the rule of law.
With a deteriorating law and order situation including recurring acts of sabotage and terrorism, and sectarian violence all over the country, and a climate of regional instability as a result of persistent tensions with India and the Afghanistan situation, we have been unable to harness the unique asset of our geographical location for economic growth.
These problems will have to be overcome if Pakistan is to capitalize on its location and become the hub of regional gas and oil pipelines network and transport and communications infrastructure. In the context of Kashmir, there are some stark realities that must now be kept in mind by both India and Pakistan.
As nuclear capable states, they can no longer afford a relationship of "conflict and confrontation." If anything, their nuclear capability now limits their options. South Asia, as President Musharraf described in one of his addresses to the UN General Assembly, has become 'the most dangerous place on earth" where neither India nor Pakistan can afford any "strategic miscalculation."
In recent years, Kashmir, no doubt, has taken the global centre stage, not as an issue of its unimplemented right of self-determination but as a "nuclear flash point" with worrisome implications for global peace and security. The international community is deeply concerned at the prospect of this dispute plunging the world into its first "nuclear exchange." This inevitably increases the global stakes in the early restoration of peace between the two nuclear-weapon states.
Since 9/11, the world has also changed. Violence of all sort is today an anathema to the world community. There is no place for any kind of militancy, not even in the name of freedom struggles, in the current global environment. The distinction between people's liberation struggles and terrorism has almost blurred.
Today's UN is left with no authority or credibility and its mechanisms for peaceful settlement of disputes under Chapter VI or Chapter VII of the its Charter are no longer operational in the new unipolar world. Globally, there is now no tolerance for tensions or confrontations. The focus has shifted from perpetuating disputes to pursuing their resolution through pragmatism and mutual accommodation.
Dialogue and constructive engagement remain the only acceptable means of resolving disputes. Economic cooperation and market forces are now the inexorable forces that impel mutual relations. The Sino-Indian border dispute, the Sino-US relationship and China's Taiwan policy are a few examples of this trend.
India and Pakistan, though under intense pressure from the US and other major powers, are now engaged in their "composite" dialogue which offers them the best opportunity to resolve their outstanding issues, including the Kashmir issue.
People on both sides of the border have welcomed every positive development in India-Pakistan relations since the Lahore summit in 1999 and are enthusiastic about every new confidence building measure, be it the bus service, railway link, visa liberalization or cricket exchanges that promote mutual contacts at the people-to-people level. In order to sustain this spirit, the two governments need to curb and control any rabid and hawkish tendencies in their opinion-moulding circles. Both need to evolve new narratives of their respective Kashmir postures.
There should be no going back on the dialogue process. It is the only option now available to them. This process will not be immune to domestic and external factors in both countries and will be replete with pitfalls and roadblocks. In the ultimate analysis, however, the success of this process will depend entirely on the freshness of political approach that both sides would be prepared to bring in with sincerity and seriousness of purpose.
The task ahead is not going to be easy given the complexity of the issues involved. There is very little hope for early breakthroughs. It will be 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. To sustain its momentum, India and Pakistan would need constant international support and encouragement to keep the process moving ahead.
For Pakistan, the peace process was to be sustained, as stressed by President Musharraf in January 2004, by ensuring the "linkage and simultaneity" in all the three areas of interest to both sides, namely, mutual consolidation of the CBMs, initiation and progress of the "composite" dialogue which would address all outstanding issues, including that of Kashmir and Pakistan's assurance not to allow any territory under its control to be used to support terrorism in any manner.
For India, it is the cessation of "violence, hostility and terrorism" that will sustain the "composite" dialogue. While it keeps saying that Pakistan needs to do more to prevent "cross-border infiltration", it has not reciprocated the unprecedented flexibility that President Musharraf was ready to show some weeks ago if India responded in kind. The basic positions of the two countries thus remain far apart and as rigid as ever.
Unless they are preparing themselves to discuss, through the back channel, the modalities of a "mutually acceptable and implementable" solution of the Kashmir issue which is beyond their "basic" positions and which also takes into account the legitimate interests of the Kashmiri people, India and Pakistan are bound to run into an indefinite stalemate on this issue.
In that case, the two countries will have to find an innovative approach to remain engaged in their peace process. This will be their challenge. Apparently, they have agreed to give peace a real chance. While the "core issue" awaits a mutually acceptable arrangement, they are now looking for openings in other areas of mutual interest to keep the process going.
The areas in which some forward movement can be expected include peace and security, including CBMs, economic and commercial cooperation, including the Iranian gas pipeline, promotion of friendly exchanges in various fields, terrorism and drug-trafficking and possibly the demarcation of Sir Creek.
A significant progress in these areas could set in motion an irreversible process of genuine India-Pakistan detente which would not only reinforce the constituencies of peace in both countries but would also promote an atmosphere conducive for future progress on the major issues, including Kashmir.
This process would inevitably require perseverance on the part of the two countries. What should be clear to them by now is that in today's world, there will be no military solution to their problems, nor would militancy bring oppressed people any closer to freedom.
Meanwhile, the world community must also realize that durable peace and stability in South Asia will be crucial to making our world more peaceful and more secure, and genuine and lasting peace in South Asia will come only through elimination of the root causes of instability and conflict in the region.
The writer is a former foreign secretary.
Case for keeping the parties out
As campaigns start for the local government elections in the next few months and for the national elections in a year or two, a troubling thought arises whether the polls would be free, orderly and fair?
Going by past experience and current indicators, they are not expected to be free and fair, nor any election in Pakistan has ever been. The one held in 1970, indeed, was both free and fair but that broke up the country. A cynical view often expressed since is that another election of that variety should be neither wished nor attempted for it might lead to yet another break-up.
In this cynicism, one tends to overlook the brighter side of the 1970 election result that could have put the federation on a durable democratic foundation if its eastern wing had been given a leading share in power which the western wing had all but monopolized since independence.
The politicians and the generals of the time out of sheer ineptness or ambition, however, combined to turn East Pakistan's long, patiently-borne deprivation into a sudden, bloody secession. The argument against free elections, thus, has to it a tragic ring and also carries with it grim forebodings.
Local elections, unlike national elections, can establish more honourable traditions. The 2002 polls held out some hope in that direction. Though the voter turnout then was low, rigging was not that blatant and the atmosphere was generally peaceful. That hope is now receding as the spectre of political manoeuvres and power tussles appears.
The once settled question of local elections being held on a non-party basis is once again being opened. As it is, the councillors and nazims, though they contested on their own, remain vulnerable to political pressures and are unable to shed their party affiliation in discharging their duties.
If in the future they are elected on a party ticket they would become, like the members of the assemblies, totally partisan in their outlook and actions. Community development and services would thus become subject to a particular party line rather than cater to the wider public interest. Local party bosses, too, would tend to run a parallel hierarchy of authority.
Political parties can legitimately influence government policies and plans at the centre and in the provinces. But they must not be permitted to interfere in local community affairs. In the towns and villages, people share common interests and basic needs that would be better served by a collective effort by community level officials without their being distracted by politics.
Besides keeping the political parties out of the councils, the direct election of the district, taluka (tehsil) and town nazims by the people should greatly help in insulating the local government from political wrangles at higher levels. A directly elected nazim would owe his office to a constituency as a whole and not to a group of councillors of common political affiliation who elect him.
In the first term now drawing to a close, the councils, particularly the district councils, appear to be sidelined while the nazim exercises authority on his own. The deliberations or resolutions of the council appear neither to have curbed the powers of the nazim nor have they lent him much support when needed. It is difficult to assess the role the councils have performed and how have the councils helped the community, but it certainly has not been much. The objective of empowering the people at the grassroots can be achieved only if development related policies and plans are approved by the councils and the nazims made accountable to them for implementation.
The conflict or collusion between the district government and provincial government, however, would be best avoided if the subjects between the two were clearly divided. Transferring operations to the districts with the control of policy and personnel remaining with the provinces is not a workable proposition.
Holding local elections on schedule, and in a fair manner, would be the first indication whether the same principles would govern national and provincial elections which are to follow a year or two later. On this account, little assurance is forthcoming. Some time ago, the president of the official Muslim League hinted at the possibility of postponing national elections by a year.
Similar suggestions are now emanating from various quarters for putting off local elections. Avoiding elections when they are due is the first sign of fear of their outcome and is a means to gain time for manoeuvres to win or rig them. Then there are reports of registration of bogus votes on a large scale - another device to defeat the result of the poll.
The present circumstances demand that the election schedule is brought forward and not postponed. Some important decisions need to be made and adjustments are overdue. The task of doing this should be undertaken after obtaining a new mandate from the people.
All parties agree and the president too has now conceded that more autonomy should be given to the provinces. It has also now become obvious that political alliances forged after the last elections to form or oppose the government have lost relevance. The defections of individuals and changes in the thinking and strategies of the parties have created new realities which can be no longer ignored.
Time has healed old wounds and inflicted new ones. The religious alliance, once an ally of the president, is now his fiercest opponent, but some of its "soulmates" still linger on the side of the government. The Peoples Party is already talking to the government for a rapprochement and Shahbaz Sharif, speaking for his faction of the Muslim League, also is no longer averse to this development.
Political forces are seeking to realign themselves on the basis of shared aims and ideas and not old vendettas. Early elections should put an end to the contradictions and the hypocrisy inherent in the current arrangement and draw a clear line between the forces of moderation and extremism.
Hariri's murder and the blame game
The reverberations of the bomb blast that killed Rafik Hariri recently will be heard across the Middle East for a long time. The former Lebanese prime minister, a self made billionaire was held in high esteem among the Arab leaders for his moderate views and widely respected for his contribution in the reconstruction of Lebanon after the 15-year civil war from 1975 to 1990.
The political assassination of Lebanese leaders is not a new phenomenon. President elect Bashir Gemayel was assassinated in 1982. Prime Minister Rashid Karami, who held the office 16 times, was killed in 1987 and President Reni Moawad died in a bomb explosion in November 1989. Druze leader Kamal Jumblatt was killed in 1978. However, none of these killings created such an outrage as the Hariri's death. There is also fear of Lebanon relapsing into civil war.
Anti Syrian sentiments have united Druzes, Christians and Sunnis, while the Shias and the Hezbollah organization accuse Israel of destabilizing Lebanon and Syria through this tragedy.
While it is not known who is behind this act, their is much speculation and political opponents are keen to settle scores by exploiting Mr Hariri's death for their own gains. The US has expressed "profound outrage" and Mr Bush has vowed that the perpetrators would be "punished".
While there is no evidence of it, yet Syria is being blamed for the tragedy. A blitz of media reports point towards its culpability. Without directly accusing Syria, Washington summoned its ambassador to Syria for consultations. Israel has also jumped into the fray. The Israeli media has held Syria directly responsible. The influential Yediot Aharonot has reported assassination carried the banner line - "Syria's revenge". The media in the West has displayed similar bias in its reports and comments.
There is no compelling evidence of Syria's complicity except that Mr Hariri resigned as premier last October in protest against the Syrian role in Lebanese politics. The presence of 15,000 strong Syrian troops in Lebanon in keeping with the terms of the Taif Agreement stationed there after the civil war has vexed Lebanese nationalists and the US. Mr Hariri's killing has come as a godsend opportunity for the hawks in the US administration to increase the pressure on Syria, whose inveterate opposition to Israel has earned it the distinction of "unusual and extraordinary threat to the US".
Since the death of President Hafez Al Assad, Syria has been under relentless pressure from Washington based on flimsy pretexts. In May, Bush labelled Syria "an unusual and extra ordinary threat" and imposed ban on its exports. He also severed banking relations with the Commercial Bank of Syria, froze the assets of Syrians and Syrian entities suspected of involvement in terrorism or WMD development. Syrian flights to and from the United States were also suspended. The sanctions were taken from the Syria Accountability and Lebanese Sovereignty Restoration Act, which the president signed into law in December 2003.
Bush's neo-con advisors feel that the current international disarray and paralysis of Muslim states is an ideal opportunity to implement the agenda of making Israel the regional hegemon. Henry Kissinger once remarked that there cannot be a war in the Middle East without Egypt and peace without Syria.
The late President Assad, during his 30-year rule, refused to submit to threats and insisted on a complete Israeli withdrawal from the Golan Heights, before peace could be agreed upon. The invasion of Iraq, without any shred of evidence or justification has emboldened the hawks in the Bush administration to replicate the Iraq experience, again without any justification or concern for the consequences.
A Syrian exile Farid Ghadri, like Iraq's Ahmed Chalabi before he fell out of favour, is being groomed to organize similar anti-regime movement. He is lobbying for the pending "Syria Liberation Act" which would commit the Bush administration to undertakes regime change in Damascus.
A neo-conservative lobby group. "Committee on the Present Danger (CPD) established in August 2004, invited Ghadri to a symposium in collaboration with the Foundation for Defence of Democracies" (FDD), created two days after 9/11 and whose views reflect those of diehard pro-Israel activists. The FDD Board of advisers include former deputy secretary defence Richard Perle, former CIA director James Woolsey and former US ambassador to the UN Jean Kirkpatrick.
Slowly but surely noose is being tightened against Syria and preparations are afoot to give US actions a legal cover. Getting the UN Security Council involved in a political murder is without precedent. Similarly, for America to pledge, "to punish those responsible for this terrorist attack", is equally unwarranted and has no locus as the tragedy has no bearing on US interests in any way. Lebanon is a sovereign country and it alone can determine the course of action and investigations.
The blatant manner in which President Bush is exploiting the Hariri assassination leaves one in no doubt that he regards it as an opportunity for him to act as a judge, a jury and an executioner. The observation "This murder today is a terrible reminder that the Lebanese people must be able to pursue their aspirations and determine their own political future, free from violence and intimidation and free from Syrian occupation" is simply disingenuous.
The Washington Post, in a recent report quoted an unnamed official as saying that former President Saddam Hussein's loyalists operating in Syria were providing money and other support to rebels fighting the US-backed interim Iraqi government.
The statements of King Abdullah of Jordan and President Ghazi Al-Yawer of Iraq claiming that "foreign fighters are coming across the Syrian border that have been trained in Syria" have also been given wide publicity. Syria is being accused of supporting terrorism, pursuing weapon of mass destruction, being in complicity with Iran, supporting Iraqi "insurgents" and now of the assassination of Mr. Hariri.
The campaign against Syria has since been gathering momentum. Analysts associated with the FDD and other rightwing think-tanks are painting a scary scenario of Syria's potential for mischief and are openly urging the administration to take military action against Syria for its alleged "material support to terrorist groups killing American soldiers in Iraq" "Syria is a hostile regime. We had sweet talk and tough talk. Talk has failed - we now need to take action to punish and deter Assad's regime" is the refrain.
Recent editorials and articles in US papers like The Wall Street Journal Washington Post and Washington Times have brazenly recommended military action against Syria. "We could bomb Syrian military facilities. We could go across the border in force to stop infiltration" was the recommendation of William Krsitol, the guru of the neocons. The administration is accordingly raising pressure on Damascus. Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage on December 21 warned Syria of dire consequences of its "failure" to accept UNSC Resolution 1559 urging withdrawal of troops from Lebanon.
The intimidation of Syria achieved new dimensions, when in his state of the union address, Bush issued the first warning, that "We must confront regimes that continue to harbour terrorists and pursue weapons of mass destruction. Syria still allows its territory and part of Lebanon to be used by terrorists who seek to destroy every chance of peace in the region. We expect the Syrian government to end all support for terror and open the door to freedom."
Arthur Schlesinger, national security adviser under Kennedy laments that "never in American history has the Republic been so unpopular abroad, so mistrusted, feared even hated." Bush and his super hawks, however, are not deterred by such criticism. Bush's reelection is regarded by them as an endorsement of his policy of truculent unilateralism and with their belief in the right of Israel to biblical boundaries are keen to redraw the map of Middle East and help realize the Zionist dream of creating a Greater Israel stretching from the Nile to the Euphrates.
These ominous developments suggest that neocons have Syria as their immediate target. Renowned rightist columnist and a former presidential candidate against Reagan, Pat Buchanan has exposed the true agenda of the neo-cons: "To neocons this war was never about WMDs or any alleged Iraqi ties to 9/11. Their real reason was empire, and making the Middle East safe for Israel. The neocons' agenda means escalation; enlarging the army, more troops in Iraq, widening the war to Syria and Iran and indefinite occupation of the Middle East, as we forcibly alter the mindset of the Islamic world to embrace democracy and Israel."
Syria realizes that heavy odds are stacked against it, and has followed a policy of caution and circumspection to defuse the situation. President Bashar Assad's offer to reopen negotiations with Israel on Golan Heights were dismissed with contempt by both Israel and the US. President Bush's response was "now Assad needs to wait first for peace between Israel and Palestine, and then we will see what to do with Syria." Syria has also said it would redeploy its troops in Lebanon closer to its own holders in accordance with the Taif accord that stipulates a phased withdrawal of Syrian troops stationed in Lebanon.
Syria, at this critical juncture, needs a high degree of statesmanship and diplomatic trapeze to avert the impending catastrophe. The US coercive diplomacy has already humbled and humiliated the once revolutionary Libya.
The writer is a former ambassador.