Cautioning Pakistan, courting India

ISLAMABAD: There were no surprises. US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice’s first visit to the region was not about ‘handing out’ anything. It was more about giving and seeking assurances.

As expected there was a discernible difference in the tone and tenor of the messages that Dr Rice carried for India and Pakistan. It was more about courting the Indian leadership in New Delhi for long-term US strategic goals, and in Pakistan it was essentially about cautioning the leadership on democracy and nuclear related concerns laced with the usual pat on the back for our role in the war against terrorism.

In India, she spoke about “shared values” and a “vibrant, wonderful, and functioning democracy”. Also, she mentioned possibilities of partnership with India in regional as well as global affairs, underscoring that there was “much more” that the two could do. Notably referring to the “strong defence cooperation” between the two countries, she told her Indian hosts that the US looked forward to enhancing it over the next several years. An offer for energy dialogue was also made.

A Chinese strategic analyst in Islamabad was probably not off the mark when he saw Dr Rice’s ‘offerings’ to the Indians as Washington’s attempt to promote India as a counter-point to China in its position of an emerging global force.

In Pakistan, Dr Rice reiterated the US pledge for a long-term partnership beyond the war on terrorism and held out the assurance to the people of Pakistan that the US would be a friend for life. The key word for many analysts here being “long-term”. In the bilateral context, her emphasis was more on US interest and support to educational and economic reforms. Commerce secretary Tasneem Noorani also joined the working dinner with Dr Rice at the foreign ministry, and there was back and forth between Dr Rice and Mr Noorani who made Pakistan’s case on trade and commerce matters. The discussions focused on a bilateral investment treaty, market access and FDIs. Dr Rice raised the issue of intellectual property rights, an issue of serious concern to the US.

However, despite Dr Rice’s references to Pakistan as a friend and a valuable ally, she remained reticent on the question of the sale of F-16s to Pakistan. She merely said it was discussed.

Dr Rice seemed particularly “impressed” by the Indo-Pakistan peace process and the ongoing composite dialogue. On Kashmir, her message was clear. That US was not going to push India to the negotiating table and neither would it mediate. Bilateralism ought to be given a better chance, she underlined. She pointed to the “deep differences” between the two parties on the issue, indicating that a resolution would be a long haul. She talked of Kashmiris but not as a party to the dispute. In reply to questions also, she talked in the long-term and the distant future tense, hoping “eventually” and “in course of time” Kashmir would be resolved. So don’t fuss about Kashmir, forget about it for now and get on with other business — this was her underlying message, basically the same line as taken by the Indians.

When Dr Rice was asked by a reporter if she had raised the issue of human rights violations in IHK with the Indian leadership, she turned around and gave a veiled message to Pakistan on alleged cross-border infiltration, saying there were a number of issues that needed to be dealt with by all parties.

On democracy, she was equally emphatic and underlined that it was central to the US dialogue with Pakistan. Her emphasis on the need to having “totally free and fair elections” indicated that US had doubts about the last polls. She was not impressed by Mr Kasuri’s peroration on democracy in Pakistan at their joint press conference. She did not add a word to it just as when he made an intervention to underline Pakistan’s commitment to the goals of nuclear proliferation, saying the international community got wise to the A.Q. Khan affair much later than President Musharraf.

However, it did not go unnoticed that Dr Rice met no opposition leaders here. In India she called on opposition leader L.K Advani even though the duration of stay there was shorter than in Pakistan.

On the Dr A.Q. Khan question, the secretary of state did not mince words. She let it be known that the United States considers it a “very serious” matter and would keep a hawk’s eye on Pakistan as far as the nuclear issue was concerned. Dr Rice made it amply clear that there were vital and lingering questions about Dr Khan’s sales, particularly to Iran. Washington is interested in knowing “how” it all happened, was her emphatic assertion. In an interview with a private Pakistani TV channel, she also expressed Washington’s felt need to work together with Islamabad on the A.Q. Khan case. When asked if the US had sought direct access to Dr Khan for investigations, her measured but telling response was: “We can work together and arrangements can be made.”

One was intrigued by the timing of the Shaheen 2 (Hataf VI) long-range surface to surface missile test conducted by Pakistan a day after Dr Rice left. It was not so much about the need to verify technical parameters as it was about making a political statement, some observers believe. The message that Pakistan wanted to convey was: it is under no pressure and will continue to strengthen its nuclear deterrence.

A serving Pakistani diplomat who met Dr Condoleezza Rice for the first time had this impression of her: “She is very clear-headed, very correct, precise and to the point.”

And indeed Dr Rice did make her point loud and clear in Pakistan. So let us be under no illusions. The thinking in certain foreign policy-making circles that Washington will be fair towards Pakistan because the US needs us more than it needs India may require a review.

Justice goes astray in Nepal

KATHMANDU: The international community and the Nepali government seem to be at diametrically opposite ends.

While tough action against Nepal has been proposed at the annual hearings of the United Nations Commission on Human Rights in Geneva, the Nepali government seems to be making matters worse by encouraging retaliatory attacks against Maoist rebels. This has resulted in new levels of violence.

On March 17, UN human rights chief, Louise Arbour put Nepal alongside Sudan as prime locations, in the world, for gross human rights violations. The next day UN and donor agencies warned that the Himalayan kingdom is nearing a humanitarian crisis and urged security forces and Maoist rebels not to block vital aid and to protect civilians.

This comes at a time when vigilante justice has led to the deaths of as many as 31 alleged Maoists and their sympathizers in Nepal’s southern district of Kapilvastu, the birthplace of Lord Buddha.

In retaliation, the Maoists have killed 16 villagers to date. Thousands of villagers fearing their lives have fled across the border to India. Though the early flames have waned in recent days amid heavy security presence and local leaders appealing for amity, tensions still run high.

“It’s everybody against everybody,” says Narayan Prasad Poudel, a journalist based in Taulihawa, the main town in Kapilvastu.

But the vigilante justice has proved counterproductive.

More than 11,000 Nepalis have died since the Maoists lunched their anti-establishment “people’s war” in 1996 to establish a communist republic in the impoverished Himalayan kingdom.

King Gyanendra, who sacked the government, jailed political leaders and seized power on Feb 1, said he was acting to end the Maoist rebellion. The power grab has been widely condemned internationally.

In Kapilvastu, the current narrative on the ground is one of high tension and extreme confusion. Nepali-speaking hill migrants who have settled in the flat and fertile plains of Kapilvastu, which borders India, fear the local ethnic communities, most of whom have kin across the border. On the other hand, members of ethnic groups accuse the Nepali-speaking population of targeting them.

Muslims fear their Hindu neighbours and the Hindus point out that Kapilvastu has a high Muslim population.

“It’s very volatile out there,” says Poudel.

It all started on Feb 16, when the Maoists abducted a former police officer Prem Bahadur Bhujel from the village of Ganeshpur. Well regarded in the village, Bhujel was preparing for a family wedding.

The next day, some 300 villagers armed mostly with sticks began to scour for Bhujel and his Maoist captors. They found him locked up in a pen, blindfolded and with his legs tied up.

What happened next is murky. Some say that the villagers handed over Bhujel’s Maoist captors to a local army barracks before asking them back and killing the unspecified number of Maoists themselves. Another story has it that the angry villagers lynched the captors to death the moment they found them.

But all hell broke loose only after Feb 21, when three senior ministers flew to Ganeshpur from the capital Kathmandu and urged villagers to retaliate against the Maoists. The villagers’ Feb 17 retaliation against the Maoists was also widely publicised in the state media.

“That stoked the flames,” says Tilak Pokharel, a journalist who visited 10 Kapilvastu villages from Mar 9 to 12, while angry mobsters set them on fire.

“Some 30,000 villagers or more fled across the border to India and many of them are unlikely to return home,” he adds.

Enthused by government support in Hallanagar, a supposed Maoist stronghold, the vigilantes burned down 305 out of the 323 houses in the village.

In his Mar 15 news report for ‘The Kahtmandu Post’ daily, Pokharel pointed out that while revenge for years of suppression by the Maoists were evident motives behind the bloody retaliation, pressures from local vigilante groups and the military were the less obvious ones.

“The early retaliation (Feb 18) against the Maoists was spontaneous,” says Poudel, who also heads Kapilvastu district’s Federation of Nepalese Journalists.

In Kathmandu, the government appears unrepentant. In its first full-fledged press conference since it took office on Feb 1, the new government headed by King Gyanendra encouraged villagers to retaliate against the Maoists.

At the Mar 18 press briefing, Minister for Information and Communications Tanka Dhakal, who is also the government’s spokesman, said that “villagers had been forced to resort to courageous retaliatory action in their desire for peace”.

“In such areas where the people have taken action by themselves, the government will introduce integrated development packages as an inducement,” he told reporters. Days later, senior army officials arrived in Kapilvastu to announce that those targeted by the Maoists will receive relief packages from the government.

Villagers in Kapilvastu point out that a fragile peace will only hold for the next few days. They warn it could collapse like a house of cards any time if there is a minor incident.

It might seem that some of the 30,000 villagers who fled to India have come back. But dusk still sees many of them quietly crossing over the border to the Indian side.

While the landed Nepali class have property holdings in India and relatives to count on, it is the poor that’s a cause of concern.

For now, security has been beefed up to unprecedented levels in Kaplivastu. An estimated 1,000 to 1,200 Royal Nepal Army personnel remain stationed in the hotspots compared to only about 200 a month ago. But the villagers say the real test will come when security forces, already stretched thin battling the nine-year-old Maoist insurgency, start leaving for other troubled spots in the country.—Dawn/The InterPress News Service