| May 7, 2005 | Saturday | Rabi-ul-Awwal 27, 1426 |
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Blair’s predictable win
Jolie’s visit & refugee problems
AS was only to be expected, Malaysia has backed Pakistan’s bid for a full dialogue relationship with the 10-member Association of South-East Asian Nations. A categorical assurance to this effect was given by Malaysian Prime Minister Abdullah Ahmad Badawi following his talks with Prime Minister Shaukat Aziz in Kuala Lumpur on Thursday. His country backed Pakistan’s bid, Mr Badawi said, because it welcomed Islamabad’s active role in Asean as a full dialogue partner. India, which itself is an Asean dialogue partner, has been blocking Pakistan’s membership since 1999, fearing that Islamabad could raise bilateral issues, including Kashmir, at the Asean Regional Forum. However, with the India-Pakistan relations on the mend, there is every reason to believe that New Delhi will not oppose Islamabad’s bid to become an Asean dialogue partner. For Pakistan, this membership will provide an opportunity to get closer to the powerful regional grouping that Asean is. Unlike Saarc, this 10-member grouping has achieved remarkable successes in regional cooperation. Malaysia, as rightly remarked by Mr Aziz, is Asean’s most important member, and Pakistan would like to have “a comprehensive partnership” with this country.
During the Pakistan prime minister’s visit, the two sides decided to sign a Free Trade Area-related “early harvest” agreement in July. This will be a prelude to the final FTA. Under the early harvest agreement, the two countries will have zero duty on the imports of selected items from each other. What Pakistan wants is a softening of the tariff regime, because the trade balance at present is in Malaysia’s favour, mainly because Pakistan imports palm oil worth $800 million annually from that country. The protocol for the FTA was signed last February when Mr Badawi was in Islamabad, and one hopes that, with its final signing in a couple of months, trade between the two countries will pick up. Other manifestations of the growing economic cooperation between the two is Malaysia’s decision to accept 100,000 workers from Pakistan and its interest in investing in petroleum, agro-industry, real estate, construction and tourism, and in increasing cooperation in civil aviation. Malaysia is also working on the Faisalabad-Khanewal section of M-4 and would also like to open a bank in Pakistan.
Malaysia is a shining example for Pakistan not only in economic development but in many other fields as well. The country has maintained a growth rate of above 3.5 per cent in its GDP per capita since 1970 (except for the 1997-98 Asian financial crunch). It is now highly-industrialized, with agriculture contributing only 14 per cent to the economy. With a per capita GDP of $9,000 (2003 figure), Malaysia has entered the ranks of middle-income countries. Today, Malaysia’s ethnic Chinese and Indians are proud of their Malaysian identity and feel themselves to be equal partners along with the Malays. Despite the religious diversity, the country’s politics and social scene are characterized by tolerance and harmony. No wonder, its slogan — Malaysia Truly Asia — has come to be accepted by the world, because Malaysia regards cultural pluralism as an asset rather than a liability. While Pakistan must indeed seek Malaysia’s help in economic and technological development, these aspects of Malaysia’s life are something that Pakistani leaders in the government and outside must take note of and try to inculcate them among our people.
“WHAT we have is a boring election with a very interesting aftermath,” one pollster was reported to have said before Britain voted on Thursday. It had become one of the most predictable elections ever, and Tony Blair has cruised home to an easy victory for a historic third successive term for the Labour Party. The party’s margin has been reduced, with both the Conservatives and Liberal Democrats increasing their presence in the House of Commons, but it still has a commanding majority. The ‘aftermath’ will take time to become evident: Mr Blair is challenged by Gordon Brown, chancellor of the exchequer in the outgoing cabinet, who was consistently cited in polls as a far more popular choice for prime minister. Mr Blair’s personal ratings had been falling since the Iraq war, but the anti-war lobby remained an amorphous affair and wasn’t successful in making much of an impact on the election outcome. It can draw some satisfaction from the victory of George Galloway, expelled from the Labour Party for his opposition to the war, who has won from east London, where roughly half the population is Muslim. This is one small indication of the disenchantment of British Muslims with Labour, their party of choice. They might have been able to create a greater impact perhaps if they had switched to the Liberal Democrats instead of backing efforts to float a new political force.
But choices overall have been dwindling in Britain for a long time as the two major parties have fought for the political centre. There was a time when a Labour win would enthuse liberals and leftists the world over; no longer. New Labour is ideologically a shadow of the original party. Its trans-Atlantic alliance with the hysterically right-wing Republican Party of Mr George Bush over the Iraq war, with all the destruction caused and the web of lies spun around it, was a reflection of how far it has moved away from its moorings. Mr Blair will now have to atone for his conduct by paying greater attention to the concerns of ordinary Britons about education, healthcare and social services. He will also have to lessen the gap with old Europe that looked askance at his connivance with the Bush administration, particularly in view of the fact that Britain is soon to assume presidency of the European Union.
OSCAR-winning actress and UNHCR goodwill ambassador Angelina Jolie’s visit to Pakistan serves to remind one of the plight of Afghan refugees. During her meeting with Prime Minister Shaukat Aziz, Ms Jolie appreciated Pakistan’s efforts to shelter Afghan refugees and offered to raise funds for them by participating at an international conference on the subject to be held later this year. Just a few days ago, a census conducted in collaboration with a UN agency cited three million Afghan refugees living in Pakistan. The census was carried out to enable the government to issue identity documents to Afghan refugees, primarily for security reasons but, along with the UNHCR, they hope to use this data as a way to handle the Afghans in the country and work on strategies to repatriate the community back to Afghanistan. Since 2002, some 3.5 million refugees have voluntarily returned to Afghanistan and the UNHCR hopes to repatriate 400,000 refugees this year.
At one point around the late ‘80s, about 60 per cent of all refugees in the world were from Afghanistan but since then, and more recently after the first democratic elections in October 2004, the number of Afghans seeking asylum has drastically reduced — from 52,000 in 2001 to 6,400 during the first nine months of 2004. However, Afghan refugees in Pakistan remain hesitant about returning to a place which is politically unstable, where education for their children is poor and despite constant reassurances from Afghan officials, they believe their home country is sorely lacking in basic amenities like health care. While the UNHCR continues its work on repatriation and rehabilitation of Afghan refugees, the Kabul government too needs to do far more to ease the process of return.