Mere rhetoric will not do

DESPITE the positive role on which the recent talks between the foreign ministers of Pakistan and India ended, and notwithstanding the claim that the second round of the composite dialogue was more successful than the first one, the fact remains that there has, so far, been no real movement on any of the substantive issues bedevilling bilateral relations.

The revival of the joint ministerial commission that last met in 1989 was a promising development. Its next meeting will be preceded by technical-level working groups on agriculture, health, science and technology, information, education, IT and telecommunications, environment and tourism. This way the joint ministerial commission could supplement the work of various groups meeting under the composite dialogue framework.

The two countries also signed an agreement on pre-notification of flight-testing of ballistic missiles and a memorandum of understanding for the establishment of a communication link between the Pakistan Maritime Security Agency and the Indian coast guards. However, it may be added that the MoU on establishing the communication link does not indicate a timeframe.

As the agreement on pre-notification of flight-testing of ballistic missiles seeks to prevent misunderstandings and misinterpretations, it is likely to promote peace and security between the two nuclear armed neighbours. The agreement, which comes into effect immediately, will remain in force for five years, after which it will automatically be extended for another five years. The agreement is open to amendments and any party can withdraw from it after serving six months notice.

It may be added that it is the second nuclear-related agreement between Pakistan and India. The first being the ‘Prohibition of Attack Against Nuclear Installations and Facilities’ which was signed in December 1988 and ratified on January 27, 1991. The agreement is an important confidence-building measure because it provides an effective and reliable channel of communication to ensure that there is no accidental or unauthorized launch.

Whatever real movement has so far taken place under the composite dialogue is on CBMs rather than substantive issues. Disputes like Siachen, Sir Creek and Wullar Barrage continue to defy a solution while a new dispute on the Kishenganga project has now been added to the list.

Rhetoric is usually a standard part of joint statements issued in South Asia and the one released after Kasuri-Natwar talks was no exception. It talks of “the resolve to carry forward the peace process”, the determination “to maintain its momentum”, and the commitment to explore “possible options” for a peaceful negotiated settlement of the issue of Jammu and Kashmir “in a sincere, purposeful and forward looking manner”. Mr. Natwar Singh termed his talks with his counterpart as “friendly, intensive and productive”.

According to the joint statement, the two sides exchanged ideas on the Siachen issue and agreed to continue their discussions so as to arrive at “a common understanding before commencement of the next round of the composite dialogue in January next year”. The widespread optimism caused by the agreement on a time frame to evolve a common understanding on Siachen was, however, short-lived.

Talking to reporters before leaving for New Delhi at the end of his four-day visit to Pakistan, Mr Natwar Singh, nullifying the time-frame element in the joint statement, said, “There is no deadline for Siachen, but we hope the talks will move forward”. Two days later, Indian defence minister Pranab Mukherjee further dampened hopes for an early solution when he made it clear that “disengagement in Siachen glacier can be undertaken only when delineation on the troop positions is carried out”. It may be observed that efforts to demilitarize the Siachen glacier have not succeeded because Islamabad and New Delhi have so far failed to get around the problem of certification of positions currently held by their armies.

It is, however, encouraging that the two sides agreed to undertake another joint survey of Sir Creek before the end of the year. It may be added that the dispute relating to Sir Creek is more than two decades old. Sir Creek is a strip of water between Sindh and the Rann of Kutch in India. A joint survey was conducted in January this year, which, however, failed to bridge the gulf between the viewpoints of Pakistan and India. The main reason for the stalemate over Sir Creek is that the disputed strip is regarded as rich in oil and natural gas.

It is not yet clear whether the two sides have exchanged views on the principles of international law that should apply in resolving the Sir Creek dispute. However, they have made a commendable effort to mitigate the hardships fishermen undergo on account of the non-demarcation of this boundary by agreeing to set up a hotline between the Pakistan Maritime Security Agency and the Indian Coast Guard. It is also hoped that India and Pakistan will soon agree to set up a mechanism for the immediate repatriation of innocent fishermen who inadvertently cross into their territorial waters.

The Indo-Pakistan peace process will get much-needed credibility if the two countries find a way to reach an agreement on Siachen and Sir Creek. A breakthrough on these two substantive issues will mark the first important deal between the two countries after almost two years of composite dialogue. Also, a settlement of the Siachen and Sir Creek issues may pave the way for the solution of more complicated issues.

No one denies that Kashmir is a sensitive and complicated issue and its solution cannot be pushed through hurriedly. But certainly, steps can be taken which smooth obstacles and create a congenial atmosphere for finding a solution acceptable to all the concerned parties — India, Pakistan and the Kashmiris. New Delhi says that ending cross-border terrorism is the key to real progress. Pakistan’s viewpoint, as succinctly put by foreign secretary Riaz Mohammad Khan, is: “There is no cross-border terrorism taking place. Violence in Kashmir is linked to the human rights situation there”. Therefore, Pakistan argues that India’s troops reduction could unlock a solution to the Kashmir problem.

Certainly, a deal on reduction of violence as well as troops in Jammu and Kashmir is not beyond the reach of Islamabad and New Delhi. Pakistan’s contention that violence in Kashmir is linked to the human rights situation there can be tested by New Delhi through an internal ceasefire, on an experimental basis. Similarly, Islamabad’s call to reduce the presence of Indian security forces in Kashmir’s urban centres is not unreasonable and should be given a trial. As the Indian Express has reported, “the in-your face presence of the Indian security forces is deeply resented by the local population”.

New Delhi should seriously consider the option of deploying of Indian security forces away from the cities. After all, the round-the-clock patrolling by the Indian security forces of Srinagar and other cities has not helped end terrorism or violence. Therefore, it may be in New Delhi’s interest to consider alternative approaches to maintaining security in Jammu and Kashmir.

Islamabad and New Delhi should both recognize their responsibility to move the peace process forward. An understanding on how to make simultaneous progress on cross-border “terrorism” and the Kashmir dispute should not be beyond their reach. Pakistan has already displayed its readiness to move away from its traditional position and now it is India’s turn to reciprocate the gesture.

To begin with, an internal ceasefire, even on an experimental basis, will supplement the ceasefire on the LoC, ease the daily life of the Kashmiris in the Valley, give them a stake in the India-Pakistan peace process and create the right atmosphere for a negotiated settlement of the long-standing dispute which has sapped the energy and resources of the two neighbours for almost three generations.

The writer is a former ambassador.

Who’s gouging whom?

IF you think the five major oil companies are gouging you, you are not necessarily paranoid.

At the same time, people in the fuel business need love, too.

The one thing that perplexes this country is why each one of the oil companies charges the very same price for a gallon of gas.

The differences in prices are the state taxes.

I tried to find out the answer by going to the Billionaires Petroleum Club.

Because of the recent spikes in oil, there is now waiting list of billionaires wanting to get into the club.

I talked to Arthur Lucky, who is president of one of the oil companies and also of the Billionaires Club.

I said, “Some people suspect that there’s a conspiracy to fix the price of gas.”

“People will say anything when they fill their tanks.”

“Why is it that no matter which company you use, the price is the same?”

“It’s an accident. We never talk about price with each other.”

“But if oil is $75 a barrel, then the price of gas changes at all your gas stations. Who sets the price of a barrel of crude?”

“We have no idea, but we’d like to find out so there’s somebody else to blame. If you ask me, it is some oil trader on Wall Street.”

“People think there is a conspiracy among the five major oil companies, where they sit around a conference table and decide what they’re going to charge for gasoline each week.”

“That is ridiculous. We would be violating the antitrust laws of the United States and we would have to hire lawyers to keep from going to jail.”

“Then you never talk to each other?”

“The only time we discuss price is in the club’s Jacuzzi. When you’re in the water with no clothes on, you think more clearly.”

“OK, you are all in the Jacuzzi. Who decides what price you’re going to charge?”

“Each CEO has the duty for one week. We stay in the pool all through the week. But on Sunday, we go to church and ask God to forgive us.”

“I’m sure he will.”

“Let me make a point. When we’re seeking profits, we’re doing it for all the stockholders — people who believe that oil is the next best thing to godliness.”

“What do you do at the Billionaires Club?”

“We play pool, gin rummy, poker, and we have a basketball team that plays against the Billionaires Soft Coal Club in West Virginia. We have an excellent chef who knows what rich people like to eat.”

“Were the Enron people members of the club?”

“The people in the Enron energy business were. But when they went broke, we threw them out.”

“Back to price gauging — what should I tell my readers?”

“Tell them to stay the course. That’s what the oil companies are going to do. Even if we make billions of dollars in one year, we still think of the little guy.”

“Right.”

“And we have to use some of our profits to find new oil. We don’t drill holes in the ground for our health.”

I said, “Could I join you in the Jacuzzi?”

“No way. We only have room for five people.”

He gave me a toy gas station. It had a sign on a pump, “Gas — Self-Serve — $3.50 a Gallon.” —Dawn/Tribune Media Services

Blood is thicker than water

SUFFERINGS efface identities. I thought something like that would happen when the earthquake struck Islamabad and both sides of Kashmir, more Pakistan’s than India’s. I imagined that there would be an unending queue of trucks carrying tents, food, medicine and other things passing through the Wagah border, followed by a convoy of doctors and volunteers.

But I did not realize that Islamabad would spurn New Delhi’s offer for joint relief and rehabilitation. How could I have thought that Pakistan would say “no” to even a British television presenter of Indian origin? Even the Line of Control was not softened for the army men to reach the cut-off areas.

The Pakistani president was ebullient in his appeals for help from the West, but sparing in his words when it came to India. He made it clear that the helicopters, which he badly needed, were not welcome from India because of “sensitivities”. He should know that satellite cameras have already pictured every nook and corner of Kashmir.

My worry is that if the two countries do not warm up even during times of adversity, there is something basically wrong with them. Despite people-to-people contact, they have still not overcome the bias and prejudice which they have nurtured since their creation in August 1947.

So many meetings between the two governments, so many visits by non-official delegations and so many conclaves of dialogue should have evoked the spirit of kinship in the people who have shared the same history, same culture and same land going back for centuries. Although disappointed, I was not surprised when at the European Union meeting on Kashmir, before the earthquake, I found delegates from Azad Kashmir, the Kashmiri expatriates and some Kashmiri leaders from Indian side articulating the same kind of animus.

True, Indian security forces have not been paragons of virtue and have indulged in excesses which are not becoming of democratic and secular India. But there was not a single word of condemnation at the Brussels meeting for terrorists who were described by speakers as “freedom fighters.” I am sure some of the insurgents measure up to this description. In fact I believe that even the uprising in 1989 contained elements of nationalism, although the weapons supplied and the training imparted were from Pakistan.

How many innocents were killed by the militants was on their conscience. I do not want to go into how many were killed by the terrorists or the security forces because every killing is a scar on humanity. What I have not been able to make out is why the European parliament held what it characterized as the “World Discourse on Kashmir.”

At the first session of this discourse last year at Brussels, I made it clear that no third party was welcome and that insistence on the European Union’s participation would complicate matters.

I made the same point this time also and beseeched the delegates to wait for the outcome of talks between India and Pakistan, which are now more than one year old.

Today, even the Hurriyat has been involved, in the sense that its president Mirwaiz Farooq has had a series of meetings which started with General Musharraf, continued with Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and were followed up again with General Musharraf. He is due to meet Manmohan Singh again, probably after the Saarc meeting which is scheduled for the first week in November at Dhaka.

Both General Musharraf and Manmohan Singh are scheduled to review confidence-building measures, including Kashmir. What surprised me at Brussels was the observation by the Mirwaiz that he welcomed third party intervention.

“Azadi” (independence) was one word used by him and other Kashmiri leaders from both sides. The phrase “self determination” has been voiced repeatedly.

What does it mean? In today’s world of the 21st century when nations are forming larger groups and unions, any suggestion of secession sounds archaic and represents jingoistic nationalism. If the logic of self-determination is applied to the state, Jammu and Ladakh will separate themselves from the Valley.

Whether we like it or not, it is resurrecting the two nation theory of partition days. There is no doubt that the ultimate solution should be on the basis of the aspirations of the people of Jammu and Kashmir. But when aspirations avoid realities, they melt into willow’ the wisp dreams.

The fact is that rightly or wrongly the state acceded to India and after 60 years it cannot be turned around into a status that is founded on religion.

However weak, India’s polity is secular. It cannot accept a settlement which may undo the country itself. What amazed me at Brussels — and I have watched this at other conclaves on Kashmir — is the intransigent stand of Kashmiri expatriates.

They even suspect India and Pakistan of coming to a settlement which they believe will be against the wishes of Kashmiris. Their attitude reminds me of many Sikh expatriates who still go on financing the demand for Khalistan.

Their plus point is that they have contact with intelligence agencies, both indigenous and foreign and have money to finance any movement or uprising to undermine the unity of a particular country. They could be of help to their country of origin if they were to abandon their personal agenda.

What India and Pakistan require are people who can span the distance between the two and who can help create conditions in the subcontinent which makes it move towards economic union.

The countries in the region should stay sovereign and continue to have their own identity, but pool their resources — economic, technical and others — for the development of the area as a whole. As in Europe, borders should be soft, allowing for the free movement of people and goods.

Students of one country should be able to study in another. I recall when Quaid-i-Azam Mohammed Ali Jinnah came to the law college in Lahore, where I was studying, after articulating the demand for Pakistan, he invited questions. I asked him: The manner in which Hindus and Muslims hate each other means it would take them no time to jump at each other’s throats once the British leave.

He replied assuringly, “Young man, you know about Germany and France. They fought each other for hundreds of years and now they are the best of friends. That’s history, remember blood is thicker than water.”

The writer is a leading columnist based in New Delhi.

The blogging generation

THE news from our ICM poll that a third of young people online have launched their own blog or personal website may come as a surprise to many older people only dimly aware of what blogging is all about.

It is the latest example of the transforming effects of the information revolution that are leaving very few activities unaffected. Blogging simply involves setting up a site on the internet where you can “blog” your views together with photographs and invite comments from friends or interested people anywhere in the world, as long as they are online.

It takes only a few minutes to set up a site with one of numerous free programmes available on the web. Michael Howard was quite right in his valedictory speech to yesterday’s Tory conference to say of the new generation: “Their youth has been shaped by the internet and the iPod, by cheap flights and mobile phones.”

And not only youth. Blogging is now a mainstream activity for politicians, economists and, increasingly, corporations, plus the army of bloggers around the world who call governments and companies to account with instant rebuttals and who are setting up heir own form of “citizens’ journalism” to provide a grassroots alternative to what is perceived as the corporate-driven agenda of many media organisations.

Blogging in turn is only a small part of the digital revolution that has provided practically everyone in the industrialised world who wants one with a mobile phone that is itself cannibalising other gizmos such as cameras, music players, radios and 50 other functions.

From cars that know where they are located to robot vacuum cleaners, and from internet shopping to playing online games with millions of others around the world, the digital revolution is sweeping all before it. Above all - thanks to search engines such as Google and Yahoo - there is free access (after paying a monthly fee to a service provider) to practically anything you want to know about anything.

The limiting factor on acquiring knowledge these days is not being rich but whether you have the inclination to search for it or not. There are, of course, dangers — from inadequate monitoring of what children are doing to the avalanche of junk mail and pornography that assails users.

—The Guardian, London