A slow-down with India?

THERE are growing fears that a new factor is insidiously creeping into the India-Pakistan peace process which may impact negatively on its substance if not the form. The present political turmoil in Pakistan is producing a climate of opinion in India against pursuing the dialogue earnestly.

The Indian government has been notably careful that it is not seen as making things difficult for President Musharraf. This is as much indicative of the Indian appreciation of the so-called unilateral “concessions” made by him on the more intractable issues between the two states as of a new maturity in bilateral relations. Despite this restraint, the Indian approach to the negotiations may be conditioned by the larger perspective in which India considers the Pakistani scene.

First, there is the view that even if it is imprudent for India to demonstrate support for Pakistan’s quest for greater democracy, it should not strengthen President Musharraf’s hands in his bid to win another presidential term while continuing as the chief of army staff. India, it is argued, should not permit tangible progress in the negotiations that Musharraf can exploit politically.

Proponents of this view would want Prime Minister Manmohan Singh to defer his visit to Pakistan for some time. This postponement is construed as a significant step as Pakistan had, rightly or wrongly, calculated that the visit would energise the peace process and help lift it above the plateau into which it has settled down after the initial spurt of confidence-building measures.

There were, indeed, some clouds of uncertainty over the composite dialogue even before trouble erupted in Pakistan but Islamabad had apparently hoped that Manmohan Singh would come this spring or summer and blow them away.

Secondly, there is the argument that India should, in its long term interest, simply wait to see if there is a significant change in the decision-making structure of Pakistan. This caution can translate into months of inactivity as the constitutional and legal processes of resolving Pakistan’s current political dilemma, possibly by federal and provincial elections, would stretch into the next year.

In India, as in Pakistan, observers have not ruled out the possibility that the beleaguered president of Pakistan may opt for a marked hardening of his regime and not for a more inclusive democratic dispensation. If Musharraf re-emerges as an unassailable strong man, India would need a different negotiating posture than in the case of a new power sharing arrangement featuring any of the mainstream political parties.

Third, the Pakistani crisis is also reviving the influence of the Indian lobby that wants to use it as an opportunity to damage Pakistan. Given a free hand, this lobby would pursue a multi-pronged campaign the most striking aspects of which are not difficult to read. It would make a compromise on Siachen impossible and intensify efforts to erode Pakistan’s position in the Northern Areas. It may seek Indian interference in Balochistan and in the tribal belt of Afghanistan.

The Indian comments at the Asia-Europe moot in Hamburg about the growing instability on both sides of the Durand Line would tempt this lobby to pressurise Manmohan Singh to adopt a harder posture towards Pakistan.

Fourth, India may intensify the propaganda that Pakistan’s nuclear capability can fall into irresponsible hands. India has shown considerable skill in focusing the concerns of the non-proliferation lobby on Pakistan.

Its success in getting its own ambitious nuclear programme differentiated from that of Pakistan has once again been underscored by the most recent observations of the US Undersecretary of State for Political Affairs Nicholas Burns. Arguing forcefully against India’s continued isolation in the nuclear field, he has emphasised the need for “a more integrated world, where India is working with the rest of the international community for civilian nuclear power”. The forthcoming G-8 summit is often mentioned as the milestone for India’s arrival in that integrated world.

In India too, the coalition government has to watch the BJP and its more strident communalist allies with concern as its position has weakened in recent provincial elections. When Mr Vajpayee travelled by bus to Lahore for talks with Mr Nawaz Sharif, he had the support of BJP in his desire to claim a place in history as the principal architect of an epoch-making settlement with Pakistan. His programme in Lahore was rich in symbolism: the followers of Hindutva were prepared to bury their historical opposition to the partition of India.

The outcome of proposed negotiations on Kashmir was uncertain but there were indications of a relatively imaginative Indian approach to the issue. The evidence for it was not confined to the weak and rather romantic narrative popularised by Ambassador Niaz Naik. The Kargil war left India with a wound that has not healed and a powerful lobby insists that any settlement with Pakistan should take place on much stiffer Indian terms.The next general election in India is not that far away and campaigning in state elections already carries its overtones. Manmohan Singh may not wish to expose his flank by appearing to be too conciliatory to Pakistan at this point of time when Pakistan’s bargaining power is weakening.

In March this year, the mood in the Pakistan foreign office on the dialogue with India was upbeat. Foreign Minister Khurshid Kasuri’s legendary optimism which partly reflects the political needs of the Pakistani regime had touched an all time high even as his Indian counterpart reacted with a notable tightening of semantics.

Foreign Secretary Riaz Mohammad is wary with words but even he thought that 2007 could be a watershed in transforming the bilateral relationship. Both of them could have reflected their honest assessment of the parleys as well as their hope that India too would share the desire to make the 60th anniversary of independence a real turning point in regional history.

The objective situation between the two countries is, however, mixed. On the positive side, the two sides have reached an accord on nuclear risk reduction that may conceivably be a humble beginning for a more comprehensive strategic restraint regime in the fullness of time.

The 60-year old dispute on the delimitation of frontier in Sir Creek has moved a little closer to settlement with the completion of a joint survey of the area. So far arguments were based on competing interpretations of old maps dating back to early 20th century.

The joint survey provides useful data for exploring a mutually satisfactory solution though it is highly unlikely that India would accept the traditional Pakistani view of the frontier being at the eastern edge of the Creek. It may, however, remain constructively engaged in talks as an indefinite deferment of the determination of the maritime border does not serve Indian interests either.

On the negative side, the Indian position on the expected demilitarisation of the dizzy heights of the Siachen glacier has perceptibly hardened. It has become one of those rare cases where the Indian military has asserted itself and virtually pre-empted the political inclination to bring about disengagement of troops unless Pakistan signed on the dotted line.

On Kashmir, Musharraf has scaled down Pakistan’s expectations to an extent that no elected political leader could ever have done. His government has been inching towards a settlement on terms that India would accept as not too far from its own bottom line. A noticeable hurdle has been the slow progress in New Delhi’s efforts to reach an understanding with various Kashmiri groups even within the Indian-held Kashmir.

As many as four working groups headed by eminent Indians have been busy identifying measures that can enable the Kashmiri militants to shift from an armed struggle to an autonomy-based political solution. But autonomy itself has resisted definition and the working group led by former Supreme Court judge, Saghir Ahmad, has made little headway in formulating constitutional provisions that would satisfy even the political factions that accept Indian sovereignty over the state.

The Hindu communal forces in Jammu are able to orchestrate fears about the long term consequences of what Musharraf calls “self-rule”. It must be admitted that on the Pakistani side too, some people are apprehensive of a so-called “sell-out” on Kashmir. They are beginning to hope that the present turmoil would leave Musharraf much too weak to make a precipitate agreement on Kashmir that future generations would regret. India would carefully measure Musharraf’s ability to deliver on Kashmir.

March was also the month when Pakistan drifted into an avoidable period of unrest because of a controversial move to remove the Chief Justice of Pakistan. India has found General Musharraf amenable to making substantial concessions on contentious issues like Kashmir and, therefore, has nothing to gain from his loss of power, partially or completely. But the two factors taken together — the Pakistani turmoil and Manmohan Singh’s domestic problems — may simply lead to a loss of momentum in the India-Pakistan peace process. The schedule of meetings approved by their foreign ministers not very long ago may be observed with even less and less serious business being transacted.

Neither India nor Pakistan can attain their full potential without taking their current peace process to a logical and happy conclusion. But there is a serious danger that this process may slow down. India does not have a sense of urgency about it anyway. Now the Pakistani side faces a more difficult task of carrying conviction with its own people because of the sharpening of internal contradictions. Men of goodwill in both the countries should work together to achieve an honourable and equitable settlement that is immune to domestic political stresses.

The writer is a former foreign secretary.

Global drug menace

THE production and trafficking of heroin and cocaine have assumed the dimensions of a global problem and figure in the list of major challenges requiring the participation of all governments. As nearly 90 per cent of the world’s opium, the source of heroin, is produced in Afghanistan, there is considerable smuggling through the tribal areas of Pakistan.

We are, therefore, prominent among the list of countries that need to give special attention to this problem. Since the instability and conflict in Afghanistan started in 1979, when even the CIA encouraged opium cultivation during the Soviet occupation of the country, Pakistan has suffered from the culture of drugs and Kalashnikovs.

Today, some of Pakistan’s major problems can be traced to this scourge. The country is awash with illegal weapons that have contributed to crime, political violence and terrorism. As for drugs there are an estimated four million drug addicts. Half a million are addicted to heroin.

Drug addiction, apart from ruining the lives of addicts and that of their families, is also a source of crime and contributes to poverty and backwardness. Those affected need care and attention, though in many cases, they become outcasts and end up dying miserable deaths.

During British times, there were licenced sellers of opium, and addiction did not generate crime or violent tendencies. The introduction of hard drugs, such as heroin derived from opium and cocaine that is made from the coca plant, found mainly in South America, is a more recent phenomenon, and is linked to the spread of prosperity in industrial societies in Europe and North America.

With affluent youth discovering the thrill and elation of hard drugs the habit has spread and demand has led to production of crops from which these substances, i.e. heroin and cocaine, can be made with the help of certain chemicals.

The post Second World War period during which industrial societies became enormously wealthy saw a phenomenal increase in demand, matched by supply mostly from backward countries. In Asia, opium was grown in the Golden Triangle in Southeast Asia and parts of Southwest and Central Asia. The price paid at the consumer end was over a thousand times higher than at the source, and drug money provided a short-cut to wealth, not so much for the growers as for middlemen, transporters and sellers.

As both the production and consumption of drugs grew, the UN became involved and the matter was entrusted to the Economic and Social Council (Ecosoc), which established a UN Drug Control Programme (UNDCP). An International Narcotics Control Board was also set up to coordinate the operations of narcotics control authorities in various countries.

In Pakistan, a Narcotics Control Board was set up as a part of the police. Later, a separate ministry was set up to deal with the problem. The Narcotics Control Board was succeeded in 1994 by the Anti-Narcotics Force which has a working relationship with 27 other countries where narcotics are a major source of concern.

Pakistan’s drug problems relate mainly to Afghanistan. As that country has experienced internal turmoil, external military intervention and widespread civilian suffering over the past three decades, poppy cultivation has taken root in anarchic conditions.

Through active collaboration between the UN and Pakistani authorities, poppy production (concentrated in the NWFP) went down from 800 metric tons in 1979 to 10 metric tons in 2000. However, as we have a 2,500km long border with landlocked Afghanistan, there has been considerable smuggling of heroin with Pakistan providing the shortest transit route to the sea. The quick wealth generated by drug trafficking has created a drug mafia. Between 1976 and 1989, life in Pakistan became complicated as criminals became billionaires and sought to join the power elite. Apart from trafficking, the drug mafia encouraged drug addiction within the country.

The Taliban government in Afghanistan successfully banned poppy cultivation between 1996 and 2001 but after 9/11 and the consequent military occupation of the country by the US-led coalition, the former warlords rose to power again and were joined by others. Total poppy production is currently estimated to be 6,100 tons that amounts to 92 per cent of the world production. Though the heroin produced is going abroad through many routes, including Iran, Central Asia and the Middle East, 40 per cent transits through Pakistan.

Unfortunately, the so-called democratic reforms in Afghanistan since 9/11 have enabled the warlords to dominate certain areas and to enrich themselves by resuming poppy production. Though the foreign forces and UN agencies make serious efforts to discourage this trend, their writ does not prevail much beyond Kabul and a few other cities. There is so much poverty and deprivation in the absence of reconstruction in the war-ravaged country that poppy cultivation has spread to practically all the provinces.

The international community has pledged billions of dollars for the rehabilitation of the devastated country, but the occupation forces have concentrated on the use of force and done very little to provide shelter, employment and other amenities either to the returning refugees or the local residents who are among the poorest people anywhere.

Coming to the other hard drug, the main growers of the coca plant are to be found in some countries, including Colombia, in the north of Latin America that share one characteristic: the huge gap between a small number of wealthy people and the mass of the common people who can barely eke out a living. The social and political turmoil is exploited by the drug mafia.

Though the US extends liberal assistance to the central government and has even stationed some troops to back the government forces, several billion dollars worth of cocaine enters the US every year. The growing, transporting and sale of drugs is now recognised as major crimes in many countries among which some like Saudi Arabia, Malaysia and Singapore have imposed the death penalty.

In the affluent and sophisticated countries of Europe, many make allowances for drug addicts, such as the Netherlands, Denmark and Germany. In the US, hospitals allow the provision of narcotics to addicts. This liberal approach towards drugs brings to mind the concept of same sex marriages.

Since drug addiction flourishes in societies with wide gaps between the rich and the poor a twin approach is needed. On the preventive side it is essential to treat drug production and trafficking as major crimes. However, the long-term solution lies in addressing the problem of economic deprivation and poverty affecting developing countries. Both the political causes and the economic roots need to be tackled.

The writer is a former ambassador.

The six-day war revisited

ON the 5th of June, 1967, Israel launched a pre-emptive war against Egypt, Syria and Jordan.

In six days it annihilated the Arab air forces, defeated the Arab armies, and conquered the Sinai Peninsula, East Jerusalem, the West Bank, the Gaza Strip and the Golan Heights. It seemed like a decisive victory at the time -- but forty years later, the outcome is still in doubt.

By June 10, 1967, the amount of territory under Israeli control had tripled. Most of it was the empty desert of the Sinai Peninsula, which was returned to Egypt eleven years later in exchange for a peace treaty. The Israeli government also decided in principle in 1967 to give the Golan Heights back to Syria in return for a peace treaty, although that deal has still not happened. But no decision was ever taken to "give back" East Jerusalem, the West Bank and the Gaza Strip. The temptation was too great.

From the start, the Israeli-Palestinian dispute has been about two things: demography and land. If Israel was to be a Jewish state, then most of the Palestinian Arab population had to be removed, and that deed was accomplished during 1948-49 war. Some of the Arabs fled and others were driven out, but by the end of the war the Arab population of the land under Israel's control, which had been close to a million, was only two hundred thousand.

As Benny Morris, the doyen of the "new generation" of Israeli historians, put it in "The Guardian" in 2004: "Pillage (by Jewish fighters) was almost de rigueur, rape was not infrequent, the execution of prisoners of war was fairly routine during the months before April 1948, and small and medium-scale massacres of Arabs occurred during April, May, July and October to November. Altogether, there were some two dozen cases." So by 1949, Israel was an overwhelmingly Jewish state.

David Ben-Gurion, the country's first prime minister, noted in his diary: "We must do everything to ensure they (the Palestinian refugees) never do return." We would now call it "ethnic cleansing" -- no matter why the refugees fled, if you don't let them go home again when the shooting stops, that's what you are doing -- but it was vital to the project of founding a Jewish state in former Palestine. And for twenty years, it worked.

Before 1967, Israel was militarily insecure but demographically triumphant: 85 percent of the people within its frontiers were Jewish. Then, with the victory of 1967, it showed that it had become militarily unbeatable, a fact that was confirmed by the last full-scale Arab-Israeli war in 1973. But the conquests of 1967 revived its old demographic insecurities, for most of the Palestinian refugees of 1948 were now back in the same political space as the Jews.

Many Israelis saw the danger, and urged that the West Bank and the Gaza Strip be handed back to the Arabs (though almost none were willing to give back East Jerusalem). A few brave souls even argued that the occupied territories should become the Palestinian state that had been promised in the United Nations resolution of 1948 that partitioned Palestine and created Israel. But most succumbed to the lure of the land.

Jewish settlement in the West Bank began almost immediately. By now, forty years on, there are 450,000 Jews in former East Jerusalem and the West Bank (plus another 17,000 in the Golan Heights). None of that could have happened without the 1967 victory, but the implication is that the separation of the populations that happened in 1948 has been undone.

All the land between the Jordan River and the sea is effectively a single political territory, because Israel ultimately controls all of it. There are now ten million people living in that space, but only a bare majority of them are Jews: 5.5 million, versus 4.5 million Palestinians. Since the Palestinians have a much higher birth-rate, they will become the majority by 2015, less than a decade from now.

This is what Israelis call the "demographic problem," but it is really a political and territorial problem. If they want to hang on to the land, then they are stuck with the Palestinians who live on it. If Israel is truly democratic and grants all these people the vote, then it will cease to be a Jewish state.

The 1967 victory has brought Israel two generations of military occupation duties, two Palestinian uprisings, and a chronic terrorist threat. It has also brought it an existential political threat, because essentially what 1967 did was to reunite the Palestine that had been divided in 1948. What if, one day, the Palestinians simply accept that fact?

Ehud Olmert, now Israel's prime minister, put it bluntly in an interview with "Yedioth Ahronoth" in 2003. "We are approaching the point where more and more Palestinians will say: 'We have been won over. We agree with (extreme right-wing Israeli politician Avigdor) Lieberman. There is no room for two states between Jordan and the sea. All that we want is the right to vote.' The day they do that is the day we lose everything."––Copyright

A strange contest in Britain

IN Britain, why are six able candidates, five of them already senior ministers, trying so hard to become Labour's deputy leader? The title brings with it no clear powers, not even a guarantee of status, since it is far from clear that the winner will inherit John Prescott's job as deputy prime minister.

All the role offers for certain is the questionable glory of a post once held by Herbert Morrison, George Brown and Roy Hattersley. The occupant risks becoming a plumed non-entity, calling to mind Tony Blair's Economist essay last week warning that "political organisation if it is rigid is off-putting ... open it all up". This will take more than creative cooperation with Gordon Brown, which all of the candidates could offer – there is no ideological wrecker among them. It will need someone who can speak private truths to the prime minister when he should be told them. The winner should aim to do more than represent the party to the people; he or she should represent the people to the party too. The promises being made at hustings up and down the country, the nods and winks from candidates about equality and Iraq, private schools and housing, are interesting distractions from the only task the winner can hope to carry out. Labour's next deputy leader will need an open ear and the confidence to communicate more than a personal agenda.

A superfluity of candidates has blurred the choice, not extended it. Differences in opinion and character have not stood out. Second- and third-preference votes will probably settle the outcome. Peter Hain's campaign, trading too much on his success in Northern Ireland and too obviously a pitch to become deputy prime minister, has looked the least convincing, although he has positioned himself purposefully as a progressive against aspects of the government's record.

He was in open dispute on Friday with Hazel Blears, who has set herself with equal determination as the defender of all that has happened in the last decade. She has put on a feisty show at hustings. But she has a wilful disregard for the suggestion that anything under Mr Blair has been less than perfect. Her belief that any discussion of change is a lurch away from the centre ground is unhealthy. Labour can do better than that. Hilary Benn has carried himself with a saintly air, helped by his role at international development. He has said nothing to offend anyone; but Mr Brown does not need a meek deputy. Even so, affection for an obviously nice man, and his family name, may carry him to success. Of the other candidates, John Cruddas, who surely never expected to get so far, has offered the sharpest diagnosis of Labour's problems. His pitch is as a party man, an outsider with access to Gordon's ear. He seems tolerant and moderate, but also lapses into solutions for Labour's troubles which he will never be able to implement, a narrow affection for trade-union economics, not an opening out of ideas.

He could still prove a creative deputy; so could Harriet Harman, always a brave defender of equality. She is right that Labour needs to show it is not dominated by men. But a woman deputy is not the only way to do it – especially a deputy with perhaps only nominal powers in government. She has spoken more openly than any other ministerial candidate about her regret over Iraq. But she overstates her appeal as an election-winning force: if that is the requirement, others are better placed to fulfil it.

Including Alan Johnson. He has a naturally open, cheerfully disrespectful character that will not be bowed by Mr Brown. His instincts are liberal, and his record at smoothing over discord is strong. He offers no overarching philosophy, and a limited diagnosis of where Labour has failed; but he embodies the link between the party's roots and its future. Other candidates are distinctive. Any of them could win and might do it well. Only when the new government is at work will Labour know whether its deputy leader can be made to matter.

––The Guardian, London