Time for US to lie low

THERE seems to be no dearth of soul-searching going on in American politics regarding US policy vis-à-vis Pakistan in the war on terror. An exercise in such introspection was witnessed at Wednesday’s congressional hearing of the Armed Services Committee of the House of Representatives where experts gave a frank appraisal of the current situation in Pakistan’s militancy-infested tribal zones and raised concerns over American focus and policy in the region. While there is no doubt that regular and comprehensive discussions are necessary to inform American legislators and the public about the course the conflict has taken, it is equally important to note that time is running out as the Taliban continue to extend their writ inside Pakistan. The truth is that while talking about policy failures and suggesting alternative conflict strategies are essential to building up pressure on a blinkered US administration to change tack, Washington’s public image will continue to nosedive unless there are serious and immediate efforts to arrest this slide. Talibanisation will then continue to gather pace and entrench itself in the country.

At this point, it would be impractical to advocate long-term measures to heavily curtail America’s military presence in Afghanistan and other Muslim countries that is at the root of the Islamic world’s growing disaffection with the US. However, in Pakistan’s context, it would help matters if Washington were to maintain a low political profile and refrain from giving the impression that it is issuing instructions to the regime on how to conduct its domestic politics. This attitude will alienate even those with liberal inclinations and who are against religious extremism. Unfortunately, frequent visits of US officials and speculative talk on the outcome of events, such as Secretary Condoleezza Rice’s belief that Benazir Bhutto has a role in the next political dispensation, belie official claims at home that Pakistan is not being dictated to by the US. In fact, for the average Pakistani, the whole internal political scene is inextricably tied up with American political objectives, from Ms Rice’s midnight call to Gen Musharraf not to impose emergency rule to the army-PPP deal.

Hints by US officials of conducting unilateral strikes on militant camps inside the country have not gone down well either, detracting as they do from the idea of national sovereignty, and the pressure to ‘do more’ seems to be making the war an American — and not a national — concern, despite Pakistan’s heavy military losses. There is no denying the fact that American aid has been generous to a country with staggering socio-economic problems. But even this largesse is perceived as going to the wrong quarters. According to a report, 90 per cent of the annual American aid of two billion dollars goes into the coffers of the military that has no political legitimacy in the eyes of the people. As an immediate step to lessen hostility, Washington would be well advised to take a back seat and limit its public visibility. This, coupled with sincere attempts to reduce poverty through aid judiciously distributed, might still win its image a temporary reprieve.

A reprieve, and Inzi’s exit

Pakistan battled valiantly on the last day to save the second Test against South Africa in Lahore. Shortly before the match ended in a draw, the curtain was brought down on the career of arguably the finest batsman Pakistan has ever produced. Sadly there was no fairy-tale end for Inzamamul Haq, a man who served his country splendidly for 16 years and who richly deserved to go out in a blaze of glory. Needing just 20 runs to edge past Javed Miandad as the leading Test run-getter for Pakistan, Inzi could manage only 17 over two innings. But neither his tame departure nor the controversies of the past year or so, starting with the Oval forfeit in Aug 2006, can take the lustre off a brilliant career studded with a series of match-winning knocks. An era has ended in Pakistan cricket and fans across the world will miss the master batsman that was Inzamamul Haq.

Obstacles in anti-polio drive

THE fact that the frontier between Afghanistan and Pakistan constitutes a major reservoir for the polio virus makes it all the more necessary for vaccination drives and awareness campaigns to be joint efforts. The two countries are once more coordinating plans to curb the easily communicable disease in an area where the daily cross-border traffic involves hundreds of people, including children who are the primary targets of the virus. Unfortunately, several obstacles remain in the way of pronouncing the two countries polio-free. A major one is the resistance by ordinary people, especially the menfolk, to having their offspring inoculated against polio for the unfounded fear that this would render them impotent. This aspect is worrying as hard-line mullahs in areas straddling the border continue to brainwash the people that the vaccine is a western conspiracy aimed at reducing the Muslim population.

However, this is not the only reason for such resistance and, as reports point out, a sizeable number of people also make the inoculation of their children contingent on the authorities addressing pressing demands, such as the supply of potable water. Polio vaccination drives, then, cannot be seen in isolation, especially in areas which because of their remoteness or insecure conditions have not seen the fruits of development. Obviously, both governments would do well to recruit enlightened clerics to assure people of the efficacy of the vaccine and the fact that it is not part of a diabolical western conspiracy. But perhaps it is just as important for the people to see the government as genuinely caring for their needs and not just implementing the anti-polio campaign at the behest of international agencies. Unless words are matched by deeds and development works are carried out in the poverty-stricken areas where the virus is endemic, vaccination teams will continue to be abused, attacked and turned away.

EU thinks of a global role

EUROPEAN Union leaders head off to Lisbon next week for another bout of intense soul-searching over the future of their 27-nation bloc.

The focus of the meeting on Oct 18-19 — as at several past EU summits — will be on trying to finalise a new, so-called ‘reform treaty’ aimed at streamlining EU institutions and decision-making to take account of the Union’s expansion to 27 states. But while the omens for the encounter look good, the jury is still out on whether a final treaty deal can be done.

The problem remains one of political will. All EU leaders recognise that it’s time for Europe to stop looking inwards, put its house in order and start playing a more active and forceful global role. A stronger EU is especially needed, they say, to compensate for the declining international role and influence of a crippled US administration. However, try as they might to stay on track and secure agreement on the treaty, EU leaders keep getting distracted by national politics, diverging interests — and big egos.

Europe’s constitutional stalemate dates back several years. The crisis erupted in spring 2005 when ambitious EU plans for a new constitution were scuppered by French electors who voted against the text in a national referendum. Soon afterwards, Dutch citizens also gave the constitution the thumbs down, prompting EU leaders to start a new round of equally difficult discussions on whether and how to salvage the blueprint.

With the gutsy German Chancellor Angela Merkel breathing down their necks, a new, slimmed-down ‘reform treaty’ was finally thrashed out by EU leaders at marathon summit talks in Brussels in June despite strong opposition from Poland which argued that Germany, as the EU’s largest state, was being given too many votes in the bloc’s decision-making council of ministers.

Warsaw did succeed, however, in delaying the introduction of the new voting system. The new treaty has been expunged of any references to a European flag or anthem — symbols seen as trappings of a European ‘super state’ and as such abhorred by Eurosceptics in Britain and Poland.

Problems still linger, however. Although most of the contents of the treaty have been agreed by EU officials and legal experts during the last few months, the meeting in Lisbon is expected — once again — to be dominated by Polish and British concerns over some aspects of the document

Poland is especially in the spotlight because of national elections on Oct 21, two days after the summit. Confirming its growing reputation as EU ‘troublemaker’, Poland is again demanding changes in the treaty text by insisting it should include a provision allowing a group of countries that lack enough votes to block EU decisions to secure a delay for a certain length of time. Although an arrangement already exists to permit such delays for up to three months, other governments oppose Poland’s demand to incorporate this kind of special provision into the treaty’s main text.

One possible solution would be to reassure Warsaw with a political declaration on the right to delay decisions, diplomats said. Poland also wants to increase the number of senior officials, known as advocates-general, at the European Court of Justice to reflect its position as one of the six largest EU countries next to France, Germany, Italy, Spain and the UK.

Like Britain, Poland intends to opt out of the treaty’s charter of fundamental rights — in Poland’s case, in order to protect its Roman Catholic-influenced family law. ‘Poland’s point of view culturally is different from the majority of other European countries,’ President Lech Kaczynski said recently, adding that the nation could not ‘for example, accept marriages of people of the same sex’.

Many governments appear willing to make some concessions to Warsaw in order to reach a deal in Lisbon. But it’s still not clear if, given upcoming elections, the Polish president and his twin brother Jaroslow Kaczynski, who is also the country’s prime minister, will accept compromise solutions.

Even if EU leaders can stop wrangling and secure agreement, more obstacles lie ahead. The blueprint can only enter into force once it is ratified by all 27 EU states. In some countries, ratification is done by national parliaments. But while only Ireland is compelled by its constitution to hold a referendum before it can ratify the new treaty, others like Britain — and perhaps Denmark — are under pressure to do so.

Given their past experience with consulting a generally Europhobic public, EU leaders are understandably reluctant to hold referenda.

Prime Minister Gordon Brown insists that a referendum on the treaty is not needed because Britain has secured control over human and social rights, foreign policy, tax and benefits. But the opposition Conservative party argues that the government is ‘morally bound’ to hold such a popular vote. The Conservatives argue that despite government claims that Britain has secured all its demands, the new reform treaty is much the same as the constitution it replaces.

Desperate to put an end to the bickering, European Commission President Jose Manuel Barroso argues that the EU must salvage its reputation by striking agreement on the reform treaty and turning its attention to global problems.

Once the new treaty is agreed, the EU will have the ‘capacity to act in the interest of its citizens through more coherence externally, more efficient decision-making and more democratic accountability’, Barroso said recently.

But there could be a long wait. Under a timetable envisioned by Germany and backed by several member states, the treaty should be ratified by the national parliaments of all EU member states by mid-2009, ahead of the next European elections.

But urgent action is needed on a number of fronts, and the number of areas demanding EU attention remains daunting. EU leaders, for example, are anxious to forge a new post-Kyoto treaty to combat global warming and climate change. There is growing concern at the bloc’s dependence on energy imports from an increasingly assertive and unpredictable Russia. Decisions are also urgently required on the future status of the breakaway Serb republic of Kosovo.

Even more crucially, EU leadership is desperately needed to salvage the dying Doha round of World Trade Organisation talks. This is especially necessary given the growing anti-free trade sentiment in the United States. EU trade experts are especially concerned at the protectionist views being expressed by Ms Hillary Clinton and other Democratic Party frontrunners for next year’s presidential election.

EU leaders, meanwhile, must also tackle an array of sticky domestic issues, including how to reconcile the growing need for immigrants to fill key jobs in both the skilled and unskilled sectors with rising anti-foreigner feeling in many nations.

The European Commission recently unveiled a ‘blue card’ scheme to attract skilled foreigners into Europe, but the plan was immediately denounced by Germany and other nations which warned that the bloc could not take in more immigrants without losing its social cohesiveness and identity. ‘There is a large reservoir of unused labour in Germany,’ said the country’s economy minister Michael Glos.Seeking to ease such concerns, Barroso has underlined that while the EU will encourage legal migration, it will become even tougher in its dealings with those who try to find work in Europe illegally.

The Commission has calculated that the EU needs 20 million immigrants to fill labour shortages. But EU leaders in Lisbon will be too busy fighting over the treaty to send a ‘Welcome to Europe’ message to would-be migrants.

The writer is Dawn’s correspondent based in Brussels.

Conspiring NGOs

Bangladesh Press : Aamer Desh

BANGLADESH’S shrimp exports seem to be running into a deep conspiracy. It appears that some NGOs have launched a smear campaign against the sector by raising slogans against what they call labour rights violations in the industry. The slogans echo the concerns of the United States and the European Union.

It all comes ahead of an EU delegation’s visit to Bangladesh planned for Oct 17.The delegates will file a report back in Europe meant to determine highs or lows in export volume. It is widely feared that the exports may come to a halt in the event of a ‘bad report’.

There is no denying that the NGOs are pandering to some foreign countries. Shrimp and frozen foods make an important area of exports, which brought in Tk3,600 crore in fiscal 2006-07 — despite all political odds — up from Tk500 crore in fiscal 1972-73 when the sector took off.

The government must defuse the conspiracy to harm the shrimp exports sector as the NGOs have raised the issue of labour rights violations with ill intent.

Many NGOs are mired in corruption and profit from the women’s empowerment, human rights and child rights issues.

We hope the government will step in. — (Oct 11)

Share market needs more than warning

Bangladesh Press : Shamokal

A CHEERFUL share market does not always bring cheers to long-term investors. An official with the Securities and Exchange Commission said that the shares of some companies had traded much higher than expected.

People invested in high-priced shares — obviously with high risks. What investors will gain at the end of the day remains to be seen.

Amid growing uncertainty, the capital market regulator sent out a warning of high risks, which we think investors will listen to. When the shares of both bad and good companies rally on the bourse, it does not mean the rise is always backed by ‘good fundamentals’. Speculation paces the rise — quite often.

Political and economic reforms lost their shine and turned into a mere slogan. Huge investment in the capital market indicates that people have money to pour in. The government must make sure that the opportunity is properly utilised. Also, the SEC as a guardian of the capital market should make sure that the listed companies reveal corporate information to shareholders, which is the principle of transparency. — (Oct 11)

—Selected and translated by Arun Devnath