Testing times

IT is said that ‘common sense’ is not as common as it ought to be. Had it been so the world would not have suffered the way it has. Even today a world that has seen so much death and destruction has not yet learned to live in peace.

The global arms industry and war machines continue with arms proliferation and war mongering, refusing to use that ‘uncommon sense’ because for them wars are highly profitable.

A recent news report said: “The Swiss government reauthorised arms exports to Pakistan, saying it saw ‘positive’ political developments in the country.” So this is how the civilised Swiss decide to reward positive developments by bringing more death and destruction to the region. Sweden too, soon after the devastating October 2005 earthquake, felt no compunction in accepting a multi-billion-dollar order for its SAAB 2000 AEWC aircraft.

The arms industry has a stranglehold on the world economy and it finds justifications for selling weapons as long as there are countries willing to pay. Accepting realities and changing priorities is not a profitable exercise for them. Little wonder then that total global military spending in 2004 stood at $1,000bn according to the Stockholm Peace Research Institute.

Regular testing of weapons systems, to maximise their killing and maiming capacity, is a major concern for the recipient country. That is if they are not used live as in Fata, Waziristan and parts of Balochistan.

A few examples will highlight the intensity of the problem. In July 2006, a headline in this paper read: ‘PAF swoops on Hingol National Park’. The accompanying report revealed, “The government is all set to slice land off … Hingol National Park, the country’s largest, as the Pakistan Air Force and another defence-related organisation eye the prized real estate near the estuary whose value is likely to increase phenomenally once the Gwadar port starts functioning. Sources in the Balochistan revenue department told Dawn that while the PAF has asked for around 80,000 acres, including 23,000 acres in the national park, [Suparco’s] demand is for eight mauzas.”

A clarifying statement issued by the PAF’s public relations director said: “Pakistan Air Force has put up a proposal to the Government of Balochistan for acquisition of a piece of land to establish [sic] weapons trial range for JF-17 project. About 30 per cent the area, proposed by the PAF, falls in the limits of the National Park.”

A little info about the JF-17 will be helpful. It is a lightweight, all-weather and multi-role Mach 1.6 aircraft. It is capable of carrying short-range, beyond-visual-range, anti-ship and anti-radiation missiles, as well as runway penetration bombs and cluster bombs.

So when this plane is put through its paces and its weapons tested comprehensively it is clearly going to be curtains for the flora and fauna in Hingol National Park, most of which have thrived undisturbed since the time of creation because of the isolation and remoteness of the area. Earlier the PAF had managed to acquire land for weapons testing in the Maslakh wildlife sanctuary in Pishin district, and consequently eliminated the protected chinkara and urial. Ironically Maslakh means slaughterhouse in Persian.

Hingol National Park is a veritable treasure trove of biodiversity as well as historical and cultural landmarks. Situated on the Makran coast some 190 kilometres west of Karachi and covering Lasbela, Awaran and Gwadar districts in Balochistan, the 619,043 hectares park is the largest in the region.

The park offers spectacular historical and archaeological features including the Hinglaj/Nani Mandir pilgrimage site, a place marking the passage of Alexander the Great, the graves of Mohammad bin Qasim’s soldiers and mountain formations such as Princes of Hope and the Chandragup mud volcano. Then there are superb estuaries, beaches, coastal dunes and plains, salt flats, sand and clay mountains, riverine areas, mud volcanoes and mud vents, and inland sand dunes.

Several species of international and national value are found in Hingol, such as the green and olive ridley turtles, dalmatian and spot-billed pelicans, sociable lapwings, eastern imperial and Pallas’s fish eagles, white-backed vultures, the marsh crocodile, spiny-tail lizard, Sindh ibex, Afghan urial, chinkara gazelle, leopard, caracal, hyena, honey badger, Afghan hedgehog, the pangolin and plumbeous dolphins. The fate of Hingol Park’s diverse and stunning wildlife will be no different from that of the unfortunate residents of the Maslakh sanctuary.

Sindh too suffers. A recent news item said that 73,000 acres of fertile agricultural land in Saleh Pat, Sukkur, has been allotted to the army to set up a firing range. This land was initially meant for distribution among landless peasants. If distributed it could have created employment opportunities and provided sustenance to some 4,000 families. Already the country’s largest field-firing ranges are at Khipro.

The people adversely affected by weapons testing are waiting to see if there will be a shift in the policy of the new government and some truly disastrous actions like the misuse of Hingol Park and Saleh Pat for testing grounds are reversed.

This exploitation of areas inhabited by minority nationalities is an international phenomenon. The Soviet Union used Kazakhstan while the US opted for Bikini Atoll in the Pacific and the Nevada desert as their nuclear testing grounds because these areas were far away from the chosen ones and only the children of lesser gods suffered.

The situation in Balochistan is disturbing and disconcerting because the establishment has not only been militarising the province indiscriminately, it has also established nuclear testing sites and missile testing ranges there without even bothering about the consent of the people. Any conflict with an enemy would entail a nuclear or conventional response against them and endanger the already sketchy existence of the people living at ground-zero.

The people of Balochistan wait with trepidation for the day when India may once again decide to test nuclear devices because reciprocation is the avowed policy in Pakistan. The people of Balochistan resented and opposed the use of their land for nuclear testing in May 1998 and oppose it now.

That particular episode’s trail of destruction began with the irreversible nuclear contamination of Baghalchur in Dera Ghazi Khan, where thousands still suffer ill effects, and ended in terrifying blasts which robbed a mountain of its life and colour in Chaghi with permanent nuclear contamination affecting all forms of life there.

Claims about the safety of such tests are made regularly but are contrary to the reality. When France was carrying out nuclear tests at Maruroa Atoll and claiming they were entirely safe, the people of the South Seas suggested they should then be carried out near Paris. The people of Balochistan may ask that if these tests are really as safe as it is claimed then why not use Islamabad as a testing ground for a change.

Resuming the dialogue

WHEN India and Pakistan resume the composite dialogue in the third week of May the negotiating template would be the same as when the process went into slow motion.

However, the figures clustered around the proverbial table will show considerable changes.

The new interlocutor for the Indian foreign secretary will represent continuity in calibre and content. There may be a change in style when the foreign ministers meet but the basic approach would not have lost any civility or goodwill. The Indians will naturally look beyond this professional level to see if the new political landscape in Pakistan entails a shift in the goal posts and the rules of the game.

Since the turn of the century, India has negotiated with President Musharraf, an adventurist military leader turned valued partner, putatively capable of delivering any solution to the Kashmir dispute and other contentious issues.

What India was slow to grasp is that such a window of opportunity did exist for a short period. After a tumultuous year in Pakistani politics, there is not much that Musharraf can achieve by himself though the ideas generated in his rather unconventional interventions in the peace process have a life of their own.

This is not to say that these ideas will find spontaneous ownership in the new ruling coalition if it survives its current fragility and gathers enough traction to conduct a meaningful conversation with the Indian leadership. The most reassuring aspect of the situation is that the constituent parties accept the imperative of a cooperative relationship with India. In fact, each one of them would claim to have pioneered the spirit of détente in the wake of at least three futile confrontations since the mid-1980s.

None of them put a seal of approval on Kargil. The late Benazir Bhutto had unambiguously vetoed it not only because it was militarily and politically flawed but because it was also diametrically opposed to her vision for the region. The ANP has an unblemished record of seeking a peaceful settlement of all differences between the two countries. For Mr Nawaz Sharif, Kargil was the undoing of what he had achieved with Mr Vajpayee and also of his government.

Notwithstanding the consensus on the ultimate objective, negotiators from both sides face a new situation. India has a coalition that has almost unbridgeable differences on some vital policy issues which fortunately do not include relations with Pakistan. But this advantage is partly at risk because contested areas in India may force a general election where the BJP could make relations an electoral issue rather than oppose the Indo-US nuclear deal.

Across the table this May would be a coalition that would not have as yet formulated an integrated India policy.

India and Pakistan do need a clearer framework of principles on the basis of which to organise future relations. For Pakistan, it is important to develop a policy that enables it to accommodate India’s new status as an emerging regional and global power. Nuclear deterrence stability should make it easier to establish parameters in which result-oriented diplomacy helps prevent unrestrained rivalry over conventional arms and promotes across-the-board cooperation.

For India, it would be salutary to present a set of ideas that builds on the existing compact to fight terrorism together and focus more sharply on what the two countries can do together in the years ahead.

India and Pakistan are developing at a rate that will mean an exponential increase in their consumption of energy. They have a national portfolio of mixed strategies to meet the energy crunch but they need to be inter-dependent stakeholders in joint projects for importing energy from third-country sources.

It is also time to assess the pros and cons of much freer trade and investment. Pakistan may have valid apprehensions in cooperating with an economy with a much larger manufacturing base and capital available for investment abroad. But Pakistan’s rent-seeking businessmen and entrepreneurs often exaggerate the risks and play down the advantages.

There is no theological reason for denying overland transit between India and Afghanistan forever and such complex issues should become more amenable to solutions if the two sides have a more comprehensive framework of relations than the joint statement of January 2004.

Even in the most optimistic scenario, Kashmir would emerge as a factor that casts its shadow on the rest of the agenda. On the Pakistani side, the knowledge of the progress made through the secret channel is restricted to very few individuals; former foreign minister Khurshid Kasuri famously put the figure at five.

One has generally found Indian friends to be much better briefed. Apparently, the progress is documented and India would naturally expect Pakistan to begin from its contents. The political government will have to discuss bilateral relations more earnestly in parliament and also win public support for the ‘concessions’ made by President Musharraf in random public utterances or through his trusted envoy, Tariq Aziz.

Pakistan’s political leadership may for some time experience contrary pulls from an electorate that is impatient to be informed and from powerful elements in the so-called establishment that still want to treat the major foreign and security policy of the country as the closed preserve of General Musharraf.

India would do well to remember that there is a sea change in Pakistan and the chances of implementing decisions taken in unlit corridors of arbitrary power would have only a slim chance of being endorsed by a restless nation.

One should not exaggerate expectations from the meetings in May but one hopes that the two foreign ministers will set the stage for Manmohan Singh and his principal associates and Pakistani leaders such as Mr Asif Zardari, Mr Nawaz Sharif and MrAsfandyar to sit together and address what is occasionally called ‘the vision thing’. More than a billion people await that transcendent image over the mountains and plains of South Asia. n

The writer is a former foreign secretary.

tanvir.a.khan@gmail.com

The inescapable bore

WHETHER counting forwards, backwards, or in circles, the judicial crisis is becoming boring. But that does not mean it will conveniently fade away. No matter how adeptly public attention is diverted (postponing by-elections by whom for whom till August, no June, to take an example) the trifled-with matter of the deposed judiciary remains in the air.

Suppose the government actualises its happy solution of having this judiciary and that one too. The obvious reason for seeking such paradoxical equilibrium for the scales of justice is the room it leaves the executive to legislate and precision-target figures and deeds, answerable only to its very own sovereign parliament and a palatably filtered potable judiciary.

The two major parties just have to re-read the chronicle of their previous tenures in government to understand why and how both their heavily mandated and hung parliaments’ romances with the electorate ended; and patient army chiefs and crafty presidents gained an enabling environment. Cheating on the deposed judiciary may yield a Pyrrhic victory.

The president reconstituted the country’s higher judiciary in his own evident and limited interests. Personalised interests, unconvincingly cloaked in legal sophistry, stubbornly obstruct implementation of the electoral expectation that the pre Nov 3, 2007, judiciary will be restored. What emerged thereafter can scarcely be classified part of a constitutional restoration package even semantically!

There is no arguing that legal minutiae require careful drafting, but there is some fudging as to what it is the experts and the committees want to draft. Content matter not form in legalese seems to be causing the delay. Post elections 2008 the government has offered the president an unexpected hiatus for recouping ground he lost in the wake of his judicial improprieties and political dealings.

Whether the new government intended it or not, it is functioning like the PML-Q in providing a face for maintaining people in power who protect the status quo. True, it is able to demand more of the president than Shaukat Aziz could; but the beneficiaries so far are parliamentarians, party chiefs and the bureaucratic, military and judicial personnel who back them up to provide the necessary working infrastructure. This stirs up sad, bad memories. Stale and foetid should not be the adjectives that come to mind for a new government.

Of course the judiciary is politicised: by a president who sent it packing because he anticipated it would fail to give his illegalities judicial cover — even though some of those judges had taken oath under PCO 1 when others had refused and left office. Much is made of this by those who support the presidential case for PCO 2. Can PCO 1 supporters call PCO 2 supporters black? Of course they can! The deposed judiciary’s PCO-oners have already redeemed themselves twice over on March 9, 2007, and then in July 2007.

To say nothing of the fact that the content and context of each PCO we have known under sundry dictators has been different. So, for that matter, have the political compromises reached by democratising politicians and dictators: Junejo’s deal in office and Benazir Bhutto’s deal seeking office provide illuminating contrasts and comparisons.

Conventional wisdom stresses the need to preserve the PPP and PML-N coalition. This is true as long as the coalition guards the public national interest not privatised national interest. Nor do coalitions sincerely made in the national interest seek to drive hard bargains and haggle over cabinet portfolios, perks and privilege. Pakistanis are tired of market politics, intrigue and spin. And notables playing at making confusion worse confounded are liable ultimately to become the misconceived and overplayed game’s VVIP victims.