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| December 20, 2008 | Saturday | Zilhaj 21, 1429 |
Excesses of our rulers
Obnoxious conduct
OTHER VOICES - Bangladesh Press
Europe’s sigh of relief
Problems of foreign donors to Clinton charity
EUROPEAN Union diplomats are heaving a collective sigh of relief. It’s the end of a difficult autumn, marked by a worsening financial crisis, tense relations with Russia following the conflict with Georgia during the summer and still no real hope that the long-elusive EU reform treaty, rejected by the Irish in a referendum this year, will enter into force any time soon.
THE revelation that the Saudi Arabian government and Indian businessmen and politicians have donated millions of dollars to Bill Clinton’s charitable foundation is likely to provoke allegations that his international fundraising could conflict with America’s interests if his wife is confirmed as the next US secretary of state.
INTERIOR Adviser Rehman Malik’s statement in parliament that the government is studying the Saudi Arabian and Sri Lankan models for tackling terrorism as part of a broader review of national security is welcome. It indicates that the government is taking seriously its responsibility to bring peace and security to Pakistan. The sense of insecurity is all-pervasive and few parts of the country can claim to be immune from terrorism in recent years. The reasons for the failure of the law-enforcement agencies to secure peace inside Pakistan are manifold: inadequate training and equipment, poor coordination between the various agencies, and opaque, conflicting policies and agendas are just some. Perhaps most damaging has been an ad hoc system of policymaking, which often produces glib and superficial analyses of all that ails Pakistan. Terrorism and national security go beyond simply nabbing a suicide bomber before he explodes and kills the people around him. It involves investigating the sources of terrorism and resetting national security aims in a way that shuts down the pipeline that spills forth the foot soldiers of militant ideologies.
There is plenty of blame to be shared for the current state of affairs, but one reason stands head and shoulders above the rest: the skewed army-civilian balance of power in the national security domain. Consider the workings of the defence ministry. Set up in the mid-1970s on the recommendation of a white paper on higher defence reorganisation, it was envisaged as the essential interface between the armed forces and the civilian government. It had a promising beginning under a civilian head, but the rot quickly set in after Gen Zia’s coup. The ministry became a military fiefdom, a trend that continued through the civilian governments of the 1990s. Critical decisions on strategy, weapons procurement, training and resource allocation were made with scarcely any civilian input. When the instruments of national defence are jealously guarded by the army, is it a surprise that the civilians have little say in the policy those instruments implement?
What Interior Adviser Malik and the rest of the civilian defence establishment must study is how to wrest back control of the national security policy. Some steps are obvious. In the short term, the government must use the parliamentary route — the Cabinet Committee on Defence, the joint parliamentary committee set up following the special in-camera session, and perhaps a special parliamentary committee on intelligence — to clearly assess the security threats to Pakistan. This would include a survey of the regional security situation, Pakistan’s ever-growing problem of terrorism and, not least, the connection between regional security and terrorism. Unless the full picture is before parliament, the policies proposed will be half-baked. In the long-term, the government must focus on institution-building, especially rehabilitating the defence ministry under civilian guidance.
THIS is a government that scampers across the world seeking a bailout. This is a government that pleads for money from ‘friends’ without the slightest hesitation. This is a government led by a party whose election campaign promised roti, kapra aur makan and that has delivered next to nothing. Poor people have become poorer. They struggle for two square meals every day. They can’t eat, let alone have a house or new clothes. True, external forces and the policies of near-sighted people like Shaukat Aziz pushed the country to its present position. And what exactly is our present position? Nothing to write home about, unfortunately.
The exchequer is under tremendous strain. We can’t pay our bills, frankly. We are broke, or about as close to it as it is possible on the books, and have to borrow heavily. Yet the prime minister finds it acceptable to spend Rs80m in four months in foreign visits. Waste in official circles perhaps cannot be curtailed because profligacy, or pomp and ceremony really, is seen as a perk of government in our part of the world. An elected representative’s ability to bestow favours is, sadly, a mark of respectability in our culture. The fickle and the corrupt in the world of journalism are also part of the entourage when the PM embarks on another needless foreign tour, and there is no shortage either of ministers who are just coming along for the ride. It needs to be asked if this money is being spent well. Is foreign investment flooding into Pakistan now that our prime minister has visited Malaysia? Has our image as a nation been resurrected because Mr Gilani put in an appearance at Colombo? No. This is money wasted, money which could feed the starving.
Mr Gilani’s excesses have been put into numbers because someone asked parliament for the details. The cost of the trips undertaken by President Zardari, who is more often out of Pakistan than in the country, must also be tabulated and made public. When the people of Pakistan have been hit hard financially, the excesses of the political elite of the day must make banner headlines. Every penny spent on foreign trips needs to be accounted for in terms of what it delivers to the public coffers. Otherwise the people of Pakistan may lose faith in the political elite yet again. Less than a year after the elections generated such optimism, despondency will make a home in every heart.
IT is shocking that a scholar of the stature of Dr Z.H. Zaidi should have been evicted from his home, provided by the government, in a manner that was highly demeaning. On Tuesday, a group of 15 to 20 people, including policemen, carried out what looked like a raid on the orders of the Estate Office. They ransacked his Islamabad home and threw his things out, damaging some of the stuff. We do not know whether any historical documents were lost or damaged. At least for the coming generations and scholars — if not for the government — those papers are invaluable because they concern Pakistan’s founding father. His Jinnah Papers is a monumental feat of research and scholarship achieved through painstaking effort in a life devoted to learning. It consists of 16 volumes in English, Urdu and Persian and is a source of research material for scholars interested in South Asia’s freedom struggle and in the life of Mohammad Ali Jinnah. Incidentally, Dr Zaidi had not taxed the exchequer even a penny for his research. A recipient of the Sitara-i-Imtiaz, Dr Zaidi had been living in this place for the last eight years because he had been permitted by the ministry of culture with the approval of the prime minister’s office to stay there till Dec 31. Yet, without producing any order authorising what can only be called a raid, the authorities evicted Dr Zaidi in an excessively humiliating manner.
The Estate Office had its own version. It said there was a housing shortage for federal government employees and gave the press exact figures of the housing backlog. It also said that Dr Zaidi owed the department Rs1.6m. Maybe the Estate Office had a point. But the issue is the method used to evict a citizen and scholar, especially one of Dr Zaidi’s stature. More so, because he was scheduled to shift in any case to Lahore by Dec 31 and the Estate Office could have demonstrated some modicum of decency by waiting for a fortnight more instead of resorting to a mode of eviction that can only be termed obnoxious.
Crude oil prices: effects on Bangladesh
The Bangladesh Today
OPEC and non-OPEC oil producers met in Oran, Algeria this week and decided to cut oil production by as much as 2.6 million barrels a day (MBD), equivalent to a seven per cent reduction on the current output quota of 27.3 MBD. The decision to cut production so drastically is unprecedented and has been taken in an effort to boost oil prices now hovering around $45 a barrel from its peak of $147 a barrel in July 2007. The onset of the global financial and economic crisis coincided with the rise in oil prices to its peak and actually dampened demands for oil in the industrialised and developed states such as USA, EU states, Japan, China and India. Additionally, apprehending further rises in prices, the leading industrialised economies stocked up on oil to their maximum capacity and non-OPEC producers such as Russia, Nigeria and Venezuela pumped out as much oil as they could in order to earn more from the high prices. Thus a surfeit of oil in the market coupled with falling demands due to global recession pushed down prices to its present levels prompting the oil producers to cut production in order to stimulate prices upwards.
The problem, however, is that with the global recession nowhere near easing out, cutting oil output is not going to either stimulate demands or prices and any artificial and engineered rise in oil prices will further exacerbate the global economic meltdown which will not be good for anyone, least of all the oil producers. The massive cuts in oil production is going to force the world to further reduce fossil fuel consumption; demands will keep on falling and so will prices and the main intent of the oil producers — to keep prices and incomes up — will be defeated. All in all the oil producers are pushing themselves and the world towards harder times.
So, what is all this going to do to us, here in Bangladesh? When oil prices were high, the Emergency Government increased the prices of oil which pushed up transportation and power costs making industrial and agricultural production costlier and driving up prices of all goods and services whether for internal consumption or for exports. But when prices of oil fell, the government reduced the price of oil only slightly, not to the extent of the fall in prices in the international market thereby forcing the prices of goods and services to remain at their previous highs or only insignificantly lower….
With the global economy in recession, with OPEC production cuts and probable increase in oil prices, with a new government in seat and with a fragile economy, Bangladesh is in for a very hard time indeed. — (Dec 19)
But many in Europe are also relieved at the end of the French presidency of the 27-nation bloc — dominated by the flamboyant French president Nicolas Sarkozy — and the handing over of EU powers on Jan 1, 2009 to the more sedate leaders of the Czech Republic.
True, with his glamorous singer/model wife Carla Bruni by his side, Mr Sarkozy — sometimes known as ‘Super Sarko’ — injected some much-needed oomph into often tedious EU affairs. True also that as the man at the EU helm during the crisis with Russia over its invasion of Georgia, the French president succeeded through deft diplomatic footwork in defusing tensions with Moscow.
Later as the Eurozone economies succumbed to the financial crisis, the French leader convened an unprecedented summit of Euroland leaders in Paris, helped hammer out an ambitious EU-wide financial bailout plan and managed to convince EU heads of government at a meeting on Dec 12 to agree to stringent targets for fighting global warming.
But although many grudgingly admit that Sarkozy did a good job at crisis management as EU president-in-charge for the last six months, they also often roll their eyes at what they describe as the French leader’s hyperactive, self-absorbed and self-satisfied style.
Sarkozy has especially raised hackles in Germany where newspapers often describe him as little more than an excitable clown. Reports say that German chancellor Angela Merkel has an aversion to Sarkozy’s restless style and has been watching videos of the late Louis de Funès, a manic comic actor and Gallic institution, for clues to understanding the ever-agitated president.
According to Der Spiegel, the German chancellor sees Mr Sarkozy as an “unfeasibly vain jack-in-the-box”. “She has nothing to counter him apart from her eternal impassiveness. Her fist may be clenched but she keeps it in her pocket,” it said.
In contrast, Sarkozy has managed to forge an unusually warm alliance with Gordon Brown, the British prime minister, even inviting him to a meeting of countries that use the euro, although Britain is still outside the Eurozone.
The talk in EU capitals now is that with France preparing to hand over the presidency to the Czech Republic, Super Sarko is looking for ways to stay in the European spotlight. “I have loved this job,” Sarkozy told the European Parliament in Strasbourg last week in his farewell presidency appearance there.
Ms Merkel has scuppered Sarkozy’s plans to appoint himself chairman of the Eurozone for next year as the EU presidency passes to the Czech Republic and Sweden, two non-Euro states. But France has another 18 months as co-chair of an EU-Mediterranean Union that Mr Sarkozy launched last July. His next plan, according to diplomats, is to set up a new “economic and security space” with Russia.
But while the French president is certainly trying his best not to annoy Russia, he has managed to provoke an unprecedented souring of EU relations with China.
Summit talks between the EU and China were abruptly cancelled on Dec 1 after Beijing protested at President Sarkozy’s decision to meet the Tibetan spiritual leader, the Dalai Lama. Paris insisted that the meeting did not have political connotations — but China, which sees the Dalai Lama as a secessionist, said the French stance was not acceptable.
Rebuilding relations with China, seen as an indispensable partner if the EU is to weather the current financial storms, will not be easy. Another key challenge for the French leader will be to forge a strong partnership with the future US president.Barack Obama visited Paris during a tour of Europe this summer but he chose Berlin as the stage for his keynote speech on transatlantic ties. Diplomats say that while Mr Obama will clearly seek strong relations with France, his focus will also be on reinforcing ties with Britain and Germany and also working with EU institutions per se rather than with individual European states.
Much depends on the future evolution of the EU and more specifically over whether or not the new reform treaty finally enters into force.
At an EU summit last week, Ireland indicated that it would put the once-rejected treaty to a new vote. If the Irish approve the blueprint, the EU could finally come out of its current institutional logjam and acquire a foreign-policy supremo and a new, permanent president of the European Council to deal with the rest of the world.
If these posts are held by strong personalities, then Mr Sarkozy may be edged out of the EU stage. However, if the treaty remains frozen, national European leaders such as Sarkozy, Brown and Merkel, will continue to have a strong voice in the conduct of EU policy, including relations with foreign countries.
The consensus in Brussels and other EU capitals is that the next few months will be rocky for Europe and that the Czech Republic will have to labour hard to keep the bloc on an even keel. That may prove difficult. For one, although EU nations are equal, some — the bigger ones —– are clearly more equal than others. As such, the Czech Republic is expected to punch less weight within the EU than France.
Second, as a new EU state which joined only in 2005, the former communist nation may find it difficult to deal with the array of issues that make up EU decision-making. Third, the country is passing through a period of domestic political difficulty with infighting among political groups. In addition, Czech President Vaclav Klaus is a well-known Euro-sceptic.
The Czech’s have a long list of priorities but economy and energy diversification (Czech Republic is almost entirely dependent on Russian gas) will dominate. Prague also wants to push forward the so-called Eastern Partnership initiative designed to draw the bloc closer to its partners in the east. A special EU summit will take place in April with Ukraine, Moldova, Belarus, Georgia, Armenia and Azerbaijan. Significantly, however, the Czech Republic has already annoyed many Arab states by insisting that it wants to boost ties between the EU and Israel.
The writer is Dawn’s correspondent in Brussels.
By far the biggest donor to the William J. Clinton Foundation was Saudi Arabia, which gave a total of $41m. Bill and Hillary’s good relations with prominent Israeli politicians may defuse the political controversy aroused by Saudi backing, but Pakistani perceptions the US foreign policy establishment is biased towards India are likely to be fuelled by the publication of the donor list, under a deal agreed with Barack Obama’s incoming administration as a precondition for Senator Clinton’s nomination.
There was also potential domestic controversy over some of the foundation’s backers. The private security company Blackwater — listed as having made a donation of up to $25,000 — is mired in controversy as five of its employees were indicted by a US grand jury for manslaughter and weapons charges following the deaths of 17 Iraqis in an incident last year in Baghdad. Blackwater Worldwide’s contract to protect American diplomats is up for renewal by the State Department next year.
The list does not provide exact donations, instead categorising contributors according to a broad range of sums paid. A wealthy Indian politician, Amar Singh, was listed as giving between $1m and $5m. Singh hosted former President Clinton on a trip to India three years ago, and met Senator Clinton in September to discuss a bilateral agreement on civil nuclear cooperation. That deal has been heavily criticised by counter-proliferation activists as legitimising India’s development of nuclear weapons.
Hillary Clinton’s nomination has majority support in the Senate foreign relations committee, but the committee’s leading Republican, Richard Lugar, has said there were “legitimate questions” for her to answer about her husband’s “cosmic ties” with many of the world’s richest people.
— The Guardian, London
