Ahmadinejad’s letter to Bush

AS the world sits biting its nails nervously and waiting to see the next move on the Iranian crisis, President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has done the unexpected. He has written an 18-page letter to US President George W. Bush proposing ‘new solutions’ to the dangerous stand-off between the two countries. The contents of the letter are not fully known yet. Neither can one guess the American reaction to it. But the Iranian communication should be welcomed as a new development that could possibly break the current impasse. In the absence of a conciliatory spirit, the crisis on Iran’s nuclear programme that has moved towards uranium enrichment could spin out of control. There have been several reports that the US is preparing to attack Iran with the ultimate motive of bringing about a regime change in Tehran. President Bush has also reaffirmed that an attack cannot be ruled out.

If the Iranian nuclear crisis takes this terrible turn, it would spell disaster for the region. America’s experience in Iraq has clearly demonstrated that the use of force resolves no problems. On the other hand, it creates new crises that are more complex and difficult to defuse. If President Bush is simply concerned about halting the proliferation of nuclear weapons and is somehow convinced that Tehran is taking the road to military nuclearisation, he should preempt it by seeking to tighten the nuclear checks and safeguards prescribed by the NPT. This can be best achieved through the IAEA which has been monitoring Iran’s programme intensively since 2003 and has till now found no evidence of the country trying to produce nuclear weapons. But if the US president’s real intention is to bring about a regime change in Iran and he is manipulating the situation towards that end, the world should be prepared for a catastrophe that will be worse than the tragedy that has overtaken Iraq.

Mr Ahmadinejad’s letter is said to contain an extensive analysis of the world situation and proposes new ways to reorient the state of his country’s relations with the US. These have been stuck in a groove since 1979 when the Iranian revolution saw a parting of ways between the two countries on angry terms. Obviously, the nuclear issue is simply an additional factor because the US is at loggerheads with Iran on many other questions. Given America’s cordial relations with Israel and its deal with India on the transfer of nuclear technology with India — two nuclear weapon states — one can draw the conclusion that Mr Bush’s policy vis-a-vis Iran is not governed by his nuclear non-proliferation anxieties. Hence, the need is for the US and Iran to sort out their differences on the various issues of bilateral concern that are actually at the root of the current impasse. Even earlier when the EU-3 were negotiating with Iran in 2003-05 on the nuclear issue, President Muhammed Hatami had indicated that he would like to the US to be a party in the security dialogue. Last week, UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan had also urged the US to enter into direct talks with Iran. One hopes that Mr Ahmadinejad’s letter will act as a catalyst and the major world powers will also see the wisdom of going to the negotiating table with Iran and the US.

Power from Central Asia

GETTING electricity from Central Asia could improve the power supply situation in Pakistan if the idea were to materialise. As Omorov Janybek, Kyrghyzstan’s representative, told the four-power energy conference in Islamabad on Monday, his country had a surplus of 4,000 megawatts of electricity out of which it could supply 3,000MW to Pakistan. As for Tajikistan, it has already signed a memorandum of understanding with Islamabad for the supply of 1,000MW. Pakistan has a power generation capacity of 19,389MW, which is in excess of the demand — estimated at 16,600 — but line losses eat up as much as 25 per cent of the actual supply. Besides, power generation drops in summer because of a shortage of water in the dams. Getting 4,000MW from the two Central Asian republics could serve to bridge the gap between demand and supply, provided the Afghan part of the proposed deal was taken care of.

Afghanistan insists that power lines should go through Kabul and not Wakhan, because this strip of territory between Tajikistan and Pakistan remains closed to the world for six months due to the harsh winter, and the cost for laying transmission lines through the mountainous terrain will be very high. According to Kabul officials, routing it through Afghanistan will be less expensive, and it goes without saying that Afghanistan would expect to be paid for facilitating transmission. Many multinationals, besides the World Bank, the Asian Development Bank, the Islamic Development Bank and the International Finance Corporation, are enthusiastic about the idea. The basic problem, however, is one of the safety of transmission lines, given the precarious security situation in Afghanistan. The Bhasha dam will take at least a decade to complete, and this means that no additional sources of hydroelectric generation will be available to meet the current power deficit and to cater to Pakistan’s fast-expanding power needs. Like the idea of gas from Turkmenistan, the energy deal with the two Central Asian states is also dependent on the security situation in Afghanistan. The gas deal with Iran, too, has not yet been finalised, and this reinforces the case for electricity from Tajikistan and Kyrghyzstan.

Emission & noise-free transport

THE public transport strike in Karachi is nothing short of blackmail by bus and minibus owners to force the government to back out of implementing a Sindh High Court ban against smoke-emitting and noisy vehicles. The high court has given a three-month deadline for ridding Karachi of vehicles that cause pollution. In response to that, the authorities have embarked on a campaign against such vehicles, especially those that have been plying on the city’s roads for over a decade. In the past as well, owners of public transport vehicles have gone on strike whenever the administration has tried to make them comply with fitness or emission rules. Of course, this is not to say that the traffic police have been honest and efficient in dealing with lapses, since many violations by public transport vehicles have often taken place with the law-enforcers looking the other way.

However, the issue is that it was about time that the country’s largest city had a public transport system that was emission and noise-free. There are several examples from the developing world, most notably from New Delhi, where public transport in large metropolises has switched over to cleaner fuels such as CNG. There, too, the impetus came from a court directive that was implemented in earnest, after initial protests and strikes by the transport operators, because the Delhi government remained firm. The Karachi nazim is right in saying that his administration will not give in to the strike. However, what he needs to do is to initiate a dialogue with the transport operators and impress on them the importance of switching over to the use of CNG. A mutually acceptable time-table could be agreed upon if the transition is done in phases and if transporters can be offered loans on easy terms to be able to buy new more fuel-efficient vehicles.

Latin America’s turn to the left

TOWARDS the end of last month, Fidel Castro played host to a pair of neighbours, Hugo Chavez and Evo Morales, with whom he signed a pact titled the Bolivarian Alternative for the Americas.

The Cuban president referred implicitly to the decades when hardly any government in Latin America dared to be too effusive in its relations with his country (and the notable exceptions, such as Chile under Salvador Allende and Nicaragua under the Sandinistas, were unnaturally short-lived) when he pointed out: “Now, for the first time, there are three of us; I believe that one day all (Latin American) countries can be here.”

Castro’s dream may never completely be fulfilled, but nor is it entirely based on fantasy. Latin America is indeed a hotbed of change, and the progressive social movements at the forefront of this trend are notching up more meaningful achievements than the guerilla movements of yore. Morales described the get-together in Cuba as a “historic gathering of three generations and three revolutions”. Two days later he was back home in Bolivia to announce that the state was taking control of the nation’s energy industry.

It’s slightly disingenuous of Morales to pretend that he and Chavez — who is only five years older — belong to different generations. Although their backgrounds differ (Chavez is a former paratrooper who served a prison term for his role in a coup attempt before making a political splash through democratic means; Morales earned his political spurs as a spokesman for coca farmers), there are similarities between the conditions that propelled them into power. And the breakdown in the so-called Washington Consensus that for so long determined economic and political conditions in what the United States has for two centuries regarded as its backyard isn’t restricted to Venezuela and Bolivia.

For some years now, a “pink tide” has been sweeping across the continent, chiefly as a response to decades of neo-liberal degradation under military dictatorships and corrupt right-wing regimes. Increasingly mired in debt, lagging in growth and beholden to transnational corporations, countries from Argentina to Mexico indulged in an orgy of privatisation under the guidance of the International Monetary Fund. Inflation went haywire in some cases, and disparities of wealth increased exponentially.

A backlash was inevitable, and on the political plane it was facilitated by two factors: the US has been paying less attention to Latin America since the end of the Cold War, which has made it easier for radical movements to articulate their ideas through conventional democratic means; and while Yankee imperialism has for ages been looked upon as a bete noire by most Central and South Americans, the exploits of the Bush administration have inevitably reinforced the impression of a predatory Uncle Sam.

The Chavez and Morales experiments are still exceptions: more common is an embrace of social democracy, resulting in governments that are content to function within the capitalist framework while launching initiatives aimed at mitigating the worst excesses of neo-liberalism.

The results have been mixed, although there can be little question that Nestor Kirchner’s administration in Argentina is a vast improvement on its predecessors, whose policies brought the country to its knees five years ago. Michelle Bachelet, who was sworn in earlier this year as the president of Chile, is a former victim of the Pinochet junta.

There are some doubts as to whether Brazil’s Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, a former trade union leader, will win re-election this year after having presided over an administration characterised by caution and damaged by allegations of corruption. But, for all its shortcomings, his government has nonetheless served a significant purpose in demonstrating popular disenchantment with the old elites.

And although Chavez has been instrumental in drumming up opposition to the proposed Free Trade Area of the Americas, an attempt by the US at institutionalising economic neo-colonialism in the region, the paler sections of the pink tide have helped to make it clear that resistance to the agreement is not restricted to the overt radicals.

There are indications that the rosy-hued area may continue to spread. In the second round of Peru’s presidential election on June 4, the Chavez-backed former army commander Ollanta Humala stands an even chance of defeating former president Alan Garcia. Humala, who led in last month’s first round with about 30 per cent of the vote, has promised to redistribute wealth and to renegotiate contracts with mining companies — the sort of actions that would place him in the Chavez-Morales camp. An interesting factor is that there will be no right-wing candidate in the second round, after Garcia, generally described as centre-left, edged out conservative businesswoman Lourdes Flores.

Like Chavez, Humala once led a failed coup in his country, and there are concerns that his past includes a brutal military campaign against Maoist guerillas. He has, not surprisingly, denied all autocratic intent, and probably deserves the benefit of the doubt.

Humala’s victory would be a significant blow against what remains of the Washington Consensus, but it would probably perish completely were Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador to succeed Vicente Fox as the president of Mexico — a country that has been turned into a virtual American sweatshop under the terms of the North American Free Trade Agreement. Lopez Obrador, the mayor of Mexico City, has pledged to block attempts to privatise the oil and gas industry.

Another possibility is the return of the Sandinistas to power in Nicaragua. Although Daniel Ortega has been sullied by charges of corruption and sleaze since he was last president, the Sandinista coalition includes progressive social movements. The reinstatement of the Sandinistas in Managua would be a huge psychological blow to Washington, given that the appalling Reagan administration (at which the neo-cons gaze back with feelings bordering on erotomania) devoted so much time, energy and resources to undermining the Nicaraguan revolution of 1979, notably by illegally funding (with the assistance of Israel, Iran and Saudi Arabia) and training a mercenary terrorist force known as the Contras.

The Mexican election is scheduled for July 2. Bolivians will vote on the same day to elect a constituent assembly that is expected to rewrite the nation’s basic laws, shifting the balance of power towards the indigenous majority that Morales belongs to.

Morales’s popularity had gradually been declining since he assumed power, not least because his government lacked a clear-cut direction; the social movements that propelled him into the presidential palace were beginning to wonder whether he intended to keep his major campaign promises. Through his May Day announcement, the president has reclaimed the loyalty of his sceptical constituents — but at the same time he has been careful not to completely alienate the oil and gas companies.

The nationalisation was followed within days by talks with Lula da Silva and Kirchner, who apparently feared that their reliance on Bolivia as an energy supplier could be compromised by shortages or higher prices. They seem to have been reassured on both counts by Morales and Chavez. The Bolivian government has also made clear that its move is not an expropriation, nor is it intended to drive out foreign investors. It does involve a cut in their massive profits: in the case of the biggest companies, a little more than 80 per cent of the value of their production will go into Bolivia’s coffers; for the smaller firms, the margin will remain at 50 per cent. Furthermore, the state will insist on controlling shares — at least 51 per cent — in the ventures.

The companies — primarily Petrobras of Brazil and Spain’s Repsol YPF — were miffed, but are unlikely to run away. Bolivia has the continent’s second largest gas reserves, after Venezuela; the latter also boasts the region’s biggest oil reserves. Furthermore, Venezuela has the world’s largest reserves of heavy crude, but these can economically be exploited only if the price of oil stays above $40 a barrel. Hence Chavez’s attempt to have it pegged at $50 (well below the current world price).

His Bolivarian revolution’s endeavours at home as well as its unprecedented brand of benevolent internationalism — including subsidised petroleum for cash-strapped Caribbean countries, free or heavily subsidised fuel for poor families in the US, and debt relief assistance for countries such as Argentina — have been made possible by the going rate for oil. The important point, of course, is that never before in living memory have the profits from this particular commodity been put to such good use.

Small wonder, then, that Donald Rumsfeld has compared Chavez to Hitler and Condoleezza Rice has been frothing at the mouth. Even Tony Blair butted in by warning Chavez against getting too close to Cuba. Chavez never hesitates to retaliate in kind. He may not run into Blair during a private visit to Britain next week, but he will be feted in style by Ken Livingstone, the maverick mayor of London.

Bolivia’s journey towards a more equitable future has only just begun. Venezuela has taken significant strides in poverty alleviation, education and health care, but still has a long way to go. The pact signed in Cuba by the three amigos — or the Axis of Good, as they’ve been known to describe themselves — doesn’t only eliminate tariffs, but is also geared towards the eradication of illiteracy and the expansion of employment opportunities.

“History will absolve me,” Castro had confidently proclaimed more than 50 years ago. That process may be unfolding before our eyes. The pink glow emanating from Latin America is a reminder that a different world is possible. The developments in those distant lands are worth our attention. The movements for social change deserve our solidarity.

E-mail: mahirali1@gmail.com