A good beginning
The success of the Delhi meeting between the foreign secretaries of Pakistan and India marks a good beginning to the composite dialogue initiated to resolve all bilateral disputes.
Foreign secretary Riaz Khokhar, who led the Pakistan delegation to the talks, was quite appreciative of the milieu prevailing in the Indian capital. "I saw and found them serious, committed and determined to move forward on a composite dialogue."
He went on to add that the two sides had agreed "to have serious, sustained and constructive dialogue on the question of Kashmir." Being an old hand at dealing with the Indians, Mr. Khokhar, however, hastened to caution against creating a hype about Pakistan-India talks, saying high expectations must be avoided.
The success of the expert level talks on nuclear CBMs, followed by the positive note on which the foreign secretary-level meeting has ended, clearly indicate that ditente between India and Pakistan has survived the Indian elections and the change of government in New Delhi.
Though external affairs minister Natwar Singh had initially rattled Islamabad by his repeated references to the 1972 Shimla Agreement, he backed down from his original stand and has taken steps to reassure Pakistan that the marked improvement in bilateral relations, seen in the final months of the Vajpayee government, would persist.
Meeting foreign minister Khurshid Mehmood Kasuri on June 21 in Qingdao, China, on the sidelines of a regional conference, Mr. Natwar Singh reassured his Pakistani counterpart that his government remained committed to the path of dialogue to solve all bilateral issues.
They also agreed to remain in regular touch and provide continuous political guideline to the ongoing process. The Pakistan delegation has every reason to be more than satisfied with what it succeeded in achieving at the Delhi meeting.
Without reading any deeper meaning into a reference to the United Nations Charter along with the Shimla Agreement in the joint statement issued after the foreign secretaries meeting, the fact remains that it has rattled many Indian analysts.
Even the former foreign minister in the Vajpayee government, Yashwant Sinha, criticized the Congress-led government for letting Islamabad "walk away with more than its due." Issuing a formal statement on behalf of the BJP, Sinha listed reference to the UN Charter in the joint statement as "intriguing."
He argues that reference to the UN Charter "weakens our approach that all issues between India and Pakistan should be resolved bilaterally and may give an opening to Pakistan to bring in the old UN resolutions on Jammu and Kashmir and involve third parties in the negotiations.
Government of India should have avoided such a formulation." During his visit to New Delhi, Mr. Khokhar succeeded in holding "useful discussions" with prominent Kashmiri leaders including Syed Ali Gilani, Shabbir Shah, Yasin Malik, Abdul Aziz and Mirwaiz.
This was a creditable achievement since Pakistan has always held that Kashmiris are a very important party while the Indian stand has so far been that the Kashmiris cannot become a third party in the talks between India and Pakistan.
As a matter of fact, the BJP's spokesman, Yashwant Sinha, described the meeting with Kashmiri leaders as "the most disconcerting development of all" and severely criticized the government for "facilitating the interaction between the Hurriyat leaders and the Pakistan delegation.".
It is not yet clear whether the meeting with the Kashmiri leaders reflected a change in New Delhi's thinking or was the result of Pakistani high commission's efforts.
Symbolism and rhetoric apart, both ingrained in Indo-Pakistan diplomacy, the Delhi meeting accomplished two tangible and noteworthy achievements. After about ten long years, Islamabad and New Delhi at last realized that it was time to put an end to the sufferings and hardships being encountered by thousands of divided families on both sides of the border..
It was agreed in principle to re-establish India's consulate-general in Karachi and Pakistan's consulate-general in Mumbai. It is hoped unnecessary time will not be wasted in working out the modalities by the two governments.
Another significant decision was that all apprehended fishermen in each other's custody would be immediately released and a mechanism put in place for the return of unintentionally transgressing fishermen and their boats from the high seas without apprehending them.
Also, steps would be taken for early release of civilian prisoners. But the need of the hour is to find a permanent solution to the fishermen's problem which is the result of the undemarcated boundary in Sir Creek..
It is 38 years since the dispute in the Rann of Kutch was resolved through arbitration and more than 1000 kilometers of boundary was demarcated in two years. But a small piece in the Rann of Kutch (Sir Creek) has remained undemarcated in all these 38 years, thanks to the lack of will on the part of India and Pakistan.
The Sir Creek demarcation problem has become over the years almost as intractable as the Kashmir problem. It goes to the credit of the New Delhi meeting that the two foreign secretaries agreed that discussions on the remaining six subjects of the composite dialogue - Sir Creek, Siachen, Wullar Barrage/ Tulbul Navigation Project, terrorism and drug trafficking, economic and commercial co-operation, and promotion of friendly exchanges in various fields would take place between the third week of July and the first half of August 2004.
The coming weeks will witness a flurry of activity on the diplomatic front. It begins with a meeting yesterday between the two foreign ministers on the sidelines of a regional conference in Jakarta.
In July, Mr Natwar Singh is expected to visit Islamabad in connection with a meeting of the Saarc council of ministers. Mr Kasuri has been invited to New Delhi in August, where the two foreign ministers are expected to review the progress achieved so far.
This will be a crucial meeting and its outcome will determine the tempo of the composite dialogue. The Congress-led government has reassured Pakistan that it is committed to the path of dialogue, but no one knows whether that path will lead anywhere.
Unless both sides are prepared to depart from the hard positions of the past on Kashmir, there can be no hope of finding a solution acceptable to all parties.. Without leaving the trodden path and adopting innovative ideas, the dialogue on Kashmir will ultimately lead to a blind alley.
It is a peculiar twist of circumstances that the all-powerful Sonia Gandhi and Prime Minister Manmohan Singh cannot get away from the beaten path and adopt an innovative and realistic approach to the Kashmir problem, even if they want to.
The former because of her foreign origin handicap and the latter because of his Sikh connection. None of them would like to be accused of a sell-out. The Congress-led government's foreign policy team is dominated by what the Economist calls "crusty former diplomats."
External Affairs minister Natwar Singh and National Security Adviser J. N. Dixit have served in Pakistan as India's ambassadors and are generally regarded as hardliners in their approach to Pakistan. Pakistani interlocutors will find them real hard nuts to crack.
Recently, there has been another unfavourable development. While in opposition, the Congress party last year supported Mr. Vajpayee's "hand of friendship" to Pakistan... The Congress-led government, justifiably, expected a similar gesture from the BJP now in the opposition.
The recent harsh criticism of the government by the BJP, directed at the foreign secretary-level meeting in New Delhi, has dissipated the hope of a bipartisan policy towards Pakistan on Kashmir and other bilateral disputes.
If the reports about the hardliners taking control of the BJP and Mr. Vajpayee's intended retirement are correct, then it is a sad development not only for the dynamics of India's internal politics but also for the promotion of Indo-Pakistan relations.
The writer is a former ambassador of Pakistan.
When MPs go berserk
Prime Minister Manmohan Singh rang up opposition leader L. K. Advani to let parliament function when the BJP-led National Democratic Alliance (NDA) stalled the proceedings for the second day.
He said that the Congress-led United Progressive Alliance (UPA) was prepared to discuss any subject, even the 'tainted' ministers, if that was the price the NDA wanted to exact for not disturbing the two houses. Advani expressed his inability to do so.
Not because Advani could not prevail upon the NDA but because he was party to the decision the NDA had taken before the session not to allow parliament transact any business at its first sitting after the general election.
The same message came through clearly during the discussions at the Business Committee of either house when the Congress leaders met the BJP. 'Let this session be like this' or 'do not press us this time', was the refrain of comments by the BJP leaders.
What vicarious satisfaction the BJP or, for that matter, the NDA wanted to have by stalling the parliament is difficult to comprehend. It might be a feeling of anger for defeat at the polls or sheer disappointment for not being in office. Whatever the reason, the BJP set new precedents for disturbing the two houses.
For the first time in India's parliament history, the opposition did not allow a debate on the president's address. Again, for the first time, the prime minister was stopped from introducing his council of ministers to the Lok Sabha and the Rajya Sabha members. And, significantly, for the first time, the accommodative Atal Behari Vajpayee was not the opposition leader. When it comes to halting parliament's sessions, the Congress is not without blame.
The party has disturbed both the houses repeatedly when it has been out of power. It has picked up some issue or the other to hold the proceedings. I got so fed up with the disturbances - I was then a Rajya Sabha member - that I wrote the following letter to the chairman:
"...The non-transaction of business in the house is the order of the day. Despite your efforts, the house has to accept what one party or the other decides on a particular day. As a nominated member, I have practically no say in the matter. But I can at least do one thing: not to draw the sitting allowance for the days the house is adjourned because of the disturbance within. Kindly issue instructions not to give me the daily allowance for the days the house was forced not to work..."
The chairman accepted my plea and ordered the deduction of daily allowance from my emoluments. I have written this week to the speaker and the Rajya Sabha chairman, citing my example and requesting them not to pay members their daily allowance so as to discourage them from stalling parliament. If 'no work, no pay', can be a dictum for workers, why not for MPs?
The NDA supporters argue that it is their right to ventilate their protest. I do not think anyone is in favour of imposing restriction on MPs. The question is: should the protest be expressed by disturbing the proceedings in the house? On the 50th anniversary of parliament, members themselves swore not to disturb parliament on any count.
Still they do the opposite. MPs should realize that their protest is getting uglier, session by session. Initially, it was confined to raising points of order. Then there were walkouts. And now, it is free for all.
Even when the practice of coming into the well of the house began, members respected the sanctity of the Question Hour. They have gone back on that as well. The NDA crossed all limits when it did not allow discussion on the president's address. It violated what was considered unthinkable at one time.
The disconcerting aspect is that neither the BJP, which is guilty now, nor the Congress, which was guilty in the past, has a sense of guilt. Both of them do not consider it unethical to hit below the belt.
They do not seem to realize the harm they are causing to the system. The real problem is that for most of political parties and leaders, the dividing line between right and wrong, moral and immoral, has ceased to exist.
India may take pride in having a democratic structure that ensures free voting and peaceful change of government. But if parliament does not function and if one political party or the other intentionally disturbs its proceedings, democracy would cease to have any meaning.
People's faith in parliament has already lessened because of MPs' conduct. The BJP leaders should have learnt a lesson from strong public annoyance over the stalling. But they have already announced that they will not allow parliament to function even during the budget session, if there is no 'settlement' by then. The word 'settlement' has not been defined.
Probably, the reference is to the 'tainted ministers'. The Election Commission has a list of some 100 MPs who have criminal proceedings going on against them. They are from all parties, 26 from the BJP, 15 from the Congress, five from the CPI(M) and 54 from other groups.
An intrepid weekly has culled out information from the affidavits which candidates had submitted to the returning officer at the time of filing their nomination paper.
It is obligatory for a candidate to give a list of criminal cases against him. Long before the polls, some human rights activists persuaded the Election Commission to make candidates disclose their police record. Political parties joined hands to make government issue an ordinance to negate the commission's ruling.
The Supreme Court struck it down, making it mandatory for all candidates to declare their criminal antecedents. The NDA wanted to introduce a bill to exclude persons charge sheeted in two or more heinous offences from contesting elections. The Congress did not agree to it.
The BJP has unnecessarily tried to differentiate between what it considers 'political crime' and 'regular crime'. A crime is a crime, whether motivated by political considerations or others.
One is no less heinous than the other. The point at issue is not the type of crime but the crime itself. Parties should not politicize the problem but try to find a solution.
To begin with, those MPs against whom the court has framed charges should not be eligible for election. Apparently, this will not be acceptable to the BJP because at one stage the court had framed charges against Advani in the Babri masjid demolition case.
Still, a 'settlement' to reignite the functioning of parliament cannot be at the expense of justice. Tainted ministers or MPs should have no place in parliament, the highest institution in a democratic country.
Had the institution of ombudsman been in position - what the successive governments had promised - the cases of tainted ministers and MPs could have been referred to it. But what do we do in the meanwhile?
Maybe, once a 'tainted' person is elected to the legislature or parliament or a appointed minister, the hearing of cases against him should take place daily for an early verdict. Special courts can be established for this purpose. It may not be an ideal solution but it will be a 'settlement' of sorts.
The writer is a leading columnist based in New Delhi.
North Korea's bomb and the media hype
The main thing we've learnt so far about the Bush Administration's self proclaimed ambitions to curb nuclear proliferation is its all too obvious ability to influence how the press treats the issue.
If it wanted to whip up hysteria on Iraq's "weapons of mass destruction" the press was a willing, if now rueful, victim. If it wants to blow hot about North Korea's ambitions to have a nuclear-armed rocket that can strike Alaska it can do that too.
It can also do cold. Watch it right now as it moves, after three years of outright hostility to North Korea, to start using the soft touch in time to meet the imperatives of the electoral calendar when it wants to be crisis free.
Too much of the media (European too) follows its given cues as meekly as a well trained circus dog. The latest round of talks last weekend with North Korea, when for the first time the Bush Administration offered negotiating concessions, was thriftily covered.
Yet the North Korean bomb has not gone away. And North Korea's bomb research is much more advanced than it was when Bush first characterized the regime as part of the " axis of evil".
Nuclear bombs are a good scare story- when the administration wants it to be. It plays on fears we all have. I'm embarrassed to say that years ago I wrote a column saying if North Korea got a nuclear weapon it should be bombed.
When the CIA first spooked president Bill Clinton with its carefully leaked revelation that North Korea had a nuclear weapon he had Henry Kissinger, Brent Scowcroft and Robert Gates on his back telling the press loudly that the North's stock of spent fuel rods should be bombed before they were reprocessed into plutonium.
But none of them could provide an answer what to do if in retaliation North Korea made use of the nuclear bombs they said it already possessed. And when Clinton, all wound up and ready to order an invasion of North Korea, consulted the Pentagon he found that war might lead to the deaths of 50,000 American soldiers and the obliteration of Seoul he too pulled back.
Then ex-president Jimmy Carter, briefly seizing the headlines, bravely ventured into Pyongyang and mapped out with the old dictator Kim Il Sung a trade off between nuclear armaments and economic aid.
Clinton happily grabbed the deal, and then the press largely went quiet until when, years later, Bush ratcheted up the rhetoric and confrontation. And today the press seems content to be spoon fed the lie pushed by the Bush Administration that it was the North Koreans who broke the trust of Washington when they reneged on the undertakings made to Carter/Clinton and admitted (in 2002) that whilst they closed down its plutonium-based bomb producing line they had opened up an alternative uranium-enriched one.
In fact the trust - that precious ingredient of all deals- was broken long ago. The 1994 agreement was clear: the North agreed to close its plutonium plant and seal up the cooling rods from which weapons grade plutonium could be extracted. In return the US with Japan and South Korea agreed to build two modern, non-plutonium producing nuclear power stations to be in production by 2003.
Also the US agreed that it would end its economic embargo and help the North with food, oil and electricity. Militant Republicans in Congress managed to sabotage the implementation of the American side of the bargain, pushing the Administration to slow food supplies and oil deliveries on a number of occasions.
There was a successful effort in Congress to break the promise of ending sanctions, delaying action on this until 1999 when they were finally but only partially lifted. Not least, was the slowdown on the building of the new reactors, with the prospect of them being completed five years behind schedule in 2008.
Then when George Bush came to power the US leant on South Korea to slow down its so-called "Sunshine" policy of reconciliation. It also refused to talk about other sources of electricity supplies and prohibited South Korea from honouring a promise to send electricity to the North.
Later, after the North's "confession", it froze both oil supplies and reactor building. Given the reflex hostility of both the American government and media it should not surprise us that North Korea returned to its bad old ways.
Confrontation, Pyongyang reasoned, was the only way to get results. And, after three years of it, it is indeed producing results. Bush is ready to negotiate, but quietly. And the press has gone quiet in lockstep. Yet still North Korea has the weapons of mass destruction that Iraq didn't.-Copyright Jonathan Power
America - a dream gone sour
Sometimes extreme dangers instead of elevating a nation, bring it low. This is what happened to America after 9/11. Two hundred years ago America was militarily weak and economically poor but to millions of people in other countries it was the hope of the world because of the timeless values it stood for.
Today it presents an alarming spectacle. The leaders of modern America seem vastly inferior to those who brought America into being. When America was engaged in the most just of struggles, that of a people escaping from another people's yoke, and when it was a question of creating a new nation in the world, outstanding men came forward to lead the country.
Three men more than any others, ended British colonial rule and helped bring the United States into being: George Washington, John Adams and Thomas Jefferson. The urge to separate from Great Britain was sweeping across the land "like a Torrent".
The Congress created a Committee of Five, as it soon was called, to prepare a Declaration of Independence. Its members included Adams, Jefferson, Franklin, Roger Sherman of Connecticut, and Robert Livingston of New York. Adams chaired the committee.
Seventeen days after its creation, the Committee of Five presented its draft to Congress. Two days later, on that steaming July 1, Congress took up the question of Independence At day's end, Congress, sitting as a committee of the whole, voted 9 - 2 for Independence.
South Carolina and Pennsylvania opposed the motion. New York abstained Delaware's delegation was deadlocked. Congress deferred the official vote until the following morning.
When Congress reconvened on July 2, it was immediately clear that two important changes had occurred. Two members of the Pennsylvania delegation who had opposed Independence on the previous day were absent.
In addition, the deadlock with Delaware 's delegation would be broken. A role call vote was taken. New York once again abstained, but every other colony - it was their final vote as colonies - voted for independence. A jubilant Adams predicted that henceforth July 2 would be commemorated annually, "as the Day of Deliverance".
The next day, and the day after, July 3 and 4 Congress debated the draft of the Declaration of Independence, trimmed it by about one - fourth, deleted unnecessary words and tinkered with cumbersome sentences.
Jefferson was mortified and cried that his Chief Editors had "mangled the manuscript". Congress adopted the Declaration of Independence on the evening of July 4. With that, it transformed His Majesty's colonies into a Sovereign, independent country.
Three persons, George Washington, John Adams and Thomas Jefferson - all conservative men - successful members of the colonial elite turned revolutionaries, set the world ablaze and changed the course of world history. The future sole superpower was born.
Independent America, it was hoped, would become an "Asylum for mankind", and offer refuge to the world's oppressed. Like a shining beacon, America, it was hoped, would herald the, "birth day of a new world", the beginning of an epoch in which humankind across the earth could "begin the world over again".
From the beginning, America was more than a place. It represented the values and ideals of a humane civilization. Two hundred years ago, America caught the imagination of the world because of the ideals which it stood for.
Today its example is tarnished with military adventurism and conflicts abroad. In the past, some envied America, some liked America, some hated America but almost all respected it. And all knew that without the United States peace and freedom would not have survived.
Today President Bush appears to believe in a kind of unilateral civilization. The United Nations is an afterthought; treaties are not considered binding. The war on terror is used to topple weak regimes. Today Washington's main message to the world seems to be, Take dictation.
Today America does not chase out an occupier, but occupies; does not push back an invader, but invades; does not repulse an invader, but invades. No wonder, very few respect America these days.
The poor and the weak are scared to death and fear the world's only superpower. In the eyes of millions of Muslims throughout the world, America is perceived today as the greatest threat to the world of Islam since the 13th century.
Americans seem to have forgotten America as an idea, as a source of optimism and as a beacon of liberty. They have stopped talking about who they are and are only talking about who they are going to invade, oust or sanction.
These days nobody would think of appealing to the United States for support for upholding a human rights case - may be to Canada, to Norway or to Sweden, but not to the United States.
Before there were three faces of America in the world - the face of the Peace Corps, America that helps others, the face of multi-nationals and the face of US military power. The balance has gone wrong lately and the only face of America we see now is one of military power.
Not very long ago, how wonderful was the position of the New World where man had no enemies but himself and to be happy and to be free it was enough to will it to be so.
Today American troops are scattered around the world from the plains of Northern Europe to the mountains of Afghanistan and the plains of Iraq in search of a phantom enemy, bombing and killing innocent Afghan and Iraqi men, women and children.
Though it rejects imperial pretensions, it is for all its protestations, perceived in the world as peremptory, domineering and imperial. Its actions in Afghanistan and Iraq are perceived as part of an open-ended empire-building plan with geo-strategic goals.
Under this plan, the United States would acquire a permanent military presence in Afghanistan and Iraq for projecting its power in central Asia, South Asia, Middle East and the Persian Gulf.
Are the Americans, once again, on the wrong side of history? Doesn't it reflect their profound ignorance of history, culture and politics of the Islamic world? Are the Americans destined to fail, once again, to recognize the futility of trying to wage a modern war on two ancient civilizations that formed their identity by repelling invaders?
Are they destined to fail once again to recognize the limitations of modern, high-technology military equipment, in confronting unconventional, highly motivated Islamic nationalist movements? Are the Americans so naive as to believe that the war they are fighting is a war for democracy and freedom when most of their Islamic coalition partners are either military dictators or thoroughly corrupt, discredited civilians despots hated by their people?
The Americans claim to be better; they claim to be setting an example for others; they publicly divide the world along an axis of good and evil. And yet they deny even the most basic rights to those they deem their enemies, and fail so manifestly to honour their own professed convictions.
Long before September 11, Secretary of State Madeline Albright, defending the use of cruise missiles against Iraq declared. "If we have to use force, it is because we are America.
We are the indispensable nation. We stand tall. We see farther into the future". Hubris and hypocrisy are a deadly combination. Today Muslims, not connected with Osama bin Laden, consider the US to be on a moral par with Genghis Khan and genuinely believe that the war on terrorism is simply a euphemism for extending US control in the Islamic world and stealing Iraqi oil.
The photo of a naked, hooded, wired, Iraqi prisoner standing on a box after having being told he would be electrocuted if he stepped or fell off may well become the lasting emblem of this cruel, unjust war, much as the photo of a naked, fleeing, napalmed little girl became the emblem of the Vietnam war.
"My greatest complaint", Tocqueville wrote almost two hundred years ago, "against democratic government, as organized in the United States, is not, as many Europeans make out, its weakness, but rather its irresistible strength. What I find most repulsive in America is not the extreme freedom reigning there but the shortage of guarantees against tyranny".
Jefferson sounded a similar warning when he said: "The executive, in our government is not the sole, it is scarcely the principal, object of my jealousy. The tyranny of the legislature is the most formidable dread at present and will be for many years.
That of the executive will come in its turn. But it will be at remote period". He who wrote these lines has proved profoundly prophetic. That time, it appears, has come.
Today the most powerful democracy and upholder of liberty and rights of man is detaining hundreds of suspected Afghans and Iraqis in a legal black hole. The purpose is to put them beyond the rule of law.
And only now has the US Supreme Court come to their rescue, ruling that it is illegal and that the detainees must be given the right to defend themselves in a court of law.
As America, mired in two cruel, unjust wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, approaches July 4, President Eisenhower's words in his 1961 farewell address once again demand attention and respect:
"In the councils of government we must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the military-industrial complex. The potential for the disastrous rise of misplaced power exist and will persist.
We must never let the weight of this combination endanger our liberties or democratic processes. We should take nothing for granted. Only an alert and knowledgeable citizenry can compel the proper meshing of the huge industrial and military machinery of defence with our peaceful method and goals so that security and liberty may prosper together".