On the Asian tiger trail

Almost every Asian ruler talks of making his country an 'Asian tiger'. Some succeed, many don't. The reasons are often obvious. Benazir Bhutto wanted to turn Pakistan into an Asian tiger. After her visits to Malaysia and Singapore she urged her countrymen to "Look East" and emulate the Asian tigers.

And if we did not make enough efforts and pay the price for it, we will remain Asian cats, she said. That is what we have been more or less for long. Political conflicts, lack of enough efforts in the right direction, poor infrastructure development, small private sector investment, conventional approach to farming which gave us low agricultural yield and poor social sector development have stood in our way.

The setback to the Asian tigers in 1997-98 which resulted in the flight of foreign capital from there with its global ramifications has dampened the excitement, among some countries, for becoming Asian tigers. It has hence become far more important, as in the case of Malaysia, to mobilize more of the local resources and capital to sustain economic success.

China relied on large foreign capital for its spectacular economic success. But China with its large economy and great future is a different story. Not every country can succeed in attracting very large foreign capital as China has done with remarkable success. China is now slowing down so as not to overheat the economy and face new problems which are difficult to cope with.

Prime Minister-designate Shaukat Aziz now wants Pakistan to be an Asian tiger. In fact, he has vowed to achieve that. He asks: "if China, Malaysia, and Thailand could do that, why can't Pakistan? The country has the resources and the requisite skilled and hard working manpower," he says, and, like Benazir Bhutto, he has also called upon his people to 'look East' and not West.

He is not unaware of the difficulties that stand in the way of Pakistan turning into an Asian tiger, beginning with high and sustained economic growth. He says "If we can resolve our problems through conciliation and consensus, there is no power which can stop us from achieving that potential."

Although he will be the prime minister, it is the president who will exercise the final authority in most matters. And it is he who has to make positive efforts to resolve the major problems including the political ones, which can determine the course of law and order situation in the country.

The deteriorating law and order situation which produced angry scenes in the Senate on Saturday, is the immediate concern of every Pakistani. Too much of the energy and emotions is dissipated in political conflicts and bitter arguments which today divide the country. In fact such schisms have been dividing us for too long and disrupting the creative and productive energies of the nation.

Mr Shaukat Aziz has some grand visions. He talks of "national consensus" to be reached to resolve all major issues. He wants a "vision of Pakistan" with all the stakeholders on board.

He envisions "a common platform" with its political, economic and social segments. He wants "the reforms agenda to be never derailed." He seeks "good governance, good political environment and consistency in policies coupled with implementation and a sense of mission."

There can be hardly any disagreement on these issues. The question is: where to begin? Will there be a consensus among equals and a platform evolved on the basis of free consent? Will it all begin with the chief of army staff, who is the president, saying what is right and what is wrong in the new mix?

Mr Shaukat Aziz talks of the vision of Pakistan documented through discussions and consultations. What kind of discussions will that these be? A top down show or the lower order agreeing to the higher order's dictates. He talks of former Malaysian prime minister Mahathir Mohammad consulting his coalition partners and others.

Pakistan is a much larger and more variegated country. Here the government has to carry the opposition with it on the basis of wilful consent. Will Gen Musharraf seek such cooperation from the opposition as equals? Mahathir Mohammad had little time and less patience for the opposition and even suspected rebels within his own party. The Malaysian pattern cannot work in Pakistan.

With the leaders of three major parties outside the country for long and a fourth in jail within Pakistan, how does the government seek political cooperation and work with the opposition as equals as the spirit of democracy demands? While the MQM is a part of the government its supreme leader is out of the country for long staying in London.

Now prime minister Chaudhry Shujaat Hussain has suggested a partial way out. He says the practice of holding the members of the past government accountable should stop and the accountability of those in power should be conducted.

It means that accountability of persons like Benazir Bhutto and Nawaz Sharif should stop. And those in office now, including the ones who were in office in the recent past, should now be subjected to accountability.

That means the accountability cases against a large number of ministers which have been suspended or pushed aside should be revived. And also a sharp eye should be on the conduct of the newcomers to power so that their hands are kept clean.

Ministers against whom accountability cases have been initiated may not like what Chaudhry Shujaat Hussain has suggested and may bring pressure on him to drop such enquiries.

The prime minister has also suggested that the accountability should be conducted by the judiciary and not by the National Accountability Bureau headed by a general and staffed largely by military men.

Many in the country would urge that the accountability of the judiciary should be conducted first before it is asked to sit in judgment of others. Otherwise the role of the judiciary may become even more controversial, which is not good for the new order.

A new vision of Pakistan or a new platform is rather easy to evolve. What matters far more is its implementation in the spirit in which it is conceived. In Pakistan there is often a large gap between the spirit of a new measure and its implementation and it keeps on widening.

While we talk of a new vision of Pakistan the reality is that the government not only nominated the prime minister but also the leader of the opposition. If it is said that it was done by the Speaker of the National Assembly, we have a long and sad history of partisanship by speakers of assemblies. Is all that going to change for the better?

While Mr Shaukat Aziz talks of a new order and good governance the Sindh chief minister Dr Arbab Ghulam Rahim is quoted as having said that 30 per cent of the Sindh government employees need to be whipped, while 20 per cent are utterly incorrigible.

He did not say that but obviously this 50 per cent will continue in service. The story in other provinces is not much different but the chief ministers are not so frank.

In a similar vein, President Musharraf said 10 per cent of the officials of the country were utterly corrupt while 10 per cent were very good and the rest of 80 per cent were swinging between the extremes.

"We have to badly face the challenges ahead", says the premier-designate. But will the government show that kind of boldness while dealing with the opposition and breaking with the past?

"You have to have steel nerves and rise above everything," he said. The steel nerves should be seen in doing the right things and making the right moves instead of being too scared by the shadows of the opposition and over-reacting.

If Shaukat Aziz wants an eight per cent economic growth by 2006-07 prior to becoming an Asian tiger, he would need the cooperation of all the major stakeholders in the country.

He needs full cooperation of the private sector, agriculturists, labour and even students. And the women have to play a larger role in the economic development of the country and they will have to be enabled to do that instead of simply being lectured to play a large role.

The Asian tiger has become a symbol of the success of the private sector. If Pakistan is to pursue that course, then the private sector should be given a larger and truly free role. It will attract far more foreign investment the way it happened in China.

The government and the private sector should reach a concord with labour under which the latter will have to be paid fair wages. Inflation shall have to be restrained instead of being denied or grossly understated.

Lightning general and transport strikes shall have to be banned. And the country should not have too many holidays, including religious holidays. There has to be peace in the colleges and universities and Rangers should ultimately be withdrawn from their premises. Use of firearms by students in educational institutions should be banned effectively.

There has to be some kind of effective land reforms instead of the farmers being given a raw deal by not only the landlords but also the police and others in the rural areas. Small farmers should be given enough of farm credit.

Much of Asia, Africa and Latin America is disillusioned with democracy, which often means little more than an elected government. Democratic governments in Brazil, Argentina and Mexico face the prospect of being removed from office by the very people who elected them.

They want a democracy which should deliver and not only enable the ministers, presidents and prime minister to move around in splendour. In Brazil the very people who elected popular Lula as president have occupied vast tracts of large land-holdings after waiting for the land reforms which did not come.

In Pakistan, too, democracy means the ordinary man casting a vote if his name is in the electoral list and someone else had not already voted for him. That does not bring any relief to the common man for whom good governance is a distant dream.

A recent survey in Latin America showed that 70 per cent of the people preferred a somewhat corrupt government which otherwise delivered to the people what they were promised during the elections than a good government which delivers nothing.

Anyway Mr Shaukat Aziz's new vision or new order has to begin with a political settlement with the opposition along fair lines, and consistent with democratic norms.

Without a political settlement which holds, all the ideal visions may be utterly illusory. So let the first things be done first and not let it become the last thing in our scheme of new priorities.

Buying Cuban exiles

"We're not waiting for the day of Cuban freedom; we're working for the day of Cuban freedom," boasted President George W. Bush in early May, as he announced the new measures to strengthen economic pressure on Cuba that came into effect on June 30.

From now on, Cuban-Americans will be able to visit the island only once every three years, not annually, and the amount of money they can bring with them will be cut by more than two-thirds.

Other Americans will continue to be banned from going to Cuba at all (though they can go to North Korea, Libya, or anywhere else they want in the world). For those who defy the ban and get caught, the maximum penalty is ten years in prison and a fine of $250,000.

In practice few have been caught, and those who were paid an average fine of only $7,000 - but now federal 'travel police' will crack down on the traffic. And US military aircraft will be deployed in the skies near Cuba to push American TV and radio propaganda broadcasts through Cuban jamming.

This stuff is obviously not going to shake Fidel Castro's hold on power, so why did Mr Bush do it? The 'Miami Herald' published the complete answer in late May: "The new Cuba rules are a cold, poll-driven calculation that has less to do with democracy-building in Havana than with vote-counting in Miami."

There are 650,000 Cuban-Americans in southern Florida, and the older generation are still frozen in hostility to the regime that turned them into exiles 45 years ago.

Florida is the ultimate swing state, won by Mr Bush by the narrowest of margins in 2000. He would have lost it by about a hundred thousand votes, and the whole presidential election with it, if the Cuban-Americans of southern Florida had split their vote between Democrats and Republicans in the usual way: Bill Clinton got 39 per cent of their votes in 1996, whereas Al Gore got only 18 per cent of their votes in 2000.

It was the outrage among Cuban-Americans when the Clinton administration forced the return of eight-year-old Elian Gonzalez to his father in Cuba after his mother had died trying to flee to the US that caused those votes to shift.

There is no similar issue to alienate Cuban-Americans in Florida from the Democratic Party today, so the Bush administration has to pull all the stops out to keep Florida from reverting to normal. That's what the new anti-Cuban measures are really about.

This is all grist for Fidel Castro's mill. There is no evidence that Mr Bush is planning to invade anywhere else before the next election - and no US administration since John F. Kennedy's in the early 1960s has seriously planned to invade Cuba - but this outburst of bluster lets Mr Castro pretend otherwise.

"Do not try crazy adventures such as surgical strikes or wars of attrition using sophisticated techniques because you could lose control of the situation," he warned the Bush administration recently.

It's all nonsense, of course, but it strengthens Mr Castro's hand at home by letting him parade once more as the defender of Cuban independence. Since he was in no danger of overthrow anyway - most Cubans are resigned to waiting for the 'biological solution' to remove the 77-year-old Maximum Leader - the only real impact on Cuba of the new restrictions will be to make poor Cubans a bit poorer. However, they may have a quite different impact in the United States than the Bush campaign strategists intended.

The idea is to win the backing of the Cuban exiles, but it may be a mistake for the Republicans to treat them all as a single, obsessively anti-Castro bloc. Very few are pro-Castro, to be sure, but the obsession with bringing him down at any cost is far greater among those who came out of Cuba in the first wave of refugees and their descendants than among those who left two decades later in the Mariel boat-lift in 1980.

The old guard lost businesses, property and professional careers to Fidel Castro's Communist reforms, and though they have built new lives for themselves in the United States they have never forgiven him.

Even though many of them would not go back to Cuba if he fell dead tomorrow, they want to see him destroyed, and they basically don't care how much Cubans suffer in the process. Mr Bush will win their votes with his new measures, but he was probably going to get most of them anyway.

The Mariel refugees are a different generation. Growing up under Communism, they had little property to lose, which paradoxically makes them less bitter. They have also stayed much more in touch with their families back home, and the remittances and the regular visits mean a lot to them. With their US-born children, they make up about a third of the Florida Cuban community.

But here's the rub: they also include most of the former Democratic voters who switched to Mr Bush last time because they were furious about the Elian Gonzalez case. They will tend to drift back to the Democrats this time, so they are exactly the group Mr Bush must target if he wants to win Florida again - but they don't want remittances and family visits to Cuba cut. In doing just that, Mr. Bush may be cutting his own throat. - Copyright

Dialogue with India

Following the joint statement issued after Musharraf-Vajpayee meeting in Islamabad on January 6 last, the stalled peace process between Pakistan and India restarted and the two countries pledged to find a solution to settle all bilateral issues, including Jammu and Kashmir, to the satisfaction of both sides.

On February 18, after a three-day foreign secretary-level meeting in Islamabad, both agreed to resume the "composite dialogue". They also agreed on the modalities and timeframe for discussions on all issues included in the composite dialogue.

It is heartening that the new leadership in India is also keen to improve ties with Pakistan and to resolve the outstanding problems between the two countries. In his address to the joint sitting of the Indian parliament on June 7, President APJ Abdul Kalam said "dialogue process with Pakistan on all outstanding issues will be pursued on a sustained basis within the framework of Shimla and all subsequent agreements between the two governments, including the joint statement of January 6, 2004".

In his first address to the nation, on June 24, Indian Prime Minister Dr Manmohan Singh, also declared "We desire to live in a neighbourhood of peace and prosperity. We will actively pursue the composite dialogue with Pakistan.

We are sincere about discussing and resolving all issues, including Jammu and Kashmir. We recognize that resolution of major issues requires national consensus and accommodation of public sentiment in both countries"

Regrettably, owing to the unresolved Kashmir dispute and the resultant political antagonism between them, Pakistan and India have had a strained relationship ever since they gained independence in August 1947.

However, the Indian external affairs minister Natwar Singh's recent statement that "Pakistan-India relations no longer lie in the past, but in the future" is a good omen for their future relationship. It also bodes well for the ongoing peace process between the two countries.

The foreign secretaries of Pakistan and India met in New Delhi on June 27-28 to resume the composite dialogue between the two countries. From all accounts, this meeting was very promising as it showed positive trends and may, therefore, be regarded as a step forward towards normalization of relations between the two countries.

The two foreign secretaries also made a commitment to promote a stable environment of peace and stability in the region. There was a new mood of realism between the two sides at these talks.

The former external affairs minister of India, Yashwant Sinha, in a statement issued on behalf of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) also welcomed the resumption of the composite dialogue between Pakistan and India.

Astonishingly, however, he objected to the commitment made by the two countries to the principles and purposes of the Charter of the United Nations, in the joint statement issued at the end of these talks, occurring in the same sentence which referred to the determination to implement the Shimla Agreement in letter and spirit.

Yashwant Sinha found the reference to the UN Charter as weakening the Indian stand that all issues between Pakistan and India should be resolved bilaterally as it may give an opening to Pakistan to bring in the old UN resolutions on Jammu and Kashmir and to involve the third parties in the negotiations.

Yashwant Sinha's argument is, however, untenable. It may be recalled that the Lahore Declaration signed on the conclusion of the former Indian Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee's visit to Pakistan, in February 1999, also contained an identical formulation.

Moreover, the Shimla Agreement does not, in any way, preclude or circumscribe the resort to the United Nations for the settlement of the Kashmir dispute to the United Nations in 1948. If it was inevitable to do so. It is also important to note that India itself had brought the Kashmir dispute to the United Nations in 1948.

It may also be instructive to know that the UN resolutions are not the only legal foundation for a settlement of the Kashmir problem. As a matter of fact, the UN Charter, which defines the right of self-determination as a fundamental right of the human beings, provides the basis for the resolution of this dispute.

Yashwant Sinha also objected to Pakistan foreign secretary's interaction with some Kashmiri leaders during his recent visit to New Delhi and termed it as the most disconcerting development.

He blamed the United Progressive Alliance government in India of allowing the visiting Pakistan delegation to have access to the Kashmiri leaders. It may, however, be mentioned that the people of Kashmir, who are the arbiter of their destiny, have made it unmistakably clear that their wishes about Kashmir's future political dispensation must be ascertained either directly from them or through their legitimate representatives.

Both Pakistan and India must jointly tread the path of peace to make progress towards a modus vivendi. The only way forward is the dialogue to seek a political resolution of their bilateral problems in an equitable manner.

A dedicated diplomatic process, on a sustained basis, would certainly help in ensuring a lasting peace between them and to work out their differences on all outstanding issues including Kashmir.

The writer is a former ambassador.

Does Pakistan need the ECO?

Together with Iran and Turkey, Pakistan has been a founder member of the Economic Cooperation Organization (ECO) since 1985 when it was established as a successor organization of the Regional Cooperation for Development.

In 1992, the membership of the organization increased to ten when Afghanistan, Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan joined it. Thus, currently the ECO encompasses a total population of over 350 million and an area of about seven million square kilometres.

The Treaty of Izmir which is the basic charter of the ECO lays down the following objectives of the ECO.

* Sustainable economic development of the Member states and raising the standard of living and the quality of life of its peoples;

* Promotion of regional cooperation in economic, social, cultural, technical and scientific fields;

* Progressive removal of trade barriers and expansion of intra-regional trade;

* Development of transport and communications infrastructure in the member states;

* Development of the agricultural and industrial potentials as well as the human and natural resources, particularly the energy resources of the region;

* Economic liberalization and privatization.

The ECO has a vast potential for the expansion of regional economic cooperation as it is based on the solid foundation of cultural affinities, economic complementarities, geographical proximity and absence of serious disputes among its members.

The ECO region is also endowed with enormous human and natural resources awaiting development. Regional economic cooperation can supplement the efforts at national levels for rapid economic growth.

The route to faster economic growth and increased productivity, however, lies through free trade among its member states leading to better allocation of resources according to the principle of comparative advantage and to economies of large-scale production.

A recent study undertaken by the ECO secretariat suggests that all the member states, including Pakistan, would gain substantially in the form of increased intra-regional trade and higher productivity through free trade among themselves.

If one looks at the past history of the ECO region one is struck by the historical and cultural bonds which link its constituent states. The peoples of the region derive inspiration from the same cultural heritage.

The names of Saadi, Haafiz, Rumi, Attar, Omar Khayam, Bu Ali Sina, Razi, Ghazali, Al-Farabi, Al-Bayruni, Al-Khwarazmi and Nasir ai-Din Tusi, just to quote a few, should be familiar to anybody in the ECO region having a passing knowledge of the region's history.

Fortunately, the ECO member states also have the advantage of economic complementarities to initiate and expand regional economic cooperation. Just to give a few examples, while some of them like Azerbaijan, Iran, Kazakhstan and Turkmenistan are oil/gas-producing and exporting countries, others like Pakistan and Turkey are oil/gas importers.

Similarly, while Kazakhstan and Pakistan are exporters of agricultural products like wheat or rice, others like Iran are importers of these commodities. Some of the ECO members are rich in mineral deposits of different types while others are regular importers of those minerals.

The geographical proximity and the absence of serious disputes like the Kashmir dispute between Pakistan and India should act as catalytic factors in facilitating regional cooperation among the ECO members.

The experience of the European Union clearly shows the advantage of cultural affinities if the objective is to move towards economic integration among the constituent states through the elimination of trade barriers, the expansion of regional cooperation in various economic fields and the harmonization of economic and monetary policies.

As the process of regional economic cooperation proceeds apace, it increasingly impinges on political, social and cultural fields. Serious cultural differences and different world-views among the member states of a regional economic grouping would either arrest the process of expansion of regional economic cooperation and integration beyond a certain stage or the smaller member states have to conform to the political, social and cultural norms of the dominant members.

The experience of Saarc, despite the current euphoria, should bring home to Pakistan its limitations as an organization for regional economic cooperation and integration because of the vast divergence between the cultures and the world-views of India and Pakistan, the divisive effects of the Kashmir dispute and the perceived hegemonic designs of India in the region.

This is not an argument to write off Saarc but merely to point out its limitations. The talk of an economic or monetary union between Pakistan and India within the framework of Saarc is not only premature but also totally uncalled for because the idea presupposes cultural homogeneity, similarity of world-views and the absence of serious disputes among its members - conditions which are conspicuous by their absence in the Saarc region. Such a union would in fact negate the very rationale of Pakistan.

Admittedly, the ECO has so far failed to realize its full potential since its expansion in 1992. The conflict in Afghanistan during most of the intervening period was a major obstacle blocking the progress towards regional economic cooperation.

There was also some inevitable delay because of the time needed to lay down the institutional framework required for achieving the objectives of cooperation. The past differences between the centrally planned economies of the Central Asian Republics and those of the founder member states also slowed down the process of regional economic cooperation.

The inexperience of the member states and their bureaucracies in undertaking regional economic cooperation and their lack of comprehension of the rationale of the ECO were other factors holding up the progress of the organization.

Finally, the member states generally did not give the required attention and political support to the grouping while complaining about its ineffectiveness. More recently things have started moving in the right direction.

In July last year, the ECO trade agreement(ECOTA), which aims at lowering the maximum tariffs within the region to 15 per cent over a period of eight years, was signed by the ECO Trade Ministers in Islamabad.

The transit transport framework agreement which would facilitate transportation in the region is likely to come into operation in the near future. Efforts to harmonize the custom regulations and the economic policies of the member states are in hand.

Besides, over the past few years the ECO has started the practice of holding periodically ministerial meetings relating to such sectors as trade, energy, transportation, agriculture, environment, etc.

These would provide a fresh impetus and necessary technical input to programmes of regional cooperation in various economic sectors. Finally, the situation in Afghanistan, hopefully, would improve opening up fresh possibilities of region cooperation.

Last year, the ECO council of foreign ministers (COM) established an Eminent Persons Group (EPG) to submit recommendations for improving the efficiency and effectiveness of the organization.

The EPG in its report finalized in May, 2004, has made a comprehensive set of recommendations for the consideration of the COM at its next meeting to be held in Dushanbe in September this year.

Among other things, it has recommended the adoption of an ECO vision statement for 2015, the total dismantling of tariff and non-tariff trade barriers among the ECO member states by 2015 to increase the level of intra-regional trade from six per cent to 20 per cent, increased frequency of the summit and COM meetings, greater attention to the priority sectors of trade, transport and energy, the completion of the missing road and railway links within the ECO region and the reorganization of the ECO secretariat to make it efficient and dynamic. Hopefully, the EPG report would receive the due consideration of its members.

There is an undeniable international trend towards the formation of regional grouping in the interest of faster economic growth and increased productivity through free trade and close cooperation among the member states.

Pakistan as a medium-size country cannot afford to ignore this trend if it wishes to compete effectively at the international level and reap the benefits of regional economic cooperation.

However, it must make a careful choice of the regional economic organization which should fulfil the necessary conditions of cultural affinities, economic complementarities, absence of serious disputes and geographical proximity for the purposes of regional economic cooperation and integration.

For Pakistan, the ECO, which meets these criteria, should be the obvious choice. Indeed, Pakistan must pay greater attention to the ECO than what it has done over the past few years.

To start with, the Foreign Office must strengthen the wing which deals with the ECO. So must also other ministries dealing with the ECO, particularly the Planning Division which services the Regional Planning Council, the highest planning organ of the ECO.

This is necessary to overcome the ad hocism which prevails in our handling of the ECO affairs and to develop a long-term vision of the organization and of our role in it.

The ministry of science and technology must take immediate steps for the establishment of the ECO science foundation which has been inordinately delayed. We must also offer to hold the next ECO summit in Pakistan after the Dushanbe summit in September 2004. The last summit hosted by Pakistan was in 1995.

The writer is a former ambassador.