Implications of APHC leaders’ visit

THE two-week long visit of the All Parties Hurriyat Conference (APHC) Delegation to Azad Kashmir and Pakistan is undoubtedly a landmark in the historical evolution of this core dispute between India and Pakistan. For the first time, representatives of the organization representing some 23 movements and groups of Kashmiris in India-held Kashmir were able to come across the Line of Control at Chakothi, travelling by the bus service initiated a few weeks ago.

Though the Indian government sought initially to limit their visit to Azad Jammu and Kashmir, but by permitting meetings with Pakistani leaders in Islamabad, their visit to major cities of Pakistan, and interaction with Pakistanis in all walks of life could not but be a hugely useful learning experience for both sides.

Has the visit contributed to the dialogue process, by underlining the importance of associating the people of Kashmir with it? How will this role be ensured, when India has been engaged in the farce of elections to a state assembly, within the framework of the Indian constitution? So far, India has concentrated on CBMs, and shown readiness to move forward on issues other than Kashmir, though real progress has been slow. President Musharraf values highly his personal equation with Prime Minister Manmohan Singh. However, the latter has displayed, especially during his visit to Siachen, an uncompromising approach, while playing to the gallery by voicing his wish to turn it into a “mountain of peace.”

Leaders of the APHC left us with some sobering thoughts on Kashmir. They also learnt much from their contacts, perhaps the most reassuring being that all sections of Pakistan’s population, ranging from government leaders to opposition parties, and from the business and industrial elite to the man in the street were united in backing the struggle of the Kashmiris for self-determination.

They also came face to face with the reality that whereas Pakistani leadership and public opinion were ready to show flexibility to facilitate a solution that was acceptable to the Kashmiris, it was India that was insisting on a solution that did not involve any map changes. Indeed, India had not matched its keenness to promote detente by any reduction in the level of repression inside occupied Kashmir.

The APHC remains supportive of the dialogue process, and welcomes the various CBMs initiated, including the bus service across the Line of Control, which they utilized. However, its leaders insisted that the excessive concentration of armed forces inside Kashmir to root out the freedom struggle of the Kashmiris through brutal repression, by equating it with terrorism, did not reflect genuine sincerity on the part of India.

The country which claimed to be the world’s largest democracy was practising double standards in Kashmir, where it had been holding sham elections to establish puppet governments. The APHC is convinced that

if the dialogue process is to remain on track, India must eliminate repression, and massive human rights violations inside Kashmir.

Another aspect of the Kashmir dispute that has received emphasis from this visit is the centrality of the role of the people of Kashmir. So far, negotiations following each period of conflict and confrontation have been conducted at the state to state level between India and Pakistan.

The hapless people of the state were not allowed to participate in the parleys that produced agreements like the Tashkent Declaration of 1966, following the war of 1965, and the Shimla Agreement of 1972 that followed the 1971 war.

The indigenous movement that broke out in Kashmir in 1989 brought to an end a period of relative calm inside the occupied territory. With India showing little sign of heeding the popular opposition to Indian occupation, the “year of democracy”, 1989, which saw the breakdown of the Berlin Wall, witnessed the rank and file of the people of Kashmir rise up against India’s forcible occupation of the state.

India not only relied on ruthless repression, it also sought to characterize the resort to militancy as “terrorism”, which was inspired and supported from outside, allegedly by Pakistan. Following the end of the cold war in 1989, many analysts in the West had recognized the rise of fundamentalist Islam as the successor threat to communism. Instead of taking note of the failure to address the crises in Palestine and Kashmir caused by the denial of rights safeguarded in UN resolution going back nearly 40 years, repressive regimes in Israel and India justified resort to “state terrorism” by categorizing freedom fighters as terrorists.

The APHC has been recognized as the umbrella organization that comprises over 20 groups in Jammu and Kashmir who launched the freedom struggle. Its goal is freedom from Indian occupation, which they claim is illegal, and based on brute force.

One of the founders, religious head Mirwaiz Farooq was killed but his young son, Mirwaiz Umar Farooq, has carried on the struggle, joined by many eminent Kashmiris who have undergone arrest, incarceration and harsh treatment while in custody.

Inside Indian-held Kashmir, the APHC is the authentic voice of the people of Kashmir. The visit of their leaders has served to underline the role of the people of Kashmir in resolving this dispute, though the language of the UN resolutions suggests that they have to choose between Pakistan and India through an impartial plebiscite to be held under UN auspices.

Pakistan’s position on the Kashmir dispute basically rests on the UN resolutions. Recalling that it was India that took the dispute to the UN at the start of 1948, and accepted the resolutions of August 13, 1948, and January 5, 1949, the ideal resolution of the dispute would be by implementing those resolutions. However, basing itself on the accession of the Maharaja to India on October 27, 1947 (which it rejected on Junagarh), India treats the state as an integral part of its territory. The most it has been prepared to do since 1963, when detailed negotiations were held following the Sino-Indian conflict of 1962, is to accept the de facto division of the state along the cease-fire line (renamed Line of Control in 1972, under the Shimla Agreement).

The visit of the APHC delegation has served mainly to highlight the role of the people of Kashmir, whose wishes need to be taken into account to achieve a just and durable solution of the dispute.

The resumption of the dialogue process since January 2004 has been accompanied by statements by both sides that they intend to take up all the issues, including Jammu and Kashmir, that are included in the agenda. The goal is to facilitate the establishment of friendly and good-neighbourly relations, that are essential if the priority objectives of poverty alleviation, and modernization are to be achieved in a region containing two thirds of the poorest people on earth.

The second stage of the dialogue process is due to be completed by September when foreign secretaries, and later, the foreign ministers, would carry out a review of the process. It is expected that President Musharraf and Prime Minister Manmohan Singh would meet in September in New York, when both proceed there for the UN General Assembly.

During the recent visit of Foreign Minister Kasuri to Washington, President Bush had sounded a note of satisfaction over the progress achieved by Pakistan and India in their dialogue, and contrasted it with the halting progress in the comparable process in Palestine. The US has no doubt used its considerable leverage behind the scenes to encourage forward movement in South Asia, but its role has been that of a facilitator which is basically supportive of the status quo in Kashmir.

With Pakistan insisting, and the APHC sharing the stand that a solution based on legitimizing the LoC would not be acceptable, the prospects of any significant breakthrough on Kashmir do not look bright. India has not even extended the scope of CBMs to cutting down on human rights violations in held Kashmir, nor has it carried out any meaningful reduction in the number of armed men it has in the state.

Prime Minister Manmohan Singh adopted a stance, while visiting the Siachen glacier that insisted upon India’s forward movement in 1983 being recorded on the map, before demilitarization could be agreed on. Though he did talk about turning Siachen into a “mountain of peace”, the basic Indian stance of treating the state as an integral part of India stood highlighted.

The CBMs since January 2004 have greatly improved the atmosphere of relations between the two countries. However, while wanting the “peace process” to continue, India has adhered to its own priorities, and flexibility on major issues has been shown mostly by Pakistan.

The next three months, during which the current round of the composite dialogue will be concluded, will further clarify whether any real progress is being achieved on issues that matter. Hopefully the leaders, when they meet in New York in September, will have to give a fillip to real peace-making.

First egalitarian creed

ISLAM, unlike some superstitious religions, introduced egalitarian creeds focussing on the uplift of society by ameliorating the lot of the slaves, the orphans and the poor as a first step to the ennoblement of human life.

God’s worship (Salat) for reward in after-life was emphasized in tandem with spending for noble causes (Zakat) to alleviate poverty and mitigate economic distress faced by the marginalized sections of society where traditions of authority and hierarchy under a tribal system prevailed and no thought was given to emancipating the down-trodden.

The very first chapter of the Holy Quran Surah Al-Baqra which follows the short, seven-verse “opening” Surah — enumerates the categories of those pious persons who can receive guidance from the Book and includes those “who spend from what has been bestowed upon them.”

To spend does not mean only paying the obligatory Zakat, as has generally been interpreted by most of the exegessists (mufassirin). Just as the verse in question does not specify the term ‘what has been bestowed upon them’ — agricultural land, urban property, jewellery, or cash — likewise the Ayat does not particularize how and how much out of the belongings of a person have to be spent on ‘Khair’, or good causes.

It is in chapter 70 that the Quran depicts the fate of those who, in their life-time, sat on piles of wealth but did not spend it for their own benefit or for the good of society contrasting them with others who were not only mindful of prayers but also of spending their money for charitable purposes. It says that those who deserve a place in hell will be the ones “who hoarded wealth and withheld it” unlike their generous counterparts who will dwell in ‘honoured gardens’ as they were not only constant in their worship but also realized that in their wealth there was an ‘acknowledged right for the beggar and the destitute’ (Ayat 15- 25).

The Quran exhorts the believers, repeatedly, to spend (Anfaque) and give (Eeta): “Spend out of what has been provided to you before death comes to you” (63:11). Spend not for ostentatious consumerism or for flaunting wealth, as no sane person will give such an advice, let alone a religious scripture. Spending has been defined in the Quran as the opposite of hoarding. One of the worst persons in the sight of Allah is that “who has amassed wealth and arranged it, (after counting the coins and currency notes) thinking that his wealth will render him immortal” (104:2-3).

Such are the persons “who do not respect the orphan, nor urge on the feeding of the poor, devour heritages with devouring greed and love money with abounding love” (89:17-20). Another pen- picture of the hoarder who is loath to spend money or even give some one articles of paltry worth: “Although he wants to be seen praying yet he refuses even small kindnesses” (almaoon).

Nothing has been left to imagination. So complete is the description of those who give and spend that if one were to make a list of the relevant verses of the Quran on this subject, the effort will result in compilation of a book containing explanatory notes and contextual information regarding each revelation. That book will begin with a categorical declaration of the Almighty: “you will not attain unto piety until you spend out of that which you love and covet most” (3:92).

Who are such persons who take heed of this Divine statement and do all in their power to be counted as pious men and women, not by the multitude of men and women on earth, but by the almighty himself? They are the ones “who spend in ease and in diversity” (3.134). That is, not only when they have plenty of money to spare for charity (although it is commendable indeed) but also when they are in financial straits and find it difficult to meet their own and their family’s dire needs. The reward from the Lord is beyond imagination.

Then comes another description of such generosity: “They spend secretly and openly” (13:22). No harm in making public your donations to charitable or poverty-alleviation projects. That might induce others to donate generously. But even generosity should follow the age-old principle of ‘golden mean’, its modern version may be ‘enlightened moderation’. The Divine endorsement of this principle comes in these words:” When they spend, they are neither prodigal nor grudging but take a firm position between the two extremes” (25:67). This is, obviously, to check excess and disproportion, in this case too as in all cases, to bring about harmony between extremes of stinginess and prodigality.

The Quran asks the reader to imagine that he, or she, is standing in a valley (Aqaba) or a gorge in a mountainous terrain and to get out of it and climb up to the summit is a forbidding task. The suggested course to “ascend is to free a slave, to feed the hungry — maybe an orphan or near of kin or some poor wretch in misery” (90:12 16).

Those who heard these inspired verses from the Holy Prophet (Peace be upon him) developed a soft corner for the slaves particularly and the poor folk generally. His close and respected companion, Hazrat Abu Zar Ghaffari, was so moved by these verses that he inclined towards Islam’s ‘socialistic’ programme and led an austere life and shunned the sight of affluence and ostentation displayed by the privileged minority contrasted with poverty and penury of the majority.

He retired into the privacy of his modest home. When he went to Syria after its conquest in Caliph Umar’s time, he could not stay there because he could not reconcile his understanding of Islam with the luxurious life in Roman fashion. Not that he was alone to feel that way. The reigning Caliph himself is reported to have uttered the famous words that he as a ruler would be accountable to Allah if even a stray dog died of hunger on the bank of a Mesopotamian river.

Even those who did not hear the Quranic verses from the holy Prophet himself but have read the inspired text in the printed copies of the Holy Book are moved like the revered Companions of the Prophet. Maulana Hasrat Mohani is one such person of our times — a devout Muslim, praying and fasting and leading an austere life.

A word of caution here. Socialism should not be confused with atheistic Marxism, which Allama Iqbal called, derisively, as ‘musawaat-i-shikam’ or equality of stomachs in Javed Nama. The fact is that in today’s environment, no one will tolerate compulsory, regimented equality. The collapse of

the Soviet system is the proof, if a proof is needed.

It may be appropriate to quote Plato’s remarkably valid remark appearing in his seminal work, The Republic, that “every form of government tends to perish by an excess of its basic principle.” So, let us alleviate poverty in our country through citizens’ combined effort, as the Quran visualises — every moneyed person contributing money, muscle and mind “to ascend the summit.” It need not be left to the government alone.

Flight from reality

IT is Europe’s bad luck that with the collapse of its new constitution it is also having to cope with a shock US decision to break off bilateral negotiations over the subsidies the Airbus receives.

The World Trade Organisation will now have to adjudicate. The subsidy battle between Airbus and Boeing could be the most expensive case ever to come before the WTO. It could also create acrimony and sour relations between the EU and the US when they should be cooperating closely to bring a speedy end to the much-delayed Doha round of trade negotiations, which could give a big boost to developing countries.

The core of the dispute is not so much past launch aid that the Airbus has received which has helped it win a bigger global market share than Boeing, but fresh aid — believed to be upwards of $1bn — that is due to be announced for the new planned European jet, the A350.

The EU is reported to have offered to cut future launch aid by a third; but this is not enough for the US, which wants it eliminated entirely. That is an absurd demand to make, since everyone knows that Boeing — believed to be the driving force behind the US’s tough stance — is also riddled with subsidies, albeit of a different kind (tax breaks from Washington state and indirect ones from government research projects).

Boeing would never have been the success that it is today without such subsidies. Nor would the Airbus — a highly successful European project. It would never have been built, which would have left aircraft manufacture as a US monopoly, with all that that would imply for prices.

Europe fears that the real agenda is a concerted attempt by Boeing to abort the launch of the A350. It believes that strong US political pressure was behind a recent switch of an Indian order from Airbus to Boeing.

It also claims that the Japanese government is giving launch aid for the construction in Japan of the wings of Boeing’s new “Dreamliner” plane. Launch aid may not be an ideal way of financing a project in an increasingly liberalised world, but for Europe it has worked. Governments offer money up front and get paid back if planes reach a target level of sales (which in many cases has proved profitable).

In the current context of claim and counter-claim, it could be argued that the WTO is the best body to adjudicate. But the procedures will run on for years and then be subject to appeals, with scant chance of either side accepting a judgment that might involve running down its aircraft industry.

— The Guardian, London

Another Vietnam in the making?

ON June 21, network news reported that the Pentagon had claimed that 47 enemy operatives had been killed in Operation Spear in western Iraq. Last month, the Pentagon declared 125 had been killed in Operation Matador, near the Syrian border. “We don’t do body counts on other people,” Donald Rumsfeld, the secretary of defence, stated in November 2003.

On January 29 this year, the day before the Iraqi election, President Bush announced that it was the “turning point”. On May 2, 2003, he stood on the deck of the USS Abraham Lincoln behind a banner saying “Mission Accomplished” and the next day proclaimed that the “mission is completed”. On June 2 this year, he declared: “Our mission is clear there, as well, and that is to train the Iraqis so they can do the fighting.”

Last week, Bush retreated to his ultimate justification, that Iraq was invaded because Saddam Hussein was involved with the terrorists behind the September 11 attacks, a notion believed by a majority of those who voted for him in 2004: “We went to war because we were attacked...”

On March 16, 2003, Dick Cheney, the vice-president, prophesied: “We will, in fact, be greeted as liberators ... I think it will go relatively quickly.” Only last month Cheney assured us that the insurgency in Iraq is in “the last throes”. On June 18, General William Webster, the US commander in Baghdad, said: “Certainly saying anything about ‘breaking the back’ or ‘about to reach the end of the line’ or those kinds of things do not apply to the insurgency at this point.”

The war has reached a tipping point — not in Iraq, but in the US. Every announcement of a “turning point” heightens the rising tide of public disillusionment. Every reference to September 11 strains the administration’s credibility. Every revelation of how “the intelligence and facts were being fixed around the policy” for war, as in the Downing Street memo, shatters even Republicans’ previously implacable faith.

On June 21, a Gallup poll reported that Bush’s approval rating was collapsing along with support for the war. Only 39 per cent of Americans support it. “The decline in support for the war is found among Republicans and independents, with little change among Democrats.” (Since March, Republican support has fallen 11 points to 70 per cent).

“They’re starting to talk numbers again,” Pat Lang remarked to me about the return of body counts. Lang is the former chief at the Defence Intelligence Agency for the Middle East, South Asia and counter-terrorism. “They were determined not to do that. But they can’t provide a measurement to tell themselves they’re doing well. As you know, it means nothing.”

Lang, who served as an intelligence officer in Vietnam, observes: “For almost all of the war, Vietnam was a better situation than Iraq. During the conduct of the war the security situation was far better than this.” The Iraqi elections are “irrelevant to the outcome of the war because the people who voted were the people who stood to gain”.

Iran is the long-term winner. “Iran intends to pull the Shia state of Iraq into its orbit. You can be sure that Iranian revolutionary guards are honeycombed throughout Iraq’s intelligence to make sure things don’t get out of hand.” About the “euphoria” after the election, especially echoed by the press corps, Lang simply says: “Laughable, comical, pathetic.”

Bush’s Iraq syndrome is a reinvention of Lyndon Johnson’s Vietnam syndrome. In December 1967, Walt Rostow, LBJ’s national security adviser, famously declared about the Vietcong and the North Vietnamese: “Their casualties are going up at a rate they cannot sustain ... I see light at the end of the tunnel.” The official invitation to the New Year’s Eve party at the US embassy in Saigon read: “Come see the light at the end of the tunnel.” The Tet offensive struck a month later.

“Even when what happened was really more positive than it seemed to be — the Tet offensive in 1968 was a military disaster for the Vietcong and North Vietnamese army — no one believed it because there was no light at the end of tunnel,” Harry McPherson, who was President Johnson’s counsel in the White House, told me. For a modern instance, McPherson cited the statement this week by Chuck Hagel, a Republican senator from Nebraska: “The White House is completely disconnected from reality. It’s like they’re just making it up as they go along. The reality is that we’re losing in Iraq.”

Bush’s light-at-the-end-of-the-tunnel vision can only accelerate the cycle of disillusionment. His instinctive triumphalism inevitably has a counter-productive effect. His refusal to insist on responsibility for blunders — indeed, rewarding and honouring their perpetrators — enshrines impunity and hubris.

His doctrine of presidential infallibility, the election being his only “moment of accountability”, can no longer be sustained by reference to September 11. His defence of the abuse and torture of detainees at Guantanamo and other prisons in violation of laws formerly upheld by the US blots out his attempts to explain the purity of his motives.

In The Quiet American, Graham Greene’s 1955 novel on the wages of naive arrogance in Vietnam, the world-weary British journalist Fowler remarks to Pyle, the US agent, with the best of intentions: “Oh, I know your motives are good, they always are ... I wish sometimes you had a few bad motives, you might understand a little more about human beings. And that applies to your country too, Pyle.”

— Dawn/Guardian Service

Changing the image

GUANTANAMO Bay is getting a lot of attention lately. Some of it isn’t necessarily good. The Bush administration is now in high gear trying to change the public perception of the prison.

Several public relations firms are after the account. Lockstep, Chains, Dungeon & Bones are in a meeting trying to come up with a presentation to give to the Pentagon.

Lockstep says, “I think I’ve got a slogan. ‘Guantanamo. What happens here stays here.”’

“I like it,” Chains says. “If it works for Las Vegas, it can work for Gitmo. We have to change the public’s perception that it’s only a place where they torture people to find out what they know.”

“Why doesn’t the Pentagon open a PX where the prisoners can buy magazines, candy and snacks, develop film, and rent DVD movies?” Bones suggests.

“And also a gift shop where the inmates can buy Gitmo T-shirts, souvenir plates with the vice president’s picture on them, coffee mugs, and silver salt and pepper shakers.”

“We could promise to put out a press release regarding food. Duncan Hunter, the Republican congressman from California, said it’s a myth that inmates are mistreated. He said they eat orange-glazed chicken with two kinds of vegetables and two kinds of fruit — better food than they had when they were home. Why don’t we suggest the Pentagon instal a chef with a five-star rating to cook for them?” Chains suggests.

And Bones adds, “But they will only be served a gourmet meal if they talk. If they refuse to, they will be given a menu of rice, beans and a cheap red wine.”

Lockstep says, “Obviously the question of torture will come up. How do we suggest they deal with that?”

Dungeon says, “We get Rumsfeld to announce they will no longer use torture, except in cases where the US can’t get information by civilized methods, such as allowing the prisoners to sleep for more than three hours a night.”

“Should we mention that they should abide by the Geneva Convention?” Bones asked.

“If we do we won’t get the account,” Chains says.

Dungeon agrees. “We want to give the impression that Gitmo is so squeaky clean that you could take your family there. It’s sunny, the beaches are covered with white sand, and the water is so blue a prisoner can snorkel and see thousands of fish.”

Bones says, “I almost want to go there myself.” Lockstep says, “You may have to if we get the account. We should put in our presentation that we’ll arrange all-expense-paid media tours to Guantanamo so reporters can see for themselves what a safe place it is.”

“Won’t that upset the Pentagon?” Dungeon asks.

“We’re not going to show them everything. We’ll have one part of the island set aside for the media, the International Red Cross and Amnesty International. We’ll prove Gitmo is not a gulag.”

Lockstep says, “The Defence Department has to buy our plan. We’ll tell them if they don’t, Congress will close the place down.”

“Rumsfeld would never let that happen.”

Bones says, “But he’s smart enough to know he has to change Gitmo’s image.”

“We’ll type up our plan, put it in a red folder marked ‘Top Secret’, and send it over by United Parcel.” —Dawn/Tribune Media Services