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From Autocracy to Anarchy? |
Satish Kumar
March 26, 2007
Pakistan will march from military autocracy to political anarchy if the democratic leadership of the country does not enter the fray before it is too late. It is unfortunate that the people of Pakistan have been denied the benefit of a sturdy political leadership which would not shy away from a sustained struggle, sacrifice and even incarceration in the cause of democracy. We are being told that the military government does not allow Benazir Bhutto and Nawaz Sharif to come home. But which dictatorship has allowed its opponents to come home. Gandhi and Nehru would have happily lived abroad if they so wanted, because the British government would have gladly given them the option.
The creation of Pakistan on the basis of religion was not a matter of choice but a political necessity. But it did not turn out to be much of a blessing because invoking a religious identity for political purposes tends to arouse the fiercest antagonistic sentiments among human beings. It was the realization of this truth that led Mohammad Ali Jinnah to suggest soon after the creation of Pakistan that religion should henceforth be abjured as a political tool. But this did not happen because Jinnah died too soon and the residual leadership did not have his vision. It fell prey to the temptation of using religious identity for the grossest and meanest gains in domestic politics as well as foreign policy.
When the military usurpers found that the religious sentiment had so gripped the imagination of the gullible and the faithful among the messes that they could be exploited in support of the military’s objectives at home and abroad, the military coopted the religious leadership in their designs. Evidence of this can be found during the Bangladesh crisis, the Bhutto downfall, the days of Zia’s glory and Musharraf’s obstinacy. The tactical alliance between the Military and the Mullahs gradually gave way to strategic partnership and power sharing. Contradictions between them came to the fore frequently. Political necessity, however, kept the alliance alive. But the most disastrous consequence of the phenomenon was the denial of political space to the democratic forces and a gradual abdication of responsibility by them.
The democratic movement in Pakistan was always weak. The restoration of democracy in 1988 was made possible by the accidental death of Zi-ul-Haq which was caused more likely by enemies within the establishment than by any revolutionary opponent. Two stints of the so-called democratic rule by Benazir Bhutto and Nawaz Sharif each were major exercises in power sharing by the military rather than any real transfer of power to the people. The military coup by Pervez Musharraf did not meet with any viable democratic resistance.
Why is the democratic movement in Pakistan so weak given the common background of freedom struggle in the sub-continent? The explanation normally given is the feudal power structure of Pakistan, which means the dominance of landed aristocracy and the prevalence of an authoritarian mindset among the political elite. But these are mid-twentieth century concepts and should have little relevance in an era which offers multitudinous new opportunities for income generation and gives massive international exposure to the people through mass media.
It must be noted that the people of Pakistan have always stood for democracy. The media have strongly espoused the cause of democracy. The intelligentsia seems convinced of the need for democracy. It is the leadership which seems to have failed them. More often than not, they have given reasons to believe that they keep looking for compromises with the military government of the day.
Pakistan’s democratic leadership should realize that the Military-Mullah alliance has taken the country on the road to disaster. The polity of the country is fractured. The society is disaggregated. The image of the country is tarnished. As regards the polity, the executive is nothing but a protector of the economic interests of the military as a class and their civilian cohorts. The legislatures are an embarrassment to those who occupy their seats in them, because of the ham-handed manner in which they are treated by the military rulers. The judiciary was buying its peace by endorsing the fiats of the military rulers until Chief Justice Iftikhar Chaudhary showed some signs of courage for independent judgment.
In Pakistani society, internal contradictions have tended to be sharpened in the last sixty years. It is amazing how a uni-religiuos society in a newly independent country proudly formed on the basis of religious solidarity should have allowed itself to be fragmented. The rise of sectarian violence has been coterminous with the dominance of religious extremism and its collusion with the military regimes in the last thirty years. Militancy in the name of jihad has not only made Pakistan, in the eyes of the West, the “epicentre” of international terrorism but also caused tremendous internal security problems within the country. Education system, whether in the fields of humanities, social sciences or science and technology, has lagged behind the contemporary world and its modernization will pose a major challenge to any enlightened leadership. Economic growth has pulled up in the last few years but more at the mercy of foreign doles than on the basis of a diversified and well-rooted domestic development.
A beautiful, robust and well endowed country like Pakistan, which has a highly significant strategic location and proud civilization, stands at the cross roads. History has proved time and again that a country can make progress only if its people make progress, and people can make progress only if they rule themselves.
Opportunities in history come rarely, and must be seized when they come. The suspension of Chief Justice Iftikahar Chaudhary is one such opportunity. It has ignited the much needed spark and aroused the dormant democratic consciousness of the people. Pakistan is fortunate that a section of its media has been espousing the cause of democracy and will continue to do so fearlessly. Pakistan also has an infrastructure of democracy in the sense that at least two of its mainstream political parties, i.e. the People’s Party and the Muslim League, are cadre leased.
The cadres of these parties must demand of their leaders that they must act. If old leaders refuse to act, or do not have the stamina, new leaders should be born. The nation should be prepared for a few thousand imprisonments and a few hundred deaths, for that is the price of liberty. But the people of Pakistan should carry forward the struggle for democracy. Faiz Ahmad Faiz, the most respected poet of Pakistan in one of his poems said, “we will all be witness to an era when thrones will be toppled and crowns will be smashed.” Let the people of Pakistan wake up to the call.
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Satish Kumar
May 25, 2006
Balochistan insurgency has been raging for the last two years giving rise to speculation that another East Pakistan like situation may be in the offing. Accusations have been made against the US and India for being involved in engineering the Balochi nationalist violence. The geopolitical landscape of the region has undergone momentous changes since 9/11. It is important to examine the strategic significance of the developments in Balochistan.
This province occupies 44% of the territory of Pakistan but is home to barely 5% of its people. A relatively backward region in terms of economic infrastructure, education, health, and employment, it has been a discontented and rebellious province ever since day one of Pakistan's creation. Its 800 km long coastline on the Arabian Sea, 1,173 km long border with Iran and 837 km long border with Afghanistan place it on the crossroads of Central Asia, Southwest Asia and South Asia. Its strategic location has been attracting the attention of big powers ever since the days of the British.
Balochistan under the British was divided into three parts: British Balochistan, independent states of Kalat, Kharan, Makran, and Lasbela, and the tribal areas. The British had a paramountcy relationship with the states, and the state of Kalat, being the most dominant, exercised a notional suzerainty over other states, as also overlordship over the tribal areas. Khan of Kalat claimed an independent status equivalent to that of Nepal. At a roundtable conference in Delhi on 4 August 1947, attended by Mountbatten, Jinnah, Khan of Kalat, his chief minister and his legal advisor, it was decided that Kalat would be given independence on 15 August.
When the Khan declared independence, Pakistan rejected it and invaded Kalat, subjugating its forces by 27 March 1948. Balochistan was put under control of the Governor-General without any elections until 1970. After the elections, a coalition government consisting of National Awami Party (NAP) and Jamiat-ul Ulema-i-Islam (JUI) was formed with Ataullah Khan Mengal as Chief Minister. In 1973, the Baloch government was dismissed by Zulfikar Ali Bhutto on the pretext that a cache of arms supplied by the Soviet Union had been discovered in the Iraqi embassy and this was linked to the secessionist designs of the Baloch government.
Military action was launched against Balochistan which continued until 1977. About 60,000 Baloch tribesmen fought against 80,000 men of the Pakistani army. The Shah of Iran came to the assistance of Pakistan with helicopter support in a bid to help save the integrity of Pakistan. Military operations were undertaken against Balochistan in 1958 and 1963 also.
The present unrest began in 2004 with high profile acts of violence like the murder of three Chinese engineers, attack on the Chief Minister's convoy and the attack on Sui Airport building. There were more than thirty bomb attacks in Quetta alone during 2004. Besides, there were 626 rocket attacks on the Sui gas fields and railway tracks in the province. There were 122 bomb explosions on the gas pipelines. For most of these, the Balochistan Liberation Army and the Balochistan Liberation Front claimed responsibility and said that these were meant to liberate Balochistan from Punjabi domination.
In January 2005, President Musharraf gave a warning to the Baloch rebels when there was large-scale violence in the wake of the rape of a lady doctor in the precincts of the Sui gas refinery. The President said, "Don't push us. This is not the 1970's. This time, they won't even know what has hit them." The President's words hit the Balochis hard. There was further anti-government violence in March and there was an alleged attempt by the security forces to kill the head of the Bugti tribe, Nawab Akbar Bugti. The simmering violence erupted again in October when a gas pipeline was blown up disrupting fuel supply to five districts, besides the capital, Quetta.
Baloch grievances range from under representation in the government and economic exploitation by the Punjabis to lack of autonomy and denial of due share in the new mega-infrastructural projects like the Gwadar port and the Karachi-Gwadar coastal highway. A parliamentary committee to redress the grievances of the Balochis was appointed in 2004. Its sub-committee headed by Mushahid Hussain, Chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations committee, submitted a report in May, recommending payment of gas royalty within a fixed period, and a financial package for the development of Sui, Gwadar, and Quetta, among other things. The report, even though accepted by Musharraf in November 2005, is yet to be implemented.
Large scale military action began in mid-December 2005 in the Marri-dominated area of Kohlu. Over 2000 troops of the Frontier Corps started action against tribesmen on the pretext that four rockets were fired on the convoy of President Musharraf exactly at a time when he was visiting the town for a few hours on 14 December. Different parts of Kohlu district were subjected to helicopter attacks and air strikes resulting in over 50 persons killed and 100 injured within two days. December 21 was observed as a Black Day in Balochistan in protest against military action. Zubeida Mustafa, a respected Pakistani columnist, wrote in the Dawn that the Kohlu incident was used merely as a pretext to launch major operations in Balochistan, for the army had started concentrating its forces in the province in November.
Media analysts have given two inter-related explanations for Pakistani government's military action in Balochistan. One is to pave the way for two gas pipelines which will pass through Kohlu and Dera Bugti areas, a $12 billion pipeline to connect Karachi with Sui Southern Gas Company's main transmission network, and a $4 billion 1700 miles Iran-Pakistan-India pipeline about 475 miles of which will pass through Balochistan. The other purpose is said to be to urbanize Balichistan by eliminating the tribals and settling in their place Punjabis, perhaps military personnel.
Since December 2005, confrontation between the insurgents and the security forces has spread to districts other than Dera Bugti and Kohlu, eg., Bolan, Mastung, Quetta, Nasirabad and Lasbela. Coalmines, transmission towers, gas pipelines, railway tracks, national highways, were the targets of tribal attacks. There seems to be no clear end to the confrontation despite repeated comparisons in the media with the 1971 East Pakistani situation.
The question that needs to be answered is why was Baloch insurgency revived in 2004 after its suppression in 1977. A lot had happened during the period to change the geopolitical landscape of the region. The anti-Soviet jihad from 1979 to 1989, the rise of the Taliban in the 1990s, and the overthrow of the Taliban by the US led forces in 2001, were significant events which directly impacted Balochistan. After their overthrow, the Taliban lay low for about two years. Their resurgence began in 2004 with the undeclared but well known support of Pakistani government agencies. Meanwhile, China started constructing the Gwadar deep sea port in March 2002. The first phase of this project was completed in May 2005.
Both these developments, the resurgence of the Taliban and the entry of the Chinese were matters of deep concern to the US. According to Mirza Aslam Beg, the former army chief of Pakistan, the US in connivance with India has hatched a conspiracy for the creation of an independent state out of Balochistan. There is a major espionage centre in the Panjsher Valley of Afghanistan which is actively engaged in this conspiracy. Some other Pakistani analysts also support this view.
Mushahid Hussain, the influential chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee and Secretary General of the ruling Muslim League (Q), in a recent interview openly accused India. According to him, the Indian embassy in Kabul and the four consulates, particularly those in Kandahar and Jalalabad, serve as launching pads for covert operations against Pakistan. He also said that about 600 "Ferraris" or Baloch tribal dissidents were getting specialized training in RAW training camps.
Such accusations are not easy to prove or disprove. The US has enough reasons to do what it is alleged to be doing. As regards India, its capabilities do not seem to justify the credit being given to it. Accusations against foreign powers are in any case being made in low key. What is transparent is that there are enough internal reasons to impel the Balochis to revolt. The demographic composition of Balochistan turned against them with massive inflow of Pashtuns during anti-Taliban operations. They needed time to organize for attack. The year 2004 was as good as any other.
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Global Threats and UN Reforms |
Satish Kumar
March 8, 2005
(A
critique of the Report of the High-Level Panel on Threats,
Challenges and Change
appointed by the UN Secretary–General)
The
UN Secretary General’s High-Level Panel report on global
threats released in the first week of December has attracted
maximum attention for the suggestions made in it for Security
Council reforms. But the report needs to be examined in the
wider context of marginalization of United Nations as
exemplified in the US invasion of Iraq in March 2003. Besides,
there are numerous issues other than inter-state armed
conflict which have a bearing on world peace. One needs to
question how far the High-Level Panel report has probed those
issues and what kind of recommendations it has made on them.
At the end of sixty years of United Nations’ existence, does
the report make a bold analysis of the nature of global
threats and suggest courageous remedies.
It
has been pointed out in the synopsis of the report that it is
as important today as it was in 1945 to combine power with
principle. Recommendations that ignore underlying power
realities will be doomed to failure. At the same time,
recommendations that simply reflect raw distribution of power
and ignore international principles are unlikely to gain
widespread adherence. Unfortunately, the report ends up bowing
more to raw distribution of power than to international
principles. While lots of pious hopes have been expressed and
holy recommendations made, there is little mandatory in the
report which would make a difference to the behaviour of those
who wield raw power.
Before
I come to an analysis of how raw power has been given primacy
over international principles, it is important to examine that
part of the report which deals with various threats under the
title: “Collective Security and the Challenge of
Prevention”. Referring to the threat of poverty, the report
points out that although the per capita income of developing
countries has increased at an average of 3 per cent since
1990, the number of people living in extreme poverty has
increased in some regions by 100 million. In at least 54
countries, average per capita income has declined over the
same period. The continent hardest hit by poverty is Africa.
In sub-Saharan Africa, average life expectancy has declined
from 50 to 46 since 1990. In most of sub-Saharan Africa, one
in 10 children dies before age five, as compared with less
than one in 100 in the developed world. Again in sub-Saharan
Africa, the number of people living on less than $1 a day has
increased since 1990.
The
problem of poverty should have been examined in the full
perspective of 60 years of UN history rather than the last 15
years. Poverty elimination was one of the major goals of the
entire North-South debate of the 1960s and 1990s. Any number
of commissions and reports has been devoted to it. Poverty in
Africa is the cause of many intra-state conflicts. Poverty in
the Muslim world is one of the causes of terrorism. And yet,
the steps to meet the challenge of poverty have been summed up
in a two-line sermon: “All states must recommit themselves
to the goals of eradicating poverty, …”, and “the donor
countries which currently fall short of the United Nations 0.7
per cent gross national product (GDP) target for ODA should
establish a timetable for reaching it”. There is nothing
revolutionary or mandatory about this approach. There is no
fresh thinking reflected in this recommendation.
Dealing
with conflicts between and within states, the report rightly
notes that even though the number of inter-state wars has
reduced over the last 60 years, the threat of such wars has
not vanished. It also points to the increased role of Security
Council after the Cold War. It, however, takes a very
lackadaisical view of the Security Council being ignored by
the United States when it invaded Iraq in 2003. “Super
powers, however, have rarely sought Security Council approval
for their actions”, says the report. “That all states
should seek Security Council authorization to use force is not
a time-honoured principle,” it continues. This amounts to
putting a veil of approval over the US act of disregarding the
Security Council. By providing a historical justification to
such an act, it tends to delegitimize the Security Council
further. The report, instead, should have tended to
re-legitimize the Security Council by deploring the US act.
Having
made light of the fact that the US disregarded the Security
Council, the report in Para 89 talks of preventing wars by
developing international regimes to govern the sources of
conflict. In this context, it speaks highly of the Rome
Statute which created the International Criminal Court and
says: “The Security Council should stand ready to use the
authority it has under the Rome Statute to refer cases to the
International Criminal Court.” But the report nowhere points
out that important states like the United states which have
maximum military presence all over the world and whose
personnel are therefore more prone to committing excesses
should not have opted out of the jurisdiction of the
International Criminal Court.
The
question of traffic in small arms and light weapons has been
referred to in the context of preventing conflicts but no
drastic solution has been suggested. It should be realized
that most insurgencies in the world are fuelled by small arms
which are a lucrative source of profit to producers and
traders of these weapons. These are highly usable weapons,
which can be curbed only by some drastic measures akin to the
Proliferation Security Initiative (PSI) in the nuclear field,
though of course such measures should be taken under the UN
auspices.
The
report makes a very useful suggestion with regard to enhancing
the Secretary General’s capacity for early warning in the
area of conflict prevention. It draws attention to the fact
that Secretary General’s access to local analysis of
conflict is very limited and makes a recommendation that
United Nations’ political, peacekeeping and humanitarian
departments should maintain greater interaction with outside
sources of information and local knowledge of conflicts. I
strongly feel that India’s research institutions and
non-governmental organizations should expand and deepen their
capabilities in this field to be of greater use to the United
Nations.
In
the section dealing with the threat of nuclear, radiological
and biological weapons, the report gives credit to the
Non-Proliferation Treaty for not allowing the number of
nuclear weapons states to increase to as many as anticipated.
It says that in 1963, when only four states had nuclear
arsenals, the US government predicted that the following
decade would see the emergence of 15 to 25 nuclear weapon
states; others predicted the numbers would be as high as 50.
As of 2004, only eight states were known to have nuclear
weapons. This was mainly because of the non-proliferation
regime embodied in the IAEA and the NPT.
This
argument completely ignores the widespread criticism of the
NPT as a discriminatory treaty. Besides, it overlooks the fact
that the treaty has been violated by nuclear weapon states
like China, and abandoned by non-nuclear weapon states like
North Korea in order to develop nuclear weapons. Other states
like Iraq and Iran have also been accused of violating the
treaty and along with North Korea have earned the wrath of the
United States by being dubbed as “an axis of evil”. From
the US point of view, therefore, it is not the number of
states that matter but the kind of states that have developed
nuclear weapons. A less unjust or unequal treaty could have
prevented that.
In
the field of disarmament too, the report falls short of
expectations. It merely exhorts to nuclear weapon states to
honour their commitment under Article VI of the NPT, and
reaffirm their previous commitments not to use nuclear weapons
against non-nuclear weapon states. It does not deplore the
fact that some major powers through their strategic doctrines
have tended to relegitimize nuclear weapons by finding new
uses for them.
While
dealing with the threat of terrorism, the report rightly
identifies Al-Qaeda as the first instance of an armed
non-State network with global reach and sophisticated
capacity. It also says that Al-Qaeda has singled out the
United Nations as a major obstacle to its goals and defined it
as one of its enemies. Al-Qaeda is thus the first non-State
threat to the established international order embodied in the
United Nations. But the report does not say enough with regard
to the ways of removing the causes of terrorism which have
been identified as various social, political and economic
deprivations, including poverty and unemployment. Besides,
there are religion-specific terrorist organizations like
Lashkar-i-Taiba and Jaish-e-Mohammad whose prime targets are
the Hindus, and then perhaps the Christians and Jews.
Counter-terrorism strategies need to be developed in a more
pervasive manner than those spelt out in the report.
In
part 3, the report dwells at length on collective security and
the use of force, which acquires significance in the context
of the invasion of Iraq by the US in March 2003. The report
makes a splendid case for taking military action through the
Security Council rather than unilaterally when the threat to
the security of the state is imminent. The argument is
clinched very effectively in paras 190 and 191 of the report
by saying that if there are good arguments for preventive
military action, with good evidence to support them, they
should be put to the Security Council. The risk to the global
order and the norm of non-intervention on which it is based
would be simply too great if we do not do so. Allowing one to
act unilaterally would be to allow all.
The
report has made another highly significant contribution to
international law by defining the criteria which must govern
any collective authorization of military action by the
Security Council. These five criteria are: (i) Seriousness of
threat; (ii) Proper purpose; (iii) Last resort; (iv)
Proportional means; (v) Balance of consequences. The report
justifiably recommends that those guidelines should be
embodied in declaratory resolutions of the Security Council
and the General Assembly. It also suggests that individual
member states, whether or not they are members of the Security
Council, should subscribe to these criteria while deciding to
take military action.
It
is not too often that the UN Secretary-General shows courage
to appoint a high-level panel to examine the causes which make
the global security system weak and to suggest ways to make it
stronger. But when he does, the members of the panel should
also show courage to make recommendations which have teeth and
which become a yardstick by which to measure great power
behaviour.
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Pakistan
As A Major Non-NATO Ally |
Satish Kumar
March 22, 2004
The
designation of Pakistan by the US as a “Major Non-NATO
Ally” (MNNA), announced by Secretary Collin Powell on March
18, was another disastrous step in the series of historic
mistakes committed by the US in recent times. It is immaterial
that Collin Powell did not share this information with his
Indian interlocutors a day earlier in Delhi. If it was a
breach of faith with a so-called “strategic partner” on an
issue of strategic concern to it, the US should have reasons
to feel guilty about it. A mature India can easily take it in
its stride. What is important is to examine its repercussions
on the security and stability of Pakistan.
The
least that one can say at this sage is that granting the MNNA
status to Pakistan will sharply accentuate the internal
polarization and contradictions in Pakistani politics. The
most dominant feature of Pakistani politics today is the
precarious balance between the Muttahida Majlis-e-Amal (MMA),
the chief opposition conglomerate of six Islamic parties, and
the government led by Mir Zafarullah Khan Jamali of PML (Q),
wherein real power lies with General Pervez Musharraf as
President and Army Chief. Although the government and the MMA
oppose each other in the parliament, they share power in the
country as a whole. The MMA rules the NWFP and is a coalition
partner in Baluchistan.
From
March to December 2003, the MMA immobilized the newly elected
National Assembly because of differences with Musharraf on his
proposed constitutional amendments called the Legal Framework
Order (LFO). A compromise of sorts was arrived at in December
on the basis of live and let live. Differences have cropped up
again over the content of the National Security Council Bill
which was introduced in the National Assembly last week. But
these differences are a very faint reflection of the deep
antagonism that exists between the government and the MMA on
the whole question of Pakistan’s relations with the United
States.
There
is no doubt that the MMA was brought into existence by the
Inter Services Intelligence (ISI) on the eve of October 2002
elections to keep the mainstream parties, the PPP and PML, out
of prospective power. But the MMA, whose constituents like
Jamiat-ul-Ulema-e-Islam (JUI) and Jamaat-e-Islami (JI) had
played the most important role in the rise and growth of the
Taliban, were the strongest critics of Musharraf when he did a
U-turn on his Afghanistan policy after 9/11, under pressure of
the United States. In fact, it was their anti-American agenda
which won them maximum votes in the NWFP and Baluchistan.
Maulana Fazlul Rehman, the Secretary General of MMA, during
his visit to India last July, pleaded for India-Pakistan
reconciliation mainly on the ground that this was necessary to
keep America out of the region.
Given
this background, it was natural that the MMA should have been
upset at the military operation launched on March 7 by the
Pakistan army, in coordination with the US and Afghan forces,
in South Waziristan to hunt the Al-Qaeda and Taliban
leadership. The operations were intensified on the eve of
Collin Powell’s visit to Islamabad on March 18, and have
yielded some result. But the news of the grant of ‘Major
Non-NATO Ally’ status to Pakistan is bound to increase
resentment among the MMA constituents, for the immediate quid
pro quo expected of Pakistan is a more effective military
action against the Taliban and Al-Qaeda.
Pakistani
establishment may be feeling gratified at receiving the MNNA
status for it has great symbolic as will as material value
vis-à-vis the United States. While symbolizing closeness with
America, it will entitle Pakistan to get the best available
defence material, training, assistance through defence export
loan guarantee, and priority of delivery for defence articles.
But, as in the past, this relationship is not going to be an
unmixed blessing.
As
of now, this status puts Pakistan at par with other MNNA
countries, viz., Argentina, Australia, Bahrain, Egypt, Japan,
Jordan, Republic of Korea, New Zealand, the Philippines, and
Thailand, all of which are America’s subsidiary allies. But
the strategic autonomy of each of these allies vis-à-vis the
US is determined by its relative military and economic
strength, and its value to the US on the one hand and
vulnerability on the other. At the present moment,
Pakistan’s military and economic capability is rather low.
While its value to the United States is great, so also is its
vulnerability because of Pakistan’s record of promoting
terrorism and nuclear proliferation.
Therefore,
Pakistan runs the risk of paying heavy cost for its newly
conferred honour of a ‘Major Non-NATO Ally’. Even since
9/11, the presence of US military and intelligence apparatus
in Pakistan has tended to increase on same pretext or the
other. Pakistan’s strategic assets, including nuclear and
missile installations, are already under close surveillance of
the United States. What remains to be ensured, apart from the
capture of Al-Qaeda and Taliban leadership, is that Pakistan
allows its territory and troops to be used for US strategic
goals in the region.
The
US is already being accused of an imperial overstretch.
Approximately 3,60,000 US troops were stationed around the
world as of February 2004, according to GlobalSecurity.org.
About 2,15,000 were deployed in combat, peacekeeping and
counter-terrorism operations, and an additional 1,45,000 in
Germany, Japan, Italy and England performing routine duties.
Despite 1,53,000 troops in Iraq and 11,000 troops in
Afghanistan, there is severe shortage of troops in both these
theatres. Other Non-NATO allies like Japan and South Korea
have not been able to resist the US pressure to send troops to
Iraq, even if for non-combat duties, despite domestic
opposition in both countries. The problem has become more
acute after Spain’s new leadership has threatened to pull
out its troops and Poland has started debating the pull out.
The
status of a Non-NATO ally is worse than being a NATO ally,
where one is bound by strategic decisions taken by NATO
Council rather than the US alone. It is also worse than being
a member of the former CENTO and SEATO where the enemy was
defined. In the new dispensation, Pakistan will be subjected
to a situation where, as a subsidiary ally, America’s
enemies will have to be regarded as Pakistan’s enemies, and
Pakistan’s assets and resources as America’s assets and
resources.
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Pakistan Deal Requires Cautious
Optimism |
Satish Kumar
January 8, 2004
The joint
statement issued by India and Pakistan in Islamabad on January
6, with Pakistan promising not to permit “any territory under
its control” to support terrorism and India promising to start
a “composite dialogue” in February, represents a triumph of
quiet diplomacy and mature statesmanship on both sides. This
is to be contrasted with flamboyant one-upmanship and coercive
saber-rattling which has been characteristic of their
behaviour in the past.
In
contemporary diplomacy, issuing an agreed statement has tended
to acquire the character of an end in itself. That is why the
failure to do so at Agra in July 2001 was rated as a
diplomatic disaster. But the significance of a joint statement
lies much beyond words. The commitments made in a joint
statement become benchmarks by which nations tend to judge
each other’s behaviour. Besides, a joint statement acquires a
semi-legal character, which a unilateral statement of the kind
made by Pervez Musharraf on January 12, 2002 (promising to end
terrorism) does not. A protracted non-adherence to a
commitment made in a joint statement can justifiably attract
international criticism.
It
has been noted by observers that the joint statement talks of
“commencing” rather than “resuming” the dialogue process in
February. This means that the framework for this dialogue can
be very new and different from the ones we are familiar with.
Bitten with the breakdown of the bureaucratic level composite
dialogue in 1998 and the failure of the summit level political
dialogue at Agra in 2001, the two governments would like to
devise a mechanism which should work. But the success of the
dialogue would not be contingent on the nature of the
mechanism alone, i.e. the composition and level of the
negotiating teams. It would much rather be contingent on the
pressures and compulsions which drive the two sides to an
agreement.
As of
now, the biggest single factor that seems to have moved the
two sides to agree to negotiate is the US pressure. The US has
never been short of leverage in Pakistan whenever its
interests so demanded. Pakistan has always played the role of
a client state, if not a satellite state. This was proved on
September 11, 2001.
Of
late, the US has had enough reasons to be concerned about
Pakistan, not only as a source of global terrorism but also as
a source of nuclear weapons proliferation. Besides, the last
six months have seen the gains of ‘Operation Enduring Freedom’
in Afghanistan being undone by the resurgent Taliban, with the
help of sections of the Pakistani establishment and extremist
groups in Baluchistan and NWFP. It became necessary for the US
to shed its reticence and put enough pressure on Musharraf to
make him see the benefits of a rapprochement with India. This
was the surest way of reducing the salience of religious
extremism in Pakistan. On the flip side, the US seems to have
promised Pakistan that its interests would be accommodated in
Afghanistan by giving a fair representation to the so-called
neo-Taliban in the power structure led by Hamid Karzai.
The
US pressure on India has been no less manifest than on
Pakistan. It was obvious during the troop deployment by India
on the Pakistan border from January to October 2002 that India
observed restraint under US pressure. It also seems clear that
Vajpayee’s peace initiative of 18 April 2003 was sustained
with strong US support. The US has high stakes in stabilizing
Indo-Pak relations not only because of rapidly developing
strategic ties with India but also because of a quite
promising economic relationship. Last five years have also
revealed that the Indian government was willing to give more
than a matching response. Nudging India towards a dialogue
with Pakistan would also serve the US objective of bailing out
its strategic ally Pervez Musharraf.
Next
to the US pressure, the factor that seems to have led Pakistan
to relent was it realization that terrorism was beginning to
do more damage to Pakistan than to others. Pervez Musharraf
said in a speech to editors some weeks ago that the greatest
threat to the country was from inside. That terrorism respects
no boundaries of law or status was proved by the two attacks
on Musharraf, the second one on December 25 being literally
“breath-taking”. The increasing exposure of links that
Pakistani jihadis have with Al-Qaeda have maligned Pakistan
all over the world. Rooting out terrorism from the Pakistani
soil, which has nurtured it for the last 25 years, would not
be easy. But there could not be a better occasion for
Musharraf to tell the world that he will make an earnest
effort.
The
third factor that that could possibly have contributed to the
thaw was some evidence obtained by India during quiet
exchanges between Brajesh Mishra and Tariq Aziz in the last
eight months that Pakistan was doing a rethink on Kashmir.
India got a glimpse of it when Musharraf said a few weeks ago
that Pakistan was willing to set aside the UN resolutions on
Kashmir. Pakistan has made some pro-forma noises against
India’s fencing of the Line of Control but in a low key.
Pakistan’s decision to allow a bus service between Muzafarabad
and Srinagar after initial reservations also points to a
willingness to allow the temperature to be lowered in the
valley pending a final solution of the J&K
issue.
Commencement of a serious dialogue with India was of
the utmost importance to Musharraf to gain legitimacy at home
and abroad. It would also help reduce the defence costs on the
eastern border of Pakistan in order to enable it to
concentrate better on the now volatile western border.
Besides, it would send a signal to the jihadis that their
strategic importance to Pakistan is now reduced. It would,
however, be unwise to hope that a dialogue starting in
February would bring in results any soon.
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