SACW | Sept 20-25, 2009 / Afghan Impasse / Rajani Vision for Sri Lanka / South Asia: Collective Economic Security / Pakistan India: Nuclear Hawks

[Harsh Kapoor]

South Asia Citizens Wire | September 20-25, 2009 | Dispatch No. 2654  
- Year 12 running
From: www.sacw.net

[ SACW Dispatches for 2009-2010 are dedicated to the memory of Dr.  
Sudarshan Punhani (1933-2009), husband of Professor Tamara Zakon and  
a comrade and friend of Daya Varma ]

____

[1]  The challenge in Afghanistan is to hold a serious and consistent  
political stance on the Taliban (Wazhma Frogh)
        + Don't need a weatherman…to know the wind’s blowing in the  
wrong direction (The Economist)
[2]  Sri Lanka: Mounting pressures call for changed approach (Jehan  
Perera)
       + Rajani Thiranagama’s Vision for Sri Lanka: A Tribute and  
Reflections (University Teachers for Human Rights - Jaffna)
[3]  Bangladesh: Catherine Makino interviews leading Bangladeshi  
human rights activist Sultana Kamal
[4]  Pakistan:  The Afghanistan Impasse (A review article by Ahmed  
Rashid)
       + Pakistan must curb wave of violence against minorities:  
Statement by Joint Action Committee for People’s Rights
[5]  South Asia: The economic dimension of national security  
(Madanjeet Singh)
[6]  India Administered Kashmir: Blind men's elephant (Kashmir Times)
[7]  Pakistan - India: Where hawks on both sides propagate that  
nuclear defence is the cheapest route to security
      + Sept 21: International Day of Peace Shahid Husain
      + India must turn away from the bomb (Randeep Ramesh)
[8]  Announcement:
- ‘Resistance and the Politics of Fear’ -Rajani Thiranagama Memorial  
Memorial Lecture by Nandita Haksar (Colombo, 25 September 2009)

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[1]

The Guardian, 22 September 2009

AFGHANS CAN'T TRUST ANYONE

The challenge in Afghanistan is to hold a serious and consistent  
political stance on the Taliban. Inconsistency is creating chaos

by Wazhma Frogh

Not a day passes without representatives of the international  
community trying to save Afghanistan without bothering to step out of  
their fully secured buildings to actually meet ordinary Afghans, the  
people they are supposed to help. Phrases like "success", "our war",  
"winning hearts and minds" are used to describe the current chaotic  
situation. But the international community has contributed to this  
situation as much as "Taliban insurgents".

The self-styled experts on Afghanistan write books without ever  
stepping out of the comforts of their segregated neighbourhood. They  
formulate foreign policy, draft proposals and carry out experiments  
as if Afghanistan were an experimental laboratory for international  
diplomacy. But the country's deteriorating situation is also their  
legacy and the legacy of world leaders who failed to understand  
Afghanistan.

Needless to say, the experiments are futile and bound to fail. Here  
is why. The experts don't understand the country because they are  
separated from its people through security walls, multiple guards and  
the fact that they only converse with their fellow, self-styled  
experts, but not with Afghans.

This analysis is based on real-life experience and the realities that  
I, an Afghan woman, have encountered on the ground for many years. We  
have a proverb that says, "We learn how to be courteous when we meet  
those who are rude and disrespectful." The easiest way to learn from  
mistakes is to reverse them, but the world is taking longer than  
needed to reverse its mistakes in Afghanistan.

Although the list of mistakes is long and continues to grow, let's  
start with the recent dilemma: the "AfPak" drama. The US government  
and its allies need to understand, and here I mean understand fully,  
that they are dealing with two different governments, two separate  
states and nations so different that they cannot be equated in a  
single mission. The differences are too pronounced to legitimise a  
one-size-fits-both solution.

This is not to speak of the fact that such an equation overrides the  
legitimacy and sovereignty of both nations, especially since  
sovereignty and legitimacy are critical to their survival at this  
point in history. It is true that the Taliban are a regional threat,  
but they need to be tackled through a cohesive but contextualised  
struggle by each country. The Taliban ruled Afghanistan for five  
years but it is an established fact that in part they were a  
Pakistani creation, organised and funded by the Pakistani army and  
government. But today, both governments are put on the same scale  
when it comes to fighting against the former "rulers" and "puppets".

For the Pakistani government the Taliban represent only a backlash  
against what used to be their own creation. But in Afghanistan, the  
Taliban are far more than a backlash. They are a serious threat to  
the people and the government. This threat might be somewhat curbed  
by drone attacks in the border areas, but as recent incidents reveal,  
the Taliban cannot be prevented from blowing themselves up right  
outside the headquarters in Kabul where the international troops are  
based.

Millions of dollars have been poured into this "AfPak mission",  
paying the salaries of self-styled experts who are hardly able to set  
foot outside the safety and comfort of their castles. Ironically, the  
Afghanistan mission has hardly any Afghans in it, at least not the  
kind of Afghans who have lived through the critical times in this  
country and hence, by virtue of their experience and knowledge, are  
capable of formulating strategies within a chance of success.

This is everyone else's war, not the Afghans' war. Any other country  
in the world claims that this is their conflict, but not Afghans.  
That's the heart of our misery. Afghans are being fought in their  
homes and expected not to lose their "hearts and minds". One of the  
reasons why the Taliban are making progress in Afghanistan is their  
ability to fight a successful propaganda war. But both local and  
international media outlets indirectly encourage the Taliban by  
publishing stories of Taliban success. For the Taliban, this is free,  
international publicity. Neither the international forces nor the  
Afghan government have come up with a media campaign to encourage the  
public to help them fight terrorism. In fact, neither the government  
nor the international community has ever held a clear stance  
regarding the Taliban. In 2001, Kabul was full of posters of Mullah  
Omar, the Taliban leader. He was wanted dead or alive and a bounty of  
$25m was placed on his head. Today, the same international community  
is calling Omar a "moderate" and is trying to persuade him to  
negotiate peace with Kabul.

The challenge in Afghanistan isn't about resources but principles.  
It's about holding a serious and consistent political stance  
regarding the Taliban. For example, the Afghan army's lack of success  
in the fight against the Taliban is not so much the result of their  
inadequate salary or the number of troops but the lack of patriotic  
sentiment that is needed if the army is to win. The fact that the  
Afghan leadership itself is hesitant to clarify the exact nature of  
its relationship with the Taliban leaves the army unsettled: is the  
government against the Taliban or ready to negotiate with them? The  
recent elections were another example of how national security has  
become a mere political game for wannabe Afghan leaders. For example,  
one candidate said the Taliban were like her own brothers, her own  
sons. And yet, we have thousands of troops fighting the same sons and  
brothers. This inconsistent approach continues as Afghanistan's  
elections are declared "fraudulent" and unacceptable even though the  
critics are also the ones who set the election day and called it "an  
achievement towards success in Afghanistan".

Afghans on the ground are confused; they no longer know who they are  
supposed to fight against. They fear that if they stop the Taliban  
from blowing up their village, the same Taliban might come back to  
power, installed as governors or ministers. Under such circumstances,  
standing up against the Taliban is just too risky.

But there's nothing new in this inconsistent approach. In late 2001,  
during the Bonn agreement, Afghans were promised justice and that  
people accused of war crimes would be held to account. But those  
accused of war crimes are now leaders, openly and publicly supported  
by the very same international community that promised to take them  
to court. No wonder, then, that Afghans no longer know who is  
supposed to be their enemy, and who their friend.

(Wazhma Frogh is a gender and development specialist and human rights  
activist and recipient of the 2009 International Woman of Courage  
Award Afghanistan)

o o o

DON'T NEED A WEATHERMAN…TO KNOW THE WIND’S BLOWING IN THE WRONG  
DIRECTION

September 24th 2009 | KABUL
 From The Economist print edition
http://tt.ly/2N

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[2] Sri Lanka

Daily Star
24 September 2009

MOUNTING PRESSURES CALL FOR CHANGED APPROACH
What Sri Lankans are getting to realise now after four months of  
victory and its associated celebrations is that there is no quick and  
clean end to a protracted civil conflict. The government is today  
facing great pressures on it, both locally from its unhappy ethnic  
Tamil minority and internationally from human rights organisations  
and foreign governments,
writes Jehan Perera from Colombo

IT WAS 7:00pm on a Saturday evening. I was ready to take my children  
home after their tennis practice at the courts of the national  
association in one of Colombo’s most residential areas. But when we  
got to the parking lot, we found the gates closed and vehicles  
stalled near the gates. The road was closed. There were armed  
soldiers visible on the road moving here and there and periodically  
shouting instructions, including orders that the lights on the cars  
within the parking lot should be switched off. As this had been a  
common occurrence during the past three years we knew we had to  
settle down to a short or long wait until the VIP entourage passed by.
    Then it came, a large convoy of vehicles rushed by at top speed,  
led by about ten motorcycles, about five cars and jeeps surrounded by  
more motor cycles, and last of all an ambulance. Relieved that we had  
to wait only about ten minutes we prepared to resume our delayed  
journey home. But the road did not open. A further ten minutes passed  
before a second convoy sped by, similar to the first, motorcycles,  
cars and jeeps including the ambulance. Another ten minutes passed  
and the road opened. As we had no reason to believe the road would  
close again we took our time to set off.
    Much to our dismay within about five minutes of the road opening,  
it was closed again. Again we had to wait for about ten minutes.  
Suddenly a third convoy, seemingly identical to the first two, with  
motorcycles, cars, jeeps and ambulance, swept by. It took a further  
ten minutes for the road to be opened to traffic. This time we were  
ready to leave immediately. We did not ask who was supposed to be  
inside those three convoys, whether it was all done for one VIP or  
for two or three. But it did not require much thought to realise that  
whoever was inside one or more of those vehicles was living in very  
great fear of their lives. It could be a fear psychosis that is once  
again making its presence felt or a realistic assessment of the risk  
at hand.
    The final face-to-face war with the LTTE may have ended more than  
four months ago in the north of the country. This has led to  
expectations, especially amongst members of the international  
community, of a rapid return to normalcy and to the upholding of  
international standards in democratic governance. But the reality is  
otherwise as experienced by government leaders. There continues to be  
fear of terror attacks by remnants of the LTTE. This apprehension has  
been repeatedly stated by defence spokespersons and accounts for the  
frequent road closures and manner of travel by government leaders.  
There is even a return to the cordon and search operations of the  
past for terrorist suspects.

    Genuine fear

    THE end of the war and the decimation of the LTTE leadership on  
the banks of the lagoons of the north led to the expectation that a  
new era of freedom of movement and respect for human rights would  
dawn. Instead virtually the entire population who had been held by  
the LTTE in its last desperate bid to maintain a human shield  
continues to be detained inside giant welfare camps. Far from  
demobilising excess army personnel who had been needed to fight the  
war, the army commander said that the Sri Lankan army needed to  
recruit a further 100,000 soldiers. The security checkpoints in  
Colombo did not diminish, and most recently it is reported that new  
checkpoints have been set up on the roads in the east.
    Critics of the government have argued that it is deliberately  
keeping a war mentality in place in order to gain political advantage  
by reminding the people of the war that it famously won. This would  
help to keep electoral support for the government at a high level  
without it getting dissipated in the mundane concerns over the cost  
of living and the economy. It would also justify the government’s use  
of security measures to intimidate its opponents, even those who are  
unarmed, as being connected to protecting national security and not  
permitting terror strikes in the future. Indeed some of the  
government’s ministers have belittled the economic concerns of the  
people, and placed as priority matters the much greater concerns of  
national security and independence from foreign interference.
    The fact is that the LTTE was not an organisation that fought on  
a single track. It had conventional, guerrilla, terrorist and  
international capacities. It was the LTTE’s conventional capacity  
that was completely destroyed on the shores of the north. But its  
guerrilla, terrorist and international capacities, although  
significantly reduced, can be believed to remain to some extent at  
least. The war did not completely end with the decimation of the LTTE  
leadership in the north. The government leaders would therefore be  
correct in their belief that the remaining vestiges of this LTTE  
capacity could be targeted against them.
    The real concerns of the government leadership about the  
possibility of terrorist attack and the threat to their life cannot  
be doubted. The elaborate security measures taken on that Saturday  
evening was a clear indication of the seriousness with which the  
government leadership perceives the threat to themselves. There was  
no propaganda value or political advantage to be gained by closing  
the roads on a Saturday evening when most people were at home anyway.  
This was an indication of the seriousness of the threat that is  
perceived.

    Protracted conflict

    WHAT Sri Lankans are getting to realise now after four months of  
victory and its associated celebrations is that there is no quick and  
clean end to a protracted civil conflict. The government is today  
facing great pressures on it, both locally from its unhappy ethnic  
Tamil minority and internationally from human rights organisations  
and foreign governments. There is an internal threat of terrorism  
that continues and now a new threat of international sanctions and  
punishment. There is a pressing need for a new approach to conflict  
resolution. It is no longer enough to tighten security measures and  
to deny that there are problems that require improvements in governance.
    The government has repeatedly shown itself to be backed by the  
majority of the electorate. It has won successive provincial and  
local elections. Now it needs to convert its credibility and  
popularity with the majority of people into political reform. The war  
lasted nearly three decades for a reason. Larger size and concepts of  
sovereignty alone are not enough to suppress the resistance of  
smaller ethnic nationalities who feel that they are excluded from  
full and equal participation in the polity. Military means of  
ensuring security need to be supplemented and eventually replaced by  
mutual agreement that comes about through political dialogue and  
negotiations with the Tamil political parties.
    The government also has to deal with the unprecedented challenge  
that is coming from the international community. The threat of the  
withdrawal of the multi billion dollar GSP Plus tariff concession  
that the European Union has granted to Sri Lanka could, if actually  
withdrawn, lead to the loss of tens of thousands of jobs, and even  
more, precipitating large scale economic dislocation and hardship. On  
September 21, the day on which the world every year celebrates the  
International Day of Peace, the US Congress is expected to receive a  
preliminary report on violations of human rights that occurred in the  
course of the war in Sri Lanka.
    So far the government’s response to its international critics has  
been to publicly refute allegations against itself. The government  
refused to cooperate with the European Union’s investigations into  
Sri Lanka’s compliance with the requirements of the GSP Plus  
concession. It rejected the investigation as an affront to its  
sovereignty and dignity, and denied entry visas to the EU  
investigators. The problem with this approach is that it led to one- 
sided findings by the EU investigators. They did not have access to  
the government’s version but they had access to the versions of  
others, including opponents of the government. Even as the shades of  
twilight fall upon the GSP Plus, the government is making a bid to  
present its case to the EU. Hopefully, the government will succeed,  
and the lesson learnt will be applied to other forthcoming  
investigations too.

  Jehan Perera is media director of the National Peace Council in  
Colombo, Sri Lanka.

o o o

[SEE ALSO:

RAJANI THIRANAGAMA’S VISION FOR SRI LANKA: A TRIBUTE AND REFLECTIONS

by University Teachers for Human Rights (Jaffna)
http://www.sacw.net/article1128.html ]

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[3]  Bangladesh:

Inter Press Service

GLIMMERS OF HOPE AMID AN ELUSIVE PEACE
Catherine Makino interviews leading Bangladeshi human rights activist  
Sultana Kamal

TOKYO, Sep 22 (IPS) - Sultana Kamal dreams of a country "where every  
single citizen will live in democracy, in equality" and where  
everyone has "equal share to resources and opportunities." Fulfilling  
this dream has been her lifelong advocacy as a human rights advocate.

The former adviser to the caretaker government of Bangladesh has  
served as a United Nations legal consultant for Vietnamese boat  
people in Hong Kong. As a legal practitioner, she is committed to  
providing legal services to the poor and underprivileged.

Kamal joined the Bangladesh Liberation War in 1971, which pitted the  
West Pakistan (now Pakistan) against East Pakistan, resulting in the  
latter’s secession as an independent state, now called Bangladesh.  
Among others, she helped collect information for the guerilla forces,  
Mukti Bahini (Liberation Army), and gave shelter to people displaced  
by the conflict.

Kamal completed her law degree at Dhaka University in 1978, and later  
a master’s degree in Women and Development Studies in the Netherlands.

She has played a key role in bringing to international attention the  
long drawn-out conflict involving the indigenous people living in the  
Chittagong Hill Tracts in the south-eastern region of Bangladesh.  
Even after a peace accord was signed in 1997, violations of human  
rights in the region persisted and peace remains elusive.

Some critics warned that Bangladesh could become the next Sri Lanka,  
which only recently emerged from a decades-long civil war.

Kamal, who was in Japan in mid-September, shared with IPS her  
aspirations for her country and what she hoped a developed country  
like Japan could do.

IPS: What did you hope to achieve for your people by coming to Japan?

SULTANA KAMAL: (My) main objective was to share information regarding  
the implementation of the Chittagong Hill Tracts (CHT) Accord, which  
was signed in 1997 between the government of Bangladesh and Shanti  
Bahin (the United People's Party of the CHT).

The Accord was to end the armed conflict, which has been going on  
since 1976 in the region, and to settle questions regarding the  
rights of the indigenous people of the Chittagong Hill Tracts. These  
included land rights, natural and environmental practices, rights to  
their culture and, most importantly, the constitutional recognition  
of their rights and identity.

I wanted to see greater awareness of the problems of indigenous  
people in the Chittagong Hill Tracts, their struggles and demands,  
which should lead to more support for them by the Japanese.

IPS: Why Japan in particular?

SK: Some Japanese groups are concerned with the rights of the  
disempowered and disadvantaged, especially indigenous people, who  
have been engaged in working towards the realization of (those) rights.

IPS: Is your government sincere in its support for the CHT?

SK: The present government of Bangladesh is committed to implementing  
the Accord, but it is facing challenges from the anti-Accord forces.  
There is a need to strengthen the people and government's support of  
the CHT.

This trip to Japan will help us reach the international community and  
get stronger opinions favorable to the Accord.

IPS: What do you expect from the new government of Japan?

SK: This government is liberal, so we can expect the benefits of a  
liberal and progressive outlook on (its) international policies. More  
importantly, we hear that the government will put more emphasis on  
strengthening relationships with its Asian neighbors, which means  
more support to the people of Asia who need it most.

IPS: What do you envision Japan will do now that it is under new  
leadership?

SK: New leadership means new hopes…. not (only) for its own people,  
but for the (rest of the) world, because Japan is among the league of  
world leaders.

This time the hope is even greater for Asia as the (Japanese)  
government is likely to be more forward-looking and has already  
committed itself to closer ties with (its) Asian neighbors.

IPS: Please tell us about your organization, the Law and Mediation  
Center or Ain O Salish Kendra (ASK)?

SK: (ASK) started in 1986 as a legal aid centre to provide free legal  
aid to the disempowered. Since most of the disempowered happen to be  
women, it had a special focus on them, especially poor women.

It provides legal aid to victims of state or social violence,  
arbitrary arrest, preventive detention, and community and class  
violence.

It started in a garage of a well-wisher of the organisation and has  
since grown into a 17-unit composite programme known as a human  
rights and legal aid center, or Ain o Salish Kendra.

ASK cooperates with many national, international and regional  
networks on human rights issues. With the UNECOSOC (United Nations  
Economic and Social Council) (consultative) status, ASK works closely  
with the U.N. special rapporteurs and on some government committees  
as civil society members to give advice. In short, ASK is considered  
to be one of the most active human rights groups (in the world).

IPS: What is the situation of women in your country?

SK: I am very proud to say that the women have made a lot of  
progress. But because of the existing patriarchal systems… in both  
private and public life, women have to face a lot of challenges in  
realising their rights.

The Constitution of Bangladesh commits to equality in public life for  
women. It goes further to say that special measures will be taken to  
bring the disadvantaged groups, including women, at par with  
everyone, and everyone will be equal before the law.

IPS: Is that happening in reality?

SK: Since in private life, laws based on religions govern people,  
women are discriminated against in marriage, divorce, guardianship  
and custody of children and in inheritance.

The discrimination is not only between women and men of the same  
religion; it is between women of different religions, too. For  
example, the Muslim women have limited rights to divorce and  
inheritance, which the women of other religions don't have.

The situation of minority women is even worse, particularly in a  
conflict situation where their interests and rights are considered  
secondary to the larger interests of the community which, as we all  
know, are defined by (traditional) patriarchy.

IPS: What is being done about it?

SK: The women's movement is very vibrant in Bangladesh. The present  
government also has promised to declare policies for women's  
development. We can hope for the best, but we know very well that  
there is no respite from hard work for us to gain what we aspire for.

IPS: What urgently needs to be done in your country?

SK: The most important duty we have now is supporting the democratic  
processes and be firm on not allowing any anti-democratic, anti-human  
rights, fundamentalist or corrupt measures, to foil it. Seeing that  
democracy gets a ground in this country is a job of the people as  
well as the government. Establishment of justice, rule of law, human  
rights and security and peace are the priorities now.

IPS: You have given so much energy and time for causes. How has this  
affected you personally, and have you had to sacrifice a lot?

SK: If I have been able to give my energy and time to causes in my  
life, I will consider that to be my good fortune. What better use  
could I put my energy and time to?

The main impact it has had on me personally is that it has taught me  
to understand and love my country better and to feel a part of the  
whole of humanity. I don't feel that I have sacrificed a lot. I think  
I have done nothing more than my duty. (END/2009)


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[4] Pakistan / Afghanistan:

(i)

The New York Review of Books
Volume 56, Number 15 · October 8, 2009

THE AFGHANISTAN IMPASSE
by Ahmed Rashid

To Live or to Perish Forever: Two Tumultuous Years in Pakistan
by Nicholas Schmidle
Henry Holt, 254 pp., $25.00

Seeds of Terror: How Heroin Is Bankrolling the Taliban and al Qaeda
by Gretchen Peters
Thomas Dunne/St. Martin's, 300 pp., $25.95

On August 5, Baitullah Mehsud, the all-powerful and utterly ruthless  
commander of the Pakistani Taliban, was killed in a US missile strike  
in South Waziristan. At the time of the strike, he was undergoing  
intravenous treatment for a kidney ailment, and was lying on the roof  
of his father-in-law's house with his young second wife. At about one  
o'clock that morning, a missile fired by an unmanned CIA drone tore  
through the house, splitting his body in two and killing his wife,  
her parents, and seven bodyguards.

His death marked the first major breakthrough in the war against  
extremist leaders in Pakistan since 2003, when several top al-Qaeda  
members based in the country were arrested or killed. Over the last  
few years, Mehsud's estimated 20,000 fighters gained almost total  
control over the seven tribal agencies that make up the Federal  
Administered Tribal Areas (FATA) bordering Afghanistan.

Mehsud's death plunged the Pakistani Taliban, composed of some two  
dozen Pashtun tribal groups, into an intense struggle over  
leadership, creating an opportunity for the CIA and Pakistan's  
Interservices Intelligence (ISI) to take action against the  
extremists. After ousting in April and May the militants who had  
seized the Swat valley—which is not in the tribal areas but north of  
the capital city of Islamabad—the Pakistani army is now pursuing the  
Pakistani Taliban with more determination: in mid-August, two of  
Mehsud's senior aides were arrested, one in FATA and the other in  
Islamabad while seeking medical treatment. The US is anxious for  
Pakistan to continue its pressure by launching an offensive in  
Waziristan, the region in the southern part of FATA—first in South  
Waziristan to eliminate the Pakistani Taliban there and then in North  
Waziristan, where al-Qaeda and Afghan Taliban leaders are based.
NYR Holiday Subscription Special

In North Waziristan two key Afghan Taliban networks—one led by the  
Pash- tun warlord Jalaluddin Haqqani and his son Sirajuddin Haqqani,  
and the other by the Muslim extremist Gulbuddin Hekmatyar—have been  
on the payroll of Pakistan's ISI since the 1970s and the ISI still  
allows them to operate freely. Al-Qaeda militants also live in North  
Waziristan, as do militant groups of Pakistani Punjabis, who launch  
terrorist attacks in India and Afghanistan.

The key question is whether the Pakistani army and the ISI, which  
have intermittently supported the Afghan and Pakistani Taliban since  
2001, can now make a strategic shift—turning decisively to eliminate  
not only the Pakistani Taliban but also the Afghan Taliban and al- 
Qaeda. Until now the Pakistani army has considered the Afghan Taliban  
a strategic asset in its battle against India and other regional  
rivals for influence in Afghanistan.

Success in eliminating these terrorist networks is vital for the US  
and the world—even more so now that the rigged presidential elections  
in Afghanistan in late August have created a deep political and  
security crisis for Afghans and Western forces there. Every day the  
evidence of electoral fraud has mounted, with videos posted on the  
Internet showing, for example, a local election chief stuffing ballot  
boxes.

     Fighting Over the Spoils in the Tribal Areas

Baitullah Mehsud became Pakistan's most-wanted leader after Taliban  
forces allied with him took control of the Swat valley in April. They  
were pushed out of the valley by the army in June after fierce  
fighting that left 312 soldiers, 2,000 militants, and an unknown  
number of civilians dead. Mehsud also became a target for CIA- 
launched drones, after the US decided last year to target Pakistani  
Taliban leaders along with those from the Afghan Taliban and al-Qaeda.

Mehsud was close to and trusted by Osama bin Laden; by Mullah Omar,  
the leader of the Afghan Taliban; and by Jalaluddin Haqqani. He gave  
them support, troops, and facilities for their various operations. By  
fighting off the Pakistani army and expanding his power across  
Pakistan's tribal areas, he gave al-Qaeda and the Afghan Taliban a  
hugely expanded sanctuary from which to operate and gather recruits  
for their war in Afghanistan.

Among Mehsud's innovations were the extremely efficient new systems  
he set up to train suicide bombers, some as young as eleven, and to  
produce vast quantities of land mines and improvised explosive  
devices (IEDs), which are being used in both Afghanistan and  
Pakistan. He also oversaw a criminal network of kidnapping for  
ransom, which netted him a war chest estimated in the tens of  
millions of dollars. Seventy prominent Pakistanis have been kidnapped  
this year throughout Pakistan, with ransoms—as high as one million  
dollars—handed over in FATA.

With the control of money, men, and territory at stake, there was a  
fierce struggle among various Pashtun tribal contenders to succeed  
Mehsud as leader of the Pakistani Taliban. The succession was also  
heavily influenced by al-Qaeda and the Afghan Taliban. Mullah Omar  
and Sirajuddin Haqqani sent several delegations to South Waziristan  
to influence Pakistani Taliban leaders.

Finally on August 26 a new power-sharing agreement was worked out  
between the two main contenders: Hakimullah Mehsud, twenty-eight, a  
ruthless Mehsud protégé who took responsibility for a series of  
suicide bombings in Pakistan earlier this year, became the new chief  
of the Pakistani Taliban; while his main rival, Waliur Rehman, who  
had acted as Mehsud's deputy, will head the Taliban in South  
Waziristan, where most of the fighters are based. Both men promised a  
new bombing campaign in Pakistan and increased support to the Afghan  
Taliban. One day later, on August 27, they fulfilled their promise  
when a suicide bomber at Torkham—a town that straddles a major  
crossing on the Afghanistan–Pakistan border—attacked a police  
checkpoint on the road used by NATO convoys to enter Afghanistan,  
killing twenty-two people. Three days after that, on August 30, a  
suicide bomber killed fifteen policemen in Swat.

     The Reconquest of Swat

Regrouped under its new leadership, the Pakistani Taliban will  
continue to pose a major threat to the civilian government of  
President Asif Ali Zardari and to the country's military leaders, who  
are the real decision-makers in Pakistan. The army's recent  
counterinsurgency campaign in the Swat valley was its first success  
since 2001, allowing the more than two million people who had fled  
the region to return home. Mingora, the main town in Swat, is once  
again open for business and the hundreds of schools destroyed by the  
Taliban have restarted under tents.

However, the Swat campaign has left gnawing doubts. None of the  
twenty militant commanders operating there has been killed or  
captured. The local Taliban chief Maulana Fazlullah is also at large,  
although suspected of being badly wounded. Taliban attacks against  
schools and police stations resumed in late August, proving that many  
Taliban are still hiding out in the mountains.

Still, the army has clearly adopted a new and much tougher strategy  
for eliminating the Pakistani Taliban and establishing greater  
cooperation between the CIA and the ISI in the tribal areas. This  
progress has been much appreciated by US officials. On a visit to  
Islamabad in mid-August Richard Holbrooke, the US special envoy for  
Afghanistan and Pakistan, told me that Pakistan's cooperation in  
fighting the Pakistani Taliban was very welcome, but that the army  
now has to go into South Waziristan and clear out the militants just  
as it did in Swat. In the meantime the US military is providing  
limited fresh equipment and funds to the army for just such an  
operation.

During August, other Western officials came to Islamabad to deliver  
the same message. In addition to Holbrooke, they included British  
Foreign Secretary David Miliband and two senior US commanders,  
General David Petraeus, head of US Central Command, and General  
Stanley McChrystal, the new head of US and NATO forces in  
Afghanistan. They all urged the government and army to use this  
moment to turn decisively against the terrorist holdouts in the  
tribal areas and in Waziristan.

However, Pakistan's generals made it abundantly clear that they will  
not invade South Waziristan for the moment. "It's going to take  
months" to launch a ground offensive, the senior commander in the  
area, Lieutenant General Nadeem Ahmad, told reporters after meeting  
with Holbrooke on August 18. General Ahmad said that all the army can  
do now is choke off supplies to South Waziristan by shutting down the  
roads, while planes and artillery bombard terrorist hideouts—but from  
outside South Waziristan.

The army would prefer to wait and see what happens in Waziristan and  
also in Afghanistan. It is hesitant to move into the tribal areas,  
where since 2004 it has been defeated by the guerrilla tactics of the  
Taliban and their advantage in the area's harsh mountainous terrain.  
Pakistan continues to pursue a policy of containing the Taliban  
fighters on the Afghan border rather than eliminating them. That  
clearly will not satisfy Western governments and military leaders  
since it leaves NATO forces in Afghanistan vulnerable to the inflow  
of men, supplies, and suicide bombers from the tribal areas of Pakistan.

Senior Pakistani officials say they will only be able to adopt a new  
strategy against the Taliban when India changes its current policy  
toward Pakistan and Kashmir. In Swat the army succeeded because it  
made use of Pakistani troops transferred from the Indian border,  
where 80 percent of the army is based. The key to launching a  
Pakistani offensive in the tribal areas is for the Americans to help  
improve Pakistan's relations with New Delhi, so that the army can  
move more of its troops to the Afghan border.

India is not helping. Prime Minister Manmohan Singh said on August 17  
that Pakistan-based terrorist groups were plotting more attacks  
against India. Last November the Pakistan-based Lashkar-e-Taiba (Army  
of the Pure) carried out attacks in Mumbai that killed 166 people.  
Lashkar is a group that is distinct from the Taliban and has been  
particularly active against targets in India and Kashmir. Indian  
officials now say that Hafiz Saeed, the Lashkar leader who lives  
undisturbed in Lahore, was "the brain" behind the Mumbai attack. They  
demand that he be put on trial.

Pakistan is refusing to clamp down on Lashkar or put Saeed behind  
bars. Lashkar is the best disciplined, organized, and loyal of the  
jihadi groups that the ISI has trained and sponsored since the 1980s,  
and it has always targeted India rather than the Pakistani army. The  
army will do everything to preserve Lashkar, as long as it believes  
there is a threat from India. Similarly, Pakistan's continued support  
for the Afghan Taliban is based on countering India's influence in  
Afghanistan and on having an alternative force that Pakistan can  
count on, in case the Americans leave Afghanistan.

In short, the strategy of the Pakistani military to selectively use  
Islamic extremists both as a tool in its foreign policy arsenal  
against India and to gain influence in Afghanistan is not going to  
change in a hurry. The Obama administration's main strategy for the  
moment is hand-holding—it wants to keep engaging with the Pakistani  
leaders to try to get them to change course. At least one senior US  
official arrives in Islamabad every other week to argue the American  
case.

     The Afghan Elections

Pakistan's safe havens for the Afghan Taliban have been to a large  
extent responsible for their revival and growing dominance across  
Afghanistan and for the rising death toll among NATO forces. But the  
Taliban were not the major cause of the political crisis that  
enveloped Afghanistan after the August 20 presidential elections.

US officials told me in April 2008 that President Bush had been  
warned by his military commanders that Afghanistan was going from bad  
to worse. More troops and money were needed; reconstruction was at a  
standstill; pressure had to be put on Pakistan; the elections in  
April 2009 should be indefinitely postponed. Bush ignored all the  
advice except for asking the Afghans to postpone the elections until  
August.

He left everything else to his successor to sort out. When Obama took  
over in January, the crisis was much worse and Pakistan and  
Afghanistan immediately became his highest foreign policy priorities.  
Obama added 21,000 more troops, committed billions of dollars to  
rebuild Afghan security forces and speed up economic development, and  
sent hundreds of American civilian experts to help rebuild the  
country. He has attempted to make the anti-narcotics policy more  
effective and to involve neighboring countries in a regional  
settlement. It's an assertive and possibly productive new strategy,  
but the Obama administration has had neither the time nor the  
resources to implement it.

The depth of the opium problem, for example, has recently been  
exposed by Gretchen Peters, who in her book Seeds of Terror describes  
how opium sales have ballooned since 2001, because of either a lack  
of a coherent strategy by the US or the constant bickering over a  
strategy between the US and its NATO partners, particularly Britain.  
Bush refused to use the US military—the only capable force on the  
ground—to interdict drug convoys in Afghanistan and arrest or kill  
drug lords, many of whom were easily identifiable. Only last year did  
the Department of Defense agree to use the military for these  
purposes. During the last six months there have been a series of  
raids by US Special Forces and Afghan commandos that have netted  
large amounts of opium, chemicals that turn it into heroin, and many  
of the drug traffickers. Afghanistan today provides 93 percent of the  
world's heroin. As Peters shows, from the poppy growers, to the  
Taliban and other local powers, to the drug lords and their allies in  
government, the influence of opium money pervades Afghan life.

In fact, most of this year has been taken up with preparing for the  
Afghan elections and trying to ensure sufficient security for them.  
Everything else has had to be put on hold. In private moments  
Holbrooke has regretted how the elections have distracted attention  
from putting into effect Obama's new strategy. At home Obama has not  
had the time to show that his policy is the right one to follow, and  
now the elections themselves are being exposed as riddled with fraud.

Another complicating issue for Obama has been the troubled US  
relationship with President Hamid Karzai, who in the spring was  
convinced that Obama and Holbrooke wanted to replace him and hold the  
elections under a caretaker president. That was never the case, but  
Karzai's paranoia, which is fostered by some of his aides and  
brothers, who drum up astounding conspiracy theories about US or  
British intentions, got the better of him.

That the elections were subject to extensive rigging by Karzai's  
supporters was partly the result of his belief that the Americans  
were backing one of the two strongest opposition figures, either  
Abdullah Abdullah or Ashraf Ghani Ahmadzai, which was again not the  
case. In fact, with so much now invested in Afghanistan, Obama and  
Holbrooke had every incentive to ensure that the election results  
were credible. What is now clear, however, is that the flagrantly  
dishonest elections have undermined the government and its Western  
backers, jeopardized future Afghan trust in democracy, and given the  
Taliban more reason to claim they are winning.

For much of this year the Taliban have been on the offensive in  
Afghanistan. Their control of just thirty out of 364 districts in  
2003 expanded to 164 districts at the end of 2008, according to the  
military expert Anthony Cordesman, who is advising General  
McChrystal. Taliban attacks increased by 60 percent between October  
2008 and April 2009. Forty-seven American soldiers died in August,  
making it the deadliest month in the war for the US Army. Forty-four  
were killed in July.

In August, moreover—as part of their well-planned anti-election  
campaign—the Taliban opened new fronts in the north and west of the  
country where they had little presence before. On election day in  
Kunduz in the far northeast of the country, considered to be one of  
the safest cities in Afghanistan, the Taliban fired fifty-seven  
rockets. The US military has acknowledged the gravity of the  
situation. "It is serious and it is deteriorating.... The Taliban  
insurgency has gotten better, more sophisticated" in their tactics,  
Admiral Mike Mullen, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, told CNN  
on August 23.

Both before and after the elections there were highly visible Taliban  
attacks in cities including Kabul and Kandahar, along with well-laid  
ambushes, attacks against security forces, and extensive use of IEDs.  
A month before the elections thousands of US, British, and Afghan  
forces launched an offensive in Helmand province in southern  
Afghanistan in order to regain territory, block supply routes from  
Pakistan, and release villagers from the clutches of the Taliban so  
that they could vote.

Instead, voter turnout was estimated by Western officials who had  
done their own investigation at between 1 and 5 percent in most parts  
of Helmand and Kandahar—before high-intensity ballot stuffing for  
Karzai began in the late hours of August 20. According to Western  
diplomats, Karzai loyalists also created hundreds of fake polling  
sites, from which many thousands of votes were recorded in favor of  
the incumbent. In one southern district, the polling sites were shut  
down and the entire vote of 23,900 ballots was forged for Karzai. In  
Babaji, a town in Helmand that was reclaimed by British forces with  
the loss of four soldiers this month, only 150 people voted, out of  
80,000 who were eligible. The British suffered thirty-seven dead and  
150 wounded in the six-week Helmand campaign— ostensibly to provide  
security for the vote. It will be difficult to maintain the morale of  
Western troops for long under such circumstances.

The Taliban had threatened to derail the elections and, to a  
considerable degree, they did, because much of the terrified  
population did not vote. The turnout is expected to be between 30 to  
40 percent, much less than the 70 percent who voted in 2004. There  
were four hundred Taliban attacks on election day and many polling  
stations never opened.

     How Could the Rigging Have Happened?

Forty candidates ran against Karzai. His main opponent, Dr. Abdullah  
Abdullah, and other candidates produced overwhelming evidence of  
cheating. By the end of August the Electoral Complaints Commission  
had received over 2,500 complaints, of which more than 570 could  
directly affect the results. It will take weeks to go through all  
these claims.

Still, within hours of the polls closing, the US, NATO, the European  
Union, and the UN congratulated everyone on a successful election.  
Their words were aimed at the Taliban, who had failed to stop it; but  
they sounded hollow and deceitful to Afghans who were more interested  
in the credibility of the election.

The rigging defied expectations. There were hundreds of foreign  
observers from the US and other embassies. Both UN officials and a  
European Union delegation were assigned months ago to make sure this  
would be a credible election. Afghans and other experts were warning  
the embassies about possible rigging. Abdullah Abdullah painted a  
bleak future for the country if the West did not recognize the fraud.  
"The fact is that the foundations of this country have been damaged  
by this fraud, throwing it open to all kinds of consequences,  
including instability. It is true that the Taliban are the first  
threat but an illegitimate government would be the second," said  
Abdullah to reporters in Kabul on August 29. Yet the entire Western  
community in Afghanistan was caught napping by the widespread fraud.  
In fact, as I recently wrote elsewhere, the fraud was assured months  
ago when Karzai began to align himself with regional warlords, drug  
traffickers, and top officials in the provinces who were terrified of  
losing their lucrative sinecures.

The biggest mistake may have been made by the UN in not running the  
elections as it did in 2004 but instead handing them over to the  
Afghan-run "Independent Election Commission," which was beholden to  
Karzai, who appointed the members. On September 8, a UN-backed  
commission announced that it had found "clear and convincing evidence  
of fraud" and ordered a partial recount of returns that claimed  
Karzai had received 54 percent of the vote. If Karzai does not  
receive over 50 percent of the vote in the final count then there  
will be a runoff election in October. If Karzai wins over 50 percent  
his legitimacy will be doubted by many Afghans while the credibility  
of the US and the other nations involved in the elections will be  
even more damaged.

An October runoff between Karzai and Abdullah may win back the  
credibility of the democratic process if that election is more  
tightly run, but it will leave the country paralyzed for most of the  
next two months. During that time there could be severe ethnic  
tensions. Karzai is a Pashtun while Abdullah's mother is a Tajik. We  
can expect local conflicts, assassinations, and a breakdown in law  
and order—while the Taliban will further justify their condemnation  
of democracy as an infidel conspiracy. The best option would be for  
the US to pressure Karzai to accept a national government that would  
include Abdullah and other opposition candidates.

In Washington President Obama is under fire from the left of the  
Democratic Party for becoming another war president and from right- 
wing Republicans for being overly ambitious in his plans for  
Afghanistan. Increasingly Americans are getting fed up with a war  
that has gone on longer than the US involvement in the two world wars  
combined. For the first time, polling shows that a majority of  
Americans do not approve of Obama's handling of Afghanistan. Yet if  
it is to have any chance of success, the Obama plan for Afghanistan  
needs a serious long-term commitment—at least for the next three  
years. Democratic politicians are demanding results before next  
year's congressional elections, which is neither realistic nor  
possible. Moreover, the Taliban are quite aware of the Democrats'  
timetable. With Obama's plan the US will be taking Afghanistan  
seriously for the first time since 2001; if it is to be successful it  
will need not only time but international and US support—both open to  
question.

After Obama's injection of 21,000 troops and trainers, total Western  
forces in Afghanistan now number 100,000, including 68,000 US troops.  
It is likely that General McChrystal will soon ask for more. Obama's  
overall plan has been to achieve security by doubling the Afghan  
army's strength to 240,000 men and the police to 160,000; but these  
are tasks that would take at least until 2014 to complete, if indeed  
they can be carried out. Meanwhile the military operation in  
Afghanistan is now costing cash-strapped US taxpayers $4 billion a  
month.

Across the region many people fear that the US and NATO may start to  
pull out of Afghanistan during the next twelve months despite their  
uncompleted mission. That would almost certainly result in the  
Taliban walking into Kabul. Al-Qaeda would be in a stronger position  
to launch global terrorist attacks. The Pakistani Taliban would be  
able to "liberate" large parts of Pakistan. The Taliban's game plan  
of waiting out the Americans now looks more plausible than ever.

For all these reasons it is important to recognize that if Western  
forces are to regain the initiative in Afghanistan, they must deal  
with the situation in Pakistan, which needs to eliminate sanctuaries  
of both the Pakistani and Afghan Taliban forces within the country.  
The Pakistani military will bide its time until the Americans are  
really desperate, and then the army will demand its price from the US— 
a price to be measured in financial and military support.

     Balochistan

Much has been made of Pakistan as a potential failed state on the  
verge of breakup, yet if there is even a remote chance of that  
happening it will not be because of the Taliban, but because of an  
underlying crisis that has been studiously ignored by the West—the  
separatist movement in Balochistan. The issue is well described in  
the best chapter of a new book on Pakistan by Nicholas Schmidle, To  
Live or to Perish Forever: Two Tumultuous Years in Pakistan.

Balochistan is Pakistan's largest province, comprising 48 percent of  
its territory and sharing a long border with southern Afghanistan;  
but it is a land of rugged mountains and deserts, with a population  
of only 12 million people. Ever since Pakistan's creation in 1947,  
the Baloch tribes have been in revolt against what they see as the  
chauvinism and denial of their rights by the Pakistani army in favor  
of Punjab, the country's most populous province, with 86 million people.

In five major insurgencies against the army, the Baloch have demanded  
greater autonomy, royalties for the province's gas, development  
funds, and genuine political representation. The fifth insurgency  
began in 2005 and has intensified because of the brutal repression  
and hundreds of "disappearances" of Baloch nationalists, for which  
the army under former President Pervez Musharraf was responsible.

Many young Baloch are now demanding their own state. In August, with  
the start of the new school year, Baloch students refused to hoist  
the Pakistani flag or sing the national anthem. Ten non-Baloch  
college principals were assassinated by guerrillas the same month,  
creating panic among the Punjabi settler population. The Khan of  
Kalat, Mir Suleman Dawood, the titular chief of chiefs of all the  
Baloch tribes—whose ancestors once ruled Balochistan—announced on  
August 11 the formation of a council for "an independent  
Balochistan"; he rejected any reconciliation with the government  
unless there was international mediation from the UN. According to  
human rights activists, hundreds of Baloch nationalists have  
disappeared—they are believed to have been secretly arrested and  
tortured by the military but their whereabouts remain unknown.

Schmidle meets the Khan and other Baloch chiefs and, with no small  
courage, follows them as they are trailed by the ISI. "By the end of  
2006, nearly every nationalist leader in Balochistan had been killed,  
arrested, or placed under house arrest," he writes. The Khan of Kalat  
describes Balochistan's mineral wealth to Schmidle: "We are sitting  
on gold and anytime we speak up and ask for due compensation, we get  
a bloody spanking."

The civilian government under President Zardari arranged a cease-fire  
with the guerrillas last year but failed to follow it up with serious  
talks, and guerrilla attacks have resumed. Pakistan's past military  
rulers have ignored the fact that their country is a multiethnic,  
multireligious state and the policies of an overtly centralized  
military do not work. The army's refusal to acknowledge this led to  
the loss of East Pakistan—now Bangladesh—in 1971. Tomorrow it could  
be Balochistan.

Schmidle has written a picaresque book about what Pakistan looks like  
today. Like a good film director he presents extraordinary pictures  
of political mayhem and violence interspersed with dialogue, solid  
character actors, and tightly focused close-ups of bad guys such as  
Maulana Fazlullah, the leader of the Swati Taliban—"a short man with  
large gaps between his teeth,...wavy hair,...a bulky, black turban  
and a goofy smile."

However, like many movies, Schmidle's book lacks a coherent plot.  
Each chapter serves up a separate scene or subject, but no common  
thread or larger themes and ideas link the chapters together. In fact  
there is little that sets the book apart from the best recent Western  
newspaper reporting on Pakistan. Schmidle's prose can be brilliant  
but fails to describe the undercurrents of life in Balochistan or  
provide the analysis that is needed.

As early as page 8 he heralds his arrival in Pakistan with an  
analysis that could have been culled from any US magazine over the  
past three years—Pakistan as the most dangerous place on earth:

     From what I gathered, there were a few essential things to know  
about Pakistan: the army was perpetually in charge, the intelligence  
agencies were a brooding and ubiquituous force, the Islamists  
threatened to take over, ethnic problems portended more  
Balkanization, corruption plagued human interaction and a modest  
arsenal of nuclear weapons all combined to make Pakistan the most  
dysfunctional—and most dangerous—country in the world.

After reading such a statement of the obvious we expect some further  
insights. Instead, at the end of the book, Schmidle is still asking  
the same questions, having found no answers:

     The political, social, economic, and religious dynamics embedded  
in Pakistan seemed to become more and more complicated—and volatile— 
with time, and less and less solvable.

Foreign correspondents should not make too much of their own intrepid  
adventures, but this is not the case with Schmidle. He opens the book  
with a graphic account of his deportation from Pakistan, warning us  
that the book is going to be as much about him as about Pakistan. We  
are often told about his looks and his physique—he is six feet two  
with blond hair—and about the personal dilemmas that obsess him: What  
clothes should he wear? What color should he dye his hair? Would it  
be better to pretend to be Canadian rather than American? Such  
worries only trivialize his story.

The son of a Marine general, Schmidle, in his mid-twenties and  
married, arrives in Pakistan in February 2006 under a two-year grant  
from a Washington think tank. To his credit, he learns Urdu and  
travels extensively. His time in Islamabad coincides with the most  
tumultuous events in the country's history during the dictatorship of  
General Musharraf. The heart of his story is his meetings with  
Islamic extremists. He befriends the bespectacled, soft-spoken yet  
lethal religious leader Abdul Rashid Ghazi, who ran the radical Red  
Mosque in the center of Islamabad. Ghazi opens doors for Schmidle  
that lead him straight into the heart of the Islamic militancy that  
was beginning to grip the country in 2006. Ghazi himself is a complex  
character:

     While Ghazi relished his al-Qaeda connections and the confidence  
such friends might have lent, I still found him to be surprisingly  
sensible and pragmatic. His eyes didn't burn with fervor. Nor did his  
rhetoric emanate hatred. He calmly explained the rise of anti- 
Americanism around the world as a product of the United States'  
"missed opportunity" to act as a benevolent, global leader.

Ghazi's story ends with his martyrdom once the army, after  
procrastinating for six months, storms the Red Mosque. One hundred  
militants die but hundreds of Ghazi's young followers escape the  
siege to become the suicide bombers that have since torn through the  
heart of Pakistan's cities.

Ultimately the book's strength lies in its cinematic descriptions,  
for example its account of the quarter in Karachi run by the  
political leader Altaf Hussain and his party, the Muttahida Quami  
Movement (MQM), which advocates preserving the ethnic identity of the  
Urdu-speaking minority that emigrated from India:

     Whitewashed apartment blocks lined the surrounding streets.  
Billboards modeled Altaf's face more than they advertised products,  
and the MQM's white, green, and red-striped flag fluttered from  
lampposts, traffic lights and car antennas. Sputtering Suzuki  
hatchbacks circled around a dried-up fountain, the color of rain  
clouds. A sculpture of a clenched fist rose from the top of the  
fountain.

Unfortunately, strong description is not enough. Whether Pakistan's  
army and political leaders can deal with the threat from the Taliban  
and other violent forces they have themselves sustained over the  
years is a question that needs to be addressed more urgently than  
ever as the situation in Pakistan and Afghanistan deteriorates further.

—September 10, 2009

o o o

SEE ALSO:

PAKISTAN MUST CURB WAVE OF VIOLENCE AGAINST MINORITIES: STATEMENT BY  
JOINT ACTION COMMITTEE FOR PEOPLE’S RIGHTS
http://www.siawi.org/article945.html

_____


[5]  South Asia:

THE ECONOMIC DIMENSION OF NATIONAL SECURITY

The SAARC component of trade and energy in the Indian Ocean security  
architecture.

by Madanjeet Singh

South Asia’s economy is mainly empowered by agriculture. File photo

The suggestions made by two former Foreign Secretaries, Shyam Saran  
and Shiv Shankar Menon, that India should initiate a discussion on a  
collective security arrangement between the major powers whose bulk  
of energy and trade flows through the Indian Ocean, is laudable.  
Menon made the suggestion while speaking on “Maritime Imperatives of  
Indian Foreign Policy” at an event organized by the National Maritime  
Foundation. This security architecture evidently includes the land- 
based economies of the BRIC countries, Brazil, Russia, India, and  
China, as well. According to a 2003 Goldman-Sachs report, “BRIC  
countries would emerge as dominant economies by 2050; India and China  
would dominate world markets in services and manufacturing, while  
Brazil and Russia would dominate in the supply of raw materials.”

It was not without significance that Menon and National Security  
Adviser M.K. Narayanan accompanied Manmohan Singh on his first visit  
abroad as second-term Prime Minister to attend the BRIC conference at  
the Russian Urals city of Yekaterinburg on the Europe-Asia border. In  
today’s globalized world, trade and commerce cannot be isolated from  
national security, which in turn can be strengthened by national as  
well as inter-state land-based transport infrastructure.

Singapore Foreign Minister George Yeo who visited Tibet last month  
wrote in a recent article that Tibet is part of a much larger Asian  
drama that is “changing from being a barrier to a region linking  
China and India together.” He added: “Economically, there was much to  
be gained by improving road and rail links between Tibet and South  
Asia. Indeed, the Chinese have suggested that Lhasa and Kolkata be  
linked by rail.” Yeo explained that “the rapid growth of China-India  
trade in the past 10 years and the emergence of China as India’s  
biggest trading partner marked just ‘the beginning’ of new economic  
linkages between the two Asian neighbours.” Common economic interests  
are driving the two countries into closer political cooperation, both  
bilaterally and internationally and how they “relate to each other in  
the coming decades will affect everyone,” Yeo wrote.

Ineffective murder weapon

In his speech at the National Maritime Foundation, Menon stated that  
though China was conducting extensive port development activity in  
Myanmar, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka and Pakistan and actively supplying  
weapons to these countries, there are no Chinese bases in the Indian  
Ocean despite talk of the “string of pearls” which, he said, “was a  
pretty ineffective murder weapon.” In the context of the collective  
security architecture in which the inevitability of an India-China  
conflict is excluded, South Asia must strengthen its economic clout  
by jointly standing up vis-a-vis the Chinese inroads. Pakistan has  
already approved an Indian proposal to launch a South Asian train  
service linking India, Bangladesh and Pakistan. A number of road  
links are also expected to incrementally increase commerce and trade  
among the SAARC countries. South Asia is lagging far behind China’s  
traditionally entrenched trade and commerce supremacy in South-East  
Asia. Many Chinese businessmen operate as local nationals, too. The  
economic scene is somewhat similar to what prevailed in post-Second  
World War when Europe leaders such as Robert Schuman and Jean Monnet  
dared to stand up to the American economic might.

The formation in 1951 of the European Coal and Steel Community (ECSC)  
by six countries, and the launching of Europe’s single currency euro  
in 1999, resulted in a number of cooperative bodies set up by the  
countries of the European Union. In 1957 they signed the Treaty of  
Rome, creating the European Economic Community (EEC) and the European  
Atomic Energy Community (Euratom). Ten years later, the European  
Commission, the Council of Ministers and the European Parliament were  
created. The 1992 Treaty of Maastricht promoted new forms of  
cooperation between member-States in the areas of defence, justice  
and home affairs, and in 1995 the Schengen Convention introduced free  
movement for individuals and commodities. Not surprisingly, the EU  
family has already grown to 27 members.

A common currency

As with European economic and regional cooperation, SAARC will  
benefit from the centripetal force created by a common currency  
(called ‘Sasia’ in my book, The Sasia Story: UNESCO, 2005). It will,  
like the euro, become the anchor of economic stability and accelerate  
trade and commerce between the SAARC countries. As with the European  
Coal and Steel Community, it will create areas of congruence such as  
a ‘peace pipeline’ that will carry natural gas from Iran and  
Turkmenistan across Afghanistan and Pakistan to the Indian  
subcontinent. Hence, land-based trade and security of SAARC is as  
important a component of collective security arrangement for the  
Indian Ocean architecture that the two former Foreign Secretaries  
have rightly proposed.

(Madanjeet Singh is a UNESCO Goodwill Ambassador and the Founder of  
the South Asia Foundation.) The Hindu


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[6] India Administered Kashmir

Kashmir Times
17 September 2009

Editorial

BLIND MEN'S ELEPHANT
Kashmir-related views of PM, HM based neither on reality nor logic

The manner in which some of the key figures in the Congress-led  
coalition government in New Delhi have been commenting on the  
political situation in Jammu and Kashmir gives the impression as if  
it were a case of blind men feeling and describing an elephant. Their  
statements in the past few weeks on how they see the 'problem' in the  
state do not make any sense. Naturally, it is futile in these  
circumstances to hope for some kind of initiative to break the logjam  
and address, at least, the internal dimension of the problem with the  
seriousness that it deserves. Going by the past experience, it will  
be fair to conclude that what Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and Union  
Home Minister P Chidambaram have said in this connection was partly  
influenced by compulsions of impending elections in the key state of  
Maharashtra. Lingering fallout of the Mumbai attacks in November last  
year has added to the political significance of the contest in  
Maharashtra. Terrorism, vis-a-vis the handling of the Mumbai attacks  
and their aftermath by the Manmohan Singh government, is a major poll  
issue. And how can 'Kashmir' be far behind where terrorism impels  
politics? The UPA cannot afford to lose Maharashtra which is unlike  
any other state. It is the commercial heart of India. UPA's recent  
drubbing in the neighbouring state of Gujarat at the hands of  
Narendra Modi was a warning signal that the UPA cannot afford to rest  
on the laurels it had won in the earlier Lok Sabha polls. Hence,  
growing anxiety about Maharashtra elections.

But that anxiety need not have been stretched so far as to distort  
New Delhi's perception of an equally-if not more-important issue. The  
UPA government has been dealing with the Kashmir issue at various  
levels. The Prime Minister has been taking keen personal interest in  
this process and his initiative in the past looked to be making some  
headway. Mumbai attacks put a brake on that effort. Meanwhile  
assembly polls were held in J&K in 2008, followed by Lok Sabha  
elections in 2009. Appreciable voter participation in these elections  
came as a new development. Mounting tension between India and  
Pakistan leading to fresh strains in bilateral relations provided an  
incongruent setting for responding to the imperatives emerging out of  
the changes in the ground situation in J&K. All initiatives to tackle  
the internal dimension came to a halt.

Now comes an altogether new development with the recent statements of  
Dr Singh and Chidambaram. It is indeed strange that they should be  
seen voicing their concern for what they see as 'separatist unity' in  
Kashmir. Firstly, this perception betrays lack of proper  
understanding as the unity among separatists does not exist even in  
fiction. Secondly, the union government has either incorrect input or  
is relying on faulty appreciation of the ground realities. Not so  
long ago, it was New Delhi's grouse against Kashmiri separatist  
leaders that they were not able to come together and formulate a  
collective approach towards their dialogue with the Indian  
government. Indeed, this was often cited as an excuse for centre's  
waning interest in keeping the dialogue process going. UPA government  
had correctively analysed the situation then just as it is  
incorrectly taking an irrational position now. Dr Singh's statement  
that an atmosphere of 'turmoil' was sought to be resurrected in  
Kashmir to offset the gains of popular participation in the two  
recent elections is not borne out by known facts. Each and every  
incident that provoked 'turmoil' in the state happened NOT because of  
the separatists or Pakistan BUT inspite of them. Giving 'credit'  
where it is not due is not a sound policy. Right from the row over  
Amarnath land issue, created by a wily governor and an incompetent  
political regime, to the Shopian crisis, mishandled by the present  
administration, each and every situation was home-made and,  
tragically, avoidable. Of course, the separatists would have been  
fools if they had failed to benefit from this unearned harvest. Even  
then, they stand divided as ever. They do not see eye to eye on  
anything-Indian, Pakistani or Kashmiri. For New Delhi to presume  
otherwise is simply senseless. On this single point, Pakistan and  
India happened to be on the same footing. New Delhi wanted the  
separatists to come together for 'peace' but they would not move;  
Pakistan wanted them to come together for 'war' but they would not  
move. And that is that.

For New Delhi to make this as an excuse to turn its face away from  
doing what it must be seen doing to lessen its troubles in Kashmir is  
not tenable at all. The only conclusion possible to derive from such  
illogical thinking is that the UPA government is looking for  
political excuses to cover up its failure to respond to what it  
concedes to be an 'improved' situation. Dismantling repressive regime  
and resuming unconditional dialogue with separatists is an  
inescapable imperative.


_____


[7]  PAKISTAN - INDIA: WHERE HAWKS ON BOTH SIDES PROPAGATE THAT  
NUCLEAR DEFENCE IS THE CHEAPEST ROUTE TO SECURITY

Sept 21: International Day of Peace

by Shahid Husain (The News International, September 21, 2009)

Karachi

If there is any place in the world where an exchange of nuclear bombs  
is possible, it is South Asia, said veteran journalist and peace  
activist M. B. Naqvi while talking to The News on the eve of the  
International Day of Peace.

“The legendry Hindu-Muslim problem ensures that Pakistan and India  
will keep on colliding. The threat should not be taken lightly,” he  
said. “All anti-nuclear campaigners concentrate on showing the  
destructiveness of these weapons. But what they forget is that  
politicians and generals persuade their governments to go nuclear in  
terms of historic threat perception.”

Eminent scientist and Sustainable Development Policy Institute (SDPI)  
Visiting Fellow Dr. A.H. Nayyar argued that the day is important for  
the subcontinent, not only because of inter-state conflicts, but also  
because of the myriads of intra-state conflicts in every South Asian  
country.

“States should be able to eventually handle conflicts within their  
own borders, provided that other states do not start taking advantage  
of them for their own sake. Inter-state problems are often  
exacerbated by intra-state problems and vice versa, and therefore,  
all of these problems need to be handled in a comprehensive manner.  
The key to peace is justice within societies and justice among them,  
and this is what all South Asian societies must struggle to achieve,”  
he said.

Pakistan Institute of Labour Education and Research (Piler) Executive  
Director Karamat Ali said: “The International Day for Peace seems to  
have no significance for the governments of Pakistan and India. When  
the US Secretary of State visited India recently, a deal was signed  
whereby India acquired jet fighters worth $10 billion, while $3  
billion weapons are in the pipeline. Pakistan is following suit.  
There is an arms race, both conventional and nuclear, between the two  
countries while the vast majority of their population is living below  
the poverty line.

“While nothing is being done to improve the lot of about 150,000  
workers of sugar mills, the attorney general of Pakistan has filed a  
suit in the Supreme Court of Pakistan to protect the interests of  
sugar barons. The state in Pakistan has become totally subservient to  
the elite,” he said.

“In the case of Pakistan and India, the original hardliners on both  
sides used to sit together under international aegis, and they  
propagated that nuclear defence is the cheapest route to security,”  
added M.B. Naqvi. “They emphasised the doctrine of deterrence. This  
is a doctrine that has never worked in history; no one was ever  
deterred by the strength of another. They fought when their emotions  
ran wild.”


o o o

The Guardian
23 September 2009

INDIA MUST TURN AWAY FROM THE BOMB

India's hawks want to start a series of nuclear tests that could  
isolate the nation and spark an arms race

by Randeep Ramesh

There's no stranger figure on Indian television news at the moment  
than retired atomic scientist K Santhanam. One of the driving forces  
behind the country's weapons nuclear programme, Santhanam has gone  
rogue in the past few weeks, denouncing the timidity of Indian  
government's pursuit of the most powerful weapons ever devised.

Santhanam wants the country to stop worrying and love the bomb.  
According to the scientist, India's nuclear tests conducted more than  
a decade ago were a dud. The country now stands "naked" before China  
– unable to deter the People's Liberation Army.

The only solution, says Santhanam, is to defy world opinion and  
explode a massive thermonuclear device – in his words for India "to  
cross the Rubicon" by dropping its voluntary testing moratorium.

This runs against the grain of current thinking, which envisages a  
shrinking of nuclear weapons. The old cold war mentality of mutually  
assured destruction and the idea of deterrence have been replaced  
with a call for a nuclear weapons-free world.

This shift can be traced back to AQ Khan's atomic supermarket, run  
from Pakistan, which spread technologies to hostile regimes – with  
American indifference. The result is that a host of states from Iran  
to North Korea stand on the threshold of going nuclear.

More worrying is an assessment that Pakistan's own nuclear weapons  
facilities have been attacked three times in two years by extremists.  
Al-Qaida openly says it wants the bomb to wage war on America.

Nuclear weapons in such hands would make deterrence less effective  
and more hazardous. Little wonder that one of Barack Obama's key  
messages at the UN this week will be about global nuclear disarmament.

The securitists in India have a different agenda. They see nuclear  
weapons as a route to respect. Santhanam is undoubtedly a hawk, one  
who has chafed against the restraints India faced since it refused in  
the 1960s to sign the nuclear non-proliferation treaty – Delhi said  
it was a version of nuclear apartheid.

The NPT banned countries, apart from the five security council  
members, from owning atomic weapons and simultaneously benefiting  
from civilian trade in such technologies. The result was that India  
tried to build its nuclear weapons industry from scratch.

India did get the bomb – exploding the Smiling Buddha in 1974 and 15  
years later it tested five devices. The uber-nationalists say that  
India's home-grown nukes could be geared up for bigger things –  
citing Pakistan's expanding nuclear arsenal and China's vast armoury  
as reasons to explode bigger devices.

There is an opportunity lurking in the rhetoric gap between Obama's  
speeches on disarmament and the implementation of such ideas. That  
opening, say hawks, could be filled by a series of massive Indian  
nuclear tests, which would deter Delhi's enemies and secure its  
stockpile – while the world frets about AQ Khan, Iran and North Korea.

Bizarre as this might sound, Indian testing could be justified by the  
president's soaring idealism. Although Obama wants to Washington to  
ratify the comprehensive test ban treaty, it has yet to be passed by  
the Senate. As long as the US has not signed the treaty, Delhi's  
hawks reason, Washington can denounce Indian nuclear tests but the  
rest of the world is going to ask why senators have blocked the  
treaty for years.

For a section of India's elite, the US's political gridlock is a  
boon. They point to China, which tested its arsenal until 1996 before  
signing up to the NPT and endorsing the CTBT. Why, runs the thinking,  
shouldn't India be allowed to do the same?

It's a dangerous game. India has not signed the NPT or the CTBT. It  
has been a nuclear rogue state. Yet it was brought in from the cold  
last year by the international community and permitted to trade in  
nuclear technology despite not having signed the NPT.

It is the only exception ever made for any state with nuclear weapons  
– a coup and recognition of its rising global status. France, Russia  
and the US have signed lucrative deals with India. Canada and Britain  
want in too. The world signalled that it wanted to turn swords into  
ploughshares – converting nuclear weapons know-how into nuclear  
energy know-how.

A series of massive Indian nuclear tests would snatch defeat from the  
jaws of diplomatic victory. It might provide a short-cut to  
international status – but it would be one of a pariah. Questions  
would be raised about India's pursuit of intercontinental ballistic  
missiles, its plans for nuclear-powered submarines and its burgeoning  
space industry. It would rightfully be seen as a renegade act,  
sparking an arms race in Asia when the world least needed it.

Should India test again, the country would once again be subject to  
sanctions and be seen as a nation engaged in a needless military  
build-up while its population languished in poverty. Ever-growing  
nuclear stockpiles are seen as a threat to the international order  
and a distraction from economic progress. For India to go nuclear all  
over again in a bigger, more deadly way would be a sign of weakness  
not strength.


_____


[8] Announcements:

To Commemorate the 20th Death Anniversary of Dr. Rajani Thiranagama

The Rajani Thiranagama Memorial Committee and The International  
Centre for Ethnic Studies cordially invite you to a Memorial Lecture by

Nandita Haksar (a prominent Indian Human Rights Activist and Lawyer) on

‘Resistance and the Politics of Fear’

Friday, September 25, 2009 at 6:00pm

BMICH, Committee Room A

(Owing to the Colombo International Book Fair at BMICH it is  
advisable you arrive by 5:30 at the latest)

Nandita Haksar was a journalist before her involvement in the women’s  
rights movement forced her to take to law. For the past twenty-five  
years she has worked as a human rights lawyer, campaigner and writer.  
She has set many precedents in human rights and refugee law. She has  
taken up cases in the courts in India as well as appearing before  
international courts and committees. She has evolved and taught  
courses on human rights in various universities. Haksar’s  
publications include: Demystification of Law for Women, Nagaland  
File: A Question of Human Rights, Framing Geelani, Hanging Afzal:  
Patriotism in the Time of Terror and Rogue Agent; How India’s  
Military Intelligence Betrayed the Burmese Resistance
(forthcoming).

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S o u t h      A s i a      C i t i z e n s      W i r e
Buzz for secularism, on the dangers of fundamentalism(s), on
matters of peace and democratisation in South
Asia. An offshoot of South Asia Citizens Web: www.sacw.net/

DISCLAIMER: Opinions expressed in materials carried in the posts do not
necessarily reflect the views of SACW compilers.