Progress on Kashmir

FOLLOWING months of stalemate on the Kashmir front, some movement is at last visible in this area of India-Pakistan relations. After resisting the demand by the All Parties Hurriyat Conference for a separate preliminary meeting with him, the Indian prime minister met Mirwaiz Umar Farooq on Wednesday. Although the APHC leader has still to confirm that he will attend the round-table conference scheduled for May 25, the prospects for the Hurriyat’s participation are brighter than before. Given the deadlock between them, the negotiations between New Delhi and the Kashmiri leaders from the Valley were proving to be unproductive. But it was also known that without the participation of the Mirwaiz and his colleagues the entire peace process would prove to be futile. In that context Wednesday’s meeting is significant. While the Indian government has agreed to discuss specifics with a view to ensuring a settlement on Kashmir, the APHC leadership will work out a mechanism to carry on a continuous dialogue with New Delhi. The round-table, when it is held, with the participation of the APHC, will no doubt set the tone and direction of the peace process between Srinagar and New Delhi. The first round-table in February had failed to do that because many of the key actors — the APHC, for instance — were absent. But tangible progress when it takes place will be as a result of discussions held away from the glare of publicity. Moreover, a solution cannot be found for a dispute that has dragged on for over five decades at a meeting of a few hours. An on-going dialogue always yields more meaningful results especially because the protagonists can discuss their differences without worrying about how their statements could compromise their position on key issues.

Another positive development to have taken place this week that will have a profound impact on Kashmir is the landmark agreement between India and Pakistan to revive trade between the two parts of the disputed state after 60 years. They are also moving towards strengthening people-to-people contacts between the Kashmiris. The Srinagar-Muzaffarabad bus service was launched last year. They will start a second service between Poonch and Rawalakot as well as a truck service between Muzaffarabad and Srinagar. Five crossing points already exist across the LoC and two meeting points are to be operationalised in the near future. All this augurs well for the region. It will create an amicable and friendly political climate that will facilitate the talks on the Kashmir issue. Since the APHC has brought it to the notice of the Indian government that the travel facilities are not being utilised optimally because of difficulties faced by would-be Kashmiri travellers in obtaining travel documents, one hopes that New Delhi will look into the matter.

It is important that the wishes of the Kashmiris are kept in view by both sides. For nearly 60 years India and Pakistan have treated Kashmir as a territorial dispute. It is a positive development that they have moved away from their rigid positions of yesteryears and are now giving the people the central role that they deserve. While a beginning is being made in the non-political and non-strategic sectors that are always less controversial and easier to resolve, the two sides would do well to gradually adopt steps to lower tensions and ease the sense of crisis that pervades the Valley. For that they should now work on the demilitarisation proposal that is on the cards.

Doing away with 58-2(b)

EVER since Ziaul Haq inserted Article 58-2(b) in the Constitution by a decree, Pakistan has seen four elected governments dismissed and the elected assemblies dissolved. Ziaul Haq first made use of it in 1988 when he sacked the government of Mohammad Khan Junejo. Then president Ghulam Ishaq Khan used it twice to dismiss the governments of Ms Benazir Bhutto and Mr Nawaz Sharif. Finally in 1996, Mr Farooq Leghari dismissed the second Benazir government. Invariably, the decisions were made on political grounds, for nowhere in all these four cases could one see — as the Constitution stipulates — a situation “in which the government of the federation cannot be carried on in accordance with the provisions of the Constitution ...” This recapitulation of part of Pakistan’s traumatic history is necessary, because President Pervez Musharraf told Speaker Chaudhry Amir Hussain on Wednesday that the chapter of the assemblies’ dissolution prior to the end of their tenure was closed forever.

The use of Article 58-2(b) has done enormous harm to Pakistan. Hurt by the dismissal of her government within 22 months of coming to power, Ms Bhutto focussed her energies on revenge and had the satisfaction of seeing the president sack the Nawaz government in April 1993. Even though the court reinstated the Sharif government, and he lost power again as a result of his tiff with the president, he focussed his energies on destabilising the second Benazir government, which was dismissed by Mr Leghari in 1996. The way the elected governments were given marching orders eroded the people’s confidence in the political process, even though it was the army which was active behind the scenes. Both Ms Bhutto and Mr Sharif never saw beyond their noses and enjoyed the rival’s sorry fate without realizing that nemesis would strike again. Article 58-2b was repealed by the second Sharif government, but President Musharraf revived it and incorporated it into the Constitution. If President Musharraf wants us to believe that the era of frequent dismissal of assemblies is behind us, he should have this article repealed through a constitutional amendment provided for in the Basic Law.

Honour for Mukhtaran Mai

AT A time when a section of the international press portrays Pakistan as one of the failed states, it is heartening that Mukhtaran Mai offers a ray of hope as she continues to receive global recognition for her tenacity and courage. She has been named by Time magazine as one of the 100 most influential people in the world today. Citing her as a hero and pioneer, Mukhtaran is described as “an alchemist who takes the worst of human behaviour and turns it into the best [and has] responded to the violence and gender apartheid directed at her and other women with an insistence on justice and education.” That is not all. On Wednesday she was honoured as a women’s right advocate at a UN reception in New York at which the UN undersecretary-general for communications said of her that “anyone who has the moral courage...to turn such a brutal attack into a weapon to defend others in a similar position is a hero indeed and is worthy of our deepest respect and admiration.”

For someone who four years ago was barely literate, Mukhtaran’s journey to recovery has indeed been an awe-inspiring one. Not only has she set up a school in her rural hometown with the compensation money she received from the government, she is, as Time magazine noted, “a magnet for other women escaping violence.” She was also honoured at a reception by the Pakistan embassy in Washington DC last month, showing that the government has recognised that it is important to pay homage to a person who serves as a good ambassador for the country. She represents all that there is to hope for in Pakistan and for that she deserves everyone’s support.

Turmoil in Balochistan

THE Quaid-i-Azam Mohammad Ali Jinnah wanted Pakistan to be a federation, with autonomous units in which fundamental human rights, equality of status and opportunity, social, economic and political justice would be guaranteed. Accordingly, all the three constitutions of Pakistan — of 1956, 1962 and 1973 — unequivocally reaffirmed the federal character of the state.

It is, however, a different matter that the hallowed principle of federalism lost its meaning and validity when successive military rulers of the country, devoid of political sagacity and historical insight, failed to follow it up in letter and spirit. As a result, Pakistan could not emerge as a single political entity that was an essential prerequisite for bringing together its ethno-linguistic groups and create among them an unfaultered sense of belonging to the new state.

The existence of different ethnic cultures in a country does not necessarily pose a threat to its national unity provided a code of rights and obligations, based on justice and fair play, is evolved and adhered to scrupulously by the rulers. Regrettably, however, the successive regimes in Pakistan, both civilian and military, disregarded this cardinal principle and followed their expedient own rules in governing the country.

Their centralist tendencies and discriminatory attitude, particularly towards the smaller units of the federation, triggered fissiparous tendencies among their inhabitants, and in the absence of a meaningful and result-oriented approach a constant conflict ensued between them and the power at the centre.

The on-going turmoil in Balochistan is profoundly disturbing for the people of Pakistan and not without a touch of irony. Regrettably, in our short life, as a free nation, we have already lost half of the country in 1971. Yet, we have learnt no lesson from that catastrophe and our rulers continue to commit the same mistakes and show a similar lack of prudence and wisdom in dealing with the worsening situation in Balochistan as was evident during the East Pakistan crisis.

Let us accept the stark reality that Balochistan, which is territorially the largest province of Pakistan with the smallest number of people, is the most impoverished province, despite its vast mineral resources, including gas, coal, iron ore, sulphur, marble etc. Regrettably, successive governments, instead of ameliorating the socio-economic conditions of the poor masses in that province, mollified the tribal chiefs (sardars) who, while pretending to fight for the rights of the people there, actually exploited their sense of deprivation to advance their own political, economic and other interests.

The present turmoil in Balochistan needs to be seen in its historical perspective. British interest in Balochistan was purely strategic, wanting to keep it under their control through the tribal chiefs who worked under the tutelage of their political agent. These tribal chiefs were adequately compensated by the British for their services. When the British withdrawal from the subcontinent became a certainty, most of these tribal chiefs, fearing that they would lose their power and privileges in a democratic Pakistan, decided to raise the demand for an independent Balochistan.

It is believed that the Indian National Congress capitalised on this and encouraged these tribal chiefs to stand for it. It may be mentioned that the Congress leadership, which had accepted the establishment of Pakistan with a strong reservations, wanted it to be a truncated entity and not a viable independent state that its founding fathers wanted it to be.

The people of Balochistan, however, overwhelmingly voted to join Pakistan in a referendum that was held on June 30, 1947, to ascertain their wishes on this issue. This belies the propaganda that has recently been unleashed by certain unscrupulous elements that Balochistan had not joined Pakistan willingly. In this connection, it is also worth mentioning that despite the virulent campaign spearheaded by the tribal chiefs and the Congress cohorts against the concept of Pakistan, a fairly large number of delegates from Balochistan had attended the annual session of the Muslim League in Lahore in 1940. These delegates wholeheartedly supported the resolution that envisaged the geographically contiguous areas in the north western and eastern zones of India where the Muslims are numerically in a majority, to constitute an independent Muslim state.

The tribal chiefs still continue to enjoy the power and privileges they were entitled to under the British rule and those in whose territories gas was found are also paid a hefty royalty. This has resulted in building a kind of society in Balochistan that does not quite conform to democratic norms and is certainly different from anything that the people of that province wanted for themselves after independence. This is the century of awakening in all parts of the world and the sooner the Baloch tribal chiefs accept the social, political and economic realities of today’s world the better it will be for them and their people.

The people of Balochistan, for obvious reasons, do not want to be relegated forever to the unalterable position of a political non-entity and are keen to overturn the existing tribal system in their province which has not only survived but also flourished with the support and blessings of the federal government. This is evident from the fact that in the last general elections, held in October 2002, most tribal leaders and their supporters, who had dominated the political scene in the province for decades, failed to get elected. One only hopes that the tribal chiefs in Balochistan will read the writing on the wall and bow to the will of the people.

The law and order situation in Balochistan is worsening day by day. The use of sophisticated arms by the insurgents against the government forces is evidence of the complicity of external elements in our internal affairs which is indeed a very serious matter and has given a new dimension to the ongoing trouble in Balochistan. No government worth the name can allow the miscreants to strike at places of vital importance to such as gas installations or continue to derail trains and plant bombs in public transport which not only cause loss of life and destruction of property but also create chaos and uncertainty in the country.

There is absolutely no justification for such criminal acts even if it is a struggle for a just and legitimate cause. It is, however, a matter of satisfaction that only a handful of radical elements are involved in these crimes and the majority of the people of Balochistan continue to remain peaceful and law abiding citizens of the country.

The present turmoil in Balochistan that has been simmering for a considerable period must come to an end as early as possible to avoid undesirable consequences. Islamabad would blunder profoundly if it does not act immediately to find a durable political solution to resolve the Balochistan problem once and for all. At the same time, all segments of society, regardless of their political affiliations, must also join hands to make an earnest effort to achieve the objective of national integration.

The writer is a former ambassador.

Back to the Security Council

THE United States will begin a long, difficult and possibly unsuccessful campaign this week to persuade the UN Security Council to order an end to Iran’s nuclear programme — even though Iran’s president has already said the regime does “not give a damn about such resolutions.”

While the diplomacy drags on, Iran’s race for a bomb will continue: The International Atomic Energy Agency reported Friday that Tehran’s work on enriching uranium was accelerating even as it continued to stonewall inspectors’ attempts to learn about still more troubling parts of its programme. The Bush administration’s pursuit of a resolution at the United Nations is nonetheless a necessary step — in part because of what it may reveal about the international coalition it has tried to build against Iran.

A debate on a legally binding resolution should set the United States and its European allies more firmly on a course toward adopting specific sanctions against Iran. It should also force China and Russia to decide whether they wish to be partners of the West in addressing such threats to global security.

Russian President Vladimir Putin has skillfully exploited the growing crisis with Iran, cooperating with the West just enough to forestall a response to his increasingly belligerent policies in other parts of the world, while also reaping the benefit of rising oil prices — and retaining the option of selling advanced weapons to Tehran.

By the time of this summer’s Group of Eight summit in St. Petersburg, Mr. Putin should be obliged either to stand with the democratic governments he will host in supporting Security Council action or to demonstrate that he does not belong in their company. China, too, will show whether it is interested in taking up the role of global “stakeholder” urged on it by the Bush administration.

Russian and Chinese diplomats say their resistance to sanctions stems from concern that they will lead to more defiance by Iran, military action by the United States, or both. The same worries prompt the growing chorus of calls in Europe and in Washington for the Bush administration to offer the mullahs a “strategic dialogue.”

—The Washington Post