Political & economic ties with China

IN both economic and political terms, President Hu Jintao’s visit has conformed to the ever-warm, strong and in many ways unique relationship between China and Pakistan. A number of agreements have been signed, including a free-trade pact, and on the political front, the Chinese president backed Islamabad’s efforts to normalise relations with India, which he had visited before his arrival in Pakistan. South Asia has long held out to the outside world the tantalising prospect of a valuable strategic and economic partner. Most external powers have sought to exploit the vastness and richness of the region for their own benefit: they have also extracted full advantage from the region’s political divisions and fault-lines to advance their own geo-political interests. The West drew Pakistan into its anti-communist network of military pacts; the Soviet Union wooed India.

China on the whole has been more reticent, partly because for a long time it was involved in setting its own house in order and because interference abroad or interventionism was not its policy. President Hu made it clear in New Delhi that Beijing welcomed good relations between Pakistan and India because a peaceful South Asia could be a force in its own right. This is a goal that has been a source of fascination for many in South Asia, but it has always seemed to remain a distant one because of the troubles that have beset the regional countries. The running disputes between India and Pakistan have been one of the biggest hurdles in the way of achieving South Asian unity and strength. If these two countries could agree to live in harmony, they would be able to solve many of those problems for which they now have to seek outside help. And if South Asia and China could work together politically, seeking also Russia’s help, a bloc might emerge that would prove a check on the present aggressive unilateralism of the world’s sole superpower. This unilateralism has played havoc with the Middle East and Afghanistan and requires concerted efforts on the part of the nations in the region to revive the spirit of the non-aligned movement, unhappily now in decline.

On the bilateral economic front, Pakistan and China jointly aim at raising the trade level, currently at two billion billions to $15 billion in five years — an ambitious target but worth making the effort to achieve it in view of Pakistan’s overall declining exports. Trade between the two countries hitherto has been confined to cooperation at the state level in the fields of nuclear power, defence production, heavy industry and now Gwadar port. The private sector has to play its role in seeking advantage from the engine of economic growth that China has become as the world’s fourth largest economy. Because of the failure of the private sector to seize the opportunities offered, Pakistan’s exports to China are at present at a low level, and it should be hoped that the talks held and the contacts made during Mr Hu’s visit will lead to greater enterprise on the part of our private sector and it will be more conscious of the quick shifts being registered by the global export market. Overall, one can only recall that many bilateral and multilateral agreements signed by Pakistan in the past have failed to produce much because of poor implementation. There’s an opportunity now to improve on this record.

Dependence on hand-outs

BALOCHISTAN’S finances are in dire straits, with the province’s overdraft from its account with the Central Bank running at an all-time high of Rs16 billion. Loans extended by Islamabad to the provincial government have also reached a record high. The province needs upwards of Rs250 million per month for debt servicing alone. The situation has led the provincial government to put its development plans on hold; this, barely five months into the current fiscal year. Quetta’s dependence on the federal government’s grants and subventions has traditionally been very high, owing mainly to a lack of its own financial resources. Also, for a long time Balochistan has been in dispute with the federal government over gas royalties given to it. The latest formula given by the president last year to share the federal divisible pool among the provinces, too, has not adequately addressed Balochistan’s problems and needs. The provincial government says it has no stakes in the mega-development projects being carried out in Balochistan by the federal government, finding itself at a complete loss to bridge the gap between its receipts and expenditure and, in turn, having to borrow heavily from the Central Bank.

This situation cannot go on for too long. Given the constraints of the province in regard to its own, limited financial resources, Islamabad will have to step in to bail Balochistan out of the current financial crisis. But this is no long-term solution. The need for a formula assigning more weightage to underdevelopment of a federating unit, whereby the latter gets a bigger share in the divisible pool, cannot be over-emphasised, as the case of Balochistan clearly shows. Also, it is time the royalty-related agreements made with Baloch sardars — the Bugtis, for one, who bagged the bulk of the gas royalty paid by Islamabad while the provincial government got only the pittance — was revisited. Ways and means should also be explored to make the Balochistan government a stakeholder in the federal government’s on-going development projects, such as the ones related to the Gwadar port and city development, to reduce Quetta’s reliance on hand-outs from Islamabad.

America must rethink Afghanistan

THE US invasion of Afghanistan was based on the premise of Mulla Omar’s refusal to hand over or expel Osama bin Laden and his cohorts. Five years down the road, despite the occupation of Afghanistan by the US and a NATO army, Bin Laden and Omar in all probability remain in Afghanistan. The writ of President Karzai hardly extends beyond Kabul. Narco warlords have been appointed governors of the provinces; a learned governor was shot dead a few weeks ago.

Afghanistan last year produced over 6,000 tons of opium, the highest production ever. It is believed that about a third of the multiple millions of dollars being invested by the West for reconstruction are salted away by corruption. The country is in a state of turmoil: terror stalks the land night and day.

Since 9/11, Osama bin Laden has ceased to be a person; he has become something of an ideology. Today his followers are to be found mainly among young disgruntled Muslims living in great cities of the West.

The US venture in Afghanistan has failed to win the hearts of the people. It does have the support of the Northern people, who fear the historic domination of Afghanistan by the Pushtuns. But in the Pushtun majority heartland, and in particular, the tribal border areas in Southern Afghanistan, the US is held in the same contempt as was the Soviet Union in the 1980s.

A fog has settled on our understanding of who, where and what the Taliban are. Let it be said that the Taliban were never a part of the Bin Laden terror enterprise of the past, or even of the present; today they are the stalwarts of Afghan nationalism — a proud nationalism that has defeated three British and one Soviet armies in the past century and a half. The sixty thousand troops of the US and NATO stand a poor chance of success against this force. Pushtun nationalism is the historic engine of Afghan nationalism. To put it briefly, America must come to terms with Mulla Omar sans Osama bin Laden before it gets into a quagmire, and drags Pakistan into it.

The first step in this direction, which will send a message loud and clear to the friend and foe, would be to install a ruler in Kabul who has the capacity to negotiate a ceasefire with the Taliban. Any ceasefire will demand a time-table for the exit of American troops followed by NATO forces from Afghanistan. The induction of the Taliban nominees in the Kabul government will not be a disaster. The suggested ‘rethink’ in Afghanistan is based on the premise that the Taliban today are Afghan nationalists fighting a war of liberation to expel western forces from their land; that they are not part of the Al Qaeda brigade. They do not share their ideals, but of late have adopted their means — suicide bombing. Suicide is an anti-Islamic act; it is surprising that the Taliban have succumbed to this mode of attack.

About 16 months before the Great Buddha statutes of Bamiyan were destroyed by the Taliban, Mulla Omar actually issued an edict calling for their protection. His edict in part runs as follows:

“Since Islam came to Afghanistan until the present period the statutes have not been damaged. The government regards the statutes with serious respect and considers the position of their protection today be the same as always. The government considers the Bamiyan statutes as an example of potential major source of income (from tourism).”

This edict was presumably issued in response to fanatic cries from within the Mulla coterie of trying to be more Islamic than the Ameer and the Momineen. How and why he changed his mind 16 months later to destroy the Great Bamiyan Buddhas is a tragic story.

Around the same time as the above edict was issued, another edict was also issued by Omar directing a total ban on the cultivation of poppy as production, consumption and sale of opium being un-Islamic. Poppy had been cultivated from times immemorial in Afghanistan and was the backbone of the rural economy. The income from opium per acre was three to four times the earnings from the cultivation of wheat. Besides, the farmer did not have to go to the market — the market came to him. The middle man would finance the crop, even before it was sown.

Around 4,000 tonnes of opium was produced at the time of the ban. Such was the power of Mulla Omar that the ban was implemented, perhaps for the only time in Afghanistan’s history; the punishment for violators was face blackening and the like.

But this edict caused havoc to the rural economy. Overnight the income of farmers was drastically slashed; fields were not sown because most farmers could not finance seeds for wheat cultivation. Besides, the middle man was not available to bring the market to the farmer’s doorsteps.

Though it was naive of Omar to impose such a drastic ban without planning for the consequences, it was perhaps the greatest gift that the West could ever expect to receive. The world’s biggest source of heroin was cut overnight. The US had spent almost a billion dollars in Colombia to provide finance to farmers to substitute marijuana, unsuccessfully. And now a billion dollar bonus was received almost free.

With disaster stalking the land, the CIA was approached by the then Taliban foreign minister to help. The request was for a few million dollars. This was refused by the US unless Omar softened his gender policy. He refused. Bin Laden’s hour of destiny had arrived. He had the means to underwrite the Afghan government — no doubt, with strings attached. He became the paymaster of the Taliban army and was given a freer hand to do as he wished, which he did under the rubric of Islam.

Mulla Omar was made aware of Bin Laden’s terrorist attack on US embassies in East Africa, and training camps in Khost and other places, but the ethos of the time was Anti-American then, and therefore the allegations against Bin Laden on East Africa bombings of the American embassy were not believed because they were beholden to the Bin Laden dollars.

The Taliban, as noted earlier, were a naive lot, for a time the treasury of Afghanistan — foreign currency — was kept by Omar next to his bedroom. He had no computers or television to access the world at large. His communication and style of governing system was primitive. In contract Bin Laden had the most sophisticated communication systems and a modern management consisting of technical experts working for him worldwide. His style of management was that of a large corporate manager. Al Qaeda’s eleven ‘do it’ volumes manual on terror is a devilish masterpiece; it could only be constructed by the learned in the modern sciences.

In brief, Bin Laden’s vision was a worldwide struggle against American interests in the Middle East — Mulla Omar basically was a cog in the wheel — an unwitting accomplice, at worst.

For all practical purposes, by 1999 Bin Laden was the master of Afghanistan. He encouraged senior clerics to demand the destruction of Afghanistan’s priceless heritage in the Kabul museum on so-called Islamic grounds and, having succeeded, persuaded Omar to destroy the Great Buddhas of Bamiyan. By 9/1, Omar’s isolation was complete and his dependence on Bin Laden total.

The financing situation has now completely changed. No longer is it easy for Al Qaeda to shift large sums of money from one country to another because of tightened banking controls, but, financing the Taliban movement in Afghanistan poses no problem: the narcotics chain takes care of that. The question arises as to why the narco industry does not support Al Qaeda? As stated earlier, Al Qaeda terrorists are now mainly young educated Muslim volunteers from the margins of western cities and it is believed that militant organisations in Pakistan and elsewhere provide training. To the best of one’s knowledge no Afghan has been involved in Al Qaeda a inspired terrorism in recent terror attacks. Besides, the narcotics industry has no interest in upsetting its valuable markets in the West.

If the above analysis is correct or even near correct, the West should seek an accommodation with the Afghan nationalists (the so-called Taliban). This venture in reconciliation is better suited to the British genius who can differentiate between the multi-coloured spectrum of the nationalist movement and its subterranean fissures. Pakistan should lend its intelligence support to achieve reconciliation. Peace on our western border is vital to our self-interest.

The Americans can be counted on to bully Pakistan by its usual carrot and stick policy. But the American public and the Europeans have no appetite for wars in Asia; they seek an exit strategy in Iraq and Afghanistan. The reading on the wall is clear after the mid-term elections in the US.

The Americans, unlike the Chinese, have a short memory. They may be reminded that Pakistan forged a friendship and understanding with the Peoples’ Republic of China, when ‘Red’ China was ostracised by the US. In the end, it was Pakistan’s policy of conciliation that opened the door to China. Thus has changed the dynamics of world politics.

America must rethink Afghanistan.

The writer is an MNA.
murbr@isb.paknet.com.pk

School teachers’ protest

TEACHERS in Punjab are rallying behind their Government-School Senior Teachers’ Association to press their demands that include better pays and allowances as well as improving the working conditions of the teaching staff in public schools. The association has chalked out a lengthy protest plan with peaceful demonstrations set to take place district-wide throughout the province before culminating in a rally on January 10 in Lahore — unless, of course, their rightful demands are met by the government in the mean time. The teachers’ grievances are long-standing and many; most of the demands made by them also make good sense. These include, for instance, the filling of what the teachers allege are thousands of vacant posts in the provincial education department, not least those of head teachers and school headmasters. The posts have been lying vacant for years while promotions on the basis of seniority are being held back. Successive governments have paid little heed to such demands, opting, instead, for interventions in the public school system by non-governmental organisations at various levels. Even the teacher training staff has been hired by the government on an ad hoc basis; they are paid much lower wages than is their due for a permanent job in the same capacity. The policy, the teachers say, is based on the whims of ruling politicians who are in the habit of paying lip service to furthering the cause of education, but doing nothing substantive.

The status of teachers in society, especially those employed in the public education system, leaves a lot to be desired. It is a shame that nothing has been done to better the lot of those whose vocation it is to educate the nation’s children. The deep-rooted dissatisfaction found among public school teachers hampers the very noble task they are entrusted with.