Positive outcome in Ankara

IT IS too early to say whether the meeting between President Musharraf and President Karzai in Ankara will produce tangible results. The joint statement issued on Monday owes a lot to President Sezer of Turkey who brought together the two leaders, who have been at odds over their approach vis-à-vis the Taliban. It is not enough that they said the correct things and were civil enough to stop trading barbs, though they did not shake hands. But their meeting in Washington with President Bush last September also produced a statement from the White House saying that the three leaders had agreed to defeat extremism through greater intelligence sharing and coordinated action against terrorists. But little of the sort has happened in the last seven months. This time the joint statement has come from the two presidents themselves and is more specific. For instance, they have agreed to deny sanctuary, training and financing to terrorists and subversive elements operating in each other’s country. But the tension between them does not seem to have abated, as indicated by the grim demeanour of the two leaders.

There are four positive points in the joint statement that could prove to be the proverbial silver lining in the Afghan clouds. First, the two sides have promised to initiate immediate action on specific intelligence exchanges, which would certainly help. Significantly, this time it is not just Pakistan that will be expected to provide information on the terrorists who have sought refuge in the tribal areas. Afghanistan, too, will have to cooperate in tracking down the extremists who have been infiltrating Pakistan from Afghan territory and playing havoc with its security. Secondly, agreement on reducing opium cultivation in Afghanistan — mainly in the Helmand region — should weaken the Taliban, who have been financing their terrorist activities with proceeds from drug trafficking which staged a comeback some years ago. Strangely, Mr Karzai has not cracked down on this unlawful activity so far although checking it could have a crippling monetary effect on the Taliban. Thirdly, by agreeing to cooperate on the repatriation of the Afghan refugees from Pakistan, the two countries will ease the tension in their relations that the refugees’ presence in Pakistan has generated. Fourthly, the joint working group, that will also include Turkey as a member, holds much promise. It will monitor progress on the measures on which agreement has been reached.

It is to be hoped that Pakistan and Afghanistan have come round to recognising the importance of cooperation and joint action in the war on terror that they are waging in their border areas. Given the nature of the terrain in this region, the porous border and the fact that there are ethnic tribes straddling the Durand Line, it is not possible to seal the border by building fences. Only joint action can make it possible for the security agencies of the two countries to crack down on the extremists. For Pakistan, this means giving up its traditional belief that Afghanistan provides it strategic depth. For its part, Afghanistan will have to stop eyeing Pakistan as an extension of its own territory — the Pakhtunistan idea it has supported for long. If they are serious about wiping out terrorism from the area, this is the best opportunity they have.

Time for greater autonomy

THE reported move by the government to bring a constitutional amendment aimed at devolving more powers to the provinces is welcome. It is time the federal Concurrent List under the 1973 Constitution, handing over for 10 years to the federal government many subjects originally assigned to the provinces, was shortened significantly. The list contains 47 subjects, bringing the total number of legislative powers vested in the federal government to 114. This is the highest number of subjects assigned to a central government in a federal set-up. The 1973 Constitution was adopted in the tragic aftermath of the 1971 war and the separation of the former province of East Pakistan. Whatever the justification the signatories to the 1973 Constitution had in mind then for creating an exceptionally strong federal government is now redundant. Resentment found among the provinces to an overly empowered federal government, which negates the promised provincial autonomy under the same Basic Law, has necessitated the need to review and shorten the Concurrent List.

The very idea behind extending the list has outlived its rationale and goes against the spirit behind the present government’s devolution of power plan; for more powers to trickle down to the districts, the provinces must regain some of their lost powers. The list was put in place in view of the then central government’s over-sensitivity to the possibility of defiance of its authority by the four federating units, which had earlier been lumped together as One Unit — a single province. The transfer recently of fishing rights to the provinces in their respective waterways shows the absurdity of some of the subjects contained in the Concurrent List. Smaller provinces in particular have demanded the shortening of the list to allow them the legislative and functional autonomy which so far has eluded them. It is important that all four provincial governments and the mainstream opposition parties are consulted now that the government is ready to hand back some of the powers to the provinces. A broader, national consensus should be achieved on the proposed amendment to the Constitution to avoid a bitter controversy.

Preventing thalassaemia

THE demand for introducing legislation making it mandatory for couples to have themselves tested for thalassaemia before marriage has been consistently ignored by our parliamentarians, which is why Senate chairman Mohammedmian Soomro’s support for such a law raises few hopes. Perhaps, our lawmakers do not realise the suffering of thalassaemic patients, mostly children, who, during their limited lifespan, have to undergo frequent blood transfusions and endure health complications that impact adversely on the quality of life. In fact, in an environment where carelessness is the defining feature of public healthcare, many children often contract other dangerous blood-borne diseases through the transfusion of infected blood. Bone marrow transplant offers a cure but it is both costly and risky. Besides compatible donors are hard to find. This makes it necessary for the focus to be kept on prevention, especially in a country where thalassaemics usually come from a poor background and cannot afford quality healthcare.

Legislation for premarital screening must, of course, be accompanied by a strong public awareness campaign aimed at making the risks of having thalassaemic children clear to couples planning to marry, especially if they are cousins. It is true that cultural taboos obstruct an open discussion on the subject. But shying away from it will result in more and more children being born with a genetic blood disorder that makes their lives hardly worth living. In this scenario, ties of kinship should not be a leading consideration. We should follow Iran’s example. For all that country’s conservatism, couples in Iran are required to undergo premarital screening. Over the years, this, together with genetic counselling, has resulted in a 70 per cent reduction in the projected number of infants being born with the disorder. There is no reason why Pakistan cannot follow suit.

Sinister side of Boris Yeltsin

SOME of Boris Yeltsin’s worst transgressions barely rated a mention in much of the media coverage that followed his demise last month. The broad tendency was to paint him as Russia’s democratic saviour, a political colossus given to occa-sional acts of drunken tomfoolery.

In a tribute published in The New York Times last Sunday, Bill Clinton described him as imperfect but “intelligent, passionate, emotional, strong-willed and courageous”, concluding: “Russia and the world were lucky to have him. History will be kind to my friend Boris.”

Among the stock footage favoured by many television networks over the past 10 days is a clip that shows Yeltsin making a remark that prompts an outburst of Clintonian laughter. It dates back to the period when Clinton compared him with Abraham Lincoln, a compliment that coincided with the destruction of Grozny by Russian planes, tanks and missiles.

Apart from the indelible image of Yeltsin berating troops from atop a tank outside the Russian parliament in August 1991, news reports tended to focus on the lighter moments in the former president’s career: Boris the friendly bear dancing on stage with a rock group, Boris the muzhik greeting an unsuspecting woman with a pinch on the backside, Boris the jester pretending to conduct a German orchestra.

One almost expected the compilation of clips to be followed by a blurb along the lines of: “I thought Boris Yeltsin was a leading 20th-century political figure, until I discovered Smirnoff” (or Stolichnaya, as the case may be).

Hardly any network deemed it worthwhile to visually juxtapose that moment of bravery — or at least bravado — from August 1991, when the coup attempt against Soviet president Mikhail Gorbachev provided Yeltsin with the opportunity to strike a pose that would be recognised by posterity as his finest hour, with the scene some two years later in exactly the same part of Moscow, when Yeltsin ordered a military assault against the same Russian parliament that stood by him in 1991. This instance of state terrorism enjoyed widespread western approbation at the time and continues to be glossed over in retrospect, with leading American newspapers fallaciously describing it as a successful effort to defeat a communist coup attempt.

In certain other contexts, such as the economic “shock therapy” that reduced a large proportion of Russians to penury, liberal western media organs are now prepared to admit that Yeltsin was seriously mistaken, albeit without acknowledging the folly of their uncritical contemporary support.

The blanket stamp of approval was somewhat more difficult in the case of the systematic violation of human rights in Chechnya. But then, what’s indefensible can often be ignored, and perhaps it’s not surprising that images of the havoc wreaked in Grozny and the massacres perpetrated in Chechen villages by ill-trained Russian conscripts have generally been absent from recent coverage of the Yeltsin years.

Boris Yeltsin was an unknown quantity when, shortly after the advent of Gorbachev, he was plucked from Sverdlovsk and installed as the metropolitan party leader in Moscow. His populist approach to the job offered a sharp contrast to the cautious conservatism traditionally associated with party bureaucrats, and Muscovites relished the sight of the local party chief travelling on public transport, publicly sounding off about empty shelves in shops, tracking down hoarders and lamenting the slow pace of perestroika. In the reformist atmosphere introduced by Gorbachev, Yeltsin swept through the Soviet capital like a fresh breeze.

His acrimonious rupture with the Communist Party did his popularity no harm. He seemed to represent the future, whereas much of the party, despite all of Gorbachev’s efforts, still seemed to be mired in the past. If Muscovites could have envisaged at that point the sort of future that lay in wait, their attitude may have changed dramatically — as it eventually did: on the eve of his departure from the Kremlin at the end of 1999, Yeltsin’s popularity had dwindled to two per cent.

Ten years earlier, however, his incessant attacks on the privileges enjoyed by the Communist hierarchy and the hurdles in the path of democratic reforms fell on receptive ears. In the first contested elections to the Russian Federation’s Congress of People’s Deputies, Yeltsin stood against a party candidate and won by a huge majority. Those elections, organised while the USSR was very much intact, were arguably the fairest that Russia has witnessed.

The parliament elected Yeltsin as its chairman, but he had set his eyes on a higher goal, and in mid-1991 he achieved his ambition by becoming Russia’s first directly elected president — a platform that strengthened his ability to undermine Gorbachev, whose elevation to the post of the Soviet Union’s first executive president had not been preceded by a popular vote.

A couple of months later, Yeltsin leapt to his rival’s defence when a conspiracy between members of the party hierarchy, the interior ministry and the KGB led to Gorbachev being taken prisoner. The coup-makers, who ostensibly wanted to reverse the reform process, behaved like nervous clowns. A more ruthless and clearly thought-out operation would, at the very least, have entailed Yeltsin’s neutralisation. Instead, although tanks were ordered on to the roads, the soldiers manning them were sufficiently confused by their mission to be obeying the traffic lights.

Muscovites reacted to the show of force by pouring on to the streets, determined to resist the backwards lurch, and buoyed no doubt by Yeltsin’s declaration from atop a T-72 tank: “We are dealing with a right-wing, reactionary, anti-constitutional coup d’état. We appeal to the citizens of Russia to give an appropriate rebuff to the putschists. The legally elected president of the country has been removed from power. We proclaim all decisions and decrees of this committee (formed by the conspirators) to be illegal.”

Chances are that the coup would have floundered anyhow, but it did wonders for Yeltsin’s image — although he found time for other pursuits during those three crucial days: on one occasion, former foreign minister Eduard Shevardnadze found him passed out on the carpet, with an empty bottle of vodka close by. Meanwhile, the coup attempt set the scene for three momentous events: the humiliation of Mikhail Gorbachev, the disbanding of the Communist Party and, within months, the dismemberment of the Soviet Union. Yeltsin was instrumental in each of them.

The final act involved a meeting between Yeltsin and the leaders of Ukraine and Byelorussia in a hunting lodge near the Polish border, where they arbitrarily chose independence for the USSR’s constituent republics, pre-empting a new union treaty that had been all but finalised. The undemocratic and unconstitutional move was effectively another coup against Gorbachev. The theoretical burial of the Soviet Union was followed by a feast that ended in a drunken brawl.

In the brave new Russia, the sudden removal of state subsidies was accompanied by the sale of state assets at throwaway prices. A handful of enterprising folk grew very, very rich while millions saw their savings rendered worthless: in 1992, inflation went up by 2,000 per cent. These policies inevitably invited parliamentary efforts to overturn them, leading to the 1993 confrontation. It seems perverse for the man who ordered military action against his nation’s parliament to be hailed as the father of Russian democracy, but in some eyes Yeltsin could do no serious wrong: he may have been a bit of a monster, but he was a monster who devoured communism and usually obeyed the West.

So who cares that in 1996, faced with the prospect of defeat in his re-election attempt, he seriously toyed with the idea of dispensing with the democratic process, until the crony capitalists he had nurtured came to his aid? Vladimir Putin, who isn’t always prepared to kowtow to the West, is often accused of possessing an authoritarian streak, but it’s seldom noted that he inherited it from Yeltsin — whose choice of successor, incidentally, was guided by one overriding factor: it had to be someone who would guarantee the outgoing president and his family immunity from prosecution. Yeltsin’s distaste for privileges and corruption had not survived the collapse of communism.

Towards the end of his tenure, a pair of scholars, Professor Peter Reddaway and Dmitri Glinski, offered this scathing opinion: “For the first time in recent world history one of the major industrial nations with a highly educated society has dismantled the results of several decades of economic development.”

Small wonder, then, that when foreign correspondents took to the streets of Moscow for a vox pop last week, they could hardly find anyone willing to say a kind word about a leader who, whatever Bill Clinton may say, is likely to go down in history as a destroyer rather than a builder. “I think all of Russia is celebrating in silence,” ventured one young man. Gorbachev’s reaction, not surprisingly, was more measured: “A tragic fate,” he noted. “On (his) shoulders rest major events for the good of the country as well as serious mistakes.”

Margaret Thatcher, meanwhile, echoed many of her ideological peers — and demonstrated her tenuous grasp of recent history — in describing the deceased as a “patriot and liberator” without whom “Russia would have remained in the grip of communism”.

A week ago, the late Russian leader became the first of his ilk since the days of the tsars to be laid to rest following a church service. Perhaps a suitable epitaph, simply and accurately summarising the complexities of his political career, could have been: “Here lies Boris Nikolayevich Yeltsin, sober at last...”

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