mains2007

The assassination

Tue, 22 Jan 2008 18:05:36 GMT

The assassination

The ongoing row over the manner in which Benazir was killed is pointless. The fact that an armed assailant was able to have such close access to her exposes the huge security lapse. I wonder why the Pakistan government is making statements that are going to be of no help to it.

Meenakshi Alagesan,

Karaikudi

* * *

Islamabad’s claim that Benazir died not of bullet injuries but of hitting her head against the sunroof of her vehicle is ridiculous. Until a world body extramural to Pakistan is appointed to probe the real cause of the killing, the incident will in perpetuity remain a whodunit.

H. Narayanan,

New Delhi

* * *

Why did the Pakistan government fail to provide Benazir an adequate security cover? President Pervez Musharraf is certainly in for hard times as international and domestic pressure increases on him and Pakistan sinks into chaos.

Anuj Surana,

Chennai

* * *

Television footage and pictures in the print media are an obvious pointer to the government’s apathy towards Benazir’s security. The presence of an armed assassin and a suicide bomber within a few metres of her car exposes a huge chink in the security armour. The very tragic and shameful incident has definitely put President Musharraf, darling of George W. Bush, under the scanner.

Md. Shad Jamal,

Puducherry

* * *

There is a remarkable coincidence between the assassination of Rajiv Gandhi and Benazir Bhutto. Both were assassinated before the elections (while campaigning) just as it appeared that they were on the threshold of being elected to power again. Both were former Prime Ministers, wards of former Prime Ministers who died unnatural deaths, and hailed from prominent political families.

S. Meiyappan,

Chennai

Subcontinent politics

Tue, 22 Jan 2008 18:04:43 GMT

Subcontinent politics

The appointment of Bilawal Bhutto Zardari as PPP chairman is an emotional, distress reaction, often witnessed in the subcontinent which proves that the region is yet to mature as a democracy. Politics in South Asia still remains personality, not programme, oriented. There are a few political parties in India like the Left and the BJP which have not succumbed to family-centric politics so far. By making a teenager head the biggest political party in Pakistan, which is supposed to be the second most dangerous territory after Iraq, the PPP leaders are not doing any good to the bereaved family of Benazir Bhutto or the people of Pakistan.

Rettavayal S. Krishnaswamy,

Chennai

* * *

The PPP’s decision shows that major political parties in the subcontinent prefer familial succession to a truly democratically-elected leader. Several parties in India, Sri Lanka, Bangladesh, and Pakistan squander away every opportunity to do away with the practice of dynastic succession in the event of a vacuum caused by the exit of a popular leader. This practice will not foster true democratic values in the parties. It is difficult to comprehend how they can convince the electorate of their commitment to democratic values.

P. Prasand Thampy,

Thiruvalla

* * *

The appointment of a political novice as party chairman, overlooking other senior members, smacks of sycophancy. Even more ridiculous is the disclosure that Benazir wrote a political will saying her husband should succeed her as party leader. The principle of democracy stands negated when political leaders begin to treat their parties as their own property and fail to recognise the people who have toiled for years. A part of the blame is also due to the senior leaders themselves, who seek to ride the sympathy wave, generated by their leaders’ assassination, to power.

C.P. Prasanth Gopal,

Chennai

* * *

Besides adding to the list of tragic end of leaders in the Nehru-Gandhi and Bhutto families, Benazir’s assassination has exposed the harsh political realities prevalent in India and Pakistan. The PPP and the Congress have both been unable to look beyond the families of its leaders. In both the cases, the individual became the face of the party to its countrymen.

Both the parties did not develop second-rung leaders who could assume leadership on merit. After losing Benazir in tragic circumstances, the PPP is forcing the leadership on her son because he has the famous Bhutto surname. The Congress and the PPP need to understand that individuals and a family name do not make a party.

Krishna Kumar,

Ahmedabad

* * *

Bilawal’s appointment has sent the message that in South Asian countries such as India, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, and Pakistan, top political posts rest heavily on family legacy. The tendency does not augur well for healthy politics.

Jetling Yellosa,

Warangal

* * *

In her will, Benazir nominated her husband to succeed her as PPP leader. When alive, she assumed the title of the party’s chairperson for life. When she could not run even her party democratically, how can anyone describe her as a great democrat? Her death is certainly tragic but let us not become emotional and describe her in terms that she does not deserve, given that she ran one of the most corrupt governments in Pakistan.

Mohd. Salahuddin,

Mumbai

* * *

After all the eulogies showered on Benazir as a champion of democracy, her will came as an anti-climax. The anointment of her teenage son as PPP leader, with no role for the party’s rank and file, is a negation of democracy and a clear evidence of the grip that political dynasties have on our destinies in the subcontinent, be it in politics, movies or any other aspect of our lives.

M. Rao,

Ollur

* * *

The PPP’s decision to appoint the 19-year-old as chairman of the party is a reflection of South Asia’s political reality, marked by dynastic politics. True, Pakistan does not have a long democratic tradition. But when even democratic India is not immune to the attraction of political dynasties, Bilawal taking over the reins was along expected lines.

J.S. Acharya,

Hyderabad

* * *

Although Bilawal’s appointment as PPP leader may pass off as situational expediency, the retrograde tendency, similar to Rajiv Gandhi’s coronation in our country, is prevalent largely in South Asia. The inherent feudal attitude behind this circumscribes the creation and growth of political parties based on certain ideologies. Only parties based on a strong secular economic agenda can contribute to a dynamically evolving democracy.

Kasim Sait,

Most important election of our lifetime’

Tue, 22 Jan 2008 18:03:54 GMT

Most important election of our lifetime’

Michael Tomasky

Whichever candidates the voters nominate, the choice before Americans in November 2008 will be stark indeed.

— PHOTO: AP

Republican presidential hopeful Mike Huckabee at a rally in Indianola, Iowa on Saturday.

The best news as 2008 dawns, of course, is that this most endless of presidential campaigns now finally reaches a point at which something actually happens. Finally the people will speak, starting on Thursday in Iowa. So what will they say?

The races in both parties have developed along very unexpected lines, making this probably the most fascinating presidential election in decades. Let us start with the Republicans. Here we have the most unpopular sitting President since Richard Nixon. Significant majorities of his countrymen have long since concluded that they made a mistake in electing him; that he is not up to the job; that he basically lied them into a war; that his domestic policies have been at best no great shakes; and that the conservative ideology to which he has been in thrall has not served the country well, to put it mildly.

And yet, by and large, the Republican candidates are running on exactly the same policies that George W. Bush has pursued. All the major Republican candidates want to “stay the course” in Iraq, denouncing any discussion of withdrawal as evidence of pusillanimity. All see the fight against terrorism in more or less Bushian terms. All want to make the Bush tax cuts, scheduled to sunset in 2010, permanent — even John McCain, who at the time voted against them. All have promised the leaders of the Christian Right that they will appoint Supreme Court judges “in the mould of” Antonin Scalia and Clarence Thomas.

What this euphemistic language means is that whatever a candidate’s previous positions on abortion and gay rights — Rudy Giuliani, for instance, has supported both — the leaders of the religious conservative movement have exacted commitments from all the Grand Old Party candidates to appoint the kind of judges they want, and that matters far more than past positions.

Healthcare priority

There’s more. Healthcare is a priority in this election. But to hear these Republicans, you’d never know it. Their healthcare plans range from cynical to inadequate. Climate change? They barely acknowledge the problem and are particularly loathe to acknowledging that human activity has contributed to it. They continue to insist, as Republicans since Ronald Reagan have, that the only real domestic enemy the American people face is the federal government, which they continue to want to starve.

It is pretty astonishing, really — we’re at the tail end of a failed presidency, and the people running to succeed it are promising to continue its failed policies.

Now, many observers would say, well, they’re just pandering to their party’s right-wing base, and once one of them secures the nomination, he will tack to the centre. Undoubtedly, he will, for tactical reasons. But the real question is how the next Republican will govern should he happen to win. And the answer to that question is that there’s every reason to assume that he will be just as a conservative as Mr. Bush for one simple reason: the interest groups that run the GOP will not brook much deviation from the standard line.

Key interest groups

Those interest groups are three. The neocons run foreign policy — the Iraq disaster has not affected their influence in the GOP one whit. The theocons run social policy. And the radical anti-taxers run domestic policy. Until forces inside the GOP rise up to challenge these interests, any Republican administration will be roughly as conservative as Mr. Bush. The candidates have slightly different theories of stasis, they will tinker around this edge or that, but that’s about all you can say.

On the Democratic side, there is far more divergence. Not so much on policy — they are all for universal or nearly universal healthcare, for getting out of Iraq, for doing more for unions, for bringing some equity and progressivity to our taxation system and so on. If you’d asked me a year ago what the major Democrats’ positions on the leading issues would be, I would not have guessed that they’d be this uniformly liberal.

What they differ on is how they and the country will accomplish these things. The astute analyst and writer, Mark Schmitt, was the first to identify this phenomenon, naming the Democratic race the “theory of change” primary. John Edwards’ theory of change is that the system is corrupt, spoiled by corporate greed, and so the way to get change is to wage a kind of class war against it. Barack Obama’s theory of change is to ask independents and conservatives of good faith to work with him on encircling resistant forces and changing the system. Hillary Clinton’s theory of change is that the system is failing Americans in certain particular respects and that it is best massaged by someone with years of experience working within it.

The Democratic caucus-goers of Iowa will tell us on Thursday night which of these theories, retailed to them at close range for many months, they have embraced, although the outcome seems likely to be close, so the question won’t yet be settled. Republican caucus-goers seem more likely to tell us that they like Mike Huckabee’s version of stasis. But even that will not reveal much, because Iowa’s GOP caucus-goers are heavily weighted toward religious conservatives such as Mr. Huckabee.

Whichever theory of change Democratic voters nominate, and whichever theory of statis Republican voters select, the choice before Americans next November will be stark. In 2004, many Americans, particularly liberals fearful about a second Bush term, took to calling that election “the most important of my lifetime.” And it was, for a while. Now this one is.

(Michael Tomasky is editor of Guardian America.)

— ©Guardian Newspapers Limited, 2007

A year of hard decisions statecraft

Tue, 22 Jan 2008 18:03:01 GMT

A year of hard decisions statecraft

Harish Khare

Beginning January 2008, the country will drift into election mode. It is up to the Congress leadership to decide whether it wants to be on top of the momentum or be swept along.

Benazir Bhutto has already displaced Narendra Modi from the magazine covers. Concerns and calculations have changed within a few days; nonetheless, the dangerous implications of the Modi victory in Gandhinagar and equally troublesome downstream effects of the Bhutto assassination in Rawalpindi will need to be dealt with competently and confidently, that too in a manner as not to aggravate further our collective travails or to erode further our democratic institutions. That simply means that the next year will make exacting demands on those who choose to be our rulers and redeemers. And, as it were, all the decisions, hard ones, are for the ruling establishment to make.

The first and foremost decision the Manmohan Singh-Sonia Gandhi duo, along with whomsoever it deems fit to consult, will need to take is when to have the elections to the next Lok Sabha. This is the traditional prerogative of the Prime Minister in a cabinet system of government; but, more than a constitutional strategy, the timing of the general elections is the supreme political decision available to a ruling party. Not only will the Congress leadership need to decide the timing of the next Lok Sabha elections, the decision will also involve on what issues, under whose leadership, and in whose company to approach the electorate. If there is one lesson to be learnt from the Gujarat experience, it is that an effective electoral strategy hinges on manufacturing a credible narrative and an equally credible narrator.

In other words, the Congress leadership will need to tell the country unequivocally as to who its prime ministerial mascot at the time of the next Lok Sabha elections is. The principal opposition party, the Bharatiya Janata Party, has already announced its prime ministerial candidate, and the collective energies of the National Democratic Alliance would gravitate towards L.K. Advani’s prime ministerial ambitions. The Congress will not be able to ignore the public expectations over the prime ministerial leadership question; it cannot repeat its 2004 formulations that the elected Congress MPs would choose the next Prime Minister.

This takes us into the very heart of the Congress priestly code: the fiction has to be maintained that Ms Gandhi is the only leader who generates any kind of popular and electoral appeal. The sub-theme of this priestly code is that the only other person who can be permitted to make any claims of charisma is young Rahul Gandhi.

Leadership dilemma

The lack of ambiguity on the leadership hierarchy could itself become an asset to a political organisation, but for familiar reasons the Congress has managed to convert the Rahul Gandhi opportunity into a liability. Let us reframe the Congress leadership dilemma: what to do with Dr. Singh? Any hint of Dr. Singh’s presence at the top of the prime ministerial line-up is bound to bring out the worst instinct among senior Congress leaders, who have spent a lifetime of intrigue in the service of the Nehru-Gandhi family. At the same time, the party cannot possibly disown a serving Prime Minister whose personal integrity and clean image stand out as the shinning attributes in an otherwise uninspiring establishment. No major scandal has erupted around Prime Minister Manmohan Singh. Admitted, yes, Dr. Singh’s is the persona that cannot be easily marketed at the election time.

But, Ms Gandhi, having made the “supreme sacrifice” in May 2004 cannot now possibly tell the country that she would be amenable to being made Prime Minister. She can be trusted to have come to terms with her own limitations as well as to have acquired a reasonably decent idea of how complex the prime ministerial job is.

Still, the Congress has the option to dump Dr. Singh and boldly opt for Rahul Gandhi as its prime ministerial candidate. On paper, a standoff between an 80-year-old Mr. Advani and a 40-year-old Rahul Gandhi could be an extremely attractive electoral proposition; the country is young and no longer seems willing to be mired in old memories of the freedom struggle or in ancient myths of the Ramayana or the Mahabharata. The Advani-Rahul contrast can be marketed creatively, except that the young man seems to be totally impervious to the demands of the democratic leadership. He has not even given an indication that he has the burning desire to want the job, leave alone providing any inspirational flashes. Leadership is not a part time assignment but a consuming affair that leaves very little room for personal indulgences.

The leadership issue apart, the Congress will need to be clear-headed about its relationship with the Left between now and the next Lok Sabha elections. As it were, even without the disagreement over the Indo-U.S. nuclear deal there has been little political warmth between the Left and the Congress. In fact, it would be foolish for the Congress leadership to ignore the simple fact that there is a convergence between the BJP and the Left: both want a weak Congress, in the short term as well as in the long term. Both have done their bit in weakening the Congress; both have reduced the UPA government into a bumbling proposition; and, both have done their very best to heap ridicule on the Prime Minister. To be fair, neither the BJP nor the Left is under any obligation to help the Congress regain its earlier political dominance. Given this unvarnished play of realities, the Congress leadership will need to factor in the future of the terms of its relationship with the Left when it takes a decision about the next Lok Sabha elections. The Congress cannot possibly hope to win the electorate’s confidence by telling the nation that the best it can offer is more of the same — divided authority and checkmated decision-making at the Centre. Even if the Congress decides to maintain diplomatic silence on its ties with the Left after the next Lok Sabha elections, the BJP-led opposition can be expected to make it into an election issue.

If anything, the continuous turmoil and uncertainty in our neighbourhood should suggest that the electorate — especially key stake-holders such as the middle classes and the corporate business houses — will want to see a reasonably coherent governing arrangement in New Delhi. People have never voted back a government that has given the impression of being internally distracted or otherwise hobbled when it comes to taking hard decisions. Even in 1999, the voters opted for the National Democratic Alliance notwithstanding its colossal failure to detect what was happening in Kargil; the voters preferred the Vajpayee-led “working” government because the Sonia Gandhi-led opposition was deemed even less capable of providing stability at the Centre.

The Gujarat outcome has understandably produced despondency as also expectedly reinforced timidity among the second-rate voices that crowd the core of the decision-making apparatus in New Delhi. Yet the Congress leadership has to make up its mind: does it want to remain content to serve out the next 16 months before being voted out of power or to reinvent itself over the next 12 months as an electorally saleable proposition. If the Congress leadership does take the hard decision that it still has the ideas and the energy to help the polity find a working governing arrangement, then it will have to address itself to the deepening sense of disquiet in the country at large. Nine per cent growth is all right. All the more reason that the middle classes need the assurance that their economic prosperity will not be jeopardised on account of governmental instability, lawlessness or failing institutions.

Simply put, the country will need to feel confident that its security is in more competent hands. This ties up with the larger requirement of assuring the country that the government of the day has some idea how to deal effectively with terrorism. The government has neither been able to make the moral case for caring for the minorities — including the Sachar Committee recommendations — nor has it convinced the country that the government is not pitifully quagmired in the “appeasement” at the expense of the simple and unambiguous requirement of enforcing the rule of law. Depending on the ability or inability of the Congress leadership to take hard decisions, the coming year could end up deciding irreversibly the future of India as an emerging power in an increasingly uncertain world. The Indian state would need to be protected against unhelpful players abroad as also against drift and indecision at home.

Agricultural strategy, internal security & sovereignty

Tue, 22 Jan 2008 18:02:30 GMT

Agricultural strategy, internal security & sovereignty

M.S. Swaminathan

If the National Policy for Farmers 2007 is implemented in letter and spirit by the Central and State governments, we can say goodbye to the era of farmers’ suicides.

The year 2007 ended with some significant steps in areas relating to internal security and food sovereignty. In November 2007, alarmed by the persistence of agrarian distress in several parts of the country resulting in those engaged in a life-sustaining profession taking their own lives, the Government of India placed a National Policy for Farmers in Parliament. The document is based on the draft submitted by the National Commission on Farmers in October 2006. This Policy , the first of its kind in the history of either colonial or independent India, calls for a paradigm shift from a commodity-centred to a human-centred approach in agricultural planning and programmes. The aim of the Policy is to stimulate attitudes and actions that should result in assessing agricultural progress in terms of improvement in the income of farm families not only to meet their consumption requirements, but also to enhance their capacity to invest in farm-related activities. The National Policy for Farmers has for the first time recognised the “need to focus on the economic well being of the farmers, rather than just on production.” If this Policy is implemented in letter and spirit by the Central and State governments, we can say goodbye to the era of farmers’ suicides.

Another area where some recent policy decisions were announced relates to containing the threat to internal security caused by the spread of Naxalite movements. Here, the major focus has been on strengthening police and para-military forces and providing them with better arms and equipment. While this is important, we should learn lessons from the tragic human consequences of the U.S.-led strategies to contain terrorism. History teaches us that violence breeds violence. Even as the Chief Minister’s Conference on Internal Security announced the decision to strengthen the police-centric approach to contain the Naxalite danger, there was a report that Naxalite leaders have also decided to modernise their weapon power. Where will this end?

A third development is in the area of food sovereignty. India’s decision to import wheat is facing problems related to both cost and quality. The international prices of food grains are going up, partly due to the steep increase in the price of petroleum products and the consequent desire to produce more bio-fuels, leading to the diversion of prime farm land from food to fuel production. In his book, Hand of Destiny, C. Subramaniam, who was Minister for Food and Agriculture from 1964 to 1967, has described vividly the humiliation he had to undergo while seeking urgent food shipment under the PL 480 programme of the U.S. Indira Gandhi’s decision to build substantial food reserves was related to her clear understanding of the relationship between food self-reliance and national sovereignty.

What should we do in 2008 to concurrently strengthen internal security and national sovereignty? The means to both lies in accelerated agricultural advance based on conservation farming, or what I have been referring to as the “ever-green revolution” pathway of improving productivity in perpetuity without associated ecological harm.

Let me take the example of Jharkhand, a Naxalite hotspot, and examine what needs to be done to avoid the gradual collapse of a democratic system of governance.

Of Jharkhand’s total population of 27 million, nearly 21 million, or 78 per cent live in villages. Nearly 49 per cent of the population lives below the poverty line, and India’s poverty line is probably the most austerely defined in the world. In some districts like Gumla and Simdega, where Naxalite activity is serious, more than 85 per cent of the predominantly tribal workforce depends on crop and animal husbandry and minor forest produce for its livelihood. Over 80 per cent of the farm holdings belong to the small and marginal farmer category. More than 80 per cent of the average annual rainfall of 1300 mm to 1400 mm is received between June and September, when farmers cultivate crops such as paddy, maize, pulses and oilseeds. Productivity is low and the marketable surplus is consequently modest. Systematic steps to harvest and store the rainwater during the South West monsoon period and to use the conserved water for a second October to March crop are yet to be initiated. Although the groundwater availability is satisfactory, tube-well irrigation is rare. The availability of electricity as well as rural communications are poor. As a result, most of the land remains fallow from October to May. This in turn results in seasonal unemployment, affecting nearly half the population of Jharkhand. What are the implications of nearly one crore people remaining without work for over six months in a year?

The National Rural Employment Guarantee Programme provides some relief, but this programme provides opportunities only for unskilled work. Thanks to the expansion of opportunities for education, more and more young women and men are becoming educated, but there is no corresponding growth in opportunities for skilled employment. In the two million hectares of idle land during winter and summer months and in the ten million idle hands of cultivators, we can find seeds of resentment and disillusionment with the current priorities in development, thereby creating conditions conducive for recruitment to the Naxalite cadre.

Guns will not solve the problem without coincident efforts to grow two blades of grass where only one blade grew before. Unless agricultural development and the police pathway of strengthening internal security are integrated, we will see the growth of violence and, kidnapping and the worsening of law and order in States such as Jharkhand, Chhattisgarh and the other States confronted with the problem of crores of men and women who do not know where their next meal will come from. A second crop, particularly a high-value and low water-requiring one such as pulses, oilseeds, medicinal plants, vegetables or fodder crops, will make all the difference between poverty-induced under-nutrition and adequate nutrition and viable livelihoods for millions of farm families now depending upon a single crop. The single monsoon season crop also faces risks like drought and floods.

Effective rainwater harvesting, sustainable use of groundwater and good irrigation water management will help raise at least two good crops, as shown by the residents of Hiware Bazar in Ahmednagar district, who received the 2007 National Water Prize and where no one remains below the poverty line. If groundwater can also be tapped with diesel or solar pumps (in the absence of electricity), even 3 crops can be raised.

What we urgently need in Naxalite affected areas, is an Irrigation for Internal Security Programme. This can be undertaken with funds from Bharat Nirman, the National Food Security and Horticulture Missions and the Rs. 25,000 crore Rashtiya Krishi Vikas Yojana.

The Irrigation for Internal Security Programme should have three dimensions. First, the productivity of current kharif crops like paddy should be doubled with a proper mix of technology, services and pricing and marketing policies. Secondly, one more additional crop, which can fetch the maximum income per unit of water, should be grown using harvested or groundwater. Finally, non-farm employment and income-earning opportunities like sericulture, the production of vegetables, flowers and mushrooms, agro-processing and other market-driven enterprises should be enlarged. Youth will be attracted to agriculture only if brain (that is, technology) and brawn can be combined in farm work.

Under conditions of small farms and fragmented holdings, Jal Swaraj or water security can be achieved only through group endeavour in rain water harvesting and sustainable and equitable use. Lift irrigation using hand-operated treadle pumps can provide crop life-saving irrigation. Community tube wells and community nurseries of location-specific varieties of crop plants will help to improve both crop productivity and profitability. Education, social mobilisation and regulation will all be necessary to promote scientific watershed development and water management. Along the watershed, market driven microenterprises supported by micro-credit can be promoted, leading to the emergence of bioindustrial watersheds. For this purpose, Gram Sabhas should organise Pani Panchayats that can help to ensure effective community cooperation in water saving and sharing.

It will be wrong to ignore the multi-dimensional nature of the Naxalite problem. However, as a single step, creating opportunities for employment from October to May through community managed minor irrigation programmes, leading to year-round work and income security, will make the largest contribution to peace and security. Just as the Government of India has introduced special programmes in 33 districts affected by severe agrarian crisis, it will be prudent to introduce immediately an Irrigation for Internal Security programme, so that there will be work for millions of tribal and rural families from October to May 2008-09. Such a programme will also lead to the production of additional food grains and thereby strengthen food sovereignty.

As stressed in the National Policy for Farmers, there is need for a change in the mindset of those living in shining India towards those producing their food in suffering India. A beginning can be made in 2008 to achieve an attitudinal revolution by recognising the contributions of outstanding farm women and men through “National Sovereignty Saviour Awards.” This will help to underline the pivotal role of farm families in safeguarding internal security and external respect.

The major constraint encountered in implementing the special packages for farmers’ suicide prone districts is the near impossibility of bringing convergence and synergy among the numerous programmes operated by different government departments. The Irrigation for Internal Security Programme may meet with the same fate, unless government, private and academic sectors and civil society organisations work together as Members of a Peace and Security symphony orchestra. This will also be in the enlightened self-interest of politicians, industrialists, public servants, the police and the general public. Grain is a better catalyst of peace and goodwill than gun.

(Professor M.S. Swaminathan is Member of Parliament (Rajya Sabha) and former Chairman, National Commission on Farmers.)

An end to the stalemate belgium

Tue, 22 Jan 2008 18:01:46 GMT

An end to the stalemate

Belgium’s new interim dispensation, headed by the outgoing liberal Prime Minister Guy Verhofstadt and drawn from rival parties representing the two main linguistic regions, ends a six-month political stalemate. The deadlock in the formation of government by the victors in the June 2007 elections — constituents of the so-called “orange-blue” umbrella coalition — reflects the strains experienced by the Belgians in the country’s evolution f rom a unitary to a federal system. Talks on a common programme broke down on at least four occasions and the Flemish Christian Democrat leader and potential prime minister had to step down twice as the official negotiator. His party’s cohabitation with the far-right secessionist and anti-immigrant ally on an agenda of self-rule for the Dutch-speaking Flanders in the north is at the root of the current crisis.

Another sticking point in the conservative-led coalition has been the demand for the bifurcation of the electoral district of the Brussels Capital Region, where French is the language of the majority and where the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation has its headquarters. After gaining independence from the Netherlands in 1830, Belgium’s predominantly French and Dutch populations co-existed in the cosy political comfort of the uniquely Belgian consociational model of democracy, characterised by mutual accommodation among political elites. This phase of innocence eventually gave way to the assertion of competing demands for linguistic and cultural autonomy from the mid-20th century, culminating in a series of constitutional reforms from 1970 that led towards a federation of power-sharing arrangements. Extreme nationalist forces have sought to exploit the economic backwardness of the French-dominated areas for articulating separatist claims of the prosperous Flanders. To suggest a break-up of the country, as commentators have tended to do, is perhaps premature, if not downright naïve, and it exaggerates the importance of the far-right that is a fringe element. Belgium’s formidable centrist and left forces may well rise to contain this misapprehension

Political dynasts and martyrdom

Tue, 22 Jan 2008 18:01:05 GMT

Political dynasts and martyrdom

Dynastic politics is South Asia’s common currency. Whether it is Sri Lanka or India or Bangladesh or Pakistan, the dynastic principle seems effortlessly to defy the republicanism of constitutions, political systems, and democratic processes. It mocks the spirit of freedom struggles and movements against dictatorial rule. It seems peculiarly at home in parties that claim to be pro-poor, have ‘roti, kapda, makan’ (bread, clothing, shelter) as their mobilisi ng slogan, and tirelessly chant the mantra of popular democracy. The principle of dynastic privileging in the democratic arena naturally breeds a sense of entitlement to the republican throne — even among the most improbable of presumptive heirs. The tragic irony of 19-year-old Oxford student, Bilawal Zardari — catapulted by a brutal killing and the sacred principle of dynastic succession to the ‘chairmanship’ of the Pakistan People’s Party — extolling democracy as the best ‘revenge’ on those who assassinated his mother and urging that the party be run “democratically … for the poor and downtrodden people” of his country will be an enduring memory of 2007. Equally striking was what the young man said at the press conference about the sacrificial principle in dynastic politics: his father, Asif Ali Zardari, would not be succeeding to the top post (as his mother had willed) and he was taking up the job because “the chairmanship of the party is a position occupied by martyrs, and we do not know for how long my father will be able to keep his position.” It is a terrible thought but it can be substantiated with facts: in more than one South Asian case, dynastic successors have fallen victim to assassins’ bullets or bombs.

The tragic sacrifices, in turn, inspire millions of people, generate groundswells of sympathy, bring about sharp swings in the public mood, and power political parties to win elections. The political situation in Pakistan, caught in a maelstrom, has been transformed overnight by the martyrdom of Benazir Bhutto, a courageous but deeply flawed political leader whose record in opposition was far more creditable than her performance in office. Towards the end of her life, her popularity in Pakistan clearly suffered from the impression that she had struck a less than honourable deal with the discredited dictator, Pervez Musharraf, and that, unlike her chief political rival, Nawaz Sharif, she was willing to contest elections under dubious conditions in order to have a third term as Prime Minister. Post-Benazir, a PPP dominated by Asif Zardari is poised to make a clean sweep of the parliamentary election, which is scheduled for January 8 and cannot, in any case, be put off by more than a few weeks. Even though they are likely to be the losers, the Pakistan Muslim League (N) and its chief, Mr. Sharif, have done the right thing in agreeing to reverse their decision to boycott the polls. Paradoxically, as Bilawal Bhutto Zardari might have implied, the martyrdom of his mother promises to provide a democratic and perhaps even bloodless way out of the deep crisis in which Pakistan finds itself.

‘If in combating terrorism we undermine values, we are giving up too much’

Tue, 22 Jan 2008 17:59:54 GMT

‘If in combating terrorism we undermine values, we are giving up too much’

Anita Joshua

Stephen Toope, president of the University of British Columbia (UBC), on education and his primary calling — human rights. Excerpts from an interview:

— Photo: R.V. Moorthy

Stephen Toope: “Governments and NGOs should try and find ways where around certain issues they can build confidence by working together.”

Your university stresses a lot on global citizenship. Is it possible post-9/11 when people are getting xenophobic?

It’s hard but that’s precisely why we have to do it. Post-9/11, there has been a tendency — because of fear — to focus on security concerns that actually generate repression and a lack of engagement across cultures. As universities, we have an even more important role to resist that.

Post-9/11, nations seem to be working overtime to acquire a ‘hard state’ identity.

We can’t as a set of societies around the world allow ourselves to be governed by fear. It’s hard to come up with rules that will eliminate all possibility of threat. Frankly, it’s not possible. We have to acknowledge that we cannot prevent all threat, all risk in any society. And when we try to do it, we create such regressive and intrusive rules that we actually undermine the very democratic principles that our societies say they want to uphold. It’s not that I want people to be hurt. Terrorism is not the right response to political challenges. But, if one tries to go so far in combating terrorism that we undermine the values we claim to uphold, we are giving up too much. Western societies are doing that, particularly the United States. The United Kingdom, too, has become a very intrusive, monitoring society. I’m surprised the English have allowed themselves to get so drawn into that.

There is a clamour in India currently for hanging a ‘terrorist’...

There’s very little research to show that capital punishment is effective. So, even if you don’t want to talk about the moral considerations of how it is that states should behave to their own populations, there are a fair set of questions about whether it actually accomplishes any rational policy goal. And, if it doesn’t, then the government should ask itself why it should have capital punishment.

You have headed a number of human rights NGOs. Why is there seldom any meeting ground between governments and NGOs?

I’m always struck by the lack of confidence on the part of governments when they deal with the NGO community. In Canada, we’ve historically had a pretty collaborative relationship between NGOs and the government. Still, there are moments when you have to criticise. As soon as that happens, the government gets nervous and they don’t like it. All around the world governments don’t like being criticised. There’s nothing unusual about that. What is sad is when governments can’t find the places where there can be cooperation. In India, there should be places of cooperation on gender issues and issues related to minorities and indigenous groups. There are going to be areas of conflict; inevitably on security issues. I’ve seen it in Kashmir when I was with the U.N. Working Group on Enforced or Involuntary Disappearances. We had cases of disappearances in Indian Occupied or Indian Controlled Kashmir.

The government, although it cooperated, was very uncomfortable about those discussions. That will always be the case. But, governments and NGOs should try and find ways where around certain issues they can build confidence by working together.

Has the U.N. lost its relevance; not just on bigger political issues but on developmental matters where its writ doesn’t go far?

I strongly believe in multilateralism. If the U.N. didn’t exist, you would have to invent some kind of organisation that provides a forum for all societies to talk to one another. At the same time, I’ve had enough dealing with the U.N. to know that it can be very frustrating; it’s a big bureaucracy. We have to understand that the U.N. is not an independent political actor. The U.N. can’t do anything unless it’s allowed to act by member states. We’ve seen not just big picture questions like Iraq but even in smaller areas that a lot of member states have been increasingly reluctant to give leeway to the U.N. to act. Even India, in areas of human rights, for example, has been very, very controlling. It’s not necessarily healthy because the U.N. is potentially a forum for dialogue and can be a forum for action in specific areas. Look at the immunisation programme. Without the U.N, we wouldn’t have made the progress we have on this front. So, if we give it up, we do so at great risk.

Coming back to UBC, would you like to set up an offshore campus in India?

No. They are very expensive and the model requires high degrees of subsidisation. Countries that may get into this may find more and more expectations for subsidisation. I wonder whether that’s a good way to spend national resources. Besides, there are always promises that the best scientists and the leading professors would spend a part of the year on these campuses. It doesn’t usually work that way. Scientists are very dependent on the success of their labs. It’s expensive to set up labs. So, they’re not going to have two completely separate processes operating in different countries usually. It’s not easy for anyone to spend a part of their life every year in a different country. Often what happens is that people who get hired in these secondary campuses are not the leading people.

I prefer strong partnerships between universities so that we can develop really serious intellectual relationships crossing barriers of culture and barriers of political difference.

Social threat women in media

Tue, 22 Jan 2008 17:59:05 GMT

Social threat

I was surprised on reading the article “The social threat” (Open Page, Dec. 30) which was biased. The author laments the absence of gender consciousness and cites the portrayal of women in television serials among other things to make her point. Why does she miss the point that men too are portrayed badly? They too are portrayed as stupid, violent, irresponsible and promiscuous.

The issue is the wrong portrayal of the entire society. While violence against men is justified, society comes down heavily on violence against women. The reason — the respect society has for them.

Suraj Yadav,

Pune

* * *

I completely disagree with the portion of the article that refers to gender consciousness. Bad portrayal is not unique to women; men too are depicted by television serial and movie makers as rapists and murderers. I wish the author had been sensitive to that aspect as well instead of making it appear that women alone are victims of increased television viewing. I, for one, have been hurt many times on seeing men portrayed as brainless, idiots, morons and criminals.

Rohan Dharesh,

Bangalore

Communal mischief orissa christians

Tue, 22 Jan 2008 17:58:16 GMT

Communal mischief

The unbiased editorial “Tackling communal mischief in Orissa” (Dec. 31) is an excellent analysis, with facts and figures, of the origin and spread of communal violence in Orissa particularly during the Christmas season. Christianity does not believe in forced conversions. As rightly pointed out, the communal outfits are targeting the religious freedom guaranteed under the Constitution. The VHP is intolerant of the peaceful work being done by the minorities in Orissa.

J. Eden Alexander,

Thanjavur

* * *

The attack on churches, prayer houses and Christian schools in Orissa is most barbaric and deserves condemnation in strongest terms. The attacks are a clear manifestation of the growing tendency to keep the minority community insecure. The State government should lose no time in identifying the culprits, and should take immediate steps to bring them to book.

S.R. Krishnamurthy,

Thanjavur

* * *

The editorial says Bajrang Dal activists burnt to death Australian missionary Graham Staines. The Justice D.P. Wadhwa Commission which probed the killing ruled out in its report the involvement of any organisation. Not a single person convicted for the murder was a member of the Bajrang Dal.

Manmath Deshpande,

Nagpur

Corruption has blighted Kenyan voters’ hopes

Tue, 22 Jan 2008 17:57:19 GMT

Corruption has blighted Kenyan voters’ hopes

Meera Selva

There is a sense that the post-election bloodshed could have been averted if the politicians had stepped down when their time had passed.

These were meant to be Kenya’s golden days. A booming economy, a mobile phone for every man, woman and child, a robust and lively press. It is a tragedy for the country and the whole of Africa that a few days after Kenya’s elections, curfews are being imposed, gangs of young men are fighting on the streets, security police are storming through slums looking for agitators, and disfigured corpses are being discovered around the country. As ever, there is a sense that this bloodshed could have been averted if politicians had stepped down when their time has passed.

Kenya had high hopes when Mwai Kibaki moved into the presidential office in December 2002. Kenyan politics is still defined by tribe, and although Mr. Kibaki belonged to the dominant Kikuyu tribe, he had formed an alliance with Raila Odinga, who delivered the votes of the rival Luo and promised a new era of post-tribal politics in Kenya.

But corruption, the disease that has blighted Kenyan politics, crept back in as Ministers began siphoning off public funds and awarding contracts to suspect companies, confident that their President was too weak or ineffectual to stop them. And with corruption came the desire to stay in power.

Referendum

In 2005, the government held a referendum to strengthen the role of President. Enraged, Mr. Odinga left the Cabinet and set up a rival coalition to campaign for a no vote, and won. In the euphoria of the victory, he set up a rival party, the Orange Democratic Movement, to compete in last week’s elections.

He is now right to be furious about the way the election has been run. The irresponsibility and cynicism of Kenya’s leaders over the last year is a betrayal of the people who voted them in five years ago with glad hearts. — ©Guardian Newspapers Limited, 2008

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South Africa headed for leadership change?

Tue, 22 Jan 2008 17:56:43 GMT

South Africa headed for leadership change?

M.S. Prabhakara

The election of Jacob Zuma as the African National Congress president is certainly a setback to Thabo Mbeki and may mark the beginning of the decline of his political authority.

Despite the acrimony of the bruising electoral battles at the 52nd national conference of the African National Congress (December 16-19) at Polokwane, it would be wrong to see the outcome as the beginning of the ANC’s end as a movement and political party. However, it was certainly a setback to the incumbent ANC president, Thabo Mbeki, and may even mark the beginning of the decline of his political authority even though he will remain President of South Africa till A pril 2009. This position invests him with executive power that, according to his rival, Jacob Zuma’s supporters, is already being misused to hobble Mr. Zuma and curb his political ambitions, if not destroy him politically.

The scale and near-totality of the rejection of Mr. Mbeki and his supporters by the national conference are truly immense. Not merely did he lose the contest for ANC president to Mr. Zuma, the ANC deputy president whom he sacked as the country’s Deputy President in June 2005; all the other candidates for the remaining five top party executive positions (deputy president, national chairperson, secretary general, treasurer general and deputy secretary general), openly identified with Mr. Mbeki, lost to known Zuma supporters. Further, the outcome of the election to the powerful 80-member National Executive Committee (NEC), ‘the highest organ of the ANC between Conferences [with] the authority to lead the organisation,’ a day later, emphatically reconfirmed the overwhelming support Mr. Zuma enjoys in the organisation. Again, almost all known Mbeki supporters were defeated, including three of the five who had formed the Mbeki ‘ticket’ — a rather inaccurate American importation — for the six top positions.

Among the notable and vocal Mbeki supporters who failed to retain their seats in the powerful NEC were Phumzile Mlambo-Ngcuka, who was appointed Deputy President of the country after Mr. Zuma was sacked; ANC national chairperson Mosiuoa ‘Terror’ Lekota, who earlier lost the contest for secretary general; Smuts Ngoynyama, head of the ANC president’s office; Frank Chikane, director general in the presidency; Essop Pahad, Cabinet Minister in the presidency; Ronnie Kasrils, Minister for Intelligence; Charles Nqkula, Safety and Security Minister, who was earlier replaced as chairperson of the South African Communist Party (SACP) by Gwede Mantshse and was now the new ANC secretary general. However, Nkosazana Dlamini Zuma, the Foreign Minister who Mr. Mbeki favoured for deputy president but lost the contest, and Joel Netshithenze, a close Mbeki advisor who had lost the contest for national chairperson, managed to retain their NEC seats.

Significantly, while most ministers dealing with the economy failed to retain their seats, Trevor Manuel, Finance Minister and main driver of the macroeconomic policy, which was firmly opposed by both the Congress of South African Trade Unions (Cosatu) and the SACP who backed Mr. Zuma, retained his seat, albeit at a lowly 57th position, in contrast to the first position he secured at the 2002 national conference in Stellenbosch.

This growth strategy, encapsulated in the June 1996 document, Growth, Employment and Redistribution (GEAR), under President Nelson Mandela has, from its inception, been contested by Cosatu and the SACP, partners of the ANC at the political level even if not formally in the government as Cosatu and SACP members. Even sections of the ANC are known to be opposed to GEAR. However, the ANC-SACP-Cosatu tripartite alliance, forged during the struggle against apartheid, continues to be operative, though in the years since liberation it has been fraught with tension, mainly because of differences over the macroeconomic policy. The alliance has not broken down, despite the open differences over the Zuma issue, and the wish-fulfilling prognoses of the dominant sections of the media.

Considering the outcome, which was evident in the very composition of the nearly 4,000 delegates elected from the branches, most of them Zuma supporters, one wonders why Mr. Mbeki, with two terms as ANC president, decided to enter the fray at all. The reason could well be his genuine conviction that Mr. Zuma, whose personality flaws are more apparent than those of his peers in the ANC, was not fit to be his successor as head of the party and the state. The ‘irretrievable breakdown’ between the two which, according to analysts, goes back to the days following the unbanning of the ANC and other people’s organisations and the return of the ‘exiles’, prominent among whom was Mr. Mbeki, was prefigured in developments in the party and government well before the prosecution and conviction of Mr. Zuma’s financial adviser, Schabir Sheikh, in June 2005 on charges of bribery and corruption, the proximate factor that led to Mr. Zuma’s dismissal as South Africa’s Deputy President. (See Signs of Decay, Frontline, 13 January 2006.)

Part of the case against Sheikh was that he brokered a bribe of rand 5,00,000 from the local subsidiary of a French company involved in the 1998-99 multibillion-rand arms deal on behalf of Mr. Zuma, in expectation of special favours in the defence deal. Sheikh was also charged with paying bribes to Mr. Zuma to advance his business interests.

However, while Sheikh was convicted, the prosecution of Mr. Zuma, initiated following Sheikh’s conviction, collapsed on procedural grounds. Undaunted, the National Prosecuting Authority, a constitutional structure which Zuma supporters maintain has been consistently misused by the state (meaning President Mbeki himself) to persecute Mr. Zuma, renewed its efforts to build an unassailable case. Mr. Zuma, with backing from two of his strong allies in the tripartite alliance, Cosatu and the SACP, as well as the ANC Youth League and indeed from within the ANC itself — proven in the Polokwane outcome — vigorously defended himself against these accusations.

The ANC’s national conference was held in the backdrop of these developments over the past two years. However, his very triumph in Polokwane has, to no one’s surprise, exacerbated Mr. Zuma’s legal problems. Within days of the conclusion of the conference, the Directorate of Special Operations (Scorpions), the striking arm of the NPA, indicted (technically, arrested), Mr. Zuma on charges of corruption, fraud, money-laundering, racketeering and several other charges. According to one report, the indictment included 354 corrupt and illegal payments made by way of bribes received by Mr. Zuma accounting to over rand four million. Both Cosatu and the ANC Youth League have strongly condemned this indictment, in particular its ‘peculiar timing’ so soon after Mr. Zuma’s triumph at Polokwane. Reiterating its well-known stand on the seemingly ceaseless attempts by the NPA to secure Mr. Zuma’s conviction, Cosatu said the renewed allegations meant that his human rights, including the right to a speedy and fair trial, were being “systematically and grossly violated.” Using even stronger language, ANC Youth League president Fikile Mbalula said the decision to reinstate the charges and indeed the very case against Mr. Zuma were being “led by Mbeki.”

Normatively, the NPA is a structure functioning independently of the executive, though only the most innocent will believe that such high-profile prosecutions as that of the ANC president are launched without political clearance.

Article 179 (5) (a) of South Africa’s Constitution explicitly lays down that in determining the ‘prosecution policy,’ “the National Director of Public Prosecutions [now NPA] must determine, with the concurrence of the Cabinet member responsible for the administration of justice, and after consulting the Directors of Public Prosecutions, prosecution policy, which must be observed in the prosecution process” (emphasis added). In other words, the determination of the prosecution policy requiring the concurrence of the executive is an executive decision, and not simply a notionally independent legal initiative.

Expectedly, the acting head of the NPA has strongly refuted suggestions that the decision was influenced by President Mbeki. In an interview soon after the national conference, Mr. Mbeki too said: “If they [the National Prosecuting Authority] think they have a case, they should proceed [against Zuma] … they haven’t said anything to me.”

However, even if the prosecution were to proceed and Mr. Zuma’s trial, as announced by the NPA, were to begin on August 14, it would not be able to stop him in his tracks. For, Mr. Zuma has repeatedly said he does not consider an indictment that amounts to little more than allegations a conviction; that he will step down as ANC president only if he is convicted. Given South Africa’s legal system — even the NPA, presumably anxious to secure a conviction, has set the date for the beginning of the trial seven-and-a-half months from now — and the avenues for appeals and revisions at the level of the Supreme Court of Appeal and the Constitutional Court, the legal process one way or the other is unlikely to conclude before Mr. Mbeki’s term ends. The whole political dynamics will have then changed. It has already changed, as is evident in calls by the Zuma supporters that the ANC must assert its authority, even to the extent, if necessary, of ‘redeploying’ persons in the executive.

This raises complex constitutional questions for, the President is elected by members of the National Assembly who have attained their positions by virtue of nomination by their political parties. While the ANC can tinker with the list of its MPs, deploying if considered necessary a member of the National Assembly to a Provincial Assembly, such freedom is not available in respect of the members of the executive. The president is elected by the National Assembly, and the rest of the executive (ministers and deputy ministers) are appointed by the president.

Constitutionally speaking, the next few months will be a dance on eggshells in South Africa.

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Signs of stability and maturity

Tue, 22 Jan 2008 17:55:47 GMT

Signs of stability and maturity

For the Indian stock markets, 2007 was an exceptional year, not merely because of the phenomenal rise of the benchmark stock indices, the Sensex and the Nifty. The Sensex climbed from 12,500 in early January — itself seen to be reflecting healthy valuations — to close at 20,257 at the end of the year. The Nifty too set up new records and ended the year at 6,138. The strong performance of the domestic stock markets is part of the recent trend of Asian and other emerging markets coming into their own. The slowing down of the U.S. economy along with the persistent weakness of the American dollar has caused fund managers to seek more lucrative but safe avenues elsewhere. India and a few other markets filled the bill ideally. While foreign institutional investors (FIIs) have always been the dominant force behind the rise in market valuations, their motivations are now more varied. Besides, the successful economic growth story, with an average annual GDP growth rate of 9 per cent and above, remains intact. The onset of the sub-prime crisis in the United States in September, with strong negative connotations for the financial systems of the developed world, was the time when India along with a few other markets emerged as sanctuaries attracting large investments from across the globe. The Sensex went up from 16,000 to 20,000 in a matter of three months.

However, the important messages of the year 2007 go beyond the role of the foreign institutional investors. When the final tally is made it will be seen that, although the FIIs will be the single largest group of investors in the Indian markets, they are less dominant than in the recent past. Domestic financial institutions, led by the public sector LIC and the mutual funds, have invested substantial amounts and, on many occasions, taken positions that neutralised the FII actions, as they did remarkably in November and December when the FIIs pulled some $5 billion out of Indian stocks. Indian financial institutions were able to check what would have been a precipitous fall. The domestic retail investor base remains weak but volatility, which has been a worrisome feature, is showing signs of moderating. Insurance companies have overtaken mutual funds as the second largest category of investors. With a variety of investors having divergent objectives and different time horizons operating in the field and with no single category driving the prices, the Indian stock markets seem to be moving towards a greater degree of stability and maturity. For the new year, there cannot be a more salutary message.

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Evergreen revolution

Tue, 22 Jan 2008 17:55:01 GMT

Evergreen revolution

This refers to the article “Agricultural strategy, internal security and sovereignty” (Jan. 1). The numerous employment programmes will not make any difference to unemployment in the skilled and unskilled sectors. An evergreen revolution with knowledge-based agriculture and the necessary market support should be launched at the earliest. A proper market mechanism for agricultural produce alone can bring naxalites into the mainstream.

Will our policymakers heed the advice that grain is a better catalyst of peace than gun?

S. Kasimayan,

Madurai

* * *

The article suggests ways to mitigate the suffering of farmers and marginalised sections. The valuable suggestions made by M.S. Swaminathan should be implemented in letter and spirit by the government, if farmers’ woes are to be redressed.

S.V.K. Chandran,

Thiruvananthapuram

* * *

Professor Swaminathan has brilliantly advocated the inherent link between rural prosperity and internal security of the nation.

Another aspect that needs attention is distribution of irrigated water among farmers, given the widespread disparities that exist among them in terms of income, assets and social status.

Manish Manglani,

New Delhi

The idea of a U.S.-free Korean peninsula

Tue, 22 Jan 2008 17:54:16 GMT

The idea of a U.S.-free Korean peninsula

P.S. Suryanarayana

The DPRK tends to view the current strategic dynamics in the divided region in U.S.-centred terms.

The de-nuclearisation of the long-divided Korean peninsula is not a one-way exercise in diplomacy. If proof of this simple but profound reality is needed, the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK), as the northern part of the peninsula is known, has brought this aspect into sharp focus on New Year’s Day.

First, the Republic of Korea (RoK), or the southern part, regretted that the DPRK authorities missed the end-of-2007 deadline to declare their nuclear-arms programme, and stockpiles of fissile materials and related weapons. Pyongyang had committed itself to making a full declaration about these definitive aspects under an agreement that six relevant parties reached in Beijing on October 3 last year. The six parties are the DPRK, the RoK, the United States, China as the proactive Chair for the Korean de-nuclearisation talks, Japan, and Russia.

The U.S., a long-time military ally of both the RoK and Japan, had predicted that the DPRK might miss the deadline. However, as the prophecy became a fact, Washington sounded a pragmatic note against any knee-jerk reaction of discontinuing the six-party talks that have been in progress since 2003.

It was in this context that the DPRK, in a New Year comment channelled through the ruling party organs, reaffirmed its demand that the U.S. end its long-entrenched military presence across the RoK. In renewing this call, also indirectly linked to the American nuclear umbrella for the RoK, the DPRK remained silent about missing its deadline for a promised nuclear arms-related declaration. There was a political message behind the act of shining the spotlight on Washington’s role in regard to the RoK when the issue in prime focus was actually the DPRK’s promised declaration.

In simple terms, the DPRK’s message was that the Korean peninsula de-nuclearisation would require military-related actions by the U.S. as well.

For long, the DPRK has insisted that the U.S. should not deploy any of its nuclear weapons or the related delivery systems on the territories, including maritime zones, under the RoK’s sovereign jurisdiction. Equally consistently in recent years, Washington, for its part, has maintained that the RoK is free of American nuclear weapons and the collateral delivery systems. However, the DPRK tends to view the current strategic dynamics on the Korean peninsula in U.S.-centred terms. While continuing to deploy its slightly-depleted military forces on the RoK territory, the U.S., in Pyongyang’s perspective, remains committed to providing Seoul with a nuclear umbrella for the foreseeable future.

Not so far addressed seriously is the question whether the U.S., even if it withdraws its military forces and machinery from the RoK, will continue to protect it under the existing system of an “extended nuclear deterrence.” Under this formulation, the U.S. is said to have unfurled its nuclear umbrella over the RoK without actually using its territory, for a number of years now, for deploying atomic arms and the related delivery systems.

Pyongyang’s concerns

Evident from the latest comment by the DPRK are its serious worries about being asked to de-nuclearise itself, without so much as the U.S. indicating any willingness to withdraw from the RoK at any time. This aspect, more than the DPRK’s perceived reluctance to “come clean,” should account for the current stalemate over the declaration issue. The U.S. and its allies, however, point out that the DPRK does not want to disclose its suspected uranium enrichment programme.

Under the six-party deal, now being implemented, the DPRK had agreed to take steps towards nuclear disarmament and secure, as compensation, energy aid and humanitarian supplies from the other five countries. In doing so, Pyongyang did not insist that its own total de-nuclearisation would be conditional upon the disbanding of the RoK-based U.S. military forces.

The strategic options open to DPRK leader Kim Jong-il cannot be missed, though, in the U.S.-led euphoria over his cooperation in shutting down the nuclear facilities at Yongbyon and “disabling” them in a process now on. A total disclosure of all of Mr. Kim’s nuclear programmes is integral to the existing deal. However, the eventual “dismantlement” of the DPRK’s nuclear-weapons capabilities, in terms of fissile materials, technical infrastructure as also arms stockpiles and methods of production, is yet to be negotiated.

This has offered Mr. Kim a window of opportunity to press, from now onwards, for a U.S.-free Korean peninsula as the final price for an eventual nuclear-weapons-free domain.

Two new political realities define this emerging situation. U.S. President George W. Bush wrote a rare personal letter to Mr. Kim about a month ago, urging him to recognise the importance of making a correct declaration. The real significance of that letter, though, was the sign that Mr. Bush was finally willing to abandon his ill-advised theory of an “axis of evil” that portrayed the Kim “regime” as a coordinate that needed to be removed or reformed.

Mr. Kim also has to reckon with the victory of Lee Myung-bak, an acknowledged “hawk” on matters relating to the DPRK, in the RoK presidential poll on December 19 last year. Mr. Lee will assume office on February 25, but the DPRK has already begun to look at its sums afresh in the strategic domain.

In 2001, Kongdan Oh and Ralph C. Hassig, experts on the DPRK nuclear issue, assessed the issue of “guessing right and guessing wrong about engagement” with Mr. Kim. The U.S. and its allies now find that he is keeping them guessing at a crucial stage in the actual engagement itself.

The race for influence in West Asia

Tue, 22 Jan 2008 17:53:42 GMT

The race for influence in West Asia

Atul Aneja

The National Intelligence Estimate’s findings on Iran may mark the beginning of Washington’s post-Cold War decline in West Asia.

The full impact of the observations in the National Intelligence Estimate (NIE) report — produced collectively by Washington’s numerous intelligence agencies — on the Iranian nuclear programme is still unfolding. However, it is evident that after the release of the report, according to which Iran has not had a nuclear weapons programme since 2003, power equations in the world’s oil heartland are shifting dramatically.

Iran, fourth largest producer of oil, and Saudi Arabia, global leader, are rapidly consolidating their political influence in the region. The other countries that are also enhancing their geostrategic profile in West Asia’s energy bastion include Russia and China. After voting twice against Iran in the International Atomic Energy Agency — apparently at Washington’s behest — India also appears to be making a belated attempt at mending fences with Tehran. For the first time after World War II, the United States is struggling to retain its substantial politico-military influence in the region.

Iran and Saudi Arabia, along with Iraq and the rest of the Persian Gulf states — Kuwait, Qatar, Bahrain and Oman — hold the largest reserves of oil in the world. Any change in the international pecking order in this region, therefore, is bound to have a profound impact on the world’s economy and politics.

The NIE’s findings have already unhinged the case for war against Tehran. Its conclusion that Iran ceased its weapons programme in 2003 implies that Tehran does not pose a nuclear threat to anyone in the near future. The findings have also weakened the case for tightening sanctions.

The NIE’s clean chit appears to have raised by several notches the relatively low-key interaction between Saudi Arabia and Iran. Both countries exercise enormous influence in their constituencies in the region. Saudi Arabia is now widely recognised as the de facto leader of the Arab world. It has taken the lead in trying to resolve the Arab-Israeli dispute. The 22-nation Arab League has already adopted the plan of the Saudi monarch, Abdullah bin Abdulaziz, to resolve the Israel-Palestine dispute. Riyadh also exercises considerable clout because of the key role it can play in the global oil markets. Besides, Saudi Arabia is the birthplace of Islam and two of the holiest shrines revered by Muslims the world over are in the Kingdom. The footprint of Saudi influence is, therefore, seen far and wide.

There have been significant changes in the foreign policy of Saudi Arabia, known for long as a faithful U.S. ally, after King Abdullah’s accession in 2005. The new monarch adopted a “look east” policy, which became evident when he chose India, Malaysia and China for his first overseas visit. Stepping out of line from the Washington-led peace process on Palestine, King Abdullah engaged both the Fatah and rival Hamas on its home turf in order to persuade them to form a national unity government. He met with some success when the factions agreed in Makkah to accept a political compromise despite Washington’s strong opposition to the deal.

Despite the setback the initiative suffered when bitter street battles broke out in Gaza and led to the virtual partition of Palestinian territories between the Fatah and Hamas, the Saudi monarch has not given up. Hamas leader Khalid Meshaal recently revisited Saudi Arabia and met King Abdullah. Efforts are being made to revive talks between Hamas and the Fatah, in order to advance the Saudi Arbia-initiated Makkah peace process.

Iran, on the other hand, exercises unique influence, especially among the region’s Shia population. Its substantial influence in Bahrain, a country with a majority Shia population and Sunni leadership, is well known. Iran is also a player in oil-rich Kuwait. Besides, ties between Iran and the Hizbollah in Lebanon are extremely close. The Hizbollah’s profile in Beirut as well as the region rose dramatically after it blunted the Israeli attack on Lebanon in August 2006.

Saudi Arabia and Iran began to work closely together after sectarian violence in Iraq inflamed the region. Lebanon became the first nation in which both countries decided to coordinate their activities in order to heal its growing sectarian and religious divide. While the Iranians were well positioned to influence the Shias under the Amal and Hizbollah movements, the Saudis could exercise clout over the wealthy Sunni community, which had made considerable investments in Saudi Arabia and vice versa. The interaction proved fruitful and now helped internal factions narrow down their differences over a consensus candidate for the vacant Lebanese Presidency.

Tehran and Riyadh also worked with some success in Iraq, where the Saudi intelligence could exercise its influence over some of the Al Qaeda tribal groups. Iranian influence among Iraqis, especially the Shias and Kurds, is well recognised.

Resilience evident

The resilience of the Saudi-Iranian relationship became evident soon after the Annapolis conference held on November 27, 2007. Despite the stated American efforts to build an Arab front against Iran at the conference, the events on the following days showed that forces negating Washington’s exhortations gained the upper hand. Just after the conference, the six-nation Gulf Cooperation Council took the dramatic step of inviting Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad to its annual summit in Doha. King Abdullah led him by the hand to the conference — a rare gesture of solidarity between the two regional heavyweights.

The conference began the very day the NIE report was released. The Saudis wasted no time in taking advantage of its findings. At the conference, Mr. Ahmadinejad spoke of evolving a collective security arrangement with Iran’s neighbours. The implication was obvious. On an Arab platform, Iran was saying it wanted to step inside the region with its neighbours, and, implicitly, marginalise the presence of American military forces, which have played a preponderant role in the oil rich region for the past few decades.

Besides, the Iranian leader invited Gulf businessmen to invest in his country, in areas that included real estate. Iranian businessmen have made substantial investments in Dubai and reside in the Emirate in large numbers. A nucleus which can carry out investments in Iran, therefore, already has a significant presence in the Gulf, especially Dubai.

Keeping up the high momentum in their relationship, King Abdullah and President Ahmadinejad met again in Makkah during the Haj. Commenting on the visit, Iran’s ambassador to Saudi Arabia, Mohammad Hosseini, insightfully said: “Iran and Saudi Arabia, as two leading countries in the region and in the Islamic world, shoulder a heavy responsibility. The two countries have reached a mutual understanding not to limit their ties exclusively to bilateral issues.”

Apart from the growing regional assertion by Saudi Arabia and Iran, Russia has moved in swiftly after the release of the NIE report. Less than 24 hours of its publication, Moscow announced that it was dispatching the first consignment of nuclear fuel for Iran’s Bushehr atomic power plant. Russian Foreign Minister, Sergey Lavrov, rejected calls for tougher economic sanctions on Iran in the light of fresh U.S. intelligence data. Besides, the Russians began military exercises in the Mediterranean, deploying 11 ships including an aircraft carrier with 47 planes on board. The Russian navy is reportedly using the Syrian port of Tartus as a supply base for its ships operating in the Mediterranean.

China has also made further inroads into Iran after the release of the NIE report. Despite the U.S. insistence on sanctions, the China Petrochemical Corporation on December 10 signed a $2-billion deal with Iran to develop its Yadavaran oilfield. Encouraged by the NIE findings, the Iranians are now seeking Japanese investments to develop their oil sector.

India, too, has sought to reengage Iran. Foreign Secretary Shiv Shankar Menon visited Tehran in mid-December. He was quoted as saying there that India “is interested in establishing a strategic partnership with Iran in the areas of energy, transport, and security.”

However, India’s non-participation in the recent meetings on the Iran-Pakistan-India gas pipeline project and the perception of its growing proximity to the U.S. have not gone down well with Iran. At his meeting with Mr. Menon, Iran Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki, in fact, noted that the “low level” of ties between the two great regional countries over the past two years was “lamentable.” He added: “We should not let any foreign powers to harm the existing ties between the two countries.”

Given the growing assertion of Saudi Arabia and Iran, as well as the intention of Russia and China to enhance their profile in the region, the release of the NIE report may well mark the beginning of Washington’s post-Cold War decline in West Asia.

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Out of bounds for SEZs

Tue, 22 Jan 2008 17:53:02 GMT

Out of bounds for SEZs

A coastal State with an area of 3,700 square kilometres and a population of about 1.4 million, Goa has always been extremely sensitive to the impact of unrestrained economic development. The upsurge of public activism against the setting up of Special Economic Zones, which eventually forced the State government to announce the scrapping of all 15 such projects, is an impressive case in point. Early last year, a similar agitation coerced the government into calling for a re vision of the Goa Regional Plan 2011, a controversial document that opened up large swathes of land, including green belts and coastal stretches, for construction. The broad-based agitation against SEZs has demonstrated the power of popular protest in the State. Those opposed to the projects had questioned the propriety of the government acquiring large tracts of land and then selling them to promoters at low prices. There were also suspicions that some of the SEZs were real estate speculative plays, fronts for the entry of big construction companies.

Ironically, the government’s defence of the projects on the ground that they would result in a sharp surge in employment boomeranged on it. It led to the SEZ issue getting tied up with that of Goan identity, with worries that the projects would attract large numbers of ‘outsiders’ and alter the State’s demographic profile. The very nature of Goa demands that issues of land use, environmental management, industrial development, and resource conservation need to be looked at independently — in a way that takes into account the State’s unique economic and socio-cultural character. The tiny State, which attracts more than 12 per cent of foreign tourists visiting India and about 75 per cent of the direct charter traffic, is one of the country’s most popular tourist destinations. Ecological well-being — a high priority for the people of Goa and also the basis of its appeal as a tourism hot spot — must not be diminished by short-sighted developmental projects. The scrapping of the SEZ projects, which has been well received by all major political parties in the State, should put a definitive end to the long-drawn out controversy. The Digambar Kamath government must be commended for respecting the wishes of the people and taking a decision to keep Goa totally SEZ-free. In turn, the Central government must respect this democratic outcome and help the State government speedily resolve all remaining issues, especially the question of how land already allotted to private parties in the three notified SEZs will be recovered.

New Year revelries

Tue, 22 Jan 2008 17:52:23 GMT

New Year revelries

The molestation of two women outside a five-star hotel by a mob of about 70 men in Mumbai is shocking and despicable. The incident raises serious questions on New Year’s Eve celebrations on the streets. But for the initiative taken by a couple of media photographers, the situation could have taken an ugly turn. The police have ample evidence on hand to nab the culprits as they have their photographs. What is needed is stringent action against the guilty.

J. Anantha Padmanabhan,

Srirangam

* * *

The police must take drastic action. The reluctance of the victims to register a case should be no reason for the culprits to walk free.

V. Ramaprasad,

Tiruchi

* * *

The incident is undoubtedly a shame. But it is also time to reflect on the factors that are increasingly leading to such incidents.

V.T. Joshi,

Bhopal

The incident was indeed tragic. There is no doubt that the perpetrators of the act should be punished. But it is wrong to blame the police. The women should not have risked going out on New Year’s Eve when many people on the streets are drunk and not in control of themselves.

It is better not to run a risk rather than expecting the police to offer protection everywhere. We too are responsible for our safety and security.

Safiya Sameena,

Vijayawada

* * *

The menace of New Year revelry has spread alarmingly across the country. Two women were molested outside a hotel and five persons killed in a road accident in Mumbai, and a software engineer died in Chennai.

The law will, of course, take its course and the cases will be closed with the passage of time. Another day dawns on the horizon but the morning sun glooms over those running helter-skelter in hospitals and police stations.

R. Gopalan,

Chennai

* * *

The revelry in Chennai which ended in a tragedy was avoidable. Aren’t there better ways of ushering in the New Year than dancing and drinking in posh hotels? Such celebrations are borrowed from the West and were unknown to earlier generations. Any culture which, instead of making life more pleasant, imperils people is best avoided.

G. Ramalingam,

Chennai

Dynastic rule

Tue, 22 Jan 2008 17:51:39 GMT

Dynastic rule

This refers to the editorial “Political dynasts and martyrdom” (Jan. 1). Dynasty has yet again raised its ugly head in political succession, this time in Pakistan. Democracy seems too conservative to shift its allegiance from a leader of standing to another. The followers too are shocked to lose their slain leader and rush to choose his or her relatives as a measure of gratitude and, worse, to gain political mileage from people’s sympathy.

There are instances of the derring-do where the successor, mostly inept to fit into the leader’s shoe, rushes to adorn the vacant throne, sidelining the inherent threat of hasty succession. Time alone will show what is in store once the mood of bereavement passes. One hopes the greenhorn teenager, Bilawal Bhutto Zardari, on whom the mantle donned by his mother and grandfather was cast, will maintain the PPP’s ideology.

Radhanath Behera,

Koraput

* * *

The editorial is a forceful piece, well written. Some readers have compared dynastic politics in the subcontinent — in the context of Bilawal Bhutto Zardari’s appointment as PPP chairperson — to politics in the United States. George W. Bush did not win the presidency because of his father, Bush Sr. Nor will Hillary Clinton become President (if she does) because she is the wife of a former President. Every candidate has to compete through several caucuses within the party and then with the other party to win.

Jay Ravi,

Toronto

* * *

It is difficult to agree with readers who have justified dynastic succession in politics (Jan. 3). True, Nehru was a leader of the masses but that does not give Rahul Gandhi the right to lead the country. Nehru did not encourage dynastic politics, evident from the fact that Indira Gandhi did not become Prime Minister after his death. Families of many leaders have made supreme sacrifices. But do they enjoy the same privilege?

Politicians have greater responsibility than actors and doctors. The decisions they take affect the whole nation. Children of politicians can afford to make mistakes and survive in the field. Children of doctors who wish to become doctors have to slog it out.

S. Sudhir Kumar

Lax security terrorist attack rampur

Tue, 22 Jan 2008 17:51:01 GMT

Lax security

The terrorist attack on a CRPF camp in Rampur, Uttar Pradesh, which claimed eight lives, proved how lax security is even in armed camps. The attack has exposed the soft underbelly of the security forces which are expected to be vigilant all the time. It is important to evolve a foolproof identification system to prevent terrorists dressed as security forces from sneaking into the camps brazenly.

D.B.N. Murthy,

Bangalore

* * *

The cowardly attack on the CRPF centre deserves to be condemned. It proves all claims of decline in terrorism false. Equally disturbing was the report of yet another intelligence warning being ignored. A foolproof coordinating mechanism needs to be put in place. State-level security agencies should be trained to maintain heightened vigil.

Siddharth K. Raj,

Madurai

Scrapping of SEZs

Tue, 22 Jan 2008 17:50:15 GMT

Scrapping of SEZs

The editorial “Out of bounds for SEZs” (Jan. 3) was a balanced analysis of how a tiny State like Goa can suffer with the advent of Special Economic Zones. The State government’s action scrapping 15 SEZs, in view of the public opinion, is welcome. The Centre’s decision not to impose SEZs on the State (contrary to the Commerce Secretary’s stand that notified SEZs cannot be de-notified or scrapped by State governments) is welcome.

It is the State that has to examine the implications of setting up a SEZ. What Goa, a rich coastal belt in the Konkan region, requires are special agriculture zones with abundant plantations and fisheries.

V. Rajagopal,

Tirupati

* * *

The editorial deserves praise for shedding light on the level of socio-economic stress the States, particularly small ones, will undergo by indiscriminate creation of SEZs. The Goa government’s announcement to scrap the SEZs, bowing to the vox populi, is welcome. Isn’t democracy, after all, a government of the people, by the people and for the people?

P.K. Parameswaran,

Chennai

* * *

There is a strong case for a sound public hearing mechanism. It will provide the much-needed avenue to the people to air their grievances against big economic projects, precluding the possibility of opposition at a later date. Governments should remember that SEZ is only one way of providing employment opportunities to the people. Goa, with its pristine natural environment, is well placed to provide more employment avenues to the people in the field of tourism. So a concept of special eco-tourism zone is more relevant to the State.

Manish Manglani,

New Delhi

* * *

The Goan mining sector is causing immeasurable damage to the environment, the result of which will be felt in the years to come. And the predominantly tourist economy of the State has caused severe inflation. SEZs would have been the ideal solution for opening up non-polluting, knowledge-based sectors and reducing dependency on the fast depleting resources and tourism.

Prasanna Natarajan,

Britain too flawed to lecture world about democracy

Tue, 22 Jan 2008 17:49:09 GMT

Britain too flawed to lecture world about democracy

Simon Jenkins

Hectoring phone calls from a post-imperial nanny won’t help Kenya or Pakistan create stable and prosperous societies

This week, the “better” democracies are wagging fingers at bad ones, like 17th-century popes reprimanding missionaries in the distant jungle. They tut-tut over a stuffed ballot box in Nairobi, a banned radio station in Islamabad or a murdered journalist in Moscow. They condemn a riot here, a bombed polling booth there, and an imprisoned politician somewhere else.

The British government is peculiarly unable to resist such finger-wagging. While Tories long to rule a better Britain, the Blair/Brown Labour party longs to rule a better world. Some time ago, British Foreign Secretary David Miliband told Pakistan’s Prime Minister Shaukat Aziz “what actions we expect his government to take.” Last weekend, Gordon Brown telephoned President Pervez Musharraf to explain to him “the need to push ahead with the democratic process and to avoid any significant delay in the electoral timetable.” He added that Britain expected Pakistan’s elections to be “free, fair and secure.”

On the other phone line, Mr. Brown had the benighted rulers of Kenya, another of Kipling’s “lesser breeds without the law” needing instruction in the democratic catechism. He professed himself “appalled” at events there and “would be talking to the various parties ... to see talks between them,” apparently unaware that Kenya is no longer part of the British empire. The British commanded Kenyans to “behave responsibly.”

If I had been President Musharraf in receipt of such patronising remarks, I would have drawn deep from the well of irony. I would have referred Mr. Brown to his poor poll rating and said Islamabad was “dismayed” he had funked a democratic mandate last October. I would have expressed Pakistan’s disappointment at Mr. Brown’s record on habeas corpus, ID cards, and the exploitation of Pakistani doctors by the NHS.

Democracy has never been perfect. From the moment self-government lost touch with “self,” it adapted itself to nations and peoples. Its institutions depend more on local history, culture and geography than on Madison, Mill, and De Tocqueville. This week the rituals of heredity, not democracy, decided the leadership of the Pakistan People’s Party. Most Asian and African democracies are ballots qualified by assassination, corruption and inheritance. Yet we still grace them with the term.

Students of politics are taught to tick off the qualities that award the status of democracy to a polity. Are there free and fair elections? Can the franchise turn a regime out of office? Are there supporting institutions such as an open parliament, security of public assembly, elected local government, a free media, the rule of law? No one of these is either sufficient or necessary for democracy, which is rather a sliding scale of liberties, to which constitutions and regimes ascribe varying degrees of priority.

Presumptuous demand

It is thus presumptuous for the post-imperial West to demand that the world take the same route to self-government that it spent bloodthirsty centuries pursuing. We Brits are not so clean that we can lecture others on how they should govern themselves, especially those whom the West has polluted with aid, debt, trade curbs, and wars along their borders. Democracy in Pakistan and Kenya may be looking violently unwell at present, but Western democracy too is qualified by the corruption of party lists, eccentric primaries, and electoral colleges. The British and American constitutions are both currently battered by criticism from their subjects for falling short of democratic ideals, notably in handling accountability and checks on executive power. The outcome of America’s 2000 election was decided not by the ballot but by an appointed oligarchy. Americans would hardly have welcomed election monitors from Ukraine, India or Thailand encamped in the Miami Hilton.

Democracy is best propagated by example, not by conquest or official admonition. There are too many blots on Britain’s escutcheon for its leaders to go lecturing the world in terms redolent of the new interventionism.

Pakistan is the sixth most populous country in the world. Its fragile half-democracy is conditioned by the insecurities of its recent past and by desperate poverty. There are a hundred ways of helping it along the rocky path between democracy and dictatorship. But ultimately Pakistan, like Kenya, will be the stronger for taking this path alone. The last thing it needs is hectoring phone calls from a post-imperial nanny. — ©Guardian Newspapers Limited, 2008

“The utilitarian view of universities takes away from their role of creativity”

Tue, 22 Jan 2008 17:47:43 GMT

“The utilitarian view of universities takes away from their role of creativity”

Alison Richard, Vice-Chancellor of the University of Cambridge, is on a two-week visit to India to “strengthen Cambridge’s partnerships with Indian universities.”Mark Tullyinterviews her forThe Hinduat the start of her visit:

— Photo: V. V. Krishnan

Alison Richard, the 344th Vice-Chancellor at Cambridge, says: “There is so much opportunity here and there is a great fit between Cambridge and India.”

Cambridge’s first full-time woman Vice-Chancellor had some misgivings about accepting what must surely be one of the most prestigious jobs in academia. She told me: “When Cambridge asked me to throw my hat into the ring, I was extremely reluctant to do so. I had already been working as an academic administrator for eight and a half years at Yale and I am a committed anthropologist with a great passion for teaching and research.” But four and a half years into her term as Vice-Chancellor of Cambridge she has what can only be called infectious enthusiasm for her job. Certainly her enthusiasm infected me.

“I miss my research,” she tells me, “but I have the extraordinary interesting opportunity of sitting in the midst of one of the world’s great universities surrounded by outstanding people of enormous talent thinking about all manner of fascinating things.” But each year she does drop the role of Vice-Chancellor and returns to Madagascar for two weeks where she has done some of her most exciting research into the behaviour of primates. She is more than willing to share this enthusiasm for them with me, explaining that more than two-thirds of mammals live solitary lives, which raises two questions — what are the advantages of sociality and how do societies configure themselves. Those questions have led Alison Richard to the study of our nearest relations, the primates, and there is a wide variety of them in Madagascar. Her husband is an archaeologist but neither of their daughters has chosen to be an academic.

For all her enthusiasm, Alison Richard did not have a burning ambition to be an academic and even more strangely doesn’t seem certain whether she has chosen the right career. The daughter of a businessman who married at the late age of sixty, she was the first member of her family to go to university. She tells me: “I’d love to say I had a concrete ambition but it’s not true. I am still deciding what I want to do when I grow up, I think. One thing just led to another. ” But she goes on to say: “At every step I have been totally consumed and interested by what I have been doing.’

As Vice-Chancellor, she is Cambridge’s principal academic and administrative officer but Alison Richard prefers to be called an academic leader rather than an administrator. She is leading Cambridge towards the celebration of the eight hundredth anniversary of its foundation next year, having launched a campaign to raise one billion pounds by then. One of her ambitions is to ensure that the university increases its endowment sufficiently to insure that all students who have the ability to come to Cambridge can do so regardless of their family background.

What about the criticism often made that Cambridge and Oxford do take family background into account by taking a disproportionate number of students from private fee-paying schools? The Vice-Chancellor maintains that is a misunderstanding of the problem. She blames the inadequacy of many of the state schools for not producing students who can come up to the Cambridge entrance level. At the same time, she feels there are very good state school students who fear they might not be able to cope with Cambridge’s academic standards. She believes the University needs to “get those students to raise their own self-confidence and aspirations.”

Alison Richard wants Cambridge’s student body to be diverse and cosmopolitan, and this is one reason for what is only her second visit to India, and her first as Vice-Chancellor. “We live in a world which is increasingly interconnected,” she explains. “Most of our students are going to live and work across cultures. So we must take increasingly seriously the educational responsibility for producing citizens who can live and work like that. That means having a cosmopolitan and diverse student body so we are interested in attracting some of the most talented students from around the world, including of course India where there is so much talent.”

I tell the Vice-Chancellor that only last week I met students from IITs all over India at a festival in Mumbai and everyone I talked to hoped to study as postgraduates in America. The most common reason they gave was that it was cheaper. But Alison Richard thinks this is often a misapprehension. She points out that the Cambridge Trust has assisted a thousand Indian students over the last twenty-five years and one hundred and thirty are currently studying with bursaries. But she admits that Cambridge doesn’t provide as much financial assistance as the major American Universities and one of the aims of the fund-raising campaign is to match America. Nevertheless she feels the comparison between American universities and Cambridge is often exaggerated and that more needs to be done to get the word out about the scholarships which are available. She says: “I keep coming on circumstances where American universities have done a much better job of communicating a positive and upbeat message. We haven’t communicated as well as we should and the message has not been as positive and upbeat as it should be.”

It has always seemed to me that there is a danger that foreign universities attempting to attract Indian students will appear patronising, or even condescending — giving the impression that they offer a superior education to anything available in India. The Vice-Chancellor vigorously denies that. “I have come to India to strengthen Cambridge’s partnerships with Indian universities,” she tells me firmly and goes on to point out: “more and more major challenges are not amenable to solutions or study by individual academics or even academics in a single community working in isolation. They require international collaboration. Energy sustainability, religious and cultural conflicts, work on these and other subjects has to cross cultural and national boundaries. So I am coming to India to celebrate the partnerships we have and to continue to build them. There is so much opportunity here and I think there is a great fit between Cambridge and India.”

The Vice-Chancellor has also come here to announce a major new link with India. In order to celebrate the centenary of Jawaharlal Nehru’s arrival at Trinity College Cambridge to study natural sciences, the university is launching the “Jawaharlal Nehru Professorship of Indian Business and Enterprise.” This chair has been endowed by the Government of India and there is also to be a Cambridge Centre for Indian Business, established as a result of a contribution by the BP group.

So how does Alison Richard see the future of Cambridge and indeed of universities around the world? Well, first of all, she believes “the role of universities has never been more important than it is today.” But she is worried about what she calls the utilitarian view of universities — the view that they have to be useful for the creation of economic wealth. “My own deep, deep, belief is that the creation of cultural wealth and cultural insights is every bit as important as contributions to economic wealth that we make. That utilitarian view of universities takes away from their deep role of creativity in society.”

When I suggest that many students nowadays seem to have a utilitarian view of universities, opting for subjects that will bring them the fattest pay packets rather than the richest cultural reward, the Vice-Chancellor is less worried. She points out that in 1974 half the students at Cambridge were studying arts, humanities, or social sciences and the percentage is the same today. And that she insists is not because Cambridge imposes a quota system to insure the balance of subjects or lowers its standards to admit students in those subjects. “We get extraordinarily strong applicants,” she says.

But Alison Richard does believe there could be something of a utilitarian problem with academic staff. “I am not suggesting that anyone should be encouraged to come into academia to become rich. They won’t anyhow. But we should be able to make a decent living and if we don’t ensure that, students will vote with their feet.” She is particularly concerned about the remuneration of young academics who are at that stage in life when they are buying a house and bringing up a family. It’s the post-graduates and the lecturers that Britain is losing to America but at the senior level Cambridge at least is gaining as many academics from America as it is losing.

When I left Cambridge at the end of the fifties, colleges made little effort to encourage us to remain in touch with them or to ask us to offer any financial support. Alison Richards thinks that was because I went to Cambridge in the days of the welfare state when it was believed that everything, including higher education, would be provided by the state. She tells me: “It was a loss to the University not to have taken advantage of the extraordinary community of students and I would like to think a loss to all of you not to have been more engaged with your university.”

I assure the Vice-Chancellor all that has changed now and my college certainly keeps in touch with me. She believes that relations with alumni are far more important for the university than just getting them to contribute to the fund-raising campaign, which she says is “just one thing alumni can do for us and probably not the most important. You are our best advocates, you connect us to the real world.”

I wonder whether to ask the almost inevitable question — whether being the first woman Vice-Chancellor has caused any difficulties for her — but I decide against it. For someone so assured and at home in her job, that is clearly an irrelevance, and I don’t want to end the interview with a crushing reply, so I ask instead whether she has any regrets about coming back to the University where she took her first degree after so many years in the lusher pastures of American academia. I get a gentle rebuke: “I wouldn’t have come back from America if I didn’t have a passionate and profound belief in the greatness of this university and its capacity to be able to continue to play a vital and important role in the world. Nothing in the last four and a half years since I’ve been back has changed my mind.”

The Vice-Chancellor hopes her visit will strengthen the ties with India and build a partnership that will enlarge the role both Cambridge and its Indian partners play in the world.

Rights-free zones: illegal and unjust

Tue, 22 Jan 2008 17:46:58 GMT

Rights-free zones: illegal and unjust

Mukul Sharma

The Guantanamo model signifies the abandoning of basic principles of human rights. It de-legitimises us.

“O Father, this is a prison of injustice.

Its iniquity makes the mountains weep.

I have committed no crime and am guilty of no offence.

Curved claws have I,

But I have been sold like a fattened sheep.”

— Abdulla Thani Faris al Anazi, a Guantanamo detainee since 2002, arrested in Afghanistan, and turned over to the United States forces by bounty hunters.

January 11, 2008, will mark six years since the first detainees were transferred to Guantanamo Bay. The U.S. naval base there is a rights-free zone for the detention, treatment and trial of certain people in connection with the “war on terror.” Here, the Pentagon is authorised to hold non-U.S. citizens in indefinite custody without charge; the detainees are barred from seeking any remedy in proceedings in any U.S., foreign or international court; if any det ainee were tried, the trial would be by a military commission — an executive body — and not an independent or impartial court. A Justice Department memorandum to the Pentagon advises that because Guantanamo Bay is not a sovereign U.S. territory, the federal courts should not be able to consider habeas corpus petitions from ‘enemy aliens’ detained at the base.

Most detainees there are housed in conditions amounting to cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment. Most spend 22 hours a day in total isolation, and suffer other forms of sensory deprivation. A majority of them have been held for nearly six years with no prospect of a fair trial, no direct access to their families, and no access to a lawyer. These conditions have had a shattering impact on their psychological and physical health. At least four men are stated to have committed suicide, and many suicide attempts have been reported (For details see, “Guantanamo Bay – a legal black hole,” The Hindu, January 6, 2007).

International campaigns have raised many issues regarding this: closing down the detention centre at Guantanamo Bay and ending the U.S. secret detention programme, wherever it is based; releasing all detainees held in the “war on terror,” including those held at Guantanamo, unless they are to be charged and given a fair trial; stopping secret detentions, unlawful transfer of detainees between countries (rendition) or enforced disappearance in counter-terrorism operations; repeal of the Military Commissions Act 2006; and providing prompt and adequate reparation.

The fifth anniversary of the first transfers to Guantanamo was marked by activists around the world staging demonstrations and other activities. U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, the U.N. Committee against Torture, former U.S. Presidents Jimmy Carter and Bill Clinton, heads of states from Europe and elsewhere, human rights and legal organisations, and many more have supported various calls for the centre to be closed. The U.S. Supreme Court ruled against the government in two Guantanamo cases, decided in 2004 and 2006, and it is now considering whether the detainees should have access to courts — right to habeas corpus — to contest their detention.

Yet, the Guantanamo camp has not been closed, and it has thrown up a huge challenge to the international community. A model like Guantanamo signifies the abandoning of basic principles of human rights. It delegitimises us.

As Archbishop Desmond Tutu said on February 17, 2006, “It is disgraceful. I never imagined I would live to see the day when the United States and its satellites would use precisely the same arguments that the apartheid government used for detention without trial.”

It would have been virtually impossible for Guantanamo to continue without a global war paradigm, constructed under the rubric of “war on terror.” Using this, parts of international humanitarian laws, selectively interpreted, are deemed to apply, and human rights laws are generally disregarded. The administration repeatedly claims that they do not hold ground in armed conflicts. There are thus new rights-free zones, like Guantanamo, in different parts of the world, where a detainee can be subjected to cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment or punishment, including prolonged solitary or cellular confinement in conditions of reduced sensory stimulation.

Secret, unacknowledged arrests

Here we have secret, incommunicado and unacknowledged arrests and tortures, and all those who have been subjected to enforced disappearances and encounters are not provided access to effective remedy and justice, including compensation. Here we have anti-terror, so-called security laws, which suggest humane treatment as a matter of choice rather than law, and which exclude the security officials even from that choice. These occurrences should also be seen in the context of a dominant development paradigm, where Exclusive Economic Zones, Special Economic Zones and industrial projects in the tribal heartlands can be implemented, without free, informed and prior consent of the people.

Human rights activists in the rights-free zones are subjected to death threats, persecuted through the judicial system and silenced with the introduction of security laws. Going through unfounded investigations and prosecutions, many even disappear or are murdered.

Europe often presents itself as a beacon of human rights. However, the uncomfortable truth is that without Europe’s help, some men would not now be nursing torture wounds in prison cells in the rights-free zones, including Guantanamo. The revealing report of Dick Marty, Rapporteur of the Committee on Legal Affairs and Human Rights of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe, concludes: “The body of information gathered makes it unlikely that European states were completely unaware of what was happening, in the context of the fight against international terrorism, in some of their airports, in their airspace or at American bases located on their territory. Insofar as they did not know, they did not want to know. It is inconceivable that certain operations conducted by American services could have taken place without the active participation, or at least the collusion, of national intelligence services.” (Alleged secret detentions and unlawful inter-state transfers involving Council of Europe member States, June 7, 2006, Draft Report - Part II (Explanatory memorandum), Para 230). In Asia and Africa, a large number of people in Pakistan, Kenya, Somalia and Ethiopia became victims of rendition transferred in secret from one country to another, and to Guantanamo, through their governments.

Facts and figures on Guantanamo, released at the end of 2007, by Amnesty International are an eye-opener: nearly 800 detainees are being held there. Approximately, 300 detainees of around 30 nationalities were being held without charge or trial in November. Only one Guantanamo detainee, David Hicks, was convicted by the military commission in March 2007. He pleaded guilty to “providing material support to terrorism” under a pre-trial agreement that ensured his release from the U.S. custody after five years, and return to his native Australia to serve a nine-month prison term. Only three detainees were charged for trial by the military commission.

Between 2002 and November 2007, around 470 detainees were released into other countries. At least four of those still held were 18 years old when taken into custody. Detainees had been taken into custody in more than 10 countries before being transferred to Guantanamo, without any judicial process. An analysis of around 500 of the detainees concluded that only five per cent had been captured by the U.S. forces; and 86 per cent arrested by Pakistan or Afghanistan-based Northern Alliance forces and turned over to the U.S., often for a reward of thousands of dollars.

All rights-free zones are in violation of international and national human rights laws. Detention of each person there or every act of appropriation of natural resources in these zones is illegal and unjust. Treating all people deprived of their liberty with humanity, and with respect for their dignity, is a fundamental and universally applicable rule. It must be applied without distinction. Rights-free zones, like Guantanamo, should be closed not tomorrow, but this morning.

In general, most countries and their people have simply not taken a stand. They seem to believe that this is not their problem. They think they did not contribute to Guantanamo, and therefore they do not have to be part of the solution. We, the people, and the governments around the world can play a positive role in ending illegal U.S. detentions in the name of “war on terror.”

Among other things, we and our governments can protest to U.S. authorities against illegal detentions, provide lasting protection for detainees released from Guantanamo and elsewhere, and oppose all unlawful transfers of detainees between countries.

(Mukul Sharma is Director of Amnesty International in India

Kenya’s stolen election

Tue, 22 Jan 2008 17:46:21 GMT

Kenya’s stolen election

The presidential election in Kenya has triggered major violence. Tribal rivalries have been ignited, taking upwards of 300 lives so far. The incumbent President, Mwai Kibaki, has claimed victory over Raila Odinga. Strangely, the parliamentary and presidential contests, which were held simultaneously, produced impossible-to-reconcile outcomes. The Orange Democratic Movement led by Mr. Odinga, which led in every opinion poll except one, unseated most members of the incumbent Cabinet and took 100 out of 210 parliamentary seats while Mr. Kibaki’s Party of National Unity won just 35 seats. In the presidential election, the early counting trends heavily favoured Mr. Odinga and media computations also had him ahead. But the three-day counting process lacked transparency and suffered unexplained delays in vote tallying. In some constituencies the votes polled exceeded the number of registered voters. All this naturally fuelled allegations of rigging. The head of the Electoral Commission himself has publicly doubted whether Mr. Kibaki actually won, and the Attorney General has called for an independent investigation. The European Union’s Electoral Observation Mission has issued a damning report on the election process, saying it fell short of “key international and regional standards for democratic elections” and calling for a swift, independent investigation of the results. The United States initially welcomed the election result but has now joined Britain, the former colonial ruler, in questioning its credibility and accuracy.

Sadly, hopes of a true democratic revival in Kenya, which has East Africa’s largest economy, have been shattered. Mr. Odinga, a former political prisoner under the dictatorship of Daniel Arap Moi and son of nationalist hero Oginga Odinga, has been projected as an agent of progressive change. The voter turnout was huge and the polling broadly transparent and peaceful. What is clear is that the presidential election was stolen in the counting and tallying process. Mr. Odinga’s demand that the President must admit the brazen fraud is wholly just and seems to imply one of two things: Mr. Kibaki must step down or the presidential election process should be gone through all over again. In either case, an independent review and scrutiny, under credible supervision, of what went wrong would be a requirement. At this vital moment for democracy in Africa, the African Union, the European Union, and the Commonwealth need to do all they can to help Kenya come out of this crisis with its head held high. The only way to overcome this huge setback to democracy in Africa and for “national healing,” which Mr. Kibaki has called for, to have a chance is for him to go.