Aside from the ‘regional developments’, SAARC’s performance record has never been inspiring. Founded in 1985, it is still largely a consultative body, which has avoided undertaking any useful collaborative project in its 20 years of existence. Questions of national security lie outside the SAARC charter. It is so in spite of realisation that that almost all successful association of nations - ASEAN, European Union, and now Organisation of African States – became effective only when they had security as the first consideration. India’s insistence on economic links, sans security questions, is irrational.
Countries trade with each other when they feel secure _ Look at growth of EU from its early beginnings when Germany and France decided to forget their historic rivalry and felt comfortable with each other. The Benelux alliance of Britain, Netherlands and Luxemborg failed to progress on economic agenda alone. Even ASEAN came into being for countering the strategic threat of China to the trading routes of the West.
India thinks that it is poised to grow as a strong global economic player-India’s growing relations with Israel, USA ASEAN Myanmar and Thailand. Relations with SAARC countries, particularly Pakistan and Bangladesh, are irrelevant because of intractable stagnation. Bangladesh is suspicious of Indian hegemonic designs. Pakistan doubts India’s sincerity in solving the Kashmir dispute. India is likely to be deaf to the demilitarisation proposal. The UNCIP desired to demilitarise the J&K State beforfe holding the plebiscite. The UNCIP representatives could not convince India to reduce her troops to 18,000 while Pakistan agreed to 6,000 troops limit.
So if India insists upon only economic aspects, SAARC would never take off from its current limping pace. India’s attitude may lead to even dissolution of the SAARC. India not only dwarfs all the other member countries, but it is the only country that shares a border with all other SAARC countries. The SAARC countries have a direct bearing on India’s national security. India should view this reality in the context of the concept of strategic security instead of territorial integrity alone. ASEAN’s Declaration October 2003 summit (October 7, 2003 summit at Bali) realises that security concerns could not be excluded from the ASEAN’s agenda. The Declaration envisages to establish “an ASEAN Community” based upon three pillars, “namely political and security cooperation, economic cooperation, and socio-cultural cooperation...for the purpose of ensuring durable peace, stability and shared prosperity in the region.”
ASEAN’s leaders also discussed setting up a security community alongside the economic one, though without any formal military alliance. The members understood that ASEAN has governments with widely differing views on governance and political process, including practices in areas such as suffrage and representation. It encompasses styles of government ranging from democracy to autocracy and economic systems from free-market capitalist to nominally communist. Yet security cooperation could not be ignored.
To realise its dream of emerging as a major global power in 2020, India should think about three aspects of strategic security._ territorial security and integrity, economic security, and energy security. Territorial integrity in the classical sense signifies all the countries of SAARC providing depth to India’s strategic defence.
From the points of view of territorial integrity and security as well as economic and energy security, Bangladesh is a very important power on India’s eastern border. Geographically it dominates India’s lines of communication with the northeast, a valuable source of oil and other commodity resources for the rest of India. Northeast is connected to the rest of India by a narrow corridor, hemmed in by three nations. Of these Bangladesh on the south is the biggest. The entire corridor is within artillery range from any of the three countries, notably from the northwestern salient of Bangladesh.
India’s border of most of the northeastern region lies along Bangladesh. This part of the border is easy to cross and any meaningful border control requires the cooperation of the two countries. Bangladesh also suffers from this vulnerability with India dominating its entire land border on all sides except for 197 km in remote southeast corner bordering Myanmar. So, territorial security should be over-riding considerations in India-Bangladesh relations.
Shashi Upadhyay, in his article India and SAARC: Trends and Perspectives (India’s Foreign Policy: Emerging Challenges and Paradigms, edited papers by BC Upreti, Mohan Lal Sharma and SN Kaushik, Kalinga Publications, 2003) brings out India’s divergent perceptions. He reminds, “A general apprehension among the neighours was that cooperation with India in the SAARC framework would mean another form of Indian hegemony in the region…India feared that the proposed South Asian forum was an attempt by the smaller neighours to put collective pressure on India on issues affecting them bilaterally…The perception of the smaller neighbours about India in South Asia is formulated on the basis of latter’s memory of British domination from their base in India. India’s foreign policy too is more or les based on the same geopolitical compulsions and calculations as that of the British Indian empire.” The writer highlight Pakistan’s fear that ‘India could capture the Pakistani market, try to instigate political instability and seek cultural domination’, Sri Lanka’s fear that ‘India may adopt some form of ‘Monroe doctrine’ to ‘establish her ’hegemonic role in South Asian affairs’.
To the writer, Bangladesh mooted the idea of SAAC to counter India’s hegemonic perceptions’. Recent events indicate that Bangladesh’s apprehensions were correct _ (a) ‘In violation of Mujib-Indira Treaty of 1975 and international norms, India has constructed metalled roads along the international border. According to the treaty, no country would construct any infrastructure within 150 yards or in the ‘no man’s land’ of the international border. India has also constructed barbed wire fence, in some points, just on the zero lines of the international border’ (Inqilab, June 30, 2005). The newspaper points out, ‘India presently shares 3,286 kilometres land with Bangladesh. Out of this India has already constructed barbed-wire fence in 1712 km while the remaining portion is planned to be completed within 2006….India has decided to complete the construction of barbed-wire fence, observation tower and floodlight in the remaining portion of its border within 2006’. (b) Indian army personnel, Antajuddin Kemal was charged on July2, 2005, under Article 164 of Bangladesh Penal Code, for espionage against Bangladesh. He confessed having transmitted to RAW photographs of Jaintapur bridge of Sylhet and Simultali Bridge over the River Attrai (APP, July 2, 2005). (c) On July 1, 2005, Indian Border Security Force took away twenty barki boats of Bangladeshi (stone-quarry) workers from Sripur border area of Jaintapur upazila’ (New Nation, July 2, 2005). (d) ‘RAW is the mastermind of the explosion at Tengratila gas field of Bangladesh’ (Inqilab, July 5, 2005).
Air Commodore D. Kukreja’s article, ‘India and her neighours’ (United Service Institution Journal April-June 2004), reflects India’s hegemonistic thinking. He analyses weaknesses of all the SAARC countries. And then concludes that ‘India should continue its efforts towards establishing itself as one of the leading players of not only of the region but also of the world’. For the SAARC to be viable, Delhi needs to convince her neighbours that she is an opportunity, not a threat. It is okay for India to be a big brother. But, it should stop behaving like a big fish (in accordance with Chanakya’s matsynyaya principle, big fish eats the small one).

WTO talks: What world has at stake in Hong Kong
Pascal Lamy

ALL of the ministers attending the World Trade Organisation’s ministerial meeting this week in Hong Kong have the same map and compass, the Doha declaration signed in 2001: Open trade, reduce barriers and adapt trade rules to the 21st-century economy, making sure that the interests and needs of developing countries are at the heart of the results. It is not a responsibility to be taken lightly. At stake is not only the future of the Doha round of trade talks but the future of the global trading system itself. These are probably the most complex set of international commercial negotiations ever undertaken. Encompassing agriculture, industrial tariffs, trade in services, trade and environment and many more issues, these negotiations have the potential to foster much needed growth to bolster development in Africa, Asia and Latin America and to support a more stable and prosperous global economy. A prize such as this will not be easily won.
The world’s trade ministers will need political courage in the coming days. The many people who will benefit from greater trade opening will remain silent whereas the few who suffer the pain of economic and social adjustment will be in the streets, beating every drum and insisting that you do not cave in and you preserve the status quo. This is why we have had such difficulty in reaching agreement in these talks. We were supposed to finish the round in January this year. We wanted to use this Hong Kong meeting to reach the critical template accords in agricultural trade and cutting tariffs on industrial goods that would have brought us two-thirds of the way to finishing the round and would have sprung the entire negotiation into high gear. We were not able to clear those hurdles.
To avoid the calamity that surrounds failed WTO meetings, we decided to moderate our objectives for this meeting. Negotiations in July 2004 brought us about 50 per centof the way to a final agreement. In the last few weeks, much hard work and a relatively new-found willingness to compromise may have moved us another 5 per centof the way down the road. In Hong Kong, we will make every effort to build further on this by seeking to narrow differences in agriculture, industrial products and a package of agreements for the poorest countries. Make no mistake, this meeting will be about real negotiations. If we fail to use this occasion to make genuine efforts at bridging our differences, the people we represent will want to know why.
So, we finish the round by the end of 2006 or we risk seeing the global trading system become less relevant. International trade rules were last updated in 1994, when China, India and Brazil were only just finding their feet as world trading powers. Imagine what the next decade will bring. Governments frustrated by a lack of progress in the WTO would turn to bilateral or regional negotiations as the alternative, in which obviously smaller and poorer partners would have less clout. And the WTO would turn into a big litigation machine.
This would be particularly unfortunate given what has already been achieved in the four years since the Doha round began. Commitments by rich countries would reduce trade-distorting farm subsidies by much larger margins than in the previous global negotiations, known as the Uruguay Round. Export subsidies would be eliminated. Tariffs on agriculture and industrial products would fall more sharply, too, not only because of offers already put forward, including by developing countries, but because governments are near agreement on formulas that would cut the highest tariffs by the largest margins. Progress has been made on making the international trading system more compatible with global environmental rules and on curbing subsidies that lead to depletion of global fish stocks.
Do we really wish to throw this away? In recent weeks, the ambience at the WTO’s headquarters in Geneva has improved. All WTO members agreed by consensus that the draft negotiating document we have forwarded to ministers should be the basis for negotiations — the first time this has happened before a ministerial conference. And just last Tuesday we finally agreed to adapt our rules to ensure that poor countries with no capacity to manufacture can have access to generic medicines when a health crisis emerges. This good work brings us to Hong Kong with modest momentum behind us. I hope I can count on trade ministers to build on this in the days to come. I hope ministers haven’t forgotten to bring their political cheque books with them. All members will have to contribute to the negotiation, even if some will write more zeros than others. But it will be a wise investment, because in win-win negotiations like these, everyone will get a high return.

 

Canberra’s Aborigine tents: Eyesore or national monument?
Ross Peake

AMID the manicured lawns in the heart of Australia’s national capital is a stark reminder of the harsh conditions under which the country’s original inhabitants live. It is a collection of about 10 tents called the Aboriginal tent embassy. It was established with just one tent in January 1972 to protest against what the Aborigines saw as their alienation from the land by original British settlers.
The embassy site has remained ever since and has become highly symbolic for the struggle of the Aborigines. In a few weeks it will again be teeming with people who will arrive from Aboriginal communities in the outback for an annual protest on Australia Day, January 26. This is the day the nation celebrates its birth, more than 200 years ago. It’s also the day on which Aborigines commemorate what they call the invasion of their land, where they first arrived about 50,000 years ago.
The next gathering or corroboree at the embassy on January 26 promises to be bigger and fierier than recent ones. The reason is that the John Howard government wants to close down the embassy. It wants to remove all the tents and build a modern education centre. The government says this will be an appropriate way for Aborigines to tell visitors, including those from overseas, about the inequalities facing their communities. This demand is sparking a clash of cultures. The handful of residents of the tent embassy like its ‘untidiness’ because they say this illustrates the way many Aborigines live in tents or ‘humpies’ constructed from branches and bark or corrugated iron, without running water or electricity. They want the embassy to stay as it is simply because it is an eyesore. The Howard government wants to clean up for the same reason.
The government has previously tried a tough approach against the embassy residents. The resultant clashes with the police trying to forcibly remove them made headlines around the country. The residents stayed, the police left. The new approach is to use the influence of Aboriginal elders, the tribal leaders in far-flung communities. The majority of the elders consulted by the government agreed that the embassy has lost sight of its original aims and that the tents should go. The elders are very influential under Aboriginal tribal lore. In theory, therefore, they should be listened to when they say the campers must leave.
When the government issued its new demands a few days ago for the campers to leave, and to respect the elders’ wishes, the residents simply vowed to stay, setting the scene for another confrontation. The tent embassy is on the lawns in front of Old Parliament House, the building that housed the national parliament until 1988. In the middle of the lawn the embassy residents maintain smouldering logs that they call the sacred fire.
It is symbolic of the fires around which Aboriginal elders have made decisions for their communities for thousands of years. The scene presents an incongruous setting and that’s just what the embassy residents seem to want. At lunchtime, well dressed public servants walk past the collection of tents, upturned chairs, cooking fires and washing lines, seeming not to notice or care. Indeed, the embassy has been there so long that it has become a national icon. Overseas visitors have written that the embassy is a secret treasure, not advertised but a welcome find, a place to discover the real meaning of Aboriginal alienation and disadvantage.
The Aborigines maintained a highly sophisticated culture but, partly because they did not invent the wheel or farming, they are not respected by a significant proportion of Australia’s population. On top of that, the Aborigines have suffered the fate of so many indigenous populations — alcoholism and imported disease have ravaged their communities. The fact that the embassy has been able to stay so long in the manicured Parliamentary triangle, the very heart of the capital of Canberra, is a tribute to tolerance of Australian society. The Howard government is bent on change, to ‘clean up’ the site, but no one is expecting the process to be quick or painless.