Hard choice
Zhang Liangui

After intensive consultations, members of the UN Security Council finally worked out a multilateral response to North Korea’s recent nuclear test with the adoption of Resolution 1718 on October 14. Despite the strict economic sanctions it imposes on North Korea under Chapter VII of the Charter of the United Nations, the resolution explicitly excludes the threat of military force.
North Korea challenged the universal ideal of nuclear non-proliferation enshrined in the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty when it carried out an underground nuclear test on October 9, an act that it “flagrantly” conducted “in disregard of the common opposition of the international community,” the Chinese Foreign Ministry said in a statement. Yet, for all its condemnation, the international community is in an embarrassing position.
A long-coveted dream
When we look back at what North Korea has done since the outbreak of the nuclear crisis, we have to admit that it is a preset goal of North Korea’s leaders to make their country nuclear capable. The diplomatic efforts they have made in the past decade seemed now to have simply aimed at gaining time.
Over the years, some people have argued that North Korea is making a feint, and it does not have the real intention or ability to develop nuclear weapons. Others have insisted that North Korea’s rejection of the six-party talks-a dialogue mechanism involving North Korea, Russia, South Korea, China, Japan and the United States-and its nuclear weapons ambition are due to U.S. financial sanctions. The nuclear test has proved that all these arguments are incorrect.
A nuclear weapons program is costly and time-consuming. North Korea hatched a plan to develop nuclear weapons as early as the 1950s, when it signed two nuclear technology agreements with the Soviet Union. In the 1960s, it established a nuclear research and development base in Yongbyon. Research on nuclear weapons began in the 1980s. Although North Korea signed the Joint Declaration of the Denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula and the Framework Agreement with South Korea and the United States respectively in the 1990s, the program was never completely halted. The recent nuclear test can be considered the culmination of North Korea’s persistent efforts in the past decades.
North Korea aspires to have nuclear weapons for two purposes. Its ultimate goal is to transform its strategic relations with neighboring countries with its nuclear weapons capability. North Korean leaders have repeatedly underscored the need to build North Korea into “a great and prosperous power.” For this small, economically backward country, developing nuclear weapons is a shortcut leading to “great power” status. Moreover, given the widening gap between North Korea and South Korea in terms of comprehensive strength, Pyongyang pursues nuclear weapons in an effort to maintain a strategic balance on the peninsula, at least psychologically.
The other goal of North Korea is to use the nuclear weapons program as a bargaining chip in the negotiations. This would not only help boost its diplomatic profile but also enable it to trade temporary concessions on the nuclear issue for economic benefits. The nuclear weapons program serves domestic political needs, too.
Given these deep implications, developing nuclear weapons has long been held as an unchallengeable national policy of North Korea. It is almost certain that the recent nuclear test is only the first of North Korea’s series of nuclear tests, and more tests are probably underway.
Shrewd timing
Since the development of nuclear weapons has long been on the North Korean national agenda, nuclear tests are inevitable. However, for North Korea, the timing of a test will be determined in light of the domestic and international environment.
First, North Korea chose to conduct a nuclear test recently because it had made decisive progress on its nuclear weapons program. North Korea reportedly carried out dozens of experiments before, but it had never conducted a formal test explosion. Pyongyang announced on February 10 last year that it had possessed nuclear weapons. However, foreign countries were doubtful about whether its nuclear weapons could be put to use. North Korea was not sure about this either. It needed to prove the practicability of its weapons and thus turn laboratory products into real weapons through tests.
Second, North Korea had sensed that the chances of facing military attacks would be slim if it conducted a nuclear test at this time. The United States is the most likely to initiate military attacks against North Korea. However, the country is so preoccupied with pressing issues in Iran and Iraq that it can hardly afford to launch military action against North Korea.
More importantly, the relevant countries are wrangling to reach a consensus on how to address the North Korean nuclear crisis. The United States insists on using all means possible to denuclearize North Korea. South Korea, however, holds that peace is the only acceptable option. China and Russia are opposed to excessive sanctions, still more ardently to military action.
After North Korea test-fired long-range missiles on July 5, the UN Security Council was plunged into a heated debate over the adoption of a resolution. Clearly, the big powers are more interested in guarding against each other than in resolving the North Korean nuclear issue, a situation that North Korea can take advantage of. As long as they keep quarreling, North Korea will be safe in carrying out nuclear tests.
A third reason for the timing is that a nuclear test on October 9 could have a significant diplomatic impact. It had been announced that new Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe would visit China and South Korea in early October, South Korean President Roh Moo Hyun would visit China on October 13 and US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice would visit East Asia in mid-October. Believing that the North Korean nuclear issue was set to be a major focus of these diplomatic activities, North Korea decided to conduct a nuclear test just ahead of them to show that it is the main player in this issue.
A makeshift resolution
Pyongyang moved from being “strategically defensive” to being “strategically offensive” when it announced that it had nuclear weapons in February last year. Its proud proclamation of the success of the recent nuclear test is even more indicative of the transition.
Before a breakthrough was made, North Korea needed time to carry out research. That was why it adopted an ambiguous attitude and maneuvered with other countries through negotiations. In this way, it gained over 10 years after the nuclear issue first surfaced in the 1990s. During that period, it proceeded with its nuclear weapons program on and off, paving the way for the announcement of nuclear capability in February 2005.
After the announcement, it became a goal of Pyongyang’s foreign policy to showcase its achievements so as to force the international community to recognize it as a nuclear power. Two tendencies emerged in the international arena in the wake of the landmark announcement. Some rejected it as mere bluffing, refusing to give any response. Others took an evasive stance for fear of a drastic decision, despite their awareness of the fact that the Korean Peninsula was no longer nuclear free.
Given these factors, North Korea had decided to take further actions, such as the test firing of long-range missiles and the recent nuclear test, to render invalid all the excuses for indecision. As a result, the countries concerned had to lay their cards on the table: They could either recognize North Korea as a nuclear power and bear all the consequences of this recognition, or impose military sanctions against the country, and they had to choose from the two without any delay.
As a matter of fact, the international community does not have much room for maneuver. If it fails to take drastic measures to denuclearize the Korean Peninsula but tacitly endorses North Korea’s nuclear power status, the existing non-proliferation mechanisms will collapse, heightening the risks of a nuclear war.
Given this dire prospect, it was almost inevitable that the Security Council would impose strict economic and financial sanctions on North Korea. However, opinion had diverged on whether to include military sanctions in the resolution. The new resolution would make no difference if it did not refer to Chapter VII of the UN Charter, which describes the Security Council’s power to authorize economic, diplomatic and military sanctions, as well as the use of military force, to resolve disputes.
Worse still, such a resolution would mean an encouragement to Pyongyang as it could imply that there would be no risks at all if it continued to pursue its nuclear weapons program. However, many countries were fearful of the near-term consequences of incorporating military sanctions into the new resolution. In this context, it was extremely difficult for the countries to formulate a wise resolution.
The international community’s diplomats maneuvered. In the adopted Resolution 1718, they cited Chapter VII of the UN Charter but excluded military sanctions. The compromise is not bad, but it watered down the resolution, turning it into a transitional step. As the resolution is put into effect, the countries will find themselves back at the starting point, still faced with the difficult choice-either recognize North Korea as a nuclear power or impose military sanctions against it.

(The Daily Mail-Beijing Review  Articles Exchange Item)



Women abuse in India
Kashmala Khan

Violations of women rights are highest in the Indian state of Rajasthan. The Rajasthan state has a woman chief minister, but events of atrocities are frequent. According to a report by the National Crimes Research Bureau (NCRB), Rajasthan comes at the third spot regarding incidents of atrocities against women in India. The state has the highest number of registered rape cases. Rajasthan comes second in atrocities on women from scheduled castes and scheduled tribes.
According to official statistics, 1,038 rape cases were registered in Rajasthan in 2004 as compared to 1,050 registered in 2003 and 1,051 in 2002. Cases of other kinds of anti-women crimes and atrocities increased to 6,781 in 2004, from 5,733 in 2003. A social activist in Rajasthan, Rakhee Waghawa says “Be it at work place or any other place, every time we are harassed physically or emotionally.” Moreover, several incidents of acid throwing on women have been reported from various parts of the Rajasthan state. A college student, Vijaylakshmi was able to sustain severe burn injuries when a boy threw acid on her at a market at Vidyadhar Nagar. The culprit was identified as Mukesh, her fiance.
The Dalits or untouchable women belonging to lower castes in India, are often persecuted in the form of mediaeval barbarity at the hands of upper caste Hindus. According to civic groups and women activists, most of the victims facing criminal cases are denied justice. The authorities end up blaming the women victim instead. Moreover, the rise in crimes against women is attributed to the mindset of the police and the government. The report quotes Ranu, from Northern India, who married at the age of 18 and strangled her first two babies to death because they were girls. She terminated two other pregnancies because the fetuses were females. Yet she and her husband, Muktar, have no remorse about the fate of their missing daughters. Ranu says, “I will kill other children if they are born girls,” explaining that she is too poor to pay for their weddings. All over Rajasthan and the rest of India, baby girls are being eliminated either through sex-selective abortion or infanticide. “The girl child is killed by putting a sand bag on her face or by throttling her”, the report quoted Ranu as saying. “It is not a rare phenomenon. It happens without hindrance.”
According to the report, “Although existing laws ban sex-determination testing in India, about 60 million girls are ‘missing’- falling into a demographic black hole from which there will be no return. As many as two million fetuses are aborted each year for no other reason rather than they happen to be female.” Experts say that the two-child policy that promote the idea that the perfect family involves one girl and one boy is partly to blame for the dwindling number of girls in India. The Indian families are more likely to abort a female fetus if the first child is also a girl.
Nobody questions the very norms that make girls so vulnerable in India in the first place. Either girls are married off like a burden or get rid of before birth. Many middle-class parents, fearing the high costs of dowry, have taken to aborting female fetuses identifies through ultrasound examinations. Despite laws barring dowry, the practice is common in all sects of Hindu community including the Hindu upper castes.
According to a report, more than 30,000 Kashmiri women have been raped by Indian security forces in Indian Held Kashmir in the last decade, out of which 6,000 were made pregnant and delivered “illegitimate babies”. According to a report by Human Rights Watch 2001 “Rape is used by the Indian security forces to attack Kashmiri women suspected of sympathizing with Freedom Fighters.” Through rape, the security forces are aiming to punish and humiliate the entire community. Rape, female trafficking and molestation of women in IHK are a routine matter for the Indian security forces. Surprisingly, the western media remains silent on the issue. It is high time, the international community should realize that oppression, maltreatment and sexual assaults on women, female trafficking is much more frequent in India than elsewhere. While India aspires to be the biggest and strongest democratic power of the region, it is constantly engaged in securing a permanent seat in the United Nations Security Council (UNSC). How can India ever justify its claim of being largest democracy and claim a position in the UNSC when the basic human rights factor is jeopardized to such level.


Madrassas in Pakistan
Saifullah Khan

Madrassas are Islamic religious schools, whose traditions date back almost a thousand years. Within Pakistan, there has been a relative boom in their number over the last two decades or so. During the 1980s, the madrassa system underwent a complete change. The war in Afghanistan brought from across the border millions of refugees and the radicalism of a jihad movement. Thousands of new madrassas were formed, supported by donations from the US Government. The schools also acted as orphanages for the many parentless victims of the war. Students from these madrassas were responsible for routing the Soviets from Afghanistan.
After the Soviet withdrawal, madrassas still continued to flourish. Today, there are thousands of such schools within Pakistan lacking state supervision. It is up to the individual schools to decide what to teach and preach. Many provide only religious subjects to their students, with the exclusion of basic skills such as simple math, science, or geography. The poor cannot afford private schools. With no better options, poor parents send their sons to madrassas, where they receive at least some education. Most madrassas provide food and clothes, and even pay parents to send their children, further increasing their enticement.
The primary worry with the explosion of madrassa system is not with the schools in general, but the implications of the radical minority of them. There are about 12,000 madrassas in Pakistan, with more than 1.5 million students enrolled. Around 10-15 percent of the schools are affiliated with extremist religious/political groups, who have co-opted education for their own ends. These schools teach a distorted view of Islam. The schools produce a stream of unemployed young men, wholly dependent on the support of others. They have skills only to be imams or assistants at mosques as there are not enough jobs in these areas for them. Either more schools must open, thus expanding the problem, or the young men are sentenced to perpetual unemployment. The idea that a course of study exclusively focused on religion is the only way in Islam is a misreading of both accepted teachings and history. More than 40 years ago, an eminent Pakistani scholar, Maulana Abul Ala Maududi, warned against an education that focuses solely on religion at the exclusion of outside knowledge. He said, “Those who choose the theological branch of learning generally keep themselves utterly ignorant...[of secular subjects, thereby remaining] incapable of giving any lead to the people.”
To overcome the political, religious and economic problems originating from madrassas, it had become imperative for the government to reform them. A project titled “Madrassa Reforms” was launched in 2002-03 with the directive of the President for a period of 5 years at a capital cost of Rs. 5759.395 million. The government’s scheme requires that the schools’ curriculum include modern disciplines, that they disclose sources of funding, get permission to enrol foreign students, and stop sending their students to militant training camps. On Jan 8, 2004, the government approved a sum of US$100 million to reform the madrassas by introducing subjects taught at normal schools across the country. Formal education has now been introduced in these private seminaries and the government is providing them grants, salaries for teachers, cost of textbooks, teacher training and equipment. Under the madrassa reform programme, formal subjects including English, mathematics, social studies general science and computer science are being progressively introduced from primary to secondary levels.
There is a misperception that madrassas turn out jihadis. The madrassas in general have provided relief and sustenance to the poor children of Pakistan, though a small number of them preach extremist ideas. Dr. Matthew Nelson, a renowned scholar of School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS) London, has denied the much talked about role of madrassas in producing terrorists. His analysis is based on research conducted over two years (2003-2005) in all the four provinces of Pakistan including Azad Jammu and Kashmir. He rejects the widely held axiom that madrassas promote religious/sectarian divide. According to his study, 89% of the world’s 79 leading Muslim terrorists had not received their education exclusively in madrassas.