Pakistan debates a new Tribal policy
Nasim Zehra

ALMOST two weeks into the in-camera session on the security situation, and especially the tribal areas to the parliamentarians, many questions regarding its usefulness are being raised. For example are we closer to having evolved a better policy response to Pakistan’s security problem? Are we closer to having evolved a policy for the tribal areas that is any different from what the government has hitherto been pursuing? Are we headed towards greater and broader political ownership of policy? Is there a greater national consensus behind ownership of the policy? There are no straight forward answers to these questions simply because the in-camera session is only one of the many elements within the broader policy formulation and implementation context in which there are many other elements influencing policy and its implementation.
For example the briefing has been taking place against the backdrop of significant actions. These have ranged from major military operations in Bajaur and Swat to a peace agreement between the warring groups in the Kurram Agency; from high level engagement with the United States on operational-level cooperation, including training and equipment, to ongoing negotiations within the Tripartite Commission framework on Pakistan-Afghan border issues; from ongoing dialogue with Kabul to the convening of the Pakistan-Afghan mini-jirga; from the emergence in the tribal areas of the local Lashkars — now disenchanted by the militant leadership they had earlier supported to the October 14 fatwa by the Muttahida Ulema Council in Lahore declaring that suicide bombing is un-Islamic and only the State has the right to declare jihad.
All these factors underscore the important reality that under discussion in the parliament is an ongoing situation. The challenge and the policy under discussion is one that Pakistan has been confronted with for over half a decade. Consequently there is also a response dynamic, however flawed and inadequate that is already at work. This is a major limiting factor in a situation if the political demand, as in this case, of a section of politicians would be to go back to the drawing board and draw a fresh policy. Such a demand and expectation would be inherently flawed; one that fails to appreciate the dynamics of policy formulation, policy implementation. However, what would be more practical if the critics of the existing policy would recommend potentially more effective policy alternatives. Such an undertaking would require a coherent and logical presentation, backed by facts and experiential wisdom, of recommended policy alternatives.
The response of the politicians from the non-ruling parties, especially the PML-N and PML-Q has combined political point scoring, coupled with some serious engagement with the process issues related to the briefing. Meanwhile, the diminishing interest of the PPP parliamentarians prompted the speaker to urge them to take greater interest.
On the process issue, the PML-N made a major contribution towards making the present session into a genuinely parliamentary discussion session. Originally the government had planned it to be a limited purpose session in which the parliament would be presented the ground situation by the Director General Military Operations to be followed by two questions each from all the political parties. The government responded positively to PML-N’s recommendations. These included that the Q & A be spread over a day and be followed by another presentation by a government representative presenting the government’s present and mid-term threat perception and its broader impact on the country, the contents of Pakistan-US cooperation agreement and recommended policy options to deal with the situation. As a consequence, the session has extended into a two-week plus business. That the session was extended on the Opposition’s demand and all representatives are getting an opportunity to participate in the discussion means that a democratic exercise in underway. The process of debate and dialogue is intrinsic and crucial to genuine democracy. To that extent the session is a plus. However, how valuable is this session for policy formulation and indeed for public good and overall national security will depend on the final outcome of the session. And that depends largely on the non-ruling parties. The government has conceded to their process recommendations and these non-ruling parties must demonstrate to the public that they have practical wisdom to a policy that is already in operation. It is a policy that now seems to be showing some mixed results but criticisms too are aplenty. The extreme complexity of a chronically problematic situation, largely self-created by successive governments, for the people until there is greater security no policy will be viewed as successful.
Policy-makers and parliamentarians, however, do not have the luxury to indulge constantly in rhetoric and points scoring. For the positions that they acquire through public vote, the parliamentarians opt for a Constitutional undertaking to be responsible for competent management of State and society through appropriate laws, structures and processes. This is what the public now expects from the parliamentarians as they debate the security problem in the parliament.
Some of the point scoring is almost inevitable. The PML-Q, PML-N and others from the non-ruling parties have been repeating their criticism of the tribal area policy and also of the in-camera briefings. They mostly insist that “this is not our war” and demand that Pakistan discontinue its close cooperation with the US on this war on terrorism which is now being fought on Pakistani territory. They demand dialogue with the militants and argue that because of pro-US policies, Pakistani security forces have launched military operations in the tribal areas against Pakistani citizens and killing many innocent civilians.
The parliamentarians’ criticism of the briefing has been that the information regarding the ground situation and policy content provided to them has already been available in the public arena. For example they complain that they have not been provided any new facts regarding the government’s commitments made to the US regarding Pakistan’s clearance to US operations in the tribal areas and support to US operations in Afghanistan.
The PML-N and Q may not be entirely wrong. Yet this criticism alone will only signal poverty of serious and responsible politics. There is enough information and facts available to the non-ruling parties to make detailed, viable and concrete suggestions for improving the existing security policy, especially dealing with the tribal areas. The PML-N will soon be suggesting to the Prime Minister to set up smaller an all- parliamentary committee, which must get a more detailed briefing on the security situation, and the Committee should make concrete recommendations for policy improvement. To the extent that this will keep all the parties involved in a dialogue process over the question of security this would be a positive msove. However, as concrete recommendations for substantive policy improvement those have not been forthcoming from any political party. It is time that Pakistan’s political parties get more serious what it takes to run the business of State and society. It certainly takes more serious and competent mind work. Rhetoric and good intentions alone wont do it.

—Khaleej Times

A nuclear green light
Pang Sen

AFTER a long and tiring debate, the 45-nation Nuclear Suppliers Group (NSG), which controls the export and sale of nuclear technology worldwide, approved on September 6 an American proposal to lift its nuclear trade embargo on India. Under a deal signed by the United States and India in March 2006, India will get access to U.S. civilian nuclear technology on the condition that India separate nuclear facilities for civilian and military use and open its nuclear facilities for inspection. On August 1, the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) approved a nuclear safeguards agreement with India, a move seen as giving consent to U.S.-India nuclear cooperation. The decision by the NSG officially gave a green light to cooperation between the United States and India in the civilian nuclear field.
Mutual benefit
The agreement would bring potential economic and strategic benefit to both India and the United States. U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said, “Both sides have determined that it is worth it.” With its economy still in a downturn, the United States is eager to do business with India, an emerging economic power. Washington says the fuel and technology deal would forge a strategic partnership with “the world’s largest democracy,” help India meet rising energy demand in an environmentally sound way and open a nuclear energy market worth billions of dollars. Commenting on the deal with India, Rice told the U.S.-India Business Council that “Wrapping up this agreement will open new doors of cooperation for us in the nuclear field.” It would open even more doors in business, science, agriculture and development-and perhaps most importantly, strengthen international security. Furthermore, it will strengthen the U.S.-India alliance formed after the end of the Cold War, she said. India is equally eager to have the agreement approved, but for reasons more strategic than economic. The NSG’s decision is a diplomatic victory for India as it is a tacit acceptance of India’s absence from the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) and a declaration of forgiveness for the nuclear weapon tests India conducted in 1998, which at the time were mostly condemned by the international community. It shows that, when a gigantic and growing economy defies the world and demonstrates its nuclear abilities, economic might wins out in the end.
Divided response
The U.S.-India deal raised international misgivings since India has shunned the NPT, which is meant to stop the spread and production of nuclear weapons and mandates gradual disarmament. Furthermore, India has not committed itself to joining the NPT or a companion agreement, the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty. While the United States, Russia and France supported lifting the nuclear trade ban, others such as Norway, Ireland, New Zealand, Switzerland, the Netherlands and Austria were hesitant. They insisted that the decision include strong wording to ensure that India would not test nuclear weapons again. Under heavy U.S. pressure, however, they agreed to the use of watered-down language. Pakistan, India’s neighbor and rival, clearly has reason to worry. A Pakistani army statement in August said the U.S.-India nuclear agreement would have negative implications for South Asia’s strategic stability, as it would enable India to produce significant quantities of fissile material for nuclear weapons. Regional stability and the global non-proliferation regime would have been better served, the statement said, if the United States had considered a package approach for both India and Pakistan, which conducted its first nuclear weapon tests two weeks after India.
China, which has been trying to improve its relations with India, takes a cautious attitude toward the NSG’s decision. While reaffirming its pledge to cooperate with all parties on the peaceful use of nuclear power in accordance with its international obligations and on the basis of equality and mutual benefit, China believes that all countries are entitled to make peaceful use of nuclear energy. Meanwhile, relevant cooperation should be conducive to safeguarding the integrity and efficacy of the international non-proliferation regime. China hopes the NSG will equally address the aspirations of all parties for the peaceful use of nuclear power while adhering to the non-proliferation program. A Chinese Foreign Ministry official said that China hoped the decision by the NSG would contribute to the peaceful use of nuclear energy and support the goals of nuclear non-proliferation and peaceful use of nuclear power.
A turning point
The NSG has been imposing strict embargoes on countries that are not NPT signatories. The recent decision thus marks a turning point that, in the long run, will have a profound impact on international non-proliferation efforts. It has opened a new chapter in global efforts to limit the nuclear threat. Supporters of the decision argue that the policy change by the NSG will keep nuclear technology and materials off the black market, ultimately making the world a safer place.

—The Daily Mail-Beijing Review Articles Exchange Item
 

America showing Europe the way
Keith Richburg

MY political awakening began in the summer of 1968, when I was 10. Robert Kennedy had just been assassinated after winning the California primary. My father, a union representative and Kennedy backer in Detroit, was upset. I didn’t really understand much about presidential politics, but my education began. “Can a black man ever become the president?” I remember asking, somewhat innocently. My father thought for a while and then replied: “Not in my lifetime. But it will probably happen in your lifetime. You’ll live to see it.” My dad died last year. And every day this year, since I’ve watched in wonderment at the unlikely ascent of Barack Obama — as a candidate, as the Democratic Party nominee and now within reach of the White House — I keep thinking back to that conversation 40 years ago and wishing my dad had lived just a little bit longer to see progress that he only dreamed was possible.
My father grew up in the segregated south, in Charleston, under Jim Crow laws that didn’t allow blacks to vote. He left as a young man, primarily so his children would have more opportunities, all the opportunities that America had to offer. And despite the racism he saw and experienced, he never lost his faith in that American dream. “You can be anything you want to be,” was his constant refrain to me. I became a journalist. After my stint in Africa in the mid-1990s, covering the genocide in Rwanda, the famine in Somalia and seeing corruption, poverty and lack of basic human rights, I came away feeling blessed that I was born a black man in America, with all the opportunities and hopes that implied. But it was in Europe, where I lived for five years from 2000 to 2005, that I really came to appreciate that the ideal of opportunity for all was indeed something uniquely American. Based in Paris, I had the brief to roam around the Continent and what struck me is how multiracial and multicultural Europe had become. And what I noticed soon after was how resistant European attitudes still were toward their black and brown residents.
Paris is a multicolored city — black Africans, North Africans, Asians, Turks and others. But black and brown faces are largely invisible in the top ranks of business, media and politics. France has about six million North African Muslims from its former colonies and another 2.5 million sub-Saharan black Africans, although the numbers are disputed since the government’s official policy of égalité dictates that even counting people by race would be discriminatory. But what’s not in dispute are the visible facts; out of 577 members of the National Assembly, there are no black or brown faces other than those representing the overseas territories.
Germany is home to some three million Muslims, mostly from Turkey, but only a couple are in Parliament. The Netherlands and Sweden are slightly more encouraging — Sweden has members of Parliament who trace their origins to Egypt, Eritrea and Congo. Britain has fared better in terms of raw numbers. But leaders of Operation Black Vote, a political mobilization group, told me Parliament would not be truly representative until there were 50 to 60 minority members, representing Britain’s 10 percent minority population. So it’s difficult, if not impossible, to imagine a Barack Obama emerging in Europe soon.

—Arab News