The Generals in Thailand should note that democracy, at its core, embraces the existence of differences. The people of Thailand deserve more than what the Generals are currently offering, that is trying to completely crush the opposition. Can a true democracy, which enables the right to freedom of expression to question political anomalies, prevail in the ‘Land of Smiles’?
Thailand has been under military rule since 2014 after the removal of the popularly elected Government of Yingluck Shinawatra.
She happened to be the country’s first woman Prime Minister and the youngest occupant of the office in more than half a century. After her ouster, the Generals were sure that Shinawatra clan and their associates would find it hard to make a comeback in Thai politics.
Since then, the entire country has turned out to be a fighting ground simply among the “Red Shirts”, largely representing former Prime Minister and exiled political strongman Thaksin Shinawatra and “Yellow Shirts”, the Army and the royalist elites.
To bring in some normalcy in the country, the current military leader, General Prayut Chan-o-cha who plotted the coup d’etat, later introduced a new Constitution in 2016 that strongly solidified the junta rule across the nation.
Till the conduct of the election, General Prayut was functioning as the Prime Minister, heading a vague body called “National Council for Peace and Order”. In fact, the recent political history of the country indicates that this junta rule is the longest one since the1970s.
General Prayut has maintained a tight grip over the country with the help of the military drafted Constitution and massive investments in infrastructure projects.
Besides, he has been using his soft power such as writing nationalistic pop songs to impress the younger generation, and insisting all public school students to recite his twelve values. In Thailand’s bitter political struggle between the rural poor — the so-called base of the Thaksin and his allies — and the urban elites, the bastion of the military, its proxy parties and the royal supporters, Prayut presents himself as a person who has united the country, indicating his presence as the only alternative to the existing career politicians of the nation.
Simply put, he is viewed as the only antidote of Thaksin in Thai politics.
Frankly speaking what has emboldened Prayut and his cronies is the existing Constitution of Thailand. It was indeed pushed through a referendum in 2016, after strictly banning the critics from campaigning against it.
Interestingly, the Generals could hardly convince half the voters to endorse this Constitution. It gives sole power to the junta to appoint all the 250 members of the Upper House (Senate). Further, it also mentions that the PM does not need to be an MP. This makes it very clear that General Prayut, who does not belong to any political party, can remain in power as the new Prime Minister. The PM will be selected by a joint sitting of the two Houses.
To maintain his current position, Prayut needs only 126 MPs. What is more dangerous to the new Government is that the General can declare a “20-year plan”, to which all future Governments of Thailand will have to obey.
Another important feature of the current Constitution, Section 44 allows the junta to take any steps in the name of protecting the monarchy, national security, maintaining public order, etc. Add to all these, a high-level cyber security law finally allows the Government to monitor online traffic in case of “emergency”.
Taking advantage of the political instability, the military has postponed dates for a fresh vote quite a number of times in the past. Finally, the first post-coup General Election for the country’s 500-seater Lower House, known as the House of Representatives, took place on March 24. The Election Commission released the first preliminary results five days after the election was held. But, it will announce the official results only after May 9, just a few days after the coronation of King Vajiralongkorn.
According to this preliminary result, the pro-military party Palang Pracharath Party won 8.4 million votes, finishing anti-military party, Pheu Thai, the one backed by Thaksin that received 7.9 million votes.
Ironically, it was Pheu Thai that won most of the constituency seats numbering 137, followed by Palang Pracharth with 97 seats. But it remains unclear which party will finally form the Government.
With widespread suspicion of massive election frauds, this week the country’s Election Commission has ordered by-elections in six polling stations. These irregularities include reports of mismatched numbers, inclusion of unqualified voters in the list of eligible voters’ list, and finally, continuous delays in the declaration of results. Meanwhile, the rumours of electoral discrepancies led to countrywide protests, some calling for the impeachment of Election Commissioners and a prominent hashtag, “Election Commission busted” is trending across social media.
Many Thais believe that this election might have been rigged just to pave the way for junta leader Prayut to continue as the PM.
This week, in a rare briefing, Thai Army Chief Apirat Kongsompong told the media in the heart of the capital that Thaksin has never admitted his crime. Also it is interesting to note that King Maha Vajiralongkorn revoked royal decorations given to Thaksin in the past.
The reason behind is that he fled Thailand after being sentenced to prison, that is considered as “an extremely inappropriate behaviour” according to a statement posted on the Royal Gazette’s website.
On record, Thaksin has not returned to Thailand since 2008, after being accused in a case, he has termed largely politically motivated. It must be noted here that since 2001, Thaksin on his own or his allies has been winning each election in the country, but unfortunately, they are barred from forming the Government either by coup or with the help of the judiciary.
Sadly, this election, once again, does not presage the restoration of democracy and civilian rule in the one of the largest nations of Southeast Asia.
The 69 million voters who cast their ballot in this historic election will simply witness consolidation of junta rule in a disguised form under General Prayut.
Today, what heralds shame not only for Thai people, but also for the entire region is that Thailand, the country that became the first nation to become a democracy in 1932, has simply slipped into the clutches of the corrupt and greedy Generals.
It was once the role model of democracy and an inspiration for the coup-prone region. Thailand used to be the pioneer in taking fast steps towards industrialisation immediately after the end of the absolute monarchy. It has also remained as a staunch ally of America in the region bringing in stability in South East Asia.
Today, many of Southeast Asian nations are encountering problems such as ageing population, slow growth rate, corruption in public space and the presence of social safety nets, to name a few. Further, an ever emerging and aggressive Chinese presence across the region under President Xi Jinping has become a permanent threat for their security. Looking at all these, Thai junta and its politicians must see to it that the country remains stable in the coming days. The current king must take a proactive role like his deceased father, who was popularly revered as the “people’s king” in the past.
Today, creating a hybrid democracy in Thailand is not a solution to its people’s woes. Simply to foil the coming of one Thaksin Shinawatra, the Generals should not take the advantage of ruling the country with or without the uniforms. They must understand the critical issues facing the commoners. The elite in Thailand doesn’t represent the true picture of the nation, neither it could run the country alone.
Further, the Generals, before trying to crush the opposition in entirety, should better note that democracy at its heart indicates the existence of differences. The Thais deserve much more than what the Generals are currently offering. Hope, a true democracy, which enables the right to express opinions and freedom to resist anything that goes against the public, will soon prevail in the “Land of Smiles”.
(The writer is an expert on international affairs)
Writer: Makhan Saikia
Courtesy: The Pioneer
Despite finding a new ‘client’ in Italy, other European nations such as France and Germany are not convinced about Beijing’s bonafide interest. On January 28, 1964, The New York Times reported: “General de Gaulle’s Government broke today with the United States (US) policy of isolating communist China and announced the establishment of diplomatic relations with Peking.” The US newspaper added: “France’s recognition of the communist regime was the first by any major power since the Korean War began nearly 14 years ago.” The US deeply regretted the French move at a time the Chinese communists were “promoting aggression and subversion.” So as French President Emmanuel Macron and his wife Brigitte Macron received the Chinese presidential couple for an intimate dinner at Beaulieu-sur-Mer, a resort on the Riviera, the stakes have changed. China now has the upper hand.
In 1964, former French President Charles de Gaulle had affirmed: “La Chine est un grand pays” (China is a big country) but today it has become power No 2 on the planet after the US and Xi Jinping plans to dethrone America with his own dream. Fifty-five years later, the same New York Times reported the arrival of the Chinese President: “The Promenade des Anglais [in Nice] — the palm-lined beachside avenue that is the city’s premier attraction — was closed to traffic all weekend.” This never happened before.
In March last year, Xi made news when he was given a life-long term as President of China. The international Press then mainly noted the Emperor-for-life aspect, forgetting that Xi wanted to transform China into the No 1 world power. A year later, partly due to Twitter attacks from US President Donald Trump, Xi is not so self-assured and an economic crisis, looming large over China, has weakened the Middle Kingdom. Officially, its growth was only 6.5 per cent in 2018, the slowest pace since the depths of the global financial crisis in 2009. Bloomberg noted: “Tariffs on Chinese exports to the US imposed by President Trump are starting to pinch the country’s factories.”
Xiang Songzuo, a professor at the Renmin University School of Finance, wrote that China’s GDP growth would only be 1.67 per cent and not 6.5 per cent in 2018. According to the website Chinascope, Xiang also warned that “nowadays, Chinese have become addicted to playing with debt and high leverage financing. This is actually a mirage and will collapse soon.”
L’Affaire Huawei has been a turning point for the Western views on the Middle Kingdom; the telecom equipment company has been at the centre of media attention for the wrong reasons; US officials charged the company with stealing technology from T-Mobile, one of its business partners and wanting to impose its own standards for the 5G, the latest generation of cellular mobile communications. This is the background of Xi’s visit to Italy, Monaco and France.
Chinese strategists were aware that Italy is the weakest link in the Europe Union (EU) and while more and more countries realise that the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), so dear to Xi, is not offering free meals but often plunges the beneficiary nations into deep debts, Beijing managed to find a European “client.”
On March 23, Xinhua reported that Xi and Italian Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte jointly “elevated the China-Italy relations into a new era”. A Memorandum of Understanding to advance the construction of the Belt and Road was signed. In a diplomatic jargon, the Chinese news agency said that “the two countries have continuously deepened their communication and cooperation in various fields, which helped each other’s social and economic development.”
Xi urged the two sides to accelerate negotiations on a China-EU investment agreement, enhance synergy of the BRI and the EU’s development strategies. Conte answered the Chinese President: “Italy is glad to seize the historic opportunity in joining the Belt and Road construction.”
Other European countries were not amused, though Xi assured Italy that the BRI would be a two-way road for investment and trade. German Foreign Minister Heiko Maas told Welt am Sonntag newspaper: “In a world with giants like China, Russia or our partners in the US, we can only survive if we are united as the EU …and if some countries believe that they can do clever business with the Chinese, then they will be surprised when they wake up and find themselves dependent.”
The EU’s German budget commissioner, Guenther Oettinger, told the Funke newspaper group that Europe should ensure it retains its autonomy and sovereignty when dealing with China.
French President Macron forcefully asserted that the time of European naivety over China was over: “For many years, we had an uncoordinated approach and China took advantage of our divisions,” he said. He called for stricter rules on Chinese investments in the EU; German Chancellor Angela Merkel expressed similar views.
French Finance Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian remarked that “Silk Road cooperation must go in both directions”.
The French Press quoted the Sri Lankan experience as “the dark side of the new Silk Road.” It mentioned the port of Hambantota and how in the mid-2000s Colombo agreed “to entrust Beijing with the construction of an ex-nihilo port in the town of Hambantota, in the south of the island. It is not yet a question of the Silk Road …but all the ingredients were there.”
Like for the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor, Chinese funds, engineers and workers would build the infrastructure in partnership, supposedly becoming a ‘win-win’ venture. But Sri Lanka, like Malaysia and many other countries, has now discovered that it was in fact a lose-lose operation, with the new assets becoming Chinese as soon as the client state is unable to refund the ‘loans’.
Xi probably did not convince Macron, Angela Merkel and European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker (the latter two joined Macron in Paris to meet the Chinese President) of Beijing’s bonafide, despite the Chinese President’s enigmatic words: “In politics, we should not only build a strong ‘dam’ of mutual trust, but also a ‘lighthouse’ of ideal.”
However, at the end of his visit, Xi left a small present for the European firm Airbus, a $35 billion jet deal, which included 290 A320-series narrow-body planes and 10 A350 wide-bodies. President Macron observed that Xi’s official visit was an “excellent signal” of the strength and reliability of relations between China and France. He added that the two countries are ready to build a “strong Euro-Chinese partnership, based on clear, strict and ambitious rules” …minus naivety. Will it work?
(The writer is an expert on India-China relations)
Courtesy: Pioneer
Writer: Claude Arpi
Securing IP rights is a formidable task for foreign enterprises in China. Considering the country’s poor record of global trade compliance, the US requires more manoeuvring tactics to encounter a recalcitrant Beijing administration either through tariffs or arbitration
The trade war between the US and China is taking an ugly turn. At the centre of the trade war between the two economic giants is the stealing of massive Intellectual Property (IP) of the US enterprises by the Chinese business firms and other dubious entities.
It is to be noted that irrespective of the current standoff between Washington and Beijing — starting from the Huawei to an incessant trade war to blocking of Jaish-e-Mohammad chief Masood Azhar as a global terrorist at the UN — US President Trump needs to be careful about the immediate consequences of falling apart with the $14trn worth Chinese economy at the moment.
Amid claims and counter-claims by both Washington and Beijing, it is worth noting how both are veering around the IP issue and defending one another. For Trump Administration, making China listen and take necessary steps to curb sheer violations of IP rights that amounts to some good billions each year is the aim for now.
For President Trump, what is good for him is that a large business and political community in his country agree that China can spoil the global trading system in the long run. China’s steroidal State capitalist regime poses a serious threat to the current international business system.
But then, China strongly refuses such claims constantly made by both the American Chamber of Commerce in China (AmCham China) and the European Union of Chamber of Commerce in China (European Chamber). Last year, China’s Vice-Minister of Commerce Wang Shouwen publicly declared that accusations that China steals IPRs and forces technology transfers are sheer fabrications out of nothing and groundless.
The Xi regime has outrightly rejected US and EU allegations.
Indeed, the Chinese Government says that it is keen on protecting IPRs and has already taken serious steps in doing so. Ironically, the AmCham China and European Chamber in their China business climate survey, ranked the IPR issue as the 12th and the 11th last year. But this has given fresh ammunition to Beijing to reclaim that if China had forced technological transfers, failed in IPR protection or even stolen IPRs, the concerned enterprises would have complained directly.
It has been constantly aired by the Government that in terms of IPR legislation, China has enacted adequate laws and regulations which are truly compliant to WTO directives.
Meanwhile China has set up three IPR courts in Shanghai, Beijing and in Guanghou and special judicial branches in more than 15 cities to handle cross regional IP cases. This all is fine on official records. What makes foreign enterprises fighting IP issues see it is as a herculean task is to fight China’s opaque judicial system. And moreover, all these organs are party-controlled and cases are always bias either towards the locals or state owned enterprises.
Now the question is how the Trump Administration will wade through this crisis and find a way out wherein; first, the interests of American enterprises are served, and second, most of the European and other corporate houses are well protected from the clutches of Xi’s new-found market socialism. Besides, as the presidential election fever is about to grip America, the President must bring an end to the current trade war between the US and China. Again, his team demands a robust public relations campaign to respond to the Opposition and special interest groups.
Many in the US argue that President Trump has done right to unsettle the global behemoth China. The 2016 Report of the US Trade Representative (USTR) to Congress on WTO Compliance rightly noted: “Many of the problems that arise in the US-China trade and investment relationship can be traced to the Chinese Government’s interventionist policies and practices and the large role of state-owned enterprises and other national champions in China’s economy, which continue to generate significant trade distortions that inevitably give rise to trade frictions. The United States notes that China’s current leadership, in place since 2013, has highlighted the need to pursue further economic reforms in China, but to date not much progress is evident.”
Contrary to what Xi proclaimed, he is turning all his efforts to mount a nationalist fervour so as to drum up continued support for strengthening the Communist Party at home and expansion of China’s shady deals abroad.
It must be noted here that when China joined the WTO in 2001, it clearly pledged not to demand technology transfer from the MNCs coming to operate inside as one of the prime conditions for market entry. Global experts say it is really difficult to make a case against China because it has generally observed by the letter of its WTO commitments.
In reality, what makes running business tricky in China is the indispensable role of the local partners that play on the global corporate houses. It has been noticed that from car manufacturing to cloud computing, only with the aid of the local agents and partners, the MNCs can make their business happen.
When it comes to the project implementation level, the Chinese regulators demand methods of product testing and approval procedures which results in compelling the foreign companies to divulge their IP secrets in the process. Various global trade experts say the unstated goal behind the entire process is to help the Chinese companies getting easy access to foreign technology.
But then the Beijing smartly replies quite often that these business regulations and verification procedures are completely voluntary and are purely commercial agreements made between concerned MNCs and the Chinese Government.
Another serious problem that directly hits the foreign MNCs in China is the issue of “quojin mintui” (the State advances, the private sector retreats), particularly under the Xi Government. The Government and its banks systematically funnels cheap capitals towards these state owned firms at times at the cost of the advancement of the big corporate houses.
Simply speaking, economic reforms if at all carried out by Xi, it would be a win-win situation for both China and America. However, looking at China’s poor global compliance records so far, Trump requires more manoeuvring tactics to encounter a recalcitrant Beijing administration either through tariffs or with the help of arbitration to save the treasured IPs of global giants.
(The writer is an expert on internatinal affairs)
Writer: Makhan Saikia
Courtesy: The Pioneer
Despite the recent events, India must do all it can to prevent Pakistan from using the Kartarpur corridor to revive pro-Khalistan sentiments
The freedom to practise one’s faith and seek succour at shrines dedicated to it has been a challenge for nation states that are in conflict with each other but share a religious and cultural heritage beyond borders. However, as this is a UN-mandated human rights issue, every nation has tried to work out a protocol, Israel and Palestine being prime examples of ensuring cross-flow of pilgrims to shrines on each side despite the attendant security imperatives, oppressive herding drills and the overarching shroud of politics. So it has taken really long for both India and Pakistan to agree to open a special border crossing linking Gurdwara Darbar Sahib in Pakistan’s Kartarpur – the final resting place of Guru Nanak Dev – to Dera Baba Nanak shrine in India’s Gurdaspur district. However, given the heightened tension between both neighbours over the Pulwama terror attacks and the Balakot airstrikes, and now Jaish-e-Mohammad chief Masood Azhar protected by a Chinese hold at the UN, the talks to work out the modalities were undoubtedly under a cloud. But as the government has set a new paradigm in counter-terrorism strategies with pre-emptive strikes on terror camps, it has also laid a new template for shared shrines by delinking it completely from diplomacy, categorically saying that this common interest, while allowing people-to-people contact, could in no way be interpreted as a thaw in relations or a resumption of bilateral dialogue. In that sense, it would be just business as usual in helping cross-border families get on with their daily lives like the Samjhauta Express. However, for all the show of bonhomie, there were some glitches too — India wants visa-free access to at least 5,000 pilgrims per day but Pakistan wants a permit issued and a limit on numbers. India also reminded that the spirit of the pilgrimage should be honoured, making Pakistan responsible for any disruptive or militant activity. But overall, the meeting remained cordial with both sides determined to address their domestic constituency and claim the moral high ground.
No matter how hard India may try, the fact is that Pakistan’s encouraging moves on the Kartarpur corridor are not entirely free of politics. Pakistan seized the first mover’s advantage in propaganda by declaring its intention to operationalise it soon after Punjab Chief Minister Amarinder Singh blamed it and the ISI for the grenade attack on a Nirankari gathering near Amritsar. India had no choice but to get into the act immediately before it could assess if it was another attempt by Pakistan to woo the Sikh community, revive the hardline Khalistan sentiment and eventually create unrest in Punjab. Pilgrimages between India and Pakistan are governed by the 1974 Protocol on Visits to Religious Shrines, but Kartarpur being not on that list needs a separate code of engagement, one where both sides will jostle for a say. Besides, India has to be alert that the base camp on the Pakistan side doesn’t become a hotbed for Khalistani propaganda and meetings in the name of allowing faith congregations. Pakistan’s haste in pushing the corridor now after years of dilly-dallying does raise questions about its intentions. The first demand for a visa-free access was made in 1999 by the then Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee. In 2004, Dr Manmohan Singh suggested a corridor as Prime Minister. On both occasions, there was no positive response from Pakistan. However, the very day Imran Khan took oath as Prime Minister, the message for opening the corridor was conveyed by Pakistan Army Chief Qamar Javed Bajwa to Punjab Minister and Congress leader Navjot Singh Sidhu, knowing full well the latter’s flamboyance and ability to shoot off his mouth, which he did, catching India completely off guard. The “deep state” had succeeded in championing a delicate cause for the Sikhs. And yet again, as General Bajwa stood in Kartarpur, shaking hands with a known Khalistani face, Gopal Singh Chawla, the visual added to our worries. Pakistan could still use this people-to-people contact to pressure India into resuming comprehensive dialogue and appear altruistic and big-hearted in the process. But India cannot afford to let down guard on isolating Pakistan diplomatically over its sponsorship of terror factories that impact us. Kartarpur should remain a matter of faith and not a political tool.
Writer & Courtesy: The Pioneer
The conspicuous absence of internationally recognised Ghani regime raises questions about who is deciding Afghanistan’s future. Afghan President is convinced the US-led endeavour is made in hurry
The US-led war in Afghanistan has completed over 17 years by now. It started on October 7, 2001, less than a month after the dastardly terror attack on the heart of America on September 11 the same year. This historic campaign, internationally known as the “Global War on Terror” (GWOT) was launched by then US President George W Bush.
It was named “Operation Enduring Freedom” after Mullah Mohammad Omar-led Taliban Government refused to hand over to the US the 9/11 mastermind, Osama bin Laden, who was hiding in Afghanistan. Since then, Afghanistan has witnessed chaos, leading to loss of lives, resources, but more precisely the very Afghan sense of liberty and pride.
Today, the Afghan war, by all indications, is coming to an end. The current Afghan peace talks in Qatar is sending out positive signals so far despite off and on Taliban attacks either on the US forces or on the Afghanistan Government forces in the country.
Amid longing for peace, the most disturbing issue is that the Taliban have refused to have any direct talks with the current Afghan Government of Ashraf Ghani. To Taliban, the Government based in Kabul is a “puppet” of the Western powers. But then, the Taliban representatives have indicated that after the withdrawal of US troops from their country, they will start negotiation with the Government.
Critical actors and their independent roles in this conflict may jeopardise the Afghan peace process. Hence, it is not the Taliban and the US Government that alone could put an end to this chaos. Regional stalwarts such as India, Iran, Pakistan, Russia and China have carved out their own spheres of influence in this protracted war game, largely supported by an absence of a long historical narrative of the Cold War era.
Their active engagement in the peace process may mean a permanent guarantee of stability in the post-American Afghanistan.
A hasty US withdrawal from war-torn Afghanistan will be a disaster. Moreover, a namby-pamby Government in the country in a post-American departure might help resurrecting not only Taliban but also all other tribal war lords across the country. Else, the US making an exit without offering a credible solution to this war-ravaged nation would dampen American forces’ superior ability to handle hot conflict zones. Meanwhile lessons learnt from the Soviet withdrawal from Afghanistan necessitates a peace deal that simply sticks to its principles. Hope, Afghanistan can be saved from turning it into a “graveyard of empires”.
The US and the Taliban negotiators have agreed a draft framework for peace to bring to an end to this protracted crisis. But the talks that continued between US special envoy for Afghan reconciliation Zalmay Khalilzad and the representatives of the Taliban have veered around two main issues: Withdrawal of the US troops from Afghanistan and prohibiting international terror groups from using the Afghan soil.
Meanwhile, amid Helmand attack, Mullah Abdul Ghani Baradar, a powerful deputy to the Taliban leader Hibatullah Akhunzada, who was in Pakistan jail, has joined the talks in Doha. It is hoped that his meeting with Khalilzad will help ironing out many hurdles in the coming days. What is bringing positive vibes for the first time is that another top leader Amir Khan Motaqi, chief of the Staff of the Taliban supreme leader, is also attending the talks in Qatar. This demonstrates how seriously the Taliban is viewing the ongoing talks.
However, there are some genuine spoilers that may come on the way. First, what is complicating the negotiation process is the continued violence coming from the Taliban side. Even when the talks are on in Doha this week, the Taliban fighters assaulted a large Army base in the Helmand province where also the US Mariners were present. And, this led to the death of at least two dozen Afghan soldiers. There are such inherent bottlenecks that may further delay the peace talks.
Second, the current India-Pak clashes may directly influence the Afghan peace dialogue. It is learnt that there is very strong likelihood that Pakistani troops would be shifted from the border with Afghanistan to reinforce positions on the border with India. The all too plausible risk is that this spat may finally derail the Afghan peace process. When the Trump Administration tried to lower tensions between India and Pakistan, the latter’s officials conveyed to Washington that if the war continues, it would be difficult for their country to focus on the western border. Some US officials say Pakistan does not have the capability to make peace happen with Afghanistan, but it has the capacity to spoil it for sure.
However, India-Pak tensions are just being overstated by the Pakistani establishment as to downplay the progress of the Afghan peace deal. But then a section of Western diplomats opine that if the Trump Administration pushes Islamabad too far on combating the jihadists, it could lessen its manoeuvering tactics while convincing and taming them.
What Afghanistan fears is that it can be readily used as a proxy for tension between India and Pakistan. India’s sudden air strike on JeM’s terror camps deep inside Pakistan’s Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province last month has indeed drawn a “new red line” with Pakistan. Undoubtedly, Pakistan has played a vital role in bringing the Taliban’s to the negotiating table. It was Islamabad that released Taliban leader Baradar in 2018, with the hope that he could play a decisive role in the peace process in Doha.
Finally, trusting the deadly Taliban could be serious mistake on one hand. However, without taking the militants on board which today threaten more than 70 per cent of Afghanistan could be again a tactical mistake for any peace deal for this country and any international mediating group.
Only with guarded optimism, the international peace brokers such as the US could move ahead, else anytime Afghanistan may slip into a war zone like before. Even today regular skirmishes are on between the Taliban and the Kabul establishment, and at times with the US-led NATO troops. But bringing such senior Taliban leaders like Baradar to the negotiating table may be hailed as a record of sort for the US Administration.
America is not only fighting wars outside the precincts of its sovereign borders, but it is also encountering backlashes for its actions back home. It is worth noting here how long-drawn battles such as Afghanistan and Iraq have influenced the US armed forces and its policies.
During Obama’s second term in office, he declared the end of the combat operations in Afghanistan. By September 2014, the Afghan Government signed a treaty with the US and a similar agreement with the NATO which stated that 12, 500 foreign soldiers, of which 9,800 are Americans, will stay in Afghanistan in 2015, after the end of the NATO combat mission at the end of 2014. When Trump came to power, he increased defence spending, especially to the GWOT.
After fighting two most dangerous and long-standing wars in Afghanistan and in Iraq, even the US forces might undergo serious changes in its operational style, tactics and using high-tech gadgets. Defence Secretary Patrick Michael Shanahan is trying to probably prepare the ground for forces’ life and work, after two devastating and tiring wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.
The National Defence Strategy (NDS) published by the Trump Administration in January 2018 clearly changed its course of direction and decreed that America, henceforth, would focus on “long term strategic competition between nations”, namely China and Russia. In fact, this is for the first time, since the Regan era, America is planning to retool its forces by modernising its fighting architecture and technologies in war. In fact, Shanahan, a former Boeing executive, who has just completed a year in the top job, is truly confident of remoulding more than 700,000 strong armed forces in the years to come.
These are some of the policy changes that are being taken forward under the Trump regime so as to suit the new war games around the world. And, definitely, new plans are afoot to look beyond traditional battlegrounds like Afghanistan and Iraq.
What confuses the international community today is that there are two competing peace deals held on Afghanistan — one led by the US and the other by Russia. And, sadly, the popularly elected Government of Ghani is nowhere involved in these peace talks. How is this possible? Why Washington and Moscow want to sideline Kabul? Or is it the Taliban leaders that purposefully trying to hijack the peace process? Now, the point is that even if the Taliban and their sponsors want them to bypass the Ghani administration, the Mullahs should have never agreed. Again, when the US is pushing too far to conclude a peace deal in the absence of Afghanistan’s “legitimate” Government, it should have convinced the Taliban that such an agreement could spell calamity in the days to come. And, it is well understood that Putin is back in business to flex his muscles once again to demonstrate that Russia could settle the Afghan quagmire.
Nevertheless, it must be highlighted here that the conspicuous absence of internationally recognised Ghani regime. Subsequently, it raises questions about who is deciding Afghanistan’s future; whether Washington’s policy of maintaining forces in Afghanistan until the circumstances are favourable for withdrawal can outlive the bizarre wishes of Trump who desperately wants to pull out; whether we all could seriously trust the reclusive Taliban and their weird promises.
Hence, for now the prospect of these two parallel peace deals is far from clear to the world. Ghani is convinced that the US-led effort is made in a hurry. Afghanistan is an age-old war field. And, both Washington and Moscow are well aware of the consequences of falling apart with the Taliban at this crucial juncture. Equally, Ghani is feeling that Trump is cutting him out of the whole process.
If Trump pays no heed to engage the core stakeholders in Afghanistan’s long road to peace, it would all, but be crystal clear that he is playing with only fire. And, the fire will lit entire Afghanistan once again.
(The writer is an expert on international affairs)
Writer: Makhan Saikia
Courtesy: The Pioneer
Iranian President Hassan Rouhani needs to focus on domestic issues and address the simmering grievances of Iranians so that they feel assured that the ideals of the 1979-Islamic Revolution are not lost
The Islamic Republic of Iran has completed 40 years of its historic 1979 Revolution that brought forth a new era — the beginning of the Khomeini regime and the exit of the Pahlavi dynasty from the political country’s scene.
On February 1, that very year, Sayyid Ruhollah Musavi Khomeini, popularly known as Imam Khomeini landed in Tehran from his long exile in Paris. He is believed to have been received amid revolutionary cheers by one of the largest crowds in history.
With this, what descended in Iran was a brand new rule of the clerics under the guidance of Supreme Leader Khomeini on the basis of the principles of rule by Islamic jurists known as “Velayat-e Faqih”.
The Islamic Revolution gained momentum from January 1978 till February 1979, leading to numerous events aiming to overthrow the pro-western Pahlavi monarchy.
Particularly, the leftists and the liberals who supported the revolutionaries to oust the autocratic Shah, in fact, misjudged Khomeini and his core clerics. He and the rest of his unelected mullahs did never go back to the holy city of Qom permanently as it was expected. During the initial days of his reign, many of the secularists, prostitutes, homosexuals, adulterers and Shah’s officials were executed to clean up the country.
It was all justified in the name of purifying the new revolutionary state. By violating the revered principles of “Vilayat-e Faqih”, he selected then President Ali Khamenei as his successor.
The current Supreme Leader and his regime, which possess enormous powers to directly control the elected President and the rest of the Government agencies, has been keeping a tight rein on the ordinary Iranians.
Thus for many, the commemoration exhortations of the Revolution are simply an annus horribilis. Khomeini and his followers, whom many call as “The Beards”, have changed the course of history of Iran. And they led the country to a direction that provoked sharp western reaction and rivalry in the following years. The defiant clerics indeed set the tone for a new war game on the sectarian lines, claiming Iran as the new leader of the Shias, countering the region’s Sunni leadership headed by Saudi Arabia.
One Saudi journalist once described that these two countries are intractable enemies — “fire and dynamite”.
Since the establishment of the Islamic Republic, Tehran has made serious attempts to export its revolution in the region. It has been alleged that successive regimes have used diplomacy, the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) and subordinate organs of the state to spread the Shia doctrine to counter the growing fundamentalist influence propagated by Sunni nations in West Asia.
The IRGC’s wings such as the Baseej and the Quds forces, numbering millions today operate in Lebanon, Syria, Iraq and Yemen. At home, the Guards literally control almost all aspects of society. Its involvement beyond the region is strongly felt, particularly in Central Asia, Latin America and widely in Africa.
It is argued that Iran is using its soft power and substantial resources to expand its zone of influence in reshaping African Islam and the continent’s political climate. Africa is strategically important for Tehran because nearly 45 per cent of its people are Muslims. So to extend the country’s quest for dominance in the Muslim world, engagement with African populace both through religious forays and financial support is a must.
While Iran is celebrating its grand achievements of the Revolution, it is worth looking into the pros and cons of rising protests in the country. Why people are wary of the current political system? Are they searching for an alternative or demanding vital changes in the status quo? Iran has witnessed historic protests, bringing tens of thousands to the streets across the country. These protests have marked the worst scenes of unrest since the controversial elections of 2009 when millions came up and demanded justice known as the Green Movement.
As of now public resentment is primarily vented against the clerical leadership and President Hassan Rouhani’s commitment towards some of the vital foreign policies. Simply put, these outbursts have clearly exposed a political miscalculation by the hardline opponents of President Rouhani who mainly wanted to discredit his economic policies.
But then the public anger has spilled over taking the shape of a second Iranian revolution. What started off as a protest spurred on by deteriorating economic conditions and inflation in prices of basic goods have finally given warning signals both to the current regime and to ageing Khamenei.
Initially, Iranians came up to raise their voices against Rouhani’s plan to raise fuel prices in an attempt to lower Government debts. And this all came on top of increasing unemployment of the young people, estimated to be over 40 per cent across Iran. Set against this downward economic spiral, common people are angry at massive spending on war games around the troubled conflict zones of Syria and in Africa.
Also people are tired of decades of continued support extended to the Lebanese Shia militia group called Hizbollah. The young people are seriously concerned about the high cost of living in Tehran.
It is interesting to note how the rest of the world has reacted to the sudden outbursts of public anger in Iran. Two US Presidents — Barack Obama and Donald Trump — have raised alarms. When the 2009 protests broke out, Obama reacted cautiously saying a forceful American intervention (reviled as the “Great Satan” by the Iranian revolutionaries) could make America, a rallying cause for the clerics. But then the boisterous Trump and his Vice-President took no time to side with the protesters.
Trump and his Administration are gleefully rooting for regime change in Iran, which could be potentially dangerous for the entire region. Beginning of this year, he tweeted, “Iran is failing at every level despite the terrible deal made with them by Obama administration. The great Iranian people have been repressed for many years. They are hungry for food and for freedom. Along with human rights, the wealth of Iran is being looted. Time for change.”
Around the same time, Russian President Vladimir Putin says these demonstrations are internal affairs for Iran and external interference is unacceptable.
Those young protesters, who are still treading in that revolutionary vineyard, can definitely find it going tough amid crude repression and severe surveillance of the security forces. Crying foul against Rouhani regime and Khamenei fiefdom may not help the commoners immediately. Rooting for sudden upheaval and change may seem to be dangerous both for the regime and for the ordinary citizens.
Gradual change, probably through all constitutional mechanisms and an electoral victory of the democratic forces might guarantee a safe future for all. But with millions of orthodox followers of Khamenei and an ever strong IRGC, a total recall of the clerical regime could only ensure bloodshed.
What persists today is an apparent confusion that has strongly confronted Iran since 1979 over how to reconcile the inherent contradictions between the Revolution’s ideological moorings and what exactly demands for an efficient domestic governance system and conducting of global diplomacy.
Iran today braces for evolutionary change. Its constant umbrage at the US and its allies in the region will simply deviate it from the primary goals of the Revolution. The days of “Down with America” may not entice as many young Iranians to support the clerics as it desires. These millennials look for jobs, stability and surely, global connectivity. Mullahs need to understand that the world is fast becoming flat with the onset of globalisation.
What is disturbing for the current regime in Iran is that apart from shouting anti-Government slogans, the distraught people are also reported to have circulated videos saying “Death to Khamenei” in public spaces. However, the veracity of such videos is still not verified by any credible media houses.
Democracy promotion in the Arab world normally embitters relations with the monarchies (those which are long standing allies of Washington) in the region, resulting into an isolation of a large chunk of their population who are vying for more freedom and popularly elected governments. Besides, a largely evident Shia-Sunni divide among the nations and their contest for regional dominance either through clerics or with the support of massive wealth has remained a permanent bone of contention. Today Iran’s closer ties with both Russia and China and a gradual withdrawal of American power umbrella from West Asia may further cause instability.
Much beyond Khamenei’s rhetorics against the West, particularly America, Rouhani, being a democratically elected leader, needs to find the roots of long simmering grievances of the people. What he had promised way back in 2013 during his first term in office is long gone. His slogan of “hope and prudence” around which he galvanised support from the Iranians is fast fading. His simply saying, “Iranians have the right to protest legally” and blaming outside influence over the volley of protesters will not bring an end to this problem. Nevertheless, it is good for him to realise that “The space needs to open up for protest and criticism”.
On the other hand, those who want to impose or rather desire to see the emergence of a western style democratic system in West Asia must realise that stability is more important for many than a liberal leviathan. An Arab Spring kind of an upheaval may not be reassuring for a basic guarantee of life, liberty and living for ordinary people. Complete and sudden recantation of the existing system in Iran may lead to a breeding ground for radical Islamic movements such as al-Qaeda and ISIS.
Equally, extolling Khamenei and his ever expanding clerical regime may further anger the commoners and counter-productive for the revolutionary ethos to sustain.
(The writer is an expert on international affairs)
Courtesy: Pioneer
Writer: Makhan Saikia
The Shanghai Cooperation Organisation has a key role to play in reducing the tensions between the two countries caused by recent events. What is needed is a collective, region-wide campaign against terrorism.
India and Pakistan joined the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) during its June 8-9, 2017 summit held in Astana, Kazakhstan. Before the addition of the two nations, the members of the SCO included China, Russia, Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, Tajikistan and Kyrgyzstan. The now eight-member SCO also has four observer states, including Afghanistan and six dialogue partners, including Sri Lanka. In total and together, they constitute much of the Asian geography with a population of over three billion people. The foundational purpose of SCO as the largest inter-governmental organisation in the world is to strengthen mutual trust and promote good neighbourly relations among member states. This is to be achieved through gradual but consistent efforts by SCO member states to engage in multi-faceted cooperation to advance their collective and common interest in the sustainable human and protective security of the SCO space. Parallel to this, the SCO seeks to establish a more democratic and rational world order.
Because sustainable peace makes sustainable development possible in Asia and the rest of the world, the SCO summits continue emphasising the importance of results-driven security cooperation among its member states, observer states and dialogue partners. The addition of India and Pakistan was widely welcomed as a significant opportunity for the SCO to address lingering security threats of terrorism, extremism and separatism in South and Central Asia. Same intertwined threats have provided an enabling environment for organised criminality, while also deepening poverty that denies the youthful populations of Asia the socio-economic opportunities and facilities they need to contribute to the sustainable development and peace of their individual nations and collectively to those of the rest of Asia.
That is why Chinese President Xi Jinping at the 18th SCO Summit in Qingdao called on the SCO’s expanded membership to move from talk to action. He stated: “We need to actively implement the 2019-2021 programme of cooperation for combating ‘the three evil forces of terrorism, separatism and extremism;’ continue to conduct the ‘peace mission’ and other joint counter-terrorism exercises…We need to give full play to the role of SCO-Afghanistan Contact Group to facilitate peace and reconstruction in Afghanistan.”
President Xi added, “Countries are increasingly interdependent today… confronted with many common threats and challenges that no one can tackle alone. Only by enhancing solidarity and partnership, will we be able to achieve lasting stability and development.” Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi, who addressed the summit as a newly admitted member state, echoed his Chinese counterpart, floating the concept of ‘secure’ to underpin the work of SCO: ‘S’ for security for citizens, ‘E’ for economic development, ‘C’ for connectivity in the region, ‘U’ for unity, ‘R’ for respect of sovereignty and ‘E’ for environmental protection. He highlighted instability in Afghanistan as an “unfortunate effect of terrorism”, noting: “I hope the brave steps towards peace taken by President Ghani will be respected by all in the region.”
Moreover, Russian President Vladimir Putin welcomed the accession of India and Pakistan to the SCO. He stressed that “countering terrorism remains the priority for cooperation within the SCO”, underlining that the three-year programme of action, adopted at the 18th Summit, “envisions holding joint drills and counter-terror operations, streamlining a closer exchange of experience and operational information.” He also encouraged the SCO Youth Council to “actively participate in the work on preventing the recruitment of young people to participate in terrorist activities.”
Building on these and other statements from the SCO member states, calling for quick and concrete action to fight and eliminate terrorism, the Central Military Commission of Russia conducted a six-day joint military exercise from August 22-29, 2018, in Chelyabinsk Oblast, Russia. The joint exercise was initiated by the Regional Anti-Terrorist Structure of SCO (RATS-SCO), which included tactical operations with a focus on strengthening counter-terrorism and counter-insurgency preparedness, coordination and cooperation among the SCO member states. Around 3,000 soldiers, including 748 from China, 167 from India and 110 from Pakistan, participated in the joint drill.
Indeed, for India and Pakistan, it was their first such joint military exercise since their independence in 1947. And this raised much hopes about the prospect of the two countries participating in the ‘Peace Mission 2018’ and future ones to move beyond decades of routine skirmishes along the Line of Control and to begin building inter-military confidence through SCO measures, thereby easing tensions between the two nations. Commenting on this shortly before the joint exercise, Sun Zhuangzhi, a professor at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, told the Global Times, “It is a rare opportunity for Pakistan and India, which have long been involved in military conflict, to enhance military exchanges and trust. This could improve regional stability.”
Contrary to these expectations, however, a rapid escalation of violence between India and Pakistan since February 14, 2019, has been a cause for serious concern in the SCO neighborhood and the rest of the world. On February 14, Pakistan-based terrorist group, Jaish-e-Mohammad (JeM), carried out and later claimed a suicide attack on a bus, carrying Indian Central Reserve Police Force (CRPF) personnel in Pulwama district of Jammu & Kashmir. The attack killed 44 CRPF men. This unprovoked act of terrorism was internationally condemned with calls on Pakistan to rid its soil of terrorist networks and to dismantle their support infrastructure, including safe havens and training facilities. India promised retaliation and, on February 26, conducted surgical air strikes that hit “the biggest training camp of JeM in Balakot, Pakistan.” Many militants under training at the camp are reportedly to have been killed by India’s air strikes.
Although the international community has called for restraint by India and Pakistan and de-escalation of tensions between them, now is the time for the SCO’s founding member states to act on their often-stated common objectives to restore, ensure and maintain peace, security and stability in the SCO space. In the last SCO Summit, President Putin emphasised that one of the SCO’s key priorities was to assist “in the political and diplomatic settlement of conflicts near the external borders of the organisation’s member states.”
Any escalatory moves by India and Pakistan could lead to the breakout of a larger conflict with far-reaching implications within the SCO’s own borders. The organisation should lose no time in engaging with the two countries to have them refrain from further retaliatory measures in favour of returning to direct dialogue for a resolution of mounting tensions caused by recent developments.
While this should be SCO’s immediate goal, the RATS-SCO should be tasked to identify and assess the presence of major terrorist groups and their support infrastructure throughout the SCO region. Then it should map out a results-oriented counter-terrorism plan of action for adoption by the SCO member states, whose counter-terrorism efforts the RATS-SCO should verify to ensure no distinction between and among terrorist groups. In other words, verification by RATS-SCO should expose for correction duplicitous counter-terrorism policies, which remain an impediment to effective counter-terrorism in South Asia.
As President Ashraf Ghani said while condemning the February 14 terrorist attack in India, “terrorism is a cancer in the region and requires collective efforts to root it out.” The SCO can and should initiate to lead a collective, region-wide campaign to fight and eliminate the cancer before it spreads in multiple destructive ways throughout the SCO region.
Afghanistan has done more than a lion’s share in fighting terrorism with regional and transnational roots. Our full accession to the SCO will only enable us to do a lot more, helping our neighbours, including India, Pakistan, China, Russia and Iran, address the intertwined threats of terrorism, extremism and criminality.
(The writer is the Ambassador of Afghanistan to Sri Lanka as well as Senior International Security Fellow at the New America in Washington, DC)
Courtesy: The Pioneer
Writer: M Ashraf Haidari
At the time of the 1962 war, China’s Air Force could not fly because of a lack of fuel. It possibly got some from Tajikistan, where the superpower is building its new base. Here’s why we must keep a watch.
Some time ago, The Washington Post published an article titled, ‘In Central Asia’s forbidding highlands, a quiet newcomer: Chinese troops’. The article reported: “Two miles above the sea level in the inhospitable highlands of Central Asia, there’s a new power watching over an old passage into Afghanistan: China.” According to interviews, satellite images, photographs and first-hand observations by a Washington Post journalist, it was found that Chinese troops have settled in one of the most strategic areas of central Asia, termed “a choke point in Tajikistan.”
The US newspaper said, “Tajikistan — awash with Chinese investment — joins the list of Chinese military sites that includes Djibouti in the strategic Horn of Africa and man-made islands in the South China Sea, in the heart of Southeast Asia”, adding “the modest facility in Tajikistan — which offers a springboard into Afghanistan’s Wakhan Corridor a few miles away — has not been publicly acknowledged by any Government. But its presence is rich in significance and symbolism.” The region has been (and is) still highly strategic. Last year, a publication, ‘The 1959 Tibetan Uprising Documents: The Chinese Army Documents’ was released on Kindle. It was a collection of top secret documents of the military intelligence of the People’s Liberation Army (PLA), dating from the end of the 1950s till the 1962 war with China.
At that crucial time, China had a serious problem — it did not have an Air Force in a position to take on the Indian Air Force. The compiler of the above mentioned paper noted: “Disadvantage of the Chinese Air Force is still a major problem in case of a conflict with India. Indian jets can start at a low altitude with a full load of bombs and plenty of fuel. Also, India has many airports only about a 100 kilometres from the highest peaks of the Himalayas. Short distance and higher bomb load mean each Indian jet is at least twice if not three times more effective than a Chinese aircraft.” Apart from the fact that many airplanes had been sent to the Korean front and that the Soviet Union had stopped supplying spare parts for the MiG fighter planes, the PLA Air Force (PLAAF) had a major hurdle: No fuel for its few planes.
The amount of gasoline reaching the plateau from China via the Qinghai-Tibet or the Sichuan-Tibet highways was not enough to maintain a large occupation force on the Tibetan plateau (read the Indian borders) and at the same time, provide the necessary fuel for the PLAAF. One of the published documents mentioned secret statistics for “border trade” and the import of fuel, gasoline and other commodities between 1953 and 1967.
What do the statistics show? In 1958, gasoline of 380 tonnes was imported into Tibet; in 1959, nothing; in 1960, 2,220 tonnes, in 1961, 96 tonnes and in 1962, 30 tonnes. This means that in 1960, there was a huge surge in fuel import. But import from where?
There was no possibility of any gallon passing unnoticed through Nathu-la or Jelep-la — the two main passes between Sikkim and Chumbi Valley (Tibet) — ditto for the passes in Uttarakhand or North-East Frontier Agency (NEFA) (Arunachal Pradesh today) or even Demchok in Ladakh, which had been closed for trade by the Chinese.
The author of the publication presumed that “corrupt” Indian officials had let the fuel be smuggled in. That, too, was not possible. First, the officers of the Indian Frontier Administrative Service, posted in these areas, were the most upright people, and in any case, considering that a mule could only carry 40 kg per trip, it would have meant thousands and thousands of mules, which did not exist on the plateau …and they would have to have been transparent.
After pondering over the issue, my conclusion was that this amount of gasoline could not have crossed any Indian or Nepalese border post into Tibet. It left few other possibilities. One was the Soviet Union. Though it had just split with China, relations between Beijing and Moscow had reached a breaking point by 1959.
The only possibility was some under-the-table purchases through corrupt officials in Tajikistan or Kyrgyzstan. I got convinced that the gasoline had come from the same area in Tajikistan where China is today building a new base, at the edge of the Wakhan corridor and Xinjiang.
An interesting lead: Tursun Uljabayev, the party secretary of Tajikistan in 1960, was sacked and imprisoned for serious corruption a year later. In all probability, gasoline from Tajikistan was transported to Kashgar (or Tashgurgan) in Xinjiang and then taken over the Aksai Chin to be used in western Tibet. It could have been done at night via the road cutting across Indian territory, which was the best protected artery in China in the 1950s and early 1960s as only the PLA was allowed to use it; the traffic could have gone unnoticed for several months. It was probably why Uljabayev was caught and the import of gasoline into Tibet drastically fell in 1961 …and by 1962 China had no fuel for its aircraft.
The above findings have two important corollaries. One, it confirms that the Chinese had no Air Force in flying condition at the time of the 1962 conflict with India, having no spares and no fuel. This was recently confirmed to this writer by Wing Commander ‘Jaggi’ Nath, who extensively flew over Tibet in secret missions between 1960 and 1962. He was awarded his first Maha Vir Chakra medal for this (he got his second in 1965 for mapping the Pakistani defences).
The second upshot is that the area, where the Chinese are today building their new base, is highly strategic, being a relatively easy link between the oil-rich Central Asia, Afghanistan (through the Wakhan corridor), the restive Xinjiang (the hub of Xi Jinping’s Road and Belt Initiative) and Tibet.
This raises another issue: Why did the Indian Government, which had all the information about the situation in Tibet, the deployments of the PLA on the plateau and the lack of Chinese Air Force (‘Jaggi’ Nath was never attacked or even followed during his regular sorties over Tibet), not use its jets to pound the PLA concentration near the Thagla ridge in the Tawang sector in Walong area of eastern NEFA or in Rezang-la in Ladakh? The only answer is a woeful lack of leadership. Let us hope that the present bosses watch what is happening in this area.
(The writer is an expert on India-China relations)
Courtesy : The Pioneer
Writer : Claude Arpi
Pakistan will remain a preferred Saudi ally given the kingdom’s own priorities and strategic road map imperatives. Saudi Crown Prince Mohammad-bin Salman (MbS) is touring the three most important capitals beyond Washington, DC, in his post-Khashoggi phase. The Western capitals were ultimately not amused by MBS’ ingrained feudal instincts in carrying out the rash internal purge, l’affaire Khashoggi and other unwarranted military interventions, after the initial hoopla surrounding the ostensible modernisation drive by the “real power behind the throne.” His initially feted socio-economic promises of “Vision 2030” and steps to liberalise and reform the society were soon undone by reports of increased human rights violations and clumsy interventions in Syria, Yemen and Qatar as also a purported kidnapping of the Lebanese Prime Minister!
However, the crude and brutal assassination of Saudi dissenter Jamal Khashoggi, attributed directly to the recklessness of the young Prince himself, was the last straw for the Western nations in condemning MbS openly. His style of management by intimidation, coercion and “buying out” became obvious as indeed his deep-rooted insecurities and ambition that saw him systematically “neutralise” all opposition.
Recent international opprobrium has led to heightened insecurities and the Saudis have, therefore, made a deliberate outreach towards the alternative global platform of the East as they hope to enhance their economic and geo-political stability with two of their top three export markets, namely China, the biggest, and India, the third biggest revenue generator. However, his pit-stop at Islamabad was, perhaps, the most significant for it addressed the perennial and foremost fear in the minds of the Saudi Royal family — regime change.
Historically, Saudi Arabia’s closest Muslim ally, Pakistan has been the trusted go-to nation for managing all internal and external threats to the vulnerable House of Saud. The role of the Pakistan Army’s Special Services Group (SSG) in overcoming the seizure of the Grand Mosque at Mecca in 1979 typified both the sort of domestic challenges that beset the rule of the Saud family as indeed the faith reposed on Pakistani soldiers.
In the 1970s and 1980s, up to 20,000 Pakistani soldiers were said to be deployed within Saudi Arabia to protect its sensitive spots. With the sixth largest military in the world, reasonable combat-exposure and even nuclear capabilities on Pakistan’s side, the Saudi-Pakistan relationship became more symbiotic, logical and mutually-gratifying.
Custodianship of the two holiest mosques and as the ready ‘investor’ in all domestic urgencies of Pakistan led a former Pakistani Ambassador to Saudi Arabia to famously state that the security of Saudi Arabia was a “personal matter.” It is often claimed that the Saudis had even secretly funded the Pakistani nuclear programme as it allowed them the plausible option of deniability as also ensured the requisite protection via Pakistan in the face of growing threats from its sectarian-nemesis, Iran and also states like Saddam’s Iraq and Israel.
The Saudi funding of the Pakistan-controlled Afghan mujahideen in the 1980s and 1990s is a matter of recorded fact. Today, a leaner Pakistani contingent in the form of “advisors,” trainers and even combat soldiers, ensures the continuity of this crucial comfort-factor for both nations. Deteriorating relationship with the US and parallel growing proximity of both nations with the alternate power centre of China is yet another matter of strategic option and convergence.
The influence that the Saudis can wield on the Pakistani state and also its powerful military was in full display when the Saudi brokered release and exit for the deposed Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif in the 1999 military coup by the then Pakistani General, Pervez Musharraf.
Later, the Saudis were able to rope in the just-retired Pakistani Chief of Army, General Raheel Sharif, to head the controversial 41-nation Islamic Military Counter Terrorism Alliance (IMCTA), based out of Riyadh — without General Raheel Sharif completing the mandatory two-year “cool-off” period required before accepting any international assignment.
There was a minor bump in the relationship with Pakistan shying away from committing its military forces in Saudi Arabia’s misguided war in Yemen, owing to sectarian implications within the tinderbox of Pakistan itself. Soon, security desperation for the Saudis and the dire economic desperation for Pakistanis ensured that the two nations perpetuate and strengthen the umbilical cord of quid pro quo.
Expectedly, Pakistan pulled out all stops to roll out the red carpet for MBS and he did not disappoint his hosts with a slew of $20 billion investments for cash-strapped Pakistanis. More pertinently, the loaded statement, suggesting the dissuasion of “politicising the UN listing regime,” when India was in the midst of making international efforts to name and shame Jaish-e-Mohammad’s Masood Azhar, did not go unnoticed in New Delhi. Maturity, gravitas and nuanced diplomacy is not a known MbS strength, and particularly at this moment of vulnerability for himself, he would be driven by the urge to buy out Pakistani guarantees for securing the Kingdom’s worst nightmare — regime change.
No other country of the 41 nation IMCTA grouping has either the quantity or quality of readily-deployable military or is as deeply indebted to Saudi Arabia for its own economic survival (2.5 million Pakistani work in Saudi Arabia) as the Pakistanis — affording a win-win solution for both by deepening ties. Imran Khan’s charm offensives elicited a candid and spontaneous, “Consider me Pakistan’s Ambassador to Saudi Arabia,” from MBS.
Therefore, given Saudi Arabia’s own priorities and strategic road map imperatives, Pakistan will remain a preferred ally that will always benefit from a deliberate overlook for any of its misdemeanours as long as they do not harm Saudi Arabian interests directly.
India shares common ground with Saudi Arabia on religious extremism (finally) and on organisations like the Islamic State (IS) or Al Qaeda — though a similar aversion and clamp-down on the subcontinental extremist bodies like the Jaish-e-Mohammad or even the Pakistan-sponsored Taliban, may not be as forthcoming.
On the contrary, equity with the likes of the Afghan Taliban may actually give Saudi Arabia counter-leverage against the US in its battle of wits. Diminishing the Pakistani establishment, especially its military, would be perceived to be extremely counter-productive to Saudi interests, as it risks portents of regime-change in Saudi Arabia — a nightmare that Pakistan willy-nilly guarantees against.
(The writer is former Lt Governor of Andaman & Nicobar Islands and Puducherry)
Courtesy: The Pioneer
Writer: Bhopinder Singh
There have been many lectures in schools around the world on the tale of Doctor Faust. The story of a man who sold his soul to the devil in exchange for untold wealth and power. It is an allegorical tale that casts light on the dangers of giving up on one’s principles and values in a head-long rush to achieve success. Of course, almost every politician anywhere in the world drives a Faustian bargain because they never expect the pigeons will come home to roost, and Imran Khan, the Prime Minister of Pakistan, is possibly the best example of a man who has made such a deal. While he achieved immense success on the cricket field, notably leading his men to the famous victory in the Cricket World Cup in 1992, he entered Pakistani politics in an attempt to clean up the dire state of that country. Yet, as everyone knows, for years, he was but a minor irritant in the Pakistani political arena, dominated as it was by the Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP) and Pakistan Muslim League (PML) in the periods the military was not in power. Seeing himself being sidelined by almost everyone, Imran Khan clearly dealt with the devil, the Pakistani military and its terror factories. Indeed, when Talibani terrorists killed 132 children in a devastating attack, Khan did not outrightly condemn the incident. In retrospect, everyone should have seen the writing on the wall. Khan was propelled to power last year on the back of terrorist factions, including those led by Masood Azhar, and indirectly by the military, the latter going out of its way to hobble Nawaz Sharif’s PML from putting up a fair fight. And even though in his first address after becoming the Prime Minister, Khan sounded conciliatory towards India, that was just a ruse. He had made his deal with the military and the Pakistani deep state and that was made evident by the recent Pulwana attack where several of our jawans paid with their lives.
Khan demanded proof from India for the attack even though Azhar and his terror cohorts had taken responsibility. As we know, India has consistently shared details of Pakistani involvement in terror acts, including the horrific incidents in Mumbai a decade ago. Those ‘dossiers’ must be gathering dust after having being read with some amusement by Pakistan’s terror handlers. Khan has “warned” India against any military adventurism. Although it would not be appropriate for India to go to war just now, it can and must respond to this attack by Pakistan. How it does so will remain to be seen, although Pakistan does a fairly good job of strangling itself. But we should not expect Khan to take any action, no matter how damning the proof we provide. Khan has decided to sleep with the devil and he has made his own bed; announcements of huge planned investments will barely change that nation, which has now been eclipsed by its erstwhile eastern half, Bangladesh, economically. At the end of The tragical History of Doctor Faustus, written by English playwright John Marlowe, Faust was dragged into hell when the devil came to take what is due to him. It would do Imran Khan well to remember this tale.
Courtesy & Writer: The Pioneer
With its economy on a southwards journey and given its failed inter-provincial relationship, Pakistan has no alternative but to spill out, and India seems to be the only destination.
Every week, this is news about how Pakistan is moving towards bankruptcy. While the buzz stands true, several countries such as China and Saudi Arabia have shown sympathy and extended financial aid to the country. However, if Karl Marx were around today, he might have said that loans are the opium of the classes. What could be true of the classes would be true of countries, too. It is too early yet to forget that in 1990, the Reserve Bank of India was sending gold to banks in London as pledge for loans in foreign exchange. The Pakistani crisis is far more serious because not only is there a financial paucity but also an impending economic collapse. The country is still essentially agrarian and feudal, and there has been little development since the British departed in 1947. In the meantime, the population has multiplied to reach nearly 180 million. Moreover, Islam commands a great deal of devotion from its followers but in turn, it does not encourage economic attention in contrast to the Protestant work ethic.
Since the advent of the Baghdad Pact in 1955 and SEATO in 1954, Pakistan has been the beneficiary of American military and other such aid, which helped the economy in general and imports in particular. That aid is drying up because of the country’s active association with terrorism, the Taliban and others. Cereals and other basic food items are not a problem yet, but Pakistan has run out of red meat. Way back in the days of Field Marshal Ayub Khan’s presidentship, it could be foreseen that the supply of beef would become a problem. He had, during his time in the mid-sixties, declared one-day a week meatless. Now with the shortage of foreign exchange, how can imports be sustained? All these developments and more are a concern for India, too, not merely out of human sympathy but also on account of self-interest. How? We must anticipate this to plan ahead.
Another grave weakness of Pakistan is its inter-provincial relationship. All the three other Provinces, namely Balochistan, North-West Frontier Province and Sind, resent Punjab, which holds two-third of the population. Punjab dominates, if not monopolises the Army and the bureaucracy. There have been separatist movements in all three smaller Provinces. The Pathans or Pashtuns look to the Afghans as their brothers. Jio Sindh is not active at present but sentiments are alive. Balochs openly say they want to separate and killings take place frequently. Disunity does not augur well for Pakistan. Hence, Islamabad tries to divert everyone’s attention by stoking Kashmir as a daily issue.
India was partitioned in 1947 on demand of most Muslims of the sub-continent, who aspired that their new homeland would become a New Medina. The old Medina was the first Islamic state, founded by Prophet Muhammad in 622 CE after his hijrat or migration from Mecca. When he ascended to heaven, his representatives or Caliphs took over one by one. They were conceptually the spiritual as well as temporal heads of all Islam, effectively the Sunnis, who comprise 90 per cent of the world community, called the ummah. In 1924, Mustafa Kamal Ataturk, the new unquestioned head of Turkey, abolished the Caliphate and exiled the incumbent. That was the end of the symbolic head of all Islam. Muslims everywhere would like that institution to be recreated. The dream of the pre-1947 Muslims of India was that Pakistan would be the cradle of this recreated Medina.
The same sentiment in Arabia is reflected in the Islamic State (IS), which fought in Iraq against Baghdad and against the Syrian Government in the ghastly civil war that has just ended. Sentiment was so strong and widespread in India that Pakistan became a reality even with its two wings, 1,600 kilometres apart. Bangladesh broke away in 1971 and exploded the myth that Islam alone can bind any country together.
The same fissiparousness spread inside the western wing of Pakistan to emphasise that Islam cannot alone be the binding factor of any country or its parts. Followers have been too ambitious to expect religion to be a total prescription for life and not merely a spiritual path to connect man and God.
There must be leaders in Pakistan, who now realise this truth as well as recognise that but unfortunately, no other ideology or political basis has been allowed to sprout and grow. In short, Pakistan has allowed itself to get trapped in a blind alley.
The only way out is to explode and that holds a grave danger for India. If the people have no alternative but to spill out, India is the only destination. What Bangladeshis did to India in yesteryears, Pakistan could do in the years to come. To be deceived once is ignorance but to be deceived again is lunacy. Fencing one’s border is a wise measure. US President Donald Trump is building a wall across the southern border of America against the wishes of the Congress, which refuses to grant him a big enough budget. But how can one fence the sea shores?
Migrations by boat people are legendary, whether in Asia out of Vietnam, into Europe via sea or America from Haiti.
Over and above, to fence the land borders, there has to be alert by internal security who must be helped by watchtowers on the entire border, sea or land. The Aadhaar card is alright as a negative check but all adult citizens must be issued domestic passports to be okayed only after strict inquiries, much stricter than before giving out passports to travel abroad. With a passport, a person can settle in permanently. With India’s diversity, there would be no alternative but comprehensive vigil. Sooner or later, surreptitious infiltration is inevitable in large, medium or small measure.
Hence, above all, supreme deterrence is needed. Remember, Pakistanis would have friends and relatives who have been in India since time immemorial. Very few Bangladeshis had this advantage; their allies were politicians with their eyes on building vote banks.
Further help to the agonised and otherwise helpless people of Sindh, as well as Balochistan, should be contemplated. Remember, Sindhi locals hardly played any part in driving out the Hindus. That unfortunate role was played by the Mohajirs after they landed in Karachi and had to either live in camps or sleep on the streets. In fact, Sindhis were nowhere near the forefront of the demand for Pakistan, and their leadership had wondered as to how their economy could function efficiently without Hindu Amil officials and Bhaiband businessmen.
Balochistan, until late in 1948, had an Embassy in Karachi, which clearly showed that in terms of British tradition, the region had a distinct status and did not need an accession to either dominion, India or Pakistan. Nevertheless, the Khan of Kalat came to Delhi and officially called on Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru and requested for Balochistan to be taken over as a part of India. Nehru politely declined. If either or both of these Provinces can release themselves from Islamabad’s clutches and become autonomous again, they can be of much help to New Delhi.
Courtesy: The Pioneer
Writer: Prafull Goradia, a well-known columnist and an author
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