:: Saturday, April 05, 2003 ::

Oliver Roy on the linkages between Radical Islamism and Arab Nationalism:

Islamic terrorist groups, in particular al Qaeda, are driven more by pan-Islamic nationalism than by religious fervor, leading scholar Olvier Roy in a recent interview asserts. In formulating their response to the September 11 attacks, US officials have underestimated the depth of nationalist sentiment in the Middle East, thus potentially increasing the difficulty of containing the terrorist threat, the scholar adds. Roy, a senior researcher at the French National Center for Scientific Research, told EurasiaNet that the US attack against Iraq “deepens the extend of this [Arab nationalist] backlash,” underscored by reports that thousands of men from across the Middle East and Central Asia have volunteered to go to Iraq and fight against US forces.

“It’s purely emotional right now,” Roy said. Because most Middle Eastern and Central Asian states feature closed political systems, in which authoritarian leaders tend to stifle free expression, the main outlet for Arab nationalist feelings is anti-Americanism, which widely viewed as virtually synonymous with anti-imperialism. Roy stressed that Arab nationalism did not pose an immediate threat to the US plans to oust Saddam Hussein, but could greatly complicate efforts to foster regional stability over the medium and longer term. In attacking Iraq, Roy suggested, the United States may be creating more problems for itself than it is solving. “What will happen in five or six years, it is difficult to know,” he said. “The United States can make good decisions for bad reasons, or bad decisions for good reasons,” Roy continued. “But there is a discrepancy in the way Washington views the situation, and in what is the actual process at work. Sooner or later, this discrepancy can lead to problems.”

Roy examined recent trends at a round-table forum, titled Radical Islam: A Middle East Phenomenon or a Consequence of the Globalization of Islam?, held April 2 at the Open Society Institute in New York. Roy maintained that Radical Islam is effectively a misnomer, saying that radicals are instead utilizing religion as a cover for essentially political acts. “[Osama] bin Laden doesn’t care so much about religion,” Roy said. In examining bin Laden’s statements, “if you replace ‘jihad’ with the word ‘revolution’ you would have purely political speech. Looking at the content of his speeches, they are modern, anti-imperialist discourses.”

Roy compared contemporary Islamic radicals with leftist radical groups of the 1970s, such as the Red Brigade in Italy and the Baader-Meinhof gang in Germany. He asserted that political considerations fueled the September 11 attacks. “The violence that we see now has little to do with Islam, it’s nationalism,” Roy said. “These guys are fighting American imperialism, they are not fighting Christianity.” A significant number of al Qaeda members, especially non Saudis, are “born-again” Muslims, defined as those who have recently embraced Islam, and many of whom have lived the West and had lengthy exposure to Western culture. Mohammad Atta, the reputed ringleader of the September 11 attacks, became a born-again Muslim while living in Hamburg, Germany, Roy noted. Between one-third and a half of those in terrorist networks are those who could be characterized as born-again Muslims, Roy estimated.

A vital, if currently underappreciated trend is that radical Islam is developing in the West and is being exported to the Middle East and Central Asia. Roy cited the Hizb-ut-Tahrir, which calls for the non-violent reestablishment of an Islamic caliphate across the Middle East and Central Asia, as an example of the current trend. Hizb is based in London, but its supporters are increasingly active in Central Asia, working underground to undermine established authority in the region. “London is the Mecca of radical Islam,” Roy said, adding that those willing to engage in radical activity, including terrorism, “don’t convert for Islam, they convert for political purposes.”

:: Conrad Barwa 7:17 PM [Permanent Link] :: ::
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A Geo-Strategic View of the Indian Ocean Region:

Being enclosed in the west, north and east by Eurasian, Indian and Australasian land mass and having been spread over tropics, warm waters of the Indian Ocean have given rise to uniform wind and precipitation patterns and navigable currents, influencing agriculture, trade and human habitat. Movement of trade and population have combined with geo-climatic and geo-economics to create an idea of common geographical space encompassing enormous social, cultural, linguistic, religious and political diversity. Although smaller than pacific and Atlantic, Indian Ocean has been traversed since times immemorial. People living on Asian-African littoral states traded with each other and also with the Romans and Greeks through the medium of Indian Ocean waters before and after the beginning of the Christian era. Given the technological capabilities of the communities living on the littorals then, Indian Ocean was a complete Universe for the people of the region.

Post war Globalisation and its Impact on Indian Ocean:

The dynamics of globalisation in post war period were radically different than those of the earlier centuries. Use of military technology for civilian purposes reduced travel time from one part of the globe to the other and the capability and accuracy of military weapons to hit distant military targets increased. The invention of faster and efficient means of communications made it possible for the people to know about the developments in the different parts of the world. Developments in the fields of information, communication, transport and military in the initial two decades of post war period spatially compressed the world and thereby revolutionized global politics. The interactions between nation-states during this period gathered momentum through inter and intra systematic consolidation. The cold war ideological competition between SuperPowers had the consequence of the US providing Marshall Plan aid to Western European economies and the formation of alliance system for safeguarding territorial integrity of western democracies.

Globalisation and fragmentation are the result of specific state policies. The setting up of United Nations Organization having global political, economic, military reach reaffirmed the 19th century process of economic globalisation initiated under Imperial Powers. However, the UN unlike the 19th century imperial states had to depend upon the member nation-states for its global activities. The United Nations in the post war period recognized the right of colonial people to determine who and how they should be governed. All these developments in the global politics within a short span of one decade and the lack of primacy of former colonial and imperial powers in the international power configuration, cumulated in the accelerating dismantling of colonial empires.

The process of decolonisation in the fifties and sixties around Indian Ocean Rim had two consequences. First, independence was given in rapid succession to collectivities of people possesing differing territorial size, political, economic, military, social viability. The consequences of resultant power vacuum and political instability in the littoral and hinterland was sought to be negated by the spread of super power politics and growth of neo colonial influences. The political instability in the Indian Ocean gave anxious moments to the western elites, because of their dependence on import of 50 different strategic materials such as manganese, cobalt, titanium, chromium, platinum, tin, nickel, iron, lead, copper from IOR. European, Japanese and US economies, import 70%, 76%, 25% of their crude oil requirements respectively from the IOR. Besides crude oil, the IOR exports agricultural produce such as tea, coffee, rubber, sesame in large quantities to the west. The creation of dependant economies in the Indian Ocean Region was a second consequence rapid decolonization. The dependence between asymmetrical economic forces resulted in the further impoverishment of third world economies in general and those of IOR in particular.

The emergence of quasi states and dependent economies in the post war period was accompanied by the spread of neo-colonial influence in the form of military bases and the supply of economic and military aid to IOR region states from countries belonging to rival ideological camps. The space provided by Indian Ocean waters and its uninhibited islands was used for stationing of nuclear weapons, military aircrafts, naval ships and military personnel of US.

Indian Ocean Rim Association Of Regional Cooperation (IOR-ARC):

In this unfolding process of globalization the patterns of cooperation and conflict have been redefined. The increased flow of information, capital, technology and labour-factor flowsis taking place across the territories on global and not national terms. This has created new space of exchange and interaction, setting a process of dissolution of national economies and this new spatial dimension has been articulated as the rise of ‘Region State’. The Indian Ocean region interfaces three politically, economically, socially, culturally diverse continents and the rational for cooperation in such a large region does not emanate as much from territorial contiguity as from the contours of ‘new geography’. As the globalisation involves restructuring of organizational patterns beyond national states into new models, it generates new synergy and creates the possibilities of new conflicts. Some old conflicts have been resolved only to be replaced by new ones in the post cold war globalisation. While conflicts generated by terrorism, drug trafficking pose threat to global society, the ethnic and genocidal conflicts, wars of secession, the illicit supply of arms endanger security of individual nation states and regional environs. Challenges emanating from changes in Post Cold War period have forced IO region countries to overlook regional diversity and cooperate in establishing Indian Ocean Rim Association for Regional Cooperation (IOR-ARC). End of the Cold War and end of South Africa’s international isolation, global trend towards establishment of World Trade Organization, adoption of processes of economic liberalization by India and other countries, the emergence of environmental, terrorists and criminal concerns and fear of further marginalization of IOR economies within the global economy, provided impetus for the setting up of the IOR-ARC. As President Nelson Mandela aptly put it, the natural urge of facts of historical and geographical complementality should broaden for including conceptual exploration of Indian Ocean rim and socio economic cooperation and other peaceful endeavours. The IOR-ARC chapter signed in 1997 operates on the principle of sovereign equality, territorial integrity, non interference in the internal affairs of member states, peaceful coexistence, respect for the bilateral, multilateral cooperation, exclusion of divisive issues from IOR-ARC deliberations and adoption of method consensus in decision making process. In order to overcome economic backwardness of IO Rim countries, IOR-ARC has been designed to set directions for the economic and trade policy in IOR and reaffirm policy of "open regionalism” and inclusion of membership, due to proliferation of regional economic, political groupings. The charter aims to promote trade liberalisation and flow of goods, services, human resource and infrastructural development. It further aims at facilitating trade diversification and foreign direct investment, tourism and scientific and technological exchange in the region. Regional cooperation in IOR aims at developing common positions and strategies on issues of mutual interest in international forums and forge close links between member states in human resource and training.

IOR-ARC faces conceptual problems of both local and global level. The size and diversity of IO region has burdened the Association with the problems of definition and membership. The total membership of IOR-ARC could vary from 24 to 38 countries depending on the definition used to indicate who will qualify to join in the cooperative venture. For example, out of the 15 landlocked countries situated in Africa, nearly 12 could stake a claim to be members of IOR-ARC by virtue of their dependence on IO trade. Three regional powers namely India, South Africa and Australia have differing views on the expansion of IOR-ARC membership. India’s stand on gradual expansion of Association has been opposed by Australia, Singapore, Indonesia, South Africa. While Australia feels that major economies such as Thailand, Bangladesh, Pakistan must be included if IOR-ARC has to proceed apace, India views Pakistan and France’s inclusion problematic due to her strained relationship with the former and non sovereign status of the later in IOR. South Africa will like to have quick addition of new members as it will enable all the countries of the Southern Africa Development Council (SADC) to become the members of IOR-ARC. This will help South Africa to link up her IO policy with that towards SADC for playing effective performance in both the areas.

The position of local economy as a bottom in conventional spatial hierarchies i.e. local national, international have changed under the impact of globalization. Establishment of WTO and its efforts to reduce tariff regimes across the world by 2005, the cross border activities of transnational corporations and global finance markets, the spread of globalising network of production sites and emergence of denationalised Internet as a space for civil society and semiprivate transnational legal regimes which escape conventional jurisdiction have impacted repositioning of local economy/regions into new global space. IOR-ARC therefore cannot revive classical South-South cooperation at a time when concept of time and space and principles of organization of production and market norms are undergoing change following new technological revolution . As Gamani Corea, former Secretary General of UNCTAD says, South-South cooperation as the type envisaged under IOR-ARC needs to be seen as strategic option for more effective participation in the new global order. Besides enabling IO countries to more effectively participate in the Global economy, the regional cooperation will help in meeting new security threat in the form of low intensity conflict (LIC). Threat of LIC against sovereign states by non-state and state supported/sponsored actors could be met by joint mobilisation and operation of naval and coast-guard facilities on part of mini island states for effective control of coasts and vast maritime zones.

The Indian Ocean provides in abundance, living and non-living resources and renewable and non-polluting sources of energy. Tropical climate favors growth of marine animal life in form of fish, plants and other marine animals useful for human consumption and making drugs and pharmaceutical products. Exclusive economic zones of various coastal countries have oil-natural gas and minerals in form of polymetallic nodules and hypothermal vents. Availability of important marine life and minerals and enormous trade passing through the Indian Ocean, makes regional cooperation among member states an imperative for shipbuilding/repair, preventing ocean water polluting through ship wreckage and oil leakages, exploitation and protection of fisheries, marine life, minerals, oil and natural gas. Poverty, rising population, unfulfilled popular aspirations religious divides, boundary disputes in the Indian Ocean hinterland could destabilize the Indian region through conventional and nuclear arms race and provide considerable needling by the external powers in the Indian Ocean region. The possibility of conversion of IOR into nuclear dumping zone is real, as India and Pakistan have nuclear weapons, and several Indian Ocean Rim states such as Iran, Israel, South Africa have harbored intention to develop them. Besides U.S and Western European Countries, Russia and China also have intention to make their presence felt in Indian Ocean.

The geography of Indian Ocean makes it possible to militarily pressurise northern rim states through land power and also use narrow Indian Ocean entry points of Suez, Gulf of Aden and Straits of Malacca for spincer movements. Moscow in post cold war period maintains diplomatic relations with all Indian Ocean Rim littoral and island states. Moscow rejects the tendency of world domination by one power or group of powers and therefore recognizes the assumption that in view of increasing importance of cooperation through regional arrangements these would become a significant factor of regional and sub-regional security and peace-making. Moscow supports formation of IOR-ARC framework of regional cooperation which could strengthen a trend towards multipolarity and facilitate fruitful interaction in world economic and political processes. China has vital trading interests in IOR. She imports from IO countries $36.2 billion worth of goods while exports goods worth $28.2 billion. Several IO rim countries such as Singapore, Malaysia, Indonesia, Thailand, India, Pakistan, Iran, UAE, Saudi Arabia, Israel, South Africa, Australia, are important trade partners of China. In view of interdependent and beneficial relationship China has with IOR, emergence of dominant or hegemonic naval and military power may adversely affect China’s IO trade. The proliferation of nuclear weapons and expansion of coastal states’ naval strength especially that of South Asian states has worried the Chinese and Beijing therefore has set about installing naval and military communication base in Bay of Bengal. The sinews of cooperation among IO littoral and island states will arrest further marginalization of IOR in global economy, strengthen their capacity to ward off or prevent environmental, terrorist and criminal dangers and face intrusion of external powers in IO waters with confidence.

Concluding Thoughts:

Bretherton in “Global Politics” published in 1996 has identified four pillars of post cold war globalisation namely technology change, creation of global economy, increasing commonality of political institutions, values and ideas. Each one of these seriously affect Indian Ocean landmass , island states, and surrounding warm waters. Institutional mechanism of IOR-ARC is a response of Indian Ocean states to changing dynamics and pace of globalization in post cold war period. IOR has been in the vortex of international developments since 15th century and will continue to remain that way in the 21st century. The success of IOR-ARC will determine whether states of IOR will remain as subordinate, marginalised units of international state system or could shake off the bondage of states of Western Europe, North America, Japan, and prevent Russia and China from intruding into IOR.


:: Conrad Barwa 7:50 PM [Permanent Link] :: ::
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Demonstrations in Pakistan:

The protests by the Muttahida Majlis-i-Amal, in Quetta North-West Frontier Province in Pakistan are a troubling sign of political developments in the region. The MMA have traditionally been seen in the past as a bad political joke by many of the Pakistan’s urban elite but as the experience of India over the last decade with the rise of the BJP has shown such bad political jokes can come to power at the Centre by exploiting the concerns left unaddressed or ignored by other political formations. Of more concern is that the MMA’s popularity has tended to wane with the occurrence of democratic civilian rule when other parties such as the Pakistan's People PArty (PPP) or Muslim League serve as a vehicle for dissent or political expression; under military rule however, the flirting with the Islamists gives such religious parties a legitimacy and a political space to organise in that is propitious to their consolidation. Moreover as the usual channels of political protest are stifled or sealed off by the military, the extremist ends of the political spectrum benefit and Islamists in Pakistan have always acquired their greatest popular support by expressing discontent towards military rule from an Islamic viewpoint. In delaying the resumption of democracy Musharraf is giving much needed oxygen to the more hardline elements in the MMA, many of which have ties with the old Taliban regime and are of the same ideological mould. Certainly the priase of Saddam Hussein and the valorising of Osama Bin Laden is unlikely to go down well in the region; neither is the call for circumventing the nominal Sharia interdiction against "matyrdom operations" in resisting invading forces. Given the predominance of such attacks, which have been quite effective in Kashmir against Indian military targets, this is unlikely to go down well across the border in the east. what is more typical of much sentiment across the whole region, is the resentment agains the US for attacking "smaller countries" and the hostility to what is perceived to be an imperialist venture which is merely a prelude to other such interventions in other areas. this is a concern shared across nationalities in South Asia and reflects the deep unpopularity over Anglo-American action in Iraq.

Unsurprisingly the offical Pakistani response has been relatively tame, the Senate after five days of heated debate produced a rather tame resolution voising "shcok and dismay" at the US led invasion of Iraq and urging a cessation of hostilities under UN auspices. Despite ingenous excuses to the contrary the resolution and its wording reflects the Musharraf regime's dependence on continued external support and a balancing act to placate domestic opinion.

:: Conrad Barwa 12:46 PM [Permanent Link] :: ::
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Joining the Fray

First, I want to thank Vikash and Conrad for inviting me to join Panchayat. It's a great resource and I'm happy to participate.

More substantively, while I know that the general orientation of this site it toward South Asia, many of the current developments in the Middle Easth hae important implications beyond their immediate arena. I just read a harrowing article by Marc Franchetti in the Times of London, giving an account of the U.S. Marine Corps entry into al-Nasariya.

While the author goes to great pains to capture the brutality of the encounter for Marines and civilians alike, the most telling aspect of the article for me was the speed and ease with which several of the Marines shifted from a minimal respect for civilian life (and I mean minimal) to a Vietnam-esque disregard for the distinction between soldier and civilian. After coming under fire and losing some of their comrades, several Marines advocated "nuking" the whole place, and asked for permission to "kill the vehicles" on the road, "anything on wheels." They received such permission, and I can't help but wonder if, in fact, either they or their commanders giving the order realized that killing the vehicles meant killing the passengers.

Franchetti paints a scene in which young men, far from their families and under fire, are seized by the desire to avenge the deaths of their comrades. This, it seems to me, is probably a general feature of war. What is far more disturbing, however, is the sanitized language that frames this quest - taking out "targets" (e.g. people), killing vehicles (e.g. people). This is supported in the U.S. by the "God's eye view" of the media, replicated by much of the military technology used by
soldiers in the field, showing (presumably) empty buildings via satellite image, giving the impression of a bloodless war. Or using the night-vision coloring, giving the impression of a video game. We all have much to fear from this approach to war. It allows a callousness with regard to both the execution of the war (for example, the growing demands in the U.S. media and popular discourse that we just "take Baghdad already..." as if the delay is simply the result of a poor
work ethic), the treatment of civilians during the war, and the expectations or assumptions about soldiers' experience upon their return. The idea that this war is bloodless hurts American soldiers,
Iraqis (soldiers and civilians), and most of all, the American people who are demanding that this war continue.

The article concludes with the journalist's offer to allow a Marine to call home to his wife using the journalist's satellite phone. Franchetti writes, "He turned down the offer and had me write and send
her an e-mail instead. He was too emotional. If she heard his voice, he said, she would know that something was wrong." Indeed, something is quite wrong.

For those who are already paying members of the online Times, the article is available at
The Times Online. For those who would like to read it for free, it's reproduced by
CyberPunks.

-Stacey Philbrick

:: Vikash Yadav 10:48 AM [Permanent Link] :: ::
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Neo-conservatives:

It is always a good idea to know one's enemies. There has been a tendency within the anti-war movement to lump together the Bush administration hawks with little attempt to distinguish the various species of hawks present and their objectives. This is not a useful approach to the extent that the White House does not listen to external dissent, but is keenly tuned to dissent within its own administration. The course of the current war and future wars will be determined by the power struggles within the administration, the protestors on the street will have little actual input other than registering their dissatisfaction.

In the current war, the administration is guided by one narrow cabal known as the "Neo-Conservatives." Here is the best article that I have read so far on the rise of the Neo-Conservatives within the Bush administration.

"Shaping the World: The Rise of the Neo-Conservatives"
Straits Times, 3/30/03
Janadas Devan

:: Vikash Yadav 9:59 AM [Permanent Link] :: ::
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A Geo-Stategic view of the Afghanistan Campaign and its Aftermath:

The dramatic and unprecedented events that took place in Eastern Europe and the Soviet Union in 1989-91 radically transformed geopolitical and geo-economic contexts of the world politics. The geopolitical context was transformed because with the dismantling of the Soviet Union in 1991, the bipolar structure of global politics disappeared together with the Cold War. The collapse of the Warsaw Pact has created a zone of conflicting interests stretching from Germany in central Europe to China in East Asia. In the absence of the other superpower, the US has found itself the master of a new world, in which it enjoys unassailable dominance. At a second level are major regional powers that are pre-eminent in areas of the world, but none is likely to match the US in the key dimensions of power – military, economic, and technological – that secure global political dominance. This global dominance does not simply derive from the US’s quantitatively greater military power. It derives from how this military might is deployed politically to shape the political and economic context of world politics. The US has the ability to control, through its military power, political leverage and its control over globe’s significant economic resources, the regional peripheries of its major allies. No less important was the transformed geo-economic context. Countries of Eastern Europe and former Soviet Union have opened for big multinational corporations to flood in, to exploit the natural resources and to invest in their development, thereby transforming the conditions for capital accumulation since 1991. The collapse of the Soviet control over the natural and human resources of this strategic region has resulted in the emergence of a high stakes game of money and politics that includes such heavyweight players such as the US, Russian, and Chinese governments, along with the world’s biggest multi-national corporations.

Eurasia, the vast lands between China and Germany, has emerged as the world’s axial super-continent, which is now serving as the decisive geopolitical chessboard, both for political/military and economic reasons. Eurasia accounts for 75 percent of the world’s population, 60 percent of its GNP, and 75 percent of its energy resources. Collectively, Eurasia’s power overshadows even America’s. On the level of global economic relations, the lure of enormous oil reserves in the Caspian Sea basin has made the region the focus of fierce competition between multinational companies and the governments of powerful states. The geopolitics of the region is therefore a significant matter.

The leading political power in this competition is the US, whose military spending is greater than all the military spending of the next 13 countries ranked beneath it. Yet the US share of the world trade and manufacturing is substantially less than it was during the Cold War. Since the end of the Cold War, the US has been facing a decline in its economic strength relative to the European Union, and East Asian economic group of Japan, China and the Southeast Asian “tigers”. The major US interventions since 1989 should be viewed not only as reactions to “ethnic cleansing” or “international terrorism”, but opportunistic responses to this post-Cold War geopolitical picture. This is one central reason why military power is now so often the choice of the US administration. Andre Gunder Frank, in an article written in June 1999, identified this strategic trend in post-Cold War US foreign policy as “Washington sees its military might as a trump card that can be employed to prevail over all its rivals in the coming struggle for resources.” Unimpeded access to affordable energy has always been a paramount strategic interest of the US administration, and so far US is the dominant power in controlling the oil and gas resources of Eurasia. The leading position of the US stems from its ability to control the sources of and transport routes for crucial energy and other strategic material supplies needed by other leading industrial states. Because of its positions in the Middle East and its sea and air dominance in the Eastern Mediterranean, the Atlantic, the Pacific, and the Indian Ocean, the US has so far been enjoying a strong military and political command. For reasons both of world strategy and control over natural resources, the US administration is determined to safeguard this dominant position and permanent role in Eurasia. The immediate task of the US administration in “volatile Eurasia” has been described as “to ensure that no state or combination of states gains the ability to expel the US or even diminish its decisive role.” Stated US policy goals regarding energy resources of Eurasia include breaking Russia’s monopoly over oil and gas transport routes, promoting US energy security through diversified supplies, encouraging the construction of multiple pipelines that go through US-controlled lands, and denying other potential powers dangerous leverage over the Central Asian oil and natural gas resources.

The attack on America on September 11 provided an added incentive to the US administration to increase its grip over the region as well as to remind the world of America’s capacity for political-military control. Indeed, what happened on September 11 could have come out what seemed to be the “wild fantasies” developed by American strategic analysts as they sought to justify a new active military role in the post-Cold War world. During the 1990s, great efforts were spent in imagining new “worst case scenarios” stemmed from new post-Soviet threats. US security planners have come up with all sorts of “evil” new ways of possible threats, from chemical warfare to biological weapons, and from hijacked vehicles and truck bombs to cyber-terrorism (jamming 911 services, or shutting down electricity or telecommunications, or disrupting air traffic control, etc.). Particular importance has been given to the notion of “rogue states” that own “Weapons of Mass Destruction” and sponsor terrorism. To defend the US interests against all these new, and mostly imaginary, threats, new hi-tech combat techniques have been developed and employed during the 1990s. America’s supremacy in bombs and planes and satellites and tanks has made the prospect of US casualties remote. Main aspect of this new US military performance is based on the use of high technology either directly to attack an enemy, or to support a proxy, say some Iraqi Kurdish groups in northern Iraq, the KLA in Kosovo, or the Northern Alliance in Afghanistan. The rapid victory – in the Gulf War ten years ago, in Kosovo in 1999, and in Afghanistan recently – at a minimal cost to American lives has helped to lay the ghost of Vietnam.

It is interesting that the map of “terrorist sanctuaries” and so-called enemy rogue states is “a map of the world’s principal energy resources”. A few days before September 11, the US Energy Information Administration documented Afghanistan’s strategic “geographical position as a potential transit route for oil and natural gas exports from Central Asia to the Arabian Sea”, including the construction of pipelines through Afghanistan. The life-and-death struggle to monopolise energy resources lies at the heart of this struggle, because oil remains the lifeblood of modern world economy. Superpower status naturally requires control of oil at every stage – discovery, pumping, refining, transporting, and marketing. The Washington-based American Petroleum Institute, voice of the major US oil companies, called the Caspian region “the area of greatest resource potential outside of the Middle East.” Dick Cheney, Vice-President to George Bush, speaking of the Caspian Sea basin in 1998 when he was working for the oil industry, commented, “I cannot think of a time when we have had a region emerge as suddenly to become as strategically significant as the Caspian.” Oil is clearly not the only force in action, but it is an important piece of a complicated political/ military and economic struggle. Afghanistan has long had a key place in US strategic plans to secure control of the vast oil and natural gas resources of Eurasia.

Oil and natural gas resources of Eurasia The Caspian Sea basin has received considerable attention over the past ten years, both because of its potential as a significant source of oil and natural gas for world markets, and because of the international competition that has emerged over the control of its resources. The Caspian, which is the world’s largest inland sea, is roughly 700 miles from north to south and 250 miles across, lying directly between the states of Central Asia and the Trans-Caucasus. It is a salt-water body, connected to the Black Sea by the Volga and Don rivers, the artificial Volga-Don canal, and the Sea of Azov, a branch of the Black Sea. Before the end of the Soviet Union in 1991, only two independent states – the Soviet Union and Iran – bordered the Caspian Sea basin. Now, five states – Azerbaijan, Iran, Kazakhstan, Turkmenistan, and Russia – adjoin the region. The Caspian Sea basin of Central Asia, located in the centre of Eurasia, is a region of complexities, rich in the diversity of peoples, nations and cultures. The cultural and historical heritage of the region goes back further than many European countries. The region has always had a romantic appeal for foreigners. Thousands of years ago the routes connecting northern and Eastern Europe with Asia Minor and the Greek colonies passed through here.

The Argonauts were the first “foreign tourists”, so to speak, to visit the Black Sea coast of the Caspian region. Prometheus, who brought fire to mankind in defiance of Zeus, was said to have been chained to a cliff in the region. The attraction of the region in modern times is related to its natural resources, especially the vast oil and natural gas reserves. From antiquity to the mid-nineteenth century, the region was one of the best-known oil regions in the world. Before the arrival of the Russians, petroleum extraction was very primitive. For centuries petroleum traders had to extract the petroleum with rags and buckets. The tsarist government anticipated the modern petroleum industry, and it drilled a well for oil at what is now the giant Bibi-Eibat field in Azerbaijan in 1871. It was towards the end of the 19th century when the area had its first contact with Western capital. The rich oil potential in the region attracted important foreign companies. By the late 1800s, two competing families came to invest in the Caspian oil industry. The Nobel brothers arrived on the scene first, to be followed by the French branch of the Rothschild family. In 1898 Russia became the largest oil-producing country, and held this position until 1902. At the beginning of the twentieth century, more than 50 percent of the world’s oil was produced in the Caspian region.

After the Russian Empire ended and a revolutionary government was set up in Russia, the region endured a period of turmoil during the Russian Civil War until the Bolsheviks seized control in the Caspian region in 1921.28 With Stalin’s First Five-Year Plan in 1927, the Soviet state assumed full responsibility for central planning, determining the sites, method of extraction, as well as the amount of production, and modes of transport. In 1928, oil production surpassed the former 1901 peak. The Soviet oil industry grew substantially during the First and Second Five-Year Plans. The vast majority of the production came from the Caspian region. The oil from this region played a major strategic role during the First and Second World Wars. Protecting oil fields of the Caspian was an Allied priority in the First World War. During the Second World War, oil from the Caspian Sea basin was an essential target of Hitler’s expansionist policies. Following the 1939 German-Soviet Pact, Soviet oil from the Caspian Sea basin accounted for a third of Germany’s imports. Hitler’s attempt to secure the oil wells of the Caspian collapsed in the face of the fierce resistance of the Red Army.

As a result of the dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991, the vast oil and gas resources of the region have been opened again to western companies, and the governments of the powerful states of the West have designed policies to influence this competition. A race has begun amongst the powerful transnational corporations of the world to secure control over the black gold of the region. It is believed that the world’s largest reservoir of untapped oil and gas is to be found in the southern republics of the former Soviet Union – Kazakhstan, Azerbaijan and Turkmenistan. Even though the reports over possible and confirmed reserves of mineral deposits differ widely, the interest in the region is enormous. At stake in this contest are billions of dollars in oil and natural gas revenues and the vast geopolitical and military advantages that fall to the power(s) which gain(s) a dominant position in the region. Two basic questions loom over the future of this important resource: who owns the rich oil and natural gas resources? And who will have the control over the transportation of the Caspian oil and gas to world markets? The answers will greatly contribute to shape the re-configuration of the world economy in this century and the international order that governs it.

At stake in this competition is far more than the fate of the resources of the Caspian Sea basin of Central Asia. Caspian oil is “non-OPEC oil”, meaning that supplies from this region are less likely to be affected by the price and supply policies applied by the oil-exporting cartel. Flows of large volumes of Caspian oil through non-OPEC lands would erode the power of OPEC, as well as its ability to maintain high oil prices and to use oil as a mode of political blackmail. US strategists do not simply want to obtain oil, which is a simple matter if one has money. They want to eliminate all potential competitors, safeguard the area politically and militarily, and control the flow of oil to the big world markets in the West and in Southeast Asia. The transfer of oil from the Caspian-Caucasus to world markets is no easy matter, primarily because the Caspian Sea is landlocked. With the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991, multinational oil companies and governments of the leading world powers have woven a tangled web of competing pipelines. Leading the charge were B.P. and Amoco (which merged in 1998), UNOCAL, Texaco, Exxon, Pennzoil and Halliburton. It is the “pipeline map” around the oil and natural gas resources of the region that connects the Balkans to Afghanistan. From the Balkans to Afghanistan The Balkans is considered to be central to the “pipeline map”, because oil destined for Western Europe must pass through them at one point or another. During the 1999 Kosovo war, some of the critics of NATO’s bombing of Yugoslavia alleged that the US and its allies in the West were seeking to secure a passage for oil from the Caspian Sea. This claim was mocked by the British Foreign Secretary Robin Cook, who observed that “there is no oil in Kosovo”. This observation was, of course, true but irrelevant to the claim. The oil reserves of the Caspian are a long way from the Balkans, but the routes by which this oil must come to the markets in the West are not. In 1997, BP and the Texas Halliburton Company proposed a pipeline that would go from Burgas in Bulgaria through Skopje in Macedonia to Vlore, a port in Albania. This would be one of the shortest and least expensive of the possible routes. All these give the necessity of security in the South-eastern Europe an additional direct economic importance, adding to the primary strategic concerns that stand behind the bombing of Yugoslavia in 1999. Geography makes the Balkans region a key stepping stone to oil interests in Eurasia.

It was claimed that the main globalist objective of the US-led NATO operations in Kosovo was to pacify Yugoslavia so that transnational oil corporations can secure the oil transportation route from the Caspian Sea through Yugoslavia, into Central Europe. After the NATO’s bombing campaign in March 1999, the US spent 36,6 million dollars to build Camp Bondsteel in southern Kosovo. The largest American foreign military base constructed since Vietnam, Camp Bondsteel was built by the Brown & Root Division of Halliburton, the world’s biggest oil services corporation, which was run by Dick Cheney before he was made Vice-President. On 2nd June 1999, the US Trade and Development Agency announced that it had awarded a half-million dollar grant to Bulgaria to carry out a feasibility study for the pipeline across the Balkans. Rivalries being played out here will have a decisive impact in shaping the post-communist Eurasia, and in determining how much influence the US will have over its development. This situation has worldwide and not just regional consequences. For instance, the expansion of US influence in Eurasia poses a direct and immediate threat to China, because, among other factors, the expansion of the Chinese economy is directly dependent on access to petroleum. China’s oil needs are expected to nearly double by 2010, which will force the country to import 40% of its requirements, up from 20% in 1995. Driven by a burgeoning demand for energy, the Chinese government has made securing access to the largely untapped reserves of oil and natural gas in the Caspian region a cornerstone of its economic policy. China’s focus is the construction of a 4200 km network of gas and oil pipelines running from China’s western province of Xinjiang to the major east coast metropolis of Shanghai. In 1997, the China National Petroleum Corporation (CNPC) acquired the right to develop two potentially lucrative oilfields in Kazakhstan, outbidding US and European oil companies. Feasibility studies are also underway for the construction of over 3000 kilometres of gas pipeline from Turkmenistan to Xinjiang by the state oil holding company, PetroChina Co. This east-west pipeline is China’s biggest infrastructure project after the Three Gorges Dam. China’s influence in the Caspian oil politics has increased as a result of a recent business deal in Azerbaijan: two subsidiaries of China National Petroleum Corporation bought the 30% stake owned by the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development in two oil fields, the Kursangi and Karabagli fields, in Azerbaijan for 50 million US dollars as part of China’s move to diversify its resource base. Theoretically, oil and gas pipelines to China from Turkmenistan and Kazakhstan could be extended to link into the pipeline networks of both Russia and Iran. This model has been dubbed the “Pan Asian Global Energy Bridge”, a Eurasian network of pipelines linking energy resources in the Middle East, Central Asia and Russia to Chinese Pacific coast. China’s pipeline network has the potential to bring about a significant strategic realignment in the region. Central Asia with its huge reserves of oil, and natural gas, and strategic position is already a key arena of sharp rivalry between the US, major European powers, Russia, Japan and China. All of the major powers, along with transnational corporations, have been seeking alliances, concessions and possible pipeline routes in the region. In the midst of this increasing competition, open conflict between the superpower US and important regional power China seems highly likely.

Another significant regional power, Russia, controls most of the export routes of the Caspian oil at the moment. In the words of Russian Defence Minister Igor Serge, in November 1999, “ the West’s policy is a challenge to Russia with the aim of weakening its international position and ousting it from strategically important regions.” Disputes over oil were at the heart of Russia’s earlier decision to go to war against Chechnya in December 1994, because its sole operational pipeline for Caspian oil, which goes directly through troubled Dagestan and Chechnya, was under threat from the Islamic separatist forces of Chechnya. It can therefore be argued that Russia has important geo-economic reasons for establishing a firm control over Chechnya, and these are essentially related to Russia’s worries over the control of the resources of the Caspian. Russia’s concerns over Chechnya grew as a result of the US-NATO war against Serbia and the subsequent NATO occupation of Kosovo. Tensions with Russia escalated in the course of Russia’s military campaign in Chechnya soon after. The Russian intervention in Chechnya in 1999 was meant to be a warning to the US and NATO, and the other likely candidates to rebel against Russia in the post-Soviet space, that Russia was still a mighty military force to be reckoned with. There are recent suggestions that there may be a quid pro quo between the US and Russian administrations with Russians providing intelligence support to American troops in Afghanistan and the US turning a blind eye from a brutal Russian occupation in Chechnya.

It has been claimed after September 11 that “the carnage in Chechnya [Chechnia] now became a front-line of the battle fought by the entire international community against terrorism”. The US has a very wide range of instruments essentially derived from its structural control over the political-military and economic context of global inter-state system. In Eurasia, the US administration sees its military might as a trump card that can be employed to prevail over its rivals in the struggle for political hegemony and resources. Powerful geopolitical and geo-economic interests are fuelling the American war drive. Some commentators argue that the real motive for America’s determination to operate in Afghanistan is related to its direct interest in the natural resources of Central Asia. If the Balkans is a major key to transportation of the vast Caspian oil reserves, Afghanistan is another key. Experts say that Afghanistan with its strategic location offers the most convenient route for pipelines. A 790-mile oil and gas pipelines across Afghanistan that would carry Caspian Sea basin’s oil and natural gas south to the Pakistani coast on the Arabian Sea will reduce US dependency on the volatile Gulf oil zone controlled by the OPEC. On 10 September 2001, Oil and Gas Journal, an US-based oil industry publication, reported that Central Asia represents one of the world’s last great frontiers for geological survey and analysis, “offering opportunities for investment in discovery, production, transport and refining of enormous quantities of oil and gas resources. Central Asia is rich in hydrocarbons, with gas being the predominant energy fuel. Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan, especially, are noted for gas resources, while Kazakhstan and Azerbaijan are the primary oil producer.” Frank Viviano of the San Francisco Chronicle wrote on 26 September: The hidden stakes in the war against terrorism can be summed up in a single word: oil. The map of terrorist sanctuaries and targets in the Middle East and Central Asia is also, to an extraordinary degree, a map of the world’s principal energy sources in the 21st century. ¼ It is inevitable that the war against terrorism will be seen by many as a war on behalf of America’s Chevron, Exxon, and Arco; France’s TotalFinaElf; British Petroleum; Royal Dutch Shell and other multinational giants, which have hundreds of billions of dollars of investment in the region.

Within a week of the commencement of war in Afghanistan, the Bush administration discussed the shape of a post-Afghan government to do deals over oil and gas pipelines. The New York Times reported on 15 December that, “the State Department is exploring the potential for post-Taliban energy projects in the region, which has more than 6 percent of the world’s proven oil reserves and almost 40 percent of its gas reserves.” President Bush’s appointment of a former aide to the U.S.-based oil company UNOCAL, Afghan-born Zalmay Khalilzad, as special envoy to Afghanistan, is particularly interesting in this context. The nomination underscores the real economic and financial interests at stake in the US military campaign in Afghanistan. Khalilzad is intimately involved in the long-running US efforts to obtain direct access to the oil and gas resources of the region. As an adviser for UNOCAL, Khalilzad drew up a risk analysis of a proposed gas pipeline from the former Soviet republic of Turkmenistan across Afghanistan and Pakistan to the Indian Ocean. Richard Butler, an American diplomat in residence at the Council on Foreign Relations, has explained this as “the war in Afghanistan ¼ has made the construction of a pipeline across Afghanistan and Pakistan politically possible for the first time since Unocal and the Argentinean company Bridas competed for the Afghan rights in the mid-1990s.” So many business deals, so much oil and natural gas, all these giant multinationals with powerful connections to the Bush administration. It doesn’t add up to a conspiracy theory, but it does mean that there is a significant money subtext to the “Operation Enduring Freedom”. In the words of Zoltan Grossman, “it is not a conspiracy; it is just business as usual.”

It is far too soon to digest or analyse the full meaning of the recent events, and the exact outcome of the present manoeuvres in Eurasia and its impact on the global strategic equation is not yet clear. But, the increasingly heavy involvement of the US administration, significant regional powers, and transnational corporations in the area underscores the central importance of the oil and natural gas resources of the region and the potential for sharp conflicts over the control of the resources. The growth of regional antagonisms will be heightened, not attenuated, as the region is integrated more into the global system of production and trade. We are before the re-composition of the geo-strategic map, not only of Eurasia, but also of the world, in a manner not seen since the highest moments of colonialism. As the stakes in this competition for control increase, the risk of dangerous clashes becomes a threatening reality. The region has four nuclear-armed countries – Russia, China, Pakistan and India - making it a dangerous potential flashpoint of global significance. America’s war in Afghanistan has already upset the delicate balance of enmity between old foes India and Pakistan, who fought three major wars in the recent past, and increased the militarisation of the entire Asian region. Real risk of military confrontation continues in south Asia, as India and Pakistan simultaneously mass soldiers at their border and escalate the conflict in Kashmir. Since the end of the Cold War, Washington has deliberately contributed to fuelling the India-Pakistan conflict. The US has military cooperation agreements with both India and Pakistan, and keeps selling weapons to both countries. Sanctions against both Pakistan and India – imposed after their nuclear tests in 1998 – were dropped by President Bush immediately after September 11. While India and Pakistan are moving along the dangerous line of a nuclear war, the US and its allies are quietly laying gas pipelines, selling weapons and pushing through their business deals.

From the collapse of the former Yugoslavia and various post-Yugoslav wars, to American/ NATO responses to numerous political and economic crises in the post-Soviet space, and more recently to America’s “war on terrorism” in Afghanistan, there is an important underlying thread. Although these various wars and conflicts have /had certain regional dimensions, they are primarily the US response to the opportunities and challenges opened by the demise of the Soviet Union. All have been connected to one big central course of action: the manoeuvres of the US, and its allies in Europe, over the division of resources and political/ military control of Eurasia. All these interventions have enabled the US to gain a strong foothold in the lands between Europe to the west, Russian Federation to the north, and China to the east, and turn this strategic region increasingly into an American “sphere of influence”. The strengthening of this global control is as much about politics as economics. As William Wallace summarises, this “hegemony rests upon a range of resources, of hard military power, economic weight, financial commitments, and the soft currency of hegemonic values, cultural influence and prestige.” It is not just the scale and power of its military might. The US hegemony also rests on the ability to homogenise the political cultures of its allies around sets of ideological values and cultural perceptions constructed to serve US interests. Most of these are symbolic structures loosely connected to the Second World War experience embodying such highly sensitive symbols as “Hitler”, “genocide”, “ethnic cleansing”, “totalitarianism versus freedom and democracy”, “individual rights”, etc. With the demonisation of political Islam during the Gulf War “Islamic fundamentalism”, and recently “axis of evil” have been added to these as the dominant hate themes. This value structure has been repeatedly and effectively embedded within the Western political cultures through repeated international polarisations and military interventions after the end of the Cold War, from the military campaigns in the Gulf to various Yugoslav wars, and finally to military operations in Afghanistan. Taken together all these military-political, economic, and cultural capacities of the American power, the foreign policy autonomy of its allies have been reduced to near zero. The US is exploiting the dismantling of the Soviet bloc most aggressively. It is inserting itself into the strategic regions of Eurasia and anchoring US geopolitical influence in these areas to prevent its competitors from doing the same. The ultimate goal of the US strategy is to establish new American spheres of influence and eliminate any obstacles who stand in the way. At the level of economic control, involved in the re-integration of the post-Soviet space into world capitalist system is the absorption, by massive transnational corporations, of large investment in valuable natural resources of Eurasia that are vital to the US and its allies. The vast oil and natural gas resources of the Caspian Sea basin are now being practically divided among the major multinationals. This is the fuel that is feeding renewed militarism, which leads to new wars of conquest by the US and its allies against local opponents, as well as ever-greater conflicts among the US and major regional powers, such as China and Russia. Were any of its adversaries – or a combination of adversaries- to effectively challenge US supremacy in this region, it would call into question the US hegemony in world affairs. For the US, the most effective way to enforce world domination is through use of its mighty military machine. This is the key to understanding the development of global politics since the end of the Cold War. America’s war against the Taliban in Afghanistan is the latest in a series of wars of aggression that have played out in this strategically significant super-continent. The recent war in Afghanistan has significantly increased the US hegemonic control over the lands of Eurasia. Bush’s “war on terrorism” has resulted in the projection of US military power even further in the region. Under the cover of this war, Central Asia is splattered with new American fortresses, the Pacific and Indian Oceans are patrolled by aircraft carriers and accompanying fleets of awesome size. Hundreds of US Special Operations Forces have been shipped off to the Philippines to train and help government forces in active combat with the Islamic Abu Sayyaf guerrillas. US Special Forces are also being sent to the former Soviet Republic of Georgia where a small number of Arab and Chechen fighters are supposedly hiding out. The US military power “is now dominant and its limitations are minimal”. Never in history has the military supremacy of a single power been so big.

All these are significant developments regarding the security architecture of the post-Cold War world. The expansion of the US hegemonic control, however, did not start with the attacks of September 11, but had already been in place since 1989. The hi-jacked planes crashing into the World Trade Centre and the Pentagon have provided an additional rational for the unilateral action to the US administration to increase its political/ military control in this region. Anti-terrorism has replaced anti-communism as the new millennium’s all purpose rationale for providing US military/ political and economic expansion over the globe. Therefore the key to understand the events of the recent developments after September 11 lies in the post-Cold War realities and dynamics of US global hegemony. The defence of American economic and geopolitical interests worldwide was the main underlying reason for the American “war against terrorism”.

:: Conrad Barwa 10:45 AM [Permanent Link] :: ::
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Himalayan Anti-war Protest: Maoist negotiators join Iraq protest

Two Maoist peace negotiators joined a mainly peaceful communist protest against the U.S.-led attacks on Iraq and delivered protest notes to the British and American embassies Monday. Krishna Bahadur Mahara and Matrika Prasad Yadav jointed the protests that demanded an end to the strikes; organizations affiliated with the Maoists also joined the protests. Several thousand protesters, representing the splintered communists parties, chanted anti-American and anti-British slogans and marched to the two embassies from Ratna Park through the streets of the capital and delivered the protests. Embassy representatives accepted the notes. Left parties have been organizing demonstrations against the strikes. Source: nepalnews.com br March 31

:: Conrad Barwa 7:55 PM [Permanent Link] :: ::
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Bid for Peace in Nepal:

The ceasefire and negotiations between the Communist Party of Nepal (Maoists) and the royalist government which controls the Royal Nepal Army (RNA) has surprised most observers of Nepali politics. One of the m ore fruitful outcomes has been renewed debate over the possibility of a Constituent Assembly (CA); even the other political parties have now joined in this discussion. The reality in Nepal is a dual one where the RNA is in control of most district headquarters and the urban areas with the Maoists in control of the rest of the countryside. The RNA had failed to make much headway against the People's Guerrilla Army despite having received arms and training and support from India, US, UK and Belgium amongst others. India has supplied its heavy INSAS rifles at heavy discount of nearly 70% and trained officers and soldiers in various army run counter-insurgency schools. The US sent 3000 of M16-A2 rifles and expects to send another 2000 soon. Belgium has sent an initial bat5ch of 500 (with 5000 more to follow) Minimi machine guns. The US has also sent 49 US soldiers to help the RNA in its military operations against the Maoists. The Maoists enjoy popular support and have grown rapidly since 1995 and their demand for a round table conference compromising all political parties and the king, setting up of an interim government, election to the constituent assembly and for the CA to debate and decide on the issue of republic or constitutional monarchy, are eminently democratic demands. Support for these measures are fairly widespread within Nepali society as a whole, and is common even amongst those sections that are hostile to the Maoists. The fact that the two political parties the moderate-centrist Nepali Congress (NC) and the Marxist-leftist UML-CPN were unable to mount a campaign against the stand of the current monarch had as much to do with their nervousness about losing popular support to the Maoists in the run up for a mandate to the CA.

The formidable force that the Maoists armed groups present owe at least partly to the practise of looting government armouries. The Indian Foreign Secretary had told a Paris audience on December 17th 2002, “Western countries should also be careful about extending excessive military assistance to Nepal in order to avoid increase in the lethality of the internal conflict and leakage of arms to the Maoists.” These warnings were ignored by the US and Belgium (the Belgium government violated its own internal guidelines that bar the Belgian government from exporting weapons to any state engaged in a civil war). More than a year of military operations has not significantly reduced the Maoists armed wing and the excesses committed by the RNA brought the latter much hatred in the countryside. The various steps taken by the king (exclusive control over all appointments to the upper echelons of the bureaucracy (joint secretary and above) and the military (major and above) and the removal of the royal household budget from parliamentary scrutiny and approval) has only lent substance to the view that an autocratic monarchy desired to reverse the democratic gains of the last decade. In this he won some measure of support from the political parties, most surprisingly was the support given by the Marxist UML-CPN, which has twice voted in favour of the emergency. As the counter-insurgency operations dragged on the countryside began to suffer from the fighting between the Maoists and the RNA; international human rights organisations accused both sides of committing atrocities though the RNA was singled out as the worst offender. This mutual standoff has led to the recent peace talk initiatives.

The Indian government has taken a typically critical stance on the Maoist insurgency; with the Indian PM recently labelling them as “terrorists” in a conference of Chief Ministers and accused them of being hand in glove with the ISI of Pakistan. Unfortunately for Nepal dependence on India is heavy. India has always regarded the Himalayan region as its own backyard and its hegemonic attitude has been most sharply expressed when dealing with the countries of Sikkim, Bhutan and Nepal. The Indian government had been involved in an attempt to bring the NC and UML-CPN reach an accommodation with the king so that both could then join forces in suppressing the Maoist insurgency. Both political parties have proved vulnerable to the Indian persuasion that the Maoists should be treated as the main enemy and not the king because these parties fear any loss of electoral support to the Maoists. The latter are seen as a major potential beneficiary if elections to a CA are to take place anytime in the ear future. Under the present NDA regime in New Delhi, India’s policy on Nepal has acquired an ideological dimension as well; guided by fear of the Maoists of Nepal and Indian ‘Left-wing Extremists’ carving a corridor linking their movements all the way from the Dandkarayana to the Himalayas; which despite its unlikeliness under current conditions, nonetheless seems to be an obsessional bogey with some policymakers. LK Advani has warned that the government has “an integrated combat programme to get rid of the trouble for once and for all”. While only time will show the worth of such claims; the manner in which they were caught unawares by the developments there shows that the Indian national security apparatus is a victim of its own rhetoric.

In contrast a US administration which has emerged as yet another actor on the scene through its assistant Secretary of State, Christina Rocca made known its concern at the failure of the war against the Maoists as well as claimed that given the military stalemate on the ground dialogue was the only way out. IT also made the astonishing claim that US military supplies to Nepal were meant to persuade the ‘rebels’ to co-operate. Rather than work to avoid war and avert Nepal becoming a centre for US machinations against India and China an ideologically blinkered Indian government therefore sought to help bring about a compromise with the political parties and simultaneously engaged in crushing the Maoists. By backing the king, whom until June 2000, the Indian security apparatus accused of being in cahoots with the ISI, and supporting the military campaign unleashed by him, the Indian government had already taken sides in a civil war. Indeed much before anyone else declared the Maoists to be terrorists it was the Indian government that labelled them thus and cracked down on social organisations for their alleged links to the Maoists and deported nearly a hundred alleged Maoists to Nepal.

The military stalemate in Nepal and the willingness of both sides to hold talks at least shows that a negotiated solution has some chance of success. While the Maoists can claim with some legitimacy that their movement has sought to fight with force injustice and oppression, especially in the countryside, it is also a sing of a mature and credible political organisation that can respond to genuine efforts to reach a peaceful and democratic solution. However suspicions remain that the Nepali government has simply called for negotiations under pressure and to consolidate its forces in the countryside where, especially in eastern Nepal it is suffering from some serious reverses. Serious commitment to democratic and political change is not a hallmakr of the current king or the adminstration he has put in place and the estbaloished Nepalese parties though ostensibly all in favour of moving to a more democratic and constitutional monarchichal system have been overtaken by the rapid rise to power of King Gyananendra after the assasination of the old Royal family. Both sides need to show a serious committment to peace; but the legitimacy of the royal leadership is in serious doubts given its lack of a popular mandate and its throwback to an earlier age of monarchical autocracy that most Nepalese now feel needs to change.

Current Stage of Negotiations:

CPN-UML General Secretary Madav Nepal and Maoist leader Dr. Baburam Bhattarai discussed the proposed peace talks and other issues for more than one hour Monday, party sources said. Four other members of the rebel team negotiating a peace agreement with the government assisted Dr. Bhattarai. Chief Government negotiator Col. Narayan Singh Pun said goodwill talks will be held Thursday although the rebels have not publicly confirmed their participation. They have demanded the release of five central committee members and the withdrawal of criminal cases against Dr. Bhattarai at the Patan Appellate Court as minimum conditions for the negotiations to start.

Maoists have been more critical of the UML than other political parties represented in the dissolved parliament, including the Nepali Congress. Dr. Bhattarai launched talks with political parties Sunday by meeting with Girija Prasad Koirala, president of the Nepali Congress to garner support for a roundtable conference, an interim government and a constituent assembly to draft a new constitution and introduce sweeping changes in society. Yubaraj Geywali, Subash Newang and Surendra Pandey assisted Nepal. Dr. Bhattarai launched talks with national parties amid Congress and the UML fears that the palace and the rebels might sideline them in any accord to introduce political changes; opposition leaders demanded they should be a party to a government, rebel accord. India has urged King Gyanendra to take opposition parties into confidence in any deal with the rebels, diplomatic sources said. The King and Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee met this month ahead of the King's just concluded pilgrimage tour of south and central India.

The outcome of the negotiations expect to be reached sometime next week.

:: Conrad Barwa 7:46 PM [Permanent Link] :: ::
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The Perils of Long-Distance Nationalism:

It was supposed to be a gesture aimed at furthering the cause of democracy in Fiji and helping out a “son of the soil”. But the money collected by the “Indo-Fiji Friendship Society” two years ago, to help the first Indian-born Prime Minister of the South Pacific Islands, Mahendra Chaudhry, who was ousted in a coup on 19th May 2000 is yet to be handed over to him. Chaudhry’s paternal family comes from the Bahujmalpur village in Rohtak district in Haryana. His grandfather RN Chaudhry had left India as a plantation worker in 1911. During the visit of the deposed Prime Minister to his native village in 2000, Haryana Chief Minister OP Chautala had announced a scheme to collect Rs. 1 from every citizen of Haryana. According to sources, approximately Rs. 6 crore was ultimately collected; yet even after two years the funds still seem to be dormant in India.

Chaudhry, during his visit for an NRI meet in New Delhi last year had queried about the funds, saying that he had not received any part of them. Typically the opposition in the Haryana legislature immediately accused Chautala’s party of embezzling the money donated. Demanding a White Paper on the episode, the leader of the opposition, BS Hooda, said “The society is just an eyewash as all its members were functionaries of the ruling INLD. We have information that more than 6 crore was collected in Haryana and now the government is delaying the transfer of money.” An unspecified amount is lying in the local branch of the Oriental Bank of Commerce (OBC) in Chandigarh. Senior manager in the OBC Chandigarh branch, SK Dutta, while refusing to divulge the deposited amount, said “Substantial money lies deposited in my branch for the past months under the name of the society. Despite my several requests to different members of society who also happen to be senior government officials of Haryana, no action has been taken and the amount lies unused.”

The secretary of the society, SS Bhadshami, who is also president of the INLD, agreed that the money has not been handed over to Chaudhry. “There are some legal restrictions that are standing in the way of money transfer. We had collected the money but it cannot be handed over to an individual. We are still trying to send the amount to the beneficiary.” Asked about the amount collected by the society and the details of the funds Badshami refused to say anything, Chief Minister Chautala said “I have no knowledge of this episode. I have heard that the money was collected to support the pro-democracy movement of Mr. Chaudhry. I will take up the matter with Mr. Atal Behari Vajpayee.”

It is ironic that the money donated by the people of Haryana is either lying unused in a bank account within India or worse could have been laundered by state officials and politicians; while emigrants from the region carry on the struggle for democracy without any substantial aid beyond verbal support. It is unlikely that the latter will be of much comfort unless it is backed up by some of the former.

:: Conrad Barwa 7:34 PM [Permanent Link] :: ::
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