The effect that a cause can have

By M J Akbar

Are you just a little distraught, as it the world has come off its hinge? It is a mood induced by too much senseless havoc, of death in so many manifestations: towers explode in New York, a bright and honest man who could be Prime Minister of my country is picked up by destiny from the skies, the Assembly in Jammu and Kashmir is devastated; and each day countless other statistics from streets and villages and towns announce ever rising evidence of a disturbed world lurching towards madness. It is a mood that encourages foreboding and apprehension: we are probably wrong if we believe that we have just seen the worst.

One of the misleading aspects of any war is that each episode seems like nadir, until the next one comes along. The soldiers of the British Expeditionary Force who escaped from Dunkirk in the second world war possibly confused their experience with hell. It is equally possible that the French who were humiliated and conquered believed that no subjugation could get worse, who would have imagined what would happen when this Germans brutalised east Europe on their way to Moscow, or the horrors of Barbarossa (the German-Soviet war) that saw some twenty million Soviet: citizens die and only slightly fewer Germans perish when the tides turned. Did the Germans know when the Luftwaffe was firestorming London that one day Hamburg would have to pay? And could the victors of Hawaii comprehend Hiroshima and Nagasaki ? From the horrors of Manchuria where the Japanese enslaved and brutalised a whole people to Auschwitz and concentration camps, there was no room left for the imagination to devise ways in which human beings could torture, murder, devastate and destroy one another as long as someone had convinced them that they were doing it for a cause. What effect can a cause have!

It is not surprising that governments cannot, most often, find a 1anguage commensurate with such experience. Governments are equipped to dual with the ordinary; they cannot traverse too far from the arc of expectation that they have visualised for their term without losing their way. It takes exceptional ability for a politician to rise above himself, at a moment of such extraordinary crisis and this elevation must of necessity begin in the intellect and involve conviction. Of the two, conviction is easier because it is simpler. But the intellect must fathom such difficult options as the complex meeting points of various degrees of self interest that guide the policies of nations; the difference between a cry for help, which is pathetic and the desire to involve others in a problem that has multinational dimensions, which is sensible.

Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee displayed a fundamental, and even colossal, weakness, one that could cast a long shadow into the future, when his immediate response to the attack on the Jammu and Kashmir Assembly was to write a letter to President George Bush of the United State. The content was less important than the symbolism. The Prime Minister of India should have asserted India’s solution to a serious problem. Mullah Omar of Afghanistan has publicly taunted the United States as a coward because he believes that the Americans do not have the stomach or the will needed for an immediate military response. One can imagine what his current assessment of Delhi is. One does not want to be facetious, but Mullah Omar must have found some time for a laugh in the midst of his concern : the Kashmir Assembly is attacked and the government of India writes a letter to its uncle! Which uncle? You know, the same one that has been trying to invade us for four weeks...

Dr Farooq Abdullah, who was a target of this suicide mission, wanted, amid tears, immediate war against Pakistan. That may be an instance of a jerking knee as well, but at least there is logic and consistency in his kneejerk. What Prime Minister Vajpayee and his ministers seem unable to understand is that America’s war against terrorism is guided primarily by American interests and needs, not Indian. The network that America seeks to trap and annihilate may start firom Afghanistan but spreads west from there, not east; the war in the east is a sub-plot of the larger drama. Important, but still a sub-plot. Because America and Americans are not directly or indirectly, threatened by those who want a different status for Jammu and Kashmir and are willing to indulge in suicide missions to achieve their purpose. It seems quite extraordinary that such a simple fact should escape the collective intellectual capabilities of the Vajpayee administration, with its star foreign minister Mr Jaswant Singh. The problem of Kashmir does enter their framework of attention, but not quite in the manner that Delhi thinks, or when their attention does turn this way, Delhi would probably like, Mr Vajpayee may yet rue his imploring letter, and the constant hammering at the State Department's door by his ministers and officials.

Mr Jaswant Singh’s last visit to Washington included talks with Secretary State Colin Powell, at the end of which the two made, before the press, what in officialese is designated as "remarks". Do not be fooled into believing that there is anything casual about the word. Remarks also are meant to leave their mark. While there is space for questions from the media and therefore unscripted answers, everything, including the opening positions, has always been thought through. The use of some phrases is designed to be deliberate.

1 quote the statement made by Secretary Powell about thin attack on the Jammu and Kashmir Assembly. Referring to the talks that had just concluded, Mr Powell said, "On this occasion, I took the opportunity to express condolences of the American people and my personal condolences over the events that took place in Kashmir yesterday, that ‘terrible terrorist act, that heinous act, that killed innocent civilians and also struck at a government facility,"

Governmenty facility ?

Since when has the legislature of Jammu and Kashmir a government facility? A sort of municipal office for sanitation and hygiene? There could have been a terrorist attack on a government facility as well, which would have been no less "terrible" or "heinous" if it involved such indiscriminate massacre. But part of the enormity of this incident was that the heart and seat of a democratic government was targeted. ‘Is this too minor a detail to labour upon, as someone will doubtless argue? I doubt if Washington would consider it very minor it the Senate was described as a government facility. Or was Mr. Powell reluctant to accord this Assembly in Srinagar the due status of a legislature? After all, the Kashmir that is controlled in Pakistan also has a legislature, and the American! secretary of the state may have wanted to avoid having to call one of the two places the legislature of Jammu and Kashmir.

Perhaps the thought should have crossed the mind of Mr Jaswant Singh as well, and persuaded him to include in his remarks the particular significance of this attack. It did not. Or if it did Mr Singh kept the thought to himself.

On more than one occasion during their remarks, Mr Powell distanced himself from directly blaming Pakistani for the attack. A direct question was asked: did Mr Powell "include freedom fighters on the Pakistani side of the Line of Control in Kashmir, many of whom train in Osama bin Laden's camps in Afghanistan, as those who need to be eliminated? Will you get tough on the Pakistani Government to do something about that, or is there a difficulty here because of Pakistan’s role? And, Mr Foreign Minister, as the US is working closely with Pakistan right now in the war against terrorism, do you think that President Musharraf can be trusted as a full partner in the war against terrorism?"

Mr Powell’s answer was as vague as the question was specific: "We are going after the Al-Qaida network, in its various manifestations, and Osama bin laden and his lieutenants who are in Afghanistan, in the first instance. And as I said previously and the President has said repeatedly, we are going to be conducting a campaign that goes after terrorism, and we’ll use many tools- financial tools, intelligence, law enforcement, diplomatic and political tools - to accomplish the mission that the President has set before us."

Mr Powell looks at the problems of this world from a periscope that first: shows him the problems of America: he is America’s foreign minister, not. anyone else’s.

So far, Delhi has been content with the "Phase Two" reply, given quickly and within some 48 hours of 11 September. Get these who attacked the United States in Phase One, and we will tackle other concerns in Phase Two. But this is an answer that Washington has given not just to Delhi but also to Islamabad. After all, Osama bin laden is not on Pakistan’s list of priorities,. lslamabad was in fact quite a happy with the status quo that existed before 11 September. Islamabad has been told to set aside all its issues for the moment and cooperate with Washington in the first task at hand, and it has done so. President Bush and Secretary Powell will take a look at Pakistan’s concerns as well in that famous Phase Two.

Serious evidence is emerging about what that Phase will be all about. Israel has already been formally informed that a Palestinian state will be recognised by the United States in Phase Two. We are also told that Mr Powell was going to make this announcement at the postponed session of the General Assembly in any case. Be that as it may, the Palestinian that could not become a reality after the Second World War along with Israel cruel will emerge out of the first war of the twenty-first century. That would Love the Koreas and Kashmir as the only serious problem areas left over from the trials, tribulations and mistakes of the last century. The Koreas are not a flashpoint. Kashmir is.

The exercise of American muscle will be as inexorable in South Asia as in West Asia. In such a scenario, solutions, if they come at all, will -appear only through dialogue and compromise. There will therefore be no knockout victories. Yasser Arafat may get his Palestine, but he is unlikely to get the boundaries he desires;. The process in South Asia will take longer, if only because far less dialogue has taken place.

What could have, and perhaps should have, started at Agra , may now start in Washington. Would that be the real reply to Mr Vajpayee’s letter?

The workable formula for Afghanistan

K.N. Pandita

The heat of religious zealotry and the proliferation of religious mi
litias is faced with gradual decline. Afghanistan, its symbol, is the first to bear the brunt. Quickly arriving at the logical conclusion of Anglo-American action, Pakistan, the most important country where zealotry and religious militia culture move closely hand in hand, has abandoned the Taliban, its own creation. Furthermore, Pakistani government has rounded up some of the leaders of zealotry out to disrupt civil society in that country. That explains the fragile relationship lying at the bottom of apparent Islamic brotherhood of which the OIC is projected as the manifestation. Never before were the Islamic countries exposed to the imperatives of myth and realty as in the global situation following the 11 September attacks on the US.

Northern Alliance is receiving support from the west and the US. It is primarily because this alliance has distanced itself from fundamentalist ideology and promised a liberal, progressive and democratic dispensation for Afghanistan as against the conservative fundamentalism promulgated by the Taliban. That the common people in Afghanistan are liberal, friendly and peace -loving should never be doubted. The American-Pakistani combine after 1979 ultimately spelt disaster for this country and the region. It corrupted the minds of the honest and brave Afghans.

Northern Alliance has offered steadfast resistance to the Taliban. In the process, it faced several reverses but with unparalleled grit and steadfastness, the outstanding qualities of its late commander Masud, helped them hold the fort. The NA has many handicaps: it is numerically inferior to the Taliban; it has logistics problems; it has not the massive military, logistical and financial support, which the Taliban has from Pakistan, and it has very limited war equipment and arsenals that would have collectively enabled it to make quick advance on to Mazar-i-Sharif and Herat. Therefore to expect the NA to make any spectacular achievement on the ground is unrealistic. But of course, their thrust forward will be in proportion to the level of disabling of Taliban strike power, which the Anglo-American strategy in Afghanistan is rightly pursuing. More Taliban commanders and foot soldiers will desert and go over to the Northern Alliance as the American strikes continue. But the US should strongly ask Islamabad to recall its troops and commanders from Afghanistan where they have been fighting side by side with the Taliban for last several years. Friendly countries in the neighbourhood, including Russia, should provide intelligence input to the Americans in this regard. Of course, the withdrawal of Pakistani soldiers and commanders from Afghanistan will give an iota of strength to anti-Musharraf clique among the Corps Commanders and the Tablighees. General Musharraf has no way out but to recall his Afghan contingent.

The allies shall have to carve out a segment of moderates among the Pukhtoon ethnic leadership in Afghanistan since the Pukhtoons comprise 38 per cent population of Afghanistan. Among other sizeable ethnic groups are the Tajiks, Uzbeks and Hazaras. Within the Pukhtoons and other ethnic groups, thee are tribes and tribal chiefs who also qualify for power sharing. Now once the Taliban are dislodged and paralysed, the new regime shall have to be of genuine representative character. The Northern Alliance cannot and should not stake its claim to form the exclusive government notwithstanding some victories won on the ground. An enduring arrangement for Afghanistan has to be found. This is possible only when all ethnic, linguistic and tribal groupings are represented in the power sharing process.

King Zahir Shah may be used as a symbol. There are many among the Afghans who do not favour the return of monarchy. But the symbol of Afghan unity should be encouraged and once it has performed the assigned role, it should remain only a symbolic cementing force. We think that there is an understanding of sorts between the King and the NA.

Whatever be the shape and form of the new government in Kabul, it is to be a democratic, Islamic but non-fundamentalist, a tolerant, progressive and outward looking government patronizing people of all shades without distinction, liberal towards the women and children and a strong supporter of the UN Charter. Obviously the new regime will have to be provided guarantee by the international community and world powers that its sovereignty will not be encroached upon and that no interference in the internal affairs of Afghanistan will be tolerated by the international community. In particular countries that had developed the disastrous concept of making Afghanistan their backyard for strategic depth need to be strictly warned against nursing any such design.

For the reconstruction of Afghanistan, there has to be a global effort in which almost all nations of the world should be the partners. Afghanistan is totally devastated. There is nothing by the name of infrastructure. There is no civil society worth the name and there is no administration whatsoever. Therefore a country and a nation has to be rebuilt. This will be one of the biggest challenges to the international community in which funds, expertise, technology, manpower, logistics, resources, planning and so many things will have to be taken into account. Rebuilding Afghanistan will be the answer to those who have been talking in terms of war of civilizations as is Osama and his cohorts claiming. This will bring a message to the entire world that the war in Afghanistan was not against any faith or civilization. It was against the terror that had strangulated the otherwise healthy and responsive Afghan society. Rebuilding of Afghanistan will simultaneously paralyse and immobilise terrorism at other places in the world.