Asia in the Contemporary World

WPF Historic Publication

Inder Kumar Gujral December 31, 2004

The right of Inder Kumar Gujral to be identified as the author of this publication is hereby asserted.

The views and opinions expressed in this publication are those of the original author(s) and do not necessarily represent or reflect the views and opinions of the Dialogue of Civilizations Research Institute, its co-founders, or its staff members.

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods, without the prior written permission of the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical reviews and certain other noncommercial uses permitted by copyright law. For permission requests, please write to the publisher:

Dialogue of Civilizations Research Institute gGmbH Französische Straße 23 10117 Berlin Germany +49 30 209677900 [email protected]

Asia in the Contemporary World

Inder Kumar Gujral

Former Prime Minister of India

Originally published 2004 in World Public Forum Dialogue of Civilizations Bulletin 1(1), 158–64. 2 Inder Kumar Gujral “Asia in the contemporary world”

Surely I am voicing the feelings of my fellow participants when I thank the three zealously committed foundations for hosting this Conference at a time when the world is confronted with massive challenges of instability and a gravely damaged U.N. system. Not long back, on first day of the new millennium, the world leaders had gathered to re-affirm their faith in the “purpose and principles of the charter of the United Nations, which have proved timeless and universal. Indeed, their relevance and capacity to inspire have increased, as nations and peoples have become inter connected and inter dependant”. Unfortunately, and I say it with sadness, this commitment was short lived and was scorched primarily by those who were honour bound to protect its spirit and legacies.

Mr. Chairman, it is at this critical moment of history that we are putting our minds together in this historic land of Greece that is renowned for nurturing the cultures of dialogue and fair play.

Let there be no doubt that the world and more specifically Asia is in serious trouble. Country after country is destabilized by the ‘Jihadis’ who attack at will any civil society un-mindful of the religious beliefs of the victims. While the specter of September 11 continues to haunt, the diplomacies of the world are not yet able to bury its ghost. Remnants of the Talibans are not letting the Karzai regime stabilize in Afghanistan. History tells us that a disturbed Afghanistan had always affected peace and stability of the adjoining countries in Central and South Asia that now extends to the Central Eurasia. The process of nation-building in Afghanistan is so muddled that even the coalition forces are unable to effectively tackle it. The deployment of the American forces in Central Asia has added a new dynamic to the region. A crucial question, from the stand point of security environment, is how long the US and the NATO forces would remain there and for how long Russia and China would tolerate their presence in their strategic backyards.

Instability in the region is nurturing the growth of the Islamist fundamentalisms in Xinjiang and Uighur Autonomous regions of China. Media

WORLD PUBLIC FORUM BULLETIN #1(1), 2004 “DIALOGUE OF CIVILIZATIONS”

3 Inder Kumar Gujral “Asia in the contemporary world”

reports that over 10,000 Uighurs are presently undergoing military cum religious trainings in Pakistan and Afghanistan.

The Central Asian Republics, as we know, were born out of Soviet Union’s collapse. They are yet to stabilize as Nation states with enough muscle to resist the internal militancies and onslaughts of the Islamist revivalists from outside. Economic stagnations are adding to the instabilities and their authoritarian rulers do not appreciate that oppressive governance adds fuel to the fires. The SCO (Shanghai Cooperation Organization) of the six powers was delayed and it is yet to effectively counter the wide spread fundamentalist militancies.

Excellencies,

Asia, a home to much promise, is presently troubled by some of the most intractable tensions of our times. The major flash points threatening regional and international stability are unfortunately located in Asia. In West Asia, we have the bleeding sores of Palestine and now the Iraq. In East Asia, we see simmering tensions over the Taiwan issue, and the grave new threat of nuclearisation of the Korean peninsula. Finally, closer to us in India, the Kashmir issue has led to a perpetual Pakistani hostility that continues to abet terrorisms as an instrument of its state policies.

Histories of these disputes are well known and I need not restate them. What does bear emphasis is the presence of a major non Asian power in Asia’s security equations and the role that this has played in perpetuating and in some cases escalating these tensions.

America has for long involved itself in West Asian affairs. The vast oil reserves of this region have proven a fatal attraction and dictated expedient policies. It was fifty three years ago, virtually to this day, that the nascent secular Republic in Iran was violated in a CIA coup that saw Prime Minister Mossadegh overthrown, and the absolutist regime of the US-UK backed Shah Raza Pehlavi installed. Nearly three decades later, after the Iranian revolution had reinstated a popular regime, the

WORLD PUBLIC FORUM BULLETIN #1(1), 2004 “DIALOGUE OF CIVILIZATIONS”

4 Inder Kumar Gujral “Asia in the contemporary world”

US provided neighbouring Iraq with arms and intelligence to sustain and prolong the Iraq-Iran war. Also in the 1980’s America’s long held influence in Saudi Arabia was used to generate an anti-Soviet Union jihad in Afghanistan.

Expedient policies always have a way of returning to haunt their creators. Today, as the products of its own past policies have returned to torment America, policy makers seem to have forsaken any claim to caution and idealism to formulate a new and aggressive foreign policy doctrine reliant on military force and a self proclaimed right to intervene anywhere in any region of the world that self-interest demands.

The objectives of this new strategy were recently elaborated in the US National Security Strategy document that underlined an ostensible containment of WMD, defeating global terrorism, and promoting democratic values. These objectives while noble in themselves, have in actual practice come to cloak a more sinister design.

The stated objective of reducing the threats from the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction are laudable. In Iraq, however, no such weapons of mass destruction have been found even several months after the invasion of the country by coalition forces. Persistent apprehensions that the threat of Iraq’s weapons of mass destruction were exaggerated are being confirmed in recent revelations. The on-going Hutton Enquiry in Great Britain dealing with the events leading to the suicide of one of their senior weapons experts has produced documentary evidence of deliberate political manipulation of the intelligence dossiers dealing with the threat of Iraqi weapons.

It is becoming increasingly apparent that the threat of Iraqi WMD was deliberately over-played in order to frighten particularly the European opponents of the Iraqi war into acquiescence. The real motives for the Iraq war can only be guessed at. These could well include the desire to control the vast oil resources, the second largest in the world, that are located within Iraq. Certainly, the close

WORLD PUBLIC FORUM BULLETIN #1(1), 2004 “DIALOGUE OF CIVILIZATIONS”

5 Inder Kumar Gujral “Asia in the contemporary world”

association of western oil multi-nationals with leading figures in the coalition governments does nothing to allay this apprehension.

In the absence of weapons of mass destruction, senior coalition leaders have started insisting that the war was justified to defeat the threat of global terrorism. This is a pathetic attempt at a post-facto rationalisation of the war. We had no sympathy with the authoritarianism of Saddam Hussein or the others. But it is well- known that Iraq’s secular regime, in marked contrast to some of its neighbours, was laying emphasis on shunning religious extremism while giving women equitous status and protecting the rights of its Christian and other minorities. The more reasonable inference is that the neo-conservative elites within the US administration saw the tragedy of the twin towers attack of September 11 as an opportunity to destroy the only government in the region that was strong enough to challenge the Western policies, particularly as they related to Israel and the Palestine question.

Excellencies, Ladies and Gentlemen,

When noble objectives are distorted and used as a cloak to hide dishonourable motives, it is bad enough. Even more objectionable, however, are the means which the coalition powers had chosen to pursue those objectives.

Worthy friends,

You will agree that this disturbing doctrine violates a fundamental principle of the United Nations, which was established after the horrifying experience of two world wars. Its objective was to stress collective security and de-legitimize the use of force as a means to dispute resolution. And now this new Security doctrine goes further to justify the pre-emptive wars that would deny the accumulated wisdom of history while overturning the key principles under-pinning the world order for the past 55 years. Little wonder that collective security of the past is now sought to be replaced by nothing better than collective insecurity.

WORLD PUBLIC FORUM BULLETIN #1(1), 2004 “DIALOGUE OF CIVILIZATIONS”

6 Inder Kumar Gujral “Asia in the contemporary world”

This projected doctrine asserts America’s right to meddle in internal affairs of individual nations in order to “democratize” them. Thus we witness the spectacle of more than 10,000 innocent Iraqi civilians killed and several others dying of hunger every day in a military campaign designed ostensibly to “liberate” them. The sovereignty of nations is dying and it is the sovereignty of America’s Neo-con values that prevail. The unhappy end-result of the insidious logic inherent in the new doctrine is becoming clear.

Distinguished Friends,

One of the principal setbacks has been to the global war on terrorism. It may be recalled that after the twin towers attack of September 11; the entire world had united with America to condemn the attack and to jointly launch an unprecedented global campaign against terrorisms. A number of United Nations resolutions embody this joint effort by the international community, which by all accounts was largely successful in containing terrorism at least until the Iraq war was launched.

The unfolding tragedy in Iraq may well have given new life and sustenance to the terrorists’ cause. During the past three months, we have witnessed deadly attacks in Indonesia, Saudi Arabia, Morocco, while in Afghanistan a rejuvenated Taliban is attacking and inflicting losses on the armed forces of the new Afghani government. I am deliberately not mentioning the horrors of terror that we in India experience on daily basis.

Distinguished friends,

The global consensus to combat terrorism after September 2001 has also been damaged to a large extent by the actions of the coalition authorities. The campaign against terrorism after all is a product of the various resolutions of the United Nations and when the coalition authorities proclaim that the United Nations is irrelevant, what sanctity then one can attach to the resolutions that were unanimously adopted by the U.N.

WORLD PUBLIC FORUM BULLETIN #1(1), 2004 “DIALOGUE OF CIVILIZATIONS”

7 Inder Kumar Gujral “Asia in the contemporary world”

The consequences of the unilateral approach are slowly unfolding. Iraq has become a quicksand where according to reports, Islamic militants from around the region are converging to attack and immobilize the coalition forces. The international community which was spurned in the events leading up to the war is now reluctant to lend support to coalition troops in their current predicament.

The unfolding situation can be perilous. The logical course of action would be for the coalition to transfer all political and military authority to the United Nations, where it justifiably resides. On the other hand, the hawks within the establishment are reluctant to relinquish their grip on Iraq and are instead vigorously persuading, prodding and cajoling several nations to ‘contribute’ military men and material to their command. If this strategy is not amended, we could witness a situation where the number of foreign militants in Iraq multiplies, and in desperation, as happened in the Vietnam war, the United States forces may lash out at neighbouring countries. Thus we could see the beginnings of a wide Middle Eastern war.

Worthy friends,

This myopic doctrine may create the very consequence that may design to defeat. North Korea was named together with Iran and Iraq as part of an “axis of evil” in President Bush’s State of Union address in January 2003. Naturally, the North Korean authorities came to believe that they may be the victims of a US preemptive attack unless they took necessary measures to defend themselves. The re-arming of North Korea and its revived nuclear programme was to an extent a reaction to the barrage of threats launched against it at the highest level in the US Administration. Fortunately, the US has till now has not taken any military action against North Korea. The peoples of two Koreas, the South and North, are united in their preference for a peaceful negotiated outcome.

For sometime now, questions have been raised as to the likelihood of an American intervention in Iran. Some hawks in America may be favouring military operations even when its own national security is not directly involved, I very much

WORLD PUBLIC FORUM BULLETIN #1(1), 2004 “DIALOGUE OF CIVILIZATIONS”

8 Inder Kumar Gujral “Asia in the contemporary world”

doubt whether the Pentagon will attack Iran, three times the population and four times the land mass of Iraq. But, military operations short of a full-scale invasion may not be ruled out. Given the internal political situation in Iran and the tension between those who want Reforms and those who oppose them, some in America might think of destabilizing that country by talking of armed intervention.

Distinguished Friends,

Here may I put forward certain ideas, which I feel are essential to any process of stabilizing Asia. The first must be restoring the primacy of the United Nations as the global multilateral forum, which embodies the collective will of its member states and the rule of law. It could well be argued that the United Nations process is cumbersome and time-consuming, and requires such improvements as would make it more democratic and representative. It certainly does not follow that the United Nations system and the democratic values it enshrines may be cast aside. Despite all its perceived faults, the multilateral world order has kept the world free from major war over the past half century, and so fulfilled its primary objective of saving future generations from the scourge of war. The democratic basis on which international relations have been run so far has contributed to the willing participation of all nations, howsoever large or small, in the management of global affairs, fostering thereby a sense of global community. Human Rights have been central in this message. The United Nations has encouraged both the notion of peace and prosperity as a global birthright, and the democratic means to attain it.

We must conceive of an Asian security order which comprises primarily all the states of Asia. The trilateral consultations at the Foreign Ministers’ level between Russia, China and India can provide a basis for such an Asian forum. Tripartite consultations should be gradually enlarged to include South East Asia and West Asia with a view to eventually unite all of Asia within this forum. An Asian forum will reflect Asian values such as consensus, conciliation and a peaceful

WORLD PUBLIC FORUM BULLETIN #1(1), 2004 “DIALOGUE OF CIVILIZATIONS”

9 Inder Kumar Gujral “Asia in the contemporary world”

resolution of all disputes. Restoring these values is central to the maintenance of Asian stability.

I am all for a wholesome friendship with America. I had myself opened a new chapter in the Indo-U.S. relations in September of 1997, when I met President Clinton in New York. All that followed is now a part of our history. Though the geo strategic reality now is that the U.S.A. has taken advantage of the events to build a chain of military bases in Pakistan, Afghanistan, the Gulf countries, and the Central Asian republics, in other words, from the Caspian to the Indian Ocean. Does such a widespread American military presence enhance Asian security?

Worthy friends,

Iraq and rest of Asia does not need more troops, American, Mexican, Moroccan or Nigerian. What is needed is a paradigm shift in policy on the part of America. The task for assisting the people of Iraq to install a democratically elected government should be transferred to the United Nations where the Arabs and their friends including India would do their utmost to end the alienations.

It is time for the Asians who had suffered the three centuries of Imperial rule to collectively meet challenges of destabilization lurking before Asia in general and South, West and Central Asia in particular. In a situation when the South Asian subcontinent and the areas adjacent to it are facing grave threats of destabilization, it is all the more important to strengthen in every possible manner the bilateral and regional initiatives to meet these situations. Instead of looking elsewhere for mediation or intervention to stabilize the region, the Asian states must themselves come forward with creative initiatives to build an effective structure of Asian peace and stability in the spirit of UN Charter which endorses regional security system. The three survivors in the East Asia economic crisis of the 90’s – India, Russia and China – have an important obligation to help forge a system of Asian security and cooperation which will go a long way to revive the global economy that is presently ridden with a deep crisis.

WORLD PUBLIC FORUM BULLETIN #1(1), 2004 “DIALOGUE OF CIVILIZATIONS”