Nepali Times

#75 4 - 10 January 2002 20 pages Rs 20 INSTANTINSTANT EVERESTEVEREST 10-1110-11 Golf in Gokarna 19 Summiting in BINOD BHATTARAI AND ○○○○○○○○○ HEMLATA○○○○○○○○○○ RAI erhaps there was really no doubt that this SAARC Summit would P ultimately go ahead. Perhaps all the sabre-rattling of the past weeks Kathmandu between India and Pakistan was in fact This SAARC Summit is going to be an India- carefully calibrated brinkmanship to make this summit happen. Pakistan affair. But we don’t mind as long as SUBHAS RAI Whatever the case, the two South they patch up in Kathmandu. Asian nations nearly went to war over ○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○○ the 13 December suicide attack on ○○○○○○○○○○ Parliament in New Delhi. They have now stepped back from the brink. Will more teeth by making it compatible Kathmandu be where they patch up? with national laws, and agreed with More importantly: will Kathmandu be provisions of post-11 September where they will find some mechanism United Nations Security Council Weekly Internet Poll # 15 Q. Do you think 2002 will be a better year for Nepal to prevent a risky escalation like this Resolution 1373. But what if one nation’s than 2001? in future? terrorist is another’s freedom fighter? The Not likely, say experts and officials answer from one delegate: “We did not from the region who have gathered in go into definitions.” Kathmandu this week prior to the Officials in the preparatory Summit. “We shouldn’t be too ambi- meetings also agreed on deadlines: tious,” one senior South Asian diplomat having the SAFTA framework treaty told us, “The fact that the Summit is ready by end-2002, re-starting SAARC taking place is already a miracle.” Indian meetings at different levels to keep and Pakistani officials are coy about the dialogue open. More could happen by question on everyone’s lips: will Prime the time we reach the Summit because Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee and General everyone, including leaders, seem to be Pervez Musharraf shake hands in front of under a lot of pressure to show that the television cameras after the Nagarkot SAARC works. Total votes: 850 retreat? “Let’s wait and see,” is all they say. “The timing may have worked As the tit-for-tat cancellations of perfectly for all because despite trains, over-flights and satellite transmis- tension, the Summit provided an sions show, things can get pretty petty opening,” says Sridhar Khatri, execu- between New Delhi and Islamabad. tive director of the Institute of Foreign Even in Kathmandu, organisers said, Affairs in Kathmandu. “It looks like there was at least one request for a Churchill’s jaw-jaw being better change in seating arrangements by one of than war-war is at work inside the the countries which didn’t want to sit closed doors.” next to another. Ironically, participants There is little doubt that the entire said the atmosphere during the prepara- spotlight during this summit is going to tory meetings was one of surprising be on Vajpayee and Musharraf. In fact, friendship and camaraderie. “Outside their every gesture and eye contact (if not they are about to go to war, inside they shoulder contact) is going to be minutely are best of friends,” one Nepali partici- recorded for signs of thaw. The danger is pants told us. “We have Pakistan that the media glare in Kathmandu may seconding Indian proposals and the tempt both to play to the domestic other way round. Despite everything galleries. But for SAARC’s sake, everyone wants SAARC.” everyone is hoping for a truce. By all accounts, the draft declaration Sixteen years of SAARC have made diplomat told us: “We have taken only answer to of the Summit and other conventions not just the leaders of India and Editorial p2 terrorism for so long, we just had to South Asia’s Tsk Tsk have seen surprisingly smooth sailing Pakistan, but the smaller countries as draw the line.” But Pakistani officials troubles. There through the committees. “There are no well guilty enough to at least show they say they have gone out of their way to is no other CK Lal p2 hitches, no needlessly long debates can meet during these annual sum- assuage India on terrorism. “There is road.” But going South Asian-ness about commas and brackets that we saw mits—even if it is just to deliver real mistrust. They don’t want on this road has Mahbub-ul Haq p3 in previous summits,” another delegate speeches. This time, the added compli- to believe we are acting in good been painfully Sub-Saharan Asia told us. The reason could be that cation was India’s ban on overflights by faith,” said one. slow, and everyone wants this on-again-off-again Pakistan International Airlines which Former SAARC Secretary General, SAARC appears to need new vision and Summit to go without a hitch. forced Gen Musharraf to take a round- Nepali diplomat Yadav Kant Silwal commitment if it is survive its self-inflicted The meetings discussed giving the about route via China. India denied it saying most of this is posturing. He is a injuries. Kathmandu should mark the 1987 SAARC anti-terrorism convention is being petty, one senior Indian true-blue believer in SAARC: “This is the beginning of this process. 222 EDITORIAL 4 - 10 JANUARY 2002 NEPALI TIMES Nepali Times is published by Himalmedia Pvt Ltd, Chief Editor: Kunda Dixit Editor: Anagha Neelakantan Design: Kiran Maharjan [email protected], www.nepalitimes.com Leave Kashmir aside for a moment. Isnít a moderate Pakistan in everyoneís Advertising: Sunaina Shah [email protected] Subscription: Anil Karki [email protected] interest? Itís in General Musharrafís interest, and itís in Prime Minister Vajpayeeís Sales: Sudan Bista [email protected] Sanchaya Kosh Building, Block A-4th Floor, Lalitpur interest. Escalating the current tension only benefits extremists in both India and GPO Box 7251, Kathmandu, Nepal Pakistan. By its short-sighted sabre-rattling New Delhi is not giving Gen Musharraf Tel: 01-543333-7, Fax: 01-521013 Printed at Jagadamba Press: 01-521393 political space, and playing right into the hands of those who want to Talebanise Pakistan. Gen Musharraf needs to reign in the Talebanís mentors within his own intelligence community, but threatening to go to war is not going to make that job easier for him. TSK TSK The leaders of India and Pakistan need to once and for all redefine their perspec- tive on security. It is no longer about outdated military concepts like ìstrategic depthî or The daily ceremony at the India-Pakistan border ìdoomsday deterrenceî, it is no longer about adolescent posturing with nuclear crossing where turbaned border guards go through erections. It is about human security and development. The enemy is within, not in the an extravagantly choreographed flag-lowering ritual otherís territory. Poverty, inequality, decades of mal-governance and corruption have has now come to symbolise the vacuity and swag- rotted the innards of both countries. More than half the populations in both countries ger of the relations between these two countries. live in poverty, the parameters for infant mortality, literacy and safe drinking water are What they think is a patriotic pageant at Atari shameful even by sub-Saharan standards. actually resembles a cock-fight. While people on both Having nuclear weapons does not mean zilch. Remember the Soviet Union? It had sides cheer, the rest of the world is laughing. Separated at enough warheads to destroy the world ten times over (once would have been quite birth, the governments of these twin nations are so enough, but thatís just how mad they were during the Cold War). The Union of Soviet consumed by their envious loathing for each other they Socialist Republics imploded under the weight of its own inability to address economic are holding their own people and the rest of South and governance crises. International stature comes from the strength of your eco- Asia hostage. Come on, guys, grow up. nomic and social indicators, not the size of your arsenal. The enmity between India The latest brinkmanship came in the run-up th and Pakistan, besides threatening us all with radioactive contamination, is dragging to the 11 SAARC Summit. Just look at the down the economy of the rest of the region. inane chest-thumping. Calling From our vantage point in the Himalaya, we see the bilateral bickering between these two governments New Delhi and Islamabad for what it is: a dangerous game that is diverting precious infantile would be an resources away from a more urgent task that they (and we) need to addressóSouth insult to children. With Asiaís development challenge. the Afghan war But Indian and Pakistani hawks need each otherís hatred to perpetuate their holds drawing to a close, the on power. Saner leaders must now call the shots and take bilateral relations to the conflict is now threatening fundamental need to give all Indians and Pakistanis a chance for more decent lives. On to creep eastwards. New that they both need to be fundamentalists. Delhi, which felt peeved and left out as Washington wooed Islamabad for support in the anti-Taleban campaign IS US is now trying to get back the worldís SAARC attention. ìWeíre here,î they seem to say There is really no sense blaming the SAARC Secretariat in Kathmandu for the mess when they mass troops along the Pakistan border, that this regional body is in. SAARC is us. It is the lowest common denominator of or cancel the overfly rights of Pakistani airliners. In our red-tape, lack of transparency, our debilitating fatalism. It is a symbol of our trying to imitate Americaís ìwar on terrorî, the Indians collective failures to manage our own countries.

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