Arrest this negative trend

The Hindu

July 31, 2008

India and Pakistan have wisely decided not to make too much of the flare-up on the Line of Control, although they have put out contradictory versions of the incident.

In allowing the problem to be sorted out at the battalion commander level, the two sides signalled that they wished to treat it as a disturbance in a confined area.

The Directors General of Military Operations of the two armies have also been in touch on a hotline in an effort to keep the situation under cont rol. That said, there is clearly a need for Islamabad and New Delhi to put in greater efforts to arrest this negative trend.

A ceasefire that has held quite well for over four years has been allegedly violated on at least 19 occasions since January 2008.

In Islamabad’s version, the clashes occurred mainly because Indian army units have built new forward observation posts in a display of aggressive intent. If this is the case, a clear demarcation of positions held at the time the ceasefire was instituted could reduce the chances of intentions being misconstrued.

According to New Delhi, on most occasions Pakistani troops opened fire to facilitate infiltration by militant groups.

This version needs to be treated as credible because there were provocative actions of this sort on a fairly regular basis before the ceasefire was put in place.

A few months ago, there was even a case of mistaken identity: Pakistani soldiers were killed by a militant group driven back from the Indian side.
There appears to be a link between the increase in the number of ceasefire violations and the transition to civilian rule.

During its four months of existence, the federal government led by the Pakistan People’s Party has slipped up on more than one front. It cannot credibly claim that it is powerless to act against militant groups.

Much evidence has accumulated over the years that these groups raise funds, recruit personnel, and train them in parts of Pakistan patrolled by police forces and not the army.

The federal and provincial governments can certainly produce better results if they put their minds to it.

Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani was reminded of his responsibilities when the White House issued a fact sheet after his meeting with President George W. Bush.

The communique emphasised Pakistan’s obligation to protect its neighbours. In a significant departure from past practice, the fact sheet did not specify Afghanistan as the neighbour that needs to be protected.

India and Pakistan must give the highest importance to maintaining and building on détente — and must do this directly and bilaterally, without any intermediation.

Nations’ right to self-determination

By Manzoor Chandio
Written on July 28, 2008

1. All peoples have the right of self-determination. By virtue of that right they freely determine their political status and freely pursue their economic, social and cultural development.

2. All peoples may, for their own ends, freely dispose of their natural wealth and resources without prejudice to any obligations arising out of international economic co-operation, based upon the principle of mutual benefit, and international law. In no case may a people be deprived of its own means of subsistence.

3. The States Parties to the present Covenant, including those having responsibility for the administration of Non-Self-Governing and Trust Territories, shall promote the realization of the right of self-determination, and shall respect that right, in conformity with the provisions of the Charter of the United Nations.

--The United Nations’ International Covenant On Civil And Political Rights

MANY people wish that Pakistan’s best course for the future is democracy, provincial autonomy and control of resources by people who own them. This demand is often repeated in each seminar and conference by all and sundry.
They forget that provincial autonomy was envisaged in the Pakistan Resolution in 1940, democracy was promised by Quiad-i-Azam in 1947 and the control of resources by abolishing the Concurrent List in 1973. But this did not happen.
These concepts may have been effective immediately after the partition, but they are now nothing more than a huge drag.
Federal parties like the PPP and the PML-N may think this is still a pipe dream. Implementation of these systems now seems to be a dream gone sore.
But nationalists from smaller provinces say now this is 21st century and ideas of provincial autonomy and decentralization promised in 20th century have become irrelevant.
Now there is talk that the problem of Baloch people is not provincial autonomy or share in natural resources and constitutional rights in the framework of Pakistan, but the right to self-determination and self-rule. They think ongoing struggle is liberation movement against the state slavery.
Over the years questions have been asked whether the integrity of the federation of Pakistan is in jeopardy over the growing disparity between the federating units and to what extent do the people from provinces other than Punjab have disliking for the over-centralised federal set-up.
The people of the smaller provinces are calling names for many of their woes and appalling inequalities within and between the provinces.
Ironically, there is an air of insouciance in Punjab because of its sheer size and military might.
There is a common perception in Pakistan that the country is some 200 years back of the West. In Sindh, it is believed that the province’s rural hinterland is some 50 years back of Punjab.
Both perceptions might be true in the sense that Pakistan has not yet developed as the first-class modern institutions to be included in the list of developed countries.
It still imports aeroplans, automobiles, computers and many military and non-military equipment and gadgets.
The rural hinterland of Sindh still can not produce electric fans and motors which are brought from Gujarat and Gujranwala, sport kits from Sialkot, cutlery buts from Wazirabad and fabric from Faisalabad.
Thousand of tube-wells and water pumps installed across Sindh are also brought from Punjab. The entire country depends on agricultural implements like land levelers, ploughs, thrashers made in Punjab.
Even the tractors engines are first brought to Karachi then transported to Lahore and after being assembled there marketed in the country. Many daily use things like soaps and toothpaste are produced in Punjab and marketed in Sindh.
It is a big tragedy Sindh even can not produce electric buttons which are house-made items in Punjab. With the industrialization of central Punjab, millions of Punjabis have changed their mode of production from agriculture to industry.
While Sindhis are still associated with the centuries old mode of production—the agriculture.
In the armed forces, Punjabis have acquainted themselves with the nuclear bomb making to fly F-16 and operate the most frigates. While Sindhis have still to make DIGs and IGs.
Why Punjab is 50 years ahead of Sindh? There are many theories being discussed among the new emerging educated class in Sindh.
A look at the federation’s employing intuitions shows how most of the bodies are out of bounds for people from the two provinces.
The Pakistan Army, which also enjoys considerable influence in the decision-making, has earned the preferred nomenclature in the two provinces as the Punjab Army because it does not have proportional representation from all ethnic groups.
Many eyebrows are being raised on Dr Ayesha Siddiqa’s book ‘the Military Inc.’ that how nine per cent of Pakistan’s population controls unprecedented share in the national economy.
But she did not elaborate that Sindhis and the Baloch, whose combined representation in Pakistan's military is very low, have not stakes in the Pakistan Military Inc., the country’s biggest corporate conglomerate.
The two nations have no representation in the Frontier Works Organisation, (the largest construction company), the National Logistic Cell (the largest transport company), DHAs (one of the Pakistan’s largest land owners) and airlines, bakeries, cinemas and gas stations that had been set up by the armed forces.
Factories, industries and firms established by military subsidiaries—the Fauji Foundation, Bahria Foundation and Shaheen Foundation –virtually remain out of bounds for Sindhis and Baloch.
If we look at the Pakistan civil services, only one province rules the roost.
The Senate of Pakistan was told in 2006 that Punjab occupies 116 out of total 179 secretary-level posts in federal government departments. The NWFP stood second with 31 high-ranking officers, Sindh has 19 officers and Balochistan has the lowest representation in civil bureaucracy with only one secretary and two joint secretaries.
In Sindh police, purely a provincial subject, thousands of officials are recruited from Punjab. It is being argued that any Pakistani from any part of the country can work anywhere. If so is the argument then how many Sindhis and the Baloch had been inducted in the Punjab police? There is an army of jobless youth in the two provinces. Will the Punjab government give them jobs as a token of harmony and to prove that Punjab is also a part of Pakistan?
The Pakistan Cricket Board has yet to select any Sindhi or Baloch in the national cricket team. Isn't there a single youth in Sindh and Balochistan who can run in the ground at the speed of ball?
The Pakistan Hockey Federation has been made an exclusive sport of youth from Punjab. There is not a single Sindhi or Baloch player in the hockey team which happens to be the national sport of the country.
At present, statistics paint a dismal picture of the representation of Sindhis and the Baloch in the Foreign Office and diplomatic machines abroad. Sindh being the province which in the past had produced great statesmen, diplomats and constitutionalists like Mohammed Ali Jinnah, Zulfikar Ali Bhutto and Hafeez Pirzado can not have diplomats of lower grade if we do not talk about ambassadors, first secretaries and attaché.
The world has entered a paradigm in which the ideas of human capital are being given priority over all other theories. But here in this country people are still being pushed against the wall and deprived their equal rights.
Now the question is being raised: Is this country an exclusive domain of one province or one group of people in which others have no equal say?

manzoorchandio@hotmail.com

Functioning Paradox

The Telegraph

July 27 , 2008

Pens dipped in vitriol have described the terrible blot perpetrated by the attempt to bribe members of parliament during the trust vote in the Lok Sabha.

That such an episode revealed the most seedy aspects of India’s political life goes without saying. What is worse is that it was allowed to happen within the hallowed portals of parliament. No one has yet answered the question as to how a group of members of parliament entered the house with bags containing large amounts of money. It is necessary to segregate what happened within parliament from what happened outside it.

They are related — and both deserve to be condemned — but they need to be discussed separately.

It is difficult to believe that senior leaders of the Bharatiya Janata Party, like L.K. Advani, were unaware that MPs belonging to the BJP would be making such an exhibition in the Lok Sabha. Yet such a thing occurred.

This shows one of two things. One, that even veteran parliamentarians like Mr Advani have lost all respect for basic parliamentary conventions and decorum. They are willing to go along with anything so long as a few points can be score against the government and the latter embarrassed.

The other is that they are unable to control their party’s MPs and to educate them in the codes of parliamentary behaviour.
Outside the Lok Sabha was carried out the botched attempt to bribe MPs.

The debate about whether the attempt was actually made or was in fact a plant to disrupt proceedings in parliament hides two very important things. One is the almost universal acceptance that Indian politicians are quite capable of giving and receiving bribes.

In fact, the general feeling is that they are capable of far worse. The other is the role that money has come to play in the political life of the country.

There exist far too many instances of this to make a list. The role of money extends from funding political parties, planting questions in parliament to buying MPs and even eliminating political rivals through hired killers.

There is a consensus of condemnation, but no agreement on how this pernicious influence can be reduced and removed. Like many other blots, this remains a feature of Indian democracy. Unless this problem is addressed, attempts at bribing MPs will continue to recur.
The deepening of democracy is bringing within the ambit of political life large groups of people who are ignorant about the Westminster style of politics and governance.

The deepening is the strength and pride of India’s democracy; and the violation of the Westminster codes of conduct the weakness and shame of Indian democracy.

This is the great paradox of the Indian polity. To only curse what happened without noting the paradox is to notice just the surface ripples without taking cognizance of the deep currents that are moving Indian politics.

Political stasis in Nepal

The Hindu

July 25, 2008

Under normal circumstances, the election of Ram Baran Yadav, a Madhesi, as the first President of the Republic of Nepal should have been an occasion for celebration.

That a member of a marginalised community was elected as the constitutional head of state would have been a fitting tribute to the inclusive nature of the struggle the Nepali people have waged for their democratic rights.

Yet the manner in which the Nepali Congress (NC), the Communist Party of Nepal (Unified Marxist-Leninist), and the Madhesi Janadhikar Forum (MJF) banded together to thwart the candidature of Ram Raja Prasad Singh, the Maoist nominee for President, is likely to have serious consequences for the political stability of the young republic.

The Communist Party of Nepal (Maoist), the single largest party in the Constituent Assembly, has declared that it is no longer interested in forming the government.

Its reasoning is that if the NC-UML-MJF combination was able to get Mr. Yadav of the NC elected President and Parmanand Jha of the MJF Vice-President, nothing will stop them from choosing a Prime Minister from their own ranks.

Even if the Maoist leader, Prachanda, were to become Prime Minister, the three-party alignment will ensure that he will serve on their sufferance. This means Girija Prasad Koirala — the man who led his party to defeat in the Constituent Assembly elections and has submitted his resignation as Prime Minister to the new President — could re-emerge as Prime Minister. The more things change, the more they remain the same.
Politics in Nepal would not have come to such a pass had the NC and the CPN (UML) been more gracious in defeat and the Maoists more magnanimous in victory.

To be fair to the former rebels, they dropped their initial insistence on holding both the presidency and the prime ministership; and declared that they were prepared to support any presidential candidate other than Mr. Koirala or Madhav Kumar Nepal of the UML. But these two parties refused to nominate a second leader from their own ranks, thus prolonging the stasis that has set in since mid-April, when the CA results were declared.

It was only when the Maoists nominated Mr. Singh that the NC and the UML leapt in with Madhesi nominees of their own. The Maoists had proposed splitting the four top constitutional posts equally among Nepal’s hill, plains, tribal, and female population.

By offering the vice-presidency to the MJF, the NC managed to wreck the Madhesi outfit’s compact with the Maoists.

Forming a government without Maoist participation will be undemocratic as well as extraordinarily unwise: it will stand the verdict of the Constituent Assembly elections on its head and jeopardise the whole democratic exercise.

US lauds India for N-deal

THE TIMES OF INDIA

July 24, 2008

SINGAPORE: The US has congratulated the UPA government, which won the trust vote in the Lok Sabha, for its "deep resolve" to go ahead with the historic Indo-US civilian nuclear deal. US Secretary of State Condoleeza Rice on Wednesday night met Minister of State for External Affairs Anand Sharma on the sidelines of ASEAN ministerial meet here.

The leaders had a "very good" meeting during which Rice appreciated India's "resolve to go ahead with the historic nuclear deal", highly-placed sources said. They discussed the "entire gamut of issues" relating to the deal and the two leaders will again meet later today, the sources said.

Sharma is heading the Indian delegation to the 10-member Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) of which New Delhi is a dialogue partner. During the ASEAN-India Ministerial Meeting attended by Sharma, the regional grouping said they welcomed the Indo-US agreement which would ensure energy security for India and hoped the countries would be able to conclude the pact soon.

After the government won the confidence motion on Tuesday night, the US had said it will work with Indian government to expedite the processes at IAEA and 45-nation Nuclear Suppliers Group (NSG) for an exemption for nuclear commerce.

Joining hands for peace

By Rajmohan Gandhi
Daily DAWN, July 22, 2008

MANY in India have been troubled over the charge publicly levelled by a senior official that Pakistan’s agencies planned the bombing of the Indian embassy in Kabul, and over suggestions that Indian agencies should consider retaliating in like fashion against locations in Pakistan where hits against Indian targets are allegedly planned.

If New Delhi had found evidence of the ISI’s role in the destructive act in Kabul, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and Foreign Minister Pranab Mukherjee should have confronted their Pakistani counterparts with it.

If the evidence was confirmed, the Indian premier should have solemnly presented it to the Pakistani and Indian peoples, and to the world.

Given the power and secrecy of the subcontinent’s intelligence agencies, anything, it is true, can occur. Yet if extremist pro-Taliban groups in Afghanistan and in Pakistan’s tribal areas have on numberless occasions targeted Pakistani leaders and its security forces for supporting the US-led war on terror, the Indian embassy in Kabul would also be a natural target for them.

Apart from the fact that Indian backing for the war against terror has been unambiguous and well known, India’s role in the reconstruction of Afghanistan’s infrastructure also invites the Taliban’s hostility.

Therefore assertions in New Delhi (or Kabul) that a Pakistani agency rather than one of Afghanistan’s Taliban-related extremist groups attacked the embassy have to be backed by solid evidence.

And if the ISI or sections of it are indeed in cahoots with the Taliban, it is the people of Pakistan who should worry the most and devise steps necessary to break the unholy alliance. In the struggle against the threats of extremism and terrorism, the people of Pakistan are the Indian people’s natural partners, and a key constituency for Indian leaders perturbed by the threats.In fact the Kabul incident should trigger a much-needed partnership between the people of Pakistan and the people of India.

Pakistanis should demand from Islamabad the truth about the charge that an intelligence agency was involved, and Indians should likewise ask New Delhi how its agencies quickly reached the conclusion that not pro-Taliban extremists but the ISI was responsible.People on both sides of the India-Pakistan border (and on both sides of the Pakistan-Afghanistan border) have the right to know the facts about the embassy bombing, for their security is at stake. And if security agencies are engaged in dirty work or in disinformation, then the peoples of Pakistan and India must jointly take up the daunting yet inescapable task of putting the agencies in their place.To take our countries back from the agencies may well be the need of the hour.

Ministers are our servants, and the agencies our servants’ mazdoors. Of course servants too are always entitled to respect, and to appreciation when they do their job well. I for one refuse to endorse the assessment of some of India’s Pakistan-watchers that elected leaders will prove worse than the military in dealing with extremism.

The late Bhutto’s powerfully articulated rejection of extremism is a strong legacy that is shared, as far as I can see, across the spectrum of mainline Pakistani politics, by PML and ANP leaders as by the PPP.

However, for figuring out effective ways of addressing grievances and defeating extremism and terrorism these politicians may need to consult more closely with one another across party, provincial and ethnic divides, and also with military and security experts.Perhaps intellectuals on both sides of the Pak-India border should prepare an updated manifesto for the subcontinent.

Some items on such a manifesto are obvious: mutual respect, including unreserved respect for the other nation’s independence; an equally unequivocal rejection of violence, whether direct or indirect, open or concealed, for solving internal, bilateral or international disputes; a clear rejection of the clash-of-civilisations theory; a solution for Kashmir acceptable to Kashmiris and to India and Pakistan; and a commitment to minority rights in both countries.

Also critical to such a manifesto, yet not so obvious in our dazzlingly globalised world, is a commitment to search for subcontinental and regional solutions instead of looking to global powers or a superpower for interventions.

The US and China are formidable countries, and both India and Pakistan have tried to build relationships with them. Given the history of India-Pakistan mistrust, such relationships have seemed attractive.Yet geography is stronger than history.

Oceans and mountains remain large impediments even in the 21st century. For years India and Pakistan have tried to involve distant powers in their dealings with each other, with poor results. It is time to put the subcontinent first. Whether we like it or not, geography mandates coexistence. We can decide to enjoy what cannot be helped and seek to profit from it.This does not mean that Pakistan should give up on its China links, or that India should turn its back on Afghanistan or on India-US relations.

What it does mean is that India-Afghanistan or India-US links should not grow at Pakistan’s expense, or Pakistan-China links at India’s cost. It also means that our peoples should be vigilant against inviting external conflicts to the soil of the subcontinent.We should acknowledge, in both India and Pakistan, not only the divisive roles of the agencies but also the hegemonic character of our societies.

The arrogance of the high-born, the high-placed and the man with the stick is known to both countries. While Pakistan may not formally accept caste hierarchies the way India continues to do (despite progressive laws and the emerging political power of the so-called lower or ‘untouchable’ castes), Pakistani society seems to tolerate armed elites and private jails.In India and Pakistan alike, muscle-power or gun-power is celebrated in posters and movies. In real-life interactions between the citizen and the policeman or the government functionary, the citizen usually comes off second best in both countries.

Correcting this equation, and honouring the listening policeman or politician rather than the macho one, has to be part of our subcontinental manifesto.

If despite disasters and misgovernance our economies have grown, the credit should above all go to the subcontinent’s hard-working and enterprising people. Our countries are on the move because of what our ‘common’ people grow, create, repair or remit, and the millions of vehicles they skilfully drive on hazardous roads.Should we be betting on the subcontinent’s civil society, on the sanity and energy of our peoples?

Though not permanent, hates and fears can after all continue for long, especially when politicians feed those fears and hates instead of working on education and healthcare. Still it may be a good idea to bet on our peoples and on their willingness to become partners. Better to bet thus and lose than concede that mutual destruction is the subcontinent’s destiny.

The writer is research professor at the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign.

Politics should not derail peace process: Advani

By Jawed Naqvi

Daily DAWN

NEW DELHI, July 20: Pakistan’s Foreign Secretary Salman Bashir met Indian opposition leader Lal Kishan Advani on Sunday ahead of a two-day dialogue on confidence-building measures (CBMs) with his Indian counterpart Shivshankar Menon.

Mr Advani briefed Mr Bashir about a consensus among Indian parties “for the objective of achieving peace” with Pakistan and said domestic political situations in either country should not be allowed to interfere with the process.

According to a statement by the Pakistan High Commission, Mr Advani also assured the foreign secretary of his party’s full support to the current peace process in “letter and spirit”.

The Pakistani statement did not mention two separate meetings Mr Bashir had with representatives of Kashmiri resistance during which Islamabad’s approach to their struggle came in for critical comment.Hurriyat chairman Mirwaiz Umar Farooq was invited first to meet Mr Bashir with two other Kashmiri leaders at the high commission.

The Mirwaiz said he told Mr Bashir that CBM talks were welcome as long as they did not slow down the political resolution of the Kashmir issue.

He reminded the Pakistani official that the recent discovery of mass graves at a former campsite used by the Indian army pointed to sinister happenings in the Valley.

Unidentified people were buried there in hundreds.He said there were 200 other campsites across Jammu and Kashmir that needed to be inspected. An estimated 10,000 people have been declared missing in the state. The European Union is taking interest in the matter, the Mirwaiz said.

Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh had promised zero tolerance for human rights abuse in Kashmir. “There has been no follow-up on any of the promises.”

On the other hand, the Mirwaiz said, Pakistan had shown weakness by not pressing its own point of view on the matter while of late it had readilyaccepted everything India wanted to discuss in the talks.Mr Bashir however said Pakistan was following up all the issues under the composite dialogue.

He said greater trade across the LoC would benefit the people of the state.JKLF leader Yasin Malik told Dawn that in his meeting with Mr Bashir he had emphasised the need to accelerate the political resolution of the Kashmir issue, lest people begin to lose faith in the CBMs.

“I told him that we welcome the CBMs. But there should also be progress on the resolution of the political issue.”As the foreign secretaries prepared to resume their composite dialogue here on Monday, analysts said recent attacks on Indian targets in Kashmir and Afghanistan by suspected militants coupled with political turbulence in both countries were expected to shadow the talks.

At least 10 security personnel were killed and many injured in a landmine blast on Srinagar-Baramulla road on Saturday, a day ahead of Mr Bashir’s arrival here.

Earlier, India’s National Security Advisor M.K. Narayanan had blamed the ISI for a devastating suicide attack on the Indian embassy in Kabul.It is inevitable that Mr Bashir and Mr Menon would discuss these incidents together with their structured dialogue on Kashmir, cross-border terrorism and CBMs.

The two-day talks on July 21 and 22 will coincide with a crucial trust vote in the Indian parliament in which the government of Prime Minister Manmohan Singh looks vulnerable before a combined force of the opposition in a row over a nuclear deal with the United States.

If he survives, a meeting between the prime ministers of the two countries due next month in Colombo would assume centre-stage.

On Friday in Islamabad a working group on LoC raised some of the issues expected to be taken up during the composite dialogue.

On the other hand, Press Trust of India said on Saturday that India could emerge as Pakistan’s second largest trading partner after China owing to measures announced by Islamabad to boost bilateral trade, including the import of diesel and fuel oil from India.

India and the IAEA

By Prabir Purkayastha

The Hindu, July 14, 2008

Various commentators have argued that the draft IAEA Safeguards Agreement gives India considerable leeway, denied it under the Hyde Act, in taking corrective action in case fuel supplies are interrupted.

To be fair, unlike government spokespersons, some of these analysts concede that all imported reactors will remain permanently under safeguards. But one of the claims adduced by these non-official defenders in support of the Agreement is that India can unilaterally withdra w from IAEA safeguards its indigenous reactors that are made subject to the Agreement, provided all the imported fuel is taken out.
This curious conclusion flows from a wholly untenable reading of Article 29 of the Agreement, which states: “The termination of safeguards on items subject to this Agreement shall be implemented taking into account the provisions of GOV/1621 (20 August 1973).”

Since the latter is a restricted document of the IAEA’s Board of Governors, these non-official analysts have speculated that with respect to termination of safeguards, the import of GOV/1621 into Article 29 has let non-supplied facilities off the hook, by requiring them to be under safeguards only as long as they use imported fuel! From this, they have jumped to the conclusion that therefore for such indigenous facilities, India does not even need to invoke its preambular ‘right’ to take “corrective measures.”
Nowhere does GOV/1621 provide the remotest sanction for any such interpretation. I happen to have the text of this restricted 1973 document.

It originated from the urging of “a substantial number of Governors … that there should be a greater degree of standardisation than in the past with respect to the duration and termination of such agreements as may henceforth be concluded under the Agency’s Safeguards System … for the application of safeguards in connection with nuclear material, equipment, facilities or non-nuclear material supplied to States by third parties.”
Two concepts are clearly laid out in the IAEA document for these future agreements: (a) “the duration of the agreement should be related to the period of actual use of the items in the recipient State”; and (b) “the provisions for terminating the agreement should be formulated in such a way that the rights and obligations of the parties continue to apply in connection with supplied nuclear material and with special fissionable material produced, processed or used in or in connection with supplied nuclear material, equipment, facilities or non-nuclear material, until such time as the Agency has terminated the application of safeguards thereto...”
Further, by way of exposition of these concepts, the Annex to the document makes it clear that after termination, “the rights and obligations of the parties, as provided for in the agreement, would continue to apply in connection with any supplied material or items and with any special fissionable material produced, processed or used in or in connection with any supplied material or items which have been included in the inventory, until such material or items had been removed from the inventory” (emphasis added). The only way such “items or non-nuclear material could be removed from the purview of the agreement” is “if they had been consumed, were no longer usable for any nuclear activity relevant from the point of view of safeguards, or had become practically irrecoverable.”
GOV/1621 ensures that all such materials “would be subject to safeguards until the Agency had terminated safeguards on that special fissionable and nuclear material in accordance with the provisions of the Agency’s Safeguards System. Thus, the actual termination of the operation of the provisions of the Agreement would take place only when everything had been removed from the inventory” (emphasis added).
The effect of GOV/1621, therefore, is to tighten and make more restrictive the application of IAEA safeguards to all supplied nuclear material, facilities, and items. But it is wholly fanciful to say that it empowers or even allows India to take non-supplied facilities made subject to the Agreement out of safeguards, if they no longer use supplied fuel.
For indigenous nuclear facilities that have been built without supplies from any third party, we have to consider two additional Articles of the Agreement. One is that “items” for safeguards are governed by Article 11(a), which defines items to include: “any facility listed in the Annex to this Agreement, as notified by India.” The second is Article 32, which explicitly states: “Safeguards shall be terminated on a facility listed in the Annex after India and the Agency have jointly determined that the facility is no longer usable for any nuclear activity relevant from the point of view of safeguards” (emphasis added).
If we accept that Article 32 will come into play for taking facilities out of safeguards, there are three conditions that need to be fulfilled. First, both parties — India and the IAEA — need to agree to this; it is not a unilateral decision for India to make. Secondly, the facility must no longer be usable for any nuclear activity. Any facility that produces nuclear energy is obviously usable for nuclear activity. Lastly, the facility must be “relevant from the point of view of safeguards.” Any facility offered by India under Article 14 for safeguards continues to be relevant for safeguards. The issue of imported fuel is extraneous to any of these considerations.
Under the separation plan, India is offering several facilities for safeguards — not just reactors, but also heavy water plants, research and storage facilities. All these will be under safeguards if they are included in the Annex by India and will be governed by the Articles of the Agreement. Linking import of fuel with the duration of the safeguards on facilities is not relevant here. Research facilities, for example, do not even import fuel. Is it then possible that once we have offered them for safeguards, we can take them out any time we want?
Let us take the next contention that once corrective measures figure in the Agreement, it does not matter whether they are in the preamble or in the operative part of the Agreement. The issue is not whether the preamble is a part of an agreement or a treaty. The issue here is whether the scope of termination of safeguards, as defined in Articles 29-32, can be overridden by India having recourse to unspecified “corrective measures” mentioned in the preamble. Clearly, such a reading will be fanciful; else the operative part of the agreement will be rendered a nullity.
It is well established in international law that a preamble can be used to give a treaty context and help interpret its clauses. However, in no case can a preamble override explicit provisions in Articles of a treaty or be used to create new rights or obligations. If this were so, the Non-Proliferation Treaty would have led decades ago to nuclear disarmament, as this objective is set out in the preamble! It has not happened because Article 6 of the NPT merely asks the nuclear weapons states to negotiate disarmament in good faith. The operative part lacks the teeth to implement the lofty objective the preamble sets out.
The issue of fuel supply assurances and strategic fuel reserves is of little consequence in this Safeguards Agreement. The IAEA is not a body that deals with either. The preamble merely notes that the “essential basis” of India’s concurrence to the acceptance of IAEA safeguards is the conclusion of international arrangements for reliable and uninterrupted fuel supplies and support for building strategic fuel reserves. Whatever may be the basis of a country entering into an international agreement, the articles of the treaty do not get voided simply because this basis is no longer valid. The withdrawal and termination clauses govern the actual withdrawal or termination. It is pretty much like marriage: love may be the basis of a marriage but the demise of love for one party is not a sufficient legal ground for divorce.
Asked whether India could ever withdraw its reactors from safeguards, Dr R.B. Grover of the Department of Atomic Energy claimed (in a press conference on July 12) that India could first claim a material breach under Article 52(c) of the Agreement and then take whatever action it wanted under “the combination of [Articles] 29, 30(f), 10, 4, and the preamble.” Again, while Article 29 covers both facilities and material for the duration of safeguards for facilities, we have to read this provision along with Article 32. As explained earlier, Article 32 is quite explicit that once any facility is offered for safeguards, they will continue to apply in perpetuity. Article 30(f) is very much part of Article 30, which specifically pertains only to material. To claim specific rights over facilities using an Article that pertains to material will not help India in any way.
It is not in India’s interest to keep the provisions of the Agreement vague. The dispute settlement body in the IAEA is not a neutral umpire — it is the agency’s Board of Governors. Here, politics is the dominant issue in interpretation — not legalese. As the Iran case shows, despite that country having a legal right to the full nuclear fuel cycle, the IAEA Board of Governors referred it to the United Nations Security Council for sanctions at the insistence of the United States. The majority, including the Government of India, fell in line with the U.S., not because they were convinced of its legal case but because of its sheer muscle power.
Therefore to believe that the vague term “corrective measures” included in the preamble of the Safeguards Agreement will help India later to put on the term whatever interpretation it wishes to will simply not wash. If it comes to the crunch, the Hyde Act provisions will prevail. This is what is inbuilt in the India-IAEA Agreement, the government’s spin notwithstanding.

(Prabir Purkayastha is a founding member of the Delhi Science Forum and an analyst on nuclear disarmament and energy issues.)

South Asian Economic Union

By Manzoor Chandio
Updated on July 20, 2008

THERE is a great potential for bilateral trade among South Asian nations especially India and Pakistan and it will be unrealistic to lose sight of the larger picture.
If take a journey through South Asian history, this is the region where men built some of the world's first planned cities along the Indus and Sarasvati rivers, created one of the world's first written languages (the Indus script), grew cotton and made cloth from it.
There was a significant enterprising community that exported Indus-made products the world over.
"Just as American culture is currently exported, along with goods and media, so too were the seals, pottery style, script of the Indus valley spread among the local settlements," says Indian historian Shanti Menon.
The problem is that inheritors of this great civilization are now divided on narrow communal lines.
South Asia was the first region to win independence from colonial servitude but it still lags behind many others due to a limited vision.
It is time to see why people in Pakistan have lagged behind educationally, culturally and economically when we compare them with others in South Asia.
If we look at the turn of events since the decolonization of South Asia, Pakistan mainly under military dictatorships has not developed despite having a lot of resources.
There is no doubt that this country can progress in the larger South Asian family if it takes sincere efforts for a South Asian economic union and settles all issues through a dialogue.

manzoorchandio@hotmail.com