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Al-Ahram Weekly 25 February - 3 March 1999 Issue No. 418 
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Published in Cairo by AL-AHRAM established in 1875 |
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Al-Ahram Weekly 25 February - 3 March 1999 Issue No. 418
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| Published in Cairo by AL-AHRAM established in 1875 |
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Egypt Region International Economy Opinion Culture Features Travel Living Sports People Time Out Chronicles Cartoons Letters Jammu is not Jerusalem
By Sajini DularamaniThe grass is always greener on the other side of the fence -- especially when the fence doubles as a green line. Sometimes, the Middle East seems to have neither peace nor even a process. But for the South Asia region, riddled as it is with mutual mistrust, recurrent hostilities, territorial disputes and ethnic divisions, the Middle East peace process has become a kind of model.
The relevance of this model has been the subject of three workshops, the third of which was held in Port Said from 11 to 13 February, following on from meetings in Karachi and New Delhi in September 1998. The workshops are jointly organised by Cairo University's Centre for Asian Studies, the Department of International Relations in the University of Karachi and the School of International Studies at Jawaharlal Nehru University, in New Delhi. Despite the cordial nature of the debates between scholars and researchers, diplomats and political experts, journalists and media specialists representing Egypt, Syria, Jordan, Lebanon, the Palestinians, India, Pakistan and the US, no consensus emerged as to whether South Asia has any lessons to learn from Arab-Israeli relations post-Oslo.
Indeed, the event was most remarkable for the opportunity it provided for Indians and Pakistanis to confront each other directly for the first time. As such, it served, if anything, to dramatise the strongly opposing views of the two sides on the core question of Jammu and Kashmir, the time frame for conflict resolution and the viability of third-party mediation.
South Asia seems to have entered into a new era of nuclear deterrence. The bus-trip diplomacy between New Delhi and Lahore initiated by Indian Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee on Saturday, the debates recently held in Islamabad between members of both parliaments, and the new American awareness of its vital interests in the region are all strong indications that peace remains possible in this volatile region. But as Kamal Al-Astal, Palestinian chairman of the Department of Political Science at Al-Azhar University in Gaza, warned, international conflicts are like fingerprints: no two are ever alike. Claims that the Middle East peace process can offer a universal model should be taken with a grain of salt.
Highlighting the differences between the crises facing the two regions, Egyptian political analyst Mohamed Sid-Ahmed said the Middle East faced a problem of mutual recognition or exclusion in which external forces played a major role. The Kashmir question, on the other hand, was a purely regional problem, which could be solved through bilateral arrangements between India and Pakistan. While American support for Israel and US strategic interests have long played a crucial role in the Middle East, South Asia enjoyed a certain degree of autonomy throughout the Cold War years. This relative independence protected the region from external penetration, though it has also meant few mediatory and conciliatory efforts have been forthcoming from outside.
The end of the bi-polar Cold War era has seen radical changes in the parameters of conflict in South Asia, and the growing threat of nuclear proliferation has seen the region's traditional autonomy eroded. Mohamed El-Sayed Selim, director of the Centre for Asian Studies, Cairo University, argued that while strategic nuclear parity between India and Pakistan may have increased risks, it may also make peace possible. This is very different from the situation in the Middle East, where a just peace will always remain hostage to the strategic imbalance between Israel and the Arab States.
Time after time, in both formal and informal debate, participants from outside the region stressed what they saw as the lessons that both India and Pakistan have to learn: the futility of using force to settle protracted conflicts, the need for a contractual peace to settle the sovereignty of Jammu and Kashmir, the importance of supporting fragile settlements with confidence building measures, and the heavy losses, both economic and social, currently being incurred by both sides due to their reluctance to engage in real negotiations.
Ghazi Salahudin, director of the Pakistani Jong Newspaper Group, told Al-Ahram Weekly that after 50 years of independence, the South Asian region now faces the threat of being marginalised on all important issues in all major international forums. Wadouda Badran, professor of political science at Cairo University, pointed out that any third-party can play only a limited role, and may even become an obstacle to conflict resolution, if that party is not an honest broker, or if its interests are better served by maintaining the status quo. Professor Larry Goodson from the American University of Cairo gave a hint of the likely problems in this respect, when he argued that the US was more concerned with containing nuclear proliferation than with getting entangled in the complex Kashmir question.
Iftekharuzzaman, executive director of the Regional Centre for Strategic Studies in Sri Lanka, expressed optimism, based on his experience of Indian-Bangladeshi bilateral talks, that there was now a real impetus to solve the conflicts in the region. Yet, it is clear that serious gaps still remain between the Indian and Pakistani positions. Until they have been bridged, no meaningful talks can take place.
The distances involved became evident in conversation with Talaat Wizarat and Moonis Ahmar from the Department of International Relations, Karachi University, and Amitabh Matoo, associate professor in the Disarmament School of International Studies, Jawaharlal Nehru University. Wizarat and Ahmar told the Weekly that the South Asia region is in the process of becoming possibly the most dangerous place on the planet. Matoo, however, claimed the fact that the two countries have not gone to war for 27 years proves that they are close to achieving both a negative, and a positive, peace.
Ahmar was painfully convinced of the futility of bilateral talks, and said the Indian side is only interested in conflict management, not conflict resolution; they become elusive, whenever the issue of Jammu and Kashmir is raised. Matoo, on the other hand, is adamantly opposed to third-party mediation, and dismisses Pakistani claims that India is seeking hegemony. He stressed the benefits of the bilateral deals that have been concluded in various fields since the Simla agreement of 1972. What is needed now, he insists, are confidence-building measures. Matoo remained reserved when questioned about India's unwillingness to set a time-frame to solve the Kashmir question. Instead, he emphasised that under India was proposing to grant the state autonomy; to think in terms of independence for Jammu and Kashmir would only jeopardise the secular principles of the constitution and create a backlash among the 140 million Muslims living in the country. This in turn, he warned, would only encourage other secessionist movements across the sub-continent.
Beyond that, Matoo said, India accepts nuclear parity between the two countries and is ready to collaborate in this area, so as to preserve a strong and stable system in Pakistan. Denying reports of Indian-Israeli nuclear cooperation, Matoo insisted that he had seen no credible evidence that the two countries' dealings extend to any area or issue that would be inimical to the interests of India's friends in the Arab world.
The consensus that emerged from the workshop seemed to be that India and Pakistan are like two vehicles hurtling towards each other down a dark tunnel, their headlights blazing. Both domestic and international pressure are being brought to bear to force the two juggernauts to slow down. A pre-requisite for any stable and lasting peace, however, is to replace the present zero-sum game with a win-win formula that can solve the core question of Jammu and Kashmir while also formulating an appropriate nuclear assistance regime. Without that kind of flexibility, the only way forward from here would be a serious collision.
