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January, 2003 |
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Political |
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Rethinking
South Asia by
Madhukar SJB Rana Nepal holds the SAARC Chairmanship. It has been unable to move the process forward embroiled as it were in deep political instability at home. The absence of a full-time Foreign Minister with political clout and expertise in foreign affairs did not help either. A solid proof of the diplomatic malaise is the absence of Nepali ambassadors at Dhaka and Islamabad for several years in a stretch. And thus the SAARC Summit is postponed and no one knows till when. Only good thing is that Nepal will continue to be the SAARC Chairman. Significantly too, a high-level but informal China-SAARC seminar took place recently in Kathmandu though it was quite inconclusive on whether there is some place for China in SAARC or not. The nearest definite conclusion that one can envisage, at this point in time, is that there may be a role for China in the distant future through some form of trans-Himalayan sub-regional cooperation, possibly in harnessing water resources of the Brahmaputra river basin and in developing tourism along the medieval silk route. Beyond this, China will have to go the bilateral way by developing closer investment relations with each SAARC country severally and, in doing so, match the Indian bilateral concessions to each of them in the area of trade. This China may find hard to match as it has so many immediate neighbours. Nor has China given any non-reciprocal preferential treatment to any of its immediate neighbours, many of whom are either least developed or landlocked or both. Actually, it would be useful to know how well regional cooperation has progressed between SAARC countries and China from the experiences of the only forum that they are together in, namely the International Centre for Integrated Mountain Development (ICIMOD) established in 1983. It appears that beyond sharing of experiences for the transfer of knowledge on integrated mountain development and bio-diversity practices cooperation has not led to trans-border people-to-people contacts through flows of trade and investment. In the wake of the doldrums that the SAARC process is at, it is good to rethink SAARC’s future with new dimensions. Another fruitful dimension to looking at SAARC may be to start visualizing the South Asian economy as having four grand parts linked inter-regionally to West Asia, Central Asia, Indo-China and Australasia. In other words, go beyond intra-regional linkages derived through free trade (SAFTA) and sub-regionalism based on the formation of the South Asian growth quadrangle (SAGQ) eventually. Thus one can visualize one grand axis as comprising the western seaboard linking Maldives-Mumbai-Karachi- Iran-Gulf region. The other grand axis comprises the eastern seaboard linking the SAGQ subregion to Myanmar-Thailand-Indo-China. The third grand axis comprising the southern seaboard linking Vizagapatanam-Chennai-Colombo region to Malaysia-Singapore-Indonesia-Australasia. The northern region could comprise the grand landmass of the Hindu Kush-Himalayan region stretching from Delhi-Islamabad-Kabul to link up with Central Asia. When Afghanistan joins SAARC, since it is a country that is by geography and civilization an integral part of South Asia, the SAARC process will be complete. This necessitates a change in the Charter of the Association. This would be the right time to incorporate other changes like making provisions for associated membership of countries outside the region and moving out the rule of unanimity in all instances. Nepal should now take the initiative, from the Chair, to give impetus to SAARC through a rethink by calling for expert studies and informal seminars to assess these ideas for their validity. It should also lead by reviving the dormant sub-regional cooperation process and by mobilizing support from the smaller members for the vital need to hold the SAARC Summit for regional peace and security in South Asia. (Rana
is the Chairman, Shaligram Apartment-Hotel & Board member of
Institute for Development Studies.) Peace
Initiatives The
major political news of the month of December were the program to
present a letter of felicitation to His Majesty the King at Biratnagar
on January 3, rumour of imminent cabinet reshuffle, the rally of
political workers organized by Communist Party of Nepal (United Marxist
Leninist) and the election of Pashupati SJB Rana as the president of
Rastriya Prajatantra Party (RPP), the party of Prime Minister Chand. Credibility
to the rumour of immediate cabinet reshuffle was heightened by the fact
that Prime Minister Chand had to rush to the capital from Pokhara at the
middle of the general convention of RPP. Though the reshuffle has not
been effected till this material went to the press, some political
analysts are still hoping for it. The hopes are high also because of the
news reports that the king is not satisfied with the way some of the
ministers have been behaving, particularly in making speeches, and he
had to give some lessons to them over a tea party in the Royal Palace. Meanwhile,
CPN-UML too has announced its program to hold party general convention
at Janakpur during February 1-5. However, leadership change is not in
the CPN-UML agenda. In
other development, the committees of the upper house of the Parliament
have started meeting and the political parties have started using these
meetings as forums to put pressure on the government. Peace
Initiatives On
the Maoist insurgency front, the major news of the month was the 5-point
peace plan made public by UNDP resident representative Henning Karcher
on the occasion of December 10, the international human rights day.
Though the Maoists have announced the formation of the team to negotiate
peace with the government, nothing has been announced from the
government as its reaction to the Maoist gesture. Looking at the growing
subversive activities of the Maoists in Nepal, India has announced plan
to set up two new military posts along Nepal-India border. Strikes The
indefinite strike ordered by the Maoist students kept all the schools
closed for two weeks beginning December 9. Though schools started
opening from December 23 following the declaration of withdrawal of the
strike call, terror is still high in the air as the rebels have stated
that the strike is called off only for about a month, indicating that
they may call for another strike very soon. In
the meantime, the rebels called for and effected a two-day general
strike in Bagmati and Narayani zones following similar zone wide strike
in Gandaki zone. However, the effect of the strike in Kathmandu was not
as severe this time as in the previous strikes. Vehicles plied on the
street in significant number including the three-wheelers used as public
transport. The
Maoists have again called for a two-day general strike across the
country on February 13 and 14. They have also called for the Mechi and
Koshi zone wide one day general strike on January 3. This day of strike
happens to be the same day when HM the King is to receive the letter of
felicitation at Biratnagar, the business centre of Koshi zone. As the
authorities have vowed to foil the strike on those days so as to make
the program for the King's felicitation as a success, it is also being
expected as a period of final show-down between the Maoists and the
government forces. The Maoist seem to have targeted the king directly
finding him isolated from the political parties. Elections
on the Air Towards
the end of December, Prime Minister Chand told a committee of the Upper
House of Parliament that he was ready to announce dates for election if
the political parties could agree on the same. This is interpreted as
the indication of the government’s realization that the peace process
is going to be time consuming. Therefore, better start the election
process while the peace process may go its own way. The PM's statement
was followed a couple of days later by a news which reported that the
government was preparing to hold local elections in April 2003. Economic
Agenda Another
development of the month was the announcement of the Tenth Plan (see
Economy & Policy column) by National Planning Commission. The
government also sacked the chief executives from six public enterprises
in preparation for, as the authorities claim, appointing new ones on the
basis of their capabilities as to be attested by the Public Service
Commission. For the time being, some senior government officers have
been appointed the chairmen of those units while the senior officers of
the respective units are made the acting general managers. Also
noteworthy was the announcement by the government to form a high level
Economic Diplomacy Coordination Committee under the chairmanship of the
Prime Minister. Meanwhile,
Home Minister Dharma Bahadur Thapa informed during his visit to the
industrial city Hetauda that procedures have already started to recruit
6,000 security personnel to set up the industrial security force which
has been long demanded by the business community. Anti
Corruption drive The
on-going anti-corruption drive by the Commission for the Investigation
of Abuse of Authority (CIAA) has extended also to the private sector.
Kailash Sirohiya, the Managing Director of Kantipur Publication (who is
also a director in Kantipur Television (P) Ltd., licenced last year to
run terrestrial TV network), was arrested and presented to the special
court by CIAA together with the then Minister of Information and
Communication Jaya Prakash Gupta. Charged of corruption while returning
the bid bond (claimed by CIAA as 'security bond') deposited for the
license of Kantipur Television. They are released on bail by the court.
Gupta was taken into custody by CIAA for nearly two and a half months. Another former minister Chiranjibi Wagle, who was detained for about a month on other corruption charges, is also released by the Special Court on bail. |
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