Ramanisblog

Tag: International relations

  • UK ‘to block Sri Lanka bid to hold Commonwealth summit’-BBC.

    Correct.SriLanka has to be chastised for genocide, not world recognition of any sort.
    Story:
    The UK will try to block Sri Lanka’s bid to host the next Commonwealth summit over its handling of the recent war, a UK government source has said.
    Sri Lanka could not be “rewarded” for actions that had a “huge impact on civilians”, the source said.
    The current Commonwealth summit is about to get under way in Trinidad and Tobago.
    Climate change and the controversial membership bid of Rwanda are also high on the agenda.
    Rising sea levels
    The 60th anniversary Commonwealth Heads of Government meeting, being held in Port of Spain, begins on Friday.
    One of the key issues will be the choice of the 2011 venue.
    The Downing Street source said that Prime Minister Gordon Brown had “real concerns about Sri Lanka’s bid”.

    Queen Elizabeth will open the summit on Friday
    “We simply cannot be in a position where Sri Lanka – whose actions earlier this year had a huge impact on civilians, leading to thousands of displaced people without proper humanitarian access – is seen to be rewarded for its actions.”
    The UN estimates the conflict with Tamil Tiger rebels left at least 7,000 civilians dead with 150,000 people still displaced and living in camps.
    Climate change will also be high on the agenda, in the last major gathering of international leaders before the global summit on the subject starts in Copenhagen on 7 December.
    UN chief Ban Ki-moon, French President Nicolas Sarkozy and Danish PM Lars Rasmussen are also attending the Port of Spain summit, to give weight to any statement on the issue.
    About half of the Commonwealth’s members are island states, many of them threatened by rising sea levels.

    About half of members, like the Maldives, are island states
    Trinidad and Tobago Prime Minister Patrick Manning, who is hosting the three-day meeting, said he hoped the summit could boost momentum for an agreement on carbon emissions at Copenhagen, amid “concerns about the way the negotiations were going”.
    “We hope to arrive at a political statement that can add value to the process that will culminate in Copenhagen next month… what we can do is raise our voices politically,” he said.
    The Commonwealth’s 53 nations comprise about two billion people, or one-third of the planet’s population.
    The leaders are meeting days after pledges by the US and China to limit their greenhouse gas emissions, amid concerns that the Copenhagen meeting could fail to agree substantial cuts.
    Zimbabwe issue
    The summit will also discuss Rwanda’s entry into the English-speaking club.
    The Francophone nation has been seeking membership following disagreements with France over events leading up to the 1994 genocide.
    The issue is likely to be controversial. The nation’s entry bid has received strong backing from some member states.
    However, some rights activists are angry that entry would reward a nation they say is guilty of abuses dating back to the 1994 genocide.
    BBC diplomatic correspondent James Robbins, in Trinidad, says the leaders are expected to admit Rwanda.
    He says most of the leaders apparently believe that if Rwanda is admitted, then they will be able to apply peer pressure to improve the lives of its people.
    Zimbabwe’s possible re-entry could also be brought up at the meeting.
    http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/8382014.stm

  • The Illegitimate Messiah Syndrome-Pak. Vs India.

    Seems to be a fair analysis.
    India is surging ahead amidst its myriad of problems,Pakistan is unable to come to terms with itself as a Nation.Sticking to a religious ideology that has been the bane of many a Democracy,looking for phantoms that are out to destroy it, when none is in place,to corrupt politicians( India has its fair share of these specimens),a pathetic people who do not raise their voice though there are a proud and intelligent people with culture.,looking for alms from countries that want Pakistan as a tool in their strategic games,allowing uncultured antediluvian mullahs to rouse passions with wrong interpretations of Islam,allowing an usurper to the highest office,exiled criminals being legally pardoned and allowed to have a decisive say in running the country,Pakistan presents a sad spectacle of a noble dream come unstuck.

    Story:
    Many Pakistanis are still not prepared to develop the patience required to see democracy through its early, evolutionary stages – especially difficult stages as a result of the violence done to it by military dictatorship after military dictatorship. They still look for and believe in personalities, not for a sustainable and equitable system. Many will tell you that the only cause for all of Pakistan’s woes is “humain aaj tak koi ddhang ka leader nahin mila (we never found a decent leader)”. The observation is correct. But the way we have gone about finding a decent leader has been completely wrong.

    A number of Pakistani and even Indian readers may not agree with parts of Steve Coll’s relatively short write-up below. But that is not hugely relevant to the main reason it is being reproduced here. The point that it is meant to highlight is that countries do not necessarily need larger than life heroes to lead them out of trouble. Equally importantly, democracy does not necessarily and need not produce such a perfect specimen. Dull, dreary but adequate will do. The system, if strong, will take care of the rest. Statecraft is not really a one-man job. Democracy is the least bad way of ensuring that, more often than not, the whole might just be greater than the sum of its parts.

    Manmohan Singh

    By Steve Coll The New Yorker, November 24, 2009

    The Indian Prime Minister, who appeared at a joint press conference with President Obama today and who will be fêted at Obama’s first state dinner tonight, is not likely to leave much of an impression on the American public. A few may take passing note of his preference for powder-blue turbans. Otherwise, this Sikh economist and Congress Party technocrat with a sonorous but self-effacing voice normally conducts himself in a way designed not to attract too much attention. Politically, he has been the product of a democratic system in India—and particularly, its ungainly Congress coalitions—that tends to reward consensus builders. Then, too, a democracy as pluralistic and relatively crisis-free as India’s is not the sort of system that will produce outsized leaders, for good or ill—a quality that reflects India’s political and constitutional health.

    Singh’s low profile is misleading in important respects, however. His counterparts in the rising Hindu-nationalist movement have made more noise and been more proactive in reshaping post-Cold War Indian politics, but Singh has outlasted them all and will be remembered as a seminal figure of India’s transition from socialism and Soviet-leaning nonalignment to managed capitalism and rising power status. He has in many ways been an indispensable figure in India’s recent transitions. As finance minister during the late, sclerotic socialist period, he quietly helped steer the treasury through various close fiscal calls. He defied political convention and called for India to fight off its anti-colonial hangover, recognize the accumulating failure of its state-run economy, and embrace the opportunities of post-Cold War global trade. During the nineteen-nineties, when the Hindu nationalists rose to power, in large part because of their appeal to the country’s emerging urban business classes, Singh helped hold a fragmenting Congress leadership together, in service of Rajiv Gandhi’s Italian-born widow, Sonia, who embraced the Sikh economist as her political partner. When the Hindu nationalists finally ran out of steam, Singh steered Congress back into power, first in unwieldy alliance with leftist parties, and now, finally, in possession of a solid majority.

    It was Singh, more than any individual in India, who was prepared to invest his political career in the pursuit of a transformational peace with Pakistan. It was Singh, after the Mumbai attacks, which came on the cusp of national elections, who had the courage to campaign for reëlection on a platform of steely restraint—and who was rewarded by Indian voters. His record may not stand with the great political figures of our age—Mandela, Gorbachev. In his own country’s history, he certainly does not rank with the Gandhis and Nehrus. Yet he is one of those neglected, careful, seemingly incorruptible, admirable figures that [united] India’s independence movement and democracy have managed to produce regularly.

    The Pakistani Experience

    Indians, Pakistanis and others come up with all sorts of differences between the two countries in order to explain their increasingly divergent trajectories along the road to stability and, lately, prosperity. To many Indians Pakistan is the country of religious zealots created by the treacherously communal Mohammed Ali Jinnah. To many others Jinnah was simply communal, and the question of treachery did not arise since, according to them, he played no part in India’s independence movement. Both these views have now been ably and successfully countered and discredited by a number of leading scholars.

    Emphasis has been added to key parts of the last two lines of Mr Coll’s article to show two important aspects of India and Pakistan. The one about Jinnah, Nehru and Gandhi is the common aspect. However, in Pakistan soon after Jinnah died of natural causes at age 72, constitutionalism and rule of law were murdered in their infancy. What followed was a series of self-appointed messiahs with no legitimate right to rule.

    The still-born democracy of Pakistan from the time of Liaquat Ali Khan’s assassination is ultimately the only critical difference between the two countries. Almost none of the other differences are as acute, of course always allowing for differences in size and demography. This is a brief investigation into the critical reason for the disproportionate disparity, not lack of equality. Otherwise both countries have had their share of poverty, even of violence. In India they call it communalism and it has tended to manifest itself in short and intense occasional outbursts of senseless violence. In Pakistan, on the other hand, we call it sectarianism and it has been an ongoing, low-intensity war.

    It is this critical difference, of the presence of a more than rudimentary system of rule of law in India that allows some hope that the chief organisers and the occasional high-placed aiders and abetters of such violence might be brought to justice one day. At least there isn’t the case of a dictator like Musharraf arbitrarily letting Ahmed Tariq (founder of Sipah Sahaba) out of prison just so that Musharaf’s own man could be Prime Minister. The Indian judicial system may be inefficient, even incompetent, at places, but it is not without a large degree of freedom and credible levels of fairness. Most importantly, India’s democracy, with all its flaws, offers hope looking to the future.

    Perhaps the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan and the legacies of that war have also been a burden not experienced by our eastern neighbour. But, again, it’s a burden made a thousand times worse by the dictatorship at that time.

    In Pakistan, almost 60 years of arbitrary rule of one form or another, punctuated with short, abortive periods of controlled democracy, have never allowed an appreciation of either the reality of politics and of politicians in general, or of the importance and utility of a strong system over ‘great and good’ men of absolute power. A large number of people believe in discriminating between good and bad leaders and not necessarily between legitimate and illegitimate power. It seems that hardly any one is able to appreciate or prepared to accept that as long as there is rule of law and a reasonably robust system of checks and balances, even (suspected) crooks amongst politicians and leaders will do. There is not enough of a realisation that allowing the arbitrary power of a strongman to destroy the system in the irrational hope that he might turn out to be the long-awaited saviour is gambling of the most reckless kind. That it’s suicidal to the extent that it is tantamount to putting aside getting on with all the practical issues, responsibilities and requirements of life and betting on and waiting for a miracle to take care of things instead.
    http://pakteahouse.wordpress.com/2009/11/26/the-illegitimate-messiah-syndrome/#comment-21600

  • Iraq report: Secret papers reveal blunders and concealment.Telegraph,UK.

    Exposes UK’s blind toeing of US.The sordid drama includes outright lying,corruption,poor planning,lack of Intelligence(pun intended).Please read on.
    Story:
    The “appalling” errors that contributed to Britain’s failure in Iraq are disclosed in the most detailed and damning set of leaks to emerge on the conflict.

    On the eve of the Chilcot inquiry into Britain’s involvement in the 2003 invasion and its aftermath, The Sunday Telegraph has obtained hundreds of pages of secret Government reports on “lessons learnt” which shed new light on “significant shortcomings” at all levels.
    They include full transcripts of extraordinarily frank classified interviews in which British Army commanders vent their frustration and anger with ministers and Whitehall officials.

    The reports disclose that:
    Tony Blair, the former prime minister, misled MPs and the public throughout 2002 when he claimed that Britain’s objective was “disarmament, not regime change” and that there had been no planning for military action. In fact, British military planning for a full invasion and regime change began in February 2002.

    The need to conceal this from Parliament and all but “very small numbers” of officials “constrained” the planning process. The result was a “rushed”operation “lacking in coherence and resources” which caused “significant risk” to troops and “critical failure” in the post-war period.

    Operations were so under-resourced that some troops went into action with only five bullets each. Others had to deploy to war on civilian airlines, taking their equipment as hand luggage. Some troops had weapons confiscated by airport security.

    Commanders reported that the Army’s main radio system “tended to drop out at around noon each day because of the heat”. One described the supply chain as “absolutely appalling”, saying: “I know for a fact that there was one container full of skis in the desert.”

    The Foreign Office unit to plan for postwar Iraq was set up only in late February, 2003, three weeks before the war started.

    The plans “contained no detail once Baghdad had fallen”, causing a “notable loss of momentum” which was exploited by insurgents. Field commanders raged at Whitehall’s “appalling” and “horrifying” lack of support for reconstruction, with one top officer saying that the Government “missed a golden opportunity” to win Iraqi support. Another commander said: “It was not unlike 1750s colonialism where the military had to do everything ourselves.”

    The documents emerge two days before public hearings begin in the Iraq Inquiry, the tribunal appointed under Sir John Chilcot, a former Whitehall civil servant, to “identify lessons that can be learnt from the Iraq conflict”.

    Senior military officers and relatives of the dead have warned Sir John against a “whitewash”.

    The documents consist of dozens of “post-operational reports” written by commanders at all levels, plus two sharply-worded “overall lessons learnt” papers – on the war phase and on the occupation – compiled by the Army centrally.

    The analysis of the war phase describes it as a “significant military success” but one achieved against a “third-rate army”. It identifies a long list of “significant” weaknesses and notes: “A more capable enemy would probably have punished these shortcomings severely.”

    The analysis of the occupation describes British reconstruction plans as “nugatory” and “hopelessly optimistic”.

    It says that coalition forces were “ill-prepared and equipped to deal with the problems in the first 100 days” of the occupation, which turned out to be “the defining stage of the campaign”. It condemns the almost complete absence of contingency planning as a potential breach of Geneva Convention obligations to safeguard civilians.

    The leaked documents bring into question statements that Mr Blair made to Parliament in the build up to the invasion. On July 16 2002, amid growing media speculation about Britain’s future role in Iraq, Mr Blair was asked: “Are we then preparing for possible military action in Iraq?” He replied: “No.”

    Introducing the now notorious dossier on Iraq’s supposed weapons of mass destruction, on Sept 24, 2002, Mr Blair told MPs: “In respect of any military options, we are not at the stage of deciding those options but, of course, it is important — should we get to that point — that we have the fullest possible discussion of those options.”
    In fact, according to the documents, “formation-level planning for a [British] deployment [to Iraq] took place from February 2002”.
    The documents also quote Maj Gen Graeme Lamb, the director of special forces during the Iraq war, as saying: “I had been working the war up since early 2002.”
    The leaked material also includes sheaves of classified verbatim transcripts of one-to-one interviews with commanders recently returned from Iraq – many critical of the Whitehall failings that were becoming clear. At least four commanders use the same word – “appalling” – to describe the performance of the Foreign Office and Ministry of Defence.
    Documents describe the “inability to restore security early during the occupation” as the “critical failure” of the deployment and attack the “absence of UK political direction” after the war ended.
    One quotes a senior British officer as saying: “The UK Government, which spent millions of pounds on resourcing the security line of operations, spent virtually none on the economic one, on which security depended.”
    Many of the documents leaked to The Sunday Telegraph deal with key questions for Sir John Chilcot and his committee, such as whether planning was adequate, troops properly equipped and the occupation mishandled, and will almost certainly be seen by the inquiry.
    However, it is not clear whether they will be published by it.
    http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstopics/politics/defence/6625415/Iraq-report-Secret-papers-reveal-blunders-and-concealment.html

  • Chávez defends alleged terror leader ‘Jackal’

    By this single statement Hugo Chavez has alienated himself from right thinking people ,who have been his admirers for his gutsy stand against US, and proved himself he is a paper revolutionary and a real time terrorist whose posturing has been born not of conviction but of insecurity and a lust for power with no interest for the people.
    Story:
    CARACAS, Venezuela – President Hugo Chávez has defended the alleged terrorist mastermind “Carlos the Jackal,” saying the Venezuelan imprisoned in France was an important “revolutionary fighter” who supported the cause of the Palestinians.

    Carlos – whose real name is Ilich Sanchez Ramirez – gained international notoriety during the 1970s and ’80s as the alleged mastermind of a series of bombings, killings and hostage dramas. He is serving a life sentence in France for the 1975 murders of two French secret agents and an alleged informant.
    http://www.dallasnews.com/sharedcontent/dws/news/world/stories/DN-intbriefs_22int.ART.State.Edition1.4b7a7b1.html

  • As Afghans Resist Taliban, U.S. Spurs Rise of Militias-NYT.

    Sounds encouraging.But national feelings being what they are,if US continues to meddle in Afghanisthan’s affairs,the same militia that is taking up arms against Taliban,shall take it up against US as well and that would be far more dangerous as this group will be fighting for National Soveignity.Better US leaves the place and provide military hard ware and advice if the people requested for it.
    Story:
    ACHIN, Afghanistan — American and Afghan officials have begun helping a number of anti-Taliban militias that have independently taken up arms against insurgents in several parts of Afghanistan, prompting hopes of a large-scale tribal rebellion against the Taliban.

    Leaders of anti-Taliban militias in Kunduz Province met with the Afghan government’s intelligence chief in Kunduz this month.

    Members of the Afghan National Police, above, passed an abandoned Russian Army vehicle on a patrol near a village in Kunduz Province.
    The emergence of the militias, which took some leaders in Kabul by surprise, has so encouraged the American and Afghan officials that they are planning to spur the growth of similar armed groups across the Taliban heartland in the southern and eastern parts of the country.

    The American and Afghan officials say they are hoping the plan, called the Community Defense Initiative, will bring together thousands of gunmen to protect their neighborhoods from Taliban insurgents. Already there are hundreds of Afghans who are acting on their own against the Taliban, officials say.
    http://www.nytimes.com/2009/11/22/world/asia/22militias.html?_r=1&nl=todaysheadlines&emc=a1

    The endeavor represents one of the most ambitious — and one of the riskiest — plans for regaining the initiative against the Taliban, who are fighting more vigorously than at any time since 2001.