B.RAMAN
In a detailed interview to Shri Vir Sanghvi, telecast by the CNBC-TV 18 channel, Shri P.Chidambaram, Minister for Home Affairs of the Government of India, has spoken, inter alia, of how in his view the counter-terrorism machinery of the Government of India should work. Relevant extracts from the interview are annexed.
2.Two important points emerge from the interview---- the exclusive responsibility of the Home Minister to exercise political oversight over the internal security machinery and the limited executive role of the National Security Adviser (NSA) in internal security management.
3. The principle of the exclusive responsibility of the Home Minister for internal security management had been observed right from the days of Jawaharlal Nehru as the Prime Minister. The Prime Minister of the day depended on the Home Minister for ensuring that internal security was effectively maintained. For this purpose, the Home Minister had under his administrative and operational control the Intelligence Bureau and the various central police organizations or para-military forces. He also had the responsibility for guiding and co-ordinating the work of the State Police forces.
4. The line of responsibility for political oversight was very clear with no room for doubt till the assassination of Indira Gandhi in October,1984. After her assassination, this clear line of responsibility got increasingly diluted or blurred due to various reasons such as the following:
• The creation of new agencies for security-related duties such as the Special Protection Group (SPG) for the security of the incumbent and past Prime Ministers and their families and the National Security Guards (NSGs) as a special intervention force against terrorism. Rajiv Gandhi, the then Prime Minister, decided that the SPG and the NSG should work under the political oversight of the Prime Minister and the operational oversight of the Cabinet Secretary.
• Terrorism assuming international dimensions necessitating co-operation with the counter-terrorism and homeland security agencies of other countries. Diplomacy assumed an important role in counter-terrorism particularly against State sponsors of terrorism. The US created a counter-terrorism division in the State Department to deal with these international and diplomatic dimensions . It continues to function even after the creation of the Department of Homeland Security in 2004. Some other countries followed the US model. Under Shri Atal Behari Vajpayee, this international and diplomatic dimension was given greater importance than under the predecessor Governments. A number of Joint Counter-Terrorism Working Groups with different countries came into existence and joint counter-terrorism exercises were organized with interested countries, including the US and China. While the responsibility for the co-ordination of the international and diplomatic dimensions was given to the Ministry of External Affairs, the Ministry of Defence exercised the co-ordination responsibilities in respect of joint counter-terrorism exercises.
• With terrorist organizations such as Al Qaeda and its associates acquiring or attempting to acquire specialized capabilities for what came to be known as catastrophic terrorism such as terrorism involving the use of weapons of mass destruction material, terrorism in the cyber space to disrupt or destroy critical infrastructure, aviation terrorism, maritime terrorism etc, the need for the State acquiring specialized counter-capabilities was realized. For meeting these needs, the role of the Ministry of Defence, the Armed Forces and the various science and technology institutions naturally got enhanced.
5. The problems we face in India arise from the fact that whereas terrorism has increasingly assumed new dimensions and new frontiers, no attempt has been made to work out a comprehensive approach to deal with terrorism in its classical form, terrorism in its post-9/11 form and likely forms of terrorism of the future as well as with State-sponsors of terrorism such as Pakistan and other States failing to act against terrorism such as Bangladesh. While the threat posed by terrorism of different hues continues to evolve, our concepts to deal with it has not been keeping pace with the threat.
6. In working out a comprehensive approach to internal security management in general and counter-terrorism in particular, the National Security Adviser (NSA) has to play an important role as an ideas man, who looks beyond the day-to-day nuts and bolts aspect of counter-terrorism. Shri Chidambaram is right when he says that the NSA should have little executive role in internal security management. The executive role has to be that of the Home Minister. However, the NSA has to play an active role in evolving concepts which take into account the international and specialized dimensions of the new terrorism of today. He would also be the right person for co-ordinating and supervising the evolving machinery to facilitate India taking advantage of the growing international co-operation against terrorism.
7. The concept of intelligence co-ordination has also been evolving. The role of intelligence in internal security management has many components:
• Intelligence collection within our frontiers.
• Trans-border intelligence collection.
• Intelligence collection in foreign countries.
• Use of technical gadgets for the collection of intelligence specifically required for internal security management.
• Use of technical gadgets for the collection of intelligence of relevance to internal as well as external security.
8. Presently, there is no single Ministry or Department capable of co-ordinating all these roles. Is it necessary to create a single nodal point in the Prime Minister’s office to co-ordinate these roles in the form of a National Intelligence Adviser? This question has been posed by different analysts from time to time since the Kargil conflict of 1999, but has not been addressed seriously. It is time to address it as part of an exercise to revamp our security machinery----internal as well as external.
9. In India, the concept of an intelligence community has not evolved. Similarly, the concept of leadership roles in security-related matters has not received attention. In the US, under the Intelligence Community Act, all agencies are required to function as an organic whole. There is a consolidated intelligence budget for the community as a whole, which is prepared and got approved by the Congress by the Director, National Intelligence. After the Congressional approval, he makes the individual allocations to different agencies. The leadership role in respect of counter-intelligence is with the FBI, in respect of counter-terrorism with the National Counter-Terrorism Centre, in respect of Homeland Security with the Department of Homeland Security and in respect of covert actions with the CIA. The designated leaders coordinate the follow-up action.
10. In Israel, the leadership role in respect of internal security is that of Shin Bet, the security agency, in respect of external security that of Mossad, the external intelligence Agency, and in respect of trans-border security that of the military intelligence agency. We dot not have such clearly-defined leadership roles.
11.From a perusal of Shri Chidambaram’s address of December 23,2009, in the Intelligence Bureau, and his latest interview to Shri Vir Sanghvi, it is apparent that he has been approaching the exercise for the revamping of our security machinery essentially from the point of view of the Home Ministry. This is a very important aspect, but it is equally important to give the exercise a larger dimension in order to evolve a comprehensive security machinery with clearly laid down concepts, carefully defined leadership roles and a workable co-ordination drill. In such a larger exercise, the NSA has to play an active role not only as an adviser to the Prime Minister, but also to the Cabinet as a whole in matters relating to national security. ( 8-2-10)
( The writer is Additional Secretary (retd), Cabinet Secretariat, Govt. of India, New Delhi, and, presently, Director, Institute For Topical Studies, Chennai. E-mail:seventyone2@gmail.com )
ANNEXURE
EXTRACTS FROM THE INTERVIEW OF SHRI P.CHIDAMBARAM, HOME MINISTER OF THE GOVERNMENT OF INDIA, BY SHRI VIR SANGHVI FOR THE CNBC-TV 18 CHANNEL
Vir Sanghvi: The other thing that is said is that the first thing you did apparently when you took over as Home Minister is you instituted a meeting at apparently noon every day at which the chiefs of intelligence agencies came and you had a look at what the situation on the ground was and that the National Security Advisor also started coming to these meetings. There is a suggestion that you were given as part of your brief the job of bringing the security agencies within the ambit of the home ministry, is this accurate?
P Chidambaram: No that is a job I wrote for myself.
Vir Sanghvi: It was completely your own job description?
P Chidambaram: Yes but then when I took over, the Prime Minister graciously said, you will have a free hand because time is very limited, and if there is any problem, come back to me. When I thought about my job that weekend, I said, the first thing is we must bring everybody together, because I had to learn and act and change and deliver all in five months.
Vir Sanghvi: You know the background which is it is being posited by many people that you took away a lot of jobs that Narayanan use to do – your answer is always been look you people are making too much of this we have been friends for years – but let us leave friendship out of this. On purely functional terms you did take over a lot of the job didn’t you?
P Chidambaram: No. I did not take away any of his responsibilities. I did not take over any of his responsibilities. All I said was that whoever is doing whatever, it must be under political oversight. I happened to be the person providing the political oversight and therefore everybody accepted it.
Vir Sanghvi: Which is a departure from what had happened before? In Mr Advani’s time it did not happen, Mr Shivraj Patil’s time it didn’t happen. So in that sense the home ministry did assert itself over the national security advisor.
P Chidambaram: That is how it should be isn’t it.
Vir Sanghvi: I personally agree that is how it should be but it wasn’t how it was?
P Chidambaram: It wasn’t for whatever reason I do not know. But if I was going to be responsible as I was made responsible on that day then I was going to make sure that I knew it was going on. The only way that I could know what was going on what happen and what did not happen was to exercise political oversight over every agency that was concerned with security.
Vir Sanghvi: My question to you therefore is what is the role of national security advisor should he be an intelligence overload to whom the chief of intelligence’s report should he be an advisor to the Prime Minister?
P Chidambaram: Essentially I think he is an advisor to the Prime Minister, advisor to the National Security Council. He heads a very important body, the NSES, the Secretariat, which combines not only intelligence from internal security matters but a number of other things - Diplomatic intelligence, external intelligence, nuclear command authority etc.
So he brings all the strands together and then advises the Prime Minister. Surely he must be in the loop as far as internal security is concerned, who can he not be in the loop, he has to be in the loop. But whether he should have executive responsibility given the pressures of work and time I think is an open question.
My personal view is that he should have very few executive responsibilities as far as internal security is concerned. That should be given to other professionals.
Vir Sanghvi: That leads me to the question of where Research & Analysis Wing (R&AW) reports because R&AW cannot report to the home ministry by definition because it is an external agency, of course you have said that when it comes to terrorism the R&AW chief must be involved because there has to be a nodal point on terrorism. But what happens to R&AW, it is a bit fatherless, isn’t it in the current system?
P Chidambaram: R&AW reports to the Prime Minister now. But I think there is broad agreement that so far as counter terrorism is concerned, I don't think anybody has a serious objection that R&AW would have to report to the Home Minister.
Vir Sanghvi: Let me now go back to 26/11, do you think one of the reasons we were so ill-prepared for what happened was because mechanisms like these were not in place?
P Chidambaram: Yes, of course. There should have been one point where everything converged, all information converged. Today it converges in a group of about six-seven people who meet everyday. That is how it should be which is what the National Counter Terrorism Centre (NCTC) will be.
It will be an institutional mechanism rather than an individual-headed mechanism. And the response will be an institutional response rather than an individual driven response.
Vir Sanghvi: You have seen the evidence that there was a fair amount of intelligence pointing to 26/11 which was ignored. Do you think it was inevitable that would have been ignored or if there had been a system like this in place we would have acted on it?
P Chidambaram: The system in this place would have surely connected the dots. There were three separate pieces of information, they were not connected.
Vir Sanghvi: So there was a failure?
P Chidambaram: I said so.
Vir Sanghvi: There were two aspect to 26/11, one was that 26/11 happened without us knowing because we didn’t connect the dots as you said. The second was our response which was surely inadequate and took too long to put together, so would that happen again?
P Chidambaram: I don’t think so. If god forbids anything like 26/11 happens, we will respond in a much swifter passion. We have a much better command and control system here and our people will respond very quickly.
Vir Sanghvi: What about state police forces, one of the problems of 26/11 was that they now know were the problems within the Bombay Police, and it’s the same?
P Chidambaram: That’s not correct, they are getting better every day, the capacity is better, response time is quicker. We have set out SOPs now and when we sent the NSG or the Central Paramilitary force what will be the command and control structure. They can command any plane, why their own plane.
Vir Sanghvi: Which they were allowed to under the NSG act any how?
P Chidambaram: Because no body had been authorized to do that.
Vir Sanghvi: It was as simple as that?
P Chidambaram: I think so. I am not going into the past I didn’t decide that I will issue but I issued authority and they can take over any plane now.
Sunday, February 7, 2010
Saturday, February 6, 2010
KARACHI & AF-PAK POLICY OPTIONS
B.RAMAN
Pakistani leaders often project Jammu & Kashmir as Pakistan’s jugular vein in justification of their supporting jihadi terrorist groups against India in an attempt to change the status quo in J&K. It is not.
2. Karachi is Pakistan’s jugular vein. It is the economic capital of Pakistan contributing a substantial part of Pakistan’s industrial production and tax revenue. It has Pakistan’s only functioning international port. The Gwadar port, on the Mekran coast of Balochistan, constructed with Chinese assistance and commissioned three years ago, has so far failed to come up to expectations as an alternative to Karachi as an international port due to the continuing Baloch freedom struggle and the inability of the Pakistani authorities to develop the subsidiary infrastructure to connect Gwadar with the other economic centres of Pakistan, particularly in Punjab.
3. Karachi is also of strategic significance not only to Pakistan, but also to the NATO troops fighting the Taliban in Afghanistan. It is still Pakistan’s most important naval base. Gwadar is being developed as an alternate naval base to reduce the vulnerability of the Pakistan Navy in Karachi, but it is estimated that it will take another five to eight years before Gwadar as a naval base starts functioning in a satisfactory manner.
4. Karachi’s importance to the NATO forces in Afghanistan arises from the fact that the NATO continues to be dependent in a large measure on Karachi for providing logistic supplies to its forces in Afghanistan. While the Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) has been able to frequently disrupt the movement by road of these supplies across the Pashtun tribal belt, it has not so far succeeded in disrupting the landing of these supplies from ships in Karachi and their onward movement till they reach the tribal belt. This would show that security continues to be tight and satisfactory in the Karachi port itself as well as on the road axis from Karachi through which these supplies initially move before reaching the Pashtun tribal belt,
5. The TTP’s oft-reported plans to disrupt the unloading of the supplies at the Karachi port and their initial onward movement have not succeeded so far because it has not been able to build up local support in the large Pashtun community in Karachi, which is believed to have more Pashtuns than Peshawar, the capital of the Pashtun majority North-West Frontier Province (NWFP).The road transport economy of Karachi is largely in the hands of the local Pashtun businessmen, who own most of the truck fleets operating in the area and come foreward to help the NATO forces in maintaining their logistic supplies despite frequent attacks by the TTP as the convoys move through the Pashtun tribal areas in the NWFP and the Federally-Administered Tribal Areas (FATA).
6. Despite frequent allegations by the Muttahida Qaumi Movement (MQM), the Mohajir organization headed by Mr.Altaf Hussain, living in political exile in the UK, about the increasing Talibanisation of Karachi, there is no reliable evidence to show that the TTP has been able to develop a foothold in Karachi. The Pashtuns of Karachi still largely support the secular Awami National Party (ANP), which is strongly opposed to the TTP.
7. The renewed wave of violence in Karachi in recent weeks is not due to the ingress of the TTP into the city. It is due to two of the three old animosities, which have always made Karachi the most violent city of Pakistan. These three animosities are--- the Mohajirs vs the Sindhis, the Mohajirs vs the Pashtuns, and the Punjabi Sunnis vs the Mohajir Shias. After Pakistan became independent in 1947, the Mohajirs, who are the migrants from India and their descendents, replaced the Sindhis, the sons of the soil, as the largest ethnic group in Karachi. The resulting tensions between the Mohajirs and the Sindhis were exploited by the Zia-ul-Haq military regime to crush the Sindhi nationalist movement and to counter the influence of the Pakistan People’s Party. The Mohajir-Sindhi animosity, which led to a large number of violent incidents in the 1980s and the early 1990s, has since come down. The PPP and the MQM coming together in a coalition government in the Sindh province has contributed to the dilution of this animosity.
8. The Mohajir-Pashtun animosity was a bye-product of Zia’s policy of encouraging a large number of Pashtuns to migrate to Karachi in order to keep the Mohajirs as well as the Sindhis under control. Zia’s rule was marked by large street clashes between the Mohajirs and the Pashtuns, both of whom are migrants to Karachi----the Mohajirs from India and the Pashtuns from the NWFP and the FATA. Despite the ANP, which commands the political support of large sections of the Karachi Pashtuns, being part of the ruling coalition in Sindh, the animosity between the Mohajirs and the Pashtuns has acquired a new virulence in recent months due to the ill-advised attempts of the MQM to reduce the political influence of the ANP in Karachi.
9. The MQM will never be able to replace the ANP’s influence in the Pashtun community. By seeking to undermine the ANP in Karachi, it will be only facilitating the Talibanisation of the Pashtuns of Karachi. The TTP will be the ultimate beneficiary of the increasing animosity between the Mohajirs and the Pashtuns.
10. The Punjabi Sunni-Mohajir Shia animosity has been an outcome of Zia’s policy of resettling a large number of Punjabi Sunni ex-servicemen in the rural areas of Sindh in order to reduce the rural influence of the Sindhi nationalists. While large sections of the Punjabi Sunni migrants support the Pakistan Muslim League (PML) of Mr.Nawaz Sharif, an increasing number has been supporting anti-Shia extremist organizations such as the Lashkar-e-Jhangvi and the mysterious Jundullah about which not much is known.
11. The increasing virulence of the Mohajir-Pashtun and Punjabi Sunni-Mohajir Shia animosities is once again making Karachi a bleeding city . Since the beginning of this year, over 50 persons are reported to have died in Mohajir-Pashtun clashes and about a hundred Shias have been killed in attacks on Shia religious gatherings by Sunni extremists.
12.If the increasing violence in Karachi is not controlled in time, it will further damage an already weak Pakistani economy, pave the way for the ingress of the Taliban into the city and create additional problems for maintaining the logistic supplies to the NATO troops in Afghanistan. There have been unconfirmed reports that the US has already started examining the feasibility of developing Gwadar as a fall-back option to bring logistic supplies by sea and transporting them by road to Afghanistan in order to reduce its dependence on Karachi. Even if these reports are correct, it will be some years before this idea could be given a concrete shape. Till then, law and order has to be maintained in Karachi and the efforts of the TTP to gain a foothold there thwarted.
13. Despite the deteriorating situation in Karachi, one has the impression that neither the federal Government of President Asif Ali Zardari nor the Pakistan Army nor the US-led NATO forces is paying serious attention to the important task of restoring law and order in Karachi. One sees a disturbing policy of drift which could prove dangerous. The importance of Karachi for the success of the US “war” against the Afghan Taliban and Al Qaeda has hardly been given any prominence in the discussions in Washington DC on Af-Pak policy options. ( 7-2-10)
( The writer is Additional Secretary (retd), Cabinet Secretariat, Govt. of India, New Delhi, and, presently, Director, Institute For Topical Studies, Chennai. E-mail: seventyone2@gmail.com )
Pakistani leaders often project Jammu & Kashmir as Pakistan’s jugular vein in justification of their supporting jihadi terrorist groups against India in an attempt to change the status quo in J&K. It is not.
2. Karachi is Pakistan’s jugular vein. It is the economic capital of Pakistan contributing a substantial part of Pakistan’s industrial production and tax revenue. It has Pakistan’s only functioning international port. The Gwadar port, on the Mekran coast of Balochistan, constructed with Chinese assistance and commissioned three years ago, has so far failed to come up to expectations as an alternative to Karachi as an international port due to the continuing Baloch freedom struggle and the inability of the Pakistani authorities to develop the subsidiary infrastructure to connect Gwadar with the other economic centres of Pakistan, particularly in Punjab.
3. Karachi is also of strategic significance not only to Pakistan, but also to the NATO troops fighting the Taliban in Afghanistan. It is still Pakistan’s most important naval base. Gwadar is being developed as an alternate naval base to reduce the vulnerability of the Pakistan Navy in Karachi, but it is estimated that it will take another five to eight years before Gwadar as a naval base starts functioning in a satisfactory manner.
4. Karachi’s importance to the NATO forces in Afghanistan arises from the fact that the NATO continues to be dependent in a large measure on Karachi for providing logistic supplies to its forces in Afghanistan. While the Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) has been able to frequently disrupt the movement by road of these supplies across the Pashtun tribal belt, it has not so far succeeded in disrupting the landing of these supplies from ships in Karachi and their onward movement till they reach the tribal belt. This would show that security continues to be tight and satisfactory in the Karachi port itself as well as on the road axis from Karachi through which these supplies initially move before reaching the Pashtun tribal belt,
5. The TTP’s oft-reported plans to disrupt the unloading of the supplies at the Karachi port and their initial onward movement have not succeeded so far because it has not been able to build up local support in the large Pashtun community in Karachi, which is believed to have more Pashtuns than Peshawar, the capital of the Pashtun majority North-West Frontier Province (NWFP).The road transport economy of Karachi is largely in the hands of the local Pashtun businessmen, who own most of the truck fleets operating in the area and come foreward to help the NATO forces in maintaining their logistic supplies despite frequent attacks by the TTP as the convoys move through the Pashtun tribal areas in the NWFP and the Federally-Administered Tribal Areas (FATA).
6. Despite frequent allegations by the Muttahida Qaumi Movement (MQM), the Mohajir organization headed by Mr.Altaf Hussain, living in political exile in the UK, about the increasing Talibanisation of Karachi, there is no reliable evidence to show that the TTP has been able to develop a foothold in Karachi. The Pashtuns of Karachi still largely support the secular Awami National Party (ANP), which is strongly opposed to the TTP.
7. The renewed wave of violence in Karachi in recent weeks is not due to the ingress of the TTP into the city. It is due to two of the three old animosities, which have always made Karachi the most violent city of Pakistan. These three animosities are--- the Mohajirs vs the Sindhis, the Mohajirs vs the Pashtuns, and the Punjabi Sunnis vs the Mohajir Shias. After Pakistan became independent in 1947, the Mohajirs, who are the migrants from India and their descendents, replaced the Sindhis, the sons of the soil, as the largest ethnic group in Karachi. The resulting tensions between the Mohajirs and the Sindhis were exploited by the Zia-ul-Haq military regime to crush the Sindhi nationalist movement and to counter the influence of the Pakistan People’s Party. The Mohajir-Sindhi animosity, which led to a large number of violent incidents in the 1980s and the early 1990s, has since come down. The PPP and the MQM coming together in a coalition government in the Sindh province has contributed to the dilution of this animosity.
8. The Mohajir-Pashtun animosity was a bye-product of Zia’s policy of encouraging a large number of Pashtuns to migrate to Karachi in order to keep the Mohajirs as well as the Sindhis under control. Zia’s rule was marked by large street clashes between the Mohajirs and the Pashtuns, both of whom are migrants to Karachi----the Mohajirs from India and the Pashtuns from the NWFP and the FATA. Despite the ANP, which commands the political support of large sections of the Karachi Pashtuns, being part of the ruling coalition in Sindh, the animosity between the Mohajirs and the Pashtuns has acquired a new virulence in recent months due to the ill-advised attempts of the MQM to reduce the political influence of the ANP in Karachi.
9. The MQM will never be able to replace the ANP’s influence in the Pashtun community. By seeking to undermine the ANP in Karachi, it will be only facilitating the Talibanisation of the Pashtuns of Karachi. The TTP will be the ultimate beneficiary of the increasing animosity between the Mohajirs and the Pashtuns.
10. The Punjabi Sunni-Mohajir Shia animosity has been an outcome of Zia’s policy of resettling a large number of Punjabi Sunni ex-servicemen in the rural areas of Sindh in order to reduce the rural influence of the Sindhi nationalists. While large sections of the Punjabi Sunni migrants support the Pakistan Muslim League (PML) of Mr.Nawaz Sharif, an increasing number has been supporting anti-Shia extremist organizations such as the Lashkar-e-Jhangvi and the mysterious Jundullah about which not much is known.
11. The increasing virulence of the Mohajir-Pashtun and Punjabi Sunni-Mohajir Shia animosities is once again making Karachi a bleeding city . Since the beginning of this year, over 50 persons are reported to have died in Mohajir-Pashtun clashes and about a hundred Shias have been killed in attacks on Shia religious gatherings by Sunni extremists.
12.If the increasing violence in Karachi is not controlled in time, it will further damage an already weak Pakistani economy, pave the way for the ingress of the Taliban into the city and create additional problems for maintaining the logistic supplies to the NATO troops in Afghanistan. There have been unconfirmed reports that the US has already started examining the feasibility of developing Gwadar as a fall-back option to bring logistic supplies by sea and transporting them by road to Afghanistan in order to reduce its dependence on Karachi. Even if these reports are correct, it will be some years before this idea could be given a concrete shape. Till then, law and order has to be maintained in Karachi and the efforts of the TTP to gain a foothold there thwarted.
13. Despite the deteriorating situation in Karachi, one has the impression that neither the federal Government of President Asif Ali Zardari nor the Pakistan Army nor the US-led NATO forces is paying serious attention to the important task of restoring law and order in Karachi. One sees a disturbing policy of drift which could prove dangerous. The importance of Karachi for the success of the US “war” against the Afghan Taliban and Al Qaeda has hardly been given any prominence in the discussions in Washington DC on Af-Pak policy options. ( 7-2-10)
( The writer is Additional Secretary (retd), Cabinet Secretariat, Govt. of India, New Delhi, and, presently, Director, Institute For Topical Studies, Chennai. E-mail: seventyone2@gmail.com )
INDIA & BANGLADESH----SECURITY-RELATED ISSUES
B.RAMAN
( Talk delivered on February 6,2010, at a seminar jointly organized at Bangalore by the Asia Centre, Bangalore, and the Indian Council of World Affairs, New Delhi )
During her recent visit to India from January 10 to 13,2010, we saw in Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina, who has completed one year in office, a greater confidence in herself and a greater feeling of political security. Having weathered without damage to her political strength the bloody revolt of the Bangladesh Rifles against its own senior officers and having brought to a successful culmination the long process of accountability of some former Army officers for the brutal assassination of her father in 1975, she now feels confident enough to move forward on the road to internal peace and prosperity.
2. However, the political challenges to her individually and to her Awami League led Government from a coalition of political and fundamentalist elements led by the Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP) of Begum Khalida Zia and the Jamaat-e-Islami (JEI) show no sign of withering away. Their anti-Indian and pro-Pakistan constituency remains intact, but they are not yet in a position to pose a serious street challenge to her.
3.In her attempts to face their challenge, she has to see that her political instinct and enthusiasm for better relations with India and for the economic development of the Bangladesh-India region are tempered by caution so that she does not unwittingly hand over to them a stick to beat her with.
4. In assessing India-Bangladesh relations in security-related matters, one has to constantly keep in view the ground reality that there is a surviving anti-India constituency in that country. It is difficult to quantify the strength of this anti-India constituency. At the same time, it will be unwise to dismiss it as of no consequence. It is an important constituency carefully nurtured by Pakistan over the years and by Islamic fundamentalist organisations and charities operating from Saudi Arabia either directly or through Pakistan.
5.In our happiness over the return of Sheikh Hasina to power with an impressive majority over a year ago, we should not commit the folly of underestimating the lingering strength of the anti-India elements. Their power to attract votes might have received a set-back during the last elections, but their street power to create instability has not been damaged.
6.That Sheikh Hasina is aware of it became evident in her chat with a group of journalists at New Delhi on January 13,2010, before she left for Ajmer. According to the "Times of India", when she was asked about the anti-India mindset in her country, she replied: “ Perhaps that may remain. I cannot change that. But common people want better lives and if results are achieved in India-Bangladesh co-operation, these sentiments will not work.”
7.What she sought to convey was that the anti-India mindset in sections of public and political opinion in Bangladesh is a fact of life. It cannot be eradicated, but it can be prevented from coming in the way of better bilateral relations through the demonstration effect of beneficial results as a result of closer relations. What kind of results will be perceived by large sections of the population as beneficial to Bangladesh? That is a question, which one has to constantly keep asking oneself.
8.Gestures there were in plenty during her visit--- a one billion dollar credit line, an agreement to supply power, water-sharing etc, but the anti-India elements in Bangladesh tend to project such gestures of economic significance by India not as unilateral without India expecting anything in return, but as an alleged quid pro quo for security-related concessions made by the Bangladesh Government. Allegations have been made by the anti-India elements after her visit that these gestures by India were in return for a secret security treaty signed by her with India during her visit.
9. India has vital security-related concerns vis-a-vis Bangladesh---- the sanctuaries enjoyed by indigenous Indian ethnic terrorist organisations such as the United Liberation Front of Assam (ULFA) in Bangladesh territory; the activities of trans-border Islamic terrorist groups such as the Muslim Liberation Tigers of Assam (MULTA), the Independent Liberation Army of Assam (ILAA), and the People United Liberation Front (PULF); the activities from Bangladesh territory of pro-Al Qaeda organisations of Pakistani origin supported by the ISI such as the Lashkar-e-Toiba (LET), the Harkat-ul-Jihad-al-Islami (HUJI) and the Harkat-ul-Mujahideen (HUM); gun running into India’s North-East from and through Bangladesh; the unchecked illegal migration of Muslims from Bangladesh into Assam and West Bengal, which could one day convert Assam into a second Muslim majority State in India after Jammu & Kashmir; the flow of funds from Wahabi charity organisations in Saudi Arabia to fundamentalist elements in the Bangladesh-India region; and the ISI's alleged use of Bangladesh and Nepal for pumping counterfeit currency into India and so on.
10.Any Government in New Delhi would be remiss in exercising its important responsibility for the protection of our national security if it does not take up in lucid terms our concerns over these issues with whichever Government is in power in Dhaka--- whether headed by Sheikh Hasina or Begum Khalida Zia or anybody else. Our security-related concerns have a long history dating from the partition of India and the birth of Pakistan in 1947. The Naga and Mizo insurgencies would not have lasted for as long as they did but for the sanctuaries enjoyed by them till 1971 in the Chittagong Hill Tracts of the then East Pakistan. The ULFA and other insurgencies in Assam would not be surviving today but for the support which they have been receiving in Bangladesh territory. The free run of Bangladesh territory enjoyed by pro-Al Qaeda organizations shows no sign of being countered effectively by any Government in Dhaka. Other collateral problems such as illegal migration, gun running, fund flow and dissemination of counterfeit currency printed in Pakistan pose a serious challenge to our national security managers whoever be in power in Dhaka.
11. There has always been a misperception in India that such security-related problems arising from Bangladesh territory tend to decline in gravity and become manageable when the Awami League comes to power and increase in gravity when Sheikh Hasina’s opponents come to power. This is not correct. The gravity of the security-related problems has remained unchanged whether it was Sheikh Mujib or Sheikh Hasina or Begum Khalida Zia or any other leader, political or military, who was in power. The only difference we have noticed over the years is that when Sheikh Hasina is in power, there is a desire, which seems genuine, to address India’s concerns, but Sheikh Hasina has repeatedly shown an inability to translate this genuine desire into effective concrete action on the ground---- either because of fears of an exploitation of her actions by the opposition to discredit her as an Indian stooge or because of the continuing existence of anti-India and pro-Pakistan elements in Bangladesh’s intelligence and security communities, which drag their feet in implementing the promises or commitments made by her. In the case of Begum Khalida Zia and others, even the desire to address India’s concerns is not there.
12. Is this position showing signs of changing during the present tenure of Sheikh Hasina? Would her greater confidence in herself seen recently enable her to act more vigorously against elements, which pose a threat not only to India, but also to Bangladesh itself? There have been some positive actions by her Government during the last one year. Examples: Suspected pressure on Arabinda Rajkowa of the ULFA, which seems to have played a role in his falling into the hands of the Indian security agencies, investigation and prosecution of elements which were indulging in gun running under the Khalida Zia Government, neutralization of an alleged plot by the LET to attack the Indian and US diplomatic missions in Dhaka, pressure against one or two Indian Mujahideen elements living in BD territory which forced them to cross over into India and fall into the hands of the Indian security forces etc.
13. Despite such positive steps, one could see signs of abundant caution by Sheikh Hasina to ensure that she is not seen as rushing into full-throttled co-operation with India in security-related matters. In her pronouncements and comments while in New Delhi, she made a subtle distinction between co-operation with India against the international terrorism network, which posed a threat to both the countries, and action against indigenous organizations such as the ULFA, which posed a threat to India and not to Bangladesh. To prove my point, I would like to cite some of her remarks as reported by the Times of India of January 14,2010:
• The two countries are in the process of finalizing an extradition treaty.She did not specify how soon the extradition treaty could be finalized. Her Foreign Minister Dipu Moni said it could be concluded shortly given the friendly relations between the two countries.
• On January 11,2010, the two countries signed three agreements on mutual legal assistance in criminal matters, mutual transfer of convicted prisoners and co-operation in the fight against international terrorism, organized crime and illegal drug trafficking.
• Sheikh Hassina said: “ To end terrorism, we want to co-operate. We can go to any extent to co-operate.” She said that the agreements already signed between the two countries were “ enough” to combat terrorism. Side by side, discussions are going on the extradition treaty.
• “ To a specific question on whether Bangladesh would hand over ULFA leader Anup Chetia who is wanted in India, Hasina evaded a direct reply and said that she was not here to “discuss one name”, but broader issues.”
• Asked about ULFA cadres taking shelter in Bangladesh, Hasina said that many “terrorists” from Bangladesh were also living in India and that this was a common thing. She said the two countries should co-operate on this front. “If anybody from Bangladesh is in India, India should look into it and if anybody from India is in Bangladesh, we will look into it.” She also said that if “obstacles or problems” are encountered in the anti-terror co-operation under the three agreements signed, “we can discuss”
• She refused to reply to a query about terrorism finding support in Pakistan and whether that country seemed to be sincere in fighting terrorism for peace in the region, saying such a question should be posed to Pakistan.
14. We have to understand her cautious or even over-cautious attitude in security-related matters. It will be unrealistic to expect a qualitative change in security-related co-operation between the two countries during her current tenure as the Prime Minister. She has to take care of her own political standing. She has to pay attention to the continuing anti-India mindset in her country A durable qualitative change in security-related co-operation can come about only when our policy-makers take cognizance of the anti-India mindset in sections of the population and try to win over the anti-India elements.
15. A bane of our Bangladesh policy has always been that our policy-makers tend to put many, if not all of the eggs, in the basket of Sheikh Hasina and her Awami League. The importance of building bridges of understanding with non-religious political elements such as those in the BNP, even if they are not well disposed towards India, is not realized. Unless we build such bridges, there will always be strong opposition in sections of the political and public opinion in Bangladesh to any meaningful co-operation with India in security-related matters.
16. How to address the surviving anti-India mindset in Bangladesh? How to convince public opinion in Bangladesh that the two countries stand to benefit in equal measure from bilateral co-operation----whether in security or economy related matters? How to create a demonstration effect of the beneficial results of such co-operation? These are questions which a seminar such as this should address.
17.In our relations with our neighbours in the sub-continent, we are always unfortunately seen as a big power with hegemonistic tendencies. We have failed to project ourselves as a huge market, with an increasingly prosperous middle class, which can absorb much of what they produce. How to make them see us as a highly attractive market and not as a repulsive power? Can a policy of unilateral gestures in trade-related matters help in creating a demonstration effect? This is another question which needs to be addressed by this seminar. The recommendations, which go out of this seminar, should be forward moving and not backward-looking over our shoulders all the time.
18.The Inder Gujral Doctrine of unilateral gestures towards our neighbours proved counter-productive because of the over-focus on gestures in security-related matters. What we need is a new doctrine based on a mix of firmness in pursuing our security interests, unilateral gestures in economy-related matters and taking cognizance of the concerns of anti-India elements and seeking to understand them instead of giving the impression of ignoring them. ( 5-2-2010)
( The writer is Additional Secretary (retd), Cabinet Secretariat, Govt. of India, New Delhi, and, presently, Director, Institute For Topical Studies, Chennai. E-mail: seventyone2@gmail.com )
( Talk delivered on February 6,2010, at a seminar jointly organized at Bangalore by the Asia Centre, Bangalore, and the Indian Council of World Affairs, New Delhi )
During her recent visit to India from January 10 to 13,2010, we saw in Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina, who has completed one year in office, a greater confidence in herself and a greater feeling of political security. Having weathered without damage to her political strength the bloody revolt of the Bangladesh Rifles against its own senior officers and having brought to a successful culmination the long process of accountability of some former Army officers for the brutal assassination of her father in 1975, she now feels confident enough to move forward on the road to internal peace and prosperity.
2. However, the political challenges to her individually and to her Awami League led Government from a coalition of political and fundamentalist elements led by the Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP) of Begum Khalida Zia and the Jamaat-e-Islami (JEI) show no sign of withering away. Their anti-Indian and pro-Pakistan constituency remains intact, but they are not yet in a position to pose a serious street challenge to her.
3.In her attempts to face their challenge, she has to see that her political instinct and enthusiasm for better relations with India and for the economic development of the Bangladesh-India region are tempered by caution so that she does not unwittingly hand over to them a stick to beat her with.
4. In assessing India-Bangladesh relations in security-related matters, one has to constantly keep in view the ground reality that there is a surviving anti-India constituency in that country. It is difficult to quantify the strength of this anti-India constituency. At the same time, it will be unwise to dismiss it as of no consequence. It is an important constituency carefully nurtured by Pakistan over the years and by Islamic fundamentalist organisations and charities operating from Saudi Arabia either directly or through Pakistan.
5.In our happiness over the return of Sheikh Hasina to power with an impressive majority over a year ago, we should not commit the folly of underestimating the lingering strength of the anti-India elements. Their power to attract votes might have received a set-back during the last elections, but their street power to create instability has not been damaged.
6.That Sheikh Hasina is aware of it became evident in her chat with a group of journalists at New Delhi on January 13,2010, before she left for Ajmer. According to the "Times of India", when she was asked about the anti-India mindset in her country, she replied: “ Perhaps that may remain. I cannot change that. But common people want better lives and if results are achieved in India-Bangladesh co-operation, these sentiments will not work.”
7.What she sought to convey was that the anti-India mindset in sections of public and political opinion in Bangladesh is a fact of life. It cannot be eradicated, but it can be prevented from coming in the way of better bilateral relations through the demonstration effect of beneficial results as a result of closer relations. What kind of results will be perceived by large sections of the population as beneficial to Bangladesh? That is a question, which one has to constantly keep asking oneself.
8.Gestures there were in plenty during her visit--- a one billion dollar credit line, an agreement to supply power, water-sharing etc, but the anti-India elements in Bangladesh tend to project such gestures of economic significance by India not as unilateral without India expecting anything in return, but as an alleged quid pro quo for security-related concessions made by the Bangladesh Government. Allegations have been made by the anti-India elements after her visit that these gestures by India were in return for a secret security treaty signed by her with India during her visit.
9. India has vital security-related concerns vis-a-vis Bangladesh---- the sanctuaries enjoyed by indigenous Indian ethnic terrorist organisations such as the United Liberation Front of Assam (ULFA) in Bangladesh territory; the activities of trans-border Islamic terrorist groups such as the Muslim Liberation Tigers of Assam (MULTA), the Independent Liberation Army of Assam (ILAA), and the People United Liberation Front (PULF); the activities from Bangladesh territory of pro-Al Qaeda organisations of Pakistani origin supported by the ISI such as the Lashkar-e-Toiba (LET), the Harkat-ul-Jihad-al-Islami (HUJI) and the Harkat-ul-Mujahideen (HUM); gun running into India’s North-East from and through Bangladesh; the unchecked illegal migration of Muslims from Bangladesh into Assam and West Bengal, which could one day convert Assam into a second Muslim majority State in India after Jammu & Kashmir; the flow of funds from Wahabi charity organisations in Saudi Arabia to fundamentalist elements in the Bangladesh-India region; and the ISI's alleged use of Bangladesh and Nepal for pumping counterfeit currency into India and so on.
10.Any Government in New Delhi would be remiss in exercising its important responsibility for the protection of our national security if it does not take up in lucid terms our concerns over these issues with whichever Government is in power in Dhaka--- whether headed by Sheikh Hasina or Begum Khalida Zia or anybody else. Our security-related concerns have a long history dating from the partition of India and the birth of Pakistan in 1947. The Naga and Mizo insurgencies would not have lasted for as long as they did but for the sanctuaries enjoyed by them till 1971 in the Chittagong Hill Tracts of the then East Pakistan. The ULFA and other insurgencies in Assam would not be surviving today but for the support which they have been receiving in Bangladesh territory. The free run of Bangladesh territory enjoyed by pro-Al Qaeda organizations shows no sign of being countered effectively by any Government in Dhaka. Other collateral problems such as illegal migration, gun running, fund flow and dissemination of counterfeit currency printed in Pakistan pose a serious challenge to our national security managers whoever be in power in Dhaka.
11. There has always been a misperception in India that such security-related problems arising from Bangladesh territory tend to decline in gravity and become manageable when the Awami League comes to power and increase in gravity when Sheikh Hasina’s opponents come to power. This is not correct. The gravity of the security-related problems has remained unchanged whether it was Sheikh Mujib or Sheikh Hasina or Begum Khalida Zia or any other leader, political or military, who was in power. The only difference we have noticed over the years is that when Sheikh Hasina is in power, there is a desire, which seems genuine, to address India’s concerns, but Sheikh Hasina has repeatedly shown an inability to translate this genuine desire into effective concrete action on the ground---- either because of fears of an exploitation of her actions by the opposition to discredit her as an Indian stooge or because of the continuing existence of anti-India and pro-Pakistan elements in Bangladesh’s intelligence and security communities, which drag their feet in implementing the promises or commitments made by her. In the case of Begum Khalida Zia and others, even the desire to address India’s concerns is not there.
12. Is this position showing signs of changing during the present tenure of Sheikh Hasina? Would her greater confidence in herself seen recently enable her to act more vigorously against elements, which pose a threat not only to India, but also to Bangladesh itself? There have been some positive actions by her Government during the last one year. Examples: Suspected pressure on Arabinda Rajkowa of the ULFA, which seems to have played a role in his falling into the hands of the Indian security agencies, investigation and prosecution of elements which were indulging in gun running under the Khalida Zia Government, neutralization of an alleged plot by the LET to attack the Indian and US diplomatic missions in Dhaka, pressure against one or two Indian Mujahideen elements living in BD territory which forced them to cross over into India and fall into the hands of the Indian security forces etc.
13. Despite such positive steps, one could see signs of abundant caution by Sheikh Hasina to ensure that she is not seen as rushing into full-throttled co-operation with India in security-related matters. In her pronouncements and comments while in New Delhi, she made a subtle distinction between co-operation with India against the international terrorism network, which posed a threat to both the countries, and action against indigenous organizations such as the ULFA, which posed a threat to India and not to Bangladesh. To prove my point, I would like to cite some of her remarks as reported by the Times of India of January 14,2010:
• The two countries are in the process of finalizing an extradition treaty.She did not specify how soon the extradition treaty could be finalized. Her Foreign Minister Dipu Moni said it could be concluded shortly given the friendly relations between the two countries.
• On January 11,2010, the two countries signed three agreements on mutual legal assistance in criminal matters, mutual transfer of convicted prisoners and co-operation in the fight against international terrorism, organized crime and illegal drug trafficking.
• Sheikh Hassina said: “ To end terrorism, we want to co-operate. We can go to any extent to co-operate.” She said that the agreements already signed between the two countries were “ enough” to combat terrorism. Side by side, discussions are going on the extradition treaty.
• “ To a specific question on whether Bangladesh would hand over ULFA leader Anup Chetia who is wanted in India, Hasina evaded a direct reply and said that she was not here to “discuss one name”, but broader issues.”
• Asked about ULFA cadres taking shelter in Bangladesh, Hasina said that many “terrorists” from Bangladesh were also living in India and that this was a common thing. She said the two countries should co-operate on this front. “If anybody from Bangladesh is in India, India should look into it and if anybody from India is in Bangladesh, we will look into it.” She also said that if “obstacles or problems” are encountered in the anti-terror co-operation under the three agreements signed, “we can discuss”
• She refused to reply to a query about terrorism finding support in Pakistan and whether that country seemed to be sincere in fighting terrorism for peace in the region, saying such a question should be posed to Pakistan.
14. We have to understand her cautious or even over-cautious attitude in security-related matters. It will be unrealistic to expect a qualitative change in security-related co-operation between the two countries during her current tenure as the Prime Minister. She has to take care of her own political standing. She has to pay attention to the continuing anti-India mindset in her country A durable qualitative change in security-related co-operation can come about only when our policy-makers take cognizance of the anti-India mindset in sections of the population and try to win over the anti-India elements.
15. A bane of our Bangladesh policy has always been that our policy-makers tend to put many, if not all of the eggs, in the basket of Sheikh Hasina and her Awami League. The importance of building bridges of understanding with non-religious political elements such as those in the BNP, even if they are not well disposed towards India, is not realized. Unless we build such bridges, there will always be strong opposition in sections of the political and public opinion in Bangladesh to any meaningful co-operation with India in security-related matters.
16. How to address the surviving anti-India mindset in Bangladesh? How to convince public opinion in Bangladesh that the two countries stand to benefit in equal measure from bilateral co-operation----whether in security or economy related matters? How to create a demonstration effect of the beneficial results of such co-operation? These are questions which a seminar such as this should address.
17.In our relations with our neighbours in the sub-continent, we are always unfortunately seen as a big power with hegemonistic tendencies. We have failed to project ourselves as a huge market, with an increasingly prosperous middle class, which can absorb much of what they produce. How to make them see us as a highly attractive market and not as a repulsive power? Can a policy of unilateral gestures in trade-related matters help in creating a demonstration effect? This is another question which needs to be addressed by this seminar. The recommendations, which go out of this seminar, should be forward moving and not backward-looking over our shoulders all the time.
18.The Inder Gujral Doctrine of unilateral gestures towards our neighbours proved counter-productive because of the over-focus on gestures in security-related matters. What we need is a new doctrine based on a mix of firmness in pursuing our security interests, unilateral gestures in economy-related matters and taking cognizance of the concerns of anti-India elements and seeking to understand them instead of giving the impression of ignoring them. ( 5-2-2010)
( The writer is Additional Secretary (retd), Cabinet Secretariat, Govt. of India, New Delhi, and, presently, Director, Institute For Topical Studies, Chennai. E-mail: seventyone2@gmail.com )
Friday, February 5, 2010
VIP SECURITY: DOWN MEMORY LANE
B.RAMAN
As I watched on the TV channels visuals of Shri Rahul Gandhi traveling by the suburban train in Mumbai on February 5,2010, my mind went back to the initial days of V.P.Singh as the Prime Minister in 1989.
2. Those were the days of Khalistani terrorism. Terrorists trained by Pakistan’s Inter-Services Intelligence were running amok in Punjab and Delhi killing dozens of innocent civilians and security forces personnel. One of the promises made by V.P.Singh during the election campaign was to bring a healing touch to the Sikh community. Shri Simranjit Singh Mann, a former IPS officer, who had resigned from the service in protest against the way the Congress (I) was handling the problem, had emerged as a valued adviser of V.P.Singh.
3. Shortly after taking over as the Prime Minister, V.P.Singh, on the advice of Shri Mann, decided to visit the Golden Temple at Amritsar without security. Shri Mann assured him that there would be no threats to his security. V.P.Singh ordered that apart from the bodyguards in plain clothes no other security arrangements should be made for him.
4. The security agencies responsible for his security did not want to take chances. They deployed a large number of security personnel in plain clothes in the Temple itself and outside to ensure that nothing went wrong, without telling V.P.Singh anything about it.
5.From V.P.Singh’s perspective, it was a highly emotional and successful visit. After worshiping in the temple he traveled round the town in an open vehicle. There were thousands of Sikhs and others, who mobbed him and greeted him. Highly pleased by the reception that he got, he said that his security was safe in the hands of the people, who loved him so much. Where was the need for official security at the expense of the tax-payer? he asked.
6. He was not aware that hundreds of those, who mobbed him and hailed him, were not members of the public, but security forces personnel who had been asked to mingle with the crowds to protect him.
7.Subsequently, highly gratified by media accounts of his successful visit to Amritsar and mingling with the crowds, V.P.Singh decided to travel by train from Delhi to Jaipur. He rejected the advice of the security agencies not to do so.
8. He went to the Delhi railway station and got into the train. He was mobbed by large cheering crowds on the station platform. He took his place inside the compartment with what he thought were other members of the traveling public. He returned from Jaipur by train.
9. He was highly gratified by the warmth shown by the traveling public to him and decided to undertake more trips by train. He was not aware that many of those who cheered him at the railway station and that all those who were in the compartment with him were actually security forces personnel in mufti.
10. After he returned to Delhi, senior officers in charge of PM’s security told him the truth and explained that since it was their responsibility to protect him, they could not have taken chances. They also pointed out that such forays by him seemingly without security cost the tax-payer more than the usual security and weakened their capability to protect him.
11. Thereafter, he stopped indulging in such gimmicks in order to embarrass Rajiv Gandhi. The Congress (I) was raising a hue and cry about the downgrading of security for Rajiv Gandhi. He wanted to embarrass Rajiv Gandhi and his Party by showing that Rajiv Gandhi needed elaborate security because he, according to V.P.Singh, was not liked by the people, whereas he (V.P.Singh) did not need that kind of security because he was loved by the people. Wiser advice prevailed and he stopped doing this. (6-2-10)
( The writer is Additional Secretary (retd), Cabinet Secretariat, Govt. of India, New Delhi. E-mail: seventyone2@gmail.com )
As I watched on the TV channels visuals of Shri Rahul Gandhi traveling by the suburban train in Mumbai on February 5,2010, my mind went back to the initial days of V.P.Singh as the Prime Minister in 1989.
2. Those were the days of Khalistani terrorism. Terrorists trained by Pakistan’s Inter-Services Intelligence were running amok in Punjab and Delhi killing dozens of innocent civilians and security forces personnel. One of the promises made by V.P.Singh during the election campaign was to bring a healing touch to the Sikh community. Shri Simranjit Singh Mann, a former IPS officer, who had resigned from the service in protest against the way the Congress (I) was handling the problem, had emerged as a valued adviser of V.P.Singh.
3. Shortly after taking over as the Prime Minister, V.P.Singh, on the advice of Shri Mann, decided to visit the Golden Temple at Amritsar without security. Shri Mann assured him that there would be no threats to his security. V.P.Singh ordered that apart from the bodyguards in plain clothes no other security arrangements should be made for him.
4. The security agencies responsible for his security did not want to take chances. They deployed a large number of security personnel in plain clothes in the Temple itself and outside to ensure that nothing went wrong, without telling V.P.Singh anything about it.
5.From V.P.Singh’s perspective, it was a highly emotional and successful visit. After worshiping in the temple he traveled round the town in an open vehicle. There were thousands of Sikhs and others, who mobbed him and greeted him. Highly pleased by the reception that he got, he said that his security was safe in the hands of the people, who loved him so much. Where was the need for official security at the expense of the tax-payer? he asked.
6. He was not aware that hundreds of those, who mobbed him and hailed him, were not members of the public, but security forces personnel who had been asked to mingle with the crowds to protect him.
7.Subsequently, highly gratified by media accounts of his successful visit to Amritsar and mingling with the crowds, V.P.Singh decided to travel by train from Delhi to Jaipur. He rejected the advice of the security agencies not to do so.
8. He went to the Delhi railway station and got into the train. He was mobbed by large cheering crowds on the station platform. He took his place inside the compartment with what he thought were other members of the traveling public. He returned from Jaipur by train.
9. He was highly gratified by the warmth shown by the traveling public to him and decided to undertake more trips by train. He was not aware that many of those who cheered him at the railway station and that all those who were in the compartment with him were actually security forces personnel in mufti.
10. After he returned to Delhi, senior officers in charge of PM’s security told him the truth and explained that since it was their responsibility to protect him, they could not have taken chances. They also pointed out that such forays by him seemingly without security cost the tax-payer more than the usual security and weakened their capability to protect him.
11. Thereafter, he stopped indulging in such gimmicks in order to embarrass Rajiv Gandhi. The Congress (I) was raising a hue and cry about the downgrading of security for Rajiv Gandhi. He wanted to embarrass Rajiv Gandhi and his Party by showing that Rajiv Gandhi needed elaborate security because he, according to V.P.Singh, was not liked by the people, whereas he (V.P.Singh) did not need that kind of security because he was loved by the people. Wiser advice prevailed and he stopped doing this. (6-2-10)
( The writer is Additional Secretary (retd), Cabinet Secretariat, Govt. of India, New Delhi. E-mail: seventyone2@gmail.com )
Thursday, February 4, 2010
INDO-PAK INTERACTIONS: NEED TO EXPAND BASKET OF ISSUES OF CONCERN
B.RAMAN
Since the beginning of this week, the Government of India has initiated two moves to expand the scope of the interactions with the Government of Pakistan, which have remained stunted since the 26/11 terrorist strikes by the Lashkar-e-Toiba (LET) in Mumbai. The terrorist attacks brought the structured, formalized composite dialogue on the various issues coming in the way of the normalization of bilateral relations to a state of suspension. They did not interrupt the normal official interactions between the two Governments. However, these have remained in low key with no new ideas or new initiatives.
2.While not making any substantive move to resume the composite dialogue despite repeated demands to do so from Pakistani leaders and entreaties in the same direction from the US, the Government of India has initiated two moves to re-vitalise the interactions at the political and professional levels, presumably in order to test the waters for a resumption of the composite dialogue process at a later stage.
3.The first move----at the political level--- is the decision that Shri P.Chidambaram, the Home Minister, should participate in the SAARC Home/Interior Ministers’ conference, which is scheduled to be held in Islamabad later this month, and hold bilateral discussions in the margins of the conference with Mr.Rehman Malik, his Pakistani counterpart. There has been no high-level political visit since 26/11.
4.The bilateral discussions, if approached seriously by the two Governments, should be useful in exchanging notes on the progress of the investigation and prosecution of the 26/11 conspiracy by the LET and in laying the groundwork for establishing a tradition of mutual legal assistance between the principal investigation agencies of the two countries. This has to be a political decision and only the two Ministers would be able to take such a decision.
5.Mr.Malik has been a trusted associate of President Asif Ali Zardari and was a confidante of the late Benazir Bhutto since 1996. Though his relations with Prime Minister Yousef Raza Gilani and the military-intelligence establishment are not very good, he should be able to speak with authority on behalf of Mr.Zardari. Moreover, he is an ex-police officer, who had held a senior position in Pakistan’s Federal Investigation Agency, which, inter alia, investigates and prosecutes major terrorism-related cases He has more the mindset of a Pakistani police officer than of an army officer and has not been known for obsessive anti-India feelings.
6. The second move---at the professional level---- is the reported invitation by Shrimati Nirupama Rao, our Foreign Secretary, to her Pakistani counterpart Mr.Salman Bashir, to visit New Delhi on mutually convenient dates “ to discuss terrorism and any other issue that could lead to peace between the two neighbours” as reported by the media.
7. While there should be no problem with regard to Shri Chidambaram’s visit to Islamabad and his bilateral discussions with Mr.Malik, it remains to be seen whether the Pakistani Foreign Office would go along with the wording of the reported invitation which does not make any reference to a resumption of the composite dialogue. There is a possibility though that the US will strongly nudge Pakistan to respond positively to the invitation without insisting on a reference to the composite dialogue.
8. There has been some valid criticism from sections of the New Delhi-based community of retired officers of what they view as the haste shown by the MEA in rushing with the invitation instead of waiting to see what transpires during the Home Minister’s visit. I subscribe to this criticism.
9. Now that an invitation has reportedly been issued, we have to examine what should be the agenda of the proposed interactions between the two Foreign Secretaries if Pakistan responds positively. While re-vitalising these interactions, it should be our endeavour to expand the basket of issues of concern to India, which have arisen since the format of the composite dialogue was agreed upon when Shri Atal Behari Vajpayee was the Prime Minister and which are not discussed specifically now.
10. While the issue of mutual legal assistance between the principal investigation agencies should be the concern of the two Home/Interior Ministers, there are two other issues, which should be brought within the scope of the interactions between the two Foreign Secretaries. These are the continuing threats to the security of the Indian diplomatic missions in Afghanistan and Bangladesh from Pakistan-based terrorists and action by Pakistan to neutralize those threats and the dangers of Al Qaeda and its associates getting hold of weapons of mass destruction material and how to prevent them.
11. Pakistan’s initial reaction to the addition of these issues could be negative, but that should not discourage us from raising them. ( 5-2-10)
( The writer is Additional Secretary (retd), Cabinet Secretariat, Govt. of India, New Delhi, and, presently, Director, Institute For Topical Studies, Chennai. E-mail: seventyone2@gmail.com )
Since the beginning of this week, the Government of India has initiated two moves to expand the scope of the interactions with the Government of Pakistan, which have remained stunted since the 26/11 terrorist strikes by the Lashkar-e-Toiba (LET) in Mumbai. The terrorist attacks brought the structured, formalized composite dialogue on the various issues coming in the way of the normalization of bilateral relations to a state of suspension. They did not interrupt the normal official interactions between the two Governments. However, these have remained in low key with no new ideas or new initiatives.
2.While not making any substantive move to resume the composite dialogue despite repeated demands to do so from Pakistani leaders and entreaties in the same direction from the US, the Government of India has initiated two moves to re-vitalise the interactions at the political and professional levels, presumably in order to test the waters for a resumption of the composite dialogue process at a later stage.
3.The first move----at the political level--- is the decision that Shri P.Chidambaram, the Home Minister, should participate in the SAARC Home/Interior Ministers’ conference, which is scheduled to be held in Islamabad later this month, and hold bilateral discussions in the margins of the conference with Mr.Rehman Malik, his Pakistani counterpart. There has been no high-level political visit since 26/11.
4.The bilateral discussions, if approached seriously by the two Governments, should be useful in exchanging notes on the progress of the investigation and prosecution of the 26/11 conspiracy by the LET and in laying the groundwork for establishing a tradition of mutual legal assistance between the principal investigation agencies of the two countries. This has to be a political decision and only the two Ministers would be able to take such a decision.
5.Mr.Malik has been a trusted associate of President Asif Ali Zardari and was a confidante of the late Benazir Bhutto since 1996. Though his relations with Prime Minister Yousef Raza Gilani and the military-intelligence establishment are not very good, he should be able to speak with authority on behalf of Mr.Zardari. Moreover, he is an ex-police officer, who had held a senior position in Pakistan’s Federal Investigation Agency, which, inter alia, investigates and prosecutes major terrorism-related cases He has more the mindset of a Pakistani police officer than of an army officer and has not been known for obsessive anti-India feelings.
6. The second move---at the professional level---- is the reported invitation by Shrimati Nirupama Rao, our Foreign Secretary, to her Pakistani counterpart Mr.Salman Bashir, to visit New Delhi on mutually convenient dates “ to discuss terrorism and any other issue that could lead to peace between the two neighbours” as reported by the media.
7. While there should be no problem with regard to Shri Chidambaram’s visit to Islamabad and his bilateral discussions with Mr.Malik, it remains to be seen whether the Pakistani Foreign Office would go along with the wording of the reported invitation which does not make any reference to a resumption of the composite dialogue. There is a possibility though that the US will strongly nudge Pakistan to respond positively to the invitation without insisting on a reference to the composite dialogue.
8. There has been some valid criticism from sections of the New Delhi-based community of retired officers of what they view as the haste shown by the MEA in rushing with the invitation instead of waiting to see what transpires during the Home Minister’s visit. I subscribe to this criticism.
9. Now that an invitation has reportedly been issued, we have to examine what should be the agenda of the proposed interactions between the two Foreign Secretaries if Pakistan responds positively. While re-vitalising these interactions, it should be our endeavour to expand the basket of issues of concern to India, which have arisen since the format of the composite dialogue was agreed upon when Shri Atal Behari Vajpayee was the Prime Minister and which are not discussed specifically now.
10. While the issue of mutual legal assistance between the principal investigation agencies should be the concern of the two Home/Interior Ministers, there are two other issues, which should be brought within the scope of the interactions between the two Foreign Secretaries. These are the continuing threats to the security of the Indian diplomatic missions in Afghanistan and Bangladesh from Pakistan-based terrorists and action by Pakistan to neutralize those threats and the dangers of Al Qaeda and its associates getting hold of weapons of mass destruction material and how to prevent them.
11. Pakistan’s initial reaction to the addition of these issues could be negative, but that should not discourage us from raising them. ( 5-2-10)
( The writer is Additional Secretary (retd), Cabinet Secretariat, Govt. of India, New Delhi, and, presently, Director, Institute For Topical Studies, Chennai. E-mail: seventyone2@gmail.com )
Wednesday, February 3, 2010
THE TEHRIK-E-TALIBAN PAKISTAN---AN UPDATE
INTERNATIONAL TERRORISM MONITOR---PAPER NO 615
B.RAMAN
The death of three US soldiers (Marines?), living under civilian cover in the Lower Dir District of the Malakand Division of the North-West Frontier Province (NWFP) of Pakistan, in an explosion which a struck a convoy in which they were reportedly traveling with some Pakistani security forces personnel on February 3,2010, has been confirmed by the US Embassy in Islamabad.
2. Initially, the killed Americans were projected as journalists or as employees of the US Agency For International Development (AID), but subsequently, the US Embassy admitted that they were military personnel deployed in the area on a training-cum- civil construction mission. They were posted in the area to train personnel of the Frontier Corps (FC), a para-military unit headquartered in Peshawar and consisting largely of Pashtuns recruited in the NWFP and the Federally-Administered Tribal Areas (FATA).
3.Since 2005, there have been many reported instances of the penetration of the FC by the Pakistani Taliban and collusion of many FC personnel with the Taliban. There were also instances of the desertions of a large number of FC personnel to the Taliban during the fighting in the South Waziristan area.
4. Despite such instances, the US had proposed a project for the training of the FC personnel by members of the US Special Forces units and for undertaking civil construction projects in remote rural areas in the hope of thereby helping the FC win the hearts and minds of the local tribals and weaning them away from supporting the Taliban. This project, which was accepted by the Pakistan Government, has been under implementation for over a year.
5.The training project has two components. Under the first component, selected commissioned officers of the FC are taken to the US for special training. Under the second component, selected non-commissioned officers and other ranks are trained locally in the NEFP, but not in the FATA.
6.The three US military personnel killed on February 3 were reportedly proceeding in a convoy escorted by the FC to attend the inauguration of a school for girls constructed by the voluntary labour of the FC personnel and the US trainers. Available details regarding the incident are confusing. Some reports suggest the explosion was triggered off either by a suicide bomber or through a remote control device as the convoy was proceeding to the venue of the function. If this was so, it is not clear, as to how, many girls, who had assembled at the venue, were injured. A possibility is that the explosion struck the convoy just as it arrived at the venue.
7.It is also not clear whether the explosion specifically targeted the US military personnel or it merely targeted the girls school because the Taliban is opposed to girls’ education and the US personnel who were there got killed. A person, who claimed to be the spokesman of the Pakistani Taliban, has claimed that the Taliban carried out the attack and alleged that the three US military personnel were actually working for Blackwater, a US security firm employed by the US Government for physical security and training purposes in the Af-Pak area.
8.The Dir area of the Malakand Division is the native place of Sufi Mohammad, the founder of the Tehrik-e-Nifaz-e-Shariat-e-Mohammadi (TNSM), a component of the TTP, which had established its control over the Swat Valley of the Malakand Division under the leadership of Maulana Fazlullah, son-in-law of Sufi Mohammad, who is a native of Swat. In operations undertaken towards the end of 2008 and in the beginning of 2009, the Pakistani Army managed to eject the TNSM from the Malakand Division, including Lower and Upper Dir and Swat. Its leaders evaded capture or death and managed to escape.
9.The explosion of February 3 shows that while the TNSM and its associates in the area may have lost their territorial control in the area, they still have some capability for random attacks with explosive devices. The incident is unlikely to affect the training programme of the US. What is significant is not the success of the terrorists on February 3, but their inability to identify and target US military trainers till now despite the fact that they have been operating in the area for over a year now. This speaks well of the high level of security of the training programme.
10.In the meanwhile, rumours regarding the death of Hakimullah, the Amir of the TTP, on January 26, 2010, as a result of the injuries sustained by him in a US Drone strike on January 14,2010, continue to persist despite the repeated denial of these rumours by the TTP. There is no way of establishing the veracity of these rumours unless the TTP itself decides to admit the truth, if he is really dead, as it did after a delay in the case of the death of his predecessor Baitullah Mehsud in a Drone strike in August last.
11.What is clear is that despite the spectacular success of the TTP in getting seven CIA officers and one Jordanian intelligence officer killed in the Khost area of Afghanistan on December 30,2009, through a Jordanian double agent, it seems to be facing difficulties in Pakistani territory due to relentless air strikes by the US with its Drones and the Pakistani Army operations in the South Waziristan area. It has lost territorial control in the Mehsud area in South Waziristan and the disruption of its command and control has resulted in the senior leaders of the organization such as Hakimullah himself if he is still alive, Waliur Rehman, its leader in charge of South Waziristan, and Qari Hussain Mehsud, in charge of its suicide wing, being forced to move from place to place in non-Mehsud areas in order to escape attacks by the US Drones. This has added to their vulnerability and affected their ability to carry out spectacular terrorist strikes in the non-tribal areas. The TTP seems to be a weakened , but not a defeated force.
12. This may please be read in continuation of my earlier article titled CIA: Alive & Kicking at http://www.southasiaanalysis.org/papers37/paper3610.html . (4-2-10)
( The writer is Additional Secretary (retd), Cabinet Secretariat, Govt. of India, New Delhi, and, presently, Director, Institute For Topical Studies, Chennai. E-mail: seventyone2@gmail.com )
B.RAMAN
The death of three US soldiers (Marines?), living under civilian cover in the Lower Dir District of the Malakand Division of the North-West Frontier Province (NWFP) of Pakistan, in an explosion which a struck a convoy in which they were reportedly traveling with some Pakistani security forces personnel on February 3,2010, has been confirmed by the US Embassy in Islamabad.
2. Initially, the killed Americans were projected as journalists or as employees of the US Agency For International Development (AID), but subsequently, the US Embassy admitted that they were military personnel deployed in the area on a training-cum- civil construction mission. They were posted in the area to train personnel of the Frontier Corps (FC), a para-military unit headquartered in Peshawar and consisting largely of Pashtuns recruited in the NWFP and the Federally-Administered Tribal Areas (FATA).
3.Since 2005, there have been many reported instances of the penetration of the FC by the Pakistani Taliban and collusion of many FC personnel with the Taliban. There were also instances of the desertions of a large number of FC personnel to the Taliban during the fighting in the South Waziristan area.
4. Despite such instances, the US had proposed a project for the training of the FC personnel by members of the US Special Forces units and for undertaking civil construction projects in remote rural areas in the hope of thereby helping the FC win the hearts and minds of the local tribals and weaning them away from supporting the Taliban. This project, which was accepted by the Pakistan Government, has been under implementation for over a year.
5.The training project has two components. Under the first component, selected commissioned officers of the FC are taken to the US for special training. Under the second component, selected non-commissioned officers and other ranks are trained locally in the NEFP, but not in the FATA.
6.The three US military personnel killed on February 3 were reportedly proceeding in a convoy escorted by the FC to attend the inauguration of a school for girls constructed by the voluntary labour of the FC personnel and the US trainers. Available details regarding the incident are confusing. Some reports suggest the explosion was triggered off either by a suicide bomber or through a remote control device as the convoy was proceeding to the venue of the function. If this was so, it is not clear, as to how, many girls, who had assembled at the venue, were injured. A possibility is that the explosion struck the convoy just as it arrived at the venue.
7.It is also not clear whether the explosion specifically targeted the US military personnel or it merely targeted the girls school because the Taliban is opposed to girls’ education and the US personnel who were there got killed. A person, who claimed to be the spokesman of the Pakistani Taliban, has claimed that the Taliban carried out the attack and alleged that the three US military personnel were actually working for Blackwater, a US security firm employed by the US Government for physical security and training purposes in the Af-Pak area.
8.The Dir area of the Malakand Division is the native place of Sufi Mohammad, the founder of the Tehrik-e-Nifaz-e-Shariat-e-Mohammadi (TNSM), a component of the TTP, which had established its control over the Swat Valley of the Malakand Division under the leadership of Maulana Fazlullah, son-in-law of Sufi Mohammad, who is a native of Swat. In operations undertaken towards the end of 2008 and in the beginning of 2009, the Pakistani Army managed to eject the TNSM from the Malakand Division, including Lower and Upper Dir and Swat. Its leaders evaded capture or death and managed to escape.
9.The explosion of February 3 shows that while the TNSM and its associates in the area may have lost their territorial control in the area, they still have some capability for random attacks with explosive devices. The incident is unlikely to affect the training programme of the US. What is significant is not the success of the terrorists on February 3, but their inability to identify and target US military trainers till now despite the fact that they have been operating in the area for over a year now. This speaks well of the high level of security of the training programme.
10.In the meanwhile, rumours regarding the death of Hakimullah, the Amir of the TTP, on January 26, 2010, as a result of the injuries sustained by him in a US Drone strike on January 14,2010, continue to persist despite the repeated denial of these rumours by the TTP. There is no way of establishing the veracity of these rumours unless the TTP itself decides to admit the truth, if he is really dead, as it did after a delay in the case of the death of his predecessor Baitullah Mehsud in a Drone strike in August last.
11.What is clear is that despite the spectacular success of the TTP in getting seven CIA officers and one Jordanian intelligence officer killed in the Khost area of Afghanistan on December 30,2009, through a Jordanian double agent, it seems to be facing difficulties in Pakistani territory due to relentless air strikes by the US with its Drones and the Pakistani Army operations in the South Waziristan area. It has lost territorial control in the Mehsud area in South Waziristan and the disruption of its command and control has resulted in the senior leaders of the organization such as Hakimullah himself if he is still alive, Waliur Rehman, its leader in charge of South Waziristan, and Qari Hussain Mehsud, in charge of its suicide wing, being forced to move from place to place in non-Mehsud areas in order to escape attacks by the US Drones. This has added to their vulnerability and affected their ability to carry out spectacular terrorist strikes in the non-tribal areas. The TTP seems to be a weakened , but not a defeated force.
12. This may please be read in continuation of my earlier article titled CIA: Alive & Kicking at http://www.southasiaanalysis.org/papers37/paper3610.html . (4-2-10)
( The writer is Additional Secretary (retd), Cabinet Secretariat, Govt. of India, New Delhi, and, presently, Director, Institute For Topical Studies, Chennai. E-mail: seventyone2@gmail.com )
CHINA BLOWING HOT, BLOWING COLD
B.RAMAN
Is the tension in the relations between the US and China over the decision of President Barack Obama to notify the US Congress on January 29,2010, of his decision to clear the sale of a new arms package to Taiwan showing signs of cooling down?
2. It is less than a week since Mr.Obama cleared the sale, but some Chinese comments have already started referring to the consequent diplomatic tension in the past rather than in the present tense. A reference is made to it not as a continuing tension, but as the “recent” strain.
3. Does this mean that after having stepped up the rhetoric with blunt warnings of Chinese economic sanctions against US companies such as Boeing and Lockheed Martin, which manufacture the weapons and other military equipment that are proposed to be sold to Taiwan, the Chinese are trying to cool the crisis?
4. The threat of sanctions still remains, but the realization seems to be sinking in that the sanctions could prove to be a double-edged sword. For example, a half of the existing Chinese commercial aircraft fleet is of Boeing manufacture. If the Chinese impose sanctions against Boeing, what impact that would have on the maintenance of the aircraft acquired in the past and the continued availability of spare parts for them?
5. Next to the Beijing Olympics of August, 2008, the Chinese have attached a major importance and status symbol to the forthcoming World Trade Expo in Shanghai. Its success would to a considerable extent depend on the participation of American manufacturers and businessmen. If China tried to take punitive action against some US companies in retaliation for the Taiwan deal, what impact it might have on US participation in the Shanghai Expo?
6. China has to stood to benefit in recent years not only in its economic development, but also in its diplomatic standing in the international community as a result of the over-all improvement in its relations with the US. Individual areas of tension remain and will continue to remain, but should such areas be allowed to damage the over-all relationship?
7. The Obama Administration might be sticking to the policies of the previous Administration in matters such as those concerning Taiwan and human rights in Tibet, but it is not showing any indication of reverting to the policy of multilateral tie-ups with countries such as India, Japan and Australia in a manner that could be detrimental to China. Is it not in China’s interest to encourage the Obama Administration to continue to avoid such tie-ups which worry China?
8. One could see signs of an introspection in the articles carried by sections of the Chinese media , which are more balanced and less jingoistic than those published immediately after the decision of Mr.Obama. Even the titles of these articles speak of a desire to cool it. Examples: “ China & US On Steady Path To Warmer Relations” ( “Global Times” of Feb.2) ; “Old Issues, New Ways of Engagement” ( “Global Times” of February 4); “Keep Sino-US Soft Conflicts Under Control “ ( “China Daily” of February 4).
9. Even on the issue of the expected meeting of His Holiness the Dalai Lama with Mr.Obama possibly later this month, Chinese analysts have started making a distinction between Mr.Obama’s right to receive any foreign visitor, which may not be that deplorable, and his using such meetings for moralizing purposes such as highlighting the continuing US interest in Tibetan human rights, which would be deplorable.
10. A clear enunciation of the Chinese official thinking on the general issue of the importance attached by Beijing to China’s relations with the US and the sequel to the current tensions relating to arms sale to Taiwan and the proposed meeting with His Holiness might be given by Mr.Yang Jiechi, the Chinese Foreign Minister, during his participation in the annual Munich Security Conference starting on February 5. This is the first time a Chinese Foreign Minister is participating in this conference. (4-2-10)
( The writer is Additional Secretary (retd ), Cabinet Secretariat, Govt. of India, New Delhi, and, presently, Director, Institute For Topical Studies, Chennai. He is also associated with the Chennai Centre For China Studies. E-mail: seventyone2@gmail.com )
Is the tension in the relations between the US and China over the decision of President Barack Obama to notify the US Congress on January 29,2010, of his decision to clear the sale of a new arms package to Taiwan showing signs of cooling down?
2. It is less than a week since Mr.Obama cleared the sale, but some Chinese comments have already started referring to the consequent diplomatic tension in the past rather than in the present tense. A reference is made to it not as a continuing tension, but as the “recent” strain.
3. Does this mean that after having stepped up the rhetoric with blunt warnings of Chinese economic sanctions against US companies such as Boeing and Lockheed Martin, which manufacture the weapons and other military equipment that are proposed to be sold to Taiwan, the Chinese are trying to cool the crisis?
4. The threat of sanctions still remains, but the realization seems to be sinking in that the sanctions could prove to be a double-edged sword. For example, a half of the existing Chinese commercial aircraft fleet is of Boeing manufacture. If the Chinese impose sanctions against Boeing, what impact that would have on the maintenance of the aircraft acquired in the past and the continued availability of spare parts for them?
5. Next to the Beijing Olympics of August, 2008, the Chinese have attached a major importance and status symbol to the forthcoming World Trade Expo in Shanghai. Its success would to a considerable extent depend on the participation of American manufacturers and businessmen. If China tried to take punitive action against some US companies in retaliation for the Taiwan deal, what impact it might have on US participation in the Shanghai Expo?
6. China has to stood to benefit in recent years not only in its economic development, but also in its diplomatic standing in the international community as a result of the over-all improvement in its relations with the US. Individual areas of tension remain and will continue to remain, but should such areas be allowed to damage the over-all relationship?
7. The Obama Administration might be sticking to the policies of the previous Administration in matters such as those concerning Taiwan and human rights in Tibet, but it is not showing any indication of reverting to the policy of multilateral tie-ups with countries such as India, Japan and Australia in a manner that could be detrimental to China. Is it not in China’s interest to encourage the Obama Administration to continue to avoid such tie-ups which worry China?
8. One could see signs of an introspection in the articles carried by sections of the Chinese media , which are more balanced and less jingoistic than those published immediately after the decision of Mr.Obama. Even the titles of these articles speak of a desire to cool it. Examples: “ China & US On Steady Path To Warmer Relations” ( “Global Times” of Feb.2) ; “Old Issues, New Ways of Engagement” ( “Global Times” of February 4); “Keep Sino-US Soft Conflicts Under Control “ ( “China Daily” of February 4).
9. Even on the issue of the expected meeting of His Holiness the Dalai Lama with Mr.Obama possibly later this month, Chinese analysts have started making a distinction between Mr.Obama’s right to receive any foreign visitor, which may not be that deplorable, and his using such meetings for moralizing purposes such as highlighting the continuing US interest in Tibetan human rights, which would be deplorable.
10. A clear enunciation of the Chinese official thinking on the general issue of the importance attached by Beijing to China’s relations with the US and the sequel to the current tensions relating to arms sale to Taiwan and the proposed meeting with His Holiness might be given by Mr.Yang Jiechi, the Chinese Foreign Minister, during his participation in the annual Munich Security Conference starting on February 5. This is the first time a Chinese Foreign Minister is participating in this conference. (4-2-10)
( The writer is Additional Secretary (retd ), Cabinet Secretariat, Govt. of India, New Delhi, and, presently, Director, Institute For Topical Studies, Chennai. He is also associated with the Chennai Centre For China Studies. E-mail: seventyone2@gmail.com )
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