South Asia

Sehgal, who is also a political columnist for Pakistani newspapers such as The News International, decried the high level of privilege and corruption in Pakistan’s government. As an example, he noted that “70 percent of the legislators in the last parliament were neither registered taxpayers, nor were paying taxes themselves.”

He also warned that a lethal nexus of “corruption, organized crime and terrorism” is a chronic problem, producing contradictory trends. While the counter-insurgency strategy of Pakistani’s army has scored notable successes, he noted: “We have not really won the war against terrorism. Terrorism is alive and well in Pakistan.” A big part of the problem, he added, is that “the political will to fight terrorism is not really there in the current government.”

However, Sehgal does see some hope in the  May elections. He noted that Pakistani women are increasingly involved in politics, as are growing numbers of newly registered young voters. The latter group has been attracted to politics by compelling figures such as Imran Khan, the former star cricket player-turned-politician. While not a member of Khan’s party, Sehgal insisted that he was “better than the corrupt people that we now have in power.”

Elections aside, the domestic fate of Pakistan is very much dependent on its neighbors—and, in particular, on Afghanistan. What happens following the withdrawal of foreign troops from that country next year will have an immediate impact on Pakistan, he cautions.  

“The Afghan vacuum will spill over to Pakistan,” he declared. Although he does not see foresee a sudden dissolution of Afghanistan after foreign troops exit the country, he predicts that “it will happen gradually” unless the Afghan authorities perform better than they do now.

Nonetheless, Sehgal believes that Pakistan could have a bright future, in part, because of its considerable resources and skilled manpower. “We are one of the few developing nations that can feed and clothe our citizens,” he said. He then went on to rank his country as one of the world’s highest producers of copper, gold, coal, wheat, milk, cotton and other crucial resources. “I am an optimist about Pakistan,” he concluded.

Sehgal previously spoke at EWI’s 9^th Worldwide Security Conference in Brussels, focusing on Economic Security in Southwest Asia. Watch the video of his address here.

In 1989, I was approached by the government of Mikhail Gorbachev for help with a new problem the Soviet Union was facing—drug addiction. At the time, I was administrator of the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration. We quickly accepted their invitation and traveled to Moscow and met with our law enforcement colleagues. Our goal was to foster better cooperation with our Soviet colleagues, consistent with the international enforcement mission of the DEA. It was in our mutual interest to work with the Soviets as they faced their country’s new but still small addiction to Afghan opiates.

Today, at a time when U.S.-Russia relations have dropped to a new low, the two countries continue to find it in our mutual interest to cooperate in their ant-drug efforts. Given the planned drawdown of U.S. troops from Afghanistan next year, opium from Afghanistan continues to fuel a growing drug crisis in Russia. About 30,000 Russians die each year from heroin-related deaths, and intravenous drug use is the lead factor in the stunning rates of HIV and AIDS in that country. What began as a relatively modest opium abuse problem among the Soviet troops returning from Afghanistan in the 1980s is now a major crisis for Russian society.

Although only about 7 percent of heroin in the United States is of Afghan origin, the flow of drugs from this struggling country threatens us in numerous ways. First and foremost, drug funding supports terrorist activity. Even during the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan, when the Soviet Union and the United States were on opposing sides of the conflict, the DEA worked with the mujahideen to locate and destroy heroin laboratories. After the withdrawal of Soviet troops and the USSR’s overture for DEA assistance in 1989, we shared the common goal of addressing international drug trafficking. We now have offices in Moscow and Kabul, and Russia’s cooperation and sharing of drug intelligence is a key component of our investigative activity focused on opium from Afghanistan, corruption, and money laundering.

What does this cooperation look like? Today the DEA works on the ground with NATO and Afghan national forces to track down Taliban and other anti-government elements involved in the drug trade. In this work, we rely on assistance and intelligence from Russia’s Federal Drug Control Agency (FSKN) to locate and destroy drug laboratories, and to initiate investigations of trafficking, corruption, and money laundering. It is, in short, an effective partnership with the law enforcement and security agencies operating in Afghanistan.

But there is more that can and should be done to institutionalize such vital cooperation. The demand-side is part of the equation, and the Russian government has sought to learn from our long history of drug treatment, drug education and rehabilitation. But we also must work together on the supply side of the equation. We have continued these efforts in a discreet non-governmental effort to bring U.S. and Russian experts together to cooperate on combatting narcotrafficking from Afghanistan. This effort, led by the EastWest Institute, recently culminated in the publication of a U.S.-Russia joint threat assessment on narcotrafficking. International cooperation is key in any successful strategy.

As the EastWest report acknowledged, the two sides don’t necessarily agree on how to deal with the supply side of the problem. The Russian government has urged massive aerial eradication, taking as an example the U.S. strategy in Colombia. This strategy worked in Colombia in spite of the violent intimidation of the Medellin and Cali cartels that targeted law enforcement and judicial officials, including this writer while Administrator of DEA. But such a strategy cannot be easily translated to the realities of Afghanistan.

If Afghan farmers abruptly lose such a major source of income, the danger is that they quickly will be radicalized, providing new recruits for the Taliban or other antigovernment forces. Washington prefers to put more emphasis on the kind of economic development that would provide new alternatives to poppy cultivation and smuggling.

Despite those disagreements, the areas of shared understanding between the United States and Russia on these drug issues are growing. The main dilemma for counternarcotics efforts is not a strict choice between hard and soft measures prioritizing either eradication/interdiction or alternative development. Any effective counternarcotics strategy requires an integrated enforcement and development solution. It also demands that the United States and Russia continue to work together, no matter what other problems plague our bilateral relationship.

With 27 years in law enforcement, John Lawn served as administrator of the Drug Enforcement Administration from 1985 to 1990 and was deputy administrator from 1982 to 1985.

Read this piece at the World Policy Journal.

The phrase ‘may you live in interesting times’ is a Chinese curse heaped on an enemy. Frederic Coudert quotes an unknown British diplomat in 1936: “No age has been fraught with more insecurity than our present time.” Three years later the Second World War ravaged the world between 1939 and 1945. We in Pakistan have never ceased to live through such times throughout our checkered history.

Because of the geographical location and the consequent world politics that goes with it, our geopolitical situation is made tenuous because of religious diversities and permutations and combinations thereof. Notwithstanding the economic potential of an area astride the Indus River descending to a fertile delta from the high Karakoram Mountains down to the Indian Ocean, rich in agriculture and blessed with both minerals and skilled manpower we are perennially in crisis, mostly man-made disasters – earthquake and floods aside.

The hex on Pakistan is mainly because of the leaders we have been cursed with across the broad spectrum since the early demise of the Quaid in 1949 and the subsequent assassination of his close aide, Shaheed Liaquat Ali Khan in 1951. We continue to survive as a nation only because of the enormous resilience our people are blessed with. Even the bloody wake-up call we got in 1971 seemed only momentarily to distract us, thereafter it was back to "business" as usual of perennial bad governance. Things are even worse in that part of Pakistan, now Bangladesh since 1971.

A history of incompetence and corruption is further complicated by less than three million out of 180 million people paying direct taxes. The economy remains under pressure because of seriously deficient revenues. Consider: 70 percent of the legislators in the last parliament, who imperiously imposed taxes on the people, were neither registered taxpayers nor were they paying taxes themselves. The battle cry of the New Republic in 1776, “no taxation without representation,” could be paraphrased for Pakistan as “no taxation with representation.”

The leaders of two major political parties are the richest men in the country. Asif Ali Zardari and Mian Nawaz Sharif till very recently paid less tax than even the lowest salaried person in their own employ liable to pay taxes. Hiding of illegal wealth by misdeclaration and failure to pay requisite taxes are endemic, as are fake credentials being used to enter parliament and preside over the destiny of the nation. The many discrepancies in declaring their income and assets in previous years should by itself be enough to disqualify most, if not all, of the previous parliamentarians.

Enormous amounts of money are flowing out of the country, take for example the judgement in the UK by Justice Hamblen on February 13, 2013 in favour of complainant Deutsche Bank (Suisse) against Senator Gulzar Khan of the PPP, his sons Senators Waqar Khan (for some time the federal minister for privatisation and investment) and Ammar Khan, Senator Gulzar’s wife Razia Sultana and their daughter Sehr Asher and seven off-shore companies.

The judgement encompassing 73 pages includes mind-boggling amounts for purchase of the most expensive property in London in 2007, ultimately exceeding UK Pounds Sterling 100 million (Rs15 billion). The challenge for the ECP as a test case, how much taxes did these five billionaires pay in Pakistan, or the UK, ie if any, and pray what was their need for setting up seven off-shore companies?

The media as a champion of accountability has been correctly measured by those it, in theory, is meant to hold accountable. Details about the enormous wealth transferred abroad (what to talk about their bank defaults) of stalwarts of many political parties are not reported in Pakistan at all, or made public as they should be. Our media does not venture asking “inconvenient” questions; can any in the print and/or electronic media dare question why our topmost holder of public office does not declare his assets as every public official should?

The immediate problem is to ensure free and fair translation of the wishes of the electorate on May 11. In 2002 the military’s favourites were manoeuvred into public office, give credit to Maj Gen (r) Ihtesham Zamir (then of the ISI), son of late Zamir jafri, for his moral courage in standing up and accepting his responsibility for selectively rigging the vote for favourites on Gen Musharraf’s (‘illegal’) instructions. While the 2008 electoral process was not interfered into by the army, it was so badly flawed that hundreds entered parliament with fake educational qualifications and without correctly declaring their income, sources thereof and assets. The present process of scrutiny of candidates was deliberately rushed to pressurise officials of the Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP) in the field to accept flawed credentials of intending candidates.

In a case reported as ‘PLD 1984 Supreme Court (of Pakistan)’ Page 44 says: “Perjury is one of the most heinous social and moral offences. An offence punishable under the law as stipulated under Section 194 of the PPC, it is also against the injunctions of the Holy Quran (Sura Al-Nisa: 135), an evil which tends to disrupt the very basis of social order and make a mockery of the judicial system, be it Islamic or otherwise”.

Consider our uniformed young men in Swat, South Waziristan and elsewhere, as well as innocent civilians throughout the land, dying by the hundreds while frauds and perjurers revel in the luxuries and trappings of power while lording over us as feudals. To quote TV anchor Talat Hussain: “The greater the fraud the greater the reward in Pakistan.”

Telling lies under oath is a favorite (and profitable) pastime in South Asia, particularly in Pakistan. A person giving or fabricating false evidence is liable to be punished with imprisonment for life or with rigorous imprisonment, extending to ten years, and also liable to fine. Instead of getting entangled in legal technicalities proving the evidence as per our rather outdated and defective "laws of evidence" inherited from the British (who have long since changed them), if prima facie the previous declaration of assets by the candidates and filing of related information differs substantially from that submitted presently, evidenced also without commensurate increase in paying of taxes, then they are guilty of perjury.

Will we want certified perjurers to rule over our nation’s destiny for another five years? Or will the Supreme Court condone perjury under the ‘Doctrine of Necessity’ for sustaining democracy come what may at all costs, even to the peril of the nation?

Ikram Sehgal is a security analyst and chairman of PATHFINDER GROUP. He will be appearing at EWI's New York Center on April 16 to discuss "The Future of Pakistan." 

Can you outline the basic tenets of the Arms Trade Treaty and discuss what it aims to accomplish?

Prior to the arms trade treaty, there was no real global set of rules governing the trade, export or transport of conventional weapons. The Arms Trade Treaty (ATT) sets up standards for the cross-border transfer of eight categories of weapons; tanks, combat vehicles, all the way down to small and light weapons. It seeks to curb the irresponsible and illegal trade of weapons and prevent their sale into illicit markets.

Prior to authorizing any sale of weapons, the exporter has to assess whether the transfer is going to be used to facilitate or commit genocide, crimes against humanity, or other international humanitarian laws. If there is a known risk, they are prohibited from making that sale or transfer. Countries will then be held accountable through annual reporting requirements on arms transfers.

What are some objections to the treaty? Can you summarize the treaty’s main limitations?

The three countries that objected to the treaty are North Korea, Iran and Syria. I should say that the objections that these three countries held were echoed by a number of other countries. North Korea didn’t like the idea that exporters would be judging the humanitarian rights record of the importing countries. Iran, for their part, said that, “they didn’t approve of the transfer of conventional arms to foreign occupiers,” which is a thinly veiled reference to Israel. Syria objected because they didn’t like the fact that transfers or exports to armed groups or non-state actors (e.g. rebels in Syria) were not covered.

The treaty is also criticized for its relatively narrow scope; it doesn’t cover gifts and loans, which is a significant loophole. Furthermore, there’s no enforcement mechanism – that’s left to states to resolve.

Though the United States, the world's biggest arms exporter, voted yes on Tuesday, what are the chances of the U.S. ratifying the treaty? There’s stiff resistance from the National Rifle Association and conservatives in the Senate, where it needs a two-thirds majority to win ratification.

The focus of this treaty is entirely on the international trade and transfer of conventional weapons. The preamble of the ATT explicitly acknowledges that states retain their sovereignty and their authority to regulate the internal transfer and internal domestic possession of conventional weapons. It no way infringes upon private ownership. In fact, the American Bar Association was commissioned to do an analysis of the ATT and they found that the treaty is entirely consistent with the Second Amendment.

In the short term, there will definitely be opposition to the treaty in the U.S. The New York Times reports that over 50 senators are against it. So I don’t think this is going to happen anytime soon. But in the long term, the position of the NRA and other treaty opponents will likely be undermined. The current gun safety debate in the U.S., triggered by the Newtown massacre, weakens their position. And considering the fact that the only three countries that currently oppose the treaty are Iran, Syria and the North Korea, the NRA’s alignment with that trio certainly does not put them in a good light.

Why have Russia and China, two leading sellers of conventional weapons, abstained from voting? What does this mean for export control?

In short, China was opposed to the fact that the treaty was approved in a setting that did not allow every state veto power. It was previously negotiated at the UN Conference on the Arms Trade Treaty, but consensus was blocked by opposition from Iran, North Korea and Syria. The ATT was then moved to the UN General Assembly, which requires only a simple majority to adopt a treaty. Wary of establishing a precedent, China argued that this move weakened the treaty.

Russia, for its part, felt that a number of the definitions, such as the term “genocide,” were not sufficiently clarified. Should these definitions be more appropriately defined, I believe it would be more acceptable to the Russians.

Russia is the second largest exporter of conventional weapons and China the fifth largest. The fact that these two countries did not approve the treaty outright obviously does not bode well for its implementation.

Anna MacDonald, the head of arms control for Oxfam International, has said, “This treaty won’t solve the problems of Syria overnight…but it will help to prevent future Syrias.” How might this treaty affect the current situation in Syria, if it were to be ratified today, and how might it prevent armed violence in the future?

Even by the most optimistic estimates, we are still one to two years away from this treaty’s ratification and entry into force. If it did enter into force today, it would make Russian sales of weapons to Syria much more difficult. Eventually, post-ratification, this will develop into an international norm. This is what happened with nuclear weapons, biological weapons and chemical weapons. It takes years, but eventually, it will develop into a norm, and this will raise political costs for countries that contravene the norm.

Another thing that the treaty will do is publicly name violators, ostracizing these countries within the international community. In terms of preventing future Syrias, the treaty will fill gaps that currently exist in the global arms trade. Only about 50 countries currently have related laws on the books, so once this treaty is approved with broad support from the international community, it will serve to diminish the now flourishing illicit market for these weapons.

What challenges will stand in the way of effective enforcement of this treaty?

It remains to be seen if countries are willing to subordinate their economic interests to fulfill their obligations under this treaty, so it’s entirely likely that countries will enact laws on the books without enforcing them. We saw this with China’s national export control system in the 90s and well into 2000s; they had laws on the books but they lacked the will or the capacity to enforce many of them. As a result, Chinese missile and nuclear weapons technology found its way into illicit markets.

It’s going to take some significant work on the part of the international community to push countries to actively enforce this treaty and fill these gaps. The ATT is a good start, but it’s a framework for international export control systems; more work needs to be done to build a robust regime that prevents these guns and weapons from falling into the wrong hands.

EastWest Direct is an ongoing series of interviews with EWI experts tied to breaking news stories.

Media commentary in India on the fifth BRICS Summit, held in South Africa on March 27th, has not been particularly positive. Attention has been drawn to the artificial character of this grouping originally thought up by Goldman Sachs, the conflicting interests of its constituents, the disparate nature of their political systems, the doubtful advantages to India of membership, and, now fears of Chinese domination of this ensemble because of its overwhelming economic and financial weight.

If the logic of this criticism were to be accepted, it will apply partially to the United Nations, the IMF and the World Bank too, where differences in the political systems, power equations and interests of countries are even more marked, with the influence of one country—the United States—being the most decisive. The G-20 also cannot be exempt from such criticism too. Yet India is a member of all these international organizations or groupings, without self-questioning.

NATURE

The perceived anti-West orientation of BRICS is troubling for some. True, the Russians pushed for its creation in order to forge a partnership between major non-western countries to promote multipolarity. Members like India—and this would apply to Brazil and South Africa as well—believe in a reform of the West-dominated international system in which their voice is not sufficiently heard. Groupings like BRICS can act as platforms for calls for change, without the three countries in question slipping into any futile anti-westernism.

We should not overuse the democracy argument to question our cohabitation with China and Russia in BRICS. If we are supposedly in bad company, then it is worth recalling that US financial and economic links with China, or those of major European democracies, are incomparably greater than ours. We should also be careful not to buy into the highly tendentious western criticism of Russian democracy for geopolitical reasons.

We are against policies of regime change, interference in the internal affairs of sovereign countries, politicization of human rights issues and doctrines of humanitarian intervention etc. India-Russia annual summit declarations show congruence of thinking on the principles that should govern international relations. With Brazil and South Africa too we have such consonance. The BRICS platform enables all of us to project our opposition to western efforts to create new, destabilizing norms.

In BRICS only India and China have sharp bilateral differences. Should we be in a grouping that provides space to China to expands its influence internationally, eventually at our expense? Russia too should have similar concerns theoretically, but it is working closely with China politically, economically and, once again, militarily, as the decision to sell its 24 SU-35 aircraft, the very same that lost out in competition for the supply of 126 aircraft to us, shows. This is discomforting for us as it devalues the relative importance of India-Russia relations to China’s advantage.

Despite this negative feature of BRICS for us, there are clear strategic advantages of membership. BRICS is an instrument of pressure for change in the international system. The eThekwani Declaration calls for new models and approaches as regards global governance. It notes the negative spillover effects of the monetary policy of the U.S., Europe and Japan which have led to increased volatility of capital flows, currencies and commodity prices, with negative growth effects in developing countries. It calls for prioritizing the G20 development agenda. It expresses concern at the slow pace of IMF reforms and demands that International Financial Institutions should reflect in their structures the growing weight of BRICS and other developing countries. The core principles and the developmental mandate of the Doha Round is stressed, besides asking that the next Director-General of the WTO should be a representative of a developing country. All this reflects India’s thinking and interests.

DECLARATION

The declaration calls for a comprehensive reform of the UN, including its Security Council, with Russia and China reiterating the importance they attach to the status of Brazil, India and South Africa in international affairs and supporting their aspiration to play a greater role in the UN. This kind of patronizing formulation was not needed by India, which is less than what Russia offers us bilaterally.

The eThekwani declaration is moderate, with no anti-western bias. The paragraph on Syria is balanced; the one on Palestine repeats standard formulations. On Iran, there is a call for a negotiated solution, with concern expressed about threats of military action as well as unilateral sanctions. The paragraph on terrorism accords with India’s position. The one on Afghanistan is unobjectionable. The paragraph on climate change is non-controversial. The importance of peaceful, secure, and open cyberspace through universally accepted norms, standards and practices is emphasized.

STEPS

Because the summit was held in Durban, the focus on Africa in the proceedings—with participation of several African countries in discussions—and the final declaration is prominent.

The decision to set up a New Development Bank with substantial and sufficient initial contribution to finance infrastructure in emerging and developing countries has attracted adverse attention, as if working outside the World Bank or ADB is unacceptable. Differences over the size of funding and fears of Chinese domination have been highlighted. A Contingent Reserve Arrangement (CRA) with an initial size of US$100 billion to help BRICS countries forestall short-term liquidity pressures has also been established. These are steps in the right direction.

We should not be dismissive about the declared aim of progressively developing BRICS into a full-fledged mechanism of current and long-term coordination on a wide range of key issues of the world economy and politics. This is part of our sensible policy of playing on all chess boards with prudence, calibration and no ideological bias.

Read this column at The Daily Mail.

I would first of all like to thank the organizers of this event, CCME (Council for Moroccans Abroad), for providing me with the opportunity to speak here about such a current topic. Having recently emigrated myself – albeit within the European Union - and working in the field of international relations, I feel today’s topic of ‘Migration, Identity and Foreign Relations’ is close at heart.

But allow me first to say a couple of things about my work, so as to give a background to the discussion points I would like to raise. I am the Program Coordinator for the Parliamentarians Network for Conflict Prevention. This Network celebrates its 5th anniversary this year, as it was launched at the European Parliament in 2008 by the EastWest Institute upon the recommendation of a high-level task force. This task force existed of seasoned diplomats and politicians, who are convinced that parliamentarians are in a unique position to not only identify the early warning signs of civil unrest and looming conflict, but that they are also capable of acting upon such early warning and respond with preventative measures.

So today we have a network of nearly 100 parliamentarians from all over the world dedicated to prevent conflict. Conflict in the traditional military or armed sense, but the network also tackles more contemporary sources of conflict, such as access to water, food and energy, as well as issues of cyber crime. And although many of these sources of conflict are addressed by parliaments individually, bringing parliamentarians together to force joint strategies is often times more effective, given the fact that these threats will not stop at any country’s border. This is the reality of globalization in which we live; we cross borders for work, we travel for pleasure, and our governments increasingly need to look outwards for partners to cooperate with. New cultures and countries are only but a click away.

But how do we make sure that in this interconnected world, we stay true to our culture and values? This can be a particular challenge for people emigrating. The new culture in which they will be absorbed might not seem welcoming and it might be difficult to overcome the language barrier. It is therefore very positive that organizations such as CCME exist in order to assist those who have moved abroad, as a focal point, ensuring they have a voice as well.

In my professional capacity, I meet parliamentarians on a daily basis and some of them worry about the amount of immigrants their country is taking up. They worry about the fact that large scale migration might change their culture and some might blame domestic issues, such as unemployment, on the immigrants. Yet other countries struggle with actively engaging immigrant communities, because they live secluded by their own traditions, hardly interacting with the host country’s culture. Many large cities have a China town, where the Chinese population lives in relative solitude, protecting values and customs from outside influences. Many of these countries struggle with being able to provide the immigrant communities with a sense of belonging. Most of these problems can be overcome, for example by providing language courses which also touch upon cultural aspects of the host society. Religious and cultural organizations, or indeed organizations such as CMEE, can also play a key role in fostering understanding and can act as a focal point for authorities to approach. The goal is to create social conditions in which people from different background can live together in harmony and enjoy their fundamental freedoms.

We encounter potential dangerous conflict when either group wishes to force their identity upon the other group, demanding assimilation. In the aforementioned scenarios dialogue might overcome misunderstanding and misinterpretations. When the host or the immigrating community insist upon the assimilation of the other is when we experience conflict. Insistence of the host community might lead to even more seclusion by the immigrant population and can lead to a strengthening of their native identity, even radicalization in extreme cases. Insisting on assimilation of the host community to accept norms and standards of the immigration community might lead to discrimination and that crimes based upon the notion that the immigrants are intruders out to destroy the values of the host community.

We believe parliamentarians have a key role to play in ensuring that the debate is taking place. Not discussing problems arising from migration does not solve any problems, but it makes them fester in society until there is a – usually violent – eruption of the build up pressure this has caused. In both the host country of the immigrant, as well as the home country parliamentarians can hold open dialogue and engage with parliamentarians on the other side of this dialogue to help foster understanding.

But also the migrating communities themselves have a large role to play when it comes to parliament. Immigrant communities with a strong sense of identity have in the past successfully lobbied parliamentarians for recognition of their particular problems. And in countries where we speak of ‘second or third generation’ immigrants – a group which often feels disenfranchised with links both (or neither) to the host county’s culture and that of the country of origin of the previous generation(s) – it is key to have political participation by the immigrant communities. As they often have grown up in the host community, we need to encourage them to vote, elect officials who advocate their cause within the host community’s culture and eventually elect role models of these groups as elected officials.

A good example of such integration where the cultural identity has not been lost is that of the Indian community, the Sikhs, in the United Kingdom. This community at first was viewed upon as foreign and almost as one encroaching upon British culture, although India had been a dominated by the British empire. By now, however, the British parliament has an ‘All Party Parliamentary Group for British Sikhs,' which deals with issues relevant to the Sikh community. That does not mean that all problems have been solved and everyone in the British society is just peacefully living next to one another. 2011 saw the first Sikh Member of Parliament wearing a traditional turban in parliament. The Sikh community found this ‘too little, too late’ whilst for many British this was already going out on a limb to give a cultural minority the right to display a religious symbol in parliament. Many European countries share this rigid separation between religion and State. Only in recent years have European societies come to accept that immigrant communities have become such an inherent part of their national identity that allowances should be made for their traditional garments. This is not something which can be changed with one single generation of immigrants though; it takes decades for such change to be broadly supported by and indeed incorporated into the culture of the host community.

I feel it is my duty, however, to point out that this is not an issue dealt with merely in Western Europe, as we sometimes are inclined to think. Let me cite another example: In Turkey the separation between religion and State may be even stricter than in some Western European countries. In 2011 it was the APK party of the current Prime Minister Erdogan who placed a female candidate on its list for the district of Antalya who was known to wear a headscarf. Now, the APK knew that the candidate in question had no chance of winning in this district, thereby preventing a full-blown parliamentary crisis, but it still caused quite the commotion. This goes to show that whilst our discussions mostly focus on Moroccans abroad and that the majority of those who emigrate to (Western) Europe, these are not issues unique for this relationship between Moroccan immigrants and European host communities.

I will leave it at that for now, but I would be delighted to continue the discussion after the interventions of the other most honorable speakers on the panel and I would welcome any questions there might be afterwards.

Thank you.

EWI's Parliamentarians Network for Conflict Prevention mobilizes members in parliaments across the globe to find pioneering ways to prevent and end conflicts

Some caveats are necessary before pronouncing on the UPA government’s foreign policy, especially the apparent mishandling of relations with Sri Lanka and the case of the Italian marines, as well as the setback in the Maldives. First, no country can have a foreign policy that is seen as being without fault by the public. This is particularly true of democracies where all kinds of opinions get expressed, political partisanship is normal as Opposition parties will always find some reason to contest government decisions, and the civil society has its own views on how policies should be framed on humanitarian and peacebuilding issues in particular.

Second, even countries more powerful than India, better governed, with wider internal debates and inputs from specialists, with greater sense of purpose and more aggressive in safeguarding national interest appear to make serious foreign policy mistakes or manifestly fail to achieve their objectives.

Third, it should not be assumed that big countries can have their way with small countries. The international system presents an obstacle as principles of sovereignty are involved and the reaction of competing powerful countries, in the region or outside, have to be factored into decision-making, especially if the smaller countries have a sensitive geopolitical location.

A further point needs to be made specifically with regard to India. Our foreign policy problems are numerous and complex. Pakistan has been a perennial problem ever since we became independent, confronting us with military challenges, religious extremism and terrorism. Our other neighbours, barring Bhutan, have played external powers against us as a balancing factor. China and Pakistan have boosted the capacity and the confidence of our neighbours to oppose us, and, until the major improvement of our relations with the U.S., the American card has come in handy too. It is not absent even today in the triangular India-U.S.-Pakistan diplomatic equation, with the situation in Afghanistan adding to its complexity.

The issues relating to the presence and treatment of Indian ethnic groups in neighbouring countries makes the management of relations with the latter more difficult. These issues spill over into domestic politics and cannot be treated solely as a foreign policy agenda. Our response to Islamic terrorism from Pakistan, which is essentially a foreign policy challenge, gets embroiled with the secular-communal debate in India as well as electoral considerations because a robust physical and legal response to local linkages of Pakistan-sponsored terrorism is seen as targeting our own Muslim population unfairly.

With all these caveats, our handling of the Sri Lanka issue at the recent UN Human Rights Council (UNHRC) at Geneva deserves to be seen as a particularly low point in our diplomacy. Sri Lanka has not been an easy partner to deal with; its discriminatory policies towards the Tamil population have been the source of tensions with India for long. If Sri Lanka had been wiser, it would have avoided creating a festering domestic ethnic situation that objectively impinged on India and was bound to provoke Indian interference and be a source of mistrust between the two countries. Sri Lanka has not, as a result, been sufficiently cognisant of our security concerns. It has exploited its geopolitical position and our adversarial relationship with China and Pakistan to carve out space for itself to frustrate us in many ways. It has played its cards ably by also cooperating with us in some areas and giving us enough stakes to blunt our responses to its provocations.

Sri Lanka’s failure to resolve ethnic issues after crushing the LTTE, the lack of progress on reconciliation and accountability issues, the reneging on implementing the 13th Amendment, the agitation of the issue of human rights violations of the civilian Tamil population in the final stages of military operations against the LTTE by the Sri Lankan diaspora, amplified by reports of Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International, all led to the stigmatisation of Sri Lanka on human rights issues in a U.S.-sponsored resolution at the UNHRC last year. India departed from its principled position not to back country-specific resolutions at Geneva by voting in favour of the resolution after working to dilute those parts of it that were too intrusive and disrespectful of Sri Lankan sovereignty.

Our positive vote then and this year was a mistake. India has itself been targeted for human rights violations in Jammu & Kashmir by the Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International without any allowance for its democracy, the independence of its judiciary, an alert press and the fact these organisations largely relied on exposures of abuses by Indian sources. The U.S. too has played its part to embarrass India in the past on human rights violations in Jammu & Kashmir in a bid to be even-handed towards Pakistan accused of abetting terrorist attacks against us. We have had to fight attempts by Pakistan to castigate us at the human rights forum at Geneva.

This time too, India worked initially to moderate the resolution on these counts. Having departed from its principled position last year, India could not vote against the resolution or abstain this year without a show of tangible progress by Sri Lanka on pending issues, including on the recommendations of the Lessons Learnt and Reconciliation Commission. What made our diplomacy almost farcical at Geneva was the bizarre attempt by India to work at the last minute to strengthen the very resolution that it had worked to soften earlier, not because any objective external policy factor had changed or the Sri Lankan government had committed a new breach of human rights or that India had not done its diplomatic homework earlier thoroughly enough and new factors had emerged to warrant a review of its earlier position. It was simply a case of internal threats to the UPA government form the DMK, the latter’s demagoguery on “genocide” in Sri Lanka four years after military operations in the island nation have ended that led to this last-minute scramble to appease an internal regional lobby at Geneva.

Worse for us, we got rebuffed by the US as it feared toughening the resolution may reduce the number of countries supporting it. We ended by looking bloody-minded and the US looking moderate. Such conduct erodes the credibility of our diplomacy abroad, besides raising fears at home that the government in New Delhi is losing grip over foreign policy under regional pressures. This has other longer-term implications — unless the primacy of New Delhi in foreign policy is restored — in that foreign countries and missions will start interacting at the regional level in terms of understanding the dynamics of Indian foreign policymaking and influencing it outside New Delhi.

The case of the Italian marines has lost its dramatic edge after their return to India. The Italians were escalating the issue by defying the Supreme Court and treating India with political disdain. The Supreme Court, in return, was escalating a bilateral issue with Italy into a multilateral one with the larger international community by interpreting the provisions of the Vienna Convention on Diplomatic Relations (VCDR) on diplomatic immunity in a way that would uphold its dignity. The government was caught in a vice as it could not give precedence to its international obligations over the views of the highest court of the land. When the Italians protested against the court’s order restraining the Italian Ambassador from leaving the country, it took the plea that while it was aware of the provisions of the VCDR, it was bound by the court’s decision.

The problem might have been avoided in the first place if the government was not so accommodative towards the marines by opposing back-to-back furloughs to them in Italy on unconvincing grounds. The government also did not guide the Supreme Court properly on the issue of diplomatic immunity of the Ambassador and the unenforceable nature of his undertaking, which was political rather than legal in character. Of course, by disowning its word, Italy was guilty of a serious breach of faith. The government can take credit that its firmness compelled Italy to review its decision on the marines, and the Supreme Court even more so by its willingness to reinterpret the VCDR to suit the particular circumstances of the case.

The Italian government has shown political courage in reversing its decision despite potential backlash at home and deserves to be commended for acting sensibly and honourably at the end. It would be wise for India not to claim a diplomatic victory as escalation would have hurt the interests of both countries.

The defiance with which the Maldives have treated Indian interests in the commercial dispute with GMR over the airport contract and later the way the understanding reached with Indian emissaries over the arrest of former president Mohamed Nasheed was violated has provoked a debate on the conduct of the country’s foreign policy reflected in its inability to exercise sufficient weight in its periphery.

Since India looms large in our smaller neighbours and our representatives there get will-nilly involved in their domestic politics, we need to pay greater political attention to even the smallest of them and assign diplomats there with appropriate political skills. Beyond this, of course, we have to keep in mind that even powerful countries cannot easily bully neighbours — the U.S. has tasted the defiance of Venezuela and Cuba. We have also to contend with the China factor in our neighbourhood.

What is important, however, is the assessment countries make of India’s likely responses if its vital interests are undermined. If their experience tells them that India’s tolerance levels are very high and that they can get away with defiance, they will be prone to do so. But if the perception of India changes and it is seen as acting boldly to protect its interests, the inclination to defy India would be less. Our softness towards both China and Pakistan, despite provocations, gives an image of accommodation, prudence, undue caution, a disinclination to be provoked and a reluctance to make hard choices. There is a range of conduct between being aggressive and being pusillanimous. Our foreign policy has to show greater firmness, which has not been the hallmark of the UPA government or those before it.

Click here to read this piece at Tehelka.com.

Contrary to all expectations, the Italian marines have returned to India for trial. After having formally announced that the marines will not come back, the Italian government has dramatically reversed its position. This suggests that the hardliners in the government — apparently the foreign and defense ministers — have been overruled by wiser heads. It was not normal for a country with diplomatic traditions as old as Italy’s to violate its solemn word to another friendly country so flagrantly, striking by its action at the basic structure of diplomacy which rests on the principle that countries will honor their commitments.

Even if the Italian government has had to swallow its pride and lay itself open to the charge internally of grossly mishandling the case in the first instance and misjudging the strength of the Indian reaction, especially that of the Supreme Court, it is just as well that good sense has prevailed and further escalation of differences has been avoided.

In such cases of volte-face, especially by a major European power, some face-saving compromise between parties can be expected, but no such compromise is visible. The clarifications sought by Rome and given by New Delhi that the marines will not be arrested on their return and will not face the death penalty amount to little as the marines were already on bail, were returning within the four-week deadline laid down by the Supreme Court and the circumstances of the case do not at all justify the death penalty.

It is just as well that the situation has been defused and further deterioration of bilateral ties averted. By announcing that the marines would not return, the Italian government had deliberately raised the political and legal ante to a level that put enormous stress on bilateral ties. The Supreme Court and the country at large felt duped by the Italian decision. It defied belief that the Italian government would knowingly give a false affidavit to the Supreme Court and cover up further its deceptive intentions by approving a false undertaking by its ambassador. Even if the Italian government has strongly disagreed with India’s position on jurisdiction over the two marines, and even if it has faced intense public pressure at home to defend their rights, recourse to duplicity and fraud to spirit away the marines from Indian judicial control was hardly defensible. It had the option to take strong political steps to show its displeasure by recalling its ambassador in protest, curtailing official links, mobilizing the European Union in its favor, taking up the issue in whichever international forum was available to it. It opted, instead, to show contempt for the Indian Supreme Court and disdain for India.

In a sense, the conditions for the crisis were created by the Indian side. The Supreme Court was extraordinarily accommodating in entertaining the plea to let the marines go back to Italy in February for voting when they had returned just a month earlier after spending Christmas with their families. Why did the Supreme Court feel that it was important that they should vote? In granting successive furloughs in Italy, the consideration shown for those responsible for recklessly killing two Indian citizens seemed excessive.

The Supreme Court, for all its generosity, had to have a guarantee that the marines would return. Such a guarantee could only come from the ambassador in the name of his government, and it was given. It was overlooked that this guarantee was inherently political, not legally enforceable in case of default. Neither the counsel for the Italians nor the government counsel had reason to clarify to the judges that, under the immunity provisions of the Vienna Convention on Diplomatic Relations, any undertaking by the ambassador would not be legally actionable against his person if not eventually honored, as both wanted the marines to have a break and were willing to rely on the good faith of the Italian government. In retrospect, the Supreme Court could be accused of being naive, but, in all fairness, neither the court nor the government could have anticipated the Italian government’s unscrupulous conduct.

While the furor in India over this was justified, calls for punitive action against the ambassador, even by leading jurists, on the ground that the ambassador had voluntarily subjected himself to the jurisdiction of the Supreme Court, seemed ill-conceived and violative of the provisions of the VCDR, which are clear about the diplomatic immunity of ambassadors.

The Vienna Convention (Article 32.2) says that the waiver has to be expressed. In this case, the Italian government did not say, nor would it have done so, that in case of default the ambassador could be proceeded against legally as his diplomatic immunity could be considered waived. The convention also requires a second waiver for the execution of any judgment, which means that even if the court were to claim that the Italian ambassador had voluntarily submitted himself to its jurisdiction in the first instance, a further waiver by the Italian government of the ambassador’s immunity would be necessary for any punishment. Article 32.3, which says that initiation of proceedings under Article 37 by a diplomatic agent will not allow him to claim immunity in case of a counter-claim directly connected to the principal claim, is not applicable as Article 37 relates to families of diplomatic agents, the service, technical and administrative staff of the mission, and not to the ambassador.

The Supreme Court’s order restraining the ambassador from leaving the country has already created a major precedent by interpreting loosely a country’s obligation under the VCDR to respect the diplomatic immunity of an ambassador. This has caused serious disquiet in diplomatic missions in New Delhi, as the possibility that Indian courts could, in future too, interpret the principle of diplomatic immunity circumstantially cannot be ruled out. In any case, bilateral options against Italy being available to us, converting our differences with Italy into an international issue by seriously infringing the VCDR and disturbing the principles of diplomatic functioning in general would have been most unwise.

The Italian government showed prudence in not asking the ambassador to defy the court’s order, as any physical restraint on him would have gravely escalated matters. The court’s order and the external affairs ministry’s statement that the government was bound by it did put enormous political and psychological pressure on the Italian government. The EU has been measured in its support for Italy, but a big India-EU dispute could have arisen if we had been cavalier with the VCDR. While it is true that American and European countries have disregarded the principle of diplomatic immunity by subjecting some of our missions to local labor laws, to judgments of local courts on compensation issues — attaching bank accounts to force payments, imposing traffic fines and so on — we have to be careful not to widen the scope of such breaches by unilateral action against the person of an ambassador.

Fortunately, escalation has been avoided. The Italian government should be commended for retreating from an untenable position. For us, seeking to rewrite international law on diplomatic immunity was a fraught option. India and Italy can now, hopefully, resume normal, friendly business with each other. 

 “Russian Judge Delays Trial of Dead Lawyer,” New York Times, March 11,2013.

“Two-Thirds of Russians Support Banning Foreign Adoptions – Poll” Interfax – Moscow, March 11, 2013 

“U.S. Demands China Block Cyberattacks and Agree to Rules” The New York Times. Mar 11, 2013. 

“China offers to discuss cyber security with US” Reuters. Mar 12, 2013.

"Guns and Butter: How to Prevent a Nuclear Arms Race in Asia" Albert B. Wolf, World Policy Blog. March 13, 2013

“China’s Xi Jinping charts a new PR course” The Washington Post. March 13, 2013.

“China’s New Leader Takes Full Power in Delicate Balancing Act,” The New York Times. March 14, 2013. 

Follow EWI on Twitter @EWInstitute for continuing news updates.

Compiled by Michael McShane, Athina Doutis, Alex Schulman and Haolin Liu.