XI JINPING ON SINO-INDIAN RELATIONS

March 28, 2013 by

Global Geopolitics & Political Economy

B.RAMAN

In his first visit abroad as the President of China since assuming office on March 14,2013, Mr.Xi Jinping is scheduled to visit Russia, Tanzania, South Africa and the Republic of Congo from March 22-30 and attend the fifth BRICS( Brazil,Russia,India,China and South Africa) summit on March 26-27 in Durban, South Africa. In the margins of the summit, he is scheduled to have bilateral talks with Prime Minister Dr.Manmohan Singh.

2. The PLA Daily of March 21 has carried a report disseminated by the official Xinhua news agency the previous day on an interaction which Xi had before his visit with representatives of the Chinese media as well as media representatives of the BRICS countries based in Beijing.

3.In addition to Xi’s views on the importance of BRICs as an economic co-operation organization, the Xinhua report as published by the PLA Daily highlights the views expressed by Xi on Sino-Indian relations.

4. To quote from the Xinhua report as published by the PLA Daily:

“On Sino-Indian ties, Xi said, to jointly follow a path of peaceful development and development through cooperation not only meets the common interests of China and India, the two largest developing countries in the world, but also does a great service to Asia and the world at large.

“Speaking highly of the important headway in bilateral ties in recent years thanks to concerted efforts of the two sides, Xi urged both countries that are pursuing development at a faster pace to seize the opportunities and take solid steps to bolster cooperation and exchanges in all fields, accommodate each other’s core concerns and properly handle their problems and differences.

“On the boundary problem, Xi said it is a complex issue left from history, and solving the issue won’t be easy. But he said he believes “as long as we keep up our friendly consultations, we can eventually arrive at a fair, reasonable and mutually acceptable settlement.”

“Pending the final settlement of the boundary question, the two sides should work together to maintain peace and tranquility in border areas and prevent the boundary question from affecting the overall development of bilateral relations,” the President added.”

5. Two significant points in his observations need to be underlined. Firstly, he talks of China’s “core concerns” vis-à-vis India and not core interests. Xi and other Chinese leaders talk of “core interests and major concerns” when they talk of China’s relations with the US, Japan and the ASEAN countries. When they talk of core interests and major concerns, they have in mind Taiwan and sovereignty issues relating to the islands in the South and East China Seas.

6. While Xi has not spelt out what are the core concerns of China vis-à-vis India, one could assess that these probably relate to the activities of the Government-in-exile of His Holiness the Dalai Lama from Indian territory, China’s sovereignty claims relating to Arunachal Pradesh and India’s strategic relations with Vietnam and Japan.

7. Of late, the Chinese have been accusing the Dalai Lama’s set-up of orchestrating the self-immolations

English: Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh,...

English: Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, left, and Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao shake hands after a signing ceremony held at the Great Hall of the People in Beijing Monday, Jan. 14, 2008. Singh called for expanding business opportunities with China in construction, education, financial services, and tourism in a speech Monday to business executives at the start of a state visit (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

in the Tibetan areas of China. It is likely that the reported revival of the activities of the Tibetan Youth League (TYC) and other pro-independence elements in the Tibetan diaspora in the West could be interpreted by Beijing as adding to its concerns.

8.Even though the Chinese have not openly taken up these issues, the likely impact of the Chinese concerns on this subject on our bilateral relations with China has to be continuously monitored and assessed.

9. As I had pointed out in the past, the Chinese attitude on the border dispute with India has been less confrontational than their territorial sovereignty-related disputes with Japan and the ASEAN countries, particularly Vietnam. In the case of India, they have accepted over the years “mutual accommodation” as one of the principles that should be followed in any border settlement. While they are prepared for mutual accommodation in a border settlement with India, they never talk of mutual accommodation in their disputes with Japan and the ASEAN countries. It is this Chinese acceptance of mutual accommodation with India that should explain the absence of rhetoric when they talk of the border dispute with India as contrasted with the rhetoric in their statements on the South and East China Seas.

10.China’s nuanced policy in matters relating to sovereignty disputes with India is evident from Xi’s recognition of the border issue as a complex problem on which the two countries should keep negotiating while maintaining peace and tranquility across the border and without allowing the dispute to affect the over-all development of the bilateral relations.

11. This is a formulation with` which India need have no quarrel. Neither India nor China has been transparent on the progress in the border talks. As a result, one does not know where the two countries are stuck up. The conventional belief is that the lack of progress is due to India’s opposition to China’s demand for the transfer of Tawang in Arunachal Pradesh to China.

12. In the absence of details regarding the present stage of the talks, there has been no contribution by the non-governmental community of analysts to the search for options to find a compromise solution. There is a need for the two Governments to be more forthcoming on the border talks so that the search for a compromise solution could be intensified. Ultimately, public and political opinion in India has to accept a border settlement .Keeping them in the picture will facilitate this. Since India too has accepted the principle of mutual accommodation, a compromise has to be found which will not seriously affect the national interests of the two countries. Why not the two Governments appoint a small core group of non-Governmental experts from the two countries to come up with alternate ideas that could be mutually acceptable?

13. On the question of China’s core concerns regarding India’s strategic relations with Vietnam and Japan, there is no reason for India to be defensive or apologetic about them. India’s relations with Vietnam and Japan do not pose a threat to China whereas the increasing presence of the Chinese Army in Pakistan-Occupied Kashmir (POK) and Gilgit-Baltistan and of the Chinese Navy in Gwadar in Balochistan do pose a threat to India’s security. The Chinese have been indifferent to India’s core concerns on this. There is no reason for India to be sensitive to Chinese concerns regarding its relations with Vietnam and Japan. (21-3-13)

( The writer is Additional Secretary ( retd), Cabinet Secretariat, Govt. of India, New Delhi and, presently, Director, Institute For Topical Studies, Chennai, and Associate of the Chennai Centre for China Studies. Twitter: @SORBONNE75)

Copyright © 2013 B. Raman.

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Filed Under: Asia, Featured, Foreign Affairs, Geopolitics Tagged With: , ,

Thailand Holds Peace Talks with Muslim Rebels

March 28, 2013 by

Global Geopolitics & Political Economy / IPS

AJ Correspondents

DOHA, Mar 28 (IPS) – Thai authorities and Muslim rebels leaders have started peace talks aimed at ending almost a decade of unrest in the country’s far south, as fresh violence killed at least five people.The talks on Thursday with representatives from the Barisan Revolusi Nasional (BRN) insurgent group, expected to last one day, will focus on reducing bloodshed, Thai National Security Council chief Paradorn Pattanatabut said, warning the overall peace process would take time.

"Today’s main focus is to reduce violence. Today we will focus on building mutual trust and good relations," Paradorn told reporters in the Malaysian capital of Kuala Lumpur, where the meeting was being held.

Ahmad Zamzamin, a former senior aide of Malaysian Prime Minister Najib Razak, is facilitating the talks.

Prior to the talks, a roadside bomb exploded in the Chor Ai-rong district of Narathiwat province, 840 kilometres south of Bangkok, killing three soldiers who were patrolling the area, said the 4th Army Region commander, Lieutenant General Udomchai Thammasarorat.

"The people of southern Thailand have become used to violence with attacks by suspected Muslim separatists happening on an almost daily basis," Al Jazeera’s Wayne Hay said.

Five other soldiers were also wounded in the ambush.

Authorities say the attack took place in a village that is home to a key leader of the Muslim separatist group taking part in the talks with the Thai government.

"We suspect this was the work of local militants who want to discredit the peace talks under way in Kuala Lumpur," Udomchai said.

A separate shooting incident was also reported in Narathiwat killing two Buddhist civilians.

The husband and wife were shot in Tak Bai district, where in 2004 more than 80 Muslim men died in a confrontation with security forces.

"That kind of underscores the difficulty of these talks," said Al Jazeera’s Florence Looi, reporting from Kuala Lumpur.

More than 5,300 people have been killed in the conflict in the majority-Muslim provinces in Thailand, which are under emergency law.

Rebels have carried out shootings and bombings on monks, teachers and village officials as symbols of the majority-Buddhist state.

In the past, Thailand and Malaysia have attempted, but eventually failed, to broker talks with the rebels.

"Analysts predict it will take many years before peace can be achieved in southern Thailand," Looi said. "It will be a long and arduous road. But many agree that Thursday’s dialogue is a crucial first step".

* Published under an agreement with Al Jazeera.

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Filed Under: Asia, Conflict, Featured, Peace Tagged With: , ,

Fish Swim Against the Taliban Tide

February 17, 2013 by

Global Geopolitics & Political Economy / IPS

IMGP3029-629x472

A generous grant from the USAID has helped revive trout farming in northern Pakistan. Credit: Ashfaq Yusufzai/IPS

By Ashfaq Yusufzai

PESHAWAR, Feb 14 (IPS) – The rivers in northern Pakistan’s Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (KP) province were once thick with trout. Spanning hundreds of kilometres, these water bodies played host to the exotic fish, first introduced by the British in the early 1900s, which eventually became a staple in the diets and livelihoods of the province’s 20 million residents.Over the years, hundreds of state-run hatcheries and private fish farms popped up to rear and harvest brown trout and rainbow trout.

Khan Daraz, a fish farm owner from the Swat valley, located in the north of KP, once earned close to 3,000 dollars a month selling trout in the local market. His family could count on fresh fish on the dinner table every night, and Daraz himself had no fears of ever going hungry.

But over a decade of militancy in the region — which reared its head after U.S. troops toppled the Taliban-led government in Kabul in 2001, sending scores of extremists fleeing across the border into Pakistan’s mountains – gradually destroyed the sector.

Constant violent activity between 2007 and 2009 kept tourists at bay, cutting fish farmers off from one of their primary consumer markets.

Meanwhile, local populations in Swat were uprooted by military operations and forced to flee to the neighbouring regions of Peshawar and Mardan, abandoning their farms and hatcheries.

Heavy floods that swept through Khyber Pakhtunkhwa in 2010, destroyed an estimated 56,000 homes, killed 344 people, injured over 1,200 more and carried off what was left of the fish farms.

It is only now, thanks to a 5.25 million-dollar grant from the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) designed to revive the local industry, that people like Daraz have begun to get back on their feet.

“I never thought that I would be able to restore my business,” Daraz told IPS. “Now I am finally back on the path to success."

Historical livelihood destroyed

Although Europeans introduced trout to the streams and rivers in the 1960s, it was not until the 1970s and 1980s that the government demonstrated a vested interested in developing robust fisheries in the northern province, Pervez Khan of the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Fisheries Department told IPS.

Rainbow trout, considered the more resilient of the two species, quickly became more popular but because of their propensity to displace indigenous fish – such as the popular snow trout – and disrupt local ecosystems, they were reared to become sterile in adulthood.

The fish provided a nutritious addition to the local diet, and also enabled communities to supplement their income by “selling excess harvest to local fish stands”, he added.

Because of subsistence fisheries’ vital role in providing food security and a living wage to people in mountain areas like Swat, the government quickly integrated the practice into its broader rural development initiatives.

Two types of fish farms proliferated throughout the region: full farming systems, in which trout are raised from a young stage to adulthood, included hatcheries for breeding and fry production; while partial farming systems were dedicated to growing young fish to market size.

According to a report by the provincial Fisheries Department, 38 private farms cultivating rainbow trout in KP produced 162 tonnes per year.

Prior to 2007, revenue from the sale of market-sized fish in Swat was an estimated 2.1 million dollars annually.

A business census of the private trout farms in Swat in early 2010 found that, by 2006, just before the escalation of extremist militancy, annual farmed production of rainbow trout had dropped from 162 tonnes to an estimated 40 tonnes. By the end of 2007 production had come to a near complete standstill.

In early 2010, trout farmers reported roughly one million dollars’ worth of damages to their farms and hatcheries as a direct result of military activity in the region.

Shah Rasool, who works on a local fish farm, told IPS the collapse of the industry stripped over 20,000 people of their livelihoods.

Muhammad Jawad, a schoolteacher in Swat, told IPS his family used to buy trout twice a week, since it was cheaper than any other meat in the region.

“As the militancy destroyed everything here, we could no longer afford any meat – the imported stuff was too costly.”

Slow and steady revival

The revival effort first began in 2010, as part of USAID’s Pakistan FIRMS Project, an initiative designed to strengthen industries and the private sector, particularly in the country’s politically unstable regions.

The grant aims to “provide technical support for (reconstruction) of businesses adversely affected by the militancy and the 2010 floods”, according to Khan.

“This will be conducted in line with government efforts and the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO)’s National Policy on Fisheries and Aquaculture 2006, through a broad, bottom-up consultation with stakeholders,” he added.

Already, things are returning to normal and the bustling marketplaces are replete with fish stalls and customers rushing to purchase trout at affordable prices.

Khursheed Alam, president of the Swat Fish Farms Association, told IPS that funds, training and technical support in the form of equipment and supplies have all contributed to the revival of the sector.

As of June 2012, construction material, fish feed, fish eggs, and equipment worth nearly 960,000 dollars had been distributed to fish farmers throughout the region.

Aqeel Zaman, a fish farmer who has spent over 10 years delivering fish door-to-door to his customers in the Swat valley, is jubilant about the changes taking place.

“For two years our activities were halted by the militancy,” he told IPS “Now we have taken up our jobs again and the earnings are better than they were in the past”, since farmers and vendors have been trained on how to preserve their produce.

“We earn more than 3,000 a month which is enough. But the business is gaining momentum and we hope that our earnings can reach 5,000 a month by the end of 2013,” he said.

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Filed Under: Asia, Development, Report Tagged With: , ,

U.S. Arms Fuel Asian Tension

February 11, 2013 by

Global Geopolitics & Political Economy / IPS

Richard Heydarian

MANILA, Feb 11 (IPS) – After a year of intense diplomatic standoff and territorial brinkmanship among disputing states in the South and East China Seas, the U.S. military ‘pivot’ to the region appears to be in full swing – a move that could further aggravate an already combustible regional dynamic.Against the backdrop of Chinese territorial assertiveness, the year started off with the bang of big-ticket U.S. arms sales to treaty allies and strategic partners across the region, including an expanded package of sophisticated military hardware featuring state-of-the-art anti-missile systems and warplanes. On top of this, Washington has also stepped-up its joint military exercises with Asian allies perched on the forefront of ongoing territorial spats.

Building on its earlier promise of greater commitment to the freedom of navigation in the Western Pacific, an artery for global trade and energy transport, Washington aims to improve its allies’ military capabilities in a bid to rein in Beijing’s strong-willed territorial posturing.

Facing a stubborn economic downturn at home, the dramatic boost in U.S. defence sales to the region underlines Washington’s growing emphasis on a primarily military-oriented (as opposed to trade-and-investment-driven) approach to re-asserting its position as an ‘anchor of peace and stability’ in the region.

Among the biggest beneficiaries of growing U.S. military commitment to the region is the Aerospace Industries Association (AIA), a massive trade group that includes top Pentagon suppliers such as Lockheed Martin Corp, Boeing Co and Northrop Grumman Corp. It underscores the extent to which the U.S. ‘pivot’ has energised the American industrial-military complex, further dimming the prospects for a peaceful resolution of the ongoing disputes.

"(The pivot) will result in growing opportunities for our industry to help equip our friends," says Fred Downey, vice-president for national security at the AIA.

Since the formal commencement of the U.S. pivot, after U.S. President Barack Obama’s fateful speech to the Australian Parliament in November 2011, Washington has come under tremendous pressure to reassure troubled allies such as Japan and the Philippines against Beijing’s assertiveness. In response, the U.S. has beefed up its rotational military presence across the Pacific, while expanding joint exercises – focusing on maritime defence – with and military aid to Pacific partners.

To calm China’s fears of a U.S.-led regional containment strategy, Washington has also focused on deepening economic integration within the Pacific Rim, specifically through the proposed Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) trading agreement, which aims to facilitate the flow of investments and goods among partner-nations. In addition, the U.S. has also – at least in principle – underlined its support for diplomatic resolution of ongoing territorial disputes in the South and East China Seas.

However, the U.S. pronouncements have failed to appease regional partners and deter Chinese assertiveness. Beijing continues to accuse Washington of staging a concerted effort to deny China its (perceived) legitimate interests, while allies have raised doubts as to Washington’s ability – given its dire fiscal woes – to maintain regional ascendancy.

Reflecting on fragile U.S. finances, Ken Lieberthal, director of the Thornton China Center at the Brookings Institute and former president Bill Clinton’s top China adviser, has stated, "The most important single element to our (U.S.) success in Asia will be whether domestically we get our house in order, whether domestically we’re able to adopt and integrate a set of policies that will effectively address our fiscal problems over time."

Given TPP’s failure to gain traction among major Pacific economies, and in the absence of any substantial American investments and economic aid to strategic partners, Washington seems to have instead opted for a full military pivot. The Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) inability to forge ahead with an effective diplomatic mechanism to settle the disputes has only encouraged this trend.

Since 2011, the U.S. worldwide military sales have hovered above 60 billion dollars. In 2011, India alone accounted for a 6.9 billion dollar acquisition deal, underscoring New Delhi’s growing anxieties with China’s massive naval buildup, especially in light of its substantial energy-related investments in South China Sea. Last year, overall sales to Pacific partners topped 13.7 billion dollars.

Building on its earlier arms bonanza, the U.S. defence industry has started off the year with a large package of flashy, cutting-edge arms sales to key partners in Northeast Asia: a 5 billion dollar Lockheed Martin radar-evading F-35 Joint Strike Fighter aircraft deal with Japan, a 1.85 billion dollar Lockheed Martin-led retrofitting of Taiwan’s 145 F-16A/B fighters with advanced radars and electronic warfare suits, and a 1.2 billion dollar Northrop Grumman high-flying RQ-4 "Global Hawk" spy drone deal with South Korea.

Beyond propping up allies’ military capabilities to deal with a wide array of challenges, including China, Washington has also encouraged further self-reliance and inter-operability among regional allies, creating a so-called “inversed wall of China" across the Western Pacific.

As a result, the newly-elected Japanese government, under the hawkish Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, has supported Washington’s call for a more assertive Japanese regional role. Mr. Abe has pushed for revitalised defence ties with Asian partners, enhanced inter-operability with major naval powers in the Pacific such as Australia and India, and expanded military aid to countries such as the Philippines. He has also pushed for a so-called Asian "security diamond”, bringing together likeminded Pacific powers concerned with a perceived Chinese “threat”.

With Japan locked in a brewing conflict with China over the Senkaku/Diaoyu islands in the East China Sea, Washington has conducted a series of high-profile joint naval exercises with Tokyo. In November, 47,000 Japanese and American military personnel took part in the biennial Keen Sword exercise off Okinawa islands, which was originally planned to act out the re-capture of disputed islands off the southern coast of Japan. This was followed by a five-day joint air exercise in January, just days after Japanese jets fended off Chinese aircraft surveying the disputed islands.

Overall, the U.S. seems to be gradually passing the buck to Asian partners, prodding them to bear a growing share of defense costs vis-à-vis China’s perceived expansionism. Meanwhile, there is little indication of a renewed push for a diplomatic resolution of the territorial disputes.

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Filed Under: Asia, Geopolitics, United States Tagged With: , ,

Execution Sparks Unrest in Kashmir

February 11, 2013 by

Global Geopolitics & Political Economy / IPS

Athar Parvaiz

SRINAGAR, Feb 11 (IPS) – “Give us his body; we want to give him a respectable burial…” this is the overwhelming demand across Kashmir following the hanging of Mohammad Afzal Guru who was convicted for his role in the attack on the Indian parliament on Dec. 13. 2001. Nine people died in the attack.Guru was convicted by a trial court in 2002. Two years later, the Indian Supreme Court upheld the trial court’s order.

A mercy petition from his family was rejected by President Pranab Mukherjee on Feb. 3. He was executed on Feb. 9 in New Delhi’s Tihar Jail. The body was buried in the jail premises.

His family and many others have objected strongly to the burial. “We will not sit silent until the body of our beloved brother is returned to us,” Afzal’s elder brother Aijaz Guru told IPS in a broken voice over phone from his house in Doabgah-Sopore, 65 km north of Kashmir state capital Srinagar. “We want to give him a decent burial.”

He added: “We are well aware that our brother became a victim of vote bank politics. Now his body should be returned to us. It is our right.”

The demand for Guru’s body is the second such from Kashmiris. There is already a demand for return of the mortal remains of Maqbool Bhat, a Kashmiri separatist leader who was hanged and buried in Tihar Jail on Feb. 11, 1984 after being convicted on the charge of killing an Indian official. Kashmiris have kept an empty grave for Bhat’s mortal remains in Srinagar’s ‘Martyrs’ Graveyard’.

The execution of Afzal Guru has evoked strong reactions from civil society and political parties in Kashmir across the board. With elections in India due next year, many say Guru was hanged for ‘petty’ political reasons and that he was not given fair trial.

“This is part of India’s election drama and a proposition motivated by electoral considerations in which Kashmiris are being made sacrificial lambs,” separatist leader Mirwaiz Umar Farooq told IPS over phone from New Delhi where he was detained briefly after the hanging of Guru.

“Yes, there was politics involved at every stage and it was indeed a political trial rather than a judicial trial,” Prof. Anuradha Chenoy from the School of International Studies at Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU) in New Delhi told IPS on phone.

According to Chenoy, there are many loopholes in the Indian judicial system. “The Indian lower courts and judiciary as a whole look at some cases in a typical fashion: if they treat somebody as an enemy, they look at his case with that perspective only; and not on merit,” she said. “It is well known that Guru did not get a fair trial.”

Expressing her distress about Afzal’s last wish to see his family not being fulfilled, she said: “Every person’s last wish before death is to see his family. But it is quite unfortunate that he did not get an opportunity to see his wife and son before he was hanged.”

Guru’s friends say he had “given up militancy” in the late 1990s and had set up a pharmaceuticals business.

Delhi University lecturer Syed Abdul Rehman Geelani, who was earlier acquitted in the same case, said that Afzal Guru’s family was not informed by the government about his execution. “His wife had absolutely no clue. Under the law, she had every right to meet him before the execution,” he told IPS.

“I woke her up early on that morning (Feb. 9) and informed her about rumours of Afzal’s hanging. It was so shocking for her as she was completely unaware. She told me that she had received no communication at all.”

India’s Home Secretary R. K. Singh has said the family was sent a letter through speed post.

That led Kashmir Chief Minister Omar Abdullah to say: "If we are going to inform someone by post that his family member is going to be hanged, there is something seriously wrong with the system."

Omar Abdullah said this kind of execution is “unheard of.” In an interview to Indian news channel NDTV, he said: “There are enough voices already in the rest of the country who believe that the evidence was flawed.”

According to Abdullah, there could be long-term political implications. “We can deal with the short-term implications as we have taken enough security measures for that, but what we are worried about are the long-term political implications of this execution,” he said.

Mehbooba Mufti, president of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) – the largest opposition party in the legislative assembly – said that while “the hanging should not have been carried out, the return of Afzal’s body was the least the government could do to show concern for humanity.”

The Kashmir government has imposed curfew all over the state. At least three people have been killed and scores injured in clashes between police and people who defied curfew restrictions.

Internet services have been blocked in order to curb protests on social media. News channels have also been blocked.

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Filed Under: Asia, Human Rights, Justice, Report, Unrest Tagged With: , , , ,

Sanctions Do Not Lead To Nuke Abolition in Asia

February 6, 2013 by

Global Geopolitics & Political Economy / IDN

By Kalinga Seneviratne | IDN-InDepth NewsAnalysis

SINGAPORE (IDN) – North Korea’s response to the United Nations Security Council’s expanded sanctions on January 22 by threatening to resume nuclear tests and failure last November of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) to persuade the five recalcitrant nuclear powers to sign the Southeast Asia Nuclear Weapons-Free Zone Treaty (SEANWFZ) have focused attention on the atomic threat facing the Asian region that is fast emerging as the centre of the global economy.

Posited very much in the midst of these developments is the Obama Administration’s so-called US “pivot” or “rebalance” policy towards Asia, which is increasingly seen in the region as a security issue rather than an economic or political re-engagement.

Since this policy announcement two years ago there has been increased tension in the region with regard to China’s territorial claims in the South China Sea that has prompted some analysts in Asia to question whether the US is trying to provoke Asian countries like Japan, the Philippines and Vietnam into confrontation with China.

With North Korea’s recent posturing, the threat of a nuclear confrontation – though remote – is rather worrisome to Asia that is emerging from centuries of economic subjugation by the West.

A looming confrontation with China in Asia may be one of the major reasons why the three nuclear powered states Russia, France and Britain could not agree to sign the SEANWFZ as planned at the 21st ASEAN Summit in Cambodia in November 2012. France voiced its reservations on the right of self-defence, United Kingdom on “new threat and development”, and Russia on the right of foreign ships and aircraft to pass into the nuclear free zone, a concern similar to that of the US.

The notion of a SEANWFZ dates back to November 27, 1971, when the original five members of ASEAN signed a Declaration on a (ASEAN) Zone of Peace, Freedom, and Neutrality (ZOPFAN) in Kuala Lumpur. The first major component of the ZOPFAN pursued by ASEAN was the establishment of a SEANWFZ.

However, due to the unfavourable political environment in the region, the formal proposal for the establishment of such a zone was tabled only in the mid-1980s. After a decade of negotiating and drafting efforts by the ASEAN Working Group on a ZOPFAN, the SEANWFZ Treaty was signed by the heads of states of all 10 ASEAN member countries in Bangkok on December 15, 1995 and it took effect two years later. The negotiations between ASEAN and the five nuclear powers on the protocol have been under way since May 2001 with no progress achieved.

Among a number of rules and conditions laid out by the treaty, the main components are that signatory States are obliged not to develop, manufacture or otherwise acquire, possess or have control over nuclear weapons; station nuclear weapons; or test or use nuclear weapons anywhere inside or outside the treaty zone.

The protocol also stipulates that Nuclear Weapon States (NWS) must abide by articles of the Treaty and not use or threaten to use nuclear weapons against States parties. China has previously expressed its willingness to ratify the protocol, but the other four NWS cite the geographical scope of the Treaty as an obstacle. The treaty zone covers the territories, continental shelves, and exclusive economic zones (EEZ) of the States Parties within the zone.

Malaysian political scientist, Dr Chandra Muzzafar, Executive Director of the International Movement for a Just World says that while ASEAN states must be commended for drafting and signing the SEANWFZ, at the same time “all the five nuclear weapons states are determined to ensure that their nuclear advantage is preserved at all costs, ‘self-defence’ is just a camouflage”.

“Britain and France are US allies and the US through various military and diplomatic moves is reinforcing its agenda of containing China. So it should not surprise anyone if its two European allies are seeking to bolster the US position in the region,” he said in an interview with IDN-InDepthNews.

Non-governmental actors

Asked if the Asian countries should make US access to their markets conditional on the nuclear powers signing the treaty, Dr Muzzafar said: “ASEAN and other countries in Asia should first demonstrate a strong collective commitment towards the control and abolition of nuclear weapons before they make demands upon outside powers. Such a commitment does not exist at the moment. This is why I do not see them asking these powers to sign the Bangkok Treaty as a condition for access to the expanding markets in Asia.”

Dr Muzzafar is of the view that governments in the region will not be able to persuade the nuclear powers to sign the treaty and it will have to be non-governmental actors that need to mount a concerted campaign for it to happen. “In the ultimate analysis, it is only a powerful citizens’ movement that can rid the continent of present and future nuclear weapons”, he argues.

In a speech at the University of Iceland in October 2012, Dr Gareth Evans, the former Australian Foreign Minister and the Convener of the Asia Pacific Leadership Network on Nuclear Non-Proliferation and Disarmament (APLN), regretted that the spirit of optimism some three years ago that nuclear disarmament could be achieved in the Asia-Pacific region has evaporated.

“If the existing nuclear-armed states are serious about non-proliferation, as they all claim to be, and sincerely want to prevent others from joining their club, they cannot keep justifying the possession of nuclear weapons as a means of protection for themselves or their allies against other weapons of mass destruction, especially biological weapons, or conventional weapons,” he argued. "All the world hates a hypocrite, and in arms control as in life generally, demanding that others do as I say is not nearly as compelling as asking them to do as I do."

Dr Evans also pointed out that nuclear weapons would not deter terrorists, as many nuclear weapons states tend to argue. "Terrorists don’t usually have territory, industry, a population or a regular army which could be targeted with nuclear weapons," he said.

On September 13, 2012, APLN expressed deep disappointment at the evaporation of political will evident in global and regional efforts toward nuclear disarmament over the previous year. The statement was signed by 25 political, diplomatic, military and scientific leaders from 14 Asia Pacific countries.

Professor Ramesh Thakur, Director of the Centre for Nuclear Non-Proliferation and Disarmament at the Australian National University, writing in Japan Times noted that plans for upgrades, modernization or increased numbers and destructive power of nuclear arsenals by all the nuclear-armed states indicate that none is serious about nuclear disarmament.

“All countries that have and seek nuclear weapons, or are increasing the size and modernizing the quality of their arsenals, should be subjected to international opprobrium,” he wrote.

Tactical Nukes

Rather than subjecting nukes to international scorn, several commentators in regional publications in recent months have argued that the US may need to be persuaded to re-deploy tactical weapons in the Korean peninsula, which the Bush administration withdrew in 1991 – in order to respond to the North Korean threat.

“Tactical nukes on South Korean soil would enhance the credibility of the US nuclear umbrella against North Korea and also reassure the South Korean public of the US security commitment” argues Seongwhun Cheon, a Senior Research Fellow at the Korea Institute for National Unification in a commentary published by GlobalAsia.

“As North Korea continues to develop long-range missiles, alliance dynamics in Northeast Asia will come to resemble that of Europe in the late 1950s.” he says. “When the Soviet Union first fired its Sputnik missile and opened the intercontinental missile age, Western European allies began to worry that America might decouple its own security from alliance security in fear of a Soviet attack on the US mainland. Similar concerns on decoupling will become widespread in South Korea, and cause ripple effects in Japan. To allay looming concerns about such a possible decoupling, redeploying tactical nukes in South Korea is essential,” writes Cheon.

Yet, China may play a crucial role in decreasing tension in the region. Ties are expected to become warmer between China and South Korea under the new leaderships. The newly elected South Korean President Park Geun-Hye has already sent a special envoy to Beijing and China’s new Communist party chief Xi Jinping has called for a resumption of the six-party talks on North Korea.

While Park has indicated that she would take a more conciliatory stance towards North Korea compared to her hawkish predecessor, China’s Jinping was reported by the Korean Times as saying that he opposes the development of nuclear weapons by North Korea.

Professor Shen Dingli, Director of the Centre for American Studies at the Fudan University in Shanghai says that if the US wants stability and peace in the Asia-Pacific region it should work with China to achieve.

“Rebalancing by ganging up on China will undermine stability in East Asia, and may ultimately backfire and cause damage to the US’ own interests,” he argues in a commentary published by China Daily. “So far the US has insisted on ignoring the facts, confusing right and wrong and taking sides in disputes that don’t directly concern it," Dingli writes.

He urges the new Obama administration to recognize that “the power shift in the Asia-Pacific region is unstoppable, and the US can only go with the flow, respect the legitimate and reasonable demands of the emerging powers, and help seek a fair and proper settlement of major disputes in the region”. [IDN-InDepthNews – January 29, 2013]

2013 IDN-InDepthNews | Analysis That Matters

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Filed Under: Asia, Nuclear Weapons, Opinion Tagged With: ,

Starting Tsunami Reconstruction Now

February 4, 2013 by

Global Geopolitics & Political Economy / IPS

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Japanese university students survey the tsunami devastation in Minamisanriku before getting to work. Credit: Daan Bauwens/IPS.

Daan Bauwens

TOKYO, Feb 04 (IPS) – Funding for reconstruction is beginning to decline after the tsunami almost two years ago – but in large parts of Japan’s north-eastern region reconstruction has yet to begin. More and more young Japanese are now moving into this area for reconstruction in a new way.It is six in the morning. A bus arrives on the barren plane that used to be the coastal town of Minamisanriku. Except for two metal frames of what once were large buildings, there is no sign of human presence.

Twenty students from Tokyo step out of the bus and visit the grounds. An hour later they join another group of volunteers and start digging the frozen ground to clear away debris the giant mud wave washed up two years ago.

Among them is Akinori Fujisawa, vice-president of the project University of Tokyo Aid (UT Aid) that gathers students from all over Japan to volunteer in the stricken areas on weekends.

“Just after the tsunami,” he tells IPS, “all Japanese wanted to come here and volunteer. But many couldn’t. Students had the time but not the money to get here while employed people had the money but no time. That’s how we started: we got funding from individuals and companies and started organising these weekend trips.”

It’s not just students. “We come here every weekend with friends,” says Machiko Ogata, a young Japanese woman in her thirties. “We meet up in Tokyo and drive here together. We all met on one of these sites. It is a social happening.”

But initiatives like this are likely to die out soon. “There will be no more need for people shoveling and digging,” Akinori Fujisawa tells IPS. “We would like to start new projects, like trying to improve studying conditions for children in the area. At the moment most of them are doing homework on the streets. But we can’t do anything about it with the current budget.

“What’s more, it’s getting more and more difficult to gather funds,” Akinori adds. “People mistakenly think the reconstruction is over. You can clearly see that’s not the case. But there’s not a lot we can do about it, in two months our organisation will be put to a permanent stop.”

While grassroots projects as UT Aid are moving out of the area, an increasingly professionalised group of young NGO and social business leaders is moving in.

Entrepreneurial Training for Innovative Communities (ETIC) in Tokyo is a training centre for young entrepreneurs who want to start a social business. Since the tsunami, the organisation has started a fellowship programme that trains and sends young entrepreneurs into the region to help in rebuilding.

“We already sent more than 135 people into the region,” says Yoshi Koumei Ishikawa, ETIC’s research division manager. “Most of them are in their twenties and thirties and almost all quit their jobs at Japan’s biggest firms to start their own social project.”

At the same time, leaders of successful Japanese NGOs choose to relocate to Tohoku, a devastated region. Katariba, an NGO led by Kumi Imamura (33) has already set up three schools for more than 300 children to compensate for the lack of study space at the temporary homes of tsunami victims.

“But most importantly, local residents are employed as teachers and will soon take over the organisation of the programme,” says Retz Fujisawa (37), coordinator of almost all NGOs working in the area. “The first phase of relief is over,” he tells IPS. “Now our intention is to stimulate self-reconstruction, the Tohoku residents must assume leadership now.”

With the Tokyo-based Tohoku Earthquake Consulting Team, Fujisawa is guiding reconstruction efforts by NGOs. He is also member of the government’s Reconstruction Agency and Educational Reconstruction Council, where he defends a brand new reconstruction policy.

“The Tohoku region is devastated, the damage was enormous,” he tells IPS. “But even without a tsunami the region was heading towards a catastrophe. It was suffering from a very bad economic situation, especially caused by an aging society and the emigration of all young people to Tokyo. If we now are to rebuild the region, we must grab this chance to rebuild it in a way that it won’t happen again, and do everything we can to create a new style of living.”

Retz Fujisawa describes Tohoku as a test case for the rest of Asia. “We are suffering from the fact that all resources, capital and education are concentrated in large cities. In the meantime the rest of the country is being forgotten. We now have the chance to reorganise a whole region and to distribute resources.”

According to Fujisawa, Tohoku is not just a test case but also the perfect example that his country is rapidly changing. “This is the first time an NGO leader is invited to work for the government,” he tells IPS. “It is the first time that policy ideas originate from young people down below the decision chain.

“There are as many female as male project leaders in Tohoku. Most are in their twenties and thirties and quit their jobs to come here. There’s one main reason for this: we are all connected by social media, information is being shared and no longer withheld. Young people can start acting on their own. This never happened before in Japan.”

All rights reserved, IPS – Inter Press Service, 2013.

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India Sails Into Troubled South China Sea

February 4, 2013 by

Global Geopolitics & Political Economy / IPS

Richard Heydarian

MANILA, Feb 04 (IPS) – With territorial tensions in the South China Sea entering a new phase of confrontation, there are signs of growing Indian involvement in regional affairs.Aside from its anxieties over China’s expanding naval capabilities, India has direct economic and strategic interests in Southeast Asia. For many years, India’s state-run Natural Gas Corp. (ONGC) has been involved in joint ventures with TNK Vietnam and Petro Vietnam, conducting exploratory/offshore hydrocarbon projects in the disputed waters of South China Sea.

Meanwhile, India has also been expanding its strategic ties with the booming economies of Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN), hoping to raise bilateral trade to as much as 200 billion dollars in the next decade.

As ASEAN’s major dialogue partner, India has repeatedly underscored its commitment to the freedom of navigation in the South China Sea, cautioning against rising threats to maritime security.

During the recently-concluded ASEAN-India Summit, many Southeast Asian states, in response to China’s provocative actions, have sought greater role for and involvement of India in ensuring regional stability and deterring Chinese aggressive posturing.

"While the centre of the global economy is shifting eastward, the Indian and Pacific oceans have been and will become even more important in providing the vital sea routes for trade and commerce,” Indonesian President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono declared during the summit.

Both India and the ASEAN seem to share growing concerns over China’s increasing maritime assertiveness and naval capabilities.

November of last year – when Chinese (paramilitary) vessels allegedly harassed the Vietnamese Binh Minh 02 seismic survey vessel in the hydrocarbon-rich blocks where India’s ONGC is directly invested – marked a turning point in India’s disposition towards the South China Sea disputes.

“Not that we expect to be in those waters very frequently, but when the requirement is there for situations where the country’s interests are involved, for example ONGC Videsh, we will be required to go there and we are prepared for that,” Indian navy chief Admiral D.K Joshi declared in response to the incident, warning China against further provocations.

His comments coincided with a new round of Sino-Indian negotiations over long-standing border disputes, which sparked a war back in 1962 and have embittered bilateral ties since then.

Recent years have witnessed a precipitous escalation in regional maritime disputes, pitting China – which claims almost all features in the South China Sea and continues to prefer bilateral dispute-settlement mechanisms – against Southeast Asian states such as Philippines and Vietnam.

However, last year marked a further deterioration in regional security, with ASEAN failing to adopt a common position on establishing a binding regional Code of Conduct (CoC) to settle maritime disputes.

The situation worsened when the new Chinese leadership engaged in a series of provocative actions, ranging from the issuance of a new Chinese passport, featuring the full extent of Beijing’s territorial claims across Asia, to the recent announcement by Hainan authorities to search and intercept foreign vessels straddling China’s claimed maritime territories, and the new Chinese official map featuring territories within Vietnam’s Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ).

In response, the Philippines and Vietnam sought deeper strategic and defence cooperation with sympathetic Pacific powers such as the U.S. and India. Vietnam, Philippines, and Taiwan formally protested against China’s passport design, while the ASEAN bloc expressed deep concerns over new maritime regulations by Chinese provincial authorities in Hainan.

There is also the bigger issue of India-China rivalry. Traditionally, the Indian Navy (IN) has focused on patrolling and safeguarding the country’s interests in the immediate waters stretching from the Strait of Hormuz in the Persian Gulf to the Indian Ocean and the Strait Malacca. Yet, China’s rapid rise as a regional naval powerhouse has encouraged continental rival India to speed up its naval modernisation and develop an expeditionary outlook.

Between 2000 and 2012, the IN’s share of annual military expenditures has increased from 15 to 19 percent, while joint exercises with other regional allies, especially the U.S. Pacific Command, have intensified accordingly. An armada of new aircraft carriers, modern French submarines, indigenously designed nuclear submarines, and state-of-the-art aircraft are slated to boost the IN in coming years.

With one of Asia’s most formidable navies, dwarfing all of those in the ASEAN, India’s new naval arms race with China has gained even greater significance in light of rising frictions in the strategic, hydrocarbon-rich waters of South China Sea. Back in 2011, Chinese forces even challenged an IN ship that was patrolling off the coast of Vietnam.

The U.S. pivot to the Asia-Pacific region has been followed by renewed strategic-military commitments with regional partners, but the Philippines and Vietnam are also eagerly seeking India’s muscle to deter China.

“I hope that India supports ASEAN and China in full implementation of the declaration on the conduct of parties in the South China Sea and ASEAN Six-Point Principle on the South China Sea…” Vietnam’s Prime Minister Nguyen Tan Dung emphasized during the ASEAN-India summit.

In fact, the summit’s concluding ‘vision statement’ underscored, in the most unequivocal terms, the importance of maritime security: “We (ASEAN and India) are committed to strengthening cooperation to ensure maritime security and freedom of navigation and safety of sea lanes of communication for unfettered movement of trade in accordance with international law, including UNCLOS."

Although India has historically stood up to China over territorial disputes as well as the Tibetan issue, in addition to its expressed commitment to defend energy investments in the disputed waters and challenge China’s new passport design, India has actually struck a moderate tone in numerous official pronouncements.

India is not a direct party to the disputes and a bulk of its strategic interests still lie in the Indian Ocean, while its booming bilateral trade with China – hovering above 70 billion dollars annually – means that it has little appetite for risking direct confrontation with Beijing in behalf of ASEAN.

"There are fundamental issues there (South China Sea) that do not require India’s intervention," India’s External Affairs Minister Salman Kurshid stated in relation to the maritime disputes during the ASEAN-India summit. "(The disputes) need to be resolved between the countries concerned."

All rights reserved, IPS – Inter Press Service, 2013.

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Filed Under: Analysis, Asia, Geopolitics Tagged With: ,

Waves of Resistance Never End at Nuclear Plant

February 3, 2013 by

Global Geopolitics & Political Economy / IPS

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Crackdown on women protesters against the Kudankulam nuclear plant in India. Credit: K. S. Harikrishnan/IPS.

K.S. Hari Krishnan

KUDANKULAM, India, Feb 03 (IPS) – An indefinite struggle continues against the Kudankulam nuclear power plant in the southern Indian state Tamil Nadu despite a government crackdown on protests.Idinthakarai, a village in Tirunelveli district of Tamil Nadu, has become the hub of a mass agitation which started on Aug. 16 in 2011. Hundreds of men, women and children from a group of 12 villages are leading a campaign to stall operation of the nuclear plant. The public agitation intensified after the disaster at the Fukushima nuclear plant in Japan.

The villagers say they have been facing false propaganda through the media, foreign money, threats from goons, prohibitory orders against meeting in public places, harassment from officials, abuse from policemen, cases of sedition in courts, and arrest warrants.

The movement has become a major headache for the government, S. P. Udayakumar, leader of the People’s Movement Against Nuclear Power (PMANP) told IPS. The sit-in-protest at Idinthakarai has now continued more than 500 days.

“The goons of the establishment threatened my family members and destroyed my school near Nagercoil in Kanyakumari district. The government wants to arrest me to shatter the mental strength of the Kudankulam villagers. The central government has portrayed me as an American agent to isolate me from the rest of the supporters.”

Fearing constant snooping by the national intelligence agencies and arrest by the Tamil Nadu police, the front leaders of the PMANP are staying at undisclosed areas.

Rajalakshmi, a woman living at Kudnakulam, said that senior leaders of the movement did not attend weddings and funeral prayers for fear of arrest. “It is a risk for leaders to be present at functions.”

The backbone of the Kudankulam agitation are the fishers, who believe that the plant is a threat to their livelihood.

“The fishermen have had to borrow millions of dollars from banks to stay alive and feed their families as they have stopped going to sea,” Tamil writer Joe D’cruz from Uvari village told IPS. “The allegation of foreign funds sustaining the agitation is false propaganda meant to malign the people’s movement.”

Women have been particularly active in the protests. “Even though police are continuing their threats, women protesters are going to every house to canvas people,” said Balammal from Chettikulam village.

On Aug. 13 last year, children marched to the district collector’s office and complained that the Nuclear Power Corporation of India has not followed disaster management norms in the construction of the plant.

“We strongly oppose the plant which will destroy our coming generation,” Arun, a ten-year-old boy told IPS.

Teachers say anxiety has crept into schools. “They have strong views against the plant. The stress has affected a few students’ performance in the examination,” said a teacher at the St.Annes Higher Secondary School at Kudankulam.

Gopal, a young protester from Kuttappilli village, said that some who are protesting today were the children who participated in the agitation in 1988 when India signed a pact with erstwhile Soviet Union to construct a nuclear plant at Kudankulam.

Protesters recognise their limits. “We are ordinary people and hold strong peaceful protests, but we cannot do much to oppose the establishment,” said Udayakumar.

International researchers into the health effects of radiation say the protest is justified because of geographical factors. V.T. Padmanabhan, well-known scientist and member of the European Commission on Radiation Risk, points out that the power plant is situated on a volcano site.

“Geological studies show that there are many possibilities of a tsunami in the Gulf of Mannar region which is very close to Kudankulam,” he told IPS. “Another important threat is the using of sea water instead of fresh water as a coolant element in the nuclear reaction processes.”

The agitation has won wide support from environmentalists and independent groups from the neighbouring states Kerala and Karnataka.

The commissioning of the 2000 MW nuclear power plant at Kudankulam has been delayed due to undisclosed technical problems.

Chairman of the Atomic Energy Commission R.K. Sinha has said there is no major issue behind the delay. But he declined to give any specific date for commissioning.

All rights reserved, IPS – Inter Press Service, 2013.

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Filed Under: Asia, Energy, Lead, Unrest Tagged With: ,

Pakistan Tribes Turn Against Army

February 3, 2013 by

Global Geopolitics & Political Economy / IPS

DSC_1998-629x422

A protest in Peshawar against the killing of civilians by the army. Credit: Ashfaq Yusufzai/IPS.

Ashfaq Yusufzai

PESHAWAR, Pakistan, Feb 02 (IPS) – –“We demand an immediate end to the military operation in Khyber Agency because it has not brought any results during the past three years,” says Iqbal Afridi from the Pakistan Tehreek Insaf party. “The military operations are killing the local population while the militants remained unharmed.”Afridi from the Khyber Agency unit of the party led by former cricketer Imran Khan spoke with IPS near the Governor’s House in Peshawar, the northern Pakistani city adjacent to the Khyber Agency region in the Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA). Party members had brought bodies of 18 local people reported killed by security forces in nearby Alamgudar village.

Thousands of local tribal people, including students, civil society members and leaders of political parties joined the bereaved families in the protest against the army.

“The military operations have brought lives of the eight million population in FATA to a standstill,” Afridi said. “The seven tribal agencies have remained under curfew and the population has become completely idle.”

Juma Khan Afridi from the family of some of those killed told IPS what happened. “We were asleep when security forces scaled the walls of our home. They asked the women to get aside,” Khan Afridi, a student of the same family told IPS. He said he survived because he put on a veil and stood with women.

This is not the first time the army has killed innocent people in Khyber Agency, he said. “It is because of the growing anger that bereaved families brought the coffins of their dead relatives to protest.”

Wazir Muhammad, political analyst at the University of Peshawar, said people of FATA had been bearing the brunt of the U.S.-led war on terror for the past four years, but had remained silent due to fear of reprisals by army.

The protest by Hazara communities in Quetta in Balochistan over their dead had given strength to local tribal people in FATA, he said. More than 100 people, including 83 Shias were killed in two bomb explosions in Quetta Jan. 11. The relatives there had refuse to bury their dead immediately in protest.

Only after braving three nights in Quetta’s freezing temperatures next to their slain loved ones did the families of the bombing victims end their protest and bury the bodies amid strict security measures in a Hazara graveyard. They did so after the government imposed governor’s rule in Balochistan.

“Anger is growing over the acts of terrorism everywhere in the country. The people are rightly protesting over the army’s killing of the innocent,” Muhammad said.

The Khyber Agency incident has opened a new chapter of protests against the army. “It is for the first time that people have chanted slogans against law enforcement agencies for their failure to provide protection. It will continue in the future if the army doesn’t mend its ways,” Umar Farooq, whose younger brother was among the dead, told IPS.

“It was not just the brutal killing – the army took away the slain bodies from the site of the protests and buried them on their own. Being Muslims, we wanted to give bath and have funerals before lowering them to the graves.”

The killings come after a dubious army record. In 2009 the Pakistan army, he said, was shown in a video to be shooting from close range at seven boys in Swat. The army had argued that they were Taliban but they looked innocent and juvenile, he said.

“The incident caused international outrage and the U.S. – the main sponsor of the Swat Operation – briefly withheld aid,” Farooq said.

In October 2010 the U.S. sanctioned six units of the Pakistani military operating in the Swat valley under the Leahy Law – which requires the U.S. State Department to certify that no military unit receiving U.S. aid is involved in gross human rights abuses. The law requires that when such abuses are found, they must be thoroughly investigated.

Despite pledges, Pakistan did not take any action to hold the perpetrators accountable as required under the law.

In several instances in Swat, Balochistan and the tribal areas, U.S. aid to Pakistan has continued in apparent contravention of the Leahy Law.

Human Right Watch said in its 2012 report that conditions had deteriorated markedly in the mineral-rich Balochistan, with disappearances of civilians, and an upsurge in killings of suspected Baloch militants and opposition activists by the military, intelligence agencies and the paramilitary Frontier Corps.

“The government appeared powerless to rein in the military’s abuses,” it said. Human Rights Watch recorded the killing of at least 200 Baloch nationalist activists in 2012.

In April 2010, the Pakistan army chief, Gen Ashfaq Kayani, apologised for the deaths of dozens of civilians during air raids near the Afghan border. The civilians were members of a pro-government tribe which had resisted Taliban influence.

On Jan. 17, shortly after the last killings, the army was severely criticised in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa assembly. Lawmaker Saqibullah Khan said such incidents were bound to create anger against the army among the people, and should immediately be stopped.

“The federal government should immediately stop military operations against militants as these have failed to establish peace. They have become the main source of creating problems for the civilians.”

Member of the National Assembly from the Awami National Party Bushra Gohar told IPS that the military campaigns have displaced 1.2 million people in FATA and had adversely affected the lives of tribal people. “Since 2005, we have started military operations in most of the seven tribal agencies of FATA, but militants are gaining strength while the poor people are suffering.

“We demand an end to the military operation in FATA,” she said.

All rights reserved, IPS – Inter Press Service, 2012.

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