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ACHA PEACE BULLETIN
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http://www.groups.yahoo.com/group/ACHAPeaceBulletin
A publication of Association for Communal Harmony in
Asia (ACHA) www.asiapeace.org
Editors:
David Campion, PhD campion@lclark.edu
Pritam K. Rohila, PhD pritam@open.org
Subscription is free.
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Volume IX, No. 10, October 18, 2005; Next Issue, November
15, 2005
CONTENTS
SPECIAL EVENT
- ACHA awards ceremony celebrates making a
difference locally and worldwide
PEACE &
HARMONY NEWS FROM & ABOUT SOUTH ASIA
South
Asia
- SAFTA members agree on rules of origin
India
- New trade routes through India
Pakistan
- Kashmir issue not on backburner according to Pakistan
- Musharraf meets US Jewish leaders
- Pakistan gives
license to Mumbai-Karachi ferry service
Pakistan-India
- India
and Pakistan
working together
- Indian troops “help
Pakistani Army”
- Relief goods from India
arriving today
- India
and Pakistan
pace up peace
- Indian and Pakistani
“understanding” on Siachen by January
- Indian and Pakistani
actors to visit each other’s country to campaign against polio
- India
and Pakistan
to withdraw troops from Siachen
- Track-II diplomacy
talks in December to focus on Kashmir
- Trains to cross border
from January
Sri Lanka
- Sinhala newsmen gather Tamil “woes” in Sri Lanka
FEATURE
- “Prodding the peacemakers” by Irfan
Husain
PEACE EVENTS
- ACHA Public Lecture: “India-Pakistan-USA
Relations: Problems and Possibilities” by Dr. A.H. Nayyar
PEACE
EDUCATION AND TRAINING
- Gender and
peacebuilding
- Peacebuilding,
conflict transformation and postwar rebuilding, reconciliation, and
resolution
- Designing
peacebuilding interventions and conflict transformation programs (DPI)
- Youth
Peacemakers
- International
conflict and health
SPECIAL ANNOUNCEMENT
- An appeal for earthquake
victims in South Asia
(Readers are invited to submit similar information
from other areas of South Asia to help us
broaden of our coverage. Please send the info to pritamr@open.org, a week before the
date of publication of the next issue of the ACHA Peace Bulletin)
SPECIAL EVENT
ACHA Awards Ceremony Celebrates Making a
Difference Locally and Worldwide
The Association for Communal Harmony in Asia (ACHA) celebrated
their twelfth anniversary with an annual awards ceremony on October 15th,
2005. Fifty participants came together to hear about ACHA’s
accomplishments in the last year and to recognize unsung heroes with two
awards.
Make a Difference Awards were given to Monika Arora and Salma
Ahmed, both of Portland, Oregon. Arora, a second year
medical school student at OHSU was nominated for her outstanding work in
promoting Indian culture in the Portland
area. Ahmed, a founding member and current president of the Islamic
Society of Greater Portland was nominated for her relentless work in outreach
to the broader community, organizing interfaith dialogues and promoting
education for youth.
The ACHA Star Award for Peace and Harmony is meant to recognize
individuals and organizations, which have made significant contribution to
peace in South Asia, and/or harmony among
South Asians. This year the award was granted to five individuals from the
countries of India, Pakistan and South Africa. These
international recipients sent their acceptance speeches by email and were read
at the awards ceremony.
In India,
the award was granted to Yernagular V.J. Rao and Shabnam Hashmi. Rao from
Bhubaneswar, Orissa, is the Secretary of the
Interface Foundation and was nominated for organizing communal dialogue in
sensitive areas of India,
especially following the murder of the Christian missionary Graham Stains, and
the Godhra tragedy. Hashmi, founder of Anhad, and a community organizer
from New Delhi was nominated for years of her
work against communalism and the politics of hate in India. In her acceptance
speech, she wrote that as a child she was deeply influenced by the stories of
Anne Frank and Zoya, and realized that injustice anywhere was wrong.
The award recipient from South Africa is Ashok Ramsarup the
Senior Producer at Lotus FM, South African Broadcasting Corporation.
Ramsarup was nominated for his work in promoting people to people interaction
between the Indian and Pakistani communities in South Africa. Ramsarup has
also used media advocacy as a powerful tool to lobby pressure on governments of
India and Pakistan to move the agenda forward of people’s
movements demanding visa free and borderless South Asia.
The Pakistan
recipients are Saeeda Diep and Dr. Rev. Bonnie Mendes. Diep of Lahore is
a long time activist who helped organize the historic India Pakistan Peace March, from New
Delhi, India to Multan, Pakistan,
from March to May 2005. Dr. Mendes of the Human Development
Center in Toba Tek Singh,
was nominated for over forty years of service that he has given toward
interfaith peace and justice work. He flew to Oregon to personally receive his award. His
travel expenses were paid by his Muslim friends at Action Aid. In his
acceptance speech he encouraged the audience to “join hands and hearts to build
a better world.”
ACHA is an Oregon,
USA-based organization, which is dedicated to promote peace in South Asia and harmony among South Asians everywhere.
More information about ACHA can be found on its two websites www.asiapeace.org
and www.indiapakistanpeace.org
(This report was prepared by Afifa Shafi-Ahmed, ACHA’s Director
for Community Organization and Media Relations)
PEACE
& HARMONY NEWS FROM & ABOUT SOUTH ASIA
* South Asia
SAFTA members
agree on rules of origin
Dhaka,
New Age, September 19
Seven member countries of the South Asian Free Trade Area have
finally reached a consensus on rules of origin criteria. The meeting also
identified areas of technical assistance that the developing members will
provide the least developed ones to make the free trade area operational,
sources told New Age. Bangladesh, India,
Pakistan, Sri Lanka, Bhutan,
Nepal and the Maldives
– members of the South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation – are
signatories of the free trade area agreement. Negotiators termed the consensus
a major headway as it took over one and a half years to decide on the general
rule of origin amid division between members on the crucial issue.
Full story: http://www.southasianmedia.net/index_story.cfm?id=238176&category=Frontend&Country=MAIN
* India
New trade
routes through India
Thimpu, Kuensel Online, September 30
The government of India will allow Bhutanese exporters and
importers a “free and unhindered movements of goods” through four new entry and
exit points for trade with third countries and customs procedures for Bhutanese
exports and imports have also been streamlined.
Full
story: http://www.southasianmedia.net/index_story.cfm?id=240824&category=Frontend&Country=BHUTAN&pro=0
* Pakistan
Kashmir issue not on
backburner according to Pakistan
Rediff News.com, October 4
Asserting that the Kashmir issue has not been put on
the backburner in the composite dialogue process with India, Pakistan said on Monday that
settlement of the issue was possible despite differences in perception between
the two countries. “The composite
dialogue has Jammu and Kashmir
as a very important subject and it remains focused on that,” Pakistan Foreign
Secretary Riaz Muhammad Khan said, after the first round of talks between
External Affairs Minister Natwar Singh
and his Pakistani counterpart Khurshid Mohamed Kasuri. Khan said Singh and Kasuri held detailed
discussions in a “congenial atmosphere,” both in formal and informal
interactions, including the one-to-one meeting at Nathiagali. “We are not only dealing with it at the composite dialogue
level, but also at the leadership level,” he said. He said both sides had
reaffirmed, at various levels, their determination to carry forward the peace
process. He said Pakistan would like to settle the Kashmir issue at a faster pace and added that things were
moving forward. “We will like to see expeditious progress on all issues,” Khan
said. When questioned about the different perceptions of both sides on
the issue, the foreign secretary said, “We have to proceed on the basis of
hope and trust.”
Full story: http://in.rediff.com/news/2005/oct/04jk.htm
Musharraf meets US Jewish
Leaders
Washington DC,
BBC News, 18 September
Pakistani
President Pervez Musharraf has said his
country will take steps to build ties with Israel
as the Middle East peace process progresses. He made the comments at a ground breaking
dinner meeting with members of the American Jewish Congress. He is the first
leader of a Muslim nation that has no diplomatic ties with Israel to hold a public dialogue
with Jewish leaders.
Israel and Pakistan
recently held talks in the Turkish city of Istanbul. President Musharraf’s historic
address in New York
began with bread being broken and prayers from the Koran being recited. He was given a standing ovation as he arrived
for the meeting at which he called for the establishment of a Palestinian state
to end violence in the Middle East and bring security to Israel. “Israel must come to terms with
geopolitical realities and allow justice to prevail for the Palestinians,” he
said. “I am convinced that peace in
Palestine that does justice to both the Israelis and the Palestinians will bring
to a close the sad chapter in the history of the Middle East [and] will revive
the historical ties between Islam and Judaism.”
He also criticized Islamic societies for failing to embrace modernity.
“Many of us remain wrapped in a time warp, still struggling to
reconstruct our political, social and economic systems to respond to the
challenges of our times,” he was quoted as saying by Reuters news agency. The meeting comes three days after President
Musharraf shook hands with Israel’s
prime minister at the United Nations.
Both
countries are said to have held two years of secret talks which culminated in a
meeting of their two foreign ministers in Turkey, two weeks ago. After the talks Pakistan’s
foreign minister said that his country had decided to “engage” with Israel after Israel’s
withdrawal from Gaza. But the talks were criticized by hard line
Islamic groups in Pakistan.
Pakistan has never
recognized the state of Israel,
but its neighbor India
opened diplomatic ties with the Jewish state in 1992
Full
story: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/south_asia/4257370.stm
Pakistan gives
license to Mumbai-Karachi-Dubai ferry service
Rediff news.com, September 17
In a step towards promoting
people-to-people contact, Pakistan
has given clearance to a ferry service linking Mumbai, Karachi
and Dubai. A license has been issued for a ferry service linking Mumbai, Karachi and Dubai, Pakistan's Federal Minister for Ports and
Shipping Babar Khan Ghauri said in Islamabad
on Thursday. "The
launch of the ferry service was a long-awaited demand of businessmen,"
Ghauri told reporters after a visit to Port Qasim. The
ferry service would give considerable boost to trade and help businessmen,
particularly small traders in transporting goods, he said, adding that a
shipping protocol agreement between India
and Pakistan
would be signed next month. "This would induce a number of private shipping companies to
operate under the Pakistani flag and would help our shipping industry grow
considerably," he said. The ferry service, which existed between the 2
cities for several years after independence, was proposed by India last year. The service was expected to be ready by the
year-end when the two countries would reopen the consulates in Karachi and Mumbai to meet
the rush for visas.
Full
story: http://in.rediff.com/news/2005/sep/17ferry.htm
* India-Pakistan
India and Pakistan
working together
New
Delhi, Associated Press, October 14
India and Pakistan
set aside their often-bitter rivalry when Pakistan
said it would accept India’s
offer of aid for Pakistani victims of the massive earthquake that leveled
villages and killed tens of thousands in disputed Kashmir.
The two sides separately said Monday that India
would send the aid for victims of last weekend’s 7.6-magnitude quake, and
officials in New Delhi
said it would be a planeload of about 25 tons of food, tents, medicine and
other supplies for possible delivery by Tuesday. An Indian transport plane will fly the aid
into Pakistani territory, Saran said. Pakistani
Foreign Minister Khursheed Kasuri said there was no problem accepting aid from
its rival. “When it is a question of
tragedy of this magnitude it’s not a question of one-upmanship,” Kasuri said in
an interview with India’s
New Delhi Television, broadcast live. “That is why the president of Pakistan
has gone on record as having said that we aren’t going to stand on ceremony.”
In Islamabad, Pakistani Foreign Ministry
spokeswoman Tasnim Aslam said Pakistan
hoped the aid would come soon. “Our High
Commissioner in India
has informed Indian authorities what we need for the victims of earthquake,” she
told The Associated Press. Soon after
Saturday’s earthquake, the Indian prime minister had called Pakistani President
Gen. Pervez Musharraf and offered humanitarian help. Musharraf also made a similar offer for the
victims of the quake in the Indian portion of Kashmir
where more than 800 people died. In comparison, at least 20,000 people died in Pakistan. Saran said Singh on Monday called the Pakistan’s ambassador in New Delhi, Aziz Ahmed Khan, and “reiterated
his offer to send relief aid to us for earthquake victims.”
Khan later contacted the Pakistan
government, which after highest-level consultations accepted the Indian offer,
Aslam said. Pakistan
had sent two planeloads of relief material to India
to help victims of a 7.7-magnitude earthquake that hit the western state of Gujarat in January 2001.
Full story: http://www.southasianmedia.net/index_story.cfm?id=243287&category=frontend&Country=main&pro=0
Indian troops “help
Pakistani Army”
New
Delhi, BBC South Asia,
October 13
Indian troops have crossed
the Line of Control dividing Kashmir to help
Pakistani soldiers rebuild their quarters, the Indian army says. The move follows the massive earthquake on
Saturday which killed at least 23,000 people in South Asia. Both countries have
also eased travel curbs, allowing some Kashmiri families to return home via Punjab. A new
earth tremor thought to be an aftershock has been felt in the Pakistani
capital, Islamabad. There were no immediate reports of damage or
casualties from the quake recorded at 0123 local time Thursday (2023 GMT
Wednesday) by the US Geological Survey.
With a magnitude of 5.6 and centering on an area 135km north of
the city, it was the strongest tremor recorded since the weekend in Pakistan
which has felt several dozen aftershocks.
According to the Indian army, the Pakistani soldiers invited the Indians
to help them rebuild some of their bunkers after sleeping in the open in
increasingly cold temperatures. Normally, such a crossing would have resulted
in bloodshed, says the BBC’s Sanjeev Srivastava in Srinagar.
The Indian army expressed frustration that it could not do more. One soldier pointed towards Muzaffarabad, the
devastated capital of the Pakistani part of Kashmir,
and said Indian helicopters could reach it with supplies within 15
minutes. Instead, they are not permitted
to cross the Line of Control. With the bridge connecting the Indian and
Pakistani sectors of Kashmir destroyed, Delhi
and Islamabad both also waived travel restrictions
to allow some Kashmiri families to return home through the Wagah border in Punjab.
Our correspondent adds that there is growing demand for easier
access across the divided valley, allowing people to cross over to try to help
loved ones on the other side. In
Balakot, close to the epicenter in Pakistan, US helicopters have been
used for the first time to ferry in supplies and carry out the wounded. But in outlying areas relief has yet to
arrive. Mukhtar Ali Khan, a resident of Alai, a town in Mansehra district in Pakistan's Northwest Frontier
Province, walked for 11
hours to seek help. He told the BBC’s
Urdu service that there were bodies strewn all over the town and the survivors
were starving and yet no help had arrived.
“I have seen people eating grass - people are dying of starvation,” he
said. A similar situation was reported
in Kohistan where survivors are looting shops in a hunt for supplies.
Relief work got a boost on Wednesday when the Karakoram highway
linking Pakistan with China
through northern areas was re-opened after landslides and mudslides. In Balakot, relief is finally getting through
but such is the scale of the disaster that thousands of injured people are
still waiting for medical treatment, says the BBC's Andrew North. Our correspondent
says doctors at the clinic can only offer first aid and they can only hope
helicopters will ferry them away in time.
Full
story: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/south_asia/4334590.stm
Relief goods from India arriving today
New Delhi, United News
of India,
October 11
India will airlift on Tuesday the first consignment of 25
tons of relief material to quake-hit Pakistan
in what is considered as the first humanitarian assistance from New Delhi to Islamabad,
United News of India said. It said the
decision to provide relief material such as tents, plastic sheets, blankets, mattresses,
food items and a variety of medicines and other medical supplies was taken
after a meeting with Pakistan High Commissioner Aziz Ahmed Khan had with Prime
Minister Manmohan Singh here on Monday evening.
India
had also offered to send medical teams and medicines directly to the affected
areas which were closer to the Line of Control (LoC) and easier to access from
this side, Foreign Secretary Shyam Saran told reporters.
Asked whether the assistance was being airlifted to Islamabad,
Mr Saran said it would be delivered wherever Pakistan wanted and the indication
in this regard was still awaited. To a
question why India was not
announcing any monetary assistance as had been done by other countries, Mr
Saran said these were the items indicated by the Pakistan
whose list had been circulated to heads of missions in Islamabad earlier in the day. Further, India had agreed to allow Pakistani
helicopters come close to the LoC to provide relief to the affected people. Normally, helicopters were not allowed to
come close to the LoC, the Foreign Secretary said. More relief would be provided to Pakistan,
depending upon requirements, he said.
Full story: http://www.southasianmedia.net/index_story.cfm?id=243455&category=Frontend&Country=PAKISTAN
India and Pakistan pace up peace
Islamabad, Reuters,
October 4
India and Pakistan
signed two agreements on security cooperation on Monday as their foreign
ministers discussed a tentative peace process, although progress on their core dispute over Kashmir
was likely to take more time. India’s
Natwar Singh and his Pakistani counterpart, Khursheed Mehmood Kasuri, said
their talks were going well as officials signed pacts on advance warning of
ballistic missile tests and on a hotline between their coast guards. While progress on Kashmir
has been scant, they have reached agreement in several other areas including
the restoration of diplomatic, sports and transport links, as well as on some
trade and prisoner exchanges. The two
sides have also been discussing the withdrawal of troops from a disputed
Himalayan glacier and a maritime border row, but Saran said no agreements were
reached on those disputes. The two
ministers would meet on Tuesday under the framework of an India-Pakistan joint
commission, which has not met for sixteen years, Saran said. The commission provided a forum for issues
not included in the main talks, such as health, agriculture and tourism, he
said. Saran said India expected the two countries to open
consulates in each other's commercial capitals – Karachi
in Pakistan and Mumbai in India
– in January
Full story: http://www.southasianmedia.net/index_story.cfm?id=241934&category=frontend&Country=main&pro=0
Indian and Pakistani
“understanding” on Siachen by January
Islamabad, Ajay Kaul, Rediff
News.com, October 4
Inching forward on pulling out of troops from Siachen, India and
Pakistan on Tuesday decided to reach a “common understanding” on the issue by
January and agreed to finalize modalities for setting up meeting points for
divided families across the Line of Control in Jammu and Kashmir. Resolving
to carry forward the peace process and maintain its momentum, the two countries
affirmed that terrorism would not be allowed to impede it.
They maintained that possible
options for a peaceful, negotiated settlement of the Jammu
and Kashmir issue should be explored in a “sincere, purposeful and
forward looking manner,” a joint statement issued after two-day of talks
between External Affairs Minister K Natwar Singh and his Pakistani counterpart
Khurshid M Kasuri in Islamabad
said.
The two countries revived the Joint
Commission after a gap of 16 years and hoped that it would contribute
significantly in enhancing economic ties. Expressing satisfaction over smooth
operation of the Srinagar-Muzaffarabad bus service, the statement said experts
from the two sides would meet for launching truck service between the two
points and a bus link between Punch and Rawalakot in PoK expeditiously. It was agreed that expert level meeting would be held by the year
end to finalize modalities for the meeting points of the divided families
across the LoC. Setting at rest apprehensions about the
fate of the 7.4 billion dollar Iran-Pakistan-India gas pipeline in the wake of New Delhi supporting the International Atomic Energy
Agency resolution against Iran's
controversial nuclear program, the two sides affirmed their commitment to it,
saying it would contribute significantly to the prosperity and development of
the two countries.
On Siachen, the statement said that the
two sides exchanged ideas on the issue and agreed to continue their discussions
so as to arrive at a common understanding before commencement of the next round
of the Composite Dialogue in January. Without prejudice to each other's
position, they agreed to undertake a joint survey of Sir Creek in the marshy land of Rann of Kutch
off Gujarat coast and consider options for the
delimitation of the maritime boundary. This will commence before the year end
and its report will be considered in the next round of composite dialogue. Kasuri said this would enable the two countries to work for the
resolution of the Sir Creek issue in a concrete manner. It was agreed that a meeting of experts would be held in Islamabad on October 25-26
to start the Nankana Sahib-Amritsar bus service at an early date. A technical level meeting would be held before the end of this
year to discuss arrangements for operationalizing the Rawalakot-Poonch bus link
as early as possible.
Welcoming the release of prisoners and
fishermen by India and Pakistan,
the two ministers endorsed the decisions of their Home Secretaries including
immediate notification of arrests by either side.
New proposals for a cultural exchange
program were submitted by India
and the two sides agreed to pursue them under the composite dialogue framework. “The two sides reaffirmed their commitment to maintain the
integrity of the composite dialogue.” Highlighting the need for having a “mature
outlook to be able to manage our disputes while trying to resolve them,” Kasuri
said both sides were engaged in a process of conflict management and conflict
resolution. During their forty-minute meeting at the Army House in Rawalpindi,
Musharraf told Singh that he was looking forward to the visit of Prime Minister
Manmohan Singh to Pakistan and a warm welcome awaits him. Kasuri
accepted an invitation by Singh to visit India, the dates for which would be
finalized through diplomatic channels.
Full
story: http://in.rediff.com/news/2005/oct/04natwar.htm
Indian and Pakistani actors
to visit each other’s country to campaign against polio
Islamabad, India
West, 30 September
Indian film star Aishwarya Rai will visit Pakistan, along with the
Indian health minister, towards the end of October to campaign against Polio,
Health Minister Mohammad Nasir Khan said, according a Daily Times story. Rai, like other Bollywood stars, is very
popular in Pakistan.
She is also India’s
Polio ambassador and has been campaigning against the disease. Nasir Khan said he would visit India along with Pakistani pop singer Jawad
Ahmed, who is Pakistan’s
polio ambassador, after the visit of the Indian delegation. Khan said, “Health diplomacy is something
very important for both India
and Pakistan
and we are proud of having taken the initiative.”
India and Pakistan to
withdraw troops from Siachen
New Delhi, Rediff News.com, September 29
Defense
Minister Pranab Mukherjee has said India
and Pakistan
have agreed to withdraw troops from their present positions in Siachen glacier
but the modalities have to be worked out. “We have agreed. They have agreed to withdraw
troops from the present positions. There are no differing opinions about it,
both sides have agreed,” Mukherjee said in a television interview.
Full
story: http://www.rediff.com/news/2005/sep/29siachen.htm
Track-II diplomacy talks in
December to focus on Kashmir
Rediff News.com, September 21
Track-II diplomacy between India and Pakistan
is to be revived, with a group of former bureaucrats, intellectuals and
generals from both the countries slated to discuss the Kashmir issue in
their meeting scheduled to take place in New Delhi on December 3. The discussions between the veterans
would be held in the light of the recent Dr Singh-Musharraf dialogue in New York, where Kashmir
was the key issue of discussion. Other
issues likely to come up for discussion during the backdoor diplomacy talks are
internal developments in India and Pakistan, terrorism, and matters pertaining
to improving trade and investment ties between the two countries. Pakistan’s former foreign secretary Niaz A
Niak will head his country's team of intellectuals comprising Gen K M
Arif (Retd.), Lt-Gen Nishat Ahmad (Retd), Maj-Gen Ghulam Omar (Retd),
former Sindh governor Ashraf Tabani, former secretary finance H.U. Baig, former
law minister Shahida Jamil and Prof Khalida Ghous of the Karachi
University. On the other hand, the
Indian side would be led by former secretary to Ministry of External
Affairs Maharaj Kishan Rasgotra, and the delegation would include former deputy
chief of naval staff K.K. Nayar, Prof. Mateen Zubari, besides others.
Quoting informed sources, The Dawn
reported that Pakistan President
Pervez Musharraf and Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh had
authorised their groups of former bureaucrats, intellectuals and generals to
help the two governments in discussing various options on Kashmir. According to the paper, the two countries are
likely to support a focused approach of territorial readjustment, rather than
pursuing communal thinking, by agreeing on a solution acceptable to all the three
parties of the conflict – Pakistan,
India
and the Kashmiris.
Confirming that the K-issue would remain
the main focus of Track-II diplomacy, Niak said: “It is not true to presume
that there was any failure or breakdown in talks between the two leaders in New York.” He further said that there were “good
developments”, which might not have been thought appropriate to be shared with
the media in New York. Claiming that back door diplomacy was
succeeding with the full support of the two governments, Niak said: “Yes, we
would now be discussing various options on Kashmir.” Citing a couple of options for the Kashmir
issue, he said that the Chenab formula and the
one proposed by the American Study Group could become the basis for any
solution.
Full
story: http://in.rediff.com/news/2005/sep/21jk1.htm
Trains to cross desert border from January
Washington, Times of India, September 20
Train services between Sindh in Pakistan and Rajasthan in India will resume in January 2006 as the two
countries move towards re-opening consulates in Karachi and Mumbai as part of the continuing
confidence building measures. Further progress was made on the CBM front when India's foreign minister Natwar
Singh and his Pakistani counterpart Khurshid Kasuri met for the second time on
the sidelines of the UN session on Sunday, in part to dispel the reading that
last week's meeting between Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and General Musharraf
resulted in a stalemate. “There was no
breakdown,” Singh said. Singh's visit to Pakistan on October 3 is also
expected to see progress on the Siachen and Sir Creek issue.
Full
story: http://www.southasianmedia.net/index_story.cfm?id=238434&category=Frontend&Country=MAIN
*Sri
Lanka
Sinhala newsmen gather Tamil “woes” in Sri Lanka
Trincomalee,
Tamil Net, October 11
About fifty Sinhalese journalists and three Buddhist
monks from Hambantota, Galle, and Matara from south of Sri Lanka arrived in
Trincomalee on a four-day good-will mission to obtain firsthand information
about problems faced mainly by Tamil people and others in the Trincomalee
district and in areas held by the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE). The
National Peace Council (NPC) of Sri
Lanka organized this visit, sources said.
The members of the team first met with the representatives of non-governmental
organizations in the district at Trincomalee Shanmuga Boys Home located in
front of the Trincomalee harbor along Inner
Harbor Road. The Trincomalee District Gandhi Sevai
Association (TDGSA) arranged the discussion, sources said.
Dr. K.Jeyakantharajah, President of the TDGSA in his opening address brought to
the notice of southern journalists that Tamil people in Trincomalee are living
in constant fear due to the deployment of government troops in large numbers.
Troops are seen in the east port city everywhere causing hardships to the free
movement of Tamil civilians, he said. He
recalled the days of war when there were army checkpoints at selected strategic
places. But now during the ceasefire period checkpoints are seen at every
junction, in front of every school. Soldiers stop and order Tamil passengers to
get down from buses and other vehicles for body checks. Tamil women especially
girls feel deeply humiliated by the arbitrariness checks and indecent methods
used by the soldiers, he said. He added
Sinhalese in south of Sri
Lanka should understand the feelings of Tamils
in the northeast. Sinhalese journalists who are visiting should take this
message to their people in the south, he added.
Mr. S.P. Nathan, NPC national coordinator outlined the objective of the
goodwill mission was to allow ordinary people of both communities should meet
and exchange their views regarding their problems and needs. Hence the NPC has
planned several discussions involving ordinary people from both communities.
The goodwill mission by southern journalists to Trincomalee is a part of the project,
Mr. Nathan said. Venerable Morahela
Sumanaransi Thera of Ambalangoda said all Buddhist priests in south of Sri
Lanka are not members of Jathika Hela Urumaya (JHU), all monks’ political party
and all Sinhalese are not supporters of the Janatha Vimukthi Peramuna. The
major political parties are not reflecting the views of all Sinhalese people in
the south. “Seventy percent of people in
the south are for peace and negotiated solution to the problems affecting Tamil
people through peaceful means. They are against war,” he added.
Full story: http://www.southasianmedia.net/index_story.cfm?id=243283&category=Frontend&Country=SRI%20LANKA&pro=0
FEATURE
Prodding the peacemakers
Irfan
Husain, Dawn, Karachi
If a lasting peace between India and Pakistan seems like a mirage, let
us not forget how far the two countries have traveled since those tension-laden
days when their respective armies stood eyeball-to-eyeball along the border,
and talk of a nuclear holocaust featured widely in the world media. And just six years ago, hundreds of soldiers
from both sides laid down their lives as a result of the misadventure in
Kargil. Against this backdrop of hatred, misunderstanding and national pride,
it is a wonder that they are talking at all. And not just talking: several
concrete measures have resulted from their efforts to put an end to an era of
confrontation and conflict.
So is the glass half full, or half empty? Clearly, much needs to be done. But
we need to acknowledge that much has been done. Expectations for a rapid
breakthrough may have been dashed, but the building blocks for a peaceful
subcontinent are being slowly and steadily moved into place. Steps like a limited bus service between the
two halves of Kashmir, the return of
prisoners, a slight relaxation in travel restrictions, limited trade and a
possible settlement of the Siachen dispute might seem minor when viewed on
their own. But taken together, they do provide grounds for cautious optimism.
And in the context of our volatile region, that’s saying a lot.
However, despite the gradual thaw in relations, Kashmir
remains the hurdle nobody seems in a hurry to jump over. Pakistan, of course, maintains that substantial
progress can only be made once Kashmir is resolved, while India says we should move ahead in other areas
like trade and travel and continue talking about Kashmir.
Frankly, I see nothing wrong with the latter scenario. For far too long, the Kashmir tail has been wagging the dog. I am reminded of
the Sinbad story in which an old man asks the intrepid sailor to carry him, and
then refuses to loosen his grip. The fate of well over a billion people is
hostage to this single issue. A couple
of months ago, I attended a seminar in Colombo
to which participants from India,
Pakistan and both sides of Kashmir had been invited. A participant from Indian
Kashmir suggested to me that Kashmiris should be involved in the peace talks
between India and Pakistan.
“Fine,” I replied, “but which Kashmiris?” One Azad Kashmiri said in his
presentation that Pakistan
“had paid a very high price for Kashmir.” In
my intervention, I said that as a Pakistani, I agreed with him, but I didn’t
want to continue paying this price any more. To my surprise and amusement, he
interrupted and exclaimed: “But you have to go on paying!”
The fact is that by and large, most people are fed up with the whole Kashmir dispute, and wish it would just go away. It has
stunted economic growth, warped the political process, at least in Pakistan,
and consigned our region to the backwaters of the global economy. India is clawing its way back, but Pakistan teeters on the brink, despite the hype
emanating from Islamabad. A fortnight ago, a group of us “senior”
journalists met a federal minister at lunch, and brought up some of these
issues. His view was that for the peace process to advance there should be
greater public pressure. The problem is that in a quasi-dictatorship like ours,
decisions are taken arbitrarily, without reference to elected representatives
or the people. But for whatever it’s worth, here are a few suggestions:
a)
Why
can’t the two governments allow the free import and export of newspapers,
magazines and books from each other? How is security endangered if Indians and
Pakistanis read what’s happening next door? Many misconceptions would be
removed by this simple, risk-free step. After all, those who want to can still
read each other’s publications on the Internet. I regularly get scores of
e-mails from Indian readers every week.
b)
A
couple of years ago, President Musharraf announced that “religious tourists”
would be encouraged to travel back and forth. According to one newspaper
report, when a meeting was convened in Islamabad
by our tourism ministry to work out the modalities, our spooks put their
collective foot down on the grounds that such a step would erode the “two-nation
theory”. So how about revisiting the
president’s decision?
c)
Why
not encourage student exchanges? Surely national security would not be
threatened by school and college students travelling to each other’s countries,
and seeing for themselves how much we have in common.
d)
The
prime minister recently said to the BBC that trade between the two countries is
contingent on progress on Kashmir. Surely
trade takes place when both sides stand to gain, and not to award one party for
good behaviour. In our case, both sides can benefit enormously. Tying trade to
Kashmir is actually saying we will continue paying higher prices for goods
imported from Japan, Europe
and America unless we get
our way over Kashmir.
e)
According
to my friends in very senior positions in the foreign office, our high
commission in New Delhi is mostly staffed with
officers hostile to the very idea of normal relations with India. Surely their agenda should
be to make friends and encourage Indians to travel to Pakistan instead of making it as hard
as possible.
f)
Cultural
exchanges are very popular on both sides of the border. Pop groups, classical
musicians and singers and artists should be invited to perform and display
their works freely. This flow of creative talent would show people our close
cultural affinity.
I am not hopeful this wish-list will find
favor in Islamabad, or, indeed, in New Delhi. The
bureaucracies in both capitals are too fixated in their half-century old ideas
to think outside the box. And to a great extent, politicians and generals are
captive to this moribund mindset.
But as the Dylan song says, “the times, they are a-changin”. The pressures of
globalization are sweeping away the cobwebs of rigid minds. We have already
slipped far behind the rest of the world. When it comes to innovation, new
ideas and increased productivity, Pakistan is the last place anybody
thinks of. And yet, many of our countrymen excel when they move abroad. We have the talent, clearly, but so far we
have lacked the will and the imagination. To unshackle our minds, we must move
away from past conflicts.
PEACE EVENTS
India-Pakistan-USA Relations:
Problems and Possibilities
Contributions for this report were made by Dr. David Savage and
Dr. Herbert Hoefer
Pakistani physicist and peace activist,
Dr. Abdul Hameed Nayyar, addressed audiences in Portland, Oregon
on September 8.
In the afternoon, he pointed out to
students and faculty of Lewis & Clark
College, the role US played in growth
of fundamentalism in Pakistan.
He told them that the United
States had been actively involved in the
buildup of the stockpile of atomic weapons that it was now trying so hard to
control. It was important, he said, to recognize that the high value
placed on possessing atomic weapons by aspiring nations like India and Pakistan
was a product of recent history that places the United States at the top of the nuclear
prestige list with some 10,000 nuclear weapons.
In the evening Dr. Nayyar gave a public lecture at Portland State University.
He traced out the 58 years of petty conflict that has impoverished both India and Pakistan. He called it like a
“sibling rivalry” that persists even when it is against the interests of both
parties. The entire focus is on gaining an advantage over the other,
though there is little prospect of anyone being victorious. Colored by
religious tensions, the conflict has been particularly volatile and
“poisonous.”
He pointed out that as yet there was no let up in the wasteful
spending by either state on military programs exacerbated by the U. S.
sale to both countries of F16s and missiles. Currently, for example, 50
percent of Pakistan’s
annual budget goes to paying external debts – much of it for weapons.
Thirty percent goes to support the military; 10 percent to support the
bureaucracy, leaving only ten percent for all programs in health, education and
development.
Dr. Nayyar welcomed signs of rapprochement recently.
However, he warned that this path to peace remains quite fragile. It must
persist for 5-10 years for real progress and stability to develop. He
observed that two major factors have joined to bring about this new attitude
between the countries’ political leaders. One is the mutual experience of
exhaustion in the fight. After three wars, nothing has changed.
Both countries are nuclear, and both are in an endless arms race.
The other major influence has been the peace efforts by the civil
society in both countries. While politicians have used this conflict to
achieve personal political ends, private citizens have banded together to
propose real solutions to the problems. They began a “People-to-People Movement”
that addressed everything from textbook reform to travel restrictions to
economic ties to military build-up. Now politicians also appear to
support the peoples’ movement.
Although Dr. Nayyar is a cold realist about the socio-political
dynamics that have produced this tragic situation, he finds great hope in the
fact that the civil society has been bold and educated enough to stand up to
the governing politicians. They must continue to be the real impetus for
peace between the countries. The prosperity, safety, and peace of the
whole region hang in the balance.
Association for Communal Harmony in Asia (ACHA) had sponsored his
visit to Portland
jointly with Portland State University Institute for Asian Studies, and Lewis
& Clark College Departments of History, International Relations, and
Physics. Founded in 1993, ACHA, an Oregon-based nonprofit organization, is
dedicated to promote peace between India
and Pakistan
and harmony among South Asians everywhere.
PEACE EDUCATION AND TRAINING