December
4, 2003
South
Asia Spars Over Commonwealth Summit
Even
as they enforce a ceasefire along the Kashmir border and make other
peace overtures to each other, India and Pakistan continue to fight
each other in multilateral forums.
They
famously indulged in a slugfest three months ago at the U. N. General
Assembly. The latest instance of their mutual rivalry concerns Pakistan's
continued suspension from the Commonwealth, the 54-nation association
of the former colonies of the British Empire, which is scheduled
a summit meeting of its heads of government in Abuja, Nigeria beginning
Friday.
Pakistan
blames India for the suspension. India is a member of an eight-member
ministerial group that is looking at the progress Pakistan has made
since Gen Pervez Musharraf's coup d'etat against Prime Minister
Nawaz Sharif in October 1999.
Islamabad
claims that its exclusion from the Commonwealth on the ground that
it ceased being a democracy is unjustified. In October last year,
after all, it held parliamentary elections and now has an elected
prime minister with his own Cabinet in place.
The
domestic political opposition questions the authenticity of the
official claim to democracy and argues that all power effectively
rests with the president, a post to which Musharraf appointed himself.
Meanwhile,
the Indian government would like the world to believe that Pakistan
cannot be a genuine democracy so deeply rooted is its politics
in the culture of military authoritarianism and intolerant forms
of Islam.
Both
India and Pakistan are trying to leverage their positions and lobby
friendly states over their Commonwealth status.
Their
conflict could get aggravated over the coming election of the next
secretary general of the organisation. The Sri Lankan president's
adviser and former foreign minister, Lakshman Kadirgamar, has thrown
his hat into the ring. India is likely to back him strongly.
For
that very reason, Pakistan is likely to lobby its Commonwealth friends
against him. In the past too, India and Pakistan have often sparred
with each other both inside and around the Commonwealth.
At
one level, the tussle over the Commonwealth reflects something of
a disconnect within the foreign policy establishments of both India
and Pakistan, which have agreed to a Kashmir ceasefire and to working
to restore aviation links severed nearly three years ago.
New
Delhi and Islamabad are also likely to discuss trade cooperation
and the launching of a bus service between the two divided parts
of Kashmir.
The
present peace overtures between the two are the most significant
since their relations all but broke down following a terrorist attack
on India's Parliament building in December 2001.
At
another level, the conflict speaks of growing sensibilities in both
countries about their global image.
Pakistan
is acutely aware of the growing Western perception that it is not
pulling its weight in the 'war on terrorism' and that many of its
nationals are implicated in extremist groups in different countries,
with covert support from the military Inter-Services Intelligence
agency.
The
Islamabad establishment wants to reform the situation and dispel
that impression, and reclaim a democratic mantle after many misses:
Pakistan has had military rule for two-thirds of its independent
political existence.
Islamabad
also boasts that it has established good bilateral relations in
the post-Sep. 11 situation with powerful members of the Commonwealth
- and that it does not need formal Commonwealth membership.
For
all the professed concern about democracy, Britain recently invited
Musharraf on a state visit. A Pakistan foreign ministry official
was quoted as saying: ''Our membership is more important for the
Commonwealth in the changing global scenario, than for us.''
Indian
leaders, on the other hand, are keen to promote their country as
a ''brand'' a modern, forward-looking nation on the march, with
a growing economy, high levels of talent in its population and an
open society, where democracy has ''matured''.
Their
manoeuvrings in the Commonwealth are of a piece with this. The India-Pakistan
tussle highlights the question of relevance of the Commonwealth
as an institution.
The
Commonwealth has become the site of not one but two conflicts, the
second one involving Zimbabwe, where President Robert Mugabe stands
accused of having rigged the recent presidential election.
Mugabe
has not been invited to the Abuja summit. First, he lobbied for
an invitation. Then, two weeks ago, he said he expected an invitation
''at the 11th hour''.
Now,
Mugabe says Zimbabwe would quit the Commonwealth if it is not treated
as an equal. ''If our sovereignty is what we have to lose to be
readmitted into the Commonwealth, well, we will say goodbye to the
Commonwealth, and perhaps time has now come to say so.''
Mugabe
has exhorted other African nations to boycott the summit, but he
received a strong rebuff from South Africa. This is considered a
setback for Mugabe's efforts to divide the Commonwealth into black
and white camps.
South
African political leaders have been quoted as saying that Mugabe's
exclusion from the Commonwealth ''could signal his fall from power''.
This suggests that the Commonwealth still matters for some countries,
especially in Africa.
Yet
over the years, the grouping of Anglophone former colonies, including
settler colonies like Canada, Australia and New Zealand, has declined
in importance. Perhaps, the Commonwealth was at its most influential
in the 1970s and 1980s, when it served as a forum of trenchant criticism
of apartheid in South Africa.
Commonwealth
summits generated tremendous moral and political pressure on the
apartheid regime and helped shape global opinion against that obnoxious
form of racism. The Commonwealth has certainly lost some of that
shine, but still remains an arena for sideshows and symbolic conflicts.
Praful Bidwai
(Inter
Press Service)
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