Senate Ends Arms Ban to Pakistan

By M.M. Ali

By a surprisingly safe 55-to-45 margin, the U.S. Senate voted on Sept. 21 to lift temporarily the Pressler Amendment ban on releasing American arms to Pakistan. The vote came on an amendment to the Foreign Aid bill offered by Sen. Hank Brown (R-CO) and was in line with the promise that President Clinton had made to Pakistan Prime Minister Benazier Bhutto that arms Pakistan had paid for would be delivered or the money returned.

The U.S. Senate vote followed weeks of fever-pitch lobbying favoring the measure by pro-Pakistan groups and against it by India. In practice it appears that the U.S. will try to sell aircraft Pakistan has paid for to a third party and send the money to Pakistan, but all other arms purchased will be released to Pakistan. Bhutto called the vote a vindication of Pakistan's "principled position."

The bill now goes to the House-Senate conference committee.

Change in Lahore

Politics in Pakistan follows no known political formula. So it was in early September with the state government of Punjab, the largest province of Pakistan, with over 50 percent of the country's population, and home to most of Pakistan's military personnel and many of its civil servants.

The political lineup there has been confusing in recent years. Benazir Bhutto's People's Party and opposition leader Nawaz Sharif's Muslim League both have claimed majority support in the state, but neither group has commanded clear majority support in the Assembly. Consequently, only coalition governments have been possible. Whenever the lesser faction drops out, the government falls.

The man who split the Muslim League in Punjab, Hamid Nasir Chattha, holds the key to government stability, and thus far Bhutto has managed to keep Chattha with her. Mian Manzoor Wattoo, who had defected from Nawaz's Muslim League to become Punjab's last chief minister, lost the support of Chattha and Bhutto and, as a result, he lost the chief ministership. The new chief minister, Sardar Mohammed Arif Nakai, belonging to the Chattha group, finally was elected unopposed.

Yet another compromise is that Punjab's governor, Raja Swaroop Khan, who is an appointee of the prime minister, has kept for himself the authority to administer the Services, General Administration and Home Departments. Those are the departments that are responsible for law and order and administrative appointments and transfers. It will be interesting to watch how the new chief minister will begin negotiating to try to wrest this authority from the governor.

Hostage Crisis in Kashmir

"In a serious development, Lt. Gen. Surinder Singh, the commander-in-chief of the Northern Command, is believed to have conveyed his desire to resign in protest against the introduction of foreign soldiers into the Valley [of Kashmir] to deal with the hostage crisis." So reported the widely circulated English-language daily Indian Express in its lead story of Aug. 31. The Indian government did not deny the report, or further information that the general was being requested to stay on.

This was one development in a series that started in early July when six foreign tourists were abducted in Kashmir by an armed group calling itself Al Faran. No one seems to know the origin, association or the size of the group. India pointed a finger at Pakistan, and Pakistan replied that Al Faran is New Delhi's own creation. Of the six foreigners held, one, an American, escaped. The beheaded body of another, Norwegian Hans Christian Ostroe, was found on Aug. 13. Donald Hutchins, an American; Dirk Hasert, a German; and Britain's Keith Mangan and Paul Wells still are in Al Faran custody. The kidnappers are asking release of 28 Kashmiris now in Indian custody in return for the four foreigners.

Soon after Ostroe's body was found, the All Hurriyat Kashmir Conference, an umbrella body of Kashmiri liberation fighters, protested against the killing and called for a total strike in the valley the next day. The strike sent the message that Al Faran was not from the Kashmir mainstream. However, the murder of Ostroe sent a chill around the globe and gave yet another dimension to the long-running Kashmir crises.

It was reported that India had flown "Black Cat" commandos trained by Israel into Kashmir. That Mossad has been assisting the Indians in Kashmir has been widely reported for some time now. The bi-weekly India Today reported other foreign intervention as well: "Shaken by Ostroe's gruesome killing...the U.S., UK and Germany put their weight behind the Indian government, flying in hostage-negotiation experts from London and Washington. Scotland Yard detective superintendent Christopher Newman and Stephen Romano from the Federal Bureau of Investigation sat through the daily meetings of the crisis-management team...The foreign experts proferred advice on how to negotiate."

Apparently military personnel from abroad also have arrived, as the protest of Lt. Gen. Surinder Singh indicates. Just how large the problem has grown is indicated by a listing from Indian sources of active armed groups and the numbers of fighters they have in the Kashmir Valley. They include Harkat-ul-Ansar, 1,000; Lashkar-e-Tayyaba, 300; Hizbul Mujahedeen, 4,000; Muslim Mujahedeen, 1,000; Al Umar, 600; Al Barq, 1,000; Muslim Janbaz, 300. Also listed are the Ikhwan-al-Muslimeen, whose strength was not given and which reportedly is backed by the Indian government, and the Jammu & Kashimir Liberation Front, which now is operating openly as part of the Hurriyat Conference and is making political demands.

Al Faran has not been linked to any of those groups. Dr. Ghulam Fai, the executive director of the Kashmir American Council in Washington, DC, professes "absolutely no knowledge" about Al Faran. Indian intelligence sources have said the hostages are housed somewhere in the Wadwan Valley in the Pir Panjal range. In spite of such precise information, to date no one has penetrated the area. The kidnapper cordon appears to be foolproof, and the hostages apparently are moved from place to place. Because authorities believe a hurried raid could imperil the lives of the five foreigners, the drama is being played out in negotiations.

In the Baltimore Sun of Aug. 25, 1995, columnist Richard Reeves described Kashmir as "the most dangerous spot on earth." He wrote: "Unfortunately, if things in Kashmir go on as they have been for the past couple of years, there is the possibility of war on a scale the world has not seen for a long time, if ever. The status quo—military occupation, official and unofficial terrorism, the occasional kidnappings or beheading of tourists—is probably the most optimistic of scenarios."

Reeves described the alternative "pessimistic" scenario as "a fourth war that brings China in on the side of Pakistan, with a potential for casualties in the millions as the world's two biggest countries collide—the battle of the billions." Tim McGirk, the London correspondent of the Washington Times, expressed similar fears when he wrote on Aug. 25: "Kashmir, a staggeringly beautiful land on the snowy roof of the Himalayas, may yet be the cause of the world's first nuclear war."

Perhaps with this backdrop in mind, two senior Republican senators, presidential candidate Arlen Specter of Pennsylvania and Hank Brown of Colorado, a ranking member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, discussed the nuclear question with Indian Prime Minister Rao and Pakistani Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto during the senators' recent visit to the subcontinent. Specter, who also is chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, told newsmen in Islamabad: "After our discussions...we feel it would be useful to convene five-power talks between India, Pakistan, China, Russia and the U.S. on how to move to zero nuclear weapons in the region." New Delhi denied that any such possibility was discussed, but Islamabad expressed willingness to go along with such an initiative.

Change in Nepal

After a protracted dispute with the king for the establishment of democracy in Nepal, the Nepali Congress Party, led by Girija Prasad Koirala, held elections and formed a coalition government in 1990. However, a split between Prime Minister Koirala and Congress party President Krishna Prasad Bhattarai caused the Koirala government to fall last year. Only nine months ago, the Communist Party of Nepal, which is led by 73-year-old Man Mohan Adhikary and holds 88 seats in a 205-seat parliament, received the support of smaller groups and formed the government. The Congress party, with 85 seats, went into the opposition.

Adhikary did not really push for a Marxist agenda during his nine-month stint, and worked well with King Birendra, while carrying along the two minor non-communist parties that collaborated with him to hold a majority in the parliament. However, the Nepali Congress Party, under a new leader, Sher Bahadur Deuba, began finding ways to break up Adhikary's coalition government by wooing the two minor parties and independents. In a bid to foil a possible vote of no-confidence in the legislature, Adhikary prevailed upon the king to dissolve the parliament in June and call for new elections.

The Congress party, however, called upon the Supreme Court to thwart the king's edict. The Supreme Court set aside the king's order and asked the speaker of the parliament to reconvene the House and call upon the next largest party to seek support from a majority of House members and form a new government. That court decision has brought 49-year-old Deuba to the office of prime minister, replacing Adhikary. Deuba's Congress has 85 members and he has received support from the Nepal Sadbhawana party and the Rashtriya Prajatantra party, plus an independent.

After a vote of no-confidence was passed in the parliament against Adhikary's government, Adhikary resigned from the office of the prime minister. Deuba then won a confidence vote from the parliament and has been appointed as the new prime minister of Nepal, with a 107-vote majority in a House of 205 members. The Communist party has expressed its willingness to cooperate with the Congress government on "reasonable" matters.

As Nepal emerged from its political crisis, the tiny kingdom sustained a serious shock when the World Bank suddenly cancelled its commitment to build the multi-billion dollar Arun hydroelectric power project. This World Bank project was worked out with meticulous care over a 10-year period, several environmental and socio-economic objections were addressed, and Nepal had agreed to most of the conditionalities imposed by the World Bank. The new Bank president's unilateral decision therefore has left Nepal out in the cold. It also has raised the red flag in several other capitals of developing countries where the Bank has proposed project assistance.

M.M. Ali is a professor at the University of the District of Columbia in Washington, DC.