Arms control in a unipolar world

The new U.S. push on a fissile material cut-off treaty is an attempt to sidestep more urgent issues like weaponisation of space and the development of 'usable' nuclear weapons.

31 May 2006
The Hindu

Arms control in a unipolar world

Siddharth Varadarajan

AFTER UNSIGNING the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty, sabotaging the verification protocol of the Biological Weapons Convention, and taking the arms race into Outer Space, the United States has finally settled on a multilateral arms control measure it can support — a treaty to curtail the production of fissile material necessary for the manufacture of nuclear weapons. True to form, however, the latest U.S. approach is aimed more at increasing its already overwhelming relative military dominance by restricting the behaviour of others, rather than actually tackling the very real dangers posed to the world by nuclear weapons and their means of delivery.

On May 18, a senior State Department official, Stephen G. Rademaker, presented to the Conference on Disarmament (CD) — the Geneva-based United Nations disarmament negotiating body — a draft Fissile Material Cut-off Treaty (FMCT) and urged the countries present to adopt it by the end of the year. In the `take it or leave it' style so typical of the Bush administration's approach to diplomacy, Mr. Rademaker threatened that if the CD were unwilling to adopt the treaty in 2006, its "continued existence ... as a meaningful international negotiating forum" would be in doubt and the U.S. itself could withdraw from its deliberations altogether.

The American draft FMCT is a short and simple document. Fissile material for non-explosive purposes is not included in its scope. Unlike the CTBT, the proposed FMCT will enter into force on the day all five nuclear-weapon states as defined by the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) accede to it. While none of these provisions is controversial, many countries are likely to object to two other aspects of the draft. First, the U.S. proposal would leave existing stocks of fissile material unaffected, thus doing nothing to address the threat posed by the enormous overhang of bomb-grade material currently in the possession of nuclear weapon states. Secondly, in line with the Bush administration's aversion to non-discriminatory international verification rules, the draft FMCT contains no provisions for monitoring compliance.

Even without these two omissions, the American FMCT initiative is problematic on a number of counts. First and foremost is the attempt to push the control over fissile material production as the most pressing arms control measure to the exclusion of all the other urgent questions the CD needs to take up.

Since everyone in the world except the five nuclear weapon states (U.S., Russia, China, Britain, and France) and the four non-parties to the NPT (India, Pakistan, Israel, and North Korea) are legally barred from producing fissile material, the proposed FMCT applies essentially to these nine countries alone. Of the big five, all except China are already observing a moratorium. China, too, is believed to have ended the active accumulation of fissile material but nobody can really be sure. In any case, it should be obvious that the purpose of the FMCT is to make sure China as well as India, Pakistan, North Korea, and Israel end fissile material production. Put another way, the American interest in an FMCT is to ensure that the Chinese arsenal remains relatively small (compared to the U.S. one) and that the Indian and Pakistani nuclear weapons programmes remain bounded by the amount of fissile material accumulated to date. In themselves, these are unobjectionable goals. But when they are combined with a drive to develop an ambitious missile defence programme, militarise space, produce new kinds of "usable" nuclear weapons, and increase manifold the lethality and flexibility of U.S. conventional arms, it becomes clear that what Washington is looking for is not disarmament or even arms control but "full spectrum dominance."

Under the Shannon mandate, the CD is tasked with adopting a "non-discriminatory, multilateral and internationally and effectively verifiable" FMCT that bans the production of fissile material for weapons or explosive purposes. But for the past few years, the Conference has been deadlocked by the refusal of the U.S. and its allies to allow the CD to also take up three urgent but contentious issues that form an integral part of its mandate. These are general nuclear disarmament, the prevention of an arms race in outer space (PAROS), and negative security assurances, that is, multilateral, legally binding assurances that non-nuclear weapons states will never be subject to nuclear attack.

Of these four tasks, each of which is important, it is evident that PAROS is the most pressing. The U.S. missile defence programme has direct implications for the weaponisation of space and recent budgetary appropriations indicate the U.S. military is pressing ahead with research aimed at developing an offensive capability in outer space such as the Starfire anti-satellite system. Every year since 1968, the U.N. General Assembly has passed a PAROS resolution calling on countries to use space for peaceful purposes and oppose its weaponisation. After abstaining for years, the U.S. in 2005 voted against the resolution for the first time. A study by the Center for Defense Information and the Stimson Center in March 2006 found one billion dollars had been set aside for military space matters in the financial year 2007. According to Victoria Samson of the CDI, "These systems, while ostensibly for other matters, could provide a dual-use space weapons capability. And a few of them — the Space Test Bed for starters — are flat-out space weapons programs."

China and Russia, which are the primary targets for the U.S. drive to militarise space, have rightly sought to tie progress on an FMCT with progress towards a treaty banning an arms race in outer space. This has been unacceptable to the U.S. Phased disarmament and security assurances to non-nuclear weapon states is also not part of Washington's scheme of things. After years of deadlock, a way forward emerged in the form of the "five ambassadors' proposal" to have the CD establish four ad hoc committees for each of the separate disarmament or arms control goals. But even this proposal was unacceptable to the U.S. Now it has signalled its intention to press for an `FMCT or nothing' and threatened the CD with irrelevance if its warning is not heeded.

Even on its merits, however, the U.S. FMCT draft is so weak as to render inoperative the international desire for a treaty controlling fissile material. Both the FMCT and the CTBT spring directly from the treaty obligation of nuclear weapon states to disarm. The purpose of the CTBT is "quality capping" and the FMCT is "quantity capping." In reality, however, the CTBT, by allowing sub-critical tests, hydrodynamic tests, and computer simulation exercises, does not effectively prevent the "qualitative" enhancement of nuclear weapons by an advanced nuclear weapon state like the U.S. On its part, the draft FMCT, by leaving out stockpiles and verification, will also only "quantity cap" the smaller nuclear weapons states.

India has all along advocated a verifiable FMCT, a position that was reiterated by Ambassador Jayant Prasad at the CD a day before the U.S. unveiled its draft text. Apart from standing its ground on this issue, New Delhi would do well to pursue some of the interesting proposals contained in the working paper submitted by Japan to the CD last month. Specifically, Japan is arguing that any ban on the future production of fissile material must lead to the permanent shutting down or conversion of military facilities currently used for the production of such material. Naturally, there would have to be a verifiable ban on their re-conversion. Also, the diversion of existing and future stocks of fissile material for civilian purposes to nuclear weapons purpose should be explicitly banned. This, in turn, has two implications. First, fissile material voluntarily declared as "excess" should never be reverted to nuclear weapons. Secondly, the voluntary safeguards agreements the five nuclear weapon states have signed with the International Atomic Energy Agency would have to be amended to ban the withdrawal of civilian nuclear material from international safeguards.

The Japanese proposal does not explicitly say so but eventually, all nuclear facilities in the nuclear weapons states other than those expressly designated as containing fissile material for military use must come under an IAEA safeguards regime identical to the one in force for non-nuclear weapons states.

It is in this context that the U.S. opposition to multilateral verification needs to be understood. Ambassador John Bolton says international verification will never be effective and is a `Maginot Line' that will give the international community a false sense of security. But in the absence of non-discriminatory, transparent rules, what will emerge is a `law of the jungle' compliance mechanism. A country such as the U.S., with the most advanced national technical means, would be free to level accusations of cheating against any country it likes. But the world will be powerless to verify U.S. compliance.

For all these reasons, the U.S. draft FMCT can hardly be considered an acceptable text. If there is to be an FMCT, the international community must insist on a suitable verification mechanism and a formula for steady disposition of existing stocks in line with the Article 6 disarmament obligations of nuclear weapons states under the NPT. India should also join other countries at the CD in pressing for quick progress on a treaty banning the weaponisation of outer space.

Verify, but trust, is the best formula for Siachen pullout

In the absence of trust, authenticating existing ground positions offers India no greater diplomatic or military protection than a well-demarcated zone of mutual disengagement.

20 May 2006
The Hindu

Verify, but trust, is the best formula for Siachen pullout

Siddharth Varadarajan

THE NEXT round of official talks on Siachen is due to take place in New Delhi on May 23-24 but the waters have been so decidedly muddied by the shrill cries of "sell-out" that it is hard to imagine any forward movement taking place this time.

Buoyed by the prospect of scoring political points, BJP leader Jaswant Singh has written to Defence Minister Pranab Mukherjee warning the Government to back off from any plan to militarily disengage from Siachen. On May 2, Lal Kishen Advani amplified these unhelpful views at a press conference. In response, the Government — which is also fighting the inflexibility of its Army commanders on the subject — has emphasised that there is "no question" of India withdrawing any soldiers. How this position is to be reconciled with the commitment India and Pakistan made last April to "expedite" the process of settling Siachen is another matter altogether.

In general, those opposed to the withdrawal of Indian troops from Siachen make two points.

First, they stress how difficult it would be for the Indian Army to recapture its positions on the Saltoro Ridge if Pakistan were to renege on any agreement and occupy the glacier. And secondly, that India should not be expected to drop its claim to territory it currently occupies beyond NJ 9842, the point where the Line of Control (LoC) abruptly ends. The answer to both these concerns, the critics say, lies in the joint authentication of the Agreed Ground Position Line (AGPL) currently separating Indian and Pakistani forces north of the LoC. "Any settlement [of Siachen]," Mr. Advani told reporters, "without explicitly confirming the validity of the AGPL would be a violation of the sanctity of the LoC."

Mr. Advani, in effect, is suggesting that the AGPL should be simply redesignated the LoC. Of course, if this were possible, there would be no Siachen dispute to seek a settlement of in the first place.

Perhaps what Mr. Advani was trying to say was that India must ensure that any Pakistani military transgression of the AGPL pursuant to an Indian withdrawal is seen by the international community as a crime as grave as the violation of the LoC in Kargil. After all, the phrase about respecting the sanctity of the LoC was first used by Pakistan in the Blair House declaration issued from Washington at the end of that war in 1999. But if it is legal or international diplomatic cover that India is looking for, rubbing Islamabad's nose on the AGPL is not necessarily the only way of securing it. And if India simply doesn't trust Pakistan enough to vacate the glacier, the signature of a DGMO on a map showing the AGPL will not make the task of recapturing Saltoro any easier.

"Determination of future positions"

Ever since 1989, when India and Pakistan first agreed to redeploy their forces away from the disputed heights, the issue of AGPL authentication has prevented a rational settlement from being reached.

The joint press communiqué released on June 17, 1989 — after the fifth round of talks between the defence secretaries from both sides — presented the basic contours of a settlement. "There was agreement by both sides," the joint statement noted, "to work towards a comprehensive settlement, based on redeployment of forces to reduce the chances of conflict, avoidance of the use of force and the determination of future positions on the ground so as to conform with the Shimla Agreement and to ensure durable peace in the Siachen area."

The 1989 joint statement said nothing about marking present positions but spoke instead of "the determination of future positions on the ground" by the two army authorities. By 1992, a "Zone of Complete Disengagement" had also been worked out but this entire approach was derailed by India's insistence that Pakistan authenticate the AGPL prior to withdrawal. Pakistan refused to do this for two reasons. First, it feared India would use the authenticated AGPL to buttress its claim to the glacier when negotiations on extending the LoC beyond NJ 9842 are eventually held. Secondly, according to Indian officials, the Pakistani army has consistently misled its own people by overstating the extent of its presence in the area. Signing a map that clearly shows the Indian army sitting astride the Saltoro ridge would presumably be embarrassing for it.

Today, as India considers the contours of a settlement, it needs seriously to ask how a jointly authenticated AGPL will provide any greater legal, diplomatic or military protection than a clearly demarcated and signed Zone of Complete Disengagement. In any case, the schedule of redeployment of existing forces to future positions is bound to also involve identification of specific forces at their current position of deployment. The AGPL will thus be authenticated in all but name. The creation of a no-go zone with joint and individual verification through aerial and electronic means would provide India ample military protection against a sudden Pakistani incursion. And as far as the international community is concerned, a Pakistani violation of the Zone of Complete Disengagement would surely be treated on a par with any violation of an authenticated AGPL.

Beyond this, however, is the issue of trust. Asked how he could sign arms control agreements with the Soviet Union, Ronald Reagan used to speak of "trust, but verify." In Siachen, we need "verify, but trust." Robust verification of the zone of disengagement is a must. But if India is simply not prepared to trust General Pervez Musharraf or the Pakistani military over the Siachen issue, it should abandon any pretence of trying to reach a "settlement".

In the absence of trust, what good is an authenticated AGPL? If Siachen is indeed of such strategic importance for the country and if all that stands between the Pakistani military and the very security of Ladakh is the presence of Indian troops on Saltoro, then what good is an authenticated AGPL? Even if Pakistan is willing to authenticate current positions in Siachen, India would be foolish to abandon its posts.

Prime Minister Manmohan Singh spoke last year of turning Siachen into a mountain of peace. He can do no better than to cut through the fog of illogic which the authentication-wallahs have spread by pushing for mutual, verifiable military redeployment away from a clearly demarcated zone of complete disengagement.

An agreement on Siachen will pay rich dividends on the Kashmir front, where the contours of a non-territorial solution have already begun to emerge.

Let not the congenital insecurities of our establishment and the political grandstanding of the Opposition come in the way of a sensible end to a senseless conflict, which has taken the lives of so many brave soldiers on either side.

© Copyright 2000 - 2006 The Hindu

Bush unveils a Fissile Material Cut-Off Treaty

At the Conference on Disarmament in Geneva on May 18, the U.S. Acting Assistant Secretary for International Security and Nonproliferation, Stephen Rademaker, sprung a surprise on the delegates. After blasting Iran for its nuclear programme and attacking unnamed countries (eg. China and Russia) for holding the CD "hostage" to their demand for forward movement in all areas of disarmament (such as space weapons) and not just one (i.e. fissile material), he presented a draft Fissile Material Cutoff Treaty (FMCT) and said

"[W]e propose that an ad hoc committee, or even this plenary itself, begin immediate debate on our text, with the objective of approving a text for signature by the end of this year’s CD session".

At face value, the latest U.S. proposal seems unobjectionable, and even welcome. But the reality is otherwise.

The four-page draft text is up at the Stimson Center website -- but Rademaker's words best sum up what it says:

"Mr. President, our draft clearly defines fissile material and related production methods in a manner consistent with established practices and past thinking on that subject. For example, the production of fissile material for non-explosive purposes, such as naval propulsion, would not be prohibited by an FMCT. Existing stocks of fissile material also would be unaffected. Our draft also spells out the mechanisms needed for a treaty. Entry into force, dispute resolution, implementation, signature, accession -- it’s all here.

Consistent with our conclusions regarding the verifiability of an FMCT, which Ambassador Sanders announced to the Conference in July 2004, our text includes no provisions designed to provide verification. This does not mean that compliance with the treaty would be unverified, but rather that the primary responsibility for verification would rest with the parties using their own national means and methods – or, said another way, through the exercise of the sovereign responsibilities of the states parties to monitor compliance".

While I will write on this issue in more detail over the weekend, these are some useful points for everyone to bear in mind as they digest this news:

1. Since everyone in the world except the five nuclear weapon states (i.e. U.S., Russia, China, Britain, France) and the four non-parties to the NPT (i.e. India, Pakistan, Israel and North Korea) are legally barred from producing fissile material, the proposed FMCT is really about these 9 countries alone. And since the five NWSs are already observing a moratorium (but no one is really sure about China), the purpose of the treaty is to make sure China, India, Pakistan and North Korea end fissile material production.

2. The rest of the world wants verification, Bush's draft says Nyet. Countries can use "national means", which means the U.S., which has the most advanced surveillance technologies, can verify everyone else's adherence but the rest of the world can't be sure Uncle Sam is sticking to the treaty.

3. The verification question throws up an interesting problem for India. Under the terms of the July 18, 2005 India-U.S. agreement, India said it would work with the U.S. for the early entry into force of an FMCT. But India wants verification to be part of the FMCT, a point reiterated by Ambassador Jayant Prasad in his speech to the CD on May 17.

4. Existing stockpiles are unaffected. But since the four nuclear weapon states have already stopped producing fissile material, this treaty presents no new obligations for them that the rest of the world can feel happy about. Even if stockpiles aren't thrown into the FMCT, there has to be some proper move towards disarmament.

5. I am not sure how much of an arms control measure the FMCT will be. The nuclear weapon states have already accumulated enough fissile material to blow us up many times over. A more pressing arms control issue is PAROS -- the prevention of an arms race in outer space. I have long believed that space-related issues are more urgent and pressing than an FMCT because the major era of stockpiling is over but we are on the cusp of a new and more dangerous arms race if the lid on space is not put on quickly. This is what the fight in the CD has been all about these past few years. China, Russia, and a number of other countries have been insisting on the urgency for putting space-related disarmament issues on the CD's agenda. But the U.S., which has an active programme for the militarisation of space, would have none of it. There is also the issue of security assurances for non-nuclear weapon states that the U.S. is not keen for the CD to take up. So should the Bush administration be allowed to cherry pick the arms control measure it wants?

Michael Krepon of the Stimson Center is quick off the bat with a short, sharp comment on the U.S. draft text. Krepon sees the timing as smart, and reckons this will "improve chances that the Congress will approve the Bush administration’s proposed nuclear deal with India". But he is bothered by the absence of verifiability and by the administration's refusal to discuss arms control measures related to space security.

Less than allies, more than partners

Review: C. Raja Mohan's Impossible Allies is an establishmentarian account of the India-U.S. nuclear deal that overstates the extent to which the two countries share strategic interests.








16 May 2006
The Hindu

Less than allies, more than partners

An establishmentarian account of the India-U.S. nuclear deal that overstates the extent to which the two countries share strategic interests

SIDDHARTH VARADARAJAN

IMPOSSIBLE ALLIES — Nuclear India, United States and the Global Order
C. Raja Mohan
[India Research Press, B-4/22, Safdarjung Enclave, New Delhi-110029. $ 35.95]

If there is any common ground between the critics and supporters of the India-U.S. nuclear agreement of 2005, it is that the document signed in Washington by Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and President George W. Bush last July was "historic" in every sense of the term. The Bush administration turned its back on decades of non-proliferation policy and did so in order to cement a strategic relationship with India that could do for U.S. power in Asia what its alliance with Japan or Germany did after World War II. By any yardstick, this is precisely the stuff world orders are made of.

Beyond recognition of this objective reality, however, lie a whole host of normative considerations. Simply put, not every development that is "historic" is necessarily "good." Nor should it automatically be assumed that the American proposal to help India become a world power and join hands with it in rewriting the rules of global order is an offer that cannot be refused.

Before asking whether the emerging strategic partnership with the U.S. really serves India's enlightened national interest, one needs to examine the extent to which American and Indian strategic interests in Asia and the wider world overlap. In this timely and elegantly argued book, C. Raja Mohan insists that there is a high degree of strategic congruence between India and the U.S. And yet, his argument is marred by a failure to rigorously delineate precisely what the strategic interests of the two countries are.

World order

On Iran, for example, it is not enough to say, as the author does that "India does not want another nuclear weapon state in its neighbourhood." The debate in the world is not on this question but on whether the U.S. approach is the best way of ensuring that Iran doesn't go nuclear. On Iraq, he claims that the "Bush invasion... had less to do with presumed weapons of mass destruction ... than the ideological motivation to promote democracy in the Middle East." There is no room in this make-believe world for considerations of political economy or for the compulsions of preserving hegemony in a continent that is undergoing profound strategic changes. And I'm not even speaking here of facts — such as the Bush administration's refusal to accept the democratic verdict of the recent Palestinian elections, which brought Hamas to power. Or asking how India's strategic interests have been furthered by the anarchy, chaos, terrorism and strategic instability the U.S. has engendered in Iraq.

The key theoretical proposition Raja Mohan makes is that there is a good fit between the `unilateralism' of the U.S. and the `revisionism' of India as far as world order is concerned. One is the pre-eminent world power, the other a fast-rising but hitherto excluded power. Both, however, have a common interest in rewriting the rules of international relations. But recognising that both wish to rewrite the rules does not mean the script that Washington is preparing is necessarily going to be good for India.

In a discussion on Impossible Allies at the India International Centre in March, Naresh Chandra, a former Indian ambassador to the U.S., made the observation that both countries may wish to move away from the existing world order but their "vectors" are different: India is trying to break in, the U.S. is trying to break out.

American unilateralism, then, of which Raja Mohan has been a supporter, may not fit so well with Indian revisionism after all. In May 2003, he argued in an article in this newspaper that if India "evades [the] opportunity" to send troops to Iraq, it "will put out the word that it is not yet prepared to break out of the narrow South Asian political box." Well, India, mercifully, did evade that "opportunity" but its international clout was not diminished as a result. It only goaded the U.S. to come back with bigger and better goodies. Conversely, backing U.S. unilateralism does not necessarily ensure one a place at the high table. India and Germany both succumbed to U.S. pressure last September and voted against Iran at the International Atomic Energy Agency. But it is only Germany — and not India — which gets to sit in on the P-5's crucial strategy meetings on Iran.

In fairness to Raja Mohan, the word "impossible" in the title of the book comes from his own acceptance of the limits to which the U.S. and India may work together. But there are limits only if one assumes Washington is still interested in alliances of the old type. In American strategic thinking, the new buzzword is "partners" and not "allies."

A partnership connotes a highly flexible and contingent political and military relationship that allows the U.S. to deal with threats and challenges that are more diverse than the binary rivalry of a Cold War adversary. And given its size, location, military capabilities and diasporic links with the U.S., India is the partner of choice for ensuring the preservation of American hegemony in a region that is undergoing rapid economic and strategic changes and from which the U.S. fears being excluded.

One of the major limitations of Impossible Allies is its inadequate analysis of where and how India fits into the larger strategic debates within the U.S. administration and establishment. For example, he exhorts India to go beyond its earlier `Cold War' mentality without appreciating the extent to which American strategic and military planning continues to be animated by the same mindset.

The Pentagon's latest quadrennial defence review (QDR) still adheres to Cold War logic as far as force planning and weapons acquisition is concerned. Within the Beltway, the `China threat' lobby has the upper hand and this is what is helping to propel U.S. policy towards India. At Foggy Bottom, the `containers' of China have the upper hand over the `engagers'. And in the Pentagon, the `Big War' proponents with their huge spending plans on DDX destroyers, missile, defence and space weapons have the upper hand over those who say the `war on terror' requires a more modest but focussed arms build-up. Behind these doctrinal differences lie hard corporate interests. Developing India as a military partner and consumer, then, makes good political and financial sense all round.

Like other "realists", Raja Mohan takes the view that India and the U.S. have a common interest in balancing the rise of China. He is right to reject "containment" as the goal of either country but fails to recognise that the problem with the `balance of power' is that it does not remain a `balance' but is the lever for the reconfiguration of power. The U.S. aim, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice is quoted, as saying in the book, "is to create a balance of power in the world that favours freedom."

The richest part of Impossible Allies is its compelling and authentic account of the negotiations on high-technology trade (i.e. the `Next Steps in Strategic Partnership' process) as well as of the roller-coaster ride the two sides have been on since the July 28, 2005 nuclear agreement was signed. But the book was unnecessarily written to an artificial deadline — the visit to Delhi in early March of President Bush — when the fast-breeder controversy was still on and there was a question mark over whether an agreement would be reached on India's plan to separate its civil and military nuclear facilities.

In the book, Raja Mohan is convinced that the Indian insistence on keeping the fast breeder out of safeguards would be a deal-breaker. Subsequent events have proved him wrong. Earlier, he was convinced an Indian abstention on the Iran issue at the IAEA would have derailed the nuclear deal. It would not have. As a result of that ill-advised vote, New Delhi has more or less destroyed what would have been a promising energy relationship with Teheran. One only wishes the advocates of closer ties between India and the U.S. had a better appreciation of India's strength and a clearer understanding of the reasons Washington is so keen to recruit Delhi on to its side.

An Iranian offer that America must heed

The Ahmadinejad letter is as much an invitation to dialogue as a reminder to the world of the dangers posed by the Bush administration's policies. (The montage of the two presidents is from Ahmadinejad's official website) [Für Deutschen klicken Sie hier]

12 May 2006
The Hindu

An Iranian offer that America must heed

The Ahmadinejad letter is as much an invitation to dialogue as a reminder to the world of the dangers posed by the Bush administration's policies.

Siddharth Varadarajan

WITH THE exception of one highly regrettable sentence implicitly questioning the historicity of the Nazi holocaust against the Jews and another hinting at the complicity of U.S. intelligence agencies in 9/11, Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's 18-page letter to his American counterpart, George W. Bush, is a tour de force of the kind the world of diplomacy has not seen for a long time.

This extraordinary document — cleverly drafted in the religious idiom that Mr. Bush and his neoconservative advisers allegedly believe in, complete with a reference to Judgment Day — is the first official communication from the head of the Iranian government to an American President since the 1979 revolution that overthrew the Shah. It is also a masterpiece of political clarity and philosophical opaqueness, which will frustrate and provoke Washington. The world sees the well-timed letter as a diplomatic opening — which it most certainly is — but the Bush administration is not interested in diplomacy. Nor does it look kindly upon those who seek to suggest that the recent crescendo of allegations against Iran resembles the lies Washington told about weapons of mass destruction in the run-up to its disastrous invasion of Iraq in 2003.

The experience of Iraq is the single most important argument the Iranian President marshals to make the point that the Bush administration's policy towards Iran is misconceived and dangerous. And he urges the American President to change course lest he be judged harshly by three separate courts: of God, of history and of his own people.

Because of the possibility of the existence of WMDs in Iraq, Mr. Ahmadinejad's letter notes, the country was occupied, "around one hundred thousand people killed, its water sources, agriculture and industry destroyed, close to 180,000 foreign troops put on the ground, sanctity of private homes of citizens broken, and the country pushed back perhaps fifty years ... Lies were told in the Iraqi matter. What was the result? I have no doubt that telling lies is reprehensible in any culture, and you do not like to be lied to."

The letter is formally addressed to Mr. Bush but its arguments are all aimed at a wider audience, particularly in Europe, West Asia, and the U.S. To the people of the United States, Mr. Ahmadinejad offers a reminder of the high price they are paying thanks to the Bush administration's lies in Iraq: "Hundreds of billions of dollars spent from the treasury of one country and certain other countries and tens of thousands of young men and women — as occupation troops — put in harm's way, taken away from family and loved ones, their hands stained with the blood of others, subjected to so much psychological pressure that everyday some commit suicide and those returning home suffer depression, become sickly and grapple with all sorts of ailments; while some are killed and their bodies handed to their families."

Post-9/11, Mr. Ahmadinejad writes, the American people have been made to feel less secure thanks to their government's policies. And the U.S. administration has thrown all principles of human rights out of the window by incarcerating people indefinitely without trial and maintaining secret prisons. In a direct reference to Mr. Bush's much-publicised religious beliefs, the Iranian President asks how all of this can be reconciled with someone being "a follower of Jesus Christ, the great Messenger of God."

But there is more to the letter than mere rhetoric. In directly addressing the U.S. President, Mr. Ahmadinejad is reprising a tradition as familiar to Iranian statecraft as its experience with `regime change.'

Under pressure from the same Anglo-American powers ranged against Teheran today, Mohammed Mossadegh, who was Prime Minister of Iran until being forcibly overthrown in 1953, wrote a number of letters to President Dwight D. Eisenhower. Mossadegh had asserted Iran's independence against the British by nationalising its oil and was being subjected to punitive action by Britain and the U.S. "Although it was hoped that during Your Excellency's administration attention of a more sympathetic character would be devoted to the Iranian situation," Mossadegh wrote to Eisenhower on May 28, 1953, "unfortunately no change seems thus far to have taken place in the position of the American Government." He also complained that Iran had made numerous proposals for the amicable settlement of its dispute with the Anglo-American oil companies but these had not been responded to.

Unlike President Bush, who got Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice to reject Mr. Ahmadinejad's letter, Eisenhower gave Mossadegh the courtesy of a reply. But he was also dishonest and misleading. The plot hatched by the Dulles brothers for Mossadegh's overthrow was already under way. On August 19, 1953, Iran was brought back kicking and screaming into the Free World.

As a former teacher, Mr. Ahmadinejad knows Iran's history well. He also knows Mossadegh erred in not correctly reading the intentions of the U.S. and in being reactive. Elected to the presidency last year, Mr. Ahmadinejad quickly — and correctly — concluded that there was no way the Bush administration would give up its goal of `regime change' in Iran. After all, the opening to Washington attempted by his more liberal predecessor, Mohammed Khatami, had not only been summarily rejected but rewarded by Iran's inclusion in the `axis of evil.' Mr. Ahmadinejad was equally certain that no matter what concessions Teheran made to provide its European interlocutors "objective guarantees" of its peaceful nuclear intentions, Washington would never accept the development or retention of safeguarded fuel cycle activities by Iran.

Calculated escalation

Sitting in his Teheran office in August 2005, Mr. Ahmadinejad could be forgiven for believing in the inevitability of American sanctions and eventual use of force. The hopes in liberal Iranian circles that France, Germany, and Britain would come up with a credible formula for the resolution of the nuclear question were dashed when the E-3 produced their limp proposal of August 5. Rather than sitting back and allowing Washington to calibrate the pace and extent of crisis escalation, President Ahmadinejad probably surmised that Iran's best chance of avoiding the fate that befell Iraq lay in escalating the crisis on its own terms.

The rhetoric against Israel last fall, the resumption of enrichment experiments in January this year, and the declaration that Iran has mastered the technology and is now a "nuclear nation" would have made no sense to a Mossadegh. But to a leader convinced about the inevitability of an American military attack, it was a high-risk gamble that appears to have paid off. By bringing the crisis to a boil at a time when Washington has neither the military nor diplomatic capability to launch an attack — let alone persuade the world to impose sanctions — President Ahmadinejad has, paradoxically, increased his country's room for manoeuvre. His letter to Mr. Bush is part of the same strategy, except that it comes as a soothing unguent to the high octane grandstanding of the past few months. Certainly, the international oil bourses have taken it that way.

What should the Bush administration do? It should heed the advice of its friends and allies and grasp the diplomatic nettle that Mr. Ahmadinejad has thrust into its unwilling hands. Contrary to Washington's deafening propaganda, Iran has not crossed the nuclear weapons rubicon and it is not at all clear that it even wishes to do so. In any case, if the Iranian leadership decides to build nuclear weapons, there is absolutely nothing the U.S. or the world can do to force it not to do so. The key, then, lies in making sure Mr. Ahmadinejad and his colleagues — and the wider Iranian clerical-corporate establishment of which they are a part — continue to have no incentive to go down that path. Imposing sanctions and threatening military action are not disincentives; if anything, they will strengthen the hands of those in Teheran who argue nuclear weapons are needed as the ultimate deterrent against `regime change.' Mr. Ahmadinejad's letter has raised issues about American policies that are shared by countries in the region and the wider world. These are also issues that are being keenly debated inside the U.S. itself. President Bush should do himself and the world a favour and enter into a dialogue with Iran on these.

As far as the nuclear issue is concerned, Iran has said it will provide time-bound answers to all outstanding questions raised by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) provided its dossier is transferred back from the U.N. Security Council to the IAEA. This proposal should be accepted. There can also then be a speedy resumption of Iran's Additional Protocol obligations, including surprise complementary accesses to sites international inspectors wish to visit. Technical fixes like inspections are necessary to assure the world about the peaceful nature of Iran's nuclear programme. But they have to be supplemented by a political approach that addresses Iran's security concerns. Mr. Ahmadinejad has provided a rational and cogent outline of what these concerns are. Nowhere in the letter does he call for the destruction of Israel or any other state. Peace in the region requires a change of course by Washington. It is up to the rest of the world to push for such a change.

Baburam Bhattarai: The King is down but not out

In an interview conducted over the telephone, Baburam Bhattarai, senior member of the Standing Committee of the Politburo of the Communist Party of Nepal (Maoist), says implementation of the peace roadmap requires India's cooperation.

May 6-19 2006, Vol. 23 No. 9
Frontline

COVER STORY

'The King is down but not out'

BY SIDDHARTH VARADARAJAN

Interview with Baburam Bhattarai.

DEVENDRA M. SINGH/AFP

CPN(Maoist) leader Baburam Bhattarai.

What is your reaction to the G.P. Koirala government's ceasefire offer and its decision to remove the terrorist tag from the Maoists?

We welcome this decision of the Seven-Party Alliance (SPA) government as a positive step that will allow us to move ahead and implement the 12-point understanding reached between us last November. But we should remember that the King is down but not out. The Royal Nepal Army, the bureaucracy and other instruments of the state are still wedded to the King.

In an interview to Nepal One channel, you mentioned the release of Maoist prisoners in Nepal and India as a condition for the peace process going forward. There has been no announcement by the government on that front.

They should at least start releasing our comrades. The best, of course, is a general amnesty for all political prisoners, but if that is not considered possible right now the government should ensure that our senior leaders like Matrika Yadav, Suresh Ale Magar, and Kiran and Gourav, who are in Indian prisons along with our central committee members imprisoned in a Patna jail, are all released. The other thing is that we had a bitter experience the last time, when the RNA, instigated by the U.S. government, committed the infamous Doramba massacre during the second round of our peace talks with the government in August 2003. Now once again, we have the U.S. getting involved... .

Are you referring to the statements made by U.S. Assistant Secretary of State for South and Central Asia Richard Boucher during his visit to Kathmandu?

It is interesting that this time Boucher has not only started giving lectures to the people of Nepal; he actually went and met the head of the RNA. This means U.S. imperialism is up to its intrigues again.

The SPA is concerned that Maoist cadre are brandishing their arms openly. This kind of activity might intimidate cadre of other parties...

We have prepared a draft code of conduct on how our cadre and the government force should operate during this transition period and have handed it over to [Home Minister] Krishna Prasad Sitaula. The idea is to reach an agreement on a minimum code of conduct.

The House of Representatives voted unanimously to go in for elections for a Constituent Assembly. What is your sense of the timeframe for this process?

Elections to the Constituent Assembly should be held within six months... . If you give more time, the feudal forces will realign themselves and try and sabotage the process.

But aren't there practical difficulties such as a fresh delimitation of seats to ensure that all ethnic and linguistic groups are represented in the Assembly?

Of course, the re-delineation of seats has to be done. Our party has always believed that all oppressed nations and nationalities within Nepal, as well as Madhesis, Dalits and women have to have proper representation in the constitutional process. There are also the historically oppressed regions such as Mahakali and Karnali. So, re-delineation of seats is a basic demand that has to be fulfilled before elections. Otherwise, the process doesn't make any sense.

Your party has been fairly clear that you are prepared to send your fighters into their barracks under international supervision during the election period provided the RNA is also restrained. What form should this supervision take?

This issue is also there in the 12-point understanding with the SPA and will have to be discussed in detail. Both the PLA [People's Liberation Army of the Maoists] and the RNA should be placed under credible international supervision, preferably that of the United Nations. If the U.N. is not involved, then we are prepared to accept some other impartial player, in consultation with our neighbours such as India and China. I understand that India is reluctant to see the U.N. get involved but I want to stress that at this stage of the road map, we need India's cooperation.

The making of a democracy

A road map exists, and the people of Nepal are anxious to get moving. But there are also seven roadblocks to be overcome.






May 6-19 2006, Vol. 23 No. 9
Frontline

COVER STORY

The making of a democracy

BY SIDDHARTH VARADARAJAN
in Kathmandu

A road map exists, and the people of Nepal are anxious to get moving. But there are also seven roadblocks to be overcome.

FROM every corner of Nepal they came, triumph, hope and anxiety writ large in equal measure on faces as ethnically diverse as any you will find in South Asia. The date was April 28 and the country's House of Representatives, newly restored by Royal proclamation, was meeting behind the imposing gates of the Singhadurbar. In the streets outside, the marginalised and voiceless tried their best to make sure their concerns were not ignored. From the west of Nepal was the Magar Mahila Sangh, its members wearing traditional Magar attire, with their demand for an end to the `Hindu kingdom' ("Hindu rajya chahidey na") and its replacement by a secular state. The Nepal Sherpa Sangh wanted elections to a Constituent Assembly to be held quickly. Then there were Gurungs and Newars and a sprinkling of Rais and Limbus from eastern Nepal. Young men and women from Kathmandu, many of them middle-class and upper-caste, were there in large numbers too, as were representatives of the disabled. Dalit activists made their presence felt. Finally, the leaders of Nepal's vibrant pro-democracy civil society movement - Dr. Devendra Raj Panday, Krishna Khanal, Shyam Shreshta, Krishna Pahadi and Kanak Mani Dixit, besides others - were also present, joining the festive melting pot that had decanted itself on the streets in front of the parliament building in a raucous vigil that lasted until the first sitting ended some hours later with the tabling of a resolution calling for elections to a Constituent Assembly.

One of the most dramatic but least analysed aspects of Nepal's April revolution is the manner in which the Maoist slogan of a nishart samvidhan sabha, or unconditional Constituent Assembly, has managed to capture the imagination of the entire people of Nepal. The Nepali Congress of Girija Prasad Koirala was fixated on the restoration of Parliament but it was only the promise of genuine constitutional change that brought the people of the country on to the streets in their hundreds of thousands.

True, different sections of the population read different meanings into the demand for a Constituent Assembly. For some, it was simply a way of getting even with King Gyanendra, a monarch widely reviled for a host of real and imagined sins, including his supposed involvement in the Royal Palace massacre of 2001. For others, it was something Nepal simply had to do to convince the Maoists to end their decade-long `people's war'. But for many, and probably the majority, the slogan of a democratically elected Constituent Assembly was instinctively appealing, precisely because it was seen as the key which could open the door to a more inclusive and equitable society. Stubbornly turning the worn-out tyres of his wheelchair until he was as close to the Singhadurbar as the police would let him get, Rukmangat Neopani, a disabled rights activist, declared that it was now or never. "Throughout the world people are talking of the rights of the disabled. We are here to make sure Nepal's new Constitution is inclusive in every sense of the word."

Two days later, on the eve of May Day, the House of Representatives unanimously passed a resolution calling for elections to a Constituent Assembly. And the Koirala government has followed that vote up with the announcement that it was reciprocating the three-month ceasefire announced by the Maoists in the wake of King Gyanendra's proclamation restoring Parliament, as well as revoking the terrorist tag from the party and its front organisations.

ADREES LATIF/REUTERS

Anti-monarchy slogans and party flags on a statue of former King Prithvi Narayan Shah outside the gates of the Parliament building on April 28.

There is one last gesture of goodwill left for the Seven-Party Alliance (SPA) government to make before the road map for peace and genuine democracy in Nepal starts getting implemented in earnest. This is the decision to release top Maoist leaders from jail and to ask India - which is holding nearly 25 leading cadres of the Nepalese party without charge - also to do the same. To say that the peace road map will soon be implemented, however, is not to minimise the hurdles that lie ahead in any way. The obstacles are legion, both domestic and international, and how they are overcome will depend to a large extent on the maturity and statesmanship that the SPA and Maoist leaderships display in the difficult months that lie ahead.

Obstacle one

In order to insulate the proposed election for a Constituent Assembly from any motivated or frivolous legal challenge, the SPA government needs to amend the preamble to the existing 1990 Constitution. The preamble, akin to the basic structure of the Constitution, specifies the four walls within which amendments are to be made, and this includes constitutional monarchy. In order to ensure that the Supreme Court of Nepal - which has shown itself beholden to King Gyanendra in a variety of ways - does not stay the election, the preamble itself has to be amended to take cognisance of the sovereign people's right to decide the nature of the political system they wish to live under. "Once this is done," says Shambhu Thapa, president of the Nepal Bar Association, "there is no principle of jurisprudence that can be invoked by any court to derail the process of elections to a Constituent Assembly."

But amending the 1990 Constitution's preamble is not a simple matter. King Gyanendra's Royal proclamation did not reconvene the Upper House of Parliament, the National Assembly. Either he will have to be prevailed upon to do so or the government, invoking the doctrine of necessity, can summon the Upper House. There are also nearly 20 vacancies that have to be filled, an additional headache that someone will have to attend to.

Obstacle two

General Pyar Jung Thapa, chief of the Royal Nepal Army, played a key role in persuading King Gyanendra to step back from the brink and agree, in his proclamation of April 24, to the recall of Parliament and the implementation of a political road map that includes constitutional change. As part of the last-minute negotiations leading up to the King's announcement, Gen. Thapa sent a message to the parties that the Army would report to them once they formed a government. How true Gen. Thapa will be to that assurance, however, remains to be seen, especially since his second-in-command, Lt.-Gen. Rukmangat Katuwal, is someone especially beholden to the Palace.

Prime Minister Koirala has announced a ceasefire but must ensure that the RNA scrupulously abides by whatever `code of conduct' his government develops with the Maoists. This is where the international community has a crucial role to play. A clear message must be sent out to the RNA brass that any deviation from the principle of civilian command will be taken serious note of. If it is part of a sustained pattern of indiscipline, the RNA should be told that its future participation in United Nations peace-keeping operations would be put on hold. For such an approach to work, the international community needs to speak in one voice.

Obstacle three

Elections to a Constituent Assembly cannot be treated as just any other election. There are complex issues of representation which have to be sorted out to ensure that every major community and collective in Nepal - the ethno-linguistic groups, the backward regions, the Madhesis, the religious minorities, Dalits, women and youth, not to speak of the disabled - either win direct representation in the Assembly or have confidence that their interests will be protected there. Engineering a balanced and representative composition of the Assembly, without falling into the trap of creating ethnic or communal electorates, will be a major challenge for the SPA, the Maoists and the professional sociologists and political scientists who will no doubt be involved in the process.

To a certain extent, the regional dispersal of ethnic diversities suggests the mission could be accomplished by a fresh delimitation of constituencies based on an increase in the number of seats. Managing this within a reasonable timeframe so that the elections do not get inordinately delayed will be a key challenge.

Obstacle four

Once the modalities for the election are worked out, the SPA and the Maoists will have to turn their attention to establishing a mechanism for the sequestering of all armed men and women for the duration of the elections. The Maoists have said they are prepared to confine their fighters to fixed locations under international supervision provided the RNA is similarly bound down. But who or what will ensure this supervision? Ideally, a job of this magnitude and complexity should be handled by the U.N. In Angola, Cambodia and East Timor, as well as in Afghanistan, the U.N. has had varied experience in holding elections in a variety of military environments.

As long there is no big-power involvement, there is no reason why the U.N. cannot accomplish the task of supervising the confinement of soldiers to their barracks, if not the actual polls to a Constituent Assembly in Nepal. The only other alternative is for the SPA, the Maoists and the RNA to work out domestic arrangements, but this seems unlikely at the moment. If not the U.N., it is possible some `contact group' of European countries might volunteer for the job but their involvement is likely to come with far greater strings than the U.N.

Obstacle five

As elections approach, cleavages between political forces that are working together will possibly increase. And there is every chance that King Gyanendra will try and take advantage of these either to derail the elections or to ensure an outcome more favourable to the monarchy.

The first cleavage is between the Right and the Left. The Nepali Congress may apprehend the Communist Party of Nepal (UML) and the Maoists forging common ground on certain constitutional questions and this may lead it to forge an alliance with either the Palace or the Army. But the Nepali Congress support base, and especially its youth wing, is increasingly republican and this may weaken the leadership's hold on the party.

GOPAL CHITRAKAR /REUTERS

Prime Minister G.P. Koirala faces difficult months ahead.

A second source of tension could be between the Maoists and the CPN(UML), with the latter apprehending the desertion of some of its support base to the former.

A third source of tension could be within the Maoists themselves. Historically, no insurgency has drawn down without more violent factions emerging and denouncing the mainstream as turncoats. Will the Nepalese Maoists produce their equivalent of the `Real IRA,' which in turn provokes the RNA into ending the ceasefire?

Maoist leader Prachanda has said the doctrinal divisions within the party on the need for `competitive democracy' ended at the Rolpa plenum in 2005. But the proof of the pudding will be in the eating. The history of the Maoist movement in South Asia - with its numerous `ideologically pure' factions, most at loggerheads with each other - does not provide grounds for optimism. And yet the Nepalese Maoists have so far proved to be far more disciplined and cohesive a force than any of their naxalite counterparts in India.

Perhaps one factor that might help to dampen any incipient divisions between parties is the plan to have an interim all-party government - with the participation of the Maoists - running the country during and after the Constituent Assembly elections and until the new Constitution is adopted and fresh elections are held.

Obstacle six

Assuming that elections take place and a representative Constituent Assembly meets sometime in 2007, its members are likely to find the task of creating a new Constitution to be an extremely challenging one.

The Indian Constituent Assembly was created on the basis of a partial franchise - by and large, only tax assessees, graduates or property owners were eligible to vote - and had as a constitutional guide the 1935 Government of India Act. Still, this fairly homogeneous, largely elite body took nearly four years to craft a Constitution. In contrast, the Nepalese Constituent Assembly will be far more heterogeneous. They will have the 1990 Constitution as a reference point but that document is so riddled with discriminatory clauses on grounds of religion, gender, ethnicity, language and caste that the temptation will be to go in for a wholesale revision. Especially if the Maoists and the ethno-linguistic groups insist on a robust federalism based on maximum devolution to the country's regions. However, the longer the Assembly deliberates, the greater the danger that the old order will regroup and consolidate itself. The people of Nepal are alert and conscious but they cannot remain in a state of active political mobilisation for an endless amount of time.

But if there is a political imperative to act swiftly, there are many good reasons for the representatives not to hurriedly draw up a new Constitution. Apart from ridding itself of the monarchy, Nepal has the chance of pioneering new forms of inclusive political participation. It can develop political institutions that genuinely empower citizens rather than elites and enact enabling laws to guarantee economic and social rights that elite-driven democracies such as India and the United States ignore - for instance, education, employment, health care and housing. It would be a pity if in the rush to checkmate King Gyanendra, these objectives are sidelined or forgotten.

Obstacle seven

One of the issues the Constituent Assembly will surely settle is what kind of Army Nepal should have. Shyam Shreshta, editor of the weekly Mulyankan, says Nepal should have an Army like that of Switzerland, a purely defensive but well-trained force that relies more on the involvement of citizens rather than on professional soldiers. There will likely be other views. Once this debate is settled, the task of integrating the People's Liberation Army with the RNA to create a new national Army will have to be undertaken.

If enough political confidence has been established, elements of the PLA might even conceivably get demobilised in the interim and be integrated into, say, a new national police force or militia. Integrating Army units is one thing but resolving the status of commanders and officers will be an entirely different ball game, with the Maoists opposed to those senior officers with strong connections to the monarchy.

If the people of Nepal are successfully to negotiate these obstacles, they will need the unstinting support of the government and people of India. At each stage, the choices India makes can help or hinder the implementation of the road map, beginning with the question of the release of Nepalese Maoist leaders incarcerated in Indian jails. So far, the Indian government has done the right thing, though the process by which it ultimately came out in favour of democracy might have been a little muddled.

Let it not be found wanting in the months that lie ahead.

Nuclear separation plan: An update

Prime Minister Manmohan Singh has tabled in Parliament additional details today on the Indian nuclear separation plan first unveiled on 7 March 2006.

Specifically, he has identified the 14 reactors which will go under IAEA safeguards between 2006 and 2014, as well as the individual facilities within the Nuclear FuelComplex, Hyderabad, which will be offered for safeguards by 2008.

The 14 reactors to be safeguarded are the following:

2006: TAPS 1 and 2; RAPS 1 and 2 Kudankulam 1 and 2
2007: RAPS 5 (under construction)
2008: RAPS 6 (under construction)
2010: RAPS 3 and 4 (currently operational)
2012: KAPS 1 and 2 (currently operational)
2014: NAPS 1 and 2 (currently operational)

In other words, the thermal power reactors which will remain unsafeguarded are: MAPS 1 and 2 at Kalpakkam (both 220 MWe) ; TAPS 3 and 4 (both 540 MWe) ; and Kaiga 1, 2, 3 and 4 (all 220 MWe). Plus of course the fast breeders.

The Nuclear Fuel Complex facilities to be safeguarded are:

Uranium Oxide Plant (Block A)
Ceramic Fuel Fabrication Plant (Palletizing) (Block A)
Ceramic Fuel Fabrication Plant (Assembly) (Block A)
Enriched Uranium Oxide Plant
Enriched Fuel Fabrication Plant
Gadolinia Facility

First glimpse of a new dawn in Nepal

The oldest nation-state in South Asia will soon have the subcontinent's newest constitution. Whether peace and prosperity follow depends on how inclusive it is.

7 May 2006
Sunday Magazine, The Hindu

First glimpse of a new dawn in Nepal

SIDDHARTH VARADARAJAN

EIGHTEEN months is a long time in politics but even by the legendary elasticity of South Asian politicians, the transformation Nepal's political leaders have undergone is nothing short of miraculous.

On a visit to Kathmandu in September 2004, I asked Sher Bahadur Deuba, who was Prime Minister at the time, what he thought of the idea of a constituent assembly. The Maoist leader, Prachanda, had just asked a series of six questions to Deuba, one of which was whether his government was really committed "to making the people sovereign through an election to the constituent assembly". Prachanda's question is a ploy, a tactic, Deuba told me, adding that he could not agree to any proposal which might compromise the country's system of constitutional monarchy and multiparty democracy.

"The monarchy is widely respected... we need constitutional monarchy for the unity of the country." Deuba also ruled out a ceasefire with the Maoist rebels and brushed aside the need to remove the terrorist tag from the party and its front organisations so that they could come forward for dialogue.

That was then and now is now. Barely four months after that interview, Deuba's "widely respected" monarch sacked him and seized control of the country himself. Addressing a mass rally in Kathmandu's Khula Manch on April 27, the former Prime Minister, who heads his own faction of the Nepali Congress, finally came out strongly in favour of a constituent assembly. He confessed that King Gyanendra had deceived him many times before. "But this time I will not be deceived ... That is why I can't compromise on the issue of holding elections to a constituent assembly to make people sovereign."

National consensus

What changed? In fairness to Deuba, he did tell me in 2004, somewhat tautologically, that the idea of a constituent assembly in Nepal could only arise if there was a "national consensus". So what happened in the intervening year and a half since that interview to produce so strong a national consensus on constitutional change that on its second day of business, the restored House of Representatives unanimously passed a resolution calling for elections to a constituent assembly?

The easy answer is people power — millions of feet worth of it — but the underlying causes need to be disaggregated as well. The first was King Gyanendra's power grab, which made it clear he wanted to turn the clock back to the panchayat era when the palace was completely unconstrained in what it could do. In many ways, the royal coup of February 1, 2005, did more to foster a longing for constitutional change in Nepal than 10 years of "peoples' war" waged by the Maoists. Regardless of its intrinsic merits, many Nepalese also saw in the creation of a constituent assembly the possibility that the Maoists would end their insurgency and enter competitive politics.

The combination of republican sentiment and the yearning for peace proved irresistible for the parties, who found themselves pushed by their own cadres and supporters towards endorsing the Maoist demand for a constituent assembly. Meanwhile, in the Maoist camp, two years of ideo-political debate had led to the emergence, by 2005, of a new line in which the party's participation in "competitive politics" was seen as the best way of ushering in a democratic revolution.

These two political streams came together last November in the form of the 12-point understanding reached between the parties and the Maoists. The rest, as they say, is history, though the real historical transformation the constituent assembly will bring is still many months, if not years away.

Questions ahead

When the assembly meets, the easiest question to resolve will be what happens to the king.

The choices are discrete — (1) monarchy, the way it is now with the power to dismiss parliament and control the army; (2) constitutional monarchy, where the king and army are subservient to parliament; and (3) republic, where the monarchy is abolished totally. Selecting one of thee options will depend largely on the configuration of the assembly.

However, members of the prospective assembly will find it far more difficult to resolve the kind of political and social questions over which a partially elected body like the Indian constituent assembly agonised for nearly four years.

What kind of political system should Nepal have? Should it be a federal or centralised state? How to ensure adequate representation for all of the country's ethno-linguistic groups and castes? Should there be affirmative action in favour of the most disadvantaged communities? What should the prerogatives of parliament be in overseeing the country's foreign relations? How can the economic and social rights of citizens be guaranteed? What kind of army does Nepal need?

Various rights

At the end of the day, the constitution and system that emerge from this process will stand or fall depending on how inclusive they are. Nepal's janajatis — the Magars, Tamangs, Gurungs, Rais, Limbus, Sherpas and others — as well as the Dalits and Madhesis would like a system, which would grant them a greater say in governance. Nepal's peasants would like an end to the feudal system. Nepal's women, who played an equal part in the struggle against the king, are looking for meaningful empowerment. And there are others — the disabled, for example, or religious minorities like Muslims and Buddhists — who want their specific rights enshrined.

As the product of the greatest mass upsurge South Asia has witnessed for decades, Nepal's constituent assembly will be uniquely placed to create a genuinely inclusive democratic system. The challenge would be to create mechanisms which empower the citizenry and its diverse collectives rather than the economic and social elites — as electoral practice in India, the United States and other democracies has ended up doing.

One can only hope that the seven-party alliance, the Maoists, and all others who eventually win representation in the constituent assembly will rise up to the occasion. If they don't, Nepal will eventually sink back into violence and instability. But if they do, the modern, inclusive and empowering democratic system they create could be a model for the rest of South Asia, including India, as well as the world.

For Nepal, and India, the road ahead is difficult

Among the hurdles: the parties' lack of confidence, as well as New Delhi's anxiety over U.N. involvement in the disarmament of the Maoists and elections to a constituent assembly.










2 May 2006
The Hindu

For Nepal, and India, the road ahead is difficult

Siddharth Varadarajan

MOMENTOUS THOUGH the events and accomplishments of the past few weeks have been, the struggle for democracy in Nepal is perhaps entering its most difficult phase only now. As the country moves towards elections to a constituent assembly, the ingenuity and wisdom of not just the Nepalese political forces but also of India will be put to the test. The choices each makes will help to determine whether the `April Revolution' reaches its final destination or disappears in the quicksand of palace intrigue and political cowardice.

Amidst the exhilaration and excitement of the people's movement in Nepal, India's momentary suspension of disbelief following Karan Singh's fatal meeting with King Gyanendra stands out as the one discordant note. Whatever New Delhi intended, people in Kathmandu saw in both the choice of the special envoy and the subsequent Indian endorsement of the monarch's cunning first proclamation a sign that India cast its lot with the palace. To make matters worse, this syndrome of mixed signals — of `tough' messages delivered, sometimes in private, to an intractable monarch by envoys enamoured of kingship, or petrified of the Maoists — continued right up to the bitter end.

At a time when lakhs of people were on the streets protesting King Gyanendra's ploy of asking the Seven-Party Alliance to nominate its Prime Minister and take executive power, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh told journalists accompanying him to Hanover that the king was acting in the "right direction." He also needlessly endorsed the discredited two-pillar theory of constitutional monarchy being as indispensable to stability in Nepal as multi-party democracy. In the same unhelpful vein, National Security Adviser M.K. Narayanan chipped in from Germany that India might resume arms supplies to the Royal Nepal Army if the situation in the country continued to deteriorate.

Mr. Saran's eleventh-hour intervention — at a press conference last Saturday — that India stood with the people of Nepal and not with any royal pillar retrieved India's standing on the streets of Kathmandu. But unless the underlying problem which plagues India's Nepal policy is tackled, ambiguity is bound to crop up again.

India's Nepal problem has two dimensions, which are interlinked. First, New Delhi does not fully appreciate that a thoroughgoing democracy including a republic, if that is what the Nepalese want, will be good for India. Secondly, subsequent governments have allowed multiple channels of communication to come up -- which amplify the existing policy dissonance in Delhi and create maximum confusion.

Instead of the Indian embassy and ambassador, acting on the instructions of the Ministry of External Affairs, being the sole conduit for messages between India and the Nepalese establishment and political parties, a large number of interlocutors and busybodies have involved themselves in the process. There are the special envoys with their one-on-one meetings with King Gyanendra, where nobody else knows what is discussed. There are the Ministry of Defence and the Chief of the Army Staff, who believe in running their own lines of communication with the RNA. Then there are tantric interlopers and Hindutva fanatics who further contribute to the radio clutter. More noise also comes from our legion of ex-rajas, rajvadas and `cadets' who have family ties with the Narayanhiti Palace and who intercede at crucial moments with the ruling party to ensure that India does not side with the people of Nepal.

Somewhere in the middle of this unholy mess are the intelligence agencies, which also appear not to know what India should be doing. For example, their agents turned a blind eye to meetings between the Nepal Maoists and the SPA, which were crucial to the mass mobilisation witnessed on the streets of Kathmandu in April. But their boss, India's intelligence czar, worries endlessly about the security threat posed by the Maoists and is reportedly keen on turning the RNA's weapons tap back on again.

Misplaced anxiety

India might have muddled its way through the thicket of policy dissonance to emerge, finally, on the side of the people, but there is one major obstacle still to be overcome. This is the official anxiety about allowing the United Nations to play a role in the implementation of the SPA-Maoist road map for peace.

Now that Nepal's Parliament has unanimously passed a resolution calling for elections to a constituent assembly, it is time for both Kathmandu and New Delhi to get serious about how those elections are to be conducted. Since the Maoists are unlikely to surrender their arms until after the palace's military powers are neutralised, some kind of international supervision will be needed to provide assurances of a level playing field to all during elections to the constituent assembly and even while the body meets. The Maoists say they are prepared to confine their armed fighters to the barracks under U.N. supervision pending elections and their eventual integration into a new national army along with elements of the RNA. Such a formula provides the only viable option for insurgency to end peacefully. But without international oversight, this is impossible to implement. For obvious reasons, India cannot involve itself in this process and would not want the South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation (SAARC) there either. Nor would India want the task executed by a `contact group' led, inevitably, by European countries which are part of Nato's overall command structure. Are there countries, then, that New Delhi can trust? Whose involvement in supervising the sequestering of the Maoists would not compromise India's sense of national interest? These are questions the South Block needs to start asking with a sense of urgency.

In many ways, the U.N. would be the best vehicle. But some sections of the Indian establishment are paranoid about the implications the U.N. involvement in a South Asian election process might have for Kashmir. Such anxieties are completely misplaced. Apart from climate, Nepal and Kashmir have nothing in common. And if the peace process were to falter for want of a via media to manage the entry of the Maoists into competitive politics, it would be King Gyanendra, who ultimately stands to benefit.

Dangers ahead

So momentous have the changes of the past few weeks been that it is tempting to conclude that the king is already history. This would be a serious mistake. King Gyanendra may not be able to utilise his constitutional powers to dismiss Prime Minister Girija Prasad Koirala or Parliament — if he did, he would have to contend with a full-blown insurrection that would end with either his flight or execution. But he has managed to buy time for himself, a commodity that is infinitely more useful today than are legal provisions. In the most optimistic scenario, elections to a constituent assembly are surely more than a year away. That provides plenty of time for intrigue behind the scenes. The king also knows he is dealing with political parties which lack confidence in their ability to carry the people's movement forward. Ideally, the SPA should have announced the restoration of Parliament itself. But it didn't have the gumption to do so. Mr. Koirala did well to refuse to take the oath to the Rajparishad but there are many in Nepal who would have found his being sworn in Prime Minister by King Gyanendra a distasteful event.

Mr. Koirala has also failed immediately to operationalise the promise he held out last week of a military ceasefire to reciprocate the three-month ceasefire declared by the Maoists. To make matters worse, an RNA helicopter on Saturday opened fire on a public meeting organised by the Maoists in the Sunwal area of Nawalparasi district. Was this the last act of defiance by an army which knows it will soon have to change course, or a warning shot to the SPA of who is still the boss?

One mistake Mr. Koirala, the SPA and India should avoid making is to disregard the role played by the Maoists in last week's peaceful revolution on the streets. The Maoist slogan of a constituent assembly is what fired the imagination of the people, both as an end in itself and as a way of bringing the insurgents into the mainstream and ending the decade-long armed conflict. The Maoists also mobilised their cadres and sympathisers, in Kathmandu, Dang and elsewhere. True, Maoist leaders Prachanda and Baburam Bhattarai lashed out at the SPA for welcoming the king's second proclamation restoring Parliament. But they quickly followed this up with two conciliatory gestures: the lifting of their blockade and a three-month ceasefire.

Mr. Koirala must move swiftly to capitalise on this opening and immediately order the RNA to declare a ceasefire too. Along with removing the terrorist tag from the Maoists and releasing all political prisoners, a ceasefire is necessary to start the dialogue process. He also needs to signal, right from the outset, that the RNA is fully subordinate to Parliament. On its part, India should impress upon the Koirala Government the need for a ceasefire and undertake not to resume arms supplies until it is clear that the RNA reports to Parliament and not the palace.

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