Islamabad, Ministry of Foreign Affairs<\/i> (28 Feb 2014)<\/p>\n
Your Excellencies<\/i>,<\/p>\n
The basic point is that Pakistan will not get that commodity called “peace” in Kashmir, Afghanistan and Central Asia by pursuing the ends and means of Washington and some local elites only.\u00a0 For peace to blossom the goals of other parties also have to be considered; and they are many.\u00a0 The logic of the political games pursued today presupposes some kind of victory or domination of “our side”: neither feasible nor desirable for peace.\u00a0 Hence, the need for some visions for peace politics is Kashmir, Afghanistan and Central Asia for tomorrow or the day after, with the hope that they can be useful when you have come to the end of the road with current policies. Nothing of this is easy; and without visions even impossible.<\/p>\n
The fairly detailed, non-dogmatic vision appended (below) was my acceptance speech of the 2011 Abdul Ghaffar Khan International Peace-Builder Award by the Pakistan-American Muslim Association.<\/p>\n
However, why do present policies so often seem to be non-starters?<\/p>\n
The British empire drew three lines with disastrous effects for Pakistan: the Durand line in 1893, a 1,600-mile wound defining the border with Afghanistan, dividing the Pashtun nation–the biggest nation in the world without a state–into two parts; the McMahon line of 1914 defining the border with China in ways unacceptable to the Chinese; and the Mountbatten line of 1947 leading to the catastrophic violence of the partition.\u00a0 These lines have to be negated, liberating Pakistan from that past.\u00a0 Thus, there is no natural law saying that Punjab cannot be an entity with an open border and free traffic of people and ideas, goods and services, even if the two parts belong to separate countries.\u00a0 Lahore and Amritsar are two sides of the same coin, like the two parts of the Pashtun nation and the parts of Kashmir.\u00a0 Let the twain (or more) meet, e.g. as envisioned below.<\/p>\n
And yet little or nothing is heard about these key parameters constraining Pak policies.\u00a0 What is heard is the term “terrorist”, the US vocabulary from the 1980s putting an end to understanding the other side by defining them as evil with no other project than evildoing.\u00a0 We hear about the illegitimacy of all the non-state entities fighting “asymmetrically” legitimate states.<\/p>\n
As NGO mediator talking with many of them–like Taliban people close to Al Qaeda–was very useful.\u00a0 They talk about US-Pak state terrorism, the lack of US legitimacy in killing on other states’ territory, the lack of legitimacy of the Pakistani state on who is winning these asymmetric wars when you have space, time and masses of people on your side.\u00a0 No doubt there is room for “dialogues” exchanging the illegitimacies, heaping dirt on each other’s head.\u00a0 But no peace will come out of that.<\/p>\n
Nor of the new “security document” (Dawn<\/i>, February 27-28, 2014)“to target the source of terrorism in response to acts of militant violence anywhere in the country”<\/i>.\u00a0 Yes, “militant violence” is bad; the question is how to reduce it.\u00a0 “100 terrorists reported killed by air strikes in tribal areas”<\/i>.\u00a0 The basic question is how many new ones were produced?\u00a0 The German magazine Der Spiegel<\/i> estimated once about 30 for each killed. Maybe 5. How many bereaved significant others–nearest family, extended family, neighbors, friends–did the killed “terrorist” have?\u00a0 Say, 100. 5% may act upon it.\u00a0 That gives us 5:1.<\/p>\n
To strike the “source of terrorism” sounds rational.\u00a0 Some may be in poor, marginalized “tribal areas” (note the implicit contempt and social distance from the Anglophiles among the Pak elites).\u00a0 But some source may also be in the politics of those elites.\u00a0 Hitting them sounds suicidal.\u00a0 So does continuing past policies unabated.<\/p>\n
The goal is a National Counter Terrorism Authority<\/i> (Nacta) “with a rapid response force and an air wing to include helicopters and fixed wing aircraft”<\/i>.\u00a0\u00a0 More toys for the boys.\u00a0 They will get them.<\/p>\n
But there is more to the new security policy.<\/p>\n
“It intends to integrate mosques and madressahs to the national education system in one year<\/i>“.\u00a0 Subordinate Islam to the Education Ministry? Sounds against the first of the five pillars of Islam, the Shahadah<\/i>, “there is no God but–“.\u00a0 Not the ministry, not the state.\u00a0 Considerably more of Pakistan would be on the Islam than the State side of that equation.\u00a0 The teeming masses, not the well-dressed top.<\/p>\n
“Construct a national narrative against extremist mindset in six months”<\/i>.\u00a0 How will they deal with the military coups, also somewhat extremist?–but see themselves as purely rational.\u00a0 Will anyone take that kind of construction for anything else than governmental propaganda?\u00a0 Or worse, for US propaganda, the sentence reeks of Washington, concocted in rooms far from the ground realities of Pashtuns, Baluchis, Punjabis, “tribals” and others in Pak complexity.<\/p>\n
“Improve intelligence-sharing and strengthen coordination between the Inter-Services Intelligence and civilian agenci<\/i>es”.\u00a0 Sounds like a soft way of reining in the ISI?\u00a0 Good luck, they run much of the country (with the Anglophile elites and the landowners).<\/p>\n
Dawn<\/i> writes that the opposition party PTI-Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf ends the four-month blockade of NATO supplies to Afghanistan (by road): the Peshawar High Court judged stopping and checking of vehicles carrying goods to Afghanistan illegal.\u00a0 Free traffic of arms OK?\u00a0 How about free traffic of women sex slaves, infants, kidneys and other human organs?<\/p>\n
Traveling this old, tired, paranoid road of security and counter-terrorism with some new slogans is not what Pakistan needs.\u00a0 How about a National Peace Authority<\/i> instead?\u00a0 Working on how to combine Common Law and Sharia, for instance?\u00a0 On how a huge Central Asian Community could relate to its huge neighbors, Russia, China, India? Making visions compelling by filling in details, gaps?\u00a0 The past did not produce peace, present policies will not.\u00a0 The future may.<\/p>\n
\u00a0<\/b><\/p>\n
Kashmir-Afghanistan-Central Asia<\/b><\/p>\n
Johan Galtung, 21 Nov 2011 <\/b><\/p>\n
Your Excellencies<\/i>:\u00a0 I am deeply honored and grateful for the Abdul Ghaffar Khan International Peace-Builder Award; named after the Frontier Gandhi, the Muslim Gandhi, Badshah Khan, a hero of the anti-colonial struggle from 1930.\u00a0 He saw nonviolence as \u201ca weapon from the Prophet\u201d, rooted in the Qur\u2019an. I met him once\u2013a giant in more than one sense\u2013viewing with sharp eyes an inconsequential peace conference unfolding in New Delhi, in 1970.\u00a0 A model for us all, like Gandhi.[i]<\/a><\/p>\n We are addressing in this AMA-American Muslim Association Foundation Quarterly Policy Forum\u00a0 \u201cKashmir and the Regional Jigsaw Puzzle for Peace\u201d, and I have added Afghanistan to the puzzle, and Central Asia for a \u201cregional solution\u201d.\u00a0 Deeply impressed with the preceding speakers on Kashmir, Ambassadors Howard B. Schaffer and Yusuf Buch, and by Dr. Ghulam-Nabi Fai\u2019s book on the Kashmir Conflict<\/i>, let me present some TRANSCEND\u2013a mediation NGO\u2013perspectives on the issues, based on a high number (in the hundreds) of one-on-one dialogues with all kinds of parties to the conflicts.[ii]<\/a><\/p>\n These mediation dialogues start with the same opening question:<\/p>\n * What does the Kashmir look like that you would like to see\/live in?<\/p>\n * What does the Afghanistan look like that you would like to see\/live in?<\/p>\n * What does the Central Asia look like that you would like to see\/live in?<\/p>\n In other words, we anchor the dialogue in a future-constructive dream- vision, idealist, and then proceed to make it as concrete as possible.\u00a0 We work backwards, starting with goals as they come out of the mutual search typical of a dialogue, as opposed to debates-negotiations.<\/p>\n It is not our experience that the sum of the narratives of the parties\u2019 grievances and sufferings constitutes a solution.\u00a0 It may lead to more mutual understanding, but also to apathy, hopelessness, and fear of revenge.\u00a0 If you want peace, start with their images, relate them to what really happens, search for something positive in the past, open for their worst fears for the future.\u00a0 Idealism and realism, dreams, nightmares, nostalgia, should all go together in a mature process.<\/p>\n Cutting down to the essence, here are three images of solutions:<\/p>\n \u00a0For Kashmir: Today a three-sided dispute Kashmir(is)-India-Pakistan:<\/b><\/i><\/p>\n * Jammu and Ladakh become parts of the Indian Union, and Assad-Kashmir becomes part of Pakistan if the populations themselves so determine;<\/p>\n * The Valley becomes an Indo-Pak condominium with increasing autonomy possibly aiming at independence;<\/p>\n * These parts of Kashmir are then tied together in a confederation with open borders, under a political body with all parts represented, and SAARC-South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation, with a Kashmir Area Free Trade Association\u2013KAFTA. Identity cards and passports would all include the name \u201cKashmir\u201d on the cover.<\/p>\n India-Pakistan constitutions amended to accommodate the doubleness of those parts, but no border is changed. However, passport cover texts are.<\/p>\n For Afghanistan: Today a favored invasion area for the West-Russia:<\/i><\/b><\/p>\n * A coalition government including what the West calls \u201cTaliban\u201d;<\/p>\n * A federation with local autonomy for the 25,000 village communities and the 6-8 nations; with capital in a small place, not Kabul;<\/p>\n * A confederation or community with the neighboring countries: Iran, the five Central Asian republics, Assad-Kashmir, Pakistan;<\/p>\n * Food-water-clothing-housing-health-education-nation-gender neutral;<\/p>\n * Peace-keeping by United Nations Security Council-Organization of Islamic Cooperation-OIC, also to prevent attacks on third parties, and internationally guaranteed neutrality; no bases-foreign troops.<\/p>\n For a country as reminiscent of Switzerland as Afghanistan, Swiss solutions, like federation and neutrality, should be appropriate.\u00a0 Swiss direct democracy is also compatible with the jirga<\/i> tradition.<\/p>\n For Central Asia: Today fragmented by the West-Russia:<\/i><\/b><\/p>\n * A Conference on Security and Cooperation in Central Asia-CSCCA, modeled on the Helsinki Conference 1972-75, also a peace conference;<\/p>\n * Aiming at a Central Asian Community<\/i>-CAC, a family of Afghanistan with Muslim neighboring countries, modeled on the European Community;<\/p>\n * Transcending the Durand line (from 1893) dividing the Pashtun nation by making the border between Afghanistan and Pakistan less important;<\/p>\n * Transcending the McMahon line (from 1914) between India and China by rejecting it, developing good relations with China, using SCO-Shanghai Cooperation Organization<\/i>;<\/p>\n * Transcending the Mountbatten line (from 1947) between Pakistan and India by developing good relations with India (water!), using SAARC.<\/p>\n Located on an axis from Turkey and China both countries would be involved, as well the big neighbors Russia and India.<\/p>\n The Kashmir solution would be welcomed by the peoples involved, but it would be strongly resisted by military-diplomatic elites, in both countries, hoping for the other to collapse. The solution calls for people to people diplomacy and for strong like-minded leaders in both sides, (like Mandela-de Klerk, maybe also Singh-Musharraf?), ending the brutal Indian occupation with 700.000 troops on the ground.<\/p>\n The Saichin glacier could become a world memorial for peace.<\/p>\n TRANSCEND has a similar proposal for Kurdistan: a confederation of four autonomies with human rights in Iraq, Iran, Syria and Turkey.\u00a0 No border moved, but also with \u201cKurdistan\u201d on all passports.<\/p>\n The solution for Afghanistan should respect the reality of the country: it is not a unitary state controlled from Kabul. The struggle against the US-led coalition is not only against secularization, but also against Kabul rule and above all against being invaded-occupied.<\/p>\n The solution for Central Asia should end the Western idea of controlling the world from Central Asia (MacKinder, 1904), undoing much of the harm inflicted on the area by English colonial policy and let countries that belong together, like a family, grow together; pooling people and resources. Like in Europe, they might be encased in an Organization for Security and Cooperation in Asia-Pacific, OSCAP, modeled on the OSCE that came out of the Helsinki conference.<\/p>\n And the US-led coalition?\u00a0 They are not Central Asian countries, should not impose \u201csolutions\u201d insensitive to the region, but withdraw militarily and help rebuild what they have destroyed.\u00a0 Alternative: to become fully irrelevant. There is no victory at the end of any tunnel.<\/p>\n Let me end with the Arab Spring that may also lead to a community and a family. Since 1971 TRANSCEND stands for a post-zionist Israel by and large with 1967 borders as a member of that family, bringing to an end the occupation of Palestine.\u00a0 Two French statesmen, Monnet-Schuman once proposed the same for former nazi Germany.\u00a0 It worked, the EC-European Community\/EU-European Union came out of that.\u00a0 One day two Arab statesmen may do the same, I hope.<\/p>\n \u00a0NOTES:<\/b><\/p>\n [i]<\/a>. See the excellent article by Lester R. Kurtz, \u201cPeace Profile: Abdul Ghaffar Khan\u2019s Nonviolent jihad\u201d, Peace Review<\/i>, 23:245-251.<\/p>\n [ii]<\/a>.\u00a0 For more details, see Johan Galtung, 50 Years 100 Peace & Conflict Perspectives<\/i>, TRANSCEND University Press-TUP, 2008 www.transcend.org\/tup<\/a>.<\/p>\n ___________________________________<\/p>\n Johan Galtung, a professor of peace studies, dr hc mult, is rector of the TRANSCEND Peace University-TPU<\/a>. He is author of over 150 books on peace and related issues, including \u2018<\/i>50 Years-100 Peace and Conflict Perspectives,\u2019 published by the TRANSCEND University Press-TUP<\/a>.<\/i><\/p>\n Editorials and articles originated on TMS may be freely reprinted, disseminated, translated and used as background material, provided an acknowledgement and link to the source, TRANSCEND Media Service-TMS, is included. Thank you.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Islamabad, Ministry of Foreign Affairs (28 Feb 2014) – The basic point is that Pakistan will not get that commodity called “peace” in Kashmir, Afghanistan and Central Asia by pursuing the ends and means of Washington and some local elites only. 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