Ill-Timed Intervention

THE Clinton administration may have had only the good of the Indian subcontinent at heart when it announced the partial lifting of sanctions on India and Pakistan on Saturday, November 7. But both the timing of the act and the element of discrimination against India that it contained were less than opportune. The sanctions were lifted when the second part of the composite first round of talks between India and Pakistan had not yet ended. The discrimination in favour of Pakistan sent a message to Islamabad that will make the settlement of disputes between the two countries more, not less, difficult.

The Americans have been quick to disavow any such intention. Washington's decision to withdraw its objection to World Bank and IMF loans to Pakistan, and not India, was a tacit admission that its economic sanctions had not had much impact on India but were threatening Pakistan with economic collapse. Since the implosion of the Pakistani state was not in anyone's interest, more had to be done for Pakistan than for India. Implicit in this was also the message that the lifting of sanctions was not an admission of error, but a tactic designed to strengthen the president's hand in dealing with the two countries.

But the effect of an action is often very different from what the actors intend. By lifting some of the sanctions in the middle of the Indo-Pak talks, the US has eased the economic pressure on Pakistan that was the one of its main reasons for giving up its attempt to internationalise the Kashmir dispute so abruptly and agreeing to hold bilateral talks on all issues simultaneously. And by discriminating in Islamabad's favour, it has given the majority of Pakistan's decision-makers the impression once more that it is not alone in its struggle against India.

Three weeks ago, in these columns I had described a TV panel discussion in Pakistan on the first round of the foreign secretaries' talks. I had pointed out that Pakistanis were, if anything, even more satisfied with the talks than Indians because they were convinced that India had agreed to discuss Kashmir under intense international pressure. They had thus only to stand firm on Kashmir and India would wilt over time. This attitude was reflected in the talks. The Pakistani foreign secretary simply ignored his Indian counterpart's attempt to establish a base line for the talks in the Shimla agreement. When the latter pointed out that the pact specifically forbade the signatories from coveting each other's territory, he blandly denied Pakistan coveted any Indian territory. When India insisted that Pakistan must stop sending mercenaries and militants across the border if any meaningful talks were to be held, he denied that Pakistan was doing any such thing.

What has dismayed the Indian negotiators is the extent to which the attitude of "winner takes all" has pervaded the discussions held in Delhi. For more than a decade well-wishers on both sides of the border have believed that while the Kashmir dispute is intractable, others like the construction of the Wullar (Tulbul) barrage, the Sir creek border delineation and the demilitarisation of the Siachen glacier can be resolved very quickly once the political will to settle is present on both sides. The talks in Delhi have shown that the will is not yet there.

Pakistan objected to the Tulbul barrage in 1987, three years after construction had  begun, saying it was intended to store the waters of the Jhelum, which had been assigned to it under the Indus waters treaty of 1960. India assured that the only purpose of the barrage was to regulate flow in the Jhelum within Kashmir to make it navigable all the year round. In 1991 Pakistan accepted this position and signed a draft agreement that set the parameters of the barrage and established a monitoring and adjudication mechanism. Then everything came to a halt because of its Kashmir first policy. While India is trying to revive the 1991 pact, Pakistan is insisting the barrage is a storage barrage. It is also objecting to the construction of a 390-MW run-of-stream power plant downstream from the Wullar lake, although such power plants were permitted under the Indus waters treaty. The issue here is not who is right but that Pakistan is seeking to reopen what it has agreed to in one formal and one draft agreement.

By contrast, on the Siachen glacier it is Pakistan that is accusing India of not abiding by a draft agreement prepared in 1989. That simply committed the two countries to withdrawing from their present positions on top of the glacier (India) and at the foot of the Saltoro ridge to its west (Pakistan). Today India is asking that there be a ceasefire first and that a joint team should determine the present position of the two sides and set up a monitoring mechanism. Pakistan's position is reasonable, but so, unfortunately, is India's; 1998 is not 1989. In the earlier year the Kashmir insurgency had not broken out, Pakistan had not been sending Afghans and other mercenaries into Kashmir, and the relationship between China and Pakistan had not become so close. India therefore has every reason to hasten slowly.

The dispute on which India can, and therefore should, accommodate Pakistan is the Sir creek which divides Sindh in Pakistan from Gujarat in India. Pakistan has been claiming that the border runs on its eastern edge, while India says that the border runs down the middle. At stake is some 250 square miles of maritime exclusive economic zone, in an area that has gas and oil deposits. If there is any place where India can show accommodation, it is here. But accommodation has to be a two-way street. What was disturbing about the Pakistani approach to the talks was that for them it was still only a one-way street. India had to accept its demands, but it had to concede nothing in return. Washington's lifting of the sanctions can only strengthen this attitude. That is why it was ill-timed.