By New Age Islam Edit Desk
29 October
2020
• Blatant Islamophobic Ranting In France Is
Politically Motivated
By Dr Muzaffar Shaheen
•
Women’s Groups In India, Pakistan Have A Role To Play In Afghanistan’s
Reconstruction
By Rita Manchanda
• BDS
And The Islamic Lobby In US Has Found A New Target After Israel — Democratic
India
By Clifford Smith
•
Armenia In For Major Trouble
By Gwynne Dyer
•
Myanmar: Hurdles On Eastern Borders
By G Parthasarathy
-----
Blatant Islamophobic Ranting In France Is
Politically Motivated
By Dr Muzaffar Shaheen
October 29,
2020
Eyeing
elections in the coming year in France, the French President Emmanuel Macron
has come to the lime light these days for his blatant Islamophobic ranting, and
a formal and explicit approval of making Islamophobic content public. Macron’s
weaponizing the anti Islamic bigotry is for sure going to boomerang. His tenure
is full of distraction of several Governmental domains amid mishandling of
Covid pandemic. Economic decline, unemployment crisis, and an inconsistency in
foreign policy that proved to be a nonstarter, particularly with Turkey in
Mediterranean face off, Libya and now Azerbaijan have collectively brought down
his popularity; and he is believed to have perceived his defeat at the end of
his term. Hebdo-Charlie is now rising from the grave after more than 4 years. A
history teacher was reported to be complicit in a reprehensible act of
instigating Muslim students by depicting blasphemous cartoons published
previously by Hebdo Charlie Magazine. Obviously he was pursuing and pushing for
the accomplishment of his political motivation over the past sometime
masquerading into professing history through the so called freedom of
expression. Without an iota of doubt he enjoyed covert support of the law and
order enforcing authorities who ignored many first information reports lodged
by the Muslim students. He was killed ultimately and perhaps that was exactly
what authorities wanted the Muslims in Paris to do. Regrettably Muslims fall
prey quite easily to sinister designs and many of them turn as pawns of intolerance,
for intolerance dictates extremism that in turn churns into violence.
Islamophobia
through neocons is instrumentalised in the West for accomplishment of
politically motivated goals. Once the Islamic visionary late Ahmed Deedat said
to Muslims “don’t wail and scream on Islamophobic incidents. It only gives
pleasure to them and they do it again and again.” True, hurte time and again,
sentiments take over the control of one’s mind. Historically this bears
testimony to the fact that Islamophobia had been existent in the Europe from
the time immemorial and crossed all limits during the medieval era when no
Muslim population existed there. But in present times let us not forget to
mention that Muslims are assuming second largest population in the entire
Europe and America, with Jews pushed to third place. Islam today is the only
faith widely researched and intellectually examined that is forging its
fastidious growth across the Europe Australia and America. Islamophobia would
be a natural consequence in such an ambience. Muslims need to face it
perseveringly with an eye on the future.
People living in the world are not morons;
they can understand when it comes to disparaging Islam why freedom of
expression is raked up then only. Where is freedom of expression when it comes
to Holocaust and the Christian faith and anti-Semitic ideas? Why the far
rightist white supremacists rattled by the Burka clad women and beard sporting
men? We all know answers to these questions. As the European thinker of all
times George Bernard Shaw points towards the future of Europe he did not forget
to mention Islam with it. In present day West the torch bearer of freedom and
liberty, liberty in real sense is held hostage by her own champions. One fails
to understand how can freedom of expression be harboured by insulting faith of
others? This inevitably is inviting trouble.
Walking
this path one can only foster violence and xenophobia. We need to comprehend
the core of this problem. Macron’s
propagandizing freedom of expression in today’s France is catalysed by
politics of electoral democracy, already backfiring on the international arena.
Turkey’s President Tayyip Erdogan criticized Macron on his drift towards
fascism. Incidentally, the French President, who pretends to wage a crusade for
free speech, took this reaction very ill and recalled his diplomat from Ankara
in protest. Several other international reactions are building up gradually.
The Pakistan Prime Minister Imran Khan also ridiculed the French President. He
considered that Macron’s statements based on ignorance would spur more hate,
Islamophobia and space for extremists. While the calls for boycotts are
spreading across the Muslim World, supermarkets in Kuwait, Qatar, Jordan
Palestine Syria Morocco and Iraq are already emptying their shelves from French
products. The French government is upset by this movement. However, instead of
adopting a conciliatory tone, it chose for arrogance. This condescending behavior will only exacerbate
negative feelings against France and harm French exports in a time of global
recession. While most of Muslim Governments assume silence understandably for
the bilateral economic and trade reasons, civil society’s trade boycott seems
to be a pragmatic approach than to giving in to violence.
While
Macron’s ill-meditated policies have a boomerang effect internationally, many
French observers are predicting that he will also fail domestically. The
Islamophobic discourse was already tested by his predecessor Sarkozy, and it
did not help him win the elections back in 2012. The September 2020, opinion poll reflected that the French
population has a pessimistic view of France under the Macron presidency
with 78 percent of the respondents
showing dismay that France was in decline and 27 percent of them said that such
a decline is irreversible.
-----
Dr Muzaffar Shaheen is Professor at SKUAST- K
https://www.greaterkashmir.com/news/opinion/its-all-politically-motivated/
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Women’s Groups in India, Pakistan Have a Role
to Play in Afghanistan’s Reconstruction
By Rita Manchanda
28 October
2020
A
girl looks on among Afghan women lining up to receive relief assistance in
Jalalabad, Afghanistan, June 11, 2017. Photo: Reuters
-------
If ever
Gayatri Spivak’s narrative of ‘white men saving brown women from brown men’
rang true it was in the discourse of ‘liberating’ Afghan women, mobilised to
morally justify bombing a country continents away and of plunging its people
into a war that “they did not ask for”. In four decades of violent strife as
intra and international players laid waste Afghanistan’s land and society,
Afghan women’s protection and rights were weaponised in the geopolitical
manoeuvrings of powerful global and regional actors, driven by ideological and
strategic interests.
All the
more amoral then that the international community should be impatient when
Afghan women’s groups appeal for a ‘responsible’ and not the peremptory retreat
of international forces, which are tired of fighting an ‘unwinnable’ war. What
human security audit will register that they leave behind male sadist warlords
and their militias, which the international forces armed to fight alongside
them, thereby militarising and destabilising post-war transition?
What
realpolitik prevails to make the international community disavow responsibility
and turn indifferent to Afghan women’s collectives to support their struggle as
they fight for respect for the equal rights of women, ethnic and religious
minorities in Afghanistan. What happened to the narrative of emancipating
Afghan women which was so integral to the geopolitical imaginary of the
internationally decreed war for ‘enduring freedom’? The endgame Afghan women are likely to face
as the Taliban stands poised to takeover is to be punished for the universal
freedoms that many Afghan women embraced at great risk. Already the warlords
and their militias which propped up the governance structure are changing sides
and making deals with the Taliban.
A ‘Superpower’ Hubris
It was
within this context, that the patronising tone of Cheryl Bernard, American
author of Veiled Courage and the wife of US special envoy on Afghanistan,
Zalmay Khalilzad, sounded a sharp post-colonial dissonance as she chastised
Afghan feminists for trying to prevent or delay the overdue U.S. pullback and
accused them of not fighting for themselves.
In an
opinion piece in The National Interest, Bernard-Zalmay has hailed American
sacrifices of men and money, and hectored “Afghan feminists to put their shoulders
to the wheel and start doing what women everywhere have had to do when they
wanted their rights: fight for them … emancipation and equality aren’t the
product of pity or guilt, and you aren’t owed them by someone else’s army or
taxpayer dollars”.
Reeking of
superpower hubris, it trivialised the courage of so many Afghan women who ran
underground schools during the oppressive Taliban rule. It obscured the
historical reality that before the Americans came, during the Soviet-backed
communist Tariki-Amin regime masses of women got university education and
entered professions.
Responding
to Cheryl Bernard, Afghan women’s rights defender and High Peace Council
member, Palwasha Hassan, said, “Afghan women have been fighting for our rights
long before the American military arrived and will continue long after it has
withdrawn…We kept our struggle going when American money went to who were more
interested in personal enrichment than advancing peace.” Hassan emphatically
said that this was a war “we did not ask for”.
“We are not
begging for our seat at the table. We are fighting for it. All we are asking is
for those who call themselves our allies not to actively work against us,” she
further noted.
That
exchange was a year ago, prior to the US-Taliban agreement of February 2020
which makes no mention of women’s rights, and before the intra-Afghan talks in
Doha began on September 12, stuttered and now waiting to be resumed to end 18
years of violence. The call for owning shared international responsibility is
directed at US-NATO allies, and also at regional actors: Tajikistan, Iran,
India and especially Pakistan. Their role is highlighted in the flurry of
troubleshooting visits of US envoy Zalmay Khalilzad to Islamabad, Delhi and
Dushanbe in October. Meanwhile, Afghanistan’s Abdullah Abdullah, the head of
the Afghan negotiating team, has been in Pakistan, playing the role of
facilitator in the talks with the Taliban, and in India, which till recently refused
to deal with the Taliban.
The Importance Of Pakistan And India In
Afghanistan
Pakistan
and India have been waging a covert struggle on and off for more than 60 years
over their competing influence in Afghanistan. Since the 1980s, Pakistan
supported US-backed Afghan Mujahedeen to overthrow the Soviet occupation of
Afghanistan, and later its offshoot, the Taliban. Following their ouster in
2001, Taliban members found sanctuary in Pakistan along with two million Afghan
refugees.
Modi Ghani
Prime
Minister Narendra Modi with Afghan president Ashraf Ghani inaugurate the
Indian-funded Salma Dam in Herat, Afghanistan on Saturday. The dam has been
constructed at a cost of about Rs 1400 crore. Photo: PTI/Kamal Kishore
Pakistan’s
army views the jihadi groups as a cost-effective means of controlling events in
Afghanistan, which its strategic doctrine positions as providing it with depth
against its existential security threat. Taliban’s capture of Kabul in
1996–2001 fitted that doctrine. Afghanistan borderlands became havens for
terrorist groups, including Lashkar-e-Taiba, which executed Mumbai terrorist
attack, and Tehriq i Taliban, responsible for Army Public school massacre in
Peshawar.
Post-Taliban,
while Kabul and Islamabad accused each other of providing breeding grounds to
terrorist groups opposing each other’s government, India expanded its
assistance for the civil reconstruction of Afghanistan. Military assistance was
eschewed till 2016 when India supplied four attack helicopters, and in a
trilateral deal with Russia, India agreed to supply aircraft spares.
India’s
development assistance in Afghanistan has demonstrated gender sensitivity.
Afghan women were significant beneficiaries of India’s Small Development
Projects. India’s former ambassador to Afghanistan Jayant Prasad was explicit,
“For the consolidation of peace, women have a key role in ensuring that the
process of reconstruction is not disrupted and the positive transition,
currently underway, is not reversed. In most post-conflict situations, and Afghanistan
is no exception to this general trend, women’s active and constructive role as
potential peace builders tends to be overlooked.”
The Dubious Role Of India And Pakistan
The above
notwithstanding, India like NATO countries was implicated in the weaponisation
of the emancipatory narrative of Afghan women for geopolitical interests. India
joined NATO powers in projecting the military achievements of women in the
Afghan forces, thereby justifying NATO’s role of transferring responsibility to
Afghan forces.
In an
article, Devaditya Agnihotri and Katharine Wright showed that combat training
of Afghan women officers was hailed in media reports at a time when they were
not only underrepresented in Afghan forces, but also in American, British and
Indian forces. Contradicting India’s own ban on women in a combat role, Afghan
women officers of the army and air force were undergoing training in Chennai
Officer’s Training Academy.
Among India
and Pakistan women’s networks, there is a growing awareness of the complicity
of our countries in the troubles in Afghanistan and the need to own
responsibility for the action of our countries in damaging the rights and lives
of women with whom we express kinship and solidarity.
In
Pakistan, the leading women’s collective, Women’s Action Forum (WAF), has
recognised with regret Pakistan’s “major role in adding to instability and
violence not least with support for the Taliban” and urged that “peace talks
overseen by US and supported by Pakistan” ensure Afghan women’s meaningful inclusion.
WAF in a
statement acknowledged the suffering of Afghan women “as stateless refugees in
host (Pakistan) countries without means or wherewithal”. Resurgent violence and
suppression of human rights will propel masses of Afghans, especially women and
children, to flee across borders, regardless of the barbed wire fencing being
put up, and produce a massive humanitarian and human rights crisis in the
region.
Women from
India and Pakistan have jointly appealed to their government representatives at
the Doha talks “to honour their national and international obligations and
support Afghan women and their struggle for rights and peace”. Initiated by
members of Women Regional Network (WRA), rights activists, Rukhshanda Naz and
Rita Manchanda, expressed concern that instability in Afghanistan will “widen
the space for extremists to misuse ethnic, religious and linguistic differences
to create division and conflict within our countries and between our
countries…. Escalation of tension and
violence will increase militarisation of our societies and economies and
challenge our democratic governance structures”.
Also,
Afghanistan’s best-known women’s collective,
Afghan Women’s Network (AWN), has appealed to the region’s civic leaders
and human rights defenders to “hold your leaders accountable and call on them
to play a positive role toward an end to the violence in Afghanistan”. In an
open letter dated 21 October, AWN acknowledged “the strained politics of the
region” but added that “our regional interdependence, and our joint values of
peace and justice” require that we work together.
AWN has
emphasised the “shared fight against extremism” as manifest in atrocities
across the region such as “June 2020 attack on the maternity hospital in Kabul,
the April 2019 attacks in Sri Lanka, the December 2014 school massacre in
Peshawar, and the November 2008 attacks in Mumbai”.
It is
evident that in the vacuum that the international forces leave behind will
enable Afghanistan’s regional neighbours to step in. The power dynamics of
Pakistan–India competition in Afghanistan impacts the futures being imagined at
Doha, but instability will produce a flood of refugees crossing borders;
escalating insecurities will bring down the region’s already poor human
security indicators; and a male sadist utopia sanctified by a version of sharia
and culture will undermine women’s freedoms in the region.
October
2020 marks the anniversary of the UN Security Council Resolution 1325, which
for the first time recognised the relevance of women for the international
peace and security agenda. Quantitative studies have bolstered the resolution’s
emphasis on the importance of women’s participation, making peace agreements
last. Four Afghan women have been included in the intra-Afghan negotiations, their
security and meaningful participation need to be supported by India, and
especially Pakistan.
-----
Rita Manchanda is a researcher, writer and
human rights advocate specialising on conflicts and peace building in South
Asia with particular attention to vulnerable and marginalised groups. Her
latest publication is Women and the Politics of Peace: Narratives of
Militarisation, Power and Justice (Sage:2017).
https://thewire.in/women/afghanistan-reconstruction-india-pakistan-women
------
BDS And The Islamic Lobby In US Has Found A New
Target After Israel — Democratic India
By Clifford Smith
29 October,
2020
PM
Narendra Modi with Israel PM Benjamin Netanyahu at the Olga Beach, in Israel |
Photo: PIB
-----
The
worldwide Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions, or the BDS movement, against
Israel now appears to have found a new target: democratic India. The BDS has
been widely denounced as anti-Semitic and hypocritical because it singles out
the only Jewish State and the only democracy in the region, Israel, for unique
criticism. But now Kashmir is emerging as their new punching bag. The BDS
brigade recently claimed that “India’s policies in Kashmir resemble Israel’s
settler colonialism,” that “India also borrows methods of repression from
Israel,” and also, absurdly, that “the weapons that Israel ‘field-tests’ on
Palestinian bodies are today being deployed in Kashmir.”
Nobody has
called for a boycott against India. But this kind of comparative language and
suggested equivalence is unique and deserves to be flagged.
India The ‘Oppressor’
Writing
earlier this month in The Muslim Vibe, a media outlet aimed at Western Muslims,
commentator Hamzah Zahid made a forceful case
about what Muslims in the West must do concerning the issue of Kashmir,
the Muslim-majority region long coveted by Pakistan, saying that Kashmir needs
to be turned into “a similar vein as the anti-Apartheid, anti-Fascism, and the
Palestine movements.”
While
Zahid’s pronouncement was unusually specific, there have been campaigns going
on for years that propagate similar thought. This campaign does not solely
consist of groups with a South Asian origin, such as the Western branches of
Jamaat-e-Islami, but of Middle East-linked groups that had previously focused
almost solely on Palestine.
In fact,
the campaign was underway even before the abrogation of Article 370 of the
Indian Constitution. In early 2019, New York-based journalist Azad Essa
published an op-ed declaring that “when it comes to Palestine and Kashmir,
India and Israel are oppressors-in-arms.” According to Essa, “Free Gaza” and
“India Go Home” are the same message to those who champion the cause of
separating Kashmir. Essa insists that both the issues surrounding Kashmir and
Israel represent the same sort of “settler-colonialism” theme and are, in
essence, the same issue.
Increasingly,
Western-focused foes of both Israel and India are acting to make Essa’s claims
ubiquitous. Painting India as the “oppressor,” as Essa’s op-ed did, just two
weeks after a brutal terrorist attack killed 40 Indian security personnel in
Pulwama district in the Indian state of Jammu and Kashmir, may seem bold. But
Israel’s foes in the West, driven largely by theocratic Islamic organisations
and their allies on the far-Left, now use this sort of rhetoric as a matter of
course.
Indian Patriots And Zionists On The Same Page?
BDS is
hardly alone. American Muslims for Palestine (AMP) explicitly claimed that by
removing the special status of Kashmir, India was adopting a “Zionist
settler-colonialist model,” and that “like Israel, the Indian government has
brazenly violated several UN resolutions and human rights conventions,”
accusing it of a “brutal crackdown.” They steered their members toward the
newly created, shadowy group, Stand with Kashmir (SWK), an entity that frequently
lauds terrorists and assorted theocrats as inoffensive and peaceful political
actors.
The SWK was
quick to ‘return the favour’, quoting an article by Zainab Ramahi, a
‘coordinating member’ of Students for Justice in Palestine, which is heavily
funded by AMP and shares a common founder. According to Ramahi, “Hindutva
nationalists and Zionists often try to reframe the conflicts,” over Kashmir and
the Palestinian territories, as caused by Islamists, which she claims is merely
an effort to distract from what she calls “repression” in the name of fighting
terrorism.
The
countless victims of US-designated terrorist groups such as Hizbul Mujahideen
in Kashmir and Hamas in Gaza, go unmentioned.
Not much
later, the SWK partnered with AMP to organise a march in San Francisco on
Kashmir.
Of course,
the South Asian-origin radicals are also part of this push. The Islamic Circle
of North America (ICNA), which Professor Vali Nasr of Johns Hopkins states is
one of the eight most important franchises of South Asia’s violent Islamist
movement Jamaat-e-Islami, a group long dedicated to separating Kashmir from
India, worked with the SWK to support protests shortly after the removal of
Kashmir’s special status.
But they
were not alone. ICNA partnered on these protests with foes of Israel more
closely aligned with Middle Eastern Islamist movements, such as the Muslim
American Society (MAS), which prosecutors named in 2007 as an “overt arm” of
the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood. The Council on American Islamic Relations
(CAIR), an unindicted co-conspirator in a scheme to fund the Hamas terrorist
organisation in the Palestinian territories, founded by Palestinian Nihad Awad,
a self-declared supporter of Hamas, also promoted various protests over
Kashmir. Awad even spoke at the protest outside India’s embassy.
Islamists, Hard Left And Their Identical
Argument
The above
examples are by no means exhaustive and meant only to illustrate the nearly
ubiquitous events, articles, tweets and newsletters of various Islamist groups
and their friends on the hard-Left, making identical arguments. These efforts
have clear, real-world effects. Decision makers and opinion leaders with
significant political power, such as Representative Ilhan Omar (D-MN), are now
high-profile opponents of India.
Last year, Omar
went out of her way to join a hearing on Human Rights in South Asia, in spite
of the fact that she was not a member of the relevant Congressional
Subcommittee, to viciously attack Indian reporter and witness Aarti Tikoo
Singh, a Kashmiri Pandit exiled from her home by Islamist militants almost 30
years ago, after she suggested Jihadists were at the heart of the problem in
Kashmir. Omar used rhetoric closely echoing an article that SWK had published
the day before the hearing attacking Singh. Omar later appeared in an interview
for the SWK conducted by Professor Mark Lamont Hill, notorious himself for
expressing extreme anti-Israel and anti-Semitic rhetoric.
Anti-Israel Network Politically Invaluable For
India’s Foes
Given that
Kashmir is an issue few Americans are intimately familiar with, one might
question why this movement would want an ally like Omar. Known for rhetoric so
anti-Semitic that it earned her the support of former Ku Klux Klan Grand Dragon
David Duke, Omar’s support comes with drawbacks. But the support of Omar, and
the broader anti-Israel community, also comes with a built-in constituency, and
tailor-made rhetoric to rally supporters. That’s politically invaluable.
Indeed, fellow “Squad” member, Representative Rashada Talib (D-MI), an ethnic
Palestinian, has joined Omar in supporting the Islamist cause in Kashmir.
Of course,
this collaboration is not purely tactical. In significant part, it is
ideological. While there are fair-minded critiques of India’s and Israel’s
governments, their most steadfast critics are not enlightened advocates of
liberty, but theocrats who recognise no higher good than Islamist rule. This is
doubly clear upon examining the rhetoric and actions of both Western Islamist
organisations and Jihadist groups in both South Asia and the Middle East.
The Indian
community has largely been caught flat-footed by this activism campaign.
Islamists had a ready-made network, a built-in constituency, and pre-programmed
rhetoric to indoctrinate indifferent politicians and a largely naïve public,
based on their decades of activism on behalf of the Palestinian cause.
Friends of
both Israel and India must work to counter this shockingly effective political
activism before it is too late. To do otherwise risks enshrining this
inaccurate, but effective, narrative into Western policy.
-----
Clifford Smith is director of the Middle East
Forum’s Washington Project. Views are personal.
https://theprint.in/opinion/bds-and-the-islamic-lobby-in-us-has-found-a-new-target-after-israel-democratic-india/532861/
----
Armenia In For Major Trouble
By Gwynne Dyer
29 October
2020
Now the
Azeri refugees will go home and 1,50,000 Armenians will have to seek new homes
in Armenia proper
The
month-old war between Azerbaijan and Armenia is so low on everybody else’s list
of concerns that when Azerbaijan won the war, hardly anybody in the media
elsewhere even noticed. Shortly after 8 am local time on October 26, Azeri
troops gained control of the road through the Lachin Pass. That is the sole
land route between Armenia proper and Nagorno-Karabakh, the Armenian enclave
inside the borders of Azerbaijan that the whole war is about. A new road
further to the north, offering a quicker link between Armenia and
Nagorno-Karabakh, was opened in 2017, but it has been closed since October 1,
shortly after the war started, “for the safety of civilians (i.e. because of
shelling from Azerbaijani territory). Until October 26, the Lachin road was
crowded with Armenian refugees fleeing west to safety and Armenian troops and
military supplies heading east to the war.
Apart from
one or two big strikes by Israeli-made LORA quasi ballistic missiles
(hypersonic, 400-km. range, GPS and television terminal guidance), the road was
fairly safe. But now there are Azerbaijani armoured vehicles across the Lachin
road, and all of Nagorno-Karabakh is cut off: No more reinforcements, and more
than half the Armenian civilian population of 1,46,000 people still there,
trapped under constant shellfire and drone attacks. At least 2,000 people, most
of them Armenians, have been killed in the fighting. The outcome of the war was
inevitable once it became clear that Russia was not going to intervene
militarily to help Armenia, despite the fact that both countries are members of
the Collective Security Treaty Organisation (CSTO). Azerbaijan is clearly the
aggressor in this round of fighting, but it is a CSTO member too, so Russia had
to make a choice. Azerbaijan has three times Armenia’s population and a great
deal of oil, and Armenia is of no great strategic value, so Russia restricted
itself to mediating futile ceasefires. The Azeris signed each time, but they
knew they were winning and they never stopped their advance.
The most
recent (third) ceasefire was actually negotiated with the help of the US and
was supposed to come into effect at 8 am on October 26, but the Azeris broke
that one too. As usual, they blamed the Armenians for having broken it within
five minutes of its coming into effect (that is, at 8.05 am) — but they tweeted
their protest at 5 am, which rather undermined its plausibility. The Azeris did
not commit to an all-out offensive until about 10 days ago, confining
themselves to probing attacks and random shelling until they were certain that
the Russians would stay out. Then they sent an armoured column west along the
Iranian border through territory that had been emptied of its Azeri inhabitants
in the 1994 war. The Armenians, outnumbered, overstretched and outgunned, did
what they could, but by October 22, the Azeris had reached the Hakari River
valley. There they turned right and headed north up the valley — and on the
26th they took Lachin. End of game.
It was a
move that they would never have risked against a more mobile and better
equipped enemy. The Hakari runs through the narrow strip of territory that
separates Nagorno-Karabakh from Armenia proper, so they had Armenian-held
territory on both sides of them, and a 100-km supply line behind them that was
overlooked by Armenian troops on the right-hand side all the way. Fortune
favours the bold but it’s easier to be bold when you have total air
superiority. Armenia has nothing to match Azerbaijan’s Turkish-built drones and
Israeli-supplied missiles and massive firepower on the ground. So now
Azerbaijan holds the Lachin Pass, and all that remains is for Armenia to
negotiate the return of Nagorno-Karabakh to its legal Azeri rulers (probably
minus its Armenian residents). That will be very painful for Armenians after a
quarter-century of holding the territory but they have no way of taking it
back. They were bound to lose it in the end unless they could more or less
match Azerbaijan’s military spending, and they couldn’t; the Azeri military
budget was at least five times bigger, maybe more.
Like the
Balkan wars of the early 20th century, nobody is in the right in the various
wars that have been waged in the Caucasus since the old Soviet Union collapsed.
The ethnic groups were already numerous and hopelessly intertwined, and Soviet
policy deliberately made the situation even more complex.
The
Armenians drove over half a million Azeris out of the territory of
Nagorno-Karabakh and large adjacent entirely Azeri provinces in the 1992-94
war. Now the Azeri refugees will go home and 1,50,000 Armenians will have to
seek new homes in Armenia proper. With supply lines severed, civilians in
Nagorno-Karabakh could be cut off from food, running water and heat during the
forthcoming Caucus winter. Furthermore, they may be denied a route by which to
flee to Armenia. The result could be a humanitarian disaster in which
casualties of trapped civilians spike due to lack of food and medical supplies,
exposure to cold, and non-stop artillery bombardment. None of it is fair but
that’s how it still works in much of the world.
----
Gwynne Dyer’s new book is ‘Growing Pains: The
Future of Democracy and Work.’
https://www.dailypioneer.com/2020/columnists/armenia-in-for-major-trouble.html
-----
Myanmar: Hurdles On Eastern Borders
By G Parthasarathy
Oct 29,
2020
The recent
visit to Myanmar, undertaken jointly by Army Chief Gen Manoj Mukund Naravane,
and Foreign Secretary Harsh Vardhan Shringla, was a manifestation of the
strategic importance India accords to ties with its northeastern neighbour,
with whom it shares a 1,643-km border. The border extends from China to
Bangladesh. Despite good political ties, there was little economic cooperation
between India and Myanmar till the 1990s, primarily because of Myanmar’s
isolationist economic policies. Security cooperation for dealing with
cross-border armed insurgencies, involving armed separatist groups, like ULFA
in Assam, the NSCN (IM) in Nagaland, and their counterparts in Myanmar, like
the Kachin Independence Organisation (KIO), was minimal or non-existent.
India and
Myanmar got together in the 1990s for negotiations that resulted in agreements
to deal with cross-border insurgencies and drug smuggling. These agreements
have been effective in containing groups like the NSCN (IM) and ULFA, and their
Myanmar counterparts, like the Arakan Army (AA), based in Myanmar’s Kachin
province. Their links with Myanmar separatist groups also helped Indian groups
to enter and operate from China’s bordering Yunnan province, while also
securing safe haven and military support from Chinese agencies.
Facing
sanctions since the 1990s, cash-strapped Myanmar became excessively dependent
on China. But it expanded ties with India and East Asian countries like
Thailand, Singapore, Japan and South Korea. It has dealt firmly with Indian separatist
groups seeking to move across its borders to China. Given their disregard for
the strategic importance of Myanmar, the US and its allies imposed sanctions on
Myanmar, because of its alleged human rights violations against the Rohingya.
However, the UN Sanctions Resolutions they proposed were vetoed by China. The
US and its allies have also not joined Myanmar’s immediate neighbours and Japan
to work out plans for financing the return and rehabilitation of the Rohingya.
The main beneficiary of such policies of the US and the EU is China, as Myanmar
now depends on its support to veto western resolutions in the UN.
Taking
advantage of Myanmar’s dependence on it, China is developing a port at
Kyaukphyu in the Bay of Bengal and linking the port by rail and road to Yunnan.
Chinese companies are moving into areas like minerals and precious stones.
Moreover, China has close links with a large number of Myanmar’s 26-armed
ethnic groups, including the powerful 12,000-15,000 strong Kachin Independence
Army, which operates along Myanmar’s borders with both India and China, and the
20,000-25,000 strong United State Army along the China-Myanmar border. These
groups are armed and used as a lever by China to interfere in and influence
Myanmar’s internal affairs.
China even
has an ambassador to liaise with armed groups. It influences these armed
groups, which are participating in a conference organised by the Myanmar
government for drafting a new constitution. China is determined to dominate
Myanmar’s internal politics. Beijing also uses such leverage and its political
support to obtain contracts for infrastructure and other projects involving
construction of ports, dams, roads, bridges and for mining of precious stones,
minerals and metals across Myanmar.
India’s
Border Roads Organisation did a splendid job in road building, linking Moreh in
Manipur with Kalemyo in Myanmar, thereby opening the door for border trade
between our Northeast and Mandalay. But the progress on the Kaladan corridor
has been delayed. This crucial project links Mizoram and India’s other
Northeastern states to the Sittwe Port in Myanmar, located in the Bay of
Bengal, at a short distance from Kolkata. The completion of this corridor has
been delayed by attacks on workers by the AA, an insurgent group with links to
China. But close cooperation between the Indian and Myanmar armies has led to
the destruction of camps of the AA along the India-Myanmar border.
India’s
economic cooperation in Myanmar has been disappointing, with two-way trade
reaching barely $1.52 billion, with our exports amounting to $973 million last
year. While the ONGC has done well in offshore oil exploration, our private
sector has not done well in investments in Myanmar, in comparison with the
performance of its counterparts in neighbouring ASEAN countries, China and
Japan. India has, however, done well by establishing training institutions in
IT and agricultural research in Myanmar. Military cooperation is set to expand,
with the supply of a Kilo Class Submarine and torpedoes, with discussions
reportedly underway for the supply of 105 mm artillery guns, radars and sonars.
The visit
by the Army Chief and Foreign Secretary enabled a comprehensive exchange of
views on the entire range of relations. The Indian delegation exchanged views
with two of the most powerful leaders in Myanmar, State Counsellor Aung San Suu
Kyi, who is engrossed in campaigning for the parliamentary elections on
November 8, and the Chief of Defence Services, Senior Gen Min Aung Hlaing.
Recent comments by General Hlaing suggest that the army will support the Union
Solidarity and Development Party led by former army officers and not Suu Kyi’s
National League for Democracy. Differences between the hugely popular Suu Kyi
and the Myanmar army have been continuing, an inevitable feature of Myanmar’s
present-day politics and national life. But the continuing Rohingya problem has
to be addressed for regional peace and security across the Bay of Bengal. This
will require international cooperation, in which India should actively involve
its Quad partners. It is not reasonable to expect Bangladesh to bear the entire
burden of hosting 9,00,000 Rohingya refugees. The continuing tensions between
Bangladesh and Myanmar on the issue can only be addressed by an inclusive
international effort.
https://www.tribuneindia.com/news/comment/hurdles-on-eastern-borders-162542
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