BY SHASHI MALLA
Nepal
India’s Cartographical Aggression Takes Nefarious Turn
India’s aggressive attempt to permanently digest sovereign Nepalese territory in the far west of the country took a scurrilous and nefarious turn when it published its latest political map. It was all the same as the previous map, but with the name “Kali” deleted. The Indian authorities were probably thinking that they were very clever, because the river Kali/Mahakali was the official boundary between Nepal and British East India Company as laid down in Article 5 of the Treaty of Sugauli, 1816. The boundary has now been shifted to the north-east along some so-called ridge not mentioned in the treaty. This is cartographical aggression – pure and simple. As usual, the Indian government is too clever by half!
As a result of numerous protests in Nepal, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs has sent a diplomatic note to India’s Ministry of External Affairs (MEA). expressing disagreement with India’s new political map depicting Kalapani within its own territory. Nepal’s ambassador in New Delhi, Nilambar Acharya claimed that the process to resolve the dispute – which according to him, should not have happened in the first place – had already started. Nepal has also requested for a secretary-level meeting to solve the boundary dispute at the earliest (Kathmandu Post, November 23, 2019). Until now, the MEA spokesman has refused to comment.
Role of the Nepal Army
Our weekly reported last week that the Nepal Army is to conduct surveys and monitor Nepal’s borders with India and China. This will be a daunting task, but the Army will definitely carry it out robustly.
Back in April 2019, the Ministry of Defense had already instructed the Army to establish the new “Survey and Border Monitoring Directorate”, in line with the country’s national security policy. The Directorate will be headed by a Brigadier General and will have four divisions: Border Monitoring Coordination, Survey, Treaties and Agreements Research and Study, Arrangement.
Since the new Directorate will work under the direct supervision of the Secretariat of the Chief of the Army Staff (CoAS), it can be expected that it will function smoothly, efficiently and with gusto and dispatch!
Some other analysts have also weighed in on the highly explosive border controversy:
• Maj. Gen. (Retd.) Binoj Basnyat: Approach to border encroachment. The Kathmandu Post, November 25, 2019
• Mahabir Paudyal: The battle for Kalapani. Republica, November 25, 2019
• Brig. Gen. (Retd.) Prem Singh Basnyat: Who is to blame? [Letter]. Republica, November 26, 2019
South Asia Watch
Sri Lanka on Path to ‘Fraternal Oligarchy’
Sri Lanka’s new president Gotabaya Rajapaksa will call snap parliamentary elections next March following his sweeping victory last Sunday. His party and allies have just 96 lawmakers in the 225-seat parliament, making it hard for them to pass legislation. Prime Minister RanilWickremesinghe, graciously resigned to make way for a unified government. His party is also six MPs short of a majority.
Gotabaya Rajapaksa is hoping to ride a wave of popularity by calling an election six months before the current parliament’s five-year term expires on March 1. He has already sworn-in a new cabinet headed by his brother Mahinda, himself a former president who will now serve as premier and finance minister.
The new 16-member cabinet also includes another Rajapaksa brother, Chamal who was appointed minister of agriculture and irrigation in addition to trade [‘its all in the family now!]. Foreign affairs was allotted to Dinsesh Gunawardena, a leader of a small Sinhala nationalist party in coalition with the ruling party. The only woman in the cabinet, Pavitra Wanniarachchi, will take on ‘women’s affairs and health’. The portfolios of defence and ‘law and order’ are still vacant.
The Rajapaksa brothers Mahinda and Gotabaya are credited with unsparingly and finally defeating the tough Tamil separatist militants [supported by the Tamils from South India and the diaspora] in 2009 to end Sri Lanka’s bloody civil war, making them venerated among the majority Sinhalese-Buddhist majority.
For the precise reason, they are feared by many Tamils [who are mainly Hindu], and also among the Muslim minority who have experienced hostility since the ISIS-inspired Islamist extremist attacks [against mainly Roman Catholic Christians] killed 269 people on Easter Sunday in April this year.
Subsequently, Sri Lanka’s tourism sector, which is a major factor in the national economy, faced a downward spiral. However, the International Monetary Fund said earlier this month that the economy was now recovering.
South-East Asia
Hong Kong Protests Spur Record Election Turnout
Hong Kong voters participated in record numbers last Sunday for local council elections that the territory’s pro-democracy movement hopes will build up pressure on the Beijing-backed government to heed their demands after five months of violent protests (AFP/Agence France Press).
The Electoral Affairs Commission said a record 56 percent of the 4.13 million citizens registered to vote had cast their ballots. It was the highest turnout in Hong Kong’s history of district council elections after the British had ended colonial rule and handed over sovereignty to China and initiated a semi-autonomous status with the “one country, two systems” formula.
The selection of 452 councillors, who handle community-level concerns, traditionally generates little excitement, but has taken on new significance following months of political unrest. The protesters are agitating for direct popular elections, as well as investigations into police brutality.
District councils have long been dominated by the pro-Beijing establishment, and voters seeking change hope that weakening that stranglehold will give their movement fresh momentum.
The territory’s actual top-level legislature is elected by a mix of popular vote and seats reserved for industry groups heavily weighted with Mainland China loyalists, which ensures Beijing’s control of the territory of around 7.5 million.
The pro-democracy camp called last Sunday’s vote a referendum on Chief Executive Carrie Lam and the pro-Beijing government, who have resisted the movement’s demands.
However, the polls are not entirely symbolic or bereft of consequences. Some candidates for next year’s legislative elections will be drawn from district councilors, and the councils will also contribute 117 members to the 1,200-strong Beijing-controlled electoral college that chooses the chief executive.
Protests had been muted in recent days after pro-democracy luminaries in the largely leaderless protest movement urged citizens and activists to cease disruptions to avoid giving the government an excuse to delay or suspend the polls.
When asked if unrest in the semi-autonomous region could be the “flashpoint” for a new Cold War between the U.S. and China, Henry Kissinger (see below], the doyen of the US national security establishment, replied that he hoped the “highly emotional” issue would be “settled by negotiations.”
Hong Kong’s deeply unpopular leader Carrie Lam has vowed to “listen humbly” to voters after the pro-democracy camp scored a crushing victory in the community-level elections – winning an overwhelming majority of the 452 elected seats in the city’s 18 district councils.
East Asia
South Korea/US/Japan: Troubled Relationship
Ties between South Korea and Japan, both key allies in East Asia, had hit rock bottom in recent months over bilateral trade and Japan’s historic war-time atrocities.
This led to Seoul threatening to withdraw from a key South Korea-Japan military intelligence-sharing pact, alarming the United States who said that would benefit only North Korea and China [and possibly Russia] in the region (AFP/Agence France-Press). The accord enables the two countries to share military secrets, particularly over Pyongyang’s nuclear and missile capacity [which constitute an existential short-range threat to both South Korea and Japan, and a long-range one to even the United States].
Japan’s Foreign Minister Toshimitsu Motegi and South Korea’s Foreign Minister Kang Kyung-wha agreed last Saturday at the G 20 Foreign Ministers’ meeting In Nagoya, Japan, to arrange a crucial summit between their leaders Prime Minister Shinzo Abe and President Moon Jae-in.
The summit would take place on the occasion of the Japan-China-South Korea trilateral meeting scheduled for next month. This meeting among the economic power houses not only of the region East Asia, but of the world is of considerable significance, given US President Trump’s political and economic escapades in the region [and of course, the world in general].
Motegi underlined that the foreign ministers had agreed on the “urgent” need to reform the World Trade Organization (WTO) amid a collapse in the multilateral trading system and the US-China trade war [initiated by Trump who has no inkling of the basics of economics, and masquerades as a versatile deal-maker!].
However, late last Friday, with only hours until the pact was to expire, South Korea reversed course and agreed to extend it “conditionally”.
West Asia
Iran Clamps Down on Violent Protests
Violent protests first flared upon November 15, hours after a surprise announcement that petrol prices were being raised by as much as 200 percent with immediate effect. Authorities claim calm has been restored, and much of the country came back online after a week-long internet blackout.
On Sunday, Rear-Admiral Ali Fadavi proudly announced: “We have arrested all stooges and mercenaries who have explicitly made confessions that they have been mercenaries of America, of Monafeghin [referring to the ‘People’s Mujahedin of Iran opposition in exile] and others.”
Officials have confirmed five deaths in the unrest, while Amnesty International said more than 100 demonstrators were believed to have been killed and the real toll could be as high as 200.
Another spokesman, Brigadier General Salar Abnoosh said interrogations had revealed that a ‘coalition of evil’ of Israel, the United States and Saudi Arabia was behind the ‘sedition’, according to ISNA news agency.
Iraq Unrest Escalates
In neighboring Iraq, since October 1, the capital Baghdad and majority-Shiite south have been racked by mass demonstrations over corruption, lack of employment and poor services that have escalated into calls for an overhaul of the ruling political system.
Top leaders have publicly acknowledged the demands as legitimate and promised measures to appease protesters, including hiring drives, electoral reform and a cabinet reshuffle. But the rallies have continued, waning on some days but swelling when demonstrators felt the politicians were dilly-dallying.
An estimated 350 people have been killed and thousands wounded since October 1(AFP). That makes the protests Iraq’s deadliest grassroots movement in decades, but also its most widespread. The rural and tribal south has carried the torch of the movement for weeks, with students and teachers alike leading rallies outside schools and public offices.
US: Kissinger, Grand Old Master of World Politics Warns
Former US Secretary of State Henry Kissinger (who had emigrated from Germany as a teen) warned last week that an armed conflict could break out between the United States and China if they failed to resolve their trade dispute which has been raging for 18 months despite a series of negotiations.
These sober remarks from Kissinger, who was instrumental in normalizing diplomatic relations between Washington and Beijing during the administration of President Richard Nixon and the leadership of Chairman Mao Zedong, came at a conference in Beijing on the future of the two economic giants, which are also the two sole super-powers now.
The 96-old master of the theory and practice of international relations, stressed that during the Cold War between the US and the Soviet Union, the plan to reduce the nuclear capacity of both countries was a top priority.
Kissinger highlighted that since the conflicts between the US and China have always been “passive”, Washington had not evolved a realistic framework to deal with China as a “military power”. Consequently, if the two competitors keep seeing “every issue in the world in terms of conflict” with each other, it could be “dangerous for mankind.”
The former top diplomat recalled the historical origins of the First World War in 1914, which “broke out because of a relative minor crisis…and today the weapons are more powerful.” And he warned: “If conflict is permitted to run unconstrained, the outcome could be even worse than it was in Europe.” But as the Bible noted, “A prophet is not without honour, save in his own country.” In China, at least, Kissinger has the ear of the highest decision-makers, including Xi Jinping.
Trump did receive Kissinger at the Oval Office, but it seems that not an iota of wisdom fell upon him. A golden opportunity was lost to right the US ship of state, to the detriment of America and the world. He could have learnt many things from the grand master of strategy and Realpolitik, and avoided the crass blunders in foreign policy and national security.
In his book “World Order” (2014), Kissinger had this to say about Nepal’s successful foreign policy in medieval and pre-modern times:
“Nepal skillfully balanced its diplomatic posture between the ruling dynasties in China and those in India – offering letters and gifts that were interpreted as tribute in China but recorded as evidence of equal exchanges in Nepal, then holding out a special tie with China as a guarantee of Nepal’s independence vs-a-vis [British] India.”
U.S.: New Books describes Trump as a Grave Danger to the Nation
In “A Warning” by Anonymous, a writer described only as “senior official in the Trump administration” paints an alarming portrayal of the US President (POTUS) as cruel, inept and a grave danger to the nation he was elected to lead (The Washington Post).
In their new book, “Impeach: The Case Against Donald Trump”, Neal Katyal, a professor of law at Georgetown University and a former acting Solicitor General, and Sam Koppelman make the water-tight case that impeaching Trump is imperative to preserving U.S. democracy, for preserving “our faith in elections, our trust in government, our belief that we live in a democracy” (TIME).
The writer can be reached at: shashipbmalla@hotmail.com
Login to add a comment