Category: Journalism

(News reports, analysis, editorials, commentary, interviews, features etc from India and the world)

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Asia Times Online India Journalism

India Beware: Bangladesh is Staring at Anarchy

The article first appeared on Asia Times Online here.

With no end in sight to political turmoil rooted in historic conflicts and sectarianism, Bangladesh is edging closer each day to chaos.

The overwhelming victory of Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina’s Awami League (AL) in January 5 parliamentary elections did little to ease the tense situation.

Terming the current government “illegal”, the Begum Khalida Zia led Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP), the country’s largest opposition party, has vowed to unseat the government “with a popular movement”.

Because of a mass boycott of the poll by all major opposition parties, 153 of the 232 seats won by the Awami League in the recent elections were uncontested. The opposition had demanded that the vote was held under a neutral caretaker government – a condition ended due to a constitutional amendment forced through in 2011 by Hasina’s administration.

Hundreds of people died across Bangladesh in political violence in the run-up to the latest polls, with normal life ended by blockades of roads, railways and waterways and the closure of shops, schools and offices by the opposition. A reported 20 people died on the day of the vote and more than 100 polling stations were torched by violent mobs.

The election-related mayhem came close on the heels of violence related to an ongoing tribunal International Crimes Tribunal which is investigating “war crimes, crimes against humanity and genocide” committed by the Pakistan army and their local collaborators during the 1971 war of independence.

The ICT drew international headlines in February 2013 when the Shahbagh movement – named after a major intersection in Dhaka where thousands of people gathered in a protest – demanded the execution of all those convicted by the ICT and the creation of a secular Bangladesh.

Most collaborators implicated in the trial belong to the second largest opposition party, Jamaat-e-Islami. Because the ICT plans to prosecuting JeT leaders for war crimes in 1971, Islamists have also been on the rampage across the nation.

On May 5, thousands of madrassa teachers, students and sympathizers laid siege to Dhaka in support of the Hefazat-e-Islam (“Protectors of Islam”), a radical Islamic movement that demands, among other things, a ban on the public mixing of men and women and the criminalization of “kafirs” (non-believers). This led to violent clashes between protesters and security forces, resulting in many deaths.

Meanwhile, convictions against Jamaat leaders led the Bangladesh Supreme Court on August 1 2013 to declare the registration of the party illegal – effectively barring it from contesting elections.

The mayhem hit its nadir on December 12 when one of the Jamaat leaders, Abdul Qader Mollah, was hanged being sentenced to death by the ICT. Mollah, known as the “Butcher of Mirpur”, who supported his party’s stand against the creation of Bangladesh, was accused of colluding with the Pakistani military in a killing and raping spree of Bengalis over an eight-month period.

While the Shahbagh and Hefazat protests did not give birth to the current election violence, they add to the deadly mix of historical and sectarian fault lines that are currently simmering in Bangladesh. These have turned the country into a free-for-all battlefield of politico-ideologies.

The first, most direct consequence of the strife has been on the economy. Bangladesh’s GDP growth shrunk to 6% last year, down from 6.7% in 2011 – and is expected to contract further because of the prevailing state of affairs.

A good part of the slowdown was caused because of the impact the violence has had on Bangladesh’s garment industry. Making 80% of the country’s total exports, garment exports stood at US$21.5 billion in 2013, up steeply from $9.2 billion six years ago.

But orders are now declining quickly from world markets – diverted to mainly India and some portions to China and Pakistan – mostly because of non-timely delivery by Bangladesh factories whose trucks were stuck on highways for days because of the violence. Many fear that the displaced orders may now never return to Bangladesh.

Four million people are employed with Bangladesh Garment Manufactures and Exporters Association member companies, of which 80% are women, and a majority of whom belong to the “disadvantaged” sections of the society.

That is sure to slow down, if not halt, a commendable run of poverty reduction in the previous decade, which saw the percentage of poor people in this eighth most populous country in the world reduce to 32% in 2010 from an enormous 58% in 1990-91.

The turmoil is also going to worsen Bangladesh’s standing on critical matters such as Generalized System of Preferences (a US government program that provides preferential duty-free entry for up to 5,000 products) and continued (garment) orders from and lower import duties in Europe, which is especially stringent in matters concerning freedom of speech and politics, and human rights of workers.

With men in uniform being stretched to their limit internally, the country’s ability to send military forces for United Nations peacekeeping operations too are likely to be affected – putting at risk significant foreign currency revenue.

Unfortunately, nothing of that is stopping the key players from holding back.

Yet the government is not releasing its iron grip on its opponents. Apart from Khalida Zia’s virtual house arrest, Mohammad Hossain Ershad, a former army general who had come to power in 1982 after a bloodless coup and who now leads the third-biggest party, Jatiyo, too is under restraining orders in an army hospital since he announced of joining the latest poll boycott.

Also, the Sheikh Hasina government is also being accused of harassing media and civil society members. As per a Human Rights Watch (HRW) report, “[T]he government shut down opposition media early in 2013 and continues to target human rights advocacy groups and arrest prominent activists.”

Or, in other words, from politics, economy and human rights to the human development index, every marker of the nation’s well-being is under severe stress. 

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Featured Foreign Policy Association (US) Indian Subcontinent Journalism People

Repatriation Still a Far Cry in Bhutan: Exiled Journo

Evicted from Bhutan at the age of 11, Vidhyapati Mishra spent two decades in U.N.-funded Bhutanese refugee camp in eastern Nepal before resettling in the United States. Just a week before his departure from Nepal to Charlotte of North Carolina, self-learned journalist Mishra also featured in the New York Times with his powerful narrative story exposing the other side of the Bhutan’s gross national happiness.

In conversation with Anshuman Rawat, he talks about the plight of exiled Bhutanese and the prospects of their repatriation:
……………………………………………………………………


Vidhyapati-Mishra-small-300x300-150x150Your story plays on a note that is very different from the happy piece of music that the world associates with Bhutan. Can you inform our readers of Bhutan’s lost narrative about the pain and displacement of nearly one-sixth of its people – including your own family?

Like the United States of America, Bhutan is a country of immigrants. Among other ethnic groups, the Nepali-speaking citizens, whom the regime called as Lhotshampas, are the only people that Bhutan accepted for permanent settlement through formal written agreement with Nepal. The first lot of Nepalese had arrived in Bhutan in 1624. The migration of these people into Bhutan started after the formal agreement between the then rulers of Bhutan and Gorkha (now Nepal). However, the Bhutanese rulers treated them as second-class citizens until they were accepted as citizens by granting citizenship certificates in 1958.

The citizenship act of 1958 became the basis for evicting over one-sixth of the country’s population as it willfully divided even members of the same family into various classes, thereby arbitrarily tagging some members as “non-Bhutanese.” The state imposed various policies and mechanisms including martial laws to terrorize and suppress citizens. The government shut down schools, later they were turned into military barracks, where innocent citizens were tortured, women gang-raped and even killed. Lhotshampas and their supporters like Scharlops from eastern Bhutan were unlawfully fired from their jobs, and were refrained from all kinds of public services. Restrictions on Hindu culture and celebration of festivals and were imposed along with a ban on properties sale. The state authority implemented the ‘One Nation, One People Policy’ sternly warning all citizens to follow just Buddhism. The when such activities became rampant, Lhotsampas and their supporters organized mass protests and demonstrations.

Hundreds of demonstrators were arrested and many killed arbitrarily. The government labeled participants of those mass demonstrations as “anti-national agents,” and were later evicted.  The Royal Bhutan Army (RBA) arrested citizens en mass. They were brought to school-turned-military barracks and tortured inhumanly, forcing them to sign Voluntary Migration Forms (VMFs) in order to leave the homeland by abandoning everything.

RBA arrested my father, and he was tortured in a military barrack for 91 days. When all options to save his life failed, he decided to sign the VMF that gave us an ultimatum of just one week to quit the nation. And, it was the Hobson’s choice for my family to leave the hometown, and accordingly we arrived at Bhutan-India border, from where Indian lorry trucks loaded us and dropped in eastern part of Nepal.

How much of Bhutan’s actions, in your opinion, can be compared with the Buddhist majority aggression against religious minorities in Myanmar and Sri Lanka? In other words, do you believe that a part reason of the plight of the Lhotshampas can be ascribed to a gradual rise of assertive political Buddhism in the region?

The Buddhist majority aggressions against religious minorities in Myanmar and Sri Lank do have some common parallels. However, Bhutan’s intention to create purely a Buddhist state by evicting majority of Hindu citizens has different version.  It simply wants a typical Buddhist society without the existence of other religions like Hinduism or Christianity.  As even claimed by regional analysts, the Bhutanese regime was not happy with growing number of Nepali-speaking citizens in public services and educational opportunities availed by Lhotshampas, who are hardworking and patriotic by nature. Further, democratic movements in Indian territories operated by Indian Nepalese added more fears to the regime, and eventually exercised the ethnic cleaning. But, Bhutan clearly knows that the suppressed groups like Lhotshampas and Scharlops are not fighting for a separate state or power capture, but what they want is justice, equality and same participation as enjoyed by the ruling elites in the national building process.

What is the current status of the issue in terms of internationally accepted statistics about the number of refugees, their locations and the means of sustenance?

According to the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) that has been overseeing the ongoing third country resettlement, the agency has received over 100,000 submissions for resettlement. Of them, over 80,000 refugees have already started leading new lives in various western countries. The United States of America has alone accepted over 65,000 persons, and even assured of accepting more. Canada and Australia have ranked second and third respectively in accepting refugees for resettlement. Similarly, New Zealand, Denmark, Norway, Netherlands and the United Kingdom have also resettled the Bhutanese refugees, but their number in each country is below 1,000. Each country has its own legal provisions for ensuring sustenance of humanitarian immigrants like refugees. They receive cash, housing and material supports for a certain period, which could be months or years depending on circumstances. The refugees become acquainted with the new environment and society, eventually start entry-level jobs, and plan their education, and career. It is a matter of pride that some of those who were resettled in early 2008 have already become citizens in America and Australia.

India can, arguably, do the most about the issue. But given its historical and special relations with Bhutan, do you ever see it taking a tough stand? What can force India to do that?

In various occasions, refugees trying to enter into Bhutan through India were blocked, detained and even killed. India has direct hand in dumping the refugees in Nepal by loading them in its lorry trucks while they were driven out of Bhutan in 1990s. Miraculously, India doesn’t allow refugees to use the same route for returning home now. India, one of the bystanders to the atrocities in Bhutan, in fact keeps on supporting regime, which is of crucial concern not only for the refugees, but also for the international community. The resettled refugees from various western countries should make their voices aloud and urge India to assist in repatriation of willing refugees from Nepal, and abroad. The Indian media, and civil society could be other powers for pressing the Indian government as regards to repatriation of Bhutanese refugees with dignity and honor.

Outside the region, how would you describe the efforts of the Lhotshampas to get their rights? Also, what has been the response of and actions, if any, by the international community?

The repeated failures of refugees to enter Bhutan have evoked frustrations among them, who were later compelled to abandon all campaigns by choosing to start new life in the West through their resettlement. This has empowered the regime, to a greater extent, for becoming more rigid towards the refugees’ calls for dignified return. The Bhutanese authorities always wanted to shadow the issue of repatriation, and resettlement package has helped them achieved this. This is why the so-called democratic government of Bhutan has turn deaf ears to genuine demands of the refugees. The government’s version on repatriation has still remained intact. Around 80,000 Nepali-speaking citizens are deprived of citizenship certificates, and voter’s identity cards inside the country that prepares to hold the second general elections later this year. For those citizens, their fellow friends in refugee camps are more privileged as they can opt to begin their new lives in developed western countries. On the other way, the resettlement has also helped Bhutanese refugees to expose all forms of atrocities the regime carried out in early and late 1990s while carrying out a well-perpetrated mass exodus, and educate the international community. The failure of the international community in convincing Bhutan to accept its citizens back home has given enough rooms for refugees to make a judgment that their dreams to return to their homeland are shattered due to the third country resettlement program.

Finally, what do you think are the prospects for repatriation?

Several rounds of high-level bilateral talks between governments of Bhutan and Nepal yielded no better results at end of the day. Bhutan continued applying numerous delaying tactics in the name of repatriation. Until recently, the Bhutanese government maintained that it was serious towards repatriating its citizens camped in Nepal, yet to no avail. Bhutan continues to play with lies. For the ruling elites in Bhutan, the resettlement has, more or less, resolved the longstanding refugee imbroglio on humanitarian basis. It can’t be denied that the existing model of democracy, defined by the Bhutanese ruling elites to simply suit them, still awaits major transformations to an inclusive citizens’ platform. This is possible only through major political changes, aimed at bringing ongoing state-sponsored suppressions on ethnic and religious groups to an end. Citing Bhutan’s continued lies; it’s indeed going to be a big miracle if by any chance repatriation takes place. I must not be wrong to mention here that the repatriation of exiled Bhutanese is still a far cry.

The article first appeared on the Foreign Policy Association blogs network site here

 

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Foreign Policy Association (US) Journalism

India Just Scored a Self Goal

[The analysis was first published here on the Foreign Policy Association (FPA) blog network site]

Engineering of election results in Bhutan falls much short of a diplomatic victory of India

At the peak of campaigning by Bhutan’s two political parties for the recently concluded National Assembly (NA) elections, word spread that India was unhappy with the shrill nature of arguments – and their counters – related to India. Almost immediately, the said conversation was cooled down by both the parties and the campaigning from thereon stayed clear of it.

But the mood of the electorate was already set by opposition People’s Democratic Party (PDP), which spearheaded a pitched call to bring Bhutan deeper into India’s political sphere of influence, for the sake of India’s strategic and financial support.

The ruling Druk Phuensum Tshogpa Party (DPT), on the other hand, struggled to dispel the PDP charge that the closeness of the previous prime minister Jigme Thinley with China was pushing India towards withdrawing economic oxygen to Thimpu.

India’s stalling of kerosene and cooking gas subsidy grants to Bhutan on July 1, just weeks before the election date, which pushed up prices by three times, was seen by most ordinary Bhutanese affected by the price rise as an argument in favour of the PDP charge.

It did not matter that India officially dubbed the subsidy reduction as a “procedural issue” and that some Bhutanese thinkers equated the Indian action with a business tit-for-tat against revised power export rate from Bhutan.”

PDP won 32 seats in the 47-member NA in the July 13 elections – up exponentially from a mere two seats in the previous assembly.

It was the result that India wanted, except that it may not have factored in the long-term cost of the “perceived means” to the end.

The subsidy issue right ahead of elections invited accusations from certain sections of India’s dishonesty, manipulation and gross interference in Bhutan’s election process.

Speaking, perhaps for a growing community in his nation, Wangcha Sangey, a legal consultant based in capital Thimpu, wrote in his blog: “National interests of Bhutan have to rise over and above the politics of always playing the Indian tune. […] Bhutan and Bhutanese are sovereignty unto our self. Therefore Bhutan’s paramount national interests and affairs just cannot be only pleasing India. We have to please ourselves too!”

Reflecting the extent of his anger at India’s perceived high-handedness, he then went on to write: “We are not paid sex workers that benefactors need to know when our eyelashes and asses move and in which direction.”

By “national interest” and “the direction” in which Bhutan needs to move, he was alluding to the furor caused by Thinley’s May 2012 meeting with Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao in Rio de Janeiro at the sidelines of Rio+20 summit in Brazil.

While on one hand abuse was heaped upon him by fellow Bhutanese for “endangering historical ties with India” by being cordial with the latter’s bitter rival, India saw Thinley government’s import order of 20 buses from China during the Rio meeting as strengthening of Thimpu’s commercial relationship with China at the cost of India.

More than that one meeting, India’s heightened sensitivity rested on Thinley government’s decision to go on a diplomatic overdrive and establish diplomatic relations with a whopping 32 countries during its five-year reign – up to 53 countries in 2013 from the 21 that existed in 2008.

Indians saw the frenzy as undue haste in acting upon a 2007 revision of the 1949 India-Bhutan Treaty of Friendship, which till then allowed India to “guide” Bhutan’s foreign policy, and had a provision wherein both nations needed to consult each other closely on foreign and defence affairs.

The new treaty replaced the provision requiring Bhutan to take India’s “guidance” on foreign policy with broader “sovereignty” and enabled Bhutan to not require India’s permission over arms imports.

Already uncomfortable with Bhutan’s urgency in spreading out, what got India’s goat eventually were reports that Bhutan was preparing to establish diplomatic relations with the permanent members of the United Nations Security Council – including, and most worryingly, China.

Bhutan remains the only one of China’s 14 neighbors with which the dragon doesn’t have diplomatic relations. In the long-drawn battle for supremacy between China and India, New Delhi has always suspected Beijing of trying to win over Bhutan from India’s ambit.

But the big questions doing round in Bhutan and amidst many policy corners of India is whether that fear of India should be reason enough for India to go for the sledgehammer – especially against the backdrop of historical and geopolitical realities.

Bhutan shares a 605-kilometer (376-mile) border with India, which is its largest trading partner, accounting for 98 percent of its exports and 90 percent of its imports. Also, Bhutan’s only means of doing trade with the rest of the world so far is via 16 entry and exit points that India allows.

Against the seemingly claustrophobic arrangement, India has invested over $1 billion on the construction of three hydropower projects in Bhutan and has agreed to import at least 5,000 megawatts of electricity from Bhutan by 2020. Sale of electricity to India is one of the major exchange earners for Bhutan.

Bhutan also hosts an estimated 200,000 Indians – including Indian troops, which help Bhutan stay clear of and secure from terrorism and sectarian extremism.

It is because of this intertwined nature of relations that even at this discomforting hour writers like Kinley Dorji, the managing editor of Bhutan’s news daily Kuensel, argue: “Sovereignty – which India’s critics in the kingdom cite – works not in the abstract, but in daily lives as well. Bhutan and India, he notes, share a symbiotic relationship and it is in Bhutan’s interests to have closer relations with India than with China.”

Of course, and reflecting the general mood, he also carried on and advised in the same vein that it is in India’s interest to offer financial and technical help to Bhutan.

One of Sangey’s angry posts was titled: “India-Bhutan: Friend or Master.” Unless India begins to come across as the former – again – in the eyes of the hurting Bhutanese, it may not be able to hold on to its geopolitical need to be the latter.

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Foreign Policy Association (US) Journalism

Nagorno-Karabakh: Expect Status Quo in 2013-14

The “frozen conflict” of Nagorno-Karabakh may not melt down anytime soon because of the involvement of multitude of interests.

[The analysis was first published here on the Foreign Policy Association (FPA) blog network site] 

Two decades of international community administered talks between Armenia and Azerbaijan over Nagorno-Karabakh, a predominantly Armenian enclave inside Azerbaijani territory, have failed to reach a resolution. Meanwhile, Azerbaijan’s petro-dollar aided exponential increase in defence expenditure amid pitched rabble-rousing and frequent sniper skirmishes in the region has led many to fear that the disputed landlocked mountainous enclave in the Greater Caucasus could be one of the most likely sites of Europe’s next war. The sense was reiterated on March 28 by Arayik Haroutiounian, the secessionist enclave’s prime minister, who said in Paris that Azerbaijan and Armenia are unlikely to reach a deal this year and there is a risk of the region sliding towards a war.

But is peace such an imminent casualty in Nagorno-Karabakh, and by extension in the Greater Caucasus?

The “frozen conflict” of Nagorno-Karabakh may not melt down anytime soon because of the involvement of multitude of interests.
The “frozen conflict” of Nagorno-Karabakh may not melt down anytime soon because of the involvement of multitude of interests.

The short answer is no. While stubborn stances of the warring actors based upon ethnic and historical arguments and applicable competing principles of international law – the right of self-determination and territorial integrity ­– promise to make the coming years equally difficult for a negotiated agreement, the oft-repeated talk of a fresh war may not match up with the realities of limited abilities of the warring states to win a war outright, and dependence of external actors, notably the United States, Russia and Europe, on continued status-quo, if not negotiated peace, towards serving their economic and geopolitical interests in the region.

Adding their bits to the competitive counterbalancing are Turkey and Iran.

Turkey, which is accused by Armenia of the “Great Crime” (the 1915 massacre of over a million Armenians by Ottoman Turks), shares a “one nation-two states” doctrine with Azerbaijan because of the cultural similarities between the two. Consequently, the Turkish government has been participating in the conflict through military cooperation with the Azerbaijanis and declared a blockade on Armenia in 1993 in support to Azerbaijan. Turkey has been refusing to re-open diplomatic relations and its border with Armenia until the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict is resolved.

Iran, the remaining major regional actor in the dispute, which has economic interests in the region and, like Russia, wants to keep Western countries away from the region, has been a major partner for Armenia and Nagorno-Karabakh – despite being an Islamic state. It has helped the two fight the economic blockade enforced by Azerbaijan and Turkey after the war.

The coming together of multitude of conflicting interests is not a recent phenomenon in the Caucasus. The vantage geographical position of the region has historically allowed both opportunity for and defence against transcontinental (Central Asia-Europe) expansionist designs of the powers that were – like the Ottoman Empire and Russia.

Currently, the region is critical to the United States and NATO’s military interests. For example, the Northern Distribution Network (NDN) played an important role in transporting the United States and NATO supplies out of Afghanistan when in November 2011 Islamabad closed supply routes between Pakistan and Afghanistan following a United States air strike that accidentally killed 24 Pakistani troops.

Also, the region is a critical energy corridor for hydrocarbon resources en route to Europe from the South Caucasus and Central Asia. Three of the four major pipelines that transport Azerbaijani oil and gas to Europe lie close to the front line positions of Armenian and Azerbaijani forces stationed along both the Line-of-Contact between Azerbaijan and the disputed enclave of Nagorno-Karabakh, and the Armenia-Azerbaijan border.

In the event of a fresh war over Nagorno-Karabakh, these pipelines could become early targets for Armenian artillery, hitting Europe’s goal of diversifying its energy supply.

It is this complexity that is not only holding back an all-out war, but also forcing all the concerned players to put their best thinking hat forward to bring about a solution to, what is known as, the “frozen conflict.”

Since 1994, there have been a number of attempts to broker peace by the so-called Minsk Group, a subset of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) chaired by Russia, the United States, and France. But the issue of sequences remains one of the biggest obstacles to the signing of a peace treaty. Azerbaijan wants Armenia to end its occupation first and withdraw its forces before discussing the republic’s final status; Armenia is seeking a resolution first on the status question before pulling out its forces; Nagorno-Karabakh wants its independence officially recognized prior to all other negotiations.

Against the backdrop of the current state of the deadlock, there is a possibility of the following scenarios developing in the coming year:

  • The U.S., Russia and Europe expand their cooperative efforts in facilitating the resolution of a conflict towards pre-empting any threat to their respective interests in the Greater Caucasus. The efforts could rescue the U.S.-Russian ‘reset’, and signal a new era of European-Russian cooperation.
  • Sustained pressure at home in the wake of reported high levels of discontent in Armenia about corruption, poverty, and abuse of power could force Armenian President Serzh Sargsyan to divert a part of military and economic resources from Nagorno-Karabakh – without changing the official stance on the dispute – to public welfare schemes in Armenia.
  • President Ilham Aliev of Azerbaijan could up the rabble-rousing ahead of the October presidential elections, without walking the talk on ground – both because of the dangers of getting into a war that he cannot win at the moment, and the prospects of a harsh response from the international community making his own position vulnerable at home.

The dispute presents itself as an ideal case study for the Greater Caucasus region to understand the conflict between ethnic minority groups’ fierce attachment to their socio-historical and geographical identities and modern world’s need for enforcement of legal principles. The conflict in this case is not about resources, but is about identity – something that cannot be divided.

Currently, the talk is more about the “best alternative to a negotiated agreement” (BATNA). For Azerbaijan, it is war, and for Armenia, it is status-quo.

Expect the Armenian position to prevail in the coming year.

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Journalism World Diary

Nagorno-Karabakh as a Reference Point for Stability in the Greater Caucasus, 2013-14

INTRODUCTION

Two decades of international community-administered talks between Armenia and Azerbaijan over Nagorno-Karabakh, a predominantly Armenian enclave inside Azerbaijani territory, have failed to reach a resolution. Meanwhile, Azerbaijan’s petro-dollar-aided exponential increase in defence expenditure amid pitched rabble-rousing and frequent sniper skirmishes in the region has led many to fear that the disputed landlocked mountainous enclave in the Greater Caucasus could be one of the most likely sites of Europe’s next war. The sense was reiterated on March 28 by Arayik Haroutiounian, the secessionist enclave’s prime minister, who said in Paris that Azerbaijan and Armenia are unlikely to reach a deal this year and there is a risk of the region sliding towards war.

But is peace such an imminent casualty in Nagorno-Karabakh, and by extension in the Greater Caucasus?

THE REGION

The Caucasus is largely a mountainous region lying between the Black Sea in the west and the Caspian Sea in the east, and is situated where Europe and Asia converge. Running from the west-northwest to the east-southeast are two parallel mountain chains: the Greater Caucasus and the Lesser Caucasus. While the mountainous terrain in itself impedes navigable waterways for trade and continuous stretch of arable land for large societies, the Caucasus region on the whole offers as much natural and strategic advantage as any comparable region in the world.

High peaks with glaciers and permanent snow nourish river streams that water plains both to the north and the south, where a variety of crops can be grown and livestock grazed. The ample river activity cut innumerable deep valleys into the Greater Caucasus range, resulting in those distinct, protected shelters getting occupied by a host of minority groups. Over a period of a couple of centuries, socially cohesive groups of countless ethnicity got firmly entrenched in their respective – and self-sufficient – valleys and fiercely resisted any outside interference.

But outside interest, and the resulting conflicts, could not be avoided by the region because of a host of reasons. The Caspian Sea on the east provides an easy waterway to Central Asia and, via the Volga, to the heart of Russia. The Black Sea provides a sea link to Turkey, Ukraine, the Balkans, and through the Turkish Straits to the Mediterranean region. Importantly, vantage position in the region allowed both opportunity for and defence against transcontinental (Central Asia-Europe) expansionist designs of the powers that were – like the Ottoman Empire and Russia.

That strategic aspect gets exploited even in the present era.

Currently, the region is critical to the United States and NATO’s military interests.

For example, the Northern Distribution Network (NDN) played an important role in transporting the United States and NATO supplies out of Afghanistan when in November 2011 Islamabad closed supply routes between Pakistan and Afghanistan following a United States airstrike that accidentally killed 24  Pakistani troops.

The Caucasus has also been noted for its mineral wealth since ancient times. In the previous century, Azerbaijan’s oil fuelled much of the USSR’s economy during the Soviet period. Today, the region is a critical energy corridor for hydrocarbon resources en route to Europe from the South Caucasus and Central Asia. Three of the four major pipelines that transport Azerbaijani oil and gas to Europe lie close to the front line positions of Armenian and Azerbaijani forces stationed along both the Line-of-Contact between Azerbaijan and the disputed enclave of Nagorno-Karabakh, and the Armenia-Azerbaijan border. In the event of a fresh war over Nagorno-Karabakh, these pipelines could become early targets for Armenian artillery, hitting Europe’s goal of diversifying its energy supply.

NAGORNO-KARABKH: INTRODUCTION

Nagorno-Karabakh is a landlocked secessionist enclave in the Greater Caucasus that is a subject of dispute between Azerbaijan, in which it lies, the Armenian ethnic majority of the enclave, and neighbouring Armenia.

With the roots of the conflict said to be dating back well over a century into the rivalry between Christian Armenian and Muslim Turkic and Persian influences, the history of Nagorno-Karabakh is the subject of furious argument between Armenian and Azeri historians about the original inhabitants of the region.

Nagorno-Karabakh claimed its independence for the first time during the first Congress of the Armenians of Karabakh in 1918. Following the Bolshevik revolution in Russia, Soviet Union’s leader Joseph Stalin in 1921 put the region of Nagorno-Karabakh under the control of the Soviet Republic of Azerbaijan. The region came to be known as the Nagorno-Karabakh Autonomous Oblast (NKAO) in 1923.

Though disputes were commonplace between Armenians and Azerbaijanis about the way the autonomy of the region was exercised in the NKAO, the smouldering frictions exploded into violence only in 1988 when the enclave’s legislature cited historical and ethnic reasons to pass a resolution in 1988 to join Armenia – a request that was swiftly denied by Moscow on the grounds of Azeri territorial integrity. In the same year, anti-Armenian pogroms occurred in Sumgait, and Armenians started getting expulsed from Azerbaijan.

Once the Soviet Union collapsed, Nagorno-Karabakh’s legislature unilaterally proclaimed their independence in 1991 and the enclave became a de facto republic (which no world body recognises as yet) – leading up to a full-scale war between Azerbaijan and Armenia in 1992. Within months, the Armenian army controlled the bulk of NagornoKarabakh and pushed further into Azerbaijani territory to establish the so-called Lachin Corridor, an umbilical cord linking the breakaway enclave with Armenia mainland. By 1993, Armenian forces had occupied nearly 20% of the Azerbaijani territory surrounding Nagorno-Karabakh and expelled hundreds of thousands of ethnic Azeris. A year later, Russia brokered ceasefire between the two countries, which is where things stand at the moment.

As per a 1994 study by Human Rights Watch, the conflict in Nagorno-Karabakh resulted in an estimated 25,000 dead as well as around one million refugees and Internally Displaced People (IDP) on both sides.

NAGORNO-KARABAKH: THE REGIONAL ASPECT

Apart from Armenia and Azerbaijan (and the geographical areas of Nagorno-Karabakh), Turkey, Russia and Iran play a significant role in the dispute.

Turkey, which is accused by Armenia of the ‘Great Crime’ (the 1915 massacre of over a million Armenians by Ottoman Turks), shares a ‘one nation-two states’ doctrine with Azerbaijan because of the cultural similarities between the two. Consequently, the Turkish government has been participating in the conflict through military cooperation with the Azerbaijanis and declared a blockade on Armenia in 1993 in support of Azerbaijan. Turkey has been refusing to re-open diplomatic relations and its border with Armenia until the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict is resolved.

On the other hand, Russia is linked to Armenia by cooperation treaties, especially the 1997 treaty of friendship between both countries, which guarantees the support of Russia to Armenia in case the latter is subjected to foreign attacks.

The remaining major regional actor in the dispute is Iran, which has economic interests in the region and which, like Russia, wants to keep Western countries away from the region. Despite being an Islamic state, Iran has been a major partner for Armenia and Nagorno-Karabakh, and has helped the two fight the economic blockade enforced by Azerbaijan and Turkey after the war.

NAGORNO-KARABAKH: PEACE PROCESS AND THE CHALLENGES

Since 1994, there have been a number of attempts to broker peace by the so-called Minsk Group, a subset of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) chaired by Russia, the United States, and France. The Minsk group is currently working towards making the warring sides agree on the Madrid principles of 2010 which would include that (1) Armenian forces leave the occupied territories outside Nagorno-Karabakh, (2) an interim status is granted to Nagorno-Karabakh until a self-determination referendum, (3) the return of IDPs and refugees, (4) the establishment of a corridor linking Armenia and Nagorno-Karabakh in Lachin with the presence of peacekeeping forces.

One of the biggest obstacles to the signing of a peace treaty is the issue of sequencing: Azerbaijan wants Armenia to end its occupation first and withdraw its forces before discussing the republic’s final status; Armenia is seeking a resolution first on the status question before pulling out its forces; Nagorno-Karabakh wants its independence officially recognized prior to all other negotiations.

NAGORNO-KARABAKH: FORECAST 2013-14

While stubborn stances of the warring actors based upon ethnic and historical arguments and applicable competing principles of international law – the right of self-determination and territorial integrity – promise to make the coming years equally difficult for a negotiated agreement, the oft-repeated talk of a fresh war may not match up with the realities of limited abilities of the warring states to win a war outright, and dependence of external actors, notably the United States, Russia and Europe, on continued status-quo, if not negotiated peace, towards serving their economic and geopolitical interests in the region.

Given that hypothesis, there is a possibility of the following scenarios developing in the coming year (2013-14):

⇒ The United States, Russia and Europe expand their cooperative efforts in facilitating the resolution of a conflict towards pre-empting any threat to their respective interests in the Greater Caucasus. The efforts could rescue the U.S.-Russian ‘reset’, and signal a new era of European-Russian cooperation.

⇒ Sustained pressure at home in the wake of opinion surveys showing high levels of discontent in Armenia about corruption, poverty, and abuse of power could force Armenian President Serzh Sargsyan to divert (at least a tiny) part of the military and economic resources from Nagorno-Karabakh – without changing the official stance on the dispute – to public welfare schemes in Armenia.

⇒ President Ilham Aliev of Azerbaijan could up the rabble-rousing ahead of the October presidential elections, without walking the talk on the ground – both because of the dangers of getting into a war that he cannot win at the moment, and the prospects of a harsh response from the international community making his own position vulnerable at home.

⇒ As a lead up to the 20th anniversary of truce between Armenia and Azerbaijan, international rights groups could lead a sustained campaign at world bodies to force the two-nation take more action on the issue of the internally displaced people.

CONCLUSION

The ‘frozen conflict’ of Nagorno-Karabakh presents itself as an ideal case study for the Greater Caucasus region – and indeed other conflict zones of similar nature in Europe and elsewhere – to understand the conflict between ethnic minority groups’ fierce attachment to their socio-historical and geographical identities and modern world’s need for enforcement of legal principles. The conflict in this case is not about resources but is about identity – something that cannot be divided.

There are no easy political solutions to such complex disputes. While all-round mediation efforts by neutral parties should be encouraged, the effectiveness of those efforts is hostage to a host of internal, global, political, ability and intent issues. On the other hand, the welfare of the affected people – directly, as opposed to a trickle effect via the state – in a visibly unbiased and meaningful manner could provide the healing that functions as the foundation for a negotiated agreement.

Currently, the talk is more about the “best alternative to a negotiated agreement” (BATNA). For Azerbaijan, it is war, and for Armenia, it is status-quo.

The future of Nagorno-Karabakh would tell the Greater Caucasus region what to do in such complex situations — or, what not to do. That future, however, may not arrive this year.

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Featured Huffington Post (UK) Journalism

The Tricky Business of Permanent Residency

[This article was first published here on The Huffington Post]

The jury is still out on the cost of providing fast-track residency to affluent foreigners

There are many ways in which modern societies are getting shaped across the world. Australia cast its vote recently in favour of crafting one by handpicking well heeled citizens from other countries.

On May 25, Australia’s Immigration Minister Chris Bowen unveiled a new visa scheme that offers wealthy migrants a fast-track residency provided they invest around $5 million into either government bonds or Australian companies.

In the normal course of the procedure, migrants are ranked according to criteria like age, qualifications and English language skills, along with a requirement to reside in the country for a specified period of time before they qualify.

Terming the initiative as an ‘investment visa’ aimed to address shortages of skills and capital and boost job-creation in the country, Bowen said, “People who are willing to make a significant investment in Australia through various investments will receive concessional treatment when it comes to permanent residency.”

“The significant investor visa will provide a boost to our economy and help Australia to compete effectively for high net worth individuals seeking investment immigration,” he added.

The minister said that Australia expects to hand out 7,000 new investment visas through this fast track system, which will come into force on July 1.

The scheme would see Australia join the ranks of Asia-Pacific’s New Zealand, Hong Kong and Singapore, which provide for migration on the basis of investment of a specified size and conditions.

Under New Zealand’s Investor Residence Scheme, immigrants can gain residency rights in the country by investing NZ$ 1.5 million (US$ 1.1 million) for a period of four years. This program requires the applicant to be under 65 years of age and have three years of business experience.

The Investor Plus Residence Scheme goes a step further and offers permanent residency to anyone who makes an investment of NZ$ 10 million in New Zealand for 3 yrs. No age, business or English language proficiency is required under this program.

In Hong Kong, millionaire migrants can earn residency rights via the Capital Investment Entrant Scheme (CIES) by investing HK$10 million.

But nowhere in the world is the phenomenon more pronounced than in Singapore, which, as per a new report from global management consulting firm Boston Consulting Group (BCG), had the world’s highest density of millionaire households in 2011. The report, released this May, revealed that more than 17% of all households in the Southeast Asian city-state had private wealth of US$ 1 million or higher during the year.

What provides a telling perspective to the ‘badge of honour’ is that according to Singapore government statistics from 2011, Singaporean citizens make up just 63% of the country’s population – implying that more than one in three residents of the city-state are foreign-born permanent residents or temporary residents. Merely 11 years ago the figure was 74%, while in 1980 it was 91%.

Helping the rise of percentage of foreign nationals are government schemes like the Global Investor Programme (GIP), which allow wealthy foreigners to attain permanent residency status if they invest a minimum of $2.5 million in a new business or an expansion of an existing business, and have an annual turnover of at least US$30 million or more.

Permanent Residence visa is highly valued in Singapore among expatriates as the city-state has one of the world’s highest standards of living and is one of the nerve centres of Asia’s economy.

On the other hand, the small population of Singapore, quite like that in Australia, New Zealand and Hong Kong, make it necessary for the country to invite foreign entrepreneurs to create new businesses, new products and new jobs – especially in tough economic times such as the present. According to government statistics, Singapore’s fertility rate of 1.2 is well below the replacement rate of 2.1 – implying that the country’s workforce would shrink drastically if more foreigners are not allowed in.

But the upsurge in the ratio of foreign nationals – both permanent residents and foreign workers – has led to a corresponding rise in the disaffection among the locals on the issue.

Many Singaporeans believe that permanent residents come to their country to reap the benefits without any obligations. A prevalent sentiment among the critics of government policies like the GIP is that foreign-born residents take jobs, push up property prices and add new strains on the city-state’s infrastructure. The impression is said to be responsible for the worst ever showing by the ruling party in last year’s elections.

Reacting to popular dissatisfaction, Singapore recently canceled a scheme that allowed wealthy expatriates to gain permanent residency (PR) in the Southeast Asian city-state if they brought in a minimum of S$10 million ($7.8 million) into Singapore for five years including using up to S$2 million on buying a property.

The Financial Investor Scheme (FIS) was brought to an end in April as it was believed that the scheme was used by many expatriates to buy property at inflated prices and fuel the country’s booming property market – thereby pricing locals out of the market.

The decision is seen to be in tune with the government’s decision of imposing an additional 10% property tax on foreigners last year to avoid Singapore becoming a place for only the rich.

But beyond concerns about rising property prices, the red carpet for foreign entrepreneurs has led to people like local Singapore journalist Jaya Prakash believe that the government is biased towards foreigners, allowing them to sweep up jobs that should be given to locals and fill places in schools meant for Singaporeans.

Some groups have even claimed that a large expat population – and its highly visible alternate culture – is threatening their sense of national identity.

Clearly, financial benefits travel only as far as they are allowed to by the socio-political costs of a policy.

Australia may want to learn from Singapore’s experience on the subject and pick the best path ahead for itself.