Editorial»
Overtures for peace
JAN 12 - The year 2003 has ticked to its close bequeathing a legacy of unremitting violence as in the previous years of the decade. This suggests that the existing framework of conflict management is unlikely to go far leaving a lesson that is obvious and simple: Unless a fresh approach to peace planning is adopted and more forceful and more sustainable interventions are put in place, the year 2004 will be hardly different. Peace did dominate people’s psyche because conflict and violence dominated the scene, but peace plans failed in 2003 for the same reasons that doomed from the very beginning the dialogue between the Maoists and the Government. If the reasons were the same, the lessons were the same too.
However, human stubbornness is such that it refuses to learn the lesson in time and history repeats the lesson again and again, but in that course the conflict assumes crisis proportions bringing the society to the brink of the precipice. A look at the prevailing scenario in Nepal suggests the nation indeed stands at the brink of the precipice.
Ceasefires effected in 2002 brought civil wars to a close in Angola and Afghanistan, but in Indonesia, Sri Lanka, and Sudan peace remained precariously uncertain. Talks started in early January between the Sudan People’s Liberation Army (SPLA) and the Government failed in mid-July. Efforts to unite war-divided Cyprus, too, failed in mid-March when the five-month truce collapsed in May and Indonesia imposed martial law to curb the 27-year-old Free Aceh Movement. The breakdown of the ceasefire of seven months took political violence to new heights in Nepal spreading the Maoist insurgency both east- and south- ward, despite claims made by the unified military command that it was gaining control of the situation.
Stories of wild, brutal violence inflicted by both sides pushed the villagers toward widespread diaspora rendering them refugees in their own land and emptying villages of males where, as reported, women have become coffin-bearers. A nationwide emergency was declared in Peru (May 28), Guinea-Bissau witnessed a military coup (Sept. 14), and one-month-long demonstration in Bolivia removed the President (Oct. 18). Burundi, Uganda, Chechnya, Palestine, Kashmir, and the Philippines remained in the news as before, but Bhutan was in the headlines for launching its first military operation in nearly 14 decades to flush out Assam’s rebel groups as were some communist and other insurgent outfits in their bids to make their presence felt – in Orissa (July 30), Manipur (Sept. 3), Andhra Pradesh (Oct.1).
Algeria saw the violence of the Islamic rebels in early January and a week later 64 activists of Turkey’s Revolutionary People’s Liberation Party died in hunger strike. During the whole year, Iraq grabbed the centerstage not only during its 42-day-long war (March 20-May 1), but long afterward because of the post-war killings of occupation army soldiers. The denouement came at the year’s end with the capture of Saddam Hussein, but only after driving the Euro-American public into two camps precipitating anti-war demonstrations all over USA as in Pakistan, Bangladesh, Thailand, Malaysia, and Indonesia.
In the middle of all this violence, the year also brought good news on more than one front – unrelenting efforts by General Musharraf to curb terrorism at home despite several attacks on his life, the landing of Taiwan’s plane in Shanghai after half century (Jan. 26), and opening of transport and flow of civilians between North and South Korea that signaled decades-old divides were melting away.
In Assam, the Bodo Liberation Tigers signed a Peace Pact. Peace moves appeared to be picking up steam also in Nagaland where at least 25,000 people are said to have died since 1947. The Columbian parliamentary rightist group looked ready to surrender arms by 2004 to the government. The Liberian rebels agreed on a ceasefire (June 4) and the Chechen rebels accepted UN mediation for peace. The Philippine government also announced ceasefire with the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF) and looked prepared to reopen dialogue with the communist guerillas fighting a decades-long insurrection.
Other news on the peace front were repatriation of 1400 Eritrean refugees under UN cooperation (July 8), agreement by Sri Lanka to give citizenship to 168,000 Tamils (July 11), Beijing’s announcement on reduction of army size, the 9-point Sino-Indian agreement affected on June 23, resumption of transport between India and Pakistan after 18 months, China’s non-aggression pact with the Southeast Asian nations (Dec. 7), commitment made by 21 states at the APEC summit to curb terrorism, a new chapter of relations opened between India and Israel in September, the multi-front peace initiatives taken by Japan on the Aceh conflict (May 17), Japan’s economic pressure on Myanmar (June 25) as also its decision to send a military outfit to Iraq. Another major highlight on the peace-building front was the roadmap for peace in Israel passed by Israel’s Council of Ministers and followed by the Aqaba Agreement between USA, Israel, Jordan, and Palestine (June 4) that concedes Palestine autonomy in West Bank and the Gaza Strip.
On the very heels of the dramatic capture of Saddam came Muammar Gaddafi’s turn-around: his decision to abandon Weapons of Mass Destruction (WMO) programme, turned ‘historic’, an outcome of the US-led Proliferation Security Initiative (PSI) and nine-month-long secret negotiations.
From the perspective of peace, December 12 turned out to be particularly significant. In the concatenation of pro-peace events on that single day one could sense a world Geitgeist for peace swaying the globe, as if a global peace perestroika were around the corner. But even as Pope John Paul II was pleading in his Christmas message on the scourge of terrorism and violence, came a devastating burst of explosions in the Gaza Strip, missile attacks on Baghdad, and the near-fatal attempt on President Musharraf’s motorcade suggesting how fragile such hopes can be.Posted on: 2004-01-13 04:03
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