A Year's Reprieve

EVEN as India looks all set to notch up a strategic victory by holding assembly elections in Jammu and Kashmir, the Pakistan Government faces a barrage of criticism for almost losing a diplomatic battle. For, in an effort to de-bureau-cratise the United Nations, the Security Council has initiated the scrapping of a list of issues that it has had on its agenda since its inception—including the India-Pakistan conflict, i.e. Kashmir.

Under fire from Washington (its largest contributor and greatest defaulter at $1.7 billion) for its outspoken Secretary-General Boutros Boutros-Ghali and its 'inflated' bureaucracy, the UN's 1998-99 budget, released last month, announced staff cuts of 30 per cent and no increased expenditure. And in an effort to streamline the world body, a decision was taken to phase out dead wood-issues entangled in red tapism which, for too long, have been on the agendas of the various departments.

After month-long deliberations, the president of the Security Council released a note announcing the Council's intention to delete "matters which have not been considered in the Council in the preceding five years". The list of 50-odd issues included the Hyderabad (1949) and the India-Pakistan conflict (1965). Member-states were offered the option of speaking up before September 15, 1996. (The deadline was later extended to December 1997.) If they did, any given issue would be retained on the agenda for a year.

On August 13, Pakistan's permanent representative at the UN, Ahmed Kamal, wrote to the Security Council president protesting against the deletion. Expressing concern over the 'arbitrary' deletion, he criticised the move to take so many items (including Kashmir) off the agenda without consulting the parties concerned and spoke of the 'serious political implications' for the Council's future. Pakistan Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto also wrote to the permanent members of the Council and will visit New York in October to highlight the Kashmir problem.

Arab countries also came to Pakistan's support, as they are worried about the Palestine issue being similarly dropped. More importantly, British Foreign Secretary Malcolm Rifkind happened to be visiting Islamabad at the time and he endorsed putting Kashmir back on the UN agenda. The Security Council eventually did amend its agenda but not before creating a scare among Pakistani decision-makers and exposing another fiasco by the Foreign Ministry. However, the Council has taken back Kashmir with the new condition that it would be subject to an annual review. Experts think this could be the US's way of sending across a message: either resolve the Kashmir issue or forget it.

Surprisingly enough, at a time when most of the political groups in Pakistan are gunning for the government, they did not—or could not—make an issue of it. Though the Leader of the Opposition, Mian Nawaz Sharif, did allege at a public rally at Neela Butt in Pakistan-Occupied Kashmir that Bhutto was harming national interests. In Parliament, however, the Opposition desisted from Bhutto-bashing and diverted the allegations towards the US. It was claimed that there were 'sinister' objectives behind US Ambassador to India Frank Wisner and Senator Brown's recent visits to Pakistan.

But as a UN official pointed out: "The whole thing is a non-issue anyway, and the Pakistani and other reactions are somewhat over the top." All UN member-states have a right to call up any issue within the Security Council whenever they feel concerned or threatened about any particular matter. Even if one were to assume that it might be easier for states to motivate a debate on an issue already on the Council's agenda, there are enough fora within the UN to raise dust over matters pertinent to any of its member-states. The notes issued by the Security Council make this amply clear.

What Islamabad probably dreads is a loss of face when the international media report the removal of the India-Pakistan conflict from the Council's agenda. As a Dawn News Service report said: "For Pakistan, the blow of losing world community recognition that a dispute festers between India and Pakistan over the Kashmir problem will be insurmountable." But given the notorious ponderousness of the international league of states on the banks of New York's East river, that seems a highly unlikely scenario, at least for the time being.