The Progressive Response

The Progressive Response (PR) is a weekly service of Foreign Policy in Focus (FPIF)—a "Think Tank Without Walls." A joint project of the Interhemispheric Resource Center and the Institute for Policy Studies, FPIF is an international network of analysts and activists dedicated to "making the U.S. a more responsible global leader and partner by advancing citizen movements and agendas." We encourage responses to the opinions expressed in the PR and may print them in the "Letters and Comments" section. For more information on FPIF and joining our network, please consider visiting the FPIF website at http://www.fpif.org/.

Tom Barry, editor of Progressive Response, is a senior analyst with the Interhemispheric Resource Center (IRC) www.irc-online.org and codirector of Foreign Policy In Focus. He can be contacted at <tom@irc-online.org>.

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Editor: Tom Barry (IRC)

Table of Contents

I. Updates and Out-Takes

INDIA IS FLIRTING WITH DISASTER
By Muqtedar Khan

WORLD FOOD SUMMIT: WHAT WENT WRONG
By Peter Rosset

PRIVATE MILITARY COMPANIES PART OF U.S. GLOBAL REACH
By Deborah Avant

NEW FROM SELF-DETERMINATION IN FOCUS

II. Outside the U.S.

EMERGENCY LOYA JIRGA: STRENGTH IN NUMBERS?
By Halima Kazem

III. Letters and Comments

CRUSADER CONTRACTOR STILL BENEFITS

SECURITY ASSISTANCE AFTER SEPTEMBER 11

SELF-DETERMINATION ISSUES IN KASHMIR

I. Updates and Out-takes

INDIA IS FLIRTING WITH DISASTER
By Muqtedar Khan

(Editor's Note: Excerpted from a new FPIF Global Affairs Commentary available in its entirety at: http://www.fpif.org/commentary/2002/0206kashmir.html .)

India is playing a highly risky game of brinkmanship in Kashmir. Its recent deployment of forces along the line of control (LoC), the de facto border between India and Pakistan in Kashmir, and the extremely provocative rhetoric from Delhi have brought the region closer to a nuclear war than ever before.

There are two goals that Defense Secretary Rumsfeld must pursue during his forthcoming visit to South Asia. Firstly he must try to ensure that India does not cross the actual line of control. He must convince India that Washington's rhetoric on terror is not a license to begin nuclear conflicts.

He must also take steps to prevent accidental war initiation. This will require not only diplomatic efforts but also sharing satellite intelligence about troop movements at the LoC to let the two nations have real time knowledge of each other's troops. Secretary of Defense Rumsfeld could also suggest the introduction of international monitors (perhaps under UN purview) to patrol the LoC. Such a force will not only separate the two forces, but will also effectively seal the border and stem cross-border activities by Jihadi and Kashmiri militants.

Secondly, Washington must brush aside India's refusal to allow American involvement and immediately bring the two nations to the negotiating table. The object of these talks would be to convince India to resolve the Kashmir issue democratically and in compliance with international laws and resolutions. At least some positive steps in this direction must be taken by India, which would give Kashmiris the hope that talks and not tanks will serve their cause.

Jihadis Must be Dismantled

Pakistan must reciprocate by quickly and effectively putting the Jihadis out of business. These groups are a national security threat to both India and Pakistan and a grave danger to the future of the region. The Jihadi groups are determined to cause trouble. They are trying to destabilize Musharraf's government. The attacks on the French workers as well as the attacks in Kashmir are their revenge against Musharraf for his U-turn when the U.S. demanded Pakistani cooperation in operation Enduring Freedom. India's saber rattling only aggravates the situation. It weakens Musharraf and exaggerates the impact of the Jihadis. It is imperative that India and the U.S. push to assist Musharraf in neutralizing the Jihadis' influence and capabilities.

Pakistan has very few options really. Either it risks a civil war by aggressively disarming the militants that operate out of Pakistan, or it risks an unlimited nuclear war with India. If Pakistan cannot control activities within its own borders, then it must let India cross the LoC and do the job.

President Bush probably never anticipated that fighting a war on terror entailed peacekeeping in the most troublesome of neighborhoods. This time it is South Asia that interrupts his crusade, demanding his services as a peace broker.

(Dr. Muqtedar Khan <mkhan@adrian.edu> writes for Foreign Policy In Focus <www.fpif.org>, is Director of International Studies at Adrian College, and is a regular commentator on South Asian politics.)

Also see:

Kashmir Conflict Profile
By John Gershman, Interhemispheric Resource Center
http://www.selfdetermine.org/conflicts/kashmir.html

Nuclear War in South Asia
By Mathew McKinzie, Zia Mian, M.V. Ramana, and A.H. Nayhar
http://www.fpif.org/papers/nuclearsasia.html

WORLD FOOD SUMMIT: WHAT WENT WRONG
By Peter Rosset

(Editor's Note: Excerpted from a new FPIF Global Affairs Commentary available in its entirety at: http://www.fpif.org/commentary/2002/0206hunger.html .)

Why do more than 800 million people still go hungry in a world marked by incredible affluence? 180 nations are gathering in Rome from June 10 to 13 to address just that question at the "World Food Summit: Fives Years Later" meeting. At the 1996 World Food Summit, also held in Rome, 185 nations signed a commitment to cut the number of hungry people in half by 2015. There, Cuban President Fidel Castro made waves--echoing the feelings of many--when he called that goal "shameful" for its abandonment of any notion of eliminating hunger. Subsequent trends have been more shameful still.

The current Summit was called by the United Nations to examine why hunger persists despite the 1996 Plan of Action. Progress has lagged by at least 60% behind the goals for the first five years, and today conditions are worsening in much of the world. Without a drastic reorientation of policies, it will be impossible to meet the 2015 goal, and hunger may actually increase. While official documents prepared for the meeting decry a "lack of will" and call for "more resources" to be directed at reducing hunger, the fact is that more fundamental changes are needed.

Since 1996, governments have presided over a set of policies that have conspired to undercut peasant, small and family farmers, and farm cooperatives in nations both North and South. These policies have included runaway trade liberalization, pitting family farmers in the Third World against the subsidized corporate farms in the North (witness the recent U.S. Farm Bill), forcing Third World countries to eliminate price supports and subsidies for food producers, the privatization of credit, the excessive promotion of exports to the detriment of food crops, the patenting of crop genetic resources by corporations who charge farmers for their use, and a bias in agricultural research toward expensive and questionable technologies like genetic engineering while virtually ignoring pro-poor alternatives like organic farming and agroecology.

While governments seem blind to the ways their policies enforce hunger and impoverishment for hundreds of millions of people, others see this harsh reality with clarity. Hundreds of farmers' movements and nongovernmental organizations have come to Rome from around the world to hold their own Forum--the "World Forum on Food Sovereignty"--in parallel with the official Summit.

They demand that governments take agriculture out of the World Trade Organization (WTO), which forces countries to open their borders to the cheap, dumped food imports that drive their own farmers out of business, off the land, and into hunger. They call for true land reform, to put good quality land in the hands of those who would sow it, rather than those who can afford to buy it. They demand that the fundamental right to food--recognized in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights--be made a reality by the enforcement of what they call "food sovereignty," which refers to the rights of peasants and family farmers to grow food for their own nations, and rights of poor consumers to enough to eat. These demands, unlike the weak official calls for "will" and "money," do get at the root cause of persistent hunger, and should be endorsed by all caring people.

(Peter Rosset, Ph.D., is co-director of Food First/The Institute for Food and Development Policy <www.foodfirst.org>, and co-author of the book World Hunger: Twelve Myths.)

Also see:

WTO Agreement on Agriculture
By Sophia Murphy
http://www.fpif.org/briefs/vol7/v7n08ag.html

PRIVATE MILITARY COMPANIES PART OF U.S. GLOBAL REACH
By Deborah Avant

(Editor's Note: Excerpted from a new FPIF policy brief available in its entirety at: http://www.fpif.org/briefs/vol7/v7n06miltrain.html .)

When the Soviet Union collapsed, U.S. forces were downsized, but they were not sufficiently reorganized to meet the demands of regional and ethnic conflicts, humanitarian emergencies, and new missions such as counternarcotics and counterterrorism. In scrambling to meet more requirements with fewer personnel in a more competitive labor market, the U.S. government has turned to private contractors to carry out logistical support, site security, foreign military training, observation missions, and other functions. Today, at least 35 PMCs are based in the United States.

Although older companies such as Vinnell, SAIC, and Cubic have expanded into new services, some of the highest profile firms (including MPRI, which L-3 Communications purchased in 2000) are products of the post-cold war.

One of biggest growth areas for these companies has been in providing military training. During the 1990s, U.S. private firms trained militaries in more than 42 countries. For instance:

• Hungary hired Cubic to help it restructure its military to comply with NATO standards.
• Croatia and Bosnia each hired Military Professional Resources Incorporated (MPRI) to help professionalize, train, and equip their armed forces in 1995.
• The U.S. has hired MPRI, DynCorp, and other PMCs for military training and other drug war missions in Colombia.
• The State Department and Pentagon have outsourced portions of military training in Africa to SAIC, MPRI, DFI International, Logicon, and other U.S. companies.

Training foreign armies is a prime component of current U.S. engagement strategy, according to A National Security Strategy for a New Century, published in 1999. Military training is said to further U.S. contact with other countries, to aid in the spread of democracy and good civil-military relations, and to enhance specific U.S. strategic concerns. As the Bush administration pursues its war on terrorism into more countries without expanding the number of uniformed U.S. personnel, PMCs appear certain to be hired to carry out even more training and other missions. Currently, for instance, the Pentagon is considering hiring PMCs to train Afghanistan's post-Taliban military, according to Joint Chiefs of Staff Chair General Richard Myers.

The use of private firms to assist overt and covert military missions is not new. British companies were involved in the Middle East and Africa in the 1950s and 1960s, and the U.S. contracted companies to train Vietnamese forces in the 1960s. During the cold war, private U.S. firms were associated with tasks deemed "too dirty" for the U.S. government. In Vietnam and Central America, reports of shady and illegal activities--including drug smuggling--by private contractors were rampant. The Iran/contra scandal, for example, uncovered evidence that companies like Southern Air Transport and Setco Aviation transported weapons to the Nicaraguan contras after Congress had cut off aid.

Although little is publicly known about PMC activities, occasional scandals have continued to capture headlines. In 2001, private American contractors piloting a CIA plane on a drug interdiction flight over Peru mistakenly identified a missionary plane as belonging to drug smugglers. The Peruvian military shot down the plane, killing an American missionary and her infant.

Today's PMCs are a subset of what has typically been called mercenary activity. As the number of firms and variety of their functions have expanded over the last decade, PMCs have tried to polish their image and operate more publicly as legitimate businesses. Many have websites, grant interviews, and appear at conferences. They present themselves as flexible tools for use in accomplishing the security goals of their clients around the world. There is now even an organization, the International Peace Operations Association, designed to enhance industry standards.

Revenues from the global international security market are expected to rise from $55.6 billion in 1990 to $202 billion in 2010, according to private industry projections. During the 1990s, private security companies with publicly traded stocks grew at twice the rate of the Dow Jones Industrial Average, the Pittsburgh Post Gazette reported in February 2000.

(Deborah Avant <avant@gwu.edu> is an associate professor of political science and international affairs at the Elliott School of International Affairs, George Washington University.)

NEW FROM SELF-DETERMINATION IN FOCUS

Ethnic and Religious Conflicts in Central Eurasia
By Robert M. Cutler

Central Eurasia, which is what specialists have taken to calling most of the geographic area once covered by the Soviet Union, has a long history of ethnopolitical complications and related struggles focused on collective identities. Tsarist Russia had moderate success in keeping these within bounds, partly because it was willing to tolerate such collective identities as social constructions autonomous of its own political rule.

The Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR) had a more insistently penetrative ideology that left little room for cultural, ethnic, or religious autonomy. The Soviet regime tapped the mass communications technologies of the twentieth century to pursue its control over all populations and to implement its program of political socialization. All ethnically based opposition to Moscow's rule was driven underground. The all-pervasive nature of the Soviet political and security apparatus made calls for any significant sort of self-determination extremely difficult to sustain. When Gorbachev combined economic reform (leading to economic disruption and attendant problems of supply) with political empowerment (permitting Soviet citizens to voice complaints publicly without the fear of repression), he unwittingly unleashed two elements necessary for a political explosion. Long discussed (but little understood) in Soviet political writings, the so-called "national question" became the fuse igniting the internal conflicts that burst forth across the Soviet regions in the late 1980s, as the USSR collapsed, and into the 1990s.

In Central Eurasia, self-determination conflicts are high on the political agenda. This region saw some of the world's most widespread bloodshed throughout the 1990s, due to a series of acute issues that repeatedly reached even the front pages of Western newspapers.

Worst-case scenarios circulating at the time have, however, not been borne out, even if a few of the situations remain without definitive resolution. What is remarkable is how many of the self-determination conflicts have reached a modus vivendi, and how many feared conflicts did not break out. Sheer exhaustion and destitution have played a role in attenuating some conflicts. Though such developments justify a certain grim-faced optimism, other more recent events, most notably the possibly destabilizing effects of the international response to Islamic fundamentalism in Central Asia, particularly since the World Trade Center disaster may give rise to a cautious pessimism.

Given the extreme variety of self-determination situations in the former Soviet area, the author outlines the conflicts in five geographical regions. These are: the Baltics (Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania), Russia itself, the South Caucasus (Armenia, Azerbaijan, and Georgia), the non-Russian Slavic states (Belarus, Moldova, and Ukraine), and Central Asia (Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, and Uzbekistan).

(Robert M. Cutler <rmc@alum.mit.edu> writes for Foreign Policy In Focus (online at www.fpif.org) and is Research Fellow, Institute of European and Russian Studies, Carleton University.)

See new FPIF Regional Overview online at : http://www.selfdetermine.org/regions/eurasia.html
with the PDF version at: http://www.selfdetermine.org/pdf/regions/eurasia.pdf

II. Outside the U.S.

(Editor's Note: FPIF's "Outside the U.S." component aims to bring non-U.S. voices into the U.S. policy debate and to foster dialog between Northern and Southern actors in global affairs issues. Please visit our Outside the U.S. page for other non-U.S. perspectives on global affairs and for information about submissions at: http://www.fpif.org/outside/index.html. )

EMERGENCY LOYA JIRGA: STRENGTH IN NUMBERS?
By Halima Kazem

(Editor's Note: Excerpted from an new Outside the U.S. Global Affairs Commentary available in its entirety at http://www.fpif.org/outside/commentary/2002/0206jirga.html .)

Afghanistan's Emergency Loya Jirga, a grand legislative council charged with establishing a two-year transitional government, looms large in the war-torn nation's recent history. But as plans gather steam for the Loya Jirga, which is to begin June 10 in Kabul, so do anxieties about its size and potential.

As the largest grand assembly ever held in Afghanistan, the Loya Jirga will gather 1,501 Afghan delegates from inside and outside the country. The Special Independent Commission for Convening Loya Jirga has been planning the logistics and management of this event since January, but officials remain worried. "For a long time the Afghan people did not have a say in their government. And for the first time in Afghanistan's history we wanted the people to feel that they were being represented in the government," said Ahmed Nadery, a spokesperson for the 21-member Loya Jirga Commission. This pronouncement may mark a step in Afghanistan's evolution, but acting on it will put a strain on Afghanistan's scant security. Planners also have to consider how to make the Loya Jirga fair and accessible to the country's largely illiterate population, and keep it from becoming a platform for tribal, political, and ethnic violence.

Such concerns are hard to ignore, even if the most immediate danger is that talks will bog down. Previous Loya Jirgas have not exceeded 1,000 delegates. The last one took place in 1964, when then king Mohammed Zahir Shah presided over 452 representatives who approved a new reformist constitution. Zahir Shah returned from exile in Rome this spring to open the session, but some Afghans remain uneasy about the Loya Jirga's scope. "1,500 Afghans is too many. This is an emergency Loya Jirga, it should have been smaller," said Kabul resident Ahmed Hashimi. "With this many people, I don't think a decision can be made in 6 days, you would need at least a month."

But the Commission is working against the clock. The Loya Jirga is scheduled to end on June 16, but may extend as late as June 22--when, according to the United Nations-brokered Bonn Agreement, the current Interim Administration of Afghanistan loses authority. The Bonn accords require a two-year transitional government to be in office by then, with the goal of holding elections in 2004. So the commission is trying to orchestrate an inclusive, legitimate, and expedient council. According to Nadery, the first day of the Loya Jirga will host speeches by Zahir Shah, Chairman Hamid Karzai, and other ceremonial activities, leaving no time for discussion or decisionmaking.

This leaves five days of work time totaling roughly 45 hours, if the original timetable is followed. This makes it impossible for every delegate to speak publicly, as Nadery acknowledges. "Not ever delegate will speak during the Loya Jirga," he said. "Before the sessions begin the delegates will submit their ideas to the secretariat and the commission will register representatives for certain topics," said Nadery. The concern this raises is that delegates who don't understand the system will find their ideas ignored--and will be disappointed when they do not get the chance to speak.

Despite these concerns, most Afghans believe the Emergency Loya Jirga is the one time that they will have a say in their government and they are not taking the responsibility lightly. Some even believe the grand assembly should be double its current size. "Afghanistan is a baby struggling to survive and it is our time to choose the mothers and fathers that will be making the crucial decisions in our fragile growing period," said 43-year-old Sadat Khan Malem, a resident of the eastern province of Kunar.

Excitement about the Loya Jirga's inclusiveness has touched off a degree of political enthusiasm in the country. Malem was elected as a representative for phase two of the Loya Jirga election but did not win the final seat from the district. He says that the population count in Kunar was not accurate. He believes that Kunar has between 200,000 and 300,000 people, yet has clearance to send only two representatives in the Loya Jirga. "If representation was based on population and following the Commission's rule of one representative for every 25,000 people, Kunar should have at least 8 delegates to the Loya Jirga. Kunar has a lot of problems that we want addressed during the Loya Jirga," he says.

Other districts, including the provinces of Wardak, Ghazni, and Gardez, experienced problems selecting delegates, prompting criticism that the Commission spent too much time developing the Loya Jirga procedure and too little helping citizens participate in a truly democratic way. To these complaints as well, Nadery has prepared a response.

He acknowledges that calculating the populations of the districts was one of the greatest challenges of the Loya Jirga, because the civil wars of the past 23 years have obviated any official statistics. The Commission used an average of the 1998, 1999, and 2000 United Nations and World Food Program statistics on Afghanistan to determine the population of the districts. More generally, Commission officials say they needed several months to determine the process of elections and follow through with two phases of representative elections, district-wide and provincial.

Whatever misgivings Afghans may have about this Loya Jirga's size and structure, authorities seem intent on using it as a blueprint. According to some projections, the Constitutional Loya Jirga that is supposed to take place in late 2003 will have to accommodate at least 3,000 representatives.

By then, Afghanistan's progress toward stability will be a clearer matter than it is now. Also by then, it may be an easier proposition to accommodate such a large number of delegates in Kabul. Right now, the Commission is scrambling to get delegates to their seats. Once the delegates arrive, it is unclear how long--or how cheerfully--they will stay.

(Halima Kazem is a former documentary producer for MSNBC and has written for the San Francisco Chronicle, among other publications. She prepared this report for EurasiaNet (www.eurasianet.org) and it is reprinted with permission.)

III. Letters and Comments

CRUSADER CONTRACTOR STILL BENEFITS

In reading that 41's Carlyle Group still stands to profit handsomely from the cancellation of the Crusader weapons' system (online at http://www.fpif.org/commentary/2002/0205crusader.html), that old feeling of resignation returns. I had begun to think the voters had allowed our government to run on auto-pilot for too long and, in the absence of an ombudsman, officials had run amuck. Thank you for your efforts to present the facts.

- Barbra Stickler <barbra@nwlink.com>

SECURITY ASSISTANCE AFTER SEPTEMBER 11

Thank you for publishing a great article with a healthy attitude (online at http://www.fpif.org/briefs/vol7/v7n04post911.html), not seen very often these days. I hope that many people read and understand the dangers that you point out. Also, I totally agree that economic and humanitarian aid is the best way to prevent terrorism. The Bush administration has to be very careful not to make things worse with their embrace of oppressive regimes. Thank you again.

- Jens Heiberg <jens.heiberg@jbv.no>

SELF-DETERMINATION ISSUES IN KASHMIR

Very thorough and helpful (online at http://www.selfdetermine.org/conflicts/kashmir.html). I'm not clear on why the U.S. doesn't allow Kashmir to have a plebiscite sponsored by the UN. A plebiscite seems fairer, more humane, and much less costly and dangerous than a nuclear war! It's another example of the failure of the U.S. to move toward democratic international law.

- Fr. Benjamin J. Urmston, S.J. <urmston@xu.edu>

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