In a desperate bid to stay in power, General Pervez Musharraf has staged a coup against the rule of law in Pakistan. His declaration of martial law, suspension of the constitution and basic rights was aimed at overthrowing Pakistan’s Supreme Court, which was expected to rule next week that Musharraf could not continue as both president and chief of the army.
Since 2004, the Indian and Pakistani governments have pursued a peace process centered on the disputed province of Kashmir. Among the key issues discussed has been that of the Siachen Glacier, the world’s highest battleground, located in the Kashmir region. While there has been a ceasefire in effect on the glacier since November 2003, thousands of soldiers still confront each other across the icy terrain. At present, the Indian Army occupies the dominant positions on the Saltoro Ridge, on the western edge of the glacier, while the Pakistani army is stationed at lower positions. Most of the several thousand casualties on the glacier, where temperatures drop beneath 50 degrees below zero Celsius in the winter, have been weather-related rather than through physical violence.
From the U.S. foreign policy perspective, settlement of the Siachen dispute would be a significant step in defusing tensions between two crucial allies. Islamabad has been an important partner of Washington, especially since 9/11, while the U.S. and India have embarked on a strategic partnership, most notably by signing a nuclear cooperation agreement.
Neville Chamberlain famously excused the abandonment of Czechoslovakia at Munich by calling the victim “a faraway country of which we know little.” His infamy is not totally deserved. Britain had no treaty ties to Prague, nor did it have the military capacity to take on Germany at the time, and Chamberlain on his return immediately kick-started British rearmament.
For years, dealing with Pyongyang has been the most difficult diplomatic endeavor for Beijing. This was the case even before the outbreak of the Korea War when Kim Il Sung, father of the current North Korean leader Kim Jong Il, worked out a war plan with Soviet leader Stalin and then sold it to Mao. The day after the North attacked the South, President Truman ordered the 7th Fleet back to the Taiwan Strait and hence the Mainland lost Taiwan. During the three-year conflict, China bore the brunt of the fighting and suffered hundreds of thousands of casualties. The post-war North Korean official propaganda, however, scarcely acknowledged China’s role. Last October, the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK) tested its nuclear device despite China’s warning and efforts to resolve the nuclear issue peacefully. Now, after years of China’s hard work to host many rounds of six-party talks, a North-South summit early this month in Pyongyang went as far as to suggest that China may not be a party “directly concerned” with a “permanent peace regime” on the peninsula.
Following the pro-democracy demonstrations led by Buddhist monks and the violent crackdowns in August and September by the Burmese junta (SPDC), Burma has made headlines in ways it has never before.
The Burmese tragedy that has unfolded over the past weeks has captured the attention of the international community as no other event in contemporary Burmese history. The availability through the Internet and then through the BBC and CNN of the images of the demonstrators, especially the monks, and the beatings by the government forces (in and out of uniform) have inflamed world opinion. And these images, due to the proliferation of satellite TV dishes throughout Yangon and other urban areas, have brought the tragedy to the attention of the Burmese people. Because the government treats information as power and thus is very secretive and operates in a self-imposed penumbra, information normally spreads by rumor in that country. Although there were rumors aplenty in these past weeks, there was verifiable evidence of the brutality of the suppression of the demonstrations.
Former Philippine president and four-star general Fidel Ramos knows a thing or two about regime change. He was the military architect of the peaceful people-power revolution in the Philippines that toppled dictator Ferdinand Marcos in a bloodless coup in 1986.
Last month, after 30 years of advocacy by Indigenous Peoples, the United Nations finally passed the Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples. This Declaration is more than a hard-won victory for Indigenous rights. It embodies a progressive global approach to issues that confront us all, including the environmental crisis that is poised to spiral into ecological collapse if we do not slow global warming.
When two young boys square off in the school playground, they will often appeal to higher powers. "My big brother can beat up your big brother!" they cry out as a scare tactic. Even if the two kids don’t come to blows, one will still try to impress the other by claiming that his elder brother is stronger, richer, or more successful.
The United States sells death, destruction, and terror as a fundamental instrument of its foreign policy. It sees arms sales as a way of making and keeping strategic friends and tying countries more directly to U.S. military planning and operations. At its simplest, as Lt. Gen. Jeffrey B. Kohler, director of the Defense Security Cooperation Agency, told The New York Times in 2006, the United States likes arms deals because “it gives us access and influence and builds friendships.” South Asia has been an important arena for this effort, and it teaches some lessons the United States should not ignore.