From Washington to Davos

In Pakistan, Kashmir Day will be observed this Sunday with the usual zeal, force and frenzy. On the other side of the world, Washington, DC to be exact, the plight of Kashmiris matters not a whit to the lawmakers or the American government.

Daughter of Indian immigrants, Nimrata “Nikki” Haley is Trump Administration’s new ambassador to the United Nations. She is 45 years old. At her first press conference at the UN headquarters in New York, Nikki made two things very clear: “For those [US allies] that don’t have our back, we’re taking names — we will make points to respond to that accordingly.” Her second warning is more ominous: “And this administration is prepared and ready to go in — to have me go in, look at the UN, and everything that’s working, we’re going to make it better; everything that’s not working, we’re going to try and fix; and anything that seems to be obsolete and not necessary, we’re going to do away with,” Haley said.

What does Nikki Haley mean by “obsolete and not necessary?” Does the 1948 UN Resolution allowing a plebiscite in Indian-held Kashmir to give the right of self-determination to the Kashmiris come under this category? This resolution still sits on the official site of the UN Security Council. Yes, the 69-year-old resolution has been around gathering dust long before Nikki Haley was born. The ball, as they say, is now in Donald Trump’s court who during his ‘famous’ tele-con with Nawaz Sharif was “ready and willing to play any role” that Nawaz Sharif wanted him to play to “address and find solutions to the outstanding problems.” Trump’s words deserve immortality for Pakistan to carve them in stone and take him up on his promise. But that is not likely to happen. Here’s why.

Did anyone ask Haley about the two nuclear-armed neighbours in South Asia ready to go to war during her day-long confirmation hearing on Capitol Hill by the US Senate Foreign Relations Committee? I sat through the full hearing session. I didn’t hear any senator — 11 Republicans and 10 Democrats — put this question to her considering its significance to world peace. Lest we forget, Haley’s Indian origin, made all the more visible by her eagle-eyed father with a fierce stare sporting a red turban and her gentle mother sitting right behind their daughter during the course of the day. The lengthy hearing, mostly spiritless and unexciting, was instead Israel-centric.

Perhaps Maleeha Lodhi, Pakistan’s Permanent Representative to the UN since 2014, was unable to brief Pakistan-friendly senators on Kashmir. Considering that she has served two terms as Pakistan’s ambassador to Washington under Benazir Bhutto and later General Musharraf, Lodhi must be on familiar terms with these senators, if not too clubby. Surely her contacts built over the last 23 years could have come handy. Equal blame goes to our ambassador and his top staff in Washington. They make poor lobbyists for the Kashmir cause. They could have pitched Kashmir to some senators who spent a full day putting questions to Nikki Haley. Surprisingly, Indo-Pak rocky relations with a focus on Kashmir never received the attention that it deserved at the hearing.

Air Commodore (R) S Sajad Haider, Sitara-e-Jurat and author of the best-seller Flight of the Falcon: Demolishing Myths of Indo Pak Wars 1965-1971 tells me that the right of Kashmiris has never been even a half serious priority in the ruling elite’s matrix. “The swath of land of Kashmir has been their cardinal wont. The rest is a labyrinth of confusion created by half- educated ruling elite and the raison de’tre of our Foreign Office and diplomats, aimed at deceiving the nation and the Kashmiris, through hollow slogans, bland speeches and use of religious brigands to up the characteristic frenzy and stir up rage on Kashmir Day.” The 1965 war hero is hypercritical of past and present “self-serving diplomats and the mandarins at the Foreign Office, who like the sophists, are glib talkers but are no Kissinger or Albright.”

On to Davos. Doddering already, Pakistan’s image came down a few notches when its most prominent spokesman Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif was ignored at the recent World Economic Forum (WEF) in Davos, Switzerland. He was reportedly not invited to speak at the formal four-day meeting due to the Panama leaks scandal that spells big trouble for him. Instead, the man to steal Nawaz Sharif’s thunder was the former army chief General (r )Raheel Sharif. I have a first person account from Ikram Sehgal, a defence analyst and an ex-Army officer. He is a Foundation member of WEF. The former army chief who spoke at three formal sessions during the annual WEF meeting, “presented Pakistan’s case forcefully,” says Ikram Sehgal. “Help to project a positive image of our country.” Gutting anti-Pakistan and anti-Army propaganda, mischievously prevalent at home and abroad, Raheel Sharif presented an authentic and convincing narrative, asserts Sehgal.

Nawaz Sharif was invited by Sehgal to speak at another sideline event. The invitation was declined. However, Nawaz Sharif’s IT minister of state, Anusha Rahman, invited herself as a speaker to a dinner co-hosted by Sehgal. The lady came, spoke, gathered her handbag, abruptly stood up in a huff, and left just when General Raheel Sharif started to speak. Rahman’s graceless conduct was unbecoming of a minister. “Worse, she started propagating to the official Pakistan delegation in the Congress Centre that the event was only meant to project the Pakistan Army and not Nawaz Sharif’s government,” says Sehgal, adding “this is not true.” An editorial dated January 19 in this newspaper, while supporting Raheel Sharif’s “robust” defence of Pakistan Army at Davos warned that there be “no surrender of the fundamentals of mature statehood, and military imperatives are not the only paradigm in play.”

Published in The Express Tribune, February 3^rd, 2017.

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