Sep 14,1998
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NAM SUMMIT Fading Lustre Nelson Mandela's offer to mediate on the Kashmir issue gives India a reality check and shatters its vision of a grateful South Africa endorsing its views. By Jean-Lacques Cornish
An incensed Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee buttonholed Mandela at a banquet in honour of the visiting dignitaries to tell him that his remarks were "uncalled for and unacceptable". The next day, he formally told the summit that India would not accept any "third party involvement". But the damage was done. Actually, despite public claims to the contrary, the gloves have been off for a while. South Africa was one of the countries that attended a Group of Eight luncheon in London in July, expressly designed to build up support against India's nuclear test. At the conference, too, its position was clear from the time deliberations began involving, first, officials and ambassadors, then foreign ministers. India had been buoyed by South Block's rosy prediction that the only problem would be Pakistan's neurotic and predictable fulmination on Kashmir. But what took them aback was the angry response of African and Latin American delegates during the deliberations. There was a strong belief that India was seeking to gain recognition as a nuclear power in order to strengthen its claim for a permanent seat on the UN Security Council. But this was a futile hope. To ensure that Delhi got the message, South Africa invited the US and several western countries to the summit as observers. Their behind-the-scene impact was evident in the deliberations on the nuclear issue. Ambassador Princeton Lyman, the US assistant secretary of state for international organisation affairs, made it clear "it is not timely for India to come onto the council as a permanent member in this way". The Indian detonations had seriously complicated efforts to reform the Security Council, said Lyman, who was lobbying NAM members about the importance of maintaining the NPT regime. Not surprisingly, the entire pro-West camp, which included South Africa, simply refused to consider Delhi's views with any degree of seriousness. It was not as though the Indian side did not fight. Vajpayee devoted more than a third of his intervention during the plenary meeting to explain India's position on the nuclear issue. In a sharp intervention, he pointed out that the commitment undertaken by the nuclear weapons states to work for general and complete disarmament has been disregarded completely. In a pointed reference to the Chinese aid to Pakistan, he noted, "Even the undertaking to prevent the transfer of nuclear materials and technology has not been adhered to." However, the prime minister underscored India's principal policy of seeking the abolition of nuclear weapons. "Today, I urge nuclear weapons states ... to join us in the Non-Aligned Movement in negotiating a nuclear-weapons convention" to eliminate nuclear weapons. In the meantime, Indian officials conducted a tough battle to rally the NAM against South Africa's pro-West position. Throughout the negotiations, it was clear that the US was playing a key role and that it had Chile in a back-up role with a tougher resolution if the South African draft failed. But in the end, India succeeded in ensuring that the final document was fairly innocuous. The 127-page document did not mention either India or Pakistan by NAMe in view of "the commitment by the parties concerned in the region to exercise restraint". Echoing Vajpayee's call for retaining disarmament high in the NAM's agenda, the declaration called for a conference next year to shape "an agreement ... for the complete elimination of nuclear weapons". In a reversal of Mandela's position, without mentioning any country by NAMe, it stressed the need for bilateral dialogue for a peaceful resolution of disputes. Delhi's discomfiture at a conference which it once bestrode like a colossus is likely to have repercussions in the future. But in the immediate aftermath of the Kashmir remarks, the South Africans, taken aback by Delhi's touchy response, sought to do some fire-fighting. Deputy President Thabo Mbeki met Vajpayee to assure him that the South Africans had no desire to get involved in Kashmir. Mandela for his part told the Indian leader that the reference to Kashmir was not to be seen in "isolation". Indian officials put a spin on these efforts with the prime minister's Principal Secretary Brajesh Mishra declaring that with this "apology", the "chapter was now closed". But if the NAM summit turned out to be a bit tough for South Block and the Government to chew, there is a sense of satisfaction over the signs of forward movement in the vexed ties between India and Pakistan. The foreign secretaries of the two countries had several meetings and Mishra declared "an understanding had been reached". But since he did not disclose the details, observers are cautious about terming this the breakthrough that the officials claim it is. Officials, however, say that the next series of steps will only take place after Prime Minister Vajpayee meets Nawaz Sharif in New York later this month when they attend the annual session of the UN General Assembly. Both countries have indicated that they are willing to sign the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty and are also negotiating with the US for the lifting of sanctions, an issue that is likely to peak then since the two leaders are expected to meet President Bill Clinton. The country that appeared most satisfied by the turn of events is Pakistan. Its task, admittedly, was simpler. On the nuclear front, it could allow Delhi to do the hard work, even while lighting the Kashmir fire under the Indian delegation. "The unresolved problem of Kashmir," its new Foreign Minister Sartaj Aziz declared, "is a major cause of tension and instability and has led to new dangers in the south Asian region." The NAM meeting is a harbinger of sorts of the kind of message India will be getting at the UN session later this month. Hopefully, India will by then have snapped out of its self-defeating smugness to come up a winner. |
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It was a lesson waiting to be learnt. National
interest, not sentiment, determines relations between countries. South Block's visions of
a grateful, apartheid-free South Africa endorsing India's position on Kashmir and nuclear
testing during the 12th summit of the Non-Aligned Movement (NAM) turned into a nightmare
last week. Brushing aside such woolly-headed views, NAM host South Africa stuck to its
basic pro-West orientation and demanded that India should refrain from weaponising and
desist from testing a delivery system. Host chairman President Nelson Mandela gave Delhi a
reality-check, reminding it that "all of us remain concerned" over the issue of
Kashmir and offering to mediate. 
