A pipeline as a peace-making project? Sadly, this may be true for Tehran and Islamabad or Tehran and New Delhi, but in case of the two archrivals India and Pakistan, it is a hope that is void and null, explains Imran Khan (from Pakistan).
By Imran Khan
Edited and published by Thinking-East.Net
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Date published: 27/03/05
Section: Themes / Middle East
1,075 words
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Piping peace
Since the death of the British Empire, India and Pakistan have been
locked in a cold war. New Delhi is bent on correcting the mistakes of
the past by undoing the 1947 partition of the imperial united India.
Islamabad, to the contrary, strives to maintain its independence. India
has partially succeeded in this cat and mouse game. The break up India
needed to weaken its opponent occurred in 1971, when the Pakistan
disintegrated into two sovereign entities.
Amidst all the tensions, confidence-building and peace-making has
nonetheless remained vibrant. Newer and newer versions of diplomacy
have been employed from the political jargon, such as "track-II
diplomacy," "cricket diplomacy," "bus diplomacy" and now the "pipeline
diplomacy." Yet, each faded into the mist of history. Why? Because, the
archrivals have always approached peace from fundamentally different,
rather than diverging, perspectives: their national interests. Both of
them, in the name of peace, have pursued their respective national
interests.
However today, for the first time in the modern history of the
subcontinent, the national interests of Indian and Pakistan coincide in
the construction of a gas pipeline from Iran's Pars fields via Pakistan
to India, the length of which shall be 2,775-kilometer, costing
US$4-4.5-billion over five years.
This is not a coincidence. The two nations fear energy outages in
future. Energy demands are expected to skyrocket by 2010, domestic
supply will give up, and energy security will enter a critical stage.
The pipeline promises four times in quantity cheaper, clean-burning
natural gas. The expected daily payload of the pipeline is 75 million
cubic meters, a figure which promises stable and sufficient energy
supplies. Furthermore, US$ 70-80 million in transit-rents and a third
(20 per cent of the daily payload) of the gas siphoned into the
pipeline shall go to Pakistan; the rest will be transmitted to India.
The liberal Prime Minister of Pakistan, Shaukat Aziz, has envisioned
the pipeline as a "pipeline for peace." Based on "a win-win
proposition," the project could serve as "a durable confidence-building
measure," restoring amity and peace to the war-torn region. The
pipeline would provide a projection point for the stake-holding
economies, and would create and sustain "strong economic links and
business partnerships."
Pipe dreams?
Notwithstanding, the deep sea of mistrust between India and
Pakistan, the pipeline has been optimistically called a peace-making
project, a real hope for the long-term, durable interdependence of the
subcontinent, by creating and sustaining confidence and restoring
long-lasting peace to the two nations. Sadly, this may be true for
Tehran and Islamabad or Tehran and New Delhi, but in case of the two
archrivals, it is a hope that is void and null.
Pipelines create and maintain "captive markets." Furthermore,
transport infrastructures have been endorsed and employed as
geo-strategic tools to reward and punish the end-state, for the
pipeline grants the transit-state strategic influence over its partner.
The truth is that New Delhi will never place her strategic assets
willfully into Pakistan's geostrategic basket. Pipeline security
(New Delhi's greater concern), thus, is a crucial question mark on the
feasibility of the pipeline.
New Delhi wants an undisrupted inflow of gas to feed its burgeoning
economic growth. Obstruction of supply, however, is an unavoidable
event that can and will occur, either accidentally (i.e., physical
damage to the pipeline itself) or tactically (i.e., the valves are shut
by the transit-state). Therefore, the pipeline would only blur
confidence, not calm down the deep-rooted antagonism.
Baluchistan, the southern province of Pakistan, is a wildcard,
thereupon. Of the total pipeline-length, 475-miles of it shall run
across Baluchistan. The region is dotted by pockets of ill-fated,
poverty stricken Baluch tribes. Political turbulence is frequent and
widespread, rendering Baluchistan a turbulent zone. Riding nationalist
sentiments, sardars [tribal chiefs] sabotage gas pipelines and grid
stations to garner political clout and ascendancy.
For example, in January 2005 alone about 1,330 incidents of rocket and
grenade occurred with the state-owned Sui gas field and related
purification plants and transportation lines the target (the Sui field
accounts for 25 percent of the country's current gas output). 748
rocket fires and bomb blasts in all of 2004-a statistic indicating the
rapidly rising local awareness of the potential strategic benefits
reaped by such activities.
Persistent instability in the region is nagging the materialization of
the pipeline planners' dream. If ever realized, the truth is a pipeline
rupture is inevitable.
Doubt aside, the pipeline would integrate the two economies, which
is why it is so important a project to complete. However,
political instability, tribalism, war-mongering and militancy hinder
the pipeline's laying, making the promise of stability and amity too
insufficient to prevent the pipeline from receding into the dustbin of
history. The failure of trans-Afghan gas pipeline rectifies this fact:
that project could not be completed because of Afghanistan's
instability. Pipelines are, thus, built in peace rather than for peace.
To avoid the pipeline becoming a pipe dream, peace must be
accomplished-both domestically and regionally.
Priorities
Domestically, with Baluchistan of particular importance, national
cohesion should remain at the top of the priority list. The
national constitution must remain the only arbiter in intra-national
disputes.
President-General Pervez Musharaf and his political alliance desire to
build a cantonment at Sui-at best a half solution, most likely not a
solution at all. The only feasible remedy to the Islamic Republic's
woes, and the troubles facing the subcontinent, is the socio-political
evolution of Pakistan. The government should pursue a course of
"enlightened moderation" and integration. Military installations,
true, would deter saboteurs; yet, holes in the fence remain, for
military installations at Sui would not only antagonize the people, it
will give the sardars over to militarism. The government should promote
a healthy living standard for all the nation, and seek to further the
process of emancipating the poor from the country's rapid modern
feudalism. Regionally, reconciliation should substitute competition,
pacifism should replace war-mongering, and accommodation should
alternate brinkmanship.
Unfortunately, peace is an irony in South Asia and peacemaking a
misnomer. Wars have been forged and waged in the name of peace;
enflamed tensions have been fanned under the rubric of dispute
settlement; much agonizingly, weapons of massdestruction (WMD) have
been piled up in the wake of peace-making.
Nevertheless, the pipeline can be an effective cog in the peacemaking
process, if and only if peace is pursued in wholesome rather in
piecemeal. Otherwise, it will fall prey, as peace has been, to Indo-Pak
antagonism and, hostage, as the Sui system, to Pakistan's internal
instability.
Imran Khan
is a M. Phil Research Scholar, Area Study Center (Russia, China &
Central Asia), University of Peshawar, Pakistan, doing research on
'Trans-Afghan Oil and Gas Pipeline: Prospects and Impacts'
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