Asia & the Pacific
As the opening pages of the 2008 World at War suggest, this first entry should read “Afghanistan/Pakistan,” for there is no hiding the fact that there will be peace or war in both, but not war in one and peace in the other. Nor is there likely to be a viable democracy in Afghanistan until there is real democracy in Pakistan.
As to this latter point, against the backdrop of the Bhutto assassination, whether even a nominal civilian administration can emerge under a government headed by a just-retired general remains unclear. Bhutto’s Pakistan People’s Party and another party headed by former prime minister Nawaz Sharif (overthrown by Musharraf in 1999) have announced they will participate in any rescheduled elections for parliament. Yet considering that Musharraf boldly stacked the Pakistan Supreme Court to win “confirmation” of his “election” to the presidency, even without direct control of the army he remains the dominant figure in Pakistan at least until a rescheduled ballot takes place – and thereafter if the election meets what passes for the “free and fair” standards of Pakistani politics.
Regardless of the results of any new election, Pakistan still confronts the historically ungovernable tribes that inhabit the Northwest Frontier areas used as a base for operations against NATO and Afghan security forces by al-Qaeda and Taliban adherents.
Musharraf and Afghanistan’s President Karzai accuse each other of insufficient efforts to control border areas and curb the seemingly unchecked movement of fighters and weapons. Undoubtedly, there is truth on both fronts: Musharraf has been distracted by electoral matters, whereas Karzai finds his administration underfunded and underresourced by the international community despite six years of promises. At a mid-December meeting of NATO defense ministers in Oslo, Norway, U.S. Secretary of Defense Robert Gates pressed his European counterparts for more combat troops, fewer operational restraints, and monetary help. One can only speculate as to the real reaction of the other ministers to Gates’ demand – especially when the Chairman of the U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff, Adm. Mike Mullen, had just told the House Armed Services Committee on Dec. 10 that Iraq, not Afghanistan, was the Bush administration’s top priority. NATO countries had stepped up their presence in Afghanistan in 2007, both for combat and reconstruction work, but security gaps continued (e.g., Taliban forces had captured large areas of southern Afghanistan (Helmand province) early in 2007, but could not be dislodged from their gains until December, when a combined Afghan-NATO force recaptured Musa Qala, the last urban stronghold seized in February by Taliban fighters.
Gates and his fellow ministers may run out of time to stabilize Afghan democracy for other reasons: growing numbers of fatalities among the Afghan population because of increased use of U.S. airpower as a substitute for ground forces, and record numbers of coalition force deaths. The UK-based charity OXFAM estimates that at least half of the 1,200 Afghan civilians killed died at the hands of security forces. (Newswire service estimates place total deaths from the violence at 6,300.) Adding to the anger created by these tactical errors is the almost blanket assertion by U.S. or NATO spokespersons that all those killed by coalition actions were Taliban or al-Qaeda.
As 2007 ended, conflicting estimates of NATO success appeared, with one U.S. general asserting that insurgent attacks along the Afghan-Pakistan border were down 40 percent since July. That would mirror Iraq, as would the pattern of battlefield losses for all of 2007, where most of the record number of fatalities – 112 from the United States and 116 from other coalition countries – were concentrated in the middle of the year.
Relying solely on warfare will only prolong the stalemate. All the actors – deposed war lords, Taliban and non-Taliban Pashtun politicians, Hamid Karzai, even Mullah Omar – must work out compromises to end the fighting and turn the energies of the people to rebuilding and reintegrating the levers of governance. So far 745 coalition troops assigned to Operation Enduring Freedom have died in just over six years (Oct. 8, 2001-Dec. 31, 2007). And the trend of the last three years has been increasing deaths with each year – not a joyous prospect.
In Iraq, as in Afghanistan, numbers tell the story. On March 19, 2003, 48 countries had joined the U.S.-led coalition, with 38 of them contributing troops. There remain only 25 in the coalition and only 20 non-U.S. troop contributors. Australia, Poland, and the UK will pull their remaining forces out of Iraq before the end of 2008 – and others may follow suit. South Korea, which had indicated it would remove all its forces by mid-2008, will now retain a small contingent throughout the year.
American fatalities fell sharply in the last quarter of 2007. In fact, the 23 U.S. deaths recorded in Iraq in December is the second lowest total since the March 19th, 2003 start of the Iraq War. (February 2004 recorded only 20 U.S. deaths in Iraq.) As a result, the interval during which U.S. fatalities had been increasing by 500 will finally stop falling. That interval had slid to just over 5 months when the 3,500th U.S. fatality occurred on June 5, 2007. In the subsequent almost six months ending December 31, 2007, U.S. fatalities stood at 3,902 – still too many for a war that need never have occurred.
The promising moves that could have ended the constitutional crisis that overtook Nepal in 2006 never reached fulfillment in 2007. The “legal” parties in the old constitutional monarchy did form an interim government that excluded the monarchy but included the Maoist Communists who had been waging a bloody civil war since the mid 1990s. But negotiations and governance proved prickly, so much so that by December, the Maoists were threatening to withdraw completely from the government. A new compromise was reached on Dec. 9, in which the major political powers agreed to reshuffle the cabinet and move more forcefully on integrating Maoist fighters into the former Royal Nepalese army. The Maoists dropped their demand that the monarchy be abolished outright and agreed that the royalty’s fate would be decided as part of the general elections scheduled for April 2008. Sensing disarray, the Maoists then renewed their demand for a commitment by the “legal” parties to end the monarchy without a referendum – and won the concession.
On the subcontinent, January 2007 saw a major government push against India’s rebel United Liberation Front of Assam (ULFA) after the latter killed 61 migrant workers. Possibly as a consequence, in March the ULFA called for restarting the 2005-2006 negotiations that had ended after three meetings. But there is a new force at work – the populist “Peoples Committee for Peace in Assam” that is demanding the right for indigenous peoples in all of India’s Northeast to work out their own road to peace throughout the area. Both the ULFA and the government endorsed the initiative, but violence did not end. A sustained effort on this front could get representatives from all insurgent groups in the Northeast area – Manipur, Andhra Pradesh, Assam, Nagaland – into a single forum for discussions. In terms of the ULFA and New Delhi, in November 64 ULFA fighters formally surrendered to the army.
In the Indian Ocean, the heavy fighting in Sri Lanka that resumed in late summer and autumn of 2006 continued into 2007. In January 2007, government troops captured the Tamil Tiger’s last stronghold in the east, Vakaria, creating another wave of internally displaced Tamils fleeing the battle area. Two months later, the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE), the main anti-government faction, launched its first ever air attack, flying two small planes that attacked the government airbase at Bandaranaike International airport. Some munitions were dropped, but the attack was more symbolic and damaging to the government’s pride than substantive. By July, the LTTE had been effectively routed, restoring Colombo’s control over the eastern part of the island and pinning the LTTE into its traditional ethnic enclave in the north. Light fighting punctuated by suicide bombings by LTTE adherents continues through the autumn of 2007. Ironically, the 2002 cease-fire formally remains in effect, with neither side willing to abrogate it – possibly because that would signal the end of the now-dormant Scandinavian-led Sri Lankan Monitoring Mission.
Still in Asia, the Philippines government continues to launch occasional operations against remnants of the al-Qaeda-affiliated Abu Sayyaf group and the New Peoples Army (Communist). The latter rejected a three week Christmas truce proposed by the government. As for the peace talks between the government and the Moro Islamic Liberation Front, until mid-December, it appeared that an accord would be ready for signing in January, ending 30 years of warfare. After that long, another month or two will seem of little consequence.
