CYPRUS MAIL Thursday, September 13, 2012
11
Opinion
In search of a purpose No single party or government can be trusted to administer hydrocarbons IT WAS inevitable there would be serious disagreement over the government’s plan to set up a state-owned company, subject to company law, to administer the exploitation of natural gas resources. The government has already drafted the articles of association of the company, which would be in charge of exploration licensing, liquefaction and transport of natural gas among other things, but deputies have expressed strong objections. Under the current legal framework, the hydrocarbons company would be under the absolute control of the government of the day with the legislature having no authority over it as it would be subject to company law. Commerce minister Neoclis Sylikiotis explained that the only alternative was to make the company a public law entity – a semi-governmental organisation like Cyta – but the government had decided against it. It was the correct move as semi-governmental organisations are cumbersome, inflexible entities that have to follow protracted decision-making procedures which often require the approval of the legislature. Their status also makes them the target of incessant political intervention with the result that decisions are based on political rather than business criteria. In short, a public law entity would not serve the interest of society. Why did all opposition politicians express strong objections to this plan? It all boils down to control. Opposition politicians fear that AKEL would take complete control of the company and thus monopolise the administration of hydrocarbons for many years to come. It would appoint the directors, two of whom would have executive powers and hire all the employees of the company. The next government would be stuck with the AKEL-appointed directors for several years and with the company’s top management indefinitely. Knowing how things work in Cyprus this is a perfectly justified fear. Then there is the AKEL practice of appointing people known for their loyalty and obedience to the party rather than their abilities and we are facing a recipe for disaster. Could the administration of our hydrocarbon resources – the country’s big hope for a better future – be left to one party or the government of day, irrespective of who is in charge, without anyone having the right to monitor or exercise some form of control over its decisions? Some form of control must be exercised by the legislature, which is why the initiative, to prepare a legal framework under which a state-owned company would operate, by DISY deputy leader Averof Neophytou was the right move. Unfortunately no party or president could be trusted to run the hydrocarbons company on their own, being accountable to nobody. There must be controls and checks in place.
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Comnent Jaswant Singh
N
OWADAYS, the NonAligned Movement (NAM) is no longer much of a movement. Since the Cold War’s end, it has fractured into a far more heterodox grouping whose members range from leftist regimes, as in Cuba, North Korea, and Venezuela, to the conservative monarchies (Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, Qatar) of the Persian Gulf. So it should be no surprise that ideological cacophony has severely diluted the group’s founding impulse of avoiding entanglement in the disputes of the world’s superpowers. Thus, today’s NAM finds itself as a group in search of purpose and principle. Its sole comfort, it seems, is that it has not yet withered away. But, despite its diminished status, the recent NAM summit in Tehran was able to claim the world’s attention. Why hold the summit in Tehran, some members asked? This, however, only raised heckles from those who still see the group as a means to stare down the superpowers. Their retort – “Why not in Tehran?” – angered more than it soothed. The dispute over the wisdom of holding the summit in Iran’s capital revived the core debate about what “non-aligned” means in the post-Cold War world. Why keep such an anachronistic construct alive when the world is no longer frozen into two ideologically antagonistic blocs? Furthermore, given the proliferation of strategic partnerships that claim many NAM members (India, for example, has strategic partnerships with the United States, Japan, and Brazil), are the non-aligned really still non-aligned? To this, the movement’s defenders ask: “Why persist with NATO and expand it ever eastward, until its troops now sit almost on the banks of the Indus, and in the foothills of the Hindu Kush?” The Cold War has ended, they argue, but that only means that the world is divided in many more ways than before. So maintaining NAM is not some nostalgic longing for an influential past; rather, it is a means for countries to maintain as much international influence as possible in our globalised world. But how can NAM help its members when nothing else unites them? According to
The Non-Aligned Movement members range from Cuba, to Saudi Arabia Kanwal Sibal, a former head of India’s foreign service, “India’s own experience of NAM in areas of its core national interest has been most unsatisfactory, which is enough reason to shed any undue sentimental or ideological attachment to the movement.” Indeed, as Sibal points out, NAM did not protect India from decades of “US/Western technology-related sanctions,” even when it was the movement’s leader. Likewise, “in the 1962 conflict with China, NAM did not back India’s position.” The same is true, Sibal continues, of Kashmir and India’s nuclear tests. As a result, India, he argues, owes NAM’s other members nothing, and should act only according to what is “best for its own interests.” And yet India, like so many other countries, maintains its NAM membership, because NAM does provide an additional platform, which India needs and treats as one tool among others in its diplomatic toolkit. Occasionally, NAM provides a useful counterweight to Western pressure – say, regarding Iran, with which India remains eager to build trade and energy relationships. So, to be blunt, NAM survives because of America’s recent global domination and its efforts to impose its policies globally. And, with a rising China
ON THIS DAY SEPTEMBER 13
seeking to do much the same in its immediate neighbourhood (and perhaps farther afield in the future), the movement has a second reason for surviving as a check on the super-powerful. In a recent article, Ashley Tellis of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace bemoans that, “India’s foreign-policy establishment is in the process of disinterring a long-dead grand strategy from its Cold War grave.” He cites a recent report, “Nonalignment 2.0,” that promotes non-alignment – a “doctrine that calls upon India to refuse staunchly any strategic alliances with other actors” – in order to ensure the country’s “strategic autonomy.” At first glance, nonalignment looks like an attractive option for still-emerging countries like India, Indonesia, Brazil, and others, because it promises freedom from the insidious grip of entangling alliances. But, more important, it holds out the prospect that a people can chart its own path, free from external pressure – a particularly attractive proposition for countries that remain scarred by their colonial pasts. But how can these impulses be reconciled with the strategic partnerships that India, Brazil, and others are currently forming, or with those – like the USSaudi relationship – that have
lasted for decades? The answer is simple: International order does not adhere to a logically consistent code. In the harsh light of realpolitik, only power and influence matter. If NAM enhances a country’s power and influence, it will maintain its membership. Of course, the bothersome aspect of NAM’s Tehran summit is that Iran will head the movement for the next three years. But that could well divide NAM even further: Egyptian President Mohamed Morsi, invited to sit next to Iran’s leadership, used the occasion to denounce publicly his hosts’ policy in Syria. India’s participation in the Tehran summit should not strain its ties with the US. Just because the US continues to pursue its sterile policy of not speaking with Iran, India – with its own strategic, geopolitical, and energy-related interests to protect – does not need to tag along. Neither strategic partnership with the US, nor membership in NAM, will divert India from safeguarding those interests. Jaswant Singh, a former Indian finance minister, foreign minister, and defence minister, is the author of Jinnah: India – Partition – Independence. © Project Syndicate 2012
WHAT THE MAIL SAID
1971
25 years ago Sunday September 13, 1987
People’s Republic of China: Chairman Mao Zedong’s second in command and successor Marshal Lin Biao flees the country via plane after the failure of alleged coup against Mao. The plane crashes in Mongolia, killing all aboard.
UN Secretary-general Javier Perez de Cuellar opened talks with Iran yesterday on a Gulf War ceasefire as Iraq reported Iranian artillery pounded its border towns and cities. Baghdad said 36 civilians were killed and 158 wounded by Iranian gunners shelling Iraqi population centres along the Iran-Iraq border.
1980 The bear who went missing on a Scottish island while being filmed for a television commercial is recaptured.
1987 Goiania accident: A radioactive object is stolen from an abandoned hospital in Goiania, Brazil, contaminating many people in the following weeks and causing some to die from radiation poisoning.
1993 Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin shakes hands with PLO chairman Yasser Arafat at the White House after signing an accord granting limited Palestinian autonomy.
2005 A glitch in the MMORPG World of Warcraft results in a plague affecting thousands of players.
35 years ago Tuesday September 13, 1977 Turkish Cypriot leader Rauf Denktash yesterday referred again to his threat for a separate Turkish Cypriot state, when he spoke during the inauguration of the new terminal buildings at Ercan airfield, formerly Tymbou. Denktash had said that the Turkish Cypriots would wait for a decision in the light of developments after the Presidential election in February.
45 years ago Wednesday September 13, 1967 Turkish Premier Suleyman Demirel insisted today that Turkey could not accept enosis as a solution to the Cyprus problem. Greece’s only suggestion for peace on the troubled island was enosis. Demirel told a press conference, that that was why the summit meeting between Turkey and Greece last week failed to reach any real agreement.