|
World Politics
Wanted a 'Toothless Saddam'?By Gamini Weerakoon
'Surreal' was the word being used by CNN commentators while bringing in the latest news on the Iraqi and Impeachment crises yesterday morning as we sat down to write these comments.On the TV screen we had Republican senators vowing to commence impeachment proceedings 'within 10 hours' against President Bill Clinton for statements made while he was defending his sexual dalliances in White House, while Democratic senators were getting heated up over the commencement of impeachment proceedings against the Commander- in-Chief of the armed forces while the United States was engaged in a military conflict with a foreign power. Whether President Clinton commenced 'Operation Desert Fox' to divert American public opinion and influence legislators from going ahead with the impeachment proceedings, as we make these comments, it appears that impeachment proceedings will commence within a few days.
The other question to be asked is whether the master of brinkmanship Iraqi President Saddam Hussein miscalculated this time the effect of the impeachment crisis on President Clinton as well as the assumption that the United States will be reluctant to open hostilities against Iraq Ð a country of Muslims Ð with only a few days to go before the commencement of holy month of Ramazan. President Hussein for the past nine years, since the defeat of Iraq in the Gulf War, has been successfully playing this game of brinkmanship with the United Nations. After agreeing to the United Nations Special Commission (UNSCOM) and International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) weapons inspectors to inspect sites in Iraq for weapons of mass destruction, which the UN Security Council wants destroyed, he has been periodically obstructing the work of UN inspectors to the point where they decide to depart. Then, with the United States and Britain threatening military action for non compliance of UN resolutions, he had watched the UN Secretary General rushing into Iraq to work out a compromise. Hours before US missiles are poised to attack Iraq and bombers in aircraft carriers are ready to take- off, he compromises. This cycle has been repeated many times and perhaps this time too his refusal to provide documents called by the UNSCOM weapons inspectors resulting in their departure, he may have presumed he could play the game again.
Another reason could be that. Saddam thought that President Clinton, pre-occupied with his impeachment, may not have wanted another crisis on his plate. Others however have argued that the recent bombing of Afghanistan and Sudan were motivated by drawing attention away from the Monika Lewinski Affair probed by Congress and thus Saddam Hussein miscalculated and presented another opportunity for the American president.
Mad Dog Butler
Iraq says that it has no weapons of mass destruction as alleged by western nations and this allegation is meant to prolong the UN sanctions applied in Iraq. But UN weapons inspectors have found and destroyed a vast quantity of Iraqi missiles, chemical and biological weapons.If the greater part of the Iraqi missiles have been destroyed by UN weapons inspectors, the question arises whether Saddam Hussein does pose a great danger to his neighbours as alleged. But the UNSCOM weapons inspectors headed by the controversial former Australian diplomat Richard Butler Ð Mad Dog Butler as the Iraqis call him Ð believe that all offensive weapons have not been destroyed.The question has been asked whether Butler is acting in collusion within the United States which has been denied by both Butler and American officials. Butler's aggressive approach however has displeased UN Secretary General Kofi Annan and it is said that he had been reprimanded both for his aggressive attitude as well as close ties with the US by Annan. Butler has said that if the only obstacle was him he was ready to resign. The more important question however is the future of UNSCOM. Is it dead as some commentators have claimed or will they have to be used again?
Sanctions
On Friday political commentators and analysts were asking themselves when and how this conflagration would need but they had no certain answers. For nine long years after the Gulf War the Iraqi civilians who had little to do with Saddam Hussein's misadventures have been undergoing immense suffering caused by sanctions. Will this phase of the conflict bring an end to it all?
Secretary of State Madeleine Albright in a briefing after the first attack outlining the objectives of' Operation Desert Fox' said that the immediate objective was to degrade Iraqi Leader Saddam Hussein's ability to develop and deploy weapons of mass destruction, thus reducing his ability to threaten neighbours while the medium term goal was to force Saddam Hussein to comply with the UN Security Council resolutions passed after the Gulf war for destruction of Iraq's weapons of mass destruction and a full accounting of its weapons programme. This implies that after the dust settles, UNSCOM will still be needed
Ramazan
What happens to Saddam Hussein who is at the font of all the evil? British commentators have pointed out that while the action taken in attacking Iraq the second time may be justified the objectives of the exercise are not clear. Questions are raised whether the attacks will continue into the month of Ramazan? Madeleine Albright at a press briefing had said that the question of continuing the bombing during Ramazan had not been discussed but' we are sensitive to the fact that Ramadan is about to be on us.'What effect will these attacks have on Saddam Hussein continuing to remain in power?
The objective of the attacks is to destroy military installations that helps keep Saddam in power, US officials have said. Yesterday, there were pictures of the destroyed Intelligence Headquarters of Baghdad, and the barracks of Hussein's crack Republican Guard barracks shown on CNN. But will this destroy the Iraqi leader?
Dissident Iraqi expatriates have pointed out that the bombings are likely to strengthen Saddam's stranglehold on the Iraqis. Former Secretary of State Henry Kissinger too has said that the objective of these attacks should be the removal of Saddam Hussein. Whether there is a hidden US-British agenda or not on Friday it appears the objective is not the removal of Hussein.
Internationally this week's attacks on Iraq has improved Saddam Hussein's standing. Unlike in 1990 when there was a coalition of countries lined up against Saddam - including the hardline countries like Syria Ð but this time there is only Britain and the US. China and Russia have been severe on their criticisms of the attacks on Iraq thus ruling out any backing by the Security Council. France too has not approved although their criticism has been less astrident. Third World countries that went along with the coalition of forces lined up against Saddam Hussein in 1990 have this time been forthright in their condemnation of the attacks. India, Pakistan and Now Sri Lanka have asked the attacks be called off and the UN to commence negotiations. It is likely that attempts will be made to condemn the United States and Britain for their unilateral actions in attacking a sovereign country unlike on the previous occasion that was approved by the UN.
What the next week holds is anybody's guess? Will the Americans and British bomb the hell out of Iraqi military installations to bring Saddam to his knees? Or will it be back to UNSCOM inspectors after the bombing and Saddam will continue to send them round and round in circles while the Iraqi public continue with their suffering?
During the last Gulf War a political analyst wrote that the western powers did not want Saddam Hussein removed. They only wanted a ' toothless Saddam' because his removal could result in Iraq cracking up into three or more parts- Southern Shiite Iraqis attemtping to break way and united with Iran while the Northern Kurds may want their own state and Iraq remaining in the centre. Such a crack-up could wreak havoc in the Middle East. Thus will the western powers want a a 'Toothless Saddam' or remove him? Some say that Saddam has quite a few teeth left and that is why he is still surviving.
Globalisation and South Asia: Retrospect and prospect
Presidential Address by Professor A. D. V. de S. Indraratna at the SLAAS 54th Annual Sessions
Globalisation and South Asia: Retrospect and ProspectIt is indeed my pleasant duty to deliver this Presidential Address at this 54th (Independence Golden Jubilee) Annual Sessions of the Sri Lanka Association for the Advancement of Science. It is on the theme Globalisation and South Asia: Retrospect and Prospect.
There are several reasons for my choosing this subject as this year's theme. One is the general belief that globalisation is an inevitable process which no country can avoid without getting marginalised. Two, globalisation with its prescriptive derivaties such as liberalisation, marketisation, privatisation and deregulation has been prescribed as a panacea for the economic ills of poor developing countries like ours.
Many developing countries have, in fact, accepted this prescription without any question. Our own country is one of them. Third reason for my choice of the present theme is that globalisation has become the economic buzz word of the 1990s; across the world it is the talk of the town. Brazilian President Fernando Henrique Cardoso considers it a kind of vogue term that is often used but meaning different things to different people.
There are positive as well as negative views of globalisation. One extreme positive view is that it is an unmixed blessing, with the potential of boosting productivity and living standards everywhere. A negative view is that it increases competition from labour abundant developing countries as of South Asia and this will destroy jobs and push down wages in rich developed countries. What then is this magic wand of globalisation? Is it something new or recent? How has the process of globalisation developed? Is it of equal benefit to all? What are its benefits to, and economic and social fallout on, developing countries such as of South Asia. I shall examine them very briefly in the limited time available to me. They will be discussed in detail and depth in the course of our seminar tomorow and the day after.
Meaning of Globalisation
Globalisation, I may define, as the process towards the integration of national economies into one global economy through the free movement between national frontiers of goods and services, factors of production such as capital, labour and technology, facilitated and accelerated by advances made in the field of information and communication. The Handbook on the Globalisation of the World Economy, edited by Amnon LevyLivermore of the University of Wollongong, Australia, to which I had the privilege of contributing a chapter spells out globalisation thus: ''The Globalisation of the world economy is a process whereby national boundaries of economic activity are removed in order to allow freer access to technology, markets of inputs and goods, and a wide range of human tastes and customs, thereby facilitating a higher degree of integration of the world economy. The process is stimulated and fuelled by the inclination of individuals and societies to explore a large set of possibilities in the pursuit of wellbeing and happiness. It is accelerated by improvements in communication and transportation, but decelerated by the reluctance of societies to adjust to changing circumstances and expanding horizons, as well as their aversion to added employment and income insecurity and to loss of cultural and national identity''Historical Background to Globalisation
This process of globalisation is not something new or recent. Though the term globalisation itself was not used, the globalisation process was set in motion as far back as 1776 when Adam Smith advocated free trade in his Wealth of Nations. To quote him, ''It is the maxim of every prudent master of a family, never to attempt to make at home what it will cost him more to make than to buy.The taylor does not attempt to make his own shoes, but buys them of the shoemaker. The shoemaker does not attempt to make his own clothes, but employs a taylor. The former attempts to make neither the one nor he other, but employs those different artificers. ...What is prudence in the conduct of every family, can scarce be folly in that of a great kingdom (As was thinking of his own Kingdom of England). If a foreign country can supply us with a commodity cheaper than we ourselves can make it, better buy it of them with some part of the produce of our own country, employed in a way in which we have some advantage.''
This justification of free and open trade of Adam Smith based on absolute advantage was strengthened by David Ricardo several decades later by showing that global production and consumption can be maximised through international specialisation and international free trade on the basis of comparative advantage rather than on absolute advantage.
The nineteenth century technologies of the railway, the telegraph and the steamship promoted this globalisation process by boosting trade across national frontiers and triggering migration of labour and flows of capital to the temperate areas of agriculture. The colonial empires, in particular, the British Empire, facilitated the process, as the integration of capital markets and monetary systems and methods of business organisation followed trade and labour. To quote the Economist (October 1824, 1997), 'Despite much loose talk about the 'new' global economy, today's international integration is not unprecedented.
The 50 years before the first world war saw large crossborder flows of capital and people. That period of globalisation, like the present one was driven by reductions in trade barriers and by sharp falls in transport costs... That earlier attempt at globalisation ended abruptly with the end of the first world war, after which the world moved into a period of fierce trade protectionism and tight restrictions on capital movement.''
With the establishment of the GATT and the collapse of the Bretton Woods system in the early 1970s, and the trade negotiations following in their wake such as the Kennedy and Tokyo Rounds the cry for globalisation was resumed. This cry became louder with the end of the Uruguay Round and with the establishment of the WTO.
There were two noteworthy changes which set the ball of globalisation gather momentum again. One was the replacement of fixed with floating exchange regimes by the developed countries of the West led by the United States of America. The other was the dismantling of capital controls by them. Both these helped the international movement of capital. Propelled by GATT negotiations these changes led to the acceptance of liberalisation of trade as a matter of policy by a large number of countries, including our own which led the way in South Asia by launching a package of open market reforms in November 1977.
Mechanisms of Globalisation
It is, however, the information technology which has powerfully fuelled globalisation in the last fifteen years or so, by increasing the flow of goods and money faster. The costs of telecommunication and computing have been falling unbelievably rapidly breaking all the natural barriers of time and space that separate national markets.The cost of a three minute telephone call between New York and London today is 1/300 of what it was in 1930 (in 1996 dollars). The cost of computer processing power has been falling by an average of 30% a year in real terms over the past couple of decades. Transactions can be completed in a jiffy using emoney; information technology including business on the internet is growing twice as fast as the overall economy with internet business traffic doubling every 100 days.
In 1997 there were 100 million internet users compared to only 3 million three years before in 1994, and the internet (taking only 4 years) is more than three times, and more than nine times, as fast as the television and radio respectively, in reaching 50 million consumers.
Over the past decade as a result of these rapid advances in information technology, world trade has increased twice as fast as world output, foreign direct investment thrice as fast and crossborder trade in shares ten times as fast (Economist, October 1824, 1997). The daily foreign exchange turnover has increased from $ 15 billion in 1973 to $ 1.2 trillion in 1995. Cross border sales and purchases of bonds and equities by American investors alone have risen from the equivalent of 9% of GDP in 1980 to 164% in 1996 (Economist, op. cit.). ''Ever larger sums of money are moving across borders, and ever more countries have access to international finance'' (Economist, October 2531, 1997).
New information technology has bestowed another advantage upon globalisation, by creating distributional channels which governments would find difficult to block even if they want to do so. For example, even if Sri Lankan Government wishes to protect its film industry from Indian competition it would find it difficult to do so, because it would not be possible to stop Indian films being beamed by satellite or passed over the internet: foreign films would also be able to squeeze through electronic windows that cannot be closed.
Information Technology will continue to power the ship of globalisation. Globalisation has facilitated the transfer of phgysical and managerial echnology, and migration of labour from labour abundant to labour scarce countries. The latter has helped capital and knowledge abundant countries not only to shift from labourintensive to capital and knowledge intensive industries but also to relocate their labourintensive industries elsewhere. This has, in fact, been happening in the last two decades in the Asian scene spreading industrialisation almost as in a flying geese fashion.
Globalisation, not only through the movement of goods and services but also through the movement of factors of production across national frontiers, would enhance global productivity and global income. Many countries have utilized the opportunities offered by globalisation to their advantage. Newly industrialising countries (NICs) of east Asia was one such group of countries. They were growing at more than 7% annually since the late sixties. South Korea was the fastest of them all, growing at more than 9% in 1971-1990 and at around 8% in 1990-1995. Korea, in fact, doubled its per capita income in a matter of 11 years between 1966 and 1977, whereas countries like USA took about four times that to do the same.
Outcome of Globalisation
This miraculous growth of Korea, as well as of other East Asian NICs, is generally attributed to globalisation. Globalisation, it is argued, brought with it the much needed technology and capital to Korea and enabled it to pursue a vigorous exportled growth strategy and to have sustained rapid development for over three decades .Then there are other countries of Asia which seem to have benefited from opening their countries to foreign investment and trade. People's Republic of China today is the largest recipient of foreign direct investment of any country in Asia, or for that matter of the whole world. In 1980 she received only $ 1.7 billion or l/5th of the $ 8.4 trillion net private capital which flowed into East, South East and South Asia. In 1995 it was receiving $ 44.3 billion or half of the $ 89.3 billion, because it has relaxed its closed door policy for foreign trade and investment even though remaining not fully marketised.
(Continued on Monday)
