Gujarat, going places

Gujarat is becoming such a big issue worldwide that its even beginning to eclipse Jammu & Kashmir. What with the churning within the European Union on the kind of statement it should make on the genocide in that state (if it wasn’t for Palestine/Israel, diplomats in Delhi aver, New Delhi would be on the mat on Gujarat), its now the turn of the almost-invisible African contingent to react in the capital.

Seems that an invitation to all the ambassadors and high commissioners from Africa to visit Kashmir for three days this week has just been cancelled. The reason? Gujarat. These diplomats were going to get the works in Srinagar, a dinner with Chief Minister Farooq Abdullah, another dinner with the governor as well as meetings with top security officials. But a number of them have just been called back for consultations — on Gujarat — by their home governments, while other African leaders have stated their intention to travel to India to get a first-hand assessment. A non-aligned foreign ministers meeting in Durban, South Africa this week, meanwhile, doesn’t have the massacres formally on the agenda, but it’s likely that the issue may come up in bilaterals with minister of state Omar Abdullah who is representing India. Looks like the MEA has its work cut out in the weeks to come.

Treating the Tigers

Is Sri Lankan president Chandrika Kumaratunga going to raise PM Vajpayee’s ‘‘sympathetic’’ approach to medically treating LTTE leader Anton Balasingham during her meetings with the government this week? Chandrika is in New Delhi really to deliver the first Madhav Rao Scindia memorial lecture tomorrow, but she will meet Vajpayee, President K R Narayanan as well as other leaders during her visit this week.

Sources from Colombo are mystified as to why Vajpayee, while returning from Cambodia last week, agreed to ‘‘sympathetically’’ consider a proposal for Balasingham’s treatment. The LTTE leader needs regular dialysis for his kidney problem. Sources point out that New Delhi had thrown out even the suggestion of such an idea some three months ago when it was first floated by the LTTE, strengthened then by the refusal of the Tamil Nadu government (Jayalalithaa’s AIADMK) to allow such a thing. So what made the PM turn around? The answer may lie in the support of the MDMK and PMK to the government at the Centre, parties who have always been soft on the LTTE and continue to patronise Prabhakaran’s father who lives in that state. Chandrika, who has politically fought the LTTE for years to deny them legitimacy, is said to be wondering how and why India has shifted its position on an organisation it purports to otherwise ban.

Blowing hot and cold

The story behind the election of India’s Rajendra Pachauri to the Inter-governmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), the hottest and most prestigious organisation on the environment worldwide, has to be one of the most gripping tales in international politics today. Pachauri won against US national Robert Watson, but it wasn’t until very recently that Washington decided to support India’s candidate rather than its own citizen. So just when the MEA thought it was all covered and that Pachauri was home and dry, the bombshell came, on the eve of the election last week, that New Zealand was putting up its own candidate. The ministry then pulled out all the stops, ambassadors going into overdrive and reconfirming support from their accredited countries. Pachauri won, 76-49, but not until western news coverage (including London’s Financial Times which said he’d have to “work hard to prove” himself) began to wonder whether and how the new chief would now deliver. Still, Pachauri will oversee the major Conference of Parties on the Kyoto Protocol that will take place in New Delhi at the end of October.

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