Washington Report on Middle East Affairs, May 2000, pages 93-99

Waging Peace

Georgetown CCAS 25th Anniversary Symposuim

Georgetown University’s Center for Contemporary Arab Studies (CCAS) held its 25th Anniversary Symposium, entitled “Arab World 2000: Transformations and Challenges,” on March 30-31 in Washington, DC. This landmark event, one of the largest gatherings of Arab intellectuals ever held in Washington, DC, covered such topics as the future of democracy in the Arab world, the ongoing economic transformation of the region, the role of the United States and its relationship with the Arab world, and the future of Arab nationalism.

After brief welcoming remarks by Michael C. Hudson, professor of Arab studies and acting director of CCAS, and Dorothy M. Brown, provost of Georgetown University, Dr. Hisham Sharabi, chairman of the Jerusalem Fund and Center for Policy Analysis on Palestine (CPAP), delivered the keynote address. He spoke on the prospects for peace and democracy in the Arab world in the 21st century, while highlighting the “Arab awakening” that began in the 20th century with Egypt’s establishment of the first Arab parliamentary government, later followed by Iraq, Lebanon and Syria. Shirabi noted that by the mid-century most Arab countries had gained their independence, with the exception of Algeria. In addressing the future possibilities for the Arab world, Shirabi stressed this analysis must be of a “prescriptive” nature, as Arab intellectuals and analysts must be the critics of the Arab world. However, he said, while they must be engaged in political discourse and practice, “at some point epistemology must give way to political economy.”

At present, he said, the political indolence in the Arab world is an internal matter and not simply an historical result of external domination by the Ottoman Empire, European colonialism or American-backed Zionist colonialism. Rather, Sharabi pointed out, the first and most imperative action required is to “dismantle the patriarchal system [so that] rule of man will no longer be rule of land,” but instead will be replaced by the rule of law. The focus should be on gradualism, based on collective security and cultural solidarity, as seen in the case of Iran, which in recent elections demonstrated that the system can be altered by nonviolent and decisive means.

Violence and extremism, Shirabi said, are self-destructive and reactionary, whereas “democracy is indispensable to launching any new political system.” He added that the “woman issue” is essential both in strategic and tactical terms. Predominantly male reformists need to let women’s voices be heard, he said, because “effective change will not take place without the participation of women on a large scale.” In addition to the participation of women, Shirabi cited the new “historic task” of Arab Americans as being imperative in the coming years. “A new generation of Arab Americans will bring about a new, balanced U.S. foreign policy toward the Arab world,” he predicted. Finally, quoting Nietzsche, Shirabi said we need to “forget about history,” and rather concentrate on forging new realities for the future ahead.

Beginning the first panel on “Arabism: Old and New,” chair Halim Barakat, research professor of Arab studies at CCAS, spoke briefly on the various forms of Arabism, emphasizing that it has never been a constant or rigid ideology, but rather a historical task to be achieved in the future. He said there are three essential ingredients to this ideology: basic human rights, a process of democratization, and new trends of political development.

The four panelists included Saad Eddin Ibrahim, professor of political sociology and chairman of the Ibn Khaldun Center for Development at the American University in Cairo; As’ad Abu Khalil, associate professor of political science at California State University in Stanislaus; Yvonne Haddad, professor of history at the Center for Muslim-Christian Understanding at Georgetown University; and Hani Faris, research fellow at the Institute of Asian Resarch at the University of British Columbia.

Professor Ibrahim addressed 20th century Arabism as a renewal of an historical trend traced to the de-linkage of Arabism from Islam, which took the Arabs the entire 19th century to carry out. He indicated that by the mid-19th century internal and external changes and disintegration of the Ottoman Empire made way for new socio-political movements, such as the Wahabi movement in Saudi Arabia and the arrival of the new, ambitious ruler of Egypt, Mohamed Ali, who embarked on building a new, modern state based on the ideas of the French imperialists. Then the 20th century gave birth to a new cultural revival as the first dream of Arab independence led to the notion of “Al-Aruba” (Arabism), or a collective Arab identity defined in terms of linguistic and cultural commonality. Ibrahim noted that although there have been many failures in the pan-Arabism movement, there are also modern-day successes, most notably in the Gulf region, with the launching by six petroleum-producing Arab states of the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC), the border agreements reached by the United Arab Emirates and Saudi Arabia, and the peace reached by North and South Yemen.

Hani Faris later discussed a socio-political view of contemporary Arabism, focusing on the relationship between Arab nationalism and globalization and stressing that “the phenomenon is basically economic in nature…[and] will lead to political instability.” Therefore, the Arab states should seriously consider the establishment of an Arab common market, Faris said, because “the Arab world cannot dissociate itself from globalization” and as the world becomes more globalized, societies will become more homogeneous. Because, according to Faris, at the cultural level there remains a choice to be passive or active, and in this regard “nationalism can help to invigorate [the Arabs] as a distinct society.”

To close the first panel, discussant Shibley Telhami, professor of international relations at the University of Maryland and senior fellow at The Brookings Institution, concluded that Arabism is not dead, and in fact the Pan-Arab movement has gone through numerous cycles and will continue as a shifting reality of regionalism and collective association.

The second panel dealt with “Economic Transformation: The Debate,” with chair Tarik Yousef, who holds the Sheikh Sabah Al-Salem Al-Sabah Chair of Arab Studies and is assistant professor of economics at Georgetown University, and discussants Magda Kandil, chair and professor of economics at the University of Wisconsin, and Jennifer Olmsted, economist at the U.S. Department of Agriculture. The four panelists were Karim Nashashibi, senior adviser of the Middle Eastern Department of the International Monetary Fund; Alan Richards, professor of economics at the University of California-Santa Cruz; Hazem Abdul-Aziz El-Beblawi, under-secretary-general of the United Nations and executive secretary of the Economic and Social Commission for Western Asia; and Galal Amin, professor of economics at the American University in Cairo.

The first panelist, Karim Nashashibi, discussed the achievements and challenges of economic transformation in the Arab world. He divided the Arab countries into three groupings: poorer countries (including Mauritania and Sudan), mid-income countries (such as Egypt and Tunisia), and finally, the oil-producing wealthy Gulf States. He focused primarily on mid-income Arab countries and their recent economic successes in attaining self-sustainability by significantly reducing deficits and holding inflation to between 2 and 5 percent annually, thereby directly improving internal business and investment benefits. Nashashibi also said that by the mid-’90s these countries had largely stopped accruing external debt, lowering it from 85 percent to 70 percent of GDP. Ironically, however, the Arab Gulf states increased their debts during the period of low petroleum prices.

Looking ahead, Nashashibi identified four economic trends of the Arab region that are imperative for further economic development. First, reform through liberalization of the trade regimes to eliminate anti-export bias and to minimize transaction costs; secondly, revitalization in the investment environment to lessen the regulatory system; third, improvement in the quality of public expenditures; and finally, greater privatization to reduce the civil service, which currently absorbs 11 to 12 percent of GDP in most mid-range countries.

The third panel addressed “Authority, Authoritarianism and Democracy,” with chair and discussant Mamoun Fandy, research professor of Arab studies at CCAS. The other four panelists were Ibrahim Karawan, associate director of the Middle East Center at the University of Utah; Khaldoun H. Al-Naqeeb, associate professor of sociology and social psychology at Kuwait University; Amira Sonbol, associate professor of Islamic history, society and law at the Center for Muslim-Christian Understanding at Georgetown University; and Hassan Hanafi, professor of philosophy at Cairo University.

The fourth and final panel focused on “America and the Arabs,” and was chaired by Seth Tillman, research professor of diplomacy at CCAS. The five panelists were Ambassador Richard W. Murphy, senior fellow for the Middle East at the Council on Foreign Relations and former U.S. ambassador to Mauritania, Syria, the Philippines and Saudi Arabia; Ambassador Hermann F. Eilts, professor emeritus at Boston University and former U.S. ambassador to Saudi Arabia and Egypt; Professor Clovis Maksoud, director of the Center for the Global South at the American University and former Arab League ambassador to the United Nations; Fawaz Gerges, professor of history at Sarah Lawrence College; and Mona Makram Ebeid, former member of the Egyptian parliament and chair of the Committee on U.S.-Egyptian Relations.

In this panel, Fawaz Gerges offered an innovative and detailed look at the generational divide amongst Arab Americans. While the previous generation of Arab Americans identified with the historical memory of the West as seen through European colonialism and American-backed Zionist colonialism, easily accusing the United States of wanting to “crush the Arabs,” the current younger generation of today questions whether blame rests solely with America. According to Gerges, “Arabs through time have developed a victimization attitude,” and the Iranians serve as a positive and unique example for the Arabs, who seem to be “trapped in space and time.” There is also a fascinating generational divide between Arab American parents and children, Gerges said, in that many youth are “apolitical” and hold a generally positive attitude toward the U.S., whereas the older generation clings to bitter memories of Western occupation and power over the Arab region.

Relating to this divide, Ambassador Maksoud closed the panel by addressing the prospects for improving Arab-American relations through empowerment of the Arab people in order for them to become a part of the U.S.-Arab dialogue. He further described the “Arab nation [as] a rich nation of poor people” that needs to be dealt with comprehensively as a whole across a horizontal sphere and not merely through bilateral contracts.

 —Adila Masood

Scholar Offers Positive Appraisal of Iran’s Majlis Elections

Dr. Mohammad Mahallati, Middle East Institute scholar-in-residence, presented his views on Iran’s Majlis elections on Feb. 25 at MEI. Mahallati sees the results as the latest of a consistent sequence of change, a sign of democracy’s incremental development in all elements of the government’s structure. The reform process has touched the executive branch, Irshad (guidance), judiciary and Bonyads (semi-autonomous governmental organizations), he said. In addition, the print media have experienced an unprecedented blossoming.

The political atmosphere preceding the parliamentary elections caused the Guardian Council to reject fewer candidates this year than in the 1995 election, Dr. Mahallati said. There has been a substantial reduction in the number of clergy in the parliament, meaning that it will better represent the structure of Iranian society. Perhaps most importantly, there are no political heavyweights in this majlis.

The decline of former Iranian President Ali Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani, who was barely elected to the parliament this year, will have the effect of depersonalizing politics, he said. Parties and factions will have to be transparent in establishing their agendas.

According to Mahallati, Iran’s youth caused this shift. The baby boom generation seeks greater civil liberties, resenting the political and economic status quo. They are highly educated, and have thought critically about what they want and how to achieve it. In addition, Iran’s current president, Mohammad Khatami, has effected political change by constitutional means, not through the use of force. The youth have thus seen that the constitutional process can work.

The economy will dominate the majlis’ agenda, as Iran must create 800,000 jobs per year. The majlis will also revise Iran’s foreign policy, based on a new definition of national security. Mahallati holds that there will be a much faster improvement of relations with the U.S. if the U.S. implements a wiser policy. Members of this young generation of Iranians have no argument with the U.S. The U.S. looks bad, however, because of its lack of normal relations with the most democratic of Islamic states, while supporting authoritarian governments that make no pretense of democracy elsewhere.

In all, Mahallati sees change continuing irreversibly. Change under the Sixth Majlis may not be fast, but it will be well-argued and in sync with Iran and its people’s needs.

—Hugh S. Galford

Turkish-American Scientists Meet in Washington

The Association of Turkish American Scientists (ATAS) held its 11th annual Science and Education Conference at George Washington University in Washington, DC on March 28. ATAS is a private non-profit, non-political association of scientists of Turkish origin who are either citizens or permanent residents of the United States or Canada, as well as other citizens of these countries, regardless of their national origin. The purpose of ATAS is to promote and improve scientific cooperation between Turkey, and the U.S. and Canada.

The annual meetings create an occasion for all scientists and educators to gather and discuss important and timely issues. Featured speakers at this year’s event were ATAS president Prof. Oktay Ural; Ambassador of Turkey to the U.S. Baki Ilkin; President Gulsun Saglamer of Istanbul Technical University; Vice President Walter Bortz of George Washington University; retired Turkish Ambassador Nuzhet Kandemir; Deputy Under Secretary of the Turkish Ministry of Foreign Affairs Uluc Ozulker; Professor Ersin Kalaycioglu of Bosphorus University; Chairman Nuri Colakoglu; World Bank Vice Chairman Kemal Dervis; Dr. Attila Karaosmanoglu, World Bank and Chamber of Industry, Istanbul; Dr. Erkut Yucaoglu, chairman, TUSIAD; Dr. Biykem Bozkurt, Baylor School of Medicine, Houston, TX ; Dr. Serdar H. Ural of Johns Hopkins School of Medicine; Hasan Arslan of American University, Washington, DC; Dr. Mehmet Gokturk of George Washington University; and Professors Kemal Guruz, Yavuz Tarcan, Metin Lokmanhekim, and Mehmet Inan.

—Delinda Hanley

Palestinian Minister Discusses Jerusalem

“Everybody knows that we have a problem, that there is an impasse with the [Israeli-Palestinian] peace process,” said Ziad Abu-Zayyad at a Center for Policy Analysis briefing in Washington, DC on March 7. Abu-Zayyad, Palestinian Authority (PA) minister of state for Jerusalem affairs, said Israeli redeployment, Jewish settlements, and Jerusalem are major sticking points.

According to Abu-Zayyad, the Declaration of Principles and Oslo II state that there “should be redeployment in all the West Bank and Gaza except the Jewish settlements and the military locations.” These two exceptions, he said, would amount to approximately 10 percent of the occupied territories. The Palestinian negotiators therefore understood that “90 percent of the West Bank and Gaza should be transferred to the Palestinians,” he explained.

Yet in reality, the Israeli government “wants to keep us in these bantustans scattered over the area like islands swimming in a large sea of Israeli-controlled land,” he said. Abu-Zayyad described the Jewish settlements as a “main obstacle” to peace.

Even under the Labor government of Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak, settlement expansion continues, Abu-Zayyad charged.

“When Barak announced…two months ago that he will freeze authorizing or endorsing any new building projects in the West Bank and Gaza it was a big joke,” the P.A. minister said. Barak already has “a large reserve of lands” which former Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu had endorsed for settlement expansion, he added.

Regarding Jerusalem, Abu-Zayyad referred to a decision by Israel in 1974 stipulating that the “percentage of the Arabs in East Jerusalem” should not exceed “27 percent.” He argued that Israel has “a systematic policy of expelling Arabs by law.”

Palestinians living in Jerusalem find themselves in a Catch-22 situation, he said. First, the Israeli government restricts the number of Arabs in Jerusalem through “creat[ing] a severe housing problem in East Jerusalem” by refusing building or expansion permits to Arabs. Because of this, as families grow, many Palestinians move to the outlying villages, where they can find housing. Secondly, in 1967, Israel gave Arabs in the recently occupied East Jeru salem tourist status with a “permanent residing visa,” said Abu-Zayyad.

If Palestinians move their “center of life” outside of Jerusalem, however, or if they are outside of the city for more than seven years, they can lose their residence permit, he explained. Therefore, when Palestinians move outside of Jerusalem because they have no housing, they may lose their right to return.

In spite of all these difficulties, said Abu-Zayyad, “in Jerusalem—within the borders of the municipality—there are 200,000 Palestinians. These 200,000 Palestinians…will not disappear, they will not vaporize, they will continue to live there. They will continue to be stuck as a bone in the throat of the Israelis.”

Abu-Zayyad referred to the significance of Jerusalem to Palestinians and the determination many of them have to travel there regularly, using unpaved side roads and even under threat of arrest by Israeli soldiers. “This racist approach of the Israeli [government] against the Arabs in East Jerusalem will not work,” he concluded, because Jerusalem is “part of us and we are part of it.”

—Wendy Lehman

Ashrawi Tells U.S. Officials Jerusalem is Key to Peace

Dr. Hanan Ashrawi spoke to congressional staffers, diplomats, State Department officials, journalists and individuals from human rights and religious groups who attended a March 13 Capitol Hill briefing sponsored by the American Committee on Jerusalem. “I urge you to inform your senators and representatives to uphold international law when considering the issue of Jerusalem,” said Ashrawi, a member of the Palestinian Legislative Council (the Palestinian legislature), and secretary-general of MIFTAH, the Palestinian Initiative for the Promotion of Global Dialogue and Democracy.

“There are some misguided congressmen who think Jerusalem is theirs to give away or that the United States should move its embassy to land confiscated from Arabs,” Ashrawi cautioned. “They should support peace, and when dealing with Israel, hold it to the same standards they hold other nations: international law and accountability.”

Each time a congressman refers to Jerusalem as the undivided capital of Israel or suggests moving the embassy, Arabs see this as an extremely dangerous provocation, she said. “We understand this is an election year,” Ashrawi said. “Everyone wants the credit for helping Israel. Congressmen may feel that the way to the Hill is through Jerusalem, but they should please stay out of the Jerusalem discussion unless they want to uphold international law.”

As for the peace process, “We need genuine progress, not meaningless, faceless, colorless, odorless agreements and photo ops,” Ashrawi said. She added that a departing president should contribute more to the peace process than just waiting to say what he really believes only after he has left office. So many politicians remain silent while serving and then “when they are out of office tell us what they really felt.” Ashrawi challenged American leaders to “come forward to support justice now. Do the right thing.”

Each time peace talks resume between the Israelis and Palestinians or Syrians there is euphoria, she continued. Then reality sets in. They may be talking to each other but there is little substance or implementation. “This is based on a consistent pattern we’ve seen before,” she explained. “An agreement is reached, re-opened, altered and modified, and finally Israel decides which agreement to implement and all the while conditions on the ground deteriorate. Settlements grow, land is illegally annexed, bypass roads are built, houses demolished, IDs confiscated—all with total impunity. There is no world intervention as Israelis change the character of Jerusalem.”

There must be a minimum level of justice or there will be a temporary truce and not a lasting peace, Ashrawi said. “Israel is changing the character of Jerusalem through its continued annexation and confiscation of Palestinian land, expansion of illegal settlements, the demolition of Palestinian homes and the discriminatory policy of depriving Palestinians of their residency rights.” As a result, according to Ashrawi, Palestinians have become increasingly impatient with the peace process.

The Palestinian people are being manipulated and Arab public opinion is becoming disenfranchised as Israel bombs Lebanon with impunity, Ashrawi said. The days of disregarding Arab public perceptions are over, and it is a very short-sighted policy.

Palestinian refugees have basic political and legal rights, including the right to return, Ashrawi pointed out. All other refugees are guaranteed that right. There can be no solution or stability in the region without settlement of the refugee issue. Compensation and restitution can be part of the overall package based on the return of the refugees but not a substitute for return. “Palestinians aren’t going to disappear,” she said.

As for the notion that Palestinians will accept a suburb of Jerusalem as an alternative capital for their state, she said, “It isn’t going to happen. Jerusalem holds the key to peace with the Arab and Islamic world. It defies exclusive possession.” Concluding, she assured her Capitol Hill audience that the Palestinians won’t accept a sell-out, or the signing away of their rights.

—Delinda C. Hanley

U.S. Institute of Peace Views South Asia Peace Prospects

In the aftermath of President Clinton’s visit to India, Pakistan and Bangladesh—the first by a U.S. chief executive in decades—is a new American bipartisan consensus on the volatile subcontinent beginning to emerge?

On March 9, the future of the troubled region loomed large at a U.S. Institute of Peace roundtable designed to consider the president’s options shortly before he set out on a mission to what he termed “the world’s most dangerous region.”

Keynote speakers were Assistant Secretary of State for South Asian Affairs Karl L. Inderfurth and the U.S. Senate’s leading authority on the region, Sen. Sam Brownback of Kansas. Assessing their comments: a panel chaired by Ambassador Frank Wisner, now vice chairman of the American International Group, and including Marshall Bouton of The Asia Society, Ambassador Robert Oakley of the National Defense University, Shirin Tahir-Kheli of the School for Advanced International Studies (SAIS), and Ashley Tellis of the Rand Corporation.

Both Assistant Secretary Inderfurth and Senator Brownback agreed that the United States must encourage nuclear powers India and Pakistan to resume a dialogue on critical globally threatening issues such as their own highly dangerous nuclear arms race, on combating terrorism, and on dealing collectively with problems of the environment.

On relations with Pakistan, both agreed that engagement should continue, despite U.S. reservations over the slow pace of democratic reform in the wake of last fall’s coup which ousted democratically elected Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif:

Senator Brownback: “We ignore Pakistan at our own peril. The center of gravity for world terrorism has moved from the Middle East to South Asia [Afghanistan and Pakistan]. We must engage Pakistan, a long-time ally. Problems we are having with Pakistan are due to failed U.S. policies, both in Congress for sanctions and in the administration for not more actively pursuing relations with Islamabad.”

Assistant Secretary Inderfurth: “We want lines of communication [with Pakistan] to remain open, to avoid conflict in the region and combat terrorism. President Clinton decided to meet with Prime Minister Pervez Musharraf, but not because he approves of his government. Some have urged the president to stay away, but this would have disheartened those who have stood for secular democracy in Pakistan for the last 50 years. Engagement does not mean endorsement.”

On Kashmir, the roundtable agreed, the U.S. should stand back a bit. It is up to New Delhi and Islamabad, the specialists said, to rekindle what had been very promising Lahore talks last year. Progress on more technical issues could lead, eventually, to discussions between them of the most sensitive irritant in Pakistani-Indian relations, Kashmir. In Marshall Bouton’s view, a Kashmir solution requires a “sustained commitment by both parties and the people of Kashmir and nuanced international attention.” During the Clinton visit, The Asia Society executive said, “too pronounced an emphasis on all aspects of the India-Pakistan conflict could be counterproductive and risky.”

The United States, Bouton said, “has invested enormous resources the past 30 years in the Middle East. In South Asia, it has made an infinitesimal investment, compared with other regions. It’s no wonder,” Bouton concluded, “we have limited traction and influence in the region.” Brownback: “I agree we haven’t invested enough, but you don’t start with Kashmir; we started in China with Ping-Pong.”

Other roundtable conclusions, several of which seemed to be borne out by dispatches from India, Pakistan and Bangladesh during the Clinton visit:

Bouton: “This is a first step in relations with India…putting ballast in the ship of U.S.-India relations. In the past, every time a storm blew up, relations ran aground on the rocks, then we had to re-float the ship. But if we let expectations from the president’s visit get too high, it will be counterproductive in both India and Pakistan. It requires a very subtle combination of mixed messages, public and private, during the Clinton visit.”

Oakley: “Musharraf does not appreciate the difference between intelligence agencies and rogue groups. The recent hijacking of the Indian airliner is an example: it may help bring international terrorism back into vogue. Now, the situation with terrorist groups in Af ghan istan and Pakistan is similar to that of some terrorist groups earlier in Lebanon.” (The Pakistani prime minister, as the president’s visit to South Asia concluded, announced he would be visiting Af ghanistan soon to tackle the terrorist issue.)

Shirin Tahir-Kheli: “In dia’s role as a regional power suffers from its distraction in the dispute with Pakistan. An openly hostile and nuclear-armed Pakistan is not in India’s interest, nor does it help foreign investment throughout the region. ‘How is it in India’s interest for the internal situation in Pakistan to deteriorate?’ I’ve asked dozens of contacts in India, and received no satisfactory answer.”

Tellis: “India and Pakistan both will conceal their nuclear capability, and their nuclear programs are in a state of flux. Neither state has clearly outlined a nuclear policy and both continue to produce nuclear stockpiles and have been very active in developing missile delivery systems, some long-range. The U.S. and others should encourage both powers to institutionalize management of their respective nuclear capabilities on ‘a slow-growth fuse.’ We should make the point, privately perhaps, that restraint in development of nuclear weapons is essential to further U.S. engagement with either power.”

In summing up, Ambassador Wisner and others stressed these points:

• In curbing the South Asia nuclear threat, U.S. sanctions have had minimal effect. These should be used by Washington only if there’s an international crisis and a clear threat to U.S. interests. In all cases, Wisner said, there should be a sunset clause governing their use. In counseling nuclear restraint on the part of both India and Pakistan, Wisner added, the stress should be on alert mechanisms, keeping non-conventional weapons capability minimal on both sides, and encouraging exchanges of information between them to avoid miscalculation.
• India and Pakistan must recognize that improved, stable relations are in their mutual interest. The dialogue begun last year between Indian Prime Minister Vajpayee and former Pakistani Prime Minister Sharif at Lahore should be re-started, despite the subsequent eruption of the Kargil conflict in Kashmir, the coup in Islamabad, and the airline hijacking last December. A peace dividend in South Asia would free up significant resources from defense spending for both New Delhi and Islamabad to invest in education and other domestic programs.
• For its part, the United States must avoid the trap of basing its policies toward either India or Pakistan on a calculation of how the other will react. In Senator Brownback’s view: “What is good for India is not bad for Pakistan, and vice versa…The United States should have a separate foreign policy toward each country…Tying one to the other perpetuates their zero-sum policy game and encourages the competition and animosity that are all too close to the surface in both countries.”

—Alan L. Heil Jr.

Persian Ensemble Performs at the Kennedy Center

The John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts in Washington, DC presented in its Millennium Stage series the Shahriar Saleh Ensemble on March 21, commemorating the Iranian new year. Iran-born Shariar Saleh began to learn to play the samtur (a traditional Iranian instrument) at the age of 11. While attending guitar and formal notation classes with Sohrab Andisheh, he was inspired by the works of the Persian music masters. Saleh came to the U.S. in 1967 to continue his education and later returned to Iran where he became personally acquainted with a number of these Persian musicians, including Mohammad Reza Shajarian, Asqhar Bahari, Jalal Zolfonoon, and many others.

After acquiring greater expertise and skill in traditional Persian music, Saleh returned to the U.S. in 1982. Since then he has pursued Persian music professionally, emphasizing the teaching of this art to Iranians and non-Iranians alike. He formed the music group Saba with other Persian musicians and the group has released a number of works since its inception. In addition, Saleh has presented Persian music at a number of universities and other cultural institutions and events. For the past 18 years his music classes have included instruction in samtur, violin, zarb, guitar and voice. At the Kennedy Center, the Shahriar Saleh Ensemble performed various traditional and folk pieces, including the pre-revolution national anthem, to a packed audience.

—Adila Masood

Kosovo One Year After: Experts Assess the NATO Action and the Possible Way Forward

“If war is hell,” U. S. Ambassador Chris Hill quotes a military historian as saying, “then peace is purgatory.” Clearly, a year after the 78-day NATO air campaign, peace remains elusive in Kosovo. That, despite the expulsion of all Serb military, paramilitary, and police units last June and the presence today of tens of thousands of NATO peacekeeping troops in Serbia’s southernmost province.

On March 23, 2000, the first anniversary of the start of NATO airstrikes which forced the Serbian withdrawal from Kosovo, the U. S. Institute of Peace invited State Department spokesperson Jamie Rubin and Ambassador Hill to assess the Kosovo situation, and give those attending some clues about “the way forward,” in an extremely chaotic environment.

The two U. S. diplomats outlined a series of steps designed to stabilize the situation in the province and neighboring areas where tensions remain high despite the resolve of the international community to enforce a postwar peace:

• Both were unequivocal in describing “a very stiff message” they had delivered a week earlier to Albanian Kosovars: continued violence against Serbs and other minorities there will not be tolerated, they said, and Albanian Kosovar rogue elements must immediately cease cross-bor der commando raids against Serb installations within southeastern Serbia in the Presevo area adjacent to Kosovo.
• Ambassador Hill reported that planning is going ahead for municipal elections in Kosovo next September, to be organized and conducted by the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE). He described a three-step process:

1. Identify the local elective offices and widely publicize these,
2. Create an election registration process which will be properly and fairly administered, and
3. Enhance police and security functions to protect voters against intimidation.

• Rubin said the international community, and particularly European nations, would continue to focus on building basic services in Kosovo: curbing ethnic violence, strengthening police forces, combating crime, and collecting garbage. (Since NATO forces entered Kosovo last June, Rubin noted, 400,000 houses have been rebuilt in the province, 600,000 people have been fed, 1,000 schools opened for 9 out of 10 students—many in government-run educational facilities in their own language for the first time in their lives. The State Department spokesperson added that 12,000 KLA weapons had been handed in or removed from service since the Kosovo conflict ended.)

“Violence is rapidly decreasing,” Rubin continued, “but it’s still too much.” A NATO report entitled Kosovo: One Year On, issued the same day as the Peace Institute briefing, noted that in June 1999 there were 50 killings a week in the province. This was a marked decrease, even then, from estimates at the time of Milosevic’s Operation Horseshoe in which more than 750,000 Kosovar Albanians were driven from their homes, and several thousand massacred. Today, NATO reported, killings in Kosovo have declined to about five a week.

“The Serbs need to know that we want to protect them,” Hill said, “and protect their rights.” He recalled that during his recent visit to U.S. troops stationed in the Djakovica sector in eastern Kosovo, almost every soldier with whom he spoke mentioned “protection of the Serbs” as his/her primary task. Neither Rubin nor Hill was asked to address how continuing violence between Serbs and Albanians in the northern Kosovo city of Mitrovica might be curbed.

A video viewer of the Peace Institute session via its Web site asked: “We’ve done well militarily, but what about building a civil society in Kosovo, civilian structures. Hasn’t the U.N. failed to meet its goals here?”

The goal, Ambassador Hill responded, is “to stay at it, be supportive, and follow through on recruitment at last of more police, judges, and putting in place a staff for a prison and penal system.”

An Albanian-American spokes man quoted a recent poll saying that 80 percent of Americans questioned favored immediate independence from Serbia for Kosovo. “Yet,” the spokesman added, “there’s serious consideration in the Congress of reducing or cutting off funding for U.S. efforts in Kosovo.” Rubin said he hoped the poll results—new to him—would help convince those opposed to spending more funds on Kosovo peacekeeping to change their position.

“If we want to make it work,” Rubin went on, “we should do more, not less, in Kosovo.” At the same time, he reiterated the standard U.S. position and that of virtually all of its European allies: now is not the time to begin final status negotiations on the independence of Kosovo. “We still have a lot of work to do,” Rubin said. “There’s crime and ethnic violence still to be dealt with—let’s focus on the real problems.”

A spokesman for the Serbian Orthodox Church in the United States, and a noted scholar of Balkan affairs, Obrad Kesic, both commented on the scale of the Kosovar Albanian retaliations: 80 churches destroyed in Kosovo, 150,000 Serbs expelled, and what Kesic called “a seeming tolerance for this type of violence, which amounts to ethnic cleansing against not only Serbs, but Roma and Jews.”

Rubin again responded that the international community firmly opposes attacks on any group in Kosovo, and he said he and Hill had made this crystal clear to Albanian Kosovars across the political spectrum—moderates to hard-liners—during their recent visit. (NATO forces subsequently raided and shut down a Kosovar Albanian depot and staging facility being used by rogue units involved in the raids inside Serbia.)

Rubin added that a distinction must be made between individual acts of retaliation and “real, massive ethnic cleansing.” In contrast to recent isolated instances of violence in Kosovo, Rubin said, there was a centrally directed mass-murder campaign coordinated by Belgrade in Kosovo last year through a system of paramilitaries, regular army troops, police and local officials. “To suggest that we are responsible because of Milosevic’s irresponsibility is irresponsible in the extreme,” Rubin concluded. “We have no tolerance for Albanian violence.”

—Alan L. Heil Jr

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