ANALYSIS
Bhutan: Challenges to sub-regional connectivity
By Mihir Bhonsale
Bhutan’s National Assembly, which reconvenes on May 26, is set for a stormy session. During the session, it will take up for ratification the Bangladesh, Bhutan, India, Nepal (BBIN) Motor Vehicles Agreement (MVA), which was originally signed by the Tshering Tobgay government in June last year. However, the government failed to get it ratified by the Assembly as it was voted down in the winter session of the parliament last November.
Never before in the history of Bhutan has an international agreement, after being signed by the government, had been voted down until endorsement of the BBIN MVA became unavailable in November 2015.
The incumbent government has been caught unawares in dealing with this very sensitive issue of an international agreement aimed at opening up the movement of goods and people.
At stake are relations with close neighbours, India, Bangladesh and Nepal. The BBIN MVA intends to revolutionise road-connectivity in the region. The latest meeting of the proposed regional bloc in Dhaka on March 29-30 ended on an inconclusive note, mainly owing to Thimphu’s indecision.
Challenges to integrity
According to critics of the BBIN MVA, once operational, it could pose challenges to the integrity and sustainability of the Himalayan kingdom. These concerned were voiced in winter session of the Assembly.
The main reason for stymying the ratification of the agreement was the confusion over the number that constitutes majority votes in parliament for adoption of an international agreement. The the opposition also wanted a thorough assessment of the impact for BBIN MVA for all Bhutanese stakeholders.
Among the important stake-holders within Bhutan are truck-owners, tourist agents and taxi associations who have already voiced their concerns before Prime Minister Tshering Tobgay. This includes their losing business to outside competition, risks of travelling beyond Assam and West Bengal, infrastructural constraints and use of subsidised fuel.
The government is said to have quickly acted on the proposal of the truck-owners association for limiting foreign trucks at the border. Bangladesh and later Nepal were asked to limit the movement of trucks at borders with Bhutan. Thimphu already has a similar restriction imposed on India.
Bhutan is a protectionist society with conservation of culture and environment accorded priority over and above the economy. Thimphu boasts of a unique path to development that swears by ‘Gross National Happiness’ (GNH) as an indicator of nation’s progress, as against GDP elsewhere. The anxiety of BBIN’s impact on environment and culture is also palpable in the country.
Recourse for the region
Bhutan’s unique position within the Indian sub-continent is palpably felt by larger nations like India and Bangladesh pushing for connectivity. Bangladesh has clearly stated that Dhaka would wait for Thimphu’s nod before it signs the protocols itself.
The two draft protocols that were discussed in the Dhaka meeting were Protocol for Movement of Regular, Non-regular and Personal Vehicles for Implementation of BBIN Motor Vehicle Agreement (MVA) and Protocol for Movement of Cargo Vehicles for Implementation of MVA.
The first protocol relating to movement of vehicles has evinced more disagreement than the second relating to the movement of cargo vehicles. New Delhi, eager to attract more investment to her land-locked North-eastern states, had pushed for including the movement of non-scheduled vehicles and personal vehicles in the protocol, a tough ask for Bhutan to agree.
Critics in Bhutan fear that a surge in irregular or non-scheduled traffic would overwhelm her infrastructure besides posing a threat to her environment and culture. Her position relating to the second protocol with cargo vehicles is more explicit compared to the first protocol, where it proposes that the Himalayan nation would regulate the number of vehicles allowed within its borders and time such vehicles spend in Bhutan.
Domestically, the government perhaps could fix a limit for the number of vehicles it would be permitting under its bilateral or trilateral agreements and show how the numbers are calculated. It would also have to state the measures it will take to mitigate the environmental impact of regional vehicles and whether such vehicles would be subjected to tax or local emission standards.
At the same time, the country needs to overcome hurdles to connectivity, improve road infrastructure without ignoring security, immigration and customs inspections would be required on visiting vehicles. How the government would overcome the limitations and ensure these aspects also need to be shared.
There is no doubt, that sooner or later Bhutan would be joining the new sub-regional bloc. There is a strong political will in Bhutan to finalise the draft protocols of the agreement. However, it needs to engage in a dialogue with stakeholders within the country and with its BBIN partners to iron out issues without sacrificing the real intent of the agreement.
The writer is a Research Assistant at Observer Research Foundation, Kolkata.
Maldives: Political stalemate remains
By N. Sathiya Moorthy
At its much-anticipated meeting in London, the Commonwealth Ministerial Action Group (CMAG) has (once again) called for an “inclusive, purposeful, time-bound and forward-looking political dialogue, initiated by the Government and with the constructive participation initially of representatives of all political parties, aimed at achieving deeper and enduring understanding between the government and opposition parties of their respective roles and responsibilities, a shared sense of national priorities, and overall a stronger climate of political pluralism in Maldives”.
To this end, the CMAG sought “steps to be taken by the Government to enable the release of political leaders under detention or custody and the return of those from outside the country, so that all political leaders can contribute to political life in Maldives, including the political dialogue and the 2018 elections, pursuant to the Commonwealth Charter and the inalienable right of the people of Maldives to choose their political representatives”. In this context, the CMAG also called for steps “to prevent the ongoing use of anti-terrorism or other legislation to stifle national political debate, and to address concerns raised regarding due process in judicial cases involving political figures”.
Despite other domestic stake-holders, including jailed religion-centric Adhalaath Party (AP) leader, Sheikh Imran, much of the political focus has remained on jailed former President Mohammed Nasheed, now on ‘medical leave’ in the UK, and his Maldivian Democratic Party (MDP). The government is yet to comment on repeated international calls (of the West) for freeing all ‘political prisoners’, and include their leaders in the all-party negotiations for political reforms, which the Yameen leadership has anyway promised and ‘initiated’ (!).
Positive fall-out
One positive fall-out of the CMAG resolution, if the government moves forward on this score, would be to free Nasheed and other ‘political prisoners’ and then commence reforms-talks with them all. The government has since changed its stand and has said that it was ready to negotiate with jailed political leadership. The MDP promptly rejected the government offer, as in the past, and has said that it would negotiate with Nasheed in prison. Other Opposition parties could be expected to follow suit.
A theoretical alternative could still be for Nasheed returning home and negotiating with the government on the larger political issues from his prison cell, could be for them to start up talks in some overseas venue. If there is no movement on this score, the dead-lock would have to continue. For the MDP, it has achieved so much – and would not want to ease the diplomatic pressure on the government. For the Yameen leadership, in political terms, it has yielded so much. If anything, it could not be seen as yielding even more, particularly without any promise or commitment of any kind from the other side
Going by the CMAG resolution again, the initial negotiations would still have to involve only ‘domestic stake-holders’. If the MDP insists on Nasheed leading/participating in the negotiations, as has been the case thus far – and naturally, so — and the government is serious about the CMAG resolution, it would have no choice but to hold separate talks with the domestic stake-holders, some in Maldives and some outside. That is, unless of course, the government facilitates early and favourable end of the pending court case and ongoing conviction and jail-term against Nasheed, and facilitates his early return home as a freeman.
Privileges denied
Almost on the eve of the CMAG meeting and after the visit of Tamrat Samuel, senior advisor to the UN’s department of political affairs, to help revive deadlocked political talks, the Yameen leadership precisely offered as much without much loss of time. It has since offered to talk to leaders in prison, which President Yameen had stoutly declined until now.
At the same time, Yameen also signed an amended law from parliament, passed a fortnight earlier, denying post-retirement benefits to court-convicted former presidents. Nasheed alone would be covered under the law just now. In real terms however it does not matter much either to Nasheed or the MDP.
Confusion also surrounded the government overnight revoking Nasheed’s extended medical leave for spinal surgery in the UK, where he has been for weeks now. The revocation was revoked later, with the government explaining that Nasheed’s lawyer had caused a confusion by declaring that Nasheed was not being operated upon on the day President Yameen told the public as much.
With Nasheed’s photographs in hospital bed began doing the rounds, the government possibly felt convinced and compelled to revoke the revocation. Earlier after cancelling Nasheed’s medical leave ahead of Yameen’s India visit this month, the government clarified that they were ready to reconsider any such request if fresh documents were produced, as required.
Along with Nasheed’s, the government also simultaneously revoked the medical leave extension for ex-Minister Nazim and jailed parliamentarian, also going by the same name. Both were away in Singapore, and the latter was even reported to have ‘fled’. The former minister however returned to Maldives after the revocation of medical-leave extension, and was sent on ‘house arrest’ instead of prison.
Terrorism law
On the CMAG resolution relating to the use, misuse or abuse of ‘terrorism law’, the unmentioned specific reference once again is to Nasheed’s trial and conviction in the ‘Judge Abdulla abduction case’. The Supreme Court reserved orders without setting a date for pronouncing its verdict on the twin appeals of the State and Nasheed against his trial court conviction and procedural issues before the High Court, weeks ago. The verdict in the case could also apply to the conviction and sentence against Adhalaath Party’s Sheikh Imran, former Defence Ministers Col. Mohamad Nazim and Tholath Ibrahim, and others.
Unless the Supreme Court throws out the conviction and sentencing of Nasheed, the chances of the ‘Judge Abdulla case’ reverting back to the High Court, if not a re-constituted trial court, for fresh hearing under normal criminal laws cannot be ruled out. In its defence in the Supreme Court, Nasheed’s defence too had submitted to the possibility, but only to argue that the trial did not have any leg to stand on under ‘terrorism law’. The fact of Judge Abdulla’s arrest, and Nasheed’s video-graphed claims on the same being what they have neither been contested, nor disproved.
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