The FEER Forum

by Michael Judge
Tokyo – Prime Minister Yasuo Fukuda’s trip to Seoul this week to meet with South Korea’s newly inaugurated President Lee-myung Bak has been largely overshadowed by the steadily evolving scandal surrounding the Feb. 19 collision between a Japanese destroyer and fishing boat.

    Indeed, the Defense Ministry’s handling of the tragic event, which resulted in the loss at sea of two Japanese fishermen, is providing fodder for opposition leaders who are calling for snap elections. 

    Democratic Party leader Ichiro Ozawa has gone so far as to accuse Mr. Fukuda’s Defense Ministry of a “cover-up” and has called for the resignation of Defense Minister Shigeru Ishiba, who is seen as one of Mr. Fukuda’s most competent ministers.   

    “Human beings sometimes commit mistakes,” Mr. Ozawa told reporters here. “But in a case like this accident, such conduct of trying to hide one’s mistakes is even worse and should be condemned,” he said.

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by Michael Judge
    It didn’t take long after the arrest of Amit Kumar, the leader of a lucrative and far-flung black-market kidney ring based in Gurgaon, for lawmakers and activists to call for the liberalization of India’s 1994 Transplantation of Human Organs Act and the easing of restrictions on legal organ donation.

    Dubbed “Dr. Horror” by the Indian press, Kumar and his henchmen are accused of illegally harvesting some 500 kidneys and selling them to buyers from India and around the globe, including such wealthy countries as Saudi Arabia, Dubai, the United Arab Emirates, the UK and the U.S.

    According to police, the ring spanned five Indian states and involved at least four doctors, several hospitals, dozens of nurses and paramedics, and a car outfitted as a laboratory. While Kumar lured some (impoverished and barely literate) donors with cash payments, authorities say others were held at gunpoint until they could be anesthetized and their kidneys harvested.

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By Baladas Ghoshal

     Sociologists and political scientists may derive satisfaction from their discovery of identity politics, but when applied in practical politics of many developing countries, it may go against the very grain of plural societies and the unity of a country. It becomes even a more dangerous mix when politicians and activists use them to promote their parochial and narrow personal agendas and vote banks at the expense of greater national interests. Instead of aggregating primordial loyalties into civic loyalties and citizenship—a necessary condition for survival of plural and multicultural societies as nations—opportunist politicians indulge in divisive politics and use the lumpen elements of any society to project themselves as their savior and protector.
     The politics of Raj Thakeray in Mumbai, one of India’s most cosmopolitan metropolis and life line of its economy and finance, is a classic example of identity politics gone awry and one that was used to promote interests of an individual embittered by his exclusion due to sibling rivalry from a larger sectarian group called Shiv Sena controlled by his patriarch uncle, Balasaheb Thackeray. His Maharashtra Navnirman Sena had taken Mumbai ransom with its latest tirade against the non-Marathi people (i.e., non natives of Mumbai’s home state, Maharashtra). Continue Reading »

by Phelim Kine
    China’s press has spilled a lot of ink berating Steven Spielberg for his decision to back out as “artistic adviser” to the 2008 Beijing Olympics. Meanwhile, the fact that preparations for the Olympics are actually having a negative impact on human rights goes unreported.

    Human Rights Watch research shows that the government has increased censorship, cracked down on human rights defenders and put the brakes on growing social demands for better rights protection, all in the name of economic progress and social harmony ahead of the Games. Beijing clearly aims to stifle protest and dissent.

    Back in 2001, one of the key enticements the Chinese government offered the International Olympic Committee was a pledge that the Olympics would boost the development of “democracy and human rights” in China by the time the Games opened on Aug. 8, 2008. It’s now clear that the Chinese government has failed to fulfill this pledge and has instead come out swinging at those who dare to remind it of its unkept promises.

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by Jens F. Laurson and George A. Pieler

     When the New York Philharmonic accepted an invitation from the North Korean Government to perform at the East Pyongyang Grand Theatre, commentary either praised the move as a savvy act of cultural diplomacy or condemned it as a public relations ploy for one of the world’s worst tyrants.

     When the United States’ first orchestra takes the stage on Feb. 26, playing to a hall packed with the Politburo’s elite, it will likely be the latter.

     In the best tradition of U.S. cultural diplomacy, this concert showcases the best of American culture. Fine so far, but the New York Philharmonic is wasting a great opportunity to underpin its cultural message with a more significant one about the value of freedom.

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by Amir Taheri
    Pakistan’s election has been portrayed by the Western media as a defeat for President Pervez Musharraf. The real losers were the Islamist parties.

    The latest analysis of the results shows that the parties linked, or at least sympathetic, to the Taliban and al Qaeda saw their share of the votes slashed to about 3% from almost 11% in the last general election a few years ago. The largest coalition of the Islamist parties, the United Assembly for Action (MMA), lost control of the Northwest Frontier Province—the only one of Pakistan’s four provinces it governed. The winner in the province is the avowedly secularist National Awami Party.

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by Jonathan Adams 
    Kosovo’s declaration of independence has opened up a new front in the long-running diplomatic battle between China and Taiwan. It also underscores how Taiwan’s key problem is one of recognition, not whether it should formalize its de facto independence. 

    China opposes Kosovo’s independence, fearing it could set a dangerous precedent for separatist movements world-wide, but especially in Tibet, Xinjiang and Taiwan. That left Taiwan an opening to cozy up to a possible new diplomatic ally. On Wednesday, Taipei announced it had formally recognized the new European state. China’s Foreign Ministry quickly responded with predictable pique: “It is known to all that as a part of China, Taiwan has no right or eligibility to give the so-called ‘recognition’ (to Kosovo).”

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by Ronan Farrow and Mia Farrow
    Almost a year ago in the pages of The Wall Street Journal we questioned Steven Spielberg’s position as an artistic director of the 2008 Beijing Olympic Games. We highlighted China’s role as business partner, diplomatic protector and underwriter of Sudan’s campaign of ethnic destruction in Darfur.
    The piece, which labeled the games the “genocide Olympics,” provoked immediate self-protective action from the People’s Republic of China. Within days, Beijing placed rebuttal letters in prominent papers, hired two international press firms to sanitize their image, and appointed a special envoy to Darfur. Most significantly, China reconsidered its long-standing obstruction of United Nations Security Council actions on Darfur, and for the first time signed on to a resolution authorizing peacekeepers for the region.
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by Husain Haqqani
    In 60 years as an independent country, Pakistan has never changed its government through an election. The polls scheduled for Feb. 18 theoretically provide an opportunity for Pakistanis to clip the wings of the highly unpopular President Pervez Musharraf, who came to power in a military coup in 1999. But will Mr. Musharraf, and Pakistan’s all powerful army, let the people change the country’s history?

    Opinion polls show less than 20% of Pakistanis now approve of President Musharraf, who has been described as an indispensable ally in the war against terrorism by some members of the Bush administration. The depth of opposition to Mr. Musharraf, coupled with his tendency to change or break rules to stay in power, has raised serious doubts about the likelihood of the election being free and fair.   

    Pakistan already faces an al-Qaeda backed insurgency along its border with Afghanistan, which is spilling over into other parts of the country. A rigged election would anger the vast majority of Pakistanis who want to vote for moderate anti-terrorist parties. The ensuing chaos could strengthen the violent Islamist insurgents.

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