Aggressive Diplomacy?

Posted on October 17, 2006
Filed Under >Adil Najam, Foreign Relations, Politics
15 Comments
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Adil Najam

Since the issue has been raised a number of times in our comments section, I was intrigued by a news agency report published in The Daily Times (16 October, 2006) stating: “Expenses on foreign visits by the two leaders were comparatively low until 2004, but such spending has seen a phenomenal increase since.”

… Musharraf and the three prime ministers who served under him made 61 official foreign visits. These visits had cost taxpayers more than a billion rupees by December 2004, and in the later part of fiscal year-2005-06, these visits cost almost the same sum that was spent between October 1999 and December 2004. Foreign Ministry sources said that Musharraf made 41 official visits and toured at least 71 countries between June 2000 and December 2004, costing taxpayers more than Rs 658 million. The three prime ministers went on 20 foreign visits between November 2002 and January 2005, touring 34 countries. Of the 20 visits, Aziz’s trips cost the exchequer almost Rs 352 million.

Although details of countries visited between July 2005 and June 2006 are not available, spending on delegations led by the prime minister during this fiscal year was almost Rs 900 million; documents showed a budgeted sum of Rs 759.1 million plus an additional sum of Rs 150 million. The president’s visits during the same fiscal year cost the exchequer the budgeted figure (Rs 200 million) plus a supplementary grant of Rs 100 million. Information provided by the Foreign Ministry on pre-2005 visits showed that the US was the country toured the most by Musharraf: nine times in four and a half years.

Of course a proper cost-benefit analysis would require some estimation of the tangible and intangible benefits of these visits. One should also acknowledge that foreign visits by Heads of State and Government are an important component of international diplomacy. Unfortunately, however, over the last many years (and not just in this government) the bloated entourage sizes have become a vehicle of political payoffs through junkets rather than authentic diplomatic missions. One wonders, therefore, at what point does ‘aggressive diplomacy’ become too aggressive? Or, at least, too costly?

15 responses to “Aggressive Diplomacy?”

  1. Irfan says:

    This one is a clear case of over doing things. I cannot imagine that all these trips were necessary nor that they were necessary for everyone in the entourage… slow down guys, if you visit someone oo often your value and welcome also goes down!

  2. Samdani says:

    You are being too polite here. These are junkets so let us call them that.

    You hit it right at the end of the post. For many years now, certianly since Zia, espeically under Nawaz but also under BB and now really strongly under Shaukat Aziz, our PMs have made a fine art of taking along people on these trips, really as political payoffs and briibes. Ministers, MNA, their families, journalistis. This is a form of corruption

  3. sadia says:

    I was summarily aggrieved by how large the entourage was this time around. I heard him speak at GWU and it seemed the whole front row (of about 30 seats) was filled by random parliamentarians he invited to prove his point that he has allowed more freedoms in Pakistan (4 women and a Sikh bhai). Not one to ditch comfort for modesty, his entourage took up about 20 rooms at the Four Season Hotel in Georgetown- all of this for what should have been a trip to speak to the UN and Bush- a total of 4 days max.

  4. PatExpat says:

    From Dawn
    http://dawn.com/2006/10/08/op.htm

    [quote post=”364″]General Pervez Musharraf’s [previous] visits to Indonesia, the Philippines, Argentina, Brazil, and Mexico. Available information showed that none of them accomplished anything that could not have been achieved through our ambassadors in the countries visited and their ambassadors in Islamabad.

    General Musharraf supported the resolutions that NAM passed. It denounced Israel’s recent invasion of Lebanon, recognised Jerusalem as occupied territory, supported Iran’s right to develop nuclear energy, condemned terrorism with the qualification that it was not to be confused with a people’s struggle for self-determination or its fight against foreign occupation, endorsed democracy as a universal value but added that no state was entitled to tell others what its form and procedures must be.

    Most Third World nations would endorse these propositions, and General Musharraf’s support for them did not place Pakistan in a particularly noteworthy position.

    His statements at the General Assembly, like those at the NAM conference, were all good even if they called for developments that are not likely to materialise. The positions taken at both places were such as he and other Pakistani spokesmen had announced many times before. It is not clear why he, and a huge entourage of ministers and other dignitaries, had to go out to restate them, and why Mr Khurshid Kasuri, the foreign minister, or even Pakistan’s ambassador to the United Nations, could not have done the same.[/quote]

  5. ayesha says:

    To start with, we can definitely cut down on the entourage sizes. The point where aggressive diplomacy becomes too costly can easily be gauged by the fruits of a certain visit for Pakistan. Conceeded that the fruits of such visits are not always immediately visible – but we can make some sort of approximation. For example – while Musharraf wooed the Americans in his *long* last trip – but I am not sure if anything really tangible came of it for the country. He got high sales for his books, the American public likes him now – but Pakistan still is the state that has a hand in glove with the terrorists. So what did *Paksitan* really gain from the President’s visit?

    A cynical comment to conclude: can we really stop or even bring to the government’s attention, this sort of exobitant spedning?

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