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arshad_lahore
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arshad_lahore
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Malakand: the next test
Saturday, June 06, 2009
Sherry Rehman
Before the military operation began in Swat, the militant hijack of the valley had become a potent symbol of what went wrong with Pakistan's response to the growing terrorist challenge emanating from the tribal areas bordering Afghanistan. Yet, the military operation, so desperately awaited to counter the neo-Taliban advance from Swat, led to a costly and often fragile victory.
The heart of the crisis is that this has become a multiple-front war, and the main theatre is running off a second, more diffused arena for potentially disastrous outcomes. Unity is compromised by the question of refugee sanctuaries, as it opens up parochial and ethnic faultlines no nation needs when it faces challenges this complex. At another more critical level, the continuing IDP trauma counters the mood that traditionally feeds morale for a war. Each time a woman dies for lack of a doctor, or a non-combatant loses life or limb in the cross-fire of curfew, the narrative of public resolve takes a blow. This must be acknowledged and iterated for the huge challenge that it is. There should be no equivocation that the price of reinstalling the Pakistan flag continues to be perilously high, but the suffering of millions should not elicit political posturing. Instead, the humanitarian tragedy should mobilize the international community and civil society to recognize the limits of government capacity to handle alone the size of the task ahead. Calls for transparency as well as more humane military operational tactics are productive and indeed necessary; they spur executive accountability and action. But calls that question the validity of state action at this stage only endanger the federation's unity, not just the government.
In Pakistan's current crisis, clearly, necessity has been the mother of intervention. But if the country is to survive what is left of it after 1971, invention is also a necessity. We can no longer afford the backlash of unintended consequences. The level of change required will be painful, but fairly predictable. Firstly, the IDP catastrophe is just the beginning of a long counterinsurgency transition which will not be resolved by a return to the status quo ante. This must be acknowledged by all stakeholders in power in NWFP. If this is not explicitly understood, then there will be a massive security and social crisis in the affected areas in less than six months. Second, there are calls for IDPs' return to some areas like Buner, but basic questions remain unanswered. There needs to be a clear recognition that we can't just be laissez faire about meeting a challenge that will require focused state-management of refugee-return in a local law-enforcement and infrastructure vacuum.
Goals will have to be prioritized as government machinery will not be able to process tasks amid multiple transitions. The first responsibility of any government, no matter how diminished its abilities, is to provide safety to its citizens. Let there be no compromise on that again. Schools, offices, shops and state services will need manpower to secure their mobility and daily protection from future Taliban coercion. Right now the areas that the military has worked on may be clear of militants, but that is not how they will remain. The Taliban have a history of resilience, are trained to disband, melt-away and re-group. They must be put out of business. The army will have to maintain some presence there for vigilant action.
It is imperative that fear should not be allowed to tip local sentiment toward the Taliban. And neither should elite attrition and lack of executive will to re-build state institutions. The provincial government of NWFP will need international assistance but without the aid contractors that take back sixty percent of what they put in through self-appointed consultancies. The federal government too will have to run urgent security reform commissions that reinvent and coordinate the law-enforcement apparatus for Malakand. Without real-time police enhancements, FC reinforcements and security sector reform, the army will end up bogged in holding areas it needs to move out from. For the foreseeable future, the military will have to patrol routes and potential choke points for the areas it has cleared, but it has serious work to do elsewhere to block and interdict critical massing of renegade Taliban leadership from Swat.
The military's success in netting the Swat Taliban leadership, including the TNSM chief, Sufi Mohammad, marks a major move forward for the state's offensive against the terror network. However, the Bajaur Taliban leadership has still not been located after a military operation that lost hundreds of military lives, dislocated all civilians, and made a bullet-scarred moonscape out of Bajaur. What often compromises the capture of Taliban commanders is the terrain. But ultimately it is the non-patrolled border with Afghanistan that operates as the largest terrorist escape route in the world. If the US cannot pressure its way in the trilateral commission to increase secure patrols on this border, which can work in Afghanistan's favour as well, then we have a problem of sanctuaries that cannot ever be dissolved. If Pakistan's identifiable Taliban commanders cannot be located and permanently evade capture, then we risk a real long-term slide into anarchy and warlordism in many areas of Pakistan. In response to being hit in the territory they had captured, the TTP and others have already announced and executed bomb blasts and suicide attacks in urban nerve centres. This means that a serious FATA reform plan has to be put into place, if reclaimed territory is not to be lost again. The kidnapping of Razmak Cadet College students by the TTP in collaboration with North Waziristan militants, should have finally driven home this message to our security elites. They may not attack government installations due to the NW Peace Agreement, but they are certainly building a Taliban emirate in the NWA, just like their erstwhile colleague Baitullah Mehsud is doing in South Waziristan. It will be a massive challenge, as the army has incessantly waged battles here since 2003, but if peace deals don't hold, and experience tells us they do not, then territory has to be regained, and even slowly incorporated as mainstream Pakistan for the first time through a mixture of reform and state force. Non-state actors that hold Pakistan hostage will need to be tracked down in their strongholds as part of a long-term FATA strategy or else the military operations everywhere will be questioned, and Pakistan will be left with no kinetic security tool to fight terrorism or hold sovereign territory.
All the IDPs of Swat speak with a mixture of anger and awe about the ability of the militants to broadcast dogma and threats with impunity. This mobility needs to be disabled. In Swat, the Fazlullah radio frequency was not just used to spew propaganda against the military and state, it was used as a basic communication device for field commanders to recruit criminals, coordinate attacks and make surgical get-aways. These renegade FM transmissions need to be jammed if we are to interrupt this anti-state narrative. We were often told this cannot be done because of their mobility. If anyone thinks these frequencies cannot be jammed, then they need to check again with PEMRA and the Frequency Board. The two had already begun jamming Fazlullah, under my instructions as information minister and with the concurrence of the NWFP chief minister, by mounting jammers on mobile units when the peace deal between the ANP and Sufi Mohammed was signed.
Thirdly, all local agreements to restore peace will hinge on working with the local community, but this time committees or jirgas should include non-Maliks, women leaders and the marginalized. The narrative from behind or outside the purdah is mostly rooted in pragmatism and the value of peace. At the same time, there must be recognition that a larger social justice deficit lies at the root of many quests for rough and ready mongrelisations of Islamist systems. PATA justice and revenue systems can be brought into conformity with the Pakistan Penal Code if they are seen as delivering, especially if justice is dispensed within a fixed timeframe and pendency is regulated, and the jurisdiction of Pakistan's superior courts be extended to PATA. If the social pyramid leaves the poor increasingly dispossessed and the area remains without constitutional protections extended elsewhere, we will see community buy-in for future Taliban take-overs. Reconstruction of infrastructure, the accountability of rehabilitation aid flows, the creation of income opportunities and public trust will go hand-in-hand.
Post-operation Malakand will have to be a different place than when the Taliban left it. The death of hope must never be allowed to cast its shadow, and that will only be prevented if the state pools all its resources to energise reform. The success rate of this enterprise will make or break the vital consensus required on a national scale to sustain the public resolve needed for a long-term political campaign against terrorism. There is no point flushing Malakand of terrorists if Punjab, Sindh, Balochistan, and the rest of NWFP are forced to tolerate them.
The writer is former federal information minister and a PPP MNA.
Saturday, June 06, 2009
Sherry Rehman
Before the military operation began in Swat, the militant hijack of the valley had become a potent symbol of what went wrong with Pakistan's response to the growing terrorist challenge emanating from the tribal areas bordering Afghanistan. Yet, the military operation, so desperately awaited to counter the neo-Taliban advance from Swat, led to a costly and often fragile victory.
The heart of the crisis is that this has become a multiple-front war, and the main theatre is running off a second, more diffused arena for potentially disastrous outcomes. Unity is compromised by the question of refugee sanctuaries, as it opens up parochial and ethnic faultlines no nation needs when it faces challenges this complex. At another more critical level, the continuing IDP trauma counters the mood that traditionally feeds morale for a war. Each time a woman dies for lack of a doctor, or a non-combatant loses life or limb in the cross-fire of curfew, the narrative of public resolve takes a blow. This must be acknowledged and iterated for the huge challenge that it is. There should be no equivocation that the price of reinstalling the Pakistan flag continues to be perilously high, but the suffering of millions should not elicit political posturing. Instead, the humanitarian tragedy should mobilize the international community and civil society to recognize the limits of government capacity to handle alone the size of the task ahead. Calls for transparency as well as more humane military operational tactics are productive and indeed necessary; they spur executive accountability and action. But calls that question the validity of state action at this stage only endanger the federation's unity, not just the government.
In Pakistan's current crisis, clearly, necessity has been the mother of intervention. But if the country is to survive what is left of it after 1971, invention is also a necessity. We can no longer afford the backlash of unintended consequences. The level of change required will be painful, but fairly predictable. Firstly, the IDP catastrophe is just the beginning of a long counterinsurgency transition which will not be resolved by a return to the status quo ante. This must be acknowledged by all stakeholders in power in NWFP. If this is not explicitly understood, then there will be a massive security and social crisis in the affected areas in less than six months. Second, there are calls for IDPs' return to some areas like Buner, but basic questions remain unanswered. There needs to be a clear recognition that we can't just be laissez faire about meeting a challenge that will require focused state-management of refugee-return in a local law-enforcement and infrastructure vacuum.
Goals will have to be prioritized as government machinery will not be able to process tasks amid multiple transitions. The first responsibility of any government, no matter how diminished its abilities, is to provide safety to its citizens. Let there be no compromise on that again. Schools, offices, shops and state services will need manpower to secure their mobility and daily protection from future Taliban coercion. Right now the areas that the military has worked on may be clear of militants, but that is not how they will remain. The Taliban have a history of resilience, are trained to disband, melt-away and re-group. They must be put out of business. The army will have to maintain some presence there for vigilant action.
It is imperative that fear should not be allowed to tip local sentiment toward the Taliban. And neither should elite attrition and lack of executive will to re-build state institutions. The provincial government of NWFP will need international assistance but without the aid contractors that take back sixty percent of what they put in through self-appointed consultancies. The federal government too will have to run urgent security reform commissions that reinvent and coordinate the law-enforcement apparatus for Malakand. Without real-time police enhancements, FC reinforcements and security sector reform, the army will end up bogged in holding areas it needs to move out from. For the foreseeable future, the military will have to patrol routes and potential choke points for the areas it has cleared, but it has serious work to do elsewhere to block and interdict critical massing of renegade Taliban leadership from Swat.
The military's success in netting the Swat Taliban leadership, including the TNSM chief, Sufi Mohammad, marks a major move forward for the state's offensive against the terror network. However, the Bajaur Taliban leadership has still not been located after a military operation that lost hundreds of military lives, dislocated all civilians, and made a bullet-scarred moonscape out of Bajaur. What often compromises the capture of Taliban commanders is the terrain. But ultimately it is the non-patrolled border with Afghanistan that operates as the largest terrorist escape route in the world. If the US cannot pressure its way in the trilateral commission to increase secure patrols on this border, which can work in Afghanistan's favour as well, then we have a problem of sanctuaries that cannot ever be dissolved. If Pakistan's identifiable Taliban commanders cannot be located and permanently evade capture, then we risk a real long-term slide into anarchy and warlordism in many areas of Pakistan. In response to being hit in the territory they had captured, the TTP and others have already announced and executed bomb blasts and suicide attacks in urban nerve centres. This means that a serious FATA reform plan has to be put into place, if reclaimed territory is not to be lost again. The kidnapping of Razmak Cadet College students by the TTP in collaboration with North Waziristan militants, should have finally driven home this message to our security elites. They may not attack government installations due to the NW Peace Agreement, but they are certainly building a Taliban emirate in the NWA, just like their erstwhile colleague Baitullah Mehsud is doing in South Waziristan. It will be a massive challenge, as the army has incessantly waged battles here since 2003, but if peace deals don't hold, and experience tells us they do not, then territory has to be regained, and even slowly incorporated as mainstream Pakistan for the first time through a mixture of reform and state force. Non-state actors that hold Pakistan hostage will need to be tracked down in their strongholds as part of a long-term FATA strategy or else the military operations everywhere will be questioned, and Pakistan will be left with no kinetic security tool to fight terrorism or hold sovereign territory.
All the IDPs of Swat speak with a mixture of anger and awe about the ability of the militants to broadcast dogma and threats with impunity. This mobility needs to be disabled. In Swat, the Fazlullah radio frequency was not just used to spew propaganda against the military and state, it was used as a basic communication device for field commanders to recruit criminals, coordinate attacks and make surgical get-aways. These renegade FM transmissions need to be jammed if we are to interrupt this anti-state narrative. We were often told this cannot be done because of their mobility. If anyone thinks these frequencies cannot be jammed, then they need to check again with PEMRA and the Frequency Board. The two had already begun jamming Fazlullah, under my instructions as information minister and with the concurrence of the NWFP chief minister, by mounting jammers on mobile units when the peace deal between the ANP and Sufi Mohammed was signed.
Thirdly, all local agreements to restore peace will hinge on working with the local community, but this time committees or jirgas should include non-Maliks, women leaders and the marginalized. The narrative from behind or outside the purdah is mostly rooted in pragmatism and the value of peace. At the same time, there must be recognition that a larger social justice deficit lies at the root of many quests for rough and ready mongrelisations of Islamist systems. PATA justice and revenue systems can be brought into conformity with the Pakistan Penal Code if they are seen as delivering, especially if justice is dispensed within a fixed timeframe and pendency is regulated, and the jurisdiction of Pakistan's superior courts be extended to PATA. If the social pyramid leaves the poor increasingly dispossessed and the area remains without constitutional protections extended elsewhere, we will see community buy-in for future Taliban take-overs. Reconstruction of infrastructure, the accountability of rehabilitation aid flows, the creation of income opportunities and public trust will go hand-in-hand.
Post-operation Malakand will have to be a different place than when the Taliban left it. The death of hope must never be allowed to cast its shadow, and that will only be prevented if the state pools all its resources to energise reform. The success rate of this enterprise will make or break the vital consensus required on a national scale to sustain the public resolve needed for a long-term political campaign against terrorism. There is no point flushing Malakand of terrorists if Punjab, Sindh, Balochistan, and the rest of NWFP are forced to tolerate them.
The writer is former federal information minister and a PPP MNA.
A
arshad_lahore
Guest
Press the reset button on Kashmir
Saturday, June 06, 2009
Asif Ezdi
After the victory of the Congress party in the Indian parliamentary elections, Pakistan has again called for a resumption of the 'composite dialogue' which India suspended after the terrorist attack in Bombay last November. India has responded by expressing a desire for normalisation of relations. Delhi's official posture towards Pakistan after the elections has in fact been strikingly conciliatory and moderate.
In his first meeting with the press after taking office, S M Krishna, the new foreign minister affirmed India's readiness to extend its hand of partnership to Pakistan. India has also been softening its conditions for a dialogue with Pakistan. In some of his statements, Krishna has played down the earlier insistence that Pakistan must first "dismantle the terror network." Instead, he has indicated that it would be enough if Pakistan were to bring to book the perpetrators of the Mumbai terror attacks. The Indian reaction to the release of Hafiz Mohammad Saeed has also been restrained. It has only expressed 'disappointment', the mildest form of protest in diplomatic parlance. India's silence on Geelani's speech to the AJK Council on June 2 in which he called for a resolution of Kashmir in accordance with UN Security Council's resolutions and the aspirations of Kashmiri people is also in the same vein.
Delhi's softer stance towards Pakistan in recent weeks does not imply that India has given up its long-held strategic goals towards Pakistan. It only shows that India is prepared to be flexible in the choice of the means for the achievement of those ends. What those goals are is not a mystery. If anyone is in doubt, he should read the scores of Pakistan-bashers who write in the columns of the Indian press everyday. Most of them can barely suppress their rage at the fact that Pakistan possesses nuclear capability. They waste their writing talents fantasising about the day when this 'failed state' will end their misery by 'imploding' before their eyes. In a recent article, my favourite in this crowded field whom I will not name blasted Pakistan for playing 'nuclear poker to shield its export of terrorism and still get rewarded with $23.6 billion in international aid commitments just in the last six months.' The article ended with a frenzied call upon the 'international community' to 'disable Pakistan's nuclear terror.'
Indian leaders have also been agonising about this 'problem' and have not failed to remind the international community of its 'responsibilities.' According to the Times of India, Manmohan Singh recently told Obama that nuclear sites in NWFP were already 'partly' in the hands of Islamic extremists. Similarly, the Indian army chief has said that the world must put pressure on Pakistan to 'cap' its nuclear capabilities. Despite this, there are signs that Delhi would like to return to the 'peace process', even though the conditions it had been demanding have not been met. There are several reasons for this.
First, India has drawn whatever diplomatic mileage it could out of its 'restraint' after the Bombay attack. The world is now more focused on the fight against the Taliban. While pressing Pakistan to punish the perpetrators of the terrorist attack in Bombay, Washington and others in the west give a higher priority to helping and encouraging Pakistan to fight the Taliban. Indian analysts have themselves acknowledged that the longer the dialogue is suspended by Delhi, the greater are the chances of pressure on India, rather than Pakistan.
Second, Washington has been urging Delhi to ease the pressure on Pakistan so that it is in a position to shift more troops from the border with India to the fight against the Taliban and Al Qaeda on the western border. Strengthening the strategic partnership with Washington is a very high priority for Delhi. It would therefore like to take some step to accommodate Washington's wishes. Resuming talks with Pakistan would serve this purpose.
Third, India realises that it will never get a more amenable government in Pakistan than the present one. Zardari has given enough evidence that Kashmir is not a matter of priority for him. He has equated the Kashmiri freedom fighters with terrorists, called for putting the issue on the backburner and in a recent interview with the Wall Street Journal, dismissed it as a 'land dispute', forgetting if he ever knew that it is about the right of 13 million Kashmiris to self-determination.
Lastly and most important, India with the support of Washington would like to reopen the back channel with Pakistan on Kashmir. Recent disclosures to the media by Kasuri, Musharraf's loquacious foreign minister, and by Manmohan Singh and an article in the New Yorker magazine by Steve Coll have brought to light the broad outlines of the 'solution' that envoys of Musharraf and the Indian prime minister more or less agreed upon in about two dozen sessions held between 2004 and early 2007.
Manmohan Singh has described the settlement proposed in the 'non-paper' negotiated by the two sides as 'non-territorial'. In other words, the current division of the state along the Line of Control would not be affected. All that the Kashmiris would get would be 'porous borders', i.e. some freedom of movement and trade across the Line of Control, a measure of autonomy for the different regions of the state and a joint body consisting of local Kashmiris, Pakistanis and Indians to discuss issues affecting people on both sides.
Such a settlement would be nothing but a sell-out of the Kashmiris and a betrayal of their aspirations for azadi. Now that Musharraf has been removed from the scene, the government should make clear where it stands on this issue. Zardari's own views are well-known. In his first press conference after assuming the presidency (September 9, 2008), he expressed support for back channel diplomacy and promised 'good news' about the Kashmir dispute before the Indian elections in 2009. (Pakistan has fortunately so far been spared the 'good news' promised by Zardari.)
According to Steve Coll, Manmohan Singh is keen that the bargain made with him by Musharraf should hold and took steps last year before Bombay to reconnect the back channel with Tariq Aziz. The Indian prime minister was concerned, in particular, about whether the new government would stand by the non-paper or insist on renegotiating it. Five months after Bombay, the Indian side is again very interested in returning to the non-paper. They would like to show some progress on reactivating the 'peace process' before Hilary Clinton visits the region in late July. Therefore, there is considerable diplomatic activity going on to arrange a meeting between Manmohan Singh and Zardari on the sidelines of the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) summit being hosted by Russia at Yekaterinburg on June 15-16.
The Pakistani leadership is therefore called upon to take a decision whether the back-channel diplomacy on a Kashmir settlement started by Musharraf is to be resumed. If so, the question also arises whether the negotiations would be on the basis of the non-paper worked out under the Musharraf regime or a new framework has to be elaborated. These matters are far too important to be left to the Zardari government alone. Instead, a national consensus needs to be developed, after careful deliberation and with the participation of parliament and political parties. In addition, the Kashmiri representatives should also be consulted. It is regrettable that none of the political parties, including the PML-N, the largest opposition party in the country, has given any thought to these questions.
The best course would be to return to the pre-Kargil position: political, moral and diplomatic support to the Kashmiri people for a settlement under the UN Security Council resolutions. It would be in consonance with the wishes of the new generation of Kashmiris which has grown up in the shadow of Indian bayonets and is not prepared to accept indefinite Indian occupation of the state. Implicit in this stance would be a rejection of the Kashmir non-paper hammered out during the Musharraf regime. In the diplomatic newspeak popularised by Joe Biden, it is called pressing the reset button.
The writer is a former member of the Pakistan Foreign Service.
Saturday, June 06, 2009
Asif Ezdi
After the victory of the Congress party in the Indian parliamentary elections, Pakistan has again called for a resumption of the 'composite dialogue' which India suspended after the terrorist attack in Bombay last November. India has responded by expressing a desire for normalisation of relations. Delhi's official posture towards Pakistan after the elections has in fact been strikingly conciliatory and moderate.
In his first meeting with the press after taking office, S M Krishna, the new foreign minister affirmed India's readiness to extend its hand of partnership to Pakistan. India has also been softening its conditions for a dialogue with Pakistan. In some of his statements, Krishna has played down the earlier insistence that Pakistan must first "dismantle the terror network." Instead, he has indicated that it would be enough if Pakistan were to bring to book the perpetrators of the Mumbai terror attacks. The Indian reaction to the release of Hafiz Mohammad Saeed has also been restrained. It has only expressed 'disappointment', the mildest form of protest in diplomatic parlance. India's silence on Geelani's speech to the AJK Council on June 2 in which he called for a resolution of Kashmir in accordance with UN Security Council's resolutions and the aspirations of Kashmiri people is also in the same vein.
Delhi's softer stance towards Pakistan in recent weeks does not imply that India has given up its long-held strategic goals towards Pakistan. It only shows that India is prepared to be flexible in the choice of the means for the achievement of those ends. What those goals are is not a mystery. If anyone is in doubt, he should read the scores of Pakistan-bashers who write in the columns of the Indian press everyday. Most of them can barely suppress their rage at the fact that Pakistan possesses nuclear capability. They waste their writing talents fantasising about the day when this 'failed state' will end their misery by 'imploding' before their eyes. In a recent article, my favourite in this crowded field whom I will not name blasted Pakistan for playing 'nuclear poker to shield its export of terrorism and still get rewarded with $23.6 billion in international aid commitments just in the last six months.' The article ended with a frenzied call upon the 'international community' to 'disable Pakistan's nuclear terror.'
Indian leaders have also been agonising about this 'problem' and have not failed to remind the international community of its 'responsibilities.' According to the Times of India, Manmohan Singh recently told Obama that nuclear sites in NWFP were already 'partly' in the hands of Islamic extremists. Similarly, the Indian army chief has said that the world must put pressure on Pakistan to 'cap' its nuclear capabilities. Despite this, there are signs that Delhi would like to return to the 'peace process', even though the conditions it had been demanding have not been met. There are several reasons for this.
First, India has drawn whatever diplomatic mileage it could out of its 'restraint' after the Bombay attack. The world is now more focused on the fight against the Taliban. While pressing Pakistan to punish the perpetrators of the terrorist attack in Bombay, Washington and others in the west give a higher priority to helping and encouraging Pakistan to fight the Taliban. Indian analysts have themselves acknowledged that the longer the dialogue is suspended by Delhi, the greater are the chances of pressure on India, rather than Pakistan.
Second, Washington has been urging Delhi to ease the pressure on Pakistan so that it is in a position to shift more troops from the border with India to the fight against the Taliban and Al Qaeda on the western border. Strengthening the strategic partnership with Washington is a very high priority for Delhi. It would therefore like to take some step to accommodate Washington's wishes. Resuming talks with Pakistan would serve this purpose.
Third, India realises that it will never get a more amenable government in Pakistan than the present one. Zardari has given enough evidence that Kashmir is not a matter of priority for him. He has equated the Kashmiri freedom fighters with terrorists, called for putting the issue on the backburner and in a recent interview with the Wall Street Journal, dismissed it as a 'land dispute', forgetting if he ever knew that it is about the right of 13 million Kashmiris to self-determination.
Lastly and most important, India with the support of Washington would like to reopen the back channel with Pakistan on Kashmir. Recent disclosures to the media by Kasuri, Musharraf's loquacious foreign minister, and by Manmohan Singh and an article in the New Yorker magazine by Steve Coll have brought to light the broad outlines of the 'solution' that envoys of Musharraf and the Indian prime minister more or less agreed upon in about two dozen sessions held between 2004 and early 2007.
Manmohan Singh has described the settlement proposed in the 'non-paper' negotiated by the two sides as 'non-territorial'. In other words, the current division of the state along the Line of Control would not be affected. All that the Kashmiris would get would be 'porous borders', i.e. some freedom of movement and trade across the Line of Control, a measure of autonomy for the different regions of the state and a joint body consisting of local Kashmiris, Pakistanis and Indians to discuss issues affecting people on both sides.
Such a settlement would be nothing but a sell-out of the Kashmiris and a betrayal of their aspirations for azadi. Now that Musharraf has been removed from the scene, the government should make clear where it stands on this issue. Zardari's own views are well-known. In his first press conference after assuming the presidency (September 9, 2008), he expressed support for back channel diplomacy and promised 'good news' about the Kashmir dispute before the Indian elections in 2009. (Pakistan has fortunately so far been spared the 'good news' promised by Zardari.)
According to Steve Coll, Manmohan Singh is keen that the bargain made with him by Musharraf should hold and took steps last year before Bombay to reconnect the back channel with Tariq Aziz. The Indian prime minister was concerned, in particular, about whether the new government would stand by the non-paper or insist on renegotiating it. Five months after Bombay, the Indian side is again very interested in returning to the non-paper. They would like to show some progress on reactivating the 'peace process' before Hilary Clinton visits the region in late July. Therefore, there is considerable diplomatic activity going on to arrange a meeting between Manmohan Singh and Zardari on the sidelines of the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) summit being hosted by Russia at Yekaterinburg on June 15-16.
The Pakistani leadership is therefore called upon to take a decision whether the back-channel diplomacy on a Kashmir settlement started by Musharraf is to be resumed. If so, the question also arises whether the negotiations would be on the basis of the non-paper worked out under the Musharraf regime or a new framework has to be elaborated. These matters are far too important to be left to the Zardari government alone. Instead, a national consensus needs to be developed, after careful deliberation and with the participation of parliament and political parties. In addition, the Kashmiri representatives should also be consulted. It is regrettable that none of the political parties, including the PML-N, the largest opposition party in the country, has given any thought to these questions.
The best course would be to return to the pre-Kargil position: political, moral and diplomatic support to the Kashmiri people for a settlement under the UN Security Council resolutions. It would be in consonance with the wishes of the new generation of Kashmiris which has grown up in the shadow of Indian bayonets and is not prepared to accept indefinite Indian occupation of the state. Implicit in this stance would be a rejection of the Kashmir non-paper hammered out during the Musharraf regime. In the diplomatic newspeak popularised by Joe Biden, it is called pressing the reset button.
The writer is a former member of the Pakistan Foreign Service.
A
arshad_lahore
Guest
Transitional justice
Legal eye
Saturday, June 06, 2009
Babar Sattar
The writer is a lawyer based in Islamabad.
Let us assume that we succeed in the battle against insurgency being waged in Swat. How will we transition from war to peace and reconstruct the post-conflict community whose social fabric has been ravaged by violence, hate and anger and whose means of livelihood have been destroyed due to prolonged hostilities and fighting? True, the armed forces must employ tactics in the battle against the Taliban that minimize collateral damage to civilians, the government ought to efficiently implement a comprehensive policy to generously accommodate and facilitate the victims of violence and misfortune who have been displaced from their homes, and our nation needs to continue to demonstrate its altruistic spirit to empathize with and help fellow citizens from Swat with material and emotional support. While all this is necessary, such simplistic prescription to win the 'hearts and minds' of local populations in insurgency-infested areas is not sufficient. Experiences of post-conflict societies elsewhere suggest that workable indigenous mechanisms need to be thoughtfully contrived in order to establish justice during transitions from war to peace.
Once the present phase of the military's fire brigade operation to capture and decapitate the Taliban in Swat is concluded, maintaining peace in the post-conflict zone will emerge as a major challenge. And solutions such as raising 10,000 strong police force comprising ex-military personnel to guard Malakand or establishing a permanent cantonment in Swat will not prove adequate on their own. We will need a holistic approach to transition Swat back to peace through a just process, the components of which must include (i) imposing sanctions through a penal justice system capable of prosecuting and convicting hard-core criminals and insurgents, (ii) a truth commission deciphering the causes of the Swat conflict and how we got to a stage where three million residents needed to be displaced to capture less than 5000 hard-core militants, (iii) rehabilitation of displaced citizens together with reconstructing their means of livelihood, (iv) reintegration of non-hardcore quasi-combatants within the communities and reconciliation amongst the community, and (v) rebuilding state-led institutions of governance in the post-conflict region.
De-radicalization and normalization of Swat will take time. For one, it is exceedingly hard to distinguish the insurgents from the local civilian population. While there are no trustworthy statistics available at the moment, there is a sense that hardcore militants in Swat are not more than a few thousand. Now that the resolve of the country and its military to eradicate the throat-slitting terrorists from our midst is becoming unambiguous, the locals who weren't committed fanatics are likely to part ways with the Taliban. We need to extinguish the treat posed by the hardcore militants while separating them from the less culpable tangential accomplices who sided with the Taliban because they were confused, misled or coerced. It is thus imperative to separate militants from the hesitating supporters or accomplices in order to apply state sanctions on the former while trying to reintegrate the latter within the community. Such reintegration will need to be braced with an effective process of reconciliation in order to pre-empt another spiral of violence provoked either due to the recovered semi-Taliban being sucked back into militancy elsewhere or by the desire of the victims of the present cycle of violence to seek revenge.
The reconciliation and rehabilitation program to bring the community together will need to be multi-pronged. The entrenched institution of jirga within the Pukhtun culture can serve as an indigenous initiative led by tribal and community leaders to heal wounds, determine reparations for property damage, and bring people together to build peace. But a crucial prong of a rehabilitation program will need to be state-sponsored and built on the realization that (i) various categories of combatants or Taliban supporters are not equally culpable, and (ii) many such quasi-combatants or semi-Taliban might even be victims themselves. For example, there will be a need to set up special programs for the misguided youth and juvenile offenders to ensure that they are cleansed of an ideology of hate and don't return to violence. If the state can establish educational and vocational training centres for youth, especially those suspected of being ex-combatants, the state would be able to monitor a vulnerable group over an extended period of time while also empowering such youth with the tools and skill-set to break-away from an unfortunate past.
As a subset of transitional justice, disarmament and demobilization of semi-Taliban in the immediate term might be easier than their reintegration in society. We need to realize that on the one hand it is in no one's interest to condemn considerable portions of local population in Swat or elsewhere in the tribal areas as Taliban or militants that must be eliminated. And on the other hand the sway of such semi-Taliban toward Talibanization is a consequence of life experiences, a depraved religious ideology, social norms, economic factors and imprudent state policies and will require time and effort to be neutralized. If the throat-slitting Taliban are to be eliminated, we will need to focus on eliminating Talibanization and a crucial test for that will be recover and rehabilitate those presently teetering at the brink of Talibanization. This brings us to the first two components of transitional justice: the need to subject hardcore militants to legal sanctions and the need for the state to indulge in truth telling (and how the two are interlinked).
In 2007 we witnessed the Lal Masjid imbroglio: gun-trotting vigilantes occupying a children library, abducting foreigners and shutting down music shops in Islamabad. When confronted by the state in an ill-conceived and delayed operation the military action claimed many lives, including those of commandos carrying out the operation. Yet, there has not been a single conviction for the crimes carried out by the Lal Masjid brigade and Abdul Aziz was recently released by the apex court to receive a hero's welcome back at Lal Masjid. Earlier this week Lahore High Court ordered the release of Hafiz Saeed the head of Jamaatud Dawa widely suspected of having inspired or abetted the Bombay terror attacks last year that brought Pakistan and India to the brink of war. When a justice system fails to put miscreants and offenders in correction facilities, it encourages crime and criminals by diluting the deterring effect of law on the one hand, and on the other encourages law-enforcement agencies to indulge in extra-judicial killings as the only effective way of putting criminals away. Are Pakistan's legislation, court system and criminal law jurisprudence fundamentally incapable of holding accountable perpetrators of terror and their intellectual mentors preaching an ideology of hate, violence and intolerance?
That Abdul Aziz and Hafiz Saeed are innocent until proven guilty is a fundamental tenant of our law and justice system. But why is it that despite a tremendous rise in terrorist activity and increase in the number of arrests made in relation thereto, no one ever gets convicted? Are intelligence and law-enforcement agencies not able to gather information and evidence in a manner that can be used in a court of law? Are they unwilling to share information with prosecutors and the courts that they deem sensitive from a national security perspective? Are they incapable of confronting all facets of the terror infrastructure still alive and well in Pakistan? Or are they deliberately equivocal about the utility of non-state actors in line with our three-decade old flawed defence and strategic thinking? And this is where the issue of truth-telling by the state becomes an essential plank in transitional justice. Hillary Clinton admitted before a senate committee that the US had helped nurture, finance and arm the Taliban and other mujahideen during the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan and had later forgotten about the stingers floating across Pakistan. It was thus part responsible for the mess in the region. Such admission is a crucial first step in amending mistakes of the past.
If Pakistan wishes to dismantle the jihadi infrastructure that continues to fuel insurgency in the tribal areas and terror across the country, the state must admit its original sin. We cannot confront or isolate militancy in Swat, while the militant ideology prospers in Waziristan, Southern Punjab and Muridke. A comprehensive approach to fighting terror and extremism in Pakistan can only be built on the admission that a flawed approach to national security and defence strategy led to the inception of a jihadi project, where the state patronized militant groups, trained them in guerrilla warfare, fed them on an obscurantist brand of religion and armed them with modern weapons funded by foreign money. Such acknowledgement will enable the state to confront the crimes of today, without simultaneously trying to cover up those of yesterday that can be traced back to its own doorstep. It will allow agencies to divulge information before our courts that will lead to convictions of terrorists and their patrons. And it will help today's military and political leaders to explain how we wound up in a situation where a population of almost three million people had to be evacuated to confront a few thousand militants and the steps that we will take now to never let this happen again.
Legal eye
Saturday, June 06, 2009
Babar Sattar
The writer is a lawyer based in Islamabad.
Let us assume that we succeed in the battle against insurgency being waged in Swat. How will we transition from war to peace and reconstruct the post-conflict community whose social fabric has been ravaged by violence, hate and anger and whose means of livelihood have been destroyed due to prolonged hostilities and fighting? True, the armed forces must employ tactics in the battle against the Taliban that minimize collateral damage to civilians, the government ought to efficiently implement a comprehensive policy to generously accommodate and facilitate the victims of violence and misfortune who have been displaced from their homes, and our nation needs to continue to demonstrate its altruistic spirit to empathize with and help fellow citizens from Swat with material and emotional support. While all this is necessary, such simplistic prescription to win the 'hearts and minds' of local populations in insurgency-infested areas is not sufficient. Experiences of post-conflict societies elsewhere suggest that workable indigenous mechanisms need to be thoughtfully contrived in order to establish justice during transitions from war to peace.
Once the present phase of the military's fire brigade operation to capture and decapitate the Taliban in Swat is concluded, maintaining peace in the post-conflict zone will emerge as a major challenge. And solutions such as raising 10,000 strong police force comprising ex-military personnel to guard Malakand or establishing a permanent cantonment in Swat will not prove adequate on their own. We will need a holistic approach to transition Swat back to peace through a just process, the components of which must include (i) imposing sanctions through a penal justice system capable of prosecuting and convicting hard-core criminals and insurgents, (ii) a truth commission deciphering the causes of the Swat conflict and how we got to a stage where three million residents needed to be displaced to capture less than 5000 hard-core militants, (iii) rehabilitation of displaced citizens together with reconstructing their means of livelihood, (iv) reintegration of non-hardcore quasi-combatants within the communities and reconciliation amongst the community, and (v) rebuilding state-led institutions of governance in the post-conflict region.
De-radicalization and normalization of Swat will take time. For one, it is exceedingly hard to distinguish the insurgents from the local civilian population. While there are no trustworthy statistics available at the moment, there is a sense that hardcore militants in Swat are not more than a few thousand. Now that the resolve of the country and its military to eradicate the throat-slitting terrorists from our midst is becoming unambiguous, the locals who weren't committed fanatics are likely to part ways with the Taliban. We need to extinguish the treat posed by the hardcore militants while separating them from the less culpable tangential accomplices who sided with the Taliban because they were confused, misled or coerced. It is thus imperative to separate militants from the hesitating supporters or accomplices in order to apply state sanctions on the former while trying to reintegrate the latter within the community. Such reintegration will need to be braced with an effective process of reconciliation in order to pre-empt another spiral of violence provoked either due to the recovered semi-Taliban being sucked back into militancy elsewhere or by the desire of the victims of the present cycle of violence to seek revenge.
The reconciliation and rehabilitation program to bring the community together will need to be multi-pronged. The entrenched institution of jirga within the Pukhtun culture can serve as an indigenous initiative led by tribal and community leaders to heal wounds, determine reparations for property damage, and bring people together to build peace. But a crucial prong of a rehabilitation program will need to be state-sponsored and built on the realization that (i) various categories of combatants or Taliban supporters are not equally culpable, and (ii) many such quasi-combatants or semi-Taliban might even be victims themselves. For example, there will be a need to set up special programs for the misguided youth and juvenile offenders to ensure that they are cleansed of an ideology of hate and don't return to violence. If the state can establish educational and vocational training centres for youth, especially those suspected of being ex-combatants, the state would be able to monitor a vulnerable group over an extended period of time while also empowering such youth with the tools and skill-set to break-away from an unfortunate past.
As a subset of transitional justice, disarmament and demobilization of semi-Taliban in the immediate term might be easier than their reintegration in society. We need to realize that on the one hand it is in no one's interest to condemn considerable portions of local population in Swat or elsewhere in the tribal areas as Taliban or militants that must be eliminated. And on the other hand the sway of such semi-Taliban toward Talibanization is a consequence of life experiences, a depraved religious ideology, social norms, economic factors and imprudent state policies and will require time and effort to be neutralized. If the throat-slitting Taliban are to be eliminated, we will need to focus on eliminating Talibanization and a crucial test for that will be recover and rehabilitate those presently teetering at the brink of Talibanization. This brings us to the first two components of transitional justice: the need to subject hardcore militants to legal sanctions and the need for the state to indulge in truth telling (and how the two are interlinked).
In 2007 we witnessed the Lal Masjid imbroglio: gun-trotting vigilantes occupying a children library, abducting foreigners and shutting down music shops in Islamabad. When confronted by the state in an ill-conceived and delayed operation the military action claimed many lives, including those of commandos carrying out the operation. Yet, there has not been a single conviction for the crimes carried out by the Lal Masjid brigade and Abdul Aziz was recently released by the apex court to receive a hero's welcome back at Lal Masjid. Earlier this week Lahore High Court ordered the release of Hafiz Saeed the head of Jamaatud Dawa widely suspected of having inspired or abetted the Bombay terror attacks last year that brought Pakistan and India to the brink of war. When a justice system fails to put miscreants and offenders in correction facilities, it encourages crime and criminals by diluting the deterring effect of law on the one hand, and on the other encourages law-enforcement agencies to indulge in extra-judicial killings as the only effective way of putting criminals away. Are Pakistan's legislation, court system and criminal law jurisprudence fundamentally incapable of holding accountable perpetrators of terror and their intellectual mentors preaching an ideology of hate, violence and intolerance?
That Abdul Aziz and Hafiz Saeed are innocent until proven guilty is a fundamental tenant of our law and justice system. But why is it that despite a tremendous rise in terrorist activity and increase in the number of arrests made in relation thereto, no one ever gets convicted? Are intelligence and law-enforcement agencies not able to gather information and evidence in a manner that can be used in a court of law? Are they unwilling to share information with prosecutors and the courts that they deem sensitive from a national security perspective? Are they incapable of confronting all facets of the terror infrastructure still alive and well in Pakistan? Or are they deliberately equivocal about the utility of non-state actors in line with our three-decade old flawed defence and strategic thinking? And this is where the issue of truth-telling by the state becomes an essential plank in transitional justice. Hillary Clinton admitted before a senate committee that the US had helped nurture, finance and arm the Taliban and other mujahideen during the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan and had later forgotten about the stingers floating across Pakistan. It was thus part responsible for the mess in the region. Such admission is a crucial first step in amending mistakes of the past.
If Pakistan wishes to dismantle the jihadi infrastructure that continues to fuel insurgency in the tribal areas and terror across the country, the state must admit its original sin. We cannot confront or isolate militancy in Swat, while the militant ideology prospers in Waziristan, Southern Punjab and Muridke. A comprehensive approach to fighting terror and extremism in Pakistan can only be built on the admission that a flawed approach to national security and defence strategy led to the inception of a jihadi project, where the state patronized militant groups, trained them in guerrilla warfare, fed them on an obscurantist brand of religion and armed them with modern weapons funded by foreign money. Such acknowledgement will enable the state to confront the crimes of today, without simultaneously trying to cover up those of yesterday that can be traced back to its own doorstep. It will allow agencies to divulge information before our courts that will lead to convictions of terrorists and their patrons. And it will help today's military and political leaders to explain how we wound up in a situation where a population of almost three million people had to be evacuated to confront a few thousand militants and the steps that we will take now to never let this happen again.
A
arshad_lahore
Guest
Micromanaging Pakistan
Hit and run
Saturday, June 06, 2009
Shakir Husain
Richard Holbrooke is back and this time it's to look at the refugee crisis as a result of the Swat operation, meet with the folks he needs to, and generally earn his keep. By the looks of it Mr Holbrooke spends as much time in Pakistan as President Zardari, and definitely much more time than ex-president Musharraf. Maybe we should just give him a Pakistani passport to make his life easier at the immigration counter? Pakistanis have come to view Richard Holbrooke as an uncle who flies in from 'abroad' bearing goodies for the kids in the entire family. But Mr Holbrooke also has an alter ego. Every Pakistani knows that the fun uncle who lives in Toronto, Dubai or Saudi Arabia also has a really annoying wife. Mr Holbrooke also has to play the role of the aunty in this case. As the uncle he comes bearing gifts like night vision binoculars, helicopters, and anti-insurgency treats. Oh and Uncle Holbrooke, thank you for the 200 million dollars. Much appreciated. But then he also needs to go and meet Nawaz Sharif, and smattering of politicians, various other 'elites' to remind them to 'play nice' so that the job can be done. Not to mention spend time with the one hundred or so ministers that we are blessed with by the PPP government. It's a dirty job but somebody's got to do it.
The Obama administration is doing just what every other American administration has done when it comes to Pakistan; only this time it is not so subtle. The playbook remains the same. Engage with the government, but also ensure that the bets are hedged when it comes to the opposition. Given the US interests in the country at this critical juncture nobody can blame them. But what happened to subtlety? By flying in monthly Mr Holbrooke is not inspiring a lot of confidence in the Pakistani government. It gets worse with the leaks back in Washington DC where the media is conveniently fed little nuggets to break stories with. Each leak gives the rightwing in Pakistan an 'aha' moment and at the next talk show appearance the 'evidence' is unveiled. The usual conspiracy theories about warm water ports, nukes under threat, and America's evil designs are ultimately paraded out. What America needs is a lower profile in America when it comes to decision-making and a higher profile when it comes to humanitarian assistance, infrastructure development, and capacity-building.
The Yanks would be wise to take a page out of the Saudi playbook. The head of Saudi intelligence usually flies in at night, bangs a few heads, rubs a few noses, kisses some cheeks, delivers the message, ensures comprehension, and then leaves. If the message needs to be reinforced, it's usually done when ministers, MNAs, politicos, and all and sundry hit the Holy Land for some spiritual R&R. Granted that America doesn't have Mecca nor the proximity, and it is quite a bitch to get a US visa; but everyone who's anyone has a child in the United States studying somewhere. Wouldn't that be a perfect time to knock some heads? Given the recent junket to DC where senior ministers were enjoying the fruits of their labour in stretch limos and partying till the break of dawn, it would have been a perfect setting for an intervention over a few cold ones. While no one in the media will even squeal when the Saudis are leaning hard on local politicians, an American envoy is the subject of many hours of airtime. As my school counsellor told me, "life isn't fair. The sooner you get used to that fact the easier it'll be." The Saudis and the Americans will never be judged by the same standards in Pakistan. The Saudis are seen as 'brothers' even though Pakistanis are treated badly, cannot become citizens, and cannot own property in the Kingdom. The Americans, despite the fact that Pakistanis can and do become citizens and can own property, are seen as the root of all our problems. This is a perception problem which the state will need to do something about. It's a function of money, expertise, and commitment. Difficult but not impossible. But the rules of engagement have to change.
The perception that most Pakistanis have that the United States calls the shots in Pakistan is both correct and incorrect. But who is to blame for this perception being partially credible? Actually both the Americans and the Pakistanis are to blame for this. The Americans for their crass approach to diplomacy and for not quite understanding subtlety as a concept. Pakistanis should shoulder the blame across party lines for running to DC every time there is a crisis and asking to be bailed out. Every Pakistani leader since Ayub has asked the United States to intervene on their behalf at some point or the other; and this government is no different. Even politicians and players of the game who are not in power lobby hard in DC. The lawyers' movement and now the attempts to get the 17th Amendment both landed up in power circles in Washington DC. Ultimately, it is neither in the interest of the Americans to micromanage Pakistan nor is it in the interest of average Pakistanis for their affairs to be managed from so far away by people who know so little about us. America has had and continues to have interests in the region as do several other countries, and it will continue to pursue them. It is for us to decide how we're going to engage with these attempts, and what is in our best interest. Since the last four decades Pakistanis have been hearing emotional gibberish from our leaders when it comes to our interests and objectives. It is time to have an honest debate about our interests, our goals, our objectives, and how we plan to achieve them.
The writer lives in Karachi.
Hit and run
Saturday, June 06, 2009
Shakir Husain
Richard Holbrooke is back and this time it's to look at the refugee crisis as a result of the Swat operation, meet with the folks he needs to, and generally earn his keep. By the looks of it Mr Holbrooke spends as much time in Pakistan as President Zardari, and definitely much more time than ex-president Musharraf. Maybe we should just give him a Pakistani passport to make his life easier at the immigration counter? Pakistanis have come to view Richard Holbrooke as an uncle who flies in from 'abroad' bearing goodies for the kids in the entire family. But Mr Holbrooke also has an alter ego. Every Pakistani knows that the fun uncle who lives in Toronto, Dubai or Saudi Arabia also has a really annoying wife. Mr Holbrooke also has to play the role of the aunty in this case. As the uncle he comes bearing gifts like night vision binoculars, helicopters, and anti-insurgency treats. Oh and Uncle Holbrooke, thank you for the 200 million dollars. Much appreciated. But then he also needs to go and meet Nawaz Sharif, and smattering of politicians, various other 'elites' to remind them to 'play nice' so that the job can be done. Not to mention spend time with the one hundred or so ministers that we are blessed with by the PPP government. It's a dirty job but somebody's got to do it.
The Obama administration is doing just what every other American administration has done when it comes to Pakistan; only this time it is not so subtle. The playbook remains the same. Engage with the government, but also ensure that the bets are hedged when it comes to the opposition. Given the US interests in the country at this critical juncture nobody can blame them. But what happened to subtlety? By flying in monthly Mr Holbrooke is not inspiring a lot of confidence in the Pakistani government. It gets worse with the leaks back in Washington DC where the media is conveniently fed little nuggets to break stories with. Each leak gives the rightwing in Pakistan an 'aha' moment and at the next talk show appearance the 'evidence' is unveiled. The usual conspiracy theories about warm water ports, nukes under threat, and America's evil designs are ultimately paraded out. What America needs is a lower profile in America when it comes to decision-making and a higher profile when it comes to humanitarian assistance, infrastructure development, and capacity-building.
The Yanks would be wise to take a page out of the Saudi playbook. The head of Saudi intelligence usually flies in at night, bangs a few heads, rubs a few noses, kisses some cheeks, delivers the message, ensures comprehension, and then leaves. If the message needs to be reinforced, it's usually done when ministers, MNAs, politicos, and all and sundry hit the Holy Land for some spiritual R&R. Granted that America doesn't have Mecca nor the proximity, and it is quite a bitch to get a US visa; but everyone who's anyone has a child in the United States studying somewhere. Wouldn't that be a perfect time to knock some heads? Given the recent junket to DC where senior ministers were enjoying the fruits of their labour in stretch limos and partying till the break of dawn, it would have been a perfect setting for an intervention over a few cold ones. While no one in the media will even squeal when the Saudis are leaning hard on local politicians, an American envoy is the subject of many hours of airtime. As my school counsellor told me, "life isn't fair. The sooner you get used to that fact the easier it'll be." The Saudis and the Americans will never be judged by the same standards in Pakistan. The Saudis are seen as 'brothers' even though Pakistanis are treated badly, cannot become citizens, and cannot own property in the Kingdom. The Americans, despite the fact that Pakistanis can and do become citizens and can own property, are seen as the root of all our problems. This is a perception problem which the state will need to do something about. It's a function of money, expertise, and commitment. Difficult but not impossible. But the rules of engagement have to change.
The perception that most Pakistanis have that the United States calls the shots in Pakistan is both correct and incorrect. But who is to blame for this perception being partially credible? Actually both the Americans and the Pakistanis are to blame for this. The Americans for their crass approach to diplomacy and for not quite understanding subtlety as a concept. Pakistanis should shoulder the blame across party lines for running to DC every time there is a crisis and asking to be bailed out. Every Pakistani leader since Ayub has asked the United States to intervene on their behalf at some point or the other; and this government is no different. Even politicians and players of the game who are not in power lobby hard in DC. The lawyers' movement and now the attempts to get the 17th Amendment both landed up in power circles in Washington DC. Ultimately, it is neither in the interest of the Americans to micromanage Pakistan nor is it in the interest of average Pakistanis for their affairs to be managed from so far away by people who know so little about us. America has had and continues to have interests in the region as do several other countries, and it will continue to pursue them. It is for us to decide how we're going to engage with these attempts, and what is in our best interest. Since the last four decades Pakistanis have been hearing emotional gibberish from our leaders when it comes to our interests and objectives. It is time to have an honest debate about our interests, our goals, our objectives, and how we plan to achieve them.
The writer lives in Karachi.
A
arshad_lahore
Guest
India and the Taliban
Saturday, June 06, 2009
Zafar Hilaly
It warms the cockles of the heart to see that the army has the gang of Taliban murderers and terrorists on the run. And while one can appreciate that the army wishes to end the operation quickly, Swat must be followed, in due course, by a similar operation in Waziristan. Merely forcing the Taliban to relocate won't do; they must be eliminated, at least the hardcore, or else they will regroup and return.
However, there is no reason to rush; the lessons of Swat have to be absorbed and corrective action taken. One imagines that there are a lot of do's and don'ts arising out of the operation. In fact, it would be advisable to wait till the Americans are ready to ensure that the enemy fleeing Waziristan won't have a safe haven across the border in Afghanistan. In other words to wait till US reinforcements are fully deployed before our 'hammer' will fall on the US 'anvil' with the terrorists hopefully in between. Also by then the US, which can no longer doubt that the Pakistan army means business, will have had ample time to deliver on its promises and furnish the much-needed equipment that is indispensible for the war.
The army won't be able to undertake a more ambitious operation than Swat without additional manpower, material and logistical support which can only come from the eastern front. And that won't be possible until the Indians undertake a substantial thinning-out of their forces on the Kashmir and other sectors on the India-Pakistan border. It would be foolhardy, in case there is another major terrorist attack on India, to allow an Indian riposte unopposed entry.
And here too the US must deliver. If the new and much-vaunted US-India strategic relationship has any substance then New Delhi should oblige. If India fails to do so on the pretext that India has not deployed any more forces than were already there, hence a 'thinning-out' is out of the question, then Waziristan will have to await a dramatic de-escalation of India-Pakistan tensions which may take years; and even then unless the strategic threat posed by India's massing of troops is reduced it is unlikely that any transfer of Pakistani forces to the eastern front will be possible. In a sense, therefore, India has a veto over the speed at which the war against the Taliban can be prosecuted. Indeed, India could ensure that the war drag on for years by continuing to divert Pakistan's attention.
Neither Track 1, nor Track 2 in the end delivered the much-awaited peace that the people of the subcontinent await so eagerly. Perhaps, another track, Track 3, in which the two governments rather than speaking to each other through official channels, or through individuals in private life, engage the attention of the public of the other country in the hope of generating pressure on their government to come up with a matching response may prove more productive.
In a sense Pakistan has already done so through the MoU on transit trade with Afghanistan which will also benefit India. Delhi could reciprocate by reiterating Foreign Minister Mukherjee's statement that India wished Pakistan every success in its fight against terror and follow up with a substantial reduction in force levels on the India-Pakistan border.
India will recall that in a similar situation, when the boot was on the other foot, Ayub Khan went out of his way to assure India, via the US, that Pakistan had no intention of taking advantage of India's preoccupation with China and, what is more, added not one extra soldier to the normal peace-time deployment on the India-Pakistan border. One good turn deserves another. And even if such sentiments have no place in the harsh world of realpolitik India must know, and Pakistan's experience will confirm, that extremism is a plague which knows no boundaries. Needless to say any hostile move by India on Pakistan, in Kashmir or elsewhere, regardless of the provocation offered by terrorists, will be resisted with all the power that Pakistan possesses.
Manmohan Singh has won a well-deserved second-term. It is said that he may not wish to serve the entire term and instead prepare the ground for Rahul Ghandi. If so, there could be no better legacy that he could leave his young successor than a subcontinent that is more at peace than it has ever been and a peace which, in his own words spoken some years ago, is truly 'irreversible'.
The writer is former ambassador.
Saturday, June 06, 2009
Zafar Hilaly
It warms the cockles of the heart to see that the army has the gang of Taliban murderers and terrorists on the run. And while one can appreciate that the army wishes to end the operation quickly, Swat must be followed, in due course, by a similar operation in Waziristan. Merely forcing the Taliban to relocate won't do; they must be eliminated, at least the hardcore, or else they will regroup and return.
However, there is no reason to rush; the lessons of Swat have to be absorbed and corrective action taken. One imagines that there are a lot of do's and don'ts arising out of the operation. In fact, it would be advisable to wait till the Americans are ready to ensure that the enemy fleeing Waziristan won't have a safe haven across the border in Afghanistan. In other words to wait till US reinforcements are fully deployed before our 'hammer' will fall on the US 'anvil' with the terrorists hopefully in between. Also by then the US, which can no longer doubt that the Pakistan army means business, will have had ample time to deliver on its promises and furnish the much-needed equipment that is indispensible for the war.
The army won't be able to undertake a more ambitious operation than Swat without additional manpower, material and logistical support which can only come from the eastern front. And that won't be possible until the Indians undertake a substantial thinning-out of their forces on the Kashmir and other sectors on the India-Pakistan border. It would be foolhardy, in case there is another major terrorist attack on India, to allow an Indian riposte unopposed entry.
And here too the US must deliver. If the new and much-vaunted US-India strategic relationship has any substance then New Delhi should oblige. If India fails to do so on the pretext that India has not deployed any more forces than were already there, hence a 'thinning-out' is out of the question, then Waziristan will have to await a dramatic de-escalation of India-Pakistan tensions which may take years; and even then unless the strategic threat posed by India's massing of troops is reduced it is unlikely that any transfer of Pakistani forces to the eastern front will be possible. In a sense, therefore, India has a veto over the speed at which the war against the Taliban can be prosecuted. Indeed, India could ensure that the war drag on for years by continuing to divert Pakistan's attention.
Neither Track 1, nor Track 2 in the end delivered the much-awaited peace that the people of the subcontinent await so eagerly. Perhaps, another track, Track 3, in which the two governments rather than speaking to each other through official channels, or through individuals in private life, engage the attention of the public of the other country in the hope of generating pressure on their government to come up with a matching response may prove more productive.
In a sense Pakistan has already done so through the MoU on transit trade with Afghanistan which will also benefit India. Delhi could reciprocate by reiterating Foreign Minister Mukherjee's statement that India wished Pakistan every success in its fight against terror and follow up with a substantial reduction in force levels on the India-Pakistan border.
India will recall that in a similar situation, when the boot was on the other foot, Ayub Khan went out of his way to assure India, via the US, that Pakistan had no intention of taking advantage of India's preoccupation with China and, what is more, added not one extra soldier to the normal peace-time deployment on the India-Pakistan border. One good turn deserves another. And even if such sentiments have no place in the harsh world of realpolitik India must know, and Pakistan's experience will confirm, that extremism is a plague which knows no boundaries. Needless to say any hostile move by India on Pakistan, in Kashmir or elsewhere, regardless of the provocation offered by terrorists, will be resisted with all the power that Pakistan possesses.
Manmohan Singh has won a well-deserved second-term. It is said that he may not wish to serve the entire term and instead prepare the ground for Rahul Ghandi. If so, there could be no better legacy that he could leave his young successor than a subcontinent that is more at peace than it has ever been and a peace which, in his own words spoken some years ago, is truly 'irreversible'.
The writer is former ambassador.
A
arshad_lahore
Guest
Environment matters
Saturday, June 06, 2009
Mohammad Niaz
Global warming poses grave threats to human life, ecological integrity, and agro-ecosystems with profound cross-sectoral repercussions in modern times. The IPCC's (Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change) second working group report of 2007 concludes that besides physical and biological systems, human-induced warming will affect the health and welfare of millions of people around the world. At the global level, energy consumption contributes about 70 per cent Green House Gases (GHG) to the present environmental scenario, thus adding emissions continuously to the atmosphere.
Warming will continue as long as the main factors contributing to climate change, such as burning of fossil fuels, industrial emissions and deforestation, are not checked. According to the 4th Assessment Report of the IPCC 2007 the largest contributing sectors of GHG emissions are the energy-supply sector, the transport sector, the industry sector whose emissions have increased to about 145 per cent, 120 per cent, and 65 per cent respectively since 1970. The projected global average temperature by the year 2100 as estimated by the IPCC, will increase from 1 to 3.5 degrees Celsius (about 2 to 6 F), with a rise in sea level equivalent to 15 to 95 cm (about 6 to 37 inches). Sea-level rise would not only affect coastal areas but would also promote saltwater intrusion into freshwater habitats affecting severely associated flora and fauna due to change in their bio-physical and geographical requirements.
Changed climate would favour and facilitate some non-native plants in many parts of the world as a growing environmental concern on account of their adaptation that may pose a serious threat to the native ecosystems. Caused by global warming, ozone depletion would let more ultraviolet-B radiation that reach the Earth's surface and cause diseases.
Scientists believe that the rate of melting ice has accelerated many folds that currently causes sea levels go up by about 0.8 millimetres per year in wake of the observed increase in the global average temperature attributed very likely to man-made greenhouse gas emissions that trigger declining the glaciers and snow-cover, thus reducing the flow for irrigation. It has been recorded that the global mean surface temperature warmed by between 0.7 and 1.5F during the 20th century. The climatic changes would prove devastative for fragile areas, human health, energy, water regimes, dry land areas, agriculture, fisheries and forestry. Resource depletion would largely affect natural-resource-dependent communities. It is also estimated globally that there will be an increase in both intensity and frequency of fires posing serious threats to human lives and flora and fauna.
Developing countries would suffer at large. According to recent estimates, Pakistan occupies the 12th slot among vulnerable countries to be affected by the impact of climate change. At the regional level, anthropogenic emissions will have major impacts on climatic conditions in different regions. In South Asian region, the socio-ecological ramifications of climate change and global warming severely affect and threaten ecosystems and about one and half billion people.
Reports indicate that increasing global average temperature is a clear indication to promote glacial recession phenomenon as experienced through the last century. Their progressive shrinkage would largely affect water availability. Symbolically, the continuous meltdown of the snowfields and icecaps of the Himalayas, Hindu Kush, and Karakorum mountain ranges would exhaust their capacity to supply adequate water to the Indus Basin, thereby affecting the hydrology and ecology of the Upper Indus Basin with far-reaching socio-economic and ecological consequences. Not only ecological integrity would suffer but also millions of people dependent on it. It is time to seriously tackle issues pertaining to environmental degradation by preventing the continuous "anthropogenic interference with climate system." All nations, both developed and developing, should fulfil their responsibilities through effective coordination and regulatory framework processes to strike a balance between economic and developmental needs and maintain sanctity of the environment.
The writer is deputy conservator NWFP Wildlife Department
Saturday, June 06, 2009
Mohammad Niaz
Global warming poses grave threats to human life, ecological integrity, and agro-ecosystems with profound cross-sectoral repercussions in modern times. The IPCC's (Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change) second working group report of 2007 concludes that besides physical and biological systems, human-induced warming will affect the health and welfare of millions of people around the world. At the global level, energy consumption contributes about 70 per cent Green House Gases (GHG) to the present environmental scenario, thus adding emissions continuously to the atmosphere.
Warming will continue as long as the main factors contributing to climate change, such as burning of fossil fuels, industrial emissions and deforestation, are not checked. According to the 4th Assessment Report of the IPCC 2007 the largest contributing sectors of GHG emissions are the energy-supply sector, the transport sector, the industry sector whose emissions have increased to about 145 per cent, 120 per cent, and 65 per cent respectively since 1970. The projected global average temperature by the year 2100 as estimated by the IPCC, will increase from 1 to 3.5 degrees Celsius (about 2 to 6 F), with a rise in sea level equivalent to 15 to 95 cm (about 6 to 37 inches). Sea-level rise would not only affect coastal areas but would also promote saltwater intrusion into freshwater habitats affecting severely associated flora and fauna due to change in their bio-physical and geographical requirements.
Changed climate would favour and facilitate some non-native plants in many parts of the world as a growing environmental concern on account of their adaptation that may pose a serious threat to the native ecosystems. Caused by global warming, ozone depletion would let more ultraviolet-B radiation that reach the Earth's surface and cause diseases.
Scientists believe that the rate of melting ice has accelerated many folds that currently causes sea levels go up by about 0.8 millimetres per year in wake of the observed increase in the global average temperature attributed very likely to man-made greenhouse gas emissions that trigger declining the glaciers and snow-cover, thus reducing the flow for irrigation. It has been recorded that the global mean surface temperature warmed by between 0.7 and 1.5F during the 20th century. The climatic changes would prove devastative for fragile areas, human health, energy, water regimes, dry land areas, agriculture, fisheries and forestry. Resource depletion would largely affect natural-resource-dependent communities. It is also estimated globally that there will be an increase in both intensity and frequency of fires posing serious threats to human lives and flora and fauna.
Developing countries would suffer at large. According to recent estimates, Pakistan occupies the 12th slot among vulnerable countries to be affected by the impact of climate change. At the regional level, anthropogenic emissions will have major impacts on climatic conditions in different regions. In South Asian region, the socio-ecological ramifications of climate change and global warming severely affect and threaten ecosystems and about one and half billion people.
Reports indicate that increasing global average temperature is a clear indication to promote glacial recession phenomenon as experienced through the last century. Their progressive shrinkage would largely affect water availability. Symbolically, the continuous meltdown of the snowfields and icecaps of the Himalayas, Hindu Kush, and Karakorum mountain ranges would exhaust their capacity to supply adequate water to the Indus Basin, thereby affecting the hydrology and ecology of the Upper Indus Basin with far-reaching socio-economic and ecological consequences. Not only ecological integrity would suffer but also millions of people dependent on it. It is time to seriously tackle issues pertaining to environmental degradation by preventing the continuous "anthropogenic interference with climate system." All nations, both developed and developing, should fulfil their responsibilities through effective coordination and regulatory framework processes to strike a balance between economic and developmental needs and maintain sanctity of the environment.
The writer is deputy conservator NWFP Wildlife Department
A
arshad_lahore
Guest
The search for security
By Irfan Husain
Saturday, 06 Jun, 2009
CLEARLY demarcated and internationally recognised borders certainly enhance a nations security.
Crossing one is like jumping across a neighbours boundary wall: the cops will view it as a criminal act. But an unmarked and fuzzy frontier not only makes for insecure neighbours, but also invites aggression.
Across the world today, there are numerous contested and contentious borders that continue to cause friction and, in worst-case scenarios, warfare. In our region, the Chinese-Indian border, the Kashmir valley, and the Durand Line separating Pakistan and Afghanistan have all seen fighting in the post-colonial period. Indeed, all of them are the result of colonial redrawing of the vague maps that existed when the British arrived on the scene.
So why, if they are the cause of so much tension and uncertainty, arent they negotiated and settled? The obvious answer is that competing claims to the same bits of real estate go on festering for decades, causing nations to nurse grievances that erupt periodically into warfare. Kashmir is the classic example of a perennial flashpoint. Apart from three wars fought over it, the dispute over the Valley has held an entire subcontinent hostage for six decades, without a resolution in sight.
Another spill-over from the conflict has been the rise of fundamentalist terrorism. Trained jihadis have entered Indian Kashmir for nearly two decades, often, it is alleged, with the connivance of the Pakistani security apparatus and the extremist networks that have put down root on our soil. Every now and then, they have attacked targets in India, precipitating major diplomatic crises that have threatened to escalate. In retaliation, India has allegedly meddled in ethnic strife in Pakistan, helping separatist groups in their struggles against the state.
Against this backdrop, it would seem that there are compelling reasons for India and Pakistan to resolve their border issues as a way of enhancing internal and regional security. But unfortunately, logic takes a back seat to chauvinism when it comes to issues of national pride. Both sides have been harping on the same legalistic arguments for so long that they have become hardened into bedrock foundations of policy. Both countries have convinced themselves that any compromise would somehow weaken national security.
Currently, Pakistan is fighting for survival against a ruthless enemy that seeks and gives no quarter. The last thing it wants now is to open another front on its eastern border. If anything, military logic dictates that it should transfer forces to the northwest in order to fight the Taliban more effectively. But our generals continue to feel threatened by India, and therefore retain an outdated defensive posture.
I have often argued here and elsewhere that India, being the far more powerful state, can make a symbolic gesture to reassure the Pakistani establishment that it does not pose a threat to its neighbour. One way to send this signal would be to pull back some troops out of the 20 plus divisions on its western border.
Writing in this space about the Indian elections a fortnight ago (India moves beyond slogans), I had suggested that the Congress government, with its renewed and expanded mandate, could make such a gesture without compromising the countrys security in any way. In response, I have been flooded with emails from angry Indian readers who demanded to know how I could suggest such a step, given the history of bad blood between the two countries. Others have loftily informed me that as a regional power, India has to contend with multiple threats. I regret to report that out of around 50 emails I received on the subject, not a single reader wrote: Good idea. Lets discuss it further.
Such a lockstep, knee-jerk response bodes ill for peace in South Asia. For all his many faults, at least Musharraf did try to break the logjam over Kashmir with a number of out-of-the-box proposals that were either shot down, or allowed to languish unanswered by the Indian government.
It is the foremost duty of every state to guard its citizens from external attack. But it is possible to take this concern to the point that it becomes the cause of insecurity. Israels obsession with security is a case in point. India, despite its million-man army, its nuclear arsenal and its burgeoning defence industry, remains insecure. Before I am slammed by Indian readers for daring to make this point, here is an excerpt from an Indian report about the plans to construct a railway station on no-mans land in Sindh on the Indian-Pakistani border, along the Munabao-Khokrapar railway section:
In what could be a [sic] latest and one of the biggest threats to India, Pakistan has hired a Chinese company to build an illegal railway station in no-mans land near the Indian border at Barmer.
A railway station is now one of the biggest threats to India? Please give me a break. More than the military implications, I am concerned that Pakistani engineers are no longer competent enough to build a small railway station. But seriously, how could a tiny, seldom-used train station pose any threat to India? And yet, Indian defence officials have been quick to spot a connection between this station and the port the Chinese are building in Sri Lanka.
It has long been evident to the meanest intelligence that China, for all its rapid growth and rising military power, remains a very cautious country. For years, it has concentrated on building up its economy, foregoing any adventurism. Soon after the 1962 war with India, China pulled back from the areas it had occupied, but did not claim. There is very little chance that it will launch any military operation against India in the foreseeable future.
In fact, the real danger India faces today is from home-grown and regional asymmetrical forces. This is the common threat its neighbours face as well. There is thus every motive for China, India, Pakistan, Afghanistan and Iran to cooperate and put aside their differences to fight extremist terrorists. Many in India reject this approach because they see Pakistan as part of the problem, and therefore do not think it can be part of the solution. But they need to recognise that peace and security are not handed out as prizes for good behaviour. We have seen that a piecemeal approach to fighting terrorism has not worked. By pooling intelligence and by denying jihadis sanctuary and political space, the war can be won.
Above all, Indians must see that it is in their interest to end the asymmetrical battles being fought on their soil. Scoring debating points will not win them the security they seek.
By Irfan Husain
Saturday, 06 Jun, 2009
CLEARLY demarcated and internationally recognised borders certainly enhance a nations security.
Crossing one is like jumping across a neighbours boundary wall: the cops will view it as a criminal act. But an unmarked and fuzzy frontier not only makes for insecure neighbours, but also invites aggression.
Across the world today, there are numerous contested and contentious borders that continue to cause friction and, in worst-case scenarios, warfare. In our region, the Chinese-Indian border, the Kashmir valley, and the Durand Line separating Pakistan and Afghanistan have all seen fighting in the post-colonial period. Indeed, all of them are the result of colonial redrawing of the vague maps that existed when the British arrived on the scene.
So why, if they are the cause of so much tension and uncertainty, arent they negotiated and settled? The obvious answer is that competing claims to the same bits of real estate go on festering for decades, causing nations to nurse grievances that erupt periodically into warfare. Kashmir is the classic example of a perennial flashpoint. Apart from three wars fought over it, the dispute over the Valley has held an entire subcontinent hostage for six decades, without a resolution in sight.
Another spill-over from the conflict has been the rise of fundamentalist terrorism. Trained jihadis have entered Indian Kashmir for nearly two decades, often, it is alleged, with the connivance of the Pakistani security apparatus and the extremist networks that have put down root on our soil. Every now and then, they have attacked targets in India, precipitating major diplomatic crises that have threatened to escalate. In retaliation, India has allegedly meddled in ethnic strife in Pakistan, helping separatist groups in their struggles against the state.
Against this backdrop, it would seem that there are compelling reasons for India and Pakistan to resolve their border issues as a way of enhancing internal and regional security. But unfortunately, logic takes a back seat to chauvinism when it comes to issues of national pride. Both sides have been harping on the same legalistic arguments for so long that they have become hardened into bedrock foundations of policy. Both countries have convinced themselves that any compromise would somehow weaken national security.
Currently, Pakistan is fighting for survival against a ruthless enemy that seeks and gives no quarter. The last thing it wants now is to open another front on its eastern border. If anything, military logic dictates that it should transfer forces to the northwest in order to fight the Taliban more effectively. But our generals continue to feel threatened by India, and therefore retain an outdated defensive posture.
I have often argued here and elsewhere that India, being the far more powerful state, can make a symbolic gesture to reassure the Pakistani establishment that it does not pose a threat to its neighbour. One way to send this signal would be to pull back some troops out of the 20 plus divisions on its western border.
Writing in this space about the Indian elections a fortnight ago (India moves beyond slogans), I had suggested that the Congress government, with its renewed and expanded mandate, could make such a gesture without compromising the countrys security in any way. In response, I have been flooded with emails from angry Indian readers who demanded to know how I could suggest such a step, given the history of bad blood between the two countries. Others have loftily informed me that as a regional power, India has to contend with multiple threats. I regret to report that out of around 50 emails I received on the subject, not a single reader wrote: Good idea. Lets discuss it further.
Such a lockstep, knee-jerk response bodes ill for peace in South Asia. For all his many faults, at least Musharraf did try to break the logjam over Kashmir with a number of out-of-the-box proposals that were either shot down, or allowed to languish unanswered by the Indian government.
It is the foremost duty of every state to guard its citizens from external attack. But it is possible to take this concern to the point that it becomes the cause of insecurity. Israels obsession with security is a case in point. India, despite its million-man army, its nuclear arsenal and its burgeoning defence industry, remains insecure. Before I am slammed by Indian readers for daring to make this point, here is an excerpt from an Indian report about the plans to construct a railway station on no-mans land in Sindh on the Indian-Pakistani border, along the Munabao-Khokrapar railway section:
In what could be a [sic] latest and one of the biggest threats to India, Pakistan has hired a Chinese company to build an illegal railway station in no-mans land near the Indian border at Barmer.
A railway station is now one of the biggest threats to India? Please give me a break. More than the military implications, I am concerned that Pakistani engineers are no longer competent enough to build a small railway station. But seriously, how could a tiny, seldom-used train station pose any threat to India? And yet, Indian defence officials have been quick to spot a connection between this station and the port the Chinese are building in Sri Lanka.
It has long been evident to the meanest intelligence that China, for all its rapid growth and rising military power, remains a very cautious country. For years, it has concentrated on building up its economy, foregoing any adventurism. Soon after the 1962 war with India, China pulled back from the areas it had occupied, but did not claim. There is very little chance that it will launch any military operation against India in the foreseeable future.
In fact, the real danger India faces today is from home-grown and regional asymmetrical forces. This is the common threat its neighbours face as well. There is thus every motive for China, India, Pakistan, Afghanistan and Iran to cooperate and put aside their differences to fight extremist terrorists. Many in India reject this approach because they see Pakistan as part of the problem, and therefore do not think it can be part of the solution. But they need to recognise that peace and security are not handed out as prizes for good behaviour. We have seen that a piecemeal approach to fighting terrorism has not worked. By pooling intelligence and by denying jihadis sanctuary and political space, the war can be won.
Above all, Indians must see that it is in their interest to end the asymmetrical battles being fought on their soil. Scoring debating points will not win them the security they seek.
A
arshad_lahore
Guest
Youthink: Education for displaced children
By Nosheen Abbas
Saturday, 06 Jun, 2009
I might design my own car one day, says Waseem Akram smiling self-consciously. Waseem is one of the millions who left his home because of the Taliban and army operation in Malakand Division. He is a matriculate and also holds a diploma in mechanics but his life has taken a sharp turn. Our classes had just started in auto computer design . but then we just had to leave everything behind, he said matter-of-factly. He then begins to tell me about perhaps the most horrendous journey of his life. Shelling had happened the day before we left our homes; but the day we left the shelling got worse and we had to leave with just bare essentialswe left at 3pm. We first went to Batkhela, spent two days there then we came here to Islamabad.
Im sitting in a place that houses five families, a total of 70 people including children. A group of excited and shy but adorable children squat on the jute mat and plop themselves in front of me. As soon as I turn to some of the younger children, the girls especially, shy away, whispering in to their uncles ear, who likes a middleman, is almost laughing while telling me their responses to my questions. Roshni (light) is a befitting name for a bright little girl, who tells me through bashful giggles that she is in 4th grade. Her favourite subject is Urdu and she wants to be a doctor when she grows up. The second half of her answer is given through her uncle who tells me that she doesnt like the new system. The little children go to a nearby madressah, where the local maulvi (cleric) gives them religious classes...so the system is very different from what they were used toplus they get so bored, they dont have much to do, they go outside and play or go to the madressah for a few hours, he adds.
Once having met the basic needs of food (wheat given in sacks in the form of unmilled grain is a common complaint and an illogical step taken by the government) shelter and health care for the refugees, revival of the adolescent and youngsters education should be practically considered. Most of the adolescents and youth are missing their studies they have had to leave behind, in fact, snatched by the Taliban. Up to now over 200 schools have been blown up; the loose building material was carted away, and the structures were auctioned. Not surprisingly, the Taliban took the proceeds of the sales, as everyone, including the children, watched their lives crumble before their eyes. The Taliban have been responsible for this mass misery, hopelessness and pillage of peoples properties and assets. They have made millions homeless, thousands of children orphans, hundreds of thousands of women widowed and forced countless minor girls into marrying men old enough to be their fathers (including the Taliban) and ruthlessly slaughtered many innocent civilians. Yet despite the devastation caused by the Taliban many are still confused about whom to blame for their grim fate. After all, they say, we moved out of our homes as soon as the operation began. Therefore they hold the army accountable. The realization of the operations necessity may come to them with time, along with the governments ability to treat them with sensitivity, but for now everyone is trying to pick up the shards of their shattered lives.
Most of the adolescents I met, including some youth, were all attending school in Mingora, the city they had grown up in. Now homeless and uprooted they miss their schools and feel a kind of void in their lives. You know we used to have a routine, we would go to school, we were studying and learning new things, in hope of becoming somethingand all of us have just had to leave our studies, some were in 6th grade or 8th grade, he says pointing to the group of children right next to him. Waseems concern resonates, or at least ought to resonate with the countrys concern for the future of millions of children.
Unfortunately, historically the Pakistani government has made poor-investment in the education sector, especially the primary level and particularly for girls. And now with the onslaught of millions made homeless the illiteracy rate will shoot up; pushing those on the brink of social rejection head on towards marginalization.
Children in schools mean less on the streets and more hope for them to be able to put their potential to maximum use. Mobile schools and opening schools closed for summer vacations for IDPs are some of the solutions to the sudden vacancy that a lot of children are experiencing.
By Nosheen Abbas
Saturday, 06 Jun, 2009
I might design my own car one day, says Waseem Akram smiling self-consciously. Waseem is one of the millions who left his home because of the Taliban and army operation in Malakand Division. He is a matriculate and also holds a diploma in mechanics but his life has taken a sharp turn. Our classes had just started in auto computer design . but then we just had to leave everything behind, he said matter-of-factly. He then begins to tell me about perhaps the most horrendous journey of his life. Shelling had happened the day before we left our homes; but the day we left the shelling got worse and we had to leave with just bare essentialswe left at 3pm. We first went to Batkhela, spent two days there then we came here to Islamabad.
Im sitting in a place that houses five families, a total of 70 people including children. A group of excited and shy but adorable children squat on the jute mat and plop themselves in front of me. As soon as I turn to some of the younger children, the girls especially, shy away, whispering in to their uncles ear, who likes a middleman, is almost laughing while telling me their responses to my questions. Roshni (light) is a befitting name for a bright little girl, who tells me through bashful giggles that she is in 4th grade. Her favourite subject is Urdu and she wants to be a doctor when she grows up. The second half of her answer is given through her uncle who tells me that she doesnt like the new system. The little children go to a nearby madressah, where the local maulvi (cleric) gives them religious classes...so the system is very different from what they were used toplus they get so bored, they dont have much to do, they go outside and play or go to the madressah for a few hours, he adds.
Once having met the basic needs of food (wheat given in sacks in the form of unmilled grain is a common complaint and an illogical step taken by the government) shelter and health care for the refugees, revival of the adolescent and youngsters education should be practically considered. Most of the adolescents and youth are missing their studies they have had to leave behind, in fact, snatched by the Taliban. Up to now over 200 schools have been blown up; the loose building material was carted away, and the structures were auctioned. Not surprisingly, the Taliban took the proceeds of the sales, as everyone, including the children, watched their lives crumble before their eyes. The Taliban have been responsible for this mass misery, hopelessness and pillage of peoples properties and assets. They have made millions homeless, thousands of children orphans, hundreds of thousands of women widowed and forced countless minor girls into marrying men old enough to be their fathers (including the Taliban) and ruthlessly slaughtered many innocent civilians. Yet despite the devastation caused by the Taliban many are still confused about whom to blame for their grim fate. After all, they say, we moved out of our homes as soon as the operation began. Therefore they hold the army accountable. The realization of the operations necessity may come to them with time, along with the governments ability to treat them with sensitivity, but for now everyone is trying to pick up the shards of their shattered lives.
Most of the adolescents I met, including some youth, were all attending school in Mingora, the city they had grown up in. Now homeless and uprooted they miss their schools and feel a kind of void in their lives. You know we used to have a routine, we would go to school, we were studying and learning new things, in hope of becoming somethingand all of us have just had to leave our studies, some were in 6th grade or 8th grade, he says pointing to the group of children right next to him. Waseems concern resonates, or at least ought to resonate with the countrys concern for the future of millions of children.
Unfortunately, historically the Pakistani government has made poor-investment in the education sector, especially the primary level and particularly for girls. And now with the onslaught of millions made homeless the illiteracy rate will shoot up; pushing those on the brink of social rejection head on towards marginalization.
Children in schools mean less on the streets and more hope for them to be able to put their potential to maximum use. Mobile schools and opening schools closed for summer vacations for IDPs are some of the solutions to the sudden vacancy that a lot of children are experiencing.
A
arshad_lahore
Guest
Some questions
By Shahid Hamid | Published: June 6, 2009
A number of prominent engineers have spoken to me in connection with the item appearing in your issue of June 2, 2009 containing the statement of the federal minister for water and power that Bhasha Diamer Project would be completed within the scheduled time in 2016. On the basis of information given to me by these eminent professionals the honourable minister may please be asked, through your columns, the following questions: -
? Is it correct that the heavy machinery required for construction cannot reach the site of the Dam till those portions of the Karakoram Highway (KKH) over which the machinery is to pass have been widened and modified?
? Is it correct that work on widening and modification of the KKH has yet to start?
? Is it correct that the Asian Development Bank (ADB) recently sent a Reconnaissance Mission to the Dam site after which the ADB has required the federal government to do further work on environment protection measures and proposals for resettlement of affected persons and to obtain approval of the project from the Council of Common Interests 'Before' the ADB sends out an Appraisal Mission to assess the financing needs?
? Is it correct that as of now the federal government does not have firm commitments from any donor agency or government for meeting the financing requirements?
? Is it correct that ADB has opined to the federal government that 'If' work on KKH is undertaken on a priority basis along with other studies and steps identified by them without which financing cannot be firmed up it may just be possible to commence Dam construction work in 2014?
? Is it correct that if construction work starts in 2014 it simply cannot be completed before 2022?
? Is it correct that the Kalabagh Dam could be completed within next 6 years and could provide electricity at 4 cents per kWh as against 16 cents per kWh being paid to the various rental thermal power plants being promoted by the government?
The honourable minister has also repeatedly claimed that loadshedding will end by December this year, a view evidently not shared by some of his colleagues who have said that it will continue upto 2011. As we are currently faced with a power shortage which varies between 2500 to 5000 megawatts depending on the weather, the water level in the dams, etc would the honourable minister like to identify the projects that will come on line by December to generate the power required to meet this shortage.
The writer is a former federal minister and governor, Punjab
By Shahid Hamid | Published: June 6, 2009
A number of prominent engineers have spoken to me in connection with the item appearing in your issue of June 2, 2009 containing the statement of the federal minister for water and power that Bhasha Diamer Project would be completed within the scheduled time in 2016. On the basis of information given to me by these eminent professionals the honourable minister may please be asked, through your columns, the following questions: -
? Is it correct that the heavy machinery required for construction cannot reach the site of the Dam till those portions of the Karakoram Highway (KKH) over which the machinery is to pass have been widened and modified?
? Is it correct that work on widening and modification of the KKH has yet to start?
? Is it correct that the Asian Development Bank (ADB) recently sent a Reconnaissance Mission to the Dam site after which the ADB has required the federal government to do further work on environment protection measures and proposals for resettlement of affected persons and to obtain approval of the project from the Council of Common Interests 'Before' the ADB sends out an Appraisal Mission to assess the financing needs?
? Is it correct that as of now the federal government does not have firm commitments from any donor agency or government for meeting the financing requirements?
? Is it correct that ADB has opined to the federal government that 'If' work on KKH is undertaken on a priority basis along with other studies and steps identified by them without which financing cannot be firmed up it may just be possible to commence Dam construction work in 2014?
? Is it correct that if construction work starts in 2014 it simply cannot be completed before 2022?
? Is it correct that the Kalabagh Dam could be completed within next 6 years and could provide electricity at 4 cents per kWh as against 16 cents per kWh being paid to the various rental thermal power plants being promoted by the government?
The honourable minister has also repeatedly claimed that loadshedding will end by December this year, a view evidently not shared by some of his colleagues who have said that it will continue upto 2011. As we are currently faced with a power shortage which varies between 2500 to 5000 megawatts depending on the weather, the water level in the dams, etc would the honourable minister like to identify the projects that will come on line by December to generate the power required to meet this shortage.
The writer is a former federal minister and governor, Punjab
A
arshad_lahore
Guest
In the honour of loadshedding
By Nadiya Aamer | Published: June 6, 2009
I recently had a discectomy done for a herniated disk; therefore my only physical activity is putting on the air conditioner every hour and then adjusting the fan speed, re-adjusting the vents and finally settling down for about quarter of an hour before the electricity goes off again for another hour. In that quiet hour I often wonder if I and the rest of this nation have really done bad, evil deeds to bring this and much more upon us. At least that's what the pious and learned tell me; that when we do bad, evil deeds, we bring wrath upon ourselves. I wonder if it's that complicated or is it just useless and dire mismanagement on the part of the state and the government that we have to sit in the dark and contemplate our evil deeds like throwing a gum wrapper out of the window, cheating in the exams or - even more horrific - would be honking at the person driving in front of us because he is in the fast lane, busy on his cellular phone and driving at 40 km an hour. That's how I am spending the useless hour between electricity there and electricity not there.
During the day I recharge the night-light and at night I put it on to adjust and re-adjust the air conditioner setting. I presume that the president and prime minister have no idea what it feels like to be in a room without electricity with the temperature hitting above 40 degrees. Hell! They do not even know what the temperature is in Pakistan because hilariously they are out of the country more often than they are in the country! Maybe I am being unfair here, maybe they actually change their clothes at night and adorn themselves in a common man's attire and roam the streets to perceive what life is like in the shackles of reality. Maybe they do that and come back to their places at dawn and jot down what they will do that day to help the people of Pakistan. Maybe.
While that 'maybe' remains a secret this is how life goes on and this is how the majority of this nation is uselessly spending their days and their lives. Their contribution to the development of this enormously potential country had been dragged down to almost nil and their individual capabilities to rise above excellence have been trampled upon by countless mismanagement.
On a precipice stands the leader. Behind him moans history and before him sighs the future. But he is busy, active, blinded by an obsession whose name he himself has forgotten. History reveals all: "Do not reserve for yourself anything which is a common property of all and in which others have equal rights. Do not close your eyes from glaring malpractice of officers, miscarriage of justice and misuse of rights, because you will be held responsible for the wrong thus done to others. In the near future your wrong practices and mal-administration will be exposed and you will be held responsible and punished for the wrong done to the helpless and oppressed people."(Hazrat Ali AS)
At this juncture I want to point out that I do not believe in blaming the management alone; but this is a different situation unlike any other. The state is not flexible at all. Its hell bent on doing close to nothing. With almost a hundred ministers it is incapable of sending even one minister to the displaced people of Swat. I also know I am privileged to have air conditions in my house so if the honourable minister for power is going to try and make me feel guilty I am going to stand firm to the fact that I pay my taxes honestly and work hard to earn this money so I am not guilty to have air conditioning in my house. That's exactly how the rest of the people feel who may not have air conditions but they do have fans and feel as cheated as the rest of us do, except that I cannot write down their views on this subject and many other, not because I have no communication with them but because my editor will not allow me to write down their thoughts for their linguistically detailed ability to describe the impotency of the state in five lettered and seven lettered words!
I pen these last words just in time because the electricity is about to pop off again.
The writer is a freelance columnist
By Nadiya Aamer | Published: June 6, 2009
I recently had a discectomy done for a herniated disk; therefore my only physical activity is putting on the air conditioner every hour and then adjusting the fan speed, re-adjusting the vents and finally settling down for about quarter of an hour before the electricity goes off again for another hour. In that quiet hour I often wonder if I and the rest of this nation have really done bad, evil deeds to bring this and much more upon us. At least that's what the pious and learned tell me; that when we do bad, evil deeds, we bring wrath upon ourselves. I wonder if it's that complicated or is it just useless and dire mismanagement on the part of the state and the government that we have to sit in the dark and contemplate our evil deeds like throwing a gum wrapper out of the window, cheating in the exams or - even more horrific - would be honking at the person driving in front of us because he is in the fast lane, busy on his cellular phone and driving at 40 km an hour. That's how I am spending the useless hour between electricity there and electricity not there.
During the day I recharge the night-light and at night I put it on to adjust and re-adjust the air conditioner setting. I presume that the president and prime minister have no idea what it feels like to be in a room without electricity with the temperature hitting above 40 degrees. Hell! They do not even know what the temperature is in Pakistan because hilariously they are out of the country more often than they are in the country! Maybe I am being unfair here, maybe they actually change their clothes at night and adorn themselves in a common man's attire and roam the streets to perceive what life is like in the shackles of reality. Maybe they do that and come back to their places at dawn and jot down what they will do that day to help the people of Pakistan. Maybe.
While that 'maybe' remains a secret this is how life goes on and this is how the majority of this nation is uselessly spending their days and their lives. Their contribution to the development of this enormously potential country had been dragged down to almost nil and their individual capabilities to rise above excellence have been trampled upon by countless mismanagement.
On a precipice stands the leader. Behind him moans history and before him sighs the future. But he is busy, active, blinded by an obsession whose name he himself has forgotten. History reveals all: "Do not reserve for yourself anything which is a common property of all and in which others have equal rights. Do not close your eyes from glaring malpractice of officers, miscarriage of justice and misuse of rights, because you will be held responsible for the wrong thus done to others. In the near future your wrong practices and mal-administration will be exposed and you will be held responsible and punished for the wrong done to the helpless and oppressed people."(Hazrat Ali AS)
At this juncture I want to point out that I do not believe in blaming the management alone; but this is a different situation unlike any other. The state is not flexible at all. Its hell bent on doing close to nothing. With almost a hundred ministers it is incapable of sending even one minister to the displaced people of Swat. I also know I am privileged to have air conditions in my house so if the honourable minister for power is going to try and make me feel guilty I am going to stand firm to the fact that I pay my taxes honestly and work hard to earn this money so I am not guilty to have air conditioning in my house. That's exactly how the rest of the people feel who may not have air conditions but they do have fans and feel as cheated as the rest of us do, except that I cannot write down their views on this subject and many other, not because I have no communication with them but because my editor will not allow me to write down their thoughts for their linguistically detailed ability to describe the impotency of the state in five lettered and seven lettered words!
I pen these last words just in time because the electricity is about to pop off again.
The writer is a freelance columnist
A
arshad_lahore
Guest
Obama's Muslim 'concern'
By Shamshad Ahmad | Published: June 6, 2009
Whatever one may think of its substance, the Obama speech in Cairo was a good gesture to whosoever he was addressing. Having made history as America's first-ever black to move into its White House, he is making history also as the only US president ever to address the Muslim world from a Muslim capital. But he didn't say any thing new. He has said most of these things during his election campaign and even after assuming his office as the forty-fourth president of the United States. It is the seriousness of purpose that he now shows in his promise for change.
Let us be clear of one thing. Obama is America's president and is outhbound to protect and promote his country's interests. He was elected president not because he was black but because he convinced his people that he would make a better president. He had a clear edge over his opponent because he was younger, fresher, smarter, more energetic, and had a short history with no baggage. But there was another reason for this miracle to happen. America was fed up with George W.Bush and wanted a break from the eight years of his domestic failures and external belligerence.
For American public, Obama symbolized hope for change, and represented an exit from the disastrous Bush era. For the world, he embodied a new America. There is a feeling that for the first time since John F. Kennedy, America has a different kind of leader whose presence at the White House gives a new "facelift" to the US. Obama's triumph was "decisive and sweeping" because he knew what was wrong with his country and was clear about the remedies. He committed himself "to ending a bloody and pointless war." He promised to restore "Americans' civil liberties and their tattered reputation around the world."
It was with "message of hope and competence" that he inspired not only the people of America but also those around the world. Barack Obama promised hope for change, and from day one after assuming the office, he has been explaining how he would make the difference in America's policies and in the lives of Americans as well as those of the people of the world. He has been speaking candidly of the Bush era as a bleak chapter in American history. "America, we are better than these last eight years," he asserted while pledging to restore what he called "our lost sense of common purpose."
If anything, Obama's Cairo speech marked a solemn epithet recital for the Texas Cowboy George W. Bush era. Eight years of disaster for America and for the world. No other US president has done greater damage to America's intrinsic values and to its global prestige and credibility than Bush. He left for his successor a shameful legacy. Domestically, he exceeded all limits in transgressing his overreach of "presidential prerogative" by justifying snoopy fray against his own people. It was an assault on America's civil liberties.
In international context, George W. Bush never practiced what the US had always stood for and preached globally. America's ideals and values were either ignored or violated with impunity. He accomplished Thomas Paine's vision of a United States great enough "to begin the world over again." Indeed, George W.Bush did begin the world over again. He turned it upside down and threw it in turmoil. The neo-con agenda justified fuelling of situations that would allow America's unabashed use of military power anywhere in the world.
George W.Bush also claimed to be in direct communication with God, and said he was driven with a mission from God. "God tells me, George go and fight those terrorists in Afghanistan. And I did. Then God tells me George, go and end the tyranny in Iraq. And I did." He used pliant Muslim monarchs and kings to exploit their own people. He used them as pawns of his global belligerence.
Washington's overbearing global conduct during the Bush era, no doubt, had sparked unprecedented anti-Americanism reflecting global aversion to the US unilateralism, its overbearing conduct including the use of force in Iraq and elsewhere, and in Robert McNamara's words, "its contempt for moral and multilateral imperatives."
No outgoing US president has had poorer approval ratings at the time of leaving his office. What an end for a man who claimed to have started out wanting "to restore honour and dignity to the White House" ending up "scraping all the honour and dignity off the White House." No wonder, he received a "farewell gift" in Baghdad with two big shoes hurled at him in full force and in public gaze.
Bush ducked both times. "You know what? It was size 10 shoes that he threw at me", he was brash enough to brush aside the indignity thrown at him. But Obama was sensitive enough not to ignore the opprobrium thrown at his predecessor. He could feel the pain of the Iraqis and admitted on the very first day after taking oath as president that the war on Iraq was wrong. He chose Cairo, the capital of the Arab League and a citadel of Islamic civilization, as the venue of his historic speech to the Muslim world to announce that the US troops will leave Iraq by 2012. That is fine.
On Afghanistan and Pakistan, Obama broke no new ground. He repeated what he has said before. The US will take its AfPak strategy to its logical conclusion, and will leave only when threat to its security is eliminated. He said "we are in Afghanistan not by choice but by necessity." He also admitted that military power alone will not solve the problem in Afghanistan and Pakistan. That is why, he said, "we plan to invest $1.5 billion each year over the next five years to partner with Pakistanis to build schools and hospitals, roads and businesses. And that is why we are providing more than $2.8 billion to help Afghans develop their economy and deliver services that people depend upon."
In his Cairo speech, Obama covered seven specific issues of interest to the Muslim world: Violent extremism in all its forms and manifestations, Arab-Israel conflict and Palestine issue, nuclear issue in the context of Iranian nuclear program, democracy, religious freedom, women's rights and economic development and equal opportunity. These indeed are the issues of concern to the Muslim world. But the challenge to grasp the nettle on all these issues lies with America, not the Muslim world.
Had the US not walked away from Afghanistan after the Soviet pull out, perhaps the history of our world today would have been different. If the world had remained engaged with the people of Afghanistan, providing them strength and means to rebuild their war-ravaged country and develop a civilized system of government in the post-Soviet era, the situation today might have been totally different. Likewise, as admitted by US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, Pakistan has also been wronged by the US for over thirty years now because of its "incoherent" policies and transactional approach.
On the remaining issues, again, it is for the US to redress the root causes of global anti-Americanism. It is not hatred of democracy and freedom but the desire for them that has made many Muslims hate the US whom they consider responsible for perpetuation of undemocratic polities in their world. In their view, the "unholy" alliance between authoritarian and dictatorial regimes in the Muslim world and the West, in particular the US, is the biggest barrier to their access to freedom, democracy, prosperity and self determination.
In alleviating the Muslim grievances, President Obama must not forget "the principle of justice to all peoples and nationalities, and their right to live on equal terms of liberty and safety with one another, whether they be strong or weak" that his fellow democrat predecessor, President Woodrow Wilson had spelt out in his famous 14-point congressional speech in January 1918.
Wilson's ghost doesn't have to come to remind Obama that to make "the world safe for every peace-loving nation which wishes to live its own life and determine its own institutions, it must be assured of justice and fair dealing, and that unless justice is done to others it will not be done to us." Obama knows this line. He must now translate it into reality.
The writer is a former foreign secretary
By Shamshad Ahmad | Published: June 6, 2009
Whatever one may think of its substance, the Obama speech in Cairo was a good gesture to whosoever he was addressing. Having made history as America's first-ever black to move into its White House, he is making history also as the only US president ever to address the Muslim world from a Muslim capital. But he didn't say any thing new. He has said most of these things during his election campaign and even after assuming his office as the forty-fourth president of the United States. It is the seriousness of purpose that he now shows in his promise for change.
Let us be clear of one thing. Obama is America's president and is outhbound to protect and promote his country's interests. He was elected president not because he was black but because he convinced his people that he would make a better president. He had a clear edge over his opponent because he was younger, fresher, smarter, more energetic, and had a short history with no baggage. But there was another reason for this miracle to happen. America was fed up with George W.Bush and wanted a break from the eight years of his domestic failures and external belligerence.
For American public, Obama symbolized hope for change, and represented an exit from the disastrous Bush era. For the world, he embodied a new America. There is a feeling that for the first time since John F. Kennedy, America has a different kind of leader whose presence at the White House gives a new "facelift" to the US. Obama's triumph was "decisive and sweeping" because he knew what was wrong with his country and was clear about the remedies. He committed himself "to ending a bloody and pointless war." He promised to restore "Americans' civil liberties and their tattered reputation around the world."
It was with "message of hope and competence" that he inspired not only the people of America but also those around the world. Barack Obama promised hope for change, and from day one after assuming the office, he has been explaining how he would make the difference in America's policies and in the lives of Americans as well as those of the people of the world. He has been speaking candidly of the Bush era as a bleak chapter in American history. "America, we are better than these last eight years," he asserted while pledging to restore what he called "our lost sense of common purpose."
If anything, Obama's Cairo speech marked a solemn epithet recital for the Texas Cowboy George W. Bush era. Eight years of disaster for America and for the world. No other US president has done greater damage to America's intrinsic values and to its global prestige and credibility than Bush. He left for his successor a shameful legacy. Domestically, he exceeded all limits in transgressing his overreach of "presidential prerogative" by justifying snoopy fray against his own people. It was an assault on America's civil liberties.
In international context, George W. Bush never practiced what the US had always stood for and preached globally. America's ideals and values were either ignored or violated with impunity. He accomplished Thomas Paine's vision of a United States great enough "to begin the world over again." Indeed, George W.Bush did begin the world over again. He turned it upside down and threw it in turmoil. The neo-con agenda justified fuelling of situations that would allow America's unabashed use of military power anywhere in the world.
George W.Bush also claimed to be in direct communication with God, and said he was driven with a mission from God. "God tells me, George go and fight those terrorists in Afghanistan. And I did. Then God tells me George, go and end the tyranny in Iraq. And I did." He used pliant Muslim monarchs and kings to exploit their own people. He used them as pawns of his global belligerence.
Washington's overbearing global conduct during the Bush era, no doubt, had sparked unprecedented anti-Americanism reflecting global aversion to the US unilateralism, its overbearing conduct including the use of force in Iraq and elsewhere, and in Robert McNamara's words, "its contempt for moral and multilateral imperatives."
No outgoing US president has had poorer approval ratings at the time of leaving his office. What an end for a man who claimed to have started out wanting "to restore honour and dignity to the White House" ending up "scraping all the honour and dignity off the White House." No wonder, he received a "farewell gift" in Baghdad with two big shoes hurled at him in full force and in public gaze.
Bush ducked both times. "You know what? It was size 10 shoes that he threw at me", he was brash enough to brush aside the indignity thrown at him. But Obama was sensitive enough not to ignore the opprobrium thrown at his predecessor. He could feel the pain of the Iraqis and admitted on the very first day after taking oath as president that the war on Iraq was wrong. He chose Cairo, the capital of the Arab League and a citadel of Islamic civilization, as the venue of his historic speech to the Muslim world to announce that the US troops will leave Iraq by 2012. That is fine.
On Afghanistan and Pakistan, Obama broke no new ground. He repeated what he has said before. The US will take its AfPak strategy to its logical conclusion, and will leave only when threat to its security is eliminated. He said "we are in Afghanistan not by choice but by necessity." He also admitted that military power alone will not solve the problem in Afghanistan and Pakistan. That is why, he said, "we plan to invest $1.5 billion each year over the next five years to partner with Pakistanis to build schools and hospitals, roads and businesses. And that is why we are providing more than $2.8 billion to help Afghans develop their economy and deliver services that people depend upon."
In his Cairo speech, Obama covered seven specific issues of interest to the Muslim world: Violent extremism in all its forms and manifestations, Arab-Israel conflict and Palestine issue, nuclear issue in the context of Iranian nuclear program, democracy, religious freedom, women's rights and economic development and equal opportunity. These indeed are the issues of concern to the Muslim world. But the challenge to grasp the nettle on all these issues lies with America, not the Muslim world.
Had the US not walked away from Afghanistan after the Soviet pull out, perhaps the history of our world today would have been different. If the world had remained engaged with the people of Afghanistan, providing them strength and means to rebuild their war-ravaged country and develop a civilized system of government in the post-Soviet era, the situation today might have been totally different. Likewise, as admitted by US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, Pakistan has also been wronged by the US for over thirty years now because of its "incoherent" policies and transactional approach.
On the remaining issues, again, it is for the US to redress the root causes of global anti-Americanism. It is not hatred of democracy and freedom but the desire for them that has made many Muslims hate the US whom they consider responsible for perpetuation of undemocratic polities in their world. In their view, the "unholy" alliance between authoritarian and dictatorial regimes in the Muslim world and the West, in particular the US, is the biggest barrier to their access to freedom, democracy, prosperity and self determination.
In alleviating the Muslim grievances, President Obama must not forget "the principle of justice to all peoples and nationalities, and their right to live on equal terms of liberty and safety with one another, whether they be strong or weak" that his fellow democrat predecessor, President Woodrow Wilson had spelt out in his famous 14-point congressional speech in January 1918.
Wilson's ghost doesn't have to come to remind Obama that to make "the world safe for every peace-loving nation which wishes to live its own life and determine its own institutions, it must be assured of justice and fair dealing, and that unless justice is done to others it will not be done to us." Obama knows this line. He must now translate it into reality.
The writer is a former foreign secretary
A
arshad_lahore
Guest
Another cricket fiasco
By Fakir S. Ayazuddin | Published: June 6, 2009
Our cricket leadership has created an unnecessary controversy where none existed. The latest PCB stupidity has been highlighted by the Manchester Guardian, in a piece by Barry Glendenning published on May 30, 2009: "The Pakistan Cricket Board seemed to take great pleasure revealing the excruciating minutiae of Akhtar's embarrassing condition."
In this one sentence Glendenning has given his verdict on the disgraceful conduct of the PCB. This article has been seen by many people as the Guardian is a very widely read newspaper, and highly respected, so its comments are valued throughout its extensive readership.
The conduct of the PCB, in publicising Akhtar's ailment will immediately affect the whole team as not many opponents would wish to shake hands with the Chairman of the PCB lest he be carrying the dreaded virus. The medical board of the PCB may itself have to be certified by an international team of medics. The use of common changing rooms would also have to be reviewed.
The PCB has unnecessarily consigned the Pakistan Cricket team to a leper colony, for this disease is highly contagious and socially unacceptable - requiring the admission to any partner of being a carrier. The social life of the entire Pakistan team has just been curtailed, for who would want an autograph from a carrier, parents would certainly not allow their children any proximity to a Pakistani cricketer or his cohort, nor would any dignitary wish to shake the hand of any team member. A Royal visit is of course out of the question.
Thank you Mr Ijaz Butt you have destroyed the image of our entire team, for I can assure you that you or your team will no longer be socially acceptable nor welcome in any decent homes. The chairman PCB does not realise that in this world sportsmen are considered to be the paragons of clean living, and their spectacular results are the product of a healthy virtuous lifestyle. But when the Board itself publicly admits that a member has been found in a contaminated state then the quarantine rules will apply, but who will clear the players? The PCB has not realised the extent of damage they have done to the whole team and themselves. I for one have cancelled the reception I was to attend, I have found something safer and cleaner to attend.
It is therefore not surprising that in our picking and appointing people on a whim can and is dangerous for the institutions as is happening in the country, for when merit is ignored then the Ijaz Butts and Dr Nasim Ashrafs will appear and disappear when their sponsors change, but the damage they wreak will remain to haunt us.
The performance of the team is a foregone conclusion, and unless President Zardari steps in right away to remove Ijaz Butt and brings in someone with a sense of decency, above all a patriotic sense of duty. Without the Shoaib Akhtars of Pakistan, Mr Butt would be running a Pan Shop in Mochi Gate. President Zardari will be blamed for foisting upon us an inept and worse, an incompetent chairman of PCB. In these troubled times, when we are drowning in a sea of troubles, the faint glimmer of hope would have been a decent result in the upcoming cricket cup. Ijaz Butt has already placed us in a handicap, for the British Media will have a field day at our expense. The British have a preponderance of louts, who need any excuse to go Paki-bashing, and our chairman has given them one in spades. Mr President he will not resign please sack him. The country is at an all time low, we need desperately something to cheer us up. A couple of good wins would do miracles for us. Unfortunately miracles will continue to be denied to us unless Mr Butt and his ilk are removed.
The amazing part is that the PCB has not realised that sports, and cricket in particular have a special code of conduct which has been violated by yobs such as Ijaz Butt. His conduct has certainly proved that Pakistan even before the opening whistle is in the wrong hands.
Not the players, but the conduct of the chairman PCB has certainly cast our players in an unenviable position as social outcasts - pariahs certified by our own officials.
The Guardian was kind in saying: "The world was made aware of this news by the Pakistan Cricket Board, who aired the revelation in a completely unnecessary statement detailing the excruciating minutiae of the condition that prevented Shoaib from travelling. The more compassionate approach would surely have been to issue a vague press release reporting that he'd been ruled out with an unspecified niggle, thereby affording the poor sod some privacy during a very difficult time. But given the long standing acrimony that exists between Shoaib and the PCB, it is a sad day when the only crumbs of support are by the words completely unnecessary more compassionate unspecified niggle."
The Guardian has just given our PCB a lesson in good manners.
The sacred 'patient doctor' confidentiality has not yet been considered. A hefty lawsuit could buy Shoaib his own team and a new chairman, while Mr Butt would be counting the many ways to grovel his Butt into the ground.
The writer is a political analyst
By Fakir S. Ayazuddin | Published: June 6, 2009
Our cricket leadership has created an unnecessary controversy where none existed. The latest PCB stupidity has been highlighted by the Manchester Guardian, in a piece by Barry Glendenning published on May 30, 2009: "The Pakistan Cricket Board seemed to take great pleasure revealing the excruciating minutiae of Akhtar's embarrassing condition."
In this one sentence Glendenning has given his verdict on the disgraceful conduct of the PCB. This article has been seen by many people as the Guardian is a very widely read newspaper, and highly respected, so its comments are valued throughout its extensive readership.
The conduct of the PCB, in publicising Akhtar's ailment will immediately affect the whole team as not many opponents would wish to shake hands with the Chairman of the PCB lest he be carrying the dreaded virus. The medical board of the PCB may itself have to be certified by an international team of medics. The use of common changing rooms would also have to be reviewed.
The PCB has unnecessarily consigned the Pakistan Cricket team to a leper colony, for this disease is highly contagious and socially unacceptable - requiring the admission to any partner of being a carrier. The social life of the entire Pakistan team has just been curtailed, for who would want an autograph from a carrier, parents would certainly not allow their children any proximity to a Pakistani cricketer or his cohort, nor would any dignitary wish to shake the hand of any team member. A Royal visit is of course out of the question.
Thank you Mr Ijaz Butt you have destroyed the image of our entire team, for I can assure you that you or your team will no longer be socially acceptable nor welcome in any decent homes. The chairman PCB does not realise that in this world sportsmen are considered to be the paragons of clean living, and their spectacular results are the product of a healthy virtuous lifestyle. But when the Board itself publicly admits that a member has been found in a contaminated state then the quarantine rules will apply, but who will clear the players? The PCB has not realised the extent of damage they have done to the whole team and themselves. I for one have cancelled the reception I was to attend, I have found something safer and cleaner to attend.
It is therefore not surprising that in our picking and appointing people on a whim can and is dangerous for the institutions as is happening in the country, for when merit is ignored then the Ijaz Butts and Dr Nasim Ashrafs will appear and disappear when their sponsors change, but the damage they wreak will remain to haunt us.
The performance of the team is a foregone conclusion, and unless President Zardari steps in right away to remove Ijaz Butt and brings in someone with a sense of decency, above all a patriotic sense of duty. Without the Shoaib Akhtars of Pakistan, Mr Butt would be running a Pan Shop in Mochi Gate. President Zardari will be blamed for foisting upon us an inept and worse, an incompetent chairman of PCB. In these troubled times, when we are drowning in a sea of troubles, the faint glimmer of hope would have been a decent result in the upcoming cricket cup. Ijaz Butt has already placed us in a handicap, for the British Media will have a field day at our expense. The British have a preponderance of louts, who need any excuse to go Paki-bashing, and our chairman has given them one in spades. Mr President he will not resign please sack him. The country is at an all time low, we need desperately something to cheer us up. A couple of good wins would do miracles for us. Unfortunately miracles will continue to be denied to us unless Mr Butt and his ilk are removed.
The amazing part is that the PCB has not realised that sports, and cricket in particular have a special code of conduct which has been violated by yobs such as Ijaz Butt. His conduct has certainly proved that Pakistan even before the opening whistle is in the wrong hands.
Not the players, but the conduct of the chairman PCB has certainly cast our players in an unenviable position as social outcasts - pariahs certified by our own officials.
The Guardian was kind in saying: "The world was made aware of this news by the Pakistan Cricket Board, who aired the revelation in a completely unnecessary statement detailing the excruciating minutiae of the condition that prevented Shoaib from travelling. The more compassionate approach would surely have been to issue a vague press release reporting that he'd been ruled out with an unspecified niggle, thereby affording the poor sod some privacy during a very difficult time. But given the long standing acrimony that exists between Shoaib and the PCB, it is a sad day when the only crumbs of support are by the words completely unnecessary more compassionate unspecified niggle."
The Guardian has just given our PCB a lesson in good manners.
The sacred 'patient doctor' confidentiality has not yet been considered. A hefty lawsuit could buy Shoaib his own team and a new chairman, while Mr Butt would be counting the many ways to grovel his Butt into the ground.
The writer is a political analyst
A
arshad_lahore
Guest
Holbrooke's visit
By Inayatullah | Published: June 6, 2009
The Special Envoy was back on a three-day visit. Increasingly he looked and acted like a viceroy. What a picture it was to watch him fielding questions from the media with President Asif Zardari solemnly standing next to him and Messrs Qureshi, Qaira and Rehman Malik obediently, in attendance. Mr Richard Holbrooke was here, interalia, to announce largesse for the IDPs. He informed that Mr Zardari had requested USA for an additional $200 million and in response President Obama had asked the Congress to provide the amount solicited. Mr Zardari at this press conference volunteered to say that the military operation could be extended to Waziristan. Obviously to reassure the visitor that Washington's wishes would be readily met. Which means more IDPs and more subsequent requests for more dollars. The president then made a heart-warming statement about winning hearts and minds. "Once we win hearts and minds," he said, "then I say we have made progress." How this will be done if at all done, he did not spell out.
In a sense, it appears that all that the Government of Pakistan is really interested in, is to beg for money and ask for doles and loans. Mr Holbrooke later visited a refugee camp, consoled the hapless displaced persons, got himself photographed with children sitting in his lap and expressed his heartfelt sympathy for the Swatis and Buneris, uprooted because of the unavoidable military action. He was good enough to tell Mr Zardari before closing the press conference that he would come back to meet him again after his visit to the IDPs. Mr Zardari quietly registered the honourable visitor's wish while the ministers looked on respectfully.
Holbrooke shrugged off the question about the Taliban using American weapons by cavalierly suggesting that insurgents often get hold of such weapons by various means. He went on to say that his government was determined to help strengthen democracy in Pakistan. According to a report while still aboard his special plane, he said that he had asked the Pakistani political leadership to show unity in the war against terrorism. He added that he had spoken to both President Zardari and Mian Nawaz Sharif on the issue of 17th Amendment and his impression was that both leaders had developed consensus on it. "I will talk to them on this issue when I go to Pakistan", he pontificated. So the honourable visitor had come on an inspection tour to see for himself the performance of a compliant govt, promise more money and also to help resolve important internal political issues. If his reported intervention about the 17th Amendment is correct, surely he was intruding into domestic matters. But does anyone care?
One can understand the behaviour of our president who lets the American administration interfere in our affairs. How to explain the growing impression that Nawaz Sharif is increasingly inclined to toe the American line? His open support for the America-prompted action in Swat and his confining himself to mild protests against the outrageous US drone attacks suggest that he is beginning to compromise with his courageous and patriotic stand on these issues. The times call for a larger than life role on his part as the national opposition leader to protect the vital national interests. In an interesting article authored by Nicolas Schmidle in the American magazine, The New Republic, Nawaz Sharif's shift for the military operation against the Taliban has been linked to Washington wooing him to play an effective role in the American War on Terror. At the same time, says Schmidle, there is the risk of losing popularity because of the widespread anti-American feelings in the country. "Sharif's very willingness to play ball with the Americans could undo the support he's amassed. Perhaps the very fact that we're staring to feel comfortable with him should make us nervous," he said. Surely Nawaz Sharif should clarify his position.
One of Nawaz Sharif's spokesmen recently wrote a long article in an Urdu newspaper to clear his present stance. The PML-N quaid needs to hold a press conference to answer questions currently being raised about the military operation and American pressure in order to extend the war to Waziristan and other places. It is also important that a delegation of PML-N parliamentarians headed by a leading office-holder of the party visits Washington to inform and educate Congressmen, senior officials of the Obama administration and the American media of the party's thinking and stand on Pakistan-US relations. What we are witnessing is a non-stop series of visits by American senators, house representatives, senior US administration officials, Pentagon top brass and NATO commanders to administer advice and directives to Pakistan's president, prime minister, chief of the army staff, governors of provinces, chief ministers and top leaders of the opposition. The return visits from Pakistan of our senior office-holders take place off and on the basis of summons received from Washington and because of PPP's weaknesses and vulnerability it is not in a position to effectively protect Pakistan's sovereignty and interests. Take the case of the outrageous drone attacks which all along have not only violated the territorial integrity of the country but have also taken a heavy toll in terms of killing almost a thousand innocent men, women and children considered as collateral damage as against the elimination of a handful of presumed Al-Qaeda members. Since it is beyond Zardari and Gilani to vigorously take up the issue with Washington, it has devolved upon Sharif to pick up the gauntlet. There are various ways of doing so. Why not address a letter to President Obama making out a forceful case for the discontinuation of the drone strikes inside Pakistan. How about calling a special meeting of the OIC to discuss the matter and also enlist the support of friendly countries.
Nawaz has to come to grips with the challenge to the country's honour and standing in the comity of nations. If the Americans keep interfering in our affairs, so blatantly causing a severe injury to our self-confidence and our government taking all this lying down surely we will be encouraging outsiders to play havoc with our land, resources and institutions. We have to put a stop to the US' unacceptable and unilateral forays into our territories. It is indeed a testing time for PML-N and its top leadership.
The way the burning issue of Balochistan is being tinkered with is another area where PML-N has shown signs of a lack of dynamism. Why wait for a dithering PPP govt to take the initiative? Why let the grievances of the Balochis gather momentum. It is already late in the day as foreign inspired and aided nationalistic elements have started talking about independence. Nawaz Sharif will be well-advised to set-up a think tank solely focusing on various aspects of the crisis developing in Balochistan and how these could be addressed satisfactorily and speedily. On the basis of the strategies and possible solutions emerging from the proposed study (hopefully finalised within 4 or 5 days), Nawaz should hold a series of meetings with Balochi leaders of various vintages, big and small. Merely making good statements and meeting one or two Balochi leaders, now and then, will not do.
The writer is a political and international relations analyst
By Inayatullah | Published: June 6, 2009
The Special Envoy was back on a three-day visit. Increasingly he looked and acted like a viceroy. What a picture it was to watch him fielding questions from the media with President Asif Zardari solemnly standing next to him and Messrs Qureshi, Qaira and Rehman Malik obediently, in attendance. Mr Richard Holbrooke was here, interalia, to announce largesse for the IDPs. He informed that Mr Zardari had requested USA for an additional $200 million and in response President Obama had asked the Congress to provide the amount solicited. Mr Zardari at this press conference volunteered to say that the military operation could be extended to Waziristan. Obviously to reassure the visitor that Washington's wishes would be readily met. Which means more IDPs and more subsequent requests for more dollars. The president then made a heart-warming statement about winning hearts and minds. "Once we win hearts and minds," he said, "then I say we have made progress." How this will be done if at all done, he did not spell out.
In a sense, it appears that all that the Government of Pakistan is really interested in, is to beg for money and ask for doles and loans. Mr Holbrooke later visited a refugee camp, consoled the hapless displaced persons, got himself photographed with children sitting in his lap and expressed his heartfelt sympathy for the Swatis and Buneris, uprooted because of the unavoidable military action. He was good enough to tell Mr Zardari before closing the press conference that he would come back to meet him again after his visit to the IDPs. Mr Zardari quietly registered the honourable visitor's wish while the ministers looked on respectfully.
Holbrooke shrugged off the question about the Taliban using American weapons by cavalierly suggesting that insurgents often get hold of such weapons by various means. He went on to say that his government was determined to help strengthen democracy in Pakistan. According to a report while still aboard his special plane, he said that he had asked the Pakistani political leadership to show unity in the war against terrorism. He added that he had spoken to both President Zardari and Mian Nawaz Sharif on the issue of 17th Amendment and his impression was that both leaders had developed consensus on it. "I will talk to them on this issue when I go to Pakistan", he pontificated. So the honourable visitor had come on an inspection tour to see for himself the performance of a compliant govt, promise more money and also to help resolve important internal political issues. If his reported intervention about the 17th Amendment is correct, surely he was intruding into domestic matters. But does anyone care?
One can understand the behaviour of our president who lets the American administration interfere in our affairs. How to explain the growing impression that Nawaz Sharif is increasingly inclined to toe the American line? His open support for the America-prompted action in Swat and his confining himself to mild protests against the outrageous US drone attacks suggest that he is beginning to compromise with his courageous and patriotic stand on these issues. The times call for a larger than life role on his part as the national opposition leader to protect the vital national interests. In an interesting article authored by Nicolas Schmidle in the American magazine, The New Republic, Nawaz Sharif's shift for the military operation against the Taliban has been linked to Washington wooing him to play an effective role in the American War on Terror. At the same time, says Schmidle, there is the risk of losing popularity because of the widespread anti-American feelings in the country. "Sharif's very willingness to play ball with the Americans could undo the support he's amassed. Perhaps the very fact that we're staring to feel comfortable with him should make us nervous," he said. Surely Nawaz Sharif should clarify his position.
One of Nawaz Sharif's spokesmen recently wrote a long article in an Urdu newspaper to clear his present stance. The PML-N quaid needs to hold a press conference to answer questions currently being raised about the military operation and American pressure in order to extend the war to Waziristan and other places. It is also important that a delegation of PML-N parliamentarians headed by a leading office-holder of the party visits Washington to inform and educate Congressmen, senior officials of the Obama administration and the American media of the party's thinking and stand on Pakistan-US relations. What we are witnessing is a non-stop series of visits by American senators, house representatives, senior US administration officials, Pentagon top brass and NATO commanders to administer advice and directives to Pakistan's president, prime minister, chief of the army staff, governors of provinces, chief ministers and top leaders of the opposition. The return visits from Pakistan of our senior office-holders take place off and on the basis of summons received from Washington and because of PPP's weaknesses and vulnerability it is not in a position to effectively protect Pakistan's sovereignty and interests. Take the case of the outrageous drone attacks which all along have not only violated the territorial integrity of the country but have also taken a heavy toll in terms of killing almost a thousand innocent men, women and children considered as collateral damage as against the elimination of a handful of presumed Al-Qaeda members. Since it is beyond Zardari and Gilani to vigorously take up the issue with Washington, it has devolved upon Sharif to pick up the gauntlet. There are various ways of doing so. Why not address a letter to President Obama making out a forceful case for the discontinuation of the drone strikes inside Pakistan. How about calling a special meeting of the OIC to discuss the matter and also enlist the support of friendly countries.
Nawaz has to come to grips with the challenge to the country's honour and standing in the comity of nations. If the Americans keep interfering in our affairs, so blatantly causing a severe injury to our self-confidence and our government taking all this lying down surely we will be encouraging outsiders to play havoc with our land, resources and institutions. We have to put a stop to the US' unacceptable and unilateral forays into our territories. It is indeed a testing time for PML-N and its top leadership.
The way the burning issue of Balochistan is being tinkered with is another area where PML-N has shown signs of a lack of dynamism. Why wait for a dithering PPP govt to take the initiative? Why let the grievances of the Balochis gather momentum. It is already late in the day as foreign inspired and aided nationalistic elements have started talking about independence. Nawaz Sharif will be well-advised to set-up a think tank solely focusing on various aspects of the crisis developing in Balochistan and how these could be addressed satisfactorily and speedily. On the basis of the strategies and possible solutions emerging from the proposed study (hopefully finalised within 4 or 5 days), Nawaz should hold a series of meetings with Balochi leaders of various vintages, big and small. Merely making good statements and meeting one or two Balochi leaders, now and then, will not do.
The writer is a political and international relations analyst
A
arshad_lahore
Guest
The US duplicity!
By Raoof Hasan | Published: June 6, 2009
President Obama has delivered his landmark speech sending a message of 'redefining relationship' with over 1.5 billion Muslims of the world. He called for a "new beginning between the United States and Muslims" and said that, together, they could confront violent extremism across the globe and advance the timeless search for peace in the Middle East. The pivotal remarks coincide with Mr Holbrooke's latest visit to Pakistan where he has promised more aid for the Internally Displaced Persons (IDPs). Addressing a joint press conference with Mr Zardari, he said: "We are committed to helping you in strengthening democracy and defeating militants who threaten democracy in Pakistan, democracy in Afghanistan and stability throughout the region."
Polemics apart, if the US were genuinely sincere in arresting its fast-declining image in the Muslim world, it would have to change track in a far more comprehensive manner than it has so far indicated since the induction in office of President Obama. Included in the recipe for redefining this relationship should be a realisation that there are issues which are central to the interests of the Muslims of the world, including Palestine and Kashmir, which have also become the breeding grounds for militancy. These issues reflect principal cases where the inalienable rights of the Muslim people have been usurped and they are being kept in bondage by two 'democracies' that are fully backed, even sustained, by the US. This is an inherent contradiction that the US would have to address as part of any redefining of policy for the Muslim world. The grievances are deeply ingrained in the psyche of the Muslims and no amount of semantic shift in stance and stress would convince them to change their belief that the US is not a friendly country. This perception has further compounded in the last decade due to the maniacal aggression that the US has exhibited by attacking Afghanistan and Iraq resulting in the deaths of hundreds of thousands of Muslims. The continuing presence of the US forces in these countries is also construed as an act inimical to the interests of the Muslim world.
It is no less than a small wonder how, over decades, the US leadership has indulged in gross self-destruct in its relationship with the Muslims. I remember growing up in the sixties looking upon the US as a dependable friend. That perception was quickly replaced by one of horror at the realisation how conveniently the US used its friends and then dropped them. Pakistan's conflicts with India, their advisability notwithstanding, provide an ample basis for the people of this country to stop looking towards the US for any meaningful help during its times of crises. Instead of extending support to an ally, Pakistan was repeatedly penalised through imposition of damaging unilateral restrictions.
The relationship underwent a mega change when the US decided to take on the Russians in Afghanistan. Pakistan had an obscurantist military dictator ruling the country who had barged in by staging a coup against a democratically elected government. He was desperately looking for some legitimacy as, unfortunately, most of the governments in Pakistan have been eager for including the incumbent aberration. He was quick to plunge Pakistan into the cauldron of war in a neighbouring country, thus invoking the evils of drugs, arms and militancy. The mujahideen of the Afghan war were speedily dispensed with once the objectives of the operation were achieved and the Russians quit Afghanistan. Overnight, these "harbingers of freedom" had become the despicable terrorists who had to be eliminated. The US left, but it is Pakistan that has continued to bear the brunt of its ill-advised participation in an alien war.
Over ten years later, we had another military dictator ruling the country when the US decided to invade Afghanistan in the wake of the attacks of 9/11. True to tradition, the capitulation was instant and complete without considering the impact Pakistan's participation in another alien war would have on its short- and long-term interests nationally, regionally and internationally. As expected, the US has got bogged down in Afghanistan and Pakistan continues to reap a excruciating harvest of bloodshed in its midst. It is now engaged in a full-scale war in the Malakand region, mostly against its own people, that is showing no signs of abating in the near future. After forcing it into launching the operation, the US is consistently engaged in buying the loyalty of the NROed leadership by doling out funds under one pretext or the other. The objectives are clear: a war that was never ours is now being transformed into a war that Pakistan is fighting for its own survival. While its people are living under constant threat of suicide attacks, its army is losing its dedicated and brave officers and soldiers in a war that, albeit necessary in essence, is patently ill-advised in its larger context with no outcome in sight.
Throughout the years, it is the US that has reaped all the benefits of an inequitable relationship with Pakistan. It has supported and sustained, even helped come into power, a string of military dictators in the country who have inflicted grievous damage on the national democratic polity and the burgeoning aspirations of a nation. As the people writhe under increasing threat to their life and property, the US continues to escalate the intensity and the expanse of a war that is not in Pakistan's interest. Together with endangering the future of a country, it has plunged the entire region into an internecine conflict with disastrous consequences.
As Mr Holbrooke comes to Pakistan with another instalment of financial rewards for services rendered, it is time our leadership started paying some attention to what is in Pakistan's interest. Does Pakistan's interest lie in the continuation of a war that was never ours, and that would never be ours, or does it lie in extricating from a conflict speedily by revisiting its objectives and strategy? The principal component of any agenda to redefine relationship with the Muslim world would be a US announcement of withdrawal of its troops from Afghanistan without any further delay. It would then be time for all the players to get together and deliberate what is best for the countries involved as well as for the region as a whole. The continuing bloodbath may be serving the US interests by fostering the concept of war in lands far off, but it is definitely not in the interest of the countries of this region. They should work for a convergence of objectives and get down to formulating a strategy to bring the conflict to an end, with or without the US support!
The writer is an independent political analyst based in Islamabad
By Raoof Hasan | Published: June 6, 2009
President Obama has delivered his landmark speech sending a message of 'redefining relationship' with over 1.5 billion Muslims of the world. He called for a "new beginning between the United States and Muslims" and said that, together, they could confront violent extremism across the globe and advance the timeless search for peace in the Middle East. The pivotal remarks coincide with Mr Holbrooke's latest visit to Pakistan where he has promised more aid for the Internally Displaced Persons (IDPs). Addressing a joint press conference with Mr Zardari, he said: "We are committed to helping you in strengthening democracy and defeating militants who threaten democracy in Pakistan, democracy in Afghanistan and stability throughout the region."
Polemics apart, if the US were genuinely sincere in arresting its fast-declining image in the Muslim world, it would have to change track in a far more comprehensive manner than it has so far indicated since the induction in office of President Obama. Included in the recipe for redefining this relationship should be a realisation that there are issues which are central to the interests of the Muslims of the world, including Palestine and Kashmir, which have also become the breeding grounds for militancy. These issues reflect principal cases where the inalienable rights of the Muslim people have been usurped and they are being kept in bondage by two 'democracies' that are fully backed, even sustained, by the US. This is an inherent contradiction that the US would have to address as part of any redefining of policy for the Muslim world. The grievances are deeply ingrained in the psyche of the Muslims and no amount of semantic shift in stance and stress would convince them to change their belief that the US is not a friendly country. This perception has further compounded in the last decade due to the maniacal aggression that the US has exhibited by attacking Afghanistan and Iraq resulting in the deaths of hundreds of thousands of Muslims. The continuing presence of the US forces in these countries is also construed as an act inimical to the interests of the Muslim world.
It is no less than a small wonder how, over decades, the US leadership has indulged in gross self-destruct in its relationship with the Muslims. I remember growing up in the sixties looking upon the US as a dependable friend. That perception was quickly replaced by one of horror at the realisation how conveniently the US used its friends and then dropped them. Pakistan's conflicts with India, their advisability notwithstanding, provide an ample basis for the people of this country to stop looking towards the US for any meaningful help during its times of crises. Instead of extending support to an ally, Pakistan was repeatedly penalised through imposition of damaging unilateral restrictions.
The relationship underwent a mega change when the US decided to take on the Russians in Afghanistan. Pakistan had an obscurantist military dictator ruling the country who had barged in by staging a coup against a democratically elected government. He was desperately looking for some legitimacy as, unfortunately, most of the governments in Pakistan have been eager for including the incumbent aberration. He was quick to plunge Pakistan into the cauldron of war in a neighbouring country, thus invoking the evils of drugs, arms and militancy. The mujahideen of the Afghan war were speedily dispensed with once the objectives of the operation were achieved and the Russians quit Afghanistan. Overnight, these "harbingers of freedom" had become the despicable terrorists who had to be eliminated. The US left, but it is Pakistan that has continued to bear the brunt of its ill-advised participation in an alien war.
Over ten years later, we had another military dictator ruling the country when the US decided to invade Afghanistan in the wake of the attacks of 9/11. True to tradition, the capitulation was instant and complete without considering the impact Pakistan's participation in another alien war would have on its short- and long-term interests nationally, regionally and internationally. As expected, the US has got bogged down in Afghanistan and Pakistan continues to reap a excruciating harvest of bloodshed in its midst. It is now engaged in a full-scale war in the Malakand region, mostly against its own people, that is showing no signs of abating in the near future. After forcing it into launching the operation, the US is consistently engaged in buying the loyalty of the NROed leadership by doling out funds under one pretext or the other. The objectives are clear: a war that was never ours is now being transformed into a war that Pakistan is fighting for its own survival. While its people are living under constant threat of suicide attacks, its army is losing its dedicated and brave officers and soldiers in a war that, albeit necessary in essence, is patently ill-advised in its larger context with no outcome in sight.
Throughout the years, it is the US that has reaped all the benefits of an inequitable relationship with Pakistan. It has supported and sustained, even helped come into power, a string of military dictators in the country who have inflicted grievous damage on the national democratic polity and the burgeoning aspirations of a nation. As the people writhe under increasing threat to their life and property, the US continues to escalate the intensity and the expanse of a war that is not in Pakistan's interest. Together with endangering the future of a country, it has plunged the entire region into an internecine conflict with disastrous consequences.
As Mr Holbrooke comes to Pakistan with another instalment of financial rewards for services rendered, it is time our leadership started paying some attention to what is in Pakistan's interest. Does Pakistan's interest lie in the continuation of a war that was never ours, and that would never be ours, or does it lie in extricating from a conflict speedily by revisiting its objectives and strategy? The principal component of any agenda to redefine relationship with the Muslim world would be a US announcement of withdrawal of its troops from Afghanistan without any further delay. It would then be time for all the players to get together and deliberate what is best for the countries involved as well as for the region as a whole. The continuing bloodbath may be serving the US interests by fostering the concept of war in lands far off, but it is definitely not in the interest of the countries of this region. They should work for a convergence of objectives and get down to formulating a strategy to bring the conflict to an end, with or without the US support!
The writer is an independent political analyst based in Islamabad
