www.theaustralian.news.com.au
THIS past week has seen appalling terrorist violence in Pakistan and Afghanistan. The bombings in Pakistan were designed in part to coincide with the visit of US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton. As always, these bombings were designed to kill, but they were also designed for the evening news in every Western country that has troops in Afghanistan and a stake in Pakistan.
The war is going very, very badly in both countries. Meanwhile, the whole world waits for yet another US review of its Afghanistan and Pakistan policy.
To simplify rather drastically, the two possible alternatives are counter-insurgency, which often travels under the acronym COIN, and counter-terrorism, or CT.
COIN is advocated by General Stanley McChrystal, US commander in Afghanistan. He wants 40,000 more US troops. Right now there are 68,000 Americans in Afghanistan, 35,000 from other nations and roughly 170,000 Afghans divided between the police and army.
CT is advocated by US Vice-President Joseph Biden. It is based on the idea of lowering the number of US troops in Afghanistan and concentrating the US effort on killing terrorists as they emerge.
President Barack Obama has a mandate to win in Afghanistan. All through the election campaign he promised to give the Afghanistan campaign the resources it needed.
He then held a policy review after he came into office and declared in March: "To focus on the greatest threat to our people, America must no longer deny resources to Afghanistan because of the war in Iraq."
But as Der Speigel asked, can a Nobel Peace Prize winner wage and win a war in Afghanistan? The Obama administration seems overwhelmed. It is simultaneously dealing with healthcare reform, the fallout from the financial crisis, the Afghanistan/Pakistan disaster and the demand for a global warming agreement.
One response of hard-pressed leaders is to commission further study, so that while that's under way they can concentrate for a time on one of the other pressing issues. But while understandable, that's nowhere near good enough for Afghanistan and Pakistan.
At the moment the allies look, perhaps not entirely accurately, as though they are losing in Afghanistan, while Pakistan increasingly appears caught in a monstrous civil war that will challenge every institution in that fragile, broken-backed society.
To try to understand what's going on, it's helpful to disaggregate the forces at work. In Afghanistan, the US-led coalition, of which Australia is part, in alliance with the government of Hamid Karzai, is fighting the Taliban.
This Taliban is made up of several different forces. There is the central, and profoundly ideological, group led by Mullah Omar, the former head of the Taliban government. There are regional Taliban movements as well, some of which were in government with Omar. Beyond this, smaller tribal groups and clans have made alliances of convenience with the Taliban. Some elements of the Taliban are less ideologically committed than the Mullah Omar group.
The top Taliban leadership base themselves in the tribal areas of Pakistan.
At the same time, there are now Pakistani Taliban, whose leadership is also based in Pakistan's tribal areas. They, too, are increasingly allying themselves with other Islamist movements within Pakistan. The Afghan Taliban were initially sponsored by the Pakistani military, who have also sponsored other Islamist extremist groups, mainly to attack India.
However, the Pakistani state is in danger of being eaten by the monsters it created. The recent wave of attacks against Pakistani military bases shows there is now an all-out war against the Pakistani state by the Pakistani Taliban.
The Pakistani military, having recently retaken control of the Swat Valley, is now involved in a massive, anti-Taliban campaign in Waziristan.
One of the world's foremost experts on Afghanistan and Pakistan, Anthony Cordesmann, told me this week he's sceptical about what the Pakistani military will be able to achieve in Waziristan. "Tactically, they'll be able to smash their way in all right," he said. "But it's another question whether they can clear, hold and build. They are basically a flat-land army designed to deal with India. They have some heavy learning experiences ahead of them.
"Whether they can adapt and learn effectively is the question."
There is some consolation to be had from the fact that the Pakistani military now sees the Pakistani Taliban as unambiguously its enemy, and the enemy of the Pakistani state.
Pakistani soldiers are infinitely more likely to be effective fighting for their own country, than they are in meeting international obligations to police international terrorism, where perhaps they don't see their own interests fundamentally at stake.
However, the Pakistani military has still not severed its links with the Afghan Taliban, which it believes might come back into power in Afghanistan and which might, in Pakistani eyes, rule Afghanistan in a way which is compatible with Pakistani interests.
This is so even though the Afghan Taliban and the Pakistani Taliban are in broad alliance and frequent contact.
So where is al-Qa'ida in all this? The best intelligence guess is that al-Qa'ida's leadership is also headquartered in the tribal areas of Pakistan. Al-Qa'ida has a symbiotic relationship with the Afghan Taliban. Those who favour the Biden CT approach against the McChrystal COIN approach often argue that it should be possible to detach al-Qa'ida from the Taliban, and fight the former and make a deal with the latter.
The problem is there is very little historical evidence that this can be accomplished. After the 9/11 terror attacks, Washington gave the Taliban government in Afghanistan every chance to give up Osama bin Laden or at least expel him. Even though Mullah Omar knew that sticking with bin Laden could see his government destroyed and his rule over Afghanistan ended, he did stick.
Since then, if anything, the relationship between al-Qa'ida and the Taliban has grown closer. Al-Qa'ida has trained the Taliban in every terror trick they know, so that Taliban insurgent operations have become ever more sophisticated. They also acknowledge the Taliban's leadership. At the same time the Taliban continues to provide hospitality and support to al-Qa'ida. Osama bin Laden may move around a lot, but he almost certainly isn't hiding in caves. He is staying as an honoured guest with old and deep friends.
Stephen Biddle, who was a member of McChrystal's assessment team, has written a devastating critique of the CT approach as a way of lessening the US troop commitment. He summarises McChrystal's COIN approach as being focused on protecting the Afghan population, expanding its army and police, reforming government, providing economic development, weaning Taliban fighters away from Mullah Omar and targeting those who refuse. To do this effectively requires doing it all, and it requires more resources.
Biddle goes through the alternative approaches of CT. One is: train the Afghans, don't fight on their behalf. This won't work, he says, because effective training effectively requires more US troops. The only really effective training involves mentoring by integrating coalition troops with Afghan troops in battle. This requires a lot of coalition troops.
Another suggestion is the greater use of unmanned aircraft to attack al-Qa'ida leaders. But to be effective this requires human intelligence which is only available from a sympathetic government and a large presence on the ground. Yet another is to buy off warlords. This is indeed also part of the COIN strategy, but the warlords won't stay bought if they think the US and its friends are losing or withdrawing. They'll take coalition money and then join the enemy when it turns up in force anyway.
Another line favours sending civilian aid rather than troops, but no aid project survives in contemporary Afghanistan without security protection. The Taliban will never allow civilian aid to prosper if it has the power to obliterate it. The final piece of CT advice is to tread softly, because having too many foreign troops annoys the Afghans and creates a bigger backlash. But tread softly was Donald Rumsfeld's policy and it got Afghanistan into the mess it's in today. There are enough foreign troops already to annoy a lot of Afghans, but not enough to provide security.
The situation has been vastly complicated by the corrupt presidential election and the loss of credibility for Karzai's government. And the polls are bad for the Afghan war in America. But this is exactly when presidential leadership is most needed. A Taliban victory in Afghanistan would put huge pressure on nuclear-armed Pakistan, empower al-Qa'ida terrorists and could well see Taliban-style terror armies replace al-Qa'ida as the jihadist modality of preference, such that similar groups emerge in Central Asia and even other parts of South Asia.
It is overwhelmingly in US, and Australian, interests for this not to happen. Whatever strategy the US adopts must be coherent and resourced to succeed.
The world continues to wait, and wait, for Obama to make up his mind.
Waiting for Obama to get down to war
It's Pakistan's war too
latimes.com
Editorial
As a car-bomb attack in Peshawar tragically demonstrates, Pakistanis and the U.S. have a common enemy in Islamist extremists.
Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton set out for Pakistan this week on a charm offensive, hoping to curtail anti-Americanism by speaking directly with students and journalists not simply about fighting terrorism but about economic development and other issues of common interest. Then a car bomb tore though a crowded market in the northwestern city of Peshawar, slaughtering more than 100 men, women and children, instantly drawing attention back to the conflict.
More than anything Clinton can say, a series of assaults that have taken the lives of more than 500 civilians this year should serve to convince typical Pakistanis that this is not just a U.S. war. The United States and Pakistan have a common enemy in Islamist extremists, and the Pakistani state is fighting for its survival.
Militants around the world have cynically targeted marketplaces to weaken support for governments that fail to protect their people, even though killing innocents rarely wins over public opinion in the long run. That's a point the Obama administration also should note. More than 500 civilians have died in U.S. missile strikes against the Taliban by unmanned drone aircraft, Pakistani officials say, which may partly explain why polls show that a majority of Pakistanis regard the United States as an enemy.
The Peshawar bomb appears to be the work of the Pakistani Taliban, which is fighting not for its brethren in Afghanistan but to destabilize the government of President Asif Ali Zardari. Officials regard the bombing as retaliation for a 30,000-troop Pakistani military offensive in the Taliban stronghold of South Waziristan. Despite his many shortcomings, Zardari sounds as if he understands that he has no choice but to fight back. We hope that the often-ambivalent Pakistani army is convinced it must continue the offensive and ultimately defeat the Pakistani Taliban. Opposition leader Nawaz Sharif also should speak out against the bombing and help unify the country against radicals who want to control it.
The United States is aiding Pakistan's military with hundreds of millions of dollars worth of weapons, helicopters and surveillance equipment, and U.S. Special Forces soldiers are training Pakistani counterinsurgency troops. All of this is done under the radar, so to speak, to avoid a backlash against the United States. But while it's true that the Obama administration, like the Bush administration before it, is shoring up the nuclear-armed Pakistani government to protect U.S. interests and those of its allies, it's also time for Pakistanis to acknowledge that it's in their interest as well to keep extremists at bay. This is Pakistan's conflict too.
Pakistan’s war for survival
EDITORIAL:Daily Times
A car stuffed with 150kg of explosive material has been blown up with remote control in a busy bazaar of Peshawar, killing over a hundred innocent citizens and injuring over two hundred. This is the big escalation that should convince the nay-sayers in the war against terrorism in Pakistan. The enemy has clearly defined himself and cannot be interpreted as a “wronged party” whose cause must be “understood” as a part of the process of removing the “roots” of terrorism.
It is too late for that kind of diagnosis. Now it is the survival of Pakistan which is at stake and the lives of the women and children of the NWFP which have to be answered for. The NWFP government has understood what the killers are trying to do. It says, “We may all die in the process but we will not stop fighting the terrorists”. This statement comes from a mind that knows that the war against terrorism has gone beyond the point where “talks” could bring peace. This is the attitude which must prevail in Pakistan so that the country can stand united against the Taliban and their foreign killers.
The terrorists have now turned to killing common people gathered in markets and other public places. This was the second such “blind” attack in Peshawar telling us that now the war is no longer tied to any ideology but is a war to the end. The new strategy has been embraced because the post-Baitullah action from the Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) has not been too effective. There are signs of failure written all over the attacks suffered by Pakistan. In these cases the TTP “success” was limited to creating fright; and in most cases the terrorists have been traced with remarkable ease.
TTP’s new leader Hakimullah has always been reputed to be less scrupulous in his thinking than his predecessor Baitullah. His approach has become more unscrupulous after the scattering of the TTP and the arrest of a large number of second-echelon Taliban leaders. He is reckless and unmindful of the unpopularity the TTP will earn among the people. The new development — as in the case of the GHQ attack — is that intelligence against the elements that assist the TTP has improved. The attacks against the FIA headquarters and the two police centres in Lahore were of weak intent and were thwarted in their objective by the response of the police.
Action by the Pakistan Army has helped in strengthening the resolve of the common man to endure the hardship of war against the Taliban. Where it has operated, local populations have formed their own private militias and begun to hunt elements that killed their women and children. Once intimidated by warlords in Khyber and Malakand, they are now willing to defend the state if the state is willing to fight back. The “normalisation” of the Swat-Malakand region, once predicted to be of long haul, has taken place rapidly because of the support of the people who were subjected to the cruelty of the utopia that people like Sufi Muhammad had promised them over the past quarter century.
The war is going well in South Waziristan but the impression it makes in the rest of the country is mixed because of the lack of unity over the war among our politicians. They are in fact divided over matters other than war and treat war against terrorism as a kind of distraction. Sitting in parliament, the political parties have given the go-ahead to the war against terrorism but continue to differ over its details. The two mainstream parties are locked in a battle for another kind of survival. The PMLN says it supports the war against terrorism but differs in detail when it pleads for a focus on the “root cause”. The truth is that it is already too late to look for the “root cause”.
The root cause of war is in fact clear and present: the terrorists are killing our women and children. They are damaging our economy by scaring away domestic and international investment. They want Pakistan to collapse into a “state of nature” to serve them as the hub of their global terror. Pakistan has to fight them and see to it that the international community is lined up behind it with every kind of support and sympathy.
Frontier CM must resign
FrontierPost.com
A blazing inferno and a heart-rending holocaust it was, with some 92 people, including 11 innocent children and 22 women lying dead on the spot and many more writhing in pain with wounds in this Wednesday's brutal terrorist car-bombing on ladies' shopping bazaar of Peshawar metropolis. Perhaps the deadliest-ever so far, the strike unmasked evil faces of perpetrators, showing them up for what they really are: mercenary murderers who slaughter their own innocent people for money on their foreign paymasters' bidding, wearing deceptive masks of religiosity and jihad. They are, contemptibly, outright infidels and traitors of the worst kind. But couldn't their thuggery be preempted or prevented? The day earlier, local law-enforcement authorities had been issuing warnings that two explosives-laden vehicles had entered the metropolis for terrorism. Then, why had they left undefended this shopping bazaar, always a bustling place, crowded with women shoppers and their accompanying children. The bazaar was potentially a target, needing to be protected impregnably. Yet it was found left totally unsecured, with not even a single duty cop in sight. Why? Had cops been withdrawn from all over to mount redoubled security on ministers, bureaucrats and other VIPs, while ordinary citizens were simply thrown out to be mowed down and devoured up by terrorist wolves? Chief Minister Amir Haidar Hoti must now admit his incompetence and failure and resign, so conclusively has he demonstrated his ineptness and unfitness for the job. The Frontier's residents give a damn to brave talk he and his ministers ooze out so churlishly after every terrorist strike in the province. They have heard him and them churning out the bunk nauseam that terrorist cannot break their resolve to face up to them unbendingly. But seen him they have not doing anything practical to secure their lives and properties. For months, he has been telling them he would recruit tens of thousands cops to beef up the province's police force. But, appalling, he is still to move beyond talk to concretize that recruitment, even as prowling terrorists are on the rampage increasingly bloodily. Maybe, he is awaiting lists from his ANP flocks to recruit political favourites, not right meritorious candidates, to the force. So incompetent has indeed he been that, leave alone the rest of the province, he has spectacularly failed even securing the provincial metropolis. In these very days, terrorists have come again and again, have struck Peshawar lethally and fatally again and again, and he has shown nothing else to confront them except his puerile talk. Verily, he has shown in every manner not be the man capable of steering a troubled province as is the Frontier presently. He must now spare the province's distressed people the atrocity of his inept and incompetent stewardship to make way for some able hand to handle its critical security situation, sparing himself thereby too all the time for dancing and frolicking at wedding parties and other festivities of his kith and kin in garrison clubs and their mansions. He indeed can save some shame to his disgraced face by emulating the example of chief minister of the Indian state of Maharashtra, who owned up moral responsibility and stepped down when terrorists struck his state's capital, Mumbai. Certainly, this Wednesday terrorist assault on Peshawar is no lesser horrific. It indeed was more deadly. The Mumbai terrorism also saw Indian home minister quitting. And this Peshawar carnage must set our interior minister Rehman Malik thinking too of following a precedent that comes natural to responsible people with a sense of honour and dignity in such tragic calamitous events. Heads must also roll in the provincial police hierarchy, particularly for its horrendous failure in averting a thuggish strike when it knew before hand that terrorists had entered the city for their wicked act. The provincial top cop, who holds his court in the city, and Peshawar city police chief have to go forthwith, in any case. Their incompetence in the given conditions is obvious and just indefensible. Punitive actions must also come against the rest found derelict in an inquiry into the carnage, which must be quick so as to prevent recurrence of such an intolerable holocaust. And to hell with CoD, 17th Amendment and all such-like forays, keeping the country's top leadership engrossed. The people can do without these adventures. They need security of life at least, first and foremost. The president and the prime minister must take a pause, sit down earnestly and work vigorously into implementing the action plan that the high-level inter-provincial security meeting had worked out in Islamabad. Terrorist thugs are visibly getting viler, bolder and deadlier. They have to be curbed and crushed quickly and at every cost.
U.S.Aid To Pakistan:Where did the funds go?
EDITORIAL:DAILY TIMES
As the Obama Administration focuses more on the social sectors of the Pakistani economy and separates its aid to Pakistan under the Kerry-Lugar Bill from assistance to the Pakistan Army, new information about how the old US funds were utilised by the Musharraf regime has come to light. The revelation is that the army was not given all the aid meant for increasing its capacity to fight terrorism, but that most of it was diverted by the Musharraf regime to prop up the civilian government.
A couple of retired generals have decided to speak out. General Mahmud Durrani (Retd), who was Pakistan’s ambassador to the US under General Musharraf, says: “It went to things like subsidies, which is why everything looked hunky-dory. The military was financing the war on terror out of its own budget.” And how was this made possible? By the fact that General Musharraf was both army chief and de facto “ruling” president of Pakistan.
According to a report, the additional shocking fact is that some sections of the army, faced with the terrorism of the Taliban, received nothing till 2007, the year when Musharraf’s era began to crumble under pressure from the mistakes the general-president made. In these lean years for the army, “helicopters critical to the battle were not available; the limited night-vision equipment was taken away every three months and returned three weeks later; and old equipment fell out of repair and training was lacking.”
There have been rumours about money getting “siphoned off” on Musharraf’s watch. Some US circles thought Pakistan’s military was more obsessed with India and spent what it got not on the war against domestic terrorism, but on its state of preparedness against India. But if, between 2002 and 2008, only $500 million of the $6.6 billion aid actually made it to the Pakistani military, what kind of defence against India was Pakistan able to secretly mount? On the other hand, the PPP leader President Asif Ali Zardari has been talking of the “misuse” of nearly $10 billion in American aid.
Pakistan doesn’t make public its defence budget. So one cannot track what happens to the money that goes into it. Such sectors as intelligence are kept away from public scrutiny although most of what the spooks do affects the civil sector and the economy. We know that General Musharraf “saved” the army some money by inducting a large number of serving officers into civilian jobs. Pakistan already pays its army’s pensions from the civilian budget, but the charge that wasteful subsidies were paid out of the money meant for the army needs investigation. The “circular” debt that General Musharraf’s regime left behind indicates how reckless his government was with the economy he never tired of discussing.
The Americans were willing to fund the Pakistan Army because in comparison with their own troops it was cheap. By 2008, the US paid Pakistan $8.6 billion for the military, and more than $12 billion in all. The army would send in the bills and the US would pay, barring some cases when delays took place till lack of trust began to prevail and the bills remained pending.
General Mahmud Durrani, whose thesis is that Pakistan has disadvantaged itself politically and economically by pursuing India-centric strategies, says money went into buying equipment better suited to fighting India in Afghanistan than to fighting terrorists. It bought armour-piercing TOW missiles, sophisticated surveillance equipment, air-to-air missiles, maritime patrol aircraft, anti-ship missiles and F-16 fighter aircraft. As a result, in 2007, Pakistan had only one working helicopter for use in FATA!
Pakistan was the largest recipient of US assistance under General Musharraf. It is about to receive even more of it under the Kerry-Lugar Bill. Because of what has happened in the past, there is a lack of trust between the donor and the recipient. Also, those who want to fight terrorism in Pakistan without American help — they actually believe Pakistan doesn’t need to fight terrorism — want the American assistance rejected. Until an inquiry is held — and the time for that will come later — we will not know what actually happened. Now is the time to back the army and do whatever it takes to increase its capacity to fight the terrorists.
Quetta question
The rumours about key Taliban leaders lurking in Quetta are not new. They have been around for months, even years. Some claim that at one point big meetings of the Taliban were held quite openly at a set location each week and attended by hundreds if not thousands. Vague claims of the sighting of the one-eyed Mullah Omar have surfaced from time to time. The presence, in the Balochistan capital, of Taliban elements is also borne out by the fact that last year women were barred from certain restaurants whose owners were warned not to serve them. Against this background it is hardly surprising that a brand new controversy has sprung up. The Pakistani government, in response to an interview given to the US media by Anne W Patterson, US ambassador to Pakistan, has insisted there is a disconnect between her and Washington. The ambassador's claim that the Taliban are orchestrating anti-US operations from Quetta has been vehemently denied. Once more Islamabad has emphasized zero-tolerance policy against militancy. This is all very well. We hope it is the truth, the whole truth and nothing but. However we must point out that a crisis of credibility has existed in the past. Given this, we must ask why so many stories about the Taliban activities in Balochistan persist, if there is no truth to them at all. News reports with no substance tend to wither and die away. It is also a fact that these accounts have appeared in the media from many different sources. It is questionable if they can all be entirely inaccurate.
A point of crisis is now approaching. Washington is adopting an increasingly belligerent tone, combining praise with demands for more action. There has been mention in the media of proposals to send drones to strike targets in Quetta. The city is clearly emerging, as much as Waziristan, as the focal point of attention. Pakistan has every right to be angered by false charges. It must also oppose the strikes over cities with all the force it can muster. The very thought of bombs and missiles dropped over urban centres is just too terrible to contemplate. It must never happen. Washington itself must realize this. We hear there are officials there who have spoken out against the idea. These voices of sanity must prevail. But Pakistan too, while issuing its denials, needs to look into the facts. Its officials need simply to explore the Internet or articles written in past years about Taliban gatherings in Quetta. The reasons for the conviction that key members of the Afghan Taliban are indeed present in Balochistan need to be examined. The province after all neighbours Taliban strongholds and has been used in the past too as a place of refuge by those fleeing Afghanistan. President Hamid Karzai was once among the safety-seekers. There may be others who have followed the same route. This possibility must not be ignored. Islamabad must build credibility and persuade the world that it is ready to hunt down the Taliban wherever they are based. In this strategy lies its own future safety and good standing in the international community.
Khyber IDPs just abandoned
Frontier Post
As the military operation is on in the Khyber Agency, thousands of civilians fleeing their homes in fighting zones for safety find themselves left just out in the cold, completely abandoned by an insensitive political administration, showing itself bereft of even a streak of human compassion. Not that the IDPs are experiencing this administrative callousness for the first time. They had had to undergo this ordeal whenever some security operation of sorts was launched in the agency even in the past, as indeed are going through their cousins of Bajaur, Waziristan and the tribal region’s other parts, who now for months on end have been wandering forsaken and unattended, nursing the grouse of being just ignored by their political administrations as much as by the federal government’s hierarchs. Still, one thought it would be different this time round. As the military has launched into a systematic clenched-fisted campaign substantially different from its previous actions to flush out militants from the agency and as its political administration dittoed the official intent of continuing the drive until the last militant was finished off, the civil power was legitimately expected to humanely cater for the imminent civilian exodus from war theatres. But in place is no arrangements whatsoever for the IDPs’ succour. No relief camp has been set up. No organised effort is in evidence for shifting of the displaced to safer places. They have just been left on their own to fend for themselves. And the unfortunate people with their crying infants, hungry children and woebegone women trudging on the rocky terrain are just wandering about for refuge, with some lucky ones crowding up in their relations’, friends’ and acquaintances’ homes, with a few fortunate wealthy ones landing into exorbitantly hired accommodations and the whole lot of the rest just staying under the open sky with their weeping hungry children. And so indifferent is the political administration and its bosses in Peshawar and Islamabad that it has forgotten even to wake up and sensitise the country’s citizenry to the dire distress of its compatriot IDPs of the Khyber Agency. And yet we are still being regaled with the hierarchy’s tiresome talk of combining up political initiatives and the military muscle to snuff out the monstrosities of militancy and terrorism from our land. For its excessive and populist use, winning of hearts and minds has become a trite cliché in this country, though. Yet, it is a decisive make-and-break reality that in effect determines a counter-insurgency campaign’ ultimate success or failure. So does it occur to any of top bureaucrats and their political overlords what a sullen and angry displaced populace means to an anti-militancy operation? Hadn’t they heard what Bajaur’s internally displaced had cried out in complaint when various official quarters were all out working for Malakand IDPs’ wellbeing? With that grouse, some have returned to their homes in Bajaur, while others still staying behind in their places of refuge are living with it. Isn’t it? And doesn’t it occur to any of the hierarchs in the tribal region, Peshawar or Islamabad that FATA is not just a far more sensitive area than Malakand geopolitically and strategically, but it also is in the lap of a militancy, much of it foreign-fuelled, which is far chronic and far entrenched? Doesn’t that underscore imperative need of a far greater effort to keep its residents on the right side of the state and its administration? And is there no one in official quarters to realise this inexorable necessity’s importance in view of a firestorm visibly building up in neighbouring Afghanistan, where the Obama administration had strode in on fancy notions, half-baked ideas and wishful thinking and where it is finding the going tougher than had it visualised? Barring a miracle, the Americans are in for viciously insurmountable turbulent times there. And when the firestorm breaks out in all its fury, they are sure to divert flames to our side. Imagine what predicament in that eventuality we would be in if we have a disgruntled and incensed populace of ours to contend with in the tribal region? Hence the civilian hierarchy from top to bottom must wake up from its stupor and start caring for the internally displaced of the Khyber Agency as also of other agencies, if not for humanitarian ground, for the national security interests at least. The Frontier governor in particular must activate himself energetically as FATA is actually his principal responsibility. He must energise his sloth-ridden political administration to set it on looking after the displaced. And the military must insist on it, no lesser for its own campaign’s success.
Never mind the Taliban – Pakistan's youth put their faith in rock'n'roll
www.guardian.co.uk
Wannabe rock stars have it tough in Pakistan. Last month a new band, Poor Rich Boy (and the toothless winos), took to the stage of a cramped Islamabad cafe for their breakthrough gig. On the first night, one person turned up.
"It was the night of the world cricket finals. Bad timing," said the group's guitarist, Zain Ahsan, ruefully. The second gig was better – 30 people came along – but brought its own dark worries.
"I asked the owner, 'What if a bomb goes off?'" said Ahsan. "She said, 'Don't worry, I'll be with you.'"
Even in a summer of Taliban violence young Pakistanis are rocking on. An underground music scene is quietly thriving in the country's major cities, nourished by the internet and the passion of mostly amateur bands.
In Lahore a pair of unemployed rockers have tapped into that enthusiasm with a new school for rock'n'roll.
"We weren't getting a lot of gigs, and we needed to survive," said co-founder Hamza Jafri. "So we thought we'd try this."
The Guitar School, as it is known, has been surprisingly successful. Around 40 students have signed up, ranging from surly teenagers in drainpipe jeans to more practised musicians such as Ahsan looking to hone their skills. Classes take place in a small room lined with egg boxes; the school's teaching style is reflected in its motto: "Play it like you feel it."
Many come from wealthy families that might once have stigmatised music, Jafri said. "People associated it with the red light district and sexual entertainment." But a popular new television show featuring live performances, Coke Studio, has given rock music a new patina of respectability.
On a recent afternoon a woman brought in two reluctant-looking teenage daughters for lessons. "It will do them good to learn," she said.
But making it to the next stage is difficult and sometimes dangerous. For the past six months virtually all public performances in Lahore have stopped since extremists attacks on a performing arts festival and the Sri Lankan cricket team. The Pakistani music industry itself is disorganised and hamstrung by massive piracy.
But the country's internal chaos is also feeding creativity. Pakistanis have a rich musical tradition, mostly rooted in Sufism, but modern musicians have generally skirted political issues. But the new single from co-VEN, which Jafri fronts, is a sharp parody of Pakistan's controversial alliance with the US.
"There's a lot of foreign pressure on our government to attack people in the tribal areas," he said. "We are taking dictation from you guys."
Others have a playful take on the turmoil. The Islamabad band Bumbu Sauce – the name comes from a Pot Noodles packet – recently brought out Jiggernaut, a single that mixes references to kung fu, talking dogs and the Taliban. Guitarist Shehryar Mufti is not worried the insurgents might take the joke badly.
"Their beef is with the government, not the people," he said. "I think rock music is low on their list of priorities."
Pakistani rock gained traction with the arrival of satellite television in the 1990s. Today the musicians, many self-taught, publicise themselves through networking websites such as Facebook and MySpace, and Pakistan's growing number of FM radio stations. And despite the security concerns, a fresh concert scene is emerging.
On a sultry Saturday night hundreds of young people, mostly dressed in jeans and T-shirts, crowded into a new outdoor auditorium on the edge of Islamabad called the Rock Musicarium. "People are thirsting for music, they want to get out," said the venue's founder, Zeejah Fazli.
When it opens properly in November, the venue will have a recording studio and capacity for 600 people, said Fazli, who estimates there are 20 rock bands in Islamabad alone. But, he admitted, the project depends on a six-month lull in attacks on the capital continuing.
For some well-to-do Pakistanis, rock music represents the cultural tensions of their life, which is divided between western influences and the conservative direction their society is taking. "On one side kids feel like they are in England; on the other this strict Islamic thing is going on. It's not good for people's sanity," said Jafri.
About five years ago Junaid Jamshed, the country's most famous pop star, renounced music and returned to religion. Now he appears on religious chat shows sporting a long, curly beard.
But most aspiring rock stars say they can live with the difference. In the soundproof room at the Lahore guitar school, 17-year-old Danish Khwaja strummed his guitar, long hair flopping over his forehead.
"It's kinda cool doing stuff you love," he said.
The Future of Afghanistan and Pakistan
The international coalition cannot defeat the Taliban without a strengthened Afghan state. It should work through the Afghan government—rather than international agencies—to increase economic opportunity and foster effective political institutions at the district and province level.
Discriminating minorities
THE FRONTIER POST(EDITORIAL)
Christians of Sheikhupra have required the government to protect them from religious militants and extremists who have threatened them to repeat the incidents like that of Gojra if they held their annual religious convention. This threat obviously perturbed the entire people of Pakistan and minister for minorities Shahbaz Bhatti has also sought security for this religious minority which he belongs to. The minister also talked of moving a bill to the National Assembly to ensure protection of religious minorities. The minister may have forgotten the fact that religious intolerance and discrimination on the basis of religion remain the root causes of sectarian and communal conflict and resultant violence because this was inscribed in the 1973 Constitution and a host of other laws by dictator Ziaul Haq between 1979 and 1988 and thus drastically changed the philosophy of the country's basic law giving the bigoted elements a free hand to victimize minorities to the extent of extermination. When the constitution itself has anomalies, a bill is by no means an answer; the only remedy is the repeal all the constitutional amendments and discriminatory laws introduced by the 11-year black rule of the dictator through a constitutional amendment bill and if it is incorporated in the 17th amendment, it will save time and make thiongs easier for all. Gen Zia amended the Constitution as many as seven times in nine of 11-year regime and inserted such provisos as to come clearly in conflict with the basic law as adopted on August 14, 1973. He started with giving a parallel judiciary in 1979 and ended up with the Ninth Amendment to Constitution in 1985 changing the preamble of the Constitution. In between, Ziaul Haq introduced the Enforcement of Shariah Ordinance and changed blasphemy laws to transform Pakistan into a theological state which Quaid-i-Azam Mohammad Ali Jinnah had strictly forbidden in his inaugural speech to the first Constituent Assembly on August 11, 1947. These changes gave eminence to sectarian thought and paved way for semi-literate clergymen to rise to the status of judges and 'muftis' (religious scholars authorized to issue decrees) in the superior judiciary. The paradox that followed is that all the four 'civilian governments' and the so-called enlightened democracy of Gen Pervez Musharraf failed to make a review of the Zia regime's constitutional amendments. Even former prime minister and the PML-N leader Nawaz Sharif, who has repeatedly talked about the Charter of Democracy, repealing Article 58 2 (B) and the trial of Gen Pervez Musharraf's for high treason, has not so far considered Zia's laws worthy for review. He even did not hold Gen Zia responsible for the social, constitutional and legal evil although Musharraf did exactly the same as Zia like enforcing emergency, bringing about a provisional constitution order and subjecting judges to take oath afresh. Now that bigoted 'mullahs' have mounted a fresh offensive against minorities, the government and all other conscientious segments of society must plead that all changes made by the Zia regime in the constitution and other laws, should be reviewed by experts and subsequently repealed for their inconsistency with the original 1973. Likewise, if Musharraf is made to stand trial for breaching Article 6 of the Constitution, the period of Gen Ziaul Haq must also be reviewed and judicial stricture passed against him as well.
Saved from: http://www.thefrontierpost.com/News.aspx?ncat=ed&nid=157&ad=19-08-200
Dated: Wednesday, August 19, 2009, Sha'ban 27, 1430 A.H.
Richard Holbrooke and Nawaz Sharif
M Waqar New York
Once again, Obama’s US Special Envoy for Afghanistan and Pakistan Richard Holbrooke met Nawaz sharif and made a statement that,’’ Distancing from Nawaz to hamper US interests”... I think it will be disastrous for Obama administration if, Washington thinks that Nawaz Sharif can be a reliable partner of Washington in fighting Taliban. Nawaz Sharif has sympathies with Osama bin laden, al-Quaeda and Taliban. According to a former ISI official, Nawaz Sharif met Osama bin Laden and received funds from him, he met Osama three times and desperately asked for financial assistance. Bin Laden, who had offered him money to topple the Pakistan People’s Party government of Benazir Bhutto in 1990. Al-Qaeda head wanted the “secular” PPP government overthrown to ensure that Pakistan continued supporting the Afghan “jihad” and Laden was against a woman ruling Pakistan. Nawaz met Osama thrice in Saudi Arabia, these meetings were arranged by former ISI official Khalid Khawaja. Nawaz Sharif was hoping for a grant of Rs 500 million. Although Bin Laden gave a smaller amount, Khawaja said that he arranged for Sharif to meet the Saudi royal family, which pledged political support for him and kept its word until he was dislodged by President Pervez Musharraf in 1999. Nawaz has been an ardent supporter of Taliban. I am afraid that his coming to power at this critical juncture will be bad news for Pakistan, because Pakistan is already facing Taliban mutiny. Sharif is on record stating he would prefer Pakistan to be run like the Taliban ran Afghanistan, and we all know how well that turned out. Sharif’s reckless embrace of religious extremism led him to try and impose Sharia (Islamic law) on Pakistan in 1998 and declare himself “Amirul Momineen” (Leader of the Faithful). Sharif’s desire for power is even greater than his respect for innocent life. Convicted for hijacking, he put the lives of 198 people on a plane in jeopardy by refusing to allow it to land. At the time of his removal from office, Nawaz Sharif had looted approximately $60 million from people of Pakistan, via personally owned companies.
Saved from: http://www.thefrontierpost.com/News.aspx?ncat=le&nid=864&ad=19-08-200
Dated: Wednesday, August 19, 2009, Sha'ban 27, 1430 A.H.
Funding the Pakistani Taliban
Poppies, tobacco and the "timber mafia." But that's not all.
By Shahan Mufti - GlobalPost.COM
MARDAN, Pakistan — Standing in the lush plains of Mardan in the Northwest Frontier Province, the rugged and arid mountains that enclose the Peshawar valley on all sides may appear farther than they actually are. A few dozen miles to the north and west in the mountains, the Pakistan army has been engaged in a bloody battle with Taliban militants for years over the control of territory.
The armed guerrilla fighters have avoided forays onto the flat plains of Mardan, but driving through the main market of the city where vendors sell everything from kebab to Kalashnikovs, or among the cattle in leafy tobacco fields, or the large 16-wheeler trucks on the potholed roads, there are traces of Taliban, even here.
You don't see Taliban foot soldiers — young men with the signature long hair, black turbans and beards — cruising the streets in the backs of pick-up trucks shaking down shop owners like gangsters. But in this bustling town and many others much farther away from the war zones, the Taliban's financial engine is chugging at full force right under the nose of law enforcement.
“The money is coming in from more sources than we know,” said Aftab Ahmed Sherpao, a native of the nearby town of Charsada, who served as the interior minister under former President Pervez Musharraf. Sherpao was the man responsible for organizing civilian law enforcement when the Taliban first emerged on the scene in Pakistan.
Having survived two targeted assassination attempts and no longer serving in the government, he said “if they can dry up their revenues, (the militants) won’t last for long.” But tracking the money, he said "isn’t an easy job.”
And it's not just Sherpao who's worried. Cutting off the revenue streams of the Pakistani Taliban is something that U.S. President Barack Obama’s Af-Pak special envoy, Richard Holbrooke, has linked to the successful completion of the American campaign in Afghanistan.
During his last visit to Pakistan in June, Holbrooke told reporters that in the past the traditional belief in Washington was that all the money came from the drug trade in Afghanistan. “That is simply not true,” he was quoted saying. In a press conference in Islamabad he announced that a member of the U.S. Treasury Department will be added to his staff to find out "where the money really comes from."
Traditionally, guerrilla groups thrive on one large favored revenue stream. For example, the FARC in Colombia has leaned heavily on the trade of coca for three decades and the diamond trade has fueled years of war in Africa. Just over Pakistan's border, the Afghani Taliban have a deep hand in the cultivation and trade of poppy.
While poppy has been largely eradicated from Pakistan, the political leadership and military planners in the country say that a chunk of the Afghan drug money still makes its way to Pakistani Taliban hands — to the tune of $200 million dollars a year, according to Pakistani military estimates.
An official at the Anti-Narcotics Force in Pakistan said that tracking terrorism funds is "far beyond our official mandate." But the force is working closely with the military to "stop drug money from getting into dangerous hands" and is stacked at all levels with retired and serving military generals.
But following this money across borders is especially difficult because much of it moves through the hawala system, which transfers money through unofficial money lending networks. In the hawal system, drug money is thrown in to the same pile as legal expat remittances, making it impossible to fully trace.
The tactics of the Pakistani Taliban suggest though that its needs go beyond a cut from the Afghan poppy industry, which the State Department estimated at $4 billion in 2007. The Pakistani Taliban shares a name with the Afghan group, but when it comes to the
money, Sherpao said the rule is: "live off the land."
Back in 2005, television camera crews in Swat, Pakistan, captured for the first time images of Taliban collecting donations from locals. Then, wooden carts with mounds of cash were parked on the street sides as women were seen dropping their jewelry into bags for masked young men
carrying AK47s.
The Pashtun militancy first grew in the tribal areas of Pakistan when the Pakistan military ventured to the Afghan border for the first time in history. At the time, the American military said that the Taliban had moved its bases into Pakistan and major high profile
ex-Afghan-mujahedeen leaders were traveling freely across the porous Af-Pak border.
But by 2005 groups claiming to be part of the umbrella Taliban Movement of Pakistan (TTP) had started popping up in places like the Swat Valley, which has no border with Afghanistan. In Swat, the leadership of the major Taliban group came from the remnants of an old secessionist movement in the region that dates back to the 1970s, decades before the Taliban existed.
As the Pakistan army moved deeper into the steep green valley to battle these new groups, the Taliban couldn't just rely on the dwindling goodwill of a few poor ideological supporters. Like any good business, it diversified.
A report by the Center for Public Integrity in Washington published in June claims that millions of dollars are also ending up in Pakistani Taliban coffers from its control of the trade in counterfeit cigarettes. The report estimates that profits from the illicit cigarette trade may account for as much as 20 percent of total funding for these terrorist groups.
“After poppy, tobacco is probably the biggest revenue generator,” for the Taliban, said Ikram Sehgal, a former major-general in the Pakistan army who now runs one of the largest private security firms in the country.
Plus, officials constantly identify new Taliban revenue streams. The environmental protection agencies in Pakistan are blaming the “timber mafia” — illegal loggers — for funding the militancy. Last year the Taliban took over a dormant marble mine near the Afghan border, which then reportedly generated tens of thousands of dollars for it every month.
Aftab Sherpao, the former interior minister, said the Taliban also would have made hundreds of thousands of dollars in the past from emerald mining in the Swat Valley.
But nothing, it seems, pays better than good old crime. Rackets, extortion, kidnapping and banks heists are all helping the Pakistani Taliban pay the bills. Earlier this year the Taliban reportedly demanded nearly $1 million from Sikh minorities in their areas as jizya, or “tax.”
A thousand miles away, five men were arrested in June in the city of Karachi, the country's financial hub, for funding Taliban groups. The men were “involved in robbing banks and trailers on highways” and “different crimes” to provide funding to the Pakistani Taliban,
according the city’s police chief. The police also said the suspects were planning to kidnap businessmen in Karachi.
“Kidnapping is a major revenue source for them,” said Gen. Athar Abbas, the central spokesman for the Pakistan Army. “Sometimes we don’t even know how much has been paid to get people released so it’s hard to keep track,” he said. While the official stories mostly recount escapes, ransom is usually paid — “sometimes in the millions of dollars,” said Abbas.
But to Abbas and many others in Pakistan, stopping the drug trade in Afghanistan is still the key to controlling the militancy in Pakistan. “I don’t agree with (Holbrooke’s) assessment,” he said. “The opium trade is still the backbone of the funding” for militants in Pakistan.
Former minister Sherpao said that since the pay-offs in the drug trade in Afghanistan go up to the “highest levels,” “it’s not easy to control it from this side.”
Sherpao's suggestion is echoed frequently by Pakistani officials who say that Afghan officials, including the Afghan president, are involved in the drug trade and thereby complicit in financing the Taliban militancy inside Pakistan.
It's a not a purely academic debate. By hitting such a disparaging note in the funding debate, Pakistan is then able to build political pressure on Afghanistan and the United States to do more on the other side of the border.
The Pakistan government now also routinely points the finger at India for backing the Pashtun and Balochi insurgents in Pakistan through consulates in Afghanistan.
This month, basking in the glory of a fairly successful anti-Taliban offensive in the Swat Valley region, the Pakistani government used U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton's visit as an opportunity to announce that it had presented the Indian Prime Minister with evidence
of his country's involvement in financing and aiding terrorism in Pakistan.
Looking in another direction, Holbrooke has said that the U.S. would look closely at wealthy individuals on the Arabian peninsula who might be funding the Taliban in Pakistan. That might be difficult, however. A 2003 study by the World Bank suggests that drug money transacted between the Middle East and Afghanistan goes through the opaque hawala system.
Before this, for a few years the U.S. had maintained that the Pakistan army and intelligence outfits were themselves funding the insurgency they were fighting. And now the debate has come full circle — a common refrain in Pakistan echoed by many from retired diplomats to retired militants is that the “Taliban are agents of America."
How is the Pakistani Taliban financing its war? There is no easy or singular answer. And in the ensuing confusion everyone is blamed while no one admits to anything. In the end, it might be this blame game that the Taliban profits from most.
Political culture of Pakistan
By Sayeed Hasan Khan and Kurt Jacobsen
Dawn.com
For a democracy to work at full throttle there must be reliable institutions, among them a civil service, a judiciary, political parties, civic associations, the press and a military subordinate to civilian rule. Many a scholarly study has been cranked out to prove this point, but common sense says so too.
To give the urban work force a voice at least one major political party should have trade union links. Pakistan came into existence during the rise of an all-India trade union movement, with one of the strongest components being the Railwaymen’s Federation. Bombay was the bustling centre of the subcontinent’s union movement. The Communist Party exerted the strongest single dynamic presence while the next largest union was run by the Indian National Congress.
At partition the mass of Muslim dock labour from Bombay, along with its leadership, such as M.A. Khatib migrated to Karachi. As they were already organised they became the national labour leaders. As the Karachi docks expanded, however, the owners attracted a supply of docile labour from the north, especially from the Frontier Province, with the intended result of undermining a nascent national labour movement. Instead of trade unions protecting them, labourers were channelled as scabs into the docks and industry by eager Pathan contractors, and that was a heavy blow.
In Lahore, in the largest railway workshops, the union was led by the legendary Mirza Ibrahim, who was also the head of the Pakistan Trade Union Federation. In 1946, before partition, Ibrahim helped win an epochal struggle against a government intent on decimating the railway workforce.
In 1951 Ibrahim formally lost his election to the Punjab legislature because the vote was rigged in the most literally dirty way. Many ballot papers were rejected because they were handled by the soiled hands of his loyal railway workshop workers. After this infamous stunt a Punjabi word ‘jhurlu’ was coined and it is still the common word for outrageous rigging.
Later, Ibrahim spent time in and out of jails — including during the 1967 railway strike — and hospitals and died a poor man. V.V. Giri, who was the president of the federation along with Ibrahim as general secretary before independence, became the president of the Indian republic.
As for the evolution of parties, the Muslim League wiped out competitors in Sindh and Punjab. In 1947-48 in the only province where a vibrant political party — the Red Shirts in the Frontier — was in control, the party was removed through devious bureaucratic means. In provincial elections in the western part of Pakistan the Muslim League came to power through more creative electoral high jinks.
In 1954 in East Pakistan, the Muslim League was defeated outright but, again, bureaucratic manoeuvres reversed the decision so that the ultimate consequence was the discrediting of electoral politics — and a hideous reckoning in 1970-71. Bureaucrats effectively became the political leaders of Pakistan. Ghulam Muhammad and Iskander Mirza styled themselves as chief ideologues. With the connivance of Gen Ayub Khan they abruptly dismissed the parliament in 1958.
A high court ruled against the governor general for dismissing the parliament. The government appealed to the Supreme Court. A British barrister, Lord Diplock, notorious in Northern Ireland later for instituting a non-jury court system there, staunchly defended the government while D.N. Prit offered to fight the case for the opposition free of charge. After the judgment went against him, D.N. Prit told one of us that the decision signalled the end of democracy in Pakistan. Since then, whenever a new dictator popped up, segments of the Muslim League bent over backwards or sideways to accommodate his whims.
In the late 1960s Zulfikar Ali Bhutto named his exciting new political entity — promising honest democratic socialism, which appealed to rising peasant movements — the People’s Party, but the key figures running it were Muslim League relics. The political culture in the upper strata was self-serving, circumspect and cynical. Though Britain had its own purposes in establishing institutions, it bequeathed a first-rate civil administration and judiciary. But every institution that Pakistan inherited, its venal new leaders undermined. India, on the other hand, kept British institutions intact (with minor modifications) and benefited immensely. The only Pakistani institution that retained the British tradition is the army, which nonetheless became contaminated by the periodic intoxication of taking power.
So of the two major political parties today, one was nurtured directly by the army GHQ and headed by Nawaz Sharif during Zia’s reign. The other was eventually embraced by Musharraf. As he said only the other day, Benazir, had she survived, would have been prime minister under his patronage.
Benazir’s father, to no good purpose, nationalised the schools and colleges. These often excellent colleges, built by philanthropists and civic-minded organizations, suffered for it. After Bhutto left, an insistence on teaching Urdu arose and of teaching Islam foremost or exclusively. The poor could go to nationalised schools, if even to those. The middle class attends insulated private schools to sit for British examinations and, afterwards, work abroad or at home for multinationals. So, despite the ritual hailing of democracy, there is a freedom only for the few because of their money.
A vital guardian of civil society should be the press, doing its job of comforting the afflicted and afflicting the comfortable. But the less said about it the better. Some owners appear quiescent and daring journalists are discouraged, if not repressed.
Corruption over 60 years is up in leaps and bounds. The industrialist long ago developed a knack for sharing profits with ruling bureaucrats rather than with workers. The people feel powerless and are prepared to believe any odious story about their rulers, whether absurd or on the money.
Government legitimacy is, to say the least, shaky. Everybody feels that they are on their own. That despair — far more so than armed militants — is not only a disturbing feeling, but a danger.
State and intolerance
Editorial:
Daily Times
Taking a cue from Gojra, some people on Tuesday killed the owner of a factory in Muridke just outside Lahore. Before killing him they accused him of having “desecrated the Holy Quran”. Ridiculously, they announced an old calendar on the owner’s office wall as the Holy Quran before committing the heinous crime. In Gojra, the announcement from the mosques had alleged that the Christians had defiled the Holy Quran. No evidence was in place.
Many people ask the question: why has intolerance increased after the enactment of the laws against blasphemy and desecration of the Quran? A law is brought in to stop a criminal trend, but why has the opposite happened in the case of Pakistan? No satisfactory answers are given, but that doesn’t mean that there are no answers. One straightforward observation is the weakening of the state in the face of elements that propagate a severe interpretation of the faith.
The next question is: why has the state become weak? The answer should be sought in what the state has done in the last quarter of a century. The state has relied on the military strategy of using non-state actors in covert wars in Afghanistan and Kashmir. The Mujahideen were selected from the seminaries and religious parties who were made to develop their jihadi wings. This empowerment — nursing fully armed warriors within civil society — dictated the negative transformation of Pakistan as a society.
The state that promotes jihad with non-state actors will have to brace itself against change that might come from the jihadi mind. In Pakistan’s case, the state reacted “homoeopathically”; it changed itself through laws that appeased the new tough approach to matters of religion. The blasphemy law was enforced in violation of all norms of law-making. Section 295-C says: “Use of derogatory remarks, etc; in respect of the Holy Prophet. Whoever by words, either spoken or written or by visible representation, or by any imputation, innuendo, or insinuation, directly or indirectly, defiles the sacred name of the Holy Prophet Mohammed (PBUH)...” About the Holy Quran, Section 295-B says: “Defiling, etc, of copy of Holy Quran. Whoever wilfully defiles, damages or desecrates a copy of the Holy Quran or of an extract therefrom or uses it in any derogatory manner or for any unlawful purpose shall be punishable for imprisonment for life”.
The laws are phrased in anger, not in moderation, which is the meaning of justice (adl) in Islam. Some years ago, an angry sitting judge of the Lahore High court spoke out at a public function and said that Muslims should kill a blasphemer on sight and not go to the court of law. Pushed by the ulema empowered in varying degrees by jihad, the laws were kept on the statute book despite clear defects. In most cases any page with Arabic printed on it lying on the ground arouses people to violence which vents itself on public property. The individual victims are mostly poor communities who cannot defend themselves.
In 2006, the Council for Islamic Ideology (CII) thought that the laws had no deterrent value against false accusations and suggested procedural amendments, but the proposal was shot down by the clerical faction inside the CII. The sessions courts that award the death sentence to blasphemers are hardly free agents, intimidated by armed non-state actors besieging the court. Even a high court judge has been killed by a fanatic.
Christians, the most frequent victims, are also the poorest section of the population. It normally takes five to six years for a convicted blasphemer on death row to get relief from the Supreme Court. The state has yet to punish a blasphemer; but hundreds languish in jails falsely accused of blasphemy, including a group of under-age school children from Layyah rotting in a DG Khan jail.
The blasphemy law doesn’t care for evidence, has no concern for “will” behind the act of blasphemy, has set aside the concept of “tauba” (contrition), and is subject to a widespread misuse by criminal elements of society who conflate blasphemy with desecration of the Quran. The state, impotent after its “jihad” phase, extends lame excuses, blaming incidents on the ubiquitous “foreign hand”. Its executive knows that the state is weak-kneed and therefore sides with the empowered jihadi non-state actors as they enter the town with murder on their minds.
GOJRA INCIDENT….SHAME…SHAME
M WAQAR
I have no regret to mention that I am ashamed what had happened in Gojra with the minorities living in Pakistan. I am ashamed of those who did this criminal act for whatever the reason. Shame! Shame on all of us. There are no words to describe this. The government must immediately bring the perpetrators to justice and make a horrible example of them. What may I ask is the Chief Minister of Punjab doing about this? Is he going to remain an idle spectator or is he going to show some backbone and take these fanatics who sully our already muddied name, just paying money to victims cant be end of this horrible incident, money can’t bring love ones who were burnt in front of their families, are we living in 21st century? Is this the message we are sending to the world that we are barbarians, we don’t have any respect for human life, we are a country where we behead innocent people and hang dead bodies to trees, we don’t have any tolerance, ours is an intolerant society, and we are particularly intolerant of those whose faith is not Muslim. That is the message we are sending to the World. Its extremely sad. Sad to know that even in this day and age such extreme level of religious intolerance exists. How can we ever progress with such a mind set?
Where are those champions of Islam like Imran Khan,Nawaz Sharif,Qazi Hussain,Fazal Rehman? Why they are silent? Another shameful blot on our national conscience. The perpetrators of this crime must be punished and we should make an example out of them , on mere allegations (which are later proven baseless) they kill people, destroy houses and then take over property. And everyone in these mobs, from their leaders down to the foot soldiers, is scum of the earth. The police and the district administration should publicly apologize to the Christian community, Any group that targets women and children should be ashamed of themselves. The horrific incident at Gojra has humiliated and shocked the entire nation, and we should hang our heads in shame over the fact that barbaric mobs burned Christians alive as the law enforcement agencies were unable to do anything to protect them. To add to the tragedy, the aggrieved people had to launch a strong protest to get an FIR registered against some 816 perpetrators, including the Toba Tek Singh district coordination officer (DCO) and the district police officer (DPO). A report issued by the Minority Rights Group International in 2007 was a commentary on the dismal state of human rights in Pakistan in respect of its minorities. The document placed Pakistan at number eight among the first ten of some 70 countries that had denied basic rights to their minorities. The grave incident at Gojra comes as a stark reminder for the country’s bleak human rights record . I am a Muslim but I am ashamed today for the acts done by these killers in the name of My tolerant religion and I couldn’t comprehend that how these so called protectors of Islam and Prophet(pbuh) would face Allah and Prophet (pbhu) on the day of judgment when He would ask them that who gave them the authority? who proved this blasphemy actually occurred? and how they decided that this was done by the same people they killed? Killing innocent people is not Islamic. The animals who are involved in killing and burning innocent people must be severely punished. Christians and Muslims should work together to find out who was the insensitive culprit who did this disrespectful act. Those persons are equally responsible for death of the innocent peoples.
Once again, the incident was provoked by allegations of desecration of the Holy Quran, which were unfounded according to the Punjab Law Minister Rana Sanaullah. Instead of allowing the law enforcement agencies to do their job and respect the decision of the courts, the mobs decided to take matters into their own hands and destroy the homes and lives of the Christian community of the area. This is a shocking incident that must be condemned to the fullest, and the government of Punjab needs to make an example out of the hooligans and barbarians that conducted this massacre. They have shamed the entire nation and must be punished. We must show that we are a nation of laws, not a mob. Further, this is the second high profile incident in less than two months where Christians were targeted by Muslim extremists on baseless allegations of blasphemy. It is clear that the agenda of these mobs is very different from what they claim. Again, the law must reign supreme, not the bloodlust of extremist mobs. Its Muslims duty to not let such bloodthirsty extremists take over our religion. It is time for true Muslims to take back their religion from the violent thugs running amok . Punjab Govt is living in denial, The provincial government is not accepting that a large part of Punjab is suffering from religious intolerance due to the Taliban and religious outfits . The tearful and tragic incidence of Korian Village of Gojra is one of the so many other cruel acts of fundamentalists in Pakistan, till now we could point to Indian Gujrat and say that forming mobs to attack mobs is something that happens only in India. No longer true. Thanks to these animals wearing the mask of Islam. People who form mob and attack others are nothing but blood thirsty thugs. These are criminals waiting for any opportunity to commit most vile criminal acts. This barbaric attack on unarmed and peaceful Christian people of Pakistan must be condemn . It is a shameful act . Extremism that has been brewing in Pakistan for decades especially after the advent of Zia era. Right wing political parties and state agencies have been busy perpetuating various internal and external hot spots to justify their consolidation of power and to divert attention from the real issues faced by 160 million people of Pakistan. This is not Pakistan of Quaid -e- Azam . This is the country of militants , instead of blaming the culprits, and also the local law enforcement agencies for their criminal negligence, there were some elements who started blaming a “foreign hand”, which is not something new in Pakistan, evidence indicates that local extremists were aided by banned terrorist organizations who were responsible for this crime against humanity, these barbarians are no “foreign hands” they are the ones who have brought us enough grief and shame. Religious fanaticism will eat up the very basis of the country if we do not curb this trend forthwith. The Punjab Government must understand that Punjab is the heartland of the country and Pakistan is on microscopic scrutiny these days. Every news emerging from Pakistan is immediately taken up by International media and what sort of image are we portraying ?Human rights are enshrined in the constitution of Pakistan and religion is often used falsely to suppress the minorities.
Progressive forces in Pakistan and around the world to become a formidable force and rise against the forces of hate and evil. Let us embrace diversity in Pakistan and create an environment where peoples of Pakistan are not judged by their color, nationality, ethnic background or a religious faith passed onto them by their ancestors just like a color of skin or a chattel. Let us make Pakistan an inclusive country - a nation of many nations.
Let us promote brotherhood and sisterhood progressive people to stand like a shield of steel between the forces of pillage and destruction and the noble causes of 160 million innocent peoples of Pakistan who are yearning for peace, prosperity, individual and collective dignity, justice and democracy. The time has come to take politics out of the business of religion and religion out of the business of politics. We need to be hearing words of conciliation and fraternity from our mosques. It is our religious leaders who are our primary influence, and it is to them that we must look to douse the fires of intolerance and hatred. Would they? Do they have that within them? Or is inclusively and tolerance beyond those who lead our prayers? Its time for progressive, educated Pakistanis to raise your voice against this discrimination and make Pakistan a better place to live for every one.
Pakistan's power politics
Mustafa Qadri
guardian.co.uk
Few things are as oppressive in Pakistan as the summer heat. In colonial times, the British would shift their garrison headquarters from Rawalpindi to the cool peaks of Murree, just north of present day Islamabad. Today, the elite are more likely to skip the country entirely or barricade themselves in the air-conditioned comfort of their cars and homes.
On the streets of Pakistan's vibrant cities, the industrious whir of countless generators is as ubiquitous as the hawkers desperately trying to make ends meet.
With its ever-growing population, Pakistan has always struggled to match energy supplies with demand. Those difficulties have turned violent recently. In Karachi and throughout the Punjab last week angry mobs went on a rampage and assailed power companies in frustration at the long daily power cuts that have brought modern life to a standstill.
The Gilani Research Foundation estimates (pdf) that 53% of Pakistan's population goes without electricity for more than eight hours a day. In fact, the blackouts are even longer in rural and poor urban areas which also lack other basic infrastructure like roads and waste water drainage. The situation has led to a series of annual hikes in energy costs. In the poorest slums of Karachi, for instance, people are forced to clandestinely tap into the electrical grids of rich communities because the retail price is too prohibitive. Power theft in Karachi and the Federally Administered Tribal Areas alone is believed to cost the state £138m in lost revenues.
The government has been under pressure to increase tariffs and reduce subsidies across a broad spectrum of industries including energy ever since agreeing to an IMF loan package last year in desperation as the nation's foreign reserves dwindled. The move has caused much consternation among consumers and local businesses, not just the angry mobs.
The power cuts occur with greater frequency during the long hot summer months. Every time they occur, modern life and business grinds to a halt. This, along with poor employment prospects, and education and health services – and not the Taliban – is the greatest concern for the average Pakistani.
"We have inherited these problems [from the Musharraf regime]. There was no planning done, there was no [energy] policy for the past 3-4 years," Asim Hussain, national adviser for petroleum and natural resources, tells me during a break in a London conference on Pakistan's oil and gas industry.
Just as a gaping hole divides the supply and demand for electricity in Pakistan, the country is heavily reliant on imported fossil fuels: local energy production accounts for only 15% of all usage. Oil and gas make up 80% of all of Pakistan's energy consumption and with 62,000km of pipelines, it has one of the largest networks in the world.
Authorities say they hope to raise national power generation by 4000 megawatts by 2010 but there are concerns the target is unlikely to be met as political intrigues continue to plague the government. Similar intrigues have scuppered attempts at exploiting alternative and renewable energy sources such as hydroelectricity. Among the stalled initiatives is the contentious Kalabagh dam project that proponents say will deliver greater irrigation for agriculture and quench a thirsty nation's energy needs by tapping into the Indus river. The project is opposed by all of Pakistan's provincial governments except the dominant Punjab. Critics cite multiple reasons for opposing the dam's construction including environmental degradation, mass displacement of regional communities, and domination of the project by the Punjab.
The failure to find local energy sources has compelled government and business to look abroad with mixed success. Pakistan recently signed a gas pipeline deal with Iran, but it will be some years before the taps will be turned on. Another proposal is to import LPG across the Persian gulf from Qatar, but such an ambitious venture requires substantial infrastructure still lacking in Pakistan.
With that and the unending energy crisis in mind, the Pakistan government has been wooing multinationals at a series of oil and gas exploration conferences in London, Houston and Calgary last week. With its Petroleum Policy 2009, the current government says it will reinvigorate Pakistan's troubled energy sector primarily through foreign investment.
Pakistan is not just a gateway to mineral resource wealth in Central Asia and the Middle East, it is rich in minerals and fossil fuels. According to government sources, there are believed to be reserves of 27bn barrels of oil and 280trn cubic feet of gas. Yet most of that wealth remains locked away: only 3.4% of oil and 19% of gas resources have been tapped thus far. "Pakistan has significant remaining exploration potential," explains a British geologist at the London conference. That has much to do with the country's "complex geology", and the fact that many of the most promising sites lie in the unstable regions of Balochistan and North West Frontier Province, home to separatists, militants and bandits.
Those obstacles haven't dissuaded some of the largest oil and gas companies – such as British Petroleum and ENI – from investing in large exploration licenses. "With great risks come great rewards," explains one eager executive from another multinational. "We have had years of experience in Iraq," another eager entrepreneur from a private security company assures me. The stakes are indeed high. "There is no doubt that we are dependent on foreign companies to exploit Pakistan's natural resources," senior petroleum ministry bureaucrat GA Sabri. Eighteen out of 20 companies operating ventures in Pakistan are foreign-owned.
For years indigenous and regional communities have complained that their ancestral lands have been damaged by prospecting resource companies, or that they haven't been given a stake in the riches under their feet. In a glossy pamphlet, the state-controlled Pakistan Petroleum Limited claims to be committed to developing these very same communities.
As the government and multinationals divide the spoils, however, the question remains whether the average citizen will get a seat at the table.
Where the Mullahs Are the Upper Crust
NEW YORK TIMES
THE turmoil in the Swat Valley has raised a chilling prospect for Pakistan — that the Taliban’s Islamic takeover in the once-peaceful area was turning into a social revolution, with mullahs leading peasants in the seizure of property from rich landlords who had fled in fear of their lives.
The most worrisome question has been whether the revolution would spread from Swat to the much more populous and strategic province next door, Punjab.
In the logic of revolutions, one might expect it to. This is, after all, a country where more than half the population lives in desperate poverty in the countryside, and the rich live in walled estates, blissfully untouched by ordinary peoples’ problems.
But Pakistan is more complicated than that. Its politics and economics are far more local than national; regional, ethnic and cultural differences are very deep. The mullahs of Swat may be calling for the downtrodden masses to unite, but here in Punjab, religious leaders are still firmly tied to the upper crust.
Pakistan encompasses four provinces — Baluchistan, Sindh, Punjab and the North-West Frontier Province (which includes the Swat Valley) — each with its own languages and culture. The western mountains are tribal and so remote that in some areas, Pakistan’s Constitution does not even apply. It is from those badlands that the Taliban swept outward to neighboring Swat, itself a multi-ethnic patchwork. Baluchistan, another border area, has its own struggle for national autonomy. Sindh is mostly agrarian, with Karachi, an economic hub, at its southern tip.
Punjab, the fourth and most strategic province, is the country’s heart — home to the powerful military as well as much of Pakistan’s governing class; social upheaval here would drag the whole country with it. In my travels in this province, none of the mullahs were talking about revolution. In fact, the social justice discussions that have driven political movements in the wider Islamic world — Hamas, Hezbollah, or the Sadr Army of Iraq’s Moktada al-Sadr, for example — were notably absent.
Instead, I have found a surprisingly comfortable coexistence between the mullahs, the landlords and the political elite (the latter two are often one and the same). Even the harder-line preachers, among the sternly traditional Muslims known as Deobandis, have stuck to a bland, nonconfrontational line.
One leader of a Deobandi seminary in Kabirwala, a town in southern Punjab, told me that the land was distributed as God had intended, and that the only problem with the landlords was that some were insufficiently Islamic, though now that was improving.
History explains much of the feudal outlook of the clerics in Punjab. They tend not to oppose the establishment in part because the state itself made them powerful. In the 1980s, the military dictator Zia ul-Haq gave land and money to Deobandis, a policy the United States supported because it needed both Mr. Zia and fervent jihadists in the fight against the Soviets in Afghanistan.
Mr. Zia also crushed social ferment throughout Pakistan, and the debate on class and social justice that went with it, stifling political growth. To this day, Pakistan retains a colonial-style system of patronage: I-will-vote-for you-because-you-are-important-and-I-think-you-might-be-able-to-help-me-in-my-time-of-need.
At the same time, the Zia government elevated the mullahs, once unimportant men seen mostly at weddings and funerals. They became powerful players with their own political space — a kind of middleman between state and populace, not breaking their ties to the elite that had empowered them.
“The mullahs were one of the state’s major allies,” said Aasim Sajjad, a political economy professor at Lahore University of Management Sciences who is part of a small leftist political movement in Pakistan. He argues that in Punjab, the conditions for a revolution simply are not present, in part because the mullahs are still comfortable in their ties with the state.
“I don’t see them being interested in radical social change that really attacks the existing structures of power in the society,” he said.
This is not to say that all are nonviolent, just that their violence does not challenge the state or the social order. The leader of Sipah-e-Sohaba, an ultra-orthodox Sunni political party, whose military wing believes Shiites to be apostates and has been killing them since the 1990s, was allowed to contest an election from a prison cell in 2002. (He won.) Another militant group, Jesh Muhammed, which supports Pakistani claims to Kashmir, operates unhindered in the city of Bahawalpur. And Hafez Saeed, a cleric whose associates are believed to have carried out the attack on Mumbai, India, last year, gives weekly sermons here in Lahore.
There have been acts of terrorism in Punjab, particularly after the government attacked a mosque tied to jihadists in Islamabad in July 2007. Militants here began to attack the state and the police. And though they have joined forces with the Taliban, they remain the minority and have so far not enlisted the same amount of popular support as the Taliban has in the western tribal areas.
Even in Swat, the Taliban’s takeover didn’t happen overnight. At first, some landlords lent tacit (if worried) support, donating food and money to the seminary where Fazlullah, the main Taliban leader, began his political movement. The government itself made peace deals with the Taliban. Only later did conditions worsen, with militants seizing ever more power, and eventually overrunning the landlords. The military has since fought to eject them, but it is not clear how effectively.
Mr. Sajjad, the Lahore University professor, argues, as well, that the Swat takeover was more a spontaneous eruption than a product of organized strategy, certainly different from the way Lenin led the Bolsheviks in 1917. “This was not a well-thought-out clear visionary movement,” he said. “It’s a situation that spiraled out of control in part because the state let it.”
And in any case, it was the small Swat Valley, not the strategic heartland of Pakistan. Few people here believe that the military, which calls Punjab its home, would let the province succumb to a militant takeover.
Still, this is Pakistan, whose society is in flux, and whose government often seems mostly absent.
“This place is ripe for extraordinary situations,” Mr. Sajjad said.
TEEN AGE SUICIDE BOMBERS TRAINED BY CRIMINAL TALIBAN
Editorial: DAILY TIMES
National ‘mind damage’ by Taliban
The NWFP Senior Minister, Mr Bashir Ahmed Bilour, has revealed that 200 “completely brainwashed” children of ages 6 to 13 years have been recovered from Malakand, ready to act as suicide-bombers for the Taliban. Further details are quite unsettling: the children are so completely transformed by their trainers that they refuse to reintegrate into normal society and even threaten their parents with death because they are “non-believers”.
We know that children were increasingly being used by the Taliban for their terrorist attacks in recent times. The pattern even contained the message that the Taliban and Al Qaeda were finding it increasingly difficult to train grown-up individuals to do the job. We also know that a child from Karachi is being prosecuted for being a part of the plot that took the life of Ms Benazir Bhutto in Rawalpindi in 2007. But new details about the use of suicide-bombing coming to light establish a pattern of employing children rather than men.
Our troops discovered suicide-factories in South Waziristan where children brought in from all over Pakistan were kept and “trained” by men who had become famous for their expertise at “converting” the boys in “half an hour”. A cleric from South Punjab was actually caught as he returned from South Waziristan after delivering the latest batch of child bombs to Baitullah Mehsud. This is the worst mind damage that the Taliban movement has done to Pakistan. It has nothing to do with Islam directly but Islam is certainly being misused as an instrument of brainwash.
The 200 child suicide-bombers now in army custody should be handled with great care. They have to be put through a debriefing with a psychologist who should grade them in accordance with the intensity of their alienation from society. They should not be let out into society after a “corrective” sermon from a cleric. That will not work, as shown again and again by men who suffered punishment in prisons, including Guantanamo Bay, and then went right back to practising terrorism once they were released.
Generally speaking, Pakistani children are ripe for the plucking. Poor and deprived, they are primed with religious instruction, as embodied in our syllabi, and succumb to Taliban trainers willingly because of the orthodox views inculcated in them by our school system. While the instruction in state-owned schools is completely benign, some of its elements are selectively employed by the trainers to fashion a suicide-bomber out of the boy. The idea of “shahadat” and the attainment of paradise are misapplied, and the Muslims that he is supposed to kill through his suicide are first apostatised into kafirs.
Unfortunately, a concordance between the orthodox clergy and the Taliban trainers helps the evil process. For instance, the condemnation of suicide-bombing through a collective fatwa issued by the ulema of Pakistan recognises the phenomenon of suicide-bombers as “fedayeen” and outlaws suicide-bombing only when it targets “innocent Muslims”. From this legal base, the boys are easily convinced that they are dying in the cause of Islam by killing those who have rendered themselves non-believers by their acts.
The national consensus against the Taliban, and effective military operations against them, have turned the tide of grown-up suicide bombers. The conduct of the state too has helped in this. For instance, Jamil and Khalique who tried to kill President Pervez Musharraf in Rawalpindi in 2003 by ramming their explosive-laden car into his cavalcade, were Jaish-e-Muhammad operatives who once fought the covert war against India and were caught fighting against the Americans in 2001 in Afghanistan. Thinking they would change their ways, the agencies let them off, which was a mistake.
Now, of course, the illusions of covert war have been more or less eliminated and the army is fighting against the jihadis that once were its extended front rank. This has changed the trend. The jihadis offer themselves less and less as suicide-bombers; and if they do, they have proved less and less reliable. The new trend is to get caught and start spilling the beans on their patrons, which is actually a measure of success of the army in its war against the Taliban. Ajmal Kasab had the option of suicide; he did not take it. And he has spilled a lot of beans.
The “mind damage” at the national level is being gradually healed as “intimidation” under the control of Taliban is less and less possible. But those who have been roped into becoming suicide-bombers are a special case. And if they are children they should be kept in quarantine and reintegrated into a society that they should view as benign.
