May 1, 2006
Pakistan and Iran agree to build pipeline without India
By Fida Hussain
ISLAMABAD: Pakistan and Iran have agreed to build a bilateral gas pipeline if India does not join the project to bring cheap Iranian gas to South Asia, officials said on Sunday at the conclusion of three days of technical talks.
Petroleum Secretary Ahmad Waqar, who headed the Pakistani side at the talks, told a press conference here that Pakistan and Iran had reached an agreement on basic principles of a gas pricing formula and decided to work on a bilateral Iran-Pakistan pipeline regardless of India’s involvement in the project.
Iran’s Deputy Oil Minister Mohammad Hadi Nejad Hosseinian, who headed an eight-member Iranian team at the talks, said he did not expect United Nations sanctions due to its nuclear programme to affect the gas pipeline to Pakistan and India or the country’s oil and gas sector.
“Oil prices are very high. Sanctions against Iran extending to its energy sector will push oil prices further up in the international market. The world cannot afford such a hike in oil prices,” Hosseinian said at the press conference after the two sides signed a joint statement at the conclusion of the seventh meeting of the Pakistan-Iran Joint Working Group.
Waqar also played down the threat of sanctions against Iran. “Pakistan is viewing this project keeping in view its national interests. We need energy to sustain economic growth,” he added.
Waqar said that a “broad-based agreement” had been reached on pricing. However, Pakistan and Iran will continue to examine each other’s proposals on pricing, he said, adding that Iran would provide a Gas Sales Purchase Agreement (GSPA) to Pakistan in a week and “we will reciprocate as early as possible”. Both sides agreed to a project structure wherein gas would be delivered at the Iran-Pakistan border under a supply agreement. Waqar said that the pipeline will run through the Bhong area in Rahim Yar Khan district.
He said they also agreed to enhance off-take volume from 2.1 billion cubic feet per day (bcfd) to 2.8 bcfd in case the project was implemented bilaterally. The two sides also agreed to develop a joint declaration, signifying the commitment of the governments to the project, for signing in a ministerial meeting in June in Tehran. According to a written statement distributed at the press conference, the JWG examined financial, commercial, technical and legal aspects of the project. Major issues discussed included gas pricing, project structure, project feasibility, gas off-take volumes and the GSPA.
The next JWG meeting will be held in Islamabad on May 25, while petroleum ministers from both countries will meet in Tehran in June. Waqar said that the construction cost for Pakistan is likely to be $2-2.5 billion. He said that the president and prime minister envisioned Pakistan becoming an energy corridor for China.
He said it was also possible to lay two parallel pipelines to meet India and Pakistan’s energy requirements “Things still have to be sorted out at bilateral level,” he said. Hosseinian said that Iran had reserved enough gas for the IPI pipeline to meet both Pakistan and India’s energy needs. If there were a gas shortage, Iran could reserve gas in other fields, he added.
Sunday, April 30, 2006
Villagers' fears of nuclear waste: BBC
BBC April 28, 2006
Villagers' fears of nuclear waste
By Nadeem Saeed BBC News, northern Pakistan
Residents of a remote Punjab village in northern Pakistan say their lives are in danger from nuclear waste being dumped in their area.
"We are being slow-poisoned," said Nazir Ahmed Buzdar, a resident of the tribal village of Baghalchur some 400km (248 miles) north of Karachi.
He is part of a group in a legal battle with Pakistan's nuclear authorities over the dumping of toxic waste.
Baghalchur is the site of abandoned uranium mines now being used as a dump.
"Our land played an important role in making Pakistan a nuclear power but all we have got in return is poverty and poison," said Mr Buzdar.
The relevant authorities say nuclear waste material has been stored deep down in underground caves and poses no danger to the environment.
'Child deaths'
But Mr Buzdar and his colleagues cite one of the Pakistan Atomic Energy Commission's (PAEC) own reports which said that the waste material being dumped at Baghalchur was "active".
Pakistan's nuclear authorities were mining the area around Baghalchur between 1978 and 2000. Locals say it was the first location in the country to produce uranium for Pakistan's nuclear weapons programme.
The mining was stopped in 2000 but the underground tunnels were earmarked for storing nuclear waste.
Former chairman of the PAEC, Pervez Butt, told the BBC that the storage was perfectly safe.
"It is being done in keeping with the international standards for storing nuclear waste," he said.
In October last year, four residents of Baghalchur petitioned the local courts on the matter. The case was referred to the Supreme Court earlier this year.
The PAEC sought time to file its reply but requested the proceedings be kept in camera given the nature of the case. The court agreed and the next date of hearing is not yet known.
'Chemical sludge'
Lal Mohammed, one of the petitioners who has worked for the PAEC for eight years, says the nuclear waste being stored in his area may contaminate the environment for "centuries".
He pointed at several large and malodorous piles of what he called the toxic effluent of "yellow cake" - a raw form of mined uranium - lying openly around the place.
"Rain washes the chemicals in this sludge into the main water channels which are used both by humans and animals," he said.
Co-petitioner Naseer Shah says there has been a dramatic increase in infant mortality since the dumping of toxic waste started.
He says it has seriously affected milk producing cattle - many of which have died after contracting previously unseen diseases.
The petitioners say that the residents of Baghalchur should be assured that the dumping is not going to do them harm.
If guarantees cannot be given, they want immediate measures to cleanse Baghalchur of any contamination already caused.
Villagers' fears of nuclear waste
By Nadeem Saeed BBC News, northern Pakistan
Residents of a remote Punjab village in northern Pakistan say their lives are in danger from nuclear waste being dumped in their area.
"We are being slow-poisoned," said Nazir Ahmed Buzdar, a resident of the tribal village of Baghalchur some 400km (248 miles) north of Karachi.
He is part of a group in a legal battle with Pakistan's nuclear authorities over the dumping of toxic waste.
Baghalchur is the site of abandoned uranium mines now being used as a dump.
"Our land played an important role in making Pakistan a nuclear power but all we have got in return is poverty and poison," said Mr Buzdar.
The relevant authorities say nuclear waste material has been stored deep down in underground caves and poses no danger to the environment.
'Child deaths'
But Mr Buzdar and his colleagues cite one of the Pakistan Atomic Energy Commission's (PAEC) own reports which said that the waste material being dumped at Baghalchur was "active".
Pakistan's nuclear authorities were mining the area around Baghalchur between 1978 and 2000. Locals say it was the first location in the country to produce uranium for Pakistan's nuclear weapons programme.
The mining was stopped in 2000 but the underground tunnels were earmarked for storing nuclear waste.
Former chairman of the PAEC, Pervez Butt, told the BBC that the storage was perfectly safe.
"It is being done in keeping with the international standards for storing nuclear waste," he said.
In October last year, four residents of Baghalchur petitioned the local courts on the matter. The case was referred to the Supreme Court earlier this year.
The PAEC sought time to file its reply but requested the proceedings be kept in camera given the nature of the case. The court agreed and the next date of hearing is not yet known.
'Chemical sludge'
Lal Mohammed, one of the petitioners who has worked for the PAEC for eight years, says the nuclear waste being stored in his area may contaminate the environment for "centuries".
He pointed at several large and malodorous piles of what he called the toxic effluent of "yellow cake" - a raw form of mined uranium - lying openly around the place.
"Rain washes the chemicals in this sludge into the main water channels which are used both by humans and animals," he said.
Co-petitioner Naseer Shah says there has been a dramatic increase in infant mortality since the dumping of toxic waste started.
He says it has seriously affected milk producing cattle - many of which have died after contracting previously unseen diseases.
The petitioners say that the residents of Baghalchur should be assured that the dumping is not going to do them harm.
If guarantees cannot be given, they want immediate measures to cleanse Baghalchur of any contamination already caused.
Saturday, April 29, 2006
Dr AQ Khan colleague released
Daily Times, April 28 2006
Dr Farooq of KRL released
By Shahzad Raza
ISLAMABAD: The government on Thursday released Dr Farooq, who had been detained over two years ago on charges of helping Dr Abdul Qadeer Khan transfer nuclear technology to foreign countries.
Dr Farooq’s son Asim confirmed his father had been released, but refused further details. He added that his father was in good health.
A close aide of Dr Khan, Farooq was among 13 Karachi Research Laboratories (KRL) officials detained and questioned about nuclear proliferation. All of them had already been released, except Dr Khan. Sources said Dr Farooq’s house was heavily guarded and no outsider was allowed to meet him. “His telephones are bugged,” they added.
Dr Farooq, the KRL’s former director general procurement, was arrested on November 23, 2003. He had been awarded Hilal-e-Imtiaz and Sitara-e-Imtiaz after Pakistan conducted its first successful nuclear test in 1998. The KRL officials suspected for nuclear proliferation were arrested under Security Act of 1952. The Security Act of 1952 authorises the federal government to keep extending detention by three months.
Relatives of the detained scientists and other KRL officials had approached the Supreme Court for their release. Major General Shaukat Sultan neither confirmed nor denied Dr Farooq’s release.
Dr Farooq of KRL released
By Shahzad Raza
ISLAMABAD: The government on Thursday released Dr Farooq, who had been detained over two years ago on charges of helping Dr Abdul Qadeer Khan transfer nuclear technology to foreign countries.
Dr Farooq’s son Asim confirmed his father had been released, but refused further details. He added that his father was in good health.
A close aide of Dr Khan, Farooq was among 13 Karachi Research Laboratories (KRL) officials detained and questioned about nuclear proliferation. All of them had already been released, except Dr Khan. Sources said Dr Farooq’s house was heavily guarded and no outsider was allowed to meet him. “His telephones are bugged,” they added.
Dr Farooq, the KRL’s former director general procurement, was arrested on November 23, 2003. He had been awarded Hilal-e-Imtiaz and Sitara-e-Imtiaz after Pakistan conducted its first successful nuclear test in 1998. The KRL officials suspected for nuclear proliferation were arrested under Security Act of 1952. The Security Act of 1952 authorises the federal government to keep extending detention by three months.
Relatives of the detained scientists and other KRL officials had approached the Supreme Court for their release. Major General Shaukat Sultan neither confirmed nor denied Dr Farooq’s release.
Target: Lashkar-e-Taiba
Daily Times, April 28, 2006
US sanctions two LT proxies
By Khalid Hasan
WASHINGTON: The State Department has included the Jamaatu Daawa (JUD) and Idara Khidmat-e-Khalq (IKK), the renamed aliases of the banned Lashkhar-e-Tayyiba (LT), to the specially designated list of terrorist organisations that pose a threat to the United States.
The Lashkar has been operating with complete freedom in Pakistan under its new names and its volunteers were involved in relief work, described by many as timely and commendable in Azad Kashmir in the wake of the October 2005 earthquake. It has also held rallies in the country and raised funds without much let or hindrance from the authorities, leading to speculation that the group had backing from some section of the establishment. The US action took time because of the legal requirements such a designation needs from a number of agencies and departments.
The US action has been taken under Executive Order 13224 blocks all property, and interests in property, of JUD and IKK that are in the United States, or come within the United States, or under the control of US persons. The secretary of state took this action in consultation with the attorney general, the secretary of the Treasury, and the Department of Homeland Security.
The official State Department announcement said: “LET is one of the three largest and best trained groups fighting in Kashmir against India. After the Secretary of State’s designation of LET as a terrorist organisation in 2001 and the Pakistani government’s banning the group, LET renamed itself JUD in order to evade sanctions. JUD established IKK as a public welfare organisation that it utilises to collect funds and undertake other activities. LET has been sanctioned by the United Nations 1267 Committee for its association with Al Qaeda.”
US sanctions two LT proxies
By Khalid Hasan
WASHINGTON: The State Department has included the Jamaatu Daawa (JUD) and Idara Khidmat-e-Khalq (IKK), the renamed aliases of the banned Lashkhar-e-Tayyiba (LT), to the specially designated list of terrorist organisations that pose a threat to the United States.
The Lashkar has been operating with complete freedom in Pakistan under its new names and its volunteers were involved in relief work, described by many as timely and commendable in Azad Kashmir in the wake of the October 2005 earthquake. It has also held rallies in the country and raised funds without much let or hindrance from the authorities, leading to speculation that the group had backing from some section of the establishment. The US action took time because of the legal requirements such a designation needs from a number of agencies and departments.
The US action has been taken under Executive Order 13224 blocks all property, and interests in property, of JUD and IKK that are in the United States, or come within the United States, or under the control of US persons. The secretary of state took this action in consultation with the attorney general, the secretary of the Treasury, and the Department of Homeland Security.
The official State Department announcement said: “LET is one of the three largest and best trained groups fighting in Kashmir against India. After the Secretary of State’s designation of LET as a terrorist organisation in 2001 and the Pakistani government’s banning the group, LET renamed itself JUD in order to evade sanctions. JUD established IKK as a public welfare organisation that it utilises to collect funds and undertake other activities. LET has been sanctioned by the United Nations 1267 Committee for its association with Al Qaeda.”
Roving activist writes book on jail inmates
Daily Times, April 28, 2006
Roving activist writes book on jail inmates
Punjab prisons minister promises improvement on book launch
Staff Report
LAHORE: “I don’t go to church as often as I visit jails,” said Arthur Wilson, on the launching of his book ‘Salakhoon Kay Us Paar’ at the Grand Hotel on Thursday.
Punjab Prisons Minister Saeed Akbar Khan Niwani and Bishop of Lahore Rev Dr Alexander John Malik were honorary guests on the occasion.
Wilson, the executive member of Prison Fellowship of Pakistan, gave a brief account of how he wrote the book when he was visiting Christian prisoners to help them. “A friend of mine told me to not limit my study to jails and look at all the aspects of being a prisoner. I believe that although I may not be able to visit all jails of Pakistan, my book would.”
“Visiting jails is not easy and neither is knowing about prisoners, but one has to play one’s part to help those who are unable to help themselves, as a duty towards one’s country,” he said. “Whether it’s legal assistance or taking care of a prisoner’s family, it’s all about helping.”
Johnson, a member of Raiwind Church, told the gathering that he spent four months in jail because after which Wilson helped him get out. “More than 70 percent of prisoners in jails are innocent, in fact only innocent people go to jail.”
Ejaz Emanuel, general secretary of the Bible Society of Pakistan, said Muslim prisoners got a 6-month remission on finishing a Holy Quran course and Christian inmates should be given similar privilege. Saeed Akbar said the matter was being considered and the authorities had asked the Christian society to send the curriculum of the religious course for approval. The minister congratulated the author of the book and said that things would improve when new jails were made.
Gary Milhollin's Testimony before Senate Foreign Relations Committee
April 28, 2006
US should reward Pakistan, not India: N-expert
By Khalid Hasan
WASHINGTON: A leading nuclear expert told the Senate this week that Pakistan was a closer ally of the United States than India, and yet it was Pakistan which had been discriminated against and even humiliated.
In his testimony before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, Gary Milhollin, director of the Wisconsin Project on Nuclear Arms Control, said, “Under any calculation of America’s strategic relations, Pakistan ranks higher than India. Pakistan is essential to our ongoing military and political efforts in Afghanistan. Pakistan is also essential to our campaign against Al Qaeda. Without the aid of General Musharraf, we would have a much harder time accomplishing our goals in either of these endeavours. Pakistan is also a leading power in the Muslim world, a world with which the United States needs better relations. Yet, our deal with India is a blow to General Musharraf’s prestige at best, and at worst a public humiliation. We should not give General Musharraf more trouble than he already has. Israel, of course, has always been a close US ally, and will continue to be. Israel would like to have US nuclear cooperation. In addition, Israel is located in a part of the world that is of the highest importance to US foreign policy interests. In any competition for strategic favour from the United States, India finishes a distant third.”
He said the United States acted unilaterally when it made its deal with India, as there was no reported notification or coordination with the Nuclear Suppliers Group (NSG) or Missile Technology Control Regime (MTCR) before the deal was concluded. He told the committee during a hearing on the Indo-US nuclear deal that by violating the consensus norm of these regimes, the United States has invited other members to act the same way.
“If they do, they may make unilateral deals with Iran or Pakistan without informing the United States. This risk has been created by our own action, and certainly does not make us safer. The regimes also require enforcement. The member countries are required to investigate and shut down unauthorised exports by their own companies. Since the attacks on 9/11, we have been asking the other countries to do more of this. But can we really ask them to crack down on companies that are exporting the same kind of goods to Pakistan or Iran that we are exporting to India?” he asked
He said, “Even if we can convince the other supplier countries to give lip service to an exception for India, it is unrealistic to expect them to follow through with enforcement against their own companies. Once we start tinkering with the regimes, they could unravel quickly. As one expert in the Pentagon told me, they are like a spring-loaded box. If you raise the lid, you may never get it closed again. What he meant was that the United States has always set the standard for export controls, and other countries have often taken a long time to follow the US lead in strengthening them. But if the United States decides to loosen controls, it will take only an instant for other countries to follow. The lid will fly off, and we may never be able to get it back on.”
Milhollin said on a recent trip to Jordan, he was asked why the United States had decided to make nuclear exports to India, a question, he added, neither he nor any other American can answer. “India, Pakistan and Iran all decided to develop nuclear weapons under the guise of peaceful nuclear cooperation. From this standpoint, they are indistinguishable. Why punish Pakistan and Iran but not India? They are all guilty. There is no persuasive reason for treating them differently. India is no different today than it was in 1998, when it tested a nuclear weapon.”
He wondered what the grounds for this discrimination was. “None of us wants to think of the word religion, but it is a word that is in the mind of Muslim countries. If the United States is only against proliferation by countries it does not like, which now appears to be the case after the deal with India, why does it like some countries but not others?” he asked.
Milhollin told the committee that Congress should look deeply into these questions before approving the legislation. So far, he noted, it does not appear that this has been done, including by the administration. The administration’s plan was arrived at hastily, with no consultation with other regime members, and virtually none with Congress. There was even little consultation with arms control experts within the administration itself. The proponents of the deal have presented it as if it were simply a matter of trade and diplomacy. Congress should insist upon a full review of the strategic impact, he urged. From a strategic viewpoint, it should be asked why the US is helping India. Of the three countries that have refused to sign the NPT, India is the least important strategically. He wondered if India was considered important because it was to become a counterweight to China? However, the notion that India might assist the United States diplomatically or militarily in some future conflict was “pure speculation”. India’s long history as the leader of the “non-aligned” movement points in the opposite direction. India will follow its own interests as it always has. India shares a border with China, he pointed out, and is keen to have good relations with China, and does have good relations with China. It will not sour such relations simply from a vague desire to please the United States.
The nuclear expert asked why in that case had India been chosen for “preferential treatment”. He was of the view that India was being favoured because it is the biggest market.
It was India as a defence market that was really motivating the deal, he said. “India is shopping for billions of dollars worth of military aircraft, and the administration is hoping it will buy both the F-16 and the F-18 … Officials in the defence industry and the Pentagon are saying that the main effect of the nuclear deal will be to remove India from the ranks of violators of international norms. And once this change in India’s status occurs, there will be no impediment to arms exports … Boiled down to the essentials, the message is clear: export controls are less important to the United States than money. They are a messy hindrance, ready to be swept aside for trade. But, a decision to put money above export controls is precisely what we don’t want China and Russia to do when they sell to Iran … If they see that we are willing to put money above security, and willing to take the risk that dangerous exports won’t come back to bite us, they will do the same. Everyone’s security will diminish as a result. Thus, this legislation has clear costs to our security.”
Milhollin said the principal benefit cited by the administration is that India will place 14 of its 22 power reactors under inspection, but that leaves a great number of reactors off-limits. In fact, the reactors that are off-limits will be sufficient to produce enough plutonium for dozens of nuclear weapons per year. This is more than India will ever need. India is not restricting its nuclear weapon production in any way. Therefore, there is no “non-proliferation benefit” from such a step, he told the committee.
US should reward Pakistan, not India: N-expert
By Khalid Hasan
WASHINGTON: A leading nuclear expert told the Senate this week that Pakistan was a closer ally of the United States than India, and yet it was Pakistan which had been discriminated against and even humiliated.
In his testimony before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, Gary Milhollin, director of the Wisconsin Project on Nuclear Arms Control, said, “Under any calculation of America’s strategic relations, Pakistan ranks higher than India. Pakistan is essential to our ongoing military and political efforts in Afghanistan. Pakistan is also essential to our campaign against Al Qaeda. Without the aid of General Musharraf, we would have a much harder time accomplishing our goals in either of these endeavours. Pakistan is also a leading power in the Muslim world, a world with which the United States needs better relations. Yet, our deal with India is a blow to General Musharraf’s prestige at best, and at worst a public humiliation. We should not give General Musharraf more trouble than he already has. Israel, of course, has always been a close US ally, and will continue to be. Israel would like to have US nuclear cooperation. In addition, Israel is located in a part of the world that is of the highest importance to US foreign policy interests. In any competition for strategic favour from the United States, India finishes a distant third.”
He said the United States acted unilaterally when it made its deal with India, as there was no reported notification or coordination with the Nuclear Suppliers Group (NSG) or Missile Technology Control Regime (MTCR) before the deal was concluded. He told the committee during a hearing on the Indo-US nuclear deal that by violating the consensus norm of these regimes, the United States has invited other members to act the same way.
“If they do, they may make unilateral deals with Iran or Pakistan without informing the United States. This risk has been created by our own action, and certainly does not make us safer. The regimes also require enforcement. The member countries are required to investigate and shut down unauthorised exports by their own companies. Since the attacks on 9/11, we have been asking the other countries to do more of this. But can we really ask them to crack down on companies that are exporting the same kind of goods to Pakistan or Iran that we are exporting to India?” he asked
He said, “Even if we can convince the other supplier countries to give lip service to an exception for India, it is unrealistic to expect them to follow through with enforcement against their own companies. Once we start tinkering with the regimes, they could unravel quickly. As one expert in the Pentagon told me, they are like a spring-loaded box. If you raise the lid, you may never get it closed again. What he meant was that the United States has always set the standard for export controls, and other countries have often taken a long time to follow the US lead in strengthening them. But if the United States decides to loosen controls, it will take only an instant for other countries to follow. The lid will fly off, and we may never be able to get it back on.”
Milhollin said on a recent trip to Jordan, he was asked why the United States had decided to make nuclear exports to India, a question, he added, neither he nor any other American can answer. “India, Pakistan and Iran all decided to develop nuclear weapons under the guise of peaceful nuclear cooperation. From this standpoint, they are indistinguishable. Why punish Pakistan and Iran but not India? They are all guilty. There is no persuasive reason for treating them differently. India is no different today than it was in 1998, when it tested a nuclear weapon.”
He wondered what the grounds for this discrimination was. “None of us wants to think of the word religion, but it is a word that is in the mind of Muslim countries. If the United States is only against proliferation by countries it does not like, which now appears to be the case after the deal with India, why does it like some countries but not others?” he asked.
Milhollin told the committee that Congress should look deeply into these questions before approving the legislation. So far, he noted, it does not appear that this has been done, including by the administration. The administration’s plan was arrived at hastily, with no consultation with other regime members, and virtually none with Congress. There was even little consultation with arms control experts within the administration itself. The proponents of the deal have presented it as if it were simply a matter of trade and diplomacy. Congress should insist upon a full review of the strategic impact, he urged. From a strategic viewpoint, it should be asked why the US is helping India. Of the three countries that have refused to sign the NPT, India is the least important strategically. He wondered if India was considered important because it was to become a counterweight to China? However, the notion that India might assist the United States diplomatically or militarily in some future conflict was “pure speculation”. India’s long history as the leader of the “non-aligned” movement points in the opposite direction. India will follow its own interests as it always has. India shares a border with China, he pointed out, and is keen to have good relations with China, and does have good relations with China. It will not sour such relations simply from a vague desire to please the United States.
The nuclear expert asked why in that case had India been chosen for “preferential treatment”. He was of the view that India was being favoured because it is the biggest market.
It was India as a defence market that was really motivating the deal, he said. “India is shopping for billions of dollars worth of military aircraft, and the administration is hoping it will buy both the F-16 and the F-18 … Officials in the defence industry and the Pentagon are saying that the main effect of the nuclear deal will be to remove India from the ranks of violators of international norms. And once this change in India’s status occurs, there will be no impediment to arms exports … Boiled down to the essentials, the message is clear: export controls are less important to the United States than money. They are a messy hindrance, ready to be swept aside for trade. But, a decision to put money above export controls is precisely what we don’t want China and Russia to do when they sell to Iran … If they see that we are willing to put money above security, and willing to take the risk that dangerous exports won’t come back to bite us, they will do the same. Everyone’s security will diminish as a result. Thus, this legislation has clear costs to our security.”
Milhollin said the principal benefit cited by the administration is that India will place 14 of its 22 power reactors under inspection, but that leaves a great number of reactors off-limits. In fact, the reactors that are off-limits will be sufficient to produce enough plutonium for dozens of nuclear weapons per year. This is more than India will ever need. India is not restricting its nuclear weapon production in any way. Therefore, there is no “non-proliferation benefit” from such a step, he told the committee.
"Brain Damage from our American connection"!
Daily Times, April 28, 2006
SECOND OPINION: Brain damage from our American connection — Khaled Ahmed’s Review of the Urdu press
Pakistan has been aligned with the United States right from the start. Also right from the start, it began having pangs of conscience about being America’s ally. This relationship was never properly digested and Pakistanis could only live with it through a kind of split personality. Outsiders may think Pakistan has acted wisely, given its anti-India nationalism, but Pakistanis are too brain-damaged from it to accept that.
Reported in Khabrain (March 5, 2006) former ISI chief Hameed Gul said that President George Bush’s March tour of India had pushed Pakistan into a corner while making India into a regional hegemon. He said Pakistan was put under pressure to vote against Iran at the IAEA and to get rid of its nuclear programme.
In these circumstances Pakistan’s friendship with China had become more crucial and the Mekran Coast had become strategic. He said Manmohan’s remark about “failed states” was important. To get Pakistan to do its bidding, the US may get Pakistan to hold elections in 2006.
The oracle has spoken and may again be proved wrong about the election. Gul grew up in the army as the anti-American firebrand in the mess-room. Most senior officers have been anti-American because America “let us down” in 1965 and afterwards. No one acknowledges that we reneged on our pledge not to use weapons supplied to us under the CENTO and SEATO umbrella against India. America had global interests; Pakistan had only regional concerns.
The policies meshed only periodically, but it is remarkable how anti-American Pakistan has benefited again and again from American largesse and preserved its myth of force-parity with India. The Bush visit hurt because it finally “normalised” the myth of this parity. Now this reality is forever.
Historian Dr Safdar Mehmood wrote in Jang (March 6, 2006) that no Pakistani ruler was legitimate unless he travelled to the United States and took a certificate from Washington. Like all rulers Muhammad Khan Junejo after becoming prime minister of Pakistan in 1985 insisted that he must visit Washington. He finally went and got his certificate of legitimacy from the US. But such visits also turned the rulers’ head. General Zia expressed his fear publicly when he said that Junejo’s head had been turned by Washington. Predictably Junejo rebelled and Zia removed him.
Dr Safdar Mehmood has reduced a Pakistani prime minister of stature to nothing by bringing in the American factor. Will that mean that a prime minister who hates America or is hated by it will be loved by Dr Safdar Mehmood? Is the only criterion of honour a hatred of America? Not even the clerical fire-breathers are willing to play this game of hating India, hating America and loving only China.
Dr Safdar Mehmood quotes General Zia as if he was another Mullah Umar. It is not true at all. As a historian Dr Sahib has to develop a more sophisticated mind. Perhaps a study of our inscrutable friend China is needed.
Columnist Masud Ashar wrote in Jang (March 7, 2006) that famous Pakistani intellectual Fateh Muhammad Malik spoke at a seminar at GC University in Lahore and warned the audience that the idea of enlightenment in Pakistan was nothing but a revival of a strategy followed by Henry Kissinger. Prof Manzur Ahmad said that Pakistan needed an intellectual paradigm shift to cope with the modern world.
Standing in GC, Fateh Muhammad Malik should have gone back to the GC motto courage to know which is taken from the presiding philosopher of enlightenment, Kant, whom Allama Iqbal called the Imam Ghazali of the West. Just because you hate Musharraf you shouldn’t abuse the legacy of GC University and Allama Iqbal. The GC motto has come directly from an essay of Kant where he put it in Latin, Sapere Aude! It had nothing to do with Kissinger. Faiz translated it as Jur’at-e-Tehqeeq. It is no use politicising enlightenment as this de-intellectualises the critic (Fateh) without debasing the user (Musharraf).
Columnist Irfan Siddiqi wrote in Nawa-e-Waqt (March 4, 2006) that his request to Bush was that he should not insult us in front of others. Indoors (andar-khanay) he could treat us roughly as he wished but in public he should pat us on the back so that our habit of slavery (khu-e-ghulami) and natural inclination to worship (fitrat-e-bandagi) could be satisfied. Whenever Bush passes through the region to do a big deal with some state or visit one of his colonies he should also call on us so that we can show off (thoon-tthan) too.
What Siddiqi wants is honour in foreign policy; what the state wants is not honour but fulfilment of its self-interest mostly linked to its survival. The high point of honour is martyrdom. If Pakistan dies fighting the US, it would suit Siddiqi’s sense of living honourably. Mullah Umar is subliminally the model.
Everybody seems to be saying give me a chance to rule and I will show you how to die honourably rather than live with the shame of being America’s slave. That is not how states think. They are selfish in the extreme and they are amoral because the international system is amoral and the only vital principle is survival.
According to Nawa-e-Waqt (March 4, 2006) a new prophet after “Imam Mehdi” made his appearance in Bhai Pheru near Lahore when Abdul Hamid declared that he was sent by God. He soon set up a “Kaaba” and started doing “hajj” around it while introducing his own name into the “kalima”. He also started doing his tabligh in the area.
The people of Bhai Pheru became greatly incensed and attacked him before the police took him and locked him up. The people then stood outside the jail and wanted him to be handed over. Then the people started breaking public property to express their love for Islam, after which the police threw teargas shells at them. This caused bhagdar (stampede) and people gathered to do some sincere property damage were greatly offended with the police.
The following day the city of Kasur remained closed due to hartal by the shopkeepers and more police force was called from surrounding districts in anticipation of widespread vandalism on the part of the pious Muslims. The false prophet was taken to Lahore in a cavalcade of six cars.
Our tragedy is that we are waiting for the Mehdi but will simply not tolerate anyone claiming to be one. The prophets who announce their arrival are nurtured only by our insistence that Imam Mehdi and Jesus Christ are going to arrive any moment. Some clerics say Imam Mehdi has already been born. Why kill the claimants? *
SECOND OPINION: Brain damage from our American connection — Khaled Ahmed’s Review of the Urdu press
Pakistan has been aligned with the United States right from the start. Also right from the start, it began having pangs of conscience about being America’s ally. This relationship was never properly digested and Pakistanis could only live with it through a kind of split personality. Outsiders may think Pakistan has acted wisely, given its anti-India nationalism, but Pakistanis are too brain-damaged from it to accept that.
Reported in Khabrain (March 5, 2006) former ISI chief Hameed Gul said that President George Bush’s March tour of India had pushed Pakistan into a corner while making India into a regional hegemon. He said Pakistan was put under pressure to vote against Iran at the IAEA and to get rid of its nuclear programme.
In these circumstances Pakistan’s friendship with China had become more crucial and the Mekran Coast had become strategic. He said Manmohan’s remark about “failed states” was important. To get Pakistan to do its bidding, the US may get Pakistan to hold elections in 2006.
The oracle has spoken and may again be proved wrong about the election. Gul grew up in the army as the anti-American firebrand in the mess-room. Most senior officers have been anti-American because America “let us down” in 1965 and afterwards. No one acknowledges that we reneged on our pledge not to use weapons supplied to us under the CENTO and SEATO umbrella against India. America had global interests; Pakistan had only regional concerns.
The policies meshed only periodically, but it is remarkable how anti-American Pakistan has benefited again and again from American largesse and preserved its myth of force-parity with India. The Bush visit hurt because it finally “normalised” the myth of this parity. Now this reality is forever.
Historian Dr Safdar Mehmood wrote in Jang (March 6, 2006) that no Pakistani ruler was legitimate unless he travelled to the United States and took a certificate from Washington. Like all rulers Muhammad Khan Junejo after becoming prime minister of Pakistan in 1985 insisted that he must visit Washington. He finally went and got his certificate of legitimacy from the US. But such visits also turned the rulers’ head. General Zia expressed his fear publicly when he said that Junejo’s head had been turned by Washington. Predictably Junejo rebelled and Zia removed him.
Dr Safdar Mehmood has reduced a Pakistani prime minister of stature to nothing by bringing in the American factor. Will that mean that a prime minister who hates America or is hated by it will be loved by Dr Safdar Mehmood? Is the only criterion of honour a hatred of America? Not even the clerical fire-breathers are willing to play this game of hating India, hating America and loving only China.
Dr Safdar Mehmood quotes General Zia as if he was another Mullah Umar. It is not true at all. As a historian Dr Sahib has to develop a more sophisticated mind. Perhaps a study of our inscrutable friend China is needed.
Columnist Masud Ashar wrote in Jang (March 7, 2006) that famous Pakistani intellectual Fateh Muhammad Malik spoke at a seminar at GC University in Lahore and warned the audience that the idea of enlightenment in Pakistan was nothing but a revival of a strategy followed by Henry Kissinger. Prof Manzur Ahmad said that Pakistan needed an intellectual paradigm shift to cope with the modern world.
Standing in GC, Fateh Muhammad Malik should have gone back to the GC motto courage to know which is taken from the presiding philosopher of enlightenment, Kant, whom Allama Iqbal called the Imam Ghazali of the West. Just because you hate Musharraf you shouldn’t abuse the legacy of GC University and Allama Iqbal. The GC motto has come directly from an essay of Kant where he put it in Latin, Sapere Aude! It had nothing to do with Kissinger. Faiz translated it as Jur’at-e-Tehqeeq. It is no use politicising enlightenment as this de-intellectualises the critic (Fateh) without debasing the user (Musharraf).
Columnist Irfan Siddiqi wrote in Nawa-e-Waqt (March 4, 2006) that his request to Bush was that he should not insult us in front of others. Indoors (andar-khanay) he could treat us roughly as he wished but in public he should pat us on the back so that our habit of slavery (khu-e-ghulami) and natural inclination to worship (fitrat-e-bandagi) could be satisfied. Whenever Bush passes through the region to do a big deal with some state or visit one of his colonies he should also call on us so that we can show off (thoon-tthan) too.
What Siddiqi wants is honour in foreign policy; what the state wants is not honour but fulfilment of its self-interest mostly linked to its survival. The high point of honour is martyrdom. If Pakistan dies fighting the US, it would suit Siddiqi’s sense of living honourably. Mullah Umar is subliminally the model.
Everybody seems to be saying give me a chance to rule and I will show you how to die honourably rather than live with the shame of being America’s slave. That is not how states think. They are selfish in the extreme and they are amoral because the international system is amoral and the only vital principle is survival.
According to Nawa-e-Waqt (March 4, 2006) a new prophet after “Imam Mehdi” made his appearance in Bhai Pheru near Lahore when Abdul Hamid declared that he was sent by God. He soon set up a “Kaaba” and started doing “hajj” around it while introducing his own name into the “kalima”. He also started doing his tabligh in the area.
The people of Bhai Pheru became greatly incensed and attacked him before the police took him and locked him up. The people then stood outside the jail and wanted him to be handed over. Then the people started breaking public property to express their love for Islam, after which the police threw teargas shells at them. This caused bhagdar (stampede) and people gathered to do some sincere property damage were greatly offended with the police.
The following day the city of Kasur remained closed due to hartal by the shopkeepers and more police force was called from surrounding districts in anticipation of widespread vandalism on the part of the pious Muslims. The false prophet was taken to Lahore in a cavalcade of six cars.
Our tragedy is that we are waiting for the Mehdi but will simply not tolerate anyone claiming to be one. The prophets who announce their arrival are nurtured only by our insistence that Imam Mehdi and Jesus Christ are going to arrive any moment. Some clerics say Imam Mehdi has already been born. Why kill the claimants? *
Thursday, April 27, 2006
An interesting perspective from a Pakistan security analyst
The News, April 27, 2006
US-Iran, Israel, India and Pakistan
Ikram Sehgal
On June 7, 1981, Israeli F-15s and F-16s took off from Etzion airbase near Eilat at 4:00 pm; at 5:35 pm, in an action lasting less than 80 seconds, the nuclear reactor at Osirik being built with French assistance was left in ruins. Osirik would have given Saddam Hussain an Iraqi bomb in less than 10 years. After the Osirik raid, nations, (among them India, Pakistan, North Korea, Iran, South Africa, etc.) developing nuclear weapons through clandestine means dispersed their nuclear facilities and buried them deep in secret locations, making it all that much harder for an Osirik-type 'solution'.
On the other hand the development of stealth aircraft, cruise missiles, precision-guided bombs, remotely-piloted aerial vehicles, extremely accurate GIS maps, etc. gives a potential attacker numerous options, many of them already field-tested in battle in the last 15 years. During the Iraq war the US used covert means, viz (1) it was extremely successfully in buying off the loyalties of key Iraqi generals so that organised resistance collapsed in the face of the US Blitzkrieg and (2) not so successfully in activating domestic Iraqi resistance (e.g. Washington-based Chalabi) to cause Saddam Hussain any real damage.
Despite relentless diplomatic efforts to head off a possible war, it is only a question of 'when'. The US has learnt many lessons from going it alone in Iraq, particularly in not letting diplomatic action to run its full course. Israel has never been inhibited by any such qualms and/or restrictions. Osirik compromised and endangered Israeli security, they had to take it out and they did. Facing strong condemnation from all over the world, Israel had no regrets, equating most of it as hypocrisy by EU countries since many were privately grateful.
The US-led condemnation of Iran has manifold objectives, among them, viz (1) creating international pressure on Iran to scale down its nuclear programme or maybe even abandoning it "without bloodying swords", to quote Sun Tse Tzu (2) creating a favourable world coalition supporting possible military action against Iran if necessary and (3) to head off imminent possible Israeli action against Iran, and if it does happen and the US is forced to be a participant in the fait accompli as a necessary bitter pill, to soften world approbation.
Despite the sabre-rattling, US military action against Iran is not a done thing if the decision was Washington's alone. Overstretched in (and because of) Iraq the US Armed Forces could suffer grievously both in Iraq and Iran. The preferred attack mode will be an air assault, a combination of B-2 Stealth Bombers, F-117 Stealth Fighters, B-52s, Tomahawk cruise missiles, etc, any mode that can deliver joint direct action munitions (J-DAMs) taking out multiple targets in deep concrete bunkers.
A CIA unit already seems to be operating in Sistan and Balochistan stirring up Iranian Baloch tribes. Does this strike a chord about the incentive and support keeping Akbar Bugti in the hills? The Iraqi-based Mujhahideen-e-Khalq (MEK) operating against Iran with Saddam Hussain's help had been disarmed; the Pentagon is believed to be seeking MEK's re-activation. Even though liberals may not be enamoured by President Ahmedinejad or his government, Iranians are very nationalistic, on the nuclear issue they are united and charged, the regime change option will not materialise. The Iranian regime has put the threatened US invasion to good use, uniting Iranians on one pro-nuclear platform.
With an increasing number of Americans wanting US troops out of Iraq, can the Republican president risk another war, given that both Iraq and Afghanistan seem to be proverbial 'black holes'? Condemnation of Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld's conduct of the Iraq war by six retired generals, some recently serving as divisional commanders in Iraq, was extremely damaging for the Bush Administration. The political risk will exponentially be higher with elections for the US Senate and House of Representatives due this November. Unlike common perception the US will not rush into war. There are confirmed reports about diplomatic back-channel talks, an aide to Iran's nuclear chief was believed to be in Washington talking to US officials.
The 'Holocaust' exercises strong influence over the Israeli psyche, 'never again' is an Israeli article of faith. When an Iranian aircraft lightly damaged the Osirik reactor in 1980 during the Iran-Iraq war, the Iraqis stated that the proposed bomb was not meant for Iran or Muslims but for Israelis. Enough for Israel to trigger plans for the Osirik raid! Recently Iran's President Ahmedinejad has said Israel will be wiped out from the face of the Earth, for Israel that amounts to "casus belli".
Contrary to world perception the US does not exercise inordinate influence over Israeli decision-making, at best there is close consultation on many issues. John Locke's (1734-1802) "Second Treatise" seems to be the Israeli inspiration (and now also of Bush's National Security Strategy) of pre-emptive action. Locke's tenets state, to quote, "there cannot exist a doubt, that, if that formidable potentate certainly entertains designs of oppression and conquest, the other states have a right to anticipate him", unquote, or in other words, to act before "it is too late, and the evil is past care".
In December 2005, just before he went into coma, Sharon authorised an action plan for Iran to be ready by end of March 2006, activating two units, Unit 262 of the Israeli Defence Forces (IDFs) the equivalent of US Special Forces and 69 Squadron consisting of F-15s, the main weapon platform for the 1981 Osirik raid. The question is not whether Israel will act or not, it is whether Israel will act alone and when, the 29 TOR anti-missile systems worth US$700 million on order from Russia will expedite the decision. Able only to deploy aircraft as delivery weapons, Israel lacks the capability of carrying out a comprehensive surgical strike over nearly two-dozen Iranian nuclear sites.
The US may be forced into the conflict despite its own reservations and political compulsions. Commando (and even bombing) raids by Israel could virtually be suicide missions but a nation that has grown up with a Masada-psyche should know a thing or two about why a "suicide bomber" becomes one. One stray incongruous coincidence requires mention here, Col Ilan Ramon of the Israeli Air Force took part in the June 7, 1981 Osirik raid as a young F-16 pilot, he died aboard the "Columbia" space shuttle on February 1, 2003, the debris spreading over, of all the places, the town of Palestine in Texas.
Sceptics may consider it ludicrous, there is an outside danger Pakistan may even become a simultaneous target. Reputed analyst Eric Margolis says that Pakistan is definitely on the US agenda after Iran. Could Israeli (or US) planners afford the risk of leaving a Muslim nuclear state with the means of missile delivery intact if there is war with Iran? The tragedy would be they have no grouse with Pakistan, can they take this calculated risk in the face of a possible Pakistani nuclear reaction because of military action on a fellow Muslim nation and neighbour in line with the 1837 "Caroline formula", to "necessity of self-defence is instant, overwhelming and leaves no choice of means and no moment of deliberation"?
Given the deliberate ambiguity of Indian PM Manmohan Singh's pointed statement to a Muslim delegation, "India cannot afford another nuclear state in its neighbourhood", should one not be apprehensive that India as the "newly US-appointed policeman of the region", takes the opportunity for a "final solution" vis-à-vis Pakistan butting into effect "Cold Start"? Our US ally has pointedly (and quite brusquely) excluded us from the nuclear club, after all we are not as "responsible" as India. Without going to panic stations, one must take deterrent measures to deter any temptation to line up Pakistan in cross-sights as a target of opportunity to be dealt with sooner rather than later. Hoping (and praying) otherwise, we need to take prudent precautions.
The writer is a defence and political analyst Email: isehgal@pathfinder9.com
US-Iran, Israel, India and Pakistan
Ikram Sehgal
On June 7, 1981, Israeli F-15s and F-16s took off from Etzion airbase near Eilat at 4:00 pm; at 5:35 pm, in an action lasting less than 80 seconds, the nuclear reactor at Osirik being built with French assistance was left in ruins. Osirik would have given Saddam Hussain an Iraqi bomb in less than 10 years. After the Osirik raid, nations, (among them India, Pakistan, North Korea, Iran, South Africa, etc.) developing nuclear weapons through clandestine means dispersed their nuclear facilities and buried them deep in secret locations, making it all that much harder for an Osirik-type 'solution'.
On the other hand the development of stealth aircraft, cruise missiles, precision-guided bombs, remotely-piloted aerial vehicles, extremely accurate GIS maps, etc. gives a potential attacker numerous options, many of them already field-tested in battle in the last 15 years. During the Iraq war the US used covert means, viz (1) it was extremely successfully in buying off the loyalties of key Iraqi generals so that organised resistance collapsed in the face of the US Blitzkrieg and (2) not so successfully in activating domestic Iraqi resistance (e.g. Washington-based Chalabi) to cause Saddam Hussain any real damage.
Despite relentless diplomatic efforts to head off a possible war, it is only a question of 'when'. The US has learnt many lessons from going it alone in Iraq, particularly in not letting diplomatic action to run its full course. Israel has never been inhibited by any such qualms and/or restrictions. Osirik compromised and endangered Israeli security, they had to take it out and they did. Facing strong condemnation from all over the world, Israel had no regrets, equating most of it as hypocrisy by EU countries since many were privately grateful.
The US-led condemnation of Iran has manifold objectives, among them, viz (1) creating international pressure on Iran to scale down its nuclear programme or maybe even abandoning it "without bloodying swords", to quote Sun Tse Tzu (2) creating a favourable world coalition supporting possible military action against Iran if necessary and (3) to head off imminent possible Israeli action against Iran, and if it does happen and the US is forced to be a participant in the fait accompli as a necessary bitter pill, to soften world approbation.
Despite the sabre-rattling, US military action against Iran is not a done thing if the decision was Washington's alone. Overstretched in (and because of) Iraq the US Armed Forces could suffer grievously both in Iraq and Iran. The preferred attack mode will be an air assault, a combination of B-2 Stealth Bombers, F-117 Stealth Fighters, B-52s, Tomahawk cruise missiles, etc, any mode that can deliver joint direct action munitions (J-DAMs) taking out multiple targets in deep concrete bunkers.
A CIA unit already seems to be operating in Sistan and Balochistan stirring up Iranian Baloch tribes. Does this strike a chord about the incentive and support keeping Akbar Bugti in the hills? The Iraqi-based Mujhahideen-e-Khalq (MEK) operating against Iran with Saddam Hussain's help had been disarmed; the Pentagon is believed to be seeking MEK's re-activation. Even though liberals may not be enamoured by President Ahmedinejad or his government, Iranians are very nationalistic, on the nuclear issue they are united and charged, the regime change option will not materialise. The Iranian regime has put the threatened US invasion to good use, uniting Iranians on one pro-nuclear platform.
With an increasing number of Americans wanting US troops out of Iraq, can the Republican president risk another war, given that both Iraq and Afghanistan seem to be proverbial 'black holes'? Condemnation of Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld's conduct of the Iraq war by six retired generals, some recently serving as divisional commanders in Iraq, was extremely damaging for the Bush Administration. The political risk will exponentially be higher with elections for the US Senate and House of Representatives due this November. Unlike common perception the US will not rush into war. There are confirmed reports about diplomatic back-channel talks, an aide to Iran's nuclear chief was believed to be in Washington talking to US officials.
The 'Holocaust' exercises strong influence over the Israeli psyche, 'never again' is an Israeli article of faith. When an Iranian aircraft lightly damaged the Osirik reactor in 1980 during the Iran-Iraq war, the Iraqis stated that the proposed bomb was not meant for Iran or Muslims but for Israelis. Enough for Israel to trigger plans for the Osirik raid! Recently Iran's President Ahmedinejad has said Israel will be wiped out from the face of the Earth, for Israel that amounts to "casus belli".
Contrary to world perception the US does not exercise inordinate influence over Israeli decision-making, at best there is close consultation on many issues. John Locke's (1734-1802) "Second Treatise" seems to be the Israeli inspiration (and now also of Bush's National Security Strategy) of pre-emptive action. Locke's tenets state, to quote, "there cannot exist a doubt, that, if that formidable potentate certainly entertains designs of oppression and conquest, the other states have a right to anticipate him", unquote, or in other words, to act before "it is too late, and the evil is past care".
In December 2005, just before he went into coma, Sharon authorised an action plan for Iran to be ready by end of March 2006, activating two units, Unit 262 of the Israeli Defence Forces (IDFs) the equivalent of US Special Forces and 69 Squadron consisting of F-15s, the main weapon platform for the 1981 Osirik raid. The question is not whether Israel will act or not, it is whether Israel will act alone and when, the 29 TOR anti-missile systems worth US$700 million on order from Russia will expedite the decision. Able only to deploy aircraft as delivery weapons, Israel lacks the capability of carrying out a comprehensive surgical strike over nearly two-dozen Iranian nuclear sites.
The US may be forced into the conflict despite its own reservations and political compulsions. Commando (and even bombing) raids by Israel could virtually be suicide missions but a nation that has grown up with a Masada-psyche should know a thing or two about why a "suicide bomber" becomes one. One stray incongruous coincidence requires mention here, Col Ilan Ramon of the Israeli Air Force took part in the June 7, 1981 Osirik raid as a young F-16 pilot, he died aboard the "Columbia" space shuttle on February 1, 2003, the debris spreading over, of all the places, the town of Palestine in Texas.
Sceptics may consider it ludicrous, there is an outside danger Pakistan may even become a simultaneous target. Reputed analyst Eric Margolis says that Pakistan is definitely on the US agenda after Iran. Could Israeli (or US) planners afford the risk of leaving a Muslim nuclear state with the means of missile delivery intact if there is war with Iran? The tragedy would be they have no grouse with Pakistan, can they take this calculated risk in the face of a possible Pakistani nuclear reaction because of military action on a fellow Muslim nation and neighbour in line with the 1837 "Caroline formula", to "necessity of self-defence is instant, overwhelming and leaves no choice of means and no moment of deliberation"?
Given the deliberate ambiguity of Indian PM Manmohan Singh's pointed statement to a Muslim delegation, "India cannot afford another nuclear state in its neighbourhood", should one not be apprehensive that India as the "newly US-appointed policeman of the region", takes the opportunity for a "final solution" vis-à-vis Pakistan butting into effect "Cold Start"? Our US ally has pointedly (and quite brusquely) excluded us from the nuclear club, after all we are not as "responsible" as India. Without going to panic stations, one must take deterrent measures to deter any temptation to line up Pakistan in cross-sights as a target of opportunity to be dealt with sooner rather than later. Hoping (and praying) otherwise, we need to take prudent precautions.
The writer is a defence and political analyst Email: isehgal@pathfinder9.com
Tuesday, April 25, 2006
Musharraf's intriguing remark about Dr. AQ Khan's planned secret visit to Iran
New York times, April 17, 2006
New Worry Rises on Iranian Claim of Nuclear Steps
William J Broad and David E. Sanger
Of all the claims that Iran made last week about its nuclear program, a one-sentence assertion by its president has provoked such surprise and concern among international nuclear inspectors they are planning to confront Tehran about it this week.
The assertion involves Iran's claim that even while it begins to enrich small amounts of uranium, it is pursuing a far more sophisticated way of making atomic fuel that American officials and inspectors say could speed Iran's path to developing a nuclear weapon.
Iran has consistently maintained that it abandoned work on this advanced technology, called the P-2 centrifuge, three years ago. Western analysts long suspected that Iran had a second, secret program -- based on the black market offerings of the renegade Pakistani nuclear engineer Abdul Qadeer Khan -- separate from the activity at its main nuclear facility at Natanz. But they had no proof.
Then on Thursday, President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said that Tehran was ''presently conducting research'' on the P-2 centrifuge, boasting that it would quadruple Iran's enrichment powers. The centrifuges are tall, thin machines that spin very fast to enrich, or concentrate, uranium's rare component, uranium 235, which can fuel nuclear reactors or atom bombs.
Mr. Ahmadinejad's statements, and those of other senior Iranian officials, are always viewed with suspicion by American and international nuclear experts, because Iran has, at various times, understated nuclear activities that were later discovered, and overstated its capabilities. Analysts and American intelligence officials, bruised by their experience in Iraq, say they are uncertain whether Mr. Ahmadinejad's claim represents a real technical advance that could accelerate Iran's nuclear agenda, or political rhetoric meant to convince the world of the unstoppability of its atomic program.
European diplomats said a delegation of Iranian officials is due to arrive on Tuesday in Vienna, where the International Atomic Energy Agency will press them to address the new enrichment claim, as well as other questions about Iran's program, including a crude bomb design found in the country.
''This is a much better machine,'' a European diplomat said of the advanced centrifuge, which was a centerpiece of Pakistan's efforts to build its nuclear weapons and was found in 2004 in Libya, when that country gave up its nuclear program. The diplomat added that the Iranians, among other questions, will now have to explain whether Mr. Ahmadinejad was right, and if so, whether they recently restarted the abandoned program or have been pursuing it in secret for years.
If Iran moved beyond research and actually began running the machines, it could force American intelligence agencies to revise their estimates of how long it would take for Iran to build an atom bomb -- an event they now put somewhere between 2010 and 2015.
Robert Joseph, the Bush administration's under secretary of state for arms control and international security, who is known as one of the administration's hawks, said in an interview on Saturday that President Ahmadinejad's claim constituted ''the first time I've ever heard the Iranians admit'' to have a significant effort on the advanced technology. Iran, Mr. Joseph added, ''has never come clean on this program, and now its president is talking about it.''
The new claim focuses renewed attention on Iran's rocky relationship with Mr. Khan, who provided it with much of the enrichment technology it is exploiting today. If Mr. Ahmadinejad's claim is correct, it probably indicates that relationship went on longer and far deeper than previously acknowledged. Mr. Khan and his nuclear black market supplied Iran with blueprints for both the more elementary machine, known as P-1, and the more advanced P-2.
There are other indications that Mr. Khan may have been dealing with Iran as recently as six years ago. President Pervez Musharraf of Pakistan disclosed recently that he fired Dr. Khan, a national hero credited with developing Pakistan's bomb, in 2001 after discovering that he was trying to arrange a secret flight to the Iranian city of Zahedan, known as a center of smuggling.
Dr. Khan refused to discuss the flight, saying it was important and very secret. ''I said, 'What the hell do you mean? You want to keep a secret from me?' '' Mr. Musharraf recalled in an interview with The New York Times for a Discovery Times television documentary, ''Nuclear Jihad.''
''So these are the things which led me to very concrete suspicions,'' Mr. Musharraf said, ''and we removed him.''
Last year, Pakistan said its investigation into the Khan network was closed. But the Iranian crisis has led to renewed questioning of Dr. Khan, American intelligence officials and European diplomats say.
So far his answers have been vague, investigators say. Iran, for its part, has said virtually nothing about its P-2 program. The International Institute for Strategic Studies, an arms analysis group in London, said in a report last year that Iran's failure to provide more information about its P-2 program led many analysts to suspect that the advanced centrifuges formed ''the nucleus of a secret enrichment program.''
David Albright, president of the Institute for Science and International Security, a private research group in Washington that monitors the Iranian program, said Mr. Ahmadinejad's declaration, whether political rhetoric or technical reality, now gave the world ''something to further investigate and worry about.''
Tehran says its nuclear program is entirely peaceful and meant for producing nuclear power.
But the Bush administration argues otherwise. ''A. Q. Khan was not in the business of civil nuclear power development,'' Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said in an interview for the documentary. ''Why, if you only intended a civil nuclear program, would you have lied about activities at Natanz?'' Later she added, ''Why are they still unwilling to answer some of the questions that the I.A.E.A. has?''
The P-2 mystery began years ago when Iran told international inspectors that it had received plans for the advanced centrifuges around 1994 but had done nothing with them until 2002, when it hired an Iranian contractor to try to make the complex machines.
The P-2, a second-generation Pakistani model, was the most advanced centrifuge sold by Dr. Khan's network. With superstrong rotors, it could spin faster and enrich uranium faster.
Iran repeatedly denied receiving any P-2 centrifuges from Dr. Khan, which would greatly ease the making of duplicates. Moreover, it said it did no research on the production of the advanced centrifuges between 1995 and 2002 because of management changes in its nuclear program and a lack of skilled personnel.
In report after report, the I.A.E.A. has questioned that explanation. For instance, last September it said the Iranian contractor, who allegedly first saw the P-2 plans in 2002, made considerable research progress ''within a short period,'' which seemed to undermine Iran's claim of doing no past research.
Iran said that the research failed to produce operating machines and that it ended the experimental P-2 work in 2003 and instead focused on the easier P-1 design.
But scraps of evidence gathered by the international agency and the accounts of some members of the Khan network have cast doubt on those denials. As recently as last Thursday, when the director general of the agency, Mohammed ElBaradei, visited Tehran, he insisted on detailed answers during a private meeting, diplomats briefed on the meeting said.
Suspicions arose because inspectors knew that Dr. Khan had supplied Libya and North Korea with actual P-2 centrifuges in the late 1990's, and they repeatedly heard that he had done likewise with Iran.
B. S. A. Tahir, the chief operating officer of the Khan network, now in prison in Malaysia, has reportedly said that Iran received far more P-2 technology than it has admitted and that some shipments took place after Dr. Khan and the Iranians supposedly ceased doing business around 1995.
Speaking to reporters in Washington on Thursday, just hours after Mr. Ahmadinejad's claim, senior intelligence officials said they had seen nothing yet that would lead them to revise their estimate that Iran is still five to 10 years away from making a weapon.
Kenneth C. Brill, the director of the National Counterproliferation Center, created to track programs like Iran's and North Korea's, cautioned against accepting at face value Tehran's recent claims about producing enriched uranium and plans to produce 54,000 centrifuges.
''It will take many years,'' he said, ''to build that many.''
At the same time, intelligence reports circulating inside the American government, according to several officials who were granted anonymity because of the sensitivity of the information, have raised questions of whether the Iranian government's decision to boast about its progress is part of an effort to hide more significant activity.
They suspect that a clandestine program, if it exists, would concentrate on the P-2 because it can produce enriched uranium so fast.
I.A.E.A. officials say solving the mystery of the P-2 shipments has become one of the most critical issues on which they need answers in the next two weeks, before Mr. ElBaradei issues a report to the United Nations Security Council on April 28.
Other pressing questions include Iran's reluctance to discuss a document found by inspectors -- one that the Iranians were not willing to let the inspectors take out of the country -- that sketches out how to shape uranium into perfect spheres, the tell-tale shape for a primitive weapon. Investigators say that document, too, appears to have come from the Khan network.
It is also unclear whether Dr. Khan sold the Iranians a complete Chinese-made bomb design similar to the one Libya turned over to the United States when it gave up its weapons program. Questions about other copies of the bomb design have been met with silence, in Iran and in Pakistan.
''Frankly, I don't know whether he has passed these bomb designs to others,'' Mr. Musharraf said. Even under a loose form of house arrest for the past two years, he said, Dr. Khan ''sometimes has been hiding the facts.'
New Worry Rises on Iranian Claim of Nuclear Steps
William J Broad and David E. Sanger
Of all the claims that Iran made last week about its nuclear program, a one-sentence assertion by its president has provoked such surprise and concern among international nuclear inspectors they are planning to confront Tehran about it this week.
The assertion involves Iran's claim that even while it begins to enrich small amounts of uranium, it is pursuing a far more sophisticated way of making atomic fuel that American officials and inspectors say could speed Iran's path to developing a nuclear weapon.
Iran has consistently maintained that it abandoned work on this advanced technology, called the P-2 centrifuge, three years ago. Western analysts long suspected that Iran had a second, secret program -- based on the black market offerings of the renegade Pakistani nuclear engineer Abdul Qadeer Khan -- separate from the activity at its main nuclear facility at Natanz. But they had no proof.
Then on Thursday, President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said that Tehran was ''presently conducting research'' on the P-2 centrifuge, boasting that it would quadruple Iran's enrichment powers. The centrifuges are tall, thin machines that spin very fast to enrich, or concentrate, uranium's rare component, uranium 235, which can fuel nuclear reactors or atom bombs.
Mr. Ahmadinejad's statements, and those of other senior Iranian officials, are always viewed with suspicion by American and international nuclear experts, because Iran has, at various times, understated nuclear activities that were later discovered, and overstated its capabilities. Analysts and American intelligence officials, bruised by their experience in Iraq, say they are uncertain whether Mr. Ahmadinejad's claim represents a real technical advance that could accelerate Iran's nuclear agenda, or political rhetoric meant to convince the world of the unstoppability of its atomic program.
European diplomats said a delegation of Iranian officials is due to arrive on Tuesday in Vienna, where the International Atomic Energy Agency will press them to address the new enrichment claim, as well as other questions about Iran's program, including a crude bomb design found in the country.
''This is a much better machine,'' a European diplomat said of the advanced centrifuge, which was a centerpiece of Pakistan's efforts to build its nuclear weapons and was found in 2004 in Libya, when that country gave up its nuclear program. The diplomat added that the Iranians, among other questions, will now have to explain whether Mr. Ahmadinejad was right, and if so, whether they recently restarted the abandoned program or have been pursuing it in secret for years.
If Iran moved beyond research and actually began running the machines, it could force American intelligence agencies to revise their estimates of how long it would take for Iran to build an atom bomb -- an event they now put somewhere between 2010 and 2015.
Robert Joseph, the Bush administration's under secretary of state for arms control and international security, who is known as one of the administration's hawks, said in an interview on Saturday that President Ahmadinejad's claim constituted ''the first time I've ever heard the Iranians admit'' to have a significant effort on the advanced technology. Iran, Mr. Joseph added, ''has never come clean on this program, and now its president is talking about it.''
The new claim focuses renewed attention on Iran's rocky relationship with Mr. Khan, who provided it with much of the enrichment technology it is exploiting today. If Mr. Ahmadinejad's claim is correct, it probably indicates that relationship went on longer and far deeper than previously acknowledged. Mr. Khan and his nuclear black market supplied Iran with blueprints for both the more elementary machine, known as P-1, and the more advanced P-2.
There are other indications that Mr. Khan may have been dealing with Iran as recently as six years ago. President Pervez Musharraf of Pakistan disclosed recently that he fired Dr. Khan, a national hero credited with developing Pakistan's bomb, in 2001 after discovering that he was trying to arrange a secret flight to the Iranian city of Zahedan, known as a center of smuggling.
Dr. Khan refused to discuss the flight, saying it was important and very secret. ''I said, 'What the hell do you mean? You want to keep a secret from me?' '' Mr. Musharraf recalled in an interview with The New York Times for a Discovery Times television documentary, ''Nuclear Jihad.''
''So these are the things which led me to very concrete suspicions,'' Mr. Musharraf said, ''and we removed him.''
Last year, Pakistan said its investigation into the Khan network was closed. But the Iranian crisis has led to renewed questioning of Dr. Khan, American intelligence officials and European diplomats say.
So far his answers have been vague, investigators say. Iran, for its part, has said virtually nothing about its P-2 program. The International Institute for Strategic Studies, an arms analysis group in London, said in a report last year that Iran's failure to provide more information about its P-2 program led many analysts to suspect that the advanced centrifuges formed ''the nucleus of a secret enrichment program.''
David Albright, president of the Institute for Science and International Security, a private research group in Washington that monitors the Iranian program, said Mr. Ahmadinejad's declaration, whether political rhetoric or technical reality, now gave the world ''something to further investigate and worry about.''
Tehran says its nuclear program is entirely peaceful and meant for producing nuclear power.
But the Bush administration argues otherwise. ''A. Q. Khan was not in the business of civil nuclear power development,'' Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said in an interview for the documentary. ''Why, if you only intended a civil nuclear program, would you have lied about activities at Natanz?'' Later she added, ''Why are they still unwilling to answer some of the questions that the I.A.E.A. has?''
The P-2 mystery began years ago when Iran told international inspectors that it had received plans for the advanced centrifuges around 1994 but had done nothing with them until 2002, when it hired an Iranian contractor to try to make the complex machines.
The P-2, a second-generation Pakistani model, was the most advanced centrifuge sold by Dr. Khan's network. With superstrong rotors, it could spin faster and enrich uranium faster.
Iran repeatedly denied receiving any P-2 centrifuges from Dr. Khan, which would greatly ease the making of duplicates. Moreover, it said it did no research on the production of the advanced centrifuges between 1995 and 2002 because of management changes in its nuclear program and a lack of skilled personnel.
In report after report, the I.A.E.A. has questioned that explanation. For instance, last September it said the Iranian contractor, who allegedly first saw the P-2 plans in 2002, made considerable research progress ''within a short period,'' which seemed to undermine Iran's claim of doing no past research.
Iran said that the research failed to produce operating machines and that it ended the experimental P-2 work in 2003 and instead focused on the easier P-1 design.
But scraps of evidence gathered by the international agency and the accounts of some members of the Khan network have cast doubt on those denials. As recently as last Thursday, when the director general of the agency, Mohammed ElBaradei, visited Tehran, he insisted on detailed answers during a private meeting, diplomats briefed on the meeting said.
Suspicions arose because inspectors knew that Dr. Khan had supplied Libya and North Korea with actual P-2 centrifuges in the late 1990's, and they repeatedly heard that he had done likewise with Iran.
B. S. A. Tahir, the chief operating officer of the Khan network, now in prison in Malaysia, has reportedly said that Iran received far more P-2 technology than it has admitted and that some shipments took place after Dr. Khan and the Iranians supposedly ceased doing business around 1995.
Speaking to reporters in Washington on Thursday, just hours after Mr. Ahmadinejad's claim, senior intelligence officials said they had seen nothing yet that would lead them to revise their estimate that Iran is still five to 10 years away from making a weapon.
Kenneth C. Brill, the director of the National Counterproliferation Center, created to track programs like Iran's and North Korea's, cautioned against accepting at face value Tehran's recent claims about producing enriched uranium and plans to produce 54,000 centrifuges.
''It will take many years,'' he said, ''to build that many.''
At the same time, intelligence reports circulating inside the American government, according to several officials who were granted anonymity because of the sensitivity of the information, have raised questions of whether the Iranian government's decision to boast about its progress is part of an effort to hide more significant activity.
They suspect that a clandestine program, if it exists, would concentrate on the P-2 because it can produce enriched uranium so fast.
I.A.E.A. officials say solving the mystery of the P-2 shipments has become one of the most critical issues on which they need answers in the next two weeks, before Mr. ElBaradei issues a report to the United Nations Security Council on April 28.
Other pressing questions include Iran's reluctance to discuss a document found by inspectors -- one that the Iranians were not willing to let the inspectors take out of the country -- that sketches out how to shape uranium into perfect spheres, the tell-tale shape for a primitive weapon. Investigators say that document, too, appears to have come from the Khan network.
It is also unclear whether Dr. Khan sold the Iranians a complete Chinese-made bomb design similar to the one Libya turned over to the United States when it gave up its weapons program. Questions about other copies of the bomb design have been met with silence, in Iran and in Pakistan.
''Frankly, I don't know whether he has passed these bomb designs to others,'' Mr. Musharraf said. Even under a loose form of house arrest for the past two years, he said, Dr. Khan ''sometimes has been hiding the facts.'
Nuclear risk reduction talks in South Asia
The News, April 26, 2006
Pakistan, India discuss nuclear risk reduction
By Mariana Baabar
ISLAMABAD: Pakistan and India held two rounds of talks to discuss an Indian draft proposal on nuclear risk reduction at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs here on Tuesday.
Additional Secretary Tariq Osman Hyder and his Indian counterpart, KC Singh, led their respective delegations at the talks. The delegations comprised experts and officials of the two foreign ministries of Pakistan and India. This is the fourth round of talks on nuclear confidence building measures (CBMs) between the two countries.
“Today was the first day of talks on nuclear and conventional CBMs. These talks will continue on Wednesday and we hope to have a joint statement at the end of the day,” an official confided to The News.
When asked whether or not Islamabad expected a breakthrough on the draft proposal and an agreement, the official said, “This evening I cannot speculate a breakthrough. However, if there is good movement in the last round tomorrow, it would be seen as a positive sign. We are very hopeful. Remember it takes two to tango. Don’t forget that the success of the pre-notification of ballistic testing missile agreement saw at least three rounds of talks before the two sides could arrive at an agreement.”
It was in August 2005 that New Delhi put forward the nuclear risk reduction proposal which was welcomed by Islamabad and it was decided to move forward and negotiate a final agreement.
Earlier, it was Additional Secretary Tariq Osman Hyder behind the gruelling rounds of talks which finally saw both countries agreeing on pre-notification of ballistic testing of nuclear missiles.
Tuesday saw the absence of an acting spokesperson at this important time when the media needed interaction with the Foreign Office as no official was authorised to speak on record. The foreign minister is in Germany while the secretary and the spokesperson have left for the US.
Sources told The News that during the talks Pakistan put several proposals on the table in an environment which was positive and cordial. “Several proposals were exchanged and the Indian side put forward counter-proposals,” said one source.
Pakistan, India discuss nuclear risk reduction
By Mariana Baabar
ISLAMABAD: Pakistan and India held two rounds of talks to discuss an Indian draft proposal on nuclear risk reduction at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs here on Tuesday.
Additional Secretary Tariq Osman Hyder and his Indian counterpart, KC Singh, led their respective delegations at the talks. The delegations comprised experts and officials of the two foreign ministries of Pakistan and India. This is the fourth round of talks on nuclear confidence building measures (CBMs) between the two countries.
“Today was the first day of talks on nuclear and conventional CBMs. These talks will continue on Wednesday and we hope to have a joint statement at the end of the day,” an official confided to The News.
When asked whether or not Islamabad expected a breakthrough on the draft proposal and an agreement, the official said, “This evening I cannot speculate a breakthrough. However, if there is good movement in the last round tomorrow, it would be seen as a positive sign. We are very hopeful. Remember it takes two to tango. Don’t forget that the success of the pre-notification of ballistic testing missile agreement saw at least three rounds of talks before the two sides could arrive at an agreement.”
It was in August 2005 that New Delhi put forward the nuclear risk reduction proposal which was welcomed by Islamabad and it was decided to move forward and negotiate a final agreement.
Earlier, it was Additional Secretary Tariq Osman Hyder behind the gruelling rounds of talks which finally saw both countries agreeing on pre-notification of ballistic testing of nuclear missiles.
Tuesday saw the absence of an acting spokesperson at this important time when the media needed interaction with the Foreign Office as no official was authorised to speak on record. The foreign minister is in Germany while the secretary and the spokesperson have left for the US.
Sources told The News that during the talks Pakistan put several proposals on the table in an environment which was positive and cordial. “Several proposals were exchanged and the Indian side put forward counter-proposals,” said one source.
Icons from Pakistan
Daily Times - Wednesday, April 26, 2006
WASHINGTON DIARY: Icons from Pakistan — Dr Manzur Ejaz
An organisation involved in collecting donations for the purpose has revealed that Dr Shazia Khalid has donated all the money to a crisis centre for women she is helping set up in Lyari, Karachi. The bravery, generosity and tenacity of these repressed women are a source of inspiration to many at home and abroad
By the time this column is read, Mukhtar Mai may have completed her US tour to which was hastily added a reception by Pakistan’s embassy in Washington. Dr Shazia Khalid, another rape victim, is also starting her VIP US tour in a few weeks. While these Pakistani victims of rape are becoming icons of women’s liberation in the US, the Pakistani government and US politicians are trying to make the best use of the situation.
As a Pakistani activist said recently it was ironical that the only citizens Pakistan could present to the world were rape victims. While that may not be true, Mukhtar Mai clearly has more access to the US power centres than former prime minister Benazir Bhutto can dream of these days. While two assistant secretaries of the State Department and several other top officials sought a meeting with Mukhtar Mai, Ms Bhutto as well as other politicians — official or non-official — only wish to be treated the same way.
It is a sign of Mukhtar Mai’s stature in the US that even presidential hopeful, Senator Hillary Clinton, decided to give her a medal on behalf of the women’s organisation, Vital Voices. It is obvious that Senator Clinton, the honorary chair of this organisation, has made a calculated move to use the occasion to strengthen her ties with female political activists. Political workers, after all, are the most precious assets for those aspiring public office.
Pakistan’s government, too, reversed its position on Mukhtar Mai’s visit to the US. In contrast to her first scheduled visit, when the embassy of Pakistan was fighting tooth and nail to stop her in her tracks, there was a special reception at the embassy. It is not as if the Pakistani government has decided to give her more credence or has somehow become more enlightened. It has just taken the proverbial advice: if you can’t beat them join (or co-opt) them.
Meanwhile, some people believe that using Mukhtar Mai’s good offices to improve Pakistan’s image among American feminists is a shrewd move by the government. Most of the credit goes to Mukhtar Mai who, given her natural wisdom, has not blamed the government for her plight. Instead, she has kept the dialogue focused on broad gender issues in Pakistan.
Mukhtar Mai has become an icon for the US feminists due to a combination of factors. Initially it was Pakistan’s human right organisations and the media that brought her story to the world’s attention. Pakistani expatriate organisation, Asian Network Against Abuse (ANAA), led by Dr Amna Buttar and Dr Zafar Iqbal, then became the catalyst for her popularity in the US. In its own way, the government led by General Pervez Musharraf also helped publicise her case by refusing to grant her permission to travel abroad. Nicholas Kristof, a New York Times columnist, too, has had a substantial role in presenting Mukhtar Mai as a legend to the Americans. The American feminists were already looking for a legend or iconic personality to symbolise the women’s struggle all over the world.
Next, the death of Rosa Parks — the symbol of African Americans’ struggle for their civil rights — while Mukhtar Mai’s sojourn to the US was being finalised gave the latter the chance to fill the vacuum created by the former’s death. Being a repressed, rape victim from a Muslim country, may have played some role too. It has been alleged that some anti-Pakistan lobbies were eager to exploit her for their own goals. However, at the end of the day, more than anything else, Mukhtar Mai provided consolatory relief to those disillusioned by the Iraq war and subversion of democratic freedom in the US.
Mukhtar Mai has assumed a larger-than-life stature and become an icon for the feminists. It is almost futile to analyse the process of creation and idealisation of icons. Pakistan’s government has therefore chosen the right path in deciding to use this icon rather than fight it. Mukhtar Mai has also shown that she has the qualities of a genuine person. She has declined offers to move to the US and chosen to stay in her far-flung village, Meerwala. She has also used the money, raised in the US and elsewhere, to help other women and girls in her area. Everyone who has been to her village agrees that she has chosen to tough it out in a very difficult environment.
Dr Shazia Khalid, along with her husband, Khalid Amanullah, will also tour the US next month. Save the Date, a New York-based organisation, will honour Mr Amanullah and other men who have stood up for their rape-victim partners. Nicholas Kristof, the New York Times columnist behind Mukhtar Mai’s success in the US, will also attend the dinner. Dr Shazia Khalid will also meet several officials at the State Department and efforts are underway to arrange meetings with members of US Senate and the House of Representatives. She is also scheduled to talk to the board editors of the Washington Post.
Like Mukhtar Mai before her, Dr Shazia Khalid has declined funds collected in the United States to help her. An organisation involved in collecting donations for the purpose has revealed that Dr Shazia Khalid has donated all the money to a crisis centre for women she is helping set up in Lyari, Karachi.
The bravery, generosity and tenacity of these repressed women are a source of inspiration to many at home and abroad. It will be highly unfair to say that these victims are exploiting their bad luck as was unfortunately suggested at the highest level.
The writer can be reached at manzurejaz@yahoo.com
Monday, April 24, 2006
Revolution comes to Nepal: Lessons for South Asia
The News, April 25, 2006
Revolution comes to South Asia
Aasim Sajjad Akhtar
The writer is a political activist associated with the People's Rights Movement. He also teaches colonial history and political economy at LUMS
Over the past few years, radicals and idealists of all stripes have invoked Latin America time and again when responding to the by now familiar 'we are saving the world for democracy' rhetoric of the Bushs and Blairs of the world. The radicals and idealists have asserted – quite rightly – that the arguably revolutionary upheavals taking place across the Latin American continent suggest that class struggle is alive and well, in spite of the best efforts to make it disappear with the magic wand of hype and propaganda in the aftermath of the Soviet Union's disintegration.
But it has been difficult to ignore the fact that the re-emergence of a working class politics has been largely confined to Latin America. While many have hoped for the emergence of anti-systemic mass movements in other parts of the post-colonial world, upheavals like those in Latin America have yet to materialise.
The remarkable explosion of popular protest in tiny Nepal has rocked not only that small country's royal establishment but also the ruling class in much of South Asia and beyond. There has been political unrest in Nepal for well over a decade. But, as with all revolutionary processes, very few observers could have predicted in advance the swell of mass protest that has gripped the country in recent weeks. And as with all such revolutionary processes, it is impossible at this juncture to predict exactly how events will pan out.
It is a measure of the vitality of the political process in Nepal that all of the opposition parties have come together to voice the sentiment of the people. Included in the current consensus are the Maoist guerrillas who the king and his henchmen have always insisted represent the greatest threat to Nepal's security and progress.
The people of Nepal, in their own right and through the political parties recognise that their very existence and credibility is dependent on the people's will, and have made it very clear that they consider the king the biggest threat to Nepal's security and progress. The defiance of curfews by ordinary Nepalese is ultimately a defiance of an obsolete authority whose time to go has come. It is no surprise that the coercive institutions of the state that have been propping up the king – including the police and the army –have rapidly been rendered impotent by the loss of morale within the ranks.
That revolution has spread from Latin American and come to South Asia is immensely important. It is important because all such processes have contagious effects. In most of the region, a similar brand of organic and popular politics already exists. For example, in recent times activists of the Narmada Bachao Andolan (NBA) have once again garnered centre-stage in India through their principled protest against the three-decade-old Sardar Sarovar Project that has already inflicted enormous social and ecological destruction in large parts of Central and West India.
Bangladesh is home to a perennial politics of democratic dissent. Sri Lanka, even though it continues to suffer from the effects of deep-rooted ethnic strife, also has a well-established tradition of progressive politics. The current revolutionary process in Nepal will no doubt encourage the left in these countries to push forward, to build upon the gains that have been made by working people over many decades, and to build as formidable a challenge to their governments – that continue to face a crisis of legitimacy – as the Nepalese people have done.
However, the uprising in Nepal is also important because it sends a message to the American empire and its stooges across the sub-continent that the people of the region are alive and kicking, and that machinations of power will not go unanswered. At a time when the rhetoric of peace is being used and abused by all and sundry, the Nepalese people have made it clear that there can be no peace where there is injustice and tyranny. The imperialist peace is never a genuine peace, and the stooge governments in South Asia would do well to bear this in mind.
However, in spite of the overall sense of euphoria that necessarily exists when an organic revolutionary process is unfolding in front of our very eyes, one cannot help but lament the fact that politics in Pakistan is so unlike that in the rest of the region. Arguably the only politics in Pakistan that has retained a popular dimension is that of the oppressed nationalities, the most notable of these at this particular conjuncture being the Baloch.
The oppressed nationalities continue to clamour for the establishment of a genuine federalist form of government as has been promised by the ruling establishment from the country's inception. But the politics of ethno-nationalism is, in its logical culmination, inherently divisive. If it is to take on a progressive edge, it needs to be infused with a politics that views oppression and exploitation as a phenomenon that is not limited to particular ethno-national groups, while recognising that historical circumstances dictate that some ethno-national groups are more oppressed than others.
Such a politics is currently on show in Nepal, and is a force in India, Sri Lanka and Bangladesh. As suggested at the outset, such a politics is sweeping across Latin America. Indeed, around the world, the radical left is on the rebound, even if it is a left very different from that which preceded it. Yet such a politics is conspicuous by its absence in Pakistan. If one is prone to optimism, it could be posited that the Nepalese example will also have an effect on Pakistanis. Then again, hoping is insufficient; it is struggle that produces change.
This is not to suggest that there are no struggles for justice and dignity in Pakistan. In fact there are innumerable such struggles that have existed in the past, continue to exist now, and will do so in the future as well. What really needs to be considered is why these struggles remain fragmented and weak. The answer is that – to some extent or the other – the myth of the indivisible monolith of Pakistani nationalism remains intact. The political entities that project themselves as committed to the cause of democracy take refuge in the same symbols of jingoism (read: Kashmir and the bomb) that have propped up oligarchic rule and the stupefying hegemony of Pakistan's security. If there is resistance to these myths, it is most often expressed – as pointed out above – in the idiom of ethno-nationalism that on its own will never be enough to challenge ruling class hegemony.
Put more simply: At the end of the day, what the Nepalese people have shown – as every such mass movement necessarily implies – is that they believe that their collective struggle will lead to change, a change that is genuine and of their own making. To the extent that they continue to believe this, their struggle will continue and so will the process of change. Pakistanis for the most part are victims of a distinct apathy that privileges sifarish and jaan-pehchaan over collective struggle. Until we too, like our neighbours, start to believe that we can change our collective fate, revolution will remain so close yet so far away.
Email: amajid@comsats.net.pk
State of Healthcare in Pakistan
Daily Times - Tuesday, April 25, 2006
VIEW: Why Pakistanis are dying earlier — Syed Mohammad Ali
For the PMDC to become more effective, its scope must be broadened beyond mere registration of doctors and recognition of medical colleges. To this end, it may be necessary for the PMDC to become more representative of the healthcare sector rather than being dominated by government officials
Life expectancy in Pakistan, never impressive, has declined even further. Until recently, an average Pakistani had an estimated lifespan of 63 years. This has now come down to merely 60.
This is not the only bad news concerning the health situation in the country according to the Pakistan Medical Association Annual Report for 2005. Infant and maternal mortality rates also remain unacceptably high. Besides the 80 newborn babies out of every 1,000 who die within the year, 103 children under the age of five are dying annually out of every 1,000. Around 500 out of 100,000 women die during pregnancy due to lack of medical care. According to a report, issued by the East-West Centre two years ago, Pakistan is the only other country in Asia, besides Nepal, where women are not expected to live longer than men.
The low priority given to healthcare in our country becomes evident from another set of statistics. There is only one doctor for 1,900 people in Pakistan. There is just one specialist available for 14,500 people. On average, there is only one nurse to assist eight doctors. There are only 320 hospital beds available for every 100,000 people. Waterborne bacterial infections remain a major cause of death and illness in both children and adults. Despite more than 45 rounds of polio vaccination, new cases are still being reported across Pakistan.
According to official figures, there are 916 hospitals, 552 rural health centres, 906 maternity and child health centres and 5,301 basic health units and 4,600 dispensaries in Pakistan. Leaving aside the issue of how many more facilities in each category are required in view of our population, a majority of the existing facilities are unable to provide adequate care. From recruiting doctors to procuring medicines, corruption and nepotism is pervasive. Instead of addressing the growing concern about substandard medical education, all provincial governments have adopted a rather liberal policy regarding private medical colleges. On top of this, Pakistan lacks a strong regulatory system to deal with cases of medical neglect — be it in the government or private sector healthcare facilities. There is a growing number of spurious and substandard drugs. According to the World Health Organisation, Pakistan is ranked among 13 countries of the world where production of counterfeit medicines is on the rise. Yet the number of drug inspectors across the country to curb the production and supply of counterfeit medicines remains inadequate.
Public health specialists feel that the government needs to increase the health budget 10 times over. The Ministry of Health also needs to rethink how the practice of medicine can be made safer and more patient-centred. In this regard, the scope of work of the Pakistan Medical and Dental Council (PMDC) needs to be broadened to include patient protection so that a culture of accountability for medical negligence can be introduced.
The PMDC is primarily responsible for the establishment of uniform minimum standards of basic and higher qualifications in medicine and dentistry. As such it lacks the authority to deal with cases of medical negligence or take up protection of patient rights. It does not have the power to take punitive or suo motu actions. While the PMDC has finally revised its code of ethics, first developed in 1978, and cancelled the registration of some health professionals on account of medical negligence, the process is very lengthy.
According to the PMDC itself, negligence on the part of medical and dental practitioners represents only the tip of the iceberg. The PMDC lacks authority over the unregulated sector — consisting of physiotherapists, lady health workers and laboratory technicians as well as practitioners of alternative medicine. Due to the lack of an effective check on quality standards, a number of pathology laboratories and private hospitals are in business without proper equipment and facilities.
For the PMDC to become more effective, its scope must be broadened beyond mere registration of doctors and recognition of medical colleges. To this end, it may be necessary for the PMDC to become more representative of the healthcare sector rather than being dominated by government officials.
Unfortunately, the citizens remain largely unaware that patients have rights that can safeguard them against neglect. Most of them are therefore reluctant to come forward and report neglect. Leave alone the patients, even trained lawyers are unable to deal with cases of medical neglect. Some cases of severe negligence have been filed recently due to the efforts of organisations like the Network for Consumer Protection.
The case of Riaz Bibi, for example, who lost her life due to the negligence of a gynaecologist, who left an abdominal sponge in her body, did make its way to the courts. After four and a half years of proceedings and 91 court hearings, a civil judge has ordered the payment of over one million rupees in compensation to her family. An appeal for enhancement has since been filed before the Supreme Court.
To improve the overall health situation in the country, policymakers need to focus on a range of issues. Besides more investment in the sector to address the issue of quantity of available services, it is necessary to revise and update the curricula of medical colleges, curb malpractice, and improve the quality and the availability of essential medicines through more effective regulation. While the rich can still find means to secure access to quality healthcare, illness often leads the poor into crippling indebtedness. To ensure sustainable productivity, it is vital for the government to address these evident healthcare issues.
The author is a development consultant and an international fellow of the Open Society Institutes network. He can be reached at syedmohdali555@yahoo.com
Sunday, April 23, 2006
South Asia Needs a Bomb-less Deal: An argument that must be taken seriously
Chowk.com, April 20, 2006
South Asia Needs a Bomb-less Deal
Pervez Hoodbhoy
For all who have opposed Pakistan’s nuclear program over the years – including myself – the US-India nuclear agreement may probably be the worst thing that has happened in a long time.
Post agreement: Pakistan’s ruling elite is confused and bitter. They know that India has overtaken Pakistan in far too many areas for there to be any reasonable basis for symmetry. They see the US is now interested in reconstructing the geopolitics of South Asia and in repairing relations with India, not in mollifying Pakistani grievances. Nevertheless, there were lingering hopes of a sweetener during President George W. Bush’s furtive and unwelcome visit in March 2006 to Islamabad. There was none.
This change in US policy thrilled many in India. Many enjoyed President Musharraf’s discomfiture. But they would do well to restrain their exuberance. The nuclear deal, even if ratified, will not dramatically increase nuclear power production – currently this stands at only 3% of the total production, and can at most double to 6% if currently planned reactors are built and made operational over the next decade. On the other hand, Pakistan is bound to react – and react badly – once US nuclear materials and equipment starting rolling into India.
One certain consequence will be more bombs on both sides of the border. The deal is widely seen in Pakistan as signaling America’s support or acquiescence, or perhaps even surrender, to India’s nuclear ambitions. India will be freely able to import uranium fuel for its safeguarded civilian reactors. This will free up the remainder of its scarce uranium resources for making plutonium. Further, when India’s thorium-fuelled breeder reactors are fully operational, India will be able to produce more bombs in one year than in the last 30.
Not surprisingly, important voices in Pakistan have started to demand that Pakistan match India bomb-for-bomb. Abdus Sattar, ex-foreign minister of Pakistan, advocates “replication of the Kahuta plant to produce more fissile uranium…. to rationalize and upgrade Pakistan`s minimum deterrence capability”. He has also written about the need to “accelerate its [Pakistan’s] missile development programme”.
This is a prescription for unlimited nuclear racing, given that “minimum deterrence” is essentially an open-ended concept. Pakistan has mastered centrifuge technology, and giving birth to more Kahutas would require only a political decision. Moreover, unlike India, Pakistan is not constrained by supplies of natural uranium. Thus, at least in principle, Pakistan can increase its bomb production considerably.
Although nuclear hawks in India and Pakistan had once pooh-poohed the notion of an arms race, there is little doubt that India and Pakistan are solidly placed on a Cold War trajectory. As more bombs are added to the inventory every year, and intermediate range ballistic missiles steadily roll off the production lines, both countries seek ever more potent weaponry.
Many years ago, all three countries crossed the point where they could lay cities to waste and kill millions in a matter of minutes. The fantastically cruel logic, known as nuclear deterrence, requires only the certainty that one nuclear bomb will be able to penetrate the adversary’s defences and land in the heart of a city. No one has the slightest doubt that this capability was crossed multiple times over during the past few decades.
What action would best serve the interest of the peoples of India and Pakistan, as well as of China?
A fissile material cutoff is the easiest and most straightforward way to ease nuclear tensions. It offers the best hope to limit the upwards spiral in warhead numbers. Instead of threatening to create more Kahutas, Pakistan should offer to stop production of highly enriched uranium while India should respond by ceasing to reprocess its reactor wastes. Previous stockpiles possessed by either country should not be brought into issue because their credible verification is extremely difficult and would inevitably derail an agreement. Years of negotiation at the Conference on Disarmament in Geneva came to naught for this very reason. A series of “Nuclear Risk Reduction” talks between Pakistan and India have also produced zero results. The cessation of fissile material production is completely absent from the agenda; it must be made a central item now.
If a Pakistan-India bilateral agreement could somehow come through, it would have fantastically positive effects elsewhere. China – which is the major target of US nuclear weapons – may not have enough warheads to match the US but has more than a sufficient number to constitute a nuclear deterrent. Inspired by an Indian cutoff, it could formally declare a moratorium on fissile material production. The US, which no longer produces fissile materials because it has a huge excess, could encourage the Chinese action by offering to suspend work on its Nuclear Missile Defence (NMD) system.
Unfortunately the United States is not acting as a force for peace in South Asia. Confronted by the accusation that it is pumping arms into a region that some of its leaders had once described as a “nuclear tinder box”, US officials have responded defensively with answers such as: you have to deal with the world as it is and the Indian program cannot be rolled back; India is a democracy; India needs to import nuclear fuel and technology and we need to sell them. But such lame replies sweep under the carpet the disturbing history of near-nuclear conflict on the subcontinent for which the US has often taken credit for defusing.
The arms race directly benefits Indian and Pakistan elites. Hence they are tacit collaborators as they woo the US and prove that their states belong to the community of “responsible nuclear states” that are worthy of military and nuclear assistance. The past has been banished by an unwritten agreement. Retired Pakistani and Indian generals and leaders meet cordially at conferences around the world and happily clink glasses together. They emphatically deny that the two countries had even come close to a nuclear crisis in the past. Being now charged with the mission of projecting an image of “responsibility” abroad, none amongst them wants to bring back the memory of South Asian leaders hurling ugly nuclear threats against each other.
But instances of criminal nuclear behaviour are to be found even in the very recent past. For example, India`s Defence Minister George Fernandes told the International Herald Tribune on June 3, 2002 that “India can survive a nuclear attack, but Pakistan cannot.” Indian Defence Secretary Yogendra Narain had taken things a step further in an interview with Outlook Magazine: “A surgical strike is the answer,” adding that if this failed to resolve things, “We must be prepared for total mutual destruction.” On the Pakistani side, at the peak of the 2002 crisis, General Musharraf had threatened that Pakistan would use “unconventional means” against India if necessary.
Tense times may return at some point in the in the future. But Indian and Pakistani leaders are likely to once again abdicate from their own responsibilities whenever that happens. Instead, they will again entrust disaster prevention to the US.
Of course, it would be absurd to lay the blame on the US for all that has gone wrong between the two countries. Surely the US does not want to destabilize the subcontinent, and it does not want a South Asian holocaust. But one must be aware that for the US this is only a peripheral interest – the core of its interest in South Asian nuclear issues stems from the need to limit Chinese power and influence, fear of Al-Qaida and Muslim extremism, and the associated threat of nuclear terrorism.
The Americans will sort out their business and priorities as they see fit. But it is unwise to participate in a plan that leaves South Asian neighbours at each others throats while benefiting a power that sits on the other side of the globe.
Regional tensions will increase because of the deal. Given that the motivation for the US-India nuclear agreement comes partly from the US’s desire to contain China, the Pakistan-China strategic relationship will be considerably strengthened. In practical terms, this may amount to enhanced support for Pakistan’s missile program, or even its military nuclear program. Speaking at Pakistan`s National Defense College in Islamabad a day before Bush’s arrival there, Musharraf declared that “My recent trip to China was part of my effort to keep Pakistan`s strategic options open.”
By proceeding with the nuclear deal with India the US may destabilize South Asia. It will also wreck the NPT, take the heat off Iran and North Korea, open the door for Japan to convert its plutonium stocks into bombs, and bring about global nuclear anarchy.
Footnote: Also published in Economic and Political Weekly (India) and The Friday Times (Pakistan), week of 17 April, 2006.
Pakistan Navy - new role
Online News; April 23, 2006
Pakistan navy to take control of RMSF today
Karachi: The official handover of command of Regional Maritime Security Force (RMSF) to the Pakistan Navy will take place today (Monday) in Bahrain.
United States Ambassador to Pakistan Ryan C. Crocker congratulated the Pakistan Navy on its impending takeover of Coalition Task Force 150 ("CTF-150") at a reception at the American Consul General’s residence in Karachi.
The official handover of command to the Pakistan Navy will take place on Monday, April 24, in Bahrain.
Coalition Task Force 150 is a maritime security force responsible for operations in the Gulf of Oman, Gulf of Aden, the Red Sea and the North Arabian Sea.
This will be the first time for the Pakistan Navy at the helm of this important task force, which is made up primarily of ships from NATO countries. The only two non-NATO ally members are Pakistan and New Zealand.
"In taking command of CTF-150, Pakistan is again showing its strong commitment to regional security," said Ambassador Crocker.
Attending the reception were several officers of the Pakistan Navy, including Commander Pakistan Fleet Admiral Asif Humayun.
CTF-150 is part of the Global War on Terror, aimed at preventing terrorist organizations from attacking important maritime structures and disrupting terrorist shipments of arms and materials through the Persian Gulf.
CTF-150 is part of regional maritime security operations that preserve the free and secure use of the world’s oceans for legitimate mariners and prevent terrorists from using the world’s oceans unchecked.
Who had appointed him?
Reference the news item below, many a retired and even serving army officials have been appointed in Pakistan on civilian posts in the last 5 years - most on the direct instructions of President Pervez Musharraf. It is indeed a welcome development that an army officer is being taken to task for corruption but it should also be probed who recommended him for this job in the military hierarchy. Only the well connected could get such favors.
Daily Times, April 23, 2006
PM sacks Postal DG for corruption
ISLAMABAD: Prime Minister Shaukat Aziz on Saturday sacked Post Office Director General (DG) Brigadier (r) Agha Masoodul Hassan on corruption charges and appointed additional DG Ziaur Rehman Zamir in his place.
Sources in the Communication Ministry said an investigation committee headed by Shahid Jamil, the state minister for communications, had found Hassan guilty on eight charges of corruption. The allegations include establishment of an illegal telephone exchange in the Post Office college, opening of joint accounts, buying fake shares and illegal recruitment in the Post Office.
The prime minister sacked the Post Office director general after receiving the committee’s report. Sources said that Hassan had serious differences with the federal minister for communications. online
Friday, April 21, 2006
Demystifying Jihad
The News, April 13, 2006
Demystifying jihad
By M.B. Naqvi
Book Review of : Jihad, Hindutva and the Taliban: South Asia at the Crossroads
By: Iftikhar H. Malik Published by: Oxford University Press
Distinguished academician Iftikhar H. Malik has portrayed the politics of South Asia early in the new century. He finds three main forces at work: jihad, Hindutva and the Taliban. The book is really addressed to Western scholars and media. He wants to convince the informed and academic Western opinion about where South Asia is going and that it is not engaged in an unending jihad against the West, or Christianity.
Basically, the topicality of jihad and Taliban in the West is what informs the book. What the author does is to juxtapose it with India's Hindutva and other ethno-nationalisms of the region to show the universality of fascistic ideas in the region that is causing so much trouble in the Middle East, Palestine, Israel, Lebanon, Afghanistan and Iraq. And the author's main interlocutors are Western opinion makers and Western academia.
Malik delves deep into the Islamic lore and literature. He has delineated the jihadists' and Taliban mind well. He gives the reasons why the phenomenon is becoming popular in Indonesia and Bangladesh, not to mention Pakistan.
What goes on in the subcontinent is the main subject matter and studies of Islam and Hindutva are its heart. Technically, he covers the Buddhist nationalist ideology of the Sinhalese in Sri Lanka, Nepal's Khas Hindutva ethno-nationalism and of course the various Islamic movements in Pakistan and Bangladesh.
The author can be accused of being more concerned with the ideological antecedents and the pedigree of various categories of Islamic activists of today from the viewpoint of Western opinion. He seems to miss the fact that Islamic movements from Indonesia to Morocco formulate specific Islamic agendas in the light of specific local history and circumstances. These use Islamic rhetoric and know that ordinary Muslims are excitable and that Islamic terminology, especially of jihad, would motivate the people into doing what the leaders want them to do. What the West perceives is a suicide bomber, Taliban, the street fighters in Baghdad and terrorists elsewhere. Common Western notion is that "Muslims are troublesome and they always get excited over minor matters such as a cartoon or some blasphemic sentences in a book. These Muslims become ready to kill or get killed. Western symbols like embassies are their favourite targets." This raw reality is what confronts the West, or even a Pakistani or an Indian? There have been fine thinkers in Islam who have given various opinions on jihad: when it is legitimate and when it is not. While the corpus of facts about diversities of beliefs among Muslims and the varying interpretations of relevant categories are massive and finely nuanced, what an ordinary Western reporter or electronic media outlet notices is nondescript Muslims setting fire to an embassy or burning down a Church (in Pakistan) or the like. Current reality of the jihadists, Taliban or the suicide bombers has become a daily occurrence. Few care about how he has evolved.
Malik's section on Hindutva is excellent. It describes the rise of Hindutva ideology and the decline of Nehruvian concepts of secular and composite Indian nationalism, democracy and socialism. Without saying so the author seems to regret this or the rise of Hindu ethno-nationalism. In the context, the term ethnic denotes more than racial traits and includes all linguistic, regional, cultural or historical commonalities for identification of one lot of people from another, giving them identity. Without questioning the veracity of his description it is possible to say, he doesn't link Hindutva directly to the original Hindu reaction to the arrival of the West in the eighteenth century.
The treatment of the Congress in comparison with that of the BJP is perfunctory. The description of the Indian Left is also inadequate. He gives more attention to the BJP- Congress wrangling and pays less attention to economic conditions of the people, the social realities? The rise of caste factor has been inadequately dealt with.
His treatment of the Indian Muslims is also inadequate. True the author acknowledges the long history of awesome Islamic learning at subcontinent's main seminaries at Deoband, Lucknow and various other places. The fact that Indian Islamic scholarship in the evolution of the regional politics produces jihadists in Pakistan and Bangladesh but not in India remains unexplained. The Indian Islam today requires to be studied further.
The Bangladesh treatment is superficial. The Islamic movements in Bangladesh are extraordinarily strong. There is a grand clash of ideas now taking place in Bangladesh. The conflict is between a Muslim Bangla Nationalism of the BNP with the Bengali Nationalism of the Awami League, on one side, and Islamists, on the other. Finding out of the different schools or parties among the Islamists awaits fuller description.
The book takes in all of South Asia and covers Nepal and Sri Lanka more or less pro forma. Other than banal description there is little profound on the currents in Sri Lanka. Even less is to be found on Nepal. Only the Khas Hindutva ideology has been mentioned, the Maoists have been barely mentioned without any details of what sustains them and why. Surely there is more to Bhutanese politics and ideas than what appears in this book.
The book is largely about Pakistan and India. The attempt is to show-case Muslims to Western scholars and informed readers as basically reasonable people with an intellectual background who are motivated by noble ideas. It negates the idea that jihad is a permanent warfare against infidels, including Christians. What is true is that the Muslims have far too many different schools of thought and that author's historical scholarship about Islam has been impressive. But how does it relate to the awful reality of Iraq's resistance, gradually morphing into sectarian warfare. True, the scholars need to know the origins. The author's purpose is to make the West understand the complex reality of jihad; it is not mindless violence. Intellectual history of the 10 centuries long evolution of Taliban and jihadi may be useful. But it is less relevant than what the great Western powers are now doing to determine their actions.
Close attention needs to be paid to the chances of Islamic political parties succeeding through Islamic rhetoric in various countries and unleash more violence based on the excitability of ordinary Muslims. The aim of Islamic activity in Pakistan, Bangladesh or Indonesia, not to mention Egypt and Algeria, is to capture power-pure politics using Islam as propaganda. Muslim intellectuals in these countries know this-or so one supposes.
In a Pakistan-centric book, Malik has not failed to count the challenges the unhappy country faces. But his suggested ways of ending Army's stranglehold on power is more like a Cheshire cat's smile. But he does identify the agent of this great change: civil society comprising reformed NGOs. Political parties are given no role.
There is some explanation of the role that the US and UK governments are playing in the Islamic world, particularly the Middle East. The Muslim anger at what these powers have done in Afghanistan, Iraq an what they may yet do in Iran has been noted. This is standard Western liberal critique of American politicies and naturally relies on world public opinion to becoming a countervailing force to US imperial designs.
Traded like animals....
Traded like animals - the blood feuds settled with 'gift' of a wife
Outlawed custom that parcels out young women in marriage survives in rural Pakistan
Declan Walsh in Malmundi
Friday April 21, 2006: The Guardian
Eyes glimmering with worry, Tasleem Bibi peered through the slits of her pitch-black veil. Seventeen years ago her father had struck a devilish deal to stay out of jail. Now his daughter was paying its price. A rival family was demanding that Tasleem marry one of their sons. Her hand in marriage had been promised back in 1989, they insisted, as part of an agreement to end a blood feud between the two clans.
But then Tasleem was five years old. Now, at 22, she was refusing to go through with the wedding. The other family, angered and armed with rifles, had been threatening to kill her. "This is so cruel," she whispered, her hands quivering as she stared out at the farmhouse door. "I committed no crime, so why am I the one being punished?"
She is a victim of vani, an ugly tradition where young Pakistani women are traded between families in resolution of a dispute. Although outlawed two years ago, vani is still prevalent in conservative pockets across Pakistan. Usually it is a matter of murder. The family of an accused murderer promises to give one of their women, sometimes as young as two, in marriage; 10 or 15 years later, after she has reached maturity, the wedding day arrives. It is a mournful, disgrace-tinged event.
Brutish
These weddings are devoid of the glittering jewellery, three-day banquets and drum music that mark the normal Punjabi celebrations. Instead the woman is delivered to her new husband without ceremony, in ordinary clothes and often as a second or third wife.
"The woman is traded like an animal. Once married, she is little better than a slave," said Khalil ur Rehman, a lawyer and human rights advocate in Mianwali, a wheat-growing district 110 miles south-west of Islamabad where vani is common.
In some cases several women are involved. Tasleem's father, Muhammad Zaman, was accused of killing another man in a bitter land dispute. To keep the case out of court his family agreed to a high price - £3,300 and five women.
Two women have already been married off; now Tasleem and her sister are due to be paired with Mumtaz and Ghulam Akbar, two truck drivers whom she describes as brutish men. Repulsed by the idea, Tasleem has refused, and is supported by her brothers. "This vani should never have been agreed," said Sher Abbas Niazi, 28. "We love her and we are against this custom."
The rival family fired shots at her brothers as they walked through the fields and called on village elders to mediate. Still she refuses to budge. Two of her cousins, Rahmat and Nusrat, have already been married off. She knows her fate if she caves in. "A vani wife is treated like dirt," she said defiantly. "The men wear her like a pair of shoes."
Defenders of the tradition - mostly conservative tribal elders - say this method prevents bloodshed between warring clans. "When we give our daughters it is not for personal amusement but to bring an end to enmity," said Haji Sher Bahadur Khan, an elder in the village, Malmundi.
Pervez Musharraf, Pakistan's president, claims to side with the women. The military leader, who listed "the empowerment of women" as one of his main achievements during a recent visit by the US president, George Bush, passed a law against vani in 2004.
But laws made in Islamabad often have limited influence in rural areas where centuries-old feudalism still holds. Just 15 vani cases have been tried under the new law in Mianwali, said Mr Rehman, which had led only five men to abandon their claims.
The law included many flaws and the police and local authorities were often reluctant to prosecute cases, Mr Rehman said. Politicians such as Imran Khan, the former cricket star who represents Mianwali, appear reluctant to speak out.
There are no reliable figures on the number of vani victims but campaigners estimate there are hundreds of cases. The tradition is part of a wider impunity for crimes against women, such as "honour killing".
Recently a woman and her daughter were shot dead in a central Mianwali bazaar, accused of prostitution. Their killer turned out to be the woman's brother. "He has been jailed but will probably be out within a month," said Abdur Rashid, headteacher at a local boys' school. "In our society the killer becomes a hero."
Domestic violence is widespread but largely hidden. Mr Rashid said he had recently visited a woman who had been chained and beaten by her husband. Doctors counted 22 wounds on her. "I couldn't believe my eyes," he said, shaking his head.
Campaigners say reform of the vani laws and greater commitment from local authorities are crucial for ending the custom. Education is also vital. Only about one-third of all Pakistani women in the country are literate, and the proportion is much lower in rural areas.
Fatwa
Yet some of the women who have had schooling are standing up for themselves. Last month Nusrat Bibi, 20, and her sister Kulsoom Bibi, 21, were due to marry in Daud Khel, 20 miles from Mianwali. But hours before completion of the wedding preparations, which included food and drink for 150 guests, two brothers from another family halted the ceremony claiming the sisters were theirs under an old vani deal.
The sisters were disgusted. The two brothers were known heroin addicts, said the women. But the local mullah sided with the brothers. "We waited until the last prayer [early evening] but still he would not agree," said the younger sister. Undeterred, the sisters have now obtained a fatwa, or religious order, from a more liberal cleric, and are determined to press ahead with the marriages of their choice.
"Those men are threatening us but we are not afraid," said Nusrat, smiling from behind her veil. "We will not back down. Soon this will be over."
Backstory
Honour killings, rape, acid assaults, forced marriage and horrific violence are lamentably common in Pakistan despite some reforms. New laws banning some of the cruellest customs are often ignored. Last week Dir district elders, citing "local culture" as a justification, threatened to punish women who reported crimes against them to the police. Most international attention has focused on Mukhtaran Bibi, a gang rape victim who brought a prosecution against her attackers. Pervez Musharraf, Pakistan's president, says women's rights are a top priority, but he has also remarked that some women use rape as a "moneymaking concern", or to back their asylum applications.
Outlawed custom that parcels out young women in marriage survives in rural Pakistan
Declan Walsh in Malmundi
Friday April 21, 2006: The Guardian
Eyes glimmering with worry, Tasleem Bibi peered through the slits of her pitch-black veil. Seventeen years ago her father had struck a devilish deal to stay out of jail. Now his daughter was paying its price. A rival family was demanding that Tasleem marry one of their sons. Her hand in marriage had been promised back in 1989, they insisted, as part of an agreement to end a blood feud between the two clans.
But then Tasleem was five years old. Now, at 22, she was refusing to go through with the wedding. The other family, angered and armed with rifles, had been threatening to kill her. "This is so cruel," she whispered, her hands quivering as she stared out at the farmhouse door. "I committed no crime, so why am I the one being punished?"
She is a victim of vani, an ugly tradition where young Pakistani women are traded between families in resolution of a dispute. Although outlawed two years ago, vani is still prevalent in conservative pockets across Pakistan. Usually it is a matter of murder. The family of an accused murderer promises to give one of their women, sometimes as young as two, in marriage; 10 or 15 years later, after she has reached maturity, the wedding day arrives. It is a mournful, disgrace-tinged event.
Brutish
These weddings are devoid of the glittering jewellery, three-day banquets and drum music that mark the normal Punjabi celebrations. Instead the woman is delivered to her new husband without ceremony, in ordinary clothes and often as a second or third wife.
"The woman is traded like an animal. Once married, she is little better than a slave," said Khalil ur Rehman, a lawyer and human rights advocate in Mianwali, a wheat-growing district 110 miles south-west of Islamabad where vani is common.
In some cases several women are involved. Tasleem's father, Muhammad Zaman, was accused of killing another man in a bitter land dispute. To keep the case out of court his family agreed to a high price - £3,300 and five women.
Two women have already been married off; now Tasleem and her sister are due to be paired with Mumtaz and Ghulam Akbar, two truck drivers whom she describes as brutish men. Repulsed by the idea, Tasleem has refused, and is supported by her brothers. "This vani should never have been agreed," said Sher Abbas Niazi, 28. "We love her and we are against this custom."
The rival family fired shots at her brothers as they walked through the fields and called on village elders to mediate. Still she refuses to budge. Two of her cousins, Rahmat and Nusrat, have already been married off. She knows her fate if she caves in. "A vani wife is treated like dirt," she said defiantly. "The men wear her like a pair of shoes."
Defenders of the tradition - mostly conservative tribal elders - say this method prevents bloodshed between warring clans. "When we give our daughters it is not for personal amusement but to bring an end to enmity," said Haji Sher Bahadur Khan, an elder in the village, Malmundi.
Pervez Musharraf, Pakistan's president, claims to side with the women. The military leader, who listed "the empowerment of women" as one of his main achievements during a recent visit by the US president, George Bush, passed a law against vani in 2004.
But laws made in Islamabad often have limited influence in rural areas where centuries-old feudalism still holds. Just 15 vani cases have been tried under the new law in Mianwali, said Mr Rehman, which had led only five men to abandon their claims.
The law included many flaws and the police and local authorities were often reluctant to prosecute cases, Mr Rehman said. Politicians such as Imran Khan, the former cricket star who represents Mianwali, appear reluctant to speak out.
There are no reliable figures on the number of vani victims but campaigners estimate there are hundreds of cases. The tradition is part of a wider impunity for crimes against women, such as "honour killing".
Recently a woman and her daughter were shot dead in a central Mianwali bazaar, accused of prostitution. Their killer turned out to be the woman's brother. "He has been jailed but will probably be out within a month," said Abdur Rashid, headteacher at a local boys' school. "In our society the killer becomes a hero."
Domestic violence is widespread but largely hidden. Mr Rashid said he had recently visited a woman who had been chained and beaten by her husband. Doctors counted 22 wounds on her. "I couldn't believe my eyes," he said, shaking his head.
Campaigners say reform of the vani laws and greater commitment from local authorities are crucial for ending the custom. Education is also vital. Only about one-third of all Pakistani women in the country are literate, and the proportion is much lower in rural areas.
Fatwa
Yet some of the women who have had schooling are standing up for themselves. Last month Nusrat Bibi, 20, and her sister Kulsoom Bibi, 21, were due to marry in Daud Khel, 20 miles from Mianwali. But hours before completion of the wedding preparations, which included food and drink for 150 guests, two brothers from another family halted the ceremony claiming the sisters were theirs under an old vani deal.
The sisters were disgusted. The two brothers were known heroin addicts, said the women. But the local mullah sided with the brothers. "We waited until the last prayer [early evening] but still he would not agree," said the younger sister. Undeterred, the sisters have now obtained a fatwa, or religious order, from a more liberal cleric, and are determined to press ahead with the marriages of their choice.
"Those men are threatening us but we are not afraid," said Nusrat, smiling from behind her veil. "We will not back down. Soon this will be over."
Backstory
Honour killings, rape, acid assaults, forced marriage and horrific violence are lamentably common in Pakistan despite some reforms. New laws banning some of the cruellest customs are often ignored. Last week Dir district elders, citing "local culture" as a justification, threatened to punish women who reported crimes against them to the police. Most international attention has focused on Mukhtaran Bibi, a gang rape victim who brought a prosecution against her attackers. Pervez Musharraf, Pakistan's president, says women's rights are a top priority, but he has also remarked that some women use rape as a "moneymaking concern", or to back their asylum applications.
"Liberating the Muslim mind": A tilted perspective but worth a read
The News, April 21, 2006
Liberating the Muslim mind
Quantum Note
By Dr Muzaffar Iqbal
"Without flattering the English, I can truly say that the natives of India, high and low, merchants and petty shopkeepers, educated and illiterate, when contrasted with the English in education, manners, and uprightness, are like a dirty animal is to an able and handsome man." If one were to ask an educated Muslim today about the man who wrote these words, she or he would mostly think of an outlandish English bigot. Those with a little more interest in history would probably think of men like Mustafa Kamal of Turkey (incorrectly called Ata Turk, the father of Turks) or one of his latter-day fans.
The guesswork can be cut short, however, by a further clue. The author of these words also wrote a tafsir, because in all previous tafsirs of the Noble Quran he "could find nothing but grammatical and lexicographical niceties, statements concerning the place and time of revelation and commentaries on previous tafsirs…literary matters, in short, nothing but rubbish and worthless (fazul) discussions, mostly based on baseless and unauthentic traditions and fables which were often taken from the Jewish sources". The same person claims that "then I studied books of the principles of tafsir according to my ability with the hope that they would definitely provide clues to the principles of the Quranic interpretation based on the Quran itself or which would be otherwise so sound that no one could object to them, but in them I found nothing but statements that the Quran contains knowledge of such and such nature".
Of course, by now the reader would have guessed: the person was none other than our very respected Sayyid Ahmad Khan (1817-1898), duly knighted in 1888 as the Knight Commander of the Star of India by the Queen herself. The first quoted passage can be found on page 184 of his Musafran-e London, published by Majlis-e-Taraqi-e-Adab, Lahore, in 1961; the second appears on page 199 of the second volume of his sixteen volumes Maqalat, published in 1963.
Sir Sayyid Ahmad Khan was among the forerunners of a new breed of Muslims who saw nothing worthwhile in their own tradition. He was, however, much better than those who followed him, for he had at least one foot in his tradition (though he had no appreciation for it). Those who followed him were the true children of the colonial rule which extended from one end of the Muslim world to the other at the time Sir Sayyid wrote the above-quoted words.
Of course, the colonisers of the Muslim world are not present anymore in those lands, except for the neo-colonisers who now sit trembling in the Green Zone of Baghdad, thinking: when will I be blown up? The colonial legacy, however, did not end in the post-World War II era; only its form changed. But before we can begin to understand this change, we must understand the make up of men like Sayyid Ahmad Khan. Why were they mentally enslaved by the West? When did this enslavement begin?
The fact is that Sayyid Ahmad was not even born when the true debacle took place, he only witnessed the aftermath. True, he participated in the events of May 1857 when a few thousand British soldiers were able to establish the Queen's writ over an entire subcontinent, but he was too busy saving the lives of the masters to really understand what was happening.
One wonders: how was it possible that a few thousand Englishmen could control such a vast subcontinent at a time when B-52 bombers and cruise missiles were unheard of? Without those weapons of mass destruction in the hands of the colonisers, if the natives of the subcontinent were to attempt to physically throw the overweening English into the Indian Ocean, they could have easily done so because of their huge numbers. But they did not. Why not?
The answers must be sought in the mental enslavement which precedes physical occupation. The fact is that the Indian mind had already been enslaved before 1857. An Englishman could produce terror in the hearts of Indians, Muslim, Hindu, and Sikh alike, merely by his presence. This was so because these Indians were not standing on any firm soil. In the preceding centuries, they had been uprooted from the intellectual and spiritual soil of their ancestors. It was not the swords versus guns, as is sometimes erroneously assumed, but superior minds versus feeble minds, which decided the fate of millions of men, women, and children, during the gruesome period of colonisation by Imperial European powers.
When those same minds were stirred a bit around the middle of the twentieth century by a few men and women who led the so-called movements and wars of independence throughout the third world, they forced the colonisers to depart in one fantastic spell of awakening, even though, by then the Europeans had much better arms. This awakening did not last, however, primarily because those who led them were only partially free; as soon as they found entrance to the presidential and vice-regal palaces of the departing colonisers, they quickly went back to their enslaved mode.
This is a tragedy of Himalayan proportions. Of course, the entire South suffered, but people in South America are now beginning to understand the true dimensions of this mental enslavement; the rest of the world is still in the depths of the enslavement. And the Muslim mind is utterly devoid of any idea of how it was dispossessed. When the Muslim mind attempts to understand this process, it indulges in blame games: this or that person is found as a scapegoat and the case is settled. All that the Muslim mind can do now is to find men like Sayyid Ahmad Khan, Mustafa Kamal, or one of his current followers, and proclaim with relief: he is the reason for our misfortune. But is this really so?
The writer is a freelance columnist. Email: quantumnotes@gmail.com
Note: For a different perspective about the contribution of Sir Syed Ahmed Khan, click the title at the top of this section.
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