Tuesday, April 29, 2008

The relevance of 1857

The relevance of 1857
By Mubarak Ali; Dawn, April 29, 2008

ON the occasion of the 150th anniversary of the uprising of 1857 against the British Raj in India, we organised three conferences — in Lahore, Karachi and Gujrat. The idea was to recall and analyse the events of that historic year.

Some friends raised questions about its relevance to the times in which we are living. We realised how people can misunderstand history and take it as an obsolete discipline.

True, all historical events are not relevant to the present. But very often those events which are forgotten surface again in a pattern that sheds light on the happenings of today and inspire us to learn lessons from the past. The commemoration of 1857 not only serves to revive the past and to help us remember the sacrifices of those who fought against foreign rule, it also helps us understand the people’s response to such rule. Thus we can grasp its consequences.

The revolt of 1857 was a widespread popular reaction against British rule and its injustices. But the paradox was that there were also a number of native groups and individuals who supported and collaborated with the British. That raises the question: why did they collaborate with a foreign power against their own people?

There were actually three groups which had supported British rule.

First, there were those who were in the service of the East India Company and, following the tradition of loyalty, defended the Company’s interests.To them the Company Bahadur was personified as their patron whose servants they were and to support it in case of trouble was their moral duty as they had eaten salt with them — (namak halali). Being low-ranking office-holders, they were overawed and impressed by the Company’s organisation and its military power.

Second, there were the princes and feudal lords whose interest it was not to get involved in any conflict which could endanger their own property and privileges. They realised that the rebel forces could not successfully fight against the well-disciplined and well-organised British army. They were not interested in supporting a losing cause and paying heavily in the end. Only those princes and jagirdars sided with the rebels who had already lost their positions as a result of political structural changes.

The third group consisted of those who sincerely believed that British rule would modernise India. To them, foreign intervention offered the only option to pull India out of its backwardness. How far were these expectations proven correct? This is a question that needs to be analysed in order to understand the colonial period. As a matter of fact, British rule in India was beneficial to only those sections of society which were already at a certain level of civilisation and culture. Such was the case with the Brahmins and the Muslim bourgeosie.

The rest of the Indian population was backward, illiterate and extremely poor. The benefit of political reforms and technological advancement did not reach the majority. Here is an example for those who believe that relinquishing our national sovereignty and accepting foreign intervention is the only solution to our problems. The fact, as history tells us, is that nations cannot be reformed by alien and foreign powers. Only their own leaders can change them.

When the rebellion of 1857 was over, the British started to analyse its causes. The revolt had been too unexpected for them and they failed to understand why there was such a strong reaction against their policies. Some British bureaucrats reached the conclusion that the revolt was masterminded by the Muslims and the Hindus were just trapped in it. Sir Syed Ahmad Khan, for one, was very much concerned with the hostile attitude of the British towards the Muslims. He had already written The Causes of the Indian Mutiny and Tarikh-Sarkashi-i-Bijnor (The History of the Mutiny of Bijnor). To respond to this allegation and to prove the innocence of the Muslims, he started to write a series of articles known as ‘The Loyal Mohammedans’.

He collected material from those Muslims who had supported the British during the rebellion and had protected their lives and properties, in some cases at the cost of their own lives. In his articles, Sir Syed mentioned the certificates which were given to the loyal servants of the Company by British officers acknowledging their support and loyalty. He also mentioned the awards of the British government to these people in the shape of landed properties and robes of honour in appreciation of their loyalty. He convinced the British that all Muslims were not against their government. On the other hand, they had respect for Christians as ‘people of the Book’ and remained loyal to their cause.

The interpretation of 1857 changed with the emergence of nationalism and the ‘mutiny’ was interpreted as a ‘national war of independence’. The heroes of the British became the villains of the people. However, the families of those ‘loyal Mohammedans’ who were awarded landed properties and cash remained as powerful and influential as before, especially in parts which later became Pakistan. For lack of historical knowledge and perception they are never brought to justice. The result is that there is no anti-colonial approach in our historical narrative. On the contrary, there is great admiration for British rule.

What is the lesson of history? History tells us that imperialism cannot succeed in occupying another country without local collaboration. Today, we are facing the same situation in Iraq and Afghanistan on the one hand and Palestine on the other. We are hearing the same arguments that with the help of foreign powers and intervention, religious extremism and terror will be wiped out. Again, history tells us that it is not correct. We cannot rely on others to fight our wars.

We learn from 1857 that the defeat of a resistance movement is not the end of the struggle, as those involved in it always learn a lot as a result of defeat and correct their approach for the next engagement. The events that followed 1857 were a mix of violence and non-violence. It was not the constitutional approach alone but also resistance which consequently led to our independence.

Monday, April 28, 2008

Pakistan, Iran clear hurdles in IPI gas line

Pakistan, Iran clear hurdles in IPI gas line
Ahmadinejad meets Musharraf, Gilani; Tehran offers 1,100MW electricity to Islamabad
By Mariana Baabar, The News, April 29, 2008

ISLAMABAD: Pakistan and Iran on Monday cleared all hurdles over the proposed $7.5 billion IPI gas pipeline and announced that an agreement would be signed soon in Tehran. The foreign ministers of both the countries are to meet soon to fix the date for signing the deal.

A go-ahead to the long-awaited project was given at a meeting between the visiting Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and President Pervez Musharraf here on Monday. Later, Ahmadinejad also called on Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani who hosted a lunch in his honour. Both Musharraf and Ahmadinejad held a one-on-one meeting before the delegation level talks.

Despite stiff opposition from the United States which discouraged Pakistan from finalising the gas deal with Iran, Pakistan views the project as economical to meet its growing energy demands. Iran has also offered supply of 1,100MW of electricity to overcome Pakistan’s energy shortfall.

It was also agreed that mechanisms of the Joint Investment Company (JIC) and the Preferential Trade Agreement (PTA) to meet the target of $1 billion annual trade would be worked out soon.

Ahmadinejad is the first head of state of a foreign country to visit Pakistan after the formation of the PDA government and the first Iranian president to visit Pakistan in the last six years. He made a brief four-hour stopover on his way to Sri Lanka.

According to the foreign office spokesman, both the presidents decided that the agreement on the Iran-Pakistan-India (IPI) gas pipeline project, termed the friendship pipeline, would be signed soon.

Ahmadinejad welcomed the proposal for inclusion of China in the project. In his meeting with the prime minister, it was once again emphasised that signing of the IPI gas pipeline agreement would add a new dimension to the cooperation between Pakistan and Iran in the energy sector.

The talks between President Pervez Musharraf and President Ahmadinejad covered a wide-range of subjects, including bilateral matters of mutual interest and regional and global issues of importance.

The two presidents agreed that the bonds of history, faith, culture and geography that bind the two countries should help in optimising bilateral, economic, trade and commercial relations.

Among the regional subjects, the situation in Afghanistan figured prominently. “There was a complete convergence of views between the two presidents that peace and security in Afghanistan was not only important for Pakistan and Iran but also for the progress of the entire region. They also emphasised the need for more dialogue and creation of an enabling environment to counter terrorism more effectively. They were of the view that trilateral — Pakistan-Afghanistan-Iran — foreign ministers dialogue was very helpful,” said the spokesman in a statement.

The situation in the Middle East and Iraq also came under discussion. The two sides believed that the situation in Iraq could be resolved through peaceful dialogue by all the stakeholders. In the context of Pak-India relations, Iran expressed its support for the Indo-Pak composite dialogue and hoped it would lead to peaceful resolution of the issues between Pakistan and India.

In the meeting with Prime Minister Gilani, President Ahmadinejad offered his condolences on the martyrdom of Mohtarma Benazir Bhutto. The prime minister thanked him and the people of Iran for the support and sympathy they had extended to the people of Pakistan during their national tragedy.

Foreign Minister Shah Mehmud Qureshi told reporters that the talks were positive and covered all aspects of relationship between the two countries. “The two leaders said the Iran-Pakistan-India (gas pipeline) project will promote peace and friendship,” Qureshi said, adding the foreign ministers of Iran and Pakistan had been asked to fix a mutually convenient date for signing the bilateral agreement on the pipeline.

Qureshi said Musharraf and Ahmadinejad expressed satisfaction over the resolution of all issues that had delayed a final agreement on the pipeline and hoped that the project will help meet the future energy needs of Pakistan.

He said Iran also responded positively to a Pakistani proposal for a gas pipeline passing through its territory along the Karakoram highway to provide gas to China to help meet its growing industrial needs.

Asked about Pakistan’s stance on Iran’s controversial nuclear programme, Qureshi said: “We support Iran’s use of nuclear energy for peaceful purposes under International Atomic Energy Agency guidelines.”

The Iranian delegation also included Foreign Minister Monouchehr Mottaki, Commerce Minister Mir Kazemi, Vice President Esfandyar Rahim Mashai’e, Sr Advisor to President Mojtaba Hashemi and Ambassador Mashallah Shakeri. Minister for Foreign Affairs Shah Mehmud Qureshi, Minister for Water and Power Raja Pervaiz Ashraf (minister-in-waiting) and other senior officials also attended the meeting.

Also See:
Iran, Pakistan 'in pipeline deal' - BBC
Editorial: Iran looks eastward - Daily Times

'Questions, answers, months of brutality'

'Questions, answers, months of brutality'
Three accounts accuse MI5 men of complicity in interrogation ordeals
Ian Cobain The Guardian, Tuesday April 29 2008

After two weeks in a secret prison run by Inter-Services Intelligence, the Pakistani security agency denounced by human rights activists as one of the most vicious in the world, Salahuddin Amin says he was ready to do whatever he was asked. The college graduate from Luton claims he had been deprived of sleep for several days before being beaten, whipped and threatened with an electric drill. Then, he says, he was suspended by his wrists and beaten some more. His suffering appears to have been filmed, through a poorly concealed camera in the corner of the ceiling of his cell.

After about 15 days of interrogation, he says, he was taken from his cell, blindfolded, hooded and shackled and pushed into the back of a car. After 20 minutes the car stopped and he was led into a building, up some stairs, and left alone in an air-conditioned room.

In an account that Amin has written of his 10 months in the ISI's prison, he describes what happened next.

"The door opened and a few people entered. When my hood was taken off I saw two white men standing in front of me. One of them looked at the major and asked if my handcuffs could be taken off.

"He introduced himself at Matt from MI5 and his colleague was Chris. His tone was friendly, which was a relief. Matt was a senior officer but Chris seemed more like an office boy and during the questioning he just took notes. Matt and Chris took their notebooks and pens out.

"Matt had a list of questions, which I soon realised were from the previous interrogations by the major."

It was, Amin and his lawyers allege, the start of a pattern that would be played out for the next 10 months: he would be asked a series of questions, under torture, and would give answers.

The torture would stop, and there would be another interview with the men later named at Amin's trial as Matt and Chris. Amin says he would be asked the same questions that his torturers had already asked, and he would give the same answers. Then the two British men would leave, and the torture would begin again, with a different set of questions. This was April 2004, and Amin, then 29, had moved to Pakistan three years earlier after graduating from an engineering course at the University of Hertfordshire. He says he was in search of a slower, more peaceful life. Police and the Security Service say he was in contact with senior figures in al-Qaida. He surrendered himself to the ISI after the agency contacted his uncle, a retired brigadier from the Pakistan army, to say the British were seeking his arrest.

A few days earlier, 18 people had been detained at addresses across the south-east of England and were being questioned over a plot to blow up the Bluewater shopping centre in Kent, or the Ministry of Sound nightclub in London, with a half-tonne fertiliser bomb. Amin was accused of supplying the formula needed to mix the explosives.

Unanswered questions

Amin says the MI5 officers would insist that his main torturer remained in the room - "as much as they hated him smoking like a chimney, and his mobile phone going off every few minutes" - because they wanted this man to know which questions had not been answered. These, Amin alleges, would form the basis of the next torture session. The presence of the torturer also meant he felt unable to complain to the British about his treatment, although he does not believe this would have served any purpose, as he is convinced MI5 wanted him tortured. "I assumed my treatment was tolerated by the British at a very high level," he would later tell the Old Bailey.

After 10 months in ISI custody, Amin was put aboard a plane to Heathrow. There was no extradition process or court hearing. On landing he was arrested and charged with conspiring to cause explosions, and put on trial alongside six of the men who had been arrested in this country. He and four of those men were convicted after a year-long trial and are now serving life sentences.

During the trial, Amin's counsel, Patrick O'Connor QC, suggested to the jury that there had been "a tacit understanding of some considerable amorality" between MI5 and the ISI, with the British knowing their Pakistani counterparts could torture him with impunity.

The war on terror, O'Connor suggested, "has led those on both sides ... to share common standards of illegality and immorality".

There may be some at MI5 who would argue that some very difficult moral decisions need to be taken to protect Britain from the sort of mass murder and suffering that Amin and his friends were convicted of plotting. In public, however, the agency has said nothing about the allegations that it has colluded in torture. It is impossible to report on the response that MI5 gave at Amin's trial: testimony from its officers was heard in camera, with press and the public excluded. Asked about the allegation that MI5 had colluded in torture, the agency's spokesman at the Home Office gave no comment.

At Scotland Yard, however, one senior officer involved in counter-terrorism operations has conceded privately that he accepts Amin was tortured.

Amin is not alone in alleging that MI5 colluded in his torture. A 33-year-old man from Manchester, who cannot be named for legal reasons, spent more than a year in Pakistani custody after being picked up by the ISI in August 2006.

He says he was dragged from a taxi in Haripur, 40 miles north of Islamabad, and surrounded by ISI officers accompanied by a white woman. He was hooded and shackled and driven to a building where he was locked in a small cell that also had a camera fixed in a corner of the ceiling.

The man's description of the place where he was held suggests that it was the same secret interrogation centre in Rawalpindi at which Amin had been detained more than two years earlier.

For the first 14 days, he says, he was deprived of sleep, beaten about the head during interrogation, whipped on the thighs and buttocks with a rubber lash, and beaten on the soles of his feet with a wooden stick.

On the sixth or seventh day, he alleges, one of his interrogators took a pair of pliers from a box and removed a fingernail from his left hand. He says that at the end of this process he was given a painkilling injection and his finger was bandaged. He says that on the following day a second nail was removed, and a third the day after that. He says that after each of these torture sessions he was given painkillers and his finger bandaged.

'Shackled and blindfolded'

After two weeks, he says he was given a change of clothes, shackled, blindfolded and hooded, taken from the detention centre and driven for about 20 minutes. When his hood and blindfold were removed he found himself in a well-furnished office with drawn curtains. Two men in their 30s walked in, introduced themselves as being "from the British government", and questioned him for 30-40 minutes.

He says he was in obvious discomfort and his three fingers were clearly bandaged. He says he told these men that he had been tortured, but neither appeared to make any note of his complaint.

Eight months after his arrest, the man was transferred to prison. Five months after that he was driven to Islamabad airport where he says he met British consular officials for the first time. One, he says, told him he was returning to the UK where he would see his family and receive medical treatment. He says she also told him that consular officials had refused access to him.

On arrival at Heathrow, the man was arrested and taken to Manchester, where he discovered that four alleged associates had been arrested and questioned at the same time he says he was being tortured by the ISI. Two had been charged with terrorism offences, and he was charged with three counts of directing a terrorist organisation.

His lawyers are convinced that the two British officials who questioned him were from MI5, and that MI5 colluded in his torture. The lawyers say that three of his fingernails were missing when they first saw him, and that they have a pathologist's report that they say supports his allegation they were forcibly extracted. They also have a report from a psychiatrist who says the man is suffering from post-traumatic stress.

A third British citizen, Zeeshan Siddiqui, also claims that he was tortured in Pakistan before being interrogated by British officials. Siddiqui's claims should perhaps be treated with some caution, as he has a history of mental illness.

What is beyond dispute is that he was detained by the ISI and spent eight months in Pakistani custody accused of being a terrorist. Given the agency's reputation, it seems unlikely that he would have escaped mistreatment.

And given that he is from Hounslow, west London, that he is a former London underground worker, and that he had been a close friend of Asif Hanif, who killed himself and murdered three others in a suicide bomb attack in Tel Aviv in 2003, it would be extraordinary if British counter-terrorism officials did not want to question him.

'Catheter forcibly inserted'

Siddiqui, 27, claims that after being detained in Peshawar, Pakistan, in May 2005, ISI agents threatened him, beat him and injected him with a variety of drugs. He alleges that he was chained to a bed for 11 days, had chemicals injected up his nose and a feeding tube pushed down his throat.

He also says a catheter was forcibly inserted and removed from his penis, causing bleeding. He was then taken to prison, where he says he was questioned by British intelligence officers.

Siddiqui's description of his first meeting is remarkably similar to that of the 33-year-old's from Manchester. He says the British officers began by explaining that there were people at the consular division of the high commission whose job it was to help British citizens, but then stressed: "We want you to know that we are not those people, we are from British intelligence."

In an interview with the BBC after his release, Siddiqui said: "Every time they came I tried to make the point to them that I had been tortured. They admitted that they know the situation in Pakistan, the conditions were very bad in prison. They even acknowledged that, you know, torture is used in Pakistan."

It is unclear whether Siddiqui had been arrested at the request of UK authorities. Eventually he was released without charge and put aboard an aircraft to the UK, where he was subjected to a control order. In September 2006 he escaped from a psychiatric unit by climbing out of a window and has not been seen since.

Salahuddin Amin's account
'I felt as if my skin was ripping'

In an account that Salahuddin Amin has written of his 10 months as a prisoner of Pakistan's Inter-Services Intelligence agency, he describes how his first three days were spent in a cell with a small camera in the corner of the ceiling. The light was kept on all day and night, and guards banged on the door whenever he began to sleep. Not far away he could hear the sound of people being whipped and screaming. On the third day his interrogators began swearing and screaming at him and ordered a guard to bring two rubber whips.

They both started hitting me around my back, shoulders and thighs with full force. They were constantly hitting me and swearing at me. I was in extreme pain. I felt as if my skin was ripping apart. I broke down and started crying.

The word Allah came out of my mouth. The inspector started hitting me even harder when he heard the word Allah. Sometimes I wondered if they were really Muslims. At one point the inspector pointed at the camera and asked me if I knew there was a camera there, and I said yes. To this day I don't know why he said that.

After beating me for a few minutes, that seemed like hours, the inspector ordered the guard to get the drill. This is when I got really scared because I didn't know how far these people could go. I have heard many stories about them torturing people to death. I was in tears.

The drill machine was brought in and plugged in outside the room somewhere. It didn't work at first and the inspector shouted at the guard and said to make it work. I was praying that it wouldn't work, but it started working. The inspector told Sikander to drill a hole in my backside and he told me to face the wall and lift my shirt and I had no choice but to do so. Sikander came and warned me while the machine was running. He touched me.

I realised later it wasn't the drill machine he touched me with because I had no injuries, but at that point I really thought it was a drill. They were doing this to break me. I started saying to them that I would agree with whatever they would want me to.

That's when the inspector told me to sit on the stool and put my glasses back on. They then showed me a photograph of another terrorism suspect. I told them that I knew him, and met him in Luton ...

Namal College: A Great Step

Namal College: another feather in Imran Khan’s cap!
The News, April 28, 2008
By Mumtaz Alvi

ISLAMABAD: The prime minister, along with the chairman of the Pakistan Tehrik-e-Insaf, launched the quality Namal College in Mianwali on April 27.

The college is the brainchild of Imran Khan, who was appalled at the high level of unemployment among the youth of Mianwali. Therefore, in order to provide high quality training and employable skills, so that the youth of the district could earn a decent living, he wanted to open a college.

A large number of people gathered on Sunday for the inauguration of the college, including government ministers, educationists, and donors alongside the people of Mianwali, who have so generously donated the land on which the college has been built.

Imran's vision is to create a world-class research university and knowledge city where scholars can work and study in an Oxford-like academic environment. "This is the most beautiful location,” said Imran referring to the surroundings, "and exactly the right kind of environment to set up a centre of excellence. In a few years’ time, academics will work and live here."

Working alongside Imran for the last two years has been the University of Bradford, one of the leading universities in the UK, especially in engineering and management courses. The university has been ranked No 1 for graduate employment in the north of England in The Times League tables for the last five years and has a history of developing and delivering high quality and demand-driven degree programmes as well as an excellent reputation for research.

In December 2005, Imran was appointed the university's first international chancellor, succeeding four previous chancellors, the first of whom was Harold Wilson, Labour Prime Minister of Britain.

The University of Bradford has granted 'Associate College' status to Namal College. Commenting on the importance of the partnership with the Namal College, Vice Chancellor of the University of Bradford Mark Cleary said, "The university does not award Associate College status lightly. In our 42-year history since we were granted our Royal Charter, we have given this status to only eight Associate Colleges in the United Kingdom and only three around the world. We were, however, inspired by the vision and values for Namal College, which we felt were very similar to our own and to the commitment for excellence, exemplified by Shaukat Khanum Memorial Hospital, also a partner of the university, which we know will be demonstrated here at Namal College too."

The Bradford University will be involved in designing the courses and curriculum, in ensuring quality assurance mechanism and training and development for the faculty. Courses will be delivered in 4 phases. The Phase I will offer certificate courses, Phase II diploma courses, Phase III degree course and Phase IV research degrees.

The initial curriculum will be focused in the following areas: Construction (masons, carpenters, electricians), automotive engineering, electrical engineering with emphasis on appliances repairs; agricultural equipment engineering, development and maintenance, and cement industry work.

Majority of the students at the university will be on scholarships and come from areas where they would not have had the opportunities that the Namal College would offer. The Namal College will be of enormous benefit not only to the Mianwali district but also the whole of Pakistan. Over the long term, Namal College's "Knowledge City" will act as a best practice model for other regions of Pakistan to extend its benefits nationally, like the Shaukat Khanum is doing today.

Afghanistan: more troubled than troubling

Analysis: Afghanistan: more troubled than troubling —Rasul Bakhsh Rais
Daily Times, April 29, 2008

After more than six years of international involvement, Afghanistan has not clearly emerged out of the danger zone and remains a troubled country with high levels of violence. The Taliban attack on the military parade yesterday in the heart of Kabul was a stark reminder that the state and nation building process is still incomplete, infirm and vulnerable to clash of interests among social and political groups.

In the failure of the reconstruction of state and its institutions, the Taliban have found an opportunity to stage a comeback with larger numbers in their ranks, and perhaps with greater motivation. With every daring episode, it appears to indisputable that the Taliban have greater fighting capacity than they have had in years. What is more troubling is that they have found a great deal of support among the disillusioned local populations.

Afghanistan is once again gripped with fear, uncertainty and hopelessness because the gains in rebuilding its security, politics, society and economy are relatively limited. A lot of progress in Afghanistan has been made as the country has once again put some institutions back in place, and there is great international interest in its future, but growth and positive improvements are well short of popular expectations.

What really troubles Afghanistan? There is some frank discussion of failures, lost opportunities, misplaced priorities and structural constraints in rehabilitating the war-torn country. In a recent interview to the New York Times, President Hamid Karzai made three important comments about the situation in his country, which reveal a great deal about his disappointment, powerlessness and the dilemmas he and his country face today.

What strikes the reader is an open critique of American policy in handling his country; particularly the way the war on terror has been conducted. He appears to be critical of US and NATO forces for targeting Afghan villages and causing huge civilian causalities. Foreign forces have not been very sensitive to what happens to ordinary Afghans as long as they achieve their targets in pursuit of the Taliban.

Counterinsurgency wars have their own professional logic, but whatever happens on the ground has serious political consequences. The political fallout of regular bombardment of rural Pashtun areas and launching of ground operations is not pleasant for Mr Karzai or other Pashtun leaders cooperating with the United States and NATO.

The Pashtuns have been suffering from a sense of political alienation, and even re-integration through electoral politics and presence in the legislature has not eliminated the impression that that their ethnic rivals call the shots and dominate vital state institutions. The Pashtun estrangement has worked to the advantage of the Taliban. In conflicts like the one in Afghanistan, the political truth is what the general population feels and believes, not what the most powerful elements want them to think.

One of the many failures of the Afghan government and its international backers is that with each successive year in the war on terror, they have lost credibility. We know they have had an uphill task of convincing a warring nation with a long history of resistance against foreign invasion that this latest intervention and the raining of heavy bombs stuffed with depleted uranium is good for their future. Perhaps this line could get some acceptance if the positive gains of reconstruction and redevelopment are more visible.

Another important issue that creates a big gulf between the Afghan ruling group and the general population is who really runs the country. The question of sovereignty, although it does not mean effective writ of the state, is important in the Afghan political imagination. There is a growing sentiment in the country that their government has no control over important policies and in determining political direction.

This attitude is reflected in the growing critique of the way the US and NATO are conducting the war. The Afghans, including those in power, often assert that foreign forces have a bullish approach and hardly show any sensitivity to civilians caught in the crossfire.

The war on terror, which was anticipated to be brief, has taken too much time to pacify Afghanistan. It has created an impression that the Americans have occupied the country and are digging their heels for some larger strategic purpose. Anybody familiar with Afghan history would know that never have the Afghans been very kind to the invading armies.

We know the refrain from the contemporary war on terror; it is about state and nation building and it is aimed at the terrorists. However, local populations have to be convinced about why foreign forces are on their territory. The political experience of the Afghans during the past six years confirms their old fears that they are once again occupied.

These perceptions may have changed with greater signs of progress and development. The economic and social reconstruction that was expected is too late and too little, and has already fuelled discontent. And why wouldn’t the Taliban make a good political harvest of that sentiment, which they have effectively done in some parts of the country.

The situation in Afghanistan, though far from satisfactory, can improve with corrective measures and by learning from past mistakes. One remedial measure would be listening to the Afghans, their concerns and their expectations, which have not been adequately accommodated in the past. The Afghans must have a greater role in the war on terror by acquiring greater capacity to take ownership. It is indeed a very delicate but serious issue when the foreign soldiers are deployed in a country that does not have an independent capacity to secure itself from internal and external threats.

When foreign forces have put their lives at stake and used their taxpayers’ money and are accountable to their parliaments and peoples, they will exercise greater power than the local hosts. This is dilemma that the states involved in Afghanistan have found themselves in; a larger part of their sovereignty is lost in the hope that they would be built up as stable and secure societies to govern themselves better.

The Afghans have the social capacity to revive themselves and their society, which has been crippled by thirty years of war. The international coalition must turn to the revival of Afghanistan, which will be more effective path lead peace and harmony.

Dr Rasul Baksh Rais is author of Recovering the Frontier State: War, Ethnicity and State in Afghanistan (Lanham, Maryland: Lexington Books 2008) and a professor of Political Science at the Lahore University of Management Sciences. He can be reached at rasul@lums.edu.pk

Dialogue in the tribal areas

Analysis: Dialogue in the tribal areas — Najmuddin A Shaikh
Daily Times, April 27, 2008

The release of Maulvi Sufi Mohammad of the Tehrik-e Nifaz-e Shariat-e Mohammadi (TNSM) after 6 years of self-requested incarceration has been the first step taken by the new ANP government in the NWFP to commence a dialogue with “reconcilable” elements among those in the tribal areas who have hitherto followed the extremist path. The ISPR spokesman has made it clear that the armed forces were not involved in the negotiation of the agreement that led to the release and which apparently commits Sufi Mohammad to a renunciation of violence and the pursuit of his objectives through peaceful means.

There are of course questions about the degree of influence that Sufi Mohammad can exercise in today’s Swat or Malakand Division. He sought incarceration because following his disastrous effort to help the Taliban by sending thousands of callow impressionable youths from Pakistan to their death in Afghanistan, grief-stricken parents wanted to lynch him. His movement, which should have died out after this tragedy, was inexplicably allowed to resurrect itself possibly because of benign or malevolent neglect on the part of the MMA government in the Frontier.

Maulana Fazlullah, the estranged son in law of Sufi Mohammad, popularly known as Maulana Radio, managed to build a considerable following before the army moved against him Now the army claims that more than 90 percent of Swat is peaceful but the army is continuing to look for the remaining militant holdouts. Whether Sufi Mohammad will be able to break Fazlullah’s hold on the militants of the TNSM is certainly not clear though there are indications that after the army action, he has been left only with a ragtag band of followers.

I believe that Sufi Mohammad is genuinely a changed man, is genuinely desirous of peace and that he will, despite his infirmities, be able to rally the people of Swat who are clearly even more tired of Fazlullah’s antics than they are of the endemic corruption and inequities of the administrative system.

There is news today that the ANP government in Peshawar is close to finalising an agreement with the Mehsud tribes in North and South Waziristan. If the report is accurate it would provide, in return for the phased withdrawal of the army from the Agencies, for a renunciation of violence by the Mehsuds, for the expulsion of all foreign militants from the area within a month or at best two months, and for an acceptance of the writ of the government without any effort on the part of the tribesmen to set up a parallel administration.

Can the Mehsud tribesmen deliver on this sort of agreement? We have had one example in the past of a government-sponsored tribal effort to rid the region of foreign militants but after some initial success it seems that the foreign militants have returned. The American commander in Afghanistan says that he has seen intelligence reports about fresh batches of foreigners arriving in the tribal areas.

Earlier in an exclusive interview with Newsweek, our new prime minister had laid out his government’s policy saying in part: “We are not in favour of talking to the militants and hardliners. We want to only talk to people who have laid down and decommissioned their arms...We will not be blackmailed by them.”

When asked if they would be required to put down their arms only against Pakistan or against Afghanistan also, the prime minister said, “This [extremism] is a war against humanity, the world community. How can we separate the others [allies and neighbours] from us?”

Are the agreements being reached in conflict with the policy enunciated by the prime minister? Clearly in both cases, agreements are not being reached with the militants but with a leader who has renounced violence in one case and with tribal leaders in the other. The Mehsud agreement has not explicitly ruled out support for cross border activity but if foreigners are expelled this would automatically happen.

Be that as it may, there is really no way that even with the best of intentions these agreements will be sustained unless the underlying issues that give rise to extremism — the absence of political voices other than those of the Mullah in the mosque and the high rate of unemployment among disaffected youth — are addressed. It is the latter issue that I want to address.

The new government has apparently spoken in the proposed agreement with the Mehsuds about the tribesmen providing safe working conditions for local and foreign contractors doing development work in the region but nothing seems to have been spelt out with regard to the volume of work that the political administration will be undertaking.

And yet that is where we must focus. If I recall correctly the government of Pakistan has set aside Rs10 billion for development work in the tribal areas and I assume that this allocation will be maintained irrespective of the problems that the economy may face elsewhere. The Americans have promised to provide the equivalent of Rs9 billion a year for the next five years and already there is talk in the American Senate of tripling American economic assistance to Pakistan, of which it is safe to assume a substantial amount will be earmarked for the tribal areas.

The FATA Secretariat, created some 18 months ago in Peshawar, has, I am sure, been working on identifying development projects in the area and these would include schools, hospitals roads, small dams etc. Would the employment generated by these projects be for the tribal youth? This may be difficult given their present lack of skills.

I would therefore argue that every agreement with the tribal maliks and elders must include a provision under which every malik or elder will, in consultation with his tribesmen, be authorised to nominate 500 to 1000 youth to whom the government would offer training in vocational schools to be set up in the settled districts. These youth, who could be offered a stipend during the period of training, would then return to their homes in a year’s time to secure employment in these development projects for which contracts should be allotted as far as possible to locals.

It will be argued that vocational schools are far and few between and setting up new schools would take time. I would recommend that we can if necessary set up tent cities in Kohat, Bannu Charsadda etc. to cater to these aspiring carpenters, masons, bulldozer operators etc. Even if a billion rupees were to be spent annually on this exercise to train some 30,000 skilled workers, it would be a worthwhile exercise and perhaps be the best antidote to the fever of extremism that is raging in the region.

Another reason for doing so to my mind is that some 24 months after the proposal was first made, the legislation for allowing duty free entry into the United States for products made in the “Reconstruction Opportunity Zones”, that are to be set up in the Pak-Afghan border area, has reached the American Congress in March this year. One assumes that the FATA Secretariat is in discussions with Pakistani and foreign industrialists on what industries are to be set up and as a logical corollary to determine the skills that locals will have to acquire to work in these factories.

With the help of tribal elders and in consultation with the industrialists the administration should select young men who can be sent to existing factories in Sindh and Punjab to learn the skills they will need to operate these factories. The local youth and their elders must be able to see in this industrialisation process, immediate and long-term opportunities to be more than the drawers of water and the hewers of wood.

The writer is a former foreign secretary of Pakistan.

Sunday, April 27, 2008

Western allies must give Pakistan peace a chance

Western allies must give Pakistan peace a chance: analysts
AFP - April 27, 2008

ISLAMABAD (AFP) — Pakistan's new government is expected to sign a peace deal with Taliban rebels this week, but the pact can only succeed if US and NATO allies with troops in Afghanistan give it time, analysts say.

The government last week drew up a draft accord with militants in Pakistan's tribal belt bordering Afghanistan -- the possible hiding place of Osama bin Laden -- while a rebel commander declared a unilateral ceasefire.

But Washington and Kabul have expressed fears that Al-Qaeda and the Taliban will regroup in the lawless mountain region if the new administration abandons President Pervez Musharraf's hardline support for the "war on terror".

"Pakistan's new leaders must be given a chance to address the issue through political means," said Hasan Askari, a political analyst at Johns Hopkins University in Washington DC.

"If they can wean away some groups from militancy it will be a success, and those who insist on violence can be dealt with through other means," he said.

A coalition led by the parties of former premiers Benazir Bhutto and Nawaz Sharif defeated Musharraf's backers in elections in February and quickly announced a rethink of the president's counter-terrorism strategy.

Musharraf's army operations against militants who fled during the US-led invasion of Afghanistan after the September 11, 2001 attacks have been hugely unpopular at home.

The violence has spread across Pakistan since early 2007, with a wave of suicide bombings killing more than 1,000 people, including Bhutto herself.

The new government has vowed not to negotiate with "foreign" rebels -- meaning mainly Arab Al-Qaeda rebels or Afghan Taliban -- but says it will talk to pro-Taliban Pakistani tribesmen who want reconciliation.

These include Taliban chieftain Baitullah Mehsud, the rebel who ordered his fighters on Wednesday to stop all attacks. The previous government accused him of masterminding Bhutto's assassination on December 27 last year.

The head of security in the tribal areas from 2002-2006, Brigadier Mahmood Shah, said Pakistan's new leaders should be cautious.

"The government should not be in a hurry to sign a peace deal with militants," Shah told AFP. "It needs to understand all dimensions of the problem, otherwise it will just be a piece of paper."

In-depth talks with the region's ever-feuding patchwork of Pashtun tribes were needed to prevent future disagreements about which chieftains they would obey, while development assistance is vital, he added.

American and Afghan officials remain sceptical, though, about any kind of peace deal in an area that the United States has branded a haven for Al-Qaeda and Taliban rebels plotting attacks in Afghanistan and internationally.

The US demonstrated its preferred approach earlier this year when it launched several missile strikes in the tribal belt. It has also criticised earlier, failed, peace deals in the region.

Shah admitted that the "success of the peace accord will depend on a reduction in attacks in Afghanistan" but estimated that only 10 to 15 percent of militant activity there originated in Pakistan.

"You cannot underwrite American security in Afghanistan. Foreign and Afghan forces also have a responsibility to check cross-border movement," said Shah.

Analyst Rasul Baksh Rais said the use of force by international and Afghan troops in Afghanistan had not produced results there and would also fail in Pakistan.

"Musharraf did the same thing as (Afghan President Hamid) Karzai was doing and as a result both have alienated the local population," said Rais, a political scientist at Lahore's University of Management Sciences.

"This new government needs to have an opportunity to do what it wants to. If it fails it can go back to the old strategy."

Rais added that previous peace pacts did not work "because of US pressure."

"When Pakistan was making deals the US started hitting targets directly and that raised questions about Islamabad's ability to handle things," he said.

Target: Bin Laden By Steve Coll

Target: Bin Laden By Steve Coll
Los Angeles Times, April 13, 2008
The shaky politics of Pakistan and doubts about Al Qaeda could soon put the terrorist leader in our grasp.

Osama bin Laden lives among friends, follows news on satellite television or the Internet and reads books about American foreign policy; this much can be safely inferred from his periodic audio and video statements. His latest topical punditry surfaced just a few weeks ago on jihadi websites when he addressed violence in Gaza and the pope's travels.

Because of his passable grasp of current events, Bin Laden may well understand what many Americans do not: that he is more likely to be killed or captured during the next year or so than at any time since late 2001, when he escaped U.S. warplanes bombing him in eastern Afghanistan, at Tora Bora.

This welcome change in probabilities has almost nothing to do with the Bush administration's counter-terrorism strategy, which remains rudderless and starved of resources because of the war in Iraq. It is a consequence, instead, of dramatic political changes in Pakistan, where Bin Laden is believed to be hiding and where Al Qaeda's local mistakes and the restoration of civilian democracy have combined to make him considerably less safe.

Bin Laden's personal approval rating in Pakistan, as measured by a number of international polls, is plummeting. Beginning last year, Al Qaeda began to support an unprecedented wave of suicide bombings on Pakistani soil; the campaign culminated in the murder of two-time former Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto in December. Before, when Bin Laden targeted the United States and Europe, many Pakistanis saw him as an Islamic folk hero. But although Pakistanis remain deeply skeptical about the United States, they have changed their thinking about Al Qaeda as hundreds of their own innocent civilians have become its victims.

In a poll released in February, Terror Free Tomorrow, a Washington-based nonprofit group, found that Bin Laden's popularity had fallen by half over just six months, to about 24%. In the Northwest Frontier Province, along the Afghan borderlands where he is most likely to be hiding, it fell into single digits. Recent British polling in the most radicalized border areas is less encouraging, but there is no doubt that the general picture in the Northwest Frontier is one of increasing anxiety and resentment toward Al Qaeda.

These souring attitudes are important because, in the past, hunts for terrorists hiding in Pakistan have almost always ended when a disillusioned (and generally greedy) local resident has dropped a dime on the fugitive for reward money. During the 1990s, for example, it took a number of frustrating years until the United States tracked down Mir Amal Kasi, a Pakistani who killed two CIA workers outside the agency's headquarters in 1993. It took about as long to locate Ramzi Ahmed Yousef, the architect of the first World Trade Center bombing; colleagues ultimately betrayed both men. Now that a larger number of Pakistanis see Bin Laden as a nihilistic killer, the chances that such a walk-in informant will surface have grown.

So have the odds that the Pakistani government will act on such information. For six years after the 9/11 attacks, the Bush administration undermined the search for Bin Laden by organizing its alliance with Pakistan in a way that created perverse incentives -- incentives that actually encouraged the Pakistanis not to find him. It did this by providing unquestioning support to the country's military leader, President Pervez Musharraf, and by sending more than 90% of its $10 billion-plus in aid to the Pakistan army or the army-controlled government. Much of this aid is still paid today as direct "rent" for counter-terrorism operations by the army and its principal intelligence branch.

The structure of this U.S.-aid pipeline, set against the decades-long history of on-again, off-again American support for Pakistan, encouraged Pakistan's top military commanders to believe that if Bin Laden were ever captured or killed, the U.S. might reduce its support or even go home. A fugitive Bin Laden became their meal ticket.

Now these incentives have been at least partly reversed. Musharraf's popularity and authority have collapsed in Pakistan following a succession of political blunders. Bhutto's widower, Asif Ali Zardari, who leads the newly elected civilian government behind the scenes, claimed before the national vote in February -- both at home and in Washington -- that the restoration of democracy would be a much more reliable means to defeat terrorism in Pakistan than America's narrow reliance on Musharraf. Zardari's more sophisticated advisors, such as Pakistan's new ambassador at large, Husain Haqqani, a long-time professor at Boston University, understand that this theory of democracy-as-counter-terrorism is viewed with considerable skepticism at the Pentagon and inside Washington's intelligence bureaucracy.

Pakistan's new democratic government should now be motivated to prove its case. Delivering Bin Laden -- which Musharraf's government so conspicuously failed to do -- would be a coup of global proportions for Pakistan's new civilian leaders, and it would bring considerable political and other rewards to Islamabad. It would demonstrate, in the most dramatic way possible, that a democratic government can be as effective a partner in counter-terrorism as the army, if not more so, and by doing this, it would change debate in Washington and Europe about the costs and benefits of investing in democracy in Pakistan.

This new equation of incentives inside Pakistan is highly complex -- for example, the army and the intelligence service have their own institutional interests, and this may lead them to resist entreaties from civilian leaders to step up the hunt for Bin Laden -- but the previous stalemate that governed the hunt, and which led to years of willful and self-conscious passivity in Pakistan's leadership, has at last been broken. Now, at least somebody in Pakistan's government has a good reason to find Bin Laden. And striking at a time when the Al Qaeda leader's local popularity has collapsed reduces the domestic political risks.

Where would they look? All of the best evidence -- the media pipeline that delivers Bin Laden's statements; the circumstantial evidence visible in his videos; fragments of available intelligence reporting and the known history of his movements -- points to Pakistan. Anything, of course, is possible -- perhaps we will discover some day that he was living all along in a suburb of Paris and conducting the most successful deception operation in history. But that seems unlikely.

Within Pakistan, an urban hideaway cannot be ruled out. Other Al Qaeda fugitives, such as Abu Zubaydah and Khalid Shaikh Mohammed, have been discovered in Pakistan's cities. But even if Bin Laden has shaved his beard and filled his wardrobe with baggy jeans, he would be taking enormous risks if he set up in a Karachi condo or a Rawalpindi town house.

By far the most likely scenario, as officials have repeatedly suggested, is that he has hunkered down in a secluded, mud-walled tribal compound along the Afghan border. This is territory where he has had many friends for years and where Pakistan's national government today has very little presence. The tribal agencies of North Waziristan and Bajaur seem the most likely sanctuaries. Unfortunately, "narrowing" the search to such vast and remote places along Pakistan's 1,200-mile border with Afghanistan is like narrowing a search to Alaska -- if Alaska's population were deeply hostile to outsiders.

Would it matter much if Bin Laden were killed or caught? Al Qaeda has grown beyond the point where decapitating its leadership would end the organization, but Bin Laden has been a charismatic leader, and if he were killed, the resulting succession struggles might prove problematic for the organization. If he is not captured, silencing his on-air commentary would also be moderately helpful.

But the biggest reason to find him is the same as it has been since November 2001. That month, a video discovered in Afghanistan showed a notably self-satisfied Bin Laden smiling as he described how, on the basis of his engineering studies, he had calculated that fire and explosions from the 9/11 attacks might cause a few interior floors of the Twin Towers to collapse, crushing those inside, but that he had been surprised -- and delighted, as his tone of voice conveyed -- that the World Trade Center buildings had collapsed completely. The simplest principles of justice remain more than ample in this cause.

Steve Coll, president of the New America Foundation and a staff writer at the New Yorker, is the author of "The Bin Ladens: An Arabian Family in the American Century." His previous book, "Ghost Wars," won the Pulitzer Prize for nonfiction in 2005.

Who is Mangal Bagh?

Bus driver who now rules the Khyber Pass
Scotsman, April 27, 2008

AN ISLAMIC warlord who holds sway in Pakistan's famous Khyber Pass may now be the only force stopping Pakistan's Taleban from swooping in to cut off vital Nato supply routes to neighbouring Afghanistan.

Former bus driver Mangal Bagh, who leads a group called Lashkar-i-Islam, said that he has rebuffed an offer from Pakistan's Taleban to join them. Although he voiced his disdain for the United States, his continued independence is likely to be pivotal for NATO troops fighting in Afghanistan.

The Khyber agency, which is part of Pakistan's tribal belt and is now largely in Mr Bagh's control, is the lifeline for Nato soldiers in Afghanistan. Lorry loads of food, equipment and fuel wind through the Khyber Pass daily to the bustling border at Torkham. Last week, fighting between Mr Bagh's men and a pocket of resistance around the town of Jamrut closed the "Pak-Afghan" highway for days.

Mr Bagh's stronghold, the market town of Bara, is just a half hour drive from the city centre of the provincial capital, Peshawar. An escort of his heavily armed followers is needed to reach his fortified compound in the countryside nearby.

"I'm not the ruler of Khyber, I'm the servant," said Mr Bagh, with an unexpectedly gentle manner, as he relaxed with his Kalashnikov-toting men, drinking tea. "My aim is to finish all social evils."

He has received repeated entreaties to combine forces with the Pakistani Taleban, who run other parts of the country's wild north western border, known as the Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA). A traditional jirga – meeting of elders – was held between Lashkar-i-Islam and the Taleban about 40 days ago.

"I told them (the Taleban] that what I am doing is enough. It is the right direction. There is no need to join you," he said.

"The Taleban consists of religious scholars. We are fighters for Islam, lay people. We don't have any religious figures in our organisation."

However, he said, the US intervention in Afghanistan was "wrong" and its forces must leave. "While the Americans are in Afghanistan, there is no way to bring peace and prosperity, over there and here," Mr Bagh said. "We do not want to kill Americans, we just want to make them Muslims."

Locals said that Mangal Bagh would not allow Taleban fighters to cross into Khyber. If they ever got into the area however, the Taleban could potentially choke off the Pak-Afghan highway. Last month they bombed fuel lorries waiting at Torkham to cross into Afghanistan.

In contrast to the Taleban, Lashkar-i-Islam forbids kidnapping and suicide bombings. Mr Bagh's message is more an austere one, that "vices" must end, not the international jihad of the Taleban and Al-Qaeda.

The Pakistani state seems to have withdrawn from Bara and much of Khyber agency and it has taken no recent action to rein in Mr Bagh. In Bara town, the local government office was padlocked and no army or police were visible on the streets. Lashkar-i-Islam have become the de facto police, driving around in four-wheel-drive vehicles that even have a blue flashing light.

A local politician, who declined to be identified, said: "If we finish Mangal Bagh, the Taleban will come in. He's a better alternative. At least he will never pick up his gun against Pakistan."

In Bara, there were no women walking around. The Lashkar-i-Islam's harsh strictures, delivered through a pirate radio station, appear to have driven them indoors. In the market, local people praised Mr Bagh for cracking down on rampant crime – though it would be a brave man to openly criticise him. Praying five times a day at the mosque is now mandatory.

Mr Bagh, known as the "Emir", said that he had over 10,000 men under his command and could call on up to 120,000 – which would be greater than the Pakistan army soldiers stationed in the region. The 35-year-old has built an empire in just three years from humble origins. He used to drive a bus.

He said that people's frustration with the failure of the state to deliver law and order brought them flocking to him.

"I just preached, praised Islam, it was not difficult for me to organise these people. They are not my followers, they are followers of the Koran."

Mr Bagh belongs to the Afridi tribe, the biggest clan in the 2,500 sq km Khyber agency, with a population of about 550,000 and seen as the most developed part of FATA. He said his writ ran over almost the whole of Khyber. Others suggested that while he has Bara and its surrounding area, his command elsewhere is less certain.

The Jamrut battles showed just how close Lashkar-i-Islam is to "settled" areas of Pakistan. The fighting spread to an industrial estate in Hayatabad, a suburb of Peshawar, forcing factories to shut down.

Mr Bagh suggested that his movement could branch out of Khyber – an ominous prospect for the rest of Pakistan.


STRATEGIC IMPORTANCE

LINKING Pakistan and Afghanistan, the Khyber Pass has for centuries been an important trade route between and strategic military locations. As with many passes, the start and finish are ill-defined.

Recorded invasions through the Khyber begin with the conquests of Alexander the Great and also include later Muslim invasions of South Asia.

From India, the British invaded Afghanistan and fought three Afghan Wars in 1839-42, 1878-80 and 1919.

More recently, the pass became widely known to thousands of westerners and Japanese who travelled it in the days of the Hippie trail. It has also been connected with a counterfeit arms industry.

Civil Services facing unprecedented downfall

Civil Services facing unprecedented downfall
The News, April 25, 2008
By Ansar Abbasi

ISLAMABAD: The country's Civil Services structure is facing an unprecedented downfall with educated youth losing interest in civil bureaucracy as the latest Central Superior Services (CSS) competition could not even produce the number of successful candidates against the available posts.

Against the total 290 available posts, the number of successful candidates in the 2007 CSS competition was merely 190, leaving almost 100 vacancies unoccupied till fresh induction is made through the next CSS competition. The government is now in the process of allocating services to successful candidates of the 2007 CSS competition.

"This is an extremely serious trend," a senior government servant told this correspondent, adding that because of the government's apathy, the civil bureaucracy had lost its charm for the country's talented and educated youth, who were now more interested in joining private jobs than what were once considered the prime Civil Services of Pakistan.

According to sources, last year too the government could not get enough number of successful CSS candidates to fill in the available posts. The last year's deficiency was 47. A source in the Federal Public Service Commission said that the CSS competitors were mostly average and below average these days because of which even those who just met the minimum threshold were inducted into the Civil Services.

Although, President Musharraf's devolution plan that had abolished the office of deputy commissioner was considered a serious blow to the attractions of the Civil Service structure, it was actually the military regime's indifference towards the reformation of civil bureaucracy that led to the present sorry state of affairs.

Different reform proposals were made but the military regime never had the time to approve any of them. Interestingly, different organisations were made for the purpose, a large amount of taxpayers' money was spent but the status quo never changed.

To further the deterioration of the Civil Services, the country's civilian bureaucracy was militarised in a unique fashion with retired generals becoming virtual masters of their fate. For the first time in the history of the country's Civil Services, almost every key aspect of the bureaucracy's service matter was given into the hands of retired generals. This situation in most cases continues even as of today.

From the civil servants initial appointment to early, mid career and senior level training, promotions and even the Civil Services reform agenda is today decided by ex-servicemen. Initial induction into the elite Civil Services groups and services is made through the Central Superior Services competition by the Federal Public Service Commission (FPSC), whose chairman is a retired general, Lt Gen Shahid Hamid. Hamid is though not the first-ever chairman FPSC, this is for the first time that the FPSC today has three ex-servicemen as its members.

Those declared successful by the FPSC and later inducted into different services/groups of the Civil Services on the basis of merit and provincial/regional quota are sent to the Civil Services Academy, Lahore, for one year joint training.

The Civil Services Academy (CSA), Lahore, is today headed by retired Major General Sikandar Shami, who is the first-ever director general of the CSA coming from the Army. The CSA provides civil servants the basics of civilian bureaucracy.

Sikandar Shami was previously director general of the National Institute of Public Administration (NIPA), Lahore. NIPA is a civil service training institution that offers mandatory course for promotion to BS-19 officers. Without doing NIPA, an officer cannot be promoted to BS-20. Shami handled the NIPA quite strictly, on military lines, which was the reason that a number of officers had declined to join NIPA, Lahore, and preferred to go to Peshawar, Quetta or Karachi.

All the provincial headquarters have one NIPA each. The Peshawar NIPA is also headed by a retired general i.e. Major General Akbar Saeed Awan. The NIPA Karachi too was led by retired Major General Khalid Naeem while NIPA Quetta was led by a retired air force officer.

Not only, that ex-servicemen are the master trainers in NIPAs for mid-career officers, it is also a retired general Javed Hasan, who is the principal of Pakistan Administrative Staff College (PASC), Lahore.

To become eligible for promotion to BS-21, it is mandatory for government servants to attend either the civilian PASC or the military training institution called the National Defence College (NDC). The NDC always remained under the military though this is for the first time that the PASC is being led by a retired general.

Lt Gen (retd) Javed Hasan is not only the principal of the PASC but he is also the Rector of the National School of Public Policy (NSPP), which was set-up a few years back to train and equip civil servants with the right skills to enable them to effectively do their jobs. The authors of the NSPP had never thought that a retired general would run the institution.

Under General Hasan, quite a few retired brigadiers and colonels are serving as master trainers in the top civilian training entity. For senior-level promotions to BS-20 and BS-21, it is the high-powered Central Selection Board (CSB) that recommends promotions. The CSB, interestingly, is headed by a retired general as well. The FPSC chairman Lt Gen (retd) Javed Hamid is also the chairman of the CSB.

There is yet another retired general, Maj General Asif Ali Bukhari, who heads the Civil Services Reforms Unit (CSRU), which is responsible for the Civil Service reforms in the country. The CSRU is responsible for formulating and presenting technical recommendations in order to support Civil Service reforms through outsourcing technical studies and organising seminars/workshops by involving all the stakeholders at the provincial and national level to develop consensus on various aspects of the Civil Service reforms. Bukhari has almost completed three years as head of the CSRU but no one knows what has been his contribution towards the reformation of the Civil Services so far.

Book Review: Links in Sustainable Development: South Asian Perspectives

REVIEW: Considering South Asia: Reviewed by Moniza Inam
Dawn, April 26, 2008

Missing Links in Sustainable Development: South Asian perspectives
Sustainable Development Policy Institute (SDPI)
Sama Editorial & Publishing Services, Karachi; ISBN 969-8784-60-7; 385pp. Rs795


The book under review is an anthology published by the Sustainable Development Policy Institute (SDPI) on its ninth annual conference. The theme for the year — which is also the title of the book — is Missing Links in Sustainable Development: South Asian perspectives. The collection has been divided into three major sections: gender and human security; economics of globalisation; and peoples’ rights and livelihood. The issues addressed are not new for South Asians. What is distinctive is the manner in which the writers have presented their views both intelligently and creatively. The book presents a thorough evaluation of topics in the broad spectrum of theoretical and policy perspective.

Saba Gul Khatak and Kiran Habib have discussed in detail the issues concerning the security of women in Pakistan and Bangladesh. According to the writers, the situation is rather similar in both countries: ‘The lack of meaningful decentralisation, the existence of factional politics, the normalisation of violence and corruption in everyday life, the denial of rights and freedoms to the common people, especially women and minorities are the issues that concern human security debates in both countries.’

Though women enjoy constitutional guarantees and legal safeguards, their status in the society is very low even by South Asian standards. In this regard, the authors have mentioned traditions such as honour killings, swara and vani in case of Pakistan and fatwas and acid attacks in Bangladesh, apart from trafficking which is a common threat for women dwelling in both nations.

Moreover, structural inequalities and discrimination are rampant in all spheres and at all levels of life. The writers believe that the very structures that are meant to protect the fair sex play a critical role in making them insecure: ‘We have traced the link between the institution of the family, community and the state that collide together to perpetuate women’s subordinate status.’ Nazish Brohi, Urvashi Butalia and Emma Varley have also contributed their papers in this section.

In the second section, Karin Astrid Siegmann has written a very informative paper on gender and economic integration in South Asia. Being traditional societies, the region has the lowest female labour force participation rate globally after the Middle East and North Africa. As a result, India, Nepal, Bangladesh and Pakistan rank 99 to 107 on the gender development index (GDI). The writer has analysed how global economic integration has influenced and interacted with gender imbalance in South Asia. Her findings are very depressing as the results of globalisation have not trickled down to or had any effect on female workers. As a result, they lag behind in the quest for employment due to their poor educational background and are mostly being hired as unskilled workers in the labour-intensive sector.

In the same section, Rajesh Kumar has written a paper on the prospects of peace between India and Pakistan by following the China Model, which means that New Delhi and Islamabad should aggressively improve their business relationship without worrying about addressing unresolved political differences. The China Model enthusiasts hypothesise that Beijing and New Delhi have been able to contain their political differences by adopting a similar strategy.

However, the writer is well aware of the difficulties that lie in the way of peace. There is a strong lobby — extremists and certain sections of the military with vested interests in maintaining the status quo in both countries — which is not ready to yield any kind of concessions and believes in the total annihilation of the opponent. Though the Indian government is more open to the idea, Pakistan’s stand is more unequivocal and it is not ready to put the Kashmir issue on the backburner.

In present circumstances, this is very unfortunate because they are still trapped in the Cold War mindset whereas the rest of the world is making unbridled progress in trade and globalisation. Adding insult to injury is the fact that South Asia remains the most impoverished region in the world in terms of income as well as human development indicators such as health and education. It is said that the largest number of poor in the world live in South Asia.

In the last section, Sobia Nazir and Abid Qauiyum Suleri have assessed the state of livelihood assets in the earthquake-affected areas in Pakistan. There is no doubt that the October 8, 2005 earthquake was the worst natural calamity to hit the region in recent history. Nearly 87,000 people were killed, three million have been affected and approximately 500,000 households lost their livelihood. The disaster has changed the social dynamics of the region, and at the same time damaged the sufferers’ potential earning capacities. The paper has analysed the dilemma of the affected people in a very logical and scientific manner and has also provided policy recommendations as well.

Analysing the findings of their research, the writers believe that contrary to popular belief, human assets suffered the most significant damage due to the earthquake. The damage resulted in reduced capacity and capability of the local people for earning, dismantling the social set-up and threatening livelihoods. Though natural assets (agricultural land, irrigation system), financial assets (houses, livestock) and physical assets (home appliances, kitchen utensils, bedding, clothing and furniture) were all damaged, with the help of local and international NGOs, the government and philanthropists, a majority of these were repaired or replaced. In this context, Nazir and Suleri have given many policy recommendations to transform this tragedy into an opportunity to rebuild lives and livelihood with more sustainability and resilience. Several other writers have also contributed to this section.

The book is a unique compilation as it contains ideas from activists as well as research and policy communities on different issues across South Asia. It emphasises pro-women, pro-poor and pro-people approaches in a local, national, regional and global context and suggests steps towards change. It is therefore highly recommended for students, teachers, policy makers, scholars, journalists and development workers.

Don't Hang Sarabjeet Singh

COMMENT: Don’t hang him — Moeed Pirzada
Daily Times, April 27, 2008
Musharraf must be persuaded to let Sarabjeet Singh walk freely to embrace his daughter Swapandeep. But for that to happen, the Indian media and leadership must do some soul-searching

Sarabjeet Singh, accused of working for the Indian intelligence agency, Research & Analysis Wing (RAW), was convicted by Pakistani courts for causing series of bomb blasts in Lahore, in 1990. He is set to die by hanging anytime after April 30. But this won’t serve anyone and shouldn’t happen.

He has already spent 18 years in jail. President Musharraf can commute his sentence or set him free to embrace his young daughter, Swapandeep Kaur, who was a toddler when he left. But this is not an easy decision for a president who has often been accused of being an appeaser to the Americans and Indians by his countrymen.

Sarabjeet was found guilty of three separate bomb blasts, 14 deaths, dozens injured and fear and havoc in the cities of Lahore and Multan. It is believed to be part of RAW’s retaliation against ISI’s support for Khalistani separatists in Indian Punjab.

Pakistan’s human rights activist, Ansar Burney, the family of Sarabjeet and other supporters in Indian Punjab, argue that this is a case of mistaken identity. That is true to the extent that the Pakistani prosecution and witnesses had identified him as one “Manjit Singh”. But that also proves that — if he indeed was a RAW agent then — throughout the court process, he successfully stuck to the invented identity his ruthless planters had provided him.

But this technicality is not my plea. Eighteen years down the bridge, and remembering all the summers, the winters and the autumns of conflict that have since passed, I now await the spring of Pakistan-India friendship. Someone had said: if you keep your face towards the sun, you don’t see the shadows. Are we going to let ourselves be hostage to the reactive mindset of RAW pinheads retaliating against ISI thickheads, and that too eighteen years ago?

Yes! I agree — in the current globally imposed jargon, so wholeheartedly adopted by the establishment in Delhi — Sarabjeet was a terrorist. But even then if we send him back in a coffin it will become another unfortunate symbol of negativity. It is not about Sarabjeet or his old bosses in RAW; it is about Pakistan and India. And this is an age of 24/7 TV channels.

Let me take you back to summer of 1999 and Kargil. In the Pakistani consciousness, restrained by the political compulsions and etiquettes of state broadcaster PTV, Kargil was never more than a blip; a remote border conflict.

Most of us watched sanitised bits and pieces on BBC. But in Indian homes and minds, from Shimla to Kochin, fed by a plethora of private TV channels, and thousands of cable broadcasters, it was the re-birth of a new and angry nationalism; first united in the sense of shock, helplessness and humiliation and then in a powerful surge of victory against the Pakistani intruders. Barkha Dutt, the indomitable Indian anchorperson, first became an all-India household name only during Kargil.

Now nine years down the line, Pakistan is swarming with fifty TV channels scanning the horizon and dredging the fields to find something to attract eyeballs and blow the minds. They have already locked Musharraf into his presidency and if the generals have really understood what has happened then they will decide to stay inside the barracks for a long time to come.

Following the events since 9/11, most Pakistanis were convinced that Indians fail to reciprocate their gestures of peace or goodwill. Now in their screen driven mass consciousness, New Delhi has already exported a very disturbing visual.

Millions in Pakistan watched released prisoner, Kashmir Singh — healthy and smiling — walking back across Wagah. And literally within 48 to 72 hours, in utter disbelief, they saw Indians sending back a Pakistani Khalid Mehmood — his emaciated corpse bearing marks of electrocutions and boiling water — packed in a coffin.

Back in Delhi, Kashmir Singh boasted: Yes, he was a spy. What about Khalid Mehmood? Till his death the only official charge against him was that he was in India without a passport. His family insists: he went to watch a cricket match; lost his passport and was tortured in jail for two years. The contrast could not have been starker and grim.

At this stage, India clearly needs to do something to ease the Pakistani consciousness, to let us believe that it stands by what it preaches; that for Pakistan its media, politics and bureaucracy have something other than biliary feelings of contempt and a superiority complex.

Sarabjeet’s sister is active in BJP in Punjab so LK Advani, the BJP’s prime ministerial candidate, has written a letter to Pakistani PM urging him to “adopt a bold step and grant clemency to Sarabjeet Singh...such an act of magnanimity will win the goodwill of the Indian people and buttress our common objective in South Asia — the pursuit of peace on the sub-continent.”

Who will disagree with these words? But will Advani Ji write a similar letter to the Indian President demanding clemency for Afzal Guru? Afzal was, along with three others, accused of masterminding the attack on the Indian parliament in December 2001. He remains on death row despite the Indian Supreme Court in its judgement of Aug 2005 observing that the evidence against him was only circumstantial and that there was no evidence that he belonged to any terrorist group. Unfortunately, far from pleading clemency, Advani had demanded immediate hanging for Afzal; even a day’s delay is against national interest, he argued.

The All India Anti-Terrorist Front chief Bitta urges the Indian President not to accept any clemency pleas on Afzal’s behalf. He warns his organisation will launch agitation if Afzal was pardoned. Indian star, Shahrukh Khan, whose film Veer Zaara reminds many of the fate of Sarabjeet, too demands clemency for Sarabjeet; but will King Khan be bold enough to demand clemency for another man who was never even provided a lawyer to defend his case?

The problem may lie with India’s electronic media. Over the years the whole official narrative of the attack on parliament has lost its credibility thanks in no small measure to the efforts of brave Indians like Nandita Haksar, Arundhati Roy and Harsh Mandir to name just a few. But Indian TV channels forgot to ask the difficult questions; they failed in their duty to update the nation. The result is that even at the end of 2006, an India Today poll showed that 78 percent of the public favours death penalty for Afzal.

Musharraf must be persuaded to let Sarabjeet walk freely to embrace his daughter Swapandeep. But for that to happen, the Indian media and leadership must do some soul-searching. This is all about symbolism and identity and the Indians need to make a high profile noble gesture to ease the tension, to strengthen the persuasive powers of the Pakistani human right activist, Ansar Burni. Advani Ji’s kind of hypocrisy won’t help.

Moeed Pirzada, a broadcaster and political analyst with GEO TV, has been a Britannia Chevening Scholar at London School of Economics & Political Science. Email: mp846@columbia.edu

Never Again?

Never Again
By Javed Hussain; Dawn, April 15, 2008

SINCE the founding of Pakistan 60 years ago, army chiefs have ruled over the country for 33 years, while for 11 years after the crash of the C-130, they remained the real power behind the throne.

They had a golden opportunity to modernise Pakistan and earn for it an enviable position in the world. Their names would then have been carved with pride in the hallowed earth of their country. Instead, they throttled democracy, mutilated the constitutions, destroyed the institutions of the state, blundered into two major wars and a minor one, destroyed the basis on which Pakistan was founded, and put the country back in time and space.

They are reviled by the people, for all the money invested in their institution has given the people nothing in return except tinpot dictators, a truncated country, national humiliation and wasted years.

Yet for all their transgressions against the state, the people would still have forgiven the first two dictators if they had won victories on the battlefield in the two major wars that they had provoked and lost. It is not that the opportunities did not come their way. It is that they were not seized.

In 1965, the field marshal set out to conquer Kashmir. His plan was to send 5,000 infiltrators into Indian-held Kashmir (IHK) to incite the Muslim population to rise in rebellion (Operation Gibraltar), and then deliver the knockout blow by cutting India�s road link with IHK at Akhnur on River Chenab (Operation Grand Slam). In the event, both failed.

That these two moves would precipitate a general war was naively ruled out by him. But when the Indians responded by atta-

cking across the international frontier to threaten Lahore and Sialkot, he panic-ked and hastily transferred most Grand

Slam forces to the Ravi-Chenab corridor (Sialkot sector).

The Ravi-Chenab corridor is of great strategic importance for India as it connects the Indian mainland to Jammu & Kashmir at the headworks on River Ravi over which pass the road and rail communications, not too far from the border. The field marshal and his planners thought that by cutting the road link at Akhnur, they would force India to surrender Kashmir. They overlooked the fact that the door would remain open for the Indians to induct forces into this corridor unless it was sealed off at the headworks. Another offensive, concurrent with Grand Slam, would have ensured this.

The odds were stacked heavily in the field marshal�s favour as this offensive would have achieved a complete surprise in the same way as Grand Slam had done. With control of the Ravi lost, the option of launching a counter-offensive across the river into the corridor would not be available to the Indians.

The 1965 war was characterised by the ineptitude of the two high commands. In spite of this failure, the field marshal stayed on until forced out in disgrace, but not before giving a parting kick to the nation in the form of another general.

When this general launched the army against its own people in East Pakistan, everyone, including junior officers, knew that this was the end of Quaid-i-Azam�s Pakistan as India would exploit the opportunity to the hilt.

Since East Pakistan could not be defended against the Indian army�s main offensive effort, more so when the people had risen in rebellion against the state, the only way to salvage the forces in the east and to recompense for the eventual loss of East Pakistan was to sever Kashmir from India. This could best be done by launching pre-emptive strikes in the Ravi-Chenab corridor, which from the geo-strategic, operational and logistics standpoint, was the most suitable area. The time for this was mid-September when the build-up of Indian forces in the east had commenced and defences in the west had not been fully energised. At this point in time, the Indian army�s strike formation 1 Corps (three infantry divisions and two armoured brigades), which was earmarked for operations in this corridor, was at least three weeks away.

In mid-Oct, Lt Gen K.K.Singh, Commander 1 Corps, commented, �Our weakest hour is now. Another four days and Yahya would have missed the opportunity.� He did precisely that, since he remained in a state of dither until Dec 3, by which time, events had already overtaken him. The result was that Pakistan army�s strategic reserves in the west remained unutilised, which in a war of short duration can be construed as a crime against the state.

The reign of the third army chief was characterised by religious bigotry and regressive thought. Twenty years on, the people of Pakistan are still paying a heavy price for these. His tyrannical regime was matched only by that of the fourth dictator.

The fourth dictator, prior to his coup, thought that he would be hailed as a hero if he took the Kargil heights and forced India to surrender Siachen and negotiate on Kashmir from a position of weakness. But his dreams were shattered when the Indians started recapturing height after height until the remaining Pakistani positions became untenable. Scores of Pakistani soldiers had been sacrificed for one man�s quest for glory.

Next he took on the people of Balochistan and the tribal areas. Instead of redressing their grievances, he dubbed them as terrorists and sent the army to crush them. The result was an insurgency. The people of the tribal areas and regions have been influenced by the narrow interpretation of Islam by religious pseuds, who continue to hold sway over millions of students in thousands of madressahs and mosques across the country.

More than anything else, it is this dimension of the problem that has to be addressed through an imaginatively constructed and conducted education programme, failing which, thousands of misinformed and brainwashed youth would keep getting churned out every year. But the dictator, instead of getting to the root of the problem, chose to fight ideas with guns, forgetting that in the end it is the gun that loses.

His predilection for the gun and obsequiousness to the White House was again displayed when he ordered the SSG assault on the Jamia Hafsa-Lal Masjid complex, after an agreement was said to have been reached. The result was that all the inmates, mostly boys and girls, were killed. While the government claims there were 100 inmates, according to the grapevine, each coffin buried had four bodies in it. The sound of that gunfire has reverberated around the country.

Having remained the dominant element of national power for 44 years, the time has come for the army to redeem itself by apologising to the people of Pakistan and saying, never again.

The writer is a former brigadier of the Pakistan Army.

Saturday, April 26, 2008

Pakistan, India eye double gas pipeline projects for energy need

Pakistan, India eye double gas pipeline projects for energy need
Xinhia, April 25, 2008

ISLAMABAD, April 25 (Xinhua) -- Pakistan and India on Friday resolved their difference on the transit fee of the much-delayed Iran-Pakistan-India (IPI) gas pipeline project, also known as the peace pipeline.

The "complete consensus" was reached after Pakistan petroleum minister Khawaja Asif held length talks in Islamabad with his Indian counterpart Murli Deora, whose visit to Pakistan marks the first formal contact between India and Pakistan since the new Pakistani coalition government took office last month.

"We have agreed to consult with our respective government for an early conclusion of the agreement on the above issue," Deora told a press conference.

The project will not only meet gas requirements but also strengthen economic ties of the two countries, Asif said.

The IPI gas pipeline is a proposed 2,775-kilometer pipeline project to deliver natural gas from Iran to Pakistan and India, which is estimated to cost 7.5 billion U.S. dollars.

The long-delayed pipeline project, which has been under discussions in 1994, were deadlocked in mid-2007 when New Delhi refused to attend talks over differences on the transit fee and transportation tariff to be charged by Pakistan for Iranian gas sent to India.

While the transit fee is akin to a royalty to be paid to Pakistan for transporting the Iranian gas through its territory, the transportation tariff is linked to the cost of the pipeline.

In another aspect, Pakistan has finalized almost all legal, financial and technical aspects with Iran over the IPI project, Foreign Ministry spokesman Muhammad Sadiq said on Thursday.

The IPI project is expected to start construction next year. Iran plans to begin export of gas to Pakistan by the end of 2013.

Pakistan-India talks is following the Turkmenistan-Afghanistan-Pakistan-India (TAPI) gas pipeline project from Wednesday to Thursday.

Oil ministers from the four nations signed a draft framework on Thursday, agreeing to start construction work of the TAPI gas pipeline project in 2010.

The project cost has risen to 7.6 billion U.S. dollars from originally estimated 3.3 billion dollars in 2004.

The talks on Turkmenistan-Afghanistan-Pakistan gas pipeline project have been underway since 2002. In 2006 India was invited as an observer to the project, funded by the Asian Development Bank.

This is the first time that India is participating in talks on the pipeline as a full-fledged member.

The 7.6-billion-U.S. dollar pipeline project starts from Turkmenistan's Dauletabad field through Herat and Kandahar in Afghanistan to Multan in Pakistan, and finally extends up to Pakistan-India border.

Analysts say Pakistan and India, despite political frictions, show willingness to carry out cooperation and are keen to clinch deals on the gas pipeline projects due to their energy shortage and burgeoning energy requirement.

Karzai Criticizes U.S. om Conduct of War

Afghan Leader Criticizes U.S. on Conduct of War
By CARLOTTA GALL; New York Times, April 26, 2008

KABUL, Afghanistan — President Hamid Karzai strongly criticized the British and American conduct of the war here on Friday, insisting in an interview that his government be given the lead in policy decisions.

Mr. Karzai said that he wanted American forces to stop arresting suspected Taliban and their sympathizers, and that the continued threat of arrest and past mistreatment were discouraging Taliban from coming forward to lay down their arms.

He criticized the American-led coalition as prosecuting the war on terrorism in Afghan villages, saying the real terrorist threat lay in sanctuaries of the Taliban and Al Qaeda in Pakistan.

The president said that civilian casualties, which have dropped substantially since last year, needed to cease completely. For nearly two years the American-led coalition has refused to recognize the need to create a trained police force, he said, leading to a critical lack of law and order.

The comments came as Mr. Karzai is starting to point toward re-election next year, after six years in office, and may be part of a political calculus to appear more assertive in his dealings with foreign powers as opponents line up to challenge him.

But they also follow a serious dip in his relations with some of the countries contributing to the NATO-led security force and the reconstruction of Afghanistan, and indicate that as the insurgency has escalated, so, too, has the chafing among allies.

Complaints have been rising for months among diplomats and visiting foreign officials about what is seen as Mr. Karzai’s weak leadership, in particular his inability to curb narcotics trafficking and to remove ineffective or corrupt officials. Some diplomats have even expressed dismay that, for lack of an alternative, the country and its donors may face another five years of poor management by Mr. Karzai.

He was quick to reject such criticism, pointing out the “immense difficulties” that he and his government faced — “What is it we have not gone through?” — while trying to rebuild a state that was utterly destroyed.

He called instead for greater respect of Afghanistan’s fierce independence, and for more attention to be paid to building up the country, than doing things for it.

“For the success of the world in Afghanistan, it would be better to recognize this inherent character in Afghanistan and work with it and support it,” he said, speaking at his presidential office. “Eventually, if the world is to succeed in Afghanistan, it will be by building the Afghan state, not by keeping it weak.”

Mr. Karzai said he was fighting corruption, a problem that is among the chief complaints heard frequently by diplomats and Afghans alike. Mr. Karzai said he had just fired an official the previous day and would be firing more soon.

Yet the president explained that Afghanistan had never had so much money and resources pouring in, or seen such disparities in salaries, and was simply not capable yet of preventing the corruption.

He admitted that “lots of things” in the last six years could have been handled better and singled out policies led by the United States, namely tackling terrorism and handling the Taliban, both as prisoners and on the battlefield.

On terrorism, he repeated a call he has made for several years, that sanctuaries across the border in Pakistan be closed off.

“There is no way but to close the sanctuaries,” he said. “Pakistan will have no peace, Pakistan’s progress will suffer, so will Afghanistan’s peace and progress, so will the world’s. If you want to live, and live in peace, and work for prosperity, that has to happen. The sanctuaries must go, period.”

The deaths of civilians in the fighting have also been a big problem, he said. “It seriously undermines our efforts to have an effective campaign against terrorism,” he said. While NATO says civilian casualties have declined in the last six months, Mr. Karzai said that was not good enough.

“I am not happy with civilian casualties coming down; I want an end to civilian casualties,” he said. “As much as one may argue it’s difficult, I don’t accept that argument.”

He added, “Because the war against terrorism is not in Afghan villages, the war against terrorism is elsewhere, and that’s where the war should go,” referring to the Taliban and Qaeda sanctuaries in Pakistan.

He said the issue had caused tension between him and American officials. “While those moments were very, very difficult, I must also be fair to say that our partners in America have recognized my concerns and have acted on them in good faith.”

One of the biggest mistakes of the last six years has been the handling of the Taliban, he said, and the failure of his government to guarantee former members the amnesty that Mr. Karzai promised when the movement was toppled in December 2001.

He blamed mistreatment by some warlords and American forces for driving the Taliban out of the country, to Pakistan, where they regrouped and took up weapons again.

“Some of the warlords, and the coalition forces at times, in certain areas of the country, behaved in a manner that frightened the Taliban to move away from Afghanistan,” he said. “That should not have happened.”

The weakness of his own government meant that he learned only much later of some of the things that were occurring, he said.

He gave an example of a former member of the Taliban who was quietly running a paint shop in Kabul and had been arrested three times by American and Afghan security services.

“We have to make sure that when a Talib comes to Afghanistan, that he is safe from arrest by the coalition,” he said. “And we don’t come to know when the coalition arrests them; it is a major problem for us, a problem that we have spoken about repeatedly without solution.”

Asked if he could stop American forces from arresting suspected Taliban or their sympathizers in Afghanistan, he said, “We are working hard on it, very hard on it.”

He added, “It has to happen.”

Mr. Karzai said he had not complained to the Americans about their treatment of people in their custody, despite long detentions, because he did not have details of specific cases.

Despite the many problems, Mr. Karzai expressed optimism over Afghanistan’s path, and said that the change of government in Pakistan could bring progress against terrorism. “We began on a very good note,” he said of relations with the new government, led by the party of former Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto, who was killed in December.

“I am fairly confident of their good intentions,” he said. “If the current government has the full backing of the military and intelligence circles in Pakistan and with the good intentions that they have, things will improve.”

The president said he supported the Pakistani government’s efforts to make peace with Taliban there who were not a threat to the rest of the world.

“But if the deal is with those that are hard-core terrorists, Al Qaeda, and are bent upon sooner or later again causing damage to Pakistan, and to Afghanistan and to the rest of the world, then that’s wrong and we should definitely not do it.”

He said he did not know Baitullah Mehsud, the militant leader who has been accused of instigating Ms. Bhutto’s assassination, but said he would send him some advice: “All that he is doing is hurting his own people, that he shouldn’t do that.”