Thursday, April 28, 2011

How to support education in Pakistan?

Three Cups Of Tea Won't Be Enough For Pakistan by Nadia Naviwala, NPR, April 25, 2011

Nadia Naviwala is Pakistan Desk officer at USAID, a recent graduate of the Harvard Kennedy School, and a former national security aide in the U.S. Senate. This article reflects her personal views and does not represent the views of the USAID.

Since the publication of Three Cups of Tea, Americans have lavished nearly $60 million on Greg Mortenson's Central Asia Institute, to build schools in Afghanistan and Pakistan. Last week, four years after the book came out, someone — CBS's 60 Minutes — finally visited the schools that Mortenson claims to have built, and found many empty, misused or nonexistent.

Reading about the extent of financial irregularity and lack of oversight at CAI, is heartbreaking. But worse, I dread how the crumbling of Three Cups of Tea will reinforce American skepticism and Pakistani cynicism about positive efforts in the region.

The shoddiness of Mortenson's work is not surprising to me. In the spring of 2009 when I volunteered to work with CAI over the summer, I was told that the organization was basically Greg, running around Pakistan, and a few support staff. I was not surprised — the book indicated as much. But, as I soon learned, it takes more than a one-man show to run upwards of 170 schools, anywhere in the world.

I ended up spending my summer with one of the largest and most reputable school-building NGOs in Pakistan — an organization that was founded and run by Pakistanis. I saw what it took for them to support 730 schools. Their office was large, crowded and busy, with education, training, monitoring and testing, and audit departments, supported by four regional offices and field managers. I knew that Greg Mortenson could only be doing a C-grade job on his own.

For complete article, click here

Saturday, April 23, 2011

Why culprits in Mukhtaran Mai rape case were released in Pakistan?

The second sex
By Babar Sattar, The News, April 23, 2011
The writer is a lawyer based in Islamabad.

The Second Sex, Simone de Beauvoir’s seminal work on feminism published in 1949, defined a woman in the following terms: “...humanity is male and man defines woman not in herself but as relative to him; she is not regarded as an autonomous being...And she is simply what man decrees; thus she is called ‘the sex’, by which is meant that she appears essentially to the male as a sexual being. For him she is sex – absolutely sex, no less. She is defined and differentiated with reference to man and not he with reference to her; she is the incidental, the inessential as opposed to the essential. He is the Subject, he is the Absolute – she is the Other.”

The Mukhtaran Mai case establishes that the picture painted by de Beauvoir over half a century ago continues to define the reality for women in Pakistan, especially those belonging to the most vulnerable segments of our society. Notwithstanding one’s position on the reasoning of the majority and minority rulings in the Mukhtaran Mai case, there are a few things that are certain. One, essential components of our criminal justice system, such as the police and the prosecution are incompetent and unprofessional and consequently the chasm between law and justice is growing.

Two, the courts are not immune from extraneous considerations such as public opinion, which in turn compromises the safety of our justice system. And three, coercive social traditions and chauvinistic tendencies are so firmly ingrained in our collective psyche that we are not even unaware of the biases we harbour and their role in entrenching loathsome customs in the name of tradition and honour. But before one begins to bemoan the Supreme Court order it is essential to understand what it has held.

In a split judgment the Supreme Court has rejected the appeal of Mukhtaran Mai against the acquittal of all of the accused for rape and connivance, except the one convicted for rape by the High Court and sentenced to a life term. In other words the Supreme Court has held that there isn’t sufficient evidence to establish that Mukhtaran Mai was a victim of gang rape. It has endorsed the High Court ruling that Mukhtaran Mai was a victim of rape and the prime accused will serve a life term behind bars. A dispassionate reading of the ruling suggests that the Supreme Court has applied settled law to the case and consequently it is hard to disagree with the ratio of the majority ruling.

The principles of law reiterated by the court are as follows: One, that the scope of interference in appeal, especially against acquittal, is extremely limited. In other words it is not for an appellate court to retry cases by initiating a fresh appraisal of evidence, unless the appellant can establish that essential evidence was either not considered or misread. It is settled law that an appellate court should not replace the factual findings of the trial court merely because it would have formed a different opinion if placed in the shoes of the trial court.
For complete article, click here
Related:
Mukhtaran Mai to file review plea in SC - Daily Times
Background:
Mukhtar Mai’s case in Pakistan - Kristof, NYT - March 2009

Wednesday, April 20, 2011

"Three Cups of Tea" Spilled?

Cup Half-Empty By Mosharraf Zaidi,
Foreign Policy, April 19, 2011

Under the burden of a 60 Minutes exposé on CBS and a blistering, 75-page takedown by adventure writer Jon Krakauer, Greg Mortenson's phenomenally successful weaving together of fact and fiction has already faced more scrutiny than most pop philanthropy ever receives in its entire shelf life. While opinions about Mortenson have always varied within the international development community and among humanitarian workers, that debate never really got a full airing. The ideas and philosophy driving the Three Cups of Tea mania for school-building has become a bit of an orthodoxy. Orthodoxies usually have the effect of muting debate. Pakistanis should know. Pakistan has endured far too much unjustified and illegitimate orthodoxy in its short history. Until the60 Minutes exposé, only the very brave ventured to openly mock Mortenson. The fact that there is now unforgiving scrutiny of every aspect of his two books and the charity that he founded is therefore a wonderful thing.

Many Mortenson sympathizers are perplexed by the strong reaction to the unraveling of Mortenson's elaborate and carefully constructed fables. These sympathizers are not all innocuous middle-aged accountants or bleeding-heart housewives. Some very knowledgeable and clued-in people -- heads of NGOs, education experts, media personalities -- are also confused by the outrage at the little lies Mortenson told to help address a big truth: that girls in Pakistan and Afghanistan need help getting educated. Consider this: In Pakistan, the proportion of rural women who have attended school is one in three. In such dire need, many reasonable people wonder why there is such unmitigated outrage at a few Mortenson fibs.

For complete article, clik here
Related:
Three Cups of Tea Spilled - Nicholas Kristof, NYT
Three Cups of Sincerity - By Nosheen Ali, Express Tribune
Three Cups of Deceit - By John Krakauer
Greg Mortenson responds to '60 Minutes' questions about his 'Three Cups of Tea' story - Los Angeles Times
Book Website: http://www.threecupsoftea.com/

Why some terrorism suspects go scot free in Pakistan?

The Reason Terrorism Suspects Go Free
Mudassar Raja, The News, April 18, 2011

RAWALPINDI, April 18: No less than 23 sus- pect terrorists have been acquitted of the charge in the past six months by the trial courts in Rawalpindi and Islamabad.

That sounds alarming but only until one learns the reason – weak prosecution. Each of the 23 accused went free because the prosecution failed to connect them firmly with the seven terror attacks they were said to have a hand in. Mostly, the prosecution’s case collapsed because the trial judge found the witnesses and confessional statements unreli- able.

“In my experience, the prosecution in sui- cide attack cases overwhelmingly relies on eyewitnesses to the incident who later identify the suspects during the identification parade in jail,” said Advocate Basharatullah Khan who has repre- sented accused people in such cases.

However, the prosecution case is usually very weak legally; for instance eyewitnesses are found by the investigators after the accused have been arrested. This weakens the case as ideally eyewitnesses’ testimony should be recorded soon after the incident and not after the accused are arrested, he pointed out.

This is exactly what happened in the case of Ghulam Mustafa Tabbasum and Shafiqur Rehman who were recently acquitted after having been tried for being involved in the sui- cide attack at the entrance of Rescue 15 in Islamabad in 2009.

The Margalla police in their preliminary in- vestigation report did not mention any eyewit- ness. Later they added that two policemen claimed to have seen the two suspects roaming near the office of Rescue 15 two days before the suicide attack.

And if the eyewitnesses were found at the right time, the prosecution fails to fulfill legal requirements, making the testimony invalid. This was the mistake made by the prosecution which won the accused of the suicide attack on a police gathering near Melody Market in 2008, Qari Ilyas, his freedom.
The Aabpara police failed to fulfill all the legal requirements of holding the identification parade at the jail under the supervision of the judicial magistrate. The two police witnesses identified Ilyas in the absence of the magistrate and confirmed that they saw him ‘directing’ the suicide bomber to attack the police gathering on July 7 2008.The testimony was thrown out of the court.

For complete article, click here

Who Controls Pakistan's Security Forces?

Who Controls Pakistan's Security Forces?
USIP, April 19, 2011

After heavy U.S. investment in Pakistan’s defense forces since 9/11, there is growing interest in the state of the broader security sector in Pakistan. Civilian oversight is weak as the military exercises an outsized influence over domestic and foreign policy, hampering democratic governance. A panel of distinguished experts will discuss the challenges impeding security sector reform in Pakistan and the implications for the region.

Speakers
  • Hassan Abbas, Panelist
    Quaid-i-Azam Professor, South Asia Institute, Columbia University
  • Shuja Nawaz, Panelist
    Director, South Asia Center, The Atlantic Council
  • Moeed Yusuf, Panelist
    South Asia Adviser, U.S. Institute of Peace
  • Robert Perito, Moderator
    Director, Security Sector Governance Center, U.S. Institute of Peace
For complete C-SPAN video of the event, click here

Friday, April 15, 2011

Debate: Is racial or religious profiling ever justified? - New York Times Upfront

Is racial or religious profiling ever justified?

Ten years after 9/11, the U.S. is still trying to balance safety and security with protecting Constitutional freedoms
The New York Times Upfront, Vol. 143, April 18, 2011

NO

The issue of profiling is part of the ongoing national discussion about how to balance liberty and security in the post-9/11 era. First and foremost, racial and religious profiling is inconsistent with America's core constitutional principles of equality and fairness.

Despite the threats of crime and terrorism, we must not compromise on what we cherish and celebrate—the rule of law. Under American law, every person is innocent until proven guilty. When officials use profiling, they are indirectly blaming entire communities because a few among them have committed horrible crimes. Not only is that wrong, but it's also a waste of law-enforcement resources.

It's not just American Muslims who are affected by this. African-Americans have long complained that they are targeted for traffic stops in certain neighborhoods—that they are, in effect, suspects simply because of their race.

What's more, profiling isn't even effective. Among those who study this topic, there is a near-consensus that profiling is often counterproductive: Over the long term, it alienates entire communities whose cooperation is essential to the gathering of useful intelligence for crime fighting and counterterrorism. Take the example of Muslim Americans: Law enforcement officers urgently need their help in ferreting out threats, but that cooperation is less likely when law-abiding Muslims feel like they are all targets of suspicion.

No religious community or race should be made to feel targeted by law enforcement or alienated from the broader community. Though the threat of terrorism plays on our fears, profiling has no place in America.

Hassan Abbas
Professor, School of International and Public Affairs, Columbia University

YES

In the movie Up in the Air, the character played by George Clooney declares that he follows Asian travelers in airport security lines: "They pack light, travel efficiently, and they got a thing for slip-on shoes. God love 'em." He is admonished: "That's racist!" He responds: "I stereotype. It's faster."

Racial and religious profiling is no joke, but it also isn't necessarily racism, discrimination, or harassment. On issues of safety, profiling means making practical threat assessments. It's time that we, as a nation, ditch political correctness and choose pragmatism, recognizing that race, religion, and ethnicity can play an important role in criminality.

For complete debate, click here

Wednesday, April 13, 2011

Abdul Sattar Edhi - A Living Saint of Pakistan


The day I met Abdul Sattar Edhi, a living saint
Telegraph, April 13, 2011

Sixty years ago, Abdul Sattar Edhi, 82, gave up everything to devote his life to helping Pakistan's poorest. Here, Peter Oborne hails a truly selfless spiritual sage

In the course of my duties as a reporter, I have met presidents, prime ministers and reigning monarchs.

Until meeting the Pakistani social worker Abdul Sattar Edhi, I had never met a saint. Within a few moments of shaking hands, I knew I was in the presence of moral and spiritual greatness.

Mr Edhi's life story is awesome, as I learnt when I spent two weeks working at one of his ambulance centres in Karachi.

The 82-year-old lives in the austerity that has been his hallmark all his life. He wears blue overalls and sports a Jinnah cap, so named because it was the head gear of Muhammad Ali Jinnah, the founder of Pakistan.

No Pakistani since Jinnah has commanded the same reverence, and our conversations were constantly interrupted as people came to pay their respects.

Mr Edhi told me that, 60 years ago, he stood on a street corner in Karachi and begged for money for an ambulance, raising enough to buy a battered old van. In it, he set out on countless life-saving missions.

Gradually, Mr Edhi set up centres all over Pakistan. He diversified into orphanages, homes for the mentally ill, drug rehabilitation centres and hostels for abandoned women. He fed the poor and buried the dead. His compassion was boundless.

For complete article, click here
Related:
Edhi Foundation website: http://www.edhifoundation.com/ 
Aging philanthropist is Pakistan's Mother Teresa - MSNBC
Abdul Sattar Edhi: A Giant Amongst Men by Adil Najam - All Things Pakistan

Tuesday, April 12, 2011

'Frank discussion' between CIA and ISI chiefs means Hardtalk...

ISI chief meets CIA head and leaves Washington
The News, April 12, 2011

WASHINGTON: Pakistan's ISI chief Lt General Ahmed Shuja Pasha held an important meeting with the CIA chief on Monday but apparently cut short his visit and was leaving the US capital on Monday night.

A Pakistan Embassy official confirmed that Gen Pasha was scheduled to leave Monday night although earlier reports had indicated he may be staying in Washington for three days and leave on April 13.

There was no official word from the Pakistani side but the New York Times quoted a CIA spokesman, George Little, saying that the two spy chiefs had held "productive" meetings and that the relationship between the two services "remains on solid footing."

Political analysts were, however, a little surprised that Gen Pasha, who had arrived on Sunday evening, was leaving the US capital in just about 24 hours. There was no word of his meetings, if any, with other senior US leaders, including the Defence Secretary.

"The United States and Pakistan share a wide range of mutual interests," the CIA spokesman said, "and today's exchange emphasized the need to continue to work closely together, including on our common fight against terrorist networks that threaten both countries."

The newspaper said the meetings were part of an effort to repair the already tentative and distrustful relations between the spy agencies that plunged to a new low as a result of the Davis episode, which further exposed where Pakistani and American interests diverge as the endgame in Afghanistan draws closer.

For complete article, click here

Related:
Official: 'Frank discussion' between US, Pakistan intelligence chiefs - CNN
U.S.-Pakistan intelligence operations frozen since January - Reuters
Spy Chief’s Tenure Is Extended in Pakistan - NYT
Pakistan threatens to impose new restrictions on CIA activities - Washington Post
Pakistan Tells U.S. It Must Sharply Cut C.I.A. Activities - NYT

UPDATE:
Relationship with ISI on solid footing: CIA - DAWN
War Without Footprint - Slate
U.S. Missiles Strike in Northern Pakistan as Relations Sour Over CIA Role - Bloomberg

Monday, April 11, 2011

Good News: American Public Sees Democratization of Middle East as Positive for US

American Public Sees Democratization of Middle East as Positive for US
Wrld Public Opinion.org, April 11, 2011

Favors Democratization Even if Countries Become Less Friendly to US

An overwhelming majority of Americans think that it would be positive for the United States if the Middle East were to become more democratic and a solid majority would favor this happening even if this resulted in the country being more likely to oppose US policies.

These are some of the findings of a new poll conducted by the Anwar Sadat Chair for Peace and Development and the Program on International Policy Attitudes (PIPA) at the University of Maryland and directed by Shibley Telhami and Steven Kull. The poll of 802 Americans was fielded April 1-5 by Knowledge Networks.

The poll is being released in conjunction with the opening of the seventh Forum on US-Islamic World Relations being held in Washington DC April 12-14. The Forum is a joint program of the Saban Center of the Brookings Institution and the Foreign Ministry of Qatar.

Asked, "if the countries of the Middle East become more democratic," how this would be for United States "over the next few years," 65% say it would be mostly positive, while 31% say it would be mostly negative. Asked about "the long run," an even larger number--76%--say democratization would be mostly positive for the US.

A majority of 57% say that they "would want to see a country become more democratic even if this resulted in the country being more likely to oppose US policies." This number is up from 48% when PIPA asked this question in 2005.

"While some observers are worried about the potential effects of greater democratization for US interests in the Middle East, most Americans are cheering the move toward more democracy, even if this might pose some challenges for the US," comments Steven Kull, director of PIPA.
 
For complete report, click here

Saturday, April 09, 2011

Inside Baluchistan Today

Pushed to the Wall
Raza Rumi, The News, March 27, 2011

There must be something terribly wrong with the state of Pakistan that in its largest province, state schools no longer recite the national anthem and are giving up on the Pakistani flag. Tragic, that such alarming reports flashed in the national newspapers and on the internet are a subject of little debate and introspection across the country. Either that nobody really cares as to what happens to the tribals in the southwest of Pakistan, or that there is soft censorship at play. Such is the level of self-censorship on the issue of Balochistan that the ongoing insurgency finds scant mention in the otherwise, hysterical electronic media of Pakistan. True, there are brave exceptions in the public arena, but the eerie silence on Balochistan is disturbing for any Pakistani who believes in the territorial and federal integrity of Pakistan.

Only during the last six months, dozens of Baloch political activists have been reported dead. It is difficult to ascertain exact numbers, given the lack of credible information. But palpable violence defines the state of Balochistan. On the one hand, there are Baloch activists, leaders and professionals who are being targeted by ‘unknown’ forces and on the other hand, thousands of ‘settlers’ (mostly Punjabis) have been leaving the province, as their lives are no longer secure. A wide array of Baloch separatist groups exist in the province, whose source of funding is unknown and whose political agenda is vague, despite the overall banner of ‘independence’.

The history of Balochistan is stymied by the imposition of a national narrative and its symbolic manifestation remains the refusal of the Khan of Qalat to accede to the new state of Pakistan in 1947. Thus, historical grievance has swollen to a degree where ‘Pakistan’, at least in the ‘Baloch’ districts, is now an imagined enemy to be countered with the narratives spun by the separatists. There is also the story of ‘exploitation’: from the inadequate (and perhaps misappropriated) Sui gas royalties, to the Gwadar port which is not under Baloch control; while the natural wealth of the province is perceived as being looted by ‘foreigners’.

For complete article, click here

Related - Various Perspectives:
Aghaz-e-Huqooq-e-Balochistan - IPRI Paper
Pakistan's Fatal Shore by Robert Kaplan, Atlantic Monthly
Local Voices: Glossing over Balochistan’s home truths - Express Tribune

Wednesday, April 06, 2011

The Unending Tragedy in Kurram Agency

COMMENT: More misery in Kurram — Dr Mohammad Taqi
Daily Times, March 31, 2011

As US pressure mounts on Pakistan to take action against the Haqqanis in North Waziristan, the need to relocate the jihadist assets to safe bases in Kurram has now become urgent

It had taken the Talib terrorist Nek Muhammad Wazir one day to renege on his April 2004 Shakai Treaty with the Pakistan Army. The September 2006 Miranshah Agreement between the Pakistani state and the warlords in North Waziristan lasted 10 months before the militants repudiated the deal in July 2007. The March 2007 deal between the government and the Taliban in Bajaur Agency was literally a nonstarter but was really dead by August of 2007. Then came the mother of all deals when, in May 2008, the Pakistani state inked the agreement with the murderous hordes of Mullah Fazlullah in Swat. While the people of Malakand knew from the word go that the Pakistani state had merely capitulated and there was no ‘agreement’ as such, the deal officially fell apart in April 2009.

And here we are again: yet another peace agreement with the murderers lies in tatters on the Thall-Parachinar road. The peace accord between the various tribes of the Kurram Agency, held under the auspices of Khalil Haqqani of the Haqqani terrorist network, Pakistan’s Federal Interior Minister Rehman Malik and, of course, the best-in-the-world intelligence agency, took less than two months to unravel.

On March 25, 2011, three minibuses were on their way from Peshawar to Parachinar in the Upper Kurram Agency when they came under attack from terrorists who opened fire on the first vehicle. First, three men were asked to disembark and were then shot dead on the roadside. The terrorists boarded the vehicle and shot 10 others at point-blank range. The following two (three according to media reports) minibuses stopped as the driver of the lead vehicle panicked and attempted to leave. Forty-five passengers (the exact number remains unknown) were taken hostage by the gunmen. By one account, these hapless people were taken to North Waziristan. The terrorists then released 13 or 15 women and children, who were subsequently driven in a pickup vehicle to the FC fort in Thall. The majority of these men, women and children belong to the Shia Toori tribe.

For complete article, click here
Related:
No peace in Kurram - Hassan Khan, Dawn
Army asked to protect civilians in Kurram Agency - The News

Friday, April 01, 2011

On Cricket Diplomacy - CBC Radio Program

Cricket Diplomacy
CBC Radio: The Current, March 31, 2011
Audio link: http://www.cbc.ca/video/news/audioplayer.html?clipid=1864218148

After two years of icy-cold relations, the Prime Ministers of India and Pakistan are sitting down for a face-to-face meeting this week. All it took was a cricket match. We ask about the potential for cricket diplomacy.

The game was a heart-breaker for Pakistani fans. But from a go-political point of view, the real action off the pitch was happening where Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and Pakistani Prime Minister Syed Yousuf Gilani sat side-by-side at watched the game. Their meetings did not produce breakthrough agreements but they did end a two-and-a-half-year-long diplomatic stand-off between the two nuclear-armed neighbours.

So the obvious questions ... why it took a cricket match to make this happen? And of course it isn't the first time that cricket has played such an important role. For some perspective from the Indian side, we were joined now by Kant Bhargava. He's a former Indian diplomat who now lives in Toronto. Hassan Abbas teaches at Columbia University. He's also a fellow with the Asia Society. He was in New York City.

To hear the audio of the program, click here
Also See: India vs. Pakistan: 'Cricket Diplomacy at its Best - Asia Society