Thursday, June 30, 2005

Madrassa Reforms going Nowhere

The News, July 1, 2005
Madrassah reforms?
Arif Jamal

Despite repeated public pledges to reform the madrassah education notwithstanding, little has been done to end the culture of hate that many madrassahs tend to inculcate in their students. The government had promised to end its culture of extremism and hate towards the nation and the international community, but has failed to bring about even cosmetic changes. Thus, many madrassahs continue to spread negative thoughts in society without any challenge from the state. With even the occasional official outbursts against madrassahs having become less frequent, madrassahs are likely to continue proliferating and pushing the society towards more extremism in years to come.

Resistance from this sector resulted in the government quietly abandoning its much-publicised package of reforms, the Deeni Madaris (Voluntary Registration and Regulation) Ordinance, 2002. It even backtracked from the single most important clause of the ordinance that required madrassahs to register themselves under this ordinance; in June 2004, Islamabad asked the provinces to continue registering the madrassahs under the colonial law known as the Societies Act no XXI of 1860.

The government project of setting up non-sectarian model madrassahs could not get off the ground for lack of cooperation from all quarters. The government has now apparently decided not to open these new model madrassahs. Meanwhile, there is confusion about what it intends to do with the faulty, sectarian model that exists. The failure to set up model madrassahs should teach the government that madrassah education is inherently sectarian and that its efforts to create non-sectarian madrassahs are unlikely to succeed.

What the government has succeeded in doing is to considerably reduce the number of foreign students in these madrassahs, one of the foremost demands of the United States. Foreign students are required to fulfil a number of conditions before they get admission to a Pakistani madrassah, thus making it fairly difficult for them to attend these seminaries. Intelligence agencies are believed to keep a strict watch on students who do somehow get admission. This is perhaps why the West has reduced pressure on Pakistan for reforms in this education system.

The government has dragged its feet on its pledges to reform the madrassah education system apparently for two reasons. First, the religious right remains its political ally against the relatively democratic forces led by Benazir Bhutto and Nawaz Sharif. Second, it does not want to open up another front. The gulf that appeared in the alliance between the government and the religious right has been bridged to a great extent. Many vocal madrassahs leaders such as Qari Haneef Jallundary of the Wifaqul Madaris have been co-opted.

Ironically, the madrassahs spreading the culture of hate and extremism are partially financed by the Pakistani taxpayers' money, and what most of them are producing is hordes unemployed maulvis who believe in securing a place in heaven by killing other people, including fellow Muslims whom they consider to be outside the pale. The Pakistani state has invested billions of rupees in madrassahs since General Ziaul Haq turned them into nurseries of his supporters to train mujahideen for jihad in Afghanistan over a quarter of century ago. Since then, the state has continued to shower all kinds of favours on madrassahs, no matter who headed the government in Islamabad.

Madrassahs have now been promised millions of rupees if they include what are called "contemporary subjects" in their curriculum. This promise has been made on two assumptions. The first is that the madrassahs do not want to teach the "contemporary subjects," and the second is that the "contemporary subjects" will reform madrassah students and wean them away from extremism. Both assumptions are based on lack of knowledge on the part of the decision-makers in Islamabad and elsewhere.

Contrary to popular beliefs, most madrassahs prefer to admit those students to their eight-year Dars-i-Nizami programmes who have already studied at least eight grades, or done their matriculation from the supposedly secular schools. Many provide facilities to younger students to study the state-approved curriculum and pass their secondary school or matriculation examinations. If they do not, it is mostly because of the lack of funds.

The second assumption is equally fallacious. There is evidence that the so-called secular curriculum is also replete with hate sentiments and extremism.

A number of religious teachers and leaders have studied in universities and some have even done their Ph.Ds. I have often heard in the madrassahs that "contemporary subjects" make them better maulvis and jihadis. Madrassah education impresses most students who study both at the "secular schools" and madrassahs. In a nutshell, if the government were to give them money to include "contemporary subjects" in their curriculum, they would be getting money to do exactly what they want to do anyway.

Madrassah reforms have failed so far primarily because there is widespread sympathy among the Pakistani decision makers for the supposed role these institutes play in society. It is commonly thought that the madrassahs spread literacy. The assumption may be true, but nobody questions the cost of spreading such literacy to society. Madrassahs produce literate but parasitic citizens who are inherently handicapped, and cannot perform any duties other than rituals. They are not productive citizens and most of them live on handouts from society.

The Afghan jihad opened one more area of employment for madrassah students. In the process, the mujahideen introduced violence into Pakistani society as well, which consequently led to the creation and growth of violent sectarian organisations such as the now banned Sipah-i-Sahaba Pakistan.

Underplaying the role of madrassahs in the increasing sectarian violence, the then Federal Minister for Religious Affairs, Mehmood Ahmed Ghazi, said in June 2002 that only one percent of madrassahs were involved in any kind of violence or militancy. According to this admission, 110 out of approximately 11,000 registered madrassahs are involved in some kind of violence. But the government is not known to have taken action against any one of them either; thus encouraged their products continue to carry out violent attacks on others.

The madaris argue quite justifiably that they produce maulvis and not doctors or engineers. That is, madrassahs produce maulvis just as medical colleges produce doctors and engineering universities produce engineers. No matter how much money they receive from the state or other sources, they will continue to produce maulvis; it is unrealistic to expect anything else. Moreover, they will continue to do so, as long as they keep receiving financial and human resources.

The best policy to combat violence originating from madrassahs is to open new schools with the money that is usually doled out to the seminaries, so that there are alternatives for children who are sent to madrassahs for education because of the absence of other schools. This may not completely snuff out the ongoing sectarian violence, but it is the first necessary step towards fostering sectarian harmony in society.

The writer is a freelance journalist based in Lahore.

Wednesday, June 29, 2005

Bluntly Speaking...

Book Review; Dawn, June 26, 2005
REVIEWS: Bluntly speaking

We’ve Learnt Nothing from History — Pakistan: Poliics and Military Power
By M. Asghar Khan
Oxford University Press

Reviewed by A.R. Siddiqi

Asghar Khan’s has been an autobiography that’s more than the work of a historian. It’s a personal narrative of his political life ever since his retirement as PAF chief in 1965 and resignation as PIA president a few years later. Thereafter, he threw himself headlong into power politics without yielding to the lure of power at any cost.

At a meeting of the Lahore High Court Bar Association where he had been invited as the guest speaker, a couple of young lawyers stood up to question his credentials as a politician even before he had started to speak.

The first questioner bluntly asked him: “Why should we listen to you? You are a failure in politics.”

The second question was: “Which Pakistani politician has been a success?”

Asghar Khan could see that his questioners would probably name Sheikh Mujib-ur-Rahman and Zulfikar Ali Bhutto as the popular leaders of Pakistan, and he was glad to say that he was not one of them. As one who reported to him as his PRO for two years (1961-63), I had the opportunity of watching him as a man and a commander-in-chief in the young Pakistan Air Force. In him I found an airman with his feet firmly planted on earth. He would exercise the authority of his command to the full without either overindulging or overstepping it beyond the scope of the service manual.

His lack of success as a practical politician could be traced to his fond hope of pursuing his political career as a disciplined service chief even without his disciplined service constituency. Uncompromising to a fault, he would refuse to follow the unprincipled course of our national politics and the endless temptation it offered for personal aggrandizement.

Politics without the love of power and resolve to gain it at all costs, even in the best of societies would be little more than chasing a mirage. Asghar Khan loves power without being its votary and without prizing it above his personal integrity. Hence his long and beguiling pursuit of the mirage.

The “fog of power”, he says, “blinds people into rationalizing to an extent that makes a mockery of law”. Unfortunately, however, this is what our self-centred, personality-driven politics has been all about. Playing politics all the time instead of furthering it for the national good and in the larger national interest would appear to be the one and the only obsession of a Pakistani politician in most cases.

How would someone like Asghar Khan figure in the annals of our political history? Whether as a leader who failed or as a statesman who set an example for others to follow in terms of personal integrity and uprightness? The question can be answered either way depending on individual preference and perception.

In crass practical terms, however, Asghar Khan’s contribution towards changing the course of national politics remains less than spectacular. He stands today where he might have been over 40 years ago. His idealistic approach in equating political leadership with military command, amongst other things, may well explain his inability to move ahead with his political agenda.

Asghar Khan’s We’ve Learnt Nothing from History offers a sad record of our double failure in nation building and a pathetic ineptitude to learn from our mistakes. The book covers the whole range of our national history from the Quaid-i-Azam to General Musharraf. Martial law or military rule has indeed been the bane of our society. However, besides weak political institutions and individuals, what encouraged military interventionism in national affairs has been the role of our judiciary. Asghar Khan illustrates the point by recalling the advice Chief Justice Munir gave to President Ayub to have his draft constitution approved by addressing public meetings at Mochi Gate like the leaders of ancient Greece. “No wonder that Pakistan has found it difficult to shake off martial law ever since.”

The sheer greed of civilian leadership for power at any cost played no mean role in encouraging the army in its interventionist role. Bhutto told Yahya Khan that the “soldier” Yahya and the “politician” Bhutto could rule the country together for the next 20 years or so. The PNA movement against Bhutto was about the only such movement with a national sweep. Besides the insidious role played by Gen Zia in subverting the movement it foundered on the rock of divisions within the ranks of the politicians themselves. Rafique Bajwa, PNA secretary-general, was the first to defect and join hands with Bhutto. Asghar Khan’s own role first in inviting the military to intervene and then to do his “solo” remains debatable. He decided to set off on his own during the election campaign under Zia’s martial law. “It is my belief that his PNA would not have been able to hold together for long”

Asghar Khan has been bitterly critical of the army’s standard practice to invoke the threat to the integrity and ideology of Pakistan as the excuse for perpetuating its rule. Gen Zia used it as a justification for postponing the elections solemnly promised by him for October 1971. He refers pointedly to the “Monarch-Mullah combination” used by generals “whilst dishing out a few crumbs to the mullah” Zia also unconscionably foreshadowed Mullah Umer of Afghanistan by declaring that only “good Muslims and good Pakistanis” would be allowed to stand for elections. Gen Musharraf did much the same thing by equating the mullahs’ madressahs sanads with BA and MA degrees.

In an oblique reference to the state of the US-Pakistan relations today Asghar Khan recalls Soviet foreign minister Andrei Gromyko’s warning to Pakistan in a speech in New Delhi on February 12, 1980 against serving as a “puppet of imperialism”. “It will jeopardize its (Pakistan’s) existence and integrity as an independent state.”

Asghar Khan holds the United States responsible for giving the gift of bigotry and fanaticism to Pakistan. While the people of Pakistan cannot be persuaded into believing that they are living in a democracy under a general in uniform, he admits that Gen Musharraf’s “presence in power is more likely to yield results” as far as the Kashmir dispute is concerned.

“It is unlikely that India would regard any settlement of the Kashmir dispute without the involvement of the armed forces as durable.”

We’ve Learnt Nothing from History is a confessional and a critique of our collective failures in learning from our own mistakes.

Sunday, June 26, 2005

The Mukhtaran Mai Episode: Need for Introspection

The News, June 24, 2005
'What we need is introspection'
Ghazi Salahuddin

What should the present government do to repair the damage inflicted by the Mukhtaran Mai episode? This, certainly, is time for a reality check. Pakistan came in for a lot of flak from the international media when a courageous woman who had challenged the inhuman conventions of our feudal society was detained, harassed and prevented from proceeding to the United States. In the process, ambivalence about Pakistan's role in the war on terror and about the sense of direction of its polity has deepened.

In a crucial sense, it is President General Pervez Musharraf who has attracted some surprisingly virulent criticism. This criticism had surged even before Musharraf admitted that it was his decision to ban Mukhtaran Mai's travel abroad. Now, Musharraf also personifies the refurbished image of Pakistan as a moderate Muslim country, bravely struggling against religious extremism in the front line of war against terrorism. Hence the damage that has been done is incalculable.

There must be something inherently flawed in the government's decision-making process and its ability to manage a crisis to produce this outcome. After all, the story has continued to unfold for about three weeks and there has not been any official expression of sincere regrets. On the contrary, the high functionaries have continued to malign the NGOs for supposedly exploiting the Mukhtaran Mai case to please their foreign donors.

The irony here is that the government itself is the largest beneficiary of the same donors and their influence on its policy is repeatedly underlined, including in the Mukhtaran Mai case. When it comes to taking U-turns under pressure, the facts are obvious. As far as the civil society organisations are concerned, they are making a great effort in very adverse circumstances to promote what is essentially the government's slogan of 'enlightened moderation'. In fact, they are largely there because the government has miserably failed to deliver in the social sector.

Since one thing leads to another, the Mukhtaran Mai entanglement has almost dovetailed into questions about Pakistan's role in the war on terror. This is truly unfortunate. No other world leader, barring Tony Blair, has earned as much American applause as Musharraf for his contribution to America's war against international terrorism. Now, Afghanistan has made noises that Pakistan was not doing enough to fight the militants on its side of the border. Musharraf has had one telephonic conversation with President Bush and two with his Afghan counterpart Hamid Karzai and the subject of discussion was said to be the ongoing war on terrorism.

These developments should have nothing to do with the Mukhtaran Mai case. But Pakistan's credibility has weakened in the aftermath of its treatment of an exceptional individual who should be honoured as a symbol of emancipation of women in a traditional society. If an immediate damage control exercise had been undertaken when the Mukhtaran Mai story had made its first headline, Pakistan may have been in a stronger, more confident, position to respond to the Afghan charges.

This is how Jim Hoagland began his column in the Washington Post: "A straw breaking the camel's back, a pebble triggering the avalanche, a drop causing the cup to overflow: choose your own image for Mukhtar Mai and to the troubles she creates for her country's frightened and duplicitous leadership. If there is justice, any of those images will fit." The point he is making is that the issue has dealt a blow to the credibility of President Musharraf. And he said: "The sordid details of the campaign to break Mukhtaran Mai's will are emerging at a moment of strategic change in South Asia."

That it is sad to see Musharraf being criticised in this manner is also underlined by Jim Hoagland: "As a persistent critic of the Bush team's hype about Musharraf and the general's own shortcomings, I have to acknowledge that the Pakistani leader is less corrupt and more courageous than the weak civilian governments that preceded him, including the one that forced him to take power in 1999 to save his own life."

Incidentally, this Washington Post column reminds me of another column in the same newspaper published last year -- on June 1, 2004, to be exact. It was titled: "A Plea for Enlightened Moderation," It was written by Pervez Musharraf. Getting that piece into a major American newspaper was some kind of a coup for our media managers and it had naturally made headline news in the Pakistani media.

In that write-up, Musharraf had explained his prescription to "stop the carnage in the world and to stem the downward slide of Muslims." He had said: "My idea for untangling this knot is Enlightened Moderation, which I think is a win for all -- for both the Muslim and non-Muslim worlds." It was in the same article that he wrote: "What we need is introspection."

Can the present government accept this edict and do some introspection? This brings me back to the question of whether the leadership is conscious of the mistake that was made and is aware of its consequences. It will not do to desperately tilt at windmills by way of attacking the NGOs. Surely there are individuals who sit on the table of authority and also realise the unfairness of maltreating Mukhtaran Mai. Why do they not raise their voice?

One great tragedy in our lives is that these people who may recognise the folly of the government's action keep quiet because they want to retain their positions in the power structure. Such moral bankruptcy is the cancer of our political governance. Look at the spectacle of the present administration being a reshuffling of the cards -- jokers included -- from the previous administrations.

The face of betrayal is etched on both sides of the coin. On one side, a number of ministers who had served Benazir Bhutto and Nawaz Sharif so sycophantically are willing to serve President Musharraf who is passionately opposed to the two former prime ministers. On the other, Musharraf himself is happy to ride with the former loyal ministers of the former prime ministers.

So, is genuine introspection possible in this setting? Be that as it may, we should at least expect a reflection committee, perhaps of the top spin doctors of this regime, to ponder the entire 'image' conundrum. Hopefully, they have already conducted this exercise. Not just the decision of putting Mukhtaran Mai on the exit control list, owned by Musharraf, the entire drill must also be reviewed. Mukhtaran Mai has given some details of how she was intimidated and she has refused to say anything about the two days she spent in Islamabad.

Finally, what is the present status of the campaign for 'enlightened moderation'? Let me conclude with another quote from Musharraf's article in the Washington Post: "I say to my brother Muslims: the time for renaissance has come. The way forward is through enlightenment. We must concentrate on human resource development through the alleviation of poverty and through education, health care and social justice." Social justice?
The writer is a staff member
Email: ghazi_salahuddin@hotmail.com

Saturday, June 25, 2005

Are Pakistani Madrassas the root cause of trouble: An Insightful Analysis

New York Times
June 14, 2005
The Madrassa Myth
By PETER BERGEN and SWATI PANDEY
Washington

IT is one of the widespread assumptions of the war on terrorism that the Muslim religious schools known as madrassas, catering to families that are often poor, are graduating students who become terrorists. Last year, Secretary of State Colin L. Powell denounced madrassas in Pakistan and several other countries as breeding grounds for "fundamentalists and terrorists." A year earlier, Secretary of Defense Donald H. Rumsfeld had queried in a leaked memorandum, "Are we capturing, killing or deterring and dissuading more terrorists every day than the madrassas and the radical clerics are recruiting, training and deploying against us?"

While madrassas may breed fundamentalists who have learned to recite the Koran in Arabic by rote, such schools do not teach the technical or linguistic skills necessary to be an effective terrorist. Indeed, there is little or no evidence that madrassas produce terrorists capable of attacking the West. And as a matter of national security, the United States doesn't need to worry about Muslim fundamentalists with whom we may disagree, but about terrorists who want to attack us.

We examined the educational backgrounds of 75 terrorists behind some of the most significant recent terrorist attacks against Westerners. We found that a majority of them are college-educated, often in technical subjects like engineering. In the four attacks for which the most complete information about the perpetrators' educational levels is available - the World Trade Center bombing in 1993, the attacks on the American embassies in Kenya and Tanzania in 1998, the 9/11 attacks, and the Bali bombings in 2002 - 53 percent of the terrorists had either attended college or had received a college degree. As a point of reference, only 52 percent of Americans have been to college. The terrorists in our study thus appear, on average, to be as well educated as many Americans.

The 1993 World Trade Center attack involved 12 men, all of whom had a college education. The 9/11 pilots, as well as the secondary planners identified by the 9/11 commission, all attended Western universities, a prestigious and elite endeavor for anyone from the Middle East. Indeed, the lead 9/11 pilot, Mohamed Atta, had a degree from a German university in, of all things, urban preservation, while the operational planner of 9/11, Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, studied engineering in North Carolina. We also found that two-thirds of the 25 hijackers and planners involved in 9/11 had attended college.

Of the 75 terrorists we investigated, only nine had attended madrassas, and all of those played a role in one attack - the Bali bombing. Even in this instance, however, five college-educated "masterminds" - including two university lecturers - helped to shape the Bali plot.

Like the view that poverty drives terrorism - a notion that countless studies have debunked - the idea that madrassas are incubating the next generation of terrorists offers the soothing illusion that desperate, ignorant automatons are attacking us rather than college graduates, as is often the case. In fact, two of the terrorists in our study had doctorates from Western universities, and two others were working toward their Ph.D.

A World Bank-financed study that was published in April raises further doubts about the influence of madrassas in Pakistan, the country where the schools were thought to be the most influential and the most virulently anti-American. Contrary to the numbers cited in the report of the 9/11 commission, and to a blizzard of newspaper reports that 10 percent of Pakistani students study in madrassas, the study's authors found that fewer than 1 percent do so. If correct, this estimate would suggest that there are far more American children being home-schooled than Pakistani boys attending madrassas.

While madrassas are an important issue in education and development in the Muslim world, they are not and should not be considered a threat to the United States. The tens of millions of dollars spent every year by the United States through the State Department, the Middle East Partnership Initiative, and the Agency for International Development to improve education and literacy in the Middle East and South Asia should be applauded as the development aid it is and not as the counterterrorism effort it cannot be.

Peter Bergen, the author of "Holy War Inc.," is a fellow at the New America Foundation. Swati Pandey is a research associate there.

Friday, June 24, 2005

Value of human rights in the eyes of Pakistan police

Daily Times, June 25, 2005
Police sew UTP’s lips in Multan jail

By our correspondent

MULTAN: The Vehari police sewed up the lips of an under-trial prisoner (UTP) with jute yarn when he protested the police torture and used foul language against the policemen who were torturing him.

The UTP, Muhammad Hussain, was taken to Vehari to produce him in a court. He was kept in judicial lockup where he quarrelled with another prisoner, Muhammad Imran. Then he tried to commit suicide by hitting his head against iron bars. He was taken to a hospital and brought back after first aid. He again quarrelled with the Moharrir and tore his shirt on which other policemen thrashed him and tied him to a post. Later, they sewed up his lips with jute yarn and shifted him to the Multan Central Jail.

When contacted, the jail officials said the lips of UTP Muhammad Hussain had been unstitched and that he had been admitted to the jail hospital for further treatment. Multan Range Police DIG Malik Muhammad Iqbal has ordered a thorough inquiry into the incident and served three-day deadline to the ADIG for fixing the responsibility.

"I have ordered an inquiry into the incident," said the DIG. He said at least five policemen had been suspended for violating human rights. Muhammad Hussain, facing trial over a fight between rival groups, badly damaged his lips when he tried to speak again through the sewn lips, the DIG said, adding, "The policemen responsible will not be spared."

Cross border movement of militants into Central Asia

Daily Times, June 25, 2005
Pak-Afghan militants entering CARs: Lavrov

MOSCOW: Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said on Friday that militants from Afghanistan and Pakistan were training for attacks against Russia and former Soviet Central Asia and that they periodically cross into Central Asian territory.

Terrorists, “with the participation of former Taliban and participants of the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan,” were training in Afghanistan and across the border in Pakistan with the aim of “conducting terrorist attacks, including on the territory of the Russian Federation,” Lavrov claimed at a joint news conference with NATO Secretary-General Jaap de Hoop Scheffer.

He said the militants had penetrated into the Fergana Valley, shared between the former Soviet republics of Uzbekistan, Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan, and he proposed that Russia and NATO work with those countries’ special services “to ensure that such activity is stopped.”

Lavrov made his allegations in response to a question on why Russia did not support Western calls for an independent, international investigation into last month’s violence in the eastern Uzbek city of Andijan.

Government troops there opened fire on a crowd of thousands of protesters after militants had freed inmates from a prison, stormed a police station and military barracks, and taken over the local administration building. Witnesses and human rights groups say hundreds of peaceful civilians were killed. “We don’t need to support such calls because from the very first days, we have been saying that while investigating this, special attention needs to be paid to these aspects: to determine who, how, under what circumstances and with what aim this group of people was organized,” Lavrov said, referring to the protesters, whom both Russia and Uzbekistan have alleged to be Islamic extremists.

NATO has joined in Western calls for an independent, international investigation of the Uzbek violence, while Russia has steadfastly backed the Uzbek government and blamed the unrest on international terrorists.

“We have discussed Uzbekistan, and this is where NATO and the Russian Federation do not have the same position,” De Hoop Scheffer said.

Lavrov reiterated previous statements that special services of interested foreign countries have information on who was behind the violence, but he said he could not reveal more for fear of helping terrorists. De Hoop Scheffer did not indicate whether NATO countries had received such information. ap

Wednesday, June 22, 2005

Nawaz Sharif and Osama Bin Laden

Daily Times, June 23, 2005
Nawaz Sharif met Osama three times: former ISI official
Daily Times Monitor

LAHORE: Khalid Khawaja, a former Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) official who was dismissed from the service by the late Gen Ziaul Haq because of his outspoken nature, has said former prime minister Nawaz Sharif met Al Qaeda chief Osama Bin Laden thrice in Saudi Arabia.

In an interview to Asia Times Online on Wednesday, he said, “After Gen Zia’s death in a plane crash (1988), elections were announced and there was a possibility that the Pakistan People’s Party (PPP) led by Benazir Bhutto would win, which would be a great setback for the cause of the Afghan jihad against the USSR. The situation was discussed and all the mujahideen thought that they should play a role in blocking the PPP from winning the elections. I joined my former DG Hamid Gul and played a role in forming the then Islamic Democratic Alliance consisting of the Pakistan Muslim League and the Jamaat-e-Islami. The PPP won the elections by a thin margin and faced a strong opposition.”

Asian Times Online quoted Khalid as saying that Osama provided him with funds, which he handed over to Nawaz Sharif, then the chief minister of Punjab (and later premier), to dislodge Benazir Bhutto.

“Nawaz Sharif insisted that I arrange a direct meeting with the Osama, which I did in Saudi Arabia. Nawaz met thrice with Osama in Saudi Arabia. The most historic was the meeting in the Green Palace Hotel in Medina between Nawaz Sharif, Osama and myself. Osama asked Nawaz to devote himself to “jihad in Kashmir”. Nawaz immediately said, ‘I love jihad.’ Osama smiled, and then stood up from his chair and went to a nearby pillar and said, ‘Yes, you may love jihad, but your love for jihad is this much.’ He then pointed to a small portion of the pillar. ‘Your love for children is this much,’ he said, pointing to a larger portion of the pillar. ‘And your love for your parents is this much,’ he continued, pointing towards the largest portion. ‘I agree that you love jihad, but this love is the smallest in proportion to your other affections in life.’”

It quoted Khalid as saying these sorts of arguments were beyond Nawaz Sharif’s comprehension and he kept asking him ‘agreed or not’?

“Nawaz Sharif was looking for a Rs 500 million grant from Osama. Though Osama gave a comparatively smaller amount, the landmark thing he secured for Nawaz Sharif was a meeting with the (Saudi) royal family, which gave Nawaz Sharif a lot of political support, and it remained till he was dislodged (as premier) by Gen Pervez Musharraf (in a coup in 1999). Saudi Arabia arranged for his release and his safe exit to Saudi Arabia,” he told Asia Times online.

Arithmetic of poor education system

Daily Times, June 23, 2005
Arithmetic of poor education system

ISLAMABAD: The report also reveled that around 16.75 percent children were shelter less, 32 percent in Sindh, 18 percent in Balochistan, nine percent in the NWFP and eight percent in Punjab. In Sindh, 5,612 schools are reported to be non-functional due to lack of teachers and infrastructure. Of the non-functional schools, 365 are in Larkana, 109 in Sukkur, 427 in Badin, 409 in Dadu, 394 in Hyderabad, 468 in Thatta 637 in Mirpurkhas, 605 in Mithi, 369 in Sanghar, 236 in Ghotki, 398 in Khairpur, 194 in Shikarpur, 48 in Karachi, 266 in Jacobabad, 194 in Noshehroferoz and 399 in Nawabshah. The report said the education sector faced a shortfall of Rs 200 billion to implement its national action plan to achieve an adult literacy rate that is 86 percent for both men and women by 2015. The report mentioned a statement by the Asian Development Bank that spending on the primary education in Pakistan had gone down significantly and basic education indicators for poor were extremely low. The report on violence against children depicted a gloomy picture and discussed violence against children which includes child abuse, corporal punishment, child sexual abuse, children in conflict situations, street children, child abuse through traditions and customs, trafficking, camel jockeys. The last chapter deals with the state of children in Afghanistan. Despite the efforts by local and international organisations to ensure their welfare, the situation was still poor. It focused on issues like birth registration, education, health and nutrition, violence and infant mortality. Meanwhile addressing the launching ceremony, Javed Jabbar, chairman of SPARC’s Board of Directors, said that the government must give priority to child rights by introducing new schemes and projects in the education and health sectors. irfan ghauri

The State of Affairs in Pakistan

Daily Times, June 23, 2005
VIEW: Kal lo jo kalnae —Kamran Shafi

A request to the Big General: Sir, please isolate those of your sycophants who misguided you and sack them out of hand. So that others are more careful in the future and not give our good country and, by default, us its hapless people, a worse name than we have already

Stop Press: Who does a black BMW SUV, registration No: IDS 555 belong to, can the Islamabad Capital Territory authorities please tell us? For, on Sunday, June 19, as I was driving home through Rawalpindi Cantonment (emphasis on the word ‘CANTONMENT’ please, sirs — you who rule Pakistan from Rawalpindi) after picking up a friend at the airport, my car was overtaken rudely by this vehicle which had its windows blacked out and had a bodyguard sitting in the front seat.

Fast in its wake came one of these Toyota Double-cabin jobs with a man sitting in the front seat, two in the back seat, and a further two in the open, truck part of the vehicle. They were all armed with Kalashnikovs except one who was cradling a semi-automatic weapon that I did not recognise. All of them were wearing the white-shalwar-kameez-and-black-waistcoat that is the hallmark of the government’s plainclothesmen who are seen hanging about the crossroads whenever some VVIP or other is travelling in Islamabad the Beautiful and surrounding country.

The guards were all in a state of near hysteria, gesticulating rudely and mouthing obscenities when I did not immediately find space on my left to get out of the way of the follow-vehicle, the chappie sitting in the front seat the most agitated of them all.

The most frightening part was that his Kalashnikov became more and more visible the angrier he got. I might add that whilst they wore regulation clothes so to say, they did not look like the government’s agents — these chaps were far more uncouth. And older, and more corpulent. They looked like retired government agents, actually.

So who was this VVVVVIP who travels in such regal, almost presidential style, and who were his loutish guards? And how does he have the nerve to display weapons SPECIALLY IN THE MOST IMPORTANT AND SENSITIVE CANTONMENT IN THE LAND OF THE PURE when this government of the Big General’s — that so believes in the rule of law and ‘good governance’ — prohibits the display of weapons anywhere in the country?

It is important for us to be told, for if he really is a high official we should henceforth look out for his passing and hurry out of his way. He should also be advised to display some form of identification so that everyone knows it is he.

If he is not a government official, he must be prosecuted most keenly and stopped from ever indulging in this sort of behaviour on public roads in the future so that his bodyguards do not threaten lay citizens minding their own business. Or does he have friends in such high places that he does what he does with impunity and disdainfully says, like the character in Farooq Qaiser’s brilliant puppet show Uncle Sargam: “Kal lo jo kalnae”?

Which, it seems to me (unless of course, he hadn’t been told of the mammoth backlash generated by that particular shot to the government’s head) is just what the Big General conveyed to the world when he said it was he who personally ordered the ban on Mukhtar Mai’s travel abroad to safeguard Pakistan’s ‘image’! (In his case, I suppose, because Dubya is so “tight” with him; therefore ‘Kal lo jo kalnae’?).

He ordered that ban, he said, because he did not want Mukhtar Mai to speak to the foreign press, and give Pakistan a bad “image” as a result, which might make tourists stay away from this country. Whilst the ham-fisted and stupid way in which the case was handled is one more very large nail in the coffin of our country’s “image”, it is pertinent to ask if a mere statement by a military ruler that all is right and dandy in a certain country will suddenly make it a great tourist destination?

Last week I had asked if Mukhtar Mai, a poor, wronged village woman was going to be a catalyst for change in the way the country is run. The more I see the various and seriously damaging convulsions of the regime as it thrashes about trying to understand the situation, and the rather vocal and tough reaction from the government’s backers, no less, in Washington DC, I am increasingly of the opinion that she will.

The first indicator is the U-turn on stopping her from going abroad: could anyone have imagined a mere peasant woman humbling a great big military regime? Especially of the Islamic Republic which also has the ‘bum’?

It is not only the Mukhtar Mai issue that should be giving grief to the regime. Just look at the problem-plagued visit to New Zealand (NZ), which started off with a needless confrontation between the New Zealand police and the General’s armed bodyguards and which gave us such bad press across the world, and ended with cancelled interviews with two New Zealand TV stations.

New Zealand is a country that does not allow private ownership of weapons, full stop, a fact that should have been well known to our “core-professional” diplomats. The top “core-professional”, Secretary Riaz himself, was accompanying the General please note. NZ is also a country that has great courage of conviction, once facing down the mighty United States of America when it banned nuclear-powered US Navy ships from entering its territorial waters. Was it then going to buckle under to the bodyguards of a Third World dictator? Of a poor and backward South Asian country awash with nutcases of every description?

Knowing what they should have been told, then, why did the bodyguards not give up their weapons quietly and with dignity upon arrival in NZ? Even leave them on board the aircraft? A quite simple matter surely, following the rules set by the hosts, what? Or is it simply the case that we HAVE to behave in a contrary manner just because we are Pakistani? And because we have to make a spectacle of ourselves at every given opportunity?

Or is it indeed the case that our FO was “not aware”, which it very usually is, of New Zealand’s laws? A little aside: Lt-Gen Asad Durrani, he of the Supreme Court affidavit fame, and I, were appointed Ambassador to Germany and Minister at the High Commission in London respectively, about the same time in 1994 and happened to go to the FO on the same day for our ‘briefing’.

Whilst my ‘briefing paper’ told me England had a Queen whose name was Elizabeth and a currency which was called the Pound Sterling and other such well-kept secrets, General Durrani’s told of how there were two Germanys: one West and one East, and so on. Fully three years after the two Germanys had reunified! So there you have it, a prime example of our “core-professionals” being blissfully “unaware”.

A request to the Big General: Sir, please isolate those of your sycophants who misguided you and sack them out of hand. So that others are more careful in the future and not give our good country and, by default, us its hapless people, a worse name than we have already.

Bushism of the Week: “I’m hopeful. I know there is a lot of ambition in Washington, obviously. But I hope the ambitious realise that they are more likely to succeed with success as opposed to failure” — President George W Bush; interview with the Associated Press; January 18, 2001.

PS: HELP, anyone in WAPDA House, Lahore: In this intense heat, the power supply is so weak (160-170 Volts at the best of times), in Hasan Abdal sub-division that even tube-lights don’t work sometimes. The electricity also dips and surges wildly, destroying electrical implements. Can any of you Sahibs even begin to understand our and our little children’s predicament, lounging in wall-to-wall, FREE air-conditioning as you are?

Kamran Shafi is a freelance columnist

Tuesday, June 21, 2005

Khalid Ahmed at his best

Daily times, June 21, 2005
SECOND OPINION: How should we take external criticism? —Khaled Ahmed’s TV Review

Hafiz Hussain Ahmad denied authority to the ulema who did not belong to the Banuri mosque of Karachi, thus clearly pointing to a schism. (Banuri mosque fatwa of death against the Americans in the 1990s was ignored by the other clerics.) His only consolation was that he was addressing an audience that may believe that the trouble in Balochistan was being fomented by the Americans and the Indians

Standing up for your country also means fending off criticism against it. Democracy is bad because it relies on opposition and criticism. Rulers who identify themselves with the state are angered by criticism because they think it unpatriotic. How should one sustain patriotism if the conduct of the state is constantly exposed to objection? More painful is the criticism that comes from abroad. Should we be defensive or should we objectively examine it? The issue is further complicated by our reluctance to accept a uniform standard of behaviour for states in their internal affairs.

GEO (May 22, 2005) Foreign Affairs programme discussed the latest US Senate report on instability in Pakistan with Ambassador Mansur Alam, Ikram Sehgal, General Talat Masood (retd) and JUI leader Hafiz Hussain Ahmad. Hafiz Hussain Ahmad attacked America and said that instability in Pakistan was caused by the US. He said Pakistan was neither politically unstable nor was there any insecurity in terms of law and order. He said both these problems in Pakistan were caused by the US and Israel. Ikram Sehgal said that the American report presented at the US Senate was correct but exaggerated. He said the report omitted to mention the improvement recently brought about in the situation. (Hafiz Hussain Ahmad butted in to disagree.) Talat Masood insisted that the report was not only correct it was also not hostile to Pakistan. He said Pakistanis must learn to be objective about themselves. Hafiz Hussain Ahmad said the report was false just as the report on Iraq’s weapons of mass destruction was wrong and cooked up. The governor of Balochistan had said hat the terrorists were coming from Afghanistan and who is ruling in Afghanistan? In Wana the Americans ordered Pakistan to fire on its own people. India had consulates in Afghanistan. America was opposed to the projects in Gwadar and Saindak. America was engineering our instability and insecurity, he said. Talat Masood said that Mufti Munib’s fatwa from Islamabad that prohibition of suicide bombing was valid only in Pakistan was wrong. Mansur Alam said that not all clerics were in agreement with the fatwa. Sehgal said that if civilians were not killed suicide bombing was valid. He said suicide bombing as fidai action was right. He said there was no need of a fatwa. A young minister was allowed to organise a fatwa, which was not consensual. Only places like Banuri Town seminary could have issued a fatwa of this sort. Sehgal said America made the mistake of equating the Taliban with Al Qaeda. Pakistan was not against the Taliban. He said it was wrong to make a suicide bombing attack on 9/11 to which Hafiz Hussain Ahmad objected most vigorously. Host Nasir Beg ended by appealing to imperial powers to let the enslaved nations go free and return to the people the lands they had occupied.

The fatwa was a mere opinion. It was not a fatwa in the historical sense as that would negate the sovereignty of the state. It was not binding. Hafiz Hussain Ahmad denied authority to the ulema who did not belong to the Banuri mosque of Karachi, thus clearly pointing to a schism. (Banuri mosque fatwa of death against the Americans in the 1990s was ignored by the other clerics.) The fact that the chief of the Banuri complex who issued the fatwa on the basis of years of militia-backed authority in the country was murdered, pointed to another anomaly. Authenticity of the Banuri mosque was established through the use of violence, which the state could not monopolise. Its fatwa had resulted only in mounting external pressure on Pakistan. In the end, Banuri mosque was destroyed by sectarianism. General Talat Masood was inclined to accept international criticism. The others were clearly not. But Hafiz Hussain Ahmad was isolated in the discussion. His only consolation was that he was addressing the TV audience, which may believe that the trouble in Balochistan was being fomented by the Americans and the Indians.

ARY (May 23, 2005) Dr Shahid Masood discussed desecration of the Quran with a Guantanamo Bay prisoner Qari Badruzzaman Badr. Badr said that the Holy Quran was thrown down and once even thrown on rubbish by Americans guards in jails located in Kandahar and Bagram. He was later in Guantanamo Bay where he did not see the desecration. In Kandahar or Bagram after the Quran had been desecrated the prisoners went on hunger strike for two days after which the American general came down and apologised to them. Badr said that the American soldiers treated the Bible in the same manner. (Bibles were inadvertently given as reading material.) He said at Bagram and Kandahar many Pakistani prisoners were killed during torture. He said those who tortured them were thought to be Jews. At Guantanamo Bay in Cuba, there were around 600 prisoners, most of them Arabs. Among the Arabs the majority were from Saudi Arabia. He said at first they were given the Quran and Hadith to read through Muslim priests but later after they feared that jihad could be imbibed from them, the copies were withdrawn. After that they were given only novels and stories. He said at Guantanamo Bay many Arabs had dreams in which the Holy Prophet (peace be upon him) personally gave them news of their freedom and called them the People of Badr. The Prophet (PBUH) said that Christ will soon arrive. One Arab saw Jesus who took his hand and told him that Christians were now misled. Later the other prisoners could smell the sweet smell of Jesus from his hand. His hand was rubbed on all the prisoners. Badr said that he and his brother were sold to the Americans for money by enemies of their family in Pakistan. He revealed that many prisoners were simply handed over to Afghanistan for dollars.

Badr brings to light a number of factors. He saw desecration of the Quran in Kandahar and Bagram only, and it is a proof of his honesty that he mentioned the apology offered by the American officer there. However, desecration was repeated five times at Guantanamo Bay, too. The Arab prisoners were superior because the Prophet (PBUH) visited them in their dreams to announce the advent of Christ. It also reveals the nature of Saudi Islam bred in alienation from the ruling family. The Saudi creed is also a kind of mithridatic solution thought up by the rulers themselves and spread through clerics like late Bin Baz.

Sunday, June 19, 2005

A free women indeed

New York Times, July 19, 2005

June 19, 2005
A Free Woman
By NICHOLAS D. KRISTOF
After the Pakistani government tired of kidnapping Mukhtaran Bibi, holding her hostage and lying about it, I finally got a call through to her.

Pakistani officials had just freed Ms. Mukhtaran and returned her to her village. She was exhausted, scared, relieved, giddy and sometimes giggly - and also deeply thankful to all the Pakistanis and Americans who spoke up for her.

"I'm so thankful to everyone that they keep a woman like me in mind," she said fervently. Told that lots of people around the world think she's a hero, she laughed and responded: "God is great. If some people think I'm a hero, it's only because of all those people who give me support."

President Pervez Musharraf's government is still lying about Ms. Mukhtaran, saying that she is now free to travel to the U.S. Well, it's true that government officials removed her name from the blacklist of those barred from leaving Pakistan, but at the same time they confiscated Ms. Mukhtaran's passport.

Let me back up. Ms. Mukhtaran is the indomitable peasant whom I first wrote about in September after visiting her in her village. Three years ago, a village council was upset at her brother, and sentenced her to be gang-raped. After four men raped her, she was forced to walk home nearly naked before a jeering crowd.

She then defied tradition by testifying against her attackers, sending them to prison, and she used compensation money to start elementary schools in her village. She herself is now enrolled in the fourth grade; a measure of her passion for education is that the day after the government released her, she was back in class.

Ms. Mukhtaran is using donations (through www.mercycorps.org) to start an ambulance service and a women's shelter, and she is also campaigning against honor killings, rapes and acid attacks that disfigure women. But President Musharraf, defensive about Pakistan's image, regards brutality as something to cover up rather than uproot.

So when Pakistani officials learned that Ms. Mukhtaran planned to visit the U.S. this month, they detained her and apparently tried to intimidate her by ordering the release of those convicted for her rape. This wasn't a mistake by low-level officials.

Mr. Musharraf admitted to reporters on Friday that he had ordered Ms. Mukhtaran placed on the blacklist. And although Pakistan had claimed that Ms. Mukhtaran had decided on her own not to go to the U.S. because her mother was sick (actually, she wasn't), the president in effect acknowledged that that was one more lie. "She was told not to go" to the U.S., Mr. Musharraf said, according to The Associated Press.

"I don't want to project a bad image of Pakistan." he explained.

I sympathize. From Karachi to the Khyber Pass, Pakistan is one of the most hospitable countries I've ever visited. So, President Musharraf, if you want to improve Pakistan's image, here's some advice: just prosecute rapists with the same zeal with which you persecute rape victims.

Ms. Mukhtaran says she can't talk about what happened after the government kidnapped her. But this is what seems to have unfolded: In Islamabad, government officials ferociously berated her for being unpatriotic and warned that they could punish her family and friends. In particular, they threatened to have the father of a friend fired from his job.

Fittingly, the government is facing its own pressures. Government officials have denounced Pakistani aid groups for helping Ms. Mukhtaran, and Mr. Musharraf added that they were "as bad as the Islamic extremists." So now the aid groups are threatening to pull out of their partnership with the government.

Mr. Musharraf has helped in the war on terrorism and has managed Pakistan's economy well. But in my last column, I reluctantly concluded that he is "nuts," prompting a debate in Pakistan about whether this diagnosis was insolent or accurate. After Mr. Musharraf's latest remarks, I rest my case.

On Friday, Ms. Mukhtaran told me that one of the prime minister's aides had just called to offer to take her to the United States. It seems Mr. Musharraf wants to defuse the crisis by allowing Ms. Mukhtaran a tightly chaperoned tour of the U.S., controlled every step of her way.

"I said, 'No,' " she said. "I only want to go of my own free will."

Hats off to this incredible woman. President Musharraf may have ousted rivals and overthrown a civilian government, but he has now met his match - a peasant woman with a heart of gold and a will of steel.

E-mail: nicholas@nytimes.com

Kashmir Peace Disconnects Between India and Pakistan

South Asia Tribune, June 18, 2005
The Big Kashmir Peace Disconnects Between India and Pakistan
By Ammara Durrani

LOS ANGELES, June 18: The hapless bunch of Kashmiri leaders who visited Pakistan two weeks ago publicly stated they would now have to look at "other options" for the resolution of the Kashmir dispute, given the UN's failure to do so.

This puts the writing across the wall: For all their denouncement of the status quo of their disputed valley, Kashmiris realize they have no choice now but to negotiate with the Governments of India and Pakistan within the political parameters set and controlled by these two countries.

This could well be the epitaph of a nationalist dream succumbing to the machinations of two beleaguered countries ostensibly struggling for peace. Who really benefits from this peace, however, is a different question--one we have been asking since this 'process' first began.

In the spring of 2003, the then Indian prime minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee took the first step in creating a historical legacy the ailing 81-year-old leader was desperate to leave behind. Addressing a public rally of some 20,000 in the Kashmiri capital of Srinagar where no Indian Prime Minister had spoken to its people in the last 15 years, Vajpayee extended a hand of friendship to arch rival Pakistan. "I believe the gun is no solution to problems," he had said that day.

Across the heavily soldiered Line of Control (LoC) that knifes through the disputed valley between their two countries, Pakistani President General Pervez Musharraf was only too eager to grasp Vajpayee's hand. Musharraf was also in search of a legacy and legitimacy.

In January 2004 in the Pakistani capital of Islamabad, the two leaders finally shook hands and unfolded their vision for a 'historic' peace. But there was something hypocritical about these two leaders talking brotherhood.

Who could forget that only four years earlier the same Musharraf had led a military adventure in Kargil, Kashmir, shattering a fledgling peace agreement and bringing the two countries to the brink of a nuclear catastrophe?

And who could ignore the fact that in India Vajpayee led a right-wing Hindu fascist government that only two years ago had stood silently watching its cohorts perpetrate the worst human rights violations against Muslim minorities during communal riots in the state of Gujarat?

Why, these men were the leaders of those very hard-boiled and hard-nosed hawkish establishments in Islamabad and New Delhi that had invested in perpetuating this conflict for the last half century! So why were the hate-mongers chanting the peace mantra now, we had wondered.

We figured that the war in Iraq and globalization were producing some home truths, and these military and ideological pundits wanted to be the first ones to grasp those truths for their politico-economic survival. Good, if the hawks were returning home to roost, we said.

If it were not for one serious concern, however, we would have actually believed the newfound pacifist-reformist mantra of the hawks and accepted them as our 'saviors'.

Our concern was that thanks to the global ascendancy of right-wingers, the South Asian hawks had now made it their privilege to hijack the political agenda of peace and economic co-operation as their own, leaving the local left-wing doves with egg on their faces. What would the Musharraf-Vajpayee peace legacy mean for the future of democracy in Pakistan and that of secularism in India, we wondered? Would these merely become casualties of the 'peace' of hawks?

A year after the historic handshake, we revisit our concern, and for all the funny reasons. We see Musharraf trying to impress the world with his peace ventures on the one hand, struggling to rein in homegrown jihadis on the other, and escaping attempts on his life in between.

Vajpayee's historic handshake could not win him the last general election in India. He is now helplessly witnessing a bellicose BJP caught between laying claim to his peace legacy on the one hand, and on the other, forcing its party president LK Advani to resign for his 'treachery' of praising the Pakistanis too much during his landmark visit earlier this month to the enemy country.

The latest we hear is that Vajpayee Ji is angry with Manmohan Singh for making the peace process too "Kashmir-centric"!

We wonder if preaching war and hatred was easier for these hawks-turned-doves before they decided to manipulate noble ideals for their selfish political gains.

In their quest for peace, the political establishments of Pakistan and India are faced with daunting problems. Their reluctance to publicly say what they have privately understood about Kashmir is most telling of how much they fear those very cadres of arms and ideology they helped create. Had they ever really believed in what they now say, we could have been saved a lot of blood, tears and now total confusion.

What could be more ironic than the fact that while Musharraf and his wife pose in front of the Taj Mahal for the world media during their frequent peace jaunts to Delhi, his intelligence boys hound and harass ordinary Pakistanis visiting India or hosting Indians?

Who can make sense of the BJP's anti-Pakistan vitriolic on the one hand and its claim to the peace legacy on the other? Who will make Musharraf's own administration follow his peace dream and stop bothering its own people? Who will liberate Indian Muslims from the fear of BJP's poison of communal hatred and its negation of the very existence of Pakistan, if peace really is its legacy?

These are big disconnects apparent to all in Pakistan and India who are bombarded with the peace rhetoric emanating from their respective capitals day in and out, but for whom peace on the ground is a different story.

In their half-a-century of existence, Pakistan and India are now teaching the world some lessons in war and peace. Their hawks first armed their countries to the teeth, while keeping their populations clothed in poverty and fed with hatred. They used war to make political careers. When a bigger and meaner war came, they thought better of making the most of its 'opportunity'.
They should know better now: that peace cannot be imposed--especially by those who have harmed it the most. It should have been cultivated from bottom up. They can sell their legacy to world leaders like themselves, but they have the toughest time selling it to their homemade tin soldiers and ideologues.

The writer is Assistant Editor of Pakistan's Daily "The News" currently in US on Daniel Pearl Fellowship with the Los Angeles Times

Jagan Nath Azad wrote Pakistan’s first national anthem

Daily Times, June 19, 2005
‘Jagan Nath Azad wrote Pakistan’s first anthem’
Daily Times Monitor

LAHORE: “Aey sarzameen-e-Pak zarrey terey hein aaj sitaron sey tabnak. Roshan hey kehkashan sey kahin aaj teri khak.”(O land of Pakistan, each particle of yours is being illuminated by stars. Even your dust has been brightened like a rainbow.”)

These are lines from Pakistan’s first national anthem — written by Jagan Nath Azad, well-known Indian writer and intellectual, acceding to the wishes of Muhammad Ali Jinnah, The Hindu newspaper reported.

Days before his death last year, Azad recalled, in an interview, the circumstances under which he was asked by Jinnah to write Pakistan’s national anthem: “In August 1947, when mayhem had struck the whole subcontinent, I was in Lahore working in a literary newspaper.

All my relatives had left for India and for me to think of leaving Lahore was painful. My Muslim friends requested me to stay. On August 9, 1947, there was a message from Jinnah Sahib through one of my friends at Radio Pakistan Lahore. He told me ‘Quaid-e-Azam wants you to write a national anthem for Pakistan.’”

Why him? “The answer to this question,” Azad said in the interview, “has to be understood by recalling the inaugural speech of Jinnah Sahib as Pakistan’s governor general. He said: `You will find that in the course of time, Hindus will cease to be Hindus and Muslims will cease to be Muslims, not in the religious sense because that is the personal faith of each individual, but in the political sense as citizens of the state.’

I asked my friends why Jinnah Sahib wanted me to write the anthem. They confided in me that ‘the Quaid wanted the anthem to be written by an Urdu-knowing Hindu.’ Through this, I believe Jinnah Sahib wanted to sow the roots of secularism in a Pakistan.”

The national anthem written by Azad was sent to Jinnah, who approved it in a few hours. It was sung for the first time on Pakistan Radio, Karachi.

The situation in Punjab was becoming worse. Azad’s friends told him in September 1947 that it would be better for him to migrate to India. The song written by Azad served as Pakistan’s national anthem for one and a half years. After Jinnah’s death, Hafiz Jallundhari wrote the national anthem.

Saturday, June 18, 2005

Psychology of a suicide bomber

Daily Times, June 18, 2005
What makes a man a suicide bomber?
By Khalid Hasan

WASHINGTON: The growing incidents of suicide bombings in Pakistan has begun to worry the government, no less than the people, according to a report in the Christian Science Monitor.

Filed from Pakistan by the newspaper’s correspondent, Owais Tohid, the report says how suicide bombers are recruited and brainwashed into offering the ultimate sacrifice are now questions of “increasing urgency in Pakistan, which has seen a spate of suicide bombings in recent weeks. These attacks were carried out by splinter groups formed in the wake of the post-9/11 crackdown on militant organisations.

“Smaller and more isolated than their parent organisations, these splinter groups receive financial backing from Al Qaeda and draw their recruits from the ranks of the poor and enraged,” according to investigators. Fateh Mohammad Burfat of the University of Karachi is of the view that this is a new breed, made up of the unemployed and the illiterate who belong to the poorer strata of society. These men perceive US military actions in Iraq and Afghanistan as hostile acts against the Muslim world. They have also been led to believe that a successful suicide attacks will gain them victory here and in the hereafter.

The report also quotes police official Gul Hameed Samoo of Karachi who believes that the splinter groups “provide the new entrants with poisonous extremist literature to brainwash them, and then start giving them responsibilities from shifting weapons to providing refuge to wanted militants.” The leaders recruit them for different purposes, with agendas ranging from killing Shias to liberating Muslims from “infidels.” The new trend of suicide bombings is packaged as a “ticket to Paradise.” The leaders are mostly veterans of the wars in Afghanistan and Kashmir and have often trained with Arab militants in Afghanistan.

The mastermind of these groups is assumed to be Al Qaeda, which gets in touch through a courier with the leader of a jihadi splinter group who plans the attack. The attacker is often a “brainwashed” jihadi. In Pakistan, Al Qaeda masterminds are often well educated, but the planners and the bombers themselves often are not. “There are leaders who look out for suicide bombers and usually find the simple, unemployed religious-minded youth with the help of a cleric at a mosque or madrassa,” says a police investigator.

According to the Monitor report, the suicide-bomber cells operate in small groups of five to seven people, never staying at one place for more than two nights. Moving in small cells is now a necessity for members of the larger splinter groups, which have been thrown into disarray by a persistent government crackdown. The isolation of splinter groups, as well as their greater dependence on outside funding, may explain the adoption of the radical tactic of suicide bombing.

“They are on the run, and short of resources. But it is the most dangerous tactic and rather impossible to stop like elsewhere in the world,” says Karachi police chief Tariq Jameel.

“Killing of any non-Muslim citizen or foreigner visiting the country is also forbidden in Islam since they are under protection of the Government of Pakistan,” maintains Islamic scholar Mufti Munibur Rehman.

Friday, June 17, 2005

Uncle Sam, Manto and Bin Laden

The News, June 18, 2005
Day After Friday
Bin Laden living Manto’s dream

Malik Shahnawaz Khar

Bin Laden and Saadat Hasan Manto have many things in common. For starters, both have spent the most creative part of their career in hiding. Bin Laden is hiding because everybody is looking for him and Manto while he was alive remained hidden because nobody ever came looking for him.

Nobody gave him any lift. Close to his death, Manto was admitted in a hospital’s general ward, where he began composing his ‘Letters to Uncle Sam’. In these letters, he became a self-professed loyal nephew of the Americans. Although these letters never saw the sight of an envelope because Manto could never afford postage stamps.

In his third letter to Uncle Sam, Manto requested the Americans to coax Pakistan into handing him over to them and in case of refusal Americans should stop supplying weapons to Pakistan. Manto felt that once Pakistanis knew that he was important to the Americans, his social clout would exceed ten-fold and everybody would want to associate with him. He also requested that if the Americans decide to grant him a Most-Wanted Status, then they should also provide him with a chauffeur-driven American car, which he would need, in order to maintain social pretences. He also asked the Americans that in case they agreed to provide a car, then they should also be willing to dish out some extra cash for the gas. He wrote that as a compensation for all these favours, the Americans could label his activities: the Americans could make him wear a T-shirt and advertise Coca-Cola or any other product they wanted on the T-shirt, free of cost, while he drove around the Mall road in his gifted car.

In his second letter to Uncle Sam, Manto mentions that an official from the American Embassy came to visit him and requested that he write something in favour of America. Manto writes that he lied to the official by telling him that he charged Rs200 for a story; although at the time, he was selling a story for less than Rs20. But the American official turned around and embarrassed Manto by saying that they were ready to even pay Rs500. Manto regretted that like every other Pakistani, he had sold himself too cheaply to the Americans. Manto further elaborated on the concept of selling oneself cheaply, (Pakistani diplomats, please take note): in the business of quoting prices to prostitute oneself, one should always be a little careful because it is too embarrassing to change one’s rate later. Finally, Manto settled for three hundred rupees but with a lifelong regret on missing out on the extra two hundred rupees.

Unlike Manto, Osama has no such regrets in life. He doesn’t need to worry about social relevance in Pakistan; as long as the Americans want him, he will always be the centrepiece of discussion in Pakistan. According to the latest newspaper advertisement; Mr. Bin Laden carries a price tag of 25 million dollars. Which might make him guilty of many things but like Saadat Hasan Manto and Pakistani policy pundits, at least he is not guilty of selling himself cheaply!

Thursday, June 16, 2005

Alleged Pakistani gun runner arrested in US!

Daily Times, June 17, 2005
Alleged Pakistani gun runner arrested in US

MEXICO CITY: Mexican authorities in Tijuana, a city near the US-Mexico border, detained and deported a Pakistani man who is under investigation by US prosecutors for alleged weapons trafficking, and US police took him into custody on Wednesday in Los Angeles.

Pakistani citizen Arif Durrani was detained as he left a restaurant in Playas de Rosarito, near Tijuana, by Mexican police acting on information from US authorities, the attorney general’s office said in a press statement.

Durrani was deported by Mexico on a flight to Pakistan, but he was taken into US custody during a layover in Los Angeles, said US consular spokeswoman Liza Davis in Tijuana. Another US official speaking on customary condition of anonymity confirmed that Durrani was currently the target of an ongoing arms trafficking investigation.

Durrani was convicted in the United States in 1987 of selling missile parts to Iran; a former US resident, he was deported from the United States in 1998, and has apparently lived in Mexico since then. It was not clear if that investigation was related to Durrani’s prior conviction, in which he claimed to have acted as part of the Iran-Contra scandal, which involved secret US arms sales to Iran to fund Contra rebels fighting the left-wing Nicaraguan government.

US officials refused to divulge specific details of the current investigation; the Mexican statement said “Durrani faces an arrest warrant in the United States for trafficking in anti-aircraft missiles.”

Durrani was deported in 1998 after serving a five-year US prison sentence for violating the Arms Export Control Act for selling anti-aircraft missile parts to Iran.

In 2003, Durrani petitioned a US court to have his conviction overturned, and asked to review more government documents in an attempt to prove he sold the parts at the behest of former Lt Col Oliver North and other US officials. Durrani claims he was part of the US effort to exchange arms for American hostages held in Lebanon. He said North, a former National Security Council aide, told him to ship the missile parts to Iran and not to worry about getting an export license.

Mexican authorities said Durrani was detained earlier this week along with three Afghan-born men and a Syrian, all of whom apparently entered Tijuana from the United States.

The five were picked up as federal police and soldiers were deployed over the weekend to reinforce local police struggling against a surge in violence linked to drug gangs along the Mexico side of the US border.

None of the five had a Mexican tourist visa, and all were considered to be in the country without permission. ap

From a Jihadi sponsor to be the spokesman for "Enlightened Moderation"

June 16, 2005
Ex-generals, politicians confirm Sheikh Rashid ran militant camp
By Shahzad Raza

ISLAMABAD: General (r) Mirza Aslam Baig, former chief of army staff, on Wednesday confirmed that Information Minister Sheikh Rashid Ahmed used to run a militant camp in Rawalpindi.

He told Daily Times that being the army chief, he had received information about the camp where militants used to receive training. “The abandoned camp still has the signboard of Freedom House,” he said.He said the camp was established during the rise of an armed struggle in Kashmir, but was closed down in 1991 when the then prime minister Nawaz Sharif found out about its existence. Asked to comment on the denials issued by the foreign office and Sheikh Rashid himself about the camp, the former army chief said: “I am telling you what I have in my knowledge.”

On June 13, Jammu and Kashmir Liberation Front (JKLF) Chairman Yasin Malik made a pubic statement about the camp. The JKLF chief’s disclosure incurred a strong reaction from the Indian government and also put in doubt Sheikh Rashid’s expected visit to Srinagar later this month.

Baig said Nawaz Sharif could also confirm the existence of the militant camp. He urged the government and Sheikh Rasheed to come forward and admit the statement, saying it would adversely affect the ongoing peace process with India.

Khawaja Khalid, who served in the Inter-Services Intelligence, said he had personally visited Rashid’s camp, where militants were being trained in guerrilla warfare. “Sheikh Rashid is a mujahid and played a great role in jihad. I would like to meet him and ask him why he is denying his involvement in training mujahideen,” he said. Chaudhry Nisar Ali Khan, acting president Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N), also confirmed that Sheikh Rashid used to run a militant camp in Fateh Jang, near Rawalpindi. He corroborated the report that Nawaz Sharif had order the camp’s closure in 1991.

Sheikh Rashid was a member of the PML-N during the period in question. After the 2002 general elections, he joined PML-Quaid-e-Azam and supported General Pervez Musharraf. “Why do you want me to dig out skeletons from the closet? If I do that, no one in the ruling PML will come out smelling like a rose,” Nisar said. In a press statement, former interior minister Maj Gen (r) Naseerullah Babar said: “In 1989, Shaikh Rashid himself confessed to running a training-cum-refugee camp for Kashmiris near Islamabad.” The former interior minister said even if the government pressed Yasin Malik to retract his earlier statement, it would not absolve Rashid of his past.

Al-Qaeda training centres

Daily Times, June 16, 2005
Al Qaeda has major training facility inside Pakistan, says Newsweek
Daily Times Monitor

LAHORE: The Federal Bureau of Investigation’s probe into a suspected Islamic jihad group in California produced evidence that Al Qaeda may have reconstituted a major terrorist training camp inside Pakistan after the 9/11 attacks, said Newsweek.

Newsweek said that an FBI affidavit released in connection with the arrests of US citizen Hamid Hayat (24) and his father Umer Hayat (47), asserts that Al Qaeda was still capable of operating a significant training facility inside Pakistan. The two men are accused of lying to the FBI about a two-year trip that Hamid made to Pakistan between April 2003 and 2005. Released on Tuesday night, the affidavit says that Hamid told FBI agents he spent six months at an Al Qaeda-backed training camp in Pakistan, where he saw “hundreds of people from all over the world.” He described the camp as a facility that provided “structured paramilitary training,” including training in weapons, explosives and hand-to-hand combat, adding that photos of US President Bush and other high-ranking US political figures were “pasted on targets.”

According to Newsweek, the affidavit does not place where the terror camp was situated or how long US officials have known about its existence. An FBI spokesman said on Wednesday that all such details were classified. However, last year the US Department of Homeland Security directed customs agents to inspect all Pakistani descent travellers for rope burns, unusual bruises and scars, which might signify the traveller spent time in an Islamic militant training camp. The Pakistani Embassy in Washington did not return Newsweek’s phone calls for comment, but last year the mission’s deputy chief Mohammed Sadiq told the Los Angeles Times that the Homeland Security warning was “not only unfortunate, but based on ignorance.”

The evidence of a large Al Qaeda training camp, if confirmed, could prove diplomatically and politically embarrassing, said Newsweek, adding that the State Department’s annual counter-terrorism report released last month had praised President Pervez Musharraf’s government for aggressively pursuing Al Qaeda, singling out in particular last year’s Pakistan Army raids on Al Qaeda “safe havens” in South Waziristan. The report makes no reference to any suspected Al Qaeda training camps in the country.

However, New York-based counter-terrorism consultant Evan Kohlmann told Newsweek that the US counter-terrorism community has actually known about the existence of such training camps in Waziristan for some time. A senior US counter-terrorism official, asking not to be named, told Newsweek that US intelligence agencies had information indicating that after 9/11, Al Qaeda forces driven out of Afghanistan had established “sanctuaries” in South Waziristan’s remote Shakai area.

The official said the Pakistani military raids last year were designed to “flush out” and destroy such camps and US officials believe the initiative successfully routed Al Qaeda forces out of the area. Newsweek said the affidavit asserted that Hamid had been on the Department of Homeland Security’s “no fly” list when he boarded an airplane in Korea on his way back from Pakistan two weeks ago. However, it does not say why Hamid was on the list. The affidavit says that when US authorities realised Hamid was on the plane, they diverted it to Japan, where he was interviewed by an FBI agent, and then downgraded to a “Selectee List,” that prompts close scrutiny of travellers but does not prohibit them from flying into the country.

Hamid voluntarily agreed to be questioned by the FBI on June 4 and also agreed to take a polygraph, said Newsweek. The polygraph examiner concluded Hamid was being deceptive. After two hours of questioning, Hamid broke down and “admitted that he had attended a jihadist training camp in Pakistan.” He further told the FBI that at the camp, attendees were asked to choose the country in which they wanted to carry out their jihad mission—with the choices including the United States, Afghanistan, Iraq, Kashmir and other countries.

Newsweek said that after being shown a video of his son’s confession, Umer Hayat confirmed that his son had attended such a camp and also admitted that he provided his son an allowance of US$100 per month, knowing that his intention was to attend a jiahdi training camp.

Police performance!

Daily Times, June 16, 2005

Thursday, June 16, 2005
Man torches himself over missing family

LAHORE: A man set himself on fire on Wednesday to protest against what he claimed was the kidnapping of his wife and daughter by policeman Shah Muhammad Langah, witnesses and hospital officials said. Ghulam Asghar (50) poured kerosene over himself and set himself on fire outside the office of the governor of Punjab, after he was not allowed in to register a complaint. He was taken to a hospital in Lahore where his condition was critical. “Eighty percent of his body is burnt,” said a doctor at the Mayo Hospital. Police denied any involvement with Asghar’s missing family. Grievances against the police are common in Pakistan. Last month, President Pervez Musharraf ordered an inquiry into a compliant by a 17-year-old student who was raped by policemen after being rescued from 37 days in captivity during which she was repeatedly raped by a gang of kidnappers. The victim, Nazish, a student of the Government Allama Iqbal Girl College, Sialkot, was kidnapped on January 3 by some car-riders while going to her college. She was taken to a house and kept there for 37 days and she was repeatedly gang-raped. Her woes did not end there. After her recovery by the police, she was allegedly raped all over again - this time by police officials at the police station.But Amnesty International in its report for 2005 said the Pakistan government initiatives to improve protection of rights of women and juveniles had provided only limited relief.Violence against women in the community, including crimes of ‘honour’, continued to be reported, AI said. agencies

Defence Budget: Security or Liability?

Dawn, June 15, 2005
Enigma of the defence budget
By Sherry Rehman

ONE of the issues that surfaces every year for budget-makers in Pakistan is the search for fiscal space. This year the trillion-plus budget continues to be squeezed on both sides by two large, seemingly fixed liabilities: debt servicing and defence spending. Despite defence absorbing more than a quarter of the national wealth, the subject, unlike debt servicing, has become inured from public debate and exempt from any parliamentary accountability.

A milestone, in fact, was crossed this year in the National Assembly as the young finance minister of state chose to ignore the inexplicable escalation in the defence budget and shied away from even mentioning the actual figure. Given the constant talk of transparency and good governance emanating from the government, it is not just surprising but shocking that the defence budget in Pakistan remains above public scrutiny as well as the law.

If lawmakers in Pakistan cannot discuss, let alone question the allocations and management of this chunk of the country’s wealth, then it is clear that once again, almost 30 per cent of the budgeted amount will remain out of parliament’s purview. This in turn means that the army’s business interests will also remain outside the public accountability mechanism.

Without explanation, the formal defence allocation account appears as a two-line statement divided into defence administration and defence services in the federal consolidated fund in the demands for grants and appropriations every year. As it stands, this year’s official defence budget itself posts a price hike of Rs 30 billion at Rs. 223 billion over last year’s allocation for Rs 193 billion in absolute terms. No doubt, as in previous years, this amount too will be subject to a revised estimate. Last year, for instance, official defence expenditure showed a difference of Rs 23 billion between initial and revised estimates for 2004-5.

The first glaring problem that arises with this defence budget is that it does more to conceal the allocation made than to enable its disclosure. To start with, the actual amount presented does not cover many expenses that accrue to defence. This is an accounting trend that has emerged over the last few years, when the international donor community has insisted that the military budget be reduced.

When parliamentarians or donors read the allocation for defence over the next fiscal year, it will not include the military pensions, which now run into 35.6 billion rupees. Nor will the defence outlay include Rs 1.4 billion demanded separately for the combatant accounts of the defence division which include the Maritime Security Forces and others with dotted line or direct reports to the military, Rs 40, 723 million in salaries for defence production, Rs 7.2 billion spent on the civil armed forces, Rs 3.7 billion for the Pakistan Rangers, Rs 1.5 billion for the Frontier Constabulary, Rs 359 million for the Pakistan Coast Guards, nor the one billion rupees set aside for military schools, cantonments and other residuals.

The Atomic Energy Commission too, which falls under the control of the Strategic Plans Division, has been allotted separate funds, yet the two billion rupees demanded this year is charged to civilian expenses under the cabinet division. But while the arguments for guns-versus-butter continue to rage in many places, this year’s Rs 272 billion development budget gets squeezed into carrying a load for the defence division as development expenditure worth Rs 642 million.

So essentially, even if the amount for military pensions is restored to the overall defence account and all the expenses mentioned above are added up, a revised figure of Rs 277 billion emerges, which demonstrates a clear rise of 43 per cent over last year’s official figure and a 14 per cent hike on the ‘hidden’ budget for last year. For 2004-5, this hidden budget amounts to Rs 242 billion instead of the Rs 193 billion figure that conceals military expenditures in civilian accounts. After specific claims that that there would be no rise in the defence budget, no credible explanation was even offered about the compulsions that propel this jump of 14 per cent.

The second question being asked is why Pakistan now needs a huge defence budget that is close to four per cent of its GDP, when India is spending 2.8 per cent? When the entire justification for maintaining a high defence budget is negated by the welcome downturn in hostilities with India, the rationale for Pakistan remaining hostage to its Cold War garrison-state identity should also naturally be under review. For a country that has fallen behind all of South Asia in its human development index, including Nepal and Bhutan, an urgent redefinition of outdated concepts of national security is surely expected.

But that is not all. The question of maintaining the eighth largest standing army in the world, when huge undisclosed amounts on the nuclear option are disbursed, becomes critical, for the simple reason that the nuclear deterrent capability was meant to substantially reduce the need for such a large conventional force. As it stands, one of the many reasons for continued high defence spending remains a large percentage of wasted resources which has arisen out of lack of oversight from non-military sources. While purchases of bullet proof limousines by the cabinet division can be questioned because they fall under civilian oversight, no such queries can be directed at the luxury cars and goods purchased by the military, its appointment of surplus employees, nor the expenditure accruing from duplication of activities or wrongdoing. From 1977 onwards, when Ziaul Haq began the practice of maintaining funds by the corps commanders who were at liberty to use them at their discretion, many scandals over money being siphoned for political activities have surfaced.

The inter-services intelligence agencies remain above the law and unaccountable, even though they reportedly absorb seven to 11 per cent of the military’s budget and use secret funds and ghost bank accounts to destabilize civilian political parties and their governments. The Mehran Bank scandal is an example of such financial corruption, when bribes worth Rs 14 million were unearthed as paid out by the ISI to manipulate the 1990 elections, a fact which was admitted in court by General Aslam Beg, the former COAS.

The third problem with this budget is that despite public clamour about the military’s vast real estate holdings, no equation is factored in to provide for the creeping militarization of the mainstream economy. The issue which is now constantly questioned without any satisfactory response is the size and quantum of the military’s holdings in what are traditionally commercial sectors.

The military’s four major welfare foundations are increasingly the subject of growing public disquiet because they pay no direct taxes on their corporate activities, operate as virtual monopolies, and elbow out civilian private enterprise in their subsidized operations. They function as military welfare trusts but provide a haven for retired and serving military officers who run a multitude of corporate ventures ranging from sugar, cereal, fertilizer production to running airlines, real estate, education, advertizing and others.

The four military foundations — the Army Welfare Trust, the Fauji Foundation, Bahria Foundation and Shaheen Foundation — for instance, now run a parallel commercial empire, but end up leaving scant traces of the net financial burden they impose on the public sector, because large allocations are made from the opaque defence budget.

Despite the fact that most of the foundations were raised with initial funding from the public sector and the sale of evacuee properties after 1971, their profits remain sky high because they remain above scrutiny even in their tendering for contracts and other market activities. The Fauji Foundation’s recent and controversial sale of Khoshki Sugar Mill at a low bid of Rs 300 million against the highest bid of Rs 387 million damages the institutional reputation of the military. The fact that government service rules prohibit public servants from running private enterprises is often ignored, while the military control of Pakistan’s public sector continues unabated as retired generals and brigadiers pick up lucrative posts and double pensions to run everything from public utilities, universities and accountability and national reconstruction boards.

The military as a class does itself a disservice when it allows rumour to replace public disclosure. Perhaps many of its legitimate procurement and modernization demands will then not be eclipsed by the paper-trail of undocumented purchases and irregularities unearthed by the auditor-general for Defence if it develops an institutionalized mechanism of requisitioning public money for its needs.

Unsurprisingly, it becomes difficult to forego development funds, even if they are poorly managed and often under-utilized, for an institution that fiercely protects its privileges and political role in the country by demanding immunity for itself while advocating accountability for others.

We the people, as they say, are not opposed to the military’s spending money in principle. We don’t even mind occasionally upgrading the proverbial barracks, but only if we know where the money is going.

The writer is a member of the National Assembly.
srehman1@comsats.net.pk

Tuesday, June 14, 2005

Kristof is right on target

New York Times
June 14, 2005
Raped, Kidnapped and Silenced
By NICHOLAS D. KRISTOF
No wonder the Pakistan government can't catch Osama bin Laden. It is too busy harassing, detaining - and now kidnapping - a gang-rape victim for daring to protest and for planning a visit to the United States.

Last fall I wrote about Mukhtaran Bibi, a woman who was sentenced by a tribal council in Pakistan to be gang-raped because of an infraction supposedly committed by her brother. Four men raped Ms. Mukhtaran, then village leaders forced her to walk home nearly naked in front of a jeering crowd of 300.

Ms. Mukhtaran was supposed to have committed suicide. Instead, with the backing of a local Islamic leader, she fought back and testified against her persecutors. Six were convicted.

Then Ms. Mukhtaran, who believed that the best way to overcome such abuses was through better education, used her compensation money to start two schools in her village, one for boys and the other for girls. She went out of her way to enroll the children of her attackers in the schools, showing that she bore no grudges.

Readers of my column sent in more than $133,000 for her. Mercy Corps, a U.S. aid organization, has helped her administer the money, and she has expanded the schools, started a shelter for abused women and bought a van that is used as an ambulance for the area. She has also emerged as a ferocious spokeswoman against honor killings, rapes and acid attacks on women. (If you want to help her, please don't send checks to me but to Mercy Corps, with "Mukhtaran Bibi" in the memo line: 3015 S.W. First, Portland, Ore. 97201.)

A group of Pakistani-Americans invited Ms. Mukhtaran to visit the U.S. starting this Saturday (see www.4anaa.org). Then a few days ago, the Pakistani government went berserk.

On Thursday, the authorities put Ms. Mukhtaran under house arrest - to stop her from speaking out. In phone conversations in the last few days, she said that when she tried to step outside, police pointed their guns at her. To silence her, the police cut off her land line.

After she had been detained, a court ordered her attackers released, putting her life in jeopardy. That happened on a Friday afternoon, when the courts do not normally operate, and apparently was a warning to Ms. Mukhtaran to shut up. Instead, Ms. Mukhtaran continued her protests by cellphone. But at dawn yesterday the police bustled her off, and there's been no word from her since. Her cellphone doesn't answer.

Asma Jahangir, a Pakistani lawyer who is head of the Human Rights Commission of Pakistan, said she had learned that Ms. Mukhtaran was taken to Islamabad, furiously berated and told that President Pervez Musharraf was very angry with her. She was led sobbing to detention at a secret location. She is barred from contacting anyone, including her lawyer.

"She's in their custody, in illegal custody," Ms. Jahangir said. "They have gone completely crazy."

Even if Ms. Mukhtaran were released, airports have been alerted to bar her from leaving the country. According to Dawn, a Karachi newspaper, the government took this step, "fearing that she might malign Pakistan's image."

Excuse me, but Ms. Mukhtaran, a symbol of courage and altruism, is the best hope for Pakistan's image. The threat to Pakistan's image comes from President Musharraf for all this thuggish behavior.

I've been sympathetic to Mr. Musharraf till now, despite his nuclear negligence, partly because he's cooperated in the war on terrorism and partly because he has done a good job nurturing Pakistan's economic growth, which in the long run is probably the best way to fight fundamentalism. So even when Mr. Musharraf denied me visas all this year, to block me from visiting Ms. Mukhtaran again and writing a follow-up column, I bit my tongue.

But now President Musharraf has gone nuts.

"This is all because they think they have the support of the U.S. and can get away with murder," Ms. Jahangir said. Indeed, on Friday, just as all this was happening, President Bush received Pakistan's foreign minister in the White House and praised President Musharraf's "bold leadership."

So, Mr. Bush, how about asking Mr. Musharraf to focus on finding Osama, instead of kidnapping rape victims who speak out? And invite Ms. Mukhtaran to the Oval Office - to show that Americans stand not only with generals who seize power, but also with ordinary people of extraordinary courage.

The Oil Politics in South Asia

South Asia Tribune, June 12, 2005

Iran Crisis Casts Shadow Over All Three Pipeline Projects in South Asia
By M B Naqvi

KARACHI, June 13: South Asia has decided to enter the Big League nations’ struggle to secure oil (and gas) supplies that are not (yet) under the sole superpower’s control.

The rate at which the US is acquiring control over the vast deposits of hydrocarbons (oil and gas) in former Soviet Central Asian Republics was highlighted by the recent commissioning of a new oil pipeline to take oil from Caucasus directly to Europe, bypassing the two older Russian-controlled pipelines: one in the north directly from Russia to Europe and the second from Baku to Turkey through Black Sea and busy Straits of Bosphorous. Needless to say all of ME oil is under tight US control, except that of Iran.

India, with a rapidly expanding economy, is anxious to conclude an agreement with Iran for assured gas supplies through an overland pipeline through Pakistan. The idea of this gas pipeline originated in Iran for both political and commercial reasons. Its background is that serious 25 years old rift with the US, with the latter trying to isolate Iran, a named member of Bush’s Axis of Evil. Both India and Pakistan responded positively to the Iranian idea; indeed Pakistan showed keenness to join the project, hoping for transit fees it could charge.

Pakistan and India initially seemed not to have taken the American opposition to the project into their calculations. It emerged into full view last March when US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice termed the project as ‘not a good idea for Pakistan’.

Indians seem to have rejected the American dislike of this project on the ground of their burgeoning energy needs that require a secure source of supplies. Pakistan that was originally enthusiastic about this project, became gradually cool toward it. But India’s Petroleum Minister Mani Shankar Aiyar visited Islamabad last week and persuaded Pakistan to endorse the Indo-Iranian deal.

But Pakistan’s climbing on the Indo-Iranian bandwagon was not single-minded: It actually adopted the policy of welcoming all schemes of transporting oil in any shape through pipelines. Whereupon India too has begun showing lively interest in two other pipeline projects. Although this has actually diluted the enthusiasm considerably in the original Indo-Pakistani-Iranian gas pipeline, both countries go on saying that they will ignore the American objections and remain committed to the gas pipeline project. It raises questions.

The US has minced no words in opposing the project. America has excellent relations with both India and Pakistan. While the US is assiduously wooing India, promising to help make it a global greater power, America heavily depends on Pakistan for the conduct of War on Terror, fight al-Qaeda and winning peace in Afghanistan.

But Pak-American relations also include Pakistan’s various vulnerabilities; indeed Pakistan’s prosperity, with a GDP growth of 7 to 8 per cent, is sustained mainly by US aid, goodwill and help in sharply reducing the debt-servicing burden. From various angles, the gas pipeline project looks wobbly, though the governments in Islamabad and New Delhi are upbeat for the record.

There are two other pipelines being actively discussed in Pakistan. One is for oil to be brought from Sharjah under waters of Persian Gulf through a pipeline; Americans seem to have some minor share in the project.

The other is a major three-country project: Hydrocarbons will be of Turkmenistan; they will be carried through a pipeline to Afghanistan and Pakistan’s newest port at Gwadar to be exported to the rest of the world. The company that will set up the pipeline and manage the distribution of these hydrocarbons is a composite subsidiary of major American oil corporations. America is keen that this project should be implemented and should succeed.

This UNOCAL project, being backed by American government to the hilt, when and if it succeeds, the US may have acquired effective control over most of oil of former Soviet Republics in Central Asia. This pipeline is intended to transport as many hydrocarbons from Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan, Kyrghistan, Kazakhstan as possible to Gwadar for export.

This project more or less completes the American design of being able to carry (and control) as much oil from various regions of former Soviet Union in Asia. The Russians are not involved in UNOCAL or the new pipeline from Baku to a Turkish port via Georgia.

This is of course pure geopolitical rivalry between the hyper power and the two giants of Asia: Russia and China. Both the latter are trying to win over the rulers of Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan and Kyrghistan to their side and to meet China’s needs on a (secure) permanent basis.

What the final upshot of this non-ideological struggle will be cannot be foreseen. All that can be said is that, as of now, the US is way ahead of its chief rivals, though the latter have strongly revived their Shanghai Six – China is also trying to woo India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, even Nepal and Burma, not to speak of relative success of Chinese diplomacy in Southeast Asia. China’s ability to stay on good terms with authoritarian rulers can stand it in good stead in all Southern Asian regions.

Much will depend on how the three major crises are resolved or when the push comes to shove: over North Korea’s nuclear Weapons of Mass Destruction, on Taiwan, and indeed Iran. With the passage of time, the danger of war over them goes on decreasing, though what the Israeli lobby, Neocons and hawks can do to make or unmake America’s Asian policies remains uncertain. The aim of 21st Century Project, an imperial enterprise, would primarily require the subordination of Iran at least, if not North Korea. But after what has happened in Iraq and Afghanistan (to a smaller extent), nothing definite can be said.

One thing is certain, though. The US favored UNOCAL pipeline has to run the gauntlet of what is a guerilla war in Afghanistan and to a smaller extent the law and order situation in Pakistani Balochistan. Even the Iranian pipeline will have to traverse, west-east, the same Pakistani Balochistan.

The law and order situation in Pakistani Balochistan can however vastly improve if good governance and political savoir faire can be brought to bear on it. Afghanistan situation can not be said to as amenable to improvement as Pakistan’s for the reason that continued presence of foreign troops is an incitement to rebellion – which is vital to the survival of Karzai regime.

There is thus the crisis over Iran casts a long shadow on all the three pipelines from Iran, Sharjah, and Turkmenistan. The economics of Sharjah pipeline is likely to knock it out. Any US intervention in Iran will be like 15 or 20 Iraqs. Nothing can be said about the future in that case.

But geo-strategic struggles need not always demand wars: diplomacy backed by plenty of dollars – an art in which the US excels – can do wonders, though dollars alone can not decide the outcome of titanic geo-political struggles among the US, Russia and China. At some stage, Europe and Japan will also actively enter the new Great Game in Asia to make it even more complex.

The writer is a seasoned analyst who contributes to several Indian and Pakistani newspapers