Friday, November 30, 2007

Intrafaith Q&A on Sunni/Shi'i: ISNA

ISNA: Intrafaith Q&A on Sunni/Shi'i
Taken from Islamic Horizons (An ISNA Publication, www.ISNA.net) November/December 2007/1427

INTRA FAITH WORKS
ONE FAITH – Nineteen Questions about Shi’i-Sunni Relations by:

Mohamed Nimer, director of research at the Council on American Islamic Relations, is the author of "The North American Muslim Resource Guide: Muslim Community Life in the United States and Canada" (Routledge: 2002).

Asma Afsaruddin, associate professor of Arabic and Islamic studies at the University of Notre Dame, is the author of "Excellence and Precedence: Medieval Islamic Discourse on Legitimate Leadership" (Leiden: 2002).

Liyakat Takim, associate professor of Islamic studies at the University of Denver, is the author of "The Heirs of the Prophet: Charisma and Religious Authority in Shiite Islam" (SUNY Press: 2006).
_______________________________________

Is it accurate to speak of "Sunni Islam" and "Shi'i Islam"?

Muslims avoid identifying the Sunni and Shi`i traditions as different "Islams." But the two traditions, which developed over the course of centuries, shaped Muslim religious thought and practice.

What are their doctrinal commonalities?

Both branches share the same foundational religious beliefs rooted in monotheism, Muhammad's prophethood, a singular Qu'anic text, and a belief in final judgment. They agree on the core fundamentals of Islam: the six articles of belief (God, angels, scriptures, prophets, the next life, and destiny) and the five pillars of practice (testimony of faith, prayer, fasting, giving alms, and pilgrimage).

What are the important differences between them?

Mainstream Shi'is believe in the doctrine of the Imamate, namely, that certain descendants of the Prophet's family provided the ultimate, legitimate source of guidance after his death. This doctrine impacted how the Shi`i scholars evaluated the authenticity of hadiths as well as their respective views of Islamic ju¬risprudence. Over time, both branches of Islam developed parallel institutions of learning and a number of distinctive religious practices.

Was the origin of these two branches religious or political in nature?

Shi`i scholars believe that the community's leadership should have remained within the Prophet's family: in the hands of Ali, the Prophet's cousin and husband of his daughter Fatimah. An early community of Shi'is considered Ali to be the first Imam. This idea was subsequently expressed in the doctrine of the Imamate a central defining feature of Shi`i doctrine. Specifically, the Shi'is believe that the issue of leadership is religious in nature and that the Prophet explicitly named Ali as his successor. Sunni scholars trace the Shi`i community's genesis to what they consider to be political arguments about leadership after the Prophet's demise. They argue that many Companions supported the leadership of Abu Bakr, one of the Prophet's closest early followers, and that the leadership of Muslims falls under the control of the general Muslim community.

What about the claim that the Shi'is have a different Qur'an called the Mushaf Fatimah?

Shi'is and Sunnis use the same Qur'an. According to Shi'i scholars, the Mushaf Fatimah contains hadith narratives by Fatimah. It is not considered a holy scripture or a replacement for the Qur'an.

What is the Sunni view of the Ahl al Bayt (the Family of the Prophet)?

All Muslims' daily prayers include praise and blessings for Prophet Muhammad's family. The Sunni Hadith literature regards Fatimah, Ali, Hassan, and Husayn as Companions to whom the Prophet promised Paradise. These four people, along with other members of his family, are major narrators in Sunni books of Hadith. Ali is revered by Sunnis as the first young Muslim who risked his life for the Prophet. Sunnis consider him the last of the Rightly Guided Caliphs, while the Shi'is consider him the first Imam.

Do Shi’is believe that Ali is God?

Mainstream Shi'i and Sunni traditions hold such thinking to be a form of unbelief. While Ali was still alive, some people considered him to be God. They were later labeled ghulat (extremists).

Do Shi'is slander and ridicule the first three caliphs and Nishah?

This is a false generalization. Shi'is consider Abu Bakr, Umar, and Uthman to be great Companions and caliphs, although they believe that they did not attain the spiritual purity attained by Ali and the other grand Imams. As for A'ishah, the mainstream Shi'i position views her as the mother of all believers on par with all of the Prophet's other wives. Any Shi'i who slanders these people does so out of ignorance. Shi'i scholars have issued fatwas against cursing these major figures of Islam.

Do Shi`is and Sunnis celebrate different religious holidays?

In both traditions, the two major religious holidays are Eid al Fitr and Eid al Adha. Due to historical experience, Muslims in different countries may commemorate additional days of remembrance. For example, al Isra' wa al Mi'raj is commemorated in Shi'i and Sunni communities across the globe. Ashura, the day of Husayn's martyrdom at Karbala, (which coincides with the tenth day of the month of Muharram), is a widely observed occasion in Shi'i communities because it marks a turning point in their history. However Egyptians, almost all of whom are Sunni today but who once were ruled by the (Isma'ili) Shi'i Fatimid dynasty (970 1040), still commemorate it with special festivities. Until today, they pay special tribute to Husayn and his sister, popularly known as Lady Zaynab.

Does the Shi`i Sunni rivalry go back to the early days of Islam?

No. It is hard to pin down the exact date or period when the terms Shi `i and Sunni took on a communal or political meaning. A good part of Islamic literature was purposefully destroyed during the Mongol invasion of Baghdad in 1258. But communal violence, as seen today in Iraq, is unknown in Islamic history. Ali was passed over in favor of other caliphs, but that event did not lead to a Shi'i-Sunni consciousness definitely not in the communal or ethnic sense. When Mu'awiyah, the governor of Syria, rebelled against Ali, most of the companions supported Ali. But Mu'awiyah was not acting as a leader of Sunnis; rather, he was acting as the head of the powerful Umayyad clan, which consolidated its political power and ushered in dynastic rule in the Muslim world.

The battle of Karbala (680), during which Husayn (later named the third Imam) was martyred, is a turning point in the contemporary Shi'i historical narrative. But even then, there was no communal Shi'i versus Sunni identities. A number of the Companions who were later classified as Sunni actually sympathized with Husayn. Nor was Husayn the only Companion who rebelled against Umayyad rule. Abdullah ibn al Zubayr, a major narrator of hadith in the Sunni tradition, also rebelled and declared himself caliph in Makkah (683 92) before being killed by the Umayyad forces. Shi'i doctrine and communal identity developed over time, and those who were not classified as Shi'i became known as Sunni. The earliest evidence for this development can be dated to the Abbasid revolution (750).

How do Shi'i Sunni agreements and disagreements compare to those among Catholics and Protestants?

Invoking this analogy may help ordinary Christians make sense of Shi'i Sunni differences. However, the analogy is accurate only to a certain extent. The doctrinal and institutional differences associated with the Shi'i Sunni traditions are far less pronounced than those associated with the Catholic Protestant traditions. In addition, neither Islamic tradition has a
papal figure and their seminaries do not amount to a church structure, especially when compared to the Catholic Church's well defined hierarchical religious authority.

How do international Shi'i and Sunni influences today impact the development of Muslim life in America?

Such influences are more visible in communities of recent immigrants. Organizations that serve the religious needs of Muslims may assume a Shi'i or Sunni character. Also, there have been instances of intense communal disagreement, such as during the Iraq-Iran war. Still, it is not uncommon for Shi'is and Sunnis to pray together. Imams and activists from both traditions serve on regional and national bodies that present Muslim concerns. A recent poll found that the largest segment of American Muslim voters preferred to identify themselves as "just Muslim," rather than "Sunni" or "Shi'i." Moreover, many converts refuse to identify themselves with either label; arguing that such categories belong to historical experiences that do not relate to their lives. Religiously, there is nothing that can compel new Muslims to align themselves with either tradition.

What other sources of diversity impact Shi'i and Sunni life in America? Both communities are ethnically diverse. Are Shi'i and Sunni organizations in this country exclusive in their membership and services?

While many mosques may assume a Shi'i or Sunni identity, they are generally open to all for worship. Most Islamic schools do not require students or teachers to be of a certain persuasion, and several Muslim community regional bodies and public advocacy groups have been consciously inclusive. Yet some Islamic centers tend to follow policies of exclusion. While they have the legal right to do so, the mainstream community would view this position as rigid and possibly intolerant.

Is it true that the Persians used their Shi'i affiliation to keep their distinct identity?

No. Shi'is trace their origin to Arabia. Ethnicity was not even a factor in the monumental events of Shi'i history. Persia experienced both Sunni and Shi'i influences. Only during the Safavid dynasty (1501 1722) was the Shi'i interpretation promoted in today's Iran. The Turkish speaking Safavids hailed from contemporary Azerbaijan. However, most Turkish speaking Muslims are Sunni.

Are the Shi'is mainly Iranian while the Sunnis are mainly Arab?

No. Both groups are ethnically mixed, although Arabic and Farsi are two major languages in the Muslim world. While Iran has the largest number of Shi'is in any country, most Shi'is are neither Iranian nor Persian. And while most Arabs are Sunni, several Arab populations are mostly Shi'i. In fact, there are Shi'i minorities in most Sunni majority Arab countries.

Haven't the Shi'is and Sunnis been fighting one another for fourteen centuries?

No. However, communal tensions have shaped the course of history in the Muslim world. Until the contemporary period, there were only limited episodes of communal violence at times of serious political upheaval. Throughout history, both groups have lived side by side peacefully. Several Muslim regions even switched between Shi'i and Sunni affiliations. Even in today's Iraq, Shi'is and Sunnis have intermarried and lived in mixed communities.

How do you evaluate Shi’i-Sunni relations in the world today?

Generally, not great. But they vary. Iraq is experiencing an ongoing violent clash between Shi'i and Sunni militias. But such a clash is more rooted in Iraq's contemporary political history than in denominational tensions. Similar violence flares up in Pakistan every so often, but mainstream groups from both traditions have formed alliances against sectarianism and political corruption. In the Gulf region Shi'i and Sunni minorities, especially in Saudi Arabia, Iran, and Bahrain, face discrimination. On the other hand, the Shi'i dominated resistance to the Israeli occupation of southern Lebanon has been very popular among Shi'is and Sunnis alike.

Is it likely that the Shi'i Sunni violence in Iraq may spill over, to America?

Highly unlikely. Shi'i and Sunni groups in Iraq are engaged in a power struggle that is entangled with regional and global conflicts. In America, Muslims live in a totally different context and there is no reason for communal violence. Even at the time of heightened Shi'i Sunni tensions during the Iraq-Iran war in the 1980s, there were no incidents of communal violence. Following Saddam Hussein's execution in 2006, some Shi'i owned businesses were vandalized. Such incidents signal a need for community leaders to engage in dialogue. Moreover, such incidents are isolated and the attackers' identities have not been confirmed. Following the attacks, leaders of both traditions met and issued statements of unity and condemned the attacks.

PPP Manifesto for 2008 Elections



Benazir Bhutto told journalists in the capital Islamabad that the PPP's policies were based on what she called the five Es: employment, education, energy, environment and equality.

For Text click: For Peace and Prosperity in Pakistan - Manifesto 2008

Also see: Bhutto unveils manifesto pledges - BBC

Tragedy in uniform By Ayaz Amir

Tragedy in uniform By Ayaz Amir
Dawn, November 30, 2007

OUR history, sad and comic by turns, is full of might-have-beens. Pervez Musharraf could have been the golden boy of Pakistani history. If only his vision had not been clouded; if only, to echo Mao, he had the courage to clasp turtles in the deep seas and throw a rope around the stars in the stormy heavens.

But his vision was limited and in the end -- I mean his soldier’s end -- he had lost the ability to differentiate between what was good for him and what might have been good for the country.

In 2004, as he had pledged, if he had taken off his commander-in-chief’s uniform, there would have been some glory in the act and a nation, all too prone to be seized by fits of emotion, would have hailed him as a saviour and deliverer, the story of Pakistan marked by the search for redeeming heroes.

But squelched by his fears or (who knows?) blinded by the temptations of high office, he broke his pledge and took to the road which must have seemed mightily attractive at the time but which undercut his presidency.

It was a bit of a fiction which he had nurtured that he was a man of his word. After his broken pledge the impression spread that the pretence was just that and he was not to be trusted. Thus the few more years he gained as absolute power-wielder were at the cost of shattered credibility.

So when, much too late, he has finally surrendered his military trapping, there are no cheers and hosannas, just a huge sigh of relief across the land, glory turned to dust.

Wherein is the grievous fault? In our stars (although we can’t pin the blame for everything on them) or in the academies of military training which first select and later groom aspiring young men with every quality under the sun except the gift of vision and a sense of history?

Yet it is such men — or should I say commanders — who, every now and then, have galloped out of General Headquarters to grab power, claiming, their voices dripping with sincerity and their faces pictures of innocence, that their aim was to save the nation, not satisfy, God forbid, any lust for power.

In the fifty years after the Second World War no nation on earth has been saved so often as Pakistan, by the likes of Ayub, Yahya Khan, Ziaul Haq and, for the last eight years, Pervez Musharraf, all modelled on the same pattern, arriving on the back of high expectations, leaving only when disaster overtook them or cracks had begun to appear in their citadels of untrammelled authority. All of them sad monuments to broken hopes and promises.

History is no stranger to dictators. In fact its pages are littered with the species. The world as we know it has been shaped less by democracy and the rule of law, both pretty late inventions, than by blood and iron, the thud of horses’ hooves and the rise and fall of empires.

Also, I must hasten to add, by the power of ideas, religion being one idea, democracy, even if a latecomer, another idea, Marxism another and so on.

Anyhow, if we have had riders galloping out of GHQ and seizing power that in itself is nothing strange. What is exceptional about our riders is something else: the legacy of waste and destruction they have invariably left behind.

The economy grew in Ayub’s time. GDP growth rates were high under Zia. The economy has witnessed growth under Musharraf.

But what is Ayub’s lasting legacy? In the end mass resentment, the feeding of despair and the inexorable rush of events culminating in the break-up of Pakistan. Yayha Khan merely presided over the baptismal rites of separation. The foundations were laid long before.

What is Zia’s legacy? The seedbeds of extremism from which have sprouted the dragons we are still having to contend with.

Beyond the infusion of greenbacks to revive Pakistan’s economy, what will be Musharraf’s legacy? The destruction of institutions, a mockery of the Constitution as complete, if not greater, than at any time in the past, and a diminishing of the nation’s spirits.

Who is the intrepid Pakistani totally at peace about the state of the republic? Who is the Pakistani not fearful about the future?

What monuments erected or feats of administration performed so as to be able to claim that God gave him the opportunity to be the absolute ruler of a hundred and sixty (or is it now seventy?) million souls and he lived up to the trust placed in his hands?

To grab power through a coup and then to preside over a state of affairs ending in another virtual coup eight years later is hardly a record reminiscent of Sher Shah Suri or Akbar the Great.

Yet it could have been different. With a bit of vision and understanding it could have been so different. If only fear and limited understanding had not stood guard, and vigilant guard at that, at the gates of power. Musharraf played the dictator too long when he should have graduated into a civilian head of state long before Nov 28.

But he couldn’t rise above his fears and perhaps, in the end, he had it not in him to clutch turtles in the deep seas or reach out for the stars.

And since he left no opportunity go by without chanting the mantra that he couldn’t take off his uniform because it was so essential for the national interest, now that circumstances have compelled him to do precisely that, what previously for him was unthinkable, he is bound to be looked upon henceforward as a man shorn of his locks and his power.

The reality may be different and we yet may see another meddling head of state not satisfied with his semi-retirement but the perception will be of a weakened figure.

Try as he might to assert himself as a civilian president — and we need go no further than Ghulam Ishaq Khan to think of civilian presidents who had enough power to play havoc with the country’s fortunes — the comparison with his years when he was army chief-cum-president will always work to his disadvantage.

In the local body elections two years ago there was no shortage of Q League flunkeys who would flaunt Musharraf’s portraits to demonstrate their loyalty or to show how closely attuned they were to the realities of power.

It would be a brave man doing the same in the coming elections. Since wonders never cease the thought may even have crossed the minds of Chaudhry Shujaat Hussain and Chaudhry Pervaiz Elahi, standard-bearers of Musharraf allegiance these past eight years, to put Musharraf’s portraits in the attic — his visage in this election less a guarantee of success than a sure kiss of death.

So therefore amid the turbulence of national affairs spare a thought, and shed a tear of sympathy, for the agony visiting the house (in fact many houses) of the two Chaudhrys of Gujrat. When the glory of their present pomp is fled, one remark of Pervaiz Elahi’s will haunt them. We will elect Musharraf as president in uniform not once but five, ten times, he memorably declared. Now their dreams lie shattered.

From thy nest every rafter will rot, and thine eagle home Leave thee naked to laughter, When leaves fall and cold winds come.

They have enjoyed a long summer. Now, arguably, comes the winter of their discontent.

Inside Pakistan's Drive To Guard Its A-Bombs: Wall Street Journal

Inside Pakistan's Drive To Guard Its A-Bombs
By PETER WONACOTT: Wall Street Journal, November 29, 2007; Page A1

RAWALPINDI, Pakistan -- Inside Pakistan's nuclear program, scientists are allowed to grow long beards, pray five times a day and vote for this country's conservative Islamist politicians. Religious zeal doesn't bar them from working in top-secret weapons facilities.

But religious extremism does. It's up to the program's internal watchdog, a security division authorized to snoop on its employees, to determine the difference -- and drive out those who breach the boundaries.


In an interview, a top security official for Pakistan's nuclear program outlined a multilayered system put in place over the past two years to try to avoid the kind of devastating lapses uncovered in recent years. A series of rogue scientists were found to have sold secrets or met with al Qaeda leaders, finally spurring a screening-and-surveillance program along the lines the U.S. uses -- but with a greater focus on weeding out an increasingly religious generation of would-be scientists and engineers.

With the regime of Gen. Pervez Musharraf wobbling, the eyes of the world have refocused on the security of the atomic arsenal of Pakistan, long regarded as the most politically unstable of nuclear powers. Mr. Musharraf's move yesterday to relinquish his military leadership provided at least momentary calm. But worries that weapons technology or materials might leak out remain amid Pakistan's continuing turmoil.

Pakistani officials say the most far-reaching change in their nuclear-security web is the Personnel Reliability Program, named after its model in the U.S. It involves a battery of checks aimed at rooting out human foibles such as lust, greed or depression that might lead one to betray national secrets. Like the security methods of other nuclear powers, the new Pakistani program delves into personal finances, political views and sexual histories.

But it probes most deeply into degrees of religious fervor. One employee recently was booted from the nuclear program for passing out political pamphlets of an ultraconservative Islamic party and being observed coaxing colleagues into joining him at a local mosque for party rallies, said the security official, a two-star general who declined to be identified, citing the sensitive nature of his job. Even though the employee did nothing illegal, his behavior was deemed too disturbing.

"We don't mind people being religious," said the general, sitting in a spartan office behind a code-locked door in a military compound, outside Pakistan's capital Islamabad. "But we don't want people with extreme thoughts." Security officials try to draw a line at people who are inclined to force their religious beliefs upon others, especially in the workplace; urging colleagues to attend Islamist political rallies is seen as less acceptable than quietly taking a break from work to pray.

The attempt to strike this delicate balance, between allowing faith and excluding fundamentalism, is all the more difficult in a time of upheaval for this Muslim nation of 160 million people. Since July, Pakistan has been hard hit by an escalation in extremist violence, with an Islamist insurgency spreading from the lawless border area with Afghanistan -- widely believed to be the home of Osama bin Laden -- to Pakistan's major cities. That was one of the reasons President Musharraf gave for declaring a state of emergency Nov. 3, but the attacks haven't abated. Just last weekend, suicide bombers struck this heavily guarded garrison city, killing 35. Yesterday, Mr. Musharraf turned over control of the military to a handpicked successor; today, he is to be sworn in as a civilian president.

Rising Tide

Many experts say it is unlikely that Islamist militants would be able to penetrate Pakistan's nuclear establishment or to steal weapons. They see a bigger threat in a rising tide of young people inclined to be more religiously conservative -- and, spurred by the U.S.-led invasions of Iraq and Afghanistan after the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, more anti-American. That includes the college campuses that are most likely to supply recruits to the nuclear program.

"You can improve physical security by building high walls and establishing a well-guarded perimeter. It's much harder to defend against insiders," says Robert Einhorn, a senior adviser at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington, and a former assistant secretary of state for weapons nonproliferation.

Within Pakistan, a strong contingent opposing any nuclear weapons questions whether the recent attempts to improve the government's security screening are enough. Critics say religious conservatism gripping the applicant pool makes it too difficult to discern potentially dangerous zealots. "It's a source of worry that the secret institutions are seized with religious fervor," says Pervez Hoodbhoy, chairman of the physics department at Quaid-e-Azam University, a large source of scientists for Pakistan's nuclear program.

Pakistan's allies, including the U.S., have expressed public confidence in the nation's controls. "I'd like to be very clear," Navy Adm. Michael G. Mullen, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, told reporters earlier this month in Washington. "I don't see any indication right now that security of those weapons is in jeopardy."

But the U.S. has long had contingency plans in place under which American Special Forces operatives would deploy to Pakistan to secure nuclear-weapons sites in the event of an Islamic takeover. Some U.S. military and intelligence personnel fear that there may be additional weapons sites that the U.S. doesn't know about. "It's going to be some time before Pakistan overcomes the confidence deficit," says Mark Fitzpatrick, an arms-control specialist and senior fellow at the London-based International Institute for Strategic Studies.

Pakistan's nuclear arsenal is believed to contain about 50 warheads that, when mounted on missiles, are capable of striking anywhere in archrival India, according to the International Institute for Strategic Studies, which recently produced a report on the program's history. It also estimated the arsenal, kept at secret, commando-guarded locations, could be expanded significantly with Pakistan's stockpile of weapons-grade material.

Components and core materials are stored separately -- an additional security measure experts say is undertaken by both Pakistan and India. Those components are supposed to be put into operation only with the consent of a National Command Authority, comprising the country's top civilian and military leaders.

Pakistan has worked to advance its technical security along with its human checks, introducing fingerprint and iris scanners that are commonplace in other countries' nuclear programs. According to current and former Pakistani nuclear officials, Pakistan has developed its own version of "Permissive Action Links," or PALs, a sophisticated type of lock the U.S. uses to prevent unauthorized launching.

No country's program is immune from mishaps. Last month, the commander of a nuclear-powered U.S. Navy submarine was fired after failing to do safety checks and falsifying records to cover it up. In August, a B-52 bomber took off mistakenly carrying nuclear-tipped missiles. Both incidents caused embarrassment but no damage.

But Pakistan's past security breakdowns have eroded the credibility of its assurances that its program is in safe hands. In 2004, A.Q. Khan, who headed a national research laboratory named after him, was placed under house arrest for selling nuclear secrets and materials to North Korea, Iran and Libya -- making a personal fortune in the process. In late 2001, acting on tips from U.S. intelligence, Pakistan detained two of its retired nuclear scientists who had met with members of al Qaeda in Afghanistan, including Mr. bin Laden.


Some analysts suspect Pakistan continues to buy weapons materials on the black market, in part because of trouble procuring supplies through legitimate channels. That suggests to some that at least parts of the procurement network engineered by Mr. Kahn, still widely considered a national hero, remain active -- despite Pakistan's assertions that it has been shut down.

The Bush administration has ruled out any plan to share nuclear technology with Pakistan, even as it seeks to complete such a pact for India's civilian power program. Nuclear suppliers have followed suit, denying some safety equipment that Pakistani nuclear officials say are meant for civilian use. For example, Pakistan hasn't been able to buy a system to monitor potentially problematic parts at its power reactors, say these officials.

Pakistan's current emphasis on security marks a shift from its early focus on acquiring technology, rather than safeguarding it. That stemmed from a race with India to build the bomb, which culminated in 1998, when both countries conducted a series of tit-for-tat nuclear tests.

More than two decades earlier, spurred by India's test of a nuclear device in 1974, Prime Minister Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto built up the nuclear program around a coterie of patriotic scientists, among them the metallurgist Mr. Khan. As the program advanced, Mr. Khan assumed an ever-more powerful role, rising to head his own laboratory that operated free of much -- if any -- government control. Mr. Khan eventually turned his attentions to selling the secrets to other countries, including Iran. Current and former army commanders maintain Mr. Khan acted within a tiny circle without their knowledge. General Mizra Aslam Beg, then chief of army staff, says he told an Iranian military delegation shopping for technology and material in the 1990s that he couldn't help: He advised them to get what they wanted "like us, through the underworld."

Weak Oversight

A major early problem was weak oversight from the civilian government. Mr. Bhutto's daughter, Benazir, helped craft Pakistan's nuclear policies on exports and deterrence, yet says she was mostly kept out of the loop by the country's intelligence services while she was prime minister. Her successor, Nawaz Sharif -- who like Ms. Bhutto recently returned to Pakistan to challenge Mr. Musharraf's rule -- didn't fare any better during his two terms in office. At a 1999 meeting with President Clinton in Washington, Mr. Sharif says in an interview, U.S. intelligence informed him that Pakistani military transport planes were carrying used nuclear centrifuges, which can be used to produce weapons-grade uranium, out of the country.

"No, no," Mr. Sharif recalls responding. "That couldn't happen." But before he could check out the allegations, he says, his government fell in Gen. Musharraf's military coup. A former director of the centrifuge program was later arrested.

Internal Investigation

Gen. Musharraf began to revamp Pakistan's nuclear bureaucracy. He established the National Command Authority and formalized the role of a secretariat, called the Strategic Plans Division, set up in 1998 to oversee the nuclear program's policies. Gen. Musharraf sidelined Mr. Khan, launched an internal investigation, and later publicly arrested him after the U.S. presented evidence of his misdeeds. When Mr. Khan confessed, however, Gen. Musharraf pardoned him. In ailing health, he still resides in his heavily guarded Islamabad home.

Just after the September 2001 terrorist attacks in the U.S., Pakistan's intelligence service detained two retired nuclear scientists who had met with senior members of al Qaeda, including Mr. bin Laden, during charity work in Afghanistan. One, Sultan Bashiruddin Mahmood, was a former director at the Pakistan Atomic Energy Commission and a controversial Islamic scholar who had postulated that energy could be harnessed from fiery spirits called djinns.

Mr. Mahmood, who remains under house arrest, had sketched a rough diagram of a nuclear bomb for Mr. bin Laden during a meeting, Pakistani officials said. Pakistani intelligence agents later described the drawing as absurdly basic. But his unauthorized travel to Afghanistan highlighted gaping holes in the system. "Despite our proactive measures, it will haunt us," Air Commodore Khalid Banuri, a director in Pakistan's Strategic Plans Division, said of the bin Laden meeting. "I don't know for how many years."

When news surfaced of the meeting, Air Commodore Banuri was in the U.S. on a fellowship studying how Pakistan could apply a Personnel Reliability Program at home. Later, the U.S. decided to help, according to two former directors of Pakistan's Strategic Plans Division. "We want to learn from the West's best practices," says one of them, Feroz Khan, who also is a retired brigadier general. "Why shouldn't the U.S. share this with developing countries?" After years of sensitive exchanges, it took until 2005 for Pakistan to put in place the U.S.-style reliability program.

To hone its loyalty tests, Pakistan says it has departed from the U.S. program in significant ways. It focuses much less on drinking, for example, since consumption of alcohol is severely curtailed in Muslim Pakistan, and more on finances and religious beliefs.

Recruits are subject to a battery of background checks that can take up to a year. New employees are monitored for months before moving into sensitive areas. They may also be subjected to periodic psychological exams and reports from fellow workers.

For a handful of top scientists and military officials, life becomes a fishbowl of eavesdropped phone calls, tailed movements and monitored overseas travel, according to Feroz Khan, the former Strategic Plans Division director. Most top officials now are watched into retirement, usually while given undemanding advisory positions.

"The system knows how to distinguish who is a 'fundo' [fundamentalist] and who is simply pious," he says.

Pakistan's hardline Islamic parties have vigorously promoted the nation's nuclear program as a way for Muslim countries to combat American hegemony -- and don't share the government's concern about the kind of security lapses that alarm the U.S. In July, a senator for Pakistan's largest Islamic party, Jamaat-e-Islami, criticized the government's confinement of A.Q. Khan as "an act of cruelty against one of the greatest benefactors of Pakistan... just to appease the American administration."

At Quaid-e-Azam University, the nuclear critic Mr. Hoodbhoy says his students are more radical than a previous generation. They have come up through an education system that increasingly stresses Islamic ritual and come of age in a charged political environment. There's widespread sympathy for those fighting Americans in Afghanistan and Iraq, he adds, although most wouldn't want to live under a Taliban-like regime.

On campus, young women stroll in groups along shrub-lined pathways, cloaked head to toe in scarves and gowns. "The students aren't conscious that they've changed, but this new dress would've looked so odd 30 ago," says Prof. Hoodbhoy. "Even five years ago."

During lunch at the university, a group of graduate students huddle outside a physics classroom. One 22-year-old says he has applied for work at Khan Research Laboratories, known as KRL -- still named after the famous scientist despite his arrest.

The student says he's not particularly religious, praying twice a day. He does worry about the security program, though, and asks not to be identified, thinking that talking to a reporter might jeopardize his job chances. "I'm under observation," he explains.

The general who's a top security official says nuclear-program employees are well aware of the lines they can't cross. The electronics engineer who was fired for passing out pamphlets had been clearly warned, the general says, with an earlier job transfer out of a sensitive area. Today, security agents continue to keep an eye on the engineer, he adds. They know he's tutoring students in a small room off the side of his house.

--Jay Solomon contributed to this article

Wednesday, November 28, 2007

Pakistan’s Brighter Future: The View from the Ground

Pakistan’s Brighter Future: The View from the Ground
By Amit Pandya; November 26, 2007: The Henry L Stimson Centre

When I returned from Pakistan to the United States this week I was met with a widespread perception among US observers that there has been little mass resistance to the state of emergency declared by General Musharraf. This is simply inaccurate. For their part US policy elites assume that US diplomacy will make a significant difference to the course of events. This too is a dubious proposition. Musharraf feels insecure enough to crack down on perceived threats to his rule. There is a palpable sense in Pakistan that the country is at a historic juncture.

The momentum of events in Pakistan is outside the control of the US government, and resentment against us is high in all political quarters. About the only difference that US policy will make is to the perception of the US among Pakistanis. If we understand and support what the people of Pakistan are demanding, we may salvage some goodwill. Most Pakistanis assume that the Musharraf era is coming to an end, and that there will be a change that will have to reflect the political re-empowerment of Pakistani society.

While not unimportant to Pakistanis, the principal demands of the US government are less important than the longer term political developments in the society. The elections to be held in a little over a month are not considered significant. Whether the General retires as Army Chief and serves as a civilian President has also become entirely unimportant. The key issue is whether he leads the country, and the actual role of the Army in the government.

There have been daily demonstrations throughout the country of lawyers, journalists and political parties against the state of emergency, and these have routinely been met with police violence and mass arrests. Aitzaz Ahsan, the country’s preeminent lawyer who successfully won reinstatement of the Chief Justice, only to see his client summarily dismissed by Musharraf from the bench, also remains in detention. Notwithstanding the recent releases of many political prisoners, many yet remain in custody, and the regime has threatened to re-arrest anyone it chooses.

The independent broadcast press is back on the air, but the regime dangles the sword of Damocles over the press through its failure to renounce peremptory powers over the press and its “advice” to some channels to refrain from broadcasting.

Yet, as one speaks to Pakistanis, it is hard to avoid the widespread sentiment that a new energy and awareness among its citizens presages a brighter future.

The sense of promise is entirely surprising. Observers have long noted the anomaly between the sophistication of Pakistan’s intelligentsia and its difficulty in shaking off the curses of military rule and corrupt civilian politics. Just a few weeks ago it seemed that there was little alternative to a shotgun marriage (with Uncle Sam wielding the gun) between the praetorian state and one of the two major political parties, the Pakistan People’s Party (PPP) led by former Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto.

There was much to dread in such a political convergence.

The army remains indispensable to any future political order because of the tenacious hold that it has now established in the national economy, and because Pakistan, under any government however democratic, will face armed challenges from within or without. However, there has also been a widespread and growing sense that its long and repeated interference in politics has harmed both the political development of Pakistan and the integrity of its principal mission of national defense against the country’s enemies.

The main political parties, those with sufficient support to be political players in their own right, offered a poor alternative. Widely discredited by their tenures in government in the 1990s, both the PPP and the Pakistan Muslim League of former Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif (PML(N)), were viewed askance by many Pakistanis of democratic conviction. Indeed, many considered the Musharraf regime’s survival a result of the public’s distrust of the large political parties.

Today, the rule of law has become the most powerful organizing principle, and has acted to bring together disparate elements of the Pakistani polity.

This should have been apparent to the regime, when its suspension of the Chief Justice in March was met by a protest movement that catalyzed a precipitous fall in General Musharraf’s public support. The judiciary, historically not a beacon of independence from the executive, was increasingly challenging the regime’s peremptory detention, and even “disappearance”, of ordinary Pakistanis. It had also developed a jurisdictional jurisprudence, seen in India a couple of decades ago under then Chief Justice Bhagwati, of considering public interest matters on its own motion. What this did was to give poor and unlettered Pakistanis access to redress of grievances without the need for the expense and sophistication usually required of litigants. The Courts therefore became the last resort of the poor in a political system that was otherwise distinctly unconcerned with their interests. Recent events offer evidence of the empowerment through law that has emerged as a prominent theme: lawyers, on strike to protest the attack on the judiciary, have instructed their clients in law, so that they may safeguard their own legal interests in the interim.

The rule of law and judicial independence have become central to the calculations of the politicians. After originally making no reference to the issue in her list of demands, Benazir Bhutto has come around to including it. Nawaz Sharif for his part has sought to make restoration of the judges and the independence of the judiciary the central plank for broad opposition unity.

Of the established political leaders, Nawaz seems to have gained the most from recent events. His popularity has risen precisely because, unlike Benazir, he has been untainted by negotiations with General Musharraf. His skillful positioning as champion of judicial independence has burnished his image. Benazir has seemed at a disadvantage, following trends rather than guiding them.

The redressing of the balance between the major political parties, to a position of near parity, has compelled them to cooperate with each other. Because their stock remains low, even when combined, as a result of their past abuses of power, they are also compelled to collaborate with other smaller political parties. Indeed, there is consensus across the political spectrum that only a broad and united opposition movement can act to force a transition to democracy.

The outstanding issue between the PPP and the PML(N) is that of how broad a unity they envision. Nawaz has insisted that all parties be included, including the Islamists. Benazir has so far looked to a unity of the non-Islamist parties, perhaps reflecting the preferences of the United States, whose support has been important to her so far. The approach of Nawaz and the PML(N) is the preferable one. It is essential that the broadest range of political forces be gathered. Apart from the deleterious effects of disunity on the delicate task of transition, there is a significant danger in exclusion of Islamist parties. They can play the part of spoilers if given no stake in the process. They have reason to play a constructive role if included. Some of them, as I was repeatedly reminded by secular Pakistanis, have democratic instincts, such as the Jamiat Ulama e Islam (Fazlur Rahman), and others whose democratic instincts may be debated, such as the Jamaat-e-Islami, nonetheless remain committed to constitutional political action. In general, while they have often maintained respectful dialogue with more radical elements, the established Islamist political parties feel competition for their political base from those more radical elements that are taking up arms against the government. They are keen to see a national consensus on social and security policy to address the various insurgencies. Certainly, the Islamist political parties have historically prospered under military rule, and have cooperated even with the Musharraf regime. Nonetheless, they see the current regime as unviable, and are keen to cut their losses and end their association with it.

Indeed, so broad a consensus will be needed to consolidate a political transition in Pakistan’s difficult social, political and security conditions, that participation of all elements of society in the political transition will be needed. This includes the armed forces. It’s simply that General Musharraf, once significantly more popular, has now become a liability: to democracy, to the Army and to Pakistan.

Mushararf Retires - Kayani Takes Over


Picture: NYT (Nov. 28, 2007)

Kiyani steps out of Musharraf’s shadow
(AFP) - 28 November 2007

ISLAMABAD - In his old job as Pakistan’s spy supremo he lived in the shadows, but on Wednesday General Ashfaq Kiyani took over as army chief in bright sunshine and with the world’s eyes watching his every move.


President Pervez Musharraf handed the baton of command of the nuclear-armed military to Kiyani, his 55-year-old deputy, in a colourful ceremony on a parade ground at military headquarters in Rawalpindi.

Musharraf paid rich tribute to him in a speech, saying he had known him for 20 years and adding: “I know his professional acumen. He is an excellent soldier.”

But in an indication perhaps of the uncertainty of the army’s loyalties as Musharraf prepares to become a civilian president, he said he was “confident that the army will remain loyal to him (Kiyani) as it has been with me”.

Musharraf handpicked the chain-smoking, golf-mad Kiyani for his loyalty and laughed off rumours spread earlier this month that Kiyani had placed him under house arrest amid anger at the emergency decree.

With Musharraf facing a mounting political crisis over his three-week-old state of emergency, Kiyani’s role will be crucial in a country where the army holds most of the cards.

His leadership is also of significance to the rest of the world, as the army is the frontline force against Al Qaeda and Taleban militants holed up in Pakistan’s tribal areas bordering Afghanistan.

The affable yet reserved Kiyani could also play a key part behind the scenes in helping resolve Musharraf’s own fate.

A former aide to opposition leader Benazir Bhutto, he led negotiations on power-sharing between the former premier and Musharraf — talks which she has now called off.

Kiyani also has good ties with Pakistan’s increasingly impatient backers in Washington, and his name emerged amid reports that the United States is making contingency plans for a post-Musharraf era.

“All eyes are on Kiyani,” said Hassan Abbas, an analyst with the John F. Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University.

Abbas suggested that under Kiyani, the Pakistani army would remain influential but retreat from the political scene, end the emergency and allow elections, which could install Bhutto or another politician as premier.

Former general turned political analyst Talat Masood told AFP that Kiyani was a “professional soldier and highly regarded,” and that leadership of the country’s military “is passing into the right hands”.

Security officials and analysts described Kiyani as quiet and easy to get along with.

“He is a very good listener — speaks less, thinks more,” one official said.

He is also a rarity in Pakistan’s often privilege-dominated society as the son of a junior officer from Jhelum, a city in Punjab province from which the army draws much of its manpower.

Kiyani is a former head of the Rawalpindi Corps, whose 111 Brigade led most of the coups in Pakistan’s military-dominated history.

In 2004, Musharraf appointed him to lead the Inter-Services Intelligence agency, which hunts Al Qaeda militants and provides internal security.

Army biographies say Kiyani is a keen sportsman as well as president of the Pakistan Golf Association. He is married and has a son and daughter.

He joined the army in 1971 and commanded several infantry units, according to a military statement. He is a graduate of Fort Leavenworth military college in the United States.

Also See:
Musharraf Quits Pakistani Army Post - NYT
Musharraf steps down as army chief - CNN

The FP Debate: Should the U.S. Abandon Pervez Musharraf?


The FP Debate: Should the U.S. Abandon Pervez Musharraf?
By Daniel Markey, Husain Haqqani: Posted November 2007: Foreign Policy

Is it time to send Pervez Musharraf packing? Two top experts on South Asia, Daniel Markey of the Council on Foreign Relations and Husain Haqqani of Boston University, square off on the tottering Pakistani president’s fate.

Excerpts
“No.” — Daniel Markey

The United States should hold its nose and stick with Musharraf. He currently occupies a unique position in Pakistani politics and could still serve as an essential transitional figure during the next few weeks, months, and possibly even years.

In the immediate term, Musharraf offers Washington continuity in the face of uncertain political transition. He is a familiar face, a leader with whom the Bush administration has established a sustained working relationship. Under even the smoothest possible transition scenarios, Musharraf’s departure would interrupt bilateral cooperation on military, counterterrorism, and intelligence matters for days or weeks—with uncertain consequences for U.S. security.

With a watchful eye, Washington should stand by Musharraf not for what he is—an unpopular military leader—and not for what he has been—an imperfect ally—but for what he might still be: a transitional figure who offers near-term continuity and medium-term potential for founding a new, more effective configuration of power and governance in Islamabad.

Daniel Markey is a senior fellow for India, Pakistan, and South Asia at the Council on Foreign Relations and a former member of the U.S. State Department’s policy planning staff.

“Yes.” — Husain Haqqani

Washington has consistently overestimated Gen. Pervez Musharraf’s value as an ally in the war on terror. Under Musharraf’s military rule, terrorism in Pakistan has increased and terrorist safe havens have expanded. Billions of dollars in U.S. aid to Musharraf’s authoritarian regime has done little to stem the tide of anti-Americanism sweeping this nuclear-armed Muslim nation of 160 million people.

After Musharraf’s decision in early November to suspend Pakistan’s constitution and impose martial law under the guise of emergency rule, even his limited utility as Washington’s partner has dissipated. And now that Pakistan’s military, police, and intelligence services are busy arresting Supreme Court judges, beating up protesting lawyers, and tracking opposition politicians, they certainly aren’t able to focus their energies on flushing out terrorists.

By abandoning Pervez Musharraf, the United States could signal that it will not tolerate Pakistan becoming “Myanmar lite,” a nation permanently dominated by its military. Once Washington makes it clear that it will no longer support Musharraf, Pakistan’s military will have to start negotiating with the country’s political parties and civil society instead of dictating to them. Only then will Pakistan be able to emerge as a normal country with predictable patterns of political change, which will make it easier to ensure the security of its nuclear weapons and to fight the terrorists who benefit from the country’s present chaos. It is time for Musharraf to go and for civilian rule to return.

Husain Haqqani is a professor and director of the Center for International Relations at Boston University, and author of Pakistan: Between Mosque and Military (Washington: Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, 2005).

For Complete Text of the debate, click here

A Tale of Two Bhuttos

A Tale of Two Bhuttos By Douglas Frantz, Catherine Collins
Posted November 2007: Foreign Policy

Benazir Bhutto knows how to tell Western audiences what they want to hear, but when the former prime minister had a chance to shut down Pakistan’s nuclear Wal-Mart, she looked the other way instead.

With Pakistan in turmoil and the Bush administration rapidly losing patience with Gen. Pervez Musharraf, the time seems ripe for Benazir Bhutto’s return to power. But how would the former prime minister handle the most critical international issue confronting Pakistan today? We are not talking about dealing with Islamic extremists within its borders, though that is perilous enough. Even more critical to the international community is the matter of securing Pakistan’s nuclear arsenal and eradicating the final vestiges of A.Q. Khan’s nuclear Wal-Mart. Bhutto may say all the right things on this issue, but history raises troubling questions about her performance when it comes to nuclear weapons.

In the fall of 1989, less than a year into her first term as prime minister, Bhutto attended a conference for Islamic heads of government in Tehran. On the sidelines, then President of Iran Hashemi Rafsanjani pulled Bhutto aside to talk about a critical matter:

“Our countries have reached an agreement on special defense matters,” Rafsanjani said, according to a Bhutto aide who was there. “This agreement was reached on a military-to-military basis, but I want us to reaffirm it as leaders of our governments.”

Bhutto maintained that she knew nothing of any defense pact with Iran. “What exactly are you talking about, Mr. President?” she asked, gesturing for the aide to move closer to overhear.

“Nuclear technology, Madam Prime Minister, nuclear technology,” said the Iranian leader.

Two years earlier, A.Q. Khan, a leading Pakistani nuclear scientist, had sold Iran components and plans for centrifuges, which are used to enrich uranium for weapons or to fuel civilian reactors. The equipment and knowledge gave Iran a jump-start in its secret program to enrich uranium, which the United States and other countries now claim is part of a plan to produce a nuclear weapon.

Bhutto has confirmed the story and consistently said that she was furious to find out from Rafsanjani that Pakistan was providing its nuclear technology to Iran. She said she responded by ordering that no nuclear scientist be permitted to travel outside Pakistan without her approval. Although Bhutto publicly declared her opposition to nuclear weapons for Pakistan, she often took a different line in private discussions and talked about extending the nuclear legacy of her late father, Prime Minister Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, who began the effort in 1972 to build an “Islamic Bomb.”

The military ousted Benazir Bhutto as prime minister in 1990, in part because her ties to the United States had raised fears that she would sacrifice the country’s nuclear program. “Pakistan’s nuclear weapons capability simply cannot be safe under the leadership of a Westernized woman,” said Maulana Sami ul-Haq, the head of one of the Islamic parties aligned with the intelligence service at the time.

After engineering a political comeback and winning reelection in October 1993, Bhutto reemerged wiser and wilier, determined to avoid confrontation with senior military and intelligence officials. So when Khan requested an appointment with her in December 1993, Bhutto saw an opportunity to recruit an ally. By that time, Khan was recognized as the public face of Pakistan’s nuclear weapons program, an open secret in the country and the world. He was wealthy and influential, supported by the generals and intelligence masters Bhutto feared most.

Arriving at Bhutto’s office, Khan explained that he knew the prime minister was scheduled to pay a state visit to China later that month. He asked if she would make a detour on his behalf. “If you are going to North Korea, it would be very nice if you could talk to Kim Il Sung about helping us with this nuclear thing,” said Khan, according to Bhutto’s own recollection.

“What do you mean, ‘this nuclear thing’?” Bhutto asked.

Khan explained that the North Koreans were willing to sell Pakistan the designs for a version of the No-Dong missile, which could carry a nuclear payload. Bhutto pointed out that Pakistan already had missiles capable of reaching India. But Khan said he and the generals wanted longer-range missiles with a bigger warhead capacity.

Though she recognized the danger that a new missile could heighten the arms race with India, Bhutto saw an opportunity to curry favor with Khan and his military backers. When she returned from her trip, Bhutto handed over the designs for the missile to Khan. U.S. intelligence agencies believe this exchange was the beginning of Khan’s relationship with North Korea, a relationship that would later yield North Korea the enrichment technology they vitally needed to launch their own nuclear weapons program. Bhutto maintains, however, that she authorized payment for the designs in cash only—not by bartering Pakistan's centrifuge technology.

Two stories, two different responses by Bhutto. In the case of Iran, she attempted to stop the transfer of technology, though some former Pakistani officials have said that she actually approved of the arrangement behind the scenes. In the case of North Korea, Bhutto set aside her reservations and helped a man who has come to be known as the most dangerous proliferator in history.

Which Benazir Bhutto might come back to power now? One possible sign is her position on Khan himself, who was brought to a form of justice in early 2004 when Musharraf forced him to confess on national television that he had provided nuclear technology and expertise to Iran, Libya, and North Korea. Since then, the scientist has been held under a tight house arrest in Islamabad, outside the reach of investigators from the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) who are still trying to untangle his operation.

Musharraf has refused to permit the IAEA to question Khan, who may well hold the secret of Iran’s nuclear intentions, among other pressing nuclear concerns. And the Bush administration has declined to press its ally to allow interrogation of the scientist, who remains a popular figure among Pakistan’s masses.

Bhutto, on the other hand, knows how to talk to Americans. In remarks during a trip to Washington in late September, she promised that her government would let the IAEA question Khan if the U.N. agency asked to do so. Yet when the comment sparked an uproar back home, the chief spokesman for Bhutto’s political party, the Pakistan Peoples Party, said her words were being distorted and reassured the domestic audience that she would never turn over Khan to foreigners. “PPP has no intention of violating domestic or international law regarding personal rights of anyone, least of all of Dr. A.Q. Khan,” he said.

Bhutto’s reaction to Musharraf’s emergency rule has been similarly mixed, seeming to reflect a politician with her finger in the air, testing the winds of public opinion. Her initial condemnation was mild. While her own supporters were being beaten and arrested in droves, she was attending semi-official social ceremonies and holding out the possibility of keeping the U.S.-engineered power-sharing agreement with Musharraf. But in recent days, as criticism of Musharraf’s emergency measures has grown from almost every quarter, including the White House, Bhutto has broken with the dictator and begun working to solidify the opposition parties in an attempt to oust him.

Even if Bhutto assumes power again, questions remain not only about her willingness to exert civilian control over Pakistan’s nuclear program, but her ability to do so. Pakistan’s generals and intelligence officials have never trusted Bhutto, and they still believe she is too beholden to the Americans. Since Washington is largely responsible for engineering Bhutto’s return, there is little reason to believe they will change their attitude on the former prime minister anytime soon. And she may well prove too much of a politician to risk angering the military—and jeopardizing her hold on power—by challenging them over control of the country’s nuclear arsenal. Some might regard her return as a victory for democracy, but, given her record, that is a stretch. It would be especially dangerous if Bhutto’s soothing promises were to lull U.S. policymakers into a false sense of security just when vigilance may be needed most.

Douglas Frantz, a senior writer at CondƩ Nast Portfolio, and Catherine Collins, a Washington-based writer, are authors of the forthcoming The Nuclear Jihadist: The True Story of the Man Who Sold the World's Most Dangerous Secrets ... and How We Could Have Stopped Him (New York: Twelve, December 2007).

Tuesday, November 27, 2007

Back to the 'stone age': By Shamshad Ahmed


Back to the 'stone age'
Shamshad Ahmad: The Nation, November 24, 2007

Mr. Shamshad Ahmed is a former Foreign Secretary of Pakistan

Whether or not Richard Armitage said it, we have already gone back to the 'stone age'. The US did not have to bomb us to make Tora Bora out of Pakistan. We have done it ourselves.

Like the ape-men of the Paleolithic and Neolithic periods of the 'stone age', we are also fighting among ourselves as enemies of each other, and our sole 'equipment' for solving our problems now is our 'instinct' devoid of any tolerance and rationality. Like the early primates, we are no longer living in an organised or civilised state, and have no taste for the 'rule of law' or good governance.
We have really gone back to the 'preliterate' culture. We are good only at the 'use of fire, rocks, batons, clubs, tear gas and all sorts of other weapons' in running our day-to-day affairs, and our talent for learning is limited only to trial-and-error 'monkeying' or fumbling with dangerous situations which in modern vocabulary would be called 'crises'.

A country without constitution or the rule of law and where there is no independent judiciary and no fundamental freedoms and rights is no better than the 'stone age' cultures, and has no place in the contemporary comity of civilised nations. Government and politics, as the world knows them, are alien to Pakistan. Our scene pathetically bears resemblance to Thomas Hobbes's concept of primitive anarchy marked by a 'war of one against all' and to Rousseau's idealisation of the 'noble savage'.

Perhaps, Hegel spoke for us when he said that man can never learn anything from history. We have never been prone to learning any lessons from history. For us, history is nothing more than a 'tableau of crimes, follies and misfortunes of our ancestors'. Woefully, our history as a nation is replete with a series of crises and tragedies which has left us politically and economically unstable, socially fragmented and physically disintegrated. And yet, we are bent upon living through our history without any remorse or respite.

With Quaid-e-Azam's early demise, Pakistan was orphaned in its very infancy and lost the promise of a healthy youth with acute systemic deficiencies and normative perversities restricting its orderly natural growth. After the Quaid, its political bankruptcy and moral aridity left it without any sense of direction. There was no one there who could stabilise its 'adolescence' and take it out of its 'identity' crisis, and like a neglected spoilt child, Pakistan became a nuisance for its neighbours as well as for itself.

It started cutting itself into pieces, losing within less than quarter of a century not only its own half but also its very rationale that had inspired its founding fathers to struggle for a separate homeland for the Muslims of the subcontinent. The real Pakistan disappeared with its tragic dismemberment, and whatever was left has been the pillage ground with 'spoils of power' for its military-controlled feudal custodians.

World's history is replete with tales of 'self-centred' rulers who forgot that power never endures and considered their reign as a mere extension of their egos and idiosyncrasies. The seventeenth century French monarch, Louis XIV, was one classic example of this mentality. His famous dictum: "L'etat, c'est moi" ("I am the state") was an expression of arrogance and an affront to democratic norms, including the principle of 'separation of powers' and independence of judiciary.
The finality of those words enunciated with a note of casual self-assurance did speak of the king's determination to have his way but also showed his contempt for the sovereign will of the people. It is the same contempt that is being shown today to the sovereign will of the people of Pakistan. We are now learning what a 'dual-office' ruler in Pakistan considers to be the limits of his power - nothing. He owns the country and runs it with the law of 'tooth and claw'.

For any state in the contemporary world, its constitution is its solemn and inviolable 'social contract' which guarantees fundamental freedoms and basic rights of its citizens, including their inalienable right to choose or change their government through freely cast ballot, and which establishes the power and duties of the government and provides the legal basis for its institutional structure.
But in Pakistan, gross abuse of power, frequent assaults on constitutional supremacy and independence of judiciary, protracted spells of military rule and poor and corrupt governance have not only cost us our entire independent statehood, but also left us without any 'social contract'. Ours is a dismal record of constitutional and political delinquency and unrelenting 'omissions and commissions' with total insensitivity to what the contemporary world thinks of us.

We don't care if the Commonwealth has again expelled us for violating its fundamental values. Like an 'enfant terrible' we feel proud in being censured in global forums. We don't care for any value system. We have no convictions. Even our sins lack conviction. We don't take any thing to heart. Look, how gracefully we digested the tragedy of 1971, the worst that could happen to any country or a nation. We did not make it an 'issue of our core' for we had other 'core issues'.
We are not afraid of repeating the same blunders, and are ready for more of similar tragedies and debacles. Unsure of our future, we are still struggling through an identity crisis and personality 'schizophrenia' tearing the nation apart with no common sense of purpose or unity. We take pride in topping the lists of world's most corrupt, most autocratic, most violent, most unsafe and most dangerous countries on earth. We are beholden to Machiavelli who believed in what men do, and not what they ought to do. We deviated from our ideals. Machiavelli's political philosophy based on his infamous 'doctrine of necessity' became an integral part of our body politic. In fact, we allowed this doctrine to circumscribe the supremacy of our constitution, the rule of law and independence of judiciary, and have again opted for pre-historic 'one-man rule'.

Pakistan has seen a constant struggle between power and polity since the very beginning of its independence. Might always and everywhere considered wrong has never been claimed so 'right' as in Pakistan. The tragedy of our nation is that democracy was never allowed to flourish in our country. We have lost half the country and also our 'raison d'etre'. We have been living with extra-constitutional measures and systemic aberrations with no parallel in political philosophy or contemporary history.

The closest we could trace something alike is perhaps the Cromwellian era of the seventeenth century known for its assorted political experiments. These included the establishment and dissolution of several parliaments, military rule, rule of the saints, establishment and collapse of the 'lord protectorate' and finally an unsuccessful attempt by Cromwell in the form of 'humble petition and advice' to legalise his power through parliamentary authority.

Cromwell was however conscientious enough to realise that the source of his authority was force, not law. And he died a frustrated man within seven months after he dissolved the last parliament in disgust, having utterly failed in securing any popular basis for his power.

In Pakistan, as in England of the Cromwellian era, fundamental values of freedom, democracy and human dignity have been breached with impunity. Constitutions have been violated in letter and spirit with 'custom-made' judiciary always available to sanctify military coups. Institutional paralysis has kept the whole nation disenfranchised. Our feudal power structure has been exploited by successive military regimes to unleash a culture of political opportunism, corruption and ineptitude.

Unfortunately, our recognition in the comity of nations today is only as a 'breeding ground' for religious extremism and militancy and as a country afflicted with a culture of violence and sectarianism. Every act of violence anywhere in the world is traced back to our country in one way or the other. The US, in particular, sees Pakistan as the 'ground zero' and a pivotal lynchpin in its fight against terrorism, and for all purposes, now brackets Pakistan with already 'stone-aged' Afghanistan.
We have brought the anti-Taliban war into Pakistan which puts our armed forces on the wrong side of the people. Ours is the only country in the world today with an ongoing military operation against its own people. Our sovereignty is being violated with impunity. Our freedom of action in our own interest is being questioned and undermined. We are accepting the responsibility for crimes we have not committed.
As if this was not enough, according to latest reports, plans modelled on the American strategy in Anbar Province of Iraq are afoot to pour more money and arms (and perhaps more American soldiers too) into our tribal areas, thus making Pakistan another Iraq. This is an alarming signal.

It is time we woke up to the ominous reality. Pakistan is being weakened methodically by keeping it engaged on multiple external as well as domestic fronts. We are being ingeniously torn apart brick by brick with the ultimate goal of taking out, in a worst case scenario, our nuclear capability.

Our foremost challenge in this situation is not what we are required to do for others' interests; it is what we can do to serve our own national interests and to safeguard our national assets, including our sovereign independence and national dignity. This we can do under a new genuinely elected civilian government rooted in the will of the people and based on constitutional supremacy, rule of law and independence of judiciary.

Prospects for Musharraf, Benazir Bhutto and Nawaz Sharif

PAKISTAN"S BIG THREE - THE OPTIONS

President Pervez Musharraf is expected to resign as head of the army shortly before being sworn in for another term as president, this time as a civilian.

The BBC's M Ilyas Khan in Karachi looks at the prospects for Gen Musharraf, Benazir Bhutto and Nawaz Sharif, the three biggest names in Pakistani politics as they vie for power. - BBC - November 27, 2007

For Complete Text click here

ALSO SEE: (click titles)
VOA TALK2AMERICA Web Discussion on Pakistan Crisis - November 26, 2007

Strings attached to Sharif's return By Syed Saleem Shahzad - Asia Times, November 27, 2007

WASHINGTON DIARY: Hobson’s choice By Dr Manzur Ejaz - Daily Times, November 28, 2007

What the Saudis Want from Annapolis

What the Saudis Want from Annapolis
By Scott Macleod/Paris, TIME, Sunday, Nov. 25, 2007

Saudi Arabian Foreign Minister Saud al-Faisal tells TIME that he is optimistic about this week's Middle East peace conference in Annapolis because of what he calls U.S. determination "to see this through." Continuous U.S. mediation in post-conference negotiations, including pressure on Israel, he says, "can turn things around" and lead to a comprehensive settlement before President Bush's term expires in 13 months.

But, speaking in Paris just hours before his scheduled arrival in the U.S., Prince Saud warned Israelis that they would have no peace until Israel withdrew from Arab territories captured in the 1967 war. Saud, who will be the highest-ranking Saudi to ever attend a peace conference with the Jewish state, added that he would not shake the hand of Prime Minister Ehud Olmert or make a symbolic visit to Jerusalem before a peace deal. "The hand that has been extended to us has been a fist so far," he said. He warned Israelis against seeking a surrender, adding, "We don't need a Versailles for the Arab world, a peace that will only be an instigator of future wars."

TIME: Are you optimistic about Annapolis?
Saud: One of the elements of optimism is the sense of determination of the United States to see this through. Peace without the complete and direct involvement of the United States is impossible. The assurance that it is going to be a comprehensive peace that is pursued, to tackle the main issues of borders, Jerusalem, refugees, is certainly one of the elements.

Did you have reservations about attending?
We were fearful of failure. For us, of course, and what the turn of events after a failure would be. But also for the United States. We were anxious that the credibility of the United States is maintained.

Why were you afraid for yourselves?
We have assiduously worked for a strategy for peace. We have convinced our people of the viability of that strategy. If failure occurred, people would turn away from this strategy. Undoubtedly, failure will increase the trend toward radicalism, and undoubtedly it will provide terrorists with further means of recruitment.

Are you confident in the Bush Administration's steering of the peace process?
We have confidence in that. I hope we are proven right. Both sides alone won't reach an agreement. It is obvious from the last 60 years of experience with negotiations. With their continuous involvement, and serious intent, this can turn things around [if the United States really is going to put its weight behind its proposals].

Have Prime Minister Ehud Olmert and Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas achieved anything in their talks?
No, that is one of the great disappointments. Everybody had hoped by the time they reached the conference, that Olmert and Abbas had reached some kind of understanding especially about what needs to be done on the ground, issues like a freeze on settlements, the wall, and other issues that make Palestinian life easier. How reasonable is it to assume that you can have negotiations for removing the occupation and at the same time the Israelis are acquiring more land and building more settlements? Here is an obvious area where an intermediary has to step in and say, "No, this can't be."

Do you think Olmert is sincere?
Israel has to make a choice. They have lived for the last 60 years basing their policy on force. Yet they are not closer to achieving peace or security than they have been in the past. It is time for them to try a different policy, a policy of accepting to live with the Palestinians and live in the neighborhood. We don't need a Versailles for the Arab world, a peace that will only be an instigator of future wars.

What do you think of Olmert?
I don't know the man.

He responded positively to the Arab peace initiative and Saudi involvement in the peace process.
Does he accept the principles of the peace proposal totally? Withdrawal for total peace? This will be a test for him in this next conference.

Will you try to get to know him at the conference, shake his hand and have a chat?
No, this is not theater. We are going seriously for peace negotiations. We are not going there just to take pictures of somebody shaking somebody's hand. We can't give false impressions to people. The hand that has been extended to us has been a fist so far. Once it opens for peace, it will be shaken.

Shaking his hand could send a signal to Israelis that there is a partner for peace.
We are there to support Mahmoud Abbas, the Syrians and the Lebanese to get their territory. We are there in all honesty, if peace is achieved, to pursue that what was promised in the Arab peace plan. That is normalization, after the peace. We are not going to be party to gestures that could be interpreted as normalization before peace is attained.

What will the Saudi role be after the Annapolis conference?
Saudi Arabia is not looking for a unique role for itself to play. We will not of course negotiate in place of the Palestinians or the Syrians or Lebanese. But we will help in any way that we can if asked by these sides to help.

Would you visit Jerusalem?
No. Not before peace. We will visit only Jerusalem that is liberated.

What is your time frame for reaching a comprehensive peace agreement?
The time frame is very clear. It is until the end of the Bush Administration.

Can it happen?
Of course. Every man on the street and every woman on the street, not only the politicians, knows what the settlement will look like in the end. It just needs the action to bring it about. It looks like the 1967 border, with delineation of that border. It looks for a negotiated solution for the Palestinian [refugees] return. It looks for a return of East Jerusalem as part of the Palestinian territories.

And Arab acceptance of Israel's legitimacy as a state?
Of course.

For Complete Text, click here

Also See:
Abbas' Road to Capitulation: Annapolis and Beyond By Kim Bullimore - The Palestine Chronicle

Monday, November 26, 2007

Is the NWFP Slipping out of Pakistan’s Control?



Is the NWFP Slipping out of Pakistan’s Control?
By Hassan Abbas
Terrorim Monitor, Volume 5, Issue 22 (November 26, 2007)

A discredited military regime in the center, the problematic rule of a religious political alliance (Muttahida Majlis-e-Amal, or MMA), ill-planned military operations in the adjacent Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA) belt and the growing unpopularity of the “war on terror” have all tarnished the socio-political fabric of society in the North-West Frontier Province (NWFP) of Pakistan. The growth of Talibanization and insurgency in parts of the NWFP are consequences of these factors. Events in the province’s Swat district such as the rise of the Tehreek-e-Nafaz-e-Shariat-e-Mohammadi (TNSM, Movement for the Enforcement of Islamic Laws) are signs of the increasing security threat to the state of Pakistan. It is difficult, however, to pinpoint the real nature of the crisis. Framing the overall crisis in the region as a “Pashtun insurgency” provides a context, but it doesn’t answer all the relevant questions. For instance, polls indicate that a Punjabi political figure Imran Khan (cricket legend and head of Tehreek-i-Insaf, Justice Party) now has more support among the people of the NWFP than the Islamist MMA [1].

This essay is an attempt to understand where the NWFP stands today and to examine the potential consequences of President Pervez Musharraf’s policies for the province [2].

Understanding the NWFP

Located on both banks of the river Indus, the NWFP covers an area of 28,772 sq. mi., with an approximate population of 21 million, stretching from the Himalayas in the north to the deserts in the south where it is bordered by the Baluchistan and Punjab provinces of Pakistan (http://www.healthnwfp.gov.pk). The province is divided into 24 administrative districts, with 83 percent of the population living in rural areas. About 70 percent of NWFP residents are Pashtuns with Pashto as their mother-tongue and twenty percent are Hindkowans (sometimes referred to as Punjabi Pathans) with Hindko (very similar to Punjabi) as their primary language. Other languages include Chitralis, Kohistanis and Seraiki, a Punjabi dialect (The News, November 25, 1997). By comparison, in the neighboring FATA almost 99 percent of the population is Pashto speaking. About 15 percent of the total NWFP population belongs to the Shiite sect of Islam (including Ismaili Shiites). There are also small Christian and Sikh communities in the province (around 3 percent). In the domain of social sector indicators, 46 percent of the province's population lives below the poverty line while the literacy rate is at a low 38 percent and marked by gender disparities (Asian Development Bank Report, August 2005).

Since Pakistan’s creation in 1947, there have been many transformations in the political orientation of the people, ranging from the rise of secular nationalist forces (such as the National Awami Party, or NAP) in the early years to the growth of the Islamist Jamiat-i-Ulema-e-Pakistan (Assembly of Pakistani Clergy) in the early 1970s. The 1980s Afghan war introduced a militant flavor to the politics of the NWFP as Peshawar and adjacent tribal areas became home to mujahideen from all over the Muslim world. The dynamics of the area were changed by the spread of madrasahs, the presence of CIA personnel, the influx of Saudi petro-dollars and the establishment of training camps by Pakistan’s Inter-Services Intelligence agency (ISI).


In the 1988-99 democratic period, both the Pakistan People’s Party (PPP) of Benazir Bhutto and Nawaz Sharif’s faction of the Muslim League alternated in ruling the province. The Awami National Party (ANP), a successor of the secular NAP, has also been an influential player since the 1990s and a coalition partner in governing the volatile province.

Current Trends in the NWFP

As briefly indicated above, the NWFP has been a victim of Pakistan’s regional policy and international politics. The wounds of the 1980s Afghan war in the shape of religious militancy, the drug trade and the nefarious role of Pakistan’s intelligence agencies in the area still haunt the province. Consequently, the rise of the Taliban in Afghanistan in the mid-1990s had a deep impact on Pashtun identity and politics. The madrasahs that played a large part in producing the Taliban are still operational. The Western response to the challenge posed by al-Qaeda’s presence, at time half-hearted and on occasions ill-conceived, further complicated the crisis. The military strategy adopted by the United States and partly implemented by the Pakistani army was based on ignorance of the realities on the ground. The net result has been a growing frustration and disgust among the local people.

Before the NWFP government was dissolved on October 10, the MMA failed to improve the social and developmental indicators in the area, primarily due to incompetence and lack of resources. As a result the Islamists lost some support in the public eye. In the midst of all this, a new wave of religious bigotry is taking over the rural areas of the NWFP, where local extremists (inspired by the Taliban in Afghanistan and in the FATA) are trying to convince people their dogmatic version of Islamic law is the only ray of hope. However, in urban centers and non-Pashtun areas (Hindko speaking) of the NWFP, centrist and leftist political forces still hold ground. Sunni militants have also failed to make any inroads with the Shiite population. The Christian and Sikh communities, however, are under tremendous pressure from the militant forces, often receiving threatening letters with ultimatums for converting to Islam (Daily Times, May 19). Shiites of Dera Ismail Khan and Kohat are also regularly targeted and increased sectarian tensions have led to recent Shiite-Sunni battles in Parachinar (Kurram agency in the FATA). This trend is likely to gain momentum in coming months due to the advent of the Islamic month of Muharram, when Shiites (as well as many Braelvi Sunnis of South Asia) commemorate the tragedy of Imam Husayn’s martyrdom at Karbala. Some other notable trends in the NWFP area include:

• In various districts adjacent to the FATA, Taliban and local militant forces are gaining ground—especially in Karak (Dawn, October 12), Tank (Herald Magazine, April), Lakki Marwat (Daily Times, April 13), Bannu (Daily Times, April 5), Kohat (Daily Times, March 31) and Dera Ismail Khan (Dawn, January 30). All of these districts border Waziristan. The activities of religious militant groups in the area include closing girls’ schools, the bombing of video and music shops, a ban on shaving beards, the strict imposition of the burqa/hijab (head to toe veil) for women and attacks on NGOs, especially those employing women (The News, November 9). It is relevant to mention that the Taliban added a dangerous new dimension to their militancy campaign in March this year, when they began forcing schoolchildren in a small town in Tank district to sign up for suicide bombing missions. According to a credible report in the April edition of Karachi’s Herald magazine, at least 30 schoolchildren in Tank district were abducted for this cause, sending shock waves through the area and triggering a wave of migration from the town. It is pertinent to point out one incident in this regard—in response to militants’ efforts to recruit school-going kids, a school principal had the courage to call in the police to stop this activity. The local police station chief responded but was brutally killed by the militants on the spot. The principal was kidnapped the following day from his home and he too paid for his courage in standing up to these extremists with his life—his body was later found in South Waziristan (The News, March 30). The state witnessed this mayhem from a distance.

• In Swat district, Maulana Fazlullah of the TNSM has been able to enforce his writ and he publicly foisted Taliban flags on at least five major police stations in the area after removing the flag of Pakistan (Rediff India Abroad, November 6). TNSM has successfully terrorized the people of Swat and raised significant money from the area at gunpoint. Their gangs regularly disarm security personnel, take over government buildings and have introduced a parallel justice system based on their extreme version of Sharia law (Dawn, November 9). Fazlullah also runs more than two dozen FM radio stations propagating his extremist views. Very recently, military units have entered the area and stiff battles are underway to bring the area under the government’s control. It is curious, however, why Musharraf never targeted the TNSM communication and media network before. This is in stark contrast to Musharraf’s clampdown on liberal media outlets after the November 3 emergency rule, when he even went to the extent of pressuring the government of Dubai to stop the transmission of two major Pakistani electronic news networks (Geo TV and ARY channel).

• In June of this year, the National Security Council under the leadership of General Musharraf discussed in detail a report prepared jointly by the leading intelligence agencies of the state about the growing influence of Talibanization in the area. The meeting was told that the following districts of NWFP had been affected by varying degrees of militancy and extremism: Tank, Lakki Marwat, Bannu, Kohat, Hangu, Dera Ismail Khan, Peshawar, Mardan, Charsadda, Mansehra, Swat, Malakand and Dir (Dawn, June 23). It is important to note that the report also mentioned that the “presence of foreign forces in Afghanistan, lingering political disputes in the Muslim world (Arab-Israel issue) and a growing feeling among Muslims that they are under attack from the West are major contributory factors behind the growing insurgency in the region.”

Coming back to the main contents of the report, it is ironic that despite this analysis at the highest level of government, nothing concrete was done to halt the slide into chaos. This criminal negligence and lack of action can be understood, however, in the light of another development. Earlier this year the Military Intelligence Directorate of the Pakistani army reportedly prepared a long-term analysis of Pakistan's relationship with the United States, projecting a downturn in U.S. interest in Afghanistan beginning in 2007 (The Huffington Post, November 14). The assessment suggested that Pakistan would have to tackle rising internal Talibanization by itself. Past and current practices of Pakistan’s military and intelligence agencies indicate that they must have concluded earlier that Pakistan would yet again need a “working relationship” with the Taliban to pursue its interests in Afghanistan and to compete with Indian and Iranian goals in the region. If this analysis is accurate, then this also explains why Maulana Fazl-ur-Rahman (leader of one of two factions of the Deobandist Jamiat Ulema-e-Islam, or JUI) is being friendly again towards the Musharraf regime. The new attitude may be the result of guarantees that the NWFP will remain under his suzerainty and might explain why he is not challenging Musharraf openly even when all other major political forces are gunning for the president. To reach out to the United States in this context, Fazl unexpectedly gave a pro-U.S. statement after meeting U.S. diplomats last month, declaring that tribesmen in the FATA are not against Washington-sponsored development projects and that the United States is sincere in developing the area (The Post, October 22). It is questionable, however, whether Fazl will be able to manage the new militant forces in the area. Here we must distinguish between religious political forces like JUI and militant forces such as the Taliban and TNSM. Religious political forces want to participate in electoral politics whereas militant organizations dislike democratic institutions and want to establish an Islamic caliphate system with Sharia being the law of the land, within or even without Pakistan. There are indeed linkages between these two political groups but neither effectively controls the other.

Conclusion

Pakistan’s military establishment is quite skeptical of U.S. interests in the region and elements close to the army often complain that the U.S. administration has not involved Pakistan in their decision-making about Afghanistan. Pakistan’s leaders view Afghanistan as part of their “area of influence” and the U.S.-Pakistani mutual distrust in this regard is a failure on the part of both nations. There is a conspiracy theory doing the rounds in the NWFP which maintains that the United States, behind the scenes, is pushing for a Pashtun buffer state in the region. Some Pakistani media reports and official statements also voice concerns about India’s role in supporting militants in the FATA and the NWFP (Statesman, November 22; The News, November 15). For ordinary people, this has led to confusion and further disorientation.

The absence of credible democratic institutions has severely damaged the body politic of the province. Lack of investment for education is another potent factor. Districts where insurgents and militants are thriving have the worst literacy rates in the province. The Musharraf model of government (which is autocratic and legally flawed) instead played into the hands of religious extremist forces. In many cases, crisis situations were allowed to get worse, as in the case of Swat. Now with a major military push in progress, the TNSM will be tackled strongly and the result will be hailed as a major victory in the international market. But this is no permanent solution, since TNSM remnants will certainly raise their heads again given the prevailing circumstances in the region.

The NWFP is not likely to physically slip out of Pakistan’s hands, but the province today is certainly in the eye of the storm. Religious political forces have lost some of their support base (Daily Times, November 22) due to poor governance and the MMA is not expected to do well in the coming elections because of internal divisions. Musharraf’s arbitrary imposition of emergency rule (read: martial law) has targeted those very forces which can challenge extremists. Many human rights activists and lawyers in the NWFP were arrested and top judges of the NWFP high court known for their progressive views and integrity have been sent home. Among the militants, however, this action of Musharraf is being interpreted as his weakness, further emboldening their activities. Pakistan is faced with a long struggle to return a measure of stability and normalcy to the province.

Notes

1. The survey is accessible at: http://www.iri.org/mena/pakistan/pdfs/2007-10-11-pakistan-SR.pdf.

2. The analysis in this article is based on author’s recent interviews (through telephone and e-mail) with about a dozen persons in the NWFP, including teachers, university students, journalists and politicians.