Friday, July 31, 2009

Pakistan's Supreme Court Reins Supreme

SC demolishes Musharraf’s unconstitutional edifice
The News, August 01, 2009
Lays foundation for far-reaching future decisions; Islamabad High Court sent packing
By Sohail Khan

ISLAMABAD: The Supreme Court, in its landmark verdict, on Friday declared the actions taken on November 3, 2007, by former military dictator General (R) Pervez Musharraf as unconstitutional and invalid.

The apex court declared all judges of the superior courts who took oath by showing personal loyalty to the former military dictator on November 3, 2007, in violation of the order of the seven-member bench of the apex court as illegal and the court ordered them to stop function forthwith.

In a coincidence showers blessed the people as Chief Justice Iftikhar Muhammad Chaudhry started reading out the landmark verdict, bringing down the high temperature and humidity in the jam-packed courtroom No 1, declaring all the acts taken on November 3, 2007, as void, illegal and unconstitutional.

The larger bench took at least four hours to write down the draft of the verdict and finally it was announced at 8.15pm in courtroom, packed with large number of lawyers and media personnel both local and foreign.

A 14-member larger bench headed by Chief Justice Iftikhar Muhammad Chaudhry heard the constitutional petition, challenging the appointment of judges of the superior judiciary who took oath under the PCO and the steps taken on November 3, 2007.

The court declared Justice Abdul Hameed Dogar as the chief justice of Pakistan as un-constitutional, void ab initio and of no legal effect. “Since Justice Abdul Hameed Dogar was never a constitutional chief justice of Pakistan, therefore, all appointments of judges of the Supreme Court, the chief justices of the high courts and the judges of the high courts made, in consultation with him, during the period that he, un-constitutionally, held the said office from 3.11.2007 to 22.3.2009 (both days inclusive) are hereby declared to be un-constitutional, void ab initio and of no legal effect and such appointees shall cease to hold office forthwith,” says the order.

The chief justice, in his short order, stated that making judges of the superior judiciary non-functional by the former military dictator by imposing martial law and promulgation of the Provisional Constitution Order (PCO) on November 3, 2007, was illegal and unconstitutional after violating Article 279 of the constitution.

The order further said that the chief justice of Pakistan, the judges of the Supreme Court, chief justice of a high court and the judges of the high courts who were declared to have ceased to hold their respective offices in pursuance of the afore-mentioned alleged judgments or any other such judgment and on account of the instruments mentioned in para 21 above, shall be deemed never to have ceased to be such judges, irrespective of any notification issued regarding their reappointment or restoration.

It declared that the office of the chief justice of Pakistan never fell vacant on November 3, 2007, and as a consequence thereof it is further declared that the appointment of Justice Abdul Hameed Dogar as the chief justice of Pakistan was un-constitutional; void ab initio and of no legal effect;

“Provided that subject to whatever is contained hereinafter, the said un-constitutional appointment of Justice Abdul Hameed Dogar as chief justice of Pakistan shall not affect the validity of any administrative or financial acts performed by him or of any oath made before him in the ordinary course of the affairs of the said office,” the order said.

The court further ruled that the judges so un-constitutionally appointed to the Supreme Court while holding the offices as judges of any of the high courts shall rever back as judges of the respective high courts subject to their age of superannuation and likewise, the judges of the high courts, who were district and sessions judges before their un-constitutional elevation to the high courts shall revert back as district and sessions judge subject to limitation of superannuation.

For complete article, click here

Related:
Text of the Supreme Court Verdict - Daily Times
Judgment to affect 110 judges of various courts - Dawn
Balochistan HC wiped out - The News
SC abolishes Islamabad High Court - Daily Times
Zardari, Gilani welcome SC verdict - Dawn

Terrorism - Latest Trends and Patterns

Al Qaeda changing, training, plotting
By CNN Senior International Correspondent Nic Robertson and Paul Cruickshank
July 31, 2009

Editor's note: This story is based on interrogation reports that form part of the prosecution case in the forthcoming trial of six Belgian citizens charged with participation in a terrorist group. Versions of those documents were obtained by CNN from the defense attorney of one of those suspects. The statement by Bryant Vinas was compiled from an interview he gave Belgian prosecutors in March 2009 in New York, and was confirmed by U.S. prosecutors as authentic. The statement by Walid Othmani was given to French investigators, and was authenticated by Belgian prosecutors.

(CNN) -- When Bryant Neal Vinas spoke at length with Belgian prosecutors last March, he provided a fascinating and sometimes frightening insight into al Qaeda's training -- and its agenda.

Vinas is a young American who was arrested in Pakistan late in 2008 after allegedly training with al Qaeda in the Afghan-Pakistan border area.

He was repatriated to the United States and in January pled guilty to charges of conspiracy to murder U.S. nationals, providing material support to a foreign terrorist organization, and receiving military-type training from a foreign terrorist organization.

In notes made by FBI agents of interviews with Vinas, he admits he went to Pakistan to join al Qaeda and kill U.S. troops in Afghanistan.

But the terror group appeared to have other ideas for him. He volunteered to become a suicide bomber but was dissuaded at every turn. Read how al Qaeda is now operating

On Thanksgiving weekend last year, shortly after his arrest, much of the New York mass transit system including Penn Station was put on high alert. According to the Belgian prosecutor's document, Vinas had told al Qaeda's command everything he knew about the system.

In his interview with Belgian prosecutors Vinas stated that he met with several members of a Belgian-French group while training in the tribal areas of Pakistan.

For complete article, click here

Related:
New Taliban code: Don't kill civilians, don't take ransom - Christian Science Monitor
New Taliban rule book for fewer suicide attacks - DT
Pakistani Pledge to Rout Taliban In Tribal Region Is Put on Hold - Washington Post
Why Yemen could become Al Qaeda haven - Christian Science Monitor
No Evidence Bin Laden in Pakistan’s Tribal Zone, Minister Says - Bloomberg
The Taliban's Winning Strategy in Afghanistan - Carnegie Endowment

Why Afghanistan is not Obama’s Vietnam?

Winning the Good War: Why Afghanistan is not Obama’s Vietnam
By Peter Bergen
Washington Journal, July 2009

hroughout his campaign last year, President Barack Obama said repeatedly that the real central front of the war against terrorists was on the Afghanistan-Pakistan border. And now he is living up to his campaign promise to roll back the Taliban and al-Qaeda with significant resources. By the end of the year there will be some 70,000 American soldiers in Afghanistan, and the Obama administration is pushing for billions of dollars in additional aid to both Afghanistan and Pakistan.

This has caused consternation among some in the Democratic Party. In May, fifty-one House Democrats voted against continued funding for the Afghan war. And David Obey, the chairman of the powerful House Appropriations Committee, which controls federal spending, says the White House must show concrete results in Afghanistan within a year—implying that if it doesn’t do so, he will move to turn off the money spigot. If this is the attitude of Obama’s own party, one can imagine what the Republicans will be saying if his "Af-Pak" strategy doesn’t start yielding results as they gear up for the 2010 midterm elections.

It’s not just politicians who are souring on the Afghan war. A USA Today poll earlier this year found that 42 percent of Americans believe the war is a mistake, up from 6 percent in 2002. The media has only added to the gloom. Newsweek ran a cover story in January speculating that Afghanistan could be Obama’s Vietnam. And the New York Times has run prominent opinion pieces with headlines like "The ‘Good War’ Isn’t Worth Fighting" and "Fearing Another Quagmire in Afghanistan."

But the growing skepticism about Obama’s chances for success in Afghanistan is largely based on deep misreadings of both the country’s history and the views of its people, which are often compounded by facile comparisons to the United States’s misadventures of past decades in Southeast Asia and the Middle East. Afghanistan will not be Obama’s Vietnam, nor will it be his Iraq. Rather, the renewed and better resourced American effort in Afghanistan will, in time, produce a relatively stable and prosperous Central Asian state.

For complete article, click here

Thursday, July 30, 2009

Indian Prime Minister's Positive Step

Singh Defends Effort to Improve Ties With Pakistan
By KETAKI GOKHALE and PAUL BECKETT, Wall Street Journal, July 30, 2009

NEW DELHI -- Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh is preparing to explain an agreement to improve relations with Pakistan after facing sustained political flak from his opponents -- and lukewarm support from his own party -- on the issue.

Mr. Singh is scheduled to address parliament Wednesday in a speech an official from his party said "will set at rest all questions, apprehensions and speculations relating to the India-Pakistan joint statement."

In the joint statement two weeks ago, Mr. Singh and Pakistani Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani agreed to decouple discussions about terrorism from broader talks between the two countries on issues such as trade and travel.

That was a risky stance with an Indian public that has been particularly wary of its neighbor since November's attacks in Mumbai, in which over 160 people were killed by terrorists from Pakistan.

The statement, which Mr. Singh brought home from a meeting at a multinational summit in Egypt, also included a resolution to cooperate in the fight against terrorism and a passing reference to the insurgency in the Pakistani province of Baluchistan, another sore point between the two neighbors. Pakistani officials have suggested that India is helping the Baluch separatists, a charge India denies.

The agreement stood in stark contrast to comments Mr. Singh had made a month earlier during a meeting with Pakistani President Asif Ali Zardari in Russia. There, he tersely told Mr. Zardari that his mandate for talks with Pakistan was limited to how the country handled terrorism.

For complete article, click here

Related:
We trust Pakistan but verify its action, says Manmohan - Hindu
Indian PM backs Pakistan talks - Aljazeera

Wednesday, July 29, 2009

Not a Victim, but a Hero

Not a Victim, but a Hero
By NICHOLAS D. KRISTOF
New York Times, July 25, 2009

After being kidnapped at the age of 16 by a group of thugs and enduring a year of rapes and beatings, Assiya Rafiq was delivered to the police and thought her problems were over.

Then, she said, four police officers took turns raping her.

The next step for Assiya was obvious: She should commit suicide. That’s the customary escape in rural Pakistan for a raped woman, as the only way to cleanse the disgrace to her entire family.

Instead, Assiya summoned the unimaginable courage to go public and fight back. She is seeking to prosecute both her kidnappers and the police, despite threats against her and her younger sisters. This is a kid who left me awed and biting my lip; this isn’t a tale of victimization but of valor, empowerment and uncommon heroism.

“I decided to prosecute because I don’t want the same thing to happen to anybody else,” she said firmly.

Assiya’s case offers a window into the quotidian corruption and injustice endured by impoverished Pakistanis — leading some to turn to militant Islam.

“When I treat a rape victim, I always advise her not to go to the police,” said Dr. Shershah Syed, the president of the Society of Obstetricians and Gynecologists of Pakistan. “Because if she does, the police might just rape her again.”

Yet Assiya is also a sign that change is coming. She says she was inspired by Mukhtar Mai, a young woman from this remote village of Meerwala who was gang raped in 2002 on the orders of a village council. Mukhtar prosecuted her attackers and used the compensation money to start a school.

Mukhtar is my hero. Many Times readers who followed her story in past columns of mine have sent her donations through a fund at Mercy Corps, at www.mercycorps.org, and Mukhtar has used the money to open schools, a legal aid program, an ambulance service, a women’s shelter, a telephone hotline — and to help Assiya fight her legal case.

The United States has stood aloof from the ubiquitous injustices in Pakistan, and that’s one reason for cynicism about America here. I’m hoping the Obama administration will make clear that Americans stand shoulder to shoulder with heroines like Mukhtar and Assiya, and with an emerging civil society struggling for law and social justice.

For complete article, click here

Related:
An Update on Assiya - NYT

Monday, July 27, 2009

Afghans Want NATO Forces Out: World Public Opinion Poll

Global Poll Finds Widespread Belief that Afghans Want NATO Forces Out
WorldPublicOpinion.Org; July 23, 2009

A new WorldPublicOpinion.org poll of nations around the world finds that most publics polled believe that the Afghan people want NATO forces to leave Afghanistan now. On average 53 percent have this belief, while 30 percent assume that most Afghans want NATO forces to stay.

Among those who believe that the Afghan people want NATO forces to leave, 76 percent say that NATO forces should leave. Among those who believe that the Afghan people want NATO forces to stay, 83 percent say NATO forces should stay. Overall, on average, 37 percent think that NATO forces should remain in Afghanistan, while 50 percent think the mission should be ended now.

At the same time there is considerable concern about the possibility of the Taliban regaining power. In 18 of 20 nations polled most think that it would be bad if the Taliban were to regain power in Afghanistan, with an average of 61 percent saying that it would be bad and just 21 percent saying that it would be good. In Pakistan, where many Afghan Taliban insurgents are based, 61 percent of the public also say that it would be bad if the Taliban were to regain power.

"Even though there is widespread concern about the possibility of the Taliban regaining power in Afghanistan, most people seem to be saying that the Afghan people should decide whether or when NATO forces leave," comments Steven Kull, director of WorldPublicOpinion.org.

WorldPublicOpinion.org conducted the poll of 19,178 respondents in 20 nations that comprise 62 percent of the world's population. This includes most of the largest nations--China, India, the United States, Indonesia, Nigeria, Pakistan, and Russia--as well as Mexico, Germany, Great Britain, France, Poland, Azerbaijan, Ukraine, Kenya, Egypt, Turkey, Iraq, the Palestinian territories, and South Korea. Polling was also conducted in Taiwan, Hong Kong and Macau.

WorldPublicOpinion.org, a collaborative project involving research centers from around the world, is managed by the Program on International Policy Attitudes (PIPA) at the University of Maryland. The margins of error range from +/-3 to 4 percentage points. The surveys were conducted across the different nations between April 4 and June 18, 2009.

The belief that most Afghans want NATO forces out is especially widespread in majority-Muslim nations, including Pakistan (86%), the Palestinian territories (74%), and Egypt (67%). However, this view is also widely held in Russia (63%), Germany (55%), and Mexico (76%).

The belief that the Afghan people want NATO to stay is the dominant position only in India (57%), the US (56%), Nigeria (53%), Kenya (52%), and the majority-Muslim nation of Azerbaijan (44% to 36%).

Within every nation people's assumptions about the attitudes of the Afghan public are highly correlated with their attitudes about continuing the operation.

For complete report, click here

Related:
Afghanistan on tenterhooks - Rahimullah Yusufzai, The News
Documentarian captures the danger and hope in Afghanistan - Los Angeles Times
Miliband Says Credible Afghan Election Key to Defeating Taliban - Bloomberg.com

India Launches Nuclear Submarine: Consequences for Pakistan?

India Launches Nuclear Submarine
New York Times, July 26, 2009

NEW DELHI — India launched its first nuclear-powered submarine in a ceremony in southern port city of Vishakhapatnam on Sunday, becoming one of just six nations in the world to have successfully built one.

After years of relying on rented Russian submarines, the government unveiled the 367-foot Arihant, which means “destroyer of enemies” in Hindi. The new vessel is part of a broad effort by the Indian government to create a military that matches India’s rising global stature.

Indian military officials said the submarine would be capable of carrying nuclear weapons, however Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, who attended the ceremony, said that the it was not built to threaten India’s neighbors.

“We do not have any aggressive designs,” he said. “We seek an external environment in our region and beyond that is conducive to our peaceful development and the protection of our value systems.”

India first tested a nuclear bomb in 1974, but it has been shut out of the group of recognized nuclear powers for decades. India has not signed the nuclear nonproliferation treaty, arguing that the current list of accepted nuclear powers does not reflect reality.

But after years of isolating India because of its nuclear program, the United States has moved in recent years toward closer ties, and in 2008 the Bush administration agreed to trade civilian nuclear power equipment with India in exchange for greater monitoring. India agreed to allow international inspection of its civilian nuclear reactors.

Pakistan, India’s neighbor to the west, also has nuclear weapons, and the two countries have fought three wars since the partition of British-ruled India produced the two nations in 1947, making the region perhaps the most dangerous nuclear flashpoint in the world.

Related:
India’s nuclear submarine to trigger arms race: Pak Navy - Dawn
Pushing South Asia Toward the Brink - Foreign Policy in Focus
India's 'enemy destroyer' sets sail - Asia Times

Sunday, July 26, 2009

Who is responsible for the mess in Pakistan?

Architects of our own fate
the News, July 27, 2009
Zafar Hilaly

It has become almost a fad to decry the absence of good governance and lay the blame at the doorstep of civil servants, politicians, “key stakeholders,” a euphemism for generals, and others. However what few shed light on is why they have failed so often and so regularly.

The failure is one of society as a whole. In other words, failure taints the rich and the poor alike, the educated and the illiterate, the political activist as much as the silent majority. It is a comprehensive failure of a life credo and a value system; of a work ethic and mores that we, as a society, rather than merely individuals, have crafted and by default adopted. This credo/value system to which most subscribe is threatening to convert Pakistan to a failed state.

Some deny this and say that it is more in the nature of a systemic failure. The dysfuctionality of the system itself is the fault of the credo and values that society has adopted. A good or a bad Constitution or even the existence of a Constitution; a good or bad service structure or a military more focused on its duties is not the reason nor the answer. It is our collective approach to life and living in society that is to blame.

What, for example, can one make of a venerable Haji returning from having performed Haj and trying to smuggle in a VCR without paying duty (when duties were required). Who, when asked: “Babaji, why did you, of all people, have to lie and say that you had nothing to declare?” responded: “Duties and taxes are manmade laws and have nothing to do with God’s commandments. There is no sin in breaking them.” He, and the millions of our fellow citizens who agree with him, choose to live by such a code thereby making in this case the financial viability of any regulated society impossible. In other words whatever may be wrong with the system, much more is wrong with us.

Similarly, when asked what the justification was for the Taliban blowing up schools, a leading cleric on a recent TV panel discussion remarked that it was because “the Army used school buildings as fortifications to fire on the Taliban.” When told that the area in which the school was situated had never been visited by the Army he remarked that nevertheless it was “potentially” an Army fortification. When further informed that actually the blowing up of the school had everything to do with the Taliban’s belief that girls should not attend schools and not the Army’s presence, finding himself cornered he conceded disarmingly that he did not agree with that aspect of the Taliban’s credo.

For complete article, click here

Tales From Rural Pakistan

Tales From Rural Pakistan, Lived and Shared
By SABRINA TAVERNISE
New York Times, July 24, 2009

MUEENABAD, Pakistan
IN the steamy heat of central Pakistan, a novelist is writing. He describes a hidden world of servants and their feudal masters, the powerlessness of poverty and the corruption that glues it all together.

These lives, tucked away in the mango groves, grand estates and mud-walled villages of rural Pakistan, are rarely seen by outsiders. But the writer, Daniyal Mueenuddin, a Pakistani-American who lives here, has brought them into focus in a collection of short stories, “In Other Rooms, Other Wonders,” published this year.

They are intimate portraits that raise some of the biggest questions in Pakistan today. Why does a small elite still control vast swaths of land more than 60 years after Pakistan became a nation? How long will landlords continue to control the law and the lives of the peasants on their land in the same way British rulers did before them?

Mr. Mueenuddin, 46, offers a richly observed landscape that is written with the tenderness and familiarity of an old friend. The estate Mr. Mueenuddin lives on in southern Punjab, Pakistan’s biggest province, belonged to his father, a prominent Pakistani civil servant, and he used to come here as a boy.

His parents met in the United States in the 1950s. His father was negotiating a treaty, and his mother was a young reporter for The Washington Post. They later moved to Pakistan, but the country proved difficult with its web of expectations and relationships, and she took her sons back to the United States when Mr. Mueenuddin was 13.

Memories of this land stayed with him, however, and he returned after college in 1987 as an aspiring writer. He found upon arrival a decaying, colonial-era system, whose owners — his own family — had long stopped paying attention. The farm’s profits were declining and its borders were shrinking: The managers were pilfering land and planting their own crops.

For complete article, click here

Pakistan Objects to U.S. Plan for Afghan War: NYT

Pakistan Objects to U.S. Plan for Afghan War
By ERIC SCHMITT and JANE PERLEZ
New york Times, July 21, 2009

ISLAMABAD, Pakistan — Pakistan is objecting to expanded American combat operations in neighboring Afghanistan, creating new fissures in the alliance with Washington at a critical juncture when thousands of new American forces are arriving in the region.

Pakistani officials have told the Obama administration that the Marines fighting the Taliban in southern Afghanistan will force militants across the border into Pakistan, with the potential to further inflame the troubled province of Baluchistan, according to Pakistani intelligence officials.

Pakistan does not have enough troops to deploy to Baluchistan to take on the Taliban without denuding its border with its archenemy, India, the officials said. Dialogue with the Taliban, not more fighting, is in Pakistan’s national interest, they said.

The Pakistani account made clear that even as the United States recommits troops and other resources to take on a growing Taliban threat, Pakistani officials still consider India their top priority and the Taliban militants a problem that can be negotiated. In the long term, the Taliban in Afghanistan may even remain potential allies for Pakistan, as they were in the past, once the United States leaves.

The Pakistani officials gave views starkly different from those of American officials regarding the threat presented by top Taliban commanders, some of whom the Americans say have long taken refuge on the Pakistani side of the border.

Recent Pakistani military operations against Taliban in the Swat Valley and parts of the tribal areas have done little to close the gap in perceptions.

Even as Obama administration officials praise the operations, they express frustration that Pakistan is failing to act against the full array of Islamic militants using the country as a base.

Instead, they say, Pakistani authorities have chosen to fight Pakistani Taliban who threaten their government, while ignoring Taliban and other militants fighting Americans in Afghanistan or terrorizing India.

For complete article, click here

Related:
Afghan Strikes by Taliban Get Pakistan Help, U.S. Aides Say - NYT
US Senate approves defence funds for Pakistan - Dawn
US envoy Holbrooke visits Pakistan, Afghanistan - Washington TV

Police Reforms in Pakistan: PIPS Event in Islamabad

PIPS Events
Cooperation between Law Enforcement Agencies Can Make Counter-terrorism Strategies Effective
Pakistan Institute for Peace Studies, July 23, 2009

“Efforts and strategies to counter insurgency and terrorism can be successful only when the local police and other law enforcement agencies will cooperate,” said Hassan Abbas, author of Pakistan’s Drift into Extremism, addressing a seminar on “Counter-Terrorism Strategy: Need for Police Reforms” on July 23, 2009 organized by the Pak Institute for peace Studies (PIPS), Islamabad at its premises.

Many of the police officers in Pakistan say that they have lack of infrastructure, motivation and resources. He said that military actions are failed to counter insurgency and terrorism always because primarily it is a task of law enforcement agencies and local police to file a case and monitor the suspected individuals’ activities. When these forces are sure that one is involved in a crime then the action should be taken.

For complete report, click here

Saturday, July 25, 2009

Afghanistan Theatre: A war that cannot be won or lost

A war that cannot be won or lost By Irfan Husain
Dawn, 25 Jul, 2009

We should be careful of what we wish for. For years now, there has been a chorus from the right as well as the left in Pakistan, calling for foreign troops to pull out of Afghanistan.

There are indications that they might get their wish before too long.Although July is still not behind us, Britain has already lost 19 soldiers killed in combat, while 150 have sustained serious injuries in this month alone. The war in Afghanistan has already lasted longer than the Second World War, and has cost the British government £5.6bn. And the military still cannot give any timeframe for the duration of the campaign.

No wonder, then, that ordinary people are growing weary of the conflict, especially in the wake of the recent spike in casualties. These days, it’s hard to pick up a newspaper, watch a TV chat show, or listen to a newscast without some criticism of the government’s conduct of the war. In a recent poll, the majority of Britons wanted the troops back by the end of the year.

Although Americans are more used to having their troops fighting in distant lands, fatigue with this unending war is setting in. As Robert Gates, the American secretary of defence, said recently, US citizens as well as the soldiers fighting in Afghanistan are getting sick of their involvement there.

Even though Barack Obama has made Afghanistan the centrepiece of the American battle against Islamic extremism, things can shift quickly in Washington if rising costs and casualties sway public opinion.

More and more pundits and military experts in London and Washington are stating the obvious: the war in Afghanistan is unwinnable. Already, military and political goals have been scaled back to lower public expectations. One of the stated aims of the current ‘surge’ is to stabilise the most violent provinces in order to prevent the Taliban from disrupting next month’s presidential elections. However, all indications are that the incumbent, Hamid Karzai, will win easily.

For complete article, click here

Related:
Karzai Vows More Control Over Foreign Troops - New York Times
A proud moment for Afghanistan - Guardian

Monday, July 20, 2009

Waziristan and after

Waziristan and after
The News, July 20, 2009
By Asad Munir
The writer is a former brigadier who served as chief of the Military Intelligence and the ISI for NWFP, FATA and the Northern Areas.

The armed forces are all set to start an operation in South Waziristan, the stronghold of Al Qaeda, the Taliban and other foreign militants.

In 2002, the agency served as the headquarters of Al Qaeda with Hadi Al Iraqi as the operational commander. Abu Laith Al Libi was the commander in North Waziristan, with headquarters in Norak. In South Waziristan, three different groups were operating, Arabs, a mix of Libyans and Algerians, other Africans and Central Asians. The Ahmedzai Wazirs initially provided them shelter in Wana and surrounding areas, while subsequently they moved to Mehsud territory. Their strength kept on increasing in South Waziristan.

Initially the militant stayed in groups of 30 to 35 in compounds provided by local Wazirs, but after an operation in June 2002, they preferred to stay in small groups of five to six living in one house. Meetings were held in the village madrasa after sunset where instructions for operations and raids against NATO forces were passed on by leaders. There was no movement during the day.

The militants raised their strength in the next three years, courtesy several “peace agreements,” which allowed them to spread their influence to other tribal areas and some settled districts of the NWFP. Had a decision been taken in 2004, the army would have had to clear only two tribal agencies. Now the situation is quite different.

Formal operations against terrorists in Waziristan have not yet started. The ambush of an army convoy by Hafiz Gul Bahadur’s men is not because of drone attacks, for the simple reason that in 2008 there were several such attacks in North Waziristan and he never protested. The reason for his protest is simple – Al Qaeda, the jihadis, sectarian groups and the local and Afghan Taliban do not want to lose the safe havens of Waziristan. Losing this area will have a great setback to their overall strategy and future designs, especially with the loss of Swat.

If the operations are confined to only the Mehsud area of South Waziristan, initially the foot soldiers of Taliban are likely to give stiff resistance from their fortified positions. The leadership would have planned their escape routes, their future hideouts, well coordinated with local facilitators. The likely hideouts are the Dawar area of North Waziristan, Upper Orakzai Agency and the Pakhtun areas of Balochistan. However, if the operations are conducted in both Waziristan agencies, than Zhob and other Pakhtun areas of Balochistan are going to be places where the militants will flee.

Once Baitullah realizes that the establishment is serious, he may well ask for a deal, But this time, it is unlikely that he will get a positive response, and in all likelihood will flee. The command and control system, logistics and supply lines of the Taliban have been made ineffective, and that is why suicide attacks have declined. The army needs to persist with its operation and must not pause. The fact of the matter is that the Taliban assumed that they were invincible because they were never handled this way. After North and South Waziritan, the battle will have to be taken to Orakzai Agency, Darra Adam Khel, Mohmand Agency and part of Bajaur Agency. If at all a deal has to be offered – after they are vanquished – it should be that they lay down their arms and do not run a parallel administration. And an amnesty can be considered only for their foot soldiers.

Pakistan’s Emerging Counterinsurgency Strategy

Lions and Jackals
Pakistan’s Emerging Counterinsurgency Strategy Haider Ali Hussein Mullick
Foreign Affairs, July 15, 2009

Summary -- The Pakistani military's new counterinsurgency strategy is propelling it to victory against the Taliban. But to consolidate its gains, Pakistan will need international support.

HAIDER ALI HUSSEIN MULLICK is Senior Fellow at the U.S. Joint Special Operations University, Research Fellow at the Institute for Social Policy and Understanding, and the author of the forthcoming book Pakistan’s Security Paradox: Countering and Fomenting Insurgencies.

Two months ago, the Taliban were 60 miles from the capital of nuclear-armed Pakistan. Four weeks later, the Pakistani military, using helicopter gunships, fighter jets, and special forces, destroyed Taliban strongholds, pushing them north -- and nearly three million refugees south -- out of the Swat Valley. Behind the operation's success lies a new hybrid counterinsurgency strategy that is emerging in Pakistan -- the strengths and weaknesses of which will be crucial for both Islamabad and Washington over the long term.

The new approach emerged from dissatisfaction with the Pakistani army's previous half-hearted struggles against the Taliban. Up through the summer of 2008, officers had been relying on the military's typical strategy of "out-terrorizing the terrorist," but the model was flawed. The army would do an excellent job of clearing Taliban-held areas but was reluctant to maintain a presence in them afterward. Generally, it preferred to pull back to its bases and outsource post-conflict security to inept local police and politicians. But resident forces were typically unable to provide security, and the government would often negotiate with the local Taliban, granting them asylum and allowing them to return.

For complete article, click here

Related:
Kilcullen Wants Curzon, Magic PRTs for Pakistan - Registan.com
South Waziristan offensive 'punitive,' not counterinsurgency - The Long War Journal
Pakistan Army COIN tactics counter-productive - Stratpost

Pakistan's Swat Refugees - Riz Khan Show - Aljazeera TV

Pakistan's Swat Refugees - Riz Khan Show, Aljazeera TV - July 15, 2009

For Part II, click here

Pakistan witnessed its largest population movement since independence as residents of the Swat Valley fled their homes amidst fighting between Pakistan's military and the Taliban.

Claiming that the area is now free of Taliban forces, Pakistan's government has begun the process of resettling the more than two million refugees from Swat.

But what are they returning to and is it really safe?

On Wednesday's Riz Khan, we take a look at Pakistan's fight against the Taliban and ask: What is in store for those returning to the Swat Valley?

Hassan Abbas, author of Pakistan's Drift into Extremism: Allah, the Army and America's War on Terror, joins the programme from Islamabad. Abbas previously served in the administrations of Pakistan's Benazir Bhutto and Pervez Musharraf.

We will also be joined in New York by Kristele Younes, an advocate for Refugees International who was recently in Pakistan examining conditions in the refugee camps and the challenges facing residents of the Swat Valley.
From DC, Nicholas Schmidle, a fellow at the New America Foundation and author of To Live or to Perish Forever: Two Tumultuous Years in Pakistan, also joins the show.

This episode of the Riz Khan show aired on Wednesday, July 15, 2009.

The faded roadmap to India-Pakistan peace



The faded roadmap to India-Pakistan peace
Dawn, July 20, 2009

LONDON: India and Pakistan may have begun talking to each other again but as yet there is no clear vision on where those talks might lead.

As a result many analysts are looking to a roadmap agreed in secret two years ago — and which only really came to light this year — as probably the best model around for a peace deal.

‘It's a good deal for Pakistan, for India, for the Kashmiris,’ said Bruce Riedel, who led a review of strategy in Afghanistan and Pakistan for President Barack Obama.

Negotiated by advisers to former president Pervez Musharraf and Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, the accord made an ambitious attempt to lay out a framework for peace in Kashmir, which has been divided between the two countries since independence.

While there was to be no exchange of territory, borders were to be made irrelevant by encouraging the movement of people and trade across the Line of Control which divides Kashmir.

At the same time, a joint mechanism would be set up which would allow both countries to supervise Kashmir affairs.

One source familiar with the deal said there was no evidence it would ever have worked — the exact nature of the joint mechanism, for example, was never agreed.
But the negotiating process alone functioned as an important ‘shock-absorber’ between the two nuclear-armed countries, which have fought three full-scale wars and faced many spikes in tensions, most recently after last year's attacks on Mumbai.

According to Riedel, who is now at the Brookings Institution think tank in Washington, western diplomats would like to see them getting back into the position they reached in 2007. Yet doing so is difficult for both countries.

Pakistan's civilian government would find it hard to embrace a deal negotiated by Musharraf after fighting to force the former army general out of office last year.

‘Politically it would be very difficult to accept this was Musharraf's achievement,’ said journalist and analyst Steve Coll, who was the first to write in detail about the accord.

And in India, there is little public support for peace moves after the three-day assault by gunmen on Mumbai.

‘There is a hardening of posture. Outside of Manmohan Singh, there are no doves left in this government,’ said Praveen Swami at The Hindu newspaper — though he added that a return to the principles of 2007 would be great from an Indian point of view.

India is also dubious about whether any deal with Pakistan's civilian government would be backed by the army, adding a layer of complication which did not exist with Musharraf.

Lashkar-i-Taiba comes last

So for the moment the two countries are engaged in tactical battles which focus more on form than on substance.

Though they agreed at a meeting in Egypt last week to hold further talks, India rejected Pakistan's call to hold these within the ‘composite dialogue’ — the formal peace process broken off by New Delhi after the attack on Mumbai. And despite public rhetoric about working together to fight terrorism, they are locked into an almost impossible situation.

India wants action against the Laskhar-i-Taiba, the Pakistan-based militant group blamed for Mumbai.

But realistically few believe Pakistan is about to disarm all the gunmen in the LT — whose estimated numbers run into the thousands — at a time when its army is battling the Pakistani Taliban in the tribal areas bordering Afghanistan.

‘President (Asif Ali) Zardari, the government and the Pakistan Army are very aware of the limits to how much they can take on at any one time,’ said one observer.

Without a peace deal, Pakistan would be unlikely to disarm a militant group it allegedly once nurtured to fight Indian rule in Kashmir, and whose armed cadres could still be used as a first line of defence in the event of an invasion by India.
At best it will take limited action under pressure.

‘LT is the group Pakistan wants to wind down last, not first,’ said one analyst who tracks militant groups there.

Real progress in talks between India and Pakistan would therefore require a precarious balancing act — of the kind nearly managed in 2007 — in which moves towards peace would be matched by curbs on the LT and other militant groups.

Riedel said that in any case, western governments should keep pushing for action on the LT, increasingly seen as a threat not just to India but also to the west.

But he also said India had been ‘awfully slow’ in taking up the deal offered by Musharraf in 2007 before he become embroiled in political problems that eventually forced him out of office.

‘India does not deserve a get-out-of-jail free card,’ he said. ‘They should have grasped this when the chance was there and they missed a major opportunity.’

Anger and despair in Kashmir

The Obama administration, desperate to bring stability to Afghanistan by convincing Islamabad to take action against militants on its territory, is likely to keep pushing quietly for India and Pakistan to pick up where they left off in 2007.

But even for the two countries themselves, the clock is ticking. If they cannot reach a peace deal soon, they run the risk of future wars over water as the Himalayan glaciers which supply shared rivers recede because of global warming.

Kashmir, now in a relative lull in a separatist revolt which began in 1989, could also erupt into ‘a second intifada’ which would complicate peace efforts even further.

And as for how it looks inside Kashmir?

‘On the question of expectations, there aren't many here,’ said Basharat Peer, a Kashmiri journalist who has just published a book on the impact of the conflict on ordinary people. ‘It is pure anger and a lot of despair in Kashmir nowadays.’

Related:
India-Pakistan rapprochement? Terrorists, beware - Christian Science Monitor
Editorial: Fight against terror and India - DT Editorial

Pakistan Police - Performance?

Police not ‘people-friendly’ despite official claims
* Many officials suspended for misconduct in last week
By Rana Tanveer, Daily Times, July 20, 2009

LAHORE: Despite claims by senior police officials of making the Police Department people-friendly and free of corruption, policemen continue to demand illegal gratification from the citizens during checking at the pickets and in the police stations, incidents in the last week indicate.

Punjab Inspector General (IG) Tariq Saleem Dogar and Capital City Police Officer (CCPO) Parvaiz Rathore have time and again directed police officials to seek people’s cooperation in uprooting terrorism from the society. The IG and the CCPO have also issued several statements claiming that no corrupt official would be tolerated in the department.

The police have installed pickets on almost all roads of the city. Some policemen on motorcycles — some of these non-officials and without even number plates — were observed bothering motorists by stopping them at different points. The motorcyclists were not as troubled at the pickets as they were by the Mujahid Force personnel who intercepted them for interrogation. In incidents made public, police high-ups ordered action against responsible officials, but nothing was done in cases that were not reported, Daily Times has learnt.

Officials suspended: On July 12, Operations Senior Superintendent of Police (SSP) Chaudhry Shafiq Ahmad suspended five police officials, including an assistant sub-inspector (ASI), for bothering citizens at pickets without any reason.

In another incident on July 12, Saddar SP Rana Mansoor dismissed ASI Muhammad Aslam of Hanjerwal and Constable Liaquat of Chuhng for taking bribes and giving protection to a brothel respectively.

On July 18, the Operations SSP ordered an inquiry against SI Babar of Qila Gujjar Singh police for allegedly releasing a suspected Afghan terrorist Ghulam Rasool after taking a few thousand rupees. Punjab Police Special Branch had arrested nine Afghans from Nicholson Road, seized several fake identity cards from them and handed over the accused to the Qila Gujjar Singh police.

On July 18, at a police picket in China Chowk, some policemen thrashed a civil judge and a lawyer on the pretext of searching their vehicle and locked them in the Race Course police station.

On July 17, the IG, on citizens’ complaints, ordered disciplinary action against five police officials.

On July 17, the Operations SSP suspended Kot Lakhpat Station House Officer (SHO) Riaz Abbas on charges of misconduct, corruption and releasing a criminal after taking bribe. On July 16, a traffic warden was arrested for trying to take a two-day leave on a recommended application of his colleague.

Related:
Police launch counterattack in Swat for first time - The News
Pakistan Police: Good Cop? Bad Cop? - All Things Pakistan
Gunmen ambush Pakistan police - BBC
Pakistan police are on the front line against terrorism - Los Angeles Times

Tuesday, July 07, 2009

NATO gets its supply route from Russia: What it means for Pakistan?

Editorial: NATO gets its supply route from Russia
Daily Times, July 8, 2009

The summit between Presidents Barack Obama and Dmitri Medvedev at the Kremlin on Monday has produced an agreement that will let the NATO-US forces fly their troops and weapons across Russian territory. The agreement allows 4,500 US military flights annually over Russia “at no extra charge”. A White House announcement stated: “This agreement will enable the United States to further diversify the crucial transportation routes used to move troops and critical equipment to re-supply international forces in Afghanistan”.

The joint statement issued after the summit had the following comment bearing on the situation in Afghanistan: “The two countries will work together to help stabilise Afghanistan, including increasing assistance to the Afghan army and police, and training counter-narcotics personnel. They will work together with the international community for the upcoming Afghan elections and they will help Afghanistan and Pakistan work together against the common threats of terrorism, extremism and drug trafficking.” President Obama’s own comment after the summit made it clear that the two countries had resolved “to reset US-Russian relations so that we can cooperate more effectively in areas of common interest”.

The highlight of the summit, of course, was the supply route for NATO which Russia had opposed in the recent past. The next highlight of the summit, not spelled out but certainly a subject of mutual understanding, was NATO policy towards Russia, especially its US-led move to include under its umbrella those states that Russia considers within the orbit of its own influence. The Americans may therefore have agreed to soft-pedal on the Ukraine front, and policy rollback in Georgia, also a former member republic of the USSR, which Russia had attacked last August to target the military installations the Georgians had built according to NATO standards.

The transit route issue has clearly forced the Obama administration to step back from the Russia policy of the Bush administration, signalled by the Monday summit’s new agreements on nuclear arms cuts and replacement of a key disarmament treaty, including figures for reduction in nuclear warheads to between 1,500 and 1,675 within seven years. This came under the unspoken rubric of undoing the Bush administration’s decision to renege on disarmament with Russia.

Before the summit Kyrgyzstan had already indicated that it would “renegotiate” the American bases on its soil and will not insist on their immediate removal. Russia had been mollified and this mollification must have embraced Russia’s complaints in relation to the expansion of NATO in particular and the general feeling in Russia that America was spreading its tentacles eastward after destroying a Slav state in the Balkans in 1999. The consequent thaw will have direct bearing on the situation in Afghanistan; and it will include a nod from China which fears the terrorists more than the expansion of American influence in the region.

Will this mean a reduction of Pakistan’s leverage in any way? Islamabad remains important because of the land route it provides for NATO supplies. If there is any reduction it will be bought by the US only at a big financial cost. But far more than that is the developing consensus in the neighbourhood of Pakistan behind the NATO presence in Afghanistan and the success of its mission against terrorism. This development will affect Pakistan’s policy of assistance to this mission conditional to rolling back the Indian encroachment in Afghanistan and resultant interference inside Pakistan. No one at the international level seems to worry about Governor NWFP Owais Ghani’s warning about “dangerous” American activities across the Durand Line.

The summit will disabuse a lot of Pakistani analysts who have been hoping that Russia would defeat America, now that it is stuck in Afghanistan, the same way America had defeated Russia when it was stuck in Afghanistan in the 1980s. The other jolt the development will deliver is to the strategists who think nothing of the regional consensus gelling against Pakistan’s lingering policy of “strategic depth” and its permanent posture of deterring and challenging India. The general feeling in Pakistan is that if the NATO-US forces leave Afghanistan, the power vacuum thus created would be filled by Pakistan. That may be an erroneous conclusion. *

Related:
Russia, U.S. may sign Afghan military cargo deal - Reuters
Russia lets U.S. fly troops, weapons to Afghanistan - Washington Post

Unrest in China's Xinjiang between Muslim Uighur and Han Chinese

As Unrest Spreads, Chinese President Skips Summit
Clashes Continue in Western City Amid Crackdown
By Ariana Eunjung Cha, Washington Post, July 8, 2009

URUMQI, China, July 8 -- Chinese President Hu Jintao canceled plans to attend a major summit in Italy and flew home early Wednesday after reports that chaos and panic had spread throughout the capital of China's far western region of Xinjiang.


Since clashes erupted Sunday between the region's Muslim Uighur minority and the dominant Han Chinese, leaving more than 150 dead, the government has deployed police and paramilitary troops, closed mosques, instituted a curfew and rounded up at least 1,400 people. Hu's withdrawal from the Group of Eight summit, reported by state media, signaled his government's growing concern about the unrest that continued to flare across this city.

Early Tuesday morning, a group of several hundred Uighur protesters, most of them women in head scarves, gathered to demand that their detained husbands and brothers be released and their dead be accounted for. At midday, Uighur and Han Chinese men traded blows at the train station until riot police dispersed them with tear gas. In the late afternoon, hundreds of Han Chinese men armed with everyday items such as kitchen knives, shovels, hammers and pipes began smashing Uighur food stalls and stores, and headed to a local mosque.

Around the same time, the No. 2 People's Hospital was under siege as protesters demanding the bodies of the dead, which have not yet been released to the families, clashed with police who fired warning shots at the crowd.

Witnesses reported casualties in Tuesday's clashes, but the local government did not immediately say how many people had been injured or killed, if any.

The continuing violence underscored the extent of the mistrust between Uighurs and Han Chinese and how close the city remains to another major clash. The conflict erupted after what started as a calm demonstration by Uighurs apparently spun out of control. Since then, protests have broken out in Kashgar, Yili, Aksu and other major cities in Xinjiang.

For complete article, click here

Related:
In Latest Upheaval, China Applies New Strategies to Control Flow of Information - New York Times
Uprising in Urumqi - Wall Street Journal

Thursday, July 02, 2009

Asia's Hour by Jamie F Metzl

VIEW: Asia’s hour? — Jamie F Metzl
Daily Times, July 2, 2009

Despite the growing promise of a multi-polar world with Asian powers playing a greater role in addressing global challenges and sharing leadership with a weary US, that world does not yet exist

As Asia emerges from the global economic crisis faster than the rest of the world, it is increasingly clear that the world’s centre of gravity is shifting from the Atlantic to the Pacific. It is equally clear that Asian states are not yet ready to assume the more meaningful leadership in global affairs that will be necessary to ensure that this tectonic shift can make the world more stable and secure than it has been. Asian states have a tremendous opportunity to rise to this challenge.

The signs of Asia’s rise are unmistakable. Over the past five years, China’s contribution to world GDP growth has steadily increased from one-fifth to one-third, and India’s from approximately 6 percent to 16 percent. Given their growing footprints on global economics, politics, and the environment, it is now impossible to imagine any major international agreement without China, Japan, and India on board.

For complete article, click here

Pakistani Public Turns Against Taliban



Pakistani Public Turns Against Taliban, But Still Negative on US
Worldpublicopinion.org; July 1, 2009

Most Pakistanis now see the Pakistani Taliban as well as al Qaeda as a critical threat to the country--a major shift from 18 months ago--and support the government and army in their fight in the Swat Valley against the Pakistani Taliban. An overwhelming majority think that Taliban groups who seek to overthrow the Afghan government should not be allowed to have bases in Pakistan.

However, this does not bring with it a shift in attitudes toward the US. A large majority continue to have an unfavorable view of the US government. Almost two-thirds say they do not have confidence in Obama. An overwhelming majority opposes US drone attacks in Pakistan.

These are some of the results of a new WorldPublicOpinion.org poll conducted May 17-28, 2009. The nationwide random sample included 1000 Pakistani adults, selected using multi-stage probability sampling, who responded in face-to-face interviews. The margin of error is +/- 3.2 percent.

"A sea change has occurred in Pakistani public opinion. The tactics and undemocratic bent of militant groups--in tribal areas as well as Swat--have brought widespread revulsion and turned Pakistanis against them," comments Clay Ramsay, research director. However, he adds: "It's crucial to understand that the US is resented just as much as before, despite the US having a new president."

There has been a huge increase in those who think the "activities of Islamist militants and local Taliban" are a critical threat to Pakistan--a 47 point rise to 81 percent, up from 34 percent in late 2007. If the Pakistani Taliban were to gain control of the country, 75 percent say this would be bad (very bad, 67%)--though only 33 percent think this outcome is likely.

Seventy percent say their sympathies are more with the government than with the Pakistani Taliban in the struggle over Swat. Large majorities express confidence in the government (69%) and the military (72%) to handle the situation. Retrospectively, the public leans (by 45% to 40%) toward thinking the government was right to try to make an agreement in which the Pakistani Taliban would shut down its camps and turn in its heavy weapons in return for a shari'a court system in Swat. But now 67 percent think the Pakistani Taliban violated the agreement when it sent its forces into more areas, and 63 percent think the people of Swat disapprove of the agreement.

For complete article, click here
For complete report (pdf), click here

Pakistan Fights, Congress Sleeps: WSJ

Pakistan Fights, Congress Sleeps
Democrats slow-roll aid to an ally.
Wall Street Journal, July 2, 2009

More now than ever, Pakistan is acting as if it is committed to fighting the Taliban. The military in recent days has expanded a high-stakes offensive along the Afghan border, while the government enjoys wide public support, even as casualties and refugees mount.

So naturally, the U.S. Congress is finding a way not to help. An aid package has hit repeated hurdles on Capitol Hill, while U.S. allies shortchange Pakistan on humanitarian assistance for the people displaced by the fighting. This is myopic and dangerous. If Pakistan fails to defeat the Islamist insurgency, the consequences will resonate far and wide, in the worst case with al Qaeda getting Pakistan's nuclear stockpile.

Earlier this year, the Obama Administration prodded, pleaded and shamed Pakistan to fight. Passive acceptance of Taliban gains turned into the current counteroffensive. The military has since taken back the Swat Valley and shifted its sights to such tribal regions as Waziristan. Count that a tentative success for Pakistan and the Obama foreign policy team.

Those gains are fragile, however, and need urgent shoring up. General David Petraeus got $400 million in the supplemental budget this spring to improve Pakistani military capabilities. The U.S. is speeding up the delivery of helicopters and other hardware for counterinsurgency. In the past, the Pakistanis were all too happy to upgrade their F-16s and put them on the border with India while ignoring the Taliban threat.

More disappointing has been the slow Congressional progress of the five-year, $7.5 billion aid package requested by President Obama. The bill got bogged down in the House over Pakistan's past sins of nuclear proliferation and abetting of terrorism. We share the anger over atomic salesman A.Q. Khan and the use of Pakistani safe havens to launch attacks against Afghanistan and in November against Mumbai. But the explicit certification requirements written into the House bill by California Democrat Howard Berman would have tied the Administration's hands and angered Pakistanis.

For complete article, click here

Investigating Kargil

Investigating Kargil
The News, July 02, 2009
Taj M Khattak
The writer is a retired vice-admiral and former vice-chief of the Naval Staff, Pakistan Navy.

'What have you done, my friend, Nawaz Sharif?' was how, as narrated in Bill Clinton's memoirs My Life, the Clinton-Nawaz discourse began soon after the photo-op at the steps of the White House on July 4, 1999. Nawaz Sharif had embarked on that fateful sojourn a little over ten years ago for a face-saving climb-down from Kargil. It triggered politico-military consequences for the country and within a span of another three months, Sharif was overthrown, and the country is still reeling from its effects. Musharraf's unceremonious exit after a rule of nearly nine years has made little or no difference at all.

During much of the eight week period preceding the July 4 meeting in Washington, we had looked helplessly at TV images of pinpoint artillery shoots and resultant instant pulverization of some of the nation's bravest sons on such mountainous salients in the war zone as Point 5140 (Dras), Point 5203 ( Batalik), Three Pimples (Dras) and Tiger Hill.

'Operation Badr', as it was called, was launched to coincide with thawing of snow and summer opening of India's National Highway 1A, which links Srinagar to Leh via Kargil. Regular army personnel of the Northern Light Infantry, supported by special forces, artillery, engineers and other combat support personnel, in the garb of mujahideen and under a well-executed cover plan, infiltrated through gaps into Indian territory to occupy mountain tops between the LoC and the highway at several points.

For complete article, click here

Related:
Gang of Four Planned Kargil - South Asia Tribune, 2004

Wednesday, July 01, 2009

Changes needed in US bills for Pakistan

Changes needed in bills By Ahmer Bilal Soofi
Dawn, 01 Jul, 2009

The Kerry-Lugar and Berman bills are being moved simultaneously in the Senate and House of Representatives. A joint committee of legislators from both the houses shall then sit and merge them to enact what is likely to be called a PEACE Act through which Pakistan shall be given an annual aid package.

Both these bills contain several conditions as a prerequisite for aid to Pakistan. However, the text of both bills leave out certain necessary provisions that are expected in a country-specific legislation of this nature. Here I intend to collectively review the text of both bills and also propose the inclusion of certain issues.

The draft law that would be eventually adopted after merging the Kerry Lugar and Berman bills must contain a provision to respect the sovereignty of Pakistan. Right now such a statement is missing. The US government needs to recognise the territorial integrity and political independence of Pakistan. The US government should in legislative language assure Pakistanis that it shall not implement this act in any manner that may affect the territorial integrity and political independence of the state. Such a statement is almost customary in extra-territorial legislation. It would have not only legal value but also enormous political value for Pakistanis.

For complete article, click here

Related:
US Senate approves Kerry-Lugar Bill - DT, June 26
Stabilizing Pakistan - Steve Coll, New Yorker

Women in Fata find a voice

Women in Fata find a voice By Huma Yusuf
Dawn, 30 Jun, 2009

PESHAWAR: In a small recording studio in Peshawar, Asma rushes around with a minidisc recorder. She has to finish editing a news bulletin and make it back to her home in Nowshera before it gets dark. ‘If I don’t get the bulletin done in time for this evening’s show, the station won’t let me continue as a radio journalist,’ she says. ‘But if I don’t get home on time, then my parents won’t let me continue working either.’

Asma is one of 15 reporters for Radio Khyber, a Jamrud-based FM radio station, and one of the few legal media outlets in Pakistan’s tribal belt. The station, which is supported by the Fata Secretariat, aims to counter the extremist, pro-jihad and anti-West programming that is typical of dozens of illegal radio stations run by hard-line clerics throughout the tribal agencies.

The station’s programming is notable – listeners enjoy a mix of infotainment shows, call-in talk shows, development-oriented programmes that touch on social taboos and health care, and music, particularly hits in Pashto by Fata-based artists. Broadcasting for a total of six hours a day – three hours in the morning, and then again in the evening – the station also airs religious programming, but sermons or religious discussions are kept short and are sandwiched between music shows and humorous chat shows.

What is particularly remarkable about Radio Khyber, though, is that it employs three women as radio journalists. Given that women in the tribal belt do not have as many job opportunities as their counterparts in settled areas or major cities, the option to work for Radio Khyber is invaluable. But the symbolic value of these women’s participation in the station is even more important.

For complete article, click here