Thursday, December 27, 2012

New Book: 'Ali Ibne Abi Talib on Leadership and Good Governance'

Click for Paperback Edition
By Hassan Abbas and Benish Zahra Hassan (2013)

'The Service of Mankind Prepares a person for Leadership"
- Ali Ibne Abi Talib

This book is a collection of Imam Ali Ibne Abi Talib's policy statements on the role and responsibilities of political leadership for good governance. Important administrative policy initiatives taken by Imam Ali and his guidelines for effective government as advocated in his writings and lectures to various governors and senior officials are the primarily focus of this work. The work benefits from extensive research and a reference is provided for every statement. Language has been kept simple while remaining loyal to the original tone, as authors have young readers in mind. Imam Ali was both an educationist and a practitioner. His writings and speeches, especially during his time as Caliph (656 - 661 A.D), speak volumes about his progressive political vision. A just order founded on rational thinking, tolerance and equity was his ultimate goal. Special emphasis on the need for education was another critical pillar of his philosophy. He was looking much beyond his age and hence he built the intellectual foundations of a model government for future. The emphasis was on nurturing leaders, humane and accountable, who would establish institutions and focus primarily on the wellbeing of the ordinary people. In that sense his teachings are valuable for any student of politics and government anywhere in the world. Table of contents include:

Click for Nook Edition Title


Preface
Chapter 1: Policy Making Guidelines for Good Governance
Chapter 2: On Establishing an Effective Justice System
Chapter 3: Qualities of an Effective Leader
Chapter 4: Economic Affairs: Taxation and Development
Chapter 5: Importance of Education and Knowledge
Chapter 6: Principles of Administration Introduced by Ali Ibne Abi Talib as a Caliph
Research Sources
Notes

Buy the Book from Barnes and Noble (including Nook), Amazon (including Kindle) or at Outskirts Press (with special discount for bulk purchases).

Pitfalls of a 'Peace Deal' with Taliban in Afghanistan: An Informed Indian View

Mind the pitfalls on this road to peace
RADHA KUMAR, The Hindu, December 27, 2012

Some proposals for an agreement with the Taliban could create misgivings in India as well as among opposition and civil society groups within Afghanistan

As we approach closer to 2014, negotiations with the Taliban are gaining importance over other tracks, such as reconciliation and regional relations. To some extent this development was predictable: no successful transition/exit, however low the bar was set, would be possible without settling the Taliban question in one way or another. The military route failed: it remains to be seen whether the negotiations route can work.

Two recent events give an indication of the pros and cons for negotiations: the talks with the Taliban in France a week ago, and a leaked High Peace Council proposal entitled “A Roadmap for 2015,” dated November 2012. The Chantilly talks offered an opportunity for the Taliban to put forward their views publicly, and can be seen as representing a current but not immutable position. On the plus side, Taliban spokesmen, apparently representing Mullah Omar, said they were willing to work with other Afghan parties, might accept the present government structure, and would accept girls’ schools run in an “Islamic way.” On the minus side, they want to rewrite the Constitution, “accept” the Afghan National Security Forces (ANSF) and, most likely, dominate newly established Afghan institutions.

The most important positive of the Chantilly talks was that the Taliban went public, so we now know what their present negotiating stance is. Interestingly, this is not a starting or opening position, given that talks have been on and off for the best part of a year, with several different interlocutors. But it does represent some forward movement.

Five-stage process

When read in conjunction with the leaked High Peace Council Roadmap, however, a number of misgivings arise. The document makes clear that the Chantilly talks were embedded in background negotiations.

It sets out a five-stage process, in which the first stage is an end to cross-border shelling of villages, release of designated Taliban from Pakistani prisons, a Taliban announcement of severing ties with the al-Qaeda, and renewal of negotiations for safe passage. The Pakistani government did release some Taliban prisoners just prior to Chantilly, and while the Taliban did not make an announcement regarding the al-Qaeda, they did indicate flexibility on other critical issues for internal reconciliation. So the document clearly has some bearing on reality.

The bulk of the roadmap proposes agreements between the Afghan government and the Taliban that are geared towards an end to violence and reintegration of ex-combatants. As a set of disarm, demobilise and reintegrate proposals, it would have been non-controversial. But it includes several provisions that go beyond these imperatives and could be a cause for worry in India, not to mention other closely concerned countries, as well as to opposition groups in Afghanistan.

To start with the last first, in stage three of the plan, the Afghan government and the Taliban are to agree on giving the Taliban positions in “the power structure of the state” such as ministerial berths and governorships, which other parties have to win through elections or at the President’s pleasure. Analysts are also speculating that this could mean handing over the southern and eastern provinces to the Taliban in a kind of de facto but not de jure partition. Whether the latter is feasible or not, this proposal is likely to alienate both the existing political parties and sections of civil society in Afghanistan.

More alarming, under the plan, the Afghan government and the Taliban will also agree to “a vision on strengthening the ANSF and other key government institutions to remain non-political and enjoy full public support.” This proposal, if it does actually become a focus of negotiations, will immediately polarise the polity on ethnic grounds. Moreover, the task of creating a vision for security forces, along with rules and regulations, belongs to Parliament not to the Afghan government and Taliban, on the fundamental principle that elected legislators are the best expression of the will of the people.

For complete article, click here

Wednesday, December 26, 2012

RIP Bashir Bilour


COMMENT : Bashir Bilour: the lion slain — Dr Mohammad Taqi
Daily Times, December 25, 2012

Whether it was the bombings in Peshawar in the 1980s or the siege of the city’s Shia in 1992, Bashir Lala would always be on the frontline

The Awami National Party (ANP) has lost one of its bravest leaders. Senior provincial minister of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, Bashir Ahmed Bilour was martyred this past weekend. One of his party colleagues and a fellow Peshawari said, “The lion of Peshawar has been slain.”

Bashir Ahmed was born on August 1, 1943 in the walled city of Peshawar in mohallah Hodah inside the old Ganj gate to Bilour Din sahib. He came from the prominent business and trader family of Peshawar called the Kalals. To my generation he was Bashir Lala, or the elder brother, but to his peers and most of the common Peshawaris, he just remained Bashir jan — the dear Bashir. The bereaving Peshwaris are lamenting: Bashir jan tannay barri ziyadti keeti aiy (this is not fair Bashir jan)

My first recollection of the politician Bashir Lala is from a 1977 election poster, when I believe he was contesting a provincial assembly seat as the National Democratic Party (NDP)/Pakistan National Alliance candidate. The PNA ended up boycotting the provincial elections. But Bashir Lala and his older brothers Haji Ghulam Ahmed and Ilyas Ahmed, presently a federal minister and senator respectively, had joined the National Awami Party (NAP) — and by extension, the Pashtun nationalist movement — somewhere in the early 1970s. His younger brother, Aziz Bilour, remained in the civil service and never joined politics, though there came times that all four brothers were imprisoned by the government of the time for their political affiliations. The NAP was banned and disbanded, but Bashir Lala and his family remained committed to Baacha Khan and Wali Khan’s political thought. The ANP was formed in 1986 after the merger of the NDP, Mazdoor Kissan Party, Awami Tehrik and Pakistan National Party. Bashir Lala was to later become the provincial president of the ANP.

Today, Bashir Lala is remembered for the five consecutive elections he won. I saw him at his finest after his first election and the first and only election defeat in 1988. He was as gracious in defeat as he was in his five wins. The ANP morale was down, as it was routed in the 1988 polls in Peshawar valley. That is where the workhorse Bashir Lala came into the picture. He crisscrossed Peshawar’s alleys to reach out, support and encourage the party cadres. If his oldest brother had the social suave to reach out to the Peshawar families, it was Bashir Lala’s political muscle that held together the ANP election machine in Peshawar from the non-party-based local bodies election of the 1980s to a thumping victory in the 1990 general elections. Peshawar city has traditionally been a stronghold of the assorted Muslim Leagues and then the Pakistan People’s Party (PPP). Having lost his first election to Syed Ayub Shah of the PPP, Bashir Lala was truly the architect of the Pashtun nationalists finally wresting away Peshawar from the League and the PPP. While deeply inspired by Wali Khan, he was an extremely effective traditional politician who understood the complexities of a large city and the problems of its people. He reached across language and sectarian barriers and stood up for his constituents regardless of party affiliation. But he was one of the few leaders who were readily accessible to party workers whenever they needed him.

For complete article, click here

Related:
Bashir Bilour laid to rest: Outpouring of grief and rage at funeral - Dawn
For Geo Coverage of Bashir Bilour, click here

Saturday, December 22, 2012

The Inside Story of Negotiations with Taliban - 2012

More Questions Than Answers at Intra-Afghan Meeting
by Omar SAMAD, Tolo News, 22 December 2012

Dampening expectations, the two-day long intra-Afghan discussions held near Paris ended Friday with more questions than answers about the future of the peace and reconciliation process deemed critical for Afghanistan's stability and a successful transition process following the US and Nato military disengagement scheduled for 2014.

For the second time in a year, envoys from the Taliban leadership Council (also known as the Quetta Shura) came face to face with two dozen representatives of the quasi-governmental High Peace Council (HPC), main political opposition groups, the parliament and civil society. This was the third such gathering, part of a track II initiative organized by the Paris-based Foundation for Strategic Research (FRS) and backed by the French Government.

HPC envoys and a Taliban representative had indirect contacts in Kyoto, Japan, last June as part of a peace conference held at Doshisha University.

According to three participants from various groups present in Chantilly, who did not want to be named, the Taliban representatives attending the gathering at the off-limits Chateau de la Tour, were in an uncompromising mood, opposed to talks with government representatives and presented a hardened posture on key agenda issues.

They did agree, nonetheless, to consult with their leadership about attendance in future meetings. They also agreed for the first time to form a commission to engage non-governmental groups in intra-Afghan dialogue. The modalities for such a mechanism are not yet known, but may be an irritant for Afghan President Hamid Karzai, who has gone the extra mile to seek rapprochement with his armed opposition.

Although not billed as negotiations and not intended to initiate peace talks, many observers expected the Paris event to be an ice-breaker and to create some momentum for more substantive talks between Karzai's government and the mainstream Taliban belonging to the Quetta Shura.

However, according to participants at the meeting, Taliban representatives, Shahabudin Delawar and Naeem Wardak, who are reported to have arrived via Qatar, had instructions to reject any talk with Kabul envoys, repeating their previous demand that all foreign troops would need to leave Afghanistan before they could envisage peace talks with the government.

An unnamed participant said "the Taliban were here to say what their position was... but they would not talk to the government."

When opposition political groups raised the issue of the Constitution and the possibility of future amendments to accommodate all sides, the Taliban were non-committal, and questioning the legitimacy of the constitutional order. Taliban leaders consider Sharia (Islamic jurisprudence) as interpreted by their scholars, as the only source of moral code and law in Islam. Afghan analysts believe that the Taliban movement is torn on the issue of political inclusivity.

For complete article, click here

U.S. confident about upcoming Taliban talks - Army Times
Taliban call for new Afghanistan constitution - AFP/Dawn

A Story from 2011U.S.-Taliban talks ruined by leak to media - San Francisco Chronicle

Tuesday, December 11, 2012

Asia Society Report on the US Policy Towards South Asia


The United States and South Asia After Afghanistan
Asia Society, December 11, 2012

The Asia Society report, The United States and South Asia after Afghanistan, finds that a unique opportunity exists for the Obama administration to forge a more strategic, integrated, and successful policy toward South Asia. The report, written by Asia Society Bernard Schwartz Fellow Alexander Evans, offers new ideas on how to integrate competing U.S. interests in South Asia, encourage stronger interagency collaboration across the East Asia-South Asia divide, and expand expertise on South Asia in the U.S. government.

According to the report, the United States will best position itself for success after the 2014 military drawdown in Afghanistan by taking a fresh approach to South Asia that considers each country on its own merits and avoids hyphenated “Indo-Pak,” “Af-Pak,” or “China-India” policies; thinks regionally about economic, security, and political issues; connects South Asia to an overall Asia strategy; and integrates diplomatic, defense, and development policy agendas.

The United States and South Asia after Afghanistan draws on over 90 interviews with a range of current and former U.S. policy practitioners from the State Department, National Security Council, and Congress. The report, which benefits from the expertise of the Asia Society Advisory Group on U.S. Policy toward South Asia, provides recommendations for improving policy toward the region post-2014.

For more details click here

Friday, December 07, 2012

Why al-Qaeda finds no recruits in India - An Important Question

Why al-Qaeda finds no recruits in India 
By Andrew North, BBC News, Mumbai and Delhi, December 7, 2012

Habiba Ismail Khan can't forget the day her eldest son ventured out to get food and water.

Their Mumbai slum had been overcome by communal rioting, sparked by the destruction of the Babri Mosque by Hindu hardliners in faraway Ayodhya.

This week marks the 20th anniversary of that event, one of the biggest tests since independence of India's secular ideals.

After days trapped inside, the sounds and smells of killing around them, he made a dash for supplies.

"He was 18, the only earner," says Habiba. "My heart cries for him every day."

Caught by a Hindu mob he never had a chance.

No headway

He was one of nearly 600 Muslims killed in the Mumbai riots, the bulk of the victims. At least 275 Hindus died too.

But far from being spontaneous, a government commission later concluded much of the violence was an organised pogrom by Hindu extremists.

Two decades later, Muslims remain a marginalised minority - although minority seems the wrong word for a group that numbers nearly 180 million, making India the third largest Muslim nation in the world after Indonesia and next-door Pakistan.

Yet while its neighbour is in constant turmoil because of Islamic extremism, it's striking how little it has emerged in India.

"Fundamentalism has not taken root here," says Vikram Sood, the former head of India's foreign intelligence service.

For complete article, click here

Wednesday, December 05, 2012

Ambassador Munter and CIA

A Former Ambassador to Pakistan Speaks Out
Tara McKelveyThe Daily Beast, Nov 20, 2012
America’s former ambassador to Pakistan talks about his battle with the CIA over drones. Tara McKelvey reports.

Cameron Munter, the former U.S. ambassador to Pakistan, looked suntanned, but not rested, as he sat in a Foggy Bottom bar a few blocks from the State Department on a fall evening. He placed an Islamabad Golf baseball cap on the table, a souvenir from a decades-long career that had recently ended in a public flameout.

This past May, it was announced that Munter would be leaving his post. At the time, a State Department spokesman said he had made “a personal decision” to step down. But a few weeks after the announcement, The New York Timesin an article about counterterrorism policy—quoted one of Munter’s colleagues saying the ambassador “didn’t realize his main job was to kill people.”

That didn’t sound like the man I had met several months earlier at a party in Washington—back then, he seemed to relish his job as ambassador. I wondered why Munter’s colleague had said that, and I also wanted to know why he had resigned. He agreed to meet me at a bar to tell his side of the story, explaining that the Times had been wrong about him. It made him sound like a softie, he said, a mischaracterization that he wanted to correct.

Munter—who grew up in Claremont, Calif.—was no stranger to geopolitical hot spots even before he took the Pakistan job. He had been ambassador to Serbia from 2007 to 2009 and later served as deputy chief of mission in Baghdad.

For complete article, click here

Fellowship Opportunity @ Council on Foreign Relations

CFR 2013–2014 Stanton Nuclear Security Fellowship Program  

The Program: The Stanton Nuclear Security Fellowship (SNSF) Program, made possible by a generous grant from the Stanton Foundation, offers younger scholars studying nuclear security issues the opportunity to spend a period of twelve months at the Council on Foreign Relations’ (CFR) offices in New York or Washington, DC, conducting policy-relevant research. CFR awards up to three fellowships annually. While in residence full time at CFR, fellows will be expected to lead a project of their own design, conduct original research, and write at least one policy relevant document. The scholars selected as SNSFs will be mentored by the fellows of CFR’s David Rockefeller Studies Program.

Eligibility: Qualified candidates must be junior (non-tenured) faculty, post-doctoral fellows, or pre-doctoral candidates from any discipline who are working on a nuclear security related issue. The program is only open to U.S. citizens and permanent residents who are eligible to work in the United States. CFR does not sponsor for visas.

Deadline: The deadline to apply is December 14, 2012.
For more details Visit:  www.cfr.org/fellowships

Poor Policing Standards in South Asia

Poor investigation bedevils police in India, Pakistan
Both countries inherited the colonial system of using the police for suppressing dissent
V. BALACHANDRAN, SUNDAY GUARDIAN, NOV 11, 2012

Prof Hassan Abbas of the US National Defense University, whose erudite writings on Pakistan police reforms have been discussed by me in these columns, has released a new report, "Stabilizing Pakistan through Police Reform" on behalf of Asia Society's "Independent Commission on Pakistan Police Reform", for which he was the project director. Nineteen chapters in this compendium discuss measures for improving police-public relations, upgrading professionalism in tackling crime and terrorism, effecting legal reforms, improving military-police relationship, organising a de-radicalisation programme, developing sensitivity to human rights and improving media relationship. Written by policemen, lawyers, academics and human rights activists, the report seeks to place police reform as a priority national agenda for stabilising and democratising Pakistan polity.

This is even more ambitious than the British Conservative government's August 2010 scheme of "reconnecting the police and the people", said to be "the most radical reforms of policing in 50 years". Prof Abbas justifies this by saying that "as the state's most visible representative, the police force faces the wrath of people who feel frustrated with the poor quality of governance". However, he adds that the police "appear to lack a sense of accountability to the public they are meant to serve. Moreover, the system simply is not structured to reward good behavior, as merit-based opportunities for professional advancement are scarce."

There are parallels and variations between the Indian and Pakistan police systems. Both inherited the colonial system of using the police for suppressing dissent. While the Indian police is still organised in the same situation as in 1947, leaving the public order and police responsibility to the state politicians, Pakistan experimented with a federal police system also, which ensured some amount of Central control over growing turbulence. However, the process has been tortuous. The Federal Investigating Agency (FIA), created in 1975 for inter-state crime investigations, was misused by politicians and defanged in 1997 by the popular government, and by the military in 1999. Eventually it was re-entrusted with investigative powers in 2008. During these years it had 29 directors, compared to the six heads for the Australian Federal Police since 1979. Like our CBI, their FIA was an offshoot of the 1942 British Special Police Establishment to fight corruption. However, some other experiments in federal policing were successful. The National Highways and Motorways Police (NH&MP), created in 1997 for policing their 3,000 km of highways is said to be "one of the few non-corrupt public sector organisations in South Asia" by the Transparency International. They are better equipped and better funded than the state police, since they work under the Ministry of Communications.

For complete report, click here
Relevant::

Review article on 'stabilizing Pakistan Through Police Reforms' by Professor Saeed Shafqat, Quarterly, Centre for Public Policy and Government, Forman Christian College, Lahore - click here (page 48)