Tragic triumphalism in Sri Lanka

by Mahir Ali

A YEAR ago, as Sri Lanka’s long and agonising civil war entered its endgame phase, there was little indication that the bloody denouement would make way for the healing and reconciliation that the island-nation so desperately needs.

The manner in which the army conducted its final assault in the Tamil-dominated north and east precluded such a possibility in the short run. And neither President Mahinda Rajapaksa nor army chief Gen Sarath Fonseka made much of an effort to suggest they would be gracious in victory.

Who could have guessed, though, that they would turn into implacable foes within weeks of that military triumph, and that one of them would imprison the other just a few months later?

Fonseka has been threatened with court martial on the charge of conspiring to overthrow the government. And a military trial has been justified on the basis that the plot was hatched while he was still in uniform.

That’s an implausible scenario. Sri Lanka does not have a tradition of military coups. There is no question that its armed forces have grown progressively stronger and more influential in recent decades as the country has morphed into a security state, and that is always an unhealthy sign. But that troubling circumstance can hardly be construed as evidence of Fonseka’s culpability.

The fact is that he left the army and took on Rajapaksa in last month’s presidential election. That isn’t how military plotters generally behave.

Rajapaksa won by a substantial margin and, notwithstanding the misgivings of Fonseka and some of his supporters, international observers found few signs of electoral fraud.

The retired general had managed to rally behind his presidential bid a remarkably broad coalition that ranged from Sinhalese radicals to Tamil parties, and included former president Chandrika Kumaratunga, who not so long ago headed the Sri Lanka Freedom Party that Rajapaksa now leads.

By and large, however, this reflected not so much an endorsement of Fonseka as a desire to relegate Rajapaksa, whose reputation for corruption and predilection for nepotism is compounded by a disturbing personality cult and a disinclination to countenance dissent. That desire appears to have been widely shared in the capital Colombo, where Fonseka handsomely outvoted his rival.

But the Sinhalese countryside appears to be solidly behind Rajapaksa, who has every intention of capitalising on his current standing and the opposition’s confusion: he has prematurely dissolved the national parliament and elections are expected to take place by early April. A two-thirds majority — which may prove hard to achieve, but isn’t out of the question — would hand him unprecedented power.

As executive president, Rajapaksa is already head of state and government as well as commander-in-chief of the armed forces. In addition, he has kept the defence and finance portfolios for himself, and — ominously —has expressed an interest in taking over the information ministry as well. One of his brothers, Basil, is a senior presidential adviser; another, Gotabhaya, is the defence secretary. The president’s 23-year-old son, Namal, is likely to be a candidate in the coming parliamentary elections.

Some years ago, Rajapaksa told a long-time friend that his sons were his greatest joy and he loved spending time with them, so he left it to his brothers to operate the machinery of state. This intriguing snippet emerged when that friend, prominent newspaper editor Lasantha Wickremtunga, was shot dead in Colombo in January last year. He left behind a remarkable indictment of the Rajapaksa regime, in which he said: “When finally I am killed, it will be the government that kills me”, but also hinted at a military role in silencing him.

In the same article, Wickremtunga accurately described the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam as one of “the most ruthless and bloodthirsty organisations to have infested the planet” and called for its eradication, but added: “To do so by violating the rights of Tamil citizens, bombing and shooting mercilessly, is not only wrong but shames the Sinhalese, whose claim to be custodians of the dharma is forever called into question by this savagery — much of it unknown to the public because of censorship.”

Equally aptly, he pointed out that “a military occupation of the north and east will require the Tamil people of those regions to live eternally as second-class citizens”. Until recently, huge numbers of Tamils were incarcerated in concentration camps where they were routinely maltreated. Estimates of the civilian toll in the final stages of the civil war tend to be speculative, but it would have been uncharacteristic of either the Tigers or the army to go out of their way to avoid civilian casualties.

Sri Lanka’s drift towards one-man — or at least one-family — rule through an ostensibly democratic process (albeit in the absence of a free flow of information, a crucial ingredient of meaningful democracy) is deeply unfortunate, but even more tragic is the apparent lack of concern among most Sinhalese for the plight and prospects of their Tamil compatriots.

There are, thankfully, sections of the intelligentsia and other segments of society that tend to speak out against human rights abuses, but what are the chances that they will be able to resist Rajapaksa’s determination to silence them?

It’s harder to say how he will react to a plea from the country’s leading Buddhist monks that Fonseka be freed. After all, Rajapaksa loves being photographed in temples on national occasions.

Be that as it may, the dispute between the two of them comes across as a personality clash more than anything else. A disgruntled ex-general miffed at having been offered the humiliating post of sports minister probably won’t count for much in the slightly longer run, unless Rajapaksa is foolish enough to make a martyr of him.

Like many of its South Asian neighbours, Sri Lanka deserves a far better leadership, a redistributive development strategy (based in part on a sharp decline in ‘defence’ expenditure, now that the war is over), and a more pluralist form of democracy.

Waiting for the UN — II

by Aitzaz Ahsan

Multiple bullet injuries establish the presence of other pre-positioned marksmen. The question then is: was the presence of these other ‘hit men’ the possible reason why the police forced her to abandon her exit route? This was also stated in the Dawn and Geo TV reports by PPP officials.

Was the change of the route by the police pilot car to marshal the prey towards the trap? Is that also why there was no other security vehicle around her car at the time of her Shahadat? And where was the bomb-proof back-up vehicle if one had been provided? And who was in it? Dr Shahid’s programme brought out the contradictions in important statements. Were these recorded earlier by any one? The investigators should have found out about gunmen and vehicles through a thorough probe of the phone records and interrogation based on that record as suggested below.

Almost as fast as the place was washed out, the then government came up with an outlandish theory. It claimed that she had died hitting a lever in the escape hatch of the vehicle due to the impact of the bomb blast. That theory died with the footage showing that she was down in the vehicle before the blast. The PPP co-chairman, and now president, also categorically debunked this over-hurried explanation within a couple of days of the tragedy. He categorically stated that his sister, a doctor, had seen the body and did not believe the government’s version. Why was that government so desperate to deflect the possibility of firearm injuries and to bury the evidence in such a rush?

Evidence of well-positioned sharpshooters may also have been collected through other means. They must have used cellphones. Now, if all persons who made calls via towers of cellphone companies linking the site at Liaquat Bagh with their mainframe been questioned the circle could have been narrowed. Suppose 5,000 calls were made during the hour before the assassination and the half hour thereafter through these towers. Each caller could be identified from company records. Each person, without exception, should then have been grilled narrowing the inquiry down to 20 to 30 suspect calls.

But have the 10,000 persons, each caller and recipient, been questioned? Not to anyone’s knowledge. The evidence of recall and memory may have been irretrievably lost or degraded by now. Besides the tell-tale chips lost to the drains of Rawalpindi, this would be the best evidence. Is it lost too?

Statements of witnesses under Section 161 CrPC must be recorded as soon after the event as possible. Otherwise they lose their evidentiary value. Superior courts have held that a delay of even two to three days may be fatal to the credibility of the witness. What will be the value of these statements if recorded now after one year of the incident? This amounts to deliberate degradation of evidence.

Even the Scotland Yard findings are untenable. How could it come to any conclusion whatsoever without autopsy reports and statements of the cellphone callers, or without cogent evidence of who had decreed the washing of the crime scene?

Then there is the curious case of Khalid Shahenshah. He was not only in Shaheed Bhutto’s car, but was also assassinated some weeks after her. He has been shown in some tapes as making intriguing signals with his hands and eyes while standing close to her as she addressed the Liaquat Bagh rally. Who murdered him, and why? Did he know too much? Why were his movements not monitored after Liaquat Bagh? Or were they? If so, by whom?

There are other questions such as: what linkages have been established between the Karsaz and Liaquat Bagh incidents? Both happened in General Musharraf’s watch. In both cases, the crime scene was washed away within hours of the incident. In both, she was the target. Who could serially have ordered the immediate and blatant destruction of evidence and remain immune from scrutiny?

What about the conversation and other circumstantial evidence that can be derived from Ron Suskind’s book: “The Way of the World”? It cannot be disregarded altogether. It is serious stuff. It could be the key. Has any effort been made to contact him and record his statement?

People are also wondering why has no FIR been lodged by the aggrieved party after her Shahadat? Had the police approached any one in this behalf? If not, why?

Then there were the letters and complaints by Rahman Malik himself. The president had recently pointed out that Malik had written 25 letters to the Interior Ministry complaining of lax security arrangements.

He complained that nothing was done in response to any of those letters. According to caretaker interior minister General Hamid Nawaz, Malik had been appointed the contact man and coordinator for Mohtarma’s security by the caretaker regime. Then why did the officials not comply with his requests? And why have they not been taken to task after fortunes changed almost a year ago?

Investigation is only about collecting evidence. The final conclusion is drawn by the court after a trial. But the trial becomes meaningless if the evidence is destroyed or lost by efflux of time. The UN cannot help in the collection of any evidence. That will have, per force, to be done locally even if the UN team were here. Delay in securing it has already caused many footprints to be wiped out, many a blood-stained hand to be washed of stain.

President Zardari has always maintained that he will not go for some foot-soldier or subaltern. He wants the top conspirator(s). This must have been the foremost concern with him. He must surely have been advised by his highly competent legal advisers, the law minister and the attorney general included, that inaction will degrade or destroy vital evidence. That surely could not have been intended. Have those, who investigate, endeavoured to assist him in his pursuit or has his task been made more difficult? But of course if he himself knows better that is another matter.

The blood of Shaheed Benazir Bhutto demands that the killers be found. Her president, her prime minister and her ministers are in office. Her party is in power. If the president knows who the killers are, as he has claimed, he should expose them. It is not a matter of revenge. Democracy may be a revenge of sorts, from the autocratic usurper of power. It is no revenge against killers and assassins. This is a matter of the law and the pursuit of truth, not of revenge.

Let us not wait for the UN and allow even the remaining evidence also to degrade and disappear. Let not the UN become an alibi.

Waiting for the UN

by Aitzaz Ahsan

Addressing a press conference after the Nato Foreign Ministers’ Conference in Brussels on March 5, the US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said: “We must recognize that one tiny, remote corner of the world — the borders of Pakistan — is the nerve centre for extremists who planned 9/11, the bombings in Madrid and London, the assassination of Benazir Bhutto and the recent carnage in Mumbai”. (The NEWS, March 06). She may be right about all the others, but the shahadat of Benazir Bhutto seems to fall in a category by itself.

There certainly are some significantly peculiar features of the assassination of Shaheed Bibi that stand out at once. It cannot, therefore, be equated with the other equally morbid crimes. Mrs Clinton needs to be informed of these telltale aspects, which distinguish the assaults on Shaheed Bibi’s life.

One most jarring feature is that the crime scene was washed within an hour of the assassination. Who could have decreed such a washout, and why? Surely do not the terrorists themselves. It must be some one in the state and administration.

That the design of washing the crime scene is evident from the fact that this was not the first such deliberate destruction of material evidence. On October 18, 2007 in Karachi there were two blasts around her truck in the procession that had received Bibi. She narrowly escaped but as many as 180 men were martyred. It was a gory scene. But, as she herself wrote in her book: ‘Reconciliation’ (p 14) she was shocked later to learn that “Instead of the site being cordoned off to protect evidence, it was scrubbed clean within hours and the evidence was destroyed. No one from the police or the government was collecting testimony from the victims of the attack. A cover-up seemed to be under way from the very first moments of the attack.”

The terrorists referred to by Mrs Clinton could, of course, have done the deed. But who was capable of covering up for the killers? This willful destruction of evidence was repeated on December 27, 2007 at Liaquat Bagh. The first questions thus are about who and why? Who ordered the washout of all the evidence twice over at two distinct crime scenes and why?

It would not be very difficult to discover the person responsible. Now that the doctor in-charge of the Emergency 1122 has identified, in Geo’s Capital Talk, the police officer who directed the washout, it is easy to climb up the ladder. Who ordered him, and under whose initial orders? And so on all the way up to wherever the buck stops. QED.

Destruction of evidence is itself a very serious crime. When a murder takes place even in the remotest village in this country, the crime scene is preserved for days until it has been thoroughly examined, measured and mapped. Footprints are carefully preserved for days in cases of theft and housebreak.

Then the second question: why were the crime scenes washed after such horrendous crimes? If you keep in mind the significance of the telltale cell-phone chip in the investigations into the attempts on General Musharraf, it is perhaps easy to discern why.

After the twin but aborted suicide attempts on General Musharraf on December 24, 2003, just beyond Chaklala Bridge in Rawalpindi, the crime scene was sealed for several days. Not a fly was allowed inside the cordoned area. Nothing was touched or moved except by experts. The area was minutely fine-combed. Finally one telling piece of evidence was found: a cell phone chip. The miniscule find was crucial. It led to the identification of the perpetrators of the crime who were arrested, tried by a military court and sentenced. That one chip did it all. The investigation concluded within 2 to 3 weeks. (Refer ‘In the Line of Fire’ by Pervez Musharraf, p 249).

In stunning contrast, and within an hour of the assassination of Shaheed Benazir Bhutto to the shock of all the viewers glued to their television sets, fire fighters were washing the site with powerful hoses like they did not do to put out the fire in Ghakhar Plaza with people inside. In the not so distant Liaquat Bagh they were certainly making sure that no telltale phone chip was recovered.

Another question is: how were 21 dead bodies buried without a single autopsy? That is not possible even in the most ordinary murder case. There has to be a postmortem report. That is because the dead body is the surest piece of evidence. Who pressured the doctors to hand over as many as 21 dead bodies without autopsies? Again, interrogate the senior police officials present and get to the bottom of the mystery.

The case of Shaheed Benazir Bhutto was, of course, different. Too much attention is focused on a lack of autopsy on her dead body. Regarding her there was a charged and emotional atmosphere at the RGH. Let her rest in peace. There is no way that any further probe should be allowed with respect to her. But what about the others, particularly those about whom there is evidence that the deaths were not due to the bomb blast? These could have been exhumed.

In February 2008 a private TV channel, and now several more detailed analyses by Geo’s Hamid Mir, Geo’s Dr Shahid Masud and the anchorpersons of many other TV channels, have blown the lid of the ‘death by bomb blast’ theory. Injured eyewitnesses have testified that the dead bodies bore evidence of multiple firearm injuries on vital parts such as foreheads of several of the dead. They also pointed out the spots from which the shots had been fired. Multiple bullet wounds in a bomb blast on several dead bodies would indicate a ring of sharp shooters positioned at strategic vantage points. Officials grilled by Dr Shahid Masood have cut sorry figures. The media has done more than the investigators to track the telltale footprints.

Evidence of the multiple fires hitting different people would lend some credence to the theory that the bomb was meant only to incapacitate the bombproof vehicle necessitating the inmates to transfer to another vehicle. She, and others around her, would then be shot by the sharpshooters. That she came out of the escape hatch herself, according to this belief, was fortuitous for the assailants.

A private TV channel more recent investigative report has carried another stunning piece of evidence. Its footage of the tragedy conclusively shows that an injured Bibi had already fallen down into the open hatch before the bomb blast. There is thus no question of her having died of blast shrapnel or of a consequential impact with any lever or car part. The projectile that killed her was thus none other than a bullet fired at her.

But could it be a bullet fired at by the man shown in some video footage aiming a pistol at her? Unlikely. He stood behind her well towards her left. The medical report certifies that she was hit on the right side of her head. Obviously there were other well-positioned hit men around.

Environmental ‘strategic depth’

by Ardeshir Cowasjee

Those who can comprehend the title, read on. A news item, ‘Pakistan most vulnerable to climate change’ (Dawn, Feb 5) probably escaped the attention of many. It told us: “It was bad news all around when environment experts on Thursday reiterated before the parliamentarians that Pakistan was the most vulnerable country to the impacts of climate change.

“In the first meeting of the Climate Change Sub-Committee of the National Assembly Standing Committee on Environment, the experts warned that melting rate of glaciers would increase in Pakistan’s mountain ranges such as Karakoram and Hindukush, resulting in flash floods. ... ‘Crops will be affected resulting in lower productivity and production. Outbreak and spread of diseases, shifting in cropping patterns, soil erosion, salinity and water logging, increased trans-boundary movement of pests and disease are some of the serious challenges,’ said a participant.”

We in Pakistan are perhaps just beginning to comprehend that there exist phenomena called ‘climate change’ and ‘environment’. Nothing serious is being done by parliament, the environment ministry, the protection agencies, the industrial associations (who are among the worst polluters), or the urban municipal bodies, despite the World Bank’s 2006 assessment that Pakistan’s environmental degradation is equivalent to six per cent of GDP.

Some indicators of local significance accorded to these critical issues are: (a) the government’s task force on climate change has not met in two years; (b) President Asif Zardari, who led our UN delegation in September 2009, was too busy with personal matters to attend Ban Ki-Moon’s environment summit for 100 heads of countries and instead sent his then advisor on petroleum affairs Dr Asim Hussain; (c) at the Copenhagen Conference on Climate Change in November 2009, almost every national delegation was led by a head of state or government, but again Asim Hussain was sent.

One observation must be repeated: to appreciate the intimate connection between Pakistan’s political/economic woes and climate change, “many of the tensions and conflicts that exist in Pakistan are related to environmental problems generated by ‘islands of prosperity’ in ‘oceans of poverty’.”

As is being increasingly perceived around the world, climate change, brought about by destruction of the environment and use of fossil fuels is no longer merely an economic or environmental issue.

Margaret Beckett, once the UK’s first woman foreign secretary, recently stated: “Anyone wanting to trace the links between what science is telling us about physical impacts and the broader ramifications for our security would do well to read a startling report…. The Military Advisory Board is a group of the most respected retired admirals and generals in the United States.

“…They are about as far as you can get from the old stereotype of a tree-hugging environmentalist. And yet in that report they state, categorically, that projected climate change poses a serious threat to America’s national security. It is, they say ‘a threat multiplier for instability in some of the most volatile regions of the world’. In other words, an unstable climate will make the very kinds of tensions and conflicts that the Security Council deals with, day in day-out, yet more frequent and even more severe.”

In a recent op-ed piece in the Times of India entitled ‘Charting Green Pathways’, Jamshyd Godrej, head of Godrej & Boyce, and chair of the Confederation of Indian Industry’s Climate Change Council had this to say: “No sooner had [the] environment minister … announced in parliament that India would cut its emission intensity by 20-25 per cent by 2020, there was a welter of protests. Would it not imperil the country’s rapid quest for accelerated development by imposing a huge additional burden? Emission intensity is the amount of carbon emitted in producing one unit of GDP.

“Soon after the parliamentary statement … our prime minister together with the leaders from Brazil, South Africa and China, or the BASIC countries, promised to pursue voluntary cuts in carbon emissions irrespective of the outcome in Copenhagen. He and the Indian delegation then worked with their counterparts from BASIC and with US President Barack Obama in framing the Copenhagen Accord.

“While inadequate … the Copenhagen Accord is a necessary and constructive platform that enables the global community to maintain momentum towards a final agreement. And our leaders deserve to be commended for showing admirable foresight and vision by pledging to progressively bring down our carbon emissions and for taking a constructive approach towards securing an international agreement as these actions will also serve India’s own best interests.

“Due to climate change, monsoons are threatened, agriculture productivity is on the wane, extreme weather events are on the rise, the Himalayan glaciers are melting, thereby imperiling our water security, our coastlines are eroding, and our forests and wildlife are endangered. And that’s not all. Climate change endangers our health and the well-being of our children.”

He explained that there are policies that have globally been proven to help win the energy-climate battle, and that India is focusing on energy efficient appliances and building codes; vehicle fuel-efficiency standards; demand-side management in the power sector; increasing supply of renewable energy; sustainable transportation.

It is in India’s national interest to do so, from both development and climate perspectives: “By putting greater political will at central, state and city levels and by promoting better coordination and deploying technical capacity behind these policies now and in the future, we cannot only meet, but possibly also exceed the goal of reducing our emissions intensity by 20-25 per cent that the minister has announced.”

Can we in Pakistan also simplify our lives, provide a better living standard to our poor, and stop trying to build Pakistan by breaking natural and environmental laws? This will help us develop environmental ‘strategic depth’.

The Indo-Pak waltz

by Irfan Husain

OFFSTAGE, we can almost hear the weary orchestra tuning up for yet another round of the slow one-step forward, two-steps back waltz that constitutes Indo-Pak talks.

We are all familiar with the routine: cynical bureaucrats, terrified of straying from their narrow briefs, delivering carefully prepared statements without any belief they will succeed. After more than 60 years of stonewalling over Kashmir, Pakistani and Indian diplomats are old hands at making sure that the conflict remains frozen. Their political masters are no better: unwilling to give ammunition to their domestic opponents, they lack the courage and the conviction to take risks for the sake of achieving a lasting peace.

Meanwhile, millions of Kashmiris continue to suffer as a result of New Delhi and Islamabad’s intransigence. However, a recent two-page article in the travel section of the London Observer showed the possibilities that could open up for Kashmir if the conflict is ever resolved. Tom Robbins describes a skiing holiday at Gulmarg, India’s leading skiing resort high in the Kashmir Valley.

If and when peace returns to the region, tourism would boom, and the people would prosper. Unfortunately, the conflict has never been about the people. For both India and Pakistan, it’s been about land and ‘principles’.

But for Kashmiris, it has been a long nightmare with no end in sight. Struggling against a stifling and repressive rule imposed by New Delhi, Kashmiris now also face the depredations of extremist infiltrators. These terrorists should not be confused with local freedom fighters who have been striving for their rights for decades.

Now that foreign secretary-level talks have been announced, both sides are warning their respective constituencies not to expect too much. It has been made clear that India has offered these talks in deference to the United States, and Pakistan does not want to be the spoiler.

However, Shah Mehmood Qureshi, Pakistan’s foreign minister, has implied he does not have high hopes of any satisfactory outcome. The Indians have meanwhile stated that this meeting does not mean the comprehensive talks put on ice in the aftermath of the Mumbai attack will be resumed any time soon.

Given this wholly negative attitude, one wonders why the two sides are even bothering to go through with the motions. I suppose they want to be able to say to Washington that they tried, but the other side refused to budge.

Although the talks are without a defined agenda, they will focus on terrorism-related issues, something Pakistan is quite uncomfortable with. In Islamabad’s view, this is placing Pakistan in the dock. And quite right, too, retorts India. This rancour and refusal to move on is hardly the formula for successful talks between neighbours with a long history of strife.

Even though the objective conditions for an understanding exist in the form of a common threat from extremism, the reality is that India and Pakistan both view each other as the primary threat. Of course India is now the pre-eminent power in the region, but it nevertheless refuses to show any flexibility over Kashmir.

The Pakistani establishment has always seen India as a mortal enemy, and developments in Afghanistan appear to reinforce this view. The steady inroads New Delhi has made in what was traditionally considered Pakistan’s backyard have rung loud alarm bells in GHQ.

By telling Washington that it cannot move additional troops from its eastern border to North Waziristan, Islamabad is effectively signalling to the US that it cannot do more to combat the Taliban unless there is a settlement with India over Kashmir.

While these games of grand strategy and diplomacy play out in the three capitals, the people of Kashmir continue to be held hostage. Over the years, I have been much criticised by Indian and Pakistani readers for advocating a solution to the problem based on common sense and common decency.

If we move away from outdated UN resolutions and sterile legal arguments, and look at what is best for the people of Kashmir, we may get closer to a sane resolution. Musharraf was guilty of many sins, including the Himalayan blunder of launching the infamous Kargil adventure, but he did genuinely try to achieve peace with India. When he claimed that the two countries were close to an end to the conflict as the result of back channel diplomacy, he was not far wrong.

Qureshi has debunked this claim, saying the Foreign Office has no records to support it. However, I have been talking to Musharraf’s adviser who was deeply involved in these secret talks over the years, and he has kept me in touch with their broad contours. He has also told me that both foreign offices were kept out of the loop, and no formal record was kept.

The point here is that there is some progress to build on, should the two sides wish to. Rather than begin at square one, the present set of negotiators can find out from their predecessors what they had agreed on. Instead of dusting off old FO files, they can get a briefing from the interlocutors who were involved in the back channel talks.

However, this presupposes a desire to resolve issues rather than mark time. On Pakistan’s side, the problem is one of knowing who to talk to in Islamabad. It is clear that unless the army is onside, no progress can be achieved. Thus, Pakistan’s brief will be dictated in GHQ, and not in the Foreign Office. In India, the Congress government cannot afford to alienate the hawks of the Bharatiya Janata Party as well as other extreme right parties. We have the makings of another deadlock, with neither side willing to give an inch.

And yet the main ingredients for a compromise are in place. India wants to be counted as a major player in Afghanistan. However, lacking a common border with it, New Delhi must deal with Pakistan. The Americans are keen to get all three countries involved in security operations once they withdraw. This is only possible by persuading India and Pakistan to mend fences.

Gen Kayani’s recent offer to facilitate talks between Nato forces and the Taliban are an indication that he and his colleagues can be flexible. The growing threat from jihadi terrorists might do more to focus minds than the allure of skiing at Gulmarg.

Rulers torment the nation

by SHIREEN M MAZARI

Worst is that democracy has led us into more political instability as the democratic leaders opt for the usual authoritarian approach to governance alongside a feudal mindset that makes them regard the country as their personal fiefdom.
Is there a deliberate death wish the leadership has for Pakistan and its nationals? Otherwise, why would the president and the prime minister deliberately plunge the country into yet another judicial crisis at a time when the nation is already suffering from multiple crises making their daily lives an uphill struggle? The IMF has ensured that there will be no economic stability for many years to come and that the poor will either become even poorer or, when that option has been exhausted for those who had it in the first place, simply die with the increasing deprivation. Fuel is up; gas is up but barely available as is the case with electricity; water is becoming a rare commodity thanks partially to India and our leadership’s tolerance of its water terrorism; sugar and flour have become luxury goods; yet the IMF’s voracious appetite for destroying the stability of developing countries has yet to be sated and now it is demanding a mini budget with more killer measures for the masses.

After all, it is only the masses that suffer such measures, the ruling elite relying on state largesse for gas, electricity, fuel and all other luxuries.
Nor is it just the economic issues of daily life that are taking their toll as never before on the ordinary Pakistani.

There is the total lack of law and order and the shadow of terrorism spread across the country post-9/11 after our previous rulers went into a costly and destructive alliance with the US in its misnamed War on Terror and our present rulers’ continuation of the same support – albeit in an even more expansive fashion. It is not that we did not suffer from terrorism before, but certainly after recklessly going along with the US, despite our dismal history with that country, the problem underwent a qualitative shift in scale and type. Right now a typology of terrorism prevailing in Pakistan would have to include the extremist Taliban threat, the ethno-sub national threat, the targeted political killings, state terrorism of India, in terms of support for militancy in FATA and Balochistan, and the US, in the form of drone attacks and the constant blackmail of the “do more” mantra.

Only Indians killed, so no security breached?

by Jawed Naqvi

CATCHING the once-a-week flight from Delhi to Karachi last Monday, I overheard a riveting exchange between the immigration officer who was handling my Indian passport and a worried man who rushed to speak to him in a hurry, I suspect, after seeing my bearded profile from a distance.

In my banterish way I engaged both of them in a conversation about their source of worry. Upon close inquiry the man who had rushed to the passport desk with doubts about my bona fides turned out to be a religious Muslim from Uttar Pradesh who hadn’t watched TV for decades. His job was to alert the officers about any Kashmiris going to Pakistan, or perhaps anywhere at all.

What or who they were looking for was their business and I didn’t ask beyond a point, but I did glean from the chat that the government of India hires semi-literate and obscurantist Muslims who don’t watch TV for religious reasons, to keep an eye on their fellow brethren who may have given up watching TV because Indian channels usually misrepresent the reality as distinct from what they know it to be.

The incident also gave me useful insights into at least some of the reasons for the poor intelligence and security that haunts the country as it claims its seat in the colosseum where the duel with terror is perennially on.

Saturday’s bombing of a Pune restaurant frequented by foreigners bears resemblance in its strategic value to the Leopold Café in Mumbai, which was raided by suspected cross-border extremists in the November 2008 carnage. That eight or nine Indians have died in the Pune attack is shameful. That no foreigners were killed is a relief.

However, statements coming from senior officials have done little to address the questions that flow from the incident. Familiar smugness in the state’s response to a calamity such as Pune’s adds to the unabated gloom that comes with innocent deaths.

The home minister has said the bombing was not really tantamount to a security lapse. That sounds like a tall claim. In the same breath he held forth, as if to explain the claim, that the bombers had been forced to choose a soft target like the German bakery. The triumphant implication was that the terrorists could not get to the other potentially huge targets because the sites were better protected.

The Indian media, true to its wont, has been underscoring the fact that only Indians were killed in the attack. The reports stop barely short of declaring it a victory for India’s intelligence and security forces that the Jewish Chabad next door and the Osho ashram of the delightfully loveable guru (who was hounded out of the United States by rightwing Christians for preaching unbridled love) were secure.

This is a silly view of the tragedy. Much of the idiom of reporting and explaining an outrage such as a terrorist attack these days has got so markedly swayed by the old and now dated version of the western journalists’ sense of priorities, particularly in hotspots like India and Pakistan, that we look foolish, and often callous in trying to imitate them. Instead of grieving for the dead we scour their nationality, which ghoulishly determines the enormity of the crime.

There are two main issues involved here. First, what is the worth of the lives of Indians in the calculations of the Indian state as opposed to the lives of foreigners who are guests in the country? And second, what constitutes a soft target, and vis-à-vis who or what? The answer to both would require a definition of the class character of the Indian state.

Let’s pose the question differently and quote the example of two recent attacks that took place in Pakistan. There was an attack in a busy marketplace in Peshawar, which killed many innocent people. Then there was an assault on the Army GHQ in Rawalpindi, in which a few were killed on both sides.

The Peshawar attack may be deemed to have been launched on a soft target because it picked on unarmed, unprepared, trusting people who became its victims. Should the Pakistan government be allowed to get away if it declared the incident did not constitute a breach of security because it involved a soft target? Such a government will not last too long with the people’s support.

India has had its share of responsible public servants who would be so moved by an incident like the one in Pune that they would quit their jobs, or at least offer to resign. Lal Bahadur Shastri is cited as an excellent example of a minister who resigned as railway minister over a train accident. No one is asking Home Minister P. Chidambaram to go because of Pune, but must he indulge in legal casuistry and deny that the attack in Pune was avoidable and therefore constituted a security breach?

The narrative is related to American terror suspect David Headley who is now identified as having played a key role in the Mumbai attack. In 2008-20009, he lived in a hotel near the German bakery in Pune which witnessed a bomb blast on Saturday. There are intelligence reports that he did a recce of the blast site too.Headley also visited the Osho ashram, located near a Jewish prayer house. According to India’s federal investigations agency, the NIA, Headley had moved to Pune from Goa to recce the area around Koregaon Park.

Though initially it was believed that he wanted to target the foreigners coming to the Osho ashram, it was found that he had scouted the area for targeting the Jewish prayer centre in the vicinity.

Indian reports specifically say Headley had later left from Pune to Mumbai where he went to the Cuffe Prade area and apparently firmed up some loose ends in targeting the Israel Airways office before flying to Pakistan.

Headley’s last visit to India before being arrested by the FBI was said to be in March last year, to finalise synchronised terror strikes on Jewish houses located in five cities at the instance of Lashker-i-Taiba.

The entire story is shrouded in mystery and begs questions that are seldom asked. If it was known that Headley who is being investigated by the FBI had plans to attack places in Pune and elsewhere, was there any need felt to improve the human intelligence inputs in the area?

To do that might seem a logical, and also a simpler way to address a complex problem. But it would be an ordeal for the state called India to involve as many Muslims as possible to improve its vigil among an increasingly alienated people who are or may become catchments for young terror recruits. The state seems pretty fixed in its notion of which talent to tap, and it has chosen the stereotype Muslim as represented by the man stalking real or imagined Kashmiris at airports.

Given the home minister’s penchant for living in denial there unfortunately will be more attacks that he again could claim were not a result of intelligence failure, and there will be more alienated Muslims, who would not be too keen to publicly blame their plight on the state’s studied aloofness with them.