Kashmir issue can’t be wished away

TODAY India is pushing its draft ‘Comprehensive Convention on International Terrorism’, urging nations to pass laws domestically that make all acts unjustifiable ‘irrespective of political, philosophical, ideological and racial considerations’. But the world should not forget that India was among the 16 nations which opposed a UN resolution in 1972, which could have paved the way for a comprehensive international anti-terrorism law. The defeat of this resolution was interpreted by India as a ‘victory’ for the Non-Aligned Movement.

It is worthwhile to remember that by the middle of December 2001 there was no evidence of a military confrontation in South Asia. The scenario changed when New Delhi, using the pretext of the Dec 13 terrorist attack on the Indian parliament building, threatened military action against Pakistan. It blamed Pakistan for the attack, even though Islamabad condemned the outrage and offered a joint inquiry. India also rejected the FBI’s offer of assistance in the conduct of the investigation. Instead, New Delhi began massing its troops along Pakistan’s border and threatening war. This shows that India is not serious about fighting terrorism. It only wants to suppress the Kashmiris.

In Almaty, President Musharraf rightly asserted that the rapacious policies of certain states that forcibly occupy territories and deny freedom to people for decades on end, with total disdain for Charter of Principles and decisions of the United Nations, could not be condoned.

He said that global peace has remained hostage to the expansionist ambitions of such states and their ruthless campaigns to suppress, through brutal use of force, the legitimate struggles of peoples to gain their internationally recognized fundamental right to freedom and self-determination. Terrorism by states apart from inflicting massive suffering on occupied people, spawns a spiral of violence and terrorism.

Pakistan’s demand is that to eradicate terrorism the world must address the root causes by eliminating injustice and honouring the commitments consecrated in the UN Charter.

India has gone back on its promises of fulfilling its commitments to the Kashmiri people, and now when the Kashmiris are active, it is calling their just struggle a terrorist act.

The only solution is that India should recognize the reality of the Kashmir dispute and agree to talk to Pakistan and the true representatives of the Kashmiris for a just and durable settlement.

RUBINA KHAN

Karachi

Blast at the US Consulate

WHAT I had been fearing all these last few years has happened. A friend of mine telephoned me from Defence Authority Club that he heard a terrible blast and on inquiry learned that a bomb blast has taken place at the American Consulate.

While pointing out the encroachments made by the American Consulate, which started in 1992 with the occupation of the lane between the consulate and the government bungalow housing a minister, and culminating in the occupation of the road between the consulate and the Marriot Hotel, I had said that the consulate is a security risk for the Government Guest House as well as for the traffic moving along the Victoria Road.

I had suggested that the American government may be persuaded, apart from giving up the encroachments, to move the consulate to somewhere aloof and seclusive in the outskirts of the town, somewhere ahead of the Mochka Police Station on the Hub Road, where a 10-acre plot may be allotted to it and it may surround the consulate premises by a moat as well as two or three solid boundary walls, one after the other, like the Chittorgarh Fort.

Full security will thus be ensured for the consulate and the general public, and the adjoining property in the vicinity of present consulate premises will also be saved from risks of the outfall of any bomb blast which may be aimed at the consulate at its present premises. I had initiated proceedings in this regard when I was the Provincial Ombudsman for Sindh but I do not know how far those proceedings went since my relinquishing the job on the completion of my four-year term in Sept 1999.

I had personally submitted a copy of it to the then President, Mohammad Rafiq Tarrar, and a copy had also been sent to the Foreign Office to use its good offices to persuade the American Embassy to give up the encroachment of the public roads around its consulate in Karachi or, better still, to shift its premises to some safer place.

SALAHUDDIN MIRZA

Karachi

Public sector development

THE National Economic Council has approved a Rs134 billion public sector development programme (PSDP) for the next financial year, focusing on the development of water and power, railways, roads and highways.

The allocation for education, health and poverty alleviation has been put to 40 per cent of the total outlay — a much-needed increase.

Public sector development spending has recently shown considerable improvement. However, more is needed on this front. It has to come up to the needs of essential infrastructure, expansion in social services and poverty reduction. It has to go beyond the four per cent of the country’s gross domestic product. This figure needs to be restored to its traditional level of at least eight per cent of the GDP.

The significance of public sector development spending lies not only in its direct contribution to the national economy but its size and complexion have a direct bearing on the private sector investment initiatives.

The private sector will prefer to venture into those areas where the government has created sufficient and dependable infrastructure. It underscores the need to keep on replenishing old infrastructure and building the new one.

Social sectors have also to be looked after as they too need larger allocations. The rising incidence of poverty has put additional demands on national resources. It is all the more important that development projects are selected with care and implemented without unnecessary delays.

As PSDPs are usually dependent on foreign economic assistance, they should be designed to create in the economy sufficient capacity to repay some of the country’s debt obligations.

As for the growth target of 4.5 per cent fixed for the next financial year, this should not be difficult to achieve but a determined effort will be necessary to achieve this goal.

The agriculture sector has registered 1.4 per cent growth against minus 2.5 per cent of 2000-2001. The overall manufacturing sector witnessed an increase of 4.4 per cent in 2001-2002 against the revised target of 3.8 per cent. Large scale manufacturing was 4.4 per cent against the revised target of 3.3 per cent.

Had there been no impact of drought, the GDP growth could have reached 4.3 per cent.

The per capita income grew by 3.2 per cent and inflation remained 2.5 per cent, which was the lowest in three decades.

The current account balance was surplus by $2 billion due to $1.2 billion foreign remittances received till the month of May this year. The final figure of remittances is likely to reach to $2.2 billion by June 30 this year.

The foreign exchange reserves have reached to $5.6 billion and would touch $6 billion by the end of the current financial year. Foreign debt has reduced from $38 billion to $ 36 billion.

ALI HAMID JAFARY

Karachi

Repeating history?

I SUGGEST reading the portions of Dr Henry Kissinger’s book White House Years regarding the 1971 India-Pakistan standoff, which stands the closest match to the present state of affairs between the two countries. The summary of his detailed account is: Pakistan was under a military dispensation led by General Yahya and his comrades in command. The tensions on the border with India had started escalating since March. On March 31, the Indian parliament passed unanimously a resolution supporting its government’s moves. By May, the Indian government ordered its armed forces to prepare plans for a lightning attack to take over East Pakistan. But, the military high command advised the political leadership to delay the action till November in view of possible Chinese intervention, believing that winter in Himalayas would restrict any Chinese movement towards the subcontinent.

The international community was very much perturbed over the chances of a full-scale war in South Asia. In July, US President Nixon decided to send his National Security Advisor, Dr Henry Kissinger, to both the countries to help ease the tension in the region. He went to Delhi first, where he observed a fighting mood. On his trip to Islamabad, when he tried to inform the ruling junta of the looming danger of Indian attack, he was astonished to see the insensitivity of the generals. Dr Kissinger wrote:

“(Yahya) was oblivious to his perils and unprepared to face necessities. He and his colleagues did not believe that India might be planning war; if so, they were convinced that they would win. When I asked as tactfully as I could about the Indian advantage in numbers and equipment, Yahya and his colleagues answered with bravado about historic superiority of Muslim fighters.... There simply was no blinking the fact that Pakistan’s military leaders were caught up in a process beyond their comprehension” (page: 861).

Is history repeating itself after 31 years?

MUHAMMED ALI SHAIKH

Karachi

Japanese visa

IS it fair to bracket the entire Pakhtoon population living in the NWFP, with the Taliban and the Al Qaeda activists? This is what the Japanese embassy in Islamabad is doing with the visa applicants hailing from that province.

The embassy has prescribed a whole new set of documents for the people of the NWFP to produce to qualify for the grant of visa.

The local importers who had been to Japan four to five times in the past are now being asked to furnish three personal guarantees of persons who have visited Japan four times.

The embassy does not demand such guarantees from the people of other provinces. The discriminatory treatment with the residents of NWFP is of great concern to the secondhand auto-parts dealers of Peshawar who have had a long business relationship with Japan.

Will the honourable ambassador kindly review this policy?

FAQIR MUHAMMAD

Peshawar

NAs and PIA

I HAVE been living in the US with my family for over 14 years now. I occasionally visit Gilgit, and this year too decided to go there with my wife. With great difficulty we got our seats reserved with PIA’s PK-611, the second flight operating that day at 10:20 hours.

On May 27, we reached the Islamabad Airport but were told that the first flight had been cancelled due to non-availability of aircraft. I contacted PIA’s concerned staff and inquired about the status of our flight. They told us that we our flight had been cancelled because the earlier flight’s passengers had been transferred to PK-611.

I asked the authorities to explain why they were not providing another aircraft to the earlier flight passengers. Why and under which rule were they putting them into the second one? The PIA authorities explained that that had been a tradition for the last 30 years, and which they thought was not a violation of any law. When I proved the airport authorities wrong they asked me to contact the airline’s district manager.

To cut a long story short, I was kicked like a soccer ball from one arrogant officer to another and I found that everyone of them was a sovereign not a public servant.

I want to ask the PIA chairman and managing director why the people of Gilgit-Baltistan are being treated inhumanly. The people of Gilgit-Baltistan should have that privilege to fly as per international rules.

F.M. KHAN

Gilgit

Abaseen Express

THE residents of Balochistan were surprised when the Pakistan Railways decided to discontinue the Abaseen Express because, being the only train which ran through all the four provinces, it was a symbol of national integrity. Moreover, it was commercially profitable.

Rumours in Balochistan are that the decision was taken because of pressure from an influential transporter whose bus company operates on the same route.

I request the Minister for Railways, Javed Ashraf Qazi, to reverse this decision and institute an inquiry. Those who were involved in taking such a wrong decision should be taken to task.

MUZAFFAR AHMED

Quetta

Polio cases

THIS is with reference to the letter by Prof Bhutta (June 13) in which he writes about smallpox and polio. As far as the first part of his letter is concerned, I agree with him that smallpox no longer exists anywhere.

But he has not given due importance to the three polio cases in D.G. Khan. According to some studies, a single case of polio detected in any locality means that 1,273 asymptomatic cases are also present in that area. So, multiply 3 with 1,273 and you get 3,819 asymptomatic cases. And this is not something that can be ignored.

IFTIKHAR KAZI

Hyderabad

Conflict of interest

EXPLAINING the government’s decision to remove Maulana Justice Taqi Usmani from the Shariat Appellate Bench of the Supreme Court, a government official is reported to have said that, in view of the Maulana’s membership of a number of Shariah boards of financial institutions, allowing (him) to sit on the bench was a violation of the well-known principle that ‘no person can be a judge in his own cause’. (June 12).

This is extremely reassuring as long as the official would also guarantee that none of the new judges who would give a ruling on the permissibility of riba have any savings accounts, hold any interest-bearing certificates from which they derive interest income, or have taken any interest-bearing loans. For, if they do, then does it not stand to reason that they too cannot be judges in their own cause?

ARSHAD ZAMAN

Karachi

Misusing the Quaid’s name

AYUB Khan was amongst the fore-runners who formed a separate faction of Pakistan Muslim League (PML), known as Convention Muslim League. Later it became a tradition that whenever some heavyweight political leader abandoned the parent PML, the new faction was identified with the name of that leader.

Many such factions of PML are in existence such as PML(N), PML (Chatta), PML (Pagara), PML (Qasim), etc.

Recently a group of politicians abandoned their parent PML (N) and formed a new faction of Muslim League known as Pakistan Muslim League (Quaid-i-Azam Group) or PML(Q), in spite of the fact that Quaid-i-Azam had absolutely nothing to do with these politicians in his life time.

Many of these politicians may not have even seen a glimpse of the Quaid as he died almost 54 years ago. With no disrespect to this group of politicians, I suggest that this faction of PML should be identified by the name of its group leader.

The Quaid is the father of the nation and commands great respect from every Pakistani. Dragging his name unnecessarily in a political group for personal gains 54 years after his death will never be appreciated by the Pakistani people.

Immediately after the creation of Pakistan in 1947, it became a tradition to name new industrial products or shops after the Quaid till a government regulation banned the use of the Quaid’s name in all business adventures. I am not sure if such government regulation exists for political parties. If it doesn’t then it is immediately needed now.

It’ll also be advisable for the Pakistan Election Commission not to register any group of PML unless the faction is named after the group leader. It is also the responsibility of the media to identify this faction of PML with the name of the group leader rather than with the name of the Quaid.

DR MANZUR-UL-HAQUE

Lahore

US-Russia treaty of sorts

“THE historic accord proved that we are friends, that we are going to cast outside old doubts, old suspicions and welcome a new era in relations between your great country and our country. I am confident that this sets the stage for incredible cooperation that we have never had before between our two countries.”

These are the words US President Bush uttered on May 24 after signing the Strategic Offensive Reduction Treaty (SORT) with his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin. Is it going to be same in the future or are they just rhetoric? Validity of claims by the two leaders has since been a matter of debate in the concerned circles.

The treaty, though politically much hailed, in practical terms may herald a more dangerous than stable period. There is no schedule for dismantling the warheads. The treaty runs until 2012, so at the end either side could maintain their arsenal until October that year and then withdraw from the treaty. The treaty also does not even attempt to deal with the thousands of short-range tactical nuclear weapons that are still part of the US and Russian arsenals. Thereby, the two major powers, still wedded to a nuclear deterrent, have much work left to do on security.

The other disturbing feature of the treaty is that while the two countries agreed to cut down two-thirds of their nuclear arsenals over the next 10 years, the US will be allowed to store rather dismantle its strategic warheads which can be redeployed in the times of major crisis.

Why Russia agreed to this US superiority is apparent right now. An economically destabilized Russia desperately needs western assistance and goodwill to pull the economy out of difficulties and raise the falling living standards of its people. Plus in return Russia also got a greater say in the Nato affairs that it was long demanding. The newly created Russia-Nato Council (deal was agreed on May 28) will give Russia equal voice with the 19 member states on key European security issues from the fight against terrorism to preventing the spread of weapons of mass destruction, search and rescue operations and peace-keeping missions.

When Putin has been stepping up Moscow’s efforts to establish political and economic dominion over the European and Central Asian countries outside the Nato, how can one expect a new era of cooperation between the two once arch rivals? While the two countries are talking of cooperation, efforts to subvert each other’s influence are well seen too.

Though one wishes some basic understanding/ sincerity prevails among the mighty states for the safety of millions of people, a little can be expected from such agreements especially if one can just recall how the US unilaterally backed out from the ABM treaty and many other international agreements.

NAUSHEEN WASI

Karachi