Aurakzai’s plain talk

IN what appears to be a very severe criticism of the performance of our allies on the other side of the Durand Line, NWFP Governor Ali Jan Aurakzai has called upon the American and Nato troops in Afghanistan to match Pakistan’s commitment to the war on terror. The views, expressed in a press talk with foreign journalists on Friday, come in the wake of persistent reports that a Taliban force of 10,000 was readying for a major spring offensive. Mr Aurakzai, the man behind the Sept 5 deal with the tribal elders in North Waziristan, is the second major Pakistan leader to have voiced his criticism of the allies’ performance after President Pervez Musharraf had some unpleasant things to say about the situation in Afghanistan at his press conference of Feb 2. While President Musharraf had dwelt largely on the tactical side of the war on both sides and said that fencing the Durand Line was not Islamabad’s sole responsibility, a substantial part of Mr Aurakzai’s press talk touched on the political aspect of the Afghan situation. He warned that the war in Afghanistan seemed to be acquiring the character of a war of national liberation because of the frustrations of the Pakhtoon people.

Even though President Hamid Karzai is a Pakhtoon, his administration is dominated by Afghanistan’s non-Pakhtoon elements, especially Tajik and Uzbek. He has also made the corrupt warlords happy by giving them full rein, thus enabling them to turn their provinces into their fiefdoms. In contrast, the situation in the south-east is precarious. There is no economic development there because the Karzai government and the foreign forces there have failed to provide protection to aid workers. Instead, the intensification of fighting, the heavy civilian casualties and the lack of economic opportunities have combined to increase the influx of Afghan refugees into Pakistan. The US-Nato troops have failed to stop their trail into this country, and it goes without saying that a large number of them are militants and terrorists who seek refuge in Afghan refugee camps in Pakistan. While Islamabad has established nearly 1,000 border posts, the other side has less then 100, and that too 30 to 40 miles from the border.

The most important of the governor’s press talk related to the need for seeking a political solution. He said it would take years for the Taliban to be defeated, and therefore “the Kabul government and its foreign backers” would have to talk to the Taliban because “eventually all issues have to be resolved through dialogue...” While the advice to the allies is laudable, it is highly unlikely that the Bush administration in its present frame of mind will agree to negotiate with the Taliban. It is the “surge” – whether in Iraq or in Afghanistan – that is now defining the Bush administration’s foreign policy. However, the governor must first explain to the nation the precise advantage Pakistan has gained from the Sept 5 deal. The series of suicide bombings in the early part of Muharram shocked the nation, making the people wonder whether the approach to the tribal elders was flawed. While it is true that our allies should do more and seek a negotiated settlement, Pakistan must prove to the world that its “carrot and stick” strategy is paying off and that the proposed selective fencing will put a halt in a significant way to the two-way cross-border movement.

Yet another suicide attack

YESTERDAY’S blast in a district court in Quetta comes close on the heels of similar attacks – the majority of them suicide bombings – in Mirali, Islamabad, Peshawar and Dera Ismail Khan. At the time of writing, 15 people, including a senior judge, had died while 25 others were injured in the Quetta attack carried out by a suicide attacker. An inquiry into the incident has been ordered and until such time that the police make progress in their investigations it would be unfair to hold any one group responsible. Balochistan is a restive province and government installations and personnel have been frequently targeted by the insurgents. However, Saturday’s explosion had several hallmarks of the jihadi methodology and appeared to be in line with attacks carried out by religious extremists angered by Pakistan’s cooperation with the US in the war on terror. That this tide of religious violence is not going to recede anytime soon is evident from the growing Talibanisation of the border areas with Afghanistan and, according to some observers, the inability of the military to stop radical elements from using Pakistani territory to launch attacks on foreign troops across the frontier. With the NWFP governor himself admitting that public support for the Taliban is growing in Afghanistan and with western predictions of increased fighting in the months ahead, there is every reason to fear a surge in religious violence across Pakistan.

One can understand the constraints that Pakistan faces in “doing more” to halt such attacks, especially when the government in Kabul appears to be utterly powerless to prevent violence on its side of the border. But one must also question the rationality of the approach that Islamabad has so far taken in countering terrorism. By launching attacks on so-called jihadi camps and allowing intelligence agencies to arbitrarily pick up people believed to have links with religious militants, it has often ignored legal norms. This only provides more fodder for the Taliban and other religious elements to promote their cause among those who are already unhappy with the state’s high-handedness. Needless to say, this is not the best way of enlisting the people’s support for defeating terrorism and reining in extremist elements.

Lahore’s festive season

AS the spring sun eases the February chill, Lahore is all set to celebrate the month-long Jashn-i-Baharan, an annual public festival. The Parks and Horticulture Authority has made elaborate arrangements for the occasion, as festive buntings and banners go up along major arteries. The venues of the planned festivities are many, all public places, and activities include illumination and face-lifting of public buildings, flower shows, music concerts, dance and theatre performances, food festivals, painting and writing competitions, games, prose and poetry recitals, qawwali, performances by cultural troupes and a carnival parade with street performances as the grand finale to culminate on March 23. Entry to most public performances to be held outdoors in open spaces, open-air theatres and at Lahore Arts Council halls and facilities will be free of charge, in keeping with the hospitality associated with the city’s all-inclusive traditions. Two-day-long Basant festivities will also be part of the larger festival, for which a stringent set of rules have been prescribed and safety measures taken to ensure that kite flying remains a harmless sport and not a deadly pastime, as sadly was the case in recent years. The befitting theme this year revolves round celebrating the culture, heritage and tourism potential of the Punjab capital – Pakistan’s most visited city.

Visitors to Lahore find the festive spirit of its citizens contagious. A culture and history-buff’s paradise all the year round, the city boasts of a dozen or so public festivals centred around changing seasons and national holidays. It is heartening to note that the carnival parade planned for Pakistan Day will also include cultural troupes and moving floats from Sindh, Balochistan and the Frontier, in keeping with the spirit of the national day. Other major cities, too, can follow this example and offer their citizens a chance to unwind themselves from a hectic routine of urban tensions and pressures.

Paddar case & peace prospects in Kashmir

ONCE in a while the humblest of the earth shake the ground below. And in the instant case, the man himself is four feet under. A poor Kashmiri carpenter Abdul Rehman Paddar had paid a bribe of Rs.75,000 to get some kind of police job in Indian held Kashmir (IHK).

The bribe-taking policeman was unable to provide the job or return the money and so in cohorts with his superiors had him arrested, declared a terrorist and brutally murdered.

A wild crowd of Kashmiris chanting anti-Indian slogans had the body exhumed, identified and proved to be yet another victim of a fake encounter with the security forces. Kashmir is a killing field for anyone labelled a ‘terrorist’ – real or imagined.

According to The Hindu, one of the most respected newspapers in India, at least five ‘terrorist’ encounters in recent months were engineered by rogue elements in the army and police to earn rewards and out of turn promotions for their anti-terrorist patriotism.

Any journalist in Delhi closely involved in watching the Kashmir situation will concede that these five murders are but the tip of the ice-berg. More often than not innocents are dragooned into torture camps to end up as dead bodies or deranged humans. Indian journalist, Humra Quraishi, who made an extensive survey of human rights situation in Kashmir, writes in ‘Kashmir, the untold story’:-

“……The most widespread and disturbing sign of the decay in Kashmir today is the vast number of psychologically disturbed people. Medecins Sans Frontieres says, ‘The violence in one way or the other has touched each family living in Kashmir and this is having a profound effect on the overall wellbeing of people here’. According to psychiatrists working in the Valley, 90 per cent of the population is emotionally disturbed …..”

The Paddar story widely reported in the Indian press has served as an eye-opener. The public has been told for decades that all terrorism in Kashmir has a Pakistan (read ISI) origin, may well have second thoughts. If Mr. Paddar’s sons or relatives resort to terrorism to avenge, would it not be a natural reaction? The over-kill of the state terror is the root cause of the insurgency in Kashmir since the 1989. Retaliation is but human. The recent declaration of Mir Waiz of Kashmir to lay down arms has met with a mixed reaction in the valley. It might have been wiser if he had also called for a suspension of the anti-terrorist laws as well.

Whether terror strikes in Mumbai or Assam, Pakistan is invariably put in the dock by a public opinion so conditioned over the years. Since India presumes to be judge and the jury in each such case, Pakistan has become India’s whipping boy. A joint security commission to investigate allegations of state or non-state actors involved in terrorism was agreed upon in Havana last September. This would no doubt be a step in the right direction and the first meeting is due next month. This agreement has been much criticised in Indian power corridors; it is far easier to make an unsubstantiated charge and get away with it than to prove the allegation.

By sheer coincidence, the ‘nonviolent’ glitterati of the world, including an impressive ‘peace-loving’ delegation from Pakistan, were commemorating Mahatma Gandhi’s satyagraha at his cemetery when the Paddar story blew up.

Archbishop Desmond Tutu of South Africa called on the world community to impress the Burmese junta to release Aung San Suu Kyi from house arrest. But, no one at this august gathering had the courage to condemn Paddar’s murder and the five other recent cases of a like nature, or the thousands of innocent men and women killed, maimed and turned mentally deranged by the Indian security forces in Kashmir in recent years. The images of Gandhi in India like that of Jinnah in Pakistan are no more than currency note decorations.

Custodial deaths of terrorists also occur in Pakistan! The difference is that terrorism in IHK or India affects India-Pakistan relation. Custodial deaths in Pakistan mainly arise from sectarian or anti-West terrorism, which does not affect the sub-continental equation. It is regrettable that torture is widely used in both countries.

The four point Kashmir proposals of President Musharraf took the Indian establishment by complete surprise. A senior Indian journalist said, “Any proposal not bearing the stamp ‘Made in India’ is likely to fare badly”. India, being the regional hegemon in South Asia, New Delhi is likely to come up with a ‘Made in India’ prescription. Any form of joint management is likely to be rejected in this formulation.

Apparently, the Musharraf proposals are not correctly known in political circles. Mr. I.K. Gujral thought that the proposals sought to divide the state on communal lines. They do not. Not surprisingly Mr L.K. Advani thought that the central issue was the old bug bear: “terrorism”. The government, he said, was not keeping the opposition adequately informed on negotiations with Pakistan. The lawyer, Parliamentarian Ram Jeth Malani, who concerns himself with Kashmir affairs, had a distorted view of the Musharraf proposals when explained his negative views except on joint management.

A senior journalist remarked that since both Kashmirs were financially insolvent, if autonomy ever arrives, ‘it will merely substitute physical controls for fiscal ones’. Autonomy is likely to be paper thin. Will ‘moth-eaten’ autonomy be acceptable to the valley Kashmiris?

India today is shining from Davos to Delhi. Globalisation has created millions of new jobs and created an unbounded confidence. In the current fiscal year, it hopes to achieve the Chinese growth rate of nearly 10 per cent. Indian pharmaceuticals are the low-cost wonder for the world’s poor. The generic form of a medicine regularly used by this writer was available at Rs.180 (Indian) as against Rs.3,000 in Islamabad, imported from the UK. This is one area of trade Pakistan should open up forthwith. Quality English newspapers still sell at Rs.2.50. The New Delhi sub-way is the latest ‘shining’ symbol. It is clean, efficient and low-cost.

Will India’s meteoric rise in the last decade or so give it the self-confidence to take a mature, large-hearted view in dealing with its neighbours? People like Manmohan Singh and Vajpayee might have such a vision, but, the search for a consensus (particularly with the military) bogs it down. A leap of faith is required such as Nixon’s vision in opening up to China or Roosevelt’s pressure on Churchill to free British India.

The Musharraf proposals do constitute a leap of faith -- this is recognised by all politicians and journalists in India. An important player in any rapprochement may well be the charismatic but open-minded, Lal Krishna Advani. As leader of the opposition in the Lok Sabha, the government will need his support on this.

The issue that seems to bother the Indians is the alleged shelter given to terrorist organizations in Pakistan. Little do they realize that the same groups that they point a finger at have been involved in assassination plots aimed at the president and prime minister of Pakistan.

What is the difference between a freedom fighter and a terrorist? The freedom fighter is politically motivated while the terrorist is not. He is a braver person than the terrorist being at the receiving end of state terror without any protection. Terrorism in Kashmir has prevented civil society there from playing its due role in the state. Terror rejects the inevitable compromises of civil society, and state terror makes no distinction between the freedom fighter and the terrorist. Thus, the genuine freedom fighter in Kashmir is crushed between the hammer of the state and the anvil of the terrorist.

If Musharrafian autonomy in Kashmir can reduce the violence, civil society in the valley can restore the political balance. Autonomy is a means to an end -- not an end in itself.

The writer is an MNA.
murbr@isb.paknet.com.pk

Thomas Cook

WHEN Thomas Cook invented modern travel in 1841 by charging a shilling a head for a rail excursion from Leicester to a temperance meeting in Loughborough, he had no idea that his biggest excursion would be the one on which his own company was embarking. Not many companies from the 1840s exist at all today, never mind as world leaders. In 1851 Cook promoted trips from the north to the Great Exhibition, and by 1866 he was organising voyages to America, before going on to pioneer world tours.

Since the early 20th century, the company has also been on its own Cook's tour of ownership. Sold by the founder's grandsons to Wagon-Lits (owners of the Orient Express) in 1928, it was nationalised in 1948, privatised in 1972, bought by a consortium including Midland Bank, which then bought it outright in 1977 before it was taken over by HSBC, which sold it in 1992 to the Westdeutsche Landesbank, though not before Robert Maxwell had acquired a stake (in 1988), which he kept until his death. After merging with Carlson Leisure in 1999, it was acquired by the German company C&N Touristic, which later changed its name to Thomas Cook AG.

Which brings us to the latest stage of its journey. Thomas Cook has now merged with MyTravel to become one of Europe's leading tour operators. If approved by the authorities, Thomas Cook could have its first listing on the London Stock Exchange. After such a long and arduous adventure there is really only one thing to say. Welcome home.

—The Guardian, London