B.RAMAN
Prime Minister Wen Jiabo of China visited Myanmar on June 2 and 3,2010, to participate in celebrations to mark the 60th anniversary of the establishment of diplomatic relations between the two countries. During the visit, which was confined Naypyitaw, the new capital, with a transit halt in Yangon, he met Senior General Than Shwe, Chairman of the State Peace and Development Council of Myanmar, and Prime Minister U Thein Sein. Myanmar was the last leg of a four-nation Asian tour which had taken him to South Korea, Japan and Mongolia before he arrived in Myanmar. China’s then Prime Minister Li Peng had visited Myanmar in 1994 and the then President Jiang Zemin in 2001. Chinese Vice President Xi Jinping had visited Myanmar on December 19 and 20, 2009, during the course of a four-nation tour covering Japan, South Korea, Myanmar and Cambodia.
2. The visit of Mr.Wen was mainly to provide a high profile to the 60th anniversary celebrations and to underline the continued importance attached by China to its relations with Myanmar, which has acquired an importance in China’s search for energy security and reduced dependence on the Malacca Strait for the movement of its energy supplies from West Asia and Africa. Speculation in some circles of the Myanmar political exile community seeing an additional significance in the fact that the visit came a few months before the controversial elections from which the ruling junta had manipulated the exclusion of Aung San Suu Kyi and her party appeared to be wishful-thinking. Political stability in Myanmar has become important for China’s energy security and the Chinese are unlikely to do or say anything which could destabilize the junta, which has been favourable to Chinese energy requirements.
3. Renewed speculation on the eve of Mr.Wen’s visit about the alleged attempts of Myanmar to acquire a nuclear capability with North Korean help did not come in the way of the visit. In fact, Chinese sources dismissed the speculation as unworthy of being taken seriously since it emanated from an army defector with an axe to grind against the junta.
4. There were three high-profile events during the visit. The first was a formal function to mark the 60th anniversary at which U Thein Sein and Mr.Wen delivered formal speeches tracing the evolution of the relations between the two countries during the last 60 years. Mr. Wen highlighted the fact that the bilateral trade has increased five-fold from 620 million dollars in 2000 to 2960 million dollars in 2009.
5. The second was the formal launching by the two Prime Ministers of the construction of the Myanmar-China oil and natural gas pipeline project. Even though the two pipelines will not pass through the capital, the launching function was held in the capital. Mr.Wen did not go to the Arakan area for this purpose. There is local opposition to the pipelines in the Arakan area and the two Governments apparently did not want to take the risk of having the function there. In fact, apart from a visit to a school in the capital area, Mr.Wen did not have any interactions with the people or the political leaders of Myanmar. His interactions were confined to the military officers, the civilian bureaucrats and their families who attended the formal functions.
6. The China National Petroleum Corporation (CNPC), the country's largest oil and gas producer and supplier, gave the following details in its web site on June 4: Work has started on the construction of two oil and gas pipelines between China and Myanmar.The Southeast Asia Pipeline Company, one of its affiliates, has been put in charge of the design, construction, operation and maintenance of the pipelines. As a controlling shareholder, the Southeast Asia Pipeline Company signed an agreement with the Myanmar National Oil and Gas Company on June 3 at Naypyitaw. Each with an overall length of about 1,100 kilometers, the gas and oil pipelines are both expected to run from the Kyaukpyu port on Myanmar's west coast and enter China at Ruili, Yunnan Province. The oil pipeline will have a designed transport capacity of 22 million tonnes per year, while the natural gas pipeline a designed transport capacity of 12 billion cubic meters annually.
7. The “ People’s Daily” of China reported as follows on June 7:”There are 793 kilometers of gas pipeline in Myanmar, and also a 771-kilometer-long crude oil pipeline. The China National Petroleum Corporation (CNPC) said it has begun building an oil port in Kyaukpyu as a facility for the planned China-Myanmar oil pipeline project. According to the agreement signed by both countries, the Union of Myanmar is to grant a crude oil pipeline to the Southeast Asia Oil Pipeline Co., Ltd. for the China-Myanmar oil pipeline franchise and is responsible for pipeline construction and operation and so on. The company also enjoys tax breaks, oil transit, import and export customs clearance and related rights such as right-of-way operations. Relevant chiefs from CNPC said that the project could explore new oil product import channels and further ensure the country's oil supply security. Meanwhile, the project also could improve the infrastructure construction in China's southwest area, which is beneficial to implementing the general strategy of the West Development Program.”
8. In a commentary by Mr.Eric Watkins, its oil diplomacy editor, the “Oil & Gas Journal” of the US reported inter alia as follows on June 4: “Kyaukpyu is on Ramree Island about 400 km northwest of Yangon, and is due to become the import terminus for Middle East and African tankers supplying oil to China. The new port will be able to receive vessels of up to 300,000 dwt and will have storage capacity of 600,000 cu m. Analysts said the oil line will diversify China's import routes from the Middle East and Africa, enabling it to bypass the sea route through the piracy-prone Strait of Malacca. The gas line will help meet rapidly expanding demand in southern China. Oil for the line will come from China’s Middle Eastern and African suppliers, while the gas line will be fed by fields in Myanmar, which has the most extensive gas reserves in Southeast Asia at 21.2 tcf. Recent reports claim that Myanmar produces around 1.2 bcf/year of gas but wants to increase this to almost 2.2 bcf/year by 2015. In November 2009, CNPC said it had started construction of a large-scale oil port in Kyaukpyu as a facility for the planned China-Myanmar oil line project.”
9. The third event was the formal handing over by Mr.Wen to his Myanmar counterpart of the Myanmar International Convention Centre-MICC built by Chinese engineers. According to the details given on the occasion, the MICC building was designed by the Beijing Institute of Architectural Design (BIAD) and built by the Anhui Foreign Economic Construction (Group) Co Ltd. The construction of the building started on 15 February 2008 and it was completed on 15 March 2010. It was located on 16 acres of land with 312,000 square feet. The MICC has a Plenary Hall that can accommodate 1900 persons.
10. Officials of the two countries reported that during the visit of Mr.Wen, 15 agreements and Memoranda of Understanding were signed covering bilateral cooperation in economic and technology sectors, rail transportation, trade, hydropower, energy and mining. No details have been disclosed.
11. In an editorial on the visit, the Government-controlled “New Light of Myanmar” said on June 5: “ The two nations maintain good neighborly relations based on equality, understanding and mutual support for each other. Bilateral cooperation in various sectors has made significant progress and the bilateral relations have grown to strategic relations. The two peoples have been dealing with each other through fraternal sentiment.”
12. China is now Myanmar’s third largest trading partner and investor after Thailand and Singapore. Up to January 2010, China had invested $1.848 billion in Myanmar, or 11.5 percent of Myanmar’s total foreign direct investment.
13. A Chinese military delegation from the Jinan Military Region headed by General Fan Changlong of the Chinese People’s Liberation Army, has separately come to Myanmar to participate in the 60th anniversary functions. (9-6-10)
( The writer is Additional Secretary (retd), Cabinet Secretariat, Govt. of India, New Delhi, and, presently, Director, Institute For Topical Studies, Chennai, and Associate of the Chennai Centre For China Studies. E-mail: seventyone2@gmail.com )
Tuesday, June 8, 2010
Monday, June 7, 2010
NAOTO KAN:FOCUS ON US, CHINA, INDIA & VIETNAM
B.RAMAN
Mr.Naoto Kan, who takes over as the Prime Minister of Japan on June 8,2010, is an unknown quantity in international relations. As the Finance Minister in the outgoing Cabinet of Mr. Yukio Hatoyama, his time was largely taken up by Japan’s economic problems arising from its massive public debt, sluggish growth and an aging population. Economic problems will continue to take up a lot of his time as the Prime Minister too.
2. In a written statement issued on June 4, he described economic recovery and growth as the biggest challenges that he would face as the Prime Minister. Japan is the slowest growing economy in Asia, and is expected to be overtaken by China later this year. Industrial production and exports are picking up, but this has not had any impact on the unemployment situation and deflation. He said in his statement: “I will tackle and pull Japan out of deflation through comprehensive measures from the Government and the Bank of Japan." He promised fiscal reforms and spoke of possible tax hikes to facilitate a strong social security system for the old people.
3. His remarks on foreign policy as the Finance Minister and now as the Prime Minister-designate have been sparse. It is, however, already evident that like Mr.Hatoyama, he attaches importance to the “Get Closer To Asia” policy. But he will not allow this to weaken Japan’s relations with the US, which he regards as vital. Closer and stronger relations with the rest of Asia, yes, but not at the expense of the existing close and strong relations with the US. The maintenance of close relations with the US have become even more important in view of the increasingly erratic behaviour of North Korea, China’s reluctance to hold North Korea accountable for the March incident in which it allegedly torpedoed a South Korean naval vessel killing many South Korean sailors and the increasingly assertive actions of the Chinese Navy in the South and East China Sea. Japan is not in a position to deal with an assertive China alone without the solidarity of the US.
4. Some significant pre-swearing-in remarks of his on foreign policy give an indication of his mind:
* “With the U.S.-Japan alliance the cornerstone of our diplomacy, we must also work for the prosperity of the Asian region."
* He would honor an agreement to relocate the U.S. Marine Corps. Futenma Air Base on Okinawa, and work to rebuild trust between the two allies.
* He would place equal emphasis on improving ties with China.
* “Japan is situated at a very advantageous geopolitical position. Asia is currently the most rapidly and widely developing area in the world and its scale (of development) is the most outstanding in history. Japan is located at the corner of such an area. It is true that the situation on development in Japan and in Asia is different, but Japan is still in a position to be able to strike a win-win relationship with such developing powers such as China, India and Vietnam.”
5.With five Prime Ministers in four years, who hardly had any time to work out and implement a national strategy on any issue----whether relating to the economy, national and regional security or foreign policy--- Japan has been drifting from scandal to scandal and crisis to crisis. Mr.Kan’s predecessors as the Prime Minister were hardly able to settle down and find their feet on the ground before they were forced to quit by unfavourable public opinion or inner party pressure or both.
6. Mr. Hatoyama came to office as the Prime Minister eight months ago with three major promises.He failed to implement two of them and the time and energy spent by him in unsuccessfully trying to implement the first two did not give him much time to attend to the third. The two promises which he failed to implement related to the shifting of the US base from Okinawa to which the Barack Obama Administration was strongly opposed and to set up a national strategy bureau to promote habits of long-term strategic thinking. His preoccupation with these two issues and with the usual scandals regarding unaccounted political funding hardly gave him time to give shape to a new foreign policy, which he had promised with a greater focus on Asia than had been the case under his predecessors.
7.Unlike his predecessors, Mr.Kan was not born into an elite political family. He is not from a political dynasty. He said of himself after it became clear that he was likely to be the party’s choice to succeed Mr.Hatoyama: "I grew up in a typical Japanese salaryman's family.I've had no special connections. If I can take on a major role starting from such an ordinary background, that would be a very positive thing for Japanese politics."
8. Comments of others on Mr.Kan:
* "He's less dreamy than Hatoyama. He's a common man just like us”---- Mr.Koichi Nakano, a professor at Sophia University in Tokyo.
* “Kan is more proactive about fiscal discipline and about raising the consumption tax than any other Cabinet Minister" ---- Mr.Hirokata Kusaba, a senior economist at the Mizuho Research Institute.
* “ Kan himself has been cautious of being branded a fiscal hawk. He also has a talent for nuanced remarks that can be interpreted in many ways, and may shift away from his stress on fiscal austerity if needed to win votes in the upper house poll”---- From a Reuters dispatch.
* “ He is everything Yukio Hatoyama was not — decisive, outspoken and a populist with common roots. He has a record of acting on the basis of his beliefs and not backing down. Those are good signs for a Prime Minister, and I think those are qualities that Hatoyama did not have”---- Mr. Tobias Harris, a political analyst who once worked as an aide to a Democratic Party lawmaker in Japan.
9.Mr.Kan, who is 63 years old, is the son of a businessman from Yamaguchi in Southern Japan. He has never been a a member of the Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) that had ruled Japan for more than five decades before it was replaced by the Democratic Party last year. He co-founded the Democratic Party along with Mr.Hatoyama in 1996. Before 1996, he belonged to a small opposition party. In September 1997, he was elected as the party President and contined in that post till September 1999. From September 2000 to September 2002, he served as the Secretary-General of the Party. In December 2002, he was elected again as the party President and continued in that post till May 2004. He was named the Deputy Prime Minister in September 2009 in the Hatoyama Cabinet and was appointed as the Finance Minister in January 2010.
10. India views Japan as an important strategic partner. The two countries would benefit from close consultations on China. How to befriend China while at the same time being beware of it? That is a question of common interest to both. At the same time, the utility of this partnership to India will not reach its full potential so long as Japan continues to be in its present state of drift with successive Japanese Prime Ministers being unable to work out and sustain a long-term strategy. ( 8-6-10)
( The writer is Additional Secretary (retd), Cabinet Secretariat,. Govt. of India, New Delhi, and, presently, Director, Institute For Topical Studies, Chennai, and Associate of the Chennai Centre For China Studies. E-mail: seventyone2@gmail.com )
.
Mr.Naoto Kan, who takes over as the Prime Minister of Japan on June 8,2010, is an unknown quantity in international relations. As the Finance Minister in the outgoing Cabinet of Mr. Yukio Hatoyama, his time was largely taken up by Japan’s economic problems arising from its massive public debt, sluggish growth and an aging population. Economic problems will continue to take up a lot of his time as the Prime Minister too.
2. In a written statement issued on June 4, he described economic recovery and growth as the biggest challenges that he would face as the Prime Minister. Japan is the slowest growing economy in Asia, and is expected to be overtaken by China later this year. Industrial production and exports are picking up, but this has not had any impact on the unemployment situation and deflation. He said in his statement: “I will tackle and pull Japan out of deflation through comprehensive measures from the Government and the Bank of Japan." He promised fiscal reforms and spoke of possible tax hikes to facilitate a strong social security system for the old people.
3. His remarks on foreign policy as the Finance Minister and now as the Prime Minister-designate have been sparse. It is, however, already evident that like Mr.Hatoyama, he attaches importance to the “Get Closer To Asia” policy. But he will not allow this to weaken Japan’s relations with the US, which he regards as vital. Closer and stronger relations with the rest of Asia, yes, but not at the expense of the existing close and strong relations with the US. The maintenance of close relations with the US have become even more important in view of the increasingly erratic behaviour of North Korea, China’s reluctance to hold North Korea accountable for the March incident in which it allegedly torpedoed a South Korean naval vessel killing many South Korean sailors and the increasingly assertive actions of the Chinese Navy in the South and East China Sea. Japan is not in a position to deal with an assertive China alone without the solidarity of the US.
4. Some significant pre-swearing-in remarks of his on foreign policy give an indication of his mind:
* “With the U.S.-Japan alliance the cornerstone of our diplomacy, we must also work for the prosperity of the Asian region."
* He would honor an agreement to relocate the U.S. Marine Corps. Futenma Air Base on Okinawa, and work to rebuild trust between the two allies.
* He would place equal emphasis on improving ties with China.
* “Japan is situated at a very advantageous geopolitical position. Asia is currently the most rapidly and widely developing area in the world and its scale (of development) is the most outstanding in history. Japan is located at the corner of such an area. It is true that the situation on development in Japan and in Asia is different, but Japan is still in a position to be able to strike a win-win relationship with such developing powers such as China, India and Vietnam.”
5.With five Prime Ministers in four years, who hardly had any time to work out and implement a national strategy on any issue----whether relating to the economy, national and regional security or foreign policy--- Japan has been drifting from scandal to scandal and crisis to crisis. Mr.Kan’s predecessors as the Prime Minister were hardly able to settle down and find their feet on the ground before they were forced to quit by unfavourable public opinion or inner party pressure or both.
6. Mr. Hatoyama came to office as the Prime Minister eight months ago with three major promises.He failed to implement two of them and the time and energy spent by him in unsuccessfully trying to implement the first two did not give him much time to attend to the third. The two promises which he failed to implement related to the shifting of the US base from Okinawa to which the Barack Obama Administration was strongly opposed and to set up a national strategy bureau to promote habits of long-term strategic thinking. His preoccupation with these two issues and with the usual scandals regarding unaccounted political funding hardly gave him time to give shape to a new foreign policy, which he had promised with a greater focus on Asia than had been the case under his predecessors.
7.Unlike his predecessors, Mr.Kan was not born into an elite political family. He is not from a political dynasty. He said of himself after it became clear that he was likely to be the party’s choice to succeed Mr.Hatoyama: "I grew up in a typical Japanese salaryman's family.I've had no special connections. If I can take on a major role starting from such an ordinary background, that would be a very positive thing for Japanese politics."
8. Comments of others on Mr.Kan:
* "He's less dreamy than Hatoyama. He's a common man just like us”---- Mr.Koichi Nakano, a professor at Sophia University in Tokyo.
* “Kan is more proactive about fiscal discipline and about raising the consumption tax than any other Cabinet Minister" ---- Mr.Hirokata Kusaba, a senior economist at the Mizuho Research Institute.
* “ Kan himself has been cautious of being branded a fiscal hawk. He also has a talent for nuanced remarks that can be interpreted in many ways, and may shift away from his stress on fiscal austerity if needed to win votes in the upper house poll”---- From a Reuters dispatch.
* “ He is everything Yukio Hatoyama was not — decisive, outspoken and a populist with common roots. He has a record of acting on the basis of his beliefs and not backing down. Those are good signs for a Prime Minister, and I think those are qualities that Hatoyama did not have”---- Mr. Tobias Harris, a political analyst who once worked as an aide to a Democratic Party lawmaker in Japan.
9.Mr.Kan, who is 63 years old, is the son of a businessman from Yamaguchi in Southern Japan. He has never been a a member of the Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) that had ruled Japan for more than five decades before it was replaced by the Democratic Party last year. He co-founded the Democratic Party along with Mr.Hatoyama in 1996. Before 1996, he belonged to a small opposition party. In September 1997, he was elected as the party President and contined in that post till September 1999. From September 2000 to September 2002, he served as the Secretary-General of the Party. In December 2002, he was elected again as the party President and continued in that post till May 2004. He was named the Deputy Prime Minister in September 2009 in the Hatoyama Cabinet and was appointed as the Finance Minister in January 2010.
10. India views Japan as an important strategic partner. The two countries would benefit from close consultations on China. How to befriend China while at the same time being beware of it? That is a question of common interest to both. At the same time, the utility of this partnership to India will not reach its full potential so long as Japan continues to be in its present state of drift with successive Japanese Prime Ministers being unable to work out and sustain a long-term strategy. ( 8-6-10)
( The writer is Additional Secretary (retd), Cabinet Secretariat,. Govt. of India, New Delhi, and, presently, Director, Institute For Topical Studies, Chennai, and Associate of the Chennai Centre For China Studies. E-mail: seventyone2@gmail.com )
.
NEED FOR A CASE STUDY OF BHOPAL GAS DISASTER
B.RAMAN
A major worry for the international community has been the danger of Al Qaeda using a chemical weapon to indulge in an act of mass casualty terrorism. Studies have been made of the possible scenarios and how to prevent and counter them. Dealing with a chemical disaster---- deliberately caused by terrorists or other criminal elements or due to the criminal negligence of those producing and storing them for industrial and other purposes---- is now an important component of any national disaster management plan.
2. In India too, we have a high-powered national disaster management authority and one understands it has prepared different contingency plans to deal with different types of disasters----a chemical disaster being one of them. One would have thought that a detailed case study of the disaster in Bhopal in 1984 due to the leakage of chemical gases from a plant of the Union Carbide would have been the starting point of any such contingency planning.
3. Do you know what would happen if Al Qaeda manages to get hold of a deadly chemical weapon and uses it to kill people in their hundreds and thousands? People would start dying without knowing what is happening to them. Security and other bureaucrats involved in disaster management would take some time to understand why people are dying and set in motion the drill to deal with situation.
4. Al Qaeda is not going to announce beforehand that it would be using a chemical weapon. It will use it and let the world realise that it has used it from the initially unexplained deaths.
5. That is what happened in Bhopal in 1984. People in their hundreds working in the factory, moving around in the town and living in their homes started falling dead without anyone understanding why they are dying. It took sometime for the authorities to realize that the deaths were due to the leakage of gas from the factory and its spread across the town. They did not know what kind of a gas was it and how to protect people from its effect.
6.No proper study had been made beforehand of the dangers of a leak---- due to negligence or deliberately-caused. There had been no contingency planning to deal with the resulting situation.
7. It goes to the credit of the authorities of Madhya Pradesh and the Government of India and of Rajiv Gandhi, who had just then taken over as the Prime Minister, that without any previous experience of dealing with that kind of situation, they rose to the occasion and did whatever they could to save lives at tremendous risk to themselves. Despite their praise-worthy efforts, over 3500 people died---- as many as during the 9/11 terrorist strikes in the US.
8. In many seminars that I have attended since 9/11 on the dangers of an act of mass casualty terrorism using a chemical weapon, there were references to the Bhopal disaster as a forewarning of what could happen if the terrorists manage to get hold of a deadly chemical weapon and use it. Many of those who made the reference, at the same time, expressed their surprise and disappointment over the fact that the Indian authorities had not documented the details of what happened in Bhopal in 1984, how the situation was dealt with by the authorities, what kind of difficulties they faced and how they got over them.
9. In fact, according to them, no proper case study of the Bhopal gas disaster has been made to draw lessons for future contingency planning to deal with similar disasters. If this is true, this does not speak well of us and underlines once again our casual attitude in such matters.
10.Before the officials of Bhopal who dealt with the disaster pass away, their account of the disaster should be documented and a thorough case study done.
11. It goes to the credit of Rajiv Gandhi that he realized the importance of contingency planning to deal with similar disasters in future and set up a special cell in the Ministry of Home Affairs for this purpose. This cell allegedly stopped functioning after he left office as the PM in 1989. Contingency planning for disaster management started receiving the attention it deserved only after 9/11.( 7-6-10)
( The writer is Additional Secretary (retd), Cabinet Secretariat, Govt. of India, New Delhi, and, presently, Director, Institute For Topical Studies, Chennai, and also Associate of the Chennai Centre For China Studies. E-mail: seventyone2@gmail.com )
A major worry for the international community has been the danger of Al Qaeda using a chemical weapon to indulge in an act of mass casualty terrorism. Studies have been made of the possible scenarios and how to prevent and counter them. Dealing with a chemical disaster---- deliberately caused by terrorists or other criminal elements or due to the criminal negligence of those producing and storing them for industrial and other purposes---- is now an important component of any national disaster management plan.
2. In India too, we have a high-powered national disaster management authority and one understands it has prepared different contingency plans to deal with different types of disasters----a chemical disaster being one of them. One would have thought that a detailed case study of the disaster in Bhopal in 1984 due to the leakage of chemical gases from a plant of the Union Carbide would have been the starting point of any such contingency planning.
3. Do you know what would happen if Al Qaeda manages to get hold of a deadly chemical weapon and uses it to kill people in their hundreds and thousands? People would start dying without knowing what is happening to them. Security and other bureaucrats involved in disaster management would take some time to understand why people are dying and set in motion the drill to deal with situation.
4. Al Qaeda is not going to announce beforehand that it would be using a chemical weapon. It will use it and let the world realise that it has used it from the initially unexplained deaths.
5. That is what happened in Bhopal in 1984. People in their hundreds working in the factory, moving around in the town and living in their homes started falling dead without anyone understanding why they are dying. It took sometime for the authorities to realize that the deaths were due to the leakage of gas from the factory and its spread across the town. They did not know what kind of a gas was it and how to protect people from its effect.
6.No proper study had been made beforehand of the dangers of a leak---- due to negligence or deliberately-caused. There had been no contingency planning to deal with the resulting situation.
7. It goes to the credit of the authorities of Madhya Pradesh and the Government of India and of Rajiv Gandhi, who had just then taken over as the Prime Minister, that without any previous experience of dealing with that kind of situation, they rose to the occasion and did whatever they could to save lives at tremendous risk to themselves. Despite their praise-worthy efforts, over 3500 people died---- as many as during the 9/11 terrorist strikes in the US.
8. In many seminars that I have attended since 9/11 on the dangers of an act of mass casualty terrorism using a chemical weapon, there were references to the Bhopal disaster as a forewarning of what could happen if the terrorists manage to get hold of a deadly chemical weapon and use it. Many of those who made the reference, at the same time, expressed their surprise and disappointment over the fact that the Indian authorities had not documented the details of what happened in Bhopal in 1984, how the situation was dealt with by the authorities, what kind of difficulties they faced and how they got over them.
9. In fact, according to them, no proper case study of the Bhopal gas disaster has been made to draw lessons for future contingency planning to deal with similar disasters. If this is true, this does not speak well of us and underlines once again our casual attitude in such matters.
10.Before the officials of Bhopal who dealt with the disaster pass away, their account of the disaster should be documented and a thorough case study done.
11. It goes to the credit of Rajiv Gandhi that he realized the importance of contingency planning to deal with similar disasters in future and set up a special cell in the Ministry of Home Affairs for this purpose. This cell allegedly stopped functioning after he left office as the PM in 1989. Contingency planning for disaster management started receiving the attention it deserved only after 9/11.( 7-6-10)
( The writer is Additional Secretary (retd), Cabinet Secretariat, Govt. of India, New Delhi, and, presently, Director, Institute For Topical Studies, Chennai, and also Associate of the Chennai Centre For China Studies. E-mail: seventyone2@gmail.com )
Sunday, June 6, 2010
PRE-EMPTING AN YENAN IN DANTEWADA
B.RAMAN
The current attrition rate in our counter-insurgency operations against the Maoists favours the Maoists. The State is on the defensive and is not making headway in its operations against them. This would be evident from the fact that more personnel of the security forces are being killed than Maoists, more weapons are being captured by the Maoists from the security forces than the other way round and except in Andhra Pradesh , in the other affected States the Government has not succeeded in re-asserting its control over areas which are claimed to have been "liberated" by the Maoists.
2. One hundred and seventy security forces personnel were killed as against 108 Maoists during the first five months of 2010. 312 security forces personnel were killed as against 294 Maoists during 2009.During 2008, 214 security forces personnel and an equal number of Maoists were killed.
3.During the first five months of 2010, six States have suffered fatalities in the security forces at the hands of Maoists----Chattisgarh (103 ), West Bengal (32), Orissa (17), Jharkand (10), Bihar (6), and Maharashtra (2). The same six States suffered fatalities in 2009 too----- Chattisgarh ( 121), Jharkand (67), Maharashtra ( 52), Orissa (32), Bihar (25 ), and West Bengal (15). While the ground situation has remained as serious in Chattisgarh as it was in 2009, it has deteriorated in West Bengal. There has been a downward trend in Jharkand, Bihar, Orissa and Maharashtra. It is doubtful whether the downward trend in these States can be attributed to an improvement in the performance of the security forces. The security forces in Chattisgarh and West Bengal have been more proactive in countering the Maoists than in the past and the Maoists have stepped up their operations in these two States to discredit the security forces by beating back their stepped-up operations. Their successful operations against the security forces in Chattisgarh and West Bengal have brought them dramatic publicity dividends and succeeded in discrediting the efficacy of the counter-insurgency capability of the security forces.
4. Andhra Pradesh, once a hotbed of Maoist activity, has a unique record of no fatalities of security forces during 2010 and 2009 and only one in 2008. If Andhra Pradesh can prevail over the Maoists, there is no reason why others can’t. At the same time, one has to realize that the Government in Chattisgarh faces certain difficulties the like of which no other Maoist-affected State has faced. Of all the affected States, it has had the least economic development. Its road infrastructure is very poor. It has a large forest cover which favours the Maoists. Compared to the Andhra Pradesh Police, the police of Chattisgarh faces serious deficiencies in manpower and counter-insurgency capacity. It has to depend more on central police forces than its own force for the fight against the Maoists. In Andhra Pradesh, it is the local police which played the leadership role. In Chattisgarh, the leadership role is being played by the Central Reserve Police Force (CRPF). The role of the local police has been marginal. The responsibility for operational planning and other initiatives is largely in the hands of the CRPF, with the local police rarely consulted in the matter.
5. The ultimate outcome of our counter-insurgency operations against the Maoists will be decided in the Dantewada district Chattisgarh, which has become the Yenan of the Indian Maoists . After the failure of the Soviet model and the Long March to achieve the capture of political power in a predominantly rural country like China, Mao Zedong and his lieutenants embarked on the Yenan model, which ultimately led to success in 1949. Yenan is in the Shaanxi province. In his 1971 book titled “The Yenan Way in Revolutionary China”, Mark Selden describes the Yenan Way as the "discovery of concrete methods for linking popular participation in the guerrilla struggle with a wide ranging community attack on rural problems.” The Shaanxi province, one of the most drought and famine affected areas of China, provided to the Chinese Maoists an ideal base for testing their theory of exploiting mass rural discontent for creating an armed struggle against the urban areas.
6.If Yenan saw the beginning of the road of success of the Chinese Revolution, the Dantewada area of the state of Chattisgarh is looked upon by the India Maoists as an ideal base for exploiting tribal discontent to create a revolutionary fervour as a prelude to the capture of political power through an armed struggle waged from the impoverished rural areas. The focus of our counter-insurgency efforts has to be centred in the Dantewada area of Chattisgarh. The Maoists’ dream of capturing political power by exploiting rural/tribal discontent has to be countered through an innovative counter-insurgency programme to deprive the Maoist leadership of the support of the rural/ tribal masses. Strengthening the capability of the police to neutralize the Maoist leadership has to be combined with programmes to address simultaneously the grievances and problems of the masses in order to prevent the flow of volunteers to the People’s Liberation Guerilla Army of the Maoists.
7. Strengthening the capability of the police calls for measures to improve rural policing and rural intelligence collection, crash development of the road infrastructure and new training methods, which would encourage and enable the police to operate in autonomous squads instead of in top-heavy formations. Programmes to address the grievances and problems of the masses would call for energetic political initiatives to promote economic development and a feeling of social justice.
8. The recent spectacular successes of the Maoists have attracted the attention of the international community. From the questions posed to Shri Shiv Shankar Menon, our National Security Adviser, at the Asian security conference currently being held in Singapore, it is evident that sections of the community of analysts in other countries have started posing questions regarding the security of India’s nuclear arsenal should India be unable to reverse the successes of the Maoists. The NSA has explained why the Maoists do not pose a threat to our nuclear arsenal. It is a purely rural-based insurgency with very little support in the urban areas. It is purely an Indian movement with an Indian agenda and not a global movement with a global agenda. Its targets till now have been its perceived class enemies, the security forces and alleged collaborators of the security forces. Barring its attacks on the railway network in different areas, it has not so far attacked strategic targets like critical infrastructure. Its capability for urban-centric operations is very limited. Its tribal recruits from the rural and forest areas will stick out like a sore-thumb in urban areas. It has not so far showed much interest in the exploitation of the Internet for its operations like the jihadi terrorists. Since it recruits mainly from the semi-literate or illiterate tribal communities, Internet has no attraction for them. It has not shown much interest in typical terrorist operations such as aviation or maritime terrorism. It is old insurgency still inspired and influenced by Mao’s Yenan model and not new insurgency.
9. Despite this, our intelligence and security agencies should closely monitor its evolution in order to look for evidence of its planning to adopt a mix of rural insurgency and urban terrorism. ( 6-6-10)
( The writer is Additional Secretary (retd), Cabinet Secretariat, Govt. of India, New Delhi, and, presently, Director, Institute For Topical Studies, Chennai, and Associate of the Chennai Centre For China Studies. E-mail: seventyone2@gmail.com )
The current attrition rate in our counter-insurgency operations against the Maoists favours the Maoists. The State is on the defensive and is not making headway in its operations against them. This would be evident from the fact that more personnel of the security forces are being killed than Maoists, more weapons are being captured by the Maoists from the security forces than the other way round and except in Andhra Pradesh , in the other affected States the Government has not succeeded in re-asserting its control over areas which are claimed to have been "liberated" by the Maoists.
2. One hundred and seventy security forces personnel were killed as against 108 Maoists during the first five months of 2010. 312 security forces personnel were killed as against 294 Maoists during 2009.During 2008, 214 security forces personnel and an equal number of Maoists were killed.
3.During the first five months of 2010, six States have suffered fatalities in the security forces at the hands of Maoists----Chattisgarh (103 ), West Bengal (32), Orissa (17), Jharkand (10), Bihar (6), and Maharashtra (2). The same six States suffered fatalities in 2009 too----- Chattisgarh ( 121), Jharkand (67), Maharashtra ( 52), Orissa (32), Bihar (25 ), and West Bengal (15). While the ground situation has remained as serious in Chattisgarh as it was in 2009, it has deteriorated in West Bengal. There has been a downward trend in Jharkand, Bihar, Orissa and Maharashtra. It is doubtful whether the downward trend in these States can be attributed to an improvement in the performance of the security forces. The security forces in Chattisgarh and West Bengal have been more proactive in countering the Maoists than in the past and the Maoists have stepped up their operations in these two States to discredit the security forces by beating back their stepped-up operations. Their successful operations against the security forces in Chattisgarh and West Bengal have brought them dramatic publicity dividends and succeeded in discrediting the efficacy of the counter-insurgency capability of the security forces.
4. Andhra Pradesh, once a hotbed of Maoist activity, has a unique record of no fatalities of security forces during 2010 and 2009 and only one in 2008. If Andhra Pradesh can prevail over the Maoists, there is no reason why others can’t. At the same time, one has to realize that the Government in Chattisgarh faces certain difficulties the like of which no other Maoist-affected State has faced. Of all the affected States, it has had the least economic development. Its road infrastructure is very poor. It has a large forest cover which favours the Maoists. Compared to the Andhra Pradesh Police, the police of Chattisgarh faces serious deficiencies in manpower and counter-insurgency capacity. It has to depend more on central police forces than its own force for the fight against the Maoists. In Andhra Pradesh, it is the local police which played the leadership role. In Chattisgarh, the leadership role is being played by the Central Reserve Police Force (CRPF). The role of the local police has been marginal. The responsibility for operational planning and other initiatives is largely in the hands of the CRPF, with the local police rarely consulted in the matter.
5. The ultimate outcome of our counter-insurgency operations against the Maoists will be decided in the Dantewada district Chattisgarh, which has become the Yenan of the Indian Maoists . After the failure of the Soviet model and the Long March to achieve the capture of political power in a predominantly rural country like China, Mao Zedong and his lieutenants embarked on the Yenan model, which ultimately led to success in 1949. Yenan is in the Shaanxi province. In his 1971 book titled “The Yenan Way in Revolutionary China”, Mark Selden describes the Yenan Way as the "discovery of concrete methods for linking popular participation in the guerrilla struggle with a wide ranging community attack on rural problems.” The Shaanxi province, one of the most drought and famine affected areas of China, provided to the Chinese Maoists an ideal base for testing their theory of exploiting mass rural discontent for creating an armed struggle against the urban areas.
6.If Yenan saw the beginning of the road of success of the Chinese Revolution, the Dantewada area of the state of Chattisgarh is looked upon by the India Maoists as an ideal base for exploiting tribal discontent to create a revolutionary fervour as a prelude to the capture of political power through an armed struggle waged from the impoverished rural areas. The focus of our counter-insurgency efforts has to be centred in the Dantewada area of Chattisgarh. The Maoists’ dream of capturing political power by exploiting rural/tribal discontent has to be countered through an innovative counter-insurgency programme to deprive the Maoist leadership of the support of the rural/ tribal masses. Strengthening the capability of the police to neutralize the Maoist leadership has to be combined with programmes to address simultaneously the grievances and problems of the masses in order to prevent the flow of volunteers to the People’s Liberation Guerilla Army of the Maoists.
7. Strengthening the capability of the police calls for measures to improve rural policing and rural intelligence collection, crash development of the road infrastructure and new training methods, which would encourage and enable the police to operate in autonomous squads instead of in top-heavy formations. Programmes to address the grievances and problems of the masses would call for energetic political initiatives to promote economic development and a feeling of social justice.
8. The recent spectacular successes of the Maoists have attracted the attention of the international community. From the questions posed to Shri Shiv Shankar Menon, our National Security Adviser, at the Asian security conference currently being held in Singapore, it is evident that sections of the community of analysts in other countries have started posing questions regarding the security of India’s nuclear arsenal should India be unable to reverse the successes of the Maoists. The NSA has explained why the Maoists do not pose a threat to our nuclear arsenal. It is a purely rural-based insurgency with very little support in the urban areas. It is purely an Indian movement with an Indian agenda and not a global movement with a global agenda. Its targets till now have been its perceived class enemies, the security forces and alleged collaborators of the security forces. Barring its attacks on the railway network in different areas, it has not so far attacked strategic targets like critical infrastructure. Its capability for urban-centric operations is very limited. Its tribal recruits from the rural and forest areas will stick out like a sore-thumb in urban areas. It has not so far showed much interest in the exploitation of the Internet for its operations like the jihadi terrorists. Since it recruits mainly from the semi-literate or illiterate tribal communities, Internet has no attraction for them. It has not shown much interest in typical terrorist operations such as aviation or maritime terrorism. It is old insurgency still inspired and influenced by Mao’s Yenan model and not new insurgency.
9. Despite this, our intelligence and security agencies should closely monitor its evolution in order to look for evidence of its planning to adopt a mix of rural insurgency and urban terrorism. ( 6-6-10)
( The writer is Additional Secretary (retd), Cabinet Secretariat, Govt. of India, New Delhi, and, presently, Director, Institute For Topical Studies, Chennai, and Associate of the Chennai Centre For China Studies. E-mail: seventyone2@gmail.com )
Thursday, June 3, 2010
OBAMA: A RE-LOOK AT INDIA
B.RAMAN
Imparting greater importance to the USA's strategic relations with India without adding to the unease of China and Pakistan---- that has emerged as the keynote of the new US strategy towards India.
2. Comments of US leaders and officials in the run-up to the high-level strategic dialogue at the ministerial level currently under way in Washington DC and the pre-announced decision of President Barack Obama to attend the reception being hosted by Mrs.Hillary Clinton, US Secretary of State, in honour of the Indian delegation on June 3,2010, indicate a realisation by the policy-makers of the Obama Administration of the need to take note of the widespread impression in India that since he took over as the President the importance attached to the US relations with India has been downgraded and the warmth towards India at the level of the President, which characterised the attitude of the Bush Administration towards India, has disappeared in less than a year after Mr.Obama took over as the President.
3. Credit for drawing the attention of the Obama Administration to the downslide in the comfort level between the two countries should go to analysts in India as well as the US---- more particularly to the well-wishers of India in US non-governmental circles who kept sounding a wake-up call to the Obama Administration that the gains of the second term of Mr.George Bush when Indo-US relations really started moving forward quantitatively and qualitatively were being diluted by a perceived lack of adequate attention to India.
4. This perceived lack of adequate attention to India could be attributed to Mr.Obama's search for a workable exit policy from Afghanistan before the next Presidential elections for which the co-operation of Pakistan was considered necessary and for a workable economic recovery policy and a nuclear non-proliferation policy towards North Korea and Iran for which the co-operation of China was deemed necessary.
5. There was a compulsion on the Obama Administration to take note of the Pakistani concerns over the growing Indian presence in Afghanistan and of Chinese concerns that the growing Indo-US ties under Mr.Bush were motivated by a common desire to balance China with Japan brought in for this purpose. The first few months of the Obama Administration were devoted to addressing these concerns of Pakistan and China without realising that excessive attention to these concerns could have a negative impact on the relations with India.
6. The open articulation by officials of the Obama Administration and some non-Governmental experts of the concerns of Pakistan over India’s role in Afghanistan and the impression that they wittingly or unwittingly conveyed to India that they found these concerns understandable and the stepped-up military assistance to Pakistan, which was unrelated to its performance in action against terrorists operating from Pakistani territory, created an impression in India of a re-hyphenation of the US policies towards India and Pakistan, which had been discarded by the Bush Administration.
7. The unannounced jettisoning by Mr.Obama of the various strategic initiatives undertaken by the Bush Administration in the US and the Manmohan Singh Government in India for balancing China through enhancing India’s power and status in the Asian region, joint naval exercises in areas of interest to China and by associating Japan with some of these initiatives and his action during his visit to China in November 2009 in reviving the policy of the Clinton Administration of encouraging an activist role for China in South Asia----particularly in Indo-Pakistan matters---- created an impression in India that a convergence of China-related perceptions, which was a defining characteristic of the policies of the Bush Administration towards India was no longer a motivating factor in the White House.
8. These two impressions---which were valid---- tended to weaken the foundations of the Indo-US strategic architecture built up under Mr.Bush. The welcome indications of a greater focus on India in recent weeks and the beginnings of a course correction in policy-making towards India underline a realization by Mr.Obama of the intrinsic importance of a sound and healthy strategic partnership between India and the US. This does not presage a possible downgrading of the importance attached to Pakistan and China.
9.While the Obama Administration is convinced of the need to impart quality and momentum to Indo-US relations, this exercise will be based not on perceptions of common threats facing the two countries, but common ideals such as promotion of democracy and common interests such as counter-terrorism, climate, knowledge and agriculture related initiatives etc.
10. The Obama Administration will take care to ensure that its course corrections give a feeling of satisfaction to India without adding to the concerns of Pakistan and China. Common bilateral ideals and interests will be the motivating factors. Moderating Pakistan and balancing China will not be the motivating factors.
11. While encouraging the Obama Administration’s search for a New Look Indo-US Strategic Partnership by responding positively to its ideas which would be in Indian interest and by coming out with ideas of our own, India should refrain from looking at the US while giving a new direction to its policies towards Pakistan and China. ( 3-6-10)
( The writer is Additional Secretary (retd), Cabinet Secretariat, Govt. of India, New Delhi, and, presently, Director, Institute For Topical Studies, Chennai, and Associate of the Chennai Centre For China Studies. E-mail: seventyone2@gmail.com )
Imparting greater importance to the USA's strategic relations with India without adding to the unease of China and Pakistan---- that has emerged as the keynote of the new US strategy towards India.
2. Comments of US leaders and officials in the run-up to the high-level strategic dialogue at the ministerial level currently under way in Washington DC and the pre-announced decision of President Barack Obama to attend the reception being hosted by Mrs.Hillary Clinton, US Secretary of State, in honour of the Indian delegation on June 3,2010, indicate a realisation by the policy-makers of the Obama Administration of the need to take note of the widespread impression in India that since he took over as the President the importance attached to the US relations with India has been downgraded and the warmth towards India at the level of the President, which characterised the attitude of the Bush Administration towards India, has disappeared in less than a year after Mr.Obama took over as the President.
3. Credit for drawing the attention of the Obama Administration to the downslide in the comfort level between the two countries should go to analysts in India as well as the US---- more particularly to the well-wishers of India in US non-governmental circles who kept sounding a wake-up call to the Obama Administration that the gains of the second term of Mr.George Bush when Indo-US relations really started moving forward quantitatively and qualitatively were being diluted by a perceived lack of adequate attention to India.
4. This perceived lack of adequate attention to India could be attributed to Mr.Obama's search for a workable exit policy from Afghanistan before the next Presidential elections for which the co-operation of Pakistan was considered necessary and for a workable economic recovery policy and a nuclear non-proliferation policy towards North Korea and Iran for which the co-operation of China was deemed necessary.
5. There was a compulsion on the Obama Administration to take note of the Pakistani concerns over the growing Indian presence in Afghanistan and of Chinese concerns that the growing Indo-US ties under Mr.Bush were motivated by a common desire to balance China with Japan brought in for this purpose. The first few months of the Obama Administration were devoted to addressing these concerns of Pakistan and China without realising that excessive attention to these concerns could have a negative impact on the relations with India.
6. The open articulation by officials of the Obama Administration and some non-Governmental experts of the concerns of Pakistan over India’s role in Afghanistan and the impression that they wittingly or unwittingly conveyed to India that they found these concerns understandable and the stepped-up military assistance to Pakistan, which was unrelated to its performance in action against terrorists operating from Pakistani territory, created an impression in India of a re-hyphenation of the US policies towards India and Pakistan, which had been discarded by the Bush Administration.
7. The unannounced jettisoning by Mr.Obama of the various strategic initiatives undertaken by the Bush Administration in the US and the Manmohan Singh Government in India for balancing China through enhancing India’s power and status in the Asian region, joint naval exercises in areas of interest to China and by associating Japan with some of these initiatives and his action during his visit to China in November 2009 in reviving the policy of the Clinton Administration of encouraging an activist role for China in South Asia----particularly in Indo-Pakistan matters---- created an impression in India that a convergence of China-related perceptions, which was a defining characteristic of the policies of the Bush Administration towards India was no longer a motivating factor in the White House.
8. These two impressions---which were valid---- tended to weaken the foundations of the Indo-US strategic architecture built up under Mr.Bush. The welcome indications of a greater focus on India in recent weeks and the beginnings of a course correction in policy-making towards India underline a realization by Mr.Obama of the intrinsic importance of a sound and healthy strategic partnership between India and the US. This does not presage a possible downgrading of the importance attached to Pakistan and China.
9.While the Obama Administration is convinced of the need to impart quality and momentum to Indo-US relations, this exercise will be based not on perceptions of common threats facing the two countries, but common ideals such as promotion of democracy and common interests such as counter-terrorism, climate, knowledge and agriculture related initiatives etc.
10. The Obama Administration will take care to ensure that its course corrections give a feeling of satisfaction to India without adding to the concerns of Pakistan and China. Common bilateral ideals and interests will be the motivating factors. Moderating Pakistan and balancing China will not be the motivating factors.
11. While encouraging the Obama Administration’s search for a New Look Indo-US Strategic Partnership by responding positively to its ideas which would be in Indian interest and by coming out with ideas of our own, India should refrain from looking at the US while giving a new direction to its policies towards Pakistan and China. ( 3-6-10)
( The writer is Additional Secretary (retd), Cabinet Secretariat, Govt. of India, New Delhi, and, presently, Director, Institute For Topical Studies, Chennai, and Associate of the Chennai Centre For China Studies. E-mail: seventyone2@gmail.com )
Wednesday, June 2, 2010
FREEDOM CONVOY FOR PAKISTANI GAZA: S.O.S FROM SHIAS
B.RAMAN
An S.O.S.message has been disseminated through the Internet by an organisation calling itself the Voice of Parachinar in the Kurram Agency of the Federally-Administered Tribal Areas (FATA) of Pakistan, which, it is believed, represents the Shias of the Agency against whom an economic blockade has been imposed by the Sunni extremists of the Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) and the Lashkar-e-JhangvI (LEJ) for over two years now without any action allegedly being taken by the Government of Pakistan to break the blockade. The message is reproduced below in Annexure I as it was received without correcting the spelling or grammar mistakes in the text. This may please be read in continuation of my article of September 3,2008, titled KURRAM AGENCY CONTINUES TO BLEED---International Terrorism Monitor---Paper No. 435 at http://www.southasiaanalysis.org/%5Cpapers29%5Cpaper2829.html which is at Annexure II. (3-6-10)
( The writer is Additional Secretary (retd), Cabinet Secretariat, Govt. of India, New Delhi, and, presently, Director, Institute For Topical Studies, Chennai, and Associate of the Chennai Centre For China Studies. E-mail: seventyoone2@gmail.com )
ANNEXURE I
OPEN LETTER:-FREEDOM CONVEY needed for pakistani Gaza(Parachinar) also & SALAM Plus tribute to Syed Talat Hussain.
We SALAM and pay our tribute to great Pakistani Journalist/Anchor Syed Talat Hussain for being a part of Freedom Flotila to end the Zionists siege imposed on Gaza strip.It is worth mentioning here that We the people of Pakistani Gaza(PARACHINAR) are also facing inhuman siege imposed jointly by militants so called Taliban(worse than Zionists) and establishment since April 2007 as the Gaza in palestine. And It was the same courageous Journalist/Anchor Syed Talt Hussain who only visited the Be-sieged Pakistani Gaza(PARACHINAR)and highlighited the misries and problems of the area in his Programme Live with Talt.Great syed talat Hussain for highlighting oppressed areas.
We demand the Pakistani Civil society ,media & Human Rights that they should try to broke the three years continous inhuman siege and blockadge of Pakistani Gaza(Parachinar) by sending FREEDOM CONVEY to end the Humantarian Crisis.
For this the boldness and courage like Syed talat Hussain is required if someone have.
We also want to FOCUS Via Media the step mother treatment of PIA that it have daily two flights to Gligit from Islamabad & Similarly from Peshawar to Chitral with nominal charges of Rs3500/-per head.
In PARACHINAR a full pledge Airport bigger than Chitral is present BUT PIA do not resume/start Flights to Parachinar EVEN the Parachinar is facing 3 years long imposed siege & blockagde jointly by estiblishment & milltants Taliban..................
Here it is the matter of great concern that Private aeroplanes of Peshawar Flying Club and one write-off plane of governor(Capicity of three & five seats respectively) are going to Peshawar charging Rs 9300/- per passenger as one side fare. Sources says that the PA admin(bureaucracy) & governor are reciving commission in flying club planes fare that is why they are creating hardles in starts or resun=ming of PIA Flights for Parachinar.As the demand supply is not fulfilled from these planes Therefore regular two PIA Flights are immediately required.
With addition to this on may31.2010 Chief or army staff visted Parachinar with three protocols helicopters But he did not announced Heli Service or C130 service for Be-siege Parachinar people…
RAISE & SHARE THIS ISSUE SO THAAT GOVT & PIA can start Daily Flights to parachinar.
BY:-PATRIOTIC TURI & BANGASH TRIBALS PEOPLE OF PARACHINAR VIA VOICE OF PARACHINAR.(E-MAIL FOR CONTACT/FEEDBACK:- voiceofparachinar.pakistan@gmail.com
ANNEXURE II
3-Sep.-2008
KURRAM AGENCY CONTINUES TO BLEED---International Terrorism Monitor---Paper No. 435 (http://www.southasiaanalysis.org/%5Cpapers29%5Cpaper2829.html )
By B. Raman
(An update of my earlier articles on the subject written since November 20, 2007)
"Al Qaeda is trying to replicate Iraq in Pakistan by exacerbating the already existing divide between the Shias and the Sunnis in the civil society as well as in the Army." --- Extract from my earlier paper of November 15, 2007, titled "The State of Jihadi Terrorism in Pakistan" at http://www.southasiaanalysis.org/papers25/paper2459.html
Till 1977, the Shias were in a preponderant majority in the Kurram Agency in Pakistan's Federally-Administered Tribal Areas (FATA) on its border with Afghanistan and in the Northern Areas (Gilgit and Baltistan) of Jammu and Kashmir, which is presently under Pakistani occupation.
2. After the triumph of the Islamic Revolution in Iran in February, 1979, there was a radicalisation of the Shias of these areas. They started demanding the creation of a separate Shia majority province to be called the Karakoram Province, consisting of the Kurram Agency, the Northern Areas and other contiguous Shia majority areas. The leadership of this movement came mainly from the Turi tribe of the Kurram Agency. The movement was allegedly funded by the Iranian intelligence.
3. Gen. Zia-ul-Haq put down this movement ruthlessly. He also started a policy of re-settling the Sunnis in these areas in order to control the Shias and dilute their preponderant majority. While Sunni ex-servicemen from other parts of Pakistan were re-settled in the Northern Areas, Afghan Sunni refugees from the refugee camps were re-settled in the Kurram Agency. This led to widespread resentment among the Shias against the Government as well as the Sunni settlers. The Iraqi intelligence of Saddam Hussein too allegedly funded these Sunni settlers in the Kurram Agency to enable them to fight the radical Shias.
4. There were serious riots in Gilgit in 1988 which were ruthlessly put down by Zia with the help of a combined force of Sunni tribals and Arabs led by Osama bin Laden. Hundreds of Shias were killed. It is generally believed that the anger caused by this massacre contributed to the death of Zia-ul-Haq in a plane crash in August 1988. Enquiries into the crash reportedly brought out that the crash took place when a Shia airman belonging to Gilgit released tear-smoke or some other gas in the cockpit, thereby disorienting the crew.
5. The Kurram Agency has also been the scene of frequent Shia-Sunni clashes, with most of the attacks by the Shias directed against the Afghan and Pakistani Sunni settlers brought in by Zia. There were three major Shia-Sunni clashes in the Agency in 1983, 1988 and 1996, which resulted in the deaths of a total of 1,200 persons belonging to both the sects.
6. There was a recrudescence of the violence in April, 2007, after a gap of 11 years. For nearly three weeks from April 6, 2007, the Kurram Agency became the scene of a no-holds barred jihad waged by the local Shias and Sunnis against each other following an incident of firing allegedly by the Shias on a procession taken out by the Sunnis to mark the Holy Prophet's birthday. The local adherents of the two sects of Islam used not only small arms and ammunition, but also mortars and rocket-launchers against each other, resulting in heavy casualties. The clashes initially started in Parachinar, the capital of the Agency. It then spread to the interior areas. The imposition of a curfew by the Pakistani authorities and severe action against the local leaders and volunteers of the two sects ultimately restored an uneasy normalcy. The Pakistan Army extensively used helicopter gunships to put down the violence.
7. There were conflicting figures of the fatalities inflicted by the two sects against each other and by the security forces on the warring sects. While the Pakistani authorities estimated the total number of fatalities as around 50, non-Governmental sources estimated that at least 80 persons died in the violence.
8. During the clashes of April, 2007, the local leaders of the two sects accused the Pakistani Army of siding with the other sect. Some Sunni leaders also accused Iran of fomenting the Shia attacks against the Sunnis.
9. Addressing the media at the Peshawar Press Club on April 9, 2007, Mast Gul, a Sunni jihadi leader, alleged that since April 6, 2007, Shias had killed hundreds of innocent Sunnis. According to him, just on one day about 28 Sunni women and children were slaughtered in the Kurram Agency. He accused Iran of providing financial resources and weapons to the Shias in the Agency. He warned the Pakistan Army that if it did not take effective action against the Shias, he would appeal to the Sunnis in the other parts of Pakistan and in Jammu and Kashmir to come to Kurram and help the local Sunnis.
10. Mast Gul used to belong to the Harkat-ul-Mujahideen (HUM), which is a founding member of Osama bin Laden's International Islamic Front (IIF) formed in 1998. He used to operate in J&K till 1995. He and his followers were responsible for the burning down of the Islamic holy shrine at Charar-e-Sharief in J&K in 1995.
11. After violence instigated by Al Qaeda and pro-Al Qaeda Sunni tribal elements escalated in South and North Waziristan in October, 2007, there were reports of fresh tension in the Kurram Agency in the wake of reports that the jihadi terrorists loyal to Osama bin Laden were targeting the Shia members of the Frontier Constabulary and the Frontier Corps deployed in these two Agencies. It was alleged that while the terrorists brutally killed the captured Shia soldiers, they let free the Sunnis. Some of the Shias beheaded by the terrorists belonged to the predominantly Shia tribe of Turis in the Kurram Agency. Some Shia leaders of the civil society in these two agencies were also targeted by pro-Al Qaeda elements and killed.
12. These incidents led to a fresh outbreak of violence between the Shias and the Sunnis in the Kurram Agency since the night of November 15, 2007. Despite the imposition of a curfew by the Pakistani authorities and the use of helicopter gunships to quell the riots, violence continued for days. It was reported that the fighting in November was more fierce than in April, 2007, and that about 100 persons, including 11 members of the para-military forces, died in the violence. Police sources suspected that the fresh violence had been engineered by Al Qaeda in order to divert the attention of the Pakistan army from its on-going operations against the jihadis in the Swat Valley.
13. In December, 2007, there was a fresh flare-up of clashes between the Shia Turi tribals and Sunni tribals belonging to Al Qaeda and the newly-formed Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP). Many of the Sunni tribals involved in the fresh clashes had reportedly infiltrated into the agency from South Waziristan and the Swat Valley.
14. During the clashes of December, 2007, the Shias and the Sunnis used mortars, rocket launchers etc against each other's places of worship and schools, causing large casualties and severe damages to places of worship. Each side accused the other of starting the fresh violence. There were over 150 fatalities in the intermittent clashes, which continued for over a month. The Taliban and Al Qaeda also targeted the Shia members of the local para-military forces.
15. The Pakistan Army, which was preoccupied with the operations against the Tehrik-e-Nifaz-e-Shariat-e-Mohammadi (TNSM) in the Swat Valley of the North-West Frontier Province (NWFP) during December,2007, was not in a position to send reinforcements to the Kurram Agency. It left the anti-Al Qaeda and anti-Taliban operations there in the hands of the para-military forces. Their requests for helicopter gunships were not accepted. The Shias hit back at Al Qaeda and Taliban elements with considerable effectiveness. The Sunni leaders once again accused Iran of sending arms and ammunition to the local Shias. This was denied by the local Shia leaders.
16. While official spokesmen and the Pakistani mainstream media refrained from identifying the dramatis personae and giving details of the fighting, the "Frontier Post" of Peshawar (December 27, 2007) reported, inter alia, as follows: "It is worth mentioning that the recent clashes started when a group of local Taliban militants attacked and opened fire on security forces (FC) at Sada. Plus they also attacked the nearby Balishkhel village where Turi tribe is living. As the Sada is the strongest base of Taliban militants therefore the government writ is nil; that is why due to lack of monitoring and writ of government, clashes spread throughout the Kurram Agency and now its control is quiet difficult due to invasion of Taliban militants."
17. The "Post", another Pakistani daily, reported as follows on December 31, 2007: "A delegation of notables from Kurram Agency has appealed to President Pervez Musharraf and Chief of Army Staff Gen Ashfaq Pervez Kiyani to stop the ongoing violence that has resulted in the loss of more than 100 lives and billions of rupees' worth of property. Haji Latif Hussain, President, Kurram Welfare Society, said the residents had been fighting the Taliban infiltrating from Afghanistan, North and South Waziristan and Al Qaeda operatives in the area who were thousands in number. He added over 70 people had been killed in furious clashes during the last 45 days. "The armed forces of Pakistan are playing the role of silent spectators instead of countering the attackers and protecting the residents under attack," he said.Latif Hussain said Al Qaeda fighters had occupied various areas of Kurram Agency and blocked the main road from Peshawar to Parachinar, resulting in a shortage of basic commodities. "There is an acute shortage of medicines, food, electricity and water," he added. The Kurram Welfare Society President said that as a result of the war, hundreds of women, children and the elderly had taken refuge in Peshawar while over a hundred students who were unable to move to their native areas because of the war had been forced to stay in Islamabad. Mehdi Ghulam from Kurram Agency said Alizai, Balyamin, Tangi Amro Khail, Arravali, Santikot, Singk, Burqi and Pevar were under Taliban and Al Qaeda attacks while dozens of injured were waiting for their death in the Parachinar hospital owing to a shortage of medicines. He said that although the current confrontation was not sectarian, shrines and mosques of both Sunni and Shiite sects were being damaged by Taliban and Al Qaeda forces. Mehdi said that in Pevar firing from the other side of the border was causing multiple deaths daily. Muhammad Hussain Turi, secretary, Ittehad-e-Ummat Committee, said: "We are not only fighting for our lives and the area but also for the sovereignty of our country. We are fighting the international war against terrorism on our borders by shedding our blood but, instead of helping us, everyone is creating trouble for us by trying to stop us from defending our area." Turi appealed to the President and the Chief of the Army Staff to issue a directive to the army to intervene to save the lives of thousands of people. Gull Ishrat, member, Kurram Welfare Society, said: "We are fighting the battle of the Pakistan Army against those who managed to escape from Swat, Bajaur, North and South Waziristan and Afghanistan and are involved in furious attacks on the Pakistan Army."
18. The clashes, which never really stopped, have picked up fresh intensity since the beginning of July, 2008, reportedly resulting in over a thousand fatalities on both sides. The Shias have been fighting with great ferocity. According to some accounts, there have been more fatalities among the Sunnis than among the Shias. Since the beginning of this year, the blood-letting has been worse in the Kurram Agency than it has been in the Bajaur, South Waziristan and the North Waziristan Agencies of the FATA. The permanent sanctuaries of Al Qaeda and the Taliban are located in Bajaur and the two Waziristans. There has been blood-letting in the Swat Valley of the North-West Frontier Province (NWFP) too. The US has been repeatedly expressing its concern over the activities of Al Qaeda and the Taliban in Bajaur and the two Waziristans. The situation there has repeatedly found mention in US Congressional testimonies and in the statements of US military officers. The spokesmen of the Afghan National Army too have been expressing their worries over the situation there. The US and the Hamid Karzai Government have been repeatedly urging the Pakistan Army to do more against Al Qaeda and the Taliban in those areas.
19. But, surprisingly---- and intriguingly--- they have been silent on the terrible blood-letting in the Kurram Agency. The situation in Kurram hardly finds mention in US testimonies and statements. There has hardly been any pressure on Pakistan to do more to bring the situation in Kurram under control. Everybody---- Pakistan, the US, Afghanistan, Iran and Al Qaeda---- have been behaving as if it suits them fine if the Shias and the Sunnis---Pakistani and Afghan--- keep killing each other in the Kurram Agency. The more the Sunnis killed by the Shias in Kurram, the less the problems for Pakistan, the US and Afghanistan in Bajaur and the two Waziristans and the less the problems for Iran in its Sunni-majority Baloch areas. Iran suspects that the so-called Jundullahs (Soldiers of Allah) attacking, kidnapping and killing Iranian National Guards in its Baloch areas are operating from sanctuaries in Kurram. The more the Shias killed by the Sunnis, the better it is for Al Qaeda, which suspects that many of the newly-recruited human sources of the US Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) in the Pashtun tribal belt come from the anti-Sunni Shia community. So money and arms and ammunition keep flowing to the two warring communities.
20. The Shia community in the rest of Pakistan is getting increasingly restive over what it sees as the strange silence of the Pakistan Army over the continuing violence in Kurram.While Sunni Pashtuns from other parts of the FATA and the NWFP have been going to the assistance of the Sunnis of Kurram, Shias from other parts of Pakistan have not been doing so till now, but they are now threatening to go in large numbers to Kurram to join the Shia jihad against the Sunnis.
21. On September 1, 2008, a big Shia demonstration was held in Karachi at which Shia leaders warned the Government that if the eight-month long siege and economic blockade in Kurram Agency by the Taliban is not ended, they would issue a call for a long march to the Kurram Agency to free the besieged Shias by force. The demonstrators shouted slogans against the Government over its failure to stop the aggression of the Taliban against the Shia community in the Kurram Agency and Dera Ismail Khan in the NWFP.
(The writer is Additional Secretary (retd), Cabinet Secretariat, Govt. of India, New Delhi, and, presently, Director, Institute For Topical Studies, Chennai. E-mail: seventyone2@gmail.com)
An S.O.S.message has been disseminated through the Internet by an organisation calling itself the Voice of Parachinar in the Kurram Agency of the Federally-Administered Tribal Areas (FATA) of Pakistan, which, it is believed, represents the Shias of the Agency against whom an economic blockade has been imposed by the Sunni extremists of the Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) and the Lashkar-e-JhangvI (LEJ) for over two years now without any action allegedly being taken by the Government of Pakistan to break the blockade. The message is reproduced below in Annexure I as it was received without correcting the spelling or grammar mistakes in the text. This may please be read in continuation of my article of September 3,2008, titled KURRAM AGENCY CONTINUES TO BLEED---International Terrorism Monitor---Paper No. 435 at http://www.southasiaanalysis.org/%5Cpapers29%5Cpaper2829.html which is at Annexure II. (3-6-10)
( The writer is Additional Secretary (retd), Cabinet Secretariat, Govt. of India, New Delhi, and, presently, Director, Institute For Topical Studies, Chennai, and Associate of the Chennai Centre For China Studies. E-mail: seventyoone2@gmail.com )
ANNEXURE I
OPEN LETTER:-FREEDOM CONVEY needed for pakistani Gaza(Parachinar) also & SALAM Plus tribute to Syed Talat Hussain.
We SALAM and pay our tribute to great Pakistani Journalist/Anchor Syed Talat Hussain for being a part of Freedom Flotila to end the Zionists siege imposed on Gaza strip.It is worth mentioning here that We the people of Pakistani Gaza(PARACHINAR) are also facing inhuman siege imposed jointly by militants so called Taliban(worse than Zionists) and establishment since April 2007 as the Gaza in palestine. And It was the same courageous Journalist/Anchor Syed Talt Hussain who only visited the Be-sieged Pakistani Gaza(PARACHINAR)and highlighited the misries and problems of the area in his Programme Live with Talt.Great syed talat Hussain for highlighting oppressed areas.
We demand the Pakistani Civil society ,media & Human Rights that they should try to broke the three years continous inhuman siege and blockadge of Pakistani Gaza(Parachinar) by sending FREEDOM CONVEY to end the Humantarian Crisis.
For this the boldness and courage like Syed talat Hussain is required if someone have.
We also want to FOCUS Via Media the step mother treatment of PIA that it have daily two flights to Gligit from Islamabad & Similarly from Peshawar to Chitral with nominal charges of Rs3500/-per head.
In PARACHINAR a full pledge Airport bigger than Chitral is present BUT PIA do not resume/start Flights to Parachinar EVEN the Parachinar is facing 3 years long imposed siege & blockagde jointly by estiblishment & milltants Taliban..................
Here it is the matter of great concern that Private aeroplanes of Peshawar Flying Club and one write-off plane of governor(Capicity of three & five seats respectively) are going to Peshawar charging Rs 9300/- per passenger as one side fare. Sources says that the PA admin(bureaucracy) & governor are reciving commission in flying club planes fare that is why they are creating hardles in starts or resun=ming of PIA Flights for Parachinar.As the demand supply is not fulfilled from these planes Therefore regular two PIA Flights are immediately required.
With addition to this on may31.2010 Chief or army staff visted Parachinar with three protocols helicopters But he did not announced Heli Service or C130 service for Be-siege Parachinar people…
RAISE & SHARE THIS ISSUE SO THAAT GOVT & PIA can start Daily Flights to parachinar.
BY:-PATRIOTIC TURI & BANGASH TRIBALS PEOPLE OF PARACHINAR VIA VOICE OF PARACHINAR.(E-MAIL FOR CONTACT/FEEDBACK:- voiceofparachinar.pakistan@gmail.com
ANNEXURE II
3-Sep.-2008
KURRAM AGENCY CONTINUES TO BLEED---International Terrorism Monitor---Paper No. 435 (http://www.southasiaanalysis.org/%5Cpapers29%5Cpaper2829.html )
By B. Raman
(An update of my earlier articles on the subject written since November 20, 2007)
"Al Qaeda is trying to replicate Iraq in Pakistan by exacerbating the already existing divide between the Shias and the Sunnis in the civil society as well as in the Army." --- Extract from my earlier paper of November 15, 2007, titled "The State of Jihadi Terrorism in Pakistan" at http://www.southasiaanalysis.org/papers25/paper2459.html
Till 1977, the Shias were in a preponderant majority in the Kurram Agency in Pakistan's Federally-Administered Tribal Areas (FATA) on its border with Afghanistan and in the Northern Areas (Gilgit and Baltistan) of Jammu and Kashmir, which is presently under Pakistani occupation.
2. After the triumph of the Islamic Revolution in Iran in February, 1979, there was a radicalisation of the Shias of these areas. They started demanding the creation of a separate Shia majority province to be called the Karakoram Province, consisting of the Kurram Agency, the Northern Areas and other contiguous Shia majority areas. The leadership of this movement came mainly from the Turi tribe of the Kurram Agency. The movement was allegedly funded by the Iranian intelligence.
3. Gen. Zia-ul-Haq put down this movement ruthlessly. He also started a policy of re-settling the Sunnis in these areas in order to control the Shias and dilute their preponderant majority. While Sunni ex-servicemen from other parts of Pakistan were re-settled in the Northern Areas, Afghan Sunni refugees from the refugee camps were re-settled in the Kurram Agency. This led to widespread resentment among the Shias against the Government as well as the Sunni settlers. The Iraqi intelligence of Saddam Hussein too allegedly funded these Sunni settlers in the Kurram Agency to enable them to fight the radical Shias.
4. There were serious riots in Gilgit in 1988 which were ruthlessly put down by Zia with the help of a combined force of Sunni tribals and Arabs led by Osama bin Laden. Hundreds of Shias were killed. It is generally believed that the anger caused by this massacre contributed to the death of Zia-ul-Haq in a plane crash in August 1988. Enquiries into the crash reportedly brought out that the crash took place when a Shia airman belonging to Gilgit released tear-smoke or some other gas in the cockpit, thereby disorienting the crew.
5. The Kurram Agency has also been the scene of frequent Shia-Sunni clashes, with most of the attacks by the Shias directed against the Afghan and Pakistani Sunni settlers brought in by Zia. There were three major Shia-Sunni clashes in the Agency in 1983, 1988 and 1996, which resulted in the deaths of a total of 1,200 persons belonging to both the sects.
6. There was a recrudescence of the violence in April, 2007, after a gap of 11 years. For nearly three weeks from April 6, 2007, the Kurram Agency became the scene of a no-holds barred jihad waged by the local Shias and Sunnis against each other following an incident of firing allegedly by the Shias on a procession taken out by the Sunnis to mark the Holy Prophet's birthday. The local adherents of the two sects of Islam used not only small arms and ammunition, but also mortars and rocket-launchers against each other, resulting in heavy casualties. The clashes initially started in Parachinar, the capital of the Agency. It then spread to the interior areas. The imposition of a curfew by the Pakistani authorities and severe action against the local leaders and volunteers of the two sects ultimately restored an uneasy normalcy. The Pakistan Army extensively used helicopter gunships to put down the violence.
7. There were conflicting figures of the fatalities inflicted by the two sects against each other and by the security forces on the warring sects. While the Pakistani authorities estimated the total number of fatalities as around 50, non-Governmental sources estimated that at least 80 persons died in the violence.
8. During the clashes of April, 2007, the local leaders of the two sects accused the Pakistani Army of siding with the other sect. Some Sunni leaders also accused Iran of fomenting the Shia attacks against the Sunnis.
9. Addressing the media at the Peshawar Press Club on April 9, 2007, Mast Gul, a Sunni jihadi leader, alleged that since April 6, 2007, Shias had killed hundreds of innocent Sunnis. According to him, just on one day about 28 Sunni women and children were slaughtered in the Kurram Agency. He accused Iran of providing financial resources and weapons to the Shias in the Agency. He warned the Pakistan Army that if it did not take effective action against the Shias, he would appeal to the Sunnis in the other parts of Pakistan and in Jammu and Kashmir to come to Kurram and help the local Sunnis.
10. Mast Gul used to belong to the Harkat-ul-Mujahideen (HUM), which is a founding member of Osama bin Laden's International Islamic Front (IIF) formed in 1998. He used to operate in J&K till 1995. He and his followers were responsible for the burning down of the Islamic holy shrine at Charar-e-Sharief in J&K in 1995.
11. After violence instigated by Al Qaeda and pro-Al Qaeda Sunni tribal elements escalated in South and North Waziristan in October, 2007, there were reports of fresh tension in the Kurram Agency in the wake of reports that the jihadi terrorists loyal to Osama bin Laden were targeting the Shia members of the Frontier Constabulary and the Frontier Corps deployed in these two Agencies. It was alleged that while the terrorists brutally killed the captured Shia soldiers, they let free the Sunnis. Some of the Shias beheaded by the terrorists belonged to the predominantly Shia tribe of Turis in the Kurram Agency. Some Shia leaders of the civil society in these two agencies were also targeted by pro-Al Qaeda elements and killed.
12. These incidents led to a fresh outbreak of violence between the Shias and the Sunnis in the Kurram Agency since the night of November 15, 2007. Despite the imposition of a curfew by the Pakistani authorities and the use of helicopter gunships to quell the riots, violence continued for days. It was reported that the fighting in November was more fierce than in April, 2007, and that about 100 persons, including 11 members of the para-military forces, died in the violence. Police sources suspected that the fresh violence had been engineered by Al Qaeda in order to divert the attention of the Pakistan army from its on-going operations against the jihadis in the Swat Valley.
13. In December, 2007, there was a fresh flare-up of clashes between the Shia Turi tribals and Sunni tribals belonging to Al Qaeda and the newly-formed Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP). Many of the Sunni tribals involved in the fresh clashes had reportedly infiltrated into the agency from South Waziristan and the Swat Valley.
14. During the clashes of December, 2007, the Shias and the Sunnis used mortars, rocket launchers etc against each other's places of worship and schools, causing large casualties and severe damages to places of worship. Each side accused the other of starting the fresh violence. There were over 150 fatalities in the intermittent clashes, which continued for over a month. The Taliban and Al Qaeda also targeted the Shia members of the local para-military forces.
15. The Pakistan Army, which was preoccupied with the operations against the Tehrik-e-Nifaz-e-Shariat-e-Mohammadi (TNSM) in the Swat Valley of the North-West Frontier Province (NWFP) during December,2007, was not in a position to send reinforcements to the Kurram Agency. It left the anti-Al Qaeda and anti-Taliban operations there in the hands of the para-military forces. Their requests for helicopter gunships were not accepted. The Shias hit back at Al Qaeda and Taliban elements with considerable effectiveness. The Sunni leaders once again accused Iran of sending arms and ammunition to the local Shias. This was denied by the local Shia leaders.
16. While official spokesmen and the Pakistani mainstream media refrained from identifying the dramatis personae and giving details of the fighting, the "Frontier Post" of Peshawar (December 27, 2007) reported, inter alia, as follows: "It is worth mentioning that the recent clashes started when a group of local Taliban militants attacked and opened fire on security forces (FC) at Sada. Plus they also attacked the nearby Balishkhel village where Turi tribe is living. As the Sada is the strongest base of Taliban militants therefore the government writ is nil; that is why due to lack of monitoring and writ of government, clashes spread throughout the Kurram Agency and now its control is quiet difficult due to invasion of Taliban militants."
17. The "Post", another Pakistani daily, reported as follows on December 31, 2007: "A delegation of notables from Kurram Agency has appealed to President Pervez Musharraf and Chief of Army Staff Gen Ashfaq Pervez Kiyani to stop the ongoing violence that has resulted in the loss of more than 100 lives and billions of rupees' worth of property. Haji Latif Hussain, President, Kurram Welfare Society, said the residents had been fighting the Taliban infiltrating from Afghanistan, North and South Waziristan and Al Qaeda operatives in the area who were thousands in number. He added over 70 people had been killed in furious clashes during the last 45 days. "The armed forces of Pakistan are playing the role of silent spectators instead of countering the attackers and protecting the residents under attack," he said.Latif Hussain said Al Qaeda fighters had occupied various areas of Kurram Agency and blocked the main road from Peshawar to Parachinar, resulting in a shortage of basic commodities. "There is an acute shortage of medicines, food, electricity and water," he added. The Kurram Welfare Society President said that as a result of the war, hundreds of women, children and the elderly had taken refuge in Peshawar while over a hundred students who were unable to move to their native areas because of the war had been forced to stay in Islamabad. Mehdi Ghulam from Kurram Agency said Alizai, Balyamin, Tangi Amro Khail, Arravali, Santikot, Singk, Burqi and Pevar were under Taliban and Al Qaeda attacks while dozens of injured were waiting for their death in the Parachinar hospital owing to a shortage of medicines. He said that although the current confrontation was not sectarian, shrines and mosques of both Sunni and Shiite sects were being damaged by Taliban and Al Qaeda forces. Mehdi said that in Pevar firing from the other side of the border was causing multiple deaths daily. Muhammad Hussain Turi, secretary, Ittehad-e-Ummat Committee, said: "We are not only fighting for our lives and the area but also for the sovereignty of our country. We are fighting the international war against terrorism on our borders by shedding our blood but, instead of helping us, everyone is creating trouble for us by trying to stop us from defending our area." Turi appealed to the President and the Chief of the Army Staff to issue a directive to the army to intervene to save the lives of thousands of people. Gull Ishrat, member, Kurram Welfare Society, said: "We are fighting the battle of the Pakistan Army against those who managed to escape from Swat, Bajaur, North and South Waziristan and Afghanistan and are involved in furious attacks on the Pakistan Army."
18. The clashes, which never really stopped, have picked up fresh intensity since the beginning of July, 2008, reportedly resulting in over a thousand fatalities on both sides. The Shias have been fighting with great ferocity. According to some accounts, there have been more fatalities among the Sunnis than among the Shias. Since the beginning of this year, the blood-letting has been worse in the Kurram Agency than it has been in the Bajaur, South Waziristan and the North Waziristan Agencies of the FATA. The permanent sanctuaries of Al Qaeda and the Taliban are located in Bajaur and the two Waziristans. There has been blood-letting in the Swat Valley of the North-West Frontier Province (NWFP) too. The US has been repeatedly expressing its concern over the activities of Al Qaeda and the Taliban in Bajaur and the two Waziristans. The situation there has repeatedly found mention in US Congressional testimonies and in the statements of US military officers. The spokesmen of the Afghan National Army too have been expressing their worries over the situation there. The US and the Hamid Karzai Government have been repeatedly urging the Pakistan Army to do more against Al Qaeda and the Taliban in those areas.
19. But, surprisingly---- and intriguingly--- they have been silent on the terrible blood-letting in the Kurram Agency. The situation in Kurram hardly finds mention in US testimonies and statements. There has hardly been any pressure on Pakistan to do more to bring the situation in Kurram under control. Everybody---- Pakistan, the US, Afghanistan, Iran and Al Qaeda---- have been behaving as if it suits them fine if the Shias and the Sunnis---Pakistani and Afghan--- keep killing each other in the Kurram Agency. The more the Sunnis killed by the Shias in Kurram, the less the problems for Pakistan, the US and Afghanistan in Bajaur and the two Waziristans and the less the problems for Iran in its Sunni-majority Baloch areas. Iran suspects that the so-called Jundullahs (Soldiers of Allah) attacking, kidnapping and killing Iranian National Guards in its Baloch areas are operating from sanctuaries in Kurram. The more the Shias killed by the Sunnis, the better it is for Al Qaeda, which suspects that many of the newly-recruited human sources of the US Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) in the Pashtun tribal belt come from the anti-Sunni Shia community. So money and arms and ammunition keep flowing to the two warring communities.
20. The Shia community in the rest of Pakistan is getting increasingly restive over what it sees as the strange silence of the Pakistan Army over the continuing violence in Kurram.While Sunni Pashtuns from other parts of the FATA and the NWFP have been going to the assistance of the Sunnis of Kurram, Shias from other parts of Pakistan have not been doing so till now, but they are now threatening to go in large numbers to Kurram to join the Shia jihad against the Sunnis.
21. On September 1, 2008, a big Shia demonstration was held in Karachi at which Shia leaders warned the Government that if the eight-month long siege and economic blockade in Kurram Agency by the Taliban is not ended, they would issue a call for a long march to the Kurram Agency to free the besieged Shias by force. The demonstrators shouted slogans against the Government over its failure to stop the aggression of the Taliban against the Shia community in the Kurram Agency and Dera Ismail Khan in the NWFP.
(The writer is Additional Secretary (retd), Cabinet Secretariat, Govt. of India, New Delhi, and, presently, Director, Institute For Topical Studies, Chennai. E-mail: seventyone2@gmail.com)
Tuesday, June 1, 2010
ISRAELI ACTION AGAINST SO-CALLED FREEDOM FLOTILLA
B.RAMAN
According to the British Broadcasting Corporation, the so-called Freedom Flotilla carrying humanitarian supplies to Gaza, which was intercepted by the Israeli Navy in international waters on May 31,2010,consisted of three cargo ships and three passenger ships.
2.Most of the casualties were reported on Mavi Marmara, a passenger ferry, one of three ships provided by Insani Yardim Vakfi (IHH), a Turkish humanitarian organisation,which is also known as the Humanitarian Relief Foundation, The Foundation for Human Rights and Freedom and Humanitarian Relief –IHH. It is banned in Israel, which accuses it of links to Hamas and Al Qaeda. The other ships were organised by the Free Gaza Movement, an international coalition of activist groups
3.The ships were reportedly carrying supplies including cement, wheelchairs, paper and water purification systems. The flotilla's nearly 700 passengers were mainly Turkish, but also included nationals of the US, the UK, Australia, Greece, Canada, Belgium, Ireland, the Swedish author Henning Mankell, two Australian journalists and three German MPs.
4.According to reports from Pakistan, there were also some Pakistanis on board the IHH ferry. The Pakistani authorities were trying to enquire what happened to them. While the Israeli authorities were prepared to allow the humanitarian supplies to reach the people of Gaza after inspecting them at a port designated by them, the organisers of the flotilla were opposed to any inspection of the cargo by the Israeli authorities.
5.Israeli fears over the passengers on board the ships and over their contents were understandable because of strong suspicions nursed by the intelligence and security authorities of many countries over the background of the IHH, which came into existence in 1992 ostensibly to provide humanitarian assistance to the Muslims of Bosnia. Turkey, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia and Iran, with the connivance of the Bill Clinton Administration then in power in the US, helped the Bosnian Muslims in their fight against the Serbs.
6.Many Bosnian Muslims were brought to Pakistan for being trained in the camps of the Markaz Dawa Al Irshad (MDI) as the Jamaat-ud-Dawa (JUD), the political wing of the Lashkar-e-Toiba (LET,) was then known and then taken back to Bosnia. There was considerable flow of money and arms and ammunition to the Bosnian separatists. Many Pakistanis from Pakistan itself as well as from the Pakistani diaspora in the UK were trained by the JUD and taken to Bosnia for participating in the jihad against the Serbs. Some Indian-origin Muslims from Saudi Arabia were also taken to Bosnia.
7.All these activities for the provision of volunteers, money and arms and ammunition to the Bosnian separatists were allegedly co-ordinated by the IHH, under the cover of a humanitarian organisation, with the collaboration of the MDI. Amongst the Pakistanis who played an active role in organising assistance for the Bosnians through the IHH and the MDI were Lt.Gen.(retd) Hamid Gul and Lt.Gen (retd).Assad Durrani, former heads of the Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI), Qazi Hussain Ahmed, the then Amir of the Jamaat-e-Islami (JEI, and Prof.Hafeez Ahmed Sayeed, who was then the Amir of the MDI. Lt.Gen. Assad Durrani, who was posted as the Pakistani Ambassador to Germany by Mrs.Benazir Bhutto, the then Pakistani Prime Minister, co-ordinated the assistance from the Ummah to the Bosnians.
8.All these Pakistanis frequently used to visit Bosnia. Mrs.Benazir herself made a joint visit to Bosnia along with Mrs.Tansu Ciller, the then Turkish Prime Minister, in February 1994. Among Pakistani volunteers from the diaspora in the UK who allegedly worked for the IHH in Bosnia was Omar Sheikh, who is now in jail in Pakistan after having been sentenced to death for his role in the kidnapping and execution of Daniel Pearl, the US journalist, in Karachi in January-February,2002. He has appealed against the death sentence.
9.All indications from reliable Pakistani and other sources were that the IHH’s role in Bosnia was not solely humanitarian. The humanitarian cover was allegedly used for keeping alive the Bosnian jihad and enabling it to succeed against the Serbs. The IHH allegedly played a similar role in Chechnya by helping the local Muslims in their jihad against the Soviet and then Russian troops. It then turned its attention to helping the Kashmiris by funding refugee camps for Kashmiris set up by the MDI and other Pakistani jihadi organisations in Pakistan-Occupied Kashmir (POK). These refugee camps also became training centres for training Kashmiri and Pakistani jihadis for fighting against the Indian security forces.
10.The IHH also played an active role, in collaboration with the JUD, in organising humanitarian relief after the devastating earthquake in the POK in 2005. The flow of money and other assistance from the Muslims in other countries for the quake victims was co-ordinated by the IHH.
11.The IHH has also been contributing funds to the International Islamic University in Pakistan, which has been providing ideological motivation to the jihadis fighting in Afghanistan. Amongst other Pakistani organisations with which the IHH has allegedly been collaborating are the Al Rashid Trust, which was designated by the US and the Terrorism Monitoring Committee of the UN Security Council after 9/11 as an organisation allegedly funding terrorism, and the Khubaib Foundation, which reportedly runs a network of orphanages. The Foundation frequently organises visits by IHH delegations to the POK and Gilgit-Baltistan.
12.The Israeli authorities have valid reasons to be concerned over the links of the IHH with the Hamas. One cannot find fault with their decision to stop the Flotilla in order to prevent its cargo from reaching Gaza uninspected. Any intelligence agency worth its salt would be concerned over the dangers of arms and ammunition and weapons of mass destruction material like material for dirty bombs being smuggled into Gaza along with the humanitarian cargo. It would have been the height of irresponsibility to have allowed the cargo to proceed to Gaza without being inspected.
13.It is tragic that there were casualties among the passengers of the ferry hired by the IHH, which was boarded by Israeli commandoes following resistance put up by the passengers of the ferry, but this could not have been helped. Israel exercised its right of self-defence to protect the lives of its citizens from any dangerous cargo carried by the ships. India should refrain from criticising Israel for its action. ( 2-6-10)
( The writer is Additional Secretary (retd), Cabinet Secretariat, Govt. of India, New Delhi, and, presently, Director, Institute For Topical Studies, Chennai, and Associate of the Chennai Centre For China Studies. E-mail: seventyone2@gmail.com )
According to the British Broadcasting Corporation, the so-called Freedom Flotilla carrying humanitarian supplies to Gaza, which was intercepted by the Israeli Navy in international waters on May 31,2010,consisted of three cargo ships and three passenger ships.
2.Most of the casualties were reported on Mavi Marmara, a passenger ferry, one of three ships provided by Insani Yardim Vakfi (IHH), a Turkish humanitarian organisation,which is also known as the Humanitarian Relief Foundation, The Foundation for Human Rights and Freedom and Humanitarian Relief –IHH. It is banned in Israel, which accuses it of links to Hamas and Al Qaeda. The other ships were organised by the Free Gaza Movement, an international coalition of activist groups
3.The ships were reportedly carrying supplies including cement, wheelchairs, paper and water purification systems. The flotilla's nearly 700 passengers were mainly Turkish, but also included nationals of the US, the UK, Australia, Greece, Canada, Belgium, Ireland, the Swedish author Henning Mankell, two Australian journalists and three German MPs.
4.According to reports from Pakistan, there were also some Pakistanis on board the IHH ferry. The Pakistani authorities were trying to enquire what happened to them. While the Israeli authorities were prepared to allow the humanitarian supplies to reach the people of Gaza after inspecting them at a port designated by them, the organisers of the flotilla were opposed to any inspection of the cargo by the Israeli authorities.
5.Israeli fears over the passengers on board the ships and over their contents were understandable because of strong suspicions nursed by the intelligence and security authorities of many countries over the background of the IHH, which came into existence in 1992 ostensibly to provide humanitarian assistance to the Muslims of Bosnia. Turkey, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia and Iran, with the connivance of the Bill Clinton Administration then in power in the US, helped the Bosnian Muslims in their fight against the Serbs.
6.Many Bosnian Muslims were brought to Pakistan for being trained in the camps of the Markaz Dawa Al Irshad (MDI) as the Jamaat-ud-Dawa (JUD), the political wing of the Lashkar-e-Toiba (LET,) was then known and then taken back to Bosnia. There was considerable flow of money and arms and ammunition to the Bosnian separatists. Many Pakistanis from Pakistan itself as well as from the Pakistani diaspora in the UK were trained by the JUD and taken to Bosnia for participating in the jihad against the Serbs. Some Indian-origin Muslims from Saudi Arabia were also taken to Bosnia.
7.All these activities for the provision of volunteers, money and arms and ammunition to the Bosnian separatists were allegedly co-ordinated by the IHH, under the cover of a humanitarian organisation, with the collaboration of the MDI. Amongst the Pakistanis who played an active role in organising assistance for the Bosnians through the IHH and the MDI were Lt.Gen.(retd) Hamid Gul and Lt.Gen (retd).Assad Durrani, former heads of the Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI), Qazi Hussain Ahmed, the then Amir of the Jamaat-e-Islami (JEI, and Prof.Hafeez Ahmed Sayeed, who was then the Amir of the MDI. Lt.Gen. Assad Durrani, who was posted as the Pakistani Ambassador to Germany by Mrs.Benazir Bhutto, the then Pakistani Prime Minister, co-ordinated the assistance from the Ummah to the Bosnians.
8.All these Pakistanis frequently used to visit Bosnia. Mrs.Benazir herself made a joint visit to Bosnia along with Mrs.Tansu Ciller, the then Turkish Prime Minister, in February 1994. Among Pakistani volunteers from the diaspora in the UK who allegedly worked for the IHH in Bosnia was Omar Sheikh, who is now in jail in Pakistan after having been sentenced to death for his role in the kidnapping and execution of Daniel Pearl, the US journalist, in Karachi in January-February,2002. He has appealed against the death sentence.
9.All indications from reliable Pakistani and other sources were that the IHH’s role in Bosnia was not solely humanitarian. The humanitarian cover was allegedly used for keeping alive the Bosnian jihad and enabling it to succeed against the Serbs. The IHH allegedly played a similar role in Chechnya by helping the local Muslims in their jihad against the Soviet and then Russian troops. It then turned its attention to helping the Kashmiris by funding refugee camps for Kashmiris set up by the MDI and other Pakistani jihadi organisations in Pakistan-Occupied Kashmir (POK). These refugee camps also became training centres for training Kashmiri and Pakistani jihadis for fighting against the Indian security forces.
10.The IHH also played an active role, in collaboration with the JUD, in organising humanitarian relief after the devastating earthquake in the POK in 2005. The flow of money and other assistance from the Muslims in other countries for the quake victims was co-ordinated by the IHH.
11.The IHH has also been contributing funds to the International Islamic University in Pakistan, which has been providing ideological motivation to the jihadis fighting in Afghanistan. Amongst other Pakistani organisations with which the IHH has allegedly been collaborating are the Al Rashid Trust, which was designated by the US and the Terrorism Monitoring Committee of the UN Security Council after 9/11 as an organisation allegedly funding terrorism, and the Khubaib Foundation, which reportedly runs a network of orphanages. The Foundation frequently organises visits by IHH delegations to the POK and Gilgit-Baltistan.
12.The Israeli authorities have valid reasons to be concerned over the links of the IHH with the Hamas. One cannot find fault with their decision to stop the Flotilla in order to prevent its cargo from reaching Gaza uninspected. Any intelligence agency worth its salt would be concerned over the dangers of arms and ammunition and weapons of mass destruction material like material for dirty bombs being smuggled into Gaza along with the humanitarian cargo. It would have been the height of irresponsibility to have allowed the cargo to proceed to Gaza without being inspected.
13.It is tragic that there were casualties among the passengers of the ferry hired by the IHH, which was boarded by Israeli commandoes following resistance put up by the passengers of the ferry, but this could not have been helped. Israel exercised its right of self-defence to protect the lives of its citizens from any dangerous cargo carried by the ships. India should refrain from criticising Israel for its action. ( 2-6-10)
( The writer is Additional Secretary (retd), Cabinet Secretariat, Govt. of India, New Delhi, and, presently, Director, Institute For Topical Studies, Chennai, and Associate of the Chennai Centre For China Studies. E-mail: seventyone2@gmail.com )
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