B.RAMAN
Is the military junta in Myanmar trying to acquire a military nuclear capability with North Korean assistance? Or is North Korea trying to shift some of its nuclear facilities to Myanmar to protect them from a possible attack by the US? If either of this scenario is true, is China, which has a strong and active presence in North Korea as well as Myanmar, aware of it? Has it taken up the matter with the two Governments? Has it alerted the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA)?
2. These questions, among others, come to one’s mind in the wake of a flurry of reports regarding an alleged nuclear relationship between Myanmar and North Korea. These reports hit the international media coinciding with the meeting of the Foreign Ministers of the ASEAN Regional Forum (ARF), which was held at Phuket in Thailand on July 23, 2009.
3.The meeting was attended among others by Mrs.Hillary Clinton, the US Secretary of State, who had proceeded to Thailand after a high-profile visit to India. She told a Thai TV channel in an interview on July 21,2009: “ We worry about the transfer of nuclear technology from North Korea to Myanmar.” She subsequently reverted to the subject at Phuket where she spoke to the media of “ concerns being expressed about co-operation between North Korea and Burma in the pursuit of offensive weapons, perhaps even including nuclear weapons at some point.”
4.She was not categorical on the question of a possible nuclear relationship between North Korea and Myanmar, but she was on the question of a conventional military relationship between the two countries. Her concerns seemed to be that this might be expanded to cover the military nuclear field, if this has not already happened or is not already happening.
5. To what extent her concerns were well-founded? Was the reference to this issue by her meant to exercise political pressure on Myanmar and North Korea, both of which attended the ARF meeting---- Myanmar at the level of its Foreign Minister and North Korea at the level of an official of its Foreign Office? Was she merely trying to step up the pressure on Myanmar on the question of the release of Aung San Suu Kyi and restoration of democracy and on North Korea on the question of its denuclearization by using the nuclear co-operation allegations or was there something more to it?
6. The press release issued by the ASEAN Secretariat on the ARF meeting and the media briefing did not contain any reference to the nuclear allegation. Did she raise it at the ARF Foreign Ministers’ meeting or was it confined to her interactions with the media? It is not clear.
7. Even though Mrs. Clinton confined her remarks only to the alleged co-operation between North Korea and Myanmar and did not refer to the on-going civil nuclear co-operation between Myanmar and Russia, Moscow on its own referred to this subject in response to her remarks in Thailand.
8.The RIA Novosti news agency of Russia disseminated the following report on July 21: “ Nuclear cooperation between Russia and Myanmar is not in conflict with the Non-proliferation Treaty or IAEA requirements, and will move ahead, a Foreign Ministry spokesman said on Tuesday. Andrei Nesterenko's comment came in response to U.S. concerns over the cooperation. However, U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said earlier on Tuesday that Washington was taking concerns about military cooperation between nuclear-armed North Korea and Myanmar "very seriously," but made no mention of Russia. "Our cooperation with Myanmar is absolutely legitimate and in full compliance with our obligations under the Non-proliferation Treaty and IAEA requirements," Nesterenko said. He added that the IAEA had no problem with Myanmar over its non-proliferation commitments. Russia signed an agreement in 2007 on the construction of a nuclear research center in Myanmar, and it will stand by this agreement, Nesterenko said. The center will include a 10 MW light-water research reactor.”
9.Reports of Myanmar’s interest in developing a nuclear research capability started circulating after the nuclear tests carried out by India and Pakistan in May 1998. Before 1998, it had an Atomic Energy Committee, which used to be headed by one of its Ministers in charge of Industries. The military junta introduced an Atomic Energy Law on June 8,1998, within a fortnight of Pakistan’s Chagai nuclear tests.
10. The interest of the Myanmar military junta in acquiring civil nuclear expertise with Russian assistance came to be known in February,2001. It has had a long history of conventional military relationship with Russia. This relationship was subsequently expanded to cover the civil nuclear field.
11.In September 2001, the Government of Myanmar reportedly informed the IAEA of its plans to acquire a nuclear research reactor. This was followed by a visit to Myanmar by a team of IAEA experts to study whether Myanmar had the required capability to run a research reactor safely. The team reportedly concluded that Myanmar did not have the required safety standards. Despite its negative report, the Government decided to go ahead with its exploratory talks with Russia on this subject. Moscow, which must have been aware of the negative findings of the IAEA team, had no hesitation in responding positively to the approach for help from the Myanmar Junta.
12. When the US troops occupied Afghanistan post-9/11 after expelling the Taliban from power, they reportedly found evidence of contacts between some retired and serving nuclear scientists of Pakistan and Osama bin Laden. They short-listed four names--- retired scientists Sultan Bashiruddin Ahmed Chaudhry and Abdul Majid and serving scientists Sulaiman Assad and Mohammad Mukhtar.
13. At the request of the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), Pakistan’s Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) took into custody the two retired scientists who where interrogated by the FBI. They reportedly admitted having met bin Laden at Kandahar before 9/11, but asserted that their meeting with him was in connection with the work of a humanitarian relief organization which they had founded after retirement. They were released as no evidence of their involvement in any activity relating to the supply of nuclear material or expertise to Al Qaeda was found. However, as a safety measure, the ISI, at the request of the FBI, imposed restrictions on their movement outside their home town. The FBI got the bank accounts of their supposedly humanitarian relief organization frozen by taking up the matter with the anti-terrorism sanctions committee of the UN Security Council.
14.Sulaiman Assad and Mohammad Mukhtar managed to flee to Myanmar before they could be detained for questioning by the ISI. There was uncorroborated speculation that the ISI did not want them to be questioned by the FBI as they had knowledge of the proliferation activities of Pakistan, particularly about its nuclear and missile supply relationship with North Korea. It was alleged by some in Pakistan that the Myanmar military junta gave them sanctuary at the request of the ISI. There has been no further reliable news about them.
15.In an article published by the “Wall Street Journal” on January 3,2002, Bertil Lintner, its then staff reporter, stated as follows: “Myanmar is embarking on a nuclear-research project with the help of Russian and, possibly, Pakistani scientists. Diplomats say the development has upset China, which has heavily courted Myanmar in recent years and resents Moscow for muscling in on its turf. Believed by Western diplomats to be the brainchild of Science and Technology Minister U Thaung, the project was initiated by Russia's Atomic Energy Ministry, which in February announced plans to build a 10-megawatt research reactor in central Myanmar, formerly known as Burma. In July, Myanmar Foreign Minister Win Aung, accompanied by the military-ruled country's ministers of defense, energy, industry and railways, traveled to Moscow to finalize the deal. Western diplomats in Myanmar say the groundbreaking ceremony is scheduled to take place at a secret location near the town of Magway in January. The equipment and reactor will be delivered in 2003. Russian diplomats say more than 300 Myanmar nationals have received nuclear technical training in Russia during the past year.”
16.On January 22,2002, Khin Maung Win, Myanmar’s Deputy Foreign Minister, announced that the Myanmar Government was planning to build a nuclear research reactor and had entered into talks with Russia on this subject. In his statement, he also said that his Government had informed the IAEA of its intention to construct the reactor which would be used "for peaceful purposes".
17.His statement further said: "The Myanmar Government is striving to acquire modern technology in all fields, including maritime, aerospace, medical and nuclear. It is in the light of these considerations that Myanmar made enquiries for the possibility of setting up a nuclear research reactor. A proposal
has since been received from the Russian Federation. Under the Non-Proliferation Treaty which Myanmar signed in 1992, it had the right to pursue the peaceful use and application of nuclear technology. All our neighbouring countries, with the exception of Laos, are already reaping the benefits from nuclear research reactors operating in their countries. In this age of globalization it is imperative that developing countries such as Myanmar actively seek to narrow the development gap so as not to be marginalized."
18.Khin Maung Win denied media reports that Myanmar had secretly brought two Pakistani nuclear scientists into the country to help it fulfil its nuclear ambitions. He said: “ The Myanmar Government categorically states once again that no nuclear scientists from Pakistan have been given sanctuary in
Myanmar. However, Myanmar scientists had been trained by the IAEA in the application of nuclear technology for peaceful purposes.”
19. The same day, the US reacted by warning Myanmar that it must honor its obligations under the NPT. An unidentified official of the State Department was quoted by the media as saying: "We expect the Government of Burma to live up to its obligations and to not pursue production of weapons grade fissile material."
20. There was no further development with regard to the Russian project for five years. This was attributed to the difficulties faced by the Junta in raising the money for it and the Russian reluctance to finalise the deal till Myanmar reached a safeguards agreement with the IAEA. It was only by April 2007 that the Junta found the money. It is not clear whether the Junta signed a safeguards agreement with the IAEA. In May, the conclusion of a contract between the Governments of Myanmar and Russia was announced.
21. On May 16,2007, the US expressed concern over the agreement between Myanmar and Russia. State Department spokesman Tom Casey said he had "no idea" what Russia's motivation was for the agreement. "Burma has neither the regulatory nor the legal framework or safeguard provisions or other kinds of things that you would expect or want to see for a country to be able to handle successfully a nuclear program of this type.It's not a good idea."
22.Casey further said that Myanmar did not have a nuclear regulatory commission or safeguards in place to prevent accidents, environmental damage or proliferation. According to him, one risk was that nuclear fuel could be diverted, stolen or otherwise removed because of a lack of accounting or other procedures in place to prevent this.
23.He added: “"There certainly would have to be a heck of a lot more work done by the Burmese before I think we would feel comfortable that they could safely deal with having a nuclear facility of this type on their soil."
24. Myanmar is a signatory of the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty and , according to some reports, has since signed a safeguards agreement with the IAEA. However, it has not yet accepted the Additional Protocol, which would allow the U.N. nuclear watchdog to conduct more intrusive monitoring of any nuclear operations.
25.Myanmar broke off diplomatic relations with Pyongyang in 1983, after alleged North Korean agents bombed the Martyr's mausoleum in Yangon in an attempt to assassinate the visiting South Korean President, Chun Doo-hwan. The explosion killed more than 20 persons, including the Deputy Prime Minister and the Foreign Minister, and the South Korean Ambassador to Myanmar. The relations were re-established only in April 2007 after a gap of 24 years.
26.The re-establishment of diplomatic ties led to the beginning of a military-supply relationship between the two countries and the exchange of visits of military delegations. In 2007 and 2008, there were reports of the receipt of a number of military consignments by Myanmar from North Korea by sea----mostly consisting of conventional infantry weapons. Following the resumption of diplomatic relations, the Myanmar military junta also started allowing North Korean transport planes going to Pakistan and Iran to re-fuel in the Yangon airport.
27.North Korean engineers were reported to have helped Myanmar military engineers in the construction of a number of tunnels in the newly-constructed capital at Naypyidaw. They were also reported to be helping the Myanmar engineers in the construction of similar tunnels at a place called Yadanapon, where the junta is planning to have its summer capital. It was presumed by analysts that the North Korean assistance in tunnel construction had the purpose of providing shelter to the members of the Junta and other senior military officers in case of an attack by the US Air Force. It was the fear of an US attack which made the Junta shift the capital from Yangon to Naypyidaw and it was the same fear which motivated it to seek North Korean assistance in tunnel construction.
28. What set off an alarm was reports from Myanmar political exiles that North Koreans were helping in tunnel construction not only in the capital and the proposed summer capital, but also in certain other remote areas. Myanmar political exiles close to Aung San Suu Kyi have been linking the construction of tunnels at a place called Naung Laing in North Myanmar to possible North Korean assistance in the construction of a secret nuclear facility. What kind of a facility it could be is not clear. Western and Australian analysts and journalists seem to be particularly relying on claims made by two defectors. One claims to have been an officer in the Myanmar army who was allegedly sent to Moscow for two years’ training. The other claims to have been a former executive in a company called Htoo Trading, which, according to him, handled nuclear contracts with Russia and North Korea. There has so far been no independent corroboration of their claims.
29.The suspicions regarding a possible nuclear supply relationship have been strengthened following a recent incident in which a North Korean ship called Nam Kam 1, which was reportedly bound for a Myanmar port turned back on being shadowed by US vessels. It is not clear what prevented the US vessels from surrounding and searching it. Without searching it, it seems to have been presumed that the cargo on board the ship must have been nuclear-related.
30.Political exiles can be sometimes good sources and sometimes unreliable and even dangerous. The information about Iran’s clandestine uranium enrichment plant initially came from political exiles, who were found to have been accurate. The false information about Saddam Hussein’s nuclear arsenal came from political exiles who made a fortune from the US intelligence by planting a series of false reports. In the 1980s, when Rajiv Gandhi was the Indian Prime Minister, Indian analysts had over-estimated Chinese military deployments in Tibet on the basis of reports from Tibetan political exiles. These reports were subsequently found to have been highly exaggerated.
31.One has, therefore, to be cautious in assessing the reports, claims and allegations from political exiles and Army defectors from Myanmar. Their reports must be carefully verified. All one can say with some confidence at present is: firstly, that the Myanmar military junta’s interest in acquiring a civil nuclear capability dates back to 1998 when India and Pakistan carried out their nuclear tests; secondly, that since 2001 Myanmar has been in negotiations with Russia for the acquisition of a research reactor; thirdly, that there has been a long delay in the implementation of this project due to Myanmar’s lack of funds and the time taken to negotiate a safeguards agreement with the IAEA; and fourthly, that there has been an increase in North Korea’s military supply relationship with Myanmar since the two countries re-established diplomatic relations in April,2007.
32.Has the military supply relationship been expanded now to cover nuclear supply relationship? The evidence on this not yet strong enough to permit a categorical answer. (2-8-09)
( The writer is Additional Secretary (retd), Cabinet Secretariat, Govt. of India, New Delhi, and, presently, Director, Institute For Topical Studies, Chennai. He is also associated with the Chennai Centre For China Studies. E-mail: seventyone2@gmail.com )
Sunday, August 2, 2009
Friday, July 31, 2009
CHINESE FEAR OF AVIATION TERRORISM BY PRO-AL QAEDA UIGHURS
B.RAMAN
On March 7,2008, the Chinese authorities had claimed to have foiled an attempt by three Uighurs to blow up a plane of the China Southern Airlines flying from Urumqi, the capital of the Xinjiang province, to Beijing. The persons involved had allegedly managed to smuggle inside the aircraft gasoline concealed inside a can of soft drinks. The plot was foiled by alert security guards on board the plane and two of the suspects were arrested on board the plane. A third was arrested subsequently.
2.The Chairman of China Southern Airlines Liu Chaoyong said that a female passenger came out of the rest room and passed by a flight attendant who detected a suspicious smell. Then she smelt the scent of perfume and gasoline in front of the rest room. The attendant immediately searched the rest room and found an inflammable substance inside the garbage bin of the rest room. The attendant notified the airplane security guard immediately. Based upon how the female passenger spoke and acted, they realized that the male passenger next to her was a companion. The two individuals were arrested. The plane crew then moved the suspicious substance into the special container bin for handling such materials. The plane made an unscheduled stop at the Lanzhou airport. The two suspects were taken away by the police. Liu Chaoyong said that the preliminary analysis was that the two individuals intended to hide the inflammable material and then take action at the appropriate moment. ( Please refer
to http://www.southasiaanalysis.org/papers27/paper2654.html )
3. Since then, the Chinese authorities have been greatly concerned over the dangers of an act of aviation terrorism by Uighur jihadis belonging to the pro-Al Qaeda Islamic Movement of Eastern Turkestan (IMET). Apart from conventional acts of hijacking an aircraft, their concerns are focused on acts such as causing an explosion in mid-air with explosive material smuggled into an aircraft and a 9/11 style attack on a ground target with a hijacked aircraft. Possible responses to such scenarios have formed an important part of counter-terrorism exercises in China.
4. These concerns, which are not only continuing, but have also been aggravated after the violent incidents in Urumqi from July 5 to 8,2009, were reflected in the third joint Sino-Russian counter-terrorism exercise code-named "Peace Mission 2009" held for five days from July 22,2009, in the Sino-Russian border region. The actual exercise was preceded by a strategic preparatory meeting held at Khabarovsk in Russia on July 22. This was followed by the actual exercise held at the Taonan tactical training base of the Chinese People's Liberation Army (PLA) in northeast China's Jilin Province. It comes under the Shenyang Military Command.
5. Whereas in the previous two exercises held in 2005 and 2007, army units of the two countries played a prominent role, in the latest exercise Air Force units of the two countries played a prominent role The greater prominence given to the role of the Air Force in counter-terrorism resulted in a drastic reduction in the number of military personnel involved in the exercise. This came down from about 10,000 from each side in the previous two exercises to about 1300 from each side in the latest exercise.
6.Russia deployed 22 aircraft ---- including Su-27 fighters, Su-24 and Su-25 attacker aircraft--- and several helicopters in the exercise.. They arrived at a military airport in Qiqihar in the Heilongjiang Province. The PLA deployed more than 40 aircraft including attackers, fighter-bombers, armed helicopters and transporters. Interestingly, the Russians and the Chinese also deployed surface-to-air missile units. The deployment of the SAM units indicated that their operating instructions against aviation terrorism envisaged the shooting down of a hijacked aircraft if there was a danger of a 9/11 type incident.
7. Briefings and comments by Chinese experts to their media, which was allowed to watch the exercise, indicated that their concerns mainly focused on the dangers of an act of aviation terrorism by the Uighurs. Even though the exercise was planned long before the recent Urumqi disturbances, these disturbances found mention in the briefings and comments.
8.In a curtain-raiser despatch of July 20,2009, the Xinhua news agency quoted Major General Wang Haiyun, a former Chinese Military Attache to Russia and an expert in international strategy, as saying as follows: "Russia, a large country with many ethnic groups and complex political situations, is facing similar challenges. To some extent, the July 5 Xinjiang riot pushed forward anti-terrorism cooperation between China and Russia. Russia and China should also cooperate more vigorously to defend themselves and prevent terrorism from spreading from Afghanistan to Central Asia."
9.In an interview to the "China Daily" (July 31,2009) after the conclusion of the exercise, Major General Meng Guoping, who is the Deputy Director of the War Operations Department under the General Staff Department of the PLA, said: ."Rules of engagement for anti-terrorism combat operations are being formulated by the Chinese army to deal with the growing terrorist threat facing the nation. The move would mark the first time since its founding 82 years ago that the 2.3-million-strong People's Liberation Army (PLA) would have separate regulations for anti-terrorism operations. The army is drafting an Ordinance for Anti-terrorism Combat Operations based on its experience in anti-terror missions over the past few years. The army will also publish its first set of combat guidelines on anti-terror operations for the whole armed forces. The guidelines will regulate the anti-terror mission's responsibility, composition, command and logistics support. The PLA has included anti-terror combat training in its elite armed forces divisions since last year and each army division has set up its task force for emergency response."
10.The same paper quoted Song Xiaojun, a leading military expert based in Beijing, as saying as follows: "Extremists, separatists and terrorists have been collaborating to target China and turning more violent, almost to the point of forming an anti-Chinese government rebellion. The "three forces" defined in the SCO (Shanghai Cooperation Organisation ) Shanghai Treaty, namely extremism, separatism and terrorism, were said to be behind the deadly riot in the Xinjiang Uighur autonomous region on July 5, during which 197 Han people and Uighurs died. China gave legal rights to its army to combat terrorism when it implemented the Emergency Response Law in August 2007."
11. An interesting feature of the just-concluded exercise was the virtual absence of any role for the police and other civilian counter-terrorism agencies, if China has any. China treats counter-terrorism, even against its own nationals taking to violence amounting to terrorism, as a military and not a police operation. The result is the relative inexperience of the Police in dealing with terrorism-like situations and other law and order disturbances involving the use of violence by protesters. Any such disturbances tend to be looked upon by the Police as terrorism. They easily lose their cool and over-react, using disproportionate force. This is what happened at Urumqi recently.
12. India has already held two joint counter-terrorism exercises with the Chinese armed forces---- the first in Yunnan and the second in Karnataka. The police has a very important role to play in our counter-terrorism operations away from the border. We must take care that our security forces do not get infected with the ruthless Chinese ways of dealing with their own people under the name of counter-terrorism.
(31-7-09)
( The writer is Additional Secretary (retd), Cabinet Secretariat, Govt. of India, New Delhi, and, presently, Director, Institute For Topical Studies, Chennai. He is also associated with the Chennai Centre For China Studies. E-mail: seventyone2@gmail.com )
On March 7,2008, the Chinese authorities had claimed to have foiled an attempt by three Uighurs to blow up a plane of the China Southern Airlines flying from Urumqi, the capital of the Xinjiang province, to Beijing. The persons involved had allegedly managed to smuggle inside the aircraft gasoline concealed inside a can of soft drinks. The plot was foiled by alert security guards on board the plane and two of the suspects were arrested on board the plane. A third was arrested subsequently.
2.The Chairman of China Southern Airlines Liu Chaoyong said that a female passenger came out of the rest room and passed by a flight attendant who detected a suspicious smell. Then she smelt the scent of perfume and gasoline in front of the rest room. The attendant immediately searched the rest room and found an inflammable substance inside the garbage bin of the rest room. The attendant notified the airplane security guard immediately. Based upon how the female passenger spoke and acted, they realized that the male passenger next to her was a companion. The two individuals were arrested. The plane crew then moved the suspicious substance into the special container bin for handling such materials. The plane made an unscheduled stop at the Lanzhou airport. The two suspects were taken away by the police. Liu Chaoyong said that the preliminary analysis was that the two individuals intended to hide the inflammable material and then take action at the appropriate moment. ( Please refer
to http://www.southasiaanalysis.org/papers27/paper2654.html )
3. Since then, the Chinese authorities have been greatly concerned over the dangers of an act of aviation terrorism by Uighur jihadis belonging to the pro-Al Qaeda Islamic Movement of Eastern Turkestan (IMET). Apart from conventional acts of hijacking an aircraft, their concerns are focused on acts such as causing an explosion in mid-air with explosive material smuggled into an aircraft and a 9/11 style attack on a ground target with a hijacked aircraft. Possible responses to such scenarios have formed an important part of counter-terrorism exercises in China.
4. These concerns, which are not only continuing, but have also been aggravated after the violent incidents in Urumqi from July 5 to 8,2009, were reflected in the third joint Sino-Russian counter-terrorism exercise code-named "Peace Mission 2009" held for five days from July 22,2009, in the Sino-Russian border region. The actual exercise was preceded by a strategic preparatory meeting held at Khabarovsk in Russia on July 22. This was followed by the actual exercise held at the Taonan tactical training base of the Chinese People's Liberation Army (PLA) in northeast China's Jilin Province. It comes under the Shenyang Military Command.
5. Whereas in the previous two exercises held in 2005 and 2007, army units of the two countries played a prominent role, in the latest exercise Air Force units of the two countries played a prominent role The greater prominence given to the role of the Air Force in counter-terrorism resulted in a drastic reduction in the number of military personnel involved in the exercise. This came down from about 10,000 from each side in the previous two exercises to about 1300 from each side in the latest exercise.
6.Russia deployed 22 aircraft ---- including Su-27 fighters, Su-24 and Su-25 attacker aircraft--- and several helicopters in the exercise.. They arrived at a military airport in Qiqihar in the Heilongjiang Province. The PLA deployed more than 40 aircraft including attackers, fighter-bombers, armed helicopters and transporters. Interestingly, the Russians and the Chinese also deployed surface-to-air missile units. The deployment of the SAM units indicated that their operating instructions against aviation terrorism envisaged the shooting down of a hijacked aircraft if there was a danger of a 9/11 type incident.
7. Briefings and comments by Chinese experts to their media, which was allowed to watch the exercise, indicated that their concerns mainly focused on the dangers of an act of aviation terrorism by the Uighurs. Even though the exercise was planned long before the recent Urumqi disturbances, these disturbances found mention in the briefings and comments.
8.In a curtain-raiser despatch of July 20,2009, the Xinhua news agency quoted Major General Wang Haiyun, a former Chinese Military Attache to Russia and an expert in international strategy, as saying as follows: "Russia, a large country with many ethnic groups and complex political situations, is facing similar challenges. To some extent, the July 5 Xinjiang riot pushed forward anti-terrorism cooperation between China and Russia. Russia and China should also cooperate more vigorously to defend themselves and prevent terrorism from spreading from Afghanistan to Central Asia."
9.In an interview to the "China Daily" (July 31,2009) after the conclusion of the exercise, Major General Meng Guoping, who is the Deputy Director of the War Operations Department under the General Staff Department of the PLA, said: ."Rules of engagement for anti-terrorism combat operations are being formulated by the Chinese army to deal with the growing terrorist threat facing the nation. The move would mark the first time since its founding 82 years ago that the 2.3-million-strong People's Liberation Army (PLA) would have separate regulations for anti-terrorism operations. The army is drafting an Ordinance for Anti-terrorism Combat Operations based on its experience in anti-terror missions over the past few years. The army will also publish its first set of combat guidelines on anti-terror operations for the whole armed forces. The guidelines will regulate the anti-terror mission's responsibility, composition, command and logistics support. The PLA has included anti-terror combat training in its elite armed forces divisions since last year and each army division has set up its task force for emergency response."
10.The same paper quoted Song Xiaojun, a leading military expert based in Beijing, as saying as follows: "Extremists, separatists and terrorists have been collaborating to target China and turning more violent, almost to the point of forming an anti-Chinese government rebellion. The "three forces" defined in the SCO (Shanghai Cooperation Organisation ) Shanghai Treaty, namely extremism, separatism and terrorism, were said to be behind the deadly riot in the Xinjiang Uighur autonomous region on July 5, during which 197 Han people and Uighurs died. China gave legal rights to its army to combat terrorism when it implemented the Emergency Response Law in August 2007."
11. An interesting feature of the just-concluded exercise was the virtual absence of any role for the police and other civilian counter-terrorism agencies, if China has any. China treats counter-terrorism, even against its own nationals taking to violence amounting to terrorism, as a military and not a police operation. The result is the relative inexperience of the Police in dealing with terrorism-like situations and other law and order disturbances involving the use of violence by protesters. Any such disturbances tend to be looked upon by the Police as terrorism. They easily lose their cool and over-react, using disproportionate force. This is what happened at Urumqi recently.
12. India has already held two joint counter-terrorism exercises with the Chinese armed forces---- the first in Yunnan and the second in Karnataka. The police has a very important role to play in our counter-terrorism operations away from the border. We must take care that our security forces do not get infected with the ruthless Chinese ways of dealing with their own people under the name of counter-terrorism.
(31-7-09)
( The writer is Additional Secretary (retd), Cabinet Secretariat, Govt. of India, New Delhi, and, presently, Director, Institute For Topical Studies, Chennai. He is also associated with the Chennai Centre For China Studies. E-mail: seventyone2@gmail.com )
Wednesday, July 29, 2009
WILL THE PM EMULATE REAGAN?
B.RAMAN
The explanation of the Prime Minister, Dr.Manmohan Singh, in the Lok Sabha on July 29,2009, on the statement issued by him jointly with Yousef Raza Gilani, the Pakistani Prime Minister, at Sharm-el-Sheikh in Egypt on July 17,2009, skillfully sought to control the damage done by the ill-advised and ill-drafted joint statement.
2. It was ill-advised because it has enabled Pakistan to claim to the international community that our PM was satisfied with the action taken by it against some Pakistan-based members of the Lashkar-e-Toiba (LET) for their involvement in the Mumbai terrorist attack of November 26-29,2008, in the hope that this would result in a relaxation of the international pressure to act against the LET.
3. The international pressure on Pakistan to act against the LET has been there since the attack on the Indian Parliament on December 13,2001. It was because of this pressure that Pervez Musharraf, the then Pakistani President, banned the LET through a gazette notification on January 15,2002. The ban is still in force, but has not been implemented effectively by either the previous Government of Musharraf or by the present Government of Asif Ali Zardari.
4. There was intensified international pressure on Pakistan after Mumbai 26/11 because among those killed were 25 foreign civilians. It was this pressure and not the bilateral diplomacy of the Government of India, which made Pakistan register an offence against five members of the LET and investigate their involvement and place Prof.Hafeez Mohammad Sayeed, the Amir of the Jamaat-ud-Dawa (JUD), the political wing of the LET, under house arrest.
5. As a result of the ill-warranted certificate of good neighbourly co-operation given by Dr.Manmohan Singh to Pakistan, there are already signs of this pressure being relaxed. This would be evident from the absence of forceful international reaction to the farce of the legal proceedings against Sayeed, which has resulted in his being released from house arrest.
6. The joint statement was also ill-advised because it has unwittingly conveyed an impression to Pakistan’s political leadership and military-intelligence establishment that a terrorism fatigue has set in among our political leadership and that continued use of terrorism by the Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) against Indian civilians and economic infrastructure could ultimately make India amenable to a change of the status quo in Jammu & Kashmir.
7. The Prime Minister is right in wanting peace and good-neighbourly relations with Pakistan, but unwise in giving an impression to Pakistani leaders that he is over-keen for peace with Pakistan and that he does not have the stomach for a prolonged confrontation with Pakistan on the terrorism issue----whether the confrontation is political, economic, military or covert. That was the impression which Gilani and his advisers would have got at Sharm-el-Sheikh and the Prime Minister’s well-drafted statement in the Lok sabha has not been able to dissipate that impression.
8.The Prime Minister made use of the dossier given by Pakistan before Sharm-el-Sheikh on the investigation made by it so far against the LET in two ways. He tried to project this dossier as justifying the action taken by him at Sharm-el-Sheikh. He also tried to score a debating point against the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) led opposition coalition by claiming that his Government through pressure had been able to make Pakistan concede the LET involvement whereas the BJP-led Government was not able to do this.
9. If the BJP members had carefully studied and mastered facts and figures, they could have effectively countered the PM’s claim of credit by pointing out the following:
• There have been four acts of mass casualty terrorism since 1981. All the four were carried out when the Congress (I) was in power in New Delhi.
• There have been three instances of targeted attacks on foreigners since 1991----two in J&K and one in Mumbai. All the three were carried out when the Congress (I) was in power.
• There have been seven acts of ISI-sponsored aircraft hijackings since 1971. Six of them were carried out when the Congress (I) and one when the BJP was in power.
• There has been one instance of an Air India plane being blown up in mid-air killing over 250 persons. This took place when the Congress (I) was in power.
• The LET was banned by the Musharraf Government as a terrorist organization through a gazette notification on January 15,2002. The Manmohan Singh Government has not been able to get the JUD banned by the Zardari Government even eight months after the Mumbai attack.
• Indira Gandhi was assassinated when the Congress (I) was in power in New Delhi. Rajiv Gandhi was assassinated when an ally of the Congress (I) was in power in New Delhi and another ally in Chennai.
• The Indian Mujahideen came into existence when the Congress (I) was in power.
• The first commando-style complex terrorist attack in Indian territory by a group of terrorists, all hailing from Pakistan, has taken place when the Congress (I) is in power.
10. Despite the Congress (I)’s better counter-terrorism expertise and experience, it has not been able to deal effectively with jihadi terrorism.The BJP leaders were not able to bring this out.
11. The PM used the dossier against the LET received from Pakistan in justification of his action at Sharm-el-Sheikh. A close examination of the dossier as published in the media and a study of the various statements made since February,2009, by Rehman Mallik, the Pakistani Interior Minister, would bring out the following:
• The Pakistani authorities continue to make a distinction between the LET and the JUD, projecting the LET as a defunct organization in view of the January 15,2002, ban still in force and the JUD as a legitimate organization despite the declaration of the anti-terrorism committee of the UN Security Council calling it as a terrorist organization. Their action has been confined to those who hold position in the LET and not to those who hold position in the JUD.
• Till now, their action has been focused on the logistics cell of the LET in Karachi and not against the planning and training cell of the LET based in Muridke in Punjab and in Pakistan-Occupied Kashmir.
• They continue to project the Mumbai attack as the outcome of a multi-national conspiracy involving elements in Pakistan, India, Europe, the US and Russia.
• They have been trying to claim that the role of the Indian elements has not been fully investigated by the Mumbai Police.
12. There are certain other disturbing indicators. Firstly, while releasing Sayeed from house arrest, the three-member bench of the Lahore High Court observed on June 6,2009, that there is no evidence to show that the JUD is a terrorist organization and that Sayeed had any role in the Mumbai conspiracy. Similar observations were made by Chief Justice Iftikhar Mohammad Chaudhury and two other judges of the Supreme Court when the Government’s farcical appeal against his release came up before the Supreme Court. The Lahore High Court judges even said that Indian evidence is not reliable. With such pronouncements already made by judges of superior courts, will the Anti-Terrorism court, which is subordinate to them, be able to give a different ruling holding the five LET members prosecuted as guilty?
13. As a result of the pressure from the Governments of countries whose nationals were killed in Mumbai, Pakistan has embarked on an elaborate exercise of seeming co-operation with India in the investigation. Such instances of even seeming co-operation were not there in the past. But the sincerity of this co-operation is yet to be established.
14. We should have waited till this sincerity was established. What was the need for the indecent hurry shown by Dr.Manmohan Singh at Sharm-el-Sheikh for fresh talks with Pakistan?
15.If we had waited for a few months more till a clearer picture emerged from the proceedings of the Anti-Terrorism Court, will the heavens have fallen on our heads? A convincing answer to this has not been forthcoming from the Prime Minister.
16. The Prime Minister used former President Ronald Reagan of the US as a prop by quoting his remark: “Trust, but verify”. Yes, he had said it. In 1986 some US soldiers were killed by an explosion in a West Berlin discotheque. The US investigators established that the terrorists had come from Libya. After verification, he ordered the US Air Force to bomb the training centre in Libya.
17. Indian investigators have clearly verified and established that the terrorists who attacked Mumbai were trained in the POK.
18.Will the Prime Minister emulate Reagan? (30-7-09)
( 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 )
The explanation of the Prime Minister, Dr.Manmohan Singh, in the Lok Sabha on July 29,2009, on the statement issued by him jointly with Yousef Raza Gilani, the Pakistani Prime Minister, at Sharm-el-Sheikh in Egypt on July 17,2009, skillfully sought to control the damage done by the ill-advised and ill-drafted joint statement.
2. It was ill-advised because it has enabled Pakistan to claim to the international community that our PM was satisfied with the action taken by it against some Pakistan-based members of the Lashkar-e-Toiba (LET) for their involvement in the Mumbai terrorist attack of November 26-29,2008, in the hope that this would result in a relaxation of the international pressure to act against the LET.
3. The international pressure on Pakistan to act against the LET has been there since the attack on the Indian Parliament on December 13,2001. It was because of this pressure that Pervez Musharraf, the then Pakistani President, banned the LET through a gazette notification on January 15,2002. The ban is still in force, but has not been implemented effectively by either the previous Government of Musharraf or by the present Government of Asif Ali Zardari.
4. There was intensified international pressure on Pakistan after Mumbai 26/11 because among those killed were 25 foreign civilians. It was this pressure and not the bilateral diplomacy of the Government of India, which made Pakistan register an offence against five members of the LET and investigate their involvement and place Prof.Hafeez Mohammad Sayeed, the Amir of the Jamaat-ud-Dawa (JUD), the political wing of the LET, under house arrest.
5. As a result of the ill-warranted certificate of good neighbourly co-operation given by Dr.Manmohan Singh to Pakistan, there are already signs of this pressure being relaxed. This would be evident from the absence of forceful international reaction to the farce of the legal proceedings against Sayeed, which has resulted in his being released from house arrest.
6. The joint statement was also ill-advised because it has unwittingly conveyed an impression to Pakistan’s political leadership and military-intelligence establishment that a terrorism fatigue has set in among our political leadership and that continued use of terrorism by the Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) against Indian civilians and economic infrastructure could ultimately make India amenable to a change of the status quo in Jammu & Kashmir.
7. The Prime Minister is right in wanting peace and good-neighbourly relations with Pakistan, but unwise in giving an impression to Pakistani leaders that he is over-keen for peace with Pakistan and that he does not have the stomach for a prolonged confrontation with Pakistan on the terrorism issue----whether the confrontation is political, economic, military or covert. That was the impression which Gilani and his advisers would have got at Sharm-el-Sheikh and the Prime Minister’s well-drafted statement in the Lok sabha has not been able to dissipate that impression.
8.The Prime Minister made use of the dossier given by Pakistan before Sharm-el-Sheikh on the investigation made by it so far against the LET in two ways. He tried to project this dossier as justifying the action taken by him at Sharm-el-Sheikh. He also tried to score a debating point against the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) led opposition coalition by claiming that his Government through pressure had been able to make Pakistan concede the LET involvement whereas the BJP-led Government was not able to do this.
9. If the BJP members had carefully studied and mastered facts and figures, they could have effectively countered the PM’s claim of credit by pointing out the following:
• There have been four acts of mass casualty terrorism since 1981. All the four were carried out when the Congress (I) was in power in New Delhi.
• There have been three instances of targeted attacks on foreigners since 1991----two in J&K and one in Mumbai. All the three were carried out when the Congress (I) was in power.
• There have been seven acts of ISI-sponsored aircraft hijackings since 1971. Six of them were carried out when the Congress (I) and one when the BJP was in power.
• There has been one instance of an Air India plane being blown up in mid-air killing over 250 persons. This took place when the Congress (I) was in power.
• The LET was banned by the Musharraf Government as a terrorist organization through a gazette notification on January 15,2002. The Manmohan Singh Government has not been able to get the JUD banned by the Zardari Government even eight months after the Mumbai attack.
• Indira Gandhi was assassinated when the Congress (I) was in power in New Delhi. Rajiv Gandhi was assassinated when an ally of the Congress (I) was in power in New Delhi and another ally in Chennai.
• The Indian Mujahideen came into existence when the Congress (I) was in power.
• The first commando-style complex terrorist attack in Indian territory by a group of terrorists, all hailing from Pakistan, has taken place when the Congress (I) is in power.
10. Despite the Congress (I)’s better counter-terrorism expertise and experience, it has not been able to deal effectively with jihadi terrorism.The BJP leaders were not able to bring this out.
11. The PM used the dossier against the LET received from Pakistan in justification of his action at Sharm-el-Sheikh. A close examination of the dossier as published in the media and a study of the various statements made since February,2009, by Rehman Mallik, the Pakistani Interior Minister, would bring out the following:
• The Pakistani authorities continue to make a distinction between the LET and the JUD, projecting the LET as a defunct organization in view of the January 15,2002, ban still in force and the JUD as a legitimate organization despite the declaration of the anti-terrorism committee of the UN Security Council calling it as a terrorist organization. Their action has been confined to those who hold position in the LET and not to those who hold position in the JUD.
• Till now, their action has been focused on the logistics cell of the LET in Karachi and not against the planning and training cell of the LET based in Muridke in Punjab and in Pakistan-Occupied Kashmir.
• They continue to project the Mumbai attack as the outcome of a multi-national conspiracy involving elements in Pakistan, India, Europe, the US and Russia.
• They have been trying to claim that the role of the Indian elements has not been fully investigated by the Mumbai Police.
12. There are certain other disturbing indicators. Firstly, while releasing Sayeed from house arrest, the three-member bench of the Lahore High Court observed on June 6,2009, that there is no evidence to show that the JUD is a terrorist organization and that Sayeed had any role in the Mumbai conspiracy. Similar observations were made by Chief Justice Iftikhar Mohammad Chaudhury and two other judges of the Supreme Court when the Government’s farcical appeal against his release came up before the Supreme Court. The Lahore High Court judges even said that Indian evidence is not reliable. With such pronouncements already made by judges of superior courts, will the Anti-Terrorism court, which is subordinate to them, be able to give a different ruling holding the five LET members prosecuted as guilty?
13. As a result of the pressure from the Governments of countries whose nationals were killed in Mumbai, Pakistan has embarked on an elaborate exercise of seeming co-operation with India in the investigation. Such instances of even seeming co-operation were not there in the past. But the sincerity of this co-operation is yet to be established.
14. We should have waited till this sincerity was established. What was the need for the indecent hurry shown by Dr.Manmohan Singh at Sharm-el-Sheikh for fresh talks with Pakistan?
15.If we had waited for a few months more till a clearer picture emerged from the proceedings of the Anti-Terrorism Court, will the heavens have fallen on our heads? A convincing answer to this has not been forthcoming from the Prime Minister.
16. The Prime Minister used former President Ronald Reagan of the US as a prop by quoting his remark: “Trust, but verify”. Yes, he had said it. In 1986 some US soldiers were killed by an explosion in a West Berlin discotheque. The US investigators established that the terrorists had come from Libya. After verification, he ordered the US Air Force to bomb the training centre in Libya.
17. Indian investigators have clearly verified and established that the terrorists who attacked Mumbai were trained in the POK.
18.Will the Prime Minister emulate Reagan? (30-7-09)
( 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, July 28, 2009
BALOCHISTAN: THE PAK PSYWAR
B. Raman
Pakistan's Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI), with the help of compliant sections of Pakistan's journalist community, has embarked on a psychological warfare campaign on the issue of the use of the Lashkar-e-Toiba (LET) by the ISI against India and the demand of the Government of India that it act against the LET for its involvement in the Mumbai terrorist attack of 26/11.
2. The message of the Psywar campaign is clear: "If you want us to act against the LET, help us in acting against the Balochistan Liberation Army (BLA)"
3. The BLA has been active in Balochistan since 2005 and has badly damaged the Punjabi economy by repeatedly disrupting the supply of sui gas from the gas production wells in Balochistan to industrial and domestic consumers in Pakistan's Punjab. The successful disruption of gas supply to industrial consumers in Punjab and power stations in the rest of Pakistan is partly behind the problems faced by the Pakistani economy and the serious disruptions in power supply in different parts of Pakistan.
4. Even if the US gives Pakistan billions of dollars in economic assistance, Pakistan's economy will not improve so long as Balochistan continues to burn due to the grievances of the Balochs against the Punjabis. The economic difficulties faced by the people due to erratic power supply, which is affecting the daily lives of millions of Pakistanis and damaging agricultural operations, are creating new pockets of alienation in the Seraiki areas of Southern Punjab and Sindh.
5. The Pakistani Army, despite the use of the most ruthless methods of suppression and despite the misuse against the Balochs of equipment such as helicopter gunships given by the US for use against Al Qaeda and the Taliban, has not been able to enforce the Pakistan Government's writ in the Baloch majority areas of the province. So long as the Pakistan Army does not succeed in Balochistan, the much-hyped Iran-Pakistan gas pipeline will remain a pipe dream. So too the much-hyped dream of Gwadar becoming the preferred gateway for the external trade of the Central Asian Republics (CARS) and the Xinjiang province of China. More than two years after it was inaugurated by the then President Pervez Musharraf, the Chinese-constructed Gwadar port has failed to attract the CARs. The Chinese have their own problems in the Xinjiang province where the Muslims are in a state of revolt against Han domination in an area which is looked upon by pan-Islamic forces such as Al Qaeda as historically belonging to the Muslim Umma. At a time when the Kashgar area of Xinjiang is threatening to become the North Waziristan of the Central Asian region, it is not surprising that the Chinese are going slow on the various proposals, which had originated from Pakistan, for the further development of Gwadar.
6. Pakistani leaders are fond of describing Jammu & Kashmir as the jugular vein of Pakistan, using an expression originally coined by Mohammad Ali Jinnah. Pakistan cannot emerge as an industrial power if Balochistan, the most mineral rich of the Pakistani provinces, remains in a state of revolt. The Baloch revolt has made the Pakistani leaders realise that Balochistan is Pakistan's real jugular vein. Pakistan's economy will be perpetually in a state of near collapse if there is no stability in Balochistan.
7. The Federal Government----whether ruled by the military or political leaders--- is not prepared to loosen the control of the Punjabi business class over the mineral wealth of Balochistan. The Baloch demand for independence is not only due to political and ethnic reasons. It is also due to economic reasons. The rest of Pakistan---particularly Punjab--used to flourish with the help of the gas and other mineral resources of Balochistan, with the Balochs languishing in poverty. The Baloch nationalists have decided ----thus far and no further. For the last three years, they have seen to it that their mineral wealth no longer goes to Punjab and other provinces.
8. Just as China's problems in Xinjiang are due to the Han colonisation of the province, Pakistan's problems in Balochistan are due to the Punjabi colonisation of the province. The Baloch freedom struggle is the outcome of the Punjabi colonisation. India has had nothing to do with it.
9. If India had wanted to take advantage of the widespread alienation amongst the Balochs against the Punjabi colonisers, it could have done so in 1971 after crushing the Pakistani Army in the then East Pakistan. Indira Gandhi could have easily ordered the Indian Navy to crush the Pakistan Navy and to move to the Baloch coast and help the Baloch freedom fighters, who had risen in revolt. She did not do so because she felt that the Baloch problem was Pakistan's internal affairs and that it was not in India's interest to further weaken Pakistan.
10. Despite considerable sympathy and friendly feelings for the problems of the Sindhis, Mohajirs, Balochs and Pashtuns, far-sighted Indian leaders, who succeeded Indira Gandhi as the Prime Minister, refrained from taking advantage of Pakistan's internal problems in retaliation for its use of terrorism against India. The late G.M.Syed, the father of the Sindhu Desh movement, openly visited India when Rajiv Gandhi was the Prime Minister. Similarly, many Pashtun, Baloch and Seraiki leaders had openly visited India on many occasions to interact with Congress (I) leaders. The message conveyed to them was very clear: They should sort out their problems with the Government of Pakistan. India would have no role in it.
11. Despite this, since 2005, Pakistan has been alleging Indian intereference in Balochistan and now is talking of an alleged Indian role in the Pashtun belt. It is being helped in this exercise by some US non-governmental analysts not well disposed towards India. Pakistan has now stepped up this campaign for two reasons: Firstly, its economy is steadily worsening as a result of the continuing freedom struggle in Balochistan. Secondly, its intelligence agencies find in this psywar a pretext for not acting against the LET.
12. India should not fall into this trap . It should follow a two-pronged approach. Firstly, it should make it clear that Balochistan is Pakistan's internal affairs and that it has nothing to do with terrorism. Hence, it could not figure in Indo-Pakistan discussions on terrorism. Secondly, Pakistan's attempts to divert the attention of the international community away from the LET activities will not be allowed to succeed.
(The writer is Additional Secretary (retd), Cabinet Secretariat, Govt. of India, New Delhi, and, presently, Director, Institute For Topical Studies, Chennai. He is also associated with the Chennai Centre For China Studies.E-mail: seventyone2@gmail.com)
Pakistan's Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI), with the help of compliant sections of Pakistan's journalist community, has embarked on a psychological warfare campaign on the issue of the use of the Lashkar-e-Toiba (LET) by the ISI against India and the demand of the Government of India that it act against the LET for its involvement in the Mumbai terrorist attack of 26/11.
2. The message of the Psywar campaign is clear: "If you want us to act against the LET, help us in acting against the Balochistan Liberation Army (BLA)"
3. The BLA has been active in Balochistan since 2005 and has badly damaged the Punjabi economy by repeatedly disrupting the supply of sui gas from the gas production wells in Balochistan to industrial and domestic consumers in Pakistan's Punjab. The successful disruption of gas supply to industrial consumers in Punjab and power stations in the rest of Pakistan is partly behind the problems faced by the Pakistani economy and the serious disruptions in power supply in different parts of Pakistan.
4. Even if the US gives Pakistan billions of dollars in economic assistance, Pakistan's economy will not improve so long as Balochistan continues to burn due to the grievances of the Balochs against the Punjabis. The economic difficulties faced by the people due to erratic power supply, which is affecting the daily lives of millions of Pakistanis and damaging agricultural operations, are creating new pockets of alienation in the Seraiki areas of Southern Punjab and Sindh.
5. The Pakistani Army, despite the use of the most ruthless methods of suppression and despite the misuse against the Balochs of equipment such as helicopter gunships given by the US for use against Al Qaeda and the Taliban, has not been able to enforce the Pakistan Government's writ in the Baloch majority areas of the province. So long as the Pakistan Army does not succeed in Balochistan, the much-hyped Iran-Pakistan gas pipeline will remain a pipe dream. So too the much-hyped dream of Gwadar becoming the preferred gateway for the external trade of the Central Asian Republics (CARS) and the Xinjiang province of China. More than two years after it was inaugurated by the then President Pervez Musharraf, the Chinese-constructed Gwadar port has failed to attract the CARs. The Chinese have their own problems in the Xinjiang province where the Muslims are in a state of revolt against Han domination in an area which is looked upon by pan-Islamic forces such as Al Qaeda as historically belonging to the Muslim Umma. At a time when the Kashgar area of Xinjiang is threatening to become the North Waziristan of the Central Asian region, it is not surprising that the Chinese are going slow on the various proposals, which had originated from Pakistan, for the further development of Gwadar.
6. Pakistani leaders are fond of describing Jammu & Kashmir as the jugular vein of Pakistan, using an expression originally coined by Mohammad Ali Jinnah. Pakistan cannot emerge as an industrial power if Balochistan, the most mineral rich of the Pakistani provinces, remains in a state of revolt. The Baloch revolt has made the Pakistani leaders realise that Balochistan is Pakistan's real jugular vein. Pakistan's economy will be perpetually in a state of near collapse if there is no stability in Balochistan.
7. The Federal Government----whether ruled by the military or political leaders--- is not prepared to loosen the control of the Punjabi business class over the mineral wealth of Balochistan. The Baloch demand for independence is not only due to political and ethnic reasons. It is also due to economic reasons. The rest of Pakistan---particularly Punjab--used to flourish with the help of the gas and other mineral resources of Balochistan, with the Balochs languishing in poverty. The Baloch nationalists have decided ----thus far and no further. For the last three years, they have seen to it that their mineral wealth no longer goes to Punjab and other provinces.
8. Just as China's problems in Xinjiang are due to the Han colonisation of the province, Pakistan's problems in Balochistan are due to the Punjabi colonisation of the province. The Baloch freedom struggle is the outcome of the Punjabi colonisation. India has had nothing to do with it.
9. If India had wanted to take advantage of the widespread alienation amongst the Balochs against the Punjabi colonisers, it could have done so in 1971 after crushing the Pakistani Army in the then East Pakistan. Indira Gandhi could have easily ordered the Indian Navy to crush the Pakistan Navy and to move to the Baloch coast and help the Baloch freedom fighters, who had risen in revolt. She did not do so because she felt that the Baloch problem was Pakistan's internal affairs and that it was not in India's interest to further weaken Pakistan.
10. Despite considerable sympathy and friendly feelings for the problems of the Sindhis, Mohajirs, Balochs and Pashtuns, far-sighted Indian leaders, who succeeded Indira Gandhi as the Prime Minister, refrained from taking advantage of Pakistan's internal problems in retaliation for its use of terrorism against India. The late G.M.Syed, the father of the Sindhu Desh movement, openly visited India when Rajiv Gandhi was the Prime Minister. Similarly, many Pashtun, Baloch and Seraiki leaders had openly visited India on many occasions to interact with Congress (I) leaders. The message conveyed to them was very clear: They should sort out their problems with the Government of Pakistan. India would have no role in it.
11. Despite this, since 2005, Pakistan has been alleging Indian intereference in Balochistan and now is talking of an alleged Indian role in the Pashtun belt. It is being helped in this exercise by some US non-governmental analysts not well disposed towards India. Pakistan has now stepped up this campaign for two reasons: Firstly, its economy is steadily worsening as a result of the continuing freedom struggle in Balochistan. Secondly, its intelligence agencies find in this psywar a pretext for not acting against the LET.
12. India should not fall into this trap . It should follow a two-pronged approach. Firstly, it should make it clear that Balochistan is Pakistan's internal affairs and that it has nothing to do with terrorism. Hence, it could not figure in Indo-Pakistan discussions on terrorism. Secondly, Pakistan's attempts to divert the attention of the international community away from the LET activities will not be allowed to succeed.
(The writer is Additional Secretary (retd), Cabinet Secretariat, Govt. of India, New Delhi, and, presently, Director, Institute For Topical Studies, Chennai. He is also associated with the Chennai Centre For China Studies.E-mail: seventyone2@gmail.com)
Sunday, July 26, 2009
TALKING TO ISI
Pakistan's Inter Services Intelligence directorate reportedly wants to be involved in the talks with India. We requested B Raman, India's best-known expert on counter-terrorism and a former senior official at the Research and Analysis Wing, India's external intelligence agency, what he thought of the ISI's suggestions. This is what Mr Raman, who wrote this piece en route to Singapore, said:
The Inter-Services Intelligence of Pakistan, the bete noire of the Indian security agencies, is again in the news for two reasons.
The first reason is due to the agreement between Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and Pakistani Prime Minister Yousef Raza Gilani at their recent summit at Sharam-el-Sheikh that the two countries would share real-time actionable intelligence on terrorism.
The second is the report carried by The Hindu, the national daily, under the joint by-line of Nirupama Subramanian, its Islamabad correspondent, and Siddharth Varadarajan, its New Delhi correspondent, about a recent meeting between Lieutenant General Ahmed Shuja Pasha -- who was appointed by the Asif Ali Zardari government as the ISI's director general in September last year reportedly under US pressure -- and the Indian military attaches in Islamabad.
Pasha replaced Lieutenant General Nadeem Taj, whom the US allegedly suspected of masterminding the terrorist attack on the Indian embassy in Kabul in July last year and of leaking US-origin secrets to the Taliban
Pasha enjoys the Americans's trust and affection until now. After the Mumbai terrorist attacks of November 2008, American non-governmental experts on India-Pakistan affairs, with close contacts to the US administration at different levels, had believed that if at all there was an ISI involvement in Mumbai 26/11, it would have been under Taj and not under Pasha.
It may be recalled that Ajmal Kasab , the sole surviving terrorist of the Mumbai attacks, had reportedly told interrogators that the original target date for the attacks was in September, but the Lashkar-e-Tayiba postponed it for reasons not known to him. Taj was still the ISI chief at that time.
The inference from this was that the conspiracy for the attack was drawn up by the Lashkar, with the knowledge if not at the instance of the ISI headed by Taj, but when he was replaced under US pressure, the ISI withdrew from the conspiracy. The Lashkar went ahead with the plot without the ISI's further involvement.
Taj, who was very close to then Pakistan president General Pervez Musharraf , had a reputation of being strongly anti-India, whereas Pasha, it is believed, is not. I had referred to this in one of my articles on 26/11.
The Hindu report has created some excitement because it has referred to a meeting between Pasha and the Indian military attaches posted at the Indian high commission in Islamabad at which the ISI chief was reported to have suggested that the Government of India remain in touch with the Pakistan army and the ISI in addition to its interactions with the elected leadership in Pakistan. This meeting was apparently held at Pasha's initiative.
In his conversation on board his aircraft with Indian journalists who had accompanied him to the G-8 summit in Italy , Dr Singh was reported to have referred to a meeting between Pasha and the Indian defence attaches in Islamabad as part of the ongoing effort to explore the possibility of resuming the interrupted dialogue between the two countries.
Immediately thereafter, The News, a Pakistan daily newspaper, published a report, attributed to official sources, denying that such a meeting had taken place.
And now comes the report in The Hindu. Was it based on information originating from the ISI in Pakistan and the Pakistani high commission in New Delhi or from the Indian high commission in Islamabad and the Indian foreign office in New Delhi? It is difficult to say.
Whoever was behind the report, there is an element of psychological warfare behind it -- either initiated by the ISI or by elements in the Government of India. It is, therefore, difficult to say how much of it is a fact and how much motivated spin.
Whatever be the truth, it has been seen recently that Pasha and his officers have been playing an increasingly active role in interacting off-the-record with the media and giving the army's and the ISI's version of the situation in the India-Pakistan-Afghanistan region.
Interestingly, coinciding with US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton's visit to India last week, an unidentified ISI official or officials in Islamabad briefed one or more US journalists on the situation in which concern was expressed over the implications of the stepped-up US offensive against the Taliban in the Helmand province in Afghanistan and over the continued perception in the Pakistan army of a likely threat from India, which inhibited its operations against the Pakistani Taliban. A report based on this briefing was carried by the International Herald Tribune. I do not remember the date, but I read it on board an aircraft on the night of July 22.
From all this, it is evident that there is active lobbying -- if we do not want to use the word pressure -- for a liaison relationship between the ISI and an appropriate Indian intelligence agency. The US seems to be playing a role in this exercise.
The Americans had made a similar effort in 1993 after the Mumbai blasts of March 1993, when Bill Clinton was the president and P V Narasimha Rao was our prime minister. The Central Intelligence Agency offered to arrange a meeting between the heads of the ISI and R&AW. While Nawaz Sharif , the then Pakistani prime minister, reacted positively after some initial hesitation, Narasimha Rao was negative in his reaction. This was partly due to his scepticism about the US role and partly because of the strong opposition from J N Dixit, then the foreign secretary.
Dixit's opposition arose from his distrust of the ISI as well as R&AW. His distrust of R&AW dated back to his days as India's high commissioner in Colombo. He felt annoyed that R&AW did not keep him totally in the picture about its independent interactions with the Sri Lankan leadership.
There was another reason for Dixit's distrust. There were three sporadic meetings between the heads of the ISI and R&AW in third countries between 1988 and 1991 to discuss Indian allegations of the ISI's support to Khalistani terrorists in Punjab and Pakistani allegations of R&AW's meddling in Sindh. Karachi was burning at that time due to the violent activities of various anti-Punjabi militant groups.
These meetings were organised at the initiative of a member of Jordan's royal family. President Zia-ul Haq, who died in August 1988, his successor Benazir Bhutto and her successor Nawaz Sharif were in the picture. In India, then prime ministers Rajiv Gandhi and Chandra Shekhar were in the picture. There were no meetings when V P Singh was the PM.
The ministries of defence and external affairs were annoyed at R&AW for not keeping the interactions with the ISI confined to terrorism and for expanding the agenda to include possible ways of solving the Siachen issue. In fact, it was Rajiv Gandhi who encouraged R&AW to discuss Siachen with the ISI. Despite this, Dixit was annoyed with R&AW when he discovered these meetings in 1993. Ultimately, the US proposal of 1993 as conveyed by the CIA remained a non-starter due to Narasimha Rao's scepticism strengthened by Dixit's views.
Now this proposal has again come up after 26/11. I have been of the view that R&AW and the ISI should maintain a secret liaison of which only the leaderships of the two countries should be aware. Such a liaison helps in many ways: Firstly, it provides the leadership with a clandestine channel of communication. Secondly, intelligence chiefs of the two countries are able to know and assess each other in flesh and blood during personal meetings and not merely through media reports and uncorroborated source information. Thirdly, it helps them to pick each other's brains and understand each other's mindset.
Intelligence professionals are not like diplomats. They speak to each other more freely and frankly than diplomats do. And the fact that they enjoy the confidence of their leadership and have direct access to them for informal discussions gives them a certain self-confidence which non-intelligence senior bureaucrats do not have.
There is no harm in our giving a try to the idea of an informal, clandestine one-to-one liaison relationship between the ISI and R&AW. We should not have any illusions that it would result in a sharing of actionable intelligence. Intelligence agencies share actionable intelligence only when they have common State and non-State enemies. India and Pakistan do not have common enemies.
Even countries, which do not have an adversarial relationship, do not sincerely share all intelligence. They pick and choose depending on their national interest. The CIA has had a liaision relationship with Indian intelligence for nearly 60 years. While I was in service, it had shared a lot of intelligence with us on China, but not on Pakistan and its support to anti-India terrorism. It was its perception that it was in the US national interest to help India against China, but not against Pakistan.
In the cae of all liaison relationships there is a danger of the other intelligence agency trying to mislead by planting false intelligence. This danger will be very high in the ISI's case. It could create alienation between the Government of India and our Muslim community by planting false intelligence about selected members of the Indian Muslim community, particularly about those it does not like.
The liaison relationship should be carefully supervised by the political leadership.
B Raman ( published by www.rediff.com on July 23,2009)
The Inter-Services Intelligence of Pakistan, the bete noire of the Indian security agencies, is again in the news for two reasons.
The first reason is due to the agreement between Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and Pakistani Prime Minister Yousef Raza Gilani at their recent summit at Sharam-el-Sheikh that the two countries would share real-time actionable intelligence on terrorism.
The second is the report carried by The Hindu, the national daily, under the joint by-line of Nirupama Subramanian, its Islamabad correspondent, and Siddharth Varadarajan, its New Delhi correspondent, about a recent meeting between Lieutenant General Ahmed Shuja Pasha -- who was appointed by the Asif Ali Zardari government as the ISI's director general in September last year reportedly under US pressure -- and the Indian military attaches in Islamabad.
Pasha replaced Lieutenant General Nadeem Taj, whom the US allegedly suspected of masterminding the terrorist attack on the Indian embassy in Kabul in July last year and of leaking US-origin secrets to the Taliban
Pasha enjoys the Americans's trust and affection until now. After the Mumbai terrorist attacks of November 2008, American non-governmental experts on India-Pakistan affairs, with close contacts to the US administration at different levels, had believed that if at all there was an ISI involvement in Mumbai 26/11, it would have been under Taj and not under Pasha.
It may be recalled that Ajmal Kasab , the sole surviving terrorist of the Mumbai attacks, had reportedly told interrogators that the original target date for the attacks was in September, but the Lashkar-e-Tayiba postponed it for reasons not known to him. Taj was still the ISI chief at that time.
The inference from this was that the conspiracy for the attack was drawn up by the Lashkar, with the knowledge if not at the instance of the ISI headed by Taj, but when he was replaced under US pressure, the ISI withdrew from the conspiracy. The Lashkar went ahead with the plot without the ISI's further involvement.
Taj, who was very close to then Pakistan president General Pervez Musharraf , had a reputation of being strongly anti-India, whereas Pasha, it is believed, is not. I had referred to this in one of my articles on 26/11.
The Hindu report has created some excitement because it has referred to a meeting between Pasha and the Indian military attaches posted at the Indian high commission in Islamabad at which the ISI chief was reported to have suggested that the Government of India remain in touch with the Pakistan army and the ISI in addition to its interactions with the elected leadership in Pakistan. This meeting was apparently held at Pasha's initiative.
In his conversation on board his aircraft with Indian journalists who had accompanied him to the G-8 summit in Italy , Dr Singh was reported to have referred to a meeting between Pasha and the Indian defence attaches in Islamabad as part of the ongoing effort to explore the possibility of resuming the interrupted dialogue between the two countries.
Immediately thereafter, The News, a Pakistan daily newspaper, published a report, attributed to official sources, denying that such a meeting had taken place.
And now comes the report in The Hindu. Was it based on information originating from the ISI in Pakistan and the Pakistani high commission in New Delhi or from the Indian high commission in Islamabad and the Indian foreign office in New Delhi? It is difficult to say.
Whoever was behind the report, there is an element of psychological warfare behind it -- either initiated by the ISI or by elements in the Government of India. It is, therefore, difficult to say how much of it is a fact and how much motivated spin.
Whatever be the truth, it has been seen recently that Pasha and his officers have been playing an increasingly active role in interacting off-the-record with the media and giving the army's and the ISI's version of the situation in the India-Pakistan-Afghanistan region.
Interestingly, coinciding with US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton's visit to India last week, an unidentified ISI official or officials in Islamabad briefed one or more US journalists on the situation in which concern was expressed over the implications of the stepped-up US offensive against the Taliban in the Helmand province in Afghanistan and over the continued perception in the Pakistan army of a likely threat from India, which inhibited its operations against the Pakistani Taliban. A report based on this briefing was carried by the International Herald Tribune. I do not remember the date, but I read it on board an aircraft on the night of July 22.
From all this, it is evident that there is active lobbying -- if we do not want to use the word pressure -- for a liaison relationship between the ISI and an appropriate Indian intelligence agency. The US seems to be playing a role in this exercise.
The Americans had made a similar effort in 1993 after the Mumbai blasts of March 1993, when Bill Clinton was the president and P V Narasimha Rao was our prime minister. The Central Intelligence Agency offered to arrange a meeting between the heads of the ISI and R&AW. While Nawaz Sharif , the then Pakistani prime minister, reacted positively after some initial hesitation, Narasimha Rao was negative in his reaction. This was partly due to his scepticism about the US role and partly because of the strong opposition from J N Dixit, then the foreign secretary.
Dixit's opposition arose from his distrust of the ISI as well as R&AW. His distrust of R&AW dated back to his days as India's high commissioner in Colombo. He felt annoyed that R&AW did not keep him totally in the picture about its independent interactions with the Sri Lankan leadership.
There was another reason for Dixit's distrust. There were three sporadic meetings between the heads of the ISI and R&AW in third countries between 1988 and 1991 to discuss Indian allegations of the ISI's support to Khalistani terrorists in Punjab and Pakistani allegations of R&AW's meddling in Sindh. Karachi was burning at that time due to the violent activities of various anti-Punjabi militant groups.
These meetings were organised at the initiative of a member of Jordan's royal family. President Zia-ul Haq, who died in August 1988, his successor Benazir Bhutto and her successor Nawaz Sharif were in the picture. In India, then prime ministers Rajiv Gandhi and Chandra Shekhar were in the picture. There were no meetings when V P Singh was the PM.
The ministries of defence and external affairs were annoyed at R&AW for not keeping the interactions with the ISI confined to terrorism and for expanding the agenda to include possible ways of solving the Siachen issue. In fact, it was Rajiv Gandhi who encouraged R&AW to discuss Siachen with the ISI. Despite this, Dixit was annoyed with R&AW when he discovered these meetings in 1993. Ultimately, the US proposal of 1993 as conveyed by the CIA remained a non-starter due to Narasimha Rao's scepticism strengthened by Dixit's views.
Now this proposal has again come up after 26/11. I have been of the view that R&AW and the ISI should maintain a secret liaison of which only the leaderships of the two countries should be aware. Such a liaison helps in many ways: Firstly, it provides the leadership with a clandestine channel of communication. Secondly, intelligence chiefs of the two countries are able to know and assess each other in flesh and blood during personal meetings and not merely through media reports and uncorroborated source information. Thirdly, it helps them to pick each other's brains and understand each other's mindset.
Intelligence professionals are not like diplomats. They speak to each other more freely and frankly than diplomats do. And the fact that they enjoy the confidence of their leadership and have direct access to them for informal discussions gives them a certain self-confidence which non-intelligence senior bureaucrats do not have.
There is no harm in our giving a try to the idea of an informal, clandestine one-to-one liaison relationship between the ISI and R&AW. We should not have any illusions that it would result in a sharing of actionable intelligence. Intelligence agencies share actionable intelligence only when they have common State and non-State enemies. India and Pakistan do not have common enemies.
Even countries, which do not have an adversarial relationship, do not sincerely share all intelligence. They pick and choose depending on their national interest. The CIA has had a liaision relationship with Indian intelligence for nearly 60 years. While I was in service, it had shared a lot of intelligence with us on China, but not on Pakistan and its support to anti-India terrorism. It was its perception that it was in the US national interest to help India against China, but not against Pakistan.
In the cae of all liaison relationships there is a danger of the other intelligence agency trying to mislead by planting false intelligence. This danger will be very high in the ISI's case. It could create alienation between the Government of India and our Muslim community by planting false intelligence about selected members of the Indian Muslim community, particularly about those it does not like.
The liaison relationship should be carefully supervised by the political leadership.
B Raman ( published by www.rediff.com on July 23,2009)
Tuesday, July 21, 2009
VISIT OF HILLARY CLINTON TO INDIA
B.RAMAN
The following comments were recorded by me separately in a group discussion through the Internet on the just-ended visit of Mrs.Hillary Clinton, the US Secretary of State, to India (July 17 to 21,2009):
Whenever US leaders visit India, the issues which figure in private conversations and public interactions, fall into three categories:
(a).Issues of global interest such as non-proliferation, climate, trade etc.
(b). Issues having a bearing on Indo-Pakistan relations such as
Pakistani action against terrorism, Indo-Pak dialogue etc.
(c). China--- more indirectly than directly
2.The impression I have is that while Mrs.Hillary Clinton was eloquent and forthcoming on the first two categories mentioned above, she controlled her eloquence on China. She was careful not to create any misunderstanding in the US relations with China. The role of the Indian Defence Ministry in her official engagements was marginal..
3. I notice that from New Delhi she has flown to Phuket to attend the ASEAN Foreign Ministers' meeting and the meeting of the ARF. Her Indian engagements were coupled with her ASEAN/ARF engagements. She is going to sign at Phuket the ASEAN's Treaty of Amity and Co-operation, which successive US administrations had refrained from signing for nearly two decades. One of its three principles is non-interference in the internal affairs of the countries of the ASEAN region. Among other reasons for the reluctance of the previous administrations to sign it was the concern that it could inhibit their activist role in Myanmar.The Obama Administration has decided to sign it
4.I assess that whereas the Pentagon continues to attach the same importance to the US relations with India as it did under Bush, there is a growing lack of convergence between the State Department and the Pentagon on the importance of the relations with India. In the Pentagon, it is more action than words. In the State Department, it is more words than action.
5.For years, different US Administrations had been pressing New Delhi to allow the US to send a mission to Arunachal Pradesh to look for the remains of US Air Force personnel who went missing during the Second World War. All the previous Indian Governments had rejected the US request. There was a change of policy when Bush became the President. As an Indian gesture to Bush's gesture to India on various issues, the Government of India accepted the US request for a search in Arunachal
Pradesh. The Indian gesture also had a China-related angle----to indirectly get the US endorsement of the status quo in Arunachal Pradesh, which China has been challenging. A mission from the US came and visited Arunachal Pradesh when Bush was the President. The Obama Administration seems to be going slow on the follow-up. Why? ( 22-7-09)
(The writer is Additional Secretary (retd), Cabinet Secretariat, Govt. of India, New Delhi, and, presently, Director, Institute For Topical Studies, Chennai. He is also associated with the Chennai Centre For China Studies. E-Mail: seventyone2@gmail.com )
The following comments were recorded by me separately in a group discussion through the Internet on the just-ended visit of Mrs.Hillary Clinton, the US Secretary of State, to India (July 17 to 21,2009):
Whenever US leaders visit India, the issues which figure in private conversations and public interactions, fall into three categories:
(a).Issues of global interest such as non-proliferation, climate, trade etc.
(b). Issues having a bearing on Indo-Pakistan relations such as
Pakistani action against terrorism, Indo-Pak dialogue etc.
(c). China--- more indirectly than directly
2.The impression I have is that while Mrs.Hillary Clinton was eloquent and forthcoming on the first two categories mentioned above, she controlled her eloquence on China. She was careful not to create any misunderstanding in the US relations with China. The role of the Indian Defence Ministry in her official engagements was marginal..
3. I notice that from New Delhi she has flown to Phuket to attend the ASEAN Foreign Ministers' meeting and the meeting of the ARF. Her Indian engagements were coupled with her ASEAN/ARF engagements. She is going to sign at Phuket the ASEAN's Treaty of Amity and Co-operation, which successive US administrations had refrained from signing for nearly two decades. One of its three principles is non-interference in the internal affairs of the countries of the ASEAN region. Among other reasons for the reluctance of the previous administrations to sign it was the concern that it could inhibit their activist role in Myanmar.The Obama Administration has decided to sign it
4.I assess that whereas the Pentagon continues to attach the same importance to the US relations with India as it did under Bush, there is a growing lack of convergence between the State Department and the Pentagon on the importance of the relations with India. In the Pentagon, it is more action than words. In the State Department, it is more words than action.
5.For years, different US Administrations had been pressing New Delhi to allow the US to send a mission to Arunachal Pradesh to look for the remains of US Air Force personnel who went missing during the Second World War. All the previous Indian Governments had rejected the US request. There was a change of policy when Bush became the President. As an Indian gesture to Bush's gesture to India on various issues, the Government of India accepted the US request for a search in Arunachal
Pradesh. The Indian gesture also had a China-related angle----to indirectly get the US endorsement of the status quo in Arunachal Pradesh, which China has been challenging. A mission from the US came and visited Arunachal Pradesh when Bush was the President. The Obama Administration seems to be going slow on the follow-up. Why? ( 22-7-09)
(The writer is Additional Secretary (retd), Cabinet Secretariat, Govt. of India, New Delhi, and, presently, Director, Institute For Topical Studies, Chennai. He is also associated with the Chennai Centre For China Studies. E-Mail: seventyone2@gmail.com )
Monday, July 20, 2009
EAGLE HAS LANDED
B.RAMAN
10
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I counted with Neil Armstrong as the lunar module approached the surface of the moon for the historic moon landing 40 years ago.
It was past midnight Indian Standard Time. I was in bed wide awake and hugging on to my transistor radio and listening to the live transmission of the landing broadcast by the Voice of America.
I had no TV set. Even if I had, it would not have been useful. There was no live telecast.
And then came the most exciting (for us on earth) words.
“Eagle has landed.”
One would have expected total excitement on board the lunar module. Nothing. Not even one Hooray.
Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin started reading out from the instruments on board so that the ground controllers could satisfy themselves that everything on board was all right.
The ground controllers then asked the two astronauts to go to sleep.
They obediently did.
Imagine! They had landed on the moon.
The first human beings to do so.
Had I been there, I would have immediately opened the door and rushed out of the module to explore the moon.
But not Neil and Buzz.
They just went to sleep as ordered by the ground control, which, from the ground, monitored the various instruments on board as the two were sleeping----- as if they were sleeping on their bed at home and not inside a module on the lunar surface.
The live broadcast from the module stopped. The VOA started broadcasting interviews with ground controllers, members of the families of the astronauts and others.
I also went to sleep after switching off the radio.
But after every hour or so, I would wake up and switch it on to see whether live transmissions from the lunar surface had resumed.
They had not. Neil and Buzz were still sleeping.
The VOA continued broadcasting interviews on earth.
And then, after a few hours, when I switched on the radio, I could again hear the voices of Neil and Buzz chatting with the ground controllers.
Once again they were reading out from the various instruments.
And then they were asked to get out of the lunar module for their famous first step on the moon followed by over two hours of exploration in the vicinity of the lunar module. They did not venture out far away from the module.
Those in New Delhi, who had TV sets, were able to see the pictures some hours later. There was no live TV transmission.
What fears I had!
Supposing they are struck by a meteorite!
Supposing they are killed by living beings on the moon of which we were not aware!
Supposing something goes wrong with the module and they are stranded to die on the moon!
Oh God! I remember those fears even today.
And then to my relief, they returned to the module. They closed the door.
Reading out of the instruments again.
The command went from the ground to take off. They did.
The lunar module was space borne again and started moving towards the mother ship through a series of complex manoeuvres.
Mike Collins was piloting the mother ship which kept orbiting the moon as Neil and Buzz were on the surface of the moon.
The rendezvous between the mother ship and the lunar surface was a very complex manoeuvre for all the three. It required piloting skills of the highest order from all the three.
The lunar module had to reach the same orbit as the mother ship and then slowly approach it and dock.
The actual docking took place when the mother ship and the lunar module were on the far side of the moon when all communications with the ground stop.
Total silence for about 30 minutes.
Nobody knew what was happening on the other side of the moon.
Were the docking manoeuvres successful? Have Neil and Buzz transferred themselves and their cargo of moon rocks to the mother ship?
We did not know.
We had no way of knowing till the communications resumed after the orbit of the mother ship brought it to the near side of the moon.
The VOA went back to its interviews and descriptive stories.
I prayed.
And prayed.
And kept praying.
Suddently, the VOA interviews stopped.
We heard the voices of the astronauts again.
Reading out from their instruments and preparing themselves for the return journey to earth.
It was a great achievement. That day we were all Americans. The whole world was America.
As we celebrate the 40th anniversary of the first moon landing and hail once again the astronauts who participated in the moon mission, let us not forget the scientists, the engineers and other technicians on the ground who made the moon mission possible.
Their achievement was as great as that of the astronauts.
To imagine they achieved all this 40 years ago when technology was not as advanced as it is today! (21-7-09)
( The writer is Additional Secretary (retd), Cabinet Secretariat, Govt. of India, NewDelhi and, presently, Director, Institute For Topical Studies,Chennai. E-mail: seventyone2@gmail.com )
10
9
8
7
6
5
4
3
2
1
I counted with Neil Armstrong as the lunar module approached the surface of the moon for the historic moon landing 40 years ago.
It was past midnight Indian Standard Time. I was in bed wide awake and hugging on to my transistor radio and listening to the live transmission of the landing broadcast by the Voice of America.
I had no TV set. Even if I had, it would not have been useful. There was no live telecast.
And then came the most exciting (for us on earth) words.
“Eagle has landed.”
One would have expected total excitement on board the lunar module. Nothing. Not even one Hooray.
Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin started reading out from the instruments on board so that the ground controllers could satisfy themselves that everything on board was all right.
The ground controllers then asked the two astronauts to go to sleep.
They obediently did.
Imagine! They had landed on the moon.
The first human beings to do so.
Had I been there, I would have immediately opened the door and rushed out of the module to explore the moon.
But not Neil and Buzz.
They just went to sleep as ordered by the ground control, which, from the ground, monitored the various instruments on board as the two were sleeping----- as if they were sleeping on their bed at home and not inside a module on the lunar surface.
The live broadcast from the module stopped. The VOA started broadcasting interviews with ground controllers, members of the families of the astronauts and others.
I also went to sleep after switching off the radio.
But after every hour or so, I would wake up and switch it on to see whether live transmissions from the lunar surface had resumed.
They had not. Neil and Buzz were still sleeping.
The VOA continued broadcasting interviews on earth.
And then, after a few hours, when I switched on the radio, I could again hear the voices of Neil and Buzz chatting with the ground controllers.
Once again they were reading out from the various instruments.
And then they were asked to get out of the lunar module for their famous first step on the moon followed by over two hours of exploration in the vicinity of the lunar module. They did not venture out far away from the module.
Those in New Delhi, who had TV sets, were able to see the pictures some hours later. There was no live TV transmission.
What fears I had!
Supposing they are struck by a meteorite!
Supposing they are killed by living beings on the moon of which we were not aware!
Supposing something goes wrong with the module and they are stranded to die on the moon!
Oh God! I remember those fears even today.
And then to my relief, they returned to the module. They closed the door.
Reading out of the instruments again.
The command went from the ground to take off. They did.
The lunar module was space borne again and started moving towards the mother ship through a series of complex manoeuvres.
Mike Collins was piloting the mother ship which kept orbiting the moon as Neil and Buzz were on the surface of the moon.
The rendezvous between the mother ship and the lunar surface was a very complex manoeuvre for all the three. It required piloting skills of the highest order from all the three.
The lunar module had to reach the same orbit as the mother ship and then slowly approach it and dock.
The actual docking took place when the mother ship and the lunar module were on the far side of the moon when all communications with the ground stop.
Total silence for about 30 minutes.
Nobody knew what was happening on the other side of the moon.
Were the docking manoeuvres successful? Have Neil and Buzz transferred themselves and their cargo of moon rocks to the mother ship?
We did not know.
We had no way of knowing till the communications resumed after the orbit of the mother ship brought it to the near side of the moon.
The VOA went back to its interviews and descriptive stories.
I prayed.
And prayed.
And kept praying.
Suddently, the VOA interviews stopped.
We heard the voices of the astronauts again.
Reading out from their instruments and preparing themselves for the return journey to earth.
It was a great achievement. That day we were all Americans. The whole world was America.
As we celebrate the 40th anniversary of the first moon landing and hail once again the astronauts who participated in the moon mission, let us not forget the scientists, the engineers and other technicians on the ground who made the moon mission possible.
Their achievement was as great as that of the astronauts.
To imagine they achieved all this 40 years ago when technology was not as advanced as it is today! (21-7-09)
( The writer is Additional Secretary (retd), Cabinet Secretariat, Govt. of India, NewDelhi and, presently, Director, Institute For Topical Studies,Chennai. E-mail: seventyone2@gmail.com )
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