B.RAMAN
More than two years after the 26/11 terrorist strikes in Mumbai and the setting-up of the National Investigation Agency (NIA), the Government of India continues to have a shoddy counter-terrorism data-base.
2. That is the inevitable conclusion from the current controversy over an embarrassing professional and diplomatic faux pas relating to the alleged inclusion of the name of Wazhul Kamar Khan, a terrorism suspect living on bail with his family in Thane in Maharashtra, in a list of 50 terrorism suspects allegedly enjoying sanctuary in Pakistan. This list was reportedly given by the Government of India to the Interior Ministry of Pakistan some weeks ago and had remained a secret till now. This list was released to the media by the Ministry of Home Affairs of the Government of India after the Abbottabad raid by US naval commandos, which led to the death of Osama bin Laden. The belated release of the list was seen by many as an attempt by our Home Ministry to step up pressure on Pakistan to act against terrorism suspects wanted in India and allegedly sheltered in Pakistan.
3. The fact that Wazhul Kamar Khan's name was mistakenly included in the list was discovered not by the counter-terrorism agencies of India or Pakistan, but by Mateen Hafeez, a well-reputed journalist of the " Times of India". His investigative report was carried by the paper on May 17,2011.Our MHA and retired officers of the intelligence and investigating agencies appearing in TV debates have uncomfortably tied themselves in knots in trying to explain away or rationalise this faux pas. They have been projecting it as a clerical or human error, which does sometimes take place in Government and urging that one should not make a mountain of a mole hil and captalise on this unfortunate error to discredit our agencies.
4. There is nothing mala fide about the inclusion of the name of this suspect. It was not an instance of a fabrication of evidence against him or Pakistan in an attempt to fix Pakistan. At the same time, this error indicates serious deficiencies in our counter-terrorism data-base which should cause concern to our policy-makers. It would also cause concern to the international intelligence and investigating community and add to the suspicions that they already have about the credibility of our investigation process and about our allegations regarding Pakistan giving shelter to Indian terrorists.
5. Our credibility as professional counter-terrorism experts will be weakened by this serious error. A terrorism suspect had been arrested in Maharashtra. He had been gven bail by a court. He was living with his family. And, yet, the Government of India in New Delhi was not aware of it and its data-base indicated that he had been sheltered in Pakistan. That is why his name found its way into the dossier given to Pakistan.
6. At the time the dossier was prepared for being handed over to Pakistan, none any of the agencies of the Government of India or of the Government of Maharashtra would appear to have detected this embarrassing mistake. This would clearly show that there was no co-ordination in the preparation of the dossier. Nor was there any effective supervision of the process and any proper vetting of the dossier before the decision to hand it over to Pakistan was taken. In our anxiety to embarrass Pakistan, the whole exercise seems to have been handled in a very casual manner.
7. Other countries would be greatly concerned by this faux pas and by our casual approach for one very important reason. After the 26/11 terrorist strikes in Mumbai, there was a demand in India for a retaliatory strike on the terrorist infrastructure in Pakistan from which these attacks had emanated. The Government of Dr.Manmohan Singh managed to resist the demand from some sections of the public for a retaliatory strike.
8.If there is another 26/11 ( God forbid), the demand for a retalitory strike against the terrorist infrastructure in Pakistan could be revived. For such a strike to be effective, it has to be based on an accurate data-base of the infrastructure in Pakistan. If this incident indicates the shoddy state of our data-base, by ordering a retaliatory strike on the basis of a shoddy data-base we might create a messy situation and find ourselves in an indefensible position before the international community.
9. Instead of minimising the implications of the faux pas and dismissing it as a human error sometimes unavoidable, we must tale the matter much more seriously than we seem to be doing so far, try to find out how the whole thing happened and take the required corrective action. Our reputation as professional CT experts is at stake in the eyes of the international community. ( 19-5-11)
( The writer is Additional Secretary (retd), Cabinet Secretariat, Govt. of India, New Delhi, and, presently, Director, Institute For Topical Studies, Chennai, and Associate of the Chennai Centre For China Studies. E-mail: seventyone2@gmail.com )
Wednesday, May 18, 2011
MY CANCER & I
B.RAMAN
I completed my quarterly anti-cancer evaluation on May 18,2011, after undergoing a series of lab tests ---blood, urine, ultrasound of the entire abdomen, chest X-ray etc--- since May12. At the end of them all, I had my seventh quarterly shot.
2. The progress is encouraging. My body has been responding well to the therapy and tolerating it without any major side effects. Twenty months after the cancer was detected, it has remained confined to the urinary tract and is showing no tendency to spread outside. Even in the urinary tract, it is showing signs of shrinking. My prostate, where the roots initially appeared, is free of them now. My doc told me today that the big-size, high-grade cancer in my prostate has miraculously disappeared.The lab had mentioned in the report that there is a lesion in my bladder, which needed investigation. The doc feels that it could be the scar left by the diagnostic procedure which he had done in October 2009. He would wait for a few months more before coming to any conclusion. My next hospital visit will be on August 18. I have been advised to continue with the hormonal therapy as before.
3. I feel happy. I feel good. But I am avoiding any feelings of exaltation. As one reaches the age of 75, the health gets into a zig-zag mode, whatever be the illness. One can never say when a zig can turn into a zag and vice versa.
4. Keep going so long as the going is good. I have been leading a normal life from the day the cancer was detected 20 months ago. The only two changes I have made are to drastically cut down my drinking ---only on social occasions now --- and to avoid foreign travels. The doc has been encouraging me for over a year now to resume my foreign travels. He has repeated the recommendation. Will decide in July.
5. Let me thank all of you in the real world of flesh and blood as well as in the world of tweets who have held my hand in these months. God bless all of you. (18-5-11)
I completed my quarterly anti-cancer evaluation on May 18,2011, after undergoing a series of lab tests ---blood, urine, ultrasound of the entire abdomen, chest X-ray etc--- since May12. At the end of them all, I had my seventh quarterly shot.
2. The progress is encouraging. My body has been responding well to the therapy and tolerating it without any major side effects. Twenty months after the cancer was detected, it has remained confined to the urinary tract and is showing no tendency to spread outside. Even in the urinary tract, it is showing signs of shrinking. My prostate, where the roots initially appeared, is free of them now. My doc told me today that the big-size, high-grade cancer in my prostate has miraculously disappeared.The lab had mentioned in the report that there is a lesion in my bladder, which needed investigation. The doc feels that it could be the scar left by the diagnostic procedure which he had done in October 2009. He would wait for a few months more before coming to any conclusion. My next hospital visit will be on August 18. I have been advised to continue with the hormonal therapy as before.
3. I feel happy. I feel good. But I am avoiding any feelings of exaltation. As one reaches the age of 75, the health gets into a zig-zag mode, whatever be the illness. One can never say when a zig can turn into a zag and vice versa.
4. Keep going so long as the going is good. I have been leading a normal life from the day the cancer was detected 20 months ago. The only two changes I have made are to drastically cut down my drinking ---only on social occasions now --- and to avoid foreign travels. The doc has been encouraging me for over a year now to resume my foreign travels. He has repeated the recommendation. Will decide in July.
5. Let me thank all of you in the real world of flesh and blood as well as in the world of tweets who have held my hand in these months. God bless all of you. (18-5-11)
Tuesday, May 17, 2011
WHERE IS TRUTH IN JOURNALISM?
B.RAMAN
The May 16,2011, issue of the "Global Times" of China, which is controlled by the Communist Party of China, has carried an utterly delightful article on the state of journalism in China. Many of the telling observations in the article apply with equal validity to the state of journalism in India. I am annexing below the text of the article. (18-5-11)
ANNEXURE
Journalism trapped in web of special interests
Source: Global Times
May 16 2011]
Comments
By Li Xiguang
Like me, many people in China decided to become journalists because they had neither the brains for math and logic nor the talent to be doctors and engineers.
The moment for me to decide becoming a journalist came in the summer of 1982 when I had just graduated from university and was assigned to work with the Chinese Academy of Sciences.
One day, Professor Qian Sanqiang, the father of the Chinese atomic bomb, asked me to go to the Indian embassy, acting as an interpreter at the dinner. During the dinner, the Indian ambassador stood up and gave a speech. He said, "Standing in front of Qian Sanqiang, I feel so humble. He knows everything about nothing but I know nothing about everything."
I was totally confused and did not know how to translate the sentence into Chinese.
Later, a particle physicist explained to me that "nothing" here referred to dark matter, a substance inferred to exist from gravitational effects on background radiation. Dark matter constitutes 80 percent of the matter in the universe, while ordinary matter makes up only 20 percent.
At that moment, it was not just the Indian ambassador who felt humble in front of science, but me, a formerly self-conceited young man.
My fiasco in translating the word "nothing" was a decisive moment for me to leave the scientific community and enter the unscientific world of journalism.
Journalism in China is certainly unscientific. Perhaps it's even pseudo-scientific. Reporters are like the blind men groping at the elephant, only seeing part of the picture.
Since today's Chinese society is divided into different interest groups fighting for political power, the media have become a propaganda weapon serving different political and economic camps. These mouthpieces rely upon the "worthy sources" from their political camps for reporting. For example, the media love victim stories. But in most victim stories, the victim should be in "our camp." The victim should not be in "our enemy's camp."
Most media pay little attention to events that aren't deemed newsworthy, however important or truthful. Only stories that capturereaders and sell the newspapers are seen as worthy. War is a story, and peace isn't.
Many Chinese journalists act like judge of truth. Reporting the truth has always been a high-sounding motto for both journalists and journalism educators.
But who gives the media the right to be the arbitrator? Do journalists have the scientific ability to judge the truth or report a truthful story?
In news coverage of big events in China today, reporters are working under the pressure from their audience, advertisers, investors and their political bosses. They can't escape these forms of control.
Many Chinese media outlets pretend to be neutral. But their so-called objective reporting is pseudo-balance and pseudo-neutrality.
If you watch some Chinese TV talk shows, you see those star TV anchors invite their imagined enemy into their talk shows and set him or her up to be ridiculed or shouted at by their audience to achieve dramatic effect.
Good journalism means giving equal broadcast time and newspaper space to reports from the other camp so that your audience will get to know how their imagined enemies are talking and thinking.
But in Chinese journalism practice, no one could survive by being neutral. Chinese editors know it too well that it is a suicide to be objective or neutral in reporting because all media, whether CCTV, Phoenix TV or Southern Weekend, must meet the needs of their audiences and their financial and political supporters with their anticipated news and views.
In an informed society, people have the right to know who is behind the media in creating and spreading rumors and to whose benefit public anger being manipulated. But in China today, the media is run like the mafia, and one never knows who is behind it. There is no media transparency in China.
Many journalists would argue that the goal of a free press is reporting truth. But where is the truth in journalism? Perhaps it only exists in theoretical physics.
The author is a professor of journalism at Tsinghua University Center for International Communication
xiguang@tsinghua.edu.cn
The May 16,2011, issue of the "Global Times" of China, which is controlled by the Communist Party of China, has carried an utterly delightful article on the state of journalism in China. Many of the telling observations in the article apply with equal validity to the state of journalism in India. I am annexing below the text of the article. (18-5-11)
ANNEXURE
Journalism trapped in web of special interests
Source: Global Times
May 16 2011]
Comments
By Li Xiguang
Like me, many people in China decided to become journalists because they had neither the brains for math and logic nor the talent to be doctors and engineers.
The moment for me to decide becoming a journalist came in the summer of 1982 when I had just graduated from university and was assigned to work with the Chinese Academy of Sciences.
One day, Professor Qian Sanqiang, the father of the Chinese atomic bomb, asked me to go to the Indian embassy, acting as an interpreter at the dinner. During the dinner, the Indian ambassador stood up and gave a speech. He said, "Standing in front of Qian Sanqiang, I feel so humble. He knows everything about nothing but I know nothing about everything."
I was totally confused and did not know how to translate the sentence into Chinese.
Later, a particle physicist explained to me that "nothing" here referred to dark matter, a substance inferred to exist from gravitational effects on background radiation. Dark matter constitutes 80 percent of the matter in the universe, while ordinary matter makes up only 20 percent.
At that moment, it was not just the Indian ambassador who felt humble in front of science, but me, a formerly self-conceited young man.
My fiasco in translating the word "nothing" was a decisive moment for me to leave the scientific community and enter the unscientific world of journalism.
Journalism in China is certainly unscientific. Perhaps it's even pseudo-scientific. Reporters are like the blind men groping at the elephant, only seeing part of the picture.
Since today's Chinese society is divided into different interest groups fighting for political power, the media have become a propaganda weapon serving different political and economic camps. These mouthpieces rely upon the "worthy sources" from their political camps for reporting. For example, the media love victim stories. But in most victim stories, the victim should be in "our camp." The victim should not be in "our enemy's camp."
Most media pay little attention to events that aren't deemed newsworthy, however important or truthful. Only stories that capturereaders and sell the newspapers are seen as worthy. War is a story, and peace isn't.
Many Chinese journalists act like judge of truth. Reporting the truth has always been a high-sounding motto for both journalists and journalism educators.
But who gives the media the right to be the arbitrator? Do journalists have the scientific ability to judge the truth or report a truthful story?
In news coverage of big events in China today, reporters are working under the pressure from their audience, advertisers, investors and their political bosses. They can't escape these forms of control.
Many Chinese media outlets pretend to be neutral. But their so-called objective reporting is pseudo-balance and pseudo-neutrality.
If you watch some Chinese TV talk shows, you see those star TV anchors invite their imagined enemy into their talk shows and set him or her up to be ridiculed or shouted at by their audience to achieve dramatic effect.
Good journalism means giving equal broadcast time and newspaper space to reports from the other camp so that your audience will get to know how their imagined enemies are talking and thinking.
But in Chinese journalism practice, no one could survive by being neutral. Chinese editors know it too well that it is a suicide to be objective or neutral in reporting because all media, whether CCTV, Phoenix TV or Southern Weekend, must meet the needs of their audiences and their financial and political supporters with their anticipated news and views.
In an informed society, people have the right to know who is behind the media in creating and spreading rumors and to whose benefit public anger being manipulated. But in China today, the media is run like the mafia, and one never knows who is behind it. There is no media transparency in China.
Many journalists would argue that the goal of a free press is reporting truth. But where is the truth in journalism? Perhaps it only exists in theoretical physics.
The author is a professor of journalism at Tsinghua University Center for International Communication
xiguang@tsinghua.edu.cn
PAK ARMY & ISI: DANGEROUS MIX OF HUMILIATION & DESPERATION
B.RAMAN
A dangerous mix of humiliation and desperation is the prevailing mood in the Pakistani Armed Forces and its Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) in the wake of the death of Osama bin Laden in a clandestine chopper-borne raid conducted by US naval commandos on a huge house next to the Pakistan Military Academy (PMA) at Abbottabad in the Khyber Pakhtoonkwa province.
2. The humiliation of the ISI arises from the fact that OBL was living undetected at Abbottabad for over five years. The international community and large sections of public opinion in Pakistan itself believe that without the complicity or the silent connivance of the ISI he could not have lived that long in that area.
3. In his secret testimony before an in-camera session of the Pakistan Parliament on May 13, Lt.Gen.Ahmed Shuja Pasha, the Director-General of the ISI, tried to shift part of the blame for this huge intelligence failure on to the Intelligence Bureau (IB) and the Police, both of which come under the control of the Ministry of the Interior. His efforts have failed following allegations by leaders and officials of the Khyber Pakhtoonkwa province that the responsibility for intelligence collection and security in garrison towns vested exclusively in the ISI and that the IB and the Police had no role in the matter.
4. The humiliation of the Armed Forces has arisen from the fact that neither the Pakistan Air Force ( PAF) nor the Army was able to detect and prevent the intrusion of the US choppers into the Abbottabad area to kill OBL and escape with his body and a large quantity of documents, computer material and other evidence which could ultimately help the US intelligence , inter alia, to trace the links of OBL with influential people in the Pakistani civil society and the Government.
5. Even though the Armed Forces and the ISI have managed to force the political leadership into expressing its solidarity with them despite their shocking sins of commission and omission, their credibility has been badly damaged in the eyes of the people of the country as well as of the international community.
6.The Army and the ISI have thus far managed to avoid any out-of-house enquiry into the huge intelligence failure that could have arisen from suspected complicity of serving and retired officers of the ISI. The only comprehensive enquiry by an independent commission to which they have agreed is into the security failure which enabled the US to conduct its spectacular commando raid right under the nose of the Army and the Air Force.
7. The vaunted professional reputation of the Army, the Air Force and the ISI is in ruins. The desperation seen is in salvaging the severely damaged reputation in the eyes of the Pakistani people and junior and medium level officers of the Armed Forces. There is a danger of the military and the ISI leadership concluding that without an external adventure against India they may not be able to salvage their reputation and restore the morale of the Armed Forces and the ISI at junior and senior levels.
8. The Government of India should be alert to the danger of such an adventure directed against India through the usual surrogates of the ISI such as the Lashkar-e-Toiba ( LET), or the so-called 303 Brigade of Ilyas Kashmiri or other anti-India jihadi organizations. The Pakistan Army and the ISI might calculate that re-kindling acts of terrorism against India in J&K and outside might benefit them in two ways. Firstly, to salvage their reputation and restore the morale of their personnel. Secondly, to direct the anger of the LET and other jihadi organizations towards India instead of towards the Pakistani Armed Forces.
9. The jihadi organizations seem to suspect that the spectacular raid at Abbottabad by the US commandos might not have been possible without the knowledge, if not the complicity, of the Armed Forces. This anger against the Armed Forces among the jihadi organizations has already led to two simultaneous acts of suicide terrorism by the Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) against a group of young recruits to the Frontier Constabulary, a para-military unit, on the day they completed their training in a training centre in the Charsaddha District of the Khyber Pakhtoonkwa province.
10. To avoid more such attacks on the Pakistani security forces, the anger of the jihadi organizations may be diverted towards India. There is considerable anger against the US in the Pakistani Armed Forces as well as the civil society. This anger could dilute the ability of the US Government to exercise any restraining influence over such adventurous actions directed against India.
11. The prevailing mindset among senior officers was evident from a reported claim of Pasha before the in-camera session of the Parliament that any Abbottabad-like attack by India would invite a befitting response from Pakistan as targets inside India "had already been identified" and "rehearsal" carried out. It was likely he was indulging in bravado, but one should not minimize the danger of the Pakistani Armed Forces and the ISI provoking border incidents in order to give themselves an opportunity for a retaliatory strike against India. There is a need to mobilize and step up our intelligence collection efforts so that we are not taken by surprise.
12. The spectacular chopper-borne commando raid would be studied not only by the special forces groups of other countries, but also by terrorist organizations in order to see whether similar chopper borne raids could be organized on our territory. Indian targets which could be vulnerable to chopper-borne commando style raids have to be identified and action taken to reduce their vulnerability. (17-5.11)
( The writer is Additional Secretary (retd), Cabinet Secretariat, Govt. of India, New Delhi, and, presently, Director, Institute For Topical Studies, Chennai, and Associate of the Chennai Centre For China Studies. E-mail: seventyone2@gmail.com)
A dangerous mix of humiliation and desperation is the prevailing mood in the Pakistani Armed Forces and its Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) in the wake of the death of Osama bin Laden in a clandestine chopper-borne raid conducted by US naval commandos on a huge house next to the Pakistan Military Academy (PMA) at Abbottabad in the Khyber Pakhtoonkwa province.
2. The humiliation of the ISI arises from the fact that OBL was living undetected at Abbottabad for over five years. The international community and large sections of public opinion in Pakistan itself believe that without the complicity or the silent connivance of the ISI he could not have lived that long in that area.
3. In his secret testimony before an in-camera session of the Pakistan Parliament on May 13, Lt.Gen.Ahmed Shuja Pasha, the Director-General of the ISI, tried to shift part of the blame for this huge intelligence failure on to the Intelligence Bureau (IB) and the Police, both of which come under the control of the Ministry of the Interior. His efforts have failed following allegations by leaders and officials of the Khyber Pakhtoonkwa province that the responsibility for intelligence collection and security in garrison towns vested exclusively in the ISI and that the IB and the Police had no role in the matter.
4. The humiliation of the Armed Forces has arisen from the fact that neither the Pakistan Air Force ( PAF) nor the Army was able to detect and prevent the intrusion of the US choppers into the Abbottabad area to kill OBL and escape with his body and a large quantity of documents, computer material and other evidence which could ultimately help the US intelligence , inter alia, to trace the links of OBL with influential people in the Pakistani civil society and the Government.
5. Even though the Armed Forces and the ISI have managed to force the political leadership into expressing its solidarity with them despite their shocking sins of commission and omission, their credibility has been badly damaged in the eyes of the people of the country as well as of the international community.
6.The Army and the ISI have thus far managed to avoid any out-of-house enquiry into the huge intelligence failure that could have arisen from suspected complicity of serving and retired officers of the ISI. The only comprehensive enquiry by an independent commission to which they have agreed is into the security failure which enabled the US to conduct its spectacular commando raid right under the nose of the Army and the Air Force.
7. The vaunted professional reputation of the Army, the Air Force and the ISI is in ruins. The desperation seen is in salvaging the severely damaged reputation in the eyes of the Pakistani people and junior and medium level officers of the Armed Forces. There is a danger of the military and the ISI leadership concluding that without an external adventure against India they may not be able to salvage their reputation and restore the morale of the Armed Forces and the ISI at junior and senior levels.
8. The Government of India should be alert to the danger of such an adventure directed against India through the usual surrogates of the ISI such as the Lashkar-e-Toiba ( LET), or the so-called 303 Brigade of Ilyas Kashmiri or other anti-India jihadi organizations. The Pakistan Army and the ISI might calculate that re-kindling acts of terrorism against India in J&K and outside might benefit them in two ways. Firstly, to salvage their reputation and restore the morale of their personnel. Secondly, to direct the anger of the LET and other jihadi organizations towards India instead of towards the Pakistani Armed Forces.
9. The jihadi organizations seem to suspect that the spectacular raid at Abbottabad by the US commandos might not have been possible without the knowledge, if not the complicity, of the Armed Forces. This anger against the Armed Forces among the jihadi organizations has already led to two simultaneous acts of suicide terrorism by the Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) against a group of young recruits to the Frontier Constabulary, a para-military unit, on the day they completed their training in a training centre in the Charsaddha District of the Khyber Pakhtoonkwa province.
10. To avoid more such attacks on the Pakistani security forces, the anger of the jihadi organizations may be diverted towards India. There is considerable anger against the US in the Pakistani Armed Forces as well as the civil society. This anger could dilute the ability of the US Government to exercise any restraining influence over such adventurous actions directed against India.
11. The prevailing mindset among senior officers was evident from a reported claim of Pasha before the in-camera session of the Parliament that any Abbottabad-like attack by India would invite a befitting response from Pakistan as targets inside India "had already been identified" and "rehearsal" carried out. It was likely he was indulging in bravado, but one should not minimize the danger of the Pakistani Armed Forces and the ISI provoking border incidents in order to give themselves an opportunity for a retaliatory strike against India. There is a need to mobilize and step up our intelligence collection efforts so that we are not taken by surprise.
12. The spectacular chopper-borne commando raid would be studied not only by the special forces groups of other countries, but also by terrorist organizations in order to see whether similar chopper borne raids could be organized on our territory. Indian targets which could be vulnerable to chopper-borne commando style raids have to be identified and action taken to reduce their vulnerability. (17-5.11)
( The writer is Additional Secretary (retd), Cabinet Secretariat, Govt. of India, New Delhi, and, presently, Director, Institute For Topical Studies, Chennai, and Associate of the Chennai Centre For China Studies. E-mail: seventyone2@gmail.com)
Monday, May 16, 2011
INDIA-PAKISTAN: GIVING TEETH TO THE PEACE PROCESS
B.RAMAN
Here are my replies to three questions received from a British journalist:
Thanks for your E-mail. Here are my replies to your three questions. Regards. B.Raman
1. How important is this trial for those who watch the India-Pak relationship. Are we really going to learn something new?
Answer:In the case of Headley, who has made a detailed plea bargain fully admitting his role in connection with the 26/11 terrorist strikes in Mumbai and the planned terrorist strike in Copenhagen, we are unlikely to learn anything new during the trial. In the case of Rana, he has not made a confession and hence is not the beneficiary of a plea bargain. We already know a lot about his role based on the confessions made by Headley and the FBI's interceptions of Rana's phone conversations. What we do not know as yet is what defence Rana is going to take. Media reports emanating from Chicago on April 12,2011, had indicated that his main defence would be that he had no links with Lashkar-e-Toiba (LET) and hence he was not involved in terrorism. At the same time, it was reported, he would admit his links with the ISI and his performing some tasks in India at the instance of the ISI.His defence would most probably be that his helping the ISI would not amount to his helping LET terrorism If he takes up such a defence, as reported in the media, we may get a little more about the ISI's role in addition to what has already come out.
2. Manmohan Singh has gone out of his way to reach out to the Pakistanis; do you believe those efforts could be undermined by any revelations from the trial?
Answer: I do not expect the Chicago trial to have any impact on Dr.Manmohan Singh's peace initiative towards Pakistan. He took the initiative in the last week of March. By that time, the Govt. of India had already known what Headley had been saying. It might have already been told by the FBI of what Rana might be telling the court. The fact that MMS took the peace initiative in spite of the considerable details regarding the role of the ISI already known at that time would indicate that he may not allow the Chicago trial to come in the way of the peace process
3. How possible is it for there to be good relations between India and Pakistan while the military continues to back militant groups.
Answer:The Pakistani military and the ISI are not going to give up the use of the LET and other anti-India jihadi organisations as strategic weapons against India so long as they don't achieve their objective of forcing India to agree to a change of the status quo in J & K. The Govt. of India knows fully well that the end of Pakistani sponsorship of anti-India terrorism is not for tomorrow. I do not expect any renunciation of this weapon by Pakistan at least for another five to 10 years.What India would be hoping for is that even if Pakistan continues to retain this weapon of terrorism, it will refrain from using it so long as it sees the peace process as moving forward. The hope would be that a tactical process of incremental improvements in bilateral relations could ultimately acquire a strategic dimension, resulting in Pakistan giving up the sponsorship of terrorism. Many skeptics of MMS policies feel that his expectations would be belied. His skeptics would want a flexible peace process to go side by side with a robust, activist counter-terrorism response. MMS appears to be disinclined to accept any advice for a robust and activist counter-terrorism response to give teeth to the peace process.
Here are my replies to three questions received from a British journalist:
Thanks for your E-mail. Here are my replies to your three questions. Regards. B.Raman
1. How important is this trial for those who watch the India-Pak relationship. Are we really going to learn something new?
Answer:In the case of Headley, who has made a detailed plea bargain fully admitting his role in connection with the 26/11 terrorist strikes in Mumbai and the planned terrorist strike in Copenhagen, we are unlikely to learn anything new during the trial. In the case of Rana, he has not made a confession and hence is not the beneficiary of a plea bargain. We already know a lot about his role based on the confessions made by Headley and the FBI's interceptions of Rana's phone conversations. What we do not know as yet is what defence Rana is going to take. Media reports emanating from Chicago on April 12,2011, had indicated that his main defence would be that he had no links with Lashkar-e-Toiba (LET) and hence he was not involved in terrorism. At the same time, it was reported, he would admit his links with the ISI and his performing some tasks in India at the instance of the ISI.His defence would most probably be that his helping the ISI would not amount to his helping LET terrorism If he takes up such a defence, as reported in the media, we may get a little more about the ISI's role in addition to what has already come out.
2. Manmohan Singh has gone out of his way to reach out to the Pakistanis; do you believe those efforts could be undermined by any revelations from the trial?
Answer: I do not expect the Chicago trial to have any impact on Dr.Manmohan Singh's peace initiative towards Pakistan. He took the initiative in the last week of March. By that time, the Govt. of India had already known what Headley had been saying. It might have already been told by the FBI of what Rana might be telling the court. The fact that MMS took the peace initiative in spite of the considerable details regarding the role of the ISI already known at that time would indicate that he may not allow the Chicago trial to come in the way of the peace process
3. How possible is it for there to be good relations between India and Pakistan while the military continues to back militant groups.
Answer:The Pakistani military and the ISI are not going to give up the use of the LET and other anti-India jihadi organisations as strategic weapons against India so long as they don't achieve their objective of forcing India to agree to a change of the status quo in J & K. The Govt. of India knows fully well that the end of Pakistani sponsorship of anti-India terrorism is not for tomorrow. I do not expect any renunciation of this weapon by Pakistan at least for another five to 10 years.What India would be hoping for is that even if Pakistan continues to retain this weapon of terrorism, it will refrain from using it so long as it sees the peace process as moving forward. The hope would be that a tactical process of incremental improvements in bilateral relations could ultimately acquire a strategic dimension, resulting in Pakistan giving up the sponsorship of terrorism. Many skeptics of MMS policies feel that his expectations would be belied. His skeptics would want a flexible peace process to go side by side with a robust, activist counter-terrorism response. MMS appears to be disinclined to accept any advice for a robust and activist counter-terrorism response to give teeth to the peace process.
ALL EYES ON GILANI’S VISIT TO CHINA
B.RAMAN
All eyes in Pakistan are on the four-day visit to China from May 17,2011, by Prime Minister Yousef Raza Gilani. The dates of the visit were finalized some weeks ago to enable him to participate in the year-long observance of the 60th anniversary of the establishment of diplomatic relations between the two countries. It has since acquired special significance in the eyes of Pakistani analysts as it is taking place at a time when Pakistan has come under severe criticism in the US for failing to detect the presence of Osama bin Laden for over five years at Abbottabad, the cradle of the Pakistan Army, where the Pakistan Military Academy is located. OBL was killed by helicopter-borne US naval commandos on May 2.
2.According to Chinese sources, the documents and computer records seized by the raiding party at OBL’s residence do not appear to have yielded any evidence so far to indicate that Osama was in touch with any of the Pakistani agencies. However, the examination of the records and computer documents is still on. In the meanwhile, the Pakistani political leadership, at the urging of the Army and the Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI), has kept the focus more on the security failure which enabled the US naval commandos to raid OBL’s place without being detected by the Pakistan Air Force and the Army than on the intelligence failure that enabled OBL to live at Abbottabad for over five years.
3. The anger over the clandestine US raid has been widespread in Pakistan and has led to demands for a re-examination of Pakistan’s relations with the US and of the intelligence and counter-terrorism co-operation between the intelligence agencies of the two countries. A resolution passed during an in camera session of the two Houses of the Pakistan Parliament on May 13 has also reportedly threatened to stop the flow of logistic supplies to the NATO forces in Afghanistan from the Karachi port if the US continued with the Drone (pilotless plane) strikes in the two Waziristans and carried out any more unilateral raids by its commandos in other parts of Pakistan.
4. According to reliable Pakistani sources, Gilani is expected to raise with Chinese Prime Minister Wen Jiabao two issues which were not originally on the agenda---namely, the possibility of an increase in Chinese economic assistance to enable Pakistan to resist the US pressure and Chinese military assistance for the strengthening of the air defences near the Pakistan-Afghanistan border. Even though Pakistan Air Force officials have attributed the non-detection of the intrusion of the US choppers to the USA’s superior stealth technology, there is also a feeling that the air defences on the Afghan border were not as good as they are on the Indian border and hence there is a need to strengthen them.
5. In the present estranged atmosphere, the US is unlikely to help Pakistan in this regard. The Pakistani sources say that Gilani is expected to request the Chinese for urgent assistance in this connection. Pakistani expectations of an enhanced Chinese role to enable Pakistan to reduce its dependence on the US have put the Chinese in an embarrassing position. Though they would like to oblige Pakistan to the extent possible, they would not like to do anything which could come in the way of the fresh initiatives under way for improving China’s military-military relationship with the US.
6. After a gap of seven years, Gen.Chen Bingde, the Chief of the General Staff of the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) , is on a week-long visit to the US from May 15. The Chinese would not like any jarring note in the military-military relations with the US during Gen.Chen’s visit due to any special gesture shown by them to Pakistan. The Chinese are also keen that the US Drone strikes should continue since some of the strikes in the past were directed at the training camps of the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan (IMU) and the Islamic Jihad Union (IJU) in the Waziristans, which were also training Uighur jihadis from the Chinese-controlled Xinjiang province of China.
7. Since the May 2 Abbottabad raid, the Chinese have maintained a high level of oral support for Pakistan on the counter-terrorism issue, highlighting the sacrifices allegedly made by the Pakistani security forces in the fight against jihadi terrorism. At the same time, they have avoided any dramatic gestures of a concrete nature such as increasing significantly their economic assistance to Pakistan or giving additional military assistance.
8. While they may give some concrete assistance of a limited nature during Gilani’s visit, they are likely to advise Pakistan to cool it and not to let its relations with the US and its counter-terrorism co-operation with the US reach a breaking point. ( 16-5-11)
( The writer is Additional Secretary (retd), Cabinet Secretariat, Govt. of India, New Delhi, and, presently, Director, Institute For Topical Studies, Chennai, and Associate of the Chennai Centre For China Studies. E-mail: seventyone2@gmail.com )
All eyes in Pakistan are on the four-day visit to China from May 17,2011, by Prime Minister Yousef Raza Gilani. The dates of the visit were finalized some weeks ago to enable him to participate in the year-long observance of the 60th anniversary of the establishment of diplomatic relations between the two countries. It has since acquired special significance in the eyes of Pakistani analysts as it is taking place at a time when Pakistan has come under severe criticism in the US for failing to detect the presence of Osama bin Laden for over five years at Abbottabad, the cradle of the Pakistan Army, where the Pakistan Military Academy is located. OBL was killed by helicopter-borne US naval commandos on May 2.
2.According to Chinese sources, the documents and computer records seized by the raiding party at OBL’s residence do not appear to have yielded any evidence so far to indicate that Osama was in touch with any of the Pakistani agencies. However, the examination of the records and computer documents is still on. In the meanwhile, the Pakistani political leadership, at the urging of the Army and the Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI), has kept the focus more on the security failure which enabled the US naval commandos to raid OBL’s place without being detected by the Pakistan Air Force and the Army than on the intelligence failure that enabled OBL to live at Abbottabad for over five years.
3. The anger over the clandestine US raid has been widespread in Pakistan and has led to demands for a re-examination of Pakistan’s relations with the US and of the intelligence and counter-terrorism co-operation between the intelligence agencies of the two countries. A resolution passed during an in camera session of the two Houses of the Pakistan Parliament on May 13 has also reportedly threatened to stop the flow of logistic supplies to the NATO forces in Afghanistan from the Karachi port if the US continued with the Drone (pilotless plane) strikes in the two Waziristans and carried out any more unilateral raids by its commandos in other parts of Pakistan.
4. According to reliable Pakistani sources, Gilani is expected to raise with Chinese Prime Minister Wen Jiabao two issues which were not originally on the agenda---namely, the possibility of an increase in Chinese economic assistance to enable Pakistan to resist the US pressure and Chinese military assistance for the strengthening of the air defences near the Pakistan-Afghanistan border. Even though Pakistan Air Force officials have attributed the non-detection of the intrusion of the US choppers to the USA’s superior stealth technology, there is also a feeling that the air defences on the Afghan border were not as good as they are on the Indian border and hence there is a need to strengthen them.
5. In the present estranged atmosphere, the US is unlikely to help Pakistan in this regard. The Pakistani sources say that Gilani is expected to request the Chinese for urgent assistance in this connection. Pakistani expectations of an enhanced Chinese role to enable Pakistan to reduce its dependence on the US have put the Chinese in an embarrassing position. Though they would like to oblige Pakistan to the extent possible, they would not like to do anything which could come in the way of the fresh initiatives under way for improving China’s military-military relationship with the US.
6. After a gap of seven years, Gen.Chen Bingde, the Chief of the General Staff of the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) , is on a week-long visit to the US from May 15. The Chinese would not like any jarring note in the military-military relations with the US during Gen.Chen’s visit due to any special gesture shown by them to Pakistan. The Chinese are also keen that the US Drone strikes should continue since some of the strikes in the past were directed at the training camps of the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan (IMU) and the Islamic Jihad Union (IJU) in the Waziristans, which were also training Uighur jihadis from the Chinese-controlled Xinjiang province of China.
7. Since the May 2 Abbottabad raid, the Chinese have maintained a high level of oral support for Pakistan on the counter-terrorism issue, highlighting the sacrifices allegedly made by the Pakistani security forces in the fight against jihadi terrorism. At the same time, they have avoided any dramatic gestures of a concrete nature such as increasing significantly their economic assistance to Pakistan or giving additional military assistance.
8. While they may give some concrete assistance of a limited nature during Gilani’s visit, they are likely to advise Pakistan to cool it and not to let its relations with the US and its counter-terrorism co-operation with the US reach a breaking point. ( 16-5-11)
( The writer is Additional Secretary (retd), Cabinet Secretariat, Govt. of India, New Delhi, and, presently, Director, Institute For Topical Studies, Chennai, and Associate of the Chennai Centre For China Studies. E-mail: seventyone2@gmail.com )
Sunday, May 15, 2011
COVERT DETERRENCE AS AN INTERMEDIATE OPTION
B.RAMAN
(My reply to a reader's comments)
I have been in receipt of the following E-mail message from a reader:
"In your earlier articles in the past two months when you wrote about peace talks with Pakistan it had this context of cricket diplomacy and it appeared you even pushed for it and I understand it was a valid point and even recently after OBL was killed you mentioned that the new situation shouldn't affect peace talks or affect Indo- Pak relations and it seemed that you were of the opinion that the Mohali momentum should continue. In those articles you were explicit as to the reasons but this article, where you propose to continue the TTHH policy, seems to rake up old wounds which it looked like you were ok to overlook at that time.
"What I mean is in this article, there doesn't appear to be anything new which you and the rest were not knowing about Pakistan that John Kerry revealed so why & what is reason for reassessment? I understand that when you urged for the momentum of recent peace talks to continue you certainly didn't mean to forget TTHH policy but just that you probably meant to keep it aside for the time being. So what is the reason for reassessment when Pakistan hasn't made any anti-India comments (like Kayani's India centric comment or of that nature). If there were to be any new terrorist attack then fall back to TTHH policy was warranted but in the absence of, at least any apparent absence of Pakistan reverting to anti-India terrorist policy, how should your TTHH reassessment be read?
"I have been thinking about asking if in the wake of OBL killing will there be any possibility of Pak Army/ISI snubbing MMS's initiative and encouraging the jihadi terrorists to bleed India - part of its tactic to redeem the lost honor (US violating its sovereignty) and at the same time reassuring the jihadi constituency that ISI hasn't changed its policies?"
MY REPLY
My suggestion has always been to keep the capability for exercising the intermediate option available while even going out of the way to improve relations with Pakistan.Let me explain my policy once again:
1. We have to talk to Pakistan. Engage with Pakistan at different levels---political, military,intelligence, economic, people to people etc
2.With both becoming nuclear powers, the military option is out of the question. The military option should be only as a last resort when national existence is in peril.
3. We should have an intermediate option of covert action available if talks fail to make headway and Pakistan continues to use terrorism.
After 26/11, many think tanks of the world were of the view that another 26/11 cannot be avoided because India has not created for itself an intermediate option between the political and the military. There is no deterrence to more terrorism in the form of an intermediate option. I keep pleading: For God's sake, create that covert deterrence.
Unfortunately, in India, we do not have the culture of strategic analysis. One has to repeat the same point again and again and again.One feels tired.
Thanks for writing. Take care. B.Raman
(My reply to a reader's comments)
I have been in receipt of the following E-mail message from a reader:
"In your earlier articles in the past two months when you wrote about peace talks with Pakistan it had this context of cricket diplomacy and it appeared you even pushed for it and I understand it was a valid point and even recently after OBL was killed you mentioned that the new situation shouldn't affect peace talks or affect Indo- Pak relations and it seemed that you were of the opinion that the Mohali momentum should continue. In those articles you were explicit as to the reasons but this article, where you propose to continue the TTHH policy, seems to rake up old wounds which it looked like you were ok to overlook at that time.
"What I mean is in this article, there doesn't appear to be anything new which you and the rest were not knowing about Pakistan that John Kerry revealed so why & what is reason for reassessment? I understand that when you urged for the momentum of recent peace talks to continue you certainly didn't mean to forget TTHH policy but just that you probably meant to keep it aside for the time being. So what is the reason for reassessment when Pakistan hasn't made any anti-India comments (like Kayani's India centric comment or of that nature). If there were to be any new terrorist attack then fall back to TTHH policy was warranted but in the absence of, at least any apparent absence of Pakistan reverting to anti-India terrorist policy, how should your TTHH reassessment be read?
"I have been thinking about asking if in the wake of OBL killing will there be any possibility of Pak Army/ISI snubbing MMS's initiative and encouraging the jihadi terrorists to bleed India - part of its tactic to redeem the lost honor (US violating its sovereignty) and at the same time reassuring the jihadi constituency that ISI hasn't changed its policies?"
MY REPLY
My suggestion has always been to keep the capability for exercising the intermediate option available while even going out of the way to improve relations with Pakistan.Let me explain my policy once again:
1. We have to talk to Pakistan. Engage with Pakistan at different levels---political, military,intelligence, economic, people to people etc
2.With both becoming nuclear powers, the military option is out of the question. The military option should be only as a last resort when national existence is in peril.
3. We should have an intermediate option of covert action available if talks fail to make headway and Pakistan continues to use terrorism.
After 26/11, many think tanks of the world were of the view that another 26/11 cannot be avoided because India has not created for itself an intermediate option between the political and the military. There is no deterrence to more terrorism in the form of an intermediate option. I keep pleading: For God's sake, create that covert deterrence.
Unfortunately, in India, we do not have the culture of strategic analysis. One has to repeat the same point again and again and again.One feels tired.
Thanks for writing. Take care. B.Raman
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