B.RAMAN
The Munich-based World Uighur Congress (WUC) has notified plans for protest meetings and demonstrations in different cities of the world having an Uighur presence to mark the first anniversary of the outbreak of anti-Beijing violence in Urumqi, the capital of Xinjiang, which falls on July 5,2010.
2. Coinciding with the WUC announcement, the authorities in Xinjiang have notified the local people through a Government-run web site of stepped-up security measures, which will be in force from June 20 to July 20. These measures include increased police deployment and patrols in Urumqi and checking of vehicles for concealed weapons and explosive material.
3. It has been reported that about 1000 additional police personnel from other provinces will be moved to Urumqi for deployment during this period. Uighur sources have also claimed that rural students from the interior areas studying in Urumqi have been asked to return to their villages for a month and that restrictions are being imposed on visits of foreign tourists to the capital during this period. Anti-riot exercises have already been held by the local police in different parts of the city.
4. The plans for the induction of about 1000 additional police personnel were made before the recent outbreak of Kyrgyz-Uzbek ethnic violence in Southern Kyrgyzstan, which necessitated the airlift of over 600 Chinese residents, the majority of them Uighurs, from that country to Urumqi. The Chinese are reportedly concerned over the likelihood of the infiltration of elements belonging to the Islamic Movement of East Turkestan (IMET) into Urumqi by taking advantage of this air-lift. In view of this, it is possible that the Chinese may induct more police reinforcements from other provinces.
5. The Chinese have been unnerved by the success of 20 Uighurs---many of them Christians--- in escaping from Urumqi to Cambodia allegedly via Vietnam towards the end of last year and seeking political asylum from the local office of the UN High Commission For Refugees. The Cambodian authorities had them arrested and deported to China before the UNHCR could intervene. It was alleged that these refugees were helped to flee from Xinjiang by a Macau-based Christian organization called the Macau Interfaith Network headed by Rev.Marcus Ramsey. This organization has allegedly been helping Christians wanting to flee from North Korea and China.
6. The Network, which was reportedly founded by another organization called the Full Gospel Church, seeks to promote inter-faith dialogue in China,Thailand, Laos, Myanmar and Central Asia and to help the Christians in these countries. It has been holding inter-faith discussions in Macau, Chiangmai and Vientiane.
7. The interest taken by Christian organizations in the developments in Xinjiang has added to Beijing’s concerns. It is not known how many Christians are there in Xinjiang, but many of them seem to support the WUC. (19-6-10)
( The writer is Additional Secretary (retd), Cabinet Secretariat, Govt. of India, New Delhi, and, presently, Director, Institute For Topical Studies, Chennai, and Associate of the Chennai Centre For China Studies. E-mail: seventyone2@gmail.com )
Friday, June 18, 2010
Thursday, June 17, 2010
ANTI-MUSLIM REPRISAL TERRORISM---AN UPDATE
INTERNATIONAL TERRORISM MONITOR---PAPER NO. 659
B.RAMAN
( This may kindly be read in continuation of my earlier article of October 24,2008, on the same subject, which is available at http://www.southasiaanalysis.org/papers29/paper2892.html . The earlier article is annexed for easy reference )
Rediff.com has reported as follows: "The long-pending investigations into the three-year-old Mecca Masjid blast case on Thursday (June 17,2010) moved forward with the Central Bureau of Investigation producing two suspects RSS pracharak Devender Gupta and his accomplice Lokesh Sharma in a special CBI court in Hyderabad. 14th additional Chief Metropolitan Magistrate remanded the two to the judicial custody till June 30. A CBI team brought the two from Ajmer jail on a prisoner transit warrant......Devender Gupta and Lokesh Sharma, prime accused in bomb blast in Ajmer Dargah, were in Ajmer jail for the last one and a half months. CBI sources said that they will seek the custody of Gupta and Sharma to question them about their role in the bomb blast in Mecca Masjid on May 18, 2007. 15 people were killed in the blast during Friday congregation and subsequent police firing. CBI says that it was on the look out for two more suspects Sandeep Dange and Ramachandra Kalasangar alias Ramji. "
2. The investigation is still on-going and the final charge-sheet against the accused----all members of the Hindu community--- is still to be filed. The investigation made so far points in the direction of suspected targeted attacks on Muslims and their places of worship by some individual elements in the Hindu community as acts of retaliation for jihadi terrorism in different parts of India.
3.The fact that some of the arrested Hindu suspects had alleged links with the Rashtriya Swayam Sevak Sangh (RSS) and other allied organisations has given rise to fresh allegations regarding Hindu terrorism. Prominent office-bearers of the RSS have done well to dissociate their organisation from the alleged acts of terrorism of the arrested individuals and express their support for the investigation against them to move forward vigorously.
4. Retaliation by a State against a State sponsoring acts of terrorism through surrogate terrorist organisations and against terrorist organisations which let themselves be used by a State are permitted under many UN resolutions against State-sponsorship of terrorism against another State. Such acts by a State are categorised as amounting to indirect aggression. There are instances of States retaliating against another State or in the territory of another State in order to make the sponsorship of terrorism by a State or acts of terrorism by an organisation from the territory of another State prohibitively costly.
5.The US air strikes in Libya in 1986 were an act of State retaliation for the terrorist attack on some US soldiers in a West Berlin discotheque by suspected terrorists allegedly sponsored by Libya. The US Cruise missile attacks on suspected Al Qaeda training camps in Afghanistan and the Sudan in 1998 were acts of State retaliation against a terrorist organisation for its suspected involvement in the explosions of August 1998 outside the US Embassies in Nairobi and Dar-es-Salaam. There have been such acts of retaliation by Israel too.
6. While such acts of selective retaliation against another State and terrorist organisations in their foreign hide-outs can be justified depending on the circumstances which led to the retaliation, no law----domestic or international---permits an act of retaliation by a State or organisation or individuals in one's own territory against one's own co-citizens.
7.There has been no universally accepted definition of terrorism, but it is agreed by terrorism analysts that the indiscriminate killing of civilians by using an explosive device in a public place is an act of terrorism. Thus, the members of the Hindu community who have been arrested and are presently under investigation have indulged in acts of terrorism against Muslims if the facts alleged against them are proved in a court of law.
8. Calculations of what we call vote bank politics ---- electoral dividend or the lack of it---- should not be allowed to come in the way of the thorough investigation of the charges against the arrested persons There are two kinds of violence under the law----- violence in the heat of the moment in exercise of the right of self-defence and pre-meditated and pre-planned acts of violence. There is no excuse under the law for pre-meditated and pre-planned acts of violence-----whether they amount to terrorism or not.
9. Any perception that the investigation against the arrested Hindus is not being done as vigorously as the investigation against Muslims suspected of terrorism would weaken our case against Pakistan-sponsored terrorism and provide an excuse to organisations such as the Indian Mujahideen (IM) for indulging in more acts of terrorism. The statement disseminated by the IM before its blasts in Uttar Pradesh in November 2007, alleged that the Indian criminal justice system is unfair to the Muslims. Any perception of a lack of thoroughness in the investigation against the arrested Hindus would add substance to this allegation of the IM.
10. It is in the interest of the RSS and allied organisations to strongly support such a thorough investigation and make it abundantly clear that they do not support acts of retaliation in our territory against our co-citizens. ( 18-6-10)
( The writer is Additional Secretary (retd), Cabinet Secretariat, Govt. of India, New Delhi, and, presently, Director, Institute For Topical Studies, Chennai, and Associate of the Chennai Centre For China Studies. E-mail: seventyone2@gmail.com )
ANNEXURE
Paper no. 2892 24-Oct.-2008
Anti-Muslim Reprisal Terrorism? - International Terrorism Monitor--Paper No. 460
by B. Raman
"Some sections of the Muslim community suspected that this attack ----like the other attacks targeting members of their community--- must have been the responsibility of Hindu extremist elements. There was no basis for their suspicions, but they persist. The only way of removing their suspicions is through a thorough investigation and the definitive identification of all those involved. The many missing links in the investigation of this strike as well as in the terrorist attack on the Mumbai suburban trains should be a cause for concern. Targeted attacks on innocent Muslims by Al Qaeda and other jihadi organizations is nothing new. Such attacks take place often in Iraq, Afghanistan and Pakistan. But, in those countries, the attacks on Muslim civilians are generally due to one of two factors. Either the targeted Muslims belonged to a rival sect (Sunni vs Shia or Deobandi vs Barelvi) or rival organization or were perceived as collaborators of the Government and hence apostates. None of these factors applied in the case of the Muslims----Indians and Pakistanis--- who were traveling by the Samjotha Express. The conventional wisdom was that the Muslims were now being deliberately targeted by the jihadi organizations in order to provoke them against the Government and the Hindus. I do not subscribe to this wisdom. It is important to keep an open mind while investigating these targeted attacks on Indian Muslims and one should not jump to the conclusion that the LET or the HUJI must have been involved. We owe it to our Muslims, most of whom have kept away from Al Qaeda and other pan-Islamic organizations, to see that these cases of targeted attacks on Muslims are thoroughly investigated instead of coming to a facile conclusion that jihadi organizations must be behind them."
-----My comments on the terrorist strike in the Samjotha Express in my book "Terrorism---Yesterday, Today & Tomorrow" published in June, 2008, by the Lancer Publishers of New Delhi (www.lancerpublishers.com)
"While there are grounds for suspecting that the blast of Delhi and those of Agartala might have been carried out by the IM ( Indian Mujahideen) and its associates from the Lashkar-e-Toiba (LET) in Delhi and the Harkat-ul-Jihad-al-Islami (HUJI) of Bangladesh in Agartala, the blasts in Modasa and Malegaon seem to stand apart. Though the Gujarat Police are reported to have detained some members of the Students' Islamic Movement of India (SIMI) during their investigation of the Modasa blast, the Modasa and Malegaon blasts do not carry any unique signature. More evidence will be required before one could analyse as to who might have been responsible. "----From my article of October 2, 2008, titled "Mushrooming Terrorism: Now Agartala" at http://www.southasiaanalysis.org/papers29/paper2866.html
-----------------------------
In the last three years, we have had at least seven terrorist strikes in different parts of the country in which the perpetrators seemed to have targeted innocent Muslim civilians. Those seemed to be not indiscriminate attacks on all civilians, but targeted attacks on Muslims. There were two such incidents in Malegaon in Maharashtra and one each in New Delhi, Hyderabad, in the Ajmer Sharif in Rajasthan, in the Samjotha Express to Pakistan and in Modasa in Gujarat.
2. On the basis of the available reports, I had myself stated after five of these strikes---- but not after the Malegaon and Modasa incidents of September 29,2008--- that they seemed to have been carried out by terrorists belonging to jihadi terrorist organisations. I had also referred to instances of jihadi terrorists deliberately targeting innocent Muslims in many countries in pursuit of their agenda.
3. Some months after the Ajmer Sharif incident, a young Muslim officer of the Indian Police Service (IPS) had met me privately and expressed his doubts as to whether Muslims would have been involved in these incidents. He strongly believed that no Muslim however extremist he might be and to whichever jihadi organisation he belonged would have planted a bomb in or near the Ajmer Sharif.
4. I did not feel convinced, but felt somewhat troubled by what he said. I felt that as a senior (though now retired) officer of the IPS, I owed it to him and other young Muslim officers of the IPS to take note of what he said and re-open my mind. It was in pursuance of this that I made the above-mentioned observations in my book.
5. Who carried out the pre-September 29, 2008, terrorist strikes, which seemed to have mainly targeted innocent Muslims? Where they the acts of the usual jihadi organisations or are they the precursor to acts of reprisal terrorism against members of the Muslim community by some irrational elements in the Hindu community? These questions, which were already being raised by sections of the public----Muslims as well as non-Muslims--- even before September 29, have re-surfaced following the publication or dissemination by some sections of the media of reports claiming that the Anti-Terrorism Cell (ATS) of the Mumbai Police have detained three Hindus in connection with their investigation into the recent Malegon blasts. The ATS itself has neither officially denied nor confirmed these reports.
6. The matter is in the initial stages of the investigation. To instill confidence in our Muslim community, the ATS should see that the investigation against these Hindus and any others associated with them is carried out thoroughly irrespective of their organisational affiliation. Religion is not a mitigating factor in deciding on the culpability of a person suspected of involvement in a criminal act. If they are proved to have participated in the acts of terrorism in Malegain and Modesa, the fact that they are Hindus would not make them any the less criminal or terrorist.
7. Indian criminal laws----the Indian Penal Code, the Indian Evidence Act and the Criminal Procedure Code--- do not talk of the majority or the minorities or even of Indian citizens or foreigners. Their provisions apply to anyone who commits an offence in Indian territory---whether he or she is an Indian national or a foreigner, whatever be his or her religion, language or ethnicity. The arrested persons must be investigated and proceeded against without worrying about their background or organisational affiliation.
8. Do these arrests strengthen the case for a ban on the Bajrang Dal or any other organisation to which they might have belonged? Or do they at least call for a characterisation of such orgainsations----even if they be of Hindus---as terrorist organisations? To characterise an organisation as a terrorist organisation and to take legal action against it ----and not merely against its members---- two types of evidence are required. Firstly, that its constitution or manifesto advocates the resort to violence amounting to terrorism for achieving its objective. Secondly, that it has been involved in repeated acts of pre-meditated violence which amount to terrorism. One has to wait and see whether such evidence surfaces during the investigation.
(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)
B.RAMAN
( This may kindly be read in continuation of my earlier article of October 24,2008, on the same subject, which is available at http://www.southasiaanalysis.org/papers29/paper2892.html . The earlier article is annexed for easy reference )
Rediff.com has reported as follows: "The long-pending investigations into the three-year-old Mecca Masjid blast case on Thursday (June 17,2010) moved forward with the Central Bureau of Investigation producing two suspects RSS pracharak Devender Gupta and his accomplice Lokesh Sharma in a special CBI court in Hyderabad. 14th additional Chief Metropolitan Magistrate remanded the two to the judicial custody till June 30. A CBI team brought the two from Ajmer jail on a prisoner transit warrant......Devender Gupta and Lokesh Sharma, prime accused in bomb blast in Ajmer Dargah, were in Ajmer jail for the last one and a half months. CBI sources said that they will seek the custody of Gupta and Sharma to question them about their role in the bomb blast in Mecca Masjid on May 18, 2007. 15 people were killed in the blast during Friday congregation and subsequent police firing. CBI says that it was on the look out for two more suspects Sandeep Dange and Ramachandra Kalasangar alias Ramji. "
2. The investigation is still on-going and the final charge-sheet against the accused----all members of the Hindu community--- is still to be filed. The investigation made so far points in the direction of suspected targeted attacks on Muslims and their places of worship by some individual elements in the Hindu community as acts of retaliation for jihadi terrorism in different parts of India.
3.The fact that some of the arrested Hindu suspects had alleged links with the Rashtriya Swayam Sevak Sangh (RSS) and other allied organisations has given rise to fresh allegations regarding Hindu terrorism. Prominent office-bearers of the RSS have done well to dissociate their organisation from the alleged acts of terrorism of the arrested individuals and express their support for the investigation against them to move forward vigorously.
4. Retaliation by a State against a State sponsoring acts of terrorism through surrogate terrorist organisations and against terrorist organisations which let themselves be used by a State are permitted under many UN resolutions against State-sponsorship of terrorism against another State. Such acts by a State are categorised as amounting to indirect aggression. There are instances of States retaliating against another State or in the territory of another State in order to make the sponsorship of terrorism by a State or acts of terrorism by an organisation from the territory of another State prohibitively costly.
5.The US air strikes in Libya in 1986 were an act of State retaliation for the terrorist attack on some US soldiers in a West Berlin discotheque by suspected terrorists allegedly sponsored by Libya. The US Cruise missile attacks on suspected Al Qaeda training camps in Afghanistan and the Sudan in 1998 were acts of State retaliation against a terrorist organisation for its suspected involvement in the explosions of August 1998 outside the US Embassies in Nairobi and Dar-es-Salaam. There have been such acts of retaliation by Israel too.
6. While such acts of selective retaliation against another State and terrorist organisations in their foreign hide-outs can be justified depending on the circumstances which led to the retaliation, no law----domestic or international---permits an act of retaliation by a State or organisation or individuals in one's own territory against one's own co-citizens.
7.There has been no universally accepted definition of terrorism, but it is agreed by terrorism analysts that the indiscriminate killing of civilians by using an explosive device in a public place is an act of terrorism. Thus, the members of the Hindu community who have been arrested and are presently under investigation have indulged in acts of terrorism against Muslims if the facts alleged against them are proved in a court of law.
8. Calculations of what we call vote bank politics ---- electoral dividend or the lack of it---- should not be allowed to come in the way of the thorough investigation of the charges against the arrested persons There are two kinds of violence under the law----- violence in the heat of the moment in exercise of the right of self-defence and pre-meditated and pre-planned acts of violence. There is no excuse under the law for pre-meditated and pre-planned acts of violence-----whether they amount to terrorism or not.
9. Any perception that the investigation against the arrested Hindus is not being done as vigorously as the investigation against Muslims suspected of terrorism would weaken our case against Pakistan-sponsored terrorism and provide an excuse to organisations such as the Indian Mujahideen (IM) for indulging in more acts of terrorism. The statement disseminated by the IM before its blasts in Uttar Pradesh in November 2007, alleged that the Indian criminal justice system is unfair to the Muslims. Any perception of a lack of thoroughness in the investigation against the arrested Hindus would add substance to this allegation of the IM.
10. It is in the interest of the RSS and allied organisations to strongly support such a thorough investigation and make it abundantly clear that they do not support acts of retaliation in our territory against our co-citizens. ( 18-6-10)
( The writer is Additional Secretary (retd), Cabinet Secretariat, Govt. of India, New Delhi, and, presently, Director, Institute For Topical Studies, Chennai, and Associate of the Chennai Centre For China Studies. E-mail: seventyone2@gmail.com )
ANNEXURE
Paper no. 2892 24-Oct.-2008
Anti-Muslim Reprisal Terrorism? - International Terrorism Monitor--Paper No. 460
by B. Raman
"Some sections of the Muslim community suspected that this attack ----like the other attacks targeting members of their community--- must have been the responsibility of Hindu extremist elements. There was no basis for their suspicions, but they persist. The only way of removing their suspicions is through a thorough investigation and the definitive identification of all those involved. The many missing links in the investigation of this strike as well as in the terrorist attack on the Mumbai suburban trains should be a cause for concern. Targeted attacks on innocent Muslims by Al Qaeda and other jihadi organizations is nothing new. Such attacks take place often in Iraq, Afghanistan and Pakistan. But, in those countries, the attacks on Muslim civilians are generally due to one of two factors. Either the targeted Muslims belonged to a rival sect (Sunni vs Shia or Deobandi vs Barelvi) or rival organization or were perceived as collaborators of the Government and hence apostates. None of these factors applied in the case of the Muslims----Indians and Pakistanis--- who were traveling by the Samjotha Express. The conventional wisdom was that the Muslims were now being deliberately targeted by the jihadi organizations in order to provoke them against the Government and the Hindus. I do not subscribe to this wisdom. It is important to keep an open mind while investigating these targeted attacks on Indian Muslims and one should not jump to the conclusion that the LET or the HUJI must have been involved. We owe it to our Muslims, most of whom have kept away from Al Qaeda and other pan-Islamic organizations, to see that these cases of targeted attacks on Muslims are thoroughly investigated instead of coming to a facile conclusion that jihadi organizations must be behind them."
-----My comments on the terrorist strike in the Samjotha Express in my book "Terrorism---Yesterday, Today & Tomorrow" published in June, 2008, by the Lancer Publishers of New Delhi (www.lancerpublishers.com)
"While there are grounds for suspecting that the blast of Delhi and those of Agartala might have been carried out by the IM ( Indian Mujahideen) and its associates from the Lashkar-e-Toiba (LET) in Delhi and the Harkat-ul-Jihad-al-Islami (HUJI) of Bangladesh in Agartala, the blasts in Modasa and Malegaon seem to stand apart. Though the Gujarat Police are reported to have detained some members of the Students' Islamic Movement of India (SIMI) during their investigation of the Modasa blast, the Modasa and Malegaon blasts do not carry any unique signature. More evidence will be required before one could analyse as to who might have been responsible. "----From my article of October 2, 2008, titled "Mushrooming Terrorism: Now Agartala" at http://www.southasiaanalysis.org/papers29/paper2866.html
-----------------------------
In the last three years, we have had at least seven terrorist strikes in different parts of the country in which the perpetrators seemed to have targeted innocent Muslim civilians. Those seemed to be not indiscriminate attacks on all civilians, but targeted attacks on Muslims. There were two such incidents in Malegaon in Maharashtra and one each in New Delhi, Hyderabad, in the Ajmer Sharif in Rajasthan, in the Samjotha Express to Pakistan and in Modasa in Gujarat.
2. On the basis of the available reports, I had myself stated after five of these strikes---- but not after the Malegaon and Modasa incidents of September 29,2008--- that they seemed to have been carried out by terrorists belonging to jihadi terrorist organisations. I had also referred to instances of jihadi terrorists deliberately targeting innocent Muslims in many countries in pursuit of their agenda.
3. Some months after the Ajmer Sharif incident, a young Muslim officer of the Indian Police Service (IPS) had met me privately and expressed his doubts as to whether Muslims would have been involved in these incidents. He strongly believed that no Muslim however extremist he might be and to whichever jihadi organisation he belonged would have planted a bomb in or near the Ajmer Sharif.
4. I did not feel convinced, but felt somewhat troubled by what he said. I felt that as a senior (though now retired) officer of the IPS, I owed it to him and other young Muslim officers of the IPS to take note of what he said and re-open my mind. It was in pursuance of this that I made the above-mentioned observations in my book.
5. Who carried out the pre-September 29, 2008, terrorist strikes, which seemed to have mainly targeted innocent Muslims? Where they the acts of the usual jihadi organisations or are they the precursor to acts of reprisal terrorism against members of the Muslim community by some irrational elements in the Hindu community? These questions, which were already being raised by sections of the public----Muslims as well as non-Muslims--- even before September 29, have re-surfaced following the publication or dissemination by some sections of the media of reports claiming that the Anti-Terrorism Cell (ATS) of the Mumbai Police have detained three Hindus in connection with their investigation into the recent Malegon blasts. The ATS itself has neither officially denied nor confirmed these reports.
6. The matter is in the initial stages of the investigation. To instill confidence in our Muslim community, the ATS should see that the investigation against these Hindus and any others associated with them is carried out thoroughly irrespective of their organisational affiliation. Religion is not a mitigating factor in deciding on the culpability of a person suspected of involvement in a criminal act. If they are proved to have participated in the acts of terrorism in Malegain and Modesa, the fact that they are Hindus would not make them any the less criminal or terrorist.
7. Indian criminal laws----the Indian Penal Code, the Indian Evidence Act and the Criminal Procedure Code--- do not talk of the majority or the minorities or even of Indian citizens or foreigners. Their provisions apply to anyone who commits an offence in Indian territory---whether he or she is an Indian national or a foreigner, whatever be his or her religion, language or ethnicity. The arrested persons must be investigated and proceeded against without worrying about their background or organisational affiliation.
8. Do these arrests strengthen the case for a ban on the Bajrang Dal or any other organisation to which they might have belonged? Or do they at least call for a characterisation of such orgainsations----even if they be of Hindus---as terrorist organisations? To characterise an organisation as a terrorist organisation and to take legal action against it ----and not merely against its members---- two types of evidence are required. Firstly, that its constitution or manifesto advocates the resort to violence amounting to terrorism for achieving its objective. Secondly, that it has been involved in repeated acts of pre-meditated violence which amount to terrorism. One has to wait and see whether such evidence surfaces during the investigation.
(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)
Wednesday, June 16, 2010
BRINGING UP THEIR PANCHEN LAMA
B.RAMAN
The so-called Panchen Lama nominated by the Chinese Government in 1995 after they had imprisoned the Panchen Lama chosen in accordance with the Tibetan Buddhist traditions under the guidance of His Holiness the Dalai Lama, generally lives in Beijing where he has been studying under the control of the Chinese Communist Party and Government.
2. He does not stay in Tibet. Nor does he go to any Tibetan school. His Buddhist teachers are Beijing-based and chosen by the Party and the Government. However, once a year during the vacation in Beijing he is taken to Lhasa and nearby places by the Chinese authorities who organize religious interactions between him and selected Tibetans in order to give him a public exposure and give the impression of his playing an increasingly active role as a religious leader responsible for providing spiritual guidance to the Tibetan Buddhists and for supervising the maintenance of the religious places in Tibet.
3. However, the Chinese take two precautions while organizing the spiritual tours for him. Firstly, his visits are confined to the Tibet Autonomous Region. They avoid taking him to other Tibetan-inhabited areas lest by doing so they unwittingly strengthen the Dalai Lama’s claim for a Greater Tibet. The Chinese project their Panchen Lama as the religious leader of only the Tibetans of the Tibet Autonomous Region and not of all Tibetans, wherever they may be residing. Secondly, they avoid any pronouncements of a political nature during his organized tours. Since they deny any political hat for His Holiness the Dalai Lama, they do not want to create in their Panchen Lama a religious leader with a political role.
4. Buddhist leaders in Tibet should restrict themselves to religious activities and should have nothing to do with politics and governance. That is their basic principle for the management of Tibet. They take care to see that the Panchen Lama created by them does not acquire a dual image as a monk wearing two hats----religious and political.
5. The Chinese intend using their Panchen Lama in an attempt to provide legitimacy to the process by which the Chinese Government intends selecting the next Dalai Lama when His Holiness is no more. For this purpose, in their calculation, it is necessary for their Panchen Lama to acquire a credibility as the foremost religious leader of the Tibetans in the absence of His Holiness with authority to guide and supervise the process for the selection of the next Dalai Lama. The Chinese expect/apprehend that Buddhists in the Indian territory in Arunachal Pradesh could play an important role in the selection of the successor according to the Tibetan Buddhist traditions. They, therefore, want their Panchen Lama to be known and revered by the Buddhists on the Indian side of the border too.
6. For achieving these purposes, they have expanded the areas covered by their Panchen Lama during his annual visit to Tibet this year. In addition to interacting with the people of Lhasa and visiting religious places in the capital as he normally does, he has also been touring in the interior, including in areas adjacent to the border with India in the Arunachal Pradesh sector.
7.The Chinese utilised the session of the National People’s Congress (NPC) held in Beijing in March last to give their Panchen Lama a greater political exposure without giving him a political role. Their Panchen Lama was one of the 13 new members nominated to the National Committee of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference (CPPCC), a top advisory body with no legislative powers. During the session he avoided making any statement of a political nature. They have not given him any role in their periodic talks with representatives of His Holiness the Dalai Lama. His Holiness projects these talks as covering the future set-up of Tibet as an autonomous part of China. The Chinese authorities project these talks as merely meant to discuss the future of His Holiness as an individual religious leader should he desire to return to die in Tibet. They do not seem to see any role for their Panchen Lama in these talks. ( 16-6-10)
( The writer is Additional Secretary (retd), Cabinet Secretariat, Govt. of India, New Delhi, and, presently, Director, Institute For Topical Studies, Chennai, and Associate of the Chennai Centre For China Studies. E-mail: seventyone2@gmail.com )
The so-called Panchen Lama nominated by the Chinese Government in 1995 after they had imprisoned the Panchen Lama chosen in accordance with the Tibetan Buddhist traditions under the guidance of His Holiness the Dalai Lama, generally lives in Beijing where he has been studying under the control of the Chinese Communist Party and Government.
2. He does not stay in Tibet. Nor does he go to any Tibetan school. His Buddhist teachers are Beijing-based and chosen by the Party and the Government. However, once a year during the vacation in Beijing he is taken to Lhasa and nearby places by the Chinese authorities who organize religious interactions between him and selected Tibetans in order to give him a public exposure and give the impression of his playing an increasingly active role as a religious leader responsible for providing spiritual guidance to the Tibetan Buddhists and for supervising the maintenance of the religious places in Tibet.
3. However, the Chinese take two precautions while organizing the spiritual tours for him. Firstly, his visits are confined to the Tibet Autonomous Region. They avoid taking him to other Tibetan-inhabited areas lest by doing so they unwittingly strengthen the Dalai Lama’s claim for a Greater Tibet. The Chinese project their Panchen Lama as the religious leader of only the Tibetans of the Tibet Autonomous Region and not of all Tibetans, wherever they may be residing. Secondly, they avoid any pronouncements of a political nature during his organized tours. Since they deny any political hat for His Holiness the Dalai Lama, they do not want to create in their Panchen Lama a religious leader with a political role.
4. Buddhist leaders in Tibet should restrict themselves to religious activities and should have nothing to do with politics and governance. That is their basic principle for the management of Tibet. They take care to see that the Panchen Lama created by them does not acquire a dual image as a monk wearing two hats----religious and political.
5. The Chinese intend using their Panchen Lama in an attempt to provide legitimacy to the process by which the Chinese Government intends selecting the next Dalai Lama when His Holiness is no more. For this purpose, in their calculation, it is necessary for their Panchen Lama to acquire a credibility as the foremost religious leader of the Tibetans in the absence of His Holiness with authority to guide and supervise the process for the selection of the next Dalai Lama. The Chinese expect/apprehend that Buddhists in the Indian territory in Arunachal Pradesh could play an important role in the selection of the successor according to the Tibetan Buddhist traditions. They, therefore, want their Panchen Lama to be known and revered by the Buddhists on the Indian side of the border too.
6. For achieving these purposes, they have expanded the areas covered by their Panchen Lama during his annual visit to Tibet this year. In addition to interacting with the people of Lhasa and visiting religious places in the capital as he normally does, he has also been touring in the interior, including in areas adjacent to the border with India in the Arunachal Pradesh sector.
7.The Chinese utilised the session of the National People’s Congress (NPC) held in Beijing in March last to give their Panchen Lama a greater political exposure without giving him a political role. Their Panchen Lama was one of the 13 new members nominated to the National Committee of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference (CPPCC), a top advisory body with no legislative powers. During the session he avoided making any statement of a political nature. They have not given him any role in their periodic talks with representatives of His Holiness the Dalai Lama. His Holiness projects these talks as covering the future set-up of Tibet as an autonomous part of China. The Chinese authorities project these talks as merely meant to discuss the future of His Holiness as an individual religious leader should he desire to return to die in Tibet. They do not seem to see any role for their Panchen Lama in these talks. ( 16-6-10)
( The writer is Additional Secretary (retd), Cabinet Secretariat, Govt. of India, New Delhi, and, presently, Director, Institute For Topical Studies, Chennai, and Associate of the Chennai Centre For China Studies. E-mail: seventyone2@gmail.com )
CHINESE INTEREST IN HAMBANTOTA, CHITTAGONG PORTS---AN UPDATE
B.RAMAN
China, which is already meeting in the form of a soft loan from its Ex-Im Bank 85 per cent of the cost of construction ( US $ 360 million) of the first phase of the Hambantota port in Southern Sri Lanka, has agreed to give another soft loan of US $ 200 million towards the cost of construction of the second phase due to start early next year. An agreement in this regard was signed by the concerned officials during the visit of Chinese Vice Premier Zhang Dejiang to Colombo from June 10 to 12,2010. With this, the total Chinese funding for the project will come to about US $ 500 million, out of its total estimated cost of US $ one billion. The project being undertaken in three phases is expected to be completed by 2023. It is too early to say whether China will substantially fund the third and last phase too.
2.The first stage due to be ready by end 2010 will allow three ships to berth. The final stage, for which there is no offer of funding yet from China, is planned to accommodate more than 30 ships, which is the present capacity at Colombo. President Mahinda Rajapaksa is trying to develop Hambantota in his home district into another Colombo with its own port as big and as modern as Colombo, its own international airport at Weerawila, its own oil storage facilities and refinery, its own tourist hub, its own international conference hall and its own complex of sports stadia to enable it to bid for the Asian Games one day. He is hoping that the Chinese will ultimately fund the major part of the cost of his Hambantota dream. He has also sought South Korean funding for the proposed international conference hall.
3. While China has readily expanded its financial commitment for the Hambantota project, it is still to make up its mind on the request from Sheikh Hasina, Prime Minister of Bangladesh, made during her visit to China in March last for Chinese financial and construction assistance for the expansion and modernization of the Chittagong port. While the Chinese have agreed to consider her request sympathetically, they have not yet come out with a concrete project. Expectations that they would make a firm announcement during the just-concluded visit (June 13 and 14,2010) to Dhaka by Chinese Vice President Xi Jinping have been belied.
4. Local news agencies did report that during his talks with Sheikh Hasina, Mr.Xi “proposed to give assistance to Bangladesh for building a deep seaport in Chittagong and installing the country's first space satellite” and that “Beijing also agreed to quickly disburse its assistance for the Pagla Water Treatment Plant and the Shahjalal Fertiliser Factory”, but there was no official announcement. Briefing reporters on the outcome of the talks, Foreign Minister Dipu Moni said the Chinese side assured more investment in Bangladesh, and promised to reduce the bilateral trade imbalance by allowing more Bangladeshi products to have duty-free access to the Chinese market. She added that the Chinese agreed to help Bangladesh in ensuring food security and in combating militancy and terrorism. She also said that China also agreed to extend cooperation for the development of telecommunication and infrastructure in Bangladesh. While there was thus a mention of Chinese assistance for the development of infrastructure, there was no specific reference to the proposal for Chinese assistance for the expansion and modernization of the Chittagong port. The issue was formally raised by Sheikh Hasina with the Chinese leaders only in March and it is perhaps too early for the Chinese to come out with a formal proposal.
5. After Gwadar on the Mekran coast of Pakistan, the first phase of which has already been completed and the port commissioned, their focus has been on the early completion of the first phase of the construction of the Hambantota port and its commissioning by the end of this year and the start of the second phase. They are attaching equal priority to the timely completion of the Kyakpyu port off the Arakan coast in Myanmar, the construction of which started last year. While they are interested in taking up the project for the expansion and modernization of the Chittagong port, it does not as yet seem to enjoy the same priority as Gwadar, Hambantota and Kyakpyu,, which, in their view, are important for ensuring their energy flows from West Asia and Africa. They do not seem to attach the same urgency to the Chittagong project from the point of view of their energy flows.
6.There are so far no indications of a Chinese interest in a naval base at Hambantota or Kyaukpyu or Chittagong. Their interest in a naval base at Gwadar remains strong. Retired Chinese naval officials have been underlining the importance of rest, refueling and re-stocking facilities for Chinese ships deployed in the Indian Ocean and the Gulf of Aden. Gwadar is attractive in this regard, but if the internal security situation in Balochistan where Gwadar is located remains unsatisfactory, Hambantota could become their fall-back choice.( 16-6-10)
( The writer is Additional Secretary (retd), Cabinet Secretariat, Govt. of India, New Delhi, and, presently, Director, Institute For Topical Studies, Chennai, and Associate of the Chennai Centre For China Studies. E-mail: seventyone2@gmail.com )
China, which is already meeting in the form of a soft loan from its Ex-Im Bank 85 per cent of the cost of construction ( US $ 360 million) of the first phase of the Hambantota port in Southern Sri Lanka, has agreed to give another soft loan of US $ 200 million towards the cost of construction of the second phase due to start early next year. An agreement in this regard was signed by the concerned officials during the visit of Chinese Vice Premier Zhang Dejiang to Colombo from June 10 to 12,2010. With this, the total Chinese funding for the project will come to about US $ 500 million, out of its total estimated cost of US $ one billion. The project being undertaken in three phases is expected to be completed by 2023. It is too early to say whether China will substantially fund the third and last phase too.
2.The first stage due to be ready by end 2010 will allow three ships to berth. The final stage, for which there is no offer of funding yet from China, is planned to accommodate more than 30 ships, which is the present capacity at Colombo. President Mahinda Rajapaksa is trying to develop Hambantota in his home district into another Colombo with its own port as big and as modern as Colombo, its own international airport at Weerawila, its own oil storage facilities and refinery, its own tourist hub, its own international conference hall and its own complex of sports stadia to enable it to bid for the Asian Games one day. He is hoping that the Chinese will ultimately fund the major part of the cost of his Hambantota dream. He has also sought South Korean funding for the proposed international conference hall.
3. While China has readily expanded its financial commitment for the Hambantota project, it is still to make up its mind on the request from Sheikh Hasina, Prime Minister of Bangladesh, made during her visit to China in March last for Chinese financial and construction assistance for the expansion and modernization of the Chittagong port. While the Chinese have agreed to consider her request sympathetically, they have not yet come out with a concrete project. Expectations that they would make a firm announcement during the just-concluded visit (June 13 and 14,2010) to Dhaka by Chinese Vice President Xi Jinping have been belied.
4. Local news agencies did report that during his talks with Sheikh Hasina, Mr.Xi “proposed to give assistance to Bangladesh for building a deep seaport in Chittagong and installing the country's first space satellite” and that “Beijing also agreed to quickly disburse its assistance for the Pagla Water Treatment Plant and the Shahjalal Fertiliser Factory”, but there was no official announcement. Briefing reporters on the outcome of the talks, Foreign Minister Dipu Moni said the Chinese side assured more investment in Bangladesh, and promised to reduce the bilateral trade imbalance by allowing more Bangladeshi products to have duty-free access to the Chinese market. She added that the Chinese agreed to help Bangladesh in ensuring food security and in combating militancy and terrorism. She also said that China also agreed to extend cooperation for the development of telecommunication and infrastructure in Bangladesh. While there was thus a mention of Chinese assistance for the development of infrastructure, there was no specific reference to the proposal for Chinese assistance for the expansion and modernization of the Chittagong port. The issue was formally raised by Sheikh Hasina with the Chinese leaders only in March and it is perhaps too early for the Chinese to come out with a formal proposal.
5. After Gwadar on the Mekran coast of Pakistan, the first phase of which has already been completed and the port commissioned, their focus has been on the early completion of the first phase of the construction of the Hambantota port and its commissioning by the end of this year and the start of the second phase. They are attaching equal priority to the timely completion of the Kyakpyu port off the Arakan coast in Myanmar, the construction of which started last year. While they are interested in taking up the project for the expansion and modernization of the Chittagong port, it does not as yet seem to enjoy the same priority as Gwadar, Hambantota and Kyakpyu,, which, in their view, are important for ensuring their energy flows from West Asia and Africa. They do not seem to attach the same urgency to the Chittagong project from the point of view of their energy flows.
6.There are so far no indications of a Chinese interest in a naval base at Hambantota or Kyaukpyu or Chittagong. Their interest in a naval base at Gwadar remains strong. Retired Chinese naval officials have been underlining the importance of rest, refueling and re-stocking facilities for Chinese ships deployed in the Indian Ocean and the Gulf of Aden. Gwadar is attractive in this regard, but if the internal security situation in Balochistan where Gwadar is located remains unsatisfactory, Hambantota could become their fall-back choice.( 16-6-10)
( The writer is Additional Secretary (retd), Cabinet Secretariat, Govt. of India, New Delhi, and, presently, Director, Institute For Topical Studies, Chennai, and Associate of the Chennai Centre For China Studies. E-mail: seventyone2@gmail.com )
Monday, June 14, 2010
VIOLENCE IN KYRGYZSTAN: CONCERN IN BEIJING
B.RAMAN
Concerned over reports of isolated attacks on the members of the Chinese community in the Osh region of southern Kyrgyzstan, the Chinese Government has started evacuating its citizens frm the area. Two planes were sent by the Chinese Government to Osh on June 14,2010, to airlift about 600 Chinese nationals out of the area which has seen violent attacks on Uzbeks by mobs of Kyrgyz youth, resulting in the death of over 120 persons, the majority of them Uzbeks. Over 40,000 Uzbeks are reported to have fled the area into the bordering Uzbekistan.
2. The Kyrgyz-Uzbek clashes are attributed to the eruption of tensions between Kyrgyz supporters of former President Kurmanbek Bakiyev, who was overthrown in a poular revolt in April and Uzbek supporters of a provisional Government headed by by Roza Otunbayeva. The support of the Uzbeks for the provisional Government and allegations----denied by the provisional Government--- that in return for the support extended by the Uzbeks in the overthrow of Bakiyev, the provisional Government intended permitting the formation of ethnic parties added to tensions between the two communities. Ethnic parties are banned at present and the Uzbeks, who constitute about one million out of the total population of 5.4 million, are not allowed to have their own political party.
3. The tensions initially led to violence in the town of of Jalalabad in southern Kyrgyzstan on May 19 during which two were killed and many injured and subsequently spread to Osh on June 10. An analysis of the May 19 incidents prepared by the London-based Institute For War and Peace Reporting (IWPR) headed by Saule Mukhametrakhimova stated as follows: " Crowds of young Kyrgyz men surged towards a university associated with the Uzbek community on May 19. They got past a police cordon ringing the entrance gates, but were prevented from entering the university building after security guards put up stiff resistance. Shots were fired at this point, although it was unclear whether by one or both sides. An eyewitness on the scene told IWPR that this prompted the crowds to fall back. “When the first casualties happened, the crowd came out of the gate,” he said. Kyrgyzstan’s interim government declared a state of emergency and a night-time curfew in Jalalabad city and the nearby Suzak district, and accused allies of former president Kurmanbek Bakiyev, ousted during mass protests last month, of masterminding the disturbances. Bakiyev is in exile in Belarus, but the authorities who replaced him believe his supporters are still trying to stage a coup. They have charged a number of Bakiyev-era officials for disturbances , when protesters briefly seized control of local government buildings in Jalalabad and Osh, the south’s biggest urban centre. “The interim government will not allow civil war,” said government member Temir Sariev, in remarks quoted by the online news agency 24.kg. Referring to Bakiyev supporters, he said, “At first they tried to confront the interim government, but when we resisted them, they began employing inter-ethnic conflict.” Events in Jalalabad represent a dangerous shift towards trouble between ethnic Kyrgyz and the sizeable Uzbek community.There were signs of trouble brewing on the morning of May 19, as thousands of people gathered at a race-track a couple of kilometres from the city. Among the eyewitnesses interviewed by IWPR, a local man said most of the people at the race-track were young, of Kyrgyz ethnicity, and as far as he knew, not local to the area. A correspondent with RFE/RL (Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty) said protesters were chanting slogans directed against Kadirjan Batirov, a businessman and politician regarded as the Uzbek community’s uncrowned leader, and an ally of the new government."
4. The British Broadcasting Corporation has reported as follows on the violence in the Osh area since June 10: "It is not yet fully clear what triggered the violence, but tensions have been high in the area since the toppling of President Kurmanbek Bakiyev. When Mr Bakiyev was ousted in an uprising on 7 April 2010, his stronghold in the south became the centre of instability. Among the Kyrgyz population, pro-Bakiyev elements organised resistance to the interim government by seizing government offices and taking officials hostage. The sizeable Uzbek community displayed sympathy to the new government in Bishkek. As Roza Otunbayeva, the interim president, struggled to control the south, well-established criminal elements and drug dealers exploited the power vacuum. The spark for communal violence was provided by a clash between Kyrgyz and Uzbek gangs. It soon turned into street fighting among the youth in Osh. Fuelled by rumours of atrocities on either side, angry mobs from other towns and villages arrived in Osh, forcing large numbers of ethnic Uzbeks to flee. "
5. The BBC added: "The southern city of Osh is at the centre of a fertile plain known as the Fergana Valley. After the collapse of the Soviet Union, the valley was divided between the three independent republics, Kyrgyzstan, Uzbekistan and Tajikistan. This created minority populations and some enclaves. The uneasy co-existence of settled and relatively prosperous Uzbeks and traditionally nomadic but - since the creation of their state - politically more powerful Kyrgyz population was occasionally interrupted. The last serious outbreak of ethnic disturbance was put down by Soviet troops in 1990. Since then, the Kyrgyz part of the Fergana Valley has become a magnet for increasing trade with neighbouring countries, a thriving market for cheap Chinese goods and the centre of illicit drugs from Afghanistan on their way to the world markets. Successive Kyrgyz governments failed to deal with growing corruption and crime. Collapsing infra-structure and widespread poverty contributed to deep public resentment. The Fergana Valley is an area of largely devout Muslims as well as the recruiting ground for Islamist movements. The minority Uzbek population makes up 15% of Kyrgyzstan's five million people. In southern towns such as Osh, Uzbeks are a minority. In some areas of the Fergana Valley, they outnumber the Kyrgyz population. Among the Kyrgyz people of the area, the fear that the Uzbeks may want to grab Kyrgyz lands and to join Uzbekistan seems to be a significant factor in spiralling violence that we have witnessed in recent days."
6.The "China Daily" has reported as follows: "There have been no reports so far of casualties among Chinese nationals in the ethnic violence.
Some businesses owned by Chinese nationals in Osh have been looted, and the Chinese Ambassador to Kyrgyzstan, Wang Kaiwen, has urged Chinese nationals to stay at home. Gu Ping, another official at the Embassy, said a Chinese-run glass shop and an oil factory were raided, causing losses worth millions of US dollars. The number of Chinese living in Kyrgyzstan has been growing since the late 1980s. Embassy statistics show about 30,000 Chinese people are living in the country. More than 7,000, mostly businessmen, are in the violence-hit region.
On the outskirts of the capital Bishkek, there is a large Chinese market, described as a "city within a city," which has a hospital, mosques and apartment buildings. Migrants from China also work in the construction sector, especially on housing projects for low-income people."
7. It added: "It is unclear what triggered the clashes. Some officials have pointed to a conflict at a local casino or rumors of a dispute sparked by a taxi passenger who declined to pay his fare. Others have spoken of Kyrgyz girls being raped by Uzbeks. The ethnic violence raises the risk of a civil war or even a full-blown conflict between Kyrgyzstan and Uzbekistan. If the interim government loses control, Kyrgyzstan could disintegrate and cease to exist as a single independent country. Moscow sent at least 150 paratroopers to Kyrgyzstan on Sunday ( June 13) to protect its own military facilities in the country and representatives of the Moscow-led security bloc of ex-Soviet republics known as the Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO) gathered on Monday ( June 14) to discuss further steps. "We have gathered here to discuss the situation in Kyrgyzstan and discuss the ways to solve this crisis, to restore order, to stop the interethnic conflict," Russia's national security chief Nikolai Patrushev was quoted by RIA Novosti news agency as telling the meeting. "Today we have to work out a common position and concrete measures to react to the situation in Kyrgyzstan based on a CSTO mandate." The CSTO comprises Russia, Belarus, Armenia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan.Kyrgyzstan's interim government, which assumed power after an April revolt that overthrew president Kurmanbek Bakiyev, has been unable to gain full control of the country's south, which is separated from the north by mountains. The renewed turmoil in Kyrgyzstan has fuelled concern in Russia and the United States. Washington uses an air base at Manas in the north of the ex-Soviet state, about 300 km from Osh, to supply forces in Afghanistan. Russia also has a military base in the country. "
8. There have been reports of attacks by Kyrgyz mobs on Pakistani students, many of whom reportedly study in an Uzbek university in Osh. There are so far no reports of attacks on Indian students. There are not many residents of Russian origin in southern Kyrgyzstan. Most of the Russian origin residents are concentrated in the North. There have been no reports of attacks on the Russian-origin residents. The interim Government which has imposed a State of Emergency in the South has sought the intervention of Russian troops to put down the violence, but Moscow seems to be disinclined to intervene on its own. It would prefer that any intervention is by the CSTO. Moscow's immediate concern is the strengthening of the security for the Russian military base and the protection of residents of Russian origin.
9. The Chinese have no military presence in Kyrgyzstan. There is an unestimated number of Uighurs in Kyrgyzstan who support the Islamic Movement of Eastern Turkestan (IMET). The Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan (IMU), whose leaders are based in North Waziristan in Pakistan, draws its recruits from the radicalised Uzbeks in the Fergana Valley.
10. If the ethnic violence is not controlled effectively, there is not only a danger of a civil war in Kyrgyzstan and a conflict between Kyrgyzstan and Uzbekistan, but also a surge in the activities of the IMU and the IMET. The Chinese are, therefore, as concerned over the situation as the US and Russia. The Uzbek anger over the atrocities allegedly committed against them could have unpredictable consequences for regional peace and security. ( 15-6-10)
( The writer is Additional Secretary (retd), Cabinet Secretariat, Govt. of India, New Delhi, and, presently, Director, Institute For Topical Studies, Chennai, and Associate of the Chennai Centre For China Studies. E-mail: seventyone2@gmail.com )
Concerned over reports of isolated attacks on the members of the Chinese community in the Osh region of southern Kyrgyzstan, the Chinese Government has started evacuating its citizens frm the area. Two planes were sent by the Chinese Government to Osh on June 14,2010, to airlift about 600 Chinese nationals out of the area which has seen violent attacks on Uzbeks by mobs of Kyrgyz youth, resulting in the death of over 120 persons, the majority of them Uzbeks. Over 40,000 Uzbeks are reported to have fled the area into the bordering Uzbekistan.
2. The Kyrgyz-Uzbek clashes are attributed to the eruption of tensions between Kyrgyz supporters of former President Kurmanbek Bakiyev, who was overthrown in a poular revolt in April and Uzbek supporters of a provisional Government headed by by Roza Otunbayeva. The support of the Uzbeks for the provisional Government and allegations----denied by the provisional Government--- that in return for the support extended by the Uzbeks in the overthrow of Bakiyev, the provisional Government intended permitting the formation of ethnic parties added to tensions between the two communities. Ethnic parties are banned at present and the Uzbeks, who constitute about one million out of the total population of 5.4 million, are not allowed to have their own political party.
3. The tensions initially led to violence in the town of of Jalalabad in southern Kyrgyzstan on May 19 during which two were killed and many injured and subsequently spread to Osh on June 10. An analysis of the May 19 incidents prepared by the London-based Institute For War and Peace Reporting (IWPR) headed by Saule Mukhametrakhimova stated as follows: " Crowds of young Kyrgyz men surged towards a university associated with the Uzbek community on May 19. They got past a police cordon ringing the entrance gates, but were prevented from entering the university building after security guards put up stiff resistance. Shots were fired at this point, although it was unclear whether by one or both sides. An eyewitness on the scene told IWPR that this prompted the crowds to fall back. “When the first casualties happened, the crowd came out of the gate,” he said. Kyrgyzstan’s interim government declared a state of emergency and a night-time curfew in Jalalabad city and the nearby Suzak district, and accused allies of former president Kurmanbek Bakiyev, ousted during mass protests last month, of masterminding the disturbances. Bakiyev is in exile in Belarus, but the authorities who replaced him believe his supporters are still trying to stage a coup. They have charged a number of Bakiyev-era officials for disturbances , when protesters briefly seized control of local government buildings in Jalalabad and Osh, the south’s biggest urban centre. “The interim government will not allow civil war,” said government member Temir Sariev, in remarks quoted by the online news agency 24.kg. Referring to Bakiyev supporters, he said, “At first they tried to confront the interim government, but when we resisted them, they began employing inter-ethnic conflict.” Events in Jalalabad represent a dangerous shift towards trouble between ethnic Kyrgyz and the sizeable Uzbek community.There were signs of trouble brewing on the morning of May 19, as thousands of people gathered at a race-track a couple of kilometres from the city. Among the eyewitnesses interviewed by IWPR, a local man said most of the people at the race-track were young, of Kyrgyz ethnicity, and as far as he knew, not local to the area. A correspondent with RFE/RL (Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty) said protesters were chanting slogans directed against Kadirjan Batirov, a businessman and politician regarded as the Uzbek community’s uncrowned leader, and an ally of the new government."
4. The British Broadcasting Corporation has reported as follows on the violence in the Osh area since June 10: "It is not yet fully clear what triggered the violence, but tensions have been high in the area since the toppling of President Kurmanbek Bakiyev. When Mr Bakiyev was ousted in an uprising on 7 April 2010, his stronghold in the south became the centre of instability. Among the Kyrgyz population, pro-Bakiyev elements organised resistance to the interim government by seizing government offices and taking officials hostage. The sizeable Uzbek community displayed sympathy to the new government in Bishkek. As Roza Otunbayeva, the interim president, struggled to control the south, well-established criminal elements and drug dealers exploited the power vacuum. The spark for communal violence was provided by a clash between Kyrgyz and Uzbek gangs. It soon turned into street fighting among the youth in Osh. Fuelled by rumours of atrocities on either side, angry mobs from other towns and villages arrived in Osh, forcing large numbers of ethnic Uzbeks to flee. "
5. The BBC added: "The southern city of Osh is at the centre of a fertile plain known as the Fergana Valley. After the collapse of the Soviet Union, the valley was divided between the three independent republics, Kyrgyzstan, Uzbekistan and Tajikistan. This created minority populations and some enclaves. The uneasy co-existence of settled and relatively prosperous Uzbeks and traditionally nomadic but - since the creation of their state - politically more powerful Kyrgyz population was occasionally interrupted. The last serious outbreak of ethnic disturbance was put down by Soviet troops in 1990. Since then, the Kyrgyz part of the Fergana Valley has become a magnet for increasing trade with neighbouring countries, a thriving market for cheap Chinese goods and the centre of illicit drugs from Afghanistan on their way to the world markets. Successive Kyrgyz governments failed to deal with growing corruption and crime. Collapsing infra-structure and widespread poverty contributed to deep public resentment. The Fergana Valley is an area of largely devout Muslims as well as the recruiting ground for Islamist movements. The minority Uzbek population makes up 15% of Kyrgyzstan's five million people. In southern towns such as Osh, Uzbeks are a minority. In some areas of the Fergana Valley, they outnumber the Kyrgyz population. Among the Kyrgyz people of the area, the fear that the Uzbeks may want to grab Kyrgyz lands and to join Uzbekistan seems to be a significant factor in spiralling violence that we have witnessed in recent days."
6.The "China Daily" has reported as follows: "There have been no reports so far of casualties among Chinese nationals in the ethnic violence.
Some businesses owned by Chinese nationals in Osh have been looted, and the Chinese Ambassador to Kyrgyzstan, Wang Kaiwen, has urged Chinese nationals to stay at home. Gu Ping, another official at the Embassy, said a Chinese-run glass shop and an oil factory were raided, causing losses worth millions of US dollars. The number of Chinese living in Kyrgyzstan has been growing since the late 1980s. Embassy statistics show about 30,000 Chinese people are living in the country. More than 7,000, mostly businessmen, are in the violence-hit region.
On the outskirts of the capital Bishkek, there is a large Chinese market, described as a "city within a city," which has a hospital, mosques and apartment buildings. Migrants from China also work in the construction sector, especially on housing projects for low-income people."
7. It added: "It is unclear what triggered the clashes. Some officials have pointed to a conflict at a local casino or rumors of a dispute sparked by a taxi passenger who declined to pay his fare. Others have spoken of Kyrgyz girls being raped by Uzbeks. The ethnic violence raises the risk of a civil war or even a full-blown conflict between Kyrgyzstan and Uzbekistan. If the interim government loses control, Kyrgyzstan could disintegrate and cease to exist as a single independent country. Moscow sent at least 150 paratroopers to Kyrgyzstan on Sunday ( June 13) to protect its own military facilities in the country and representatives of the Moscow-led security bloc of ex-Soviet republics known as the Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO) gathered on Monday ( June 14) to discuss further steps. "We have gathered here to discuss the situation in Kyrgyzstan and discuss the ways to solve this crisis, to restore order, to stop the interethnic conflict," Russia's national security chief Nikolai Patrushev was quoted by RIA Novosti news agency as telling the meeting. "Today we have to work out a common position and concrete measures to react to the situation in Kyrgyzstan based on a CSTO mandate." The CSTO comprises Russia, Belarus, Armenia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan.Kyrgyzstan's interim government, which assumed power after an April revolt that overthrew president Kurmanbek Bakiyev, has been unable to gain full control of the country's south, which is separated from the north by mountains. The renewed turmoil in Kyrgyzstan has fuelled concern in Russia and the United States. Washington uses an air base at Manas in the north of the ex-Soviet state, about 300 km from Osh, to supply forces in Afghanistan. Russia also has a military base in the country. "
8. There have been reports of attacks by Kyrgyz mobs on Pakistani students, many of whom reportedly study in an Uzbek university in Osh. There are so far no reports of attacks on Indian students. There are not many residents of Russian origin in southern Kyrgyzstan. Most of the Russian origin residents are concentrated in the North. There have been no reports of attacks on the Russian-origin residents. The interim Government which has imposed a State of Emergency in the South has sought the intervention of Russian troops to put down the violence, but Moscow seems to be disinclined to intervene on its own. It would prefer that any intervention is by the CSTO. Moscow's immediate concern is the strengthening of the security for the Russian military base and the protection of residents of Russian origin.
9. The Chinese have no military presence in Kyrgyzstan. There is an unestimated number of Uighurs in Kyrgyzstan who support the Islamic Movement of Eastern Turkestan (IMET). The Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan (IMU), whose leaders are based in North Waziristan in Pakistan, draws its recruits from the radicalised Uzbeks in the Fergana Valley.
10. If the ethnic violence is not controlled effectively, there is not only a danger of a civil war in Kyrgyzstan and a conflict between Kyrgyzstan and Uzbekistan, but also a surge in the activities of the IMU and the IMET. The Chinese are, therefore, as concerned over the situation as the US and Russia. The Uzbek anger over the atrocities allegedly committed against them could have unpredictable consequences for regional peace and security. ( 15-6-10)
( The writer is Additional Secretary (retd), Cabinet Secretariat, Govt. of India, New Delhi, and, presently, Director, Institute For Topical Studies, Chennai, and Associate of the Chennai Centre For China Studies. E-mail: seventyone2@gmail.com )
Saturday, June 12, 2010
LTTE: REMNANTS & SYMPATHISERS
INTERNATIONAL TERRORISM MONITOR---PAPER NO. 658
B.RAMAN
The Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) as a terrorist-cum-insurgent organisation is dead. So is most of its leadership at the senior levels, including Prabakaran, its head. One cannot say with equal confidence that all its trained cadres----whether in insurgency or terrorism or both----have been fully accounted for----either killed or captured. Its dead leaders have not left detailed documentation of their set-up giving details of the number trained, the number of losses, the number still alive towards the end of their fight with the Sri Lankan Army, their deployment, their capabilities, weapons-holdings etc. As a result, it is difficult to assess with some accuracy the risks of a revival of the Tamil militancy in some form or the other in Sri Lanka as well as in Tamil Nadu.
2. One can assess with some confidence that there is little likelihood of the revival of a Tamil insurgent movement. The losses in trained personnel and capabilities suffered by the LTTE at the hands of the Sri Lankan Army will rule that out. The enhancement of the deployment of the Army in the Tamil areas----already under way---- will ensure that Tamil insurgency cannot stage a come-back in Sri Lanka like the Taliban did in Afghanistan.
3. However, one cannot rule out the dangers of a revival of a terrorist movement by the unaccounted for remnants of the LTTE in Sri Lanka as well as in Tamil Nadu. The LTTE had trained an unquantified number of its cadres----men and women--- in different kinds of terrorist operations, including suicide terrorism. One does not know how many were trained, how many were killed or captured by the Sri Lankan Army and how many have managed to evade capture and are biding their time in Sri Lanka and Tamil Nadu. They have a high level of expertise in the use of terrorism as a modus operandi as well as in the fabrication of explosive material by using substances easily available in Sri Lanka and Tamil Nadu.
4. So long as these remnants with the required expertise are available, a determined and motivated Tamil leader can rally them round and create sleeper cells for a new Tamil militant movement. A new generation of Tamil militant leadership is not yet on the horizon a year after the decimation of the LTTE. However, there is still anger in pockets of the Tamil communities in Sri Lanka and Tamil Nadu over the manner in which the Sri Lankan Army carried out its counter-insurgency operations and over what is seen as foot-dragging by President Mahinda Rajapaksa in carrying out his assurances for a fair political settlement made to the Tamils before the LTTE was crushed. Now that the LTTE has been crushed, he is no longer showing a sense of urgency and fairplay in addressing the problems and grievances of the Tamils.
5. The fact that this anger is present not only in the Tamil community of Sri Lanka, but also of Tamil Nadu became evident recently from the protests in Tamil Nadu over an Indian film festival held in Sri Lanka, which was boycotted by Tamil actors, the protest demonstrations during the recent visit of Mr.Rajapaksa to New Delhi and the unsuccessful attempt by some unidentified persons believed to be sympathisers of Prabakaran to cause a derailment with locally-procured explosives in Tamil Nadu in the early hours of June 12. The Kumbakonam-Chennai Rockfort Express escaped what could have been a tragedy when two alert drivers---one of a train which preceded the Rockfort Express and the other of the Express---- noticed a possible terrorist attempt to cause a derailment. According to media reports, pamphlets purported to have been drafted by supporters of the late Prabakaran claiming responsibility for the attempt were found on the spot. Only a police investigation can establish whether the attempt was made by supporters of Prabakaran as claimed in the pamphlets or by Maoists as a mark of solidarity with the LTTE. In the past, when Prabakaran was alive, there were unconfirmed reports of contacts between the LTTE and the Maoists.
6. Anger is often the mother of militancy and terrorism. The LTTE is dead. Most of its senior leadership is no more. But anger in sections of the Tamil community is still there. Motivated individuals, who are prepared to give vent to their anger by using terrorism, are available. Only leadership to rally them round is not there. The post 9/11 history of terrorism shows that the absence of a leadership capable of uniting the terrorists and orchestrating their activities does not mean the end of terrorism. Autonomously operating individuals itching to give vent to their anger have been behind many recent acts of terrorism. Terrorism analysts have been speaking of an emerging phenomenon of leadersless terrorism due to acts of angry individuals.
7. Till the cause of the anger of the Sri Lankan Tamils is satisfactorily addressed, the danger of a revival of terrorism in sections of the Tamil community will remain present. ( 13-6-10)
( The writer is Additional Secretary (retd), Cabinet Secretariat, Govt. of India, New Delhi, and, presetly, Director, Institute For Topical Studies, Chennai, and Associate of the Chennai Centre For China Studies. E-mail: seventyone2@gmail.com )
B.RAMAN
The Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) as a terrorist-cum-insurgent organisation is dead. So is most of its leadership at the senior levels, including Prabakaran, its head. One cannot say with equal confidence that all its trained cadres----whether in insurgency or terrorism or both----have been fully accounted for----either killed or captured. Its dead leaders have not left detailed documentation of their set-up giving details of the number trained, the number of losses, the number still alive towards the end of their fight with the Sri Lankan Army, their deployment, their capabilities, weapons-holdings etc. As a result, it is difficult to assess with some accuracy the risks of a revival of the Tamil militancy in some form or the other in Sri Lanka as well as in Tamil Nadu.
2. One can assess with some confidence that there is little likelihood of the revival of a Tamil insurgent movement. The losses in trained personnel and capabilities suffered by the LTTE at the hands of the Sri Lankan Army will rule that out. The enhancement of the deployment of the Army in the Tamil areas----already under way---- will ensure that Tamil insurgency cannot stage a come-back in Sri Lanka like the Taliban did in Afghanistan.
3. However, one cannot rule out the dangers of a revival of a terrorist movement by the unaccounted for remnants of the LTTE in Sri Lanka as well as in Tamil Nadu. The LTTE had trained an unquantified number of its cadres----men and women--- in different kinds of terrorist operations, including suicide terrorism. One does not know how many were trained, how many were killed or captured by the Sri Lankan Army and how many have managed to evade capture and are biding their time in Sri Lanka and Tamil Nadu. They have a high level of expertise in the use of terrorism as a modus operandi as well as in the fabrication of explosive material by using substances easily available in Sri Lanka and Tamil Nadu.
4. So long as these remnants with the required expertise are available, a determined and motivated Tamil leader can rally them round and create sleeper cells for a new Tamil militant movement. A new generation of Tamil militant leadership is not yet on the horizon a year after the decimation of the LTTE. However, there is still anger in pockets of the Tamil communities in Sri Lanka and Tamil Nadu over the manner in which the Sri Lankan Army carried out its counter-insurgency operations and over what is seen as foot-dragging by President Mahinda Rajapaksa in carrying out his assurances for a fair political settlement made to the Tamils before the LTTE was crushed. Now that the LTTE has been crushed, he is no longer showing a sense of urgency and fairplay in addressing the problems and grievances of the Tamils.
5. The fact that this anger is present not only in the Tamil community of Sri Lanka, but also of Tamil Nadu became evident recently from the protests in Tamil Nadu over an Indian film festival held in Sri Lanka, which was boycotted by Tamil actors, the protest demonstrations during the recent visit of Mr.Rajapaksa to New Delhi and the unsuccessful attempt by some unidentified persons believed to be sympathisers of Prabakaran to cause a derailment with locally-procured explosives in Tamil Nadu in the early hours of June 12. The Kumbakonam-Chennai Rockfort Express escaped what could have been a tragedy when two alert drivers---one of a train which preceded the Rockfort Express and the other of the Express---- noticed a possible terrorist attempt to cause a derailment. According to media reports, pamphlets purported to have been drafted by supporters of the late Prabakaran claiming responsibility for the attempt were found on the spot. Only a police investigation can establish whether the attempt was made by supporters of Prabakaran as claimed in the pamphlets or by Maoists as a mark of solidarity with the LTTE. In the past, when Prabakaran was alive, there were unconfirmed reports of contacts between the LTTE and the Maoists.
6. Anger is often the mother of militancy and terrorism. The LTTE is dead. Most of its senior leadership is no more. But anger in sections of the Tamil community is still there. Motivated individuals, who are prepared to give vent to their anger by using terrorism, are available. Only leadership to rally them round is not there. The post 9/11 history of terrorism shows that the absence of a leadership capable of uniting the terrorists and orchestrating their activities does not mean the end of terrorism. Autonomously operating individuals itching to give vent to their anger have been behind many recent acts of terrorism. Terrorism analysts have been speaking of an emerging phenomenon of leadersless terrorism due to acts of angry individuals.
7. Till the cause of the anger of the Sri Lankan Tamils is satisfactorily addressed, the danger of a revival of terrorism in sections of the Tamil community will remain present. ( 13-6-10)
( The writer is Additional Secretary (retd), Cabinet Secretariat, Govt. of India, New Delhi, and, presetly, Director, Institute For Topical Studies, Chennai, and Associate of the Chennai Centre For China Studies. E-mail: seventyone2@gmail.com )
Friday, June 11, 2010
AFGHANISTAN: INDIAN OPTIONS
INTERNATIONAL TERRORISM MONITOR---PAPER NO 657
B.RAMAN
The US has maintained its relentless Drone (pilotless plane) strikes on the suspected hide-outs and vehicular movements of the Afghan and Pakistani Talibans (Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan—TTP) in the North and South Waziristan areas of Pakistan. According to an estimate of the British Broadcasting Corporation mentioned in a report on its web site on June 11,2010, there have been about 70 Drone strikes since the beginning of this year resulting in more than 200 fatalities. The BBC estimate does not mention how many of these fatalities were of the leaders and other cadres of the two Talibans and how many were of civilians.
2. Reports from reliable sources in the area indicate that while there have been civilian fatalities they are not as large as made out to be by anti-US elements in the Af-Pak area. Many of the civilians killed would not come under the category of “innocents” in the sense that they had nothing to do with the Talibans. While many of them might not have been activists of the Talibans, they were providing them logistic help at the time they got killed. If one excludes their number, the number of innocent civilians killed due to poor intelligence or wrong targeting is quite small, the sources say.
3.US claims of having killed a number of senior and middle-level leaders of the Talibans and Al Qaeda are not exaggerated. Some of its claims have been subsequently corroborated by independent sources and even admitted by these organizations themselves. While the US has thus reason to be gratified by the success rate of its Drone strikes, it should be seriously worried by the failure of these strikes to have an impact on the ground situation, either in Afghanistan or Pakistan.
4. The loss of many leaders of the older vintage has not demoralized the Talibans. They have been able to find new leaders as motivated and as capable as the old. There has been no dent on the flow of new volunteers to join the ranks of the Talibans and there has been no weakening of capability and of the ability to take the US-led NATO forces in Afghanistan and the Pakistani security forces even in the non-tribal areas by surprise.
5. This became evident earlier this week when the Afghan Taliban managed to kill seven Americans, two Australians and one French soldier on June 7 followed by the deaths of three more NATO troops the next day. The deaths of 10 NATO soldiers made June 7 the deadliest day for foreign troops in Afghanistan since 14 Americans, including 11 US soldiers, died in two helicopter crashes on October 26, 2009. This has been further followed by the deaths of four more NATO troops on June 9 when their helicopter was brought down by suspected Taliban fire.
6.The same day ( June 9 ), upto 12 gunmen suspected to be from the Pakistani Taliban attacked a convoy of private trucks carrying logistic supplies for the NATO troops in Afghanistan from the Karachi port. The attack took place at Tarnol, 10 kms from Islamabad on the road to Peshawar. Seven persons believed to be drivers and cleaners of the private trucks in the convoy were killed and 70 lorries transporting fuel and other non-classified material were destroyed. The terrorists launched the attack when the trucks carrying the supplies had stopped for rest and refueling.
7.In January, the Pakistani Taliban had twice attacked trucks carrying supplies for the NATO near Karachi and now they have attacked a convoy at a place close to Islamabad without being prevented by the Pakistani security forces. Their ability to organize successful strikes----- though still sporadic---- in the non-tribal areas shows that the claimed successes of the Pakistan Army in re-establishing control over areas under the sway of the TTP in the Swat Valley and South Waziristan have not dented the capability of the TTP to divert its operations to the non-tribal areas. While the Afghan Taliban continues to seek territorial dominance, the Pakistani Taliban no longer does so. Instead, it has sought to maintain its tactical mobility and flexibility and ability to provide back-up support to the operations of the Afghan Taliban. The two Talibans are working in tandem effectively.
8. According to a spokesperson of the US Transportation Command in Washington DC, about 60 per cent of the supplies----food, fuel and some equipment--- is still moved from Karachi by road, 30 per cent by train across Russia and the Central Asian Republics and the remaining 20 per cent consisting of ammunition and other classified items is flown by air directly to Afghanistan. The spokesperson claimed that attacks such as the one near Islamabad----though serious---- have not had any significant impact on the NATO’s ability to replenish itself.
9. The revamped US strategy in the Ad-Pak area consisting essentially of attempts at ground dominance in the Afghan territory and stepped-up Drone strikes in the Pakistani territory is nowhere near bringing about a turning point in the US battle against the Afghan Taliban. The efforts of President Hamid Karzai to identify and wean away the inadequately motivated elements in the Afghan Taliban through offers of money, perks and a share of power under his continuing leadership are not making headway despite reported secret contacts with claimed Taliban elements in places such as the Maldives and the recent jirga, which was a spectacular event, but nothing more. There have been no substantive political results and there are unlikely to be any.
10 The ideological solidarity in the two Talibans remains strong. Their bases of support in the Pashtun communities on both sides are intact. Mr.Karzai has no significant support from the Pakistani Pashtun community except from the followers of the Awami National Party now in power in the province of Khyber Pakhtoonkwa ( the old North-West Frontier Province). His support in the Afghan Pashtun community is more, but not sufficient to slow down the flow of volunteers to the Afghan Taliban. The Afghan Taliban, headed by Mulla Mohammad Omar, has been able to draw volunteers from the Pashtun communities in Afghanistan as well as Pakistan. The recent successes of the two Talibans show that their ability to plan and carry out operations at a time and place of their choice remains strong.
11. The US is far from prevailing over the Afghan Taliban and being able to bring about a turning point on the ground which would facilitate a down-sizing of the US presence in time for it to make a favourable impact on Mr.Barack Obama’s bid for re-election in 2012. It looks as if the final outcome in the Af-Pak area will be determined by who has the better battle stamina and staying power. The stamina and staying power of the US-led NATO forces do not seem to be strong enough to bring about a turning point favourable to them.
12. The success of the Indian policy in Afghanistan would depend on the final success of the US-led NATO forces and the Afghan National Army on the ground. That success is not yet in sight. Is it time to have a second look at India’s policy? What should be India’s objective in the present circumstances? Continuing to expand India’s role in the hope that the NATO and the ANA would finally prevail? Consolidating its present role without further expanding it till the ground situation starts improving----if at all it does? Is there scope for a compatibility between the interests and roles of India and Pakistan in Afghanistan? Should India diversify its contacts in the Pashtun communities of Afghanistan and Pakistan? What role can the generally India-friendly ANP play in this regard? These are questions which need serious examination by our policy-makers.
13. India’s Afghan policy has passed through three phases. Between 1947 and September 1996, when the Taliban captured power in Kabul, it was Pashtun-centric. Between September 1996 and the defeat of the Taliban by the US in 2001-end, it became Tajik-centric with India, Russia and Iran jointly supporting the Northern Alliance. Since the assumption of power by Mr.Karzai in Kabul, India has been re-cultivating the Pashtuns of Afghanistan while seeking to keep intact the goodwill earned by it among the non-Pashtuns. The six years of rule by the National Democratic Alliance Government under Shri Atal Behari Vajpayee saw an erosion of the goodwill of the Pakistani Pashtun community loyal to the ANP towards India. The present Government of Dr.Manmohan Singh has not attempted to re-establish our traditional contacts with sections of the Pakistani Pashtun community. Our traditional friends in the Pashtun community have not played an adequate role in the evolution of our Afghan policy. Our policy is influenced more by strategic calculations than by historic affinities. It is time for a course correction.(12-6-10)
( The writer is Additional Secretary (retd), Cabinet Secretariat, Govt. of India, New Delhi, and, presently, Director, Institute For Topical Studies, Chennai, and Associate of the Chennai Centre For China Studies. E-mail: seventyone2@gmail.com )
B.RAMAN
The US has maintained its relentless Drone (pilotless plane) strikes on the suspected hide-outs and vehicular movements of the Afghan and Pakistani Talibans (Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan—TTP) in the North and South Waziristan areas of Pakistan. According to an estimate of the British Broadcasting Corporation mentioned in a report on its web site on June 11,2010, there have been about 70 Drone strikes since the beginning of this year resulting in more than 200 fatalities. The BBC estimate does not mention how many of these fatalities were of the leaders and other cadres of the two Talibans and how many were of civilians.
2. Reports from reliable sources in the area indicate that while there have been civilian fatalities they are not as large as made out to be by anti-US elements in the Af-Pak area. Many of the civilians killed would not come under the category of “innocents” in the sense that they had nothing to do with the Talibans. While many of them might not have been activists of the Talibans, they were providing them logistic help at the time they got killed. If one excludes their number, the number of innocent civilians killed due to poor intelligence or wrong targeting is quite small, the sources say.
3.US claims of having killed a number of senior and middle-level leaders of the Talibans and Al Qaeda are not exaggerated. Some of its claims have been subsequently corroborated by independent sources and even admitted by these organizations themselves. While the US has thus reason to be gratified by the success rate of its Drone strikes, it should be seriously worried by the failure of these strikes to have an impact on the ground situation, either in Afghanistan or Pakistan.
4. The loss of many leaders of the older vintage has not demoralized the Talibans. They have been able to find new leaders as motivated and as capable as the old. There has been no dent on the flow of new volunteers to join the ranks of the Talibans and there has been no weakening of capability and of the ability to take the US-led NATO forces in Afghanistan and the Pakistani security forces even in the non-tribal areas by surprise.
5. This became evident earlier this week when the Afghan Taliban managed to kill seven Americans, two Australians and one French soldier on June 7 followed by the deaths of three more NATO troops the next day. The deaths of 10 NATO soldiers made June 7 the deadliest day for foreign troops in Afghanistan since 14 Americans, including 11 US soldiers, died in two helicopter crashes on October 26, 2009. This has been further followed by the deaths of four more NATO troops on June 9 when their helicopter was brought down by suspected Taliban fire.
6.The same day ( June 9 ), upto 12 gunmen suspected to be from the Pakistani Taliban attacked a convoy of private trucks carrying logistic supplies for the NATO troops in Afghanistan from the Karachi port. The attack took place at Tarnol, 10 kms from Islamabad on the road to Peshawar. Seven persons believed to be drivers and cleaners of the private trucks in the convoy were killed and 70 lorries transporting fuel and other non-classified material were destroyed. The terrorists launched the attack when the trucks carrying the supplies had stopped for rest and refueling.
7.In January, the Pakistani Taliban had twice attacked trucks carrying supplies for the NATO near Karachi and now they have attacked a convoy at a place close to Islamabad without being prevented by the Pakistani security forces. Their ability to organize successful strikes----- though still sporadic---- in the non-tribal areas shows that the claimed successes of the Pakistan Army in re-establishing control over areas under the sway of the TTP in the Swat Valley and South Waziristan have not dented the capability of the TTP to divert its operations to the non-tribal areas. While the Afghan Taliban continues to seek territorial dominance, the Pakistani Taliban no longer does so. Instead, it has sought to maintain its tactical mobility and flexibility and ability to provide back-up support to the operations of the Afghan Taliban. The two Talibans are working in tandem effectively.
8. According to a spokesperson of the US Transportation Command in Washington DC, about 60 per cent of the supplies----food, fuel and some equipment--- is still moved from Karachi by road, 30 per cent by train across Russia and the Central Asian Republics and the remaining 20 per cent consisting of ammunition and other classified items is flown by air directly to Afghanistan. The spokesperson claimed that attacks such as the one near Islamabad----though serious---- have not had any significant impact on the NATO’s ability to replenish itself.
9. The revamped US strategy in the Ad-Pak area consisting essentially of attempts at ground dominance in the Afghan territory and stepped-up Drone strikes in the Pakistani territory is nowhere near bringing about a turning point in the US battle against the Afghan Taliban. The efforts of President Hamid Karzai to identify and wean away the inadequately motivated elements in the Afghan Taliban through offers of money, perks and a share of power under his continuing leadership are not making headway despite reported secret contacts with claimed Taliban elements in places such as the Maldives and the recent jirga, which was a spectacular event, but nothing more. There have been no substantive political results and there are unlikely to be any.
10 The ideological solidarity in the two Talibans remains strong. Their bases of support in the Pashtun communities on both sides are intact. Mr.Karzai has no significant support from the Pakistani Pashtun community except from the followers of the Awami National Party now in power in the province of Khyber Pakhtoonkwa ( the old North-West Frontier Province). His support in the Afghan Pashtun community is more, but not sufficient to slow down the flow of volunteers to the Afghan Taliban. The Afghan Taliban, headed by Mulla Mohammad Omar, has been able to draw volunteers from the Pashtun communities in Afghanistan as well as Pakistan. The recent successes of the two Talibans show that their ability to plan and carry out operations at a time and place of their choice remains strong.
11. The US is far from prevailing over the Afghan Taliban and being able to bring about a turning point on the ground which would facilitate a down-sizing of the US presence in time for it to make a favourable impact on Mr.Barack Obama’s bid for re-election in 2012. It looks as if the final outcome in the Af-Pak area will be determined by who has the better battle stamina and staying power. The stamina and staying power of the US-led NATO forces do not seem to be strong enough to bring about a turning point favourable to them.
12. The success of the Indian policy in Afghanistan would depend on the final success of the US-led NATO forces and the Afghan National Army on the ground. That success is not yet in sight. Is it time to have a second look at India’s policy? What should be India’s objective in the present circumstances? Continuing to expand India’s role in the hope that the NATO and the ANA would finally prevail? Consolidating its present role without further expanding it till the ground situation starts improving----if at all it does? Is there scope for a compatibility between the interests and roles of India and Pakistan in Afghanistan? Should India diversify its contacts in the Pashtun communities of Afghanistan and Pakistan? What role can the generally India-friendly ANP play in this regard? These are questions which need serious examination by our policy-makers.
13. India’s Afghan policy has passed through three phases. Between 1947 and September 1996, when the Taliban captured power in Kabul, it was Pashtun-centric. Between September 1996 and the defeat of the Taliban by the US in 2001-end, it became Tajik-centric with India, Russia and Iran jointly supporting the Northern Alliance. Since the assumption of power by Mr.Karzai in Kabul, India has been re-cultivating the Pashtuns of Afghanistan while seeking to keep intact the goodwill earned by it among the non-Pashtuns. The six years of rule by the National Democratic Alliance Government under Shri Atal Behari Vajpayee saw an erosion of the goodwill of the Pakistani Pashtun community loyal to the ANP towards India. The present Government of Dr.Manmohan Singh has not attempted to re-establish our traditional contacts with sections of the Pakistani Pashtun community. Our traditional friends in the Pashtun community have not played an adequate role in the evolution of our Afghan policy. Our policy is influenced more by strategic calculations than by historic affinities. It is time for a course correction.(12-6-10)
( The writer is Additional Secretary (retd), Cabinet Secretariat, Govt. of India, New Delhi, and, presently, Director, Institute For Topical Studies, Chennai, and Associate of the Chennai Centre For China Studies. E-mail: seventyone2@gmail.com )
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