ISLAMABAD/ KARACHI: Pakistan’s most influential Islamist party urged its followers to hold mass protests on Friday to demand their government withdraw its support of the US war on militancy after US commandos killed Osama bin Laden near Islamabad.
Jamaat-e-Islami (JI), one of the country’s biggest religious political parties, said the United States had violated the sovereignty of key ally Pakistan by sending its own forces into the garrison town of Abbottabad to kill the al Qaeda leader.
Pakistan’s support is key to US efforts to combat Islamist militants, and also to fighting against the Taliban in neighbouring Afghanistan.
“Even if there was any sympathy for the Americans that would dissipate after the way they crushed and violated our sovereignty and our independence,” JI chief Syed Munawar Hasan told Reuters on Thursday. …
Pakistan: Now or Never – Stop supporting terrorism as policy and terrorists as strategic assets. If people of Pakistan don’t wake up now, when will they?
…. If four helicopters could enter the country’s boundaries anytime without any check, and complete their operation in 40 long minutes without any interference from Pakistani forces, how are we going to trust this hugely financed army? Where is the justification of 18 per cent raise in defense budget even this year? Why is our highly moral media not asking these questions internally rather than getting on with ‘imperial arrogance’? Confusing people in selfish pursuit of your banal opportunism would only drive the country towards further depth of disgrace, if there’s still more down there. …
– Mystery Still Surrounds the Death of Terrorism Mastermind: Hard Days Ahead for Pakistan; Security Establishment Under Strong Attack; Civil Government Comes to Its Rescue; Osamas’ Wife Shifted to Rawalpindi for Treatment; Daughters Are Under Protective Custody, But Where?
By Aijaz Ahmed
Islamabad: The news of the ‘Operation Get Osama’ and the death of the terrorist mastermind and chief of Al-Qaeda, Osama bin Laden has sent tremors throughout the country. Islamabad, the calm and quite capital of Pakistan, seems under a complete shock with mystifying meetings, phone calls and tight lips of the top brass, making the situation more difficult & incomprehensible for the observers and diplomatic commentators.
White House: ‘Osama bin Laden had Pakistani support’
John Brennan, the chief counter-terrorism adviser in the US, says investigations are under way into how Osama bin Laden went six years undetected at a compound in Abbottabad, Pakistan.
Barack Obama’s chief counter-terrorism adviser said: “It is inconceivable that bin Laden did not have a support system in the country that allowed him to stay there for such an extended period of time.” …
….. But then it turned out bin Laden was not hiding in some dark mountain cave in Waziristan. Instead, probably for at least some years, he had lived comfortably smack inside the modern, peaceful, and extraordinarily secure city of Abbottabad. Using Google Earth, one sees that the deceased was within easy walking distance of the famed Pakistan Military Academy at Kakul. It is here where General Kayani had declared on April 23 that “the terrorist’s backbone has been broken and inshallah we will soon prevail”. Kayani has released no statement after the killing.
Still more intriguing are pictures and descriptions of bin Laden’s fortress house. Custom-designed, it was constructed on a plot of land roughly eight times larger than the other homes in the area. Television images show that it has high walls, barbed wire and two security gates. Who approved the construction and paid for it? Why was it allowed to be away from the prying eyes of the secret agencies?
Even the famous and ferocious General Hamid Gul (retd) — a bin Laden sympathiser who advocates war with America — cannot buy into the claim that the military was unaware of bin Laden’s whereabouts. In a recorded interview, he remarked that bin Laden being in Abbottabad unknown to authorities “is a bit amazing”. Aside from the military, he said “there is the local police, the Intelligence Bureau, the Military Intelligence, the ISI — they all had a presence there”. Pakistanis familiar with the intrusive nature of the multiple intelligence agencies will surely agree; to sniff out foreigners is a pushover.
So why was bin Laden sheltered in the army’s backyard? General Pervez Musharraf, who was army chief when bin Laden’s house in Abbottabad was being constructed in 2005, unwittingly gives us the clearest and most cogent explanation. The back cover of his celebrated book, In The Line Of Fire, written in 2006, reads:
“Since shortly after 9/11 — when many al Qaeda leaders fled Afghanistan and crossed the border into Pakistan — we have played multiple games of cat and mouse with them. The biggest of them all, Osama bin Laden, is still at large at the time of this writing but we have caught many, many others. We have captured 672 and handed over 369 to the United States. We have earned bounties totalling millions of dollars. Here, I will tell the story of just a few of the most significant manhunts”.
So, at the end of the day, it was precisely that: A cat and mouse game. Bin Laden was the ‘Golden Goose’ that the army had kept under its watch but which, to its chagrin, has now been stolen from under its nose. Until then, the thinking had been to trade in the Goose at the right time for the right price, either in the form of dollars or political concessions. While bin Laden in virtual captivity had little operational value for al Qaeda, he still had enormous iconic value for the Americans. It was therefore expected that kudos would come just as in the case of Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, the Kuwaiti-born senior al Qaeda leader who was arrested in Rawalpindi, or Mullah Baradar, the Taliban leader arrested from Karachi.
Events, however, have turned a potential asset into a serious liability. Osama’s killing is now a bone stuck in the throat of Pakistan’s establishment that can neither be swallowed nor spat out. To appear joyful would infuriate the Islamists who are already fighting the state. On the other hand, to deprecate the killing would suggest that Pakistan had knowingly hosted the king of terrorists.
Now, with bin Laden gone, the military has two remaining major strategic assets: America’s weakness in Afghanistan and Pakistan’s nuclear weapons. But moving these chess pieces around will not assure the peace and prosperity that we so desperately need. They will not solve our electricity or water crises, move us out of dire economic straits, or protect us from suicide bombers.
Bin Laden’s death should be regarded as a transformational moment by Pakistan and its military. It is time to dispense with the Musharraf-era cat and mouse games. We must repudiate the current policy of verbally condemning jihadism — and actually fighting it in some places — but secretly supporting it in other places. Until the establishment firmly resolves that it shall not support armed and violent non-state actors of any persuasion — including the Lashkar-e-Taiba — Pakistan will remain in interminable conflict both with itself and with the world.
Now I finally understand how Osama bin Laden eluded our grasp for all of these years — he was hiding in the open, in the backyard of one of our supposed allies. Let’s put this in context: Pakistan is a police state where foreigners do not go unnoticed, even when they’re living behind the high walls of a compound. On top of that, the compound where bin Laden was killed early Monday in a U.S. raid all but abutted the base of the Pakistani Army’s 2nd Brigade. I can’t help but suspect then that some Pakistani officials, at some level, were harboring bin Laden. And what about Pakistan itself? I don’t have a clue, but I suspect the worst on that one too.
When bin Laden first disappeared off the U.S. radar in late 2001 at Tora Bora, a lot of people entertained every foolish conspiracy theory they could imagine, ranging from the suggestion that the al-Qaeda leader was in Riyadh as a guest of the Saudi royal family to the idea that he was at Area 51, protected by the CIA. During a prolonged visit to Islamabad three years ago I asked a local American correspondent who’d been in country for five years where she thought bin Laden was. She looked out the window at the house across the street: “Maybe there,” she said. “Who knows about this country?” …
First of all, let me congratulate all Muslims, all Pakistanis, all Americans, all peace loving people on this planet (who want to live a life free of terror) on the death of the most vile and most dangerous terrorist the world has ever seen, Osama Bin Laden, a product of the evil ideologies ….
After losing the 2004 presidential elections US senator John Kerry said that one video message of Osama Bin Laden cost him the Presidency. Days before the 2004 elections Bin Laden in a video message had urged the US public not to elect President George W. Bush again. The message had quite the opposite but desired effect as President Bush was re-elected with a big margin of votes.
Osama Bin Laden’s appearance just before the 2004 elections was a shrewd and calculated move where the Pakistan military helped Bush to retain the Presidency for the second time. Bin Laden was never a dangerous and formidable enemy as the Americans led the world to believe. Actually, the myth around Bin Laden’s power, influence and reach was carefully orchestrated by the U.S.
Bin Laden wasn’t a military commander or a guerrilla nor was he a religious or spiritual leader. He was also not a politician. He was a rich businessman and a friend of a former head of the Saudi intelligence agency who introduced him to the CIA in the 1980s. The CIA was looking for sponsors for its proxy war against the Soviet Union in Afghanistan. Bin Laden provided money and the CIA and the Pakistani ISI helped in planning that war.
At the end of the Cold War, Bin Laden was one of the characters that fulfilled needs of the world’s biggest imperialist power which was pursuing its strategic interest in the beginning of the 21st century using new tactics and means. Bin Laden was a tool, a puppet and an actor whose strings were in many hands. It is an old trick of imperialist powers to exaggerate threats and create fear among the public about real and perceived enemies.
Presenting threats out of proportion and enemies bigger than actually they are, Western militaries and secret services play mind games with their own public and the media are partners in the military mind games or psychological operations. During the Cold War, the U.S and its allies presented the Soviet Union as an evil power that was a threat to ‘civilization’. After the Cold War the focus was on personalities such as the Serbian leader Slobodan Milosevic, Saddam Hussein or Osama Bin Laden. All of them were presented as evil figures who wanted to destroy the West.
Probably retired Lieutenant General Mahmood Ahmed of the Pakistan Army and the then head of the CIA knew more about who was responsible for the September 11, 2001 attacks in New York and Washington but in the post 9/11 America, Al-Qaeda was presented as the culprit and the biggest threat. Every Western TV network ran the same footage of alleged Al-Qaeda training camps at unknown locations where some people were taking ‘military training’ in a childish way. The training footage was a joke but it worked well in the charged atmosphere after the 9/11 incidents in the U.S. …
“Who is it?” asks 12-year-old Khadijah as she unlocks the door to her home. Her accent differs from that of a Khyber Pakhtunkhwa native’s — and after she pulls open the door, her unique features further pique my curiosity. Where are Khadijah and her family really from?
Khadijah is one of the thousands of people in Pakistan whose lives have been influenced by the war in neighbouring Afghanistan, a country that has seen nothing but confliuct for three decades. Khadijah is actually the granddaughter of Sufi Hameed Gul, who is famous in this small town of Regi, situated some 12 kilometres from the provincial capital of Peshawar. Although he is a respectable religious cleric, Sufi Hameed Gul’s fame stems from the fact that he is the father in-law of two former Guantanamo detainees.
Gul married three of his daughters, Mahdia, Murshida and Aisha, to men of Arab descent after the Russian-Afghan War.
“A number of Arabs came to our village” he says. “They were mujahideen, and it was my duty to help them in every possible way,” he says, suggesting that there can be no further argument on this point. Three suspected Al Qaeda operatives, Adil Hadi al Jazairi bin Hamlili, Mustafa Hamlili and Abdul Karim, lived in this village for more than 15 years.
Anyone who has tuned into a talk show or read an opinion piece in the last few weeks knows that the ghosts of the old IJI are dyeing their hair, whistling into the mirror and preparing to come out of retirement. The parade of news stories involving ISI plans to cobble together an alliance of different political parties to rout both PMLN and PPP in the coming elections is unending. The usual suspects that have frequently been mentioned are PTI, MQM, JI, PMLQ, PML-F and JUI-F.
Great political leaders of the Pakistani people such as Altaf Hussain and Imran Khan have decided to bury the hatchet (along with the Scotland Yard investigations) and have vowed to work together from now on. Weather vanes like Maulana Fazlur Rehman and Peer Pagara have been active, and pointing towards the direction of the wind.
Pakistanis are used to the quick leaps, somersaults and pole vaults which are a characteristic feature of the lucky Irani circus which is our politics. But even hardcore supporters were left babbling by the strange noises that come screeching out whenever Imran Khan has tried to speak recently. There had been rumors of Imran Khan meeting with the American ambassador, General Pasha and General Kiyani for weeks. PTI has been denying these rumors suspiciously noisily with understandably counterproductive results.
As new details are coming to light, few will believe the depths being plumbed by some in our media and politics. Asia Times Online writes: “In the second week of March, Khan held a long meeting with the US ambassador in Islamabad, Cameron Munter. A few days later a major shift in his politics surprised many. Khan produced a statement supportive of MQM policies despite formerly filing a money laundering case against MQM leader Altaf Hussain in a British court.
A prominent Urdu media commentator of right-wing leanings, who is close to both Khan and army chief Kiani, arranged a series of meetings between the two which eventually led to a consensus around Khan becoming the next leader of the country.”
According to the information in the article, the conspiracy has Imran Khan in the starring role and involves:
ISI is working towards mid-term elections before the scheduled date of February 2013
A new political alliance of MQM, PTI, JI and JUI etc. is being planned resulting in a simple majority under prime minister Imran Khan.
Haroon Rasheed arranged a series of meetings between Imran Khan and Gen Kiyani
If plans for a political alliance fail, Imran Khan will become the interim prime minister.
This brings us to the role of Haroon Rasheed, the one-man propaganda machine of the army and a suitable alternative to ISPR in case of downsizing. Balancing his gushing and embarrassing adulation of the military boot, Haroon Rasheed has made promoting Imran Khan a personal cottage industry, often in the same breath.
Just to illustrate the point, here is a recent display of pro-army douchebaggery (Jang, April 16th, 2011). Haroon Rasheed takes the politicians to task for everything wrong under the sun and salutes the army for smacking the Kerry Lugar Bill away, shooting down drones, interrupting the NATO supply lines, kicking out CIA agents and completely distancing the army from politics. Well. Not exactly, but you have to read it to believe it.: ….
Who could have imagined that a serving commander of the Pakistan Army in the Waziristan badlands would have consciously knocked the popular myth that American drone strikes in Fata are part of the problem and not part of the solution of terrorism? But that’s exactly what happened on March 8.
Maj Gen Ghayur Mehmud, GOC 7th Div North Waziristan, did not mince words in his printed brief ‘“Myths and Rumours about US Predator Strikes” handed out to journalists from his command post in the area. He made two main points: (1) A majority of those killed by drone strikes are “hardcore Taliban or Al Qaeda elements, especially foreigners,” while civilian casualties are “few”. (2) But by scaring local populations and compelling displacement through migration, drone attacks create social and political blowbacks for law enforcement agencies. Obviously, the first consequence is good and welcome as part of the national “solution” strategy and the second is problematic and should be minimised because it creates local “problems” of a tactical nature.
Gen Mehmud hasn’t been fired or reprimanded. This means he had the green signal from the GHQ to make his brief. His statement explains the consciously nurtured “duality” of official policy versus popular position on drone strikes and confirms the Wikileaks summary that both secret authorisation and popular criticism go hand in hand in Pakistan where both civilian and military leaders are on the same page.
To be sure, the tactical issues are not insignificant. The Pakistani military would dearly love to own some Predators or at least have a measure of command and control over them, so the demand is worth making publically all the time even though it routinely falls on deaf American ears – for obvious reasons, this devastating technology isn’t available to any state except Israel.
Similarly, the Pakistan military would like to have a critical advance say on the choice of drone targets so that “hardcore Al-Qaeda elements and foreigners” noted by Gen Ghayur are usefully targeted but some Pakistani “assets” among the Quetta Shura of Mullah Omer, Gulbudin Hekmatyar’s Hizbe Islami and Siraj Haqqani’s Taliban network are spared for long-term application in Afghanistan. Disagreement with the Americans over this particular issue compels military spokespersons to blow hot (in public) and cold (in front of the Americans) over all drone strikes.
Sometimes, when it gets uncomfortably hot under the collar, then General Ashfaq Kayani has to weigh in for public consumption – as he did recently when, the day after Raymond Davis was freed (courtesy ISI) amidst howls of protest from the media, a drone strike killed over 40 pro and anti-military tribesmen in a jirga for local conflict resolution in Fata.
Pakistan and America have some strategic interests in common, like eliminating Al-Qaeda from Waziristan. But there are disagreements about who is a “good” Taliban and who is not. This is not strange at all. The answer to this question will determine who will rule or share power in Afghanistan in the next five years and who will not. It will also have a bearing on Afghanistan’s strategic and tactical allies in the neighbourhood in the future – India or Pakistan. Therefore Pakistan’s military, which loves to hate India even as America is itching to embrace India, believes it cannot shrug away any openings or opportunities for leveraging its concerns and interests.
This perspective explains how the Raymond Davis case was handled (exploited) by the ISI and the import of DG-ISI’s recent dash to Washington for a meeting with the CIA chief. The ISI wants greater tactical input/output into CIA operations in Pakistan (to protect its strategic assets at home like the Lashkar-e-Tayba and the Haqqani network) even as it strategically allows the US to operate drones and run special agents freely from two bases in Pakistan where visas and landing rights are not an issue. Who knows how many Americans land or take off from these bases, how many carry weapons and what they do in their bulletproof SUVs when they cruise the length and breadth of Pakistan?
Under the circumstances, the DG-ISI’s “request” in Langley was about reposing “trust” in joint operations rather than any overt threat to deny existing facilities and rights. The US has responded with a drone strike in South Waziristan which is supposed to be strictly out of bounds. This signals its intention to remain focused on the Taliban and Al-Qaeda even as it “considers” Gen Pasha’s request for greater sensitivity to Pakistan’s needs and interests. No more, no less.
A recent editorial in The Wall Street Journal, a pro-US establishment paper, sums up the American position bluntly. It is titled: The Pakistan Ultimatum: choose whose side it is on. “Maybe the Obama Administration can inform its friends in Islamabad that, when it comes to this particular fight, the U.S. will continue to pursue its enemies wherever they may be, with or without Pakistan’s cooperation… Pakistan can choose to cooperate in that fight and reap the benefits of an American alliance. Or it can oppose the U.S. and reap the consequences, including the loss of military aid, special-ops and drone incursions into their frontier areas, and in particular a more robust U.S. military alliance with India… After 9/11 Pakistan had to choose whose side it was on. It’s time to present Pakistan with the same choice again.
So it’s time for Pakistan’s military leaders to make up their minds and deal with its consequences. They must be upfront with America – because it’s a greatly beneficial “friend” to have and a deadly “enemy” to make – and honest with Pakistanis – because they’re not stupid and can eventually see through duplicity, as they did in the Raymond Davis case.
The military cannot forever hunt with America and run with an anti-American Pakistani public they have helped to create. They cannot instruct the DG-ISPR in Islamabad to convey the impression of tough talking in Langley while asking the GOC 7 Division in Waziristan to give a realistic brief to the media about the critical benefits of drone strikes amidst all the “myths and rumours” of their negativity. This double-dealing confuses the public, annoys a strategic partner, and discredits the military all round when it is exposed.
More significantly, it makes it difficult for Pakistanis to swallow the hard realities and the harder decisions necessary to change them for the sake of the state’s survival and the nation’s growth.
The duality or contradiction in the military’s private and public position vis a vis its relationship with civilians in Pakistan and its relationship with America is a direct consequence of two inter-related factors: First, the military’s threat perception of India’s rising military capability, and second, its fear of losing control over India-centred national security policy to the civilians who are keen to start the process of building permanent peace in the region, thereby diluting the military’s pre-eminent role in Pakistan’s polity.
The military’s scheme of things requires a permanent state of relative hostility towards, and distrust of, India. That is why its national security doctrine is fashioned on the premise that it is India’s military capacity to harm Pakistan rather than its intentions to build a permanent peace that matter.
Of course, this is a perfect and unending rationalisation of its economic and political hold over Pakistan since India’s conventional weaponry is forecast to grow by leaps and bounds on the basis of a robust economy and nationalist unity. But Pakistan’s limping economy is groaning under the burden of the arms race engendered by this philosophy and its civilian polity is fracturing in the grab for diminishing resources. That is why its civilians are increasingly plucking up the courage to stare the army in the face for their political, provincial and economic rights.
The military’s policy of renting itself out to America for its own sake and also complaining about it at the same time for the sake of the Pakistani public is clearly bankrupt. Isn’t it time, therefore, to consider a different paradigm, one in which conflict resolution and peace with India deliver an economic dividend that can be reaped by all in an environment free from destabilising extremism and war in the neighbourhood? In pursuit of an untenable philosophy, what use are dubious non-state “assets” that can become extreme liabilities in an impending national meltdown?
Under the circumstances, General Kayani could do worse than go on the national hookup and defend the truth of the briefing given by his subordinate Maj Gen Ghuyur Mehmud. He will be surprised how quickly a majority of Pakhtuns in particular and Pakistanis in general will back him to the hilt and help change the national paradigm. This is more our war than it is America’s because we live and die here and not far away across two great oceans.
The writer is Jang Group/Geo adviser on political affairs.
ANALYSIS: More misleading information — I —Farhat Taj
Mr Haider’s most misleading information about the Ali Khels is that the Pakistani state supported their resistance to the Taliban. The fact is that the state abandoned the Ali Khels by design so as to punish them for their anti-Talibanism
Mr Ejaz Haider responded to my article ‘Misleading information’ (Daily Times, April 2, 2011) via his two-part column ‘Responding to Farhat Taj’ in another daily (April 10, 2011). I had said in my article that, “Mr Ejaz Haider, as a political analyst, is expected to be honest and not to mislead people.” I regret to say that Mr Haider has produced even more misleading information in his response. The range of his misleading information is so wide that I cannot accommodate it all in one column. Therefore, today, I will comment on some of it, leaving the rest for my columns in the coming weeks. …
The reconsideration of partition is a critical, current existential question not only for South Asians, but also for Americans who watch the continuous outrages from Taliban and CIA sanctuaries inside Pakistan. It’s a question on many levels — terrorism, geopolitics, ethnicity and religion — but, Pratap Mehta says, “it’s fundamentally the question of the identity of a country.”
In his telling of the partition story, the contemporary reality of Pakistan grew out of a failure to answer a core challenge of creating a nation-state: how do you protect a minority? It’s Mehta’s view that the framers of the modern subcontinent — notably Gandhi, Jinnah & Nehru — never imagined a stable solution to this question. He blames two shortcomings of the political discourse at the time of India’s independence:
The first is that it was always assumed that the pull of religious identities in India is so deep that any conception of citizenship that fully detaches the idea of citizenship from religious identity is not going to be a tenable one.
The second is that Gandhi in particular, and the Congress Party in general, had a conception of India which was really a kind of federation of communities. So the Congress Party saw [the creation of India] as about friendship among a federation of communities, not as a project of liberating individuals from the burden of community identity to be whatever it is that they wished to be.
The other way of thinking about this, which is to think about a conception of citizenship where identities matter less to what political rights you have, that was never considered seriously as a political project. Perhaps that would have provided a much more ideologically coherent way of dealing with the challenges of creating a modern nation-state. – – Pratap Bhanu Mehta with Chris Lydon at the Watson Institute, April 12, 2011.
Unlike many other Open Source talkers on Pakistan, Pratap Mehta does not immediately link its Islamization to the United States and its1980s jihad against the Soviets. Reagan and his CIA-Mujahideen military complex were indeed powerful players in the rise of Islamic extremism in Pakistan, he agrees, but the turn began first during a national identity crisis precipitated by another partition, the creation of Bangladesh in 1971.
Suddenly, Mehta is telling us, Pakistan could no longer define itself as the unique homeland for Muslims in the subcontinent. In search of identity, and distinction from its new neighbor to the east, Pakistan turned towards a West Asian brand of Islam, the hardline Saudi Wahhabism that has become a definitive ideology in today’s Islamic extremism.
Mehta is hopeful, though, that in open democratic elections Islamic parties would remain relatively marginalized, that despite the push to convert Pakistan into a West Asian style Islamic state since 1971, “the cultural weight of it being a South Asian country” with a tradition of secular Islam “remains strong enough to be an antidote.”
BILL O’REILLY, HOST: In the “Back of the Book” segment tonight: The United States gives Pakistan about $3 billion a year in aid. That country has not been a very good friend to us lately. Now, Pakistan is reportedly demanding the CIA cut back its presence there and that President Obama stop the drone attacks designed to kill Al Qaeda and the Taliban in the north of Pakistan. Also, in March, a major Indonesian terrorist was captured in Pakistan, but the Obama administration has not sent anyone yet to interview the guy.
So what’s going on? Joining us from Washington, Fox News political analyst Charles Krauthammer. Pakistan, should we cut all aid to that country, Charles? This is what Trump says. Let’s get out of there. I mean, they’re not helping us out. Why are we giving them $3 billion? What do you say?
CHARLES KRAUTHAMMER, FOX NEWS POLITICAL ANALYST: Well, I think we’re getting very near to that point,
Imran Khan the chief of the Tehrik-e-Insaf party announced in a program/ talk show “Kharri Baat with Lukman ke Saath”, “2-3-days” blockade of NATO supply lines to express his protest against drone attacks in Pakistan. He said, he & his party workers will stage sit-in protests at several points to block NATO’s supply routes. He also condemned the Zardari-Gilani government, saying the current regime is like a vehicle that has exhausted.
While third world military figures , in power or retired make impressive speeches at various forums and think tanks , very few outside their countries understand their mindset and motivation , which by and large is driven by highly personalized and ulterior motives !
Keeping this premise in view it is important to understand the mindset and the personalities of the third world military juntas , most important in this case being the Pakistani military junta! ….
In my opinion, the recent decision by the Pakistani Government to devolve HEC into provincial HECs is overdue and must be carried out. As a matter of fact, I recommend to Dr. Javaid Laghari to not only support this decision but also help to ensure that it is implemented fully and that he should assume the role of Sindh HEC and make it one the best educational institutions in Pakistan and in the world as he did with ZABIST.
I do not know of any federal-level powerful higher education authorities in any federal state in the world as we have in Pakistan. Using the name of Islam and Pakistan, the establishment of Pakistan has been imposing unnecessary and inefficient centralization on the provinces/ States/ Republics. The tool of “centralization” has been used to discriminate and exploit smaller provinces and usurp resources of Sindh and Balochistan for the benefit of other provinces. Neither Canada has a federal HEC nor USA and other democratic and federal countries have created such institutions. In other countries where a federal-level commissions exist, their role is very limited and constrained to advise on standards.
The reason that Sindh’s Education Ministry is inefficient has no relevance whether or not Pakistan’s HEC should be devolved. The federal Education Ministry and HEC both have history of discrimination against Sindhis and denying due share in educational opportunities in Pakistan. The same rational of inefficiency is given for centralized control of Sindh’s resource industries such as coal, oil, gas, and ports.
The fact that few Vice Chancellors and educationalists from Sindh do not support devolution of HEC is the same as some pro one-unit establishment organs gave when the people of Sindh, Balochistan, and Pakhtunkhwa demanded dissolution of one unit. Such pronouncement did not succeed then and they will not stop devolution of HEC and other federal agencies and departments returning them into their provincial jurisdictions.
As a highly super centralized state, Pakistan is increasingly failing and is now considered one of worse countries on most human development factors. It is time that it’s setup is reorganized on the basis of the 1940 Resolutions, which is the fundamental principle for various provinces/ States/ Republics to join Pakistan.
Courtesy: Sindhi e-lists/ e-groups, March 27, 2011.
Release of Raymond Davis: Ghairat Brigade Activated Against the System. US Revives Ties with Pakistan. Government Retreating to its Shell?
By Aijaz Ahmed
Excerpt:
” … the ‘ghairat (honor) brigade’ is activated to grab the advantage and cash in the public anger against the democratic system in the country and some sections of the traditional anti democracy elements in the agencies are said to be providing behind the scene support to keep pressure on the federal and the provincial governments and the United States.” ….
Who is next? Shall we read this from the pamphlet flown besides the bullet ridden body of Shahbaz Bhatti or somewhat more too? Something deeper and disturbingly pervasive around us? Something partly brutal and bloody and partly preachy and persuasive but it has been there for decades difficult to deny. Fanatic and fundamentalists play it with bullets while the soft-spoken suffocate every breath of freedom and fragrance with their voluminous oratory. The pamphlet is the dossier of death and intimidation, the manifesto of a blinkered mind scripted in red and must not be read as an isolated act of murder or an ignorable statement.
Dehumanize and gun them down. This is what the religious dogmatism does or intends to do to the non-Muslim minorities for they have a mission to purify arz-e-pak from all those worshipping God differently or a different god. The very phrase of “eisai kafir Shahbaz Bhatti maloon” amply manifests the hateful mentality of the murderers, damning and casting a human soul aside in a single breath, just because he was ‘a Christian’. Immune from guilt, the wilful words are deployed to dismiss the ‘humanness’ of a person and justify the heinous crimes, opening up their genocidal intent against the followers of ‘other faiths’. In its worst form, once the ‘inequality’ and ‘sub-humanness’ of a group is made tangibly or tacitly ‘natural’, the horrible assaults become acceptable and quickly pass into oblivion. …
With the recent assassination of Salman Taseer, governor of the province of Punjab, one of the strongest voices for democracy and secularism in the Pakistan People’s Party has been silenced. The government is in crisis, and the economy has been in freefall since the International Monetary Fund halted its loans to the country last year. Ahmed Rashid warns that the situation in Pakistan is potentially worse than in neighboring Afghanistan. This unrest comes at a crucial time when the United States is seeking increased cooperation with Islamabad on the war in Afghanistan and combating terrorism. What is the future of Pakistan’s partnership with the United States, and what will be Pakistan’s role in defining regional order before NATO pulls out of Afghanistan in 2014? …
While the people of Arab states are overthrowing dictators, Pakistan is sinking deeper into intolerant Islamic extremism. Emboldened by the meek response of the people to the assassinations of Salman Taseer and Shahbaz Bhatti, Islamist vigilantes will now become more brutal.
At least with a dictatorship, you know where you are and if you know where you are, you may be able to find your way out. In Pakistan, it is not so simple.
While brave Arab protesters are overthrowing deeply entrenched autocratic regimes, often without even resorting to violence, Pakistan, a democratic country, is sinking into a sea of violence, intolerance and extremism. The world’s second-biggest Muslim country (185 million people) has effectively been silenced by ruthless Islamist fanatics who murder anyone who dares to defy them. What the fanatics want, of course, is power …
Another amazing program by Najam Sethi. Only he can dare to talk about establishment like he is talking in this program about the political assassinations in Pakistan.
In nutshell:- 1. Laiqat Ali Khan was assassinated by civil and military bureaucracy. 2. General Zia ul Haq was killed by top civil-military bureaucracy. In both cases investigations were covered up, derailed and stopped and in both cases blame was passed on to foreign elements but in reality those were local conspiracies. Thank you Najam Sethi Saheb for this daring to talk show against the devil – the Military Mullah Alliance. Undoubtedly Najam Sethi is true, when he says that the security establishment is the main reason of the plight of the people of Pakistan. The language of the program is urdu/ Hindi.
Karachi : The Sindh Assembly unanimously passed a resolution on Friday to pay tributes to the slain federal minister Shahbaz Bhatti who was assassinated in Islamabad on March 2.
The resolution was moved by power minister Shazia Marri and was supported by MQM’s Izharul Hasan and Abdul Moeed Pirzada, PML-F’s Nusrat Abbasi and PPP’s Pitanber Sewani and Dr Sikandar Mandhro.
“This assembly strongly condemns the assassination of federal minister for minorities’ affairs Shahbaz Bhatti, a man of courage and a symbol of equality in Pakistan,” the resolution reads.
The assembly considered Bhatti’s assassination as yet another attack on the peace and progress of Pakistan. …
A fortnight ago, I had the chance to attend a lively seminar in Delhi on the contemporary situation in Pakistan, organised by the Pakistan Studies Centre of the Jamia Millia Islamia. Half a dozen Pakistani scholars, all well-known in their respective fields, were among the speakers. If what they said is indeed true, the Pakistani state seems to be now faced with a genie that it had helped create but is now all set to devour it up—the ghoul of terror in the name of Islam. Other than lamenting the sordid state of affairs of their country as it continues to disintegrate in the face of Islamist radicalism, the Pakistani participants, as ‘good’ academics, had little to offer by way of concrete and realistic solutions to the problem. …
Name of Excellence in alternative & borderless journalism.Together we stitch the world & make a difference. Leading today for tomorrow. Sindh lives here
Indus Asia Online Journal (Click here to go to home page)