War or peace on the Indus?

by John Briscoe

John Briscoe, a South African, an expert on the subject who has in depth knowledge of the Water issue of the sub-continent; has penned a very balanced article. Worth reading. I doubt India would ever elevate itself to the level of a Big-Brother like Brazil.

War or peace on the Indus?

Saturday, April 03, 2010

John Briscoe

Anyone foolish enough to write on war or peace in the Indus needs to first banish a set of immediate suspicions. I am neither Indian nor Pakistani. I am a South African who has worked on water issues in the subcontinent for 35 years and who has lived in Bangladesh (in the 1970s) and Delhi (in the 2000s). In 2006 I published, with fine Indian colleagues, an Oxford University Press book titled India's Water Economy: Facing a Turbulent Future and, with fine Pakistani colleagues, one titled Pakistan's Water Economy: Running Dry.

I was the Senior Water Advisor for the World Bank who dealt with the appointment of the Neutral Expert on the Baglihar case. My last assignment at the World Bank (relevant, as described later) was as Country Director for Brazil. I am now a mere university professor, and speak in the name of no one but myself.

I have deep affection for the people of both India and Pakistan, and am dismayed by what I see as a looming train wreck on the Indus, with disastrous consequences for both countries. I will outline why there is no objective conflict of interests between the countries over the waters of the Indus Basin, make some observations of the need for a change in public discourse, and suggest how the drivers of the train can put on the brakes before it is too late.

Is there an inherent conflict between India and Pakistan?

The simple answer is no. The Indus Waters Treaty allocates the water of the three western rivers to Pakistan, but allows India to tap the considerable hydropower potential of the Chenab and Jhelum before the rivers enter Pakistan.

The qualification is that this use of hydropower is not to affect either the quantity of water reaching Pakistan or to interfere with the natural timing of those flows. Since hydropower does not consume water, the only issue is timing. And timing is a very big issue, because agriculture in the Pakistani plains depends not only on how much water comes, but that it comes in critical periods during the planting season. The reality is that India could tap virtually all of the available power without negatively affecting the timing of flows to which Pakistan is entitled.

Is the Indus Treaty a stable basis for cooperation?

If Pakistan and India had normal, trustful relations, there would be a mutually-verified monitoring process which would assure that there is no change in the flows going into Pakistan. (In an even more ideal world, India could increase low-flows during the critical planting season, with significant benefit to Pakistani farmers and with very small impacts on power generation in India.) Because the relationship was not normal when the treaty was negotiated, Pakistan would agree only if limitations on India's capacity to manipulate the timing of flows was hardwired into the treaty. This was done by limiting the amount of "live storage" (the storage that matters for changing the timing of flows) in each and every hydropower dam that India would construct on the two rivers.

While this made sense given knowledge in 1960, over time it became clear that this restriction gave rise to a major problem. The physical restrictions meant that gates for flushing silt out of the dams could not be built, thus ensuring that any dam in India would rapidly fill with the silt pouring off the young Himalayas.

This was a critical issue at stake in the Baglihar case. Pakistan (reasonably) said that the gates being installed were in violation of the specifications of the treaty. India (equally reasonably) argued that it would be wrong to build a dam knowing it would soon fill with silt. The finding of the Neutral Expert was essentially a reinterpretation of the Treaty, saying that the physical limitations no longer made sense. While the finding was reasonable in the case of Baglihar, it left Pakistan without the mechanism – limited live storage – which was its only (albeit weak) protection against upstream manipulation of flows in India. This vulnerability was driven home when India chose to fill Baglihar exactly at the time when it would impose maximum harm on farmers in downstream Pakistan.

If Baglihar was the only dam being built by India on the Chenab and Jhelum, this would be a limited problem. But following Baglihar is a veritable caravan of Indian projects – Kishanganga, Sawalkot, Pakuldul, Bursar, Dal Huste, Gyspa… The cumulative live storage will be large, giving India an unquestioned capacity to have major impact on the timing of flows into Pakistan. (Using Baglihar as a reference, simple back-of-the-envelope calculations, suggest that once it has constructed all of the planned hydropower plants on the Chenab, India will have an ability to effect major damage on Pakistan. First, there is the one-time effect of filling the new dams. If done during the wet season this would have little effect on Pakistan. But if done during the critical low-flow period, there would be a large one-time effect (as was the case when India filled Baglihar). Second, there is the permanent threat which would be a consequence of substantial cumulative live storage which could store about one month's worth of low-season flow on the Chenab. If, God forbid, India so chose, it could use this cumulative live storage to impose major reductions on water availability in Pakistan during the critical planting season.

Views on "the water problem" from both sides of the border and the role of the press

Living in Delhi and working in both India and Pakistan, I was struck by a paradox. One country was a vigorous democracy, the other a military regime. But whereas an important part of the Pakistani press regularly reported India's views on the water issue in an objective way, the Indian press never did the same. I never saw a report which gave Indian readers a factual description of the enormous vulnerability of Pakistan, of the way in which India had socked it to Pakistan when filling Baglihar. How could this be, I asked? Because, a journalist colleague in Delhi told me, "when it comes to Kashmir – and the Indus Treaty is considered an integral part of Kashmir -- the ministry of external affairs instructs newspapers on what they can and cannot say, and often tells them explicitly what it is they are to say."

This apparently remains the case. In the context of the recent talks between India and Pakistan I read, in Boston, the electronic reports on the disagreement about "the water issue" in The Times of India, The Hindustan Times, The Hindu, The Indian Express and The Economic Times. (Respectively, http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/india/Water-Pakistans-diversionary-tactic-/articleshow/5609099.cms, http://beta.thehindu.com/news/national/ article112388.ece, http://www.hindustantimes.com/News-Feed/india/River-waters-The-next-testing-ground/Article1-512190.aspx, http://www.indianexpress.com/news/Pak-heats-up-water-sharing/583733, http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/news/politics/nation/Pak-takes-water-route-to-attack-India/articleshow/5665516.cms.)

Taken together, these reports make astounding reading. Not only was the message the same in each case ("no real issue, just Pakistani shenanigans"), but the arguments were the same, the numbers were the same and the phrases were the same. And in all cases the source was "analysts" and "experts" -- in not one case was the reader informed that this was reporting an official position of the Government of India.

Equally depressing is my repeated experience – most recently at a major international meeting of strategic security institutions in Delhi – that even the most liberal and enlightened of Indian analysts (many of whom are friends who I greatly respect) seem constitutionally incapable of seeing the great vulnerability and legitimate concern of Pakistan (which is obvious and objective to an outsider).

A way forward

This is a very uneven playing field. The regional hegemon is the upper riparian and has all the cards in its hands. This asymmetry means that it is India that is driving the train, and that change must start in India. In my view, four things need to be done.

First, there must be some courageous and open-minded Indians – in government or out – who will stand up and explain to the public why this is not just an issue for Pakistan, but why it is an existential issue for Pakistan.

Second, there must be leadership from the Government of India. Here I am struck by the stark difference between the behaviour of India and that of its fellow BRIC – Brazil, the regional hegemon in Latin America.

Brazil and Paraguay have a binding agreement on their rights and responsibilities on the massive Itaipu Binacional Hydropower Project. The proceeds, which are of enormous importance to small Paraguay, played a politicised, polemical anti-Brazilian part in the recent presidential election in Paraguay. Similarly, Brazil's and Bolivia's binding agreement on gas also became part of an anti-Brazil presidential campaign theme.

The public and press in Brazil bayed for blood and insisted that Bolivia and Paraguay be made to pay. So what did President Luis Inacio Lula da Silva do? "Look," he said to his irate countrymen, "these are poor countries, and these are huge issues for them. They are our brothers. Yes, we are in our legal rights to be harsh with them, but we are going to show understanding and generosity, and so I am unilaterally doubling (in the case of Paraguay) and tripling (in the case of Bolivia) the payments we make to them. Brazil is a big country and a relatively rich one, so this will do a lot for them and won't harm us much." India could, and should, in my view, similarly make the effort to see it from its neighbour's point of view, and should show the generosity of spirit which is an integral part of being a truly great power and good neighbour.

Third, this should translate into an invitation to Pakistan to explore ways in which the principles of the Indus Waters Treaty could be respected, while providing a win for Pakistan (assurance on their flows) and a win for India (reducing the chronic legal uncertainty which vexes every Indian project on the Chenab or Jhelum). With good will there are multiple ways in which the treaty could be maintained but reinterpreted so that both countries could win.

Fourth, discussions on the Indus waters should be de-linked from both historic grievances and from the other Kashmir-related issues. Again, it is a sign of statesmanship, not weakness, to acknowledge the past and then move beyond it. This is personal for me, as someone of Irish origin. Conor Cruise O'Brien once remarked, "Santayana said that those who did not learn their history would be condemned to repeat it; in the case of Ireland we have learned our history so well that we are condemned to repeat it, again and again."

And finally, as a South African I am acutely aware that Nelson Mandela, after 27 years in prison, chose not to settle scores but to look forward and construct a better future, for all the people of his country and mine. Who will be the Indian Mandela who will do this – for the benefit of Pakistanis and Indians – on the Indus?

The writer is the Gordon McKay Professor of Environmental Engineering, Harvard University. Email: jbriscoe@seas. harvard.edu

What price ignorance Dec 06

by Khurshid Anwer

 

My letter to the press -  Today the Sindh assembly stabbed Sindh in the back. Tarbela dam is the mainstay of agriculture in Sindh.

 

It has lost 30 percent of its storage capacity to silting and there is a corresponding decrease in the supply of water to Sindh.

While the demand in Sindh will go on increasing as the years go by, the supply from Tarbela dam will go on decreasing until one day it will stop completely.

Bhasha dam is at least fifteen years away. Of the other alternates to Kalabagh dam, only Akhori dam has a sizeable storage capacity but it is in Punjab and will meet with the same mindless objections. Also it will generate only 600 megawatts .

Bunji and Dasu dams which have sizeable generating capacity have negligible storage capacity. So how will Sindh cope with the ever rising demand of its ever rising population.

 

All this misery just because Kalabagh dam is in Punjab and in this day and age of technology we feel we cannot ensure equitable shares to all the stakeholders. What price ignorance?          Khurshid Anwer

Threat Analysis and Security Situation report:

 

posted as received

The ultimate diplomatic and Geo-political nightmare is now unfolding
in Pakistan. Just as they did in Libya, UN is now getting involved in
Baluchistan over human rights issue and a case is being built against
Pakistan for a UN intervention in Baluchistan. No one in the
government is owning the “invitation” to the UN team.
No one knows who has authorized it or under which mandate this is
being done. There is a total conspiracy of silence in the government,
media and the judiciary. The secrecy to the entire mission is itself
sinister. There are vices being raised in the parliament but just for
the gallery. The UN is now well and truly poised to build a case for a
direct military intervention into Baluchistan. Once the case gets the
UN sanction, NATO would start to roll in from Afghanistan to cut a
corridor to Gawader through the province of Baluchistan. Welcome to
the invasion of Pakistan under Af-Pak!
The stage for an invasion is being set step by step. The sequence is
as following:
1.Sub-nationalists and insurgents like BLA backed by CIA and RAW wage
a war against the state and force thousands of youth and tribals to
migrate to Afghanistan or join the insurgency. Baluchistan is turned
into a death zone for all those patriots who protect and defend
Pakistan.
2.Media creates a hype about the “missing persons” creating a global
outcry based on totally false, fabricated and propaganda stories to
malign the security forces and national secret services.
3.Supreme Court CJ takes notice and either naively or deliberately
plays into the hands of the enemies and separatists. For example, the
grandson of Akbar Bugti, Brahmdagh Bugti is based in Switzerland and
is waging the military campaign against the state while the son of
Akbar Bugti is filing cases in the courts against army and the state
for “missing persons”. It is incredible that it is  all in the
“family” for the insurgents.
4.CJ starts his bashing of the ISI, FC and army, even registering
cases against the security forces instead of the terrorists and the
insurgents. In the Akbar Bugti’s death case, where no inquiry and
investigation has ever been done, CJ even becomes a party and called
it a “murder” and the biggest political blunder of Pakistan’s
history!!!!
5.Due to the aggressive attitude of CJ against the army and the FC,
security forces went on the defensive, even withdrawing from the basic
security operations allowing a free field to the terrorists.
6.On the other hand, government and the judiciary started to withdraw
the cases against the BLA, insurgents and terrorists for hundreds of
acts of war, sabotage, assassinations, kidnappings and destruction of
state power and gas infrastructure. Withdrawing of cases against the
insurgents without any concession from the terrorists is a deliberate
betrayal of the nation and the state and amounts to treason.
7.Moved by the “direct interest” of the CJ, UN decides to move in for
a fact finding mission.
8.The separatists meet the UN mission and demand a UN intervention.
Next steps would be:
1.UN mission would go back and write a damning report against Pakistan
and Pak army.
2.Global media and India would pick up the report to build an
international case on Baluchistan.
3.Pakistan media would also join the Indian and western media to bring
more pressure on Pak army and ISI and would demand withdrawing the
army and the FC from the province, giving a free hand to the
insurgents and the foreign intervention forces.
4.UN would take up the case and a debate would be initiated in the
General assembly or in the Security Council on Baluchistan’s “grave”
HR violations by Pakistan. A UN mandate would be created for
aggressive involvement and to increase the pressure on Pakistan.
5.In the next 3 months, the entire NATO military hardware for the
invasion would pass through Pakistan, bolstering the US force presence
in Afghanistan, ready for rolling into Baluchistan under the UN
mandate.
6.By December, Pakistan would be in total and complete anarchy and the
government would be busy in elections with total collapse of civil
governance and and economic axis, a civil war situation would be ripe
in the country. The TTP insurgents based in Afghanistan would launch
more aggressive attacks on Pak army to draw Pak army away from
Baluchistan. Indians would also make aggressive moves and postures in
Kashmir and on the eastern borders of Pakistan to keep Pak forces
focused on East and against insurgents in FATA.
7.The prize would be to cut a strategic corridor through Gawader to
Chaman for NATO. An amphibious landing on Gawader is the target.
8.The final phase of Af-Pak, 4thGW and Cold start would be launched.
Invasion, occupation, war, anarchy and dismemberment.
We expect this to unfold in the next 3 to 4 months. From Somalia to
Syria to Iraq to Yugoslavia – the war would head towards its logical
end unless stopped now by Pak army, else the bitter end is a foregone
conclusion.
************
Within the country, it is total chaos, death, floods and corruption as
the government remains at war with the judiciary and the country has
literally gone to dogs on all axis. The internal implosion is now
bringing down the entire edifice of the state and the country. Rampant
corruption, lawlessness and complete meltdown of social and civic
services are now drawing blood staggeringly on daily basis. The anger
and rage in the people is spilling in every direction.
When future history will be written, the historians would be at a
total loss to find out the reason for the deafening silence and
inexplicable inaction of the Army chief when the country was being
sunk so rapidly on all axis. The situation can still be recovered but
now it needs a military coup to clean up the mess and recover the nose
dive to death. Every passing day is a day lost in recovery and is
increasing the cost of salvage which is getting higher and higher in
blood.
A firm physical, ideological, spiritual and intellectual rebellion
against the system is now a national, religious and moral duty of
every patriot! We have been betrayed. Now very soon, we will be tested
as well..

Noam Chomsky: Why America and Israel Are the Greatest Threats to Peace

 

Imagine if Iran -- or any other country -- did a fraction of what American and Israel do at will.

September 3, 2012  |  

It is not easy to escape from one’s skin, to see the world differently from the way it is presented to us day after day. But it is useful to try. Let’s take a few examples.

The war drums are beating ever more loudly over Iran. Imagine the situation to be reversed.

Iran is carrying out a murderous and destructive low-level war against Israel with great-power participation. Its leaders announce that negotiations are going nowhere. Israel refuses to sign the Non-Proliferation Treaty and allow inspections, as Iran has done. Israel continues to defy the overwhelming international call for a nuclear-weapons-free zone in the region. Throughout, Iran enjoys the support of its superpower patron.

Iranian leaders are therefore announcing their intention to bomb Israel, and prominent Iranian military analysts report that the attack may happen before the U.S. elections.

Iran can use its powerful air force and new submarines sent by Germany, armed with nuclear missiles and stationed off the coast of Israel. Whatever the timetable, Iran is counting on its superpower backer to join if not lead the assault. U.S. defense secretary Leon Panetta says that while we do not favor such an attack, as a sovereign country Iran will act in its best interests.

All unimaginable, of course, though it is actually happening, with the cast of characters reversed. True, analogies are never exact, and this one is unfair – to Iran.

Like its patron, Israel resorts to violence at will. It persists in illegal settlement in occupied territory, some annexed, all in brazen defiance of international law and the U.N. Security Council. It has repeatedly carried out brutal attacks against Lebanon and the imprisoned people of Gaza, killing tens of thousands without credible pretext.

Thirty years ago Israel destroyed an Iraqi nuclear reactor, an act that has recently been praised, avoiding the strong evidence, even from U.S. intelligence, that the bombing did not end Saddam Hussein’s nuclear weapons program but rather initiated it. Bombing of Iran might have the same effect.

Iran too has carried out aggression – but during the past several hundred years, only under the U.S.-backed regime of the shah, when it conquered Arab islands in the Persian Gulf.

Iran engaged in nuclear development programs under the shah, with the strong support of official Washington. The Iranian government is brutal and repressive, as are Washington’s allies in the region. The most important ally, Saudi Arabia, is the most extreme Islamic fundamentalist regime, and spends enormous funds spreading its radical Wahhabist doctrines elsewhere. The gulf dictatorships, also favored U.S. allies, have harshly repressed any popular effort to join the Arab Spring.

The Nonaligned Movement – the governments of most of the world’s population – is now meeting in Teheran. The group has vigorously endorsed Iran’s right to enrich uranium, and some members – India, for example – adhere to the harsh U.S. sanctions program only partially and reluctantly.

The NAM delegates doubtless recognize the threat that dominates discussion in the West, lucidly articulated by Gen. Lee Butler, former head of the U.S. Strategic Command: “It is dangerous in the extreme that in the cauldron of animosities that we call the Middle East,” one nation should arm itself with nuclear weapons, which “inspires other nations to do so.”

Butler is not referring to Iran, but to Israel, which is regarded in the Arab countries and in Europe as posing the greatest threat to peace In the Arab world, the United States is ranked second as a threat, while Iran, though disliked, is far less feared. Indeed in many polls majorities hold that the region would be more secure if Iran had nuclear weapons to balance the threats they perceive.

Threat analysis and Situation report

By Syed Zaid Zaman Hamid

BrassTacks Threat analysis and Situation report which the treacherous media, idiotic politicians and the naive judiciary will NOT tell you:
Whatever we wrote in the last few weeks is rapidly being unfolded on all threat axis for Pakistan.

The US is now well and truly aggressive to provoke more wars within Pakistan and to force the Pak army to into a head-on collision with the tribes in North Waziristan and against Afghan resistance. The panic has already started to set in the tribes who are pondering over mass migration and exodus from the region, even towards Afghanistan where these Pakistani tribals would be easy prey for NATO and Indian military psy-ops operators to ignite their anger into rage against Pakistan and Pak army. On the other hand, NATO is literally raining missiles in North Waziristan against pro-Pakistan tribals and against Afghan resistance.

The Drone warfare is now creating a major crisis for Pakistan army as the military leadership is coming under severe pressure and criticism from the nation over their failure to stop this blatant abuse of national dignity and slaughter of innocent citizens.

“The strategy deployed by NATO/CIA/RAW is:

1. To attack and destroy Pakistan’s surveillance and early warning systems of the Navy, PAF and army to incapacitate their military capability to forewarn of any invasion on the country.

2. The second axis is to ignite the sectarian wars in Pakistan, just as in Syria and Lebanon. Dozens of Shias are being assassinated in macabre style killings all across the country. Not just that it would ignite the local sectarian wars, it would also destroy Pakistan’s relations with Iran.

3. Massive attacks on Pakistan army continue in FATA, tribal areas and in Baluchistan to keep the army bogged down in internal high intensity wars and to bleed the military’s resources to weaken it substantially so that it is not able to resist the external invasion.

4. NATO is also testing the waters and challenging the Pakistan’s defenses on the Western theatre. After the attack on Salala check post last year, NATO had stopped coming close to the Pakistan border. But now, they are aggressively intruding closer and even attacking close to the Pakistan border.

5. NATO/CIA drone strikes have become more frequent, lethal and destructive. The objective is to ignite the tribes into open rebellion against Pakistan army for being “collaborators” of the US which is killing women and children of the Pakistani tribals as massive “collateral damage”.

6. In Baluchistan, security forces are being targeted in a renewed and bloody campaign led by both TTP and the BLA. The sudden upsurge in violence and its vicious intensity is coordinated with the other axis of violence in the country. In addition to the attacks on the forces, trains, buses and energy infrastructure is also being attacked to cripple the provincial administration and critical services.

7. Chinese assets, interests and personnel in Pakistan are being targeted to disrupt the strategic relationship between Pakistan and China.

8. The panic and chaos which this urban war has created is now breaking the back of national economy and morale, throwing the entire country into fits of panic and chaos. The desperate measures being adopted by the PPP regime are only adding to the meltdown and panic.

9. Pressure is also being increased on Pakistan to declare war on the Afghan resistance and against friendly own tribes in North Waziristan. The US strategy is to deploy Pakistan to do the fighting for the NATO. As the violence touches the red hot levels in the country and the army is already over stretched, US is forcing the army leadership to open new deadlier fronts which would totally destroy not just the army but also any prospects of Pakistan having any strategic assets in the Afghan Pashtuns. The war in North Waziristan would not hurt any TTP assets which may be there as they would simply draw the army in but them melt back into Afghanistan, leaving the army to fight the local tribes and afghan resistance.

10. Massive propaganda, information war and Psy-ops have also been launched by the Indians as well as the CIA to prove that Pakistan’s nuclear assets are unsafe, the country is in a meltdown and that Pakistan is involved in spreading violence and terrorism in the neighboring countries especially against US forces in Afghanistan and India.

The war against Pakistan is now crystal clear. It has reached the last stages of deployment while the Pakistan army is well and truly surrounded but still not responding on the entire axis. Every day lost in removing this regime will be paid in massive bloodshed and destruction of the state, society and the army.

Within the government, the anarchy reigns supreme. The government and the judiciary at war with each other oblivious of the grave existential threats the nation faces. Army has remained a silent spectator of this political and judicial war and this has indeed brought the country to the brink of annihilation. Pakistan army is the last hope in this total and complete anarchy and chaos.

While the Pakistan army is indeed aware of the fatal encirclement of the state and the army, it is still reluctant to decisively intervene into the political chaos to salvage the country. The military leadership is still deliberating the crisis and has not made up their mind. In the next few weeks, they may not have the luxury of controlling the dynamics of the events, even if they want to then. Today, they can. After just a few weeks, the events would become out of control and then events would decide the destiny of the nation and the fate of its leaders.

Saddam, Qaddafi, Mubarak and now Bashar ul Asad also thought that they have infinite amount of time at their disposal. For Pakistani leaders the moment of truth just seems around the corner now.
Pakistan army is only fighting back at the military axis but have no response strategy for political chaos, economic meltdown, media war and ongoing social chaos. On the military axis, they have achieved some major success in recent days.

The following news report about the assassination of a major TTP leader in Afghanistan is a clear indication that TTP is well and truly protected in Afghanistan and their wounded are being treated in Afghan military hospitals. The news report that he has been killed in a Drone strike is non-sense as CIA does not do drones in Kunar. The militant has been eliminated by a Pak army strike after he was returning to Afghanistan from an attack inside Pakistan.

The encirclement of Pakistan is rapid and total. Now the UN is planning to send in a mission to Baluchistan to observe HR violations. Baluchistan is the prized target of the US policy towards Pakistan to cut a strategic corridor to Afghanistan bypassing the mainland. In the past also, US has been taking great interest in the internal chaos of Baluchistan to use it as a pretext to intervene. The anarchy in Baluchistan is not total also with hundreds of training camps and terrorist bases operating from Afghanistan.

Within Pakistan, the political chaos is at its peak. 27th August would be another day of infamy in Pakistan’s history as the battles between the Supreme Court and the Government threatens to bring down the state itself.
Pakistan is not too far from becoming another “Syria”. The global media war, regional encirclement, UN intervention, support to insurgencies in FATA and Baluchistan, urban war through political terrorist gangs in Karachi, psychological warfare through the paid media and direct interference into Pakistan’s social and religious circles through US AID is now tightening the grip of US and India on Pakistan’s entire social, political, economic and military fabric.

The following picture is from Syria but it may pass as from being Pakistan also. This is what happens when armies are forced to fight urban high intensity wars within own cities. This is the 4thGW, where fighting lines are not on the borders but in the major cities and towns. The soldiers are not uniformed opponents from regular armies but rag tag urban insurgents backed by regional powers. You DO NOT fight a war within your own cities or else get what the Syrians are getting now and Iraqis and Libyans tasted before them. This is what is planned for Pakistan now but the leadership and the judiciary is stone dead, deaf, dumb, blind and even collaborative to the collapse. I only wonder how the history would judge this nation which saw it coming but decided to fiddle only ??

Now even if Pak Army intervenes, the cost of recovering the nation from this anarchic state would be staggering. If the army still does not intervene, then it will be all over within the next 4 months.

Khair inshAllah. Pakistan Zindabaad.

Terrorism is certainly not a Muslim monopoly

 

‘by SWAMINATHAN S ANKLESARIA AIYAR

''All Muslims may not be terrorists, but all terrorists are Muslims..'' This comment, frequently heard after the Mumbai bomb blasts implies that terrorism is a Muslim specialty, if not a monopoly. The facts are very different.

First, there is nothing new about terrorism. In 1881, anarchists killed the Russian Tsar Alexander II and 21 bystanders. In 1901, anarchists killed US President McKinley as well as King Humbert I of Italy . World War I started in 1914 when anarchists killed Archduke Ferdinand of Austria . These terrorist attacks were not Muslim.
Terrorism is generally defined as the killing of civilians for political reasons. Going by this definition, the British Raj referred to Bhagat Singh, Chandrasekhar Azad and many other Indian freedom fighters as terrorists. These were Hindu and Sikh rather than Muslim.
Guerrilla fighters from Mao Zedong to Ho Chi Minh and Fidel Castro killed civilians during their revolutionary campaigns. They too were called terrorists until they triumphed. Nothing Muslim about them
In Palestine , after World War II, Jewish groups (the Haganah, Irgun and Stern Gang) fought for the creation of a Jewish state, bombing hotels and installations and killing civilians. The British, who then governed Palestine , rightly called these Jewish groups terrorists. Many of these terrorists later became leaders of independent Israel - Moshe Dayan, Yitzhak Rabin, Menachem Begin, Ariel Sharon. Ironically, these former terrorists then lambasted terrorism, applying this label only to Arabs fighting for the very same nationhood that the Jews had fought for earlier.

In Germany in 1968-92, the Baader-Meinhoff Gang killed dozens, including the head of Treuhand, the German privatization agency. In Italy , the Red Brigades kidnapped and killed Aldo Moro, former prime minister.
The Japanese Red Army was an Asian version of this. Japan was also the home of Aum Shinrikyo, a Buddhist cult that tried to kill thousands in the Tokyo metro system using nerve gas in 1995.
In Europe , the Irish Republican Army has been a Catholic terrorist organization for almost a century. Spain and France face a terrorist challenge from ETA, the Basque terrorist organization.

Africa is ravaged by so much civil war and internal strife that few people even bother to check which groups can be labeled terrorist. They stretch across the continent. Possibly the most notorious is the
Lord's Salvation Army in Uganda , a Christian outfit that uses children as warriors. While the West amplifies the plight Muslim Darfour region in the Sudan , the Western media has rellatively ignored this Christian sponsored conflict next door in Uganda and the Eastern Congo  that has done horrendous crimes against women and children.

Tamil Tigers have long constituted one of the most vicious and formidable terrorist groups in the world. They were the first to train children as terrorists. They happen to be Hindus. Suicide bombing is widely associated with Muslim Palestinians and Iraqis, but the Tamil Tigers were the first to use this tactic on a large scale and surprisingly more suicide bombings have been associated with Tiger (400+ in 2003-2007) than all bombings in Iraq and Afghanistan combined. One such suicide bomber assassinated Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi in 1991.

In India , the militants in Kashmir are Muslim. But they are only one of several militant groups. The Punjab militants, led by Bhindranwale, were Sikhs. The United Liberation Front of Assam is a Hindu terrorist group that targets Muslims rather than the other way round. Tripura has witnessed the rise and fall of several terrorist groups, and so have Bodo strongholds in Assam . Christian Mizos mounted an insurrection for decades, and Christian Nagas are still heading militant groups.

But most important of all are the Maoist terrorist groups that now exist in no less than 150 out of India 's 600 districts. They have attacked police stations, and killed and razed entire villages that oppose them. These are secular terrorists (like the Baader Meinhof Gang or Red Brigades). In terms of membership and area controlled, secular terrorists are far ahead of Muslim terrorists.

In sum, terrorism is certainly not a Muslim monopoly. There are or have been terrorist groups among Christians, Jews, Hindus, Sikhs, and even Buddhists. Secular terrorists (anarchists, Maoists) have been the biggest killers in India .
Why then is there such a widespread impression that most or all terrorist groups are Muslim? I see two reasons. First, the Indian elite keenly and blindly follows the western media (they are the Brown British of the British Raj today, used to eating Roti and Roast Beef and BigMacs), and the West feels under attack from Islamic groups.

Catholic Irish terrorists have killed far more people in Britain than Muslims, yet the subway bombings in London and Madrid are what Europeans remember today. The Baader Meinhof Gang, IRA and Red Brigades no longer pose much of a threat, but after 9/11 Americans and Europeans fear that they could be hit anywhere anytime. So they focus attention on Islamic militancy. They pay little notice to other forms of terrorism in Africa, Sri Lanka or India : these pose no threat to the West.
Within India , Maoists pose a far greater threat than Muslim militants in 150 districts, one-third of India 's area. But major cities feel threatened only by Muslim groups. So the national elite and media focus overwhelmingly on Muslim terrorism. The elite are hardly aware that this is an elite phenomenon.

The real threat to India today are the Maouist groups who are getting bigger in numbers, exponentially, now being joined also by poor Muslims youth especially in South India.

“First they ignore you, then they ridicule you, then they break your bones, then you win"  Mahatma Gandh

Terrorism is not a new phenomenon of the last few decades. It just has acquired a newer flavour.

It was there when man lived in caves, to the Middle Ages, to the classical Egyptian/Greek/Roman empires, to the European colonial era, to communist era, to the Nazis, to apartheid era, and today.

When we talk about terrorism it is not only by a group of individuals but also the states.

Since mankind started to live in communities it found a need to establish law and order in order to provide equity amongst the individuals sharing common resources. When this social order establishes injustices and ignores the inherent rights of others and disenfranchises the weak, then there are always a few who would take the law into their own hands without the consent of the community because the community has been rendered impotent by the greed of the most powerful.

When such disenfranchised groups get organized, both the powerful elite and the group of angry individuals have a showdown.

This is when both the parties lose their moral values of human decency on the pretext that "the end justifies the means" and this is when the innocent civilians get caught in the fight as the so called "co-lateral damage".

This carnage of the civilians in their midst continues until the injustices are addressed by the reasonable and thinking people and communities of the world.

For that reason the root of the post war resurgence in terrorism, whether one likes it or not, started and happens to be the plight of the six million Palestinians (both 15% Christians and 85% Muslims) who have been made homeless and humiliated for the last six decades or more and the unconditional support given to the state of Israel by some of the guilt ridden leadership in Europe, US and in the West, because of Europe's Nazi past.

The fact that these "terrorists" are born in the Muslims homes is incidental because Palestine has evoked natural sympathies from Muslims youth of the world in the beginning but now has evoked the same sympathies (the Gaza Flotilla)  from the previously indifferent youth of the West too who were not only brought up in Christian homes but also in the Jewish homes too.

Remember that apartheid South Africa collapsed not only when the disenfranchised poor black communities were marching and protesting on the streets but when the youth of the world started marching with them in their own cities of the world in the seventies and eighties.

Also, more importantly, apartheid regime collapsed because the children of the white parents who supported apartheid in S Africa also started questioning their parents' crimes against humanity such that it not only bankrupted South Africa   but also  began to tear apart their white family structure too.

All one can say is RIP Sep 09

by Khurshid Anwer

Re: Javed Choudry’s recent column,

I do not agree with him that it is Zardari’s ‘Swiss Accounts’ which have pushed the country into an abyss of destruction from which even angels can’t resurrect it. After all it is only 60 million dollars which is neither here or there (or nowhere).

True, in his effort to save the money he has had to make compromises across the board, horizontally and vertically, in the name of ‘mufahmat’, causing much damage to the country.

But a more devious and telling blow has been his ‘populist’ policies aimed at consolidating the PPP vote bank in readiness for the forthcoming elections. His refusal to privatise the loss making state enterprises in order to protect his nest-egg of jiala voters was bad enough but his ‘Dismissed Employees Ordinance’ is the last nail in the coffin.

Any one dismissed no matter how many years ago and for whatever reasons, even through due process of law, will now be reinstated with back wages. What this will do to the work-discipline across the length and breadth of the country is not difficult to imagine.

No wonder no investment is taking place. Of course there is a method to this madness. The purpose is to buy the elections by throwing money all around, be it the ‘bheek’ programs, the recurring ‘Bailout Packages’ for the white elephants or the bloated and disproportionate ‘PSDP’.

Another five years of PPP and Zardari is the lethal arrow whirring relentlessly towards the ‘Achiles Heel’ of Pakistan. All one can say is RIP.