Head Chowkidar and Other News

Every now and then your Blogger does a perusal of the day’s local news. Here is today’s:

Musharraf will stay in uniform after 2007: Daily Times
Apparently yesterday Pervaiz Ellahi announced:

• ‘Whatever, the Punjab stands with the President’
• ‘General Musharraf will remain army chief, as well as the president, after the next general election due in 2007”.
• ‘The 2007 elections will, of course, be properly rigged to ensure this comes to pass
• 'We, the Chaudhries of Gujrat, will continue to happily kneel before any military dictator as per the dictates of our family tradition’

Comment: Actually the last two points were not really made by Pervaiz Ellahi. It’s just your Blogger construing the man’s true political intent. For Musharraf’s ‘true’ attitude on his uniform please read my blog ‘ CNN -Predicting Pakistan’s Future’

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Then we have two completely contradictory front page headlines on last Sunday’s rail derailment near Jehlum:

‘Train derailment termed sabotage’ Dawn

LAHORE, Jan 30: Government investigators and federal and state ministers for railways on Monday termed the derailment of the Lahore Express an act of sabotage and said saboteurs tampered with a section of rail tracks…

‘Investigations reveal no evidence of sabotage’ Daily Times

Investigations carried out so far into Sunday night’s train derailment near Domeli village in Jehlum have revealed no evidence of sabotage, APP reported.

Brig Javed Iqbal Cheema, director general of the Interior Ministry’s National Crisis Management Cell, said late on Monday night that earlier reports that indicated the removal of a section of the railway track proved to be incorrect.

Comment: It just goes to show that where mouths blather, brains refuse to tread.

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Bugti clans leave Multan, DG Khan - Dawn
According to this newspaper report three major clans of the Bugtis – Kalpars, Masuris and Raijas - ‘who had been forcibly evicted from their areas’ by Nawab Akbar Bugti ‘are returning to their native areas under government protection’.

Tariq Masuri Bugti, who is reported to be the son of the Masuri clan chief told Dawn:

Masuris were 40% of the main Bugti tribe’s population while Raijas were 10 per cent and Kalpars 50 per cent.

Comment: 40% + 10% + 50% = 100%. If 100% of the Bugtis had been banished by Akbar Bugti, then who exactly is opposing the military forces in the Dera Bugti area?

I would therefore tend to agree with my sources who tell me that these banished Bugtis were intelligence agency surrogates who attempted to topple Akbar Bugti a decade or so ago. They obviously failed and paid the price for their actions. The fact that another newspaper,

The News, reports that the returning Bugtis consist of simply -

‘750 Kalpar and around 200 [Masuri] tribesmen’

- only goes to further support this contention.

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US Congressman Raises Balochistan Issue

Dawn reports that Tom Tancredo, a republican US congressman, has written a letter to Condi Rice, US Secretary of State, requesting George W. Bush to raise the issue of Balochistan with Musharraf when he visits Pakistan in March this year.

Among the hard hitting points raised in Tancredo’s letter the following is worth quoting:

The evidence suggests that a central government lines its pockets with Balochistan’s wealth, its innocent citizens suffer at the hands of merciless soldiers’.

Comment: Somehow I don’t think George Bush will take Tancredo too seriously. According to

Wikipedia, Tancredo ‘has been accused of xenophobia, hate-mongering and ethnic demagoguery’ and is not taken too seriously by the White House.

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Finally, I’d like to share this entertaining letter which appeared in today’s Daily Times. It is written by a witty Riaz Chaudhry from Ontario, Canada

What India lacks

Sir: The Indian leaders lack style. That perhaps is the reason why they do not undertake frequent foreign trips. Indian claims of big foreign exchange reserves also appear hollow. For what else could force its leaders to forgo a lavish lifestyle, limousines, private jets and others perks that our leaders enjoy? The hotels where Indian ministers, senior bureaucrats and CEOs of state-owned corporations stay during their foreign trips are not fit for the personal attendants of our VIPs.

India also lacks the unity of command, provided in Pakistan by our uniformed president in supreme national interest. The Indian president does not look like he can even name the designers that provide our suave leaders’ wardrobe. This prevents the Indian president from speaking annually at Davos to attract foreign investment.

India has to do without a prime minister with experience as a senior executive of world’s leading bank or the right to reside in the United States. These advantages ensure that our PM feels at home in America.

India continues to be held hostage to democracy — half-literate peasants decide the fate of the prime minister and the president. It needs to learn from its neighbour. It needs to stop useless expenditure on providing housing and protocol to former prime ministers. Can’t they be forced into exile or imprisoned if not hanged? India made a mistake in shedding the legacy of British Raj. No wonder there is no Defence Housing Authority in any part of India or a training institution like Kakul, where a two-years course makes a man competent to handle just about any job. Instead it wastes its resources on IITs.

Comment: Yup, the problem with most Indian leaders is that many of those poor fellows lack our leadership’s heightened sense of pomposity and sycophancy - which makes our chappies the rightful heirs to the grand Mughal durbari system.

Pakistan

Those Damned Chowkidars

Here is a modern parable

Years ago the head of a family died leaving two separate groups of family members. Neither side was rich, but the older family clan had much larger numbers and more resources. The less powerful and anxious younger clan decided to breakaway and divide the joint family holding as they feared they would be overwhelmed by their more numerous cousins.

After having broken away the junior clan continued to feel intimidated. Convinced that their more powerful cousins would not tolerate the property division, they employed a bunch of Chowkidars to protect their property and counter any potential aggression from their neighbouring cousins and their employees.

As year went by there was a great deal of acrimony between the two clans, which led to several serious scuffles involving employees on both sides of the divided fence. The Chowkidars of the younger clan kept warning their employers that things were going to only get worse as the rival clan was not only more powerful, but, according to these employees, held very hostile intentions. The younger clan got decidedly nervous and not only employed more Chowkidars and enhanced their status and remuneration, but also began involving them in their family council meetings.

As years went by the Chowkidars grew more powerful within these family council meetings. Why? Well they managed to convince some of the family members (especially those that loathed the other clan), that the family would not survive without the Chowkidars, who were not only qualified to protect them, but were the only ones able to defend their community.

A few years later the Chowkidars decided to take over the council and dismissed the family altogether. Why? Well, according to these employees, the family had become too weak and feeble; thus unable to defend itself. To bolster the family’s defences the Chowkidars insisted that the larger part of the family income be handed over to them, as they were now not only shielding the family from aggression but were now obliged to run the family’s affairs as well.

After a number of years an odd thing came to pass – the Chowkidars had by now taken over the property and the family that had originally employed them, found themselves working to the bone to provide for their once-upon-a-time employees. Whenever the family members – by now completely powerless and impoverished - tried to raise their voices and attempted to remind the rich and powerful Chowkidars that the property they now controlled wasn’t really theirs, these unfortunate people would be smacked on the head, be accused of criminal ingratitude, and told that they didn’t really know what was good for them.
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Does the story sound familiar?

It definitely ought to. After all it is our bloody Chowkidars that have taken over our property – Pakistan.

Pakistan

BBC: Dubai Involved in Baloch Insurgency?

Auntie Beeb has filed a new report on Balochistan, written by its Urdu service perennial - Zaffar Abbas. Most of what he covers is familiar ground but there are startling new details which have been provided to him, as he acknowledges, by some rather concerned ‘Agency’ boys.

Senior officials in the security forces say they grew alarmed when intelligence agencies found more than one foreign country was involved in the province's affairs.

The countries were said to be opposed to Gwadar becoming a major trading port for central Asian nations and China.

One official said the biggest shock came when the interrogation of a group of militants revealed they had been trained in a friendly Gulf country, which allegedly feared it could lose its status as the region's biggest trading port.

Did I read correctly? The largest trading port in the Gulf (and supposedly the 3rd busiest in world) is Dubai's Jebel Ali. So are we now being told that the bin Makhtooms of Dubai are behind the upheaval in Balochistan?

And so Gwadar is destined to obliterate a now threatened Dubai?

Hmmm…since when does a probable bunch of defective skyscrapers erected by a horde of shady developers, and roads and other public amenities built by corrupt construction mafias, and an infrastructure managed by avaricious and incompetent bureaucrats, make for a throbbing international port city? If that is the case then Karachi should have been a veritable New York by now. Dream on nitwits!

This reminds me of a dubious article from a Turkmenistan website (authored by a Pakistani journalist named Tariq Saeedi) that has been doing the rounds for nearly a year. The article claims to be based on an interview with two retired Moscow-based KGB operatives named ‘Sasha’ and ‘Misha’. In a nutshell, ‘Sasha’ and ‘Misha’ tell us that:

[The Balochistan Liberation Army has been revived by the] Pentagon. With good lot of support from Kremlin. You should keep in mind that reviving such an organization is a tricky task and it needs active support from a number of players. Pentagon and Kremlin would not be able to do much without some help from RAW that has hundreds of active contacts all over Balochistan.

And the reason for their involvement?

Americans have two long-term policy objectives in that region: First, create a safe and reliable route to take all the energy resources of Central Asia to the continental United States, and second, to contain China.

And wait for it, ‘Sasha’ and ‘Misha’ also embrace two other players into this anti-Pakistan conspiracy – Iran and Afghanistan. Why Iran?

Iran has incurred great expenses to develop Chah Bahar, the port that is supposed to be the Iranian answer to Pakistani ports of Gwadar and Pasni. Iran has also done lot of work to create excellent road link between Herat and Chah Bahar. All this would go to waste if Pakistani route comes on line because it is shorter and offers quick commuting possibilities between Central Asia and Indian Ocean.

And why Afghanistan?

There are many influential circles in Afghanistan that are deadly opposed to Pakistan for one reason or the other. While Afghanistan as a country may not be harboring any ill will against Pakistan, it is difficult to rule out the possibility that some power circles would not be inclined to damage Pakistan wherever they can. It is clear from the recent developments that as India, Iran and Afghanistan have made great strides to form some kind of economic, trade and transportation alliance, all efforts have been made to exclude Pakistan from any such deal.

So according to these retired KGB operatives US, Russia, India, Iran and Afghanistan have all joined hands to create an insurgency in Balochistan.

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Actually this Pakistani/Turkmenistan article is full of as many holes as a sieve. Rather than pick it apart one by one, your Blogger will just provide one fatally damaging example. Dear old ‘Sasha and Misha’ insist on providing us with ‘the real reason’ behind the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan in 1979.

The Soviet Union...wanted a convenient corridor to the warm waters of the Indian Ocean.

Now every man and his stray dog who has studied the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan ought to know that the invasion was made with reluctant desperation to protect the so-called soft Muslim underbelly of the Soviet Union. The Kremlin was frightened out of its wits that a would-be triumph of Muslim fundamentalism in Afghanistan would destabilize its Muslim soviet republics in Central Asia.

The theory of the Soviet Union coveting a warm water port in Balochistan was a humbug boosted by Zia-ul-Haq and his followers to further frighten the anti-Soviet fund providers - the USA and Saudi Arabia – into adding further billions to the kitty.

In your Blogger’s humble opinion the Pakistani/Turkmenistan article was a clear plant by one of our own intelligence agencies. What we have in actuality is the gospel according to what ‘Sheeda’ and ‘Mahja’ in Islamabad wish us to believe (the names ‘Sasha’ and Misha’ being creations of their particularly inventive imagination).

And, as if USA, Russia, India, Iran and Afghanistan weren’t enough to stir the Balochistan plot, the boys in Islamabad now wish to add Dubai to the list as well.

Whose next I wonder?

After having quoted the Dubai angle, Zaffar Abbas, did display a streak of good common BBC sense, by rounding off his story with the following:

But no matter what the authorities say about foreign involvement, seasoned Balochistan watchers say the problem is essentially local.

They say the Baloch people can only be tamed through political means, pointing out that this is not the first time they have taken up arms to fight those they see as outsiders.

And, they say, though the might of the armed forces might crush the people of Balochistan, it will never win their hearts and minds.

So apparently Islamabad and its supporters would happily blame USA, Russia, India, Iran, Afghanistan and now Dubai for the insurgency in Balochistan. It is a creative example of passing the buck peppered with a heavy dose of wishful thinking.

In reality there is only one and clear logic involved: Islamabad should stop treating the province of Balochistan as its colony. As long as it follows this ham-fisted course of action, there will be continued and prolonged opposition.

Balochistan
Pakistan

WPost Accuses Musharraf of Behaving Like a Prostitute?

A Washington Post editorial recently lambasted Musharraf by calling him a “meretricious military ruler”.

Not being familiar with the word, I had to look it up in my dictionary.

The Chambers Dictionary (1983) defines the adjective meretricious as: of the nature of harlotry; characteristic or worthy of a harlot; flashy; gaudy
Apparently the root of the word comes from Latin: meretrix : a harlot – which in turn is derived from merere : to earn.

But then the Oxford Dictionary (1999) comes somewhat to Musharraf’s rescue. It defines meretricious: showily but falsely attractive. And, declares the meaning characteristic of a prostitute to be archaic.

Anyway calling Musharraf meretricious was just one among many disparaging criticisms the WP hurled at the general. Read it for yourselves…

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WP Editorial : The War in Pakistan (Wednesday, January 25, 2006; Page A18)

SHORTLY AFTER Sept. 11, 2001, President Bush famously declared that other countries must choose between supporting the United States and supporting terrorism, and that those that harbored al Qaeda would be treated as the enemy. In the years since, he has refrained from applying that tough principle in practice -- which is lucky for Pakistan's president, Gen. Pervez Musharraf. Ever since the war on terrorism began, this meretricious military ruler has tried to be counted as a U.S. ally while avoiding an all-out campaign against the Islamic extremists in his country, who almost surely include Osama bin Laden and his top deputies. Despite mounting costs in American lives and resources, he has gotten away with it.

Gen. Musharraf and his aides, such as Prime Minister Shaukat Aziz, boast that Pakistan has arrested hundreds of al Qaeda militants and deployed tens of thousands of troops in the border region near Afghanistan. Yet Gen. Musharraf has never directed his forces against the Pashtun Taliban militants who use Pakistan as a base to wage war against American and Afghan forces across the border. He has never dismantled the Islamic extremist groups that carry out terrorist attacks against India. He has never cleaned up the Islamic madrassas that serve as a breeding ground for suicide bombers. He has pardoned and protected the greatest criminal proliferator of nuclear weapons technology in history, A.Q. Khan, who aided Libya, North Korea and Iran. And he has broken promises to give up his military office or return Pakistan to democracy.

The consequences of this record are that al Qaeda has continued to operate from Pakistan, while U.S. and allied troops have been unable to pacify southern Afghanistan. More than 125 American soldiers have been killed there in the past year, many of them by militants crossing the border. Osama bin Laden is apparently secure enough to have released an audiotape last week threatening more attacks inside the United States.

The Bush administration is still providing Gen. Musharraf $600 million in annual military and economic aid and treating him as a major ally. But in the absence of effective Pakistani action, it has also stepped up its own clandestine operations in the border areas where al Qaeda and its allies are based. At least three times in the past year, drone aircraft armed with missiles have attacked terrorist targets; most recently, a strike on a Pakistani village this month killed at least 13 people, several important al Qaeda operatives possibly among them.

In keeping with his double game, Gen. Musharraf's government publicly criticized the latest attack even though his intelligence service reportedly cooperated with it. Now he and Mr. Aziz, who met with Mr. Bush yesterday, are saying U.S. forces should carry out no more such attacks without Pakistani agreement. We'll assume that's more of their bluster. Even if it is not, Mr. Bush should ignore it. Gen. Musharraf perhaps cannot be forced to side decisively with the United States against the terrorists, as the administration once hoped -- though much more could be done to raise the price of his feckless cooperation. But Mr. Bush must take every available measure to eliminate the al Qaeda and Taliban operations in Pakistan. If targets can be located, they should be attacked -- with or without Gen. Musharraf's cooperation.

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Please note WP’s last suggestion, which basically calls for the US to target Al Qaeda and Taliban wherever they may be found in Pakistan regardless of what Musharraf’s views may be on the subject.

Since our chest-thumping Commando-in-Chief is now of little help, I’m seriously thinking of distributing downloaded pictures of all the wanted Al Qaeda men among the chowkidars in my locality. If by some remote chance a suspiciously gaunt, tall and bearded Arab-looking character is spotted nearby, then I am decamping from the neighbourhood, with my family, as fast as practicably possible. There is no telling when the Yanks will unleash their next lot of Hell Fire missiles on us poor unsuspecting Pakistanis.

Washington Post
Pakistan

Islamabad’s Cloud Cuckoo Land

If one ignores the official claptrap from Islamabad – delivered by the likes of the ISPR, Sheikh Rashid and Aftab Sherpao – the picture in Waziristan looks distinctly unhealthy.

A couple of days ago it was reported in the US press (Christian Science Monitor):

There is a growing perception that the Army, having
seen its strategies fail, has largely retreated to its barracks. "It has become more of a reactive force, mostly hitting when fired upon," says General Masood. The region remains closed to foreign journalists. But local journalists describe Army personnel as captives in their own barracks, unable to leave for fear of being shot at or kidnapped.

While the Army and its political flunkies will continue to deny these realities, one just has to look at the situation in Miranshah, the ‘urban’ capital of Waziristan district.

On the evening of 8 December, as Dawn reported, members of the Taliban ‘summarily executed' two members from a rival group, beheaded them, publicly dragged the headless bodies on the road behind their pickup trucks before stringing the corpses up on power poles in the heart of Miranshah.

While all this was taking place there was no apparent sign of any ‘officialdom’ at that time and on the days that followed. The dead bodies were subsequently removed from the power poles 'as they were causing a traffic jam' and simply flung into some vacant space where they ‘remained unattended’. In the meanwhile, the Taliban continued with their overt ‘search operation’ for their rival gang members, raiding nearby villages and openly patrolling the roads around Miranshah.

Hmmm?

Whoever insists that Waziristan is under control is currently divorced from reality, and this must certainly include the ISPR chief Maj. Gen. Shaukat Sultan, who routinely insists that all is well with Waziristan.

Here are some excerpts from a recent New York Times report:

• The tribal areas are off limits to foreign journalists, but the Pakistani officials, and former residents who did not want to be identified for fear of retribution, said the militants - who call themselves Taliban - now dispensed their own justice, ran their own private jails, robbed banks, shelled military and civilian government compounds and attacked convoys at will. They are recruiting young men from the local tribes and have gained a hold over the population through a mix of fear and religion, the officials and former residents said.
• They have embarked on a disruptive campaign of terrorism, particularly in North and South Waziristan: in the last year, 108 pro-government tribal elders, 4 or 5 government officials, informers and even 2 local journalists, have been assassinated by militants, local journalists say.
• Qaeda operatives are the driving force behind the local militants and are influencing their tactics, the officials said.
• Pakistan's military has become more cautious about emerging from its bases in the area and the civilian administration is so hamstrung that the senior government representative in South Waziristan does not even live in the district.
• "We run a government on paper, but not on the ground," said one government official who has worked in North and South Waziristan, which have seen some of the heaviest combat of the past two years.
• "The situation is going from bad to worse," the official said. "No one can raise their voice against the Taliban." Armed local militants come and go freely and have even opened offices in the main bazaar of Wana, in South Waziristan, from which they recruit new followers from the large, illiterate and unemployed youth of the area, one former resident said, asking not to be named for fear of retribution from the militants.

Ironically as Waziristan spins out of control the military equipment given to the Pakistan Army – in particular the TOW missile-equipped Cobra helicopter gunships - to deal with the Al Qaeda/Taliban threat is instead being used in Balochistan.

Your Blogger wouldn’t be surprised if the US doesn’t get mightly cheesed off at some stage – that is, if it isn’t already.

Waziristan
Pakistan

In Memory of a Worthy Man

This morning Khan Abdul Wali Khan died. Many of the current younger generation probably know less than little about the man. In remembrance of this fine and upright individual it is only appropriate that your Blogger (who is non-Pukhtoon, by the way) provides you with an honest anecdote which might help reveal something about the person that Wali Khan truly was.

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Many years ago there were a bunch of young men from Downunder who travelled the length and breadth of Pakistan, meeting people of all ilk. It was their unfortunate experience that they ended up meeting with a shade too many politicians and business, social and military grandees wherever they went – for example the likes of ‘Chandi’ Abida Hussain in Lahore and Governor Fazle Haq in Peshawar. Because of their Pakistani host they ended up unexpectedly as guests of Khan Abdul Wali Khan for afternoon tea at his house at Charsada.

At Walibagh the discussions at tea revolved around growing roses, the sights of Eastern Europe and finding a decent meal in London, among other things. As they headed back to their accommodation the Downunder lot came across graffiti written in English painted on many walls in central Peshawar, most of these scrawls in those days simply read ‘Free Wali Khan’. The coincidence suddenly dawned upon one of them who asked, ‘We just met a Wali Khan. They couldn’t be referring to him, surely could they?’ When the answer was affirmative and they were told that Wali Khan had recently been the Leader of the Opposition, they appeared visibly dumfounded.

When asked about the cause of their all too obvious amazement, their collective answer was delivered with traditional Downunder bluntness, “The Pakistani big shots we have met so far has been so bloody full of themselves that they can’t talk about anything other than about how great and marvelous they bloody are. Today we met with a man who was actually interested in who we were, what we did and what our thoughts were. He never even bothered to let us know how important he might be politically or otherwise. In comparison with that hollow mob, Wali Khan seems to an amazing man.”

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And so we now bid farewell to a remarkable individual. A man who believed in principles and lacked completely the sin of arrogance, a man who had the courage to face the worst without fear and never bowed his head or accepted the corrupt crumbs from those prepared to make him infinitely wealthy.

God Bless him. Years ago the Establishment deemed him a traitor but little did these self-righteous haramis bother to realise that Wali Khan was one of the very few selfless and well-meaning leaders this country ever had.

Wali Khan
Pakistan

Fraud Wins Again!

Some days ago a young girl was kidnapped in Karachi, she was purportedly the step-daughter of someone with high influence in the Sindh Cabinet. Fortunately, the girl was soon recovered from Larkana, where it appears she had been held captive in a house of a supposed high ranking government officer.

Soon the law enforcement authorities discovered that this crime (as well as several other recent cases of kidnapping) had all involved movement in vehicles with dark tinted windows and official sounding sirens. This then led to an active police campaign to vigorously implement the law against vehicles with black-tinted windows, blue flashing lights and fancy number plates.

Karachi police officers rather bravely announced that “The drive is being carried out without any discrimination and no one violating the rules would not be spared.”

And so, as yesterday’s Dawn reported:

Sons and relatives of many influential people spent Saturday night in the lockups of various police stations in Clifton Town and got bail on Sunday morning. They were held for having tinted glasses, flashing or blue headlights, or fancy number plates in their respective vehicles.

The drive is being carried out across the city and motorists were held in various localities for violating the traffic rules. However, most of the motorists, who happened to be siblings of some influential people, were held in Clifton town.The Clifton town police registered a total number of 186 FIRs overnight and put behind bars the siblings of influential people along with their vehicles including son of an adviser to the prime minister, son of an EDO Hub, nephew of the Inspector-General of Police, and relatives of provincial and federal ministers besides the siblings of officers in health and other departments.

Was this a sign of a brave new world?

Sadly no. The campaign came to a crashing halt when the police stopped one Aamir Liaquat, Minister of State for Religious Affairs, TV’s ‘Aalim on Line’ and bogus BA, MA and PhD degree holder. According to today’s Dawn:

Police said that Dr Amir Liaquat’s car was intercepted on Khayaban-i-Shamsheer in Defence Housing Authority near Defence Stadium. Witnesses said that the police had stopped the car as it had tinted glasses and a number plate other than the one issued by the government. Dr Liaquat objected to police behaviour and made a call to Sindh home minister, who rushed to the spot. The police officials were admonished for intercepting the state minister’s car. After the home minister’s intervention, Dr Liaquat was let off. The police did not register any case against him.

Subsequently a senior police officer stutteringly tried to exonerate Aamir Liaquat by insisting that his had car ‘zero- level’ tinted windows which were permissible under the law. There is tinted glass and plain glass, pray tell us what sort of animal is ‘zero-level tint’?

Anyhow it goes to show that the Aalim Online has more influence than the ordinary humdrum ministers or former prime ministers (Zafarullah Jamali’s son had reportedly been nabbed in Karachi for the same offence a few days earlier).

It would make for great sense if the great Aalim went on to explain to his fans, on his next show, how under Islam the law cannot be equally applied to all; specials exemptions will always exist for gifted Aalims such as himself.

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Seeing as we are already on the issue of Aamir Liaquat, your Blogger recently received staunch criticism from some readers for purportedly denigrating the great man by referring to him as Jahil Online. From now on, as I intend to follow facts strictly to the line, I do apologize for having used incorrect terminology - from henceforth I shall refer to this person only as Fraud Online.

Here is what the South Asia Tribune had to say about Fraud Online's so-called 'university' degrees.

Dr Aamir did not have a graduate degree in 2002 and according to the investigation he approached a web site in Spain, The Trinity College & University, which boasts about providing Bachelors, Masters or even Doctorate degrees, without attending any class or college. “Everything by Email” the web site of the College says right on top with the big slogan: “Get your degree today.” Click to View Web site

Dr Aamir bought his “Bachelor of Arts in Islamic Studies” degree (Serial No: P-2002227 Dated March 17, 1995), got his “Master of Arts in Islamic Studies” degree (No: P-2002341 Dated March15, 2002) and his “Doctor of Philosophy in Islamic Studies” degree (No: P-2002528 Dated April 5, 2002). In what may be a world record worthy of the Guinness Book of Records. He got his Doctorate in just three weeks after his Master's degree, if the documents are to be believed.

The UK Observer newspaper has something to say about this so-called university as well:

When it arrives, the literature for the self-styled Trinity College and University, based at Fuengirola in Spain, gets quickly to the point. 'We provide a unique service by helping people who have not had the advantage of a college education by converting all your prior learning, academic and qualified experience into a "non-traditional" degree,' it says.

A degree will help you get ahead in the job market, it continues, adding: 'We do not ask you to take time off to study further or sit exams, nor do we have any residency requirements.'

All you have to do is to fill in a form specifying what class of degree you would like and in which subject, then send it off with a cheque for the appropriate fee: £125 for a Bachelor, £150 with honours chucked in; £195 for a Masters; and £295 for a Doctorate. Along with your certificate, you receive 'any study material you may have ordered' it adds, almost as an afterthought.

And, it was reported in UK’s Mail on Sunday newspaper that the so-called Vice-Chancellor of Trinity College and University is one 'Dr' Anthony Peel-Bayley, a convicted conman who has been selling fake degrees for years.

I wonder what Fraud Online would have to say about this?

aamir liaquat
Pakistan

UK Times on Pakistan Army's 'Summary Executions'

Your Blogger just came across this story in today's UK Times, together with a brief piece in the Financial Times (links are provided)

I'm glad to see that the heat is slowly but surely building up on Musharraf's latest misdeed.

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The Times
January 24, 2006

Asia
Captured rebel tribesmen 'shot on the spot' by army

FROM ZAHID HUSSAIN IN DERA BUGTI

THE Pakistani Army has been accused of carrying out summary executions as fighting intensifies between rebel tribesmen and security forces in the southwestern province of Baluchistan.

Weekend clashes in the dusty town of Dera Bugti, a centre of the rebellion, left nine tribesmen dead and four soldiers injured. The nationalist rebels, who are fighting for greater autonomy, attacked an army base, a telephone exchange and government offices. The sides exchanged rockets and mortar fire.

The Pakistani military, which is confronting al-Qaeda-backed Islamic militants in the North West Frontier province, is having to commit increasing resources against the separatist movement in Baluchistan, where the provincial capital, Quetta, is under tight security.

“There were alarming accounts of summary executions, some allegedly carried out by paramilitary forces,” the Human Rights Commission of Pakistan (HRCP) said in a report last weekend.

It also said that there was evidence that indiscriminate bombing by the security forces had resulted in deaths and injuries among the civilian population.

Asma Jehangir, the chairman of the group, said that there was a warlike situation in the province. “The HRCP team found widespread instances of disappearance, of torture inflicted on people held in custody and on those fleeing from their houses,” Ms Jehangir, a former UN human rights rapporteur, said.

The strategic region, which borders Afghanistan and Iran, is the largest and most impoverished in Pakistan. It is sparsely populated but rich in mineral resources, and it supplies 50 per cent of the country’s natural gas.

Baluchi nationalists, who demand control over their natural resources, have led four insurgencies — in 1948, 1958-59, 1962-63 and 1973-77 — which were brutally suppressed. There have been sporadic clashes in the past two years, but the situation flared last month after the rebels launched a rocket attack during President Musharraf’s visit to an army garrison in Kohlu district.

The rebels also hit an army helicopter that was carrying senior officers. A shadowy militant group calling itself the Baluchistan Liberation Army (BLA) claimed responsibility for the attacks on the government forces and installations.

The BLA originally drew on veterans of the insurrection of the 1970s, but its ranks have been joined by educated young people. One of its leaders is Akbar Khan, the chief of the Bugti tribe who, in the 1950s, was briefly the Pakistani Defence Minister and later became governor of the province. When I visited him recently, the charismatic, British-educated septuagenarian was presiding over his followers from a bullet-ridden fort in the dusty town that bears the name of his tribe.

He was surrounded by heavily armed tribesmen with flowing beards and huge turbans. Some had taken positions in the bunkers around the fort. Akbar Khan, whose grandfather, Shahbaz Khan, was a British knight, has accused the Pakistani Government of colonising Baluchistan.

He said: “We are fighting for the control of our national wealth and for political rights. It is a war now.”
He is understood to have moved since to a mountain hideout,
where he is leading the guerrilla war.

Down the road Karim Baksh, a thin-framed man with a cropped beard, was leading another group of tribal guerrillas. They had dug in under a huge rock, only a few miles from a Pakistani Government paramilitary post. Machinegun fire echoed in the distance.

“Let them come here,” Mr Baksh said with a laugh as he stroked his Kalashnikov. “They will not be able to go back alive.”

His fighters, who claimed to be members of the BLA, appeared to be well trained and were armed with machineguns and rocket launchers. A radio operator was receiving information regarding the movement of government troops.

“Our men are spread all over,” Mr Baksh said, pointing towards the parched hills of Baluchistan.

ROCKY BUT RICH

• Forms 44 per cent of Pakistan’s land mass; has a 480-mile (770km) coastline
• Economically rich in minerals and gas deposits
• Consists of vast rocky desert with extremes of climate and very low rainfall
• Baluchi tribes live in Iran, Afghanistan, and Pakistan and can speak a form of Persian; today about half live in Baluchistan territory
• Five million people live in Baluchistan

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Financial Times

Human rights violations

Human Rights Commission of Pakistan yesterday accused the government of gross human rights violations in the province of Baluchistan.

Tensions in Baluchistan have mounted in recent months as tribal militants have attacked government facilities and cars, following demands for greater provincial autonomy and control of large gas fields in the province.
The report said up to 85 per cent of the 24,000 residents of Dera Bugti had fled their homes after the town was shelled by government troops.

Farhan Bokhari, Islamabad

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Balochistan
Pakistan

A Ruthless Voice From the Past

Sadly many Pakistanis continue to be fooled by the propagandists from Islamabad.

Thirty-five years ago we lost more than half our population thanks to the widespread belief that most East Pakistanis were unpatriotic miscreants. Few bothered to consider the fact that the malaise lay with the rulers and not with the people.

And so, as history repeats itself, we now have Musharraf and his gang repeatedly warning us about the unpatriotic miscreants of Balochistan. According to them the state is now under attack by heavily armed tribesmen following the tyrannical orders of their sardars.

Here is a pertinent quote from the Nazi Reich Marshal, and heir-apparent to Hitler, who asserted:

Voice or no voice, the people can always be brought to the bidding of the leaders. That is easy. All you have to do is tell them they are being attacked, and denounce the peacemakers for lack of patriotism and exposing the country to danger. It works the same in any country.

Hermann Goering

Quote taken from, Nuremberg Diary, Gustave Gilbert, Farrar, Straus & Co., 1947, p. 278.
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Pakistan
Goering

The Egotistical Lightweight vs.The Rape Victim

A Reuters Report says that Pakistani diplomats pressurised the UN to cancel Mukhtar Mia’s interview planned to be held at the UN, so that it didn’t upstage Shaukat Aziz’s visit to the UN scheduled for the same day.

Last year Shaukat Aziz had to postpone his trip to Washington because it closely followed Indian PM Manmohan Singh’s triumphant visit to the US capital, where not only was Singh accorded much time at the White House but was given the distinction of addressing a Joint Session of the US Congress.

I am sure it is extremely difficult for Aziz to accept the fact that no one in Pakistan, perhaps with the exception of his family and close friends, takes his position as ‘prime minister’ particularly seriously. In all likelihood, adding to this prevailing pain is the fact that he is regarded in Washington as no more than Musharraf’s ‘democratic’ flunkey. In other words, Aziz is probably only too well aware that whatever little fanfare he gets in the US capital is just a result of an insincere and role-playing ‘regard’ that the US has to officially show for Pakistan’s so-called ‘democracy’.

Not surprisingly Aziz’s already battered ego can only take so much. The idea of another international humiliation was probably more than his mind could bear; so Mukhtar Mia’s UN interview simply just had to be nixed.

While Aziz has lamely tried to feign ignorance on the rushed cancellation of Mukhtar Mai’s interview ("I have no idea," he said. "I have no idea how the [UN] functions."), your Blogger doesn’t believe a word he said on this occasion, nor, as a matter fact, has he believed many a thing Aziz has uttered on numerous past occasions.
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Anyhow here is the Reuters report as published in the Boston Globe

UNITED NATIONS (Reuters) - The United Nations, under pressure from Pakistani diplomats, barred an interview with a rape victim from Pakistan while the country's prime minister was at U.N. headquarters, her sponsors said on Friday.

Prime Minister Shaukat Aziz told a news conference he was unaware of the controversy and had supported the campaign waged by Mukhtaran Mai.

"I have no idea," he said. "I have no idea how the place functions."

Mai, a 33-year old peasant woman was gang-raped in 2002 on orders of a local council for an offense committed by her brother and forced to walk home nearly naked before a jeering crowd. She prosecuted her attackers and became a women's rights leader.

The New York-based charity Virtue Foundation had set up several interviews with Mai at the United Nations on Friday, the main one being conducted by CNN.

"Faced with pressure from Pakistan's mission to the United Nations, which asked them to cancel the event, it was canceled at 8 p.m. last night," said Joseph Salim, founder and executive director of the foundation.

U.N. sources said Pakistani envoys did not want to detract attention from the prime minister's visit. Pakistani diplomats were not immediately available for comment.

…Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf was not always supportive of Mai. Last year, he banned her from traveling to the United States so she would not "malign Pakistan" and said getting raped had become a "money-making" concern. The government relented after international protests.

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An Addendum

From the US National Review:

SHAMEFUL, CRAVENLY U.N. VS. “THE BRAVEST WOMAN ON EARTH"

UNITED NATIONS, Jan. 20 - Mukhtar Mai, the Pakistani woman whose defiant response to being gang-raped by order of a tribal court brought her worldwide attention, was denied a chance to speak at the United Nations on Friday after Pakistan protested that it was the same day the country's prime minister was visiting.

Ms. Mai had long been scheduled to make an appearance called "An Interview With Mukhtar Mai: The Bravest Woman on Earth" in the United Nations television studios, sponsored by the office for nongovernmental organizations, the Virtue Foundation and the Asian-American Network Against Abuse of Human Rights.

But on Thursday night the organizers were informed that the program would have to be postponed because of Pakistan's objections.

Ms. Mai is leaving New York on Saturday so the effect was to cancel her appearance.

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Pakistan
mukhtar mai
shaukat aziz

Human Rights Team Confirms Military Brutality in Balochistan

As was widely reported, a Human Rights Commission of Pakistan (HRCP) team travelled to Quetta and Sibi (December 26-28, 2005) and to Dera Bugti (January 8-10, 2006) on fact-finding missions to ascertain the true reality of the Balochistan crisis.

A fortnight ago as the HRCP team reached the border of Balochistan near Sui, its Chairperson Asma Jahangir’s vehicle was shot at by suspected security agencies personnel. The aim of the attack, it is widely believed, was to thwart the HRCP team from visiting the area and discovering the falsehood of the military regime’s claims.

Yesterday the HRCP finally released its long-awaited report of its findings. Here are some excerpts, as reported in various newspapers.
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The Daily Times
Paramilitary forces are torturing and killing the Baloch, says HRCP

• That the coercive military operation in Dera Bugti, Sui and Kohlu started on December 17, 2005, still continued and the human rights situation in the province had deteriorated to an alarming level.
• Residents in areas affected by the violence gave evidence that helicopter gunships and fighter jets were used to bombard Dera Bugti. They complained that their children had had serious mental disorders due to the fear of violence.
• The HRCP claimed to have received evidence that action by security personnel had led to many deaths and injuries among the civilian population. It said the Baloch had been subjected to indiscriminate bombings and there were many cases in which people had ‘disappeared’
• HRCP said the most disturbing account was the disappearance of 18 labour union leaders of Pakistan Petroleum Limited (PPL) in December 2005 while they were in Karachi to negotiate various issues with the PPL management. It said the HRCP convoy had been shot at near Kashmore while it was on its way to Dera Bugti. However, the authorities did not register an FIR despite a formal application by HRCP.
• The report and a visual documentary presented by the HRCP showed bullet-riddled bodies and buildings, armoured personnel carriers (APCs), military pickets, remains of rocket launchers and insecure and frightened people.

The News
HRCP reports rights abuses in Balochistan

• The Human Rights Commission of Pakistan on Sunday accused President Pervez Musharraf’s military-led government of "gross human rights violations" in Balochistan, where it said a "war-like situation" prevailed.
• The HRCP also rejected government claims that it was not using regular armed forces in a crackdown in the province launched last month after rocket attacks by tribal militants battling for greater autonomy and control of natural gas fields.
• The group said it had "received evidence that action by armed forces had led to deaths and injuries among civilians" and that "populations had also been subjected to indiscriminate bombing".
• The HRCP report said up to 85 per cent the 22,000-26,000 inhabitants of Dera Bugti had fled their homes after the town was repeatedly hit by shelling by paramilitary forces. "There were alarming accounts of summary executions, some allegedly carried out by paramilitary forces. The HRCP received credible evidence that showed such killings had taken place," it said.
• "Across Balochistan, the HRCP team found widespread instances of ‘disappearance’, of torture inflicted on people held in custody, and on those fleeing from their houses," it added.
• "The security forces, as well as the decision-makers, have remained completely unaccountable for the gross human rights violations in the province, including responsibility for the internally displaced people," the report said.

Dawn
HRCP seeks ceasefire, talks on Balochistan

• Ms Jehangir challenged the government claim of the ongoing ‘casualty-less’ operation and said the HRCP team found that people were being forced out of Sui and 85 per cent population had fled the Dera Bugti town due to fear of rocket and air attacks by armed forces.
• In its report, the HRCP’s fact-finding mission has found gross violations of human rights by the Frontier Constabulary in the Bugti and Marri areas and ‘seeds of inter-provincial mistrust and enmity being sown by the FC through propaganda.’
• The report has recorded repeated occurrence of extrajudicial killings, arrests, arbitrary detentions, torture and violations of human rights and freedom of the press in Balochistan.
• “The HRCP received evidence that action by armed forces has led to deaths and injuries among civilians, including women and children,” Ms Jehangir said. There was evidence of attacks conducted by fighter jets, she added.
• She said the HRCP team, including herself and Afrasiab Khattak, was fired upon by ‘unknown persons’ near Kashmore. Several bullets were fired in the direction of the team’s car for five minutes.
• The HRCP chairperson lamented that first the Rojhan DSP did not register their complaint and later the FC people in the Quetta Press Club forced journalists to report a statement allegedly issued by the Balochistan Liberation Army, claiming responsibility for the attack.
• “The FC has left its job and is serving as a propaganda machine sowing seeds of ethnic disharmony,” she said.
• She said almost every journalist who met the HRCP team complained of threats they received from intelligence agencies. A few of them said they had been picked up by the agencies and then released.
• The report reveals information about the children and women killed in the Dec 17 operation in the Marri areas of Jabbar and Pekal. According to it, 12 women and children were killed in Jabbar and 22 injured. Nine women and children were killed in Pekal. The bodies of the victims were never brought to hospitals and those injured could not travel out of fear.

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Having been unable, despite draconian attempts, to prevent the truth from being revealed the Musahrraf regime has been exposed for what it is.

I can therefore hardly blame a US magazine from including him on its list of ‘The World’s Worst Dictators’.

The latest issue of the Parade magazine describes our Commando-in-Control as:

'Dictator No 17' Pervez Musharraf, Pakistan - Age 62. - In power since 1999.
General Pervez Musharraf seized power in a military coup that overthrew an elected government. He appointed himself president of Pakistan in 2001 and then attempted to legitimize his rule by staging an election in 2002. However, the election did not come close to meeting international standards. Musharraf agreed to step down as head of the military but then changed his mind, claiming that the nation needed to unify its political and military elements and that he could provide this unity. He justified his decision by stating, “I think the country is more important than democracy.” Prior to September 11, 2001, Musharraf was an ardent supporter of Afghanistan’s Taliban regime.

I rest my case!

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The interesting picture above is taken from today’s Dawn. It is subtitled:
DERA BUGTI - January 22, 2006: Armed tribesmen guard their leader Nawab Akbar Bugti who has taken shelter in a cave (bottom left) in a mountainous area of Dera Bugti on Sunday. Nawab Bugti fled his hometown after troops launched an operation here last month.

Balochistan
Pakistan

Balochistan Crisis (contd.)

As a rule your Blogger prefers not use Indian news material. Why? Simply to avoid the customary and rather noxious finger pointing that goes on in Pakistan the moment anything ‘Indian’ is involved.

The truth is that in India - just as in Pakistan - there are a large number erudite and rational people who write without recourse to ingrained conflict-ridden ideologies.

I read the following article today on OutlookIndia.Com and can’t fault it for any bias other than the fact it lays bare the Musharraf regime’s falsehoods -but then my Blog has been attempting to do the same. And so, I believe it is an article worth sharing.

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I suppose that Bloggers - being mostly ordinary and normal people - need a cause to personally motivate them to keep on writing. My cause has always been to look at my beloved country with unbiased eyes and report what I percieve are the current realities, 'warts and all'. After all doctors can only treat patients once they work out what is ailing them. Similarly, we need to discover our national frailties before we can try and remedy them.

Our military regime might call it 'washing dirty laundry in public'. My response is to try and work out how the clothes got dirty in the first place, and why the bloody hell no one is doing anything about it. To me hiding ugliness under the cover of 'patriotism' can only be a scoundrel's trick.

Right now one of my pet causes is the tragedy that is being currently inflicted on my fellow Pakistanis in Balochistan. The regime is trying to confuse everyone by resorting to non-stop propaganda and by attempting to clampdown on any independent information emanating from the beleaguered province.

Undoubtedly you will be hearing more about Balochistan from me in the upcoming days.

In the meantime read on:
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A Tragedy Unfolds
As the world pays virtually no attention, the Baloch insurgency is an indication of the larger malaise that afflicts Pakistan, a crisis which opposition leader Raza Rabbani aptly calls "a crisis of the federation".

KANCHAN LAKSHMAN

"A very great tragedy is unfolding in Balochistan, and sadly the world is not paying attention." - Akbar Bugti

On December 17, 2005, the Pakistani Army and paramilitary launched an operation against the Baloch insurgents in the Kohlu, Dera Bugti, Noshki and Makran Districts, as well as other parts of the Balochistan province. The subsequent and escalating violence, including the indiscriminate bombing and strafing of civilian populations, and repeated and widespread clashes with suspected Baloch insurgents and dissenting tribesmen has led many to describe this as the 'fourth rebellion' in the Province since the creation of Pakistan.

Senator Sanaullah Baloch of the Balochistan National Party - Mengal group (BNA-M) told South Asia Intelligence Review on January 12 that the Pakistan Army and Air Force 'carpet-bombing' from December 18, 2005, had killed over 300 people, mostly women and children. Sources from the Marri and Bugti tribes indicate that intensive bombing and shelling by Helicopter Gunships and heavy artillery are currently continuing in Balochistan. The operations, which initially targeted the Marri tribe in Kohlu District, are now reported to have spread across other parts of the province.

Baloch leaders claim that the 50,000 regular Army troops are currently deployed in Balochistan, in addition to 37,000 personnel of the para-military Frontier Corps (FC). Sources confirm that there has been a significant enhancement of the military presence in the province over the past months, with an addition of at least four thousand FC personnel; another 2,000 Pakistan Rangers redeployed from Sindh and Punjab; and the 29th Infantry Brigade that has been brought in from Zhob to Dera Bugti. Baloch sources claim that the weaponry being used includes helicopter gunships, fighter jets, heavy artillery and missiles.

Nawab Akbar Khan Bugti, chief of the Bugti tribe, told Praveen Swami of Frontline in an exclusive interview that jet aircraft have been strafing and bombing the heights on either side of the Sui and Loti valleys. According to Sanaullah Baloch, moreover, "some dirt bombs and gases have also been used in first phase of bombing." These claims are yet to be corroborated by any independent media or source, since the Press and various independent agencies are being rigorously kept out of Balochistan by the military. Baloch sources, nevertheless, have put up a large number of photographs, lists and details suggesting that the overwhelming majority (Nawab Bugti claims 85 per cent) of those killed have been women and children, and that most of the military actions have targeted civilian settlements, rather than identifiable insurgent groups.

While the intensity of Islamabad's response may have come as a surprise to many outside the region, these are entirely in line with President Pervez Musharraf's earlier proclamations on a 'solution' to the 'Baloch problem'. In early 2005, he had warned the rebels, "Don't push us… It is not the '70s. We will not climb mountains behind them, they will not even know what and from where something has come and hit them." The Baloch leadership, 12 months later, is only shocked at the immediate scale of devastation, but not by the means employed, or the intent of the President.

The province, it merits repetition, is of critical importance to Pakistan, both strategically and otherwise. There are four major cantonments, 59 'mini cantonments', six missile testing ranges and three nuclear testing sites in Balochistan. Pakistan Air Force has six bases and the Navy another three in the troubled province, which is dotted with over 600 military check posts.

Baloch nationalists describe the entire province as a 'mega-cantonment'.

Available information suggests that Kohlu and Dera Bugti Districts are currently completely surrounded by troops. Further, of Balochistan's 28 Districts, the 16 most strategic and important in terms of natural resources are now directly affected by the insurgency, and constitute a security problem for the military regime. Contrary to General Musharraf's position that only three of the 78 tribal chiefs in the province were "troublemakers", the truth is that insurgent attacks have left no part of the province unaffected. There has also been a continuous series of bomb and rocket attacks on gas pipelines, railway tracks, power transmission lines, bridges, and communications infrastructure, as well as on military establishments and governmental facilities and enterprises over the past 12 months, and on December 27, 2005, Interior Minister Aftab Ahmed Khan Sherpao confirmed that there had been "an increase in the momentum of militancy recently".

Official data indicated that 187 bomb blasts, 275 rocket attacks, eight attacks on gas pipelines, 36 attacks on electricity transmission lines and 19 explosions on railway lines occurred in the year 2005. According to open source information monitored by the South Asia Terrorism Portal, at least 182 civilians and 26 security force personnel died in the Province during 2005. However, given Islamabad's understated accounts, the suppression of the Press and erratic reportage from this poorly covered region, the actual numbers could be much higher.

The Human Rights Commission of Pakistan (HRCP) team led by Asma Jahangir, after its visit to Dera Bugti, noted that, "Due to the ongoing armed sorties, around 85 percent of the local population has already left Sui while Nawab Akbar Bugti has also vacated his residence in the town. Sui has in fact been shut off from the outside world since December 17th." Incidentally, on January 8, 2006, the HRCP team came under attack when two unidentified men fired at their vehicles in Sui. The Daily Times noted that the HRCP team was allegedly shot at by "security personnel" to prevent a neutral observer from finding out what was actually going on. The HRCP delegation was also "amazed to note" that the "police have not registered the FIR [First Information Report] of the firing incident on the HRCP vehicle that took place Sunday. Three charges of Kalashnikov fire were unleashed during the attack. It is also intriguing that the Balochistan Liberation Army (BLA) has claimed responsibility, given that the outfit has no quarrel with HRCP."

In addition to the widely dispersed attacks on vital state installations and SFs, two emerging patterns of insurgent attack are of great significance. The first of these is what Federal Interior Minister Sherpao called a deliberate attempt to target "settlers" in Balochistan, some of whom he claimed had been attacked and killed on December 26, 2005. The second is an attack on three launches of the Pakistan Navy at the Fish Harbour in Gwadar on January 7.Amidst all this violence, Islamabad continued to issue denials about any military operation in the troubled province. Thus Federal Minister for Defence, Rao Sikandar Iqbal, stated at Okara, on January 9, 2006, that no military operation was being launched in Balochistan. Strikingly, the Federal Information Minister, Sheikh Rashid Ahmed, noted at Islamabad that the "operation has been wound up in Balochistan", but that SFs would remain in the province and strictly deal with those found involved in breaches of the law. These denials and reluctant admissions have been central to the military regime's attempts at a complete clampdown on information from the province.

Islamabad has been actively blocking information in its efforts to cover up the indiscriminate and disproportionate use of force and the lack of accountability of security agencies operating in Balochistan. Nevertheless, news has been gradually trickling in and the military regime, consequently, struggling to contain the fallout of the world noticing the Baloch insurgency, and Musharraf himself reacted with ferocity when India's External Affairs Ministry urged restraint in the use of force in Balochistan, declaring, "We know who is financing and supplying weapons". Indeed, the military regime and its political proxies have repeatedly sought to lay the blame on the 'hidden hand' and 'external actors' - with India and the US recurring in the statements of the radical Islamist parties - an aspect which very few are willing to accept.

Dismissing allegations of external support, Nawab Bugti declared, "President Musharraf is using his favourite weapon - lies. His Objective is to defame the legitimate demands of the people of Balochistan." Bugti stated, further, "What is the need for us to take anything from anyone? The weapons we are now using flowed into this region when the United States financed the jihad in Afghanistan. It was the Inter-Services Intelligence which distributed them to Afghanistan, Iran, Jammu and Kashmir - and to us in Balochistan." As an editorial in Pakistan's Daily Times rightly noted, "While an exaggerated sense of external threat will not do Pakistan any good, what is happening internally is quite heart-breaking".

Further, the military regime has sought to justify the ongoing action in Balochistan as a reaction to the December 14, 2005, attack on General Musharraf in Kohlu. But this has only deepened the hatred the ordinary Baloch has for Islamabad. As Nawab Bugti recalled, the President had also been attacked in Rawalpindi and Karachi earlier, but no action was taken against the people of these cities.

With the threat of the Mohajir Quami Movement (MQM) to withdraw from the Cabinet having evaporated, at least for now, the small measure of caution that existed within the Musharraf regime has also disappeared. While an MQM pullout would not have affected the Federal Government, the coalition Government in Sindh would have collapsed, and the sectarian violence that long dominated the province may have revived. With Sindh and Balochistan destabilized, an opportunistic escalation in NWFP would be a distinct possibility, and the whole situation in Pakistan could explode beyond the current 'manageable' levels. Such an eventuality has temporarily been averted, with Musharraf buying off the MQM with assurances on the Kalabagh Dam, freeing the military regime to focus its might on repression in Balochistan.

But the Baloch insurgency is an indication of the larger malaise that afflicts Pakistan, a crisis which Opposition leader Raza Rabbani aptly called "a crisis of the federation". The potential for destabilisation in the Sindh and Punjab provinces may currently have been contained, but Musharraf's growing isolation, both within and outside Pakistan, can only compound the multitude of problems faced by his regime, especially as the regime gets increasingly bogged down in the Balochistan quagmire.

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Balochistan
Pakistan

Pakistan Army's Multimillionaires

I came across some fascinating information provided by Dr. Ayesha Siddiqa-Agha, an acknowledged independent expert authority on Pakistani military matters.

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First, here are some details about Dr. Ayesha Siddiqa-Agha which I’ve manage to collect from the Internet.

Her expertise: South Asia, military expenditure, arms control, arms procurement.

Her Brief Bio:
She did her doctorate from King's College, London in 1996 and has worked on issues varying from military expenditure, defence decision-making, nuclear deterrence, arms procurement, arms production to civil-military relations in South Asia. She is also a Ford Fellow and more recently Pakistan Scholar at t he Woodrow Wilson International Centre for Scholars.
She began her professional career with the Pakistan navy as the Director of Naval Research, making her the first civilian and woman to work at that position in Pakistan's defence establishment. She writes for various international journals such as: Journal of Asian Affairs, Journal of the European Institute of Asian Studies, Jane's Defence Weekly and the Bulletin of Atomic Scientists. Her major publication to date is the book Pakistan's Arms Procurement and Military Buildup, 1979-99: In Search of a Policy (Palgrave Press, 2001).

The reason for the above blurb on Dr. Ayesha Siddiqa-Agha will soon become apparent; I simply wished to establish her credentials and highlight the fact that she is no intellectual light weight in her specialised field of knowledge.

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And now for the extracts from an email interview she gave to DesPardes.com's Editor-in-Chief Irshad Salim, August 2005, about the new book she is currently working on: "Military Inc, The Politics of Military's Economy in Pakistan".

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Question: So what is this book about?

Dr. Siddiqa: This book is about military business operations with a case study of Pakistan.

Question: So what prompted you to write this book?

Dr. Siddiqa: I was a civil servant. During the course of my work I had to deal with numbers of military spending and doing that one slowly realized that a lot was hidden. It is the search for numbers that took me in this direction. The other thing is that it is essential to understand the dynamics of the institution that virtually controls Pakistan's past, present and future.

Question: Ok, so who did you work for as a civil servant?

Dr. Siddiqa: I joined the civil service in 1988 and left in 2001. Served in military accounts, defence audit and later the navy.

Question: Going back to the Pakistan army’s business, what are your findings?

Dr. Siddiqa: Several. First, the military has become predatory engaging in political and economic predation. Second, political predation is not complete without economic predation. Third, military has mutated into a separate class that shares interests with other members of the ruling elite. Finally, because the military protects its vested interests, it leads to alienation of the masses.

Question: When did all this start?

Dr. Siddiqa: It dates back to the early 1950s. The business ventures were started with the establishing of the first foundation called the Fauji Foundation in 1953. This was established with the war veteran's rehabilitation fund of Rs. 18 million.

Question: Why do you consider forming Fauji Foundation a predatory step by the army?

Dr. Siddiqa: Listen you have to understand the concept. A politically strong entity that engages in political predation needs to feel economically or financially autonomous. This completes the picture of predation. The generals thought that they wanted to establish independent means of providing for their welfare and not depending on the civilians like it happened in India. The financial autonomy gradually created the logic for greater interest in political control.

Question: Give me one or two instances when the 1953 move swirled into predation.

Dr. Siddiqa: It started right then with Ayub Khan and his cabal getting agricultural land and establishing independent means for themselves.Look at Ayub Khan. He not only got several squares of agricultural land in Sindh, he also established his sons into business. Look at the entire lot of generals at the moment. A Major General has a legal worth of about Rs. 300 million [Rs. 30 crores]. These are conservative estimates.

Question: Going back to Pakistan army's economic superpower...What percentage of the GDP and GNP is it?

Dr. Siddiqa: This is difficult to calculate but their own estimates are about 4 % of GDP. I would say that their share in private sector assets is about 7-10 percent of private sector assets. This is a large number for any single group.

Question: Can you translate that into crores?

Dr. Siddiqa: 7-10 percent of private sector assets cannot be translated but I can give you another figure: They are worth about Rs. 200 billion. It is just the business. If you put in real estate then we are talking about a Rs 1 trillion plus economy.

Question: You mean Pakistan army's side economy?

Dr. Siddiqa: Yes. This includes real estate, businesses done by subsidiaries, organizations and individuals. You have to understand that this economy is predatory by nature because it does not accept any form of civilian control over it. It is independent in terms of planning, appropriation of funds, etc.

Question: If Pakistan army's assets total Rs 1 trillion can they fund Pakistan’s annual budget wholly or partially if they have to?

Dr. Siddiqa: This would, converting these resources into liquid assets and then it would be possible to pay. A lot of these resources are state resources that could provide for military expenditure and more. It is difficult to say that this money would fund the entire budget. Of course, it can but over what period? These assets were acquired over time and their value should be added to the annual defence budget.

Question: What was the defence budget for the year 2001?

Dr. Siddiqa: 131 billion. If you add these numbers the budget would escalate to over Rs. 400 billion

Question: When you left in 2001 how many generals, etc were there who form the command structure of Pakistan forces?

Dr. Siddiqa: Brigadier and up would be a few hundred.

Question: So if we assume 100 then 100 times 300 million = 30 billion is the legal worth of army's command structure correct?

Dr. Siddiqa: it is more but don't get into these fancy numbers... Plus the higher you go the more pricy you become. A full general is worth Rs 500 million [Rs. 50 crores] plus

Question: How much land does the forces own in each province?

Dr. Siddiqa: Difficult to bifurcate but to give you a taste - they own about 7-9 million acres in Punjab alone

Question: What percentage is it of whole of Punjab?

Dr. Siddiqa: I am still trying to figure this out. It is not an issue of what percentage is this of Punjab but that a major portion of state land is appropriated by one group

Question: What about Sindh?

Dr. Siddiqa: My sense is that it is less in Sindh

Question: Why is that?

Dr. Siddiqa: Most of the land is around the 2 barrages constructed after independence. Because they didn't make new barrages.

Question: What is their modus operandi in getting these lands allotment

Dr. Siddiqa: 10 % of land, according to the 1912 Colonization of Land Act, is allotted to the military

Question: 10% everywhere?

Dr. Siddiqa: Yes it would be everywhere land is found. Colonization of land refers to each land reclaimed due to creation of water channels and other irrigation projects. However, they tend to get more in Punjab

Question: Does India have this act too?

Dr. Siddiqa: No. They got rid of such acts when they did land reforms. Remember India is a state moving towards capitalism. A capitalist state would not create means for institutionalizing feudalism

Question: Are you saying Pakistan army has institutionalized feudalism?

Dr. Siddiqa: I am saying that it is a feudal institution as well

Question: So in that case their interests converge with feudal system correct?

Dr. Siddiqa: Yes

Question: Do you think they resisted land reform along with the feudal?

Dr. Siddiqa: I wouldn't say that they resisted but they had sufficient stakes not to pursue a policy that had a negative impact on their benefits. For example, who buys the land the Faujis sell? The local feudal or the new rural capitalist class that is equally feudal in nature. Why should the officers then try to destroy the class that bails them out financially. After 1999, generals have started to keep their lands

Question: What happened after 1999

Dr. Siddiqa: Since the value of land has gone up, especially after 9/11, generals now keep lands and have turned into absentee land lords

Question: Why did the value of land in Pakistan go up after 9/11

Dr. Siddiqa: Because of the money that started to flow in from Pakistani expatriates plus other Muslim countries

Question: What is their modus operandi in getting these lands allotted to generals individually and to their housing societies collectively?

Dr. Siddiqa: The provincial governments allot the land to the Ministry of Defence who then gives the land to the three services for further dispersal. The land is also given to the Jawans but the quantity is lesser than what is given to the senior officers. Plus, the generals get greater facilities in making the land cultivable.

Question: All this is based on 1912 colonization of land act that India got rid of and Pakistan still has?

Dr. Siddiqa: Yes, but they have done alterations as well. For instance, the act does not say that land meant for operational purpose be appropriated for personal use. It is against the law

Question: Are you saying that land meant for operational purposes are or have been appropriated to the generals for personal use or to the housing societies?

Dr. Siddiqa: Of course. All land in the cities is military land turned into housing colonies

Question: What is the conclusion of your book?

Dr. Siddiqa: Simple: The political leadership in Pakistan has to negotiate the military's gradual withdrawal from the economy if they want democratic institutions to grow

Question: At what value does the army buy land?

Dr. Siddiqa: Between Rs. 30-60 per acre. In some cases they pay more. This refers to the private housing schemes

Question: You mean in Defence Society in Karachi, the army gets land from the provincial govt for 30 to 60 rupees an acre only?

Dr. Siddiqa: There are 2 methods for getting land. All the military land converted for personal use is given at the ridiculous price I quoted. Then there are other schemes where they pay a little more. For instance, the Cantonment Board distributed plots of 500 yards each by appropriating part of the parking lot of the Karachi stadium. Each plot was for about Rs 600,000

Question: What was the fair market value of each plot at that time?

Dr. Siddiqa: One and a half crore

Question: Who got these plots?

Dr. Siddiqa: Generals. The bulk goes to generals. This was done by General Tauqeer Zia. As Chairman Cricket Control Board he authorized himself to return this land that once belonged to the Cantonment Board for further distribution

Question: Any more instances of such land grabbing?

Dr. Siddiqa: The entire Lahore Cantonment was turned into housing schemes. In fact, except for Defence phase I & II (Lahore), the rest of the land does not even belong to the military

Question: How many acres is Lahore Cantonment, if you know?

Dr. Siddiqa: About 8000 to 10,000.

Question: What is its fair market worth now

Dr. Siddiqa: Runs into billions. It should be around Rs. 700 billion

Question: What was the "grabbing price"

Dr. Siddiqa: As I said, Rs. 30-60. This is the rate that officers pay.
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I recall a journalist telling me that once at a press conference Sardar Attaullah Mengal declared that while the military regime constantly lambasted the Baloch sardars like him for cornering the wealth of Balochistan, he would gladly swap all his assets with those of any general any time, any day.

Now, thanks to Dr Siddiqa, I finally realise what Mengal was getting at.

It soon becomes very obvious that most of us have opted for the wrong career. If a banker friend of mine is right, then the highest paid salaried civilian is one Farooq Bengali, currently heading some Arab bank based in Karachi. Bengali’s annual salary package is rumoured to be in the range of Rs. 3 crores per annum.

Considering it took Farooq Bengali years of much lower salaries to get there and the fact he’ll mostly likely get this kind of salary for eight years at the very most – the maximum he can hope to accumulate in his lifetime is Rs 30 crores. This sum equals, according to Dr Siddiqa, an average major general’s net worth. There must be a few dozen of major generals around at any given time, so there ought to much great scope in getting there; after all there is only job available like Farooq Bengali’s, and he is currently occupying it.

Besides, once Farooq Bengali retires he goes home. The same doesn’t apply to our retired generals; they can become provincial governors, federal ministers, ambassadors, heads of one of the numerous Fauji conglomerates or even be in a position to mismanage the Pakistan Cricket Board. Now that is what a richly rewarding career is all about.

Balochistan
Pakistan

'The Economist' on Musharraf

The Economist used be one of my favourite magazines until its perchant for conservatism overtook good sense and it became enamoured by George W. Bush

Anyhow, here is what its editorial staff have to say in the magazine's latest issue about the Commando-in-Control and his current travails.
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Musharraf's unhappy new year
Jan 19th 2006 LAHORE From The Economist print edition
Troubles are piling up for Pakistan's president

FOR Pervez Musharraf, Pakistan's president, troubles are coming not as single spies but in battalions. An American rocket attack on January 13th on a remote mountain village in Bajaur, a tribal agency near the border with Afghanistan, provoked angry nation-wide protests. Army action in Baluchistan province against rebellious tribesmen continues to take a toll of soldiers and civilians, and this week anonymous threats prompted foreign aid organisations to suspend operations there. Pakistan-controlled Kashmir, devastated by an earthquake in October, is suffering the misery of a Himalayan winter. Many Pakistanis fear the peace process with India is going nowhere (see article). To cap it all, the president has faced a political rebellion in Sindh province.

The strike in Bajaur was aimed at Ayman al-Zawahiri, the deputy leader of al-Qaeda, mistakenly thought to be there. It is reported to have killed three or four al-Qaeda terrorists—including an explosives expert on the most-wanted list—but also 18 civilians, including women and children. Pakistan has complained, but not over-loudly, given the presumed existence of secret agreements allowing America to wage war on Pakistani soil in certain extreme circumstances.

For the past three years, Pakistan's army has faced an uphill task in this mountainous area. It is infested with heavily armed Taliban and al-Qaeda remnants, bent on making trouble in Afghanistan. Hardly a day goes by without killings by both sides. On January 10th, for instance, seven soldiers and 14 “terrorists” died in clashes in the tribal areas. Locals sympathise with the militants and see the army as an intruder, there at the behest of the Americans. The army commanders say they have killed hundreds of foreign fighters, and frequently claim that the job is almost done. But that is not the case.

As if his troubles in the tribal areas and Baluchistan were not enough, General Musharraf has antagonised Sindh province by promoting the construction of a dam on the Indus river at a place called Kalabagh in Punjab. Sindh, further downstream, is bitterly opposed to the project. Such is the lack of trust that Sindhis suspect Punjabis will “steal” the waters of “their” Indus. They fear that new canals from the dam's reservoir will reduce the flow of water and leave the fertile Indus delta in Sindh vulnerable to the encroachments of the Arabian Sea.
In Sindh, even members of General Musharraf's own ruling coalition are afraid of openly supporting him. In early January the Muttahida Qaumi Movement (MQM), which controls Karachi and the urban areas of Sindh, threatened to quit the Sindh government unless the Kalabagh project was ditched, and military action in Baluchistan halted. It took Pakistan's prime minister, Shaukat Aziz, and General Musharraf an hour each on the phone to placate Altaf Hussain, the MQM's leader, who lives in self-imposed exile in London.

This week, General Musharraf was forced into an embarrassing retreat. Instead of Kalabagh, he said on national television, two other dams would be built first. MQM workers celebrated by dancing on the streets of Karachi. Yet delay in building a string of big dams, including Kalabagh (the most feasible one), could seriously impair agricultural productivity and energy supplies. According to a World Bank study, Pakistan is already one of the most water-stressed countries in the world, “a situation which is going to degrade into outright water scarcity”. Pakistan has only 150 cubic metres (33,000 gallons) of water storage per person compared with over 5,000 cubic metres in America and Australia and 2,200 in China.
Many Pakistanis criticise General Musharraf for making his own life difficult by picking fights on so many controversial fronts. He seems rattled by the opposition he has provoked, and has resorted to bluster. In December he thundered against the rebellious Baluch tribesmen: “I will sort them out—they won't know what hit them.” In the event, the insurgents almost downed an army helicopter carrying the top military commander in Baluchistan. The rebels also had the audacity to lob rockets at General Musharraf himself when he visited the area last month.

If unchecked, the Baluch insurgency could destabilise the region and jeopardise oil and gas exploration, which are critical to Pakistan's economy. Similarly, any laxity in prosecuting the war against militants in the tribal areas bordering Afghanistan would hurt relations with America, Pakistan's most important benefactor. As it is, the Americans are still pressing for a chance to interrogate the disgraced scientist, Abdul Qadeer Khan, outside Pakistan about help he is alleged to have provided for Iran's nuclear programme. Handing the father of Pakistan's nuclear deterrent over would infuriate nationalists at home.

Besieged as he seems to be, General Musharraf still shows no inclination to broaden his political base by making friends with the parties of Benazir Bhutto and Nawaz Sharif, two exiled former prime ministers. Rather, he seems to see the presidential elections due next year as a chance to weaken them further, and consolidate his own power. Ruling Pakistan is not at all easy, even for an all-powerful dictator who, most observers reckon, sincerely wants to do well by the country.

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Your Blogger's comment on the last point: In my view saying 'an all-powerful dictator who...sincerely wants to do well by the country' is all very good but for the fact 'what is judged good for the country' comes from the viewpoint of an Army General and all the extraneous baggage that position brings with it.

Unfortunately it is this very Army viewpoint which has, in my opinion, immeasurably damaged the country over a period of over five decades. Besides , these days one might also question Musharraf's prime motivations - how much weight does he place on considerations which relate to safeguarding his grip on power vs. what is genuinely good in the interests of all Pakistanis?

Musharraf
Pakistan
The Economist

CIA Missile Attack - Musharraf Was Told in Advance

While surfing for news your Blogger came across this interesting item from last Sunday’s New York Times:

Asked whether the United States was likely to have alerted Pakistani officials in advance of the attack, Senator Lott said, "I have every reason to believe that there was some communication at higher levels of the government."

And by the by - in case we miss the picture - Trent Lott is not only a former Senate majority leader but he remains a very active member of the Senate Intelligence Committee which, among other things, oversees the CIA.

Damadola
Pakistan

CIA

Musharraf the Mendacious

During his televised address to the nation on Tuesday night Musharraf, referring to the conflict in Balochistan, said:

"No action is under way now, only Frontier Corps will act in self-defence and deal with the anti-development elements."

Someone should ask him: Since when have helicopter gunships, air force fighter bombers, heavy artillery and mortars been handed over to the Frontier Constabulary?

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The reasons for Musharraf’s blatant mendacity are plain to see.

The fact is the military regime really couldn’t give a flying hoot (within certain given limits, of course) what the so-called English-speaking elite read in the Dawn, Nation, Daily Times and The News et al.

It is the vernacular press (Jang, Nawae-Waqt, etc) and those that read it, who are critical for Musharraf’s continued hold on power. What the ‘English-speaking elite’ probably fails to realise is that the vernacular press is kept firmly on a tight leash and continually fed with the regime’s version of events in Balochistan. By continually denying military action in Balochistan Musharraf is playing to the gallery of the millions of ordinary Pakistanis who, he hopes, will fall for the one-sided view that is constantly being presented before them.

Balochistan
Pakistan

Musharraf the Indecisive

On 12 December Musharraf came to the capital of Sindh and addressed editors and senior journalists of national and regional newspapers at the Governor House at Karachi.

Here are the salient excerpts from his address that I have extracted from the Daily Times’s account:

• ‘Previous governments had failed to make difficult decisions for reasons of political expediency and lack of courage’
• ‘I am ... not of that sort. I have courage to face problems squarely’
• ‘Consensus or no consensus, Kalabagh Dam will go ahead’.

Then he uttered something weird: “Let me tell you, the people of Punjab will topple any government which tries to shelve this project after it has started.” (This statement was corroborated by other newspapers as well)

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(For the record a fortnight later at a convention of opposition parties a resolution was passed which stated, as reported in Dawn:

• That Musharraf’s argument that Punjab would topple any government that opposed the Kalabagh dam was a testimony that he wanted to pit federating units against each other.
• "It proves that Punjab is Pakistan and Pakistan is Punjab,” the two-page resolution read and warned that President Musharraf and his associates would be squarely responsible for any harm done to the integrity of Pakistan.)

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After over a month of snapping and snarling (I imagine that is what he feels a commando ought to do) at people expressing contrary views on Kalabagh Dam, guess what he does? He crumbles, eats humble pie and says: “Public opinion, mostly in Sindh ... is not fully on board. I respect this public opinion’ and opts instead for Basha and Munda Dams.

The General by raising the Kalabagh Dam issue managed to raise the hackles of large parts of Sindh, NWFP and Balochistan (the latter being already enraged about having to cope with Musharraf’s helicopter gunships and fighter bombers). Now it seems that his latest decision has caused his popularity to dip among some of most his sycophantic supporters from Punjab. (See: Many cabinet members oppose KBD postponement – Daily Times).

Yet, as today’s Daily Times editorial points out, there maybe a ray of good fortune for Musharraf despite having once again revealed his emblematic indecisiveness. The reversal on Kalabagh, the Daily Times believes, might lead to further disarray within the ranks of opposition parties.

The public reaction has proved that it was a good “retreat” to beat, so good in fact that it might actually be called an “advance”. ..The MQM is overjoyed and is now well set to extract as much mileage from it as it can at the expense of the PPP in Sindh. It has been distributing “sweetmeats” in the streets of Karachi saying that Altaf Hussain has “saved the people of Sindh” from disaster. As for the rest of the Sindhi opponents of the Kalabagh Dam, most of them had suggested that Basha should be built and they must now show grace by accepting what has been finally decided.

.… The PPP was at sixes and sevens on the issue. National-level leader Makhdoom Amin Fahim said quite clearly that he favoured the Skardu-Katzara Dam, most probably after hearing that the Sindhi head of the Technical Committee, ANG Abbasi, had proposed it. On the other hand, the Sindh-level leader Nisar Khuro had proclaimed that his party was opposed to any dam at all “because there is no water to store”. What stance will the PPP finally take?

The isolation of President Musharraf had prompted many to join the political bandwagon against Kalabagh Dam, including the PPP in Punjab. Since the PMLN has always been in favour of the Dam (“provided it is backed by national consensus”) it will stand to lose support at the home base if it cavils with what has been decided now. This will put the PPP, the largest party in the country, on the spot. It simply can’t afford to blunt its opposition to President Musharraf by appearing to agree. If Ms Bhutto decides the final position, she will have to cross this tough and divisive intra-party Rubicon. On the other hand, the MMA will have to rely on the trouble in FATA to retain the intensity that Qazi Hussain Ahmad seems to favour more than Maulana Fazl ur Rehman.

Which view is right? Only time will tell.

Kalabagh Dam
Pakistan

The Spin on the Missile Attack at Damadola

Trying to decipher facts from a multitude of disjointed news stories is never an easy task.

Let’s begin with the simple facts first:

At about 3 am on the morning of 13th January a series of powerful missiles fired from a CIA-controlled Predator drone destroyed three mud house compounds, killing some 18 men, women and children, in the village of Damadola Burkanday in tehsil Mamoon of Bajaur agency located in Pakistan’s NWFP Province.

Later a new report informed us that the three mud house compounds belonged to the families of Bakhtpur, Muhammad Rahim and Bacha Khan.

Subsequently we obtained fresh knowledge from a Pakistani intelligence official who provided information to the Guardian:

'The official said that hours before the strike some unidentified guests had arrived at the home of a tribesman named Shah Zaman.'

Another source then informed us that the ‘suspect’ Shah Zaman was a brother of Bakhtpur (who died in the attack). So we may surmise, that in all likelihood, Shah Zaman and Bakhtpur lived in the same family housing compound as is the common tradition in most of the tribal and rural belts of Pakistan.

Apart from losing his brother Bakhtpur, the ‘suspect’ Shah Zaman also lost a number of his children in the missile attack. He told the reporters from the UK Observer

'This is a big lie... Only our family members died in the attack,' said Shah Zaman, a jeweller who lost two sons and a daughter in the attack. 'They dropped bombs from planes and we were in no position to stop them... or to tell them we are innocent. I don't know [al-Zawahiri]. He was not at my home. No foreigner was at my home when the planes came and dropped bombs.'

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As hordes of reporters descended upon the village, we heard from:

The Associated Press who met with:

[Shah] Zaman's neighbour, Shamroze Khan, 55, [confirmed that] he had never noticed any foreigner in their compound before.

Then the Guardian told us:

Local lawmaker Sahibzada Haroon ur Rashid, who visited Damadola soon after the attack, said the dead had been buried and that no foreigners were among them. They came from a local family of jewelers, he said, adding that none of the bodies was burned so badly that identification was difficult.

A reporter from Newsweek, who also reached Damadola, was also told the same thing by the villagers: only locals died. While there he came across Muhammad Rahim, one of the other owners of the destroyed mud house compounds. This how Newsweek reported him:

Mohammed Rahim, 70, owner of one of the destroyed houses, wailed that several in his family had been killed. "I can't feed my own family. How could I afford to be hosting Zorayi?" he said, mispronouncing Zawahiri's name.

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Could Shah Zaman have invited Zawahiri for dinner? I, for one, go along with BBC’s analysis:

The destroyed houses belonged to local jewellers, who had no history of taking part in religious or tribal politics.Analysts of Pashtun (Pathan) society say such people are not land-owners and do not command the kind of status or respect to invite a militant leader of the stature of Ayman al-Zawahiri for dinner, as some reports have suggested.

Early on an adamant senior Pakistani intelligence officer, commenting on CIA’s missile attack, told Associated Press’s Riaz Khan ( as reported in the Guardian) :

‘Their information was wrong, and our investigations conclude that they acted on a false information,'' said a senior intelligence official who has direct knowledge of the investigations launched by Pakistan to look into the attacks.’

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And so we have a picture, not precisely clear but enough for our purposes to draw the following conclusions:

• It was Shah Zaman whose house was targeted by the CIA because the agency ‘believed’ that Zawahiri would be his overnight visitor at the time of the attack.
• There were no members of the Al Qaeda present. Though at a stretch, even if on the remote chance there were outsider guests present, they would have been fellow Pathans from Afghanistan, but not necessarily terrorist though - perhaps religious and therefore pro-Taliban as many of them tend to be.

And now, believe you me, we are told that some fellow by the name of Fahim Wazir, apparently the Political Administrator (equivalent of a DCO) of the Bajaur region, has announced:

"At least four to five foreign elements had also been killed in the incident, but their bodies were removed from the scene within no time by their companions, so as to suppress the actual reason of the attack," (New York Times).

The logical question then becomes: Since when, under a military regime, does a lowly Tribal Area PA have the cojones to make such a dramatic and completely unsubstantiated allegation to the world press?

Herein lieth the answer - under an appropriately titled piece Confusion Shrouds Pakistan Attack -Regional Officials Report Foreign Militants Killed the Washington Post, while reporting Fahim Wazir’s unsupported claim, quite shrewdly notes:

‘The Pakistani report bolstered earlier U.S. assertions of strong pre-strike intelligence that a group of al Qaeda figures was in the immediate area.

The picture becomes suddenly obvious - yes, while there were no ‘terrorists’ in Damadola, the military regime has to ensure its survival. So now we can see a two-pronged approach emanating from Islamabad:

1. Placate the infuriated local populace by allowing Pakistani diplomats to ever so hesitantly take the US ‘to task’ so that it can be splashed all over in the Urdu press.
2. Then soothe the embarrassment of the CIA - and possibly appease the US intelligence agency's anger at having been provided faulty information from Pakistan - by suggesting to the world that Americans may have been right all along, as it was simply a case of sheer bad luck that prevented them from getting their target.

So tell me who is kidding who?

Damadola
Pakistan
CIA

WSJournal Reprimands Musharraf on Balochistan Crisis

A timely opinion from US capitalism’s watchdog – The Wall Street Journal.

It calls for the democratization of Pakistan and not surprisingly accuses the military of fudging the real issues behind Balochistan’s discontent, as well as noting the similarities between the Khaki stupidities of 1971 and today.

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Wall Street Journal on Balochistan
By Federic Grare ( French expert on South Asia) & Georges Perkovich (Vice President for Studies at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace)

If you can’t find Balochistan on a map, you’re not alone.

Here are some clues: It’s next to Iran and Afghanistan. It’s the biggest province in Pakistan, the one where the most of the oil and gas rigs are. Lots of Chinese can be found there, because they are building an enormous commercial and military port in Gwadar, at the mouth of the Persian Gulf. There are two military bases from which US forces fight the war on terrorism.
Don’t plan a trip to Balochistan any time soon, though. It’s recently come under fire from troops, helicopter gunships and fighter bombers – sent by the West’s favourite military ruler, Gen Pervez Musharraf.

Balochistan, which has a literacy rate of 25 percent (3 percent for women), has never been integrated into Pakistan. Neither Balochistan’s rough tribal leaders nor the Punjabi-dominated elites of Pakistan have been able to rise beyond an uneasy colonial relationship. The current Baloch insurgency is the fourth in 67 years.

Since 9/11, the US government has downplayed the importance of democratic reform in Pakistan, and Balochistan shows why this is a dangerous mistake. Repression by the military-dominated central government will only exacerbate Pakistan’s instability and economic problems. The two US bases in Balochistan – and cooperation needed in combating terrorism in Afghanistan – could be compromised. Chaos in Balochistan could also aggravate competitive Sino-US relations in the region.

The Baloch have three main grievances that all reflect a general sense of being exploited as a colony by Punjab, the most powerful and populated province of Pakistan.

They demand a fairer share of royalties generated by the production of natural gas in their province. The federal government pays a much lower price for each unit of gas produced in Balochistan than it does for gas produced in other provinces. Moreover, Balochistan receives no more that 12.4 percent of the royalties generated for supplying gas.

The people of Balochistan want to be included, rather than marginalized, in the huge development projects the central government has brought to the coast, particularly the Gwadar port. There is no technical school or college in the area to train locals for future participation in the development projects. Those employed so far have been only daily wage labourers.

They also reject the Punjabi-dominated army’s establishment of new military cantonments in their province, and the selling at nominal prices by the central government of choice coastal property to out-of-province developers.

In other words, the Baloch want Balochistan for Balochis, not for others.

The government replies that Balochistan’s resources are national property and has made only nominal concessions. The conflict, it says, is the fault of a few greedy obscurantist tribal leaders opposed to the development of the province.

This argument resembles that which the Punjabi-dominated central government made in the early 1970s towards East Pakistan before massive violence and war with India erupted, leading to the creation of Bangladesh. Similarly the Musharraf regime has responded with military force, air strikes, and – according to some reports – the use of napalm.

The military rulers are more fearful of the situation than they admit, and have tried to conceal the real nature of the conflict in different ways. Balochistan is an anti-clerical province whose tribes have nothing to do with the sort of Islamism of the Taliban or Al Qaeda. Yet the Pakistani government has tried to tar the Baloch with the Islamist brush, in part to keep the international community from paying more attention to the real problems in the province.

The central government in Islamabad also has sought to blame the unrest on ‘foreign hands’, with the main culprits being India, Iran and the US, depending on who the audience is. Lately, the government says ‘criminal elements’ lay behind the insurgency.

The truth is that the development level is abysmal throughout the province. Many of the Balochis’ claims could have been satisfied without jeopardizing the country’s territorial integrity. The leaders of the Baloch nationalist movement have made it known that they would be satisfied with a generous version of autonomy. Instead, the conflict is now spreading.

Reconciling conflicting interests and seeking fair allocations of the costs and benefits of development is what governments are supposed to do. And history suggests that democratic governments, for all their drawbacks, tend to produce fairer allocations that dictatorships do.

By contrast, the manipulation of the 2002 elections, which gave the provincial government to a coalition of conservatives and Islamists, deprived the Baloch nationalists of any say in the allocation of resources.

Balochistan is yet another example of the risks of postponing democratization in Pakistan. The outcome could be a major civil war, whose consequences on regional stability and the war against terrorism are likely to be unpredictable – and anything but positive.

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Balochistan
Pakistan

Spot On!

Accurately capturing the barefaced Lie

(Cartoon by Zahoor in today’s Daily Times)

Damadola

A Modern Sage’s Advice for Indians

In his latest book ‘The Argumentative Indian’, Amartya Sen - the sage from Bengal as Tariq Ali calls him - offers some wise and sensible advice to his compatriots on their dealings with neighbouring Pakistan.


He writes:

[No] country has as much stake as India in having a prosperous and civilian democracy in Pakistan. Even though the Nawaz Sharif government was clearly corrupt in many ways, India’s interests are not well served by the undermining of civilian rule in Pakistan, to be replaced by activist military leaders. Also, the encouragement of cross-border terrorism, which India accuses Pakistan of, is likely to be dampened rather than encouraged by Pakistan’s economic prosperity and civilian politics. It is particularly important in this context to point to the dangerousness of the argument, often heard in India, that the burden of public expenditure would be unbearable for Pakistan, given its smaller size and relatively stagnant economy, than it is for India. This may well be the case, but the penalty that could visit India from an impoverished and desperate Pakistan, in the present situation of massive insecurity, could be catastrophic. Strengthening of Pakistan’s stability and enhancement of its well-being has prudential importance for India, in addition to its obvious ethical significance. That central connection – between the moral and the prudential – must urgently be grasped.

Amartya Sen, The Argumentative Indian – Writings on Indian History, Culture and Identity, Allen Lane, UK, 2005, pp. 268-269.

Amartya Sen
Pakistan
India

Drones, Lies and Violent Deaths

On 13th January missiles ripped through three village compounds in the Bajur tribal area of the NWFP Province. They ended up killing 18 innocent Pakistani civilians. The dead included 14 members of a single family. Among those killed were four children, aged between five and ten, and at least two women.

According to next day’s Dawn:

Government officials, who spoke on the condition of anonymity, said that four aircraft violated the country’s airspace and entered the tribal area from Afghanistan’s troubled Kunar province at about 3am. The intruding aircraft fired at least nine missiles at houses in Damadola…

Soon afterwards the US Defence Department denied that the US military had carried out any attacks in the area (source: Forbes)

It was the Washington Post that broke the news by reporting that the attack had been carried out by the CIA. According to the newspaper, the US intelligence agency had used one of its armed drones to carry out the attack and the intended target had been the al-Qaeda's deputy, Dr Ayman al-Zawahiri.

Then quoting a US intelligence source the US newspaper further revealed:

"[The missile strike] would not have happened without Pakistani involvement," the source said, adding that Pakistanis were "heavily involved." He said the attack was planned and executed by a combination of CIA officers in Pakistan and Pakistani officials.

Ouch!

Your Blogger has come to learn that when Pakistani officials went to Damadola on 14th January to obtain DNA samples from the dead (to ascertain whether Zawahiri had been killed), they were chased off by a violently incensed mob of villagers.

In any event, it turns out that Zawahiri (who apparently is married to a lady from the Mohmand tribe - the majority population in Damadola village) was not present at the time of the missile attack. A senior Pakistani intelligence has already confessed to the UK Independent, "He was invited for the dinner, but we have no evidence that he was present".

Not surprisingly our pro-US military ruler soon found himself struggling to overcome the embarrassment caused by the attack, especially since there was no dead Zawahiri to crow over.

And having been directly implicated in the debacle, our military regime desperately attempted to salvage the situation. As the UK Observer reported yesterday:

In a bid to distance themselves from what was looking like a tragic and counter-productive tactical error that had cost many innocent lives, Pakistan announced it would file a formal protest with the Americans. Information Minister Sheikh Rashid Ahmed told a news conference that the Pakistani government wanted 'to assure the people we will not allow such incidents to recur,' adding that the government had no information about al-Zawahiri.

The regime’s task is not going to all that easy. As Pakistani journalist Farhan Bokhari writes in the UK Financial Times:

"If anything, the fallout from this attack only ensures greatly popularity for anti-Musharraf and anti-US elements in this country," warned an Arab diplomat in Islamabad.
Analysts said mounting public distrust of the US had once again exposed General Musharraf's political isolation. Notwithstanding his pretence of being a liberal leader, Pakistan's main liberal political parties remain opposed to him.
"The fallout from this attack has just turned itself in to a big fiasco for General Musharraf and his US backers. This is a disaster for Musharraf. It's evidence for the people of Pakistan that the US indulges in gangsterism on their soil," warned Hasan Askari Rizvi, a Pakistani commentator on security affairs.
Lieutenant General Talat Masood, retired from the Pakistani army and now a defence and security affairs analyst, said the attack had prompted new questions over "the quality" of Pakistan's alliance with the US.
"Can the Americans come on your soil, fire upon and kill your citizens and the government doesn't have information of this attack in advance? Is there a missing trust element in all of this?That's what many Pakistanis would like to know," he said.

Yesterday thousands of protestors took to the streets in Karachi, Lahore, Islamabad and Peshawar to vent their anger at the United States and Musharraf – one of their chants targeted Musharraf directly, according to the Daily Times, the demonstrators screamed in unison : ‘Any Friend of America is a Traitor’.

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Since late 2001 the Pakistan regime has ceded control of several of its air bases to the US – these being the air bases located in Jacobabad, Dalbindin, Pasni and perhaps Shamsi. According to the Global Security Org website, both Jacobabad and Pasni bases have been sealed off with a 5km cordon being set up around the bases by our military.

The main US base is at Jacobabad which reportedly hosts small teams of the CIA, FBI, and Special Operations Forces.

Recently your Blogger was informed that a locally manufactured drone was undergoing operational testing when it was brought down by the US forces based in Jacobabad. It caused some local bewilderment as a source tells me that the Americans had been pre-warned of the drone’s flight path. One can therefore only surmise that these US teams based in Pakistan are beholden to no one, other than, of course, their own US authorities.

Pakistan

And Now For A View from the Baloch Side...

I must confess that I am not an expert on the problems of Balochistan. So for the past few days I have spend time researching the Internet for a few answers.

Among the various bit of facts and information that I was able to piece together the following was particularly provocative and quite illuminating.

On a Balochi Radio Website one Nizamuddin Nizamani (who is apparently a trainer and social researcher in the field of Sustainable Development, Conflict Management, Peace and Mediation studies) asked the following two very pertinent questions:

(This excerpt has been edited for clarity’s sake - the original can be viewed at Radiobalochi.org)

If sardars and their tribal system are the fundamental reason for the underdevelopment of Balochistan, then limited as they are to only 15 to 20 percent of territory, the remaining 80 percent of the Baloch region can be detached from their ill-affects. All the coastal line, plains and mountainous areas stretching from Gawadar, Pasni, Jewani, Ormarah, Turbat right through the Mundh near Iranian border on one side, from Quetta, Chaghi, Kharan towards Iranian border and the whole of Lasbella, Hub down towards Karachi are not subject to any form of tribal system and are therefore are out of the clutches of these tribal sardars. In view of this reality, why then does this incredibly large sardar-free zone continue to be grossly underdeveloped?

If sardars are indeed the major obstacles towards progress then the federal regime must hold itself responsible for this grim and bleak situation, as according to General Musharaf, 72 out of 75 sardars, are with the government. From this we can only conclude that 72 sardars, in connivance with federal government, have deliberately deprived Balochistan from any technological development. And it is also worth asking, considering Islamabad has such a large horde of Baloch sardars by its side, why the Establishment is been unable to resolve the Balochistan crisis?

This clearly reveals that the true problems of Balochistan do not lie with the tribal structure nor with the so called sardars, but somewhere else.

And now follows an assorted and lengthy - please bear with me because I believe it well worth a read, so take your time! - collection of hyperlinked facts and opinions for readers to ponder over and make their own conclusions

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The Military Government says : thousands of local jobs will be provided by the planned the Gwadar Naval Base, the three proposed Military Cantonments (at Sui, Kohlu and Gwadar), the Mega-Projects and fresh recruiting within the paramilitary organizations.

Absolute nonsense say the Baloch.

This was indirectly verified by this month’s , Newsline magazine, which said:

‘The Ormara naval base is another big project which has come up on the Makran coast, but Balochi nationalists maintain that the development of the second largest naval installation has not helped improve the socio-economic conditions of the local population. According to Baloch leaders, only 40 people in a population of more than ten thousand, have been given employment - and that too as daily wage workers. No educational institution has been established in Ormara town and electricity is available for only a few hours a day.’

Rashed Rehman, a well known newspaper editor from Lahore, is also on record stating that:

…projects such as the copper extraction plant in Saindak, built and currently being operated by Chinese contractors [where] no Baloch are employed.

And then one of the regime's loathed Baloch opponents, Sardar Attaullah Mengal, quoting official governments figures in the Daily Times went on to state:

That of the total 33,275 personnel of the Frontier Constabulary deployed in Balochistan, only 300 were from the province.

That only three percent of the coastguards deployed in Sindh and Balochistan were Baloch, 62 percent were from Punjab, 19 percent from Sindh and 16 percent from the NWFP.

He further added:

That the government has established 584 checkpoints in Balochistan, and if this were divided with the population of the province, it came to one checkpoint for 11,000 people, he said. India and Israel had set up fewer checkpoints in Kashmir and Palestine, which showed the government’s intentions to maintain its “stranglehold” on the province.

To the best of my knowledge no government spokesman has ever refuted Attaullah Mengal’s figures
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And now to Akbar Bugti and Sui.

Apparently in 1952 – or whenever the Government of Pakistan signed its deal with him – the Nawab owned all the land in Sui and the surrounding area. And so the Government – then based in Karachi – agreed to pay him an annual lease rental for his land. As the leased land amounts to thousands of acres the existing lease payment now made by Pakistan Petroleum Ltd. (PPL) runs into crores – Rs, 10 crores according to The Daily Times.

This happens, I am told, to be a legally binding agreement and has no connection with royalty payments to the province of Balochistan. It makes sense as some years ago I heard Hameed Haroon (Chief Executive of Dawn newspaper) say that one of the reasons Akbar Bugti was miffed with PPL was that the company had deliberately tinkered with the measurement of his leased land and was underpaying him. On the other hand the Islamabad regime insists in calling these payment ‘extortion’. So instead of constantly yelling blue murder, why doesn’t PPL take Akbar Bugti to court to resolve their contractual disagreements? (At least then the true facts of the matter will finally emerge in the public eye).

Now as far as paying royalties for the gas at Sui to the Balochistan province the facts would seem to clearly support the Baloch.

As Dawn’s Zubeida Mustafa’s states in a recent article:

The record of exploitation of the Baloch has been horrendous. Gas was first discovered at Sui in 1952 but it was only in the eighties when General Ziaul Haq decided to make Quetta a corps commander headquarters that the city was connected with the gas fields.

Even today, only six per cent of the population of Balochistan has been provided gas. As for the price paid to the province for the gas extracted from Sui, Balochistan feels severely discriminated against. Its sense of injustice is substantiated by the figures available. Punjab, Sindh and NWFP receive royalty on gas and oil at a higher rate than Balochistan - Rs 140 per million BTU for Sindh, Rs 80-190 for Punjab and Rs 36 for Balochistan. Besides the development surcharge calculated on the formula worked out by the NFC for the federal divisible pool is on the basis of population and that goes against Balochistan with only six million people.

So much for Islamabad’s much proclaimed high moral ground!
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Then there is the explosive issue of Gwadar.

Some years ago a Dawn editorial pointed out:

[The] fear of dislocation expressed by certain sections is not totally unfounded. Since the construction of the [Gwadar] port began last year, some real estate racketeers and land mafia operatives from Karachi, Lahore and other big cities have done a roaring business buying land from the local people at nominal prices and selling it off to the moneyed people and multinationals at exorbitant rates. As work progresses on the construction of the port and the infrastructure, land grabbers are making quick bucks at the expense of the local, mostly small, landowners using pressure tactics and influence with the officials forcing the owners to sell their land and relocate to the desert outside the city.

And very recently Dawn’s senior journalist Zubeida Mustafa added:

The government leaders — from the president and prime minister to petty functionaries — have been promising that development of the port area will generate jobs and economic benefits for the local population. So far, this has not happened and the technical hands and workers who are being brought from other regions by the non-Baloch contractors have reinforced the beliefs of the nationalists that Gwadar will change the ethnic composition of the province by allowing the induction of a large number of people from other provinces.

Apart from not getting any jobs the Baloch further allege:

That the military authorities have bought most of the prime land at throw-away prices are rife. According to local officials, over 80 per cent of the plots in the Gwadar Singhar Housing Scheme have been arbitrarily allotted to outsiders, many of them senior army and civilian officials.

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Now getting back to Lahore’s Rashed Rehman. According to him:

The Musharraf regime's plan to build a Rs. 100 billion road network to link the province with the rest of the country and enable it to become the hub of trade with China and Central Asia through the Gwadar port is eerily reminiscent of earlier such schemes under previous regimes. For example, when General Ziaul Haq made 'peace' with the Baloch guerrillas of the BPLF, he unveiled a US$ 1.97 billion (Rs. 120 billion at current rates of exchange) Special Development Plan for Balochistan, with a US$ 765 million road construction component. Before him, Bhutto had boasted of similar plans and achievements during the years of the fourth Balochistan war.

Baloch nationalists argue that the location of many of the new roads was not determined by economic priorities, but to allow the army to penetrate the otherwise inaccessible guerrilla base areas. Even where roads were put down to open up exploration for oil, the nationalists contend the resulting profits would flow to the Central government and foreign oil companies rather than to the province. Similar reservations are expressed about Gwadar and other mega projects. The fact that in 2005, the Musharraf regime is again announcing such programmes for Balochistan is not simply because of the new opportunities of trade with China and Central Asia, but also indicates how much of these recurring plans have remained on paper only.
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In final I’ll quote Senator Maheem Khan Baloch of the Balochistan National Party (Awami), who told The Daily Times:

The Baloch [ want] a fair quota in federal government jobs, gas royalties, a just solution to the National Finance Commission award controversy and bigger budgetary allocations from the centre.He said the province was rich in natural resources and contributes huge sums to the national exchequer, but local concerns about increasing poverty, unemployment and lack of civic amenities had been ignored.

He said the parliamentary committee on Balochistan should be given a “free hand” to find a solution to the concerns and grievances of the Baloch.

In your Blogger’s opinion it is a fair request, so I can’t help but agree with this Baloch senator.

On the other hand, to me, killing Baloch citizens of Pakistan for demanding their rights is not only stupid but a clear and barbaric crime not only against Pakistan but against the concept of God's law of natural justice.

Balochistan
Pakistan

Musharraf is Lying Yet Again...So What's New?

Like most liberal thinking-Pakistanis, to me the situation in Balochistan is fast becoming more than a cause for worry – it has instead become a critical reflection of Pakistan and what we Pakistanis endeavor to stand for.

With ordinary Pakistani women, men and children dying, thanks to our military's ‘collateral damage’, it becomes obvious that our Commando-in-Charge has become enamoured with the superb power of mendacity and barefaced dishonesty.

Putting it in a nutshell, Musharraf is probably of the view that as the greater ‘unwashed’ Awam is ‘naively illiterate and gullible’ it is only through prodigious lying that his stint in power can be further secured.


Zahid Hussain is a well-known and respected Pakistani journalist. Here is what he has to say in this month’s ‘Newsline’.

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Musharraf's Other War
By Zahid Hussain

The treacherous terrain made it an ideal location for guerrilla warfare. A thin-framed man with a cropped beard, Karim Baksh leads a group of Baloch guerrillas dug into position under a huge rock on the edge of a dusty road, a few miles away from a government paramilitary post. The ricocheting of machine-gun fire echoes in the distance.

"Let them come here, they will not be able to go back alive," Baksh laughed, stroking his Kalashnikov rifle. The others nodded approvingly. "Our men are spread all over," he claimed, pointing his finger towards the brown, parched hills. There were only a few thatched hutments scattered around the vast, barren land. The treacherous terrain made it an ideal location for guerrilla warfare.

The guerrillas, who claimed to be members of the shadowy Balochistan Liberation Army (BLA), appeared well trained and were armed with machine-guns and rocket-launchers. One of the men was constantly on a wireless set receiving information about the movement of government troops. The fighters were from both the Bugti and Marri tribes. It was certainly, by far, a different outfit to the groups that confronted the Pakistani army with bolt rifles in the 1970s. Some of them were veterans, while others belonged to a new generation of fighters who were getting a crash course in guerrilla warfare.

A school dropout, the 30-year-old Baksh took up arms almost a decade ago. "It was difficult to continue my education after the tenth class and I could not find any employment," he said. The others were even less fortunate. They never went to school at all and got involved in the conflict at a very early age.

Javandan sat quietly in a corner, playing with his rifle. His neatly curled black beard and greenish eyes betrayed his Marri antecedents. He seemed to be the most experienced of the group. "We are all united now in the struggle," he said, finally breaking his long silence.” They are bombarding our areas and killing innocent people. We don't have any choice but to fight."

The BLA, whose name first emerged during the 1970s, originally comprised mainly the Marri tribesmen loyal to Nawab Khair Baksh. But later its composition changed with members of the Bugti and Mengal tribes joining its ranks. Today, the BLA boasts many members from an educated, middle-class background. The present conflict in Balochistan has, for the first time, united the educated Baloch with the tribesmen. "People feel that they won't get their rights through democratic and legal means," said Dr. Abdul Hayee Baluch, a leader of the Balochistan National Party.

It is the first time that the two largest Baloch tribes have set aside their differences to join hands in the struggle. The Bugtis sat on the fence when the Marris led the armed insurrection in the1970s. More than 6000 Baloch and around 3000 soldiers were killed in the bloody conflict, which ended after General Zia-ul- Haq declared amnesty and allowed Khair Baksh to return home from his self-exile in Afghanistan. Thousands of Marri fighters received weapons training in Afghanistan during that period and they form the nucleus of the guerrilla forces now fighting in Balochistan.

Though the primary loyalties of the Baloch insurgents may lie with their tribal chiefs, they also appeared to be politically aware, religiously listening to the BBC Urdu service whenever possible. "What are you fighting for?" I asked. "We want the right of self-determination," they replied in unison. They were obviously well tutored.

The BLA resurfaced after the arrest of Khair Baksh in 2000, on charges of the murder of a high court judge. Initially the government dismissed the existence of the BLA, but now senior security officials concede that the group is behind the current insurgency. Intelligence agencies have accused the BLA of receiving financial aid and weapons from India. "We have evidence that the insurgents are getting help from India and some other countries which are not happy with China's involvement in the construction of Gwadar port," says a senior security official. Some intelligence officials claim that Indian intelligence agents were providing guerrilla training to the insurgents. These allegations, however, are rejected by Baloch leaders.

The BLA operates a website, "Baloch Voice," which carries reports of their actions. It has its own flag and national anthem. Its spokesmen, who identify themselves as Azad Baloch, Meerak Baloch and Col. Doda Baloch, regularly call newspaper offices in Quetta. The group is believed to have more than 5000 well trained men in its ranks. Though the identity of its leadership remains secret, it is reportedly led by Ballach, the younger son of Khair Baksh. A sitting member of the Balochistan assembly, Ballach, who is a graduate of Moscow University, is one of Pakistan's most wanted persons. His brother Meheryar, a former provincial minister now based in Dubai, is also part of the BLA leadership.

Pakistani security forces find themselves locked in a new and even fiercer battle in Balochistan. Baloch nationalists have led four insurgencies - in 1948, 1958-59, 1962-63 and 1973-77 - which were brutally suppressed by the army. Now a fifth is underway and this time the insurgents are much stronger. They are armed with more sophisticated weapons and possess a modern communications system. Can an already overstretched military deal with the increasingly volatile situation in Balochistan ?

Balochistan has remained relatively quiet for almost two decades and the return to civilian rule in 1988, brought the Baloch nationalists into the political mainstream. Although their major demands relating to natural gas royalty and allocation of resources remained unfulfilled, democracy, at least, provided the Baloch a sense of political participation. The tension started mounting a few years ago when the military government announced its intention to set up three new cantonments in Balochistan. The move was seen as a means to further tighten federal control over the province and the apprehension was not without basis. The problem of Balochistan has been chronic and is a direct consequence of an over-centralised system. The fresh deployment of army personnel further fuelled the discontent.

Under the current constitutional arrangement and the practices that have grown around it, economic resources and political power are concentrated with the federal government. The situation in Balochistan has been particularly worse, and even the maintenance of law and order is the responsibility of the federally controlled paramilitary troops. The master-servant relationship is much more stark in Balochistan than in any other province. The return of military rule has further aggravated the situation, and even the present pro-military provincial government wields no real power.

The federal government has completely ignored the long-standing demands of the nationalists to review the royalty formula on Sui gas, which had remained constant since 1952, and increase the province's share in the NFC award. Despite the government's claim of spending 120 billion rupees on mega-projects, there has not been much change in the lot of the locals, who remain the most deprived and backward section of society.

Despite such massive investment in the province, feelings of resentment against the centre run deep. There is an underlying fear that the benefits of these projects will not reach the local population and will be siphoned off to the Punjab instead. The nationalists have strong reservations on the construction of a new deep-sea port in Gwadar. They fear that the mega-project, which is being developed with the help of China, will lead to a massive influx of outside workers and turn the local population into a minority. The nationalists maintain that the project has been launched without taking the Baloch representatives into confidence. They contend that the Baloch would hardly benefit from Gwadar, or indeed any other mega-projects, as most of the jobs in the federally controlled organisations would go to the Punjab and other provinces according to the quota system. Meanwhile, land grabbing by the military further exacerbated the situation.

The Ormara naval base is another big project which has come up on the Makran coast, but Balochi nationalists maintain that the development of the second largest naval installation has not helped improve the socio-economic conditions of the local population. According to Baloch leaders, only 40 people in a population of more than ten thousand, have been given employment - and that too as daily wage workers. No educational institution has been established in Ormara town and electricity is available for only a few hours a day. Similarly, the Bugtis complain that they too are not given jobs at the Sui gas plant.

It is ironic that Balochistan, which fulfils 50 per cent of Pakistan's gas requirement and is rich in mineral resources, finds it difficult to pay the salaries of its employees. Balochistan has sought a loan of around 24 billion rupees from the Asian Development Bank at the direction of the federal government, to service foreign and federal debts amounting to 44 billion rupees. Due to its extreme financial crisis, its overdraft with the State Bank has gone up to14 billion rupees. Apart from debt-servicing foreign and federal loans, the Balochistan government pays 200 million rupees per month to the State Bank in interest for the overdraft. While President Musharraf has admitted that the province has faced injustice in the distribution of resources, a long-term solution to the problem has yet to be found.

The government often accuses Baloch tribal chiefs of blackmailing the centre and opposing development work in the area. Though this may be true to some extent, interestingly enough, the majority of the chieftains, particularly the most retrogressive ones, have always sided with the establishment. And while corruption is endemic, again it is the establishment itself that is responsible. Patronage and bribes are commonly used establishment tools to buy loyalties of corrupt politicians and perpetuate their own control.

The situation exploded last year when Bugti tribesmen, protesting against the rape of Dr. Shazia Khalid in the high-security PPL residential compound guarded by the army's elite Defence Security Group, blew up the gas installations at Sui, disrupting gas supply to the Punjab and other parts of the country for several weeks. The subsequent armed clashes between Bugtis and the security forces resulted in scores of deaths. The stand-off ended after both sides agreed to pull back from their positions and the federal government gave an assurance to implement the Senate Committee Report on Balochistan. But the promise never materialised.

Musharraf and the military leadership were not prepared to concede to Balochistan's genuine economic and political demands. Instead of addressing the Baloch grievances politically and through negotiations, the military-led government has resorted to greater use of force. Musharraf threwfuel on the fire last year when he declared :"Don't push us. It isn't the 1970s when you can hit and run and hide in the mountains. This time you won't even know what hit you." The comment provoked a strong reaction from the Baloch leaders who warned the army not to create a 1971-like situation which led to the disintegration of the country.

Sporadic incidents of violence continued after the Sui incident, but the situation flared up last month after the insurgents launched a series of rocket attacks during President Musharraf's visit to a newly constructed army garrison in Kohlu. According to informed sources, some of the shells fell less than a 100 yards from Musharraf. It was a close call. The next day a rocket hit an army helicopter carrying the Inspector General , Frontier Corps, Maj Gen Shaukat Zamir Dar, and his deputy, Brigadier Saleem Nawaz.

Following those incidents, security forces mounted a massive operation in the Marri area using air force jets and helicopter gunships. The military authorities claimed the offensive was directed against "miscreants" and aimed at destroying "terrorist camps," but many women and children were are also reportedly killed in the bombings. Senator Sanaullah Baloch alleged that security forces used poisonous gases against the people. According to official and unofficial sources, the security forces also suffered huge casualties during the operation in the Marri area.

The ongoing operation has now been extended to many other areas and thousands of paramilitary and regular troops with heavy machine-guns and artillery have been moved into the Bugti areas.

Dera Bugti looks like a town under siege, with heavily armed paramilitary troops positioned on the surrounding hills and check posts set up at the entry points. All the posts vacated by Bugti tribesmen after the March agreement have now been occupied by army troops. Heavy artillery guns and armoured cars are deployed all along the roads leading from Sui to Dera Bugti.

"It is a war now," declared Akbar Bugti, who is confined to his bullet-ridden fort. A mortar attack in March had left a huge crater on the roof of his living room and 60 of his tribesmen were killed in that attack. He himself narrowly escaped death, when a splinter brushed past his head. Heavily armed tribesmen, with flowing beards and huge turbans coiled around their heads, guard the place. Some of them have taken up positions in the bunkers around the fort.

The white-bearded charismatic tribal chieftain, who is in his late '70s, accused the government of colonising Balochistan. "We are fighting for the control of our national wealth and for our political rights," he said. The Bugti tribe owns the land which contains Pakistan's largest natural gas fields. But the majority of the tribesmen live in abject poverty, with no employment or basic health and education facilities. " We are not scared and will fight back," he warned, sounding bitter over the government's backtracking on last year's agreement. "The troops sneaked in under the cover of darkness, into positions which we had vacated under the agreement. They do not want peace. They are mistaken if they think they are superior and can eliminate us." His grandson is being accused by military authorities of being involved in the bombing incidents in Karachi and Balochistan.

The conflict has already taken a huge economic and political toll. Billions of rupees are being spent on the establishment of cantonments and the deployment of troops. However, the use of brute force has only aggravated the situation. Hundreds of people have been killed in this war, which seems to have no end in sight. Several government soldiers have been killed over the past few weeks as the insurgents intensified attacks on security forces, key economic and government installations and railway tracks.

Bugti warned that the Baloch were much better prepared to fight the army now. "Musharraf is right that this is not 1970. He will not know what has hit him," he laughed. Heavy fighting broke out as we left Dera Bugti.

Pakistan
http://technorati.com/tag/Musharraf rel="tag">Musharraf

The US Finally Fed Up With Musharraf?

Can this be true or is it simply an excercise in wishful thinking?


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From Asia Times

Jan 12, 2006

US turns against Musharraf
By Syed Saleem Shahzad


KARACHI - Pakistani President General Pervez Musharraf seized power in a military coup in 1999 and, as commander-in-chief of the armed forces, still in effect rules as a military dictator.

Musharraf's firm grip on the affairs of state has until now served Washington's interests well, as he has been able to steer the country into the US camp as an ally in the "war on terror".

However, with the Taliban nowhere near defeated in Afghanistan and Osama bin Laden and al-Qaeda still unbroken (the two major reasons that the US solicited Pakistan's assistance in the first place), the US is looking at its allies in Islamabad in a new light: Musharraf may be more the problem than the solution.

An indication of how things have slipped in the region is news that Afghan President Hamid Karzai has openly called for a truce with Taliban leader Mullah Omar. This was not how events were supposed to play out.
According to sources close to the power corridors in Washington who spoke to Asia Times Online, the administration of US President George W Bush is now convinced that a weaker Pakistani army is as necessary now as a powerful one was when Islamabad did a U-turn on its support for the Taliban soon after September 11, 2001.

This realization has taken root over the past few months, and developments since last November have been enough to set alarm bells ringing among the military leadership of Pakistan.

Goings-on in Balochistan
Rebellious tribesmen in the restive but resource-rich province of Balochistan have for decades challenged the writ of the central government in Islamabad. The Baloch insurgents have traditionally received weapons via Kandahar in Afghanistan, and via sea smuggling routes.

The Pakistani army has engaged in a number of operations in Balochistan over the years, and the most recent is continuing. The involvement of the military is highly unpopular not only among Balochis, but also among many segments of Pakistani society.

What is new in Balochistan, and which is causing concern in Islamabad, is the emergence of two sons of insurgent tribal chief Nawab Khair Bux Muri as organizers of a strong financial network to fund the insurgency.

"The whole operation of financing the Baloch insurgency is directed from Qatar, although this is a very unlikely place. One of the sons of Khair Bux Muri - Gazn Muri - has been shuttling between Qatar and the UAE [United Arab Emirates] and is the main financial link between the insurgents in Balochistan, where command is in the hands of a brother, Balaach Muri," a top Pakistani security official told Asia Times Online.

"The real question, though, is not the transmission of money, but from where Gazn Muri is getting this kind of huge money. The answer lies in the activities of another brother, Harbayar Muri, who is based in London."
Although the official would not spell it out in as many words, he was questioning how Harbayar Muri could raise funds in Britain, where there is a negligible Balochi expatriate community. It was a clear hint at the involvement of Western intelligence agencies, which have strong centers of operations in Qatar-UAE and London.

Political maneuvering
The US is also making some backroom political moves in relation to Pakistan's interests in the region.

According to a contact who spoke to Asia Times Online, a person close to the US Central Intelligence Agency paid a low-profile visit to New Delhi in the third week of December and briefed strategic planners on Washington's plan to try to curtail the role of the Pakistani army, while at the same time renewing support for democratic forces in Pakistan.

India's cold shoulder on the diplomatic front toward Pakistan and a policy statement against the military operation in Balochistan was an immediate outcome. Islamabad promptly responded by accusing India of meddling in Balochistan, charges that Delhi strenuously denied.

The same person then visited Islamabad and held high-level meetings with political personalities. On his return to the US he stopped over in Dubai in the UAE and held detailed meetings with former Pakistani premier Benazir Bhutto, who lives there.

A sudden upsurge in the activities in Pakistan of the Alliance for the Restoration of Democracy - which Bhutto supports - followed.

Musharraf's mystique
The US first made contact with Musharraf in a meaningful way when he was still Corps Commander Mangla and he approached the Americans through a Pakistani mediator. Musharraf had no particular request, but the move was seen as "unusual and meaningful".

The US concluded first that he was ambitious and only wanted power, and that he had a flawed, "split" vision.
US officials noted that to build a constituency in the Pakistani Army, Musharraf embraced the Kashmir issue and enthusiastically supported the liberation movement there.

Last year's earthquake in Kashmir, in which the extensive jihadi influence in Pakistan-administered Kashmir was made clear (they played a significant part in relief operations), convinced the Americans that the Pakistani army would never back out from its strategic activities in Kashmir through supporting the armed struggle in the Indian-administered part of the Valley.

Musharraf, who derives much of his legitimacy from the army, simply cannot afford to abandon this cause. The militancy will continue.

In this regard, the US noted the ill-fated Pakistani army venture into Kargil in Kashmir in 1999, which was conceived by Musharraf shortly before he took power. Pakistan believed that India would respond to the aggression by going to the peace table, but instead it launched its troops in a full-out assault, quite ready to go to all-out war. Pakistan pulled back its troops from the ill-conceived operation.

On the domestic front, the Musharraf administration in essence facilitated the formation of the the six-party alliance, the Muttahida Majlis-e-Amal (MMA), which made impressive political gains in the general elections of 2002.

The aim was to scare the Americans by pointing to the emergence of Islamic fundamentalism in order to garner US support for Musharraf's uniform.

Similarly, the sweeping defeat of the MMA in local elections late last year amid widespread claims of fraud was to show the Americans that Musharraf had the ability to outwit fundamentalism. In this game, Musharraf's split vision does not allow him to visualize what kind of a message he is really passing on to Washington.

According to Asia Times Online information, Washington has now decided that the best outcome would be for a new man to replace Musharraf, 64, as chief of army staff, and at the same time to encourage liberal democratic forces to take over parliament.

As for Musharraf, the ideal way out for him is to become a civilian constitutional head of the country.

pakistan
Musharraf

Those Damned 'Miscreants'

The current buzz word in Islamabad is miscreant. From the commando-in-control to his lowest grovelling flunky, they all appear to be banding this word about with complete abandon. Newspapers are currently littered with their condemnation of miscreants who seemed to exist everywhere, from Gwadar to Gilgit.

As Zubeida Mustafa, a senior local journalist, recently commented.

Officially it is said that the army is trying to root out the ‘miscreants’ and ‘saboteurs’ who are accused of creating trouble in different regions of Balochistan. These are the terms we are quite familiar with in Pakistan. It was bandied about a lot in 1970 during the civil strife in East Pakistan and the province was the target of army action... They are again doing the rounds.

Have you ever wondered what exactly the word means?

While miscreant was apparently borrowed from Old French, it roots lie in Latin. As your Blogger once studied Latin (don’t ask me why) the task becomes slightly easier. Mis is from the Latin word minus – expressing a negative force - and creant from the Latin verb credere – to believe. And so as minus + belief = disbelief, miscreant must mean ‘a disbeliever’

The Concise Oxford Dictionary (COD) informs us:
miscreant
adjective: 1. Behaving badly or unlawfully 2. Heretical (now archaic).
noun: 1. A person who behaves badly or unlawfully.2. A heretic (now archaic)

Apparently with the passage of time the term miscreant, as the COD tells us, evolved to its current meaning: ‘a person who behaves badly or unlawfully’.

Well, clearly there is no shortage of such people in Pakistan. Having been ear bashed by the wretched Islamabadis for so long I believe it time we all made our own list of notorious local miscreants.

So here is your Blogger’s list of Pakistanis who have behaved ‘badly or unlawfully’.

The Miscreant ‘Badshah’ - Pervez Musharraf
Charges: Overthrowing a legally constituted government, subverting (at military gunpoint) the nation’s Supreme Court to legitimise his unlawful coup d’etat, foisting us with a rigged referendum and a series of manipulated elections and ruling the country in complete disregard of the law (instant examples that come to mind range from the substantial to the individual - from violent suppression of rights in Balochistan to the unlawful detention of Mukhtaran Mai and the mindless declaration of innocence for the chief suspect in the Shazia Khalid’s rape case- in complete contempt of judicial procedure).

The Miscreant 'Once & Hopefully Never Amir-ul-Momineen’ - Nawaz Sharif
Charges: Conniving with generals to rig national elections (1990), subsequently indulging in massive corruption to benefit his family and then blatant disregarding constitutional and other laws of the country (including the criminal intrusion into the sanctity of the Supreme Court).

The Miscreant ‘Queen’ - Benazir Bhutto (and her Consort)
Charges: Corruption, dishonesty and cheating (the lady ought to know that taking massive commissions on government contracts is highly illegal). Ignoring her poor supporters and acting as if it was her hereditary prerogative to misrule Pakistan.

The Miscreant ‘Junta’ - The Generals Incorporated
Charges: For having constantly foisted themselves as the saviours of Pakistan and simultaneously indulging (‘behaving badly’) in feathering their nests through prodigious property grabs and other deals which they ardently maintain they are entitled to simply because of their ‘superior patriotism’.
The message for them ought to be: Gentlemen, you volunteered to join the army as a career, which means (as it does in any other country – from the USA to Papua New Guinea) that your job does necessitate, on rare occasions, risking your lives, if called upon, to defend your country. It is, as in any other country, just a job and you actually get paid for doing it.
And furthermore you people should stop blaming all and sundry for Pakistan’s problems and earnestly accept yours and your predecessors’ role in buggering up this country since 1953 (That year that subsequently self-appointed Field Marshal fellow was not only the C-in-C of the Army, but Minister of Defence and the then Governor-General’s forceful associate).
And my dear generals also do try and remember that the country is not solely your property, as there are 165 million other people who also live here.

The Miscreant 'Chumchas’ - The Urban Politicians
Charges: For placing their corrupt and criminally rapacious self-interest before their responsibility to the people of Pakistan, whom they raucously claim to represent. They have indulged themselves with industrial units, co-operatives, bank defaults, share market and property scams.

The Miscreant ‘Grungy Lot’ - The Rural Politicians
Charges: For having sworn fealty (via the military agencies) to the establishment, thus enabling themselves to be the largest fish in their little rustic ponds via the charade of rigged elections. They have habitually linked up with the local police to terrorise all those who oppose them. Their favourite criminal sideline is to sell government jobs and to occupy land belonging to the government or to someone powerless to oppose them.

The Miscreant 'Bunglers’- The Bureaucrats
Charges: For copiously ignoring their job-related responsibility to the citizens of Pakistan and instead indulging in corruption, corruption, and more corruption followed with a sickening amount of self-promotion and an overdose of demonstrable incompetence.

The Miscreant 'Criminal Force’ - The Police
Charge: For not arresting and placing themselves in jail (full stop)

The Miscreant ‘Greed Incarnate’ - The Business Elite
Charges: For blaming everyone else and ignoring their own role in impoverishing Pakistan. For taking every known possible shady shortcut, for bribing bureaucrats to change rules and conditions to win contracts, for constantly spilling crocodile tears as they get richer and the poor get poorer, and for turning a blind eye to every injustice that takes place in this country simply because it has got nothing to do with making money.

The Miscreant ‘Hypocrites' - The Mullahs
Charges: For creating a mythical and glorious past which in actuality never existed. And for taking advantage of the gullible and illiterate masses by using this myth to further their own political and largely corrupt financial ambitions.

Pakistan

Cry, The Beloved Country

Here is a picture of a Pakistani mother and her two infant children recently slaughtered by Cobra helicopter gunships provided to Musharraf by the US. This photo and several other similar pictures are currently circulating on the web and are being viewed with feelings of profound horror and distress by scores of ordinary Pakistani citizens.

I have been told by a Baloch acquaintance that the pictures are undeniably authentic – for one the rather frayed sandals worn by one of the men standing by the ravaged corpses are typical Baloch tribesmen footwear.

Collateral damage is a loathsome word made-up by the US military to gloss over civilian deaths in countries it picks to invade. This word becomes even more repulsive when it applies to the massacre of civilians by their own national army, as is apparently now taking place in the Balochistan province of Pakistan.

Rather than admit to their misdeeds, the Commando General and his flunkies have resorted to a pathetic game of semantics. These shameful individuals are now parroting the same specially chosen stock phrase:

General Musharraf - ‘made it clear no military operation was going on in Balochistan’.
Director General ISPR Maj Gen Shaukat Sultan - ‘no military operation is going on in Balochistan’.

The same idiotic mantra of ‘no military operation’ has also been publicly repeated ad nauseum by political poltroons such as the likes of Shaukat Aziz, Aftab Sherpao, Sher Afgan Niazi and Sheikh Rashid.

According to this week’s Newsweek magazine:

Thousands of paramilitary and Army troops, backed by Air Force jets and helicopter gunships, recently launched a major offensive. Baloch nationalist leaders allege that hundreds of people, including women and children, were killed in bombardments in Kohlu district.

I wish someone would ask these reality-challenged morons a simple question: How can the obvious abundant use of high-tech night vision capable, TOW-missile carrying helicopter gunships and Air Force jet fighters not be termed a military operation?

And so what if in bureaucratese the Frontier Constabulary uniformed militiamen are not officially part of the army? Not only are the FC militiamen recruited and controlled by the Ministry of Defence, but these uniformed troops are also commanded by serving army officers under the ultimate command of General Musharraf.

(And by the by, since when were these humdrum militiamen given direct control over the use of sophisticated helicopter gunships, Air Force jet fighters and heavy artillery, as are now being used in Balochistan? )

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Yesterday I read a local news report on the Internet (which all of a sudden seems to have disappeared – surprise, surprise!). This news report stated that when radio’s Voice of America correspondent Murtaza Solangi tried to contact Akbar Bugti on his satellite phone the call was answered by a person who reported that everyone in Dera Bugti was sheltering in trenches as the town was being bombarded by artillery and mortar rounds. Then the man from Dera Bugti apparently lifted his telephone receiver above the trench and the radio listeners of VOA were suddenly provided with live graphic sounds of heavy bombardment.

And so, as I said, this report suddenly vanished when I attempted today to link it to this blog. To compound this bizarre reality today I read that the Human Rights Commission of Pakistan’s (HRCP) chairman Asma Jahangir was fired upon as she attempted to reach Dera Bugti to find out the on-the-ground reality. This is what the Daily Times had to say:

According to the government, Ms Jahangir’s car was targeted by ‘miscreants’ and was escorted to safety by security forces. Ms Jahangir denied this vehemently. She said Afrasiab Khattak, former HRCP chairman, left Multan for Sui on Sunday. They were accompanied by journalists in a separate car. The cars were photographed from Multan to DG Khan by what appeared to be security personnel, Ms. Jahangir said. As the convoy approached the Balochistan border, a man pointed a torch at HRCP officials’ car and then two gunmen sprayed bullets around the car, not actually hitting it. The driver reversed the car. The journalists’ car was untouched. An FC unit is stationed half a kilometre from the site but paramilitary soldiers did not help the HRCP team.

Subsequently a shocked General Secretary of the HRCP Iqbal Haider told the Press:

That instead of being provided security, the [HRCP] delegation came under fire at the checkpost manned by the law enforcing agencies.
Terming it as unprovoked, Haider said the authorities had no legal or constitutional right to fire at peaceful citizens or to prevent them from visiting Kohlu and Dera Bugti areas.

So website news reports conveniently vanish and fact finders approaching Dera Bugti get warning shots to dissuade them from visiting. Obviously something is extremely rotten in current state of Pakistan – the smell of Khaki rot has suddenly become all too pervasive.

Sadly to date the generals of the Pakistan army have failed in every war (1948, 1965, 1971 and 1999). Their only success so far has been at the expense of Pakistani civilian lives – East Pakistan (1971) and Balochistan in 1973 – 76. It looks like our ill-fated history is being repeated by Musharraf yet again.

Killing of innocent men, women and children in Pakistan is a crime punishable by the death penalty. It is high time Musharraf and his goons were reminded that laws are meant apply to all in a country and a khaki uniform does not grant anyone any immunity.

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Dear readers

If you truly care about Pakistan then please make others aware of what is currently happening in our dear country.


Balochistan
Pakistan