The Undoing of A Genuine War Hero

Until 1987 the military award Sitara-i-Jur'at was second only to the Nishan-e-Haider ‘for acts of gallantry in the face of the enemy’. As Nishan-e-Haider is traditionally awarded to those fallen in battle, one can logically say that it was the highest award for bravery among those that survived their acts of valour in the wars of 1965 and 1971.

Among the bravest in the annals of Pakistan military history is one Brigadier Muhammad Taj (now retired) who was first awarded the Sitara-i-Jur'at as a Major in the 1965 war for showing valour beyond the call of duty when he, along with just 16 men in his command, routed two Indian rifle companies and destroyed two enemy tanks thereby forcing them to withdraw.

Then once again in 1971 Muhammad Taj, then Lt Colonel, was awarded the Sitara-e-Jurat for showing exceptional courage and ability in countering enemy forces in Dacca and Rajshahi.

The twice-decorated officer (in military parlance “Sitara-e-Jurat and Bar”), now an 80 year-old, was living peacefully in at his house in Islamabad until the night of 1 July 2006. That night, the frail old Brigadier’s house was stormed by a rowdy group of gun-totting army men.

This is how the victim, Brigadier Muhammad Taj, described it :

“Last night, an ISI Major in plainclothes, who called himself Tipu, with at least 10 men in plainclothes armed with automatic weapons entered my house and beat me, my daughter-in-law and two grandsons.

“They kidnapped us and took us away to a deserted location where they threatened us with death if my grandson did not cooperate with them in identifying the children, who had been involved in a playground incident with the relatives of a senior ISI official.

“I told them that I was not aware of the incident but could ask the people in the neighbourhood to identify the children involved. We were brought to Faizabad in a convoy of at least five vehicles where the Major proceeded to threaten the residents, and beat up and kidnapped another two boys. My daughter-in-law and grandsons were sent away to an undisclosed location by the Major. In the meantime, a crowd of local residents gathered, freed me and took the Major into custody. The Islamabad Police, who had been called by the residents, arrived and took the Major away.“

I proceeded to the I-9 Police Station, Islamabad, and met the DSP and SHO and informed them of the situation. Another ISI officer appeared at the police station in plainclothes and identified himself as Col Nisar. He was accompanied by several other officers in plain clothes.

“I explained the situation to him and he ordered the release of my daughter-in-law and grandsons aged 18 and 16. They were dropped at a deserted location near my house in I-8/4 about an hour later. My daughter-in-law’s clothes had been torn, and the boys also had their clothes torn and had been severely beaten.

“I have lodged an FIR at the I-9 police station, Islamabad, but I find the police powerless to take any action in this situation. In fact the police staff are fearful for their own safety.”

Yesterday Ardeshir Cowasjee wrote in his Sunday column:

There were many witnesses to the incident that took place on the night of July 1. Three houses on Street 86, I-8/4 were targeted by armed men in two separate cavalcades of double-cabined vehicles. From one house, an ailing teenager awaiting heart surgery was dragged out of his house, thrown on to the street, beaten and then thrown into one of the vehicles. His mother tried to come to his aid but she was pushed aside, her clothes torn, and she also was loaded into a vehicle. Brigadier Taj was slapped, pushed, roughed up, and pushed into one of the double cabins, and the cavalcades sped away.

The mother and her sons were taken to the G-9 office of the ISI while Brigadier Taj was taken to Faizabad to identify the other teenagers involved. Two other boys were picked up and sent to an agency ‘safe house.’

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And why did this obscene abuse of power take place?

According to The News: Some boys ‘had beaten [a] General’s son in a playground fight’.

The general according to a subsequent The News report was revealed to be a senior ‘official of an intelligence agency’.

If this is the kind of treatment dished out to one of its own true heroes under our current military regime, spare a thought for the rest of us - 170 million uniformless civilians. What sort of justice can we expect under this current misrule of law?

I can’t help but ask who the real 21st century feudals of this country are? Obviously, they must be the ones who happen to be completely above the law and answerable to no one.

Pakistan

Shortcut & Co. Facing Serious Sleaze Allegations

Over the past year or more many Chundrigar Road–Wallas have been alleging Shortcut’s involvement in share market profiteering. Mostly they cited his burgeoning friendships with two of the biggest Stock Exchange operators as evidence of the ex-Citibanker’s alleged financial misdemeanors. Some even maintained that Shortcut’s pal ‘Mota’ acts as his middleman in Karachi.

These could have been dismissed as colourful Chundriar Road'side' gossip - just loud whispers and unproven allegations - but when the former Chairman of the Securities and Exchange Commission of Pakistan (SECP) openly joins in the fray the proverbial excrement has to hit the fan ( your Blogger's comment: Not that it will change anything!)

Today’s newspapers are filled with stories covering public statements made by Dr Tariq Hassan (former chairman SECP). These statements were made in Islamabad during and after a meeting of the National Assembly Standing Committee on Finance and Revenue which is investigating the US$ 13 billion crash in the stock market in March 2005.

Here are some interesting excerpts:

Daily Times: Special observers’ to keep ex-SECP chief on back foot

National Assembly Standing Committee on Finance and Revenue Chairman Anwer Ali Cheema invited “special observers” at the committee’s meeting on Friday on the directives of Prime Minister Shaukat Aziz, to keep former Securities and Exchange Commission of Pakistan (SECP) chief Dr Tariq Hassan “on the back foot”, sources told Daily Times.Sources said that the special observers had been invited to provide “some room” to the committee chairman during the proceedings.

… Sources said that during the meeting, the committee chairman repeatedly interrupted Dr Hassan while hearing his testimony. However, he was eventually allowed to read his letter to the KSE Policy Board after “hectic efforts” by Members of the National Assembly (MNAs) Kashmala Tariq and Sardar Ayaz Sadiq, sources said. Dr Hassan said in his testimony that he had put some questions to top government officials and wanted answers, they said.

The News: State minister, adviser accused of links to brokers

ISLAMABAD: Former chairman of Securities Exchange Commission of Pakistan (SECP) Tariq Hassan alleged during an NA bodymeeting on finance and revenue on Friday that the Prime Minister’s Adviser on Finance, Salman Shah and Minister of State Omar Ayub Khan, had links to powerful brokers, who were involved in the multibillion rupees scams in the stock exchanges

.…Sources said the situation became tense when Salman Shah and Tariq Hassan allegedly exchanged hot words, when the latter told the meeting how he was pressurised by these top guns to help the brokers mint money and finally he was ousted from the office.

However, both Shah and Omar denied the charges, terming it merely Hassan’s ‘personal opinion’ as there was no authentic proof available against them. Hassan did not mince his words when he said that he was under pressure even from Prime Minister Shaukat Aziz to keep close contacts with top guns of stock markets, who were actually involved in the whole scam.

Dawn: ‘Big fish’ allowed to escape net: Tariq: Ex-chief of SECP issues‘white paper’

Former chairman of the Securities and Exchange Commission of Pakistan (SECP) Dr Tariq Hassan on Friday issued a ‘white paper’ on the March 2005 stock exchange crash, and claimed he had reached close to a ‘few big fish” when he was shown the door.

“The last orders on my table, when I was removed from my post on Eid day, was the appointment of forensic investigators to probe the few big brokers held responsible by the task force (for the crash),” Mr Hassan told reporters after presenting the so-called white paper to the National Assembly’s Standing Committee on Finance and Revenue.

..“They (the government) have no other option but to continue with the reforms I had initiated but was not allowed to complete. The moral pressure on them is building and compelling them to get hold of the big fish. Otherwise, I fear form will prevail over substance,” said Mr Hassan while commenting on the committee’s decision to proceed with the probe.

MNAs from the ruling party and opposition quoted Mr Hassan as saying in the meeting that he would never retreat from his stand that he had not been allowed to go ahead with reforms.

The former SECP chairman asked how could he get hold of those powerful brokers who, he alleged, had access to the prime minister.

During the nine-hour meeting, Dr Hassan faced tough questions from the Minister of State for Finance Omar Ayub Khan and Prime Minister’s Adviser Dr Salman Shah, apparently because he had mentioned their names in letters he had sent to the prime minister and accused them of pressurising him not to replace Carry-over Transaction with margin financing, one of the main causes of the crash.

When Dr Hassan was busy answering journalists’ questions after the meeting in the committee room, a government official approached him and asked him to leave as Dr Salman Shah, Omar Ayub and incumbent SECP chairman Raziur Rehman were to hold a news conference.

“Dear, you people have invited me to this meeting,” said Dr Hassan to the official while leaving the room.

Ruling party MNA Kashmala Tariq told reporters that there was a threat to Dr Hassan’s life because he had taken on some powerful people.

For the first 50 minutes of the meeting, Dr Hassan was not allowed to speak and it was only after a protest by opposition MNAs that he was given an opportunity to do so.

Starting his presentation, Dr Hassan quoted from Shakespeare’s Julius Caesar: “The fault, dear Brutus, is not in our stars, but in ourselves that we are underlings.”

SECP chairman Raziur Rehman was asked by Dr Hassan and Ms Tariq why had the reform process had been stopped and why task force’s recommendations had not been implemented, which resulted in another market crash.

Finally it appears that Dr Tariq Hassan’s replacement as Chairman SECP Raziur Rehman has not been spared either. According to Dawn Raziur Rehman has had to make a rather embarrassing denial against “allegations that he had been one of the AKD consultants”.

For those not familiar with the initials AKD, they stand for Aqueel Kareem Dehdi – one of the biggest players on the Karachi Stock Exchange.

Your Blogger once again doesn’t expect any truth to emerge from this scandal.

Our Head Chowkidar is apparently completely preoccupied with sheltering his façade of a civilian government in preparation for forthcoming the election, or should we call it a uniformed ‘re-election'?

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You may well ask: Who is this Dr. Tariq Hassan?

This is a ‘Googled’ bio of Tariq Hassan prior to being personally selected and appointed in 1999 as ‘Adviser to the finance minister of Pakistan’ by Shaukat Aziz, then Finance Minister:

*obtained his Masters and Doctorate degrees from Harvard Law School
* worked as a lawyer in both private and public sectors internationally.
*in addition to private practice in London, New York and Pakistan, he worked for the World Bank and the International Fund for Agricultural Development.
* taught law and has been teaching law and lectured at different institutions in Pakistan and the US in addition
*lectured on international banking law at the National Law Centre, George Washington University, Washington, DC from 1995 to 1999.
*has written and published extensively on issues relating to international law, law and economics, law and politics in various journals, magazines and newspapers in Pakistan, UK and US.

In August 2003 Shaukat Aziz appointed him as chairman of the Securities and Exchange Commission of Pakistan (SECP).

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Five months after offering to resign Dr Tariq Hassan Shaukat Aziz opted to sack him instead. On 21 June 2006 the Daily Times reported:

ISLAMABAD: Former Securities and Exchange Commission of Pakistan (SECP) chairman Dr Tariq Hassan offered to resign five months before he was forced out, saying that the advisor to the prime minister on finance and the minister of state for finance were hindering the implementation of stock market reforms, Daily Times has learnt.

According to documents seen by Daily Times, Hassan wrote to Prime Minister Shaukat Aziz on August 4 offering his resignation because “interventions” from the two officials were making it difficult for him to reform the stock exchanges and maintain direct contact with the main players of the Karachi Stock Exchange (KSE).

The prime minister did not accept his resignation at the time and pledged him his full support, but just five months later on January 9, 2006, himself asked Hassan to resign because he (Hassan) had not been able to maintain a good relationship with market players. However, this time Hassan refused to resign and also turned down an offer to become the PM’s legal adviser.

The Finance Division then appointed Raziur Rehman Khan as new chairman of the SECP during the Eid holidays with immediate effect.

Hassan was once a trusted friend of Aziz and it was in fact Aziz who summoned him to Pakistan from abroad to implement the market reforms and regulations prepared by a commission headed by retired Supreme Court chief justice Ajmal Mian.

In his letter of August 4, Hassan said: “Recent market interventions by senior government officials have resulted in delay of certain reform initiatives. This is likely to not only impede the overall reform process but may also have a negative impact on the reform programme itself. Therefore, I seek your permission to resign.”

“I had agreed to your suggestion of a temporary freeze and limited roll-back (on the phasing out of Badla financing) in the larger interest of the country’s economy. What I am now being asked to do additionally by your advisor is not only excessive but would also be detrimental to capital market reforms,” he wrote.

He wrote his second letter to Aziz on January 9 after a meeting with the prime minister’s principal secretary Javed Sadiq Malik in which he was offered the slot of legal advisor and asked to resign as SECP chief. Hassan refused, saying this was a crucial time because stock market players were again pressing the SECP not to carry out its reforms. “I … request you to either reconsider your suggestion or at least give me an opportunity of presenting my case,” he wrote.

He turned down the offer of becoming the prime minister’s legal advisor.

In a separate note to Aziz on capital market reforms on July 20, 2005, Hassan wrote: “Direct interventions in respect of Badla financing on the part of the minister of state for finance and advisor to the prime minister on finance and revenue have gravely undermined not only the hard work of the SECP but also the avowed policies of the ministry and the specific statements made by the prime minister in this regard,” he stated.

He said as a result of distortions created in large part by ministerial interventions in phasing out Badla financing, the SECP had no option but to suspend the phase-out process recently. “At that stage, the SECP was and remains appreciative of your firm resolve not to roll-back the phase-out of Badla financing, despite suggestions to the contrary made by the advisor on finance and revenue and the minister of state for finance, more so because it represented a clear understanding of the menace that Badla financing poses and the importance of its phase-out for eliminating manipulation from the market.”

Hassan wrote to his board members on January 30, 2006, saying he had been removed for introducing new regulations phasing out the Badla system, introducing forensic auditing, electing a new chairman from outside the brokers community, and fining some 100 brokers for the March 2005 market crash.

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Pakistan

The Economist : Pakistan Desperately Needs Democracy

Having already blogged The Economist’s leader on Pakistan, I feel I should also provide the background political survey by James Astill upon which the magazine’s editorial was more or less based.
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The Economist - Survey
Too much for one man to do
James Astill
Jul 6th 2006


Pakistan needs more democracy to make it a less dangerous place


THINK about Pakistan, and you might get terrified. Few countries have so much potential to cause trouble, regionally and worldwide. One-third of its 165m people live in poverty, and only half of them are literate. The country's politics yo-yo between weak civilian governments and unrepresentative military ones—the sort currently on offer under Pervez Musharraf, the president and army chief, albeit with some democratic wallpapering. The state is weak. Islamabad and the better bits of Karachi and Lahore are orderly and, for the moment, booming. Most of the rest is a mess. In the western province of Baluchistan, which takes up almost half of Pakistan's land mass, an insurgency is simmering. In the never-tamed tribal areas bordering Afghanistan, the army is waging war against Islamic fanatics.

Nor is that all. Pakistan has nuclear weapons, and until recently was selling their secrets to North Korea, Iran, Libya and maybe others. During its most recent big stand-off with India, in 2002, Pakistan gave warning that, if attacked, it might nuke its neighbour. Mostly, however, in Kashmir, Afghanistan and its own unruly cities, Pakistan has used, and perhaps still uses, Islamist militants to fight its wars—including the confused lot it is fighting, at America's request, in the tribal areas. Several thousand armed extremists are swilling around the country. Thousands more youths are being prepared for holy war at radical Islamic schools. Osama bin Laden is widely believed to be in Pakistan.

When General Musharraf launched his coup in 1999, it was not—or not principally—to clean up this mess. Instead, he wanted to save his career, having been sacked as army chief by Nawaz Sharif, then the prime minister. Mr Sharif had tried to subordinate the army—which in Pakistan is a parallel state, some say the only state—to civilian rule. But however unpromising his start, General Musharraf has generally proved much better at running the country than either Mr Sharif or Benazir Bhutto, Pakistan's other elected leader in recent times. He also remains more popular than either of them, though his support has recently been slipping.

General Musharraf's shopping list

General Musharraf inherited an economy in crisis. Shackled by sanctions and parched of capital, Pakistan had defaulted on foreign debts. He ensured that the country did what the IMF told it to do, and ended the crisis. Thanks partly to continued fiscal prudence and some sensible reforms, Pakistan has notched up average growth of 7% over the past three years, about the same as India.

It also helped that after the attacks on America on September 11th 2001, General Musharraf decided to stop supporting the Taliban government in next-door Afghanistan and grant America access to airbases from which to fight it. The benefits have not been confined to a surge of American aid dollars that boosted the growth figures. Having joined the “war on terror”, the general reined in Islamist militants fighting India in the disputed Kashmir region. He then surprised many by throwing himself into peacemaking with India. Peace on the subcontinent is still hard to imagine, but it may be more possible than at any time since British India's bloody partition.

This is encouraging. But a bigger concern for most Pakistanis is the state of their broken and predatory institutions, which have helped to make Pakistan unstable and prone to extremism. General Musharraf pledged to fix them, and to promote liberal values, or “enlightened moderation”. If he were to make serious progress towards either of those goals, history would smile on his coup.

But this survey will argue that General Musharraf is unlikely to deliver on these crucial promises. He has introduced many sensible reforms, such as making the lowest level of the judiciary independent. But they have almost all been implemented only partially and corruptly. Part of the problem is that General Musharraf does not rule Pakistan by fiat, though he often seems to think otherwise. He rules behind a façade of democracy. Thus, for example, he has rewritten the constitution in his favour, allowing him to sack the government and impose martial law; but he needed political allies to vote through those changes. Such alliances have led to paralysing compromise.

To sideline the mainstream parties, whose leaders he fears, General Musharraf has sought support from religious conservatives, so his liberal reforms have gone nowhere. With the same intent, he pandered to Taliban-friendly Islamic parties, helping them win unprecedented power. Moreover, General Musharraf has clung on to his job by the same undemocratic measures as his predecessors: by manipulating the institutions he had vowed to clean up. Only, unlike any civilian leader, he has the army behind him, which means he can do that much more damage. Whereas Mr Sharif and Ms Bhutto packed the supreme court with their supporters, General Musharraf sacked half its judges for refusing to swear allegiance to him.

Pakistan is too big, too fractious and too complicated to be ruled so overwhelmingly by one man. General Musharraf has been lucky to survive three assassination attempts, and his succession is unclear. He has, moreover, limited time at his disposal to get to grips with an unlimited number of problems. His period in office has been littered with initiatives—a diplomatic proposal to India here, a promise to reduce the army there—that never got off the ground or fizzled to nothing for want of the general's attention.

And even if he had unlimited time, he has limited understanding. In army fashion, he considers Pakistan's problems to be mostly practical. But they are invariably political. To deal with a mounting water crisis, for example, General Musharraf has decreed that three long-stalled dams will be built in Punjab and North-West Frontier Province. In Sindh province, the lower riparian, this has caused uproar. Sindhis say their water supply will be diminished by the dams; General Musharraf says it will not. He has no patience for the Sindhis' distrust of the Pakistani state. They complain, with good reason, that it is dominated by Punjab, Pakistan's most populous province, where most of the army is raised. Sindhis make up about a quarter of Pakistan's population, but hold only a couple of the top 50 jobs in the water ministry. If General Musharraf wants the dams built, he should start by increasing that number.

Pakistan is torn by such grievances. Where people feel unprotected by their government, regional strife and Islamic militancy have bred. The longer they are allowed to fester, the more unstable Pakistan will become. Neither General Musharraf nor his obvious rivals for the leadership, Ms Bhutto and Mr Sharif, could heal these rifts. But then Pakistan does not need a saviour to become stable and well. It needs a sustainable political system, representing the majority of its people. General Musharraf has had some successes. But by sabotaging Pakistan's fragile democracy, he may well have made the country even more dangerous.

Pakistan

The Economist: Problem in Pakistan is Musharraf

The Economist is possibly the most prestigious news magazine in the English language.

Curiously for a British weekly over 60% of its subscribers reside in the USA. As the magazine is considered somewhat highbrow (in comparison to Time and Newsweek) its readership encompasses much of the US power elite - US Senate, Think Tanks, leading Universities and other academia, and CEOs of Fortune 500 companies.

More often than not, The Economist’s viewpoint – found in its leaders or editorials - provokes debate and influences the thoughts of many powerful individuals.

So when this magazine takes up cudgels against Musharraf, one can say safely say that its views will carry weight.

In a nutshell The Economist's harsh verdict on our Head Chowkidar is:

the most damning criticism of General Musharraf is that he continues to do grave damage to the long-term political health of Pakistan In his seven long years in office, he has insinuated the army into every nook and cranny of Pakistani public life, weakening institutions that were feeble already, emasculating its political parties and reducing parliament to a squabbling irrelevance. He has sacked judges when it suited him, created and dismembered parties at his own convenience, rigged a referendum on his presidency and used Pakistan's constitution to write his own job description…

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Read the Leader in full

The Economist - Leaders
Security in Asia - The trouble with Pakistan
Jul 6th 2006

TERRORISM has many sources and claimed justifications, but if it can be said to have a centre, it lies in the training camps, madrassas and battlefields of northern Pakistan and south-eastern Afghanistan. There the Taliban and their ally, al-Qaeda, were both formed. From there, in hellish diaspora, jihadis have fanned out across the globe. Add to that Afghanistan's lawlessness and ability to produce vast amounts of opium, not to mention Pakistan's wretched history of venal democrats and clumsy dictators, and its lamentable record on nuclear proliferation, and it is clear why what happens in those two places is of huge importance to the rest of the world. From neither place is there much good news.

The West has invested a huge amount in Pakistan's General Pervez Musharraf, who seized power in October 1999. This newspaper was prepared to give him a chance on condition that he acted swiftly and firmly to rein in extremism and sort out the economy, and then returned to barracks. He failed to do any of that. After September 11th 2001, however, he was recast as a provider of relative stability in a dangerous neighbourhood, and an essential ally in the “war on terror”. Money was showered upon him; he was feted in Washington, DC, and London. Only gradually has it started to dawn on his admirers that, in the past five years, he has not done very much to make Pakistan a less dangerous place.


A destroyer of democracy

True, the economy has improved quite a bit since 2001—and not just because of all that donor money. But promises, made even before September 11th, to bring the country's most radical madrassas under control have not been kept. The training camps that Pakistan's powerful Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) agency has long tolerated because of their usefulness against India and in Afghanistan still exist, though they have been told not to mount any operations for now. The most dangerous outfits, such as Lashkar-e-Toiba (the Army of the Pure), have been banned, only to reappear under new guises. Not until 2004 and under the most intense American pressure did Pakistan arrest Abdul Qadeer Khan, the scientist who had cheerfully sold nuclear secrets to anyone prepared to pay.

But perhaps the most damning criticism of General Musharraf is that he continues to do grave damage to the long-term political health of Pakistan (see our survey). In his seven long years in office, he has insinuated the army into every nook and cranny of Pakistani public life, weakening institutions that were feeble already, emasculating its political parties and reducing parliament to a squabbling irrelevance. He has sacked judges when it suited him, created and dismembered parties at his own convenience, rigged a referendum on his presidency and used Pakistan's constitution to write his own job description. None of this bodes well for a post-Musharraf future—which could arrive at any moment given the enthusiasm of his enemies for trying to kill him.

Like a previous “caretaker” dictator, General Zia ul-Haq, who held power for 11 years before being killed, General Musharraf has been unable to resist the temptation to play politics with Islam, even if, unlike Zia, he has also had some success at purging fundamentalists from the top ranks of the army. He has forged a disparate group of Islamic political parties into a block that has helped him outmanoeuvre the democratic opposition; these Islamists are pushing hard for the extension of sharia law.

And then there's Afghanistan

It would not be fair to blame Pakistan for everything that is going wrong in Afghanistan. The government of Hamid Karzai is weak and corrupt; because of the West's continued failure to live up to its promises, much of the country, outside the big cities, is in the grip of bandits and warlords. But Pakistan's contribution to Afghanistan's chronic insecurity should not be underestimated. Both the Taliban and the remnants of al-Qaeda are able to take refuge on Pakistani soil, which makes the job of the soldiers from Western countries who have been struggling to eliminate them for the past five years much more difficult. The Taliban, after all, were in part a creation of Pakistan's ISI, which saw in them a way to establish a friendly state on their western flank, a vital strategic consideration for an organisation that sees itself as locked in perpetual conflict with India to its east.

General Musharraf, by contrast, contends he is doing all he can to root out Taliban fighters from their sanctuaries in the tribal areas, and Pakistan has lost more than 600 soldiers fighting there. Even so, say the critics, it could try much harder, especially given the size of its army. And as for al-Qaeda, none of General Musharraf's protestations can hide the fact that Osama bin Laden is generally reckoned to be holed up on Pakistani soil. Lesser terrorists such as Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, the planner of the September 11th attacks, have been caught and handed over by the general, but Mr bin Laden goes on evading capture.

The danger is that Afghanistan may now, thanks to Pakistani meddling and Western neglect, gradually revert to what it was before September 2001: a state partly captured by the most dangerous Islamists. Belatedly waking up to this threat (see article), Britain is leading NATO into risky action in Afghanistan's southern provinces, a swathe of territory where the Kabul government's writ is ignored and where a record-breaking crop of poppies was recently harvested. With a remit that has been altered to war-fighting at short notice, inadequate numbers and an apparent lack of enough helicopters and armoured support, these soldiers are taking politically painful casualties. There is a risk that the will of the politicians back home to go on fighting will swiftly fade.

An unstable, nuclear-armed Pakistan, intertwined with a chaotic and Taliban-dominated Afghanistan: it is not a settling prospect. It has all happened before, of course. The result was September 11th, swiftly followed by a terrorist outrage in Delhi that came close to provoking full-scale war between Pakistan and also-nuclear India. What will happen next time?

Pakistan
Musharraf

Top Secret Election Plan for Mush Supporters

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I borrowed this pic from Zakintosh who is encouraging everyone to "Become a Sales Agent and earn points." He insists that the earned points are "Redeemable for everything, from Government posts to Umra trips."

My message to Zakintosh:

Forget Govt. posts, Umra trips, etc. I am a keen supporter of all successful coup "plotters". So just tell me how many plots I will get and where? And how soon?

Pakistan

The Mental Twins – Mush & Bush

Musharraf and Bush seem to be twinned mentally as their mouths tend to wander where other brains fear to tread.

Simply recall 1 May 2003 when international news channels showed Bush flamboyantly stepping off a naval jet on the US aircraft carrier USS Abraham Lincoln and enthusiastically announcing a US victory in Iraq.

Well then move three years forward to 19 June 2006 one finds Musharraf brazenly announcing: 'all terrorists have been wiped off from Balochistan’ and declaring “the Baloch rebellion over”.

Hang on a moment, if the insurgency is truly over in Balochistan, then the following news items must a load of codswallop:

26 June, 2006 – Daily Times : Dera Bugti pipeline blown up

26 June, 2006 – Dawn : Rocket hits hotel on main road in Quetta

1 July, 2006 – Daily Times : Violence intensifies in Balochistan

2 July, 2006 – Gulf News : Baloch rebels blow up railway track to Iran

5 July, 2006- Dawn : Two large pylons blown up in the Kohlu/Barkhan area

5 July, 2006 – Daily Times : 110 Rockets fired at check posts as violence escalates in Balochistan

5 July, 2006 – Daily Times : Tribesmen claim 45 soldiers killed in Dera Bugti

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Despite Musharraf’s tall claims the Balochistan insurgency is still searingly hot. Latest reports indicate that a dozen plus Cobra gunships are currently engaged in stifling the insurgent activity in the Dera Bugti area, and for once they are targeting Akbar Bugti directly. The will the first time they have attempted to kill the Bugti chieftain since their unsuccessful attempt in early 2005.

One may conclude from this that Musharraf has lost all semblance of tolerance and is now determined to crush the rebellion. Perhaps the rising international interest in Balochistan has pressurized him to act even more impetuously. In any event Pakistan will end up paying a heavy price for this example of unintelligent commando-mentality.

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Seeing we are on the topic of Balochistan, here is a UK viewpoint of the crisis given by one of their foreign affairs academics published today on UK Guardian’s website. The British are obviously worried about their 3,000 troops in Helmand and it is written with that perspective in mind.

Why Baluchistan matters

This lawless province is key to understanding what British troops will face in southern Afghanistan.
July 4, 2006
Alex Bigham

There is an awkward pause when you mention Baluchistan to someone for the first time. Even members of staff in Britain's leading think tank on global affairs, the Foreign Policy Centre think they may have misheard. As Margaret Beckett might have put it, "Where the f**k is Baluchistan?"

But you shouldn't confuse ignorance with irrelevance. There are many reasons why Baluchistan warrants more than an occasional reference in an article on Pakistan. As the British Army prepares to send hundreds of extra troops to southern Afghanistan, we need to understand what is happening in Baluchistan in Pakistan - this lawless province, desperate for autonomy from Islamabad.

Some brief background: Baluchistan is effectively the "Kurdistan of Central Asia" - the Baluchsprincipally live in Pakistan, Iran and Afghanistan so are divided by what they see as arbitraryborders implemented by colonial powers.

Pakistani Baluchistan occupies over 40% of Pakistan's landmass as the largest province in the country. The Baluchi people are distinct from the Panjabi elite that dominate Pakistani politics - they are Muslims but more secular in their outlook (in a similar fashion to the Kurds) with their own distinct language and culture. The Baluchi people believe they have been oppressed in many ways by the Pakistani government. Feudal systems of government, corruption and incompetence have lead to socio-economic backwardness and extreme poverty. In addition, the army has led many incursions into the region, with the latest in 2005 coming after an assassination attempt on President Musharraf. Baluchis are desperate to be recognised as autonomous people, and to gain self-determination. They feel that Baluchistan existed as a nation, and has merely been occupied by Pakistan, a situation that the international community continues to ignore, focusing its relations with Pakistan on the war on terror, and the vexed issue of Kashmir.But why should the UK and the rest of the international community care about what happens in Baluchistan?

Firstly, it is the frontline in the war on terror. Quetta, the capital of the province is a known Al-Qaeda stronghold, as Colonel Chris Vernon, a Senior British Army Officer in southern Afghanistan and President Hamid Karzai have said. The Taleban use Baluchistan and Waziristan as a chance to rest, rearm, regroup and recruit for the battles across the border in Helmand in Afghanistan. Mullah Omar is believed by some to be in Baluchistan, and Bin Laden has travelled through Quetta. The province is mountainous, dangerous, and remote, so provides an ideal hiding place for a guerrilla army. Those who've visited lawless provinces such as Helmand, report seeing more Pakistani fighters under the black and white flag of the Taliban than Afghans.

The Baluchs have no links with Al Qaeda, but their suspicion and mistrust means they are less likely to help in the battle against the Taliban, while their situation is so uncertain. As Tarique Niazi of the Jamestown Foundation puts it, "The Baluch insurgency and Pakistan's restive western borders with Afghanistan are absorbing almost one-third of Pakistan's military resources, which relieve some pressure from al-Qaeda and the Taliban."

The 700 military checkpoints in the region are used to intimidate Baluchistan Liberation Army (BLA) fighters rather than stop the Taliban soldiers clad in black salwar kameezes and turbans. In the 1970s and 80s the Pakistan government encouraged thousands of Pashtun refugees to settle in the area as a bulwark between the Baluchs and Afghanistan, who they suspected of supporting the BLA. Islamabad armed and supported the Taliban, backing the mullahs of Jama'at -i-Islami and Jamiat-i-Ulema-i-Islam. Some of the Pashtuns continue to provide support and cover for Al Qaeda operatives crossing the border.

The Durand line which supposedly separates Pakistan and Afghanistan, has still not been officially recognised, and was considered to have lapsed in 1996. Durand was the product of an agreement in 1893 between the then ruler of Afghanistan, Abdur Rahman Shah, and Sir Mortimer Durand, the foreign secretary of the colonial government of India. But Pashtun tribal leaders won't acknowledge the border, and it has been a constant source of tension between the two governments. As such, the Taliban are free to cross a border so porous it is said to be 'marked out on water'.

Baluchistan was never really part of the Great Game between Britain and Russia - it was too far South and seem to contain little of any interest. That mindset changed in 1952, when gas was discovered in the Sui area. The Baluchs believe that they have been robbed of some of their fair share of this natural wealth, receiving insufficient royalties, and a low development budget, which is allocated by population rather than need, holding back a sparsely populated but poor region.

The Chinese and the Iranians have realised the potential there. The possible Iran-Pakistan-India gas pipeline was opposed by the Bush administration, but is making slow progress. Resource-hungry China has gained a foothold in the province, by sending engineers and security officials to construct a port at Gwadar for a possible oil/gas pipeline connecting Gwadar with Xinjiang. The Chinese are accused of using Gwadar as a listening post for monitoring US military activities in the Persian Gulf. In return, the Chinese are giving $350 million for an upgrade to the Karakoram Highway and providing assistance to Pakistan's nuclear industry. In 1998, Pakistan escalated the regional arms race by detonating 6 nuclear weapons near Chagai, also in the province of Baluchistan.

In addition to these major geo-political and security concerns, the international community should be aware of human rights abuses in Baluchistan. The Pakistani army is accused of killing civilians. Human Rights Watch has raised concerns of political incarceration and torture of Baluchi political activists such as Rasheed Azam. The military dictatorship in Islamabad are not alone, there are also human rights violations committed by the Shi'a theocracy in Iran.

These facts and claims make a compelling case that Baluchistan should at the very least be on the radar of the international community, and some countries should even reconsider their stance towards the Pakistani government, due to hold elections in 2007. This should stem not just from empathy toward the Baluchs, but out of a self-interested security dilemma. It is now up to Baluchi leaders to express what that stance should be.

Pakistan
Balochistan
Baluchistan

Hunger Ad banned by Bush & Co.

Apparently this is one of three hard-hitting MTV ads recently banned by the US government.

For the other two pics visit
Koolstuffs.net

Picture courtesy Koolstuff.net (posted on Bloggers.Pakistan)

Bush
censorship

A US-Pak Journalist Lashes Out at Mush

Hasan Jafri is a Pakistani-born journalist who began his career in Karachi. He is currently based in the US. Yesterday he wrote this piece for the Seattle Post-Intelligencer.

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Seattle Post-Intelligencer: Pakistan has to earn U.S. aid
Tuesday, July 4, 2006

By HASAN JAFRI

Congress has proposed to reduce aid to military-ruled Pakistan by $150 million for not carrying out overdue democratic reforms. But President Bush's Pakistani allies say they want all, not some of the money, $3 billion over five years.

Ryan Crocker, the U.S. ambassador in Islamabad, has reassured Pakistan, saying, "We are a democracy, Congress has its views, but I would like to make very clear that this administration is totally committed to providing the full amount."

Make no mistake: this would be a misstep. Gen. Pervez Musharraf's military regime should be made to offer specific concessions, not just for democratic change, but with respect also to nuclear proliferation and terrorism.

There are compelling reasons why. Pakistan helps the United States in the war on terrorism but not nearly enough. The leaders of Pakistan's two largest political parties, which also happen to be moderate politically, are barred from contesting elections. And Dr. A. Q. Khan's nuclear parts bazaar welcomed shoppers from Iran and al-Qaida.

Enforcing congressional cuts and spelling out what the United States expects will tell Pakistan's military regime unequivocally to clean up its act.

For starters, the U.S. could tell Pakistan to apprehend more top terrorists. Second, Pakistan should allow the world community meaningful access to Khan. Third, Pakistan must let Benazir Bhutto and Nawaz Sharif, civilian opposition leaders languishing in exile, to come home with guarantees they will not be arrested or harassed in the country's Wild West court system. Musharraf is promising elections in October.

Bhutto and Sharif should be allowed to contest.

The United States' Pakistani critics will assail those demands as imperious, but the U.S. has little choice. The hands-off-Pakistan policy initiated following 9/11 is failing. Islamic radicals and Taliban are a dangerous and growing threat in Pakistan.

To build a power base independent of Bhutto and Sharif, Musharraf has appeased radical Islamists. This is the genesis of news stories about Pakistan's leader walking a U.S. tightrope as he tries calming bloodthirsty clerics gathered below. It is also the reason why Pakistan has been so distracted from its international commitments.

After 9/11, Musharraf promised to find Osama bin Laden but the search for bin Laden has turned into the search for Jimmy Hoffa.

All signs point to northern Pakistan as the al-Qaida leader's hideout, yet bin Laden is free. A scalpel put to Pakistan's military budget may induce the country's once prolifically productive secret police to rediscover its knack for finding people.

Khan merely needs to be delivered to the world community. Even Pakistanis, who overwhelmingly support their country's nuclear program, are stunned Khan has not been questioned at length by a neutral government or by the International Atomic Energy Agency.

Musharraf says no way -- Khan is a national hero. Yet Pakistan has not been shy about rendering its heroes before. Many of the detainees at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, are Pakistanis, and before Islamabad turned away from the Taliban they, too, were feted as great icons. Today's terrorists were yesterday's mujahedeen.

Aid cuts and clear conditions for resumption will help Islamabad become a responsible ally. Pakistan is the world's sixth-largest nation, and it must not nurture Taliban sympathizers or hide the sales records of a nuclear Macy's.

Bush should support cuts proposed by Congress and tie future assistance to concrete reform.

Pakistan

Some Interesting Titbits

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Shortcut Aziz’s weird examples of ‘Good Governance and Transparency’
Much is being made of the Supreme Court’s cancellation of the sale of Pakistan Steel Mills Corporation on the grounds that state functionaries violated ‘by acts of omissions and commissions’ mandatory provisions of law concerning sales of state assets in pursuance of its declared privatization policy.

After the courts decision leading Chundrigar Road-wallas, such as Khadim Ali Shah Buhkari & Co told Reuters that the court’s decision raised questions about the credibility of the privatisation process – "The court decision revealed that the privatisation process, as claimed by the government, is not at all transparent".

Just to prove these views last week’s Friday Times (no link available) had this to say:

Anyone ever heard of conflict of interest or conduct unbecoming in this land of the Pure? If so, it ain’t Shortcut [Aziz] who was spied dining with the man in the eye of the Steel Mills storm. The two sauntered into [Islamabad’s] up market Lebanese restaurant with not a care about the propriety of such a public get-together. And this while the case was before the Supreme Court pending a verdict…

And the ‘the man in the eye of the Steel Mills storm’ can be none other than Arif Habib of Arif Habib Securities, one of the leading members of the consortium that originally won the $362 million (Rs21.68 billion) bid to acquire 75 per cent stake and management control of Pakistan Steel Mills.

Apparently Shaukat Aziz can’t resist being buddies with Karachi billionaires. His other close pal is Aqeel Dedi, who together with Arif Habib are the goliaths of the Karachi Stock Exchange, both are believed to be the richest two people in Karachi these days. Rumour has it that they both make mega-money in the stock exchange, whether it goes shooting up or crashing down (but not when it stays still).

After last month’s stock market it appears that members from both sides of the political divide in the national Assembly were seemingly convinced of one ‘fact’. As the Business Recorder reported:

Members from both sides of the divide alleged four or five brokers, including Arif Habib and Aqeel Dedi were behind the stock market fluctuations.

It is wishful thinking but isn’t it time someone asked old Shortcut to ‘unsleaze’ his act?
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Musharraf’s consistent inconsistency

On Tuesday 27 June the Pakistan government publicly announced, in the presence of visiting US Secretary of State, Condi Rice, that it would deploy a further 10,000 troops along the border with Afghanistan to control cross-border infiltration.

As the Daily Times reported on its front page the following day:

At a joint press conference with US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, Foreign Minister Khurshid Kasuri said Pakistan would deploy another 10,000 troops to dispel the impression that it is not doing enough against terrorism.

Then three days later came a complete volte-face. As Dawn reported:

Pakistan would not deploy additional security forces along the Pakistan-Afghan border as already deployed 80,000 troops were sufficient to check the cross-border movement of terrorists, Interior Minister Aftab Ahmed Sherpao said on Friday.

One is free to wonder at the contradictory mindset that seems to be prevailing in Islamabad these days. But then again what else is new?
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Imran Khan begins to hit the target

Imran Khan appears to be battling on and finally winning some brownie points from the ordinary joe citizen. Here is an excerpt from an interview he gave UK’s Sunday newspaper The Observer:

When [Imran Khan] stood at the last election in 2003, he says, 'the government stuffed the ballots. One guy who was against me was the biggest drug mafia guy in the area. They let him out of jail to run in the election because they thought he controlled the area. But still I got record votes. In most of Pakistan it is a feudal country. People are very scared and oppressed by authority. But when you move to these wilder areas, they are not so easily suppressed.'

Did he think, despite the fears people have, he would have more seats in parliament by now?

'Well,' he says, crisply, 'It is not easy to win against a military dictator in an election that is being run by the security services.'

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The Islamabad Pugilist is at it again

Musharraf’s Minister of Law (and ironically – Human Rights) who has already achieved notoriety for punching up PIA passengers and restaurant waiters has hit the headlines once again. This time for illegally dishing out funds to his constituents (local political chumchas would possibly be the apt word here).

Here is a report from Geo TV

Auditor General of Pakistan (AGP) has revealed that the ministry of law and justice has illegally disbursed lacs of rupees from human rights funds among the voters of the federal minister for law and on refusal of releasing more funds, a joint secretary of the ministry was confronted with the dismissal process. AGP report said that this amount from the human rights funds was disbursed in 2005 among the 305 voters of the Federal Minister, Wasi Zafar.

In fact, this amount was meant for the victims of abduction, excesses, police highhandedness, police encounters, arrested women and extra-judicial killings, but most of the amount from this fund was distributed among persons of Tehsil Jaranawala of Faisalabad, which happened to be federal minister’s constituency on the directives of the law minister.

Overall 83 percent of this fund went for patronization of such persons in this particular constituency, while the remaining 17 percent only was given to persons living in other areas of the country.

The report further divulged that the ministry’s joint secretary Saira Karim refused to pay to some more 560 persons of Jaranawala from thehuman rights funds, for which, she was facing a dismissal process.

A subsequent editorial in The News commented:

It found that of 360 people who received funds from the ministry, 305 happened to be voters from the constituency of the law minister himself. The minister (whose son physically assaulted a passenger at Karachi airport last year, while he looked on and did nothing to intervene) is then said to have initiated an inquiry against a senior bureaucrat who had raised objections to funds being given allegedly to another 560 voters from his constituency. While the minister initially denied on the floor of the National Assembly that he did any such thing, the contents of the auditor-general's reports will be difficult to deny. Such instances show an utter lack of accountability among senior government officials, especially those at the ministerial level.

Obviously nothing is going to happen to Wasi Zafar as he is one of Musharraf’s most loyal flatterers, one who regularly gives press statements such as “Musharraf can contest election of president in uniform”.
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Heavy PR Drive in Dera Bugti

It appears that our Khakis are doing a major PR exercise on Balochistan. Reading between the lines a large number of foreign journos were flown into Dera Bugti and given a work over. It was effective as can be seen by BBC Barbara Plett’s sugary piece but The Economist was a bit less gullible. Here are some excerpts:

In the past few years, 400 Pakistani soldiers have been killed in the [Balochistan] conflict, as well as several hundred people in army attacks. Pakistan's Human Rights Commission has documented government atrocities, including a massacre of 12 civilians in January.

For General Musharraf, this has become a serious headache. Gas supplies to Pakistan's main towns have been interrupted by attacks on Baluchistan's pipelines and gasfields. Construction of a vast new port, at the Baluch village of Gwadar, has been occasionally disrupted. Across Pakistan, meanwhile, for reasons including rising inflation and his pro-America policies, the general is fast becoming unpopular; and the Baluch insurgents have drawn sympathy.

While clearly not partial to the Buti Chief the Economist further opined:

Mr Bugti has a dreadful history of oppressing his people, yet the grievances he claims to be fighting for are real.

… If only General Musharraf would listen to the aggrieved Baluch, his more level-headed critics say, worse violence could be averted. But that looks unlikely. In May 2005, a parliamentary committee proposed 32 sensible ways to placate them, including increased development spending and a local stake in the port at Gwadar. None of these has been taken up. And General Musharraf's hand is growing heavier. Across Baluchistan, thousands have been arrested, often merely because of their alleged nationalist opinions. An alliance between feudal tribes, like the Bugtis, and more enlightened nationalists, who despise the sardari system, has been forged by shared suffering.

…[General Musharraf] seems convinced that to end its insurgency, he has only to crush the bothersome sardars. In that…he is wrong.

Pakistan

May the Farce be with you! (Part 1)

The frantic attempts at face saving continue.

A few days ago it was Shaukat Aziz’s turn. As Dawn reported:

Shaukat Aziz has said that Pakistan has all the essential elements of democracy. Speaking at the inaugural session of an envoys’ conference at the Foreign Office, he said the country had a functioning and sovereign parliament, an active opposition, unrestricted political activity, free press and independent judiciary. He said good governance had been provided through transparency and accountability.

As we know reality is glaringly otherwise. For today I will pick only two of the above tall claims: ‘a functioning and sovereign parliament’ and ‘a free press’ (reserving the remainder hopefully for a future Blog).

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As for the claim of ‘a sovereign parliament’, most of us are aware that we have been inflicted with a rubber-stamp parliament, which helps prop up a farcical government made of extremely dubious characters, many – if not most - of whom were elected courtesy of our intelligence agencies.

As columnist Ayaz Amir points out in his latest column:

…there are two governments in Pakistan — one nominal represented by prime minister and parliament, the other real represented by the president-in-uniform — there are two election commissions in Pakistan: one headed by the chief election commissioner, the other in ISI. The first makes all the sound and fury. The real ballot-counting takes place in the second.

According to Ayaz Amir even the ‘dapper Khurshid Kasuri, stern guardian of the national interest’ would not have got elected to the National Assembly without ISI’s help.

Your Blogger himself is witness to how an MNA with a patently fake internet degree (which was passed by two high court judges who are believed to have received a forceful push from ‘high up above’) got elected by pre-stuffed ballot boxes placed at his rival’s polling booths. And the reason behind his ‘miraculous’ success? Soon after his political rival challenged his fake degree in court the MNA-hopeful made a surreptitious visit to Islamabad where he met with Lieutenant General Ehsan ul Haq, then chief of ISI, and pledged his loyal allegiance to Musharraf.

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And Shaukat Aziz’s claim that we have a free press is just as preposterous.

How’s this report for starters:

Reporters Without Borders has registered at least 21 cases of Pakistani and foreign journalists being kidnapped by Pakistan’s Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) since Gen. Musharraf became president in October 1999

Recent happenings only add further grist to the mill. The outrageous kidnapping and cold-blooded execution of Waziristan journalist Hayatullah Khan has scandalised most newspaper readers in Pakistan.

Much before the discovery of Hayatullah’s handcuffed body the following had already appeared in the international media:

Amnesty International reported in April:

Local journalists have repeatedly expressed their conviction that intelligence agencies were holding Hayatullah Khan. This was further confirmed when the North West Frontier Province Governor's secretary [Arbab Shahzad] told a delegation of the Khyber Union of Journalists in mid-December that Hayatullah Khan would be "held longer" if they continued their protests.

It would appear that NWFP’s governor’s secretary knew exactly who had detained Hayatullah.

Then there is the current case of Geo TV and The News correspondent Mukesh Rupeta and assistant cameraman Sanjay Kumar. Rupeta and Kumar ‘disappeared’ on March 6 this year. Sadly it took their employer, Jang Media Group, an unbelievable period of three and half months before going public about their missing employees (but then the Jang Group is known for being rather spineless vis-à-vis Islamabad).

As The News editorial belatedly commented:

...the detention incommunicado for over three months of Mukesh Rupeta, a correspondent of this newspaper and Geo TV, severely undermines the claims often made by the president and the prime minister that the press is free. Mr Rupeta had been missing since early March and it was only after his disappearance was disclosed by his employers that he was presented before a court. Till then, the government -- as per what seems to have become the 'standard operating procedure' in such cases -- had been denying any knowledge of his whereabouts. However, the day the national press reported that he had been missing for over three months, and that he might have been taken into custody by the intelligence agencies for filming a military installation, he was produced before a court and the police filed charges against him under the Official Secrets Act.

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Shaukat Aziz was an extremely successful private banker. His speciality in Citibank was to raise mega-million deposits from third world individuals – including many corrupt heads of governments and their family members. To obtain these kinds of funds one needs a dazzling smile, tons of charm and guile, and a lot of bull-dust.

However, as yet another stuffed-ballot-boxes elected-MNA Shaukat Aziz should be more than well aware of the reality of our ‘democracy’. So when he sprouts such unbelievable absurdities all I can say to him is (with apologies to all potential Jedi warriors): May the Farce be with you!

Pakistan

US Think Tanks Dump Mush?

Readers my profuse apologies for my prolonged absence. My work load simply overwhelmed me and I have just managed to clear most of it.

In a day or two the blog will be running as per normal. Until then here is a bit from Najam Sethi telling us that the some powerful US Think Tanks are treating our Head Chowkidar as 'history' and are now concerned about the post-Musharraf period in Pakistan.
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From the Daily Times

Sethi said that when he visited the USA last year, he met officials from four major think tanks and all them were supporting Musharraf and had little interest in Nawaz Sharif and Benazir Bhutto. But when he visited this year, the situation was different. “All the think tanks seemed very critical of General Musharraf. The State Department and Pentagon are supporting Musharraf but the think tanks have moved away from him. Now they are talking about a post-Musharraf period and think that he is history,” Sethi said.

He said that the US think tanks fear that if something happens to Musharraf, who has already been the target of several assassination attempts, or there is a crisis of legitimacy surrounding his position, then there is no political system in place to continue Musharraf’s good work.

He said that the US Congress takes suggestions from think tanks through its sub-committees, and the Congress-suggested cut in US aid to Pakistan was a reflection of the mood of the think tanks.

Pakistan

Panic at the Lota Factory

The Benazir/Nawaz ‘Charter of Democracy’ seems to have caught Musharraf and his supporters on the hop.

Noticeably as Musharraf openly derided the Charter as “a political gimmick”, his weakness became all the more demonstrable. As the Daily Times reported, not only did he announce that that items such as wheat, rice, sugar, ghee and pulses would be subsidised but that he would go on a countrywide tour to tell people about his government's 'beneficial' endeavours. In other words his 2007 electoral campaign is all of a sudden underway.

Then an obvious attempt was made to sabotage the emerging Benazir-Nawaz accord when Parliamentary Affairs Minister Sher Afgan Niazi announced last Saturday, “Benazir is in direct contact with General Musharraf. She has talked directly to President Musharraf on the telephone 12 times.” This claim was vehemently denied by PPP politicians, but who really knows what is happening behind the scenes as the stakes begin to mount?

However it does appear that Musharraf’s main prop – the ISI-engineered ‘civilian government’ – is slowly beginning to unravel. Apparently many of the PML heavyweights have panicked and want to make a deal with Benazir to save their skins.

As an Arab newspaper reported yesterday:

ISLAMABAD • Many stalwarts of the ruling Pakistan Muslim League are trying to convince the powers that be to cut a formal deal with former prime minister Benazir Bhutto, sources in the party said here yesterday.

The senior PML leaders want aides of President General Pervez Musharraf to initiate a direct communication channel with Bhutto through political people instead of back channel contacts that have not yielded desired results.

Nasir Chattha and Manzoor Wattoo pleaded a rapprochement with Bhutto’s Pakistan Peoples Party when they met Musharraf over the weekend, the sources said. Wattoo has already been in contact with Bhutto’s aides in Pakistan, they added.

“I have told the president that our contacts could be handy if he decides to open up direct communication channels with Bhutto,” a source quoted Wattoo as telling his party leaders recently.

Wattoo, he however added, is yet to receive any favourable reply from Musharraf. On the face of it, the question of a rapprochement with the PPP seemed to have died down in the ruling party and government’s camp.

This was especially in the wake of recent meetings between Musharraf and influential government and party personalities from across the country in which majority voiced against the PPP and ruling PML collaboration.

Informed circles, however, believe that “uniformed political managers” of the regime were holding in-depth discussions on two major issues these days, i.e. chances of a political collaboration with the PPP and launching of an “acceptable face” from within the rank and file of the ruling PML, for the upcoming general elections.

Pakistan

The Sulk Continues

It is increasingly obvious that relations between Musharraf and Washington aren’t as hunky-dory as they used to be.

Little over a month ago Richard Boucher, US Assistant Secretary of State for South Asia, shortly after a meeting with Musharraf publicly chastised him by announcing “We firmly believe in civilian rule and civilian control of military in Pakistan” (see blog: It's Time To Move On, Buddy)

And as if to pour further salt on the wounds Boucher recognized Musharraf’s uniform to be “an issue” and referred to Nawaz Sharif, Benzair Bhutto and their ability to contest the 2007 general elections as a matter of concern. In a subsequent TV interview Boucher “linked their return to politics with the US vision of a free, modern and democratic Pakistan.”

As if to reinforce this slap in the face a few hour later, on the very same day, the White House national security advisor Stephen Hadley announced in Washington that “the US administration will work with Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf to ensure 2007 elections in his country are ‘free and fair’. Hadley also said Washington “will encourage greater democratic reform and political freedom” in Pakistan.”

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Here is the latest commentary on this vexed tale from Boston’s Christian Science Monitor.

Frustration mounts between US, Pakistan

Congress pressures Pakistan to give more information about possible proliferation, upsetting already-delicate ties.
By David Montero Correspondent of The Christian Science Monitor

ISLAMABAD, PAKISTAN - One of the central relationships forged after 9/11 has hit a rough patch. The latest irritant between Washington and Islamabad came last week as US lawmakers urged Pakistan to wring more information from disgraced nuclear scientist Abdul Qadeer Khan, alleging that he may yet hold the blueprint to some of Iran's nuclear secrets.

Earlier this month, Islamabad officially closed its investigation. While Mr. Khan remains under house arrest, Pakistani officials say they've given Washington all the details they could get out of him - though that information has never been made public.

"Some question whether the A.Q. Khan network is truly out of business, asking if it's not merely hibernating. We'd be foolish to rule out that chilling possibility," said Republican legislator Edward R. Royce in a statement at the Subcommittee on International Terrorism and Nonproliferation hearing. "Vigilance and greater international pressure on Pakistan to air out the Khan network is in order."

So far, the tough talk is coming only from Congress, suggesting that the White House may be more keenly aware of the many demands already placed on Pakistan's President Pervez Musharraf, including the pursuit of Al Qaeda suspects, the curbing of cross-border attacks into Afghanistan, and the development of good governance to keep radical Islam at bay. Some analysts say that the demand for access to Khan risks pushing an already delicate relationship to the point of overburn at a time when Pakistan is warming up to Iran.

"Even if the US gets access to Khan, he might not be able to give information on [Iran]. Khan has never been to Iran," says Hasan Askari Rizvi, a defense analyst in Lahore, Pakistan. "If you apply pressure, you may not get the information you want. The US will have to determine its priorities."

Interrogating Khan is a wish that Islamabad has never granted: Washington has always had to go through the Pakistani military to get to Khan, cherished as a national hero. Some say that's the problem, that Khan has never been pressed hard enough. Pakistan authorities, however, defied Congressional demands last week, saying Khan would never be given up.

"The government of Pakistan does not allow direct interrogation of Khan," says Maj. Gen. Shaukat Sultan, spokesman for the Pakistani military. Pakistan's foreign minister, Khurshid Kasuri, recently told a parliamentary session that Pakistan would not "take dictation from anybody on our national interests."

Some saw double trouble in these words. For not long after he spoke them, Mr. Kasuri and Prime Minister Shaukat Aziz were busy feting Iran's foreign minister, who came to Islamabad with visions of building a $7 billion gas pipeline.

Other signs of a deepening relationship between the two Islamic republics include:
• a proposed joint investment company to boost bilateral trade up to $1 billion;
• the ratification of a bilateral preferential trade agreement by the Iranian Parliament;
• a new Iranian center in Pakistan to provide artificial limbs for quake victims;
• Pakistan's opposition to a military option in the Iranian nuclear controversy.

Washington's relationship with Islamabad, meanwhile, is under greater strain as the US and its allies in Afghanistan face stepped up attacks from the Taliban. Islamabad remains extremely sensitive to claims that the insurgency operates from across the border in Pakistan. Earlier this month, Col. Chris Vernon, chief of staff for British forces in southern Afghanistan, told the Guardian newspaper, "The thinking piece of the Taliban is out of Quetta in Pakistan. It's the major headquarters. They use it to run a series of networks in Afghanistan."

Nor has Washington's courtship of Pakistan's nemesis, India, helped matters. The US has offered a civilian nuclear deal to India while flat out refusing one to Pakistan.

It's all led to dampening of relations that some analysts say are now at their lowest point since 9/11.

"Pakistan's real gripe is with the Americans. In recent months an angry Musharraf has quietly, but deliberately defied them. Relations between the two countries have not been so poor since 9/11," writes noted journalist Ahmed Rashid in a recent edition of Pakistan's The Daily Times.For analysts like Mr. Rashid, pursuing Khan now would be tone deaf at a time when Islamabad is in no mood to do Washington any favors or jeopardize its ties to Tehran.

"[Officials in Washington] don't understand the regime in Pakistan," contends Ayesha Siddiqa, an independent defense analyst in Islamabad. "It's a rent-seeking establishment, providing a service to the United States, like regimes in the Middle East. But ... beyond a certain point, [the Pakistanis] have a mind of their own."

Some see it differently, pointing out that the views recently expressed in Congress do not necessarily represent those of the Bush administration. "The US administration and the Pentagon understand the limits of what Pakistan can do, but the Congress does not," says retired Lt. Gen. Talat Masood, a political analyst in Islamabad. Mr. Masood says that Congress, being influenced more by public opinion, has unrealistic expectations that threaten relations with Pakistan.

That's a gamble, given that Khan may have nothing substantive to say. Giving up Khan is also a huge political risk for Pakistan, since it would only add fodder to the claim that Pakistan is America's stooge, analysts point out. Plus, if Khan sings, he may implicate some of those in power. "It's suicidal to hand him over," says Siddiqa.

What is needed instead are better measures to build trust, analysts say. A recent US proposal to generate economic activity in Pakistan's tribal areas, where the Taliban are said to be growing in popularity, is a concrete step in the right direction, points out Masood. He says more bilateral trade and education assistance are the needed antidotes to the current tensions.

Trust, he and others add, cannot be managed so long as the current relationship remains one of demand and follow. "Even if [Pakistan] follows the US verbatim, there will still be so many frustrations," says Masood. "Raising the expectations too high can spoil the relationship."

Pakistan