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Posted on Sustainabilitank.info on January 7th, 2010 The Killings in Sri Lanka go on for over ten years, and the UN, nor It is not even Congo, where forests and resources make involvement by ————– ———- Forwarded message ———- 7 January 2009 UN expert concludes that Sri Lankan video is authentic, calls for an GENEVA — Reports by three independent experts strongly point to the Alston commissioned the three reports following the publication of Alston released the full text of the expert opinions in a “Technical “Given these conclusions, and in light of the persistent flow of other Alston summarized the key findings of the experts: Mr Peter Diaczuk, an expert in firearms evidence, concluded that the Dr Daniel Spitz, a prominent forensic pathologist, found that the Mr Jeff Spivack, an expert in forensic video analysis, found no Alston added that the independent experts’ analyses also (a) A Sri Lankan expert stated that there was no recoil or There are a small number of characteristics of the video which the In sum, while there are some unexplained elements in the video, there *** Mr. Philip Alston was appointed Special Rapporteur in 2004 and reports Full texts of technical note & its appendix containing independent Technical Note Appendix.pdf Technical Note.pdf Learn more about the mandate and work of the Special Rapporteur on For press inquiries and additional information on the Special Permalink |
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Posted on Sustainabilitank.info on June 21st, 2009 As Sri Lanka Arrests Two UN Staff, UNHCR Offers Praise After Staying Silent. Byline: Matthew Russell Lee of Inner City Press at the UN: News Analysis UNITED NATIONS, June 19 — Two UN staff members were disappeared by the Sri Lankan government six days ago in Vavuniya. For days, the UN said nothing. An e-mail was sent to Inner City Press, along with a photo of UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon meeting with the staff in Vavuniya on May 23. Those disappeared served as drivers for the UN Office of Project Services and UNHCR, the UN’s refugee agency. After some inquiries, the UN belatedly announced that two staff had been arrested, leading to short articles in the Indian and Canadian press, neither of which included the staff members’ names. They are Kandasamy “Saundi” Saundrarajan of UNOPS and N. Charles Raveendran of UNHCR. They are Tamils. Meanwhile UNHCR’s country officer for Sri Lanka Amin Awar continued to praise the government and the internment camps in Vavuniya. While in Sri Lanka in May, Inner City Press published a story about another UNHCR staffer, detained by the government since last year. Amin Awar, who had not responded to an emailed request to comment on the case, approached this reporter in the lobby of the Colombo Hilton on May 23 and argued that the court system in Sri Lanka is complex, but said he was advocating for the detained man. No update has been provided, and now two more staffers, including one from UNHCR, are detained. How much more will the UN put up with, or as some say, cover up? The email, lightly edited, is below. UN’s Ban and Vavuniya staff, standing up for them not shown Subj: 2 UN Staff abducted 4 days ago and now believed to be tortured by Sri Lankan Army Military Intelligence – Pls Help to Release them From: [Name withheld for fear of retaliation or worse] Dear Matthew, We write this email in desperation seeking your help to put more pressure on Sri Lankan Authorities and release 2 United Nations Staff ( I from UNOPS and 1 from UNHCR ) abducted by Sri Lankan Army Military Intelligence Officials in Vavuniya four days ago and currently detained. We have tried all the possible escalations within UN, including an urgent message to our Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon but nothing has helped so far. We reliably learn that they are now being detained and tortured at a Sri Lankan Army Military Intelligence interrogation camp in Kurumankadu, Vavuniya and since it is weekend no one is taking it serious & taking some bold action for their release or access to them & ensure they are safe. In our May30th Sit Report, our ground officers have highlighted the wide spread abductions and accounted for more than 13,310 missing people in Vavuniya IDP Camps, compared to the previous count. But our higher management in Colombo and Geneva has decided to downplay it and reported it as, “decrease is associated with double counting. Additional verification is required”. They never initiated a project for additional verification. Now we feel the pain of abduction when two of our colleagues are abducted. Photo of our Vavuniya UN Team Group Photo with Secretary General Ban Ki-moon when he visited Vavuniya last month, attached. We don’t know when we will see our colleagues again and the same smile … please help. Due to security issues we cant talk on phone and sending this email with great difficulty & hope you will understand it. Thanks in advance. Concerned UN Staff, Sri Lanka * * * * * * Byline: Matthew Russell Lee of Inner City Press at the UN: News Analysis UNITED NATIONS, June 19 –While it has been reported that in the UN-funded internment camps in Sri Lanka “UN officials have been stopped from bringing in cameras and mobile phones,” the Spokesperson for Secretary General Ban Ki-moon on Friday told Inner City Press, “I don’t think the UN would accept that.” Since the UN did accept the detention by the government of UN staff earlier this year, it is not clear if the UN would accept being barred from exposing abuses they see in the camps or even photographing them. The Spokesperson said she would check. We’ll be waiting. Despite these reported restrictions the UN’s top humanitarian John Holmes, who has yet to respond to requests for comment on the government killing off its investigation into the murder of 17 Action Contre La Faim aid workers, is quoted that “We do have pretty much full access to those camps at the moment.” Would that be, access without cell phones or cameras? What does OCHA do when it becomes aware of abuses? It claimed that it advocated quietly about its detained staff. But the government said the issue was only raised once it was publicly asked about by the Press at the UN. UN’s Ban speaks with envoy Fowler, kidnapped in Niger, on cell phone not seen in Sri Lanka At a UN reception Friday day on the topic of sickle-cell anemia, several African Ambassadors expressed to Inner City Press their concern for what has happened this year in Sri Lanka. An Ambassador from the Maghreb asked, whatever happened to the Responsibility to Protect? Before that final push, shouldn’t somebody have stopped it? Another referred to reports that LTTE officials who tried to surrender by waving the white flag, after communications via UN envoy Vijay Nambiar, had reportedly been shot and killed. “That is not good,” said the outgoing Permanent Representative of a country that itself suffered a genocide. Ironically, these African Ambassadors who are portrayed as more callous than their Western counterparts appear more genuinely concerned. But politics has dictated what has happened, and what is happening. Watch this site. Permalink |
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Posted on Sustainabilitank.info on June 18th, 2009 Former President Bill Clinton, who earlier this week shared the podium with UNSG Ban Ki-moon at the UN, when the latter appointed him as his representative for Haiti, was scheduled to share with him also the dinner table, podium, and the “GLOBAL HUMANITARIAN AWARD of THE FOREIGN POLICY ASSOCIATION at its 2009 Global Philanthropy Awards Dinner, Wednesday, June 17th, 2009, at the St. Regis Roof Ballroom, Midtown Manhattan. Considering that all at the UN seem to believe that Mr. Ban Ki-moon has actually started already his re-election campaign, at a time he is very much under criticism for the very low key ways he handles important issues that end up in his lap – this as his main focus seems to be on the dictum “do not offend” when this applies to the main powers that will decide on his reelection. He makes statements that are not intended to lead to results, and some actually even question sometimes the veracity of what was said – this is unforgivable. We looked at all of this and concluded, these last days, that Bill Clinton was ill advice at cooperating with the UNSG if he is simply used as a way to collect IOUs from the US Administration to be used later in the re-election campaign. We wrote about this at: http://www.sustainabilitank.info/?s=Ban+… Thinking about the FPA event, further, these days of Washington’s involvement in Climate Change, sharing the podium also with the CEO of the Italian oil company – ENI – who was getting the FPA’s Corporate Social Responsibility Award – might also not have been the greatest idea either. Last night I went to St. Regis, saw the Sri Lankan Tamils demonstrating across the street and asking where was Ban Ki-moon when 30, 000 of their people were being killed? Why does he get that Humanitarian Award? They would rather see him go home. Upstairs, at the dinner table, I saw Mr. Ban Ki-moon, but could not find Mr. Clinton. Then, when the speaking part started we were informed that Bill Clinton is a no-show. We were told that he could not come because of an emergency in the family – but we were not told what happened. The quiet of the announcement took me back, and I must confess that my feeling was that we were not told the whole truth and secretly I was hoping that Mr. Clinton just decided that this company became too hot for him, and for his wife who is now the official of the family. I listened to the Ban Ki-moon speech, the Paolo Scaroni speech, picked up an ENI documents gift bag, and went home where my wife told me that it was on TV that Hillary Clinton fell and injured her right elbow. I got my lesson of not jumping to conclusions in the future before collecting more facts, but to be honest, even though I am very sorry for Hillary Clinton’s injury – I think she saved him from future embarrassment as it might have happened had he shared the dinner table last night. ———— WASHINGTON – Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton fractured her right elbow during a fall Wednesday, her chief of staff said. Clinton was on her way to the White House when she fell chief of staff Cheryl Mills said. Clinton was treated at The George Washington University Hospital, just a few blocks from State Department headquarters, before going home. She will undergo surgery to repair her elbow in the coming week, Mills said. ——————— Who was at the event? Obviously, many of the FPA members that paid $1,000 per person for that priviledge, but this time also many UN Ambassadors of oil producing countries and at least one top current official of a US oil company. When I looked for the very few Ambassadors from non-oil countries, I found that in India and Poland there is involvement By ENI as well. Looking at the hand-out material from ENI – it comes in tabloid sized journals called simply “Oil” – the March 2009 Editorial evaluates the new Administration in Washington as: “The begining, however was warm, without being heartwarming.” The first article says that the real world crisis is water and then an article by former Senator Gary Hart, being introduced as a “renowned green politician” who advocates adapting a new lifestyle and energy saving as the only choice for America if it wants to free itself from dependency on oil supplies from the Gulf. Then “The challenge for Obama is foreign policy and not the economy.” That issue was called “Up & Down” and also contained among other material an interview – “Talking to Daniel Yergin” (from the Boston based CERA consultants) – “The impetus towards recovery from the energy industry – the transformations in the energy world will contribute to counterbalancing the downturn. The US and China will form a new axis of international growth.” Talking about Europe ENI finds that “Disunity can be Strength.” There is a positive article about India – “Elephant fights back,” there is the prediction of China increasing consumption, and of Cuba producing oil. The June issue of “Oil” titled “the choice.” It starts with pieces on “the theocratic democracy in Iran” and then moves about Iran to “the future lies underground” and this means oil and more oil – leading to Obama’s “the choice” and it is about the US-Iran relationship – with protagonists – Obama and Ahmadi-Nejad. “Obama’s overture – the cold and the lukewarm.” It goes deeper – into “IRANOMICS” studying the policy mistakes made by the US in the past and the few issues US diplomacy should concentrate with. ENI finds that Ayatollah and the US have converging interests. Europe, above all, would gain most from a possible easing of tensions. However, talking to an Iranian ex-governor of the Central Bank – Moscow and some Arab countries are opposed to this for fear of losing their role. Not bad as policy studies paid for by oil! From here to the need for “mature” diplomacy asa understood by Brent Scowcroft of the Nixon days and keeping an eye on geopolitics as seen by Richard Nathan Haass of the Council on Foreign Relations a clearly solid Republican home. The former Italian Ambassador too India and Iran, Roberto Toscano, finds “less ideology in the Iranian puzzle” and he lifts the veil “on the “curse of oil and the role played by Italy.” Looking back to the days of Cyrus, Darius, and Xerxes, there is hope in finding a future of thawing of relations with Iran that everyone can benefit. There is some more material and we clearly were impressed though we think that all of this goes against what President Obama said about Iraq that paraphrased meant – we will not be after your oil. Now clearly, if Washington does not find other topics of conversation with Iran in order to build a relationship – all of the above is rightly nothing more then another road to disaster. We hope that someone sent a package of ENI to the missing Bill Clinton and we hope he would think like us – that this is not what Obama and Hillary need. —– To the essence of the event, I will defer to the excellent report by InnerCityPress – the writing is so good that we will not attempt to compete with it. I will only add that in his opening, when Mr. Ban Ki-moon tipped his hat to the Tamils, he said that he was the first and last of the world leaders to go to Sri Lanka. He also said he met there with Tamil leaders but as we understand from the press – the last point of meeting Tamils is being left in contention by people that were there with him – but where it seems that he does have a point is the fact that in today’s world the Tamils rank for nothing – so if nobody else in leadership position is speaking up for them – who is he to do so?Aha! but he is just getting the Humanitarian Award of the world corporate philanthropies – does that pass onto him the responsibility to go further then the common politicians? UN’s Ban Tips Hat to Protesters from High Above NY, Claims He Met With Tamils. UNITED NATIONS, June 17 — It was projected as a light evening of honor for UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon, to receive from the Foreign Policy Association a Global Humanitarian Award, along with former US president Bill Clinton. Clinton, however, canceled his appearance due to “family health issues” — word on the street, literally 55th Street in front of the St. Regis Hotel, was that Hillary was in a car crash. And Ban himself was protested, for hours, with chants urging him to resign, or to “go home,” or at least to feel shame. The protesters, it must be said, were nearly entirely ethnic Tamils. Despite the tens of thousands of people killed in the war in Sri Lanka, unlike Darfur, Myanmar or the Middle East, the victims have yet to gain noticeable solidarity from non-Tamils. This feels of abandonment was palpable Wednesday night in front of the St. Regis Hotel. Please read the excellent full report at: http://www.innercitypress.com/untrip4may… ============= Permalink |
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Posted on Sustainabilitank.info on June 17th, 2009 While 200 Sri Lanka Tamils demonstrated across the street from the St. Regis Hotel where the UN Secretary General was getting the US Foreign PolicyAssociation’s Global Humanitarian Award for 2009, at different New York location the Human Rights Watch presented that Sri Lanka is law-less. At the FPA Mr. Ban insisted that he did whatver he could. ——— from HRW Press <hrwpress@hrw.org> date Wed, Jun 17, 2009 at 7:23 PM For Immediate Release Sri Lanka: International Investigation Needed – End of Government Commission on Wartime Abuses Puts Justice at Risk. “Sri Lanka’s presidential commission of inquiry started with a bang and ended with a whimper,” said Elaine Pearson, deputy Asia director at Human Rights Watch. “The need for an international inquiry into abuses by both sides is greater than ever.” The mandate of the Presidential Commission of Inquiry, which was established in 2006 and assigned to investigate 16 incidents of killings, enforced disappearances, assassinations and other serious abuses, expired on June 14, 2009 and reportedly was not renewed. Although the commission’s chairman, former Supreme Court chief justice Nissanka Udalagama, said that seven of the 16 cases had been investigated, none of the commission’s reports have been released or any other public action taken. Among the cases the commission investigated was the brutal killing of five students in Trincomalee, the summary execution of 17 aid workers in Mutur, and the bomb attack that killed 68 bus passengers in Kebitigollewa. Human Rights Watch has expressed concern about the slow pace of the investigations and President Mahinda Rajapaksa’s unwillingness to release the investigation reports. The last weeks of the war heightened the need for an independent and impartial inquiry. Fighting in northeastern Sri Lanka intensified from early January until the government’s defeat of the LTTE in May. During that period, both sides were implicated in numerous serious violations of the laws of war. LTTE forces used displaced persons as “human shields,” and fired on civilians who tried to flee the conflict area. Government forces repeatedly fired heavy artillery into densely populated areas, including at hospitals caring for the wounded. During the special session on Sri Lanka of the UN Human Rights Council in May, the UN high commissioner for human rights, Navi Pallay, said that an “independent and credible international investigation into recent events should be dispatched to ascertain the occurrence, nature and scale of violations of international human rights and international humanitarian law, as well as specific responsibilities.” On May 23, Rajapaksa and the UN secretary-general, Ban Ki-moon, issued a joint statement from Sri Lanka in which the government said it “will take measures to address” the need for an accountability process for violations of international humanitarian and human rights law. “The decision to disband the presidential commission shows that President Rajapaksa has little intention of fulfilling his promise to Secretary-General Ban,” said Pearson. “It’s now up to concerned governments to step in and ensure that justice is done for the victims of abuses in Sri Lanka’s long war.” There have been serious ongoing violations of human rights in Sri Lanka and a backlog of cases of enforced disappearance and unlawful killings that run to the tens of thousands, as described for example in the 2008 Human Rights Watch report “Recurring Nightmare.” Despite this track record, there have been only a small number of prosecutions. Human Rights Watch said the presidential commission of inquiry was just the latest inadequate and incomplete effort by the Sri Lankan government to investigate serious human rights abuses and bring those responsible to justice. Other efforts to address violations through the establishment of ad hoc mechanisms in Sri Lanka produced few results, either in providing information or leading to prosecutions. For more Human Rights Watch reporting on Sri Lanka, please visit the following: · May 2009 news release, “Sri Lanka: UN Rights Council Fails Victims,” at: http://www.hrw.org/en/news/2009/05/27/sr… For more information, please contact: Permalink |
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Posted on Sustainabilitank.info on May 29th, 2009 The Water’s Edge: Tigers’ Tail The Water’s Edge is a monthly column examining the intersection of domestic and foreign policies, with a special focus on the challenges facing the new Obama administration. May 28th, 2009 Throughout the 26-year conflict, various attempts had been made to mediate between the Sri Lankan government and the LTTE. In the late 1980s, India deployed an ill-fated peacekeeping force to the island, and Norway spearheaded a mediation effort early in this decade. These efforts eventually came to naught, and in 2008, the government launched a full-scale offensive against LTTE-held territory in the north of the country. In January of this year, the government intensified its campaign in an effort to deal the LTTE a final blow. As the LTTE retreated into densely populated regions, it made extensive use of civilians as human shields against government attack. But the government largely disregarded this tactic, as well as UN-mediated cease-fires and designated “safe zones” in which civilians could seek refuge. It pursued its offensive aggressively, inflicting severe civilian casualties. By April, the UN estimated that nearly 6,500 civilians had been killed in the offensive and about 14,000 had been injured. In a sense, the Sri Lankan offensive created the first man-made humanitarian crisis of Barack Obama’s presidency. In April, as the LTTE was being squeezed into an ever-smaller plot of territory, Obama expressed his “deep concern” about the situation and called for an immediate cease-fire. He also “call[ed] upon the Government of Sri Lanka to stop shelling the ‘safe zone’ and blocking international aid groups and media from accessing those civilians who have managed to escape.” This month, just days before the LTTE’s final defeat, Obama prefaced a televised statement on his decision to withhold photographs of detainee abuse—arguably a far more salient issue to a U.S. audience—with further concerns about the situation in Sri Lanka. He specifically “urge[d] the Tamil Tigers to lay down their arms and let civilians go,” and he repeated his calls for government forces to stop indiscriminately shelling civilian areas and to give international aid groups access to civilian refugees. The president’s comments were amplified by similar statements from Secretary of State Hillary Clinton UN Ambassador Susan Rice. Behind the proclamations, however, was something more remarkable: concrete action. The Obama administration acted to delay a $1.9 billion IMF loan to Sri Lanka due to the humanitarian crisis. According to one U.S. official, “the problem … [was] that the Sri Lankans have refused to engage on the humanitarian crisis as a priority,” and that delaying the loan was “an attempt to get [Sri Lankan] priorities back where they should be.” The administration acknowledged that the loan was only being delayed, not canceled, and that there was no particular expectation that the delay would compel the Sri Lankan government to change its behavior. Even so, the delay of the IMF loan—coupled with the administration’s strong, coordinated criticism of the Sri Lankan government—represented a far more robust response to a humanitarian crisis than had been made by previous administrations in similar circumstances. The Clinton administration’s tepid response to the 1994 Rwandan genocide, in particular, is known to have shaped the thinking of some Obama advisors; the president himself may have been similarly motivated. Obama’s response, however strong, did not stop the Sri Lankan government’s offensive or delay the LTTE’s ultimate demise. Humanitarian concerns aside, the conclusive endgame of Sri Lanka’s civil war presents unsettling questions for the United States’ own ongoing counter-insurgency operations. Recent military history suggests that the best (if not the only) way to defeat an ethnic- or religious-based insurgency is by protecting the civilian population, trying to win the “hearts and minds” of local noncombatants, and utilizing a “light” military footprint. Essentially, the goal is to deprive an insurgency of its base of support. An aggressive military response, on the other hand, plays into the insurgents’ plans. It increases local resentment of the dominant power in the region and drives supporters to the insurgent cause. And given the irregular and asymmetrical method of insurgent warfare, blunt military responses rarely achieve their objectives; tanks and bombers cannot kill insurgents hiding in an urban area without putting a much greater number of civilians at risk, which ultimately serves an insurgent’s political objectives. The evolution of the U.S. war in Iraq—from the 2003 invasion, to the bloody occupation period of 2004-2006, to the present “surge” strategy spearheaded by General David Petraeus—only reinforces these lessons. In Sri Lanka, however, the government did not abide by these principles. It used an abundance of brute force to liquidate the LTTE insurgency. Tanks, planes, and artillery were utilized liberally, and little effort went into winning the “hearts and minds” of the local population. Instead of coaxing the LTTE to lay down its arms or persuading civilians to withdraw their support, the Sri Lankan government pummeled the insurgency mercilessly, along with anything or anyone in its immediate proximity. This strategy is not “supposed” to work. Yet it did. As President Obama oversees a large-scale reinvestment in the U.S. war in Afghanistan, the Sri Lankan experience raises some pertinent questions. Do the lessons that have been learned in Iraq and in previous insurgencies still hold? How and why did the Sri Lankan government succeed? Will the blatant humanitarian costs incurred by its approach eventually outweigh the military defeat of the LTTE, either in the short-term or in the long-term? Although these are important questions, it is clear that each insurgency is different. Counter-insurgency campaigns must be tailored to local conditions and cannot be transposed or grafted from one dissimilar conflict to another. It is entirely possible, if not probable, that the Sri Lankan government’s aggressive approach may have planted the seeds for long-term resentment and instability that could temper the short-term success it has just achieved. The endgame of the Sri Lankan civil war certainly has been fraught with irony. The LTTE was a violent organization and the civil war was immensely destructive; the end of both is clearly a good thing. But the Sri Lankan government’s final offensive was indiscriminate in its brutality, and it created a genuine humanitarian crisis. As if to reinforce the irony, the Sri Lankan government has actually credited President Obama with playing a major role in the success of their offensive. “It is undeniable that the LTTE effectively folded shortly after President Barack Obama told the world that the terrorists were holding innocent Tamil civilians as hostages. He was one of the few world leaders to note that fact so forcefully … I believe that the president’s statement had a great influence on the LTTE,” noted Jaliya Wickramasuriya, Sri Lanka’s ambassador to the United States. If such a sentiment is genuine, Obama faces a new opportunity. He could use his newfound clout with the Sri Lankan government to urge it to relieve the still-ongoing humanitarian crisis and to build the foundation for a sustainable peace. Daniel Widome is a San Francisco-based foreign policy analyst and writer. He can be reached at daniel.widome at gmail.com —————- What above evaluation missed is the simple fact that except for a lukewarm Indian attempt, practically nobody had any interest in the Sri Lanka issue, except that is China that saw here the potential to gain a warm water port facility in Sri Lanka. As a result, the Sri Lanka government got arms and support from China while the Tamil Tigers got only very little help from India which saw in them potential troublemakers for India itself. Considering the above, much of the FPA suggestions may seem not thoroughly threshed out. Permalink |
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Posted on Sustainabilitank.info on May 22nd, 2009 The UN HUMAN RIGHTS COUNCIL TO HOLD SPECIAL SESSION ON HUMAN RIGHTS SITUATION IN SRI LANKA , Tuesday May 26, 2009. With this announcement, Sri Lanka joins Sudan, Myanmar (Burma), and Congo (Kinshasa) as only the fourth UN member state to be looked at critically, besides the EIGHT Times it investigated Israel because of Palestinian or Lebanese issues. Interesting, just one third of the HRC – that is 17 nations – or one more then the minimum of 16 in the 59 member body – that asked for this session. When the US and the other new members join this body, will they be able to increase further its relevance? ———— The Human Rights Council will hold a special session to address the human rights situation in Sri Lanka on Tuesday, 26 May starting 3 p.m. in Room XX, the Human Rights and Alliance of Civilizations Room, at the Palais des Nations in Geneva. The special session is being convened following the request submitted by Germany on behalf of the following 17 members of the Human Rights Council: Argentina, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Canada, Chile, France, Germany, Italy, Mexico, Mauritius, the Netherlands, the Republic of Korea, Slovakia, Slovenia, Switzerland, Ukraine, the United Kingdom and Uruguay. In order for a special session to be convened, the support of one-third of the membership of the Council (16 members or more) is required. Per Council rules, the list of sponsors for special sessions will remain open up to the holding of the meeting. “It is hoped that the holding of this special session will contribute towards the cause of peace”, stated Human Rights Council President Martin Ihoeghian Uhomoibhi. “The Human Rights Council cannot be silent when innocent civilians are caught up in armed conflicts. The international community must strive to deliver justice to victims of human rights violations wherever they occur and ensure that those found guilty of such crimes are held accountable for their actions”, he added. This will be the eleventh special session of the Human Rights Council. The Council’s previous special sessions related to the Occupied Palestinian Territories, Lebanon, Darfur, Myanmar, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, the Global Food Crisis and the Global Economic and Financial Crises. Permalink |
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Posted on Sustainabilitank.info on May 19th, 2009 The Times of India, Thiru’puram, May 18, 2009. MP-elect Shashi Tharoor swings into action. THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: Thiruvanthapuram, Thiru’puram, Kerala, India MP-elect and former UN under secretary general Shashi Tharoor has already swung into action — a day after his stunning victory by close to 100,000 votes. Tharoor has already found out the whereabouts of four local fishermen who were taken into custody by Sri Lankan police, attended close to a dozen weddings, and also visited the trouble torn Bheemapally area where five people were killed after violence broke out between two communities. “On 17th (Sunday) morning, I got a call from a legislator here saying that four fishermen from here have been taken into custody by the Sri Lankan police. I immediately spoke to my old friend, the foreign secretary, who got in touch with his counterpart in Sri Lanka and found out that the four are safe and will return soon,” Tharoor said here on Monday. Tharoor created history when he became the Congress candidate to win the Thiruvananthapuram seat with the largest margin in the last two decades. “The dissatisfaction with the three-year-old Left government and the people here accepting a non-politician — all contributed to my huge victory. Actually I am humbled by this margin and my focus would be on results than mere slogans,” he said. Asked if his new role would be a dampener when it comes to his passion of writing books, Tharoor – who has authored 11 books – said this will now have to wait. “The expectations of the people here are high and they expect me to deliver. Hence writing will have to wait. I have a huge moral obligation to my people here, and I will be opening an office here, which will be staffed six days a week. Moreover, people can get in touch with me on email also,” he said. —— THIRUVANATHAPURAM: Shashi Tharoor had fought and lost an election for the post of UN secretary general, but the Congress candidate on Saturday scored a thumping victory from the Thiruvanathapuram Lok Sabha constituency in Kerala to make his debut in Parliament. Tharoor defeated his nearest CPI rival P Ramachandran Nair by a margin of over 95,000 votes. 53-year-old Tharoor had a 23-year-long career in the UN and had served as the under-secretary general for communications and public information between June 2002 and February 2007, during the term of secretary general Kofi Annan. In 2006, he was the official candidate of India for the post of secretary general, and came second out of the seven candidates in the race. The former diplomat and writer was declared as a Congress candidate from Thiruvanathapuram on March 19. Politics was an entirely different ball game for the former diplomat and writer, but the results showed that he played it with élan. “I used to joke to the press that after my UN days are over, I will reboot. But after my foray into electoral politics, it seemed rebooting was not enough. I switched on to an entirely new operations system,” Tharoor had said at a recent function her Permalink |
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Posted on Sustainabilitank.info on May 17th, 2009 The news from Sri Lanka are all bad. The government, armed by the Chinese is now encircling the Tamil rebels and decimates them in what has close resemblance to genocide. In India the government party is being strengthened in the recent elections and might wake up to the possibility of a Chinese fleet based in Sri Lanka. Pakistan is falling apart leaving exposed a very soft Afghanistan underbelly as entree-points for Islamic Jihadists. Former President Musharaf tells America on the Fareed Zakharia TV program that the funds America spent on him were intended as pay for his army that presented the previous administration with specimens of Al Kaida. Iran and North Korea do not seem to play yet according to Washington tunes either – will Israel? All of the above as the US dependence on China and India is growing – China, you guessed it – it is all about money, India as a possible counterbalance to excessive dependence on China. And above all of this there is yet to consider that America is still dependent on 70% imports for its energy needs – much of this still from the Middle East. Into all of this, the world, as Helene Cooper writes from Washington, is watching if there is a “New Perspective” that brings in a shift on Mideast policy. The Pope just toured the Palestinian-Israeli territories and was quite a flop – the world talks about “Missed Chances” in the Pope’s visit. So this Pope, US Catholic Universities aside, is quite fallible – but some US Catholics, as the show at Notre Dame proved it today, have yet to accept this reality. Tomorrow the gears in Obama’s mind will start rotating on the Israel-Palestine-Iran-Egypt-Saudi Arabia theater. Helene Cooper quotes former ambassador Charles W. Freeman, a person well connected in the Arab world and its oil, and indirectly points at one source of pressure on Israel. Practically everybody expects nevertheless a smooth outcome from the Netanyahu-Obama meeting, but how long before the Israeli leadership will request some show of progress in the matter of the Iranian nukes? To compound the headache, Jeffrey Goldberg presented an evaluation of Mr. Netanyahu’s family background that promises tough negotiations behind closed doors of the White House. We thought it interesting to bring here that article and also to remind US Congress that carbon-saving legislation is extremely important now – this so the US can be weaned from its oil-addiction. The future of oil supplies from the Middle East is not assured. Further, from the www.SustainabiliTank.info perspective, let us remind our readers of a year-old article in the Wall Street Journal “U.S. Military Launches Alternative-Push – Dependence on Oil Seen as Too Risky; B-1 Takes Test Flight.” (By Yochi J. Dreazen – WSJ, May 21, 2008) – we think that the totality of these news means that for environment/climate change, economy, and also security reasons, a stringent oil tax, under any name, should really be viewed as a security tax – under exactly this name. Again, if the Department of Energy cannot get its act together on Capitol Hill, time has come to send some Department of Defense people over there – they get faster attention! —— Thinking about Netanyahu – please note the following article: Israel’s Fears, Amalek’s Arsenal. By JEFFREY GOLDBERG WHEN the Israeli prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, visits the White House on Monday for his first stage-setting visit, he will carry with him an agenda that clashes insistently with that of President Obama. Mr. Obama wants Mr. Netanyahu to endorse the creation of a Palestinian state. Mr. Netanyahu wants something else entirely: the president’s agreement that Iran must be prevented from acquiring nuclear weapons. Mr. Netanyahu, in his first term as prime minister in the late 1990s, earned a reputation for conspicuous insincerity. It is therefore possible to interpret his fixation on Iran — he told me in a recent conversation that it is ruled by a “messianic apocalyptic cult” — as a way of avoiding the mare’s nest of problems associated with the Middle East peace process, especially the escalating pressure from the Obama administration to curb Jewish settlement on the West Bank. This reading of Mr. Netanyahu holds that he is, at bottom, a cynic (or, if you agree with him, a pragmatist), who will bluff vigorously but bend whenever he thinks it expedient or unavoidable. In his first term, he betrayed the principles of the Greater Israel movement by relinquishing part of Judaism’s second-holiest city, Hebron, to the control of Yasir Arafat. His pragmatism evinces itself, as well, in his apparent belief that the relationship between Israel and Washington is sacrosanct. In other words, Mr. Netanyahu, despite his rhetoric, would never launch a strike on Iran without the permission of Mr. Obama — permission that in no way appears forthcoming. But this is to misread both the prime minister and this moment in Jewish history. It is true that Mr. Netanyahu would prefer to avoid hard decisions concerning the Palestinian issue, for reasons both political (he is not, let us say, sympathetic to the cause of Palestinian self-determination) and strategic (he believes the Palestinians, divided and dysfunctional, their extremists firmly in the Iranian camp, are unready for compromise). Nevertheless, the prime minister’s preoccupation with the Iranian nuclear program seems sincere and deeply felt. I recently asked one of his advisers to gauge for me the depth of Mr. Netanyahu’s anxiety about Iran. His answer: “Think Amalek.” “Amalek,” in essence, is Hebrew for “existential threat.” Tradition holds that the Amalekites are the undying enemy of the Jews. They appear in Deuteronomy, attacking the rear columns of the Israelites on their escape from Egypt. The rabbis teach that successive generations of Jews have been forced to confront the Amalekites: Nebuchadnezzar, the Crusaders, Torquemada, Hitler and Stalin are all manifestations of Amalek’s malevolent spirit. If Iran’s nuclear program is, metaphorically, Amalek’s arsenal, then an Israeli prime minister is bound by Jewish history to seek its destruction, regardless of what his allies think. In our recent conversation, Mr. Netanyahu avoided metaphysics and biblical exegesis, but said that Iran’s desire for nuclear weapons represented a “hinge of history.” “Iran has threatened to annihilate a state,” he said. “In historical terms, this is an astounding thing. It’s a monumental outrage that goes effectively unchallenged in the court of public opinion. Sure, there are perfunctory condemnations, but there’s no j’accuse — there’s no shock.” He argued that one lesson of history is that “bad things tend to get worse if they’re not challenged early.” He went on, “Iranian leaders talk about Israel’s destruction or disappearance while simultaneously creating weapons to ensure its disappearance.” Mr. Netanyahu doesn’t believe that Iran would necessarily launch a nuclear-tipped missile at Tel Aviv. He argues instead that Iran could bring about the eventual end of Israel simply by possessing such weaponry. “Iran’s militant proxies would be able to fire rockets and engage in other terror activities while enjoying a nuclear umbrella,” he said. This could lead to the depopulation of the Negev and the Galilee, both of which have already endured sustained rocket attacks by Hamas and Hezbollah. More broadly, he said, a nuclear Iran “would embolden Islamic militants far and wide, on many continents, who would believe that this is a providential sign, that this fanaticism is on the ultimate road to triumph.” To understand why Mr. Netanyahu sees Iran as a new Amalek, it is essential to understand two aspects of his intellectual and emotional development: The scholarship of his father, and the martyrdom of his older brother. His father, Benzion Netanyahu, 99, is a pre-eminent historian of Spanish Jewry. “The Origins of the Inquisition in 15th-Century Spain,” his most notable book, toppled previously held understandings of the Inquisition’s birth. Over more than 1,300 pages, Benzion Netanyahu argued that Spanish hatred of Jews was not merely theologically motivated but based in race hatred (the Spanish pursued the principle of limpieza de sangre, or the purity of blood) that reached back to the ancient world. The elder Netanyahu also argued that efforts by the Jews of Spain to accommodate their adversaries were futile, in part because the charges against them were devoid of logic or fact, and, perhaps most important, because the written or spoken expression of Jew hatred (his preferred term for anti-Semitism) inevitably led to physical persecution. “What emerges from our survey,” he wrote, “is that the Spanish Inquisition was by no means the result of a fortuitous concourse of circumstances and events. It was the product of a movement that called for its creation and labored for decades to bring it about.” A close reading of Benzion Netanyahu suggests a belief that anti-Semitism is a sui generis hatred, one that is shape-shifting, impervious to logic and eternal. The only rational response to such sentiment, in the Netanyahu view, is militant Jewish self-defense. Benjamin Netanyahu and his two brothers were raised in a home darkened by the history of the Inquisition, and they were taught Benzion’s understanding of the consequences of Jewish weakness. In his 1993 book, “A Place Among the Nations,” Benjamin Netanyahu wrote about what he saw as one of the miracles of the Zionist revolution: “The entire world is witnessing the historical transformation of the Jewish people from a condition of powerlessness to power, from a condition of being unable to meet the contingencies of a violent world to one in which the Jewish people is strong enough to pilot its own destiny.” If his father provided Mr. Netanyahu with his historical framework, his brother Yonatan bequeathed on him the model of a Jew who devoted his spirit to the cause of his people’s survival. Yonatan, who was killed while leading the 1976 raid on the Entebbe airport in Uganda to free Israeli captives of Arab and German hijackers, is perhaps the most venerated figure in the post-Warsaw Ghetto Jewish martyrology, mainly because Entebbe still symbolizes the purest expression of the modern Jewish rejection of passivity. Friends and advisers say Benjamin Netanyahu took three lessons from his brother’s death: The first is that those who threaten Jews, and have the means to carry out their threats, should be neutralized pre-emptively. The second is that no one will defend the Jews except the Jews themselves. The third is that destiny has chosen the Netanyahus to expose and battle anti-Semitism — before it reaches the point of genocide. In his eulogy for Yonatan Netanyahu, Shimon Peres, then Israel’s defense minister, said: “There are times when the fate of an entire people rests on a handful of fighters and volunteers. They must secure the uprightness of our world in one short hour. In such moments, they have no one to ask, no one to turn to. The commanders on the spot determine the fate of the battle.” BENJAMIN Netanyahu faces the daunting task of maintaining Israel’s relationship with the United States, while at the same time forestalling Iran’s nuclear program. If Iran gains nuclear capacity, Israel will have judged him a failure as prime minister; if he does serious damage to his country’s standing in Washington, he will have failed as well. Mr. Netanyahu may be able to convince Mr. Obama that Iran poses an Amalek-sized threat to Israel, but he will have a much more difficult time convincing him that Iran poses an existential threat to America. It is certainly true that a nuclear Iran is not in the best interests of the United States. It would mean, among other things, the probable beginning of a nuclear arms race in the world’s most volatile region, and it would mean that the 30-year-struggle between America and Iran for domination of the Persian Gulf will be over, with Persia the victor. But the short-term costs, in particular, for an American strike — or an American-approved Israeli strike — could be appallingly high. As the crisis worsens, Mr. Obama will find his options few, and those that exist will require him to bring to bear all his talents of persuasion. In his effort to engage Iran, he will need to promise a complete end to its international isolation in exchange for a halt to its nuclear program. But at the same time, he must be ready to threaten Iran with total estrangement from the West — the limiting of its gas imports, the choking-off of its banking system — if it continues its nuclear program. To do this, he must convince Europe, China and Russia that a nuclear Iran will be catastrophic for Middle East stability as well as for their own economies. If he’s unwilling to take military action against Iran, President Obama might soon enough be forced to design a containment strategy meant to scare a nuclear Iran into something resembling quiescence. Talk of containing Iran after it acquires a nuclear capacity, however, does not make the Israelis (or Iran’s Arab adversaries, for that matter) happy and, in fact, might push them closer to executing a military strike. The president, who has shown he understands the special dread Israelis feel about their precarious existence, surely knows this. Last year, during his campaign, he told me, “I know that that there are those who would argue that in some ways America has become a safe refuge for the Jewish people, but if you’ve gone through the Holocaust, then that does not offer the same sense of confidence and security as the idea that the Jewish people can take care of themselves no matter what happens.” Mr. Netanyahu says he supports Mr. Obama’s plan to engage the Iranians. He also supports the tightening of sanctions on the regime, if engagement doesn’t work. But there should be little doubt that, by the end of this year, if no progress is made, Mr. Netanyahu will seriously consider attacking Iran. His military advisers tell me they believe an attack, even an attack conducted without American help or permission, would have a reasonably high chance of setting back the Iranian program for two to five years. Around the world, this would be an extraordinarily unpopular step, but Mr. Netanyahu knows he would have much of the Israeli public behind him. Even the man who delivered the eulogy at his brother’s funeral, the far more dovish Shimon Peres, has assimilated the lessons Benzion taught his sons. When I visited recently with Mr. Peres, who is now Israel’s president, I asked him if there is a chance that his country has over-learned the lessons of Jewish history. He answered, “If we have to make a mistake of overreaction or underreaction, I think I prefer the overreaction.” ———– Permalink |
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Posted on Sustainabilitank.info on January 29th, 2009 THURSDAY, JANUARY 29, 2009 India Speaks Up For Embattled Tamils. NEW DELHI, Jan 28 (IPS) – As humanitarian agencies warned of a major crisis unfolding in Sri Lanka, Indian Foreign Minister Pranab Mukherjee made a quick dash Colombo to extract promises concerning the safety of some 250,000 ethnic Tamils trapped in fighting between separatist rebels and government troops. Mukherjee, who flew into Colombo on Tuesday afternoon, returned on Wednesday morning after a crucial meeting with Sri Lankan President Mahinda Rajapakse. “The Sri Lankan government has reassured that they would respect the safe zones and minimize the effects of conflict on Tamil civilians,” the Indian High Commission in Sri Lanka said in a statement released after the meeting. “I stressed that military victories offer a political opportunity to restore life to normalcy in the northern province and throughout Sri Lanka,” the high commission statement quoted Mukherjee as saying. “We will work together with the government of Sri Lanka to enable all Sri Lankans, and particularly the Tamil community who have borne the brunt of the effects of the conflict, to lead normal lives as soon as possible.” Speaking to reporters before his departure for Colombo, Mukherjee said India was ”against all sorts of terrorism” and had ”no sympathy for any terrorist activity indulged in by any organisation, particularly LTTE, a banned organisation in India”. He, however, added: ”We shall have to see how civilians can be protected and they do not become hapless victims of the situation.” “Although India might have reservations about intervening in Sri Lanka, the government is under tremendous pressure from its political allies to prevent a humanitarian crisis in the Tamil areas of Sri Lanka”, said Praful Bakshi, a retired air force officer who now consults with the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC). That pressure comes from the Indian government’s coalition ally, the Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (DMK) party, which currently rules the southern Indian state of Tamil Nadu. This state is home to more than 60 million Tamils, many of whom sympathise with their ethnic counterparts in Sri Lanka. “There is unhappiness and anger here in Tamil Nadu,” Chennai based security expert, B. Raman, told IPS over telephone. “The Sri Lankan government, after the visit of Indian Foreign Secretary [Shiv Shankar Menon] to Colombo earlier this month, made it appear that the Indian government fully approved the Sri Lankan government’s actions. This led to a lot of angry comments in Tamil Nadu.” The Indian foreign minister needed to go to Colombo to clear misgivings about glossing over a Tamil humanitarian issue, experts in New Delhi felt. After seizing Mullaitivu, the last town controlled by the rebel LTTE, the Sri Lankan Army (SLA) is reported to have holed up the remnants of the rebels in small patches of jungle. But some 230,000 Tamil civilians retreated along with the rebels into the jungles of Mullaitivu and Kilinochchi Districts. These areas are being continuously shelled by the SLA. “When the Sri Lankan Army went into Mullaitivu, the town was empty,” said Raman. “There were no reports of arms recovery or the capture of any LTTE soldiers in that town. The entire LTTE apparatus along with more than 200,000 civilians had simply moved into the jungle.” “The Sri Lankan government claims that these civilians are being held hostage by the LTTE for use as human shields, while the LTTE website www.TamilNet.com has been saying that the civilians fled because 300 of them died in army artillery fire”, Raman said. India’s concerns on the humanitarian situation in Sri Lanka are shared by the world community. EU Commissioner for external relations Benita Ferrero-Waldner and EU Trade Commissioner Catherine Ashton met Sri Lankan Foreign Minister, Rohitha Bogollagama, in Brussels on Monday to voice their concern. A statement by the European Commission underlined that the EU, as a co-chair of the Sri Lanka Peace Process, is watching events in the north of the country very closely following the Sri Lankan army’s significant military gains. The EU leaders urged the government of Sri Lanka “to take decisive action to tackle human rights abuses, including action against the perpetrators, and to guarantee press freedom which is a fundamental component of any functioning democracy”. They expressed the hope that the government in Sri Lanka “will now give priority to outlining and implementing an ambitious and sustainable political solution which can put Sri Lanka on the path towards peace and reconciliation between communities”. One specific area of worry is the recently announced 35 sq. km. “safe zone” for Tamil civilians. The Sri Lankan government claims that this patch has been created for the safety of Tamil civilians trapped in the fighting and that Tamils were free to come into this area. On Tuesday the United Nations issued a statement warning that hundreds of thousands of civilians trapped in areas of heavy fighting in Sri Lanka’s north are in serious danger. U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon has asked the Sri Lankan government and the rebels “to allow and facilitate the movement of 250,000 civilians currently in the area of fighting to safe areas”. The U.N. said the Secretary-General is “deeply concerned that the civilian population in the area is in increasingly dire need of humanitarian aid, including food, water, sanitation, and shelter.” The UN had been transporting food supplies into the conflict areas since October after international agencies were directed to leave the areas amid deteriorating security. But it is proving impossible for the UN teams to continue the relief operations. “The situation of the civilians is increasingly untenable,” Gordon Weiss, UN spokesman in Sri Lanka has been quoted as saying. “They are directly in the path of the fighting and we have many reports of clusters of civilians being killed and wounded by artillery fire.” “People are being caught in the crossfire, hospitals and ambulances have been hit by shelling and several aid workers have been injured while evacuating the wounded,” Jacques de Maio, ICRC head of operations for South Asia in Geneva said in a statement on the ICRC Web site. “When the dust settles, we may see countless victims and a terrible humanitarian situation, unless civilians are protected and international humanitarian law is respected in all circumstances,” Maio said. The situation is so grim, ICRC’s Bakshi said, that “India must fly in aid immediately without being invited. It must also make it clear that this is a humanitarian mission and not a geo-political issue”. Indian strategic experts, while viewing the humanitarian crisis in Sri Lanka with concern, welcome the Sri Lankan Army’s victory against the terrorist LTTE, which was responsible for the assassination of former Indian prime minister, Rajiv Gandhi, in May 1991. Gandhi’s assassination was said to have been carried out to avenge the deaths of several top LTTE leaders after the Indian Peace Keeping Force (IPKF) created under the mandate of the 1987 Indo-Sri Lankan Accord became embroiled in the civil war. India withdrew the IPKF in 1990 and has since stayed out of the conflict on the island. Maj. Gen. (Retd.) Vinod Saighal, author of several books on terrorism and strategic expert, said: “With the comprehensive defeat of the LTTE, there is no question that the southern part of the subcontinent stands stabilised.” “India has not interfered in the Sri Lankan conflict and in fact has tacitly backed the [Rajapakse] government,” Saighal opined. “Now is the time to reach out to the Tamil community in that country to prevent tragedy”. “As an insurgent force, the LTTE has been completely crushed”, said Raman. “During the IPKF operations too the LTTE was pushed to the jungles but subsequently managed to come out. This time, the world situation is totally different,” Raman said. ”The LTTE is now a declared global terrorist organisation whose funding and arming has been slashed. It is badly weakened and will find it difficult to survive.” Permalink |
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Posted on Sustainabilitank.info on November 13th, 2008 Carbon News and Info, Tuesday, 11 November 2008. The Maldives is a group of 1200 tropical islands in the Indian Ocean, 80 per cent of which are less than one metre above sea level. Much of the most inhabited parts of the country are just 1.5 metres above the water. The first democratically elected leader, Mohamed Nasheed, and his Vice-President, Mohamed Waheed Hassan Manik, wasted little time in declaring their plans to British newspapers saying a national fund would be established with royalties from the country’s tourist industry to fund land purchases. Nasheed told the Guardian that Sri Lanka and India were obvious targets given their proximity, and the cultural similarities of their people to the 300,000 Maldivians. He also named Australia as a possible destination. In 2005, authorities announced plans to move the 1000-strong population of the Carteret Atolls, in Papua New Guinea, to Bougainville in what were said to be the first climate change evacuations. Their current homes are predicted to become completely submerged by 2015. Permalink |
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Posted on Sustainabilitank.info on October 14th, 2008 India’s humble rickshaw goes solar. Developed by the state-run Centre for Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR), prototypes are receiving a baptism of fire by being road-tested in Old Delhi’s Chandni Chowk area. “The most important achievement will be improving the lot of rickshaw drivers,” said Pradip Kumar Sarmah, head of the non-profit Centre for Rural Development. “It will dignify the job and reduce the labour of pedalling. From rickshaw pullers, they will become rickshaw drivers,” Sarmah said. India has an estimated eight million cycle-rickshaws. The makeover includes FM radios and powerpoints for charging mobile phones during rides. Gone are the flimsy metal and wooden frames that give the regular Delhi rickshaws a tacky, sometimes dubious look. The “soleckshaw,” which has a top speed of 15 kilometres (9.3 miles) per hour, has a sturdier frame and sprung, foam seats for up to three people. The fully-charged solar battery will power the rickshaw for 50 to 70 kilometres (30 to 42 miles). Used batteries can be deposited at a centralised solar-powered charging station and replaced for a nominal fee. If the tests go well, the “soleckshaw” will be a key transport link between sporting venues at the 2010 Commonwealth Games in New Delhi. “Rickshaws were always environment friendly. Now this gives a totally new image that would be more acceptable to the middle-classes,” said Anumita Roychoudhary of the Delhi-based Centre for Science and Environment. “Rickshaws have to be seen as a part of the solution for modern traffic woes and pollution. They have never been the problem. The problem is the proliferation of automobiles using fossil fuels,” she said. Initial public reaction to the “soleckshaw” has been generally favourable, and the rickshaw pullers have few doubts about its benefits. “Pedalling the rickshaw was very difficult for me,” said Bappa Chatterjee, 25, who migrated to the capital from West Bengal and is one of the 500,000 pullers in Delhi. “I used to suffer chest pains and shortage of breath going up inclines. This is so much easier. “Earlier, when people hailed us it was like, ‘Hey you rickshaw puller!’ Police used to harass us, slapping fines even abusing us for what they called wrong parking. Now people look at me with respect,” Chatterjee said. Mohammed Matin Ansari, another migrant from eastern Bihar state, said the new model offered parity with car, bus and scooter drivers. “Now we are as good as them,” he said. Indian authorities have big dreams for the “soleckshaw.” India’s Science and Technology Minister Kapil Sibal who hailed the invention for its “zero carbon foot print” said it should be used beyond the confines of Delhi. “Soleckshaws would be ideal for small families visiting the Taj Mahal,” he told AFP. At present battery-operated buses ferry people to the iconic monument in Agra — but their limited numbers cannot cope with the heavy tourist rush. CSIR director Sinha said he hoped an advanced version of the “soleckshaw” with a car-like body would become a viable alternative to the “small car” favoured by Indian middle class families. “Greenhouse gas emissions are showing an increasing trend year on year and 60 percent of this comes from the global transport sector. “In the age of global warming, the soleckshaw, with improvements, can be successfully developed as competition for all the petrol and diesel run small cars,” Sinha said. Permalink |
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Posted on Sustainabilitank.info on April 29th, 2008 Now that is UN High gear. Oil Money from Arab Countries can buy publicity that aims to translate into public opinion. Nothing strange here. Exxon and Mobil do so with the New York Times. But Nevertheless, this one explains some positions taken in the past by IPS, or some officials of the UN that were busy for years interfering when attempts were made to help in energy to the developing world, and to the World in general.
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Posted on Sustainabilitank.info on March 28th, 2008 “‘More than 120 million people from India and Bangladesh alone will become homeless by the end of this century,’ [a Greenpeace report on climate change] says. It estimates that 75 million people from Bangladesh will lose their homes. It predicts that about 45 million people in India will also become ‘climate migrants’… ‘Most of these people will be forced to leave their homes because of the sea-level rise and drought associated with shrinking water supplies and monsoon variability. The bulk… will come from Bangladesh as most of the parts of that country will be inundated,’ Dr. Sudhir Chella Rajan, a climate expert and author of the study, told the BBC.” South Asia in climate change crisis.
A Greenpeace report on climate change says that if greenhouse gas emissions grow at their present rate, South Asia could face a major human crisis. “More than 120 million people from India and Bangladesh alone will become homeless by the end of this century,” the report says. It estimates that 75 million people from Bangladesh will lose their homes. It predicts that about 45 million people in India will also become “climate migrants”. Intense cyclones: The report says that the number of people who could be affected by climate change is almost 10 times greater than the number of people who migrated during and after the partition of India in 1947. Around 130 million people now live in India, Pakistan and Bangladesh in what are called low elevation coastal zones, which comprise coastal regions that are less than 10m above average sea level. “There is already plenty of evidence to suggest that the average global temperature rise we have already experienced is associated with substantial changes in weather patterns over recent decades,” the Greenpeace report says. “Droughts have become more common since the 1970s. The frequency of intense tropical cyclones has also increased and there has been widespread retreat of mountain glaciers.”
The study says that “if global temperatures rise by about 4-5C in the course of the century – as they are projected to – the South Asian region could face a wave of migrants displaced by the impact of climate change”. “Most of these people will be forced to leave their homes because of the sea-level rise and drought associated with shrinking water supplies and monsoon variability. The bulk of them will come from Bangladesh as most of the parts of that country will be inundated,” Dr Sudhir Chella Rajan, a climate expert and author of the study, told the BBC. “And Bangladesh is already experiencing the migration,” says an activist from Bangladesh, Mohon Kumar Mondol. “Though Bangladesh is hardly responsible for the global warming and climate change, the Bangladeshi people are paying the price for it – they have never heard of these terms but are suffering from them.” The report says the Indian coastline is also extremely vulnerable.
Several large cities within the low elevation coastal zone like Bombay (Mumbai) and Madras will go under the sea if the present growth rate of greenhouse emissions continue. The report says that while huge investment is being made along the coast line of India, most of these projects are in the danger zone. “This isn’t going to happen gradually. What we are going to see is a series of coastal surges, you will see inundation, salt water intrusion – which will cause lots of harm and devastate a lot of these infrastructures,” said Dr Rajan. According to the Greenpeace report, major population movement from the coastal cities to other large urban centres like Delhi, Bangalore and Ahmedabad will take place. “These cities will have serious resource constraints of their own by the middle of the century, but will have to be prepared to accommodate enormous numbers of migrants from the coasts.” When receiving the Nobel Price, Al Gore Hit On The US anc China As the Major Culprits – We thought to bring up that old BBC material also. Gore climate plea to US and China.
Receiving the Nobel Peace Prize in Oslo, Mr Gore referred to climate change as a “planetary emergency”. He said he hoped for a positive outcome from the UN climate talks in Bali. The chairman of Mr Gore’s co-laureate, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, said climate change threatened human security. “Societies have a long record of adapting to the impacts of weather and climate,” said Rajendra Pachauri, the Indian engineer who has chaired the IPCC since 2002. “But climate change poses novel risks often outside the range of experience.”
The IPCC’s fourth major assessment of climate science, impacts and economics, released over the course of 2007, forecasts increases in droughts, declining crop yields, and scarcity of fresh water over large areas of the planet. Dr Pachauri paid tribute to the thousands of scientists whose work had contributed to the IPCC assessments, notably its inaugural chairman Bert Bolin, who was unable to attend the ceremony as a result of ill-health. Rhetorical power As befits the cinematographic auteur of An Inconvenient Truth, Mr Gore’s speech was a rhetorical tour de force. “We, the human race, are confronting a planetary emergency – a threat to the survival of our civilisation that is gathering ominous and destructive potential even as we gather here,” he said. “The Earth has a fever, and the fever is rising. The experts have told us it is not a passing affliction that will heal by itself.
The former vice-president painted a gloomy picture of the climate impacts that might lie ahead. But he was more upbeat in his assessment that carbon emissions could be tackled. “In every land the truth, once known, has the power to set us free,” he said. Essential steps, he said, included the universal ratification of the Kyoto Protocol – a reference to the US which is now alone among industrialised countries in its rejection of the 1997 treaty – a moratorium on conventional coal-fired power stations, widespread taxation of carbon, and the mobilisation of entrepreneurial initiative worldwide. His warm words for the efforts that Europe and Japan have made in recent years contrasted with his assessment of “two nations that are now failing to do enough” – China and the US. “Both countries should stop using the others’ behaviour as an excuse for stalemate and instead develop an agenda for mutual survival in a shared global environment.” Bali heat Mr Gore and Dr Pachauri now travel to the UN talks in Bali, which have just entered their second week. Delegates there have also heard stern messages about the potential impacts of climate change.
On the fringes of the conference, the World Health Organization (WHO) warned that rising temperatures were already taking malaria into regions where it had previously been too cold, such as Bhutan and Nepal. The negotiators’ main task is to initiate a process that will result in targets for greenhouse emission reductions when the current Kyoto Protocol targets expire in 2012. A draft text proposes that industrialised countries agree to cut their emissions by 25-40% by 2020. The US is opposed to any notion of binding targets. Dr Pachauri said that hopes remained alive for the Bali meeting, “unlike the sterile outcomes of previous sessions in recent years”. The question, he told delegates in Oslo, was whether policymakers would listen to the voice of science and knowledge. “If they do so at Bali and beyond, then all my colleagues in the IPCC and those thousands toiling for the cause of science would feel doubly honoured at the priviledge I am receiving today on their behalf.” Richard.Black-INTERNET@bbc.co.uk Permalink |
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Posted on Sustainabilitank.info on March 27th, 2008 SRI LANKA’S ‘PARLIAMENT MONK’ » Links to this article
COLOMBO, Sri Lanka — Draped in his burnt-orange robe, Athurliye Rathana strolled onto the veranda of a posh hotel here one recent evening and an entire wedding party adorned in fine silks knelt as one, in a gesture of respect and honor to one of the country’s best-known monks. “I guess I’m popular,” said a slightly surprised Rathana, 45, rubbing his shaved head. “I knew our Sri Lankan people love monks. But I didn’t know they loved the ‘Parliament Monk.’ “ Rathana is a celebrated figure in this predominantly Buddhist nation, where monks are cherished for their spiritual guidance. But he is known for more than just his religious leadership. Dubbed the Parliament Monk and the War Monk by the Sri Lankan press, he is a legislator who has pushed for the use of military force to end this island nation’s 25-year civil war, which has left 70,000 dead and displaced nearly a half-million people at its height. “Am I an extremist? Sometimes I am. Sometimes I am not,” Rathana said over green tea, when asked about reports from foreign human rights groups that accuse his party of hindering peace talks. “The point is that we need to end this war. And we are forced into a military solution.” Rathana fits into the tradition of monks across Asia who have embraced political causes. Last fall, monks in Burma risked their lives to rise up against the country’s ruling military junta; more recently, monks in Tibet have been at the center of ongoing protests against the Chinese government. The sporadic war in this country has divided and weakened society, reigniting long-standing ethnic tensions between the majority Sinhalese, who are predominantly Buddhist, and the minority Tamils, who are mainly Hindus and Christians. In recent months, there has been a surge in fighting between government troops and the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam, the separatist group known as the Tamil Tigers, or LTTE. The government of President Mahinda Rajapaksa has regained territory in the eastern reaches of the island, known as the Wild East. But in the thick jungles of the north, heavy fighting still rages. Aid groups operating in the region say hundreds of Tigers and civilians have died over the past few months, though claims cannot be independently verified because the government does not permit journalists to travel near the front lines. Rathana’s party, the Jathika Hela Urumaya, is led by monks and is the staunchest supporter of the government’s military offensive. The party does not represent most monks in Sri Lanka, who are largely committed to nonviolence. “As a Buddhist monk, I think every bad thing should be finished,” Rathana said. “Here in Sri Lanka, we have terrorists who brutally murdered people. As monks, we must defend ourselves and fight back. That is reality.” As many as 30,000 mostly Sinhalese young men have signed up for the army in the past few months, spurred in part by activism by Rathana and others. The Tigers still control the northern tip of the country and have vowed to continue their struggle for a separate Tamil homeland. The war has left the north and east of this former tourist haven a shambles. White-painted monuments of Buddha are battle-scarred. Many of the roads leading to the country’s mostly Tamil east are potholed and nearly impassable, with checkpoints every few miles where government troops search travelers and their luggage. Caught in the middle are Tamil civilians. Many fear both the Tigers, who forcibly recruit children and adults, and government troops, whom human rights groups have accused of carrying out false arrests and abductions. While Rathana is treated like a rock star in Colombo’s elite circles of Sinhalese, he has vocal critics. Mano Ganesan, a Hindu Tamil member of Parliament, characterized him as "highly divisive and offensive." He said Rathana and his party have "not helped in pushing for a peaceful solution. They are only creating more militant Tamils." “This is not Buddhism at all,” Ganesan said. “This is using Buddhism to justify politics and a policy of war.” Rathana’s name, meanwhile, invokes panic among many ethnic Tamils, who say they are often targeted for harassment by police and paramilitary groups. Palitha Kohona, Sri Lanka’s foreign secretary, said the government was taking those issues "very seriously. But the LTTE is using this to fight a propaganda war. We are reaching out to moderate Tamils to help us fight the terrorists." Rathana said his entry into political life was not easy, explaining that his parents were unable to accept his political calling at first. Born into the upper middle class — his father was a prosperous goldsmith — he became a monk at age 15. In his youth, he was a communist. But his views on government changed as he watched the 1998 bombing of the Temple of the Sacred Tooth Relic, in the spiritual capital of Kandy, home to a tooth allegedly snatched from Buddha’s funeral pyre, he said. Rathana has defended keeping foreign monitors out of Sri Lanka, saying the country has for too long been ruled by outsiders, from the Portuguese to the Dutch to the British. The British once favored the Tamils for jobs in their administration, and the Sinhalese, Rathana said, “had to fight to regain representation in the government, even though we were the majority.” “We can sort this out on our own. We tried to discuss things, but the LTTE always wanted to fight,” he said, sounding more like an army general than a legislator or monk. “We must do our duty on the battlefield.” Permalink |
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Posted on Sustainabilitank.info on March 24th, 2008 Global enterprise can be grateful to Arthur C. Clarke Sir, In 1992 I attended an technology exhibition in Geneva, where Apollo 9 astronaut Russell “Rusty” Schweickart gave a talk about how technology was causing the planet to “shrink”. As an astronaut who had looked upon the Earth and seen it as a globe, he tried to explain how technology was creating an encapsulated Earth, a global village with a holistic relationship between environment, society and business. That was the term people used back then, though today we’d call it globalisation and we’d be in a position to cite its negative as well as its positive connotations. I was reminded of this by the death of Sir Arthur C. Clarke this week. Clarke was a bit of a polymath: the author of 2001: A Space Odyssey and numerous other books; a first-class honours graduate in mathematics and physics; and perhaps most importantly for all in business, the person who in 1945 first conceived of the communications satellite. Global enterprise now harvests the fruits of that idea, as internet queries and responses are transmitted across invisible relays that connect our world and make it transparent. Fortunately “the button” was never pushed; however, because of Clarke’s strategic vision of global communication, each of us today can push a button of our own and send an e-mail or commit a transaction. Today, the International Astronomical Union recognises the geostationary orbit in which communication satellites lie as the “Clarke Orbit”. It is a fitting memento to one of the architects of that global village which astronauts see from afar. Ian Mitchell, Barnard Castle, Co Durham DL12 8NS
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Posted on Sustainabilitank.info on February 18th, 2008 This posting starts with the essence of the presentation of the Austrian Permanent Representative to the UN, Ambassador Gerhard Pfanzelter, and moves then to the article by Matthew Russell Lee on www.InnerCity.Press.com – these related to the UN Security Council open debate on “CHILDREN AND ARMED CONFLICT.” We had before one posting where The Permanent Representative of Israel lamented the fact that some use their own children as human projectiles in suicide bombings – these people obviously have no respect then for the children of the other. We picked the Austrian intervention because it is uncluttered with direct references to reality, and basically makes all the right requests for a world of sanity. The Austrian presentation stresses that we have already on the books all the tools needed for a sane world – tools that prohibit and criminalize recruitment and use of child soldiers, as well as other abuses of children in armed conflict. We have already the tools for monitoring and reporting of abuse. The problem is that violations just continue without regard to the rules on the books. The Ambassador wants to see that rape and sexual abuse of children should also trigger automatically the requirement for monitoring and reporting mechanisms like it is for the use of the children as soldiers. He is appalled by the level of sexual and gender-based violence against children documented in the Secretary-General’s report. He makes clear allusion to the UN’s own forces, that were tainted, as we well know, with many accusations of sexual abuse. He requests that child rights training should be an obligatory part of training of UN peace keeping personnel. THE EUROPEAN PEACE UNIVERSITY IN STADTSCHLAINING, BURGENLAND, AUSTRIA, is offering Specialization Courses on Child protection, Monitoring and Rehabilitation also for UN and EU personnel. Similarly, he expressed Austria’s interest in protection of women and girls, and asks for support to the Machel Strategic Review and the development of an Inter-Agency Child Protection Database for applicability in conflict and post-conflict situations. All of the above is nifty, but then look please on The Inner City posting to see that not all are equal at the UN. Some get away literally with murder, while some that are not big enough, or influential enough, at the UN are doomed to stay as victims. Please – see the attached posting, and consider what can be done to bring reality based corrections into the UN deliberations for enforcing the already existing regulations – equally – for the strong and weak.
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Posted on Sustainabilitank.info on February 3rd, 2008 This is an update of our first posting of February 1, 2008, when to fliers by the UN Staff Union were brought to our attention. We attach these two fliers to the end of the article. The flier of January 23, 2008 talks about the bombing in Algiers and demands an outside independent investigation as it was done after the Baghdad bombing of the UN compound there. But the other flier shows total distrust of the UN top brass. The December 17, 2007 flier came about because the killing of two Red Cross workers in Sri Lanka beginning of 2007, and also of aid workers killed in 2006. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon voiced his opposition to the killings, but did he stand up to the Sri-Lanka government when it accused UNICEF Country Representatives that protested the killings. If the UNSG cannot stand up to Sri Lanka and Algeria, why in the world will a UN employee want to serve in a troubled country knowing that he/she is not completely backed by the UN system? The original article: The Algerians Insisted That Algerias Lakhdar Brahimi Be The Investigator In The Killing of 17 UN Staff In Algiers. Does The UNSG Not Care For The Safety Of UN Civilian Staff? Last evening we went to the UN to watch an Academy Award winning documentary – “Into The Arms Of Strangers: Stories Of The Kindertransport.” That was the story of 10,000 children that were sent off by their Jewish parents from Nazi occupied European continent to Britain – this in order to give them the chance to live. Not an easy task for parents and children alike. On the way to the Dag Hammarskjold Auditorium we passed the BESA exhibit that shows Albanian Muslims – Kosovarians – that saved Jews during the war – so humanity can feel that in those days of darkness there were Muslims that felt repulsion to Nazi behavior. After the movie I happened to talk to a journalist accredited to the UN that told me – you know what? Ban Ki-moon looked high and low and landed upon an Algerian Ex-Minister and perpetual Algerian UN emissary to investigate the recent killing of 17 UN employees in Algeria. If I would not be afraid that someone would accuse me of racism – I would clearly say that this stinks of “WHITEWASHING.” I cannot see why the stomachs of UN civil employees would not turn over with these news. People of their ilk, were indeed killed like they were in the bombing of the Baghdad UN compound – this because the UN top brass is back-bone-less when it comes to stand up to what it calls a sovereign government – and do not wink when in the process they sacrifice lives of UN employees. You can say that military people have sold their safety when signing up for serving in an army, but civilians did not. The UN Staff Committee, if they have any backbone must now speak up. If they are also run by interested country citizens on the UN quota based system, so good luck when next bomb strikes. With above information in my head, I discovered at home that things start filtering to the press via the very few outlets of true investigative journalism that still operate at the UN. After Algiers Bombing, UN to Appoint Algerian Ex-Minister Lakhdar Brahimi to Investigate. Byline: Matthew Russell Lee of Inner City Press at the UN: News Analysis UNITED NATIONS, January 31 — “In the wake of the bombing last month that killed UN staff in Algiers, Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon said he would appoint an outside panel to investigate. The Algerian government protested, saying it had not been consulted. Ban and his chief of staff Vijay Nambiar both met with Algerian officials, and Thursday night Algerian diplomats said that the choice to head the UN panel is former Algerian foreign minister Lakhdar Brahimi.” At the UN, some scoffed at such a choice as an accommodation which would call into question any independence of the panel. Others called it astute politics, given that Brahimi’s previous study of peacekeeping made it likely that he will exonerate the UN system, too. But UN Development Program Administrator Kemal Dervis, asked by Inner City Press about UNDP’s Marc de Bernis’ role in not having raised the threat assessment level after the April 2007 bomb attack in Algeria, said that the UN had in fact asked the Algerian government to help block off the street in front of the UN building, without any formal response. So this time, in effect there was a UN employee who on location asked for improved security from the Algerians. Obviously, nobody from UN headquarters in New York has moved onto that subject in those days. Mr. Marc de Bernis was killed in the bombing – so now we rely on his widow’s statements. “Algerian officials have fired back, including at a conference in Tunis on Thursday, when Algeria’s interior minister Yazid Zerhouni spoke, in front of UN Security chief David Veness, of the need for \’respect for the sovereignty of states… without interference in their internal affairs.’ Hours later, other Now that is what we keep saying all the time – THE UN IS JUST AS GOOD AS THE LOWEST COMMON DENOMINATOR OF ITS SOVEREIGN STATES – and this is lower then low. David Veness, it should be said, was previously with Britain’s Scotland Yard, for which he investigated without success the disappearance of three million dollars from UN custody in Somalia. Now Scotland Yard is providing the veneer of outside investigation to Pervez Musharraf’s inquiry into the murder of his political rival Benazir Bhutto. Matthew writes that “one wag at the UN Thursday night, at the end of the month of Security Council presidency reception by the Libyan mission, asked and answered a question. What is the difference between Pervez Musharraf and Ban Ki-moon? (A beat.) At least Pervez Musharraf has Scotland Yard.” So, the UNSG will not even show strength of looking for cover by reaching out to someone like David Veness to look into what hapened in Algiers. That corects us now – THERE WILL NOT BE EVEN A WHITEWASH in the Algiers affair – plain lack of trust in the so called Algerian in-house investigation. WE HAVE A SUGGESTION – WHY WOULD NOT BAN KI-MOON ASK FOR AN ISRAELI EX-MOSSAD MAN TO VOLUNTEER TO REVIEW THE BRAHIMI CONCLUSIONS. TO BE MORE PRECISE – HE SHOULD ANNOUNCE THIS AS HIS UN INSTITUTIONAL CHOICE WHEN ACCEPTING THE ALGERIAN SOVEREIGN CHOICE OF BRAHIMI. ONLY A DRASTIC MOVE LIKE THIS CAN RETURN A SEMBLANCE OF CREDIBILITY BEFORE THE UN STAFF.
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Posted on Sustainabilitank.info on January 8th, 2008 SECRETARY-GENERAL’S PRESS CONFERENCE – Monday, January 7, 2008 UNITED NATIONS HEADQUARTERS, NEW YORK. First let us give the “boiler plate statement, then the verbatim Q&A, and at the end a little further insight. The Secretary-General: Good morning, ladies and gentlemen. First of all, I would like to send my best wishes for a very happy, healthy and prosperous New Year. I hope that 2008 will bring to all of you and your families best wishes, happiness and prosperity. It has been a great privilege for me to work with you during last year, my first year, and I count on continuing such a good relationship and friendship and exchange of ideas, including constructive criticism, even. Thank you very much. By tradition, this is the season for taking stock—and for looking ahead. You know that I am not one to speak easily of successes. The past year was one of immense challenges. But I think we have made certain progress. We opened a new chapter on climate change. We took on new and daunting challenges in peacekeeping, most specifically in Darfur. These are powerful concepts: the “global commons” and “global public goods.” They are the basic building blocks of modern globalized society. If they are to have meaning, we must be mindful of the responsibilities they impose upon us. We must address ourselves to the needs of the weak, the disadvantaged, those who have been excluded from the mainstream international community. I speak here of those who are most vulnerable to climate change. Those who suffer the most grinding poverty. Those who do not enjoy basic human rights.
We must pay careful attention to these nations with special needs. We must heed the voices of the world’s poorest people, who too often go unheard. For this reason, I shall work over the coming year to strengthen the UN’s role in development. We are at the mid-point of a great campaign to end world poverty, set forth in the Millennium Development Goals. Too many nations have fallen behind. We need fresh ideas and fresh approaches. That is why, last year, I established the MDG Africa Steering Group. In April, world leaders will gather in Accra, Ghana, for the UNCTAD summit on trade and development. In September, we will host a high-level meeting at the beginning of the General Debate. The goal: to re-energize the world’s commitment to the Millennium Development Goals, with special attention to the poorest of the poor. Last year, we used a similar forum to galvanize world action on climate change. This year, we will do the same for the bottom billion. In the pursuit of the global good, human rights must be a core principle. It is fitting, then, that 2008 should also mark the 60th anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. I am determined to press ahead with the special tribunal in Lebanon and to work with the international courts to promote justice and oppose impunity. We will launch a new global awareness campaign on human rights, push more aggressively to better protect women and children against violence, and strengthen the office of the High Commissioner on Human Rights. The demands on the UN grow ever greater. If anything, the coming year promises to be even tougher than the last. Look how it has begun, with turmoil in Kenya and renewed violence in Sri Lanka. We must nurture a fragile peace process in the Middle East. We must do more to help the people of Iraq emerge from conflict and rebuild shattered lives. We must stay the course in Afghanistan, so that it does not again fall into lawless anarchy. In Darfur, we must do our utmost to push the peace talks to a successful conclusion. We must manage the very complex deployment of UN-African Union forces. To succeed, we need the full cooperation of the government of Sudan. We also need the Member States—including the Security Council—to live up to their commitments. The road from Bali will be difficult as well. Two years is not a long time to win a climate change deal that all nations can embrace. I intend to keep up the momentum. We need a global grassroots public awareness campaign to focus political pressure and keep global warming at the forefront of public consciousness.
Since my first day in office, I have sought an open and active dialogue with you in the UN press corps. You were the first people I met last year on my first day, and you are the first – after my Town Hall meeting with the staff this year – that I am meeting in this new year. I look forward to our healthy, frank exchanges. They are valuable and, often, fun. Let me start by taking your questions. And again, my best wishes to you all for a very successful, rewarding 2008. Q & A : Question 1 – by tradition – from the UN Correspondents Association President (UNCA): Thank you very much for your kind wishes to the United Nations Correspondents Association. On behalf of all my colleagues here, I would like to wish you and Madame Yoo Soon-taek all the best — and, of course, a very successful second year, despite the slow activities and results of the last year. You have set a lot of high expectations for this year. So I wonder if you can tell us: First, there is a new crisis in Africa, in Kenya, where accusations of genocide and ethnic cleansing have become more and more visible now and heard all over the world. I wonder what the United Nations is doing to prevent another case of Rwanda in 1994, where the United Nations is limited to providing relief services while the killing went on? The Secretary-General: I have been in close contact with Kenyan leaders, including President [Mwai] Kibaki and opposition leader [Raila] Odinga, and President [John] Kufuor of Ghana, in his capacity as Chairperson of the African Union, and many other international leaders to, first of all, calm down and stabilize the situation. I urged them strongly to avoid further killings of civilians. That was unacceptable, as I have stated in my two previous statements. I will continue to do that. The United Nations has been doing our best efforts to provide the necessary humanitarian assistance to many people there who have been unfortunately displaced because of this situation in Kenya. Protecting human rights is very important and paramount for us. We are taking all necessary measures to prevent the further deterioration of the situation. As for the specific question you raised, that will always be a high priority in my mind. We will try our best to ensure that no further casualties will happen there. And as the leaders of Africa – including President Kufuor, who is expected to have consultations with the Kenyan leadership — as well as some former presidents are also expected to visit there — I hope, through those international interventions, the Kenyan leaders will sit down together and resolve this issue in a peaceful manner. ——– Question 2 from the UN Correspondent for The New York Times, Warren Hoge, a paper favored by the UN: Mr. Secretary-General, both you and the Under-Secretary-General for Peacekeeping last month said that the force going in to Darfur would be at risk unless the Sudanese Government agreed to some of the troop assignments that you were requesting, and unless other countries gave you the transportation and logistics you needed. Neither of those two things has happened. You have had a formal change of command in Darfur, which basically is just changing the colour of the helmets. My question is: If this force is, as you say, at risk, how can you deploy them when they don’t have the capacity to protect civilians and don’t have the capacity to protect themselves? The Secretary-General: That is exactly why I, as Secretary-General, and the United Nations as a whole, and the international community – Member States – must ensure a rapid deployment of the Hybrid Operation as agreed, to the level of 26,000, as soon as possible. We now have 9,000 re-hatted soldiers in Darfur. That is not sufficient. That is why we are very much concerned about this ongoing deteriorating situation in Darfur. I had a long telephone discussion with President [Omar al-] Bashir last Saturday, and we agreed to meet again in Addis Ababa. Before that, before we meet again at Addis Ababa on the occasion of the African Union summit meeting, we will have a high-level consultation to resolve all these pending issues. There are, as you rightly said, two areas of pending issues, one to be done by the Sudanese Government. There are still many technical or administrative issues, to which the Sudanese Government must commit themselves as agreed, including a status of forces agreement and also composition of forces and other technical issues. Then there are resources to be provided by the Member States in general, including critical assets like helicopters and heavy transport equipment. These are to be done by both sides: by the international community as a whole and the Sudanese Government. I will do my best to expedite this process. In fact, we have made a good framework to resolve these Darfur as well as Sudanese issues as a whole, including a peace process and the Comprehensive Peace Agreement. All those three tracks will move hand in hand. And we are also looking at the possibility of resuming the second peace process. But that may take a little bit of time. My Special Envoy Mr. Jan Eliasson and African Union Envoy Mr. [Salim Ahmed] Salim, they are working very hard. Jan Eliasson is also going to visit Khartoum next week. ——- Question 3 from a correspondent from Morocco: Mr. Secretary-General, there have been statements threatening war in the African continent lately. The POLISARIO has been saying that this is the last chance that they give the Moroccans in the Western Sahara; otherwise the preparation for war is afoot. Also, we have the worrying aspect of Chadian aeroplanes bombing areas of Sudan, Darfur, in chase of Chadian rebels, so they allege. And there are obvious and frank threats from the President of Chad to enter Darfur to chase the Chadian rebels. Your thoughts on both subjects, please. The Secretary-General: On the Western Sahara issue: As you may know already, I am going to issue a statement this morning that there is going to be another consultation in Manhasset, in Greentree, between the parties concerned. I appreciate all the parties concerned to have accepted my invitation. Mr. [Peter van] Walsum is going to organize as well as facilitate this dialogue. This is a painstaking and very complex issue, and I hope that this time they will be able to make good progress on these issues. On the situation in Darfur and, again, the Sudanese relationship, I am going to discuss with African leaders, including President [Idris] Deby of Chad. I have spoken with President Bashir. But I would really urge the leaders and countries concerned to refrain from all these exercises – refrain from using military forces. This will only aggravate the situations in Africa. I am very much concerned about all these ongoing deteriorating situations – not only here but elsewhere, including Kenya, Sudan, Chad and other areas. I really hope that this new year, 2008, will see bright hope. We have started with gloomy prospects: the situation in Kenya and elsewhere. I really hope that, with active cooperation and dialogue among the leaders of the world, we will see some better world this year. This is my firm commitment as Secretary-General. Question – a follow up: But the POLISARIO is saying frankly, and their statements are very clear, that this is the last chance they are giving the Moroccans. Your thoughts on that; are you having any contacts with the POLISARIO? I understand that you hope that they will reach an agreement, but it seems the obstacles are too high and, in the face of these threats, it sounds like dire straits to me. ——– Question 4 from Japan: We know that you are a very humble person, but if you were to rate your first year’s performance on a scale of 1 to 10, how much would you give yourself, and why? The Secretary-General: I am the sort of person – as you said, modest. I am the sort of person who is very strict to myself, officially and personally. Even in my home and my private life, I really want to be very strict to myself. When you set a guideline or rule, I want to be bound by that. I stick to that. The assessment of my performance as Secretary-General during the last one year will be the role and duty of you and Member States and other public and private organizations, including many NGOs. I think that I have made certain progress. As I said, I am not a person who easily speaks about success, because one year may be too long or may be too short for anyone to assess my performance. All the issues which you may have seen last year, they are all ongoing projects, including reform of the United Nations, Darfur, climate change or all these Lebanese situations. All are ongoing and very complex, so we need to continue and step up our efforts. I think I have established good tracks on the basis of which I can move ahead on these projects. ——— Question 5 from Frank Ucciardo of CBS: Mr. Secretary-General, in your opening statement you talked about pressing on with the investigation in the Hariri assassination and the Lebanon tribunal. As you know, the family of Benazir Bhutto has asked for United Nations participation in the investigation of her murder. I would like to get your thoughts about that. And do you feel that the United Nations should be the one organization or agency in the world that is the place to go for such political assassination investigations? The Secretary-General: In other places, you mean? Question: Yes. In other words, Benazir Bhutto’s family has asked for the participation of the United Nations to investigate her murder and her assassination, and as you know, Scotland Yard has been invited in by the Government. But do you feel that the United Nations should be the place where the buck stops and where investigations start in such political assassinations? The Secretary-General: First of all, the United Nations has not received any formal request from the Government of Pakistan, and as you may very well be aware, Scotland Yard are now providing technical assistance in the investigation process of this very tragic assassination case. Therefore, I am not in a position to comment on any request on a private, personal level. All this kind of establishing Special Tribunals should be, first of all, based upon the formal request of the Government concerned. And then that should be decided by the Security Council. That means that all Member States should decide. The assassination of Hariri case, which has been establishing this Special Tribunal, was a very special one, where the whole Security Council has made a consensus agreement on this. ——- Question 6 from Ms. Raghida Dergham from Al-Hayat, London: Mr. Secretary-General, Happy New Year to you and your family, and thanks for welcoming constructive criticism. Actually, this is praise of what you have done in Paris, when you chaired the meeting in Paris on Lebanon. I am wondering if you are satisfied with the follow-up to that meeting you have chaired. And since you said you are pressing ahead with this tribunal on Lebanon, are you going to name the judges? You said you will accept the recommendations, but are you going to be naming the judges, and is the tribunal pretty much ready to be operational in February, as we have heard from the American ambassador? And is this tribunal now unstoppable? The Secretary-General: We have made good progress on the establishment of the Special Tribunal for Lebanon. The United Nations remains committed to the search for truth and justice in this case. On 21 December, after three months of negotiations, we signed a headquarters agreement with the Dutch Government on the Special Tribunal, to be headquartered at The Hague. I have also received and adopted the recommendations of the selection panel created to help me recruit judges for the tribunal. It is a panel of international judicial experts, which includes my Legal Counsel, Mr. Nicolas Michel. I will announce the names of those selected at an appropriate time in the future. The judges will assume their functions on the date I will also determine soon. In this regard, I would like to speak more broadly on the situation in Lebanon, if you will allow me to say a few words. I continue to be in close contact with Lebanese leaders and, more broadly, with international and regional leaders to try to find a solution to the prolonged political crisis. I am deeply disappointed by the current situation, in which the Lebanese people have not been able to elect their own President for such a long time. There has been a prolonged constitutional vacuum by not having a President yet. Failure to reach an early agreement would represent a betrayal of the expectations of both the Lebanese people and the international community. You have seen the international donors conference, which was held in January last year in Paris, which committed almost $8 billion, and you have seen this meeting which I convened last December in Paris on the occasion of the other international meeting. I am, at the same time, encouraged by the efforts of the League of Arab States, announced yesterday. I once again call on Lebanese leaders to think about the future of their country, transcending sectarian and individual interests. And, on the neighbouring countries, I urge them to help the Lebanese people, so that they will be able to overcome this crisis on their own will, without outside interference. Secretary-General: The tribunal is making good progress, including the funding. We have been receiving necessary funding from many, many countries. Therefore, first of all, the headquarters agreement should be ratified by the Dutch parliament. We need to have sufficient funding. We are talking about $120 million for the period of three years, out of which we may need at least $40 million or $45 million, I am not aware of the exact amount, for the first year. I think necessary preparations are going on well. As soon as all these administrative and legal measures are finalized, then I will be in a position to announce the names of the judges. Question: And Syria? The Secretary-General: As you know very well, I have been in close contact with many leaders in the region, including President [Bashar al-]Assad of Syria. I think I have spoken with him last month, and I will continue to discuss this issue with whoever is known to have influence or interest in the future of Lebanon. ——– Question 7 – from Nigeria or Cameroon: Thank you, Secretary-General, and happy New Year. I wanted you to give me your perspective – or the perspective of the United Nations Secretariat – regarding the Greentree accord between Nigeria and Cameroon. The Nigerian Senate keeps saying that the treaty has not been ratified, but the treaty is already being implemented. Now, did that decision, or did the information that the treaty was not ratified, did it come to the United Nations, as a surprise? Is the United Nations supposed to implement a treaty that has not been ratified by the competent authority in one of the countries that signed the treaty? The Secretary-General: I will continue to discuss this matter and urge the leaders of Nigeria and Cameroon to abide by this Greentree agreement, which has provided a good framework for resolving all these pending issues. Question: Let me follow up with you. Are you surprised that the Nigerian Government did not ratify the treaty before it was implemented? The Secretary-General: That was a source of concern last year, which I have been discussing with the countries concerned. ——- Question 8 – ?: Mr. Secretary-General, are you watching any of the US presidential debates, and who do you think is going to win, and will it make any difference to the United Nations? The Secretary-General: I hope you will be able to tell me what are your own views. I am watching and closely following all these debates, but I have to wait until the final choice of the American people, who will be elected as the President of the United States. I will be very happy to work with anybody chosen by the American people. ——- The Secretary-General: In French? Yes. Question (spoke in French): You referred, in your introductory remarks, to the attack that took the lives of 18 United Nations employees, and you mentioned other recent attacks in the region, which received less media attention. There was an attack carried out against French tourists, another against Mauritanian soldiers and a further attack against Italian soldiers, and also a recent attack targeting police officers in Algiers. Do you share the view that is held by numerous individuals in the region who believe that the Sahel region is an area of arms trafficking, and therefore constitutes a base for the various terrorist groups that are threatening the region, and, beyond that, threatening neighbouring countries? The Spokesperson: The question, for those of you who were not following in French, is about Algeria: the recent bombing in Algeria, and the prospect of – Question: I am actually talking about the Sahel region as a zone of lawlessness and the smuggling of arms. And a lot of countries and people in the region are worried that those attacks mean that the region may be considered as ground for terrorist groups that may threaten the region. Given the recent attacks in Algiers and also the attacks in Mauritania that led to the cancellation of a major sporting event, the Dakar rally, do you share the views of those who think that this Sahel region is becoming ground for terrorist groups that may threaten the stability in the region? (spoke in French) Thank you very much for putting that question to me in French. I think you are well aware of my passion for the French language. Now, if you will allow me, I am not fully prepared – but if you will allow me to continue in English. I discussed matters with President [Abdelaziz] Bouteflika when I was in Algiers last month, last year. (spoke in English) These are serious issues for any country in the world, including those in the Sahel area. It is not only Algeria. I told President Bouteflika that, while it was a very tragic – and I was so sad and so shocked, and they were also embarrassed very much by not having been able to protect the United Nations staff and United Nations premises – this should be a global issue, not Algeria or any countries in the Sahel area. Therefore, this needs a global, concerted effort to address, fight against international terrorism. I think the international community must do more. Regardless of what their belief may be, there cannot be any justification whatsoever when it comes to terrorism. The Secretary-General: All sorts of grievances coming from these conflict issues may be the source of some elements of terrorism. That is why we must resolve all the conflict issues through peaceful means, through dialogue. I cannot but be general on your questions. ——— Question 10 – Benny Avni from the New York Sun: This is also about Algiers, Sir. In the wake of the bombing, the Algerian interior minister said that there were warnings against bombing of international institutions, including the United Nations. There are also all kinds of reports about internal warnings that came around. The question is, why doesn’t the United Nations, as it did with the Ahtisaari case in the aftermath of the Baghdad bombing, why doesn’t the United Nations create its own independent investigation, as opposed to just investigate by [David] Veness? At the same time, the United Nations also needs to do more in communicating with the international community in general: why the United Nations is there and what the United Nations is doing. We need to make the international community appreciate more what the United Nations stands for. The United Nations is not working for any group of nations over another. The United Nations is working for the benefit and well-being of many developing countries; we are working for the promotion of human rights and peace and security. So this must be correctly understood and communicated to the world. And in that regard, I have been doing, on my own, efforts to communicate with the international community in general. Question: Don’t you think it’s imperative for the credibility of the United Nations that there will be an independent investigation that is not being done by the person who was in charge of security, to see whether security procedures were actually followed? The Secretary-General: I will see; I will reserve my judgement until I have a full report from DSS. ———– Question 11 by a correspondent from the Middle East also following up on algiers: Happy New Year, Mr. Secretary-General. Just to follow up on that, on the Algiers issue, were you ever made aware during 2007, or the time since you became Secretary-General, that the head of United Nations security in Algiers, Babacar Ndiaye, had made repeated requests to his superior in Algiers – that also reached New York – that there were, in his view, likely to be attacks on Algiers, not maybe making a specific date or a specific warning, but saying that they were a target of Al-Qaida and asking for specific precautions to be taken, such as the erection of concrete barriers or the raising of the phase level? Were you ever aware of that, that it had ever reached your office? And if that’s the case, that he did make these warnings, why wouldn’t that, combined with the Ahtisaari report after the Baghdad bombing and the threat that the United Nations is under, really compel an independent investigation? The Secretary-General: That’s a good point. That is why we are now working very hard. I have talked at length with President Bouteflika. First of all, as host Government, the Algerian Government is responsible for taking all measures to strengthen United Nations safety and security, and he assured me that he will find accommodations for UNDP and UNHCR. And this is not only to the Algerian Government; this is what I am going to discuss with Member States in general. I will keep in mind what you suggested. ——— The Secretary-General: On what? Question: On the Lockheed-Martin contract. You know, at the General Assembly, the members of the Fifth Committee said that they didn’t agree with the process used for doing this contract. And I only am wondering: what do you think about that? The Secretary-General: Question: ——–
Question 13 from someone with a Slavic accent: Talking about strengthening the United Nations role in the world and the Security Council members to live up to their commitments, I was wondering, Sir, why it took you 10 days or a couple of weeks, to express your position towards the final status of Kosovo. And also, Sir, I remember last time, while you were in Portugal, as far as I remember, you advised them not to take any premature step by declaring their independence. I was wondering, what can you tell them this time? The Secretary-General: I was mentioning in general, when there is a resolution, a mandate, for me to implement, there should be accountability, both for Member States and the countries concerned – and the party concerned. The Security Council has a particular responsibility: when they take necessary resolutions and decisions to deploy peacekeeping operations or any other security measures, then, in addition to my own work as Secretary-General, they should also help mobilize the necessary resources and funding. That is what I tried to mean. Question: The Secretary-General: I will have to see and assess the situation as the situation unfolds on the Kosovo issue. —— Question 14 – from Matthew Lee, of Inner City Press: And one follow-up on my colleague’s question about that contract: PAE. As for this advance team, I have made it quite clear, even, I think, to you some time last year, that we are considering dispatching a technical assessment team some time early this year. On the basis of the report of this technical assessment team, we will discuss again with the Security Council what measures should be taken to help the situation in Somalia. On this transparency and contract fraud: transparency is one of my top mottoes to make this Organization work as a trusted organization by the Member States. You should not have any question about my commitment, personally and officially and organizationally. As for some reports about procurement fraud which have appeared in some of the media, I would like to make it quite clear that I do not agree with all that has been reported. It is true that there was some fraud, which was found, investigated by our own OIOS teams. The amount which has been the subject of procurement fraud was sort of an aggregate sum, not the fraud itself, so there were some exaggerations and incorrect reporting. I feel it unfortunate that the United Nations has been perceived in that way. It was not in the amount of several hundred million dollars. That several hundred million dollars was the total aggregate sum of the project fund. So I hope there should be no misunderstanding. But this issue was also discovered and investigated by our own. At this time I think the United Nations needs some strengthened investigative capacity. We have many different mandates, different organizations and different agencies, starting from the ombudsman, OIOS, the Ethics Office; and there are all the specialized agencies and funds and programmes. In November of last year, with my consistent efforts, we were able to have a standardized ethics rule which will be applied to all the agencies, funds and programmes. That was very good progress in terms of ensuring and strengthening transparency and accountability. That effort will continue this year and in coming years. But I hope that Member States one day will consider how we can strengthen the investigative capacity. We don’t have such investigative capacity in the United Nations. We have been relying upon this Procurement Task Force. Fortunately, that mandate has been extended for another year. ————————- So what we see here is that the Secretary General, in his presentation, says that 2007 was the Year of Climate Change, In 2007 there was something talked about Darfur, Lebanon, the tribunal on the killing of Rafik Hariri, Kosovo, Somalia, Western Sahara and a few other places but the results are yet to show. But a press conference is not really about what is presented before the journalists but what questions the journalists put before the presenter. So it is the Q & A that really counts and here we saw an interesting gradation in the questions put and the mood that the answers created. The first question, by the president of UNCA, in our opinion was actually the worst question as it compared the killings in Kenya with the 1994 genocide in Rwanda. We argued in one of our previous postings that what goes on in Kenya is a political issue, it did not start out as the African endemic post-colonial tribal conflict. Actually it was created by Kibaki’s transgressions and his isolating himself from the country with the members of his own tribe the Kikuyus. The Kenya problem can be settled in the same way as the Iraq problem could have been settled five years ago – just tell the minority that usurped the government what is their right place on the national totem-pole. If you continue backing the usurper because you think this is better for you – you neither help ending the conflict, nor stop the killings. From here to genocide the distance is like from the understanding of a situation to the creation of a false image. Two more questions were a bit of line: One funny question asked the UNSG to rate himself, and he nicely avoided doing so, a second question asked him what he thinks of the contest in the US presidential primaries, and he very cleverly gave the only answer that he could give – that he will work with any US President that will be elected eventually. There were a total of 14 questions including the above three. Some of the journalists had two follow ups, some asked a double question. There was no question whatsoever on climate change and there was no question on development. The Journalists had pinpointed questions on what their outlets tend to publish. We counted and found that among the remaining 11 questions – four questions contained elements of the Darfur problem, two about Lebanon, two about the Algeria/Sahel/arms traffic/terrorism issues, two about Western Sahara/Polisario, two about the Nigeria/Cameroon area, and one each about Chad, Pakistan, Kosovo, and Somalia. The first questions passed by smoothly, but as time progressed, and questions came from a vaster net of journalists, follow up questions insisted on an answer, and the UNSG is a master at evading giving an answer, and it cannot be attributed to a conflict of language, but it might rather look like good diplomatic maneuvers when indeed there is no answer – this not because the SG does not want to answer – but rather because there is no answer that will cover on the intrinsic paucity of action at the UN. But then some subjects cannot be pushed under the UN red carpets easily. 17 people were killed in Algiers and the UN had warning that something is bound to happen. yes there was probably not a specific warning with a date attached – but there was a warning nevertheless – a head of security in algiers asked for reinforced walls and it was denied from headquarters – the man was among the dead. A sequence of two journalists tried to extricate an answer – what will the UNSG do to investigate the security of the UN personnel that is being sent in the harms way without protection. This happened clearly in Baghdad, and the journalists want to know if this was the case also in Algiers. In above process we also saw the following exchange: “The Spokesperson: The question, for those of you who were not following in French, is about Algeria: the recent bombing in Algeria, and the prospect of – Question: I am actually talking about the Sahel region as a zone of lawlessness and the smuggling of arms.” We do not intend simply to pound on Spokesperson Michelle Montes, but this shows what happens quite often in Room 226 at the UN. The Spokesperson jumps at saying what she wants to say, and does not try to answer clear questions. In effect this is a rather common trend within the UN Information system, and it works counter-productive to Mr. Ban Ki-moon’s own stand, as we pointed out many times in regard to the topic of climate change. Darfur has produced a lot of wind at the UN, but were are the helicopters to ferry the non-existent troops? And why was there a contract given to Lockheed without others having access to compete? There is a lot of money in this, and the fame of oil-for- food was not forgotten. It took four journalists in Sequence to hammer on this point and to make the UNSG quite uncomfortable. It showed eventually on his face. Why can he not intervene in Pakistan to find a way to investigate the Bhutto killing, is the UN so restrictive that for even such events they have to wait for the invitation of the transgressing government in order to tell the truth to the world, and to the country that was hit – this might indeed be the only way to stop internal riots and killings. What will it take to turn the UN into an element of truth? So, what will bring 2008? You can bet on it – more States will start to unravel – this because of climate change induced environmental disasters, and a decline in the world economy. The moment people suffer they tend to act and they may tend to take the wrong actions, kill and justify later. Will the UN be allowed to reorganize so that it can intervene even without invitation? And What Did The Morning Papers Write About the Press Conference? What I can say for now – I did not see an article on Darfur in the New York Times, neither an article on any other item from the above. ——————- Permalink |
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Posted on Sustainabilitank.info on December 31st, 2007 http://search.japantimes.co.jp/mail/eo20… [OPINION] The Japan Times online Killing cycle claimed Bhutto. Monday, Dec. 31, 2007, by RAMESH THAKUR, from the University of Waterloo, Canada. Many features of her life and death are common to South Asia: birth into a famous political dynasty; political triumphs punctuated with personal failings and assassinations of family members; the weight of carrying the hopes and aspirations of millions of followers against the temptations of turning the institutions and treasury of the state into personal fiefdoms; and political parties that are vehicles to personal and family political and financial advancement instead of repositories of competing visions and instruments of national development.
Rajiv Gandhi was assassinated by a Tamil suicide terrorist in the middle of a general election campaign in 1991. Indira Gandhi had manipulated Sikh religious extremists to discredit political opponents in the Indian state of Punjab; she was assassinated by her own Sikh bodyguards in 1984 in the aftermath of the assault on the Sikhs’ holiest shrine, the Golden Temple in Amritsar. Where in India the assassinated mother was followed by her son throwing himself into the rough and tumble of subcontinental politics and being felled by an assassin, in Pakistan the father was followed by his daughter who too has now been felled by a suicide terrorist. Where one military dictator hanged the father, another failed to provide adequate security for the daughter. That Ms. Bhutto was killed in the garrison town of Rawalpindi underscores the chaos and security vacuum in contemporary Pakistan. Bhutto family members are politically estranged just as Maneka Gandhi fell out with her mother-in-law and then parted company with the Congress Party as well. Like Indira and Rajiv Gandhi, Ms. Bhutto did not lack courage and accepted the risks to personal life as the necessary price of the political cause to which she was devoted. As in India, different groups in Pakistan have tried to harness religious sentiment to their own cause. Unlike in India, where the principles and institutions of democratic contestation have absorbed and buried the violence, dictators in Pakistan have pitted religious groups against popular political parties. This was done by Zia ul-Haq and has been repeated by Pervez Musharraf, a pathology common to most military rulers.
A New York Times article Dec. 24 asserted that much of the money given to him to fight the Taliban and al-Qaida has been siphoned off to buy weapons systems for use against India.
All South Asian countries must move away from viewing, nurturing, financing and arming “the other’s” secessionists and dissidents as allies. India offers the nearest example of Islam not being inherently incompatible with democracy; Malaysia and Indonesia nearby are good models of “moderate” Islam coexisting with democratic practices; and Turkey is the best example of secularism in a Muslim majority country. Bhutto’s assassination provides another tragic reminder that, although South Asians cannot change their geography, they can escape the trap of stoking cross-border extremist violence in order to shape a common destiny. Permalink |
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Posted on Sustainabilitank.info on December 29th, 2007 Benazir Bhutto (Bibi) – Self Appointed Martyr – Does She Bring Change To A South Asia That Was Carved By The British? Obviously We Do Not Know, But Analyzing Three Days Worth Of Publicity We Dare To Put Forward The Big Elephant Theorem. “Bibi” said about her return to Pakistan – “I did not chose this life – it chose me.” The Big elephant is the Indian Subcontinent. See – we do not start by writing about Pakistan, not even about present day India – but by what, in geography books is called the Indian Subcontinent which is the triangular shaped chunk of land-mass that is cut of from the rest of Asia by the Himalaya chain of mountains. Today, in this land mass, going from west to east, we find five to eight UN member States. These are the obvious five – Pakistan, India, Nepal, Bhutan, and Bangladesh. In addition the islands of Sri Lanka and The Maldives are part of this geography. Further, my 1981 Hammond atlas has pages for “Indian Subcontinent and Afghanistan” this because it includes with this region – Afghanistan which borders right to the west of the “Subcontinent” – thus leaving the region outright bordering with Iran, Russia, China and Burma (now Myanmar), formidable neighbors which are clearly outside this subcontinent. When one looks carefully at that map, one sees that Baluchistan became Pakistan, but was actually made up of Baluchistan proper, Sind, Punjab and the North-West Frontier Province. It had 7 major languages and 5 major religions. India had 31 Internal Divisions, 16 major languages and 8 major religions. Bangladesh was made up only of one unit, had only two major languages, Bengali and English, and only three main religions – Islam, Hinduism and Christianity – nevertheless, as having been incorporated with Baluchistan into the original Pakistan, it also inherited problems that came from its creation. Obviously, at creation, because all areas had people of all religions – a total of 25 million people became refugees – half of them Muslim and half of them Hindi. The refugees were not accepted easily by their brethren and the major parts of the Subcomtinent remained hurting for generations to come.The other Independent States of the Subcontinent are much smaller, but as we shall see have had their own problems galore. Taking all of the above into account – and without trying to offend anyone – I will continue from now to use for sakes of generalization and brevity the term INDIA for the Subcontinent as a whole. INDIA was not a total model of peace, but it was a rather peaceful region with the diffeent peoples coexisting and intermingled. I mentioned the above in order to say that the Indian Subcontinent, or INDIA, with many more people then Europe, was as complex, if not more then Europe – and here – to this immense world march in the British and somehow manage to take it over by using the old Roman technique of DIVIDE AND RULE. the Dutch and the Portuguese came before the British, but were in owe and tried just to trade. All right, to the purist, they also established fix trading posts, but realized that the morsel is too big and complicated for them to swallow. To get a taste of the feeling of a European coming to India I will quote from today’s (December 30, 2007) New York Times travel section: “I go to India by myself most years because I love the country. I like the history and the culture. From the photograph that goes with the NYT article you get an idea of what an extraordinary structure this is ( he talks about the 13th century, black granite, Sun Temple at Konarak, The Eastern State of Orissa, India, not far from the Bangladesh border) with big wheels representing the chariot of the sun god, Surya. What’s really fascinating about India – and you really get this when you’re by yourself – is noticing the small things. The detail in India is extraordinary, in the way people dress, the way people store their things and mend things, and the paradoxes: nothing is quite as it seems. So, intellectually, mentally, it’s this constantly fascinating display of languages and architecture and objects and craft. It’s all around you. Your senses are constantly bombarded with little details, which is fantastic.” I know what he is talking about because I was there. I was many times to India, three times to Pakistan, once in Nepal and once in Bhutan. Further, I cooperated with Pona Wignaraja, the Sri Lankan who was the 2nd Secretary-General of the Rome, Italy, based Society for International Development and we organized with UNEP’s Dr. Noel Brown, and with Indian Dr. Rashmi Mayur, NGO leader from Bombay (now Mumbai), the meetings on Biomass and Outer Space at the First UN Conference on Outer Space that was held in Vienna, Austria, sometime around 1981, and learned what a Sri Lankan can do when looking at the world. Those years I also went to Pakistan with Turkish-American Professor Nejat Veziroglu, on behalf of a University of Miami mission backed by the US National Science Foundation, in order to help open a Solar Energy National Institute for Pakistan in Sind. We met many people involved in the Pakistan Energy leadership – the main officials were all called Khan – and we met also in Islamabad the top Khan who became later famous for his trading in nuclear technology and products. I was involved later, twice, with presenting to Pakistan the concept of Energy Cane – that is the sugar cane that has been allowed to go to the natural state when it produces more biomass (the size of the stalk and the quantity of fermentable sugars, rather then crystallizable sugars that are the interest of the sugar industry). The Energy Cane is thus better if you really want energy products. To Bhutan I went to find out some more- and learn about- the concept of Gross National Happiness that originated with its leaders. INDIA is thus even today a great source of original economic and philosophical innovation – this if not interfered with by politics based on domination by religious specificity – or sometimes perhaps simply corruption – economically based. Plain cultural tourism I experienced in the four INDIA States mentioned – Nepal, Bhutan, India, Pakistan. I saw in Kerala State of India people peacefully practicing Aramaic Christianity as old as Christianity itself, I visited the remaining memberships of three different Jewish groups of India – the Cochin Jews that were running the spice trade from time immemorial, the Black Jews of Bnei Israel near Mumbai, The Baghdadi Jews in Mumbai and New Delhi – some of whom are now British Lords and the heads of Banking in Hong Kong and Shanghai. I visited with various Hindu Sects, with Mahatma Gandhi’s Foundation, with the Krishna movement, with the Zoroastrians in Mumbai, with the Madame Blavatsky Peace loving movement – their world headquarter of the Theosophic Society is in Madras (now Chennay)… too many different groups and ideas to do justice in one paragraph – beyond trying to say that INDIA is not the ideal place for British colonization, or for US economic up-hand-manship capitalistic involvement. This last remark brings us back to the results of World War II, which we described previously on www.SustainabiliTank.info, when in 1945, on the same trip abroad, at meetings at Yalta and then on the Suez, the world was carved out between Stalin and Franklin Delano Roosevelt, without the bravado of France present, and with the out-of-realism at the time Churchill’s agreement, East Europe went to the Soviets, and South-of-Siberia-Asia went to the US economic and political interests – allowing for the start of a COLD WAR. That cold war pushed also to the borders of INDIA into Afghanistan, and got halted at a line that was to include India and Pakistan that were carved out from the INDIA of yore. Pakistan was an artificial creation with five regions of INDIA carved out for Muslims so local Muslims, and outside Muslims, could be given some satisfactions from the long British DIVIDE AND RULE policies. It was a clear disaster, and out of East Pakistan Bangladesh was spun off quite soon, with India and the West-Pakistan state at each other’s throat in Kashmir and Jamu. This confrontation, with the Cold War breathing hot – led to two nuclear technology States in-the-know – India and Pakistan. While India slowly tried to take over the economic, cultural and political mantle of the fallen INDIA, Pakistan tried to take over the mantle of an extremist Islamic world. Like the Catholics in the world that sometimes want to out-Catholize the Pope of the Vatican, there came about Pakistanis that wanted to out-Muslim the Saudis in the name of the US side in the Cold War with the Soviets in Afghanistan. So, the US and Saudi Arabia managed to build up the Islamic “Gholem” in the mountains of the North-West Frontier Province of Pakistan, but unlike the Gholem of Prague Jewish legend, there is no Rabbi Leev that has now the magic formula to undo the Islamic Gholem. This is now the downfall of Pakistan and Afghanistan and may lead again to disasters that can hit the world at large. Now, with this introduction, let us take a look at what we can learn from the available press that hit me these last three days – and here comes handy our ELEPHANT THEOREM. INDIA is the Elephant. It could have developed into a lovely cooperative animal that could have been an economy larger then Europe, as free as the United States ideal in the US Constitution. All the many ingredients of the cultures, religions, economies, political structures, that were at least a millennium old, and in some cases two and three millennia old, could have fit into a jig-puzzle like the EU is trying to do now – this if the British had not played one group against another in order to make the life of the British intruders easier. Now, we have a different Elephant situation – that known to all as the description by blind people of an elephant animal – each description being rather accurate of a detail of that elephant. That is what we found in a collection of about twenty different reactions to the assassination of Benazir Bhutto, known to her friends as Bibi, the two times Prime Minister of Pakistan and the leading candidate to take over Pakistan’s reins for a third time – President or Prime Minister. ————————-
Assassination Rocks Pakistan The first news of Thursday, December 27, 2007 from Rawalpindi and Islamabad, Pakistan: – An attack on a political rally killed the Pakistani opposition leader Benazir Bhutto near the capital, Islamabad, Thursday. Witnesses said Ms. Bhutto was fired upon at close range before the blast, and an official from her party said Ms. Bhutto was further injured by the explosion, which was apparently caused by a suicide attacker. “At 6:16 p.m. she expired,” said Wasif Ali Khan, a member of Ms. Bhutto’s party who was at Rawalpindi General Hospital where she was taken after the attack, according to The Associated Press. Hundreds of supporters had gathered at the political rally, which was being held at Liaqut Bagh, a park that is a common venue for political rallies and speeches, in Rawalpindi, the garrison city adjacent to the capital. Amid the confusion after the explosion, the site was littered with pools of blood. Shoes and caps of party workers were lying on the asphalt, and shards of glass were strewn about the ground. Pakistani television cameras captured images of ambulances pushing through crowds of dazed and injured people at the scene of the assassination. CNN reported that witnesses at the scene described the assassin as opening fire on Ms. Bhutto and her entourage, hitting her at least once in the neck and once in the chest, before blowing himself up. Farah Ispahani, a party official from Ms. Bhutto’s party, said: “It is too soon to confirm the number of dead from the party’s side. Private television channels are reporting twenty dead.” Television channels were also quoting police sources as saying that at least 14 people were dead. Then, the Pakistani official announcement said there were no bullets found in her body, these were pieces of shrapnel from the bomb detonated by the suicide bomber. ————————- Friday December 28, 2007, McClatchy Newspapers wrote, from information from their correspondent in Pakistan Saeed Shah – “Pakistan Government Skips Autopsy, Shifts Story on How Bhutto Died.” Larkana, Pakistan – Violence and recriminations grew Friday over the assassination of former Pakistani Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto, as Pakistan’s government changed its account of how she died while her supporters charged that the government withheld personal protection she’d requested. As deadly protests continued to rage on Pakistan’s streets, the country’s Interior Ministry said that Bhutto – buried Friday without an autopsy – had died after she was thrown against the lever of her car’s sunroof, fracturing her skull. …. “We have intelligence intercepts indicating that al Qaida leader Baitullah Mehsud is behind her assassination,” Interior Ministry spokesman Javed Iqbal Cheema said. Mehsud, who’s based in the lawless Waziristan region on Pakistan’s border with Afghanistan, has been behind a series of suicide attacks in the region, according to U.S. officials. Pakistani authorities released a transcript of what they said was a conversation in which Mehsud exults after being told by an unidentified religious cleric that Bhutto is dead. “It was a spectacular job. They were very brave boys who killed her,” Mehsud said, according to the transcript.” Pakistan’s ambassador to Washington, Mahmud Ali Durrani, said in a television interview Thursday that the security accorded Bhutto was “almost the same” as President Pervez Musharraf’s. “She was given not exactly what maybe she asked for, but for Pakistan’s environment, she was given the best protection possible,” Durrani said on PBS’s “NewsHour with Jim Lehrer.” ———————- Washington lawyer Mark A. Siegel, Bhutto’s U.S. spokesman, released an e-mail that he said Bhutto had written Oct. 26, 2007, eight days after the earlier attempt on her life, complaining that Musharraf had denied her needed security measures. We saw him on CNN, and unless he is a trained theater or TV actor – this man and the material in his hand are completely true www.SustainabiliTank.com comment). He knew her for 25 years, was a close friend and he has co-written a book with Benazir Bhutto that will come out in January. What he is saying is that Bhutto did not get the protection she was asking for. Further, we saw on CNN how the Pakistani Ambassador, in answer to Mark Siegel, addressed the claim that she was not given adequate protection to a former Prime-Minister – that Bhutto was not a security person – just a lay person – she did not know what was good for her protection – it was the Pakistani security personnel that knew what was good for Bhutto’s protection. “I have been made to feel insecure by his minions,” reads the e-mail, which Siegel sent to CNN anchor Wolf Blitzer for release in event of her death. That e-mail was with Blitzer already before the assassination. “There is no way what is happening in terms of stopping me from taking private cars or using tinted windows or giving jammers or four police mobiles to cover all sides could happen without him” she wrote. The “jammers” appear to refer to devices that can interfere with the detonation of bombs, which – like the body armor – wouldn’t have saved Bhutto’s life Thursday. The “four police mobiles” refers to a screen of vehicles to the left, right, back and front of her own. —————— But others said that Bhutto, who loved political rallies, at times seemed heedless of her own security, or fatalistic. “In her enthusiasm, she got carried away, and exposed herself in ways” she shouldn’t have, said former State Department official Marvin Weinbaum of the Washington-based Middle East Institute. In Pakistan, the shifting government explanations and Bhutto’s burial without autopsy aroused suspicion. Some say that her husband did not allow an autopsy – this clearly has to be veryfied with him! Babar Awan, a senior official of Bhutto’s Pakistan People’s Party, said of the sunroof theory: “That is a false claim.” He said he’d seen her body after the attack and there were at least two bullet marks, one in the neck and one on the top of the head: “It was a targeted, planned killing. The firing was from more than one side.” Pakistan’s caretaker prime minister, Mohammadmian Soomro, told the Cabinet that Bhutto’s husband had insisted on no autopsy. But according to a leading lawyer, Athar Minallah, an autopsy is mandatory anyway under Pakistan’s criminal law in a case of this nature. “It is absurd, because without autopsy it is not possible to investigate. Is the state not interested in reaching the perpetrators of this heinous crime or there was a cover-up?” Minallah said. The scene of the attack also was watered down with a high-pressure hose within an hour, washing away evidence. —————- The attack came just hours after four supporters of former Pakistan Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif died when members of another political party opened fire on them at a rally near the Islamabad airport Thursday, Pakistan police said. Several other members of Sharif’s party were wounded, police said. Nawaz Sharif himself was at the side of Bhutto’s remaining family and on TV, as shown on CNN, said now that her loss is like a losss of a sister – clearly good politics for the moment. Benazir Bhutto, who led Pakistan from 1988 to 1990 and was the first female prime minister of any Islamic nation, was participating in the parliamentary election set for January 8, 2008, hoping for a third term. A terror attack targeting her motorcade in Karachi when she returned from exile to Pakistan killed 136 people on the day she returned to Pakistan on October 19, 2007, after eight years of self-imposed exile. CNN’s Mohsin Naqvi, who was at the scene of both bombings, said Thursday’s blast was not as powerful as that October attack. Thursday’s attacks come less than two weeks after Pakistan President Pervez Musharraf lifted an emergency declaration he said was necessary to secure his country from terrorists. Will he now claim that this forced ending of the emergency rules was the reson that led to the assassination? Two weeks after the October assassination attempt, Bhutto wrote a commentary for CNN.com in which she questioned why Pakistan investigators refused international offers of help in finding the attackers. “The sham investigation of the October 19, 2007 massacre and the attempt by the ruling party to politically capitalize on this catastrophe are discomforting, but do not suggest any direct involvement by General Pervez Musharraf,” Bhutto wrote. Just think of the possibility that she wanted to believe that the US had an arrangement with Musharraf for an eventual “Co-habitation” agreement after the elextions – with Musharraf as President and her as prime-Minister. Perhaps she really wanted to believe that. Ms. Bhutto saw herself as the inheritor of her father’s mantle, the Democratically elected leader who was executed by General Zia who took over from him by force of the military. Benazir often spoke of how he encouraged her to study the lives of legendary female leaders ranging from Indira Gandhi to Joan of Arc. Following the idea of big ambition, Ms. Bhutto called herself chairperson for life of the opposition Pakistan Peoples Party, a seemingly odd title in an organization based on democratic ideals and one she has acknowledged quarreling over with her mother, Nusrat Bhutto, in the early 1990s. Saturday night at a diplomatic reception, Ms. Bhutto showed how she could aggrandize. Three million people came out to greet her in Karachi on her return last month, she said, calling it Pakistan’s “most historic” rally. In fact, crowd estimates were closer to 200,000, many of them provincial party members who had received small amounts of money to make the trip. Such flourishes led questioning in Pakistan about the strength of her democratic ideals in practice, and a certain distrust, particularly amid signs of back-room deal-making with General Musharraf, the military ruler she opposed. “She believes she is the chosen one, that she is the daughter of Bhutto and everything else is secondary,” said Feisal Naqvi, a corporate lawyer in Lahore who knew Ms. Bhutto. When Ms. Bhutto was re-elected to a second term as Prime Minister, her style of government combined both the traditional and the modern, said Zafar Rathore, a senior civil servant at the time. But her view of the role of government differed little from the classic notion in Pakistan that the state was the preserve of the ruler who dished out favors to constituents and colleagues, he recalled. As secretary of interior, responsible for the Pakistani police force, Mr. Rathore, who is now retired, said he tried to get an appointment with Ms. Bhutto to explain the need for accountability in the force. He was always rebuffed, he said. Finally, when he was seated next to her in a small meeting, he said to her, “I’ve been waiting to see you,” he recounted. “Instantaneously, she said: ‘I am very busy, what do you want. I’ll order it right now.’ “ She could not understand that a civil servant might want to talk about policies, he said. Instead, he said, “she understood that when all civil servants have access to the sovereign, they want to ask for something.” But until her death, Ms. Bhutto ruled the party with an iron hand, jealously guarding her position, even while leading the party in absentia for nearly a decade. Members of her party saluted her return to Pakistan, saying she was the best choice against General Musharraf. Chief among her attributes, they said, was sheer determination. ———————— The Japan Times Editorial of Sunday, December 30, 2007 puts it right as it is: Assassination of Benazir Bhutto Ms. Bhutto became the first female prime minister in the Muslim world in 1988 and again took power in 1993. She came back to Pakistan in October after 8 1/2 years of self-imposed exile to lead Pakistan’s secular forces. She was the country’s most pro-Western political figure, and a foe of Islamic extremist forces. The United States, which treats Pakistan as a frontline state in its fight against terrorism, apparently hoped for a power-sharing arrangement between Mr. Musharraf and Ms. Bhutto as a means of maintaining stability in the country. With Ms. Bhutto’s death, the U.S. will be forced to rethink its approach. Meanwhile, her death will serve as a boon to extremist forces, including Taliban and al-Qaida forces in the Pakistan-Afghanistan border region. The situation could lead to more attacks on Afghanistan by Taliban forces. The assassination of Ms. Bhutto has strengthened the impression that Mr. Musharraf lacks the capability to ensure security in his country and to prevent the destabilization of the first nuclear-armed Muslim country. The worst scenario would be Islam extremists getting hold of nuclear weapons. Supporters of Ms. Bhutto accuse Mr. Musharraf of having failed to provide sufficient security for her. Mr. Nawaz Sharif, another two-time former prime minister and main opposition leader, announced that his party will boycott the Jan. 8 general elections. Even if Mr. Musharraf wins, his legitimacy will be weakened and protests against him are likely to grow fiercer. Mr. Musharraf faces his biggest crisis. STATEMENT BY INTERNATIONAL CRISIS GROUP (MaximsNews Network)
Brussels, 27 December 2007: The assassination of Benazir Bhutto in Rawalpindi on 27 December 2007 is a serious blow to the re-emergence of democracy in Pakistan and the country’s return to stability. The leader of the Pakistan Peoples Party and former prime minister died alongside her colleagues and supporters campaigning in elections. The international community must now come together to push for a full investigation into the murders. “Our condolences go to her family and to the people of Pakistan,” said Gareth Evans, President and CEO of the International Crisis Group. “Since the 1980s, she had been a vital and often under-estimated political force. Prospects for democracy and stability in Pakistan are much dimmer without her.” Pakistan’s military-backed interim government is not in a position to carry out a fair investigation into the assassination. The United Nations Security Council should meet urgently to establish an international commission of enquiry to determine who ordered and carried out the killings. Given the long-standing connections between the Pakistani military and jihadi groups, this would be the only way to carry out an impartial and credible investigation. ——————————– Benazir wrote about herself: “Why I’m Returning To Pakistan” “I was looking forward to a quiet family holiday in New York this summer with my three children, our dog Maxmillian and my husband, who is being treated for a heart condition that developed while he was a political prisoner in Pakistan from 1996 to 2004. I thought we would go to the theatre and spend time walking in Central Park, as well meeting up with friends for nice, long chatty dinners. But in this surprisingly momentous summer of 2007, our quiet family vacation disappeared as we found ourselves caught up in the media attention on my country Pakistan, and its fast changing political situation. It is clear to those following events in South Asia that Pakistan is truly at a turning point. Almost a decade of military dictatorship has devastated the basic infrastructure of democracy. Political parties have been assaulted, political leaders arrested, and the judicial system manipulated to force party leaders into exile. NGOs have been under constant attack, especially those that deal with human rights, democratic values and women’s rights. The press has been intimidated, with some reporters — even those that work for papers like the New York Times — arrested, beaten or made to disappear. Student and labor unions have not been allowed to function. The electoral institutions of the nation have been manipulated by an Election Commission that could not stop rigging and fraud. And in the battle against terrorism, we look on with dismay as the government of Pakistan ceded sections of our nation that previously had been governed by the rule of law to Taliban sympathizers and to Al Qaeda, making Pakistan the Petri dish of the international terrorist movement. But the most dangerous manifestation of this retreat from democracy has been a growing sense of hopelessness of the people of Pakistan, and a total disillusionment with the political system’s ability to address their daily problems. The social sector has festered — under-financed and relegated to the back burner of national policy. All the indicators of quality of life have spiraled down, from employment to education to housing to health care. And as people’s sense of disillusionment has grown, there has been a corresponding growth in the spread of religious and political extremism. The failure of the regime has made our citizens open to extra-governmental experimentation with fanaticism. This has clearly been manifest in the spread of politicized Madrases, schools in which the curriculum incorporates xenophobia, bigotry and often para-military terrorist training. But poor parents who cannot feed or clothe their children entrust them to these kinds of schools, so their children may be fed and housed. The growth of the Madrases is but one important signal that extremism has been making inroads against moderation amongst the Pakistani polity. I have always believed that the battle between extremism and moderation is the underlying battle for the very soul of Pakistan. Yet moderation can prevail against the extremists only if democracy flourishes and the social sector improves the quality of life of the people. In 2007, I sensed that the decade of dictatorship was threatening to undermine the moderate majority of Pakistan, those people committed to pluralism, to education, to technology — in other words, those committed to Pakistan taking its place among the community of civilized nations as a leader in the 21st century. Under democracy, the extremists had been marginalized in the past, never receiving more than 11% of the vote in an election. But under dictatorship, Pakistan was edging toward extremism, chaos, and sliding towards a failed state. My party [the Pakistan Peoples Party] was engaged in a dialogue with the regime of General Musharraf, but discussions didn’t move the regime concretely toward democratic reform. In the summer of 2007, after the reinstatement of the Chief Justice of Pakistan and the birth of judicial activism, the dialogue with General Musharraf took a more substantive turn. It seemed now that the country had an opportunity to peacefully transition to democracy, which is critical for the other war — the war of moderation against extremism — to succeed. I had a choice. Engage in dialogue, or turn toward the streets. I knew that street protests against the Musharraf dictatorship could lead to the deaths of hundreds. I thought about the choice before me very carefully. I chose dialogue; I chose negotiation; I chose to find a common ground that would unite all the moderate elements of Pakistan for a peaceful transfer to a workable political system that was responsive to the needs of the 160 million people of Pakistan whose empowerment is critical to the success of both governing and the fight against terrorism. I know that some in Pakistan, including those in political parties were so embittered with the military regime that they wanted the door of dialogue shut. But from the very beginning my goal was and remains to guarantee a free and open electoral process that would provide for a legitimate Parliament and provincial assemblies that would then select, in a constitutional process, a civilian President who understands that in a parliamentary democracy, the parliament is supreme. I wasn’t negotiating for a guaranteed outcome, I was negotiating for a guaranteed process. That was the goal at the beginning. That is the goal now. Are we making progress towards that goal? I still am unable to say. There are many elements, in particular those sympathizers in the ruling Party and Government who enabled the extremists and militants to expand their influence in my country who are fearful of the return of the PPP and a rollback of the terrorist forces that have gained strength since my government was overthrown in 1996. They want to scuttle a process that could see the emergence of a moderate Pakistan. So it has been a roller coaster ride. Some times the dialogue moves forward with General Musharraf . But then he consults his colleagues in the ruling alliance and retracts from confidence building measures promised for a fair electoral process. As the presidential and parliamentary elections approach, I am making plans with my supporters to return to Pakistan. I know that it is critical for Pakistan to return to a democratic way of life so that the people’s problems can be addressed. When people are partners with government, they stand up to defend their communities against terrorists, criminals and negative forces. My stay in New York wasn’t exactly the family vacation I had planned, but it was a critical period of weeks that could very well determine the future of Pakistan. I long ago realized that my personal life was to be subjugated to my political responsibilities. When my democratically elected father, Prime Minister Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto was arrested in 1977 and subsequently murdered, the mantle of leadership of the Pakistan Peoples Party, our nation’s largest, nationwide grassroots political structure, was suddenly thrust upon me. It was not the life I planned, but it is the life I have. My husband and children accept and understand that my political responsibilities to the people of Pakistan come first, as painful as that personally is to all of us. I would like to be planning my son’s move to his first year at college later this month, but instead I am planning my return to Pakistan and my party’s parliamentary election campaign. I didn’t choose this life. It chose me.” ———————————- What is uncanny is the fact that at her funeral on Friday it was revealed that Ms Bhutto had gone to her father’s burial place (Just days before her Rawalpindi Liaquat Bagh speech, and had given instructions to the caretakers there that she be buried next to her father, Zulfiqar Ai Bhutto, in case of her death.) ——————— We know thus that Benazir Bhutto came back to Pakistan in full knowledge that she might get killed – she was thus a self-appointed martyr to a cause – that is clear to us, and we will just try to understand what was this cause and then to watch if she will turn out to be the eventual winner in her death – was this the hope of a suicide martyr? ——————- Some insides to her from friends first Ariana Huffington: Benazir Bhutto: From the Oxford Union to her Last Rally in Rawalpindi The world is debating the political fallout from Benazir Bhutto’s assassination — from fear of chaos in Pakistan to the impact of her death in Iowa. There is already no shortage of analysis about the national security implications of her death, but I want to write about the young woman I met in England before she became a player on the world stage. She was at Oxford. I was at Cambridge. And by a strange coincidence I became president of the Cambridge Union and she became president of the Oxford Union. The anomaly of two foreign women heading the two unions meant that we ended up debating each other around England on topics ranging from British politics to broad generalities about the impact of technological advance on mankind. When I checked my blackberry this morning at 5:28 am LA time there was an e-mail from our news editor Katherine Zaleski: “Benazir Bhutto killed by bombing.” As we found out afterwards she was killed by an assassin’s bullet. But just as the news was filled with the details of her death, my mind was filled with how full of life she had been every time I had seen her, including the last time in 1998 when she came to my home in Los Angeles for a dinner (which Harry Shearer, also there, wrote about). She was in exile, her husband in jail, and she was separated from her children.
But still, there was an incredible life force about her, a sense that no matter what life brought her way, whether a tough debating argument, or exile, or her father’s death by hanging, or the deaths of her two brothers — she could deal with it, and she would prevail. Until the rally in Rawalpindi. Three years earlier, I had seen her at the height of her power and fullness of life when she was staying at Blair House in Washington, DC as the visiting prime minister of Pakistan — the first woman prime minister in the Muslim world. She had her third child with her and took me to her bedroom to meet her. Then she sat on the bed with her baby in her arms while we laughed about our lives on the debating circuit, and talked about her life now. (Including how much she loved her husband. She was trying to convince me that even though it was a marriage arranged by her mother, she had fallen in love with him, as if she had spotted him herself across a crowded room.) She had arrived at Oxford from Harvard, where she had gone at 16 after her convent school in Karachi. But wherever she was, she was at home because she was always at home in her own skin. I wrote a book about fearlessness last year, long before the rally in Rawalpindi, where she went against everyone’s advice and despite the fact that there had already been a failed attempt at her life. She was fearlessness epitomized. Many will debate her political successes and failures, her personal probity in public office, the charges of corruption against her and of course the national security implications of her death, but for now I’m just filled with a profound sadness about the end of a woman that was always brimming with life. I asked her to blog before she returned to Pakistan and blog she did. Here’s a portion of what she wrote this fall: “I long ago realized that my personal life was to be subjugated to my political responsibilities. When my democratically elected father, Prime Minister Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto was arrested in 1977 and subsequently murdered, the mantle of leadership of the Pakistan Peoples Party, our nation’s largest, nationwide grassroots political structure, was suddenly thrust upon me. It was not the life I planned, but it is the life I have. My husband and children accept and understand that my political responsibilities to the people of Pakistan come first, as painful as that personally is to all of us. I would like to be planning my son’s move to his first year at college later this month, but instead I am planning my return to Pakistan and my party’s parliamentary election campaign. I didn’t choose this life. It chose me.” ————————- MaximNews Network has a story about another young lady, who was a student at Oxford University and was befriended by Bibi (that is where we learned about this nickname. All point at her being a nice down to earth lady. Was she tough in politics, perhaps so indeed – but what do you expect from a woman that was western educated but still had to conform to the norms of her country and marry someone she did not even see before the wedding say? Asif Zardari was her husband and in effect whatever corruption tails are spun about her really mention his name not her name. All she got out of this marriage were problems as she saw the death of her father, the death of her two brothers, and eventually the imprisonment of her husband. It is known she had disagreements with the mother that picked her husband. Mohtarma Benazir Bhutto (“Bibi”)- 21 June 1953 – 27 December 2007- Leader, Mother and A Friend Who Will Be Much Missed By Mahnaz Malik 28/ 12/2007 (MaximsNews Network) Twenty four hours have passed since the news of Benazir Bhutto’s assassination stopped traffic on Pakistan’s streets. The media is flooded by tributes from national and international leaders who mourn the loss of Pakistan’s most famous daughter. There are wails from her supporters- tearful old men, angry teenagers and crying women- who vociferously lament the death of their sister and leader. The world has not only lost a great leader in Benazir, a precious bridge between the east and west, but perhaps the most remarkable woman premier of our time. She emerged as the first Muslim woman to lead a nation, a virtually impossible feat, and became an inspiration to women the world over. However, for those of us who knew Benazir personally, we will miss her as the generous, warm and highly intelligent friend, who made us feel special and cherished despite the heavy demands on her time. I have always kept my relationship with Benazir discreet because it was personal, not political. For me, Bibi was my mentor and a dear friend, who I have known since the age of seven. Her death has left me divided between my fear for Pakistan’s future and immense grief in knowing that my dear Bibi is no more. Her assassins have taken away some one who had much to teach to me, indeed to us all. However, my grief pales in comparison to the loss of her family because in addition to being a great leader, Bibi was an amazing mother, sister, wife and friend. Today, I want to share a few of the many memories I have of this remarkable woman. She is often painted by her critics as an arrogant and corrupt demagogue, but the person I knew was far from this description. Whenever, I have been asked to comment on Benazir’s political conduct in office, I have reserved my opinion because as a friend who cared for her, I cannot be the best judge. However, I have no hesitance in testifying to the commendable attributes she possessed as a person and friend. Bibi’s gender augmented the challenges of being a political leader in Pakistan. While there were those who rejected her capability simply because she was a woman, there were others who accused her of not doing enough for women’s rights when in office. The Bibi I knew believed in empowering women, and took every opportunity to encourage them to succeed. When I was seven, my grandfather introduced me to a frail young woman as the future Prime minister of my country. Bibi visited our family house under cover of night in 1986 as my grand father negotiated with the martial law regime of General Zia on her behalf. I doubt Bibi knew at the time the significance of her note to the little girl she had just met: “For Mahnaz, who I believe will grow up to serve her country and her people”. Her autograph to my male cousins simply said “Best Wishes”. Those words planted in me a desire and responsibility to help my people and country at an early age. It also left me feeling special; it was usually my male cousins who received all the attention from visitors to my grand father’s house. Bibi was “deeply moved” when I told her this story a couple of years ago when we discussed how important positive role models were for young people. As her own children grew up, she often spoke about their future with me. She wanted Bakhtawar, her eldest daughter to become a lawyer and was very proud that Bilawal had made it to Oxford. Bibi felt great empathy with working women, whether it was a Cherie Blair, or a labourer toiling in Sindh. At the same time, she firmly believed in a family life. Bibi doted on her three children, Bilawal, Bakhtawar and Aseefa, to whom she was a caring mother. Between her crazy schedule of meetings, Bibi and I would drive around London searching for Buffy the Vampire comic books that her children had requested. However, her affection was balanced with instilling values for hard work and respect of money. I remember watching a young Aseefa struggle with her math as Bibi made her count the pennies received from a shopkeeper. Bibi’s nurturing instinct extended beyond her children, to her sister Sanam, and to younger friends like myself. It even extended to her pet cat, whose sickness kept her up at night. She would often take us all out to lunch, a small tribe comprising of her children, her sister, cousins and friends. It was Bibi, the former prime minister of Pakistan, who ensured that every one had the pizza they wanted. She was equally meticulously in ensuring that she was there for her associates during times of grief or joy. She was always one of the first to congratulate me on my achievements. When I finished my first children’s book, Mo’s Star, Bibi wrote two special messages for children reading the book: “Learn to take risks and you will learn to reach the heights of success” and “Patience and perseverance are the keys to success. Never give up. Never lose heart”. These words now take on a significance more than ever before in view of yesterday’s events. When we went out visiting, Bibi was meticulous about choosing the right present for her host. She never forgot a good deed- Decades after my grand father’s death, she always recounted his favours to her, from his political support during her detention to the boxes of chocolates he would send to her in jail. Bibi had little to gain from me politically or for that matter my deceased grand father, and yet she never forgot the friendship forged between the families that continued with our association. Her critics say she amassed a personal fortune by plundering Pakistan. The charges of corruption against her have never been proven in a court of law. I remember her feeling frustrated at the reporting of the Swiss proceedings by the press. “Aren’t you presumed innocent, until proven guilty under law? Then why am I being presumed guilty by the media until proven innocent?” she would vent to me during our many walks in the park. I never saw Bibi spend extravagantly. I remember when I moved into my first apartment, we went shopping together for linen and crockery. It was Bibi who spotted all the best bargains on the sale. What I did see her splurging on were books, which she bought by the box full for herself and the children. Her pleasures were simple, going out for films (she loved a good old romantic movie), walking in the park or sitting around in café with close friends and family. Her critics say she was arrogant, yet Bibi never made me feel less important because she was a former prime minister and I was a mere undergraduate. When we made arrangements to meet, Bibi gave tremendous respect to my time as we matched schedules. Those who have known her in a professional context may have a different experience but during all the years I have known Bibi I only saw her being polite to those around her. I remember Bibi addressing a rude sales girl as “ma’am” as she tried to reason with her. There was never a trace of “Don’t you know who I am?”. In fact, Bibi at times was surprisingly unaware of her stature when in the company of friends, as if for those hours she was taking a break from playing the leader of millions, just to be herself. Out of my first pay check, I took Bibi to The Ivy in London. I thought it was time to return at least one of the many lunches she had treated me to over the years. I was surprised that Bibi had never been to the Ivy before. I saw the flash of a young girl as she asked me to look for the celebrities the Ivy is so famous for. As I gazed around the restaurant, I saw other customers looking at our table. I found it endearing that Bibi did not realise that she was the celebrity at the restaurant that day, and every one was watching her. Her critics say she was a pampered princess, and yet I never saw her rest. Bibi was a workaholic glued to her computer. She was extremely efficient with answering emails, and reading copious amounts of paper. Bibi kept her staff to the minimum, there was no entourage of assistants or professionals, just the bare minimum. I often sent her the odd intern to ease her workload because she was so overstretched. Contrary to what people think, she was not living in a palace with a large staff. Her HQ was always a few computers with various volunteers helping out. At the very centre of activity was Bibi working away, until we would drag her to take that much needed break. More recently, with her lecture circuit, we used to discuss how much we had to travel just to earn a living. Her critics called her a demagogue, yet Bibi gave up her life to a cause she believed in, her commitment to democracy, her dream for a moderate, progressive Pakistan. Bibi was well aware of the risks involved in her return to Pakistan. During our last meeting in March over sorbets in a Dubai restaurant, we spoke about her return. She was keen to fulfil the promise she had made to her countrymen and women. I knew Bibi had waited for years to come back to Pakistan to meet her people. Her critics may take issue with her politics, indeed there were times when I disagreed with her politics, but it will be hard for them to contest her commitment to serve Pakistan. Despite a near death experience in a suicide bomb attack in October, she continued to appear in public rallies because she wanted to be with her people. It is sad that the bullet that killed Bibi hit just as she emerged to greet her party members. And then the Bibi I knew, so full of passion, wit and affection, was taken away forever. As the television shows her funeral I cannot believe that my beautiful friend, ies in a box buried in the ground. I find it hard to understand why I will never enjoy an ice cream with her or exchange an email. My loss, which has left me reeling with grief, is insignificant compared to that of her family and the country in a crisis she wanted to save. However, once my tears dry, I fear that they may be replaced by a different kind of grief for the risks to the lives of hundreds of Pakistanis as a crisis looms on the horizon. Bibi, wherever you are I hope my prayers and love reach you. You are much missed. You lived up to the promise you made to us all. May you find eternal peace and rest. I hope your sacrifice will not go in vain. Mahnaz Malik ————————– Bibi was the last hope of her father’s immediate family. The PPP (Pakistan’s People Party), was a dynastic party. With her death, will the party be able to survive. The best chance for the party is for it to be taken over by the judges that are still in prison – the actual start of chain of events that have disqualified the now Mr. Musharraf from running the country – this when he dissolved the Supreme Court that questioned his legitimacy. This would require the postponement of the January 8, 2008 elections – something that the US seems not to want. The press looks now at the continuation of the Musharraf Presidency as what the US wishes for itself and for Pakistan. The reality is that even before the killing, the US did not instigate the October return of Ms. Bhutto in order to allow her to become President – what the US wanted is to patch over the differences by having a co- habitation of president Musharraf and Prime-Minister Bhutto but the Foggy Bottom inhabitants did not do the necessary work to make sure that this does not become a Bhutto suicide line of events? Does the US really understand what we started with – the INDIA that was destroyed by the British and the “Great Game” that in parallel involved years ago the British and Russia and Afghanistan – as they did not understand also the French in the Vietnam story, and stepped there into the French shoes to US peril? Do we have now the same thing in Pakistan with a US Administration that will feel obliged to back a Musharaff who got US$ billions and gave to the US nothing in return? ———————– Interesting accounts we found: Who Will Succeed Bhutto? Thursday 27 December 2007 Try as Nawaz Sharif might to carry the banner of Benazir Bhutto, he might not be the optimal anti-Musharraf candidate. For one thing, even if Musharraf holds a promised election, Sharif isn’t eligible to run, thanks to a ruling of the Musharraf-controlled Electoral Commission. For another, there’s another secular, democratic politician waiting in the wings who might resonate with this year’s middle-class rejection of Musharraf. Ex-Bhutto aide Husain Haqqani says he expects Aitzaz Ahsan to ascend to the leadership of the Pakistan People’s Party, the party first led by Bhutto’s father. “He’s in the best position,” Haqqani says. Ahsan was the chief counsel for former Supreme Court Chief Justice Iftikhar Chaudhry, whose ouster by Musharraf on dubious charges of personal corruption proved to be the final straw for much of middle-class Pakistan. A longtime PPP member, respected barrister and democracy advocate, Ahsan’s representation of Chaudhry landed him a stint in prison when Musharraf declared emergency rule on November 3. As a result, Haqqani says, Ahsan “disagreed with Benazir’s more conciliatory stance” toward Musharraf. Ahsan has an international profile as well. An old enemy of 80s-vintage dictator Zia ul-Haq, he gained global esteem for his willingness to go to jail for the sake of democracy. After his November detention, 33 U.S. Senators wrote to Musharraf demanding his release. Still, Ahsan’s profile is much higher in Pakistan than it is in the United States. But shortly before Christmas, he penned this New York Times op-ed: “Last Thursday morning, I was released to celebrate the Id holidays. But that evening, driving to Islamabad to say prayers at Faisal Mosque, my family and I were surrounded at a rest stop by policemen with guns cocked and I was dragged off and thrown into the back of a police van. After a long and harrowing drive along back roads, I was returned home and to house arrest. With Ahsan a potential successor to Bhutto, those questions have a renewed salience. As does his implicit challenge to Washington to support Pakistani democracy: They will recount the brutal treatment meted out to them for seeking the establishment of a tolerant, democratic, liberal and plural political system in Pakistan. They will state how the writ of habeas corpus was denied to them by the arbitrary and unconstitutional firing of Supreme and High Court justices. They will spell out precisely how one man set aside a Constitution under the pretext of an “emergency,” arrested the judges, packed the judiciary, “amended” the Constitution by a personal decree and then “restored” it to the acclaim of London and Washington. ———————— other potential PPP candidates: Asif Ali Zardari Amin Fahim As PPP vice-chairman, he is theoretically next in line to Bhutto. Mr Fahim has been an influential figure in Pakistani politics since the 1970s, and one of Bhutto’s staunchest allies. Both came from feudal, religious families in the Sindh province, which ironically is Mr Fahim’s biggest liabilility since he remains politically overshadowed by the Bhutto family on his home turf. In control of the party during Bhutto’s eight-year exile from April 1999, Mr Fahim constantly resisted pressure from Pervez Musharraf to turn his back on her in return for being made prime minister. His election as head of the PPP would come as a surprise to many of the party’s leaders. ————————- Another Ugly Day in Pakistani Politics Let’s look at hard at the narratives that are emerging about the assassination of Benazir Bhutto.
Here’s Bush’s spin on the assassination of Benazir Bhutto: “The United States strongly condemns this cowardly act by murderous extremists who are trying to undermine Pakistan’s democracy,” said Bush, who looked tense and took no questions. It’s clearly too early to say, but the “murderous extremists” are just as likely to have been elements of the Pakistani military as anyone else. But more on that in a minute. There are a few narratives that are being reinforced by the media today, all of which are, at best, badly oversimplified. They are:
The assassination of Benazir Bhutto is a shocking and tragic occurrence that’s going to have terrible repercussions in Pakistan and beyond. That doesn’t mean, however, that we should white-wash her background or lionize her as some sort of saint. She was a hero to many when she came to power, and she was the prominent face of the Pakistani democracy movement this time around. But she and her husband also robbed the country blind during her time in office and went into “self imposed exile” with tens of millions of dollars tucked away in a series of secret accounts. Many in Pakistan saw her as the petty kleptocrat that she was. Although Bhutto always claimed that all the corruption charges against her (and her husband) were trumped up, they were tried in Western courts as well as in Pakistan; the couple were found guilty of laundering millions of dollars in bribes and kick-backs after a 6-year trial in Switzerland. When Bhutto first came to power, her administration tried to push back against the religious fundamentalists who are a fixture in Pakistani politics but made little progress. During her time as Prime Minister, she supported and aided the Taliban in neighboring Afghanistan, viewing them as a stabilizing force after all years of chaos under the Russian occupation and during the anarchy that followed. Although Bhutto joined the rest of the world in condemning them after 9/11, when it suited her, she had played footsie with religious fundamentalists just like everyone else in Pakistani politics has, ever since the founding of the nation. As for Musharraf, it’s just a marvel that anyone could call him a “moderate” with a straight face. Just as dozens of petty dictators during the Cold War realized that they could receive American aid, military assistance and political cover for cracking down on internal dissent simply by saying those magic words: “I’m an anti-Communist,” Musharraf’s declaration of war against Islamic extremism has been a model of cynical super-power manipulation. It’s worked out great; after seizing power in a military coup, the guy’s passed laws effectively outlawing his political opponents’ candidacies, suspended the Constitution and the judiciary and placed half of the country’s elites under house arrest, yet the media continue to portray him as a moderate leader. He’s a moderate like I’m Miss America. Here’s Najum Mushtaq, of the Pak Institute for Peace Studies: He portrayed himself as a liberal Muslim and parroted moderate Islam to appease the West. Yet, in the eight years of his military rule General Musharraf too displayed an ambiguous attitude towards the religious right in Pakistan. On the one hand, his regime is an ally of the United States in the campaign to curb extremism and militancy. On the other hand, the religious parties, some of them overtly pro-Taliban, have been his political allies and helped to sustain his illegitimate rule by acquiescing in his post-2002 experiment of controlled democracy. Under General Musharraf, the religious parties were able to win elections in one of the four provinces and became the major coalition partner in another in partnership with the pro-Musharraf faction of the Pakistan Muslim League. Mushtaq points to a report by the International Crisis Group: Despite his propensity to rule through decrees and ordinances, President Musharraf has been unwilling to use his powers to implement his pledges to control religious extremism. On the contrary, his constitutional amendments, contained in the Legal Framework Order 2002, have undermined the domestic standing of moderate secular parties. Moreover, the military has actively supported the religious parties during and after the October 2002 elections. The MMA, an alliance of religious parties, is a major beneficiary of the military’s use of all available means to manipulate parliamentary alliances and forge acceptable governments.” In the lead-up to the current elections — which everyone seems to agree will now be suspended — the pro-Taliban Jamiat Ulema-e-Islam party has been busy trying to strike a partnership with Musharraf’s supporters in the Muslim League. That’s our bulwark against Al Qaeda, right there. So who killed Benazir Bhutto? I’m writing this a few hours after the news broke and can safely say that I don’t know. What I do know is that it will be — is already being — taken as a given that the killing was carried out by Islamic extremists. That’s entirely possible, but Musharraf and/or his supporters in the Pakistani military are also prime suspects, with motive, means, etc. What I can also say with certainty is that while all Pakistani politics are influenced by religious conflict, and have been since the country was founded, the recent crisis had little to do (directly) with Musharraf’s supposed crack-down on extremists. Musharraf said he was going to war against pro-Taliban extremists, but he cracked down on his political opponents, on democracy activists and lawyers and judges — it was not about rolling back militancy, but rolling back Pakistan’s beaten and bruised democracy movement. As Spencer Ackerman points out at TPM, both Bhutto’s advisors and Nawaz Sharif (who escaped a possible assassination attempt himself an now becomes the most prominent face of the opposition) are accusing Musharraf of being behind the killing. At the same time, as Ali Eteraz notes, Al Qaeda has claimed responsibility for the attack. We will see (or maybe not). I think it’s important to understand that the U.S. had a key role in the events leading up to today’s tragedy. It was becoming increasingly difficult for the Bush administration to support Musharraf while spewing the usual rhetoric about democratization and the rule of law and all that, so they played a very active role in brokering the deal between Musharraf and Bhutto that led to her return from exile and brought her to this unhappy end. The idea was that as long as Musharraf was unlikely to cede real power, Bhutto’s presence would help legitimize the Pakistani regime. But the administration seriously overestimated the degree of popular support Bhutto had. Essentially, we pushed Bhutto into the mix, and, as Tom Daschle noted in testimony before Congress last week (PDF) Musharraf, who was pushed to hold elections by Congress (which threatened and then did put conditions on U.S. aid to Pakistan), did exactly nothing to create a secure environment in which the process could take place. It’s a pretty typical U.S. foreign policy set of blunders: support an illegitimate dictator because he’s “our” dictator, ignore his abuses until they become too embarrassing to ignore, then get together some State Department staff to start mucking around in the domestic politics of a country even if they don’t have a really firm handle on the nuances of its political culture and, while the specific chain of events may come as a surprise, the fact that the outcome will be bad is entirely predictable. Wash, rinse and repeat. The sad irony here is that because of the baggage she carried, Benazir Bhutto will probably be much more effective as a martyr to democracy than she would be as it’s spokesperson. But that’s not good news; reports filtering out of Pakistan suggest widespread chaos has broken out in various states, and the prospects for a lot more blood shed to follow are simply frightening. Joshua Holland is an editor and senior writer at AlterNet. —————————— Benazir Bhutto: An Age of Hope Is Over Our preoccupation with Muslim terrorism in Pakistan and Afghanistan often blocks out the bigger picture: South Asia is a region drenched in blood.
Nineteen years ago at the end of December, Benazir Bhutto, fresh from her first, exhilarating election victory and newly sworn in as Prime Minister of Pakistan, met Rajiv Gandhi, the youthful prime minister of India, for talks in Islamabad. She was 35, he was 44. There was obvious good will, almost intimacy, between them. The air was full of promise and hope that these two modernizing scions of dominant political families would turn decades of war and hostility between their nations into a new era of peace. Three and a half years later, Gandhi was assassinated. There had been no breakthrough with Pakistan to bolster his legacy. Now Bhutto is dead, at another moment of renewed anticipation. An age of hope is over. There is a terrible symmetry in the lives and deaths of these two political leaders. Both were the children of powerful people: Indira Gandhi as India’s prime minister and Zulfikar Ali Bhutto her counterpart in Pakistan. Together, in 1972, they had negotiated an agreement over Kashmir, but their heirs were never able to build on it. Their respective children, Rajiv and Benazir, had seen those parents suffer politically motivated deaths: Indira murdered in 1984 by bodyguards revenging her attacks on Sikhs, and Zulfikar hanged under the regime of General Mohammed Zia ul Haq in what many Pakistanis consider a thinly disguised judicial execution. Young Gandhi and Bhutto, both killed by suicide bombers, ultimately became the victims of inherited policies. Rajiv Gandhi had tried to put an end to Indian meddling in Sri Lanka and its support for a vicious Tamil Tiger rebellion. He was killed by a Sri Lankan Tamil suicide bomber, a woman who moved toward him to touch his feet in an age-old gesture, then triggered an explosion that blew them both apart. While it is too early to know who killed Benazir, Pakistan’s policies on Afghanistan are the backdrop to this tense and dangerous moment. Her father and his successors had supported Afghan rebels in order to become a player in Afghanistan and counter Indian influence in Kabul lately aligning riskily with American policies. Rajiv’s mother, whose intelligence agencies roamed the region causing havoc, had set out to weaken Sri Lanka, South Asia’s most developed nation. Benazir Bhutto and Rajiv Gandhi were both campaigning to return to power when they died. Both had been elected, then vilified. She lost support among middle-class Pakistanis for her feudal ways and unwillingness to take on social issues — child labor or the mistreatment of women — or chip away at the power of the military, and was driven from office twice on charges of corruption, much of it attributed to her husband. In India, Rajiv was the perennial butt of attacks from unreconstructed leftists and traditionalists who scoffed at his Westernized style, Italian wife and fresh ideas that rattled the khadi crowd. On the night he died, a policeman told me they had identified his remains by his expensive imported running shoes. Suspicions linger that Gandhi or those close to him may have been involved in illegal payments for arms contracts. Tragically, political violence has been the bane of modern South Asia, from Afghanistan and Pakistan east to Bangladesh. Militants and fanatics of all stripes and dogmas and grievances have assassinated leaders since much of the region gained independence from Britain in the mid 1940s. It has been a formidable hindrance to development of political institutions. In New Delhi, Mohandas K. Gandhi was killed in 1948 by an outraged Hindu. Pakistan’s first prime minister, Liaquat Ali Khan, was assassinated in 1951 — in the same Rawalpindi park where Benazir Bhutto died — and General Zia ul Haq perished in a still mysterious plane crash in 1988. In Sri Lanka in 1959, Prime Minister S.W.R.D Bandaranaike fell victim to a fanatic Buddhist monk, the first of two generations of more than a half-dozen leading politicians to die in shootings and bombings. (Tamil Tiger rebels would later try but fail to kill Bandaranaike’s daughter, Chandrika Kumaratunga, when she was president.) Sheikh Mujibir Rahman, founder and first Prime Minister of independent Bangladesh, was murdered in 1975; in 1981 Bangladeshi President Ziaur Rahman, was shot in an army coup. Nepal’s entire royal family was wiped out in one evening in Kathmandu in 2001, apparently by a disaffected crown prince. Hindus and Muslims killed one another by the hundreds of thousands after the partition of British India in 1947 into Pakistan and modern India. And compared with Pakistan since then, India has experienced much more large-scale sectarian and political violence, with thousands of Sikhs butchered in the streets of Delhi and elsewhere in North India after Indira Gandhi’s assassination in 1984, and up to 2,000 Muslims slaughtered by Hindu nationalists in Gujarat — Mahatma Gandhi’s birthplace — in 2002. In both cases, political parties have been deeply implicated yet no political leader has been punished — in a democracy. As the world mourns the loss of Benazir Bhutto, it would be myopic to focus only on Islamic-inspired violence and on Pakistan. This is a region with a turbulent post-independence political history. Our (Islamophobic?) preoccupation with Muslim terrorism in Pakistan and Afghanistan often blocks out a bigger picture. From end to end, South Asia is a region drenched in blood. —————- OK, you guessed it – we feel that Barbara Croisette, who used to be a New York Times correspondent from the UN Headquarters in New York, she remembers the “stages of the INDIA cross” in this century. The clear punishment for the US and for the world is now a resulting situation with having on our hands a nuclear Pakistan aiming its nukes at a nuclear India, and really not giving a hoot about the US interests. Musharaff is no moderate, he does not care about Al-Qaida as long as they keep away from his own person – just like the Saudis did not care when they could have done so. ——————– The New York Post might have a better insight to this story then most other papers – that is into what Washington wished about Pakistan and what it might get instead: Excerpts from – THE BHUTTO ASSASSINATION: NOT WHAT SHE SEEMED TO BE FOR the next several days, you’re going to read and hear a great deal of pious nonsense in the wake of the assassination of Pakistan’s former prime minister, Benazir Bhutto. Her country’s better off without her. She may serve Pakistan better after her death than she did in life. - In Pakistan, the military has its own forms of graft; nonetheless, it remains the least corrupt institution in the country and the only force holding an unnatural state together. In Pakistan back in the ’90s, the only people I met who cared a whit about the common man were military officers. Americans don’t like to hear that. But it’s the truth. Bhutto embodied the flaws in Pakistan’s political system, not its potential salvation. Both she and her principal rival, former Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif, failed to offer a practical vision for the future – their political feuds were simply about who would divvy up the spoils. From its founding, Pakistan has been plagued by cults of personality, by personal, feudal loyalties that stymied the development of healthy government institutions (provoking coups by a disgusted military). When she held the reins of government, Bhutto did nothing to steer in a new direction – she merely sought to enhance her personal power. Now she’s dead. And she may finally render her country a genuine service (if cynical party hacks don’t try to blame Musharraf for their own benefit). After the inevitable rioting subsides and the spectacular conspiracy theories cool a bit, her murder may galvanize Pakistanis against the Islamist extremists who’ve never gained great support among voters, but who nonetheless threaten the state’s ability to govern. As a victim of fanaticism, Bhutto may shine as a rallying symbol with a far purer light than she cast while alive. The bitter joke is that, while she was never serious about freedom, women’s rights and fighting terrorism, the terrorists took her rhetoric seriously – and killed her for her words, not her actions. Nothing’s going to make Pakistan’s political crisis disappear – this crisis may be permanent, subject only to intermittent amelioration. (Our State Department’s policy toward Islamabad amounts to a pocket full of platitudes, nostalgia for the 20th century and a liberal version of the white man’s burden mindset.) The one slim hope is that this savage murder will – in the long term – clarify their lot for Pakistan’s citizens. The old ways, the old personalities and old parties have failed them catastrophically. The country needs new leaders – who don’t think an election victory entitles them to grab what little remains of the national patrimony. In killing Bhutto, the Islamists over-reached (possibly aided by rogue elements in Pakistan’s Inter-Services Intelligence, one of the murkiest outfits on this earth). Just as al Qaeda in Iraq overplayed its hand and alienated that country’s Sunni Arabs, this assassination may disillusion Pakistanis who lent half an ear to Islamist rhetoric. A creature of insatiable ambition, Bhutto will now become a martyr. In death, she may pay back some of the enormous debt she owes her country. ————————————- www.SustainabiliTank.info summary: 1. Pakistan is an unnatural State – put together so there is a Moslem foot hold on the Indian Subcontinent. 2. The Army – for the better or for the worse – can be secular, and can be without corruption – just think of the history of Turkey. In effect the army can be a guarantor of democracy in a country that does not have it. Sounds strange – I know. 3. The Islamists may have indeed killed Bhutto as the last article believes. On the other hand it might also have been the Pakistani Intelligence that did this on Musharraf’s behalf – it really does not matter. 4. The country will benefit from Bhutto’s Martyrdom – they may waken up and try for honest change. 5. To obtain this change, upheaval may be welcome – though there must be complete accounting of the nuclear material. 6. The US requested from North Korea and from Iran nuclear accounting – the country where this is most needed now, and was most needed this last decade, is Pakistan. Will we hear anything on this line from the Bush Administration? One year is hell of a long time when the other side sits with his finger on nuclear triggers – not on the drawing board – but on India’s border. 7. Washington should not just back Musharraf because this is the easiest thing to do now. Rethinking the situation might require some time and one week in January is not enough time. Why not suggest a caretaker until the elections are held. It seems that all think the judges are the least tainted group. How about one Judge and one military man to manage for a month or two in tandem? 8.The Presidential candidates for the US November 2008 elections will prove not to be worth a second of the voters time if they do not address above point 6. No waxing anti Bush slogans will do now! The only acceptable stand is one of National unity under the clear requirement that the Pakistan nukes must be put under some sort of US system of checks, without further support for Musharaff if this does not come about. Otherwise, even if this means that Afghanistan is lost to the resurgent Al-Qaida – those candidates for US President do not show what it takes. ——————————– New Mexico Governor Bill Richardson, a candidate for the Democratic presidential nomination and a former Will above turn out to be the consensus among the Presidential candidates? ———————————— PS. The Bernard-Henry Levy Obituary to Benazir – as printed on the op-Ed page of the Wall Street Journal:
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