Ramblings from Afar

Integrating Immigrants

2009-12-08T14:07:00.002Z

The reccent swiss vote to ban the construction of minarets in Switzerland has once again prodded the issue of the integration of cultural immigrants into the limelight. Its interesting how those calling the loudest for immigrants to culturally integrate often have a very bourgeois view of their own culture and its 'enlightened' values. But what is the reality of the culture that most immigrants are confronted with? Immigrants with the educational background to get good middle class jobs and wealth tend to integrate relatively more easily. But most immigrants are poor and end up living in the poorest areas of society. This excellent post by Londonistani on the Abu Muqawama Blog illustrates some of the difficulties with the concept of integration in the fringes of societies which are already experiencing social breakdown. Its a must read for anyone interested in the integration debate.

Blackwater CEO, Erik Prince, Quits

2009-12-05T19:55:00.005Z

Blackwater (Xe) is coming in for so much flak from various quarters that the founder/CEO Erik Prince has announced that he is stepping down and is going to take up high school teaching instead! See this article in Think Progress, which has has plenty of interesting links. Here's an interesting quote from an article in Vanity Fair by the Prince of Darkness claiming he is being made a scapegoat:

“I put myself and my company at the C.I.A.’s disposal for some very risky missions. … But when it became politically expedient to do so, someone threw me under the bus. … I’m an easy target.”

Also interesting tidbits in the article - Eric Prince was supposed to be staying in the Marriott when it was blown up by a Taliban attack last year - except that he had cancelled the trip because his son had an accident. And perhaps more controversially, AQ Khan was on a CIA list of targets to be found, tracked and possibly killed, though the US govt decided not to kill him.

Given all the hoopla over Blackwater etc. here in Pakistan, I wonder how/if this is going to be worked into the various conspiracy theories doing the rounds?

On Balochistan

2009-10-25T11:24:00.002Z

Gibran Peshimam has a good peice in the News on the still-unresolved Baluchistan issue and how it is becoming increasingly vital, and increasingly difficult, to attempt to bring it to some kind of just resolution.

Last year there was some mumbles from the PPP government about righting the wrongs done to the Baluchi people, apologies and trying to find the whereabouts of the over 1,100 disappeared in the Province, but when it came to taking concrete measures, little seemed to be happen. The disappearances continued as did the simmering insurgency which targetted police, army, infrastructure and gas and mining operations, as well as non-Balochis civilians. As Asma Jehangir of the Human Rights Commission of Pakistan points out on this segment from a talk show on Geo, the government's control over its Balochistan policy seems non-existant.

Certainly at a time where the democratically elected government was being smacked down by the army over issues such as control over the intelligence agency, the ISI, drone strikes on the ISI-friendly Taliban groups such as the Haqqanis in North Waziristan and so on, it was not keen on trying to wrangle control of the country's Balochistan policy from them.

But what has been the result of this? The insurgency has only grown worse. As Murtaza Razvi has pointed out in this article, Why keep on bleeding Balochistan? With the rolling up of the local government system and the economic troubles of the Balochistan government, it seemed as if whatever few crumbs were being allocated to try and redress the province's greviances were also being taken away. Continued military repression, including the closure of Baloch newspapers, a move unmentioned by the TV news media that at the time were trumpeting the violation of press freedom when journos were beaten up at a lawyer's rally, added salt to the wounds. It should be noted that the BLA (Baloch Liberation Army) has also murdered journalists who have written articles they did not like.

Reccently Zardari and co have once again started speaking of Balochistan, announcing that there will be a massive socio-economic uplift package for the province. This was part of a wider effort to once again engage with the Balochistan issue, but it has been met with sckeptisim on the part of Balochi nationalist leaders.

The military's fears have been stoked by the contacts between various Balochi nationalist leaders and India, including alleged material support for the militants. Various military apologists like to point out this website for something claiming to be the Government of Balochistan in Exile which announces itself to be based in Israel - looks like 1 guy whose funding by whoever was pulled before the year was out! I wouldn't be surprised if it was actually some sort of idiotic Pak military "psy-op". Because who thinks there is actually a World Baloch Jewish Alliance Building in Jerusalem, ISRAEL? (And why the capitals?) Alternately it could be one idiot trying to take the Chelabi route to influence in the US.

Anyway, despite the military's fears, the need to do something concrete rather than cosmetic is dire. While relatively moderate politicians may be participating in the democratic process and willing to work with the Pakistani govt., we should also heed their warnings that the more this insurgency drags on the more radicalized the next generation of Balochis are going to get. Now is the time to act.

More on US Aid

2008-12-18T10:31:00.005Z

The last few months I've barely had time to follow the news and various blogs I read let alone manage to do any blogging of my own.

But just a little snippet that follows on from my post a couple of months ago about US Aid to Pakistan. This little article about the move by some senators to block American aid to the military seems to be making the rounds and causing great angst amongst various Pakistanis.

Of course it pushes all the buttons. All those conspiracy theorists who believe that the Americans are provoking the civil war in the north and the Mumbai attack was an Indian psy-op that went bad (a very popular view amongst Pakistani military officers, serving and retired, I've noticed), get up and point at this to say 'Aha! I told you so!"

Others are worked up about Pakistan being "declared a failed state". This is "threatening the image" of Pakistan, I suppose. The reason people feel so entitled to all that aid is because the idea that Pakistan is fighting the 'War on Terror' for the United States is still a commonly held view. In the words of Biden, the relationship between the two countries is still "transactional".

Personally, I'm fine with tying up/reducing military aid. F-16s, submarines and anti-aircraft guns are no help against the militants in Swat or Bajur. The problem of course is that so long as the Pak-India war drums are beating, those are exactly the kinds of things the army is going to ask for in return for participating in the 'War on Terror'.

Edit: And now we have this: US agrees to increase military assistance. So much for conspiracy theories.

A Light in the Gloom

2008-10-10T10:04:00.003Z

Will all the bleak news making the rounds and amidst all the doom and gloom, this little snippet of news made me feel just that little smidgen better.

Bravo, I say.

On US-Pakistani Relations and the Aid Affair

2008-09-09T07:16:00.005Z

There is an interesting article in today's 'News' by Mosharraf Zaidi called 'Joe Biden's Massive Pakistan Discount'. He takes a look at the recently passed Biden-Lugar Bill in the States which pledges $1.5 billion a year to Pakistan over the next ten years if it meets certain conditions (prosecuting the war on terror and democratic institution-building).

Firstly Mr Zaidi criticises the bill, pointing out that Georgia, with a population of 26 million is getting $1 billion in aid, while Pakistan with a population of over 170 million is getting $1.5 billion. He helpfully provides the following statistics:

In 2006 America's $9.9 billion aid programme in Iraq represented a $353 US contribution per Iraqi. Jordan's comparatively meager $562 million package translated into about $91 per Jordanian. Afghanistan's $3.74 billion programme meant the US provided $114 in assistance for each Afghan. Egypt received $1.79 billion, or about $22 per Egyptian citizen. At $1.5 billion, America's Pakistan assistance package will provide less than $9 per Pakistani citizen (or $8.72 to be precise). The true extent of the discount can be gleaned not by comparisons to post-conflict zones, or countries with solid gold records of friendship with the US, but by a comparison with Georgia, which will get roughly $217 per citizen. In cold numerical terms this means that one Georgian is worth roughly 25 Pakistanis.

This first argument does not seem entirely fair. Firstly, the US is pledging $1.5 billion per year for ten years - in other words $15 billion. Which means that Pakistan would get roughly $80-odd per citizen. Still not a huge amount but fairly substantial. Also its worth pointing out that the aid to Georgia is split, with about $500 million sent this year and the rest to be decided on later.

Its also worth pointing out that Georgia, according to the NYT has received a total of $1.8 billion over the last 17 years, while since 9-11, Pakistan has received over $11 billion (admittedly mostly military aid, but then thats what the military government demanded) and that's not including loans through US-dominated lending institutions and loan deferments etc.

Still, the author's basic point has merit. $1.5 billion isn't going to be working any miracles. His second point seems to be much more pertinent. In his proposal on American policy with Pakistan, Joe Biden rightly said that the American relationship with Pakistan has to move from a transactional to a normal, functional one. But in tying strings to this aid and making it dependent on stopping the Taliban and fighting Al Qaeda, this bill brings the relationship right back to being transactional: Cash for blood.

This is bad for the Pakistani government. And its bad for the Americans as well. Mr Zaidi points out that the Pakistani state is clearly not an effective one - the whole raison d'etre of providing aid aimed at building governmental and economic infrastructure is to make it effective. Yet this aid is conditional on the Pakistani state acting effectively against the militants. This is not a winning strategy.

Far more astute would be a strategy which provides aid aimed at building institutional capacity regardless of the war on terror, and making military aid conditional of performance. This is what Joe Biden has suggested and there's no good reason not to go for this idea. Eventually the idea would sink in to the military types in Islamabad that their strategic interests would be furthered by dismantling the Jihadist framework of regional security than by hanging on to it.

Charlie Wilson's Chair

2008-09-01T09:20:00.005Z

Via Twilight of the Weimar Era, we learn that UT Austin is establishing a chair in Pakistan Studies in their South Asian Studies department. And its named after Charlie Wilson! Yes, that's right, I said Charlie Wilson!

What better way to encourage the serious study of, and promote the nuanced understanding of Pakistani society, history and culture by naming a post after this man? (Pic: Time)

But the kicker is that under our good General, the Pakistani government was 'extending its services' to help raise money for the endowment. Yes, the Pakistani government always was good at extending its services to good ole Charlie Wilson, wasn't it.

Two Views on Shahbaz Sharif

2008-09-01T08:59:00.002Z

Here are two views on Shahbaz Sharif. What they both highlight is his dynamic, personal style of government. But while this article finds this generally a laudable quality, this editorial highlights at least one problem to arise from his style of leadership.

Biden as VP and the NATO Supply Line

2008-08-26T01:35:00.005Z

Back here I wrote about how Biden was being tipped as Obama's VP and what implications this may have for Pakistan. Now that Biden's candidacy has been announced, several other sources have picked up on the story. For example, see here and here.

Also of interest have been recent posts by Peter Marton over at [My] State Failure Blog regarding the logistics issue for NATO forces in Afghanistan. With recent attempts by the Taliban to disrupt the flow of supplies to NATO forces that move through Pakistan, there had been talk of opening a second longer and more expensive supply route through Central Asia. But as Mr Marton points out the recent Georgian war seems to have put a end to that idea, which makes talk of a surge in Afghanistan problematic.

What this has also done, of course, is strengthened Pakistan's hand and in particular that block within the military that argues that Pakistan can take a tougher line against Indian influence in Afghanistan, in resisting American demands to clamp down on militants, and continue to sponsor Taliban groups who will continue to bleed NATO forces dry until their coalition falls apart and they pull out, when they will become the instrument of extending Pakistani influence over Afghanistan again.

Increasingly though, Pakistan's civilian government looks like it doesn't like this plan.

A Sight for Sore Eyes

2008-08-18T09:27:00.003Z

So I was curious about whether the humanitarian crisis unfolding in FATA has registered anywhere abroad and ended up at the IRIN website run by the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (What is an Humanitarian Affair anyway? Sounds a little dodgy to me.)

Anyway, looking for the news on Pakistan, one finds mention of the recent flooding of villages along the Sutlej river, but nothing about Bajur.

And I came across this gem of a paragraph in an article called 'High-tech Survey Tool offers New Hope to Disaster-Hit Communities':

The sight of humanitarian assessment teams moving through calamity-hit villages and punching data into small, hand-held computers as they interview villagers may soon become routine in Pakistan.

All I can say is: I sincerely hope not!

Part II: Bajur in the Aftermath of Lowi Sam

2008-08-18T06:42:00.004Z

This is a follow-up to my earlier post on the Battle of Lowi Sam and the second in a series of posts on whats been happening in the regions along the Pak-Afghan border.

Following the debacle at Lowi Sam and the threatened encirclement of the FC Regional Headquarters at Khar, it seems as if the gloves really came off for the armed forces. Apart from the heavy use of artillery, the army's air arm and the Air Force (including the use of F-16s) both played a heavy role in attacking suspected militants in Bajur.

August 14, which is Pakistan's Independence Day, saw militants taking shelter within the built-up areas of Khar. The military dropped leaflets ordering civlians to leave the areas in which they were hiding as a prelude to bombardment. The leaflets included the following draconian orders:

“Security forces have launched an operation against miscreants and people have to follow certain guidelines for their own safety,” the pamphlet said.

It asked people to immediately alight from their vehicles and raise their hands if a helicopter flew over them.

It said drivers should not park their vehicles under trees. Violators of the instruction would be attacked, it warned.

The following day saw a reported 35 deaths and the bombardment of a number of militant targets, including the Taliban's FM radio station which was operating from a Madressah run by a Maulvi Muneer, a Taliban court and private jail, and anti-aircraft guns the Taliban were using against the helicopters. The leader of the Bajur Taliban, Faqeer Mohammad, meanwhile was said to have narrowly escaped being killed in an airstrikes (Originally the authorities claimed to have killed him, but he later surfaced, though he did admit that several of his colleagues were killed).

The Jamaat-i-Islami meanwhile called for a halt on the military operation, claiming that it had dispalced over 300,000 people. While that seems to have been an exaggeration, one might get a sense of the scale of displacement by the fact that the authorities at one checkpoint counted 3000 families passing through in search of shelter. A conservative estimate would make that between 15-20,000 people - on one road!

The Prime Minister, in his first address to the Parliament since his return from the States, took a tough stance on tackling militancy. Aftab Sherpao of the NWFP-based PPP-S and the PML-Q asked some tough questions on the use and effectiveness of airstrikes. Aftab Sherpao's estimate was of 200,000 refugees.

By the 16th of August, authroities were claiming to have cleared militants out of Khar and its environs and were calling on refugees to return there, though its not clear how many people responded to this call since they repeated it again the next day (the government is claiming 130 families have returned). More importantly, it seems as if local tribesmen have decided to take on the militants and have started their own patrols to seek them out (militants killed two tribesmen the same day).

While I'm sceptical of the capability of the local tribes to effectviely combat the Taliban, and generally am very sceptical of the idea of heavily armed groups of tribesmen wandering around anywhere, once again what the case does underline is that there does seem to be a strong groundswell of antagonism for the Taliban. The key here is that the military needs to be careful that it doesnt push the local populace back into the arms of the Taliban through indescriminate airstrikes and the use of artillery. People may be happy that the government is doing something about the armed bullies who drive around threatening barbers and telling them how to live, but that happiness may quickly evaporate if they start losing relatives and their houses and property to randomn shelling.

The News has some interesting articles on the situation in Bajur. Firstly we start getting some solid statistics:

Provincial Relief Commissioner Jamil Amjad has said the ongoing military operation had led to the biggest migration in the country’s history. “More than 39,100 families comprising about 250,000 individuals have been displaced, amongst whom some 70,000 people are registered in the relief camps in Dir Lower, Malakand Region and Peshawar,” he told a press conference here.

The largest share of the burden of refugees has fallen on Dir, which is struggling to cope with the influx of refugees:

More than 85 percent schools, hospitals, rural health centres, basic health units and other government buildings in Jandool and 15 to 20 percent in other parts of the district have been occupied by the military operation victims. The affected families could be seen sitting in the open, under-construction markets, bazaars, bus stands, at roadsides and in camps in a miserable condition. Though the provincial government has been providing tents and food to the migrants at camps for the last three days, the sanitation and other facilities are barely discernible.

It seems as if militants fleeing security forces were also trying to set up shop in Dir, but after prolonged neotiations with local tribal elders, they have agreed to leave.

We also get some insights on what is happening within the area of conflict. Helicopter airstrikes seem to be exercising some form of discrimination when choosing targets:

Choppers were also sent and directed to destroy the house of TTP spokesman Maulvi Omar but since it was located in middle of the houses and aerial strikes could cause damage to other houses and residents, therefore, the idea was dropped. The gunship choppers also bombed militants’ suspected hideouts in other small villages of Mamond Tehsil and Mulla Said Banda and Pashat in Salarzai Tehsil.

I'm not sure how effective these operations are in actually killing militants but they are eroding the infrastructure of the militants' organisations. Hence:

This correspondent on Sunday visited Bajaur Agency’s troubled spots including Seway, where the militants headquarters was located and a so-called Islamic court had been established, Chopatra, the hometown of militants’ commander Maulana Faqir Mohammad, Badan village, the hometown of Tehrik-i-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) spokesman Maulvi Omar, and several other places, which were once the strongholds of the Taliban fighters and where their armed men were once publicly checking vehicles at roadside checkpoints.

Ah, but wait, they seem to be fairly effective in targetting militants as well:

The militants admitted that they had suffered heavy losses due to choppers and warplanes and now the thundering voice of gunship choppers created panic in the hearts of many of their colleagues.

Just as a note, I blogged a couple of days ago about Joeseph Biden's proposal for dealing with Pakistan. One of the things he stressed was the need for America to do something concrete to help everyday Pakistanis:

When U.S. aid makes a real difference in people's lives, the results are powerful. In October 2005, after a devastating earthquake, American military helicopters delivering relief did far more to improve relations than any amount of arms sales or debt rescheduling.

Well, 250,000 internally displaced refugees sounds like a major humanitarian crisis to me and seeing as opponents of the military operation in Bajur are blaming all the violence on America, it strikes me as a good time for the Americans to maybe step up and help out with the refugee crisis. Why not have a "reminder that America cares"? In a case like this where all they have to do is cough up some measly amounts of money and basic necessities such as food and water and not make any long-term commitments, it shouldn't be too difficult to make a difference at a low cost.

I don't actually hold out much hope that the US government will actually do anything here, since it has very demonstrably shown not only that it doesn't care, but that it is unable to pretend to care even when it is in its own interest to do so.

But just in case anyone in the US government is listening. How about helping out the poor people of Bajur?

The Golden Arches Theory of Conflict Prevention Crashes and Burns

2008-08-16T12:11:00.002Z

Back when I was in college, I briefly toyed with the idea of going into the field of International Relations. One day I interrupted a friend studying for a test in her IR course. Upon asking her what she was studying, she replied she was memorizing the "golden rules" of international relations. What, I asked sceptically, were these rules? The first golden rule, she replied, was that no democracy ever goes to war with another democracy.

It was at that point that I knew IR wasn't really for me. I just knew too much history to be able to buy into these kinds of simplistic, uninformed and ignorant "golden rules". In the laa-laa land of American academic IR theory these self-serving theories may have great traction but in the messy, complex, unsimplified reality revealed by history they serve little purpose but to obfuscate the facts.

But wait a minute, these kinds of theories haven't just stayed in laa-laa land but unfortunately have leaked into the public consciousness through ignorant hacks and bestselling writers such as Thomas Friedman, author of the utterly simplistic and mostly wrong cheering chorus of a book on globalization, "The World is Flat" (and incidentally someone who attended the same college I did, which might explain where he gets some of his ideas).

Take for incidence this passage from one of his articles:

So I’ve had this thesis for a long time and came here to Hamburger University at McDonald’s headquarters to finally test it out. The thesis is this: No two countries that both have a McDonald’s have ever fought a war against each other.

The McDonald’s folks confirmed it for me. I feared the exception would be the Falklands war, but Argentina didn’t get its first McDonald’s until 1986, four years after that war with Britain.

Now I don't understand why Thomas Friedman is so popular (in the past few months two different people have enthusiastically recommended his abysmal book to me), but then he's just a mediocre popular writer, who will (hopefully) be forgotten a few years down the line. The thing is its not just him, serious scholars buy into this kind of thing.

At this point one may be prompted to point out that the Kargil War between Pakistan and India happened when both had plenty of McDonald's franchises and democratically elected governments to boot, but one could argue that Pakistan and India don't rate high on the democracy scale, or, if you believe Nawaz Sharrif, that the Pakistani army started the war on its own without taking the democratically elected leader of the country into confidence.

But as various bloggers have pointed out, what about Georgia and Russia?

More on this here and here.

If Joe Biden Became Obama's VP Candidate...

2008-08-16T10:52:00.005Z

The grapevines are buzzing over the idea that Joe Biden might be picked as Barack Obama's running mate. While some people are pointing out that he has made some bizarre foreign policy suggestions in the past, such as splitting up Iraq, as far as Pakistan is concerned, it may just be the best thing to happen to Pakistan in an otherwise dismal year for the country.

First off, Joe Biden has a much better appreciation of what is happening in Pakistan than the concerns of Pakistanis than other Presidential candidates. But better than that, have a look at Biden's proposal for what direction its policy towards Pakistan should take.

What does he propose?

We've got to move from a transactional relationship -- the exchange of aid for services -- to the normal, functional relationship we enjoy with all of our other military allies and friendly nations. We've got to move from a policy concentrated on one man -- President Musharraf -- to a policy centered on an entire people... the people of Pakistan. Like any major policy shift, to gain long-term benefits we'll have to shoulder short term costs. But given the stakes, those costs are worth it.

And how would he do this?

1. Triple non-security aid to $1.5 billion annually for at least 10 years.

2. Make security aid conditional (so for example, don't just pour in money for submarine hunters and air-defense radars which have no relevance to the Taliban insurgency in Pakistan's northern areas, but focus it on COIN-relevant stuff and tie it to what the army is doing against militants).

3. Give a "democracy dividend" of $1 billion above the annual non-security aid to help the new government with the promise of more aid tied to developing democratic institutions.

4. Focus on creating ties with the Pakistani public and not just the elite by "improved public diplomacy and educational exchanges" and "high impact projects that actually change people's lives."

There's an interesting comment on Biden's plan here.

Suffice it to say that it sounds pretty good at least on paper. Its a perennial complaint that whenever Pakistan has a military government that the US needs to do its bidding, money flows like wine, but whenever there is a democratic government, the aid seems to dry up and various sanctions tend to pile up against the country. So its good to hear a Biden recognizing that the aid needs to be based on something other than a transactional basis.

As for making military aid conditional - well if it will help convince our generals to abandon their proxy militants and focus on stamping out the Insurgency in FATA, thats all to the better. My guess is that they would want at least some of the money to be spent on expensive anti-Indian toys as well, but I'm all for measures that actively help fighting militancy in Pakistan (and by extension, Afghanistan).

So it will be interesting to see what happens next. I personally don't know too much about the other candidates for the VP slot, but generally I've been underwhelmed by Obama as far as foreign policy goes (though he certainly seems better than Mr John "In-the-21st-century-nations-dont-invade-nations" McCain.) But for Pakistan, I think Joe Biden's plan would be much-needed good news.

P.S.: McCain actually went one dumber and recently claimed that the Georgia-Russia war was the “first serious crisis internationally since the end of the Cold War”. So there you have it. 9/11? Not serious. Invasion of Iraq? A cakewalk. Darfur? Afghanistan? Mid-East? All just giggles. No, the Georgia-Russia war is SERIOUS!

P.P.S.: We've just learned that those evil commie Chinese are using underage athletes to cheat the US of A out of well-deserved Olympic medals. This must be the most serious crisis internationally since the Barbarian invasion of Rome! Something must be done about it!

Decline of the Empire?

2008-08-16T10:08:00.006Z

As pointed out on the blog, 'Twilight of the Weimar Era', the Pentagon recently released a study called 'Military Advantage in History' which sought to examine empires across history in order to learn how to increase the longevity of the American Empire (the whole silly enterprise is explained here). You can download the article if you have time to spare and need a giggle or two.

I was reminded of this sorry episode when I read Juan Cole's brief note on the impending demise of the Musharraf Presidency. One commentator noted, "you can measure the demise of the Empire by the rate at which its satraps are falling and wringing their hands".

Personally I tend to find all this talk about the impending demise of Empires overwrought. I know the idea is extremely popular in Pakistan amongst the elite classes. Searching for signs of the coming decline of America verges on a national obsession. Still, there's something amusing about puncturing the pompous Imperium-nostalgia of certain American political scientists and foreign policy wonks by turning their own terminology of Empire against them. And with the events in Lebanon earlier this year and in Georgia more recently, one can't help but feel that at least some of the Empire's satraps are indeed in trouble.

Putting the Peices Together, Part 1: The Battle of Lowi Sam

2008-08-15T10:33:00.006Z

One of the most frustrating things about the media in Pakistan is its seeming inability to piece together dribbles of information to present a larger picture of what is going on. At least, this often seems the case with the dailies [and the TV news for that matter]. Its an area where monthly magazines such as Herald really standout. [I'm still hoping that they start putting up their articles from back issues on line but so far, no luck.]

Recently everyone has been focused on the impending resignation/impeachment of Musharraf and questions over what will happen next. Personally I don't find the issue terribly interesting. Musharraf has been a dead duck in the water for a while now. Removing him is not going to make a major difference (unless, as rumored he takes the NRO with him, which would be interesting). Anyway, all sorts of interesting and shocking things have been going on in our country, particularly as regards the Taliban and, as usual, the media doesn't seem to be doing a terribly good job of putting it into context. So, I thought I might try to peice some things together in a series of posts over the next few days. Each post will correspond, more or less, to a geographical area. Here's the first:

The Battle of Lowi Sam

It seems to have slipped the notice of many people but the Pakistan armed forces have just fought one of their biggest battles since, oh well, since the ill-fated Wana Operation. Once again this seems to have been a poorly thought out and poorly executed move by the FC (Frontier Corps) that led to heavy casulties.

On August 6th, a force of about 150* FC men moved to occupy Lowi Sam in Bajur Agency, an area which they had evacuated about a year earlier under pressure of Taliban attacks. This initial move was reported in the press as a succesful operation. People were said to have welcomed the arrival of government forces because they were "fed up of the self-styled Shariah and harsh policies of the Taliban". However, there was intimation of trouble to come when, according to Dawn, "Thousands of tribesmen have left their homes in Ghazi Beg, Atokhel, Qandaharo and Khwayzai tehsils and are moving to other places fearing severe clashes in the region".

It turns out that those tribesmen knew something was up.

The Taliban responded to the FC move by heavy attacks that lasted throughout the next day. There were reports of heavy fighting and reinforcements were despatched. These convoys in turn were ambushed on the road and by the next day, 8th August, the military was using airstrikes and helicopter gunships to try and break the "seige" of the FC troops. The reports of casulties widely differed and one can probably safely say that neither the Taliban nor the official figures are entirely reliable, but one measure of how badly things were going can be gauged by the fact that the army spokesman was telling reporters to contact the FC and the FC spokesman was refusing to comment.

On August 9th it was reported that the FC contingent had managed to break out of their encirclement and retreat to the regional FC headquaretrs at Khar. Official sources said that there were 9 dead and 55 missing. The Taliban meanwhile were claiming over a hundred security personel dead and were declaring victory and distributing cash prizes.

Some of the worst loses seem to have occured where convoys were ambushed. Here is the description of one ambush by a witness to the NYT:

The insurgents then used rocket-propelled grenades and heavy machine-gun fire to attack a relief convoy of reinforcements sent from Khar, according to residents who arrived in the nearby town of Risalpur on Saturday.
The Taliban also laid roadside bombs, known as improvised explosive devices, along the road the convoy traveled, said Mohammed Khan, a timber merchant from the village of Sadiq Abad whose house was on the route.
“When the convoy stopped because of the I.E.D.’s on the road, then the Taliban were everywhere, in every place — they came and attacked the Frontier Corps,” Mr. Khan said in Risalpur. “After the convoy stopped, there was fighting for two days. The Taliban have the natural advantage because there is so much greenery.”
The maize crop in the fields, a month from harvest, was nearly six feet tall and provided perfect hideouts for the insurgents, he said.

And a description of the scene at Lowi Sam from Dawn:

Eyewitnesses said the situation was chaotic and the area was littered with bodies and burnt vehicles. They said the soldiers, who had been under siege for the past three days, had returned to their base in Khaar, leaving behind bodies, trucks and a large quantity of arms and ammunition.

The FC seem to have lost many vehicles, including tanks and a crane.

And it seems as if the Taliban actually chased the FC all the way back to Khaar and actually tried to beseige the FC Regional Headquarters there. The military responded with extremely heavy shelling and ariel bombardment which seems to caused a great deal of collateral damage, as chronicled here. But it did have the effect of breaking the seige of Khar by 11th August.

By now fighting had spread over a large area, the Taliban were using pirate FM radio stations to rally support and call for help from other areas, and the indescriminate use of artillery had sent over 100,000 people fleeing the fighting. An estimate put the death toll at 160 in 5 days of fighting. Millitants also reportedly beheaded two civilians for cooperating with government forces.

On August 12th, came the news that helicopter gunships had killed several militants including Al Qaeda operative Abu Saeed Al-Masri, a report which was denied by the Taliban and is still unconfirmed. Also, the leader of a Taliban group in North Waziristan, Ahmadullah Ahmedi threatened to start attacking gvoernment forces if they didn't stop their operations in Bajur and Swat (more on that in a later post). Its worth noting that things have been peaceful in Waziristan for months, presumably after the federal government and the Taliban there came to some kind of mutual understanding.

By the next day, there were reports of militants in Bajur stopping civilians from fleeing and attempting to "conscript" locals. Authorities accused them of using women and children as 'human sheilds'. Security forces also announced, by the way, that all wheat fields next to roads must be cleared to a distance of 200m from the road, a measure meant to make it harder for militants to launch the kinds of ambushes that caused such carnage on the road to Lowi Sam. As this article in the News describes, locals sheltered soldiers caught in the ambush.

So what is to be made of this sorry tale?

Firstly, its the FC that is taking the brunt of the fighting. The FC is of course under the control of the civillian Interior Ministry. The army, apart from providing air support seems to want to sit out of Counter-Insurgency operations. Certainly in terms of armament and training, the FC is the inferior force.

Interestingly enough, members of the provincial government have been appealing to the army to take action in FATA. Here is an excellent article by Afrasiab Khattak of the ANP to do just that. But so far the army seems to be keeping more of a hands-off policy here.

Syed Saleem Shahzad, whose articles I always take with a pinch of salt claims that informers within the armed forces had tipped off the Taliban about the FC operation, though this may just be rumour turned into 'news'. [Incidentally Mr Shahzad also seems to be the only reporter in Pakistan who keeps reporting about the death of Al-Qaeda No. 3s - Neither the News or Dawn used the term when they referred to the supposed death of Al-Masri.]

Also of note is that the local populace seems sick of the Taliban and would welcome the return of government rule, and, that the massive use of artillery and airstrikes is eroding that support. I fear I may sound like one of those horrible CNN cliche-spewing experts, but its clear that whats needed is more 'boots-on-the-ground' if the militants are going to be 'flushed out' of places like Lowi Sam.

* Sources differ on the number. Some say between 150 and 200. Another claims 200-300. My guess is that the original force had between 150 and 200 and as more troops were committed to the battle the total number involved approached 300.

Blogging Away...

2008-08-13T05:46:00.003Z

So once again the last few months have seen a severe shortage of blogging on my part. Not that there aren't many, many things to write and read about - its just that time has been short and with my new job well underway Im not certain that the situation is going to be changing very soon. I will try and scrape together some posts now and then but in the meantime, there's plenty of other stuff out there that makes for good reading.

I've knocked off a few blogs from my blogroll that seem to now be defunct. That includes 'Not the Whole Truth', 'The Dawn Blog', 'The Emergency Times', 'The Glasshouse' and 'The Grand Strategy Blog'.

On the other hand, I've added a few blogs as well, including the 'Middle East Blog', which is hosted by Time magazine, 'Ghosts of Alexander' which focuses on Afghanistan and lastly, what to my mind is the most promising blog on Pakistan out there, 'Grand Trunk Road'. It is intelligent and well-informed and worth reading. [The discussions in the comments sections are also usually interesting.]

P.S.: Other good blogs on Pakistan are Five Rupees and Chapati Mystery.

Nuclear Missle Proliferation... in Photoshop

2008-08-11T14:58:00.002Z

Okay, so this is old, old news - a month old in fact. I don't really know how I missed it the first time around. Anyway, so you might have heard about the ballistic missile test launch Iran had last month - you know the one where they fired 3 missiles and then released a photograph showing 4 missiles, right?

Well, it seems someone in Iran's Revolutionary Guard knows how to use photoshop... just not that well. Anyway, some people are getting a real kick in photoshopping their own pictures of the missile launch. Some are absolutely hilarious.

Alexander Solzhenitsyn

2008-08-07T09:22:00.003Z

Alexander Solzhenitsyn passed away recently. Its kind of interesting comparing the BBC article about his life with this more comprehensive one at Lenin's Tomb. One wouldn't know that he was an anti-semite or one of those 'ultra-nationalists' that Washington used to crib about.

Also interesting to note was that he was published in Russia during Khuruschev's de-Stanlinisation years and exiled during the reaction that followed Khuruschev's ouster.

1948: Ethnic Cleansing

2008-07-23T11:40:00.001Z

An interesting review by Roane Carey of Israeli Historian Benny Morris' new book.

On the U.S. Elections...

2008-07-16T12:50:00.003Z

Sheikh Rashid

2008-05-14T21:24:00.002Z

That perennial joker Sheikh Rashid makes for some of the most entertaining television available in Pakistan today. It was back when he was Railways Minister that he developed the habit of calling up four or five TV stations in succession, one immediately after the other, to air his views on every political matter in the country EXCEPT the railways. One would have thought that after losing the elections back in February, he might have faded from the limelight, but of course politicians in Pakistan never fade, but linger on like revenants hoping for a change in political fortunes to resurrect their careers.

So, quiet apart from the fact that Sheikh Rashid still spends his evenings with every major TV station on speed dial, last week he went and gave a sorry excuse for a news conference. After bemoaning the sad fate of the poor, hungry and naked masses who are the victims of rampant inflation, he theatrically demanded to know why the new government has not formulated any new policies to deal with their plight. The implication of his words was that the new government was continuing with the failed policies of his own former government. I wonder if he thinks this is a viable campaign strategy?

China and Tibet

2008-05-01T04:23:00.004Z

There is a very interesting letter by the philosopher Slavoj Zizek in last week's London Review of Books that is worth reading for some insight into both China and Tibet. Firstly, the author questions the traditional media narrative of good guys and bad guys, and also points out that:

"What the images of Chinese soldiers and policemen terrorising Buddhist monks conceal is a much more effective American-style socio-economic transformation: in a decade or two, Tibetans will be reduced to the status of Native Americans in the US. It seems that the Chinese Communists have finally got it: what are secret police, internment camps and the destruction of ancient monuments, compared with the power of unbridled capitalism?"

Of course the mainstream western press can't square these important trends with their own preconceived notions and instead resorts to the narrative of nationalistic mythology tinged with oriental exotica. In the current media group-think, more capitalism-driven economic development must equal more democratization and 'freedom'. So its easier to ignore images of mobs of Tibetan youths smashing Chinese shops and lynching Chinese immigrant workers and instead focus on Chinese policemen beating up Tibetan monks. The first image raises troubling questions about the political economy of development and exploitative capitalism while the second can be nicely slotted into the old story of meditative monks being brutally oppressed by vicious communists.

Mr Zizek ruminates further on our idea that there necessarily is a connection between unfettered capitalism and democracy:

"The Chinese used unencumbered authoritarian state power to control the social costs of the transition to capitalism. The weird combination of capitalism and Communist rule proved not to be a ridiculous paradox, but a blessing. China has developed so fast not in spite of authoritarian Communist rule, but because of it.
There is a further paradox at work here. What if the promised second stage, the democracy that follows the authoritarian vale of tears, never arrives? This, perhaps, is what is so unsettling about China today: the suspicion that its authoritarian capitalism is not merely a reminder of our past – of the process of capitalist accumulation which, in Europe, took place from the 16th to the 18th century – but a sign of our future?"

Not an especially cheerful thought.

The Gilded Age (Part Deux)

2008-04-23T06:55:00.003Z

From TomDispatch:

"Think of it as gilding the pain. Last year, hedge fund manager John Paulson of Paulson & Co. hauled in a nifty $3.7 billion. (Yes, you read that right.) Mainly, he did so, according to the Wall Street Journal, "by shorting, or betting against, subprime mortgage securities and collateralized debt obligations." And he wasn't alone. Hedge fund money-maker Philip Falcone of Harbinger Capital Partners raked in a comparatively measly $1.7 billion in 2007, also by shorting subprime mortgages. These are fortunes beyond imagining, made in no time at all by betting on the pure misery of others. Think of them as Las Vegas with a mean streak a mile wide.

In a week in which Citibank released news of quarterly losses of $5.1 billion and sweeping job cuts, food riots dotted the planet, oil hit $117 a barrel, and regular gas prices averaged $3.47 a gallon at the pump (with another 30 cents likely to be tacked on in the next month), Institutional Investor's Alpha magazine released its list of the 50 top hedge fund managers. In 2007, they "made" a cumulative $29 billion. (Even to slip in among the top 25, you had to take in at least $360 million.) To put this in perspective, Paulson alone made $1.6 billion dollars more than it is going to cost J.P. Morgan Chase to pick up the tanking Bear Stearns; in one hour, he made 30 times what the median American family earned all last year. And here's a little tidbit to go with that: Income inequality in 2007 was, according to the Associated Press, "at the highest level since 1928, the year before the Great Depression began."

Well, huh.

Food Crises, Agribusiness and Famines

2008-04-15T12:25:00.003Z

There's an interesting post over at Lenin's Tomb connected to my recent posts on global food prices. Lenin throws in some interesting historical analysis as well and asks the very pertinent question: "Why is it that for the first time the number of obese people (1 billion) exceeds the number of starving people (850 million)?"

But don't just stop at reading the post, I also strongly recommend reading the comments. Of particular interest are several running debates amongst the impressively informed readers, that include the question of whether Mao's agricultural policies saw an improvement in the lives of the bulk of the peasantry, the massive famine associated with the Great Leap Forward notwithstanding, and (more my own area of interest and expertise) to what extent the massive famines of the last 19th century in colonial India were the direct result of British policy. [I strongly recommend the book that is referenced, Mike Davis' Late Victorian Holocausts]

Another article well worth reading is this one in the Telegraph. It argues that rising demand in Asia for meat has less to do with the dramatic increase in prices than the switch to biofuel and speculation on the commodity trading markets [incidentally it is also commodity traders that are artificially raising the price of oil higher as well], citing the UN's Food and Agriculture Organization. There certainly is an element of capitalism gone mad when we find that rain forest is being slashed and burned in Brazil to clear land to grow grain for "environmentally friendly" biofuel.

Feudalism?

2008-04-15T11:15:00.003Z

Blaming 'Feudalism' has become the lazy way of expressing 'concern' about Pakistan. It has become a catch-all phrase to describe and explain any kind of troubling social phenomena in the country. But what is this creature called feudalism anyway? Akbar Zaidi has an excellent article in Dawn arguing that the term is out of date and obscures far more than it helps to understand the social, economic and political realities of Pakistan.

Yet More Updates

2008-04-15T04:34:00.004Z

Some interesting articles that serve to follow up on some of my previous posts:

The United States says it will release $200 million in emergency aid to alleviate food shortages in Africa and other parts of the world. While I hope this is a useful step, the cynic (realist?) in me wonders if this may not be another disaster in the making like the one where food aid arrived in a drought-stricken country a year late, and only served to bankrupt local farmers.

The Ghosts of Alexander blog has an interesting post called The Afghan Individual as a Unit of Analysis, which takes to task the intellectually lazy tendency amongst journalists and academics to "talks of groups in Afghanistan as if they were a coherent unit with a single will".

On a similar note, the folks over at the Kings of War blog, take aim at silly statements like this:

"Muslim countries are not like other countries. In as much as occupying troops are a much bigger theological, psychological problem for Arab countries than somewhere like Japan and Germany. And if you don't understand that about Islam, then you really aren't judging and you really haven't learned from the last four or five years."

Quite apart from the lazy, interchangable use of Muslim and Arab, one wonders if what the reporter in question is trying to suggest is that other racial/religious (same thing, no?) groups have much less of a problem being occupied by foreign troops than Arab/Muslims (same thing, no?)

The money quote from the blog: "Whenever I hear talk that smacks of cultural determinism, I reach for my revolver!"

I had also previously written about Obama's attempts to improve his image in Israel. The Rootless Cosmopolitan has an excellent article entitled "Obama and the Jewish Vote".

Barnett Rubin at 'Informed Comment: Global Affairs' provides the text to the policy speech of the ANP's Amir Haider Khan Hoti, the new Chief Minister of NWFP. Its worth reading, and as a policy statement, seems to me to be nuanced and sounding all the right notes. Lets hope the NWFP government has the ability and wherewithal to implement it.

Finally, I leave you with this excellent guest post by Alastair Cooke at the Rootless Cosmopolitan blog about Iraq and the U.S. faith in violence:

Although there are different ideas about how and when to use it, there is, I think, a consensus in Washington on the idea that by applying its overwhelming advantage in military force, the U.S. can do good in the world. It can make the world a better place through the transformative impact of violence, in the way that the violence of the hero in a Hollywood movie “cleanses” the world of incorrigible evil.

More on the Global Food Crisis

2008-04-13T14:34:00.004Z

Helena Cobban at 'Just World News' (which is an excellent source for analysis on current affairs), has an interesting post about the global food crisis, with some excellent links in it. Particularly noteworthy is the World Bank report that public order is at risk in 33 countries because of rising food prices.

Ms. Cobban also expresses the opinion that the global food crisis is going to bring about the end of 'America's unipolar moment'. She doesn't elaborate on why she feels this is so. To me, the idea seems counter-intuitive, since the United States is (a) a net exporter of grains and (b) sharply rising demand in the U.S. is driven by the switch to bio-fuel. So, to me at least, it seems as if the food crisis wouldn't cause serious harm to America's global standing and in fact, will probably strengthen it.

One of Ms. Cobban's ideas for a remedy is switching to a less meat-oriented diet. The background to this is that one of the reasons for the rise in food prices is the demand for meat by the growing middle classes in developing countries, particularly China and India. A rise in demand for beef burgers means a much larger rise in demand for grain since grains are used in feed for cows. Cows also take up much more agricultural land.

Now as this old article in the Guardian points out:

The basic rule of thumb is that it takes 2kg of feed to produce every kilogram of chicken, 4kg for pork, and at least 7kg for beef. The more meat we eat, the more grain, soya and other feedstuffs we need. So when we hear that the total global meat demand is expected to grow from 209m tonnes in 1997 to around 327m tonnes in 2020, what we have to hold in our mind is all the extra hectares of land required, all the extra water consumed, the extra energy burned, and the extra chemicals applied to grow the requisite amount of feed to produce 327m tonnes of meat.

So even if vegetarianism is not your thing, eating less beef and more chicken would still make a positive difference (and white meat is much healthier anyway). Still not convinced? Why not browse through this report on 'The Global Benefits of Eating Less Meat', especially the graph comparing land use efficiency at the bottom of page 23. Beef has the lowest efficiency with 20 pounds of usable protein per acre, rice has 261 pounds of usable protein per acre and soybeans has the highest efficiency with 356 pounds per acre.

So roughly speaking, in the same amount of agricultural land it takes to feed 1 person with beef, you can grow enough rice to feed 13 people.

Storm in a Teacup (Again!)

2008-04-11T18:16:00.003Z

The ability of the U.S. media to create storms in teacups is something truly to be admired. When its not Obama dressing up in a turban and traditional Kenyan dress, its the "revelation" that McCain went to topless bars when he was a younger...

Latest storm? Obama never mentioned in his biographies that he spent several weeks in Pakistan back in 1981. Add this to his Pakistani roomate at college and illegal immigrant Pakistani friend, and *gasp!* this all begins to smell of conspiracy!

In other news, Obama has launched a blog in hebrew in an attempt to reach out to the Israeli public, which, according to polls, feels his pro-Israeli crededentials are not as sound as the other two presidential candidates.

Someone asked me the other day if Benazir Bhutto could truly be considered a politician [I believe his point was that she was more a feudal princess than a modern politician]. I replied that I thought that she had been a very talented politician, and that the more pertinent question was, what was her political constituency? Its widely felt in Pakistani politics, that to be succesful, one has to be acceptable not only to the Pakistani people, but also to the American government. The American government, in other words, is an extra-national constituency of any leading Pakistani politician. In the same way, there seems to be the feeling in Washington, that the Israeli public is a key extra-national constituency for any American Presidential candidate.

Edit: So apparently I'm late with the 'breaking news' about Obama's Pakistan connection. Ali Khan blogs about it on the Dawn blog here.

Bits and Bobs

2008-04-09T13:06:00.003Z

The recent fighting in Basra in Iraq has been dominating the international news. While Fox bemoans the 'defeatist' coverage of 'liberal' media, and CNN and BBC have reporting thats only marginally better, here is an interesting article about Muqtada al-Sadr. Its a chapter from an upcoming book by the Independent's reporter, Patrick Cockburn and makes for interesting reading.

On a different note, Slate has a good explainer on why global food prices are soaring. They also link to a chart showing the global food price index on the UN Food and Agriculture Organization's website.

In light of food inflation and recessionary fears in the United States, the IMF had reduced its forecast of global economic growth last month and is now warning that the developing world should brace itself to suffer a knock on effect.

Ah, good news for the future, then.

UAE forces in Afghanistan

2008-04-08T07:42:00.002Z

It comes as a surprise to me, but if it will help with the reconstruction of the country then its for the best. Apparently, UAE forces have been operating in Afghanistan for several years now, which is unusual for an Islamic country.

Another interesting article is this one about the Taliban's relationship with mobile phone operators in Afghanistan by Barnett Rubin.

The Global Food Crisis

2008-03-29T04:41:00.005Z

I had posted last time about how the rising price of wheat is usually a larger factor in local politics than other matters. The thought came back to me when I was reading a recent Newsweek article about the protests in Tibet. One of the major complaints of protesters was the rise in food prices, though they placed it in the context of Chinese claims of great economic growth and investment in Tibet over the last few years. The protesters felt that the gains from this increasing wealth was only going to Han Chinese while they had to face increasing food prices.

Tibet is not the only place where this has happened. The internet is littered with news reports about rising prices from Canada to Gaza. This interesting article at the Global policy Forum asks the question 'Are We Approaching a Global Food Crisis?' and has some relevant facts and figures about global food prices.

As the article rightly points out the rises in food prices have a much larger impact in households with low incomes, and thus on poorer countries:

"Most consumers in rich countries are affected only marginally by higher food prices. But in poor countries, many consumers spend most of their income on food. So, higher prices mean smaller portions, fewer meals and consuming foods with lower nutritional value. To afford essential food needs, many low and middle-income households must also cut spending on education and health."

Furthermore, as the article points out, 70% of all developing countries are net importers of food, and the need to import food is a burden on the economy made worse by rising prices.

In Pakistan's case, in a good year, Pakistan's agricultural production more than meet's its requirement for wheat, while in a bad year it is forced to import. The government controls the wheat market by setting the price of wheat that is provided to the millers and then again setting the price of flour in the market. This price is not allowed to fluctuate beyond a narrow band, thereby ensuring that the price of flour remains low. Due to the rise in global prices, millers would make much more money if they exported wheat than if they sold it in the country, but the government only allows the export of flour that is surplus to the country's requirements.

The wheat crisis at the end of 2007 was sparked by a combination of greed and incompetence when the previous government announced a record bumper crop in wheat, with fudged statistics, and quickly granted permission to export half a million tonnes of wheat at $200 a tonne. When it became apparent that this bumper cop only existed on paper, various people in the flour supply chain (millers, retailers etc.) realized there was going to be a shortage, which at some point in the future was going to drive prices up, so they began hoarding flour rather than releasing it for sale at current, lower prices. There were also allegations of smuggling of wheat to Afghanistan (where domestic production of wheat has all but been replaced with opium anyway). However, I'm not sure how substantial the loss of wheat is through this channel. The previous government then heroically ignored the problem until their tenure was up and dumped the entire affair in the lap of the caretaker government that replaced them. They were forced to import wheat at the then global market rate of $500 per tonne and take various measures against hording.

Thus, while Pakistan would have faced the problem of food inflation anyway, the matter was made worse by a greed-induced artificial shortage.

The Mysteries of the 'Muslim Mind'

2008-03-18T05:15:00.003Z

For those who wish to unlock the mysteries of the 'Muslim Mind' I refer you to one of the best articles I have read in a long, long time. It is by Barnett Rubin and can be found here at the Informed Comment Global Affairs blog. Here is the money quote:

"Recently when a reporter who was gearing up for his first trip to the region by reading books on theology and political ideology asked me how it was possible for Hanafi Muslims like the Taliban to ally with Wahhabis like al-Qaida -- was it because the Deobandi school was closer to Wahhabism? I replied (with a pinch of exaggeration) that this had nothing to do with anything, and to understand the Taliban he would be better off looking into the price of bread.

Outside of Afghanistan people want to know if Deobandis are a type of Hanafis that are closer to Wahhabis, but inside Afghanistan all people think about is the price of bread."

This is so true. To some observers (including myself), it had become patently obvious that the PML-Q was going to be trounced in the elections (as long as they were unrigged) simply because of the wheat crisis in the country. After seeing lines of over 1000 people, mostly women, waiting for days outside government utility stores in the hope of being able to buy wheat, the mixture of despair and anger felt by the poor was all too palpable. And even when the PML-Q tried to blame the wheat shortage on the PPP and the unrest following Bhutto's assassination, the charge simply would not stick as the shortages dragged on and on, and their own government's role in manipulating wheat production figures and wheat smuggling became apparent.

To the average schmoe in Afghanistan/Pakistan etc., the issues of Jihad, Sharia, Palestine etc. really don't matter. They just want bread. Take, for an example, our cook. Over the last couple of weeks he would ask for updates about the political situation. Has the new Prime Minister been selected? When will the new Prime Minister be selected? Why is it taking so long for the Prime Minister to be selected? Yesterday his patience was wearing thin. With no Prime Minister yet, he commented, who are we going to complain to about the high price of wheat and food?

The NRO, the Afghan war, Sharia, Kashmir, Iraq, corruption, etc. None of that is what counts. Quiet simply, what matters is the price of bread.

Edit: And of course not long after I wrote this post I came across this article in today's papers about the bread shortage in Egypt and President Mubarak's attempts to combat it.

America's Most Unwanted

2008-03-18T04:51:00.002Z

So the poll results are in, and we now have a clearer picture of which countries Americans like and dislike. The country which Americans view most favorably: Canada. (No surprises there.) The country they view most unfavourably: Iran. (No surprises there either.)

What about Pakistan? Well its there near the bottom of the pile, just above Afghanistan and below Cuba and Saudi Arabia. A whopping 72% of respondents view Pakistan unfavourably. Well how about that.

Bonus factoid: Republicans are more likely to view Pakistan favourably than Democrats.

On Zardari

2008-03-17T12:38:00.002Z

I was all fired up to write a long post on Zardari and his ascension to power, and what this means for Pakistan, but I have found that the 'old China hand' has done a pretty good job of doing this at China Matters.

Here's a taster: "Zardari, in his own way, epitomizes the rot at the heart of the PPP just as Musharraf symbolizes the rot at the heart of the Pakistani government."

I couldn't have put it better myself.

Thoughts on the Other Musharraf

2008-03-17T12:12:00.002Z

Some well-intentioned advice to my Bangladeshi friends:

Some years ago, you decided to part ways with Pakistan. As traumatic as that episode was, in hindsight, it was probably for the best. It seems though, that the military-bureaucratic elite can't quite break the mould in which it was originally cast and it is leading Bangladesh down the same, dusty, well-beaten path that Pakistan has trod so many times before. I would urge you very strongly to reconsider. This path will take you nowhere you want to go...

A Friend in Deed...

2008-03-17T11:24:00.004Z

Interestingly enough, Major General Jay Hood, once head honcho of Guantanamo Bay has now been appointed chief of the Office of the Defense Representative in Islamabad. I wonder if our ISI generals are going to hold a special viewing of 'Khuda Key Liye' for him? Perhaps they can do dinner before the movie? There's a lovely little Italian Restaurant he might enjoy.

Interesting Blog on Afghanistan

2008-03-17T04:35:00.002Z

On a slightly different note, here is an interesting new blog on Afghanistan. Some of the articles such as this one about local power structures in Afghanistan and the way in which NATO forces engage with them.

Dawn Blog

2008-03-16T15:06:00.003Z

So the Dawn-wallahs now have a blog up and running. Dawn is, of course, probably the best English language daily in Pakistan. Though having said that, the News and the Daily Times have their charms as well.

Which War?

2008-03-16T14:07:00.006Z

In the movie 'A Mighty Heart', based on the abduction and investigation of Wall Street Journal reporter Daniel Perle (and incidentally, a surprisingly good movie, I thought) there is a scene where Daniel Perle's wife meets with the Pakistan's Interior Minister, Moinuddin Haider (a retired Lt. general appointed to this important position by Musharraf). In this scene, Haider states that he has conclusive evidence that the kidnapping of Daniel Perle has been orchestrated by the Indian Intelligence Agency, RAW for the purpose of making Pakistan look bad in the foreign press. The viewer is struck by the absurdity of the claim, but what makes the episode (based on Marianne Perle's account of the encounter) truly painful is the feeling that the Pakistani state and its most powerful representatives are not only not interested in helping to look for the missing gentleman, but are so completely deluded about what his fate may be that any help that may be forthcoming is bound to be worse than useless.

I recalled this episode while watching Moinuddin Haider on a talk show on TV recently, speaking after the recent suicide attacks in Lahore. As he and various other high-ups in officialdom and semi-officialdom have so often done before, Mr. Haider was dropping veiled hints about the involvement of a 'foreign hand' in the suicide attacks and in Taliban militancy in Pakistan in general. He was more circumspect than he has been in the past, not naming names, and not talking about 'conclusive proof', as others have done, but saying that it only stands to reason that the money, training and material for the bombings/militancy must be provided by someone outside the country. Other military and government officials have not been as circumspect and have explicitly blamed India, Afghanistan, and even Israel.

While India has not been above supporting various nationalist separatist movements in Pakistan in the past, the accusation that it has developed ties to and is funding and fueling the Taliban and Al Qaeda in Pakistan is so absurd that one is somewhat at a loss for words. But the accusation continues to make the rounds, with plenty of people who seem to be willing to credit it. No wonder then, that even while we have several suicide bombings a week throughout the country, and there is such a sense of insecurity pervading the country as has never before been the case, and both the army and civilian law enforcement seem all but helpless in making inroads against this so-called Jihad being waged upon Pakistani society, STILL the Pakistani armed forces' priorities seem to be focused on finding newer and more expensive toys whose purpose is to wage war against India.

For some reason these people are convinced that if only the Americans leave Afghanistan, then all will be well in Pakistan once more. Just as all was well in the pre-9/11 years where the militants were free to wage sectarian war upon Shiites and other religious minorities as an extracurricular sideshow while serving the Pakistani army by waging 'Jihad' in Afghanistan and Kashmir. Yup, the good ole days, when all was well with Pakistani foreign and security policy, and there were no pesky Americans stirring up trouble....

The reason I find this so terribly depressing is that it shows, not only that the capability to address "Islamist" terror does not exist in Pakistan, neither does the will. And it is this second fact which is the kicker. The lack of capability can be addressed to a certain extent through exerted effort. But without the will to make that effort, we will keep stumbling along as we are.

The fact of the matter is that even if the United States and all its armies were to suddenly sink beneath the waves tomorrow and disappear from the face of the Earth, Pakistan would still be at war the day after. And, its not going to be one waged from Delhi.

Edit: These two articles, one from the News and one from Dawn, by anti-establishment intellectuals show the kind of confusion that is prevalent amongst potential policy-makers. They are very ready to point fingers but simply aren't able to suggest lines of action.

McCain? No Thanks.

2008-03-16T13:26:00.004Z

As if this was not a good enough reason to hope McCain doesn't make it to the White House, there is also this. And here I was, fooled into thinking he was a reasonably sensible 'un (for a U.S. Presidential Candidate, which, truth be told, is setting the bar rather low).

Shall We Dance?

2008-03-16T12:32:00.000Z

The case of the dancing Sheikh...

Update

2008-02-21T02:48:00.002Z

Unfortunately my internet connection has been misbehaving over the last couple of weeks. It was down for about 10 days or so and even though it has undergone a series of repairs, is still somewhat temperamental.

So of course this means that a few peices I had planned to write in the run up to the election are now redundant.

And as for the election itself? Well, I did vote of course, despite the lack of any candidates that i felt like voting for. Some have argued that it was not worth voting in this election, but I strongly disagree. Even if you are going to register a protest vote (for someone who has no chance of winning), its still important to vote.

More on all that later.

On Economic Miracles Part II

2008-02-02T08:59:00.001Z

I wanted to try and put into context much of the rhetoric about the economic performance of the country during the Musharraf years (1999-2007). On the one side we have the loud claims on the side of the government about an economic miracle. On the other side we have a host of economists and opposition politicians sniping from the sidelines, sometimes making equally shrill claims of incompetence and impending economic disaster.

Has the economy ‘developed’ rather than simply grown? Is the growth sustainable? Has a platform for future economic growth been laid? Have the benefits of that growth had a positive social impact on the nation and its people? The government claims that this is so, arguing that their policies have placed the economy on a footing whereby it will be able to sustain growth at 7% to 8% annually for the foreseeable future.

Pakistani economists of one stripe or another, have advocated in the media one of three models of economic development. A general idea that runs through these is that a developing economy needs a large amount of capital investment, which spurs economic activity until ‘lift off’ is finally achieved when economic growth becomes self-sustaining and the effects of this growth permeates throughout society.

The first model, which I will call “The World Bank Model: Mark I”, was formulated in the 50s. It is based on the idea that to achieve ‘lift off’, an economy needs investment from abroad focused on promoting rapid GDP growth. This rapid growth will lead to industrialisation which will in turn allow the country to repay its loans. The movement of labour from rural to urban areas would feed industrialisation and allow the benefits of economic growth to ‘trickle down’ to the population at large. Eventually, once the supply of labour starts to contract, wages for the population will begin to rise. Living standards will rise and lo and behold! A fully developed society will result! A couple of elements were added to the this model in the 70s and 80s. Firstly, the growth of export-oriented industries was seen as key to achieving “lift off” – otherwise economies would remain in debt for a very, very long time. Secondly, the need for ‘responsible’ fiscal and monetary policies were emphasized –gotta pay off those loans.

The second model, which I will call “The World Bank Model: Mark II”, was formulated based on the experience of the preceding decades. It was belatedly realised that the wealth of most developing economies didn’t really trickle down, so much as pool at the top. It was therefore decided that certain institutional structures needed to be created, mostly to do with educational and health infrastructure as well as governance, if the channels for trickle down were to work effectively. The need for social sector and governance reforms was emphasized, not just because of 'fuzzy liberal' sentiment for the teeming masses, but because economists found that developing economies without social governance actually undermined economic growth. Opportunities for expansion were lost and instability ensued. This second model was given explicit shape in the World Bank’s World Development Report 2006. Shahid Javed Burki, a former World Bank economist and ex-Finance Minister of Pakistan, is a proponent of this approach, both in his columns in Dawn and in his book Changing Perceptions, Altered Reality: Pakistan’s Economy Under Musharraf, 1999-2006.

The third model, which I will call “The Slow GDP Growth Model” is gleaned from what I have read by the economist Qaiser Bengali. This model has a greater emphasis on government intervention in the economy, an emphasis on industrial growth for domestic consumption, low foreign debt and higher employment at the expense of a high GDP growth. The idea is to replace “trickle-down” with heavy government investment in social infrastructure in order to raise living standards, with explicit reference to China and India’s nurturing insular, state-dominated economies for a "gestation" period, allowing them to grow and attain a certain critical mass before subjecting them to global market forces. The idea is that a socio-economic foundation first needs to be laid before “lift off” can occur.

While the Musharraf government has made lip-service to adhering to the second model of development (it has to, since many of the country’s loans from institutions such as the Asian Development Bank and other foreign donors are tied to investing in the social sphere), it is obvious that it has not made any serious attempts to work in this regard. Policy and political will is focused on the first model of economic development. This sense is reinforced by listening to the various pronouncements of former PM Shaukat Aziz or former special adviser to the President and current Finance Minister, Salman Shah – their focus is all on GDP growth and foreign investment.

But the problem here is, not only is the first model flawed, but Pakistan’s economic performance does not even meet its relatively simplistic standards. The government has repeatedly claimed that they have placed the economy on a sound footing and the country is poised for “lift off”. [More recently, Musharraf has said that this position was being threatened by the Chief Justice’s ruling against the Steel Mill sale and the consequent deleterious effect on foreign investment.] But something both Shahid Burki and Qaiser Bengali, amongst just about every other dispassionate (and some rather impassioned) economic observers, have underlined, is that the claims that Pakistan has undergone an economic miracle is a myth.

Lets look at the country’s economy in terms of the First Model:

The government claims that its policies have led to:

Foreign investment
Increase in exports
Increase in Foreign Reserves
A decline in poverty
Sustained economic growth

All seems to sit well with World Bank Model I, right? Maybe not. Lets look more closely.

1. Foreign investment was mostly confined to privatising existing state run enterprises, along with small, yet significant amounts in the stock market and in real estate. While the injection of foreign capital and management was expected to help improve these enterprises, investment in new industries has been tentative to say the least, and is only done in limited form with major concessions (50 year tax holidays, limited liability, etc.). Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) is still very low and contributes very little to the economy. Pakistan is still considered too politically unstable to be an attractive proposition for long term investments. Anything that can’t be dumped for cash in quick order is risky.

2. The increase in exports have mostly been in primary goods – agricultural produce, cotton, etc. These are dependent on price fluctuations and seasonal variations. While the increase in global prices in a number of primary commodities have inflated the export ledger, its important to realise that percentage wise the export of industrial goods has dropped precipitously. For example, textile exports have actually declined, leading to the closure of hundreds of textile mills, but the export of raw cotton has increased. Furthermore, the rise in exports has not matched the rise in imports which have escalated at a far faster rate, which means that the balance of payments deficit is now at unprecedented levels.

3. Thanks to the global crackdown on money laundering, the vast amounts of money previously remitted through the ‘black’ hundi system from foreign workers now came through official channels. This had three consequences: these vast amounts were now taxed, providing additional revenue to the government; the local banks were flush with cash, [which along with banking sector reforms and the introduction of newer technologies (ATMS, credit cards etc.) spurred the boom in consumer credit financing]; foreign exchange reserves grew. Foreign exchange reserves were also bolstered by three other windfalls; heaps of money from the United States for participation in the War on Terror; the sale of state enterprises as part of the ‘privatisation’ process; the cancellation or rescheduling of foreign debt post 9-11, and a geopolitical climate conducive to new loans on generous terms. I term all of these ‘windfalls’ because they arose from particular situations external to the economy and may not come again. The U.S. money tap will close someday (perhaps sooner, perhaps later); the state will run out of stuff to privatise; and the rescheduled loans will eventually come due once more. The Pakistani economy needs to be able to handle its balance of payments before this happens. Which it currently can’t.

4. A decline in poverty? Statistics in this field have become a free for all. Government sponsored reports insist that poverty is declining. NGOs beg to differ. Its probably safe to say that the data is inconclusive. The problem is not just of current data, but of past data as well. Approximately a third of the population earns less than a dollar a day. But whether or not that is defined as poverty is debatable. And whether or not that figure is a significant decrease from previous years is also debatable. But given increasing inflation, especially food inflation, which far outstrips the rise in GDP per capita, or increases in minimum wage etc., its safe to say that while figures on poverty are debatable, the purchasing power of a large chunk of the population has been decreasing over the last few years, particularly the urban poor and agricultural wage workers.

Perhaps more to the point is the question about whether the Pakistani economy has moved (or is moving) to the point presented in the ‘World Bank Model I’ where the benefits of the growing economy can trickle down to the population at large. The answer is a resounding ‘no’. Firstly, most of the economic growth has been in the services sector, which has created upward economic oppurtunities almost exclusively for the educated, urban middle classes. Few jobs have been added to the economy. There has been very little industrial growth. Agribusiness has benefited landholding farmers, particularly those who own middle and large sized land holdings (or institutions like the army which owns huge tracts of agricultural land) – but this has basically been confined to parts of the country (incidentally building on the success of the transport infrastructure built there during the Nawaz years). Agricultural productivity is limited by the lack of credit, transport, irrigation and other oppurtunities to large tracts of land, particularly in Sindh, Balochistan and southern Punjab.

5. Is the current economic growth sustainable? The answer has to be ‘not yet’, given that the trade deficit is so high, that investments are skewed towards speculative sectors, that the country has a very low investment to national savings ratio, and that growth has been focused on the service sectors, particularly banking, which itself is exposed to a wide variety of consumer loans. These consumer loans were driving growth in other sectors where the performance was good, such as agribusiness and the automobile industry. Already, the banks have started drawing back from these sectors (several banks have stopped giving auto loans for example). The government itself is now borrowing very heavily from local banks and the wave of inflation coming from the rise in oil prices is only now going to hit the economy (so far the government has been subsidising costs through various ‘buy now, pay later’ schemes with Saudi Arabia and the UAE, dipping into the National Reserves, and borrowing). On top of this are infrastructural failures which are active hindrances to further growth, such as the energy crisis, poor human resource development, underdeveloped infrastructure, lack of foreign markets and of course the political instability. Its all very well to sell off existing industries and talk about the money you have made. But the conditions for more industries to be created simply are not being put into place. 'Lift off' has not yet been achieved.

Now all of these are criticisms from the standpoint of ‘World Bank Model I’. There are more criticisms to be made if we look at matters from the perspective of the other two models. Unfortunately I don’t really have the time to go into them at this point in time (I do have a job and a family after all). Perhaps that can await a later post.

Update: Kaiser Bengali recently gave a talk in which he expounded on his criticisms of economic development. I find his characterization of Pakistan in the 50s, 60s and 70s as a development state, and in the 80s, 90s and 00s as a 'national security state' an interesting and informative tool.

On Economic Miracles

2008-01-29T15:51:00.000Z

Having been viciously struck down by the flu, I have been unable to blog much in recent times, even though there has been a great deal of grist for the mill.

By now the myth of Musharraf's economic miracle has been pretty much punctured, but just in case one wants some more details on the topic, here is some interesting reading:

An Interview with the economist Qaiser Bengali from The News which can be found here at Watandost.

An article from Dawn on the atrocious decline in Pakistan's social indicators as measured by the Human Development Index.

Just below the above article, in the same issue of Dawn is an article about the officially sanctioned abuse of public funds by the previous government even as food inflation reduces the purchasing power of ordinary people. One, amongst many startling figures noted in the article; "A report in this paper on Oct 23, 2007 said, ‘Government spends Rs 65 million on overseas treatment of 18 bigwigs’ and ‘that too in a country where the public per capita health expenditure is a measly Rs 360’." Yes, you read that right, the government spent Rs. 3,611,111 per head for the treatment of 18 rich members of the ruling class, while its average expenditure on the layman was Rs. 360 ($5.7) per person, most of which is not spent on treatment, but on infrastructure (building maintenance, electricity bills, the health ministry, etc.). To make further sense of why this happens, I refer you to my earlier post on how the state serves the elite, while failing the poor.

Finally, here is a report that the Caretaker Prime Minister, Mohammad Mian Soomro, has had to form a committee to "ascertain the accuracy, reliability and credibility" of the economic data put forward by the previous government. It seems, not unsurprisingly, that some of the data broadcast by the previous government as 'proof' of their economic achievements has proved to be unreliable. Surprise, surprise!

Enjoy!

Edit: And on top of it all, here is an article in today's issue of The News about Pakistan's social sector and an analysis of the weaknesses of its social policy.

Great People To Fly With

2008-01-19T22:36:00.000Z

This may have been a great PIA ad campaign in 1979, but I suspect it would not be received well these days...

State Failures

2008-01-16T05:02:00.000Z

Much ink has been spilt over whether or not Pakistan is a failed state. The question, I think, is somewhat misleading, because few who argue one side or the other of the question care to think about what the functions of the state in Pakistan are. Given that the state apparatus was created to promote and protect the wealth and power of a small segment of society, can its inability or unwillingness to promote the welfare of the rest of society be accounted a failure?

Leaving such questions aside, there is no doubt that for a great number of people in Pakistan, the state continuously fails to provide them with the bare basics of what is expected from any modern state. This was vividly illustrated in the sad case of Mudassar Alam.

Mudassar Alam was a 14 year old resident of Hyderabad who on 21st November was punished by his 4th grade teacher in the government school he attended reportedly for not doing his homework. He was beaten, then forced to do 100 sit-ups. When he complained of severe abdominal pains, the teacher believed he was making excuses and forced him to continue with the corporal punishment. Afterwards, in severe pain, he skipped out from school and went home, where his parents became worried and rushed him to the nearby government hospital. According to a media report, "He was catheterized for not being able to pass stool or urine", was "suffering from acute low blood pressure and very high pulse rate" and his "Intestine were jumbled and perforated, and turned blackish due to blocked blood circulation."

The doctors at the government hospital operated on the boy, but pus developed in the wound in his perforated intestine and he had to be operated on a second time. After almost two months in hospital, the boy passed away. As for the quality of the medical care received by Mudassar, it is worth mentioning this quote from the boy's father on his death:

""On Thursday when my wife complained to on duty doctor that her son is oozing some whitish liquid from his mouth doctor didn’t pay attention and said it normally happens. But when his condition deteriorated and nurse examined him he had lost his life by then,” the weeping father said."

The father, by the way, was an agricultural worker, who worked in a nearby banana orchard. He lost his job the day he took his son to hospital and was replaced, because of course, there are no labour protection laws that apply to the vast majority of the poor in this country.

Initially no action was taken against the teacher who resorted to corporal punishment. In fact, he tried to pay off the family with a bribe of 15,000 rupees in return for a statement from them saying that the boy had been seriously ill before he had come to school that day. To force the parents of the child into compliance, he threatened them with his "contacts" in "intelligence agencies". It was only after the case was reported in the media [about two weeks after the incident] that the government's Education Department finally stirred itself into suspending the teacher and launching an inquiry. A month and a half later, the inquiry still has not reached any kind of conclusion. The Education Department however, did say, that they could not offer any kind of financial help to the student or his family.

Taking this as a test case, it is clearly apparent that the state failed in the provision of education, failed in the provision of healthcare, failed in the provision of justice, failed in the provision of labour rights and finally failed to exercise self-accountability in order to guard against future failures. Interestingly enough, the specter of the "intelligence agencies" were also used as an instrument of coercion in an attempt to hush up the incident, though ultimately this failed to silence the affair - perhaps because the teacher's connection to these "intelligence agencies" was fictional. Had a more well-connected personage been behind the incident, we may have seen the state succeeding in doing what it does best - serving the interests of the elite.

Cracking Up?

2008-01-12T09:38:00.000Z

After the assasination of Bhutto, I argued that while the country was heading for [even more] political instability, it was not in danger of breaking up. I did add the following comment though:

"This is not to say that our political leaders might not still manage to drag the entire nation into chaos - its possible I suppose, given the state of affairs and the seemingly miraculous ability of our political leaders to really make a mess of things. However, that will require some effort and a whole series of mis-steps."

Well it certainly seems as if the first of those mis-steps have now been duly taken by our erstwhile leaders. How? By playing the ethnicity card.

The prime culprits are the PML-Q. Perhaps realizing that their opponents in the PPP are pretty much going to sweep rural Sindh, they seem to have decided to jettison any hope of winning there and have resorted to whipping up hatred against Sindhis in order to bolster their hopes in other parts of the country. The Chaudhries and their party have, among other things, accused Sindhis of being responsible for all the violence following Benazir's death, have alleged that all the victims of the violence were Punjabis, Mohajirs and other ethnic groups, have alleged that ethnic cleansing was carried out by Sindhis during the violence and have called for government financial assistance for those who lost property in the violence to only be paid to non-Sindhis.
With great hoopla, the PML-Q set up a 'refugee camp' in Lahore to house Punjabi refugees supposedly ethnically-cleansed from Sindh.

During the violence several trains were stopped on the tracks and burnt after rioters forced their passengers to disembark. Railway signals were also destroyed. This brought the country's railroads to a halt, with thousands of passengers stranded at small stations in the interior of Sindh without food or shelter for several days. Since the violence occurred only a few days after Eid, the trains had been packed with people returning from holidays with their families to their places of work - a large number were people from homes in the Punjab and NWFP returning to Karachi. The PML-Q has also given this disruption an ethnic flavour, presenting it as violence against Punjabis. The image of trains under attack particularly resonates because it was one of the features of the violence of Partition - violence that was especially severe in the Punjab and memories of which still linger in the national consciousness.

Unsurprisingly, there were sensationalized reports of the rape of Punjabi women by Sindhis - as always the spectacle of the 'others' threatening 'our' womenfolk is always a guaranteed crowd-puller in a society dominated by notions of machismo and honour. Given the problems the PML-Q is having pulling in crowds for their election rallies, its not surprising they have turned to these kinds of tactics to counter the so-called 'sympathy wave' that is expected to benefit the PPP following Bhutto's death.

The ethnicity card has been heavily criticized by human rights activists, members of the PPP and the PML-Q's coalition partner, the MQM. Even the Punjabi Students Association of Sindh has condemned the irresponsibility of the PML-Q.

Needless to say, the government is silent on the issue.

Having said all this, one should keep in mind that the rhetoric of ethno-nationalism is not new, and certainly not the sole purview of the PML-Q. The Baluch insurgency has long been fueled by talk of Punjabi domination. It was once a mainstay of shrill MQM rhetoric, [though these days it tends to be muttered under breath rather than announced in election speeches] and many Sindhi politicians complain about a Mohajir-Punjabi nexus that dominates the government and economy. Benazir Bhutto herself stirred the pot a couple of days before she returned to Pakistan in October by making a very inflamatory statement at a press conference in Dubai about how after a coup the military hanged her father, a Prime Minister from Sindh, but allowed Nawaz Sharif, a Prime Minister from Punjab, to live in luxurious exile. [Which of course begs the question, did she think Nawaz Sharif should have been killed as well, just to make things fair?]

It has been a long time since one has heard the level of hate-speech and calumny that one is now hearing in the country. One can only hope that better sense prevails and that the various political figures stop digging their fingernails into the cracks that are appearing in the Federation. But its not just the rhetoric that has to change. To a large extent, these trends are the reflection of a national political process that is severely damaged and a strong sense of alienation from the state which is felt by large sections of the populace. People who can sense that the state does not operate in their interests are more open to the suggestion that it operates in the interests of people of another ethnicity.

Carnage

2008-01-12T09:07:00.000Z

The scenes of carnage outside the Lahore High Court after the suicide bombing there on Thursday were truly shocking. Quiet literally, a pile of dead and injured policemen. One has to wonder what kind of victory this is for those who had it carried out. A political assasination has some kind of twisted logic to it. But this?

The pity of it all...

Who Killed Bhutto? [Part II]

2008-01-11T05:19:00.000Z

And the rumour mill has, as usual, gone wild, with all sorts of conspiracy theories making the rounds regarding who killed Benazir Bhutto. Some claim it was Musharraf. Some claim it was her husband, Zardari. Some allege it was the Chaudhries. Some claim it was part of a larger American plot. No, others claim, its actually an Indian conspiracy....

As addicted as we are to conspiracy theories, I suppose it was inevitable that these kinds of conspiracy theories would proliferate. But the circumstances of the medical report and outlandish claims by the government immediately following the assassination have added grist to the mill. Its sad really.

Here is a STRATFOR article, reprinted at Teeth Maestro's blog, summarizing the political situation in Pakistan and examining the theory that Musharraf had something to do with the murder. It very rightly points out that Musharraf had everything to lose and little to gain from Bhutto's death.

Anatomy of A Dynastic Succession Struggle

2008-01-01T07:52:00.000Z

A week ago Asif Zardari was in the political wilderness. Right now he is riding high as the premier political figure in the country. How did he get there and perhaps more importantly, will this state of affairs last?

That there were many in the PPP hierarchy close to Benazir Bhutto who detested Zardari is no secret. That they blamed Zardari and his corrupt and thuggish ways for staining Bhutto's reputation and alienating both popular and political support is also well known. During Bhutto's second tenure as Prime Minister, Zardari was appointed to the cabinet with the environment ministry portfolio - a post which shuffled him out of a say in important decision-making while allowing him to collect bribes in return for the no-objection certificates every building, mining and industrial project requires from the Environment Ministry before getting underway.

But convicted of corruption, Zardari was jailed and only recently released by Musharraf as part of the political deal Musharraf was making with Benazir Bhutto. Zardari high-tailed it to Dubai where it was widely expected that he would remain, with no role to play in the coming elections or any kind of future Bhutto-Musharraf government. The PPP inner circle was reputedly happy with the arrangement.

Then came the assassination.

The revival of Zardari's political fortunes is the result of several factors, which include the pressures of a modern TV news media, the nearness of elections, Benazir Bhutto's style of absolutist politics within the party which eliminated any source of power within the party outside of that of her own Bhutto name, and the personality-cult brand of leadership so deeply rooted in South Asian cultures.

In the days immediately following Bhutto's death, Zardari was thrust into the media spotlight in a manner which none of the senior PPP leaders could match. As Bhutto's husband, all the political leaders of Pakistan, from Musharraf to Nawaz Sharif contacted him to commiserate. The live media coverage of the emotional scenes of the funeral procession, burial and ceremonial prayers all depicted Zardari at the forefront - the rest of the PPP leadership was lost in the crush of the crowd. Media reporters constantly wanted to speak with and interview Zardari - he became the focal point of attention and spokesperson for the grief and loss felt at Benazir's death.

Using this media focus on him, Zardari pushed to the forefront his son Bilawal. The Bhutto name was one that the inner sanctum of the PPP found hard to deny. Efforts to bring in other Bhuttos, such as Benazir's sister, Sanam Bhutto failed. Efforts by other branches of the Bhutto family, such as Benazir's uncle, Mumtaz and sister-in-law, Ghinwa, who Benazir had already sidelined and isolated in her own earlier succession power struggles were also unable to press their own claims.

If the PPP operated as a rationalised bureaucratic institution, power should have fallen to Makhdoom Amin Fahim - who held the second highest post in the party after Benazir. However this was a post Benazir had continually undermined when she led the party, and Makhdoom Amin Fahim had been appointed to it exactly because he had low standing in the party and was known for his loyalty and not for his capabilities. A too capable man would have been too much of a threat. Makhdoom Amin Fahim would have opposed Zardari's power grab but was unable to rally the rest of the party around him. Though he did come away from the meeting as the PPP candidate for Prime Minister, even this was made clear to be a temporary state of affairs.

Its interesting to note that one name that so many people were hopefully bandying about, Aitazaz Ahsan, the former PPP minister who championed the cause of the Chief Justice, was a non-starter for the post. As the PPP high command met in Naudero, he remained under house arrest in Karachi - confined, as he has been since September, for the crime of having represented the Chief Justice in Court. Aitazaz Ahsan had been effectively exiled from the inner circle of the Party by Benazir for having become too popular a figure in his own right, rather than as an adjutant to the Bhutto name.

The news conference held after the meeting of the PPP leadership at Naudero was informative almost as much for the body language of the PPP leaders and how it proceeded, as it was for what was said.

Bilal was placed in the middle and made a short, uncomfortable and stiff speech. Makhdoom Amin Fahim, in his slow plodding way tried to answer a question and was swiftly crowded out by a swift-talking, confident and assertive Zardari. He spent most of the news conference silent, sulking as Zardari took control of the proceedings. Zardari shut down any further questions to Bilawal by saying he was still at a 'tender age' and emphasizing his inexperience and unpreparedness to lead.

So what will the future hold?

The Insider Brief asks if the PPP will survive and opines that it will in a rather superficial analysis. The Pakistan Policy Blog asks more pertinent questions about the PPP's future, but offers few answers, and one blogger feels that a challenge to Zardari may be mounted not now, but down the line, by a formation coalescing around Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto Jr. Another possibility is that there will be a renewed attempt to rally around Makhdoom Amin Fahim within the party to keep Zardari at bay. The hope in that case would be that if the PPP can win elections and Amin Fahim can position himself as Prime Minister, the post of Party chairman would become diminished. The problem with this hope is that there are a great many 'if's in the equation. It is quiet possible that, with the elections having to be delayed, Zardari will become the PPP candidate from Bhutto's constituency - and once he is elected, he may well angle for the Prime Ministership himself, or even another candidate in order to sideline Amin Fahim.

One thing is clear; the succession struggle is not yet over. So far only the first round has been won by Zardari - an emphatic win to be sure - but one in which he was helped by circumstances. It remains to be seen if his position is secure.

Edit: I should really make it a point to look into the International Herald Tribune more often. This article is a very interesting dissection of Zardari's ascension.

Riots and Riot Control

2007-12-31T07:23:00.000Z

Dawn TV yesterday had an interview with a security expert, a gentleman whose name I unfortunately cannot now recall, who was asked why the rioting and looting lasted for so long and why the government was so slow to act in bringing things under control.

The gentleman, who runs a private security company said that as soon as word of banks and offices being looted reached him he started making calls to members of the civilian and military administrations asking for help. There were heated exchanges when he heard that security forces were unwilling to roll swiftly into action. In most cases the rioters and looters were given a free rein on the first night and security forces were only deployed the following day. The idea was that PPP supporters should be allowed to vent their anger in order to prevent inflaming the situation.

In hindsight, the gentleman felt, the decision to hold back was probably a wise one, because in the immediate aftermath of the news of Benazir's death, if the army and paramilitary forces had been called out, violence may well have ensued between PPP supporters and security forces. The deaths may have mounted, inflaming the situation and Sindh may have irrupted into all-out insurrection.

I was ruminating on this while an acquaintance was claiming that the rioting "proved" that Pakistan needed the army to run the government to maintain law and order, because without the army, the nation would descend into complete chaos.

I think my acquaintance was drawing the wrong conclusions. Rather, it was the army's very involvement in politics, its involvement in the government administration as a partial rather than impartial party, that tied its hands when the violence broke out. If the army had come out into the streets that first day, enraged PPP supporters would have seen them as representatives of an institution politically opposed to their party and complicit in BB's death and would have attacked them as such. An army uninvolved in politics, still maintaining its integrity as an unbiased and non-partisan institution would have had no such baggage. There may still have been violence, but the situation would not have been charged with allegations of a vested interest or attempting to suppress political opponents.

I've said it before and I will say it again, having such an overt political role in Pakistani politics compromises what should be the army's primary role of defending the country. This is something the army brass simply fails to recognise.

Who Killed Bhutto?

2007-12-29T07:08:00.000Z

The internet and the airwaves are awash with speculation about how, precisely Benazir Bhutto died, and who was responsible for her death. Personally, I don't find much of this 'debate' useful. Her death came as a result of an assassination attempt, whether it was a bullet, a piece of shrapnel, or a fall that killed her is irrelevant at this point. As for who was responsible, there is little doubt that it was the work of extremists. While the question over whether the security arrangements were or were not adequate is one that shouldn't be ignored, it is also of secondary importance. The most important question is to what extent there is collusion with these extremists by members of the state security apparatus.

That there are military insiders who are sympathetic towards, and even active in aiding, the militants is beyond all doubt. There is an informative paper here on some of the recent evidence of extremist infiltration of the higher levels of the Pakistani military. However there seems to be a real question mark over how seriously this threat is being taken by the army leadership and to what extent it is willing, or able, to counter this threat.

Yesterday, when writing about the possible impact of Bhutto's assassination, I wrote:

The assumption is that Musharraf is serious about tackling militancy and is clear-eyed enough to understand what this will entail. Its possible that he doesn't feel militancy is a serious problem, or that a few missile strikes and the doling out of massive quantities of bribe money will "end militancy". Needless to say these tactics have been failing miserably for the last 5 years and will fail miserably again.

In the article I have linked to above, B. Raman writes:

Musharraf is either knowingly dishonest or is living in a make-believe world of his own, unaware of the ground realities. Only a few days before Benazir's assassination, he was bragging to officer trainees in the Defence Services Staff College in Quetta that he had defeated the terrorists outside the tribal belt and would soon be defeating them in the tribal belt too. His reluctance to order an enquiry into the extent of infiltration of Al Qaeda into the GHQ is disturbing. He has convinced himself that not only he is the most popular leader of Pakistan, but also that the entire Armed Forces are devoted to him. Anybody who says otherwise is treated by him as a traitor, arrested and harassed.

As long as Musharraf and the army high command remain reluctant to go through the painful process of a thorough house-cleaning, the security situation will not improve. The problem, of course is that, dragging skeletons out of the cupboard is never good for army morale or cohesion, and with all other possible pillars of support alienated from Musharraf, he needs the army to stand united behind him. As with so many other situations in Musharraf's rule, the inherent contradiction of being a political and military leader has led to a Catch 22 situation.

In a press conference yesterday, the Interior Minister claimed that Baitullah Meshud and Al Qaeda were behind the assassination. An audio recording of a telephone conversation between Meshud and someone else was presented as evidence [you can read the transcript here]. Mehsud has denied his involvement, for whatever that's worth.

Whats interesting here is that firstly, if you read the transcript, it was the unnamed Maulvi who claims responsibility for killing Benazir. Meshud only congratulates him. Secondly, Meshud is speaking by mobile phone, whose location can be easily tracked if one knows what number to look for, and he actually gives his location in the conversation.

What is odd here is that in the press conference, the Pakistani military lays the blame for all the suicide bombings and assassination attempts over the last few months at the feet of Meshud. They are recording his phone conversations, so they know where he is. So if he is regarded as the 'mastermind' of all these terror attacks, why haven't they dropped a precision missile on his head before now? Perhaps there is a reasonable technical explanation, but I don't know what it might be.

That Meshud is a militant leader, I have no doubt. But I am suspicious of this claim that he is personally behind all of these attacks. I'm sure he is cheering them on, and he probably provides a safe-haven and material support for the people behind them from his self-declared Islamic Emirate of Waziristan, but I doubt he is the one ordering and planning the attacks. I get the feeling that one needs to look somewhat closer to home for that. It is quiet possible also that Meshud remains an "intelligence asset" for the military, who are keen to have a force to use against perceived threats in the region [particularly Afghan and Indian intelligence across the Afghan border] with plausible deniability. The military may well be willing to overlook his extracurricular activities in exchange for his services. This also fits well with the military's continuous distinction between 'legitimate' Taliban fighting for their religion and freedom for Afghanistan from 'foreign influences' and 'illegal' Al Qaeda planning terror attacks in Pakistan and abroad. He may simply be a convenient figure for the military to blame for everything - somewhat like how Osama Bin Laden became a catch-all figure to blame to the Americans for all sorts of Islamist militancy a few years back.

Essentialising Culture

2007-12-28T16:37:00.000Z

There is a very good post at the 'Kings of War' blog run by the King's College War Studies Dept. called 'The Trojan horse of culture'. The author is writing in relation to Counter-Insurgency Operations, but what he highlights is part of a broader trend of 'essentialising' culture - in other words thinking of some kind of idealized view of a society's culture as essential to its nature and the all-directing force behind the behaviour of its individuals. The author rightly describes the risks of this kind of view. In its most simplistic forms, it is little more than a form of racism and is about as useful in understanding the people it attempts to describe.

Its interesting that here in Pakistan, the military [and indeed many people in the society] tend to essentialize culture as well. In many ways this is a hold over of colonial thinking, soundly internalized by the army brass and bureaucratic elite in colonial educational and training institutions. This kind of thinking has had numberless harmful effects in Pakistani military [and therefore foreign policy] thinking.

One example can be found in the 1965 war. Raised on the colonial British myth of Punjabis and Pathans being a 'martial race', very different in essence to the 'effiminate' peoples of eastern and southern India, the military rushed into its foolhardy 'Operation Gibraltar' in 1965 with confident assertions that 'Hindu' India would be too cowardly to risk an all out war, and that, even if all our war came, in the words of Zulfiqar Bhutto, one Muslim soldier would be worth ten Hindu soldiers. History bears witness to the fact that the Indians not only did not flee in abject terror of the Pakistani army, but inflicted serious reversals on it. By the time the ceasefire was signed, the Pakistani position was desperate. The 1971 war was an even bigger military disaster.

But still the essentializing myths persist. Citing the repeated conquests and plundering raids of India by a variety of Muslim adventurers from Mohammad Bin Qasim in the 8th century to Ahmed Shah Abdali in the 18th, all part and parcel of a national narrative of martial prowess, Pakistanis still insist on the inherent inferiority of Indians when it comes to war. The myth is also deployed in other ways. Most political commentators who insist that Islamist militants should be given free reign in the tribal areas, and that the army should not oppose them, tend to reverse this myth of martial prowess and insist on the inherent superiority of the Pathan and Afghan as a fighter, as well as their inherently 'Islamic' nature. Thus the Taliban are presented as fighting to preserve their culture and Islamic identity against foreigners and the desultory efforts and rubbish performance of the Pakistani army in battling militants explained as the natural outcome of trying to oppose militants who have inherent fighting prowess ingrained by their culture.

Needless to say, once you have excuses like these, few feel the need to try to understand what is happening in a more detailed and intelligent manner. That the socio-economic and political environment of the tribal areas in 2007 is very different from 2000 is not understood. Nor that in 2000 it was very different from 1975, before the area was flooded with weapons, cash and drugs. The fact that culture is neither monolithic nor immutable does not occur to these people and therefore the response to militancy and extremism becomes circumscribed, banal and ultimately ineffective.

What Next?

2007-12-28T11:48:00.001Z

I had been gearing up to write a post on the coming elections, the possible outcomes and what they might mean for the country, but the assassination of Benazir Bhutto seems to have thrown all the old equations out of the window.

So what will happen now?

The immediate reaction from the western press seems to be one of doom and gloom. 'Pakistan stares into the Abyss' says one experienced and usually level-headed blogger; 'Tentative steps towards democracy may become headlong rush into political chaos' warns the Guardian; the USA Today feels that Pakistan's best hope of 'becoming a stable democracy anytime soon may have died with Benazir Bhutto'. BBC is a little more circumspect, calling the assassination a 'severe blow to hope for stability' and asking 'what next for Pakistan'? CNN was constantly abuzz with discussion over what this means for the 'War on Terror' with repeated references to nuclear weapons and Islamist militants.

My own view of the situation is firstly, no, Pakistan is not going to immediately fall apart and leave nukes in the hands of Islamist militants. Secondly, yes, this is a severe blow to hopes for stability and Pakistan is headed for a political crisis. As for reversals for democracy, well, one is hard pressed to describe the previous political process in which Benazir was involved, as a movement towards 'stable democracy'.

This is not to say that our political leaders might not still manage to drag the entire nation into chaos - its possible I suppose, given the state of affairs and the seemingly miraculous ability of our political leaders to really make a mess of things. However, that will require some effort and a whole series of mis-steps.

For the immediate future, I think this leaves Musharraf's political future in deep trouble. Make no mistake, the man himself may survive, but I think hopes for taking serious measures to tackle extremism in the country could only have happened with political support from the PPP. There are certainly close advisers of Musharraf and people in the military who don't feel that the PPP is needed, but these people seem to spout such delusional fantasies of their own accomplishments, that they either have a very loose grip on reality or they are more interested in self-serving hypocrisy than tackling militancy.

All this is quiet apart from the fact that most people are holding Musharraf personally responsible and in the current climate of outrage and anger, various politicians may sense blood and try to bring him down. Nawaz Sharif seems to have already unsheathed his knives by announcing the PML-N will not take part in elections. Having lost the prop of being the army chief, and with his own political party, the PML-Q consisting of a band of mercenaries, Musharraf is at his most vulnerable. So far both these pillars of his authority seem to be standing by him, but it remains to be seen if they will do so if push comes to shove. Furthermore its not immediately clear who will take over the reins of power in the PPP now that Bhutto is gone, and if Musharraf will be able to make a deal with them. The three names being mentioned so far are Makhdoom Amin Fahim, Asif Zardari and Aitizaz Ahsan.

Makhdoom Amin Fahim is the titular head of the PPP, but he was in this position precisely because he was a 'yes-man' - someone who Benazir could trust to follow orders while she was in exile, and without a very strong base within the party apparatus. Asif Zardari seems to be maneuvering to take his late wife's position, and he can rely on his marital connection for mass support, but if he were to lead the PPP, one simply cannot see Musharraf coming to a political accommodation with him. It would be the height of hypocrisy for a president who took power with the promise to deliver accountability and honesty to form a political alliance with the man reputed to be the most corrupt in the country. As for the third candidate, Aitizaz Ahsan, who is still languishing under house arrest; he has been the most outspoken voice against the military and Musharraf in the country over the last year, and he is unlikely to enter into any kind of political arrangement with Musharraf.

One possibility is that Makhdoom Amin Fahim may become a compromise candidate to lead the party between different factions within the party. If this were to happen, some kind of political accommodation between the PPP and Musharraf would still be on the cards.

But of course all this conjecture is based on 2 assumptions, neither of which can be taken for granted:

The assumption is that Musharraf is serious about tackling militancy and is clear-eyed enough to understand what this will entail. Its possible that he doesn't feel militancy is a serious problem, or that a few missile strikes and the doling out of massive quantities of bribe money will "end militancy". Needless to say these tactics have been failing miserably for the last 5 years and will fail miserably again.

The second assumption is that Musharraf still has full control over decision-making within the military-PML-Q setup. Some observers speculate that he has already become something of a lame duck, dependent on the COAS and senior PML-Q leaders. If the PML-Q bigwigs are exerting more influence these days, the idea of an alliance with the PPP may be stillborn.

But that is mere speculation. Right now its still difficult to see where the chips may fall.

Edit: I came across this article in the IHT which echoes a few of the points I've made.

Islamic Pluralism vs Monoism

2007-12-28T07:13:00.000Z

Having been inactive as a blogger over the last month, there are a great many things which I want to write about. We live in, alas, interesting times and there has been plenty of grist for the mill in this last month of 2007. But first up, I want to draw attention to a recent article at the Pak Tea House on the 'Dynamics of Change in Islamic Law'.

Here is a quote:

In my view, the most important crisis that Muslim society miserably failed to handle during Islam’s sojourn into modernity is diversity. By diversity, I mean religious heterogeneity in any form, may it be the pronouncement of legal injunctions, opinions regarding societal norms or something as personal as individual religious practices.
Therefore, whether it is the abundance of contradictory fatwas on issues as diverse as women leading prayers to Muslims attending Christmas celebrations to Islamic prohibition of images to what constitutes death, Pakistani brothers arguing about the bare heels of a Chinese sister during Hajj or my grandma’s queasiness while watching me pray in a manner other than our family’s religious school, there is an invisible urge to see a kind of religious monism; a CONSENSUS based on an almost Utopian unity of intelligibility, opinion and action.

I would go as far as contending that pluralism, when it manifests itself in any of the above forms does not resonate well with the conventionally perceived absolute nature of religious discourse. And this perception, while breeding religious exclusivism and thus extremism, also undermines the true rationalistic nature of Islamic legal tradition.

Its an interesting article about an important [perhaps even 'key'] issue in Islamic societies. I left the following in the comments section of the post:

Thanks for your post - you have addressed a very important issue. However you should also try to see this attempt to 'see a kind of religious monism' in its historical context - part of the attempt to bureaucratize and rationalize a wide variety of norms in to one acceptable set is about trying to build an Islamic 'identity' in the modern sense. I am not sure if this has always been the case.

Reading about Ibn Batuta's travels in the Islamic world of the middle ages, one is struck by the sheer variety of norms of dress, behaviour, interaction between sexes and ritual in different parts of the Islamic world. Nowadays many would view this diversity through the lens of an idealized 'correct' form of rituals and norms, with the different societies being placed on a scale of being more or less religious. But this strikes me as a very modern conceit.

If there is such a thing as an 'Islamic civilization', then it must embrace its own diversity. It was the pluralism of Islam in the classical age - which causes so much confusion and division amongst those seeking a 'pure' Islamic law - which is its most striking feature, as well as, perhaps, the foundation of its greatest achievements.

I'll try and flesh out these ideas here on my blog later.

On the Uses and Abuses of the Law Enforcement Apparatus By the Ruling Elite

2007-12-21T04:22:00.000Z

Exhibit A - How 'law enforcement' officials are put to work suppressing dissenting voices:

The police attacked a rally taken out by students and activists to show solidarity with the deposed Judges in Islamabad on 17th December. More photos here.

Exhibit B - How 'law enforcement' officials are put to work promoting the ruling elites:

Policemen putting up hoardings bearing the bicycle on a green field symbol of the pro-Musharraf political party the PML-Q. Note the stacks of hoardings in the police pick-up.

On Musharraf's Resignation

2007-11-29T05:12:00.000Z

Musharraf, as expected, and about 5 years too late, resigned from his post of Chief of Army Staff. W.H. Auden expressed it so much better than I:

Epitaph on a Tyrant

Perfection, of a kind, was what he was after,
And the poetry he invented was easy to understand;
He knew human folly like the back of his hand,
And was greatly interested in armies and fleets;
When he laughed, respectable senators burst with laughter,
And when he cried the little children died in the streets.

January 1939

Propaganda

2007-11-29T03:29:00.000Z

You may have noticed a decline in my posting over the last week or so. I am currently rather busy both at work and at home which is why I haven't had the time to devote much attention to the news or my blog. Hopefully things will get back on track in another week or so.

In the meantime, if you want to see what kind of propaganda the supporters of our current regime puts out, have a look at this. Basically, it insists that America and India are involved in a joint plot to destroy the Pakistani military. Complicit in this plot are NGOs, liberals, lawyers, politicians, Afghans, the media and academics. I've heard these kinds of arguments countless times in the past couple of months, though not as sophisticated in their presentation as this article.

There's nothing new about these kinds of conspiracy theories. Anyone who is critical of the government has abuse and muck slung at him/her and is accused of being a foreign agent. Women seem to come in for particularly vehement mud-slinging. So Asma Jehangir, the human rights lawyer is said to be a mercenary in foreign pay, Mukhtaran Mai, the woman who was gang-raped by order of a tribal Jirga, is a pawn in the hands of foreigners, and Dr. Shazia Khalid, who was raped by an army captain in Baluchistan, was a liar who was trying to ignite ethnic violence. Rape victims who speak out are seen as unpatriotic troublemakers who are trying to "ruin the image" of the country. Hence, Musharraf's remark that Pakistani women want to be raped so that they can get a Canadian passport.

Now lest we take Musharraf to be an unusually bigoted and patriarchal Islamist, lets remember that he is an "enlightened moderate". Its not Islamic patriarchy that informs his ideas, its plain old nationalist, militarist elitistism - attitudes that are commonly found amongst the secular, rich, western-educated elite, whether male or female. Fascism, after all, is as misogynistic an ideology as they come. Thus a female acquaintance of mine, both an artist and university teacher, and a former resident of New York, was quiet ready to agree with General Musharraf's assessment of why women get themselves raped. For the elite that runs the country, these news items of violent gang-rape and tribal jirgas are far removed from their lives in air-conditioned boardrooms and drawing-rooms and are a cause of minor embarrassment when they hob-nob with their foreign and expatriate friends at cocktail parties. These women should just shut up, they insist, instead of giving the country a bad name.

Contrast this attitude with that of the good folks at the Lal Masjid. One of their most strident and vocal demands, was the demand for justice for rape victims - a call that resonated with many of the poor, who know they can get no recourse from a police and legal system that provides justice primarily to those who are able to grease its wheels with a little money. To these people it is starkly evident that the state will not provide them with any recourse to justice or protection. Of course the Lal Masjid prescription for improving things is flawed in the extreme. But at least they saw that the problem existed. For Musharraf, and much of the rest of the country's ruling elite, the only problem is one of "fixing" the country's "image". Secure in the knowledge that they have the connections and cash to secure justice for themselves, they fail to understand, or if they do understand, fail to care, that things are not so rosy for others.

Why does the media insist, they ask, on reporting these sordid tales of the goings-on in far-flung areas of the country? Why doesn't it focus on the positives of the country? The wonderful investment opportunities a country like Pakistan possesses? The tax-breaks on offer, the burgeoning stock market, the labour wages so low, they are practically free? Here is money for the making.

That's the true Pakistan, isn't it?

Isn't it?

Journalists' Arrests: An Inside Account

2007-11-25T14:29:00.000Z

There is an account of the demonstration and arrests of a group of journalists in Karachi on 20th December here at Red Diary. Here is an excerpt:

There were 27 of us in this van — seven women and 20 men. And boy did we raise hell!!! The van took us on a tour of the entire city, and we kept naarafying all the way. Passersby stopped to gape at us and then joined in the naareybaazi. In short, we conducted a State-sponsored anti-Musharraf rally. AHAHAHAHHAHAHAHAHAHAH!!! Yes, I can’t get over this — this IS funny!!! They took us to the Boat Basin police station, only to realise that it was full. Ditto for Gizri and Darakhshan. They were then told to take us to the Docks police station, but the driver did not know the way (YUP!!! :-D). He took us to the Jackson police station instead, where his bum was kicked, and the correct raasta explained to him by officials concerned. LOL! All this while, we weren’t making life easier for him by continuously naarafying, jeering and heckling. Yes we’re mean.

It is in turns an outrageous, funny and even uplifting account. Have a read.

On Nawaz's Return

2007-11-25T12:05:00.000Z

I was gearing up for a lengthy post on the much-touted return of Nawaz Sharrif, only to find that the 'Old China Hand' at China Matters has already done a great job in sizing up the situation. I recommend you go read his blog post. In the meantime, I'll go have a cup of tea.

(Source: Teeth Maestro)

The Pot Calls the Kettle White...

2007-11-22T12:38:00.000Z

"US President George W Bush said on Tuesday that President General Pervez Musharraf was a man of his word and truly believed in democracy." Thanks for that endorsement. Now I can sit back and relax. Its okay - Bush has reassured me about Musharraf's intentions and we know that Bush never lies.

"President General Pervez Musharraf on Wednesday introduced a set of seven constitutional amendments to give legal cover to his act of holding the constitution in abeyance, imposing emergency rule and issuing the Provisional Constitutional Order (PCO) on November 3." By now the constitution has been given so many face lifts in the space of a few years that, much like Michael Jackson's nose, it is now little but the fragile, crumbling structure perched atop an emaciated edifice no one believes in anymore. Why not dump it altogether?

In an article that claims that the opposition is falling into Musharraf's trap by taking part in upcoming elections, the News also gives "Full marks to our independent chief election commissioner, who in order to facilitate the government agenda [extended the deadline for Presidential candidates] to withdraw candidature but only few days to file the nomination papers" for parliamentary elections. Its great having an independent chief election commissioner.

Meanwhile speculation is rife that Musharraf's recent trip to Saudi Arabia was to discuss the rehabilitation of that other dinosaur of the previous decade's corrupt politics, Nawaz Sharif. Opinions seem to differ over whether or not Musharraf has consented to Nawaz's return, or whether negotiations are ongoing. However, Nawaz Sharif has announced he will soon be returning to Pakistan... again.

Its hardly worth mentioning that the newly assembled Supreme Court has now dismissed the final petition against Musharraf's candidature as President. I wonder if the CJ felt even a little sheepish at parroting the words dismissing the case before a world that knew they had been scripted in the Presidential house? Disgusting.

And as this article notes that while some media channels were shut down, "some private Pakistani news channels, including a channel owned by one of Musharraf's new ministers and another owned by his son's father-in-law, have been allowed back on the air during the emergency". Coincidence? No.

An article in the Daily Times, citing analysts at the London-based think tank, Chatam House observes that "Fragmented, outflanked by young militants and politically compromised, Pakistan’s mainstream Islamist leaders have only a side role to play in the crisis engulfing the country, analysts say." It goes on to predict a poor showing for the Islamists in upcoming elections. Now, my first observation on this article is that it is belaboring the obvious. The second is that it fails to draw the proper conclusion. The mullah establishment is deeply connected to the military establishment and depends upon it for its sustenance. Musharraf's government was promoting the mullahs to gain control of the provincial legislatures in Baluchistan and NWFP and for several years continued, foolishly, to believe that the mullahs would allow them to keep a handle on the militants - something they spectacularly failed to do. Once the sponsorship of the military is gone, they will subside to their rightful place on the fringes of Pakistani politics.

Perhaps I should say 'If the sponsorship of the military is gone'...

There has been much talk of a proposal floating around in America to arm the tribes of the NWFP against the Taliban. As this blogger notes, while discussing the plan, the idea is rubbish.
But the news also seems to be floating around that the U.S. will put in $350 million in training and rearm the Frontier Constubulary (FC) for a renewed campaign in Waziristan. It would seem as if this money is necessary because the previous $10 billion the U.S. government has provided Pakistan has gone against more immediate priorities in the war on terror, such as the threat of Al-Qaeda submarines attacking our ships, Al-Qaeda bombers bombing our cities, Al-Qaeda jamming our radar, Al-Qaeda stealing our nukes, and the lack of Barbecue restaurants in Islamabad. On a more serious note, training and arming the FC is a much better idea than training and arming the tribes. The FC is more likely to listen to the government about who to use their new weapons upon, and as the current heavy fighting between tribes from different sectarian groups in Parachinar the last few days shows, more weapons is not what they need at the moment. The country is still plagued by the effects of the last time the Tribes were armed and trained against the communists. I think we have learned our lesson on that issue by now.

The Moral High Ground

2007-11-22T04:01:00.000Z

Talk about having the moral high ground...

Bibi, Kayani, Sharif, Mush and Bush: Round and Round They Go...

2007-11-19T09:17:00.000Z

Over the weekend the recently engineered deal between Musharraf and Bhutto seemed to fall apart - apparently because Bhutto had taken to gleeful grandstanding while the anti-Emergency agitation was at its peak. Musharraf, a man with a legendary stubborn streak that does not respond well to pressure tactics, shoved right back. The deal brokered by the United States in an attempt to engineer a political solution to Musharraf's domestic woes and counter internal criticism that the Bush government was pandering to dictators while touting its "freedom agenda" elsewhere in the Muslim world was apparently under threat of collapsing altogether.

But it was essential to cobble some kind of deal together. Hence, the following sequence of events...

13th Nov: General Kayani's name starts being dropped in the American press as "a man widely admired within the Pakistani military and by members of Pakistani civil society." I'm not certain which members of Pakistani civil society they are talking about.

14th Nov: An article in the NYT, citing unnamed administration officials, says that the United States is looking at other options in Pakistan. The article not so casually name drops General Kayani.

14th Nov (Night-time) : Musharraf immediately amends the PCO to remove the power to lift the Emergency from the post of Military chief to that of President. It looks like transferring power from himself to himself. But it highlights and suggests a fear of the next Military Chief (Kayani) when he himself retires and becomes a civilian President.

15th Nov: State Department says that Negroponte will be going to Pakistan to "get Pakistan back on the road to constitutional democratic rule."

15th Nov (Night-time): The detention order for house-arrest of Benazir Bhutto is lifted hours before Negroponte arrives.

15th Nov: Analysts debate whether the United States is actually switching to support Kayani, or whether these leaks are orchestrated by the anti-Musharaf group in the Republican administration that has formed around Zalmay Khalizdad, trying to build pressure on the Bush administration to stop supporting Musharraf and switch to another power configuration in Pakistan.

16th Nov: Negroponte arrives in Pakistan for talks. He shuttles between various officials, meeting Musharraf and Kayani (twice) and talks to Benazir Bhutto as well.

16th Nov (Night-time): Nawaz Sharif calls on BB to "clarify her position" with regards to talks with Musharraf.

17th Nov: After a meeting with Negroponte, Musharraf agrees that all parties will be able to take part in elections, but that the Emergency will have to stay for the time being. Afterwards he flies to Karachi. Rumours of a prospective meeting between BB and Negroponte are dashed when BB also leaves for Karachi. Negroponte ignores a request for a meeting with lawyers.

17th or 18th Nov: Musharraf meets Benazir on Saturday night or Sunday.

18th Nov: Negroponte issues a statement from Pakistan calling for: elections, removal of uniform, release of political detainees and lifting of curbs on the media. No mention of the judiciary. In a pointed remark to BB, he calls for an end to political 'brinkmanship'.

18th Nov: Benazir gives an interview to CNN where she softens her stance and states that Musharraf is an honest man, and that she is 'waiting for' Musharraf to respond to Negroponte's message from Washington. She also says she was 'satisfied' by the U.S.'s message to Musharraf.

18th Nov: After the announcement that Musharraf intends to visit Saudi Arabia, speculation is rife that Nawaz Sharif may finally be willing to meet with Musharraf, something he apparently has refused to do previously.

19th Nov: In an article in the LA Times that boldly states that Musharraf resisted U.S. calls to end the Emergency is buried this little statement: "U.S. officials in Washington, speaking on condition of anonymity out of deference to Negroponte's diplomatic efforts, said that although Musharraf didn't make any commitments Saturday, they believed he might in time yield."

19th Nov: Supreme Court kicks out 5 of 6 challenges to Musharraf's election as President. The case filed by the PPP leader Makhdoom Amin Fahim is withdrawn voluntarily, underlining the de-escalation in the war of words between Bhutto and Musharraf.

And so the road to Musharraf's assuming the Presidency, removing his uniform, and reforming some kind of modus operandi with the PPP has been cleared, thanks to the efforts of the United States. What's interesting is that in an interview with a reporter for the Sunday Times, Musharraf's Attorney General had also threatened to revoke the NRO that granted Bhutto immunity from corruption charges. This was, obviously, reported on Sunday (18th Nov) but the article doesn't specify when in the previous week he made this threat. I'm guessing around the 15th, when BB was still in captivity.

Whats interesting is that in the same article, Chaudhry Shujaat Hussain claims that the immunity for Bhutto is a ploy to divide the opposition. I reckon the PML(Q) will continue to campaign on an anti-Bhutto agenda, presenting her as a depraved, corrupt agent of America (not far wrong), out to destroy Islam and Pakistan, with the only hope being the PML(Q). Having said that, if Nawaz were to return, that would be a serious blow to the PML(Q). Much of Punjab is united in its dislike of Bhutto, but in a fair fight, the PML(N) may still give Q a run for its money.

Our Great Military Victories

2007-11-19T06:37:00.001Z

Looking through bits and pieces that I wrote over the last few months, but never went on to complete and post, I came across this unfinished piece about the Musharraf government's capitulations to militants and the largest loss of sovereign Pakistani soil after the loss of East Pakistan in 1971. The article remains unfinished, and perhaps in some ways, now outdated, but I'm posting it up anyway since very few people in Pakistan seem to know about or even acknowledge the carving out of an independent state in our northern areas.

As a soldier, Musharraf supposedly had an outstanding record. Unfortunately as a commander, his record seems to be rather woeful. Apart from the Kargil fiasco, which was a neatly planned tactical exercise, but dangerously foolish strategic blunder that ended in defeat on the battlefield, two separate campaigns in Waziristan have met ignominious ends, and Swat has been a source of severe embarrassment. Lets hope the current army "operation" there has better results. Initial reports from the military sound a positive tone, though I'm highly suspicious of these body counts of air strikes and artillery barrages. How can the army be sure of how many people they are killing, and, more importantly, whether they actually are militants or simply local civillians caught in the crossfire?

I suppose I am ranging far from the purported topic of this post, but I do want to add a little note about the Kargil war. I have heard some people defend the little adventure by stating that the war caused far more Indian casualties than it did Pakistani, that it "jolted" the Indians by showing them that the Pakistani army were still a force to be reckoned with, that it "internationalized the Kashmir issue" (whatever that means) and that it helped "bleed" the Indian army and economy.

These arguments remind me of the English generals of the First World War who defended the Battle of the Somme as a great victory for the British against the Germans, worth the cost of lives lost. The brainchild of the plan, General Haig threw wave after wave of British and French troops against the German trenches at the Somme. After four and a half months, a strip of land 25 km long and 6 km wide had been taken. There were 420,000 British casualties, 200,000 French casualties and 500,000 German casualties. The good General argued that he had won a great victory because he had "bled" the German army, diverted their attention from other fronts, and put them on the defensive. The public and media were appalled because they had been led to believe the promised "great victory" would result in something quiet different. The question some historians ask, is whether the political leaders of Europe would have been more willing to open negotiations if they had not kept being reassured of the coming "great victories" by their military generals.

The repeated attempts at an 'all-or-nothing' military solution to political problems have parallels with the clumsy attempts at directing Pakistan's foreign policy by the military. Perhaps most telling was how Kargill slammed the door shut on the negotiations over Kashmir that had been ongoing at the time between the Vajpayee and Sharif governments. These talks were based around the so-called Livingston Plan through which "a portion of the former princely State of Jammu and Kashmir should be reconstituted as a sovereign entity (but one without an international personality) enjoying free access to and from both India and Pakistan". This was the closest that India ever came in its history to a settlement of the Kashmir issue. According to the analyst, Hassan Abbas, these negotiations had started in March, 1999, and after being briefed about them, Musharraf had called them a good starting point. In May, the Kargil operation was launched, torpedoing the negotiations and till this day, shutting the door on any further negotiations on Kashmir by the Indians.

Truly a great military victory.

Tragedy in Bangladesh

2007-11-18T21:54:00.000Z

I've been spending all the time I can spare from my work to read/blog/debate about the political situation in Pakistan, so I haven't had the time to blog about any of the various other matters happening around the globe that have caught my attention.

These are many and varied, from the apparent down-turn in violence in Iraq, the upcoming elections in the United States, the situation Afghanistan etc., none of which I have time for at the moment. But I do want to share some thoughts about the current tragedy in Bangladesh, which has been hit by Cyclone Sidr, the worst storm to hit the country for decades, according to the BBC.

I've been following reports mostly from The 3rd World View blog, which has constant updates, a variety of sources of information and links to numerous other blogs and websites covering the situation in Bangladesh. The confirmed death toll has crossed 2,000, and according to reports, will probably cross 5,000 as contact with remote villages is re-established. The devastation to livestock, homes and crops is enormous.

The last major cyclone of this type to hit Bangladesh claimed more than 140,000 lives in 1991. In 1970, when Bangladesh was still East Pakistan, a similar storm killed an estimated
500,000 people. The significantly lower casualties this time round have been attributed to the effectiveness of a Cyclone Preparedness Program (CPP) funded by the International Federation of Red Cross And Red Crescent Societies (IFRC) bulletin which incorporates the services of over 34,000 BDRCS volunteers, reaching approximately 1.1 million people. In effect NGOs had created a grassroots, low-cost early warning network that could alert people to the coming danger of the cyclone in advance, so that they could get to shelter.

Still the scale of the devastation means that those who survived are still at risk. The devastating 1970 cyclone was followed by the dislocation of a large number of rural poor, which combined with other factors to produce a famine in 1974. The 3rd World Blog also lists ways in which people living abroad might be able to help.

Fighting Terrorism, Part III

2007-11-17T08:11:00.000Z

The Musharraf regime continues its outstanding efforts in the war on terror. Imran Khan, who on his arrival at Punjab University was assaulted by Islamist thugs and handed over to the police has been charged with terror offenses. Here is a BBC report showing him committing acts of terror in Pakistan:

To top it off, a small PTI protest later that evening was attacked by a heavy police contingent who also proceeded to manhandle and arrest Imran Khan's sisters.

Meanwhile, we hear that the head of the TNSM is now out of the lockup and has been brought to Peshawar where he has been installed in the private ward of a hospital, apparently as part of continuing negotiations with the Taliban militants in Swat, who are led by his son-in-law. Here is an excerpt from a recent report in the media about the doings if this fine bunch:

Supporters of Maulana Fazlullah responded by beheading three paramilitary soldiers and a police officer and displayed their heads in a village near the town of Swat, according to a provincial official.

The pattern is clear: Show up at a university to speak to students and you are a terrorist , whose family members will be beaten up and arrested. Behead people and stick their heads up on poles and your murderous relatives are lavished with extra care and affection and released from incarceration. This is our government's keen-eyed strategy to win the war on terror.

Meanwhile, Musharraf continues to fool credulous sections of the foreign press. I watched a truly idiotic report on CNN yesterday which was entitled something like 'Extremist Opposition Gaining Ground' or the like (I tried to find it on CNN.com but couldn't. If anyone does, please send me the link!). It seems as if Maulana Fazlur Rehman, stung by the criticism of his fawning relationship with the dictator decided that it was time to hold his own protest on Friday in Islamabad. The CNN reporter reported breathlessly on the 'anger' of the extremists against Musharraf and his policies. She also noted the heavy police presence, but observed that they watched the protest until it came to an end and dispersed peacefully.

So Fazlur Rehman, whose Islamist JUI-F has been working hand in glove with the military for the past three decades gets to have an undisturbed "anti-Musharraf rally" in front of the foreign press corps, thereby highlighting the 'dangerous' threat of Islamists to the country.

Meanwhile this is what happens if you are a bunch of school kids protesting against the Emergency (compiled from phone camera footage):

As Teeth Maestro blogs about the protest here, the students protest silently and do not disrupt traffic. When the police arrive and tell them to stop and wait for the Magistrate, they do so. When the magistrate arrives and tells them to go back the way they came, they agree with a naive "yes uncle". When the police block off the road and order them to move off to an embankment, they do so. They are then surrounded by police in riot gear and dragged off to prison. The youngest child arrested was apparently 12. They were eventually released without charge after the intercession of various NGOs etc.

Obviously peaceful school kids are a much more significant terrorist threat than the group who created the Taliban, even when (especially when?) the international media is not present.

So while much of the media outside Pakistan is wringing its hands over whether supporting democracy in Pakistan will strengthen the extremists, its worth asking, as one blogger at All Things Pakistan does, 'who is protesting and who is not'?

More Updates

2007-11-17T05:43:00.000Z

Friday saw a second day of protests at Punjab University, once again targeting the IJT and the JI as much as the government. There is some video of the demo here.

Jailed lawyer Aitzaz Ahsan has become something of a national hero, and perhaps being the only PPP figure who could gain support from a public thoroughly disenchanted by Bhutto, has been conveniently forgotten by her ever since he was thrown into jail on there first day of the Emergency. There is a good article about him here.

The PML-Q has once again restarted the dirty electioneering tricks pioneered by the military intelligence in the 1990 elections. Then, as now, the military had cobbled together a coalition of parties - the IJI, with the now out-of-favour Nawaz Sharif at the head. In 1990 they had printed a fake letter said to be from Benazir Bhutto to an American diplomat, asking for help in destabilizing Pakistan and having the Indian army attack Pakistan. The same letter has now once again found its way into newspapers in Punjab. By the way, this wasn't the lowest the military went in the elections. There was the case of posters of a naked woman, with BB's face pasted on, which were distributed as "evidence" of her depravity. Such are the ways of our "enlightened" democratic military.

Speaking of BB, her niece, Fatima Bhutto has penned a withering condemnation of her in an article in the LA Times which is almost as good as the one Jemima Khan had written in the Telegraph a couple of weeks ago. Its worth a read.

There is a fine article entitled the 'Not Yet Nation' on Chapati Mystery which thoroughly skewers this disgusting notion that Pakistan is 'not yet' ready for democracy. I hold no illusions that democracy is instantly going to make things better in Pakistan, but I also don't see any other way to move Pakistan out of this morass it seems to find itself perpetually stuck in.

Throughout the last week it was obvious that BB and Musharraf were still engaged in their courting dance for forming the next government. On Saturday Musharraf held a meeting with his Corps Commanders in Islamabad to discuss the political situation. The next day came the combative news conferences that signaled a break between BB and Musharraf. So what happened in that meeting? The best source for the goings on in Pakistani military circles is, as always, Indian Intelligence agencies. Here is an account of the meeting. What is most interesting is that those who wanted to scupper the deal played on Musharraf's strong sense of loyalty (the PML-Q has always stood by you and now you are abandoning them) and sense of betrayal (the U.S. is betraying you, BB is betraying you). This squares with accounts of Musharraf's personality by those who have worked closely with him: an upright, honest but generally dimwitted man who places the highest value on personal loyalty in his political and personal relationships.

Speaking of personal loyalty, the caretaker cabinet was sworn in yesterday. Despite Musharraf's promise of having a neutral caretaker government, the ministers are mostly either PML-Q members, or were advisers to the previous government. No signs of reconciliation here.

The Pakistani government has also pressured the UAE government to shut down Geo TV's news channels. Its particularly sad because Geo TV was essentially the first independent news source in the electronic media in Pakistan, and it was definitely the largest and most highly regarded. Apparently ARY news has also been taken off the air by the authorities in Dubai.

There was an interesting article in this month's 'Herald' magazine about the role of the media in Pakistani politics. Unfortunately, the Herald is not online, so I can't link to the article, but here is a key quote:

If one were to sketch profiles of political parties based on recent media exposure, chances are the images thus formed will be fairly accurate depictions. Willy-nilly, the media has revealed the true traits of each party and its leadership. Today, voters - television viewers in particular - are taking stock of political parties, not through analyses and discussions in the media but rather through the sum total of images, body language and messages communicated.

I couldn't agree with the author more. As never before, one gets a real sense of who these people are and what they stand for - the controlled feeding of carefully tailored and crafted media personas that occurs in American politics has not taken root here yet. And the absurd attempts at blatant propaganda on the state run PTV has been failing to influence anyone since the late eighties. A stronger case for an independent media cannot be made than this.

On Musharraf and Imran

2007-11-16T04:38:00.000Z

Ayaz Aamir writes in Dawn:

“Have you thought of (resigning)?” asks Sky News. The answer: “But should it be given up now and we will have better Pakistan, a stabler Pakistan and we could have very good elections, without me? Very good, maybe I take that decision, OK?” (No kidding, the very words.)

As the BBC Urdu Service’s Mohammad Hanif observes (in his hilarious “The case of Musharraf and the drunk uncle”), “Musharraf deserves our sympathy. Not because he has been forced to carry out a coup against his own regime, not because his troops are being kidnapped en masse by Pakistani Taliban and then awarded Rs500 for good behaviour, not because he himself has become a prisoner in his Army House and can’t even nip out for coffee and paan as he used to, but because he has utterly lost his grip over grammar.”

A hilarious article. He goes on to write about the IJT's handing Imran Khan over to the police:

If May 12 exposed the true face of the MQM, Nov 14 has revealed the ugly face of the Jamiat and the Jamaat. Qazi Hussein Ahmed’s populist posturing had led many simpleminded souls to believe that the Jamaat had changed its spots. The incident with Imran dispels such illusions.

There seems to be a lot of anger about the IJT's betrayal of Imran Khan. There was a major demonstration against the IJT at Punjab University, with many members resigning and some pretty fiery speeches. This is a major step because the IJT has come to dominate many government university campuses, particularly in the Punjab, usually with the connivance of the administration. Several of Punjab University's top administrative officials are former IJT members.

Hamid Gul Released

2007-11-16T04:05:00.000Z

A view commonly heard over the last few days has been the assertion that the imposition of the Emergency will finally allow the government to move aggressively not just against the militants in Swat, but also against those supporters of the militancy within Islamabad. The arrest of former ISI chief and outspoken demagogue, Hamid Gul was presented as proof of the government's seriousness in pursuing this course.

I recall replying to one friend who had expressed such sentiments that placing these people under house arrest is no proof of a commitment to take on the extremists and that we have to wait to see whether they are actually prosecuted or simply released again as so often happens. It turns out I called it correctly, as Hamid Gul has been released, reportedly by order of Saudi Arabia.

I am unsurprised.

On the Media, the Coming Elections and the Economy

2007-11-15T09:31:00.000Z

Musharraf has launched his media blitz, giving interviews to newspapers and news channels from around the world. In an interview with Sky TV yesterday, he insisted that he is actually a democrat and that his rule is democratic (!!!) and is committed to holding elections. When asked how these elections can be considered fair when all the opposition party leadership is in jail or under house arrest, he insisted that this presented no problem:

AC: But all your main opponents are either locked up or under house arrest. Can't you see how the West finds that difficult to square?
PM: No they are not locked up?
AC: or under house arrest?
PM: The main political parties, the leader, you see them on the TV, the main leader you can see on the television.
AC: They're still locked up. I did see Imran Khan, I did see the head of the Jamaat-e-Islami but they're both under house arrest or on the run. Even Benazir Bhutto is now locked up in her house?
PM: Yes, but what do you expect?
AC: how can that be free and fair, Sir?
PM: You should get to the root of the problem...

Uh... well, perhaps it belatedly occurred to someone that in fact you couldn't see the opposition leaders on TV because of the media ban. Today it seems as if Aaj TV, Dawn News, CNN and BBC have all come back on air. Geo is still banned it would seem. CNN and BBC had returned briefly on Sunday when they aired Musharraf's press conference live, but of course were duly taken off air again when Benazir held a press conference later that evening. Lets see how long they stay on air this time.

So now that we have, more or less, access to the media again, what do we see? Well, first of all there is Chaudhry Pervez Elahi, the Chief Minister of Punjab holding an election rally. Hmm... doesn't seem unusual, except... wait! Didn't the very same Chaudhry Pervez Elahi warn of "specific information" that suicide bombers had entered Lahore and that it wasn't safe for the PPP to hold a rally? The same Chaudhry Pervez Elahi who when asked why he felt so secure in holding rallies, while at the same time citing "specific" security threats against rallies of his political opponents, answered that his rallies were "safe" because of the "prayers of the people"?

The same Chaudhry Pervez Elahi who was pushing Musharraf not to make a deal with the PPP and to hold elections early because "the PML was now better placed and well-entrenched to win the polls".

No wonder Elahi is so confidant about the PML-Q's ability to do well in coming elections. After all, all the political opposition has been detained. Opposition rallies can be banned due to 'security threats', political opponents and other agitators can be arbitrarily thrown into jail, where they are made to understand that their only way out is to become PML-Q members. And anti-graffitti and billboard laws only apply to the opposition.... One gets the feeling that Mr Chaudhry Pervez Elahi may well become our next prime minister. (Thats the slogan that was being chanted at the rally they were showing on the TV by the way).

Something else, one got to watch on TV was the adviser to the Prime Minister on finance, Dr. Salman Shah, harping on about the wonderful performance of the government's economic policies. He insisted vehemently that the Emergency had not hurt investor confidence (as he was speaking, the stock market was in free fall by the way - it lost 300 points today), and insisted that any reservations that investors had was because of the "bad image" that the media presented of Pakistan.

Now I really know nothing about Dr. Shah, except that he used to work in the World Bank, and is supposedly one of Musharraf's most trusted advisers. I have no knowledge of his achievements or ambitions but what he said convinced me that he is a man full of sh*t who is not averse to lying in his master's cause.

He went on about how he read some report about failed states that was issued 18 months ago, which ranked Pakistan as a number 2 failed state below Somalia and above Afghanistan and that being curious, he examined the methodology of the report and found that they came to conclusion by finding 'negative' media reports from the country's media, and feeding them into a computer, which tallied the results to give a list of failed states. Thus, Pakistan's high ranking was due to its media's "negativism". The implication was that Musharraf's muzzling of the media was justified because, it was tarnishing Pakistan's image and thereby hurting its economy.

A bigger crock of sh*t I have yet to see presented by one of Musharraf's lackeys. No such report exists. No such methodology exists. And really if this is the best the government can come up with, it deserves to be torn down in quick order. This is precisely why we need a free media - to hear our leaders in their own words so that we can expose their lies.

Oh, and on the note of the government's economic policies:

Pakistan's trade deficit is now $1.945 billion per month. And the ADB funded $1.8 billion governance reform programme is failing due to a lack of interest shown by the government in making it work. This programme was supposed to help improve governance on a local level, providing better access to justice, legal protection, and improve the ability of local government officials to understand and cater to the needs of their localities. As this jargon littered report in Dawn quotes:

The final outcome of the reform programme may not be different from the poor results of the Social Action Programme of the 90s, says the assessment.

Another argument, perhaps, that for the vast majority of people, the current government has had as little interest in making a positive difference in their lives as the much maligned governments of the 90s did?

The government has attracted a great deal of foreign investment. But don't think that this is some kind of charity. According to CNBC, in the first quarter of 2007-08, $180 million was remitted out of the country as profit on investment. And this is before massive, now foreign-owned companies such as PTCL have announced their profits. Yes, while it hasn't been too interested in bettering the lives of the people, our government has done well by the multinationals, hasn't it?

Phew. On a slightly lighter note, a fine article on 'The Divine Right of Army Chiefs' in Pakistan.

Oh, and if anyone is wondering why a student wing of the MMA would betray Imran Khan to the police? I refer you to this report in the papers about the fact that the non-jailed political leadership of the MMA is almost unanimous in feeling that it should not confront the establishment on the issue of the Emergency.

Messages

2007-11-15T04:44:00.000Z

A message for Mush:

And in other news, about 700 lawyers rallied in New York outside the Supreme Court in Manhattan in support of the lawyers protesting in Pakistan. Personally, I feel that this is a much more important and worthwhile gesture than any of the two-faced mumbo-jumbo issuing from U.S. government officials. With the Musharraf regime unmoved and the protesters in sorry shape, its good to know their heroic efforts are being recognized.

On a similar note, the Harvard Law School Association has decided the honour the ousted Chief Justice with the Harvard Law School Medal of Freedom.

Concerning news in Pakistan, 'V' on the Lahore Metroblog has a very emotional piece on the Islami Jamiat Talaba's betrayal of Imran Khan to the police at the Punjab University campus yesterday. Here is the Guardian's more detailed and less emotional report of the event.

The Emergency Times has an article on this odd dichotomy that many in Pakistan (particularly those from military backgrounds) draw between military dictators and politicians. The tired old story goes that politicians are and have always been corrupt, feeble and ineffective rulers while military men are devoted, upright and efficient. It won't surprise anyone that this idea is a hangover from colonial times when the Anglo-Indian military and bureaucracy (the line between the two was always rather blurred) derided the corrupt, effeminate native politicians as well as the ineffective democracy back in Britain that seemed hellbent on "losing India" by introducing parliamentary forms and handing power over to the unwashed native masses who were easily manipulated and were unfit to govern themselves. Sound familiar?

After last weeks mock split between BB and Musharraf, it seems as if attitudes have hardened over the weekend. Increasingly it seems as if there may be a split between the two and the deal may well be moribund. It seems as if BB may have overplayed her hand. But my guess is that both BB and Mush have not yet shut each other out completely. The definitive proof of a final break will only come in Musharraf invalidates the NRO, or has his puppet Supreme Court do it for him.

The army officially took over operations from the Frontier Constabulary yesterday and finally launched a major operation against militants in Swat. There are conflicting reports about the death toll. The Corps Commander in the region blamed the MMA provincial government for allowing the build up of militants in Swat, saying that they did not allow a military operation earlier and had preferred appeasing the militants.

Now this is a very interesting assertion. The first question that comes to mind, is that if the MMA provincial government was obstructing the re-assertion of government control, why was it not dismissed and a caretaker government, imposed in NWFP earlier, or, since the military regime is fond of Emergencies, why wasn't an Emergency imposed in NWFP? The answer to this, of course, is that Musharraf needed the mullahs to be re-elected as President in the Presidential elections in October. When the APDM parties attempted to resign en masse in order to force a dissolution of the NWFP assembly, thereby making the holding of Presidential elections impossible till national elections were held, the JUI(F) - the Islamic party with the largest number of seats both in NWFP and the senate, blocked the dissolution of the assembly by refusing to resign. In this way, as in 2004, the mullahs and the military united to have Musharraf re-elected.

So its convenient for the Corps Commander to blame the burgeoning of militancy on the MMA, but lets not forget who had a vested interest in keeping the MMA government in power. The mullahs may have been appeasing the militants, but it was Musharraf who was appeasing the mullahs.

We Are Mindless...

2007-11-14T12:27:00.000Z

While discussing the political situation in the country the other day, a cousin of mine turned to that other great Pakistani obsession: cricket. Trying to describe her feelings, she quoted the ex-captain of the national team, Inzamam-ul-Haq, who, when once asked if he had minded batting first in the match replied in broken english in his usual dopey manner, “No… we are mindless.”

My cousin had earlier been arguing that she had refused to participate in any protests and supported the Emergency, because Musharraf, despite all his faults, was still better than Benazir. It’s a very common argument, and a powerful one. I have to confess at being struck by a strong feeling of despondency and hopelessness in the last few days. Even if, somehow, against all odds, the Emergency would be lifted and Musharraf should bow out gracefully, what did we have to look forward to? Would it be a return to the bad old days of the 90s, with its rampant corruption, ethnic violence and drowning economy? Is Pakistan really doomed to be stuck in a cycle of one disastrous regime after the other, differing only in the particulars of the grotesques in high office. What good would a return to democratic rule do? What is it that we should be striving for? One can’t help but feel stricken by a sinking feeling, a paralysis of indecision, because its hard to conceive of a future that offers much hope. How should one feel about these matters? Truly, one feels mindless.

For most people, those who struggle to make a living at subsistence wages, these political matters seem far removed from their immediate reality. What matters most is the fact that the cost of everyday staples such as flour, milk and sugar have risen dramatically in the last couple of years, a rise that has far exceeded any rise in wages. Their biggest concern is how to make ends meet. Its instructive that in the recent “sugar mill” scandal, where it was found that a small cartel of sugar mill owners were hoarding sugar in order to artificially drive up prices (by over 100%), the cartel included several ministers in the current pro-Musharraf government, it included Chaudhry Shujaat of the PML(Q), Shahbaz Sharif of the PML(N) and Asif Zardari of the PPP. So what does the average person care whether Musharraf, Benazir Bhutto or Nawaz Sharif come to power? All belong to the same class of uber-rich who are not averse to exploiting and cheating the common man whenever they can, and all, when in power, will exert every effort to continue doing so.

I think one answer to this line of questioning is that, right now, one has to push for the independence of the judiciary and the media – the two institutions that have been most blatantly undermined by the current Emergency. When Musharraf claims that his rule will create the conditions for “true democracy” in Pakistan, he seems to believe that this involves forcing everyone to go along with whatever he believes should be done. This rather absurd and limited understanding of “true democracy” will take us nowhere. One would have imagined that it was precisely in strengthening the judiciary and establishing an independent media (the second of which, up till recently, looked like becoming the crowning glory of Musharraf's achievements), that the conditions for a “true democracy” were being put in place. No particular leader or party will "save" Pakistan by coming into power. Rather, it is only when it will become exceedingly difficult for those in power to operate by whim, that matters will improve.

The sugar mill case is instructive in this regard. An investigation by the NAB (National Accountability Bureau) into allegations of price-fixing was killed by the government, with the excuse that the investigation itself was driving up prices. After an outcry in the media, the Supreme Court took suo moto notice of the case and ordered that the NAB should complete the investigation and present its report to the Court. This was duly done and the identities of those who were part of the cartel revealed, to the embarrassment of the government. Attempts to prosecute those involved, of course, floundered in the wake of the Emergency. So when Musharraf talks about the embarrassment of law enforcement officials summouned to the Supreme Court, and the unsound business environment being created by its suo moto notices, we know what kinds of cases were on his mind.

The point here is, given that our next government, no matter what its exact composition, or the quality of its democratic crededentials, is not going to be a ‘clean’ one, it is vital that there be a free and independent media, and an ‘activist’ Supreme Court to act as checks and balances on its actions. In this regard, the current civil society movement also has an essential role to play. Whether or not its goals are achieved in the current crisis, its very existence is a victory of sorts, and a harbringer for better things to come. It is essential to create awareness, to coordinate, organize and educate ourselves for the many, many battles we are going to have to face in the coming days. It is essential that we no longer be mindless, but make up our minds that there is a future we can hope for, and, though it may be a long journey, one we must work towards.

Need I Say More

2007-11-12T04:15:00.000Z

Musharraf's "government has just let more than two dozen militant Islamists out of jail.... Taliban sources tell NEWSWEEK that the top man on the list was Mullah Obaidullah Akhund—the highest-ranking Taliban official ever captured by the Pakistanis. As one of Taliban leader Mullah Mohammad Omar's closest confidants and his defense minister until the post 9-11 invasion of Afghanistan, Obaidullah was No. 3 in the group's hierarchy and a member of its ruling 10-man shura (council)."

Need I say more?

Pakistan's Media

2007-11-09T09:16:00.000Z

This is, despite its terrible title, an excellent article, written before the Emergency, on Pakistan's electronic media. It explores both the achievements and challenges the media was facing before the imposition of the Emergency.

More Victories in the War on Terror

2007-11-09T03:55:00.000Z

60 FC men surrendered in Swat. More posts and camps were abandoned by soldiers and police, including contingents working at refugee and rehabilitation camps set up after the 2005 earthquake. This in turns caused the pull out of NGOs and Chinese engineers working on hydel projects.

It appears as if the soldiers who surrender are treated to cups of tea and receive a small cash stipend from the militants before being sent on their way home. Obviously, they have learned that this is a better incentive than beheading to get the stalwarts of the Pakistani forces to surrender. Keen on further enhancing their skills in the hospitality business, the militants took over a Hotel-Management Training Institute yesterday.

But its not all tea and biscuits under the militant regime. A punishment of 15 lashes has been introduced for anyone who misses prayer time.

In Miramshah, a pro-government tribal elder's house was blown up. Recall, these are the same tribal elders on whom the government is counting to make all these peace deals work.

The Deputy Attorney-General has resigned in protest at the government's bulldozing of the judiciary. We should salute his honesty and courage. Meanwhile the Awami National Party (ANP) has announced that it will not take part in elections under the PCO. The ANP is a left-leaning party with its support base in the NWFP and has traditionally been an ally of the PPP. Contrast the ANP's stand with that of the contemptible JUI(F) which announced it had no problem contesting elections under the PCO. The head of the ANP, Asfandyar Wali Khan is also, by the way, the only significant public figure that I know of who has condemned the suicide bombing that killed over 40 people in Afghanistan a couple of days ago, including several Members of Parliament.

Because most courts are not functioning, or only functioning in a very limited manner, the Army Act is apparently going to be amended so that military tribunals can try civilians.

The government has finally started cracking down on PPP party workers, mostly in the Punjab, with a view of strangling attendance to the rally BB is set to hold today in Rawalpindi. This contrasts with earlier instructions law-enforcement agencies had received to take a "soft" approach with PPP, JUI(F) and ANP party workers.

The owner of the 'Geo TV' network, which had become the most popular TV channels in Pakistan prior to the emergency was arrested, kidnapped and "convinced" that the network should comply with the new ordinance on the media. This following threats he had received from intelligence officials such as this one:

"Pakistan Army is the backbone of Pakistan, don't try to damage it, if u do, u and your family who have looted billions would be hunted down like rats," it read. "It will just take a few hundred people to smash ur studios, offices, vans."

No mention of the billions looted by army officials or the fact that the army, as an institution is a gigantic leech attached to the throat of the nation and has been sucking it dry while growing fat and bloated. And if I were in the army High Command, I would have the person who wrote this message shot on general principles because of his use of the letter "u".

Needless to say, the army is acting much like the Taliban which has also issued threats to the press for printing photographs in which women are visible.

Of course perhaps the biggest news in this parade of disgusting capitulation by the military government came yesterday in the news that Musharaf's newly appointed caretaker Chief Minister in NWFP announced that the government is willing to give in to the Swat militants demand to "provide relief" for the incarcerated leader of the Tehrik Nifaz Shariat-i-Muhammadi, Maulana Sufi Mohammad (also the father-in-law of militant leader Maulana Fazlulla).

To understand the enormity of this step, one needs to know a little about the TNSM. It is basically, the group that inspired the Taliban and the first militant Islamist group to start terroristic activities in Pakistan. Quoting from Hassan Abbas' book, 'Pakistan's Drift into Extremism', in 1994, "This movement spread in malakand area of NWFP of Pakistan bordering Afghanistan, with many of its members boasting about their participation in the jihad in Afghanistan. They occupied the local airport (Saidu Sharif), forced government offices to close down, and blocked traffic on all major roads in the area, demanding enforcement of the Islamic law in Malakand. The government used the Frontier Corps to arrest Sufi Mohammad and restore order, but also succumbed to the TNSM demand of introducing Islamic law in the area."

If the military, and the military government is, indeed, Pakistan's backbone, then the country is obviously a spineless creature. Its no wonder that the Human Rights Commission of Pakistan is claiming that "Talibanisation is the real agenda of this government".

Of course, as the General was good enough to remind us in his address a few days ago, one shouldn't focus solely on the bad news. The News has an article praising the courage of the seven Supreme Court Judges who stayed on at the Supreme Court even as it was being surrounded by troops, in order to pass a motion declaring the PCO illegal. It also reminds us that an independent judiciary is not in Bhutto's interest since the National Reconciliation Ordinance which dropped all the outstanding warrants and corruption cases against her has been challenged in court.

Dawn notes that for the first time in years, there is a non-partisan political movement forming on university campuses. Its particularly important that the campuses which cater to the children of the rich and powerful are politically active, because students from humbler backgrounds are much more likely to get beaten up or jailed. The Emergency Times, has become a hub about which much of these protests are organized.

Finally I leave you with this parody of a famous Pakistani nationalist song, sung at a recent protest (linked from the Emergency Times website):

Fighting Terrorism

2007-11-08T08:50:00.000Z

The bodies of three executed soldiers who had been abducted several days ago were found lying riddled with bullets by the side of a road in Waziristan, a clear indication that Musharaf's latest peace deal with militants there is bearing fruit.

Meanwhile, the war against terror continued in Karachi where three leftist politicians and a labour union activist have been charged with treason, for "raising anti-government slogans", a crime which under the Emergency laws is punishable by death. This comes on top of other outstanding victories in the war on terror such as the arrest in Lahore of the lady who runs the Working Women Helpline, an advocacy group which helps women fight workplace discrimination and the Programme Manager of the Labour Education Foundation, which lists amongst its aims and objectives "To promote democratic norms and values" and even worse "To fight against the oppression of women". Clearly these terroristic ideologies were threatening the very foundations of Pakistan and extraordinary measures were necessary to remove the threat they represented.

God Bless the General in his wisdom, as well as his loyal aides and advisers for saving Pakistan from these extremists and miscreants. While they were running around free, destabilizing our society, we were all asking "what is going on?" and taunting the General, saying "What has happened to you now? Why can't you decide?" while he only watched in silence and disbelief as the country was taken in a negative direction.

To further strengthen our society and take it in a positive direction, the military government released 28 Taliban prisoners, including three who had been convicted of terrorism offences. One gentleman who had been working to relieve the government of its paralyzed state and help improve morale in the security forces was caught red-handed transporting suicide bomb jackets to suicide bombers. Thankfully he is now free to continue his good work and help bring forth a new age of political reconciliation and full democracy.

The Hijacking (Part II)

2007-11-08T05:10:00.001Z

I had written yesterday about the how BB seemed to be trying to hijack the pro-democracy movement for her own ends. Its worthwhile trying to reconstruct what was going on in Islamabad yesterday. Bhutto had denied that she would be meeting with the government, but rather, had gone to Islamabad to meet with pro-democracy opposition groups at a meeting of the ARD.

The ARD was originally formed by political parties in opposition to military rule. Its main components were the PPP, the PML-N and the MMA. Imran Khan of the TPI was also a highly visible member and there were a host of minor parties involved. Its purpose was to coordinate the parties' opposition to Musharaf and help bring democracy back to Pakistan. However, it had little success in doing this. Early on, the MMA broke ranks to help Musharaf consolidate his grip on power in return for concessions in the NWFP (whose assembly they dominated). The MMA itself was a coalition of Islamic parties whose two major members were the JI and JUI(F). The JUI(F) in particular, with its deep links to the Taliban and the military was often wooed away to support the military government in parliament.

Once Musharaf and the ruling PML-Q started facing serious internal opposition and losing popularity, it needed to make overtures to another political party to shore up its position. Many in the PML-Q hierarchy favoured an alliance with the PML-N, but the Americans were known to favour Benazir Bhutto and the PPP. With the prospect of a political opening and the whitewashing of her corrupt past open to her, Bhutto broke ranks with the ARD and opened negotiations with the military. With the PPP and JUI(F) openly working with the military government, the ARD seemed moribund and the PML-N and other parties formed the umbrella APDM (the All Parties Democratic Movement) to take up its mantle.

Yesterday though, it seems as if the PPP has seen fit to revive the ARD. The question is, who was actually there at this meeting? The BBC reports that the PTI, the PML-N and the MMA were not represented at the meeting. This leaves a string of very minor players. BB used the absence of these major components of the ARD to boot out the chairperson, the president and the secretary general of the ARD (all in prison, in exile, or in hiding from what I can gather) and have herself appointed chairperson and her lackey, Makhdoom Amin Fahim appointed President. A Qazi Abdul Qadeer Khamosh of the Jamiat Ahle Hadith, an obscure religious party, was made the Secretary General.

In a sense, the ARD has now become composed of those parties that are looking to form the next government in partnership with Musharaf. As this report notes, the ARD had become moribund ever since some of its components had abandoned a policy of cooperation against the military regime in favour of talks for individual gain.

The PML-N, the MMA and the Awami Jamhoori Tehrik, an alliance of left-wing parties, have all offered to support the PPP's call for protests IF the PPP breaks off its talks with the government, an offer which BB has rejected. In Karachi, the Sindh Taraqi Passand Party (STP), whose chairman is in jail, the Awami National Party (ANP), Jamaat-e-Islami (JI) and Pakhtoon Khwa Milli Awami Party (PMAP) have all called for the PPP and JUI(F) to unite with them against the government instead of working for their own (and the General's) benefit.

But that is looking increasingly unlikely. Also in Islamabad yesterday, the PPP and JUI(F) held talks where they "dwelt on the national political scenario and agreed to continue deliberations for exploring the possibilities of joint working in future". In other words, started divvying up ministerial posts in their coming administration.

Of course BB also had to take the time out to pay a visit to the American ambassador, no doubt, to express her satisfaction with how everything is working out.

And if there should be any doubt about BB's ascendency in the current political climate, she also seems to have managed to bring about the removal of the Director of the Intelligence Bureau (IB), General Ejaz Shah, who is known to be the man who cobbled together the PML(Q). He is said to be particularly close to the Chaudhrys, and his removal would suggest the final burial of their ambitions.

Meanwhile, the oppositionless assembly rubber-stamps Emergency rule and the government considers removing the Supreme Courts' suo moto powers through a constitutional amendment.

Finaly I'll leave you with an exceptionally outstanding post on the American handling of the current situation in Pakistan.

On the Lam!

2007-11-07T20:33:00.000Z

Farooq Tariq of the communist Labour Party of Pakistan continues to post about life on the run. I couldn't help chortling over this part:

The plainclothes police came to LPP office in Lahore and checked if I was there. They went to the Good Books bookshop and remained there for some time on the pretext of buying books. They tried to ask about the whereabouts of the different comrades, pretending that they were LPP supporters and wanted to joint the party.

The comrade in charge of Good Books is an experienced comrade, and he immediately realised who they were. He cleverly convinced them to buy Tariq Ali’s book Clash of Fundamentalisms, while offering comradely hospitality, tea and a good political talk. Comrades proudly told me the story after they left the office: ``They came to look for you but instead took a book that may change their minds.’‘

I add my own recommendation to that of the comrade in charge of Good Books and endorse Tariq Ali's 'Clash of Fundamentalisms'.

The Hijacking

2007-11-07T20:02:00.000Z

Finally, towards the end of the day came the news that Bhutto had ordered the PPP cadres to start protesting. To make up for lost time, a small bunch tried to storm the police barricades around the parliament building and some managed to make enough of a nuisance of themselves to get arrested. This pantomime has already worked wonders for Bhutto in the rather credulous foreign press, as this BBC report testifies. All this after Bhutto flew to Islamabad, met with "democratic opposition parties" (this is what reports in the Guardian, International Herald Tribune and BBC are all saying but I can't figure out yet just who these opposition parties are since the PTI, the PML-N, and the JI, all of whose senior figures are either in hiding or in jail, did not attend the meeting. Who does that leave exactly? I suppose I may find out more in the newspapers tomorrow), and held a press conference to which the world press was invited - all with no hindrance at all from the government. After the press conference, the gathered reporters and photographers were treated to the sight of a small bunch of PPP activists getting into a ridiculous tug-of-war with the police at the nearby parliament building.

This stretches credulity at Bhutto's "confrontation" with Pakistan's dictator to breaking point. Here is a photograph of Bhutto descending into the lion's den of Islamabad to risk life and liberty for the sake of democracy.

Looks rather tense and worried about the future of her country, doesn't she? (Source: The Guardian)

Finally, from the IHT comes this gem:

Earlier in the day, Syeda Abida Hussain, a former Pakistani ambassador to the United States and a member of Bhutto's party, said that foreign officials have said that they saw little popular opposition to Musharraf's decree, but that the protests would demonstrate that this was wrong. "The international community is saying we don't see a popular protest," she said. "So now we're going to make a protest."

And so BB moves in to hijack the nascent democracy movement....

UPDATE: Its still tough to get a full sense of what BB was up to in Islamabad yesterday. The media blackout is so frustrating! This is what I can piece together from news reports in the press today. The PPP was in Islamabad to attend a meeting of the ARD (the Alliance for the Restoration of Democracy which was a platform on which all opposition political parties are represented.) I try to untangle the mess here.

Bedtime Reading

2007-11-07T18:35:00.000Z

Some interesting articles from the foreign press worth reading:

Arif Rafiq writing in the Baltimore Sun notes that "Mr. Musharraf’s dualism is contradictory and paralyzing. As chief of army staff, he needs widespread public and elite support to isolate and defeat the terrorists. As a partisan president, he needs to divide and conquer the opposition to maintain political power."

In a truly excellent article in the New York Times, M. Hanif notes that "Faced with increasing demands to give up his position as military chief and confront the complexities of civilian rule, General Musharraf decided to topple President Musharraf."

He goes on to note that by a happy coincidence, saving Pakistan from itself has been a particularly lucrative and profitable mission for the army. "Under his command Pakistan’s armed forces have become a hugely profitable empire. It’s the nation’s pre-eminent real estate dealer, it dominates the breakfast-cereal market, it runs banks and bakeries. Only last month Pakistan’s Navy, in an audacious move, set up a barbecue business on the banks of the Indus River about 400 miles away from the Arabian Sea it’s supposed to protect."

The Huffington Post notes that the Musharaf government has hired lobbyists in Washington to build support for his recent moves, to the tune of $55,000 a month. So that's where my tax money goes...

The Washington Post, comments on the incongruity of this image (source: Metroblogging Lahore):

"Man in Suit confounds the usual revolution images. In one photograph he is wearing glasses, his jacket is buttoned, he has something pinned to his lapel, and his cuffs peek out from his sleeves. These details make him an individual, even as a crowd is barely visible through the haze behind him. That individuality puts his anger on a different plane, it requires an interrogation of the image that we might not otherwise make."

Personally I am really taken with this photo. If anything it is even more incongrous. (I'm not sure about the original source - one of the Urdu papers I'm guessing. I found the image at Chapati Mystery):

Protests at Lahore Campuses

2007-11-07T12:39:00.000Z

More on the LUMS protest can be found here. Photographs such as this one...

...can be found here. There is a mediocre CNN report on the LUMS protest on the 5th here (at least they didn't mention Bhutto in the report). Its possible that the authorities took a harder line today because that report made it to a major western news outlet. At least they aren't ignoring the protest. Thats success of a sort, right?

Today there were protests at a couple of other university campuses in Lahore. The Lahore Metroblog has some updates on whats happening there. FAST appears to have had a significant protest despite the fact that Musharaf is the Chancellor of the institution!!!

Metroblog Lahore also has links to Imran Khan's video messages.

Update: A good description of the LUMS protest can be found here. According to bloggers in Lahore the standoff at NUS-FAST has also ended peacefully. I get the feeling the cops were trying to frighten the students by demanding that the administration hand over anyone who was carrying a placard. (The administration, kudos to them, stood fast and refused to do so.)

Bread and Circusses, Part II

2007-11-07T10:42:00.000Z

From The Washington Post, we learn:

"It's like the government is declaring war on civil society and they just wish we would all zone out and watch South Asian film stars dancing around, instead of the news. We aren't some huge danger to the state. Why don't they go target the suicide bombers?" said Romessa Khan, 20, a major in painting at the National College of Arts Lahore, where students gathered in a courtyard Tuesday, worried about family members and neighbors who had been carted off to jail.

But the NCA is not exactly a hub of pro-democracy activism (unlike, say, LUMS where a large demonstration has just been raided). As the article goes on to note:

A group of students at the National College of Arts chain-smoked, passed around headphones pumping out Urdu pop and riffed on the best way to protest emergency rule. In the end, they decided that any form of civil disobedience -- be it a protest song or an artistic rendering of jail scenes -- would be too dangerous.

Back to the news about LUMS. The administration really deserves praise and recognition for being the only university administration in the country to criticize the arrest of members of its faculty and express solidarity with those who wish to exercise "their right to peaceful assembly and freedom of expression."

On Updates...

2007-11-07T09:56:00.000Z

Teeth Maestro is providing some good minute by minute updates on the anti-emergency protests in Pakistan.

And if you are wondering what it is like to be on the run from the police, check this article out. Why doesn't Farooq Tariq (of the Labour Party of Pakistan (LPP)) want to go to jail? Because he has enjoyed the hospitality of the government before.

Kamila Shamsie glumly compares Musharaf's speeches after the 1999 coup with the more recent one.

Imran Khan is also in hiding and sending out messages to the public to "encourage" resistance. As usual, he is aiming most of his invective against the United States. Let us recall that he belongs to the 'everything is the United States' fault and if the U.S. would only leave well enough alone, all would be right with the world' school of thought. Oddly enough all the retired military types who pad out his political party's leadership are all still roaming about free.

As expected, the western media is now beginning to present BB as a fearless saviour of democracy taking on the evil dictator. Its vital that she hold her rally, even if it gets suicide bombed, so that she can claim to the west that she's bringing the people out into the streets in support of democracy!

Pathetic!

Finally, perhaps one of the greatest drawbacks about the media ban is that we can no longer experience the fun-filled pleasures of watching Fox News and chortle over their expert analysis, such as this: Hamid Karzai is the leader of Pakistan... no, wait, its Nawaz Sharif!

Bread and Circuses...

2007-11-07T08:03:00.000Z

Peace deal notwithstanding, militants in Swat have taken over another town. This comes as Indian intelligence analysts announce that Pakistan has pulled soldiers away from the border in Kashmir to deal with the militants. This article in the Guardian captures the extent of the militants ascendancy in Swat.

Incidentally, while the military has shut down all local private TV channels (the few exceptions include the the Dalda cooking channel and three music video channels -give us bread and circuses!) and have banned radio stations from making news broadcasts, it goes without saying the the militant Maulana Fazlullah's Jihadi radio station in Swat is still on air, along with a host of other Jihadist stations. I recall reading somewhere that there were up to 300 illegal short range radios transmitters in operation. I will try and find the link to that info. Meanwhile, this interesting article from last year gives an insight into how the illegal stations operate.

Benazir's conspicuous liberty while other opposition party members were being arrested in droves has led many to believe that the much ballyhooed 'deal' between BB and Musharaf may still be revived. One possibility was that the PML-Q, who were never terribly happy about dealing with Bhutto in the first place, had convinced Musharaf that he could settle the terms of the deal from a position of strength after imposing the Emergency. It was noticeable that , by her own admission, Benazir had been informed by the government about the imposition of the Emergency beforehand. Furthermore, while other parties called for protests etc., she merely made a lightweight pronouncement that Musharaf should keep his promise to resign from his military post and hold elections on time. No mention of the emergency. That other loyal partner of the military mascarading as an opponent of the regime, Maullanah Fazlur Rahman of the Jammat-e-Ulema-e Islami (JUI (F)) has announced that there is no harm in contesting elections under the PCO (where, for example, it is illegal to criticise the government or any of its members or policies, which would make campaigning an exercise in futility)!

But there seems to be some evidence that things are not all going according to plan. Speaking after the emergency was imposed, the Prime Minister announced that elections could be delayed for up to a year. This sparked off a furor abroad and the initial lukewarm announcements from the U.S. about 'reviewing our aid' to Pakistan were replaced with tougher statements. The E.U. similarly announced tougher measures and yesterday the Secretary General of the UN and the Pakistani ambassador got into a public spat about the emergency. This has led to some furious backpedaling in Islamabad with repeated assurances that elections will be held on time and that Musharaf will quit his post as army chief. Today Chaudhury Shujaat Hussain announced that the emergency would be over in three weeks.

Perhaps goaded on by her erstwhile backers in the west, seeing which way the wind is turning and perhaps realizing that her fuzzy stance on the emergency was at odds with her self-declared image of the "saviour of democracy", Benazir Bhutto has finally made a stronger statement of opposition to the emergency and the government's action against the judges. There seems to be an ongoing spat between the government and the PPP about whether a previously announced election rally scheduled to take place in Rawalpindi will go ahead or not.

While some western media outlets will no doubt present Bhutto as leading the fight to restore democracy in Pakistan, have a look at this article from the pro-PPP Pakistani Daily Times. This is the writer's description of the the PPP leadership flying to Islamabad to NOT have talks with the government (according to BB!)

During the course of the flight I spoke to all the PPP leaders travelling with her and the body language was relaxed and laughter was in the air. Something told me that there might be a chance of dialogue soon with the president.

The journalist went on to ask BB if she was going to become a care-taker prime minister, which she denied. This seems to be obvious, since the spectacle of running for Prime Minister while being the caretaker PM would be a rather odd one. Some people however are speculating that if Musharaf decides to dump the PML-Q once and for all, Amin Faheem, who was the titular head of the PPP when BB was abroad may be a good candidate for the slot. Some analysts are asserting that the emergency may have actually backfired and weakened Musharaf's hand vis a vis the 'deal' with BB.

In the last article I linked to, there is the interesting suggestion that Musharaf may well have achieved some of his limited goals if he had followed the constitutional route and used the support of BB and Maulana Fazlur Rahman to pass legislation in the assemblies curbing the power of the Judges and giving certain emergency powers to the government. The contours of the next government seem to have become pretty well defined by now. Here is my prediction: PPP, JUL(F), MQM alliance with the PML(Q) playing a larger or smaller role depending on how much of the pie they can secure for themselves.

It certainly doesn't leave much hope for any kind of significant positive changes in the country. Its the same old, same old... sigh...

Protest at the Lahore High Court

2007-11-06T05:36:00.001Z

There is something truly iconic about this photograph, taken at the protest yesterday at the Lahore High Court:

The poster they are all photographing shows Musharaf without his uniform(!!!) Read about the protest here. The photographer has uploaded a host of photos of the protest here.

Edit: And here is a comprehensive first person account of the crackdown on the protest at the Lahore High Court.

Stability, Stability, Where Fore Art Thou Stability?

2007-11-06T05:00:00.000Z

Ahmed Rashid in the Washington Post on how the coup actually makes Pakistan less stable, not more.

Part of the reason Musharaf took his drastic step was to attempt to boost morale and confidence within the army. The interests of the army are always paramount in the minds of the officer corps and the fact that the army has been hit hard in recent months has become more and more apparent. The need to appear decisive and in-charge and put the harping civilians back in line (Pakistani officers are traditionally full of contempt for civilians and believe they have no business in trying to run the affairs of the state) needs to be taken into account as a major motivation for Musharaf's move. In fact, Musharaf alluded to this in his address to the nation. Here is a rough translation. I found this part particularly enlightening as to his state of mind and the pressure he was under:

Under great duress, based on all these reasons, the whole nation is depressed and uncertain. I am getting phone calls from everywhere ... my own acquaintances, private, from outside the country, from inside the country, asking, "What is going on?" I am being taunted, "What are you doing?" They are taunting me that I was the decision maker, "What happened to you now? Why can't you decide now?" I have listened to these taunts in silence, and watched in disbelief what has been happening to Pakistan, in Pakistan. I had hoped that the judiciary and the government establishment will deal with these challenges ... and in that hope I sat silently and watched ... for improvements. But in my opinion this didn't happen. And the situation was getting worse by the day. And Pakistan was going rapidly into a negative direction.

This section eloquently summarizes the feelings of helplessness in the army as they witness their own ineffectiveness in the fighting against the militants, in their loss of control over the Pakistani street, in the increasing ascendancy of raucous politicians and truculent judges. And like all those who have exercised authority through intimidation, in a questioning of their authority, they perceive "taunts" and personal humiliation. It was not so much the nation that was "under duress", "depressed" and "uncertain", as Mr. Musharaf himself.

Saving Democracy

2007-11-05T16:12:00.001Z

Saving Democracy... Musharaf Style:

(From the BBC)

The War on Terror in Afghanistan

2007-11-05T10:57:00.000Z

Just as a little aside. The A-10's GAU 8/A 'Avenger' gatling gun has to be the most fearsome weapon on the modern battlefield. Listen to the sound of it around 4 minutes into this video clip of Afghan and Dutch soldiers battling the Taliban in Uruzgan. It sounds like some kind of mythical beast. Frightening.

Then again I can't imagine these kinds of engagements are going to like, you know, win the war on terror.

Pakistan Social Indicators

2007-11-05T10:34:00.000Z

Dawn reports: “Compared with Bangladesh, India and Sri Lanka, Pakistan’s school enrolment is lower, adult illiteracy is higher, and infant and child mortality rates are higher,” says an analytical study of the Asian Development Bank.

Rumours

2007-11-05T08:17:00.000Z

The Rumour in the Karachi Stock Exchange is that a curfew has been imposed in Islamabad and that Musharaf has been forced out by the army High Command.

Don't know if its just a wild rumour (though it has led to a stock market crash in the last few minutes) or if there is any truth behind it. Guess we will soon find out.

Edit: Well the army has issued a statement saying that the rumours of a counter-coup were just that - a rumour and that no such thing has happened. The need for a statement was necessary because the stock market had gone into free fall.

Still, I get the feeling that Mushie's days are numbered. The army High Command forced Ayub Khan out in 69 and got rid of Yahya Khan after the 1971 war. Zia ul Haq's assassination, whatever its motive force was, certainly needed the active complicity of highly placed men in the armed forces. (As one retired general said on a TV discussion recently, the High Command breathed a sigh of relief at Zia's death). Unless Musharaf can turn things around fairly quickly in Pakistan, (and I don't see how he can), the army may well show him the door.

A Conversion and a Confirmation

2007-11-05T07:05:00.000Z

It would seem as if Mr Ali Eteraz, who wrote a fawning apology for Musharaf in his article on the Guardian website, which I criticized here, has already repented.

Meanwhile it seems as if as far back as in 2002, it had become apparent that the much-touted Madressa reform policy of the Musharaf government was heading for failure. This report by the International Crisis Group spells out its shortcomings. It pretty much confirms my own assessment of the Madressah reforms.

Our Feudal Lords

2007-11-05T06:20:00.000Z

One thing I constantly hear from various members (or retired members) of the armed forces is the assertion that because of "feudalism", or the "feudal-system", democracy can never work in Pakistan and the army needs to run things in order to improve and uplift the people.

Of course, they conveniently ignore the fact that the army as an institution is the biggest feudal land-owner in Pakistan.

The history behind this is interesting, and one I would love to do more research about. But essentially, it goes back to the times when the Punjab was conquered by the British and brought into the imperial fold. At the time, the need to regularly pacify various parts of British India required the existence of a large standing army. Furthermore, it was judicious British policy to incorporate the armies of newly conquered areas into the British army as soon as possible, to prevent large bands of armed men wandering around without work (something the Americans could have learned from in Iraq, but that's another story).

The problem as was, how does one pay for all of this? Going through the expense and headache of a central treasury that collected taxes and then paid them out to the armies was a large undertaking, and one for which the British lacked the patience, manpower, and frankly, money, to do. It was far cheaper to simply allocate the revenues of various lands (the same lands from where soldiers were for the most part recruited) to the army, making the army, in essence the feudal landlords of those areas and the farmers who worked on them, their tennants. This procedure was extended so that there were certain areas which were to provide provisioning for the army, certain areas to provide cattle and horses for transport, etc. All in all, it was a way to maintain a large standing army on the cheap, while helping to integrate that area more firmly under British authority.

The pay off of the system was visible during the Mutiny (or civil war, call it what you may) in 1857 when the mutinying garrisons came almost exclusively from the eastern provinces in the Awadh and Bengal. The newly recruited Punjabi garrisons stayed loyal to the British and helped turn the tide against the mutineers. After the Mutiny, the British reduced recruitment from the eastern provinces and focused on recruitment from the Punjab and frontier peoples such as Pathans and Gurkhas.

After Independence this "feudal" relationship between the army as landlord and the farmers as tenants remained. However, in recent years the army started feeling that it could obtain better yields and profits by corporatizing farming on its lands, rather than retaining a large number of small tenant farmers.

As one gentleman who is a leading light in a large investment firm and an economic analyst enthusiastically assured me a few years ago, this process of corporatization of farming would be of great benefit to the economy. Of course, one wondered if it would be of great benefit for the thousands of farmers it would dispossess and throw off the land? It is this impulse, and the fight against it, that has led to incidents like this.

In a sense, I guess you could credit the army for trying to end feudalism. But not as it ended through land reform throughout Europe, but by simply translating the relationship between the army landlord and peasant tenant to a purely capitalist relationship, and throwing the farmers off the land.

Gagging the Media

2007-11-05T04:37:00.000Z

Here is the complete text of the ordinance on the electronic media. It seems to concern electronic broadcasting only so the print media is safe for now.

(Edit: No, it seems as if I was wrong. Restrictions have been placed on the print media as well. I'll try and find a link to the specific ordinance.)

These provisions are the kickers:

(k) ensure that no anchor person, moderator or host propagates any opinion or acts in any manner prejudicial to the ideology of Pakistan or sovereignty, integrity or security of Pakistan.

(l) not broadcast any programme inciting violence or hatred or any action prejudicial to maintenance of law and order;

(m) not broadcast anything which defames or brings into ridicule the Head of State, or members of the armed forces, or executive, legislative or judicial organs of the state;

and just to make sure that all bases are covered:

(o) not broadcast anything which is known to be false or baseless or is malafide or for which there exist sufficient reasons to believe that the same may be false, baseless or malafide.”

In other words, anything the government decides it doesn't like can be met with prison terms and massive fines. It is ridiculous in its draconian measures.

I was conversing with a gentleman yesterday who was strongly supportive of the restrictions. Making references to the television media showing the bodies of dead soldiers, showing captured soldiers, and interviewing militants, he spoke at length about the media's sensationalism and voyeurism, and then went on about how in the United States, the media exercises self-censorship by not showing bodies or coffins, or pictures of soldiers who have been captured, and refuse to give any voice to any of the militants they are waging their war of terror upon. Contrasting the Pakistani and US media, he went to say that in Pakistan, the government should impose restrictions because the Pakistani media is not responsible enough to exercise self-censorship.

To this line of argument, my immediate response is: has the American media model served America well? If you are a conspiracy theorist who believes that in the last five or six years, world events have unfolded according to a American master plan of domination - that the civil war in Iraq was planned from the start and that the American government and military are all sitting around patting themselves on the back due to their successful domination of the world etc. then perhaps you might feel that the American media model must be forcibly emulated in Pakistan. To believe this, one suspects, you would either have to be a member of Bush's public relations staff, or a complete buffoon. (The two categories not being necessarily exclusive).

Has the American media served the American people well by exercising self-censorship and allowing itself to be used by the government as a tool? Most assuredly not. It served the interests of a small clique in the ruling class, allowing them to launch a war which has been disastrous for America in terms of wasted lives, a suffering economy and growing anti-Americanism around the world. It may have been financial profitable for Bush and his immediate circle - but they are not, in of themselves, America.

So in Pakistan, a gagged media will serve the interests of a small clique of rulers and their immediate circles. But will it serve the interests of the people? No.

Edit: Some more thoughts, considerations and qualifications on this topic here.

The State of Emergency

2007-11-04T05:55:00.000Z

Rumours about a possible state of emergency had been flying about for several days, so Musharaf's move to suspend the constitution and, in effect, impose martial law, is not unexpected. The PCO issued by Musharaf keeps the national and provincial assemblies intact and only dismisses the judiciary and imposes tight controls on the media. The reason for this being, of course, that much of the opposition have already resigned from the assemblies and it was in the courts that a battle was being waged against Musharaf's reign. (Here is the text of the declaration.)

Musharaf claims that he is saving Pakistan from suicide, blaming militant violence and the judiciary for paralyzing the government.

Benazir Bhutto, who less than two weeks after her return to Pakistan decided to fly back to Dubai for a vacation, had earlier said that she might delay her vacation because of fears of the imposition of martial law. Then she left anyway and only returned after the state of emergency had been declared, expressing her "surprise" at the step.

So what to make of all this? Here is an article that effectively supports Musharaf's move. To me, it reads like yet another disgusting apology for the dictatorship of Pakistan's colonial elite.

Mr Eterez refers to "young professionals" and businessmen - people from the same thin upper class layer as himself who have benefited from Musharaf's rule the most. He mentions economic growth but doesnt mention the growing disparity in wealth, or the strong inflationary rates that have turned the common man against the government (over 50% and sometimes close to 100% for basic household goods and foodstuff in the period Musharaf was in charge). Furthermore, much of this growth was driven not by Musharaf's policies but by the cash windfall the country received post 9/11 from remittances looking for sanctuary from tougher banking laws in the west and Middle Eastern investment from money from booming oil prices. At the same time privatization has followed at full steam, also providing a windfall for the country's rich, but doing little to provide any kind of relief to the common man. In fact, the reference in the Emergency Declaration to the judiciary blocking "economic development" is an obvious reference to the Supreme Court's ruling against the privatization of the Pakistan Steel Mills - a shocking scandal in which several senior governmnt officials participated to sell of the industry at a fraction of its worth (in return for alleged kickbacks).

Having met and spoken to various businesmen and CEOs of investment firms in Pakistan - the same people who are most enamoured of Musharaf and his economic policies - I have found that while they are for the most part secular in their personal outlook, their virulent nationalism often leaves them obsessed with theories of the coming "decline of the west", their anti-semitism, (one refered me to Henry Ford's "The International Jew" - an anti-semitic text given all the more legitimacy in their eyes for being linked to one of the scions of modern capitalism), and insistence on Pakistan's participation in a 'great game' to dominate the region by using Islamic militants as a tool of foreign policy. They may be believers in capitalism and secularism - but, like the old British colonial elite from whom they took charge of the country - they are no believers in democracy and are full of nothing but contempt for their fellow citizens.

Its fine for Mr Eterez to sit cosily in his London home and extol the virtues of martial law, but about the only achievement of which Musharaf could legitimately boast - the blooming of a free media under his reign - has been undone by this latest move. The press has been stifled - and prison terms will now be imposed on anyone who criticizes the government. A great way to support the growth of "civil society". Conceivably, I could be sentenced to 3 years imprisonment and fined for writing this blog post criticizing the government's move.

This gagging of the press comes in the wake of reporting from Swat where military forces have been surrendering in droves to the militants and giving undertakings not to serve in the armed forces anymore. The militants have been gleefully arranging press conferences and inviting press reporters to photograph the weapons, arms and ammunition - ranging from armoured cars to rocket launchers - that have been falling in to their hands from these mass surrenders. Instead of taking a good hard look at their own tactics and strategies, the army has decided it needs to gag the press in order to "preserve morale".

As President and Chief of the Army, Musharaf has presided over the largest loss of sovereign Pakistani territory since the 1971 war - to the very Islamic militants he nurtured to use as a foreign policy instrument in Afghanistan and Kashmir. This on top of his failed war in Kargil in 1998. At least Yahya Khan had the decency to resign after the 1971 war. Musharaf however refuses to do so despite his complete loss of credibility. If Pakistan is on the path to suicide, as Musharaf claimed in his address yesterday - then he is one of those whose actions are pushing it to the brink.

Bits and Bobs and BB

2007-11-03T06:23:00.000Z

Most outlandish statement of the day award goes to Shabaz Sharif, (brother of Nawaz Sharif who is now once again enjoying the hospitality of the Saudi government), who mentioned in a speech that he would like to see Bangladesh become part of Pakistan once again! What planet is he living one again?

CBS' 60 Minutes has finally 'outed' the intelligence source "curveball", who was the source that the American government based their allegations of Iraqi mobile chemical weapon laboratories on. The neocons still insist that Iraq had WMD.

The Grand Strategy Blog tries to figure out why BB is "so" popular in Pakistan. I have some alternative suggestions, but nows not the time to get into them. I would question though, whether she is as popular as the blogger seems to suggest. I would suggest that the PPP is more popular than BB herself is in Pakistan and that has something to do with building organized mass movements. As for her popularity in the western media - it may have something to do with the $250,000 PR campaign she launched to build up her image as this informative blog reports.

I should note here that I am undecided about which way I will vote in the coming elections, and that the PPP is one possibility. If I do vote for the PPP though, it will be despite Benazir Bhutto, not because of her. After all, as William Dalrymple wrote in the Guardian:

Few would argue with the proposition that democracy is almost always preferable to dictatorship; but it is often forgotten the degree to which Bhutto is the person who has done more than anything to bring Pakistan's strange variety of democracy - really a form of elective feudalism - into disrepute. During her first 20-month long premiership, astonishingly, she failed to pass a single piece of major legislation. Her reign was marked by massive human rights abuse: Amnesty International accused her government of having one of the world's worst records of custodial deaths, extrajudicial killings and torture. Bhutto's premiership was also distinguished by epic levels of corruption. In 1995 Transparency International named Pakistan one of the three most corrupt countries in the world. Bhutto and her husband, Asif Zardari - widely known as "Mr 10%" - faced allegations of plundering the country.

And here is a BBC article reminding us that even though the BB-Musharaf deal has led to the dropping of all the corruption cases against her and her husband in Pakistan, there are still plenty of cases abroad, including her involvement in the oil-for-food scandal in Iraq which allowed Saddam Hussain to evade sanctions and build up his personal wealth. Funny that the American media doesn't latch onto that one...

Pakistani Counter-Insurgency

2007-11-03T05:19:00.000Z

Today's schadenfreude award goes to this short report prepared by the neo-con think tank, the AEI, which examines the Pakistan counter-insurgency effort in the tribal belt and northern areas and, after criticizing the "elementary errors" made by the army, recommends that Pakistan should learn from India's successful counter-insurgency effort in Kashmir!

Its an interesting report, worth reading, but interestingly enough, the folks at the Indian policy blog, The Acorn are not entirely convinced. They point out that some of the steps advocated in the report actually backfired for the Indian army. Two points made are that cordon-and-search operations (CASO) that the AEI report recommends was found by the Indian army to alienate local inhabitants and the recruitment of former insurgents (ikhwanis) only met with mixed success.

An interesting point made though, and I think a valid one, was that the Indians soon learned that the use of artillery and airstrikes always did more harm than good and instead relied on flushing areas with huge numbers of ground troops to provide security for the local population and hinder the free movement of the insurgents. Fully one fourth of India's army was stationed in Kashmir. Soldiers were deployed on foot along entire roads and highways to check for IEDs before they were used by military convoys.

This is particularly important because firstly, as we can see in Swat, the Pakistani forces have lost their own freedom of movement and are confined in their bases and checkpoints. The militants can amass to attack and overrun specific targets and then disperse again at will, before the Pakistani army can bring significant force to bear on them. Proportionately, the Pakistani army has far fewer men to cover the areas where insurgents operate, and IEDs and suicide bombings are a major source of casualties. Furthermore, convoys move along unsecured routes and are easily attacked and overwhelmed. This was one of the "elementary mistakes" referred to in the AEI report. Several convoys have been attacked and overrun, including one in which over 200 soldiers were captured by the militants without a shot being fired.

In an interesting interview with one of the officers of a captured convoy, it was revealed that the soldiers had been told that a peace agreement had been reached with the militants and that they could travel through the area without hindrance as long as they remained in their vehicles. When the convoy was surrounded by locals asking what the soldiers were doing there, they kept radioing HQ for instructions. The local army commander kept radioing High Command for instructions. No one had any clear idea about what to do. Finally, after a long delay, the locals lost their patience and took the soldiers into captivity.

What is clear was the ineptitude and lack of clarity in the Pakistani army leadership's handling of the crisis. There is no clear idea of what the military objectives are, let alone how to go about securing them.

Benazir vs. Jemima: Round II

2007-11-03T04:36:00.000Z

I've been a little slow to pick up on this one, but its interesting nonetheless. Recently, Jemima Khan, ex-wife of Imran Khan wrote an op-ed piece blasting the western media's fawning acceptance of Bhutto's self-projected image as the saviour of democracy in Pakistan. There is, of course, history between the two, given BB's personal attacks on Jemima during the 1996 campaign, but everything Jemima has to say is true.

Of course the article could not go unanswered, and an editorial in the Daily Times - a Pakistani mouthpiece for the PPP - launched a counter-attack. Once again, the points raised in Jemima's article are ignored and the article seeks to discredit Jemima personally. There are some interesting reflections on the episode on the Indian policy blog, The Acorn.

The Swat Troubles

2007-11-01T06:24:00.000Z

The Glasshouse has an excellent summary of the history of militancy in Swat over the last couple of decades here.

And the Washington Post has an interesting post on why the huge sums of military aid coming in from the United States have made so little difference in Pakistan. It can be read here.

Genocidal Fantasies

2007-10-22T03:49:00.000Z

Richard Seymour on "The Genocidal Imagination of Christopher Hitchens". Its an article well worth reading, because it so thoroughly dissects much of the rhetoric that supports the war in iraq. Many of the linked sources are well worth reading as well.

The Benefits of Working With the CIA

2007-10-11T06:37:00.000Z

Iraqi President "Talabani, a Kurd, is in the bizarre position of defending one of Saddam's top generals convicted of war crimes against Kurds." This is because the gentleman in question was recruited by the CIA in the late 90s to help with a secret plot to overthrow Saddam. What tangled webs we weave....