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Sunday,
January 26, 2003, Chandigarh, India  
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Frenchmen’s killing: 2 charged with murder Pak calls for unconditional talks with India Infiltration in J&K on rise: USA |
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WINDOW ON PAKISTAN War on Iraq: USA boasts of support
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Frenchmen’s killing: 2 charged with murder Islamabad, January 25 The two, Asif Zaheer and Bashir Ahmed, were charged with murder, terrorism, and conspiracy at a hearing in an anti-terrorism court headed by judge Shabbir Ahmed in Karachi and the trial is set to begin on February 1. The development comes amidst reports that French investigators were dissatisfied over the Pakistan police refusal to grant them permission to meet the prime suspect Asif Zaheer who reportedly confessed “voluntarily” about his involvement. French investigators had asked officers concerned to arrange a meeting with Zaheer to check the veracity of the police claim regarding his confessional statement. However, the police rejected the request asking the French team to rely on its own investigations, Pakistani daily, The News said. The team of five French investigators, which arrived in Karachi earlier this week to discuss the case with Pakistani officials, had also raised some “serious questions” after receiving a presentation on Thursday and the police was unable to answer their queries, the paper said. It claimed that the US FBI officials had cleared Zaheer in the case but Pakistani officials continue to insist that he was the real culprit. Fourteen persons, including 11 French engineers, working on submarine project were killed when a suicide bomber rammed car packed with explosives while they were leaving Sheroton hotel in Karachi in May last year. The FBI agents, using the latest equipment, interrogated Asif Zaheer but did not find his involvement. To date, the police has no material evidence to substantiate Asif’s involvement in the blast, the daily claimed. “Once again the police fabricated a story to prove that the involvement of Asif Zaheer in the Sheraton bombing case by producing alleged eyewitnesses before the court who saw him on the day of blast”, a senior police officer has been quoted as saying by the daily. “Though, he (Zaheer) was in touch with some Jehadi elements, he had no knowledge of the Sheraton bomb blast case,” the official said. The two charged today face death penalty if convicted.
PTI |
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Pak calls for unconditional talks with India Islamabad, January 25 “Solution to any problem lies in diplomatic engagement and not in shying away from it or resorting to deployment of troops in threatening postures,” Mr
Kasuri, who is currently on a visit to the USA, said in Los Angeles. While calling for immediate resumption of unconditional Indo-Pakistan talks, he said “the Kashmir issue should be viewed in the light of the UN resolutions.”
PTI |
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Infiltration in J&K on rise: USA Washington, January 25 “Infiltration has gone down and come back up somewhat... We do believe infiltration should stop completely and that is an issue that we do continue to work with the government of Pakistan,” Department
spokesman Richard Boucher told reporters yesterday. He was responding to questions on the reported remarks of US Ambassador to Pakistan Nancy Powell that Pakistan should stop being a “platform for terrorism” and must keep militants from infiltrating Jammu and Kashmir, which irked both the fundamentalists and the Pakistan government. Mr Boucher said President Pervez Musharraf had given assurances that Pakistan would stop infiltration “and that is something that we work with him on.” He said Mrs Powell’s Thursday remarks in Karachi were “rather misquoted”, where she echoed General Musharraf’s assurances that Pakistan would not allow its territory to be used for any terrorist activity. “That has been a pledge that we have taken seriously and something we have continued to work with Pakistan on,” he said. Mr Boucher said he was not worried about the calls by some groups to expel Mrs Powell. “No, I think this is a matter where she and General Musharraf have a clear understanding of our work together and what needs to be done.”
PTI |
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WINDOW ON PAKISTAN THE US-led military campaign against Al-Qaida and the Taliban
in the wake of the terrorist strike in America brought Pakistan in the coveted company of the sole surviving super power, but the relationship was an unnatural one. This is how most watchers of Pakistan and Afghanistan looked at the development. But now that marriage of convenience seems to be on the rocks. The Pakistani media has been carrying reports and analyses for a few weeks expressing the fear that after Iraq it may be the turn of Pakistan to face the American ire. President Pervez Musharraf too has warned his country, though with the obvious motive of silencing the critics of his America policy, that there is an “impending danger” of Pakistan becoming the target of attack of “Western forces” after the Iraqi crisis is over. The News carried a brilliant article by Imtiaz Alam on January 20 elaborating on the subject. He has mentioned three main factors which have made the West understand the dangerous state of affairs in Pakistan. “One, the (Pakistan) establishment did not take sufficient measures to eradicate terrorist and extremist structures .... It rather continued to harbour some on the Kashmir front and close eyes on some others, although they had turned their guns on Islamabad and General Musharraf became their main target. Two, the US administration found the Pakistani authorities wanting on many counts, especially the FBI hunt for Al-Qaida elements. Third, the North Korean nuclear brinkmanship created serious doubts about our (Pakistan’s) nuclear programme as extensively suspected and reported by the world Press, especially the American media.” The writer points out that the trouble Pakistan is faced with today is basically the wages of its own sins which it committed after adopting a “false doctrine of strategic depth”. “A pro-militancy policy for more than two decades had created a widespread network of jihadi militias, civilian and military structures, that were attuned to militancy and often adventurism. It was just not enough to change one external aspect of a flawed security doctrine. What was required was that all spectrums of militancy should have been completely dispensed with....” But General Musharraf thought that by simply reverting back to the client-patron relationship with the USA in the wake of 9/11, the world would be made to overlook the widespread Kalashnikov culture that had grown firm roots in Pakistan. He was fooling only himself. The US media sees a nuclearised Pakistan as the biggest threat to world peace mainly because of its past as well as present policies. Any country using terrorism as an instrument of state policy is bound to meet this fate as terrorism is known to be a double-edged weapon. Very few people in Pakistan are going to listen to what General Musharraf says on the deteriorating US-Pakistan relations. The strong anti-American sentiments are so dominating in the Pakistanis’ psyche that the more the ruling General speaks on it the more hated he will become in the eyes of the public. The obvious beneficiary will be the religious right, which has already captured power in two strategically significant states ----- the NWFP and Baluchistan. But if he does not warn the Pakistanis of the “impending danger”, his position will get reduced to that of Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat. In fact, General Musharraf is already being treated like Mr Arafat if well-known columnist Mushahid Hussain is to be believed. He has highlighted this point in an article carried in Urdu daily Jang on January 7. So, the ruling General, who emerged as the major gainer in Pakistan after the September 11 episode, is likely to be the biggest loser irrespective of the stand he takes. The reason is not difficult to find. The USA has the history of ruthlessly pursuing its own global interests. An ally is an ally so long as it fits in with the American scheme of things. The Pakistanis should, therefore, not get surprised if the US administration has put their country on the list of those nations whose expatriate citizens living in America have to get themselves registered under the Immigration and Naturalisation Service. The move, according to the Pakistani media, will affect over one lakh people. They have to suffer as a result of the short-sighted policies of the successive governments in Islamabad. Even now anti-US demonstrations are held in different parts of Pakistan almost regularlty. Can America sit back and watch all this quietly? |
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War on Iraq: USA boasts of support Zurich, January 25 Mr Powell said these unnamed governments, like Washington, would prefer a new UN Security Council resolution authorising the use of force against Iraq, but would not insist on that. “There are quite a number of countries that already have indicated that they would like to have another resolution, but without another resolution they will be with us,’’ he told reporters on his way to the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland. “I don’t want to give you names or give you a count...but we would not be alone, that’s for sure. I could rattle off at least a dozen off memory, and I think that there will be more.’’ Mr Powell chided Security Council members who voted for a November 8 resolution threatening Iraq with “serious consequences’’ but who now have reservations about attacking Iraq. Mr Powell predicted today the USA would eventually sit down to direct talks with North Korea, when it thinks the time and circumstances are right. In another sign the Bush administration was not unduly alarmed by North Korea’s nuclear programmes, Mr Powell told reporters the situation on the Korean peninsula had “settled down a little bit’’ and he was optimistic diplomacy could work. Through months of angry rhetoric by both sides, North Korea has been pressing for direct talks with the USA. But Washington says it wants to talk only about how the North Koreans will dismantle a uranium enrichment plant and allow international inspectors to resume monitoring work at another nuclear complex. Mr Powell suggested that Washington was deliberately playing hard to get and did not want to endorse the North Korean view that their problem was only with the USA.
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