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Sunday,
August 3, 2003, Chandigarh, India  
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Taming the mullahs, Pervez style Pakistan’s complex political picture is becoming murkier by the day. It is sheer expediency that is dictating the politics in this military managed democracy. At one level the military under the command of the President and the army chief, Gen Pervez Musharraf has stitched an alliance with the army’s arch enemy, Altaf Hussein’s Muttahida Quami Muhaz (MQM) in Pakistan’s worst governed province of Sindh, and at another level the cardinals of the Muttahida Majlis-e-Amal (MMA), seem to have agreed not to make any fuss against the President. Pakistan cable operators told to
enforce ban on Indian channels
 Bodies of Saddam’s sons buriedTirkit, Iraq, August 2 The bodies of Saddam Hussein’s sons Uday and Qusay, killed last week by US troops, were buried in the deposed dictator’s home town of Tikrit today, witnesses said. Members of the family clan mourn next to the graves of toppled leader Saddam Hussein's two sons Uday and Qusay during the funeral in the northern Iraqi town of Ouja, near the deposed dictator's hometown of Tikrit, on Saturday. —Reuters photo |
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India trying to block aid package, says Pak Islamabad, August 2 “We regret that India is in a position to block Pakistan’s interests. India should act in a more mature manner,” Foreign Office spokesman Masood Khan was quoted as saying today. Alleging that India was lobbying in the US Congress against the aid package, Mr Khan told Dawn newspaper that it was “not a very helpful development”. Disbursement of the package has been linked to Pakistan’s continued commitment to the global anti-terrorism campaign, nuclear non-proliferation and restoration of democracy in the country. The US President has to certify every year that Pakistan is adhering to these preconditions. Pakistani diplomats in Washington are said to be working with members of Congress and the Bush administration to water down the tone of the Bill, according to the report. “There is a high probability that the Senate version will change in favour of Pakistan,” Mr Khan said. Last month, an amendment was introduced in the Foreign Aid Authorisation Bill in the US Congress. The amendment, passed with 382 to 42 votes in the House of Representatives, made it binding on the US President to certify to Congress that Pakistan had “closed all known terrorist training camps operating in Pakistan and Pakistan-held Kashmir.” Meanwhile, despite India’s firm denial, Pakistan today alleged that Indian missions in Afghanistan were “bases of RAW and its accessories” which were indulging in terrorism and subversion in this country. “Indian Consulates in Jalalabad and Kandahar are a veritable base of RAW and its accessories,” Pakistan Foreign Office spokesman said in a statement. “India must restrain its intelligence agencies from organising, financing and abetting acts of terrorism, sectarianism and violence in Pakistan,” the spokesman said. Taking exception to “preposterous” Pakistani allegations, India had told Islamabad last week to desist from doing anything that would affect the peace process. —
PTI |
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Window
on Pakistan Pakistan’s complex political picture is becoming murkier by the day. It is sheer expediency that is dictating the politics in this military managed democracy. At one level the military under the command of the President and the army chief, Gen Pervez Musharraf has stitched an alliance with the army’s arch enemy, Altaf Hussein’s Muttahida Quami Muhaz (MQM) in Pakistan’s worst governed province of Sindh, and at another level the cardinals of the Muttahida Majlis-e-Amal (MMA), seem to have agreed not to make any fuss against the President. The General could wear his uniform for another one and a half years and the mullahs will also not insist on the Legal Framework Order, through which Musharraf did a hatchet job of the Pakistani constitution. It is through the LFO that the present army dictatorship is sanctified. He could rule undisturbed, if this arrangement works out well. In return, Musharraf will let the mullahs govern in peace in the North West Frontier Province and share power in Baluchistan. The sword he had hung of getting the MMA legislators sacked for not having proper qualifications will no longer disturb them. He will also rein in the raucous district Nazisms in these two provinces. In Sindh where the MQM, the party which has been a thorn in the chest of the army for decades, the present arrangement could mean withdrawal of criminal cases against dozens of MQM activists and leaders. And, in return the MQM could forget the military’s past nefarious designs and actions. If Gen Musharraf is able to finally work out a deal with the cardinals of the MMA who recently visited India and made the right kind of noises for peace and settlement, he would be taking a leaf out of the book of his predecessor Gen. Zia-ul- Haq who had these noisy imams and mullahs in his tight embrace for 11 long years. Columnist Ayaz Amir observed in the daily Dawn,
"Since the halcyon days of General Zia, the Pakistan army and the religious parties have been bound in strong ties of spiritual and temporal kinship. Forged in the killing fields of Afghanistan, this kinship spread to the political sphere, promoting extremism and hampering the growth of democracy. Anyone with doubts on this score should consult Lt-Gen Hamid Gul, once head of the ISI, who has always taken enormous pride in helping, create the right-wing political alliance, the IJI, whose sole purpose was to thwart the Pakistan Peoples Party’s march to power. Sounds too Machiavellian? Far more than anything to do with intelligence, the intelligence agencies have excelled at such political games.” Most observers see this pact as the replication of the previous political chicanery. In any event, being in the military’s corner is nothing new for the mullahs. If an agreement is clinched, Pakistan will only be going back to one of its first principles — the military and the mullahs locked in their primeval embrace. In the process, the dynamics of Pakistan’s politics gets impeded. Musharraf and the mullahs therefore are moving towards a dream bargain. Musharraf gets both longevity and legitimisation while the cardinals of Islam; the mullahs preserve their miserable government and a half in the two provinces along the Afghan border. And take this arrangement into another context of what is being stated in some political circles of Pakistan. The country is being given a sub contract of Afghanistan, the country it has ruled and ruined since the days of Soviet invasion more than two decades back. It is stated that since Pakistan has steadfastly stood with America in its war against terrorism and has helped in many ways in it establishing its proxy rule in Afghanistan, it should be rewarded with a sub contract. Also it would keep India, Russia and Iran out of troubled-torn Afghanistan, so runs the argument. But the Afghan President, Hamid Karzai in an interview to Ahmed Rashid of Far Eastern Economic Review, said some Afghans felt there was an understanding between Pakistan and the United States that Afghanistan should be “sub-contracted” to Pakistan, adding emphatically, “I want nobody to be under any illusions that Afghanistan will allow any other country to control it. We are in control of our own destiny. We want good relations with Pakistan and other neighbours. We also oppose extremism, terrorism and fundamentalism coming into Afghanistan from outside. We have one page where there is a tremendous desire for friendship and the need for each other. But there is the other page of the consequences of what will happen if intervention continues, if cross-border terrorism, violence and extremism continue. The Afghans will have no choice but to stand up and stop it.” Are Musharraf and his new mates to be, listening to this? |
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Pakistan cable operators told to enforce ban on Indian channels Karachi, August 2 “We have reinforced the ban as these channels do not come under the approved eligible list,” chairman of the Pakistan Electronic Media Regulatory Authority (PEMRA) Mian Javed told AFP. The ban affected Star Plus, Star News, Zee Cinema, Zee Gold, Sony and B4U, while PEMRA has also imposed a ban on broadcasting Indian DVDs and VCDs over cable networks, a senior official said. Pakistan had slapped the ban on relaying Indian television channels over private cable networks after the December 2001 attack on Indian Parliament which New Delhi blamed on the Islamabad-backed militants. Hoping that the ban will be lifted with the recent peace overtures, cable operators had started showing Indian television channels, which are extremely popular among Pakistanis. The renewed calls for the ban came as a surprise to many viewers, who were pleased at the resumption of Indian channels. “The timing is surprising as the ban has come at a time when the peace process between India and Pakistan has started,” Rubina Jabber, a housewife, said. However, Javed denied the enforcement had anything to do with politics. —
AFP |
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India bags oil contract in Syria Damascus (Syria), August 2 The deal has been struck in principle between ONGC (Videsh) and Syrian Petroleum Company in the face of stiff international competition. The issue came in for detailed discussion during meetings External Affairs Minister Yashwant Sinha had with Syria President Bashar Al Assad and Deputy Prime Minister and Foreign Minister Farouk Al Shaara during the day. “The contract, which has been achieved in face of a large number of the international firms bidding for it, will be signed in the next few weeks, Mr Khan said. Mr Khan said after Mr Sinha’s meetings that ONGC (Videsh) would work with an American firm to enhance oil production in Syria’s Dier e Zour oil reserves in the desert. The Indian company would also explore the possibility of finding new oil and gas deposits.” —
PTI |
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Bodies of Saddam’s sons buried Tikrit, Iraq, August 2 They said the bodies were wrapped in Iraqi flags and buried in a local cemetery, after arriving from Baghdad in an ambulance. There was a heavy US military presence and journalists were prevented from photographing or filming the burial. —
Reuters |
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