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Sunday,
September 28, 2003, Chandigarh, India  
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Pervez to stay on as army chief until democracy in place Bush calls on nations for help in Iraq
Another 15,000 US troops told to prepare Yashwant Sinha seeks NAM help in Iraq |
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| UN ready to resolve Nepal conflict Kathmandu, September 27 Amidst renewed violence in Nepal following the withdrawal of a ceasefire by Maoists, the United Nations has said it is ready to help the government and the rebels resolve the conflict, but will not get directly involved.
Window on Pakistan Pope tipped for
Nobel Saudi marries 4 in one night to spite ex-wife
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Pervez to stay on as army chief until democracy in place
Ottawa, September 27 Addressing the Canadian Parliament’s Foreign Affairs Committee yesterday, he said: “I do understand this is not democratic, and I’ve said this very openly in Pakistan but under the present circumstances of turmoil in the region, internationally and internally, there is a requirement of stability and unity of command that I am providing.” He said he would quit as army chief once it was clear that the country had turned into a stable democracy. “The moment the democratic structure stabilises, I will remove the uniform,” The Daily Times quoted him as saying. Pakistan, he said, was playing a pivotal role in fighting terrorism. “We are carrying out the fight in all dimensions and aspersions against Pakistan in the context of our western border are totally wrong,” he said. There was no question of Pakistan overlooking terrorism, as the country itself had been a victim of the menace. On the Kashmir dispute, he said Islamabad favoured a peaceful resolution to it but emphasised that it was the core dispute between India and Pakistan and would not be rolled under the carpet. He also rejected Indian Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee’s allegation of Pakistan sponsoring cross-border terrorism, saying that “the accusation is wrong as nothing is happening on the Line of Control.” Earlier at a dinner hosted by Canadian Prime Minister Jean Chretien, he asked Canada to help persuade India to resume talks and to try to solve differences over the Kashmir dispute. “We stand ready to revive a dialogue with India through a sustained process of negotiations. Unfortunately, we are denied the forum of dialogue,” he said. “We are concerned with both Pakistani and Indian nuclear programmes, as they diminish regional and global security,” Mr Chretien said. GeneralMusharraf reiterated that Pakistan would not proliferate. “That is a guarantee from the government of Pakistan and from myself,” he said. He also addressed the Canadian Institute of Strategic Studies, and told them that Pakistan was not in favour of a war with India. Canada could play a role in Kashmir because it had equally good relations with Pakistan and India, he said.
— ANI |
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Bush calls on nations for help in Iraq
Washington, September 27 Making a special pitch for Iraq, Mr Bush warned in his weekly radio address: “If freedom and progress falter in the Middle East, the region will continue to export violence that takes lives in America and around the world.” In the struggle between terrorist killers and peaceful nations, there is no neutral ground. All nations must join in confronting this threat where it arises — before terrorists can inflict even greater harm and suffering, he said. “And all nations should stand with the people of Afghanistan and Iraq as they build a future based on freedom and democracy,” Mr Bush said. The US President said Iraq’s new leaders were showing the openness and tolerance that democracy require — and also the courage. “Yet every young democracy needs the help of friends. America is providing that help to Iraq, and all nations of goodwill should do their part, as well.” “Earlier this week, I spoke at the United Nations —which has become, like our country, a target of terrorism... I expressed America’s determination to fight and win the war on terror — for the safety of our own people and for the benefit of all mankind,” he said. Mr Bush said the USA was now working with friends and allies on a new Security Council resolution which will expand the UN’s role in Iraq. The stakes in Iraq are high, for the Middle East and beyond, Mr Bush noted. “If democracy and tolerance and peace advance in that region, it will undermine the bitterness and resentment that feed terrorism. The terrorists understand this — so they have chosen to fight against order and liberty in Iraq,” Mr Bush said.
— PTI |
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Another 15,000 US troops told to prepare for Iraq Washington, September 27 The 30th Infantry Brigade from North Carolina and the 39th Infantry Brigade from Arkansas, each with 5,000 soldiers, were ordered to join active duty on October 1 and October 12 respectively. They will undergo three months’ training before going to Iraq early next year for a year. The army also put the 5,000-strong 81st National Guard Brigade from Washington on notice for a likely call to active duty in Iraq. The call-up of the part-time soldiers from North Carolina and Arkansas for duty in Iraq — where the USA already has 130,000 troops — was expected because they had earlier been alerted for probable duty. The new alert order followed statements by top US officers this week that more National Guard and reserve troops would be needed because of reluctance on the part of other countries to answer President George W. Bush’s call for help in stabilising the country.
— Reuters |
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USA for Iraqi constitution within 6 months United Nations, September 27 It was the first time a top US official spoke of any kind of a deadline in an apparent effort to assuage demands by France and other UN Security Council members, who want a rapid movement toward self-rule in Iraq. But the USA and others had envisaged a major UN role in writing a new constitution, which would be followed by steps towards elections. However, after two bombings of UN headquarters in Baghdad last month, UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan was pulling out most staff. Mr Powell said his proposal did not envision a precise deadline, which implied serious consequences. “The term deadline suggests something awful happens at the end of six months,” he said at a news conference after a high-level meeting on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. “Six months seems to be a good timeline to put out there for the creation of a constitution, and also to give a sense of momentum and purpose to the effort of moving toward the full restoration of authority over Iraq to the Iraqi people,” he said. Mr Powell referred to an Iraqi working group on a constitution, which is expected to begin meeting next week. “Once they start their work, six months is an appropriate time,” he said.
— Reuters |
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Yashwant Sinha seeks NAM help in Iraq
United Nations, September 27 “As members of NAM, we must strive to see that full sovereignty is restored to Iraqis as early as possible and that a credible, viable and widely accepted political road map is drawn and quickly implemented,’’ Foreign Minister Yashwant Sinha told a NAM ministerial meeting of the Coordination Bureau convened yesterday at the global body on the sidelines of the ongoing UN General Assembly session. The crisis in West Asia between Israel and Palestine also figured at the ministerial meeting. “Those who compare other issues with Palestine do great injustice to the Palestinian cause. India lends its full support to putting an end to the spiralling cycle of violence, to violent or precipitate action which can only further complicate the search for peace,’’ Mr Sinha said. Also, a high-level meeting of the diplomatic quartet — the United Nations, the USA, the European Union and Russia — yesterday called on both sides to take immediate action to revive the so-called road map for peace in West Asia. In his speech, Mr Sinha said: “We should lend support to the quartet to take the process forward’’. “NAM should express its unequivocal view that terrorism, understood as the killing of innocents, of the shedding of the blood of women and children is an evil to be condemned and combated by all of us,’’ he urged. — UNI |
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UN ready to resolve Nepal conflict Kathmandu, September 27 “The United Nations is ready to provide its good offices to resolve the conflict in Nepal as already stated by Secretary-General Kofi Annan,” newly appointed UN Resident Coordinator to Nepal Matthew Kahane was quoted as saying yesterday by government-run daily ‘The Rising Nepal’. “But both sides must first agree to the kind of role (the UN should play) to ease the problem,” he added. Mr Kahane said the UN would not be directly involved in the process. “We, however, have to think over what and how it can be done as the UN has made significant contributions in the peacekeeping process in other parts of the world,” he added. “As the existing conflict is a complex and sensitive issue, it should be resolved quietly and sincerely,” he said. Nepal has been witnessing almost daily incidents of violence since the Maoists called off a seven-month ceasefire late last month after the failure of peace talks with the government. Yesterday, however, the rebels announced a nine-day unilateral ceasefire from October 2, coinciding with the Hindu festival of Vijaya Dashami. Mr Kahane condemned the Maoist attacks on development and social infrastructures, saying these would not serve the interests of the poor, but only worsen their problems.
— PTI |
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Window on Pakistan Military dictators in Pakistan, too many by now, have rarely solved that country’s problems. Whether Ayub Khan or Zia-ul-Haq, they rarely showed any concern for the problems of the ordinary common people. But they messed up all the time, killing nascent democracy and increasing poverty and disparities. Nevertheless, the present self-appointed ruler has not only designed a new constitution, but also installed a prime minister who cannot be more than a glittering zero. For political theorists, Gen. Pervez Musharraf is the right subject for a deeper analysis and probe. After all these experiments and inventions, the general went live on Pak TV to declare that if Kalabagh dam in the Sindh river was not contracted immediately, Pakistan would face a serious water shortage. Maybe the President cum army chief is right. Given the rising population graph and the consequent need for food and other agriculture commodities, there is need to have as many as dams as possible. But then this decision has to be arrived at after considering environmental issues and also the good such a dam would do to the country. Who’s to decide? One man in his wisdom or the nation as a whole through a truly elected national assembly, aided by a body of neutral experts? Opinion indeed is sharply divided. In fact ever since Musharraf floated this boom; there had been a spate of statements in Pakistani press and a variety of articles. One such expert concerned with the environment suggested that there has to be some kind of scientific review of the canal system and how these are destroying the natural river water basins. He had India too in mind and pleaded that the two countries could benefit immensely from such an exercise. About Kalabagh as columnist Ayaz Amir suggested in Dawn, “Punjab is in favour of the Kalabagh Dam and indeed to listen to Punjab babus you’d think the country’s future depended on it. Sindh and the Frontier think otherwise. Sindh’s case is simple. A huge dam at Kalabagh, it says, will reduce the flow of water down the Indus. Less water flowing into the sea will starve the complex ecosystem of the Indus delta and allow the sea to come further inland thereby turning more of Sindh’s coastline into a saline desert. In other words, less water down the Indus would mean irreparable harm to a way of life and a system of agriculture in place for the last 5000 years.” The Frontier’s case is that a dam at Kalabagh would raise the water level in the fertile, central districts of the province, thereby ruining their fertility. In Daily Times, Munir Attaullah, another writer suggested a wider debate. “ I don’t think there is any escape from consensus building on such a vital issue. The process is tiresome and tedious. It may politically embarrass the ruling party. But that is the price the president must pay for the stubbornly, abrasive and divisive political stance. In fact, many saw same kind of sharp polarisation as was evident on the issue of the national language — Urdu or Bengali — or who would rule after the fateful 1969 elections. Or as Amir put it: “Right from 1947, the Punjab oligarchy, with no little help from the upper-class diaspora from India, has had a great facility to put national questions in a patriotic frame. Urdu had to be the national language and not Bengali because that is what patriotism demanded. One Unit, suppressing Bengali aspirations, entering into western defence pacts and suppressing democracy itself were all justified at the bar of a higher and often mysterious patriotism.” Thus except some angry sputtering and vague invocations to the larger national interest, the babus from Punjab and other enthusiasts of the Kalabagh Dam there is no convincing answer. And why is Punjab so keen on the dam? It hopes to irrigate the last frontier: the unwatered western districts (Bhakkar, Leiah) and the lands yet to be brought under the plough down south in Bahawalpur and Rahim Yar Khan. Who stands to gain the most when this last frontier is crossed? But it would a clear loss for Sindh and Frontier province. And, they would not be willing to oblige this time. |
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Pope tipped for Nobel Peace Prize OSLO, September 27 The five-member committee meets on Monday to pick the winner of the 1.3 million dollar prize, which will be announced on October 10. Experts say the committee faces a hard choice from 165 candidates after a year overshadowed by war in Iraq. “Pope John Paul is at the top of my list,” said Mr Stein Toennesson, director of the Peace Research Institute, Oslo, who has predicted some of the previous winners. He said the Pope’s frailty meant 2003 might be the Norwegian committee’s last chance to reward a lifetime of preaching reconciliation among religions, despite widespread opposition to the Pope’s stand against birth control. He said he favoured Brazil’s Lula, who had championed a world campaign against hunger, followed by Russian human rights activist Sergei Kovalev and Hashem Aghajari, a jailed Iranian dissident.
— Reuters |
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Saudi marries 4 in one night to spite ex-wife Riyadh, September 27 After the failed marriage which only lasted several months, the man’s wife told him that “no woman would ever marry him”, al-Watan newspaper said. “So he swore to marry four women just to prove her wrong,” it said. Polygamy is relatively common in Saudi Arabia, a conservative society with deep Islamic and tribal roots. Under the country’s Islamic law, men are allowed to marry up to four wives at the same time.
— Reuters |
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United Nations, September 27
DHAKA: The police used batons on Saturday to disperse protesters and a political activist was gunned down as Bangladesh was shut down by an opposition-called strike, officials and witnesses said. The police baton-charged some 50 women activists of the main opposition Awami League who tried to break through a security barricade in Dhaka’s Dhanmandi area where their party’s leader Sheikh Hasina Wajed lives, witnesses said.
— AFP
