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Tuesday,
May 29, 2001, Chandigarh, India  
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Wahid stops short of emergency Jakarta, May 28 Indonesia’s embattled President Abdurrahman Wahid today ordered his top security minister to enforce law and order, but stopped short of his threatened declaration of a state of emergency. ‘Accept India as N-power’ Awami League to fight for secularism Indian defrauded
bank of $ 88m |
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Sunni strike call Karachi, May 28 The Pakistani port city of Karachi was mostly closed today as residents obeyed a call by a hardline Islamic group for a one-day strike to protest against the murder of its leader. Muslim rebels herd captives to island Filipino soldiers arrive via a Philippine Air Force C-130 plane in southern city of Puerto Princesa May 28, 2001 to augment troops pursuing kidnappers of 20 people from a tourist resort island of Los Palmas in Palawan province. Washington, May 28 The ousted former Pakistan Prime Minister, Mr Nawaz Sharif, now in exile in Saudi Arabia, had not signed a mercy petition or accepted for 10 years as made put by the military regime, his youngest son Hassan Nawaz said here. 
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Wahid stops short of emergency Jakarta, May 28 He also repeated his warnings that the giant country would disintegrate if he was ousted. “I order the Coordinating Minister of Politics and Security to take action and special steps needed in coordination with security forces to tackle the crisis, to enforce law and order and security as soon as possible,” the near-blind Wahid said in a decree read for him by an official. Meanwhile, Indonesian police chiefs have put the force on full alert on fears of political violence spreading, uniformed operations chief Brigadier-General Sylvanus Wenas said today. “That means there is a situation developing here. We are on high alert so that we will not miss anything,” he told reporters, without elaborating. The level one alert declared by police is one step below their own emergency alert, which is different again from a national state of emergency. Hundreds of enraged supporters of the beleaguered Wahid today attacked buildings linked to rival politicians and burned tyres in the cleric’s stronghold of East Java, the local Metro TV reported. Metro said supporters had thrown rocks and smashed windows of the Pasuruan party office of Vice-President Megawati Sukarnoputri, Mr Wahid’s estranged deputy who appears to have spurned his offers of compromise over the country’s deepening political crisis. The station said a university in Sidoardjo town belonging to a Muslim organisation linked to leading Wahid critic Amien Rais had also been attacked by crowds. The police said it had managed to drive the protesters off. Metro TV said the mobs were now burning tyres in the streets of both towns. Meanwhile, Mr Wahid’s chances of clinging to power have dimmed after leaders of Parliament’s main parties said they would pursue his impeachment despite his pleas for compromise and fears that he might declare martial law and dissolve the legislature. The factional chiefs have flatly rejected a plan by Mr Wahid to surrender most of his powers to popular Vice-President Megawati Sukarnoputri. They said his offer to become a virtual figurehead leader was not enough. “The political crisis will continue as long as (Wahid) holds onto power,” the Jakarta Post quoted one factional leader, Mr Ali Marwan Hanan, as saying after a meeting of top officials from several parties late on Saturday. The 500-member legislature, which has formally censured Mr Wahid twice over allegations of corruption, now seems set on Wednesday to demand that a higher national assembly hold a special session that could remove him from office by August. Mr Wahid, who 18 months ago became Indonesia’s first democratically elected President after four decades of dictatorship, has denied any wrongdoing in two graft scandals. Mr Wahid, however, claims that the quest to oust him is illegal and is being sponsored by forces linked to the nation’s old authoritarian regime who want to end democratic reform. Sources close to the President said today he had no intention of resigning and would keep trying to broker a compromise.
AP, Reuters |
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‘Accept India as N-power’ Washington, May 28 “New Delhi’s claim that it requires a nuclear deterrent against its main nuclear rival, China, or against an unstable nuclear-capable Pakistan, which maintains close ties with China, is hard to refute even with the most compelling non-proliferation arguments,” Mr Ashley J. Tellis, Senior Policy Analyst of the Rand
Corporation, said in an essay. He said: “Indian policy makers are committed to using their strategic nuclear assets as instruments of retribution in case deterrence fails rather than as tools of defence and warfighting in pursuit of operational advantage.” The competition between China and India is moderated by these countries’ small arsenals and public commitments to no-first-use policies with both countries routinely maintaining their nuclear capabilities at relatively low levels of readiness, Mr Tellis, an NRI, said. Stating that the situation involving India and Pakistan is more problematic, he said “Pakistan is a ‘weak state’ that is highly concerned about Indian threats to its security.” “Pakistan is not only weaker than India but is probably growing weaker in absolute terms as well,” he added. At the Pakistani end, the most important factor contributing to stability is the fact that Islamabad’s nuclear arsenal is not maintained routinely at hair-trigger, or even at high levels of readiness, Mr Tellis said. He said at the Indian end, the most important factor for maintaining stability is New Delhi’s calculated decision to respond to Pakistani efforts at “strategic diversion” through reactive means alone. “New Delhi has carefully refrained from pursuing any military strategies that would provide Islamabad with either the excuse or the opportunity to brandish its nuclear capabilities,” he said.
PTI |
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Awami League to fight for secularism Dhaka, May 27 The assassinated military ruler, General Ziaur Rahman, dropped from the constitution the pledge of implementing secularism as one of the state principles and replaced it with a pledge of the ‘absolute trust and faith on the almighty Allah’. The minority community of Bangladesh — Hindus, Christians and Buddhists — has felt insecure for the past 30 years. Now, it has raised the demand for re-incorporation of the earlier provision. In the constitution of the country adopted on November 4, 1972, the principles of nationalism, democracy, secularism and socialism were incorporated by the original draftees and the constituent assembly adopted them. But after assassination of the founding father Sheikh Mujibur Rahman on August 15, 1975, the former military ruler General Ziaur Rahman by a proclamation amended the constitution in 1977. The amendments and other Martial Law Proclamations were ratified by the Fifth Amendment of the Constitution adopted in parliament formed through election in 1979. Himself a freedom fighter, he initiated changes in the constitution to transform the newly emerged nation as a Muslim country. The Awami League blames that he initiated the process of destroying the spirit of liberation and turning the country into a place with Pakistani ideals through rehabilitation of pro-Pakistani, anti- liberation forces. During Awami League rule, the Muslim League and Jamat-e-Islami were banned and he lifted the ban. Another former military ruler through the adoption of the Eighth Amendment of the constitution in 1988 declared Islam as state religion, changing the character of the country. However, the constitutional provision says, ‘other religions may be practised in peace and harmony’. But the Supreme Court of Bangladesh in a verdict declared the amendment on state religion as ultra vires, but not yet removed from the constitution through amendment. Sources in the ruling Awami League hinted that this issue was likely to be one of the main electoral pledges of the party in the coming elections, not just to woo minority voters but also implement its own ideals. In that case, the AL will attack both the BNP and the JP on this issue. Ultra Islamic parties — the Jamaat-e-Islami and Islami Oikkyo Jote are allies of the BNP, the Jatiya Party is also pro-Islami and as such none of these parties will support any such issue. |
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Indian defrauded bank of $ 88m Toronto, May 28 Rakesh Saxena shot to international headlines in 1995-96 when he was accused of embezzling Canadian $88-million from the Bangkok Bank of Commerce. He has since been living in Vancouver under house arrest and fighting extradition to Thailand. After Saxena’s escape, the Thai police finally caught up with him at Whistler, a ski resort near Vancouver when the Royal Canadian Mounted Police arrested him as he was preparing to leave Canada on a false identity. The Thai police then sought his extradition. In June 1996, British Columbia Supreme Court Judge Wally Oppal, an Indo-Canadian, released Saxena after he posted a $2-million bail. Under court orders he pays Canadian 40,000 a month for his own guards and he has also been fighting his extradition to Thailand, says a two-page report in Globe and Mail. For his $2-million bail, Saxena paid $1-million cash and pledged without deposit $500,000 and an additional $500,000 from a third party acting as a surety. Saxena is only allowed to go to his lawyer’s office, a hospital facility and a court. The Canadian daily says Saxena has also been charged with culpable homicide, extortion and making death threats in India. He has, however, not been convicted of any offence.
IANS |
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Good response to
Sunni strike call Karachi, May 28 Shops, schools and businesses were shuttered, while public transport stayed off the roads after a night of sporadic violence that saw at least six buses torched and isolated shooting incidents, witnesses said. The hardline Sunni Tehrik, or Sunni Movement, issued the nationwide strike call over the weekend to protest against what it said was the failure of police to arrest the killers of its leader. Saleem Qadri was gunned down with five other persons on May 18. A statement from the group issued on Saturday said: “Those who do not pay heed to our call will themselves be responsible for any damage.” Security in Karachi was tight, with paramilitary forces and mounted police posted throughout the city.
Reuters |
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Muslim rebels herd captives to island Puerto Princesa, May 28 The navy rushed 10 of its vessels to cut off sea lanes in the Sulu Sea and prevent any further southward advance by the suspected Abu Sayyaf gunmen, who officials said were racing for their southern stronghold of Jolo and nearby islands. “There is strong evidence that it is a splinter group of the Abu Sayyaf,” President Gloria Arroyo’s spokesman Rigoberto Tiglao said. Military spokesman said local officials in the island of Mapun, also known as Cagayan de Tawi-Tawi, reported that the gunmen went ashore overnight after sailing all day across a 480-km expanse of sea from the Dos Palmas resort off the western island of Palawan. The US captives include Christian missionaries Martin Burnham (41) and Gracia Burnham (42) as well as Guillermo Sobero. “Mapun is sealed, but we are not concentrating only in Mapun,” said southern Philippines military spokesman Lieut-Colonel Dani Lo Servando. “It could just be a refuelling point.” The provincial police chief, Superintendent Suaibon Jalad, said the gunmen were vulnerable to encirclement there because the island, surrounded by a vast sea, did not have its own supply of fresh water and food was scarce.
AFP |
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Sharif signed no
mercy petition, says son Washington, May 28 Talking to Washington-based Pakistani newspapers yesterday, during his one-day visit Mr Hassan, after visiting his father, said his father could return to Pakistan any time. “Mr Sharif need not seek anyone’s permission to return to Pakistan and he would take a decision in the matter once his family devised a plan and strategy for that.” “It is a combined decision of the Sharif family to keep a low profile at the moment and do nothing that may put the Saudi Government in any awkward position,” he added. He said General Pervez Musharraf had, on various occasions, asserted that the ousted Prime Minister had signed a mercy petition. However, he had failed to produce any document in this regard. It was also untrue that the passport of Mr Sharif had been impounded by the Saudi authorities, he added.
UNI |
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Strike cripples life in Nepal Kathmandu, May 28 No vehicles were seen on the streets of the national capital and all shops in busy commercial areas remained closed as shop-owners were apprehensive about possible clashes between organisers of the protest and the authorities.
IANS |
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10 killed
in coal mine blast Beijing, May 28 The blast in the Dayuan mine in Longhui county, Hunan province took place on Saturday afternoon with only three of the 20 miners working in the mine escaping, the People’s Daily reported on its website. By yesterday evening 10 bodies had been pulled from the rubble. Rescue work continued today. The explosion occurred despite a nationwide order calling for the closure and inspection of all small mines. Last Tuesday, China’s State Bureau for Production Safety ordered small mines across the country to close by the end of June following a spate of mine disasters which has killed almost 600 miners in the past six weeks, state media reported. The order came as rescue teams abandoned hope of finding 68 miners trapped in two separate mining accidents that occurred on May 18 in the south-western province of Sichuan and in the southern province of Guangxi.
AFP |
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Coup bid foiled Bangui, May 28 “There was a coup attempt which failed, which began at 2 a.m. (0100 hrs GMT) and lasted until this morning. Now the situation is calm, the attackers have been put to flight and are being sought by the presidential guard,’’ presidential spokesman Prosper Ndouba told Reuters. “The President is safe and well and with his family,’’ he said.
Reuters |
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Puerto Princesa, May 28