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Saturday,
March 2, 2002, Chandigarh, India  
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Chandrika
opposes truce agreement MQM, UK
daily see ISI hand in Pearl murder Saquib
admits sending e-mails Israel
attacks refugee camp
USA
frees suspect A-I passenger |
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Suspect
cleric eludes UK police Myanmar
frees 5 Suu Kyi’s partymen Ariane-5
lifts off with biggest-ever satellite
Space shuttle Columbia flies into a cloudbank which it illuminated after liftoff at the Kennedy Space Center in Florida
on Friday. Columbia is flying to the Hubble Space Telescope on a refurbishment mission.
— Reuters photo
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Chandrika opposes truce agreement
Colombo, March 1 The President, in an 11-page letter to Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe yesterday, requested him to clarify some issues pertaining to the agreement, which she felt were detrimental to national security. She said it was important to include in the agreement a date for the commencement of talks to ensure that the agreement was not intended to continue indefinitely without a political solution being reached. Ms Kumaratunga, who also heads the National Security Council (NSC), said the clauses in the agreement that could impinge national security concerns would have to be reviewed by the Service Commanders and the NSC, in which Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe is also a member. She also asked whether the nature of the mandate given to the Norwegian Government had changed to such an extent as to make it incompatible with the sovereign status of Sri Lanka. “I observe that the powers and the functions, which by this agreement are vested in the Norwegian Government, travel far beyond the role of a facilitator for expected negotiations towards a political agreement. The Norwegian Government has now been cast in the role of a mediator or arbitrator in the resolution of disputes between the parties, which is not the basis on which Norwegian assistance was sought by my government in 1999. I was not aware that the nature of the Norwegian Government’s mandate had changed to such an extent as to make it incompatible with the sovereign status of Sri Lanka,” she said. The President’s concerns came at a time when the head of Sri Lanka Monitoring Mission (SLMM), Major Gen Trond Furuhovde, met LTTE chief negotiator Anton Balasingham in London, on his way to Colombo. He is expected to arrive in Sri Lanka tomorrow. “I note that the agreement deals substantially with questions concerning the ceasefire and humanitarian and confidence-building measures, while making no reference at all to the important political issues that have to be addressed, while ceasefire is in place, in order to achieve lasting peace,” President Kumaratunga said in her letter to the Prime Minister. The President outlined her response after the ceasefire agreement was closely studied by a 20-member committee headed by former Foreign Minister Laksman Kadirgamar. She also said although the Prime Minister had repeatedly said that the rights of the Navy were fully reserved, especially in terms of intercepting the illegal arms shipment into the country, they still remained outside the agreement. However, in conclusion, she has reaffirmed her commitment to peace. “I wholly approve of the concept of a mutually agreed ceasefire. On our side, as far as the Government of Sri Lanka is concerned, you and I must, in close consultation and cooperation with each other, make this ceasefire work. Equally, when the time comes — and it must come soon — to address the core issues on the resolution of which a just and lasting peace will depend, we must work together in order to carry the mass of our people with us. I hope that you and your party will make a honest and sincere effort to assist me in my endeavours to make consensual government work effectively,’’ she said.
UNI |
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MQM, UK daily see ISI hand in Pearl murder London, March 1 ISI is to blame for the murder of the Wall Street Journal reporter, the Muttahida Qaumi Movement (MQM), led by Britain-based Altaf Hussain, has said. MQM, Pakistan’s third largest party, is overwhelmingly strong in Karachi, where Pearl was abducted in January. His captors sent a videotape to authorities in Pakistan last week that showed him being brutally murdered. The claim is based on “extensive and intimate” knowledge of ISI activities for years, a senior party leader reportedly said. ISI has targeted the party in several operations and its leaders have for long played cat and mouse with ISI agents. “ISI is responsible for harbouring the terrorists not only in Pakistan but also throughout the world under the pretext of jehad (holy war),” party convener Imran Farooq said in a communiqué to U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan yesterday. “ISI and only ISI is behind this barbaric killing of Pearl,” Farooq said in a statement here. “They wanted to give the message to the USA that by supporting the present government, the USA will not be able to achieve its goals and it must deal with ISI and not with anybody else.” He said: “The agency is not at all happy with the decisions taken by the present government for eradicating religious fanatics, as they are its own creation.” ISI has become a monster, he said. “Until and unless it is disbanded or dismantled, ISI will continue to form, fertilise, harbour, train and provide financial support to create more and more religious fanatical groups like the Jaish-e-Mohammad.” The party’s claim follows an investigation by The Observer, a local daily here, which also points to the hand of the ISI in murdering Pearl. The report said emails demanding the release of British Pakistani terror suspect Omar Saeed Sheikh had also asked for the delivery of F-16 fighters to Pakistan, which were held up after the country conducted nuclear tests in May 1998. The group did not carry an Islamic terrorist banner but came under the name National Movement for the Restoration of Pakistani Sovereignty. The same group had earlier sent emails demanding, among other things, the release of Pakistani prisoners held at the U.S. military base in Cuba in exchange for Pearl’s life. The Observer report said many of the terrorist organisations Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf has targeted were created by ISI. It said: “From early on in the Pearl investigation, ISI involvement was evident.” The newspaper quoted British diplomats as saying this was more than the work of a terrorist group acting alone. One diplomat reportedly said: “There are a lot of ISI people who are very angry at Musharraf’s decision to back President Bush after September 11. “They are viscerally anti-American and have strong ties with the Taliban and Al Qaida. This may be a shot across Musharraf’s bows or the old ISI’s dying kick.” The daily points out that no one has explained why Sheikh was held in ISI custody for a week before civilian authorities were informed of his arrest.
IANS |
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Saquib admits sending e-mails
Karachi, March 1 Salman Saquib confessed to the allegations in a statement to a Magistrate in the southern Pakistani city of Karachi, which ordered him into judicial custody pending charges, said lawyer, Khawaja Naveed. Saquib, his face covered with a cloth, was taken from the court to jail under heavy police guard. The judge ordered that Saquib’s confessional statement not be released to his lawyer or the police for fear that it would be leaked to the press. He said he did not consider his client’s confession valid because Saquib had been in police custody since February 11. “This statement has been recorded after he was in police custody for 20 days. The later it is recorded, it means it is not voluntary,” he said. New York: Four outlawed radical Islamic groups, including the outfit accused of killing American reporter Daniel Pearl, have formed an alliance to mount fresh attacks and resist the Pakistan Government ban imposed on them. Jaish-e-Muhammad, the group allegedly responsible for Pearl’s killing, had joined forces with Sipah-e-Sahaba, Harkat-ul-Mujahedeen and Lashkar-e-Jhangvi, a media report said quoting officials. The information was based on “hard information,” it added.
AFP |
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Israel attacks refugee camp
Nablus, March 1 In a follow-up to yesterday’s operation, the Israel forces entered the Jenin refugee camp on the edge of Jenin city and began searching Palestinian houses at around 2 am GMT today, residents said. Israeli tanks and soldiers yesterday fired from the fringes of the camp and the city, killing six Palestinian policemen and one elderly man in shootouts. The main Israeli action yesterday targeted the Balata refugee camp in nearby Nablus, about 20 miles away. The high-stakes operation, aimed at breaking strongholds of Palestinian militants, marked the first time Israeli troops stormed refugee camps in 17 months of Mideast conflict. “The camp is effectively under (Israeli military) control,” said Israeli Col Avi Cohavi, head of the paratrooper brigade carrying out the operation. Israeli troops have repeatedly entered Palestinian towns and villages in the current fighting, but had never before entered camps, where militants have taken refuge amid densely packed houses that line narrow streets, making them inaccessible to Israeli tanks and other armoured vehicles. Yesterday’s fighting came a day after Saudi Arabia presented its new peace initiative at the United Nations. Under the proposal, the Arab world would make peace with Israel in exchange for an Israeli withdrawal from the territories it occupied in the 1967 Mideast war.
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WINDOW ON PAKISTAN Before the Americans think of a change, President Pervez Musharraf is keen to see himself as a duly elected head of the Islamic Republic of Pakistan. He would like to retain his position as de facto head of the Pakistani army as well. And, the problems begin here. First the two positions — an elected executive head and second as commander in chief of the armed forces — do not go together. This despite the fact that Pakistan has seen more military dictators than elected civilian rulers during the past 54 years of its existence. Since the supreme court has already ruled that there should be an elected government in Pakistan before October is out, the General, now running high on popular graph, is eager to see himself in the saddle as an elected executive head of the state. Some clear signs how he would do this are visible in the mainline Pakistani press. He has already amended the constitution and 25 seats have been reserved for the technocrats like his Finance Minister, Shaukat Aziz, and others. Again he has prescribed a minimum educational qualification for those who wish to contest for a seat in the National Assembly and provincial legislature bodies. This takes care of the majority of the aspiring politicians who would otherwise wish to represent their people in that august body. In a country where 60 per cent people are illiterate, this provision looks most undemocratic and insulting to the people. The only healthy provision is that all minorities, Hindus and Christians could now vote in an unreserved manner. It may not be easy for the man in khaki to manage the business of a democratic setup. The reason, he ought to have a pliable Prime Minister, which means a pliable political party. A hard task indeed. Remember, as Dawn pointed out recently, Mohammed Khan Junejo [1985-88] after the then President, Gen. Zia -ul-Haq, conducted partyless elections in 1985, was chosen as a pliable Prime Minister. But then power has its own kind of logic and Junejo proved that he was more than a suppliant. This caused a lot of headache to the crafty General. The Prime Minister asserted himself and sent his Foreign Minister to Geneva to reach an accord on Afghanistan. This accord finally led to the withdrawal of Soviet troops from Afghanistan. But poor Junejo lost his job as the General invoked a dead amendment and asserted his right to be the political boss. Right now Gen. Musharraf riding the crest of popularity, courtesy the USA is plotting a long-term game plan. One, if he could get a political party to support him and second, a politician who could be a Prime Minister sans any real power. For the first position, the General seems to be scouting around. And, he has his eyes fixed on the Pakistan Muslim league, which is without a leader ever since Mian Nawaz Sharif was ousted in a bloodless coup and later exiled. The party, the General feels could play ball and provide him a base and a pussycat Premier. He cannot trust the People’s Party although plenty of leaders in that party would wish to play second fiddle to “king” Musharraf. His fears are not unfounded. There is an ambitious and at this point of time, a bit popular, Ms Benazir Bhutto, waiting in the wings and unlike Mian sahib, she has a stronger base and hence not trustworthy. Also, how long and how much the Americans are trusted, they could opt for the lady who has been for long singing their tune and at to top it all she could play her India card also. Doubts about this notwithstanding, her recent visit to India provided her lot propaganda material. And Washington holds the final card in this game. While it would support the present regime where the military calls the shots, it was not going to stop at the present ruler, the moment it becomes clear that he could not further their gameplans. The death of Wall Street journalist Daniel Pearl by terrorists in Pakistan has not endeared Musharraf to the Americans and the media has been very critical of that. In fact, both the President and his Foreign Minister have been passing the buck on the abduction and the killing of the journalist while losing important leads. The Friday Times, in its latest issue, urged the country’s leader to take lessons from the tragic incident and brook no terrorist outfit and snap all their links with the Inter Services Intelligence outfit. India should be dealt on a political plane and through subversion as that would mean depending upon this outfit and its capacity to operate the levers of power or else be ready to suffer. This game would not end with one Pearl. The message to the General Musharraf is clear that if he wishes to remain in the good books of the Americans and succeed in his game, he ought to play the game as per their rules. Only then he could amend the constitution, take a “yes” from the Supreme Court and rule. |
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USA frees suspect A-I passenger
Washington, March 1 However, the suspected passenger was later released. Reports received here said the security agent at the Heathrow Airport suspected that one of the passengers on board Air India Flight 101 might be a “wanted man” travelling under a different name as he resembled one of the suspected terrorists on a list given to the civil aviation authorities. But by the time he alerted others and the law enforcement authorities, the flight had taken off. The New York City police said a quarrel between one of the security agents and a passenger had sparked suspicions about a possible terrorist presence on the aircraft. Following the sounding of the alert, Canadian fighter aircraft shadowed the plane over the Atlantic and once it entered the US airspace, two US Air Force F-15s escorted it to New York, officials said here. US Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) officials established contact with the Indian crew of the aircraft and ascertained that there was no emergency situation on board. FBI spokesman Joe Valiquette as saying that the FBI had “no investigative interest” in the suspected man who was a British citizen and was travelling with a woman.
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Suspect cleric eludes UK police
London, March 1 Convicted in Jordan on the charges of conspiring to attack the US and Israeli interests, Abu Qutadah, a Jordanian of Palestinian descent who preaches a violent brand of Islam, has been in investigators’ sights for years. Named in a Spanish indictment in November as “the supreme leader at the European level of the Mujahedeen,” or Islamic fighters, he was thought to head the list of suspects British police planned to arrest under the emergency legislation passed in December.
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Myanmar frees 5 Suu Kyi’s partymen Yangon, March 1 The five, identified as Mr Kyaw Aye, Mr Myo Myint, Mr Hla Sein, Mr Tin Kyi and Mr Thein Zaw, were released from various correctional institutions, a spokesman for the regime said in a statement. “They are all in good health and back together with their respective families,” he said. Myanmar’s military government said earlier this year it had released some 220 political prisoners since it embarked on landmark talks with Aung San Suu Kyi in October 2000. Since then, it has released 11 political prisoners in an apparent gesture of goodwill linked with a February visit by UN human rights envoy Paulo Sergio Pinheiro. It announced yesterday that 68 women prisoners, including 57 with young children and 11 expectant mothers, were freed from jail and granted amnesty for various criminal offences.
AFP |
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Ariane-5 lifts off with biggest-ever satellite Kourou (French Guiana), March 1 The 2.4-billion-euro (2.1-billion-dollar) satellite, baptised Envisat (for “environmental satellite”) is the heaviest and most complex ever launched by the
ESA. AFP |
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Columbia lifts off
Cape Canaveral (Fla), March 1 The pre-dawn liftoff came at 6:22 a.m. (1122 GMT) from Florida’s Kennedy Space Center after a day’s delay caused by cold weather. Five of the most difficult spacewalks ever attempted by NASA are scheduled for the mission. The astronauts will make improvements that should increase Hubble’s performance ten-fold, but to do that the U.S. space agency will have to turn off the power on the venerable observatory for the first time in orbit.
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Colombo, March 1
