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Friday,
May 31, 2002, Chandigarh, India  
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Pakistan may deploy more troops Irresponsible elements could trigger war: USA
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Pak defends right to nuke India Court bars
release of Pearl’s murder video Trans-Afghan gas pipeline deal signed
Amnesty blames LTTE, govt for civilian torture
UK appoints first
black minister Punch magazine closed
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Pakistan may deploy more troops Islamabad, May 30 “We are very seriously contemplating moving some elements...on to the east if at all the tension remain as high as they are now,” he told a news conference. “But the movement has not yet started,” he said. General Musharraf’s comments were a partial retraction of a state television broadcast and a military spokesman’s remarks that said the pullback had begun from the Afghan border, where Pakistan had deployed thousands of troops since late last year to help the US-led coalition hunt fleeing Al-Qaida and Taliban militants. “For Pakistan, the first priority is its own security and nobody should grudge that,” General Musharraf said when asked about reports of withdrawal at a news conference with Afghan interim leader Hamid Karzai and Turkmen President Saparmurat Niyazov. “Since our security is endangered and we are subjected to aggression and certainly all our resources will confront the area or the points where the security is being threatened. And that is where...shifting of forces from the west to the east comes in,” he said. General Musharraf said Pakistan had “actually stalled’’ the induction of Pakistani troops into the interior of the western borders, but said the movement to the east had not yet begun. Pakistan and India have been locked in a military standoff since a bloody attack on the Indian Parliament House in December that New Delhi blamed on Pakistan-based militants. Tension between the old enemies rose sharply after suspected militants attacked an Indian military camp in Kashmir on May 14, killing more than 30 persons. Earlier, state television said “some readjustments of Pakistani troops’’ had been made along the western border because of what it called India’s aggressive posture along the international border between the two countries and the military Line of Control in Kashmir. “A contingent of the Pakistani troops commenced its movement from the western border to reinforce Pakistani troops deployed along the eastern borders,” it said. A military official confirmed the report, saying that the withdrawal was taking place. “But I can’t say yet how many are being withdrawn,’’ said the official, who declined to be named.
Reuters |
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Pak
lists ‘wanted’ men from India Islamabad, May 30 “Pakistan has prepared the list of 32 wanted elements from India but it will not be handed over to it,” Mr Haider was quoted as saying by the official APP news agency last night. On the Indian demand to hand over 20 wanted terrorists and criminals by Pakistan, he said matters such as these were of minor nature and could be resolved once the process of dialogue was initiated between the two countries.
PTI |
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Irresponsible elements could trigger war: USA Washington, May 30 “There is a danger that as tensions escalate the leaders could find themselves in a situation in which irresponsible elements can spark a conflict”, State Department spokesman Richard Boucher told reporters yesterday. Mr Boucher did not name the “irresponsible elements”, but observers said it was pointed mainly at radical religious groups in both countries. He called on the leaders of the two countries to do their utmost to rein in violence and exercise restraint. He said the climate was “very charged and a serious conflagration could ensue if events spiral out of control.” Meanwhile, the USA may send Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld to India and Pakistan to defuse the situation. The White House regards the Indo-Pakistan situation so serious that if other envoys fail it may send Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld to India and Pakistan for some “tough talk” to avert war, ABC-TV reported today. In Ottawa Canadian Foreign Minister Bill Graham has said Canada is concerned about the escalating conflict between India and Pakistan, including the possibility of a nuclear war. “But, I do not think it will be appropriate for us now to interfere in the fight between them. What we need is to stop the rhetoric and stop the potential of this tremendous violence, Mr Garman said on Wednesday. Meanwhile, Nepal has urged India and Pakistan to exercise maximum restraint to maintain peace and stability in the region. Prime Minister Sher Bahadur Deuba explained Nepal’s position when he spoke to Indian Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee on the telephone on Wednesday. This is the first time that Nepal has spoken about the tension in the region due to the heavy army mobilisation to the border area between India and Pakistan. KUALA LUMPUR: Australia fears cross-border artillery battles between Pakistan and India over Kashmir may blow up into major conflict between the two nuclear foes. “It’s on the edge again with a real risk of escalating and a real risk of going beyond the brink,’’ Australian Defence Minister Robert Hill told a news conference after bilateral talks with his Malaysian counterpart Najib Razak said today.
Agencies |
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Pak defends right to nuke India THE cat is out of the bag about Pakistan’s nuclear intentions. The Pakistan Ambassador to the UN, Mr Munir Akram, has declared before the international media that his country had never subscribed to a “no-first use” policy regarding nuclear weapons. What Pakistan did subscribe to was “no-first use of force.” Launching a diplomatic offensive against India at the UN, Mr Akram, who presented his credentials to the UN Secretary-General, Mr Kofi Annan, on Tuesday, told reporters yesterday that the UN Charter prohibited the use of force and India should be committed to the non-use of force. India should not have a “licence” to kill with conventional weapons while Pakistan’s hands were tied regarding other means to defend itself, he said. Mr Akram went on to say that Pakistan had to rely on the means it possessed to deter Indian “aggression”. It would not “neutralise” that deterrence by any doctrine of no-first use. Believing that both sides should commit themselves to the non-use of force, Pakistan had offered a non-aggression pact to India, which the latter had rejected. If India reserved the right to use conventional weapons, how could Pakistan — a weaker power — be expected to rule out all means of deterrence? In reply to a question on what would constitute an act of aggression by India, Mr Akram said any action by India across the border, any aerial attack on Pakistani territory and its assets, and any action to economically strangle Pakistan would be viewed as such and would be responded to by Pakistan. For the better part of the press conference, he raised the familiar Pakistani bogey of Kashmir that, he claimed, was the “root cause” of the confrontation between the two neighbours. He launched into a diatribe against India, charging the Indian Army with being responsible for the deaths of 70,000 Kashmiris. India, Mr Akram said, had also used “renegades” to perpetrate most heinous violations of human rights against the Kashmiris. Unable to crush the freedom struggle, India had resorted to depicting the struggle as cross-border terrorism. That was simply not true. It was in no way a proxy war as alleged by India. It was a war being fought by the Kashmiri people inside Kashmir, Mr Akram said. The ambassador was hopeful that India would not go to war with Pakistan. He based his optimism on the fact that no one in the international community wanted to see a war between the two countries. Therefore, any Indian action would be contrary to the wishes of the international community. Also, India knew that a war would be costly. Pakistan was neither an Afghanistan nor a Palestinian Authority. |
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Court bars release of Pearl’s murder video Karachi, May 30 The high court of southern Sindh province granted chief public prosecutor Raja Qureshi’s application for the suspension of an order issued on Tuesday by a subordinate court in Hyderabad which is hearing the Pearl trial. “A two-member Bench of the high court has suspended an anti-terrorist court order for providing the video of Daniel Pearl’s murder to the defence attorneys,” Mr Qureshi told reporters. However, the high court will now hear the defence case on June 4 before making a final decision. Despite the row over the video, the prosecutor said the murder trial will continue according to the schedule, with the next hearing due on Saturday at the makeshift court in Hyderabad. On Tuesday defence lawyers successfully applied for a copy of the video, but the anti-terrorist court granted prosecutors a 72-hour stay pending the appeal to the high court.
AFP |
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Trans-Afghan gas pipeline deal signed Islamabad, May 30 “This project, on completion, will provide the shortest route for the export of hydrocarbon resources from Central Asia to Far East, Japan and West,” Pakistan President Musharraf said. After signing a memorandum of understanding on the deal with Afghan interim leader Hamid Karzai and Turkmen President Sapamurat Niyazov, President Pervez Musharraf told a news conference the proposed pipeline would run from Daulatabad gasfield in Turkmenistan to the Gawadar area in southwestern Pakistan via Afghanistan. Afghan officials said in Kabul the planned pipeline could provide the war-ravaged Afghan economy with $ 100 million a year in transit fees. President Pervez Musharraf has underlined the need for regional cooperation for achieving the goals of peace, stability and rapid socio-economic progress in the region. He said Pakistan had initiated a series of projects to raise an adequate infrastructure particularly in the field of communications which would open a gateway for economic markets in Central Asian countries.
UNI |
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Amnesty blames LTTE, govt for civilian torture THE Amnesty International has reprimanded the Sri Lankan government as well as the LTTE for the continued torture of civilians in violation of basic human rights, as a result of the country’s two-decade long ethnic strife. “Amid increased conflict and political instability, the police and security forces as well as LTTE cadres were responsible for arbitrary arrest and detention, torture, ‘disappearances’ and extrajudicial executions in the past one year,” the International Human Rights monitor said in its 2002 report on Sri Lanka. There has been a marked rise in allegations of rape by police, army and navy personnel, although the number of “disappearances” decreased in comparison with previous years. Members of the LTTE were responsible for hostage-taking and widespread recruitment of children as combatants. There was a marked decrease in the number of LTTE attacks on civilians. The failures of both the parties to take adequate measures to avoid civilian casualties resulted in many deaths. There were allegations that civilians were killed during bombing by the air force, the report brought out. The Human Rights watchdog has expressed concern at the practice of holding detainees in secret detention, particularly by the Terrorist Investigation Department (TID) in Colombo and by the army and members of the People’s Liberation Organisation of Tamil Eelam (PLOTE) in Vavuniya. Torture, specially against women, continued unabated. There were several reports of rape by security forces from various districts. These gave rise to fears that safeguards to protect women in custody, contained in presidential directives for the welfare of detainees issued in 1997, were being ignored. According to the report, lack of accountability for the perpetrators of human rights violations in the Island nation remained a serious concern. A circular, issued in January by a Senior Deputy Inspector General of Police reinstated all police officers who had been suspended and against whom criminal investigations were continuing for their alleged involvement in past ‘disappearances’. 2001 saw a decrease in the number of civilians killed during LTTE attacks, the report said. The LTTE executed several people it said were responsible for treason, rape or other crimes. There were also reports of abductions of Muslim and Sinhalese civilians, particularly in Batticaloa and Trincomalee districts. A recruitment drive which began last August by the LTTE confirmed fears that children were recruited as combatants. Some were as young as 10. Many families who refused were compelled to leave their homes and were displaced to other parts of the district. There were also reports of intensified recruitment in the Vanni, an area largely controlled by the LTTE.
UNI |
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UK favours
direct talks London, May 30 After the meeting, the Foreign Office urged the rebels to “renounce terrorism once and for all”, while welcoming “considerable progress” towards a peaceful settlement of the conflict in Sri Lanka.
AFP |
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UK appoints first
black minister London, May 30 News of Boateng’s appointment was hailed by the Commission for Racial Equality Chairman Gurbux Singh who said “It is important to increase ethnic minority representation at all levels of the British politics.” Deputy Prime Minister John Prescott will be in charge of Local Government and Regions, hitherto held by Stephen Byers, who left his Cabinet post yesterday after months of pressure.
PTI |
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Punch magazine closed London, May 30 Its circulation fell to less than 6,000 per issue from a peak of 175,000 in the 1940s. At a cost of £ 40,000 ($ 58,000) per issue, Mohammed-al-Fayed, the Egyptian multi-millionaire and owner of London’s Harrods department store, has decided to pull the plug. “Punch is a British institution. I have done everything in my power to keep Punch alive by pumping in massive amounts of cash.’’ “But as a businessman sometimes the head has to triumph over the heart and...with deep regret...I have decided to close,’’ he said in a statement on Wednesday. The last edition went on sale on Monday, although a “virtual” Punch will continue on the Internet.
Reuters |
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