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Saturday,
August 3, 2002, Chandigarh, India  
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Musharraf pledges to ease Indo-Pak tension WINDOW ON PAKISTAN Pervez disqualifies loan defaulters Pak cuts Lower House strength Israeli swoop on Nablus |
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Iraq invites UN arms inspector for talks
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Musharraf
pledges to ease Indo-Pak tension
Beijing, August 2 “Pakistan does not want to be involved in a war and will not start a war,” President Musharraf told Jiang during their one-hour meeting here this morning, Xinhua reported. President Musharraf, who arrived early today after visiting Bangladesh and Sri Lanka, told Jiang that Islamabad would “do its best to realise regional peace and stability”. Mr Jiang, who is also general secretary of the ruling Communist Party of China, said Beijing hoped Pakistan and India would settle their dispute peacefully through dialogue. “China supports all efforts to alleviate the tension between Pakistan and India and to safeguard peace and stability in South Asia,” Mr Jiang said during his second meeting with President Musharraf within two months. The two Presidents had met on the sidelines of a regional security conference in Almati in June. President Musharraf also briefed Mr Jiang on the latest domestic situation in Pakistan and gave views on the issues concerning South Asia and Afghanistan, the report said. China, a permanent member of the UN Security Council, has been urging New Delhi and Islamabad to resume dialogue on all issues, including Kashmir. The Chinese stand on the Indo-Pak tension was once again restated by Foreign Minister Tang Jiaxuan, who met External Affairs Minister Yashwant Sinha this week on the sidelines of the ASEAN Regional Forum meetings in Brunei. Mr Jiang also spoke highly of the relations between China and Pakistan. “Over the past five decades since the two established diplomatic relations, China and Pakistan have respected, understood and supported each other, and bilateral ties are time-tested,” said Mr Jiang. The policies Pakistan has adopted since September 11 terrorist attacks are “firm and clear”, and China appreciated them very much, Jiang said. Mr Jiang and President Musharraf also discussed the situation in Afghanistan where the US forces are conducting operations against the remaining Taliban and Al-Qaida terrorists. “China has been concerned about the situation in Afghanistan and supports the process of peace and reconstruction there,” Jiang told Musharraf. “The main purpose of Musharaf’s short visit to Beijing is to show the world that despite the twists and turns in international relations, the Sino-Pakistani axis remains strong,” a diplomatic analyst said commenting on Musharraf’s third visit to China since December last year. At the same time, China is concerned with the growing influence of the USA in Pakistan after September 11 attacks, he said. PTI
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WINDOW ON PAKISTAN Pakistani people, particularly the peasants, have nicknamed the army’s corps commanders as “crore commanders”, thereby hinting that they have amassed crores of rupees. But it was dismissed as mere rustic humour. Now a damning report has come from the World Bank that takes care of most the development expenditure in view of the fledging economy of the state of Pakistan. The bank had been pumping in millions of dollars to keep the frontline state of the USA in good humour. But much of all this seems to have gone down into the pockets of politicians, bureaucrats and, in a big way, into the pockets of the khaki officers. This is one reason that the Pakistani army is all the time itching to seize power in the name of cleansing the government and to provide development. When Gen. Pervez Musharraf seized power from his benefactor, Nawaz Sharif, his major promise was to end corruption. He set up the accountancy bureau under the command of senior army commanders. But the only job it had done is to selectively choose targets — politicians, journalists and other businessmen — and use it as a stick to beat opponents. Pakistani newspapers, most of them sick of the military ruler, which in October 1999 offered a promising new start, have taken the military rulers to task. Some have gone ahead and said that this kind of World Bank inferences and comments are a direct affront to Pakistani society. A sober comment from the leading newspaper, Dawn, said: “While few would disagree with the report’s characterisation of Pakistan as a country overrun by corrupt inspectors and bribe-taking officials, what is disturbing is that the army personnel engaged in civilian duties, too, are being infected with the spreading contagion of corruption. According to the bank’s country assistance strategy, the plethora of powers vested in petty officials has led to a system of extortion at every level, making the life of entrepreneurs a misery. In recent years, the army, too, has been deployed to carry out such tasks in organisations like the power sector, industrial units and the Railways, besides many ministries and departments. This has clearly had a corrupting influence on the personnel involved.” The history of such extra-curricular distractions for the army is long and generally inglorious. When the Ayub regime brought in the army to deal with smuggling in the late fifties in the then East Pakistan, stories of corruption in the ranks began to circulate. Long bouts of martial law have also harmed the reputation of armed forces personnel, who were suddenly forced to attend to all kinds of civilian tasks, from running military courts to checking profiteering and overseeing the cleaning of roads. As a result, their integrity and reputation took a needless battering. The Frontier Post from Peshawar, making similar comments, said: “The World Bank is of the view that if Pakistan remains steadfast in its reforms, it would be able to get $ 3.347 billion between 2002-5, of which $ 947 million has already been provided, to support this process of transition. Pakistan must, however, focus on regulating its madrasa education, besides promoting coeducation to improve gender equality. “ The World Bank has suggested that the other area towards which Pakistan should divert its attention is law and order and corruption. “When the army took over and instantly indulged in every civilian affair, it was feared that sooner or later, the army’s image would be sullied by accusations of corruption. The World Bank has only confirmed that apprehension. The worst part of this is that the army as an institution could have avoided this stigma, had it resisted the temptation of poking its nose in every domain of civil life. Now that it might have been left nursing a bruise.” The Post observed. But Masooda Bano, writing in the International News on August 2, took serious objection to the recommendations of the bank regarding education. Calling it a masterpiece, she said: “It proves that now Third World countries like Pakistan whose rulers have sold the country’s economic sovereignty to the IMF and World Bank for a series of loan tranches, will now have to surrender their cultural and religious autonomy too. In this newly released strategy paper, one of the key reforms is to make Pakistan a moderate and modern Islamic state. As reported in the newspapers the emphasis is on having “co-education to show gender equity and have madras a reforms to have more progressive Muslims”. “Now the heavily paid World Bank consultants flying in from various western destinations, will define what it means to be a ‘progressive’ Muslim. We should forget our Quranic learning that is if we have any, for now the World Bank would invent what it is to be a true Muslim. So to begin with, the bank has declared that to make Pakistan a progressive state the key is to have coeducation. Girls and boys should study together and that would make Pakistan a progressive state. Can there be more simplistic vision than this of attaining progress?” the columnist commented. Masooda defending the present set-up said: “The critical issue for development is to have education. It is the basic human right of every child, male or female. But, whether Pakistanis choose to educate our children in unisex or coeducational schools is our decision. It is religious and cultural choice of the parents and the society as a whole. But, for the bank to emphasise on coeducation as its interpretation of making Pakistan a modern Islamic state is absolutely outrageous.” |
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Pervez disqualifies loan defaulters
Islamabad, August 2 The government added a new rule last night which said a person would not be qualified to become a member of Parliament, if “he or she has been convicted and sentenced to imprisonment for having absconded by a competent court under any law for the time being in force.” Anyone who has obtained a loan of over Rs 2 million in his or her own name or the names of his or her family members “which stand unpaid for more than one year from the due date, or has had such loan written off, cannot contest the election”, it said. The new laws seem directed at former Premiers Benazir Bhutto and Nawaz Sharif who have declared their intention to contest the October general election. Ms Benazir Bhutto has been convicted by a court here for not appearing before it in response to the summons in a case against her while Mr Sharif has been accused by the government of defaulting on massive loans taken during his tenure. Meanwhile, a media report today said Ms Benazir Bhutto planned to resign as the PPP chief and nominate a new leader to prevent the party from being disqualified by the Musharraf government. However, the PPP media office here dismissed the report as “rubbish. There should not have been any doubt on any score as she is going to be the next Prime Minister”, a party spokesman said. PTI
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Pak cuts Lower House strength Islamabad, August 2 The government also reduced the strength of the House — National Assembly — from 357 to 342 as part of its efforts to bring in largescale electoral changes ahead of the general election. The government order retained the joint electorate system in which minorities could vote for candidates of their choice along with majority Muslim voters from their respective constituencies. Under the minorities quota, Christians will have four seats while Hindus, including the Scheduled Castes, Sikhs, Buddhist and Parsi communities along with Ahmadis would share the rest. A small number of seats have also been reserved for the minorities in the four Assemblies. After the introduction of the joint electorate system, the government had announced to abolish reserved seats for the minorities. The minorities, however, protested arguing that if women had the right to contest for general seats and special seats, this rule be extended to them as they stood no chance to win a seat from any general category as Muslims constituted 97.5 per cent of the population.
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Militant camps ‘not in Pak but J&K’ Islamabad, August 2 "There is no training camp in Pakistan. We are now giving training to youths at mobile camps in "Indian-occupied" Kashmir, said Syed Salahuddin, chairman of the United Jehad Council, an association of 15 militant groups. "Our mujahedeen are not violating the international border to cross into India," Salahuddin told AP using the term for militant fighters. But he then added that even Musharraf cannot stop them from crossing the Line of Control. AP
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Israeli
swoop on Nablus
Nablus, West Bank, August 2 In overnight clashes and operations in the West Bank and Gaza, five Palestinians were killed and at least six houses were destroyed. Also, Israeli officials approved orders to expel two relatives of suspected terrorists from the West Bank to Gaza — measures the Israelis hope will deter potential attackers. Meanwhle, an El Al Israel Airlines plane took off for New York, carrying the bodies of two of the five American victims of the university bombing, in which seven people died and more than 80 were wounded. Israeli troops entered the narrow alleyways of the Old City of Nablus today, residents said, after about 150 armoured personnel carriers, moved into the city. Two Palestinian gunmen were killed, witnesses said. Compounding tensions already high after 22 months of violence, Israeli soldiers guarding a Jewish settlement in the central Gaza Strip shot dead a nine-year-old Palestinian girl, Asma Ahmad, Palestinian security and medical sources said. AP, Reuters
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Iraq invites UN arms inspector for talks United Nations, August 2 The letter from Iraqi Foreign Minister Naji Sabri, obtained by Reuters, said chief UN inspector Hans Blix and his experts were welcome to discuss outstanding disarmament issues “to establish a solid basis for the next stage of monitoring and inspection activities and to move forward towards that stage.” Mr Sabri said the UN arms experts should come to Baghdad at “the earliest agreed upon time” but also stressed they should conduct a “comprehensive review” to assess the degree of Iraqi compliance. The inspectors left Iraq in December 1998 on the eve of a US-British bombing campaign to punish Baghdad for not cooperating with the arms experts. Accounting for Iraq's dangerous weapons is key to suspending UN sanctions, imposed when Iraq invaded Kuwait in 1990. The letter arrived on a day that US President George W. Bush reaffirmed his administration's commitment to a “regime change”, a euphemism for toppling President Saddam Hussein.
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Nablus, West Bank, August 2
