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Sunday,
August 4, 2002, Chandigarh, India  
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A VIEW FROM PAKISTAN
Annan for reviewing Iraq offer Powell rejects move on arms inspection United Nations, August 3 Iraq’s invitation for the chief UN weapons inspector to visit Baghdad for talks was met with extreme caution by UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan, who wants the Security Council to review the matter. American Muslims to honour Sept 11
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6 Pak men on US list of terrorists
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A VIEW FROM PAKISTAN The election of Shahbaz Sharif, former Chief Minister of Punjab and younger brother of former Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif, as president of the Pakistan Muslim League (N) on Saturday indicates that the ice has been broken between the exiled Sharif family and the military regime of President Pervez Musharraf. In Islamabad, the central executive council of the Pakistan Muslim League (N) elected Shahbaz Sharif as President of the party. His name was suggested by the party’s Chairman Raja Zafrul Haq who himself was considered to be a candidate for the
position. A day earlier, the council had passed a resolution to keep Nawaz Sharif as President of the party despite the fact that he cannot return home for another eight years under an agreement of exile between Pakistan, Saudi Arabia and the Sharif family. Raja Zafrul Haq told the meeting that the former Prime Minister on telephone from Jeddha had instructed him to move the name of Shahbaz Sharif as President. Shahbaz is also in exile and bound by the same agreement to live in exile in Saudi Arabia. Shahbaz’s election, however, suggests that the efforts of interlocutors between the military regime and the Sharif family have resulted in some sort of understanding between the two. Kashmiri leader Sardar Abdul Qayuum and a senior Lahore-based journalist, Majid Nizami, had been shuttling between Islamabad and Jeddah to negotiate between the two parties. These negotiations were the part of the efforts of old Muslim League sysmpathisers to unify various factions of the Pakistan Muslim League on the eve of the October elections to save it from defeat at the hands of the Pakistan People’s Party. The League led by Nawaz Sharif split into two factions after his removal from office in October, 1999. The split of the League’s vote is likely to benefit the People’s Party. The mediators have been pressing on Nawaz Sharif to relinquish the position of President for his younger brother Shahbaz Sharif who is acceptable to the generals and can unite the various splinter factions of the party. Unlike Nawaz who had direct clash with General Pervez Musharraf, Shahbaz enjoys a reputation of having moderate views about the army’s intervention in national politics. Shahbaz is thought to be supportive of a compromise with the military and wants to work as Prime Minister with President Musharraf after the general elections. So far, Nawaz has been opposing any deal with Gen Musharraf on the plea that it might undermine party’s popularity. Nawaz’s position was that the Sharifs would wait for the fall of Musharraf regime because the general’s popularity graph was declining. The recent change in the Muslim League’s leadership, however, indicates a change of heart on the part of Nawaz who seems to have softened his position vis-a-vis Gen Musharraf on the persuasion of his senior advisers like Majid Nizami. Two days ago, Nawaz made a significant announcement that he would not be the candidate for the position of president in the party, which was followed by permission by the Saudi Arabian Government to his daughter, Maryam Nawaz, and son-in-law, Captain Safdar to leave for London. Under the agreement, no member of the Sharif family can leave Saudi Arabia for 10 years starting from December 2000. Now rumours are doing the rounds of Lahore that Nawaz’s daughter may land up in the city any time. Shahbaz Sharif is known to enjoy good relations with military generals and senior journalists. He earned an image of strong administrator as Chief Minister of Punjab (1997-1999), who did not squander public money on political patronage unlike his brother Nawaz Sharif. In Lahore, he is remembered for his keen interest in developing city’s infrastructure by building wide expressways within the city and launching air-conditioned public transport buses. The establishment’s need to bring Shahbaz back arises from Benazir Bhutto’s announcement that she would return home before elections ending her self-exile in Dubai and London for last three years. No single party could face Benazir’s People Party in the general elections. Efforts of the establishment to raise a king’s party failed as Mian Azhar of the anti-Sharif faction of the Muslim League (Q) could not emerge as national leader. Smaller parties of former president Farooq Leghari and Imran Khan could not make an impact in public. With Shahbaz Sharif’s election as President of the Muslim League, the establishment would find a counter weight to Benazir’s People’s Party. Now it is to be seen when he is allowed to land in Pakistan and how do masses view this deal between the establishment and the military. Initially, both the parties would give an impression of having struck no agreement at all as matter of their credibility. |
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Nawaz’s brother is PML (N) chief Islamabad, August 3 The central committee of the party met in Karachi and elected Mr Shahbaz, a former Chief Minister of Punjab province, as its president. Mr Nawaz Sharif’s conviction in a corruption case bars him from contesting poll and heading a political party while his brother Shahbaz Sharif was acquitted by the anti-terrorism court and there were no other charges pending against him. The election now almost confirms that Mr Nawaz Sharif would not return to the country to participate in the October elections. Early this week, Mr Raja Zafarul Haq, chairman of the PML, of which Mr Sharif was president, had said: “I think (Nawaz) Sharif would not like to annoy his host Saudi Arabia (by leaving for Pakistan).’’ Mr Nawaz Sharif’s wife Kulsoom Nawaz is also expected to return to Pakistan before elections. The staying away of Mr Nawaz Sharif will help Ms Bhutto in elections as she prepares for a high- profile return to Pakistan on September six. Before landing in Pakistan, she has made her intentions clear to take on the ruling military establishment. She announced yesterday that she would approach court if she was not allowed to participate in the elections because of her conviction in corruption cases. “If I am kept out of elections I will seek legal remedy,’’ Ms Bhutto said in a radio interview. Her party — the Pakistan People’s Party (PPP) — said Ms Bhutto had decided to move court to seek bail against her conviction. She is expected to land in the country with a formidable media and congressional team from the USA and European Union countries much before the October poll, according to reports. A large number of USA congressmen have already given their consent to come to Pakistan with the exiled leader, the reports said.
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Benazir to return on Sept 6 Islamabad, August 3 According to a party spokesman in Karachi, Ms Benazir Bhutto has decided to face the court, in the first instance, to seek bail against her conviction by an accountability court for her wilful absence and for not attending the court's proceedings. The court had convicted and sentenced her to three years' imprisonment, confiscated her property and imposed a ban on her taking part in politics. After getting the bail, she will be at liberty to take part in the elections.
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Gang-rape highlights plight of village women
Meerwala, Pakistan, August 3 Now the police has been called in to keep the peace in Meerwala, a remote, sun-baked village in Punjab province. Both the larger, land-owning Mastoi clan and its weaker Gujar neighbours fear a bloodbath if they are left to their own devices in the village, a collection of huts and houses at the end of a dusty track snaking through crops of cotton. Tensions are high amid claims of tit-for-tat rapes, a kidnap and the sodomy of a teenage boy. Outside a wooden hut by the river sat two policemen armed with automatic rifles. “I
believe there is a big risk of trouble,’’ said Ghulam Hussain,
uncle of the Gujar woman at the centre of the case. “God only knows
what would happen if the police left,” added the turbaned
65-year-old. His niece Mukhtaran Mai, a 30-year-old divorcee, had
claimed that she was gang-raped in late June by four Mastoi men on the
orders of a tribal jury called a panchayat. The council had been
called after a Mastoi family claimed Mai’s brother was having an
affair with Salmah, a Mastoi girl. The boy, Abdul Shakur, had been held hostage and reportedly sodomised by three men in captivity. An agreement had later been struck, whereby Shakur would marry Salmah and Mai would be promised in marriage to a Mastoi man. Some 14 Mastoi men were on trial in a nearby town, Dera Ghazi Khan. Four had been charged with rape and 10 with involvement in the attack. All could face death by hanging if convicted. Fed up with decades of Mastoi domination in Meerwala and neighbouring Rampur, the Mastoi family said the Gujars cooked up an elaborate plot to get their own back, using the media to spread the story. Salmah, who gave her age as 14, said she had been attacked by six Gujars, and that Shakur had raped her. Hussain countered that this was impossible because the boy was only 11 years old. According
to Salmah’s mother, Mukhtaran Mai had gone to the Mastoi panchayat,
agreeing to be handed over in marriage. She had been led away for a
short time as a symbol of submission and had not been raped. The case of Mukhtaran Mai had grabbed the attention of local and international media and highlighted the uneasy relationship between traditional, Islamic and civil laws in Pakistan. Examples of women and girls being used as payment had come to light since, embarrassing the government and prompting the supreme court to intervene. Under
Islamic law enforced in 1979 by then military dictator General
Mohammad Zia-ul-Haq, convicts could be pardoned if the victim’s
family agreed to accept cash compensation called qisas. Rights
groups had welcomed the media attention and the pressure it had put on
the government to curtail the activity of panchayats in remote areas,
barely touched by changes in broader society, and where few children
are educated. Reuters |
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Annan for reviewing Iraq offer United Nations, August 3 Earlier yesterday, UN spokesman Fred Eckhard told reporters that Mr Annan “welcomes” Iraqi Foreign Minister Naji Sabri’s letter, but that “the procedure proposed is at variance with the one laid down by the Security Council” in 1999. In a letter to Mr Annan late Thursday, Mr Sabri extended an invitation to chief UN weapons inspector Hans Blix and his team, to discuss possible resumption of weapons inspections. Mr Eckhard said Mr Annan “promptly” shared the letter with members of the Security Council and “looks forward to discussing it with them” at a lunchtime meeting on Monday. Asked to elaborate, Mr Eckhard said: “I don’t want to say who is going to decide what after that discussion.” The Iraqi move comes amid growing indications that the USA is considering a military campaign to overthrow President Saddam Hussein, whom Washington accuses of covertly developing weapons of mass destruction. Richard Grenell, a spokesman for the US delegation, which holds the rotating Security Council presidency during the month of August, said the council will discuss the letter but will make no decisions. “Multiple resolutions have been taken by the council, and we are waiting for them to comply” with demands that weapons inspectors be allowed back into Iraq before sanctions could be eased or lifted, Grenell noted. MANILA:
Meanwhile, US Secretary of State Colin Powell on Saturday emphatically rejected a move by Iraq inviting the chief United Nations weapons inspector to Baghdad to discuss the resumption of inspections halted amid acrimony in December 1998. The offer, which coincided with a new flurry of speculation about a possible US attack on Iraq, had earlier drawn an equally skeptical reaction from Washington’s closest Western ally the UK, but broad support from Russia, which opposes US military action. Mr Powell, speaking to reporters ahead of meetings with Philippine officials in Manila, accused Iraq of attempting to “change the goalposts” and wriggle out of their obligations. “The Iraqis have constantly tried to find their way around their obligations with respect to inspections,” he said. AFP |
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American Muslims to honour Sept 11 victims Washington, August 3 The Muslim Public Affairs Council (MPAC), a US based Muslim non-profit public agency, through its nationwide chapters will organise the activities the theme for which is “Remembering the victims, Protecting the nation’’. “We are planning a series of events to mobilise the Muslims to actively involve themselves within their local communities in prayer services, candlelight vigils and other events to honour and remember the victims of September 11,’’ according to Nagwa Ibrahim, MPAC’s coordinator. “There were 300 Muslims who died in the attacks. As US citizens, the attacks have affected our community as well,’’ Mr Ibrahim said. The upcoming September 11 commemoration will be important for US Muslims in reminding all Americans that last year’s terrorist attacks were attacks on all US nationals, including Muslims. “We are very much part of the American society and want to encourage the Muslims to step out of their homes on September 11 and what we all want to do is to honour the victims and mourn with the country on that day,’’ Mr Ibrahim pointed out. US President George W. Bush has signed a legislation that will allow victims of September 11 to watch on closed-circuit TV the trial of Zacarias Moussaoui, the only person charged in the terror attacks. The new law signed yesterday was sponsored by Sen George Allen of Virginia, whose state is the home of the Pentagon, a target of the attackers. It says the broadcast will be made available at "convenient locations" as directed by the trial judge in suburban Alexandria, Virginia. Victims, family members and others with "a relationship of special significance" will be allowed to view the trial. Mr Allen’s original bill had specified a number of locations, including northern Virginia, Los Angeles, New York City, Boston, Newark and San Francisco, as locations where the closed-circuit broadcast would be available. Those cities were the departure and intended arrival sites for the four hijacked planes. UNI, AP |
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6 Pak men on US list of terrorists Islamabad, August 3 The list reveals the names of a number of businesses in Pakistan and organisations suspected of financial transactions linked to terrorist activities, ‘The News’ said. The list aims at assisting the public in complying with various sanctions and programmes undertaken by the US government. The Middle-Eastern police has reportedly found one of them, Zia Ahmad, involved in the September 11 attacks. Ahmad was mentioned in the July 16 updated OFAC list with several addresses in Peshawar, it said. The organisations on the list include Lashkar-e-Toiba, Jaish-e-Muhammad, Afghan Support Committee, Ahyaul Turas, Jamiat Ayat-ur-Rhas Al Islamia; Jamiat Ihya ul Turath Al Islamia and Tehrik Ul-Furqaan of Pakistan.
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A small field is all that separates two rival clans, caught up in
a brutal gang-rape case that has shocked Pakistan and highlighted
the plight of women in villages obsessed with notions of honour
and revenge. Now the police has been called in to keep the peace
in Meerwala, a remote, sun-baked village in Punjab province.
