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Monday,
August 5, 2002, Chandigarh, India  
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Benazir seeks US help
to ensure fair poll Tribal body rejected rape victim’s mercy plea Pak Muslim League (QA) splits
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Ordinance
clears way for Omar’s transfer Bomb blast in Israeli bus kills 9
US Special Forces launch hunt for Al-Qaida men Bush determined on Saddam’s removal
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Benazir
seeks US help to ensure fair poll
Islamabad, August 4 “The USA is a great democracy. The Pakistani people look towards it to use its friendship with Musharraf to ensure that elections are in substance fair”, Bhutto said while welcoming US Assistant Secretary of State Christina Rocca’s statement that America “looks forward to the holding of free and fair elections that will return the country to democratic rule”. “The USA considers raising the issue of elections open to all parties and candidates as provided by Pakistan constitution and the implementation of the joint opposition electoral reform package and respect for fundamental human rights,” Bhutto, chairperson of Pakistan People’s Party, said in a letter to Rocca, which was released to the press last night. Attacking the military ruler for bringing rules not permitting everyone to contest the polls, she said “this builds the impression that the elections are eyewash for international consumption. Musharraf indicated in Washington during his February address to the Press Club that the electoral exercise was to ‘re-label’ his dictatorship.” “Given Pakistan’s crucial importance to the war against terror, the stability of the country is of critical importance. This stability can be sustained through the aspirations of the people of Pakistan. The denial of those aspirations can strengthen the non-democratic forces of militancy that articulate sentiments through the bullet rather than the ballot,” she said. Bhutto said “the actions of the USA in stopping Musharraf using Pakistan’s critical importance to promote his dictatorship through prejudged electoral results have consequences beyond South Asia.” Providing an account of the alleged excesses committed against her party, she said: “Observers contend that under a transparent election, the PPP and I would win. To sabotage the election results, a new absentee decree was passed to prevent my contesting the elections. The new decree is violative of the Pakistani constitution that permits citizens, other than those convicted for a crime, to contest.” She also brought up the issue of allegedly inhuman and cruel treatment meted to her husband, Asif Zardari, in jail. The PPP, she said, welcomed the US contribution to the election process by training poll watchers and providing elections observers. In an interview to the BBC, she said: “I want to come back to the country to contest the elections. We are waiting for the decision of the election commission”. Bhutto said the Pakistan constitution allows her to participate in the October 10 election. If barred from contesting the polls, I would “knock at the doors of the Superior Court. “I would invoke the court jurisdiction, and try to seek relief through the court,” she added. Bhutto said time was running out and she had to challenge the unconstitutional black laws in court.
PTI |
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Tribal body rejected rape victim’s mercy plea
Islamabad, August 4 Mr Hussain is said to have brought his niece on that dark day last June before the “panchayat” (tribal council) on the assurance that his family would be pardoned if she offered an apology for her brother’s alleged illicit affair with a girl of the Mastoi clan, placed higher in social hierarchy. While responding to defence examination, Mr Hussain told the court that the Mastois and the Gujjars were about to agree on an exchange of marriages to resolve the matter when two of the Mastois, who were the members of the council, approached the Gujjars and asked for a public apology on Ms Mukhtaran’s part to seek pardon. The court was adjourned. Ms Mukhtaran Mai, a 30-year-old divorcee, says she was repeatedly raped in late June on the orders of the panchayat at the remote village of Meerwala in southern Punjab, where rapes and killings of women are common and often go unreported. Ms Mai had approached the village tribal council to settle a dispute between her family and members of the powerful Mastoi clan who accused her brother, Abdul Shakur, from the weaker Gujjar clan, of having an illicit affair with a Mastoi girl. They kidnapped the boy, who says that he was sodomised by three Mastoi men while in captivity. According to villagers, a panchayat was called to settle the dispute, and the Mastois agreed that the boy must marry the Mastoi girl but that Ms Mai must be married to a Mastoi man. When she approached the panchayat to plead for mercy, she says the council ordered the worst punishment — she was dragged off and raped before being made to walk home semi-naked in front of hundreds of onlookers. The accused deny the account, and their relatives at Meerwala say that Mai’s family concocted a story to get revenge on the dominant Mastoi clan. All 14 accused face the death penalty if found guilty, although the system of appeals and barter arrangements make many death sentences in Pakistan commuted to life imprisonment or lifted completely. ANI
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Pak Muslim League (QA) splits
Islamabad, August 4 Mr Ejaj-ul-Haq, son of former military ruler Zia-ul-Haq, broke away from the PML-Qaide-Azam after he suffered a humiliating defeat in the party poll held here yesterday. He secured a paltry 17 votes in the party’s General Council against his rival Mian Muhammed Azhar’s 492. He alleged irregularities in the poll. He now plans to form a new party or a faction of the PML to contest the poll. Meanwhile, the Pakistan Muslim League (PML-N) said it had replaced exiled former Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif with his brother Shahbaz, to deny the military regime a walkover in the coming poll. “It is part of the party strategy against targeted lawmaking designed to oust the PML-N from the contest,” party vice-president Zafar Ali Shah said. He dismissed reports that the replacement of Mr Nawaz with Mr Shahbaz as President of the former ruling party was done under a deal with President Pervez Musharraf’s government. PTI
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Ordinance
clears way for Omar’s transfer Islamabad, August 4 Promulgation of the ordinance could pave the way for transfer of Ahmad Omar Shiekh, the Britain-born, convicted for the murder of Wall Street Journal reporter Daniel Pearl. The ordinance would also allow the Pakistani authorities, who have been handing over suspects to the Americans literally on demand, a legal mechanism to transfer more that 300 foreign nationals being held in Pakistani jails. The ordinance issued last night laid down a procedure for filing a request by foreign convicts imprisoned in Pakistan and Pakistani citizens serving sentences in countries that have an agreement with Pakistan for the mutual transfer of offenders. Under
the new law, a competent authority, which would be the Interior
Secretary, can make a request for the repatriation of foreign convicts
to their respective governments, Dawn reported today. UNI
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Pak studying gas pipeline proposal Islamabad, August 4 Pakistan’s Petroleum Ministry has forwarded a summary to the government seeking permission to grant the contract to Gazprom, which has shown willingness to fund the project.
PTI |
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Bomb blast in Israeli bus kills 9
Jerusalem, August 4 Hamas claimed responsibility in a statement on its web site, its second deadly bombing in four days. Three hours after the bombing at the Meron junction near the town of Tsfat, a Palestinian attacker opened fire just outside the walls of Jerusalem’s Old City, sparking a gun battle with police that left three people dead, including an Israeli security guard, an Arab bystander and the gunman. US President George W. Bush said he was “distressed” to learn of the bombing. “There are a few killers who want to stop the peace process that we have started. We must not let them,” Bush said as he began a golf game with his father in Kennebunkport, Maine. “For the sake of humanity, for the sake of the Palestinians who suffer, for the sake of the Israelis who are under attack, we must stop the terror.” An Israeli official blamed the Palestinian Authority, led by Yasser Arafat, for the attack, saying it showed it “feeds on terror.” The Palestinian leadership condemned the bombing, but also accused Sharon of “war crimes” for the Israeli army’s mass detentions, home demolitions and curfews imposed on Palestinians. Recent Palestinian attacks prompted Israel to raid the West Bank city of Nablus in a hunt for militants. Israeli troops remained in the city today. The bus in northern Israel was packed with people on their way to work and a number of soldiers returning to their base at the beginning of the work week. Nine people were killed in the explosion, including a number of soldiers, said police spokesman Yaron Zamir. Thirty-seven people were injured, two critically, said David Peretz, head of the emergency ambulance service Magen David Adom in northern Israel. AP
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US Special Forces launch hunt for Al-Qaida men London, August 4 Sources say that Mr Rumsfeld has issued a classified memorandum to Gen Charles Holland, head of the US Special Operations command, ordering his troops to “capture or kill” the top figures of the Al-Qaida. The move comes amid growing concern among senior figures around President Bush over the way in which the Pentagon’s Central Command, led by Gen Tommy Franks, has been prosecuting the war against terrorism, not least the failure to seize key members of the Al-Qaida leadership who have fled and gone to ground. Disclosure of the confidential memorandum came as Mr Rumsfeld met General Holland on August 2 to discuss strategies to “re-energise” the war, now in its 10th month. At the meeting, General Holland is understood to have made the case for deploying the Navy SEALS, Army Green Berets and the US Army’s secretive Delta Force, to fight alongside the armed forces of countries where the Al-Qaida leadership is suspected to have taken refuge. The Rumsfeld memorandum includes not only Osama bin Laden but another six or so key figures who are believed to pose the greatest threat of coordinating and ordering new terrorist attacks on the USA. It will give the Special Operations forces the ability to take advantage of the law that allows them to engage in counter-terrorism or “direct action” missions to kill enemy forces. During the meeting, General Holland is understood to have sought approval for a dramatic expansion of the US Navy’s stop-and-search efforts against suspect shipping as well approval for Special Operations troops to accompany foreign forces on combat missions. Administration sources, quoted in The Washington Post, said, however, that the thrust of the new efforts would be on missions that were “aggressive, unilateral and behind the scenes”, which would include assassination strikes. Mr Rumsfeld is reported to be impatient with the pace of planning for operations against the Al-Qaida, saying that it had become rigid and stale.
The Guardian, London |
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Bush determined on Saddam’s removal London, August 4 “The expectation is that President Bush will make a final decision on the timing of a war over the course of August. That would be followed by UK-led efforts to get a mandate for action at the UN, either under existing resolutions or a new UN resolution,” a senior official said. The disclosure came as US Secretary of State Colin Powell dismissed an offer by Iraq to talk to the Chief Weapons Inspector of the United Nations. “Inspection is not the issue, disarmament is, making sure that the Iraqis have no weapons of mass destruction,” Mr Powell said during a visit to Manila. “We have seen the Iraqis try to fiddle with the inspection system before,” he said. “You can tell that they are trying to get out of the clear requirement that they have. The goal is not inspections for inspection’s sake,” he added. The escalation of US military efforts comes amid signs of the first serious split between the USA and the UK over the relentless march to war. The split emerged yesterday after Mr John Bolton, US Under Secretary for Arms Control admitted that the aim of Washington was to topple Saddam regardless of whether or not he allowed UN inspectors back in to complete the disarmament process. His words set alarm bells ringing in London, since the legality of any attack on Iraq — already questioned by the government’s own lawyers — depends on claiming to be acting against infringements of the post-Gulf War disarmament pact rather than simply overthrowing a dictator. Foreign office sources were quick to dissociate the Foreign Secretary from Mr Bolton’s comments. “Mr Jack Straw has always said that the aim of our policy would not be a regime change,” a Foreign office source said. In a further indication of preparation for war on both sides of the Atlantic, Mr Tony Blair is expected to begin a campaign of softening up public opinion for war in the autumn. Mr Bruce George, Chairman of the British House of Commons Defence Select Committee, said the UK Government would have to have started explaining its case by then to reverse opinion polls now showing strong opposition to war. The determination of Mr Bush and his closest officials to go ahead with a war has also come amid growing evidence of splits within his own administration. Senior officials, however, anticipate that Mr Bush will bring an end to the debate by ordering the Pentagon to prepare for war. Most of them in the administration expect a fairly swift victory.
The Guardian
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