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Tuesday,
August 20, 2002, Chandigarh, India  
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Pak still
hopes for tripartite talks Tapes show
Al-Qaida men testing poison gas
Religious
parties settle for poll adjustments Lawyers, politicians oppose
Musharraf Benazir
may be back by Aug 25 |
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Filing of
nomination papers begins Charges
against bomb suspects today Bush’s
party split over Iraq Sinha’s
Dhaka visit from Aug 24
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Pak still hopes for
tripartite talks Islamabad, August 19 “Kashmiri leaders have not said that there will be no participation of Pakistan. They just said if India is serious about resolution of the Kashmir dispute, they are ready for negotiations. But there are earlier statements, earlier positions,” Foreign Office spokesman Aziz Ahmed Khan told reporters here. “The matter is quite clear that it has to be India, Pakistan dialogue with the participation of Kashmiri people,” he said. Citing Hurriyat’s earlier statements asking for tripartite talks, Khan said to infer the 23-member conglomerate has not spoken about the necessity of Islamabad’s participation in the dialogue amounted to “misreading” of the stand taken by its leaders. “What the genuine leadership is claiming and what we have been asking for is that Kashmir problem should be resolved through negotiations and through talks between Pakistan, India and the participation of Kashmiri representatives. What are the modalities and how the talks proceed is a matter of detail. “What is essential is that India, Pakistanis and Kashmiri people should be involved in the resolution of this dispute through process of dialogue,” Khan said. Reacting to the visit of the Kashmir Committee, headed by Ram Jethmalani to Jammu and Kashmir, he said: “As far as efforts to resolve the Kashmir question is concerned, we are ready to participate in any dialogue but I think that will be at the government level with the participation of the Kashmiri people”. In the meantime, Pakistan, emboldened by Washington’s rejection of Indian calls to brand it a terrorist state, will use the new wave of diplomatic missions to South Asia to drive home its demand for dialogue with India over Kashmir, officials said today. “We were given assurance by the international community, especially the USA and Britain, that they will ask India to start a dialogue,” a government official said on the eve of British Foreign Secretary Jack Straw’s visit to Islamabad. The officials claimed the Pakistani authorities had stopped militants from crossing their side of the Line of Control (LoC) as demanded by India and Western powers. He said the international mediators had promised to bring India to the negotiating table if the incursions stopped. “It is now up to them to deliver on their promise of bringing India to the negotiating table,” the official said. Pakistani military spokesman, Major-Gen Rashid Qureshi said the statements out of Washington backed Musharraf’s assertion that there was no infiltration by militants into Kashmir.
PTI, AFP |
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Tapes show Al-Qaida men testing poison gas
Washington, August 19 The cable TV channel said it had obtained a total of 64 videotapes made over a decade, nearly all of them shot before the September 11 attacks on the USA last year blamed on the group led by Osama bin Laden. “Among the most frightening scenes in the collection of tapes are those of testing of a poison gas on three dogs,” CNN said. “The disturbing images show the dying moments of the defenseless, enclosed animals.” It quoted a senior Bush administration official involved in weapons issues as saying that he was “very troubled” by the video, particularly as it related to chemical weapons. The official told CNN the video of chemical tests on the dogs suggested “a very strong desire to acquire the capability to use such weapons against humans.” “This tape is unquestionable documentation that (Bin Laden) has some capability,” the official said. The tape showed “some level of sophistication, and indicates they were trying to get results.”
One of the tapes shows several men wearing Afghan-style sandals rushing out of an enclosure where one of the dogs is penned. A white liquid that gives off a gas seeps in and the dog begins showing physical discomfort. CNN said experts who were shown the tape had different theories as to what kind of chemical agent may have been used. “But there was agreement that whatever it was, it was a powerful agent,” the cable network said. U.S. forces who invaded Afghanistan last year to topple the then Taliban rulers and try to crush Al-Qaida and seized documents and other evidence they said showed that bin Laden was trying to acquire nuclear, chemical and biological weapons. NEW YORK: A confidential UN memorandum has said there is evidence to believe that hundreds of Taliban prisoners died of suffocation when they were transported to prisons in closed metal containers by the US-backed factions, justifying a “full-fledged criminal investigation”. The upcoming issue of US magazine ‘Newsweek’ has reported that UN investigators found mass graves outside a prison at Shibergan in Afghanistan, “containing bodies of Taliban PoWs who died of suffocation during the transfer” from
Konduz. A witness quoted in it puts the toll at 950. A UN official told the magazine that the density with which bodies were packed suggested that it could be a “very large site”. Shibergan, which falls in the stronghold of Uzbek warlord Abdul Rashid Dostum, was visited by the UN officials and human rights experts after reports of deaths surfaced. The memorandum “strongly” recommended that considering the “political sensitivity of this case and related protection concerns,” all activities regarding this be brought to a halt until a decision is made concerning the final goal of the exercise — “criminal trial, truth commission, others etc.” Thousands of Taliban and Al-Qaida fighters surrendered to US backed forces, and transported to prisons in November. “I can say with confidence that more than a thousand people died in the containers,” Aziz ur
Rahman, Director of the Afghan Organisation of Human Rights was quoted as saying.
Reuters, PTI |
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Religious
parties settle for poll adjustments Lahore The August 13 one-on-one meeting of Jamaat-i-Islami chief Qazi Hussain Ahmed with General Musharraf broke the ice between the religious parties and the military government. Earlier, he was on a warpath with the General over his joining the US coalition against Taliban. Similarly, the religious parties’ front, Muttahidda Majlis-i-Amal, is negotiating electoral adjustments with all parties, be it the centre-right Pakistan Muslim League (Nawaz) or the centre-left Pakistan People’s Party ignoring ideological differences with them. The Muttahidda Majlis-i-Amal is six-party alliance of main religio-political parties, Jamaat-i-Islami, Jamiat Ulema-i-Islam, two factions of the Jamiat Ulema Islam, Millat-i-Jaffria and Jamiat Ahle Hadees. Amid speculation of Jamaat-i-Islami’s swing in favour of General Musharraf, the party has so far kept silent on the issue. It seems at the moment the Jamaat-i-Islami does not want to give any impression that Qazi Hussain’s talks with Musharraf have failed. It is using this impression to increase its bargaining position in dealing with other parties. It is said that Musharraf’s objective was not in getting Qazi Hussain’s support for any pro-government party in general election but he was keen to have Jamaat-i-Islami’s backing for his election as President by the newly elected Parliament. Thus, Musharraf may develop a post-election working relationship with the religious parties. It is believed that General Musharraf, in his regular meetings with political leaders, is paving the way for passing of the constitutional amendments and his election as President. Jamaat people say that Qazi Hussain told Musharraf that the Jamaat might support his presidential election if he would take off his khakis and abstain from imposing certain constitutional amendments. In return, religious leaders, devoid of popular support to win elections, may get a favourable administration to make their way into Parliament. Apart from the rhetoric of religious leaders that the religious parties’ alliance would emerge as a formidable force in an electoral contest, the confidence of these parties to win even a few seats on their own seems low. They are negotiating electoral alliances and seat adjustments with other parties to secure a number of seats. To win elections, these parties have shown rare accommodation for each other on the contentious issues of the distribution of seats. No member of the religio-political alliance has acquired a separate symbol to contest elections and now all of them are bound to group together under one symbol of the alliance to stay in the race. The issue of seat distribution among the parties has nearly been settled for Punjab and Sindh; the differences among the member-parties exist only in the North-West Frontier Province (NWFP). This is in sharp contrast to quarrels on the issue of sharing of seats and leadership these parties had in the past. In the 1993 elections, efforts to unite religious parties on one platform had failed miserably for these reasons. The religious alliance does not have candidates for at least 100 out of 252 seats of the National Assembly. In 1993, after departing from the Islami Jamhoori Ittehad, the Jamaat had announced that it would not enter into an electoral alliance with other parties. It could win only a couple of seats in the 1993 elections and boycotted the 1997 polls. In 1997 after his defeat, Maulana Fazlur Rehman had also announced that he would no longer participate in electoral politics and that he would work for Islamic revolution. Now both the parries have taken a U-turn. Until a year ago, Qazi Hussain Ahmad held that he could not join hands with Nawaz Sharif and Benazir Bhutto because they were corrupt and he had declared General Musharraf a security risk. Now he is negotiating with all the three. He recently said that a seat adjustment could be made with the PPP Parliamentarian. In Karachi, an electoral understanding between the religious alliance and the People’s Party Parliamentarian is under way. On the other hand, the Jamaat-i-Islami has been making efforts for an electoral alliance with the PML (Nawaz) which could not take place because of Nawaz Sharif’s reluctance. Now Mian Mohammad Sharif, the father of Nawaz Sharif, is said to have contacted Maulana Noorani, chief of the religious alliance, for an electoral tie-up. Prospects of an electoral alliance between the religious parties and Imran Khan are also bright. Imran Khan has recently met with Qazi Hussain Ahmed in Lahore and the Muttahidda Majlis-i-Amal may take a final decision in this regard in its next meeting on August 19. |
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Lawyers, politicians oppose
Musharraf
Islamabad, August 19 Politicians and lawyers along with those who had supported the military government met in Lahore yesterday to pledge their support to the resolve. The politicians were made to sign an attendance register containing the resolutions passed at the joint meeting, which was attended by lawyers’ associations and political parties. Meanwhile, former Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto’s Pakistan People’s Party (PPP) has urged the country’s Chief Election Commissioner to reconsider the use of multiple identity cards by the voters in the October general elections to prevent the misuse of the state apparatus by the Musharraf government. The party said the use of multiple identity cards existed in all elections till 1988, when rules were arbitrarily changed. The multiple identity cards would include passports and driving licenses, the Dawn reported today. Party’s acting secretary-general Mian Raza Rabbani forwarded the demand in a letter to Chief Election Commissioner Justice Irshad Hasan Khan (retired).
UNI |
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Benazir may be back by Aug 25 Islamabad, August 19 Officials concerned have been told to issue fresh warrants against her so that she can be arrested on arrival and produced in the national capital to face charges. Reports have said Ms Bhutto, wanted in the country on corruption charges, might arrive by an indirect flight after addressing a public meeting in London on
Sunday, The News reported today. Intelligence ‘links’ and ‘covers’, particularly in the United Arab Emirates and the United Kingdom ,were
watching Ms Bhutto and her close associates, especially Mr Rehman Malik, Mr Malik Mumtaz and some others. Meanwhile, at
a high-level meeting at the Chief Executive Secretariat, the National Accountability Bureau was told to issue fresh arrest warrants for Ms Bhutto to the Interior Ministry in Islamabad, which would ensure that they reached the Home Secretaries of Sind and Punjab in no time. ‘’She may land at any airport of the country but will be brought to Islamabad after being arrested, where she is to face the charges levelled against her,’’ a Sind government official was quoted by the paper as saying. Also, the Chiefs of Prisons in Sind and Punjab have been given directions to make preparations for the confinement of a ‘’very ,very important personality’’ who might be handed over to the jail authorities in the last week of August or by mid-September. Staff in the Adiala and Attock jails were preparing detention rooms to house the former Prime Minister. For initial confinement, the Sihala Rest House is being cleaned up. If required, it is to be declared a sub-jail.
UNI |
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Filing of nomination papers begins Islamabad, August 19 For the first time, returning officers have been vested with these powers, according to The Dawn. The experiment of closed-door scrutiny of nomination papers would now be conducted in the forthcoming general elections.
UNI |
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Charges against bomb suspects today Karachi, August 19 “The court will frame charges on accused persons in the US consulate bombing and (President Pervez) Musharraf cases tomorrow,” Mr Khawaja Naveed, a defence lawyer, said. Mr Naveed told reporters outside Karachi’s Central Jail, where the trial is being held behind closed doors in an anti-terrorism court, that suspects would face charges of conspiracy, attempted murder, murder, use of explosives and terrorism. The three men — Mohammad Imran, Mohammad Hanif and Mohammad Ashraf — were arrested in July and charged with masterminding the June 14 consulate bombing and being behind a conspiracy to kill President Musharraf. All victims in the car bomb attack were Pakistanis. The accused are members of al-Almi, an offshoot of the radical Harkat-ul-Mujahideen organisation. Two of the accused — Imran and Henif, the head of the organisation and his deputy respectively — admitted at a news conference last month to their involvement in the consulate attack and the plot to assassinate Musharraf. Reuters |
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Bush’s party split over Iraq Washington, August 19 Former Secretary of State Henry Kissinger told NBC yesterday that the Bush administration would have to put the question to the American people, and “compare the existing dangers today to an attack on Israel or Saudi Arabia in five years if we do not do anything.” Allies both in West Asia and Europe have cautioned against swift action, something Gen Norman Schwarzkopf, who led the US military operation against Iraq in 1990 under Bush’s father, President George Bush, stressed needed to be taken into account. Schwarzkopf told NBC’s ‘Meet the Press’ that Turkey, Kuwait and Saudi Arabia must be willing to cooperate, as “it would be more effective if we didn’t have to do it alone. It’s not going to be an easy battle,” he said. “Obviously, you don’t want to be at war on two fronts if you can avoid it.” But former Reagan administration defence official Richard Perle, who heads a Pentagon advisory board, said the situation in Iraq is different from a decade ago. “We are not talking about a massive invasion along the lines of 1991. We’re talking about a much more modest effort in which the USA would assist Iraqis in freeing their country from this scourge that they’ve had to live with,” Perle told ABC.
AFP |
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Sinha’s Dhaka visit from Aug 24 Dhaka, August 19 Political observers and diplomatic circles attach importance to this visit after the three-day visit of Pakistan President Musharraf. This would be the first visit of a minister to Bangladesh after the assumption of power by the rightist coalition led by the Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP) headed by Ms Khaleda Zia. Ultra right Jamat-e-Islami is a strong partner of the coalition. Moreover, this will also be a visit by a minister after the visit by the Indian Prime Minister, Mr Atal Behari Vajpayee, in June 1999. |
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Advani arrives in London today London, August 19 Mr Prescott, discharging the duties of the Prime Minister as Mr Tony Blair is away on holiday, will host a lunch in Mr Advani’s honour on Wednesday.
UNI |
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