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EDITORIALS

Mumbai spectacle
Congressmen are divided against themselves
I
T would not have been a pleasant experience for Congress chief Sonia Gandhi to watch two groups of Congressmen indulging in fisticuffs at the rally she addressed in Mumbai on Thursday. For once she would have realised how divided the party is in Maharashtra where supporters of state revenue minister Narayan Rane have been uncomfortable with the fact that their leader does not head the Congress Legislature Party.

When Rice is right
Deals with terrorists harmful for Pakistan
T
HE worries of US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice about the U-turn in Pakistan's policy on terrorism is understandable. If the Taliban bases in Pakistan's tribal areas are not eliminated soon this will have "crippling and long-term consequences" on the US-led drive to bring about peace and stability in Afghanistan, as an American think tank study says.



EARLIER STORIES

Sena’s suicide squads
June 20, 2008
Gujjar agitation ends
June 19, 2008
Oil burden
June 18, 2008
Pouring cheer
June 17, 2008
Towards a flashpoint
June 16, 2008
New world order
June 15, 2008
Relief at last
June 14, 2008
Singhs on a song
June 13, 2008
Crowning glory
June 12, 2008
N-terror
June 11, 2008


The killing waters
No one cares as rivers turn toxic
S
O thick-skinned is the political leadership and the bureaucracy in Punjab and Himachal Pradesh that media reports of dead fish floating in the states’ rivers almost every year fail to move them. Last year a large quantity of fish perished in the Sarsa river near Baddi. This year the Rewalsar lake in Mandi district has lost its fish.

ARTICLE

Counter-insurgency operations
Hyped concern for casualties
by Maj-Gen Ashok Mehta (retd)
O
N a winning spree even before the stunning jailbreak in Kandahar, the Taliban were telling the Afghans that “the American (Western) soldiers might have the watches. We have the time”. They are merely recounting a historical fact that occupying forces do not have the stomach for prolonged engagement in Afghanistan.

MIDDLE

Airport blues
by Amar Chandel
T
HE flight to Chicago on Monday was at 12.15 am. My wife and I were to reach the airport from Delhi while our son was to join us from Gurgaon. We were warned in advance that since repair work was going on at the airport, we must be there at least three hours in advance.

OPED

News analysis
The quota politics
States violating SC cap with impunity
by V. Eshwar Anand
T
HE Vasundhara Raje government in Rajasthan may have resolved the Gujjar agitation for now by granting 5 per cent reservation to them, under a special backward class category, in government jobs, educational institutions and elections to panchayats.

Western oil giants set to return to Iraq
by Patrick Cockburn
N
EARLY four decades after the four biggest Western oil companies were expelled from Iraq by Saddam Hussein, they are negotiating their return. By the end of the month, Royal Dutch Shell, BP, Exxon Mobil and Total will sign agreements with the Baghdad government, Iraq’s first with big Western oil firms since the US-led invasion in 2003.

Music for war and peace
by Stephanie McCrummen
A
L DAEIN, Sudan – It is difficult to unleash the singer in you in Sudan, but singer-songwriter Abazar Hamid is trying. He submits peace and love songs month after month to the government’s music monitoring committee, an apparently surly bunch that mostly censors and rejects them.





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Mumbai spectacle
Congressmen are divided against themselves

IT would not have been a pleasant experience for Congress chief Sonia Gandhi to watch two groups of Congressmen indulging in fisticuffs at the rally she addressed in Mumbai on Thursday. For once she would have realised how divided the party is in Maharashtra where supporters of state revenue minister Narayan Rane have been uncomfortable with the fact that their leader does not head the Congress Legislature Party. The fracas must have been engineered to convince her that a section of the party is not happy with the continuance of Vilasrao Deshmukh as chief minister. Whatever be the case, she cannot adopt an ostrich-like policy and push the internecine warfare under the carpet.

Unfortunately for Ms Gandhi, Maharashtra is not the only state where the party is divided. One reason why the Congress, which got a larger percentage of votes than the BJP in the recent elections in Karnataka, has to sit in the Opposition is because it was not united in fighting the elections. Even in states where the party is in power like Haryana, groupism is so rampant that the party lost a by-election to the Assemby. In neighbouring Punjab, former Chief Minister Amarinder Singh and PCC chief Rajinder Kaur Bhattal have been so busy calling each other names that the Akali Dal-BJP alliance has been going virtually unchallenged in election after election. In Himachal Pradesh, too, the party is unable to put up a united show against the ruling BJP.

All this does not bode well for a party whose tenure at the Centre is coming to an end in a few months. More worrying, even in states like Madhya Pradesh and Rajasthan, where the Assembly elections will take place earlier, the party is badly divided. Following the defeat in Karnataka, Ms Gandhi constituted a committee headed by Defence Minister A.K. Antony to suggest ways and means to revamp the organisation to make it fit to fight elections. However welcome the revamp maybe, it cannot make any impact unless dissidence is curbed and some measure of discipline is enforced in the organisation. This calls for some tough decisions Sonia Gandhi cannot shy away from.

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When Rice is right
Deals with terrorists harmful for Pakistan

THE worries of US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice about the U-turn in Pakistan's policy on terrorism is understandable. If the Taliban bases in Pakistan's tribal areas are not eliminated soon this will have "crippling and long-term consequences" on the US-led drive to bring about peace and stability in Afghanistan, as an American think tank study says. Islamabad's policy of engagement with extremists has emboldened the Taliban in Afghanistan to indulge in destructive activities with a vengeance. This has led to a renewed offensive by the NATO-controlled multinational forces in Afghanistan to destroy the extremists' networks, particularly in the southern part of the country. But the Taliban may not be as much scared as it could have been in the normal circumstances. The reason is that the Taliban commanders in the North-West Frontier Province of Pakistan are now in a position to find new recruits to help the extremists in Afghanistan. The Taliban in Afghanistan may be feeling that one day the government in Kabul will collapse irrespective of the concerns of NATO powers and the rest of the world community.

The peace deals with the Taliban in Pakistan is a reversal of the policy pursued with an understanding with the US during the days of the Pervez Musharraf regime. This is obviously quite upsetting for the US. Pakistan as an ally in the US-led war against terrorism got billions of dollars in aid from Washington. Today it appears that the entire American investment has gone waste. Pakistan has withdrawn most of the troops deployed in the terrorist-infested tribal areas as a result of what it calls "carrot and stick policy". Actually, only the carrot has remained as the terrorists are getting away with whatever they want to do.

The Pakistan government's policy of engagement with extremists is "going to haunt" Islamabad, warns Ms Rice. The fig-leaf approach of Islamabad in dealing with terrorism amounts to indirectly promoting this scourge instead of eliminating it. This is more alarming as there is a talk of it again patronising the terrorist outfits. This cannot be ignored by India.

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The killing waters
No one cares as rivers turn toxic

SO thick-skinned is the political leadership and the bureaucracy in Punjab and Himachal Pradesh that media reports of dead fish floating in the states’ rivers almost every year fail to move them. Last year a large quantity of fish perished in the Sarsa river near Baddi. This year the Rewalsar lake in Mandi district has lost its fish. First Nangal and now Harike in Punjab have reported the tragic happening. The contamination of river and lake waters may be the reason. The Beas and the Satluj originate in Himachal, where pollution starts and gets more serious and damaging as the rivers flow through Punjab. Rajasthan and Haryana too get the toxic water.

The whole flora and fauna as well as human life is affected as rainwater from the fertiliser-laced fields flows into ponds, canals and rivers. A large section of the population gets drinking water from the rivers. Ground water has turned toxic at many places. Water-borne diseases as well as cancer are killing or crippling so many. Not only water for drinking and irrigation is harder to get, it is increasingly becoming life threatening. In 1997 seven sewage treatment plants were proposed at Ludhiana, Jalandhar, Phillaur and Phagwara. Only one has been commissioned so far.

Either politicians and officials in these states do not understand the real implications of the deadly pollution of the water resources or have deliberately chosen to shut their eyes to the reality around to devote their time and energy to more gainful work. Such indifference towards gifts of nature like water and animal life reflects a callous mindset at work. It is not just fish that is dying due to the criminal discharge of untreated sewage and industrial waste. The conscience of the leadership too is dying a slow death.

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Thought for the day

Someone said that God gave us memory so that we might have roses in December.

— J. M. Barrie

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Counter-insurgency operations
Hyped concern for casualties
by Maj-Gen Ashok Mehta (retd)

ON a winning spree even before the stunning jailbreak in Kandahar, the Taliban were telling the Afghans that “the American (Western) soldiers might have the watches. We have the time”. They are merely recounting a historical fact that occupying forces do not have the stomach for prolonged engagement in Afghanistan. Researching counter-insurgency operations in Washington and London this month, I found it could be very instructive even for Indians — engaged in this game since Independence — to learn from the experiences in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Despite Vietnam, US troops fighting in Afghanistan and Iraq realised a deficiency of ideas in counter-insurgency operations. Hastily, copies of British manuals of such operations in Malaya and Northern Ireland were ordered. They forgot about the Indian experience in J&K, the North-East and Sri Lanka which regrettably has not been appropriately documented. By the time it was recalled this month, it was found to be practically irrelevant to Iraq and Afghanistan. But India, which has an unfinished internal security and counter-insurgency agenda, could learn from Britain and the US their post-9/11 expertise in homeland security and anti-terrorist operations.

What was found striking in both capitals and in sharp contrast to the Indian approach is the collective concern of the government, media and society for battle casualties, well-being of soldiers and the new-found zest for counter-insurgency operations as opposed to high-tech warfare. The willingness of military commanders to speak out for their troops is refreshingly different from the silent Indian record.

Earlier this month, the US fatalities in Iraq crossed 4000 and that of the UK soldiers in Afghanistan the 100 mark. Especially in London there was serious comment about wasted lives through media headlines: “Our men must know why they are fighting”, “Tell us why our soldiers have to die” and “Our soldiers are heroes but the truth is we’re failing in Afghanistan”. The 100th British soldier being killed by a suicide bomber in Afghanistan coincided with British Chief of General Staff Gen Richard Dannatt’s outburst that soldiers’ salaries were not even comparable to a London Traffic Warden’s. Unlike in India, the British have a separate pay board, which reviews soldiers’ salaries annually.

The concern for casualties seems hyped. The 100 British casualties in Afghanistan have occurred over a period of seven years. Nearly 300 Indian soldiers are killed annually in J&K alone. Britain lost 1109 troops in Korea, 763 died in Northern Ireland and 255 in the Falklands war. It is not the casualties that should worry the public but the prospect of failure. Despite the high-intensity operations by the British troops in Southern Afghanistan, an exit strategy is not on the horizon.

The far richer-resourced — now armed with anti-stress pills — Americans seem better prepared to fighting it out, being the primary victims of 9/11. The war for Kabul is now by a US-led UN-blessed coalition of NATO forces, but its outgoing American commander, Gen Dan McNeill, says his mission is seriously under-resourced referring to the inequity in burden-sharing among NATO members.

Back in Washington, Gen David Barno (retd), a recent US commander in Kabul, explains how warfare since 9/11 has changed. People would still prefer to engage with “shock and awe” even when the ground reality has changed, he says. General Barno advocates the formation of dedicated counter-insurgency forces for future wars, a debate that has crawled in the Military Operations Directorate of South Block. US troops are fighting urban insurgency in Iraq and its rural variety in Afghanistan. In both the military is creating the time and space for a political solution to end violence to restore peace and the rule of law through good governance. The fact is the counter-insurgency operations account for just 20 per cent of the overall effort, the rest 80 per cent is development and whatever else it takes to establish a stable government.

American counter-insurgency strategy is to clear, hold and build. The Afghan Army, likely to be expanded, is now the most respected institution in the country and by 2011, together with the police, it is expected to operate independently with US advisers for air and logistics support. While NATO is engaged in the world’s largest peacekeeping operation in Afghanistan, American, British and Canadian troops are fighting intense operations. As American forces pull out of Iraq, additional brigades are being pumped into Afghanistan, rectifying an original mistake.

American commanders are being provided plentiful funds for Commanders Emergency Response Programme for civic actions. For the present, the counter-insurgency glass is half full with US support for Afghanistan unlikely to decelerate. In Iraq, however, the US is on the threshold of a politico-military victory. In both countries, rural and urban counter-insurgency is being relearnt the hard way.

The year 2007 was the least violent in Afghanistan. By contrast 2007 was the most violent year ever in neighbouring Pakistan. Many Pakistanis allege that the US was able to divert the war from Afghanistan into Pakistan, a backhander they intend to return with interest. Even before this month’s Rand Corporation report by Seth Jones alleging the Pakistan military’s complicity in arming and training the Taliban in sanctuaries in FATA, speculation was growing in the US that the next big attack against the US could originate from Pakistan.

American Generals noted “discontinuity in behaviour” in Islamabad after the regime change and are not enamoured of the peace deals being struck with the Taliban and the accommodation of Al-Qaeda in the tribal areas.

Counter-insurgency has never been the Pakistan Army’s forte. It has shown little appetite for it, preempting its need through cross -border insurgencies in J&K and Afghanistan. Army Chief Ashfaque Kiyani has reversed his predecessor’s policies of containing sanctuaries and curbing cross-border activities. In Washington’s strategic community, around Dupont Circle, conversation about both a preemptive drive against Pakistan’s tribal areas and a strategic response nearer the heartland to a terrorist strike against the US is audible. Either way, Pakistan is on the hallowed US target list.

There are serious implications and consequences for India in the run up to future scenarios in Afghanistan and Pakistan. While the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq are interlinked, the insurgencies in J&K and Afghanistan are entwined in a common breeding ground. The path the suicide bomber has followed from Baghdad to Kabul to Lahore is going eastwards. The fencing across the LoC will not deter the ultimate Islamist jihadi seeking strategic depth on behalf of Pakistan in the east, on a par with his unrealised quest in the west.

The Indian Army must keep abreast with both the urban and rural insurgencies in Iraq and Afghanistan in insurgent tactics, technology, fire-power and motivation. Countering suicide bombers, the new roadside bombs and Taliban assaults are sound inputs for Indian counter-insurgency manual which is yet to be produced. The jihad in J&K is kid-stuff compared to the guile, grit and sophistication of attacks in Helmand (Afghanistan) or anywhere in Iraq. Designating forces for the rural and urban environment backed up by counter-terrorism teams equipped with light and robust hard and soft wares must begin soon.

For a country that has not fought a conventional war since 1971 and is unlikely to do so in the foreseeable future, its military has been slow in anticipating and adequately adapting to the warfare of the future — counter-insurgency and counter-terrorism operations. It must not get diverted by oddities like network-centric warfare. But restructure and modernise combat units to deal with external and internal security challenges, including the Naxalite People’s War which sooner than later will fall into the Indian Army’s lap. After all, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh has described it as the most serious internal security threat faced by the country. It is insurgency in the making.

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Airport blues
by Amar Chandel

THE flight to Chicago on Monday was at 12.15 am. My wife and I were to reach the airport from Delhi while our son was to join us from Gurgaon. We were warned in advance that since repair work was going on at the airport, we must be there at least three hours in advance.

Since we had also to take care of the notorious Delhi traffic, we departed from our house in Panchsheel Park by 8 pm. The son was even more pragmatic. He reached the airport by 8.30 pm and the first thing he read on the departures display board was that the United Airlines flight AA 293 had been postponed to 1.45 am. How very typical!

The boy called us urgently that we should delay our departure from home by 90 minutes. We said we were already on the way and going back would be futile. So let's take the extra wait as our bad karma.

Since there was hardly anything to while away time at the airport, we decided to take our boarding cards. So what time will be the flight, we asked. "It is on time of course, sir," the girl said. Since we had not checked the display board ourselves, we gave a cold stare to the boy for misleading us. "Thank god we didn't go back on your wrong info, young man," we admonished him. He tried to argue that the delay info was very much on the board, but he was cut short by us.

We went through the never-ending rigmarole of immigration and security checks. The boarding card did not mention the gate number through which we were to board the plane. So we again went to the help desk.

The airport official pressed a few keys on his computer and told us that the gate number will be announced only about 45 minutes before the departure because the flight had been delayed to 1.45 am. Not again, we hissed, as we set down in the crowded lobby to while away time.

We do not know when we fell asleep. We were rudely woken up by airlines officials. "Kindly hurry sir, you will miss the flight," they shouted as politely as they could.

We looked at our watches. It was 12.15 am. The on-time-or-delayed confusion was too serious to be funny. We said the display board had informed us that the flight was late and even the airlines officials had told us so. Had we started late, we might have missed the flight. We would like to take up the matter with higher authorities.

Please do sir, said the airlines officials. We too have been arguing with the airport officials about rectifying the mistake on the display boards but without any result.

There was no way to lodge a complaint because the plane was to take off immediately. Even if we did complain, we knew it will not make any difference. So we flew off, with the song "It happens only in India" on our lips.

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News analysis
The quota politics
States violating SC cap with impunity
by V. Eshwar Anand

THE Vasundhara Raje government in Rajasthan may have resolved the Gujjar agitation for now by granting 5 per cent reservation to them, under a special backward class category, in government jobs, educational institutions and elections to panchayats. By doing so, it has averted a major backlash from the Gujjars, particularly in the election year. It has also purportedly written to the Centre for providing the Scheduled Tribe status to the Gujjars.

In its eagerness to placate the economically backward class among the general category like the Brahmins, Rajputs, Vaishyas and Kayasthas, the government has also granted 14 per cent reservation to them. This is bound to create problems for the government because the total percentage of reservation in the state has now gone up from 49 per cent to 68 per cent.

This is a flagrant violation of the Supreme Court’s 50 per cent cap on reservations in all the states (Indira Sawhney vs Union of India, popularly known as the Mandal Commission case, 1992). In addition, quotas cannot be given on the basis of economic criteria under Article 16 of the Constitution. It would be difficult for the state to wriggle itself out of this constitutional problem.

With the Assembly elections fast approaching, the Raje government’s decision is a desperate act of political expediency. While attempting to help the Gujjars, it has not antagonised the powerful Meenas who already enjoy the ST quota and are well placed in the IAS, IPS and other services. The Meenas feel that if the Gujjars are given the ST tag, they will eat into their slice of the quota cake.

The BJP had assiduously built up its support base among the Jats, the Meenas and the Gujjars – a factor which helped it to win the last Assembly elections. For some time, it appeared that Chief Minister Vasundhara Raje won’t buckle under pressure. She appointed a commission more to buy time rather than grant quota.

However, as the Gujjars intensified their agitation this time, the BJP high command feared a humiliating defeat in the Assembly elections and consequently prevailed upon the Chief Minister to make peace with them.

As Rajasthan has exceeded the 50 per cent cap, it is doubtful whether the new quota proposals will stand the test of judicial scrutiny. More important, no state, including Rajasthan, can put reservations in the Ninth Schedule any more a la Tamil Nadu. Tamil Nadu, where reservations stand at 69 per cent, adopted a devious method to give immunity to the Tamil Nadu Reservation Act, 1993, from judicial scrutiny.

Last year, a nine-member Constitution Bench headed by former Chief Justice Y.K. Sabharwal ruled that any law incorporated in the Ninth Schedule after 1973 can be judicially reviewed on grounds that it breached fundamental rights or disturbed the basic structure of the Constitution.

Surprisingly, though the Supreme Court is in the process of testing the constitutional validity of the Tamil Nadu Reservation Act, 1993, some states are indiscriminately increasing the quantum of reservations and, in the process, violating the 50 per cent cap.

The reason is simple: they want to woo the vote banks. While the Supreme Court would do well to expedite adjudication on this critical question, the states need to enforce the 50 per cent cap in the interregnum.

In the past few years, the court has been restraining states from violating this rule. For instance, in July 2007, when the Orissa government sought to justify its reservation scheme providing for an enhanced quota limit of 65.75 per cent in the state, the apex court dismissed its appeal as unsustainable. The same is the case with Jharkhand. Quoting the apex court ceiling, the Jharkhand High Court had turned down the state government’s decision to allow 80 per cent reservation of seats for elections to gram panchayats in the scheduled areas to accommodate not just members of the Scheduled Castes but also those belonging to the Scheduled Tribes and the Other Backward Castes.

The rationale for 50 per cent cap on the total quantum of reservation is just and fair. Essentially, it is aimed at ensuring a level-playing field for all sections including those in the general category. If the Centre and the states, at their whim, peremptorily increase the quantum of reservation and enhance the quota beneficiaries in government jobs and educational institutions, there will be no place for merit at all. This will be a travesty of justice and the rule of law.

The government – at the Centre and in the states – may be duty-bound to take affirmative action on reservation, but only up to a point. In October 2007, the Supreme Court, in its landmark judgement on SC and ST promotion quota, ruled that reservation has to be used in a “limited sense”. Otherwise, it will perpetuate casteism in the country.

Moreover, the states should not only protect the constitutional right to equality but also keep in view the “balancing aspect” while considering the extent of reservation. If quotas are allowed beyond a cut-off point, it will result in reverse discrimination.

In the Mandal case, the court prescribed both the creamy layer concept and the 50 per cent cap as a “balancing act” not only to allow the really deserving to reap the reservation benefit but also rationalise its impact on the general category people. Where will justice be if states like Rajasthan, Tamil Nadu, Karnataka and Madhya Pradesh refuse to respect the ceiling?

There has been a lot of heartburn among the people following the apex court ruling clearing the central law on 27 per cent quota for the OBCs in institutions like the IIMs and IITs. There is a general impression that the political parties will do anything to protect their vote banks. Consequently, the higher judiciary alone can protect the interests of the general category by forcing the states to enforce the 50 per cent cap on reservations scrupulously.

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Western oil giants set to return to Iraq
by Patrick Cockburn

NEARLY four decades after the four biggest Western oil companies were expelled from Iraq by Saddam Hussein, they are negotiating their return. By the end of the month, Royal Dutch Shell, BP, Exxon Mobil and Total will sign agreements with the Baghdad government, Iraq’s first with big Western oil firms since the US-led invasion in 2003.

The deals are for repair and technical support in some of the country’s largest oilfields, the Oil Ministry in Baghdad said yesterday. The return of “Big Oil” will add to the suspicions of those in the Middle East who claimed that the overthrow of Saddam was secretly driven by the West’s desire to gain control of Iraq’s oil. It will also be greeted with dismay by many Iraqis who fear losing control of their vast oil reserves.

Iraq’s reserves are believed to be second only to Saudi Arabia in the Middle East, but their exploitation has long been hampered by UN sanctions, imposed on Iraq after Saddam Hussein invaded Kuwait in 1990.

The major oil companies have been eager to go back to Iraq, but are concerned about their own security and the long-term stability of the country. The two-year no-bid agreements are service agreements that should add another 500,000 barrels of crude a day of output to Iraq’s present production of 2.5 million barrels a day (b/d).

The companies have the option of being paid in cash or crude oil for the deals, each of which will reportedly be worth $500m ((pounds sterling)250m). For Iraq, the agreements are a way of accessing foreign expertise immediately, before the Iraqi parliament passes a controversial new hydrocarbons law.

But they mean that the four oil companies, which originally formed the Iraq Petroleum Company to exploit Iraqi oil from the 1920s until the industry’s nationalisation in 1972, will be well-placed to bid for contracts for the long-term development of these fields.

The oilfields affected are some of the largest in Iraq, from Kirkuk in the north to Rumaila, on the border with Kuwait. Although there is oil in northern Iraq, most of the reserves are close to Basra, in the far south.

Since the US invasion, Iraqis have been wary of foreign involvement in their oil industry. Many are convinced that the hidden purpose of the US invasion was to take over Iraqi oil, but the Iraqi Oil Minister, Hussein Shahristani, has said that Iraq will hold on to its natural resources. “If Iraq needs help from international oil companies, they will be invited to co-operate with the Iraqi National Oil Company (INOC), on terms and conditions acceptable to Iraq, to generate the highest revenue for Iraq”.

INOC’s technical expertise has deteriorated sharply during the long years of sanctions. Iraq is currently exporting 2.1 million b/d and is expecting to have oil revenues of $70 billion this year, but its government administration is too dysfunctional and corrupt to rebuild the electricity or water supply systems. The government has $50 billion in the Federal Bank of New York.

Mr Shahristani has been highly critical of the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) for auctioning off oil concessions in Iraqi Kurdistan without reference to the oil ministry in Baghdad. In an interview with The Independent last year, he said INOC would never do business with any oil company that signed up with the KRG, and he also doubted if the oil could be exported without pipelines. “Are they going to carry it out in buckets?” he asked.

Several of the small oil companies who have signed contracts in Kurdistan are hoping that in the long term there will be an agreement between the Kurds and the central government and they will then sell out to the majors at a large profit.

The technical support agreements, as the service agreements are known, may open the door to Iraq for the majors. Mr Shahristani has said that Iraq will open up the same fields for bidding for long-term development projects soon. “We’re going to announce the first licensing round by the end of this month or early next month,” he said.

The high price of oil means that Iraq is not under immediate pressure to maximise its oil revenues. The Iraqi parliament has suspected anything which looks like giving foreign companies ownership of Iraq’s oil through a production sharing agreement.

The nationalisation of Iraq’s oil is one the few acts of Saddam Hussein’s long years in power which is still highly popular, and Iraqi members of parliament are fearful of anything that looks like back-door privatisation in the interests of foreigners.

By arrangement with The Independent

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Music for war and peace
by Stephanie McCrummen

AL DAEIN, Sudan – It is difficult to unleash the singer in you in Sudan, but singer-songwriter Abazar Hamid is trying. He submits peace and love songs month after month to the government’s music monitoring committee, an apparently surly bunch that mostly censors and rejects them.

“Songs like ‘New Sudan,’ they didn’t like. Songs like ‘Peace Darfur,’ they didn’t like. Next week, I’ll try the Abyei song,” Hamid said, referring to a reggae song about a contested Sudanese town recently destroyed by government forces. It includes the controversial line, “My brother, be with me.”

Hamid, who is 37 and sweet-voiced, has earned some renown around Khartoum, the capital, for his sentimental love songs that get radio airplay. But he recently decided to give up his day job as an architect to devote himself full time to the more controversial goal of using music to transform a country so often at war with itself.

At the moment, there is conflict in the Darfur region in the west, the possibility of a return to civil war in the south and rebels in the east.

In that context, Hamid’s Rainbow Project involves trying to slip lyrics about human rights and dignity past the suspicious government monitors. Hamid, a married father of three who favors groovy hippie shirts and knit caps, was here in this desert trading town in Darfur recently working on the most ambitious part of the project.

It’s an effort to reform the traditional Arab singers known as Hakama – more colloquially, the Janjaweed women – who are about as far from Bob Marley as it gets.

“They are singing you have to kill, kill, kill,” Hamid said. “They have a big influence on the community and a very dangerous role in conflict.”

A bit propagandists, a bit hate radio, Hakama singers exist in just about every Arab town and village in Sudan. Their traditional role is to compose and sing songs to stir up men’s baser instincts and launch them to war.

During the early part of the Darfur conflict, many were paid with cash, gold and jewellery by local authorities to sing songs urging the government’s nomadic Arab militias – which came to be known as the Janjaweed – to kill, rape and pillage ethnically African civilians. According to an Amnesty International report, one lyric went like this:

“The blood of the blacks runs like water, we take their goods and we chase them from our area and our cattle will be in their land!”

Hamid sat in the hot shade of a tree with a dozen or so Hakama singers, trying to convince them of the less financially rewarding, and perhaps less exciting, merits of singing about peace.

Wrapped in green, red, yellow sarongs, their eyes rimmed black with kohl, the women did not seem entirely convinced. One woman boasted that her beauty and voice had persuaded five men to go to war, where they all died.

“I felt proud because of that. We feel excited. When it is war, you have to do that. If you don’t sing for your men to kill, other men will come and kill you”, said the woman, Khadija Jacob.

By arrangement with LA Times-Washington Post

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