The Tribune, Chandigarh, India

VIP security in Punjab
The threat perception is ‘bogus’

The Union Home Ministry first removed and then restored the NSG security cover for Punjab Chief Minister Parkash Singh Badal recently. The CISF cover for Deputy Chief Minister Sukhbir Singh Badal has been withdrawn. The Central agencies and the state police differ on threat perceptions to the top politicians. Though militancy in Punjab ended in 1995 and no politician has been attacked by militants since then, VIP security for politicians, police officers, bureaucrats and sundry citizens continues. One of the reasons given by the state for seeking the continuation of the NSG and CISF security for the Chief Minister and the Deputy Chief Minister was that the Punjab Police was not up to the job.

Ideally, Mr Badal should have set an example by accepting the Home Ministry’s decision and paved the way for curtailing the elaborate security down the line. Mr P. Chidambaram had voluntarily reduced his security when he took over as the Home Minister. One major reason for the popularity of former Finance Minister Manpreet Singh Badal is that he was the only minister in Punjab driving his own car without a cavalcade of vehicles loaded with gunmen on his trail. If he feels safe in Punjab, why should the other two Badals and the rest of the VIP lot be so insecure?

The Punjab and Haryana High Court has slammed the wastage of the taxpayers’ money on VIP security. Hearing a petition on July 20 this year Justice Surya Kant said: “This threat perception is bogus and security a status symbol. Why have you created a new generation of Maharajas? If they (the protectees) are so terrified to come out of their houses, let them lock themselves in…. Show me a single instance where a single bullet has been wasted on these people”. According to media reports, the cash-strapped Punjab government spends Rs 18 crore annually on providing security to the Chief Minister and his immediate family alone. Their concern for the state’s economic decline should be seen in this context.

A disgraced Lord
Swraj Paul suffers image loss

Jalandhar-born UK entrepreneur Swaraj Paul, one of the richest persons in Britain, his adopted country, could have never thought that one day he would have to leave the Labour Party. He has resigned from the party after being suspended from the British House of Lords owing to being “utterly unreasonable” in claiming expenses running into thousands of pounds for performing his duties as one of the Lords. The 78-year-old industrialist of the Caparo group was punished by the House for showing in the records that his main home was a small flat in a three-star hotel in Oxfordshire owned by his own family whereas he lived elsewhere. In fact, he never lived in that flat, which was mainly occupied by his employees. Yet he received from the House of Lords nearly 20,000 pounds as allowances for maintaining the flat as his residence between 2004 and 2006.

The money that he has unjustifiably got as allowances is peanuts for him, yet he says that he has done no wrong. His plea is that he could have lived in the flat anytime he wanted to stay there. However, the committee appointed by the Upper House to go into the conduct of Lord Paul and two other members of the Labour Party has refused to buy his argument. He has been suspended for four months, which is the minimum punishment compared to that given to the two other guilty leaders. But that is not the point. What is significant is that Lord Paul remains as disgraced as the other two.

The conduct of Lord Paul and his other disgraced colleagues has caused a major dent in the image of the Labour Party. Former British Prime Minister Gordon Brown is upset with what has happened, as Lord Paul has been known to be very close to him. Swraj Paul, who got his higher education in engineering in the US, became the Labour Party’s life peer in 1996. He created history last year when he became the first Deputy Speaker of Asian origin in the House of Lords. But today he no longer enjoys the respect he did earlier. It is, indeed, a sad development for India too.

Thought for the Day

A small gift usually gets small thanks. — American proverb

ARTICLE

Kashmir in Europe
Having a look at the ‘full truth’
by Maj-Gen Ashok K. Mehta (retd)

Not surprisingly, Pakistan has raised the ante on Kashmir, taking full advantage of the stone-pelting campaign in the valley since June this year. Not only was Kashmir vociferously mentioned by Islamabad in the UN General Assembly (UNGA) last month after a gap of six years, but also a few days back at a hearing on Kashmir organized in European Parliament by the Alliance of Liberals and Democrats for Europe (ALDE) in Brussels.

The public hearing, originally titled “Kashmir: The Unbiased Truth” (later “The Full Truth”), was attended by members from European Parliament (MEPs), Kashmiris from both sides of the LoC settled in Belgium and foreign and Kashmiri media representatives. On the panel chaired by an MEP from the ALDE was a serving Pakistani diplomat, an Islamabad-based journalist, the Prime Minister of Pakistan-occupied Kashmir, the chairman of the Kashmir Centre in Brussels, and an Indian. The resident Indian diplomat was invited, but he could not — or, as the chair said, “did not” — attend, making the hearing representatively highly asymmetrical.

Perhaps the two events — the verbal diatribe at UNGA and the hearing in Brussels — were connected in order to make a splash on both sides of the Atlantic. European Parliament has been active with its reports on Kashmir in 2007 and 2008, even upholding through the May 24, 2007, report the right to self-determination.

Surprisingly, at the Brussels’ hearing only two among the four Pakistanis and Kashmiris expressed with determination the Kashmiris’ right to a plebiscite. In fact, the Pakistanis were divided about the third choice — independence — for the Kashmiris. The issues that dominated the discourse were self-serving interpretations of historical facts, supporting the right to self-determination, Kashmir being on the dispute listed in the UN Security Council resolutions and, therefore, meriting international intervention, especially after the latest peaceful protest campaign.

Chief Minister Omar Abdullah’s passionate argument that J&K’s accession was conditional and not a merger helped challenge India’s contention that J&K was an integral part of India. Moderate Hurriyat leader Mirwaiz Omar Farooq’s suggestion that the National Conference and the PDP jointly pass a resolution in the legislature for self-determination resonated in Brussels.

This was music to Pakistani ears and ammunition to question the validity of the accession document. In their eyes, accession was illegal as Maharaja Hari Singh had fled to Jammu and was, therefore, not entitled to sign it. Further, while Pakistan had accepted the standstill agreement with the ruler of Kashmir, India had not done so. But it had accepted a similar standstill agreement with Hyderabad. Why the double standard? Also questioned was India’s rationale for taking Kashmir to the UN under Chapter 6 and not under Chapter 7.

Pakistan’s case was pressed mainly over the commitments made by Gandhi and Nehru that the people of J&K would be allowed to determine their own future. Translated into UNSC resolutions, these undertakings were “not implemented by India”, it was argued. Further, Pakistanis drummed up the highly emotive subject of human rights violations in J&K and killings of youths.

The other issue highlighted was the urgent need to convert the bilateral India-Pakistan dialogue on Kashmir into a trialogue to include the Kashmiris. The final point made was that the spontaneous uprising in J&K should not be attributed to Pakistan as it was a manifestation of the indigenous struggle of the Kashmiris for self-determination.

The Indian response to issues raised was unambiguous. On accession, J&K became an integral part of the Indian Union on October 26, 1947, in accordance with different Acts of British and Indian Parliament as permissible by international law and was total and, therefore, irrevocable. Maharaja Hari Singh fled Srinagar only after tribal raiders from Pakistan had invaded J&K on October 20, 1947 — this fact was supported by a tribal chief in the audience.

As for plebiscite, India went to the UNSC as a complainant against Pakistan’s armed aggression and illegal occupation of Indian territory in the state of J&K. The UN Commission’s India-Pakistan (UNCIP) Resolution was in three parts: first, a ceasefire; then Pakistan’s withdrawal of its nationals and tribesmen and vacation of territory occupied by it. Only after these two conditions were fulfilled was there to be a referendum with India permitted to retain enough troops to maintain law and order, a clear indication that the UN believed that J&K was part of India.

Indian acceptance of the UNCIP resolutions was subject to several conditions and assurances given by the UNCIP which Pakistan never fulfilled. The conditions for plebiscite were not met by Pakistan for reconstitution of the status quo for 1947/48. The offer made by India was time-and-context-specific. Sixtythree years after Partition, the ground situation has changed considerably with Pakistan ceding territory to China and incorporating Gilgit-Baltistan into Pakistan, thereby altering the original status of undivided J&K. In the UN in 1964, India categorically rejected a plebiscite.

Mr Hans Kochler, an international expert on self-determination, has said that people who can elect their own representatives already enjoy the right of self-determination. UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan said in March 2001 that UN resolutions on Kashmir did not come under Chapter 7 of the UN Charter and, therefore, were not self-enforcing unlike that on East Timor. Later, on a visit to India, he said that the resolutions were unimplementable.

Pakistan had not ceased direct and indirect use of force or intervention to wrest J&K since 1947. Cross-border terrorism had become an instrument of state policy and, despite several assurances by Pakistani leaders not to permit the use of territory under Pakistan’s control to support terrorism, Mumbai had happened. The Indian delegate said that if Pakistan stopped cross-border activities, 80 per cent of J&K’s problems would be over.

Between 2004 and 2007, India-Pakistan relations improved dramatically, and good progress made back-channel discussions on Kashmir possible. Unfortunately, the new military and ISI regime in Pakistan has rolled back the gains of the Musharraf era.

Now Pakistan Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani has revived the practice of making thorny statements like “Kashmiri people live in our hearts” and “Kashmir is part of our national agenda”. He has promised “good news” on Kashmir! Having failed to drum up support from the US for third-party mediation, Islamabad is trying to work through European Parliament, which appears quite sympathetic to its cause.

Next year, while the European Union plans to hold a global discussion on Kashmir and organise European Parliament hearings from both sides of Kashmir, privately it is telling Pakistan to pick up the threads of the four-point Kashmir formula, agreed upon during the back channel discussions by Indian and Pakistani interlocutors in 2007. Alternating between Brussels and Strasbourg, the MEPs have a better feel of the ground reality in Kashmir than Pakistan does. Islamabad must get real.

MIDDLE

Vive la traditions
by Justice Mahesh Grover

WE Indians nurture traditions as no one else in the world, but modernity has made it ritualistic, hypocritical and often absurd. One of the common traditions is the practice of touching the feet of elders (implying reverence), with blessings as a quid pro quo.

Hark back to the days when mega tele-serials like Ramayan and Mahabharata were played out on televisions. Each one of us watched misty eyed, the celluloid princes and princesses reverentially touching the feet of elders in return for the blessings “Ayushman Bhawa”, “Putravati Bhawa”, “Saubhagyawati Bhawa” etc.

The impact was vigorous reinforcement of this practice and tinytots mandatorily touched the feet of all and sundry under the gaze of doting parents and the recipient of such reverence conferred blessings galore while muttering “Sanskar, Behnji, family de sanskar ethon pata lagde ne” (The family values are discernible from such acts).

This ostensibly pristine form of reverence, invoking an equally pure response, has now become as hard nosed as any professional promotional gimmick, to ensure a fast track in careers. Diving to touch the feet of everybody or anybody who is in a position to do a favour is an oft-practised norm betraying a crass attempt at currying favours and unabashed subjugation — a perpetuation of a culture prevalent in the Moghul Darbar. Remember the sight of powerful octogenarians touching the feet of individuals half their age!

This syndrome of “paying respects” can often endanger the benefactor. It happened to me when one day in the morning, bleary eyed, I prepared to descend the stairs and a peon dived to touch my feet and nearly made me take the aerial route to the ground floor.

Exasperated, I almost shouted at him, but then realised that I, as his benevolent benefactor, was supposed to let the milk of human kindness overflow at such a gesture and bestow my blessings upon the poor soul rather than losing my head even if my neck was at stake.

I have a lurking suspicion that Humayun, the great Moghul, must have died while undertaking a descent from the stairs of his fort as a result of a similar attempt by an over-zealous ‘khidmatgar’ and in the process, the world literally got pulled from under his feet hurtling him prematurely to jannat.

In social lives, it has degenerated into a meaningless gesture. It is common to see a young ‘yuppie’ breezing in with a drink in hand and displaying reverential bonhomie wishing his elder “Pairie Paina Daarji!” (Touch your feet father!). The response is “Cheers! Puttar, Jeoonda Rai!” (Cheers, son, live long); all this when tradition expects you to maintain a dignified distance from the elders.

We are traditional, of course, but we kill our young children venturing to marry outside our wishes and unhesitatingly brush under the carpet an unfortunate incest to uphold the honour of the family.

Well! One can only say “Vive La Traditions.”

OPED NEIGHBOURS

Man-portable surface-to-air missiles (SAMS) continue to be potentially lethal weapons in America’s Afghan war as these were during the war in the 1980s when Afghanistan was under the control of the then Soviet Union.
Afghanistan: Threats from SAMs
Abhijit Bhattacharyya

The death of nine US/NATO soldiers in a helicopter crash in Daychopan district of Zabul province, Afghanistan, last month once again raised the plight of Western troops facing the lurking danger from the man-portable surface-to-air missiles (SAMs). This had been happening since long even in commercial aviation as it was noticed on November 22, 2003, when an Airbus-300 cargo flight on takeoff from Baghdad (to Bahrain) was reportedly hit by a SAM-7.

According to a US Congressional Research Service (CRS) report of November 3, 2003, “attacks using the portable SAM/anti-aircraft missile” (operated by a single person) have been attempted “several times” since at least 1979. And there were at least five serious incidents during this period, resulting in two fatal crashes (with all dead).

In 2005 a study released by the Rand Corporation accepted that shoulder-fired surface-to-air missiles, also known as the man-portable air defence system (MANPADS), constitute a real terrorist threat to civilian aircraft all across the globe. It was indeed felt what will happen if Al-Qaida and various associated outfits, instead of trying to hijack a passenger aircraft, find the option of using man-portable SAMs to destroy it on their landing or take-off flight path!

Obviously, one success, killing 200 passengers and destroying one aircraft, would result in devastating economics. Flights would be cancelled, passenger numbers will drop, airport business will fall and, above all, fear will grip the administration also, thereby resulting in an all-round turbulence in the world market. According to a Rand estimate, “a single successful missile attack against a commercial airliner could inflict economic losses from US $1.4 billion, if there was a total shutdown of airline traffic for just one day, to US $70.7 billion if the shutdown stretched out to a month.”

Ironically, although we are seriously discussing the threat to civil aviation owing to the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, the legacy of the subject goes back several decades with successful missions in the military arena.

The recently leaked WikiLeaks documents had it that on May 30, 2007, Afghan insurgents shot down a twin rotor Chinook helicopter over Helmand with a portable SAM. The documents also maintain that the “most insurgent usages of portable SAM/anti-aircraft operations were unsuccessful”. The use of the word “most”, however, implies a confession of success of the insurgents. But the Americans need not be surprised that Afghans use those missiles. After all, the earlier generation of Afghans too got a huge quantity of US-made Stinger missiles to hit the Soviet choppers in the 1980s through the Pakistani, Saudi and US intelligence services. Reportedly, lots of those weapons are still available.

A lot more can be had in future also owing to the fact that at least half a million portable SAMs have already been produced worldwide and will continue to be produced in the future. And at least two dozen non-state actor organisations (including Al-Qaida) are believed to be in possession of various types of weapons. Thus, from the Soviet SA-7 missiles to American Stingers, different kinds of such weapons are available in the black market, and it seems that militants are still using their fathers’ and uncles’ missile technology.

Thus, in October 2007 was discovered a cache of Chinese-made HN-5 missiles (a very early MANPAD) in Farah province of Afghanistan. In January 2008, an explosive ordnance team unearthed two HN-5 missiles at Kandahar. In July 2008 insurgents tried in vain to shoot an F/A-18 Hornet with an early generation MANPAD at night.

Today, proliferation of MANPADS in Afghanistan continues unabated, making the country one of test centres, as once again, like the USSR in the 1980s, the US is heavily dependent on helicopters to get around the uneven and often-unpaved terrain of countryside.

It is, however, common knowledge that insurgents so far have fired only early versions of MANPADS against the US in Afghanistan. Although their exact number is not known, it is believed that that most of these were Redeyes of the General Dynamics origin of the 1960s. Understandably, therefore, all these MANPADS have become obsolete and do not necessarily have the modern-day tracking technology. Still, it is quite scary that so many of these obsolete MANPADS are still working.

Observers may wonder as to where from these MANPADS have come! Answer: From the inventory of the 24 manufacturing countries. However, all of these countries are not major players today.

The Chinese, however, have emerged as a major producer, seller and user of these MANPADS. Beijing began with the Soviet-era Strela-2 systems, which were supplied by Egypt in 1974 as a “technology gift” owing to Chinese assistance in the 1973 Yom Kippur War. China took off and soon transferred the HN-5 technology to Pakistan for use in the production of Anza Mk I man-portable SAM system at the Institute of Industrial Control Systems (IICS), earlier called the A.Q. Khan Research Laboratories. It is in service in China, North Korea, Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Iran, Iraq, Myanmar, Pakistan and Thailand. Another MANPADS, FN-6, “specifically designed for use against low and very low altitude targets such as fighters, fighter-bombers and helicopters”, have been offered to Malaysia.

China also has another type, Qian Wei-1 (QW-1) MANPADS, reportedly “in many respects the technology involved is similar to that used in the (US) Raytheon Missile Systems FIM-92 Stinger and (USSR/Russia) Igla systems”. And expectedly, Pakistan has been the beneficiary, being the “all-weather friend”; it has built a similar missile in appearance and performance to the QW-1 Vanguard, known as Anza Mark II.

In Europe, France has made spectacular progress in man-portable SAM’s development and exporting to foreign customers. In the Middle-East, the Gaza and West Bank “military wing of the Al-Quds Martyr’s Brigade is attempting to develop SAMs, according to Jane’s.

There are many other countries engaged in the production of MANPADS —— Germany, Iran, Israel, Japan, North and South Korea, Poland, Pakistan, Romania, Serbia, Sweden, UK and Ukraine. However, the most widely used MANPADS still originate from Moscow and Washington. The Russian made Strela-2/ SA-7 systems were “widely deployed to the various wars between Arabs and Israelis”.

Of all the available MANPADS, the US-made Stinger, perhaps, has the maximum variants. Little wonder, therefore, that Stinger continues to be operated by all and sundry.

In South Asia, however, Pakistan seems to have gone ahead of India in the manufacture of MANPADS. Islamabad’s Anza Mark-I and II systems have been used in the Kargil war in 1999. The weapon has also been exported to Malaysia.

In brief, man-portable SAM missiles continues to be a potentially lethal weapon in America’s Afghan war as these were during the war in the 1980s when Afghanistan was under the control of the then Soviet Union.

The writer is an alumnus of the National Defence College of India, Delhi, and a member of the International Institute for Strategic Studies, London.

Window on Pakistan
Karachi’s politics of violence
Syed Nooruzzaman

Pakistan’s financial capital and "Jinnah's city", Karachi, has rarely been in the news for right reasons for a long time. It has been jolted by "target" killings, resulting in the death of over 80 persons between October 14 and 19. The authorities are, however, finding it difficult to take action against those involved in these cold-blooded murders in the name of ethnicity owing to the perceived involvement of political parties.

According to Daily Times, "Those arrested on charges of target killings claim affiliations with one political party or the other, but the Interior Minister says that regardless of which party they belong to — be it the PPP, the ANP or the MQM — they would be punished. Some of those arrested are not actually affiliated with any party, but use the party name as a cover."

The sudden eruption of violence is believed to be the handiwork of gangs belonging to mainly the MQM (representing the migrants or Mohajirs from India) and the ANP, which has a large following among the Pashtu-speaking tribal Pathans.

Reports do not indicate the involvement of the PPP, but MQM supremo Altaf Husain is unhappy with its role because the party headed by President Asif Zardari, which leads the coalition governments in Islamabad as well as in Karachi, has not been able to control the situation effectively. The MQM has blamed the People's Aman Committees for the killing of its cadres, though these were formed to help maintain peace. The MQM has accused the committee members of indulging in the massacre of Mohajirs with the support of different agencies of the provincial government. That is why at one stage it appeared that the MQM might leave the coalition ministry in Sindh, which would have made the situation worse.

Karachi, whose contribution to the government's revenue is as high as 68 per cent, has become "a hell on earth". This is how one letter writer in The News described the situation, quoting well-known thinker S. Akbar Ahmad. The letter writer then asked, "Does this city know another way of life?"

Punishing the culprits for the large-scale violence in the biggest city of Pakistan, as The Nation points out, "might not be very easy for a party (the PPP, which heads the government) which has not only disobeyed the Supreme Court but is also engaged in a confrontation with it…"

Nadeem S. Paracha says in an article in Dawn, "This may sound surprising, but the truth is that the recent spat of violence in Karachi is quite unprecedented." The reason being the involvement of gangs patronised by the ANP and the MQM.

The population complexion of Karachi has undergone a sea-change during the past few years owing to the influx of refugees from Afghanistan and Pakistan's tribal areas bordering that country. According to the 1981 census, the Urdu-speaking Mohajir population of the mega-city stood at 58 per cent, but this is not the situation today. The 1998 census brought out the fact that the Mohajirs constituted only 48 per cent of Karachi's population. Paracha says, "Many believe this has further dropped to about 41 per cent".

There is another noticeable factor. "The sectarian and religious make-up of the city has changed a little as well. Experts believe that although Karachi still has the largest number of what are called 'liberal Muslims,' and the majority of the Muslims in the city come from the moderate sects of the faith, the last 10 years have seen a growth in people shifting towards the more radical brands of Islam", Paracha points out. In this complex situation, militant outfits are bound to have a field day.