|
|
|
|
|
Pak knee-deep in terrorism
Probing air mishaps |
|
||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
Green light for citizenship
Threats from Pakistan
It’s yesterday once more
Bosnian Serb army commander Ratko Mladic earned the title of ‘Butcher of Bosnia’ by ordering the execution of some 8,000 unarmed men and boys in
Srebrenica. His capture will begin the process of bringing him to justice.
The next steps in Mladic’s road to trial
|
Pak knee-deep in terrorism
Though
US Secretary of Homeland Security Janet Napolitano in New Delhi on Friday preferred to avoid answering journalists’ questions on Pakistan still using terrorism as an instrument of state policy, she did admit that after Al-Qaida, the Pakistan-based Lashkar-e-Toiba (LeT) was the most dangerous terrorist outfit in the world. There were many other terrorist organisations like the Pakistan Taliban, the Jaish-e-Mohammed and the Jamat-ud-Dawa which were well-entrenched in Pakistani society. Then there are jihadi outfits engaged in mainly Kashmir-related activities. They all contribute to terrorism from Pakistan. Islamabad is doing very little to de-radicalise Pakistani society obviously because this does not suit its terrorism-based policy for achieving its geopolitical objectives. The world community cannot afford to keep quiet as the situation is very disturbing for peace in South Asia and elsewhere. Pakistan cannot mend its ways unless the US forcefully tells it to do so. A strong US message to Pakistan was expected after the killing of Al-Qaida chief Osama bin Laden in Abbottabad, near Islamabad, but this did not happen. US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton in Islamabad on Friday did not go beyond saying that Pakistan’s problems could not be solved by nursing anti-Americanism or believing in conspiracy theories. Instead, she should have clearly stated that the US aid to Pakistan could not continue so long as it remained the hub of terrorism. The Pakistan government must launch a strong anti-terrorism and anti-extremism drive with a clear message to one and all that any kind of terrorist activity would not be tolerated. It must destroy all such outfits root and branch. The Generals in Pakistan, the de facto rulers, will never take seriously any suggestion from Washington DC and other influential capitals unless they fear that their inaction may result in Pakistan not getting aid from international sources, which may lead to its economic collapse. But this requires a US policy change, which is unlikely to come about. The US scheme of things for the region today prevents it from employing strong language against Islamabad. The US wants to use Pakistan for safeguarding its interests in Afghanistan. Such a policy cannot help stamp out terrorism from South Asia.
|
|
Probing air mishaps
A
dedicated body to probe major aircraft accidents was long needed in India and the Ministry of Civil Aviation has taken the right step in setting up the five-member Accident Investigation Committee (AIC) to look into future air mishaps. It will be charged with identifying the causes of accidents and making recommendations based on them, monitoring compliance with these recommendations, helping the Ministry of Civil Aviation to set up courts or committees of inquiry, and coordinating with such bodies. This would, on paper, take away from the Directorate-General of Civil Aviation (DGCA) the role of an investigator, and it would thus work now solely as the regulator. Until now, the DGCA was performing both roles, which violated the norms of the International Civil Aviation Organisation. While the goal of an independent body to investigate aircraft accidents is desirable, the proof of the pudding will lie in its eating. As of now, all members of the AIC have been inducted from the DGCA. Not only this, the committee will be headed by the Director of Air Safety, who is an official of the DGCA. Last year’s Mangalore air crash, which cost 158 lives, had led to the demand for setting up an independent accident investigation body, and the recent crash of the air ambulance in Faridabad, which claimed 10 lives, acted as a catalyst for the formation of the organisation. Preliminary findings have blamed the weather for the crash, but questions have also been raised about the suitability of a small single-engine aircraft being used as an air ambulance. It has been pointed out that there are no rules regarding operating air ambulances in India, a regulatory lapse. The fact that small aircraft, like the one involved in the mishap, are not required to have flight data recorders means that valuable information that could have helped to pinpoint the cause of the accident is simply unavailable to the investigators. The newly formed AIC has quite a task ahead of it. It should be suitably empowered so that it can allow us to learn lessons from air accidents, and thus enhance air safety in a nation which has been shaken up by the increasing number of accidents involving aircraft.
|
|
|
Green light for citizenship
Getting
a Green Card, as the United States Permanent Resident Card is known, is a dream for many immigrants. Since it is a visible symbol of their immigration status, it also authorises them to live and work in the US on a permanent basis. Too many of such Green Card holders, it seems, are so happy with it that they fail to take the next logical step of seeking US citizenship, even when they become eligible for it. Green Card holders need to be US residents for five years to apply for citizenship. This period is three years if the resident is married to a US citizen. The US Department of Homeland Security estimates that approximately 7.9 million of the estimated 12.5 million lawful permanent residents living in the country are eligible to apply for naturalisation, the process through which they become US citizens. The US Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) is launching an awareness campaign which is focused on non-English speaking immigrants. It will use various media to increase awareness of the benefits of citizenship among those who are eligible for it. While the initiative to bring in more people into the citizenship process is laudable, it is a fact that even with only an estimated 63 per cent of Green Card holders applying for citizenship, the system takes too long and there are many barriers, including an obdurate and non-transparent bureaucracy and a high rate of rejection of candidates on various grounds, before Green Card holders become US citizens. Now that the USCIS is encouraging more people to apply, it must also ensure that it beefs up its processes with the required personnel and systems to ensure a smooth and quick processing of applications from people who seek to move from their current status to US citizens.
|
|
|
Put all your eggs in one basket and watch that basket. — Andrew Carnegie
|
Threats from Pakistan
THE recently released WikiLeaks documents have thrown considerable light on Pakistan’s unreliable and totally undependable attitude towards dealing with those responsible for the terrorist attack on Mumbai in November 2008. After the Mumbai attack, the US and Pakistan discussed about sending the Pakistan Intelligence Chief, Gen Shuja Pasha of the ISI, to India to demonstrate their seriousness in cooperating with New Delhi in the investigations. While Pakistan Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani was agreeable to send him, Army Chief Gen Ashfaque Kayani intervened and negated the idea. Pakistan has also been dragging its feet in pursuing the prosecution of the Mumbai attack accused in its courts. Consequently, the top three LeT militants arrested by Pakistan in connection with the Mumbai attack have been set free. Pakistan complained that India was at fault as Islamabad was not given certified evidence by New Delhi. On the urging of the US, an appeal was filed by the Federal Investigation Agency (FIA) of Pakistan at the Supreme Court. The US urged Pakistan to deal with the matter seriously since the Sharm-el-Sheikh meeting between the Prime Ministers of India and Pakistan was due to take place on July 15, 2009. Here again, the (FIA) complained of lack of evidence against those who were being prosecuted at the Supreme Court. The Chief Minister of Pakistan’s Punjab province was none other than former Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif’s younger brother, Mr Shahbaz Sharif. The prosecuting officers and law officers of the Punjab government asked the federal government of Pakistan for evidence, but soon after Pakistan Interior Minister Rehman Malik told the Punjab government that he had no evidence. The WikiLeaks states that Mr Shahbaz Sharif’s frustration peaked when after Mr Malik promised that the Attorney-General would show up in the court, he failed to appear which led to the withdrawal of the case by the Punjab Chief Minister. All these resulted in Hafiz Saeed walking away free. Another WikiLeaks document has revealed that in May 2009, the US feared yet another Lashkar-e-Toiba (LeT) attack in India and warned Pakistan to disrupt those plans. The US also warned that if such an attack happened, it could hinder Washington’s efforts to provide military and non-military aid to Pakistan. This warning to Pakistan was issued under the name of Secretary of State Hillary Clinton so as to underscore the seriousness of the issue. The US advised Islamabad that the Indian government had shown readiness to re-engage with Pakistan, but critical to this was Pakistan’s progress in bringing the perpetrators of the Mumbai attack to justice. Another Mumbai style or major LeT attack on India, especially if launched from the Pakistan side, could close this historic opportunity and put to risk stronger Indian response. Pakistan was asked to take all steps to eliminate the LeT permanently while in the short term taking all possible action to disrupt the LeT attack plans and other activities. The US pointed out to Pakistan that UN Security Council Resolution 1267 had asked for sanctions against the LeT and the Jamat-ud-Dawa and taking action against anyone providing material support to these terrorist outfits. Giving evidence before the Pakistan Parliament, the ISI chief recently said that if India carried out attacks like the American operation in Abbottabad, Pakistan was ready to launch Mumbai-like attacks in metropolitan centres for which targets had been identified and a rehearsal had also been carried out. This was a serious statement and there was no occasion for such a strong assertion. The statements made by the Indian Army Chief and Air Chief that Indian armed forces were capable of carrying out Abbottabad-like operations in Pakistan, if ordered, did not mean that India was planning such an action. The ISI chief’s statement led to a sense of foreboding and the Prime Minister held a meeting with the three Service Chiefs to discuss India’s defence preparedness. More than anything else, the very fact that the US seriously believed on the basis of hard evidence that the LeT was planning Mumbai-style attacks in mid-2009 shows that such strikes in India cannot be totally ruled out in the foreseeable future and this would be under the aegis of the ISI itself as it happened in Mumbai in November 2008. The Indian edition of Bruce Riedel’s book, “Deadly Embrace”, has just been released. It is a monumental book from an expert in the field of counter-terrorism. He is a Senior Fellow on foreign policy at the well-known American think tank, the Brookins Institution. Riedel has put in 30 years of service in the CIA. He was Senior Adviser to four US Presidents. Reidel mentions in his book’s preface that in 1998 he wrote a memorandum to President Bill Clinton titled “Pakistan is the most dangerous country in the world”. Pakistan had just tested nuclear weapons, and nowhere else on the planet were so many ominous trends colliding in a uniquely combustible way. During subsequent crises with India, Pakistan issued threats of nuclear war and today it has the fastest growing nuclear arsenal in the world. Independent estimates by security and intelligence officials have suggested that Pakistan now has the capability to add 8-10 China-model low-yield nuclear weapons in its kitty every year. Pakistan has recently tested surface-to-surface missiles meant for carrying smaller warheads. It has been following the Chinese model of having low-yield nuclear weapons. Pakistan recently activated its fourth reactor for which uranium supply has been made possible through China. Reidel goes on to say that Pakistan’s complex behaviour and motives are certainly difficult for outsiders, including the US President, to grasp especially when they learn that Pakistan has been equally fickle and also duplicitous in its relationship with the US. The facts are often far from clear and much about Islamabad’s behaviour remains a mystery. What cannot be disputed, however, is that the country lies in a dangerous part of the world and its internal politics is violent and volatile. Bruce Riedel points out that within a decade or so, Pakistan will be the largest Muslim state in population overtaking Indonesia. Soon it will have the fourth or fifth largest nuclear weapons arsenal in the world. It has the potential to be a game changer for the global jihad like no other country. Al-Qaida has put Pakistan at the top of its priorities. Its leaders judge Pakistan as the most vulnerable country for them to hijack. It is already their safe haven. They have built alliance with fellow jihadis like the Pakistan Taliban and the Lashkar-e-Toiba and these function as force multipliers for Al-Qaida. The Abbottabad operation by the US has exposed Pakistan’s duplicity even towards its benefactors, the US, beyond doubt. As a Pakistan analyst summed up: “If we do not know Bin Laden was in Abbottabad, we are a failed state. If we did know, we are a rogue state. It is believed that Pakistan is a bit of both. That is why it is feared that a Mumbai-like attack by Pakistani elements is possible anytime, anywhere in the country. President Obama’s advice to Pakistan not to remain obsessed with India, but to look within for embedded terror groups and deal with them has come in time. The attack by more than a dozen terrorists on the Pakistani airbase in Karachi on May 22 demonstrated how accurate Mr Obama’s advice was. Hopefully, Pakistan would adjust its priorities. However, until there is demonstrable evidence that Pakistan’s attitude towards India has undergone a change for the better, India cannot afford to lower its guard.n The writer, a former Governor of UP and West Bengal, was the Intelligence Bureau chief.
|
|||||||
It’s yesterday once more Knee-high socks and buckled shoes, hair tortured into ringlets and skewered with bows, drinking milk pockmarked with ghee bubbles, eating vegetables that squished in the mouth, the ladling in of dals that resembled the squashed insides of sundry beings living in drainpipes … so went a childhood haplessly vacillating between a ‘do’ and a ‘don’t’, between a slap and a pat, between a smile and a tear…. I swore that when I became a mother, I would let my children run wild – allow them to muck around in mud, get wet in the rain, dig their pearly whites into gooey chocolates and then go to sleep with the taste still lingering in the mouth rather than in the mind. I swore that I would never force them to dutifully mutter ‘hello uncle, hello aunty’ and never, never would I urge them to perform their ‘party pieces’ for a roomful of glazed eyeballs and fixated smiles. Ah! The arrogance of youth to believe that the canker of childhood resentment was to be cauterized by the healing glow of independent motherhood! Shift focus to the present … My children have to gag their way through two massive mugs of milk in the morning and do an encore in the evenings. They have to live through their day, marching to an endless drone of ‘what’s good for them…’. They are hounded on the state of their cupboards, the pigsties they call their rooms and the dumpsters they call beds. Visitors are regaled with their epic adventures by a euphoric choir of grandparents and parents from the time they enter the door to the time they hurriedly exit! Soon a time is going to arrive when suitable spouse material is going to be identified for them. Never mind that the parents debunked the notions of caste, creed and religion as old fashioned and had what is tamely referred to as an ‘intercaste marriage’. And never mind that one set of grandparents did the same thing as well! Not so for the kids, particularly the daughter of the house. The father skulks around the house, eavesdropping on her telephone conversations and then chews his nails off in a demented frenzy, convinced that she is talking to a BOY. All candidates will go down in history for having postmortems conducted on them while still alive. And as for the son ….the good intentions of course were to not burden him as a child for there would be time enough for him to feel burdened when he would be lugging a family around his neck like the proverbial albatross! But when you see this comatose thing drag itself from bed to school and back, get grunts in reply to your queries and find yourself pathetically grateful when it snuffles its lone way through family size pizzas … well, then it is certainly time to do a rethink! Out pours a litany of dire forecasts of the son of the house running a roadside tea-stall if he does not start learning to spell ‘books’! And now that he is set to follow his sister abroad for higher studies, everyone is having nightmares of a mini-skirted blonde memsahib turning up one day and introducing herself as the daughter-in-law! There is even talk of what if the grandchildren have one blue eye and one black eye each! Ah well! Let’s see what tomorrow brings. Until then yesterday it
is!
|
|||||||
Bosnian Serb army commander Ratko Mladic earned the title of ‘Butcher of Bosnia’ by ordering the execution of some 8,000 unarmed men and boys in Srebrenica. His capture will begin the process of bringing him to justice.
The capture of Ratko Mladic is a signal moment in the delivery of the Nuremberg legacy that political and military leaders must eventually pay for their crimes against humanity. He could — and should — have been taken into custody between 1996 and his disappearance in 2002, but diplomats then did not trust international justice: “The capture of Karadzic and Mladic,” said a Nato spokesman, “is not worth the blood of one Nato soldier”. Today, with Karadzic on trial, General Gotovina (Croatia’s fugitive general) convicted, the verdict on Charles Taylor imminent and Colonel Gaddafi under indictment, there is more confidence that Nemesis will strike those who mass murder their own — and other — people.
While the Mladic trial will be an opportunity to see justice done, it must be seen to be done rather better than it was in the case of Slobodan Milosevic, who died before he could present any defence to a prosecution case that had lasted an intolerable three years. The expense and delay in The Hague contrasts starkly with justice at Nuremberg, where a convincing verdict on 23 Nazi leaders was rendered within 12 months. There are greater obligations now to disclose evidence and afford time, facilities and appeal-rights for defendants, but there is a problem with prosecutors and judges who think they have a duty to write history rather than to adjudicate specific allegations. They seriously overload their indictments — Milosevic, for example, was charged with responsibility for three separate wars spanning 10 years, when he could have been convicted simply and expeditiously for the ethnic cleansing of Kosovo. The Mladic indictment charges genocide (difficult to prove and open to endless technical legal arguments) and numerous war crimes throughout the Balkan conflict. It should be replaced by just one charge, the crime against humanity constituted by his command responsibility for ordering the worst war crime since the Japanese death marches of POWs at the end of the Second World War, namely the slaughter of more than 7,000 prisoners of war — the Muslim men and boys killed at Srebrenica. Limiting the trial in this way will enable some justice to be done before the inevitable claims of illness, old age and unfitness to stand trial. These are already being voiced by his lawyers in Belgrade, but the EU must insist that they be decided only in The Hague, after independent and carefully scrutinised medical examination. We have had too many international criminals escape justice for bogus medical reasons — remember Pinochet waving his stick happily after he landed in Chile, courtesy of Jack Straw’s mistaken assessment that he was unfit to stand trial? Remember the convenient escape several years ago of Megrahi, the Lockerbie bomber, when a credulous Scottish justice minister was led to believe by doctors that he would die within three months? Focus on this war crime will discomfort those who might have prevented it — especially the UN which refused to authorise the air strikes that would have stopped Mladic’s advance, and the Dutch government which insisted on vetoing them to protect its cowardly battalion which was meant to be protecting the town but which immediately surrendered to Mladic and handed over to him the thousands of Muslims who had sought refuge in the UN compound. The moral nadir of UN/Nato “peacekeeping” where there is no peace to keep is the photograph of Mladic blowing his cigar smoke in the face of the spineless Dutch colonel while in the background those his battalion should have protected were taken off to the killing fields. Nothing should detract from Mladic’s command responsibility and he must not be indulged by a court which bent over backwards to help Milosevic at a time when international justice was under attack — especially from the Bush regime, which in a fit of puerility approved the “Bomb The Hague” Bill allowing the US president to use force to free any American under indictment there. If Mladic insists on defending himself, and then seeks to disrupt proceedings, he should have a capable team of lawyers imposed upon him, whether he likes it or not. As to Serbia, it has some more atoning to do before EU membership can be assured. Karl Jaspers pointed out that the German people did not bear collective criminal guilt for Hitler, but they did bear collective political responsibility. So it remains the Serbian government’s duty not only to send Mladic quickly to The Hague but to investigate and prosecute those who have harboured him. It has a particular duty, wrongly dodged by Hague prosecutors, to clean out the Serb orthodox church, whose priests blessed the death squads at Srebrenica. Without their blessing, I believe that some soldiers would have disobeyed their orders to shoot defenceless, hog-tied, men and boys. It is widely known that the church has harboured Hague fugitives in its monasteries and has been deeply implicit with the murderous aspects of Serb nationalism. Some of Mladic’s victims are upset that he has been free for 16 years, but his life on the run has been increasingly miserable. They should be grateful that the Serb police captured him alive instead of executing him summarily as the US did with Bin Laden. He will now appear as a reduced and demystified figure in The Hague dock — an inhumane serial killer rather than a hero. They should remember and take heart from the fact that the wheels of international justice grind slowly but they grind exceedingly small. Geoffrey Robertson QC is author of Crimes against Humanity: The Struggle for Global Justice and a former UN war crimes judge —The Independent
|
|
The next steps in Mladic’s road to trial Bosnian
Serb wartime General Ratko Mladic, indicted for genocide, faces trial at the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY) in The Hague after his surprise arrest in Serbia on May 26. Here are the next steps in the legal process. What is Mladic accused of? Mladic is accused of orchestrating the 43-month siege of the Bosnian capital Sarajevo and the massacre of 8,000 Muslim men and boys from the town of Srebrenica in July 1995. When will Mladic leave Serbia? The investigating judge of Serbia’s war crimes court finished questioning Mladic on Friday and issued an extradition order against which Mladic can appeal within three days. If the appeal is rejected the judge has a further three days to sign another extradition order which is final and binding. Serbia’s deputy war crimes prosecutor said the procedure for Mladic’s extradition will last seven days, but according to the law it can last up to nine days. How will Mladic get to the Hague? Several war crimes suspects were flown to the Netherlands on regular JAT Airline flights from Belgrade to Amsterdam and then taken to the court’s detention unit just outside The Hague. Major genocide suspects such as former Bosnian Serb leader Radovan Karadzic and former Yugoslav president Slobodan Milosevic were flown to the Netherlands on special flights and taken by helicopter to the court’s detention unit. When will Mladic enter a plea? Once Mladic is in The Hague, a panel of judges will be appointed and Mladic must appear in court “without delay,” usually 12 or 24 hours after his arrival. Pre-trial process At his initial court appearance, the indictment will be read to Mladic and he will be asked to enter a plea. If he pleads guilty, judges will set a date for sentencing. If he pleads not guilty, a pre-trial judge will be appointed and regular status conferences will be held to discuss pre-trial issues. During this time the indictment can also be amended. How long will the trial last? The court, due to complete its work in 2014, has been rebuked for lengthy trials which often last several years, and judges have urged prosecutors to shorten Karadzic’s indictment. Milosevic died in 2006 during a trial that had begun more than four years earlier, slowed by testimony from hundreds of witnesses and the former president’s obstructionist tactics. Karadzic boycotted the start of his trial in October 2009, more than a year after his transfer to The Hague, while Serbian nationalist Vojislav Seselj went on a hunger strike in 2006 to win the right to represent himself, which was granted. Suspects often refuse to recognise the court’s jurisdiction. Will Mladic be put on trial with Karadzic? Mladic was indicted in 1995 together with Karadzic. Prosecutors initially wanted to try both men together but split the case shortly before Karadzic’s trial started. Frederick Swinnen, special adviser to chief prosecutor Serge Brammertz, said it was too early to say whether the Mladic and Karadzic cases would be reunited, but noted that doing this would delay the trial of Karadzic. How does the trial proceed? The prosecution makes an opening statement, the defendant may make an opening statement and the prosecution presents evidence and calls witnesses. When the prosecution has closed its case, the defendant may request acquittal, but if the request is denied, the defendant may then give an opening statement and present his case. If convicted where would Mladic serve his sentence? If convicted, Mladic will stay in the court’s detention unit until the tribunal president selects one of the states from the tribunal’s list of where Mladic will serve his sentence. No former Yugoslav countries are on this list. The court can impose a maximum life sentence. —
Reuters
|
|
|
| HOME PAGE | |
Punjab | Haryana | Jammu & Kashmir |
Himachal Pradesh | Regional Briefs |
Nation | Opinions | | Business | Sports | World | Letters | Chandigarh | Ludhiana | Delhi | | Calendar | Weather | Archive | Subscribe | E-mail | |
