The Tribune, Chandigarh, India

US move against LeT chief
It’s a test case for Pakistan

THE US announcement for a bounty of $10 million for providing information leading to the arrest of Lashkar-e-Toiba (LeT) founder-chief Hafiz Saeed deserves the support of the entire world community reeling under the threat of terrorism. The LeT is known for its links with Al-Qaida. The mastermind behind the 2008 Mumbai terror attacks, Saeed is not hiding. He has been addressing public meetings off and on and is often invited by TV channels to air his views bordering on violence. He reacted to the US decision through an Al-Jazeera programme in his typical style when he said, “We are not hiding in caves for bounties to be set on finding us.” Saeed has emerged as the most visible symbol of anti-Americanism in Pakistan. At the same, his association with jihadi terrorism is not a secret and yet he has not been tamed so far.

After it was conclusively established that Saeed was the mastermind behind the 26/11 Mumbai terrorist attack, India provided sufficient evidence to Pakistan for bringing him to justice. He was held and produced before the Lahore High Court, but was let off obviously because the case was not taken up with the seriousness it deserved. Since then he has been spewing venom against India and the US on any opportunity that comes his way. His case has been a major source of embarrassment for Washington DC. Ultimately, the US has acted, and rightly so, against Saeed, who deserves to be tried in a court of law and punished for his crimes committed against humanity.

Will the US move against the LeT chief force the PPP-led Pakistan government to act against Saeed? It is a test case for Islamabad. If it puts Saeed behind bars, it would be able to demonstrate before the world that it does not hesitate in taking action against anyone accused of involvement in terrorism. If Islamabad decides to find an alibi, it would provide fresh proof that it continues to use terrorism as an instrument of state policy. Since Pakistan may go in for elections anytime now, the ruling PPP must be finding itself in dire straits. This is one reason why India is sceptical about Pakistan’s reaction on positive lines.

Apple’s envy
HP’s veggie success lesson for Punjab

Samuel Evans Stokes in the 1920s introduced the apple to Himachal Pradesh — a tough hill state to farm any crop — and agriculture turned from being a source of farmers’ sustenance to an anchor for the economy of the region that was later to become a state. For decades, the fruit has served Himachal well. Today, however, science, modern transport and markets — aided by government assistance — have brought in another revolution for the state’s farmer: vegetables. In recent years, apple’s share in the Gross State Domestic Product has come down from 6 per cent to less than 3 per cent, while that of vegetables has doubled to 3.3 per cent.

Credit for this diversification, which would mean greater and more reliable income for farmers, should go to the two agriculture universities in the state that have focused on horticulture, developing and testing new seed varieties and practices for off-season vegetable growing, which is very remunerative. While the ageing apple trees of the state do need rejuvenation or replacement, it is not a story of the death of apple as much as the rise of vegetables. Key to this success has been the government’s help to farmers through its flagship programme “Pt Deen Dayal Kisan Bagwan Samridhi Yojna”, under which it has introduced cultivation in poly houses by facilitating loans from NABARD. Organic farming, to which farmers of the poor state were traditionally inclined, is also being given a major boost through NGOs and government agencies under a Japan-aided project.

There may be a lesson in this for Punjab, which is “beset” with farmers with very small land holdings. Himachal does not look at small holdings as a problem; it has always been so in the hills. A small farmer can go for intensive, precision farming, which is what horticulture is all about. But that needs equally intense support from the government in the form of appropriate varieties, technology, marketing, and, of course, expense-based and closely monitored financial support. Production of wheat and rice, in any case, has taken off very well in a few other states too.

Thought for the Day

Both young children and old people have a lot of time on their hands. That's probably why they get along so well.

— Jonathan Carroll

ARTICLE

Problems mount in Afghanistan
India needs to be proactive
by Harsh V. Pant

FOR the West, the ground realities in Afghanistan are turning from bad to worse and there seems to be no easy resolution in sight. After an American soldier shot dead 16 Afghan civilians, the West is struggling to respond to an ever worsening situation. A series of events — the recent killings, the Quran burnings and the emergence in January of an Internet video showing three Marines urinating on the corpses of Taliban fighters — have inflamed Afghans to an unprecedented degree.

Recently the British Prime Minister David Cameron visited Washington to underline with the US President that Afghan forces should take over a “lead combat role” in the country by mid-2013, earlier than planned. British and US combat troops are expected to leave Afghanistan completely by the end of 2014. The two leaders acknowledged that Afghanistan would not have a "perfect democracy" by 2014. But they envisaged "leaving Afghanistan looking after its own security, not being a haven for terror, without the involvement of foreign troops." Cameron himself has made it clear that he thinks that the public “wants an endgame” to the war in Afghanistan. President Barack Obama says the United States, Britain and their NATO allies are committed to shifting to a support role in Afghanistan in 2013 and that next phase in the transition will be an important step in turning security control over to the Afghans by the end of 2014.

Under public pressure, important changes are taking place in the Western strategy towards Afghanistan. The most significant of which is the moment at which Afghan troops are expected to take what's called the "lead combat role" is being gradually speeded up — something that will speed up the return of British and American troops. Till last year, Washington was insisting that all of Afghanistan will have begun the process of transition by the end of 2012. And then in February this year US Secretary of Defence Leon Panetta said the process would, he hoped, be complete by mid-to-late 2013, bringing forward the moment that Afghan troops will take the lead combat role. What this means is that from the very beginning of 2013, there will have to be a steady withdrawal of British and American troops.

Speaking to US and Afghan troops at Camp Leatherneck recently, Panetta sought to tamp down worries about the course of the US war effort following the killing on Sunday by a US staff sergeant of as many as 16 Afghan civilians as well as nationwide riots in the aftermath of an inadvertent burning of copies of the Quran last month by US troops. He also touted some figures to showcase that the US strategy is indeed working in Afghanistan. Attacks against US and Afghan troops are down 24 per cent over the last 12 weeks compared to a similar period a year ago, the figures show. Even in eastern Afghanistan, along the border with Pakistan, attacks have started to drop after holding steady or rising most of last year.

Attacks in the east on US and Afghan troops fell by 36 per cent over the same period, according to the latest US military figures. Pentagon officials tout the statistics as proof that the current approach is working, though some of the drop in violence can be attributed to an unusually harsh winter. Meanwhile, the Afghanistan President, Hamid Karzai, wants a smaller, more restricted US presence right away, but he doesn’t favour a wholesale American departure, according to diplomats in Kabul, because US troops and US financial assistance are essential to propping up his government. The Obama administration is keen to negotiate a long-term security partnership with Afghanistan — which would permit US forces to remain for training and counterterrorism purposes — before a NATO summit this May. Washington’s ties with the Karzai government has sunk to new lows with Karzai accusing the US of being a “demon” on a par with the Taliban.

America’s special representative for the region, Marc Grossman, has been holding secret talks with the Taliban for more than a year now. Grossman has also been talking with neighboring countries about building a structure to keep a future Afghanistan from disintegrating. But all the evidence so far shows that Washington has singularly failed in being able to stop Pakistan’s government from maintaining sanctuaries for Taliban militants. And no guerrilla movement that has had a set of sanctuaries — let alone the active help of a powerful military like Pakistan’s — has ever been eliminated.

As events move rapidly in Afghanistan, New Delhi remains preoccupied with the shenanigans of its political class. It is not clear at all if India remains committed for the long haul in Afghanistan and prepared to make some hard choices. India cannot continue with its ultra-cautious approach for much longer given the faster-than-expected reduction of the military footprint by the Western powers. Last year India had signed the strategic partnership agreement with Afghanistan as it was forced for reassessing its options in its neighbourhood. Since then, however, the domestic political turmoil has precluded the evolution of a sustained approach vis-à-vis Kabul. The problem with India is that it has failed to emerge as a reliable strategic partner for its allies in Afghanistan. It was interesting to hear Afghan scholars visiting India a few days back asking New Delhi to shed “Gandhigiri” and to play a more assertive role in their country. New Delhi has partners in Kabul who want a more proactive role for India. It is India’s own defensiveness that is holding it back.

MIDDLE

A ‘gift’ of love
by Praveen Vasisht

LAST year, a delegation of 15 boys and five teachers led by Air Commodore (retd) Farooq Kiyani from Lawrence College, Ghoragali, Pakistan, visited my school for a few days. The occasion was our annual Hodson Day finals on April 15, also coincidentally the date on which Sanawar was founded by our common founder, Sir Henry Lawrence (Governor-General), in 1847. It is the first of four schools he founded, the other being Lawrence School Lovedale in Ooty, Mt Abu (no longer existing), and Lawrence College, Ghoragali, Pakistan. I thought it fit to invite Kiyani Saab to be our chief guest for this momentous ‘Hodson race’, which he so graciously accepted.

A week before setting foot on Indian soil via the Wagah border, Kiyani saab, knowing my penchant for ‘caps’ and ‘hats’, asked me over the phone on the size of my head. While I was in Pakistan with my school children and staff last year to participate in Ghoragalis 150th Founders Day celebrations, all I said to Air Commodore Kiyani in his beautiful office was that the cap on their founder Quad-e-Azam Jinnah’s head looks very nice. So when he asked me about the size of my head, I knew exactly what was on his mind, and I tried my best to be evasive about the whole thing. I told him to just forget about it, and also the fact that I don’t really know the size of my head except that there is nothing on it or within it either. It’s pretty empty and bare.

Anyway, not one to give in easily, (not forgetting that our two schools still share a common motto called Never Give In), he persisted in knowing the size (in inches) of my head. He did politely tell me that the best of caps are always made to order, and not just bought of a hatstand in a shop. Eventually, being younger than him, I relented, rather got ‘bullied’ and blurted out that “Sir, in the name of God, just get anything you like”. Lo and behold, it was a beautiful black Jinnah topi that fitted my head like a hand in a glove. While accepting it, I did tell him that anything done with love has to be good. Such is the power of love.

While in Pakistan last year at one of their old students gathering I complimented a boyish-looking General Sohail Ahmad Khan on his lovely dress sense, specially his yellow ‘neck tie’. The next day he promptly sent a neatly wrapped packet through his ADC even while we all were listening to their Prime Minister at their main function. The packet contained a new white shirt with the same yellow tie placed above it that he was wearing the previous day. I really don’t know which of the two was a better gift ---- the topi or the tie. Stupid of me to even compare, but they certainly led to better ‘ties’ between us because of the emotions behind them. Gestures like these always speak louder than voice.

OPED — WORLD

Land of opportunity becomes the land of the high school massacre
In the United States of America, as yet another student opens fire on his former classmates, many people are asking questions about whether such atrocities share an underlying cause
Jeremy Laurance

An Oakland police department spokeswoman gives an update on the shooting that killed seven at Oikos University April 3, 2012 in Oakland, California Photo: AFP

IF One L Goh, the 43-year-old Korean who allegedly shot and killed seven people at a private Christian college, Oikos University, in Oakland California on Monday, was seeking notoriety, it did not last long. By lunchtime yesterday the story had already disappeared from the front page of the BBC news website. School shootings are so common in the US that we have become almost inured to them.

What made him do it? And why should the US in particular be prone to such attacks? They are far more frequent in America than elsewhere in the world (though appalling atrocities have occurred in Russia, Israel and a number of European countries).

According to Oakland Police Chief Howard Jordan, Goh was "upset with the administration at the school" where he had been a student, until he was expelled a few months ago.

Complained of mistreatment

He complained that students had "mistreated him, disrespected him, and things of that nature", Mr Jordan said. "He was having, we believe, some behavioural problems at the school and was asked to leave several months ago."

In addition to his troubles at school, Goh owed thousands of dollars in tax and recently suffered two bereavements, including the death of his mother. Most perpetrators of school massacres had struggled to cope with personal failure or significant losses prior to the attack, research shows. Many had attempted suicide or behaved in other ways that looked like a cry for help.

Yet personal failure and loss are universal experiences. There are many other potential factors - bullying and revenge, mental illness, exposure to violent films and video games, drugs, access to guns. Which of these account for the higher incidence of attacks in the richest country in the world?

Common threads

After the infamous Columbine shootings in 1999, when Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold killed 12 students and a teacher, the US Secret Service and the US Department of Education established an inquiry that examined 37 similar shootings between 1974 and 2000.

It concluded there were common threads. Shootings were rarely sudden, impulsive acts - in most cases other people knew about the attacker's plans.

Although there was no accurate "profile" of an attacker - attempts to predict which individuals will commit such acts are doomed to fail - most behaved in ways that indicated they needed help. Many felt bullied or persecuted and there were often signs that they were planning for an attack.

Safe School Initiative

The result was the Safe School Initiative, which aimed to help university staff and police share information about possible threats and develop strategies to prevent potential attacks.

In a recent article, "Why does America lead the world in school shootings?", Frank Ochberg, Professor of psychiatry at Michigan State University observed: "Students do not become mass killers overnight. They nurse their fantasies and they leak evidence. Insults, threats and plans are posted on websites. Classmates often know when a student is ready to strike back. Parents hear rumblings and have accurate gut sensations."

New programmes to share information led to several plots being nipped in the bud, he said. Other countries adopted similar programmes. Yet America is still the one where these tragedies happen most. There is no evidence, Professor Ochberg says, that, compared to other nations, America has "more bullies, more bullying, more victimisation, and more victims who are ticking time bombs, hatching plots of lethal vengeance".

No worse than others

Mental illness has been a feature in some killings. People with mental illness are very rarely violent - they are far more likely to be the victims of violence. But occasionally they can become a danger to others.

"We do not have a sophisticated system of care and protection," Professor Ochberg says. Community care for the mentally ill was "never fully funded" and "leaves much to be desired". But, he adds, America in this regard is "really no worse than other nations".

Violence is ever present - on TV screens, in video games and movies - and many commentators have suggested this can lead to copycat behaviour and desensitisation to its effects. Others counter that it acts as catharsis, defusing potential violent acts.

Professor Ochberg notes that violent role models have a long history and are not limited to America. "Northern Ireland, the Balkans, the children's armies of Africa, the terrorist camps of the Middle East, have their violent role models. Machismo is not an American word, nor is hooligan."

Access to guns

What is left? One factor that, for many, defines America is access to guns. If kids could not bring guns to school, we wouldn't have Columbine or Virginia Tech (where 32 people were slaughtered by 23-year-old student Cho Seung-hui in 2007). Or, now, Oakland, Professor Ochberg might have added.

"The reason we have an American school shooting problem that exceeds other nations has to do with access to loaded weapons by kids who should not have that access. Any serious attempt to prevent school shooting will have to attack the problem," he said.

It is not a view likely to win wide support, especially in states with a powerful gun heritage. Some commentators have argued that the problem has less to do with guns and more to do with civil liberties.

Speaking after the massacre at Virginia Tech in 2007, Richard Arum, Professor of sociology and education at New York University, remarked that Americans enjoy a right to privacy, a right to free speech and a right to due process that is extended to students in schools and colleges, including individuals who are mentally impaired.

Individual rights and problems

"Unfortunately, these freedoms make it very difficult for schools to respond to individual troubled youth. Here was a case of a college student [Cho Seung-hui] who was very deeply troubled, but the school, because it was concerned about the youth's individual rights, had a very difficult time responding in common sense ways to the needs he'd expressed."

Challenged as to whether America's gun culture was to blame, Professor Arum was unapologetic: "Guns have been widely available in our society for a long time, and we didn't have this history of rampage school shootings."

He agreed, however, that when an individual with a history of mental illness was able to walk into a store and purchase a weapon, as Cho Seung-hui did, matters had got out of hand.

"It would be hard to argue that this makes any rational sense at all," he said.

— The Independent