A Rumor Of Lies

http://www.sundaymirror.co.uk/shtml/NEWS/P9S1.shtml

Sunday Mirror, UK

PAKISTAN MUST ACT TO HALT THIS THREAT TO WORLD PEACE

THE export of nuclear capacity from Pakistan is a deadly threat to the region and the world.

Pakistan must stop the trade which the Sunday Mirror has exposed.

It`s no good for their government to say they have no control over third parties or private companies who sell nuclear materials. If they were determined to put a stop to this they could.

When nuclear material falls into the hands of private parties parties it is a short step to getting into terrorist hands.

There is a link between Pakistan`s exports of nuclear capability and terrorism. The country is rapidly becoming a threat to world peace.

I will investigate this matter and take action to alert the international community, the United Nations and other bodies as to what is going on in Pakistan.

Will Pakistan be the next Afghanistan?



By AMIR ZIA, Associated Press Writer

MIRALI, Pakistan (AP) - Loudspeakers used to blare songs from the small music shops inside the crowded bazaar of this town in Pakistan`s remote northwestern border region.

Not anymore.

The shops are shuttered. Also gone are the television antennas that sprouted from the rooftops of the mud and brick houses of Mirali, 20 miles east of the Afghan border.

Emboldened by the success of the Taliban religious militia next door in Afghanistan, men espousing the same restrictive brand of Islam have formed their own Taliban movement and started to impose their rules.

Known as Tehrik-e-Taliban, the movement has the same goals as the Taliban in Afghanistan. It wants to eradicate music, TV, videos - virtually all forms of light entertainment. It seeks to ban women taking jobs and to limit girls` schooling to the study of the Koran and only up to age 8.

Taliban supporters also impose religious observance, requiring all men to pray in the mosque five times a day, grow beards and wear turbans.

While the movement wants to see such rules for all of Pakistan, it is concentrating on the rugged region that borders Afghanistan and is largely run by tribal elders. Like the Afghan Taliban, the people of Pakistan`s tribal belt are predominantly ethnic Pathans and follow similar tribal traditions.

Critics contend the religious interpretations by Afghanistan`s Taliban rulers are more a reflection of tribal traditions than of the teachings of Islam. They say Islam extols the value of education for both men and women and has no objection to music or movies.

The critics are especially bothered by the forcible imposition of Taliban ways on everyone under the militia`s rule.

``The use of force is against Islam`s spirit. We should win people by love and reasoning,`` said Qibla Ayaz, an Islamic studies professor at Pakistan`s Peshawar University.

Pakistan`s tribal region, however, is increasingly embracing the Taliban version of Islam.

In April, more than 2,000 armed Taliban followers went on a rampage in Mirali, smashing TV sets and burning hundreds of audio and video tapes.

``All men keep weapons here, but the Taliban outnumbered shopkeepers,`` said Mohammed Turrab, who repairs tape recorders. ``All music and video shops have stayed closed.``

Zar Gul, a tribal elder who supports the Taliban, said the campaign against television and music was ``just a beginning toward the goal of Islamic law`s enforcement.``

``Television and music are evil,`` Gul said. ``They should have no place in a Muslim society because they promote obscenity and corruption.``

Over the past year, Taliban leaders have formed a parallel administration in some parts of Pakistan`s tribal region, said Shaharyar Bangash, an official of a foreign-financed aid group, the National Research and Development Foundation.

He said the Taliban are winning supporters because national governments have ignored the impoverished and backward region. Less than 6 percent of the area`s people can read and write, compared with the national average of 45 percent. Each acre of agricultural land must support nearly seven people, three times the national average.

Mushtaq Jadoon, a senior government official, dismissed suggestions a parallel Taliban administration has sprung up.

``In parts of the tribal area, people decided voluntarily to curb social evils,`` he said. ``But we have asked clerics to approach us with complaints of obscenity, drugs or liquor instead of taking a direct action, and they say they will.``

Not everyone in the tribal belt supports the Taliban.

``It makes no sense that things that are allowed elsewhere in the country are considered a crime here,`` said Mohammed Sadiq, a truck driver in Mirali.

He said some people have taken to surreptitiously watching television at night, sneaking out in the darkness to erect a TV antenna and taking it down before daylight.

``But we`re afraid,`` Sadiq added.

In the tribal town of Zargari, 80 miles south of Peshawar, Taliban supporters are in firm control. Residents have been ordered to smash their TV sets or sell them to people elsewhere.

Ajab Khan Orakzai, principal of Zargari`s religious school, said harsh punishments are necessary.

``You can check wayward people only through a stick,`` he said. ``Islamic punishments, like chopping hands and feet of criminals as is done in Afghanistan and Saudi Arabia, are the best way to clean the society.``

The article is well-articulated. However, surprisingly two major components of Pakistan`s future received no attention. One, the mullahs and their increasingly militant inroads into the Pakistani polity and secondly the nuclear bomb. Crude as it might be it is one factor which cannot be discounted in any discussions of future scenarios. My version of Dante`s Inferno is President Qazi Hussain Ahmed with Majid Nizami as the interior minister and Liaqat Baloch carrying the briefcase with the nuclear trigger!! And its not as far-fetched as some of you might think.

Feroz:

DECEPTION OF REGURGITATED LIES

Nice piece.

In a nineteen paragraph article, you touched on the Economy only in the fifteenth. I beg to differ. It is a ‘war’ Economy not ‘aid’ Economy sustained by a ever growing gap between reality and aspirations and an ever shrinking tax base.

(gimme, gimme,gimme, oh yeah, gimme
take away not from me, oh yeah, from me!)

And almost ignored the baton boy’s buckling in to the flowing beards.

You are living in interesting times by that city of Diamond-market-upon-the-Mosque. Who knows, you may survive to write about the Lebanisation and its Aftermath in the next decade.

Keep them pouring in.

regards,

t

PS: I know you won`t mind this. Keep the sentences short. Longer ones become convoluted. Same for paragraphs.

Cry, the beloved `other` country

http://www.smh.com.au/news/0005/27/text/pageone08.html

For Usha Sundar Harris, the coup is the latest in a long line of betrayals.

``It is a generally accepted idea in Pakistan that if those responsible for stealing the national wealth are punished and the looted wealth recovered, it will be the antidote for all of Pakistani financial ills.``

The problem is just not confined to looting from the treasury. We find companies, small, medium and large mugged by crooked government officials. And we are not talking about petty extortion by underpaid inspectors but heavy handed white collar criminal extortion by very well paid bankers from ostensibly ``good`` families. Infact manipulating the environment and government policy is reported to part of a large scale scam to loot companies in trouble with their repayments. One individual, now on ECL and apparently under intensive investigation, is reputed to have walked off with an estimated 400 to 500 million rupees while causing serious damage to his clients and his employers. And lot of this has taken place after Musharraf came to office....

This article could have been one tenth its
length and still could have managed to say what
CHOWK is now quite accustomed to.
By that I mean, get out the razor blades and
commit national suicide! Pakistan is has gone down
the tubes, it is a lost cause, nothing works, we
are going to be finished soon.
Little is said about the simplest of solutions
to our many ailments. That being a focus on treating ALL of our own fellow countrymen with
kindness and respect each other irrespective of ethnic, religious or gender background.
The biggest danger to Pakistan today comes from
its uninvited entry into the Nuclear Club. And
someone please rejuvinate the exact year that this
``failed state`` idea showed up? Does it coincide
with the implementation of Pressler and the time
when the Russians withdrew from Pakistan?
Pakistan will need to make many changes that
the ``World`` is asking it to make. But economic
default will not finish the country (If only
Mahboob ul Haq were alive today...)
So F.R., at the risk of sounding too harsh, the
incredible amount of energy that you have used up
to write this mini-thesis could have been better
used to try and raise some money for the drought
victims of Pakistan (at this very moment).
There are certain rules to this gentlemenly discourse here on CHOWK. ``You do not hit a man
or a country when it is down``.
I was Pakistan`s biggest critic during the
Zia Dictatorship and during 1971. But at that
time nobody would listen because Pakistan had
very powerful friends. Now that it is facing
``High Noon`` alone, let us not all get ready to ride into the sunset with a country that needs
nothing else but a much needed dose of reality.

Ras

Ras Siddiqui #7

I completely, totally and whole heartedly agree with you. There is too much of negetivity about pakistan, it is time to look at some positive aspects. I am still looking for some positive reports, real events in pakistan.

Too much analysis along the beaten track, cheated by the americans, corrupt politicians, jinnahs speach, the 2% theorists, the accident theorists, mullah haters.

Look at the reality, look at the failure to amend blasphemy laws, look at the reports on talibanisation, look at whether the 2% has changed, look at the impossibility of peace with india, look at the terms of the peace agreements- the school books will be changed and the history of pakistan will be changed- look at reality in the face.

Try to push pakistan along the current path. The alleged `great` islamic republic evolving in Iran is the outcome of a Shah followed by Khomeni. You had the Bhutto days, time for the Pervez Musharaff Khomeni. Join the jihadists.

Re: Ras # 7

I was not hitting Pakistan when it was down. I was merely stating a fact of reality, which is not so evident from across the Pacific or Atlantic, but it is from ``ground zero``.

Helping the drought victims is a western ``feel good`` wish, but the GoP is not interested in helping those poor souls and that problem, of a drought, is not a problem in Pakistan anymore, because we are following Dr. Schultz`s advice.

Re: Temporal

Points accepted. The article was not about the economy per se, but it was about the role of the bureaucracy in the affairs of Pakistan and its inability to change for the better. Like you said a long time ago: the whole structure is rotten to the core and it is time to kick it in and start all over again! The intent of the article was to look at the process of devolution of power and not the economy itself.

Re: Jay

Quit being an optimist. It does not suit you!!

Ciao!

Just got a couple of questions:

``...the future of Pakistan rests in the dissatisfied hands of the Pakistani people themselves and it will be their conduct, which will determine, for better or worse, what Pakistan will look like in the next decade...``

What conduct and what actions are required of the Pakistani people, specifically, that will decide Pakistan`s future?

``...the people of Pakistan have to take a decision; self-interest or national interest and on the basis of this decision history will record its final verdict on Pakistan...``

Again, specifically, what constitutes self-interest versus what constitutes national interest in which key decisions that Pakistani people are to make?

``The only question is that the do the Pakistanis know the choices confronting them?``

What are those choices?

Sadhana

Dear Khan,

Your article, basically, is a lengthy recap of what we have been hearing for the past 5 decades.

Democracy: The sacred cow#1- Hardly 30% of the Pakistani population casts votes. Conservative estimates put this percentage down to 20%. It is also a common knowledge how people are dragged down to polling stations to cast votes-the percentage could easily go down to 10%. Why 70% of the population doesn’t care about the political process?

Secularism: Sacred cow #2. If secularism and democracy is marriage made in heaven then why people are still living in India like insects- and I don’t mean just physically. By now, they should have been as well off as Chinese, if not better, at least monetarily. (Please look beyond the Barbie world presented in Indian Movies and MTV)

Religion: Sacred Cow #3 and also the Scapegoat# 1 (in Pakistani context). So far it has been an excellent tool for exploiting masses. Have you ever wondered why people after being cheated time and again throughout the history of Pakistan still put religion ahead of everything? There are two possibilities. The first possibility is that people are stupid. The second possibility is that, may be they understand the difference and they are absolutely convinced that the religion is the only way to bring social justice into the society. (This is a question not a statement).

The keyword is SOCIAL JUSTICE. Nobody talks about it; even if they do it’s mentioned as a non-issue. No system of governance can be successful unless it delivers the Social Justice and I don’t mean just the distribution of wealth-there should be social justice in law and order, economics, and governance as well. It means that lawmakers make laws that are equally applicable to the President of the country and to the most downtrodden in the society. Lawmakers not only make absolutely sure that the law is enforced properly, but they also device ways to close all the holes in it. When you see people getting excited about the ``Talibanian`` mode of imparting justice, its not that they get some sort of gratification for their psychotic inner selves-it is the philosophy behind it, that is, Social Justice. (The last sentence is also a question not a statement).

[borrowed]From South Asia Citizens Web May 31, 2000

Saw it. Thought it might inyerest some.

[ The below message from ... . (a Peace activist from Pakistan) explains the Peace Banner campaign; Recently such banners for peace and in opposition to Nuclear bombs were made and put up in Pakistan to mark the 2nd anniversary of the Pakistani Nuclear tests (may 98).

Cloth Banner Campaign for the 6th August

Dear All,

This is a follow up msg. I`m sending this msg to friends in Pakistan and India (and to overseas Indo-Pak friends). Clothe banner campaign was a huge success despite the fact that we started it on the 11th May and collected signatures till 28th May. Diversity of messages, colours and languages made it into such an interesting cloth banner spread over more than 100 meters.

Thanks to friends in Karachi (Piler), Lahore (Shirkat Gah, Labour Party, Amnesty International, Peshawar (Sungi), Quetta (Naela Qadri) and all

others Islamabad based NGOs and students at the Khuldunia High School, Quaid-iAzam University and the Hamdard University. Messages from Quetta were

particularly touching with young school children printing their hands and painting wonderful things on the clothe. Needless to say, Dr. Nayyar`s and

Shandana`s contributions made a crucial difference.

I have received some banners after the 28th May. It gives a sense that we should continue this campaign. I would suggest the following:

1) we should keep on getting signatures in Pakistan. Pakistan NGO Federation can play a crucial role in this regard. If we are able to get signatures from various rural and urban communities with which most NGOs work, it would

be a massive contribution to the campaign.

2) various peace groups in India should initiate this campaign over there.

I`ll explain the details for our Indian friends.

a) divide the white clothe into one meter @ one meter square pieces.

b) write one liner main msg for peace (bread not bombs etc.) with a bold marker in the middle.

c) ask people to write their messages for peace (or against nuclear weapons), names, signatures and date around the main message.

d) if possible please use bold pens of various colours (some of the pieces of clothe were signed by ballpoint pen and they were not readable) and the messages should be spread out on the piece of clothe.

e) by 1st august, those pieces of cloth should be stitched together and after every three-four pieces, extra clothe should be added to create space for a bamboo stick,

f) once all the clothe pieces are stitched together, then insert 7 feet long (half inch diameter) bamboo sticks just before the demonstration. These sticks will hold the banner.

3) overseas friends can mail the banners to groups in India and Pakistan.

If that`s not feasible then they can send email messages and we can paste email print outs on our banners.

What Do We Do With These Banners?

I would suggest we should use them as a vote of no confidence against nuclear weapons by the subcontinent`s silent majority. We should organise a huge press publicity campaign to spread the msg of these banners across to the decision-makers and war mongers in India and Pakistan. Right now i can

think of 2 options:

[i] Peace groups in India and Pakistan can march to Wagha border and demonstrate these hundreds of meter long banner with signatures for peace on

the both side of the border,

[ii] If that`s not a feasible option and people want to consider a more local way to display these signatures, then we can go and symbolically wrap the important government building in each city with these long banners. For example, if we get enough signatures in Islamabad, Lahore, Karachi, Quetta and Peshawar to make a banner in each city, the we can walk to the President`s House in Islamabad and the governor houses in the respective provinces to mark the day. Indian groups can do the same in their cities.

Please pass on this message to all the people on your mailing lists.

NUCLEAR TRIGGERS AND RELIGIOUS MANIACS:

The concerns about religious maniacs acquiring weapons of mass destruction in a society like this are genuine. Having said that we must understand the chances of some splinter group in Europe or North America doing it will always remain and their access the nuts and bolts may be easier than in a third world backwater. What about the hair raising possibility of a mad life sciences going crazy and trying to invent a virus that goes after specific races..

Once again I draw the attention of the Chowkwalas to the fact that a rotten environment of alienation is being created in Pakistan that will make all of the above a possibility. We have crooked bankers trying to bankrupt companies for personal and crooked bureaucrats detrailing reform. A million people unemployed and a marginal standard of living worsened as a result of the IMF prescriptions is as dangerous as having fissile material at the hands of a sophisticated terrorist group...

Dear Observer:

Here you are contradicting yourself from your earlier post when we encouraged Mohajir to post the useful sites. However, your contradiction is more than welcome. This is just a wondeful news that many of us were waiting for. Is the light at the end of tunnel really? I will forward this mail to who I can.

Thanks for your contradiction.

cheraym

Ref Urstruly #: 11

You asked ``If secularism and democracy is marriage made in heaven then why people are still living in India like insects- and I don’t mean just physically. By now, they should have been as well off as Chinese, if not better, at least monetarily.``

Excuse me, the people of India are not living like insects. They have clearly demonstrated a backbone and an independent mind. Indira Gandhi, hailed as Goddess Durga in Dec 1971 was overthrown and lost her own seat in 1977. Rajiv Gandhi elected with an overwhelming majority lost the parliamentary majority in the next election. That tale has been repeated in every state of the Indian Union.

Contrarywise, the Chinese are the insects who have meekly accepted one-party rule for the last 52 years with no hope of ever overthrowing the Communists. If you were born in Tibet or Sinkiang, you would not care for the per capita income which is skewed by the wealth of coastal southern China.

I know your current hero is China. Why don`t you move to rural China (particularly the mountainous states with poor soil) and find out how the peasants eke out a living?

The last time a Chinese-style slum clearance was undertaken in India was by Sanjay Gandhi in 1978. The result was the unseating of the Congress party in the next election. Nor do Indian women queue up to open their wombs for abortion in the 9th month, as is happening in China.

If you guys in Pakistan follow the Chinese policy on birth control, your population growth will also drop.

Jesus, don`t you even know what is happening around you?

Re: Urstruly # 11

Granted, the article is a rcap of the last 50 yrs, but what have we done or accomplished in the last 50 yrs we could be proud of ?

Nothing; nichts; nada; zilch; zero; and still nyet!!!! The article basically was premised on the notion that nothing happens in Pakistan or will ever happen in the future, because of a lack of implementation.

Social justice?!!! By whom for whom? Social justice has a nice ring to it, but in a society like Pakistan`s where the civic society has disappeared altogether, it would be impossible to achieve it, because again, who is going to implement or enforce its provisions? Urstruly, I admire your (misguided) passion for Pakistan, but before you start thinking ahead to a vision of an utopian bliss in Pakistan; just remember one thing. There are no insititutions in Pakistan to implement any ideals of social justice and for that we have to rebuild our civic culture and base it on the notions of tolerance and plurality of opinions and not on a justice based on the whims of an AK-47.

Urstruly, if you can tell me how social justice is going to be implemented in Pakistan, I will support you for the office of the Prime Minister, located in that brothel by the hills!

Re: Sadna # 10

The questions you have asked can only be answered by the Pakistanis if, a big if at that too, they develop a national identity. In Pakistan, people value their provincial ties first, their religious sects second and their country lastly. Unless Pakistanis become Pakistanis first, this country will always be riven by an internal discord, which will undermine its very foundations.

Pakistanis, as Jay rightly pointed out, are unwilling to look reality in the face and still think, like Ras admonished me, that Pakistan has no problems. In many ways, I think that Ras is correct in the sense that though Pakistan may not be a ``failed state``, it is beyond a shadow of a doubt a dysfunctional state, because of its so many internal contradications, it can not clearly articulate a vision of its own raison d`etre and because of that confusion, nothing ever gets done or implemented here with the result that the country is caught up in a timewarp and still exists in the past and that past is all it has, because the future is gradually slipping away as we debate, decide, announce, declare, and promise to move Pakistan forward!

We are stilling dancing the Pakistani Waltz; two steps forward, two steps backwards, a step to right and a step to left and the result is that we keep standing in one spot though we give the illushion of moving! This government announces, it back tracks, it vacilliates and it remains undecided. Has the country moved, in any direction, in the last eight months? Yes, it has: backwards!!!

My late father used to say, in the early 1980s, that Pakistan would end up like Lebanon and my grandfather used to say, in the 1960s, that we are going to be another Afghanistan: tribal, anarchic, and lawless. I used to scoff at their words and now I wish that I had listened to them!

Sadna, the patient is terminal and he needs to be removed from the life support; the plug really needs to be pulled, because a quick death is better than a lingering death!!!!!!!

Ciao!