From Across The Border

Re AnNy # 65

``..thora ziada upsetting article you put up``

and that’s putting it mildly. Harsh Mander`s article is just the beginning of the horror stories that will emanate from Gujarat, the stench of which is going to engulf us for a long time to come. I have always believed in the secular ethos of my country and still do, but the brainwashing by the religious nuts worries me. The Sangh parivar is raising it armies of unemployed youths and feeding upon their sense of deprivation and misery with its self righteous ``Hindus are victims`` propaganda - ``repeat a lie a thousand times....``. They are slowly eroding the cultural diversity of my country, hacking away at the spirit of tolerance trying to arbitrarily force themselves as the custodians of our faith (Taliban anyone?). Frankly speaking the damage has been done - I don`t think Gujarat or India will ever be the same again. True the politicians are hoping that in 2 to 5 years time the public would have erased these incidents from their consciousness (as they do for every disaster), so we can all move on and pretend that something like this never happened.

Dear Sarwari,

thanks for putting up that piece..while it was hardly eleqouent (more crude and to the point) i related to it totally..especially this bit:

``...There is much that the murdering mobs in Gujarat have robbed from me. One of them is a song I often sang with pride and conviction. The words of the song are:

Sare jahan se achha Hindustan hamaraÂ… It is a song I will never be able to sing again...``

i was 12 or 13 i think when the whole babri masjid thing happened..it was a lot of excitement (tobah astaghfar) for us kids in the house..we were going to get to see our first ever war! after hearing about the other two like a billion times.. that never happened but a few days later on the way back from school i found an edition of the evenings star in my mums car..obsessed with the act of reading, i took it up with me..what wonderful reading it was..and photographs also man...in retaliation of what was happening in bombay etc, a huge big bunch of men and boys had gone visting to bhangi paara and a few other localities where hindus lived.(these are the dirt poor ones who clean the outer portion of the house and not the onesyou bump into at hi fi do`s).there while they didnt kill anyone, they did everything else thats been reported in the article you produced..they also broke into mandirs (and this hit especially hard since we had been to one very recently then to buy some rang for an upcoming wedding) and defecated on the statues and harassed and raped (by turn) the women DOING PUJA there...i have always been embarassingly patriotic and i cant begin to tell you how horrible and sick i felt at that point..that such a thing happened to people in few numbers in MY COUNTRY by my fellow country men and especially ppl who had no defence, was possibly the most sickening thing i had encountered in all my life then..i felt so ashamed its not even funny..and it happens everytime smthg to this effect happens...can u imagine doing something nasty like throw purposely on a house guests feet hot burning chai? minorties need to be treated extra nice since they will naturally feel insecure... but what is really funny is that even i find myself justifying things like this sometimes...so they harassed a few hindus at raam colony...big sh!t man..whatre they giving it two whole op-ed pages for!!?..theyre burning muslims all over bombay and the state is part to it there, what bloody difference does harassing a few hindus do? roast a few, hang a few, even cut into pieces a few..tit for tat theory is possibly the stupidest thing ever invented...i think it is this kind of mentality that makes the ppl in gujrat do what they did..we ALL need to be good to our minorities and condemn vehemently any injustices to them

sorry about incoherance sweetie.:).thora ziada upseting article you put up

CRY, THE BELOVED COUNTRY

Reflections on the Gujarat massacre

By Harsh Mander

Numbed with disgust and horror, I return from Gujarat ten days after the terror and massacre that convulsed the state. My heart is sickened, my soul wearied, my shoulders aching with the burdens of guilt and shame. As you walk through the camps of riot survivors in Ahmedabad, in which an estimated 53,000 women, men, and children are huddled in 29 temporary settlements, displays of overt grief are unusual. People clutch small bundles of relief materials, all that they now own in the world, with dry and glassy eyes. Some talk in low voices, others busy themselves with the tasks of everyday living in these most basic of shelters, looking for food and milk for children, tending the wounds of the injured. But once you sit anywhere in these camps, people begin to speak and their words are like masses of pus released by slitting large festering wounds. The horrors that they speak of are so macabre, that my pen falters in the writing. The pitiless brutality against women and small children by organised bands of armed young men is more savage than anything witnessed in the riots that have shamed this nation from time to time during the past century. I force myself to write a small fraction of all that I heard and saw, because it is important that we all know. Or maybe also because I need to share my own burdens.

What can you say about a woman eight months pregnant who begged to be spared? Her assailants instead slit open her stomach, pulled out her foetus and slaughtered it before her eyes. What can you say about a family of nineteen being killed by flooding their house with water and then electrocuting them with high-tension electricity?

What can you say? A small boy of six in Juhapara camp described how his mother and six brothers and sisters were battered to death before his eyes. He survived only because he fell unconscious, and was taken for dead. A family escaping from Naroda-Patiya, one of the worst-hit settlements in Ahmedabad, spoke of losing a young woman and her three month old son, because a police constable directed her to `safety` and she found herself instead surrounded by a mob which doused her with kerosene and set her and her baby on fire. I have never known a riot which has used the sexual subjugation of women so widely as an instrument of violence in the recent mass barbarity in Gujarat. There are reports every where of gang-rape, of young girls and women, often in the presence of members of their families, followed by their murder by burning alive, or by bludgeoning with a hammer and in one case with a screw driver. Women in the Aman Chowk shelter told appalling stories about how armed men disrobed themselves in front of a group of terrified women to cower them down further. In Ahmedabad, most people I met - social workers, journalists, survivors - agree that what Gujarat witnessed was not a riot, but a terrorist attack followed by a systematic, planned massacre, a pogrom. Everyone spoke of the pillage and plunder, being organised like a military operation against an external armed enemy. An initial truck would arrive broadcasting inflammatory slogans, soon followed by more trucks which disgorged young men, mostly in khaki shorts and saffron sashes. They were armed with sophisticated explosive materials, country weapons, daggers and trishuls. They also carried water bottles, to sustain them in their exertions. The leaders were seen communicating on mobile telephones from the riot venues, receiving instructions from and reporting back to a co-ordinating centre. Some were seen with documents and computer sheets listing Muslim families and their properties. They had detailed precise knowledge about buildings and businesses held by members of the minority community, such as who were partners say in a restaurant business, or which Muslim homes had Hindu spouses who should be spared in the violence.

This was not a spontaneous upsurge of mass anger. It was a carefully planned pogrom.

The trucks carried quantities of gas cylinders. Rich Muslim homes and business establishments were first systematically looted, stripped down of all their valuables, then cooking gas was released from cylinders into the buildings for several minutes. A trained member of the group then lit the flame which efficiently engulfed the building. In some cases, acetylene gas which is used for welding steel, was employed to explode large concrete buildings. Mosques and dargahs were razed, and were replaced by statues of Hanuman and saffron flags. Some dargahs in Ahmedabad city crossings have overnight been demolished and their sites covered with road building material, and bulldozed so efficiently that these spots are indistinguishable from the rest of the road. Traffic now plies over these former dargahs, as though they never existed.

The unconscionable failures and active connivance of the state police and administrative machinery is also now widely acknowledged. The police is known to have misguided people straight into the hands of rioting mobs. They provided protective shields to crowds bent on pillage, arson, rape and murder, and were deaf to the pleas of the desperate Muslim victims, many of them women and children. There have been many reports of police firing directly mostly at the minority community, which was the target of most of the mob violence. The large majority of arrests are also from the same community which was the main victim of the pogrom.

As one who has served in the Indian Administrative Service for over two decades, I feel great shame at the abdication of duty of my peers in the civil and police administration. The law did not require any of them to await orders from their political supervisors before they organised the decisive use of force to prevent the brutal escalation of violence, and to protect vulnerable women and children from the organised, murderous mobs. The law instead required them to act independently, fearlessly, impartially, decisively, with courage and compassion. If even one official had so acted in Ahmedabad, she or he could have deployed the police forces and called in the army to halt the violence and protect the people in a matter of hours. No riot can continue beyond a few hours without the active connivance of the local police and magistracy. The blood of hundreds of innocents is on the hands of the police and civil authorities of Gujarat, and by sharing in a conspiracy of silence, on the entire higher bureaucracy of the country. I have heard senior officials blame also the communalism of the police constabulary for their connivance in the violence. This too is a thin and disgraceful alibi. The same forces have been known to act with impartiality and courage when led by officers of professionalism and integrity. The failure is clearly of the leadership of the police and civil services, not of the subordinate men and women in khaki who are trained to obey their orders.

Where also, amidst this savagery, injustice, and human suffering is the `civil society`, the Gandhians, the development workers, the NGOs, the fabled spontaneous Gujarathi philanthropy which was so much in evidence in the earthquake in Kutch and Ahmedabad? The newspapers reported that at the peak of the pogrom, the gates of Sabarmati Asram were closed to protect its properties, it should instead have been the city`s major sanctuary. Which Gandhian leaders, or NGO managers, staked their lives to halt the death-dealing throngs? It is one more shame that we as citizens of this country must carry on our already burdened backs, that the camps for the Muslim riot victims in Ahmedabad are being run almost exclusively by Muslim organisations. It is as though the monumental pain, loss, betrayal and injustice suffered by the Muslim people is the concern only of other Muslim people, and the rest of us have no share in the responsibility to assuage, to heal and rebuild. The state, which bears the primary responsibility to extend both protection and relief to its vulnerable citizens, was nowhere in evidence in any of the camps, to manage, organise the security, or even to provide the resources that are required to feed the tens of thousands of defenceless women, men and children huddled in these camps for safety.

The only passing moments of pride and hope that I experienced in Gujarat, were when I saw men like Mujid Ahmed and women like Roshan Bahen who served in these camps with tireless, dogged humanism amidst the ruins around them. In the Aman Chowk camp, women blessed the young band of volunteers who worked from four in the morning until after midnight to ensure that none of their children went without food or milk, or that their wounds remained untended. Their leader Mujid Ahmed is a graduate, his small chemical dyes factory has been burnt down, but he has had no time to worry about his own loss. Each day he has to find 1600 kilograms of foodgrain to feed some 5000 people who have taken shelter in the camp. The challenge is even greater for Roshan Bahen, almost 60, who wipes her eyes each time she hears the stories of horror by the residents in Juapara camp. But she too has no time for the luxuries of grief or anger. She barely sleeps, as her volunteers, mainly working class Muslim women and men from the humble tenements around the camp, provide temporary toilets, food and solace to the hundreds who have gathered in the grounds of a primary school to escape the ferocity of merciless mobs.

As I walked through the camps, I wondered what Gandhiji would have done in these dark hours. I recall the story of the Calcutta riots, when Gandhi was fasting for peace. A Hindu man came to him, to speak of his young boy who had been killed by Muslim mobs, and of the depth of his anger and longing for revenge. And Gandhi is said to have replied: If you really wish to overcome your pain, find a young boy, just as young as your son, a Muslim boy whose parents have been killed by Hindu mobs. Bring up that boy like you would your own son, but bring him up with the Muslim faith to which he was born. Only then will you find that you can heal your pain, your anger, and your longing for retribution.

There are no voices like Gandhi`s that we hear today. Only discourses on Newtonian physics, to justify vengeance on innocents. We need to find these voices within our own hearts, we need to believe enough in justice, love, tolerance. There is much that the murdering mobs in Gujarat have robbed from me. One of them is a song I often sang with pride and conviction. The words of the song are:

Sare jahan se achha Hindustan hamaraÂ… It is a song I will never be able to sing again.

(Harsh Mander, the writer, is a serving IAS Officer, who is working on deputation with a development organisation)

rsridhar
This confirms the Hindustan Times news item which some Pakistanis on chowk were disputing. And apparently the organisations NOT being allowed to canvass their ideas in public are the mainstream political parties. Amazing.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A8807-2002Mar23.html

Musharraf Vows to Step Up War on Terror
Release of Militants Brings Questions About Pakistani Leader`s Commitment

By Keith B. Richburg and Kamran Khan
Washington Post Foreign Service
Sunday, March 24, 2002; Page A18

KARACHI, Pakistan, March 23 -- With his country reeling from political violence and the U.S. Embassy evacuating all dependents and nonessential workers, Pakistan`s president, Gen. Pervez Musharraf, today promised an intensified crackdown to ``identify and eliminate those involved in terrorism.``

``We have to save Pakistan from terrorism and the menace of sectarianism, even if we have to pay a heavy price,`` Musharraf said in a nationally
televised address marking the country`s national day. Among other steps, he pledged to reform Pakistan`s intelligence agencies so they could prevent terrorist attacks rather than ``report them`` after they occur.

This was the second time this year that Musharraf has used a nationwide speech to promise an end to the political and sectarian violence that has rocked Pakistan since he signed onto the U.S.-led war on terrorism. On Jan. 12, Musharraf vowed to crack down on militant organizations and banned five radical Islamic groups. Following that pledge, Pakistan rounded up about 2,000 suspected militants.

But with the violence continuing almost daily -- including a grenade attack that killed two Americans and three others at a Protestant church in Islamabad last Sunday -- many analysts are asking whether the crackdown has been mostly talk.

For example, in recent days about 1,300 of the arrested militants have been released without being charged with any crime. The leader of one group,
Maulana Masood Azhar, was quietly allowed to go home Friday and is said to be under a form of house arrest -- despite the fact that his group,
Jaish-i-Muhammad, is on the State Department`s list of terrorist organizations and was banned by Musharraf in January.

Hafiz Mohammad Saeed, the leader of another banned group, Lashkar-i-Taiba, is still detained, but Pakistani sources said he was in a government
guesthouse, not a jail cell. Neither Masood Azhar nor Saeed has been charged with a crime.

Explaining the release of the 1,300 militants after their very public roundup, a senior Pakistani official said, ``We don`t want to give the impression that only religiously motivated people are liable for terrorist acts in Pakistan.``

The leaders of Pakistan`s two largest religious parties have also been quietly released from jail in recent weeks. They were arrested for leading
anti-government rallies in October protesting Musharraf`s decision to join the anti-terrorism coalition.

Analysts here said that while they believed Musharraf was serious about wanting to crack down on Islamic militancy and prevent further terrorist
attacks, he was also walking a fine line, trying not to offend powerful religious groups and even making conciliatory gestures toward them.

In a little-noticed move, the government recently ordered Pakistan Television not to promote ``Western culture`` in its programs. There have also been
new edicts regulating privately held parties.

Political analysts said the Pakistani leader particularly wants to avoid confrontations with religious groups as he seeks to extend his rule. Musharraf, who seized power in a bloodless coup in 1999, has promised to hold parliamentary elections in October that he says will return Pakistan to democracy. He is also considering holding a referendum, possibly in May, to give himself a full five-year term.

``These are the most testing times for Musharraf,`` said a Pakistani journalist with contacts in the military. ``He doesn`t want a major group campaigning against him. He doesn`t want any enemies. . . . He wants to secure the traditional allies of the military, and the religious groups have always been their allies.``

Police in the eastern city of Lahore rounded up dozens of members of Pakistan`s main opposition party today to prevent them from holding a rally
demanding Musharraf`s ouster.

Sources said Musharraf also wants to avoid agitating the thousands of armed ``jihadis,`` or holy warriors, who fought alongside the Taliban in
Afghanistan or are doing battle in Indian-controlled Kashmir, where Pakistani-backed militants have staged a series of terrorist attacks.

None of the fighters has been prosecuted or even disarmed, the sources said.

``There may not be any other country in the world which has at least 10,000 nonmilitary personnel who were ready to give their lives,`` a top Pakistani
security official said.

Pakistan`s intelligence agencies have long had covert ties to militant and ``jihadi`` groups in Pakistan -- ties nurtured to help successive Pakistani governments support the now-defunct Taliban, as well as pressing Pakistan`s battle against Indian troops in Kashmir.

In the part of today`s speech directed at India, Musharraf again called Kashmir a ``core issue.`` He warned India that ``Pakistan has the full capacity to defend itself.`` The rival nuclear powers massed several hundred thousand troops on the border following a December attack on the Indian Parliament grounds, which India blamed on Pakistani-backed militants.

Meanwhile, U.S. Embassy dependents and nonessential staff were packing to leave Pakistan after the State Department ordered their departure
following an attack on a church near the embassy that killed an embassy employee, Barbara Green, and her 17-year-old daughter, Kristen Wormsley.
The State Department cited a continued threat to Americans in the first mandatory departure of embassy staff since the U.S.-led war in neighboring
Afghanistan heightened security risks.

© 2002 The Washington Post Company

Karakoram,

Let me say that I like the way you think on some of these issues. The bitter fact is that since their inception India and Pakistan lunged into totally unnecessary antagonisitic posturing born out of pride and distrust. Frankly, Jinnah and Nehru were not the demigods we make them out to be. Consequently, over time, both sides have built up a long list of the wrongs and slights perpetrated by the other side (mostly justified).

If we care for our futures, we very much need to move beyond our historical resentments. France and Germany could do so. We can too. This surely will never happen so long as Islamists and Pakistani warriors and Hindutva vadis and Indian warriors decide our national agendas, for their worldviews are dominated by notions of war, not peace. I would think we have had enough of war already.

Karakoram #59
We will just have to keep disagreeing on the East Pakistan situation.
Just a couple of things
Re East Pakistan:
http://www.dawn.com/2002/03/22/op.htm#2

People from J&K including Muslim Kashmiris have consistently participated in national government, even occupied the post of Home Minister of India.

In any case, as I said India will not trade jihadi violence for territory, the rights and wrongs of this violence as seen by Pakistanis are irrelevant to this equation.

``And the spooks and Pakistani generals actually think that they can control these guys to do `missions`... how stupid. Omar Sheikh has been openly threatening the ISI/govt. not to screw him over or he`ll start to talk. His mission (god knows what it is) is more important than Pakistan or Musharraf. Scary alright. If the Pakistani govt. continues to deal with these whackos, they`ll get what they deserve... as if they haven`t been burnt enough already. If the Pakistani govt. continues to deal with these whackos, they`ll get what they deserve... as if they haven`t been burnt enough already. ``

Well, I am sort of surprised that the Western media hasnot pointed out that those who actually held Pearl captive and later made the video tape and murdered him are still at large and Sheikh and his ISI colleagues know who exactly they are. The US has made Pearl equivalent to the bali ka bakra or collateral damage and the media is playing along. I will venture a guess that the US and its media will also not look very closely at how the elections are conducted.

The choice of between Pakistani national interest(as many may see free and fair elections left free of establishment interference with every result acceptable) on one hand and longevity of Musharraf in power is being made by the US too, then on what basis should Omar Sheikh be the only one among these to be considered mistaken in his choices?

Just wanted to point out just for general interest that there is a analogous(though not equivalent) situation wrt to Vajpayee, Advani , BJP and their association with VHP/Bajrang Dal etc. Members of Vajpayees party are debating whether to jettison the VHP connection altogether and some think that the basic goal of the Hindutva movement will be compromised if they do so. But this debate is happening in the public view, the common reference point of the Constitution can be raised by the general public, Hindutva cannot be touted unchallenged as the `national interest`, VHP is not an arm of the government, Vajpayee government will be made to pay by the public for whatever decision it takes, and the playing out of the issue is separate from the business of the state(though it affects it in some spheres notably law and order in Gujarat for example) .

I agree we should not be hostage to the past. And I donot think its reasonable to expect India to say OK keep sending arms and men into India as long as we are bigger than you and you feel insecure. This strategy didnot buy security for Pakistan`s interests even in Afghanistan even with Taliban in power. Long overdue for a long rethink!

Here is a new one: Pakistan going on and on about getting into Kashmir makes about as much sense as does Bell Labs/Intel/Oracle wanting to set up a unit in Raxaul/Birganj/Muzzafarpur.

Prem #56:

I agree. TFT`s Khalid Ahmed wrote about this problem of misinformation in this week`s issue. I also agree that the situation is not going to change overnight... we have to invest in re-educating as truthfully as possible, by emphasizing that the past is the past, stressing a positive outlook to ensure that future generations are not held hostage to the past.

Sadna #55 & #59:

I`ve read that NYT`s article. It also ties into the misinformation/brainwashing points raised by Prem. Pretty scary stuff, huh ? Well if a guy hears every day that Muslims are being killed around the world, Muslim women are being dishonered, told to imagine their mother`s and sisters being victims (to build up the anger/frustration, remember Urstruly`s riling posts from days gone by), fight Jihad to regain past glory and save the Muslims, die during Jihad and you will get unlimited free sex with many lovely ladies in heaven (big motivation for horny men, who otherwise are tasked with protecting women`s honour- I won`t even try to explain this one ), its really not that hard to believe these guys are signing up for the job. In their minds some of them actually believe they are doing a noble task. They become highly motivated and dangerous individuals who take orders from mad mullahs and devious spooks who think they can control them.

The mad mullahs` believe they are god`s gift to muslims and that they of all people posses answers to problems faced by the world today. How egotistical can they get ? And the spooks and Pakistani generals actually think that they can control these guys to do `missions`... how stupid. Omar Sheikh has been openly threatening the ISI/govt. not to screw him over or he`ll start to talk. His mission (god knows what it is) is more important than Pakistan or Musharraf. Scary alright. If the Pakistani govt. continues to deal with these whackos, they`ll get what they deserve... as if they haven`t been burnt enough already.

I disagree with you on the East Pakistan and Kashmir comparison. Its the same thing. East Pakistanis got screwed over in an election... they had the right to protest, to take a case to the supreme court, or do whatever else within the system. Some elements that were extremist/violent made the call to arms against the government for not giving the people what was rightfully theirs. India steps in supports those groups and makes the situation more violent than it would have been i.e. an all-out war. There was no reason for India to get involved- at that level and to send in its military. If the size`s and military strenghts of India and Pakistan were reversed, Pakistan could have done the same in Kashmir. There`s enough separatist activity, all Pakistan would have to do is support them and overwhelm the Indians on the basis of numbers and military prowess. The same exact situation in my mind.

You say:``Should India sit idly by suffering more attacks waiting for the day that Pakistanis finally realise they will benefit more from peace and rein in the ISI and terrorists themselves? ``

India is not guaranteeing peace to Pakistan. The way Pakistanis see history (in some cases rightly so), whenever India has had a chance to screw Pakistan, it has. East Pakistan, Siachen, water sharing issues, Kashmir, initial funds due to Pakistan during partition etc. What is to guarantee that India won`t do something else in the future and get away with it (Nukes maybe?)

Anyway, as I mentioned above we should not be held hostage to our past. But to have a better future we have to improve our present... and that can only come about by dialogue and building trust in each other. Otherwise we will just create more past to hate each other for.

My post #55
`` ..the recent series of articles in the NYT about the Al Qaeda training manuals left behind in Kabul, by Harkat-ul-Mujahiddeen and the Uzbeks among others)..``

A few of those articles :

http://www.nytimes.com/2002/03/17/international/asia/17DOCU.html
``An estimated 20,000 recruits passed through roughly a dozen training camps since 1996, when Mr. bin Laden established his base of operations in Afghanistan, American officials say. ..``

``..The list gave this information about a man with the code name Sultan Sajid: ``Son of Mr. Muhammad Anwar, owner of sweet store. Age: 18 years. Status: Unmarried. Education: Matriculate and learned Koran by translation. Knows how to make sweets, and can hunt birds and fish. Five brothers and four sisters. Address: Kamoke District Gujranwala, at Saboki dandian. Got permission from home happily.``

Of a man code-named Hafiz Abu Muhammad, the document says: ``Education: Matriculate, memorized Koran. Knows how to embroider. Served in military for three and a half years. He is fond of jihad; that is why he came to us.``

Sixteen-year-old Hafiz Muhammad Arif was the son of a customs officer and had five brothers and four sisters, one in medical school. ``No permission from home,`` the list says. ``His [family] wanted to send him to America. Impressed by the speech of Mr. Maulana Fazal-ur-Rehman Khalil,`` Harkat`s leader...``


http://www.nytimes.com/2002/03/18/international/18NOTE.html
A Dutiful Recruit`s Notebook: Lesson by Lesson Toward Jihad

http://www.nytimes.com/2002/03/18/international/asia/18DOCU.html

(4 pages)

``.. Implicit in the split levels of training was the Islamic groups` understanding of the need for different sets of skills to fight on several, simultaneous fronts: along trench lines against the Northern Alliance in Afghanistan; against armor or helicopter assaults from conventional foes in Chechnya; as bands of foot-mobile insurgents in Kashmir, Central Asia or the Philippines; and as classic terrorists quietly embedded in cities in the Middle East, Africa, the former Soviet Union and the West...``

I see jay has so many fans from the evil side of the border (see anNy and semipreciousme`s delight at seeing uncle jay back, even if only for a cameo appearance, and of their concern for his health)...c`mon jay, post a few good ones about how Pakistan is going to the dogs...tell us how us two-bit converts used to be your granddaddy`s serfs...remind us of the latest criminal activity in Pakistan as posted in Dawn newspapers...tell us about this wonderful thing called democracy that we dictatored people can only imagine...I realize you are making room for the younger generation to continue your important duties on chowk, but let`s have one more round for old times sake...

PS I hope you have been in good health incidentally. What would we do without you to remind us daily about how hopeless things are for pakis.

re: Karakoram # 54

You make a very interesting point about people`s ``ignorance.`` But the problem is far more insidious and deeper than that of widespread ignornace or absence of information. The most destructive aspects of the problem arise from deliberate and outright misinformation that governments and a nation`s ``journalists`` inflict upon their own people. This misinformation, no matter how bizarre, is readily absorbed by even the most brilliant and sincere people because it fits in perfectly with their natural and quite admirable sense of patriotism. When that happens, even people (specially young people) of enormous promise and humanity can develop world-views, perspectives, and deeply, genuinely felt emotions that have almost nothing to do with reality.

As an Indian I can offer you specific examples in the case of Pakistan, particularly in relation to the hijacking of the Indian Airlines flight, lethal attack on Kashmir Assembly, and the assault on the Indian parliament building, as Khaled Ahmed in the current TFT suggests yet again. As a Pakistani, you, I am sure, can offer similar examples in the case of India.

Either way, it is a most tragic outcome at the societal level - governments and ``journalists`` deliberately and systematically distorting and destroying the thought processes of their own people. Misinformed, even the best and the gentlest of persons become pathologically resentful against sundry ``enemy forces`` on the outside. From within that resentment are born horrendous crimes. (even the shameful recent occurrings in Gujarat are a variation on this same phenomenon. Their minds filled with deliberately spread misinformation, people set out to murder one another without mercy. These murderers operate on the same principle, and exemplify the same cause and effect relationship as various Jihadis and their supporters, and people who believe that Indians hijacked and took their own plane to Kabul and attacked their own Parliament building, etc.)

The question is: Is any of this going to stop anytime soon? I am not so sure.

Karakoram #54
``So whatever you`re blaming Pakistan for you guys did it first and better.``

If you don`t see any difference between the events of `70-`71 and Pakistan`s Afghanistan-combined-with-Kashmir jihad policy it has been pursuing for the ast 10 years then there may be no point in discussing further..

(btw you might find interesting the recent series of articles in the NYT about the Al Qaeda training manuals left behind in Kabul, by Harkat-ul-Mujahiddeen and the Uzbeks among others).

Anyway, if Omar Shiekh`s statement about collaborating with members of ISI for the attack in Oct on the J&K Assembly and in Dec on the Indian Parliament is correct, then it means some people in the ISI drawing government salary know Omar Shiekhs jihadi associates by names and faces. Given that the ISI is also said by Americans to be involves in the IA hijacking, this inference seems to be a certainty.

Even if Musharraf and the ISI chief had no direct hand in the attacks or the hijacking, they are sure to know which ISI personnel these were. Yet, even after the Pearl kidnapping and murder, none of these known names and faces in Omar Shiekh`s group have been apprehended, even to redeem Pakistan`s image.

These associates of Omar have even seen Musharraf`s government go to the extent of lying to the US about Omar`s week-long sojourn with the ISI before he was `formally` arrested.

I believe the reason for all this is that Musharraf needs to keep the ISI happy. He feels less compelled to punish Daniel Pearl`s murderers and more compelled to have the ISI`s help to tackle his opponents in political parties and media so that he can keep them out of power, retain his own hold over the coming elections and the next government. Sound familiar?

The implication for India is that these associates of Omar and their fellow-conspirators in the ISI are walking around free. Its highly unlikely that these folks have suffered a change of heart about terrorist attacks in India. They know if Musharraf hasn`t reined them in for a US citizen`s murder, he will not rein them in for carrying out attacks in India. So its quite inevitable that they will plan more attacks in India.

Things got a lot worse in Indo-Pak relations after Musharraf came to power. He thought it best to make Pakistan`s India policy hostage to his view of the Kashmir issue(unfinished business of Partition and UN resolutions) and he made this policy hostage to the violence which jihadis could commit in India. Groups like LeT and JeM public canvassing of jihad and open threats against India and carrying out attacks under cover of Paki nukes were allowed/encouraged as part of Musharraf`s policy of violence to soften India`s stance.

If my above surmise about Omar Shiekh`s associates being known, yet free because of Musharraf`s obligations to the ISI is true, then it means there has been no essential change in Pakistan`s jihad policy even after the Jan 12 speech.

Is India willing to trade territory for jihadi violence? No. Can India change the jihadi policy by talking peace, quoting poetry and citing historical linkages, offering economic ties? No.

Should India sit idly by suffering more attacks waiting for the day that Pakistanis finally realise they will benefit more from peace and rein in the ISI and terrorists themselves? No. So India should drastically change the Pakistani calculation of cost-benefit of jihadi attacks by sending a message with its own targetted attacks on important figures in the Pakistani government just like the Indian Parliament one.(I`m not saying they should necessarily succeed of course).

Sadna:``I donot support targetting of innocents, there is no benefit to India from internal turmoil in Pakistan. ``

I disagree. If more and more Pakistanis believe that the militants that their government supports to fight in Kashmir, are responsible for local acts of violence against Pakistanis (or international acts of violence, minus India) they will increasingly demand that this support stops and the militanst are arrested (as is happening now).

Ignorance is bliss, for some. Pakistanis for the longest time thought that all the militants were doing was fighting for the rights of Kashmiris and that any innocents killed in the process were collateral damage and accidental. However collateral damage is only acceptable when its on the other side. So it is entirely logical to expect that India will retaliate by creating a similar situation in Pakistan. You are however right in that once a cycle of violence is started, local players begin to participate, needing only nudges from the outside once in a while.

India did this and worse in East Pakistan. Hobbyty posted a link to a defence journal article somewhere on this site, which described the motivations and the methods used by the Pakistani intelligence (it was an anti ISI article). The ISI unsuccessfully tried to copy India`s actions in East Pakistan for Kashmir and Siachen for Kargil. So whatever you`re blaming Pakistan for you guys did it first and better. As Romair said elsewhere India is better than Pakistan in all aspects :)

We have to learn to deal with each other on the up and up even if that means discussing Kashmir or anything else. Otherwise the games are still going to go on- from both sides.

I for one want the games to stop, even if its only Pakistan that stops the games. The militants truly have caused a security problem in Pakistan and they are currently a bigger threat in my mind.

As for Shaheen Sehbai, I believe him except that he does not implicate Musharraf or the Pakistani government in the attack, he only implicates them in the cover-up to the links to ISI. Hear me out now...

Its entirely logical to believe that rogue elements of the ISI in conjunction with militants engineered the parliament attack to screw up Musharraf`s declared support for the US and crackdown on local extremist groups. If the parliament attack was successful, India would have attacked Pakistan, and I think nearly did. That is not what Musharraf or Pakistan wants, as one can see from the constant calls for dialogue and calls for the removal of Indian army from the borders. Its also in Pakistan`s interest to deal with these rogue elements on its own due to the following reasons: bad publicity (it can get worse),security leaks (the people getting caught may spill the beans on state secrets and other covert ops that are state sanctioned), and most importantly the Pakistani govt. does not really know who`s good and who`s bad in ISI with the new rules and is learning the hard way. There are many other logical reasons I can think of, one of them which I don`t agree with i.e. catching the militants who conduct unauthorized ops on a case by case basis, but keeping their fellow militants in place for future Kashmir (other) authorized ops.

But I do not believe that Musharraf or the Pakistani govt. sanctioned the parliament attack.

Just an opinion.....

Karakoram

I donot support targetting of innocents, there is no benefit to India from internal turmoil in Pakistan. The sooner the Pakistani public starts benefitting from peace and good governance, the stronger will be their urge for peace with India.

And I think Pakistanis do enough targetting of innocents of their own for RAW to go on long vacation. Blaming India for Pakistan`s own sectarian troubles is an old game. India was blamed even for the killings of Christians in Bahawalpur and recent shooting of Shias in a mosque. No police officer was suspended then, nor anyone arrested that I heard of, though there seem to be enough local Pakistani groups with arms and motivation to do this. And I donot see FBI camped out in N. Delhi to get to the perpetuators of the last attack.

You sidestepped my point that no Pakistani poster who expressed outrage earlier will acknowledge Shaheen Sehbai`s statement on ISI involvement in the Indian Parliament attack. Shaheen Sehbai is not a member of the Indian government for you to (apparently) refer to his statement as Indian government propagnda.

The only way to get ISI to stop targetting Indian leaders as happened in the case of the Indian Parliament is for India to target Pakistani leaders in turn. I doubt quoting poetry and lighting candles will do it.

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Sadna:``I think that in return for the Parliament attack, India should target Musharraf personally. We can discuss this issue after that happens. ``

Take a number and get in line... there are many terrorists (RAW employed and otherwise) waiting to take out Musharraf.

This is the first time I saw you sidestep/avoid a question. Its ok, I realize it is a tough one.... considering that the answer is probably `YES`.

Take it easy..

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re: tahmed #39

Actually I am (or was) a Lahori, and have watched many contests from rooftops..which is why I felt I had to respond to Jay sahib. Thank you for clarifying it for me even further though :)

unkal jay!!! ure alive!:) i cannot stop smiling....u hadnt posted in so long, thought ud turned in for good..god forbid u were to face such an eventuality, are u in touch through mail with someone from chowk so we know when that happens? i was honestly quite worried...good to see you back in form :)

Karakoram #46
I think that in return for the Parliament attack, India should target Musharraf personally. We can discuss this issue after that happens.

Sadna #43:

We all rememeber the Indian Airlines `hijacking` after the sept. 11 attacks, in which claims of 2-3 hijackers, demanding flight plans for Pakistan, turned out to be bullcrap. The Indian govt. is no angel... and I think its good to continue to question their allegations, whatever they may be.

Just to clarify, I hope you are not proposing that Indians take what their government dishes out as gospel. I doubt it.

A recent report of a sectarian killing in Lahore describes how the killers killed a Sunni teacher and as they rode away killed a shia leader. There has been alot of allegations by Pakistan in the past that RAW (a foreign hand) is conducting these killings to stir up trouble in Pakistan. Based on the account of this killing... I`m beginning to believe it, since the killers did not seem to discriminate and had both targets planned. What do you think ? Do you think India could use its intelligence agencies to conduct operations against innocents in Pakistan, to ultimately benefit from the security fallout in Pakistan ?

Waiting for your response in anticipation...

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Pakistan restricts press freedoms! you be the judge:

http://www.defencejournal.com/2002/february/policy.htm

arjun_m #42
There were a lot of posters who took the trouble to berate Indians for `not providing evidence` and `India engineered the whole Parliament attack because finally who benefits?`, `why would ISI or the Paki government be stupid enough to malign itself, think about it` `Jaish-e-Mohammad denied any involvement` `Indians are taken in by their governments propanganda and warmongering aginst Pakistan for the Parliament attack`.

We will now notice that these posters will not even ACKNOWLEDGE Shaheen Sehbai`s statements much less acknowledge that their government has been trying to cover up its complicity in a attack on the Indian government which was nothing less than an act of war.

ylh #38 Now look what you have gone and done! You got so mad at me you put your post up on the wrong goddam board!! Told you to cool it. But do you ever listen?? Noooooooooooooooooooooooooo. If you dont control your temper you will end up with stunted growth, a cockeyed look and disjointed teeth!! And ataturk aint to physician and jinnah aint no dentist and you will never get a date or a mate in the us or in pakistan. Then you will be sorry you did not listen to uncle tahmed.

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…unkal j!….you’re back!!!!!…and still the same….and here i thought all that vitriol had finally gotten the better of you…

ana #37 ``no Basant in the Punjab in Pakistan?! `` Actually that is not true. Jay lives in a dream world where hindu gods with tridents fly around on uran khattolas to face pakistani demons with huge canine teeth. Nothing seems to work on the poor man, and he plays out his fantasies on chowk, repeatedly warning pakistanis that their end is near and their country is ready to go down the drain. Doctors think certain experimental treatments may work, but keep your fingers crossed.

PS: If you knew Lahoris, you would know that nothing...absolutely nothing...comes between a Lahori and his kite except some colorful kite string.

PS Sattar Don`t bother with tahmed. To him, nothing is kosher except salivating over the imagined ideals of dead mahatmas. Everything else is `hero worship`. If nothing else, have him recall the tale of how his father walked with the mahatma in an ashram, who being super human walked at a great pace.

I personally see Mirza Ghulam Ahmed as a great Muslim reformer who had some interesting ideas much in line with Darashikoh and others before him.. though I don`t agree with his claim of nabuwat. You have every right to respect the man as your hero, nabi or whatever... so don`t be deterred by these taunts of hero worship.

Ras Siddiqui #30 While I agree that in the West poor unskilled immigrants are treated with a level of fairness and respect that vastly exceeds anything in the Arab lands, it is also true it also exceeds anything in Pakistan as well. While a single police abuse in the West (like Louima`s case in NY) gains headlines for months and long prison sentences for the ex-policemen involved, I suspect such police abuse is commonplace in Pakistan and in other third world countries. The Arab police is not all that different from police in other developing countries. It`s just that it has greater opportunity to pick on immigrants givent that they have such a large number to pick on.

no Basant in the Punjab in Pakistan?! I`m sure that those who actually celebrated it (without any violent incidents) would be shocked to hear you say that.

As a Pakistani Punjaban...I fondly remember Basant celebrations, and watching those beautiful kites get cut down and crash. Ah, those were the days..I miss that.

Vitriol and talking out of one`s arse is somewhat the norm here though isn`t it? Puhleeze! Aap sab ko apne garebanon main jhank kar dekhna chahiye..wahan bhi mail nazar aayegi. Oh, and by the way..I`ve looked at mine..and yeah...it`s there!

Aamir

I have mentioned the difference between Turkish Model of secularism and the Indian model of secularism many times, and I have also indicated my preference for the former.

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#: 30

Ras Siddiqui

If only Indians and Pakistanis would learn to get along better because ine alterantive is

to work in the Middle East and

Ras

I have worked in the mid east & i say this b/c you say mid east & not Saudie ,specifically .Those that go to Mid East atleast from India for one reason & only one reason .MOre Money .

Those from India particularly from Kerala are using the money for some good cause ,upliftment of community through education,vocational training ,business ,investment etc.Wise Pakistanis & Indians of religion are doing exactly that .They have established good schools for there ,off springs & very much like immigrants like in USA executing there plan for better future of there children .Even with such negative feelings about mid east ....there is no dearth of people lining up ,in far more greater number than for u.s. & Canada ,clamouring from Asian countries (korea to Indonesia)to go to Mid east.

There must be some A$$hole & rude policeman or Saudie citizen not withstanding .....there are some everywhere .

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If only Indians and Pakistanis would learn to get along better because ine alterantive is
to work in the Middle East and...

From the daily Dawn (Karachi)


The Saudi way

By Khalid Hasan


Some years ago, a Pakistani doctor told me a story form his days in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia where he was working in one of the state-run hospitals.

One day, he stepped out of his apartment, wearing jeans and sneakers, walked across the road to buy a pack of cigarettes (yes, he was one of those doctors who smoke, so there is hope for the rest of Fraulein Nicotine`s suitors yet). He never got to the store because he was accosted by a plainclothesman who wanted to see his papers.

All foreigners residing in the Kingdom need to carry their identification or work permit or whatever on their person all the time. He said he did not have any on him, but he only lived across the road and it would take him five minutes to come back with his papers. Wrong number.

He was carted off to police lockup, kept there for several days and allowed neither to phone his wife nor his employers. Once freed, he resigned and left to find himself some easier place to live.

A taxi driver, with whom I was having a nice chat in Karachi once, while his rickety contraption that only needed two things, an engine and a body, bounced along Nazimabad`s back roads, said to me, ``I will go without a fare for hours but I won`t offer a ride to an Arab, even if he was a prince.``

When I said that did not sound a nice or reasonable thing to do, he turned around - without slowing down of course - and asked, ``Where do you work?`` I told him I worked in Europe. ``Well, if like me you had worked in one of those countries, you would have understood what I meant.``

He then told me of the humiliation he, an honest, upright, hard-working and devout Muslim had suffered in more than one of the Gulf states. ``I do not make much here,`` he added, ``but nobody looks down on me. Nobody calls me a `miskeen`. I walk as tall as the next man.`` He also told me that the worst thing that you could do there was to get into an accident because no matter whose fault it was, it would be the foreigner who would be blamed, unless he was a `gora sahib`.

Every other week, buried somewhere in the middle of column six or seven on an inside page of most of our newspapers is a brief news report that informs those who would notice it that three or four or more of their countrymen have been beheaded in Saudi Arabia. No one misses any sleep over it, nor do I recall ever having seen an editorial comment deploring the savagery of the punishment. Add this to what is already a long list of Pakistani dichotomy and double standards.

The recently released report on human rights by the US State Department contains a 36-page section on the Kingdom that I would not advise anyone to read before lunch unless wishes no lunch that day. The `Mubahith` or internal security force and the `Mutawwa`in` or the religious police representing the Committee to Prevent Vice and Promote Virtue (now you know where the Taliban got theirs) are a law unto themselves.

Although the Shar`ia strictly prohibits any judge from accepting a confession obtained under duress, the Interior ministry officials are said to be responsible for most incidents of abuse of prisoners, including beatings, whippings, sleep deprivation and even drugging. It is not uncommon to suspend prisoners from bars by their handcuffs or obtain confessions through torture and abuse. The Saudi government refuses to recognize the mandate of the UN Committee Against Torture.

The much-feared religious police are known for intimidating, harassing, abusing and detaining citizens and foreigners, both men and women. The punishments meted out to wrongdoers include stoning, decapitation and death by firing squad. Repeated thievery can be, and often is, punished with the amputation of the right hand and the left foot.

Flogging of those convicted of a political or religious crime is with a leather strap; but those caught drinking get off lightly, in comparison, as they are not flogged but caned. While the Saudi law prohibits arbitrary arrest, the religious police are generally free to intimidate and bring to police stations persons whom they accuse of committing ``crimes of vice``, a charge framed entirely in accordance with the judgement of the security agent.

Musarrat Nazir, who till last reports came was still looking under the trees for that famous nose ornament of hers, once told me that on a visit to the Kingdom, as she arrived with her ten-year old son, tired and jetlagged, at the Riyadh airport, and as they waited their turn at the immigration and passport control window, the boy being exhausted put her head on her shoulder. Suddenly, all hell broke loose. Two or three Mutawwa`in rushed upon her screaming, pulled the terrified boy away from her and made it clear by gestures that they had to stand apart.

No physical contact in public between sexes should occur, even between mother and son. She said it was a terrifying and humiliating experience. A friend once said if you go to the Kingdom, be sure that your faith is strong because it will be tested on more than one occasion.

I hope Nawaz Sharif, currently a guest of the Kingdom, remembers to criticise only his own government because were he to criticise the Saudi government, that being an offence, he could be picked up by the `Mubahith`, the ministry of interior`s internal security service which keeps those it picks up incommunicado in special prisons while investigations continue. The authorities also open mail and use informants and wiretaps. Security forces have been known to use wiretaps against foreigners suspected of alcohol-related offences. Informants and ward bosses report ``seditious ideas`` or anti-government activity in their neighbourhoods to the ministry of the interior.

Women have a rough deal. They may not marry non-citizens without government permission (even men need permission if the intended is outside the six Gulf states).

Women cannot marry non-Muslims, while men can choose a Jew or a Christian. Although the Shar`ia prohibits violence against women, it is said to be common. Hospitals admit women who have apparently been beaten up at home. They have since been instructed to report any suspicious case to the authorities.

A woman may not travel abroad without the permission of her husband or parent. There are thousands of foreign women domestics in Saudi homes. Some countries maintain ``safehouses`` for those who have been mistreated so that they can find shelter. There are no active women`s rights groups. Women are not allowed to drive and they must occupy the back seat. They can enter city buses but through rear entrances. A woman found in a car not being driven by a relative can be arrested.

Women can now obtain identity cards but only with the permission of a male relative. In public, women must wear an `abaya`, a head to toe black garment.

The head and hair must also remain covered. Women have to show legally specified grounds for divorce, but men are under no such obligation. Women make up 58 per cent of university students but are excluded from the study of such subjects as engineering, journalism and architecture. A woman can only go abroad to study if she is accompanied by her husband or a close male relative.

After September 11 and given the nationality of the majority of the hijackers, pressure on Saudi Arabia has mounted to open up and introduce reform. How long it takes and what its political implications will be on the House of Saud is one of the great unanswered questions of our times.

US: Ex-Pakistan agents linked to Pearl

By Anwar Iqbal

South Asian Affairs Analyst

Published 3/15/2002 9:02 AM

http://www.upi.com/view.cfm?StoryID=14032002-092048-3170r

WASHINGTON, March 15 (UPI) -- The United States gave Islamabad a list of former Pakistani intelligence agents U.S. authorities believe were linked to the abduction and slaying of American journalist Daniel Pearl, United Press International learned Friday.

And a UPI investigation has revealed Pakistani officials have engaged in a sustained campaign to prevent reporting of links between the country`s intelligence services and the Muslim extremists accused of killing Pearl. UPI first reported the possible link on Jan. 29 in an exclusive.

A senior Pakistani official, who visited Washington last month with President Pervez Musharraf, told UPI that Pakistani authorities had been handed ``some names of former ISI men,`` but added that, ``after a thorough investigation, none of them were found (to be) involved (in the Pearl murder).``

ISI, or Inter Services Intelligence, is Pakistan`s main spy agency. It recruited hundreds of Muslim extremists during the Afghan war of 1979-89, when it supervised the resistance against the Soviet occupation.

``The names (of the former agents) were first intercepted by the National Security Agency while monitoring signals from that region,`` a U.S. intelligence official told UPI. ``They were handed over to a close aide of Musharraf within a week of Pearl`s abduction.``

ISI`s former chief, Gen. Hamid Gul, also confirmed to UPI the Americans had given a list of ex-ISI officials to Pakistan after Pearl`s abduction. Gul named some of these officials but said most of them had retired after the Afghan war when then-Pakistani Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto sacked several officials, including Gul, from the agency.

Like Gul, many of those who were fired or retired from the ISI at that time had strong religious views and some maintained their links with Afghan mujahedin groups -- and later the Taliban -- after their retirement, as Gul himself did.

U.S. intelligence officials claim Ahmed Omar Saeed Shaikh, the chief suspect in the Pearl case, also had worked for ISI in the past, ``as their dirty tricks man,`` as one of them put it. ``We have reasons to believe that he has done break-ins, hostage takings and other similar chores for ISI,`` he said.

Pakistani officials deny ISI is linked with Omar, saying he never worked for any Pakistani government agency. But an investigation by UPI has revealed Pakistani officials tried to suppress reports in the local media suggesting Omar had worked for the agency.

Also, journalists visiting Pakistani Kashmir over the past two years have seen evidence that ISI officials were supervising military training for Islamic militants from Omar`s group and other extremist organizations.

On Feb. 17, the reputable daily The News said Omar had told his Pakistani interrogators that he would expose ISI`s links with Muslim militant groups if he were extradited to the United States.

Arrested last month, Omar -- a British-born Muslim of Pakistani origin -- confessed to kidnapping Pearl before a court in Karachi, but later said police forced him to do so.

On Thursday, Omar was indicted by a U.S. court on a charge of conspiracy to take a hostage resulting in death. U.S. authorities have urged Pakistan to send him to the United States to face trial.

``Hours before the paper was published a senior government official called me and asked me not to print this story. I told him it was already well past midnight and too late to take it out of the paper,`` Shaheen Sehbai, The News` then-editor, told UPI this week.

``The official also told me the ISI would be very upset if the story was published,`` recalled Sehbai, who moved to Washington last week after he was forced to resign for publishing the story.

``The next day, the government stopped all official advertisements to the Jang newspaper group,`` which is Pakistan`s largest and publishes The News and several other leading dailies and magazines, Sehbai said.

Following this, Sehbai said, the group`s owner, Mir Shaiklur Rahman, called him and asked him to see officials from ISI and the ministry of information to ``sort out my differences with them.``

Sehbai said he was asked to sack three reporters, but the newspaper`s management and the government both deny this charge.

However, in a letter sent to Sehbai, Rahman admits to ``discussing the fallout of the story ... which was perceived to be damaging to our national interest and elicited severe reaction by the government,`` with Sehbai.

The Feb. 17 article, which has since been removed from the newspaper`s Web site, says a jailhouse statement by Omar links ISI not only with Jaish-e-Mohammed -- the group allegedly responsible for kidnapping and killing Pearl -- but also with the leader of a radical Muslim group called Tanzim-ul Fuqra or Organization of the Poor -- Mubarak Ali Shah Gilani.

Pearl was abducted while trying to interview Gilani. Before his abduction, he was investigating links between Jaish and Richard Reid, the so-called shoe-bomber accused of trying to blow up an American airplane.

Pearl was last seen driving in a car with Omar on Jan. 23. On Feb. 22 police received a videotape showing Pearl`s decapitated body and reports in the Pakistani media have suggested the corpse was thrown into the Arabian Sea near Karachi.

The alleged links between ISI and extremist Islamic groups like Jaish have their roots in two long-standing regional conflicts, Kashmir and Afghanistan.

Throughout the 1990s in Pakistani Kashmir, ISI supervised several training camps run by Jaish-e-Mohammed and similar groups. Until Sept. 11, no serious effort was made to hide this relationship. Journalists often visited them to interview the militants and film them practicing guerilla war techniques.

In December 1999, two of Jaish`s leaders -- including Omar -- were released from Indian jails in exchange for the passengers and crew of a hijacked airliner.

Despite this and allegations of other links to terrorism, Jaish-e-Mohammed -- or Army of Mohammed -- openly operated in Pakistan until the crackdown against militants that Musharraf instituted in the wake of the Sept. 11 terror attacks.

Following Sept. 11, Musharraf also purged ISI -- sacking many of those believed linked to Islamic extremism, including the agency`s chief Gen. Mahmood Ahmed.

In Afghanistan, ISI was the conduit for U.S. support to Islamic militants fighting the Soviet occupation of that country during the 1980s.

Gul was put in charge of ISI by Pakistan`s military leader Gen. Zia ul Haq during this period. Gul -- an avid Muslim with radical views -- packed the organization with officers from various branches of the Pakistani armed forces who had strong religious leanings and shared his vision of an Islamic revolution in Pakistan and neighboring Afghanistan.

According to Afghan Foreign Minister Abdullah Abdullah, ISI was instrumental in setting up the Taliban to secure its dominant position in the region.

``ISI created the Taliban movement to ensure that it continued to control Kabul as well,`` he says.

``I did not collect religious minded officers from anywhere,`` Gul told UPI. ``Pakistan is an Islamic country and most Muslims love their religion. In that sense, we are all religious minded.``

(With reporting by UPI Terrorism Correspondent Richard Sale.)

Pakistan army chief bribed his Bangla

counterpart to ensure Khaleda Zia`s win

In a bid to gain a foothold in Bangladesh politics and promote Islamic fundamentalist groups in that country, a Pakistan army chief paid a bribe of Rs 100 million to his Bangla counterpart to ensure Khaleda Zia`s return to power, a Pakistani media report said.

``One army chief of Pakistan actually bribed his Bangladeshi counterpart to bring Khaleda Zia to power and help revive Jamaat-e-Islami,`` The Friday Times reported in its latest issue. The paper did not name the military officer.

Stating that the Indian media is now writing about the ``many strongholds of the Inte-Services Intelligence in Dhaka under the benign regard of the Bangladesh army and Khaleda Zia`s party,`` the weekly said. ``So strong is the swing of the pendulum in favour of Islam that the secularists have been thrown back on the defensive.``

The weekly said Pakistan countered the alleged Indian ``penetration`` of Bangladesh ``especially after India tried to outflank it in Afghanistan by moving closer to the Rabbani government.``

The journal said former prime minister Sheikh Hasina was ``convinced that ISI was behind the two attempts on her life made in Dhaka.``

It said the skirmish between Indian and Bangladeshi border guards last year ``indicated the persisting right-wing orientation of the Bangladeshi army.``

``Who is winning the war in Bangladesh? One has to say Pakistan is,`` the article said.

Denying reality

``Ironically it is the Indians who are likely to fight with Pakistan in war ,are the ones most interested in friendship too..the north Indians ,Punjabis ,Rajputs,Kashmiri hindu ,Dogra etc.``

Above is reproduced from another post. Nice to know that the lotus eaters are still alive, though gasping for breath. Take it from me, there are no punjabis and rajputs etc in pakistan. Ask them about basant, the festival is banned, ask them about saris, what they aore a fifty years ago, ask them what mullahs have to say.

Pakistan the land of the pure has dissolved into the muslim ummah where all that is regional and historical has vanished in the mire of a book.

Ask the rajput about faisalabad, ask the punjabi when he will name his son mohammed bin abdullah.

In pakistan there are only the hazratul oslamis, the alquida people, the laskers, no punjabi, no rajput. Every thing indian has to be denied for pakistan to exist, otherwise the sheer stupidity of its creation will overwhelm even the most bigoted.

re: AAmir # 25

It is possible that some of these things occurred. Knowing U.P. reasonably well, I however believe that a completely different scenario is more likely.

Over the last few months, these fools have been building up feverish hype about ``Mandi wahin banayenge.`` In a last ditch effort, this paramhansa fellow announced to anyone who cared he would commit suicide if certain things didn`t come to pass. That raised their expectations further. Utopia was at hand! Their dreams were about to be fulfilled!

Now, thankfully, all that sh1t has come crashing down on them. So, how are these ``rambhakts`` to accept this turn of events? More importantly, how are they to save their faces before others?

There is a simple answer: these proud people had to retreat because everyone from Advani to George Fernandez to Rajiv Gandhi to Buta Singh came and begged paramhans for mercy, and the great paramhans ``reluctantly`` (that is important) agreed for the ``good of the nation.`` How and why ``good of the nation`` when these characters are unlikely to be much concerned about the feelings of Muslims? Well, that is where the strategic invoking the name of Pakistan comes in.

As I said, both these scenarios are possible. But I personally believe the latter is more likely to have been the case.

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http://www.knoxstudio.com/shns/story.cfm?pk=STONE-03-14-02&cat=II

``Under an interpretation of Sharia law, adultery and rape can be proven only if a person involved confesses or four Muslim men of good standing witness the crime, said Robin Phillips of the Minnesota Advocates for Human Rights, an attorney who worked with McCollum on the resolution. A woman can be found guilty on the evidence that she is pregnant, she said``

why is it that the rape has to be witnessed by four muslim men of good standing. Isn`t it contradictory. Why would men of good standing ``watch`` while the rape is happening. Wouldn`t they stop it? if they don`t stop it, then are these dudes ``men in good standing``?

What a piece of crappy islamic logic?

Dear Temporal . . . I shall help you strategise your new movement/religion as long as it contains pathar kabab (goat, not lamb); aubergines (baingan not brinjal) and heeng from Persia.

warm regards,

Swami

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Islamic Reasoning

Most intolerant state is India. Hindus and Muslims fight over religious places.

More tolerant state is Pakistan. Minorities may worship but must not ask for any share in state power.

Most tolerant state is Saudi Arabia. Minorities may not worship, unless they want to worship Allah.

Islam is a religion of peace. There is no compulsion in Islam.

``Further to may last post, we must remember that as Romair tirelessly points out less than 5% of the Pakistani population reads the English newspapers....``

Lets not forget the remaining 55% who cant read at all and who`s only source of info is gossip and PTV.

Ras Siddiqui quotes an article from Kunwar Idris that says: ``...communalism is more virulent and deep-rooted in India than it is in Pakistan because India`s grievance on the partition of the subcontinent still festers.``

This, from a fellow whose country has depopulated the minorities and virtually eliminated their presence. There are no minorities worth the weight left anymore in Pakistan for them to have the problem of ``communalism.`` Are all Pakis born this stupid or do they merely act and write this way?

tantralogician

Tripe! Longing for a peaceful life, or normal relations between countries, is the Sissyphusian strugle for peoples who choose to dream instead of dealing with their real problems.

Saying we are not each other`s enemy and that someone else is, changes nothing. For those who want peaceful, normal relations between Pakistan and India, their best efforts must be exerted to rid in each others intellectual foundation, those constructs that continue to identify the other as exclusively responsible for the others misery. For the Indian this means giving up a version of history in which the Muslim is ``Invader``, responsible for a Holocaust`` against Hindus, for having ``Broken`` India. For the Pakistani, it means giving up the view of the Indian as a sly schemer, congenitally hostile to anything Muslim, comfortable only as a demonic hegemon.

Free Kashmir or forget Kashmir? only for the kashmiri to decide? grow up! The problem won`t solve itself by wishing it away, or by passing the buck - but we need not arrive at a ``solution`` right away - though we do need to establish a more civil atmosphere than what exist now; and this is possible.

No Borders?, pleeze! Sobriety is conducive to rational thought. All the ``more righteous, more peace loving than thou`` players/dreamers/idealists on Chowk have done their little bit - and it`s always a ``little`` bit, because evading problems, not acknowledging them, can never help. Lets be sober about each other, we are similar and different, it sounds counter intuitive but we need to rediscover our differences, to rediscover each other as ``whole``, not just our similarities and we need to tell and to listen and hear each others truths and that is not comfortable nor easy and no amount of ``longing`` for peace and normality, will make it easy. Problems are not solved by wishful thinking, but with will and resolution.

Ref temporal #: 9

[ps: btw am on the verge of launching a new `movement`...calling it a religion will be too presumptuous at this point...interested in pune or dilli franchise?;) ]

Call it a religion but don`t call yourself a Muslim; you will suffer the fate of Ahmadiyyas.

asiapacificforum.org

Further to may last post, we must remember that as Romair tirelessly points out less than 5% of the Pakistani population reads the English newspapers, of which Dawn is the most liberal. So we can well imagine the legends that are being told in the Urdu press in Pakistan about Gujarat.

Ref Ras Siddiqui #: 5

It looks like the whitewashing of the Islamic thugs` crime at Godhra has already begun in the Pakistani press. Let us see what the Islamic columnist has to say:

View from the gallery

By Kunwar Idris

Indian Muslims and Pakistan

[That explains the indifference of the world to the pillage and plunder in Gujarat resulting in the death, mostly by burning, of a thousand Muslims with more yet to be dug out of the smouldering rubble of their homes.]

The death toll is NOT one thousand. It is closer to 600.

[Amidst all this carnage, the chief of Vishwa Hindu Parishad showed little remorse and blamed the Muslims for inviting the Hindu wrath by setting the Ayodhya pilgrim train afire.]

No, no, no. The Hindus should apologize for being Hindus, Kaffirs, Unbelievers. They should then apologize for going to Ayodhya. Then they should apologize for travelling by train.

[Many versions go round on the burning of the train and the death of 58 Hindu radicals. Fanatical Muslims of Godhara, provocateurs of the Congress opposition to discredit the ruling coalition or of the BJP itself to divert attention from its humiliating defeat in the state elections are suspected of arson. The most credible version now emerging is of Washington Post (reported in Thursday`s Dawn). It was just a shouting match of insults accompanied by hurling of rocks. An oil-soaked rag set the train ablaze which was neither planned nor intended.]

That is why the train carriages were locked from the outside and nobody could escape. Somehow the Hindus locked the carriages from outside and climbed back in through windows with bars welded across them at 4`` spacing. Being extremely malnourished, they could do this. Of course they couldn`t do it in reverse by climbing out of the burning carriages because they were malnourished and didn`t have the strength.

[Last to be suspected should be the Godhara Muslims.]

Oh no. Perhaps they should all be honored with Sitara-e-Pakistan or some such award.

[Outnumbered by ten to one...]

Let us ignore the locals who say that the town is about one-third Muslim. On the other hand, if you are talking about Islamic thugs, one-to-ten sounds about right.

[... they had to be both stupid and insane...]

So, what else is new?

[The vast tragedy of Gujarat should go to underline Pakistan`s responsibility in fostering harmony in the region and rein in its own forces of fanaticism and hatred. When it comes to spite and murder our sipahs and lashkars will find more than a match in the Indian parishads and senas. We have no maulana to match the venom of Bal Thackeray.]

Ha, ha, ha! I am holding my sides. I haven`t heard a better joke.

Does Bal Thakrey run anything even remotely similar to one your madrassahs? Do his followers undergo weapons training? Are they taught how to cross borders? Have they been caught in Nepal or Bangladesh killing people? What a loony!

Ref Ashok #: 2

[Some of the animosity has been on purpose developed,nurtured & inculcated over centuries ,by brain washing with large volumes of ``hindu version of history `` with particular goal of vengeance ,eye to reversing the so called wrong done & letting it fall as burden on the future hindu children as duty to work towards that goal.How else could you see animosity towards Pakistan ,not far behind general missinterpretation of 10000 yrs of muslim history in India.From Kashmir to Ayodhya ....Mumbai to Gujrat riots are just symptoms of artificially introduced infection of communalism.]

This is rich. When we were all brainwashed by textbooks and history written to whitewash the crimes of the sultans and nawabs, that is acceptable but the moment the current government wants to tell the truth there is an outcry. There is no greater evidence of wrongs done to Hindus than the presence of 450 million Muslims in the subcontinent. If the Christians only number about 5% of India`s population, there is no reason for the Muslims to number more than 30% of the subcontinent`s population except that force was used to convert all these people, no matter that we get Pakistanis bleating like bakras that they converted voluntarily. Don`t give me that BS about how the Hindus converted to escape casteism. There are as many Dalits in India as there are Muslims in the entire subcontinent. No, they don`t want your Arab religion!

The fact that not one temple of antiquity remains in all of Northern India is proof of the destruction of Hindu temples by Islamic thugs. General misinterpretation of 1000 years of Muslim rule, my a$$! So long as you continue to deny the truth, people will react against that. It is time for the textbooks to acknowledge the fact that under Muslim sultans Hindus were treated worse than dirt in their own country. That same mindset continues in Pakistan where everyone is a descendant of Taimur Leng, Genghiz Khan, or the Prophet Muhammad. So much for the theory of Hindus converting to escape casteism!

``From Kashmir to Ayodhya...``. What do you want, hand over Kashmir to the Islamic thugs called Pakistanis? Just read the daily newspapers: Omar Saeed Sheikh is a tool of the ISI who killed people in Kashmir and now Daniel Pearl. Are Hindus killing Muslims in Kashmir? No, it is the Pakistan-based thugs who kill Hindus, Sikhs and Buddhists in Kashmir. ``...Mumbai to Gujarat``. Who set off the bomb explosions all over Bombay and who is now hiding in Pakistan? Who set the train on fire in Godhra and are now paying for it? Why should I turn the other cheek when my religion doesn`t tell me to? Let these idiots who claim that they consider Jesus to be also a Prophet turn the other cheek.

``Artificially introduced infection of communalism`` came in with the sultans of Delhi so stop blaming the current political leaders for that.

People like you need to stop reproducing. As it is we have too many idiots.

veeresh #6

[…What border?…]

---you described the one that straddles two wannabees…don’t think (we the) people are interested in the border that demarcates india/pakistan, us/cuba, us/mexico….we want the border padam shri ali sardar jafri wistfully described in his partition poem as the divide of hair over a mother’s or dulhan’s head…sort of us/Canada border…yeah am dreamin’…and will dream on…it is better than the chukh chukh witnessed otherwise;)…

rgds,

t

ps: btw am on the verge of launching a new `movement`...calling it a religion will be too presumptuous at this point...interested in pune or dilli franchise?;)

Irfan,

The reality is that people on both sides of the border are tired of this endless, childish squabbling between the two countires. There is a sense of battle fatigue as people want to get on with their lives. If you look at things objectively, there is not really that much to fight about. I am a firm believer that good relations between India and Pakistan will automatically lead to some kind of compromise on Kashmir.

The real challenge is to economically develop the subcontinent so that it once again becomes a ``sone ki chidiya``. Most of the religious, caste and other such conflicts will fade away if people have a sound economic future.

``A friend pointed out to me that Kashmir as a site for struggle has a symbolic value. Were I to give it up, I would be giving up the ideological basis for creation of Pakistan or at least that’s how “I” would understand it. Were you to give it up, it would be striking a blow to the conception of Indian nationhood.``

interesting perspective, but then, Kashmir is not anyone`s but the Kashmiris so there shouldn`t even be a question of India or Pakistan ``giving it up.``

Pakistan and India are just two bullies running after each other in the playground, competing for a toy that belongs to someone else.

What border? Border is supposed to be where things come to a stop, they don`t flow, right?

Trade flows, legal and illegal. Water flows. People who want to cross illegaly, cross. High funda people cross over to play golf with each other, but not hockey or cricket. Alcohol flows one way and narcotics flow the other. Pirated movies and satellite based cable tv flows. Cows, buffloes and dogs cross with impunity.

Social systems like relig