South Asian Despots Are Not Beyond Justice

Only a hate monger idiot would put Jinnah in that category... how about we bring Gandhi to trial for his crimes against humanity eh? harimau?

Dear readers:

I tried my level best to be as impartial, objective and even-handed as possible. I can assure you all, once again, that my foremost concern (and a dream) is to initiate a process that would rein in the traders of death and destruction in our region. If we just could make them pay for their deeds -- one way or the other. Nothing more.

Please, don’t make an Indo-Pak issue of it. Lets go beyond that. There is no intention, in any sense, with this write-up to foment hatred or to be anti-India/Hindu alternatively pro-Pakistan/Muslim.

Justice is the key to civic prosperity. The moment, our bloody leaders got the message that the era of impunity is over, and they will be held accountable for their shenanigans, most (if not all) of our problems would disappear.

Hindu, Muslim, Sikh and Christian friends, what have we gained by slitting each other’s throat? Shouldn’t this mayhem come to end now? Is it not in the interest of everyone, to get rid of these unscrupulous individuals?

Abrar Akbar

PS. To me personally, Hindu, Sikh, Christian blood/life is as precious/sacred than that of any Muslim.

A correction of fact, pls....the 1984 genocide of Sikhs was organised & executed by the `secular` congress & not the RSS/VHP....so the Congress leaders should be tried for 1984, & the Tableeghi Jamaat & RSS/VHP leaders for 2002 (Godhra & Post-Godhra respectively)

Pakistan is plagued by illiteracy and feudal fear-complex. Unfortunately Indian threat, perceived, contrived and substantive, also aggravates defensive mindset. The civil society is prostrate and the argument of force prevails with the help of carrot and stick because the people are not genuinely free. As the masses do not count and there is no dearth of carpetbeggars among the `elite`, it is easy for the mily executive to manipulte elections, and defy the disgraced constitution with impunity. Is it not a disgrace that a country of 140 million can`t find a head of the state who may get genuinely elected in this new millinneum? We are submitting to the will of the COAS instead of Rousseau` General Will.Till Pakistanis wake up, the ICC can`t do anything.

Excellent proposition; we need as many checks to make sure that our leaders are accountable to our people and all people. Considering that it seems any leader can order acts of criminality and then evade responsibility, we need to construct overlapping and alternative structures to force them to operate within the boundaries of behaviors appropriate to ensuring human rights.

Any suggestion that to demand accountability is a western construct is apologist rot.

I am sorry that I do not share your optimism here Abrar Akbar.


But do keep writing.


Ras

The ordinary citizens in East Pakistanis bore no ill-will against West Pakistanis. But that is what the military wanted the West Pakistanis to believe while it went ahead with systematically doing what it thought was needed to preserve its interests. To a certain extent, it succeeded in selling it as a ``us versus them`` conflict to the West Pakistanis, but only because of the lopsided composition of Pakistan`s military - a hangover from the British days when the imperialists had spread the myth of ``martial races`` to give a slect section of the population a stake in the preservation of the empire.

In reality, the army was not even a West Pakistani one or even a Punjabi one, for that matter. While the ``recruitment area`` between the Jhelum and the Indus was disproportionately represented in the army as a legacy of the British era, Sindhis practically went unrepresented, especially at the officers level.

Bhutto of course had a vested interest to use the army to extricate from an election (in 1970) in which he had come out second best. But it was the military that decided that a genocide was the answer to its predicament and in its best interests.

The Awami League`s six point program had posed a fundamental threat to the army which feared that it would lose the carte blanche to spend without having to justify the spending to anyone else. Worse still, it feared that the fiscal autonomy that was at the core of Awami League`s six points program would drastically cut down on the allocation for an army that had historically failed to project itself as an East Pakistani army. What Bhutto demanded, or did not demand, mattered little to the Generals except to the extent they would make use of him to neutralize the Awami League success in the elections.

It was the army`s decision (rather than Bhutto`s) to embark on genocide as the means to protecting its vested interests. To make it palatable to the people in West Pakistan and in the hope of garnering support among them, the army chose to make it look like an ``us versus them`` issue.

The situation is no different today. It is in the interest of the army to to make it look like an ``us versus them`` issue in the hope of garnering support from the people of the largest province in what was West Pakistan in 1971. Thus, when land is reclaimed in Sindh`s Indus basin, it goes not to the sons of the soil but to retired personnel from the army who tend to be non-Sindhis. Such institutionalized ``licensed`` corruption may have legal sanction, but it is far worse for the nation than ``private`` corruption among those that the Generals contemptuously dismiss as ``loha chor.``

The ``loha chors`` can be recalled in an election and brought to justice. But the Kakul kleptocrats have stolen far more than the all the civilian politicians put together.

Military rule isn`t the answer to imperfections in democracy. In fact,such a cure is worse than the disease. It is of course unhealthy, to put it mildly, to have a crook in charge of the chicken coop. But the problem is not solved by replacing the crook with a fox. It merely institutionalizes the problem and compounds it to the bargain.

Power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely! Pakistan`s military is now absolutely corrupt.

While respected journalists have been writing about army corruption for quite some time, so have been foreign journalists even after General Pervez Musharraf reversed the military`s policy on the Taliban in the wake of 9/11 (more for self-preservation than for any genuine change in philosophy on terrorism).

A recent article in Washington Post (Pakistanis Question Perks of Power, Many Say Military Confuses National Interest With Its Own By John Lancaster) is a good example. See the following URL for the article:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A23614-2002Nov21.html

The article was published in Washington Post of 21 November, 2002. Here are some excerpts:

.....

``Some critics go a step further, accusing the military of deliberately stoking tensions with India, particularly over Kashmir, to justify its hold on resources and power. ``Peace would be a disaster for the military,`` said Pervez Hoodbhoy, an anti-nuclear activist and MIT-trained physicist who teaches at Quaid-i-Azam University in Islamabad.``

.....

``There is no denying the military`s dominant role in Pakistan. The military owns the best farmland and several of the largest industrial conglomerates. Retired or active-duty military officers run the ports, postal service, electric utilities, sports federations, telecommunications authority, culture ministry, mineral development agency, anti-drug police, railroads, civil aviation authority, national shipping company and Pakistan`s biggest steel mill. They hold top administrative posts at the best universities. Many ambassadors are retired officers.``

.....

``Under an arcane point-based system that dates to the British Raj, the military also rewards its senior officers by allowing them to purchase agricultural and urban land from the army`s vast inventory of real estate at prices far below market value. A number of these properties are grouped into ``defense societies`` in tony suburbs of Karachi and other major cities. The societies are administered by the Defense Housing Authority, which ensures the provision of municipal services. Officers who acquire such land often develop it as rental property or
sell it for hefty profits.``

......

``One of Pakistan`s most coveted addresses, for example, is the blandly named Army Housing Scheme II, which is built on the site of an old antiaircraft battery in the upscale Karachi suburb of Clifton. A gated community protected by paramilitary troops, the development consists of spacious, Mediterranean-style villas grouped around a playground and an elaborately landscaped Japanese-style garden. Nearby are clothing boutiques, jewelry stores, restaurants and a yoga studio.``

.....

``Installing men in uniform in civilian businesses and institutions did not begin with Musharraf. In 1980, Zia established a 10 percent quota for military personnel in civilian government jobs. But Musharraf, by all accounts, has taken the process further than his uniformed predecessors, dispatching military ``monitoring teams`` to key civilian agencies and replacing top officials with senior officers.``

.....

The military has been milking the civilian sector with impunity. Readers will find the following reference book to be very informative & educational:

Military, State and Society in Pakistan
by Hasan Askari Rizvi
St.Martin`s Press, New York

The author, Dr. Hasan Askari Rizvi, is a renowned political and defence analyst. He holds PhD in International Relations and Political Science from the University of Pennsylvania, USA. He has taught at Columbia University, New York, Heidelberg University, Germany, and the University of the Punjab,Lahore.

Dr. Hasan Rizvi has pointed out that the induction of military personnel to civilian jobs has been institutionalized in a manner that led to what British Professor S E Finer describes as the ``military colonisation of other institutions`` whereby ``the military acts as a reservoir or core of personnel for the sensitive institutions of the state``.

In fact, even the universities haven`t been able to resist this colonisation! I am not surprised that General Pervez Musharraf has been commenting with authority and impunity on the educational qualifications of Benazir Bhutto even as he spreads the word on his own educational qualifications thru his minions. Dr Hasan Askari Rizvi, has pointed out:

``Six civilian universities had retired Army officers as their Vice Chancellors. The University of Balochistan was headed by a retired Brigadier in the eighties. In 2001, a retired Brigadier was appointed Pro-Vice Chancellor of Balochistan University. A Major General served as Vice Chancellor of Peshawar University for a brief period in 1993. A Lt General worked as Vice Chancellor of the Punjab University in 1993-97. The government`s plan to appoint another Lt General as his successor was scuttled by the boycott threat of the faculty and negative editorials in some newspapers. However, in September 1999, the Punjab`s civilian government appointed a retired Lt General as Vice Chancellor of the Punjab University.

The PU faculty went on strike as protest against this appointment. However, after the military assumed power by dislodging the civilian government in October 12, 1999, the PU faculty had to call off the strike. Several key administrative posts of the Punjab University are also held by retired Army officers. A Lt. General was appointed Vice Chancellor of the Engineering University, Lahore, in 1998. The Vice Chancellor of Engineering University Peshawar, is also a retired senior military officer. The Vice Chancellor of Quaid-i-Azam University, Islamabad, is both retired Army officer and former senior bureaucrat. Some Brigadiers were given academic appointments in Quaid-i-Azam University, Islamabad, in the eighties by changing the university rules.``

Military has been calling the shots in Pakistan for much of its history. General Pervez Musharraf`s goal has been to do everything possible to perpetuate the military`s primacy in every sector of Pakistan.

The military is trained to defend the country`s frontiers, and even extend them. But Pakistan`s military has extended its reach far beyond what it receives training for. Needless to say, Pakistan is the loser.

Pakistan`s military has been the defacto rulers of the country for most of its history. It has established itself as the mafia that decides who gets to steal in Pakistan and how much. And needless to say, it is the Kakul kleptocrats that are the biggest beneficiaries of the institutionalized stealing.

Readers will find the following book very fascinating:

DRUGS IN SOUTH ASIA: FROM THE OPIUM TRADE TO THE PRESENT DAY by M. Emdad-ul-Haq; MacMillan Press; Distributed by Vanguard Books Lahore; Pp319; Price UKP45

The author is a professor of political science at Chittagong University.

The book chronicles how the military caused Pakistan`s ruination in its single-minded zeal to line its own pocket. It is the military that has held a monopoly over the drug trade and gun running in Pakistan. When General Ziaul Haq came to power there were practically no heroin addicts in Pakistan. By the time he died, the heroin addicts in Pakistan numbered over a million. Today`s secterian killings and Kalashnikov culture are a direct byproduct of the military`s gun running.

Here are two quotes from articles by Altaf Gauhar who was a high official in Islamabad under ``Field Marshal`` Ayub Khan.

The quotes shed some light on the thinking among Pakistan`s Generals regarding India and Bangladesh. It might be a hangover from the ``martial race theory`` that was propagated by the British. The belief is very much a fact even today and might have led the Pakistani Generals to launch their 1999 ill-fated Kargil misadventure.

Here are the quotes:

This country deserves me
By Altaf Gauhar

The Nation Lahore
Sunday Nov 14,1999


``What were Yahya`s assumptions when he ordered military action in East Pakistan? His first assumption was that the Bengalis would not have the guts to face the tall, muscular, West Pakistani jawans. His associates would recall how Ikhtiaruddin conquered Bengal with only 17 Muslim soldiers in 1203-1204 A.D.``


Pakistan Today
Friday, October 22, 1999

1965 war: cease-fire
By: Altaf Gauhar

``The directive issued by Ayub bore the title: `Political aim for struggle in Kashmir.` The aim was `to take such action that will defreeze the Kashmir problem, weaken Indian resolve, and bring her to the conference table without provoking a general war. However the element of escalation is always present in such struggles. So whilst confining our action to the Kashmir area we must not be unmindful that India may in desperation involve us in a general war or violate Pakistan territory where we are weak. We must, therefore, be prepared for such a contingency. To expect quick results in this struggle, when India has much larger forces than us, would be unrealistic. Therefore, our action should be such that can be sustained over a long period. As a general rule Hindu morale would not sustain more than a couple of hard blows at the right time and place. Such opportunities should, therefore, be sought and exploited.```

Pakistan`s army officers had a vested interest to swear utmost faith in the British propounded theory of ``martial races.`` Even in the early years of Pakistan, these officers would proclaim, ``Haske liya Pakistan, ladke lenge Hindustan`` and openly proclaim their belief that the Pakistan flag will get to be raised by them atop the Red Fort in Delhi. And ``Field Marshal`` Ayub Khan had made no secret of his disdain for Bengalis in his ghost-written auto-biography, ``Friends, Not Masters.``

It was the general view of the army officers, that the people of East Pakistan were not even good Muslims and, obviously, by implication, that it was the divine-ordained duty of Pakistan`s military officers to do everything possible (including murder and rape) to turn East Pakistanis into good Muslims.

Altaf Gauhar, in a series of articles, had written how ``Field Marshal`` Ayub Khan had become victim of the racist view within Pakistan`s army that one [West] Pakistani soldier was more than a match for ten ``Hindu`` soldiers. Fortified by this racist belief, the ``Field Marshal`` had put into motion the ``Operation Gibralatar`` in 1965. It was a foolhardy deed that would unleash a chain of events that would ultimately lead to his own overthrow in 1969 and the surrender of the Pakistani army in Dhaka on 16th December of 1971.

The Shah of Iran could have never used his army to perpetuate the perks and privileges of Iran`s ruling elite because ordinary Iranian soldiers were not willing to turn on the common people of Iran on the orders of the Shah. Unfortunately, in Pakistan in 1971, the situation was very different. From 1947 thru 1971, ordinary soldiers of Pakistan had been brainwashed into believing in the British propounded ``martial races`` theory, and into believing that East Pakistanis belonged to an inferior race. The ordinary soldiers had been persuaded to believe by their officers that it was their sacred duty to punish East Pakistanis because the East Pakistanis were not good Muslims!

Pakistan`s army officers had institutionalized racism to the point where the soldiers were willing to believe that they were engaged in rape and murder to save Islam in East Pakistan. Veteran Pakistani journalist Z.A. Suleri (father of writer Sarah Suleri) has written how shocked he was in 1971 to find Pakistan army officers nonchalantly joking about the on-going rapes in East Pakistan as a service to the Bengalis to improve their genes! Much the same story was confirmed in accounts of DAWN correspondent Anthony Mascarenhas.

I have quoted Altaf Gauhar to illustrate the arrogance of the military. Openly expressed belief in the superiority of the Kakul kleptocrats over ordinary citizens is nothing more than posturing to begin with. Its their means to preserving their monopoly over power. But it is a measure of their true worth that they have shown more ``bravery`` in the oppression of their compatriots than in fighting the external enemy. It is no accident that General Tikka Khan won more ``fame`` as the ``Butcher of East Pakistan`` and then as the ``Butcher of Balochistan`` than as the General who would liberate Kashmir or would ride a white horse to the Red Fort in New Delhi to unfurl the Pakistani flag.

The Kakul kleptocrats have a vested interest to exaggerate and even exacerbate perceptions of external threat to establish the need to expropriate a major share of the nation`s wealth for themselves. And that is exactly what they have been doing. It is no accident that the military was at the helm in Pakistan when the Generals initiated the conflicts of 1965, 1971 or 1999.

General Tikka Khan was quite representative of the military`s thinking when he unashamedly declared in 1971 that he was interested only in the land in East Pakistan and not in its people. He was able and willing to kill as many million civilians in East pakistan as it takes to make Pakistan safe for the military!

Pakistan`s destiny has been controlled from inception by the 3 As - Allah, America and the Army and not necessarily in that order!

General Pervez Musharraf has continued with the same tradition. He has inducted some 600 military officials to take over top civilian posts (from chairman of cricket board to chairman of WAPDA) for which they have no training. And he has imposed the LFO on the country to institutionalize the army`s supremacy.

The erstwhile East Pakistanis are no longer around to be kicked around by the Pakistan`s army which continues to enjoy a monopoly over power in what remains of Pakistan. So, it is now the ordinary citizens of Pakistan that must bear the brunt of the army`s boot. It is to the interest of the ordinary citizens of Pakistan to demand a return of the military officers to the barracks - or else they will continue to be kicked around. Forcing the Pakistani army to face the music for its crimes of 1971 will go a long way toward liberarting the ordinary citizens of Pakistan.

Please refer to following site:
www.defencejournal.com/march98/theway1.htm

The above Defence Journal site presents Brigadier Z.A.Khan`s ``The Way It Was``. The Brigadier saw ``action`` in East Pakistan in the March and April of 1971.

I read Brigadier Z.A.Khan`s ``The Way It Was`` some 3 or 4 years ago. If I recall right, he was a Lt. Colonel in 1971.

This is what Brigadier Z.A. Khan says about the way Sheikh Mujibur Rahman (leader of the party that had won the 1970 elections) was arrested from his Dhanmondi residence on the night of March25, 1971: ``I later learnt that after telling Major Belal to break down the closed door upstairs when I went to check on the vehicles, someone had fired a pistol shot into room where Major Bilal?s men were collected, luckily no one was hit. Before anyone could stop him, a soldier threw a grenade into the verandah from where the pistol shot had come and followed it with a burst from his sub-machine gun. The grenade burst and the sub-machine gun fire made Sheikh Mujib call out from behind the closed room that if an assurance were given that he would not be killed he would come out. He was given an assurance and he came out of the room. When he (Sheikh Mujib) came out Havildar Khan Wazir, later subedar, gave him a resounding slap on his face``

Brigadier Z.A.Khan`s gleeful account of the ``resounding slap`` on Mujib`s face by a Havildar (later, Subedar) in the Pakistani Army was not inadvartent. The Brigadier seemed just as gratuitous and gleeful as he wrote with grim satisfaction of crimes committed by soldiers under his command.

The then Lt. Colonel Khan saw ``action`` in Comilla and Chittagong. Mass murders and rapes were perpetrated by the commando that he led. The then Lt. Colonel Z.A. Khan makes no secret of criminal acts of soldiers under his command. Did he take any action against any of them for the crimes? There is nothing in Brigadier Khan`s book to suggest that he did. In the absence of any punitive action, the commanding officer cannot escape responsibility for the crime. It wont`t wash even if Lt. Colonel Khan were to claim that he was merely following orders of his superiors (of a Colonel, a Brigadier or even of a General). Lt. Colonel Khan had the responsibility to resist such illegal orders, if there were any.

As I read Z.A.Khan`s book, it was apparent that the Shah of Iran, for example, could have never used his soldiers, the way Yahya Khan did, to protect his throne. No Iranian soldier would have agreed to participate in the mass murder and rape of his kith and kin to save the Shah`s throne. But Yahya Khan could do what he did because the soldiers had been brainwashed into believing that the Bengalis were not fit to be their compatriots, the Bengalis were deemed fit to stay within Pakistan only as a subject race.

Brigadier Z.A. Khan`s gleeful account of the ``resounding slap`` on Mujib`s face is just a specific instance of the general contempt for civilians, in general. The Pakistan Army could do what it did in East Pakistan because the ruling elite had brainwashed the soldiers into believing that Bengalis were not good Muslims. In fact Bengalis were portrayed as belonging to an inferior race (``Field Marshal`` Ayub Khan`s ghost-written autobiography is a good indicator of the low esteem in which the Bengalis were held by Pakistan`s ruling oligarchy.)

The ``resounding slap`` is a much more general problem. I see it as an expression of the Pakistan military`s utter contempt for civil authority. It is a problem that continues to dog Pervez Musharraf`s Pakistan. The people of the erstwhile East Pakistan are no longer under the boots of Pakistan`s military. But the rest of the population continues to be under its boots - and the military remains as contemptuous as ever of civil authority.

#25 arjun_m
I said if.

#23 unkalji
Unlike you, many brahmins have grown out of their casteist mentality. Bully for them!

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#10 by ali_1 on March 12, 2003 4:44pm PT
RE: bharatvaasi #9

[I`d be interested in looking at the pictures of your sons, wives and daughters, in that order, before making a purchase decision.]

I am not surprised that you placed the men ahead of the women. Your peculiar inclinations towards buggery is well-known and there is no need to flaunt it on Chowk.

Ref Inji-kari-kuzhambu #6

[That all these governments signed on to the ICC is one form of accountability. Wish they would hold themselves accountable to their past actions as well. The question, however, is how far back one should go.]

We already know the answer from your viewpoint. The alleged crime of your grandfather not getting a cup of water from a Brahmin household should be enough to drag all Brahmins in front of the ICC. However, the fact that your low-caste Thevars routinely murder the Dalits of Tamil Nadu is merely an expression of ancient Tamil culture and ought to be continued without let or hindrance by even the courts of India let alone the ICC.

[South Asians are patiently waiting for the day when the region`s tyrants too will be made to pay for their savagery and would love to see them punished to the legal maximum. No one is above the law; it should be damn clear to all and sundry by now.]

How do you plan to bring Allauddin Khilji, Mohammad bin Tughlaq, Babur, Akbar, Jahangir, Aurangzeb, and Muhammad Ali Jinnah to trial?

Ali 1:

``I`d be interested in looking at the pictures of your sons, wives and daughters, in that order, before making a purchase decision. ``

Huh?? You would look at the sons before the daughters???? I knew you were fag and this proves it. HAHAHA!!!

This IIC phenomenon is another ploy by European countries to punch above their weight. The ICC negates the concept of national sovereignity and makes the arrogant assumption that the values and culture of Western Europe are universal in nature.

Abrar,

Another irrelevant article to divert the peoples attention from the reality of pakistan. This great author is worried about Modi, listen my friend, Dawood Ibrahim, an indian citizen is living a high life in pakistan, because his actions meet the founding principles of pakistan, TNT, and he was responsible for 200 deaths in india.

Abrar, will you care to write anything about dawood and the legal system that supports his stay in pakistan.
Well you can throw in the hijackers, welcomed like heros. A nation that has heros like gaznavi, tiger niazi, well pl avoid talking about trial of the criminals. What a waste, are you suggesting that killers of samia sarwar should tried in belgium. You take the biscuit for the most irrelevant article by a pakistani.

Kashmir Bus Blast Wounds 17
By REUTERS

JAMMU, India (Reuters) - At least 17 people were wounded, some critically, when a bomb exploded in a bus in Indian Kashmir on Thursday, police said.

The incident occurred in Rajouri town, northwest of Jammu, winter capital of the Himalayan state of Jammu and Kashmir where Muslim guerrillas have been fighting Indian rule since 1989.

///Yet another case for abrar to take up at the belgian courts.