A Gory Tale of Lies, Greed and Deception

subedar # 174

(When ordinary people start writing articles like this one, when Hashmis start distributing letters (may it be fake), when man on the street start doubting the intentions of a fighting force, not much is left of that military. Sorry, very sorry, we are at that nadir now)

I agree with you.

When Mulla starts doing politics, he should not expect to be treated like Alim - he will be treated like a politician.

Similarly, when uniformed people start doing politics, they should not expect the normal respect due to uniform. They will be treated like politicians.

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Dard, a very strong line of argumentation, indeed. No doubt, the whole exercise of attacks and counter attacks on honesty, integrity and not to mention the political role of the military stinks. The most relevant question would be, why on the earth we need to continuously thrash this issue in the first place.

Prince William is fathered by Prince Charles or not, is of no importance, to me at the least. None of my business. But the question does indicate a possibility that Diana might have not been very careful with her genitals during her marital life. Normally, no smoke without fire. In the same fashion, using some mathematical induction one can deduce the illegitimacy, the political one if not parental, of the military bosses too.

Nazar and Romair would definitely agree with me that hearsay, mere rumours that general x, y, z is “mawes” and was once caught red-handed being sodomized by his ADC, batmen, guard, chauffeur (like the rumours of price Charles and his assistant) is NEITHER good for his standing among officers NOR for his prospects as an effective manner.

When ordinary people start writing articles like this one, when Hashmis start distributing letters (may it be fake), when man on the street start doubting the intentions of a fighting force, not much is left of that military. Sorry, very sorry, we are at that nadir now.

Subedar S S (SJ)
16 Punjab

I reckon, that`s the WASHINGTON CONSENSUS PACKAGE littered with all types of assumptions and statistics. The West loves to sex up dossiers and reports. Havent we learned our lessons yet.

Sitting with green passports and naturalised citizenships, its easy to crticise without a first person experience. Don`t see the country through the windows of NGOs and likes. Move where the action is and see life for yourself.

Pakistan has big defence forces because Pakistan is vulnerable. Indian concept of security cooption implies a vassal status for all its neighbours. So dont blame your motherland for large defence budget.

You have all the statistics mixed up. So gear up your body armour and then argue logically point to point.

We are neither Indians nor anything else. Before crticising, we ought to question, what have we done for our country?

ahmedzai #170 i read the article for which you provide the link. i found this observation to interesting: ``Compared to Delhi, far less beards and burqas are to be seen in Islamabad.``

May it always be so. And (for their sake), may these people in delhi learn something from the fine people of islamabad. Amen. :-)

Dear Ijaz, please see my reply #164

Leave the okara issue aside, I tried to be point and replied your points in chronological manner.
See, the mere need to discuss military back and forth is a proof that something is grossly wrong. Can you allude to articles where Indians, Malaysians, Bangladeshis discussing, cursing, defending, abusing their respective militaries and its intrusion right into their drawing rooms.

PS: The statistics about TB was retrieved from a recent article appearing in L A Times:
Arms Race Leaves Medicine Behind
India and Pakistan spend billions on weapons while aid groups struggle for funds to fight polio and tuberculosis.

http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/world/la-fg-armsrace12nov12,1,4554500.story

dard. stick to the issue. There has been enough discussion on the Okara Farms on an article by Rafay Alam.
Please dont mix up statistics and then comment.
You need to have a good and objective look at the economic statistics for the past twenty years. Then you will be better equipped to comment.

re: fuzair # 153

That remains the most controversial aspect in India`s fight against terror. The rationale appeared to be: who better to fight the terrorists than those who had been on the inside, and were familiar with all the training, infilteration, and operational facilities? As expected, these `counter-terrorists` were extremely successful. Ultimately, India curtailed their use in the face of increasing reports of their misuse of power. This curtailment was bitterly opposed by people who had been assigned the task of defending J&K.

Once again, both India and Pakistan proved to be equally willing to expose Kashmiris to grave risks. Kashmiris were no angels either: they had been engaged in slaughtering and religious cleansing for two decades. On the whole, Kashmir has been one big mess for the last twenty five years.

arjun at # 150 and rsridhar at 154:

US and UK Government, establishment, media and think tanks that you referred to had also told the world that Iraq had WMD and that was about to launch an attack on the USA. Furthermore, they had also told us that Iraqis would greet the US forces with open arms.

Earlier while invading Afghanistan the same clique had told us, amongst other things, that Afghan women will be liberated (i.e. no burqa, etc.), Talibani crops of poppy will be destroyed and Afghanistan would be at peace. At least tell me whether Afghan women has gotten rid of burqa?

ijaz_gul wrote at # 163:

``Hats off to Pakistan`s irregular and unregistered sectors that generate a parallel economy stronger than the documented one. It is this sector that held Pakistan together in the years of sanctions. ``

and

``Pakistan is certainly not in the dismal pits as some would love to portray. For a long time, no one has died of hunger here. Standard of living amongst the average and poor is much higher than in the neighboring countries. ``

I would like to refer my Indian friends to check out Pakistan as reported by an Indian skeptic. Read in Outlook India at:

http://www.outlookindia.com/diary.asp?fodname=20031124

Ijaz Gul, it would be a matter of pleasure to answer some of the points raised by you in your post.
Sir, first of all, to start with, it wouldn’t be wrong to claim that we are a nation of pendulums – swinging from one extreme to the other is our foremost national trait. So, unsurprisingly, all posts can be sorted into two major groups. Those who are bitterly opposed to khakis and those who are unable to find any fault with them.
In process, arguments get twisted, facts and figures sexed up.

Sir, with full respect, you too opted to present a part of the truth, at best.
Please, observe:
1. You are right that the direct (and visible) allocation for defence is about 26% and approx. 50% goes towards debt servicing. Now what you altogether forgot to take in consideration was that at the least 50 % of national debt has accumulated due to shopping of military hardware over the years.

2. Doesn’t matter, for discussion and simplicity sake, eave the reasons for debt accumulation aside. As you concede yourself, 50% for debt servicing, 26 % for defence means ONLY 24% of national resources for 140 million Pakistanis. Great, really great. Tuberculosis kills more than 50,000 Pakistanis A YEAR and infects 250,000. The infectious lung disease is easily prevented with vaccination, or treated with relatively cheap drugs. We don’t have resources even for this while Musharraf claiming, we will maintain that no-win situation, come what may. Do you see, how preposterous it is al this? We swing back to the article. How many Pakistanis do India kill every year? This is just one example, I can enumerate dozens more.

3. The armed forces run some of the best and cheapest education institutions. Really? Would you kindly mention few of them, number of students enrolled over there. Cheapest, sure, for faujis?

…”Public schools here are little more than warehouses, grim concrete shells lacking libraries, sports facilities, sometimes even teachers. Classes have as many as 60 students. But the children of Pakistani military officers almost certainly are not among them. For them, there is Army Public School O Levels.”
… Why else, they wonder, would officers` children at the seven-year-old army school enjoy basketball courts, fields for cricket and soccer, even a petting zoo stocked with ducks and deer.
``The army considers itself a privileged class,`` Khayyam Durrani, a retired officer who is principal of the school, said with a smile. ``The fact is that the actual rulers in Pakistani society are the army people, so they want their children to go to a privileged institution.``

Washington Post
Refute it if you can.

4. Ijaz Gul sahib, Sir, please come on. I myself belong to Sargodha (one of the cities you mentioned in your reply), but unfortunately totally incapable of finding “town management” of the armed forces. Shaheen barrier divides civilian and military Pakistan – with absolutely nothing common. On one side white sectors of old South Africa, with a bit of exaggeration, black ghettos on the other. For enlightening readers, do point out faults in my description.

5. Oh, Okara too. I think you have totally missed news reporting about the tragic plight of besieged peasants. Wanna have some links. I will post them in a separate reply. Keep in mind that army is occupying this prime piece of land belonging to government of Punjab without paying a single penny in rent or lease for last 30 years. At the same time pocketing un-audited huge sums from poor peasants. A novel way of contributing towards the GDP of the country.

6. Defence Housing societies. Here comes the well-documented modus operandi. Almost always, land acquired either by force or gifted (as recently in Karachi, tell me if I am wrong), develop it through PUBLIC resources, sell it to civilians. Yet another way of contributing towards the GDP of the country.

7. Ijaz gul sahib, Sir, you didn’t even try to challenge any of the points raised by NY in her 2500 words article. I would recommend you to check her open letter to Musharraf as well (Some Burning Questions).

8. According to the latest State Bank Report, 33% of Pakistanis are living under poverty line, and their number increasing and has increased during last 4 years. So, Sir, what are you talking about? Deceiving yourself or poor readers?

Take care

Okara
You can get more stuff to read, in case this much doesnt satisfy you.

1.
…” Denial of access to medical aid has resulted in death of four residents of the Okara military farms since the law-enforcement agencies cordoned off the area.
Residents told Dawn that Naseem Bibi of Chak 45/3-R died because she was not allowed to go outside the military farm when her labour pains started. Abdul Sattar of the same village died of a cardiac arrest as he was also not allowed to go to hospital.
Farzand Ali Jat of Chak 3/4-L and Haneef Jat of Chak 10/4-L had injured during a police-Rangers action on May 4. Farzand was hit by a teargas shell while Haneef was severely baton-charged. Both died without getting medical aid. “
Dawn: May 14, 2003
http://www.dawn.com/2003/05/14/local21.htm

2.
… “Roadblocks are everywhere, manned by soldiers with automatic weapons as well the lighter-armed police. Four-wheelers with mounted machine guns prowl menacingly on the dirt roads next to the irrigation canals, raising huge clouds of dust as they move between villages. For all practical purposes, the nearly one million people of Okara are under military occupation.
“And then, as if the floodgates had broken, villagers came to show us wounds on their bodies, some now turning septic. One, who led me aside, broke down sobbing and told a tale that cannot be related here for reasons of propriety. A visit to the neighbouring village, Chak 4-L, showed the situation there to be virtually identical. Broken limbs, hollow faces, sunken eyes, and marks of beatings were in abundant evidence there too.”
Dawn: May 22, 2003
http://www.dawn.com/2003/05/22/op.htm#2

3.
… “Farm authorities have engineered novel methods to demoralise resisting tenants. These include: setting-up pickets all around; cutting the power and food supply to the villages; picking up school-going children of the tenants and keeping them in custody to pressurise their parents; arresting relatives of tenants living in other cities; curtailing the village-to-village mobility of tenants; depriving the injured and ailing of medical treatment and so on.”
The News on Sunday: June 01, 2003
http://www.jang.com.pk/thenews/jun2003-weekly/nos-01-06-2003/pol1.htm#1


4.
“An investigative report on the military-tenant standoff at Okara reveals that the problem remains unresolved. At least five villages falling under the category of military farms are completely cordoned off by Rangers and police. Multiple layers of army checkpoints regulate the farmers and their families. Anyone seeking access to these villagers is screened through several Ranger command levels, questioned about his motives and given a briefing reflecting extreme hostility towards the tenants.”
The Nation: June 20, 2003
http://www.nation.com.pk/daily/June-2003/20/EDITOR/edi2.asp

5.
…It has been proved beyond an iota of doubt that the army is neither a lessee nor the owner of the Okara farms.
“For the last 10 months, the entire area has been under siege, with the rangers guarding all exit and entry points of 18 villages, and regularly arresting tenants to force them to pay rent. Most tenants, in fact, have not left their villages in broad daylight in nearly 17 months.
“The rangers, meanwhile, are further tightening the screws. More than 650 FIRs have been lodged against the tenants, and some 7,000 farmers have been charged with anti-state activities and booked under the anti-terrorism laws.”
Herald: June, 2003

6.
…”General Mehdi was completely forthright in his reply when I suggested that the issue of land ownership should be left for the courts to decide and not the Rangers. It is the Army`s government, he said, and the government was the law. Therefore, by definition, it was not possible for the Rangers to do anything illegal. He was a kind man, he said, else he would have ``cleared the area of peasants``.

ZNet
http://www.zmag.org/content/showarticle.cfm?SectionID=36&ItemID=2339
7.
… Worst of all, the arrogance of the OMF can be gauged from the text of some letters written by senior officials to relatives of the allegedly offending tenants threatening them in clearly unlawful terms. We are in possession of two letters sent to the OMFs employees, dated Aug 26, 2002, and Jan 24, 2003, by the farm officer, a major. These show the mindset of the military authorities towards the Okara tenancy issue in particular and civil-military relations in general. In one of the letters, the major writes in English: … It has come to our notice that your parents/relatives living in chaks of Mil Farms are involved in anti-state activities. You are directed to motivate your parents/relatives to desist from anti-state activities and to co-op with the Pakistan Army and Pakistan Rangers. If you will not do this for the state, appropriate disciplinary action will be taken against you…

The Friday Times
Najam Sethi`s
Editorial
Okara peasants, military and national interest
August 15 – 21, 2003

ijaz_gul

I don`t have all the figures on Pakistan but your second paragraph intrigued me. If the armed forces do all this, then the question one must ask - why?!

Coming from a non Military background, I have difficulty accepting that we civilians so very less intelligent and less competent than the khaki wearers.

Why should Pakistani civilians be any less intelligent and less competent than their counterparts elsewhere?

#147 by tahmed32 on November 15, 2003 7:47am PT
I think you missed what I implied.
By letting lose your ``Bastards`` you are neither helping yourselves nor the Indian muslims - some of whom get stupidly recruited by the ISI agents to help these ``Bastards`` blow up innocent peoples in this country.
Infact, the Indian muslims want Pakistan to stop pushing its TNT agenda and stop trying to speak FOR the Indian muslims who are sufficiently capable of deciding their future in Indian context.
I think the message is clear now.

The article by Nighat Yasmeen has been really revealing, intriguing and thought provoking. In fact her apt analysis of Pakistan’s Armed Forces have forced me to review the credentials of such military sociologists like Amos Perlmutter, Samuel Huntington, Morris Jonawitzs, David Ordlinger, Raymond Aaron and Cohen. I remember having read that most military interventions ought to be viewed in the realm of national development and not praetorianism. I still agree with them as in the Pakistani military politic there is an absence of a Coterie that perpetuates and sustains coups. All military take-overs have taken place when there was total public disenchantment with the political and bureaucratic regimes and applauded as such. So at best the most revealing aspect of Nighat’s article is that it is a CONSPIRACY THEORY.

The armed Forces do not consume more than 26% of the Annual Budget. Over 50% used to be spent on the debt servicing leaving behind a mere 24% for other sectors. Out of the 26% defence allocation, the Army recieves approximately 16%. Again of the 26% allocation, about 22% directly flows back into the local economies, sustaining the GDP of the country. Thus if the defence allocation was to be slashed, the GDP would fall for a few years till the new channels for cash inflow into local economies are created. Though the Army haters would to their chagrin have much to say, besides being the recipient of 26% allocation, the Armed Forces contributes about 10% of the gross national income in form of taxes and National Development activities and management of the various welfare trust and foundations. Besides, the armed forces run some of the cheapest and best education institutions. The army is the single biggest contributor in the social sectors in the Northern Areas and Kashmir providing such diverse services as communications, schools, basic health and hospitals, construction and maintainance of roads and emergency services. Also remember that the armed forces have been the single biggest contributors of town management and urban development. Quetta, Pannu Aqil, Kharian, Mangla, Okara, Malir, Bannu, Tal, Kohat, Sargodha etc are cases in point. Compare Swat city with Murree to know the difference. You will not find a single green tree in Mingora. As far as real estate is concerned, who stops others in Pakistan to buy non productive waste lands along the seafronts and undulations of the Pothowar to make posh living areas? May I only remind the fate of many housing societies that have mushroomed in the public and private sectors and disappeared after swindling?

Of the total foreign debt of Pakistan which amounted to about 42 billion dollars in 2000, 52% was consumed on water management projects from dams to lining of canals and on farm management. This comes to a staggering figure of about 20 billion dollars. Of this about 60% or 12 billion was wasted on consultancies with not a cent trickling down to the common man. How much was misappropriated is anybody’s guess.

The basic problem in Pakistan is the lack of imaginative planning and honesty of purpose. As such, we do not have a practical socio economic development program. Development is a by product of whatever goes on and is therefore a consequence.

Hats off to Pakistan`s irregular and unregistered sectors that generate a parallel economy stronger than the documented one. It is this sector that held Pakistan together in the years of sanctions. For the past three years, this sector is on a decline because the Tax survey squeezed their incomes and cheap stuff coming from China and Taiwan.

In the complex atmosphere of our financial institutions and Czars, self reliance is a mere slogan. This powerful lobby wants to live off loans, grants and loyalties to the international Financial Institutions, powerful multi and trans nationals and their own profits.

The agriculture surplus that we are reaping for the past three years, owes much to the policies of a certain God fearing and patriotic secretary of agriculture. He ensured that wheat strains were developed that closed the gap of Kharif crops with late picking of cotton. He ensured that we got self sufficient in Canola and minimizes import of edible oils. Unfortunately, not only was he booted out, but also the complete canola program sabotaged in the interests of the poultry lobby that imports cheap Soya meal from India, which is first processed in solvent plants to extract oil. Such are the shots in the foot.

So let us not become a country of apologists and pseudo who wish to fill the coffers of NGOs or reclaim our own lowly rated self esteem. Pakistan is certainly not in the dismal pits as some would love to portray. For a long time, no one has died of hunger here. Standard of living amongst the average and poor is much higher than in the neighboring countries. Yes, intolerance has crept in ever since the Afghan Jihad and Arabisation, but it will go way, once the socio economic program gets into full gear spearheaded by the private sector.
I am reminded of Iqbal:

Apne man mein dhoob ker pa ja tu raz e zindighi
Tu aghar mera nahin banta na ban, apna to ban


I wish if someone including the czars could challenge me on these figures.

rsridhar # 56

(Why did L.K. Advani threaten Pak soon after India exploded its bomb. Simply because, if Pak had not exploded its bomb, India would have been totally isolated diplomatically. Pak did India a favor. Of course, it was darn easy to goad Pak politicians (high on testosterone and low on I.Q) to respond in kind. L.K. Advani and Co. must have heaved a sigh of relief once they learnt Pak too had exploded nuclear devices!)

I tend to differ with the above. I think the world community would have accepted India in the nuclear club - size, democracy etc. May be after some initial dithering.

There was no need for Advani to threaten Pakistan. In fact, he should have played it extra cool towards Pakistan. His threat provided justificatioon to Pakistan to respond -

For Pakistan, nuclear capability has been a double-edged sword - It made Pakistan Army more belligerant - Kargil - etc etc etc. It had a damaging affect on the economy - it has also become a negative factor in country`s perception when coupled with political instability & rise of religious extremism.