The Warlord’s Tune: Afghanistan’s war on children

The Warlord’s Tune: Afghanistan’s war on children

By Mark Bannerman for Four Corners

A 15-year-old bacha bazi, or ‘dancing boy’, performs before a large group of men. (Four Corners)

February 21, 2010

Sexual slavery involving boys as young as 10 is being condoned and in many cases protected by authorities in northern Afghanistan.

In a story to be broadcast on Four Corners tonight, the practice of bacha bazi or “boy play”, as well as other allegations of child abuse, are explored.

Afghan journalist Najibullah Quraishi has filmed police attending a party where a young boy is the “entertainment”. The police shown on the video include one officer from the youth crime squad.

Such parties are illegal under the law in Afghanistan and with good reason. The “dancing boys” are in effect sex slaves. They are lured off the streets by pimps. They are taught to dance and sing, to wear make-up and to dress like girls. Then they are made to perform before large groups of men. All of them are sexually abused.

“Dancing boys” are a lucrative business. Powerful former warlords and businessmen love to watch them and will pay a lot of money to have their own boy for bacha bazi. Some of the boys are traded like swap cards amongst the rich and powerful and if they disobey their “owners” they are killed or brutalised.

The trade in boys is well known to the United Nations. According to Nazir Alimy, who compiled a report on the issue for the UN, there is no doubt who is funding this practice and why the police refuse to stop it.

“According to our research these dancing boys are used by powerful men for sex,” Mr Alimy said.

Tonight’s Four Corners follows the criminal activity of two paedophiles who search for young boys so they can sell them or groom them to be trained as “dancing boys”. In one case the journalist goes in the car with a paedophile named Dastager. As they drive, Dastager explains the type of boy he is looking for. Then in broad daylight the “dancing boy master” stops the car, goes to a shopfront and brings a boy back to his the waiting car.

According to a report prepared for the United Nations there is evidence that the practice of bacha bazi and the sexual abuse of boys is common throughout the north of the country. It confirms that young boys, some of them only 10 years old, are lured into life as a sex slave.

There is also evidence that this type of abuse is spreading throughout Afghanistan.

Mr Alimy says his research shows it is happening in the south and even in the Afghan capital, Kabul.

“It’s true they make the boys wear girls’ clothes and make them dance in front of many men,” he said.

The powerful men he refers to are often former warlords who helped drive the Taliban out of the north. Others who involve themselves in the trade of boys are wealthy businessmen. Under the Taliban, bacha bazi was outlawed. Today it is still a crime but clearly there is no concerted effort being made to stop the practice and the criminal activity that surrounds it.

Unable to find anyone willing to do anything about the abuse of children, journalist Najibullah Quraishi flew to New York to meet Radhika Coomaraswamy, who has been appointed by the UN to raise awareness of the plight of children in war zones.

She explains she is deeply pessimistic about the future of these children and the capacity of officials to stop the trade in young boys.

“When I mentioned the topic it was as if I had dropped a big brick, especially in the circles, official circles,” she said.

“It was very clear to me, and someone actually said it to me, these are not things people talk about. So let’s first deal with the war and then we’ll deal with these other issues.”

The Warlord’s Tune goes to air tonight at 8.30 PM on ABC 1.

[This homosexual pedophilia is an extension of the Pashtun warrior mentality of inflicting the most humiliating form of abuse possible upon your enemies.  From the book Charlie Wilson’s War, we learn that the practice became a form of torture, where captured Soviet soldiers were ritualistically raped to death as an example to those who came later.   The book and movie also mentioned a popular saying at CIA that the most suitable Pashtun sexual partner was another Pashtun man.

The movie the Kite Runner dealt with the topic of the “dancing boys” seen at 3:00 into the following video:

Gen. Kayani On India’s “Cold Start” Attack Doctrine

“We are India-centric”
—Gen Ashfaq Kiyani, Pakistan army chief

PAKISTAN: ARMY

The Pindi Manifesto

The Pak army chief gets candid about India, and unresolved issues

MARIANA BAABAR

• Stridently opposed to India’s role in Afghanistan
• India shouldn’t train the Afghan National Army
• Gains from backchannel diplomacy need not be the starting point, especially on Kashmir
• Principal focus remains Kashmir
• Worried by India’s military doctrine

***

For decades now, Pakistanis have watched on their TV screens images of the corps commanders’ conference room at the Pakistan army General Headquarters in Rawalpindi. The images are invariably beamed every time the generals meet. And invariably, the images would show dour officers seated around a long table, engaged in discussions on the country’s future. Of course, these TV grabs are supposed to evoke a sense of awe, conveying to the audience who really holds the reins of power in Pakistan. It’s in this room that contemporary history has been shaped—generals are known to have walked out to stage a coup, call for election, or reprimand civilian governments trying to assert themselves.

Into this room I walked in gingerly on February 12, Friday. Present along with me were a clutch of former generals and strategic thinkers. The room reeked of history, of power, but today also an expectation of disclosures significant to diplomacy and the region in general.

Islamabad is worried about Gen Kapoor’s statements on a cold start strategy “under a nuclear overhang”.

Perhaps my expectations rose because of the timing of General Ashfaq Parvez Kiyani’s briefing, held as it was in the week during which India had invited Pakistan for talks. For a man who was at best reticent during his earlier tenure as director-general, isi, it was surprising to find the army chief expressing his thoughts on strategic issues with a candour quite remarkable for a general. During the three-hour interaction, he smoked six cigarettes, each time replacing the one in the cigarette filter before it had become a stub (he didn’t light up in the first hour) as he proudly talked about the successful army operations in Swat, Malakand and South Waziristan. The myth had been broken, he said, that no army could take control of South Waziristan and hold it. Heliborne operations at 8,000 feet in South Waziristan were the largest ever in South Asia, he declared,  and for which the US didn’t pay a cent.The conversation turned to India. Questions flew thick and fast. As Outlook heard Gen Kiyani speak on strategic issues, it was easy to draw some conclusions: Pakistan won’t countenance a significant role for India in Afghanistan; New Delhi’s recent military pronouncements worry Islamabad immensely; the gains from backchannel diplomacy, launched during Pervez Musharraf’s rule, need not necessarily be the starting point for Islamabad now; and Kashmir remains Pakistan’s principal focus.

At one point during the interview, Gen Kiyani intoned emphatically, “Yes, we are India-centric.” He then went on to spell out his reasons, taking quite seriously Indian army chief Deepak Kapoor’s cold start doctrine articulated in December last. General Kiyani said, “We have unresolved issues, a history of conflict and now the cold start doctrine. Help us resolve these issues so that we can shift our attention from the eastern borders to the west. Let us normalise these burning issues. We want peaceful coexistence with India. After all, India has the capability, and good intentions can change overnight.” Strong words these.

Islamabad remains worried about General Kapoor’s statements at a closed-door seminar at the Army Training Command, Shimla, where he underlined the need to bolster India’s capability to wage a two-front war (against Pakistan and China). He had wanted India to develop a cold start strategy—of launching quick offensives (presumably against Pakistan) “under a nuclear overhang”. New Delhi’s disclaimers that it didn’t share Kapoor’s views had no takers in the GHQ.

General Kiyani also opposed the idea of India training the Afghan National Army. “Strategically, we cannot have an Afghan army on my western border which has an Indian mindset. If we have an army trained by Pakistan, there will be better interactions on the western border.” Expect an intense jostling for space between India and Pakistan in Afghanistan.

Partly, the jostling for space arises from Pakistan’s need to remain relevant in the region, at a time New Delhi has inched closer to Washington and gallops ahead economically. Kiyani said as much, “Our objective is that at the end of all this (Afghanistan), we should not be standing in the wrong corner of the room and should remain relevant in the region. This is our greatest challenge.”

Kiyani’s remarks, and those of many others in the government, have etched out the backdrop to the talks between India and Pakistan. For one, it seems quite probable that Pakistan would want to start fresh on Kashmir, not inclined to consolidate upon the scheme agreed upon by Musharraf and Manmohan Singh. Reportedly worked out through protracted backchannel diplomacy, the two sides had agreed to provide self-governance in the two parts of Kashmir, undertake demilitarisation in phases there and, ultimately, establish a joint mechanism to administer the two parts.

Reflecting the military’s thinking (which controls Islamabad’s policy on Afghanistan, India, the US and nuclear policy) was foreign minister Shah Mehmood Qureshi, who declared, “We know nothing of this backchannel diplomacy. There is not a shred of paper present in the foreign office on this.” Countering him was his predecessor, Khurshid Mahmood Kasuri, who toldOutlook, “What’s he talking about? Why this flip-flop? The files are present at the president’s office and President Zardari must have seen those when he commented, soon after he took office, that the nation would hear some good news on Kashmir soon. (If you do this flip-flop), no one will take you seriously….”

The political class seems to be veering around to the view that Pakistan must begin afresh on Kashmir. As Pakistan Muslim League (Q) leader Mushahid Hussain says, “Many problems have accumulated since the time Musharraf left. India now boasts of a cold start doctrine, there is also the looming water war, the situation in Balochistan and India’s role in Afghanistan. The Pakistan army also feels that India left no stone unturned to isolate it internationally.” About the backchannel diplomacy under the current dispensation, Hussain said, “To my knowledge, only one meeting has taken place, between Indian diplomat S.K. Lambah and (ex-foreign secretary) Riaz Mohammad Khan in Bangkok.”

At the GHQ interaction, Kiyani confidently said that the world was finally listening to Pakistan’s story. It should give a certain heft to Islamabad as it engages with New Delhi. Perhaps it was also the reason why India did not overplay the Pune blast, aware that the wind perhaps has shifted direction post-Mumbai.

Afghan heroin & the CIA

Andrew G. Marshall

GeopoliticalMonitor.com

Contents
1. Executive Summary
2. The Anglo-Americans and the Origins of the Taliban
3. Anglo-American Involvement in the Afghan Opium Trade
4. The British and the Taliban
5. Who Profits from the Drug Trade?
6. Endnotes

1. Executive Summary

This report is about American and British involvement in the Afghan drug trade in opium, focusing on the history of such involvement, and the nature of the drug trade since the 2001 occupation of Afghanistan. Today, Afghanistan supplies “more than 90 per cent of the world’s illicit opium, from which heroin is made,”[1] so who’s profiting from the trade?

2. The Anglo-Americans and the Origins of the Taliban

The CIA Creates Al-Qaeda

In 1998, Zbigniew Brzezinski, Jimmy Carter’s National Security Adviser, said in an interview with a French publication, Le Nouvel Observateur, that the US intervention in the Afghan-Soviet war did not begin in the 1980s, but that, “it was July 3, 1979 that President Carter signed the first directive for secret aid to the opponents of the pro-Soviet regime in Kabul,” which precipitated the Soviet invasion into Afghanistan.[2] From the Soviet invasion, a bloody ten-year war followed.

Amazingly, “Before 1979 Pakistan and Afghanistan exported very little heroin to the West,”[3] but by 1981, “trucks from the Pakistan army’s National Logistics Cell arriving with CIA arms from Karachi often returned loaded with heroin – protected by ISI [Pakistan’s internal security service] papers freeing them from police search.”[4] This change occurred in 1981 when then CIA Director William Casey, Prince Turki bin Faisal of Saudi intelligence and the ISI worked together to create a foreign legion of jihadi Muslims or so-called Arab Afghans. More than 100,000 Islamic militants were trained in Pakistan between 1986 and 1992 in camps overseen by the CIA and [British] MI6. The SAS [British special forces] trained future Al-Qaida and Taliban fighters in bomb-making and other black arts” while their leaders were trained at a CIA camp in Virginia.[5] Further, “CIA aid was funneled through [Pakistani President] General Zia and the ISI in Pakistan.”[6]

Creating the Taliban

In the mid-1990s, an obscure group of “Pashtun country folk” had become a powerful military and political force in Afghanistan, known as the Taliban.[7] During that same time the Taliban acquired contacts with the ISI,[8] often referred to as Pakistan’s “shadow government.” In 1995, the ISI was actively aiding the Taliban in Afghanistan’s civil war against the warlords that controlled the country.[9] In addition, just as in the Afghan war against the Soviet Union in the previous decade, the ISI looked to Saudi intelligence to provide the funding for the Taliban, and the ties between the ISI and Saudi intelligence grew much closer.[10] The Taliban’s rise to power in Afghanistan was also aided by the CIA, which worked with the Pakistani ISI.[11]

A few years after the Taliban came to power they began a campaign to eradicate Afghanistan’s opium crops, and “The success of Afghanistan’s 2000 drug eradication program under the Taliban government was recognized by the United Nations” as a monumental feat, in that “no other country was able to implement a comparable program.”[12] In October of 2001, the UN acknowledged that the Taliban reduced opium production in Afghanistan from 3300 tons in 2000 to 185 tons in 2001.[13]

In June of 2001, a few months before 9/11, it was reported that a “recent gift of $43 million to the Taliban rulers of Afghanistan” was announced “by Secretary of State Colin Powell, in addition to other recent aid, [which] made the United States the main sponsor of the Taliban.”[14]

3. Anglo-American Involvement in the Afghan Opium Trade

The World’s #1 Narco-State

Drug trafficking is the largest global commodity in profits after the oil and arms trade, consequently, “immediately following the October 2001 invasion opium markets were restored. Opium prices spiraled. By early 2002, the domestic price of opium in Afghanistan (in dollars/kg) was almost 10 times higher than in 2000.”[15] The Anglo-American invasion of Afghanistan successfully restored the drug trade. The Guardianrecently reported that, “In 2007 Afghanistan had more land growing drugs than Colombia, Bolivia and Peru combined.”[16]

The British

In 2005 it was reported by the Independent that Afghanistan’s Interior Minister had resigned, “amid reports he had quit because of the involvement of senior government officials in the illegal drug trade.”  He had “been outspoken over the involvement of officials in the drug trade and is believed to have had differences with President Karzai over the appointment of Provincial officials.”[17] In 2006, the Independent reported that, “British intelligence officers and military commanders accused the US of undermining British policies in Iraq and Afghanistan, after the sacking of a key British ally in the Afghan province of Helmand.” The British “blamed pressure from the CIA for President Hamid Karzai’s decision to dismiss Mohammed Daud as governor of Helmand.” Mr. Daud “had survived several Taliban assassination attempts, was seen as a key player in Britain’s anti-drugs campaign in Helmand,” and was fired after Hamid Karzai, Afghanistan’s President, “listened to advice from ‘other powerful Western players’.”[18]

Former British Ambassador to Uzbekistan, Craig Murray, wrote in a 2007 article in the UK Daily Mail, that what has been achieved in Afghanistan is “the highest harvests of opium the world has ever seen.”[19] Murray elaborated that, “Our economic achievement in Afghanistan goes well beyond the simple production of raw opium. In fact Afghanistan no longer exports much raw opium at all. It has succeeded in what our international aid efforts urge every developing country to do. Afghanistan has gone into manufacturing and ‘value-added’ operations.” This means that Afghanistan “now exports not opium, but heroin. Opium is converted into heroin on an industrial scale, not in kitchens but in factories. Millions of gallons of the chemicals needed for this process are shipped into Afghanistan by tanker. The tankers and bulk opium lorries on the way to the factories share the roads, improved by American aid, with NATO troops.” Murray explains that this was able to happen because “the four largest players in the heroin business are all senior members of the Afghan government.” Murray stated that, “Our only real achievement to date is falling street prices for heroin in London.”[20]

The Americans

In 2002, former Additional Secretary in the Cabinet Secretariat of the Government of India wrote that, in regard to the failure to combat the rise in opium production, “this marked lack of success in the heroin front is due to the fact that the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) of the USA, which encouraged these heroin barons during the Afghan war of the 1980s in order to spread heroin-addiction amongst the Soviet troops, is now using them in its search for bin Laden and other surviving leaders of the Al Qaeda.”[21]

The Hindu reported in 2008 that, “90 per cent of the heroin sold in Russia comes from Afghanistan,” and Putin was quoted as saying, “Unfortunately, they (NATO) are doing nothing to reduce the narcotic threat from Afghanistan even a tiny bit,” and that the coalition forces were “sitting back and watching caravans haul drugs across Afghanistan to the former Soviet Union and Europe.” The article then reported that, “according to unconfirmed reports the U.S. military transport aviation is used for the delivery of drugs from Afghanistan to the American airbases, Ganci in Kyrgyzstan and Incirlik in Turkey,” and that, “It has been reported earlier that the CIA is involved in Afghanistan’s opium production, or is at least protecting it.” One Russian journalist quoted anonymous Afghan officials as saying, “85 per cent of all drugs produced in southern and southeastern provinces are shipped abroad by U.S. aviation.”[22]

4. The British and the Taliban

Training the Taliban

The Independent reported in 2008 that “Britain planned to build a Taliban training camp for 2,000 fighters in southern Afghanistan, as part of a top-secret deal to make them swap sides. The plans were discovered on a memory stick seized by Afghan secret police in December.” Further, “The camp would provide military training for 1,800 ordinary Taliban fighters and 200 low-level commanders.”[23]

The article explained that, “the Afghans feared the British were training a militia with no loyalty to the central government. Intercepted Taliban communications suggested they thought the British were trying to help them.” The article further reported that, the program was bankrolled by the British,” and that, “the memory stick revealed that $125,000 (£64,000) had been spent on preparing the camp and a further $200,000 was earmarked to run it in 2008,” which “sparked allegations that British agents were paying the Taliban.” Further, “the Afghan government took issue with plans to provide military training to turn the insurgents into a defence force.” On top of that, “the memory stick revealed plans to train the Taliban to use secure satellite phones, so they could communicate directly with UK officials.” “Officially, the British embassy remains tight-lipped, fuelling speculation that the plan may have been part of a wider clandestine operation.”[24]

5. Who Profits from the Drug Trade?

Wall Street and Big Banks

Michel Chossudovsky describes the heroin trade as a “hierarchy of prices,” with the drug’s street price, (what it is sold for in largely Western cities around the world), is 80 to 100 times the price paid to the farmers who cultivate it in Afghanistan.[25] The IMF reported that in the late 1990s, money laundering accounted for 2-5% of the world’s GDP, and that a large percentage of the 590 billion to 1.5 trillion dollars in annual money laundering is “directly linked to the trade in narcotics.” This lucrative trade in narcotics produces profits which are “laundered in the numerous offshore banking havens in Switzerland, Luxembourg, the British Channel Islands, the Cayman Islands and some 50 other locations around the globe.” These offshore havens “are controlled by major Western banks and financial institutions” which “have a vested interest in maintaining and sustaining the drug trade.”[26]

An example of the interest of Wall Street and London bankers in the international drug trade, we can look to Columbia and the FARC rebel group. In “1999, NYSE [New York Stock Exchange] Chairman Dick Grasso traveled to Columbia and met with the leader of the FARC rebels controlling the southern third of the country.” “Grasso had asked the Columbian rebels to invest their profits in Wall Street.”[27] The Associated Press reported that Grasso told the rebel leader to, “make peace and expect great economic benefits from global investors,” and invited the rebel leader to visit Wall Street.[28] To allow for drug investment in Western financial institutions, “major banks like Citigroup, Bank of America, Morgan Stanley, Deutsche Bank, and JPMorgan Chase all offer private client services for the very wealthy with very few questions asked.”[29]

6. Endnotes

[1] Stephen Fidler, UN alarm at spread of Afghan opium. Financial Times: March 4, 2008: http://us.ft.com/ftgateway/superpage.ft?news_id=fto030420081933091960

[2] Bill Blum (translator). The CIA’s Intervention in Afghanistan. Global Research: October 15, 2001: http://www.globalresearch.ca/articles/BRZ110A.html

[3-4] Peter Dale Scott, The Road to 9/11: Wealth, Empire, and the Future of North America. University of California Press: 2007, page 124

[5] Peter Dale Scott, Ibid, page 122-23

[6] Peter Dale Scott, Ibid, page 123

[7] Steve Coll, Ghost Wars: The Secret History of the CIA, Afghanistan, and Bin Laden, From the Soviet Invasion to September 10, 2001. Penguin Books, New York, 2004: Page 328

[8] Steve Coll, Ibid, page 293

[9] Steve Coll, Ibid, pages 293-294

[10] Steve Coll, Ibid, pages 295-296

[11] Times of India, CIA worked in tandem with Pak to create Taliban. Times of India Online: March 7, 2001: http://www.multiline.com.au/~johnm/taliban.htm

[12] Michel Chossudovsky, America’s War on Terrorism, 2nd ed. Center for Research on Globalization: Québec, 2005: Page 226

[13] Michel Chossudovsky, Ibid, page 227

[14] Robert Scheer, Bush’s Faustian Deal With the Taliban. The Nation: June 4, 2001: http://www.thenation.com/doc/20010604/20010522

[15] Michel Chossudovsky, Op cit, page 228

[16] Patrick Wintour, Opium economy will take 20 years and £1bn to remove. The Guardian: February 6, 2008:     http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2008/feb/06/afghanistan.politics

[17] Justin Huggler, Afghan minister quits over opium trade. The Independent: September 28, 2005: http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/asia/afghan
-minister-quits-over-opium-trade-508664.html

[18] Robert Fox, CIA is undermining British war effort, say military chiefs. The Independent: December 10, 2006: http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/middle-east/cia-is-undermining-

british-war-effort-say-military-chiefs-427848.html

[19-20] Craig Murray, Britain is protecting the biggest heroin crop of all time. UK Daily Mail: July 21, 2007: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/pages/live/articles/news/news.html?in_article_

id=469983&in_page_id=1770&in_page_id=1770&expand=true

[21] B. Raman, Assassination of Jaki Abdul Qadeer in Kabul. South Asia Analysis Group: Paper no. 489, August 7, 2002: http://www.southasiaanalysis.org/papers5/paper489.html

[22] Vladimir Radyuhin, Russia: victim of narco-aggression. The Hindu: February 4, 2008: http://www.hindu.com/2008/02/04/stories/2008020453271000.htm

[23-24] Jerome Starkey, Revealed: British plan to build training camp for Taliban fighters in Afghanistan. The Independent: February 4, 2008:     http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/asia/revealed-british-plan-to-build
-training-camp-for-taliban-fighters-in-afghanistan-777671.html

[25] Michel Chossudovsky, Op cit, page 230

[26] Michel Chossudovsky, Ibid, page 233

[27] Michael C. Ruppert, Crossing the Rubicon: The Decline of the American Empire at the End of the Age of Oil. New Society Publishers: Canada, 2004: Page 57

[28] CBS MarketWatch, NYSE’s Grasso met with Colombia’s FARC. AP: June 29, 1999: http://www.marketwatch.com/news/story/-nyses-grasso-met-colombias/

story.aspx?guid=%7B571A6F96-E694-4D58-A7A9-F5DBFF132F4A%7D

[29] Michael C. Ruppert, Op cit, page 61

India Under Threat

Despite India’s demonstration of its military and economic prowess beyond its borders, very recent events have demonstrated the extreme vulnerability of its internal security. On February 7, India test fired its nuclear capable Agni 3 missile from Wheeler Island in the Bay of Bengal.

Manmohan Singh and Osama bin Laden

This missile has a 3500 km range and its range covers vast areas of China and Pakistan. Reports said that: ‘pin point accuracy was achieved’. Defence Minister Antony announced recently India’s plans to raise two mountain divisions in North East India ‘not against China but as a part of the policy to strengthen armed forces in that region’. Meanwhile India has committed $ 1.3 billion in development assistance and infrastructure in Afghanistan.

Home grown threat

On February 10 in a remote camp in Midnapore (West Bengal) 24 jawans (soldiers) of the Eastern Front Rifles in the Sildha camp were killed by Maoist guerrillas who arrived on motor cycles and four wheeled vehicles. Reports said that these poorly trained soldiers deployed to combat the Maoist guerrillas in an operation launched by the central government known as Operation Green Hunt against the guerrillas were sitting ducks.
Naxal Leader Kiserji had said that the attack was an answer to the government operation against them and asked that it be called off.
This movement that commenced in 1967 following the split of the Communist Party of India was recently described by Prime Minister Manmohan Singh as the greatest security threat to India. The movement has spread to 220 districts across 20 states and affects 40 per cent of the geographical area of the country. It controls a region known as the Red Corridor extending over 92,000 sq miles and the Indian intelligence organisation, Research and Analysis Wing (RAW) estimated the strength of the Naxalites last year at 50,000 regular cadres in mass organisations with millions of sympathisers. The affected states are: West Bengal, Chattisgarh, Orissa, Andra Pradesh, Maharashtra, Jhakarland, Uttar Pradesh and Bihar.

Wretched of the Earth

This movement that has lasted for over four decades comprises the Wretched of the Earth of India. They are tribals, untouchables, and other spurned castes but also include radical students in large numbers as well as intellectuals. Some of the Naxals identified have been alumni of well known colleges whose products include leading Indian politicians. But the movement has failed to attract the support of mainstream political parties.
Reports speak of the state machinery systematically annihilating student supporters. Human rights groups have expressed concern about disappearance of such students and some estimates speak of 5000 Bengali students and intellectuals being killed. At the inception of the movement it was declared that assassination of ‘class enemies’ was an objective and that revolutionary warfare was to take place not only in the countryside but everywhere. Well known leader Majumdar was arrested and died in custody under ‘mysterious circumstances’. The movement poses a serious challenge to the Indian state but can it be eliminated by the use of force as is being presently attempted?
To those observers of the rise of India under free market capitalism the high rise buildings of Mumbai with vast areas of slum land around demonstrates the paradox of modern India.
The Naxalite movement originated during the days of Nehruvian socialism under Indira Gandhi. Socialism it is said has the capacity to make every one poor and did little to alleviate the abjectly poor. Now under free market capitalism, the rich are getting richer and the poor, poorer. How long will it take for the wealth to trickle down from the high rise buildings to the slum lands of Mumbai?

Al Qaeda threat

An incident of even graver threat to the security of the Indian state was witnessed on February 13 when a bomb went off in a popular restaurant in the western city of Pune killing eight and injuring 33. This was the first such attack in India after Mumbai terrorist attack in November 2008. The Pune attack was significant in that responsibility for the attack was claimed by an organisation styled the Indian Mujahideen. This group has been identified by the Indian media as a front created by the Islamic terror group Lashkar-e-Taiba ( LeT ), operating from Pakistan and another Islamic terror organisation Harkat-ul-Jihad to cover the tracks of the radical Students’ Islamic Movement of India.
It is now suspected that most of the bombings that took place in Indian cities last year were directed by LeT and carried out by the Indian Mujahideen.
A consolation for the United States and other western countries has been that even though India ranks third in terms of Muslim populated countries it has been largely left untouched by Islamic terror of the al Qaeda variety. President George W. Bush made specific mention of this in his speeches as president. If Islamic radicalism grips the Indian Muslim population of 160 million (13.3 percent) of the total Indian population, it could have immense destructive potential not only for India but entire South Asia.
Al Qaeda last week also threatened India against staging international sporting events such as the World Hockey Cup and the Commonwealth Games. A leading commander of the organisation Inlays Kashmiri had warned the world not to send sportspeople to India, Asia Times an online internet channel said. However indications were that most countries were ignoring the threat.

Indo-Pak talks

India’s perennial problem of Kashmir remains unresolved. Kashmir is the font of most of South Asian ills and continues to be so. The two countries last week decided to hold talks at foreign secretary level on February 25 despite strong objections made in certain quarters in India that the talks should not be held in view of the Pune bombing. Indo-Pakistan talks that commenced in 2004 came to a halt after the Mumbai attacks but the Indian government and most of India’s geopolitical strategists held that nothing could be lost by holding the talks.

Manmohan ready to face Parliament over Pakistan

NEW DELHI (Agencies) – Under attack from the Opposition over talks with Pakistan, Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh on Saturday said the government is ready to discuss all issues in Parliament.
“We are ready to discuss all issues in Parliament,” Manmohan told reporters after a meeting of leaders of political parties convened by Lok Sabha Speaker Meira Kumar ahead of the Budget Session of Parliament commencing from tomorrow (Monday).
Indian Premier Manmohan was asked about BJP saying it will seek clarifications from the government in Parliament on why it has decided on the Foreign Secretary-level talks with Pakistan when “terrorism from across the border” has not stopped.
The session would commence with President Pratibha Patil’s address to the joint sitting of both Houses of Parliament and would conclude on May 7.
The General Budget for 2010-11 will be presented on February 26 and the Railway Budget 2010-11 on February 24.
The Rajya Sabha will also begin its sitting from February 22.
Meanwhile, Indian Home Minister P Chidambaram on Saturday said that despite India not being given Most-Favoured Nation (MFN) status by Pakistan as a reciprocal gesture, India doesn’t intend to bring trade and commerce to come to an end.
Speaking after laying the foundation stone of Integrated Check Post (ICP) at Attari border on Saturday Chidambaram said: “We have not got a MFN (Most Favoured Nation) status that is a fact and that’s a complaint we make, it is a fact of life but because we do not have the MFN status that doesn’t not mean that all trade and commerce should come to an end. We will continue the demand for the MFN status but we will also continue to encourage trade and commerce.”
Speaking about the recent rocket attacks in border villages near Attari, Chidambaram said, “Pakistan doesn’t admit that its forces fired the rocket. But we know they came from that direction”.
Chidambaram along with Indian Punjab Chief Minister Parkash Singh Badal laid foundation stone of Integrated Check Post (ICP) at Attari border. It aims at improving trade link between India and Pakistan.
The Indian Home Minister said the 21st Century is of trade and commerce, so the scheme of constructing ICPs in eight states in the country was designed to boost the trade with neighbouring countries including Pakistan, Bangladesh, Myanmar and Nepal.

The Perilous Promise of Pakistani/Indian Negotiations

[Pakistan and India must recognize the significance of this moment, both for themselves and for humanity, beyond the temporary realignment in American relations represented in the imaginary 2011 US pull-out from Afghanistan.  The plans that were hatched in the London conference on Afghanistan (to have Pakistan shoulder the burden of easing the pressure on American forces, even if, apparently that means nudging India out), have only added to the delusional quality of the scenario unfolding on the eve of new Indo-Pakistani talks.  Hard-liners on both sides are fueling the usual fires of mistrust, coincident with the Pune bombing.  The pointing fingers of guilt are already distracting the peoples of both countries, before new issues that might lead to permanent peace can even be formulated.  There is only a minute chance that issues can be resolved, but that should be dwarfed by the enormity of the limitless opportunity represented in this pregnant moment.  Finding a path to true peace between these two lifelong antagonists should be possible if only the players are truly honest and concerned about what is best for their own people and for the entire human race.

There is a way out of all of this.  That is simply to really hear what I have been saying over and over:  Remove the United States and every other nation that stands between them from any negotiations, so that they might deal with their own real issues without hiding behind the false fronts created by others.  Enter into negotiations over state terrorism, while accepting the worst proliferators of state terrorism as intermediaries and no good will come from these talks.  Both governments have worked with the US in sowing this state terrorism, so there is no use pretending that their friends the Americans are not involved in such things.  In the end, the Imperialists plan to assert their dominance over this critical region, no matter what the locals might desire.  America is going to take its military road show to the next targeted country, shifting its load in Afghanistan to either Pakistan or India.  If that transfer of power takes place it will be like lighting a fuse for the entire sub-continent.

Whoever sits at the table for both Pakistan and India will be representing all of humanity.  God (or all of the gods) will be watching the human interlocutors to see whether they are to be judged or to be honored for all time.  There is a heavy burden on these men’s shoulders that would make Atlas tremble.  I hope that they are up to the task.]

Is India-Pakistan entente possible?

By Izzuddin Pal

For India, the solution to the conflict will allow it to play a meaningful role in the region. — Photo by AFP

EDITORIAL

Ghost of an accord

Ghost of an accord

During the twenties the western powers had an opportunity to decide about the future of conquered territories, and during the forties they had to cope with decolonisation of their subject nations. In both cases they followed what some historians of imperialism call the policy of strengthening post-colonial links. The goal of this policy was to link the conquered territories or the post-colonial regimes with the emerging international political economy in order to protect their interests.

This objective had many facets, such as: to patronise the reliable compradors; and to restrain the newly-acquired autonomy by defining the borders in order to leave scope for potential disputes between the neighbouring countries, e.g. Middle East — Jordan-Transjordan-Palestine-Balfour Declaration for a Jewish homeland; Africa — from north to south, ignoring geography, tribal affiliations, and animal migrations; and South and South-East Asia — The Philippines, Indonesia, Sukarno later deposed by Suharto, India-Pakistan, the Radcliffe-Mountbatten Award ignoring agreed principles for population and river-canal linkages.

All this was to promote dependency and protect the imperial political interests and trade. In the post-Second World War period, this policy produced a significant bonanza for what US President Eisenhower had referred to in another context as military-industrial complex, and of course for globalisation.

The India-Pakistan dispute has both internal (Hindu-Muslim tensions) and external dynamics. In the case of the latter factor, the dispute seems to correspond with the rules of the British policy for strengthening post-colonial links for both countries.

Kashmir is the core issue that explains the India-Pakistan dispute. The future of the princely state, the majority of population, and its geographical linkage with the Indus Valley would by all counts have made it a part of Pakistan. It did not happen and several factors are usually mentioned which created this situation, such as hostile attitude of Lord Mountbatten towards Mohammad Ali Jinnah, role of Jawaharlal Nehru and what is called the Edwina-Nehru relations, the role of the ruler of the state, the failures of the Pathans to occupy the strategic route, the Poonch revolt, etc.

The real causes which seem to describe the British policy for strengthening post-colonial links are: 1) to temper with the partition plan in order to allot the district of Gurdaspur to India and create a corridor for providing all-season link for Kashmir with India and, 2) to make a massive airlift of the Indian army to Srinagar, the capital of Kashmir, in October 1947. Such an airlift would require contingency plans to implement it in time. As Alastair Lamb (Kashmir: A Disputed Legacy) mentions, both the Indian apologists and the British officials had argued that this was the result of a ‘triumph of improvisation’. But the airlift on such a scale would take more than a few days, even a few weeks. Some military strategists are of the view that perhaps this kind of airlift must have been in the works, involving considerable staff work, perhaps parallel to the announcement of Radcliffe-Mountbatten Award as mentioned above.

In this possible time-frame, the objective of the airlift would be in line with the British policy for strengthening post-colonial links planned for the two countries. Lord Mountbatten was accompanied in his mission for transfer of power by some senior members of the British bureaucracy and some advisors who had high credentials as members of the Establishment, thoroughly familiar with the policy for strengthening post-colonial links. Of course, the Hindu-Muslim relations after the introduction of provincial autonomy had deteriorated, especially in the old United Provinces; and during the Pakistan movement, Hindu fundamentalists were also bent upon creating instability and to protest against the possible vivisection of Mother India. The tinkering with the border of Kashmir, however, had long-term implications.

Given this context, let us go fast forward and briefly ponder on the current perspective, and to examine the arguments which would strongly favour an honourable settlement of the dispute, with reference to the following three factors: the economic perspective, the financial considerations and the role of diplomacy.

That India and Pakistan should be able to live side by side peacefully is an important principle honouring contiguity which was the basis of establishing a separate homeland for Muslims. That was the desire of the founder of the nation, as indicated by the fact that he left his property interests intact in Bombay and his will included beneficiaries from both countries.

Trade is usually considered as a first propeller of good relations. In a narrow sense, this factor alone is not a reliable index, because as the global data on trading with the ‘enemy’ would indicate, the profit motive and the urge to pursue transactions for mutual gain usually defy obstacles, both in official trickles as well as informal dealings. This is made possible by the fact that in the cross-border dealings, there are advantages in shipping and other transaction costs which can be higher for longer distances. Trade, however, is also associated with other factors which play an important part in promoting mutual economic relations between the countries, such as trade-related intellectual property rights (TRIP) in goods and services, and rules for foreign investment. All this becomes part of good economic relations.

There may be some resistance from the business and industrial sectors in Pakistan to removing official barriers to economic relations. Both sectors have become used to the shelter for high-cost goods provided by the ‘no-war’ situation prevailing between the two countries for decades, as against, Indian industry significantly improving its comparative advantage. But this is the stuff for negotiation and arrangement for transitional and temporary exceptions and exemptions in bilateral agreements.

Above all, peace has its distinct economic dividends, for citizens in both countries, for promoting cultural and educational exchange. The two countries do have a long history of a shared heritage.

The other factor, the financial considerations, which favours peace with its own dividends, is related to the cost of war or near-war conflicts. Professor Paul Kennedy, a well-known British historian in his The Rise and Fall of the Great Powers examines how wars are usually decided by the relative financial advantage among the adversaries, and it equally applies to other near-war conflicts. He suggests that in specific conflicts or over the long run, the chances of gaining ‘ascendancy’ are correlated strongly to available resources and economic durability; military “over-stretch” is the consistent threat when ambitions for security requirements are greater than the resource base can provide.

Both India and Pakistan, as nuclear powers, tend to divert large resources to feed deficit financing and military build-up. The arguments offered by Professor Kennedy, therefore, would equally apply to both countries. The recent statement of General Ashfaq Kayani underlining the India-centric position of the army is of course a strategy prepared in response to India’s Cold Start doctrine — to attack before mobilising, increasing the possibility of a ‘sudden spiral of escalation’. It may lower the threshold for nuclear overhang and increase hostility between them. But the question of drain on resources — the choice between guns against butter -will continue to haunt both countries.

Is it possible then to argue that diplomacy would present better prospects than the previous two options? The literature on the strategy of survival of a small state gives us some guidance in this regard. For example, a stable and a growing economy can provide a strong negotiating position to the country, which is not the case with Pakistan. Associated with this phenomenon is the role that the diaspora can play in advocating the case of their native land. But there is a small professional class living abroad which is not able to relate to the performance of the political elite for their poor governance and reputation for lack of integrity.

There is no military solution, in any case, which Pakistan can pursue effectively. Negotiation and persuasion are the only options available to the country. Both countries can liberate themselves from the burden of the big powers’ policy for strengthening post-colonial links by recognising that there are three parties involved in the dispute over Kashmir. In any viable solution of the issue, the people of Kashmir will have to exercise their opinions, who still live in a virtual limbo of special status. And Pakistan as a lower riparian of the rivers, the life blood of the Indus region, has considerable stake in the future of the territory. For India, the solution to the conflict will allow it to play a meaningful role in the region. Peace will have dividends for both countries.

izzud-din.pal@videotron.ca

Suddenly, Pakistan Is Cleaning-Up In Pakistan–What Gives?

Pakistan arrests nine Taleban commanders

By AGENCIES

Published: Feb 18, 2010 8:19 PM Updated: Feb 18, 2010 8:19 PM

ISLAMABAD: Pakistani authorities said Thursday they have apprehended more militant chiefs following the capture of the Afghan Taleban’s No. 2 figure — arrests that together represent the biggest blow to the militant organization since the US-led invasion in 2001.

The roundups, which could still be under way, occurred as a bomb blast at a mosque in Pakistan’s northwestern tribal belt killed 29 people including some militants Thursday and US special envoy Richard Holbrooke met with Pakistani leaders here.

The latest arrests took place late Wednesday and early Thursday when nine militants linked to Al-Qaeda were nabbed near Karachi, where the Taleban’s deputy chief Mullah Abdul Ghani Baradar was picked up several days ago.

Others picked up in the recent sweeps included the Taleban’s ‘shadow’ governors in two provinces in northern Afghanistan, according to the official governor of the Afghan province of Kunduz, Mohammad Omar, and two Pakistani intelligence officers.

Communications intercepted by US authorities played a key role in tracking and arresting the suspects, who were in Karachi buying bomb-making equipment, the officials said. They were taken to Islamabad for questioning.

Details of the arrests were unclear, including how they were linked to the capture of Mullah Baradar, who effectively ran the Taleban on a day-to-day basis on behalf of the reclusive leader Mullah Mohammad Omar.

But a Pakistani intelligence official said Mullah Baradar has provided “useful” information that has led to the arrests of other suspected militants. The official said Mullah Baradar was traveling in a car on the outskirts of Karachi when he was nabbed along with three of his guards. He said Mullah Baradar was picked up with help from the CIA.

Pakistan security agencies conducted three different raids on Wednesday night in Karachi and arrested nine more suspects including three foreigners. Among those arrested in the three Karachi area raids were Ameer Muawiya, an associate of Al-Qaeda leader Osama Bin Laden who was in charge of foreign Al-Qaeda militants operating in Pakistan’s tribal regions; Akhunzada Popalzai, also known as Mohammad Younis, a one-time Taleban shadow governor in Zabul province; Hamza, who served as a former Afghan Army commander in Helmand province during the Taleban rule; Abu Riyan Al-Zarqawi, also known as Abu Musa; and his local facilitator, Mufti Kifayatullah.

Al-Zarqawi was involved in dealing with Chechen and Tajik militants operating in Pakistan’s tribal belt. The two Taleban shadow governors — Mullah Abdul Salam of Kunduz province and Mullah Mohammad in Baghlan province — were arrested about 10 to 12 days ago in Pakistan, according to Afghan and Pakistani officials.

Both were key figures in the Taleban’s expansion to northern Afghanistan, where their forces threatened NATO supply lines coming south from Central Asia and raised alarm that the militants were extending their influence nationwide.

The two Pakistani intelligence officials said Salam was arrested in the Pakistani city of Faisalabad.

Thursday’s bomb explosion tore through a mosque in the Aka Khel area of Khyber, killing at least 29 people and wounding 50, local official Jawed Khan said. Earlier reports had said the blast occurred in the Orakzai area at a cattle market. The two areas border one another, and the market is apparently near the mosque.

Officials were still investigating whether the explosion was caused by a suicide bomber or a planted device.

No group claimed responsibility, but Khan said the dead included fighters from Lashkar-e-Islam, a group in Khyber that has clashed with another outfit known as Ansarul Islam. Both espouse Taleban-style ideologies.

Meanwhile, Holbrooke, on his second visit to Pakistan this year, met Pakistani Prime Minister Yousaf Raza Gilani for talks that included security issues, Gilani’s office said. The previous day in Kabul, Holbrooke called the arrest of Baradar “a significant development.”

Pakistan Vetoes American/Afghan Quest to Buy-Off Moderate Taliban

Taliban Arrest May Be Crucial for Pakistanis

A man believed to be Mullah Abdul Ghani Baradar in a photograph taken in 1998, given to The New York Times by a former photographer for the Taliban.

By CARLOTTA GALL and SOUAD MEKHENNET

Pakistan has removed a key Taliban commander, enhanced cooperation with the United States and ensured a place for itself when parties explore a negotiated end to the Afghan war.

The arrest followed weeks of signals by Pakistan’s military chief, Gen. Ashfaq Parvez Kayani — toNATO officials, Western journalists and military analysts — that Pakistan wanted to be included in any attempts to mediate with the Taliban.

Even before the arrest of the Taliban commander, MullahAbdul Ghani Baradar, a senior Pakistani intelligence official expressed irritation that Pakistan had been excluded from what he described as American and Afghan approaches to the Taliban.

“On the one hand, the Americans don’t want us to negotiate directly with the Taliban, but then we hear that they are doing it themselves without telling us,” the official said in an interview. “You don’t treat your partners like this.”

Mullah Baradar had been a important contact for the Afghans for years, Afghan officials said. But Obama administration officials denied that they had made any contact with him.

Whatever the case, with the arrest of Mullah Baradar, Pakistan has effectively isolated a key link to the Taliban leadership, making itself the main channel instead.

“We are after Mullah Baradar,” the Pakistani intelligence official said in an interview three weeks ago. “We strongly believe that the Americans are in touch with him, or people who are close to him.”

The official said the American action of excluding Pakistan from talks with the Afghan Taliban was making things “difficult.”

“You cannot say that we are important allies and then you are negotiating with people whom we are hunting and you don’t include us,” he said.

An American official in Washington who has been briefed on the arrest denied that there had been negotiations with the Taliban commander or that Pakistani intelligence engineered the arrest to ensure a role in negotiations. “That’s a conspiracy theory to which I give no credit, because it’s just not true,” the official said.

But whether or not that was Pakistan’s intention, it may be the effect.

The Taliban are longtime Pakistani allies in Afghanistan, and Pakistan has signaled its interest in preserving influence there.

Though the Obama administration has been divided on whether and how to deal with the Taliban, the Pakistani move could come at the expense of the Afghan government ofHamid Karzai and complicate reconciliation efforts his government has begun.

An American intelligence official in Europe conceded as much, while also acknowledging Mullah Baradar’s key role in the reconciliation process. “I know that our people had been in touch with people around him and were negotiating with him,” the official said, speaking on the condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to discuss the issue.

“So it doesn’t make sense why we bite the hand that is feeding us,” the official added. “And now the Taliban will have no reason to negotiate with us; they will not believe anything we will offer or say.”

The arrest comes at a delicate time, when the Taliban are in a fierce internal debate about whether to negotiate for peace or fight on as the United States prepares to send 30,000 more troops to Afghanistan this year.

He is one of the most senior military figures in the Taliban leadership who is close to the overall Taliban leader, Mullah Muhammad Omar, and has been one of the main Taliban conciliators, Afghan officials said.

It has been clear from interviews recently with commanders and other members of the Taliban in southern Afghanistan and in Pakistan that the notion of talks has divided the Taliban, but more and more want negotiations.

Some hard-liners are arguing to continue the fight. But in recent weeks the balance has been increasingly toward making peace, according to Hajji Muhammad Ehsan, a member of the Kandahar provincial council.

Officials in Kandahar, the former base of the Taliban government, have some of the closest links to the Taliban leadership, who are mostly from southern Afghanistan and are now living across the border in Pakistan.

“He was the only person intent on or willing for peace negotiations,” said Hajji Agha Lalai, former head of the government-led reconciliation process in the city of Kandahar, who has dealt with members of the Taliban leadership council for several years.

He and other officials in Afghanistan who are familiar with the Taliban leadership said Mullah Baradar’s arrest by Pakistani intelligence, and his interrogation by Pakistani intelligence officers and American agents, could play out in two ways. Mullah Baradar might be able to persuade other Taliban to give up the fight. Or if he is perceived to be mistreated, that could end any hopes of wooing other Taliban.

“Mullah Brother can create change in the Taliban leadership, if he is used in mediation or peace-talking efforts to convince other Taliban to come over, but if he is put in jail as a prisoner, we don’t think the peace process will be productive,” said Hajji Baridad, a tribal elder from Kandahar.

The Afghan government did not react to the news of Mullah Baradar’s arrest, an indication that it was upset at Pakistan’s action. Ahmed Wali Karzai, the brother of the president, who has held indirect contacts with Mullah Baradar in the past, welcomed his arrest as serving a “death blow” to the Taliban leader, Mullah Omar.

“We value the help of Pakistani officials in helping to arrest Mullah Baradar. This is actually a positive step, and we hope they will continue this kind of contribution,” he said.

But the former Taliban ambassador to Pakistan, Mullah Abdul Salam Zaeef, who has led efforts on behalf of President Karzai to persuade the Taliban to negotiate an end to the war, attacked Pakistan’s action as destroying all chances of reconciliation with the rest of the Taliban leadership.

“If it’s really true, it could seriously affect negotiations and can gravely affect the peace process,” he said, speaking in Kabul, where he has resided since his release from the prison at Guantánamo Bay in Cuba several years ago. “It would destroy the fragile trust built between both sides and will not help with the peace process.”

Carlotta Gall reported from Islamabad, and Souad Mekhennet from Frankfurt. Taimoor Shah contributed reporting from Kandahar, Afghanistan; Sangar Rahimi from Kabul, Afghanistan; and Scott Shane from Washington.