Christians fleeing Sangla Hill

Christians fleeing Sangla Hill

* Christian activists receive threatening calls
* Religious groups threaten to protest against arrest of colleagues

By Mohammed Rizwan

LAHORE: Panic has gripped the Christian community of Sangla Hill and several Christians have fled town after their community activists received threatening phone calls and religious organisations on Thursday threatened to demonstrate against the arrest of their colleagues after the November 12 incident.

Police had detained about 88 people after a mob attacked and burned down four churches, a Christian school and two pastor residences last month.

“There was lots of panic in the area from last night till today afternoon, as several Christians fled the locality after the threatening calls and demonstration plans,” Father Samson Dilawar said on Friday. “But this time round police acted swiftly and cordoned off the area with the help of hundreds of security personnel and therefore the demonstration plans had to be abandoned,” he added. “If the situation continues to remain calm, I think most Christians will return home tonight,” he said.

Local religious organisations led by Malik Muhammad Azam, tehsil nazim, on Thursday threatened to demonstrate against the detention of their activists. The demonstration call was followed by a series of threatening calls to various Christian community activists in which the callers threatened to kill Christians if cases against their activists were not withdrawn.

Nasir Gill, a local, said the situation was tense amidst flaring tempers. “There were fears of another attack on the Christian community, as local religious leaders delivered fiery sermons during Friday prayers, but police did not allow them to demonstrate,” he added.

Nankana Sahib District Police Officer (DPO) Zulfiqar Hameed said the situation in the town was under control. “We spoke to the tehsil nazim and other religious leaders of the area and told them that any attempt to demonstrate won’t be tolerated,” he said.

“We have deployed about 12 police platoons around the town and I don’t see any violence taking place. We are also trying to trace the anonymous callers who are threatening Christians,” he added.

U.S. seeks to limit militants' aid to quake victims

U.S. seeks to limit militants' aid to quake victims
Relief work seen as foothold for terror recruiting in Pakistan

James Rupert, Newsday

Thursday, December 29, 2005

Muzaffarabad, Pakistan -- The Bush administration is pressing Pakistan to bar militant Islamic groups that the United States views as terrorists from doing relief work in the country's earthquake-shattered Kashmir region. President Pervez Musharraf has said the groups play an essential humanitarian role and will be monitored, but not shut down.

U.S. Ambassador Ryan Crocker told Pakistani journalists this month that Pakistan should prevent such groups from doing relief work, on grounds that it gives them a chance to promote militant ideas. The White House repeated the message during Vice President Dick Cheney's Dec. 20 visit with Musharraf, Pakistani news reports said.

But if Pakistan shuts down the relief groups cited by Washington, it will risk a popular backlash in the quake zone, said Kashmir residents and experts here.

While foreign governments have trumpeted the successes of the early relief effort, journalists and aid workers routinely find communities across the devastated mountain region that have received little or no help.

In villages across the earthquake zone, residents have praised the militant groups, which they say were faster and more organized than Pakistan's government and army.

"Groups like Jamaat ud-Dawa and al-Rashid Trust ... are doing a great job and getting respect from the people," said Amjad Yousaf Khan, executive director of the Kashmir Institute of International Relations, an independent study group. It is such support that could trigger a backlash against any effort to ban the groups, Khan and others said.

Pakistani terrorist groups in Japan

NYT

Islamist Extremist Sought Foothold in Japan

By REUTERS

Filed at 10:12 p.m. ET

TOKYO (Reuters) - A member of an Islamist extremist group banned in Pakistan entered Japan two years ago to try to establish a foothold in the country, a Japanese newspaper said on Friday.

Japanese police had warned this month that Islamist extremists may tempt Muslim communities in Japan to turn radical and attack Japan, whose government has been a staunch backer of the U.S.-led war on Iraq.

In a report that underscores such concerns, police learned from an informant that a member of Sipah-e-Sahaba Pakistan (SSP), a Sunni extremist group outlawed in Pakistan, had entered Japan to start an SSP branch, the Sankei newspaper said.

After checking immigration records, police found that a Pakistani man in his 30s had entered Japan in 2003 with a visa for religious activities and that he had told others while worshipping that he came to Japan to establish an SSP offshoot, the newspaper said.

Sipah-e-Sahaba Pakistan is one of seven militant groups that were outlawed by Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf after the September 11, 2001 attacks on the United States.

``We will step up efforts to grasp the actual conditions of the Islamic community in Japan that could be used improperly by terrorists,'' the paper quoted a police source as saying.

Sankei said the man was detected both entering and leaving Japan that year, but did not make clear his current whereabouts.

A spokesman for the Tokyo Metropolitan Police Department said he had no information on the case and declined to comment.

The man had been seen at mosques near Tokyo and also had contact at train stations with a 27-year-old Pakistani in the trading business who had lived in Yokohama near Tokyo and a 40-year-old Pakistani and former employee of a Tokyo bookbinding firm, Sankei said.

Tokyo police have arrested the 40-year-old Pakistani on suspicion of violating immigration laws, and are continuing surveillance activities to track down the SSP network in Japan, the newspaper said.

Japan, which has sent some 550 ground troops to Iraq on a reconstruction mission, has been on guard against possible attacks since being mentioned by members of Islamist militant group al Qaeda as a possible target.

Prior to Japan's deployment of troops to Samawa in southern Iraq, al Qaeda had reportedly threatened to ``strike in the heart of Tokyo'' if Japan sent troops to Iraq. Japan dispatched its main contingent of troops to Iraq in February 2004.

In May 2004, Japanese police arrested several foreigners in a probe into the activities of Lionel Dumont, a French national with links to al Qaeda who entered Japan on a false passport in 2002 and stayed for over a year.

There is no official data on the number of Muslims in Japan, but police sources have put the number around 90,000. They are mainly from Indonesia, Pakistan, India, Iran and Turkey, the sources said.

Denmark fears for security of its citizens in Pakistan

Denmark fears for security of its citizens in Pakistan

By Shahzad Malik

ISLAMABAD: After the publication of a caricature of Prophet Mohammad (PBUH) in Danish newspapers, Denmark has sought protection of its diplomats and citizens living in Pakistan.

The security of Danish nationals was sought amid fears of a backlash, particularly from members of religious organisations, over the issue.

The Danish ambassador in Islamabad, Bent Wignotski, called on interior ministry officials, including Additional Secretary Ather Mahmood and expressed his apprehensions about the security of Danish embassy diplomats and other staff members after the publication of the caricature.

The ambassador has also expressed concerns over the announcement by a religious organisation of an Rs 500,000 reward for the murder of the cartoonist who had made the caricature.

The interior ministry officials,on the other hand, lodged a strong protest on the issue and asked the ambassador to convey the anger and dismay of Muslims over the publication of the caricature and termed it a despicable act, sources said. They also told the ambassador that though the press in Denmark was independent, it did not have the right to malign other religions and such acts only sabotaged interfaith harmony, the sources further said. In view of the prevailing situation, the interior ministry directed the Chief Commissioner, Islamabad to step up security of the Danish embassy and Danish diplomats living in the capital, the sources added.

The interior ministry also directed the home secretaries of all the provinces to beef up security around Danish installations and also provide adequate protection to its nationals residing in the provinces, the sources said.

Pakistan uses jet fighters and helicopter gunships to bomb baloch tribesmen

Army on offensive in Balochistan

Pakistani security forces backed by helicopter gunships have launched an operation against tribal rebels in the troubled province of Balochistan.

Army spokesman Gen Shaukat Sultan told journalists the operation was targeted exclusively at "miscreant hideouts".

There are unconfirmed reports of casualties from Kohlu, a town 220km (135 miles) south-east of Quetta.

The operation follows rocket attacks last week on military camps and army officers in the area.

Gas-rich Balochistan has seen months of violence as tribal groups push for greater political and economic rights.

'Hundreds detained'

Balach Marri, a provincial MP for the Kohlu area, said he had reports that a number of people had been killed in the raids - although he could not confirm the exact number.

"The army has arrested hundreds of innocent people in the operation, which is still going on, and in which jet fighters and helicopter gunships are participating," he told the Associated Press news agency.

Local residents say security forces carried out aerial attacks on targets in the Jindran, Tilli and Pir Mahmood areas of Kohlu district.

Gen Shaukat Sultan denied there had been raids on villages, and said he had no details of any casualties.

"It is only their [militant's] camps that are being targeted," he said.

HRCP unable to access Kohlu

By Azizullah Khan

QUETTA: The Human Rights Commission of Pakistan (HRCP) tried to visit Kohlu but was only able to reach the border of Kahan, where aerial attacks have been reported in the past ten days, said HRCP Chairperson Asma Jahangir on Wednesday

Successful Indians returning to India

Hey, It's Good to Be Back Home in India

By SARITHA RAI

BANGALORE, India- Standing amid the rolling lawns outside his four-bedroom villa, Ajay Kela pondered his street in the community of Palm Meadows. One of his neighbors recently returned to India from Cupertino, Calif., to run a technology start-up funded by the venture capital firm Kleiner, Perkins, Caufield & Byers.

Across the street from Mr. Kela is another executive, this one from Fremont, Calif., who works with the outsourcing firm Infosys Technologies. On the other side is the Indian chief of Cisco Systems, who returned here after decades in the Bay Area and New York.

Also on the block is a returnee from the United Kingdom, who heads the technology operations of Deutsche Bank.

Mr. Kela's neighborhood is just a small sample of a reverse brain drain benefiting India. The gated community of Palm Meadows in the Whitefield suburbs, and many others in the vicinity, with names like Ozone and Lake Vista, are full of Indians who were educated in and worked in the United States and Europe, but who have been lured home by the surging Indian economy and its buoyant technology industry.

"Nothing unusual about this lane at all," said Mr. Kela, 48, who moved from Foster City, Calif., to Palm Meadows last year and is president of the outsourcing firm Symphony Services, which is based in Palo Alto, Calif.

Nasscom, a trade group of Indian outsourcing companies, estimates that 30,000 technology professionals have moved back in the last 18 months. Bangalore, Hyderabad and the suburbs of Delhi are becoming magnets for an influx of Indians, who are the top-earning ethnic group in the United States. These cities, with their Western-style work environment, generous paychecks and quick career jumps, offer the returnees what, until now, they could only get in places like Palo Alto and Boston.

And now they offer something else: a housing boom. Homes have tripled in value in Palm Meadows over the last 12 months, and rents have quadrupled. "Expatriates are returning because India is hot," said Nandan Nilekani, chief executive of Infosys Technologies, India's second-largest outsourcing firm, which recruited 25 returnees from top American schools for its 100-seat summer internship this year. "There is an increasing feeling that significant action in the technology industry is moving to India," he said.

While most returnees are first-generation expatriates, second-generation Indians living in the United States are also returning, according to Lori Blackman, a recruitment consultant in Dallas. "Among them I sense an altruistic pull to return to India to help build their home country to a greater power than the country had ever hoped to achieve," she said.

But the trend is raising fears among American specialists that it could deplete the United States of scientific talent and blunt its edge in innovation. "The United States will miss the talents of people of Indian origin who return to India," said Brink Lindsey, vice president for research at the Cato Institute in Washington, adding, however, that the moves could create greater possibilities for trade between the two countries.

For many returnees, the newly challenging work environment in India has tied in neatly with personal reasons for returning, such as raising their children in Indian culture and caring for aging parents.

"When I left India 25 years ago, everybody was headed to the United States," said Mr. Kela, who pursued a Ph.D. at the University of Rochester and stayed two decades, working for companies like General Electric and AutoDesk. For India's best and brightest, a technology or engineering career was an irresistible draw to the United States, even until four or five years ago.

"But now they all want to get on the plane home," said Mr. Kela, who returned with his wife and two children.

Once a regular at Silicon Valley job fairs, trying to woo Indians back home, Mr. Kela no longer needs to sell India. He receives 10 résumés a month from people with decades of work experience in the United States yearning to relocate.

With globalization, many Americans of Indian origin in the high-technology industry are looking at India as a "career-enhancing move," said Anuradha Parthasarathy, the chief executive of Global Executive Talent, a search firm in Menlo Park, Calif., who is swamped by such job-seekers. Many technology companies - multinationals and Indian outsourcing firms as well as start-ups - are eager to hire returnees with Western managerial experience or technology specialization.

"In the next two or three years, the work coming to India will multiply in complexity, and managers with U.S. experience will become critical to lead projects," said Atul Vashistha, chief executive of neoIT, an outsourcing consultancy based in San Ramon, Calif.

Companies based in the United States, like ipValue, a company in Palo Alto that commercializes intellectual assets for large technology companies like British Telecom and the Xerox Corporation, are helping accelerate the trend. When ipValue recently decided to expand its operations, it chose to do so in India.

"We are really betting on the Indian diaspora returning home," said Vincent Pluvinage, its chief executive. The firm just hired a top executive from Oracle to head its Indian operations and expects a third of its 20-member team in India to consist of returnees by January 2006.

Similarly, Mr. Kela's company, Symphony Services, which has grown to more than 3,000 employees from a few hundred workers two years ago, has more than 100 returnees.

The passage back is no more an ordeal, because much has changed in India. Whereas watching a movie in a dingy hall was once a weekend high point, now fancy multiplexes, bowling alleys and shopping malls offer entertainment, and pizzerias and cafes are ubiquitous at street corners. Indians who once could choose between only two car models and fly a single airline find they have returned to a profusion of choices.

Even as the lifestyle gaps between India and the West have narrowed rapidly, salary differences at top executive levels have virtually disappeared. Annual pay packages of a half-million dollars are common in Bangalore, but even for those taking a pay cut to return home, the lower cost of living balances smaller paychecks. Starting salaries for engineers are about $12,000 in India, versus $60,000 in Silicon Valley.

But relocating is not without its everyday challenges, as Venki Sundaresan, 38, discovered a year ago when, after 15 years abroad, he moved to India with his wife and twin daughters to be the information technology director of Cypress Semiconductor.

In atypical fashion, Mr. Sundaresan scorned the "soft landing" that many returning Indians seek by living in gated communities. Instead, to have the "true Indian experience," the family opted to live in an apartment block in the teeming Indiranagar neighborhood. For his 5-year-old twins, he spurned upmarket international schools popular with other returnees and enrolled them in a neighborhood school. Mr. Sundaresan owns an Indian-made car, a Maruti Baleno.

"We've already driven the Mercedes and the BMW in the United States," he said. "What is the point of dodging around Bangalore's potholes in a limo?"

Living in Palm Meadows, Mr. Kela and his neighbor Sanjay Swamy, 41, who heads the Indian operations of Ketera Technologies, face very little transition anxiety. Mr. Swamy bought and moved into a Palm Meadows villa with his wife, Tulsi, a financial consultant, and 8-year-old son, Ashwin.

The communities buffer returnees from Bangalore's bumper-to-bumper traffic, unpaved sidewalks and swarming neighborhoods. Mr. Kela; his 9-year-old daughter, Payal; and 6-year-old son, Ankur, enjoy riding bikes together on weekends, and they often play cricket, which Mr. Kela is passionate about. His daughter is learning the classical Indian dances of Kathak and Bharatanatyam. For Halloween this year, Mr. Kela led his children on a three-hour trick-or-treat walk.

Mr. Kela says he misses the freedom to drive anywhere in a car or go on long hikes. Yet, life is comfortable, with two live-in maids, a full-time driver and another on call, all of whom are "outrageously affordable." He seldom needs to drive in Bangalore's chaotic traffic, nor does he do the dishes, a daily chore when the family lived in the Silicon Valley.

His neighbor Mr. Swamy is immersed in building a Silicon Valley-style team in Bangalore, but with some local adjustments. When he learned that the company routinely received calls from prospective fathers-in-law of employees, asking to verify their ages, titles and salary details, Mr. Swamy wrote a memo titled "HR Policy on Disclosing Employee Information to Prospective Fathers-in-Law."

"While I want to be entirely supportive of ensuring that our confidentiality agreement does not result in your missing out on the spouse of your dreams," Mr. Swamy said, "I don't want competitors to use this as a ploy to get at sensitive information."

Pakistan bends over backwards on PTCL deal

Concessions for Etisalat

The uncertainty is finally over. Etisalat has agreed to stay in the process of acquiring a 26 per cent controlling stake in Pakistan Telecommunication Company Limited (PTCL). An agreement between Etisalat and the Privatisation Commission the other day says the money involved will now be paid over five years instead of three months, the period originally set by the deal.

This staggered payment was one of the main demands made by Etisalat to keep the $2.6 billion deal going. Others included the ability to pledge the acquired shares; allowing dual listing of PTCL shares; exemption from withholding tax; waiver of duties and taxes; and the ability to transfer acquired shares. In an earlier move to placate Etisalat, PTCL sacked 400 contract employees last month and senior government officials bent over backwards to come up with any possible concession, even after officially calling off the deal back in October.

These extraordinary allowances highlight the peculiar nature of PTCL's privatisation. In normal circumstances and according to set procedure, if the highest bidder fails to pay the money in 90 days after winning the privatisation bid, the second highest bidder is asked to step in. In PTCL's case, no one in the government even thought of inviting China Mobile, the second highest bidder, to rejoin the privatisation process after Etisalat repeatedly failed to pay the remaining 90 per cent of its offer. Etisalat is owned by a group based in and operating from the United Arab Emirates, a long-time ally, and the privatisation we are talking about is the largest ever in Pakistan. Hence, the desperation to salvage the deal, no matter what. A meeting between the UAE ruler and President Pervez Musharraf in Makkah to discuss the issue only further highlights the geopolitical importance of the deal.

One unintended consequence of the official desperation to save the deal is that it weakens the privatisation process, rather than strengthening it as officials claim. If the government is conceding so much ground in one deal, how can it hold its own in others? If PTCL's privatisation has to be projected as a success story, the official concessions make it less likely so.

Baloch tribesmen bombed by helicopter gunships

Paramilitary action in Kohlu continues: Over 50 killed, say tribesmen

By Saleem Shahid and Amanullah Kasi
QUETTA, Dec 19: Paramilitary forces continued their operation on Monday in different areas of the Kohlu district of Balochistan, destroying more ‘hideouts and camps of outlaws’, while the FC camp in the Kohlu township also came under rocket attacks.

According to reports reaching here, helicopter gunships attacked targets throughout the day. Firing was also reported in some areas of Dera Bugti.

The Marri tribesmen and the four-party Baloch Alliance claimed that over 50 people had been killed and around 100 injured in helicopter attacks and air strikes in different areas over the past two days. The Anjuman Ittehad Marri claimed that 70 people, including women and children, had been killed and 150 injured in bombings by aircraft and helicopter gunships.

Sources said that groups of armed people twice attacked the FC camp in the Kohlu township early in the morning. In the first attack launched at around 3 am, eight rockets were fired from Jandaran mountains. The second attack came at around 5am. The FC troops retaliated and fired 11 rockets, killing one of the attackers.

“One person was found dead in Fazalchal area,” official sources said, adding that others escaped from the area. The sources said that heavy fighting was reported between paramilitary forces and ‘outlaws’ in the ountain range of Pir Mehmood Shah, Fazalchal, Bambhoor, Kahan and Tali areas. Rockets and heavy machine-guns were used against paramilitary forces and the helicopter gunships.

The sources said that after destroying the hideouts and training camps, the FC troops arrested around 30 people and seized huge quantities of arms and ammunition.

However, Marri tribesman Najeeb Marri claimed that around 100 people of his tribe had been arrested in different areas of Kohlu district and in Quetta.

“The operation has been going on in a vast area of the tribal district for two days and there have been heavy causalities,” he told Dawn on telephone.

Incidents of firing were also reported from the Dera Bugti area on Monday afternoon, increasing tension in the area which had faced a severe government action on March 17 this year, claiming over 70 lives.

Meanwhile, federal Minister for Interior Aftab Ahmed Khan Sherpao arrived here on a brief visit. According to government sources, he held a meeting with officials concerned and discussed the ongoing operation in different areas of Kohlu. Later, he visited the CMH Quetta where he inquired after the health of Inspector General Frontier Corps Major General Shujaat Zamir Dar and DIG Brigadier Saleem Nawaz who were injured three days ago when their helicopter had come under machine-gun attack in Kohlu area. The minister left for Islamabad in the afternoon.

Leaders of the Baloch Alliance announced here on Monday that a ‘black day’ would be observed in the province on Wednesday in protest against the military operation. An all-parties conference to be held on the same day would determine the future course of action, they said at a press conference.

They said that Balochistan was a political issue and problem could be resolved politically because military operations undertaken in 1948, 1958, 1965 and 1973 had failed because of the “brave resistance by the Baloch masses”.

Habib Jalib Baloch (BNP-Mengal), Agha Shahid Hasan Bugti (JWP) and Dr Ishaq Baloch of National Party declared that Baloch people would not compromise on national rights and would never surrender.

They asserted that during the past two days, planes, helicopter gunships, artillery and other sophisticated weapons had been used by the security forces in Tali, Jandran, Bambhoor, and Kohlu areas in which innocent people had been killed and wounded.

They strongly condemned the use of planes and helicopters and said that the military operation had been planned beforehand and the visit of President Musharraf to Kohlu and the firing of rockets during the visit was part of a plan to pave way for launching the army action in the area.

They said that while the government had launched a full-scale military operation in the Marri area it was reinforcing troops in Dera Bugti and besieged the fort of Nawab Bugti.

Alliance leaders appealed to the International community and human rights organizations, political groups and nationalist parties to raise their voice against the ‘excesses and oppression’ of the security forces in Balochistan.

They said the situation in Dera Bugti was tense and the security forces had established checkposts on the Sui-Dera Bugti road.

They said that on Wednesday, the alliance would hold protest rallies outside press clubs in Quetta and Karachi.

Pakistan covers up rape of Kashmiri earthquake victim

Ajeeba Arshad’s rape being hushed up

By Ali Waqar

LAHORE: Government functionaries pressured a Kashmiri earthquake survivor who was allegedly raped by a doctor to withdraw her statement in fear that the case could damage Pakistan’s image, Daily Times has learnt.

Ajeeba Arshad Ibrahim from Azad Kashmir was injured in the October 8 earthquake and shifted to Lahore’s Mayo Hospital for treatment in the first week of November. On December 3, she was allegedly raped by Dr Maqsood Leghari of Mayo Hospital in an X-ray room.

Ajeeba submitted a handwritten complaint to the police and a first information report was lodged, but a few days after the story hit the front pages, she retracted her statement. This retraction came after government officials, including leaders from Azad Kashmir, contacted her and her family and told her that the case would have negative consequences for Pakistan’s image and its efforts to get aid for reconstruction, sources told Daily Times.

Ajeeba’s family has refused to get her medically examined, the only way to establish rape. Sources close to the family said they had been pressured by the government and intelligence officials to stop making public statements as well.

After the case appeared in the press, the police immediately took Ajeeba into custody. She is still in ‘protective custody’ and living with her uncle, Maulana Muhammad Akram Kashmiri, who is in charge of Jamia Ashrafia in Neela Gumbad, Anarkali.

Sources said the Punjab government had been “instructed” to hush up the matter.’ AJK Prime Minister Sardar Sikandar Hayat, his advisor Raja Farooq, Punjab Health Minister Dr Tahir Ali Javed, Punjab Education Minister Imran Masood and Punjab Inspector General Ziaul Hassan are among those said to have visited Jamia Ashrafia. The madrassa is being closely monitored by intelligence officials and plainclothes policemen.

However, the Punjab health minister and senior police officials denied there was any pressure on the family. Dr Javed said the family itself denied the incident and withdrew the statement. He said if the Supreme Court, which has taken suo moto notice of the case, decided an independent inquiry should be conducted, its decision would be honoured.

According to a police inquiry report, ward nurses confirmed that Ajeeba was in the X-ray room with Dr Leghari at the time of the alleged rape. The report also said Ajeeba’s age was 15, and not 18, as the Mayo Hospital medical superintendent told the police. According to a hospital inquiry, witnesses saw the girl and the doctor act friendly towards each other prior to the alleged rape.

Ajeeba is due to testify in the Supreme Court today. Dr Leghari is in police custody, but SSP Chaudhry Shafqaat Ahmed told a press conference on Tuesday that if, as expected, Ajeeba withdraws her statement, the doctor would be released.

Some from among the patients and their families who were in the same Mayo Hospital ward as Ajeeba told Daily Times she spent three hours in the X-ray room on the day of the alleged rape. They said she spent the next two days weeping, and then narrated the incident to another girl in the ward.

Dr Leghari, about 43, does not have a good reputation, hospital officials told Daily Times. They said there were numerous complaints from patients against him on record. Some 30 pairs of women’s underwear were found in his car and the incident was reported in the Urdu press.

Human rights activists said the case fit a pattern of cover-ups of crimes against women. “Image phobia is driving the state and its machinery in a carte blanche cover up of crimes against women,” said Asma Jehangir, the chairperson of the Human Rights Commission of Pakistan. “Those who insist on justice are silenced in various ways, sent out of the country, threatened, put under house arrest and left to fend for themselves against the highhandedness of the law enforcement and intelligence agencies. In such situations journalists and human rights activists are left to follow these cases without clues and support. At times they also have to protect the victim from ugly publicity and real threats.”

Justice (r) Malik Muhammad Qayyum, the president of the Supreme Court Bar Association, said there must be a through and independent investigation of the case. He suspected the girl had changed her statement because she had no confidence in the police.

US entertainment industry making Muslims look bad

US entertainment industry making Muslims look bad

By Khalid Hasan

WASHINGTON: The demonisation of Muslims in general and Pakistanis in particular continues to remain the easy option for some in the American entertainment industry.

The much-awaited movie Syriana, released this week to glowing reviews, features two Pakistanis living in a filthy foreign workers’ compound in an unnamed Arab oil emirate. One day they lose their jobs only to fall into the hands of a friendly Egyptian who brings them to a well-appointed madrassa where they are fed well, including roast lamb, and indoctrinated to believe that the West is the enemy of Islam and as good Muslims they should be ready to lay down their lives for their faith. The transformation of the two carefree young men into suicide bombers does not take long, which should suggest that it takes only a few lectures and roast lamb meals to turn an average Muslim into a suicide bomber.

Television is much worse when it comes to blackening the Muslim image. Sleeper Cell, a 10-hour mini-series being shown on the Showtime channel, revolves around five members of a Muslim terrorist cell in Los Angeles who are planning a large-scale attack on the city. The group is led by a Saudi by the name of Faris al-Farik who operates under the cover name of Yossi Amran, a Jewish security expert. To further polish his image, he coaches a boys’ baseball team in his spare time. The other members of the cell have been described as a “model of diversity”. Ilaja is a Bosnian whose family was murdered by Serbs. Christian is a reformed skinhead who is happy to have found his salvation in the mission he has volunteered for. Tommy is a scholar of the Quran and the child of liberal University of California professors who have neglected him. He, therefore, is planning to get even with his parents by overthrowing the “US Zionist occupational government”. Another member of the cell is Darwyn al-Hakim who is a devout African-American Muslim, and who says he has just been released from prison. His cover is a clerk in a grocery store.

He is also an FBI plant. This is the closest the series comes to implying that not all Muslims are terrorists or potential terrorists.

The group is told by its leader that it should be “ready to strike without warning, without pity”. According to a review of the TV series in the New Yorker, “The creators of Sleeper Cell, Ethan Reiff and Cyrus Voris, set about to provide a ‘realistic’ picture of how terrorists plan an attack, and to give under-informed viewers some grasp of the nuances of Islam and of its internecine struggles. A Yemeni sheikh who comes to talk at a mosque in Los Angeles is targeted for assassination because he believes that the greatest jihad is not the one you wage with others but the one you wage within yourself. He is seen as a threat to recruitment.”

Such shows can only bring into disrepute all Muslims and make them an object of suspicion. The New Yorker noted that “the cell members hide in plain sight; they use PayPal to transfer drug money, and they pick up their packages at Mail Boxes Etc (a popular American dispatch service).

They even find a novel way to collect information about wind speed and dispersal rates – by watching children have fun. Let’s just say that you won’t look at a child blowing up soap bubbles without wondering if you should call the FBI.”

Jihadis engaged in earthquake relief work

‘Jihadis engaged in relief work’

ISLAMABAD: Several jihadi organisations are engaged in relief work in northern Pakistan’s earthquake-hit areas.

“The Pakistani government has said that if these organisations concentrate on work other than relief, action will be taken against them,” BBC reported on Sunday. BBC said banned organisations were engaged in relief activities in Muzaffarabad and Bagh under new names. Lashkar-e-Taiba was busy in relief activities under the new name of Jamaat-ud-Dawa in Muzaffarabad, BBC said, adding that the group had set up several tent villages and hospitals in the area. Similarly, the former Al-Badar Mujahideen changed its name to Al-Sufa and was engaged in relief activities, BBC said, adding that the organisation had set up tent villages and medical units in Muzaffarabad to help the quake victims.

Likewise, the Al-Rashid Trust, which was banned, also set up several relief camps and medical centres and was helping the quake victims, BBC added. However, the organisation’s chiefs remained the same, it said. Bakht Zameen, former Al-Badar Mujahideen chief, was present at one of Al-Sufa’s tent villages, BBC added. A Lashkar (Jamaat-ud-Dawa) spokesman said the organisation’s chief, Hafiz Saeed, had also visited the quake-hit areas, but his visit was not discussed with the media, BBC said, adding that several jihadi organisation’s were freely taking part in relief work. Locals told BBC that the organisations were doing a good job in the quake-hit areas. They praised the groups for contributing while one man said these groups were the first ones to reach the quake-hit areas and start helping the people out. nni

Nobel laureate: ‘Caution’ against immigrants from S. Arabia, Pakistan

‘Caution’ against immigrants from S. Arabia, Pakistan

By Our Correspondent
NEW YORK, Dec 11: A Nobel prize laureate who called for liberalizing immigration laws for skilled workers from around the world, cautioned that the US should be careful about admitting students and skilled workers from countries “that have produced many terrorists, such as Saudi Arabia and Pakistan”.

In an Op-ed article in the Wall Street Journal, Gary S. Becker a professor of economics and sociology at the University of Chicago and a 1992 Nobel prize winner said: “My attitude may be dismissed as religious profiling, but intelligent and fact-based profiling is essential in the war against terror.”

He said: “Terrorists come from a relatively small number of countries and backgrounds, unfortunately mainly of the Islamic faith. But the legitimate concern about admitting terrorists should not be allowed, as it is now doing, to deny or discourage the admission of skilled immigrants who pose little terrorist threat.”

Mr Becker said: “The right approach will be to greatly increase the number of entry permits to highly skilled professionals and eliminate the H-1 B programme, so that all such visas became permanent. Skilled immigrants such as engineers and scientists are in fields not attracting many Americans, and they work in IT industries, such as computers and biotech, which have become the backbone of the US economy.

Australia: Pakistani Gang rapist claims right to assault

Gang rapist claims right to assault

By Natasha Wallace
December 10, 2005

THE eldest of four Pakistani gang rapist brothers has admitted lying at trial and apologised to his victims but said he thought he had a right to rape the "promiscuous" teenage girls.

MSK, 27, told the NSW Supreme Court yesterday that this was because the girls did not wear headscarves, were drinking alcohol and were unaccompanied when they went to his Ashfield home. MSK also blamed his intoxication, "cultural beliefs" and an undiagnosed mental disorder.

He and his brothers MAK, 25, MRK, 21, and MMK, 19 - who cannot be named for legal reasons - are serving between 10 and 22 years for raping two girls in 2002. All except MRK are yet to be sentenced for several other rapes.

Yesterday evidence was being heard on a sentence for MSK for the rapes of two more girls, TW, then 14, and CH, then 13. He admitted that some of the evidence he had given at an earlier trial was fabricated, particularly that he had had consensual sex with TW and that she had coaxed him.

"It was a pretty big untruth when you said that it was consensual sex, wasn't it?" asked the Crown prosecutor, Ken McKay.

"Yes," he replied.

You chose to lie about that, correct? - Yes.

During a long apology to TW, who was in court, he stopped mid-sentence to reprimand her.

"I wish to say this to [TW], that at the time when I commit these offences I come from such a background which led me to - don't shake your head, I'm telling you something - I say now that I hurt you and I'm extremely, extremely apologetic to you and I'm, I wish to say one thing more.

"I'm serving 22 years … I'm just requesting to you that you one day may come that you realise that the person who assaulted me is in prison … and I should forgive him. I'm asking for your forgiveness." He said it was only now, since he had gained a "better understanding of Australian culture", that he knew the rapes were wrong.

He arrived in Sydney for the ninth and final time four days before committing several rapes over six months. He had planned to study medicine.

He agreed he knew the girls did not want to have sex. "[TW] said no but I go ahead with it because I believe that at the time I commit these offences, I believe that she was promiscuous …" he said. "She don't know us, I don't know her, like she was not related to us and she was not wearing any purdah … like she was not … covered her face, she was not wearing any headscarf and she started drinking with us and she was singing.

"First off, I was actually, I was not taking my medication so I was under the influence of voices and secondly I believe at the time when I commit these offences that she had no right to say no."

Mr McKay said the voices excuse was a last-ditch strategy to avoid justice. "You wanted to hurt and terrorise these girls and you did that. You used acts of sexual intercourse on them."

The matter was adjourned until next Friday.

TFT: Khaled Ahmed on minority "rights" in Pakistan

Vandalising the churches of Sangla Hill

Khaled Ahmed’s
Analysis

On 12 November 2005, the Christian community of Sangla Hill in Nankana District in Punjab experienced a most hair-raising day of violence and vandalism. Daily Dawn (13 November 2005) described it like this: ‘The burning down on Saturday of three churches, a missionary-run school, two hostels and several houses belonging to the Christian community by an enraged mob of some 3,000 people in Punjab’s Nankana district speaks volumes for the bigotry and intolerance that misguided mullahs often preach against minorities. Following allegations of blasphemy levelled against one Yousaf Masih by his gambling partners who accused him of torching the Holy Quran, calls were reportedly given from mosque loudspeakers to punish the local Christians.

‘According to Lahore’s archbishop, Lawrence Saldanha, the assault on some 300 families residing in the area was carried out by people who had been brought there by buses from outside. The alleged desecration of the Holy Book took place on Friday, which gave the local fanatics enough time to plan the attack against the minority community the next day. That the police stood aside and failed to pre-empt the strikes against Christian institutions despite apprehensions voiced to the effect by community leaders is all the more incomprehensible. The extensive damage caused to property and the communal tension now gripping the area could have been prevented if timely action had been taken by the security authorities.’

The law on the desecration of the Quran is as follows: Section 295-B Defiling of copy of the holy Quran : Whoever wilfully defiles, damages or desecrates a copy of the Holy Quran or an extract therefrom, or uses it in a derogatory manner or any unlawful purpose, shall be punishable with imprisonment for life. (Inserted in the Penal Code through Ordinance in 1982). Many Christians have been convicted under this law by the lower courts, but most of them have been acquitted on appeal at the higher courts. The pattern of violence however seems to pre-empt the law. What happened at Sangla Hill this November is second in its savagery to the 1997 sack of Shantinagar after a report of desecration.

On 5 February 1997, the twin villages of Shantinagar-Tibba Colony 12 kilometres East of Khanewal, Multan Division, were looted and burnt by 20,000 Muslim citizens and 500 policemen. The police first evacuated the Christian population of 15,000, then helped the raiders use battle-field explosives to blow up their houses and property. When no one from the president of Pakistan to IGP Punjab reacted to this biggest act of destruction in 50 years, Christian youth took out processions in Rawalpindi and Karachi and were fired upon by the police in the latter city, while the youth in Lahore was asked by their elders to refrain from protesting.

There are often Urdu press reports that foreshadow religious violence. First, an alarming news scandalising the Muslims about the alleged misconduct of a minority community is published, which is followed by ‘action’ by the ‘truly believing’ Muslims. Recently a group of Qadianis were killed after the Urdu press font-paged violent statements against them by a gathering of the Khatm-e-Nabuwwat organisation. When the Shias are to be massacred, old fatwas declaring them apostates are distributed in the localities where the incident later occurs. In 2003, the Hazaras of Quetta were massacred after the city was treated to a campaign of old fatwas from Pakistan’s major Sunni madrassas. A similar report on Christian missionary work was published nearly a month before the Sangla Hill outrage.

As reported in Nawa-e-Waqt (18 October 2005) one Christian priest Robert Peterson was given the task to convert Pakistanis to Christians. He opened his office in Mianwali from where he was able to convert 17,000 Muslims into Christians in all four provinces since 1995. Pakistan was considered a soft target for this campaign which was supposed to add to the population of 1.5 million Christians in the country. Private radio stations were being used to spread the message and there were branch offices of converting priests in many cities of the country. One organisation in Karachi named Friends for Muslims was using seduction to convert Muslim boys. They were seduced by beautiful girls and then persuaded to accept Christianity.

Just like the Sangla Hill incident, the destruction of Shantinagar in 1997 was ‘organised’ from the mosques. Three churches in Khanewal too, including the Salvation Army Church and the Church of Pakistan, together with their dispensaries, were ransacked and burnt. A crowd of 20,000, made up of people from the surrounding villages and cities of Khanewal, Kabirwallah, Main Channu and Multan, and led by the police and the clergy, then set out for Shantinagar. On the way, they attacked Tibba Colony, and blew up all the houses there, including a hospital. A Salvation Army church and the school run by it were blown up with a special incendiary powder distributed by the police.

Violence is also indirectly unleashed by politicians who normally use extreme language. Newsweek in its 9 May 2005 reported that the Quran had been desecrated at the prisons run by the United States at Guantanamo Bay. Pakistan’s popular cricket icon and reputable political leader Imran Khan alerted the Muslim world to the outrage. It was a measure of Mr Khan’s popularity that flag-burning tribesmen in Afghanistan came out into the streets in various cities and carried out vandalism on public property to express their anger against the United States. At least 15 Afghans died. The punishment for the desecration of the Quran in Afghanistan is death. Many in Pakistan think that here too it should be death and not life, and this sentiment could partially be behind the wave of destruction that follows a desecration report.

In the case of Sangla Hill, chief minister Punjab Chaudhry Pervaiz Elahi acted promptly. He punished the neglectful and colluding police hierarchy of the town and declared that the government would rebuild and restore the Christian property destroyed. The Muslim clergy had organised protests that spread to neighbouring Shahkot and the Faisalabad highway was blocked by protesting college and school students to widen the scope of the Muslim outrage. A number of vandals were rounded up by the police later, which evoked an angry response from an extremist cleric of Lahore who then vowed to visit Sangla Hill and undo the injustice the government was doing to the innocent Muslims of Sangla Hill. This might prove the allegation that destruction of Sangla Hill was carried out by hooligans who came to the town from outside.

Daily Pakistan (25 November 2005) reported that Maulana Dr Sarfraz Naeemi, secretary general of Tanzimat Madaris Dinia, had declared that the government had paid scant attention to the desecration of the Quran but had rounded up 88 Muslim citizens of Sangla Hill on the fake charges of destroying the Christian churches. He declared that the Christian clergy had set the churches on fire after the desecration incident and should be put behind bars and not allowed to leave the country. He warned that he was taking a procession to Sangla Hill to get the Muslims released from jail. He protested against religion minister Ijazul Haq’s statement that the Muslims had destroyed the churches. He said that the Quran library was burnt by the Christian clergy with the help of a special incendiary powder first used by them in Shantinagar in 1997. According to Nawa-e-Waqt (26 November 2005) World Pasban Khatm-e-Nabuwwat declared that the Sangla Hill destruction of churches was carried out by Qadianis.

The tehsil of Sangla Hill is situated in the newly created district of Nankana Sahib and lies 130 km from the provincial capital of Lahore. The area has a population of 150,000 with around 12,000 of the population being Christian. Among the Christians, the Catholics are in majority, while the rest belong to various protestant denominations. The parish of Sangla Hill was set up in 1914, out of the Mariamabad parish territory. Even in 1937 there were around 4,000 Catholics in the parish, who are now grown to around 1800 families. The parish comprises 183 villages, many of which have small chapels, while the main parish church of the Holy Spirit was constructed and blessed in April 1951. The parish team comprises of Father Samson Dilawar and six catechists. Muslim-Christian tension was rare; but in one recent case in the neighbourhood (9 May 2005 in the village of Sathiali Kalan) when the two communities clashed, resulting in the burning of a chapel, the police rounded up five Christians (and no Muslims) who arestill ‘under custody’ without trial.

The destruction of the churches in Sangla Hill has hurt Pakistan’s image at a time when it needs positive publicity abroad. The Urdu press has given the outrage little coverage and has expressed no editorial opinion about it. The Christian community have made sufficiently credible reports on the incident to their Western church superiors. They seem to agree about the origin of the trouble. Yousaf Masih was in the habit of gambling with a Muslim Kalu Sunyara. After winning from Kalu, Yousaf Masih wanted to walk away but was collared by Kalu in the street who asked him to play on. He was accused of having torched a store-room set aside for the abandoned pages of the Holy Quran so that they may not be trampled underfoot. There is no description from the Christian side of the actual burning of the Quran Mahal.

Under the new procedure established by the government, a desecration of the Quran case is registered after consultation with the District Police Officer (DPO) but in the case of Sangla Hill the SHO Malik Ashraf registered the case and proceeded to torture the brothers of Yousaf Masih after they failed to lead him to wherever he was. (He was finally apprehended.) The Holy Spirit Church was attacked a day later, on 12 November 2005, after announcements from the mosques asking people to gather ‘for discussion’. Soon, Mohammad Azim, the city nazim (mayor) was leading the crowd. A mob of around 2,500 people holding sticks, stones, big hammers and bottles of chemicals, attacked the church compound. They raised cries of Allahu Akbar (God is great) and Asai kuttay hai-hai (Down with the Christian dogs).

The crowd divided into groups, the first one immediately attacking the church, while the other focused on the parish house; a third attacked the school and hostel from the other side. They completely destroyed all the furnishings of the church, broke all its stained glass windows and doors, desecrated the tabernacle and took away the chalice and ciborium. They also set fire to the Bible inside the church and burnt the altar cloth. The parish house was set ablaze with the help of the special chemicals the mob brought along. They seemed well trained in arson as the chemicals used were of special quality. Old records of the church mission, which dated back to 1911, too were destroyed. A student’s hostel, a convent and St Anthony’s School were meted out the same treatment.

In Tariqabad (Machchar Colony), the mob set ablaze the house of Yousaf Masih and drove his family out of town. A Presbyterian church in Sangla Hill was also destroyed as the mob made no distinction between Protestant and Catholic Christianity. The fanaticism of the smaller towns continues to be on the upswing, aided and abetted by the Muslim clergy and egged on by the opposition politicians who hate the United States but care little for what happens to Christians at home who are Pakistanis and are protected by the Constitution.

TFT: Press freedom under assault in Pakistan

Defaming Musharraf’s Pakistan

Najam Sethi's editorial(TFT Dec 9-15)

It is generally understood that if armed non-state actors like certain extremist religious and ethnic groups don’t like what is written about them in the local Pakistani press, they are inclined to take ‘action’ against the offending journalist or paper. That is why some journalists have been assaulted or even assassinated in Pakistan [like the editor of Taqbeer many years ago] and some papers have been vandalized [like Nawa i Waqt in Karachi and The Frontier Post in Peshawar], most often in Karachi which is plagued with both ethnic and religious violence. But they are not the only ones who can take the law into their hands and wreak vengeance. Mainstream political parties, too, have been known to accuse journalists of “treason” and “terrorism” when their leaders have been faulted for corruption or misdemeanour [as in the case of the editor of this paper by Nawaz Sharif].What is less well known or recorded for obvious reasons are instances of abuse at the hands of the intelligence agencies or the military. Here are some examples from the Musharraf regime [which receives international kudos for a relatively free press].

Some years ago, a senior reporter of an English daily paper in Islamabad wrote some uncomfortable truths about the nepotism and unaccountability of a general who was head of the Pakistan Cricket Board. The next day the poor hack was “picked up” by unidentified men in a jeep, dragged off to a nearby wood and beaten black and blue as a warning never to trifle with men in khaki. A shadow of his former self, he has refused to go public with his ordeal and never written a bad word about a serving or retired soldier since. Another respected journalist wrote about opposition in the army to General Musharraf’s pro-West policies. He “disappeared” for several days but his family was “advised” not to lodge a complaint. After he returned home, he taped his mouth, packed his bags and left the country. Other offending journalists have been luckier. One was persistently argumentative at press moots with General Musharraf. “They” simply pushed his uninsured car out of his driveway and burnt it to ashes in the dead of night. He is on good terms with the big man now. Another got the same “car” treatment when he wrote about the nexus between the Pakistan intelligence agencies and a don wanted by India.

Two new troubling cases have come to light in the last seven days. A journalist in the tribal badlands of Waziristan who challenged the official military account of an Al Qaeda activist’s death has “disappeared”. He is Hayatullah Khan, a reporter for an Urdu-language daily and photographer for the European Pressphoto Agency (EPA). He was kidnapped by unidentified gunmen last Tuesday in Mir Ali in the tribal areas adjoining Afghanistan. “Khan’s reporting had cast doubt on the official account of how a senior Al Qaeda militant was killed on December 1 and raised the sensitive issue of the US army’s participation in the fight against terrorism in Pakistan,” says Reporters San Frontiers, an international press watchdog. His disappearance comes a day after a journalist was killed in Darra Adamkhel, in another part of the Tribal Areas. His abduction came just a few days after he contradicted Pakistani army claims that the death of Hamza Rabia, a leading Arab militant in Al Qaeda, and four other people on December 1, was the result of an accidental munitions explosion in the home of a person identified as Mohammad Siddiq, who turned out to be an uncle of Khan. “On the basis of photographs he took at the scene, Khan said Rabia was killed by a US missile. Villagers said the explosion was caused by a missile fired from a plane or a drone,” said RSF. Locals say the Pakistani security forces had it in for him. “He was arrested in an arbitrary fashion by US forces in 2002 when he was trying to cover Al Qaeda and Taliban activity in the border region. The Pakistani military harassed him the following year after he wrote about the misuse of army vehicles in Mir Ali,” wrote RSF.

Another recent incident in Bahawalpur is also noteworthy. The local police has filed a case against nine men under the Maintenance of Public Order 16 for “defaming the armed forces” during the launching ceremony of a book titled “Gernailon Ki Siyasat’ [The Politics of Generals]. These include the former Pakistan ambassador to Norway and various party political heavyweights who spoke on the occasion. Earlier, it was revealed, the authorities had tried to prevent the book launch by denying permission to hold it at the Circuit House and Rashidia Auditorium, and leaning on local hotels and marriage halls not to entertain such miscreants.

If General Pervez Musharraf doesn’t formally sanction such selective action it is clear that he condones local military commanders out to “protect their asses”, as the Americans would say. But the fact is that they defame the image of “Musharraf’s Pakistan” and hurt him more than the press. Mr Hayatullah Khan should be released immediately before his case becomes a cause celebre abroad.

U.S. looks to India as new global ally

U.S. looks to India as new global ally

Thu Dec 8, 2005 11:55 AM GMT

By Carol Giacomo, Diplomatic Correspondent

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The Bush administration is looking increasingly to India as a core ally as it seeks to engineer what could be a major diplomatic shift away from the power alignments forged after World War Two.

Old standby Britain, increasingly important Japan and, according to some of the officials familiar with administration thinking on geopolitics, Australia all join India in a group of countries Washington believes shares its values and goals.

"You might call this emerging set of alliances the 'four by four' strategy (which is) built around four great powers -- the United States, Great Britain, Japan and India," Thomas Donnelly of the American Enterprise Institute (AEI), a think-tank with close ties to the administration, wrote on the AEI website.

Nuclear power India, a growing economic force on China's border and familiarly dubbed the world's biggest democracy, is the relative newcomer to the group.

Often an adversary as a Soviet sympathizer and leader of the non-aligned movement during the Cold War, it now enjoys dramatically improved ties under President George W. Bush.

Presidential aides say the United States is committed to helping India not just prosper but rise as a regional power. One senior official has said privately that the administration also intends to back India for a permanent seat on the U.N. Security Council.

IN NEED OF HELP

When the United States launched its "war on terrorism" and later invaded Iraq -- a venture opposed by longtime allies like France and Germany -- U.S. officials talked of forming "coalitions of the willing," groupings of partner countries that might have different members, depending on the issue.

But Donnelly said the administration now realizes "preserving the Pax Americana requires more permanent arrangements" and that with Iraq and other security tasks taxing the U.S. military, "we need help."

He said the United States, Australia, Britain, India and Japan shared common principles.

These included a belief that the dangers of radicalism, failed despotic governments and nuclear proliferation in the Middle East must not be ignored; that China's growing military and political strength raises doubts about its peaceful rise; that representative governments are a force for peace; and that military force is a legitimate national tool, Donnelly wrote.

He described a new and fluid era of world politics in which U.S. partners could change from issue to issue but in which the U.S. strategy for promoting stability is based first on existing strong alliance relationships -- Britain, Japan, Australia and, now, India.

The U.S. "special relationship" with Britain was enhanced by partnership in Iraq, where Prime Minister Tony Blair's government has committed the biggest troop contigent after the United States.

Australia has increasingly worked closely with Washington, including in Iraq. U.S. efforts to repair the alliance with Japan are now considered complete, after Tokyo cooperated on Iraq and moved to assume more responsibility for its own defense, U.S. officials said.

A "TRUSTED PARTNER"

The U.S. shift towards India has been propelled by rapidly expanding business ties and a belief that India's size, democratic tradition and multi-cultural character provide a firm basis for partnership, U.S. officials say.

In one sign of convergence, India voted with the United States to find Iran in non-compliance of its nuclear non-proliferation commitments at the International Atomic Energy Agency.

Asked if India is prepared to be a U.S. ally, Indian ambassador Ronen Sen was measured.

"India is too old a civilization and too large and diverse a country and too vibrant a democracy ever to follow the leadership of any country or group of countries," he told Reuters in an interview.

"But it mostly certainly can be a very reliable and trusted partner in pursuing common objectives," Sen said.

Gary Schmitt, another AEI expert, said the administration is "betting the farm on India -- leading with their hearts rather than their heads -- and I'm not sure it's sensible."

He predicted India, as a rising regional power, would use its new place with the United States to leverage benefits from China.

U.S. officials insist they do not fear India-China cooperation and say they are realistic that firm ties with India will take a generation or more to build.

Trouble in Gilgit and the northern area: Persecution of shias

EDITORIAL: Failure to tackle Gilgit violence is unforgivable

The latest news is that the intelligence agencies have unearthed a plot by Lashkar-e-Jhangvi and Sipah Sahaba to use suicide bombers to kill Shia members of the legislative council of the Northern Areas. The suicide bombers are said to include women and children to be sent from outside Gilgit. There is a rumour that the extremist clerics in the Punjab are trying to recruit potential terrorists from the quake-hit areas of Azad Kashmir and the NWFP, distributing publications like Zarb-e-Momin among them for this purpose. It is said that Maulana Ghulam Kibriya of Rahim Yar Khan has been assigned to arrange for these children’s admission to seminaries in southern Punjab.

It is clear that preparations are being made for another bout of sectarian attacks. On Monday, a Sunni cleric from Multan was gunned down in Karachi to avenge the murder of a Shia cleric in Balochistan a day earlier. The entire country has become linked in a network of terrorism which now boasts Al Qaeda-style suicide-bombing. If you look at the map of the country, the territories under challenge comprise the Northern Areas, the North and South Waziristan Agencies in the Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA) and all of Balochistan, the largest province comprising 40 percent of Pakistan’s territory. One can easily say that half of Pakistan is in the grip of people whose way of life is violence. And who is responsible for this if not the government which has been unable to tackle the problems that give rise to this violence?

The biggest mess is in Gilgit, the administrative centre of the Northern Areas. And the mess dates back to the army’s decision to deploy an extremist anti-Shia Lashkar-e-Tayba during the Kargil Operation of 1999 in tandem with regular troops. The administration in Gilgit has shown a criminal lack of understanding of the majority population (60 percent) of the city, the Shia, while deciding matters such as the content of school textbooks. Thus it would shock the world to know that Gilgit and the surrounding areas have seen a consistent pressure from the Shia community demanding changes in the textbooks for the last half decade and that the government, with all its intellectual resources, was not able to satisfy it. Nor was it able to prevent the target-killing of prominent Shia leaders, which enlisted the sectarian emotion of the entire community in the country.

One glaring example of Islamabad’s lack of sensitivity came to the fore this year when the new chief commissioner of Gilgit was appointed. The ministry concerned appointed a fundamentalist Sunni as chief commissioner despite its awareness that the Shias of Gilgit panic at the appointment of officers holding extreme Sunni views. What it ignored was the message contained in the earlier murder of a retired Sunni IG. Chief Commissioner Major (retd) Nadeem Manzur, a strict practising Sunni officer and a son-in-law of General (retd) KM Arif, carries no blot but his almost fanatic observance of Sunni faith should have alerted the ministry to his unsuitability. In the event, he proved ineffective and has recently been recalled. Why was he sent to Gilgit in the first place? One fears that the ministry itself could be infected with sectarian passions.

To get a perspective on how the Gilgit unrest affects the rest of the country, let us go over this year’s toll of terrorist casualties. On January 8, Shia leader Agha Ziauddin Rizvi was killed in Gilgit. On January 31, a leader of Sipah Sahaba Maulana Haroon ul Qasimi was killed in Karachi. On March 23, former Northern Areas IG Sakhiullah Tareen, a Sunni hardliner, was ambushed and killed in the Northern Areas. On April 1, Allama Najafi, head of a major Shia seminary in Lahore, was murdered. On May 27, a suicide bombing killed 20 at the Barri Imam shrine near Islamabad. On May 30, the Shia seminary Jaamiat ul Ulum in Karachi was attacked by a suicide-bomber. On June 24, Mufti Rehman and Maulana Irshad, leaders of the Deoband-Sunni headquarters, Banuri Mosque in Karachi, were target-killed. The government should not wait helplessly for what the suicide-bombers of Lashkar-e-Jhangvi and Sipah-e-Sahaba have in store for the nation in the coming days.

Islamic states tend to be sectarian. Iran is overtly a Shia state where the Sunnis may find themselves discriminated against. The Sunni utopia created by the Taliban in Afghanistan was intensely sectarian and anti-Shia. After 20 years of jihad and Talibanisation, Pakistan too is showing clear signs of being a sectarian state. Saudi influence, spearheaded by Saudi funds to hardline Sunni seminaries, has changed Pakistan’s traditionally non-sectarian character. Its conduct in Shia-majority localities has been extremely violent. Gilgit is a case in point where in 1988 the state began its cycle of violence together with Parachinar in Kurram Agency. The pattern is that Sunni extremists will focus on areas where there is a concentration of Shias.

The year 1988 was crucial to these Shia populations. That year General Zia allowed the mujahideen to attack Parachinar to break the Shia resistance to their operations inside Afghanistan. The same year he allowed Sunni lashkars of Sipah Sahaba to attack Gilgit, resulting in high Shia casualties. The same year the chief of the Shia party in Pakistan, Allama Arif ul Hussaini, was murdered in Peshawar. Thousands of people have died since then in this sectarian war. The future of Pakistan has been rendered uncertain by a group of powerful clerics who are now able to deploy suicide-bombers. If their violence against the minority communities is not stopped, they will turn on new, more high-profile, targets after they are done with the minorities. No one is safe. *

Khalid Hassan: No nuke deal for Pakistan. India seen in a class of it's own.

Lobbying against US-India N-deal underway

WASHINGTON: A bipartisan group of 16 former US government officials with vast experience in security-related issues has circulated a letter to all members of Congress aimed at killing the US-India nuclear cooperation agreement, which is widely seen as a blow to nuclear nonproliferation efforts worldwide.

With the nonproliferation lobby and several key members of Congress up in arms against what they see as a “sweetheart deal” for New Delhi, Pakistani representatives here show little sign of taking advantage of the situation. Pakistan’s lack of any visible concern, it has been said, springs from the assumption, held by certain decision-makers in Islamabad, that once the deal between India and the US goes through, Pakistan will be in a position to demand the same for itself. It is not known what gives these decision-makers the confidence that a similar deal would be on offer to Pakistan from Washington. Informed opinion here is that no such deal is going to be offered to Pakistan. India is seen by the Bush administration as standing in a class of its own, not to be bracketed with Pakistan.

Men on trial for Theo Van Ghogh killings trained in Pakistan

Dutch terrorism trial opens in confusion as witness stays silent

By Toby Sterling in Amsterdam

Published: 06 December 2005

The trial of 14 Muslim men accused of plotting to murder Dutch politicians began in confusion, when the first witness refused to testify - or even give her name.

The defendants, mostly Dutch-born children of north African immigrants, include Mohammed Bouyeri, already sentenced to life in prison for the murder in November 2004 of the film-maker Theo van Gogh.

The men were escorted from prisons around the country to the special, high-security courtroom on the outskirts of Amsterdam. Bouyeri and three others did not attend.

After several acquittals in other prominent cases, the trial of the so-called Hofstad network will be a test for new Dutch laws that advocates say lower the bar for conviction of extremists. It is also seen as evidence of the threat Europe faces from homegrown radicals.

At pre-trial hearings, prosecutors said the accused possessed copies of a letter left on Van Gogh's body and handbooks on how to carry out murders.

They were heard speaking in tapped telephone conversations about slaying non-believers like sacrificial lambs. Several of them trained in Pakistan to carry out armed attacks, prosecutors said.

Shahid Javed Burki: India has succeeded and Pakistan seems to be seriously lagging behind

It takes two to hold back


By Shahid Javed Burki
THIS long essay — it has already appeared in three parts, this is the fourth — is about the latest incursion of the military in Pakistan’s political affairs. It started out with the assertion, which immediately drew disagreement from several readers, that it was right for the men in uniform to take over the government on October 12, 1999.

On that fateful day, Pakistan was headed towards a greater disaster than was the case in October 1958 or March 1969 or July 1977. In those earlier interventions, the military set the clock back on political development. That, I still maintain, need not happen as a result of this latest intrusion. The military could leave a country better equipped politically if it gave attention to institution-building.

Is this happening? Is the country moving towards political maturity under the current management? To answer the question I started, in this series of articles, with a comparison with India which has done better than Pakistan in so many different ways. Not only is India now regarded as well on the way to becoming a major global power, it is also widely hailed as a successful example of bringing both economic and political development to a country burdened with many seemingly intractable problems. In the eyes of the world, and according to the opinion of many of its own articulate analysts and commentators, India has charted a course for itself that would bring it many rewards in the not too distant future.

That India has succeeded and Pakistan seems to be seriously lagging behind — if not altogether failing — was explained by me in terms of several contributing factors. Among them an important contributor was the good opinion the people of that country have about their own situation. This optimism, I maintain, rubs off on foreign observers and that, in turn, brings to the country what it needs the most. India’s self-confidence has begun to attract oodles of foreign capital and the attention of the world’s large corporations.

Suicide squads being formed to kill Shias in NAs

Suicide squads being formed to kill Shias in NAs

By Shahzad Malik

ISLAMABAD: Intelligence agencies have uncovered a plot by two banned militant groups to kill Shia members of the legislative council of the Northern Areas, sources said on Monday.

Sources said that leaders of banned outfits Sipah-e-Sahaba Pakistan (SSP) and Lashkar-e-Jhangvi (LJ) had directed their operatives to form suicide squads to kill Shia members of the legislative council.

Intelligence agencies outlined details of the plan in a report submitted to the Interior Ministry, that contained information gleaned from three members of the banned groups.

The report said that the SSP and LJ had asked their members in the Northern Areas to recruit women and children to the suicide squads.

Clerics belonging to these organisations had also contacted people in the earthquake-hit areas to convince them to send their children to seminaries in Punjab. In return, they offered to pay for the children’s education, boarding and lodging, the report said. Maulana Ghulam Kibriya of Rahim Yar Khan was assigned to arrange for these children’s admissions to seminaries in southern Punjab, said the report.

The banned organisations were also found distributing periodicals – Paigham-e-Haq (The Message of Truth) and Zarb-e-Momin – in the quake-affected areas, sources said. “The report says that members of foreign rescue teams, including US nationals, frequently seen in the markets of Rawalpindi and Islamabad, are also potential targets for militants,” the sources said. The Interior Ministry has ordered the Northern Areas’ chief secretary, the Islamabad chief commissioner and the Punjab home secretary to take measures to prevent acts of terror.

Sebastian Mallaby:Chennai's car industry(Washington Post)

Detroit's Next Big Threat

By Sebastian Mallaby
Monday, December 5, 2005; A21

CHENNAI, India -- The next wave of globalization is swelling here, in this southern Indian city that was battered by a real wave during last year's tsunami. This new wave is not about Gap T-shirts or Dell laptops, the poster children for the light industries that already have global supply chains. And it is not about software and/or call centers, the industries for which India is famous. Instead, this new globalization is about heavier manufacturing, particularly cars. Detroit's panicking firms know it.

Cars? They are not what spring to mind when you say "Indian economic miracle." India's economy has grown at more than 6 percent per year since market reforms began in 1991. But it has scrambled the classic transition from agriculture to manufacturing and then eventually to services. Indian agriculture has indeed shrunk from 30 percent of output to 22 percent since the reforms began. But manufacturing has not increased its share. The entire shift has been to services.

You can see why this is so the moment you arrive in Chennai. On Saturday the airport was teeming; the roads are always an exuberant mess; businessmen complain about the creaking infrastructure. Compare that to Ningbo, a medium-size coastal Chinese city I visited six months ago, where the roads, airport and docks are all new and shiny. In the just-in-time manufacturing culture, delays mean money down the drain. That's why China is the manufacturing platform for the world -- and why India, so far, isn't.

Chennai also shows why India succeeds in software and services. To do software, you don't need a broad infrastructure base; you need one functional building. I visited Tidel Park, a gleaming office block here that houses 31 software firms, two-thirds of which are foreign. There aren't any power cuts here because the building has its own backup generators. There are no connectivity worries because it is served by six competing broadband providers. And it certainly is safe. Tidel Park boasts 150 guards and a security control room that would not look out of place on Darth Vader's Death Star.

Chennai's boosters say they've learned some Chinese lessons. Jayalalithaa, the authoritarian former actress who leads the state government of Tamil Nadu, has thrown money at the infrastructure deficit. When government workers went on strike, Jayalalithaa turned a bit Chinese and arrested thousands of them. (Although her Bollywood career was based on eye-fluttering and dance, she makes California's governator look like, well, a girlie man.) Chennai is also proud of its new Special Economic Zones, modeled on China's tax-free export hubs. The promotional literature promises "complete freedom in fixing working hours" and a chance to "totally eliminate any unlawful/illegal strikes."

This tough approach may be good for manufacturing investment. But the main force behind the next globalization wave comes from something different. Until the reforms of the 1990s, India had good engineers but lousy manufacturing because high tariff walls made its firms complacent. But the opening of India's economy has forced its manufacturers to reinvent themselves.

Chennai's auto-components firms have done this almost manically. Ten years ago, their brakes and valves were crummy enough to scare away the international car majors that considered manufacturing in India. Today, you can't spend an hour with any of the components firms without hearing about the international quality certifications they've amassed; the Deming Prize, awarded for manufacturing excellence by a Japanese committee, has acquired talismanic status. Much as Chennai's government leaders look to China, the city's business leaders pepper their conversation with Japanese management lingo.

The results are dramatic. The TVS Group, the largest of India's auto-components firms, now exports around a third of its output -- proof that it meets international standards. The rival Rane Group reports that it has reduced defects from 10,000 parts per million to 250 and that 28 percent of its engine valves are now exported. One of the TVS companies, Sundram Fasteners, has won a General Motors "Supplier of the Year" award five times, and it supplies 100 percent of GM's radiator caps.

Because Indian car parts are now reliable, international car majors have reversed their attitude. Ford and Hyundai have opened factories in Chennai; BMW recently announced that it would follow; Volkswagen and GM seem interested. Multinational parts makers are arriving, too, strengthening Chennai's attraction as a hub. Saint-Gobain, a French glassmaker, has built a brand new production line that may foretell Chennai's future. It's designed so that the initial capacity of 500,000 windshields per year can be cheaply scaled up to 3 million.

In short, Chennai's car industry is reaching critical mass, and its output is good enough to compensate for dodgy (though improving) infrastructure. The same story is playing itself out in India's two other automotive hubs, around Delhi and Mumbai, and to an even larger extent in Mexico, Thailand and (yes) China. The McKinsey consultancy projects that the outsourcing of car parts, relatively limited until now, will sextuple from $65 billion in 2002 to $375 billion in 2015, with India's share soaring from around $1 billion to $25 billion. If you think Detroit is ailing now, wait until you see what's coming.

Pakistani group puts bounty on Danish cartoonist' heads

Bounty put on prophet cartoonists' heads

The Ministry of Foreign Affairs warns Danish travellers to Pakistan of increased hazard after a Danish newspaper published cartoons of Muslim prophet Mohammed

What began as a protest demonstration in Pakistani capital Islamabad two weeks ago, has ended in death threats and a price on the heads of a number of Danish illustrators who heeded the call of daily newspaper Jyllands-Posten to send in cartoons of Muslim prophet Mohammed.

The newspaper published twelve of the cartoons in September, sparking angry reactions from Denmark's Muslim population and a number of Muslim countries.

Daily newspaper Berlingske Tidende reported on Friday that a bounty of DKK 50,000 (EUR 7000) had been put on the head the cartoonist responsible for the drawings. The Pakistani group offering the reward mistakenly believes that the 12 cartoons were created by just one person.

Danish Ambassador to Pakistan Bent Wigotski said the bounty had been promised by religious party Jamaate-Islami and its youth organisation, which had also demanded Danish representatives expelled from the country.

Danish authorities immediately informed the Pakistani government about the death threats and bounty promised by the party, which is described as nationalistic and fundamentalist.

Ever since the demonstrators marched through the streets of Islamabad, the party has been spreading its message through the media and flyers.

Wigotski said he had no plans to leave Pakistan, despite hundreds of angry protest letters from Muslims around the world.

'But the situation is of course serious,' he said. 'They might want to get to the Danish illustrators, but if they can't reach them, they could make to with a scapegoat.'

That scapegoat could be anybody, the embassy warned, and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs has warned all travellers from visiting Pakistan because of heightened risk of violence.

Pakistani Ambassador to Denmark Javed Qureshi denounced the death threats.

'No Pakistani government would ever support such a thing, I'm sure that the current government will take action in the case. I can't imagine that a bounty like that doesn't violate Pakistani legislation,' he said.