Some Frontier Corps jawans desert force

Some Frontier Corps jawans desert force

By Iqbal KhattakPESHAWAR: Some jawans of the Frontier Corps (FC) are reportedly deserting the force due to regular and violent attacks by the militants in the tribal areas bordering Afghanistan, sources told Daily Times on Friday. Military spokesman Major General Waheed Arshad, however, called the desertion of a “few jawans insignificant incidents”.An FC soldier who met Daily Times earlier this week said he had deserted from the force days before his deployment to North Waziristan because he did not “want to fight his own people”. The soldier, asking not to be named, said that he did not desert the force because he feared death, but it was difficult for him to understand whether the fighting in Waziristan was “Islamic or not”. Asked why he thought so now after remaining in the force for 14 years, the soldier said: “This question is haunting several other soldiers and this confusion is stopping them from putting up a tough fight.” “We ask ourselves that if we die fighting in Waziristan will we be martyrs? No one is here to give an answer,” said the deserter who is now looking for a job to feed his family. Maj Gen Arshad said that small-scale desertions could take place in any force and in any country for one reason or another. He added that thousands of people had enrolled for recruitment in the FC recently. The deserter hails from a poor eastern suburb of Peshawar where around six FC jawans reportedly deserted the force – the first line of defence against the Taliban and Al Qaeda elements in North and South Waziristan. Another deserter said that insufficient salary was also one of the reasons the soldiers had deserted the force. “I was being paid Rs 4,500 only,” he said. There are also reports of desertion among army soldiers in Waziristan, but these desertions don’t reflect the overall situation prevailing among the security forces. By 2006, more than 700 soldiers, including officers, were reported killed in clashes in the ongoing war on terror. A military officer said the army suffered higher casualties because “the soldiers do not follow the standard operation procedures”.

Pakistan's soldiers 'huddling in their bases' in tribal regions

Pakistan's soldiers 'huddling in their bases' in tribal regions

· Army paralysed by Taliban threat, says ex-CIA agent· Retired officers accused of helping militants Declan Walsh in IslamabadSaturday June 16, 2007The Guardian
The Pakistani army is paralysed by the growing Taliban threat and some retired officers are covertly aiding the militants, according to a former CIA officer.
Soldiers posted to Waziristan, a tribal area that hosts an estimated 2,000 al-Qaida fighters, are "huddling in their bases, doing nothing", said Art Keller, a CIA case officer who was posted to Pakistan last year.
"Their approach was to pretend that nothing was wrong because any other approach would reveal that they were unwilling and unable to do anything about Talibanisation," said Mr Keller, who has visited Waziristan.


Article continues
href="http://ads.guardian.co.uk/click.ng/Params.richmedia=yes&spacedesc=mpu&site=Guardian&navsection=1698&section=103681&country=usa&rand=3857167">
src="http://ads.guardian.co.uk/image.ng/Params.richmedia=yes&spacedesc=mpu&site=Guardian&navsection=1698&section=103681&country=usa&rand=3857167"
width="300" height="250" border="0" alt="Advertisement">
The Pakistani military insists it is doing its best. President Pervez Musharraf has repeatedly referred to the 80,000 soldiers posted to the tribal areas, about 700 of whom have been killed in action.
But Mr Keller said that behind the scenes the fight was riven by divisions among the officers. "There are the moderates who fear Talibanisation, the professional jihadis who want to embrace the Taliban again, and the middle group who aren't too fond of the Taliban but resent doing anything under pressure from the US out of sheer bloody-minded stubbornness," he said. "Because of [that], the Pakistani military remains paralysed."
Mr Keller alleged that retired army officers, including the former spy chief Hamid Gul, were secretly supporting the Taliban. "To the degree that they aren't arrested or forced to cease and desist, they are tacitly tolerated," he said. Gen Gul, who has faced similar accusations before, said last night: "I morally support the movement to end the American occupation of Afghanistan. But there is no physical dimension to it, no hidden agenda."
Mr Keller's comments come at a sensitive time in US-Pakistani relations. Since 2001 Washington has given Pakistan $10bn (£5bn) in exchange for counter-terrorism cooperation. But although hundreds of al-Qaida figures have been arrested, Osama bin Laden remains at liberty and Taliban attacks on Afghanistan have soared.
On Thursday the US assistant secretary of state Richard Boucher visited Quetta, the capital of the western province of Baluchistan where Nato officials say the Taliban has a headquarters. The chief minister of Baluchistan, Jam Muhammad Yousaf, told him that "Mullah Omar or Osama bin Laden are not [here]", according to a government statement.
Uzbek, Arab, Chechen and Somali militants are sheltering in Waziristan, to the north of Baluchistan. The majority Uzbeks are concentrated around Mir Ali in north Waziristan, where they have allied with local fighters - self styled "Pakistani Taliban" - to coordinate attacks inside Afghanistan.
Gen Musharraf's efforts to stem the violence through a controversial peace deal with the militants have failed, and in recent months "Talibanisation" has spread north out of the tribal belt and into North-West Frontier Province, with attacks on music shops, barbers and government officials.
But Mr Keller said American efforts to catch the ringleaders were being thwarted by Pakistani rules restricting CIA agents to heavily guarded military camps. "Limited freedom of movement and limited freedom to directly engage locals were, and remain, the biggest obstacles to success," he said. Critics say the CIA has also inflamed the situation through secretive attacks by Predator aeroplanes on al-Qaida targets that have killed dozens of civilians.
Last year the CIA revived efforts to hunt bin Laden and his deputy Ayman al Zawahiri. Mr Keller doubted they were in Waziristan. "I don't think the two top guys are there but some roads leading to them run through there," he said.
Excessive pressure from Washington was also hampering the chase, he added. Spies needed peace and quiet to "spin webs and wait for the flies to come", he said. "Such a manhunt is chess, not checkers."

No business like mil–business

No business like mil–business

Khalid Hasan

privateview

In a country where it is still illegal to photograph a bridge or to be found hanging around the road that leads to the Bum factory, it is amazing that the young female academic Ayesha Siddiqa should have written a book laying bare the Pakistan Army’s inner economy and providing the first documented account of the vast commercial empire it has built with public money. So secretive is Pakistan’s defence establishment that the National Assembly is not permitted – even under civilian governments – to debate its budget or question its spending. Nor is anyone authorised to look into the Army’s enterprises. If anyone is looking for a state within a state, he need not look any further. All he has to do is to come to Pakistan.Ayesha Siddiqa’s book Military Inc.: Inside Pakistan’s Military Economy had long needed to be written but wasn’t because those who had the ability or the knowledge to write it considered discretion the better part of valour. How the Army will react to her findings, I am unable to predict. Since her facts are well supported, I suspect they will simply be ignored. However, I do hope a copy of the book will be available in every station library in every cantonment. According to the author, the commercial empire of the Pakistan Army has a net worth of Rs 200 billion. The term she has coined for the Army’s commercial and business activities is Milbus, which is shorthand for ‘military business.’ She defines Milbus as military capital used for the personal benefit of the military fraternity, especially the officer cadre, which is not included as part of the defence budget or does not follow the normal accountability procedures of the state, making it an independent genre of capital. It is directly or indirectly controlled by the military. She writes that this unaccounted transfer of resources can take many forms. She lists them as: state land transferred to military personnel, resources spent on perks and privileges for retired personnel, business opportunities diverted to armed forces personnel by flouting the norms of a free market economy, and money lost on training personnel who seek early retirement to join the private sector.Ayesha Siddiqa maintains that a study of Milbus is important because it causes the officer cadre to be interested in enhancing their influence in the state’s decison making and politics. This military capital also becomes the major driver for the armed forces’ stakes in political control. She writes, “Pakistan’s military today runs a huge commercial empire. Although it is not possible to give a definitive value of the military’s internal economy because of a lack of transparency, the estimated worth runs into billions of dollars. The Fauji Foundation and the Army Welfare Trust are the largest business conglomerates in the country. Besides these, there are multiple channels through which the military acquires opportunities to monopolise national resources.”Ayesha Siddiqa makes three major points. First, that Milbus is military capital that perpetuates the military’s political predatory style. This capital is concealed, not being recorded as part of the defence budget and it involves unexplained and questionable transfers of resources from the public to the private sector, especially to individuals and groups that have the inside track. Second, the military’s economic predatoriness increases in totalitarian systems. The armed forces encourage policies and related environments that multiply their economic opportunities. Milbus becomes part of the tribute that the military extracts from providing services such as national security. Since the armed forces ensure territorial security, they believe that anything that contributes to their welfare is justified. At times, the military convinces the citizens to bear additional costs on the basis of a conceived or real threat to the state. Third, the military’s economic predatoriness is both a cause and an effect of a feudal, authoritarian and non-democratic political system. In the process of seeking benefits, those in power give a blank cheque to other elite groups to behave in a predatory manner.The author argues that the elite groups in society have their own reasons to turn a blind eye to the military’s economic interests. In politics dominated by the military, other dominant groups often turn into cronies of the armed forces to establish a mutually beneficial relationship, as has happened in Pakistan every time the military has been in power. Monopolies, caused by illegal military capital result in market distortions, place a burden on the public sector because of the hidden flow of funds from the public to the private sector. Since the military claims Milbus activities to be legitimate, funds are often diverted from the public to the private sector, which can and does include the use of military equipment by military-controlled firms and the acquisition of state land for distribution to individual members of the military fraternity for profit making.A friend of mine, Tariq Jazy, says that when he looked up the word ‘army’ in the Concise Oxford Dictionary, he found it defined as an “organised force armed for fighting on land.” This definition, he added, he has modified in line with Pakistan’s requirements, and it now reads, “an organised force armed to fight for land.” Ayesha Siddiqa writes that the military is a significant stockholder in agricultural land. Out of the 11.58 million acres that is controlled by the armed forces, an estimated 6.9 million acres, or about 59 percent of the total land, lies in rural areas. The military is the only department of the government that has assumed the authority to redistribute land for the benefit of its officials, having distributed about 6.8 million acres among its cadres for their personal use. When a dispute arose over the Okara farms when the Army wanted to throw out the sharecroppers who had cultivated that land for generations, Army spokesman Maj. Gen. Shaukat Sultan said, “The needs of the Army will be decided by the Army itself and/or the government will decide this. Nobody has the right to say what the Army can do with 5,000 acres or 17,000 acres. The needs of the Army will be determined by the Army itself.” So there, in a nutshell, you have it.Ayesha Siddiqa concludes, “An authoritarian system in which the military has a dominant position is hardly the panacea for Pakistan’s political problems, nor does it help the long-term interests of the country’s strategic external allies. A politically strong Pakistan will also be a stable Pakistan, which will not be detrimental to the South Asian region or the world at large.” She also points out that the military has been central in nourishing the religious right without necessarily realising the strength of religious ideology as an alternative to itself.But let me close this with another observation from my friend, Tariq Jazy. “In Pakistan, the military has been civilianised and the civilians have been militarised.”
– This is a regular column by TFT’s Washington correspondent. He can be reached at khasan2@cox.net

Military-run welfare outfits dependent on state bailouts

Military-run welfare outfits dependent on state bailouts
By Khalid HasanWASHINGTON: With the three major armed services welfare foundations not willing to provide data about their activities, it is difficult to assess the extent of their contribution to welfare, but what is known suggests that they are inefficient and dependent on state bailouts, according to Dr Ayesha Siddiqa’s new book, Military Inc.The four welfare foundations she studied are the Army Welfare Trust (AWT), the Fauji Foundation (FF), the Bahria Foundation (BF) and the Shaheen Foundation (SF). Compared with the Fauji Foundation and the Army Welfare Trust, there is very little information available on the SF and BF. The author argues that the military welfare system creates its own set of problems, the most prominent being the “politics” of the distribution of military welfare as it contributes to the existing imbalance of resources between the various provinces. Since 75 percent of the armed forces come from the Punjab, that is where much of the welfare activity is concentrated to the frustration of minority provinces. “The welfare system, or the set of perks and privileges provided to the armed forces, is part of the greater distributive injustice that the country suffers from,” she adds.Dr Siddiqa writes, “Milbus (military business) has grown exponentially. It is a segment of the military’s economy which is largely hidden from the public and not subject to the government’s accountability procedures. Moreover, it serves the interests of a select group of people. A combination of these two features of Milbus makes this capital inherently illegal. An increase in the military’s economic power is directly proportional to its political power.” Many of the economic operations undertaken pose a burden on the defence budget and the larger national budget. It also encourages “crony capitalism” and hampers the growth of a free market economy. According to Dr Siddiqa, the military’s commercial ventures are not cost-efficient. Because of a lack of transparency, it is not possible, she points out, to gain access to updated financial information, which is why her study of the armed services’ welfare activities is confined to data obtained for the years 1998-2001. Since the four foundations were set up under the charities law, their accounts are not auditable by the Auditor General of Pakistan. The AWT set up in 1971 with just Rs 0.7 million was worth Rs 17.45 billion in 2001 and was running 31 projects. It had to be bailed out financially at least twice. The Fauji Foundation (FF) has been considered a better performer than the AWT and PAF and Pakistan Navy foundations. The FF currently, which runs 12 projects, has a capital of Rs 43.32 billion. Four of the projects did not make any money in 2001. All three of its sugar mills ran in loss totaling Rs 58.42 million. The author recalls that when a parliamentary committee summoned FF chairman Gen Muhammad Amjad to appear and explain the controversial sale of one of the FF sugar mills, he refused to appear. He told the author in one of her four interviews, “No one has the moral authority to question the military or run the country. Are the politicians trained for their job?” The government’s economic survey shows that since 2003 the FF was consistently subsidised to the tune of over Rs 1 billion annually. No other private sector organisation has been provided with help in the form of loans and financial guarantees as the FF has.The research found very little information on the two foundations run by the Pakistan Air Force and the Pakistan Navy. The former set up an airline but it was a financial disaster and it had to be sold, although it constantly used public resources without compensating the government. Over the years, the state has lost money because of the military’s appropriation of urban and rural land for distribution amongst military personnel. The study found that the conversion of state land from defence to commercial has increased under the Musharraf government. The study also came upon evidence of inefficiency in the Frontier Works Organisation (FWO), which challenges the military’s claim regarding its efficient running. Dr Siddiqa writes that the data regarding the performance of the four foundations is largely hidden from the public. The defence establishment, she argues, is not an agent of development as it likes to think. She also writes about the comfort technocrats such as former State Bank governor Ishrat Hussain feel towards military regimes and vice versa. She calls the military bureaucracy a “short-time troubleshooter.” She argues that the millitary’s direct involvement in economic development through its business complex has an opportunity cost and creates market distortions. Milbus exacerbates cartelisation in the corporate sector.

Pakistani army looting Pakistan

Military and civilian welfare outfits

By Afshan Subohi

Imran 41, a retired Major, supervises a security agency in Karachi from a fairly senior position. He is many times better placed in the society than most civilians, though they might be more qualified and have worked for equal number of years, thanks to the military institution and its welfare arms.Being shunted out early in his career, he may be seen a person of average capabilities. Imran lives in Askari Appartments (valued Rs11 million) in Karachi. In addition he owns a residential plot in Defence (Rs30 million). His children study in a reputable school located on Air Force land. He pays ten times less in fee for education of his two children than his civilian counterparts. He is a member of a social club, where membership and facilities are heavily subsidised for army servicemen.This is in addition to pension and the full medical coverage that he enjoys for himself and his family. Most academics, doctors, engineers, and administrative staff on the civilian side in the same age group are not even half as secured with double the amount of private investment in their education. They are members of professional clubs and societies. Advantages if any from their participation in such schemes are much below their expectations. Even where they benefited the quantifiable gains cannot be matched to support that forces personnel get from their parent institution.The performance (service delivery and level of satisfaction amongst targeted beneficiaries) of military welfare organisations is far superior to ones created to support civilian servicemen.Federal Information Minister Mohammad Ali Durrani attributes better performance of military welfare organisations to superior work ethics and efficiency of military services.While talking to Dawn over telephone from Lahore the minister was all praise for armed forces. "Most obvious factors for efficient and dependable service delivery system of welfare organisations managed by armed forces include the ability of the military to enforce discipline, their orientation to work as a team, lesser opportunities of corruption and above all their nationalism that is inculcated in them by design to deliver even in trying circumstances".A leader of a professional organisation in Karachi living in a rented house in Gulshan, was bitter when approached by Dawn. He presented his views on condition of anonymity. "Army eats up share of more productive sectors. It abuses its power to perpetuate its interests both economic and political. It has created islands of peace and prosperity for itself at the cost of the nation".The gentleman was not able to explain as to what has kept civilian establishment from evolving well serving pension funds. The fact is that there is no simple answer to the riddle.A business leader who also wished not to be identified said that military at business can only be as good as a doctor on an engineering project."With quantum of support and subsidies projects run under military establishments get they are not even half as efficient as they should be. They get subsidised power, gas, raw material, face fewer bureaucratic hitches and enjoy monopolistic position in the market. No one knows the actual cost of their operations to evaluate returns. Let things come in open before praising military business sense".The federal information minister partially endorsed the view. "Yes their business concerns can benefit to an extent from their positioning", he said.Views apart, it is not wise to evaluate working of these organisations in isolation. The success of welfare in these two segments (civilian/military), to a great extent, depends on their comparative positioning in the country’s state structure.The Army, combined with Navy and Air Force, makes Pakistan armed forces the seventh largest military in the world. Besides being involved in its core mission to defend the country's borders, it has also been involved in foreign deployments under bilateral agreement with a number of countries in Middle East and Africa. It has also been committing its troops to UN peace keeping.The institution has created an excellent social welfare set-ups for its personnel belonging to all tiers from top to bottom. These systems are so designed that the interests of members of forces and those of the institution are merged perfectly.Interviews with score of concerned people confirmed that the system of education and training play their part but it is the loyalty to an institution that takes good care of them and their families during service and even after retirement that drive armed forces related people to work more efficiently.Army in Pakistan like elsewhere is so structured that it has many tiers of hierarchy and a filter system in place. Superseded officers retire in ages 42-50. Therefore, along with active force of 520,000 personnel and 500,000 reserve men there is a huge population of retirees that are taken care of by the army.To absorb these soldiers and officers and to sustain welfare activities and above all to deepen its control over the country's economy, the army is engaged in multi-dimensional activities. They have enterprises, such as studs and dairy farms, several industries such as sugar, fertilizer, brass casting etc. They are also have sizeable stakes in services such as transport (NLC, Shaheen Air), construction (Frontier Works Organization), communication (Special communication Organization), insurance, banking (Askari Commercial Bank), etc, etc.Fauji Foundation, the pension fund of Pakistan Army has invested in many projects, some are highly profitable. It manages hundreds of educational institutions, power plants, steel and cement factories. Fauji is a very well known consumer product brand name that produces breakfast cereals, sugar, electronic items etc. The foundation is a trust for the welfare of ex-servicemen and their families.Above all, the army acquires government land to develop colonies for its staff. The officers' colonies such as defence housing in major cities are best located and best equipped with highest valued plots in the country.The cantonment areas are safe, secured and well-managed. Here all services are subsidised. They are provided with health and sports clubs and other facilities that even a middle class civilian locality is totally deprived of. As a matter of fact these cantonment areas are modern model cities within the country’s mismanaged ill-equipped cities.It is, therefore, in the self- interest of a serviceman to serve the army to his best so that it becomes more powerful to be able to promote and protect his economic perks. The powerful positioning of the army in the country also imbibe a sense of pride and superiority amongst the army men.

The armed forces and the corporate sector(Pakistani army looting Pakistan)

The armed forces and the corporate sector
By Farhatullah Babar
If the prime minister’s finance adviser thought that by living in denial he could allay the widespread concerns about the army’s growing involvement in the corporate sector he was gravely mistaken. In saying this, I am referring to a report in your newspaper titled ‘Salman denies army role in corporate sector’, and published on April 28. If he did not know it, here is a partial list of the military’s corporate enterprises as recently placed before the Parliament in reply to a question besides the several dozen similar enterprises run by Shaheen Foundation and Bahria Foundation of the Air Force and the Navy respectively. Fauji Foundation : Fauji Sugar Mills, (more than one), Fauji Cereal, Fauji Corn Complex, FONGAS (Natural gas supply company), Fauji Poly Propylene Products, Fauji Fertilizer Company (FFC), Fauji Jordan Company, Fauji Cement, Fauji Oil Terminal Company Project (FOTCO), Fauji Kabirwala Power Company Limited. Army Welfare Trust: Askari Stud Farms, Askari Farms, Askari Welfare Rice Mill, Askari Welfare Sugar Mill, Askari Fish Farm, Askari Cement (more than one plant), Askari Welfare Pharmaceutical Project, Magnesite Refineries Limited, Army Welfare Shoe Project, Army Welfare Woollen Mill, Army Welfare Hosiery Unit, Travel Agencies, AWT Commercial Plazas, Army Welfare Shops, Army Welfare Commercial Project, Askari Commercial Bank, Askari Leasing Limited, Askari General Insurance Company, Askari Welfare Saving Scheme, Askari Associate Limited, Askari Information Service, Askari Guards Limited, Askari Power Limited, Askari Commercial Enterprises, Askari Aviation, Askari Housing Schemes (at several locations) The adviser claimed that retired military officers were involved in private businesses and that too for welfare purposes but is the Fauji Foundation really a private concern like any other. Under its Scheme of Administration the Fauji Foundation is allowed “to receive from government or other bodies or person any contribution to the Foundation”. Which other private enterprise gets contributions from the government also? The Fauji Foundation is administered by a committee whose chairman is the defense secretary and its members include four principal staff officers of the GHQ and two senior officers of the Pakistan Navy and the Air Force, all paid out of the public funds. A three star serving general was appointed in 2002 as its chief. What a fine example of a private enterprise run by serving military officers and defense secretary. During question hour in the Senate last year it transpired that the finance ministry accepted loan liabilities of 9 billion rupees of the Foundation. Which other private concern had been provided such a preferential treatment? Worse still, after being declared ‘private’ they are declared as unaccountable too. In reply to a question in the National Assembly in 2005 it transpired that the Khoski Sugar Mills belonging to the Foundation had been sold at 300 million to an entity that had not even participated in the bidding process. The highest bid of 387 million was ignored. When the Senate Defence Committee asked the head of the Fauji Foundation, himself a former chairman of NAB, to appear before it he refused and chose to refute the allegations through newspaper ads. We were told to shut up. If the FF and AWT are claimed to be private entities what are other entities like the Frontier Works Organization (FWO) and the NLC doing in the private commercial sector in a playing field that too is tilted in their favour? According to information placed before the Senate on December 30, 2005 the National Highway Authority (NHA) alone awarded twelve contracts costing over 18 billion to the FWO without bids between 2001 and 2005. Further, not only the contract of collecting toll tax on toll plazas have been given to FWO and NLC without bids but contracts already given to private parties were cancelled and given to it according to information placed before the Senate. The military’s growing interests in corporate businesses and land has now begun to attract national and international attention and criticism but we are living in self-denial. That was why the former British High Commissioner in Pakistan Mark Lyall Grant publicly stated about two years ago in Islamabad that the military’s corporate business interests had increased manifold. He also said that it was hampering poverty reduction efforts and effectiveness of the bureaucracy and judiciary in the country. An un-named senior official of the Foreign Office promptly announced that a demarche had been served on the high commissioner for his critical remarks as ‘unwarranted and inaccurate besides being an infringement of diplomatic norms’. But that did not change the reality. Are the defence housing authorities also really private bodies competing with other private entities in a level playing filed? Is there any other private housing society that is headed by a serving corps commander and whose executive functionaries such as the Administrator are serving senior army officers drawing salary from public exchequer? Is there any other private housing authority that can get land at a price as the DHA Karachi got sometime back and against which the provincial government even moved the court? During question hour in Parliament it has transpired that military officers get one after 15 years of service, a second one after 25, a third one after 28 years and a fourth one after 33 years of service each worth more than 15 million rupees in the open market. To call it a welfare activity is stretching the meaning of the word a bit too far. The un-level playing field to the military’s industrial and commercial enterprises, the dispossession of tenants from farmlands in Okara belonging to the Punjab government, the acquisition of additional 870 acres of prime land in sector E-10 at dirt cheap price of Rs 200 per acre for the new GHQ (in addition to the 1470 acres already earmarked), the setting up of strings of defense housing authorities, first in Karachi and Lahore and lately in Islamabad, and converting state lands meant specifically for defense purposes into golf courses and housing colonies as disclosed in the Parliament are clear manifestations of military’s growing corporate and real estate business. The issue will not disappear merely be denying it. Come on Mr Adviser! Instead of living in a state of denial let us address the issue and do something about it. The writer is a former PPP senator and a member of the Senate’s human rights committee. Email: drkhshan@isb.comsats.net.pk