|
Redrawn map makes
Pakistan uneasy
By Jane Perlez ; November 23, 2008 ;
International Herald Tribune
ISLAMABAD: A redrawn map of South Asia has
been making the rounds among Pakistani elites. It shows their country
truncated, reduced to an elongated sliver of land with the big bulk of India
to the east, and an enlarged Afghanistan to the west.
That the map was first circulated as a theoretical exercise in some U.S.
neoconservative circles matters little here. It has fueled a belief among
Pakistanis, including members of the armed forces, that what the United
States really wants is the breakup of Pakistan, the only Muslim country with
nuclear arms.
"One of the biggest fears of the Pakistani military planners is the
collaboration between India and Afghanistan to destroy Pakistan," said a
senior Pakistani government official involved in strategic planning who
insisted on anonymity in accordance with diplomatic rules. "Some people feel
the United States is colluding in this."
That notion may strike Americans as strange coming from an ally of 50 years.
But as the incoming Obama administration tries to coax greater cooperation
from Pakistan in the fight against militancy, it can hardly be ignored.
This is a country where years of weak governance have left ample room for
conspiracy theories of every kind. But like such thinking anywhere, what is
suspected frequently reveals the tender spots of the national psyche.
Educated Pakistanis sometimes acknowledge they are paranoid, but add that
they believe they have good reason.
Pakistan, a 61-year-old country marbled with
intertwining and often conflictual ethnic groups, is a collection of four
provinces, which can seem to have little in common. Virtually every one of
its borders, drawn almost arbitrarily in the last gasps of the British
Empire, is disputed with its neighbors, not least Pakistan's bitter and much
larger rival, India.
These facts and the insecurities that spring from them inform many of
Pakistan's disagreements with the United States, including differences over
the need to rein in militancy in the form of Al Qaeda and the Taliban.
The new democratically elected president, Asif Ali Zardari, has visited the
United States twice since assuming power three months ago.
He has been generous in his praise of the Bush administration. But that
stance is criticized at home as fawning and wins him little popularity among
a steadfastly anti-U.S. public.
So how will the promise by President-elect Barack Obama for a new start
between the United States and Pakistan be received here? How can it be
begun?
One possibility could be some effort to ease Pakistani anxieties, even as
the United States demands more from Pakistan. That will probably mean a
regional approach to what, it is increasingly apparent, are regional
problems. There, Pakistani and U.S. interests may coincide.
U.S. military commanders like General David Petraeus have started to argue
forcefully that the solution to the conflict in Afghanistan, where the U.S.
war effort looks increasingly uncertain, must involve a wide array of
neighbors.
Obama has said much the same. Several times in his campaign, he laid out the
crux of his thinking. Reducing tensions between Pakistan and India would
allow Pakistan to focus on the real threat - the Qaeda and Taliban militants
who are tearing at the very fabric of the country.
"If Pakistan can look towards the east with confidence, it will be less
likely to believe its interests are best advanced through cooperation with
the Taliban," Obama wrote in Foreign Affairs magazine last year.
But such an approach faces sizable obstacles, the biggest being the conflict
over Kashmir. The Himalayan border area has been disputed since the
partition of India and Pakistan in 1947 and remains divided between them.
The Pakistani Army and intelligence agencies have long fought a proxy war
with India by sponsoring militant groups to terrorize the
Indian-administered part of the territory.
After the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, Pakistan reined in those militants for
a time, but this year they have renewed their incursions. Talks between the
sides made some progress in recent years but have petered out.
Pakistanis warn that the United States should not appear too eager to
mediate. First, they caution, India has always regarded Kashmir as a
bilateral question. India, they note, also faces a general election early
next year, an inappropriate moment to push such an explosive issue.
Second, some Pakistanis are concerned about the reliability of the United
States as a fair mediator. "Given the United States' record on the
Palestinian issue, where the Palestinians had to move 10 times backwards and
the Israelis moved the goal posts, the same could happen here," said Zubair
Khan, a former commerce minister who has watched Kashmir closely.
It was discouraging, Khan said, that the
United States ignored the importance of the huge nonviolent protests by
Muslims in Kashmir against Indian rule this summer. "Anywhere else, and they
would have been hailed as an Orange Revolution," he said, referring to the
wave of protests that led to a change in the Ukrainian government in 2004.
Such distrust has been exacerbated by what Pakistanis see as the Bush
administration's tilt toward India.
Exhibit A for the Pakistanis is its rival's nuclear deal with the United
States, which allows India to engage in nuclear trade even though it never
joined the global Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty.
Pakistan, with its recent history of spreading nuclear technology, received
no comparable bargain.
The nuclear deal was devised in Washington to position India as a strategic
counterbalance to China. That is how it is seen in Pakistan, too, but with
no enthusiasm.
"The United States has changed the whole nuclear order by this deal, and in
doing so is containing China, the only friend Pakistan has in the region,"
said Talat Masood, a retired general from the Pakistani Army.
Further, Pakistan is upset about the advances India is making in
Afghanistan, with no checks from the United States, Masood said.
India has recently made big investments in Afghanistan, where Pakistan has
been competing for influence. These include a road to the Iranian border
that will eventually give India access to the Iranian port of Chabahar,
circumventing Pakistan.
India has offered training for the Afghan military, given assistance for a
new Parliament building in Kabul and reopened consulates along the border
with Pakistan. The consulates, the Pakistanis charge, are used by India as
cover to lend support to a long-running separatist movement in Baluchistan
Province. (Baluchistan was even made an independent state on the theoretical
map, which accompanied an article by Ralph Peters titled "Blood Borders: How
a Better Middle East Would Look," originally published in Armed Forces
Journal.)
Both India and Pakistan in fact have a long and destructive history of,
gently or not, putting in the knife. Exhibit A for the Indians is the
bombing in July of their embassy in Afghanistan, which U.S. and Indian
officials say can be traced to groups linked to the Pakistani spy agency. If
the Obama administration is indeed to convince Pakistanis that militancy,
not the Indian Army, presents the gravest threat, it will not be easy.
The commander of U.S. forces in Afghanistan, General David McKiernan, got a
taste of the challenge this month, when he visited Islamabad and sat down
with about 70 members of the Pakistan Parliament at the residence of the
U.S. ambassador, Anne Patterson. Their attitude showed an almost total
incomprehension of the reasons for U.S. behavior in the region after Sept.
11.
"A couple of the questions I got were, 'Why did you Americans come to
Afghanistan when it was so peaceful before you got there?"' McKiernan
recalled during an appearance at the Atlantic Council in Washington last
week. "Another one," he said, "was, 'We understand that you've invited a
thousand Indian soldiers to serve in Afghanistan by Christmas."' There was
no truth to the claim, he told the Pakistanis. "We have a lot of work to
do," he told his audience in Washington. Indeed, among ordinary Pakistanis,
many still regard Al Qaeda more positively than the United States, polls
find. Talk shows here often include arguments that the suicide bombings in
Pakistan are payback for the Pakistani Army fighting an U.S. war. Some
commentators suggest that the United States is actually financing the
Taliban. The point is to tie down the Pakistani Army, they say, leaving the
way open for the United States to grab Pakistani nuclear weapons.
Recently, in the officer's mess in Bajaur, the northern tribal region where
the Pakistani Army is tied down fighting the militants, one officer offered
his own theory: Osama bin Laden did not exist, he told a visiting
journalist.
Rather, he was a creation of the United States, who needed an excuse to
invade Afghanistan and encroach on Pakistan.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
972 Baloch have
been arrested in Balochistan, Iran only in November 08
By Reza Hossein Borr
Tyranny has no any limits in Iran now. You as a human being and
international community can prevent the expansion of tyranny in Iran.
Tyranny began to grow when you as an individual, you as a leader, and you as
a nation believed that you cannot stop it.
The Tortured body of Mohammad Brahouee was delivered to his family after
being kidnapped on the first of December 08 by Iranian security forces,
according to Balochistan Human Rights Watch. Mohammad was seriously beaten
up in his own home, in front of his four children and wife and some
neighbors. When he became unconscious, the security forces kidnapped him and
informed his family after four days that he was dead.
When the family received the body, it was full of traces of torture,
fractured fingers, and holes in his feet, scarves on his back and chest and
severe injuries to his head. His whole body showed that he has been severely
torture to death. This 37 years old victim of the Islamic Republic of Iran
leaves behind a young wife and four small children.
The official Iranian Isna news agency also reported that one Baloch has been
killed on second of December 08. The name of the victim was identified only
as Abdullah. The Islamic regime usually does not give full details of
identities of its victims. It is generally known in Iran that the Islamic
regime usually arrests human rights and political activists mostly from
Baluchistan and Kurdistan and executes them with ordinary criminals
collectively to prevent the outrage of civil society activities.
Radio Baluchi, a reliable information source of Baluchistan, quoted Iranian
official news agencies that 37 Sunni and Baluch have been killed in December
08 in Baluchistan and its neighbouring areas. Chief Sardar Nekouee announced
that the security forces have arrested 972 men in Baluchistan during an
operation which was aimed at establishing and promoting social stability in
Baluchistan. <http://sb.isna.ir/mainnews.php?ID=News-20172>
Colonel Molla Shahi, the commander of Iranian security forces in Baluchistan
announced that three Baluch have been arrested and one was killed during an
operation in which 28 tonnes of rice was confiscated. This is not the first
time that the ordinary Baluch people are getting arrested or killed for
trading foodstuff within the borders of Iran. The Baluch businessmen face
severe limitations in conducting their legal businesses. The Islamic
Republic of Iran deliberately limits the import of food in Baluchistan to
create maximum poverty in this province which is the poorest province in
Iran according to all United Nations researches. The three tracks that were
carrying the rice were also confiscated. This is a clear indication of
impoverishing policies of the Iranian regime in Baluchistan. .<http://sb.isna.ir/mainnews.php?ID=News-20179>
The Islamic Republic of Iran is perpetuating tyranny by continuing the
execution and torture of innocent people unless you make a decision to stop
it. You can, we together, can stop tyranny.
How the regime can justify the killing of ordinary people who are involved
in transport of rice in Baluchistan?
Reza Hossein Borr is an NLP Master Trainer and a leadership consultant and
the creator of 150 CDs and 14 Change management models. He is also the
author of Manual Success, Manual of Coaching and Mentoring, Motivational
Stories that Can Change Your Life, and a New Vision for the Islamic World.
He can be contacted by email: sarawani@aol.com http://www.rezaaa.com
|