Money for the Taliban
Monday, 29 Jun, 2009
ONE must welcome the realism shown by the foreign ministers of Pakistan, Afghanistan and Russia in recognising drug trafficking as a major source of funding for terrorists. Meeting in Trieste on Friday, Shah Mahmoud Qureshi and his Afghan and Russian counterparts, R. D. Spanta and S. Lavrov, agreed to cooperate in a number of fields, including terrorism, drug production and trafficking, regional stability and sustainable development. According to a statement the three decided to explore the potential of cooperation in areas of border control, exchange of information on terrorist activities and organisations, training anti-terrorist and anti-drug police personnel and promoting tolerance and inter-cultural dialogue. Expressing the belief that terrorists could not be defeated merely by law enforcement, they called for the affected region’s socio-economic development. One harsh reality seems to have made the three ministers focus on the drug trade — Afghanistan has returned as the world’s largest drug producer. More regretfully, powerful elements in the Kabul government are allegedly involved in drug smuggling, and the Karzai government has been unable to act against them. This was a godsend for the Taliban. In fact, as Richard Holbrooke told Congress recently “hundreds and hundreds of millions of dollars” have gone waste in destroying crops without achieving the desired results, for this only served to drive the peasants into Taliban hands.
The various Taliban factions run billion-dollar empires. They need — and manage to get — big money for sustaining military operations, which require not only an uninterrupted supply of sophisticated weapons but also a modern logistics system, besides an underworld that runs recruitment, brainwashing and training centres. The point to note is that not all this money comes from the drug trade, for there are other sources of funding available to the Taliban, including from those who have misguided concepts of philanthropy. While the activities of the drug barons can perhaps be tracked if not totally crushed, detecting the flow of non-drug money to the terrorists is a truly difficult job, because this system is more subtle. This makes us wonder whether the plethora of intelligence and security agencies we have possess the skills and investigative techniques needed to intercept and break up the infrastructure of this source of funding for the rebels. While the tripartite cooperation is welcome, the onus perhaps is on us in Pakistan because of the subtlety of the challenge and its effect on the current military operations against the Taliban.
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Iran in flux
Monday, 29 Jun, 2009
IRAN’S Guardian Council has ruled that this month’s presidential election was fair and the “healthiest” the country has seen since the 1979 revolution. How it came to these conclusions after “10 days of examination” remains unclear, however. Given the stranglehold Tehran maintains over information, what is true or otherwise in Iran is hard to verify. The government has maintained all along that the election, which resulted in a landslide victory for incumbent President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, was free and transparent. But Mir Hossein Mousavi, who according to the official count was routed on June 12, believes he was short-changed. His views are shared by hundreds of thousands of Iranians who poured into the streets for days on end to register their protest. In the immediate aftermath of the election, Mousavi supporters alleged that there was a shortage of ballot papers at several polling stations, agents of candidates running against Mr Ahmadinejad were not allowed to oversee the voting process, and that some polling stations were shut down even though voters were lined up outside. Then they took to the streets.
What followed was a brutal crackdown by the state machinery. At least 17 protesters were killed but some claim the number was much higher. Women, who were in the forefront of many demonstrations, were not spared either. Neda Agha Soltan (1982-2009), who has become a symbol of the struggle in Iran, was apparently shot dead by a sniper while others were bludgeoned mercilessly by the Basaji and the police. Independent video footage supports these contentions. On Friday, leading cleric Ahmad Khatami declared that “rioters” — it is not clear if peaceful protesters are included in this category — “should be punished ruthlessly and savagely”. They should be declared mohareb, he said, guilty of waging war against God and therefore worthy of death. No one can contest the presidential election in Iran, it should be pointed out, unless he is vetted and approved by the Guardian Council.
If anecdotal evidence is anything to go by, Iran’s power brokers are not in sync with the mood of a sizeable segment of Iranian society. Roughly 60 per cent, if not more, of Iran’s population is under 30 years of age and increasingly frustrated by the social and political restrictions imposed on the citizenry by what is fast becoming the old order. What had relevance in 1979, or through the ’80s and ’90s, may no longer be applicable today. The protesters, for the most part, may have been driven off the streets through strong-arm tactics but that cannot change mindsets. Mahmoud Ahmadinejad originally came to power through a popular vote with his promises of helping the underprivileged and reining in rampant unemployment. His contribution on those counts has not been substantial even though Iran is the world’s fifth largest exporter of crude oil. A rethink may be in order.
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Restrictions on movement
Monday, 29 Jun, 2009
SECURITY and freedom are bad neighbours. To create a sense of safety and security, the authorities often put restrictions on people’s movement. Restrictions on pillion-riding, roadblocks and security check-posts appear differently to the government and the citizens. Popular reaction to such security measures becomes all the more negative when they are meant to block access to the government itself. It was under these circumstances that the Lahore High Court on Wednesday ordered the Punjab government to demolish a wall it had built to block a road connecting the Government Officers’ Residences (GOR) to a public park. The court ruled that the government could not be allowed to stop people from using thoroughfares, not even under the excuse of securing a neighbourhood.
But the wall is not the only obstacle impeding public access to GOR. A couple of weeks ago, footpaths in the neighbourhood were replaced with greenbelts in an obvious attempt to discourage the entry of pedestrians; at least four roads in the area remain blocked for all kinds of traffic, and the entire GOR remains off-limits to rickshaws, carts and a number of other not-so-pleasant-looking vehicles. These are not the first attempts to turn GOR into an exclusive zone. Under the previous provincial government of Chaudhry Pervaiz Elahi, the chief minister had a secretariat erected for himself smack where once a thoroughfare used to be. Senior officials had walls built on a number of major roads leading to the area where almost all of them resided. To what extent such steps induce a sense of security is subject to how they are perceived. The government’s standpoint is that its offices and residential buildings are obvious targets for terrorists and, therefore, should be safeguarded no matter what. But the citizens might be forgiven for thinking that a government obsessed with its own security can do little to maintain public safety. People also fail to understand why one area needs more securing than all others and see it as an attempt to differentiate between the rulers and the ruled. That they should see their freedoms compromised thus, without raising an outcry, beats the imagination.
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OTHER VOICES-North American Press How not to help the poor
Monday, 29 Jun, 2009
PEOPLE often talk about “a culture of poverty” as if being mired in dependency and despair is a personal choice. But what if government contributes to that culture with counterproductive rules that keep struggling families down? Today, a special state commission will release a report that identifies bureaucratic barriers to climbing out of poverty — some familiar, some new — and recommends ways to correct them. The Massachusetts Asset Development Commission spent the past 18 months looking for ways that low-income people can build up financial cushions, becoming less dependent on state assistance and providing a better foundation for their children. “Assets” can be something as simple as a used car for getting to work, a savings account, or a less tangible benefit such as an education or vocational skills. They are the keys to financial stability. Senator Jamie Eldridge, an Acton Democrat and co-chairman of the commission, says that up to 43 per cent of the state’s population is considered “asset-poor”; they are less than three months away from being unable to maintain their households if they were to lose their job or income. These aren’t just people on welfare; many work in service jobs or as office clerks, but they still need support from programmes such as food stamps, subsidised day care, or one of the new state-sponsored health insurance plans to help them keep their heads above water.
Unfortunately, these programmes can include perverse disincentives to getting better-paid employment or building assets. For example, a parent cannot keep more than $2,500, own even a clunker car, open a college savings plan for the kids, or keep more than $50 in child support per month and still be eligible for most state assistance. Eldridge has filed legislation to adjust some of those limits upwards. The commission report identifies a “cliff effect” whereby working people reach a wage threshold and are precipitously cut off from benefits. These people are working hard at difficult jobs; they shouldn’t have to choose between reaching for a better life and losing support programmes that make working possible. The current fiscal crisis has removed other pillars of support for low-income residents. A pilot programme that matched a working family’s savings in individual development accounts was zeroed out of the new state budget. Many programmes that accept applicants if they earn 130 per cent of the federal poverty line — just $18,310 for a single mother with two children, unreasonably low for a state like Massachusetts — now cap eligibility at 115 per cent. The state ought to help people climb out of poverty, not keep them cycling through. — (June 25)