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  #11  
Old Saturday, March 29, 2008
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Shifting of the Guard


Within hours of his election, Pakistan's new prime minister has set his government on a collision course with Musharraf.



By Ron Moreau
Newsweek Web Exclusive
Updated: 4:16 p.m. ET Mar 24, 2008


As expected, Yousaf Raza Gilani, a stalwart of the Pakistan People's Party, was overwhelmingly elected the country's new prime minister on Monday. He garnered 264 votes in the 342-member lower house of parliament against a paltry 42 for the candidate of President Pervez Musharraf's opposition party. When the final vote was announced, Bilawal Bhutto Zardari, the party's co-chairman and the 19-year-old son of Benazir Bhutto, the former prime minister who was assassinated by a suicide bomber last December, was seen wiping away a tear as he sat in the assembly's visitors gallery. Chants of "Long live Bhutto!" and "Go Musharraf, Go!" rang out from gallery. Quickly Gilani, the soft-spoken but highly respected 55-year-old former national assembly speaker, immediately set the course that he is expected to follow in a short speech following his victory. "If you want this country to work, the parliament must be supreme, the constitution sacred and the rule of law enforced," he said.

With those words he seems to have set himself and his coalition government on a collision course with the already seriously weakened Musharraf. Ever since overthrowing the democratically elected government of Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif in a bloodless 1999 coup, Musharraf has run a one-man show, manipulating parliament and amending the constitution almost at will to strengthen his position and prolong his rule. In defiance of the president, Gilani also made two pledges. One is to seek a parliamentary resolution to ask the United Nations to undertake a thorough investigation of Bhutto's death—a move Musharraf rejected. The second was to order the immediate release of all justices, including Supreme Court Chief Justice Iftikhar Muhammad Chaudhry, who was deposed and put under house arrest when Musharraf declared a state of emergency last November. It is widely believed that the president resorted to such extraconstitutional measures to disarm the Supreme Court, which was weighing whether the president's re-election to another five-year term was constitutional.

No sooner had Gilani ordered the freeing of the justices than police removed the barbed wire and concrete barriers blocking the way to Chaudhry's house on a bluff overlooking Islamabad. Chaudhry and his family had been held incommunicado for the past four and a half months. Even his school-age children were not allowed to leave the house. Upon hearing the news, hundreds of lawyers, supporters and journalists converged on the justice's hilltop house. Many made their way onto the front lawn by climbing over an eight-foot fence. Finally, Chaudhry and his family made an appearance on the second-floor balcony of the large, two-story house. Wearing a black tunic, Chaudhry waved to the jubilant crowd gathered on his front lawn and outside on the street. "I thank all the people who struggled very hard for the rule of law and to reach this day," he said.

Chaudhry may be free to move about, but he has not been restored to the bench as the court's head. That, however, may only be a matter of time. Asif Ali Zardari, Bhutto's widower who is also PPP co-chairman along with his son Bilawal, and Sharif—who heads the second-largest party in the national assembly—have pledged to move for a parliamentary resolution within one month calling for the restoration of Chaudhry and some 60 other sacked judges. Musharraf, fearing he could be unseated by the court, will doubtless use his own phalanx of lawyers to fight against the restoration of Chaudhry and his colleagues. But it may be a losing battle. "The public pressure and momentum will grow [for the judges' restoration]," says newly elected assembly deputy Ayaz Amir. Leading lawyer Asma Jahangir agrees. "Dictators should learn that people's power will overcome eventually," she said, standing outside Chaudhry's residence. Gilani's sudden announcement almost overshadowed his election. "The real show was in the national assembly today," Amir added, speaking on Chaudhry's front lawn. "But as soon as he [Gilani] ordered the freeing of the judges, the center of gravity shifted here."

Musharraf still wields power and will swear in Gilani as premier on Tuesday. But if Gilani and Chaudhry have their way, Musharraf's political future may be purely ceremonial at best.


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Fears and Tears


In an exclusive interview, the Dalai Lama talks to NEWSWEEK about the violence in Tibet, his vision of the future—and how he manages to sleep in spite of his distress over the killings.



Melinda Liu and Sudip Mazumdar
Newsweek Web Exclusive

Updated: 1:18 PM ET Mar 20, 2008

As news spread of massive Chinese troop movements into Tibet, and of hundreds of arrests, Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao told British Prime Minister Gordon Brown he was willing to talk with the exiled Tibetan leader the Dalai Lama if he renounced violence and gave up the idea of an independent Tibet—conditions the Dalai Lama has met with past statements. During an exclusive, wide-ranging 45-minute interview with NEWSWEEK's Melinda Liu and Sudip Mazumdar at the headquarters of the Tibetan government-in-exile in Dharamsala, India, the Dalai Lama talked about his willingness to negotiate with Beijing, his fears for the future, and how some government officials in China have sent him private messages of sympathy. Excerpts:

NEWSWEEK: Do you think Chinese officials still hope their problems in Tibet will disappear after you pass away?
The Dalai Lama: I don't know. I totally disagree with the view that the Tibet struggle will die, and there will be no hope for Tibet, after the Dalai Lama passes away. Both inside and outside [Tibet], the older generation may go away, but the newer generations carry the same spirit. Sometimes it's even stronger. So after my death a younger generation will come up.

If Wen Jiabao or [China's President] Hu Jintao were sitting in this room in front of you, what would say to them?
I always like to quote Deng Xiaoping and say, Please seek truth from facts. It is very important. I would urge them to find out what is really going on in Tibetan minds and what is happening on the ground. This I want to tell the prime minister, Wen Jiabao, if he were to come here. Of course, I have great respect for both, particularly Wen Jiabao. He seems very gentle. I would also ask him, "Please prove your recent accusations [that the Dalai Lama instigated the unrest in Tibet.]" [Laughs]

Do you have back channels of communication to the Chinese leadership?
Not serious [ones]. The usual channels are still there.

Do new technologies—cell phones, digital photography, e-mail and so on—make it harder for authorities to control the unrest?
Oh, yes.

Do they make it impossible?
Now authorities are trying to control [things] by shutting down these services. But it is very difficult to control everything.

What's the difference between what's happening now and the turmoil of the late '80s in Lhasa?
At that time it was mainly in Lhasa areas. And, yes, it is a factor that images can be seen elsewhere. But it is mainly the [extent of Tibetan] grievances. Today even Tibetan monks in Chinese areas carry Tibetan flags. I am quite surprised [by the prevalence of Tibetan dissatisfaction in areas far from Lhasa]. Now the entire Tibetan people have strong feelings. If [Chinese authorities] truly treated the Tibetans as brothers and sisters and as equals, giving them trust, then this would not happen.

Even privileged Tibetans who are in elite minority universities in Chinese cities such as Beijing and Lanzhou have organized vigils and peaceful protests. Why?

Yes, yes—if they're not satisfied you can imagine how nomads feel. I occasionally meet affluent Tibetans who are economically sound, who have good housing. I met one such person who first told me he had no worries. Then he confessed [he felt] mental anguish, and then he began to cry. As Tibetans they feel some kind of subtle discrimination by the Chinese.

Are you worried about the possibility of greater violence after you pass away?
Yes, I worry about that. As long as I am alive, I am fully committed to amity between Tibetans and Chinese. Otherwise there's no use. More importantly, the Tibetan Buddhist cultural heritage can eventually help bring some deeper values to the millions of Chinese youth who are lost in a [moral] vacuum. After all, China is traditionally a Buddhist country.

What more do you think the Chinese leadership wants you to do to prove your sincerity? Wen Jiabao wants you to accept two conditions—that you renounce Tibet's independence and renounce violence—before dialogue can take place.
Last year in Washington we had a meeting with some Chinese scholars, including some from mainland China, who asked me, "What guarantee is there that Tibet will not be separate from China ever [in the future]?" I told them that my statements won't help, my signature won't help. The real guarantee is that the Tibetan people should be satisfied. Eventually they should feel they would get greater benefit if they remain with China. Once that feeling develops, that will be the real guarantee that Tibet will forever remain part of the People's Republic of China.

The Chinese government wants me to say that for many centuries Tibet has been part of China. Even if I make that statement, many people would just laugh. And my statement will not change past history. History is history.

So my approach is, don't talk about the past. The past is past, irrespective of whether Tibet was a part of China or not. We are looking to the future. I truly believe that a new reality has emerged. The times are different. Today different ethnic groups and different nations come together due to common sense. Look at the European Union … really great. What is the use of small, small nations fighting each other? Today it's much better for Tibetans to join [China]. That is my firm belief.

You've said that two government officials sent private messages of support to you. Is there a significant number of officials in Tibet or other areas of mainland China who have shown sympathy to you in private?
Yes.

How many?
I am not sure, but many ordinary Chinese, thousands, have come here. And several senior officials have sent messages. I feel very strongly that there will be a change [in the attitude of the Chinese leadership]. Now the important thing is the Chinese public should get to know the reality. They should have more information about Tibet.

Will that be difficult? The Internet is heavily censored inside China. As a result, people tend to develop very polarized, often very nationalistic views.
Yes, yes. You know, till 1959 the Tibetan attitude toward the Han Chinese was affectionate, very close, something normal. Chinese traders in Lhasa used to be referred to with affectionate respect. But, of course, the name of communism is feared in Tibet because of what happened in Mongolia, and to part of the Buddhist community in the Soviet Union. Then the Chinese communists entrenched themselves; more soldiers came and their attitude became more aggressive, more harsh. Even at that time we complained about these "bad communists," but we never said "bad Chinese." Never.

During the last 20 years I have met a lot of Tibetans from Tibet—students, government officials and businessmen. They express great dissatisfaction. Now some of them refer to Chinese people in a derogatory manner. Even in prison there is a division between Chinese and Tibetan inmates. This I think is very bad. This must change. Not through harsh [measures]—that would just harden the stands—but by developing trust. I think real autonomy can restore that trust. As far I am concerned, I'm totally dedicated toward this goal. It is not just politics. My aim is to create a happy society with genuine friendship. Friendship between Tibetan and Chinese peoples is very essential.

Some images of the recent casualties have been graphic and disturbing. Have you seen them? What was your reaction? We heard you wept.
Yes, I cried once. One advantage of belonging to the Tibetan Buddhist culture is that at the intellectual level there is a lot of turmoil, a lot of anxiety and worries, but at the deeper, emotional level there is calm. Every night in my Buddhist practice I give and take. I take in Chinese suspicion. I give back trust and compassion. I take their negative feeling and give them positive feeling. I do that every day. This practice helps tremendously in keeping the emotional level stable and steady. So during the last few days, despite a lot of worries and anxiety, there is no disturbance in my sleep. [Laughs]


URL: http://www.newsweek.com/id/124365
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A Dangerous Place

India and Pakistan have made real progress in the 10 years since their first nuclear tests, but the relationship is still a powder keg.



Updated: 1:21 PM. ET May 8, 2008
WORLD XTRA|Sumit Ganguly



India and Pakistan were on the verge of performing their first tests of nuclear bombs in the spring of 1998 when President Bill Clinton proclaimed South Asia "the most dangerous place on earth." The tests went forward 10 years ago this month--India's on May 11 and 13 and Pakistan's on May 28 and 30. In the decade since, the region has crawled back from the brink. In 2004 the two adversaries began peace negotiations, which are ongoing. Pakistan has made a rocky transition to democracy and New Delhi and Islamabad have recently begun discussions about energy cooperation. With the two rivals making such warm sounds, U.S. policymakers, distracted by trouble in Iraq and Afghanistan, are in danger of largely ignoring the continuing presence and activities of various jihadi groups within Pakistan who remain committed to wreaking havoc in Indian-controlled Kashmir and elsewhere. These entities, which Pakistan's Inter-Services Intelligence directorate had spawned and nurtured, are still waiting in the wings.

Ignoring them would be a mistake. The nuclear peace between India and Pakistan is far more fragile than it would seem. The trouble is not with the governments of the two rivals so much as the hard-line Islamist organizations in Pakistan who remain unalterably intransigent toward India. They have every interest in reversing the small, fitful steps along the long course toward reconciliation. It wouldn't take much for them to succeed. A series of abrupt attacks against targets in India would not only derail the entire peace process but trigger yet another nuclear crisis in the subcontinent. Despite the limits on their time and energy, U.S. policymakers cannot remain oblivious to the dangers that these groups pose to the fragile peace process. Accordingly, they should work with the new Pakistani regime to push for the dismantling of this jihadi infrastructure.

Despite the restoration of civilian rule in December of last year, the governance of Pakistan remains parlous. Militant groups, almost for a certainty, were behind the assassination of former prime minister Benazir Bhutto. Since then, they have carried out a series of dramatic bombings in the cities of Lahore and Islamabad. The military, harking back to the time of Gen. Mohammad Zia ul-Haq, had spawned and fostered a range of these Islamist groups to pursue the twin jihad in Kashmir and Afghanistan. Many of these organizations, in recent months, have now turned on their erstwhile sponsors because of their intense frustration with the Pakistani military's willingness to participate in limited counterterrorism cooperation with the United States.

The popular fear is that one or more of these groups may seize components of Pakistan's nuclear arsenal and thereby wreak havoc in the region and beyond. This misgiving, while understandable, is mostly chimerical. Short of a wholesale breakdown of the Pakistani military apparatus, such an outcome, while most frightening, is quite unlikely. The military values its nuclear arsenal and maintains a firm grip on the country's nuclear weapons infrastructure. The more substantial concern is that one of these organizations will precipitate yet another crisis with India in which they embroil the new Pakistani regime.

Such a scenario is anything but farfetched. Though all but forgotten in the United States, most Indians and Pakistanis vividly recall how the two sides came to the brink of war in 2001-2002 in the wake of the brazen terrorist attack on the Indian Parliament on Dec. 13, 2001. Members of two Pakistan-based terrorist organizations, the Lashkar-e-Taiba and the Jaish-e-Mohammed, were implicated in these attacks even though the extent of the Musharraf regime's complicity in the episode remains unknown. As this crisis dragged on into the early summer of 2002, many responsible individuals in the U.S. government feared an escalation of tensions that could have culminated in nuclear war. Fortunately, in the end, India's forceful persuasion and sustained American diplomacy brought the crisis to a close.

Why might the existing jihadi organizations again try to provoke an Indo-Pakistani crisis? The answer is fairly straightforward. General Musharraf, having survived the 2001-2002 crisis, embarked on an uneven peace process with India. The recently elected civilian government, while trying to appease the jihadis at home, has nevertheless shown every inclination to continue this nascent peace process. Such a propensity is clearly intolerable to the militant groups. The jihadis remain unalterably opposed to the peace process, they are hostile toward the new civilian regime in Pakistan and they view India with unremitting hostility.
At one level, the United States, keen on retaining Pakistan as an ally in counterterrorism, has not succeeded in obtaining even a partial accounting of the vast subterranean nuclear bazaar that the renegade Pakistani metallurgist AQ Khan had spawned. The Pakistani military and the intelligence services placed a virtually impenetrable wall around the country's nuclear-weapons estate. It is unlikely that the new Army chief of staff, Gen. Ashfaq Kiyani will prove to be any more forthcoming than his predecessor, Gen. Pervez Musharraf, especially in the absence of renewed American pressure. Yet while Khan's clandestine nuclear commerce certainly facilitated the nuclear-weapons programs of dubious regimes in Iran and North Korea, given the intense attention it faces since its full discovery in 2006, it is most unlikely that it will be resurrected in any form. The nuclear danger in the subcontinent lies elsewhere.

U.S. policymakers, whose gaze has now been diverted from the subcontinents' woes, can ill afford to overlook the continued dangers that still lurk from within an unstable and brittle Pakistan. They should recognize that the jihadi threat emanating from within Pakistan's borders is seamless: the Islamist groups attacking American forces along the Afghan border have organic links with the jihadis seeking to provoke yet another Indo-Pakistani conflict with potentially catastrophic consequences. More to the point, their millenarian ideological goals pose a fundamental threat to all democratic societies whether in South Asia or elsewhere. The United States can only afford to ignore the dangers they pose at its own peril.

http://www.newsweek.com/id/136016
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PAKISTAN

The Price of Peace Deals


By Mark Hosenball | NEWSWEEK
May 12, 2008 Issue


As Pakistan's new government pursues peace deals with Islamic militant leaders in tribal regions along the Afghanistan border, some U.S. counter terrorism officials fear their "worst nightmare" is unfolding: a scenario in which Al Qaeda leaders in the area will have more freedom than ever to recruit and train new members. But the Bush administration is internally divided about how best to approach the situation. U.S. officials say they are particularly alarmed by the new coalition government's negotiations with Baitullah Mehsud, a fierce tribal boss and Qaeda sympathizer based in South Waziristan province whom Pakistan's own government has accused of orchestrating the December 2007 assassination of former prime minister Benazir Bhutto. (Bhutto's widower, Asif Ali Zardari, now heads her political party and is one of Pakistan's senior leaders.)

According to several U.S. officials, who asked for anonymity when discussing internal debates, many intelligence officials believe the United States must press Pakistan to resist going too far with its accommodations. "We continuously say that this is where bad things happen," said one of the officials. But other administration officials, including State Department diplomats, believe Pakistan's new leadership needs to be given some room to sort out its own problems. "The new government wants to distance itself from the policies of [Pakistani President Pervez] Musharraf," one senior U.S. official said. "They want to fight terrorism in their own way." The official said that the Bush administration is willing, for a time, to go along with Islamabad's efforts—provided that the government and tribal leaders "enforce" whatever peace deals they strike.

"Silence is probably the best American posture in public," said Bruce Riedel, formerly one of the CIA's top experts on the region, because "it's very clear the new Pakistani government is not going to listen to [Washington] on this issue." On the other hand, he noted, the recent resurgence of terror in the border regions began when Musharraf announced his own peace overtures in 2005. "This is a formula," Riedel said, "whose track record has been discredited."

http://www.newsweek.com/id/135393
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The Plot Against Turkey


The Ergenekon case is the latest salvo in the battle between the ruling AKP and the nationalist old guard.


Mustafa Akyol
NEWSWEEK

Updated: 11:44 AM ET Jul 12, 2008

Things are getting very hot this summer in Turkey—and it's not just the weather. A long-simmering constitutional crisis is boiling over, and the country is experiencing one of its most turbulent periods in decades. Over the past several weeks, Turkish authorities have arrested two dozen members of a covert ultranationalist group named Ergenekon for allegedly plotting to provoke a military coup by staging political assassinations and whipping up social turmoil. Among the plotters: two retired top generals, the leader of a paramilitary group, and Kemal Kerincsiz, a lawyer who has sued dozens of liberal intellectuals in the past for violating Turkey's law against "insulting Turkishness."

The Ergenekon case is only the latest salvo in a political war between the ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) and Turkey's nationalist and staunchly secularist old guard. The charges, if proved, point to a brazen conspiracy to undo the liberal reforms implemented by the AKP in recent years as part of its effort to move Turkey toward entry into the European Union. The plot seems to have grown out of fears that have been growing among Turkey's nationalists since 2004, when the nation's accession process began, and nationalists realized that as well as offering some economic advantages, the process could require Turkey to grant concessions on Cyprus, give greater freedoms to minorities and develop a more democratic political system.

This battle is sometimes defined in the Western media as a tension between "Islamists" and "secularists," but both terms are misleading. While AKP leaders, including Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan, share an Islamist past, they abandoned that years ago and redefined themselves as "conservative democrats" who champion free markets, traditional (including religious) values and pro-EU reforms. Since it came to power in November 2002, the AKP has proved highly successful, winning a solid electoral victory in July 2007. Socially, the AKP represents Turkey's economically minded masses, religious conservatives—including the rising "Islamic bourgeoisie" —and even most Kurds. As for those labeled secularists, they are not what one might think. Turkey's definition of secularism is based not on the separation of mosque and state, but the dominance of the latter over the former—all mosques are simply run by the government. Secularist ideologues argue that the state also needs to safeguard society from religion. The Constitutional Court, one of the enforcers of this ideology, ruled in 1989 that "society should be kept away from thoughts and judgments that are not based on science and reason." The result is a complete banishment of religion from the public square, including a ban on religious symbols such as headscarves.

This illiberal secularism goes back to the formative years of the Turkish republic, born from the ashes of the Ottoman Empire in 1923 under the leadership of Mustafa Kemal Ataturk. He and his followers were deeply influenced by the French Enlightenment, and were convinced that the influence of religion must be swept away from society. Ethnic and cultural diversity were seen as threats—hence the decision to "Turkify" the Kurds. The Kemalists' project was in fact a cultural revolution and a government they defined as "for the people, in spite of the people."

Though the Kemalists succeeded in building a strong state, most of the undesired social groups—such as pious Muslims and the Kurds—persisted in their demands for freedom and democracy. Yet Turkey's establishment, represented by the military and the high courts and supported by urban elites, remains attached to Kemalism, which has turned into a rigid ideology perpetuated by an official cult of personality. The reverence shown to Ataturk, evident in his omnipresent image and oft-repeated mantras, approaches the level of leader worship you see in places like North Korea. The Ergenekon gang seems to have been an attempt by the most radical extreme secularists to preserve the old regime, which has given the old elite unchecked power and privilege. Cengiz Aktar, a liberal EU advocate, likens the plot to the coup attempted by Lt. Col. Antonio Tejero in Spain in 1981, when he stormed Parliament to halt the EU accession process and restore the Francoist regime.

Like Tejero, the alleged Ergenekon conspiracy has failed. But the ideology behind it persists. One clear sign is the shocking case launched by Turkey's chief prosecutor, Abdurrahman Yalcinkaya, against the AKP four months ago. Defining the party "as an anti-secular threat to the regime," he asked the Constitutional Court to close the party and ban from politics 71 of its members, including Erdogan and President Abdullah Gul, a former AKP member. Their crimes, according to Yalcinkaya, include passing a constitutional amendment to allow headscarves in universities, and comments by Erdogan such as "Turkey needs a more liberal secularism like the American one." The notoriously illiberal Constitutional Court is expected to give its verdict on AKP's fate sometime in August. If the AKP prevails, it will likely continue on the path to the EU. But should the court rule against the party, it will also in the process strike a major blow to Turkish democracy and the country's EU dreams. There will no longer be any need for gangs like Ergenekon; the coup will have been realized by legal means.


URL: http://www.newsweek.com/id/145817
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'A Tremendous Day for International Justice'


How the International Court pieced together its case against Sudan's Bashir.
Travis Wentworth


Newsweek Web Exclusive
Updated: 7:26 PM ET Jul 18, 2008

With the controversial indictment of Sudan's president, Omar al-Bashir, earlier this week, the International Criminal Court is putting its reputation on the line. The court has taken years to assemble its case against Bashir, in large part because it is by design a passive institution: it can neither conduct its own investigations, nor make arrests. Perhaps more significantly, international reaction to the move is divided, with Russia and China complaining that it violates Sudan's sovereignty and NGOs worrying that the charges will endanger peacekeepers and aid workers in the country.

War-crimes investigator Tom Parker served as a special adviser on transitional justice for the United Kingdom during the trial of Saddam Hussein before going to Chad in 2004 for the U.S. State Department's Genocide Assessment Team to investigate crimes in Darfur. He talked with NEWSWEEK's Travis Wentworth about the evidence against Bashir and what it will mean for Sudan's troubled region. Excerpts:

NEWSWEEK: How will the ICC go about proving a link between Bashir and the crimes in Darfur?
Tom Parker: The I
CC has been operating with the major handicap that it doesn't have investigators on the ground. But there are plenty of organizations, both international and indigenous, that collect information. There are plenty of refugees who can tell about their experience [and] you've got African Union and U.N. peacekeepers on the ground, as well. They write reports which are certainly going to be made available to the ICC. Google had that Google Earth project, where they were monitoring the genocide from the air. So there are all these quite innovative attempts by the nongovernmental community to help the ICC overcome its shortcomings.

Do you think the ICC has a strong case?

Logistical stuff can tell you a whole lot about who's controlling what. [For example if] the Sudanese Air Force--as is often the case, or used to be the case with some of the village attacks--[is] flying an Antonov over a village and dropping explosives out the back three minutes before the Janjaweed [militia] turn up to assault the village, it's a pretty good bet that it's a coordinated assault and that the Sudanese Air Force and the Janjaweed are working in cahoots.

One of the things we found in the Bosnia conflict is a lot of the military communications were recorded by the other people in the conflict: rebel groups might well be writing down what they hear on the radio. Often when you're dealing with a relatively unsophisticated military, as in the case of Sudan, they're not encrypting a lot of the communications. So anybody with a radio tuned into the same frequency can hear what's going on.

Won't Bashir have to be out of power before these links can really be uncovered?
There will be scraps of information out there that illustrate evidence of a chain of command. Who's paying the salaries of these people, where are they getting their ammunition from, where are they shipping the spoils? When I was there, there was talk that the Janjaweed would steal cattle and camels and send them to Egypt or to Libya to sell. In a command-oriented economy like Sudan, If you're shipping booty by rail, the state's in on it.

Interactions the Janjaweed have with the authorities prove widespread cooperation between them and different aspects of government. If everybody's involved, from the state railways to the Air Force to the police to the arms manufacturers, there's really only one place all those strands meet, and that's at the top. You can start inferring the degree of political direction at a high level. So the way in which daily operations are run, snippets of information, eyewitness testimony, all can build a powerful circumstantial case that leaves no reasonable doubt that the government is behind it.

Other Sudanese officials have already been charged by the ICC, but only Bashir's indictment includes genocide. Would the indictment be weaker with only crimes against humanity and war crimes?
There's a snobbery about genocide. Genocide is always seen as the worst of all possible crimes. But the reality is crimes against humanity, as the name suggests, are pretty high-order crimes in themselves. People got hung at Nuremberg for crimes against humanity. I think it's very unhelpful to think in terms of a ranking. Crimes against humanity, war crimes, violations of the laws and customs of war, they're all very, very serious offenses.

How do you respond to the criticism that bringing up this ICC indictment will increase the animosity between Khartoum and the West, that it will actually endanger the peacekeepers already on the ground?
At the end of the day, it's about justice. And it's about trying to enforce laws. If as an international community we're going to have laws that say certain things are completely unacceptable--again, think of the term "crimes against humanity"--certain things are so horrible that something has to be done about them. Then you have to step up to the plate, you cannot enforce selectively.

How much more damage can be done in Darfur? Is this too little, too late?

As long as there are people alive, there are people to save. There's more damage that can be done, and of course until this ends, nothing can be rebuilt. So people are stuck in refugee camps, you don't have farmers planting crops, you don't have kids going to proper schools, you don't have normal life re-emerging. The damage is continuous and cumulative, and every year that it lasts, every month that it lasts, the damage for people in Darfur gets worse.

What's the best mechanism for stopping the crimes that are still going on? Is it the African Union, the U.N. troops, U.S. forces?
The Europeans probably should be stepping up to the plate and doing more. The former colonial power is Britain, and both Italy and France have had interests in the region--those are the countries that probably have the greatest obligation to become involved. Like a lot of people, my preference is to see an African solution for an African problem, because it's empowering for African nations to do that.

If there's a new government in Sudan, what about trying Bashir in his own country, the way Saddam Hussein was tried in Iraq?
If there was a change of government in Sudan and that government decided to put him up on trial, they would have superior jurisdiction. Any local trial would have to be held to the highest international standard, like we tried to do in Iraq. Involving local people to see due international standards applied in a trial of that magnitude is empowering. It can become a venue for national reconciliation, but it can also become a site of contention.

But the most important thing I think is that when a head of state is brought on trial, that trial must be immensely authoritative, which means it's got to be held to the highest standards. The work that goes into proving the case has to be done properly, comprehensively, professionally. It's not easy to do with international investigators, it's even harder to do with local investigators with very little experience. There are lots of different challenges. Both could lead to excellent results for the Sudanese people. Both would require careful stewardship, as well.

As someone who's spent years investigating war crimes, how did you personally view the news of the indictment?
I think it's a tremendous act. Whenever a head of state is indicted for major crimes, it's a tremendous day for international justice. I think we all like to see the people most responsible for hardship and suffering being held accountable for it. And it doesn't happen often.



URL: http://www.newsweek.com/id/147615
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South Korea’s One-Term Trap


A presidential time limit meant to ward off strongmen condemns Korean politics to chaos.


B. J. Lee
NEWSWEEK
Updated: 10:51 AM ET Jul 12, 2008

Lee Myung-Bak has had a very public flameout. Since taking office five months ago, South Korea's new president—a CEO-style leader who won a landslide election last December—has seen his power base collapse amid massive demonstrations that have hobbled the country. The troubles began within weeks of Lee's Inauguration, when he tried to push through a controversial beef-import deal with the United States. The president claimed the pact would boost growth by leading to a broader free-trade accord, but his opponents argued it would expose local consumers to mad-cow-tainted American meat and they took to the streets. Soon the protests spread to also target Lee's wide-ranging plans for educational, media and economic reforms—halting the so-called Bulldozer in his tracks so convincingly that, barely 100 days into his five-year term, analysts are calling him a lame duck.

What may be most remarkable about Lee's fall from grace is how common a story it is for South Korea. His predecessor, Roh Moo Hyun, was impeached after just a year at the helm (though he limped on to complete his term). Kim Dae Jung, Roh's forerunner, also ended his tenure deeply unpopular, despite his deft response to the Asian financial crisis and a breakthrough visit to North Korea. And two of Kim's three predecessors were tried, convicted and sentenced to jail for corruption after leaving the Blue House. Indeed, the track record for South Korean presidents is so poor that the young democracy has produced no elder statesmen whose reputations outlive their service.

The problem rests not with the men but the institution they occupy. South Korea, the world's 12th-largest economy, is one of the few modern democracies to limit its chief executives to a single term. The rule was created for good reasons back in 1987: to prevent the return of authoritarian strongmen. At that, it's succeeded. But in a good demonstration of the law of unintended consequences, it has also rendered the presidency perpetually unstable, turning governance into a sprint, not a marathon.

The problems with the current system manifest in a variety of ways. Unlike in the United States—a system Korea's Constitution drafters sought to emulate—Korean presidents have little time or impetus for consensus building or compromise because they're forced from the get-go to focus on legacy issues, not re-election. They typically enjoy just the briefest of honeymoons and then move too aggressively, making enemies before they have a chance to learn to smoothly manipulate the levers of power.

Lee's troubled tenure shows how the one-term trap works. Because the former Hyundai executive and popular Seoul mayor never faced a serious challenge for the presidency, he spent the year before assuming office crafting the new programs he planned to implement, rather than listening to the people. And his huge electoral victories—he won the December election by the biggest margin in Korean history (5.3 million votes), and then scored big again in April when his Grand National Party gained an absolute majority in Parliament—seemed to send him the wrong message. The conservative Lee assumed that his victories meant that liberals like his predecessor, Roh, were a spent force in Korea, and that the public wholeheartedly embraced Lee's neoliberal, pro-globalization agenda. So he hastily concluded the beef deal without realizing that he was handing his enemies a potent wedge issue. "President Lee didn't bother to reach out" to his opponents or their supporters, says Choi Jin, head of the Institute of Presidential Leadership in Seoul. Instead, "Lee tried to run the country as if he was running a company."

In retrospect, Lee's haste seems explained by the fact that he was paying more attention to the ticking clock than the political landscape. His transition team quickly laid out various major reform initiatives, including a broad opening of markets, plans to shift the language of instruction in high schools from Korean to English and massive public-works projects to spur economic growth. But these ran into trouble even before Lee took office. His public-approval rating, which peaked above 80 percent after his December election, had slipped into the 50s by the time he took the oath two months later (making him the first Korean president-elect to see his approval rate fall before inauguration). Park Hee-tae, chairman of the ruling Grand National Party, sums up President Lee's problem in a single word: "speeding."

Predictably, Lee's opponents took advantage of every misstep. Netizens, civic groups and labor unions hit the streets to denounce him, and as their ranks swelled, his support within the conservative camp evaporated. In typical Korean fashion, rather than rally around their embattled leader, GNP lawmakers began taking shots at him on the logic that by doing so, they could avoid falling themselves. It was an expression of the immaturity of South Korea's party system, which is driven more by inspirational personalities than ideology or shared political vision, leaving leaders little to fall back on when the tide begins to turn.

Various schemes are now being floated to address the fact that "Korean presidents become lame ducks from day one," according to a political scientist in Seoul who asked not to be named because of the sensitivity of the subject. The most popular (and least intrusive) fix would be to institute a U.S.-style two-term presidency, though more radical proposals include scrapping the presidency altogether in favor of a Westminster parliamentary system. Either would make sense, since the original reason for the limit has faded. "Our democracy is too mature to [fear] dictatorship," says Park Jin, a lawmaker with the Grand National Party.

Last week the country's new National Assembly Speaker, Kim Hyong-oh, said he would form a special legislative committee to study possible constitutional revisions, which would require majority approval in a national referendum and two thirds support in the legislature. Professor Park Myong Ho at Seoul's Dongguk University forecasts that such a change could be completed within two years.

That probably won't be soon enough to help the Bulldozer regain full traction, however. Lee's trade deal is in tatters. His plans to privatize public companies and launch massive infrastructure projects are on hold. And his pledge to double per capita income to $40,000 within a decade is now widely seen as beyond his political reach. "He will try to do things step by step, while adjusting some of his ambitious goals to reflect the stark reality," says Park, the GNP lawmaker. Yet his real contribution could be what South Korean politics needs most: a more stable presidency freed from the limit of a single, make-or-break term.


URL: http://www.newsweek.com/id/145807
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‘Victory for Democracy’



That's how supporters of Benazir Bhutto's widower, Asif Ali Zardari, hailed his election to Pakistan's presidency. But a very rough road lies ahead.


By Ron Moreau and Zahid Hussain | Newsweek Web Exclusive
Sep 6, 2008 | Updated: 11:26 a.m. ET Sep 6, 2008



As expected Asif Ali Zardari, Benazir Bhutto's widower, was elected president of Pakistan Saturday by a landslide, winning nearly 70 percent of the votes cast. His cheering supporters hailed it as a "victory for democracy." He never faced any serious competition from the two other candidates, one representing Zardari's erstwhile coalition partner, former Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif, the other the routed party of former President Pervez Musharraf. Zardari's election marks a dramatic reversal of fortune for the 53-year-old former playboy and polo player who wed Bhutto in a family-arranged marriage in 1987. Before Bhutto was assassinated last December while campaigning in the general election, Zardari's role seemed to be confined to taking care of their two younger daughters in Dubai, their 19-year-old son in London, and playing a secondary political role at best. Her death, last February's election victory of the Pakistan People's Party of which he is now co-chairman, and his own shrewd politicking have catapulted him into the presidency. He is being sworn into office Saturday as Pakistan's most powerful, and its most controversial, president in the country's 61-year history.

Pakistanis are now wondering what he will do with those extraordinary powers. The country is facing a near economic meltdown and a runway Islamic insurgency. Just before the vote a suicide bomber killed 16 Pakistanis in an attack on a police post in the northwestern city of Peshawar. Indeed, some Pakistanis doubt that he is up to the enormous task before him, largely because of his dubious past. Zardari spent more than 11 years in jail on a slew of corruption charges involving tens of millions of dollars and prime real estate deals. As a minister in his wife's government he had earned the unflattering sobriquet of Mr. Ten Percent from the alleged commissions he demanded on government contracts. But he was never convicted of the allegations that have now been dismissed, and which he says were politically motivated.

As president, Zardari holds near dictatorial clout. He is commander-in-chief of the powerful armed forces that have ruled the country for more than 30 years—since the country's independence from Britain. He is the custodian of the country's growing nuclear arsenal. He has the power to appoint all three military service chiefs, including the powerful army chief-of-staff, and to dissolve parliament. He handpicked the prime minister, Yousuf Raza Gilani, and his PPP is the dominant party in parliament.

Musharraf enjoyed all of those powers but he lacked the political legitimacy and the strong, nationwide political base that Zardari now has. Zardari, who never attended university, cleverly engineered his election by garnering the support of smaller regional parties from the three provinces that largely felt left out of the nation's power structure: Sindh (his and Bhutto's homeland), Baluchistan and the Northwest Frontier Province. In the past political power usually flowed from the Punjab, the country's most populous and prosperous province, and home to most of the armed forces' top officers. By cobbling together these regional alliances outside Punjab, he not only won the election but he also gained the nationwide political support that former President Musharraf never had.

Zardari needs all the political clout he can get to face the country's daunting challenges. The once high-growth economy is seriously ill and not far from needed life-support. Inflation is raging at 25 percent, foreign exchange reserves are hemorrhaging, the stock market has lost 40 percent of its capitalization over the past few months, capital is fleeing, foreign investment has dried up, business confidence is shaken, and there are serious electricity shortages. Al Qaeda-linked Islamic extremists have become increasing aggressive and bent on expanding their influence even beyond the tribal agencies along the Afghanistan border where they have enjoyed relative safe havens. Over the past six months Gilani's rather rudderless government seems to have been incapable of dealing with these mounting problems.

There is a bright side, however. Over the past few months Zardari has proved himself to be an extremely capable and daring politician. He sacrificed his shaky coalition with Sharif to reach the presidency, once their marriage of convenience successfully forced Musharraf to resign early last month. That done, Zardari refused to follow through on two political promises to Sharif: to restore the Supreme Court Chief Justice Iftikhar Chaudhry, and to nominate a joint, non-partisan presidential candidate. Zardari, it seems, never planned to do either. In a pique, Sharif withdrew his PML-N party from the coalition to sit in opposition. But Zardari was secure. He had done his homework and knew he had the numbers to be elected president in the indirect election in which the electors are the members of parliament and the four provincial assemblies. "He outmaneuvered everyone," says pro-Sharif MP and political columnist, Ayaz Amir. "He has run rings around the PML-N."

Now Zardari has to use that victory as a tool to fashion policies that will save the country from what many say is impending disaster. Unfortunately his performance while his wife served as prime minister is certainly not encouraging. "He will have to rise above his previous reputation of being Mr. Ten or Twenty Percent, and of having placed his cronies here and there," says Amir. He has not really outlined a vision for the country other than saying he wants it to be "free, pluralistic and democratic." Lahore-based political science professor Rasul Bakhsh Rais adds: "He has not shown us any vision as to which direction he will take us. We hope he will acquire the confidence of the people, and that he can evolve quickly from a very sharp, shrewd, wheeler-dealer into an internationally respected statesman."

Perhaps one of Zardari's first tests will be whether he practices what he preaches, and agrees to shed the presidency of the power to dissolve parliament. Now that Zardari is president and has immunity from prosecution, there is also talk that he may surprise many of his doubters and critics by reinstating Justice Chaudhry. In recent days the PPP-led government has already restored three Supreme Court justices and a dozen more lower court judges to the bench who had been removed by Musharraf under his state of emergency decree last year. Above all, Pakistanis hope Zardari will not turn into another autocrat given his extensive presidential powers. "The country can no longer afford personalized rule," says Nasim Zehra, a respected political columnist. "We desperately need institutionalized, transparent and competent decision making especially regarding the economy and security policy."

Indeed, Zardari's relations with the powerful military will be crucial. The military already mistrusts him as a result of the past corruption allegations, Pakistani security sources say. Nor did he endear himself to the generals when in late July the government announced it was transferring command of Pakistan's intelligence service (ISI) to the Interior Ministry that is headed by a close Zardari associate. Feeling the immediate heat from the military, the government immediately reversed its decision, but the damage had been done. One senior government official with close ties to the military says that the generals saw that ham-fisted move as "the first strike" against Zardari. "In baseball you only get three strikes," he quickly adds. Knowing that the military was suspicious of Zardari, some of his staunchest critics even seemed to hope that the generals would step in to prevent his election. One of Pakistan's most widely read English-language newspapers, The News, put on its front page an opinion piece written by one of its top editors asking "whether [military] intervention to stop the situation going totally out of hand is advisable?"

Army chief Parvez Kayani is in no mood to intervene in politics—at least not yet. He has studiously removed the army from playing any direct political role since he assumed the top slot from Musharraf late last year. He should be rather pleased with Zardari's unflinching support of the military's recent offensives in the tribal area, particularly in Bajaur where the security forces claim to have killed several hundred militants in ground, artillery and air attacks over the past three weeks. Ever since the new government replaced Musharraf after last February's elections, the generals have been trying to get the ruling coalition to take "ownership" of their aggressive military campaign against the tribal insurgents and Al Qaeda along the border. In a recent Washington Post op-ed piece, Zardari did just that. "I will work to defeat the domestic Taliban insurgency and to ensure Pakistan territory is not used to launch terrorist attacks against our neighbors or on NATO forces in Afghanistan," he wrote. "We stand with the U.S., Britain, Spain and others who have been attacked. The war we are fighting is our own war."

That's music to the ears of the Bush administration and to presidential rivals John McCain and Barack Obama as well. They are publicly committed to urging, if not forcing, Pakistan "to do more" to combat extremism and end cross border attacks into Afghanistan. Zardari seems to be on board. Still, satisfying the demands of the United States in the war on terror will be difficult enough. Curing Pakistan's economic, social and political ills will even be harder.


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