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  #71  
Old Thursday, October 18, 2007
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An ever-spinning wheel



Thursday, October 18, 2007

Shireen M Mazari

Being away in my village over the Eid week is always a restful experience but also one which brings a different perspective to national issues. While Islamabad was abuzz with issues relating to the independence of the judiciary, presidential elections and the NRO, in the village (the last bit of southern Punjab) no one seemed to be particularly pushed about any of these issues. As someone pointed out, their issues have remained the same despite political changes in Islamabad. There is the major issue of health services, of education, of natural gas and electricity, of neglect of the agricultural sector, crime and the terror of criminal gangs supported by some local politicians. In addition, the absolute absence of development money coming from the district is another issue as is the control of the local administration by the district government. So far there has been no accountability of the funds put at the disposal of either the previous district nazim or the present one.

Regardless of who has or is in power, things have not changed much in these parts. While the family does what it can in terms of education and health, the big issue is why should Pakistani citizens in these rural areas have to be dependent on the largesse, goodwill or charity of individuals? Is it not their right as citizens to have access to the same basic facilities -- meagre though they may be -- that their urban counterparts have access to? Yet, despite handing over countless fact sheets and data to get the provincial government to move on education and health, beyond a sympathetic hearing nothing moves.

As for agriculture, we had a bumper wheat crop and the hoarders created a wheat shortage nationwide. Who will bring them to book? The sugar crop looks good too but who will control the sugar barons? Who will ensure that southern Punjab gets its share of water rather than it being diverted to the more politically sensitive lobbies of Sindh? It is no wonder then that at least in the area around my village no one lays great store by any change of political face. In any case, we all seem to be caught in a cyclical merry-go-round which offers nothing new -- just more of the same. It is the same pattern that repeats itself at the national level also, but in our rural area the exuberance for change is long dead since there is now a feeling that "change" is simply a repeat of the past. That is why, unlike in the urban areas, and perhaps the rural areas of Sindh, Ms Bhutto's return has not yet become a topic for discussion in our part of southern Punjab.

In fact, as Ms Bhutto returns, barring some last minute rethink, beyond the throngs galvanised by local leaders to welcome her back one cannot but feel entrapped in the "no beginning and no ending" model of Pakistani politics. We go around in circles, "like an ever-spinning wheel, never ending or beginning" -- to borrow from an English pop song -- with no new starts and no old closures. Despite constitutional changes, military coups and visible corruption, the story remains unchanged in terms of the main players. Pakistan has over 160 people, but we cannot shake off the limited and familial construct of our political leadership. The Sharifs were expected to bring in new, middle class, entrepreneurial and professional blood but they also got sucked into the old construct. So we have continued to have the same pattern post-1971-- electoral politics with a face-off between the Sharifs and Bhutto-Zardari, military takeovers and/or interim set-ups and back to the same electoral pattern again with nothing new or afresh to take the country truly forward. As for the other political parties, they have been unable to move beyond the "balancer" role at the national level. What happens to the committed souls who manage to galvanise the nation's spirit for particular causes? Why and where to they disappear?

With Ms Bhutto's return, the nightmare of carpetbaggers from the old "Pinky" crowd -- with a few new opportunist additions -- is already beginning to haunt many who saw the nation and its resources being treated as a personal fiefdom to be pillaged and plundered at will. Only this time it will be worse because they will have the sponsorship of powerful external players like the US and the UK. Perhaps the biggest nightmare is going to be the US private security personnel that are reportedly going to be accompanying Ms Bhutto. The havoc that US private security firms can cause should be studied carefully by the Pakistani nation and information is available abundantly in the case of some US security firms such as Combat Support Associates and Blackwater USA. The latter especially, has unleashed its murderous personnel on to the innocent Iraqi populace. They have killed unarmed Iraqi civilians by the hundreds and the cases are well-documented but they are all immune from Iraqi laws. Will Ms Bhutto's private US security personnel also be immune from Pakistani laws?

The issue is important because the last thing Pakistan needs right now is to have the US introduce private security personnel -- effectively mercenaries -- into the war on terror in this region. Yet, given Ms Bhutto's commitment to effectively give the US open access to Pakistan -- what little is still being denied them -- the private US security personnel may be the opening desired by the US to bring in the mercenary factor into the war on terror in Pakistan.

Perhaps the US factor is the only new input into our never changing political wheel. While the US has always influenced certain of our political elites, never before has the US tried so brazenly to engineer our political milieu. Can the US factor alter the national dynamics and liberate us from the 'no beginning-no ending' pattern of politics? Will our people be up to the challenge of rejecting the 'Made in the USA' model of politics and political leadership and look for a truly national leadership ensconced in indigenous values and traditions? Or will we continue to accept the US as the puppet string-pullers?

There are critical domestic and external issues impinging on our choice as a nation. There is the increasingly costly and debilitating US-designed war on terror; there is our relationship with India now enshrined in dialogue but which requires us to reject the Indian model of dialogue based on a Cold War model; there is our whole worldview to be redefined in a truly global rather than a Washington-focused prism; and, most importantly, there is the issue of a holistic national reconciliation through truth and tolerance for 'the other' as well as an embracing of our rich national diversity.

As a beginning, breaking with the ever-spinning political wheel of the past requires a self-confidence and assuredness in ourselves as Pakistanis. Only in this sense is the Pakistani nation truly at an important political crossroad today.



The writer is director general of the Institute of Strategic Studies, Islamabad. Email: smnews80@hotmail.com

http://www.thenews.com.pk/daily_detail.asp?id=76090
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AFRMS (Wednesday, October 24, 2007)
  #72  
Old Wednesday, October 24, 2007
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STOP THIS MADNESS

Wednesday, October 24, 2007
Shireen M Mazari

The terrorist attacks against Ms Bhutto's cavalcade in Karachi, once again resulted in the deaths of innocent people. There can be no condemnation too strong for this dastardly act of cowardice clearly intended to kill the innocent followers of the Bhutto name. A raging debate is now taking place on whether or not Ms Bhutto should have heeded the multiple warnings about suicide bombers having been assigned to attack her; whether or not she should have taken the government's advice and at the very least desisted from the mammoth rally to show her popular support rather than playing the spoilt brat and letting the human shield of the poor around her suffer the ultimate sacrifice; whether or not abstaining from huge public rallies will in fact be a succumbing to the terrorist's agenda; and so on. But no part of this debate can impact the utter condemnation and rejection of the terrorist act itself.

Yet, this act once again highlighted the growing irrationality and absurdity in which we as a nation are being plummeted ever since we became an ally in the US-led war on terror. This is the second time we have become a front line state for a US-led war -- and the consequences are even more dire this time round. In the first US-led war in Afghanistan, we ended up with millions of refugees the world forgot about; we had our society's fabric rent asunder through the drug and "Kalashnikov" culture and we won no kudos from the Afghans for our sacrifices in ensuring the Soviet withdrawal from their land. As for the political costs within our domestic policy -- we saw the rise of sectarian and ethnic cleavages and the official imposition of a harsh and distorted version of Islam that did not gel with the diverse cultural and Sufi-loving tradition that was an intrinsic part of a tolerant Pakistani civil society before the Zia blight. So if one was to do a cost-benefit analysis of our allying with the US to get the Soviets out of Afghanistan, certainly the costs were far too high and the benefits transitory.

In the present US-led war on terror, the costs for Pakistan are even higher, because we face our own terrorist threats. We need to wage a war against terrorism but taking our own ground realities into account. We cannot go the US route of bombing all and sundry with no regard for human collateral damage; nor can we go the US way in Afghanistan and Iraq where innocent people are being killed with impunity not only by occupying forces but also by the private mercenaries hired by the US. There are many reasons why we cannot go the US route in fighting what is an essential war against terrorism.

The most important reason is that we are fighting the extremists within our own people and therefore cannot afford the collateral damage in terms of innocent lives lost. That is why the earlier government deal with the tribals was commendable. It allowed for dialogue and accommodation and gave the local people a stake in their own preservation. Equally important, it was the first attempt in the war on terror to actually create space denial to the terrorists -- something the US-led war on terror has failed to do. In fact, the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan have so far created increasing space for terrorists and Al-Qaeda has spread into areas where it had no presence before 9/11.

That the deal eventually collapsed and we have seen increasing death and mayhem since then is equally apparent. Why did this happen? There are multiple reasons including errors -- with the terrorists succeeding in creating fatal misunderstandings between the tribals and the government, especially the Pakistan military. However, perhaps the greatest problem the deal faced was the US doubts over the deal and American demands, ad nauseum, calling on Pakistan to "do more". It seemed the US was never going to be satisfied unless Pakistan simply bombed the tribal areas to rubble. As their own lack of success in Iraq and Afghanistan has grown so the US has sought to draw Pakistan into a similar quagmire in the tribal belt.

So what has been the result of our "doing more" in the sense desired by the US? A gradual loss of credibility within the people of the tribal belt many of whom are increasingly seeing the military action as part of a US agenda. As the civilians suffer increasing collateral damage as a result of aerial attacks by the US and Pakistani military, we are losing the support of the besieged citizens of the area. Yet the war on terror is an unconventional war seeking to isolate the terrorists from their base of support amongst the locals as well as to win over the local population. So we are certainly not achieving these ends by forcing the locals to flee and by causing death and injury to innocent women and children and creating a wave of antipathy against the state as these innocent souls flock to the urban centres of the NWFP for aid and shelter. The worst result, perhaps, has been the spread of the extremist culture from the tribal belt to the mainstream of the country with a special impact on women at all levels. Our collateral damage in terms of our citizens has long-term political costs we will, as a nation, be paying, long after the US and its allies have left this region.

There is an insanity to what is happening in Pakistan today. Our alliance with the US is extracting a terrible price in terms of our national cohesion. Provincialism, that fuelled separatism in East Pakistan in 1971, is raising its head in the tribal belt also. Ironically, Ms Bhutto herself played the provincial card when she lashed out against the Supreme Court before her arrival in Karachi. And, despite the costs, some of our political elite want to draw the US in even more into our state's internal workings, not just in the tribal areas but within the very fabric of the Pakistani polity.

We recently had the absurd sight of a US delegation telling us how to run our politics and asking the ISI not to intervene in our politics. Pakistanis also seeks fair and free elections and it does not become the US to issue sermons on this count especially given how they, along with the UK have sought to broker political deals, effectively writing a pre-election script for the post-election political dispensation in Pakistan.

As the terrorist threat casts an increasingly large spectre over Pakistan, it is time for us to stop the madness of following US diktat and evolve a more viable and holistic anti-terror strategy. The US has a suspect agenda in terms of the Pakistan military and we are in danger of falling prey to it. Why target the military in general and the army in particular? We need to recognise the fact that Pakistan's nuclearisation does not sit easy with the US and its allies -- and the nuclear capability has been targeted without let up by the Western media and politicians, especially post-9/11. Also, there is a clear understanding that the nuclear capability has been underwritten by the Pakistan military.

To create a compliant Pakistani state in the region, the institution of the military has to be weakened and destroyed from within. What is happening today in the tribal belt cannot but impact the mindset of the soldiers and officers. We must extricate ourselves from the madness of the US-led war on terror and adopt a national approach, embedded in national ground realities and a national political consensus if we are to rid our nation of the terrorist threat.

(The writer is director general of the Institute of Strategic Studies, Islamabad. Email: smnews80@hotmail.com)

http://www.thenews.com.pk/daily_detail.asp?id=76829
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AFRMS (Wednesday, October 24, 2007)
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Old Wednesday, October 31, 2007
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BEYOND THE MELEE

Wednesday, October 31, 2007

Shireen M Mazari

The country is increasingly dominated by a political melee with the return of selected leaders and their henchmen, courtesy the United States and the NRO -- although the fate of the latter thankfully is still not certain in terms of its survivability in the face of the law and legal norms. Nevertheless, Islamabad is already awash with old carpetbaggers and the advance guard for the perennial party hoppers -- of the political not social variety. Everyone is being targeted and old accusatory labels have also been revived with Benazir firing the first salvo before she reached Karachi in an attack against the Supreme Court premised on the provincial card.

Meanwhile, the temporarily reprieved allegedly corrupt souls are already trying to fit their favourites in the various corridors of power in the capital which is why the bureaucracy is off and running to secure their future. The disease has got so out of control that the Presidency has had to issue a warning to the State mandarins. Of course, Ms Bhutto's return has also given a boost to the pro-US lobbies in Pakistan and we are now being informed how the US "saved" us from a nuclear attack from India and Israel.

This despite the fact that the Indians were not prepared to risk such a move given the fear of a reciprocal attack on Bombay from the Pakistani side and the Israelis also faced certain uncertainties that have also prevented them from attacking Iran so far. In any event, if the US had advised against such an attack on Pakistan, it was simply out of their own national interest. So let us not feel any sense of obligation, especially given how we have been hounded and penalised for developing our nuclear capability.

In fact, there is presently an effort amongst Western analysts to present the case that it has been the US rather than the nuclear factor that has prevented escalation of conflict and also on occasion actual conflict between Pakistan and India. The arguments used are based on unsubstantiated assumptions, but those seeking to downplay the value of the nuclear capability will latch on to anything.

In this connection it is good to see the Foreign Office finally state publically, what then Indian Army Chief, General V.P. Singh had already acknowledged in May 2002 -- that at the time of Kargil, Pakistan had not readied any nuclear warhead on its missiles. Perhaps we should accept that Americans can not only lie but do so frequently in terms of international politics (look at the case of WMDs in Iraq) and the infamous Bruce Reidel statement was simply a lie to assert the criticality of the US in preventing war escalation in the subcontinent.

Perhaps we should remind ourselves that both Pakistan and India kept Kargil deliberately limited -- with Pakistan not bringing in the PAF despite the entry of the IAF into the war. The importance of the nuclear factor in maintaining a strategic stability in South Asia cannot be underestimated -- just as the threat to this stability posed by the Indo-US nuclear deal cannot be overestimated.

Coming back to our domestic political antics, we are so absorbed by them that we are neglecting critical developments around us. The role of the Indian state government of Gujarat in the massacre of Muslims in 2002 has once again been established -- this time by the website Tehelka.com. Yet, our political elite has shown a strange silence on this count. Of course, the self-proclaimed champions of human rights such as the US and the EU have also shown little concern over this massacre of Muslims. They were silent then and continue to remain silent now. Why?

Similarly, the public writings of British writer Martin Amis calling on the Muslim Community in Britain to be made to suffer -- and he advises on exactly how this should be done -- have barely caused a ripple even of protest. Clearly, fanning hatred against Muslims has become kosher in the US and many parts of Europe post-9/11. Racism is acceptable if the target is a Muslim.

Under these circumstances, we in Pakistan must not be swept away by the Western rhetoric of "extremism". There are "extremists" on both sides of the religious and political divides – including secular extremists and the neo-con Christian extremists of the US who have unleashed their own terror in Iraq and, through Israel, in Palestine. While we need to fight a war on terror to eliminate this scourge from our country, the war itself cannot simply be military-centric with civilian collateral damage. This will only end up aggravating the cleavages within our polity and make national reconciliation that much more difficult. Nor will such a strategy be tenable in the long run since fighting against one's own people is difficult to begin with. Already, the damage to our nation and state has been tremendous in terms of the social fabric and national cohesion.

Instead, we must adopt a holistic approach which will give the local people in the tribal belt and areas like Swat a stake in the system so that the terrorists and perpetrators of violence are isolated. Space denial can only come by winning over the ordinary people -- and that means co-opting local leaders against the terrorists. Our anti-terrorist policy has to be delinked from the US war on terror to give it internal credibility, which will also allow our security forces to be more effective. There is a need to also take more seriously, the foreign elements fanning the violence.

It would be interesting to find out where the hundreds of Americans trained in Pushto and pictured appearing in local garb with beards, have all disappeared. As for our Indian neighbours, we need to be more vociferous over their presence in Afghanistan along the border with Pakistan. Equally important, we need to have better human intelligence as well as information on foreign finances and arms coming into the country.

At the end of the day, those who break the law must be punished and no dialogue can be held with terrorists. But we need to learn from our mistakes. Take the case of Lal Masjid. When there was a need to take strong action against the illegal occupation of the children's library, the state hesitated, sending all the wrong signals. The wrongdoers skilfully exploited the state's hesitancy and the media became increasingly more sympathetic to them. The final error by the state was to label the whole issue a "hostage crisis" – which it clearly was not. The net result has been that even though the state finally took action against the law breakers and perpetrators of violence, the public has done an about face and the level of sympathy for the Lal Masjid inhabitants has been tremendous. In addition, international human rights organisations are also seeking explanations from the state over its use of force. Meanwhile, the Supreme Court has also effectively sought to restore the status quo ante.

Similarly, in the case of FATA and other parts of NWFP where the state has been neglected development for decades and created no stake in the system for the locals, the vacuum has been filled by hatred-spewing preachers and terrorist recruiters. The state cannot simply alter this situation by use of force. The force has to be measured and accompanied by economic incentives and political outreach -- including bringing back the local political forces backed by state support. Finally, our elite's claims of being tolerant would sound more credible if this reflected an acceptance of the richly diverse landscape of this nation. This means ridding ourselves of hackneyed Western labels of "liberal" and "extremist" and embracing all who are prepared to accept the legal parameters of the law of the land.


The writer is director general of the Institute of Strategic Studies, Islamabad. Email: smnews80@hotmail.com

http://www.thenews.com.pk/daily_detail.asp?id=77956
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Old Wednesday, November 07, 2007
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SAVE US FROM OUR SAVIOURS

Wednesday, November 07, 2007

Shireen M Mazari

Lawyers and ordinary concerned citizens are being beaten up and arrested while one of the allegedly most corrupt, and now most opportunistic politicians, struts free salivating at the full coffers of the country's reserves and ready to sell her soul to erase her past misdeeds and gain access once again to the state. The judges of the Supreme Court who have stood tall to defend the Constitution and have held the bureaucracy to account are literally locked behind their gates as the people's basic rights are now abused with impunity by the same officials who resented being held to account for these actions earlier -- probably for the first time in the country's history.

As for the truth, it has been lost amid the media blackout and the plethora of unbelievable statements including the bizarre denial by the newly-appointed functionaries of the Supreme Court judgement on the PCO by a bench of the Supreme Court. This, despite the fact that the judgement has been printed in the newspapers and was sent to all the provincial high courts as well. In such an environment, the rumour mills are having a field day as an air of uncertainty and gloom haunts the nation. Certainly, how can any citizen with a passionate commitment to this country, to its beauteous diversity, to its intensely emotive people, to its achievements in adversity, to its institutions, do anything other than shed tears at this sorry state of affairs?

It is an irony that, despite the increasing tide of terrorism confronting the nation and the political machinations, despite the interventions and attempted meddlings of external actors, despite the dialectic between so-called liberalism and so-called conservatism, there was a vibrancy and hope that pervaded the nation. This was the result of the resurgence of the judiciary and what one saw as a climate of healthy tolerance for "the other" as reflected in the innumerable media debates and discussions. Certainly the independent media erred often times as did the state, and certainly there was a growing debate on exactly where we were headed in the US-led war on terror. But there was a feeling that systems and institutions could finally come to take precedence over ad hocism and individualism.

Then in one swoop, that vibrancy and hope have been lost. The dent to the democratic process, however flawed it may have been, has been a major blow for this nation as has been the violence and arrest of activists, leaders, lawyers, judges, journalists, students and simply ordinary citizens with a commitment to their vision of this great nation. A civil society living under fear and constant threat leads to a weak nation -- something our enemies have been seeking for a long time.

Whatever the intent of the 'emergency' (effectively martial law) -- and apart from the official rationalisations many other reasons are also being hotly debated -- the loser at the end of the day is the nation as a whole. However, more ominously, what is being threatened most immediately is the security of the country -- at two critical levels. One is the more immediately visible level of detracting the security forces from dealing with the terrorist threat. With huge deployments in cities to counter the political and civil dissent, to sustain a growing level of house arrests and so on, and with a finite number of personnel, the loss will be felt in other areas of operations. So, in many ways, the terrorists will gain more space amongst the extremists far beyond the tribal belt.

However, it is the second more long-term negative impact that should be a cause for national concern. This is the impact that events have already been having on the institution of the military. The Pakistan military is a highly cohesive and professional organisation -- one that has a central role in protecting and enhancing our strategic assets. That is why external actors like the US, who seek weak and compliant Muslim states, know that at the end of the day they will need to undermine the institution of the military even as they attempt to sow discontent within civil society -- not only amongst each other but also in terms of the civil-military equation. After all, even at times of intense alliance, Pakistan as a state has managed to stand firm on its national interests.

This was the case when we developed our nuclear capability; when we refused to go along with the US invasion of Iraq and our continuing refusal to play ball with the US on Iran. On the US-led war on terrorism, for a while Pakistan chose to adopt a more holistic approach than the military-centric US approach with its massive collateral damage in terms of civilian losses. We did realise that such losses cannot be sustained by our military in the war on terror because the targets are our own people.

Also, a prolonged operation against our own people would be stressful for the rank and file of the security forces and this is what seems to be happening. Large-scale kidnappings of security personnel are extremely damaging to the security institutions. Equally damaging is the long-term political intervention of the military in national affairs. The rumours doing the rounds on Monday last regarding a counter coup and so on do no good to the health of the military institution. Yet it is critical for Pakistan to maintain the professional vibrancy of its military.

It is interesting to note that in terms of Pakistan the US has always praised its leaders with whom it evolved beneficial equations rather than the nation as a whole. Saddam was seen as a dangerous "tyrant" but it is Pakistan as a whole that is seen as "dangerous" or being overwhelmed by extremists. Interestingly, the US Centcom chief visited Pakistan a day before the declaration of 'emergency' and a few days earlier the Jordanian king had also visited. Was support for US policy on Iran an issue for discussion?

The point is that the US stands to benefit tremendously right now because it may demand costly quid pro quos for toning down their criticism of the 'emergency'. That is why Ms Bhutto is increasingly being viewed as part of the US deal-making -- hence her rather guarded protest against the 'emergency'. Will the US now have a freer military hand in the tribal belt? Will Pakistan move closer to US policy on Iran? So many questions and suspicions naturally come to mind given the past record of the US vis-a-vis my beloved country. I am what I am because of Pakistan and I am nothing without Pakistan.

So, at the end of the day, it is not an issue of "transitionists" versus "confrontationists" or "revolutionaries", within the Pakistani context -- there being no authentic revolutionaries within our midst. It is an issue of national perspectives versus external perspectives and national institutions being strengthened rather than individuals. Our temporal salvation lies in strong institutions and stable systems, not in individual "saviours".


(The writer is director general of the Institute of Strategic Studies, Islamabad. Email: smnews80@hotmail.com)

http://www.thenews.com.pk/daily_detail.asp?id=79228
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Old Wednesday, November 14, 2007
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Wednesday, November 14, 2007
Shireen M Mazari

Only in Pakistan can we witness the ultimate in bizarre scenarios. There we have members of civil society fighting alongside lawyers and media persons to struggle for the restoration of the Constitution, the independence of the judiciary and basic rights of citizens. We have seen the police spare no violence or abuse in countering these protests and throwing the protestors into thanas and jails. With college and university students also undergoing a political reawakening, civil society is becoming ever more confident in its sense of relevancy just when the political elites seem to be losing all relevance with their particularistic divides -- and their presence is felt more by their absence! As the terrorists in the tribal belt and Swat seemingly continue to make tactical gains, the mainstream civil society seems to have moved centre stage as targets of the law enforcers.

In all this, no one can take the theatre of the absurd away from the law enforcers whose brutality reached new heights of the bizarre when schoolchildren, who undertook a peaceful civil protest against the emergency-martial law, were beaten up and arrested by the Islamabad police. What an education in politics for the future generations of the country! Is this how we will teach them respect for the law enforcers? The irony is that the children agreed to break up their protest on the request of the police who then chose to attack them as they were winding up.

However, the law enforcers are not alone in conducting theatres of the absurd, though theirs is certainly the most violent and brutal. We have our very own BB, the darling of the West, conducting her own Kabuki theatre -- with its stylised and exaggerated techniques. Watching her drama on the day she was put under house arrest in Islamabad (some say she requested the same!) it was clear that she had brought a new glamour to the notion of 'noora kushti'. This was supported by the fact that her speech outside her house was relayed by all the official media channels so that no one would miss it in these days of the credible electronic media blackout. This drama was followed by her uninterrupted visits to the journalists' protest and a visit to the house of Chief Justice Chaudhry. As for her access to the Senate for her meeting with diplomats, no matter what the PPP explanation is put forward, it had official sanction.

Certainly BB is reaching new heights of the bizarre in her Kabuki drama with the government. The result is that while her Party's leadership has also by and large been spared -- Aitzaz being incarcerated in his capacity as the leader of the lawyers movement rather than a worker of the PPP -- with the poor workers and ordinary supporters of BB being targeted by the state. What a different scenario from the one being faced by other political leaders!

Friend Shafqat Mahmood has stated that if BB's long march is prevented, it will restore her credibility that she has now moved beyond her deal with the government; but I feel that that will simply be a continuation of the BB Kabuki theatre. The real proof will come when the NRO is withdrawn by the government and corruption cases are left to their judicial fate.

While we are seeing various levels of the bizarre being enacted in Pakistan, a very serious source of threat to the nation is the increasingly questionable role of the US. The British have sought to resort to an unbecoming imperial tone -- given the tiny British Isles along with the Malians, are all that remain of British Imperial might – but they really do not count in terms of power pressure on their own. But the US now directly threatens the security of Pakistan by declaring its intent, through a news story in The Washington Post, to "seize" our nuclear assets if they fall into the "wrong hands". Given that US nukes presently are in the trigger happy and dangerous hands of the born-again Christian fundamentalists that are the neo cons and their leader Bush; and given that Israel's unknown nuclear arsenal is in the hands of a brutal and violent extreme right regime; and given how the Hindu fundamentalists of the BJP had control of the Indian nuclear arsenal; how can the US have the gall to refer to Pakistan's nuclear arsenal going into "wrong hands". But as some of us have been saying for some time now, the US will always target our strategic assets one way or another because we are a Muslim state.

Meanwhile, the US has dropped all pretence of staying out of our internal affairs. The US consul-general in Lahore is now openly informing all the misguided social elite, who still insist on interacting with him that the Supreme Court had to be dealt with because it was giving some "wrong decisions". Has there ever been a more blatant intervention in our domestic affairs? Now why was he given permission to see Asma Jahangir when many Pakistanis are being denied the same? We have also had the US ambassador visit the Election Commission although can one imagine a Pakistani ambassador to the US publicly querying the role of George Bush in the 2000 US elections!

Perhaps the most bizarre happenings relate to the US desire to cobble a Musharraf-BB partnership without awaiting the results that a fair and free election will throw up. Under these circumstances it is not surprising to assume that what the US is actually seeking is not so much totally fair and free elections -- after all the trauma of the Hamas victory is still there -- as some sort of a national government headed by BB! Is that why it has said little about the forced stay of Nawaz Sharif in Saudi Arabia?

Finally, an almost comic scenario is developing as formation of interim governments becomes imminent. We have retired bureaucrats, civil and military, who all seem to undergo a democratic and nationalist rebirth after retirement and hold TV audiences hostage to their raging. There now seems to be an old folks club of caretaker candidates who descend on the capital whenever a caretaker or interim regime is in the offing. Why oh why do we always look to recycling old souls?

With all these shenanigans, it is not surprising to find Pakistan at the receiving end of ridicule and threats from the foreign media and governments respectively. While in the case of other countries, out of favour leaders tend to be targeted in their own capacities -- take the case of the US (official and media) targeting of Venezuela's Chavez or even Iran's Ahmedinejad -- in the case of Pakistan it is the country as a whole that is the target, especially by the US and its allies. So while leaders come and go, the image of the nation suffers long term. Something that is extremely bothersome is why our elites are ever ready, for their own interests, to paint dire consequences of "après moi le deluge"? In other words, if the status quo dissipates, the country will fall apart.

Nothing could be further from the truth. We Pakistanis have tremendous resilience as a nation, and our survival is not dependent on any one individual alone. After all not all of us have villas in Dubai or apartments and chateaus in Europe to run to so we must stay and fight for this beautiful nation. We must look to strengthen our institutions and systems, not individuals. As for those waiting for the imminent demise of nuclear Pakistan, they will have to wait an eternity.
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VASSAL MINDSETS


Wednesday, November 21, 2007
Shireen M Mazari

What happened to our independence we got in 1947? Watching the US officials and diplomats holding forth over the last few weeks on their grand political design for Pakistan gives one a terrible sense of déjà vu -- a harking back to the colonial days of the Viceroy going from one political leader to another discussing a smooth transition to independence. Clearly, the US has now decided to carry the White Man's burden and tell the Pakistani ruling elites what is expected of them. Seeing a junior diplomat from the US Consulate in Lahore telling reporters what the US expects from the Pakistani leadership and Ms Bhutto, if ever there was a case for declaring someone persona non grata this was it. But our 'moderate' elites seem to have lost even the façade of a sovereign independent stance. So Hunt continues to attract the political glitterati of Lahore and the US ambassadress sits next to Ms Bhutto and declares that the US is trying to bring together the disparate (read 'moderate') political forces together with the present leadership to resolve Pakistan's ongoing political crisis. Meanwhile Negroponte, a middle rank US official, is given viceregal treatment and unfettered access to all those who matter -- before he also holds a press conference to inform the Pakistani nation what he expects from its leadership. Have we retreated into a vassal-like mindset after 60 years of being a sovereign state of no mean standing?

The extent to which the US is treating us like a vassal state is the new demand by some extremist American political leaders that the US should prepare to send in their military to intervene in Pakistan -- no doubt seeking a takeover of our nuclear assets. Much is being made about the US working with Pakistan on nuclear safety -- as if this is something unique. The fact is that nuclear safety issues are also discussed between the US and India and undoubtedly between the US and its NATO allies and Israel. After all, technological sharing on nuclear safety is a global societal interest but frankly it is the US that seems to be having problems in this regard. After all, it was a US Air Force plane that took off with active nuclear warheads recently, without authorization! So there is much the US can learn from other countries' more secure command and control systems. It is not simply a matter of technological sophistication, but of cohesion and centralisation of command and control. It is at the level of strategic cohesion that the US seems to be failing, so let them look to their own problems with nuclear safety for the time being.

Coming back to Pakistan, the real tragedy is that while civil society, lawyers, journalists and students are fighting for their rights against all odds and many are suffering beatings and incarceration, the main political leaders are looking to the US instead of giving succour and strength to this spirited and freedom-loving nation and its struggle. First it was Ms Bhutto riding on the coattails of the US, but now even Mr Sharif has pleaded with the US that the Pakistani nation is looking to the Americans! As part of this nation and its civil society, we are certainly not looking to the US to come to our salvation. No indeed! We are looking to our own people to rise up and be counted and they are.

This is not to say that external support for a people's struggle for fundamental rights and justice is not welcome. But there is a difference between support and interventionist diktat and the US is guilty of the latter. That is why it would be an insult to the nation if such diktat found success. Clearly the main political leadership has not found confidence in the strength of its own people. But there are some who are still looking inwards to the people and they are suffering far greater punishment in terms of their mode of incarceration and in terms of the charges they are being threatened with. Clearly, the darlings of the west are incarcerated temporarily in the comfort of 'house arrest' while national heroes are cast away in the worst prisons possible. Double standards prevail even in modes of incarceration with nationalists bearing the brunt of the punishment.

One may not agree with Imran Khan's politics, but his stature as a sporting hero and a leading philanthropist cannot be denied. That such a man should have faced the wrath of hooligans on a university campus and been abused, manhandled and then handed over to the police like a criminal is a national shame. Similarly, the lawyers still being incarcerated in physically debilitating conditions, hardly enhances our image as a civilized and moderate polity.

The distance between civil society at large and those who are still looking to the US to alter the situation in Pakistan and bring about substantive democracy seems to be growing by the day as the former's protests against the emergency gain momentum drawing in a cross section of the population, including segments of the elite who were regarded as largely apolitical. Equally exciting is the new political awareness amongst the younger generation still in high school. Discussions abound, there is an inquiring curiosity about various political scenarios and internet sites are filled with young people voicing there concerns for the country and fully prepared to demonstrate this commitment. The media curbs and political repression have ignited a new vibrancy in civil society and there are doctors, retired bureaucrats, housewives, bankers and all manner of people expressing their support for the media and lawyers. The apathy amongst the university students has also been replaced by a new activism. It was heartening to note the large-scale protests, which brought in women students in large numbers also, in the Punjab University against the Jamiat students' mistreatment of Imran Khan. Clearly, the terror of these hooligans and the mafia-like hold they have on that campus will not have the same relevancy anymore.

The dynamics of the political discourse are altering and at many levels the traditional political leaders have been left far behind and wanting. They seem to have little to offer beyond the old rhetoric and seeking external godfathers. They still seem to lack faith in their own people's ability to fight for democracy, freedom and justice. The irony is that while these leaders still do not realize that it is the internal struggle that will bring about the change, civil society is fast realizing it. That is why instead of waiting for the US to intervene with their political engineering, they are fighting back for their lost rights. This is a defining moment for the Pakistani nation and it must not be allowed to be hijacked by those who are seeking external interventions. We are Pakistani; our struggle for our basic freedoms, for strong and independent institutions; for a free and robust media; and a sensitised and responsive state is a Pakistani struggle which we must wage and win on our terms, not on diktat from the US. The leaders need to rise to the national aspirations and the revitalized civil society, not remain stuck in a servile groove of looking to external advice and leads. Let us maintain an ability to distinguish between moral support and political meddling. After sixty years of nationhood, the nation has a sovereign mindset; it is the leaders who need to rid themselves of their vassal mindsets and rejoice in their Pakistani-ness.

(The writer is director general of the Institute of Strategic Studies, Islamabad. Email: smnews80@hotmail.com)

http://www.thenews.com.pk/daily_detail.asp?id=81968
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Pressing electoral issues



Wednesday, November 28, 2007

Shireen M Mazari


With the return of the Sharifs, the political tools all seem to be in place for a post-electoral change in Pakistan but will we be moving back to the old or forward to a more dynamic and truly new political landscape? Of course, the terrorist attacks targeting the military in Rawalpindi last Saturday have shown clearly that in many ways our operative environment has altered qualitatively and security considerations will have to be part of the new political culture. Equally threatening is the new intrusiveness of external actors in Pakistan's affairs. Now we hear it is not just the US government that is targeting Pakistan and especially its nuclear assets, US Jewish leaders are also looking to our nuclear arsenal as they visit our country almost in a clandestine fashion.

Meanwhile, it is good to see the playing field beginning to level out with the arrival of the Sharifs. With everyone filing nomination papers, it would appear that those choosing to boycott the elections may well find themselves pushed to the margins till the next elections. Unless the major parties had resolutely chosen to go the boycott route, this tool becomes only marginally relevant at a time when the nation may well be looking in wistful hope to new faces of leadership coming to the fore. In any case, it seems things will remain fluid for some time and a new dynamic will really begin to emerge after the swearing in of Mr. Musharraf as President.

However, with the commencement of the electoral process, some questions are already becoming crucial. For instance, will the lawyers' and civil societies' movements for restoration of the pre-November 3 judiciary and the free media be pushed into the background in the face of the electioneering process? Or will the political parties take up these issues as central part of their campaigning? Traditionally, in Pakistan elections have tended to focus on personalities rather than programmes and issues, so can civil society alter the political culture this time round? Given the crude manner in which powers like the US have intervened in our domestic issues, will foreign policy find any space in our electoral campaigns this time round? Have the political parties given serious thought to the war on terror and its dynamics? Given vested interests, will any political party commit itself to the destruction of food mafias like the wheat and sugar mafias that are destroying our agricultural sector? So many issues come to mind, but which escape the radar screens of the campaigning political parties -- especially issues relating to our external environment. That is why our foreign policy tends to be left to jaded bureaucrats, both civilian and military, and often times it tends to follow paths totally out of synch with the nation.

And there are important developments taking place in and around us today, which will impact us substantively in the years to come. There is the Middle East Conference that has now begun in Annapolis with the Arab World participating alongside Israel, the Palestinians and, according to last reports from Islamabad, Pakistan. This is the Bush Administration's effort to try and convince the world that it is seeking a lasting peace in the Middle East despite having wrecked the region with its invasion of Iraq and its deliberate policy of denying the democratic representatives of the Palestinian people, Hamas, their right to represent their people.

So at a very basic level this Annapolis conference is a way to once again circumvent the democratic expression of the Palestinian people. Interestingly, Syria has also sent a delegate and reflects its efforts to deflect US targeting of the country. Saudi Arabia is also participating and this is being seen as a major success for the US. Of course, participation by the rich Arab states is crucial for any such conference given that they will be expected to financially underwrite any agreements that may come about. Of course the political script will be the prerogative of the US and Israel unless the Arabs can, for once, use their financial power to affect the political script.

For the sake of bringing the suffering of the Palestinians to an end, especially in Gaza, one hopes that this conference can produce something substantive in terms of movement towards a just solution to the Palestinian conflict but there are some key issues on which it is unlikely Israel will show any flexibility. These include the question of Jerusalem, the issue of Palestinian refugees, the Israeli settlements and the illegal Wall, and then the ultimate question of what the boundaries of the Palestinian state will be. Then of course there is the issue of Israel's military presence around and over this Palestinian state? While none of these questions may find a just and acceptable answer, the one thing the conference has achieved is de facto recognition of Israel from states like Saudi Arabia since Israel is a central participant in this conference. That in itself will have been a substantive achievement for the US at a time when it knows that peace cannot come to the Middle East as long as its devastation of Iraq continues. Finally, the Conference also seeks to leave Iran out of the Middle East equation at a time when its influence there has grown. For all these reasons, what happens in Annapolis will impact Pakistan also -- that is why the increasing interest of the US Jewish community in this country.

An even more pressing issue for Pakistan is going to be the security, especially of its nuclear assets. Ms Bhutto has already shown how, in her passion for the US, she is prepared to give unprecedented access to that country in terms of allowing US forces access into Pakistan and in terms of handing over Dr Khan to the IAEA --even though the latter has never made such a demand. Only the US continues to make this demand even as it creates an environment of fear around our nukes!

Therefore, most important, will the new democratic dispensation review the whole gamut of US-Pakistan relations in the wake of the ground realities of a Indo-US strategic partnership and the substantive differences that exist between our national strategic interests and those of the US in this region?

Now that we have a revitalised civil society that has shown its dynamism in standing up for its rights, will that same civil society sustain its dynamism and confront the political parties and individual political aspirants into taking positions on issues. Whether it is domestic issues like the independence of the judiciary and media, or foreign policy issues. If our march to democracy is to be worthy of the sacrifice of so many ordinary people then civil society must raise issues for the political leaders. It is not enough that these leaders use emotions and charisma to get elected. For once we must know their stand on issues central to the polity. This is where the independent media is so crucial and why it must be restored with no preconditions if the electoral process is to become meaningful. Let us not accept simply the façade of democracy but struggle for the essence of democracy, which can now be within our grasp. Perhaps never before has civil society been so crucial in deciding its own fate.

http://www.thenews.com.pk/daily_detail.asp?id=83148

The writer is director general of the Institute of Strategic Studies, Islamabad. Email: smnews80@hotmail.com
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What a shame!


By Shireen M Mazari
Wednesday, December 05, 2007




Every crisis in Pakistan becomes an occasion for targeting our nuclear assets. That the US does so is to be expected since our nuclear capability, as a Muslim state, has never sat easily with them. That is why their so-called analysts and their media, aided and abetted by the ever-loyal British media, launch an offensive against this capability at every possible opportunity. And the present scenario in Pakistan seems to be presenting an ideal opportunity once again. So we have histrionics emerging from the US and British media about the vulnerability of our nuclear assets which is rather farcical, given that it is US weapons that seem to be having a problem of secure command and control.

This was reflected most starkly in the August 2007 incident of a US air force plane taking off with live nuclear-armed cruise missiles and seemingly no clarity as to who had ordered the same! The US Air Force had actually lost track of its own nuclear weapons! But the regular periodic attacks on our nuclear assets safety should not be treated lightly by Pakistan since we now have reports of the US military actually trying to put in place plans to take out these assets. We may simply shrug off such absurdities, but the US has a tendency of operationalising the bizarre and absurd with no consideration for the consequences and chaos that will follow. Post-9/11, US actions reflect this in a most tragic fashion -- especially for the Muslim World.

However, Pakistan's tragedy is that its own elite also use the nuclear issue to try and prop themselves politically with foreign masters. So we have had Ms Bhutto declaring her intent of handing over Dr Khan to the IAEA (read the US!) and most recently her dire warning that our major nuclear facility at Kahuta could fall into 'extremist" hands. All this of course is being done to play to the US gallery. Not that our other politicians are far behind in playing this scare card for the US, including those who till recently were part of the official ruling elite. Now a delegation of them is busy informing the US how, if they are not sustained in power, our nuclear assets will fall into "extremist" hands! In fact, our pre-November 3 Supreme Court is also being maligned within the context of releasing "terrorists".

This whole syndrome of playing to foreign galleries on the basis of either "après" or "sans moi le deluge" is perhaps our greatest tragedy. As if to say that, after 60 years of being, our nation is still so fragile that it will simply fall apart if true political change and democracy come about! Shame on all amongst us who propagate themselves on such wickets when they should know that this is a resilient and vibrant nation with a newly-rebolstered civil society. It is also tragic to see how after decades of struggling against all odds to acquire our nuclear capability, our elite are ever ready to undermine our nuclear assets credibility for their own political ends. Have they nothing else to offer besides scare mongering to retain them in, or come to power?

Clearly, our fast descent into ever increasing absurdities seems to have no brakes. The elections are degenerating into a major political farce with some threatening boycotts and others being removed through rejection of electoral papers. If anyone had any doubts about the specificity of the National Reconciliation Order, the rejection of the Sharifs' electoral papers should be an eye opener. Only Ms Bhutto has been absolved of all her corruption and legal lapses while in power -- whereas others like the Sharifs' will not be allowed a level playing field in the political arena. While critical of Nawaz Sharif on some major issues in the past, I still feel he has a more indigenous feel for this nation than Ms Bhutto who looks first to Washington and the West before casting a condescending eye on her own nation. Incidentally, talking to the few Americans who want to talk to critical Pakistanis, it also appears that they are now hedging their bets and so Maulana Fazlul Rehman has become the acceptable "Mullah" for the US.

Which brings me to a major irritant, for some of us at least: That is the unfettered US intrusion into our domestic political domain. US diplomats are in high gear giving out unwarranted advice on how we should conduct ourselves. Now we have US human rights activists holding vigils outside Aitzaz Ahsan's home -- as if Pakistani protestors vigils were not as effective. What an insult to our civil society. Do we really need US crutches? Given that the US has its own human rights abuses' issue, would it not be more suitable for the Code Pink reps to be outside Guantanamo Bay right now since we can look after our own -- and we should. For God sakes, let us keep our protests powered by our own people -- especially when there is a new momentum and force awakening amongst our civil society.

Given the farcical political environment that is emerging here, perhaps a grave error has been committed by civil society. As the protest has focused so much on boycott of elections, little thought was given to a third option -- that if the boycott was unsuccessful, there would have been the option of trying to bring new and untainted blood into the electoral mainstream through elections. Why could one not have fielded lawyers and other professionals by the dozens in as many constituencies as possible?

As things stand now, the list of candidates reads like a Who's Who from past elections -- the same tried, tested and failed politicians who will bring nothing new with them. To change things, we need the people who can effect this change; and in a democratic set up that can be done through the participatory process. So while in an uneven playing field and an emergency situation, boycott may have seemed the most feasible option, leaving the field open to the same old faces from the past is going to be a most undesirable future.

In fact, if one goes to the rural areas beyond Central Punjab, old faces are all ready to battle each other as they have done so often in the past. In my own area, -- Rajanpur -- we have the dismal choice of voting in a candidate who's only visible achievement while in the Punjab Assembly has been to ensconce his hoodlum nephews into local government and now is allied to an ex-caretaker prime minister who's only claim to fame was total neglect of his backward area; or voting in a failed politician who is allied to an MNA who ensured that control of the district government meant no funds to any part of the district beyond his own familial constituency! Ironically, PPP and PML-N candidates, at different levels, are allied to PML-Q candidates. So much for party politics!

The tragic irony is that while civil society is closing ranks on the common platform of an independent judiciary and media freedom, the political elites remain fractured and divided, torn between the lures of power and the need to respond to the call for responsive leadership of a galvanised nation.



http://www.thenews.com.pk/editorial_detail.asp?id=84360

The writer is director general of the Institute of Strategic Studies, Islamabad. Email: smnews80@hotmail.com
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US: THE MOST DANGEROUS NUCLEAR STATE

Wednesday, December 12, 2007

Shireen M Mazari

While much is being made of Pakistan's nuclear assets, facts on the ground reveal the US to be the most dangerous nuclear state in the world with a track record of failed command structures and failed safety systems for its reactors. Without making any value judgements, I want to simply present the data available from public international sources regarding the nuclear track record of the US.

First, and most recent, was the horrifying revelation that a US B52 bomber flew across the US carrying six nuclear-armed cruise missiles which led to a "Bent Spear" alert -- a code for an incident involving live nuclear weapons. Each of these W80 nuclear warheads had the destructive power of 10 Hiroshima bombs. According to the published data, the nukes were "lost" for 36 hours after the plane took off on August 29, 2007, from a base in North Dakota. So while western, including the US, analysts raise the bogey of the possibility of "loose nukes" in Pakistan in an almost hysterical fashion, we already have the reality of loose nukes in the US.

What is even more disturbing about these loose US nukes is the lack of security that seems to surround US nuclear weapons. Apparently, according to reports, the US airmen had replaced official procedures for handling these missiles with an "informally devised plan of their own". Given the extremist and psychologically disturbed personnel within the US military -- remember Abu Ghraib -- and the tendency of the US to bring in the private sector into the management of security, the international community should have some contingency plan to prevent the loose nukes incident being repeated again in the US. The danger is even more acute because religious extremists in the form of born-again Christians actually hold office in that country.

Nor is the nuclear safety problem in the US only related to loose nukes though that is certainly at the top of the threat spectrum. The other serious issue relating to US nuclear safety is of missing fissile and other nuclear-related material -- especially since unlike in Pakistan, in the US the private sector is a major part of the nuclear industry. Even a cursory look at the disappearance of nuclear-related material from US facilities should be enough to show the threat of nuclear terrorism from the US.

For instance, between 1957 and 1965, 100 kilograms of uranium 235 disappeared from a nuclear recycling plant in Apollo, Pennsylvania. This was weapons grade material and enough to produce more than one bomb. The president of the firm was reported to have close ties with Israel, but the mystery of the disappearance of this fissile material was never solved. In fact, US officials showed little reaction to Euratom's report of the missing uranium on the grounds that the material would have to undergo complicated reprocessing to be turned into a weapon. According to a report in Time magazine (April 12, 1976), Israel had operationalized a reprocessing facility in 1969, and had used it to produce a limited number of nuclear weapons.

Nor was this a one-off incident. Again, in 1979, nine kilograms of weapons grade uranium was found missing from a nuclear fuel plant in Erwin, Tennessee. More recently, in July 2004, an inventory of US classified weapons data revealed that four hard disk drives were missing. While two of the drives were subsequently found to have been improperly moved to a different building, the two others' remained unaccounted for.

Then, in October 2006, the BBC reported that the FBI is investigating whether information from a US nuclear weapons laboratory was found in a police drugs search of a New Mexico trailer park. According to police officials, the material and classified information recovered during the search appeared to have come from the Los Alamos National Laboratory. Earlier, in August 2006, it had been revealed that the lab had released sensitive nuclear research data by email. Interestingly, in an ABC News report in October 2005, Christopher Steele, the senior safety officer of the US government's nuclear weapons laboratory in Los Alamos, New Mexico, had stated that he could not vouch for the safety of this facility. According to Steele, the equivalent of 5,000 pounds of plutonium in barrels of radioactive waste was being stored outside the laboratory under a tent. Also, March to April 2005, in New Jersey, a package containing 3.3g of Highly Enriched Uranium (HEU) was inadvertently disposed of.

Finally, the US has also led the field in nuclear proliferation -- and not simply in the form of US citizens but the state itself, and the beneficiary was primarily Israel. The father of the US atomic bomb was eventually stripped of his security clearance by the US Atomic Energy Commission once his views on the hydrogen bomb production became suspect and his loyalty was suspected because of his alleged links to communist parties and groups.

According to Sir Timothy Garden, a fellow at Indiana University, Israel signed a nuclear cooperation agreement with the US in 1954. Between 1955 and 1966, more than 50 Israeli nuclear specialists completed a probationary period in the largest US scientific institutions. Israel received 6-10 kilograms of uranium a year starting in 1955. The total grew to 40 kilograms by 1966. The US provided Israel with a small nuclear reactor in 1955, which became operational in 1960. In 1958, US spy planes photographed the Dimona complex, but the US Atomic Energy Commission's (AEC) inspections of the Dimona facilities in the late 60s were hampered because of non-cooperation on the part of the Israeli government. In addition to controlling the extent of the inspections as well as the timing, according to Rohan Pearce, Israel constructed false control panels and bricked up corridors to fool AEC teams. As Pearce puts it, "an October 1969 US government memo, reporting on discussions between State Department officials and a representative from the AEC, implied that the US government had no problem with Israel possessing the facilities for building nuclear weapons." The memo made it clear that the US was not prepared to support a real inspections effort.

Despite all these public facts, the US continued to aid and abet Israel's nuclear and military capability. In October 1998, Israel and the US reached an agreement that committed the US to enhancing Israel's "defensive and deterrent capabilities." An agreement reported by the BBC in February 2000 between the two related to cooperation in nuclear and other energy technologies and this agreement allowed Israeli scientists to once again gain access to US nuclear technology. So it is hardly surprising to find that by October 2003 Israeli and US officials admitted that they had collaborated to deploy US-supplied Harpoon cruise missiles armed with nuclear warheads in Israel's fleet of Dolphin-class submarines.

Nor is this all. The British and Americans, who have tried to make themselves out as champions against WMD and staked so much on this issue, are themselves in cahoots on WMD build-up and proliferation -- the latter from the US to Britain. And all this is under the legal cover of their 1958 Mutual Defence Agreement which the US Congress has renewed every ten years. The US supplies of WMD to Britain are crucial to Britain's support for US policy and WMD exports to the UK include Trident D5 missiles and nuclear weapons components and technology. For years, Britain has also exploded its nuclear weapons at the Nevada test site in the US.

In September 1994, Greenpeace had released a report documenting the US government's violations of domestic law and international treaty obligations by transferring "sensitive nuclear technology" to Japan. The report, entitled, "The Unlawful Plutonium Alliance", revealed that the US Department of Energy had negotiated an agreement in 1987 which allowed for the transfer of advanced plutonium separation or "reprocessing" technology to Japan.

In the face of this evidence, which is merely a tip of the iceberg, and by its own judgemental standards, the US is clearly the most dangerous nuclear state in the globe.


(The writer is director general of the Institute of Strategic Studies, Islamabad. Email: smnews80@hotmail.com)

http://www.thenews.com.pk/daily_detail.asp?id=85636
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CIVIL SOCIETY AND POLITICAL PARTIES - PARALLEL PATHS

Wednesday, December 19, 2007

Shireen M Mazari

Increasingly, the protesting segments of civil society and the political parties seem to be moving on parallel paths. It is unfortunate that the political parties, at the end of the day, chose to effectively pay mere lip service to the demands of civil society, protesting lawyers and the gagged media for the restoration of the pre-November 3 situation in the country with regard to the judiciary and the media. It is not simply an issue of whether or not the parties should have boycotted the electoral process -- and such a strategy could only have had a measure of effectiveness if all the major parties had been willing to adopt this strategy. The larger issue is the total lack of responsiveness of the mainstream political parties to show any move away from their traditional politicking -- manifesto declarations notwithstanding. In fact, never before has the disconnect between the politicians and civil society been as clearly illustrated as now. Just when segments of civil society were awakening to a new political activism in the urban centres, the 9,000 electoral candidates and their leaders moved on to their traditional electoral role-playing with candidates moving easily from one party to another simply to improve their electoral chances -- or to get a party endorsement. Despite negative rhetoric from the leaders, no one is uncomfortable with the fact that a PML-Q associate can move on to the PML-N or the PPP or vice versa. Even those who had been targeted by a party have now been accepted in its folds without any qualms. Such is our political environment, especially around election time.

The dilemma now for the protesting civil society is where to move to in terms of furthering their commitments in terms of democracy and freedom. Simply boycotting the electoral process will not achieve much. An opportunity has been missed by not putting up alternate candidates in case the present scenario emerged where the major players were not going to boycott the elections. There are also rumblings within the ranks of lawyers and not all are happy with the boycott movement it would appear. As for the commitment of the contesting parties to the establishment of an independent judiciary, while the Sharifs continue to maintain some credibility on this count, Ms Bhutto has changed her tune over the last few weeks and her declaration that not only was the pre-November 3 judiciary not independent but that judges come and go and if any judge wants to "do politics" -- whatever she means by that -- he should set up a political party (why could she not invite him to join her or another existing party?) shows her stance on an independent judiciary! Let us not be fooled. Ms Bhutto has come back into politics on a deal whereby her past corruption will be forgiven so having come on such a major compromise she is now going to be the epitome of compromises, especially in terms of bowing to US agendas and diktat. Kamran Shafi has already documented her shifting stance on the judiciary in that context.

Coming back to civil society's political activism, its limitations have been shown in the Pakistani political context. First, if one wants to impact political change, one cannot do it from outside the system. So, there are two paths that must be adopted simultaneously.

* The first is to seek a political entry point either by joining existing parties in order to alter their workings or by coalescing under a new party with a new fresh leadership. The entry into existing parties will not alter their leadership or agendas unless the intrusions are in exceptionally large numbers and also involve more activism from rural constituencies. Forming a new party is an option that requires time and dedication but if the present activism can be harnessed and professionalism adopted, then civil society can work towards the next elections -- whenever they are held. At the same time it can begin grassroots work in the rural areas also. The movements begun in the cities need to be taken to the countryside and agendas expanded to respond to the major issues in the rural areas.

* The second is to coalesce a public-service political organisation that prepares data on issues for public dissemination and for the elected politicians. After all, at the end of the day it is agendas that need to be influenced so there has to be interaction between the body of elected representatives -- regardless of the merits or otherwise of the elections themselves -- and civil society, especially an informed and proactive civil society.

This is not to say that continuing the protest against the gagging of the media and in support of an independent judiciary should come to an end. Not at all since the protests are the base on which activism has to be built. But protests now in themselves have been shown to be inadequate in the face of political opportunism. That is why there is a need to move beyond and think of the long term. In order to establish a truly democratic and strong institutional structure for the nation, a long-term effort is required. Protesting civil society has to be committed to work for the long haul. As for the lawyers' movement, there is a dilemma here also. After all, many poor and innocent citizens have legal cases that need to be brought to a closure. So while at one level boycott of the PCO-swearing judges of the superior courts reflects a commitment to the judicial cause for which the lawyers have suffered often with their life and limb, at some stage the needs of those seeking legal redress for their multiple disputes also needs to be taken into account -- no matter how poor in quality and how corrupt that legal path may be in the present environment.

Meanwhile, the shenanigans of the electoral process is disheartening for the many ordinary members of civil society who chose to stand up and be counted for the cause of the judiciary and freedom of the media. After all, look at the contestants: the same names; the same faces in all the parties; and the same games, especially in the rural constituencies. Where new faces have come, they reflect opportunism as in some of the women seat nominees of the PPP; and already even within the party there is disquietude. Some old hands, who are experienced at party-hopping with ease, are waiting in the wings to rob and decimate this poor nation once again. So it is going to be the same old routine that we have seen so many times before.

But this road to disillusionment is what those opposing civil society activism are counting on. That is why it is important to keep the faith and chart a new direction for the future so that the protest is cemented into something more concrete. Even now there are small developments that show a ray of hope, like the Christian lady who is contesting on an independent ticket from Islamabad. As for the elections overall, the parties participating are themselves making a mockery of it all by shouting out that the elections are already rigged. If that be the case, why are they participating? Could it be the lures of the exchequer at the end of the electoral victory? Clearly in Pakistan the more things seemingly change, the more they actually remain the same. Now is the time for us to change our fate -- and this must be by our own efforts not by externally dictated agendas.


(The writer is director general of the Institute of Strategic Studies, Islamabad. Email: smnews80@hotmail.com)

http://www.thenews.com.pk/daily_detail.asp?id=86967
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