| April 5, 2003 | Saturday | Safar 2, 1424 |
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Unending repression
Hot weather blues
THERE is a clear pattern to Indian Foreign Minister Yashwant Sinha’s statement on Wednesday in which he threatened that India would be justified in launching a pre-emptive strike against Pakistan. The statement clearly echoes the posture India has adopted since the September 11 attacks on the Twin Towers and the Pentagon in the US. In an interview with a news agency, Sinha claimed that India’s position on Kashmir had received a tremendous boost from the example set by the US-led invasion of Iraq. In the same vein, he added that the world community realizes that “India has a much better case to go for ‘pre-emptive’ action against Pakistan than the US has in Iraq.” Leaving aside the question of logic or motivation, irresponsible utterances such as these can only heighten the simmering tensions between India and Pakistan. For a start, the analogy between what the US is doing in Iraq and the situation in Kashmir is totally false and unconvincing. This leap of logic aside, there is a definite method to Mr Sinha’s madness.
After September 11, New Delhi has found the world, particularly the US, more receptive to its calls for firm action against terrorism. Wanting to cash in on the current paranoia over terrorism, India has been harping on this theme in the context of Kashmir, insisting that the problem there is simply the product of “cross-border terrorism.” This conveniently ignores the fact that the uprising in Kashmir is a freedom struggle that has been raging for 14 long years, despite brutal repression by Indian troops. It is absurd to suggest that a struggle on such a vast scale could have been instigated and sustained by militants infiltrating across the Line of Control alone. Taking advantage of the current global obsession with terror and militancy, particularly in the West, India has been trying, cynically and systematically, to reduce the insurgency in Kashmir to a simple problem of terrorism. In the aftermath of September 11, the Indians have found a somewhat responsive audience for this simplistic mantra. The most recent convert to this point of view seems to be British Foreign Secretary Jack Straw who recently called for a dialogue between India and Pakistan, but also asked Islamabad to do more to curb militancy and cross border terrorism in Kashmir.
Yashwant Sinha’s threat of pre-emptive action against Pakistan is a crude attempt at blackmailing this country by taking a cue from the current US policy of pre-emption vis-a-vis Iraq. Mr Sinha’s self serving rhetoric also points to the dangerous precedent that the Americans have set by invading Iraq unilaterally and without UN sanction. As critics of the war had predicted then, all kinds of governments could use this dangerous doctrine to settle scores — as India and Israel have been doing and plan to do even worse — to crush freedom struggles in Kashmir and Palestine respectively. Foreign Secretary Khurshid Mahmood Kasuri has done well to term Mr Sinha’s talk of pre-emptive action “ridiculous and contradictory.” He has warned New Delhi of grave consequences if any misadventure against Pakistan takes place and called for both sides to try to find a peaceful solution to their problems. That is clearly the most sensible of all options. The implications of another war between India and Pakistan are too horrifying to contemplate. Both South Asian neighbours are armed with nuclear weapons and to expect any war between them to remain strictly restricted to conventional means and methods would be utterly naive.
THE American-led war on Iraq has had a direct bearing on the Middle East conflict resulting in the intensification of the Israeli repression of the Palestinians. A suicide bombing targeting the Israelis has drawn a characteristically brutal response from the occupation forces, as was evident from what has been happening over the past few days. The Israeli army rounded up over 1,000 men, aged between four and 40, in the West Bank city of Tulkarm, evicting them from their homes till further orders. Another six Palestinian civilians were gunned down in various parts of the Gaza Strip and the West Bank after a suicide bomber from Tulkarm struck in a nearby Israeli town. The continued bombardment of Gaza’s Rafah refugee camp, to avenge the suicide bombing, sums up Israel’s latest ‘retaliatory’ strikes inflicting a collective punishment on the innocent Palestinian civilians.
It seems that Israel has now embarked on a deliberate policy of killing as many civilians as it will take to put down the 18-month-old second Palestinian intifada. The crushing to death of Rachel Corrie, an American peace activist, by an army bulldozer last month was part of this savage strategy. The world’s attention is so singularly focused on Iraq that this atrocity — if it were not for the rights groups — would have gone virtually unnoticed. Even then the outrageous act elicited no official condemnation from any western countries. In pursuing this policy, Israel, much like the US and UK forces waging war on Iraq, is wrong when it comes to fathoming the will of the Arabs to endure tyranny and destruction. As far as the Palestinians’ struggle for a just settlement in the Middle East is concerned, there can be little doubt that it cannot be put down by sheer brute force.
The bombing of the Palestinian homes and the destruction of their civic infrastructure has not won the Israelis their long sought security so far, and is not likely to do so in the days and weeks ahead. It is high time Israel realized that when the war in Iraq is over, it will still have to contend with the Middle East problem, the only solution for which is a negotiated settlement through dialogue with the Palestinian leadership — and not through suppression, however severe.
SUMMER seems to have arrived with full force in Karachi. Quite out of nowhere, the city and much of southern Sindh have been hit by very hot and dry weather. The mercury shot up to 41 degrees Celsius on Wednesday with humidity in single digits. According to the met office, no immediate respite can be expected. As usual, the transition from winter to summer in this part of the country has been quite sudden and swift with little or no hint of spring. The only sign of that, perhaps, has been the flowers in full bloom along some of the city’s major roads. However, Karachi is quite unlike Lahore or Islamabad, both of which have the benefit of a full-length, colourful and pleasant spring.
Since a major chunk of the city’s population commutes to work, it would be worth their while if they followed a few basic tips when out and about in the day. The best way to guard against a heat stroke, which at times can be fatal in the case of children, the elderly or the ill, is to wear some kind of protection over one’s head. This is important, particularly if one is travelling by public transport, on a motorcycle or walking. Then, it is vital to drink lots of water, making sure, of course, that it is safe and not contaminated, and to try to stay away from the glare of the sun as much as possible. Even when inside the home, there are cheap and effective ways to reduce the enervating effects of the heat. One popular practice seems to be to draw as many curtains as possible to keep the sun out. Whatever else one does for relief from the rising heat, drinking plenty of fluids and avoiding prolonged exposure to the blazing sun always helps.