Conflict without borders

WHERE will the death and destruction lead to? Wednesday’s suicide attack on the Italian military police base in Nassiriya, which killed 18 Italians and nine Iraqis, follows the Riyadh bombing last week that led to the death of 17 civilians. It is the single bloodiest incident in Iraq since August when a car bomb took the lives of at least 80 people outside a mosque in Najaf. Just as the Riyadh tragedy and the earlier Bali bombing in Indonesia had marked a widening of the conflict in Iraq to engulf other countries, the Nassiriya attack also has a dimension of its own: the war is being dragged down to southern Iraq, which had been relatively free of trouble so far. Many of the hits, including the Riyadh and Bali atrocities, targeted civilians in mindless acts of terrorism. But other incidents like the Nassiriya one have been directed against military installations and personnel. Organizations seen as collaborating with the occupation forces have also faced assaults, regrettably including UN offices and the Red Cross. The US-led coalition troops have been carrying out random retaliation of their own, firing on cars, killing an official here, raiding a residential locality there.

The situation is one of utter chaos, with the coalition giving the impression of not really knowing what to do. Declarations of determination to continue to “root out” terrorism or to fight back are beginning to lose credibility because events seem to be spiralling out of control. The world has not been free of armed insurrections or wars in the past four or five decades, but the trouble spots were well defined, and the crises in the Middle East, Africa and Asia were considered to be in the nature of low-intensity conflicts confined to particular areas. Now, no country seems to be safe, and no one immune. There has never been such uncertainty and instability. Even those who planned and carried out the attacks on the Twin Towers in New York and the Pentagon in Washington might not have imagined the chain of events that they would set off. They probably reckoned without the lengths to which the war mongers in the Bush administration would go in seizing the opportunity presented for implementing their own agenda.

Cause and effect have been much debated. The question is how do we get out of this vicious circle. In Afghanistan, the Taliban, and to a certain extent, even Al Qaeda were definable “enemies”, with whom it was possible to maintain a tenuous line of communication. In Iraq now, the US is fighting a faceless foe. One theory is that Saddam Hussein had always planned on a guerilla campaign like this. But where is Saddam Hussein, or, for that matter, Osama bin Laden and Mullah Omar? With whom does one negotiate to end the turmoil, particularly when there appear to be several groups working independently against the occupation? The Iraqi governing council is considered by most Iraqis to be non-representative and a creature of the Americans. No one there seriously believes that the council will be able to restore order and stability. The choice before the Americans appears to be either to step up their attrition and impose a peace of the graveyard on Iraq or to leave and let the UN hold early and free elections in cooperation with countries such as Russia that might still have some leverage with the anti-coalition elements. Once a timetable for a quick withdrawal is announced, there can be some hope that figures will emerge from the shadows who might be willing to talk peace. Otherwise, we will remain caught up in a spiral of violence.

Cane growers’ complaints

WEDNESDAY’s decision by the federal government to delay the start of the sugar cane crushing period from November 15 to the end of the month has been criticized by cane growers on grounds of one-sidedness. They have said the mills want to delay crushing as this will reduce the weight of the sugar cane. Whatever the reason, it is apparent that the growers were not included in the talks between the government and mill owners. This is strange because the crisis facing the sugar industry cannot be tackled effectively without taking all the parties into confidence. Every year, there is controversy arising from the delay in starting the crushing season. This year, sugar mill owners backed up their case of deferment by saying that they had huge amounts of unsold stock in their warehouses and that by producing more, they would incur heavy losses. The government has responded to this by directing the Trading Corporation of Pakistan (TCP) to purchase 200,000 tons of sugar from the mill owners.

In doing so, the authorities should also have attended to the complaints of the growers. One is the recurring practice of withholding or delaying payment to growers by mill owners. It is believed that mills owe to the growers over Rs 900 million in unpaid dues. The other problem is the delay in lifting sugar cane stocks by the mill owners. This in turn delays the sowing of wheat crop by the farmers for the next season and affects them financially. The government needs to settle this issue keeping in view the growers’ interest. At present, there is an excess of sugar in the country. It is obvious that the government needs a comprehensive policy on sugar production to keep both prices and supply stable. Excess stocks should not be bought by the government but exported through the TCP. This can be done by providing reliefs in order to make the country’s sugar prices competitive in the world market.

Going after Syria

WITH the passage of the sanctions law by the US Senate on Tuesday, the Bush administration has armed itself with a wide range of measures to coerce and punish Syria. Conceived in a spirit of imperial arrogance, the law shows American lawmakers’ obsession with Arabs and their zeal to promote Israel’s cause. The idea behind the measure is to coerce Syria into giving up its support to those fighting for Palestine’s freedom. It also seeks to hurt Damascus economically because of Syria’s purported efforts to acquire weapons of mass destruction. This WMD bogey comes in handy to the neo-cons ruling America to demonize and browbeat any country that is on the wrong side of Israel. Iraq was invaded and occupied because the Saddam regime was supposed to possess WMDs. UN inspectors and later the occupation forces themselves failed to find any trace of WMDs. Iran, too, has been under pressure on the same count.

Astonishing as it may seem, the law asks Syria to end its “occupation” of Lebanon. This is the same Congress which doles out billions of dollars every year to Israel which continues to occupy Palestinian territories and commit gross human rights violations. Syria, on the other hand, has some forces in the Bekaa valley with the full consent of the Lebanese government and people. If the people were opposed to a Syrian presence in Lebanon, surely the Lebanese would have resisted Syrian “occupation.” There is no evidence of this, given the fact that the same Lebanese waged a heroic struggle against Israel’s occupation of southern Lebanon and forced it to pull out. The source of tension and conflict in the Middle East is not an economically weak and poorly armed Syria but a belligent Israel politically, economically and militarily aided by America.