| 07 September 2004 | Tuesday | 21 Rajab 1425 |
End of the rainbow
War on terror in a free fall
Turkey: groping for a destiny?
The bomb blast in Kabul, possibly a suicide attack on the city's offices of Dyn Corp Inc., which provides security for President Hamid Karzai and also has a contract to train the police force, killed three Americans, a number of other foreign employees of the company and at least seven Afghans.
The successful attack on an unusually well-guarded building manned by security experts, and in a district afforded heavy coverage by the Nato-led ISAF has come as an unpleasant shock even to those who had predicted that the Taliban efforts to disrupt the elections would be intensified and would cause far more casualties in the run-up to the election than the estimated 1000 people killed in the last year or so.
Since then, the ISAF and the Afghan forces have been on heightened alert. It is anticipated, however, that if the election schedule remains unchanged there will be at least two or three such attacks before October 9 in Kabul and many more in other Afghan cities.
These assaults are apparently part of a new Taliban plan to target the occupation forces. A Taliban leader Mullah Dadullah has told a western news agency that they will carry out more attacks and bombings in Kabul and many of their "mujahideen are present in cities where the occupying forces of infidels are present."
Taliban operations have intensified in tandem with the preparations for the presidential election. There have been attacks on election workers and some people have apparently been killed because they were carrying voter registration cards.
Now, however, press reports suggest that, in a change of tactics, the Taliban will not engage in direct combat or hit-and-run raids, but will, instead, use explosives - constructed out of American cluster bombs and other such devices - to attack the Americans and their Afghan collaborators.
Other reports claim that an alliance comprising the Taliban, Jalaluddin Haqqani, Gulbuddin Hikmatyar, commanders associated with Maulvi Yunus Khalis and Akbar Agha had agreed upon united action to disrupt the elections by attacking polling stations.
American operations against the Taliban and Hikmatyar's supporters have been intensified in recent weeks and have had some success. However, there have also been reports of some air raids being misdirected and causing civilian casualties fuelling resentment particularly in the Pushtun areas.
It is more than likely that even though there may have been genuine enthusiasm among the Afghans for registering as voters, a substantial number of them will be hesitant about actually voting in the current insecure environment. This would be particularly true in the south and south-east where the Taliban continue to operate with relative ease.
It has been announced that on September 1, the removal of heavy weapons from Kabul had been completed and that some measure of success had attended efforts to collect such weapons from other locations in Afghanistan including the Panjshir Valley - the stronghold of Marshal Fahim and his cohort Qanooni. This is a notable achievement and should help create a better ambience for the elections.
Unfortunately, no progress appears to have been made towards the disarming of the militia. According to one estimate, the Shura-e- Nazar militia commanded by Fahim numbers 50,000 and a substantial part of this force is based in Kabul or its immediate environs. Similarly, the militia of the Hizb-e-Wahdat, the Shia or Hazara party is also present in fairly substantial numbers in Kabul and, of course, in the Bamiyan area.
Abdur Rasool Sayaf, ethnically a Pushtun but politically an ally of the Northern Alliance, also has his forces in the capital and its vicinity. Elsewhere in the country the militias of warlords like the Uzbek Commander Dostum, the Tajik protege of Marshal Fahim, Atta Mohammad, the self-styled Emir of Herat, Ismail, Commander Daood, and in Jalalabad Hazrat Ali remain largely intact.
The most optimistic UN figures can only claim that some 12,000 of the estimated 100,000 personnel in the private militias have so far been disarmed and demobilized under the much-trumpeted DDR (Disarming, Demobilizing and Reintegration) campaign.
The capacity of the warlords to intimidate the voter remains largely unaffected, as does their capacity to engage in or benefit from narcotics trafficking and from local taxes and other extortions.
A notable exception to the foregoing assessment of the warlords is the current situation in Herat. Emir Ismail, facing an attack by a local Pushtun commander Amanullah, had to ultimately seek the intervention of the Americans and the Afghan national force to have a cease fire put into effect.
Ismail claimed, rightly I believe, that Amanullah's actions were endorsed if not instigated by Karzai's ministers. Ismail himself says that these ministers acted without Karzai's knowledge but one is inclined to believe that Karzai may well have used Amanullah, with the consent of the coalition forces, to bring Ismail to heel.
Theoretically, Amanullah is now under house arrest in Kabul and Karzai has condemned his actions. The net result, however, has been that the much weakened Ismail has agreed, publicly, to relinquish his post and, therefore, his fiefdom in Herat to take up an assignment in Kabul.
Currently, he maintains that this will happen after the presidential elections but indications are that pressure (largely American) is mounting for him to move to Kabul now rather than wait until elections have been held.
For Karzai, if he is able to pull it off, this will be a considerable coup. Apart from creating a precedent for the assertion of central control, which is so sorely needed if Afghanistan is to remain united, it will also give him, in the eyes of the Pushtuns, the "leadership" image that has, so far eluded him. They may then vote for him for reasons other than mere ethnic kinship.
What Karzai has been able to achieve through political machinations and perhaps the covert use of American muscle is important because the international community has refused to go beyond token gestures towards restoring security or helping the Karzai administration enforce its writ beyond the immediate environs of Kabul.
Anywhere else there would have been a hue and cry when in a spectacular abdication of responsibility the Nato powers decided that they would increase the size of their force in Afghanistan by only 1,500 troops for providing security during the elections and declared quite complacently that their ISAF would have no part to play in the disarming of the warlords. The UN and Karzai's administration had both estimated that ISAF needed to have a force level at least double the 6,500 they currently have.
Conditions are not right for an election in Afghanistan but it must be held because the timing of the American elections so demand. Preparations have, therefore, gone full speed ahead.
The Bush administration and the UN have made much of the success attending the voter registration drive. At a press conference on August 1 President Bush proclaimed, "Nine million people have said to the world, 'we love freedom and we're going to vote'." The problem is that this success has flowed from allowing the process to be horribly flawed.
The UN had started the registration process after making some rough estimates of the eligible voters in each region. These were admittedly estimates because no census had been carried out in Afghanistan but they could not, however, have been very far off the mark since the UN had been engaged particularly after the Soviet withdrawal, in putting together through its rather large staff estimates of the population in each province. The initial estimate was 9.8 million persons eligible for registration.
Early in August when the number of registered voters had reached 9.5 million the UN revised its estimate to 10.5 million voters. Now by all accounts the number of people registered has exceeded this number even though it is conceded that only 40 or 41 per cent of those registered are women in a country where there is said to be a 1:1 ratio between men and women, and when it is also conceded that in some areas of the south and southeast only a limited percentage of the originally estimated voters have registered.
In the Panjshir valley, the number of registered voters has come close to 125,000 as against the estimate of 49,573. In Mazar Sharif city, UN officials readily conceded that the number registered far exceeded the original estimate of eligible voters and so it went down the line all across the north.
UN officials also concede that many under-age persons may have been registered because in the time available it was not possible to verify every doubtful case. The fact is that the registration teams - primarily Afghans recruited by the UN and sent into the field after some training - were forced by pressure from local warlords to turn a blind eye towards double or treble or underage registrations.
A conservative estimate would be that in the north fraudulent registration is about 33 per cent of the total and that in the south and southeast, because of the security situation at least 20 per cent of those eligible have not been registered.
The only safeguard against fraudulent votes is that every voter would have his finger dabbed with indelible ink. One can be certain that the warlords who arranged for double or treble registration have also made provision for overcoming this obstacle - one of which may simply be the intimidation of the election officials.
This over or under registration will not perhaps be of much consequence in the presidential election. There are theoretically 18 candidates, and much is being made of the current deliberations between Karzai's 17 rivals to choose one among them to contest the elections against the president.
This unity is unlikely to occur. Dostum, for instance, may be unhappy with Karzai but he dislikes Fahim and the Panjshiris believing that they have repeatedly betrayed him.
Similarly, Qanooni may project himself as the Tajik candidate, but can be sure only of the Tajik vote in Panjshir. That, even after fraudulent registration, represents only a small portion of the total Tajik vote.
Rabbani, who commands Tajik support in Badakshan and Ismail with his Herat voters probably will go along with Karzai rather than Qanooni. Above all, there will be American pressure.
Given this situation, Karzai will, in all probability, be easily elected. The only problem may be that voting will be patchy in the south and southeast, and Karzai may find himself beholden to the northern voter for his election.
Perhaps a little ballot box stuffing, not unfamiliar in South Asia, may solve this problem. Will such an election give Karzai legitimacy? Probably not. But it does not matter because legitimacy without the military clout of the Americans would not help him stay in power or solve the warlord or narcotics problems of Afghanistan.
The real problem, however, will arise when the parliamentary elections are held and when constituencies are drawn up on the basis of registered voters. Then the over-registration in the north will change the ethnic balance and lead to the sort of furore that could bring about major unrest.
The Americans are surely aware of this problem but, under the present circumstances, are not likely to reflect on it. A deeply flawed foundation is being laid for democracy in Afghanistan.
The writer is a former foreign secretary.
End of the rainbow
General Colin Powell is missing in action. At the Republican convention in 2000 he led from the front, opening a line up that could have been set up by Jesse Jackson's Rainbow coalition.
Of the three co-chairs in 2000 one was black and another Hispanic; national security adviser Condoleezza Rice kicked off prime-time coverage one night while Chaka Khan serenaded George Bush. "Make no mistake about it," said a Republican strategist at the time. "Bush is personally obsessed with diversity." That obsession, even at this cosmetic level, seems to have long passed.
Powell, the secretary of state, was absent last week - not just from the podium but from the entire convention. The White House says his absence was a matter of "custom and tradition" that prevents the national security team from attending.
This must have been news to Bush's father, who had secretary of state James Baker at his side at the 1992 convention. Powell did not come either because, given his misgivings on the war, the party did not want him there or because, given his misgivings about the party, he did not want to be there.
Either way, this year the most prominent black speaker was the education secretary, Rod Paige - whose low public profile only a Google search could save from oblivion. And it was downhill from there. After Paige came the lieutenant governor of Maryland and finally Erika Harold, last year's Miss America.
The promotion of so many black faces four years ago was essentially symbolic. Its aim was not to woo the African-American vote, but to soothe the consciences of moderate whites who would not vote for a party that went openly negative on race.
The absence of prominent black figures on stage this year was equally symbolic. For Bush's reelection effort marks the virtual completion of the racial realignment of the Republican party.
In the last presidential election Republicans received only 8% of the black vote - the lowest percentage for 40 years. Recent polls indicate that this year the figure will reach 4% - the lowest ever. Black Americans make up 12% of the national population.
Yet Republicans have no black congressmen and fare only slightly better at a local level, where African-Americans comprise 0.4% of all Republican state legislators.
So the party of Lincoln, the president credited with freeing the slaves, is now essentially the White People's party - a race-based initiative that has re-established the segregation of American political culture.
Ethnically they are less exclusive. With around a third of the Hispanic vote (Hispanics may be black or white) Republicans still have a toe-hold there, although they are struggling to keep it.
But there are only so many people you can alienate at one time, and the decline in black supporters was not an accident. This was the intended consequence of Richard Nixon's "southern strategy".
The party put race at the centre of a project to radically reconfigure its base after the civil rights era by appealing to racist white southerners who felt betrayed by the Democrats. It worked, handing the south to the Republicans and forcing black voters into the arms of the Democrats.
Now Bush is closing the deal. His policies and platform will ensure all but the most negligible support from African-Americans, and transforming the Republicans into a monoracial party in one of the world's most multi-racial nations.
To hear the gathering at the African-Americans for Bush rally at the Waldorf Astoria last week you wouldn't know it. They pointed to the sharp increase in black delegates to the convention (the highest presence on record) as proof that they are making strides.
Showcasing polls indicating black Americans are more likely to attend church regularly, oppose abortion and gay marriage and support school vouchers than their white counterparts, they claimed that the Republican party was more in tune with black values than the Democrats could ever be.
Ask any of them why more than 90% of African-Americans will vote Democrat and they claim that their friends and family members have simply been duped. "Most African-Americans grow up in a family where their parents are Democratic and it's so easy to follow the group rather than think of what is in their best interests," says Don McLaurin, a black Republican from Trotwood, Ohio.
Such statements are ironic since they echo precisely what many liberals say about black Republicans - namely, that their inability to fathom their own interests is the only rational explanation for their misguided political choice. Both are wrong. People's interests are not determined by their melanin count but shaped by their experience. To suggest otherwise is both obnoxious and patronising.
Moreover, it offers little help in understanding the Republican party's racial exclusivity. The rise in black convention delegates is a diversion. It came from a pathetically low base (2.6% in 1996, 4.7% in 2000) and tells us little. Shortly before South Africa's first democratic elections 20% of the delegates to the convention of the National party, the architect of apartheid, were black.
The fact that, both there and in the US, the rise coincided with negligible black support at the polls simply suggests a growing dislocation between black people in their chosen party and those outside it.
It also suggests that African-Americans have the same narrow understanding of "values" as the Republican party. They don't. In particular, they seem to value honesty and hard work sufficiently highly to frown upon on a president who took them into a war based on lies, while marshalling an economy that denies them jobs. Unemployment among black people remains double the percentage for whites, while one in four African-Americans lives in poverty.
Meanwhile, polls show three-quarters of black Americans agree at least somewhat with the proposition that Bush intentionally misled the country into war. Finally, black Americans are understandably keen on racial equality, a cause not best argued by the party which opposes affirmative action and harbours the likes of the racist Mississippi senator Trent Lott, who lamented the end of segregation less than two years ago.
In fact, black Republicans are right on only one count: the Democrats certainly take the black vote for granted. The Democrats have only won one election (in 1964) with a majority of white support since the second world war. This time round African-Americans make up more than 10% of the vote in a third of the crucial battleground states.
"When the public is anxious or angry, turnout tends to increase," argues David Bositis of the joint centre for political and economic studies in a recent report. African-Americans are clearly angry with President Bush and want him out."
The question is not who they will vote for but whether they will vote at all. Bush has given them several reasons to loathe the Republicans; they are still waiting for Kerry to give them some to love the Democrats. -Dawn/Guardian Service
War on terror in a free fall
In pre-partition India, communal riots provided an opportunity for some people to settle personal scores, safe in the knowledge that these personal scores would go into a general accounting.
Behind the passion of communal self-righteousness was often a private motive, a great opportunity to get rid of an importuning money-lender or a troublesome neighbour or an unfaithful daughter-in-law. The war in Iraq is going something like that.
It has given rise to obscure and hitherto unknown militant groups and who in the cover of the insurgency have gone into the business of hostage-taking. In civil times as opposed to military, this would have simply been kidnapping for ransom, heinous crimes but stripped of the sanctimonious justification of some higher cause.
If the hostage-takers are under the impression that they are helping those Iraqis who have taken up arms against the occupation of Iraq by the United States and its holier-than-though coalition partners, they are sadly mistaken.
There is a need of a louder voice of condemnation from the Muslim world for it is Islam that is being slandered and it admirably suits those who have made the war on terror a war on Islam.
It plays into the hands of the neocons with their grand design of a Greater Israel and who are eyeing Iran and Syria even though the world's hyper power is so badly stuck in Iraq and Afghanistan.
The whole world sees Islamic fundamentalism as a given. There is no mention of extreme rightwing Christian fundamentalism which has become such a potent force in American politics and which has thrown its full weight behind the Bush administration.
Even the Irish terrorists are given respectable names. They are not called Catholic militants or Protestant jihadis even though the Irish question is about religion.
Take the case of the killing of Nepalese hostages. The people of Nepal are Hindus and Hindu fundamentalists seized the opportunity to go on an anti-Muslim binge, attacked mosques, and ransacked the offices of PIA and other Muslim airlines, a serious enough riot for Kathmandu to be placed under curfew. No Muslim of any description anywhere in the world found the killing of the Nepalese hostages as anything but a despicable act.
Had the government of Nepal sought the assistance of any Muslim country to free the hostages, the assistance would have been forthcoming. Instead the government of Nepal did nothing.
Look how active the French government has been in the case of the two French journalists. They reached out to Muslim groups in France and got their support. Pakistanis have been taken hostage but our government was not napping and egged on by the media and public opinion secured their release.
Pakistan and indeed the Muslim world have no quarrel with Nepal or its people. But there are groups hiding in the shadows who are ready to pounce and the war on terror gives them a perfect excuse.
The BJP government mainly through Mr. Advani (Churchill would have described him as the bull who carried his own china shop with him) did its best to link the freedom struggle in Kashmir with global terrorism. It might have succeeded but for the deft handling of the situation by President Pervez Musharraf.
On the face of it, I cannot think of anything more horrific than the taking of school children as hostages in Beslan in the North Ossetia region bordering Chechnya and which ended in a carnage with hundreds killed, many of them children. The Chechen spokesman Akhmed Zakayev has denied that militants who took hundreds of people hostage in a school in Southern Russia were Chechens.
But world leaders including Bush and Blair have been quick to condemn the carnage, as if that would clean their own bloody hands. But whether the Chechens were involved or not, this was one of the lowest points in the war on terror.
I am a parent and a grandparent and I feel for those children, both those who were killed and those who have survived. " Fair daffodils, we weep to see you haste away so soon. "
Indeed we must look at the war on terror afresh. Three years after 9/11, the world is not a safer place. At the time of 9/11, there was shock and anger and fear. The foremost need was to reassure the American people and George Bush rightly judged that a macho approach was needed.
But what happened was this macho approach was turned into an ideology. The war on terror became a crusading mission and the doctrine of pre-emption was sanctified. The United States was not only the world's only superpower but it arrogated to itself the right to be the chief enforcer of a world order tailored to its strategic and economic interests.
So focused are we on the trees that we have not been able to see the forest. Who are behind the forces that want to topple President Chavez of Venezuela, an oil-rich country? What is actually happening in Darfur, also oil-rich? And was Sir Mark Thatcher, son of the redoubtable former prime minister of Great Britain, Margaret Thatcher, the lady who wore the pants in the British cabinet, acting on his own when he tried to engineer a coup in a remote African country? Or was he the front-man for certain vested interests? This remote African country too is oil rich.
Despite the preoccupation with the war on terror, is it business as usual?In the meanwhile we have a new prime minister, Shaukat Aziz and he has a cabinet, many of them old, familiar faces. Shaukat Aziz is being accused of being a technocrat and not a politician.
Is this a disqualification? He could prove to be a fresh wind of change provided he doesn't become a politician and he must bend all his energies to make sure that he doesn't become one.
Turkey: groping for a destiny?
Ever since becoming a republic in 1923, Turkey has had a troubled experience with democracy. The founding democrat, Mustafa Kemal, became a traditional military autocrat soon afterwards.
The 20th century was strange in the sense that in the most parts of the world, the transition from monarchy to republic has seldom meant a smooth transfer of power from a king to the representative government.
Rather, instead of a single all-powerful King, the power slipped into the hands of the armed forces, or more narrowly, to a coterie of generals. The word republic may not explain the transition as clearly as a phrase such as Remilitaire (sic!) in most of the developing world.
Turkey's bid for the membership of the European Union, if it succeeds, is poised to change its destiny. The EU's tough human rights standards can help it move towards a society that values freedom and human rights.
The legal and institutional framework has to be modified accordingly. But this was somehow not to be. Some vested interests, it seems, are encouraging Turkey's military to undermine the authority of the elected government, thus, paving the way for blocking its entry into the Euro club.
The latest incidents in Ankara, where the army has challenged the civil authority, coupled with the growing concerns in Europe that Turkey is a Muslim nation and should not be permitted to join the "Christian" Union, betray religious prejudices.
Is it part of a bigger game plan to thwart Turkey's move to democracy and in turn get an excuse to block its EU candidature? The purpose here is focus on only two recent telling developments: the altercation between the Turkish prime minister and his military chief and the pontification of the top Vatican theologian about Turkey's future.
At the end of the annual three-day conference last week of the country's powerful Higher Military Council (YAS), which decides on military promotions and retirements, the army chief General Hilmi Ozkok announced removal from service of 12 senior army officers on "disciplinary grounds".
The term, one must recall, is typically used by the Turkish military to indicate Islamist inclinations in the officer concerned. Wearing of a head scarf by the wife would be construed as a pro-Islamist tendency in an officer.
A rough equivalent would be to sack a German army officer on the charge that his mother regularly attends the church mass on Sundays. The issue of fundamental human liberty of choice, in terms of religion, culture and dress notwithstanding, the issue at stake was that during the three-day moot, the army did not take care of even informing the prime minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan, and the country's defence minister, Vecdi Gonul, of the announcement, let alone, seeking permission for it.
The prime minister felt insulted and mildly protested (he knows his limits) to the general that he was having the orders written down but should have at least sought his (the prime minister's) opinion. "We already know your opinion, Mr. Prime Minister" was the curt retort that he received.
Yes, the prime minister's opinion, or more specifically the opinion of the Turk nation that elected him with a thumping two thirds majority in 2002, ending the decades of coalition governments, is clearly known to the world and to the generals also.
The Turkish nation now wants democracy, freedom, human rights and the rule of law. The Cyprus issue has to be settled (the Turk Cypriots had already endorsed the UN plan), the cultural rights of the Kurds have to be respected (Kurdish language education and broadcasts have started) and the army's self-styled role in guarding secularism and democracy has to be done away with, in favour of the Turkish electorate in general (necessary constitutional amendments already underway). Turkey's march to human rights hits directly at the armed forces. And hence, the latter is creating one problem after another to provoke the government.
After all, the army has usurped power thrice, enforcing martial laws and self-serving constitutions, throwing elected presidents into prisons (Celal Beyar, for instance) and sending a populist prime minister to the gallows (Adnan Menderes in 1963) after the infamous Yassida trials.
Prime ministers in Turkey are more concerned about their neck than the issues of democracy and freedom of choice. As and when Turkey becomes part of the European Union, the army's powers would be clipped, its clout would be reduced and it would be obliged to remain confined to the duties of defence. All of this is an anathema for the generals.
The strange bedfellows for the Turkish military on the other side of Dardanelles straits are the Christian Catholic churches. Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, the doctrinal head of the Vatican church, in an interview with France's Le Figaro magazine, has advised Turkey to seek membership with the Arab Muslim bloc in the south, rather than try to join the European community that has "Christian roots".
Albeit in a different context, Cardinal Joseph, who heads Vatican's Congregation for the Doctrine of Faith, added in the same interview that "aggressive secularism" would provoke more "Islamic fundamentalism" rather than counter it.
One may agree or disagree with the Cardinal's specific advice to Turkey, but his latter assertion is prophetic. The only way to disillusion the Turks with the values of freedom is the type of secularism that the army wants to impose on the nation.
Cultures evolve through history and cannot be changed from above. Germans were ruled by the Christian Democratic Union of Chancellor Helmet Kohl till 1990s; their lifestyle, their culture and their language also has a Christian imprint on it. But nobody questions the Germans' right to own their religious heritage while being part of a secular European Union. Why should the Turks not elect the Justice and Development Party, with Islamist orientation to power? Why they be expected to shed their identity in culture, language and customs in search of an elusive destiny?
The Turks are proud of their history and culture, and they have the reason and the right for being so. The army or the pontiffs at Vatican must not dictate their choices and their destiny. Free and fair multi-party democracy is the sole legitimate means available to any modern civilized nation to express its collective judgement.
December 2004 is fast arriving when the decision to start accession negotiations with Turkey is to be made by the EU. Prime Minister Erdogan has set 2012 as the target date of his country's full membership of the European Union.
Should Turkey be refused by the EU, the impetus for reforms would be lost, the vested interests would rule the roost, and there would be despondency and disillusionment in that country.
One cannot change geography. The senseless persecution of Muslim religion by self-serving interests in the name of democracy would make Turkey a haven for fundamentalists and extremists, and Turkey would be a pain in the neck for Europe.
Recep Tayyip Erdogan is the right person to lead Turkey into Europe. He is an epitome of a modern European leader - a self-made man who had financed his education by selling lemonade and sesame bread on the streets of Istanbul, a man who prides himself on his religious convictions and who is a democrat to the core.
During his tenure, Turkey has won the post of the secretary-general of the 57-member Organization of the Islamic Conference (OIC) and can truly act as a bridge between Islam and the West.
With Turkey's entry, Europe would become one single cultural entity with 20 per cent Muslims. It would be a victory of values over religious bigotry. A strong Europe with no major fault-lines would be a factor of stability for the whole world. It is in the interest of Turkey that the armed forces are not allowed to become a super-entity over and above the authority of the elected governments.
E-mail: saadskhan@yahoo.co.uk.