| 13 December 2004 | Monday | 30 Shawwal 1425 |
Illegitimacy of Israeli state
Two-nation theory
'Why is Musharraf in a hurry?'
Illegal detentions
0.9 billion infant deaths
Liquor deaths
Nadra's working
Cathedral
Security lapse in UK
'Iraqi poll dilemma'
Indo-Pakistan relations
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President Musharraf's proposals, which could serve as a basis for resolving the Kashmir dispute, have unfortunately drawn a negative response from Indian leaders. This is surprising because the Indians have repeatedly declared their commitment to a composite dialogue on all issues, including Kashmir.
Indian thinking and strategy so far have remained focused on confidence-building measures. Although CBMs are important, it would be counter-productive to delay or to postpone indefinitely progress on the vital issue of Kashmir.
While President Musharraf has had the courage to say that he is prepared to show flexibility, India remains entrenched in its stand that Kashmir is its integral part.
The first prerequisite, therefore, is for India to recognize the fact that the Kashmir dispute does exist, that the maintenance of its atoot ang status is a heavy drain on its exchequer in terms of keeping a force of 700,000 troops there, that the killing of innocent Kashmiris and human rights abuses by the Indian soldiers is unacceptable, that the long night of suffering of the Kashmiris, who have lost more than 70,000 of their people in the freedom struggle, should now end.
With the US and the rest of the international community behind India and Pakistan in their efforts to resolve their longstanding differences through the process of dialogue, now is the time to settle the Kashmir issue to the satisfaction of India, Pakistan and the Kashmiris. To start with, India and Pakistan should sign a treaty of friendship and cooperation at the earliest. The main provisions of this treaty should be as follows:
a. Declaration by both parties renouncing war as a means of settling disputes between them and a reiteration of the principle of the pacific settlement of disputes, as laid out in the UN Charter.
b. Identification of CBMs which can be undertaken quickly to intensify the friendly relations between the peoples of the two countries, such as exchange of visits of sporting teams, exchange of visits of school/college debating teams and exchange of visits of cultural shows.
c. Identification of CBMs which could be taken up at a later, suitable date (matters pertaining to trade and commerce, MFN status, etc.).
d. Simultaneously, both India and Pakistan should take steps to withdraw their military and paramilitary troops from Indian-held Kashmir and Azad Kashmir, respectively. There should be complete withdrawal within a specified timeframe, to be supervised by the UN.
e. All atrocities and human rights abuses to stop in Indian-held Kashmir. Pakistan to dismantle Mujahideen training camps, if any, and to stop infiltration, if any (the method and timing to be worked out by the parties concerned).
f. This part of the exercise should be completed within two years. By then the necessary groundwork be completed and a suitable environment created for the final solution of the Kashmir issue, which should be based on the principles of the Partition Plan of India, with the proviso that the Kashmiris should have the option of having an independent state of their own, if they so desire.
The list of provisions indicated above is by no means complete. The idea is to find a satisfactory solution to a problem which is not only political but also a human tragedy of colossal proportions. It is time to say enough is enough.
SALAHUDDIN K. LEGHARI
Lahore
Illegitimacy of Israeli state
Mr Bilal Ahmed Malik has explained the illegality of the state of Israel in his article "Why Israel is an illegitimate state" (Nov 20). Since the dawn of history, the mighty have been strangulating the weak. Armed raids over the land of the weak always resulted in occupation by powerful marauders.
History tells us - taking only two examples from the Middle East and South Asia - that Egypt was never ruled by an Egyptian until Nasser came to power in 1954. Babur came and defeated Ibrahim Lodhi, thus laying the foundation of 331 years of Mughal rule in India.
No one ever questioned the legality of occupation. Naked, brute force was accepted and considered legal right up to World War II. Germany and Japan were occupied by allied forces. Even today, the defeated ones are paying reparations.
The United Nations Organization came into being in 1945. In modern history, Israel is the only country which has used brute force to occupy a land for which the Zionists had a slogan: "Palestine was a land without people for a people without land", meaning the Arabs living in Palestine were not Palestinians, therefore, they must go away, and Jews who had no country - and with a long claim to this land - must live in it.
Legitimate or illegitimate, Israel is there. It exists because it has four important facilities:
1. It has the crucial and effective support of the free world comprising the entire First World, the Second World and some Third World countries influenced by its supporters.
2. It has military power supplied of the West.
3. It has brains which it uses to make itself a modern, powerful country.
4. It has money or, in other words, the supply of money - in aid from the US and in reparations from Germany. As against it, the adversaries of Israel have everything except the first, but they don't use their resources effectively. With these facilities, Israel is defying its illegitimacy. How long it will do this is anybody's guess.
S.M. KAZIM NAQVI
Karachi
Two-nation theory
Recently many letters have appeared in your newspaper on this subject. Their writers have frequently asked what happened to the two-nation theory. What made the Quaid-i-Azam say that "Muslims will cease to be Muslims, Hindus will cease to be Hindus as state citizens"?
Nationhood and homeland go together. A nation needs a home that is independent and sovereign. Until 1947 the people of India did not have an independent and sovereign home.
We were under British rule. In this context the Muslims of India collectively could call themselves a separate nation of 100 million Muslims with their own distinctive culture and civilization.
Having established our claim to nationhood the next logical step was to demand an independent and sovereign home. We could not ask for dozens of Pakistans in every corner of India which had pockets of Muslim majorities, so the demand for an independent and sovereign home was restricted to contiguous Muslim majority areas which were located in the north-west and north-eastern zones of India.
On Aug 14, 1947, two independent and sovereign homelands - India and Pakistan - appeared on the map of the subcontinent. As a consequence, two nations emerged, the Indian nation and the Pakistani nation - not a Hindu nation and a Muslim nation.
All people living in India, including the Muslims, became Indians. Likewise, all people living in Pakistan, including the Hindus, became Pakistanis. It was this reality that Quaid-i-Azam had referred to in his address on Aug 11, 1947.
If the Muslims of India continued to call themselves a separate nation, they would need a sovereign home. Where in India could this homeland be established? So, on August 14, 1947, the two-nation theory took a turn and twist by changing its complexion.
F. U. AHMAD
Karachi
'Why is Musharraf in a hurry?'
I refer to Mr Kuldip Nayar's column "Why is Musharraf in a hurry?" (Nov 27). The columnist is a senior journalist. But unfortunately he has flawed notions and convictions about Pakistani public opinion. I am a common Pakistani and I would like to state the following facts about public opinion in Pakistan:
(1) Every Pakistani holds the Kashmir dispute as the central and pivotal issue between India and Pakistan.
(2) Every Pakistani wants a solution to this issue before proceeding with any other CBMs like trade, cultural exchange, etc.
(3) Making the LoC a permanent border is not acceptable to more than 95 per cent of the people of Pakistan, no matter what the personal opinion of Ms Benazir Bhutto or Mr Nawaz Sharif is.
(4) Yes, we want peace with India but a Kashmir solution must come first.
We hope Mr Kuldip Nayar will stop asking for referendums in Pakistan and accept the seminal fact that the people of Pakistan have waited for 57 long years for a Kashmir solution, and they are definitely not prepared to forgo what he calls "hurry" to put Kashmir on the backburner.
Any fair solution that is acceptable to the parties and the Kashmiris but does not make the LoC a permanent feature will be acceptable to the public.
KARAMAT CHANDIO
Rawalpindi
Illegal detentions
Dawn (Nov 12) carried a statement by the Punjab inspector-general of police that any official found guilty of keeping anyone in illegal confinement would be sacked from service. He has rightly termed illegal custody by the police a heinous crime.
It is hoped that the orders of the IGP are implemented in letter and spirit. It will be a great service to the nation if Punjab sets an example for the other provinces to follow.
Illegal confinement of innocent citizens by the police, landlords and kiln owners is quite common all over the country, particularly in Punjab and Sindh. When the victims approach the courts, the latter get them released through a bailiff. But how many can approach the courts? Most of them are poor and illiterate and are not aware of their legal rights.
There is, in fact, need for a special law against illegal confinement of any citizen, particularly by the police. Heavy punishments with imprisonment and fine should be awarded to the culprits.
MUSHTAQ AHMAD
Lahore
0.9 billion infant deaths
At the end of each year at Christmas, the world gives special reverence to mothers and children. But how have infants been treated globally since 1950?
Below is a summary of under-five infant mortality in virtually all countries of the world since 1950 that has been calculated by a senior biological scientist from publicly-available UN and Unicef statistics, grouped geopolitically and expressed as a ratio with respect to the total population of each region in 2004 [rounded-off values are given in million (m)].
1. Pakistan 28.8m - 157m = 18.3 per cent
2. Overseas Europe (North America, Israel and Australasia 5.3m - 363m = 1.5 per cent
3. Western Europe 6.8m - 394m = 1.7 per cent
4. Eastern Europe (including Armenia and Georgia) 12.7m - 340m = 3.7 per cent
5. Latin America and Caribbean 51.9m - 517m = 10 per cent
6. +East Asia (including Mongolia) - 199.4m - 1544m = 12.9 per cent
7. South East Asia 70.9m - 551m = 12.9 per cent
8. Pacific 1.1m - 8m = 13 per cent
9. Arab North Africa and the Middle East 46.7m - 300m = 15.6 per cent
10. Central Asia, Turkey ad Iran 40m - 234m = 17.1 per cent
11. South Asia 281.5m - 1410m = 20 per cent
12. Non-Arab Africa 185.4m - 671m = 27.6 per cent
13. The world 901.8m - 6,332m = 14.2 per cent
14. The non-European world 876.9m - 5235m = 16.8 per cent
15. Australia 0.2m - 19.9m = 1 per cent
16. The UK 0.8m - 59m = 1.3 per cent
17. Israel 0.09m - 7m = 1.4 per cent
18. The US 4.4m - 297m = 1.5 per cent
19. Asia Pacific countries with Australian post-1950 armed involvement (Korea, Malaysia, Indo-China, Papua New Guinea, Iraq, East Timor, Afghanistan and the Solomons, but excluding China and Indonesia) 33.7m - 256m = 13.2 per cent
20. Israel's immediate neighbours 16.6m - 105m = 15.9 per cent
21. Indo-China (Laos, Cambodia and Vietnam) 13.2m - 103m = 13.6 per cent
22. Iraq 3.3m - 26m = 12.9 per cent
23. Afghanistan 11.2m - 25m = 44.8 per cent
Considered country by country, post-1950 under-five infant mortality throughout the world correlates with foreign occupation, neo-colonial occupation, militarization, debt, economic exclusion, malignant interference, corrupt client regimes and war variously imposed by such countries as the US, UK, France and Russia.
Of course, whether a child is violently killed or perishes from deprivation or malnourishment-exacerbated disease, the result is the same and the culpability the same.
Further, the occupying ruler is responsible for the ruled. There are nevertheless some excellent outcomes in the non-European world, most notably that of Cuba (0.3m - 11m = 3.1 per cent), but it can be notionally estimated from this data that US hegemony and denial of Cuban-style, excellent literacy and primary healthcare in Latin America has deprived some 36 million infants under the age of five years of the right to life.
Remember the great words of Thomas Jefferson in the American Declaration of Independence: "We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness."
Participation as a junior "democratic imperialist" in racist, military-industrial complex-inspired Anglo-American wars in the developing world has made white Australia accomplice in collateral and consequential infant mass mortality so horrendous that it invites the kind of world economic boycotts and bans applied to the minority apartheid regime in South Africa - and which may indeed be applied by an indignant world to the Anglo-American coalition still devastating Iraq.
According to Unicef (2004), in 2002 the under-five infant mortality was 108,000 in Iraq, 283,000 in Afghanistan and 1,000 in Australia. War kills. Silence kills. Silence is complicity. Please inform everyone. Save the children.
DR GIDEON POLYA
Melbourne, Victoria, Australia
Liquor deaths
There have been a number of deaths in Hyderabad by the consumption of methylated spirit. Even a layman knows that denatured alcohol is poisonous. This spirit is sold by medical stores for use as a germicide or for making furniture polish.
Dealers in methy lated spirit are licensed by the government to ensure that it does not reach the liquor underworld. Now when several people have died after consuming the moonshine, the authorities have arrested licensed dealers across the city but the actual culprits are roaming without any fear.
It is a known fact that illegal supplies of alcohol are made through clandestine sources as corruption reigns in every nook and cranny of our society. Hence, it is unfair to blame licensed dealers whenever such a tragedy occurs. The authorities should release the innocent dealers forthwith and arrest those responsible for the deaths of so many people.
RAFI ADAMJEE
Karachi
Nadra's working
I applied for an NICOP (national identity card for overseas Pakistanis) over six months ago in the name of my daughter Hiba Khan, who is a US citizen. The application was filed on June 1. She was issued a card numbered 42201-7920882-4 and the form number was KQ00016670. The Rs900 card fee was paid when we applied.
We were told that the card would reach our address within a month of the submission of the application, but we have not received it yet. A complaint (No. 933) was made on July 27, but in vain. Each time we call the help line, 111-786-100, we get the standard reply that our card is 'under process'.
The applicant's visa to stay in Pakistan is about to expire. We wanted the card to do away with the visa renewal requirement. Now, who is going to be responsible if the visa expires? Will somebody at the Nadra headquarters come to our rescue?
KHALID KHAN
Karachi
Cathedral
The Holy Trinity Cathedral in Karachi is built of Gizri limestone and not of sandstone as mentioned in a Dawn report on Dec 5. Gizri rocks are all lime stones.
DR QAZI SHAKIL AHMAD
Karachi
Security lapse in UK
The recent security leak during President Musharraf's visit to the UK is proof of negligence on the part of the British police and intelligence agencies. The president was told that his safety in the UK was a priority, but Britain's secret service and the police could not manage to keep the visit arrangements secret.
Top secret files detailing security arrangements for President Musharraf on his first official visit to Britain were found lying on the pavement of a London street.
The secret files revealed the president's movements plus confidential police radio channels and codes, detailing every aspect of his protection, including his movements and secret police call signs. The British government should investigate the matter and fix those responsible for the security lapse.
SYED A. MATEEN
Karachi
'Iraqi poll dilemma'
Your editorial "Iraqi poll dilemma" (Nov 30) has painted a correct picture. However, the term "insurgent" used for the Iraqis does not seem to be justified, as it signifies "rebellion" or actions by rebels.
In the present scheme of things, countless innocent Iraqis are being butchered by the occupation forces. Since they are defending themselves against the most naked aggression in the history of mankind, they should not be called "insurgents".
The Iraqis are trying to defend themselves, their homes, their children and their integrity and sovereignty. Can they be called "insurgents"? PRO BONO PUBLICO
Lahore
Indo-Pakistan relations
Recently I had the honour of listening to Professor Behram Anklesaria, president of the Federation of Gyn & Obs Societies of India, at the first annual conference of the Society of Gyn & Obs Pakistan at Liaquat Medical University.
I would like to quote an excerpt from his inaugural speech: "In 1947 a mother, British India, gave birth to two beautiful daughters, India and Pakistan, by C-Section, oddly 24 hours apart. These two lovely girls should have loved each other and played together like any normal twins, but they never grew up."
DR NAVEEDA JAVAID
Karachi
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