| 29 December 2004 | Wednesday | 16 Ziqa'ad 1425 |
Towards food sovereignty
Retiring from politics
Soviet blunders and Saur losers
The world's attention is focused now, as it should be, on the havoc created in South and Southeast Asia by the massive earthquake and tsunami wave that followed in its wake. The death toll has already touched 23,000 and is likely to rise further.
The economies of most of the affected countries are ill-equipped to cope with the massive task of rehabilitating the impoverished victims or the reconstruction of the infrastructure. Their problems will be compounded by the drying up of the tourist trade on which many of these countries were dependent.
The Maldives, for instance, depends on tourism for 74 per cent of its GDP and 64 per cent of the jobs are in the tourism sector. Even in Malaysia, a relatively more prosperous and diversified economy some 15 per cent of the GDP and 13 per cent of the jobs come from the tourism sector.
It is to be hoped that international attention and sympathy will translate into massive aid packages for the region, and bring succour to the victims of this natural calamity.
In the meanwhile, even as less attention is being paid to it by the international media, the man-made situation in Iraq is acquiring calamitous proportions.
The suicide bombing at the American base in Mosul, theoretically a base at which Iraqis were being trained to work in close unison with the Americans to root out the insurgency and so eventually to take over responsibility for running the country's security, has now been converted into a showpiece of mutual suspicion between the Iraqi soldiers and their American mentors.
Iraqi soldiers, who were previously allowed into the dining hall without let or hindrance, are now subject to search and to an armed American escort as they emerge from their Spartan living quarters.
Their entry into the base on return from leave or from their homes in Mosul or other nearby hamlets is subject to a strict check as are the vehicles they use for patrols or other duties outside the base.
If Iraqi morale was low and if the Iraqis did not put up the required fight in battle conditions, as President Bush conceded recently, and if the schedule for training Iraqis for security was not being adhered to even before the Mosul incident, the recent bout of violence has ensured that things will get worse for some time at least.
Secretary Rumsfeld, in a surprise visit to Iraq, told the American soldiers at the Mosul base not to believe the naysayers who claimed that Iraq was a quagmire. He claimed that the key to the future of Iraq was "handing security over to its people".
This oft-used cliche appears even more worn now than in the past given the difficulties of trust highlighted by the Mosul incident. American experts had already been issuing dire warnings that American soldiers would be engaged in anti insurgency operations well into 2006, but now, it would be reasonable to assume that with the heightening doubt in the American mind about the reliability of the Iraqi "partner", the Americans will be operating in what is undeniably the Iraqi quagmire for much longer.
Anthony Cordesman, the well-known American expert on the Iraqi military situation has, in a recent article, pointed out that between 1,600 to 3,000 attacks are launched on the Americans every month and that the number of deaths in the "war after the war" has far exceeded the number of casualties suffered in over throwing Saddam.
He argues that to defeat the insurgency and to achieve the political goals the Americans have set for themselves in Iraq, American forces must not hunker down but go on the offensive and must do so in full partnership with the Iraqis. There is, however, little sign that the Americans have the ability to do this either on the political or the military front.
In a momentous setback to the plans for the January 30 elections, the Iraqi Islamic Party has announced its withdrawal from the elections. According to the leader of the party, which was the only Sunni party of substance that had agreed to participate in the elections, the security situation would not allow polling in six of Iraq's 18 provinces.
Even where elections could be held, the election procedure laid down was not understood and time was needed to educate the voter. The party's demand for a six month postponement of the elections is, therefore, reasonable.
The American reaction so far has been a statement by outgoing state secretary Colin Powell that the withdrawal was not yet official and that perhaps the party could be persuaded to change its mind and a statement from the White House that the elections will go ahead regardless.
It has now been made known that this gritty determination on Bush's part to hold the elections as scheduled was also made plain to King Abdullah when he visited Washington earlier this month, when he was told not to even raise the subject and to focus, instead, on using his influence to persuade the Iraqi Sunnis to participate in the elections on the proposed dates.
In a rather belated realization of the consequences of the Sunnis having no or limited representation through elections, talks between the Americans and Ayatollah Sistani were indicated - and subsequently denied by Secretary Powell - that the Shias should agree to give Sunnis a share of the government and the seats in the legislature even if they do not win them in the elections. Two prominent American senators - Levin and Lugar - made a similar plea.
Powell, in denying the report of talks with Sistani, said that the option of adding seats was not provided for by the law enacted under American occupation earlier this year, and that the United States was not "participating in any discussion with Iraqi leaders" on changing the law.
However, he went on to add that the future government of Iraq "would certainly have to take into account the ethnic mix of the country" in filling positions in the government.
Perhaps even more ominous from the perspective of Iraq's future and the possibility of civil war was the attack on the office of the Supreme Council of the Islamic Revolution in Iraq (SCIRI) in which the leader of SCIRI - Abdel Aziz al-Hakim - escaped unhurt but some 39 people are said to have died.
Abdel Aziz tops the list of candidates on the slate of the United Iraqi Coalition, the Shia dominated party put together with the blessings, and perhaps active, participation of Ayatollah Sistani.
He is also the commander of the now theoretically defunct Badr Brigade, a 100,000 strong militia force which operated against Saddam Hussein from Iran and was active in the immediate aftermath of the American occupation.
It has now been theoretically disbanded but there are persistent reports that operating under cover it has been active in eliminating former Baathists and others identified as adversaries of the Shias.
Abdel Aziz is also the brother of the first leader of SCIRI, Ayatollah Mohammed Bakir Hakim, who was killed in the massive explosion in Karbala in August 2003. Abdel Aziz has pledged non-retaliation even while blaming Sunni extremists for the incident. But the question is whether this counsel of restraint will be accepted by his more volatile followers.
On the other hand, further incitement has been offered to the Sunnis by the alleged message from Bin Laden broadcast by Al-Jazeera in which he endorsed Al-Zarqawi as his deputy in Iraq and called upon the Iraqis to boycott the vote.
According to this broadcast message the authenticity of which has yet to be confirmed, Bin Laden asserted that anyone participating in these elections would be an infidel.
Will this message find resonance among the Sunnis in Iraq? Part of the answer may lie in the response that the Fallujah evacuees have given to the American call for them to return to their homes in the devastated city. Press reports suggest that the response has been poor and that many of those who did return have made it clear that they see no reason to stay.
There have also been reports of further fighting within the city and little or no sign of a resumption of economic activity. Fallujah, so long a symbol of resistance to the American occupation, could, if the city was re-populated, represent the first sign of acceptance by the Sunnis, albeit reluctantly, of a reconciliation.
If this is not happening then Bin Laden's provocative and dangerous call for resistance will further fuel the flames of Sunni discontent. The Americans and the government of Ayad Allawi are in a bind.
The ongoing sectarian violence will only aggravate if there is an insistence on going ahead with the polls even without Sunni participation. On the other hand, if the elections are postponed the fears are the Shias may take up arms and they will be a formidable force, as indicated by the fact that SCIRI offered to provide 100,000 armed militia to guard the polling stations.
The offer was turned down with great firmness by the Allawi government which emphasized that security would be provided by the Iraqi security forces backed by the coalition forces. But both the Americans and the interim government would have taken note of the force that the Shias can muster even without any assistance from external forces.
I believe, however, that the Shias can be persuaded, particularly Ayatollah Sistani, to take a less strident view of an election postponement if it is ensured that the postponement is for a limited period and does not threaten the acquisition of the major elements of power by the Shia majority while helping to quell in some measure, Sunni discontent and insurgency.
In considering this possibility, it has first to be acknowledged that the insurgency is largely indigenous and is only marginally influenced by the inflammatory statements of Bin Laden or by foreign insurgents, and that it flows from Sunni apprehensions of what influence they will retain in a power structure that they had dominated in the past.
If this assumption is accepted, then one can address the Sunni concerns by dispensing with the proportional representation system and allowing instead for elections in individual constituencies.
This would ensure that the Sunnis get some 25-30 per cent of the seats since they are the majority in that many of the constituencies if Iraq were to be divided into 275 constituencies.
One can also tackle the situation by making a constitutional provision as in the case of Lebanon, to ensure that one of the top offices - presidency - is held by the Sunnis while the prime minister is a Shia and perhaps the speaker is a Kurd.
This would be a duplication of the confessional system employed in Lebanon. While its record has been mixed in Lebanon it may be a good stop-gap arrangement for Iraq while sectarian wounds heal and a new political ambience is created.
What is also needed is the provision of (c) provide for a far greater measure of local self-government and an equitable division of national income derived largely from energy resources present in Kurdish and Shia dominated areas.
I believe that unlike other Shia leaders Ayatollah Sistani has the wisdom and foresight to accept such an arrangement since it is important for him not only to see the Shias obtain the power they have so long being deprived of, but also to maintain the unity of Iraq and the facade of unity with Iraq's Arab neighbours that would be seriously threatened if the Iraqi Sunnis remained alienated.
The writer is a former foreign secretary.
Towards food sovereignty
For three years now, a programme called the Green Economics and Globalization Initiative launched by an NGO, Shirkat Gah, has been working to create "economic literacy" among the people. The goal is to promote the concept of urban farming which can make a large number of people self-sufficient in food.
It is stated that a quarter acre of land can grow enough food to feed a family, while half an acre will give a surplus. And one acre of cultivated land can make a family affluent.
One may well ask why then are 50 per cent of the under-five children in Pakistan under-nourished? (Figure from Unicef's State of the World's Children 2005) That too when the government claims that 22 million hectares of land is under cultivation.
The simple reason is that not every family has a quarter acre of land and not everyone is growing food. Worse still, given the government's World Bank driven policies, not everyone can afford adequate food and there are many people who still go to bed hungry at night.
The NGO has demonstrated that this dismal situation can be changed if there is more emphasis on food security and self-sufficiency. Its staff has used the little garden space in its office to grow vegetables using organic farming methods on an experimental basis.
The need for self-sufficiency in food should acquire an urgency now for another reason. This was explained lucidly by Devinder Sharma, chairperson of the Delhi-based Forum for Biotechnology and Food Security, who visited Pakistan last week as the keynote speaker at the fourth food sovereignty engagement of Shirkat Gah.
He shed light on some of the grim scenarios that the Third World can expect to see in the coming years as the World Trade Organization's regime comes into force on January 1, 2005. He elucidated the deadly implications of the WTO agreement - especially the framework agreement on agriculture signed in July 2004 - for Third World farmers.
According to him, agriculture in the developing countries will be wiped out as the giant agri businesses of America, Europe and the Pacific will become the major food suppliers to all countries.
How will this happen? Under the new regime all countries are required to liberalize their trade by removing tariff barriers and other protective measures. This will expose the Third World farmers to "ruinous competition, driving down prices, undermining rural wages and exacerbating unemployment".
If western farmers can produce food at prices that can compete in the international market, the logical question would be that why can't Third World farmers do the same.
The simple reason is that an American or European farmer is much more heavily subsidized than a farmer in any Third World country. With landowners being paid direct subsidies, many farmers in the West are millionaires.
Sharma identified some of the recipients of the hefty subsidies doled out by the western governments in the name of agriculture. In 2001, Ted Turner, the chief of the CNN, David Rocke feller and the Duke of Westminster were some of the distinguished beneficiaries.
Corn growers in the US receive as much as $20,000 a year while cotton farmers notch up $3.9 billion a year in that country. In Europe, dairy farmers earn as much as five million euros for the export of milk.
With not enough resources in their kitty, Third World governments cannot pay direct subsidies to their farmers. Hence they have traditionally been helping agriculturists by subsidizing inputs such as water, fertilizers, seeds and pesticides.
It is no coincidence, that through a complicated set of rules drawn up in the Framework Agreement, these very subsidies paid by the developing countries have been placed in the "amber box" which signifies payments that are "trade distorting" and must, therefore, be eliminated. The direct payments the western governments make to their farmers have been put in the "green box" and the "blue box" that will not be touched.
As a result of this semantic sophistry, the Third World, which has traditionally depended on agriculture to feed its people and provide employment to a huge chunk of its population, will become the dumping ground for agricultural products with prices pushed down artificially by western governments.
This process has already begun as food production is falling in many countries which are losing revenues from food and cotton exports, rural unemployment is on the rise and urbanization is increasing at an unmanageable pace.
Devinder Sharma, who has done his homework well, gives examples from the developing world. In the Philippines since 1995 traditional exports such as coconut, abaca and sugar have lost markets, corn production has suffered and the agricultural sector has lost 710,000 jobs.
In Central America, a major coffee exporter, prices have fallen causing a loss of $713 million in coffee revenues in 2001 and the axing of 170,000 jobs. Indonesia, one of the top 10 exporters of rice in 1995, is today the largest importer of rice. India, the biggest producer of vegetables, has had to double its vegetable imports.
Sharma was shocked at the lack of awareness in the official circles in Islamabad. He strongly pleads for the Third World countries to take a collective stand to protect their agriculture.
There are two basic principles, he spells out, which the developing states should recognize. First, national food sovereignty is the right of every state which should be allowed to protect its agriculture and thereby job security, of its farming community.
Secondly, quantitative restrictions should be allowed to enable Third World countries to protect their agriculture from the dumping of cheap subsidized imports from the West.
To pave the way for a sensible and humanist globalization, Sharma suggests that production systems based on environmentally devastating, ecologically unsound and economically unviable factors (as is the case with agriculture in Europe and America) should be phased out.
Similarly, the removal of subsidies, that include the direct income subsidies given in the West to its farmers, should be linked with the removal of quantitative restrictions to ensure a level playing field for all.
It is time the gravity of the impending crisis were understood here. The multilateral agreement against hunger that Sharma so passionately pleads for should have the highest place on the agenda of our negotiators who attend the WTO meetings.
We need to explicitly recognize that every human being has the right to food. Given the surplus of food in the world today, famine and starvation cannot be justified on any ground. The 840 million who go to bed hungry every night world wide should not be doing so only if the governments were a bit more caring.
Food security also has a strategic dimension which is hardly spoken about. Once our farmers are wiped out - as they inevitably will be if the WTO regime in its present form comes into effect - and we become wholly dependent on the West for food supplies, we will have to meet all its demands howsoever unreasonable and destructive they are for us. No nuclear weapons or armies of millions will be able to save us.
Food is the most potent weapon any country can ever possess. The West understands this very well. That is why it mollycoddles its farmers (as well as their cows) and is prepared to pay subsidies worth more than the world market price of the crop they produce. (In the US cotton growers received $3.9 billion in subsidy payments for cotton which was sold for $3 billion in 2001.)
The Delhi Forum and Shirkat Gah are working towards a common goal of saving our farmers and our agriculture. Of course we have to grow cash crops and other crops for our industries. But there has to be a balance. There is need to improve our food sector by making it self-sufficient and sustainable, which the government's World Bank driven policies are failing to do.
It is not the pesticides, the chemical fertilizers, the high yield seeds or the genetically modified plants that we need. It is a return to the traditional farming methods of our ancestors that is the need of the day. In the West the health-conscious consumers are now turning to food produced by organic farming methods.
A project is on the cards to take organic farming at a minimal cost to the kachchi abadis of Karachi. There is an appeal for donors to come forward to help in this project - which should ultimately lead to the establishment of an agricultural school to teach organic farming methods to our cultivators. One hopes this appeal will not fall on deaf ears.
Retiring from politics
Many years ago, Mr Wali Khan, who was then president of the Awami National Party, proposed that there should be a retiring age for politicians too. Having said this, he promptly called it a day and went home to rest, leaving Ajmal Khattak in charge. surprisingly, his act was entirely voluntary, and no provocation, overt or covert, was involved.
No one from the other political parties dared to follow in his footsteps. That is one thing we Pakistanis never do, that is, following in the footsteps of good leaders, even if the footsteps are those of the Quaid-i-Azam.
We only exhort students and the masses to do so who sometimes spend their whole lives looking for suitable footprints to step on. They are unable to decide which political leader's footsteps to follow - those that lead to respectability or to notoriety.
By a strange coincidence, a proposal similar to that of Wali Khan was also made some years ago by Chaudhry Shujaat Husain, now known as the Grand Old Man of the Pakistan Muslim League. While Wali Khan chose to follow his own judgment, Chaudhry Sahib had no such intention when he voiced the thought before some journalists.
In fact, when he was reminded of it after some time, he laughed and said, "Have a heart. Have you ever heard of anyone retiring from politics just because of old age? Look at Nawabzada Nasrullah Khan." The latter was then alive.
Do you think if Wali Khan's idea to have politicians to retire at a certain age was given effect to, the so-called retired politicians would also give up issuing statements? They would think it was their national and moral duty to guide the nation so that it doesn't go astray. They might even threaten to stage a comeback like "Tarzan ki waapsi," if they felt that things were getting out of hand.
All kinds of arguments would be put forward. Can issuing of statements be called indulging in politics? What exactly is a political statement? If the president and the prime minister can exhort the various Muslim sects in their holy day messages to unite, why couldn't a retired politician call upon various parties to join hands and throw the ruling regime out? What is the difference between the two calls?
And suppose some authority were to give the verdict that a certain statement by someone was political and a violation of the retirement rule, what would be his punishment? Would he be asked to take it back and sent to jail under some new law if he refused? Or would newspapers be advised to be careful in future or otherwise their advertisements would be stopped? Or would the old culprit be simply ostracized by serving politicians? A sort of "hookah paani band," as they say in Urdu.
At this point I can't resist the temptation of conjecturing what would have happened to a man like Nawabzada Nasrullah Khan who had own hookah and carried it everywhere.
What a great loss to politics that man's passing away has been! Had he been alive, the phenomenon that he was would itself have presented a unique dilemma for those in charge of enforcing the retirement rule.
If he had chosen to be stubborn on the plea that he would have nothing left to do if kept out of politics, he could have made things difficult for whoever wanted him to retire. Moreover, he could have sought a court injunction that since he was the cobbler of the Grand Democratic Alliance only he could do away with it, and until it was uncobbled he would stay its chief. It would be a stay order in the real sense of the word.
As an example and incentive the voluntary retirement of Wali Khan would be of no help. Being a man of principle makes him an exception. Besides he has Begum Wali Khan to speak on his behalf whenever he feels like speaking.
Otherwise we have seen too many politicians announcing their retirement and re-entering politics at the first available opportunity, usually "in response to great and persistent demand from followers and admirers."
Apart from suggesting that a retirement committee representing the major political parties be set up to thrash out the issue in all its details, I personally can't think of anything more to say on its logistics.
In order to ensure that the committee is not unjust to the elderly politicians earmarked for retirement, it should have powers to coopt from the oldest of those who are functus officio, even if they are senile. These could be Mian Tufail Muhammad, retired amir of the Jamaat-i- Islami, and Mr Aslam Khattak who has made more returns to active politics than even he can remember.
But that may mean that the committee would never be able to decide on its most important recommendation - the age of retirement. Whatever age it fixes, short of a hundred years, Mr Aslam Khattak would come within its mischief. Naturally it would be too much to expect him to commit political suicide. He told a Peshawar newspaper some time ago that he was hale and hearty, though he refused to tell when he had crossed 90. "I don't remember," he said.
Another big problem might arise if former president Ghulam Ishaq Khan decides that a retired life is too boring and that he must get back into the arena. Those who know him well say he is more shrewd than an income tax lawyer and more conversant with intricate rules and regulations than the wiliest section officer in the government.
He might come up with the astounding theory that while he is no longer the president he is still empowered to wield the Eighth Amendment and dismiss a regime or two!
Since no one in the establishment nowadays really understands the Constitution, by the time Syed Sharifuddin Pirzada comes up with a way to keep him out, he will have entrenched himself in the Aiwan-a-Sadar once again, which would not be difficult as President Pervez Musharraf does not live there. This would truly be Tarzan ki waapsi, for just recall how doggedly he fought Mian Nawaz Sharif for power some years ago.
Keeping all this in mind, and before the suggested retirement committee comes into being, I think Wali Khan would be well advised, in the national interest, to give a second thought to the business of fixing a retirement age for politicians.
Soviet blunders and Saur losers
"It would effectively be a conflict with one's own people," Alexei Kosygin told Nur Mohammed Taraki in March 1979. "If our troops are introduced, the situation in your country will not only fail to improve but worsen."
Nearly a year after the coup that brought communists to power in Kabul, the Soviet premier was warning the Afghan president against insisting on direct military assistance.
Six months later, Taraki was dead - killed in a palace coup and succeeded by his ruthless prime minister, Hafizullah Amin. And about three months after that, Amin, too, was gone. The task of eliminating him had been entrusted to Soviet special forces.
Twenty-five years ago this week, the world learnt that Soviet tanks had rolled into Afghanistan, bringing with them a replacement for Amin - the country's ambassador to Prague, Babrak Karmal.
There was at the time no way of knowing that the fateful decision to intervene militarily had been debated long and hard at the highest levels of the Soviet government and the Communist Party, with the eventual policy being formulated only in the face of considerable opposition.
We also now know not only that American efforts to destabilize Afghanistan began at least six months before the Soviet invasion, but that the very purpose of these manoeuvres was to draw the Red Army into a "bear trap".
Jimmy Carter's national security adviser Zbigniew Brzezinski is proud of his role in preparing that trap: the subsequent fate of Afghanistan was, in his eyes, a small price to pay for humiliating Moscow.
The role of the decade-long Afghan misadventure in the USSR's eventual demise is often overrated: the Soviet state crumbled under the weight of of its internal contradictions, and it would have done so even without committing large numbers of troops to an increasingly unpopular intervention.
There can be little question, though, that the invasion was a monumental folly, prompted in all likelihood by the prospect of losing Afghanistan to hostile forces - and the naive assumption that militarily superior Soviet forces could wipe out the resistance. And, a quarter-century on, what's perhaps most surprising is that the US evidently failed to learn any lessons from the conflict it so doggedly helped to fuel - else it would have had a few more reservations about blundering into Iraq.
The fact that Leonid Brezhnev's 1979 war plans encountered more opposition in ruling circles than George W. Bush's push to war in 2003 doesn't reflect too well on the quality and health of American democracy.
Meanwhile, Iyad Allawi might be viewing with envy the relatively uneventful apparent consolidation of power by the US-imposed regime in Kabul. Appearances can be deceptive, though.
One must hope, of course, that Afghanistan will henceforth stumble towards democracy, stability and, above all, peace. Last October's electoral exercise doesn't mean, however, that representative rule has already gained a foothold.
It remains to be seen whether Hamid Karzai can shed the stigma of puppet hood - or at least acquire the confidence to move about in the nation he supposedly presides over without a phalanx of American bodyguards.
It's not remnants of the Taliban or Al Qaeda who are Afghanistan's main problem, but the "commanders" or jangsalaran - a legacy of the Mujahideen - who jealously guard their fiefs and profit most from the poppy crops.
This unusual form of feudalism is clearly a consequence of the conditions that have prevailed in recent decades. What's less clear is whether it can be transcended without further bloodshed.
No one can say for certain where Afghanistan would have stood today had its history unfolded differently. What if Sardar Daoud hadn't overthrown his cousin, King Zahir Shah, in 1973, would Zahir Shah have still been on the throne, or would he long ago have suffered a similar fate as the Shah of Iran? And what if Daoud hadn't alienated the communists - would the PDPA nonetheless have made a bid for power?
Would it have made much of a difference if the PDPA's Khalq and Parcham factions hadn't been at each other's throats? And if the Soviet Union had decided against direct military intervention, would the US have persisted with covert operations? Would the Mujahideen have still made a hash of it after capturing Kabul?
The last of these questions can probably be answered in the affirmative. Many of the Afghans who resisted the Soviet presence did so through nationalist motives, but the Mujahideen leaders were a motley bunch - and the CIA and Pakistan granted special favours to the least enlightened of the lot, Gulbuddin Hekmatyar.
In Soviet propaganda at the time, the likes of Hekmatyar were routinely referred to as bandits. Last year, the Hizb-e-Islami leader was formally designated a terrorist by the US State Department.
And in some respects the objectives of the US and its allies in Afghanistan are not all that different from what the Soviets were trying to achieve. Back then, though, the US was quite happy for its proxy warriors to, for instance, slit the throats of teachers who worked at coeducational schools.
With or without direct Soviet help, the PDPA could not have survived for very long unless it had been able to convince most Afghans - especially the rural majority - that its intentions were benign.
Given that its constituency was restricted to the urban intelligentsia, and that much of the countryside was steeped in confessionalism and tradition, the Saur "revolution" was obviously premature.
It is also true, however, that the armed backlash would have been considerably less severe and spectacular but for all weaponry introduced into the conflict courtesy of the US, Pakistan and Saudi Arabia.
And not just hardware. The American quest for Arab combatants could be construed as a vote of no confidence in the military abilities of most of its Afghan clients. It may not have proved as decisive as the supply of hi-tech armaments, but the two were not unrelated.
Former Russian prime minister Yevgeny Primakov notes in his recent memoirs, Russian Crossroads: "When I worked in foreign intelligence, I came across materials indicating that the Americans had supplied the Afghan Mujahideen with some of the most sophisticated weapons in their arsenal, such as Stinger anti-aircraft missiles, with the aim of doing as much damage to the Soviet troops as possible...
"According to our information, the idea of deploying the Stingers was supplied by Osama bin Laden, who had been cooperating closely with the CIA at the time."
* * * * *
This week, a large part of Asia is reeling from a disaster that cannot be blamed on Osama bin Laden or his associates. Early on Sunday, the earth moved as the Eurasian and India tectonic plates collided 25 miles under the seabed.
The resultant earthquake was reportedly the world's worst in four decades, but before the damage it had caused could be calculated, tidal waves unleashed by the phenomenon wreaked vast and possibly unprecedented havoc in Sri Lanka, southern India and Indonesia.
Tsunamis are uncommon in this part of the world, so it isn't particularly surprising that regional governments last year discussed the possibility of putting in place an early warning system, but then dismissed it as an extravagance.
The affected countries are all poor. They often don't get their priorities right. But in this particular instance they can't be seriously faulted except in hindsight.
The worst-hit sections of humanity were coastal communities in Sri Lanka, Tamil Nadu, Andhra Pradesh and Aceh. Natural calamities invariably claim far more lives in impoverished than in affluent countries.
Density of population is one reason; the quality of dwellings is another. Then there is the pressure on resources such as health care, and the fact that diseases spread more rapidly amid insanitation.
Poverty is, of course, a killer even without the aid of natural disasters. But it also works as a catalyst when cataclysms strike. As in the case of the tremors that destroyed the Iranian town of Bam a year ago, it is difficult to come to terms with the scale of the catastrophe. Tens of thousands dead. Corpses scattered across beaches. Livelihoods destroyed. Millions shelterless...
If regional countries couldn't afford warning devices, shouldn't there be a global system, under the aegis of the UN? If human capacity for predicting such phenomenon is still very limited, shouldn't a lot more scientists be paying far greater attention to little-understood aspects of our planet rather than reaching for the stars?
Nations across the world have, of course, expressed condolences and pledged funds and resources to rescue and rehabilitation efforts. Every little bit helps - but, unfortunately, not every promise is kept. In the wake of last year's destruction, the people of Bam were told $1 billion would be coming their way. Thus far only $17 million has materialized.
Natural disasters are an abomination wherever they may occur, but the profound inequalities of the world we live in means that in some cases they go on killing long after they've done their worst.
Email: mahirali2@netcape.net.