| October 19, 2007 | Friday | Shawwal 6, 1428 |
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Myanmar crisis
Our nuclear scientists
Flyovers in Karachi
Small Investors’ woes
Cricket: skills vs national interest
Nobel peace prize 2007
Phone dead
Government performance
Two Eids
Readers are requested to restrict their comments to a maximum of 400 words. We reserve the right to edit letters for reasons of clarity and space. Letters, including those by e-mail, should carry the complete postal address of the sender. The views expressed in these columns do not necessarily reflect the views of the newspaper.—Editor
THIS is utterly a misperception and ignorance of many that the Taliban are simply reacting or they are just defending themselves and that they do not having any agenda to be pursued in Pakistan.
In fact, like workers having been despaired by their political leaders (viz dealers) in Pakistan, the Taliban were despaired by their ‘religio-political dealers/teachers’ (viz the so-called Afghan Mujahideen) given the long infighting for the power by the Afghan Mujahideen after the Soviet army was driven out from Afghanistan.
None among the warlords of the Taliban’s teachers/dealers had yet prevailed over Afghanistan entirely that they were yearning for separation of Balochistan and the NWFP in the first instance and annexing them with the greater ‘United Afghanistan Islamic Emirates’ (viz UAIE) and, thereafter, they shall establish a strong base for the liberation of the loaded Arab sheikhdoms from the US according to their vision.
And this was the raison d’être of convergence between merchant Osama and Mullah Omar and this was the basis for establishing the hard-core guerilla outfit: ‘the Base’ (viz Al Qaeda).
This is not simply my personal thinking, rather this is my personal observation while I was participating in the 22-day training-cum-launching camp of warlord Gulbadin Hekmatyar, known as Al Fatah Ghund situated in a suitable and safe mountain terrain of Tal, and as such I can say that I have been an eyewitness to this deliberation that was conceived by warlords mostly on the Pakistan soil during the ‘over and omni-asylum’ in Pakistan long before Afghanistan of the Taliban.
The US, Pakistan and others were thinking that they were using he Afghan Mujahideen for their ends but, in fact, the Afghan Mujahideen were using the US, Pakistan and others for their ends.
I mean to say that the present spearhead of the Afghan Taliban, local Taliban and Al Qaeda are not reacting against Pakistan armed forces, rather they have been acting and working on a single and common agenda for a long time for establishing ‘United Afghanistan Islamic Emirates’ and, then, for liberating and talibanising Arab sheikhdoms and, finally, for setting up the ‘world Islamic khilafat’.
In fact, US intervention in Afghanistan is a blessing in disguise for Pakistan, for had the US not attacked Afghanistan, ‘they’ would have launched their onslaught long before against Pakistan in the first instance. There is no doubt that the US government is more brutal and cruel than can be imagined but the misfortune is that our Taliban are second to none in barbarism.
People with no competent leadership never have any role to play: they are simply ruled or rolled over.
AFTAB ALAM
Swat
INDIA’s volatile neighbourhood just got more complicated with the mass protests by Buddhist monks in Myanmar against the military junta. Myanmar has long remained isolated in the eyes of the world and the military dictatorship has maintained its only contacts with India and China, both for trade and counter-terrorism alliances.
The UN and the EU have condemned the actions of the junta and more significantly urged India and China to play a larger role in influencing the military to back down.
However, this is as far as the UN and EU have gone without spelling out what exactly they expect of India and China as mediators in the fragile state of affairs in Myanmar.
India’s response to the Burmese crisis has been muted and rather ambiguous. The foreign ministry’s spokesperson only spoke of the need for ‘national reconciliation’ and a return to peace without stating what India would like to see as a logical outcome.
As highlighted, India finds itself in the same Tibet syndrome and more recently in the Katmandu syndrome where it wants to please all players in the crisis without taking sides and in this process of egalitarianism lose out to the Chinese or worst still lose the faith of the people of the crisis-ridden country.
The generals of the junta in Myanmar recognise that India needs their support to eliminate the insurgency in the northeast. They use that as bargaining chips to ensure their continuity in office. But it is also true that the tacit recognition India is providing to the junta gives it some semblance of recognition in the world.
If India were to strengthen its borders and then actively support the pro-democracy movement, the junta will feel the heat, as will the Chinese. With a strengthened border, the junta will have to deal with the insurgents on their home soil rather than exporting them to Indian territory as has happened over the decades.
But for this to happen, India will need to be bold. We have already missed by the bus by not taking an active role as soon as the crisis broke out, now with the UN and EU asking us to intervene, it seems any toughening of India’s stand will seem forced upon us rather than India taking a leadership role to resolve the crisis.
That said, it is till not too late for us to act and to ensure that the demonstrations end peacefully and with a move towards democracy.
China will bargain before it comes down heavily on the junta, but if India were to show its seriousness on resolving the issue, the Chinese may feel doing their bit. It’s a long shot but the current passivity doesn’t bode well for India, which should help relieve a deprived nation from the heavy hand of a junta.
RAMESH MANGHIRMALANI
California
I SUPPORT the views expressed by Rashid Abbas in his letter, ‘Our nuclear scientists’ (Oct 12). I happen to be the proud daughter of a nuclear scientist who was awarded Hilal-i-Imtiaz and also an honorarium of ‘one month’s salary’ for his pioneering contribution to Pakistan’s nuclear programme.
We all were elated at that time. But the bitter realities gradually brought us on the ground. I underwent a really difficult period a few months back when I was awarded Fulbright-HEC scholarship for doing my doctorate in human genetics at the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor.
Along with the award letter came the forms which required my father to declare assets worth Rs14 million (equivalent to the expenditure incurred on my scholarship) to be pledged to the HEC, just to ensure my return to Pakistan after completion of my studies.
I was shocked. Asking my father to declare assets worth millions of rupees sounded like a joke.
My father, although recipient of the second highest award, owns a small house which he built a few months before his superannuation and does not even own a private car.
If pledging such a formidable amount of assets is a pre-requisite for higher education, I’d rather not avail myself of it. However, I must give credit to the HEC officials who went over my application and waived off most of the assets requirements but, nonetheless, my father and I had to undergo some really stressful moments.
President Gen Musharraf has taken numerous bold decisions in the realm of science and technology, but I whole-heartedly support the suggestion that he should announce generous awards for those nuclear scientists who shook the world in 1998 and gate-crashed into the elitist nuclear club which was monopolised by the five nuclear powers.
This is all the more important because he has been passionately declaring that Pakistan’s nuclear capability is the only success story our nation can be proud of. It will be a historic step by the president.
DR TEHMINA MASUD
University of Michigan,
Ann Arbor, USA
THE Karachi city government has no doubt constructed flyovers at various locations of the city, yet the purpose for which they were constructed has still not been achieved.
I would quote only two examples: the flyover at NIPA Chowrangi, and the one constructed at the intersection of Rashid Minhas Road and Sharea Faisal.
At both the locations, the traffic signals are still in use below the flyovers. To top it all, at the Baluch Colony site, the traffic signal is installed right on the flyover itself.
Could somebody ask the city government as to what was the good purpose of starting a project which doesn’t serve the very purpose for which it was undertaken?
Besides the issue of flyovers, there’s another serious issue and that pertains to sanitation.
The whole of Karachi is dug up. Dust clouds are visible everywhere and the worst construction practices are seen to be in vogue whereas the whole world is trying to use the best work practices.
If you happen to commute from Malir Cantonment towards Gulshan-i-Iqbal, the road leading to Gulshan-i-Iqbal is perhaps the dirtiest road of Karachi. Where has all the sanitation staff gone?
Could the authorities concerned look into it?
Air Cdre (r) Azfar A Khan
Rawalpindi
I WOULD like to draw the attention of the governor of the State Bank of Pakistan, the chairman of the Securities and Exchange Commission of Pakistan and the president of the Stock Exchange, Karachi, regarding the dilemma of those small investors, of IPO, of Dost Steels Ltd, whose bank accounts are not in the designated banks but want to apply for shares.
The government policy is to maximise investment base. Previously such investors used to get verified their share application from their respective banks and then deposit the same with pay order to designated banks.
Now, in the case of IPO shares as regards the subscription of Dost Steels Ltd, the designated banks decline to entertain such applicants who have their bank accounts in other banks.
The authorities concerned are requested to intervene and direct the designated bank to also entertain the shares application of those applicants who get their share applications verified from their respective bank, along with the required pay orders.
N. A. SHEIKH
Karachi
IT is common knowledge that countries across the world use sport events to advance their so-called national interests. Elegance in sports gives a special status and esteem for the country possessing the best kind of sport arsenals to its credit. But what generally happens is that sport events and skills are exploited for the nation’s other purposes and used as bargaining chips to advance economic, nuclear, military hardware or other special interests .
The sport mafias operating in these fields broker the deals between countries, or even the countries concerned directly clinch the deals themselves. Thus a winning team or an individual loses to another as per the ‘instructions’ obtained from ‘above’. As a result, the sport becomes highly volatile and totally ‘unpredictable’.
After all, international games are funded by governments, and teams and individuals are trained and selected by them, would argue the government officials. And so they have every right to make the sports persons play only for their country. Hence the adjustments at the top level.
Any sportsperson who refuses to ‘fall in line’ with the mafia signals would be dealt with very badly and would be sacked in the next possible opportunity, hooking them in some other issues. (Do you remember cricketer Azharuddin in India?)
Cricket is the most important game for some of the Commonwealth countries and the ‘give-and-take’ adjustments, unnoticed by the audiences who buy tickets to watch the ‘tournament’, are so common on the field that they have become a routine matter for the countries.
That is precisely the background for the Australian losing a match to India on Oct 8, which could not win any of the previous three matches played in Indian towns. The ‘deal’ seems to have been struck at the last moment between India and Australia, — both conducted joint military exercises in September along with the US and Japan.
New Delhi was literally weeping loudly as India was losing consecutively three times in India against Aussies just before they got the relief in the fourth match. So the decision makers in sport victories, the connections and their roots are discernible here.
They have conceded one, presumably on New Delhi’s frantic calls to Sydney HQ after Pakistan was wining against South Africa in Pakistan. The Aussies have displayed their bating prowess as well as fielding in world class cricket once again in India. Of course as India was making progress against guests, Pakistan was also displaying their cricket valour in a much better fashion in Lahore. One does not know if the cricket mafia decides everything according to a fixed scheme.
The main issue here is: how come that the champions of the just-concluded 20/20 are faring very badly at home so soon, while the defeated teams, Australia, are showing brilliance with considerable ease in their opponent’s land now.
One possible answer is that Twenty20 is not meant to be played by international cricketers, but only by juniors, sub-juniors and schoolboys. The global teams should play only proper 50-over tournaments and test matches and the reduction of the overs due to some external reasons could be considered only if they are absolutely necessary.
It is time to drop Twenty20, or lesser ones like Fifteen15, or Ten10, etc, from international cricket. One cannot judge about the quality of cricketing if everything is done according to some pre-determined plan to make “adjustment in sport for suitable benefits in other fields”.
One does not know if the trade ties and joint military exercises conducted recently by these countries are being exploited in cricket too by making the sport of gentlemen into joint cricket exercises for public entertaining purposes. However, that, if any, is also not too bad. When deception is universal, these exercises are not very bad either, is not that so?
DR ABDUL RUFF Colachal
New Delhi
YOUR editorial, ‘Peace and environment’ (Oct 14), aptly describes the inter-relation between world ecology and peace as does the Nobel peace prize for the year 2007.
As in 2004 when the prestigious prize was given to a Kenyan environmentalist and deputy environment and natural resource minister Wangari Maathai, Nobel peace prize for the 2007 has been jointly given to UN Inter-governmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) and former US president Al Gore for their efforts to put the phenomenon of global warming into limelight.
The IPCC, a group of 2,000 leading climate scientists and experts, at present headed by an Indian mechanical engineer, Dr Rajendra Pachauri, has made concerted efforts, since its inception in 1988, to assess the scientific data related to the risks associated with the global warming.
The assessment reports of the IPCC have gained the status of the policy documents for the world governments to adopt.
The former US president and environmental activist, Al Gore, has also strived hard to sensitise the world how the human activities are creating imbalance in the earth ecology and what need to avert the global warming.
He authored a book as far back as late 1980 titled ‘Earth in the Balance’ on the issue. Then his documentary, ‘An Inconvenient Truth’, grabbed attention of the world citizens and with it the Academy award.
Recently Al Gore is busy with his non-profit organisation, ‘Alliance for Climate Change’. The IPCC and Al Gore deserve plaudits for waging a struggle to make the world realise that global warming is a scientific truth and not a myth.
By according recognition to this struggle, the Nobel Peace Prize committee too has done well.
World peace is intricately connected with the kind of ecology the planet (Earth) is going to have in the times to come. Which actions of humans lead to the warming of the planet causing anomalies in the climate and seasonal patterns and how this is likely to cause drought, desertification, famine, starvation, depletion of earth resources and carrying capacity, are the issues world nations should be made aware about.
This year’s Nobel peace prize like the one in 2004 will add credence to the importance of ecology in the world peace.
ARIFUZZAMAN
Karachi
MY telephone # 021-4640308 has not been working for about three weeks despite complaints lodged with the relevant quarters.
My mother is a heart patient and some time we need to contact her doctor at odd hours.
I would request the PTCL chairman to look into the problem.
M. NAZAKAT ALI
Karachi
CLAMOURING begins in the circles of the current government ministers, at all levels, with the homecoming of either Benazir Bhutto or Nawaz Sharif. Logically one should call the ‘Q’ League as the king’s party or the ‘qabza’ group which, as per ground realities, has rendered no service to the masses.
The rich became richer and the poor became poorer. They intend to keep the green pasture unhindered for their benefit and shared with none whether it is through the crisis of sugar, cement, wheat or flour. Surprisingly, no one questions these ‘public robbers’, having legal backing: why is smuggling on, why are our borders unguarded, why cannot the authorities see the big trucks moving illegally across the border or is there someone waiting for angels to come and stop them?
It’s unfortunate when we hear the news that Pakistan, basically an agricultural country, is importing tomatoes and mutton from India, which renders partition meaningless.
What we hear from the prime minister is always ‘rhetoric’ and imported ‘phrases’ memorised day in and day out and serving no purpose to the masses.
It is an appropriate time to think seriously and ban feudal politics to pave the way for middle class.
M. ANWAR QURESHI
Lahore
I TRAVELLED to Peshawar from Rawalpindi on Oct 13 to celebrate Eid there, as announced, on Oct 14.
However, after crossing the Attock bridge one could see signs of Eid being celebrated all over up to Peshawar.
Not many like it and view it as a form of national disunity. I was, too, of the same opinion till some one drew my attention to a hadith saying: “If you are fasting and happen to be at a place where people are celebrating Eid, you should break your fast and join them” or words to that effect.
Now without going into the detailed mechanics of the mode of transportation used by the traveller, the time he left his city/town after ‘sehri’, the time he arrived at the place celebrating Eid, it would be quite safe to assume that the two places could not have been more than 25 to 30 miles apart at the maximum.
That means during the time of the Holy Prophet (peace be upon him) it did happen that a place was observing fast and another place about 30 milers away was celebrating Eid!
If it could happen only 30 miles or so apart, why must we insist upon observing Eid from Landi Kotal to Karachi – 1,000 miles apart — on the same day? Any comments?
RIAZ JAFRI
Islamabad
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