Swap of prisoners

The man in the turban was called the 'Voice of Faith' by his Hezbollah supporters, and he could never have guessed - emerging on January 29 in his white turban and brown robe from the German aircraft that brought him to freedom at Beirut airport - that a mere prelate from the scruffy village of Jibchit could earn such an official reception from the highest men of state in Lebanon.

For there were President Emile Lahoud and Prime Minister Rafiq Hariri and squads of MPs and ambassadors and even the EU delegate to embrace the man who had spent 15 years in an Israeli prison, almost a decade in solitary, without charge or lawyers or family visits. Next from the aircraft walked Mustafa Dirani, the bearded guerilla who first seized Israeli airman Ron Arad back in 1986.

And there they were, with at least 20 other Lebanese prisoners, on the same tarmac where - only a few hours earlier - an apparently fit and healthy Israeli called Elhanan Tannenbaum was freed, a man who was - according to their point of view - an innocent Israeli businessman or a top Mossad spy. They were all hostages, of course: hostages for the corpses of three Israeli soldiers and for the living businessman/spy, for 29 Lebanese in Israeli prisons and for 400 of the 7,000 Palestinians held in Israeli jails who were also freed. And for the bodies of 460 Lebanese guerrillas killed fighting Israel's 22-year occupation of southern Lebanon.

The Israelis liked to call their prisoners 'bargaining chips' but it was a hostage bazaar that the world witnessed. Sheikh Obeid was a tough, bearded supporter of the Lebanese Hezbollah when he was kidnapped by Israeli troops from his home in 1989. His son had maintained a website for the Imprisoned father he had never seen. Only recently did he receive a visit from the Red Cross.

Ditto Nustafa Dirani, abducted by Israeli troops in Lebanon's Bekaa Valley because he had originally held prisoner Israeli airman Ron Arad who was captured when the aircraft he was navigating was shot down during an Israeli raid on the Palestinian refugee camp of Ein el-Helweh in 1986. If Arad is still alive - and the Lebanese and Syrians and Iranians have all denied holding him captive these past 18 years - then Israel will later release its longest held Lebanese hostage, Samir Kantar, who killed three Israelis in 1979.

It was for Arad that Elhanan Tannenbaum had flown to Lebanon, lured apparently by the Hezbollah who were convinced he was a Mossad agent. Tannenbaum's family always said he was a businessman based in Switzerland - he told reporters that he was 'an Israeli citizen' - but those mysterious 'security sources' close to the Israelis told a different story: that he had been an Israeli agent originally thrown out of Switzerland on the orders of the Swiss police, that he had been retrained at a Mossad station near Natanya and had returned once more to Lausanne. It was the infuriated Swiss security services - so the 'sources' claimed - who 'shopped' Tannenbaum to the Hezbollah.

In any event, he was a free man now, along with Obeid and Dirani and the other Lebanese prisoners and the 400 Palestinians - most of whom were to have been released later this year anyway - and today it will be the turn of the dead. The remains of three Israeli soldiers - Beni Avraham, Avi Avitan and Omar Saoud - were handed over to their country's military representatives at Wahd airport near Cologne. They were seized - dead or dying - after Hezbollah guerrillas had attacked their base at Shebaa farms in a tiny rectangle of occupied Lebanon in 2000 only months after the Israeli army's retreat from the south of the country.

Later, however, the Israelis will hand over the 460 Hezbollah and Amal militia bodies which have been lying, most of them, in shallow graves in Israel's secret 'enemy' cemetery at Gesher B'fnot Ya'facov in Galilee. Israeli prime minister Ariel Sharon has already been criticized for the hostage bazaar - doubly so since the suicide bombing which killed another 10 Israelis - but the German government comes out of the whole affair smelling, if that's the right word, of roses.

The country's intelligence head, August Hanning, arranged the whole affair and was on his way to Israel. The winner, unfortunately for the Israelis, is likely to be the Hezbollah. After four years of existing as a guerilla army without a war to fight, they have now proved that they can extract prisoners from Israel's jails. Indeed, Sheikh Hassan Nasrallah, the Hezbollah leader who greeted Obeid at Beirut airport has asked for more names of prisoners to free from Israeli jails.

So is Ron Arad still alive? Had Obeid outlived his usefulness as a hostage? Or was Tannenbaum a much more important man than the Israelis allowed us to believe? Soon, we may find out. -(c) The Independent

The road to peace

The 12th Saarc summit, held recently in Islamabad in a congenial atmosphere, not only gave a renewed thrust and dynamism to the Association but also broke the log-jam between Pakistan and India.

Since 1947, Kashmir dispute has remained at the heart of the rivalry between Pakistan and India and a source of festering threat to the stability of the region. The two countries fought two wars on Kashmir. However, now that they have nuclear weapons, one shudders at the very thought of another war between them. This underlines the need and importance of addressing the Kashmir problem as expeditiously as possible.

In the past, Pakistan and India had made a number of bilateral attempts to address the Kashmir dispute. However, their efforts did not succeed as the positions adopted by them, for the resolution of this dispute, remained inflexible and irreconcilable. However, it seems that the leaders of both countries have realized that they will have to find a way out to resolve the long-standing Kashmir dispute.

Prime Minister Vajpayee's statement on Kashmir, made on April 18 last year, that it is time to change things and President Musharraf's suggestion to show flexibility in addressing the Kashmir problem bear testimony to their fresh thinking on this question.

It was in the national interest of both to resolve the Kashmir dispute, not necessarily on their own terms, but by finding a way out based on justice and fair play, which is acceptable to all the parties concerned, particularly the Kashmiris. Their sufferings and agonies, which are aggravating with the passage of time and the uncertainty about their future owing to the simmering Kashmir problem.

The joint statement issued after Musharraf-Vajpayee meeting in Islamabad, on January 6, unequivocally commits the two countries to resolve the Kashmir dispute. In an interview, hours before his departure for Islamabad on January 3, Prime Minister Vajpayee had expressed the hope that this time a dialogue on Kashmir between Pakistan and India may produce some results. President Musharraf also seems optimistic about the outcome of the talks between the two countries.

The resumption of the composite dialogue, in February to normalize relations between the two countries and to settle all bilateral issues, including Jammu and Kashmir, to the satisfaction of the two sides, has generally been welcomed by the people of Pakistan who want a reduction in tension in the region and a settlement of the festering problem of Kashmir. However, there are certain elements in the country who have criticized the joint statement issued on January 6.

The main thrust of their criticism is on the UN Security Council resolutions on Kashmir which they think, have been bypassed. These critics, however, seem to be oblivious of the fact that India is adamantly opposed to implement these resolutions. In this situation, it was a prudent decision that instead of clinging persistently to a particular mechanism to resolve the Kashmir dispute some other viable solutions is found. President Musharraf's suggestion to set aside the UN Security Council resolutions, as a basis for a settlement of the dispute in question, must be seen in this context.

These critics also contend that by giving an assurance to Prime Minister Vajpayee that Islamabad will not permit the territories under its control to be used to support terrorism, Pakistan has lost much of its political leverage on Kashmir vis-a-vis India. This argument is also untenable.

India has persistently cited cross-border terrorism to refuse a dialogue with Pakistan. Pakistan, time and again, denied the allegation that it sponsored "terrorism" in the Indian held Kashmir. Pakistan also declared that, being party to the Simla Agreement, it respects the LoC and does not allow even the people of Azad Kashmir to cross it.

Pakistan is against terrorist activities, irrespective of the motivation involved, and has been playing a pivotal role in combating it. It has banned extremist outfits in the country and has also extended full cooperation to the international coalition against terrorism.

A conscious decision has been taken, at the highest level in both countries, to start the process of a composite dialogue in February. To avoid any possible pitfalls and derailment of this peace process, on which the peace-loving people have pinned their hopes, both, Pakistan and India, shall have to exercise great restraint.

The composite dialogue, scheduled for February 16, should be held with the same spirit of cordiality, goodwill and accommodation that was witnessed during the Islamabad Saarc summit. Nobody should be allowed to play the spoiler's role. The writer is a former ambassador of Pakistan.

Sighs and silence as Baghdad bleeds

Baghdad is not just another city like Chicago, Melbourne or Manchester. Its physical being is a mirage of another city, a city of shadows, silhouettes and faded halos of time.

The real Baghdad is inviolable because it is beyond approach. So you have to bombard and burn its image and show its pillage and plunder to the world for weeks on end to create the illusion of its destruction. It is like self-abuse to hallucinate a virtual passion.

Dunyazad's tenth issue devoted to the fallen city is inveterate believer Asif Farrukhi's unique collection of writings from around the world to prove that those who have guns but do not possess a sense of history have merely been shooting balloons at a children's fair.

While the spectacle of a night sky lit by smart bombs and streaking missiles and airborne behemoths coming in jolly sorties to test the killing power of their ammo on undefended live targets might have been entertaining to millions back home, watching the bravery of their boys, munching bags of chips and corn and sipping cans of Bud, the gaudy unchivalrous show of power filled millions more in Asia, Africa and South America with nauseating revulsion.

This is the price they have paid for their victory. But the victors do not seem to fathom the implications and this is really surprising for a people so developed in all spheres of knowledge, so sophisticated in their engineering and so subtle in their economics.

Moon walkers! But the surprise lessens when one considers how the unabated fervour of the Palestinian resistance and its sacrifices are being shrugged away as a fanatical desire to enter Paradise. In a value system where the worth of man is measured in dollars, dignity may not be worth sacrificing one's life for. That is understandable.

At the other end we do not know how to dismiss Saddam - as a fool, a coward or a tyrant or all combined in one, but at a cost that only he could afford, he exposed the true face of western imperialism and unmasked the hollowness of a much trumpeted western civilization. The mother of all wars may not have defeated a superpower, it has certainly reduced its stature as a champion of freedom and human rights.

The Baghdad issue of Duniyazad presents a sampling of what and how the writers, thinkers, journalists and poets around the world feel about the invasion. Among them are well known names from Iraq, Saudi Arabia, Britain, Brazil, Canada, India, Germany, Egypt, Mexico, USA, Italy, all the continents indeed. A fair number of them are senior journalists and writers from the occupied land itself. None of them have a kind or appreciative word for the perpetrators of this dubious adventure in pre-emption, a philosophy of war raised from the dustbin of pre-mediaeval history.

The reaction of our own intellectuals is characteristic of our hyper sensibility, our queer notions of the Ummah and our long association with progressive thought and movement. The more common reaction that generally surfaces in the shape of the familiar question, "what's in it for the writer or what should one do with the pen", piques Asif Farrukhi no end.

Nobody is being asked to change the pen for the sword. A writer can only write. If he or she is doing that, that is all that is needed. But not doing even that is bad for people who are supposed to be more sensitive than the shopkeeper and the housewife. True what Auden said, "poetry makes nothing happen". It cannot stop the hand of a warmonger.

And yet the Bhagvad Geeta, the Iliad and the saga of Gilgamesh are all war-inspired songs of man. Duniyazad's Baghdad issue is a similar exercise, the literary face of the situation that has arisen and which at the beginning of the century is likely to determine its course. Do these writings make the writer more credible, more relevant, Duniyazad asks. It does. It resurrects Scherzade; the real Baghdad lives on.

A statement, signed by more than 90 intellectuals from all the continents, has been issued that addresses all people, all sections of society across the globe, all men and women and invites them to think seriously about the issue of war and peace and decide what is good for humanity, for this Earth, our planet and the diverse life that inhabits it. If it is concluded that the better option is peace, then there is need to organize a common, global movement against the forces of war and against the causes of war that lie in the existence of unjust societies, poverty, hunger, ignorance and intolerance.

If this is understood by a million new people or more in many countries of the world and they agree with it, then it is going to have both long and short term influence on the spread of this movement and it will acquire a positive force. It is something that we should all think about and work for. Let the Americans rebuild Iraq the way they have destroyed it. We will preserve Baghdad, in the words of Zamir Niazi, as the cradle of human civilization, as a heritage of all mankind.

Abdul Hameed Jatoi: a friend of the oppressed

On january 11, Abdul Hameed Jatoi passed away in Hyderabad at the age of 82 years. With his passing away many an oppressed person in Dadu as well as elsewhere has lost a true friend who would even in the direst of straits go out and hold his hand and provide hope and succour to him.

He has been described as a senior and veteran politician of Sindh but he was much more than that. He was always polarized towards whoever was the underdog and spent most of his life in his beloved village Beto in Taluka Mehar of Dadu district and he never even once defaulted in his habit of mingling and staying with the people.

My first contact with Abdul Hameed Jatoi, then a local Dadu politician, was in the year 1960 when as a young strapling CSP officer I got posted as the assistant commissioner in charge of Dadu subdivision which is the northern part of Dadu district that lies close to Larkana.

There were at that time all sorts of stories floating around that the district administration always found him to be a difficult customer, that he was intellectually extremely clever and that more often than not he gave the local administration a very tough time. My stay as assistant commissioner Dadu was not a long one - it was for barely four or five months - and so during this short period I was really not able to get the full measure of this most formidable man from Beto.

Even otherwise the centre of things in a Sindh district always was the collector and district magistrate (Sindh terminology for deputy commissioner) which I obviously was not then and therefore a fuller interaction between him and me had to wait till some years down the road when I arrived once again on the scene as deputy commissioner of Dadu district in the year 1963.

This period as events developed was the period when Abdul Hameed Jatoi's political career began taking off. President Ayub Khan around this time was trying to launch himself into civilian political life and he was consequently looking around on a countrywide basis for political allies.

In East Pakistan, he depended entirely on Governor Abdul Monem Khan whereas in West Pakistan because of its multiethnic and multicultural composition he relied on the Nawab of Kalabagh who was the governor of West Pakistan and on foreign minister Zulfikar Ali Bhutto who hailed from Sindh and assumed that Sindh was his natural power base.

Governor Kalabagh and several other elements of Sindh's traditional 'wadera club', for instance the Pir of Pagaro and several others, being averse to the young and energetic Zulfikar Ali Bhutto overshadowing senior political stalwarts of those times, ganged up in order to try and prevent this from happening.

In fact the governor and most of these senior stalwarts were quite fearful of the foreign minister gaining political mileage at their expense. Consequently, even before the run-up to the presidential election of 1965, a clear-cut policy of containment of the youthful foreign minister was put in place.

In this scheme of things Abdul Hameed Jatoi became a natural beneficiary of the situation and in 1965 the Convention Muslim League ticket for the sole National Assembly seat from Dadu was awarded to him and he not only successfully ran for that seat but was able to defeat G.M. Syed's son, Amir Haider Shah, in 1965 with a very big margin.

But this element of luck having come his way did not necessarily mean that Abdul Hameed Jatoi was anybody's lackey or stooge in politics - far from it. He had for innumerable years been the real power in the Jatoi clan of Dadu district even though till 1965 when he finally turned the corner he had never managed to get into any significant national position through the electoral process or otherwise.

Even in the years when the redoubtable G.M. Syed was reigning supreme in Dadu district, it was Abdul Hameed Jatoi who organized the local opposition to the Syeds of the district. Not only that - he single-handedly kept the local bureaucracy on their toes with the help of the common man who was generally oppressed and poor.

He was by no means negative in his interaction with the district administration. Anything reasonable was more likely to evoke his support. In many ways he was 'the classical wadera' who took his public duties very seriously and utilized them for providing maximum leverage in favour of the common citizen who normally had nowhere to go to.

Every week without fail he held his 'kutchery' in his 'otak' and dispensed rough but ready and commonsensical justice in the areas of his influence where people flocked from far and wide seeking his interventions.

Unfortunately, he did not have the benefit of a formal education as it is meant today in terms of post-schooling. But he had enormous self-confidence, commonsense and practical wisdom, the sort of broad-based know-how and skill that is called 'practical savvy'. He was in fact to a large extent self-educated and was comfortable in several languages including English. Many people do not know that he paid enormous attention to his family's agricultural holdings, that he was a very serious farmer and that he was an extremely active practitioner of progressive, scientific and mechanized farming which he propagated widely in the areas of his influence.

But above all it was politics that was his first and foremost passion. In some ways he was also somewhat misunderstood and taken to be an oppositionist, i.e. someone who opposes merely for the sake of opposition. This indeed is not correct.

If you take a close look at the various points and junctures at which he raised his voice in public forums available to him, you will find that each time it was a burning and serious public issue of great consequence that made him fire his salvos. As a young man he was one of the very few MPAs of Sindh who flatly rejected and voted against the One Unit resolution that had been moved in the Sindh Assembly which had been made to meet in the Darbar Hall of the Hyderabad collectorate.

In the 1960s he broke party ranks to express his disagreement with a number of anti-people measures that were being taken by President Ayub Khan. He did this while still sitting on the treasury benches of the then Convention Muslim League government.

He was particularly critical of the sort of treatment that was then being meted out to East Pakistan. He consistently supported the return to adult franchise and joint electorates and stressed the need for the downplaying of religion as a factor in politics. In the 1970s he left the Convention Muslim League to join up with Zulfikar Ali Bhutto to become one of the co-founders of the Pakistan People's Party (PPP).

During the East Pakistan crisis, he deplored the use of force by the federal government to settle what was essentially a political issue that ought to have been negotiated peacefully. He even called for an immediate summoning of the National Assembly to overcome the political crisis. After the fall of East Pakistan he opposed the proposal to bring about a continuance of martial law in what was left of the country.

All these instances were very clear indicators of an unusual man. Some people think he was a maverick. Others say that he was a nationalist, meaning thereby that he was a Sindhi nationalist. But none of these are accurate appreciation's of the multi-faceted personality of the man called Abdul Hameed Jatoi.

He was a very interesting blend of the ethnic Baloch immersed in Sindhi culture and energized by the essence of federalism in a pluralistic Pakistan. From my experience of the man I concluded that he always wanted Sindh to take its rightful place in the Pakistani federation and to that extent he staunchly believed in all the provinces of Pakistan enjoying a measure of autonomy that would go to make Pakistan a dynamic and productive state that was at peace with itself at home and abroad.

He had to struggle a great deal even within his own Jatoi clan to make it to the top because he was not the eldest, and the law of primogeniture was a constant hurdle in his way. His elder cousin, Haji Abdul Majid Jatoi, was somewhat of a spoiler because invariably he demanded the safe provincial assembly seat of northern Dadu for himself and made Abdul Hameed Jatoi run for the extremely unsafe National Assembly seat where he had to pit himself against the Syeds of Dadu.

But in 1965 Abdul Hameed Jatoi saw his chance and made the break with his cousin and thus made it to the National Assembly for the first time and had since then remained on the national scene. In the process, however, the Dadu Jatois remained internally fractured.

His political legacy in Sindh strangely enough remained confined to Dadu district. Despite his inherent abilities and his having been one of the co-founders of the PPP he was not quite able to handle to his advantage the rising new phenomenon of this new party in the politics of Sindh 1970 onwards. His break with the PPP cost him quite heavily.

His sons were rather young at the time of the break and they, also had yet to reap 'the full harvest' of the 1965 break with Haji Abdul Majid Jatoi's supporters within their clan. Among his sons the closest to him in appearance and temperament was his second son, Senator Ejaz Jatoi, who died rather young in 1997 and that indeed broke Abdul Hameed Jatoi.

Since then his interest in national politics began to decline along with his state of health. I saw him last on the occasion of the last rites of Senator Ejaz Jatoi and I found him quite a different man as compared with the one I earlier knew. It seemed as if he was quite lost.

Gone was the spark as well as the dialectics of yesteryears. I suppose every man of consequence needs a torch-bearer for all that he stands for and in 1997 he lost his potential designated torch-bearer, his second son and may be also the will to re-live an active political life. Only time will tell whether, his political inheritors will be able to strike the high moral chord that Abdul Hameed Jatoi brought with him to the politics of our country.